> Straight to Belle
>  by dinkyseviltwin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Resurrection
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Sweetie Belle, speak to me!”

The melodious sound of Rarity’s voice comes to me, rousing me from my nap. Even though I just woke up, I still feel absolutely exhausted. What was that just now? Had I left the Youtube on or something? That website seriously had a mind of its own sometimes, playing videos all by itself. Did I actually manage to fall asleep in front of the computer this time? Wow, I am a loser. But then... why am I on my back, and where’s my desk?

I crack my eyes open, mumbling “Where...?”

At the sound of my voice, my eyes shoot open, and at the sight of who is hovering over me, looking down at me in a terrified tizzy, my eyes shoot open even wider. Gobsmacked, I exclaim, “Rarity!” and then clap my hands over my mouth. Except I don’t have hands, my mouth is further in front of me than it should be, and...

I would recognize the sound of that “Rarity!” anywhere.

“Ohh this can’t be happening!” comes another very, very familiar voice off to my left. It’s a troubled, tense voice, whose signature nasal duckiness is unmistakable. It’s a very familiar voice, though personally I’ve never had good enough speakers to hear her speaking in surround sound.

“She blew out the main conduits!” Tara Strong, the voice actress of Harley Quinn, among other characters exclaims, in an aghast tone. Except there’s no voice actors, here in the strange chamber I’ve awoken in. I only have time enough to lift my head to look at myself, seeing no human body before me, but instead a simple, smooth, round belly, covered in candy white fur, and beyond that belly, or barrel rather, a volumnuous, curly, lavender and pink tail. Then my whole body shifts, and that belly curls towards me, as big white and fuzzy things wrap around behind me, and lift me bodily up into the air.

“Sweetie Belle, you’re okay!” Rarity exclaims tearfully, while I recognize the things wrapped around me as the snowy white, articulate cylinders that are her hooves. I dangle there numbly, as she crushes me to her soft, warm chest, held there in her white front hooves. Just like I have white front hooves. Just like I have a soft, warm chest, covered in white fur. Because, against every scientific truth I have ever known, I have somehow changed overnight into Gilbert Gottfried!

No wait. 

But seriously, my vision is filled with the face of a horse woman, who I knew more than fondly from afar, and who I now know from entirely too close. I can barely make out individual features at this distance, and by all that’s holy her eyes are huge. I notice myself getting light headed and realize I’ve forgotten to breathe, and then I realize that I can’t breathe in her tense embrace.

“Rarity—” I manage to gasp out, my vision fading before me, and I’m still recognizing that voice coming out of my mouth.

She clearly recognizes that voice too, because she loosens her grip immediately and gives me room to breathe, hanging me out in front of her at arm’s length, while I gasp for breath. Unfortunately, my vision continues to fade, because apparently whatever was lighting up this room is steadily dying to darkness. My fears of going blind are allayed however, when a bright magenta spark flares in the darkness, cooling and spreading down a conical structure that could only be a unicorn horn. A very familiar unicorn’s horn. From that horn, issues a soundless globe of magenta, that hovers in the air, providing from a steady, if monochrome light.

Rarity is sitting fully on her haunches in order to lift me up, and it would have looked adorable, if she wasn’t such a giant pony to me. Actually, no. That may have made it even a little bit more adorable. You’d understand if you ever met a giant pony. “I’m so sorry Sweetie Belle,” Rarity says to me (holy shit, not dealing with this!) and then, “How do you feel? Are you hurt? What was that just now?”

“It was incredible is what it was!” says none other than Twilight Sparkle, princess of—oh no she’s still a unicorn—Element of Magic, prodigy protege of Princess Celestia, savior of the day and champion of harmony, and general smart horse extraordinaire. She is a slim looking purple unicorn, though pretty much everything here looks magenta-purple in her magical light. Her hair is a darker purple, more of an indigo, with the exception of two stripes, that follow the line of her simple flat mane, and her flat, bladelike tail.

Like every pony, Twilight Sparkle stands on four hooves, with no manipulative appendages to see. Her magical horn gives her unseen manipulative powers however, and she clearly uses them as she checks the carvings in a pedestal I was lying against, before Rarity swept me up into her hooves. The stars that decorate Twilight’s thighs reveal her talent at magic itself, and the irreplacable connection to her five dearest friends. She has more oval eyes than Rarity, whose eyeliner makes hers look just somehow more dramatic some how. More dramatic than Twilight’s, or anyone’s eyes really.

Rarity is a snow white, as said, unicorn, with rich blurple hair that she keeps expertly coiffed in curlique curls, from her even, slim mane, to her coiled squiggle tail. Her rump sports diamonds, for her talent in bedazzling the fuck out of everything. No, no for her talent in style and fashion. And magical gem finding. Though not as powerful as the famed Twilight, Rarity has been an essential voice of reason for her in the show, as well as an essential emotional foil when someone needs to freak out over the slightest little thing. I don’t blame her for freaking out now though, because I’m freaking out, because these ponies shouldn’t be real!

Twilight Sparkle, is actually walking up to me right now for real, in this weird hexagonal room we are in: she says that! The only light in here is coming from the fading glow she had been examining, left forgotten behind her still casting weird shadows around. I can still see enough to see her hooves falling one after the other, in an even, steady pace right towards me. Towards us.

Twilight has an curious, yet worried expression, saying “I’ve never seen a surge like that before! Did the device affect it? Were you trying to shape it into a spell somehow? Do you know what the subspace distortions corresponded to? More importantly, is your magic unblocked now?”

My informed and educated response is to hang there limply in Rarity’s hooves, staring at the brightly colored purple unicorn with a dumb expression, just like the retarded horse I am infrequently portrayed as.

“Something’s wrong, Twilight!” Rarity exclaims in a panicked tone, making me turn back to face Rari—woah still too close for comfort.

“It was quite a surge,” Twilight Sparkle says in the dimness. “Speaking from personal experience she could be out of it for quite a while. Complications are rare at this young an age though, just as much as blocks are common. She should be fine after her magic replenishes, but she’ll have to be careful not to strain herself until she learns what her real limits are without the blockage.”

Rarity has the grace to set me down on the floor, beside some kind of dias that appears to be made of rough ceramic of some sort, with carvings all along its surface. As she does, I mechanically assume some sort of doglike sitting position when lowered to the ground, because I just don’t know if I should even move, or how to move. Am I really... am I really Sweetie Belle? I can feel hooves and limbs, and bouncy curls just at the edge of my vision. I can feel my tail hit the ground before my body does. It feels like metal beneath me, and it’s really cold where it presses up between my legs. Oh gosh if I’m Sweetie Belle, then that means... am I feeling her genitals?! I shift to try to raise my groin off the mesh, but that just makes it harder to ignore, so instead I just look up at Rarity silently, like a deer caught in headlights.

Having put me down and separated herself from me, I can actually see Rarity now, without getting a face full of blue eyes. She stands over me in full glorious life, asking me with her expressive face full of worry, “Sweetie Belle, can you hear me? Have you lost your ability to speak?!”

“No I can speak!” I utter hurriedly, but I’m finding it painful to do even that. My throat is really dry I notice, and everything aches. What have I... has she been doing? I just sit there confused, in a puddle of exhausted, uncoordinated hooves and tail. And pussy, apparantly. What’s uncomfortably sensitive to that cold metal grating definitely doesn’t feel like I’m show accurate, that’s for sure. It definitely doesn’t feel like a penis, or testicles.

“Sweetie, you sound awful!” Rarity says with more urgency. “Do you need any water? When was the last time you had anything to drink?”

“I don’t... remember?” I say helplessly in a tight rasp. How am I supposed to remember? I wasn’t even thirsty when I... whatever I was doing before waking up like this. 

“Twilight, we need to get these fillies some water,” Rarity says urgently, then a water canteen levitates from around behind Rarity in Twilight’s magic and then her own. I get real big eyes at that. I mean, yes I’m sitting here in almost total darkness talking to cartoon ponies and I am a cartoon pony, but all that at least makes lip service to the holy writ of Isaac Newton. This? I’m... I’m actually watching a levitating container. Tilting my head doesn’t make it look flat, or fake, or anything, but there’s nothing holding it up besides Rarity’s glimmering magic and a... feeling.

I only have a moment to look, before she presses it to my lips saying, “Drink up Sweetie, you don’t want to hurt your voice.” Boy is she nail on the head there. If I’m Sweetie Belle, then my voice is the most valuable thing I own. How could I be Sweetie Belle?! She doesn’t even exist! I splutter as the water trickles into my mouth, pushing it away saying, in Sweetie Belle’s voice,

“S-sorry. One more time.”

She trickles water into my mouth again very slowly, and it’s the best water I’ve ever tasted. Even if it is a bit brackish and warm, it soothes my throat. I drink more until I’m eagerly reaching my hands up... oh right I don’t have hands. I drink more until I am uncoordinatedly trying to tilt the canteen up with my hooves and get more water. “Now Sweetie, drink slowly,” Rarity chides me. “You three have really done it this time.” Wait, us three?  Indeed, a third very familiar voice comes from beyond the room’s only exit.

“Please Miss Twilight,” a flutey high voice says in a really fake southern accent, “Can we come in? It’s dark out here!”

Oh fuck.

I look around for where Apple Bloom might be. Her voice sounds as dry as mine does, and there’s the slosh of water somewhere nearby, probably from another canteen. “No,” Twilight says quickly from the same direction. “I can’t guarantee the device has deactivated.” I can’t see Twilight, but I can tell Twilight Sparkle’s voice is coming from a cracked, jagged hole in one wall of this room, a hole that is decidedly not part of the original construction. Beyond that hole is only yawning, looming darkness. Presumably where the fillies remain.

Twilight’s voice continues, “And in any case we are not going to ruin archaeological finds today any more than we already have. We’re all coming out, and then we’re going to get you all to the surface, where it’s safe.”

I suddenly get the feeling that I’m not going to be seeing any more of this place for a long, long time. Of course they’d be here too. Of course we’d be getting in trouble. They’d be getting in trouble. Definitely not going to be allowed to poke around in here again. Archaeological find though, did that mean this is some kind of distant future? I wrack my brain trying to recall what was happening before I woke up like this. Was I witness to any insane posthuman monstrosities belting out Pinkie Pie songs while mass converting the population into ponies? Or maybe rainbow colored nuclear explosions going on outside my grubby little apartment window, or weird plunges into cryogenic chambers? But nothing came to mind. I was using my computer like every night I guess, and then... I woke up here.

“Are... you okay now?” Rarity asks me uncertainly, the canteen levitated away, having provided as much blessed relief as she’s willing to risk for me. Her left hoof lifts off the ground when she says so, telegraphing her emotions just as beautifully and vividly as I remember from the cartoon. My response telegraph is a simple wide eyed head shake. “What’s wrong then?” she asks earnestly, craning her neck down to my level.

My mind is racing trying to figure out what to say to her. I’m a perverted, alien monkey who’s taken over your sister’s body? I’m a jaded demon summoned into your sister’s body by her foolish attempts at playing god? I’m just some guy who is experiencing the greatest moment in his entire life right now because he’s such a loser that nothing better has ever happened to him other than being transported into some baby unicorn’s body, so please don’t banish him back to that horrible place called home? I really am Sweetie Belle, and I have been all this time, because I can totally remember all these things about my life, that I have no way of remembering since I’m actually lying through my teeth? Wait, remembering. That’s it!

“Rarity, I have amnesia!” I exclaim urgently.

Okay that was pitiful even for me. Blinking, I wrack my brain (or her brain as it were, but for all intents and purposes it appears to be my brain), for a better excuse, or something that sounds less moronic than what I just said. Rarity’s eyebrow is already raising though, just a single portentious eyebrow. Yet... it’s true, I do have amnesia! Or at least Sweetie Belle does. Does have other...nesia. I’ve just got to stick with the truth even if it sounds crazy. If the truth I choose to stick with happens to be conveniently in my favor, then so be it!

“What is this place?!” I ask, not having to fake the sound of my distress. I certainly don’t let on that I was more scared of the two adult ponies than of my dark and mysterious surroundings. “How did I get–” I get cut off by a dry cough, “–here?”

“Sweetie,” Rarity says in a chuckling dismissive tone, tossing her mane conspicuously and tilting the canteen towards me for another drink, “If you had amnesia how are you addressing me by name? What’s really wrong? You won’t get in trouble I’m just worried about you.”

Won’t get in trouble yeah, fat chance of that. “I’m not lying to you Rarity!” I say emphatically more confident now that I have some water in me. “I really truly don’t remember... um...” okay, how am I going to say this?

“...things.” Smooth.

Twilight Sparkle has entered the chamber again. She leans closer to the miserably pitiful pile of pony that I have become saying, “Wait Rarity, I think she might not be lying. Retrograde amnesia often leaves some memories or disjoint memories intact.” Oh Twilight you are best pony.

“Well, what don’t you remember then?” worst pony says agitatedly, “Out with it already!”

“I– I don’t... I mean I forget so, I’m not lying I just,” I stammer in Sweetie Belle’s voice, sounding utterly adorable while doing so, even if what’s actually happening is me failing to cover my ass, my shaky alibi falling apart around my, no doubt ambulatory, ears. It’s a simple question, why can’t I just cook up a sensible sounding answer?

“Rarity,” Twilight says in a disgruntled tone, “How is she supposed to remember what she doesn’t remember?”

Oh that’s why I can’t answer! Thanks again, best pony!

I should mention I’m not always the brightest bulb in the shed.

I wish the lighting was better, because I would have loved to see the blush that springs up on Rarity’s face just now. Hell in a handcart, I can’t even believe I’m even sitting here talking to Rarity and Twilight Sparkle right now. And I’m Sweetie Belle! This is too good to be real!

I admittedly haven’t had such a good life. When I learned about how fucked up life is, I lost hope of ever being saved so long ago, since there was no one to save me, and no way for me to save myself. So I just lived a half existence from day, to day. But suddenly, here I am in front of honest-to-gosh goddamn magical world saving heroes, in a situation so strange it throws any assumptions I had about how fucked up life is right out the window. I couldn’t possibly be happier to be in Sweetie Belle’s body, and I was!

The only question is... where’s Sweetie Belle?

Oh don’t look at me like that. I know I’m a hypocrite.

“I... of course, Twilight,” Rarity says in a flustered tone. “I’m sorry Sweetie I am just rather agitated with you at the moment considering what you and your friends have done.”

“What did we do?” I ask, though I sort of can guess at the answer. I mean someone like me doesn’t just take over a pony’s body out of nowhere, right?

“That’s not important right now,” Rarity says in a gentler tone, “What I must know is, what do you remember?” Twilight didn’t compliment Rarity out loud, but I could swear she gave an approving nicker at that moment.

Alright so, what do I remember? What was the last episode I saw with Rarity and Sweetie Belle together? No, that would be too far in the future, because Twilight doesn’t have her wings yet. But that episode did involve a very early flashback. Was that flashback even canon though? Didn’t it conflict with... wait, could I even assume anything here was like the show at all? What if the show had gotten it wrong, and some other thing like a fanfic had gotten it right? I don’t want them to think I’m making stuff up, but I want to find out how much of what I know is true. I’ve got to say something. Come on, think!

“I remember once a long time ago, I was getting into your makeup,” I say very nervously, finding my head turning away from them, even as my one eye facing focuses on them intently. “Because it was my... birthday,” wish the episode had said which birthday it was, but it was clearly very, very young, “...and I thought it would make me like a pri– like, pretty because I was a bab–being a little foal. And I thought you spoiled my party, so I was upset at first. I forgave you later when I was more ...grown up, because I was the one who spoiled it myself, for taking too long with the makeup, and you were just trying to help. It was a long time ago though, so I don’t really remember if it was true or not...?”

“3 years,” Rarity said distantly, “It would be a very long time ago, at your age.”

I nod relievedly. That was the riskiest one, so whatever world I am it must follow closely with the show. I don’t dare even think about trying the comics of course, but at least the show must be safe territory. “Rarity, you’re my sister... right?” I venture noncomittally.

“What?” Rarity says in confusion, making my heart beat faster, “But how could you remember that you were my dearest sister, yet not remember it?”

“The Sisterhooves Social,” I blurt out in desperation. The two of them aren’t looking confused or skeptical at the mention of that, so it looks like I didn’t mess that up. “I remember you in the Sisterhooves Social,” I say more calmly, “You did something really... nice but weird, to show what a good sister you... what good sisters we are. I think you got all muddy, so I thought you were Applejack by mistake?”

“I r-remember what a good ...sister you were then,” I say haltingly, “So, that... means we’re sisters, right?” This one has to be true. I know beyond a doubt that she’s my... Rarity is Sweetie Belle’s sister now, and not Sweetie Belle’s mother, or at least not publically admitted to be so. But what can I do with that information? The others are just... silently staring, so I desperately hope my story has some element of truth.

Rarity bursts into tears.

Okay... I... fucked up. I really fucked up. What did I say? I expected suspicion, not... this! What starts as a keening whine, erupts into the famous sobs we’re all familiar with, as Rarity collapses right there on the floor, burying her face in her hooves. And the worst part is, she’s not stopping! And the worst part is it’s fucking terrifying! She’s not supposed to cry like that; she’s just supposed to fake cry. There’s something really wrong with her!

Do you know how it feels a little unsettling, when someone is acting awkwardly in front of you? Well, ramp that up to 11. This isn’t just a creepy leery feeling. Right now, I feel like I am looking at the Thing Which Should Not Be. Only minutes into the pony world, and I’ve already made my sister cry. “Rarity, I’m sorry–” I beg, but that only prompts her into blubbering at me,

“I am the worst sister ever, and you— and you can’t even remember what a terrible sister I was! It’s all my fault if only I had listened to you and cared but I di-hi-hidn’t!”

“You’re under a lot of stress, Rarity,” Twilight to the rescue lays a hoof on the shoulder of the sobbing pony. “It was just a bad time for the both of you, and things just got out of control. Please Rarity, you have to hold it together. For Sweetie Belle. Look how terrified she is!”

I try to clarify that I’m just fine, but I can barely get out a whimper. There’s just something so wrong about... it feels so... I need her help, and she’s just falling apart! I need her... support I guess? Basically Twilight is spot on, and I have no idea why, but Rarity breaking down in front of me because of something I said because I did it to her I just can’t stop thinking about that and staring at her, fearfully.

Rarity glances at me, and her cries die down. She sniffles, and then hiccups. Have you ever been both terrified and caught by how adorable someone is? It’s a very contradictory feeling. “Y-you’re right, Twilight...” she says mutedly, looking down. She stays like that silently, only the tense breaths of the three of us, technically five but they’re out of the room, sounding in this chamber.

I start to realize just how quiet it is in here. A bone numbing silence that doesn’t have any machinery or people or traffic or even any dripping. No, no there is a dripping noise far in the distance, but it seems so loud now that I notice it because there is just nothing else. 

Then Rarity says, “I suppose I did end up getting a lot more dirty than if I had attended the social.” And she laughs at that, a hollow laugh, but slowly filling up with spirit as she recovers from... whatever that was. At least I don’t feel so weird anymore. I’m just lying here feeling normal, fully on my belly to ignore the part where it curves up smoothly between my legs. Rarity is sitting there smiling sadly, and Twilight is standing there beside her on four hooves.

“Wait...” I say in that strange voice that I have to speak with. “You didn’t attend the social?”

“I would have!” Rarity blurts in protest, looking at me beseechingly. “I should never have thought twice about it. We’re sisters, right?”

She’s asking me?

“And then when I looked for you,” she continues undauntedly, “The three of you had disappeared! I was so worried I... I thought you were just hiding, but then you didn’t come for dinner or... and if somepony hadn’t seen you jumping off the cart I might never have–”

Twilight stops that train of thought with a strong “It’s okay, Rarity. She’s safe now. Nopony was hurt.”

“I suppose you’re right, Twilight,” Rarity admits dispassionately, lifting a hoof and looking at it with less than an appreciative eye. “Nevertheless, I will not allow my pride to ruin the life of my best sister, ever again! I-it’s too late though. She already...” Rarity descends into quiet crying again. “What did that thing do to her?” she manages to ask softly.

“Nothing!” Twilight exclaims with a frustrated edge, “There was nothing here to do anything to her. The machine was inactive. As near as I can tell there’s no interface to it here outside of some monitoring instruments and a control array. She just... she just had an alicorn cascade at the worst possible time, which activated the device and...” She stomps frustratedly, “The only thing that should have been damaged here is the device, not Sweetie Belle!”

Rarity looks at her a lot more disbelievingly than I do. “She blew out the conduits, Rarity!” Twilight exclaimed, “There was no greater source of power than those oleric conduits, at least I think that’s what they were, and they got blown out. The device is a highly sensitive machine it’s not... it’s not some kind of power house.” Twilight trails off, grumbling thoughtfully to herself about oleric conduits or whatever the magibabble that is, so I take a chance and crane my head around to see where we are.

The room we’re in looks really ...something. The floor is some kind of thinly perforated metal mesh, or at least it bongs like metal when tapping it. There are six walls that look sort of like hard plastic from the color they reflect diffusely from Twilight’s horn. There’s some writing on them but I can only make out a few words in the lighting. “Cell 966-B” stands out. I assume it means cell like honeycomb because of the hexagonal shape, implying there are other cells adjacent to this one, but the walls are featureless save for the one that has been broken through. What I can see of the edges of the hole doesn’t seem very thick material.

I notice there’s an old style looking kerosene lantern off to the side, but it’s fallen over and any light it contained is extinguished. That might have been what was lighting the room earlier before Twilight’s magic emergency flare took over. Rarity’s wails seem to be dying down to whimpers. Twilight is looking down on me in the dim monochrome light that makes her and Rarity seem like they’re the same color. And me.

“Rarity,” Twilight addresses her expectantly, as Rarity turns to her silently. “Come on. Sweetie,” Twilight then says to me, “We have to get you to safety.” 

“S-sorry...” I say nervously looking at the impossible unicorn, and the source of the dim light that was the only sign that anything in here existed at all.

“It’s fine. Come on,” Twilight says, hooking the light ball with her horn and walking to the entrance. Rarity is standing there, dark lines trailing down from her eyes from where her makeup ran earlier. Rarity has a worried, almost betrayed expression on her face, as if something precious had been stolen from her oh right it’s me. I feel like such a heel right now.

“Sweetie?” Twilight repeats.

“Oh! Um...” I attempt to rise, and manage to at least get my upper body under my ...fingertips. The metal mesh is slippery though, and I slide back down to an uncomfortable sitting position again. I don’t feel very confident about this. I’m completely naked, and a girl apparantly, which this cold metal floor is making very hard to ignore, and they’re staring at me.

“I’m feeling kind of dizzy,” I lie, “I don’t know if I can walk right now.”

Rarity is at my side in an instant, crying out, “Oh Sweetie, you should have said something! You poor darling, you’ve been ruined by this horrible thing, ruined I say!” Then in a suddenly calm voice she says, “Now hold still dear.” I try not to wiggle as she blessedly closes her huge eyes, and her big face shoves up painlessly under my chest and heaves me upward. She actually sort of... rotates me around the horn on her head, and all I have to do is reach out, then I settle onto her shoulders. She stands up straight then, and I slide back behind her shoulder blades. My arms and legs... well I suppose they’re all just legs now, settle down on either side of her barrel. 

I want to tell her how awesome this is, how safe and secure her warm body moving beneath me feels. I want to squeal in delight for the fact that I’m really touching, no, riding a pony right now, a magical unicorn pony who I know cannot possibly exist. As Sweetie Belle, I could probably pull off a squee that wouldn’t sound like a dying moose. But then I notice another part of me smooshing against her, and feel a good deal less enthusiastic. I manage to remain calm somehow, even as the sounds of clopping fill my ears. Hooves... they’re walking on hooves! Eee! The clatter of the metal mesh fades to the clack of rock as we proceed out of the chamber.

My friends—Sweetie’s friends don’t say anything at first, but I can see their small forms become illuminated in Twilight’s light as they join us, and Rarity pauses to hand off... mouth off the dead lantern to one of them. The rhythm of a filly’s gait is much faster than that of these adult... presumably adult ponies. The fillies run alongside keeping pace though, and the adults stay slow and sedate to let them catch up.

The tunnel is actually not long before we emerge into a surprisingly well lit cavern. There are artificial lights all around, and the entrance of the... excavation presumably, we emerge from, is covered by a cloth. What it looks like, and probably is, is a gigantic pile of rubble, climbing higher until it becomes the cavern wall itself, huge boulders the size of buildings stacked on top of each other. The walls of the cavern are riddled with holes like the one we emerged from, though most of it appears to be a natural cave and not the results of a colossal cave-in. The dripping noise I heard earlier is coming from far overhead, certainly nothing unusual to hear underground.

Everybody...everypony climbs into an elevator cage that looks like solid gold. Strangely colored gems embedded in it light up as the cage lurches and begins to rise smoothly, following a vertical track cut into the solid stone wall. I watch from Rarity’s back as the giant rubble we came from diminishes below and eventually we reach the ceiling of the cave. Then the cage rises into a hole in the ceiling, and the only light is from the gems. Those glowing stones keep us visible until the elevator comes up to another opening, in the side of the wall. It stops there, where a flat expanse leads to a cave mouth with... with bright yellow sunlight beaming in from it. Oh, I’m going to get to feel Celestia’s sun! This is so incredible!

The elevator stops and everypony gets out. I can see Apple Bloom and Scootaloo clearly now, more so as we approach the opening. They’re just like I ever hoped they would be: two pretty little fillies each in their own way, not too cartoony, but without looking too horselike or alien. It’s like all these ponies are a cartoon, but in so many more shades of light, and with more texture to them, and turning three dimensional of course. As high quality as the two dimensional animation was, this just blew it away. These ponies are beautiful!

“Alright everypony,” Twilight says, pulling us up short as we approach the mouth of the cave. The sunlight looks so inviting, I just want to jump off of Rarity’s back and run into it. Fortunately I’m not that dumb, so I meekly stay put. “Let’s take a break here,” Twilight continues, “To give us a chance for our eyes to adjust.” Dammit purplesmart why do you have to be so smart and purple? She’s right though I can barely even look outside it’s so bright.

By pressing on Rarity’s shoulders, I get enough leverage to lift my head to gaze at the others, trying (and failing) to conceal my delight. Twilight Sparkle is standing off to the side looking analytically at the sunlit entrance. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom are both to the left of me, looking up where I’m perched atop Rarity. They both have really guilty looks on their doe eyed faces.

“So, amnesia huh,” Apple Bloom says her bow drooping with her ears.

“It’s not so bad,” I tell her honestly. It’s true too. If I can, if I ever figure out how to fix this the not-killing-me way, I’m going to be so excited about all the things I can learn from this place. Amnesia does have its perks in that sense.

“I remember you two a lot!” I add trying, and succeeding, to sound happy about it.

“Do you remember the meteor?” Scootaloo asks.

Hesitantly I respond, “I remember... a meteor... shower?”

Scootaloo shakes her head. “No that was way long ago. I mean the big one that we were uh, ...investigating...” she says giving a very wary look at Rarity.

I have to shake my head at that. “No, sorry,” I say, and in a brief stroke of genius add “What else happened recently? I might remember!”

“Do you remember the field trip two weeks ago?” Scootaloo suggested eagerly.

“Um...” I say with great hesitation, because the only field trip I know of is... not a good one. “What field trip exactly?” I ask.

“To the water park?” Scootaloo responds looking disappointed. Hmm.

“Did we get in trouble?” I suggest slyly.

“No, but it was awesome!” Scootaloo said, “But we didn’t get our surfing cutie marks, but that’s probably just because it was only a wave pool and not the real beach.”

“When did we get in big trouble last?” I ask hopefully. “I think I remember something like that.”

“Well yeah,” Scootaloo says as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “How about right now?”

“You’re not in trouble,” Rarity interrupts insistently, “I am merely very disappointed in you three, for disregarding your own safety.”

“Sweetie Belle deserves no punishment,” she says in a syrupy tone, turning and easily nuzzling right under my chin. It feels a lot more comforting than I’m comfortable with. “Poor dear Sweetie Belle has suffered enough already.” Rarity then goes from comforting to hostile in an instant, snapping at the other fillies, “You should be ashamed for putting her in such danger!”

Yep, we’re in trouble alright.

And now the other two look like they’re going to cry. Yes, even Scootaloo. “I’m okay, honest!” I say to them urgently, trying to allay their guilt.

“How can you be okay?” Scootaloo says tearfully, “You can’t even remember anything!”

“Well... it doesn’t hurt,” I emphasize. Scootaloo doesn’t really look satisfied at that, but more like she just doesn’t know how to respond.

“Alright, if you’re ready everypony walk out on threes,” Twilight says, taking the lead. “Stay together,” she adds, “The path to the camp is relatively safe, but I don’t want to take any chances at this point.”

The ponies walk out of the cave mouth holding one hoof to shield their eyes, limping forward on three legs with a surprising ease to their gait. It’d make sense that ponies are used to walking on three legs considering how often they’d have to hold something. Then again, sentience developing in non-bipedal animals without opposable thumbs is one of those concepts that’s never going to make sense, no matter how you spin it.

Oh, no it’s not because animals need opposable thumbs to benefit from sentience, or because animals without thumbs couldn’t evolve to be sentient. That isn’t what makes it absurd. What it is, is that the ones with opposable thumbs can run while wielding weapons of war, so anything else would just get annihilated.

And now I’m even questioning that, thinking of designs for saddle mounted artillery with a trigger that looks like the bit that goes into a horse’s mouth to control them, but instead you chomp on it to fire. Maybe forgetting my troubled past wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.

As visual acclimitization occurs and their gaits settle to a steady trot, I find my greatest hopes about the sunlight fully realized. It feels friendly and warm all over my head, back and legs. One of the experiences that humans rarely get to experience, especially if not hot women, is nude sunbathing. Let me tell you you haven’t enjoyed life until you’ve felt warm friendly sunlight, using your butt. Only 15 minutes of it mind you, as any more will lead to sunburn, horrible cancers and aging skin, but here in this amazing land of paradise I had the impression that as warm as the sun felt, my new fur would provide adequate protection against being burned from it.

The world we walk into is broad and flat with very little in the realm of features, but behind us where we emerged is a row of stunning crags lifting from the ground like a giant ice cream scoop went and carved the land up into peaks. What grows in the flat expanse before us is a thick mix of thorny dry brush and scrub. It isn’t a desert, but it is very dry. In fact, if it weren’t for the sharply clear unpolluted air, and the lack of constant automobile traffic noise, only a lonely whooshing wind in the distance, then it would have reminded me of my childhood prison, I mean home. The dense scraggly brush has been cut out into a broad dirt path down which we walk, many hoofprints dotting its dusty surface besides the ones my companions are leaving. 

One thing this amazing land of paradise is doing is making Rarity sweat, where I lay insulated over her... or making me sweat against her, or probably both. I feel a little guilty about that, promising myself I’d walk on my own as soon as I can, or at least have the tact to put a blanket between us, or dare I say it a saddle. She says not a single word about it, but I know Rarity, and I can actually feel her skin crawl as she tries to ignore the discomfort. I don’t mind it so much, but then I’m used to being a slovenly ne’er do well who didn’t have to keep up appearances because nobody ever wanted to look at me. Doesn’t mean I enjoy it either, though. It is actually a pretty hot day after all in this familiar looking but quiet place.

What I do enjoy is a peculiar pressure on what I thought was my back, but when I look behind me I can see that the tail coming out of me had slipped down against Rarity’s, and her squiggle tail keeps bumping up against it. I don’t try to move it, just watch the peculiar interaction of bouncy curl to squiggle. I can feel what I was looking at, because it is my tail. First time in my life I’ve ever felt something like that, and I like it. I am a pony; I really really am a pony now, and it just makes me feel complete in a way I could never have hoped for, not in a million billion years. It makes me smile deliriously and close my eyes and lean the side of my head into the smoothly moving shoulders beneath me, the shoulders of the real pony that I’m really actually riding.

The camp they spoke of is... not what I expected. I mean, it isn’t a campground camp it’s some sort of cross between a military encampment and an archaeological dig. A broad area in the center is set aside, where several ponies are squatted down on their haunches, busily dusting off and laying out fragments of what look like rubble. They are somehow managing to assemble them into larger structures of which the rubble originally composed. Like a jigsaw puzzle from Hell. Archeology is serious business I guess.

Around the er, specimen assembly area is a square of tents, the ones on three sides being individual tents for one or a few peop–ponies, and the fourth side dominated by a single large canvas tent with several flaps ponies went into and out of. Around the circle of tents is what I can best describe as a layer of armed defenses. They seriously have two manned–er– poned ballistas, one on either side of the camp, and a thick fence erected around the camp, with sharp poles embedded in the ground in front of it at an angle.

I was starting to feel less guilty about imagining ponies with guns already.

The sheer number of ponies here is daunting to say the least. I never thought I’d find the presence of background ponies to be overwhelming. It’s just a lot harder to ignore the presence of many unfamiliar horsies, when you’re in there with them instead of looking from the other side of a screen. I try to find any ponies I recognize, but asides the ones I’m with, I’m not having any luck. Lots of gem cutie marks though, sensible considering they’re doing excavation. Because I am totally the cutie mark expert and no I’m pretty much talking out my somewhat overexposed to the sun ass at this point.

“I cannot believe you are managing this, Twilight!” Rarity exclaims idly to her fellow friend.

Twilight blushes and is all, “Oh, it’s not such a big deal. This is the find of the–”

“With all this dust and dirt your lustrous coat is getting ruined!” Rarity interrupts, jarring to a halt and lifting a hoof. “I can scarcely remember being white anymore!”

I can’t help but snicker at that. I wonder if Rarity meant to cut off Twilight’s lecture that way. “And just what is so funny?” Rarity asks me looming in my face again.

“Oh, um... nothing.” I say engaging all my clever wiles to come up with that amazing alibi.

“You three get dirty enough as-is,” Rarity says snippily, turning away and turning her nose up, “To be wandering around these dreary dusty badlands, I can tell you that a bath is in your very near future!”

My eyes widen at that. Oh my gosh I haven’t taken a bath in years.

We enter the pavillion tent where some sort of supply distribution is going on, not exactly a cafeteria but ponies exchanging tools and brightly colored very fresh looking vegetables with each other. I find myself looking longingly at the vegetables just... wondering how they taste I guess? I wonder how long it’s been since Sweetie Belle had anything to eat.

There’s a cart in the shade with two harnesses on it, currently being stocked with empty jars, jugs and scraps of junk. Twilight walks over to talk with them while I watch, and... I’m a bit disappointed to not see a unicorn levitating stuff into the cart. I saw Rarity levitating the canteen and that was so cool. But I’m not that disappointed because it’s also fascinating to watch the ponies just manually lifting and carrying things in their hooves.

I squirm myself over slightly to look at my own hoof and toy with it. It turns out I can make it face me like a palm, and I can curl it forward like a jointed candy cane. It feels like I’m trying to use my finger to touch my upper arm, which is technically true even if I only have one finger on each hand.

“Well, things are relatively safe for now,” Rarity says before me, “So why don’t you go wait with your two little friends while the supply carrier prepares for the return journey. And don’t,” she looms in my face again making me reel back. This is suboptimal!

“...leave my sight,” Rarity finishes dangerously. She looks at me neutrally then, with a glimmer of expectation that I can tell ...somehow. Somehow I can tell she expects something of me. I squirm uncertainly on her back. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo are standing around her, looking up at me equally expectantly. They do remember that I can’t walk, right?

“Oh right, you can’t walk,” Rarity says disappointedly.

“Maybe not,” I admit uncomfortably, “But I don’t want to make you all sweaty, and I have to learn sometime,” shit! “To... be more considerate,” I continue slowly, “And I can’t work on remembering how to walk if I just sit.”

“Very well, then,” Rarity says, descending like an elevator and folding her legs underneath herself. “But please be careful,” she emphasizes. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself any more!”

Ponies are awesome by the way. Rarity just sat down, just like that, and I don’t have to jump down from dismounting like I would a big, stupid, real horse who is too inconsiderate and dumb to sit down. It’d be easy enough for me to just slide off of her, but... then what do I do? I look up as a hoof shoves in my face, and Apple Bloom is standing there with a sad smile holding out her hoof to... help me out. Ponies are awesome.

To help Sweetie Belle out, at least...

I’m grateful nonetheless, and I reach my arm out, whereupon Apple Bloom’s lithe yellow hoof catches it like a hook. I don’t know how to hold on myself, but I can hold my arm steady at least, as Apple Bloom pulls me off of Rarity’s comforting backside. With an unnerving clop, my left back hoof comes down, and I look behind me trying to get that hoof aligned... good? I already feel like I’m losing it. I’m stretched between the hoof in Apple Bloom’s grasp, and the rear one on the ground, my other front hoof unable to get a grip, and my final hoof is... stuck up on Rarity’s back. I’d have to walk forward, to get it off of her back, and Apple Bloom has the same idea because... she pulls me forward.

This should have caused me to stumble forward and regain my footing, but I don’t know how to do that, so my hand and–hooves just stay planted, and I tip forward when Apple Bloom pulls. “Woah!” I shout, my raised leg wobbling frantically to try to balance myself. Apple Bloom continues to try to support me, but my legs just sort of slowly slide out from under me, until I’m down on my belly again looking up at Apple Bloom abashedly... still hanging onto her hoof.

“Wow Sweetie, you really are having trouble!” Scootaloo says, gaping at me in alarm.

I wave my free hand—er, front hoof—at her saying, “No no, I just got caught by surprise.” It’s not very convincing, coming from a boneless pile of Sweetie Belle lying there. Not to mention all my limbs are really ...achy, and I feel like I haven’t slept in like 3 days.

“Um,” I look at my hoof still caught in Apple Bloom’s, nervously saying, “Can you let go?”

Her eyes widen a bit and “Oh! Raht!” she rapid fires, stepping forward and placing my own limb carefully against my breast, and patting it gently. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“It’s okay, I got this,” I say quietly, concentrating on analyzing my joints. I have to extend my elbows in order to twist my hooves, but when my arms are straight, everything from the upper arm to the elbow sort of... sticks against... inside my torso somewhere. I guess that’s ...supposed to happen? My legs feel more normal than my arms, if that makes any sense. At least they have knees, even though it feels like my knee is touching my ankle.

I finally figure out how to push my body up, by trying to do close pushups, but it’s really weird. Instead of pushing straight up, with my pectorals, my arms end up acting like levers, bracing at the ground and lifting me with my triceps, at the chest as a fulcrum. I do rise though, getting my front legs braced firmly underneath me.

Of course, I left my back legs are splayed out flat behind me, so I can’t just put them under me. I rotate one of those legs around, trying to brace it under me, but then I... slip, and go down again in a heap. Fear of discovery blooms in me, as my failure to walk impresses upon the ponies who are watching me do so. Ohh, I hope they don’t suspect me this must look terribly suspicious.

“Almost got it!” I frantically assure everypony, rotating my other hind leg around determinedly, even as I’m flopped down on my belly. This way, my rear toes are just about right next to my ears, and of course I don’t feel even the slightest tension in doing that. Because this position is totally natural for a pony, even though to me it feels like a contortion act. It makes amusement bubble up in me when I realize all I’d have to do now is shove my arms behind me, to be the spitting image of Scooty Belle. I wonder if that actually works to walk around like that.

But now I’m trying to look normal, not memetic. I lever myself up again, and this time with my legs facing forward. As those legs slide back, the hooves on them catch on the dirty ground, and my ankles rise up into the air. I look at the positioning of my rear hooves critically then lift my head and... wow. It’s really weird, having your butt behind you instead of below you. I feel kind of like I’m just the front half of a horse costume, but then I can lift my hind legs just fine, one after the other, and put them down. So I’m all the way back there, at the end of the horse costume too! Weird as this experience is, I’m actually managing to stand! I can’t help but smile giddily standing like this.

“I did it!” I exclaim brightly.

The other fillies they... wow. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo look really different when you are seeing them eye-to-eye. Most of the show does a top down perspective on the fillies, even in their own scenes, in order to emphasize how tiny they are. How tiny we are. But from this perspective, if I didn’t know better we’d just be a bunch of big headed ponies, surrounded by 12 foot tall giant ponies. For the first time ever, I can meet Apple Bloom’s eyes, not just look down at her. I can see her and... she can see me. That’s... really cool.

“Y’sure uh, did Sweetie,” Apple Bloom says uncomfortably, less impressed with the situation than I am. Oh boy, I guess it is weird that a pony would be so excited about standing up... as a pony. Before I can whimper out an excuse, I look up at a feeling on my back, and Rarity has wrapped her neck around behind mine in a heart thumpingly comforting way.

“You did, Sweetie,” Rarity says encouragingly, then leaving me standing free again. “Now let’s see you walk around.”

Whew. Okay. I can do this. The hard part is standing. I lift one front hoof, wobbling a bit, then stretch to place it further in front of me. Good, first step down. Then, I lift the opposite leg and move it forward to more underneath me. Those two legs planted, I lift my other rear leg and the tension of my position pulls it forward a step. Finally my front left leg, which is just left angling down under my torso, I lift it curling it out from under me, and returning to a resting position. I took a full pace! I smile at the other ponies brightly, but I don’t get encouraging smiles in return. I...

I really do have to figure this out right now, don’t I.

Rarity calls over her shoulder, “Twilight I think there might be–” Desperately, I take another step. I try to repeat what I’ve learned, but I feel like I’m skating on the dirt. I’m not just balancing on my toes I’m balancing on the nails of my toes. It’s like walking on stilts!

I slip again, all my legs go out from under me and I fall forward, my chin smacking the ground painfully, giving an “Oof!” as my chest hits dirt. I’m so dead. They’re not going to think this is just dizziness. They’re going to think there’s something wrong and then they’ll investigate and find me and I’ll be dead forever and never get to see them again.

“Sweetie Belle, are you okay?!” Twilight’s voice comes riding up behind me.

I lever up my upper torso by my arms again, trying to answer, but all that comes out is a mewling whimper. The realization that there are tears running down my eyes is almost enough to shock me out of being upset entirely. Am I seriously... really... crying? I look up at Twilight, so tall before me, and my eyes grow even more watery as hope swells in my chest. Her caring look makes me feel so safe I don’t even know why.

“I’m... I’m okay...” I tell her, and also I tell myself. I’ve never been able to tell that to myself before, ever. It’s strange then, because Twilight is talking all weird like she’s at the end of a tunnel, and it’s hard to focus on her, and my arms are giving out weakly and with a snort I jolt awake on a moving cart.

...where?
> The Road Back
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With a snort, I jolt awake. Everything is rumbling and clattering around me. I lift my head to find myself on a moving cart. And Sweetie Belle.The various and sundry on the cart seem to have been pushed aside to make room for me and for one other. Above me is a thick canopy shading the cart I’m riding in. Facing away from the front of the cart as I am, I can’t see who’s driving, or rather, pulling it. My arms and legs are all tangled up in—oh that’s Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom is right up against me, belly to belly, sound asleep and breathing softly. Through the wooden slats in the cart I can see Rarity trotting along beside it, and a pony on the other... oh my gosh that’s Applejack! Of course it’s Applejack! Because Apple Bloom is here cuddled up to me and she’s so soft and cute and oh gosh

...one fangasm later I can’t help but wonder where is Scootaloo? I daren’t look for her, or even move around for fear of disturbing this beautiful little filly cuddled up against me. I can feel the texture of our furs intermeshing, short but not scratchy and very dense, smooth where it slides along the grain. I um...

I probably shouldn’t be hugging her like this.

I try to extricate myself as gently as I can, and she responds by grabbing me tightly around the waist and hauling me over her like a ragdoll. I wiggle my arms but it’s no use; she’s got a death grip on me. Is she... she is! She’s still asleep!

“Apple Bloom!” I whisper urgently. No answer.

Well, at least my back is to her now. Plus I can’t be very old with how everyone is treating me like a baby, so I can’t be... well I can’t be you know, fertile so I don’t have to worry about it, right? Feeling like ...that? Come on me, learn to walk first before you... experiment. I am kind of tired still. Whatever hit me before is taking a long time to recover from, I guess. I just nestle against Apple Bloom and close my eyes, trying to ignore any untoward thoughts. Thankfully I find myself drifting off right back to sleep.

It’s a ground shaking crash that really wakes me up. “Cracker!” someone exclaims in alarm as I lift my head up along with Apple Bloom, and what the hot steaming hell is that?! It is three times the size of the cart itself, and has two great arms extending from its brown hairy body each one ending in a claw that looked like it belonged on a lobster, if that lobster was 20 feet long.

After it opens a slavering fanged mouth and gave an ear splitting roar, I become much less concerned with what it is, and more concerned with how to hide from it and remain totally still so that it can’t get me. My inability to walk nonwithstanding, I manage to bury myself halfway underneath a knocked over pile of junk before Apple Bloom pulls me out saying, “It’s okay, Sweetie Belle! It’s just a Cracker! They’ll just chase it off an–” and then it leaps into the air like a grasshopper, its shadow sliding smoothly along the ground to settle directly over the very cart which we are sitting in.

“Out of the cart out of the cart!” Apple Bloom shouts, shoving me bodily over the edge to land with a huff on my back outside. She is halfway out herself when there is a loud bang, and the grublike mass of hair and claws abruptly stops descending, flying directly sideways from there, contorting bizarrely as it smashes into the rocks across from us, rubble flying everywhere and filling the air with cloying dust. Something hit it like a cannon ball!

I manage to get up on my hands... forearms and squint my gaze into the dust, just as another crack erupts through the air and the thing flies upwards again, this time away from the cart. I can barely see it rolling around and around as it recedes like a strange pinwheel. There are several bright flashes as bolts of ...something follow it, almost too quickly to see, and it gives another terrifying screech upon their impact.

Then a sudden wind blasts around me, pulling my hair into even more disarray. It clears the dust and– and it was like the dust just disappeared instead of merely being blown away. There is a thin layer of dust all over me now and I rock back trying to brush it off with my forehooves before it turns muddy with sweat. That accomplishes buttfuck nothing other than me now lying helplessly on my back. Huh, you know I have to wonder, why is there not even a single cloud in the sky?

“Awwesome!” comes Scootaloo’s excited voice from... on top of the canopy of the cart. I guess that’s where she was all this time. Wait, so she didn’t even get off when that thing tried to squash us?! Movement over by the ...Cracker makes my head snap around, but it’s just the other ponies who have gathered in a shield wall and... holy Jesus fuck it really is a wall, because above line of the ponies on earth, there is another layer of three winged ponies hovering in the air, their wings slowly flapping in asynchronous motions. And one of them is none other than– well, there’s no mistaking it, even from a distance. There are another two bright flashes, and then the beast slowly turns and starts to rumble away.

Only when its noise dies down do the defending ponies rejoin the two still standing around the cart, and a trio of fillies I suppose. The winged ones come first, as they are terribly fast. And one in particular swoops right up to Scootaloo and says,

“How about that, huh?! Did you see me? I sent that thing flying! Gave it the old one two!”

“You’re the greatest, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo exclaims confidently.

Yeah that is... that is definitely Rainbow Dash. A vertical horse angel above us all limned with sunlight, fur the color of the sky, and a verdant mane of the brightest rainbow, a true rainbow not the evil false rainbow of which we will never speak again. She looks... incredible. I don’t even know how to think about it. She just looks so alive and powerful. She looks, well... she looks like Applejack, except wings and blue. Yeah I don’t know how to explain it. She’s kind of scary.

I don’t know the other two pegasi. I didn’t even know pegasuses were accompanying us. Or that we were going somewhere that would need accompanying. Or what the fuck was that? I don’t remember giant grublike lobster clawed hairballs from the show! Did that thing even have eyes?

“Oh, Sweetie Belle!” comes Rarity’s voice, then Rarity running up to me in fright. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine, Rarity!” I assure her, “Just a little shaken up.”

“How did you fall out of the cart?” she complains, fussing at me with her nose until I’ve been rolled onto my stomach again.

“Apple Bloom pushed me out,” I explain causing Rarity to zoom back and zip around, snapping directly at Apple Bloom saying, “How could you? Sweetie could have gotten hurt! Why would you–”

“No!” I shout. Apple Bloom is giving me a betrayed look, and Rarity has stopped silent, and looks at me uncertainly.

“We thought it was going to fall on the cart,” I explain in the correct order this time. Apple Bloom relaxes as I do, not looking hurt anymore. “I couldn’t get up fast enough, so Apple Bloom pushed me out. And she was going to come too, then something hit the monster on the side and knocked it away.”

“That was Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo exclaimed from her perch atop the canopy.

“It was?” the words escape my mouth, before I put the pieces together. Of course it was. Why use a cannon ball when you can use your fists? Or, hooves. You get the idea. I’m surprised in fact that a rainbow colored disc of light hadn’t erupted from her path before she hit that thing. Was... was that Rainbow Dash holding back? I wish I could say I was impressed or that it was megawesomecool like Scootaloo was saying, but I find myself trembling instead. These destructive super beings are hovering over my head, and I can barely even stand up.

“How are you doing, Sweetie?” Rarity asks me concernedly, “Do you feel like you can walk again?”

I grimace at that. Keeping up this half truth of amnesia is just turning so ugly. I wish I said something else like I was paralyzed or something. Well, not really, as that actually would have been a complete lie, and I know how terrible those end up. So I just keep sticking with the truth like I always ...try to do. Reorienting my hind legs Scooty Belle style, and levering up on my arm... legs... my forelegs, I get to my feet relatively naturally this time. I’m still pretty wobbly though, and I gulp nervously as one of my feet jutters to the side, to distribute my weight splay leggedly, and make it harder to fall over. My tail is just laying there limply. I wish I could figure how to move it.

“I can’t move my tail,” I say honestly, wincing at her look of horror. “No I can still feel it! Just... it won’t um.. lift. It doesn’t hurt. A-and I’m not dizzy at all I just...” I try to walk again, sticking my arm forward, then the opposite rear leg, then ...the rest arranges itself fairly automatically, this time. I try it with the other arm first, instead, and... almost lose it. “I don’t really r-remember how to walk,” I continue uneasily, trying to frame this as amnesia... somehow. “I mean, I forget how to move so it’s walking. I mean–”

Rarity comes next to me as I stand there vacillating. She crouches down and sits beside me. “There, there darling,” she says, in a tone I would have thought patronizing if it wasn’t Rarity. “We’ll just help you up into the cart, and get you to the hospital first thing, and they’ll be able to make you all better!”

All better, great just what I wanted. I won’t have any problems walking, or exhaustion, and as a bonus they’ll fix that little problem where I have someone else’s brain in my head, erasing all those troublesome memories and personalities who don’t belong there. I have to say, a proclamation of impending doom is a lot scarier when you don’t even have the capability to walk. Say for instance, to walk away from said impending doom.

“Okay,” I say miserably. 

They probably have a fancy soul scanner at the hospital or something. I’ll just have to... enjoy it while I can now, and then... I’ll just have to tell them, I guess. Thankfully Rarity interprets my look of misery as Sweetie Belle being sad that she’s crippled herself, and leans over me with a compassionate feel, biting down on the... back of my hair? Then she pulls and before I know it I’m up in the air! I’m too stunned to struggle until she puts me down in the cart again, where I again sink to my belly. Do... do I have a scruff?

Again she misinterprets my emotions, turning her nose down and saying, “Oh Sweetie I apologize. I know you don’t like to be treated like a baby I just... you couldn’t walk and I wasn’t thinking, you see.”

My shock softens a bit, and I manage to smile at her saying, “Thanks for caring about me... sis.”

Rarity utters some triviality and retreats, clearly flustered, and Apple Bloom jumps up in the cart next to me, easily clearing the railing holding everything in.

“Golly, that was sappy even for you!” Bloom declares.

“Yeah, heh heh, totally,” I say, laughing nervously and turning my head away... the one action I seem immanently capable of doing. I was surprised then by Apple Bloom crouching down and shoving her head under my chin, then pressing her neck against my chest, sort of the reverse of what Rarity did when I first tried to walk.

“Ah was worried for you,” Apple Bloom tells me in an unsettled tone, “They say you’re never supposed to go to sleep if you got a head injury and they said you was okay, but ah thought...”

Oh my gosh, she’s right! They probably thought I would never wake up again, and go into a coma! I lean my head against her as... comfortingly as I can manage with this peculiar gesture saying, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know...”

Apple Bloom pulls herself back then looking at me and saying, “You’re sorry? Nothing to be sorry about! It was an accident!”

I shake my head slightly, correcting myself, “No I mean, I’m sorry you had to feel that.” At a blank look, I tried, “I... sympathize with your plight?”

Apple Bloom covers up her mouth with a hoof in a poor excuse for holding back a laugh saying, “You are such a dictionary, Sweetie Belle.”

I am? Oh wait that... oh hey, that is a joke from the show, isn’t it? Maybe I can not get totally exposed if I accidentally use complex grammar, then! Still have to watch my language though, and not reveal too much.... Luckily I am far more prone to compulsive word play, than compulsive vulgarity or spoilers.

“Indubitably,” I say a bit smugly, touching a finger to my... a hoof to my chest. That makes Apple Bloom laugh, flopping relaxedly on her back. I have to smile too; her joy is infectious. I can’t help but feel a bit envious about how easily she can move around though. Don’t these sort of situations usually come with automatic walking instincts? I hope this problem I’m having will only be temporary.

“Physical therapy?!” I exclaim. Whoops, too far forward. Back to the cart ride!

“You know, Scootaloo was worried about you too,” Apple Bloom points out, glancing up at the canopy, “Even if she shows it different.”

“How does she show it?” I ask curiously, thankfully not knowing better than to shut my big mouth.

Apple Bloom actually thinks for a moment and says, “I bet you ten to one that Scootaloo avoids you until you track her down again and hug her to let her know you’re gonna be alright.”

I wince slightly, saying “Scootaloo doesn’t like hugs much, though.”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said with a nod, leaning closer to me and saying in a harsh whisper, “That’s what she’ll say, at any rate.”

Huh, so Scootaloo does like hugs after all. I mean, there isn’t a pony alive who wouldn’t, unless you were being hugged by queen cheese grater legs maybe. But, good to know nonetheless.

The cart travels into a narrow pass in the mountains, passing through several unnatural looking tunnels whenever the rock face becomes too sheer. Nothing else leaps out to attack us thank god. Or maybe it should be thank Celestia now? Celestia probably doesn’t want to be god though, and I sure don’t want to casually lay blame on someone who’s real.

Yeah even when I’m thanking the bastard it’s like “thanks God you didn’t screw up this time.” It’s fun and relaxing to blame someone for everything wrong with the world, as long as they are just a character in a story. But as fun as it is to have a divine punching bag, it would kill me to think my casual insults and slurs are going towards someone, someone who could be hurt by them. Especially someone who wasn’t a murderous lech like God.

...I really hope Princess Celestia isn’t a murderous lech.

I certainly doubt Princess Celestia intentionally put me here, or else she’d be right there in the welcome wagon, so there must be something involved beyond her powers. Regardless, I have no idea how god-like she is, so I can’t really judge her myself until she passes judgement on me, no doubt shining with the incandescent flare of the sun as she accuses me of murdering Sweetie Belle and wearing her body like a suit.

...

I scoot away from Apple Bloom a little bit. Here I am getting all chummy with my– with Sweetie Belle’s best friend, and I’m just a big phony in her place. I didn’t want to do this, and I wouldn’t if I could. ...probably... But I still enjoy the experience of being this tiny little impotently magical unicorn, more than I should. More than I can even describe. It isn’t fair to any of them, and I should tell them, but... but this is my chance to be Sweetie Belle! Things have worked out so unbelievably wonderfully for me that I just can’t not take this chance I have, even if only for a little while!

I... I really want what Sweetie Belle has, with her wonderful friends and loving family, and her entire future looking bright and full of fulfillment. I just want a taste of that, even just for a little bit, before I die and can’t have it ever again. Sure as rain, I’ll get to restoring the real Sweetie Belle any day now.

At last we start passing trees and grass. I can’t see above me, but beyond the mountains we’re emerging from the sky is full of beautiful puffy clouds. The only noise is the quiet clack of the cart, that beautiful quiet just music to my ears. It’s like the sweetest song, or... more like if Scootaloo has been singing in your ear the past 34 years and just now she stopped. The quiet is like a blank canvas, or an empty plate pulled clean and sparkling from the soapy sink.

No matter where you go, it seems like humans are unconcerned with sound, filling the world with noise without concern or even thought for who they may hurt by doing so. It forces you to make a hard decision, between lonely isolation, and well... automobile traffic. I’d like to say I valued companionship, more than being bothered by the few especially annoying truck drivers with acoustically amplified exhaust pipes, but... I often did find myself alone and isolated, walking out along the roadway long after the witching hour, in the time of night when all you could hear was the freeway far away, and it was... really nice.

I can’t yet say ponies are any different than humans about noise, but now I can’t even hear a freeway. If what I’ve been hearing (or not hearing) so far is any indication, it might be okay! Though I suspect that I will be avoiding Manehatten like the plague in my forseeable future. I worry that the quiet may have just been our desolate surroundings, but as the mountains leave us behind and a dense forest rises to the right of our dirt road, civilization finally comes into view... and it is very, very quiet.

Oddly, the dense forest to our right comes right up along the trail we ride down. Whether this road was built alongside the forest or the forest conformed to it I can’t tell, but it is an abrupt transition. On the left of the trail is a less dense forest, an orchard it seems, with the strangest looking trees. Their leaves are entirely pink, making the trees look like giant cotton candy sticks. Appearing frequently all over the branches are the stems of little red berries of some sort, each growing in a pair. There are a few yellowish white flowers among the berries. The trees look familiar somehow, but I can’t remember ever seeing a tree like that before. Pink flowers sure, or purple leaves, but nothing like these.

The cart slows to a halt, making me lift my head up from where I’m leaning against a box of stuff. There is a monstrous lack of roaring, thank god. Applejack sticks her head in, saying, “We’re takin’ a break before the last stretch. Either of you need to pee?”

Oh... dear and, just like that my thoughts go straight below the belt. I don’t have a piss fetish or anything, but it’s just that even thinking about it reminds me I don’t have anything to pee with. Couldn’t I have gotten transubstantiated into a stallion instead? Nah, that would have been traumatizing in its own right. Thankfully I don’t need to pee, but it’s something I’m going to need to do eventually, just as sure as that fake Southern accent said a few seconds ago that peeing is a thing that exists.

Apple Bloom speaks up, saying “Naw, but ah’m gonna go stretch mah legs. Sweetie, you wanna... um...” Apple Bloom looks at me uneasily. I wave her off saying,

“No, no it’s fine. I’ll just stay in the cart until we’re... there.” It occurs to me I have no idea where we’re actually going. Ponyville, I guess?

Apple Bloom jumps down, and I’m left sitting there all antsy now because stretching my legs sounds really good right now. If I could only figure how to walk on them. But instead I have to sit here like an invalid in a cart full of junk, with nobody in the cart besides me, and nopony around me, or ...watching me. It’s then that I realize that, for the first time since waking up as Sweetie Belle, I... actually have complete privacy right now.

I gulp, looking down the smooth curve of my white furred belly. Of course I’d just happen to be propped up on my back again; it’s a great position to have embarassing truths practically smacking you in the face. I can’t help but be curious about it though. I tentatively press a hoof against my chest, and there’s nothing there but ordinary pudge. The same sort of combination of fat and muscle as I ever had, albeit under much softer skin that dimples slightly at my touch. It’s just a chest. The nail of my hoof feels hard.

Gulping again, I move my hoof down lower prodding at my lower abdomen. Sure enough the lumpy nipples that used to be on my chest are nestled right against my legs, uncomfortably close to where the curves of my thighs come together to frame a pert little mound.

“Hello Sweetie,” Rarity says sticking her head in the entry part of the cart, as my hoof flies away from my groin like a dignity seeking missile. “How are you doing?”

“I’m... fine,” I say with a nervous smile. My cheeks feel hot. I hope I’m not blushing. “Doing just great!” I chirp, trying to slump less and sitting up more against my impromptu backrest. Rarity has a cute little blue parasol shading her face that’s... strapped to her back, huh. 

“Apple Bloom was upset that you couldn’t come out,” Rarity says, “But I think you made a wise decision. We’ll be on our way from here in a few minutes at most, and you can... stretch your legs as much as you want when we arrive.”

“Um, where are we going?” I ask, squirming my legs stiffly. “I was... asleep when you said.”

“Why, Dodge Terminal,” Rarity answers. “A quaint little lumber town on the edge of the eastern Palomino. There, we can find a train that can take us home straight away!”

“Oh...” I say dimly, “Right, home. Can’t wait.”

Rarity turns her head and turns back to me saying, “It seems we’re about to get going again. I would join you, but it would be quite unladylike of me to make others plod through the dirt for my sake.

It makes me blush at my situation, again. “Sorry,” I say guiltily.

“Oh, no no no, none of that,” Rarity chides, “It is only unladylike if you are not otherwise indisposed. I assure you were I in your condition, I would feel no hesitation to let these fine mares take me in their cart to safe harbor! You take as much time as you need, darling. A lady such as you will show her best by recovering her strength, and relying on others as she does so.”

She turns her head again at some words that Applejack is saying to her, and says to me, “Gotta go. Take care, Sweetie!” She stretches her neck out and kisses me on my curl covered forehead, then pulls out of the cart, clip-clopping away.

It’s only when Rarity is entirely gone I mumble lovingly in her direction, “Sister, my ass.”

As the cart lurches into motion again, Apple Bloom jumps on with a water canteen awkwardly draped by its strap over her shoulders. “Drink up, Sweetie,” she says tossing the round cloth wrapped cylinder in front of me. “We got plenty of water now.” Something about the way she emphasized that last part makes me think.

“We didn’t have any water going out there, did we?” I ask somewhat certain of the answer.

Apple Bloom shrugged... somehow. “We did pretty good until we snuck on this cart here, but there ain’t any water in the Badlands.”

I reach down and wrap my hooves clumsily around the canteen, managing to lift it up to my chest. “Why were we even out there?” I ask, trying to figure out how to open it.

“Here, you need some help with that?” Apple Bloom asks. I gratefully let her take the canteen and she practically spins the cap off with her teeth and lips. I... hope that’s sanitary. She tilts it towards me again and I try lifting it. It’s so tricky though, when you basically only have two things to hook with and nothing else.

“Use your hooves, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom prompts.

“I um... am?” I say uncertainly.

“No, the ends of them,” Apple Bloom clarifies. “You gotta really get your pad into it.”

Oh... dear.

I try pressing the flat of my hoof against the canteen. It feels weird kind of depressing slightly when I put pressure on it. I can’t feel any sort of magic hands or muscles, or anything that would help with grabbing. I know ponies in the show have done it before, G4 ones at least. But I guess, it’s something just too alien for me to wrap my head around, or my hooves for that matter.

“Sorry, I can’t,” I say reluctantly. “I forget how.”

“Golly, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom says breathlessly, “You really are pretty messed up! You just... you know, like this.” She pulls the canteen away from me with... just her hoof. “Ah’ll hold it for ya,” she says decisively. Blushing I can only nod in acquiescence.

Apple Bloom is not as gentle about it or controlled as Rarity, but Apple Bloom doesn’t have a magic horn, so I’ll cut her some slack. I’m not nearly as dehydrated anymore either, so I don’t have any trouble drinking my fill. We do laugh nervously though when it overflows from my cheek splashing down onto my belly.

“Thanks Apple Bloom,” I say rubbing at my now matted fur, leaving her to swig the rest of it. “You’re a really good friend.”

“Shucks Sweetie,” she says wiping off her chin, “Ah’m just glad to have some water again. Ain’t no trouble to help you if you got problems with your hooves.”

“Why were we even out there?” I repeat. “This doesn’t seem like a normal field trip.”

Apple Bloom gives me a cautious look saying, “You really don’t remember anything about it?” I shake my head.

She sighs, setting the empty canteen aside, sitting on her haunches like a dog. I try to emulate her position, as the cart rumbles and bounces beneath us. It’s really nice to see her face to face. A guilty pleasure, even. Apple Bloom’s giant pink bow frames her cherry red hair so appealingly, keeping her coat and mane from color clashing. That bow was one of the great design decisions of the show, I think. ...I wonder how it’s attached.

“We were just tryin’ ta get our cutie marks,” Apple Bloom says to me, pulling me back to the topic at hand. “A fancy space rock that contained ‘all the knowledge of the ages’ was sure to have the answer to that. That’s what Miss Twilight called it, at any rate. She could have been exaggeratin’, but when she couldn’t stop it from landin’ way out in the Badlands she went and packed up a whole crew and camped out there! Do you remember how Scootaloo wanted to...?”

I have to shake my head. While I wish this was an episode, there’s no way in heaven or hell that an awesome premise like that would ever be allowed. Maybe a feature length movie. My Little Pony: The Fallen Star? I’m fairly sure “The Fallen Star” is already taken, but I can’t remember what movie that one is about. Probably Pokémon or something dumb like that.

Apple Bloom huffs, “Well, ah’ll tell you then. Scootaloo was feelin’ put out, and don’t tell her or she’ll deny it, but she was missin’ Rainbow Dash something fierce, so we kinda came out here to find the meteor and also impress her so’s she’d let Scootaloo stick around an’ help. ...didn’t work so well.”

“What happened?” I ask curiously.

“Well there weren’t no meteor is the thing!” Apple Bloom said in a hurt voice, “They were all about explorin’ some ruins way underground. That was where Scootaloo thought we’d... learn how to get our cutie marks. It seems kinda silly to think now, but if the grownups were all interested in it... ah thought it’d be somethin’ cool. And we were all the way out here, so...”

“Whatever happened to me really messed up your plans,” I point out a bit glumly. At least nobody, er, nopony got hurt, er, no, Sweetie Belle sort of did get hurt. Hopefully not horrifically or lethally. At least uh... at least... yeah it was pretty bad.

“Ah don’t get it,” Apple Bloom said with a horsey huff, “Why would you have a surge then? And why would there be a magic... machine thingy all the way underground? We shouldn’t a tried to get you to use it.”

“It’s okay,” I lie. “It could have been a lot worse,” I truth.

“It just don’t make sense. You ain’t got a lick of magic, then you’re brighter than a lightbulb? They say it was blocked off, but your horn ain’t no different than it was. Nothin’ popped out of it or nothin’! Ah just don’t unnerstand the first thing about all that crazy unicorn magic,” Apple Bloom confesses frustratedly, “It’s so confusin’!”

I smile weakly at her, saying, “I don’t think it is any less confusing for unicorns. I don’t even remember using magic! I only remember waking up with Rarity there.”

Frowning, I touch my horn with a hoof experimentally. It doesn’t feel like a bone precisely, and it’s kind of sensitive to tapping. I try to feel a ...something in it, but nothing really comes to mind. I probably shouldn’t mess with it anyway, considering what happened the last time I... the last time Sweetie Belle used it.

“Am I good at doing magic?” I ask suggestively, uncrossing my eyes and looking back at Apple Bloom again.

Apple Bloom bites her lower lip adorably, saying, “Uhm, well not to offend you or ah mean you’ll get pretty good you just gotta practice and ah’m sure you’ll be right as rain.”

I give her a flat look. “That bad, huh?”

Apple Bloom blushes in her face, and, I can totally see her blush. Is her fur getting transparent or turning red or what’s going on there?

“I-it’s okay Apple Bloom, I don’t mind,” I reassure her hastily.

“Ah know how sensitive you are ‘bout it–”

“No really, it’s okay!” I say, then catch myself. Wait, what if Sweetie is supposed to get upset? Is she embarassed about it? The show never said!

“If you insist, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom says a little uneasily. In the silence that follows I look up at the slats on the sides of the cart.

“Hey, can you lift me up so I can see over the cart?” I ask hopefully.

I spend most of the time watching from my awkward perch, with my front hooves hooked over the slats of the cart, which Apple Bloom had to help me up into. She really has been just great, even staying with me in the cart the past hours. She’s not just doing it for my sake of course, as even her short filly legs tire out quickly trying to keep up the pace of the taller ponies. She told me as much after I noticed her jumping down to run around them playfully but always returning to the cart before her pace had settled to any level of stability. It must suck to be a foal on a forced march, if there wasn’t a cart you could rest in, or a sister you could rest on.

The three pegasi, including Rainbow Dash, are very easy to miss, since they keep a holding pattern in the sky most of the time, high enough where it’s hard to make them out. They occasionally fly down to check on the cart but seem perfectly at home up there in the sky. The two ponies pulling the cart, green and red, both mares and both earth ponies, infrequently chatter with each other about what they’re going to get for the return trip, and what their plans are for the summer. The rest of the entourage walks in a loose circle accompanying the cart, with Twilight Sparkle and others up front, and Rarity and Applejack and one other pony behind, strange ponies to either side.

Beyond them, down the path, I can see distantly approaching buildings, as we pass beyond the orchard. The land to the left now is dry, rocky and desertlike, a striking contrast to the continually dense forest on the right. Our path seems like a delimiter for these disparate biomes, but looking down I can see the dry flatland is on both sides of the path, and to our right it just sort of ends with burgeoning tufts of grass, and then abruptly trees so thick, the distance underneath them is too dark to see. The town I can see runs right up to the edge of the forest, but the buildings are definitely built on the more open desert land.

As we come closer to the town, a possible hitch in my hopes for a quiet life comes up: railroad tracks.

As much as I may disparage the nature of humans regarding noise, it’s actually a very new phenomenon, even among humans. Before the ubiquity of automobiles, not that I was there to verify this, but there wouldn’t even be ambient noise back then, much less deliberate noisemakers roaring by for no purposes other than to fill the air with sound.

So, even though the cartoon show had a quiet and serene world, the ponies in it may be just as vulnerable to noise pollution as we are. Maybe they just haven’t yet had the technology and marketing that made noise socially normative. Emphasis: yet. But it started with humans, with the railroads, so the railroad can tell me a lot about what the future holds for ponies.

The ponies slow past the the point where the tracks would cross over the road, if the tracks didn’t end. The tracks end just before they reach the road, though. The cart rattles to a halt at that point. There’s a train station at the end of the line here looking strangely familiar. It’s a square wooden building painted smoky blue, with a brown wood sign on top that has a picture of a train engraved or etched into it, and a bell to ring for when the train arrives, as well as a public outhouse on the right.

“Oh I thought we would never arrive,” Rarity says behind me. “I think I shall fall fast asleep the moment I am on the homeward train.”

“You’re even more in a hurry to get home than I am!” exclaims Applejack beside her.

“But of course!” Rarity responds enthusiastically, “I can’t wait one more minute for dear Sweetie Belle to get the medical attention she desperately needs!”

“Um... it’s not that desperate,” I say trying to diffuse her enthusiasm, but all to no avail. Rarity practically flounces over the tracks trotting up to the train station, and I can do fuck all to follow her because whatever benevolent god threw me into this situation didn’t think to teach me basic four legged locomotion. I watch her engage with the ticket master, feeling despondent, sad that my adventure and life are so quickly being ended by the love of one’s older sister. I wish I had an older sister like that myself. Or at least someone who cared about me. But eh, bygones. Not like anyone would miss me when I get exorcised or whatever.

...

Crap, now I’m crying. Trying to suck it up just isn’t working. I’m a little unicorn filly, a girl, and I’m even more helpless than a babe. I’m just in the way of everyone who really loves Sweetie Belle.

“Sweetie Belle, what’s wrong?” Apple Bloom whines beside me. She hasn’t even left the cart, before I go and have an emotional breakdown. I wipe at my eyes furiously saying, “I’m okay! There’s nothing wrong! I’m just–” and then my voice just cracks and I don’t trust myself to continue trying to talk. What finally gets me out of this funk is the sight of Scootaloo, just her head hanging down over the canopy with her short little purple mane dangling down, looking across at me with concern. Her pupils narrow when she sees that I see that she sees me, and she jerks her head up out of sight.

Hah, Apple Bloom was right. Scootaloo is so guilty about this, that she’s shy as a kitten.

“I’m just scared that when I get to the hospital I’m not going to be okay,” I tell Apple Bloom carefully. “It’s just irrational, there’s no reason I can say for feeling like this.” God I love being technically honest.

“Well, maybe we could stall her somehow?” Apple Bloom says thoughtfully. Huh I didn’t take her for being a tricksy pony. Then again, these three did seem to get halfway across the country without supervision, or permission. Should I trust her to have an innate grasp of the art of subtlety? She’s just a little kid though, she can’t possibly have earned the sheer amount of sociopathic cynicism that a lonely adult can. And I sure don’t want her to have that. Not now, not at age 97.

Rarity solves my dilemma quite handily. It’s easy to hear her, even from this far away, shouting at the ticket master at the top of her lungs, “No train until tomorrow?!!”

I purse my lips, trying not to break out in a smile, saying, “I guess that solves that problem.” Apple Bloom fails to not break out into a smile.

“You shouldn’t be so scared of hospitals though, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom says to me with a note of concern, “They’re all ponies who want nothing more than to make you well again! Don’t you want to remember?”

“Well...” I say reluctantly, “I do want to be able to walk again.”

Apple Bloom just answers with a “Hmm,” dropping to her haunches in thought.

The Dodge Terminal Forest Lodge is the building on the border of the forest, made from the trees it’s practically a part of. I wonder if ponies ever heard of a fire code. But, they probably have a different way to deal with it. Rarity helps carry me inside, with hopefully little embarassment to herself. (Of course I remain immune to ridicule, to the point of absurdity.) Then she goes off with the others who don’t have more permanent lodging. That’s pretty much the Three Sisters, and a grey green pony who I don’t recognize.

On the ground floor of the lodge is a large well lit room, with a fireplace and sunlight pouring in through the west windows. It’s got the smell of warm pine, and it’s probably the first time in my life I’ve ever been able to enjoy that pleasant smell without having an allergy attack. There are a few ponies walking in and out, travellers mostly. More than one of them have some sort of compass rose cutie mark. The floor is smooth and sanded, which is good considering I have not many options other than sitting on it right now.

Of course me sitting there on the floor, and looking at cutie marks, means I’m getting a really good look at a whole lot of asses, from low enough that the tail doesn’t cover up anything. It wasn’t a possibility from up on the cart, but down here? These magic ponies from the show all walk around like they got ginger stuffed up their butts, generally carrying their tails in a high arc, and that doesn’t leave anything to the imagination at all. Of course, absolutely nopony is giving one single fuck about this aside from me. It’s really not as bad as I expect though. It’s worse.

Oh sure, everypony looks beautiful from head to tail, don’t get me wrong, and I have no moral objection to the mares just blithely walking around with a perky little... slot for lack of a better word protruding from between their butt cheeks. It’s the same color as their fur other than a slight bit of pink mottling, not huge in proportion with their asses or anything. Their assholes aren’t huge either though, just... present slightly above the sort of envelope they got between their legs. Really, it’s about as conservative and understated as blatantly explicit ponies could be. The only problem is looking at them is starting to make me recognize the sensations I’m feeling in my own butt plopped down there against the floor.

So nope, not gonna look at mare butts, very bad idea, nope nope nope, making me think of myself in ways I absolutely am not comfortable with. So instead I focus on the few stallions, who have an equally apparant but conservative setup that I’m considerably more familiar with. Their balls tuck neatly against their pelvis on either side of the root of their penis, which remains entirely folded up behind a neat sheath, and said root curves smoothly up from there to where the asshole is, in both genders, close to the base of the tail. The trouble now is, looking at stallions is making the setup I’ve got between my legs even more apparant, and harder to ignore.

So, I end up pretty much gobsmacked, trying not to make my face flush, and trying not to make my ...other things flush either, yet simply unable to tear my eyes away. I wish I was a fly on the wall, because at least then I could appreciate this beautiful parade of posteriors without feeling myself as a participant in it. (OK full disclosure there are like 6 strange ponies in the room total, but that’s six more crotches than I’m used to having access to.)

Don’t get me wrong, I feel so much better about what I’m seeing than if I had the horrific experience of being dropped into a universe of ponies with no genitals at all, and I’m just tickled pink with the idea, the abstract idea at least, that I get to feel what a girl feels, no matter what her species is, but to actually experience it... I’m just feeling a little shell shocked right now.

Thus I feel a great sense of relief as my– as Sweetie’s friends come over to see me. Apple Bloom is pretty much pushing Scootaloo across the floor, despite the pegasus’s protests. Once Scootaloo sees me see her, Scootaloo stops fighting being pushed forward. She jumps up on four hooves with a catlike grace, half closing her eyes and looking aside disinterestedly, trying so hard to be cool and aloof as she walks up to me casually.

“So,” Scootaloo says, “I hear you’re still having trouble walking, and can’t sneak up on me and hug me or anything, and say it’s okay.” She rambles quickly in her rascally voice, “And I’m sorry and I know you’re not okay and sorry that was stupid of me to say it was my idea to go in after all and sorry I I can’t do this.”

Scootaloo spins on her heels to run off so fast, that I almost miss getting a single word in before she’s gone, but I’ve been around the block a few times, and I had a few seconds in her slow approach, so I at least have thought of enough to blurt something out.

“Scootaloo, it’s okay!” I shout, drawing her up short. “I mean, I know it’s not okay really, but it’s not your fault and it’s not that bad!”

“How is it not my fault?!” Scootaloo exclaims with sudden emotion, rounding on me as soon as the words leave my little unicorn mouth. “I was the one who said you should go in! You didn’t want to do it and I just had to make you!”

“It’s all our faults, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom says gently to her. Oh no, you’re not gonna make that mistake, apple teeny. I’m not going to let my whole semester of Introduction to Philosophy at that community college go to waste, especially not with the A for effort I got!

“No,” I say, with an authority that surprises even me, but I press on saying, “It’s nobod–it’s nopony’s fault at all, and I can prove it.” Apple Bloom actually laughs at that, making me frown saying, “I’m serious!”

“You can’t prove a feeling,” Scootaloo says discouragingly. “Did you hit your–um, I mean–”

“You don’t even feel like it’s your fault Scootaloo,” I point out matter-of-factly, “You just think you have to feel that way.”

“Well what’s the difference!” she accuses back at me.

“Scootaloo, uh...” I say to her halting to collect my thoughts. “You are a real um, adventuresome pony,” I venture, “You like to do exciting and cool things, and that makes you exciting and cool. That’s why I um... why ponies like you, and it’s why you like Rainbow Dash. You like exploring and adventure and challenges, and that’s a good thing about you, right?” Dear GodCelestia, it’s so awesome to be able to tell these ponies why they’re so awesome.

“I... guess so?” Scootaloo says, looking taken aback by probably what’s the longest utterance I’ve made so far.

“She kinda hit the nail on the head there, Scoots,” Apple Bloom says frankly, turning to me and asking in a more inquisitive tone, “You sure you have amnesia?”

I can’t not blush at that, because they think I sound like I’m their old friend, not a weird outsider. “I–I really do, I promise,” I say uneasily, “I’m just trying my best to remember what I can.”

“Ah frankly don’t even know what it is you don’t remember,” Apple Bloom drawls out in her cutely cheery childlike tone of voice.

“Well, don’t ask me!” I say in a jovial lilt.

...well it was supposed to sound like I’m joking. See? Scootaloo gets it, Apple Bloom. You can snicker too, you know.

“I don’t remember going into the cave, so I can’t say for sure,” I admit, “But if you told me to go in, you probably wanted to find something or make something cool happen or ask for help, and all those are good things. They’re not faults!”

“But I put you in danger,” Scootaloo protested acidly, “And your memory, and... and look at you. You can’t even stand up!” I wonder if she realizes how mean she sounds, while trying to apologize and be sympathetic. I know she didn’t mean to remind me, but it still hurts to hear about my problems. But, I have a point to make here. These fillies were not going to have to suffer from this particular poison of insecurity, if I can help it. My sister back home can go fuck herself. (She sure never fucked anyone else, ha!)

“The reasons you did that, they were not because of anything wrong with you,” I insist calmly, “They weren’t faults. They were ...” shit I don’t know the opposite of the word fault. “...not-faults.” Smooth. I conclude, “Therefore, it can’t be your fault that caused it. It was just an accident.”

They don’t seem to understand what I’m getting at, so I repeat, “It’s not your fault.”

“Well... maybe... if I had listened when they said not to go there, and that it was dangerous,” Scootaloo countered with difficulty. “But I didn’t, because I never listen. And that’s a fault!”

I shake my head. “Could you still be as cool or ...adventuresome if you always did what you were told?” I say sweetly like a spider laying web. “Is um... Peppermint Twist,” I shoot for the moon, “As cool as you are?”

“No!” Scootaloo exclaimed hotly. She actually blushed then and lifted her hoof in a cute self conscious way saying, “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with her I wasn’t making fun of her or anything just–”

“I know,” I emphasize to her, “She makes really nice candy and she’s really helpful and ...stuff, but she’s not as awesome as Rainbow Dash, or Scootaloo.”

Scootaloo kept right on blushing, saying, “So, what’s your point?”

“Not listening was wrong. You found out that was true because...” I reached a hoof to tap it on my head clumsily. “...this. But if you had listened then you wouldn’t be here at all. You would be back at your home somewhere, making candy or something else, and somep-pony else would be here telling me to go explore instead. So, not listening was bad, but... it was part of something that’s good overall, so it’s still not a fault. Just a...” oh, right!

“A qui҉rk!” I say with a smile.

Dear Jesus God Almighty—I mean—Dear Neopolitan Sunny Delight, I totally just squeaked right then, didn’t I.

“That’s what you’re sayin’?” Apple Bloom says with a raised eyebrow. I grit my teeth in uncomfortable silence before she adds, “...well at least amnesia didn’t make you any weirder.” Whew, safe.

“No, no it helped,” Scootaloo says to Apple Bloom. “...a lot...” she mutters embarassedly. “But um,” she says loudly again, “So it’s never anypony’s fault when anything bad ever happens?”

Oh the schools of philosophy who have fought over that needlessly for centuries, Scootaloo. “When it’s something broken about you that’s not good at all,” I say as plainly as I can, “Then it’s your fault, and you need to get better. Like a crack. Otherwise it’s not.”

Might as well rely on my old example. Apple Bloom might get a kick out of it, if her special talent is what the “this is your special talent dammit” episode claimed. “If you can’t hammer a board because the nail is bent, then it’s the nail’s fault,” I say smoothly, “If you can’t because the hammer handle is cracked, then it’s the hammer handle’s fault. And it’s just the same with peo–onies.”

“Peonies?” Scootaloo sounds out uncomprehendingly.

“I meant ponies,” I say a bit discomfited.

“Ponies are a lot more complicated than a hammer...” Apple Bloom cautions me.

“I know,” I admit, “But that doesn’t change what a fault is. It’s just... more complicated.”

Our moment of quiet contemplation (also known as a moment of not being able to think up any good retorts) is interrupted by a familiar, doubly familiar now, voice behind me.

“Alright every pony, it looks like we’re all set for the night!” Rarity says clopping up to the three of us. She cheerfully adds, “So how about we all go and take a bath!”

The three responses to this are:
“Ugh...”
“Aww!”
(gasp)

Can you guess which one mine was?
> The Ordeal
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With some negotiations with the concierge, there are now two rooms waiting for us. One for me, Rarity and Scootaloo, and the other for Apple Bloom and her sister. On occasion, Rainbow Dash moonlights between the two rooms, but she has a long term residence over wherever Twilight was. The room I’m in is slightly larger than the other one, with two beds, though one was more of a cot than a bed, really. That means the odd filly gets to stay in my room, and that means that, while Apple Bloom and her sister cleaned off in the other room, me and Scootaloo both have to take a bath... together.

Thankfully Scootaloo seems to have gotten over her avoidance of me, though she is still suspicious about the bathtub. Suspicious is the best way I could describe it. Not outright refusing, but eyeing it like a potential enemy and not as much expressing exuberant delight as I am, every time I fail to contain my enthusiasm. The bathtub itself is... not very nice actually. It stands up on four sturdy legs, a little dingy and discolored, but the inside is smooth and sparkling clean. I watch with utter fascination as Rarity turns the taps with her magic, adjusting the ratio of hot and cold from the spigot. No, really. Utter. Fascination.

Magic is reeeeeeeeal.

I should explain that I am not just witnessing a pretty light show. It is... well, when the knobs wreathed in Rarity’s magic twist and turn, there are little ripples in some kind of fluid alongside the air, like overlapping it but not. Some kind of pervasive energy field magic ...thing? What’s utterly fascinating is I can’t see it with my eyes. Closing my eyes doesn’t affect my perception of the ripple things at all. Even with my eyes closed I can still fully ...feel the distance?... to the slight changes in strength and pressure as they interact with my... wow.

“Uh, Sweetie...” Scootaloo says next to me in a concerned tone.

“Hmm?” I say not looking away from the indecisive unicorn’s fiddling with the faucetry.

“She’s just... drawing a bath. You remember that, right?”

“Oh! Um.”

I’m blushing again. I turn to look at Scootaloo, surprised for a moment when I can’t see her, then blinking my eyes open. In demonstration, I reach up with a hoof to my forehead, exploratively. Tap. Yeah, that’s my horn alright. Tap tap. Heh that’s feels weird. Oh right, don’t forget: worried friend.

“It’s weird,” I say to her ardently, “I think I can feel what Rarity is doing, with the spigots, from all the way over here... with my horn!”

“Huh,” Scootaloo says, her face flatly noncommital. “That’s definitely a unicorn thing, so I dunno.”

“I don’t really... remember how good I was at ...unicorn things,” I say, fishing for information, “I think not very good though, right?”

Scootaloo frowns, looking aside. “They were saying the big magic thing you got stuck in might have made your magic a lot better,” she says cheerlessly. Really she’s the very picture of self doubt and loathing. I can’t help but wonder why, or what I could say to make her feel better.

“That would be nice,” are the words I eventually settle on, looking unconcernedly at the underside of my candy white hoof. I add nonchalantly, “I’m tired of being the only one of us left who couldn’t do something special.”

I have to hold back a smirk at how it actually leaves Scootaloo sputtering to answer, so much so that she doesn’t even flinch when Rarity flings her into the tub. Man, ponies have scruffs! I don’t feel any pain, even when Rarity lowers me more slowly to make sure I don’t fall over, by my scruff into the bath water. The bath is... I I can’t even. But ponies have scruffs. Ponies are awesome. Horses suck!

I feel tension I didn’t even know I had melting away as I descend into the steamy bath water. My eyes go distant with the embracing heat seeping deeply into my skin, sloughing away the dust and detrius and loosing the clumped hairs on my hide to wave freely in the water. “God I love baths,” I murmur dreamily. It’s waist deep water, and by waist deep I mean that standing on four legs brings it up almost to my whithers. If I crouched down I would be up to my nose in warm bath water.

“What about cod?” Scootaloo says in my ear. Uh oh.

So I answer, “It’s a big... silly... fish,” taking out my shoulders to shrug at her. Scootaloo responds by splashing me in the face. I deserved that, even if she doesn’t know why. What I don’t deserve is the parade of body products that descend magically from above, as Rarity prepares to do her best to ensure that I look like I’ve never been anywhere outside of a beauty parlor for the duration of my young life. Okay fine, it isn’t honestly that bad, but it is frustrating not to be able to bathe myself. In fact I really shouldn’t be complaining, because with how good my luck has been since awakening, it’ll probably turn out that soap is a lot healthier for ponies than it is for naturally oily human beings. Or something ridiculously convenient like that.

Rarity uses two kinds of soap for my body. The first one is just soap, but the second one smells much nicer, sort of like sarsaparilla. Honestly my coat seems very good at repelling dirt naturally, ala Sisterhooves Social scene, but I know how much attention Rarity pays to form above function, and really it isn’t that bad, just redundant. Certainly not itchy, dry and sneezy like my old reaction to soap. Plus the bubbles are kind of fun.

What’s really fascinating is how Rarity uses her magic to float the sponge around, a natural sea sponge it looks like, not a softer plastic one, but it doesn’t hurt to scrub against my skin, real nice actually. I wonder if I’m supposed to call it skin or hide? But... the way the magic pulls the sponge back and forth in the air is just... well, I already described it but it’s really cool. It tingles whenever the field brushes against me too. Rarity gets all over my back, and scrubs up underneath my chest and chin, whatever isn’t in the water pretty much, and then moves onto my hair.

I don’t catch the kind of shampoo Rarity uses, though I remain skeptical if there is a lot of variation in soap besides soap and “hair soap.” Her icy blue aura fluffs up the soap into a light foam that lifts my hair up. I wonder how she’s going to get my tail? I take a look at my tail under the woah nelly that water is filthy. Were we really that dirty? I can’t even see my tail below the water’s surface!

It occurs to me that in order for me to have been thrust into Sweetie Belle’s position, the Crusaders would have had to make it all the way out here in the first place, with cramped dirty spaces most likely, and not a single chance to bathe. A hoof comes over my forehead, and I look up just as a jug of bath water pours over my head. I guess we really were that dirty. My coat looks a lot whiter after the water washes away all the soap. Having shielded my eyes from soap suds, Rarity continues to lift her hoof up above my horn to push my dripping bangs up away from my face. She certainly knows how to bathe a filly. I can’t help but feel cared for, if she’s going to treat me like this!

“Your turn, Scootaloo,” Rarity says melodically. “Whatever,” Scootaloo says in a defeated tone, “Just–” and then Rarity is squirting soap on her and rubbing it in with magic. Scootaloo doesn’t protest that much, but when Rarity gets to her back, Scootaloo rears back, saying irritably, “Hey, watch the wings!”

“Oh don’t be that way, Scootaloo,” Rarity says admonishingly, “Your wings are filthy! Let me just... hey, stop... stop wiggling so much!” Wait, no she’s–!

“Hey!” I verbally step in, “Rarity.”

Rarity pauses in accosting Scootaloo with a sponge and looks at me querulously. “I’ve forgotten...” I say timidly and a bit slyly, “Do pegasus feathers need to be oiled?” I haven’t forgotten anything of course, but this sleight of word technique should be old hat to you by now.

“Well of course they–” Rarity starts to say, then looks at the soapy sponge held hovering in her magic. Her gaze darts to Scootaloo and she says, “Oh, oh dear. I’m... I’ll have to... good catch Sweetie Belle! I’m sorry dear I’ll just go fetch your um, I’ll go find somepony.”

With a ploonk the bathtub drain comes out, the chain lifted up in Rarity’s magic, and this immediately causes Scootaloo to startle away from it. All that soapy dirty water starts to drain away noisily. “I’ll be back before that empties,” Rarity assures the both of us. Then she turns and trots away. I can’t see where she’s going, as I’d have to drag myself up to see over the edge of the bathtub. Easier to just slump against the floor of the bathtub bonelessly.

In the meantime, Scootaloo’s kind of manuvered herself onto the other side of me, eyeing at the drain with mildly concealed alarm. I look at her curiously, then a light dawns in my eyes too. I remember doing that when I was a kid! And I also remember what helped too.

“Hey Scootaloo, look at this!” I announce, and then I splash my hoof into the water, waving it over the drain as the suction pulls it downward. Scootaloo is looking at me now with a shocked expression, not the drain. I manage to flop my body over entirely onto the drain as she blurts,

“No, no don’t–!”

And with a slosh I’m on my side, completely blocking off the drain. The suction pulls a thin current of water through the fur underneath me. “Hehe, oops,” I lie bashfully. “Can you help me up?” I ask her, holding out a frail, needy hoof. Scootaloo grabs my hoof right away, and pulls me up, the suction tugging at me a bit before the drain resumes emptying. It doesn’t get noisy until I’m entirely off of it though, where the whirlpool can form.

“Be careful Sweetie! You could get hurt!” Scootaloo chides me, and I just shake my head saying,

“No you can’t. It’s not strong enough, see?” I stick my hoof into the whirlpool again, disrupting it and the noise, while the water goes down around me. Scootaloo watches with fascination, and her own hoof sneaks out slowly to bump against mine too, jostling for position over the sucking drain. The look of relief on Scootaloo’s face makes me feel so good I just have to laugh, and she laughs too in her raspy tones, and soon we’re both laughing and splashing water at the drain to try to make it go down faster.

“I didn’t know bathtubs sucked so little,” Scootaloo tells me after the water has finished draining and we’re sitting dripping in an empty tub.

“They suck at sucking,” I agree. That makes her laugh again.

“How did you know though?” Scootaloo says incredulously. “You just stuck your hoof in it!”

“The water wasn’t very high...” I say with a note of hesitation in my voice. “It can’t have sucked any harder than all that water weighed.”

“Rainbow Dash told me to stay away from drains in pools and stuff. She says they’re dangerous!” Scootaloo told me in an accusatory tone.

Well duh. “Well duh,” I tell her. “Rainbow Dash could probably lift this entire bathtub, but could she lift a whole pool full of water? Plus even if the suction in a pool doesn’t hurt you, you could get stuck all the way under water.”

“So, if there’s a lot of water,” Scootaloo speculates, “Then drains are dangerous. But if it’s just a bathtub then they’re safe?”

“I don’t think there should be any drains in pools ever,” I add quietly, “I wouldn’t swim if there was one.”

“You wouldn’t swim, period, Sweetie,” Scootaloo says jokingly. Wait, what?

“Hello dears, sorry for the wait,” Rarity interrupts, coming back into the bathroom with an accompaniment. It’s... not Rainbow Dash it’s a pink pegasus with a curly cornflower blue mane who I don’t recognize. The new mare smiles down at Scootaloo saying in a very Canadian accent,

“Don’t worry dearie we gotcha covered here, now hold still while I,” and the mare noses under one of her own wings, pulling out some sort of scrunchy cloth in her mouth. “Juf lif’ em,” she says, getting on the edge of the tub and craning down to slip the cloth over Scootaloo’s outstretched wings. Oh I get it. It’s like a... shower cap. It’s elastic at the bottom closing around the base of Scootaloo’s wings. The filly doesn’t seem very familiar with it, looking at it curiously and wiggling her wings inside.

It looks like the mare is on staff, if the red vest she’s wearing is any indication. “That should do it,” she says to Rarity, “Just return it at the front desk when you’re done, and don’t forget to make sure the filly gets a good dust bath!”

Rarity visibly cringes at that saying, “Dust... bath. Yes. I’m sure we’ll get right on that.”

The ...maid? The maid leaves, and Rarity recovers her composure quickly,  saying to Scootaloo as she resumes scrubbing the filly, “I simply cannot believe I completely neglected such an important aspect of beauty, and health! My experience with attending to pegasi has been... limited due to extreme reluctance to participate, you have to understand.”

“I thought her giant hat looked good,” I call from down here in the peanut gallery.

“Oh Sweetie, you remember something??” Rarity says, joyfully turning to me with some measure of excitement. It breaks my heart how I’m going to have to ration out what I know, but I know so little that I just can’t tell her everything I remember.

“I only remember one time with Rainbow Dash,” I say slowly, “With the big uhm... fancy wig. It had a lot of curls on each side.”

“Oh, you... saw that did you?” Rarity mutters self consciously. “Just a bit of experimentation you know, nothing I intended to commit myself to. It rather failed to appear as a cloud bank as I had intended. You must have seen what was left of it in my work room once you returned from the field trip to the zoo.”

Wow Rarity... thanks for the save. I have got to remember not to make show references where I didn’t know Sweetie Belle was actually there. If she realized Sweetie saw something she couldn’t have been around to see, then it’s all over for me!

“Yeah...” I agree noncomittally.

Rarity puts down the sponge, hangs the plug chain up on a little holder for it, then turns on the faucet lightly. She adjusts the temperatures again but not to fill up the tub this time, just levitating over a golden metal jug she has grasped in her magic to leave it underneath the faucet on top of the drain, slowly filling up with water. Her magic moves the jug to pour over the soapy pegasus, rinsing her clean with, once again, a hoof pressed protectively underneath Scootaloo’s bangs to ensure no soap gets in her eyes. Scootaloo also looks a lot more brightly colored beneath the accumulated dust and grime sloughing off her back.

Finishing rinsing off Scootaloo, “Here we go, get on your backs dears!” Rarity says cheerfully, levitating out her sponge once more. “Time to wash your bottoms!” Scootaloo flips easily to her back, but I’m too busy being once again astonished at Rarity’s orders. Rarity wouldn’t really... is she going to clean us down there? Is that normal in pony society? I barely even touched myself down there, and I’m going to get to get it soapy and scrubbed and–??

“Do you need any help, dear?” Rarity asks me with a sad look in her eyes. Blinking like a lost cow, I shake my head. I can flop on my side at least, and then I just squirm around so that my belly is in the air.

“Nope, doing fine!” I say entirely too chipperly. I’m calm though. Perfectly calm!

Filling up her jug once more, Rarity drops the sponge in it with a good amount of soap, and turns off the faucet, acquiring herself (you guessed it) a soapy sponge!

As for myself, I’m torn whether to look excitedly at my own belly, or to look excitedly at the pumpkin orange one right over there. Scootaloo even has her legs sticking in my direction, which you’d think would give me a front row seat to the Hanson Express. But, either way I can’t really see anything, because my belly is too big, and her leg is in the way. I crane my neck just ever so slightly, just out of platonic curiosity, trying to find out what Scootaloo has—wet sponge lands on my chest with a plop.

Rarity’s magic lights up around the sponge on my belly, and my candy white chest fur gets thoroughly lathered and scrubbed. It’s pure torture the way she moves slowly from my chest down my belly, never quite getting low enough to find out what it feels like down there, humming a pleasant tune all the while doing so. Rarity finally pauses critically and then gives one single swift swipe between my legs, too fast for me to even register what I’m feeling down there. Skin and scratchy sponge and soap and... did I feel anything else? And then she’s busily working shampoo into my tail.

I bite my lip, beginning to consider that if I’m dead, and this is the afterlife, then I may not have made it to Heaven after all. I lay there all soapy and unsatisfied, while she scrubs Scootaloo to a lather. I can’t help but notice Scootaloo takes the sponge in her own hooves to do the ...lower scrubbing. I wonder how much I should be able to take care of myself, that I can’t due to being new at pony? And of course the one time Scootaloo’s leg sweeps aside during the scrubbing, there’s a big lathery foam all over her lower area. It’s okay though, I shouldn’t be looking anyway. I’m not that fucked up! ...am I?

Once we’re both as scrubbed clean as we can be without accruing minor abrasions, Rarity turns the faucet on again. Not to fill up the bath this time as she leaves the drain out, but Scootaloo knows what to do and jumps up, sticking her bottom under the faucet and washing all the soap off her body. The pegasus filly pulls off the shower cap with her teeth and just goes to town. It’s actually really cool seeing Scootaloo shaking her wings and splashing under there. You can think of her as just another pony until she spreads those wings and shows how birdlike she can be.

I don’t have nearly as easy a time of course, but I lunge underneath the faucet as enthusiastically as I can. I’m very eager to get the soap off, and I want to do as much as I can to help and not be a bother. Still, Rarity does have to pick me up more than once, and I probably shouldn’t have risked a concussion on the slippery bathtub in my initial awkward lunge. But all goes well, and in the afterbath Scootaloo and I are both wrapped up in ridiculously fluffy towels.

I’m starting to feel really bad now though. Like, everything is just too nice for me. It’s this towel. I’ve never had a towel like this before. Even if I did have a towel like this, I could never be small enough to fit under it and clutch it around me like a eskimo hut. I didn’t do anything to deserve this, there’s no reason it should even exist! Things aren’t supposed to be nice! They’re only supposed to be sad and hopeless, nothing but decay until you finally fall into total oblivion.

Why do I have nice things now? This can’t even be real. I must be just some kind of fake thing that someone wishes they had but can’t ever have. But everything is so amazingly vivid, the colors, the architecture, the motions of the ponies in front of me, the fluff of the towel rubbing against my damp fur, pressing down my curly locks. I just can’t deny what I’m feeling. It has to be real! You just can’t make this shit up! I can feel the burning of my eyes from the tears falling from them. I can feel every inch of my... of Sweetie Belle’s adorable pony body as if it were my own. This towel feels so good to wrap myself in that it hurts.

Rarity nestles down and wraps her warm body around me and my towel, asking me what’s wrong, and telling me that she’s there for me, and that I’ll be running around like my old self in no time at all, and I can barely even pay attention to her words. I’m just so cold inside, I don’t feel like anything could warm me up. I’m Sweetie Belle, surrounded by her loving, surrogate mother, in the safety of a warm wooden well lit building, wrapped in the fluffiest towel I’ve ever seen in my life, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so lost, or alone.

I don’t recall when I went from frantic sobbing, which made me sob more from the guilt I felt for being able to sob, from that, to succumbing to exhaustion. My memory is foggy beyond that point, though I recall being carried, a feeling of relieving tension, and the sweet taste of water on my throat. When I do stir awake groggily, the grey light of early morning is peeking in through the shutters. As soon as I realize I’m awake, I let my head fall back down disconsolately to the bed. What even was that last night? It was me screwing up bad, that’s what.

I don’t care how much you try to call it amnesia, there was no rational excuse I could have for breaking down like that. I’m even trembling now as I think of it. My emotions are a lot more raw than I’m used to, no doubt a consequence of becoming the little girl. But that doesn’t excuse crying over a towelling! I don’t even think they’d understand even if I told them everything. What I came from is just too alien for a resident of such an amazing world like this one to even comprehend. Maybe a crystal pony could come close, depending on how terrible it was what they went through with King Sombra, but with Twilight still a unicorn I couldn’t be sure the Crystal Empire even exists yet.

To find out, I could ask for a snow globe, maybe...

But that gets to the heart of my problem. Next to me on the bed, the huge smooth form of Rarity sleeps quietly on her side. On my other side, Scootaloo is knocked out on her back a teeny bit less gracefully. It looks like Scootaloo decided not to use the second bed in the room after all, not that I blame her. There’s plenty of room on this bed, and if Rainbow Dash wasn’t here that’d mean Scootaloo would have to sleep alone on that cot. Waking up in the early morning between the two of them gives me some time to think, and that gets me worrying.

With the quiet clarity of the morning light, I start to really think things through, and really, I don’t think these ponies would try to destroy me just because I’ve stolen some filly’s body, living a quasi life vicariously through her. I didn’t mean to, after all, and it’s not like I have anywhere else to go. They wouldn’t kill it kill it with fire, especially not with their dear Sweetie’s face pleading for me. No, what they’d do is worse. They’d try to send me home.

They’d probably think I was here to learn a lesson, like I needed to learn how everyone has their own special place and though I feel insecure, I know deep down that I’m needed back home where I belong. Even back home, people found it inconceivable that your home could be a fucking hole. Maybe they’d think that I need to learn the value of family and country and go home with medals and honors. Maybe they’d think that I’d just be too wracked with homesick grief to enjoy myself here. And then like a well meaning foster care system sends the itinerant child back to their abusive parents, they’d try to send me back. I’m fairly sure I... yes I’m sure I would rather die. At least here I’d have a chance at an afterlife.

And what if I did convince them that I hold no loyalty for my home or family? What could they see that as, other than a heartless monster who can be destroyed without regret? They don’t know what it’s like. My home is a dead world. Just a bunch of soulless idiots running around doing pointless shit and fighting over petty things. There’s nothing there waiting for me besides a failed life full of menial labor, a life that only ponies ever brought any light or meaning into. Nothing for me to do besides squatting around on that rock we call a planet, waiting for oblivion and wishing for things that can never be.

But how could they understand that, in this land where magic is real?

Maybe, just maybe, Applejack could understand. I identified with her story the most from the show, because it was a lot like mine. Get raised, have big ideas, get crushed by an uncaring society, sit there staring out the window waiting for a rainbow to come save you. Except she got her rainbow at like age 8, not age 37.

And let’s say this hypothetical pony did understand, and somehow decided to save me, and somehow did save me. What would I do then? I don’t have anyone who cares about me here any more than I had back home. I mean, ponies are awesome but, that’s not a universal solution to everything. Could I take care of myself here? Could I get a job, build a house and live out a simple life? Or would I just keep failing like I always do?

I just... I don’t want to have to stand by myself again. I want to be Sweetie Belle dammit, not background pony #7365 dragging around a cart of garbage. That’s all I’d ever be able to do, of course, since I have no skills and no talent. I don’t want to be that, and I don’t want to return home. I want to be Sweetie Belle, or like... Sweetie Belle’s twin sister who’s grown up together with her and hasn’t got any emotional baggage from being a living example of fail. So basically Sweetie Belle. I thought I could use that baggage, to be wiser and more grateful this time around, but now I’m not sure anymore. It’s just too hard to deal with what I am and, what I have been. I just want to be Sweetie Belle. I don’t want to be me anymore.

They’re going to ask why I’ve been crying, and I want to tell them but... but... I’m laying against a sleeping Rarity. Honest to gosh real pearly white unicorn Rarity. And she’s so warm. And Scootaloo is practically cuddled up against me, breathing softly in the morning light. And they love me they... they love Sweetie Belle, at least. I just can’t stand to lose them. I don’t want them to look at me like a stranger. Not them. Rarity and Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash and Apple Bloom and... and all the ponies who ever made my life a brighter place to live, however transiently. I don’t think I could bear to see them look at me like a stranger... like an intruder... or like a spy.

But what do I tell them, then?

I would think on it more, but that’s as far as I get before drifting off again, and next thing I know I’m waking up again. Rarity is nudging me with a hoof saying, “Good morning, Sweetie Belle.”

I rub at my bleary eyes, obediently mumbling, “G’morning, Rarity.” I can’t help but notice Scootaloo’s absence from the bed, as I open my eyes, looking up at Rarity standing by the bed, and looking around the room. How late is it?

“How would you like some breakfast, dear?” Rarity suggests to me, “And then perhaps you can go play with your little friends. That would be fun, won’t it?”

I look into Rarity’s eyes seekingly, and she looks back with a surprisingly unconcerned expression. Why isn’t she interrogating me? Sweetie Belle, why were you crying? Sweetie Belle, why was a fluffy towel bringing you to tears? Sweetie Belle what is going on with you that amnesia is not sufficient to explain? Sweetie Belle can you indicate on the doll where that brony touched you?

We stare blankly at each other until my stomach groans loudly. That makes me blush and smile guiltily and I say, “Thank you, that would be ...nice.” And actually I’m starting to feel excited at the prospect. Besides somehow dodging the bullet just now, I am totally hungry. I can’t help but wonder what they’ll serve. Am I going to be able to eat hay? How is that going to taste? Does cellulose taste better when you’re capable of digesting it? What about flowers?

Rarity helps me out of bed by standing beside it, and allowing me to stretch my arms around her neck, pulling myself onto her back again. She’s being so nice to me since I’ve awoken. The degree of effort to which she goes through for her sister’s sake is a lot more profound than the show ever made it out to be. She’s certainly not doing a good job of being worst pony right now. Perhaps it’s just Sweetie Belle, giving her such a scare like that, and Rarity will return to being more neglectful and egotistical later. I really don’t know if I would mind Rarity acting like that, as long as I can walk on my own when she does. But how she’s acting now is just heart wrenchingly giving.

The rooms-to-let take up the second story, so I get the odd experience of my ass going above my head, as I hold on tightly so as not to fall off, while Rarity confidently walks head first down the stairs. The smells hit me before we get to the bottom, and it’s glorious. It’s not actually any better than any breakfast I’ve smelled before, and may even smell a bit stale, but I sure am hungry enough to eat it all. What I smell is fruit, sweet glaze and ...coffee, oddly enough. I hope horseworld doesn’t have enslaved coffee bean farmers, like my old one did. And maybe yes it’s probably Sweetie Belle’s pony nose, and not the salad being especially fresh, but I can smell the salad!

It’s a genuine continental breakfast down there. Which makes sense, since this is basically a hotel and all, but I still haven’t seen one of these continental breakfasts in forever. Mostly because I haven’t stayed at a hotel in forever. Makes sense to have breakfasts like this at a hotel, because you can make a bunch of cheap food at once, that everyone eats. Not exactly the most luxurious thing, but it’s a surprisingly nice gesture that makes a vacation stay so much easier.

“Oh dear, it looks like Scootaloo has already...” Rarity murmurs, leading me to crane my head around to try to find the other ponies I might recognize. There’s Apple Bloom sitting with Applejack, eating food as fast as Applejack shovels it into her mouth, not just pastries but also a hearty salad and a big glass of juice. If she’s a tenth as hungry as I am... yeah she probably is. “We” were stowing away out here for who knows how long, and I don’t get the impression that little fillies had a lot of disposable income. Did these three really go all the way out there? I was barely getting a grasp of the distance involved, and this is already way beyond the level of just catching a train ride to the Crystal Empire.

But while Applejack is there, keeping Apple Bloom from gorging herself on pastries, Rainbow Dash isn’t anywhere near Scootaloo. Again. Rarity’s remark about Scootaloo comes because the little filly has balanced on her hindquarters a plate of pastries stacked taller than herself. Literally taller than herself. Just pastries. Scootaloo has a big cheesy self indulgent grin on her face as she wobbles obliviously forward, but I doubt she’ll keep that grin when she tries to finish eating that monstrosity. It’s actually making me less hungry, thinking of trying to eat all that.

“Well let’s just...” Rarity remarks to herself, her magic lighting up and a trio of plates levitating out of a plate dispenser tray. She snags a few big cantelope slices (don’t scream don’t scream don’t scream) a big helping of what looks like a bean salad with either no dressing or else vinagrette, and a few glasses of juice that was... completely transparent and bright pink. And not a single pastry. Then she lifts all the plates in the air and... looks at me draped along her hindquarters wistfully. Then she continues to levitate them along with the glasses of juice, walking daintily towards where Scootaloo has set her plate down on the table.

“Oh,” I murmur up there in realization, “Are you going to ask Scootaloo to share with us?”

Rarity chuckles underneath me, saying “My dear, I don’t think poor Scootaloo is going to have a choice.”

“Hello Scootaloo,” Rarity then says to the pegasus filly, who is already onto her third pastry, scarfing them down noisily with little fanfare. I can’t help but drool at the sight of the filly eating pastries, something I really really need to eat right now as soon as possible and–oh shoot, I almost drooled on Rarity! Rarity settles to the floor as I wipe my muzzle with my hoof, and I sit there for an awkward moment, before she clears her throat.

“You can get off now, Sweetie,” she says to me quietly. Oh. God I’m dumb.

I carefully slide off of her sideways. It goes a little better than when Apple Bloom “helped” and I just land on my side harmlessly with a squeak. By the time I drag myself up to the table level, and these tables are very low I should add. They’re nothing you’d need to sit in a chair to see over the edge of. As a filly, I have to pull myself up, but a grown pony could just sit , in front of it, belly down, legs folded, and be right at the level of her food. By the time I drag myself up to a standing position, there is already in front of me a plate brimming with bountiful greens and...ugh... cantelope. Rarity is looking pensively at Scootaloo, still eating, but my sister isn’t saying a word.

I look at my own plate and... those pastries Scootaloo has smell really good, but I’m too hungry to be very choosy at this point, so I just sort of stretch my neck forward and surround a leaf of some sort in my teeth, taking a little bite and chewing thoughtfully. I wake up to a scene of carnage: bloody salad parts everywhere, slain celery, eviscerated broccoli, baby carrots crying over the remains of their lifeless mother. Or something like that. I frantically shove my face into the greenery and eat everything.

How dare fiddleheads taste this good?!

Yeah I’m pretty damn hungry... about the only thing that draws me up short is the cantelope. I take an experimental nibble and oh god it still tastes like cantelope. I wash out the taste with a... noooo I can’t drink the juice, stupid hooves! I have to settle for getting the taste of cantelope out of my mouth by licking my foreleg until all I’m tasting is unicorn fur. (It doesn’t taste any different than any other horse’s fur. (Don’t ask how I know so much about the taste of horse fur.))

“Oh heaven’s no!” Rarity suddenly exclaims loudly, making me look up guiltily, but thankfully she’s exclaiming at Scootaloo, not me. “I seem to have forgotten to get a danish!” she says to Scootaloo urgently, “I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a little of yours, Scootaloo, just a piece?”

Scootaloo, who now has a queasy look on her face and a half eaten (how???) plate of pastries, shoves it away with a hoof saying, “Go ahead, take ‘em all.”

“Thank you dear,” Rarity says quickly, levitating the remaining six pastries and passing half of them to me. She then slides the third salad plate up to Scootaloo, and walks off quickly munching on a pastry hovering in front of her face. Scootaloo looks at the plate Rarity slid before her, then shoots Rarity an angry look as if she’s going to protest it. Then, without moving her glare at the retreating Rarity, Scootaloo lowers her head and takes some thick green leaf like a hosta in her mouth and starts chewing on it resignedly.

You wouldn’t believe how thick and fluffy these pastries are. And they crackle when you bite into them. You know how hard it is to cook a pastry that crackles? Really hard, that’s how! I pick one that looks kind of like a danish, with a thick cooked solid dollop of jelly in the middle of a puffy pastry ring, all covered with a white sugar glaze. Biting into it, the tingling sweetness floods my sinuses, and the warm buttery fluff surrounding the grain which seems to be composed of–

“Hay!” I exclaim.

“Whath?” Scootaloo says around a mouthful of chard, looking up at me.

“Theshs arh— ho’ on,” I say, chewing my mouthful as quickly as I can. When my mouth is clear I say, “These are made out of hay!”

Scootaloo gives me an odd look.

“Uh, oh I mean of course they are silly me, ha ha!” I utter frantically, bending down to take another sweet rich mouthful of... dry grass fibers. “’s gool!” I say exaggeratingly cheerful, though very honestly. It’s the best god damn dead grass I’ve ever put in my mouth. Scootaloo just takes my word for it.

So that explains where ponies are getting all their hay, and why they’re eating all those sweets! Well I certainly can’t complain. Luckily, I’ve got an advantage over most lost interdimensional aliens: my philosophy on trying new food. It’s something I’ve cultivated from very early in my childhood in case of being stranded on an alien planet. Far as I’m concerned, if it’s not making me throw up, then it’s not going to be a problem for me to eat. I am... admittedly kind of glad that I was a fan of my little pony though, not my little worm and beetle eating robin.

When I’m not too starving to pay attention, eating is still something of a surreal experience. You don’t really think about your mouth and insides when you aren’t eating. I can’t get the thought out of my head that, inside my soft marshmallowy exterior, I have genuine organs, a complex anatomy that I really know very little about. There’s something validating about eating, something that really lets you know this isn’t a dream, or some kind of virtual reality. It really makes sense, the old Greek legends of being trapped in Hades because you ate the food there, because of the stablizing influence that the act of eating seems to have on reality. As a wise man once told me long ago, it’s almost impossible to have an existential crisis during dinner. How does a desperate love for something that doesn’t exist, turn into living in something that does exist? I still haven’t got a clue. But chewing on this sweetened hay pastry certainly makes the reality of it undeniable.

The answers probably lie in that chamber I awoke in. But you know what? I honestly couldn’t give a fuck what the answers are! In fact, the farther away I am from those answers, the less involved I want to be in them. I feel sort of like a mouse who narrowly escaped a snap trap, and even if my mouse tail is a little shorter than it used to be, I’m going to be running very earnestly in the opposite direction of that trap. The mouse doesn’t need to know how the trap works to escape it, and likewise I don’t really care by what means I’ve been saved, because I have been and that’s what’s important. I’m going to do my best to make full advantage of that!

These pastries are making me really thirsty.

I look longingly toward my glass of juice, and throwing caution to the wind I hook my hoof around it, and bump it towards me as carefully as I can. With it in front of my nose I am able to stick my face down into it. I guess it’s a muzzle, not a face? But, I manage to submerge my nose...muzzle...thing in it, and gulp down a nice refreshing swallow of juice. I have no idea what kind of juice this is, but it’s delicious. It’s sort of citrusy, but more like a strawberry than an orange. It tastes kind of like strawberry lemonade, if strawberry lemonade came from a single fruit and wasn’t sweetened, but with a much lighter, milder taste to it, and maybe a hint of mango?

I can’t get very far past the first gulp, as the fluid level is below my nose at this point. Why don’t ponies have straws in this crazy universe? Oh wait, there’s a container of straws right over there. God I’m dumb. Scootaloo is accurately looking at me like I’m either an idiot or a lunatic. Blushing, I repeat my bumping action to get the straws over to me, then pinch one in my lips and pull it out, sticking it in my drink. Thirst quenched, I stick my face into the napkin on the table and rub it until the juice is cleaned off of it. Any lingering sweetness I can lick off my own lips. Suave as fuck.

The big crackling fireplace in the center of the common room isn’t the only source of light in the lodge this morning, with some sort of light fixtures in the ceiling casting a gentle glow around the room. The windows are still only weakly providing morning light. I look around for a clock, and there’s an analog one mounted up above the fireplace, with no numbers on it. ...great. I squint at the darn thing. Let’s see if the bottom is six, then seven eight nine, right so, wait that’s the long hand... did I mention I hate analog clocks without numbers? Okay so if they’re both the same way then that means it’s... 11am?! Oh no! That... no wait, 10am. It’s only 10am.

Still, considering how early I went to sleep last night, that’s... pretty late in the morning. I wonder why the light isn’t very bright outside. I wonder why I slept that long. I guess I didn’t get very much sleep on the cart? I don’t know. Brain warping takes a lot out of you?

“How did you learn about pegasus wings?” Scootaloo asks me, after I’m done with the first pastry.

“Hmm?” I ask, trying to remember if I’m supposed to remember something about that.

“In the bath,” she clarifies, “Rarity was gonna get them all soapy. I tried to tell her, but then you knew and she didn’t.”

“Oh, I was just guessing actually,” I tell her in all honesty. “I did learn about um...” how to put this... “Quills,” I realize. “They get all tangly and broken as the oil leaves them, so I thought maybe it was that way for all wings.”

Scootaloo’s voice drops in disappointment. “Oh I thought you knew pegasi oiled their, uhm” her sentence then drags to a screeching halt, as her eyes widen looking at me nervously, “Oh! I-I mean, not that I do it or anything but you know it’s just a thing that you know–”

“Oh my gosh!” I exclaim excitedly, my hooves going up onto the table as I lean forward, “You have wing glands?!”

Scootaloo looks like she’s trying to find some way to deny it, but she looks away and stammers out “I uh... yeah...”

“Sorry, I–” I give a short frustrated sigh, “Sorry that was very rude of me,” I say, settling back down to a half seated position. “I was just excited. I didn’t mean to make it weird.”

“It’s okay,” says Scootaloo, joking a bit forlornly, “Just means my flight feathers are coming in, after all.”

“Oh...” I say in an honestly disappointed tone. “Right... that.” Honestly, I’ve always been a fan of Scootachicken, even if it’s a hardship for her. Learning she was going to fly is therefore disappointing to me, because as much as it was a good thing for her, it brought to mind the reasons I felt that way, principle among them how far away the sky is from the other Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“Guess you’ll be spending a lot of time away from us then,” I mumble. I never wanted Sweetie Belle’s friends to move away and evaporate, like mine did. Apple Bloom won’t be moving any time soon but, she’ll be taking over the farm eventually. And if Scootaloo is going to flight camp, and flight school, and well... flying... Sweetie could end up alone. If there’s one thing I can’t stand more than living a lonely life myself, it’s the thought of a wonderful pony like Sweetie Belle suffering it.

Scootaloo blinks at me several times, then leans sideways on her elbow a bit and says, “Uh... no?”

My mental gears lock up and shift slowly, as I reconsider what it meant that she was saying. I’m fairly sure if I were a GPS trip planner I would be announcing “recalculating.” I didn’t want to pretend knowledge, but I don’t want to seem uncaring or clueless. What do I say then? “Well, it’s just,” I gesture helplessly, “You said flight feathers...”

Scootaloo looks at me worryingly, then answers with, “You haven’t forgotten that have you?”

I look at her blankly.

Scootaloo adds, “I don’t want to tell you again...” shrinking back and looking aside. I guess she really can’t fly. I wonder why? No, I don’t “wonder” why. I’m burning with the need to understand why and how, but... she just looks so sad. I can’t just start interrogating her over it on the spot.

“It’s fine,” I say smiling as kindly as I can. “I’ll probably remember it later anyway. I’m just... sorry for being greedy.”

“Sweetie, I gave you those pastries,” Scootaloo says with a disapproving look. “I took way too many.”

“Not the pastries!” I protest, “The um,” dammit I’m not going to harp on her for being a freaking chicken; it’s got to be embarassing as all hell! “You know...” I vacillate, “The, um... I’m just glad you won’t be going away or anything. It’s really good to have you as a friend! Even though that means...”

“Reeeally not following you, Sweetie,” Scootaloo says swirling her hoof pointed at her temple.

I look back at her a bit resentfully, blurting out, “So, where’s Rainbow Dash?”

God that was horrible. Why did I say that?!

“I dunno,” Scootaloo says tentatively, “Flying around somewhere I... guess?”

“S-sorry I... nothing,” I stutter out weakly.

“HO!” the door to the lodge bursts open, and in walks the stoutest mare I’ve ever seen shouting, “Is there any breakfast still?!”

“The lumbermares have returned!” a stallion announces from the kitchen. Oh no.

“We have need of your goodwill!” the lumber mare continues. Two other equally sturdy looking ponies are coming in behind her. Oh no. I wonder if they punch the trees down. “Our coin is good!”

“Your trust is earned!” comes the eager reply. 

A lumber town. Dodge Terminal is a lumber town. That means lumber. That means lumberjacks.

“Come on, mates!” the lumberpony says enthusiastically to the others, seven in total. The lead logger is most fearsome, like a brick wall of pony: an earth pony (of course) mare with a cherry blossom red mane and matching eyes that clash with her forest green coat, a short cut tail by her cutie mark of sturdy trees.

“Come on in and break some bread!” she hollers to her companions, “We have travelled long today, but still a long trip ahead. So let us drink our cares away!” Four of the others are mares in varying but all exceedingly high degrees of fitness, including a rather wirey looking unicorn, with a scuffed and dirty coat the same color as the leader’s hair, but a bright purple mane. The other two are...

One defies description. You could only describe as him as a brute of a stallion, but the laid back demeanor in which he ambles in and the warm glow in his deep blue eyes prevents any description in that regard. His purple hair would look girly on any other stallion, but not this one. It’s tightly curly, clipped short and neat, with little distinction between where his mane ends and his beard begins. He’s thrillingly fit, with a thick strength in his movements that give you the impression he could walk off with the entire lodge on his back, and not break a sweat.

“What news of the hinterwood?” says a waitress earth pony to him, coming out with a tray of foaming drinks balanced on her head. Certainly nothing I’d ever be allowed to drink.

“Its appetite is truly sated!” the stallion guffaws, “We collected what bounty we could, thus on to Baltimare so fated.” I find myself bobbing my head to the tune, despite myself. It’s really catchy!

The other stallion, also an earth pony, has strikingly piercing orange eyes that seem to pick up on everything. His bicolored pale green and yellow mane sticks above his head in thick rows of spikes. He has a serious expression, combined with a bountiful moustache skillfully twisted and tweaked away from his face, the kind of pony you don’t ask the same question twice. The mares are singing something, but I’m not really paying attention, because his naked muscles are flexing as he walks to his table and sits down and spears me with a sharp glance–oh fuck he sees me!

I blush and turn away... heck I’ve been blushing since they walked in. I–wait. Nononono...

Even with my eyes averted I can hear his voice, as penetrating as his gaze. “And barley, ale and cheese for me,” he sings in response to something I didn’t catch. “Let me tell you quite a tale. You’re lucky to hear it for free!”

With difficulty I tear my ears away. No, really. I have to reach up and pull them away from pointing in his direction, and wrap my hooves over my head, panic rising in my chest. OK OK I knew this was going to happen I know it’s cliche they’re just lumberjacks so of course they’re going to be fit as hell with rippling pectoral oh jeez I am not okay with this.

I wonder if anyone would notice if I surreptitiously slip a napkin under the table.
> Approach
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Aren’t you listening, Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo asks me in a sing-song voice, with a goofy smile, “What a man-colt, am I right? The crazy things this guy can tell, I could listen to him all night!”

“With due respect, I’ll pass today,” I sing to her uncomfortably, “I’m sure his story’s worth the money. I just don’t know how else to say it, but these stallions make me feel funny!”

“Don’t tell me Sweets, you’re into boys now?” Scootaloo sings with wide eyes, “You feel funny in your heart?”

“Lower,” sing I, and she counters.

“How? In your stomach?”

I laugh nervously, “Not exactly, but that’s a start.”

It’s the refrain and we’re both bobbing our heads to the music and wait, music? There’s... where did that pony get a tuba? What?

“Am I singing? Why’m I singing?!” I sing in alarm, the beat changing up a bit as I do so.

“’cause that’s how the song’s supposed to go?” Scootaloo sings, unnerved by my sudden reaction, no doubt bizarre from her perspective.

“These words, from where am I bringing them?” I sing bemusedly, completely caught off guard by this. How did I know what notes to sing? I was just singing any notes, and they were just right and how but what...

Scootaloo has an answer quickly, saying, “From your heart!”

“I know, I know.” I assure her... still singing. Darn it! The song then... passes us by as far as I can tell, because there are other ponies singing it now. I’m afraid to say a single word because I just know it’ll be back on me to sing again if I do. Heart songs... they have freaking heart songs here! Sweetie is going to be like a god if she ever figures out her talent!

...

I’m adamantly refusing to think that I might share her special talent along with her body.

Despite avoiding catching the attention of... whatever it is in my heart that’s singing, we both get roped into the chorus, singing



The road never ends. The day is long.
The trees calling me to sing their song.
The fire that cold, grows from the ground.
The sheltered sturdy walls, yet to be found.

They sing their wooden song into our hearts.
Their growth thick and long when it imparts
The greatest things we know and love.
Littlest toys, to the roof above.

They sing their song long after they fall.
The trees the flesh the lumberjacks collect.
Their fire shines to warm us all.
Their swarthy grace in our respect.



And the sad thing is, as easy as it is to sing, I can’t remember the words afterward half as easily. I couldn’t possibly write them down. I whisper what I can remember to myself, after the singing has devolved into messy eating, trying to make sense of what they might be trying to teach me, and also to distract me from thinking about stallions. I’m sure there’s tons of lore that I could get just from those song lyrics alone, besides just “lumberjacks are important deal w/it,” but the exact details just keep eluding me.

Why in pony hell do they have to have a heart song about sexy lumberjacks?

Scootaloo thinks I’m crazy for trying to remember a heart song. She doesn’t call it a heart song, of course. That’s just something I picked up from speculation in humanland. Scootaloo doesn’t have a word for what happened, because as far as anypony here is concerned, nothing did happen. I’m curious just how much prodding it would take before Scootaloo realized how odd that singing is, but I don’t really know what would happen. Even if it didn’t tear open any dimensional rifts in Scootaloo’s abdomen from the galactic forces invoked by mere contemplation, it would certainly make her as bothered about it as I am, which is not a good state of mind to aspire to.

Rarity approaches me—us, again saying, “Those lumber ponies certainly are a lively bunch,” with just a hint of disdain in her voice. I can’t help but notice that Rainbow Dash hasn’t approached Scootaloo at all today. I wonder if it’s–

“Sweetie Belle sure liked the lumber stallions,” Scootaloo says to Rarity in a teasing tone. Shit. Shit shit shit. Scootaloo you stupid chicken. Okay damage control time. I barely flick an ear before going,

“Eww, you mean like boys?” managing to draw my lip up in honest disgust, if not for stallions, for Scootaloo’s foolish bomb dropping. “That’s gross, Scootaloo!” I tell her in a whiney tone.

Scootaloo looks betrayed. Good! “You were even singing it!” she says. Oh she’s playing dirty now, huh?

“I was singing about the trees,” I lie blatantly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“But you...” Scootaloo stutters up short, saying, “But you said... and then...”

I sigh, looking at Rarity with a sympathetic eye. “Scootaloo just thinks I’m too super girly to do anything cool,” I mumble resentfully.

“I do not!” Scootaloo protests hotly, sitting forward.

“Then why are you teasing me?” I beseech her. “I don’t. Like. Boys,” I say with a confident finality to my voice, “That’s just dumb.”

Let me tell you, never place a reclusive sociopath in the position of having a lot of obligations to talk and interact with people, and then put them on the spot. You’ll get something like this happening. As far as I can see though, everything is fine! Rarity seems to sag with relief with every boy hating word I say short of the literal phrase “cooties.” Scootaloo is fuming, but I figure I can patch things up with her later. Giving Rarity the misimpression that her baby sister is some kind of perverted stallion hunting deviant is something I could never patch up, even if I technically am some kind of perverted stallion hunting deviant at the moment. The real Sweetie Belle doesn’t deserve to have to live with the fallout afterwards, certainly.

I mean, all those rumors of Rarity hearing about Sweetie’s sexual proclivity, and ending up committed to an asylum chanting “My sister is not a whore,” over and over again wearing a strait jacket in a padded room are... probably slightly exaggerated.

Am I Rarity’s baby sister, though? I mean, I look like it, but maybe I’m just judging wrong? I didn’t think ponies were supposed to begin dating until after they got their cutie mark, but maybe I’m just conservative about it? I sure do know just how young wild Earth horses start getting frisky, and it’s pretty damn young. But ponies are way longer lived, so it’s probably... not the case?

Anyway, even if by some miracle of science Sweetie is considered a teenager, it’s nice to give her a bit of a head start instead of bringing the shackles down on her prematurely by talking all about how “into boys” she is. Education, birth control and freedom, that’s my way of doing things. And I don’t want someone denied that, just because the demonic presence in their head had to open their big mouth about it. I can’t expect anyone is going to raise their kids to be awesome like I totally would, if I ever had a chance to have kids. Which I didn’t... and won’t ever... but my point still stands. Rarity doesn’t need to think Sweetie is into boys, and Scootaloo was way out of line there. If Sweetie is even old enough to have kids, I mean. Not that I wouldn’t just... use...

Wow, I have no idea if ponies have birth control. Yeah, never mind any weird tingling sensation between my legs, I am not so much as looking at a stallion again, until I have a good idea of that. A pregnancy at this size? I’d explode! We’re talking extremely high PSIs here. They’d have to roll me around to get me anywhere since my legs wouldn’t touch the ground. The other crusaders would have to use me for their beach ball after Twilight destroyed their other one.

In case it’s not obvious, I use dark humor as a coping mechanism for when there’s something I am absolutely fucking terrified about that I don’t want to face.

Could I really... do that? I mean... I’ve never ever had something that I could put things into before. I wonder how much I could get in there? I wonder if you can hold onto stuff with it? Should I stretch it out? Do I have a hymen? Horses don’t have hymens, right? I think only humans do. But why would humans develop it, then? It’d make sense if humans bred it into themselves, so warlords could better track their feminine conquests. Part of the whole concealed ovulation thing, with only those who could control their women passing onto the next generation.

So, maybe ponies have hymens now? They developed civilization, so the reward for intelligence and control that a hymen provided would be naturally selected in their genes, too. Though, in the case of ponies, wouldn’t it be the males... who... okay no, this train of thought is getting really weird. Let’s not go past perverted speculation right into crazy town today, hmm?

Actually I think this weird tingling sensation between my legs might be something else I was dreading. I do believe I may need to go pee. There’s one hurdle I want to put off crossing as long as possible.

Rarity pulls me aside after breakfast, telling Scootaloo to run off after Apple Bloom. Scootaloo is quite happy to do so. Too happy to do so. It hurts watching her run off so quickly. I mean, should I even feel this way? I just liked her as a fan of the show; Would I actually hurt if she ran away? But I did just tell her off, and I didn’t want to, so it really is my obligation to fix things. Still, something twists inside me that I’m really not familiar with feeling before. Poor Scootaloo...

Rarity gives me a short ride, to an out-of-the-way part of the lodge, away from the door, on a wooden bench propped against the wall. She settles down with a satisfied hum, and faces me with a pleasant smile. “Tell me Sweetie, how are you feeling this morning, now that you’ve some food in your belly?” Rarity asks. Oh... oh no. She... she didn’t notice– she couldn’t notice! I was feeling– and the– and those lumber ponies and...!

“Fffine?” I squeakle. “I wasn’t thinking anything, honest!”

No no, Sweetie. You were thinking about a lot of things, weren’t you. Rarity knows; I am so dead.

Rarity blinks at me surprised, saying “I was only wondering if you were up for some horn exercises, darling. What do you mean thinking?”

Well, at least she didn’t know anything was up. Hello foot. I would like to introduce you to mouth. Wouldn’t you be such close friends?

“Ww-ell I was um,” my brilliant stage acting enables me to blush heavily, as if trying to say something really embarassing, when secretly I’m actually blushing heavily trying to say something really embarassing. “It’s just I was about what Scootaloo said, thinking, I mean about liking stallions because they came in and... why did she say that?”

Rarity purses her lips, muttering past me at the lodge wall, “That filly gets her snout into far too much for her own good.” She looks down at me saying, “Sometimes, Sweetie, a mare will... like a stallion. It’s only natural. Like Special Someponies! You won’t have to worry about it for a good while though; don’t mind what Scootaloo said.”

Briefly, I worry whether my disturbing tendancy to have an early puberty carried across the dimensional divide. Rarity keeps my attention though, saying, “But how are you doing upstairs?”

I look at her blankly.

“I mean, in your magic centers,” Rarity clarifies a bit flustered. “Have you had any further flareups?”

Not looking away from her, I reach up and gently tap my horn. It feels like something’s vibrating through me when I do that. Not like, my horn vibrating, though it does make a nearly inaudible click to touch hoof to horn, but more like something through it singing ...purple? It must be my magic, but, I can’t even comprehend it, never mind explain it. It does feel very weird though.

“No, I don’t think so,” I answer at length, “The only thing was when your magic was turning the faucets. I could feel it um... waving something, and Apple Bloom couldn’t, and I still saw it even closing my eyes. Could I do that before?”

The corners of Rarity’s mouth twitch up ever so slightly. “Well, that is certainly an interesting way to describe it,” she says, voice heavy with irony. “But don’t worry, that’s simply the aether. You do seem to have a greater sensitivity now, if you were feeling it just from my fiddling with faucets, however you may have simply understated your senses...”

She breaks my gaze, a bit of sullen creeping into her voice. “...before.”

“I’m sorry R... sister,” I say, leaning against Rarity worriedly. “I am trying to remember, but there’s just so much. I didn’t even know about the aether.”

“Well, now you do,” Rarity says in a satisfied tone, squeezing an arm around me briefly. I can’t help but feel affection blooming inside me from her touch, and her warm approval. “At any rate, have you had any sparks or tingles yet?”

I shake my head. Then I realize something, shaking my head a second time and saying “Wait, no I don’t! What’s the aether?”

Rarity stiffens and regards me in bewilderment. “You don’t remember the aether at all?” she exclaims.

Gulping my heart back down, I shake my head, ears going low.

“What do you remember of your magical studies?” Rarity asks with not a small amount of apprehension.

I pause to think, letting my head brace on my upheld arm, the pastern hooking under my chin. I should be able to come up with at least something from the show that would satisfy her. Something Twilight went on about, maybe. Like in Magic Duel. Where Twilight learned... bumfuck nothing about magic, and just used trickery instead. Okay maybe another episode... oh, maybe dark magic? ...no, too risky. Dark magic was top secret, even in the show. Oh.

“I remember that you can’t use magic to make a cutie mark appear!” I state cheerily, looking up at my sister. Rarity’s not smiling anymore though, just rubbing at the bridge of her nose.

“Poor Bright is not going to be happy with this,” Rarity mumbles. Before I can ask, she turns to me and says, “Why don’t we start with a simple grounding. You remember how to ground yourself, don’t you?” Before I can say yes like an idiot, she answers her own question in a note of disgust, “Right, of course you don’t. Alright Sweetie, I need you to imagine a piece of twine attached to your horn. I haven’t any with me so you’ll just have to imagine for now. When the twine is levitated you feel yourself pulled up straight by it. Can you do that?”

“I can try...” I say without confidence. Closing my eyes, because you always close your eyes for these things, I try to imagine that little bit of twine pulling me up, and actually that helps me notice how I’m slumping, which makes me straighten out sitting up more properly (if sitting like a dog could ever be considered proper). This reminds me of that meditative exercise back home, where you feel a string pulling you up by the spine, and once it’s almost lifted you into the air, you release it and ground yourself, metaphorically at least. Always only metaphorically...

“Alright, now imagine the string has released, and you sink into the ground,” Rarity says helpfully. Huh. I guess it is that exercise after all. You know, I’d exposit on the parallels at length, but I’m busy at the moment imagining being suspended above the ground by an imaginary piece of string. So I just go with the grounding exercises I’ve already learned, as useless as they turned out to be. When I release and ground though, that’s pretty much where any familiarity ends from my experience before. It really does feel like the bench dips underneath me, and just for a moment, everything lights up around me. Like... not lighting up but... activating? Awarenizing? I feel that aether stuff swirl around my body as I exhale, feeling a queer sense of vertigo. Something bizarre pours down my horn. Then I remember I’ve had my eyes closed this whole time.

Opening my eyes, it’s... just the lodge before me. It looks unexpectedly mundane. I feel peculiarly heavy against the bench. “Did I do it right?” I ask Rarity, who is looking down at me a bit shocked. I look down at myself, but I seem to be fine. If by fine, you mean Sweetie Belle.

“Now dear, I need you to not panic,” Rarity says in a panicked tone, her horn lighting up, “It’s just a little splinching. I’ll have you out of there in no time.”

just a...

JUST A LITTLE SPLINCHING??

Okay yes, maybe I do panic a little bit at first, struggling frantically without being able to lift my hooves. Now I understand what’s wrong here. Not that I “understand” much of anything at all. I can’t lift my hooves off of the bench anymore, because they go beneath the surface of it, like they’re fused with it, along with my generous posterior. Thus the term ‘splinching’. Which apparantly is a term. Am I even speaking English anymore?

Even as Rarity’s magic starts to envelop the bench, I calm down at the realization that she must not mean splinch-splinching, otherwise my butt would be in so much pain right now. What I would expect from a splinch is explosive bloody results as two things cannot exist in the same place at the same time. Buuuut apparantly here they can. It feels like I’m embedded in it, or... alongside it, sort of, but caught inside? None of my precious little unicorn tissue feels any different. Just my... position in regard to the bench. Did...

Did I just glitch into the bench?

“Almost got it Sweetie, just remain calm. You’re being so good about this!” Rarity says in a nervous, syrupy sweet tone, a single drop of sweat trickling down her temple. She’s standing by the bench now, slowly enveloping the entire thing in her magic. But oddly enough, I can’t feel her magic at all on my body. I can feel it... doing things to the bench, but where it caresses past my embedded hooves, it doesn’t actually touch them, simply goes beneath them.

“Alright,” Rarity says tensely. “Piece of twine, remember. Ready? And here... we... go!” The bench pops underneath me. Or something?? Whatever the fuck just happened definitely made a popping sound. The other 5 senses, I’m not as confident about. But the bench is still here, and I’m still here. Experimentally, I try lifting a hoof, and it smoothly rises off the bench’s surface.

“Awesome!” I exclaim excitedly. Wait, no. Bad mouth! Bad! I blush and look up at Rarity saying, “I–I mean, what a relief!” putting a hoof into my generous curls and leaning back as if affected. No, that was bad and I feel bad. “I mean... thank you,” I say more somberly, “And sorry I didn’t mean to it just ...slipped?”

Rarity settles down on the bench next to me looking frazzled. “Perhaps it’s best if we avoid any more horn exercises until we have the advice of a professional,” she says. When she sits, I can’t help but notice that the legs of the bench won’t scoot anymore, having become one with the lodge floor.

“It wouldn’t have been awesome, if I could never get up from that bench,” I murmur sympathetically.

That bungled horn exercise teaches me one thing, that’s for sure, which is I’ve got a live wire embedded in my forehead, just waiting to cause disaster. Couldn’t I just have been frustratingly impotent, like Sweetie Belle is supposed to be? Oh sure, being able to use magic would be awesome, until I make my horn explode, or enchant some brooms, or get somepony killed, or teleport my heart out of my chest.

“How... much longer until we leave?” I ask tremulously, craving the security of knowing how not to blow myself up on accident, despite the danger I feel a medical examination poses to my continued existence.

“Terribly sorry, Sweetie,” Rarity tells me, “We decided not to take the morning train, as you clearly needed your sleep! But that means the afternoon one won’t be along until another few hours. So why don’t you go play with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo until we’re ready to depart?”

“Um... because I can’t walk?” I answer her rhetorical question with a tiny little innocent smile.

Rarity’s smile cracks. “I... I’m sorry about that, dear,” she says, lifting a hoof at my increasingly guilty little filly self seated there on the bench. “You just look so... normal it’s easy to forget that you’ve been... hurt...”

God I am such a heel. I wasn’t even feeling resentful when I said that. The only reason I said it was because it was an answer to a rhetorical question, and I love those things. Oh sorry Rarity, I didn’t mean to be a huge jerk, but there I am ruining your day! I’m not a horrible person making light of your suffering, honest! I’m just addicted to wordplay! I... have no idea how to put that into words that I could actually say out loud, without sounding like a lunatic. Or a huge jerk.

With a guilty determination, I lurch off of the bench, planting both of my front hooves down on the wood floor. Okay, I can’t breathe, but I’m not going to make her feel bad, and I’m halfway there. Folded just about in half over the edge of the bench, it’s relatively easy for me to get my hind legs to the floor, just by walking forward with my front ones, until my hind legs touch down one after the other. Relatively easy, that is. Nevertheless, I do manage to plant down on shaky legs, and stand there trying not to quiver, smiling at Rarity and ...trying to make it look encouraging.

“It doesn’t hurt,” I say impotently. “I’m just a little... unsteady.” I slide down to a sitting position on the floor, not really feeling like I want to go practicing the art of falling on my face, under the presumption of walking practice. “So could you, um...” I find myself unable to look at Rarity as I ask, “Carry me?”

Rarity has the decency at least not to scruff me, not that I particularly mind, but I can’t imagine it would look good in front of a room full of raucous and suprisingly bawdy ponies, whose existence I am furiously trying to ignore. So once again I’m slid down onto Rarity’s back, and with little fanfare she carries me with her, walking outside the lodge into the bright sunlight.

There is a small park, right by the north side of the lodge, that looks artificially irrigated. There, the other two Crusaders are running around, playing like fillies should be able to. Both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo trot up to Rarity in short order when she approaches, looking at me with eagerness and curiosity. And with resentment, on Scootaloo’s part.

I repeat the now familiar process of dismounting my sister, settling down in a sitting position on the soft cushion of dirt below. Rarity leaves the three of us to ourselves, so she can take care of “A few odds and ends.” I secretly suspect that she just wants some peace and quiet, in order to deal with having a sister now dangerously inept at magic. And... that leaves me right on the bullseye of Scootaloo’s laser targeted glare of vindication. To make matters worse, I’m really starting to feel like I maybe need to really go pee.

Soon as Rarity is gone, Apple Bloom says “What–”

“Sweetie Belle is a liar,” Scootaloo tells her angrily, glaring at me.

“Yes,” I say clearly, but then hesitate, not knowing what to say next. Scootaloo seems surprised that I agreed so readily. I probably should have thought my response out more than one word in advance. And there go my ears down again.

Apple Bloom looks at me with concern, saying “Sweetie, what–”

“Scootaloo was just trying to make Rarity think I like boys,” I blurt out. “And... um...” Dammit where did that suave motherfucker who was talking to Rarity go? No one left in here inside Sweetie Belle but me. I’m just feeling like shrivelling up under their accusing stares.

“And I pretended she was just teasing me,” I mumble into my hooves.

“You do though!” Scootaloo protests hotly, “It was obvious! You even said so!”

“You didn’t have to tell Rarity!” I snap, glaring back at her. “Didn’t you think how much that could hurt her?”

“Hurt her?” Scootaloo said disbelievingly, “How would that hurt her?”

“It–” I slump down even further, trying to think of how to say it. I can’t just tell these... these fillies that if you like boys you’ll get a dick up your poonanny and then you’ll have to give up on your friends and fun because you’re too young to support yourself let alone a foal to say nothing of the bloody consequences of pregnancy at an early age. And your best older sister in the whole world might find that a little fucking terrifying? I don’t even know how much they know about this sort of thing. Apple Bloom’s a farm girl so she probably knows all about it, but maybe she doesn’t? And what’s the whole... Rainbow Dash thing with Scootaloo? Dash isn’t even around!

“It’s complicated,” I manage to say, trying to buy myself some time.

Scootaloo rolls her eyes, saying, “How do I know you’re not just lying again?”

“You don’t,” I mumble.

“Seriously Sweetie, what’s this all about?” Apple Bloom asks, putting a hoof on my shoulder. “You cain’t be lyin’ to your friends, but how’s it gonna hurt Rarity that you...” she pauses in her consoling tone, and adds somewhat shocked, “You really like boys now?”

“No I–” I stammer, “I don’t really I mean...” My argument would be a lot easier to form if I wasn’t blushing so hard. “I just had a... reaction,” I say haltingly, “I don’t know if that means I like them or not, he was just... I mean look at them!”

Waving my hooves at the featureless lodge walls doesn’t seem to convince them.

“It doesn’t mean I like boys just because some super stallion mountain comes walking into the room,” I argue ineffectively. That was probably the gayest sentence I have ever uttered aloud.

“Aren’t you kinda young for this sorta thing?” Apple Bloom responds critically.

I blink at her, then say slowly, with a tremulous quaver I don’t even have to fake, “Oh well, I’ve... forgotten, sorry. How ...old again are... we? Like you, Scootaloo and um... me...”

“I’m 9,” Apple Bloom says evenly, “Scootaloo is eigh–almost 9, and ...you’re 8. You really forgot how old you are?”

“So I’m the youngest of us three?” I ask undaunted.

Apple Bloom nods. “By a little bit,” she adds.

Scootaloo at least seems... sort of cooled down now.

“And when is a pony an adult?” I ask furtively.

“Thirty,” Apple Bloom answers amiably. I ...blink.

“You mean I’ve got puberty for 22 years??” I exclaim aghast.

“Pube-what?” Apple Bloom asks me with an odd look. “You mean the cutie period?”

My eyes alight with eagerness, as I try to ask casually and indifferently, “Oh? What’s the cutie period?”

Even Scootaloo looks a little shocked at that, and a little guilty. I guess she still blames herself for my “amnesia.”

“The cutie period is when a filly or colt goes and gets their cutie mark,” Apple Bloom explains, “Then there’s the growing period, and... then you’re an adult.”

Thoughtfully, I ask, “How long is the ‘growing period’?”

“Uh, 4 years, if I recall?” Apple Bloom says uncertainly, “It’s a ways away, so I ain’t thought about it much.”

Huh. I guess that would land them... us, definitely in prepubescent then. “And... no pony grows until the growing period?” I ask hesitantly.

“Naw, you’ll grow a little. That’s just... that’s just the big growth spurt.” Apple Bloom says, scratching a hoof. “I don’t rightly know the details, but ah been gettin’ about a centimeter a year or two. Ah’m gonna be a big pony, though!” she finishes confidently.

“So wait,” I say in surprise, “Why are we trying to get our cutie marks then, if we can’t until we’re... 26 years old?”

“You can get it any time, Sweetie,” Scootaloo says demurely, “It doesn’t have to be all the way at the end!”

I need to stop picking these fillies’ brains and apologize.

“I’m sorry I lied, Scootaloo,” I say earnestly, pulling myself up to stand on all four hooves and look her directly in the eye. Blowing my bangs out of the way so I can look her directly in the eye. Dammit, this is less than impressive. Why couldn’t I be a confident filly, like Diamond Tiara?

“What I meant when it would hurt Rarity,” I testify as truly as I can, “Is... it would make her feel like I’m all grown up. Because um... grownups are the ones who like boys and... that sort of thing, unless I’ve forgotten, I mean, sorry.”

Scootaloo shakes her head, “No, that sounds about right. I mean you can’t get married until you’re that old, and it’s only grownups that get all weird and dumb on Hearts and Hooves day. Even (mumble)dash.” I don’t catch that last part, but I think I get the gist of what she’s saying.

“So,” I explain earnestly, “If Rarity sees me as a filly one day, and then a grownup all of a sudden, she will know it’s not true, but she’ll feel like I was um... put in an enchanted sleep for 22 years! Like if you went to sleep and then your entire childhood just passed all at once, and you didn’t even do anyth... get your cutie mark in that time because it was so fast.”

I don’t know if this mental imagery is the right way to put it, but from the looks of horror on their faces I think they’re getting an idea. I continue to entreat them, saying, “So it’s really important that Rarity doesn’t think I’m grown up until I am grown up, because even though I didn’t lose all those years, it would still make her sad and scared.”

“Wow, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom says in astonishment. I hope I didn’t lay it on too heavy, there. “I never thought about it that way,” she continues, looking down at her hoof, “So, every time ah been tryin’ to be a big grown up pony, Applejack has been all...”

“It’s okay to want to be grown up,” I reassure her. My legs are kind of tired already, so I sink down onto my belly again, continuing with, “It’s natural, I mean, they’re bigger and stronger and can do so many amazing things. It’s just... hurrying there won’t let you be a grown up any longer, than if you just take it easy, and enjoy what you are right now.”

After a pause, I add, “There’s a lot of advantages to being a young filly, too.”

“Pff, now you’re just being silly, Sweetie,” Scootaloo says. She’s smiling though, not angry anymore, so I think I saved her friendship with Sweetie Belle. Despite, um, me. “That’s what grownups say,” Scootaloo asserts aversely, “But they’re just trying to make us feel better.”

I frown at her in indecision. “Well, we’re smaller, for one thing,” I offer to that orange filly. Scootaloo looks surprised that I actually had an answer, her head tilting just a little bit. “Getting into smaller spaces is easier,” I explain, “And we don’t have to eat as much.” Total guesswork there, of course, but the calorie/mass requirement is pretty fundamental as far as physics are concerned. The two fillies seem to buy my explanation, so I shyly add the other thing, “Plus we don’t have our cutie marks.”

“I thought you were talkin’ about advantages?” Apple Bloom asks me in a very unconvinced manner.

“It means we can be anything we want,” I say, trying (and failing) to remember the exact words from the first CMC episode. “We have unlimited potential and we can change, if things... change.” Yeah that wasn’t anything like the show. Oh well.

“That’s a real nice way of sayin’ we’re good at not bein’ good at anything,” Apple Bloom says wryly.

“If everyone is special and we’re not,” Scootaloo adds, “Then we’re like, double not special.”

“Well,” I say thoughtfully, “What if there was a plant disease, or a curse that made all the apples go away? They got turned into oranges or something, or ponies stopped eating apples so you had to grow something else?” At Apple Bloom’s look of horror I hastily add, “It would never ever happen, and it would be terrible, but you could still get your cutie mark if it did. It could just be cherries or oranges or something.”

“But...” Apple Bloom says quietly, “What about Applejack?”

I shrug casually, saying, “Maybe um... cutie marks... can... change?” Before they can outright deny that, I add, “It sounds like it would be a lot harder than getting one in the first place, though.”

In the somber silence that follows, the sounds echo out to us faintly, of entirely inappropriate bawdiness going on inside the lodge. “So,” I say, desperate to break the tension, “Any ideas for how to get our cutie marks?”

They look at me incredulously.

“I mean, I still want my cutie mark,” I say hastily. “A teeny little advantage that only helps if things are really bad, in only one certain way, isn’t nearly as good as a special talent! I just like to... find good in everything! Even being a blank...flank.” Wow, even saying the phrase ‘blank flank’ is depressing. I swear that the skin on my thigh crawls down there just thinking about it. Do I want to get a cutie mark? I mean of course I do, but, why would I?

“If all the apples went away, Applejack would be the best pony to bring them back anyway!” Scootaloo says consolingly to Apple Bloom. “She’d find a way.”

“Ooh,” I pitch in excitedly, “And if all the apples turned into oranges, and her cutie mark is made of apples....”

Apple Bloom actually snickers at that. “She just wakes up one day, an’ bam oranges.”

“She’d be so surprised,” I agree, holding back a laugh myself. Orangejack is bestjack.

“Alright, alright,” Apple Bloom laughs, “We did have one little idea for our special talents. You wanna hear it?”

“Sure!” I say agreeably.

Apple Bloom elbows Scootaloo, who nods and looks at me, saying, “So, you can’t walk and all, and we were thinking maybe we could help you practice!”

“That sounds great!” I say with an excited quiver. I would so love to be moving around on my own. “But...” I hesitate uncertainly, “What special talent would that even be?”

Apple Bloom smiles and announces, “Physical therapy!”

“Physical Therapy?!” I exclaim. “Isn’t that something you need lots of training for?”

“It can’t be that hard,” Apple Bloom says dismissively. “All we gotta do is get you walking again!”

“If it’s our special talent, then we don’t need training,” Scootaloo adds smugly. I struggle to resist the urge to facehoof.

“I suppose it can’t hurt to try,” I say reluctantly. And actually now that I think on it, this might even be better. A professional might be able to tell I wasn’t just recovering from an injury or something, and that I was lying about my physical state of being. Or something sort of like lying. But these fillies are just going to accept whatever’s wrong with me, at face value, and try to fix it directly. And they know how to walk, so... it should be easy!

“Try and walk again,” Apple Bloom says eagerly, craning her head down to look at my hooves. “Maybe we can see what you’re doin’ wrong!”

I start to lever myself up to my feet and Scootaloo says, “Woah, woah what are you doing?!”

I sink to my belly again, looking at her questioningly.

“That can’t be easy on your elbows,” she says critically. “I don’t stand up like that!”

“How do you stand up?” I ask her curiously. If she demonstrates, I’ll totally take advantage of that. Scootaloo continues to puzzle silently trying to explain it though, so I prompt her, “Can you show me?”

Nodding, Scootaloo settles next to me, matching my sitting posture, with my front hooves flat before me like my palms are down, and my hind feet flat on the ground too on either side.

“Alright, so,” she says, and then she lurches back like something came at her face, and the action lifts her torso high enough to get her front hooves planted. Then she rises up on her back ones like I did before. “It’s kind of like... rocking?” Scootaloo explains uncertainly.

I take a deep breath and try it, but I just jerk my head back ineffectively when I do. “You gotta put your back into it, Sweetie!” Apple Bloom says encouragingly. I give it another shot, and this time I do manage to lurch up like Scootaloo did, but my front hooves scrabble uselessly, before I slide back down again.

I pause to catch my breath, then say to the two of them, “One more try.”

It actually takes two more tries, but the third time I rock back and rear up, and my front hooves manage to plant firmly. Then I just slide my back hooves up and once again I’m standing. “It worked!” I say delightedly. The two of them immediately check their flanks. “Oh oh, I meant the standing, not the um... cutie marks,” I stutter out to their great disappointment.

“Maybe if I try walking?” I suggest unconfidently.

“Alright,” says Apple Bloom looking me over, “Go ahead. Shoot!”

I stand there another couple of seconds before saying, “Um... maybe you should shoot. I mean, can I see you walking first?”

The two immediately start strutting around in front of me. “Wait, stop,” I say. When they stop I watch Apple Bloom closely, and say, “Okay go. Wait, stop. ...okay, go.” Whenever Apple Bloom starts she rises up a bit as she moves her front hoof forward, and then rocks back and forth on opposing hooves, her hips swaying gently as she does. So I lift up my left hoof, then... straighten up on my others and step forward. I immediately fall forward a few steps before planting my face into the dirt again.

“So close, Sweetie!” Scootaloo moans.

“No, did you see that?” I counter, “I walked some steps! It just sort of happened! Even though I fell over.”

After a pause, I say, “I’m gonna try again.”

It’s frustratingly fleeting and arbitrary, my ability to walk steps forward. It’s kind of like crawling forward, but on my tip toes, and with my shoulders locked against me and with my heel touching my knee and my hind legs barely rotating in order to step. So, not like crawling at all. The worst part about it is every time I fall on my belly, my bladder decides to remind me of all that water and juice I drank earlier, and it’s a very familiar reminder. At least the more I do it, the better I get at standing up. But I just can’t seem to get past that first step into a genuine walk cycle.

For the umpteenth time I’m trying again, snorting with frustration (like a horse! hee!) and then giggling at my sound, because it’s just impossible to stay frustrated when I’ve got so much good stuff going for me at the moment. Scootaloo stops me bracing her hoof against my shoulder then, and says, “Sweetie, wait! You’re just leaving your tail flopped on the ground.”

I nod hesitantly to Scootaloo saying, “I don’t kno–I don’t remember how to move my tail.” Then my eyes widen. That tail on my butt is huge, so of course it’d be dragging me down!

Apple Bloom walks behind me looking at the already dirtying, curly, purple and pink thing, thoughtfully. Then she hooks her hoof around it and grabs it, and lifts it straight up. A full on blush floods my face at the sensation of that. It doesn’t look like anything titillating, but it kind of tugs at me, and the grabby feeling of her hoof on my tail, back there, is just...

“That feels really weird,” I say to her.

To my disappointment, Apple Bloom lets my tail go, and it flops down like before, tingling from where she touched and pulled on it. “Oh, sorry!” she says, blushing herself. “I just wanted to see if it’d stay up if ah lifted it.”

“It’s okay,” I assure her with a weak smile, “I’m just not used to feeling it being touched or pulled on. I don’t even know what it feels like to lift it. I mean, it’s a tail!”

They look at me kind of oddly. I bite my lip and look away from my own butt, tilting my head down gloomily. Then my head shoots up because they’re both grabbing my tail, and rubbing it with their hooves!

“Feel that, Sweetie?” Scootaloo says. Actually she’s the only one rubbing it I thought they both were. Apple Bloom is just looking at Scootaloo with shock, while supporting the tip of my tail by grabbing its hair in her mouth. “Try to lift there,” Scootaloo says in her rubbing, “Right where you’re feeling my hoof!”

“Okay I’ll...” my words drift off into restrained pleasure as Scootaloo massages all the way down to my tail base. I have to bite back a whimper, trying to focus on her minstrations as a key for what to flex, not as some kind of sexual turn-on.

“Cut it out, Scootaloo you’re hurting her!” Apple Bloom says through the corner of her mouth to the orange pegasus, irritably. Scootaloo drops my tail, backing up, leaving it entirely buoyed up by Apple Bloom’s mouth.

“No it’s okay, it feels good,” I assure them, “It really will help me move it, I think.”

“It feels good?” Apple Bloom asks me confusedly. Uh oh.

“Try me, Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom says, dropping my tail and sticking her butt in her friend’s direction and raising her tail for stroking.

FUUUUUUUUUUUU

“Mmm, that is nice,” Apple Bloom says closing her eyes when Scootaloo rubs at the base of her tail making it twitch upward animatedly.

“Wait, wait could we hold on could I think maybe just do it we could,” I say intelligently. It gets them to stop at least, looking at me in utter confusion. “We need to focus on making me walk, if we’re going to get our physical therapy cutie marks,” I conclude legibly at last.

“Sorry, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom says pulling her tail out of Scootaloo’s hooves, “Was just gettin’ a bit distracted. Hold up your tail and we’ll... oh. Raht.” She facehooves.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both carefully lift my limp tail and start ...massaging it. I can feel it twitching up when they put pressure on me from behind, no doubt what will become the presenting motion when I mature. That’s what I need though, is it to twitch it up. I feel my... my back muscles, not my butt muscles twitching, and try to focus on them, to focus on what pulls my tail up and what flexes to move it from side to side, all the while trying to ignore that funny feeling building up between my legs. Not to mention the pressure in my bladder. I dourly hope those two sensations are not as closely related as it is for Earth mares.

At last, Scootaloo pulls left and I manage to resist her pull, and when she lets go my tail swings to the right and stays in the air. Meaning I swing my tail to the right! “It moved!” I say excitedly, and a bit breathlessly I have to admit. At least I’m young enough that it’s... not... obvious to others what I’m feeling. God if I start like, leaking, I don’t even know.

“Y’sure are smellin’ sharp, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom says offhandedly. “You need to go pee or somethin’?”

“No it’s–” I gulp down a squeak, “I’m fine. I mean... actually I do sort of have to go pee, yes.”

I imagine Scootaloo bearing down on top of my butt and my tail twitches up hornily. Catching that tiny twitch, I keep pulling with those muscles, my tail rising up until a pleasant tension is achieved. “There, think I... got it,” I say, feeling guilty about how I got my tail up, but pleased nonetheless at my success.

That’s when the floodgates open.

“Oops!” I exclaim, “Oop– oh no!” They’re backing away, looking at me flabbergasted, and I’m just feeling my bladder cheerily compressing down, emptying itself. Oh god the piss I can feel it everywhere! They’re just watching it spray out behind me. “Hold on I’ll–” I spit out determinedly, panicking as I flex my muscles down there looking for some kind of sphincter or kegel or—owww...

I manage to cut off the flow as my bladder painfully crawls to a halt. It’s the imaginary act of twitching my ghost dick that does the trick, pushing on whatever thing that needs to block off my uh... tube I guess. What do you call it when you just have a hole to piss from? Piss hole, there you go. ...no. Sweetie Belle is never going to willingly utter the phrase “piss hole” as long as I’m her. Pee place, yes that sounds much less horrifying.

So I manage to cut off the flow from my pee place and have the additionally bizarre experience of the last drops dripping off my little folds back there. Now, this experience is in the interest of full disclosure, and I really don’t have any sort of piss fetish, but I can definitely see why people would get one, especially girls. You can feel every bit of your body that hot liquid flows along on its way to the ground, and those particular bits I feel are the single most convincing argument that I’m a girl now. For me, feeling those bits so ...comprehensively is just a little bit disconcerting.

But, you know, if it was what I felt like I was supposed to feel, then I suppose it could be for sexual.

Turning to look, I see it’s only a teeny little bit of pee, after all. I think I would die if I hadn’t figured out how to stop it from coming out right away. With my bladder and my dignity well and truly quashed, I easily crane around to look down at the ground below my posterior, wrinkling my nose at the smell, then scuff some dirt over it with a hind leg.

“There,” I say confidently, facing forward. “That never happened.”

I pause, and blush again saying, “B-but some toilet paper would be nice.”

“Let’s just go to the toilet,” Apple Bloom says distantly.
> Tests
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apple Bloom really is a genius, mind you. When I couldn’t figure out how to move from my spot, because I certainly was going nowhere near Rarity’s back with my groin in such a state, Apple Bloom figures out a way to work it out.

“So, you can move your back feet fine, but all four don’t work?” she clarifies.

I nod somewhat hesitantly, adding, “They all don’t work ...right, but it’s just simpler with two. But there’s no way I can balance on just two!” Not without being a rather odd looking, nearly bald, river ape, at least. Yes ponies can balance on two hooves, but those ponies have practiced at it, and aren’t aliens in pony bodies. Except maybe Lyra.

“Ah got an idea,” Apple Bloom said, “What if the thing you’re hanging onto to help you balance is moving too? Then you could walk around!”

“Oh,” I say in realization, “Like a wheelchair?”

Apple Bloom rolls her eyes, “No we ain’t got a wheelchair. Ah just mean this!” And she sticks her butt at me. Like, shaking it for emphasis.

“Apple Bloom, your butt doesn’t have wheels,” I point out dryly. Scootaloo laughs at that.

“Just, hang on behind me with your front legs,” Apple Bloom insists stubbornly, “Then when ah walk, you can walk with just your hind legs.”

Huh.

“Alright, so...” I put a hoof on top of her back, uncertainly. I can’t lift the other one without—oh, no this will work. I brace one hoof on her back, above her tail, and lift the other hoof, bringing it alongside the first one. I feel much more secure being able to brace on her to lift my other limb up. Then, Apple Bloom walks backwards towards me, until my chest hits her tail, and my front hooves naturally slip on either side of her waist. With her big, thick pony thighs, there’s plenty of a ledge to hold onto. And now I only have to worry about my back legs!

Apple Bloom walks forward, yanking me a couple steps before I get into the rhythm. “This is genius, Apple Bloom!” I exclaim. “Now I can go anywhere you can.”

“Yeah, it feels...” she says distractedly, “It’s pretty great. Let’s get to the toilet then an’ stop embarassing ourselves.” Scootaloo walks alongside while Apple Bloom leads me forward, while I lean on her for support, and so we head off around the lodge.

We proceed in that fashion, like some kind of pony centipede, all the way to the lodge’s commode, which is an outdoor facility. It’s thankfully a bit more elaborate than the port-a-potty at the train station. An actual wooden building, with plumbing. It smells like shit of course, but well, it smells like horse shit, so it’s not unbearable. One of the advantages of being an herbivore is there’s a much shorter period in which your shit stinks from inception to compost, since your fancy digestive system already sucked out as many nutrients as your shit had, so it’s already well on its way to being fertilizer. Which I kinda invalidated already this morning, with all that butter and sugar I ate this morning, so I actually have no idea why this shit doesn’t smell a lot worse than it does.

Don’t get me wrong, nothing stinks worse than a cattle ranch, but that’s a lot of cows, and they pile the shit high, and don’t even bury it. If you did that with humans, you’d have to declare a disaster warning, and evacuate the neighborhood.

Anyway, thankfully I don’t have to face the horror of Sweetie Belle shitting just yet. I only ate just earlier, after what must have been a long time, so Sweetie Belle’s digestive tract is pretty empty still. Her bladder is another story. Unlike my poorly behaved posterior, Apple Bloom is no trouble to smell at all, though she is also sort of smelling... sharper as we walk around like this, but it isn’t bad. She’s already lemon colored, so it makes perfect sense.

“Oh thank goodness,” I say with relief, at what I see upon walking into the toilet room. There’s no shower or anything. Technically there isn’t even a toilet, since the toilet itself is not any sort of elaborate affair, but instead literally a hole in the floor. That’s why I exclaim in relief, because I was thinking I was going to have to climb up on some giant porcelain bowl. The hole is surrounded with porcelain, and there’s a pull tab to rinse stuff down with, but the toilet part itself is very flat against the floor. There’s nothing to climb up on; just stand there, aim and let go.

Apple Bloom walks past the hole, pulling me with her. I look back fearfully worried about stepping in it. And Scootaloo offers driving directions: “Another step forward, just a bit to the right, perfect!”

Then Apple Bloom says in a very tense voice, “Okay, you can get off now. You should be... in position.” When I push off of her bottom, and carefully clop to the floor straddling the ...horizontal urinal? When I do that, I can’t help but notice how much Apple Bloom is flushed, and her breath is coming quickly. It’s slowing down as we separate, but I didn’t think she was exerting herself all that much. It’s like the little pony is all aroused or something. Oh–

Oh holy crinkle buckets. I’ve just been mounting Apple Bloom this whole time.

“Maybe that wasn’t such a good way to walk after all,” I say guiltily.

“Yeah that was... it just...” Apple Bloom puts a hoof to her forehead, “It just... flustered me for some reason, ah dunno. Maybe we’ll try something else instead.”

“Let us know when you’re done, Sweetie,” Scootaloo says before I can squeak one more word out. “We need to go too!”

Scootaloo walks out of the toilet, and Apple Bloom trots on after her. And now I just have to figure out how to pee again. It’s um... it’s not working. Uh oh. Plus, if my tail keeps dragging low it’ll get totally soaked if any urine comes out. That would be almost as horrible as Rarity’s reaction to it. I will commit hari kiri before becoming Sweetie Poo, so I will figure this out. What did I do last time? Oh, right last time I raised my.... I raise my tail.

I’m actually in something of a bit of awe at this. No, not the peeing. It’s just everything I’ve done until now has been with assistance, or else something I’m already familiar with. But I’m all alone in this toilet room, and I’ve sure as god’s nipples never had a tail before. So when I lift my tail, even for such a vulgar purpose, my heart swells a little in wonder. I actually can move it. And maybe I’m actually not doomed! And–

I’m distracted as the pee immediately starts flowing again. If the feel of my delicate flower getting soaked with piss isn’t feminizing enough, the fretful whimper that emerges from me as I close my eyes and think of England really drives the point home. It’s one thing to have hooves instead of hands, or to be a kid again, or to have a dull horny protrusion from your skull that is far more trouble than its worth. But until the flow reduces to a trickle and stops, it really hits me hard that I do not have a penis. I am completely incapable of becoming erect, and I don’t even have a prostate gland anymore, and that means if I orgasm, it means no ejaculation. Or at least, no ejaculation until 11 months later, if I really screw up.

I really shouldn’t even think about orgasming. It’s wrong on so many levels. I will list those levels for your convenience:
• I’m way too young to be sexual. Maybe not 22 years too young, but I’m freaking eight.

• I could get caught. I could get caught by my friends. Who are far too easily swayed to the dark side.

• I’m a beautiful little unicorn filly. The very essence of innocence and purity.

• I’m a freaking horse. Making myself orgasm would be at least bestiality.

• I’m a girl. Making myself orgasm might make me want the D.

• This isn’t my body, so making it orgasm, even if I felt it, would be rape.

• Sweetie Belle wouldn’t even be aware that she was raped.



So, in the interest of not being a pedophilic, childhood ruining, deflowering, bestialist, homogay, demonic possessing, doping rapist I will not even think about orgasming as Sweetie Belle. I won’t even entertain the thought not even for one moment or instant!

...

“Girls...?” I call out loudly in a wavering voice. I really don’t want to be alone with my thoughts right now. “I’m all done!” I say more firmly.

The purple orange pegasus, and the lemon filly with the bright red mane both lope right back in. Apple Bloom sets me up with toilet paper finally and I actually manage to drape it over my hoof enough that I can get at myself without asking them to do that. Sure I take about half the roll to do so, but these are non-negotiable conditions here!

It’s funny, though I haven’t actually touched myself down there, I already sort of know how it feels. Between the previous liquidated minutes, and squashing it against carts and benches, I have already days of trying, futilely, to avoid the sensation of what could only be vulval lips, however untouched and pure they may be. So when I finally come into contact with... them, it’s really not so shocking as all that.

The most alarming thought that occurs to me, is how I never thought that horrible nursery rhyme I heard, about what direction to wipe yourself, would ever be so relevant as it is now. It’s just skin after all, and as pleasant as it feels to touch that particular area of skin, the rough toilet paper on a very clumsy hoof isn’t exactly the most pleasant feeling. Still, I can’t stop from feeling a little giddy at how I really am touching it right now. I never realized how anxious I was about, I don’t know, losing control or something, until I’m standing there just casually letting the moistened fiber sheets slip off my hoof into the flushing toilet, and it makes me feel ...empowered, satisfied, less insecure about myself.

The other two fillies get me out of the bathroom by walking backwards in front of me, with my front hoof braced on each of their shoulders. It’s not nearly as efficient as the former method of locomotion we discovered, but I’m extremely reserved about doing that again. Should I even be reserved? Apple Bloom sure seemed to be getting into it! But...

But she didn’t even know what was happening. It’s not my right to ruin that for her, if she hasn’t found it out on her own yet. Or no, wait, but what if she doesn’t know what mounting is, and then gets pregnant without even realizing it? That would be worse! And is it really wrong for her to learn things, in this world?

It’s not just the awkwardness of sex. I got turned off to learning in general. When your world’s a shitstain, and your fate is one hundred percent assured, learning new stuff won’t change that, and it sure will make you more certain of your impending doom, so why even bother? What am I going to learn, more about how I’m a terrible person who doesn’t deserve happiness? Turn on the news and you learn the world’s going to hell in a handbasket, and what good does learning that do? This just in: Higgs boson discovered, can’t do shit with it. Stop the presses!

The girls get ahold of a ball ...somehow. As part of our “physical therapy” they want to toss it back and forth. I still haven’t figured out gripping, because hooves are even weirder than tails, and also I haven’t been molested in my hooves yet. But the two of them are happy to run around when I lose my grasp on the slippery ball, or when it goes in a different direction than I intended. I really want to run around with them. It makes me feel so wiggly! But, with little confidence, all I can do is sit there and field the ball to the next filly, and try when the former one tosses it, to capture it in my grasp.

I mean, not all learning is bad. It’s pretty awesome to learn about how you put tab A into slot B and that’s why you’re feeling all funny and stuff, and it kind of sucks to be confused about your own body when you could have understood what’s going on. But I’d take that confusion in a second, if it meant I didn’t have to learn about all the girls who announce themselves liberated, then go enforce the patriarchy by only fucking jerks and being scared of the poor and disenfranchised. You know the look. Where they’re laughing and saying what a pitiful thing those ugly low income males are, but they’ve got that tinge of fear in their voices, as if somehow they genuinely think some monstrous crackhead nigger is going to run up out of nowhere and impale them on his giant dick.

They use big cock sheath strapons in those pornos, by the way.

How the hell am I Sweetie Belle?!

So, forgive me if I’m not eager to divulge my bountiful wisdom about sexy time, that landed me a solid 0 in life. It makes me feel like such a hypocrite. It’s easy to espouse the benefits of sexual education, but it’s a lot more daunting to actually have to tell a couple of little fillies about it. It feels like I’d be telling them Santa isn’t real. Wait, is Santa real in ponyland? The ball hits me in the head.

“Pay attention, Sweetie Belle!” Apple Bloom yells.

“Sorry!” I shout back. I have to stretch out to reach the ball where it rolled to a stop, but then I bump it slowly in Scootaloo’s direction.

I distinctly remember there was an earlier generation cartoon where Santa was real. Ball gets passed to me again. Would he be a reindeer in this world? Who pulls the sleigh then? I manage to hurl the ball over my head, where Apple Bloom catches it on her own head. She’s skilled enough to balance it without it even wobbling or bouncing away.

It is so weird watching them do this stuff. It just comes natural to them, but to me it looks I dunno, physically impossible. It’s also weird playing in a park in the shade of trees, when there’s a flat, desertlike plane beyond them, complete with Saguaro cactus. I guess this was pony terraforming in progress? It occurs to me, I haven’t checked to see if pegasi were flying overhead, or doing magic weather stuff.

Scootaloo beans me in the head with the ball. I fall over shouting, “I was paying attention! Stoppit!” Scootaloo responds by laughing her head off. I’d get angry with her but I mean, number one she’s just being a kid, and number two I just got knocked over like a bowling pin by a carefully timed strike of a harmless rubber ball to the side of the head, which actually is pretty hilarious. I give her the evil eye for the rest of the game though, just in case she wants to send another rocketing at me again. She doesn’t.

I spot Rarity coming towards us, her shining white and royal purple standing out against the brown and yellow landscape. This time I make sure I have the ball, before watching her approach. Funnily enough, when Rarity gets close to us, it turns out she’s with Applejack. Remember what I said about brown and yellow landscapes? Applejack is like a pony chameleon in this place. If you saw her from the side it’d just look like a trio of tiny apples floating along.

“Are you girls all ready?” Rarity says sweetly, “The train is almost due to arrive!”

I shiver from the chill of dread, wrapping around the rubber ball in my hooves like a lifeline. After a day like this, I almost forgot this life of mine was temporary.

I’ve got to figure it out. How am I going to convince the ponies to let me stay? I hope they’re not going to stuff me into a crystal or something. I’m not... I’m not going to have to be human again, am I? As I sit there silent, with questions I can’t ask without giving myself away, the other fillies eagerly speak up in my stead, Apple Bloom saying, “Yup!” and Scootaloo saying, “Yeah...” in a more subdued fashion.

“Well great, come on then!” Applejack says turning around and shaking the tip of her tail expectantly. Apple Bloom makes to run after Applejack but I shout,

“I almost learned to walk!” stalling desperately now. “Again!” I add as an afterthought. “Watch me!” I roll the ball to Apple Bloom, who starts deflating it (oh right that makes a lot more sense). Then I look at Rarity and Applejack, and squirm onto my belly. Then I rear back and expertly plant my face into the ground.

Ow...

“Sorry, I almost had it!” I shout, struggling to my belly again. This time I manage to remember what we practiced, rearing up and planting my hooves, letting me stand again. I wish I could get used to the feel of standing like this, and not feel like I’m supposed to rise up on two legs to get going. I squeeze my eyes shut and stumble a step and–no, I’m– I have to stop to keep from falling over. Rarity’s walking up to me, smiling down at me sadly. I am pretty sad, it’s true. But wait!

“Wait, no look what they taught um, reminded me!” I say hastily, looking at my own butt and twitching my back around. Then I find the muscle that I can tighten steadily, and my tail lifts up into the air curving neatly behind me like a purple and pink rainbow. (With absolutely no horrible consequences this time.) I look at Rarity with a big smile that hurts my face. She’s not smiling anymore? Oh shutterbug, what did I do?

“That’s very impressive, Sweetie,” Rarity says emphatically, in a genuinely impressed voice. “You couldn’t even move your tail at all!” She turns to regard Scootaloo and Apple Bloom with respect, saying, “That was very noble of you! How on earth did you accomplish it?”

Scootaloo speaks up smartly puffing out a bit, “Well we just pulled on her–”

“Oh, hey, gotta catch that train,” I interrupt hastily trying to walk forward. I actually manage a few steps before I have to stop. How did that go? It was all left right left back uh... dammit I forgot again. But Scootaloo’s hunch was right. I don’t feel like I’m getting dragged back to the ground, with my tail up in the air, and it sways when I stop, which probably saved me from falling over again! This is so great!

So, with me distracted by my success and the amazing feel of a tail keeping me balanced, Rarity gets a chance to reiterate her question. “That’s wonderful, Sweetie! You are almost walking perfectly,” she says. I doubt she’s entirely sincere, but it still makes my heart swell with pride. Praise from Rarity! My inner fanboy is squeeing right now. “Now how on earth did you manage to regain control of your tail?” Rarity continues.

“Um–” I say swiftly, interrupted by Apple Bloom who confidently says,

“It’s simple! She can feel her tail with the same things she moves her tail with, so we just rubbed all over her tail, and yanked it around like she was moving it. She could feel how it moved, so, she could move it then!”

I’m crouching down, in a laying/sitting position again, my face flushing as Apple Bloom blithely goes on. She did yank on my tail, and ...it felt a lot better than it should have.

“Oh my that’s um,” Rarity says in a flustered tone. “You know you’re not supposed to pull on another pony’s tail!”

“She wanted us to, though!” Scootaloo protests, “How else was she going to get her tail working again?”

“Still, perhaps it’s best if you leave the rehabilitation to the experts for now,” Rarity said tactfully. “Now you two run off after Applejack to the train station. I will help Sweetie here.” When I look up at Rarity questioningly she answers,

“You’re very good at walking after only two full days of recovery, but it’ll be easier if I were to carry you instead, so if you don’t mind?” Rarity butts up against my chest lightly.

“...thank you, Rarity,” I say politely, in more ways than one. She does the horn hook swivel thing again, and I’m on her back. She smells just like before, familiar and flowery like the shampoo she uses. Not flowery like a cloying lilac, but spicier like... well, I don’t recognize what the flower is. 

Rarity walks, then trots forward, moving easily beneath me, without jostling me in the slightest bit. That seems strange to me when I think about it. I’ve never been able to ride a horse as easily as this. And I’m not even really shaped for riding horses anymore. Well, not like a human at least. Maybe I am shaped for riding a horse, because this is how ponies are supposed to carry their children? I suppose it makes as much sense as humanity’s peculiar ability to give their children a piggyback ride.

The ease of motion and stability give me a chance to look forward, watching the train station as we approach, with only a teeny bit of mild terror. Getting upset over this is just going to make Rarity more alarmed, which will just hasten my inevitable having to face the fact, that I’m not allowed to be someone like Sweetie Belle. So, I might as well just face it with courage, because it’ll last longer if I do.

...maybe I can ditch Rarity and jump trains, ride to Appleoosa and make a life as a highway bandit. Sweetie the Belle they’ll call me. Fastest gun in the West. Er, technically Appleoosa is in the south, but details, details. I’d be the most dangerous little filly in the South. So, about as dangerous as a puppy, maybe less. Depends if the puppy has a gun.

My ears perk at a train whistle, and I crane around Rarity’s head to see the train approaching. She’s already clomping on the wood of the platform where the train will pull up. There are several ponies here waiting to board, talking in muted tones, mostly construction workers it looks like, if their cutie marks and tool belts are any indication. Among the strange ponies are Applejack, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, the three of whom Rarity immediately approaches. I’m more paying attention to the train, than what they’re saying though, because it’s coming up soon now. Moment of truth here.

It’s...

Quiet.

“So I–Sweetie, are you okay??” Rarity looks back as I sink down on her bonelessly.

“Quiet,” I sigh happily, “It’s actually quiet!”

“Are you having another... episode, Sweetie?” Rarity asks worriedly. I blink lifting my head again. What am I even doing? Shoot!

“No, I’m fine!” I say earnestly. “I just...”

My muzzle scrunches up in fret. “I just really like... the train,” I say finally. The train chugs quietly past us, the cars just rattling slightly as they roll along the rails. There’s a squeal of brakes and a hiss of hydraulics, and then total silence. It’s not the quietest train I’ve ever been in front of, but it is definitely the quietest steam locomotive I have ever seen or experienced. Could this mean ponies actually have good judgement with regard to noise??

Walking out from the train car, “All aboard! Fillydelphia via Canterlot, departing in ten minutes!” the conductor calls out. He’s got a monocle, and that wicked cool sideburn moustache. In fact it might even be the very same conductor that I remember! I wonder if he had that half suit in the show. I wonder if he had a featureless–no no, not looking at those. Bad eyes, stop going in that direction, bad!

I sneak a glance at the girls, but at least they’re not ogling every stallion that comes their way. Apple Bloom is just craning to see into the train. Scootaloo is just looking around for someone, in a bit of an unsatisfied manner. It must just be my own inherent perversion, proudly honed over many years with oodles of pony porn. Though you’d... actually be hard pressed to find the porn, around the other pictures I collected obsessively. But there in that dozen comics of Pinkie Pie being adorable would be the one of Sweetie Belle taking the big black–er–I mean Rainbow Dash falling asleep with her crotch in Anon’s face. Of course I would never collect anything racy about Sweetie Belle.

I am so boned.

...hopefully in the good way.

No! Bad brain, bad!

Rarity carries me onto the train since I’m clearly not in a state to do so myself even if I could be walking. I can’t believe this train is real. I can’t believe things might actually be going in a direction that isn’t horrible. Where’s the unstoppable corruption? The cheaters who prosper? The unhappy endings? This is a quiet train. A quiet. Train. They actually manufactured a train without treating their fellow ponies like shit and oppressing the hell out of each other. A train that doesn’t blare its presence into the lives of all, carrying supplies only to benefit the very few at terrible cost to the many. It’s a train without caveats that ruin everything good about trains. It’s a world, a system... an economy that doesn’t take everything good and add caveats to ruin it, for no other reason than to make sure that we can never have nice things.

Oh sure, humans have quiet trains now but look past the special trains dressed up to show off, and you’ll find the old rumbling roaring diesels still waking us from sleep, and before that you’ll find the greatest cruelty humanity ever inflicted upon ourselves for the good of the rich man: coal burning engines.

I could use superscience and technobabble to rationalize Rarity’s incredible levitation powers into dreary mundanity, but this train. This impossible, wonderful, quiet train is what I call real magic.

Everypony settles into their seats, except Rarity who’s still got to get me situated. She lays to the ground, letting me slide off of her, where I manage to stand up right away. But she hastily lifts me up, smart too because when the train starts moving, I would totally have fallen head over heels. And, ohmygosh she’s doing it again I’m totally hanging by her mouth! She swiftly deposits me on the bench next to Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, just separated from them by a swirl shaped transparent green divider. I wiggle around until I’m sitting like I was before, which ends up with me facing the inside of the train, though it’s easy to crane around to look at just about any angle.

The train gives a soft chugging sound, no choking smoke of black death filling the air as it pulls smoothly away from the station. How do they even burn coal and make white smoke? The tracks below give a soft clunking sound as they pass underneath us, and the engine puffs away at the head of the train, and despite this it’s quiet enough to keep on a conversation, in a normal tone of voice. Not just for the privileged passengers in airlocked sealed train cars, but even in these airy cars with open windows, even for somepony standing not ten feet away from the tracks.

It’s definitely the train from the show.

Unfortunately in my rosy glow of technomagical euphoria, I completely missed the change in Scootaloo’s demeanor all this time. When Rarity sets me down, I look at Scootaloo casually, and she won’t meet me in the eyes. No it’s not that she won’t it’s that she doesn’t even acknowedge my presence, or anyone’s presence for that matter. Just staring dully at the underside of the seat across from her. What happened? Did she miss someone? She was looking for someone earlier–oh I think I know what it is.

“Sorry Rainbow Dash couldn’t see you off,” I say sympathetically to Scootaloo.

Scootaloo glances at me and smiles, chuckling, “No, it’s okay. Applejack told me she– she already left last night.” Oh. “Back to the expedition,” Scootaloo finishes tensely. If I wasn’t such a loser, I would have known what to say right now. I would have told off Rainbow Dash, bad mouthed her, made Scootaloo defend her. I would have gotten Scootaloo off of that poisoned teat of unrequited adoration. But I don’t have it together and I’m not suave as fuck, so all I do is sit there thinking oh no, oh no, oh fuck no as Scootaloo loses her shit in front of me.

“I have to go to the washroom,” Scootaloo announces quickly, her voice cracking. She jumps off of the bench and canters hastily into the other train car where presumably the washroom is located. Oh please, please, please God, Celestia, Zordon, whoever, I know it’s some kind of universal constant but, please let me not have landed in a reality where Rainbow Dash is a huge jerk.

I don’t follow Scootaloo. I mean, I literally can’t follow Scootaloo. But I wouldn’t if I could. Apple Bloom looks confused and hurt, a filly who has no idea what could make things better. And frankly, neither do I. A thousand ways to make things worse, but better? You can’t just change who someone admires, certainly not in the span of minutes or days. I just groan softly, letting my head fall into my hooves burying my face into the soft cushion underneath.

“What was that all about?” the practical voice of Applejack sounds out.

“The poor dear,” Rarity says sympathetically shuffling onto her hooves. “I’ll be right–”

“Rarity,” I cut in hurriedly. It’s enough to stop her long enough for me to lift my head at least. I look at her as seriously as I can and say, “Rarity, excuse me but, I can’t remember, so please ask Apple Bloom why Scootaloo came with us, to...there.” Whatever that place is called. “sorry Apple Bloom,” I add. “It’s just... what you told me, I think you need to... I think it’ll help.” I lie.

Apple Bloom shrinks under the gaze of both Rarity and Applejack. I try not to add to the problem, looking away from her in Rarity’s direction instead. If I can’t stall Rarity long enough... I simply cannot imagine Rarity discovering Scootaloo crying her head off in the washroom would end in anything besides tears, for everyone involved. But if I remember Apple Bloom’s proclivity for elocution, I’m pretty sure she can ...help.

“Rarity,” I repeat quietly, trying to prompt her to ask my fellow filly.

“Yes um,” Rarity says collecting herself. “Do you wish to tell us why you all went on this fool’s errand?” she asks Apple Bloom politely. “I can’t promise it will exonerate you, but if Sweetie Belle thinks it’s important... well, the train isn’t going anywhere without us.”

“Eyup,” Applejack said. Uh oh, was she that mad? I hope I didn’t make a huge mistake, if Applejack is being monosyllabic.

“We were just tryin’ ta get our cutie marks!” Apple Bloom says to Rarity... pointedly avoiding Applejack’s glare. By some miracle of decency in the world, Applejack allows Apple Bloom to finish her panicked, embellished explanation without cutting her off.

“Twilight was talking about a space rock that had knowledge of the ages, and maybe it’d know what our special talents are, so when Twilight and Rainbow Dash went off to the expedition Scootaloo said we should go too so we could talk to the rock an’ gain its wisdom or somethin’ but there was no rock, but there was a cave there instead and we went in there,” she took a deep breath, “Thinkin’ if we solved the mystery then y’all might be impressed with us and when we found the thingy in the room Sweetie said she could feel it so Scootaloo and I told her to try talkin’ to it and then Sweetie started to flare up and we ran for help and... you know the rest.”

“That was plumb stupid of you,” Applejack interjected at last.

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom whimpered miserably.

“Could have been worse,” I mumble.

“Scuze me?” Applejack calmly asks me with a hot glare.

“I mean,” I gulp, “Yeah, it was stupid. Sorry.”

“But why did Scootaloo run off just now?” Rarity asked in a quarrelsome tone. “What does this have anything to do with anything?”

I bite my lower lip. I can’t be the one who explains it; I don’t really know what happened! I just have a ...pretty good guess, from what Apple Bloom told me earlier. Plus the filly without amnesia is sort of obligated to be the one who says what happened. I was just trying to stall for time! Now I’ve got to explain to them, that their best friend Rainbow Dash is a huge douchebag?

I fretfully turn to Apple Bloom and say, “No, I meant you should say, why did Scootaloo do all that? It’s the same reason she’s crying, I think.” Ah fuck my mouth. “I mean, why she’s ... washroom...ing... I mean... I didn’t mean...”

“It’s okay, Sweetie,” Rarity says to me in soothing tones. “Please, let Apple Bloom speak.”

“But ah’m not Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom protests, “How am ah gonna know why she went along?”

“I just want to hear why you think she went,” I explain to Bloom, “It sounded right when you said it to me the last time.”

Apple Bloom looks so hesitant. I wonder if Scootaloo made her swear not to tell or something. “Please, Apple Bloom, it’s important!” I urge her.

“Uh, well...” Apple Bloom shifts uneasily on her cushion, “Well Rainbow Dash kind of left her in the lurch, you know?” Her tone is measurably angry when she says that. “Scootaloo said she wanted to get her cutie mark but ah think she was missin’ Rainbow Dash something fierce. Even when we got there and there weren’t no magic space rock she wanted to keep going because maybe if she impressed y’all then Rainbow Dash would let her... uh... stay...”

“Why didn’t she say nothin’?” Applejack interjected. “Ah know Rainbow’s been real busy lately, but there are lots safer ways to see her than hitchin’ a train for the Badlands!”

“It’s not that simple,” I interrupt with a whine, “She didn’t want to see Rainbow Dash!”

“I thought that’s what you were saying!” Applejack says, rounding on me and looking at me with burning green eyes. “Why do you think Scootaloo went all that way, if she didn’t even want to see her?”

I find myself cringing back from that steely gaze. The thought that Applejack is a lot bigger and stronger than me pops into my head, with extreme clarity. I try to think of what I’m trying to say. She...wanted to impress Rainbow Dash, not see her. No, that’s sounds dumb. She wanted to... not even notice... Rainbow Dash while her idol ...sees that she’s worthy no no that’s a stupid way to say it. But Rainbow Dash had to see her, not the other way around! Oh, wait...

“Scootaloo didn’t want to see Rainbow Dash,” I say after some deliberation, “She wanted Rainbow Dash to see her.”

Applejack breaks her gaze, looking away from me nervously. Wait... what just happened there? Did I just stare down...? No, no that’s crazy. I’m getting distracted. I turn to Rarity for security, and finish, “So, she saw Rainbow Dash, and then when the train came, Rainbow Dash wasn’t there to see her... off. So, she ...went to the bathroom. I mean washroom.”

“...so we should leave her alone.” I finish lamely.

I don’t know why I’m falling over my words so much and getting upset. It’s this stupid filly body messing with me or something. At least I’m making words at all. At least I’m trying. I haven’t been able to give a fuck enough to try this hard for... a long time. I could really use a hug right now.

Scootaloo could... really use a hug too.

“When Scootaloo comes back, can she sit with me?” I ask um, the interstitial space between the adults, not sure who I’m supposed to ask about that. Rarity’s eyes twinkle at my suggestion, and she walks over to Apple Bloom’s seat and says, “Do excuse me, filly,” settling her posterior down on the bench where Scootaloo was formerly sitting. Apple Bloom looks a bit crowded, but she isn’t complaining.

Scootaloo does come back eventually, clopping into the passenger car saying overenthusiastically, “Boy that was a big one, heh heh, sure took a while sorry about that.” She looks at her old seat where Rarity is sitting, and frowns. Rarity gives her an unconcerned look in reply. Then Scootaloo turns to Applejack, who’s laid herself out flat all over the bench. Ohh, I get it. I smile at Scootaloo as innocently as possible, and pat the cushion in front of me invitingly.

I don’t think any of us are fooling anyone anymore, but Scootaloo rolls her eyes at me and grumbles something under her breath. Yet, she does jump onto the seat and settles down next to me, pointedly keeping to herself and looking in the other direction. In what is probably the most aggressive action I have ever taken in my entire life, I rear up and grab her, wrapping my arms around her chest as if she was that ball earlier. She groans exasperatedly but doesn’t even struggle to escape. With my eyes squeezed shut it’s hard to tell, but I sure hope I’m doing this right.

“Why are you so tense, Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo asks me, an interminable amount of time later. I would tense up nervously at her words, but well, she’s absolutely right.

“Sorry I’ve never–” I shut my mouth, thinking frantically. Sweetie Belle wouldn’t be hugging like an awkward robot. I feel like someone is going to slap me upside the head, and tell me to knock it off in that hateful gruff voice that I’ve never heard before. “I’m not used... I mean...” taking a deep breath, I force myself to relax. It’s a whole lot easier to hug her then. “I’m just a little nervous,” I say, “About the hospital.”

“Well I’m not your teddy bear, so leggo!” Scootaloo says grouchily, pushing me away.

I sit there staring back at her, offended. “No,” I say fussily, missing the hug already, “That’s why I was tense, not why I was hugging you! I was hugging you because I like you!”

Scootaloo looks away silently, hunching her wings, making me huff at how infuriatingly stubbornly she seems determined to hurt herself. I try explaining, “I couldn’t walk, so I never got to give you a hug like Ap–” Apple Bloom shoots me a look. “Like I wanted to,” I continue, “To thank you for saving me.”

“From what?” Scootaloo says turning to me in confusion. From a horrible life? From my own failure? From uncomprehendible mundanity? I have to go with what she was saving Sweetie Belle from though, not what she really did save me from. I wish I could tell Scootaloo, just how much her and her friend’s blunder saved me.

“Um, Apple Bloom said you both went for help, when I ...went off,” I say uncertainly. “I... was I still... going when T–Miss Twilight and Rarity came?”

“If you mean lighting up like a roman candle, yeah!” Scootaloo says teasingly.

I look at Rarity, who’s looking in the other direction pretending not to listen. “Rarity, um, did you or Twilight stop me from... lighting up like a roman candle?”

“I did what I could, dear,” Rarity says offhandedly. “Twilight did manage to pull you out of it though, yes.”

So I turn back to Scootaloo saying, “Would they have found me if you didn’t run for help?”

Scootaloo squirms in her seat, still facing away from me going, “Uh... I guess... maybe? They didn’t know we were down there, but they were looking for us.”

I lean forward and give Scootaloo another hug very gently, saying “Thank you for saving me.” This time I let her loose right away, and pull back to my own little sitting horse thing. Scootaloo doesn’t say anything, but... well, at least she doesn’t look like she’s going to cry anymore. Not like she’s holding it back, but like she is genuinely feeling better.

I glance at Rarity, then half climb over the green divider to whisper to her, “Thank you for saving me, too.” I can tell she’s trying to hold back a snicker, but I still had to say it. One does not let generous horse ever hear the end of it.

The train takes half a day to cross the landscape. The amount of distance it travels is unnervingly inspirational. From my eventual window perch, I watch with fascination at the mountains, receding ever so slowly, at the broad, flat dusty expanse of what looks like an endless desert, yet with cliff plateaus rising above the horizon in the far distance. The landscape turns green gradually, as we leave the desert from this side, and I’m soon staring idly at a distant line of trees, when suddenly motion above attracts my attention.

I look up and a sharp gasp rushes into my lungs. More pegasi! Brightly colorful bodies drifting about serenely overhead. They look like titanic giants from how they’re grabbing the clouds and moving them around, and fluffing them bigger and kicking them apart and... stuff. If I was a scientist, I would be loudly declaring what I see impossible, as the clouds I was observing had to be 3 miles away and many miles wide. A pegasus getting close to a cloud would see it getting bigger and bigger and more indistinct until they saw nothing but a white wall of fog in front of them. They should look like ants next to those clouds. I’m not a scientist thankfully, but it still makes them look like horse giants.

If it’s anything like in the show, then even the fabric of space itself is going to have weird properties. So maybe it’s like looking up in a giant lens, except that we are the lens? Uh... yeah I’m not a scientist.

The pegasi in the Badlands were flying a lot higher than these, and these ones are actually moving clouds around! One even passes by the sun, and a shadow plays across my face as their cloud passes before it, shining silver in the golden light. I wonder what that high pitched squealing noise is, some sort of interference over the intercom? Oh it’s me.

Moving! Clouds!

Well, between squeeing at magical ponies doing magical things in a magical land, I do have to spend some time planning my escapefiguring out how to confess to Rarity and the others, without getting in too much trouble. If I had the choice, I’d go sneak to a library and study up on possessions. Then maybe I could learn what ponies would do to me, if I had any recourse other than death. I might even be able to learn if no no no no no no no no when Sweetie Belle can be saved from this. If she’s in my head, or if she’s in another dimension or... oh fuck no. What if she’s in my body? If she doesn’t know what to do, then there’s nobody to help her, and she might d–she might have a hard time pretty soon. I’m going to have to pick up the pace on figuring out how to save her. It’s been three days already. Has it really been three days?

I lean on the windowsill and sigh disconsolately. I wish I could do this faster. I wish I had the guts to tell Rarity and everyone. I wish I wasn’t such a spineless coward. But I’m just trying to save Sweetie Belle in a way that doesn’t mean I have to go back.

Even... the slightest hint that I might have to go back to that horror, is too terrifying to even speak about. No really, my heart beats faster, and my ears go down, just turning at Rarity and contemplating even telling her. What would I even say? What if she can’t bring Sweetie Belle—no. No Sweetie Belle will be saved, because the world is a good place after all, and everything is going to work out alright in the end. Because it has to.
> Taste Tests
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



Oh no, my word count is dropping! Just kidding, I actually had to break this chapter up into two pieces.



At least with this hospital visit, I’m not even going to get the chance to keep my secret secret. I wish I could throw myself at their mercy and hope for the best, and guess what? Thanks to their magical hospital scanners, I’m going to get my wish granted whether I like it or not! What a magical wish granting land, am I right? That’s a good place for it to be revealed, anyway. It means I can enjoy this one last train ride, and then ask forgiveness later, and nobody’s going to die or be trapped in a hellish nightmare forever.

As soon as they force me to stop being such a snake.

I sigh, letting my chin sink down to the ledge of the window, where I remain leaning on the wooden frame as the train clacks and rumbles quietly beneath me. With the formerly open land around the train now a little more constrained by the forest, I don’t see many pegasi, or much of anything else for that matter. Watching trees, trees and more trees gets old pretty quickly. They’re not even apple trees.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo have the right idea, playing a game of hide and seek around and under the train benches. I get the impression the adults don’t like it much, but they prefer letting them play, to the unpleasant experience of active children who are trying to keep still. I’d probably be right there with them, if I could only stand up on this train. It looks like I’ll have to wait to get off a moving train before I can even think about trying to move around again on my own power. It doesn’t stop me from watching them though, with a tight longing in my chest.

I slide down to lie there on my side, with my legs easily folding out beneath me towards the edge of the seat cushion. After a while, I manage to roll to my back entirely, my tail pushing down against the seat as I wiggle my little white legs up in the air friskily. I really want to move around. I’ve been sitting still for so long. But all I can do is look at my little pony feet and my little pony belly and the curls of my mane currently mooshed down against the cushion, that like to drop down into the periphery of my vision.

I never wanted to be the little pony. It might not seem like it, from how positive I’m reacting, but on some level I know that I could have woken up as a toothless crocodile and I’d still be deliriously giddy about being here. All I ever needed was something impossible to happen. The precise nature of that impossibility just doesn’t matter. Being Sweetie Belle is admittedly up there in the top ten ideal experiences, but it’s the kindness of existence that makes everything worthwhile, no matter what or who you wake up to be.

So, I’m not complaining or anything, being Sweetie Belle and all. But I do kind of miss having hands. Wiggling four little baby hooves out above me just isn’t as satisfying as stretching my fingers.

“Sweetie,” comes Rarity’s amused laugh, “What on earth are you doing?”

I stop wiggling my hooves like a retard, and turn to look up at her through the transparent green divider. “Hoofy kicks?” I suggest timidly. Rarity manages not to laugh to her credit, though she puts her hoof over her face to hide a smile. She doesn’t tease me about it at least. I probably deserve it.

“Never mind, darling,” Rarity says, and returns to her quiet vigil over the other Crusaders, turning away from me. Thus, once again I’m left to do ...whatever.

It occurs to me I still don’t have a plan, for when they find out about me.

“Ugh,” I grunt disgruntledly, flopping over on my side again. It’s that sour feeling in your muscles, not like lactic acid but, just like you want to jump up and run about until you’re exhausted. It’s so hard to think, when I’m primed and ready for playtime, and don’t even have the coordination to do it. “How much longer is this gonna take?” I exclaim and immediately wonder why I said that. Aren’t I happy this is taking longer?

“We’re beyond the halfway mark, Sweetie,” Rarity says over her shoulder. “In fact they should bring the food cart around soon.” She looks at me and smiles, adding, “That would be a nice break in the monotony, now wouldn’t it?”

“Goll-ly, Rarity,” Applejack speaks up in a disgusted tone, reminding me again that she’s actually here with us. “Can’t you see the filly is stir crazy? She needs runnin’, not eatin’!”

I frown at those words. “Actually I am kind of hung–”

Applejack rolls off the bench, landing with a solid clop on the moving train. She turns to me, and barely has to walk a pace to get right up over me. I stare up at her like a deer in headlights, while she says, “Well come on, y’gotta learn to walk sometime.”

“I can’t walk, though!” I protest, curling my hooves against me defensively.

“You were doin’ alright before,” Applejack says smoothly. I look at Rarity, but she’s leaning on the divider and regarding Applejack with a small silent smile.

“We’re on a moving train,” I say turning back to Applejack. “I’ll fall over!”

“So?”

I open my mouth to protest, but nothing comes out. I look down then look up again brows knitted in incredulity. “So...” I say very uncertainly to the orange cowpony, “That’s bad!” Applejack responds by scruffing me. Okay, yes this is getting kind of old.

I dangle helplessly, which of course puts all four hooves in an ideal position to be set down in a standing stance. My knees would be knocking together, if they weren’t spread apart trying to keep from falling over. It’s just a train, not a maglev, so it’s clattering and rocking back and forth slightly, which makes anxiety leap in my throat. “What if I fall?” I whimper out shrilly.

“Then you get back up again,” Applejack says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. I can’t help but notice the other two Crusaders peeking out from under benches at me, to say nothing of the other passengers, who are looking at me with varying degrees of sympathy and disdain. “You gotta work off some of that energy,” Applejack says gently, but unsympathetically. “If you fall, that’s fahn, because if you wear yourself out from gettin’ up again, then you won’t be drivin’ us and yourself crazy with all your wigglin’!”

My anxiety slightly fades before her unflinching logic. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think Applejack has outsmarted me. She mistakes my shock for hesitance, and adds, “Don’t worry, ah’ll spot ya,” sidling up close to me, her barrel like a warm furry orange wall alongside me. Lifting one leg, I take a cautious step. Nothing happens of course, because all I did was lift a leg and then put it down. It’s the other three I have to deal with, that are the problem at hand. The train lurches under me, and I slip sideways.

“Easy does it,” Applejack says, propping me up before I topple over.

“Long as you can keep me from hitting my face,” I mutter unenthusiastically. “My nose is so sore.”

A funny noise makes me look behind me in disgust. Stop it, worst pony. You’re not supposed to sit there all smug on your train bench up there snickering at my suffering. I’ll bet that love in your eyes is...

Is...

...wow. I look away from Rarity, blushing despite myself, and focus on my legs. I am not used to people loving me. Or ponies, for that matter. I take my cautious step again, pausing halfway through when I notice that, even with only three legs down, I’m still balanced, rocking naturally to the other direction when the train wobbles underneath, my tail acting as a—oh, hey!

I put my hoof down, and look at my tail. It’s actually up, and swinging there perkily. I hardly even have to think about it to get it up there. The tip of it twitches excitedly. Which is to say, I’m excited. I look forward again determinedly. Lift up a hoof, put it forward, so far so good. Rear opposite leg then, on the right. That second hoof hits the floor underneath me, but at an odd angle, like I’m leaning back on it. Which I do, a surprised shriek escaping me as it slides out, and I fall on my butt.

“C’mon then, get up,” Applejack says, using her nose to roll me to my belly.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” I say limply, still unnerved by the fall.

“Well fahn, get up nice and slow then,” Applejack tells me disapprovingly, “But you won’t burn off any’a that energy. You gotta work up a good head’a steam if you want to feel less restless.”

I look at Applejack in thoughtful respect, then rise to my feet, then wobble and... fall over again. The train keeps moving!

“You’re doin’ great, Sweetie!” Apple Bloom says over to me approvingly, if insincerely. “Go ahead, one more time!”

I try to stand up again, and my legs just slide out from under me, landing me on my belly with a soft thump. “What is even the point?” I huff, “I’m not going to get better at walking, not on this train.”

“The point ain’t to get better,” Applejack says in an authoritative tone, “The point is to get tahred! Now get up and really put some effort in it!”

Pouting, I pull my hooves in, bracing them on the ground and pushing up. I manage to stand then, stumbling once as the train goes over another irregularity in the track. “Okay... okay I can do this...” I chant, breathing hard. I try stepping with my right hind leg first, and it just hangs in the air, with me unsure of where to touch it down. I pull it back from as far as I can stretch, then just shift the weight from my front left to my hind right. Doing that pushes me forward, off balance, and... my other two legs flail and clop forward, leaving me splay legged, and leaning forward too far. I try to hold it but I just can’t... stop... I almost hit my face when I fall, but something grabs me, and it’s Applejack, easing me less painfully to the ground.

“One more tahm,” Applejack says encouragingly.

I have to have gotten up and fallen down a dozen more times at least, by the time the food cart arrives. It’s gotten to the point that I think I’m teaching myself how to fall over, more than I am how to walk. The rolling clatter announces itself, as I lie on my side panting, readying myself for another attempt. The Crusaders are still cheering me on shrilly, but the bigger ponies both turn their heads to the other train car, when a magenta mare with a blue mane wrapped up in a bun comes pushing a metal cart, its handle pressed firmly up against her chest. We all get out of the way of the food cart, well Applejack drags me out of the way, but the rest of us get out of the way on our own power.

The mare stops the cart with her teeth near the center of the train car, then says in a bright bouncy voice, “Alright everypony, we have mozzagonia sandwiches, chickpea stew, hay fries, selection of fruit, a spinach/barley mash with basil, fried cattails...” and I find my mouth dropping open at her happily auditory recital of the ...menu as it were. Half the stuff sounds delicious, half the stuff sounds like stuff I’d never eat, and half the stuff I don’t even recognize. I can sure smell it though. The stews are in big deep pots on the lower level, with silvery square trays on top holding the hot servings, the fruit in a bag on the side, and the hay...fries in a bag on the other side.

“Oh Sweetie, your favorite!” Rarity suddenly exclaims, excitedly.

“Huh...?” I say, looking at Rarity cluelessly. I realize then, “Oh, you mean the–the food, right!” My pupils narrow, as I realize I hadn’t paid attention to what Rarity was referring to, at all. How am I supposed to know Sweetie Belle’s favorite food? Would it taste like it was my favorite food? Rarity gave Sweetie Belle cantaloupe, and it tasted like cantaloupe! What if Sweetie likes something the most, and I find it tastes terrible, even though we have the same nose?

What breath I’ve managed to catch comes short and quickly, as I try to drag a solution to this out of my stubbornly recalcitrant brain. Come on, what did Rarity say was Sweetie’s favorite? Why wasn’t I listening? I don’t care if it tastes like a sewer, I’ve got to eat it and pretend it’s really good! But how can I, when I don’t even know what to ask Rarity to–

“Here you go, Sweetie,” Rarity says casually, levitating a sandwich on a plate down to the bench in front of me.

I blink at the sandwich, my gears still spinning with the clutch pulled out. It’s a rather innocuous looking thing. Very plain textured bread, sliced in precise triangles, no crust. It smells... mmm... oh that’s actually nice. I don’t know what it is, but it smells tart and vanilla-ish. There’s something white sticking out the sides. The sandwich doesn’t have much filling, but what’s in there certainly adds to the bulk of it, more than just the lightweight bread slices. 

I start to just eat it, but then I stop in puzzlement. The slices are lying awfully flat on the plate. Do I just bite a corner? Am I supposed to lift it in my magic? Probably my hooves. Yes, definitely my hooves. Hooves that I have no idea how to use. I look at a hoof. It’s relatively clean, I suppose because I haven’t been walking on it. My ears tilt down, remembering that Rarity is watching me. Instead of fussing over how, I just go push my hoof down on a slice, trying to do... whatever Apple Bloom did back then.

I push the sandwich around on the plate, at least. The cart attendant is rolling her cart into the next car, by the time I manage to get it to tilt up enough, that I manage to get my other hoof... my other front hoof underneath it. Thankfully, my back hooves seem decidedly less articulate than the front ones, because I do not want to be a spider pony grasping things with all four hooves. In a similar act of universal benevolence, this sandwich isn’t heavily stuffed, and is pretty compressed, so it doesn’t spill its guts forth when I squeeze it between my clumsy hooves. It’s like one of those cheap sandwiches you’d find in plastic wrap at the coffee shop.

And, this is what my life has been reduced to. Less coordination than a baby pony, spending like five minutes just to eat a packaged sandwich. I take a bite of the smushed thing. Then I take another bigger bite. It actually tastes chewy and scrunchy and sort of... is that provolone?

I turn my head up to Rarity with a smile, saying, “’s gloo–” but stop myself before I go and make an idiot out of Sweetie Belle again. Chewing on the oddly grassy bread, and the plump white slices of some sort of fruit intermingled with a mild nutty cheese, I find it’s a very gooey sort of sandwich, not entirely unlike a s’more. I carefully chew, making sure every bit of it is swallowed, before looking up at Rarity, and saying, “Thank you sis,” in a polite tone. “You were right, I do like this!” Rarity is looking at me a bit awkwardly at that statement, so I hurriedly add, “Uh, the bread is a little funny, though?”

Rarity purses her lips. “Hmm, probably wheat,” she says in an unimpressed tone, “You’d prefer amaranth, I suppose. Well, this is a degree of separation from ‘roughing it’, so I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with such for now.”

I’d respond with something witty, but it’s pretty clear what Rarity wants me to do, so I just resume eating my sandwich. I could use some water...

“May I have some water?” I therefore ask, and it is Rarity whom I ask, as she is the one who set me up with this sweet sandwich. She smiles at me and says,  “You certainly may. One moment while I flag down the attendant.”

“You don’t have to–” I say, but Rarity is already trotting off into the other car, where the dining tray was previously rolled, in an unremarkably obvious manner that I clearly don’t have to describe again.

“I hope you don’t mind a bowl,” Rarity says, returning with a cream colored bowl. “You were having enough trouble with the sandwiches as-is,” she grumbles in a disapproving tone.

“Sure!” I cheer approvingly, though I don’t succeed in sounding approving, with how my mouth is gaping open. “I mean, is that okay?!” I ask with trepidation. “I mean, are bowls a thing? I mean–” I really should learn to stop talking.

“As long as you don’t mind being treated like a foal,” Rarity cautions, lowering the bowl to the bench where I can see it’s full of clear water.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” I say happily, equally happily sticking my nose into the bowl and siphoning out water. My sister is the one looking at me with trepidation now, so I wipe off my chin and explain to her, “It’s like you said. A lady must um... let others pull the cart when you can’t ...walk.” Dammit brain, you can do better than that! How did Rarity say it so poetically? Come on brain, you can come up with dirty limericks on the spot, but you can’t describe why it’s ladylike to slurp water out of a bowl?

Rarity smiles anyway, and leaves me be without further trouble, but it’s a placating smile, like one you’d give a little kid who has a poor understanding of what’s going on.

This is all Sweetie Belle’s brain’s fault.

The train crosses a bridge at one point, a flat topped golden archway over a yawning chasm cut like a knife out of the land. It grabs my attention because of the sound of the waterfall thundering down in the distance on our right. This divide seems out of place in the bountiful thick forest, nothing inside it but worn solid rock. My sister pulls me back into the train saying, “Don’t lean out the window so far, Sweetie.”

“What was that?” I ask after the train has passed beyond it and there’s no more to look at.

“Some place you never need to go,” Rarity says, harsh enough to make me wilt. I deserved that. Or, wait no, Sweetie deserved that for going to the Badlands... and... I probably would deserve it, given half a chance. I’m not in trouble yet though, even though I am. She is. I’m confused.

“An old relic,” Rarity continues to murmur, “Ponies like to refer to it as Ghastly Gorge. A fitting name if you ask me. It clashes terribly with the surrounding landscape. I wish they would just fill it up with dirt and be done with it.”

“Where would they get that much dirt?” I wonder, mentally trying to imagine filling up a canyon like that.

“W-well they wouldn’t,” Rarity admits, “It’s just an idle fantasy. There are a lot of dangerous places, even in Equestria, that have not yet been properly ponified.”

Seriously? Ponified is a thing?

“It looked really pretty, for a dangerous place,” I say testily. “All the trees were getting kind of boring.”

“Sweetie,” Rarity says placatingly, “If you think that is impressive, just wait until you recall our family outing to the Grand Canyon!”

“Plus, then they couldn’t build that beautiful bridge!” I continue stubbornly.

“Sweetie, if you think that bridge is beautiful–” Rarity starts.

“I know, I know,” I respond grumpily, “There’s lots better bridges out there. Doesn’t mean that one isn’t pretty.”

We fall silent for a moment, then my head shoots up again, and I exclaim in shock, “Tha҉t’s Ghastly Gorge?!”

...ugh... maybe my special talent is to be a rubber duckie.

“Hmm?” Rarity says looking down at me with a curious expression, “Why on earth would you be remembering Ghastly Gorge? I’m fairly sure you’ve never been there.” Her voice takes a suspicious tone toward the end.

“Oh, um... Rainbow D–” I chew on my lip thinking twice before saying that. “Scootaloo said that Rainbow Dash trains there sometimes,” I settle on at last.

“I say what now?” Scootaloo pipes up, popping in on our conversation, next to me on the train bench. Thanks Scootaloo, my blood wasn’t running cold enough until you helped out there. Oh, no, Scootaloo, of course it wasn’t you who said it, it was actually a cartoon television show what said it, which I watched in humanland, which is full of humans, which I am, and not Sweetie Belle. I just had to try to get creative here, bringing Scootaloo into it. Well, I can’t possibly ruin my story any worse, so I just keep going with it.

“You told me once—you were the one who told me, right?” I ask Scootaloo. “I mean, that she um... trains in the... Ghastly Gorge...”

Scootaloo nods, oh thank Celestia, saying “Yeah, but you were never all that interested in that stuff I mean, it’s all... athletic and stuff.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?” I say in mock alarm. Scootaloo gasps in genuine alarm. It’s fucking adorable. Okay distraction achieved, I’m going with this.

“You must never tell a lady she is fat!” I continue in that incorruptible voice I’ve fallen in possession of, sticking my nose up and putting a hoof on my chest. “Or she may have to sit on you!”

“I didn’t mean to!” Scootaloo protests painfully, stopping short with a “Wait wha–”

“It’s too late!” I say in as low a pitch I can manage, which is not very low. I wiggle around to stick my bottom half at her going, “You cannot escape this big fat butt!”

“Sweetie, stop it!” Scootaloo utters backing up from me off the seat, but she can’t stop giggling, so I figure she can suck it up.

“If only you had known!” I pronounce, scooting backwards toward the sound of her laughter, “What the consequences would be! But you didn’t, and now it’s too late! My butt hungers!”

“Sweetie, language!” Rarity snaps at me sharply, making me look up at her nervously, where the older unicorn is holding a rigid poker face. Unfortunately, that’s the exact same time my rear end topples over the edge of the train seat. I squeak in alarm, as my gut hits the edge of the seat, trying to hold on with my front hooves, but inexorably sliding off and landing on my butt back on the floor of the train. I wish that last part was intentional, because I would have to be a master comedian to pull that off intentionally, but thankfully gross incompetence also fits the bill.

“I’m O.K.!” I call out from the floor.

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Rarity belly laugh before in the show. She’s always laughing politely, or wryly, or mixed in with the group. I wonder if Tabitha St. Germane had a problem making a convincing laugh for Rarity. She’s a masterful voice actor though, so it probably was just deemed a character trait, or not a high priority. Actually it’s probably a little bit of both. I certainly hope this experience of mine isn’t some elaborate setup, and they don’t have Tabitha chained somewhere behind the set right now, currently being mercilessly tickled. But... if that isn’t the case, then Rarity’s laugh (not Tabitha’s) sounds genuine, but silly. A lot of whooping.

I think I’m going to make it my solemn duty to make Rarity laugh like that as often as possible.

First I have to get back onto the bench, though.

The apples herald the arrival of Ponyville. My eyes are the size of dinner plates as the apple trees rush by, not wanting to miss one instant or micron of detail. This has to be Applejack’s farm. It has to be! Orchard, I mean. South orchard? I wonder which way this train is approaching the town. I wish I could recall the map of Equestria from memory. The Badlands are south, right? The sun winking straight down through the puffy clouds above us offers little in the way of direction.

“Whatcha lookin’ at, Sweetie Belle?” Apple Bloom says popping up on the windowsill next to me.

“Apples!” I exclaim without thinking. (What a surprise, there.) “I mean,” I correct myself, “Your– this is your orchard, right?”

“Sure is!” Apple Bloom says brightly, looking out through the trees, “Ain’t it pretty?”

“Yeah it–” Melancholy strikes me right in the chest, and I lean more on my cupped hoof saying, “It sure is...”

If this is Applejack’s orchard, then we have got to be getting close to Ponyville. I wonder if the buildings will be pink and white, or brown and tan. I wonder what season it is. It’s not winter, definitely. I know how much snow falls in the winter, in Ponyville. At least three feet deep...er... well, three feet deep, assuming ponies are tall as humans, so probably less than three feet. I’m going to have to be careful not to measure with feet anymore, or I might... wait, don’t I remember ponies using feet to measure with? Ohh, why didn’t I watch the show more carefully?

Of course there’s one way I could avoid all that hassle of resolving show references, which is to come clean to them up front. I could also jump out of the moving train, and try to live my life as a wild filly, swinging through the apple trees, living on apples and bathing myself with rain, never once touching the ground for the rest of my natural life. Or maybe I could just wait for the hospital, and let them make the decision for me.

The valley Ponyville is in, is the bottom of a great basin. The incline up from Appleoosa is so smooth and gradual, you don’t even realize how high you are above sea level, until the short hills you climb become great dips and long plunging drops, and the valley opens before you far below. Applejack’s orchard runs right into those steep hills, rows of trees climbing them effortlessly to bear their red fruited bounty. The bulk of the orchard is on the valley floor, but it just expands as far as is feasible, even after hitting the edge of the basin.

One second I’m looking at trees, and then the tree line sweeps down a steep hill, and there before me is the entire town of Ponyville gleaming before my eyes. The buildings are white and pink! I can’t believe that is the first thought that comes to my mind. Holy crap I am literally looking at Ponyville right now! I can see the town hall, the biggest building by far but still dwarfed by the town’s overall size. Much of it looks like the little cottages are just meandering around, but much of the center has more elaborate buildings of different colors than the cottages, arranged in broad circles. Market squares, no doubt. Why are market squares shaped like circles?

In the distance far ahead of the train, there’s that spiral tower thing. I know it’s a landmark in Ponyville, because it’s big and weird looking, and not a cottage. That’s the full extent of my knowledge of what the heck it’s there for. I do seem to recall that the later episodes made a good amount of effort to omit it from existence. I imagine in the private design notes, it’s labeled the “we don’t know that the fuck this is the storyboarders were drunk never use this” tower. The town conforms organically around several rivers, bridges dotting them and the occasional water mill trundling away. I can see wind and water power, though probably for simple mechanical acts like grinding flour and nothing directly electrical. I’d really like to see more, but the train is descending down the tracks fast, and the town is approaching.

But before I look down, I turn my head up, and through those pink and lavender locks of hair atop my vision, I can see the tall rounded mountains circling the far distant other side of the valley basin. Alongside the very tallest of them all is the white city gleaming in the sun, the city of towers, the library citadel, the neighbor of the sun and moon. It’s very faint in the hazy midday air, but there atop the tallest mountain, I can see Canterlot. It rouses a feeling in me not distant from sadness, that such a beautiful thing could just be sitting out there for me to look at. One day I might even be walking its very halls. Because it’s a real place now, this is all real, and I’m somehow really here!

Below, where the train is heading down the tracks that run along the edge of town, there are small blobs of color moving around with a clear purpose. Ponies! I can’t tell if they’re earth ponies or unicorns at first. The small blobs of color rising into the air are obviously pegasi. With ponies the size of grains of rice, it’s not really possible to pick up many features, but with the train drawing inevitably closer to the town, I can start seeing features and details on the nearer ponies. The rooftops are getting closer, making more distant ponies more obscured. Soon the train has brought us below the roofs, and then we’re among the ponies, and inside Ponyville.

The most spectacular thing about it: I do recognize ponies now! The ones on the expedition were strangers, but this is Ponyville, and tons of ponies from the show are here. I catch a glimpse of who I might think to be Lyra, or at least some pony who’s bright aquamarine in color. And there’s that blue pony, the unicorn stallion with the stars! And there’s the aeronaut! The one with cherries on her butt! She doesn’t have that Amelia Earhart hat on. And there’s–! There’s foals! I ignore the taller ponies now, trying to make out the teeny tiny ones scampering about at their feet. I don’t recognize them all, but a few stand out. There’s Featherweight, and Liza and ohmygosh there’s Dinky! Wait, no that’s an earth pony, with Dinky’s colors... and hair style. There’s Diamond Tiara! She practically glows with the way she’s strutting around! I wonder where Silver Spoon is? I wonder what that custard yellow cylinder is, waving in front of me? It’s blocking my view, hey! Wait a minute.

“Hello? Earth to Sweetie Belle!” Apple Bloom is shouting in my ear, confirming the existence of radio technology and space exploration in Equestria. I tear my gaze from outside, and look at her dumbly for a second, before laughing nervously and saying, “Sorry, I was just looking at all the ponies.”

“Y’ might wanna try the other side of the train,” Apple Bloom says, “That’s where you can see the hospital!”

And, there goes my good mood.

Apple Bloom doesn’t understand why I’m suddenly sulking. All she can tell is I have some kind of bizarre aversion to the hospital. It’s not fair that I don’t tell her. She doesn’t deserve to see her friend so conflicted. But I try, I really do I just... I can’t take even one little look into her wide round eyes without imagining them cold and shadowed in disapproval. No, not disapproval... alienation. I feel like I actually have friends, with her and Scootaloo around, and the thought of throwing that away fills me with such dread that it only makes me even more sulkier and silent.

Rarity manages to get me on her back, well at least I go without protest, but I don’t really help her pick me up at all. It’s a silly delaying tactic, but I just don’t care at this point. Every pony walks off the train then, onto a quaint little train platform not unlike the one at Dodge Terminal. This station isn’t a terminal of course, and soon after we’ve left, the train continues quietly chugging on past us, further along down the tracks.

Rarity and I follow the direction of the train, while Applejack escorts Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in the opposite direction. Presumably they’re going back to that apple orchard we passed, where Applejack and Apple Bloom live, and Scootaloo... I still don’t know what’s going on with Scootaloo. But she follows Applejack.

“Bye, Sweetie Belle!” Apple Bloom calls out to my and Rarity’s retreating posteriors. I turn as much as I can and wave to her. “Feel better soon!” Scootaloo calls out. There isn’t any sort of tearful parting, and they just charge off after Applejack after that. No reason for tears because they expect that they’re going to be seeing their friend soon, maybe even tomorrow. They don’t think that she’s going away forever or never going to see them again. I wish I could expect that too, I really do.

Not like it matters anyway. Won’t be long until they pull me out of Sweetie’s brain like some kind of leech and toss me in the waste receptacle. I keep trying to tell myself that ponies wouldn’t do that, that they’d help me, that they’d save me somehow, but I just don’t know. I just don’t know what they would do, and I just don’t know what to do. Sitting on Rarity’s back and regarding the hospital in the distance, it feels like I’m being escorted to the gallows.

The Ponyville hospital is out of town a ways, on the same side of the tracks as the train station. Though it is far within the flat valley, the mountains in the distance still seem to nestle closely around it. Their suddenly great size makes for that illusion, since their peaks are just in line with the hospital’s sloping, shingled roof. The many windows look pink in the diffuse light from the late afternoon sun drifting gently down to light them up, without reflecting brightly in any specific one of them. The building has a medical cross of sorts, at the very height of it, and another one on a stone placard, mounted around a flower garden growing alongside the pathway leading to the hospital’s front door. The awning in front of that door looks a little out of place, like it was added after construction. The support beams are a pleasant ruby brown color, holding up walls of what look like a tan stucco.

I just can’t look at that building and imagine that they have anything bad in there. It just looks like a wonderful, welcoming place. But there can’t be anything good in there for something that takes little fillies and walks them around like puppets. I don’t feel like a puppet. Strange as they are shaped, Sweetie’s arms are my own arms, and Sweetie’s legs are my legs, and Sweetie’s tail is my... uh... nothing. But how I feel doesn’t matter, since the hospital can find out the truth. The truth is... I don’t know what I am. And the thought of finding out, that I’m something monstrous or murderous or, or alien is just... I... I just want to be Sweetie Belle.

“Sweetie, you’re shaking!” Rarity exclaims, as we pass in through the broad double doors. To my surprise, instead of swinging open, they slide aside automatically, sliding closed behind us. “Are you alright?” Rarity asks me with concern. I’m trying to stay calm, but it’s not working. It’s just not working, but I don’t want to have another breakdown. I just can’t!

“I’m f-fine,” I tell her unconvincingly, “I’m just n-nervous about the hos... the hospital.”

“Would you like to wait on coming here?” Rarity asks me tenderly, “I hadn’t known you were so anxious about it!”

“No!” I exclaim in terror. “We have to!” They have to examine me here, or I’ll never be forced to tell the truth! They–wait what am I doing?! I should be escaping from here! All I have to do is tell her and I can be Sweetie Belle forever! And I can live and everything will be wonderful and nopony will ever suspect a thing. And... Sweetie Belle will never be heard from again.

I look back at the double doors from atop my confused sister, no from atop her confused sister. Why am I letting them do this? I’m terrified of what they’re going to find, but looking at those doors fills me with an even greater terror. It’s like I’ve been playing all this time, just dancing around the issue and waiting for other people, or ponies, to solve it, but... I have no idea how to bring back Sweetie Belle, or save her from whatever trouble she’s in. If I walk out those doors... if Rarity walks out those doors I mean, then all this anxiety and guilt will just go on forever. But that’s better than dying! Why am I even conflicted? It’s either me or Sweetie Belle! Don’t I have any kind of desire for self preservation?

Don’t I have any... don’t I want to–don’t I want to...?

Oh... right.

I can’t help but recall how ardently I clung to life at a child. I really had something good back there, or thought I did. But, as I learned how the world worked, and those I loved were destroyed around me, what I thought was a good thing turned out to be pure poison, and it was the only thing on the menu. There didn’t seem to be any point in living, if all you could get out of living was stuff you didn’t care about, hurting others, and then death, and nothing after that. If death is nothing, then what is life, right?

Not that I’d ever an hero or anything. If there’s no reason to live, there’s no reason to die either. If suffering is meaningless, then why avoid it? Nothing to be afraid of about life at all... except nothing. But though I never tried to kill myself, I sure didn’t have any sort of sense of self preservation. Especially in recent years, when I just gave up on finding love, friends, happiness, anything really. The world was just too terrible a place, for anything I could get would not be worth what it would cost me. Fictional cartoon ponies gave me more sexual satisfaction than a real woman, and half the fault of that was the real women themselves!

My whole life, I always thought if I could just have some magic, some assurance that the world isn’t as easily understood as I feared, something to make me doubt my inevitable annihilation, then I would be able to care about myself again. Yet... some part of me feared that it wouldn’t be the case. You can’t just get over the emotional scars that are a completely ordinary existence with nothing wrong happening at all. I should be fighting to save my life now, and damned be the consequences. Everything around me is so beautiful. The olive green wallpaper, the blue cushions on the low benches, the mountain photographs on the wall,. They’re so beautiful it hurts. I want to keep experiencing this, and everything I can in all the world, forever and ever. I never want to stop living. I don’t want to die. I never did.

But, I just don’t have it in me to care about what I want, even now.

It’s so easy when I realize it. I just slump down bonelessly on top of Rarity and let the nurse walk up to me and ask what’s wrong. Looking at her dully, letting her poke and prod me however she wishes. I would go through this kind of anxiety a thousand times, before I’d harm someone like Sweetie Belle. I may be a coward, and a snake, and utterly spineless, but... even though I’m too terrible to save her, if these ponies can do it, despite me, then... I really don’t give a fuck whether I live or die. The wonder I feel at every experience is overwhelming, but the fear of losing it pales in comparison to the fear of destroying something worthwhile, or someone real, someone who isn’t just a big hollow nothing, pretending to be something.

“Sweetie Belle, please,” Rarity’s voice cuts through my long winded introspection. “Can you answer her questions?”

I blink, tilting my head up slightly. I lift my hooves up to pull my curls down, as if I could hide behind them, saying abashedly, “I wasn’t... listening, sorry.”

“Do you have any headaches?” the nurse barks in a gratingly disagreeable voice, around a clipboard she’s filling out. Oh paperwork, what would hospitals do without you?

“No headaches, no,” I say honestly. “My head feels fine, it’s just not... um... right.”

“Dizziness?” she goes on unperturbed. “Difficulty focusing? Any numbness or paralysis, in any parts of your body?”

I start to shake my head, then say, “Oh, wait. I couldn’t move my tail at... at first.” I look back at the thing and try to flex those muscles again. It lifts up as if to say hi to me. Huh, I think there are muscles inside the tail, or something? It feels weird.

“I’m getting better at it now though,” I add. The nurse is frowning at me, as if I didn’t quite say what she wanted to hear, but she writes something down on the clipboard anyway. She probably just figured out that I don’t have amnesia. Soul scanner, here we come!

“How about shortness of breath?” she adds. I shake my head. I don’t know how long my breathing is supposed to be, though it’s a lot faster than I’m used to. There’s no way for me to tell if that’s normal or not. “Irregular heart rhythms?” she follows.

“Definitely not that,” I say. Irregular heart rhythms suck, and being familiar with them almost sucks just as much. But thankfully, unless very justified panic attacks count, my heart has been as regular as a sunrise, beating strongly and confidently. Sweetie Belle has a good, healthy body, and so much life left in her, it’s intoxicating to experience.

“How about anxiety?” the nurse asks. I blink. “Unprovoked mood swings?” she qualifies, “Panic attacks?”

“Yes,” I say in a defeated tone. I don’t want tell her about my reaction to the hospital, but reluctantly I say, “I’m scared of the hospital for... reasons. A towel made me cry, and also when I got in the cart.” 

Right, the cart. The cart that this poor nurse knows absolutely nothing about. “There was a cart I rode in on our ...way here,” I explain, “And I got scared trying to walk, uhm... but I was okay, and that made me... cry. Being okay made me cry. And dizzy. Then I passed out, and didn’t wake up until we were on the cart.”

“How long has this been happening?” the nurse asks curtly, though not without a sympathetic look in her eyes.

“Three days,” I and Rarity say simultaneously.

“Well, at least you remember that much,” Rarity says, turning her head aside, all flustered. (It’s adorable.)

Rarity does speak further though. “Sweetie had an... incident,” she says, “Involving some stale magic and a juvenile alicorn cascade.” The nurse gave her a blank look and Rarity clarified, “Magic horn surge,” with a grumpy pout.

“Oh, a flare-up, yeah!” the nurse says in realization, marking it down on her clipboard. “We don’t get many of those, sorry. This is an earth pony town, you know?”

“Quite alright,” Rarity says politely, and very noncomittally. “We’re certainly not going all the way to Fillydelphia, with Sweetie in her condition!”

“Alright, I need you to come with me,” the nurse says. Rarity follows her amiably, with me still helplessly tagging along for the ride. “Think you can get up on a scale, miss?” It actually takes me a second to realize the nurse was talking to me now, not Rarity.

“Oh! Um, yes,” I say disjointedly, looking over at her. “I mean, probably? I can stand up.”

The medical scale is unimpressively prosaic. The platform to stand on is a lot larger than a human scale, to fit a grown pony no doubt, but otherwise it’s just a scale. I’m no expert on medical equipment, but it’s quite a few steps removed from a mystical soul scanner, if I had to hazard a guess. Apparantly I weigh 20.3 pounds, and ponies use the Imperial system (goddamnit). I didn’t think I was that little!

After the incredible accomplishment of standing on a scale, the nurse takes me for an even more prodigious task, sitting there patiently while she wraps a little blood pressure cuff around my arm. Also makes me sit with a thermometer in my mouth. She tells me a temperature of 102 is normal for ponies. Which is good, because otherwise I’d be hallucinating from a high fever. Actually, considering that I see myself as a magical little unicorn girl, I probably can’t count that out just yet.

The nurse’s examination surprises me with its mundanity. This I find, is not much different than any other doctor’s visit I’ve been at. Besides the unable to walk part, of course. (The nurse helps me up onto the examination table.) It doesn’t seem any different at first, but then I realize this is just the nurse, who’s going through standard check-in procedures, so it’s not going to be anything special until the doctor arrives. I also realize that the nurse just wrapped and unwrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm, without having hands to manipulate it with. And before you ask, she was an earth pony. So, not all that mundane, actually.

Even though I do recognize the nurse, from some episode at least, I sure don’t recognize the doctor. She’s a peach colored mare with a bright blue mane, parted around an equally peach colored horn on her head. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised I don’t recognize her, since the hospital was barely covered in the show, and the two times they visited were both different doctors entirely. If it was even the same hospital, in those two episodes?

I’m actually kind of relieved that mister muffin top isn’t my ...pediatrician. He was kind of creepy. Yes I know, pot, kettle, but I swear I’m totally not creepy at all. I’m lurky. Entirely different things.

And... a unicorn. I squeeze my eyes shut when her horn lights up, readying myself for whatever doom I seem bound and determined to drive myself into. “So, having trouble walking I see?” I hear the doctor say in a smooth alto, pitched deliberately casual. “And... amnesia? That’s very unusual. Trouble with the light level too, I suppose?”

There’s only one place I can feel the presence of her magic, and it’s quite a bit distant from me, so I crack one eye open. From where I’m sitting on the examination table, I can see the doctor using her magic, but all she’s doing is standing there looking at me quizzically. Her horn is still lit up, but the only thing wreathed in her cobalt blue magic is a—oh, a floating clipboard, with my chart on it. And a pencil.

It registers to me then, what the doctor has asked me about, and I open both eyes fully, smiling embarassedly and saying, “Oh, no. No, my eyes are fine. I’m just a little bit... nervous.”

“Well, don’t you worry, honey. We’re going to take good care of you,” the doctor coos with something of a smitten smile. “Why don’t you tell me about what happened to you?”

“I... um...” I was eating my hot pockets while beating it to horse porn using the skin flaps of my belly to no, no I don’t remember at all what I was doing. Also I hate Hot Pockets. And my belly doesn’t have flaps. Didn’t. Still doesn’t. I was never the most shapely of manly men, but I wasn’t that bad. I always had a fragile constitution, with a lot of upper back pain from long hours stupidly at the computer, but I never did fit the image of the stereotypical basement dweller. Even though I do love basements, they’re vanishingly rare in a modern society that relies on electric refrigeration, and mass produces cheap houses, thus can’t be assed to dig a big hole under them first.

Really, that’s one of the reasons I became so socially isolated. It’s not that I was horrifying or disgusting to look at. I just looked... normal. The kind of person you wouldn’t think twice about. You wouldn’t look at me and see a failure; you’d see someone you assumed had a decent job, and a wife and kids, and annoying extended family members coming by around Thanksgiving, that they nonetheless loved very dearly. It’s a sad truth, but people are so determined to blame the victim, that they’ll genuinely imagine social rejects to be subhuman monsters. The quiet, ordinary looking fellow over there doesn’t even earn your recognition that he might be a problem, much less your ire.

At least I hope that the reason nobody would help me is that they just didn’t think anything was wrong. I like to think that people will help those in need, even those who are male adults, even if they have no obligation to do so, and the reason they didn’t is just me failing to telegraph my situation to them. Maybe it’s a vain hope. Oh well, it’s in the past now.

“Sweetie here suffered a horn surge,” Rarity fills in for me. “I’m sorry, but she doesn’t remember anything about the event.”

The doctor turns to her and asks, “Can you possibly fill me in, then? You’re, I assume, her...?”

“Sister,” Rarity says easily.

“Right, sister,” the doctor responds agreeably to Rarity. “Now, I want to tell you now that amnesia is a very rare condition, and one of the things that does not cause it is a horn surge. Surges are a normal, if rare, part of a unicorn’s childhood development. While it’s possible she may have cast a memory spell on herself inadvertently, it’s far less likely than something like turning herself into a potted plant. Were there any extenuating circumstances?”

Rarity shrinks back a bit at that last part, lifts her hoof, as if hesitant to talk about it for some reason? “Yes...” she says reluctantly, “Sweetie here managed to get into a ...research project of a friend of mine. While there was nothing Twilight herself had set up which could have done this to Sweetie, there was a lot of old magic involved.”

Rarity paused to emphasize, “Very... very old magic. I’m afraid determining the cure for her amnesia might be a job for my friend, and not something we can identify today. What we need your help with, is the effects she has suffered. Sweetie Belle can barely stand, and not even walk a single step! The surge has left her in a magical state of affairs that is quite simply hazardous. And her memories are so jumbled! We need to learn how to deal with that, at least until Twilight can figure out what did happen to her.”

What Rarity is saying makes so much sense, while still being so unthinkable that... I just don’t know how to feel about it. Is she covering for me? Does she know? Is Twilight going to be the one to find out? Does that mean I should tell her? Does it mean I shouldn’t?

The doctor pony leans toward Rarity, pensively asking, “Twilight, as in Twilight Sparkle?”
> Crossing the Threshold
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The doctor pony leans toward Rarity, pensively asking, “Twilight, as in Twilight Sparkle?”

Rarity smiles tactfully at that, saying “Yes well, the news of that mare does get around, doesn’t it?”

“Especially around the hospital,” the doctor says with an eye roll, flat eared. “Did you know she herself helped stock the hospital library with texts on rare and bizarre magical ailments?”

“No she hadn’t mentioned,” Rarity hums offhan–offhoovedly. “That was nice of her, though she is technically a librarian.”

“No, you see Jm. Twilight Sparkle is the reason we needed a section on rare and bizarre magical ailments, in the first place,” the doctor reveals, making both of Rarity’s eyebrows raise. Doc peachy whose name I probably should know, being Sweetie Belle and all, adds as if in explanation, “It was after the Hearts and Hooves incident, in apology.” Rarity cringes again, showing nothing more than a silent wince.

“Relax, Miss,” the doctor says to Rarity, waving a hoof her way dismissively, “Nopony got hurt. The potion wore off after an hour of isolation. I just wanted you to know that if she is involved, we’re likely to take the situation very seriously.”

Wait...

“The potion?” I ask surprisedly, “Wasn’t that our fault?”

Rarity abruptly hugs me with one arm, jerking me against her entirely too tightly, “Oh Sweetie it’s wonderful you’re remembering things!” she says, speaking through closed teeth in a broad smile, “But I’m afraid you may be just a little mixed up, still.”

I look at her worriedly, then dawn in comprehension. “Oh! Yes,” I exclaim in extreme sincerity, “I must have um, been thinking about ...arts and crafts, yes. That silly memory of mine!”

“Still not sure how that much amoradoxin got into the water supply...” the doctor says in a puzzled tone, hanging up the clipboard on a nail on the wall. Looks like she isn’t particularly interested in the implications of what we’re saying at all. Obviously it’s because of our brilliant skills of subterfuge, and not the doctor just letting off steam without paying much attention to any responses.

“Anyway,” the doctor continues, facing me, “I think first I’ll have a look at your horn structure. That’s typically what gets damaged by a surge, if anything. I would like, however, to get the help of my colleague, in case there are any... surprises along the way. Could you wait a few more minutes?”

“Um, sure,” I say uncertainly. A doctor asking me if I can wait? This really was a magical land!

I sort of forget how excited I am about this amazing magical land, when the other doctor she brings in is a stallion. A really hot stallion.

You know that one movie actor with those clear bright eyes and that sharp hawklike visage who plays a doctor on television? No, not the bald one. It’s silly, because I never ever ever watch medical dramas, yet I can recall this mysterious man as clear as day. Perhaps I’m forming him completely out of a desperate imagination, taking the features that impact me all too deeply on the pony’s face, and constructing a false memory out of whole cloth, a human man for me to remember pining over wistfully on the silver screen, so that I don’t have to feel like I’m helpless to the urges of this body I’m in.

But whatever the case may be, that doctor pony looks just like him.

“Alright everypony,” he says walking in with the other doctor I’ll call her Blueberry Peaches until I figure out her real name. Unlike her tongue depressor cutie mark, he has what looks like an oscilloscope on his butt. I guess I should be paying attention to everyone’s cutie marks if I want to recognize them in the future. If I have a future. Anyway, he says “Alright everypony, I’m Doctor Checker, and Dr. Care here says we have a potentially difficult alicornoscopy to accomplish here.”

“He means checking your horn,” Dr. Care, my doctor that is, says to me helpfully.

“Your doctor will perform the exam,” Dr. Checker goes on, “I’ll just be providing a simple monitoring field, and potentially intervening if something goes awry. I’ve never in my years had anything go awry, to let you know, but I’m happy to provide Dr. Care with some... moral support.” He winks at her, and she elbows him in the chest.

“Alright then, if you can just hold still a moment...” Dr. Care says to me, then gestures to her gradutate fellow, “Doctor, if you would?”

The teal light casts off his horn, like a fishing net, except three dimensionally. It expands into a sphere, traced throughout with thin gridlines in roughly cubical shapes. It feels... different, but very subtle. He’s not putting very much power into it at all, so I can’t really tell what it’s doing in the area that encompasses us. Monitoring, obviously.

“Now hold still, dearie,” Dr. Care says, getting my attention and she reaches up to lay a hoof across my horn. It feels kind of like... someone laying a hoof on your elbow, except it feels more important because it’s your horn. If that makes any sense. I can feel the light pressure she applies, even in my skull a bit. I try to follow along, but all I can see up there is the edges of my generously bouncy tresses getting pushed around. The doctor is on two legs now, and reaches with the other front hoof to my forehead. Gently, bracing my horn with her one hoof, she gives it a little tap with the other.

That’s it, just a physical tap. It sort of echoes into me like before, and I guess it’s what she wanted because she doesn’t murmur or write down anything worriedly. She taps it again, from another angle, while I try not to squirm at the odd feeling of vulnerability. After that, she pulls back from looming over me so much, and presses the pad of her hoof down against the blunt tip, on the end of my horn. At least, I think she does, because I can feel inward pressure on my forehead there, and that’s where her hoof is. I can only feel contact on the tip of my horn distantly though. Sort of like feeling a baseball bat hit a baseball.

“I want you to tilt your head up against my hoof, as much as you’re comfortable,” Dr. Care tells me gently, “Stop the moment you feel any discomfort or pain.” I do as she says, looking past her at the male doctor, who’s still standing there with his horn all aglow, a bored expression on his face. I hope I’m not boring him. I can’t believe he sees me like this. It makes my cheeks flush hot at the thought. I’d let him touch my horn any day...

“Alright,” Dr. Care says clearly, breaking me out of my totally not moongazing, “Now I need you to tilt your head down against my hoof, as much as you’re comfortable.” So I reverse the direction I’m pushing against her hoof. Not that I can move my head, with my horn caught like that, but I do attempt to tilt my head down. As before, I don’t feel anything other than a gentle pressure holding me back, and I can’t really put more muscle into it without really straining. And that would be discomfort, for my neck muscles!

Dr. Care leaves me be then, removing her hooves while I wobble in place to keep myself upright without her presence. She pauses to pay attention to my chart, scratching down information on it. I pointedly face away from the ...other doctor, not wanting to see if he’s looking at me, and I know he’s not, but if he is...! Maybe a quick sneak peek oh, no he’s looking at Dr. Care. Not that I want his attention! I’m just thinking if he might give me it—you know—just the possibility.

“Well, your horn seems physically sound,” Dr. Care says, drawing my attention again. “No fractures or tears. Really, I wouldn’t expect such though, but it’s still important to check before the alicornosc–the horn exam.”

“I get what you mean by alicornoscopy,” I tell her, trying to appear helpful, “But I’m confused how could you stick a camera—a scope, down my horn?”

“What on earth is a camer-o-scope?” Dr. Care asks me with an amused smile. “No I’m just going to do this, if you can just relax. It might feel a little weird, but again, let me know if you feel any pain or discomfort.”

She lights her horn up and stretches forward, tilting her head down to touch hers to the dinky little one on my head, just a brief tap. There’s no ambiguity that she’s touching my horn this time though, because I can feel her magic rush down it like a waterfall. The light has a force to it, a substance without substance, and it enters me so easily up there it... it kind of tickles. When she pulls back from me, her horn pulls me with it somehow. Not like, me me, but like my sense of where I am. Proprio...something. Proprioception. God damnit I am a dictionary, aren’t I.

I stare in bafflement, as a complex shape unfolds in front of my eyes, except my eyes don’t feel like they’re in front of me. It’s not a net, like the stallion doctor cast out, but a shifting kaleidoscope of geometric patterns, twisting lines and sworls, glowing in their own transparent celadon light. It looks like a... kind of like a flower.

“Well, if that isn’t a tangled pattern,” Dr. Care remarks disapprovingly looking at me... at my... thingy.

“What do you mean?” I ask, surprised that I can still speak with my mouth.

“Well, your anterior lobes are clearly stressed. You can see their extension is all the way past 45 degrees,” she explained indicating some petal-like flappy things that... I really can’t differentiate from the rest of the ...structure. “And your caudal fronds are looking very frayed,” she points out some wispy things, “See how they’re getting all tangled up? You definitely had an alicorn cascade, that much is clear. Your loophole vent is blown wide open. And it looks like there might be a kink in your...”

The doctor’s horn lit up as she had been speaking, and I try not to panic as her blue magic comes to contact with mine, certainly not knowing what to expect. It feels like something sliding around in my head, like a cluster headache that tickles instead of hurts. When she gets to the part about the kink though, my vision dims, and a rush of dizziness comes over me.

“Sorry about that, Sweetie,” the doctor says to me with an embarassed smile. “I think you might have a bent spire. Has your magic been acting unexpected, since your surge?”

Well, um... does she mean unexpected for Sweetie Belle? I sure as hell never expected to be a magical unicorn, myself! I say, feeling unsatisfied with my own answer, “I wasn’t good at magic, before this, I think. So I don’t really know if it’s strange. Is my magic acting unexpected, Rarity?” I look away from the doctor and address my–Sweetie Belle’s sister, figuring the answer of a simple ‘yes’ might be too hasty of me to say.

“Yes,” Rarity says, “But we’ve been playing it safe, so there was only one incident with a bench. Is it terribly serious?”

“Well, I can set it now,” Dr. Care replies looking at me, “But, you might lose consciousness. It can be very disorienting. And it’ll be a while before you’re up to speed again, but at least you won’t be blowing yourself up or anything.”

The male doctor speaks up then, saying from across the room, “You should double check for other issues before going forward with that.”

“Of course, doctor,” Dr. Care says, unable to hold back a small blush. Is... does she have the hots for him? I mean, not that I blame her. Are they together? Two doctors in a relationship? That would be so roma—so kickass! Yeah, that’s totally what I meant to think. Kickass. Football!

Dr. Care has a lot of other confusing terms for my “pattern” or whatever you call it. “Is this my brain?” I ask her at one point and she laughs immediately, saying,

“Oh, you could say so. It’s a manifestation of your magic, in a visual form that I can see and manipulate.”

So, that’s what she’s messing with, and I still have no clue other than “it’s magic.” She finds a lot of negative things to say about it, or at least non-positive things, but none of them seem to qualify as serious concerns, outside of that bent ‘spire’.

“What’s a spire?” I ask her, then add quickly, “What’s a spire for?”

“Your resonance spires are very important!” the doctor said in a tone like she was lecturing a child, which she was, experientially speaking at least. “They normally exist in the groove of your horn, acting as sort of feelers to reach out into the aether and funnel all that magic right into your spells. Though the one I am going to fix is a transmission spire, which sends the magic out again. The thing is, if it’s bent, it can send the magic right back into you, and just keep building up that way. I’m just going to straighten it out, but it will be a little bit uh... floppy for a while afterwards, so you still might have some fizzles until it sets.”

“Is that why I had a horn uh–alicorn cascade?” I ask curiously. “My transmission spires were bent?”

The doctor runs a hoof through her mane... somehow, saying “Nopony really understands the underlying causes of the alicorn cascade. Despite its name, it has a physiological origin beyond that of the horn, and has more to do with life force than aether channeling. A transmission spire shorting out might make a sudden explosion, but the horn surge itself is a different thing entirely. Some ponies think it’s the body’s way of naturally relieving blockages in one’s mana flow.”

She smiles at me approvingly, “I’ve suspected such a blockage in you for a while now, Sweetie Belle, and I’m glad to see you’ve managed to get through it. You should have a much easier time with your magic from now on.”

“After you fix it,” I correct her, crossing my eyes again trying to better see what I cannot comprehend, yet somehow embody.

She nods, “That’s true enough. Now, you feel um, this?” flaring up her magic, and boy do I. It’s like a million cellos playing underwater.

“That’s... really weird,” I say dizzily.

“Alright, I’m going to straighten it out now,” she coos reassuringly, “I’ll make it quick, so I want you to close your eyes and just try to relax. It’ll be over before you know it.”

“Okay,” I say closing my eyes, and trying not to fret, or shake with fear. You don’t tell the kid to get ready for a shot! You just do it while they’re distracted! She’s totally doing it all wrong, and all she’s going to do is scare me. I don’t like being touched there! It feels all wrong and stiff and xpqlgpxm

...I realize I’m laying on my back again, and open my eyes to see the ceiling of the hospital room. Struggling to my elbows, I cross my eyes and look up, and whatever ‘pattern’ she pulled out of me is gone now, no longer floating in front of my head. Yet I can still sort of feel it, but less in the sense that it’s literally out in front of me being poked and prodded by another unicorn’s magic, and more in the sense that I can feel my own horn, in a way that I had no comprehension about before. Also in the hospital room is Rarity I see in front of me, and Dr. Care, and her boyfriend or should I say special somepony? I blink at the three of them.

“How long was I out?” I ask curiously. Rarity smiles brightly, and answers,

“Oh, it was just a few minutes, dear! Did it feel like a long time?”

“I... guess so,” I say uncertainly. “Am I alright now?”

“Right as rain!” the doctor says cheerfully. “Of course you’ll want to let me know immediately if you have any aberrant hexes or spontaneous spellcasting.”

She adds much more gravely, “And then there’s the matter of your amnesia.”

I gulp out, “Oh?” with a weak smile.

“That was a very foolish thing you did,” Dr. Care says looking me between the eyes. “I trust you’ve learned your lesson not to mess with old world artifacts anymore?”

“I’m not–” I squeak meekly, then say, “Wait, what?”

“If it’s buried, be wary. If it’s underground, leave it down,” the doctor reprimands. “You’ve apparently forgotten that, as well as everything else, from an extreme reaction to something that probably should have stayed buried.”

Her stern look broke into honest confusion then, and she asked, “Have you really lost all your memory?” in a bemused tone.

“I’m sorry, I... I’m sorry I didn’t... I... what?” I ask, trying to buy time for me to wrap my head around what the flying freaky fuck she just said. She’s not talking about me. That’s what it is. She’s just talking about what Sweetie Belle did, not anything about a human waking up in her body. I thought she was talking about me taking over Sweetie Belle, but she’s just reprimanding Sweetie for what she did, herself.

“Amnesia means losing your memory,” Dr. Care explains patronizingly. “Your old memories, you either can’t reach, or they’re gone away. Is that what happened to you, dearie?”

I carefully nod, saying “Yes, that is pretty much exactly what happened.”

“Pretty much?” the doctor asks looking for clarification.

My heart beats a little faster and I say, “I can remember some things, but only a little bit, and it’s mostly random.” That’s truthful at least, if not admitting the true origin of those memories.

“Oh, well that goes without saying,” the doctor says rolling her eyes and waving a hoof dismissively. “It still counts as amnesia, even if you only lose a few memories. But it’s just so rare to find a pony who really couldn’t remember so much of her life. It’s a good thing you’re so young!” She laughs heartily, but stops laughing at my look of dismay, saying, “Oh, dear, I don’t think it’s a good thing, not by far. You... you’ll probably begin recovering your memories any day now! Just try to surround yourself with familiar things, and... well, I wish there was more I could do for you. Your sister’s right, though.”

“Nopony should be messing around in your brain,” the doctor says resolutely. “Especially not after something already did. Some ponies need brain surgery, but only the ones with nothing left to lose, and with the most obvious conditions, such as terrible seizures or brain swelling. It’s no wonder you were worried, if you thought we were going to scoop out your brains or something! But you’ll be relieved and possibly dismayed to know that the best treatment for an affliction such as yours, is nothing other than bed rest, and rebuilding your life as best as you can.”

“What I am going to do,” the doctor adds, “Is give you a passive brain scan. But I’ll wager there’s no swelling going on, internal bleeding, or abnormal activity that could lead to seizures. I promise you don’t have to worry. It’s just to be very sure that what’s going on in your head isn’t anything life threatening.”

Well, what’s going on in my head might not be life threatening, but a brain scan definitely could be. So I put the doctor in a sleeper hold, and use the ensuing confusion to escape through a roof hatch. There, the spy chopper is waiting to pick me up and take me back to human central where we plot the infiltration and overthrow of our pony overlords. So no, really I just droop my head and say, “Okay that sounds fine,” and don’t do anything else, while she leaves the room to prepare the scanner.

It turns out there’s a rather elaborate machine, in a room of its own, for brain scans. It takes a unicorn’s magic, Dr. Care’s blue light slipping into the intricate grooves in the metal to light them up like Tron or something, but there are also two earth pony nurses over there, working at... something to operate it. My own head is enwreathed in a convoluted metal mesh helmet, covered in lights that are entirely too colorful for their own good. And additionally, the whole thing seems to be ...steam powered?

“Alright,” the doctor says at last, pulling out the cords attached to the podium I’m standing on... with her teeth. “Now I would like you to please wait in the waiting room,” she says, “And let me talk with the technicians about your results.”

I would say that it’s the longest wait of my entire life, but it really doesn’t take that long. As much as I wish it would. I sit there in silence, on one of the plush couches, in a lupine position. While I sit flat on my belly, Rarity lounges on the one next to me almost bipedally, leaning against the wall with her hind legs crossed daintily. I feel like I should say something, but I don’t know if I should. Finally I just say, “Rarity, um, sister I just...”

Rarity looks at me expectantly and I have no idea what I was going to tell her. I just want to say something before it’s too late, just one more time. I look back at her miserably, and she says,

“Yes? What is it, Sweetie?”

Now I’m blushing. Good grief can’t I even say a simple something to help anything? “Thank you,” I tell her. Thank you! Yes! That’s something to say! “I mean, thank you for helping me,” I say more lucidly. “You’ve been helping me all this time, and it’s been really really...” I can’t even find the word for how great it’s been. “...nice,” I finish feeling unsatisfied with it. What to say though?

“I just want to let you know that I... really do appreciate it, and it means so much to me,” I continue. And now I’m not blushing anymore, but my chest is wavering and I have to sniffle adorably. I feel so little in control of myself, of anything and everything. “Even if I...” I manage to say. “Even if I don’t...” I whisper, but I can’t go any further than that. She’d know if I told her how grateful I was just to meet her, and she’d suspect and she’d hate me. Even though it doesn’t even matter anymore whether I confess or not, I just can’t do that to her. Not by myself. Not her.

Rarity quietly wraps me up in a hug. It’s a shock, not just from her plush warmth, but from how deeply it cuts at my distress. My tension just drains away, cradled in her tender embrace, and the fear that gripped me not seconds ago already feels so distant and... manageable.

“I don’t nearly understand what you’re going through, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity murmurs in my ears, and in her chest against me. “But I will always be there for you, no matter what happens. It’s what sisters do. We have a connection between each other, that will always bring us together.”

And I know she’s trying to comfort me, but I just close out her words. My eyes close and my ears fold tightly back, and I just try to focus on the feel of her against me. I ignore her words and just try to listen to the comforting sound of them. I try not to focus on how close her hug brings her to me, especially the way she situates me between her legs, where my tail is pressed up against... something very improper that I don’t want to look at, much less think about. Damnit why did I think about it? Now I can’t stop paying attention to it. Of course she has ...one of those. Of course she’s buck naked. Of course she’s not giving a fuck about it. Freaking nudists, I am so jealous of them.

The doctor returns presently, with some very colorful diagrams. They are pictures of a brain, it seems, though with many...sort of... extensions and “clouds” outside its border. Which is what I am, I guess. Maybe I’m like a ghost?

“Well, there’s good news Sweetie Belle,” the doctor starts to say. “Firstly, there is no swelling, nor is there any signs of the hyperconnections associated with a seizure. Furthermore, your neurochemical levels are quite stable, albeit somewhat low in serotonin. Your ambient corona is well seated, and your pony residual is fully connective.”

“There is,” she admits, “A little bad news, but that’s actually good news because, if it’s something we can detect, then it’s something we can fix. Your motor complex here really explains why you’re having trouble walking. It’s quite mixed up, and if I didn’t miss my guess you’d be feeling like you were sideways all the time, even just trying to walk around. And your hippocampus here has definitely suffered some damage, which might affect memory formation, but it’s clearly on the mend already.

“What that does indicate though,” she taps a hoof on the image of my hippocampus, “Is something may have directly accessed your aural self, to a large degree, which could indicate many things by itself, but considering your symptoms it well explains your amnesia. Why an ancient device would attack your self image, I couldn’t tell you, but again I think the best we can do is try to recover from what has happened, and not worry about reaching where you were in the past. There are many roads to recovery, and the road back is rarely the one you want to be on.”

I nod silently, looking at her expectantly. She looks back at me. Then she glances at Rarity uneasily, and says less confidently, looking between us both, “W-well and... that’s about it. Not a single thing wrong with her, other than that!”

“That’s it?!” I exclaim. Without thinking. Dammit.

“What were you expecting, some kind of brain disease?” Rarity says to me dryly. “You should be happy that there’s nothing else wrong with you!”

“I am!” I say, fishmouthing. “I. I am but. I mean.”

“Anyway,” the doctor says giving me a less than impressed look, “Her motor complex should reseat itself eventually, but there is the possibility that it will heal crooked, so I think we need to take a more proactive approach, just to be sure.”

Rarity seems taken aback herself, saying “Yes, but... what sort of cast would you put on a... a mind pattern?”

The doctor laughs at that. “No, no I didn’t mean that. I was just thinking Sweetie Belle here could seriously benefit from a full course of physical therapy.”

“Physical therapy?!” I exclaim in relief. “You mean I just need to practice walking, and it’ll get better?”

“With the help of a physical therapist,” the doctor qualifies. “They can advise you what to do for your specific needs, and analyze anything in your movements that might be wrong.”

“That would be gre҉at!” I agree. My smile drops and I say a bit more distantly, “That would be... great.” I’m really glad Rarity is still hugging me. I don’t even care if her cooch is smooching me, and it really isn’t I’m just flipping out over nothing. I just don’t know what I would feel, if I wasn’t securely in Rarity’s lap right now. Or, securely on the cushion, with her legs on either side of me. She doesn’t actually have a lap, but the way she’s cuddling me against her sort of feels intuitively like a lap. I should feel worse about this, but I don’t really know what to say. Was all this worry and fear I had just... totally unnecessary? They didn’t... they couldn’t find anything? (They couldn’t find Sweetie Belle?)

“I can set you up with one soon as tomorrow,” Dr. Care says with a helpful smile. “Our staff are very capable, and we’re always there for ponies in need. Tonight though, I think it’s best if you just get some bed rest. You’ve got a place to stay in Ponyville, right?”

“She’s sleeping at my boutique,” Rarity explains, “Carousel Boutique, you may have heard of it?”

Dr. Care brightens, saying, “Oh yes, some of my friends speak very highly of it. I’m married to my work unfortunately, so haven’t had much need for any sort of formal wear.”

“At the risk of sounding like drumming up business,” Rarity tells her, “I think you should come down sometime. Not all dress need be formal, some can be quite fun and invigorating! As a family friend you’re always welcome any time.”

Dr. Care raises an eyebrow but says, “Sure, I’ll keep it in mind. But for now, you both need to get some sleep.”

Rarity nods, and stands from her cushion, depositing me in front of her. She helps me up onto her back again and says to the pediatrician, “Thank you again for all your hard work, doctor. I knew the moment something was amiss, that you would be the one to make everything better again!”

Dr. Care blushes peachily at that, and hides her nose under her clipboard. (It’s adorable.) “Don’t mention it,” she says bashfully. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish cleaning up for the day.”

I can hardly believe it, as we walk out of the hospital, that the doorway is passing me by, and the great open outdoors is once again embracing me, this time wreathed in curtains of stars. I feel lost, and saved at the same time, worried and relieved. I was so sure they were going to figure it out, but now the power is in my hands again. Hooves, I mean. Not even the brain scan identified me as anything other than just... Sweetie Belle, with a mental problem! That means I am well and truly safe from detection! It means... does it mean I am Sweetie Belle? Maybe I would have been detected, if  I was real, but... but I’m just being delusional? How could an 8 year old dream up something like this?!

The sky overhead is beyond incredible. The stars above aren’t just a few twinkling lights in an orange haze, but a shower of lights on a deep darkness. I try to think of my options now, and strategies, but I just find myself captivated by the sight of the star field. They’re so profuse that they have a texture to them... a density. A pattern. I haven’t seen a sky like this in a long time. I always had to live with city lighting, and well-lit streets. Another one of those caveats; you gain something good, and it takes away something vital. You either stumble through the streets, or you don’t get to see the stars. Nobody can make just enough street lighting, it’s either all-in or all-out. You either allow people to ruin your beautiful night, or you take away their freedom and cast them into servitude, just to get them to turn out those lights.

Or, you go the magical way of Ponyville, and have a small community, with little impact on the environment, and barely adequate, but not impressive street lighting... and you get to see the night sky.

The streets of Ponyville have cleared of ponies. Not many at all are walking around, this time of night. It seems later than it should be, with Luna’s moon high in the sky, and all the twinkling stars enveloping us. Rarity is silent, probably tired from a long day, but I’m wide awake, staring around at everything there is to see. Even the stillness is fascinating, the mysterious glow of lanterns I can’t figure out, the darkened arches and eaves whose careful construction belies a subtle skill that a medieval world could not achieve. The occasional light on in the foggy windows, where silhouettes can sometimes be seen, ponies moving around in there, and embracing each other and...

Oh. Uh, wow. I don’t think I was supposed to see that.

We have to walk across a good amount of the town, to reach Rarity’s boutique. I’m tempted to ask why I’m not going to stay with my parents, but I figure they must just be on vacation again, or something. Plus I’m not under any circumstances going to jynx what might be my only chance to sleep in Carousel Boutique! I stare at the round building as we approach it, both familiar and unknown. It looms high over both of us darkly, as we approach the front door. There, Rarity gives a satisfied sigh, and from her everpresent saddlebags draws a thin ring of keys. With them levitating in her magic, she unlocks the door with a satisfying click, and tugs on the latch with her hoof, pushing the door open with the jangle of a bell, to reveal a woozy darkness inside. Another swift motion of her magic, and the lights click on, flooding the room with cheery brightness that makes me squint and lift a hoof to shade my eyes.

Into that, Rarity carries me. It’s a good thing she’s carrying me too, because even if I could walk, I would be too dumbstruck by the sight to do anything but sit there gaping like a toad. The spiral framed mirrors, the checkered tiles, the squat round tables covered in a yellow inlay, I see. The deep magenta curtains draping roundly from the ceiling, sectioning the room off and giving it the appearance of smallness, I see. The carousel motif baffling concealing their runners, with more of those spiral pole designs intermixed with diamonds and hearts. It’s her display room. It’s Rarity’s display room! This is the same place that Sapphire Shores and Photo Finish walked through. It’s the place the parasprites destroyed, where Rarity lost, and regained her reputation as a dressmaker, and where I—where Sweetie Belle produced her disastrous, sapphire bedazzled, best sister card.

It’s with a giddy excitement, that I finally get to see this room from every angle. I want to run around and look at everything. Oh, there’s a stairwell. I wonder where it leads. To her bedroom? There’s a door. Does that lead further into the boutique, or into the backyard? So exciting!

“Well, here we are at last, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity says relievedly, reminding me I’m actually riding on her, and not just panning around this room like a baby unicorn shaped boom camera. “And tomorrow, we can begin your rehabilitation!” she adds excitedly. “Doesn’t that just make you want to curl up in your bed, safe and sound?”

That... seems a little contradictory. “It makes me want to... jump on my bed safe and sound?” I ask with a less than sorry smile.

“Please, Sweetie,” Rarity sniffs, “Even I am utterly exhausted from this day’s affairs. There is no way you could retain any amount of energy yourself.”

“I had to stay still all day,” I point out. “You did all the running around for me!”

Rarity turns her head over her own back, and gives me a displeased look, turning forward again. “Be that as it may,” she says, “I am quite exhausted myself, and I’m sure you’ll drift right off if you just relax yourself, and I’m not leaving the lights on all night, so you have plenty of time to drift off to sleep.” Oh yeah, she’s good. Good thing I was planning on going to sleep all along, and she didn’t really have to say anything to me at all, because I’m a mature and capable adult, who never stays up past her bedtime!

“So, let’s see,” Rarity pontificates, “First you need your evening bath, that should be straightforward. I don’t suppose you’ll be able to brush your teeth... we’ll have to address that as soon as possible. Then finally, we’ll make sure your bed is all made. It is a week night, but you needn’t worry about that for now, I fear. You just get your bed rest and I’ll have breakfast all ready for you, and then we can see about getting you back on your hooves!”

Rarity glances at me, and admits reluctantly, “Less than... figuratively,” almost as if to herself.

“Rarity, you... don’t have to do all this for me,” I mumble guiltily, looking aside at her glance.

“Of course I don’t have to,” she says in a chastising tone, catching my attention, or at least my ears. “I want to. Sweetie. Helping another pony is one of life’s greatest pleasures,” Rarity explains,  “You are in need, and I can provide it for you, simple as that!”

I’m tempted to correct her, that I most certainly am not in need of those things, but instead I just stay quiet. I know enough not to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. She takes me up that mysterious staircase, to a very purple and lavender bathroom, and there she multitasks, by having me brush my teeth, while filling the bathtub. I try to hold the toothbrush myself, but it’s just too small to wrap my whole hoof around effectively, and Rarity ends up just levitating it to foam up the paste in my mouth. Yet another thing I have to research, whether toothpaste in Equestria is safe.

The bath is wonderful, and doesn’t require nearly as much soap as my last one. Something interesting is that the bathroom has no toilet in it. The toilet is in a separate room entirely. Both rooms have a sink, but only a very basic one in the toilet room, with a hunk of bar soap and a place for storing toilet paper. The bathroom is dominated by the bathtub, and much more elaborately decorated, and there’s a sizeable sink underneath what looks like a mirrored medicine cabinet.

I manage not to have any sort of weird freakout episode this time, just from drying off on the fluffy towel. Within the half hour, I find myself gently placed by Rarity atop a bed adorned with sworled sheets of bright green. The diamond motif of the Boutique continues on the bed’s headboard, the diamond shape inset within a stylized heart. The pillow is a light salmon with various shades of blue hearts all over it.

The bed covers sort of... clash with the surrounding purple wallpaper, and the peculiar checkered columns. I suppose the colors work with the flooring though: a goldenrod yellow patterned tile that feels slightly stiffer than linoleum, in the design of large checkers. There’s also a huge daisy shaped rug on the floor right at the foot of my bed.

There’s a chest of drawers across the room from that foot, with a large, smooth mirror and a stool, presumably to get up to see the mirror. There’s also a literal chest, laying there open full of odds and ends, some papers, some deely boppers, a ball and a big cute stuffed pink bunny. There’s a simple looking writing desk, crafted whole it looks like, from a single piece of bluish wood. It’s a wood that doesn’t match any I’ve seen on Earth, certainly. Not that I’m an expert on Earth woods.

I suppose this is Sweetie Belle’s room. I try to drink it all in, paying far more attention than I would have while simply watching an episode. But once Rarity sets me down, I also try my best to get into bed and not woolgather too much. It’s difficult, between my lack of coordination, and my keen awareness that my sister is really picky about just how you get into bed without disturbing the covers. I manage to do okay, I suppose. My right hind hoof gets twisted up at one point, and I end up flipped over headfirst beneath the covers, but I manage to untwist it and squirm around, popping out and resting the back of my head against the springy pillow, using the way my little front legs curve down to smooth out the bedcover as best I can.

Rarity smiles at me, so I guess I’ve done right. Then, she walks to the side of my bed while I watch her, open eyed. Her hoof pulls up the covers tighter against me. “Good night, Sweetie Belle,” she says, kissing me on the forehead to the left of my horn. On her way out, her hoof taps a button of some sort on the wall, and with a click, the light overhead dies out before I can make out what’s generating it. As the door closes, I hear her clopping away, and her shadow pulls away from the light, from the hall under the door. The starlight begins to become prominent in the darkness now, in which I lay.

I’ve never... I don’t even remember ever being tucked in before. I touch my forehead with a hoof in the silence, almost uncomprehendingly. I must have been tucked in before sometime, because I know what being tucked in is, but... it must have stopped so early in my life, that I hadn’t formed solid memories yet. I can remember the first book I ever read, my 5th birthday Halloween costume, but ...not being tucked in. I think maybe I guess that means, this is the first time I’ve ever really been tucked into bed, whether 37 years old... or 8.

I feel excited, but also scared to move. I’m surrounded in plush softness, the soft mattress beneath me, the cool sheets against my body, my head sinking into the lush pillow behind me. I don’t want to ruin it. Like if I move too much then I’ll wake up for real, and this pony life will be a human one again, and my soft pillow will be replaced by neck pain, and my cool, even breathing in the night will be replaced with perpetual congestion and bleary eyed redness, and...

I huff, frustated at my own inhibition, and that breaks the paralysis. I roll to my side, facing the window, looking at the tapestry of stars outside. I can’t believe I’m here in a real Equestria, and there’s a warm bed waiting for me, and I really am a pony, and not just any pony, but Sweetie Belle! I feel so delicate, so... beautiful in a way. I can’t help but feel like that, because of who I’ve become. There’s no rough and tumble in me, no farm filly or daredevil. Sweetie Belle hangs with those two and survives, so has a powerful strength beneath that adorable exterior, but that means I have that exterior. It’s a feeling I’ve never had before. I never ever judge people for things they can’t change about themselves, for shallow standards of fitness and beauty that bear very little basis in reality. And yet... I can’t help but feel beautiful, like this. It’s not as euphoric as much as it is confusing, but... I do feel beautiful like this.

It occurs to me then, that this is the first time since that ride on the cart, that I’ve had some time all to myself. I’m all alone in this room. Nobody watching me, nobody to worry about judging me. Nobody keeping me in line, if my hands, or hooves stray to... forbidden places. I squeeze my legs together, clutching the blanket and squeezing my eyes shut. Why did I have to start thinking about that? Of course I know very well that this is exactly what I do every night, all alone in the privacy and solitude of my bed. There’s almost no nights where I don’t do it!

And, every night that I’ve seen since coming here, I’ve been totally passed out the whole time! I mean, that’s sort of the point of sleeping, but now I realize that I’ve never had to deal with falling asleep before, and dealing with what I usually do before falling asleep. I can’t do that now, though. It would be wrong of me! For reasons listed previously. Even though most of those reasons are completely moot, if I really am Sweetie Belle and just thought up the crazy delusion of being a brony.

But no, I can’t just get off like this, explore that delightful treasure between my legs, or try to figure out how different it is from orgasm as a man. I’m freaking eight! I shouldn’t even be thinking about this! I shouldn’t be so unbelievably curious whether I could even do it at this age, or as a pony. All I would have to do is just... reach down there and try it out, it wouldn’t be too much–no, no I cannot let myself fall to temptation! I’ll just ignore that itch between my thighs, close my eyes, and go to sleep.

No one would ever know.

Biting my lower lip and reaching down there just to... just to you know—not really doing anything—just that this is my chance, and I really want it, and how else am I going to get to sleep? That’s my train of thought, at any rate. It’s a very jumbled up train of thought, full of flaky logic and frantic rationalizing, and about three days of pent up sexual frustration. The closer I get to touching myself, exploring myself, the less strange and forbidden it seems. It’s just my body, right? It’s not my body, but it’s currently my body, and it’s only natural for a body like this to have feelings like that. There is nothing wrong with little girls exploring their own bodies, and even finding pleasure, and even o-orgasm, as long as they don’t get knocked up or anything. As long as I don’t get knocked up or anything.

That’s really what does me in, is the thought that, there inside those hips of mine, I have a quiescent, immature, unproductive organ that really isn’t very much to speak of, but one day it will blossom into a powerful machine, a factory capable of incredible production. I have a goddamn womb in my lower body. It could one day wrap around and nurture a little baby pony, growing from a tiny cell to a foal swelling up my belly. Not some other chick’s belly, that I can only look at from the outside, but my belly. If... if this continues forever, then one day there could be a life inside me, moving in me!

So with an unsatisfied, resigned groan, I finally slip my hoof in between my legs and, shivering in anticipation, bring it down to touch myself. I spread my legs apart to accomodate, and warily lay the frog of my hoof against the soft mound in-between my legs. It feels... very familiar, yet totally alien from what I’m used to. The soft pad of my hoof presses up against what I feel are sensitive folds of skin, pressed together to form a neat slit. My teats are still down there, but they’re not what I’m touching right now. My teats are veritably innocent as elbows, compared to what I’m touching right now.

The familiarity I feel is in that warm, welcoming tingle, the one that comes when I press against the mound and move my hoof around reservedly. It’s not like I’m just wiping off anymore. It’s the same tingle that has always calmed me down, and makes me feel like this is no big deal. I know it means I’m stimulating myself sexually, and that I’m doing it in order to grow erect, and lose myself in the drive for ejaculation. Just like I’ve had to do every night for most of my life.

The alien unfamiliarity is in how simple I feel down there. There is no penis, no testicles dangling below, just a smooth curve. Touching myself like this, I expect to feel the stirring of the scrotum, moving the balls around, the eager clenches in the base of my penis, making the tissue balloon outward with each tingle driven flex. And I simply have none of that, for anything to happen! Not anything I’m familiar with, at any rate.

Because I do feel something stirring, the location of which I can’t pin down, and I feel something swelling and ‘ballooning’ up. Yet nothing’s happening outside me; it’s right up against me, instead of sticking out of me like a... like the penis I don’t have anymore. My whole body is feeling like it’s ballooning up, really. The more I rub myself, the harder it is to relax, a tension making me feel thick and very sensitive. The sheets feel softer somehow, nicer against me. I would love to hug someone like this. I wonder if I’m blushing—I bet I’m blushing. I’m just swimming in these pleasant feelings, the tingling stimulation that I know brings you to orgasm.

Have you ever fallen asleep while pleasuring yourself? I wish I could say this was the first time. I don’t even notice when I drift off, or when my hoof goes limp against my groin. My mind is just dazing along in the pleasure and contemplating orgasm, with a dread much reduced by that overpowering feeling of comfort and hope, and then... I’m dead to the world, completely fast asleep.
> Meeting the Mentor
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I look up from my work, my computer. I leave from staring at the screen, and spin on my chair, standing up on it as it spins, and leaping down to land solidly, on my four hooves. I’m walking through my house, my old house, my apartment. That place where I have to live until I die, or lose my home again. There’s only a few rooms in my apartment, but they’re mixed together with the rooms from old houses, now the house that my mother used to live at. I can’t see her though, or anyone around me for that matter. That’s okay though, it’s normal.

I look at the glowing screen sitting there on the kitchen counter of my old kitchen, inside which Rarity is making breakfast for me. There’s no breakfast for me though, and no one to help me. I have to make my own breakfast because Rarity is gone forever. And in fact, she never was. The only life in that kitchen is me, making my own breakfast. I don’t care what I eat, because it won’t help matters. Rarity calls out fondly to me from the other side, and I smile at her sadly. I know she isn’t real. She’s just my imagination, wishing that things could be good again.

But things wouldn’t be good again, and things were never good. Rarity was a wonderful, beautiful lie, and so was my life, and my adventure. And that is perfectly okay, because it’s normal. That’s just how life works. I walk into the living room, where the ponies are on the screen. It seems like they’re yelling at me, like they’re trying to reach me, but I know they’re not. Nobody is trying to reach me, because there is nobody out there. It’s just psychology. Nothing but silly illusions on colored screens. Touching my hoof to the dial, I turn off the screen, and my heart sinks as their happiness fades away to blackness. Just like they always do, after the story is over. Just like they always do, after you open your eyes.

I don’t care if my heart sinks though. It doesn’t matter. My heart isn’t real. It’s just another delusion, in a reality of dead chemicals and dry rocks floating in an endless space. I’m outside now, looking up at night, and the stars are gone. A few twinkle above me, but I can’t see them well, because my eyes are bad and can never be fixed again. I don’t like looking up at the stars because they’re as dead as I am. They seem like my best sister in the whole world, hugging me and tucking me in and giving me hope, but that’s just me lying to myself. The twinkles that rise such hope in my breast are just dead balls of gas and plasma, against which I would be smaller than the smallest speck, before I died a horrible death from the power of their radiation.

I go inside again, not wanting to be with the uncaring stars that would kill me if not for the unimaginable distance between us, which will also kill me. I’m inside a stable, where the other horses are milling around, back at that summer camp where I learned to ride, and learned that I cannot ride a galloping horse. The queen is off in the isolation pen. I lean on the fence of the pen, looking in at Rarity, worriedly. She’s sick in the stomach, which means she’s probably going to die, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. It happens all the time. They weaken and die, and there’s nothing you can do to save them, or yourself.

Rarity is behind me in my house, but when I lift off the fence to turn and see her, she’s gone. My friends are there, waiting to play with me, but it’s too late, and they’re gone too. I don’t have any friends because I’m not worth making friends with, because everybody has to fight their whole lives doing terrible things just to survive, and it’s good that they ignore me, and leave me to die, because that means they can focus on fighting, and live another day at terrible cost to others. The town is gone, with its happy train, leaving only the city, the rows of dead buildings, the streets full of dead cars.

I look down at the picture on the crafts table I’ve made of me and Rarity. We love each other so much. Tears run down my eyes forgotten, as I wipe my hoof over it again and again, covering up the childlike crayon drawing in black smears. There is no love, there is no Rarity, there is no me. There is nothing left but a profound sadness, the lack of happiness and hope, the utter screaming emptiness of the hollow loss of anything and everything, forever.

In a dark bedroom, in the middle of the night, Princess Selena Luna of the Moonlight Glow, Arbiter of the Changing Tides, woke up in a cold sweat.

I wake up peacefully, surrounded by warmth and soft breathing. The sunlight is gently streaming in over the lavender shades of the room. My legs are all tangled up in that of a much larger pony’s. Rarity’s. Her forelimbs are wrapped around me protectively, securely, like she fell asleep while hugging me. Like she–

My ears go down, as I remember that she did. That she had to. That I... I try not to whimper, and just pull her even tighter against me, wishing that I could get through just one night in this sordid affair, without a fit of incoherent screaming.

I mean, I wasn’t screaming incoherently. I was screaming very coherently. I couldn’t walk, you see. I’d– I’d fallen out of bed trying to reach her, and I couldn’t even gather my wits about me enough to crawl, lying there all alone in the darkness with not a single sound outside. I couldn’t stop the feeling that I was all alone in the world, that every pony and person had just disappeared and I’d be stuck here all by myself for the rest of my life, left behind.

So naturally I had to see her, just to be sure she was still there, but I couldn’t make it to her room on my own. I was too terribly slow, so I called out for her help. But my cries got even more and more shrill and panicked when she didn’t answer and... I shouldn’t have expected her to answer in seconds, that was just silly of me, but she didn’t, and I didn’t think she ever was going to, because she was gone.

When Rarity burst into my room and took me in a flying tackle, declaring she was going to save me, I just kept on crying and couldn’t stop. I felt so horribly guilty about scaring her over nothing. She thought there was something really attacking me, and it was just me whining like a little kid who was scared over a little dream and wants her mommy. Why was I so scared? It was just a dream. I have dreams like that all the time, so why would they be bothering me now? They’re not even real fears anymore, just echoes of a nightmare I could not wake up from. I once thought it was, but now that I’ve entered a magical world of ponies, I know it’s not. So why am I so scared?

I just told her I didn’t want to go back again, over and over again. I didn’t care if she figured it out. I didn’t care that she had no idea what I meant. She never asked me what I meant; she just held me, and cried with me until I once again fell asleep.

At least I don’t feel as scared, anymore. Not with the morning light shining in my eyes. Not with her holding me tight. I still feel shaken, but no more dreams came to me after Rarity rocked me to sleep, right there on the floor of my new bedroom. This is how I wake up, with my left side stiff from lying against the flat floor, but the rest of me shielded by Rarity, who no doubt bears the brunt of this uncouth sleeping method. And everything is fine. Everything is okay. I really did wake up. I woke up to the morning light of a magical land, one that I could really live in, instead of just unbeing dead.

So, here I am in the wonderful light of morning and life, and the nightmare is over. I feel like crying again, because everything is okay. And... because of my nightmare, Rarity is surely getting stiff and sore sleeping like this. Not to mention my hind leg precariously braced on her broad white thigh... if I slipped, it could end up somewhere very intimate between her broad white thighs. I ...recall what I was doing to myself last night, before going to sleep. I...

I think it’s time to wake up Rarity, and not be so close to each other anymore.

“Rarity,” I whisper, nudging her chest with a hoof. Her chest entirely lacking mammaries I might add, making it an entirely innocent gesture. “Rarity!” I whisper a little harsher, pushing on her shoulder trying to rock the larger pony back and forth. “Rarityyyy...” I utter quietly.

To Rarity’s credit, she does rouse, unlike that sack of bricks known as Apple Bloom. She murmurs uncomfortably, then slides her eyes open, then smiles a small smile at me looking up from her chest. Her eyes are still huge in my vision but... I think I’m actually starting to get used to it. It’s a lot better than when she’s angry with me. A lot better. Her smile falls then and her eyes widen fully, and she says,

“Oh! Sweetie, are you alright?”

“I’m much better now, thank you,” I say, nosing lightly at her flowry chest fur. I wonder if it would be appropriate to rub my cheek in it, as a sign of affection? It would probably not be appropriate to bury my face in it, and go mmmmm. I just settle for smiling at her, and snugging her hoof with the ones I have hooked over it.

“That is such a relief,” she says her chest moving against me with a sigh. Rarity looks pensive then, saying “Em...”

“Could you help me up?” I ask her. “It must be really stiff lying like this.”

“Oh I’m fine, dear,” Rarity lies gently, “I would be happy to help you up. Look, the sun has risen! We can surely get you more than up with the aid of those therapy professionals.” She helps me out of being tangled in her hooves, though I just lie on the floor on my belly for now while she rights herself and stands, stretching her opposite legs each two at a time, wincing at what clearly must be stiffness.

“Aren’t you excited for that?” she asks, and I nod agreeably. I would prefer to save Sweetie Belle, but if learning how to walk in her body is part of that then I would really appreciate it. “And see,” Rarity adds a bit smugly, tossing her slightly dissheveled mane with a hoof, “I told you that you would drift right off to...”

She stops then, a bit unsettled, and looks at me.

“It was a really bad nightmare, then?” she asks me unhappily.

“No, it wasn’t that bad,” I say honestly, because it wasn’t or at least it shouldn’t have been, but, “I don’t know why it scared me so much. It was just one of those things, I guess.”

Rarity murmurs dissatisfiedly, but agrees with me saying, “One of those things, yes. Indeed. Well alright, then. Wait right there while I prepare us some breakfast. The hospital should be open for business by the time the sun hits ten or so.”

I’d shrug helplessly at her request to “wait right there” from down here on the floor, but my forearms are currently bracing me up, so my shoulders are quite busy at the moment. Rarity canters off, while I take a longing look at one of the discarded pillows on the floor. I can’t quite reach it. Maybe if I flop on my back, then I could... ehn... almost... yes, got it! Oh... right, I don’t have hands. After slapping the pillow even further away from me, with a clumsy hoof, I groan in frustration and just settle onto my back without a pillow to lean on.

It occurs to me what I was doing last night.

Against my better judgement, I glance nervously at the open doorway, out which the white unicorn left me be totally alone. I can already hear the sounds of her clinking around and pleasant humming drifting up from downstairs. She could return at any minute. Maybe... I should... just practice standing, instead. I manage to roll onto my belly which, though while it makes my ‘special place’ even more likely to smush up against something, it paradoxically makes me feel less... not less aroused, so much as less exposed. Untangling my legs, and situating them on either side of me, I achieve a relatively normal looking sitting posture. At least I’m pretty sure it’s normal looking.

It’s kind of cool to sit like a horse. Like a pony might be more apt, because horses don’t really enjoy sitting. I heard they get more tired doing so, than when they’re standing up. It doesn’t bother me though, and is actually quite comfortable. My belly is pressed on the ground, but with my head up in the air and my chest exposed, I don’t have any difficulty breathing.

Ponies from the show have a lot of little subtle advantages over real horses if you know what to look for... or if you transform into one of them and get a chance to experiment with their body. I can lift my neck a lot straighter than a horse, for instance, and the whole periscoping around thing... horses actually have to curve around their entire neck to look at their behind. They can’t just swivel their head to do so. Only reason they can see behind them at all, is because their eyes are on the side of their head. You could say a pony’s eyes are on the side of their head, but they’re so huge they’re sort of... also on the front of their head.

I lift a hoof, to press the soft part against my nose. My nostrils are farther out in front of my face than I’m used to, of course. But feeling alongside, there’s just a smooth transition from my snout to my cheek. In fact, my cheeks would be kind of... sideways facing, not facing forward. It’s not like taking a sphere and slapping a horse nose onto it, but more like pulling such a nose out of it, with the sphere distorting slightly all over, leaving no edges to form. Though I do have a definite bridge or ‘edge’ to my muzzle, where it curves up sharply between my eyes. So perhaps it’s more like if you pull the nose out, while pressing the forehead in with a flat palm and... well, I guess I’d have to look in a mirror to really figure out how my face works.

You know, I haven’t seen a mirror yet. Wasn’t there a mirror in the bathroom? There was, wasn’t there? Right over the sink. Was I just not paying attention when I spat out my–oh right, she had the medicine cabinet open. That was where she keeps the toothpaste, as well as a number of bottles that... I didn’t pay attention to. Is there some reason they wouldn’t let me look in the mirror? Maybe there’s a conspiracy? Maybe my face is weird and mutated, and nobody wants me to know?

Maybe I’m just being stupid. It’s probably just a coincidence. Still, I can’t help but really want to look in the mirror, if for no other reason than to see Sweetie Belle looking back. I turn my head to look at my chest of drawers in a new light, because on top of it, backing it from behind, is a large mirror, whose wooden frame is painted with pretty pink hearts. If I could get over there, then I could definitely see myself! And the doctor said nothing was strange, so it’s not like there would be any unpleasant surprises, right? As long as I’m stuck in Sweetie Belle’s body, it means I have the power to make her pose in the mirror, any time I wanted to! That sounded less weird in my head. Wait, isn’t all of this in my head?

I look at my forelimbs then, trying to recall what Scootaloo taught me, I lunge back– uh... oh, right. With only a small episode of useless rocking, I manage to get my front feet down, toe-first, and my back feet follow to lift me up in the air. My tail is actually kind of sluggish to raise, and the reason for that becomes clear, with the yawn that stretches through me. I’m just still kind of tired. Oh, then the other reason chooses to announce itself to me. I immediately clench down tighter than an engine bolt, my tail going down in a panic. I feel like I clenched ...more than just my pee place, just now. No, no, not thinking about that. I’m just trying to use the mirror. Just the mirror. The nice innocent mirror that I could see my own ass in but no, just my face, in the mirror! Face. Mirror. I face forward to look at the mirror, and decidedly not look at my own pink-and-purple-tail-supporting ass.

I raise my tail again very gingerly, and the feeling ...announces itself, but nothing... happens. I think I’m alright, for now. I will visit the bathroom at the nearest opportunity though. I am not going to deal with the consequences of refusing a call to nature. Not after the last time. I don’t get any farther than standing there, looking over at the mirror, when Rarity comes up the stairs again, announcing, “Alright Sweetie, breakfast is ready!”

She pauses at the door way, at the sight of me standing there. With a bright smile she says, “Oh! You’re... doing something? Is there anything I can assist you with?”

“I was just trying to um, walk,” I say squirmily, “Over to the—my mirror, because... to... just make sure my hair is brushed good.”

“Oh Sweetie, don’t be silly!” Rarity titters at me, “I’ll be happy to brush your hair for you. That is an excellent idea, however. You can bring your hairbrush with you to the therapist, and perhaps they can use it to help you remember!”

I smile at her amiably as she levitates a brush that’s lying on the dresser, my brush presumably, especially with the pink and purple colored hairs stuck in it. She brings it down upon my head. She sure is– wait. Was Rarity teasing me just now, for not brushing my own hair? I make a last minute effort to grab the floating thing, but she weaves it out of the way in her magic, and I just settle on my haunches, letting her brush out my soft tresses. I might have felt guilty, or outraged about... something about her actions, if it didn’t feel so very good to be brushed.

Pony hair, it... it’s almost incapable of tangling. It’s like a sick joke on the figurines you can buy. A pony’s hair, a real pony at any rate, will—okay, I have officially been here too long. A real Equestrian pony’s hair will keep its shape, under all but the most extreme circumstances. There are ways to style it, as Rarity for instance has hair naturally not quite as curly as Pinkie Pie’s, but straightens it with a flat iron in the morning. But when it comes to brushing and tangles, this hair just doesn’t catch on itself, like the scaly mammalian hair I’m familiar with. So without any painful tangles, brushing one’s hair is a purely pleasurable experience, and having one’s hair brushed by another is simply sublime!

...football.

So Rarity brushes out my hair, and then helps me over to the mirror. I can manage a sort of wobbly walk, with her to lean against. It’s only a few steps anyway, and she only has to pick me up... once. We get to the mirror, and I clamber up on the stool and brace my front hooves on the dresser, and— well, I mean, you can imagine it, can’t you? Standing there on all fours, braced up on the dresser and looking into a mirror in which...

There’s a little filly in the mirror, looking back at me. Is that really ...me? She looks shocked, an understandable way to feel. I look at her and we breathe together, and move together, and it’s really my reflection. I look like this. How am I... how can this be true? With a tap of nail on glass, my hoof contacts the mirror and, I can come no closer than that to touching the filly on the other side. The filly that everyone sees, when they look at me. The filly who I am now.

A pair of conical candy white ears protrude out from a nest of soft, bouncy curls, in shades of lavender and pink. Even still as a ghost, those curls look like they dance playfully around a soft white horn emerging from my forehead. The muzzle on my face, while very present, looks rounded and blunt. And my eyes, the eyes I’ve been seeing with all this time, my eyes are limpid pools of blackness, in which I can see the reflection of the sunlit window behind me. Pupils surrounded with eerie green irises, a green that would look at home with the lichen living upon an aged tree. It’s the rust on a penny, that peculiar color that doesn’t match the yellow green of photosynthesis.

And as I watch the pupils adjust to my mood, in the reflection in front of me, I can feel them doing so. It’s so weird when I pay attention to it, that I can feel my contracting and dilating pupils—er, no not quite pupils, because the iris is contracting and dilating too. But I can feel it happen! It’s weird, like ghostly tension in my eyes. I guess with the size of our eyes it makes sense it would be felt more strongly. How do these eyes do that though?

“Are you alright, Sweetie?” Rarity asks with concern, breaking my intense concentration. I turn to her, with so many conflicting feelings welling up in me, saying,

“I’m fine, yes. I’m... okay.” My lower lip is tense; I hope I’m not going to start crying again. Why would I be crying, when I feel so happy? I stop talking, for fear of what sounds may come out of me, and turn back to the mirror. It’s a second shock to see her in there, moving every which way that I do, with her lower mane curling down around her neck. I lean heavily on my right shoulder, so I can pretend to casually inspect the hair falling to the left of my neck. A careless toss with my hoof makes it fall onto the right side, coming around to the right of me. That’s kind of what keeps me grounded, is how silly it is that my hair likes to flop around over a shoulder, and isn’t picky about which shoulder, yet won’t stay all the way behind me.

“Shall I leave you be, then?” Rarity asks. “While your attention to beauty is admirable, our breakfast isn’t getting any warmer, you know.”

“No, I’m done,” I say, feeling a bit dazed from seeing myself like this. I, and my new reflection pull away from each other, and I smile bashfully at Rarity saying, “Sorry. I think I might have gotten a little carried away there. My mane looks... I really like it. You did a good job, thanks.”

I pause again, saying hesitantly, “Um, a little help getting to the kitchen would be nice.”

Rarity nods understandably and sits down beside me, letting me climb onto her back the sideways way, as if I was a human, and she were a horse that... chose to sit down for me to get on top of them. Once I’m situated on her back. I can’t help but notice when she rises she also jumps to get her forelegs under her, but pulls it off very fluidly and not jerkily at all. “Ready for breakfast, then?” she says pleasantly.

“Am I ever!” I answer honestly, adding as a hasty afterthought, “Oh! Uhh, I need to use the bathroom, and I don’t want to wait in case, um... yeah....”

Is it possible for a white unicorn to blanch? I probably should have mentioned that I needed to go, before I was on her back, with my innocent little slit tactically poised to erupt all over her rear end. “I can hold it!” I assure her frantically. “I just need to sometime, when it’s okay. I didn’t mean– don’t worry I would never”

“Quite alright, darling,” Rarity says neutrally, barely even twitching underneath me. “Just be sure that you stay on top of this sort of thing, until you’re able to walk to the toilet on your own.”

“I will be so on top of it,” I assure her. That satisfies Rarity, and she walks me to the toilet room, which as mentioned has no bathtub in it. Both toilet and bath rooms are upstairs, making me wonder what the plumbing is like in this place. Rarity lets me slip off her again, and I almost manage to remain standing this time. I think I might really be getting the hang of how to fall off a horse!

I pick myself up, and she spots for me like Applejack did. It’s... a lot easier to remain standing, now that my tail is up, with no moving train underneath me, the protests of my bladder nonwithstanding. I manage to sort of waddle drunkenly the few steps it takes to get poised over the toilet. My legs are too far on either side, but I’m not going to accidentally step in that toilet bowl, come hell or high water.

Rarity leaves me then, pausing at the door to say, “Just let me know when you’re finished, dear. I’ll be right outside.” And once again I’m alone in the bathtoilet room. This one smells a lot better, probably because the waste goes down a drain instead of just into a pit underneath. There’s still a slight hint of urine, but nothing unexpected. Scratch that, the smell of urine gets much stronger when I actually do start peeing.

With my tail up, it’s ridiculously easy to do it, I just press down slightly and then I feel it flooding my uh... y’know, and the sound of it hitting the toilet bowl. And, for some reason, the feel of my filly parts isn’t as troubling this time. I sure as hell were “feeling” them last night! It’s nice actually: I don’t even have to practically do kegels to make sure all the piss is out, since I don’t have any of that penis tubing for it to linger in, though afterwards I am dripping rather uncouthly from my ‘petals’ as it were. It seems like it’s a lot easier to pee as a female, or at least as a pony female. Too easy, in fact. But having done so, I at least feel assured there won’t be any unexpected accidents now.

I call Rarity when I’m done, and she immediately wrinkles her nose on her way in, saying, “I don’t suppose you can wipe yourself on your own, can you?” I turn to face her, blink, and then blush in realization. Jeez, I totally fucked up there. Why did I call her in before thinking to wipe myself?

“I... um, yeah I can. I just... hold on.” I stutter, fumbling clumsily with the roll of toilet paper to my right, mounted on a golden wire stand. Again, I don’t know how to hold onto it. Best I can do is pin the toilet paper between my forehoof and upper arm, trying to tear off a big enough piece that I can dangle it securely over my own hoof.

Rarity groans in exasperation, and her magic vibrates next to me, neatly snipping out two squares, of the toilet paper monstrosity I’ve been building in my hooves. “It’s less trouble this way honestly,” she says, dipping it into my vulval lips and swiping it front to back, “And I would much prefer that you not waste so much toilet paper.”

I would answer her, but I’m too busy dealing with the feeling of someone else touching me down there. It’s a lot different when you’re not the one controlling what you feel contact your parts. That felt... way too good. I want her to touch me more there, even though I know I shouldn’t. Did she have to use soft, double ply, pleated toilet paper? Did her magic have to tingle so much? The toilet flushes with water, and I similarly collect my wits. I close my eyes, saying in a professional manner with a hoof on my chest,

“Thank you, sister. I shall try to not waste so much in the future. Hopefully you willwon’t have to do this much more.”

“You’ll only have to put up with this a short while longer, I’m sure,” Rarity tells me apologetically, but she just has nothing to apologize for. She’s being the greatest sisthost that she could possibly be!

“It’s no problem, really,” I assure her, and she looks like she justifiably doesn’t believe me, so I add, “Thanks so much for all your help.”

“Well, if there’s nothing else,” she says undecidedly, but more cheerfully, presenting her side to me and laying down, then finishing with, “There’s some breakfast downstairs with your name on it!”

I smile at her, full of genuinely honest gratitude at her... generosity.

It’s easier to try to treat this constant back riding more like a big long tender hug, rather than a service she’s performing. It... sort of helps. I certainly hug her tighter, when we go headfirst down the stairs! The stairs descend to a curving hallway around behind her display room, where Rarity walks into the house portion of the downstairs boutique. It has a rather large kitchen, in which I can see the very same table that Rarity’s parents were sitting at when they surprised her with... me. With Sweetie Belle.

I really should ask about them. They haven’t even been notified yet, have they? I don’t recall even seeing them. But for now, I clamber off of Rarity and pull myself up to the table. Again, it’s blessedly low to the ground, so I barely have to stand to see the plates placed upon it. I wasn’t expecting anything elaborate, certainly, but it’s what amounts to an ordinary plate of two pieces of bread, toasted golden, and two slices of apple.

No, make that one piece of toasted bread. Rarity’s plate has two. And a nice tall cup of what looks and smells like orange juice. Oh great, a cup.

The bread is cold but tasty, even if I do have to eat it with my face. Just enough butter not to make it soggy, with a bare hint of salt but not overpowering.  Rarity lends her touch to everything she does, it seems. The bread itself is hearty and... sort of meaty somehow. Lots of gluten I guess? The apple slices are especially good. They have a tartness that normally you would find in an underripe apple, but their flavor is rich and full, and their peachy white flesh practically bleeds juice when I bite down on it. I wonder where she got apples, that are this... wait.

I have a coughing fit from inhaling some juicy apple flesh. Rarity jumps up, but I hold a hoof out trying to wave her away. After I can breath again, I say “Sorry,” a bit hoarsely. “Inhaled some apple juice.”

Rarity relaxes and smiles, saying, “Sorry dear, I am just so jumpy about the slightest little thing since all of this occurred. Are you quite sure you’re alright?”

I respond with a question, trying not to smile from ear to ear when I ask, “Are these apples from Applejack’s orchard?”

“Well of course they are,” Rarity says with a hair toss, “Even if her family didn’t provide all the apples for Ponyville, she’s a family friend, and I would never think about shopping anywhere else!”

“I really li҉ke them!” I say totally calmly and suavely dammit I squeaked again, didn’t I. I’m trying desperately not to lose my footing here, from wanting to just wiggle my legs under me like there was no tomorrow.

“They’re a tad underripe this time of year,” she says in an unimpressed tone, “But I’ve been waiting all year to get a taste of the crop, and I’m happy to have gotten my hooves on some of the early harvest.”

I remain rapt in attention, but she doesn’t choose to qualify her situation any more, merely going back to taking delicate bites out of the slice of bread floating before her. It’s so cool how she can just eat like that. I wonder if magic tastes like anything. I dawdle on my remaining apple slice to watch her eating, curious why it seems so... unfamiliar to me. I’ve seen Rarity eating countless times in the show, right? This seems different somehow though.

I try to recall her eating before to compare, but nothing in particular comes to mind. It’s sad too, because she really does manage to eat like a lady. While I’m a snorting piggy over here with my face in the plate, she’s daubing her lips confidently with a napkin. I don’t really mind being a snorting piggy, it’s kind of funny actually, and a lot less stressful than feeling beautiful, but I also really like how beautiful Rarity looks, even when she is doing something as simple as eating toast for breakfast.

“Is there something on my face, darling?” the object of beauty speaks to me. I blink and shake my head, glancing down at my plate nervously, no longer staring at Rarity. Carefully I take the last slice of apple in my teeth, slicing a bite out of it and enjoying another mouthful of 100% genuine accept-no-imitations Sweet Apple Acres apple, fresh off the tree. And Rarity goes back to eating, totally unconcerned.

There’s a knock at the door. It’s not the front door, way off forward in the display area, but the door just over there, through what looks like some kind of laundry room.

“Just a minute~” Rarity says, standing up from the breakfast table and walking off into the next room. I look after her nervously, and it turns out I don’t have to be nervous, because upon opening the door she says, “Oh, hello Scootaloo. Apple Bloom.”

“Can Sweetie come and play?” my two friends call out in tandem. I guess they forgot I can’t walk.

“Regretfully no,” Rarity says down to them. “We are going to be very busy today, helping Sweetie relearn how to walk.”

“Busy?” comes Scootaloo’s voice, “But it’s summer!”

“That being said,” Rarity offers confidently, “You can’t be expecting Sweetie Belle to watch you two play all day, to haul Sweetie Belle around all day like she were a toy doll. She needs to get back on her feet first, so that she can run with you!”

“Sorry, Miss Rarity,” Apple Bloom says abashedly. “Guess we kinda got ahead of ourselves there.”

“So long as you do not get ahead of yourselves all the way to the Badlands, you two remain wonderful fillies, and good friends to Sweetie Belle for thinking of her,” Rarity says warmly, adding in a dismissive tone, “Now run along now. You two will have to make do with each other for now, but I promise Sweetie will be together with you as soon as she is able.”

“Bye Rarity!” the two of them shout, running off as she closes the back door. A stab of disappointment goes through me as she does so. I really wanted to go out and... wait, no I didn’t. I really do want to go out and play with them, but I hadn’t even been thinking of it up to this point. There’s an important distinction there. Okay, not really.

Either way, I really want my walking to get better and my not-getting-sent-to-the-shadow-realm to happen. I’ve got to get to the library somehow, and to do that effectively, I’m going to need to be able to walk again, and once everything is settled there, then I can go outside and play with my friends yay!  ...her friends. With her friends.

Maybe I’ll get another body like hers, and we can all play together. I guess it’s kind of... stupid that I want to play with those foals, but... but I still want to! Why is it so important for me to act my age? I don’t even remember what it’s like to play as a child, aside from what I’ve been doing since I got here. Shouldn’t it bother me to play? But, I just can’t seem to think of why it would be bad.

Oh, well there is the whole sexual thing.

Was I really trying to masturbate last night? Is that really something I did? I didn’t want to, but it was just so hard to resist the temptation, and I have the willpower of a guppy. Even now, I’m sort of giddy at the thought that, not only did I touch myself down there, but it felt good. When I remember how it feels to touch them, I don’t feel so uncomfortable with having girl parts anymore. I wonder if I...

I wonder if I could get away with doing it again.

The only thing, the only thing that really bothers me about this, is that this body might not even belong to me. If only I had my own Sweetie Belle body, and she didn’t have to deal with any sort of trouble that I got into! That would be... just perfect, actually. I wonder if there are any spells about making clones of yourself. Maybe they’d like, die after a week or something stupid like that. But maybe not? I definitely have to get to the library.

I wrap both hooves around the glass of orange juice and carefully slide it over to me. Ugh, why does Rarity have a tablecloth? Those are hard to slide things. Oop–oh good caught it. Oh shoot a bit splashed out. Wait–hold on. Almost, no I can’t tip it that way or it’ll– Jesus Christ. Am I going to drink this orange juice or not?!

“Erm, you can bite the rim,” Rarity says, hovering behind and above my angry form, as I find myself hunched over the orange juice glass like an angry vulture. “Then tilt it up to allow juice into your mouth.”

Right, we’ll just chalk that up to my legitimate amnesia, since I should have remembered that’s how every pony without a horn drinks stuff from a cup. Biting on the rim of the glass and lifting it, I only get a face full of orange juice once, before getting the hang of it! And with that, breakfast passes with nice even sips of orange juice, and without further incident.

Rarity alights her horn and her magic seeks out some saddlebags which wreathed in her glow come floating out from where they were kept, and descend neatly on her back. I notice she even uses her magic to thread the strap through the buckle, but then cranes her neck down to bite it, pulling it tense with her teeth. These are the diamond patterned bags that she wore to the Badlands, and the ones I’ve seen her with in the show. With only their flaps glowing and held open, she starts floating various and sundry into their square contents. Ribbons, thread for some reason, a powder puff with that makeup dust stuff and a tube of dark red–oh my. I hadn’t even noticed she wore lipstick. Did she? She did, right?

Uh, right, water bottle, scissors, a coin purse, I kind of miss the rest. And finally a broad straw sun hat to settle onto her head, with a ribbon on top styled to look like a flower in the color of her mane. So prepared, she saunters over to me, settling down so that I can once again climb on top of her. And like that, we travel outside into a world full of ponies. ...not many ponies, because it’s still pretty early in the morning. A bit chilly out, but I stop shivering relatively quickly.

Ironically, paying attention to my squishy little vulva last night seems to help me ignore my squishy little vulva today, while riding around on top of Rarity for instance. It’s not just that I’m feeling less afraid of it, but, I’m starting to feel like it’s supposed to feel the way it does. My tail isn’t even flat against my rump, when we walk out of the boutique, and as the other ponies walk around without a care in the world, it makes me feel like I don’t need to have have a care in the world, at least not about showing off what’s between my legs. Not that I want to stick it in anyone’s face, but... I could really get used to this whole nudism thing. Maybe one day, I’ll even be able to think about it outside of a sexual context, and can just relax and ignore those body parts like everyone, or, everypony else does.

I swear I recognize some of the ponies walking around in the early-ish morning, but it’s hard to say for sure, since the show didn’t make them look so... distinctive. It’s hard to say who’s the real Bon-Bon, or if that mare over there is Trix–oops, no it’s a pegasus. They all look similar, but more distinct than in the show, and it’s hard to tell which distinction is the official one. That one over there for instance has more casual cascading curls, while that one over there has stiffly prim curls, both in the pink and blue color of Bon-Bon, and only one of them has a triple candy cutie mark. The other having some sort of umbrella in the shade of her mane. But some ponies who look nothing like Bon-Bon have a triple candy cutie mark. I uh...

I wonder how unique one’s special talent is, when you take into account background ponies many of which share the exact same cutie mark. Is it just you get one from a preset list, and interpret it to your own personal circumstances, like an astrological sign? How do they explain ponies with unique cutie marks then, like the main characters? Chosen ones? I wonder if I would get a preset cutie mark or a special one. Wouldn’t both mean I was special? I really want to know what picture would appear on my hindquarters. Unironically.

It is kind of embarassing some of the looks ponies give me, but it’s clearly more about how I’m riding around on Rarity’s back, than anything about my nether regions. I’m just lucky Rarity doesn’t have a baby bassinet to dump me in. I can hold my head high though, with the knowledge that I have one thing that babies do not, which I will fight to preserve more than anything else in this precious world: control over my bladder.

The hospital is as I remember it, thankfully this time with a much lesser degree of panicked anxiety. I don’t think I could get anxious anymore at this point. I’ve dodged so many bullets in this fiasco, that I feel like putting on some sunglasses and swinging around a lamp post. My anxiety bone is just exhausted.

I don’t get off of Rarity in the reception area, because in a few minutes we’re called back to meet with a physical therapist, who is ostensibly called Ace something. I try to remember if I ever heard of a background pony named Ace before. Lemon Ace? Rose Ace? We walk into his office. We walk into his office. Oh no.

Curse you, mutton chops. Why must you torment me with your dead sexiness!

“Hi there, little lady!” he says in a slight Louisiana twang, sauntering up as Rarity walks in the room. “I’m Dr. Ace, of Hearts, but you can call me Ace. I hear you’ve been having trouble walking.” He’s a broad, powerful looking stallion with tan fur, especially thick on his chest, and luscious wavy brown hair on his mane and tail and... moustache.

“Hmhmm,” Rarity says in a pleased tone, “Dr. Care didn’t mention that such a stallion would be taking care of Sweetie Belle today.”

“Oh don’t worry,” Dr. Ace said with a twinkle in his eye, “I may be a stallion, but I am fully familiar with all aspects of a mare’s physiology.”

“I’m sure you are,” Rarity says in a tone of wanton indulgence, her hips swaying slightly underneath me. In the span of mere seconds, I’ve gone from gazing slack jawed at the man horse in his cozy little office, all dressed up with trophies and portraits of tennis matches, to fishmouthing unbelievingly at my sister. My communication skills are sub-par at this moment. I think my brain has broken.

“Sweetie Belle here is having trouble walking,” Rarity says, as though she hadn’t just practically announced her intent to fuck this stallion right here in front of me. “And also ehm... the pad of her hoof isn’t engaging, for whatever reason.”

“Well, that’s no good!” he exclaims. Then he walks up to us and I look at him like the proverbial deer in headlights as he leans over to me and saying, “You alright there, lil’ Sweetie?”

“I’m,” I say in a whisper, unable to put any breath behind my words, trying to hide myself in Rarity’s mane. “Fine...”

“Well,” he says, turning to look at Rarity levelly, continuing in his jovial tone, “I think your little sister here has got a case of the shys!”

“Oh, you know how little fillies can be,” Rarity says waving a hoof in the air, “She has a ways to go before she can consider herself mature, and ...experienced.”

“Her sister certainly sets a good example for her,” he says smoothly to Rarity, with another wink. Rarity titters at that, turning her head and blushing behind her hoof. Help.

“If you are nearly as good at your expertise as you are at flattery,” Rarity blatantly compliments him, “Then I’m sure Sweetie Belle will be better in no time!”

“My medical expertise says that there’s only one cure for shyness,” he points out, sticking a hoof at Rarity. “Familiarity!” he concludes, as Rarity touches her hoof to his, shaking it delicately. “So let’s review her case then, take it easy before we jump into anything.”

He comes up to me again and says, “Okay lil’ Sweetie, I’m going to need you to look at me and just try to relax. You don’t have to say anything, just pay attention to what I have to say, and let your worries be what they may.” I obediently don’t say anything, and he backs up, gesturing Rarity towards a nice comfy black couch in his office. She goes there, and tilts her rear end in a way that slides me right off like a stick of butter on a frying pan, thumping onto the couch. Then, she settles onto the couch herself, sitting close to me as I try to orient myself to match her belly-sitting position.

“So,” Dr. Ace begins his review, holding up my chart in a hoof of his. “Mixed up motor complex, trouble walking, retarded tail motion. No nerve damage detected, so she should be pretty quick to recover. It doesn’t say anything about her pads, though?” he prompts Rarity.

Rarity nods and says somewhat apologetically, “It never came up, I’m afraid. But since her accident, she has had to hook-hoof most things to perform simple manipulation.”

“Wow, that is something,” Dr. Ace says, grabbing a pencil in his mouth to write it down. “Don’t worry though,” he says easily around the pencil, “I know a couple tricks which just might help with that.”

“That would be splendid!” Rarity says delightedly. I’m watching him, still too gobsmacked to say anything, while he stands his athletically toned frame there, and speaks to both of us.

“What I have planned for today is pretty simple. Want to see how you’re moving already, see if it gives me any insight into what’s going on. You’re just going to try to walk a little, see what happens when you’re running around. Then I can give you pointers and you’re gonna try them out, and if they work then great! And if they don’t, then that’s one less thing wrong with you, and we can narrow it down over the course of the day.”

“I don’t know much about fancy magic and ancient curses,” he admits sheepishly, “But if you just need to get your hooves under you again, I’m pretty sure I can help you out!”

Rarity stands up from the couch saying, “That sounds like a splendid plan! What do you think, Sweetie? Are you up for a little walking around?”

“I suppose,” I say reluctantly. “I mean, it’s what we’re here for. I mean, I want it, I mean there’s nothing wrong with him. I mean. Um.” Shutting up now.

“Just give me a chance,” he insists to me, drawing my attention away from Rarity, “You won’t regret it! I can’t promise it’ll be easy, but I can tell you it’s gonna be fun!”

I have absolutely no reason to be worried about Dr. Ace having ‘fun’ with me. He’s just talking about a normal, innocent, kiddie fun, because I’m a kid and he’s a big, strong...  attractive stallion. I mean, but, look at him! His freaking chest hair... I sure wouldn’t mind having a little fun, not with someone like... no, no, see that’s exactly what I should not be thinking. I’m here to walk. Walking. With my feet.

I hope I’m not going to be spending the entire session denying some supernaturally exacerbated urges for me to breed with this stallion. C’mon, girls interact with stallions all the time, without this sort of shit cropping up. I can deal with him. He’s just a pony, like any other person, and I don’t have to obsess over how I can see, in plain sight, his dangling...

Oh. He’s wearing shorts. That makes it easier.

“Okay,” I say shoring up my jaw determinedly. It’s not very effective. “When do we start?”

“Right away,” Dr. Ace answers with a confident smile, “We’ll take you to the gym for starters, and then we can probably take it outside. It’s such a nice day!” He nods at Rarity, saying, “So if you’ll let your sister take her leave, well I think we can get started.”

“Leave?!” I blurt, looking at Rarity with tense eyes.

“I understand you’ve been having ...issues, dear,” Rarity says uncomfortably, “But I’m late as-is opening my boutique, and you wouldn’t want me to leave my clientele any longer than necessary, would you?”

“But, but...” I stammer throwing a hoof in his direction, “With him?!”

“Something wrong with me?” Ace asks confusedly. I immediately blush. I forgot he was there. What am I even thinking?! I look at him–his hooves, at any rate.

“No,” I say docilely, to the very physical therapist, “Sorry I didn’t mean... um.”

“She’s been having some separation issues since the incident,” Rarity says to him fluidly. I frown at her. I have not! I just... oh, wow I kind of have, if you look at it that way.

“I can’t stay with you forever, Sweetie,” Rarity continues, turning to me while I look back at her guiltily, from my seat on the couch. “As much as you may prefer my company, this stallion has what you need right now, that I surely cannot provide.”

Oh, why did you have to put it like that?!

“I–I don’t mind...” but I mean, I don’t mind but, I should mind! I can’t just follow Rarity around all the time though. And that’d mean I could be even closer with him... no, no ejecting those thoughts immeditately. It wouldn’t be that bad though. He’s even wearing shorts!

...my god, ponies can wear pants.

“Just give it a try,” Rarity says to me soothingly, “And if you can’t manage it, we’ll work something else out.”

“I... I... uh...” I can’t think of any rational reason why not. “Okay...” I say in quiet acquiescence.

“Thank you so much, Sweetie,” she says kissing me, right of my horn again. “I will be here to pick you up later this afternoon. You can look forward to a nice tasty lunch prepared or perhaps purchased by yours truly!” I smile weakly at her as she walks out the door to the doctor’s office, closing it with a quiet click behind her.

I look at the doctor, and...........

“I’ve changed my mind,” I say hurriedly, struggling to my feet–augh this couch is too plush and I slip down again. Why do you have to feel everything that rubs against you when you’re naked? I try to stay still so the fabric of the couch doesn’t rub against my pony legs, and my broad round belly and even that smooshy little package that I shouldn’t be thinking about and rubbing right in the presence of—!

Okay, calm. Being calm. I can handle interacting with the world with every part of my body, and not just the little bits that stick out of clothing that I no longer own. I just have to never move a muscle again, and I won’t feel anything soft or sensuous, like my body pressing against this fluffy, lumpy couch.

Still blushing and hiding behind my hooves, I mumble “I mean, let’s just get started...”
> Refusal of the Call
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright lil’ Sweetie,” Dr. Ace says quietly, regarding me. He stands side saddle to me there in his office, with me on the couch, or rather, in the couch. I look at his strong flat back with apprehension, my eyes drawn to the elastic band that holds his shorts on, just a little strap that the furry hide of his hindquarters slides easily underneath, under where you could follow, to discover within...

“Now just hold your horses,” he says in a more relaxed tone, turning and walking toward the door, “While I go fetch a wheelchair, and we can get on our way.”

Oh, so I don’t have to ride on his back? That is such a disappointmentrelief. Relief.

He wheels the chair into the room, and I manage to at least pull myself up into it, by hooking my hooves... right ‘hook-hoof’ I get it. By hooking my hooves over the arms and pulling myself around, sitting on my tail that bunches beneath me. The wheelchair actually has no place to stick my tail out behind, oddly enough. I wonder why that is? 

At least the wheelchair isn’t as... pleasant to sit in as that couch.

From there, he easily wheels me like a serving tray into what is most certainly not an athletic gymnasium. But it’s a clean room with a rough tiled floor, a long mirror on one of the walls, and lots of exercise equipment scattered about. There are a few other ponies there, divided into stations it looks like with the equipment shared between them. One ...patient for lack of a better word, is extending their limbs, while the attending pony dangles weights off of them, and the other patient appears to be doing wingups.

There, before I can comment on the physical impossibility of supporting yourself on feathers, Dr. Ace stops the wheelchair and announces brightly, “Alright, now let’s see you get out of that chair!”

“Right, okay,” I say as agreeably as I can in his presence. I push my elbows against the back of the chair, and... in what proves to be a repeating theme with me, I slide off it like a limp noodle. Having edged my butt off the wheelchair’s foot—er—hoof rest, I collect myself on the ground, as confidently as I possibly can.

“I can see we might have a little bit of work to do,” he mutters critically, a hoof held up to his chin.

I smile at him lightly, saying, “No, it’s... I’m just a little unsure of myself. I um... I can stand up on my own. Watch!”

It only takes me two tries to stand up, too! “Not bad,” he says approvingly when I do stand, walking around my short little splay legged form with a critical eye. “You mind trying out a few steps?” he utters distractedly. Because he’s distracted, busy watching me. Because he’s looking at me! Looking at every inch of of okay calm down, don’t panic. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.

He’s so freaking hot!!

I do manage to take a few steps, but slide out quickly, and stumble forward. He catches me before I go to the floor nose first, and a heavy blush consumes my face as I realize that he’s touching me, bracing me gently with a strong powerful hoof to ease me gently to the floor. I don’t think I could stand up if I wanted to, at this point.

“You know what your biggest problem is?” he asks me, unprompted. Yes, I know what my biggest problem is. He is my biggest problem. Him and his strong capable hooves that could wrap around me and... do completely innocent things. “Your pads aren’t engaging, just like your sister said!” he exclaims. “It’s no wonder you can’t walk!”

Somehow it makes me blush a little bit less in my lack of comprehension, looking at him with curiosity and asking, “What does holding things with your hooves have to do with walking?”

“Besides everything?” he answers with a question. “You’re gonna need to get a good grip with your hoof if you want to be walking on uneven ground, or an incline or say, a moving train!”

“That’s the first thing we have to do,” he decides, clapping his hooves decisively, “Get your hooves back in order. Then I bet you’ll remember how to walk like a fish to water!”

“How do we do that?” I ask honestly, completely at a loss how one would go about doing that.

“You ever play patty cake, lil’ Sweetie?” Ohh boy.

He holds out his front hooves in front of him. I don’t feel ...stable enough to lift both my front hooves, so I just lift my marshmallow white left hoof, and bring it up hesitantly to push against his. His hoof is so much bigger than mine. I can feel his hoof it’s so warm, and... and it’s holding onto me! I can’t pull it away.

“Now your other hoof, go ahead,” he says kindly. I have no words for how I feel right now. I can’t have words because I’m not allowing myself to even think about how I’m feeling right now. Oh god why can’t I stop staring at him. And he’s looking back at me too, those warm, concerned eyes such a deep shade of blue I... I can’t do this. I just can’t!

I’m ashamed to say I’m starting to get a bit frantic here. When I struggle wordlessly against him, he lets me go, my hoof plummeting from his grasp to the ground. With my hoof goes my gaze, as I scrabble precariously on the tile for a minute, before sliding to my belly. Staring down at the ground fixatedly, I feel consumed by my facial blush.

“Alright, we’ll try something else then,” he says in a guardedly non-judgemental tone. He doesn’t look satisfied with that though, and gives me a long, concerned stare. I can tell that he does that, because I can see the tips of both his front hooves angled in his sitting position, to point right at me. But that’s all I’m going to look at. His large, warm, capable... I squeeze my eyes shut.

He walks away for a moment, then the sound of his hoofsteps returns. “You’re gonna have to work with me here,” I hear his slightly miffed voice, as light, stiff things clunk against my front hooves. I open my eyes to see blocks of varying shapes and sizes. Just... colorfully painted wooden blocks.

“Sure, no problem...” I drawl out uneasily, still making sure to only look at the blocks and not him. “S-should I try to pick these up?”

“I just wanna see you push ‘em around for a while,” he says. I feel so stupid for not being comfortable with what my body is telling me, so much I can’t even look at him. Not to mention my body telling me things that surely can’t be right. Why would I ever be attracted to him? I’m not... I shouldn’t have to feel that way! Not to mention being reduced to stacking blocks like an uh, 8 year old. I start pushing around the blocks. Quickly, I discover that stacking blocks like an 8 year old, is actually way beyond my capabilities.

This is going to be a long day.

I’m so grateful when Rarity comes back. I’ve been trying, but this stupid filly body is just messing with me so much. I really don’t know how to deal with it. I look at him, and I have feelings. I have reactions. I have... an underside that’s getting to be feeling a little too frictionless, when squirming my legs together. That’s normal, right? But, for an 8 year old?? I’m not supposed to be feeling... damp down there, am I? Oh god my body getting ready for his cock; how am I supposed to act normal when that’s happening?!

I can’t stop thinking about it, all the while Rarity carries me, first to the toilet room where I try not to look forward to getting wiped again, and then out of the hospital down the street. We stop at a small food cart which doesn’t have the ...tastiest food, but it’s on the very periphery of a busy, crowded market. Rarity is clearly avoiding large crowds, considering how anxious I’ve been acting since meeting Dr. Ace, and... I’m really grateful of that. I don’t know if I would be okay with feeling another pony of any sort, even accidentally just bumping against me.

I can actually wrap my hooves around the um, aluminum-ish looking wrapper of some kind of roll. I’d say it’s a burrito, but I say everything rolled up in a soft shell is a burrito, so my knowledge of foreign cuisine is somewhat lacking. It isn’t the tastiest, as I’ve said, but the cheese is pleasantly musky, and the beans are plain but not salted too much. And since I can hold it, I can mostly eat it by myself, if I brace the bottom on my rather unflattering pot belly that appears when I try sitting Lyra-style. Rarity has to help with the napkin though. Thankfully she doesn’t help... down there with the napkin.

I can’t stop thinking about him. Rarity lets me lay about the boutique during her afternoon business hours, and were it not for the patrons coming in and making a fuss about their formal (or fun) wear, I... don’t think I’d be sitting here with a crayon in my mouth trying to learn how to draw again. No, I’d be doing something much less acceptable for an 8 year old. He was so warm and kind and freaking hot I just... it’s exactly the sort of thing that should get me going, and I’m afraid that’s just what’s going to happen if I let myself be alone.

I notice Rarity’s escorting the last two out, and turning the sign around on her shop. I guess it’s closing time. Well, I’ve had some time to think and okay no, I’ve wasted all my thinking time drawing pictures of Dr. Ace that look more like demented circles, and then giving up and just drawing flowers because they’re easier. But now that she’s closing up, I feel my heart rate pick up as I remember something that I really need to do. Even if I can’t walk yet, considering my performance today it feels like it could be weeks before I can, and I can’t wait that long!

“Rarity,” I ask in a tentative lilt, “Can we go to the library when you’re done?”

“Sure, Sweetie,” she says looking up from her dress rack, “I could use a reading break myself before we get started on dinner.”

Okay I am legitimately excited at this. I know what the library looks like, but I don’t know what it looks like from all angles. I only remember seeing it from one angle. And there’s a good reason for that, because the treebrary lies on the periphery of town. You can actually see it from the train station if you know what to look for, and that’s a different angle. But just walking through town, it’s always going to be alongside you, with one direction facing you, the face of the library I’m familiar with, framed on either side by a few more ordinary cottages.

And, if I could just freaking walk on my own, then I could walk around it and get as much a look of the library as I want. But no, I’ve got to sit here all wiggly on Rarity’s back, because my ’pads’ don’t work, and the wheelchairs are hospital property. It’s alright though, we’re almost there. I can almost smell the knowledge just brimming in that place. I’ve always loved libraries, even though they never did me any good. Just something about a building full of shelves of books. It always seems like the solution to my problem is hidden in there, just around the corner.

I find myself gazing around the library foyer. This tree really is big, but not too big for a library. It’s a lot smaller than the libraries I’ve been in of course, but that means an easier time finding things. You can have a huge library full of romance novels, biographies on war heroes and politicians, and a big walled off section for watered down, diluted books that children are allowed to read, and never find anything in it. Or you could have a small one full of guides, histories, texts, journals. It’s the quality of literature in a library that counts, not so much the size of it.

I guess that ties in with my reluctance to learn new things. I tried learning everything at first, and my head became like one of those big libraries full of junk. And now I just want to be a little library, and it may not have all the books in the world, but it’s sure to have the book that you need. Unfortunately, unlike a library, you can’t get rid of old junk in your head so easily. So I learned too late to be careful about what I learn, because of so much stuff I wish I could forget, just sitting there cluttering up my shelves for a very, very long time.

There’s a pony standing off to the side, shelving books, a dusty blue mare with a burnt orange mane. An earth pony it looks like, with a cute little pair of spectacles balanced precariously on the bridge of her nose. They can’t possibly be effective, considering the size of her eyes. Anyway, she’s the closest I can see to a librarian but doesn’t address us or anything, and Rarity seems to know where she’s going anyway.

Rarity takes me into the (ugh) walled off children’s section of the library, with a bunch of bright couches and beanbags. It’s um... small. It’s a cozy little reading room, with bookshelves all along the walls, but the shelves are not very high. I suppose I’m going to have to sneak into the not-kids section to get the information I want eventually, without drawing suspicion somehow, but hopefully here I can at least get some idea of what I’m dealing with.

“Anything you’re looking to read in particular?” Rarity asks me leadingly.

“I was thinking about stories about the Badlands,” I suggest craftily, “So I can learn more about what happened to me over there.”

“Hmm...” Rarity murmurs to herself, looking along the shelves.

“Can I get off?” I ask. “I can maybe help look too.” There’s no way I can help look. I have to try though. Maybe I could just fiddle through one single shelf, or pull myself along to the other shelves. So, she lets me off, dumping me on my back onto a lemon yellow beanbag, which is unsurprisingly comfortable, because beanbags are awesome. I crane around to the shelves but they’re too far away to reach, and before I think about trying to move, a book immediately prods my tummy. I turn to see it floating there in Rarity’s magic.

“You might try this?” she asks hopefully. “It is a bit... colty. I hope you don’t mind.”

I take a look at it. The front cover shows the picture of an earth pony colt striking a pose with monsters and explosions all around him, surrounded by flowery decorative patterns. And he’s got a comically large space laser to fight with. I can’t help but hold back a snicker.

Rarity inhales and I assure her, “No no it’s fine I just... I’ll try this one. Thank you.” It’s a hardcover—most books here are—so it’s easy enough for me to hook my hoof around the binding and open it. With a smile I open the book and begin to

I close the book. I look at the front cover again. Those aren’t decorative patterns, above and below the cover illustration. I thought they were just decorative patterns, but they’re not. They’re not decorative patterns. They’re... they’re...

I try to control my breathing, and open the book again, hoping maybe this time... no. No it’s exactly the same. I use my hoof to–it drags like half the pages with it, but I turn to a page in the middle. It’s all the same thing. I try taking a closer look at the bindings. Some of the other books on the shelf are thick enough to have readable bindings. It’s all the same thing. I...

I can’t read any book in this library.

And now I have to sit here, pretending to read. Pretending to read the beautiful sworls and abstract symbols that have absolutely no connection to meaning for me. Because I asked to come here. Because I thought I could... I I thought...

“Okay I’m done,” I whisper tensely. Did I wait long enough? Is she going to suspect that I can’t read? By all that’s holy I can’t read. Every book in here is... I–I can’t read. But they speak English! Am I even speaking English? But why would I know how to speak, but not how to read? The show! The fucking show didn’t want to have any actual books so they replaced all the writing with... with the stuff I’m looking at. Illegible scrawl and encoded graphemes that sort of look like stars and hearts and body parts.

I do wait even longer, because I notice Rarity didn’t hear my frightened whisper, and I really did want to delay a little longer just to be sure. I can’t even turn pages right with these stupid, broken hooves. I can’t even I– I can’t do this. There’s nothing I can do. I have total freedom, salvation from something I would rather not even contemplate. Everything is perfect and... and I can’t read. That means I can’t know what’s going to happen to me, and I can’t save Sweetie Belle. And I can’t do anything. I hate being so helpless!

Even as I angrily shove the book off my belly, I lunge after it in a panic, but it just keeps on sliding off the beanbag and clatters to the floor. Rarity looks up from her book. Hers has on its cover, two ponies standing alongside each other, surrounded by crashing waves. And I can’t read the title of it. How did I not see this coming?! Rarity’s looking at me.

“I’m done,” I repeat with an embarassed blush, a little louder this time. Not too loudly of course (this is a library) but loud enough that she can hear me. “I’m... I need your... I’m ...getting kind of hungry,” I say, despite desperately needing her help. I... I have to tell her now, don’t I. I don’t have any other choice! I’m totally helpless, and... for the first time in my life that really, really bothers me.

“I suppose,” Rarity says with a pout of disappointment. “You really should commit to one thing or another, instead of just flitting around like this.”

“I wi҉ll!” I exclaim, blushing and saying more quietly, “I will I just– I just need a little time to...”

“To eat, yes,” she finishes for me, dryly. “You’re right though,” Rarity admits, standing to her hooves. “This was rather last minute, and it is getting on to supper time. I understand your desire to learn about your condition more. You will have to schedule a longer time in the future, so you can fully satisfy your curiosity.”

Should I ask if we can check out an alphabet book? I don’t even know which is an alphabet book! Is this even an alphabet? Is it two alphabets? Rarity has no idea how unfully I am failing to satisfy my curiosity. So I just robotically say, “Okay,” and, “Thanks,” and then, “...let’s go eat.”

I wish I could describe what ponies I see, on my way back to the Boutique. Normally my eyes are going to tell me all about the ponies that I see and recognize. Normally I’m going to satisfy my burning hunger for knowledge by soaking in as much as I possibly can. Not when I’m like this.

I don’t really see much of anything in front of me; I just stare blankly forward, with the feelings consuming me inside. The biggest thing that sticks in my mind are those darned pink and purple curls. Sweetie Belle’s pink and purple curls, that keep bouncing down into my range of vision, in time with Rarity’s hoofsteps underneath me. I notice a swinging store sign that only has a picture of a smiling pony on it, and I notice it doesn’t only have a picture on it, but also words that I can’t read. And that’s about it. We’re at her boutique before I can even blink, the carousel themed structure looking a lot less intimidating than it did last night in the dark, shining with its lavender and blue pastel colors in the strong afternoon sunlight.

While I’m sitting around in there, waiting for Rarity to take care of everything for me because there’s fucking nothing I can do by myself, I idly pick up (in my mouth) the red crayon.  Heedless of my previous scribbles, I carefully scrawl on the paper a large letter ‘A’. I lean back, looking at it. I can definitely read it. It being one single letter taking up the entire paper. But it’s not a letter in any of the books. I try writing a smaller B, and I can’t quite get my neck to turn right to get its shape correct. But a cross between capital gamma and a vertically flipped P, is still recognizable as the letter ‘B’.

This is hopeless. These letters are as useless as I am. What does it matter if I can read a language no pony has ever seen? I have a whole world of experience in my head, and it’s all just a big library full of stupid junk books that I just want to get rid of. What am I going to do, teach them my alphabet? Bring industrialization into the pony world? You mean like trains? Teach them the scientific method? As if they didn’t already know it! A tidbit which I could have easily known myself, if I could just fucking read their writing.

If I could just... be Sweetie Belle.

I spy Opalescence, a genuine srs faced persian kitty with magical purple tipped fur. She’s sitting up on the counter of one of the displays. She seems to sense me notice her and gives me an unapproving glare, before turning her back to me and sticking her ass in my direction. It’s funny, Sweetie Belle is so horrible with cats, I probably shouldn’t try to use my years of experience rendering cats to be putty in my hands to disturb that, but I still can’t help but think it would be neat to see if I could maybe cheer Opal up a little. She has to put up with Rarity, after all. Rarity may love Opalescence dearly, and she may be the best sister ever, but from what I’ve seen on the show, Rarity clearly does not know how to take care of a cat.

Of course, lacking 5 supple massaging digits is going to make this a bit problematic. Handy tip for any humans though is that fingers are way too smooth for cats. Use of your nails or, other rougher things, is quite advised. They don’t like heavy pressure, but roughness? Momma cat’s tongue. On reflection it occurs to me that this is true for ponies too, not the tongue thing, but if you’ve ever confused a curry comb with a medieval torture device, you wouldn’t be the first. Until you actually use the thing, and even if you put your whole weight into the effort of peeling off their skin, they’ll just lean into it and enjoy it even more. A curry comb is way, way too rough for a cat, but what I’ve seen so far...

“Rarity!” I shout as she trots by, abandoning my drawings for now.

“Yes, Sweetie?” she pauses to look down her glasses at ohmygodthat’sadorable me.

“Can I have a stiff brush?” I ask innocently.

Rarity smiles at that, saying, “Always good to think of your appearance, Sweetie. I’ll be right back wi–”

“No, I meant I wanted to try brushing Opalescence,” I correct her before she runs off.

Rarity stumbles on her hooves, saying in a placating tone, “Oh Sweetie, you know that only Fluttershy is really capable of managing dear Opal’s grooming.”

“Fluttershy can’t be here every day, right?” I ask Rarity, whose eyes dim at that remark. “Opal has really lots of fur,” I add, “So I think she would like anyb-pony brushing her, if it was every day.”

“Maybe later, Sweetie,” Rarity says reluctantly in reasonable disbelief. “For now let’s just get you in the bathtub.”

The evening bath, it turns out, is accomplished right when we get home. Get all that road dirt off, I suppose. I don’t even have it in me to ask. “It’ll be nice to get all that road dirt off,” Rarity says relievedly, depositing me beside the bathtub. Right, then.

She magicks the faucets, a lot less fidgety than at the lodge. Clearly Rarity is well familiar with this bathtub’s particular ratio of cold to hot. She grabs with her mouth, a bottle from a tray alongside the bathtub, and up-ends a dash of its contents into the tub, humming pleasantly the while. Just a splash of something. It’s a perfume, I think, from the smell that quickly pervades the air. An essential oil, perhaps?

Frankly I wouldn’t mind at this point if Rarity decided to put lipstick and eyeshadow on me. I’m just so scared of losing her I don’t even care what we do together. With the water full and steaming, she lifts me up and deposits me in the tub, and stands beside it as I feel the blessed warmth seeping in through my tired skin and relaxing my tense muscles. “Pardon me,” she says casually, getting me to look up from my bath trance and–

Rarity stretches one hind foot gracefully over the rim of the bathtub, the snowy white appendage descending smoothly into the water next to me. She’s– she’s getting into the bathtub! While I boggle, frozen in place, Rarity straddles the bathtub between her legs before lifting the second one over. Holding her tail high, she folds her lower body down, her triad of diamonds descending into the water, becoming wavering and indistinct. I look up from her hindquarters and she’s pulled her upper body up to just hook over the edge of the tub, and with a casual toss of her torso, slides into a sitting position in front of me, descending up to her whithers in the water with a satisfied sigh.

She notices I’m completely stupefied with a slight twinge at the corners of her mouth, not quite a wince. “It sure is lovely to end the day with a nice hot soak,” she says leadingly, “Wouldn’t you agree, Sweetie?” And now she’s looking at me with honest concern.

“I... really like... um... yes I agree,” I respond tactfully and so very suavely. “What did you... add to the water, that smells so nice?” I say diverting the topic away from my reaction to bathing with my my I’m in the bathtub with my sister and we’re both naked and it’s Rarity and oh no I’m blushing again. Stop it, face! Stop blushing and turning aside! Stupid face.

“Just some solemntree oil,” she says casually, still giving me a worried look. “It’s a wonderful, long lived tree whose essence is known to invigorate the mind, and calm the nerves.”

Does the bath water go inside your vagina when it’s under water? Oh my god why did I just think that?

A larger white hoof comes to rest on my chest underwater, making me look up again. “Sweetie, talk to me,” Rarity says imploringly, “Is there anything I can do that would ease whatever is on your mind? If an upsetting memory has come back to you, if you talk about it then you’ll surely feel better.”

I sigh huffily, a bit startled when Rarity’s hoof moves against my expanding and contracting chest. “I’m just...” I say trying to formulate my words coherently. “I didn’t... remember that we took baths together. I forgot that was okay. I don’t remember taking a bath with another p-pony, and I was kind of surprised and... embarassed.”

I sneak a look at Rarity, and she’s got a gentle smile on her face, no longer a look of worry or concern. “Oh Sweetie, just think how wonderful that is,” she says, curling her hooves daintily under the water. “You get to learn the pleasure of a good intimate conversation over a nice hot bath all over again.”

I mean to retort, but then Rarity reaches out with a slight sloshing, and wraps a hoof around behind my neck. The water shifts and sloshes again as she physically pulls me right against her, shoulder to shoulder, our chests practically touching. She just holds me like that, giving a pleased ...whinny and resting her head atop my curls. I... I should be even more freaked out by this strong, confident heavy contact between us, but... somehow it’s just so much more relieving than being separate from each other with nothing but the most hesitant of light touches. And somehow my breathing evens out, and I close my eyes leaning against her, with a fluttering in my chest that aches so fondly.

Rarity remains in the tub during the afterbath, helping me soap up my hair while the water drains, and scrubbing me off in the places where I can’t reach (basically everywhere), and wrapping her beautiful magic around an extensible showerhead, expertly rinsing off the foam from hers and my mane, and her and my hindquarters and tail.

“Shouldn’t we soap up before the bath?” I ask at one point, and Rarity explains,

“Oh, you see the bath is intended to loosen the dirt on your coat, so a good long soak is very important to minimize the effort to clean off when you do apply your body products.”

And a laugh actually escapes me at that. I have to say Rarity is a lot more amazing than I had thought. She really has got it together in her life. I wonder how many of her silly follies have a good practical basis to them. And I feel a giddy sense of wonder at how different it is, that she has different things to deal with than humans do. That I have different things to deal with than humans. I have a short, but very present, coat of fur on my skin, a coat that needs soaking, and loosening, whereas a human wouldn’t have nearly as much trouble with dirt clumps and fur sticking together. As if our manes aren’t already excitingly alien enough, with its un-scaly, apparantly frictionless nature.

It’s just something I have never had a chance to feel before. Something truly different than any of my past experiences. I don’t think there’s anything more exhilirating than a new tactile experience. A way of touching you’ve never known just opens a wordless door in you, for a whole array of future sensations. A song you never heard before might change your entire paradigm, but a touch you’ve never felt before changes the way that you feel.

Rarity serves a tasty meal, of greens, greens, and more greens, and some kind of fried flapjack that isn’t soggy but instead has the tasty crunch of hay, all layered with a white cheese that faintly reminds me of the spice fenugreek. I should find three servings of greens to be offensive, as I was raised my whole life to have only one serving of greens, and if I serve any more it’s a rejected meal and a hoary eyeball for my troubles. But thankfully I’m open minded about these things, as well as too shell shocked to care, so I enjoy the sweet hearty broccoli, some thick stiff leaves that I don’t recognize, and what look like scattered pansies, technically purple and yellow, but still greens.

I eat what I can, but my stomach is just up in knots over this. I’ve been torn between frustrated horniness and despair all afternoon, and now my appreciation for this meal. My thoughts are confused, along the lines of I can’t sit here not saving Sweetie Belle. I wish I could enjoy these flowers more; it’s so novel to eat flowers. I wonder what it would feel like a stallion shoving his cock in me. I have to ask for help. I wonder if there are any poisonous flowers. But asking for help risks my life, and for the first time I have a life that I care about! If I lean forward more, I bet I could rub myself a bit on this stool. I need to tell her, but I need to... this food is really good.

In any different circumstances, I would be so lucky to have a body like mine, and to have a sister like her. I wonder how many chances I’m going to have left to tell her that, before she hates me for deceiving her and stealing away her sister.

“You’ve been so good to me,” I say, staring at my food with trepidation. “I don’t know how to thank you for... everything.”

“Dear, that’s what sisters are for,” Rarity says gently. “You’ll understand one–”

“I’m not–” I interrupt. But should I tell her? She’s still not figuring it out. It should be obvious though. I couldn’t even read. I have to tell her or, or I won’t know if she canhow to save Sweetie Belle.

“I’m... not...” I repeat miserably. I need to tell her, but I don’t want to tell her! I’m not Sweetie Belle. The words make me imagine staring down at a blade sticking out through my chest impaling me. Like a yawning steel-jaw trap. “I’m not...” I can do this I can I can’t do this. “...hungry.” I finish miserably.

“Sweetie Belle, is everything alright?” Rarity asks me with the most sincere of concern. I hate myself to pieces.

“Oh, I’m fine I just... I had way too much and and I’m just feeling sleepy... now̰̫” I try to sound confident, but I just trail off into a croak, trying to talk in words. And now my eyes are watering again. Damnit!

“If there is something the matter, then you’d tell me,” Rarity says. She doesn’t ask. She says. I try to agree with her, but I can’t even summon it in me to nod.

“I’m just sleepy,” I assert faintly, “I just want to go to bed.” And maybe there, I can... no, maybe I shouldn’t. I can’t be thinking about being pent up, when I’m busy being upset. That just isn’t how it works!

It’s with utmost reluctance that Rarity takes up my plate in her mouth, and walks away from the small table she has for dining in her kitchen. But she doesn’t protest, or call me out. Why doesn’t she suspect me already, and just get it over with? She just invites me up, and takes me through the evening routines, and the only useful thing I can do is try to refrain from attempting to pleasure myself by rubbing against her back. I could try using magic maybe, but...

I try with the toothbrush again, but I still can’t figure out how to ‘hold’ hold it, and Rarity doesn’t suggest using my horn, so I don’t even try it. I do watch her magic with fascination, trying to see some of that ...whatever it is the doctors were talking about. I can tell it’s moving about her horn in a certain way, and also appearing around the toothbrush handle, and thus distracting me with foamy toothpaste. Watching magic is sort of like watching someone else walk. You get to imagining yourself doing the same things, with the same things that you have and... I’m just not confident that I should try. They said it would be safe, but...

Well...

There’s a reason I would want to be Sweetie Belle more than Twilight or Lyra or anything, which is kind of rendered moot by Sweetie’s little magical accident that brought me here. I don’t actually... want to use magic. I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but when Rarity tucks me in again and, surrounded by the softness and safety of my new bed, I look out into the glimmering starlight, all I need is that reassurance that things are going to be okay, not any actual... control over my life. All I need to know is that those stars really are the wishes of a moon princess twinkling in the night, and not just depressingly distant, dead infernos of mindless destruction. I don’t need to have the stars at my command. I just need them to be there, and to be... nice.

So I don’t mind not... using magic for a while. I’ll be getting more magic than I want to deal with once I tell them about Sweetie Belle, anyway. First thing in the morning, I can tell her over breakfast when we’re all nice and calm.

I shift a little nervously. This bed sure feels nice. A rear hoof taps on another as I squirm my legs together, then at the thought of doing that, I spread them apart. I probably shouldn’t. But it’s been so long! I feel like I’m going crazy from all this tantalizing experience. Dr. Ace was so friggin... I feel a twinge between my legs, and I really, really want to touch that. Despite the fear of being hated for what I’m doing, I reach down with a front hoof and a soft sigh escapes me when I feel it press against myself. Even that fear loses its potency, as a pleasant feeling starts to spread from between my thighs, relaxing and easing my pent up frustration.

Being burrowed in soft bedclothes with the stars for company is even more pleasant with a hoof between my thighs. Oh sure, I should be appreciating the peace of this moment for its own merit, with a childlike innocence, but like it or not, my innocence was lost long ago, the day I discovered that those secret touches made these moments seem even more precious. It doesn’t take anything away is the thing. I’m still snuggled cozily in my bed, still feeling peaceful and serene, and the stars are still twinkling, and like the stroking of a penis, smushing the pad of my hoof against my unfamiliar labia just... I dunno... improves those experiences.

I lay there a while snug in my bed, decadently stroking at the little treasure that I somehow came into the possession of. I lay there in the darkness, listening to my slow breathing, taking in what must be my scent, and the lingering mysterious flowers of Rarity. I lay there listening to the soft slip of sheets, against young unicorn flesh as my pelvis pushes up automatically from the stimulation. I feel what must be lubrication, a sort of rushing warmth in me down there, barely distinct from the tingle of arousal. While that tingle of arousal is the same, the way it goes into me like a sort of dull pulse, and the fluttery sensation of what surely must be my inside parts, is a curious difference from the way I used to feel. I knew girls felt it differently, but I didn’t know it would be so... weird.

Some part of me worries how much of it is that I have become a girl now, and how much of it is becoming a horse. The way it makes the base of my tail twitch is one of those curious differences, for instance, and human girls sure don’t have that to think about that! Yet I can’t worry too much, feeling like this. Touching myself just muddles up my thoughts into a pleasant acceptance. It helps me not feel worried about how I’m going to tell Rarity tomorrow and ask for her help. I can’t even really comprehend how something that feels this nice might be wrong for Sweetie Belle. And even when the smiling face of Dr. Ace appears in my imagination, and makes me breathe harder and move against myself, it feels exciting more than off-putting.

There’s just one -little- problem with this. My hoof is getting tired. I mean, I’m tired in general. I’m not as mentally exhausted as yesterday, though given the bombshell about reading comprehension, I probably should be. I am a relatively young child, and I am very tired, but my hoof is tired in the achy sense. I’m just feeling increasingly uncomfortable from moving it around in this odd position for so long without ...progress. The humidity is clearly increasing down there, with what I imagine are my feminine petals growing slick along the pad of my hoof. But it just isn’t going any further than that.

I groan in frustration, not sure how to get these smooth generic strokes to ignite me into the orgasm I’ve been craving, ever since I came here. Letting my hoof rest at my side, I focus on the lingering twinges in my groin, trying to visualize just what I have down there, and what to do about it. And that’s how I fall asleep, not even realizing that I’ve done so until later, long into the night, when once again I begin to dream...

I race outside, eager to explore. Adventure is just around the corner! I gallop down the sidewalk animatedly. The rows and rows of quiet lifeless houses are a little scary and intimidating, but beyond them I’ll find something really cool. I tire quickly, and soon I’m just pacing steadily along. I squint and look ahead, but all I can see is the end of the road, where it turns to the right, houses blocking any view beyond that.

I reach where the road turns and look to my right, and hidden there, down that secret way that I could not see before is... a road, lined with silent houses. Oh well. I start walking down that road, looking for a way out of all these houses, to find something really cool. Maybe like a jungle, or a castle, or a– a portal to another world.

There’s an almost hidden little alleyway to my side, and I dodge out of the endless houses, skittering eagerly down the alley towards the call to adventure. Featureless 6 foot tall fences line the alley, walling it off from any of the houses or yards, so there’s only one way out, and when I get there it’s... a road, lined with silent houses.

I’m in my old kitchen then, feeling a long forgotten sense of dismay. Surely I’ll find something the next time, if I go in another direction. There has to be something besides all these houses, something really cool to explore. But now I just have to go to school and stand in line, and passively obey, and not leave the supervised areas for an entire week, before I’ll get another chance to explore.

The week is a blur, and I’m off again, exploring my neighborhood, walking down the other way this time, along rows and rows of silent houses. A car drives by occasionally. If there’s anyone inside it, they give no indictation. Then amazingly, I turn a corner, and there before me is a road, lined with ...silent houses. Sighing, I tiredly trot down that road, sure that the way to adventure has to be just on the other side.

Weeks pass, and I try a way I’ve never gone down before, walking slyly past it in case something wants to stop me from finding adventure, maybe those cars. Then I jump back and run down it, before they can replace the strange new realm I seek to explore, with– it leads right to a road, lined with silent houses. Next time, next time.

I don’t know if these houses are full or empty. I never see anyone come out of them or walk along the streets, except to get in their cars and drive away. They never talk to me or even acknowledge me, and I never see the same person twice. We’re all too busy with school and work to get to know each other.

Weeks pass, and I know these roads like the back of my tail. I’ve walked down every passage, explored every alleyway, tried every gate. I found the neighborhood park, which is a set of tennis courts and an open field of grass, with nothing concealed, and nothing to explore. But there is one road left that I haven’t tried, and since I’ve eliminated everything else, that has to be the way out! I weave through the maze of roads and houses, coming to that peculiar roadway that doesn’t seem to lead anywhere I’ve ever been before.

The way is still there. It hasn’t vanished overnight! I look down it nervously, as it appears to be just another road lined with silent houses, wondering if I should go. Wondering if I should risk the danger of an adventure, to seek out the unknown. But I know in my heart, that’s what I need to do, so I give a confident sly smile and trot down it, without any more hesitation. And finally, after all this time, it opens out into a road, lined with silent houses.

I know this road. It’s a road I’ve already walked down, many times. I just have to walk the long way along it, around the bend, and... yes. I’m right back at the entrance of the last way I went down. I know every way in my head now, and every way leads back to itself. I’m at my house, looking outside fearfully. I know I’ll never be able to explore in here. I already know this simple house of mine, like the back of my tail. But there’s nowhere to explore out there either! What am I supposed to do?

There’s no one to answer me, besides rows and rows of silent houses.

Years pass. I keep on seeking, but that doesn’t help. I give up on seeking, but that doesn’t help. I just don’t have anything better to do. There’s nothing to do on these streets, besides walk down them, step after step. There’s nothing to interact with, no one to talk to, nothing to explore. I just want to find the way out of this place, out of these roads, some place that I can explore, or... or someone who can help me, because I’m trapped here week after week, and there’s nothing I can do to save myself.

I never find anyone. Years pass. I stop avoiding it, and continue walking along the streets. I tell myself it’s for exercise. I tell myself I just want to see if I can meet anyone this time. I tell myself it’s better than sitting inside all day staring at the wall. I tell myself it’s a habit now, not anything I want to do, just something I do out of reflex. I know the truth is I want to explore, to have things to find and discover, to reach that special land that I know is just around the corner waiting for me to walk out into adventure, but I tell myself lies. It hurts too much hope for something around the corner, and see nothing but another road lined with silent houses.

I can’t even find my house anymore. They all just look alike. I just keep walking and walking. Rows of silent houses, rundown emotionless storefronts, giant warehouses full of cheap multinational goods, and where there isn’t houses, just open land. Biting thorns and dry scrub as far as the eye can see, and then desolate hills that were once covered in oak trees, but have since been converted to cow pastures. Hills that are farther than I’ve ever walked. I try to reach them once, but end up exhausted alongside the freeway, trudging lifelessly back towards town until I reach somewhere that I can rest at.

I walk through a beautiful forest, the air fresh and clear. I walk and walk, and I find forest, and more forest. The trees begin to look like roads lined with silent houses. No animals can be heard my entire life, just rows of silent trees. Later, a family member takes me halfway across the world, where I go out to explore, finding roads lined with silent houses. I try to give up. I try to stop looking. I try to tell myself there’s nothing to be found. I go outside to take a walk.

The road stretches endlessly before me. The silent houses remain unapproachable, full of strangers I’ve never seen or empty and locked. I’m getting tired, but I keep walking. I should turn around, but I keep walking. My skin is weathered and sagging from age. My mane is thin and grey. My hooves are cracked on the sidewalk, but what am I going to do, go back? There’s nothing for me back there, and there’s nothing for me ahead, but maybe, maybe just a little bit more.

I fall over, but I don’t want to stop. I feel like something is hounding me, like the silent houses have been following me all this time. I desperately crawl forward just trying to reach that one secret way that will lead me out of this. I can’t even walk anymore, just slide along the sidewalk like an invalid or a slug, again past the houses, to where the street turns right. I turn my head wearily to look around the corner.

It’s a road, lined with silent houses.

Princess Selena Luna, Defender of the Starry Gulf, Slayer of the Third Ring, Speaker of Demons and Heart of the Night woke up in a cold sweat, scrunched up her face and threw her hooves in the air, screaming,

“What is wrong with that child?!”
> Call to Adventure
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“C-can I play with my friends today?” I ask Rarity over breakfast. It’s the longest sentence I’ve said this morning.

I’m trying to swallow that feel of cold dread, which has plagued me since that dream last night. I’m not having much success though. I woke up in the darkness again this morning. All I could think was how much I didn’t want to die, not like that! And suddenly the endless monotonic rows and rows of houses dissolved, into the dim night colors of a lavender room and green bedsheets. The awful creeping ache faded into a delicate softness of the fur on my body sliding against cool sheets.

I didn’t panic this time. I didn’t call for Rarity, though I wish I could. But I can’t keep scaring her like that. It was just a dream, anyway! It wasn’t even a dream: most of it was a memory. It was a dream about an ordinary memory, and it was exaggerated as dreams will be, but it was still just a memory.

It was as if all the fear and despair that I had grown so attenuated to during my long, fruitless, solitary walks to nowhere, just all decided to gang up on me at once. Why is it bothering me so much?! It’s not a problem anymore, so everything is okay now! I escaped the houses! I have real friends to talk to and— and adventures to—

“Oh Sweetie,” Rarity says sympathetically, “You remember you’ve got your therapy, don’t you?” She has the relaxed look of a fine lady in her bathrobe, sans bathrobe of course as we’re both completely naked. But if she had a bathrobe on it would fit her mood perfectly, sipping at a steaming teacup cradled in her magic and occasionally munching on a greenish tinged sliced bread.

“Y-yeah I mean a-after the in t-the afternoon, I mean,” I stutter, just unable to calm down. I sound stupid. I shouldn’t even be talking at all, if I can’t talk. What is wrong with me?! It just makes my heart ache, thinking about those thankless walks. It’s not just an abstract sadness, but a frighteningly physical ache. Maybe this body just can’t take it. I hope I’m not hurting myself! 

“Sweetie, you’re white as a sheet!” Rarity exclaims, looking over at me with concern. Her hindquarters shift as she lets her tail out to lash along the floor, turning just enough so her full attention is on me. “You haven’t said a thing all morning,” she realizes, with seeking eyes and a serious frown, “What on earth is the matter?!”

“A-aren’t I supposed to be white?” I ask, uncertainly. I should tell her. This would be a great time to tell her. Maybe... maybe after therapy, when I’m feeling calmer. I’ll feel calmer soon, right? I just don’t know. I just sat in the darkness trying to sleep, but afraid to even close my eyes again, until the sun rose and Rarity came to awaken me for my appointment.

“I meant your complexion, dear,” Rarity says in an unimpressed tone, but adding with emotion, “Please, do tell me what’s got you so in a fright!” She half stands up at that, as if to come save me from the precipice of disaster, but nothing’s wrong, right? It was just a dream! I can handle it all by myself, and I don’t have to worry her or get any help for such a trivial little, yet terrifying... thing.

My face remains focused downward, as I tilt my eyes up to look at her. I swallow. I haven’t touched my fried eggs or toast, yet. I wonder what eggs taste like. I wonder why the toast is green. “I had another n-nightmare,” I force myself to say, before dwell on what to say, before I think about it any longer.

“Another one?!” Rarity exclaims at my morose little chirpy sentence, jumping right up from her stool by the table. “Come here, Sweetie,” she fusses to me cursorily, though she comes at me instead so I don’t know why she told me to come over there.

I wave my hooves at her approach, saying, “No n-no it’s okay you don’t need t-to” but she’s already pulling me from my precarious seat and surrounding me with a hug. It... ohh my gosh it feels so good. I knew I was tense as corded steel but, but I couldn’t even imagine how much a hug from her would relax me. Rarity’s soft responsive warmth surrounds me, around my hips and back with my chest and tummy pressed against her, her scent so comforting in its closeness. I hesitantly raise my own hooves wondering if I should, but needing to hug her too. I notice those arms are also shaking.

I hug Rarity back as hard as I can. The sheer relief that floods through me makes me regret ever turning down a hug before in my life.  It’s not a desperate hug, but just I’m so surprised at how much I needed one, how much I needed to hug her. She’s a living breathing creature and every inch of me can feel the life in her. Not a pillow, nor a stuffed toy, nor some ghostly online roleplaying appearance. Rarity is here with me.

...maybe a little desperate. My eyes are just, leaking a little bit that’s all.

I just stared at her when Rarity came in to see if I was awake. She asked how I was doing, and I had just been sitting so long in terror of the dream that I couldn’t even say a word. She seemed to think something might be wrong, but just nervously suggested that perhaps she could comb my hair. That helped... a lot... and I managed to thank her on our way down to breakfast. But it was only when I stared glumly down at my food that I found enough courage to reach out to her and ask for help.

I should have asked her a long time ago. I should tell her...

“Is that thing in the Badlands giving you nightmares?” Rarity asks over my head, with a teeming anger in her voice. She’s not exactly asking me, but I do have to tell her, so maybe I’ll let her know the truth just a little bit slowly, so it will be easier.

“...sorta,” I say informatively.

“Dear, would you like to talk about it?” Rarity asks, loosening her hug just enough to cradle me with my back against her upper arm. “At least tell me what the dream was about,” she pleads insistently.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I say quietly, turning my head aside with guilt.

“Try me,” Rarity says in a wry voice, with a squarely flat expression.

I take a shuddering sigh, and lean forward to sit on my haunches with my hooves between to hold me up. At least I’m not outright leaning on Rarity anymore. She releases me enough that I can sit by myself, but remains very close to me while I speak. “I was just walking along some houses that I... saw before,” I say, “And there wasn’t anything to do besides walk past houses, but I wanted to explore. But there wasn’t anything to explore! Just houses!”

It comes out with a surprising vehemence; I didn’t think I even cared anymore. I look up at Rarity, and the corners of her mouth are just barely twitching down, but she keeps her expression carefully neutral. “I suppose I don’t understand after all,” Rarity says in a tired drawl. “Why didn’t you just leave town, if you were so disturbed by ...houses?”

“Because I wasn’t supposed to,” I say uncertainly, adding, “It was the same out of town too, anyway.”

“There were houses, out of town?” Rarity says leadingly.

I shake my head, “No, but it was the sa҉me!”

A moment of silence passes, and I just sigh. “I’ll be okay,” I say to Rarity, and I will be okay because she’s right. It was just a bunch of dumb houses all along. I’ll be okay if I can see my friends—her friends, her friends. I’ll be okay if I can see the ponies. The ponies who walk outside. The ponies who are really there, and not just empty streets, piggish fear, and silent houses.

“It was just one of those things, I guess.” I mumble, still dissatisfied with my own answer.

Rarity releases me, and I don’t immediately tense up again once she stands up beside me on the floor. In fact, I feel ...pretty good. The dream is scary still, but she managed to get it to stop gripping me so much. Is that really what a hug can do? Just knowing she’s there to support me takes the edge right off of my despair.

Rarity cleans up after breakfast, and lets me practice holding things, by wiping off the kitchen table with a damp cloth. I know she’s just humoring me, but I’ll take anything I can get at this point. I’m gonna make sure that table shines.

When we head out into Ponyville towards the hospital, I lay my head on Rarity’s back as she walks me through the streets, gazing at everything shining bright in the morning sunshine. I count ponies idly, and when we pass open areas, I can see some ponies setting up stands, for those open air markets this show is known for. I spot the Doctor, right when Rarity slows to a halt and a peachy voice sounds out,

“Rarity, hello! How are you doing lately?” I turn and look, and...

Huh, I don’t recognize this mare at all. Rarity does though. “Sandy!” she announces pleasantly, turning to face the pony in question addressing her. “How nice to see you!”

Appropriately named, this ‘Sandy’ is a Berry Punch recolor, if you can call sand a color. Her warm looking hide is a pleasant sort of dark tan, with hair the color of vanilla custard. Well, not quite a recolor, I mean. Ponies are a lot different when you get a good look at them. Her mane falls in bubbly curls I would expect to see on the head of Berry Punch, but her face is slimmer, and her shoulders wider than the grape colored pony I remember from the show. I see no wings or horn, though technically I suppose the tool apron she’s wearing could be covering up wings. It’s sort of like a saddlebag, except with hammers and screwdrivers attached to it in straps and many little pouches.

“You’ve been the talk of the town,” Sandy declares in a slightly accusing tone, lightly jabbing Rarity with a hoof in the whithers, “So don’t be surprised if anypony asks for you. Did you find all the missing foals?”

“We certainly did, although it was far from a simple matter,” Rarity says huffily. As much as I want to comment on this, I’m kind of weirded out by Sandy just walking right up to us. I figure it’s rude to talk to ponies who are talking about you anyway. Especially when they’re talking about you getting in trouble. Especially ones who I have no clue whether they are oh god she’s looking at me.

“Getting a little ride there, Sweetie?” Sandy says to me, leaning over with an ingratiating smile. I think I’m smiling back. That’s when the face muscles do the moving, right? I should say something. I have no idea what to say. Why is she looking at me? No, I can’t ask her that! I shrink down as low as I can, staring at her like a mouse in a corner.

“I would love to stay and chat,” Rarity says quickly, starting to walk again, “But Sweetie Belle here has an urgent appointment to attend to, so if you’ll excuse me.”

“No problem, Rarity!” Sandy calls out as we leave her behind. She waves a hoof, continuing on a three legged gait in the other direction, “We’ll have to catch up sometime. You haven’t been in town in days!”

“Will do, darling!” Rarity calls out over her shoulder. She picks up the pace then, cantering along at a steady clip. “Sorry about that,” she says over her shoulder to me more reservedly, on her way to the hospital, “This must all be terribly embarassing for you.”

“No, I just,” I pause, fidgeting on her back, “I just didn’t know what to say, that’s all,” I inform her finally, feeling a little dumb for saying that. I just felt so worried at saying something at all.

“Do you remember that mare?” Rarity asks hopefully. In my silence of trying to come up with a non-disappointing answer, Rarity turns her head forward and continues with, “Her name is Sandy Fritters. She was one of the ponies who helped build my boutique! Possibly the most helpful, that mare is a master craftspony when it comes to woodworking.”

“I do my best to keep up with ponies like her,” Rarity adds, less in a lecturing tone and more in a whimsical chatter. “It’s certainly hard to top such a marvelous gift, as that of a storefront that speaks my creative urges to the ponies at large!” she says enthusiastically, her face still turned away as she trots down the dirt road with me on her back, “...but I manage to give back a little, here and there.”

“But, didn’t you save the world?” I ask, regretting asking as soon as I do. I don’t want to embarass her or anything. I mean, I’m not trying to be argumentative. Did I say something wrong? The hospital building already looms before us in the misty morning, as I add in a hopefully encouraging tone, “That has to count for something!”

Rarity smiles at that. Wait, hold on. She’s not looking at me though. I can’t see her face, so how do I know she’s smiling? Something about the ...ears? Can I read ears now? Rarity just looks ...more smiley than she did a second ago.

“Just once, dear,” she says in a jovial tone. “The funny thing about saving the world is, doing so doesn’t inconvenience you in the slightest, because it’s your world you’re saving too!”

Her ears dip just slightly, as Rarity continues, somewhat dismissively, “I dare say there isn’t a pony in Equestria who wouldn’t save the world, if they were given the opportunity to do so,” Maybe a little guiltily? I start to laugh, but then I sort of feel bad, like I should ask her what’s wrong. It’s that half laugh when you think it was a joke, but it dies in your chest because something’s rubbing you wrong about the situation. There’s nothing wrong though, is there?

Not sure whether I should presume something or not, I remain silent as we pass through the hospital doors, thinking quietly about what Rarity just said.

“Wait, once?” I squeal out abruptly, covering my mouth with a hoof when it comes out so... loudly.

“It’s not important, dear,” Rarity says in a tone that is not to be questioned. No fuck that, I’m questioning–

“Can ah help you?” the nurse/receptionist says to Rarity before I can protest anything.

“Yes, we have an appointment with the doctor Ace,” Rarity answers smoothly, barely even pausing by the reception desk that the nurse is leaning over.

“He’s in the exercise room already,” said nurse qualifies in her unflatteringly rusty voice, “You wanna just go back?”

“Thank you,” Rarity smiles, “That would be lovely, darling.”

“What about–” I say, but Rarity says,

“Which way was it again?”

The nurse points her hoof down the hall, the way we went yesterday, saying, “End of the hallway, take a right. Big double doors on your left.”

Rarity starts to trot down that way, and I ask her, “When did–”

“It will be nice to see the therapist again, won’t it?” Rarity asks on top of me. “He was such a lovely fellow.”

“...yeah... lovely...”

In a similar manner, Rarity easily dodges any questions, and by the time we’re headed towards the back I’ve since thought better of asking them. What would Rarity think, if her sister started demanding all this stuff that hadn’t happened yet? I never did figure out how far into the show this was. Everyone knows about the first time Rarity saved the world. What was the second though? Had to be a season finale. Crystal Empire maybe? That was all Twilight though. And Spike, heh.

Now that I think on it, I don’t recall seeing Spike with Twilight at all since coming here, neither at the excavation nor the library. I wonder where he is? Meh, with my luck this is some bizarre alternate storyline where dragons are considered a fine delicacy and Twilight passed her magic exam by skillfully serving up some fried eggs. This world is so uncannily like the show, it’s easy to make assumptions about it that might turn out not to be true at all.

I guess Nightmareity sort of counted as saving the world. Though it was more like saving the world from her. Well crap buckets I hope she isn’t going to get abducted to the moon any time soon. Not that I don’t think Rarity could kick the Nightmare’s ass with her positive attitude here, but I would really hate to be trapped in the IDW comics canon. Princess Celestia would have a boyfriend. shudders.

Rarity takes me directly to the uh, exercise room, I’m going to be calling it. I must have missed when the receptionist told us to go there. And of course, there in the very same place is that insufferably cheerfully gorgeous athlete, sometimes referred to as Dr. Ace by little girls who aren’t complete idiots. He’s setting up a number of what look like various kinds of discs or plates. He looks up when Rarity approaches and starts to open his mouth, but then glances at me and remains silent. It makes me feel just terrible; he doesn’t deserve me acting like this.

“So good to see you again, doctor,” Rarity says warmly on approach, making me stiffen a bit suspiciously. Is she going to start flirting with him again?! Of course he’s looking right at her, so warmly and relievedly.

“It’s my pleasure, miss!” Ace says with that relieved look in his eyes. Then, he turns away from Rarity’s face to me, saying, “Good to see you again too, lil’ Sweetie.” He’s looking at me this is terrible—stupid face, stop blushing—why did I ever want him to stop looking at Rarity?!

“I do hope you’ve an idea how to help the poor girl,” Rarity says in a slightly wavery tone, “My sister could hardly finish a solid meal last night!”

“Problems... chewing?” he asks with a puzzled expression, rubbing at his chin.

“Problems picking things up,” Rarity clarifies. “Nosing and such.”

“Well don’t worry miss Rarity,” Dr. Ace says heartily, “I’m confident we can have lil’ Sweetie picking things up by the end of the day!”

“What?” I utter in surprise. I blush then and shrink down on Rarity’s back mumbling, “It just seems kind of... fast...”

“We’re not gonna rush you, Sweetie Belle,” Dr. Ace says with a frank smile, “It’s just you’re already almost there. If you think that you’re gonna take a long time to get better, you’re going to surprise yourself I think!” I try to shrink even further away when he taps a hoof on my pastern, saying in a joking manner, “It’s not like you have to grow your legs back or anything.”

No, just my brain.

“Tell ya what,” Ace says craftily, “If you’re not engaging by the end of today, I’ll treat you to an ice cream. And if you can engage your pads, you’ll treat me to an ice cream!”

“I don’t have any money...” I mumble reluctantly, not actually knowing if Sweetie Belle does have any money.

“Money?” he responds incredulously with wide eyes, “Don’t worry. It’ll be plenty of a reward if I can get you walking around, so you can help out your fellow ponies again.”

I don’t really respond with more than a half syllable before Rarity responds for me, “That sounds like a marvelous idea! While I’m sure little Sweetie here would appreciate the treat, if you can help her so, then I’m sure she will be most appreciative, and it would be an honor for me to treat you in Sweetie’s place. I’m sure I could provide you with something sweetly satisfying.”

“Awesome!” Ace cheers with a very comfortable gaze at my sister, and an excited kick of one of his back legs in the air. “To get something like that from a lovely lady like you, it makes me all fired up!” Just who does he think he– my stomach sinks abruptly when Rarity drops below me to sit upon her belly.

“Time to get off, dear,” she says quietly to me. I blink, then hastily comply, trying not to tumble too hard, when my hooves inevitably slide out from under me. It’s honestly getting pretty predictable at this point. Wait, I was concerned about something, wasn’t I? Must have slipped my mind. Maybe it was that I’ve got to spend another morning, this morning, denying my urges in the worst of situations.

I struggle unsteadily to my toes, to watch her leave. “See you this afternoon, darling!” Rarity calls out on her way out of the exercise room. I’m not sure if she’s talking to me, or Ace, and I honestly feel myself torn as to whom I would prefer.

“Alright lil’ Sweetie,” Dr. Ace says in an ominous tone, drawing my attention and dread. “We’re gonna have to get over the hard part, first off. I need you to put your hoof on mine.”

I think I’ve seen this one before. What’s the next panel, making eye contact right? Then I think, saying you love her, and then getting married and she always loves the idea. He’s holding his hoof out in front of me, and it’s stupid that the reason I don’t want to touch it, is because I do want to touch it. I tell myself I’m not going to repeat yesterday, and that I can do this without having urges, because it’s just a hoof. I can do this without enjoying it, can’t I? Just have to think about Granny Smith naked on a cold day.

I very reluctantly lift a hoof. Avoiding setting myself off by looking at him, I gingerly lay that hoof on his outstretched pastern. It’s... warm. Even after all this, after I’ve come to know how every inch of Sweetie Belle’s skin feels to be touched, it’s still weird to see my hoof set down, and feel a warmth radiate up into me from it. I barely touch down on his cream colored pastern, starting to feel the fuzzy softness of his fur, when inside my pelvis– I yank my hoof away. Did my insides just twinge? I think they did! It was like– like that stupid thing I was doing last night, that I should never have done. It was, wasn’t it? I didn’t– it was too fast to tell. Was that my uterus just now? Oh god I have a uterus.

I don’t want my insides to twinge, because that’s what your body feels like when it is preparing for sex, whether you like it or not. You don’t even have to be aware of it! And if you let it continue, and don’t get any release, or can’t get any release because you never manage to fucking masturbate, it just starts feeling better and better, and making you more relaxed and easy and comfortable around guys.

And pretty soon you just start to feel like having something in there would be really nice, and you can’t imagine anything going wrong with that at all. And then you’re begging him to put it in, and spreading to entice him, ignoring the consequences and heedlessly abusing your dignity, just because you want something in there so... very badly.

Okay, woah, yeah that... definitely was a... twinge. I wasn’t sure about the first one, but that second one? My uh... my belly is starting to feel flushed.

“I’m not going anywhere, Sweetie,” the doctor says seriously, snapping me out of my inward reflection. Does it count as inward reflection, when you’re reflecting on what’s inside your crotch, as opposed your inner self? I look up at him– oops, no. I am not looking at his face. Not when I’m about to start getting wet down there or... something.

Can’t I have any shorts? Or would that make it even more obvious? I tense under his gaze, trying not to let myself slip into feeling more receptive to having sex with him. I know the biological imperative of being female around an attractive male is undeniable, and yet... it actually sort of works? I’m not getting any worse, at least. I feel anxious as heck, but nothing else um... moves, down below my tail.

I don’t know how long I stand there, but eventually I just start feeling stupid for not doing anything, and a bit bored. I firm my lower lip, and reach out again, forcing myself to touch his pastern. He remains silent, and I just sort of... stroke my hoof along the downy hairs on his own hoof. While much larger than mine, it is definitely what you’d call a hoof. His fur gets shorter towards the hoof itself, and the nail of it is dull and rough, the same color as the fur. It’s just like ...mine. My candy white hoof nail emerging from my candy white fur.

I tap my hoof against his curiously, not sure what I’m expecting besides the slight click it makes. It’s more noisy than anything, I can’t really feel it when I do. I place my hoof down then, an ear twitching at the odd sensation of my tail tilting automatically, as my weight comes down on all fours. Looking up at him I ask, “Is... that good?”

Then my eyes widen, and I hurriedly look away. Thankfully I’m quick enough that nothing happens...below the belt, at least. I still feel that curious longing to gaze at him. I wonder if it’s just that the ponies are so much more beautiful than the show could ever draw them? I haven’t been gazing at mares though, so that can’t be it. I think he looks beautiful, but that’s not real beauty. It’s just my reaction to being a girl, and having urges to do things that will make me more receptive to getting porked. With these new instincts, I’d probably feel like gazing fondly at an apple cart, if it had a dildo strapped to it. Or something like that.

I still think he looks amazing.

“You feeling a little calmer now?” Ace asks. I mumble something to the affirmative. Even if I don’t want to admit it, I am getting comfortable around him. He isn’t letting me suppress my natural sexual response, so at this rate it’s only a matter of time before I’m trying to get in his shorts.

“Alright, now touch the underside of my hoof this time,” Ace says, straightening out his foreleg pointed at me. “I won’t grab you, I just want you to get used to feeling it.”

I reach out to touch it, and I hesitate, but only because I’m surprised that I moved so quickly this time. But I continue to reach forward, and I touch his hoof to mine with another click. True to his word, he just lets me nudge around there, not grabbing me or pulling on me at all. The nail is hard as expected, but the frog or, ‘pad’ of his hoof is really thick and peculiar feeling. Not that I can feel anything especially well, with my own hoof’s nail, but the way it depresses his flesh softly yet firmly, it sort of feels like... it’s like poking a super ball with a spoon? Kind of rubbery. It felt a lot softer before, when we were... holding hooves...

“There that’s not so bad, is it?” Dr. Ace says in a cheerful yet leading tone.

“It’s just a hoof, it’s no big deal,” I mutter distractedly.

“And look at yourself now,” he insists, pushing back against my hoof with a slight pressure, “You’re holding hooves with a real live doctor, and nothing terrible has happened.”

“Huh, a doctor?” I actually look up at that.

“I might not look like it,” he chuckles, “But I’m a real live doctor. It’s my job to make ponies better who aren’t feeling good. And there’s nothing scary about doctors. I’m just another ordinary pony, with just ordinary hooves like anypony else.”

“Why would there be anything scary about doctors?” I ask a bit abrasively. He’s certainly not making much sense, with whatever he’s talking about. It occurs to me that this is the longest I’ve actually managed to keep eye contact. For some reason this feeling of frustration makes him a lot less intimidating.

I look away as soon as I realize it though, just in case it’s more of that female sex response. Like uh, maybe it’s like how girls get all tsundere, to keep from being too shy around their love interest. Except in reality, not Japan. But yeah I don’t want to feel more comfortable around someone, if that’s just going to end up with me shoved up against the wall with a hot sausage stuffed in me.

The well toned doctor is giving me a curious look, I’m pretty sure, but he lets my hoof go. I didn’t even realize he had ‘grabbed’ onto it, in fact. It even might have been a mistake on his part, because it barely held onto me. But he doesn’t grab me stronger. Instead, he presses his hoof strongly down on a slim disc lying on the floor at the edge of my vision. It’s one of those discs he brought along. It’s sort of like a drink coaster I guess, but stuck to his hoof. It comes up with his hoof when he lifts it up into the air.

He holds it out to me and says, “Okay I want you to put the flat of your hoof on this little circle here. You’ll feel me grabbing you, but it’s okay I’m just trying to get a feel for what’s going on in your hooves.”

Well, I probably could tell him that I feel a lot more comfortable about touching a drink coaster, than I do about touching his hoofy manflesh, but... there really isn’t a diplomatic way to say that, so I just silently push my hoof up against the coaster in his hoof, as he instructed. It doesn’t feel like anything at first, but then a slight backwards movement reveals that I really am stuck to it.

My face flushes, as I again feel caught by his hoof, totally under his power, but I manage to not struggle against him. I just try to focus on the hoof and calm down, and think about things scientificallyish. It makes sense that he can still hold my hoof, even with the coaster in the way, because if he can hold a coaster without gripping it, why not hold something he’s not even touching at all? Some kind of telekinesis maybe?

“How are you holding my hoof with that in the way?” I ask meekly, looking at it with puzzlement, completely unable to see any way it’s connecting us together. Even though it is. It’s like we’re falling towards it, but only on our hoof. It feels kind of like standing, except my hoof is sideways to the ground.

“Y’feel that?” he says chirpily, “That’s the grip response. Ponies developed that a long time ago, as a way to navigate the difficult terrain of our home. Feels kind of like I’m pulling on your hoof, huh?”

I can feel when his hoof stops... doing whatever it’s doing. It’s like something was flowing into mine, that I couldn’t even feel until he stopped doing it, and pulled his hoof back. I can see he’s trying to leave the coaster in the grip of my hoof, but it just clatters to the floor between us. Supposedly my hooves can do that too, but I’m just not feeling it. What was he doing, even?

He doesn’t falter in the slightest when it just falls off my hoof. Of course he expected it to happen, since I haven’t figured out hooves yet. Yet I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed, looking down at it lying on the floor between my hooves.

“It’s easy to hold things with your hooves,” Ace explains, picking up another coaster. “Easier than easy, in fact, because it’s not even positive energy! The key is not to think of it like effort, but like you’re giving up effort. You just have to exert a little bit of negative force, and I guarantee you’ll have got yourself a hoof grip.”

Negative energy? Right, magic then. Got it. At least his non-tactile explanation is helping me relax, from my heady blush at the experience of touching him. It’s just, if I’m touching a stallion’s hooves, it would be as easy for me to feel as the rest of him, and then all I have to do is touch below the belt and... whoo... no, okay I’ve got to calm down.

“So how do I... do it?” I ask unconfidently, and a bit turgidly.

“You were just doing it!” he says, pointing at the hoof he ...grabbed for lack of a better word. Surprised, I look at it cluelessly. “When I’m pulling on your hoof,” he explains, “It’s only natural for yours to pull back a little. Think of it like a... like a hoof hook, here.”

Then he takes my hoof in his before I can so much as gasp, hooking it in his hoof and pulling me forward just enough to produce tension. “See?” he says as if in explanation. “My hoof is pulling, albeit with positive energy, but your hoof is pulling too. Otherwise you couldn’t keep it hooked on mine. Using your pad is just like that, but the opposite sort of pulling.”

I’m too busy blushing to answer. He feels steady as a rock. He is so strong.

He releases my hoof as continually flustered by him I try vainly to collect my wits. Thankfully he is just explaining stuff, which gives me time to calm down again. “It’s like that one nursery rhyme,” he says.

abc-ish syntax... accent, pitch, octave, duration I should post the code in a blog, or... something.




c c c/ c
Jack and Jenny
c/ d d d/ d
Did not have any
d/ e e e e f7/2
To fetch their bale of hay.
f/ g g g
So Jack, he pushed
g a/ a3/2 a
While Jenny pushed
a/a/ b/ b3/2 b b/ c’7/2
In a pully sort of way.



b | [c’e’g’] d’ e’ c’ f’ a’2 a’ g’ g’ e’ c’ d’4
“Were Jack and Jenny donkeys?” I ask open mouthed, “I can’t believe that’s a rhyme.”

c d e c f a2 a g a b g c'4
“Just as they did, Sweetie,” he answers confidently, “You’ll get it in no time!”

twinkly background music
g’ | a’ a’ a’ a’ g’ g’ e’2 d’ e’ f’ a’ g’3
“I’m all so very new to this,” I sigh melodically, looking at my hooves, “More than I can say...”

d | e/ e/ e e e  f3 d f f f f g3
He messes up my hair with a hoof, scrumpling it all up before I can even look up from the floor. “Don’t worry your little head,” he sings, “I know you’ll find a way!

g’ | c’’ g’ g’ a’ g’3 e’ f’ e’ d’ d’ a’ f’ g’
“How do I save myself?” I sing to myself thoughtfully, “How do I walk? How do I read?” I shake my head, those weird curls reasserting themselves uncannily.

g’ | c’’ g’ a’ g’ e’3 e’ f’ e’ d’ c’ a4
“It seems so far away,” I sing to him mournfully, “There’s so much more I need.”

d d d c f a/ g2 e/ f g a f d e f 
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he asserts, “You have to crawl before you climb.”

f | e/ e3/2 e e/ g3/2 e c A G A B G c4
“You’ll always work it out, if you do one thing at a time!”

“One thing at a time?” I say, while the tinkling music in the background fritters around, “That’s your advice?”

He just smiles and picks up a coaster on his hoof.

f, g, a, f, g,3 a, | f, g, a, f, g,4 | f, a, g, f, g, a, b, g, va, vb, c va, vb, c d3 c | b, a, g, e, a,4
“You might be surprised. Why not give it a try?” he sings warmly, holding it out for me. I sigh, and press my hoof against it, once again feeling his ghostly grip trap my hoof, through the thin coaster’s walls. “Hold on this, and then you’ll see,” he continues, “That all the things that made you cry, come easier naturally.”

b | c’ d’ e’ c’ f’ a’2 a’ | g’ g’ e’ c’ d’4
“My hoof just feels funny,” I sing grumpily, pulling back against his weird magic hoof. “I don’t know what it means.” He releases me and moves to pick up a thicker disc in his hoof.

c d e c f a2 a | b b b a g4 
“How ‘bout this one, Sweetie?” he suggests holding it up. “You almost have the means!”

b’b’b’g’a’c’’2c’’|b’ a’ g’ e’ a’ b’ c’’2
“All I feel is you in there!” I protest, feeling so frustrated with this. “Your magic hooves that I have not.”

c c c g, a,2 b, a, g, a, b, g, c8
“Try another disc,” he says, sliding a second one in between us. “We’ll see what your hooves have got.” But adding more discs just makes his ghostly pulling feeling weaker, and still nothing in mine. I sigh with frustration, looking at the stack of discs in between us and trying to feel his influence despite the attenuation. And of course he’s got this optimistic grin on his face. His gorgeous yet smarmy face. It’s like he can’t even see that I’m not getting this.

a’ | b’/ a’3/2 g’2
“What’s funny now?” I sing unhappily. It’s not so much that misery loves company, but it absolutely makes you hate cheerful people.

f a6 a a g3/4 f5/4 e5
“Funny?” he responds in an innocent tone, with a full on shrug, “Can’t imagine how.” Wait, how is he shrugging if he’s holding my...

A startled squeal escapes me, as the disc slips off my hoof and clatters to the floor. I stare at that little white hoof fixedly, not even letting it drop down from sticking out in front of me. That can’t be how you do it, because I wasn’t even doing anything! I was just trying to feel him doing it, and...

f e d c d3 f a4 b4 [c’8ceg]
He’s holding up a thinner disc in his hoof again, singing, “Let us try again, just one more time.” But the way he sings, it sounds a lot more conclusive than from someone who isn’t absolutely sure of what the outcome is going to be. I can’t believe he tricked me into... okay, I’m calm. As the refrain winds down, I place my hoof on his disc and once again feel that weird falling magnet sort of feel. I try tugging back on it, but that’s just at my shoulder. But again he moves onto the thicker disc, and starts increasing the space in between us.

“I think I get it,” I say eventually, fascinated despite myself. “It doesn’t stay on if I pull, but it does if I try to feel you pulling.”

“The more you push forward, feeling out for me,” Ace says in a explanatory tone, “The more you push. And the more you pull push, the more it pulls back!”

I was never a big fan of magibabble, but this sort of... makes sense? It’s not like saying the zimmydoodle needs to whirligig the perambulator. It’s more like something... self evident, I guess. Looking at my hoof again I can almost imagine what he’s talking about. Pull pushing? It’s conflicting terribly confusingly with my old memories, of what he was doing being not only impossible, but logically contradictory. Yet somehow... it sort of feels... right.

“Let’s try again,” I say, wobbling as I risk lifting both forehooves.

“That’s the spirit!” he says energetically,holding up another disc. I’d like to say we make huge progress into the afternoon, but really this is huge progress. Once I figure out how to push into whatever it is I’m bracing against, I almost want to cry with how easy it is. Because even then, you don’t have to only use the magic at the tips of your fingers. You can still hook them around, and augment that, and even use your teeth. It’s such a subtle and profound advantage, it doesn’t seem like much, but it’s exactly what he promised and

Oh shit I just set up Rarity on a date, didn’t I.

The last thing we get to is when he hauls out a punching bag (kicking bag?) but instead of punching it, he has me wrap my hooves around and try to shimmy up it. It’s both trickier and easier than most things we’ve been doing, because I can hook both... all four hooves around it, and use the pull pushing to stay locked against it. But I really have to concentrate, or I can’t pull my hoof away, or else maybe I start to slide down when they all release. I don’t make it all the way to the top, but I can’t help but give a little excited squeakcheer when one of my hooves manages to come down atop the thing. I just climbed 2 feet straight up!

...at least it feels like an accomplishment to me. Come on, I’m not even two feet high!

“Splendid, darling! Simply splendid!” Rarity exclaims behind me, making me jerk back in surprise, which of course causes me to slip right off the sand filled, plush column, falling backwards with a sudden jolt of vertigo, before landing painfully on my– Ace catches me in his arms. He’s holding me in his arms! A rush of warmth floods through me, as I feel him all around me cradling me firmly, my naked body prostrate before him. I can’t even breathe it’s so–

He gently places me down on the ground, then spins to face Rarity saying, “Thanks my little pony!” (yes he actually says that.) “Lil’ Sweetie and I here have had a very productive day.”

“I can see that,” Rarity says as I lay there in a stupor, not quite comprehending how he isn’t ravishing my young nubile body right on the spot. Nothing happened? I’m just sitting here. He, he was just catching me to put me down. It feels completely normal, not sexually charged at all. But it was so romantic! Wasn’t it? I was totally asking for it.

“Sweetie’s hoof-grip is better, then? How is she doing?” Rarity queries hopefully, pastern rubbing her chin.

“I’ll let you be the judge of that!” Dr. Ace declares, walking over across the area and kicking several of those wooden blocks to slide to a precise stop before my planted hooves. I stare at them uncomprehendingly, having been too wrapped up in myself to pay attention to what anypony else has been saying. “Come on, just like we practiced,” Ace prompts me.

“Oh. Oh!” I double declare. I take a nervous glance at Rarity who’s got something of a cross between a wince and a smile. It’s okay though, I totally got this. Just like we practiced, as if it was one of the disks, I pick out a flat rectangular block and place my hoof on it, pushing it... pushing into it? Doing the thing that makes negative energy somehow. Magic! Ancient aliens! Nanomachines! I pick up a block.

When my little hoof lifts up with the red painted block clearly stuck to it, Rarity gives an excited noise, like a cross between a squeal and a giggle. A squiggle, if you will. “I do believe I owe you a treat, then,” she says excitedly to Dr. Ace. “This is such a relief I can’t thank you enough. Isn’t this wonderful, Sweetie?”

I feel like she shouldn’t be the one getting all excited about being able to pick things up without opposable thumbs. “It’s a relief!” I agree at least. Placing the block back down atop the others I add, “I hope I won’t be as much trouble this way. That way maybe I can...”

Okay, deep breaths. I was going to tell her right after the therapy session, and I’m going to do just that. “That way maybe I can...” I repeat shakily, “...stay.”

“Stay?” Rarity gives me an owlish look. The light of realization dawns in her eyes and she nervously laughs, “Oh-h-h Sweetie you remembered! But don’t worry all that is past us now, and I have forgiven you, if you can only forgive me.”

What? That... what? Past us? How is taking over Sweetie Belle’s body past us? She forgave me? She knows? What was I supposed to remember? I have no idea what the fuzzbuckets she’s talking about! At my uncomprehending stare, Rarity continues tittering nervously,

“You are always, always welcome to live with me Sweetie Belle. I may not be mother, but you can still count on me to afford you every opportunity in your young life. Just as you can count on having a warm bed to sleep in when you return home, too.”

“But... I’m not... you know...” I gesture helplessly.

“You are the best sister I could possibly ask for, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity insists warmly, with a hoof on my chest. “I’m so sorry I ever led you to doubt that.”

I look at her hoof on my chest, then up its length to her sincere face. Is she...?

“I hate to interrupt, but I’ve got another patient coming in after lunch,” Ace cuts in.

“I’m terribly sorry!” Rarity exclaims to him, looking up from me and pulling her hoof away. “We’ll be off shortly, but after your patient, I hope you will be free for perhaps a bit of something sweet?”

uh

“I would love that, lady Rarity!” he says cheerfully, “I don’t suppose you know of a good place?”

“Well just off the top of my head,” Rarity says waving a casual hoof, “There is a lovely gelato that opened recently in the northern district which I have been meaning to try. Would you care to meet me there perhaps at three?”

“I’ll be there, lady,” he nods. “Now get your lil’ Sweetie here off to have some lunch. She’s been working up a real big appetite!”

“Oh, is she walking yet?” Rarity asks him tentatively.

“I could try to walk?” I offer. I mean, there’s nothing left to stop me from doing it, right? How hard could it be?

“Save it for tomorrow, maybe...” Ace says sheepishly, then more assertively, “Or don’t! If you can remember how to walk without me, well that just makes my job one pony easier!”

It’s so much easier to climb to my feet when it doesn’t feel like my back legs are going to slip out from under me. I’m definitely not walking, though. For one thing, it’s hard to coordinate which of four hooves is um... grabbing the ground. Huh, this is sort of like that grounding and centering thing, except on a much smaller scale. But for various reasons, I smile guiltily and say, “Guess I need you to carry me, just a little bit more.”

And wouldn’t you know, this time Rarity has come prepared, with a saddle blanket.

On our way out of the hospital all cuddle-draped over the satiny sheet on Rarity’s back, I have some time to think about what just happened. And there is a lot to reflect on, so, I keep confusing Rarity, with little outbursts like, “Wait, was I singing?!” and “Did you ask him out?!” Rarity answers this curious bird as tactfully as she can, but it’s clear she doesn’t understand precisely where I’m coming from. Apparantly it’s a normal thing for mares to ask stallions out on a date. Reversed sex roles?

What I’m really thinking about the most is Ace. No not about his toned body, or friendly smile, or the sweat trickling off his... okay maybe a little of that. But what’s really bugging me is how easily he put me off my one track mind. When we got into it, I just stopped thinking about the fact that we were different sexes at all, and by the end of the day I was more concerned with climbing, than whether my equipment could handle the flesh pole concealed beneath his shorts. Of course I’m thinking about that now, and said equipment is feeling a little too lively with that thought, but at the time, Dr. Ace managed to make it all about just two ponies having fun together.

And that was kind of... nice.

I end up eating what appears to be a cucumber and lettuce sandwich on oat bread. Rarity laughs despite herself when I try to pick it up, because when I try to take advantage of my newfound mystical abilities, I just get the one slice of bread, and the sandwich falls apart below it on the plate. I end up getting the sandwich wrapped in my hooves eventually, not even hook hooved, but it makes a bit of a mess. I have to sit there afterwards sticking my face into the plate, trying not to push it around as I tongue at the slippery cucumbers, while also trying to think of what to say to Rarity about... the real Sweetie Belle.

I should tell her, but, I mean I did kind of try to tell her. I said I wanted to stay, at least. She didn’t... seem to... there was a miscommunication there. I sure should have cleared it up with some fancy and confident rhetoric. But instead I just sit there eating cucumbers with my face, and they’re the best cucumbers I’ve ever eaten in my life. I don’t want to say they taste like candy but, they kind of do. Is there some sort of sweet sauce?

“Rarity, I’m...” I announce finally to my empty plate, with no recourse to distract me. A mysterious voice from beyond the plate, sounding uncannily like that of a mature white unicorn with a blurple mane says, “Is something the matter, Sweetie?”

“How would you feel if I um... went away?” I ask, my shoulders tensing.

“You know how upset I was,” Rarity states unapprovingly, “You can’t just run off just because that foundling friend of yours has a fool idea in her head.”

“No, I mean, like if you couldn’t... wait, foundling friend?” I look up from my plate at her. She’s talking about Scootaloo I guess, but um... isn’t foundling like... what does that word mean? Something about ducklings? Darn it I’m supposed to be a dictionary!

“Yes Scootaloo is a foundling,” Rarity says soberly, “It might be wise of you not to mention that you’ve forgotten it.”

“I kind of... forget what a foundling is,” I tell her glancing uncertainly to the left.

Rarity pauses too long for my taste before saying, “A foundling is... well, sometimes ponies will foal who are not... fit for raising them. Scootaloo was removed from her ...situation at a young age, and placed in village care.”

“What’s village care?” I ask cluelessly looking into her limpid blue eyes once again.

Those eyes twist at me wryly as she raises an eyebrow, saying, “Seriously Sweetie, these are questions you should best be asking at the library. I’m not the best source for all the knowledge in Equestria. Village care is... what it says?”

Oh right, the library.

I sigh and it shudders in my chest, forcing myself to say, “Rarity, I’m not...”

“Not...” she eventually prompts, uneasily.

I take a deep, calming breath, and say, “I’m not...” silent houses “I really want to go see my friends,” I say quickly, fighting back tears in my eyes. “To... show them all the cool stuff I um, remembered!” Yeah that works. She’ll totally believe that. I should tell her. But what if... but what if?!

“That’s splendid timing,” Rarity says happily, “If you and your friends can play together this afternoon, that will free up time for my date with the good doctor!”

“Date?!” I blurt out suddenly, to be responded with by Rarity giggling to herself giddily. “Aren’t you taking things a little fast?” I mumble out desperately.

“Now dear, there is nothing wrong with spending an afternoon to show a stallion a good time,” Rarity says snippily. “You’ll understand one of these days, but sometimes ponies just... like to have a little fun together!”

Show a stallion a.......help
> Call to ...Adventure?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suffice to say, Rarity ...arranges that she will meet with Ace, whilst I shall play with my friends, for some very broad definition of “play” and (unbeknownst to anypony but me) some very broad definition of “my”. I’m sure I’ll be able to tell Rarity the truth, if I can just see Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, and make sure that they’re ...there, and they’re okay, and not going to abandon poor Sweetie Belle or anything. I just don’t want her to end up like I did. I’m being... charitable! Yeah, charitable. That’s what I’ll tell the judge.

It’s a pretty day, this afternoon. There are some clouds in the sky, but they’re being... ferried around into a pretty sparse pattern. I still can’t comprehend how pegasi could possibly control the weather, of all things. See it right in front of me, and it’s still hard to swallow. The air is crystal clear, and almost smells even sweet. The sunlight has such a delightful feel to it, that it makes my experience in the Badlands feel comparatively like a terrible burning ordeal. It wasn’t, but this sunlight just feels really good. It makes me really appreciate being naked. My front hooves in my vision are folded before me, atop the lush back of my sister Rarity, who ferries me toward the mysterious location of the CMC. I don’t spend a lot of time looking at myself though, since there is so much around me to see.

The markets are in full force at this point. It seems like there’s one at every block. The warm mumble of pony voices talking with each other and interacting. It is shopping, admittedly. But it’s a lot more interactive, and less dehumanizing than shopping usually is. The most advertising they have is a sign with a picture of what they’re selling, and... letters I can’t read bordering it. The closest they have to plastic smiles and cheap goods dripping with suffering and painted lies, is the occasional gruff exchange, where one pony disagrees with the other over the value of something.

Rarity seems to think I have an anxiety problem with being around other ponies while I’m a helpless little unicorn filly (go figure) so we only pass by the market on our way to the playground, and we don’t stop there or shop there or buy anything. And despite my resolution to never let anypony start touching me inappropriately, since I might not want them to stop, I do feel a yearning to go into those crowds and just... mingle. Run about their feet I guess, considering my height.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom are at what Rarity refers to as “the playground” though as we approach it, I’m really not sure whether I would call it much of a playground. It’s really not much to speak of, I mean. I find myself keenly aware of the conspicuous lack of a jungle gym for instance, not anywhere to be seen in the broad open expanse of green grass bordered by a peaceful looking woods. There is a swing-set, with a couple of foals on it: one sitting human style, and one standing... on the swing seat. A few hurdles that nobody’s messing with. And, a tether ball.

No pony is playing with the tether ball, for obvious reasons: there’s a unicorn foal who looks just like Dinky, sitting there with the saddest look on her face for obvious reasons: a deflated tetherball impaled on her horn, and a handful of other foals stalking away with grumpy, dissatisfied expressions on their muzzles. There’s an open book on the green, which a few foals are laying around, while the smaller one reads it aloud. I can also see that adorable pair of fillies... Cheery, and I forget the yellow one, each with one end of a jump rope in their mouths, skipping it around for ponies to jump in, just like in the show.

There’s a couple foals trying out that jump rope, but the majority of younger ponies here are just, walking calmly around in pairs, or small groups, talking with each other in muted tones. One of those pairs looks just like Ruby Pinch and... I forget her name, but the filly with the green hair. Another pair is oh hey it’s Scootaloo and Apple Bloom.

It all looks kind of boring, honestly. Was this really how the show portrayed it?

Upon seeing Rarity, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo run up, and somehow in unison shout, “Hi Rarity and Sweetie Belle!”

“Hello girls!” Rarity says pleasantly, “I’m sorry I had to co-opt poor Sweetie Belle here for the past day, but thanks to your patience, she has since greatly improved!” They grin brightly at the news, and the praise, while I peer down at the two of them from my position laying atop my sister, who is big enough that their heads barely come up to the level of my belly.

“Can she walk?” Scootaloo asks, hopping excitedly in place with her little wings buzzing. Boy does that make my ears go down hard.

“Erm, well,” Rarity prevaricates, yet saves me from having to answer, “No, not just yet. But she wished to show you something, and I would greatly appreciate if you could watch each other for the next few hours or so.”

Apple Bloom droops disappointedly at the mention of watching me, saying “But if she caint walk, then how are we gonna go to the–”

Apple Bloom pauses then, and looks around suspiciously. Rearing up to put her hooves on Rarity’s shoulder, Apple Bloom stretches her neck up, whispering into Rarity’s ear: “Top secret clubhouse.”

Oh man I have to play with them now. The clubhouse!

“Hrm...” Rarity says noncomittally, shifting sideways as Apple Bloom pushes off of her to return back to all fours on the ground, then rubbing her chin in thought. It’s too bad I couldn’t keep a wheelchair from the hospital. They could carry me around on that, then, until I learn to walk. Not that those flimsy wheelchairs really looked good for carrying anything around outside of a hospital hallway. Especially on these roads, which seem to be either hard packed dirt or an array of pastel flat cobblestones, according to how prominent that road is in town. Oh, wait!

“Don’t you have a little red wagon, Scootaloo?” I point out brightly, stretching a hoof to wave in Scootaloo’s direction with some effort, from way atop Mt. Rarity. “I could sit in that, if we need to go somewhere!”

Scootaloo’s eyes brighten right up at my words. “Of course!” Scootaloo cheers, then dashes off quick as a flash in the direction of the... oh huh, the school house is right over there. I didn’t even see us approaching it, but the school house is over there at the other end of this weak sauce playground. Oh! This playground looks more familiar to me now. I think the school did have a playground right next to it.

I sort of want to explore the school house too, but... as the most dementedly space warping building in all of Equestria, even I’m a little leery of that place. I just eyeball Scootaloo running into it all innocently and without concern for noneuclidean horrors, presumably to fetch her wagon.

“Thanks for coming, Sweetie Belle!” Apple Bloom says happily beneath me, almost dragging a smile out of me.

“It’s no problem,” I say looking down at her, “I really wanted to come too.”

Then Apple Bloom says, “And thank you Rarity!” I don’t get why at first, but Apple Bloom explains on her own, saying, “We’re missin’ a piece without her around, and we were worried if she was okay.”

“I’m fine,” I assert hastily, “I just had a lot of boring stuff to do so I can walk again one day.”

“Well, now you got us to play with!” Apple Bloom shouts up, with a glance to the school house. “Or at least me,” she admits.

“Do you think she’ll make it?” I ask with a thoughtful look at that red building, getting a “Huh?” from Apple Bloom in response.

“Never mind. There she is,” I chirp snarkily, leading Apple Bloom with my hoof to look up and over where Scootaloo has emerged from the schoolhouse, along with a tied together assembly of her iconic scooter and that little red wagon that I’ve seen her cart around the CMC with. It’s definitely big enough for the two of us to sit in, and then some. It’s easy to imagine it full of fabric and fans and stuff, like the time we— like when Sweetie and the others did their talent show.

Once Scootaloo is back with the wagon, Rarity assists me in the dismount just like the oh-so-perfect big sister that she is. I will totally tell her everything after I– um... make sure everything is okay... with the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I slide off her back and—on my way to a crumpled heap beside her, I somehow manage to catch myself! My hoof remains firmly against Rarity’s warm, plush flank, just the way I practiced with Ace. Uhhhhh except it was most certainly not ever on his warm plush flank.

I still crumple into a heap mind you, but that hoof grip on (in?) Rarity’s side lets me pull myself up to get my other three legs under me, before I pull away from her and stand steadily on four. It’s my best dismount yet!

“Sweetie you fixed your hooves!” Scootaloo exclaims perceptively, both her and Apple Bloom looking me up and down while I stand there.

“Yeah, kind of,” I modestly offer to them, “I want tell you all about it, but first Rarity has to get to a um...”

“...meeting...” I say very reluctantly.

“There’s no rush, darling,” Rarity says casually, “It’s not quite time yet. But I will leave you three alone to get caught up together. There’s always more to be done at the shop!” She says that in a positively pleased tone, even walking off a few paces at the thought before looking back questioningly.

“Okay Rarity!” I say, waving, and then wobbling, and then waving at her. “Bye Rarity!”

She smiles almost gratefully, exclaiming “Good bye, Sweetie!” and happily trots off away from the playground. I only get to watch her blurple tail recede from us for a few seconds, before Apple Bloom and Scootaloo are right there in my face, just chock full of questions.

“Are your hooves fixed now?”
“What was physical therapy like?”
“Why didn’t you practice walking instead of hooves?”
“Are you hungry? We just ate but”
“Can you use magic yet?”

My response is pretty clear, if noncommunicative. With them both looming in my face, I just sort of slip off balance, sinking to my fluffy little butt on the ground. They pull back then, and at least Scootaloo blushes, saying simply “Oh, heh heh.”

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Apple Bloom mumbles, her and Scootaloo sharing a guilty glance at how their friend is clearly not at peak performance because of something they did, and now because of their mess which they think is all their fault I’m not feeling comfortable around them. I should tell them. I really should tell them....

I stand up again, feeling my tail curl up merrily into the air behind me. With a hopefully not too eager smile I say, “How about we talk about it at the clubhou–”

Apple Bloom sticks a hoof in my mouth. “Shh!” she hisses at me, “It’s Top. Secret!”

I nod obediently, unable to say yes with her hoof still stuck in my mouth. Good grief this feels weird. She retracts her hoof then, and says, “Well come on, git up into that there wagon. You need any help?”

“No, I–” I look at the wagon thoughtfully, “I should be fine. Let me just...” I can’t exactly coordinate walking, but the wagon is not even a pace away, so I just lurch forward enough that I can catch my front hooves firmly on the lip of its wall. From there, it’s a simple matter to pull the rest of me in it. Seated like this in that wagon, with my bountiful tail pushed to curl around my side, and my hooves folded under me, I must look sort of like a half pony, half automobile.

The moment doesn’t last; Apple Bloom jumps in the wagon next to me, using her hindquarters to shove mine off to the side, getting herself comfortable next to me. She then says, “Here you go, Sweetie!” unceremoniously jamming a helmet on my head. I barely have time to register the flick of her cherry red hair as Apple Bloom twists her head under my chin, and I feel her mouth grab the belt on the helmet and pull it tight, cinching up right against me.

“Thanks um... I think?” I say after a moment, reaching up to fiddle curiously with the helmet on my head. Then my face starts to thin with worry, because my fiddling around is finding a distinct lack of a something. “Wait, what happened to my horn?” I ask worriedly. I can’t pull the helmet off with the strap tied. Is my horn wedged under it? It doesn’t seem big enough, but I can’t see what’s on my own head!

Apple Bloom laughs, explaining “It’s under the helmet field too, silly. Don’t worry yer head about it.” Before I can ask her to explain her explanation, Scootaloo takes off with the wagon in tow behind her scooter, and I get to learn why the Cutie Mark Crusaders wearing helmets is not  a hamfisted safety lesson, one that only accomplishes making children feel like special snowflakes, without actually improving anyone’s safety at all. No, this isn’t anything like that. It turns out at Scootaloo’s pace, this helmet is very, very necessary.
I think I’m going to die.

The landscape whizzes past us too swiftly to see. My heart is in my throat as every bump makes me feel like I’m going to meet my grisly end, crashing terminally into a broken heap on the unforgiving earth. Apple Bloom is shouting something and laughing, but I can’t make out her words in the wind. Scootaloo’s wings are loud as a buzz saw, making me regret ever appreciating the quiet of this town. And then we go up a ramp, and into the air.

It would have been fine, if Scootaloo had successfully executed her trick, but she obviously didn’t account for some rotational factor, because the wagon turns on its axis in its flight. For a breathless moment, the entire wagon is tilting sideways while I struggle not to just fall out of it. Then it slams sideways into the dirt, catapulting me and Apple Bloom screaming into the air.

And I can’t stop from landing directly on my head, bouncing off the ground and still rotating in the air, then landing on my back, skipping on my stomach with a huff, and then head first into a tree before I come to a stop.

“What was that Scootaloo?” Apple Bloom shouts behind me from somewhere beyond the ephemeral aether, as I struggle to stand up and turn to face them. I seem to be having trouble getting my eyes to both point in the same direction for some strange reason.

“Heh... sorry I... I sort of forgot the wagon was back there,” Scootaloo mumbles, scraping the ground sheepishly. My eyes at last resolve her standing there apologetically, in front of a furious Apple Bloom. We’ve barely gotten to the edge of town, it looks like. The hills that Sweet Apple Acres delves into are behind us, somewhat beyond the tree I’m standing next to, the tree I ...ran into! I ran into a tree head first! And I’m feeling worriedly numb to any pain, all over my body. I try to keep my neck very still. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo have already returned to the wagon, completely unconcerned for me, clustered around the wrecked wagon/scooter assembly. I can’t exactly go over there because I don’t want to fall at this point, since I have got to have a head injury after that. I have to get their attention though!

“What’s...” I gulp, blinking incomprehendingly. “What’s going on?” I call over to them more loudly.

“Scootaloo thinks she’s all tricky on that scooter of hers,” Apple Bloom whines back snippishly, “But she still has a lot to learn!”

“I said I was sorry!” Scootaloo snarls self consciously.

“You’ll be sorry,” Apple Bloom snaps back at her, giving her a dangerous look.

“Wait!” I shout desperately. “What are you... are you two okay?!” The two of them just glance away from each other guiltily, so I add “I just hit a tree! I think my head might be hurt!”

Apple Bloom blinks at that, and trots over to me, followed closely by Scootaloo. “Really?” Apple Bloom says in a puzzled tone, eyeballing me uncertainly, “It wasn’t that bad a spill. Where does it hurt?”

“It...i-it doesn’t but,” I spout flabbergastedly, “I– the tree! And the, and I bounced! And the ground head first and”

“Sheesh Sweetie,” Scootaloo says abrasively, “You’re acting like you forgot you have a helmet on!”

“Yeah, we might disagree but we’d never do anything real dangerous,” Apple Bloom agrees with a sympathetic nod toward Scootaloo.

“I...” I should be realizing that ponies are like indestructable or something, and just call it magic and leave it at that. But the sheer terror of flying around like that has me feeling like I should be hurt, making it near impossible to wrap my head around the fact that I’m not. I just don’t know what to say. So I just stand there silently at them in the shade of the tree, making my little green retard helmet look very appropriate and fitting while on my head.

Scootaloo shakes her head at me, and trots off over to the wagon, lifting it up and dragging it upside down. “Aw man!” Scootaloo exclaims in a disappointed um, whinny, and it’s clear why she does so. One of the wagon wheels is sort of hanging askew, and the back axle looks bent. The wagon itself looks broken, rather than just the broken scooter hitch. I can’t really see in more detail though, from way over here. Did I mention I don’t know how to walk?

“It’s busted...” Scootaloo says squatting there, down to her wagon, almost... tearfully?

“Relax,” Apple Bloom nickers to her chipperly, trotting back over to Scootaloo, to put a hoof on the shoulder of the quivering pegasus, “We’ll just give it to Ms. Wheely and she’ll have it fixed up in no time.”

“Yeah, but,” Scootaloo says with a sniff, throwing her hoof in my direction, “Now how do we get Sweetie Belle to the clubhouse?”

“You foals alright?” a bright pink mare with a bubbly yellow—oh my gosh it’s the rocket pony! Some pony who looks just like Cherry Berry is walking up to us at a slow pace. Well, up to them, at any rate. I sort of tumbled off to the side, and still can’t run back to where the wagon lies.

I lift a hoof. I really would like to just run over there... I wonder if I could. I should try...

“We’re fine,” Scootaloo says unconcernedly. “...but this wagon is totaled!” she adds more concernedly, gesturing at the bottom of it.

“It doesn’t look that bad,” Cherry says in a melodic alto, “Why don’t you show it to Wheely Bop? I bet she can do something about it.”

I’d really like to ask Cherry if she really is a pilot, or balloon operator, or sky pirate or something, but I don’t want to embarass Scootaloo. Plus I would have to shout it out from way over here, if I can’t figure out how to walk over. Warily, I put a hoof down in front of me. I try to do the thing with the ground, and also thinking about balancing with my tail, but I’m also distracted from trying to walk by their conversation.

“That’s what I’m going to do,” Scootaloo says in a puzzled tone, looking up at Cherry from where the filly squats at Cherry’s hooves beside her upturned wagon, “Why wouldn’t I?”

“‘Totaled’ is only when there’s no saving it,” Cherry explains to Scootaloo with a half smile. I hope her name’s Cherry, or I’ll be thinking about this all wrong. It’s going to bother me until I find out, but isn’t that true of every pony I don’t know yet?

“You only say ‘totaled’,” Cherry continues to explain, “If it would be harder to fix, than to build a new one. Because then it’s total-y broken.”

“O-oh, right I knew that,” Scootaloo says with an embarassed grimace, that might have passed off as a smile. “Totalalmosted...” she tries. “Tittled?” I fight back a snort.

“Broke,” Cherry answers bluntly, “is probably what you should tell her.” She backs off from the clearly unharmed filly now that the crisis passed, and with a casual, “Anyway if you’re alright I have to get–”

“Do you balloon?!” I blurt out precariously before she can walk away down the road. That... didn’t come out right. Cherry looks over to me with a questioning eyebrow. I just blush and crouch to the ground where I stand.  Scootaloo pats Cherry on the withers with a hoof attracting her attention, saying,

“Don’t mind her. She’s ‘special’.”

There is absolutely no way to dispute that. When Cherry Berry or whoever she is walks over to me, I tense up self consciously. Am I really retarded? I broke my brain, didn’t I! Up close, Cherry is in absolutely fantastic shape, presumably from her ballooning or the like. Her flank is smooth and tight, without prominent muscles in her hindquarters, but just glowing with the healthy shine of indomitable life. She’s slimmer than the Sandy mare was, but maybe a little taller. Or maybe it’s just me being so short. Oh god she’s standing right in front of me. I don’t even know what to say to her. Stop blushing, stupid face!

“I can’t be the only pony who’s applying for a balloon license,” Cherry says evenly, while I look up at her around those ridiculous bangs in my vision, feeling caught between anxiety and perplexion. “But yeah,” she answers solemnly down to me, “I balloon.” Without another word, Cherry just turns on her hooves and walks away, speeding up to a trot as she leaves us, to continue down the road further into town. I just kind of stare after her uncomprehendingly, at a logical exchange that I understood perfectly well, while having no idea what the heck a response like that meant.

During my little preoccupation watching Cherry Berry trotting off, Scootaloo has risen underneath the upturned wagon like some sort of pony turtle, trotting herself over to me, with the handle dragging in the dirt behind her. “Hey, you mind waiting here while I go fix this?” Scootaloo asks from under the wagon, “I know you wanted to go to the clubhouse, but...”

“It’s fine,” I say not entirely disappointedly. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of chances to see it ...later.” I hate lying to them, but I just can’t tell them I won’t be able to see it later. After I tell Rarity, I just... even if I can stay Sweetie Belle for a little longer, I don’t think she’ll even let them be around me, with what a dangerous predator they’ll see me as. And Apple Bloom and Scootaloo won’t want to be around me, either. Not when I’m just some stranger who inexplicably and creepily knows them as a friend.

So Scootaloo trots off with her wagon, bumping into ponies and fenceposts on her way before she figures a way to look underneath the lip of the thing. She’s clearly well familiar with whatever is the location of this strange OC pony named Wheely. Apple Bloom meanwhile walks up to where I’m sitting in the shade. Her movements attract my attention to look to the side at her, when her rump descends unceremoniously to sit by me, then she slides to a sideways half laying position.

It’s so cool seeing ponies move like this. The muscles and the articulation, and the... the solidness of seeing someone’s body shifting before your eyes. The stolid gaits of the ponies who pass us by have real weight, in their clopping along the beaten dirt path, except the ones who are flying of course. All this clopping and plodding around just makes it seem so much more real than even my fondest daydream. There is just no way I could make this shit up.

It’s surprising how far Scootaloo had managed to take us before wiping out. The place we are is a good ways towards the edge of town. We never crossed the railroad tracks ...I think... so we must have been going along parallel to them. I can see the playground far in the distance, but only because it’s up on a hill, along with the bright red schoolhouse. Behind it, there seems to be a wood of some sort, trees from which the building emerges vibrantly. It’s down a path from there that we descended into town and descended into wagon disaster.

There isn’t much I can see of town itself, beyond what I see down the street leading to the school house hill. There are two large buildings blocking most of my view, of the ubiquitous construction in Ponyville, what appears to be a white stucco, yet with oaken wood frames supporting it. The houses appear to be residences, or at least there aren’t any store signs that I can see. Behind me, past the stand of trees we’re sitting under, there are a few more houses, and what look to be more trees beyond that.

Fitting that when we randomly crash, we end up just in a random location in Ponyville.

But more importantly than anything, there are ponies. Ponies walking or trotting down the streets. Carrying things in their mouths. Sporting large feathery hats occasionally, but otherwise totally nude. Ponies talking with each other, and interacting. Going into buildings, bending down before the many gardens and carefully tended plots of land interspersed seamlessly between the buildings and the roads.

The gentle tones of their conversations filter through my ears, no discernible words but an immense sense of comfort nonetheless. Occasionally a pegasus swoops down or flutters up into the sky, but mostly they seem to remain up in the air moving clouds about. This isn’t an empty, desolate town. Nopony’s hiding inside in fear, and nopony seems at all in contempt of social contact with others.

Perhaps Cranky Doodle is holed up in his house alone, banging Matilda and rejecting the rest of the world, but here in Equestria, in Ponyville at least, people like him are the exception, not the rule. I see these ponies just going about their ordinary lives, and where once I held no hope, I can’t help but feel like maybe I won’t have to be alone anymore. Even though it’s not true.

As if to prove a point, Apple Bloom stays with me, keeping me from being alone, and we sit there together beneath the shade of the tree that I ...rammed into. Our helmets are placed off to the side, so our bountiful hair can flow freely in the breeze.  And my horn can point stiffly, for what that’s worth. I still don’t understand how it fits underneath that helmet. It doesn’t look like a magic helmet, just an ordinary piece of plastic covered foam with a chin strap.

Apple Bloom’s hair is not quite as bountiful as, um, mine, and she reattaches her bow, so it’s not flowing as freely as it could be. But I think she feels as good as I do, resting here in the warm shade. When it comes in fits and flurries, I can feel the gentle breeze all over the soft fur on my body, teasing at my hair and tail. Along my shoulders, down my flank and... I still haven’t gotten used to being outside and naked all the time. But it feels really good, and not just in a sexual way.

“So, what was physical therapy like?” Apple Bloom asks at length, turning to me and tenting her ears curiously. The giant bow framing her head shifts as she does so, and I have to hold back a squee(ak?). It’s just so adorable and eye catching, yet not glaring. Apple Bloom’s hair and coat colors would clash so badly on their own, if not for that pink to soften it. I want to ask if that’s intentional on her part, or if in her world it’s just a happy accident, and the only planning that ever took place was in DHX Media. But... oh yeah, I’ve got to answer her question before I can ask any of my own.

“They have a room like a gymnasium, sort of,” I try describing, not sure how much Apple Bloom here knows about this sort of thing. She knows what a gymnasium, is right? She smiles slightly at my answer, the tip of her tail waving merrily on the ground, seemingly unnoticed by her. It doesn’t look like Apple Bloom is lost, so I just continue, “With a big mirror on the wall. And the doctor took me through exercises, but with blocks and stuff, since I couldn’t hold hooves with him directly.”

“What was the doctor like?” Apple Bloom asks, and in hindsight she may have had a bit of a secret smile, totally unnoticed by myself.

“He was amazing,” I instead say, cluelessly, “He was so strong, and his hooves were so big, and everything he said was funny! He was really smart too. And he had mutton chops!”

Apple Bloom is outright smiling now and I do notice with worry, before her smile falters and she says, “Wait, what the hay are mutton chops?”

Oops.

Well see, Apple Bloom. First you take one of those friendly sheep you put in pens, then you cut its throat, and wait until it passes out from blood loss. Then you hang the probably dead body up by its hind legs on a hook, to let all the blood run out onto the floor, and when you use a bone saw to take a cross section of its uh...

“It’s a kind of moustache,” I say simply.

“And you held hooves with him?” Apple Bloom then presses, with a bonified shit eating grin.

“Ohh no,” I cut her off, my eyes wide, “It’s not what you think.” It totally is what you think.

“But you did?” Apple Bloom says persistently, getting right up into my face.

“Just... one hoof,” I admit. How is she stretching her neck all the way out–

“Y’sure are shy around stallions now!” Apple Bloom says, pulling back to her more compact self with a laugh. “What’s up with that, anyway?”

I just stare at the ground, still kind of weirded out by yet another thing that shouldn’t have been physically possible, while also trying to think up something to tell her that won’t incriminate me, or let her know that I actually enjoyed holding his hoof. After a while of my silence, Apple Bloom whuffs in a more sympathetic tone,

“Hey, it’s okay Sweetie. Ah don’t mean to bother you. Wanna hear what we did this morning?”

I look up and over at that, and find myself meeting Apple Bloom’s gaze again. It’s still thrilling to be eye to eye with her. She’s just... sitting on the grass right next to me, all innocent and ordinary and yet, it should be impossible to even see something like this. Like two feet away from me is a little pony out of a delightful television show. I could reach a hoof out and touch her, and she wouldn’t vanish, and there would be no screen in my way. Nothing but ordinary if very healthy looking grass, then an impossible pony. In fact, no. It’s more like impossible pony, then grass, then pony, because I am right out of the show too.

“S-sure,” I say, a bit shakily at her hopeful gaze.

“Well!” Apple Bloom brightens up right away, leaning in my direction again, albeit a bit more concertingly. “You weren’t available, so after ah got my morning chores done, me and Scootaloo went and visited that junkyard out of town!”

“That doesn’t sound...” I respond, trailing off uncertainly.

“A’course it ain’t safe!” Apple Bloom laughs. “That’s why we never did it before! But it was just me an’ Scootaloo, so nopony cared much if it was safe. Anyway, we found a thingamajig that still all lit up even though it was junked, and it was real cool. But then the groundskeeper finds out because it’s all flashy an’ stuff, and we got run straight out!”

“You should care if it’s safe, though,” I tell her worriedly, “Don’t you care about yourself?”

“Sure I do...” Apple Bloom says a bit too tentatively, glancing to the side. “But sometimes,” she continues more strongly, “You just gotta take the reins, instead of pulling the cart. You’ll waste away doing nothin’ if you never take any chances!”

“Okay, as long as you care about yourself,” I say with reserved caution. Apple Bloom huffs at that in frustration, breaking her gaze and turning away from me. Uh oh.

“What’s so important about caring about yourself anyways?” the pouting filly says toying with a tuft of grass. “It’s not like I’m anythin’ special.”

“Scootaloo, is that you?” I say to her with exaggeratedly wide eyes. Apple Bloom just rolls her eyes at me in response.

“Seriously though,” I put in, “What’s more important than caring about yourself?”

“What do you mean?” Apple Bloom prompts me with a naive look.

I look pensively downward, having to think about this pretty carefully. My own white hooves are curled on top of a dense grass underneath the tree, that we’re both resting on. There’s a bit of wild clover doing very well in the shade, pressed cooly up against my hindquarters as my weight partially flattens it to the ground.

“I mean what I said?” I have to ask her at last, not quite finding the words to say it. “What’s more important than caring about yourself?”

“Lots of things!” Apple Bloom champs, waving a hoof in the air, “Your home, your family, savin’ the world, and all sorts of special ponies.”

I frown at her. “You’ll get hurt, if you don’t care about yourself,” I suggest to Apple Bloom cautiously. “How are you going to help all those p-ponies if you hurt yourself?”

“I would hurt mahself?” Apple Bloom says, her face twisting in genuine astonishment. Good lord almighty I think she really is 9. “That’s just silly,” she adds with a smile, “Why would I hurt mahself?”

“Because...”

Shaking my head I face Apple Bloom and say, “Because if you don’t care, then you won’t be careful. You can still go to the junkyard, um, I think. I don’t know much about the junkyard. But if you care about yourself, then there will be something you can do that will get you hurt, and you’ll feel like not doing it. If you don’t care, you’ll just do it because you don’t see why not, and... then you get hurt.”

“Caring is really important,” I say emphatically, lifting up a hoof to press against Apple Bloom’s upturned chest while I do so, to try and drive home the point. My subsequent silence is just for dramatic emphasis. The distracted awe at realizing that I really am touching a living breathing warm fuzzy pony chest is only a minor part of it, scout’s honor.

So touched, Apple Bloom just kind of looks at me uncomfortably, and says, “Okay, okay ah hear ya Sweetie. Ah promise I won’t do nothin’ that would get me hurt–”

“Just–” I interrupt her.

...

“Tell me that you care about yourself,” I ask, with that cold quivery emotion rising up in me, folding my hoof back under myself. “That’s all I really need,” I say quietly. I don’t even know how we got on this subject, but the very thought of such a wonderful girl falling into the trap of self deprecation is enough for me to smack whoever said she was nothing special. It was probably someone trying to be modest, not realizing how much that can hurt people.

All Apple Bloom says though is, “Sweetie...” with a worried look in my direction. Maybe if I challenge her? I dunno, she’s got to say it now!

I give Apple Bloom a squint, and say in a challenging tone, “Come on, you can just say it, can’t you?”

“Of course I can say it!” Apple Bloom responds shortly.

“Well, go on then,” I say with a snort, still looking at her skeptically.

And Apple Bloom is like, “I, uh...”

She then fiddles around with her forehooves, resentfully grumbling, “This feels dumb.”

“I bet you can’t say it,” I tease her snippily. “I care about myself. It’s not so hard to say!”

“Of course I can!” Apple Bloom repeats, a whimper creeping into her voice.

I’m... actually starting to feel pretty terrible about this. I just want her to... but that’s what I want, not what she wants. Why should I force her to do what I think is good? She’ll figure it out on her own. She’s got time. I shouldn’t push her.

“Apple Bloom, I’m sorry–” I start, but she interrupts me angrily, saying,

“I can say it.”

There’s a pause, and she says, “I... care about mah...self.” Oh gosh I can’t believe she said it! It sounds horrible and awkward just like it’s supposed to but she said it! I try to keep a smile from creeping onto my face when I urge her, “Say it again,”

She gives me a wan look, but answers a bit more confidently, “I care about mahself.”

“There, you can say it!” I respond cheerily, “One more time, I care about myself!”

“I care about myself!” Apple Bloom responds definitively.

That does make me smile. Maybe. A little. Finally. “Feel better now?” I ask her, with not just a little sense of relief in my voice.

Apple Bloom looks surprised at that, then crosses her eyes, rubbing a hoof against her chin and says, “Yeah, actually! I dunno why. How did ya know?” She tilts her head my way.

“Because it’s important to care about yourself,” I answer smugly. “You can go to the junkyard if you want, but now you know you’ll make the right decision.”

She gives me a long hard look, and admits somewhat bemusedly, “Yeah I... never thought ‘bout it that way, ah guess.”

The traffic is picking up, as the post-lunch crowd goes to... do whatever it is ponies do in this town. Farming I guess? Nothing like back breaking labor to put a little wind in your sails. Seriously though, I have often dreamed of working on a farm, would that my stupidly frail constitution permit it. Pretty sure even if it did, I’d still fall flat compared to your average obsessive workaholic farmer, but as long as we’re in the realm of fantasy I’d work on a farm that didn’t fall prey to the temptation of cheap workers through social annihilation by pretending that work is a good thing.

I wonder if I could work on a farm like this. I look down at my soft, white, marshmallow body then over to Apple Bloom thoughtfully.

Apple Bloom is kind of not looking directly at me anymore, watching the foot er, hoof traffic as we wait for Scootaloo. It’s subtle, probably because of our age, but compared to me, she is physically a lot sleeker than I am, and certainly has a lot less uh... “baby” fat as it were. I’m probably still stuck with a mental job, if my fan theories about unicorn constitution are close to the truth. But it’s a lot closer to a farm than I’ve ever been before: sitting under this tree on the soft grass, together with a farm pony who I would love to call a friend.

“I wonder why we have to go to school,” Apple Bloom remarks, right just totally out of the blue. I blink a couple times, then follow her gaze forward with a sigh, saying,

“That’s a good question.”

“Well?” Apple Bloom says, looking at me out of the side of my face, “What do you think, Sweetie?” There’s something tricky about her tone, but, it’s a fair enough question. I can’t tell her what I really think about school, namely because this pony world has completely shattered any convictions I had about learning. I... kind of want to talk about it. I just don’t feel comfortable being so lost like this, not knowing what to think in this new world.

I turn to Apple Bloom and carefully say, “I think... two reasons really. One is to keep us out of trouble.” Apple Bloom chuckles at that, but I continue seriously saying, “The other is to have us where they can watch us. You can’t tell if someone’s doing something wrong, if you can’t watch them do it.”

“Some one what?” Apple Bloom asks in an amused yet puzzled tone. I look at her uncomprehendingly. I–oh!

“Somepony,” I correct myself, blushing and immediately looking away. I’m going to have to be careful about that if I don’t want to... tell her. But I do, I mean, I should tell her. “Gryphons have school too,” I mumble disgruntledly.

“Ah get what yer sayin’ Sweetie,” Apple Bloom says lightly, “But that’s all about what’s good for them. Why do we go to school?”

“Because our parents tell us to?” I say a bit snidely, with an unconfidant smile. She looks at me evenly and it’s clear she isn’t buying it. “T-there’s a lot of possibilities,” I admit, “But, I don’t know really.”

Apple Bloom calms a bit at that, saying to me in a chiding tone, “Did you forgot about, how about: so we can learn stuff?”

That one takes me a second to parse. I shake my head then, saying, “But we can learn stuff anywhere, not just at school.”

“But there ain’t somepony to teach you,” Apple Bloom points out.

“What about just any...pony around, who is doing what you want to learn?” I reply, and her I can tell she’s seriously considering my words; her muzzle firms, and her eyes look down. “ They can teach you,” I claim, “And plus they know about what they’re doing.”

“Y’mean like an apprenticeship?” Apple Bloom looks up and asks, qualifying with, “But they don’t know about general stuff, like stuff that everypony’s supposed to... know, oh yeah.” She looks down again abashedly.

I reach out again (and I can reach out!) and put a hoof on her shoulder, saying, “It’s not so bad if it’s for their benefit. If we help them out by going to school, then they’ll be happy that we’re so nice to them, and want to help us back!” I settle down, finishing with, “I think one good thing about school is you can try stuff you’re not good at, and there’s always someone watching you to keep you from messing up too badly.”

Apple Bloom rolls her eyes at me, saying, “Ugh, yeah provided what we’re tryin’ is what they want us to do.”

“That’s why I like libraries more than schools,” I mumble under my breath. By some miracle she doesn’t hear me, and asks,

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” I say hurriedly.

“Didn’t sound like nothin’,” she says with a critical look. I sigh. Guess it wasn’t a miracle after all.

“I like libraries more than schools,” I tell her, “Because they can still watch you and you can still try things out, but they aren’t only letting you do things they want you to do. It’s dumb really... what they want is usually better. But it’s a lot more fun when you can just pick whatever you want and... I dunno.”

Apple Bloom just blinks at me owlishly, then turns looking out to the road, clearly deep in thought. Which is odd because I haven’t said anything that would get her thinking. Have I? Libraries... wait, does she have Twilight Time? Maybe she’s thinking about that. Oh boy it would be so cool to get tutored at the libr–wait, no Twilight isn’t a princess; that episode was clearly post-princess.

Sure is taking a while. I hope Scootaloo isn’t held up or anything. I should have told her to just leave the wagon. She should have done that anyway, but I don’t know if she thinks I expect her to wait at that Wheely place until it’s fixed. 

As if realizing it too, “Ugh!” Apple Bloom exclaims next to me, pounding her hooves on the ground. “Gol darnit Scootaloo, why caint you get done quicker?” I turn in surprise, and she’s not exactly the picture of calm anymore either.

“I’m just tired of sittin’ around all day!” Apple Bloom says to me with an earnest entreaty. “Ah wanna go run!” The yellow filly looks down as those words escape her, and says more reservedly, “Ah’m sorry Sweetie, I didn’t mean ta– that was meana me ta–”

“So, go run!” I urge her confidently.

She looks at me with hurt in her eyes, saying, “Ah ain’t gonna just leave you here. Ah ain’t that kinda–”

“Why not?” I ask chirpily. Oops I interrupted her again. Oh well. “I’m not going anywhere, no matter what you do,” I explain, given the opportunity to do so. “Hurting yourself by waiting here isn’t going to help me any more than if you go have fun.”

“Ah’ll keep you company though,” Apple Bloom says, “Ah don’t want you to be lonely!”

That makes me pause, because I really don’t know how to put it to her. She doesn’t know what lonely is if she thinks I’ll feel that way just from a few minutes by myself. “I won’t feel lonely,” I say deliberately, “Scootaloo will be here soon, and someo-somepony needs to be here to greet her. Plus, look!” I gesture with a pearly white hoof at what’s left of the lunch crowd.

“...look at what?” Apple Bloom says following my hoof but not seeing it.

“I can’t be lonely with so many ponies already here,” I explain, “Even if I don’t know them, I mean, they’re really here! I might be upset if the streets were empty, or they were all in—”

...cars.

“...if they were all busy,” I say, confident in my avoidance.  “I’ll just watch ponies. You go and get those pretty legs working, and I’ll try to get mine working as soon as I can. In fact, hey! Why don’t I try wa҉lk–!”

I blush, and clam up abruptly. Dear god I’m adorable, but I can’t stop squeaking and it’s embarassing!

Wait, did I just call her pretty?

“I’ll just... practice walking around,” I mumble reservedly, idly rubbing at a cheek, “You go ahead and do your... thing.”

Apple Bloom only runs off after a promise, that I’ll have Scootaloo come get her, as soon as Scootaloo’s returned with her wagon again. Then Apple Bloom takes off like a bullet, giving a high whoop, dodging around some blue mare’s hooves, and galloping down the road. While she certainly is an active filly, I can’t help but feel like her frustration regarding my walking situation is driving her fast pace. It won’t be a problem, though. Soon as I tell... Rarity, she can get Sweetie Belle back, and this will all be nothing but a bad memory.

I don’t want to be a bad memory.

I fiddle around with my body until I can jump up onto my hooves again. Standing there, I kind of almost actually sort of feel normal about this no who am I kidding this is way too weird. With the care of the lunar lander, I extend one of my hooves forward, planting it on the ground with some degree of confidence. I try to move a rear hoof then, but it just jerks me back since I seem to be holding onto the ground like a drowning man grasps for a life preserver. I force myself to calm down, gently releasing my hind leg and moving it forward. Then I lift my head up from looking behind me and stumble dizzily. I’m still not used to my head moving this much. With a quivering front leg bearing most of my uneasy weight, it now becomes apparant to me that...

I don’t have anyone around to catch me if I fall.

I ease back to a neutral position, then sit down where I am, giving a frustrated huff. The ponies drift by in a blur of color as I rest in the pleasant heat of a warm summer afternoon. I feel an ear flick, as something tries to land on it. Blinking and looking up, I see it’s just some kind of... bug that’s flying away. Come to think on it, for a town full of horses in the middle of summer, there is a distinct dearth of flies around here.

I keep staring forward maisily in the quiet afternoon, stewing in my thoughts. Maybe I should have asked Apple Bloom to stay. Maybe I should just wait until tomorrow. Maybe I should get out of Sweetie Belle’s body so she can walk normally again. Maybe I should.......
> Ordinary Life 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I start out of a sleepy drowse in the warmth of the day, to the sound of Scootaloo approaching. I have to wince as she gets closer, her wings flapping so quickly that she sounds like a miniature lawnmower. As I feel my ears fold back, I have to wonder why my best friend has to be the noisiest thing in all of Ponyville. Not that I’d ever not be friends with her but I mean... never mind.

It really does help the noise level to fold my ears back, incidentally. I sort of always really envied cats about this while I was human, and I guess I was right to do so. Scootaloo roars up without shattering my carefully shielded eardrums. She careens right at me, making my eyes widen in alarm for just a moment, before she ceases barrelling towards me coming to a halt just a few feet... hooflengths away.

“Hey Sweetie,” Scootaloo says casually, a little wavering to her voice. She’s either ignoring, or maybe expecting my appearance of frozen alarm at her approach, “Where’s Apple Bloom?”

I blink, and then say, “Oh! She said she was going to... go run somewhere?” I can’t help but blush then. I totally forgot to ask where Apple Bloom was going. “Um...” I vacillate hesitantly, “She said to tell you to come get her when your wagon is... oh.”

It’s then, I notice that Scootaloo has returned without a wagon in tow: only herself, her helmet, and her scooter. Scoots has a disgusted expression twisting on her face, as she says, “Ms. Wheely said it would take all day to repair, but I think she just wanted to teach me a lesson because she said I can’t have it if I keep doing dangerous things that keep breaking it.”

“Sounds like you need to git gud,” I remark with a straight face. She kind of stares at me uncomprehendingly. I try not to chucklegiggle at that, and just say, “I think she’s right. You will have more fun if you go slower.”

“What, are you kidding?” Scootaloo rolls her eyes at me, turning away to lean her scooter up against the trunk of the tree we’re under. “Slower is like, the opposite of fun.”

“Well,” I counter blithlely, “You’re not having fun now, are you?”

“Only because she wouldn’t fix my wagon!” Scootaloo exclaimed fussily.

I shake my head at Scootaloo. “If your wagon wasn’t broken,” I say, “Then she couldn’t tell you what to do.”

I try to explain as simply and clearly as I can to someone who’s a little pony girl with the attention span of a breezie. “So, going slower feels like less fun now,” I explain, “But it feels like more fun later, when you can show everypony how good you are at it. Like Ms. Wheely. If you start slow, and then go fast after you’ve practiced going slow, it’ll be way more fun, I bet.”

“I guess so...” Scootaloo says uncertainly, leading me to ...shrug inwardly. Close enough for Congress. It’s one of those hard to learn lessons, that the real daredevils are the most careful at what they do. I’d honestly hate if she got discouraged from her passion, just because she couldn’t hold back long enough to git gud, but with me around maybe that won’t... well, maybe even if I’m not going to be around anymore, at least she has a fighting chance now.

“So you don’t know where Apple Bloom is,” Scootaloo says grumpily. The orange filly standing before my seated form looks at me testily, her swoop of bizarrely maroonish hair not getting in her eyes at all like mine does. Her wings are folded tightly to either side of her, and her ears are level but slightly tilted in irritation. Her vividly violet, captivating eyes are...

I shake my head, dropping her gaze. “I forgot to ask Apple Bloom, sorry,” I mumble. “I just wanted her to have fun, instead of having to take care of me all day...”

“You really need to get walking again,” Scootaloo observes, tossing her tail the moment the sentence leaves her mouth, just as if she recognized it was something that didn’t need to be said. “Have you been practicing?” she asks leaning toward me hopefully. “Did you try it?” she asks, “I mean, walking?”

“I–no I...” crap now I’m a big hypocrite. My own ears go down and my tail snugs a bit closer to my side as I speak. “I should have tried,” I mutter, self critically. “I was just scared of falling over, with nobo–nopony there to catch me.”

“Well, your worries are over!” Scootaloo says cheerily, puffing out her chest and wings, and striking a pose that I imagine was supposed to look impressive. I also can’t stop imagining a budgie doing it, though. “I’ll totally spot you if you want to practice walking around,” Scootaloo claims confidently, while I try not to laugh at jumbling her together with the memory of a proud puffy budgie bird.

Giving a shifty look at the obviously smaller, lighter pegasi, I don’t exactly shake my head, but I do say a bit critically, “Are you sure you can catch me? I was going to wait until Ace I mean, Dr. Ace could catch me...”

After a dreamy pause, Scootaloo drawls, “Nah, it’s fine,” pulling me out of my impromptu fantasy of Dr. Ace catching me in his arms. “I’m pretty tough, plus the whole—you know—earth pony thing.”

Afraid not, Scootaloo. I’m a human who just saw you in the show. I’m about to open my mouth to question her about ‘the whole earth pony thing’ more fully, when Scootaloo blithly utters those little words that every smart young filly dreads: “Come on. What could possibly go wrong?”

~~~ 5 minutes later ~~~

“I knew this was a bad idea!” I shout, trying to unhook my elbow from her ...knee? other elbow? Ugh! How do pony joints even work? The only reason I’m not totally freaking out is that, by sheer luck, our pony vaginas don’t appear to be touching.

If my explanation of what could possibly go wrong wasn’t convincing enough, the tangled pile of wings and limbs that we collectively form, as I fall over on her yet again really drives the point home. Scootaloo has to unkink herself from me, but finally with only a little bit of pushing painfully on my cheek, we separate into two ponies once again.

“It’ll be fine,” I tell her resentfully hunched frame, once I’ve managed to compose myself, with my limbs neatly folded underneath my torso. “Dr. Ace will just show me how to walk tomorrow, and everything will work great.”

“I guess so, Sweetie,” Scootaloo says. She says that phrase a lot, actually. I hope she’s not just patronizing me. It sounds kind of patronizey. But no, she’s my friend I have to trust she’s looking out for me. Scootaloo smiles, and holds out a hoof at me. Not sure what she wants, I take the hoof and feel Scootaloo do the hoof hold thing, as she pulls me up to a standing position, then releases me.

“So, you want to go look for Apple Bloom?” Scootaloo asks, with a jaunty half kick. Before I can answer, her face freezes in the sudden hesitation of a disappointed realization though. Turning the back of her head to me, and looking up at the sky, Scootaloo adds, “It’s... getting kinda late actually. I bet Apple Bloom is doing her chores now.”

I look up too, lifting a hoof to push back my bouncy pink and purple curls, and to my surprise the sun is quite low in the sky. I hadn’t even noticed how the time was just flying by. Isn’t time supposed to go slowly when you’re just sitting there enjoying the day, and going stir crazy from not being able to walk around?

“You want a ride back to your hou–oh right, back to... the Boutique?” Scootaloo asks, gesturing grandly at her scooter.

“What are my par–um...” I have to abort my question to look at the scooter again with great puzzlement. “But you didn’t get the wagon back,” I point out, critically.

“You don’t remember?” Scootaloo says, pushing the scooter in her front hooves waddling on her back ones to put it parallel to me. “I can take you with just this,” she explains. “Just put your hooves on the handles, like you’re going to ride it.”

Curious, I do so, and it’s so nice that I can do so. My days of hands may be long gone, but these hooves aren’t so bad after all. I almost could ride this scooter even, maybe if I was ever willing to let my lower hooves, braced beneath my flexibly rearing body, ever, ever leave the ground. Yeah, I’m not confident enough to actually step up onto this scooter. Scootaloo assists me with that endeavor, in a way that’s both comfortable and uncomfortable.

“Wha҉t are you–!” I squeak out as she flutters up right against me. I can feel her chest and belly press against the curve of my back and rear, as her hooves hook themselves under my arms around my chest. Her head comes up alongside mine, over my right shoulder right beside my ear, before I can so much as gulp nervously. My shoulders are out because I’m holding onto this scooter here, and she’s conforming to my body holyjeesusmackerel.

The thing is, it feels really good. It’s like that hug that I managed to give her earlier, and not at all like the tangle we were in a few minutes ago. Like that hug, it feels good but it feels really maybe a little bit whole lot less than appropriate. I say nothing but blush, shouldering her weight because I don’t want to fall over, or be a bad friend. But she’s... she’s—!

“You’re going to r-ride me, while I take us there?” I ask in a teenier, less confident voice than I’d like to.

“Close,” Scootaloo says at my ear, bracing against me in an “oh I hope I can’t feel her little undeveloped filly parts” sort of way. “You’re gonna steer,” she asserts, “While I provide propulsion!”

Her hoof leaves my shoulder, and I feel that smooth green helmet come slapping down over my head again. Ohhh boy. Scootaloo pushes the chin strap against my chin with a hoof, then uses her lips and teeth to fasten it and pull it tight, all the while spooning me atop her own scooter. I have to lift one hind hoof to squeeze my thighs together, trying to quell the restless feelings in my own strange femininity. I don’t think Scootaloo even realizes how intimate this is. That’s... that’s incredibly hot, that she doesn’t even know. I think maybe I’m just going to enjoy this and not tell her, for now.

It’s then that Scootaloo engages her wings, and the scooter rolls underneath me, pulling my last hoof out from under me. Amazingly, I don’t fall. Between my death grip on the handlebars, and Scootaloo’s strong body pressed up against me as the force from her wings compress the two of us together, I remain affixed to this scooter. One of my hind hooves clops down on the board of the scooter, while the other one skips along, trying to keep up with her steady acceleration, until I can brace both hooves on the board like she is.

“Remember! Slowly first!” I shout behind me in a totally not panicked squeal.

Of course I don’t know the way to go, but I can follow the sun at least, so Scootaloo tells me where to turn. And to her credit, Scootaloo is being much more careful this time. It’s probably just because the accident is fresh in her mind, but I try to tell myself in a little voice in my head, that she’s learned her lesson. We only have a... couple spills, and honestly they’re mostly my fault, when I turned the handlebars too hard, or slipped off the board when I forgot about holding onto it. Scootaloo really makes riding this thing look easy!

As we approach the boutique, an unprovoked sense of disappointment wells up inside me. I don’t know what it is at first, but when I think about it, my whole time here has been like an afterthought. “I guess the day is over,” is how I feel. But not just the day. Like... I feel like, I mean... I literally did come in at the end of the adventure. I feel like I came in at the end of the adventure, and everypony has just been wrapping everything up ever since. I’m glad to be here, and I can’t disparage one moment of my experience as Sweetie Belle, but... but...

I didn’t even get to see the clubhouse...

My disappointment goes on hold, when Scootaloo slides lithely off my body, to trot over and pull open the door, ringing the bell above it in such a familiar way. My disappointment gets pitched out into deep space, only returning centuries later as an alien enhanced god machine seeking its ancient creators, when after Scootaloo vanishes inside, Rarity pops her head out with a surprised “Sweetie Belle!”  Then inside her boutique, I can hear someone else shouting “Sweetie Belle?!” and ...it’s a stallion.

A-and Rarity is looking kind of flushed there. And I can hear his hooves clipping along the floor rushing at the front door like a speeding train. I have the barest moment to form my mouth into an apology, before he– he–!

He barrels through the door hip checking Rarity aside like a bumper car, completely ignoring her and coming up right into my face, his huge eyes full of agitation. “Is it true?!” he demands in a bright baritone, “You didn’t forget all of your lessons?!” Even as he comes at me, I shrink back, crouching down as small as I can be. I can’t even summon up a squeak it’s so absolutely terrifyingly confusing. This isn’t Ace!

The unicorn confronting me is one I haven’t seen before, with cornflower blue fur and a horn of the like color emerging from his tousled greyish blue hair. I–isn’t she supposed to, didn’t we walk in on Rarity—why isn’t this Ace? This isn’t– is Rarity cheating on him? Rarity’s not with Ace though, so is it even cheating? They just met! Are they both in there with her? Is Rarity having a multi-stallion orgy in her boutique while I’m off and away?! Who is this?! What do I say?

Rarity shoves him roughly with her shoulder, knocking him away from me so I can remember to breathe again. “Lay off, Bright!” she exclaims at him in a less than ladylike manner. “Did I not tell you she’s been having anxiety? You’re giving the poor dear a heart attack!”

“But she can’t have forgotten everything!” he retorts, thankfully at Rarity not at me. My little unicorn heart is settling down to a mere racing pace, and I have a moment to remember how to perceive objects in front of me again, instead of just one confusing mishmash of nothing makes sense. He has to–I’m jumping to conclusions. That’s it. I look at him in a new light, starting to work out why there’s a stallion in Rarity’s boutique. She’s already broke the bed with Dr. Ace, and now this is a... a customer, that’s it! Why is he interested in me though?

Scootaloo pokes her head around from inside the boutique, looking over at the little unicorn surrounded by concerned adults that I am, with a big silent apologetic grin.

“What is going on,” I moan to anyone who will listen, face planting on the handlebars of Scootaloo’s scooter, on the hooves hooked on those handlebars, beneath the green retard helmet still wrapped around my head.

Rarity insists that we all calm down and get inside, and I certainly don’t resist being dragged along into the masculinity annihilating sea of purple and pink that her boutique is. Soon I’m sitting there on that little stool in front of the kitchen table, staring down morosely at a cup full of... tea I think Rarity said. Rarity stands on the kitchen floor, along with the stallion whom she continues to argue with, who Rarity keeps addressing in bits and pieces as Bright Bulb. It makes sense, considering the, well, bright bulb emblazoned on his hindquarters. Scootaloo has gone, having fled the tense situation the moment she had the opportunity, for which I don’t blame her one bit.

I inhale, then exhale.

“Excuse me!” I interject noisily. It takes the two adults a while to wind down, but I know they heard that, so I keep my eyes steady on the two giant ponies. When I can be heard again, I talk to the stallion, saying, “Who are you? What do you want with me? What did I forget?”

His eyes light up in outrage and he looks like he’s going to shout at me again, but then they dim defeatedly, and he sinks down into a heavy hunch on his hooves.

“You’re not joking, are you,” he says to me, not asks.

“I–I’m not joking, no,” I say uncertainly, “I have amnesia, so I don’t remember a lot of things.”

“Rune algebra?” he asks hopefully. I shake my head.

“The three laws?” he pleads.

“Laws of what?” I have to respond, feeling upset that I can’t help him. He seems like such a nice stallion; I wish I wasn’t... like this. His reaction is honestly distraught, and what I thought was an attack just seems like him being overeager now. Bright walks in quick efficient movements, his words excitable and his skinny frame suggesting at a high metabolism. He isn’t much to look at, but he does seem genuinely concerned with my well being.

“April Showers and the Star Sea?” he asks, a seeking but hopeless smile on his face.

“Y-you’ll have to tell me that one again,” I mumble, looking down at my tea on the table, practically dipping my nose in it. I don’t literally dip my nose, because it actually is quite a bit hot and still needs to cool down.

“It’s just...” he says over me while I look away. “It’s just...” he repeats, “...wow.” I try looking at him again, and he’s actually got a little smile on his face. A little sad smile. “I can work with this,” he says in a tone that suggests not even he is convinced. “Your sister said you had a cascade earlier? We can... it’s only been a year, it’s not too much to catch up on.”

I think I can feel my pupils shrinking just a bit as I start to realize. “You mean,” I reach up and tap at my horn. Silent magic tickles my horn when I do that, and also my mane tickles my pastern. “You’re my... um...” I trail off. What would you even call that?

“Magic teacher?” I venture, putting my hoof down flat to the floor.

Bright Bulb laughs at that, quite heartily, before backing up a bit and smiling awkwardly at my puffy cheeked frown. “Sorry Sweetie Belle,” he says, “I didn’t mean any offense. I’m just a tutor really, nothing official like a professor.”

“You sure seem to be upset for something not official,” I point out grumblingly.

“Well it’s just...” he pauses, rubbing a hoof on his nose. “It’s just a bit unexpected, that’s all! I have been tutoring you in magic for almost a year, and it won’t change anything I mean, but it just might take some... catching up.”

“I’m sorry,” I honestly tell him: sorry in more ways than one. “I’ll um, probably remember who– I mean, I’ll probably remember my lessons when my... memory comes back.”

I should tell Rarity. I’m not Sweetie Belle. That’s the easy explanation for all this. I can’t tell her though, with him around! Oooh, maybe he’s going to give me magic lessons! That would be so cool! “M-maybe we could do something simple?” I ask failing to conceal the excited hiccup in my voice.

He looks at me, and then gives a smile tinged with just a little bit of approval. “I think we can manage that, tonight,” Mr. Bright says.

He takes me into Rarity’s showroom as there’s more room there, and it’s after hours for her boutique apparantly. Separate from the mirrors and walls and curtains, at that broad table on which I was um, coloring earlier. He stands before me, while I stand quite noticeably much shorter than him, having to look up his furry blue chest to his furry blue face, from where my stumpy little legs hold me down here.

“Alright. Why don’t you try to ground and center? Do you remember that?” he asks, a bit patronizingly. I hesitate though, because I mean...

“Are you sure...?” I ask, fidgeting on my hooves there beside the table. “I tried before and it um... splinched?”

Mr. Bright nods, saying in a calmer voice, “That’s why I’m here, in fact. It’s my job to handle any magical mishaps you may find yourself getting into. Do you remember that much, at least?”

I start to nod, then shake my head slightly, “No, but you just told me, so I do now.”

“Well if you wanna nit-pick,” Bright whuffs, rolling his eyes at my words.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” I say hurriedly. If he can stop me from messing up, this might actually be fun. I wonder what kind of magic I can do! I... probably shouldn’t get my hopes up. But still!

I take a deep breath, closing my eyes, trying to imagine my head suspended by a string, pulling my shoulders a bit straighter and squarer. It doesn’t quite...feel the same though. Am I doing this right?

“Your horn, Sweetie,” he says, “Not your head.” Oh right. The whole ‘not human anymore’ thing. I shift my attention to the bony protrusion on my forehead and, just paying attention to it makes a sort of sliding whisper seem to come from up in there. It feels like... things inside it, shifting into place. But, wait, can he–?! I lose my concentration, opening my eyes and looking at Mr. Bright in astonishment.

“You can see what I’m doing?!” I blurt surprisedly. At a flicker of confusion on his face, I emphasize, waving my hooves to clarify, “I mean... you can already? I was just getting ready I wasn’t doing anything. Did it look like something? What was I doing? Was my horn lit up?”

“Those are good questions, Sweetie!” he interrupts cheerfully, muttering “for completely starting over,” more grumpily under his breath. I manage to raise an eyebrow before he hastily interjects, “You bet I can see you getting ready. There are all sorts of ways we move around in anticispace, all through the day, even with normal little things. I’d show you, but it does take a bit of practice to be able to pick up on that stuff. It’s just like the old pick-a-card trick, one of the most fundamental magics out there.”

Sitting my butt down at the stool, I lean my head on my hoof against the table a little lazily. I try to keep the snark out of my voice as I honestly ask him, “Shouldn’t I be studying that, then?”

“Maybe if you were an earth pony!” he answers with a teasing whinny. “But no, seriously, I like to get you foals started with something you can use, so that when you do study the fundamentals you know what they’re going to lead to.”

My head tilts up from bracing against my hoof. He’s beaming proudly at his statement, his head tilted proudly to accentuate his... horn, yeah. But he does have a good point, for a giant blue horn pony. “That’s... a surprisingly good way to study,” I manage to say.

His smile falters a bit, and he scratches the back of his head with a hoof in shy embarassment. “Well, it’s what the manual suggests anyway,” he says unflatteringly, “Now, come on, let’s get grounding!”

I nod understandingly, closing my eyes and–no, I open my eyes again and ask him, “Wait, what’s ‘anticispace?’”

He blinks at me a bit, before putting hoof to chest and answering smoothly. “It’s just space, pretty much,” he says, “Shifted just a teeny bit into the future. We tunnel through from there to perform a lot of our magic. If you can get an eye for it, anticispace lets you anticipate another pony’s movements, or what they might be thinking about just that moment.”

“That’s...” I trail off, and my tail flups on the ground in sheer confusion. This is supposed to be magic, so why is what he’s saying making so much sense? Of course there’s a... second... space... but that should be impossible. But it seems so obvious! Is it just my brain working differently? But if that’s true, then why am I me at all?

“Yeah, it’s kind of advanced for a little filly like you,” Mr. Bright admits, hoofing the floor embarassedly. “Start with grounding,” he instructs me, “And don’t worry about the little details, for now.”

I think to answer him, or ask further questions, but he’s right I’m just getting distracted here. Closing my eyes again, I do the string thing, but this time from my horn and not my head. This “string thing” is more centering than grounding. Readying-to-ground? I don’t know what those hippie new age meditation gurus would call it, while they’re busy boinking young boys out behind the dojo, but I’d call it “center and ground” not “ground and center.”

Anyway, I do that, and my horn feels... it’s a lot more sensitive than the last time I did this with Rarity back in that Dodge Terminal forest lodge. It’s not like my horn is moving, or flexing, or whirring mechanically, but, it just feels sort of tingly and lit up, like when you shine a flashlight through a fertilized chicken egg.

And then I lose my concentration again, opening my eyes to try and see if my horn really is lit up. Unfortunately, the horn atop my head doesn’t even have a hint of the characteristic celadon magic I might expect. No gentle aura of it, not even the stray green spark. Not that I can see it on my own head, but well, there are a lot of mirrors in Rarity’s show room, now that I look around for one.

“You’ve almost got it, Sweetie!” Mr. Bright tells me encouragingly, pulling me back to the task at hand. Blushing a little, I firm my lip and close my eyes yet again, determined not to get so easily distracted this time—wait I wonder if—no, no I’ll worry about that after. Ground and center. Ground, and center. Feel the flow of motive gently tugging you upward, aligning your attention with the ground. And if that made any sense, what my horn feels like makes it even harder to describe. But I center myself, and then ground, letting that sense of anticipation sink through me into the earth.

Once again there’s that bizarre sensation of everything around me lighting up, just like my horn did a moment ago. I can sort of get an idea where Mr. Bright is standing, and the mirror I was looking at has a ..something, and there’s that swirl around me, of the same aether that swirled around when Rarity twiddled the knobs on the faucet. Wait, where is Rarity, anyway?

I open my eyes, feeling very relaxed at least, from the pleasant if brief meditation. I half expect myself to be splinched with the seat again, but my cute little unicorn butt is decidedly separate from the stool I’m sitting on. I turn over my shoulder to look down at it, and, woah I forgot how big my tail is. No splinching though. I just feel a measured calm in my heart, a stool pressing on my butt if that wasn’t obvious, and a distinct lack of testicles for that stool to uncomfortably press upon.

The feeling of a slightly kinked base of a tail does seem to make up for that lack. Not nearly the same feeling though.

“Splendid, Sweetie!” Bright announces, giving me an approving whicker and looking at me pleasedly when I turn around to face him.

A flutter of excitement fills me at that, and I say, “Did I do it? Did I do magic?”

Bright laughs, and I blush because that sounded totally stupid. I sound just like a little girl who got her very first taste of achievement. I guess I sort of am a little girl, and that was my very first taste of achievement.

“Not yet, Sweetie,” Mr. Bright accedes comfortingly, “But you are certainly very good at relaxing yourself. That’s a key step to clean and safe spellcasting. Do you remember the three flowers song?”

So what, it was just about relaxing me all along? That’s all grounding and centering is? What’s with the splinching, then? Though I feel a bit slighted, I obediently answer, “No I don’t think so.” And then I realize—oh no, that means he’s going to start singing!


Macy got a Daisy, Buttercup and a Bell Blue
She planted each into a shell
The flowers broke through the shells as they grew
Just like from her horn the magic swelled

She wove the shells together again
Her horn knew their shape what to put where
From the rectangle, she took the square
And had her the rectangle again.

Macy knew to take the square
The flowers must escape she remarked
But the shells must be rebuilt with care
For shattered all they did was sparked.

A seashell creature hides away
From the dangers in the sea
Where a unicorn reaches out to play
And plants her flowers for all to see.




The details of the song escape me, but I think it has to do with how a horn is the same shape as a seashell, and that helps magic, somehow. Maybe I have the wrong idea about paying attention to these songs. Nopony else does, so maybe I’m screwing my chances up by doing so? The song has one obvious effect on me at least.

A lot of my hour with Bright is spent calming me down from the creeping irrational fear that my horn is as hollow and fragile as a seashell, even though I already know better from the show, and direct experience at the hospital. Just imagining it breaking like a shell is just... ugh... calm now, I am calm now. Rarity menawhile reveals her presence, floating into the room a tray of more tea and what look and taste like a few fresh baked cookies. And like hay.

Bright only has about an hour to grill me with what apparently should have been my weekly magic lesson, and then it’s well past dinner time, and I promise him up and down that I will be there for him next week, with no more terrible calamities ruining everything I’ve learned so far.

For something I can “do” this meditation horn string thing sure doesn’t seem to do anything. At least I feel a little... calmer I guess? It’s meditation. It relaxes you. I mean, there’s the feeling out there of that weird swirly aether stuff, and that’s new, but it doesn’t “do” anything that I can see, certainly not splicing me with nearby furniture.

It’s only after he’s left the boutique that I realize, with a bit of a shock that I’m not actually attracted to that stallion. As Rarity and I wave at his retreating rear end, I can’t help but notice his sack hanging there, and... there it is: that uncomfortably pleasant feeling of dread and satisfaction, the simple awareness that right now I have a vagina. I could get penetrated by that man! I can sort of feel it too: that weird little treasure hidden in my rounded bottom, without even looking or touching myself down there. Proprioception at its finest. But even with that thought in my head, Mr. Bright just looks... sort of homely. A bit skinny maybe. But nothing I have to fight to deny being attracted to.

Oh sweet Celestia, I think I might be a superficial bitch.

And thinking about it afterwards, I have to ask Rarity, I mean, I really shouldn’t, but I ask her anyway over our dinner salad. I ask,

“Is Dr. Ace handsome, for a pony?”

“For a pony?” Rarity asks me querulously. Damnit this was a bad idea.

“N-never mi-”I stutter, but Rarity answers confidently over me, gesturing with the fork in her magic, pierced neatly through a bit of hearty kale:

“I would say he is, yes,” she answers, “Perhaps you mean how well toned he is? He is a strong qualifier in the Equestrian cup, and that kind of activity will make him the sort of stallion that all the mares like to fawn over. What–ohh, I see how it is.”

She smiles over at me, somewhere between compassionate and smug. “You thought I was romantically attracted to Dr. Ace,” Rarity concludes with a little eye flutter, “I must have confused you terribly with my mixed messages regarding our lunchtime tryst.”

She lays a hoof on mine and says more gently, “Don’t worry, Sweetie Belle. I have to go at these things at my own pace, after all. I will, rest assured, find myself the most gallant special somepony one of these days. But with Dr. Ace, we merely enjoyed each other’s company, and laughed together over a tasty treat.”

She tosses her mane, remarking a bit self consciously with an off stare, “It is possible for a mare to have stallion friends, you know, without them all being romantic pursuits.”

“You sure were hitting on him, though,” I blurt unthinkingly. My expression freezes and my pupils narrow, and Rarity blinks at me thoughtfully, but... her face opens in a trusting smile without suspicion.

“It doesn’t mean I can’t keep my options open, shall we say,” Rarity says to me with a little coy smirk. And I swear, if I thought I fully understood women before becoming Sweetie Belle, Rarity keeps throwing me curve balls that make me question everything I know. Isn’t she supposed to be a proper lady? But she is! Somehow she’s being bawdy as a sailor without straying from perfect politeneness. And somehow she’s being blatantly sexual, without being sexual at all. I don’t know whether to get upset at her, admire her, or fall in love with her like every other pony does it seems.

It’s like watching Mary Poppins hit on Bert. Yeah, it’s pretty much exactly like that.

Wait, weren’t the local livestock also hitting on Mary Poppins during that song? Damn you Mary Poppins for making me a furry! Well great, now I’ve ruined any chances I had of redemption by blaspheming in Mary Poppins’s name. Forgive me, Mary! Brushing your teeth is probably not the best time to be thinking about all this.

I can brush my own teeeeeeeeth

With my newfound holding ability, it gives me the opportunity to validate the existence of toothbrushes in this universe, by brushing my own teeth. I barely had to have Rarity help me get balanced on the sink at all! And I don’t even know how to use my horn yet! Okay so I am having to curl my hoof around the toothbrush a little bit, but it is possible, and that’s what’s important.

If seeing Sweetie Belle in the (bottom half of the) medicine cabinet’s mirror isn’t captivating enough, then you should see how captivating it is when Sweetie Belle opens her mouth! I mean, really: I have no delusion that cuteness is anything but skin deep, so it’s going to get pretty gross once you get deeper than the skin. But it still hits me pretty hard when I open my mouth to get a look at the chompers I’m supposed to be brushing.

I got pretty careful about tooth brushing later in life.  After losing a cat to bad teeth, well let’s just say that it’s not the way I wanted to die of old age. But after a lifetime of piss poor health care and crooked dentists (especially dentists), I had to learn a few things about oral hygiene all on my own. I grew up back in a time when scaling and root planing wasn’t even a thing, so I got to witness every dentist on the planet suddenly adopt it as a regular recommended practice without any studies actually supporting it. It left me profoundly suspicious of anything “everyone knows” is good for your teeth.

Anyway, so I’m careful when I brush my teeth. And that gives me an opportunity to check out just how different my teeth are. I open my mouth, and stretch out my cheek a bit with the toothbrush, using the mirror to getting a good look at the pearly white residents of that glistening pink cavern underneath my nose. They’re not horse teeth thank god. If you have ever seen what horse molars look like, well let’s just say H.P. Lovecraft had to get his ideas from somewhere..

I wasn’t surprised at the pink empty gap between my molars and incisors, thanks to crazy Twilight on the show and also well... thanks to actually feeling it when I’ve been chewing. But unlike horse teeth, those molars in the back look just a little bumpy and smooth. Certainly not labyrinthine monstrosities of yellow and brown. I can only see three molars; actually my incisors are what take up most of what makes my muzzle longer. Do you even call them incisors outside the two center ones? Because the broad flat chisellike incisors have another two on either side slightly smaller, that both look like incisors, but...

Okay, I’ve been staring at my own mouth too long. I brush my teeth handily, er, hoofily, and call out to Rarity, who pokes her head in and smiles.

“Splendid, dear,” she says easily, “Now I think we should engage in our evening soak. Would you like to use the toilet first?”

Smiling at her, “I—”

...

.....

Oh shit.

I don’t want to do this. But she asked me, and now I’m feeling it! I knew this was going to happen. I should have been ready. I should have, have, have... have done something. It’s been what three days, since I was starving? That’s plenty of time! More than enough time! My face falls at the gross realization for which I am not ready. But my body is ready.

“I um... I–I should be okay I just um...”

“Sweetie, are you... alright?” Rarity asks with a bit of a squint.

“Yes I’m solid. Fine! I meant fine! I’m perfectly fine! Is the bath-t-toilet is the um, can I um...”

“Dear, you’ve used the bathroom three times now without incident,” Rarity says to me uneasily. “Surely you can ...manage it on your own now?”

“I have yes but it hasn’t been um...” I fidget beside the sink, shrinking down, wishing that they didn’t separate the bathroom from the toilet room so I could just ... uggh it’s starting to push, now! “Solid...” I mumble, my face clearly aglow.

Rarity pauses, mouthing silently in the air at me, before smiling shakily and saying, “B-but you can already stand. If you can manage the... eh... liquid way already, then what is the issue?”

“Well I just haven’t before,” I insist up to her, wincing at my choice of words. Of course I have before, just not on all fours, with my butt behind me, and not with the egress perched above... a something I don’t want to get dirty. “I mean, I don’t um, remember um,” I stutter, trying to find a diplomatic way to say this.

Rarity blinks slowly, then drops low on her hooves, right in my face, and shouts, “YOU DON’T REMEMBER POOPING?!” with these big shocked crystal blue eyes right at me.

I can’t help but notice how frazzled her hair is. Rarity’s really been letting it go, since she started... taking care of... me. I try to smile at her even as Rarity pulls back spluttering at her own words, and I say to her in as comforting a tone as I can,

“Yeah, um... it really shouldn’t be a problem it’s just really” weird, alien, disgusting, world ending, meme validating, borderline sacrilegious, “...embarassing.”

To her credit, Rarity doesn’t flinch at her burden of assisting me to the bathroom, for this abominable endeavor. She does trot awfully fast down the hall getting there, though. “I won’t do it,” I assure her, as much as I feel cramped from holding back, “I can make it it’s no problem,” but she doesn’t even answer, until we’re there in the toilet room across the hall.

“Just...” Rarity says standing there, still flustering about how to politely say “go poop you dumb horsebeast.” I take that as a hint to slide off her back, forgetting for the moment that Rarity hasn’t crouched down yet. When I slip off her side I inhale in surprise, hitting the ground with an oof.

“I’m okay!” I tell her, “No problem. Nothing came out! I’ll just...” Rolling to my belly, I contemplate jumping to my hooves. “You can go, it’s okay,” I say, as performing the act of standing makes my tail twitch unsettlingly. I have to hold it! I carefully straddle the toilet, finally steady on all four hooves, and smile at her comfortingly. Or awkwardly. Very, very awkwardly.

“Are you sure you can do it?” Rarity asks worriedly pausing at the threshold of the toilet room instead of ducking out.

I nod at her, “Y-yes I can already feel it pushing, so just” and that’s TMI for Rarity because she vanishes so fast, I wonder if she’s actually Twilight Sparkle in disguise. Leaving me alone, in the toilet room, straddling the toilet. And I am so full of shit.

“Okay, just relax,” I say to myself standing there, “Just let it go, and–” With a widening of eyes, I remember to heave my tail up out of the way. Probably too far out of the way, but I am not going to take chances. Okay, tail? Check. Toilet? ready. Alone? yup. Dignity? Error 404 dignity not found. “Okay, just relax and let it go,” I tell myself quietly, firming my lips and concentrating, trying to let the tension drain out of my lower body, which is my behind me body now. I wonder if the anus still EEeeewoah yes the anus still pushes outwards in ponies. I feel dirty for even thinking about Sweetie Belle having an anus. Much less a bonified ponut, however unobtrusive it may be.

With my position, and toying with the muscles in my sort of squeezy out hole, some unconscious signal causes my insides to surge, and I can feel a tremendous pressure down there. It’s nothing unfamiliar, but it’s nothing I want my happy little ponies to be feeling. Closing my eyes I brace myself, and just let it push, trying to encourage it as best I can, so it’ll be over with as soon as possible. My anus pushes out one more time and oh shit HERE IT COMES

plop... plop.

I open my eyes.

Okay wait, what. I try to twitch my rear, but just feel totally relaxed and ...empty there. Looking between my legs at the toilet water, its precious cargo doesn’t even reach the surface. Just a little pile of mush on the bottom, with bits of grass drifting in the cloudy water. That’s what came out of my butt. That. That was it?!

That’s when my bladder starts to empty, with a rush of relieving pressure. With my head already looking between my legs, I find myself torn between revulsion and fascination, and in either case utterly unable to look away. The urine emerging is a lot closer to a stream than I thought it would be, enough to make a sound when it strikes the water. Just a stream of yellow liquid emerging from behind my round, white, fuzzy and otherwise featureless belly, accompanied by the feel of relief and compression inside me. I can’t believe I’m actually watching piss blast out from Sweetie Belle’s crotch. Okay, maybe blast is a wee bit of an overstatement. Heh, wee.

I can’t believe that was it! Am I that much of a... lightweight? Is that normal? The pee gutters out, and it’s odd how my habitual attempts to get the last of it out make the belly I’m watching tense and twitch. My belly. I lift my head up to look forward, just in time for Rarity to poke her head in, scaring me half to death. Suddenly stiff legged, I relax enough to swallow my heart again, when I become aware that I am just standing there normally, like a good little filly, and Rarity didn’t just catch me staring at my own bowel movements.

“Sorry darling, it just occurred to me,” Rarity says hastily, with a pretty heavy blush on her own face. “If you have amnesia about... that, I want to make sure you remember to always wipe front to back.” Her muzzle scrunches right up then and she ducks away, clearly too embarassed to continue. And then her words hit me and I’m like... oh my god.

There was probably no danger. I’ve always wiped front to back regardless. It wouldn’t have been a problem, probably. But now I’ve got an adorable little pony vagina between my legs. If I ever wiped back to front... then some might... get in... ew ew ew ew ewewewewew.

Do girls really have to— about that–?!

One ew screen of death later, I grimace and reach for the roll of toilet paper. And... pulling off a piece is impossible, because I can only grab the whole roll at a time. It only takes me a second to figure out the solution though, I carefully remove my hoof push thingy out of the roll, and just slap it with an inert hoof, spinning it until a good amount rolls off, dangling in the air. That, I can grab in my hoof with no problem. It’s a little tricky to tear it off, but I’m counting my blessings at this point. I apparantly poop like a little girl, go figure. Pee doesn’t just spray out of there like I thought, if I’m straddled that is. And as I carefully wipe myself front to back, I may have to use about three times too much toilet paper, but after the second try, it comes up clean.

I guess the special fur oils that repel dirt so well are good for repelling other things too.

And then I pull the release lever, the large handle of which my hoof easily hooks into, and all my disgusting transgressions go swirling right down the drain. When I release the handle and put my hoof down I realize it’s shaking. I can’t believe I just pooped as Sweetie Belle. I can’t believe it was so easy. I can’t believe there was so little of it. I can’t believe that there was so little of it, if I ever get back to 4chan I’m going to have to go on an angry rant about why Sweetie Belle producing so much fecal material isn’t physically feasible. Whether I have to type with hooves, or not.

To summarize my life so far, pooping scared the shit out of me, and now that it’s over I feel a lot less scared of it. What was I even worried about, anyway? “Okay, Rarity!” I call out toward the door. “I’m all done!” Rarity’s relieved sigh makes me wonder what she was even worried about too.

Rarity draws a steaming hot bath for... us. She has me sit in the tub and soap myself up first.  I’m able to do so all by myself now, without needing any help to get my... special place. Not that I haven’t already found much more direct ways to manipulate that place. The suds feel peculiar, making me feel all more... slippery down there. But also making my legs slip together and other parts of me slippery parts which are quite mentionable. Just more nerves in my vulva, I guess, to make it more noticeable.

The sponge doesn’t feel particularly...good against it, so of course I’m not scrubbing myself there. Not hard at least. I don’t have to be nearly as careful as I used to though.  I don’t have to wiggle carefully around the scrotum. The vulva kind of feel a little... analagous to that, but without any hard painfully sensitive testicles in them. Also there’s no thin, soft, um... whatever you call the skin that would have been covering my penis is quite protected now. If I remember right, the tissue analog is the clitoral hood, and that certainly isn’t coming out over a little sponging.

My asshole feels completely normal. Nothing strange about it at all. Absolutely unremarkable. Moving on then. (Why is there white pigment there?)

Rarity doesn’t remark on any sort of special attention I may take to my um, unexplored places. I make a show of rubbing my legs and belly off carefully too, after being sure that a certain out hole—that absolutely has to be clean before getting in a bath with some pony—is clean. She scrubs my back with the sponge in her magic, since that is one place I certainly can’t reach. Magic sponge, that’s so cool. That, and the satisfying feel of it scrubbing into my shoulder blades (I have shoulder blades?) makes me giggle.

Rarity surprises me again, by stepping into the tub with me, this time before any water is drawn. It’s not exactly a reverse Venus when you’re not descending into water, but instead your hooves clatter upon the empty tub, finding purchase on the intuitively designed gripping surface on the its bottom. Nevertheless, her purpose is clear when she begins soaping herself up in front of me. I kind of sit there still all sudsy, watching the unicorn in fascination, not just watching her magic but also the way the sponge contours to her body. Rarity has such a beautifully filled out shape and—I shouldn’t say it but—an ass that won’t quit. Diamonds are her best friend, if you know what I mean. It’s all full, and wide, and pretty not like mine.

Rarity must have done her own soaping by herself yesterday, before our first bath, but this time she does it right in front of me. And, obviously misinterpreting my interest and fascination, she swings her rear around, tail swiping on the bottom of the tub to face away from me sitting down, and asks, “Would you be a dear and get the hard to reach places?”

It takes my brain some seconds to reboot, after having a system crash at the thought of my hooves getting anywhere near Rarity’s “hard to reach places.” Thus, she once again misinterprets my stupefication as amnesiac uncertainty, saying politely,

“That means my back, Sweetie.”
> Nightmares and Dreams Achieved
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It turns out a unicorn filly of about my age is just the right height that, when she rears on her hind legs, she can brace with her front legs against a sponge, against the small of her big sister’s back, and scrub quite effectively. I scrub Rarity’s back with such a sense of satisfaction, because her skin just has the right amount of give to it, and she gives such pleased noises when I reach the spot. You know, that one spot on your back, that even all the arcane power of a magical unicorn isn’t good enough to find? Her back is really big from my perspective. I feel more like scrubbing a canvas. It would have been way different, if I was a full sized human and she was almost small enough for me to curl my hand against. Just gently wrap my arm around her side and cradle her into my strong embrace, my fingers gently slipping to her—

OK, I’m done scrubbing.

One chilly, then warm rinsing later, the plunging rush of hot water in the tub begins to rise around us, until it’s all the way up to my neck sitting down. Rarity finds this sufficient, and I find it absolutely blissful. The hot water soothes my muscles and steams around my face, my soft little girly curls floating in the water. Rarity lays all the way down, so she may be up to her neck too, and I sort of... I snuggle up against her side. It’s probably just instincts. She’s like a mother figure to Sweetie Belle. But I just really want to be close to her, I dunno. You know how it is. Shut up I’m being sentimental.

Later when we’re all blown dry, she has me draped on her warm back again, carrying my weary body to the little bedroom she herself set aside for me. “Thank you, Rarity,” I tell her quietly.

“Hm?” she glances behind at me, “For what?”

I can’t answer, so I don’t answer. I just lean my head against her withers, and hold her close. She doesn’t press me to explain further, so I think that answer is sufficient enough. I wish I could tell her. But what I’m doing is so wrong, yet perfectly fine if you really are a little unicorn filly.

Once again, Rarity helps me into bed. It’s amazing, but I wish I didn’t feel so terribly guilty about all this. Rarity would be so horrified if she knew the truth. While I can’t think of a logical reason why you couldn’t tuck a grown man into bed, the very idea fills me with revulsion, and I can only imagine what she would think of it. The fact that I’m deceiving Rarity is just icing on that cake of evil. If she knew, she’d back up in horror, and yell at me, and call me disgusting, and then tell me to get out. My room, her house, Ponyville, Equestria, that’s what she would want. I hate taking advantage of how she thinks that I’m just a helpless little unicorn filly, even though I feel like a helpless little unicorn filly, and look like one, and sound like one. I should tell her.

But I think this is my favorite part of the entire day, being tucked in. I just love the feeling as the blankets and pillow conform around my body, guided by her steady hoof. The warmth I feel in my heart that someone cares enough to do this, to make sure I get safely to sleep, it’s just beyond compare. I don’t simply enjoy being tucked in; I feel like I need it, and, given my past nights here, I can’t help but wonder if I do.

That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t tell Rarity the truth, though. What I need doesn’t matter. I don’t have any right to be treated like this. What I’m doing is unforgivable, and I should be treated like any older male, with intolerance and disdain. But... this bed feels so good, and my limbs are so sluggish, and my eyes are sliding shut, and... Rarity is there in the doorway, giving me a comforting smile before she leaves. And I just can’t give that up... she doesn’t know, and as long as she doesn’t know, I’m safe.

Relaxed in my bed, my forehoof eases south, for the one reason that I really, really don’t deserve to be a unicorn filly: I’m just another typical chauvanistic male masturbator. I hesitate this time, though. While I am terribly pent up, I can’t help but wonder. The fear of being impure isn’t what stops me. The threat of how dirty or ugly I will become for pleasuring myself is not enough to stay my hoof, if it ever was, but I can’t help but remember last night, and the night before, in this very same bed. And every time I tried to masturbate...

Pulling my hoof away from my crotch, I scrunch the blankets to my shoulders, and shiver uneasily, rolling onto my side, in what would be a very human motion, were it not for the tail shifting around underneath the sheets. My groin feels soft in anticipation between my legs, like the gentle cooing of a dove, but maybe this time I’ll just... let myself fall asleep... and there won’t be any... maybe there won’t be any... this time... nightmares...

...

“You are special, Sweetie Belle!”

“Why?”

“You are destined for great things!”

“You have so much potential!”

“You could be anything you want!”

A whimper.

“Don’t worry, we’ll support you.”

“We have your back, all the way.”

“You feel uncertain now, but you are just too young to understand.”

“You’ll be ready, don’t worry.”

A moan.

“Time to grow up, now!”

“You are grown up. You won’t fail.”

“That was just a temporary thing.”

“You would be succeeding if you were trying.”

A cry in the darkness, faces pressing all around.

“Perhaps it’s time you got yourself a job.”

“You have to do your part of the bargain.”

“You can’t just expect a free ride.”

“You have to suffer before you can succeed. It’s a rite of passage.”

A scream of fear, the suffocation of drowning in hatred and contempt.

“You failed after suffering because you didn’t want it enough.”

“You have to perform your duties. Stop complaining.”

“I can’t hold your hand anymore. I have all these kids to care for instead.”

A desperate gasping, nowhere to go hands dragging you under again wrapping around you and taking you down with them.

“When you find the right girl, I’ll be fine with being a grandmother.”

“I don’t have time for you anymore. You refuse to succeed, even though you’re ready.”

“Why don’t you grow up, and act your age?”

“You aren’t doing what you’re supposed to do.”

“Sorry, this place is only for children. You’re not welcome here.”

A hot scream of pain.

“You have only yourself to blame.”

“Being alone is part of growing up.”

“This was meant to happen.”

“You can’t expect me to give you special treatment.”

“Life’s not fair.”

Panicked wailing.

“Children are our future.”

“Not you, anymore.”

“You just stay there out of sight, so you don’t scare the children.”

“Do your duty, or fail and die. Why do you choose to fail? It’s not cruel it’s just reality.”

An angry scream.

“You don’t deserve to cry. Other people have it worse than you.”

“It’s time you took responsibility. You have no excuse anymore. You are not a child.”

“How may I help you? That will be thirteen-ninety-nine plus tax.”

“I will only love you if you have a job.”

“I will only talk to you if you have a job.”

A long scream.

“You’re dangerous if you just sit there. You’re just a leech on society.”

“I can’t be your friend anymore. The baby takes precedence.”

“Nothing is wrong. You are alone because you choose to be.”

“Why don’t you just go out and get a job?”

One long continuous scream.

“Stop being so greedy.”

“Sorry, I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave.”

“It’s good for you to suffer, for the sake of these children here.”

“After all, they are destined for great things.”

“They have so much potential.”

“ENOUGH!” the night demands, the burning, salty water sluicing away, the weeping knife wounds all over my body sealing up like eyes that were closing, to reveal smooth unbroken... horse hide?

Where am I? The room I’m in is a place of total darkness. All I can feel are my hooves on the ground. My ears turn to and fro, but I can’t hear anything other than confused whispers. Wasn’t I just in bed? Where’s Rarity?!

A dim pulsing attracts my eyes, a guttering blue light like a candle left fallen over on its side. I walk over there, my gait curiously effortless. It just seems so obvious to put one hoof in front of the other. I find the light, looking at the fallen, weary figure as I do so. Her light is dim but it is still present. Beneath her plain, cornflower blue tail, a moon is inscribed, on hindquarters marked with patches dark as night. Wings adorn her side, and a small horn emerges from her forehead. It’s... it’s... i-it’s...

My tail sinks to the floor as, rising up to tower above me, is the impassive visage of the Princess of the Night. There’s no mistaking what I’m seeing in front of me. It fills me with confusion and fear. “We are sorry, young filly,” she says in a young voice that hides a timeless age, deep in the darkness cloying around us, “The moon continues to ...wane, yet we have much to discuss. What brings on thee these nightmares of such hopeless despair?”

“Y-you can’t be here!” I shout at her, scooting back from the princess of dreams. “Oh no, I’m going to tell you!” I’m trying to stay calm and not hyperventilate but I’m dreaming and “she’s in my head and she’s going to see me!”

“Child, stop–” Luna says trying to touch my cheek but I ignore her, stuttering in a panic,

“I-I have to wake up. I can’t think about it. I don’t want to die! I have to I– I have to..” Squeezing my eyes shut, I try the oldest trick in the book, well my book at least. Opening my eyes while closing them is the most reliable way I’ve found to wake up from a dream. You just keep trying, and eventually you open the right set of eyes.

“Stop!” Luna’s commanding yet desperate shout comes grabbing at me and lifting me up, but I just concentrate on my bed, and my sheets, and moving my body and opening my eyes. “Don’t do thi–” she manages to shout, and then my eyes, my real eyes, snap open.

For one horrific, terrified second, I wonder if I opened my eyes, and awoke from the dream of being Sweetie Belle entirely, to be human again. But the muted shades of Sweetie Belle’s room are above me, and I can feel her sweaty hooves clutching the blankets as my own, and I can hear the soft, high pitched gasps of her breath... and there’s the distinct presence of a tail filtering up behind my butt. And then the true horror hits me. I saw Princess Luna. In my dream. It had to be her. She knows. She has to know! She-she’s gonna—

And then the other thing hits me.

“I think I know what season I’m in,” the voice of Sweetie Belle whimpers quietly in the darkness, sounding like a filly who’s finally realized just how fucked she is.

Meanwhile, the Princess of the Night crept like a filly into her older sister’s bedchambers. It was noisome and uncouth of her to awaken her sister before the morn, having put her through so much already, but Celestia was so graceful of such things now, to a fault even. Thus, she forbade Luna from forbidding herself to enter her sister’s place of repose. So that’s what Luna did, at her sister’s own behest.

“Sister,” Luna whispered, hating every moment of her sister’s awakening, the gentle prodding drawing Celestia from a long earned rest. But this was something Luna could not leave unspoken one moment longer, or she would lose the nerve to disappoint her sister, again, again. “Sister,” she said more urgently, her sister Celestia’s eyes sliding open, and the white curve of her sister’s neck rising from the pillow bed. Before her sister could ask what was wrong, in such a warm caring voice, Luna just said it.

“We cannot do this.”

And even as she said it, her voice dripped with accursed weakness and failure. “Luna, what’s wrong?” Celestia asked her quietly enough that it didn’t rouse the attentions of their loyal guards.

“We are not... ready,” Luna bit out unhappily. “Our power continues to wane. We cannot protect the dreams of the foals. We cannot p-perform our duties. We cannot it is just too—the nightmares toy with us, they continue to strike us deeply, we cannot...”

“Luna,” Celestia said, lifting her chin up with a hoof. “Sister,” Celestia said more gently. “Remember you are one pony, now.”

Luna blinked away tears, turning aside, stammering, “W-we re–I remember. We–I am, it is– it just is so very–” Celestia pulled Luna into a tender embrace, like that of a mare easing a filly’s nightmares. Luna knew it was untoward to think that way, but for now she just allowed herself to sink into that warm comforting breast. It took Luna a... moment to compose herself, after which her sister murmured to her,

“It was her, again?”

Luna didn’t answer, but that was answer enough for her sister. “Sweetie Belle,” Celestia said in a troubled, thoughtful, and unusually cold tone of voice.

“She suffers so,” was all Luna could say, her heart going out for the filly, that she no longer had the power to free from the clutches of nightmares.

“What was it this time?” Celestia asked, and Luna dearly wanted to talk about it, but she ignored her ache and said,

“I shouldn’t.”

“It was your dream too, sister,” Celestia said, pulling Luna to hooflength. The two sat there in the pre-dawn morning, the smaller one unwilling to part from convention, the larger unwilling to allow her not to. “Would you talk to me about your own dream?” Celestia pressed.

Another pause and Celestia pursed her lips, whispering almost inaudibly, “I’ll never tell.”

Luna couldn’t help a laugh bubbling up in her gut. Such gall, yet such compassion. She would tell her sister, and find relief in that. But that meant she had to tell it, and to remember what she’d seen. Warring between fear and comfort, comfort won out for this night, if nothing else for the sheer iniquity of that dream.

“She was afraid of the changes her adulthood would one day bring,” Luna began, “It was a normal dream for a normal filly, but then...”

“There always seems to be a but then,” Celestia mentioned, just a tad piqued. Luna ignored that and continued though. She started, so she had to see it through.

“When she dreamed of adulthood, everypony who had helped her get so far suddenly left her side, and smiled as they expected her to perform her ...duties alone,” Luna’s tone grew more weary and lifeless as she continued without pause, to get it out as quickly as possible. “It was like as all the ponies in Equestria had an unnatural love for ...foalhood, in this case, that transcended reason and destroyed friendship. She was afraid that a number in her age would mean the difference between succor and exile. And... she never did anything wrong. She did her duties as prescribed, and she–she just wasn’t good enough. She was not what they wanted. They came to hate her for that, to see her as a failure, no, as a monster. She was something dangerous to them, somepony who would h-harm their foals. She was so alone, and it hurt her so much...”

Luna ignored the tears in her eyes and looked at Princess Celestia, entreating to her urgently, “Nopony should ever have to feel that way.”

And to her surprise, there were tears in Celestia’s eyes too.

Luna looked aside, hastily rubbing her pastern across her eyes. “Something troubles that filly,” she muttered darkly, “Her fears are unnatural; she has built for herself an unrealistic fantasy world, perhaps in response to abuse, or a past trauma, that she remains trapped in during her dreaming hours... the nightmares feast upon her visions, and only grow stronger.

“And we can do nothing!” Luna exclaimed, hitting the pillows beneath her in frustration, “Because of our weakness, because of the elements of–” Her sister interrupted Luna’s increasingly bitter tone of voice, a supporting hoof on her withers, saying urgently,

“You will be able to help that filly. And you will one day regain your strength. Harmony does not destroy, it only seals. The moon waxes as swiftly as it wanes.”

“What until then?” Luna asked in a challenging tone. Celestia turned her head aside, saying nothing. “And you know how the dream ended?” Luna shot out bitterly, “We tried to soothe her, to no avail. She was terrified of us! Her terrifying dreams she accepted with a horrible resignation, but nothing filled her eyes with fear more than the princess of the night standing before her. She was terrified!”

Luna paused in the intensity of her speech, and settled to her haunches, saying quietly, “She was terrified of me.” 

Her sister looked long her way, and then Celestia said deliberately, “I will do what I can, sister,” making Luna’s breath catch in her throat.

“Thanks be to thee, sister!” Luna said, leaping forward despite herself, to embrace Celestia with an eager energy. She stiffened, and pulled back to herself, saying “We–I know this is much to ask of thee, but”

“Think nothing of it, dear sister,” Celestia said with a smile. It was only a half smile though, for she cautioned, “But this may not be as simple as riding up in shining armor to save a little filly. I fear there may be something more going on, one that hungry nightmares cannot totally explain. We will both help this filly, sister, but a more subtle approach may be needed.”

Luna blushed, admitting, “We were rather direct about attempting to disperse her nightmares. It went not well. But what dost thou suggest?”

Celestia just smiled, with that twinkle in her eye.





Rarity comes in the dawn’s light, to awaken Sweetie Belle for breakfast and therapy, but what she trots into is nothing but a silent room, and an empty bed. Rarity pulls aside the tossed, dissheveled covers frantically, but there is no unicorn filly to be found in them. The bed is completely empty, the window swinging open, and Sweetie Belle nowhere to be seen. “Sweetie Belle?!” she exclaims in increasing alarm and dismay. “Oh no. Oh no no no no. Sweetie Belle, where are you?!” she calls out the window, turning away from the bed around and around, and looking across the whole room. “She can’t walk,” Rarity mutters frantically, “So she can’t have gotten far. Why would she run away? Again!”

“I’m under here!” I shout out, having woken abruptly at Rarity’s panicked screams. I can’t see her, but I can hear that Rarity goes immediately silent, save for the clomping of her hooves on the rug. Then I see her magic enfold the sheets, and pull them up. Then she cranes her head down until I can see her face, from my current ...position, crouched down on my belly, looking out from under the bed.

Rarity’s face sags with relief. “Sweetie, you–” she lowers to sit heavily on the floor. “You nearly gave me a heart attack! What are you doing under there?”

“S-sorry,” I say to her, without leaving my safe place. “I was hiding from...”





Earlier this morning, scrambling in the darkness. Manage to fall out of my bed with a thump and a high squeak. I can’t walk I can’t run what am I gonna do? I can’t escape the... but she was depowered still! It was Woona Luna! But big! Does that mean I have to do the Nightmare Rarity? No, no, that can’t possibly have been canon. But what if Luna comes for me? What if she sends guards?? They’ll they’ll– I pull myself forward under the bed, desperate for a hiding place. They’ll find the rumpled sheets and no Sweetie Belle, and they’ll assume she ran off into the night. That’s right they don’t know I can’t walk! I could walk in my dream! Why was I Sweetie Belle in my dream? Works out good for me, but, but I’m real I have to be! I can’t be made up!

I quiver there that night under the bed, torn between an existential crisis and a “the bat ponies are coming through your window to carry you to trial” crisis. My eyes are wide open and if there was any light under here I’m sure they would be practically glowing. If I stay under here, they’ll think I ran away, and they won’t even look because it’d be stupid to hide under the bed, so they’ll go away looking for another little filly not me. I am so screwed. They wouldn’t fall for that. I can’t make any noise and I have to stay completely still or they’ll hear me. Oh no they’re bat ponies so they have super hearing! What do I do?!

Unable to think of anything, I simply remain under the bed shivering in an increasing sense of despair. Eventually I’m just feeling worn out inside, waiting in despair for the inevitable, the whisper of wings outside, the shouts and struggling, waiting for Rarity’s screams to save me, because she doesn’t know, because I didn’t tell her. I didn’t tell her!

Eventually, the time wears on and I feel my eyes sagging closed again. I snap them open. I can’t fall asleep under any circumstances. Luna will come for me then, and she’ll see everything. Oh, what am I going to do tomorrow night? I can see the moonlight slowly creeping across the rug in front of me, as the moon dips lower in the sky, readying for dawn. That won’t stop the royal guards though, even if Luna is too busy with the moon to bother with some pitiful filly eating brain monster who’s not even worth her time.

...my eyes start sagging closed again. I struggle them open. Why can’t the guards just get here already and get it over with? I can’t fall asleep. I just have to think about how uncomfortable the floor is down here on my bones and joints, even though it is pretty comfortable to just sit here, surrounded by a confining yet cavelike bed, the sheets draped over the edge to hide me completely. I wonder if ponies are natural burrowers? That wouldn’t make them a lot like Terran ponies. I wonder if they really rock farm... and it would explain how Pinkie Pie learned to drill with her... hair...

After a blessedly dreamless sleep, my head jerks up and hits the bedspring mattress at a sudden scream, “Sweetie Belle?!”





“...monsters,” I conclude. I suppose technically I’m the monster, but bat ponies seem like monsters, so they totally count. Why was I assuming they were going to come get me again? Wait no, why didn’t they? Luna saw my dream, so she knows I’m not a real filly... right?

“You were hiding from monsters,” Rarity says in a flat voice, “Under the bed.”

“Yep, monsters,” I chirp out from under there. “Really scary ones.”

“But...” Rarity says, this time in edging confusion, “Aren’t the monsters under the bed?”

Yes. “No,” I answer. There’s honestly not much else I can say about that. Who even believes in monsters under the bed anymore? What does she think I am, a little filly oh right.

Rarity seems nonplussed, but recovers quickly, saying instead, “Would you... like to think about coming out from under there?”

I look down at my hooves. It’s kind of dusty under here. I’m so glad Sweetie Belle doesn’t have horrible allergies. “...yes, please,” I say, hopefully loud enough that my voice filters out from underneath the bed, and not as quiet as a scared rabbit.

“Yes, please?” Rarity emphasizes, shifting on her hooves in continued confusion.

There’s a quiet from under the bed, and then, finally—after all I’ve done—I finally have to summon the courage in myself, to truly own up to the consequences of my actions.

“...I think I’m stuck.”

One bed lifting and hair detanglement later, I receive a lecture about how the bed is no place to be hiding under, and how I mustn’t forget how worried my sister is, that something more dire may happen to Sweetie Belle. I take it pretty passively, nodding and mumbling agreement when I can, because I do agree that stressing Rarity out more is not something I want to have happen. But also because my head is racing with more thoughts than I can even think.

If Luna is like that, then I must be all the way back in season 1. Why am I all the way back there? Luna’s second episode happened in season 1, didn’t it? I can’t remember and I can’t pull up any sort of wiki on it, or read books for that matter! Did it happen in season 2? I know it happened before the crystal empire because Luna was in that one too. And before A Canterlot Wedding. But that was the season 2 closer. Am I in season 2? Is my show knowledge prophetic? If reality itself resembles season 2, why wouldn’t it continue to be that way through seasons 3 and 4?

My thoughts continue along those lines all throughout the morning. I hardly notice my hair being briskly brushed. My meal of a hearty cereal and milk, which I can drink on my own—with two hooves at least—is spent in near unresponsive silence. Rarity looks at me uneasily, and says, “Looking forward to the session this morning?”

“Huh?” I blurt, my staring contest with the cereal bowl interrupted. “Oh, um, yeah...” I trail off, wondering about season 1 and season 2 and wishing I had a better memory about the order of such things, and wishing I knew if what I knew was just a fake story, or the real future, since the past wasn’t a fake story, so—

“Did you sleep well, last night?” she asks, in a leading tone, her spoon paused in her magic as she looks at me with concern.

“Oh, um, no I had a nightmare,” I mumble, thinking about—

“You had a nightmare?” Rarity exclaims. “How are you doing? I can offer you a hug if you prefer to accept it, though I wouldn’t wish to embarass you like the last time.” She thinks she embarassed me? I did kind of tell her not to hug me... but that was for her, not me.

“I hugged you all the way down the stairs,” I point out, since my riding position does closely resemble a full body hug.

“Yes, but perhaps you need somepony to hug you,” Rarity counters smoothly. I don’t really have a verbal answer to that. She walks around the table to me, pushing her head into my side insistently. “You can’t let those feelings fester,” she says to me, “True distress is not something you should ever consider fighting on your own.”

I look at her large elegant head, right up next to me in a sense of ... not so much awe, but respect. She might be right, or she might be really right. In any case, I try to smile and hug her head, getting my hooves then slipped down to the level of her neck so she can pick me out of the chair. Cradling me close to her, Rarity sits there and hums a wandering melody. I think she’s... I think she is rocking like this to calm me down, and it works... really well. I suppose I can worry about that stuff later. I wish I could hug Rarity forever...

“Mind telling me about the nightmare?” Rarity remarks almost casually, after my heart’s back to its normal pace, and my breathing has evened and slowed. Feelings of consternation at her question make my lip firm, or... my muzzle tighten up or something. I could tell her about it, if that would help. Tell her about how it hurt so much worse in the dream, when I had to grow up, and I found that people had deceived me about the true, cruel nature of reality. They were all just trying to get by, and I had just gotten too old for them to waste any more time on. Higher priority to the children who still might not fail, and all. But the way they said it, it was like... well it was literally knife wounds in the dream, but it hurt my heart more than the dramatic alteration of my physical appearance. More a symbolic gesture than literal... I think.

Makes my flesh crawl thinking of those wounds opening up in me. I really don’t know what was up with that. Maybe I’m even more twisted than I originally imagined. And so cruel to inflict that on Sweetie Belle’s body, too. But do I tell Rarity that? I can’t tell her about Luna, because the dream princess seems to have passed me by for some reason. Somehow I gave Luna the slip, and it just feels so wrong wasting that chance by telling Rarity and giving up to Luna already. I gotta tell Rarity something, though.

The memories of the show drift in my head, trying to figure out when I am and what to do about it, but what I finally fixate on isn’t from the show at all. It was something that Rarity actually said to me the other day. She said she saved the world. Once. Once...

Once!

“It was a dream about a really scary monster,” I lie through my teeth. “He looked like all sorts of animals stuck together. He had a lion paw and an eagle claw, and two horns that were both from different animals, and only one fang on his face.” I look at Rarity for some sign of recognition, and she looks back at me seriously a moment, before her face breaks and a chuckle escapes her.

“Sorry dear, but that is just such an amusing picture,” she says. “Did he perchance have a scorpion’s tail?”

I blink at her, and shake my head. “Just a white... tuft thing. Maybe it’s a monster I read about in a story before. Have you heard of anything like him?”

“Well, there are a number of chimeras in the world,” Rarity says, setting me to the floor as she speaks. There I collect myself onto my hooves, almost naturally, intently leaning on her upcoming and possibly very important words. “I myself have seen a manticore face to face, and let me tell you, that was quite enough of chimeras for me! I seem to recall Applejack has trouble with one, on one of her delivery routes through the Haysead swamps. They tend to be more common in southerly areas and of course across the sea in Oisea. Why do you ask?”

I blink at her again. “But, not a lion paw and an eagle claw?” I try to clarify, “I mean, you never saw anything like that?”

“If you are referring to gryphons then yes,” Rarity says with a toss of her mane, “I have occasionally made aquaintance with ones of such sort. Sadly none have ever walked through my doors demanding to be made fabulous!”

“No not...” Ohh, yeah! Gryphons do have lion paws and eagle claws! I never thought about it that way before. “I meant only one of each,” I tell her, “And two different wings, one bat and one um... bird. And two different feet too, I mean he walked on two feet. The monster. In my dream.” Don’t look away don’t look away don’t look away—dammit.

Rarity shakes her head, saying, “That is quite the imagination you have, Sweetie Belle. But worry not, you will never encounter such a... mismatched creature in the wild. It would never survive. Certainly not long enough to threaten even an adorable little filly like you~”

She pinches my cheek at that, jiggles my head back and forth, and a second later I have to wonder how she just pinched my cheek. This hoof thing is a lot more complicated than I imagined. But I smile with relief and say, “Thanks, sis. I won’t have to worry about him bringing me nightmares anymore.”

“He was the one bringing you nightmares?” Rarity asked, in a way that sounded like she was trying to sound unconcerned, which was concerning.

“No, but, uhm, I bet he would,” I assert hastily.

Losing her gaze again, I admit to Rarity in a soft, unhappy filly’s voice, full of uncertainty. “I really don’t know why I’m having so many nightmares now at all,” I say. Wow, I forgot how good it felt to speak honestly.

“Perhaps you’d like to... hm...” I look up at her, but Rarity is already frowning and looking away. “Best finish your cereal, Sweetie,” she says. “I just need some time to ...think on the matter.”

Ohh right, I was eating. I clamber back into the seat and eat, with time to spare to glance at Rarity strutting about the kitchen continuing to hum, getting her things ready for whatever she’s going to be doing today. Besides dragging me around, that is. Which she does, with grace and gusto.

When we head out in the early morning, I suppose I would be more confident about what, or who I saw if I actually had the guts to interact with any ponies. But Rarity happily steers me clear of what look like a teary-eyed parting, on the part of three mares who must be the flower trio. Well, Daisy and um... the pink one are teary eyed at least, while Roseluck seems to be trying to physically shake them off her legs, while dragging a suitcase along with her. She admonishes them in tones muted by our increasing distance, that not even my radar dish ears can pick up, beyond something about give it a break already. I wonder if they’re as craven as the show makes them out to be, or maybe they all secretly badass mercenaries. Watch out, here comes the F-team!

Other than that, it’s just ponies walking who may or may not be Sparkler and Carrot Top, for instance. I don’t see Applejack on our way. Or any of Rarity’s friends for that matter, hm...

Oh right, Rainbow Dash and Twilight are off down on that archaeological dig. Huh, and I have yet to see ... wait, where the freak is Pinkie Pie?

Any thoughts of having woken up into an inverted Cupcakes scenario are thrust out of my cute little filly brain the moment we get to the hospital, and I start thinking about how I get to have another few hours or so to spend with the hot-as-balls doctor Ace. With a similar check-in procedure, that seems ridiculously unofficial for a hospital procedure, I’m soon once again at his mercy. Or, sitting in his office, placing my forelegs to conveniently obscure certain groinal areas, while he and Rarity continue to banter in that off-sexual way. Then she leaves me with an elegant hair scruffle, and heads off to open her Boutique, thus putting me once again at his mercy.

“Hey, Lil’ Sweetie,” Ace says, somewhere in front of me in a friendly tone, as I stare intently at my hooves below me. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” I say. Shoot that was like the most clichéd obviously not fine thing to say. “I mean... great!” I say, looking up to him with a Scootagrimace™. Oh great, good job me. Why don’t I just use the second most clichéd, obviously not fine thing to say?

“Let’s just get started,” I sigh in a defeated tone, looking at the soft expression of empathy on his firm chiseled woooah that didn’t feel promising. Stop shifting around down there, body! I am not attracted to him! I’m just a little filly, who doesn’t have those feelings!

The doc gets me working on the climbing exercises, just to make sure I still have them down, then lets me collect myself and says “We’re about ready to get you started walking! How’s that sound, eh?”

I nod at him shylypolitely.

Ace strides to the window of the hospital gym that we’re still in, half turning his head my way and saying with a smile, “Hey, how about we take you outside to do this? The weather’s gonna be just gorgeous, and you look like you could use some fresh air.”

Well, not compared to my old life. As Sweetie Belle, I haven’t spent a solid week inside hiding from pollen clouds, with nothing to entertain me but what I can find all by myself on a computer. Heck I was outside for hours yesterday! But maybe ponies aren’t in a horrible dystopian society of uncaring fools locking each other away, paying daily tribute to their own jailors in the holy name of optimism. So I guess I could–

“C’mon then!” Ace says cheerfully, walking up sideways right in front of me. I don’t fall over, but my eyes widen at the temptaceous closeness of his tan hide. I could just reach out and touch him and his dick would be real, and he’d be real also. I look at him—his face I mean—with what are no doubt dilated eyes, and he’s got a... sort of hurt expression on his face. What?

“I guess we can get you a chair,” he sighs, turning away from being sideways to me. He... he wanted me to...! “I– I don’t have any problem if you want to um, carry me, I mean,” I say excitedly. “I mean, never mind. I just... chair get.” And now I’m mumbling again. Just the thought of having that much contact with his well groomed posterior. I bet he smells even better up close. I can totally recognize his musky scent by memory, after just our second meeting. I wonder if it’s natural. I can’t be thinking this though, I have to resist but it’d be so cool and I could even maybe touch a little...

“Yeah... that’s okay Sweetie Belle,” he says in a rather frank tone, “I know you want to be more comfortable with touching me, but for now let’s just go with the chair.” When he’s gone getting it, I feel like I somehow screwed up so bad. Just the way he said that, and left me, I want to cry from the disappointment. But I know it’s just my f-female parts making me feel like this. I don’t really want to stretch that softness around his penis and feel it pounding inside me. That’s just my biology working against me. He’s right to get the chair, because there are things I can imagine, that might even be possible now, and they’re enough to make me quivery all over, and maybe even a little damp between my young horse legs.

In the wheelchair and not on his back, he wheels me outside to where the hospital has a partially enclosed park behind it. To what looks like mowed lawns, but after I skillfully dismount the wheelchair and end up face first in the grass, I can see the blades tickling my nose are pointed at the top, not cut flat by any sort of blade. I collect my legs under me and stand up, facing the doctor with a distant expression. I feel the sunlight hitting my back and hindquarters with a warm, nurturing tingling. It actually feels relaxing to stand in this sunlight, as if Celestia herself is cradling me, like Rarity did this morning.

“I think this was a really good idea,” I say, with maybe a little smile towards him. Not directly at him, but sideways, so I don’t have to face him head on. I think he was a really good idea. Heh.

“Well, thank you Sweetie,” he says. Oh gosh I just complimented him! What is wrong with me? Nothing’s wrong, for a horny little girl. “Now let’s see what you can do.” I think he’s... wait, what?

“Try taking a step,” Ace says to me, kicking back on the grass and waving his forehoof encouragingly. “You still remember that much at least, don’t you?”

“Yeah I, um... there.” I say, lifting my dainty, very female and receptive little hoof up, and placing it firmly on the ground before me.

Dr. Ace watches a second, then groans, tilting his head back. “I can see we’re gonna have a lot of work to do.”

It turns out by “take a step,” he meant take a pace with all four legs. He was really surprised that I couldn’t do even that. Not that he should have been, if we only had been working on walking at all yesterday. But I can’t blame him in the slightest, because guess what he told me today? He actually told me the order that I put my feet in! I mean, maybe I should have had instincts or something, but nopony besides Ace had thought about it enough, to be considerate enough, to actually tell me how to do it. He’s so amazing...

...he’s so adequate. Yes. Nice. Nice guy. Such a guy.

“You have to move 3 after 1 before you move 2 and 4,” he says, earning a look of confusion from myself standing there on the grassy lawn. After a pause, he leaps to his feet, and struts over, pausing at my tensing since I don’t really have any way to flee my body’s natural attraction toward him. Then walking slowly again, until he’s up next to me. “Your hooves are numbered,” he says, walking around me in a clockwise circle, starting with my front left hoof. “1, 2,” he says, lightly touching each of my stubby little legs.  “3, 4,” he continues for the back ones. Oh shoot, am I lifting my tail for him? I didn’t mean to—it just goes there naturally!

He comes around in front again, saying, “4 hooves, each has a number. Easy to remember. Now I want you to lift them when I say the number, okay? Two. No, that’s one. Two, yes. Four. Three. Very good, Sweetie!” I blush at that; next I’ll be earning gold stars on the stickerboard for how hard I tried. But, he works me through until I have the hoof numbers down. I’d have called them 00 01 10 and 11, but 1,2,3,4 is easier to say so I guess that’s good.

Then he tells me how to walk.

“Okay, put 1 in front of you. Now lift 3, good job you planted it all by yourself! Now you’re like a pair of scissors, see? So lift 4 and it’ll... yes, you have to–no no wait, hold on.” He rushes forward to me before I can topple, making me bump against his upper legs instead. Eeeee I’m touching him this is so... something.

“Sweetie,” he repeats, nudging me back to neutral. “You need to push pull with two hooves, 1 and 3. You remember those right? Lift 1. Good. Now lift 3. Good. Like scissors, but you only hold on with 1 and 3. 2 and 4 are just for balance now. Pretend you’re just petting the ground with 2 and 4. What you need to do is just lift 4 and... yes! You moved 4 forward, and that made 2 move forward. See how you’re like a scissor again, only not as extreme?”

... most of the lesson went something like that.

“As soon as 4, you lean forward and just punch the ground with 2. Punch it good!”

“Alright now just move 1 a teeny little bit, just a teeny bit in front of you this time.”

“See how it’s easier when you don’t stretch out so much? But even just creeping along, after that 4 you’re still falling forward onto 2, even if you barely feel it. Isn’t that cool, Sweetie? You’re walking!”

“I a҉m!” I shout over to him excitedly. I’m not walking, but I did that last single pace just right!

“Alright,” he cheers back, skipping on his hooves so adorably. “Now 1 and 3, remember. One and three!”

I move one and three, then stumble, then 3 catches on the ground, then he catches me. His broad front hoof presses warmly into my chest, where I’d have breasts if I was still human. Well, still human, and gender swapped. He stablizes me, and says, “Doing great, want to take a break?”

I look at him, and look down and, it’s about then that I realize just how hard I’m breathing, from exertion and other things. “Maybe a little,” I tell him breathlessly. He sits, carefully separate from me, while I sit facing him, feeling flushed for more reasons than one. And while we sit, he continues to just gently prod me about what I’ve just done.

“1 and 3, then what lifts up?”

“4,” I answer, “Then 2 plants.”

“Remember you hold on with...”

“1 and 3. Then 2 and 4 for the other half.”

Ace smiles, saying smoothly, “I want you to picture that in your mind, holding on with 1 and 3. Then when 2 plants, you switch to 2 and 4.” He actually taps hoof number 3, saying “Three, then 1, 2 and 4. 3 then 1, pushapulling with 2 and 4. Think of it like rocking back and forth, back and forth.”

After the break it’s... a lot easier to do what he says. Getting it solid in my mind’s eye without worrying about actually moving, brilliant idea. I notice I am after all rocking back and forth, like a ship at sea, every time I alternate these leg things. 1,3, 2,4, 1,3, 2,4.

“That was fifteen steps,” he calls out. “New record! How are you feeling?”

“I’m walking!” I say with an astonished, yet bright smile. I’ve never felt quite at home since awakening, or before that for that matter, but now my body is doing exactly what I tell it to, and it’s working! I’m a cute little unicorn foal, white as Santa’s beard, and I have muscles and bones and tendons that pull around, to make me toddle forward. 1,3 2,4 1,3 2,4! 1,thr–I fall over. Not on my face thankfully, but on my side. And I just can’t help it; this is such an amazing feeling, I just can’t help laughing right there on the ground.

Much counting and exertion later, Ace finally says our session is almost up, and that he’s got a match this afternoon. Go figure, a doctor taking time away from his patients to work on his tennis game. I am not complaining though, not one bit. It’s still ironic, but I can’t thank Ace enough. Somehow he made the utterly confusing, totally comprehensible. I can’t even explain it by his helpful explanations alone, nor by his unbreakable patience, nor by his keeping me from falling. He’s just, well, a really good doctor. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun in physical therapy. I... don’t think I’ve ever been allowed to have physical therapy at all, actually.

Well there was that one week, when I shattered my ankle. But then they were like, “Oh, I guess that will have to do,” and left me to heal the scars on my own over the next 2 years or so.

So I’m pretty confident physical therapy is not nearly this awesome, back in humanland. This is just beyond cool. When he trots up to me standing there, I lean right into him and rub my face on his– I jerk back then, and blushing, sink down onto my hooves. I was gonna just get underneath him and let him go to town on me, is that it? But I just felt so... touchy feely! I mean, maybe I could just, you know, do that again, but not get buried under his incredible bulk for the plowing of a lifetime? It’s so weird that I want to feel like that really bad, but I also want to not feel it. But I also want to feel things that are part of having sex, without going all the way?

I just don’t know what to feel!

“Hey, it’s okay Sweetie,” he tells me consolingly, from a careful distance, which makes me feel sad. “Tell you what, let’s get you to take one more trip across the lawn, then we’ll wait together for your sister to come. Then when she comes up, you can walk to her!”

I... I really don’t want to smile at that, but that would be, admittedly, kind of awesome. So I have to unbury my face and smile at him. A little.

And the one way I never expected Rarity to react to it, was fainting right there on the spot.

Me and Ace, Doctor Ace, are just having a great time on the outside lawn before Rarity comes up. And by having a great time, it means I’m exerting myself huffily, trying to coordinate my movements and discovering just how much more exerting it is when you have to be careful about every little step. It’s certainly not the most efficient way to walk. But, hey. For the first time in... four days it’s been? For the first time, I can walk all on my own, without Ace even holding me up or catching me. Not that I don’t want him to, but it’s kind of exhilirating just to be able to move again, after so much sitting still.

And then we wait there sitting on our bellies. I start to say he can leave me to wait for Rarity, but then I recall how old I am ...supposed to be, and he’s probably supervising me. I think he wants to see Rarity himself, anyway. And uh... whatever else they’re doing besides seeing... in their own private time... that I certainly would never want to just accidentally walk in on. It’s sitting my little plush unicorn belly there on the grass, that I see the snow white figure of Rarity approach, emerging from the doors of the hospital proper. Ace nudges me, and I wink at him, then jump onto my hooves. I wobble a bit trying to remember the numbers, and which hoof is which, but then I manage to plant one hoof after another, and I look up from my hooves with a big smile to see Rarity plummetting to the ground in a limp heap.

WHAT

I uh, only know one way to walk, so my stumpy waddle is quickly outpaced by his alarmed trot, but when I get there Rarity is just smiling up at him, and thanking him over and over again. She... she seems fine, just flushed and... I guess she was just so relieved that... she had been so worried about it, when the relief valve opened, all the blood just ran out of her head. Isn’t that really the only time you ever would faint, from relief? That or blunt head trauma. Hyperventilating. I guess there are some other feasible situations, but for Rarity the relief of seeing me walk seemed to do the trick.

It’s... kind of weird how relieved she is. Not like it was ever in question that I’d be awesome enough to walk again, but ever since the session this morning, she’s been acting as pleased as the cat with the canary. She chatters with Ace casually, and unrestrained, like there was some dreadful onus over her head that had been graciously lifted. It’s my hooves not hers, though! There’s even a spring in her step as she carries me from the hospital. Even though she has to carry me still! And so we sit there shaded by a cloth umbrella canopy from the summer heat, with her telling me of something about a client wanting silver stitchwork, me trying to look at her calmly and not worriedly. There’s nothing wrong, I mean. I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t feel like I’ve earned this hot fudge sundae.

No regrets.

Believe it or not, Ace actually asked me not to practice walking! Well okay, he did ask me to practice walking, but he said not to overdo it. He said thinking about what I learned would help more than doing it, at this point. I guess this is... going to take a while. End of week, he was optimistic. But that’s just for walking... it seems so unreachable at this point. I’m not even going to make it one more day, much less the rest of the week without getting... caught.
> Sensory Overload
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

My heady elation at exercising with Dr. Ace slowly fades over the afternoon. I’ve got to at least tell Rarity, somehow. She could keep a secret, couldn’t she? No, no that’s just the opposite of what she’d do. Besides the fact that Rarity is enough of a gossip queen to actually rifle through my saddlebags to get a copy of the Foal Free Press, this is Sweetie Belle’s sister. She’d totally freak! Maybe I should tell somepony besides Rarity, like any pony besides Rarity. Is she going to... it was just so scary the way Luna exploded that nightmare, like it was nothing. Is Luna going to do that to me? Just, blow me out like a flickering candle, strip me off of Sweetie Belle like an ugly smear of pond scum?

My frie–Sweetie Belle’s friends aren’t much help for my declining mood either. Rarity takes me to the playground again to find them. Both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom are super excited, the first time they see me that afternoon, but I can see the disappointment fill their faces when they learn that I can only just barely toddle around, and only if I am paying all my attention to walking. Rarity leaves me with them though, and I apologize of course. And of course they pretend that it’s no problem, but I can see it in their faces. We can actually sort of look normal, while walking. Even though I sort of look like a robot while I’m trying to walk. Many of the foal groups... cliques? are walking around the playground. But mostly me and the other two just sit there by the swings, and talk about stuff.

We don’t talk about anything in particular, but it’s really kind of neat what eight or nine year old girls are interested in. Mostly I just listen to them. They’ve got a fresh feel to their attitudes, with not a lot to go on, but a lot of enthusiasm to go. Scootaloo likes talking about her scooter (duh) but also about a sleepover that she and I had at my... my actual house. Both Apple Bloom and I get the details from her what happened, though it’s kind of vague at what point the party games stopped and the sleeping began. Apparantly Scootaloo and I kept sneaking downstairs to try out things that we hadn’t thought of during the day, and only got caught when my father—when Sweetie’s father came down to get a glass of water.

And Apple Bloom doesn’t exactly have an encyclopedic knowledge of her family’s crops, but she does love what she’s learned about all the things you can eat. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, the Apple family has a lot more crops than apple trees, and equally surprisingly or unsurprisingly they make all their bits from the apples, despite the staples being more strictly important for survival. It doesn’t bother Apple Bloom, because she says that means her family’s apples have more happiness in them, whatever that means. She also is eager to talk about her plans for the clubhouse, and for how much fun she found Equan-do after Rainbow Dash got her interested in it.

That gets Scootaloo started on Rainbow Dash, which... she can pretty much go on forever like that. Honestly her knowledge of the exact aerodynamics of Dash’s flight moves, is kind of impressive. She actually manages to explain how Dash could perform a perfect 90 degree turn after hitting supersonic speeds, in a truly marvelous proof that even a filly could understand.

But, talking does wear on, and I don’t have much... time. I look up at the sun, still high in the sky. At the first lull from Scootaloo, I say a little hurriedly, “Why don’t we go do something?” ...managing to jump to my hooves. 

“Like what, Sweetie?” Apple Bloom asks plaintively, “You caint even walk ye—” she blushes and ducks her bangs over her eyes saying, “Ah mean you cain walk just fine ah didn’t mean to imply that you caint.”

“Psst,” Scootaloo says subtly, leaning over to Apple Bloom’s ear, which perks towards her in response.

“What about the ring thing?” Scootaloo whispers loudly, glancing at me furtively. Apple Bloom’s eyes widen and a smile breaks across her face, “Awright, ah forgot about that!” she exclaims, turning to me eagerly. “Hey Sweetie Belle, ya wanna see something we thought up, it’s gonna be real cool!”

“What is it?” I ask with justifiable suspicion. It’s hard to look straight at them when I’m feeling wary. I kind of shift sideways a bit, just in case, because I really don’t like the looks on their faces.

“It’s a surprise,” Scootaloo grins goofily with a little hoof dance.

I start to shake my head, and Apple Bloom cuts in saying, “Y’don’t have to, just come on and check it out and tell us if you want to try it. Even if it ain’t your cutie mark, it might be mine, and ah think you’re gonna love it when you see it!”

“Well... maybe...” I say. Maybe I can at least keep them from killing themselves since they seem to be otherwise completely unsupervised. “Where is it?” I ask testily.

“At the um...” Scootaloo leans closer to me, whispering, “You know, the secret place?”

“The clubh–” I say excitedly, immediately subject to dual filly hoof plug. When released, I say excitedly, “Yeah, that sounds great! Let’s go!”

10 feet later, I’m picking myself up again, and they’re looking back at me unhappily. Scootaloo’s just barely dragging along on her scooter, and Apple Bloom can’t even walk slowly enough that I don’t fall behind. “We’re never gonna get there,” Scootaloo moans, knocking her forehead against the steering bar.

Apple Bloom looks between us awkwardly saying, “Yeah, I... dunno...”

“Yeah, I can walk a little, but...” I look down at my uncooperative hooves, sighing. “Sorry. I guess I just need more therapy. This morning was amazing, but... I’m not going to win any races for a while.”

Scootaloo pauses, then stands and clipclops over in front of me, asking me with a curiously nervous tone, “How did your therapy go this morning?”

I give her a little look, and say obviously, “I’m walking?”

“Well y–” Scootaloo hesitates, taking a half step back as she looks down, and then up again with a... hopeful expression. “You saw Dr. Ace though?”

“Um... yes?” I admit hesitantly. “He is the doctor after all.”

“What was it like?” Scootaloo asks, with the perkiest ears.

One of my own ears turns askew in confusion. “What was what like?” I ask, “The exercises?”

“No, it–” Scootaloo is blushing now. “I mean Dr. Ace. I was wondering how he uh, felt.”

Oh. Oh. Oh dear. Is– is it normal for her to ask this? Is it because I’m a girl? Do girls ask each other this? How much does she know? She doesn’t think I fucked him?!

“He felt um... we didn’t do anything. I wasn’t touching him?” I say, unable to resist shifting back and forth, hip deep in a growing sense of dread.

“Well it’s just I mean, you sort of know about ...boys,” Scootaloo hoofs at the ground, and her tail dips down, and her wings are um, sticking up. Does that mean what I think it... is she getting a wing boner?! “And I wondered what it would feel ...like.”

“I mean I don’t feel like that,” Scootaloo adds quickly with a hair toss, maybe mumbling afterwards, “...yet.”

I look at Apple Bloom, standing now at Scootaloo’s flank, who just shakes her head slightly giving me a look of uncertain desperation right back. I am not qualified to give advice on this! I am like the least qualified creature of any age, species, sex or universe to offer relationship advice to a little filly! I try to smile at Scootaloo soothingly, saying to her with honest confidence,

“Scootaloo, you will feel nothing like I do.”

And she just rolls her eyes at that. Great. “I know everyfilly feels different,” Scootaloo clarifies roughly, “I just—”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” I say with a quick head shake. I’m not even a filly. But how do I even tell her that?

“What then,” Scootaloo says looking at me with an exasperated glare, “Because I’m not pretty like you?!”

“N-no I mean,” a tremble is creeping into my voice, so I stop talking, and put my hoof down. When did I lift that thing?  “I have...” my ears tilt. I untilt them, deliberately.

“I don’t feel like a girl is supposed to feel around boys,” I say straight to her. “I mean, even an older girl feels different than I do. I get more nervous and um... you won’t feel like it’s weird and wrong like I do. At least I hope not.”

“It is pretty weird,” Apple Bloom puts in, “If’n you wanna be someponies with Dr. Ace. He’s what, like five times your age? I wouldn’t say it’s wrong though?”

Wow Apple Bloom that—that’s actually a pretty freaking big multiplier there. “I don’t want Dr. Ace as my sp...ecial somepony,” I tell her. “He just makes me feel funny.”

Hello blood, I was missing your entire presence in my face!

“Funny, how?” Apple Bloom asks me skeptically.

“W-w-ell I see, it–I was just, when I t-talk to him he’s really nice a-and that makes me all um... inside my... tummy feel... fuzzy,” yeah this is going well. I think I’m ready to submit my dissertation now, professors. Cool as a cucumber. “A-and he helped me and he s-smelled good and I um...” I really should stop talking. Actually, I really should cause my head to spontaneously explode. That would be a good solution. “He helped me to walk,” I finally manage to say coherently, “And I just had to rub...” oh god I don’t want to say this, “rub against him, and I shouldn’t and... funny! You know, funny!”

Apple Bloom squints at me, saying with curious surprise, “You mean like yer cheek?”

Well, I sink down, but I manage to nod despite being crouched there, saying “Y-yeah.”

“So he helps you to walk,” Apple Bloom remarks speculatively, walking around me a pace, “It makes yer tummy feel fuzzy. An’ you rub on him, because he made ya feel good.”

“...yes.” Something about her skeptical tone is making it hard to stay alarmed. I look up at Apple Bloom, and she’s looking quite confused at this point.

“Ah don’t get it,” she says with a wiggly tail hip sway, “When did you start feelin’ funny?”

“Rubbing against a stallion isn’t funny?” I whine at her with a frown. 

“For you Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo exclaims next to Apple Bloom in severe disbelief. “After he helped you to walk?”

“Golly Sweetie,” Apple Bloom says with a half smile, “Ah rub up on ponies all the time! What’s so strange about that?”

“...because he’s a stallion?” I ask and claim. Apple Bloom just doesn’t get that it’s a stallion, and you can’t do that to stallions or they’ll have sex with you. It’s obvious, right?

“Ah rub up on mah brother every evenin’ when he brings all the apples in,” Apple Bloom says smugly, “An’ he rubs up on me too, and so does Applejack. We’re all family!” 

“Yeah but, Dr. Ace is not my family,” I try to clarify. “It’s different when it’s family.” At least I hope it’s different. It would be so hot, if it’s not.

Apple Bloom hesitates, but shakes her head saying, “It really ain’t, Sweetie.”

Scootaloo nods at that. “Yeah, I’m the weird one there, not you.”

“It feels homier when it’s family, sure,” Apple Bloom says waving a hoof offhanded...hoofedly. “But it’s just natch’ral. There was a stallion the other day at the market who got a whole basket of apples for his friends’ birthday, and ah felt so good t’be helpin him out ah was rubbin’ on him without even knowin’ him!”

I stare at Apple Bloom in enough disbelief that it’s hard to even wrap my brain around the concept. She was rubbing herself all over a strange stallion just because he bought some apples?

“An’ so was Applejack!” she says to me challengingly.

Taking my blank eyed silence as disbelief, Apple Bloom adds submissively, “An’ maybe not as much, ‘cause mah sis stopped after a sec, and stopped me an’ said to stop botherin’ the poor stallion, but everypony feels like that.”

“Maybe everypony who’s a wimp,” Scootaloo says with an eyeroll.

“Who’re you callin’ a wimp?” Apple Bloom challenges her. “It’s just rubbin’ and showin’ affection. Ain’t nothin’ wimpy about hugs!”

“Yeah, well anypony touches this, and they’ll get burned because it’s hot as fire,” Scootaloo says, pointing a hoof at her hindquarters. Touching her hoof down, she adds, “Tsss!”

It’s just so absurd that I have to laugh. Oh, it turns out laughter can reboot a brain. Who knew?

Pulling myself to stand again, chest still shaking with weak giggles, like little shakes of relief, I say, “Okay... fine. Maybe I wasn’t feeling too funny about Dr. Ace. I um, I maybe forgot that was um, normal? It was what I was thinking that wasn’t normal.”

“What were you thinkin’?” Apple Bloom asks me curiously. Why do I even try to use my mouth? Resolutely, I shake my head, saying,

“No.”

“But–” Apple Bloom starts.

“I do not want to talk about it,” I tell her urgently. “It makes me feel... I’m just not comfortable ...saying.”

A hesitant silence from both of them. “It’s like Scootaloo’s touching,” I try saying, hoping I understood that right. “I’m just not comfortable with it.” Scootaloo actually looks away with a noticeable slump in her posture. What did I say? She looks terribly—

“Okay, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom says to me, and Scootaloo just perks right up at that. What? “We can talk about something else.”

“O...kay...” I say uncertainly, shifting unsteadily on my fingertips again. Hooves. Whatever.

“So, what were the exercises?” Scootaloo puts in. “You said something about them, before I got all stupid on you.”

“You’re not stupid, Scootaloo,” I admonish her, “But okay, here’s what we did...”

It’s super adorable when I tell them. After I explain to them about the 1,2,3,4 thing, Scootaloo is all, “Hey, we can do that too!”

Apple Bloom nods eagerly, from where we still stand over by the swingset, the direct sunlight beaming down on me, through those candy colored locks that keep getting in my vision. “Yeah!” Apple Bloom says to the orange filly, “You show her Scootaloo, an’ ah’ll call out the numbers!”

So now Scootaloo is trotting, then gallopping around in a circle, then trotting again, trying to go slow enough for Apple Bloom to count, and Apple Bloom’s doing her best but Scootaloo’s not going slow enough, so she ends up mixing everything up: “1, 2, 3-4, 1, 3, uh... 1, 2, stop goin’ so fast Scoots!”

I hide a giggle behind my hoof.

Before they can get too upset about it, I wave that hoof saying, “Wait, hold up!” With both their attentions I tell them as seriously as I can manage, “Dr. Ace is really good at this. You don’t have to worry. He’s going to get me to walk really good. Why don’t we do something else instead?”

Apple Bloom whuffs in frustration, saying a bit snippily, “Hard to please are ya, Sweetie? We were goin’ to the clubh—” double hoof plug. Whew. Wait, did I just stick my hoof in Apple Bloom’s mouth?! While I pull back, wobbling on three legs looking at my hoof like it was an alien limb that shouldn’t be mine, Apple Bloom shakes her head and continues, “But we wanna get there sometime today, so I dunno.” Her mouth was all slimy like a—like a mouth! I didn’t even think about it; I was just trying to keep her from spilling the secret to... someone. I don’t have any instincts for walking, but for hoof mouth plugging I do?

At last, I settle for utter confusion, and for wiping off my hoof off on my chest. It’s ...surprisingly not all that slimy, considering where it just was.

“If only I had my wagon, I could take you two,” Scootaloo grumbles. “I’ll go totally slow if it means being able to go faster than this.”

That gives me an idea. A terrible, awful idea that I should never bring up. But it, I mean it wasn’t bad, I’m just... just not...

A blush creeps across my face. I stutter out to Scootaloo, “You could um, ride me... I mean, mount– push against– sit on, I mean...” I fear my shy inability to meet their gazes might be less than convincing. I shut up to think, while they stare at me, then say a little more composedly. “You could give me a ride on your scooter again. Apple Bloom can run along with, if you’re slow enough.” 

I’m just not used to naked little girls rubbing their bellies up against me.

“Of course!” Scootaloo cheers in agreeable, but complete ignorance to my clearly fake enthusiasm. “Apple Bloom doesn’t need a ride, that’s just silly!”

“An’ I thought we were gonna have to give up,” Apple Bloom sighs in relief while Scootaloo climbs off her scooter and rolls it up to me. “Now we can be real crusaders again at the clu–the meetin’ spot.”

I would suggest something else, but it’s sort of hard to think of alternatives when it’d be so easy to have Scootaloo hugging up against me so close again. I wish I could say I wasn’t sorely tempted, but I’m sorely tempted, and when you’re sorely tempted you find it hard to think about alternatives. So I clamber onto the scooter one hoof at a time, having to leave the lower left one (number uh, 4) planted so her scooter doesn’t roll when Scootaloo jumps up onto me.

Her warm orange body settles against my soft white body, skin sliding against skin. No, it’s not even skin on skin, but the smooth glide of fur on fur. She feels fleshy, yet downy soft. I try to keep my tail low this time, so not to get our groins tangled together, but Scootaloo straddles it between her hind hooves instead. I become keenly aware of a part of her settling against the base of my tail, a part that’s a lot softer than her leg muscles. A part of her that I’m not supposed to be thinking about at all. Her hooves wrap snugly around my midsection, and she breaks me out of my entranced obsession with these sensations flowing through my tail base, saying,

“Okay, Sweetie! You gotta steer okay? I’ll be totally careful, don’t worry. I can feel her whole body shift against mine as she turns to Apple Bloom saying, “OK we’re ready. How about you lead the way, so I don’t have to yell where she should go.” Apple Bloom nods and starts strutting ahead of us bouncily. Scootaloo’s wings sound off then, and once again the pressure of her body against me causes us to accelerate.

I have to admit of all the twisted ideas I’ve played part in, this one really takes the cake. And Apple Bloom is the cherry on top. Quite literally! Apple Bloom leads us right into the apple orchard, the scooter seemingly having no problems with rough dirt roads. But every time it bumps up and down, I feel Scootaloo’s... what must be Scootaloo’s vulval mound mashes up against my tail. It’s a maddening sensation because it feels so innocuous, but when I know what it is that makes it so much more... appealing. It’s just the place between myher legs, I tell myself. She doesn’t even use it, I tell myself. It’s just the softest place on her entire body...

If that wasn’t enough, Apple Bloom is leading us. As in, leading us down hills, and up hills. And I have to watch her, in order to steer to follow her. That means whenever we go up a hill, and her cherry red tail curls up high above, I get a nice unobscured view of her custard yellow ass. And it’d be nice if little fillies who you weren’t supposed to stare at were just blank down there, but it’s also kind of fascinating to see that they aren’t. She’s got a cute little fleshy pocket between her legs, the same yellow of her fur, with the rare flash of her pink insides. Apple Bloom’s slit is not as long as the other mares I’ve seen, and there’s not as much ...belly beneath it. The groin of adult mares I saw, it kept going down further vertically, before it curved to horizontal. I don’t want to talk topologically, but it’s just hard to admit that the full grown mares I’ve seen have crotchboobs, and Apple Bloom... doesn’t.

God it’s just so wrong. I don’t even mean crotchboobs those would at least be understandably attractive to a formerly red blooded human male. I just mean a little extra plush down there, that doesn’t look like boobs at all, until you notice that the immature filly’s hasn’t descended and filled out. Just that little bit of soft flesh a mare has, that makes me lick my lips and think of my mom. But while Apple Bloom might not have prominent or, at least noticeable teats, she definitely has a vagina, and a pert little asshole, nestled all cosily between her flexing, swinging butt cheeks.

I’m trying not to squeeze my legs together or squirm or think of myself at all, but just the thought of what I’m seeing and feeling. How do these fillies not notice this? How could a society function, where the children dance their exposed sex parts in front of each other, or hug on each other with their naked bodies pressed together in unacceptable ways? Matter of fact, isn’t Scootaloo riding pretty heavily on my tail?

“H-how you feeling, Scootaloo?” I ask trying to gauge her attention.

“Fine,” she says evenly, and not breathlessly at all. “Just keep following Apple Bloom we’re almost there.” I turn my head forward again, only to have her snug me tighter and say quietly, with a guilty satisfaction in her voice, “You do feel really nice, Sweetie Belle.”

So I thought what I’d do is pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. Except I didn’t have to pretend considering I couldn’t even squeak in protest, and I couldn’t get those words out of my ears. Also Catcher in the Rye is stupid. Apple Bloom saves my sanity, shouting, “There it is! C’mon!” And running ahead, her legs pumping confidently to drive her forward in hard clomps across the earth.

When we arrive at the clubhouse, Scootaloo drags me and her to a halt, and jumps off, walking a few steps and lifting a forehoof to hide the blush on her face. I really want to console her, but what do I say? That what we were doing is great, and nobody will have a problem with it? That she can grind on my tail any time she likes? That she’s so persipacious for being a lesbo slut before the age of 9? Yeah I’m just gonna blush and stumble off the scooter so I can nervously lift my hoof too. It’s comforting to do that, I dunno.

I stomp that hoof down so I can cast my gaze upwards, and the clubhouse above me... isn’t... finished. I mean, literally not finished. It has a cheap board going up to it, with its standard ramp detached and in two pieces off to the side. It has a wooden frame, a sturdy looking roof atop that frame, and one wall. And a bunch of boards piled up under the roof, and cans and... it’s not finished? It’s not dilapidated like it started out in the show, but if it ever was, they just tore all that down. Yet they haven’t finished building a new one.

It makes me recall how impossible it was for certain parts of the show to be temporally accurate. Build an exact copy of Ponyville right over there? In less than a minute? Well golly, we were expecting a challenge!

“I forgot the clubhouse wasn’t finished,” I say distantly, in some sort of awe.

“Yeah, we’re gonna finish it real soon,” Scootaloo says, walking up beside me to look at it. “We wanted to see if we could get our cutie marks from the meteor first, because they might be construction cutie marks.”

I blink at Scootaloo saying, “Cutie marks make you better at building stuff?”

She nods looking at me cheerily saying, “Duh. I mean, look at all the great construction ponies, who all have construction cutie marks!”

She smiles at her wisdom, and I just kind of continue to ...blink. “Um... if you say so...” I acquiesce reluctantly, turning aside to look at the clubhouse again. Scootaloo physically grabs my head in her hooves then, and swivels it around to another direction, saying,

“But don’t worry about the clubhouse today. Check this out!” And I look to see what Apple Bloom is finishing setting up. It looks like some sort of raised platform, constructed of several flat pallets nailed together, with a more cushy material stapled in on top. It has four posts around it, each connected with an elastic rope. Is that some kind of miniature...

Oh no.

“We were thinkin’ about how you caint walk, but you’re all squirmy for action just like any filly would be. Ya gotta get your exercise somehow!” Apple Bloom explains, leaning on the ropes out of her impromptu arena. “But you got your grabby things down pat, way before you got your walky things.”

“And I was thinking,” Scootaloo cuts in with a hopeful smile. “What could you possibly do that was real fun and had to do with grabbing, but not walking? And I figured it out!”

“Wrestling!” they both said at once.

“Ohh no,” I say, wishing a certain physical therapist had taught me how to walk backwards yet.

“It might even get us our cutie marks!” Scootaloo says so, excited her wings buzz as if to emphasize her words.

“No,” I repeat, with a very serious look on my face.

“C’mon Sweetie,” Apple Bloom says placatingly, but there is no way in hell that I’m under any circumstances allowing myself to do that. “You won’t get mussed up, ah promise. Well, you might, but look, we got all sortsa brushes!” She waves toward a table of... rather attractive looking hair brushes. I wonder how they’d feel on my...

“I’m not worried about getting mussed up,” I say irritably, turning away from the brushes in embarassment.

“What’s wrong then?” Scootaloo pouts, clearly disappointed that I don’t like the notion of wrapping my body around her, and—ergh.

“It’s just we would get too close,” I say, trying to placate her, “And touch each other too um, much.”

“What’s wrong with touchin’?” Apple Bloom says from up on the platform. “Ah like touchin’ you!”

“Yeah and it’s totally cool too and not wimpy,” Scootaloo asserts confidently, “Because it’s like, wrestling and competi...something.”

“There’s nothing wrong with touching!” I worry out to them. “It’s just you... conseq–you have to, um...”

“There somethin’ yur not tellin’ us, Sweetie?” Apple Bloom says, squinting at me thoughtfully.

“Yeah, what don’t you want to tell us?” Scootaloo says, sort of pacing around me in a really intimidating way. “And where did you learn about touching being bad? You used to love hugs.”

“I–I’m just n-nervous,” I say keeping very still even though I want to curl up into a ball right now. “Maybe wrestling would be good. I-it is a lot like hugging.” A tense laugh escapes me, smiling at both of them and saying, “I don’t even know why I thought it was a bad idea. Just me and my silly um, brain.” Bonking myself on the head. “Silly me!” I repeat.

“That magic brain thing really did make you all nervous about touchin’” Apple Bloom speculates, “So y’can get two things done at once, get yer blood pumpin’, and get used to touchin’ again.”

“Yeah, it’s like, you have to keep repeating it if you wanna not be scared,” Scootaloo says, ceasing her pacing and looking into my eyes with great sympathy. “I know what it’s like,” she says more muted than before, “Being scared of touching. But it’s okay,” she says. “You just have to like,” and she presses her hoof on my chest, just leaving it there looking at me with hope that I understand.

I look down at her hoof. She’s right, I’m just being silly about this. “Okay,” I say defeatedly, and she allows her hoof to part from my chest. Scootaloo smiles and holds out that hoof turned up, as if for me to um, hook with it.  I match her forehoof with my own, trying to smile back. “I’ll need some help getting up into the arenaAAAA҉” I squeal as Scootaloo heaves, with unexpected strength that sends me flying through the air, right over the cords into the arena. I land with a fuff on the pillows covering its surface. Just how light am I?

“And in this corner!” Apple Bloom announces, pointing to the center of the arena where I’m busy rolling upright to my stomach. “The uncontested champeen Sweetie Belle the uh, Rock! And in this corner we have Scootaloo the uh, Good Wrestler!” she points at an actual corner, where Scootaloo vaults over and flares her wings dramatically as she lands. “It’s goin’ ta be a tight match, folks,” Apple Bloom banters confidently, “Let’s see how these fillies do in their first all star wrestlin’ match of the year!”

She pauses and neither of us act, and she says, “Oh. Uhm, dingdingding!” then she backs up like a referee, while Scootaloo hops up towards me doing what she clearly thinks are cool wrestler moves. I might think that too, if I ever watched any of the Rocky movies.

“You better not make this easy, Sweetie,” Scootaloo smirks at me. Gulping, I half sit up, spreading my hooves as if to catch her. I try to recall my judo training, which was in a considerably different body than I’m in now, that had hands, and was many years ago, decades even. “Because I’m not gonna hold back on you!” Scootaloo shouts, and with an eager wiggle in her hindquarters, Scootaloo leaps for the kill.

...

This was a bad idea! Why is she leglocking me? Why am I in a leg lock? She’s forcing my cheek right up against oh god I can feel it why does she smell so spicy hel— I manage to push free, only for her to sinuate lithely around me, and push me to the ground again. Maybe if I wasn’t such a wimp she’d actually be hurting me, but she’s just toying with me at this point, saying, “C’mon Sweetie, you can do it!”

Yes, my wrestling opponent is encouraging me. What is my life.

Grunting, I push against her, only to have that delicious slide of fur against fur, and she actually bucks the air behind me as I slide onto her back why are her wings so soft, but they’re so strong. They push my chest right off her, whereupon I slide down my groin is on her tail I can feel my it’s just like her on the scooter, but it’s me! I’m the one! And it feels really nice. And her tail thrashes against my little vulva as she squirms out from my attempt to hold her steady, flipping me all the way up into the air—she isn’t trying to suplex me is she—?

Woah, it’s a good thing this stage is covered in pillows. I don’t get up, before Scootaloo jumps on me, pushing my chest down with her hooves and then not even bothering to do that, just holding me down with her hips alone, with her forehooves up in the air, and a savage grin on her face. With her legs wrapped around my hips, it means her—! Help, ladybits are touching!

“You ready to give up yet?” Scootaloo says straddling me with a challenging look to her. She’s breathing heavily, hunched over at the hips where she has me trapped, and the fire in her eyes. I can’t tell if Scootaloo wants me or, if she just wants me pinned.

“Yes!” I squeal out, “I give up! Uncle!” Trying to squirm from being touched by her in such a soft, responsive, tingly place, getting absolutely nothing but more rubbing against her. “Medic! End program! You win!”

“Hold on,” Apple Bloom says trotting up to our tangle of limbs and lips. “Ah think y’have to count out. Okay, one! Two! Three!”

I look up at Scootaloo fearfully, neither of us moving as Apple Bloom counts up. She’s just waiting for me to try to squirm free, but I’m not going to move a single muscle now. I’m trying to ignore how the front of my pelvis, right where my... my envelope starts, is pushed up against her. The rest of my entr...opening...stuff is curved below the level of my hips, but not curved enough! It doesn’t stop the tingly rushes I feel every time she shifts against what must be my... little baby horse teats, the ones I can’t see, because she’s sitting on them! With her leaning back, she makes it easy for her own bits to come in contact with my own. If I only just tilt my hips up a little I could.... but no, I’m not going to do that! Aren’t girls supposed to have a hard time reaching each other’s... in thing? Curse these ponies for being so flexible!

“An’ ten!” Apple Bloom announces. Scootaloo actually pauses a moment looking forward with a serious look, before her legs go lax and she vaults off of my abused pelvis. I can’t even admonish her, because that’s about when I realize how fast my heart is beating, and how hard my lungs are breathing, and I just kind of have to lie there out of breath, calming myself the fuck down. I am not okay with feeling someone touching me in a body part that I’m not even supposed to have. It was supposed to be just a dumb penis, swelling up when you rub against it and making you feel all giddy about the thought of putting it in someone. Simple! Not this weird... touchy feeling, like I’m going to... I refuse to even imagine that I’m going to feel all giddy about the thought of putting someone inside it. It’s not even mine! I’m just... I’m just here.

Apple Bloom’s standing over me saying, “Hey Sweetie Belle... you alright?”

I nod dumbly, but manage to blurt out coherent words. “I’m fine but it’s just that felt...”

“Pretty intense, huh?” Scootaloo says standing on the other side of me. “I call that one the leg lock!” ...wow, plus one for creativity there.

“You shouldn’t—” I say, hesitating to admonish her for something she did that actually felt good. I don’t want to give her a complex! And it did actually feel good... too good. I... I shouldn’t want more. “You um, it’s just you were touching me there I mean,” I verbally flail around, “I mean, not just your legs.”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo says speculatively, appearing to examine one of her lifted rear hooves. I don’t think her eyes are on her hooves right now, though. “That part is kind of squishy and weird. Doesn’t feel bad though, does it?” she turns to me with an honest question in her eyes. I don’t really have any answer other than,

“No, it felt pretty good. I mean, we aren’t supposed to, but I mean... never mind.” Any oxygen I regained is clearly being used to fuel my blush,and not my brain here.

“Guess so,” Scootaloo says thoughtfully, “It did feel kinda good.” Reaching down with her hoof, but I swallow my heart from being in my throat, as she just rubs her hoof around on her belly. I... I don’t even know. Was she aroused? Were we even talking about the same parts? Am I aroused?

“Alright!” Apple Bloom says, “Now Scootaloo won, so it’s her turn to be referee!”

“Aww,” Scootaloo whines, but she gets on her hooves amiably enough, and walks in between us.

“I really don’t think this is a good—” I manage to say, trying to get to my hooves, before Scootaloo starts belting out at the top of her lungs,

“And the Super Good Wrestleradore takes away the title! But who’s this coming into the ring? It’s Apple Bloom, the Super Strong Best Wrestler! Things don’t look good for the Rocky Belle, but will she make her big comeback?”

I just slump back and sit there, already feeling defeated, as Apple Bloom’s smile grows and her eyes narrow, and she hunches down, her tail lashing like a cat as she sets me in her sights. It’s not like I don’t want to touch them, even if I cared about losing, which I don’t, hmph. But what kind of person do I have to be, to actually feel a sense of eager anticipation at Apple Bloom’s imminent combat embrace? I want a little filly to touch me, and I want to grunt and push against her too, and they don’t even know that it’s wrong to want that.

“Wrestlers, on your marks!” Scootaloo says. That makes Apple Bloom pause.

“You don’t say on your marks,” she shouts sideways to Scootaloo, “It’s a wrestling bell you gotta ring, except we ain’t got a bell.”

“Oh right,” Scootaloo says abashed, “Um, dingdingding!”

Apple Bloom fills my vision.

And of course Apple Bloom is even better at sliding her sinewy muscle and hide against my all too responsive squishiness. No not just that squishiness, but that and my squishiness in general. Compared to Apple Bloom, I might be a little teensy bit fat. But she is really good at finding terrible opportunities to slide some part of her body against the particular tickly squishiness between my legs, while she happily ties me up into pretzels. I don’t even fight it, well except fighting to put her in a head lock, but I just can’t help but enjoy the feel of fur sliding on fur, hot, sweaty bodies pressed together. This little girl is like, practically humping me, with how creative she’s getting into wrestling moves she can make.

Is it possible to not be aroused, but still be totally freaking horny? Even after I’m down for the count again and I lay there breathing hard, I feel tingly all over my body. It has been four days since I had an orgasm, no telling how long it’s been for Sweetie’s body—if ever—and every touch seems to remind me of that. I can’t wait until bed tonight. ...did I just think that? God, why do I have to be such a horrible monster? All I can think of is how good it’ll feel if I just get some time alone to let it all out. Let it all... um... out...

My sexy thoughts are blessedly momentarily overruled by the other call of nature.“Is there a bathroom around here?” I ask in tired resignation. My two friends giggle at me, then point their hooves at... nothing but apple trees.

After getting hurled bodily back out of the ring, which didn’t hurt as much as it should have, I just get back on my hooves and carefully hobble over ...there, somewhere. And I swear, I give up even trying. I lift up my leg and just... stick it against the tree trunk, then when I feel the urine cascading out underneath me, I look up to glare at them challengingly and—oh, they’re not even looking in this direction. They’re just talking with each other, because what I’m doing is totally normal, and there’s nothing wrong with it, and I should just stop making assumptions about pony society.

I get done, and wiggle my... um... oh god, I stare with disgust at the ground underneath my hooves. With little enthusiasm, I hook the edge of one of the fallen leaves on my front hoof and lift it, glaring at it accusingly. It’s... uh... sufficient. I hope. At least I stop smelling urine when I scuff over the ...puddle with dirt, and hobble away, deliberately counting out my feet to return to the arena.

I wish I could say the rest of the day got any easier. It does get easier when finally it gets late enough that I can return to Rarity, and hide in her boutique from my best friends and my own unforgivable urges. Plus Rarity whips up a nice, quick, but hearty dinner of spinach and um, hay rolls, with two cookies afterwards for good behavior. She sure is happy to see me, especially after I told Scootaloo to let me off outside, so that I could walk right into the boutique and show her again.

If she found out what we were doing this afternoon, it’d probably be measured in the negative gigacookies.

Needless to say, I can’t even collect my thoughts enough to tell her. The evening is just rushing up, and I’m just a wreck of pent up emotions: lust, fear and the terrible inevitability of my death. A little filly should not feel these emotions, and I thank the stars that Sweetie Belle isn’t really feeling them, but they aren’t doing me any favors as a little filly, making me all shaky and quick to startle. And zoning out, daydreaming about doing things that I shouldn’t be allowed to do. Daydreams...

Only takes one more dream, and... and Luna could probably just pluck me out of Sweetie from within the dream, without me even waking up. The only one who woke up would be Sweetie Belle. And I’d be left in that dying dream, with no neurons to think me, and no body to sustain me, just losing myself and forgetting myself, trapped in a box that just won’t stop getting smaller. Maybe I won’t sleep at all tonight. Maybe I’m just kidding myself. I couldn’t stay awake, not in this sleepy body, not after a day like that.

All I can think of as I brush my teeth is imagining the warm hooves of the doctor Ace touching me all over, and especially in my special... place, my cunt. It’s a fucking cunt. Especially on my cunt. And that swaying posterior of Apple Bloom, conveying somehow both allure and vitality. And how Scootaloo pressed against my hindquarters so strongly to make her scooter move forward. And how both their sinewy hides slid deliciously along that little cunt of mine, whenever they went there on accident.

And all I can think of is how I deserve to die, just for even thinking of them in that way. But I tried so hard!

Rarity tries to stay with me in the end. She tucks me in and she sees that I’m crying, and she sits by my bed and holds me gently. She... she sings to me, and it doesn’t help at all. Because I know she’s singing to Sweetie Belle, and... and I just force myself to stop crying, because I just need her to leave, so that I can have just one thing in this crazy experience. Something I’m desperate for at this point, and I just need to... I need to feel it just once before the end.

Rarity has scarcely left, and turned down the lights in the hall, when I feel my breath come short as—biting my lower lip—I let my forehoof... no I don’t let it. I deliberately slide my forehoof between my legs. It’s not just happening to me. It’s something I want. Something I need.

You’d think in such a state of arousal, it’d be laughably easy to climax, but touching myself just seems to relax me bit by bit, the soft treasure between Sweetie Belle’s legs practically purring to me as I devotedly stimulate it. It makes my awareness sharper, the feel of everything against me so much nicer and more. Even my tail feels good, so warmly caressed by my deepest sheets. But it still takes a long time to so much as summon up that familiar yet alien tingle, that leads one to climax.

I whimper under my breath, my body tensing and relaxing as only my hoof moves very slightly down there. I can’t believe Ace taught me about the push pull thing. I can... I can spread myself with it and, it’s not like stroking, it’s like pulling. A ghost me is teasing a single spectral finger into my p-parts and just tugging them outward, like a hook made out of softness. That doesn’t mean I can’t also stroke though, because my hoof... pad. My pad is like velvet to the touch. I don’t realize at first, why my pad doesn’t feel rough like it should be, until I lift it up look at it. Wafting from it to my nose is a heady... I’m getting wet. I’m actually getting wet down there. why does it smell like marshmallows

Even with all that, I might not have made it. If I wasn’t as doggedly stubborn as I am, if I didn’t know what I was looking for, or if I wasn’t so gosh darned pent up by these stupid sexy ponies and their sexy teasing, even the foals. Especially the foals. Oh, I can totally see Apple Bloom doing it on purpose. She secretly wants me to do this, and she just slyly sways her hips in my face, just slightly too far for me to touch, so that when I sleep that night I will have to think of her. And Scootaloo, if she really wanted it she’d just take it. Shamelessly mashing herself against me. Total lesbian she’d even have like, studs in her ears, not because she likes piercings, but because she heard if you have them it’s easier to get girls to touch you. She said it felt good. She said it felt–! Good—!

It actually overwhelms me and leaves me laying there twitching in my legs—in Sweetie Belle’s legs, and it’s not even an orgasm! It’s just the thought of Scootaloo wanting me, that makes me want to kick hard and squeal out her name. That makes me pause. I have to keep totally silent, or Rarity will come and she’ll stop me, before I go where no man has gone before.

I’m so beyond caring at this point. What have I got to lose? I just want to feel it so bad! I rub my slim slickness, as if I had a penis, but I don’t have a penis at all. What I have is inside me and– and it twinges, I swear I can feel it. I can feel it clench down in there! My... my penis place, flexing with my thighs, hungry to be... I put my other hoof down there and pull on myself, unable to stop a whimper from escaping at the feel of being stretched wide. It’s just the... the top too. Just the entrance. My entrance. Could I stretch further in? And further?

I want to put something in there.

I can’t believe I’m so much a girl that I don’t even want to penetrate anyone, not even at the height of my arousal. I’m so wiggly and tingly, and every touch teases me towards my ultimate goal. My last meal, so to speak. And yet I could care less about having a dick to shove into things. Unless it’s me being shoved into. I’m such a girl just because of this ...biology, that just thinking about putting something inside makes me moan in passion.

My eyes snap open, and I look around tensely. No sounds of Rarity. Ever elegant Rarity, but oh, she’d be hovering just outside the door, hearing my sounds of young joy, a hoof between her own legs as she couldn’t help but arouse herself in response to me. Or maybe, you know, scream and smack me across the face, and tell me never to touch myself in the bad place again. But touching myself seems to draw me into these fantasies, so why bother with realism? Either way, it doesn’t seem like my low moan attracted any attention.

Biting down on my pillow, I resume rubbing my vulva against each other wetly. My um... study of female anatomy is pretty comprehensive, so it’s not like I have no knowledge about certain fun buttons. But mostly I stay with my vulva, because it honestly just makes me wince to touch it. Kind of like touching your eye. I can definitely see how too much stimulating might not be fun. On the other side of the spectrum,  I hardly even notice my second hoof swirling around my flat nipples down there, my... teats, yet the subtle pleasing glow of that is somehow enough to make me want to cry out with joy.

The minutes track by as the tingle within my hips rises and fades, rises and fades. Sometimes I manage to clench down that organ inside me that reminds me so much, of how I’m a girl. Reminds me of the elastic band in Ace’s shorts, and how close I was to just stepping under him and pressing these very hips against his stiff fleshy erect... I bet it’s mottled. Stallions have horse cocks that is so damn sexy. All flat tipped and... and I bet I could feel it in there—! clench

It’s not the rhythmic clenching that I want, though. Where it takes on a life of its own, and you don’t even have to stroke anymore, just sit back and experience the pleasure. It’s just not enough! If I could just get this tingle to “catch” I could... I could do it. I could climax and... and there wouldn’t even be anything coming out. No elephantine phallus painfully stiff, dedicatedly pumping semen out of my body no matter how I try to hold it inside. Just me and... and my body... and....

It’s a good thing I’m biting the pillow, because just the thought of that spurting dick makes me feel like squealing, the thought of my spurting dick, even if it’s not a horse’s. I can totally imagine it doing that inside me. Ejaculating. I have to clench at the thought, one involuntary action for another, my teeny little unicorn hips quivering with my helpless need for release. I don’t even have a pretense of masculinity at this point. I’d throw myself underneath a stallion, and stroke him to climax in me with this amazing thing between my thighs, and he’d pump it into me, and I’d feel it like a blossom of heat. His heat? Or my own body heating to his seed? And then I’d wake up one morning and there’d be a little bump and... and it’d get bigger and bigger and I’d have big swinging milk filled a-and then it would stretch deep inside and I’d lay on my side in the straw and I’d–I’d—

I didn’t even realise how close I was. I’m just tingling and clenching and heedlessly fantasizing about what I should never fantasize, when a frightened, delighted squeak escapes me as I realize the clenches aren’t stopping. Then the waves of pleasure crash through me. I’m not even stroking that cauldron of amazing, just eagerly arching it up into the air as I squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, my hooves shooting up to grip the pillow, pulling it against my face to muffle my squeaks as it happens to me.

It slows down sooner than I thought it would. I’ve known the glum experience of the refractory period, and thankfully there’s a blessed lack of that: not any sharp cutoff, where pleasure turns into pain. My desire to never stop doesn’t flip like a switch, into a lingering guilty feeling of wondering why I even started. But my ...vagina still ceases its contractions, and I find I can relax my hips and tail, to sink back down to a resting position. It’s an immense sense of relief that washes over me—like... when I spit out the pillow, to breathe in big gulps, it’s like... I did it. I made it. I don’t have any hope of survival but, but I made this beautiful thing happen, and when they destroy me, they’ll have to know they’re destroying something beautiful too. It’s... not exactly vengeance, more of a sorrowful release. That at least I did something right before they put me where I’m supposed to be.

My head has enough time to fall back against the mattress, with only my bouncy curls for a pillow, a sigh escaping my flat, furry chest, when in the darkness, I hear a very familiar voice exclaim,

“What... was that?”
> Pillow Talk
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Sweetie Belle?!” I exclaim in complete, terrified alarm.

“You can hear me?!” Sweetie Belle exclaims likewise, minus the terror and alarm, plus surprise and delight.

I slam the pillow over my face. We remain there, locked in a silent stalemate.

“...what are you doing?” she asks uncertainly. “Can you hear me?”

I pull away the pillow, whispering agitatedly, “Stop using my mouth!”

“I’m not using your mouth,” Sweetie says, with a huff of displeasure.

“But you sound like me!” I say confused in the darkness, having no luck looking around for her hoofsteps with my ears, in a second body maybe? How did she get in here?

“No,” Sweetie Belle says contrarily, “You sound like me.”

Two blinks.

“I know that!” I hiss to ...her? “I have to sound like you. I’m in your body!”

“Yeah...” she says hesitantly. “Um, sorry about that.”

“Sorry?” I say in an agitated, harsh whisper, “Sorry?!” How could she be sorry? I have her body! I’m the one who should be sorry! She’s—this is all her fault! She knew she was... what did she know? She really she—she’s really here? I’m really talking to...

“Sweetie Belle?” I ask into the darkness, my plaintive begging already sounding choked and shaken. I’m so incompetent, there was no I couldn’t save her. She’s been fine all along? I thought she was... gone.

“...yes?” she says, after a pause.

“You’re really Sweetie Belle?” I ask less ambiguously. “The real one, I mean?”

“Yep,” Sweetie says perkily. “Sorry I thought I’d be able to talk to you when you came over.”

“Oh, thank goodness you’re safe!” I immediately gush at her... um... wherever she is. “I was so worried,” I tell her. “I woke up as you and didn’t even know if you were okay and I didn’t know if I should ask for help, or if I was in danger, or if you were in danger, or anything!”

“Sorry I worried you,” she mumbles. “I just couldn’t do anything to tell you, when you um, got in me.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I affirm to her fretfully. “I just woke up like this,” I say, looking at the discarded pillow fallen from my hooves, my little curled forward limbs that I walk on, because they’re her limbs, and I’m in her bed, and... “I don’t know what happened,” I whimper in her voice, managing to sound less like a male human, and more like a very girly unicorn filly.

“It’s okay, don’t cry don’t be sad, it was my fault,” she assures me hastily. “I didn’t know it would put you in my body. I should have got somepony instead of touching it.”

Composing myself, I ask, “What happened?” pausing to sit up, “Where are you?”

“I don’t know where I am,” Sweetie says doubtfully. “The same place I was, when I visited you. I think... around?”

“So, like a ghost?” I ask in puzzlement.

“Kinda,” she admits, “Except I feel like I’m really here in bed. And um, sitting up now. I’m just not... in the same... thingy?”

“But you’re okay?” I ask her worriedly, looking up at the ceiling again. No Sweetie Belle up there either. “What happened to you?”

“I’m... okay,” Sweetie says, a little too hesitantly. “There was a scary voice saying things about an overload in the conduit, but it just kinda kept happening, and when I woke up, I was the same as before, except now I’m watching me instead of you. But I feel fine?”

Huff. “What exactly happened down there in the Badlands?” I ask her, speaking carefully 

“Well it was an accident,” she says, sounding perturbed. “We went down there to try and get our cutie marks from the really wise space rock, but like Scootaloo said, all we got is tired and thirsty and hot and dirty, and all we found was a big dumb cave. But in it was a spinny magical thing, so Scootaloo said I should try to use my horn on it. I was just horning the spinny magical thingy, but then it started to talk to me. And I told her about our cutie marks, but she just kept telling me something about a conduit into a metal...something...ation. She was talking about a door though, because when I asked her to open it, she made a door, except when I went through it I went out of my body.”

“And that’s when I found you!” she finishes cheerfully.

Well, at least I know that whatever it is was ‘spinny’ now. “Found me, where?” I ask uncertainly.

“In your world!” Sweetie says brightly, “With all the metal carriages that pull themselves. And the glowy magic paintings you keep looking at. The ones that change to different things.”

“Oh, you mean... right, monitors do kind of look like magic paintings,” I mumble. This could be trouble. What if she saw the show? What if she saw my ...pictures...

“There were so many people there,” Sweetie says engagedly, “I kept switching from person to person. The voice called it roaming scan. But when I found you, I knew I was meant to find you all along!”

“...you were meant to?” I eep in the darkness. How would she know she was meant to find me? Was she? Some sort of prophecy? Magical intuition? I can’t even think. My head is swimming with confusion and exhaustion. Not only am I dead tired, but I just orgasmed! Yet I need to stay awake. I just... just want to go to sleep and ..feel better, and...stuff.

“Yes,” Sweetie explains, “Because you knew who I was, before we even met! You used your magic painting to make pictures of me, and all my friends, and lots of the ponies in town.”

“What... pictures?” I ask with a growing concern, in the same sense that a hurricane is a mild breeze.

“Well, I don’t know all the ponies in the pictures, but they were mostly my sister’s friends, but they had me in them sometimes too!” Sweetie declares excitedly. “Like I was a comic book character a lot. Oh and the one with me and the squirt gun, with Rarity and Apple Bloom’s family all worried, and I had Rainbow Dash prisoner! There was a really scary one where we had a pirate ship, with a cannon, and I could use magic! One where um... there was a really big filly, licking me... I liked that one. And I liked all the ones where me and Rarity were hugging. And um...”

She gets progressively shyer, as she reveals more about what she saw, and I get progressively shyer too. I remember vaguely what she’s talking about, and the direction she’s going... I wish I could say something, but... I mean... if she saw my image collection, then that means she saw... “A few were pictures of ponies sitting on weird things,” Sweetie says uncertainly, “Like sitting on your round claw hooves, and on... joysticks, I think? And they looked really um, so happy they were silly. “And um...

“Just one, of me sitting on a... stallion’s... thing.”

Sure would have been nice if I could ever tell a soul about this as long as I live, or in any lives thereafter. I’ll tell them right about the time I calmly explain to everypony how innocent and not worthy of rainbow lasers to the face I am, despite the real Sweetie Belle truthfully saying I have pictures on my computer, of innocent little fillies fucking full grown stallions, herself included. Oh yes, so it will be such a pleasant surprise, just an innocent misunderstanding. And then we’ll all have a picnic lunch, and go frolic amongst the fields.

“So, that’s how I knew it was destiny!” Sweetie Belle concludes dramatically, “And sure enough, when we’re together, you did something amazing with my bottom. That’s why ponies were sometimes sitting on things in your paintings, to make their bottom do that!”

“I can’t believe that happened,” I groan through my hooves. Thinking of Sweetie Belle getting off to my porn is not making the sticky situation between my legs any better. “You really had to come into my head now, after I went and did that!”

“I know!” she says in happy agreement, completely ignorant of my misgivings. I settle my head down on the pillow, just trying to think for one second, without passing out from exhaustion. My legs are a... mess I don’t want to look at, and I can’t just leave them all slimy like that. What am I going to do about this? I didn’t think it would be such a mess! I found Sweetie Belle?!

“I couldn’t talk to you,” Sweetie continues, “And it was so frustrating. And then you did... what was that?” Sweetie asks me that again, as if prompted by my squirmy legs. “It felt amazing! I didn’t know my pee pee could do that!”

“Y-you could feel that, huh?” I ask her weakly. I wonder if I could just think to her, instead of talking out loud. It really does sound like she’s talking though! Just not... from anywhere. Can other ponies hear her?

“I can feel everything,” Sweetie responds enthusiastically. “I could feel my legs and the tickles and the funny flippy feeling below my tummy, and then it just started going!”

My pillow’s underneath my head, so I just cover my eyes with my hooves. With her hooves. One of the hooves is sticky. I am so dead.

“Not just that though,” Sweetie continues to babble, “Though that felt the best of everything, but I could feel you getting carried out of the cave, and taste when we were eating food, and how nice Rarity was and you trying to walk and climb things. A-also the wrestling was um...” she pauses uncertainly and says, “It felt kind of like the sticky tummy thing you did just now, just not as much, and it was kind of touching the pee place sometimes.”

“A-about that,” I put in. “Do you have any um... tissues in your room?”

“Yeah, in the drawer of my bed table,” Sweetie points out. “But, I don’t have a runny nose, I... ohhh.”

I am revealing way too much information to an 8 year old girl here, so I intelligently say absolutely nothing to that, and just roll over blushing horribly and trying not to get my sheets any more... that. I can reach the drawer from my bed, thank g—thank someone. It’s clearly positioned deliberately, so a sick little filly can reach over and wipe her ...nose when she needs to.

“So it’s like a runny nose?” Sweetie asks, while I wiggle the drawer open enough to get the tissue box. Ugh, I can’t let her think that, that’s terrible.

“It’s... more like a sneeze,” I say distractedly. Oh yeah, that’s totally better. I’m just going leave it at that, end of story. Or wait, maybe I can dig myself further into Tartarus by opening my mouth again!

The tissue box is hard to manage, but I get a few out, and with a sigh of relief I start wiping myself off. Not even caring about how silky they feel against the smooth curve of my groin, I... no, I am not doing that again. I’ve got to get ahold of myself. I just wipe myself off, what I can, and my sheets, and drop the tissues off the side of the bed. What I can’t get, will just have to stay ...damp, because I’m going to go to sleep, and forget that this ever even happened.

In the silence that follows, I feel myself settling into the glowy half daze of sleep—”But what was that?” Sweetie Belle asks in the darkness. “Why was my tummy doing that? How did you make my bottom do that sneezy thing?”

“It’s called an orgasm,” I mumble, full of misgivings but just... I don’t want to hurt her I mean, but keeping her ignorant could hurt her even more! It’s her body! “You saw what I was doing. I just... touched it in the right places, until it started going on its own. I was doing it because I... wanted...” I huff in the darkness, “Because it feels good, and lots of things were making me think about it today. And because...” I let my eyes slide open a little bit.

“I think Princess Luna is going to get me when I go to sleep,” I tell Sweetie somewhat morosely. “Because I’m stealing your body, she’s going to k–make me go away forever, so you can be just you again. I can’t hide from her she’s the princess of dreams, and she’ll ki– she’ll do the same thing she did to Nightmare Moon. I just wanted to feel something good, that I was really curious about, before I... died.”

And now that the real Sweetie is being quiet, I don’t want to go to sleep anymore, not that my body is willing to listen to me. She speaks before I pass out though, saying in a troubled voice, “You can’t die. You just got out! You have so much life left to live!”

“Sweetie could...” I ask in a weakly excited voice, “Could you follow me, into my dreams? Maybe you could talk to Princess Luna, and tell her I’m not... trying to hurt you.”

“I don’t know how,” Sweetie says mournfully, and that little bit of hope dies in my heart. “I haven’t been able to sleep since this happened. You just get quiet and lay me there, and I’m still out here. It’s kind of boring really. But then every time you wake up, you... you have really bad nightmares, don’t you?”

“I thought I was a nightmare,” I say, “But... yeah. Mostly just memories of my home, of... what you saved me from. I think when you tried to save me, it gave me hope, and that means I care more about ...not dying. Stuff that didn’t scare me before, scares me a lot now, because I don’t want to lose...

“...because I have something to lose, now,” I finish. It’s quiet again, letting me finally, woefully, drift off to sleep.

Sweetie speaks up saying, “So anyway, about the um, you’re doing really good at walking. It feels weird having someone else who has a hard time walking.”

“Sweetie, please,” I moan once again. “I just want to sleep at this point.”

“But then the princess will get you!” she cries in alarm. “You can’t sleep now!”

“Just...” my heart goes out to her, but there’s not much Sweetie can do, if she can’t face off against the princess in my dreams. “If you see Princess Luna,” I say, “Tell her to save me, that I didn’t mean to take your body. S-she might get mad at you, but all I need is a body or something, like even a–a crystal, or a little animal, or I don’t know. All I need is something so I can keep living in your world. S-so if you tell her to do that, that’s what you should do. Don’t worry about me if I... if I don’t wake up, and you get your body again. It’s not the princess’s fault, it’s just a bad situation. I’ll try to talk to her... maybe she’ll be lenient since you’re here and not d-dead.”

There’s a pause, a foreign feeling of unsettlement, and Sweetie just says evenly, “...I could sing you a lullaby.”

My eyes are tearing up again. “I would love if you could sing me a lullaby,” I say to her in a voice, in Sweetie Belle’s voice, and so thick with emotion I can hardly say it. So... that’s just what she does. She sings me a lullaby. She sings that lullaby, in the same sweet voice that I’ve been using these past days. And she sings it right this time. I don’t even hear the end of it, before I’m off to sleep.

It’s my first dream of Ponyville, and there isn’t a single pony in it. It’s the middle of the night, with the streets wreathed in darkness, totally silent from here to the horizon. Except the sounds I make. I’ve been turned into a pony in Ponyville, an impossible dream of waking up in Equestria, and nobody is here! I know why of course, because they left already. I wasted time getting ready, and now there are only empty streets lit by automatic lights in what is otherwise darkness.

Everything is there, Carousel Boutique, Sugarcube Corner, Twilight’s treebrary, but all the ponies and all the animals already left for something even better. It just makes my heart ache because I almost made it. But here I am and it’s just a little bit too late. I just have to live here now, wishing I could be with somepony until I die. They don’t even care about me, because I took too long, and now I’ve missed my chance. There are no second chances. There’s no hope for me, because it’s too late, I’m too old, and everyone got tired of waiting for me.

Nobody’s there to see me cry. Nobody’s there to hug me or comfort me, but I don’t care. When I sink to my haunches, haunches I’ve become accustomed to since coming here, when I just start crying bitterly at my loss and just the sheer unfairness of everything, something shines in the corner of my eye. I look up, but it’s not the sun. It’s a window. There’s the warm glow of candlelight in a window!

That means somepony is still here! If I hurry, maybe I can catch them, maybe they can help me find where everypony else has gone! I run through the streets, that light always staying in my vision, leading me forward until I reach the unremarkable house it glows in. Just another random house in Ponyville, but there’s a light on, up in the second story!

I move into the dark house, the shadows of boxes and furniture stretching towards me gloomily. But there the glow comes, down from the stairwell in the back of the boutique. I treat it like an obstacle course, or a challenge, sidestepping every shadow before they can get me. If the shadows catch me they’ll delay me just long enough, that the light will die, and I’ll miss that pony too, but I can’t let that happen. Not again! I won’t!

The floor crumbles away behind me as I pull myself up the stairs, forcing myself upward faster than the below can be consumed, and then—then I’m in a room. It’s a simple room, with a desk and chair, a dresser on which a candle flickers merrily, a little rug on the center of the floor, and Twilight Sparkle’s bed for some reason, beside the open window. The room is... the room is empty! I was too late! I rush over to the candle. Maybe the pony left a note? Maybe there’s another light? I can’t be too late; the shadows never caught me, even once! I did everything right! I...

Next to the candle, there’s no notes or records, just a broad rectangle of gold foil. Slipping my nail under its edge, I use my hoof’s push/pull to hold it, peering at it with uncomprehension. They say you can’t read in a dream, and I can distinctly read what’s on this ticket, so maybe this isn’t a dream at all? Maybe it’s real! I look out the window, hoping it’s real. If I just believe enough, the ticket means it has to be true!

With a deep roaring rumble, an impossibly large train expands from the horizon, making my hair blow as it zooms past, my weird, curly locked unicorn hair, that I remember now. I look up at the giant locomotive, from my perch down there in the candle-lit first story window, as the train slows to a squealing halt, right in front of me. Because I have—a ticket! I have a ticket! I run outside the doorway I’m standing in, my hooves beating underneath me in the snow drifts, right up to the train, which opens to a steamy warm interior glowing like a fire. And stepping out of it, it’s him! It’s the conductor! I remember him!

“All aboard!” the tall man shouts, as if I’m not the only one standing there. “Next stop, North Pole!” I walk up to him and he glowers at me with shadowed eyes like he’s going to tell me to go away, that I’m too late, but when I hold up the golden ticket in my hoof he smiles generously, taking it in his slim fingers and punching it for me, so many hole punches. I look at the ticket he’s punched–it says “PE”

“Well, come on!” he says, swinging his lantern around. He swaggers up the stairs into the massive train’s warm glowing interior, and I climb up the steps one after the other, just like I learned. I... I think there might be hot chocolate in my future. The train howls, creaks, puffs and rolls away. In the quiet emptiness of the town it leaves behind, the silence is broken by two sets of hoofsteps crunching in the newly fallen snow.

“Now that,” the voice of Princess Celestia said mirthfully, “Is how you deal with a few little nightmares.”

“We could have done that,” the much smaller, cornflower haired Luna muttered resentfully. She looked aside, in admission that she really could not have. Her sister, in response, cupped Luna’s chin in a golden limned hoof and pulled Luna to look at her.

“Yes, you could,” Princess Celestia told Luna, with that perfect earnest honesty of hers. “And you will. You have a far finer touch than I, and when you believe in yourself, there will be none who suffer under your guidance. Just remember that sometimes the greatest effect you can have is as simple as leaving a ticket on the table, and letting her mind fill in the rest.”

“W–I shall remember,” Luna said looking up to her sister with grudging respect. “If this be simply a lesson to sooth me how to be effective with no power, I accept its truth.”

Celestia shook her head. “No, sister. This is a lesson of how and when to use power.” She curled her head over her sister’s, saying wryly to her, “Remember too that I have had a very long time to practice. I may not seem it now, but this was a lesson that took me a very long time to learn, because of the power I represent. For you, it should appeal to your own nature, one you may finally come to understand.”

“W-we are sorry, sister,” Luna said leaning into the embrace earnestly. “Thou hast undergone so much due to our—”

“Now, none of that Luna,” Celestia gently interrupted her. “I’m quite ready to put that behind us and start anew. What of you?”

Luna paused, and pulled back from her sister, saying with a frank edge to her voice, “For now, let us see if there remains any of this hot chocolate.”

Her sister smiled at her understandingly, and they faced the snowy night where the train had gone down the dark tunnel of the empty Ponyville street. Together the two princesses went galloping after it, vanishing into the blustery snowy night.

I don’t really know what to think, upon awakening. I just stare at the ceiling, lost in thought.

“Are you still there?”

I jolt up in bed at the sound of Sweetie Belle’s voice. Oh gosh, oh no, oh right she, she’s in my head or something and... I... kind of, sort of, maybe, accidentally raped her last night. And she doesn’t even know it!

“Sorry, sorry!” she shouts, “I’m still here! You can—you can still hear me I guess. I didn’t mean to scare you I was just worried!”

“I’m fine,” I say crabbily, rubbing at my sleepy eyes.

“Did you have a nightmare this time?” she asks.

“I didn’t have a nightmare,” I say to her, now fully awake in bed. And my naughty little snatch beneath the sheets feels... unfairly unremarkable, considering what I’ve done. “B-but about last night, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” comes her innocent reply. Boy, I’d make it even worse for her if I told her about all the evil monsters who hunt down women and rape them, and how I’m exactly the same way. It’s such a crazy situation, because as long as she doesn’t know she’s a bad person having been despoiled like that, she won’t feel like one! All that dreck of feeling abused and wasted and ruined, it all predicates on you accepting the fact that rape will ruin you, and waste you, and abuse you. And all Sweetie knows is I made her “bottom” feel good!

I wish I didn’t have to be a monster...

It was bad enough that I was masturbating with her body, but now I know that the real Sweetie Belle was right there along with me, feeling everything I did to her, paralyzed, trapped in her own body, helpless to say no, or to do anything to stop me from stroking her relentlessly to climax. Jesus Christ why is that so fucking hot? I’m squirming even with the thought of it! I am such a freak.

“...are you gonna do it again?” comes her hopeful voice.

“No,” I blurt. “N-no because, um, because Rarity might be here any minute and she’d catch us. Me.”

“Oh, so it’s a secret?” Sweetie asks.

“Yes,” I cling to her suggestion, whispering, “It’s a very secret secret. We must never tell any–pony else what we did last night.”

And she outright giggles at that. Not the “I saw something silly” giggle, but the giggle of pure self indulgence. “This is so cool,” she says eagerly, “My bottom can do something amazing and not even Rarity knows about it. Do you think her pee p—”

“Vagina,” I cut her off before she can sound even more weird about it.

“What?” she says.

“It’s called a vagina,” I tell Sweetie, “And you don’t pee from it. Your pee... place is just nearby it.”

“Oh, so—”

“Yeah, it’s... just a little hole next to your vagina, that the pee comes out of. They’re easy to get mixed up.”

“So the pee comes out of one place, and the um, sneezy good tense thing comes from right next to it? On the vagina?”

“In the... yeah, close enough.” I can’t believe I’m giving a sex talk to an 8 year old unicorn girl from inside her own body.

“You sure know a lot about my bottom!” Sweetie remarks chirpily. Oh Sweetie Belle, do you even know the half of it... well, if she saw my art collection, then she surely did.

“So anyway,” Sweetie says blithely, “You wanna surprise Rarity? By showing her that her bottom can—”

“N-no,” I stammer quickly. “We’re not... that would so not go well. You can’t... surprise p-ponies with that.”

I feel Sweetie pout in or beside me, and she says, “But you surprised me with it. And I really liked it. I don’t think Rarity would mind if we surprised her, if we did it until she got to the part where you start bucking up into the air.”

“Just... trust me on this,” I say unconfidently. “It would not go well.” Sweetie seems unconvinced, so I add, “Rarity would get really mad.”

“If you say so,” Sweetie admits to me, reluctantly.

I start to lie back in bed, and she says quickly, “Maybe you could touch it just a little, until Rarity gets here?” Dear god I’ve created a monster. “It sort of gets more tickly the more we talk about it,” she adds. I want to tell her off, but she really is right. And I do want to touch it again. And this time it’s not even rape, because Sweetie is asking me to do it.

“Fine...” I say somewhat grumpily, returning my hoof to touch the softness between my legs. It feels like coming home. She gives a pleased ‘noise’ at that, or whatever you call this thing she’s doing to talk to me. We both remain silent, just enjoying the feelings in our–my—in somepony’s gut. My eyes are half lidded and I’m breathing roughly, when Rarity walks in the door saying, “Sweetie—oh, you’re awake!”

With the rest of me perfectly still, my hoof slides away from my groin with utmost care, and then I nod to her saying, “I woke up earlier.” It’s weird how I’m barely even wet down there. I just feel sort of pleasant all over, but... well, a lot less than sexually aroused. Maybe I’m still tired from doing it last night. I still feel a warm glow from that. I guess it is true that girls take longer to get aroused. If I was a man, I’d have gone from boner to ejaculation twice before Rarity walked in. Well, only once because of the refractory period. Mmm... ejaculation. I...

I wonder if I can find out about birth control.

“Well do be a dear and rouse yourself,” Rarity says to me, walking around the bed. “Do you need any help getting out of bed?”

“I should be fine,” I say, shoving back the womanly thoughts that are no doubt caused by touching my womanly parts. Carefully kicking my back legs over the edge, I slide down the side of my bed into a heap, then collect myself standing again. It’s funny that the real Sweetie Belle isn’t saying anything now. I can’t ask if she’s still there, without talking out loud. My attempts to think at her certainly do not get a response.

“Alright, now to the mirror,” Rarity says, her large white broadside right beside me. I shake my head, patting her side with a hoof and pushing away. Instead, I prepare to make the arduous 10 foot journey on my own hooves this time. Rarity watches uncertainly. Then, I actually... draw a blank for a few seconds, before just putting a hoof down and counting from there internally. 1, 3, 2, 4, 1, 3,... I have to count, because that makes me remember to let go with the right hooves at the right time.

“Very good, Sweetie!” Rarity says in exaggerated delight, as I hobble wobble my way to the dresser mirror in my room. I look in that mirror and, oh that’s why my bangs are in my face. I must have slept on them until they flattened out. Boy do I look silly. ...I’m Sweetie Belle...

The brush in Rarity’s magic floats above me, brushing my curls more separate, its light strokes getting them bouncing right up in the air, looking less like bed head and no longer obscuring my vision. I help out too, by grabbing the brush as soon as I can, and when my hooves nab it, Rarity releases it, letting me have the novel experience of brushing my own hair. With the brush braced in between my front hooves, I certainly can’t brush the back of it, but it’s something at least.

Rarity once again uses a second, sharper bristled but less stiff brush for my skin, or hide or whatever you call it. I don’t really care what you call it, because I just want to lean into this second brush forever. It’s like the best back scratcher ever, except on my side. Cleaning the pink and purple hairs off the first brush, and the thin white fuzz off the second, Rarity then lets me try brushing her!

I definitely don’t have the slightest bit of telekinesis down yet, but I can do it holding the handle in my mouth this way. It’s a surer hold than my hooves can do, at least. I have to say there’s something incredibly satisfying about dragging a stiff brush against the long broad hide of a horse...like being. Even when you yourself are a horse...like being. And doing so for one, with such beautiful diamonds on her hindquarters! The fur they compose even seems to glitter, as I brush over it and... oh wow I am like three inches away from her snatch.

No, bad thoughts! It’s so close I can see freaking everything it even has a sort of humid smell to it distinct from the rest of her. I—she turns her ass away from me and says pleasantly, “Thank you Sweetie, now would you be a dear and clean off that brush. I fear my coiffure requires a more sophisticated touch than a filly like you is yet able.” And starts brushing her own hair.

She soon announces that we are both quite presentable, and we go to have breakfast, in a room with no one else around to care about our appearances. It’s great though, because even if it’s silly frou frou stuff, I feel really good. It just feels good to have all that loose fur and stray hairs off my body. It just feels good for, I dunno, paying attention to myself I guess, and to her, and to her [bad thoughts elided]. I feel good in general and... well, good enough that I’m actually humming at the breakfast table.

“Somepony’s in a good mood this morning,” Rarity smiles over to me. “What is that lovely slow melody? I don’t recall.”

My eyes light up as I realize what I was humming. “I had a dream,” I tell her a bit wonderingly. “It was about a... do you have mov—I mean. Um. It was about a magic train that went all the way to the North Pole. And that was the song that played, whenever it showed the train riding through the snowy arctic wilderness.”

“My, that...” Rarity’s spoon clinks on her bowl as she says intensely, “That does sound lovely. This was your dream?”

I nod at her.

“It wasn’t another nightmare, was it?” she asks much more uneasily.

I start to shake my head, but then say, “It started out as one. But then the train came. I think it... saved me?” Huh, did it? Wait...

“I’m—!” I start to shout out, jumping to my feet from the stool, feeling like galloping forward in a panic. I’m alive, I want to shout. I didn’t even see the princess! Was the princess the train? But if she was, then I wouldn’t be Sweetie Belle anymore. She didn’t kill me! Could she not find me? Did the train protect me from her? What was that train really?

All of which I can’t exclaim in Rarity’s face. So I settle back in my chair, feeling dizzy from the realization. I went all through this morning without even realizing it, but I wasn’t supposed to wake up at all. Sweetie Belle wasn’t supposed to be a disembodied voice, who uh, enjoyed how I raped her on accident, and this bowl of green leaves and puffed rice was not supposed to be far more tasty and pleasant to eat than it should have to a human being. What happens is I just wake up from the world of ponies, and it was all a dream, and I live my life a sad, lonely human male, and die, as if I never had existed in the first place. But it didn’t do that. I’m alive!

“Thought I saw a bug,” I tell Rarity, who’s sort of staring at me warily. Then I calmly return to eating my cereal/salad with my face.

Rarity says it is quite acceptable to leave fork and knife there for show, and for the rare occasion to actually need them where a mouth would not suffice, so I pretty much don’t bother trying to engage my magic hoofsies. It really is easy to eat with your face. You don’t have to spear anything on a fork, or balance anything on a spoon, trying to get it to your mouth before it wobbles off, because your mouth is already just right there. And it’s not like my bowl is full of anything goopy or mushy. I’d have been making more of a mess, if I had to pull the food out of the bowl, than how I just progressively lower my muzzle into it, munching contentedly. And Rarity is doing it too, not even using her magic, so we are both doing it together, and... I’m pretty okay with that.

It’s probably the most content I’ve felt since arriving here. I don’t know what it is, but—I’m alive! Sweetie Belle isn’t dead. Something weird is going on, but nopony has tried to kill me yet, and I didn’t wake up from a nightmare that made me want to scream this time. So all-in-all, a really good morning. I can even almost sort of walk now!

And... the Polar Express. That was one of the saddest movies I’ve ever seen. It just hurt my heart, even barely remembering it years later. I think that dream was the first time I’ve ever felt ...not sad about that movie. Shouldn’t I have been sad? I mean, I woke up, and it wasn’t real, and it was all just a dream. I didn’t get to see Santa or have my faith restored in Christmas. But it was a lot of fun, and the hot chocolate was really good, and I just... I didn’t wake up feeling like I lost anything. Knowing that made me feel like... something in me... sort of... healed.

It’s in the toilet room that Sweetie Belle finally speaks to me again.

“Psst!” she says, right at the moment I go “Psst!” in a totally different way. My bladder can’t exactly empty itself in surprise, because it’s already emptying itself, so I just stand there stupidly, trying not to blush as I hiss out, “What?”

“I don’t know if Rarity can hear me,” Sweetie says in a quiet tone. Oh of course the real Sweetie Belle doesn’t care about holding a conversation with someone while they’re peeing. Wait, that’s actually a good point.

“Is that why you weren’t speaking?” I ask her in our moment of solitude.

“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle replies above the sounds of my–our business, “But we’re alone now, so. I want to say something when she’s there, and you pretend you said it, so we can see if she hears it.”

“That’s a nnh–good idea,” I say, grunting a little as the flow starts to taper off.

“What should I say though?” she whispers to me.

“Well, you can say um...” I have to pause for important reasons, managing to tell her, “Hold on,” before my tail bobs, and the muscular contractions result in another “Plop... plop... plip.”

Sweetie giggles nervously making me blush. She says, “This is kinda awkward, sorry. I don’t mind though, really.”

I smile at... well, at the theoretical concept of her, and whisper, “Just say ‘Hey Rarity’ really loudly when she isn’t looking. If she looks at me, I’ll ask her if my um, my mane looks okay. And if she doesn’t, then you know that only I can hear you.” I have to add, “But, I know she can hear me, so don’t always expect me to reply.”

I think Sweetie Belle nods? I don’t really get it. Head voices, right? And of course when I wipe off, she giggles nervously. “It feels so weird when somepony else does that,” Sweetie says uneasily. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I do mind,” I say in disgusted resignation, “But what can I do about it? I’m sorry, but it’s not like I have any other choice. I am not going to not wipe.”

“Oh this is so embarassing,” Sweetie Belle’s voice rings out in the bathroom, “I always wipe, but now you have to, and it’s so weird. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” I mumble to her in exasperation. “Wait,” I say quietly, “Can you switch?” I ask, just to throw that out there. A puzzled pause, and I add, “Can you take over your body, and have me be in your head?”

“No,” Sweetie Belle says mournfully. “I tried so hard already, all day when you were in the wagon. I couldn’t even run away from the Cracker! It was so scary!”

“I-it was,” I admit, “But Apple Bloom helped.”

“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle says affectionately. “She gave me water, and shoved my butt right out so it wouldn’t squish me. I mean you. I mean I don’t know what I mean.”

I just take a deep breath, and nod silently, pulling the lever to flush away the filth that emanates from my rear end. Actually I’m surprised ponies don’t do more composting. Or maybe Rarity is just weird that way?

“It’s weird being able to talk without having to breathe,” Sweetie says to me, hesitating puzzledly then adding, “Well, I mean, I breathe with you, but it’s different than me talking. I’m so glad you can hear me!”

“Okay, quiet though,” I say. “I’m going to call Rarity, and then you can say ‘Hey Rarity’ later when she isn’t talking to me.”

For some reason, it doesn’t occur to me to wonder why Sweetie Belle is worried about Rarity hearing her at all.

“Alright dear,” Rarity says once she’s helped me into the hallway, “Now wait right here, I’ll just be a second.” And now she’s in the toilet room, quick as a flash, while I’m out in the hallway. Yeah of course Rarity has to do that too. Stupid biology, ruining my perfect prudish pony pristinity. I try to learn how to turn around, and walk away to a safe distance, but I’m not fast enough, so I get to hear the sound of... woah, that’s a lot louder than me. Oh because it’s a further distance to the bowl... yes, not listening to this. Could Rarity hear my bladder emptying the whole time? I can imagine she wasn’t waiting right here next to the bathroom, like I have to, but instead a very polite distance away.

I manage to coordinate at least three steps away from the toilet, when the blessedly diminishing sounds from within abruptly increase in volume to that of a flushing toilet. This is really not what I’m comfortable with. I just want to be downstairs with my face buried in a pile of food or in the capable hooves of Dr. Ace, or anything pleasant in general far away from this madness.

“Ooh, here she comes,” Sweetie whispers to me, as Rarity rounds the corner and double takes, before spotting my slightly altered position.

“You know, Sweetie,” Rarity says sidling up to me and settling to the floor, so I can climb up on her. “When I said wait right here, I didn’t mean walk away.”

“I was just trying to be polite,” I say, as Rarity raises up onto her hooves with me on top. She quirks an eyebrow at me in puzzlement, so I clarify, “I wasn’t supposed to hear you going.” Oh good job mouth, great way to put it. Rarity blushes and turns forward, shifts in place when I say that, and her words are very shaky when she says,

“Oh! I-I-I hadn’t thought of... I suppose you couldn’t have waited downstairs for me to do my business I didn’t mean to scare you oh my you did hear me. I’m sorry dear that was such a fluff up of mine. I didn’t even consider that, I would never do something so uncouth dear, I”

“It’s okay, Rarity!” I say to her trying to break her rising panic. I don’t want to get bucked off my own sister if she freaks out. “Everyb-pony does it. You can’t help it anymore than me. It’s like you said, a lady must um... always not worry when she pees.”

“Or something like that,” I make sure to add.

Rarity relaxes, and a melodic chuckle comes from her chest, but she doesn’t make any other verbal response, instead answering by resuming her trot, angling down to take us head first down the stairs, through her work room, the kitchen in the back, and then out of the boutique. For I have a date with destiny. Or a physical therapy appointment so I can learn how to walk. But basically a date with destiny.

We’re just passing what appears to be a pink hearts and flowers themed iron forging station when Sweetie Belle shouts, “Hey Rarity!!” at the top of her lungs, causing me to startle on the spot and jerk upright. Rarity immediately stops and turns her head to look at me saying, “Everything alright, dear? What’s the matter?”

“I was just wondering if my uhm... mane looked okay,” I say to her. The other voice of Sweetie Belle is being dead silent, no doubt on the assumption that Rarity most likely, probably, maybe not, really heard her right then. It sure was loud enough to me!

“Your mane looks fine, Sweetie,” Rarity says evenly, turning and resuming her leisurely trot through town.

Meanwhile a disembodied Sweetie whispers harshly, “I think she heard me!”

Rarity doesn’t pause, but I’m certainly not answering. While there may be a soft, forest green, cottony saddle blanket between me and her pumping torso, that’s definitely not enough separation for me to trust my whispering not to be heard. And I don’t think Rarity would be okay if I started whispering to myself. Sweetie Belle seems to disagree though, because she continues to whisper tensely,

“Psst! Um, other me creature! I think she heard me!”

“Boy it’s nice to be out here in public,” I say to Rarity in a melodramatic demonstrative tone. “So many ponies around here who can hear us, and anything we say.” There, that should convince Sweetie to be quiet.

“Do you have something you wish to say to me in private, Sweetie?” Rarity asks, without missing a pace.

“No,” I tell her, “But if I did, I sure wouldn’t say anything about it here, or even whisper!”

That gets the other Sweetie to shut up and stop verbally prodding me to respond. But now Rarity changes course, turning right into a small alleyway between two of the houses that ends in a ...stand of trees. This is an oddly designed town. She stops then, and looks around, then turns her head back to me saying, “I believe we’re out of the crowds now, so we should have relative privacy. Is there something you wanted to say to me?”

Oh no.

“I... um...” Darnit! Why did I say it that way? Now I gotta think up something private to say to her, but it can’t be about me being a body snatcher, but what else do I know, that I wouldn’t want to tell other ponies?

“Can stallions...” shoot that question is almost worse! I can’t ask that! But I already started. “Mustard... um...” I mumble trying desperately to think of a way to redirect my question to something innocuous. But it would make sense to ask her if I was really Sweetie Belle, wouldn’t it? I wish I could ask Sweetie Belle herself, but she’s not going to talk while Rarity is here, and I’m not going to ask her while Rarity is here.

Finally I just give up and say “Can little fillies have feelings for stallions?”

Rarity stiffens underneath me because of course she does. Because it’s totally abnormal for fillies to have that kind of feeling and I’m just some kind of fillynapping succubus um, loser person. Demon. It sounded better in my head. Shit, this is in my head. Am I really that confused?

“Well I daresay anypony can have feelings for just about anypony,” Rarity says with deliberate emphasis. “It really depends on what feelings to which you refer.”

“Well um,” I mumble face buried in Rarity’s mane, “I mean, He’s a stallion. So...”

“You feel like making him your special somepony,” Rarity says flatly.

“No!” I protest, “Yes,” I admit, “Um,” I have no idea, “What does that even mean?”

“The doctor spoke with me,” Rarity mentions seriously, “About your behavior during the sessions.” My gut goes cold as I think about what the doctor could have said about me. Did he notice how much I wanted to touch him? How hard set I was to resist finding my way under that waistband?

“Sweetie, what you’re feeling is not love,” Rarity says frankly, hesitating before adding, “Your feelings are completely natural. Many little fillies will feel just as you do around a big, strong, strapping stallion.”

help

Rarity goes on saying, “But I’m afraid you are simply not ready to devote yourself to affairs of the heart.” What about below the heart? Like way below? Wait, would ponies call it behind the heart, since it’s not below it anymore? Behind the belt? Help!

“What you feel is...” Rarity taps her chin, “The doctor makes you nervous, does he? The mere fact that he is a stallion makes you lose trust in your own feelings, because you have seen how other mares act around a gentlecolt, and I admit I am no exception there, and you see that you are a filly, one day to be a mare. You must be wondering how you will ever come to act that way, when you have no reason to in the present moment.

“But no mare is compelled to act that way,” says Rarity with quiet certainty. “As you grow and mature, you will gain certain... abilities that may make acting that way most advantageous, and even fun! But no mare has to be slave to her feelings, and I assure you  that outside of season, no mare will be compelled to swoon over some hot hunk of stallion, did she not know a very good reason for doing so. You feel like your feelings are controlling you, but really Sweetie,

“What you feel is not love for him,” she says seriously, “But fear that you will feel love for him. The sooner you relax and open up to him, and stop worrying about what your feelings are, the sooner you’ll stop feeling like you’re falling for him. Just pretend that you simply cannot possibly make him your special somepony, and then I believe that the feelings that trouble you will vanish all on their own.

“He’s just a pony, Sweetie,” Rarity reassures me with a gentle smile. “Stallions are ponies, just like the rest of us.”

I don’t know what to think about that mare. I can’t bear to make some snide comment or crack a joke, or summon up some trope or catch phrase, because it would belittle what Rarity said. She... how could my sister be this way? She doesn’t even expect me to answer, just leaving me stunned, and trotting under me out of the alley, back down the main causeway toward the hospital. I just blurted the worst random question bouncing around in my head to ask her, and she responded with both tact and grace. She really is the best p–... best p–...

She really is the best pony ...to go to, for relationship advice.

Carried through a storybook village, up to a hospital framed by a sunlit forest, a hospital that’s full of attentive ponies caring for your every need, and not a health insurance form in sight... and I think it’s already starting to become routine. I even manage to wave shyly at Nurse Coldheart, when Rarity walks me in the door. She forwards us to Ace’s office this time, and it’s the same comfy room with the cushy couch, the cherry wood desk, and the big window, that Rarity trots us right into.

“Hello, doctor!” Rarity says brightly, as I try to avoid seeing him, and... smelling him.

“Rarity! Hello!” he returns jovially, “Oh hey, it looks like you got a little filly growing on your back. You should see a doctor about that!” And just like that my avoidance is canceled, and Rarity titters underneath me, while I turn my head back to glare at the doctor with a hot blush.

“I could have walked here!” I claim defiantly.

“Perhaps, if you started yesterday, dear,” Rarity says dryly.

Dr. Ace stands his golden body up, hooves on some papers on his desk saying, “Hey, hey let’s not understate the lil’ lady’s accomplishments. I wager she was walking every chance she got yesterday!”

“No,” I correct him trying and failing to not blush at his compliments saying petulantly, “I was not. I was just thinking about it, like you said.”

“Em, well except for when you insisted upon walking into the boutique once we arrived,” Rarity points out. “As well you were quite pleased to walk in and out of the bathroom, and down the hall to your bed, and up to your mirror, where you insisted upon brushing your own hair this morning, oh but you did need a bit of assistance with the stairs.”

This is my punishment for calling God a big asshole isn’t it? This is divine retribution. I’m a quivery tickly pink white unicorn girl who can’t walk or read, or say one thing without sticking her foot, that is to say hoof, in her mouth, because God got tired of my bitching and sent me down to chill with Pangloss in the best of all possible Hells. That’s got to be what’s going on. There’s just no other explanation besides God did it. What an asshole.

“We’ll stop teasing you, Sweetie,” Ace says consolingly. But Rarity has to say in a sing song voice,

“No promises~ I am her sister, after all.”

“It’s fine,” I mumble with my face in Rarity’s shoulder blades. Lifting my head up I add, “So, can I get walking now?”

“A filly after my own heart!” Ace says enthusiastically, “Wants to get started right away. I have to say it’s gonna be a scorcher out there though, so we’ll probably do our exercises inside today.”

“Heh, well,” Rarity laughs, “I knew when I walked into your office that it was going to be a hot one today.”  She pauses, and then adds, “I have a friend on the weather team,” all innocently. Did she prepare that one beforehand?

“Rainbow Dash is still in the Badlands,” I chirp to her, with a grim sense of self satisfaction.

“Oh, haha!” Rarity says, unceremoniously dumping me into the evil filly eating couch. “Such a little charmer, she is. Well, I had better let you two be, and take my leave, aha...”

“Sounds like a plan, Miss Rarity,” he says with a small smile, adding in an lower tone, “But don’t think I can’t handle a little... heat.”

Wow, is Rarity blushing. “Yes, um!” she says backing up, “Have to boutique the shop you know, haha, day... good day, gentlec– sir, gentlecolt oh my,” then closes the door in her own face. There’s the sound of hooves retreating... hastily.

He doesn’t say anything in regard to her further, just gives a little satisfied nickering Hmph. Then he turns to me.

“Alright Sweetie, how are you doing? Ready to go to the exercise room?”

I ponder a moment,before saying from my position half swallowed in the couch’s embrace, only visible by the bangs on my forehead, and my four feet sticking up into the air, “Soon as I can get out of this couch.”
> Settling In
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



Author's note: I have been writing actually... just haven’t had the patience to fight with fimfiction.



With the exercise room on the first floor, along with his office, Dr. Ace treats the journey there as an opportunity for me to learn how to navigate walking places. And I make it! Slowly. It’s tricky turning corners in hallways, and the linoleum floor is slippery sometimes, but he guides me where to put my hooves down, and how to lean into the turn. Once we get to the exercise room it’s all about something called the “One-two-step.” I guess it’s like... another way to think of walking. The beat between my hooves alternating isn’t supposed to be evenly spaced. There’s supposed to be more of a pause in between paces, so I have to plant one, two (hoof 3) and then step, like a missing... half beat? Yeah, it takes me a while to get it. I do get something else though. Something perhaps a lot more important than walking correctly.

It happens pretty soon after we start out. He’s right there right close to me, enough I can feel the warmth from his body, but he’s been meticulous about not touching me ever since we met today. I stand there eyeing him warily, and Rarity’s words come into my head. Would he really not... do that? I really just, I mean, Rarity can’t possibly know what’s really going on, so she doesn’t understand that I’m not just a little filly, and these desires to get plowed by his chiseled as fuck form are not normal desires. But maybe... I mean I do kind of... it’s not like I really want him to, even though I kind of want to feel what it’s like, but it just makes me so nervous. Maybe I’m just... being... nervous?

“Something wrong, lil’ Sweetie?” he asks, tapping the floor beside me in a deliberate show of the walking he wants me to do. It’s not that I’m nervous about him, though. I’m not wary of him at all. I’m just wary of me, and my stupid bottom that I keep wanting to do things with. I can’t believe I have a... a passage in there, instead of a dick hanging down. It makes just standing beside him such a different experience, so much more potentious because of what could happen.

“You gonna do the two-step?” he says a little louder, adding in a warm voice, “I’m right here to catch you, don’t worry.”

I should answer him. I raise a hoof and wobble, but I’m not even thinking about doing the one-two-step anymore. I’m thinking about something else. You can joke darkly about Russian Roulette all day, but when you’ve actually got a gun barrel pointed at your temple, it turns out it’s a whole lot harder to pull the trigger. And I’ve got a gun barrel in my hips, pointed right at my testicles, now deep inside me and producing, or ready to produce, fertile eggs. Potential ponies up there.

“Come on, Sweetie,” he says in exasperation, at his wits end, “You’re doing so good! Just remember, 1 and 3, then two-step! One-two-step!”

And you know what’s worse than accidentally ghost raping Sweetie Belle while masturbating? Knowingly getting Sweetie Belle pregnant at a young age, because you went and got too friendly with some hot, hunky stallion. But in throwing caution to the wind here, am I pulling the metaphorical trigger, or is it just silly to worry about it? Probably silly. But still...

It occurs to me that the last group besides us just left the exercise room. Coincidence, or design? We’re totally alone. If he did anything to me, no one would ever know.

“Sweetie,” he says, and I only let him say that one word before acting. I put my hoof down and scrunching my eyes shut, I lean to my side, right up against him. Rubbing myself right up against his warm, powerful, musky hide. It’s what I want to do. I just want to smell him and touch him and feel him, and I throw myself into it, heedlessly.

“Sweetie?!” he exclaims, pulling back, but I stumble again, and push my cheek against his side. I’m touching him I’m actually touching him! It feels so good. I haven’t touched almost anyone except Rarity, only Rarity and only on her back. Not like this!

I rub myself against him challengingly, daring him, daring my own body to respond. Thinking about my backside, and the passage that surely lurks hidden in the little pocket back there. I ignore my anxiety and lift my tail—it hits his tail, bouncily. I dare him with my body fearfully, hungrily, giving him every opportunity to just climb on me and go to town. He could ravage my virgin cunt with his stiff dick and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I could probably fit under him completely, without him even having to rear up his forehooves.

A second passes, and he says in a cautious tone, “...Sweetie, what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I say slyly, continuing to nestle into the comforting curve of his body, wiggling my hips teasingly. “What do you think I am doing?”

Ace stiffens at that. But does it stiffen? Maybe if I could just slyly reach a back hoof back to check. Ugh, stupid short legs.

“I think...” he says uncertainly, “You’re trying to get comfortable with touching me,” and his voice grows in confidence as he concludes, “By going all in, and doing it all at once!”

I um, pause, and look up from under his shoulder...elbow thing. “So you don’t want to... do anything?” I ask nervously.

“Oh Sweetie, you are so adorable,” he says, lifting his hoof and patting me on the head. “I want you to do the exercise, remember? One, two-step! It’s fine if you need some time to get comfortable first though.”

Another doctor pushes open the doors to the exercise room, wheeling in another patient.

I don’t know about aroused, but I am definitely starting to feel grumpy.

“If you’re starting to warm up to me,” Ace says, “I’ll put a hoof on your back, if you don’t mind.” He braces that large, powerful hoof in the small of my back and... pushes me separate from him.  “This will help me get a feel for what you’re doing with your body,” he says encouragingly. “So don’t hold back or anything. Come on now, like we talked about it. One, two-step!”

I comply with the exercise disorientedly. I don’t do a very good job. I’m just too confused by the feelings in me. I touch him, I smell his scent all I want, and it makes my little girl place all tingly, and... and that’s all it does! It’s easy! It’s like... I’m aroused but I don’t have to continue. I don’t feel that burning need in me. I know it seems terribly obvious, something a moronic grade schooler could have figured out from observing my thoughts. Makes me glad Sweetie can’t read my thoughts, because it’d be awfully embarassing for her to own me at logic. And I know the answer! I just have so much trouble feeling confident in that knowledge. It doesn’t feel right to be okay with this, doesn’t feel like anything I’m familiar with. But somehow it does feel right.

I’m just having fun. That’s all I’m doing, and what’s wrong with that? I get the one-two-step down pat, then he has me climbing again. I think the climbing is just to give me a sense of accomplishment, but I still get up on top there with gumption, and I even bounce gleefully standing there at the top of the climbing podium. I feel like a girl, a stupid, silly girl, and I feel that unsettlingly wistful urge to stick my butt in his crotch, but it’s just a thing. It’s like, idle speculation. I don’t have to do it if I don’t want. I don’t—

I don’t have to be slave to my feelings. That doesn’t mean I don’t have them, does it? It means I have them, and can choose to... act on them or not.

There’s one thing I do have to be slave to, though, and it’s about to announce itself quite prominently. Ace is letting me take a break, and I’m certainly grateful for it. Even if the exercises weren’t physically hard, I still feel like I ran a marathon. An emotional marathon I guess. I’m sitting my cute little girl butt on the floor right behind my dainty little hooves that I’m braced on, and he’s making me laugh, about sherbert. And I’m not getting all girlified, or forced to want stuff any more than I already...do want.

“So he says, ‘how about a sure bet?’” Ace says, “And Herbert says, no thanks I’m full!”

What can I say? My sense of humor is a two bit gutter whore. God I laugh at the stupidest things. But I mean, sherbert, sherbet. Get it? Heh heh.

So I’m laughing at his stupid joke, and well... one muscular contraction in the abdomen leads to another. No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Okay maybe it is what you’re thinking, depending on what you’re thinking. But it wasn’t what I was thinking, not until just now. Nope not what I was thinking at all, but now I’m thinking that maybe I should not have had that second glass of water at breakfast this morning.

“Ehehe–he, oh, um,” I say, my laughs quelling before my insecurity at what my body needs to do. Jumping to my hooves, I ask him, “Is there a... can you show me to the bathroo—toilet? I mean, I need to use the toilet.”

“Sure, no problem,” Ace says, gesturing with a hoof at the door. “It’s right out that door, down the hallway and to your right. Can’t miss the signs.” He continues laying there without standing. Then he gestures again, waving his hoof insistently.

Uh oh.

“Oh,” I say a bit miserably, just quivering there. “So um, you’re not going to... so I have to go there on my own?” How am I going to even...

“Of course not,” Ace smiles, surging to his hooves, “But I really wanted to see the look on your face!”

Wh—ugh! Of all the... he got me so bad. Between my blush and my self consciously um, tightened up muzzle, his eyes brighten and he says, “Yeah, that’s the one. Now lead the way, lil’ Sweetie! Try the one-two-step.”

And so one long trek across the hospital hallway later, with Ace there his steady hoof guiding me the moment I needed him, to change directions or to stay balanced, I find myself standing before a pair of doors, both nearly alike. One is the men’s room. One is the women’s room. Except that ponies don’t stand on two legs. So even the stick figures indicating which gender is which are different than you would find in any human building. Does uh... does a bigger butt indicate male or female? Ace is standing right there so I can’t let on that I’m too confused.

“I think you can handle the toilet on your own, right lil’ Sweetie?” he asks me.

“Um, yes, n-no problem,” I say suavely and confidently. I jerk a bit before pulling loose from the floor, stumbling across the hall to the um... big... butt door... and I put a hoof on it. I turn and look at him, searching his expression. He smiles at me a little awkwardly, as if wondering why I’m going in the wrong door. Shit I picked the wrong one didn’t I.

“You going to go in, or just keep standing there?” he asks in a chiding tone. OKAY OK. Picked the right one. Good.

“Yes,” I tell him clearly and confidently, and then push the door with my hoof. It swings inward. And um... outward. It can swing both ways. Okay, I can walk forward and catch it on my shoulder, then get around it to find... what you’d expect from a public restroom. There are rows of stalls, with doors on them, and a few sinks with a mirror in front of them. And no urinals. Phew.

It occurs to me as I klack across the tiled surface, that I’ve never felt relieved to be in a girl’s restroom before. Oh I’ve been in one sure, and panicked as soon as I realized, then felt horrible about it for days afterwards. Some enlightened egalitarian I turned out to be.

A bunch of rich liars batter me with imagery of evil disgusting men fapping it to their creepy malicious desires to see the poor innocent beautiful women posing evocatively in their bathrooms, and I fall for it like a total rube. Even though I know they’re just lying to try and stop people from getting laid, knowing that doesn’t help. They can force me to feel sexist, and scared that I’ll validate those mythical creeps, just by accidentally walking into the wrong room.

I think that’s the scariest thing about marketing. As long as you can’t stop from being exposed to it, even if you know it’s bunk, it can still affect you profoundly. You don’t need someone’s rational agreement to win them over. All you need is their eyeballs, and then you’ve got them by the testicles. Er, metaphorically.

No, that’s not quite right. The scariest thing about marketing is that people don’t think it’s scary.

But don’t you know it, I got the evidence between my legs now, so there’s nothing to be scared about waltzing into a girl’s restroom. I’m actually a girl, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of for being in here. So I march on into a

“Hey, listen!”

“Waugh!”

No, really that was my literal reaction, not a tawdry pop culture reference.

“Sorry, again!” the real Sweetie Belle says. “You just haven’t been alone and I don’t know what to say to the doctor pony that you can say to.”

I mouth out her words silently, and then shake my head, concentrating on walking forward again until I’ve made it into a stall and closed the door. “His name is Ace,” I whisper to thin air, “So just say ‘Doctor Ace’ right?”

“But then what can you say to him?” Sweetie asks in puzzlement.

“I... I don’t know, just...” I put a hoof to my forehead, rubbing i–oh hey, I have a horn.  How about that?

“I’ll say... thank you for helping me walk, if he hears you,” I suggest.

“That’s a grea҉t idea!” she says enthusiastically. How can she squeak if she’s not even using my vocal chords? Or is she, and I’m just having a dissociative fugue and don’t realize she is? Or did I make her up from scratch? Oh no what if she’s just a pretend Sweetie Belle! Wh—

...

Okay, I’m going to worry about this stuff, after my bladder stops threatening to leak on me. It is so much easier to have an accident like this!

Of course I stumble and almost put my hoof in the bowl. Flailing, I thump on the side of the stall, falling against it. Boy I’m glad nobody’s in here watching me. Except uh, Sweetie Belle, who seems to not want to laugh at my lack of coordination. She seems as disoriented as I am. But I get situated eventually and, double checking that I’m... forward enough not to miss, I settle my tail up and relax my uh, sphincter? Let my bladder contract, and relax into the relief that accompanies the sound of the stream hitting the water.

Sweetie Belle grunts.

I startle at that, freezing in place at the thought that moving might make me miss. “Sorry,” Sweetie whispers to me quietly, “I was just really needing to—I mean, we were needing to pee and it was a lot of um, shutting up now.”

“You really feel everything I feel,” I remark to her bemusedly, as the flow gutters out leaving me, us really, just standing there quietly.

“And taste everything you taste, and hear,” Sweetie confirms, “I feel like I’m me kind of, and someone else is moving me. How does it feel for you?”

“Feels like I’m uhm, you,” I mumble, “Feels the same I guess, except that no one else is moving me. Which is why I fall over a lot.” She giggles at that.

The door to the bathroom opens and I whisper, “Ssh, ssh!” The continued clopping indicates the mare didn’t hear us though. The sound of a stall door closing apart from us. The sound of urination into a bowl. Can’t really count on privacy here. We really have to confirm Sweetie can’t be heard by others, or this is going to start getting annoying pretty quickly.

With no reason to tarry, I pat the roll to loose some toilet paper, flushing after I have done my royal duties. The real mare in the other stall, who knows what she’s doing, is much quicker, and I already hear the sink running when I figure out how to push a latched door open with a hoof. Pushing open the stall door, I gingerly walk out and

It’s a stallion.

There’s a tall, yellow stallion with a purple, swirly mane with a nurse’s hat on, washing up in the sink in this bathroom. I must have squeaked in terror because he immediately turns and looks at me and says,

“Oh, hey there lil’ filly,” in a sort of goofy voice. Then he turns back to the sink and resumes washing.

MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME THERE WOULD BE DAYS LIKE THESE. WHY DID YOU NEVER TELL ME, MOTHER. DID YOU NOT LOVE YOUR ONLY BEGOTTEN SON. WHY MOTHER, WHY.

Okay... not... not freaking out. Not. Freaking out is a null. I’m standing here. I’m just as clean and urine free as I was coming in here. I’m in the men’s... the... the toilet room. Is it unisex? Does he think my father took me in here? Fathers do that sometimes with their daughters, right? Why isn’t he looking at me funny?!

He finishes washing off, and engages a... hot air blower on the wall, so that’s how you do it, okay. And then he drops back to all fours, and clip clops his way right out of the restroom, door swinging shut behind him. I’m alone in the restroom once more.

“What’s wrong?” Sweetie whispers to me. “Why was that scary?”

“N-nothing, Sweetie,” I whisper back. I look at the floor, taking deliberate steps as I’ve practiced the last two days, managing to reach the sink without incident. Rearing up like I’m at my room’s mirror dresser makes it easy to get to the level I can stick my hooves into the sink. Reaching the chrome polished lever to turn on the water is... less easy. But I stretch my hoof out, and pull the lever, and pleasantly warm water gushes from the faucet.

The soap is... the liquid kind, whose top you push to squeeze some out, and it doesn’t take any hoof dexterity to do that. It’s... really weird to wash my hooves this way. I feel like I’m just washing my fingertips. Which I guess is kind of literally true. But I finish doing what the stallion did, (why was there a stallion??) get the water turned off, and push away from the sink, clopping down securely to all fours.

Huh, I think this is the first time I ever felt more secure from landing on all fours than standing on two, instead of feeling like I’m going to face plant. It’s enough to distract me from the fact that I just put my clean, washed hooves down on the ground. The slippery tile still makes walking feel like climbing, but soon I’m squeezing around out the door that I pulled open, and my hooves are braced on the more secure linoleum of the hallway... or whatever this flooring material is.

“All set Sweetie?” comes Ace’s voice, making me startle in place. I wasn’t even thinking about how he was there. I look up at him and he’s... still freaking hot.

I try to ignore the blush creeping onto my face as I assent with just a little, “Y-yeah.”

“Well let’s make the best of the time we have left,” he pronounces, trotting in front of me down the hall and turning around. “We’ve got all the way back to the exercise room to practice your pacing. You remember the walk?”

I pause, considering my legs, and just lean forward, putting them one after the other, in the proper order. I stop and look up at him. He smiles and spins himself around on a... single hoof, landing solidly facing the other direction, and gesturing with his ...nose the way I am to follow. Or perhaps with his moustache? That’s a moustache you could gesture with, oh yeah. I am thinking normal thoughts. Just following the moustachedoctor.

“So Sweetie, have a favorite food?” he asks, making me stumble. I stop, and say, “Um, there was a sandwich with white... something in it, and I like salad um–” he’s walking ahead, so I start walking again, saying “Have... not eaten... much um, since... the amnesia. It’s... all been...” 1, 3, 2, 4, just keep going... remember the two-step.

“All been pretty confusing, I imagine?” Ace says.

“No I–” I stumble again, trying to look up at him.

He just pauses and waits for me with a smile. Swallowing nervously, I face forward and try to concentrate on walking.

“Must be fun to try all those foods for the first time again,” he says. I huff in frustration, but don’t stop walking. Just got to keep putting my feet up and down, and not fall over. “Anything that tasted really bad?” he asks.

“No it–” I stumble and catch myself, with a hoof planted right in front of where my nose would hit. Frustration welling in my chest, I start walking again. “Everything... has tast-ed pretty good so far,” I chirp out in time with my hooves striking the linoleum. I almost hit the wall as we run into the corner. Did I mention this is hard?!

We make it back, eventually. Ace is remarkably unsympathetic with my plight because he keeps trying to strike up a conversation. It’d be a lot easier if I didn’t have to walk while talking to him. He says I can take a break when we get there. Letting my legs slide out I sit down in a flump, just that little trip making me feel exhausted. After a rest, we do more turning, and he puts his hoof on my back in the exercise room which makes it much easier, and... well his hoof’s touch still makes me want to get touched a lot lower than my back, but it would be a horrendously bad idea. And I guess it doesn’t hurt to just think about it. Not like he’d ever do it. Not like I’m good enough for him.

Okay, bad thoughts. Thinking about walking, and he’s touching me and that’s okay, and everything is fine.

When Rarity comes to pick me up, I walk a few steps toward her without even thinking about it. That’s a first! I stop when I realize it though, and the moment is spoiled, so with a sigh I deliberately repeat the movements. They’re getting downright tedious at this point. I wish I could just... muscle memory or whatever. 1-3, 2-step, 1-3, 2-step, sway left right, sway left right. Rarity seems absolutely delighted by it though. I guess I must look like I’m walking more normal. She didn’t have to spend the past entire morning doing this though. Nonetheless I smile once I reach her, a genuine relief in me at having uh... walked across the room to where Rarity is. I look away from her face, eyeing her shoulder area hesitantly, as she starts telling about her incredible work day. I guess it couldn’t hurt, to just.... I have to um... get used to it and stuff...

I go and rub the side of my cheek on where you’d think her shoulder was. Just a little, and pull back to look up at her hopefully. She stopped talking, blinking down at me, and she smiles then, lifting a hoof to curl it over my back with a gentle snug.

“Do you feel up to accompanying me on hoof, Sweetie?” Rarity asks, shifting her shoulders to emphasize the blanket she has lightly belted on top of her torso, now a green one. My ears go down at that, because I really don’t want to demand anything of her, but just the thought of that long, long trip from the hospital to... wherever we’re having lunch, makes me cringe internally. It would be such good practice, but it would be so slow and straining achy in my... head. I don’t know if it’s literally straining your brain, but it’s that feeling you get trying to do something you just learned, repeatedly for a long time.

Ace comes to my rescue, saying, “She did well today, but shouldn’t be walking more than a block or two at most. It’ll take her a while to get it down pat. Sorry for the inconvenience...”

“Oh, it’s no inconvenience at all, darling!” Rarity answers, casually tossing her mane. “I will happily play pack mule if it better helps my dearest sister’s faculties return to her.”

“I think pack mules carry packed supplies, not people,” I have to point out. Rarity doesn’t comment, but raises her eyebrow at me.

Together again, we walk out of the hospital on Rarity’s hooves alone. With me atop Rarity, semi-voluntarily playing the part of her captive audience, she starts up again. “So the left stitch was far more appropriate, but Tighty would have nothing to do with it and I rather had to make do with the...” She really enjoys telling me about stuff like that. I can only half follow along, since I don’t know a needle from a thread, but it’s just nice to hear her voice.

The real Sweetie doesn’t try any sort of Hey Rarity over lunch, and actually she didn’t say anything to Ace either. I hope she’s alright... whatever ‘all right’ qualifies for, when you’re a real Sweetie Belle who is totally real and not just me being delusional, who just happens not to be in control of her own body. Unfortunately, I can’t ask Sweetie, since Rarity’s right there. Around my sister’s chatter, I interrupt Rarity to ask,

“Am I playing with my friends this afternoon?”

“Oh, no, no Sweetie,” Rarity says, “Today is Thursday, you rem—right of course you don’t.” Rarity puts the marigold and chives sandwich floating in her magic, back on her plate, tapping her hoof on the ground, before carefully explaining, “Scootaloo has a mentor this summer for her mechanical aptitude, and as such she’s very busy on Thursdays. Therefore Apple Bloom has her schedule adjusted to have the bulk of her chores at the Acres today. Normally you would spend the afternoon with your foalsitter, a friend of mine by the name of Fluttershy.”

“She’s good with animals, and children!” Rarity quips cheerfully.

“But,” Rarity adds, tilting her ears just slightly, “As I am to be your sole caretaker this week, I’m sure you won’t mind spending another afternoon at the boutique.”

“Ooh I’d love to—I mean...” Oh boy, how do I not insult Rarity, while telling her I want to go to Fluttershy’s instead? Oh my gosh, I haven’t even seen Fluttershy yet! I’ve seen Applejack, and Rarity of course and... and everyone except her and...

Pinkie Pie...

I have a really bad feeling about that. I should have at least seen that pink pony bouncing around town or something. She should have been impossible to miss, because she’s Pinkie Pie, right? Is she preparing a surprise Saved the CMC Party? Is she ...aware that I’m technically new to Ponyville...? Maybe a you forgot all your birthdays party?

“Well, there’s no need to sulk about it,” Rarity says somewhat snippishly. “I know you find my raison d’être quite tedious, even in comparison to... Fluttershy, but it’s not all that much more for you to have to put up with.”

She...what? “No, no I do like staying with you Rarity!” I protest sitting up on her back. “I just thought Fluttershy would be fun, for a ... I mean...” Okay, inhale, exhale. I know what I’m going to say.

“While I’m sure this ‘Fluttershy’ is lots of fun,” I say deliberately, “I truly enjoy the time I’ve spent with you, and it really is fun just watching you make dresses.”

Rarity snorts, covering her mouth to hide a smile as she looks at me. Hey, but I was being serious! “Still,” she says lightly, “I doubt you wish to just sit there, while I run around and do everything. You said it yourself in so many words, right before your... accident.”

“I really don’t mind,” I tell her softly, and honestly it’s true. It’s so overwhelming even being in this beautiful land, that I really do just want to sit back and take it all in. Involving myself has quickly turned exhausting. Or uncomfortably arousing. Did I really go and ask that mare if she “balloons?”

“Oh no need to humor me Sweetie,” Rarity says jovially, “I would involve you more, really I would, but my orders this week have simply been... and yes I know that’s no excuse, but... if there was something I could do...”

“Maybe you could teach me to... sew?” I say hesitantly, “Not this week, I mean. But when you do have more time.”

Rarity pauses her forward march at the door of the—oh, we’re at the boutique. “That would be lovely, dear,” she says agreeably, taking the OUT sign off the door along in her magic, and trotting inside. “But please, only use the machines under my direct supervision. This week may simply have to... flop, as it were.”

“Well I sure won’t be cutting out any more gold capes,” I mutter. That actually gets a chuckle out of her. Continuity!

I spend most of the afternoon coloring, keeping a wary eye out for Rarity. Rarity only occasionally trots past the drawing table, pushing a rack of dresses, or perhaps with an array of ribbons glowing in her magic. I actually leave it to follow her around for a little. This is my very first real opportunity to explore the boutique on my own power after all.

Rarity uses the sewing machine as one would expect from watching the show, and it’s remarkably quiet for a sewing machine. Then again, my attempt to peer at her working without disturbing her, revealed the sewing needle moving at a very slow pace. Just chun-chun-chun-chun as she steadily fed the cloth into it, like four times a second or so. It’s probably her care and patience that keeps that sewing machine from sounding like a muffled machine gun, rather than the design of the machine itself. The only cable goes to a foot, er hoof pedal. I can’t see anywhere the machine is plugged in, which is curious but it’s probably just magic.

It’s not Rarity’s magic, though. I’d be able to feel that, and also see it on her horn.

I don’t explore... too much. I still can’t even think about the stairs, and it really is mentally exhausting trying to move around. And I don’t want to be underhoof if a customer comes. There are fitting rooms, and the kitchen in the back I’ve already been to, and... her inspiration room must be upstairs, or something. But after getting tired, I just settle down at the drawing table for the most part, and color, and by “color” I mean secretly whisper quietly,

“Hey, are you there?”

No answer. “Sweetie Belle?” I ask in a trembling tone.

“Oh, you mean me?” her voice comes out, as if she were speaking right across from me.

“Who else could I be whispering to?” I whisper to my imagined position of her at this drawing table.

“Sorry,” she says abashedly.

“Why didn’t you try to talk to Rarity?” I whisper to her. “Or Ace? I was starting to get worried.”

“Oh...” she says noncomitally, but then escalates her tone, saying, “I completely forgot!”

“You... forgot?” I whisper back.

“Yeah, um, it was just so fun just watching you... me do stuff,” she explains. “I just forgot what I was supposed to do.”

“It’s okay Sweetie,” I say in a forgiving tone, “But what is so fun to watch?”

“Well I never learned to walk,” Sweetie explains. Uh. “I’ve never even heard of one-two-step. It was fun watching you try it. It felt like I was trying it!”

“How do you... walk if you never learned how?” I ask her skeptically.

“I just walk,” she answers simply.

“Oh, you meant—” my excited cognition seems to equate to a quick flick of the tip of my tail. “You weren’t taught to walk by anyone.”

“Any one what?” she asks innocently.

“Any one pony” I say, with jadedly limp ears.

“Then why not say anypony?” she asks quickly.

“They’re not ponies, where I come from,” I point out to her.

“Oh yeah,” Sweetie admits uncertainly. “Then why not say any...um, what were you?”

“It’s called a human,” I mumble to her.

“Why not say anyhuman?”

“Because,” I explain to her patiently, “I don’t want to assume that I’m talking about a human.”

“Okay,” she says in a querying tone, “What creatures besides humans were in your world? I don’t think you mean the metal monsters.”

“There were only...”

Huh.

“Okay, now I’m confused,” I mutter to Sweetie. “There are only humans in my world, so why don’t we say anyhuman? And in your world there are gryphons, and dragons, and um... breezies... so why do you only say anypony?”

Sweetie pauses silently, and then responds with a definitive, “Dunno.”

“You and me both, sister,” I mumble to her.

Our conversations are short, as Rarity does poke her head in now and again to check on us. She really does seem very busy this afternoon, and I do wish I could be of more help, even though I’m not really Sweetie Belle. And Sweetie Belle agrees, about wanting to help, though she doesn’t see why I like Rarity’s boring sewing so much.

Dinner is a salad, and... hay on a plate. Genuine hay on a plate. Except it’s coated with sugar granules. And fried. No really, I watch Rarity pan fry hay, tossing it in a bowl of sugar afterwards. It’s a really simple meal, but very filling. My flat incisors go right though the hay and it’s easy to chew on my molars, and of course very sweet. The salad just goes down so easy. And finally we share a couple cookies, as if the hay churros weren’t enough. And we maybe share a giggle or two. Yes, I giggle. I can’t chuckle or guffaw with this little girl voice. It’s... kind of fun to be able to giggle like a little girl, even if I can’t make the other, more male kinds of laughing.

We read together later in the afternoon, and by that I mean Rarity reads to me out loud, after I show an interest in the book she’s curled up with. And frantically deny any interest in a book of my own. Rarity’s reading a silly romance novel, go figure. More dramatic than erotic, with perhaps a touch of adventure mixed in. Seems familiar for some reason. But before you know it, the crickets are chirping outside the (very quiet) boutique, and it’s time for another “evening soak” as Rarity puts it.

With my body clean and dry, and my teeth sparkly shiny, and a pleased sigh in my breast, I lay back secure in the soft bedsheets. The blanket is very thin and airy, probably doesn’t increase my warmth, so much as be fluffy on top of me. Rarity caresses my head with a smile, then lifts my curls to plant another little kiss on my forehead there. “Sleep well, Sweetie Belle,” she says, trotting to the door and clicking off the light, then closing the door behind her and clopping quietly away down the hallway.

It’s so quiet that it’s almost hard to sleep. I’m not used to this kind of silence even after sleeping in it for several nights. But I am quite weary, and I should drift off in due time. Not like I mind just sitting here in peace, looking at the moonlit window, and listening to the sound of silence.

“Are you gonna do it again?” Sweetie Belle whispers excitedly.

I blink. I swear I feel my pupils narrow. “Ohh no,” I say, my legs crossing.

“Why not?” she whines. “You did it last time!”

“I–I did, but, we can’t,” I stammer. “We shouldn’t I–I mean Rarity might”

“But we’re in bed now,” Sweetie says patiently. “She won’t be here until the morning. You’re not too tired, are you?”

“I’m fine... just... it’s the sort of thing that... I mean you’ll have to, you don’t want to...” I huff in frustration. “I can’t say it right,” I say, “Because it’s a bunch of grown-up stuff that you don’t need to know about.”

“But it felt so good!” Sweetie protests. I just roll onto my back, trying to think sleepy thoughts. Sweetie is silently pensive at first. But instead of giving it a rest, she says, “Maybe we can just do the squeezy thing then, and not worry about any of that grown-up stuff?”

“It is grown up!” I hiss to her exasperatedly.

“No it’s not,” Sweetie counters pouting. “It really happened I remember it. And I’m not grown up. I just want my pee p–uh... my thing next to my pee place to do that again. You know, with the tingly waves and the squeezing?”

I don’t know what to say to that.

“We don’t have to do anything grown up,” she insists, “Just only what my little not grown up filly bottom can do.”

“Sweetie,” I whimper uneasily, just, slipping my left ha-hoof down between my legs. I shouldn’t. But she’s asking so nicely, and it would feel good...

“Pleeeease?” she asks me. I actually manage to cut off the end of her please, by laying my hoof right against my vulva. Even as it hits me, her own plea fades into a delighted gasp. How do you even gasp without a mouth?

I just bite my lower lip, and pull apart my lower lips, smushing the soft part of my hoof in there. “You’re doing it!” she whispers excitedly as I mush around in there, feeling the pleasant surge from my nether regions easing my tense muscles all over.

“Y-yeah,” I mumble, just focusing on my crotch for now. It’s distracting though, and kind of hot, how Sweetie makes pleased noises when I rub both of us in a way that feels good. They might not be real noises, but she’s really enjoying feeling like this. It’s certainly enough for me to want to continue.

To succeed though? Eh... well, the minutes go by, and I just gently rub and tug at myself down there, whatever feels best for me. Trying to get some kind of rhythm. My breathing is coming heavier, but...

“This is so nice,” Sweetie says in a delighted, lazy tone. A thought occurs to me and I have to pull my hoof away. The disappointment is palpable as I do, and Sweetie says,

“Wait, why are you stopping?”

“Tissues,” I say, fumbling with Sweetie’s bed table drawer.

“Oh, right the sneezing,” she says mollified. That makes me blush because it’s not a... “You’re not supposed to say it like that!” I whisper, stuffing my hoofful of tissues clumsily between my legs.

“Say that you’re getting wet,” I explain to her, “That’s when your wetness comes out of your vagina, because... um, to make you slippery down there.”

“I wonder why it’s like that,” Sweetie says. “Kind of inconvenient to have to put tissues there.”

I put tissues “there” nonetheless. “Tissues are important to um... not make the sheets messy,” I say. “That stuff dries sticky, and then you have to wash them.” Now I don’t actually know this for a fact, but it’s better than telling her that she’s got to conceal her sexual receptivity so that the head patriarch doesn’t know that she’s ready to be raped into submission.

Or that she’s got to conceal it because it’s some ugly and disgusting disease. Or maybe it makes her a depraved monster for doing this sort of thing? Or maybe it’s the positive reinforcement, since it makes other people want to masturbate. Whatever the reason is that you can’t tell people about masturbation, I don’t know. It’s hard to really think about that stuff with my hoof already between my thighs, even if the tissues piled up against the base of my tail are reminders.

The minutes tick by.

“Umm...” I half whimper, without stopping. Alternating between swirling and tugging seems to feel best, but... “I’m really tired, Sweetie...” I whine to her plaintively.

“Yeah this isn’t... it feels really nice, but it’s not the sneezy thing,” Sweetie admits.

“Orgasm,” I correct her habitually.

“Maybe you’re doing it wrong?” she suggests.

I stop literally sexually abusing my groin, and pull my hoof up, saying, “I dunno, it’s kind of new for me too.”

“But didn’t you have a bajina, where you came from?” Sweetie asks. Then she gasps, “You didn’t, did you! How did you learn to do that then?!”

“N-no I had a... it’s different than a vagina,” I say uneasily, “But it’s sort of the same. It’s called a ...penis.”

Sweetie pauses. “I know what that is!” she whispers conspiratorially. “ Colts have them too! They pee out of them!” 

Okay I don’t care if my hoof is... surprisingly not as wet as I thought it would be, I need to face palm. I try cleaning it off first—oh jeezus I just licked my own girl juices off my own hoof. It... didn’t taste bad, even if it was just a reflexive action. “I know, Sweetie,” I explain to her patiently. Clearly I’m the mature one here. “I once was a um, colt, before I woke up as you.”

Her mystically generated gasp is entirely too excited for my liking. “You were!” she exclaims, “You know what a penis feels like then! Why do they do that moving thing? Why do they come out sometimes if you don’t have to pee? Have you ever felt funny about a filly? Is it like I feel about—”

“Sweetie!” I cut her off in a harsh whisper. “We can’t t-talk about that stuff; we’re not...”

“...supposed to?” she counters snidely.

“Yes,” I insist resolutely.

“Why not though?” Sweetie Belle whines. And she’s got that heartbreaking whine, that you just want to make feel better, as opposed to Diamond Tiara’s kill it until it stops making noise whine. I stare at the ceiling, wishing I could just go to sleep at this point.

“I’m sorry,” Sweetie says in a mollified tone, growing more upset as she speaks, “I-I didn’t know you were a colt. I thought... I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard, I didn’t mean to scare you. Oh why do I always scare away any colts I want to know? It’s not fair, even you!” ...I guess in this situation, you don’t need lungs to cry, either.

“It’s okay, Sweetie,” I console her desperately. A male human, telling Sweetie Belle it’s okay, in Sweetie Belle’s voice, to an empty room. “You didn’t scare me, I just... don’t worry Sweetie, I still like you. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s okay.”

I manage to coax her out of crying, and she just sits miserably silent, so I say, “Sweetie, I’ll... tell you some things, about colts. If I’m... if I’m comfortable about it. But I just want to sleep now, so let’s find somewhere to do it later, alone.”

She sniffles, mumbling, “And Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo?”

“Ohh, no,” I answer reflexively. At her distress I add, “I mean—it’s uh, secret and... what if they tell Rarity and... I need to have a body of my own before we can tell them what’s going on. So I don’t have to die.”

She hesitates, then sighs. “That makes sense I guess. They’re my best friends though, so you know. I really want them to feel the bottom thi—the orgasm, too.”

I am so doomed.

My dreams that night are... surprisingly uneventful. It’s like whatever troubles were plaguing my mind got blown away and disoriented, or something. I dream about sitting at my computer typing, in my old retard apartment, but as soon as I try to move, suddenly I’m a pony again. Sitting there in my apartment, in my swivel chair. Sweetie’s hooves at the keyboard. I pull back, and jump down, and it really is my old apartment that I’m trotting through like I was born that way. None of the books have titles on them, just that weird swirly script that I can’t read. I look out the window, and it’s just a ...desert? Some sort of an empty flat landscape with sun shining lonely in the sky. And that’s pretty much it. I start feeling kind of woozy after wandering around for a while, and just settle down to sleep, inside my dream, descending into a blissfully dreamless rest.

“Oh, Sweetie Belle~!” 

I’m surprised when I do awaken, coming out of it woozily. Given the past days, I feel like maybe this is the nightmare I’ve been dreading tonight, but I never feel so achy or yawny when I’m dreaming. So it must be really waking up. I look blearily up from the bedcovers to my sister across the room. Rarity is standing there in my doorway with a bright smile on her face.

“Time to rise and shine!” she announces trotting up to me. “I’ve made haycakes today~”

I look down my bedcovers equally blearily, daring the dream to turn on me, if this is a dream. My bedcovers shift a bit as my tail swishes around indifferently. I look back at Rarity. Yep, definitely awake. A magical unicorn girl whose sister made her hay for breakfast, but still definitely awake. “T-thanks Rarity,” I say just a bit shyly, a genuine smile trying to creep onto my face.

“How do you feel this morning?” Rarity asks, “Up for taking care of my fur brushing, again?” That really brings a smile to my face. After I’ve figured out how to get out of bed again, I’m soon enthusiastically dragging the stiff brush down Rarity’s back, while she utters little tidbits of advice, but mostly pleased noises that are just music to my ears.

...even if they are horse noises.

Rarity then brushes my fur. She brushes it soft and smooth with the brush in her tingly magic aura. It easily scrapes out all the downy tufts that accumulated on my skin over the past day and night. Holy heck that feels good. I can’t stop from leaning into it because bruuuuush.

I help comb her hair too, and even her tail, with just a comb held in my mouth. And she does mine too, and... well. You know how good it feels when someone combs your hair, right? The thing is, when I was human, I always had tangles. Sweetie Belle’s mane and tail in contrast, they simply don’t tangle. So the comb does nothing but slide smoothly through them, removing itchy loose hairs and leaving supple smooth ones behind, those lovely curls of soft pink and purple that frame my vision, and curl so bouncily up behind me. Hair that would have got in my eyes, now stays well behaved and curled above. And the whole experience is just a painless delirious pleasure, that of someone taking care of me.

As flexible as ponies are, there is just no way I’m going to be able to comb the back of my own neck with a brush in my mouth. My hoof grip won’t hold a brush handle strongly enough, and maybe if I knew magic I could do it, but lots of ponies don’t. Rarity doesn’t even really use her magic to comb herself at all, when I can comb her instead!

It makes me wonder about how important friendship really must be to these ponies. As idyllic as this life is, there’s a distinct lack of thumbs, and because of that, there are just certain things which aren’t possible to do on your own. I need her help to comb my hair, and... well, “magic” like I said, but it still sort of feels like she needs my help, even if she is just humoring me. By myself, I’d be a bedraggled mess, no matter what I tried to do, but it’s almost effortless for me to take care of another pony’s needs. Could this be why they developed such a society so strongly focused on friendships?

Long story short, I love it when you comb my hair!

The haycakes are as exciting as Rarity implied. Have you ever had maple syrup that didn’t make you feel like your stomach wanted to cramp up? You have? Oh, I guess that’s just me then. But it’s old me, not Sweetie Belle! These haycakes are crunchier than pancakes, so they don’t get soggy in the syrup, and there’s butter all over them, and strawberries and daisies all alongside them. Sweet plump strawberries whose seeds burst on your teeth, and strong, crisp daisies whose stems you just want to nip to pieces one after the other.

Everything is tasty, but mostly my belly fills up good on two syrupped up haycakes. ...Rarity pours the syrup.

It certainly has me in a good mood. I almost get to help clean up the plates, but there’s no way I could carry them without shattering them when I face plant. But Rarity lets me wipe the tablecloth off, which I... kind of wipe it off of the table entirely. Most of the sticky spots are already out of the linen fabric by the time I accidentally do that. Rarity also lets me sweep the floor, sticking a push broom in my mouth, after laughing generously at my attempts to do so with my own tail. So I sweep the floor, well, at least part of the floor. It’s still pretty hard to move around.

The real Sweetie Belle uses her special private bathroom time to announce herself to me, and I totally don’t miss the bowl because of that, so if anyone says I did they’re lying. She and I have pretty much the same idea. She’s going to try to say Hey Rarity on the way to the hospital, when Rarity’s not looking. And I’ll gauge whether Rarity can hear her or not. I make Sweetie promise to say it in a normal tone of voice though, so I don’t get so obviously startled like last time.

Rarity insists on taking me to the hospital on her back this morning, which I’m all too grateful to concede to, as unlike myself, Rarity can actually get to the hospital before the sun sets. I have to admire her attention to detail. She’s even gone and bedazzled her saddle blanket, probably why the mauve yesterday is now a forest green. She settles down like a good little pony and I do my best to situate myself on her. The sequins on the side kind of tickle. (My legs they tickle my legs.)

Here in fashion horse’s boutique of fetish clothing, I ride atop my noble steed: Sweetie Belle’s best sister Rarity. Despite me and Sweetie’s best efforts, it looks like Sweetie Belle is only along for the ride, while the I still have to learn how to walk like a pony. I’m so very glad she’s safe, and I’d love to restore her to her rightful place in this body and this world, but... right now no one other than Sweetie knows of the unforgivable things I’ve done with her. As long as I’m forced to be in the driver’s seat, I don’t have to own up to that.

It’s almost weird to think of myself as human anymore. It’s just too easy to feel like Sweetie Belle. A human never felt a tail swishing behind them, much less moved it herself. And herself, at that. It seems so less alarming that I’ve got a baby maker inside my hips, having broke down and gotten so gosh darn familiar with it, that I went and had an orgasm. My belly is full, my health is good, everything feels so new, and plus I get to learn more about walking today. Plus, with Sweetie’s help, I won’t have to worry about being unable to read.

It’s a strange sort of contentment I feel. So much of my life is gone, and so much of this mess is left unresolved, but I still feel like things are finally beginning to settle into place. I have some idea what to do, and some notion of who to tell and how to deal with this. It doesn’t seem like any little filly is trapped in some hellish nightmare, since Sweetie Belle is right here with me, if literally in spirit. Being controlled by another pony doesn’t seem to bother Sweetie Belle one little bit, outside of my reluctance to touch her vagina. Our vagina.

So it is with no fanfare, and little ceremony, that Rarity’s magic envelops the doorknob, swinging the door open and carrying me into, what has somehow, against all I ever knew or even dreamed of, become my ordinary life.

Just outside the door, the giant plant monster attacking the town opens its gaping maw on the mountainous main stalk, and bellows forth an earsplitting roar.

Rarity backs up, and gently closes the door, then sprints for the back of the boutique.
> Welcome to Ponyville
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s times like these that I like to re-evaluate my life. Really ask myself if I’ve made the best decisions, if I’ve done well for myself and others. Take a good long look at what my future is going to be. Unfortunately, I’m too busy being swung around like a sack of beans, by giant, monstrous, green, animated vines! Do you know just how dizzying it is to get swung through the air like that? Really dizzying, that’s how! I bite down on the ropey vine wrapping around my torso, and it tastes like green and yuck but I keep biting, because I’m the predator here, not the prey! Stop messing with the natural order, stupid vines!

The vine coiling around my neck yanks my chin up so I can’t even bite down on anything. And more are binding to my legs and pulling them apart. Oh I know exactly where this is going. Of course a tentacle monster has to go and attack Ponyville. I’ve been summoned into Hell now I am absolutely sure. I’m living in a horrible fetish fanfic universe, where nopony is allowed to enjoy being savaged, and the evil tentacle beasts always win. It’s going to burrow into my body and inject its plant seeds directly into my womb. Or worse, my butt! It’s probably an ass fetishist, who’s going to treat my colon like a breeding ground for evil plant babies. And I can’t even move my head, the tendrils swaying above me just dripping with their sweet nectar to force down my throat, dulling my mind and sapping my will with its mind control chemicals. A slippery vine slides right up along the entrance to my little filly vagina, teasing me before it hammers brutally into me. My only solace is that horses don’t have hymens!

How about some past tense? Past tense is good, because I don’t like present tense! I don’t like present tense at all! Why am I only remembering my memories? Why isn’t it really flashing back, like in the TV show? Flash back damn you, flash back! OH GOD IT’S

Some time earlier, my eyes had trailed up, and up the mountainous column blotting out the sun, of writhing green tendrils spilling into the road in front of the boutique. An earsplitting roar erupted from the cavernous mouth organ at its apex, I may have mentioned. Screams resounding all through town in response as ponies awakened in alarm. Without a word, Rarity had exploded into motion, only the fact I already had a terrified death grip on her back keeping me from hurtling off, as she outright gallopped for the back door to the boutique. Through the window beside it, writhing green vines were already sinuating their way inside.

It was pretty much all over for me, when it got her. Rarity defended us bravely, with a frightening array of wickedly sharp scissors and needles at her telekinetic command, but the one thing she didn’t have was garden shears. The tentacles shrank back as she snipped them away, but her tools were for dry cloth and thread, not sticky wet plant flesh. They quickly got gummed up and she couldn’t get the window closed before more lashed out through it. And the window behind us just broke open then, which is when it got Rarity by the ankle.

Who am I kidding? It was over for us the moment a tentacle monster walked into town. Nobody writes a story about someone winning against a tentacle monster. They always get ruined, and brutalised and mind wiped. Even if it is full of enticing rape, it’s also full of hate and strife, and pleasure in the misery of others. Specifically the misery of Rarity, who was unceremoniously carted screaming right through her own window. She bucked just as I tried to escape the tendrils reaching for me, sending me flying back to the floor, but I could only watch as it dragged her shrieking form out, up into the air, and then... the tentacles came feeling around... hunting for me.

I can’t even walk goddammit!

I just tried to stay very still, and covered my privates with my tail as much as I could. As much as I’d enjoy getting some hot syrupy plant flesh stuffed up there, I would not want to spend the next months as a living zombie infected by some sort of sluglike plant creatures that consumed my body from the inside out, only left alive to spread the tentacle rape to others. Or, you know, however these sort of stories always seem to go. I wished it was a story, because then I could rely on plot savviness to escape and save myself, and then I could turn the story around and force the author to write me saving everyone else from the tentacled horror. But instead I was actually sitting there in the kitchen of a pastel colored boutique for ponies, trying to hold perfectly still, while seeking tendrils crawled all over my body and pressed against me. How could something like this exist? How does it even move? Why couldn’t it leave me alone?

And it neither left me alone, nor offered any hope of escape. There was a crash outside, and that seemed to spur it into action, tightening around me with blinding speed and dragging me screaming across the floor. I was in the air before I knew it, upside down by a hind leg, limbs flailing around, trying to cross my legs to keep it from getting in there. And then I was outside, hurtling screaming through the air as the tentacles retracted me away from any modicum of safety. And then it pulled my chin away from biting it, and got my other leg pulling them apart, and a thick tendril slid along me under there, forcing me to straddle it as its tip dragged ever closer to my entrance. And oh shit I’m out of flashback. No, I have to think of something else! Puppies and kittens! Oh god, the changeling comic arc. It’s not working!

“I don’t wanna be pla҉nt pregnant!” I wail in despair as the blunt tip prods right against that soft tender sensation of what surely leads right into my sweet little unicorn womb. It decides to tease me even worse though, wrapping in a figure eight around my thighs, sinuating around and lifting my tail against my will. And pressing against my—oh god it’s touching my butt! “Please not my butt!” I shriek in a total panic. “O҉ther hole! Other ho҉le!”

The tentacle creature only tightens around me at my words. My resistence is only turning it on! And soon it’s making me straddle it again, sliding right along those amazing vulva. It’s trying to turn me on! It’s trying to sap my will, by arousing me until I can’t even resist! And it’s working! This is so incredibly hot! Why can’t they just do it already and also skip the whole zombie death pregnancy too please! “What are you do҉ing!” I shriek in frustration, “Come on, just do҉ it! I can’t take it anymo—” and then a vine shoves into my mouth. But not in the way that I was expecting. It shoves sideways through my mouth, like a... like a bridle! This is a stupid fetish story. Why did I waste my genre savvy on a sneak check? Why is reality a giant writhing stalk of tendrillike vines, carrying ponies into the air and trundling right through town? Why is it so big?

I bite down angrily on the vine in my mouth, and it yanks right out. That was stupid. Now it’s going to go in orthogonally right down my throat, and stuff my stomach full of mind control sap! “Somebody h—!” I shout, and I don’t know why I bother, but I correct myself, screaming, “Somepony help! Anypony!”

With all the other ponies screaming though, I can’t imagine anypony will be coming to help us any time soon. If they could, they already would. There’s just nothing I can do! It’ll do me and then I’ll be its zombie slave and then I’ll be dead and can never see anypony again. It’s not funny when it’s really happening! I’m going to die! I... don’t try to stop myself from crying really hard. It doesn’t help. I almost made it! Why can’t I have anything good? Why am I always—

A whiplike vine snaps around my muzzle completely, tightening like a vice. I try to scream and struggle but I can’t even move. It’s holding me tight and it’s holding my mouth shut so I can’t even scream! My tears just trickle down my eyes, and my nose is running. It’s going to go in me, and I barely even got to play with it before my filly vagina proved my doom. Once again that thick tentacle vine straddles my underside. Then from above me, it—it lowers a tentacle down, and starts patting me on the head. What? A whooshing noise turns my ears around, and then abruptly the tentacles holding me loosen, and flail around wildly. My mouth is free just in time for me to give a quick shriek as my stomach drops out from under me. It’s not even trying to hold me now! What’s going on?

My feet and tail are dangling so far above the ground, that the boutique looks tiny below me. I can’t hold on—why are these things so slippery?! Am I going to die falling to my death, rejected by a tentacle monster who didn’t think I was sexy enough to violate?! I’d be utterly infuriated, if my head wasn’t swimming with vertigo. It keeps moving under my hooves I can’t—it heaves underneath me in a powerful snapping ripple, and I get flung free like a fluffy white lacrosse ball, hurtling through the air! I can’t even scream anymore; I’m too busy hyperventilating. If I have any magic, this would be a good time to use it now! The ground speeds towards a pegasus catches me.

The... ground... ...speeds? Why am I not falling? There are... big hooves under my armpits... or were those called elbow pits...

I’m still really high, bobbing up and down in the air from the arms of a... a pegasus catches me!! I look up at my savior, a yellow pegasus, with a mane the color of robin’s eggs and mild sea green eyes. It’s a... background pony that I should know. Her name’s just on the tip of my tongue. She works for that pegasus moving company. She’s carrying me through the... sky—I’m not dead! I’m going to live! 

“Thank you,” I gasp up to her. “Thank you!”

“Yur gonna be okie lil filly,” she says to me in a compact little voice that sounds kind of like a cross between a sparrow, and that one lady you always find working at a college admissions office. I can’t wipe at my eyes with my hooves hooked like this. I wish I could just... I don’t even care. I thought I was going to die!

Instead, I blink until I can see through my tears, which aren’t coming anymore but still need to be wiped away. We’re descending away from the plant monster thing, which is mostly curled up now, and blackened from the bottom up. I see why, as a gout of flame erupts from down on the ground, where three very familiar ponies are standing, and not one single dragon. I can see how this is a possible, if inconceivable occurrance, because these three ponies have... barrel mounted flame throwers.

I’m seriously watching the flower trio, yes that flower trio, advancing on a giant monster with barrel mounted flame throwers. I was kidding about that, by the way! Hello? I mean I guess it makes a sort of logical, twisted sense but, those three? With flame throwers?

I think the world I’ve landed in must have rabbits the size of VW beetles, if these three will faint at the sight of them. I... sort of feel faint myself. I don’t want to pass out though, because I want to see as much of Ponyville as I can while I’m up here. I wonder if we can take balloon rides. The straw roofs spread out grandly before me along the land below, denser and closer together where we are, while still being divided by wide roadways and generous green gardens, then sparsely dotting and scattered among the misty hills beyond. I think there are crops over to my left, or something...? But that’s all I manage to eyeball before we drop below the level of the houses, and into the courtyard in front of town hall.

“Alrite, there yago,” the pegasus says, dropping me down on a nice soft bed of grass. “You take care now lilfilly.”

“Thank you so much,” I say to her again, and she blushes and smiles at that, but keeps flying, fluttering higher until she’s up and away heading back toward the charred hulk.

Town Hall is really big. It might look like three stories tall, but those are three stories for giants, ceilings towering over the heads of ponies, and I mean adult ponies. Actually, I wonder if it is this big, for possible visiting foreign dignitaries? Maybe a... dragon...ish thing? Sure, not big enough for plant monsters. Good grief but that plant thing was fucking huge. The three levels of the town hall have balconies going all the way around the building. I wonder how they got the flags all the way up on those support beams—oh, probably pegasi. But there I am, just sitting out in the courtyard in front of it along with a good amount of other ponies who look like their day has been thoroughly disrupted.

I manage to get standing, looking around. It looks like this is where they’re dumping the ponies that got snatched up by the vines. Some are huddling together. There’s a blue mare I don’t recognize, passing out blankets folded up on her back. That was a... experience I really don’t want to repeat. Now I’m stuck here, in the middle of a bunch of strange ponies, all by myself and I have to walk to get anywhere. The courtyard seems so huge. It would take me forever just to reach its edge. I feel so lost and alone, I... why would I be crying? I’m saved from the monster, that’s a good thing. Yet I can’t stop my lip from trembling, and that fear gripping at my chest, as tears well up in my eyes. I manage to take a few steps but then just sit down again. I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. I don’t even know where... where’s Rarity?

Where’s Rarity? I can’t see her! Oh, there’s no way I’m not walking now. I stumble, trying to figure out how to turn around, but no matter how I crane my neck around, I can’t see her distinctive snow white coat and elegant blurple mane. I can’t see anyone I know! Even the ones I know, I don’t know! I don’t know any ponies in town, just a bunch of strangers who could know me, but I only saw a show about them before, at best. Rarity got taken by the tentacles; I saw it happen! She has to be here then, because this is where they’re putting the ponies who got snatched up. She has to... I–I almost died back there. If she hadn’t caught me—they caught Rarity, right? She should be here then! She has to be here! She couldn’t have... my blood goes cold.

I don’t know when the simpering whimpers turn into actual crying, but I can’t stop! It’s just too much. I’ve been torn out of my house, thrown around like a doll, completely unmolested, and Rarity can’t be dead, she has to be alive! But why can’t I find her? What am I going to do? She can’t have died! Some pony runs up to me and lifts me off the ground, and I try to tell him I need Rarity right now, but I can’t even talk. It’s just some strange pony who I don’t recognize, and I never even saw on the show. I don’t even know what pours out of my mouth, but horrible terrified sobs that I want to stop and I can’t stop them!

“Sweetie Belle?!” comes Rarity’s alarmed cry, as she descends like an angel from above. No really, I jerk my head up mid sob and watch Rarity floating down to the ground, with the hooves of the pegasus carrying her firmly affixed in her armpits. Have you ever been so upset, that the sudden relief just confused you? I just sit there blanking out on the strange pony’s... back I’ve been freaking out on a pony’s back, without even knowing I was put on there. Rarity gallops as soon as she lands and rushes up to me saying, “Sweetie, are you alright?” in such a concerned tone.

“I-I’m ...eeeeuuuuu,” is about as much as I get out before a wail starts to squeeze its way out of my tight throat again. I’m getting worse again, but she’s right here! Why am I getting upset? She looks at me with such worry and fear. She’s here! She’s alive. Stop crying, you stupid filly!

It’s only after Rarity has snatched me off the stranger’s back, and I’ve fallen onto her own, that I notice I’m not the only one crying. An echo of my sobs just vanishes as Sweetie Belle’s voice speaks out moaning, “Please, stop...” and then the sobbing returns and... oh god, she feels everything I feel! Rarity has me in a heap on the ground now, and I’m right against her as she lays on her side, half curled around me, telling me it’s alright, and it’s over now, and here I am making the little filly who saved my life cry her heart out!

I stuff a hoof sideways in my mouth, biting down on it to muffle the sobs. It hurts but... it works. Shivering and shuddering I gasp to take in a breath, and every breath I let out turns into a low wail that I just can’t stop making. I keep focusing on Rarity, trying to draw in gulps of air, make my breathing smooth and even. Shut my eyes, hide my face in the crook of her leg. Whatever it takes to stop this crying. I don’t care about myself, but I am not going to let Sweetie Belle feel like this!

Finally my breathing is short, but it’s just breathing. I think I’m calm enough now, that I won’t freak out again, if I come back out and stop hiding my face in... holy cream gravy! Where the fwuck did I just stick my face? I’ve got like a... nipple pressed against my nose. It’s a big nipple! I sit up as fast as I can, pulling my head out from... whatever I was doing to Rarity’s crotch. What even was that?! I’m... I...

...

...I rouse to consciousness some time later, limply draped on Rarity’s back again, on her sequined and embroidered green saddle blanket. Did I just... did I just faint? Oh, no. I bet it’s hereditary. Every part of me feels totally deflated. I don’t even feel like I could lift my legs, and my tail drapes flatly along her butt. I... actually feel better though, after having faintedaccidentally slept a few winks. It’s like my thoughts were getting all tangled up, and even normal stuff stopped making sense, but now everything is loose and unravelled.

It seems obvious now. A plant monster made out of tentacles broke in through our windows, pulled Rarity out screaming, then me eventually. Instead of violating me, it just kept covering up my mouth or forcing it to close for some reason. When it got flame throwered by the flower trio, it lost its grip on me, and I almost got thrown to my death, but then a pegasus saved me. And similarly, a pegasus saved Rarity or... something, but Rarity wasn’t where they dropped me off. So I freaked out, because I thought she died or something, and she’s the main character! Forced myself to stop crying once I realized... Sweetie’s still with me in my head, even when I’m hurting. So I can’t make her cry like that. I calmed down finally, with my face shoved up against Rarity’s tits. And that was just too much for my little filly brain to take, I guess.

See, that’s what I mean by unravelling my thoughts. It’s easier to understand what happened, now. I’m just not as caught up in it.

“Where were you?” I say, with more hurt than I intended, lifting up my head, as Rarity stops pacing along, and half turns towards me.

“Why, looking for you Sweetie!” Rarity says spryly, resuming her smooth walk. “When that featherbrain Dipsy tried to return me to my boutique,” she says while facing forward, away from me, “Without awareness that you were with me at the time, I had some words with her! But she was happy enough to give me an extra lift to where you were likely to be.”

“O-oh, I thought they were just putting ponies all in one place,” I say now with a guilty hunch. If I had thought Rarity was somewhere else, this whole crying thing might have been entirely mostly avoided. It’s just that she was gone and... and this is a beautiful, utopian land, and in beautiful, utopian lands, your best sister and sole caretaker doesn’t get unceremoniously killed by a cruel, uncaring universe. So if she did get killed then... that means everything is terrible....

Maybe I’m just a stupid filly who throws a tantrum the moment I don’t get what I want.

I feel worst about Sweetie Belle, who hasn’t said anything since Rarity picked us up. Sweetie wouldn’t have even gotten scared. She knows all about this emergency protocol or whatever, and how giant monsters are nothing to be worried about. And here I was forcing her to be scared, and forcing her to cry, because I didn’t know those things, and I had no idea if I’d ever see Rarity ever again! I could have just asked her, and she would have said Rarity’s at the boutique safe and sound, but instead I just... whatever that was. Couldn’t stop crying. I feel so relaxed about it now, but I can assure anyone who asks, that crying like that is almost as horrible an experience as almost getting killed by a giant plant thing. My throat is still scratchy, and my eyes feel puffy, and the fur on my face is all crusty with tears, and Sweetie Belle has to feel all that. I’ve got to control myself better if... if I’ve got to worry about her too.

I don’t recognize the road Rarity is walking down. It doesn’t look different from any others, really, but the sun is to my left, instead of in front of me, and I don’t exactly remember, but I think the hospital is sunwards in the morning. That’s... east, right. I guess we’d be walking... north then.

“Um...” I speak up, watching for Rarity’s ear to swivel toward me. “Where are we going?”

“Just a chocolate cafe I know about in northside,” she says lightly. “After a morning like that, I think a cup of hot cocoa would be just the thing to calm our nerves.”

Help, Rarity’s back is too big! I need longer arms, so I can hug her more!

The northern part of Ponyville appears not to be as populated, with houses sparsely smattered among the hills. It looks like ponies here just have large... yards or something, but what fences I can see are not barriers, so much as road markers; flat wooden structures that infrequently parallel the road in low to the ground, sweeping swirl shapes, painted pink of course, with plenty of ways to walk around them. It has such a feel of openness to it. Looking out across, to where the hills even out into broad farms in the center of the valley Ponyville is in, it just catches my heart that... there’s nothing blocking me from going there.

It’s something I had only ever seen in paintings from before the Industrial revolution. Sadly, the idyllic scene of houses lazily dotting green meadows stops existing, once someone decides that all land must be owned, and all owned land must be marked, guarded and fenced off. Less sadly, cholera, dyptheria and smallpox also stop existing. But even in modern times, if you take down the fences and barriers, it reveals a land that was never divided that way, open and expansive. One unified expanse of land, that people are quick to forget in protecting their assets. They hide it from us with fences, and walls, so that we don’t even know it’s there. We don’t even know what we’re missing.

I can see from myself, just my little unicorn self atop the larger Rarity, from there all the way to the mountains on the horizon. There are possible obstacles, but there is no barrier that I could not simply walk around. There’s no signs barring me from entry. There’s something incredible about being able to see a continuous landscape expanding from here to the horizon. It’s almost a physical reaction, to behold the wind whispered waving grasses, all the way into that distance, with no fence separating you from it. I feel a breathless sigh, a sort of dizziness go through me, the dizziness of freedom. If I could learn to walk, then I could... I could go there.

Even if you see the same sort of landscape back home, it’s an immense difference when seen from behind a chainlink fence. You can stand there, your cold fingers hooked into the links, the signs posted on the fence, warning you that trespassing will be prosecuted, and you can see the same thing I see, but feel worlds apart from it. It’s not like you would do anything with the land, even if the fence weren’t there, but you still feel disconnected from it. It’s like you’re here behind this fence, in a quarantined, systemized habitat, and the world beyond the fence just isn’t something you can ever be a part of. Sort of like your very existence is one that harms, and must be controlled, and contained.

Looking out at this land north of town, it’s the same sort of feeling as when you take your hood off in the forest. I know people don’t want others to have the power to push them around, to ruin their land and exploit their generosity. That’s a perfectly sensible desire, and a reasonable fear. Humans can’t so much as touch a natural area without destroying it, it seems. But when other humans fence us out, to protect their land from us, something indescribably valuable is lost, and I don’t really think the questionable benefit of those fences is worth it. Essentially, these open lands lead to dreams, and those fences... they lead to nightmares.

One of these verdant, green hills has a large cottage atop it, nestled in a stand of thick scraggly looking trees. It’s a larger cottage than most of the houses, with a terrace on its second story. Rarity isn’t the only pony on the road, but there are many more clustering around the cottage than currently in transit. With a sign out front that bears what looks like an almond, alongside a ceramic cup, it’s pretty clear that this is either a coffee house, or what Rarity promised me: a chocolate cafe.

“Well, here we are,” Rarity says, stopping a short distance away from it. “Would you like to walk the rest of the way?”

Oh, right I can walk. Uh, sort of. “That would be great!” I say, jerked out of my entranced gaze. “I have to get used to it sometime, after all.”

Rarity descends to her belly and I again attempt to dismount, ending up on my side in the dirt of the road for my troubles, but at least not totally spilling out. Sitting up and dusting myself off, I watch as she rises up higher than me, like she were an ordinary... huh. Actually, from the perspective of a smaller filly, Rarity is about the size that a horse on earth would seem to a smaller human. I’m pretty sure humans would dwarf both of us though, if we were there. The lore is pretty clear on that: either adult ponies are about 3 or so feet tall, or else they’re literally the size of the toys, according to that one episode.

Well now, Rarity’s not the only one here who can rise up on all fours, like a pretty pony! Pushing up from my hindquarters, and falling forward to clop my hooves against the dirt, I manage to stand up fairly well. Standing, I’m about at the level of her withers, just a little too tall to see the bottom of Rarity’s belly. Her uhm, rump for lack of a better word, is a bit taller than her withers, decorated with her signature shining diamonds. I can’t see the top of my own head, but I get the feeling like if I crouched just a bit then I could fit entirely underneath Rarity’s chin. But... I stop ogling her in an analytical yet starstruck manner, and face forward saying,

“Okay, I can do this.”

Step one, three, hold, two four, swap, repeat. That’s what I have to do. I step one, and pause... in surprise of just how intimidating this is. The world is really big around me here, and I don’t know how comfortable I feel about that. The cafe seems so far away now that I started walking... but I don’t give up. I continue onto step three, hold, two four, and... swap, with a little wobble. I try to smile reassuringly at Rarity, who’s standing there watching me with a neutral expression. Then I just concentrate on walking. I repeat the process, moving my feet opposite each other, trying to get a rhythm going. Oh right, it’s supposed to be like rocking. That sort of ....wo–oah, this road has an upward slope!

I feel like I’m going to fall back, or like I can’t fall forward as easily, to keep me moving. It’s just a gentle slope; why is this so hard?! My steps lose confidence at the slight hill, and get more wobbly. Rarity walks along haltingly beside me. I almost fall back on my butt at one point, my front legs rearing up and actually pedalling in the air like a bonified pony, before they clop back down again, and before Rarity says,

“Perhaps we can work on it, later.”

A disappointed “Aw,” manages to escape me, but I sigh in aquiescence, saying, “Yeah, you’re right. I just... I hope I can walk soon.”

At least I’m getting better at climbing onto Rarity. I just have to hold on with one front leg to pull myself up to get the other around her neck, whereupon I can pull my lower torso up from there until I’m straddling her, with my little white belly once again smooshed against that pretty looking saddle blanket. And um... my other parts also can be pushed against that pretty looking saddle blanket, but only if I really angle my hips forward. So I don’t.

Of course, that means those parts are exposed to the air in open view of all, displayed under my entirely too eagerly springy tail. But honestly, what can you do? Either be exposed, or rub it on your sister, what a grand pair of decisions. It’s really not so bad though, since every other pony just about is as exposed as I am. I’d get more worried looks if I was wearing pants! This sunlight on my butt is kind of pleasant really, and the gentle breeze teases refreshingly along my, er, hind...quarters.

Rarity walks us the rest of the way to the cafe, and I sort of see why she wanted me to walk alongside her, because here we’re getting some strange looks from the ponies at the tables. It’s nopony I recognize, except possibly Colgate, but I’m not sure the white in her mane is stripes or not. But with me laying there on top of Rarity, I have to think that maybe I’m not supposed to be like this. Oh, I can tolerate any humiliation myself, but it sort of makes me want to walk again, to save Rarity from any sort of stigma. She doesn’t need them to see her carrying me around like a little baby. They might not even know that it’s my fault for being unable to walk, and nothing Rarity can do to fix that.

Rarity has some whispered words with the pony waiter, something about me having a ‘hoof problem’ and whether she can set me down at the table before going to order. The waiter, a pleasant tan and pink mare with a cutie mark of three plates, leads Rarity to a table, then actually helps me perform the dismount, so I stay on my feet. Hooves.

The tables here are the same height as Rarity’s kitchen table, round in shape with a tan colored tablecloth draped over them, and a tray of napkins in the middle. From the middle of them emerges a pole, that is capped in a broad, cloth umbrella of the same tan as the tablecloth. There are no chairs, just strategically placed packed piles of hay, one of which I manage to hunker my butt down on. It would normally be awkward to sit upright like a human, but with my forehooves braced on the table it actually feels kind of natural. Rarity leaves me alone, to order food from the front.

That’s when I hear an “Uggh.”

Looking around, I sort of lay my head against the table and cover my hooves over my muzzle, mumbling out, “Sweetie Belle? You okay?”

“I keep forgetting,” she whispers back. “It was such a nice day, except for the monster, and I should have said ‘Hey Rarity’ but I forgot.”

“It’s okay,” I say as quietly as I can, “Just say it later.” I pause and add, “S-sorry about earlier.”

“Sorry?” she whispers back.

“For all that crying, um, I didn’t mean to make you all ...headachey.” My brow twists, trying to describe how I felt afterward, which is also how she felt.

“Don’t worry,” Sweetie whispers back to me appeasingly, “I was crying too.”

“Of course you were!” I quietly hiss out, “But I made us cry, because I stupidly thought something bad happened to Rarity. I should have just asked somepony.”

“You were really scared...”

Before I can think up a response, Rarity has returned, floating in front of me a ceramic cup filled with what is probably hot chocolate, but I can’t precisely determine that without extensive investigation, since the hot chocolate is covered in a thick layer of whipped cream, with little chocolate sprinkles and a dash of cinnamon on top. And I mean real cinnamon. Not that fake stuff, that tastes like vaguely cinnamony sawdust. That was all the cinnamon you could get, outside of my childhood as a human, since real cinnamon got so badly overfarmed.

I have to admit I’m a little worried about the implications of chocolate, considering how it was harvested back home, but I just have to accept that this world is a good place, and things are going to work out somehow. If chocolate was evil, I’m sure Daring Do would go down there and put an end to the evil chocolate slavers. Or uh, something. Because it smells so good, that I don’t dare think bad thoughts about it. I hope this chocolate can partially make up to Sweetie for my little tantrum earlier. Though, considering the one before that and uh... the one before that... good god I am such a crybaby! I never cried before the... well, you know.

I can hold the cup in my hooves pretty easily. The fore...palms on my arms go from bracing against the table to lifting up, as my elbows come out and take on the burden of bearing my weight. Weird that I can just... release my shoulders like that. It lets me rotate my hooves, so their responsive pads press on either side of the cup, and from there it’s relatively simple to lift the cup up. The cup feels so warm against my hooves. Not in a bad way, not even close to burning me. It feels just like I’m warming my fingers before a cheery fire, except that their pliable, rough fingertips are pressed against the sides of a ceramic cup, instead of held out before me.

Cradling the cup securely in my hooves, I regard the steamy thing somewhat uncertainly. I don’t recall ever having sipped before, and my mouth is a lot different than when I was human. It’s actually a bit unsettling to press the cup to my lips. Because I have a muzzle, the edge of the cup hits them further ahead of uhm... “me” than I would expect. And my tongue is... weird to say the least. It keeps wanting to swell up or something, but not in a painful way. I have to hold that back, in order to get my mouth into a shape such that I can sip anything, without the liquid just running out the sides down my cheeks.

Yeah, you heard me right. I can’t even sip naturally. I do manage it though, very carefully and artificially. At first all I get is delicious foam, tasting of cinnamon, sugar, milk and vanilla. That stuff sticks in my mouth, so it’s easy to dissolve in there and swallow, but when I hit dark, rich cocoa, I have to pull back with a hiss.

So here I am, a nigh indestructible superpony of some sort, who survives wagon crashes, headfirst tree collisions, and giant roaring plant monsters, and I still can’t tolerate hot drinks. Grumbling, I lower the cup to its saucer, and switch back to bracing on the table with my toes instead of my elbows. As a human, I’d have to lift the cup to my face, but as Sweetie Belle, I can just crane my head right down to it, and blow on it to try and cool it off. Of course, doing that gets the remainder of the foam to fluff up right onto my nose.

I stare at it uncertainly with my eyes crossed, before looking questioningly at Rarity, unsure of whether I should waste it on the napkin or... what. She’s got a terribly amused look on her face, still floating her cup in her magic, and when I meet her eyes, Rarity just sticks her tongue out a teeny bit for a moment, for no apparant reason. Is she trying to tell me something? Come on, she can’t be seriously suggesting... that’s impossible, right?

So I try it, and find it easy to just curl my tongue up and lick off my nose, pulling my tongue quickly back inside my mouth with wide eyes, when I realize what it’s doing. As said, my tongue is weird now. I know I have a different face... uh... shape and all, but damn. I’ve never been able to lick my own nose, even when my nose was tiny and squashed against my face. Here in Equestria noses are so much further away, yet I find I can just swipe my whole tongue across it. Ponies must just have huge tongues. I wonder how big I could get it, but I don’t want to embarass Rarity or anything. I wonder if you could use it to—and there go my thoughts, right back into the gutter.

Partially to conceal a blush I can’t explain to anypony, I dangle a napkin on my hoof and press it to my face, delicately wiping any stray saliva off my nose.

Even if autocunnilingus is possible, there’s no way a monster of a tongue like that is going to achieve its full utility. No it’s still going to take someone else doing it for me, or me for them. N-not that I’m intending to stick my tongue up anyones’...uh...

In other news, a universal constant between our universes remains, that chocolate is love.

“Rarity?” I ask my—I ask her sister, looking at Rarity over my now half finished cup of cocoa. “Is um... where does chocolate come from?” I don’t want to know, but I just have to ask. It’s better to be disappointed and sad, than ignorant... right? Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have asked, oops.

“Hmm?” Rarity tilts her head at me ever so slightly. “The chocolate tree, I imagine?” she says uncertainly.

“No I mean—” I stare into my cup, blushing despite myself, “What part of the ...world?”

“Hem... any part?” Rarity suggests, “The chocolates of Sweedeer are of notable reputation, but it’s not like you can beat the quality of locally home grown, if possible.”

“No um, not the chocolate bars. I meant... where do the trees grow?” I clarify, feeling very confused at that.

“Sweetie, dear, I know you saw them on your way in,” Rarity tells me in a rather unimpressed tone. “That’s what I love about this cafe, you understand. Cocoa Crumble produces everything locally! Some say the imported chocolate is superior, but I say nay! Nothing surpasses a chocolate that has a taste of home in it.”

“I saw ...what?” I utter dumbly, feeling really stupid for having to ask. Probably looking really stupid too. Just stupid little Sweetie Belle, sitting there with her cocoa in her hooves, all unobservant and...stuff.

“The... chocolate trees?” Rarity suggests to me, angling her nose toward the window, “Right outside?”

“Those are chocolate trees?!” I yelp, my hooves thumping onto the table as I lean forward and look at the window... and the cup of hot cocoa I was holding lands on the table, spilling all over the place.

“Oh... oh no!” I exclaim, backing up, trying to sop up what I can with my napkin. “I almost finished it too...” I whimper in disappointment. And now I want to cry again. Scratch that, actually crying. Stop it stupid eyes; it’s just spilled chocolate! I probably won’t get any more... I already drank half of it! And all the whipped cream! There's nothing to complain about. I rear back to get a hold of myself, rubbing at my eyes and trying to ease my breathing. It sounds disturbingly like a little girl hiccupping, but it works and nothing gets any worse.

"Oh Sweetie, honestly," Rarity says in exasperation, a second napkin wreathed in her magic coming to mop up the greater part of the spill, "The silliest things, yet you care about them so much. You must feel just awful, but don't worry. I think I know just what you need."

I look up from watching the magic flow around the cloth, to regard Rarity with a note of uncertain curiosity. Rarity is already levitating her drink through the air, towards my face. Her own drink, that is, with the dark surface of its remaining liquid barely disturbed in the motion, in the delicate white ceramic cup tinged in sparkling blue.

"Tell you what, you have just one more sip," Rarity says in a flippantly practical voice, "And let the buspony take care of cleaning this up?"

"O-okay," I say uncertainly at the cup in front of me. I have to admit, the loss of my cup doesn't seem nearly so bad when I have that one more sip to look forward to. "So just um..." It's freaking embarassing, but I pinch my lips around the lip of the cup and pull it down to hold between my hooves. Tilting it up just enough to flood my mouth with the sweet, dark taste of chocolate, I find it has cooled to a pleasant temperature in the time since it was served to us. I think I'm blushing, when I release the cup, returning it to float back over to Rarity. Yep, definitely blushing. I savor that sip of chocolate and the smile she gives to me, clearly seeking one in return. I wish I could give one to her, but I'm just not ready, and I don't want to fake it.

“Thank you, Rarity,” I say, very genuinely. She looks a bit flustered at that, responding by quickly drinking the rest of hers, and standing up from the table.

“Well dear, the busponies can take care of this, I believe,” she says walking over to me. “Climb on then and we shall get on our way. Can’t keep your physical therapist waiting, after all!”

“We’re still going?” I blurt out in amazement.

“We’re dreadfully late,” Rarity says in disappointment, “I suppose it’s to be expected considering this morning. But we should at least make an appearance.”

“I—I didn’t think I mean after that...”

“What, that you’d be hurt?” Rarity suggests. “I’m very grateful that you’re uninjured, Sweetie, and if you were hurt, then we would get you to the hospital right away.”

“No I mean,” I frown in frustration. “It was... scary?”

Rarity blinks at me, then hides a titter under her hoof. “That’s no reason to disrupt our lives, dear,” she says. “It isn’t going to hurt you, anymore. Believe it or not, those occurrances are very rare, even in a town such as Ponyville! I’m sure we’ll be right as rain until next Tuesday, at least.”

When I give her an uncomprehending stare she blushes and looks away, adding, “Just a saying, dear. It isn’t in reference to any particular... ehm...”

“It’s okay, I think I understand,” I say hastily. “I um... let’s just get to the... appointment.”

“Very well,” she agrees, “Up you go, then!” Without crouching this time, Rarity stands beside me, and I can see why, because this straw bale already gives me quite a boost to get onto her. Sure is a lot easier to climb onto Rarity than off of her. A few ponies give us odd stares on the way out again, probably again because I have yet to see a colt or filly riding upon an older pony. I hope I’m not making Rarity look bad. I hope I’m not making Sweetie Belle look bad! No, I shouldn’t kid myself. Sweetie is going to get teased ruthlessly for this, no doubt about that. I can hardly bear to contain my anticipation.

On the way to the hospital, I ask Rarity, “How late are we? It’s already almost lunch, isn’t it? Has Ace been expecting us this whole time? Oh no, I didn’t think—”

“I sent a message his way,” Rarity tells me before I can devolve into hystrionics. “You remember, Cloudy Breeze stopped to chat after the monster attack?”

I pause, and... blush, and actually no, I kind of tuned that part out. Too busy being shocked about a monster attack. I guess I do vaguely recall Rarity talking with some ponies in oddly trombone like tones, but I just assumed it was part of the rescue effort. “I must have missed that, sorry,” I say apologetically.

“And sorry for crying earlier,” I add in an afterthought.

“Oh, think nothing of that,” Rarity says quickly, pausing and turning to face me, “There is nothing wrong with crying when one is upset, even if it is over a little spill like that.”

“A little spill?” I ask in confusion. “It threw me from like a hundred feet in the air!”

“Oh, that,” Rarity says with a nervous twitch to the corner of her mouth. “I thought you were referring to your chocolate.”

I pause, tight lipped. “Oh... that,” I eventually say, numbly. “Sorry for that, too.”

“Think nothing of it Sweetie,” Rarity says, her smile returning. “You handled yourself most admirably, especially as that was for all intents and purposes your first cup of chocolate ever, am I right?”

“Oh! Um,” Right, amnesia. Forgot about that. “I... yes, that was... no. It was the second time,” I work out, in a bit of mental disarray. “The first time I had chocolate,” I say evenly, “Was that chocolate fudge sundae you gave me. It was so good.”

“Ah—yes... I do suppose chocolate syrup counts too,” Rarity says with just a bit of blush to her cheeks before turning forward again to stride with me. Clopaclop go her distant hooves, a quiet accompaniment to the soothing rocking motion from on top of her warm body.

We’re just about at the hospital, when Sweetie Belle shouts out, “Hey, Rarity!” making me jolt up in shock, from laying there dozing on her back.

“Hmm?” Rarity says, stopping and turning to face me. “Something wrong, Sweetie?”

Crap. Crap crap crap I did it again. “N-no, nothing’s wrong, I just... “ I look around the sky saying eagerly, “Thought I saw a butterfly!”

Rarity rolls her eyes, but doesn’t press the issue and just takes me into the hospital reception area instead. According to the nurse at the desk... Nurse Coldheart is her name. Nurse Coldheart tells us, in that hiccuppy Louisana drawl of hers, that Dr. Ace managed to rearrange his schedule, moving an inpatient to my time slot, giving him more of a time to work on his “game” later that afternoon. So I’m happy for him, that he didn’t just have to wait there. The downside for me is that he won’t be able to see me today, which means I can’t ask him about how to walk uphill.

I wonder if there are any books on walking. Because I can’t read maybe, but now I have someone who can! Somepony who can! I just have to figure out this talking thing with Sweetie, and we can both read about stuff... maybe even on how to separate into two fillies! Or... two ponies! Two... beings? I just have to get alone for a second to talk this over with Sweetie, so I ask Rarity,

“Oh, um before we go, can I... use the toilet?”

And... in hindsight, I probably should have realized that being alone in a public restroom isn’t the most common thing in the world. Of course the ceramic tiles make everything all echoey too, even when you try to talk quietly. When I walk in there to see a mare washing up, while a stallion strolls into a stall, it does occur to me that I might not be able to talk with Sweetie, but it does also occur to me and my bottom that I do in fact have to pee.

So I do. And I try to tug on my butt to spread myself a bit so it doesn’t make as much of a mess of my vulva. It’s not very effective. That stallion is still going for a while, when I’m done. I didn’t have much in me after all; I’ve no doubt a smaller bladder. He still walks out sooner though, what with how much “fun” I have trying to get these toilet paper dispensers working. Sweetie can’t talk because he’s there, and as luck would have it, as soon as he leaves, another mare comes waddling in the bathroom and rushes into one of the stalls, while I’m reared up there on the sink.

Without my bladder as an excuse to be alone, I can’t really tell Sweetie how to warn me before she shouts, so I won’t keep telegraphing my physical reaction to it like that. I get my hooves uh, dried, and I’m probably the only pony who has to waddle out of the bathroom, staring at my my hooves as I make those uncertain hoofsteps, trying to make sure I don’t stumble, fall, or lose count. No sooner do I get out the door though, when there’s Ace’s magnificent moustache in my face, saying earnestly,

“Thank goodness I caught you!”

I fall on my butt, and to add insult to injury, the bathroom door closes on my backside, sliding me forward. “I only have a minute but I want to make sure you know Sweetie,” Ace says worryingly urgently, “Do not practice walking today. You are at a crucial point, I didn’t want to say, but if you practice, you’ll run right into some nasty habits, that are harder to give up than learning in the first place. You can walk a little, but don’t practice until we can have our lesson tomorrow.”

“I... uh...” I say, feeling muzzy headed from his sudden, unexpected closeness. “I will... um,” I stare at the ground, mumbling, “I will, sir. Doctor. No problem. Um.”

“Thanks Sweetie, sorry I didn’t say, woah look at the time gotta go,” he says with relief then urgency, and then he darts off. Standing there feeling a bit perplexed, I can hear his hooves clopping away into the distance.

Well, that was a thing that happened.
> Back to the Library
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

So this is where we stand. Ace has gallopped off, clearly a busy man pony, and I’m still halfway out of the restroom door, my forehooves planted on the clean linoleum hallway, on the first floor of the Ponyville general hospital.

“He’s gone, Sweetie,” Rarity says, and when I look up she’s sitting next to me again. Ready for mounting. In a totally platonic sisterly way. Taking in a breath I didn’t know I was holding, I manage to relax, climbing up onto her broad green sequined back. I feel a lot safer up here.

“Sorry you still have to carry me,” I say with embarassment in my voice.

“Sweetie, the fact remains,” Rarity says as she starts on a brisk walk through the hospital to its exit, “That you have no long term injuries or crippling problems,” Boy, if only she knew. “That is more than anypony could have hoped for, and I for one am very grateful, that all I have to do is carry you about for a week or so.”

I lean against her warmly, murmuring, “I really appreciate it... sister.” And I really want to convince myself that I’m just appeasing her or teasing myself, but... she really is the older sister I’ve never had. It’s this stupid body, I guess. Sweetie Belle has the same pheremones as Rarity’s flowery scent or something, and I just can’t feel bad about calling her my sister. I should, and Sweetie might be really mad at me for trying to steal her, but... I just really need a sister right now.

We have lunch at the boutique, and this time my sandwich bread is... dark pink. I stare at it uncertainly, whereupon Rarity says placatingly, “Is something wrong, Sweetie? It’s your favorite!”

“No, I’m just curious,” I say, carefully sliding the slice free, and lifting it up to look at it. “Why’s it pink?”

“That would be the inclusion of the most beautiful flowers,” Rarity says informatively. “I am quite certain that amaranth is not nearly as appealing without that little aesthetic touch. And it’s so good for your mane, dear!”

“Interesting...” I say thoughtfully, sneaking my face forward to lift up a corner and take a little nibble. It does taste flowery, and sweet, but in a good way! Like, a good vanilla licorice way, not just sugary sweet. The sweetness is pleasantly offset by the mustard that oozes out when I bite down on—wait mustard?! Rarity also procures for me a nice cold glass of milk, something I never enjoyed, but my horse taste buds make it taste more thick and creamy than the milk I’m used to. ...which is 3% skim now that I think on it. Damn you, you overhyped fat-free craze!

Thus with the combination of chocolate, cow milk, and mustard making my horse belly feel—in a complete reality break—pleasantly full, the issue comes of what a little girl is going to do with herself in the middle of a summer vacation.

Who isn’t supposed to walk.

“Perhaps you could...” Rarity herself stalls trying to think of a possible occupation. “Well, you’re always welcome at my boutique, so long as you try to stay out from underhoof, but I couldn’t ask you to merely tolerate while I catch up on my orders for today. But your friends as well, wouldn’t want to get in trouble after such an auspicious warning from the good doctor...”

“Oh!” I speak up in realization, “Do you know Wheely um... something. There’s a pony Scootaloo knows who was repairing her wagon. If Scootaloo and I could visit her, she might fix Scootaloo’s wagon, so that I can ride on it.”

“I do believe I’m familiar with her,” Rarity says thoughtfully, “Not sure why Scootaloo couldn’t just go herself. Unless you’ve suddenly developed an interest in mechanisms?”

“Mechanisms?” I ask uncertainly, “No, I just meant she would know it’s important, if I was there. Plus we could watch her, but I don’t really know what she does or anything. But then Scootaloo and Apple Bloom won’t get frustrated from not walking good, so they won’t want to get in... trouble.” Trouble like running around, or trouble like grinding on a certain somepony’s tail base. I can’t believe Scootaloo didn’t think it was weird to ride me! Though I am riding Rarity right now. Oh no, I’ve been riding Rarity all this time! Does that mean all this time she’s felt—no, no it can’t possibly be that bad. I’m riding her like a... well, like a horse. But Scootaloo was riding me like a stallion rides a mare. Though admittedly my tail was in the way. And it’s not like Scootaloo was hanging onto my hindquarters or anything, more around my chest, or whatever you call that part of the barrel. Is it just that I’m used to riding on Rarity already? We’re already an old couple? Heh.

“It sounds like a perfectly splendid idea,” Rarity said, “But that would be contingent on Ms. Wheely conceding to entertaining a visit.”

“Well, I assume,” I say but that sounds a bit too smart coming out of Sweetie Belle’s mouth, “I mean, I think she runs a shop, so it would be ...public?” Boy it’s gonna burn me one of these days, if I can’t learn more about horse laws.

“You wouldn’t be seeking out her services though,” Rarity argued, “Not to mention your... condition.”

“Well,” I say a bit frustrated now, “I’m not supposed to walk but if she kicks me out I can walk...ish.”

Rarity gives me a hug. “I mean your feelings this morning,” she says in a chiding tone, “Do you really want to be stranded in the middle of a strange town—”

“Ponyville,” I correct her.

“All alone, with no one to comfort you—” Rarity stubbornly continues.

“Scootaloo will be there,” I helpfully point out.

“And under strict orders to not move under your own power?”

“...I don’t have to go,” I reluctantly admit. “She probably would be fine though. I won’t get in the way, honest!” In truth I’m very curious as to this mysterious wainwright of Scootaloo’s. Plus it’d suck if I just had to sit around coloring all afternoon.

“Just...” Rarity rubs her chin and plants her hoof, saying, “Are you okay, Sweetie Belle?”

I look at her. “I feel... fine?” I say with a slight tinge to my cheeks. What is she so worried about?

“You were just so scared this morning,” Rarity sighs, looking aside. “I simply couldn’t live with putting you through that again.”

My stare continues unabated, speechless as I try to carefully formulate my response. Don’t want to give her the wrong impression, but... “It’s because I was worried about you,” I say to her.

“Me?” she answers in honest surprise.

“When it grabbed you, I—” my muzzle tightens as emotion wells in my breast. “I didn’t know if it hurt you, or dropped you. I don’t think I could ever be happy if you... if something happened to you.”

She doesn’t seem to understand so I add, “I wasn’t worried about me. I can always tell if I’m okay or not. But you screamed and then... were gone, and then I didn’t know. That’s the only thing I was upset about.”

She mouthed out some words silently... my words? Rarity smiles then, giving me a palpable sense of relief, and says, “Let’s see if we can catch Scootaloo then, and help her track down this mechanist of hers.”

Finding Scootaloo isn’t hard, but catching her is another story. She is making a lot of noise on her scooter actually, blasting right down the street Rarity was walking towards, just a blur of orange and purple as she passes us by.

...

“Well, so much for that idea!” Rarity declares loudly, making an about face heel turn right on the spot.

After my mount stops spinning, I say, “What? Aren’t we gonna get her?”

“Er, Sweetie Belle, I really don’t know what to tell you,” Rarity says disappointedly, “When that filly gets going, there are not many who could keep up with her. I suspect she’ll be all over town today. I hoped to catch her at the delivery agency, but clearly we just missed her.”

“Delivery agency?” I ask curiously.

“Yes, a resourceful mare by the name of em... Cotton Cloudy I believe, has found a summer job for Scootaloo. Flower deliveries, if I don’t miss my guess,” Rarity explains clearly. “Normally on a Friday, this summer at any rate, you would be spending the afternoon er... at the library, occasionally joined by Apple Bloom, who is on her own for most of today.”

“I’m sorry Rarity,” I cut in remorsefully. “I um, forgot everything about Scootaloo doing that. There’s so much I don’t know, sorry. I would never have suggested it if I remembered about Scootaloo’s summer job. We can always do it later.”

“Yes, forgot, hmm,” Rarity says speculatively, “Well, I didn’t want to suggest the library because of your earlier... experience there, but I am willing to offer if you’d like to go.”

“But don’t you have to catch up on your orders?” I point out.

“Oh, well of course but it’s not too much trouble to drop you off at the library, really,” Rarity says lazily, “It might work out well in fact, with your mobility limited to the library itself I don’t think that would bother the good doctor all too much, and you’d be able to move around a bit. And I would be there to pick you up around dinner time. So what do you say, would you like to do a little em... reading?”

My mental wheels are turning; they’re a bit rusty, but they’re definitely turning. I think I might be able to make this work out. “That sounds lovely,” I say thoughtfully, “Plus with my amnesia, there’s a lot I have to learn again.”

“Oh, splendid darling!” Rarity says, turning a different way to trot down the street at a quicker pace. “If you have any questions, do ask the librarian. I’m sure she can help you.”

“Why isn’t Twilight the librarian?” I ask curiously.

It's amazing how much information you can convey when you're pressing your bodies together. Rarity's hesitance is clearly telegraphed by a slight tensing underneath me. It's an ordinary innocent reaction, but I never had a chance to feel that before.

“I mean,” I follow up nervously. “I know she’s... busy, in the Badlands. Is the new librarian t-the old one or... something?”

“Well I... actually," Rarity says hesitantly, slowing in her walk, "I don’t precisely know. I think the town council appointed her, after Twilight’s extended...leave of absence. We should ask her!”

“If I wanted to, what does she look like again?” I ask reluctantly, feeling iffy about the prospect of interrogating a strange pony.

“You’ll recognize her as the mare in the library vest,” Rarity explains helpfully, still trotting underneath me to cross the town to where the library may be found. “Her cutie mark is an open book. Cerulean, with a carrot mane, if I recall. I...don’t actually recall her name, I’m afraid,” Rarity says with some consternation. “I’ll have to remedy that. She might be a Fillydelphia transplant?”

“You sure know a lot of ponies around town,” I remark with honest approval. I honestly didn't expect Rarity to even remember that much, if she doesn’t know the librarian on a personal level.

“Oh thank you dear, I do try,” Rarity smiles, and sure enough there's that slight relaxation beneath me. I wonder what I feel like to her. I wonder what it feels like to be ridden.

The library is as larger inside than it is outside as ever. It actually goes down some stairs in the back beyond the opening atrium, so I’m not sure how much that is spatial anomaly, and how much it’s ponies being part gopher with the way they seem to bury into the ground. How would a pony even dig, though? It’s not like I have long, shovel-like claws at the end of my hooves. Shovel in mouth I suppose, but that hardly lends itself as any evidence for a natural inclination to dig. Rarity takes me to the children’s section again and helps me off her back.

“Thanks Rarity,” I say to her, “I um... I can go to other parts of the library too though, right?”

“Other parts?” Rarity says curiously.

“Yeah,” I say, with a rather wary look at the smiling cartooney (more cartooney) ponies decorating the walls, no doubt cheerfully saying in word bubbles about how fun it is to read. “If I’m going to find out about my... self, I probably have to read grown-up books too.”

“You’re free to read whatever books you like, Sweetie,” she says, lifting my chin with a hoof. She cautiously adds, “Don’t feel you have to strain yourself though. You can rest assured that your sister and her friends are doing their very best to help you. Everypony just wants you to get better as best as you can, so don’t feel upset if you do your best and simply can’t find anything.”

Standing before me, with me standing before her, just two ponies facing each other looking up and down respectively, Rarity says, “Are you sure you’re going to be alright by yourself?”

“I’ll be fine, R— sister,” I say at least half confidently. “I might get scared again if a monster drags you away, but I don’t think I could be scared by myself in a library.”

She looms up to me and kisses me on the forehead, making me wince and blush tenderly. “You’ll be the very first to know,” she says in a wry tone, “If I have escaped from some creature from the Everfree, or whatever that was.”

I start to laugh at that, but before she leaves I remember something. “You could ask the flower trio,” I point out.

“The... flower trio?” she asks, turning slightly. Oh shoot.

“Um, the... there were three ponies fighting it I remember,” I say a bit nervously, “One had a rose cutie mark, one had a lily cutie mark and one had a daisy cutie mark, and they had u-um... flamethrowers... so they probably know... something.”

Rarity laughs as if caught off guard, saying, quietly, “I do suppose those three are a trio, of flowers. That’s such a darling way to put it though. Perhaps I’ll tell them they’re ‘The Flower Trio’ next time we meet.”

“Oh, um...” I say, feeling like I dodged the bullet there. “So I don’t remember what I’m supposed to call them though.”

“Besides Rose, Lily and Daisy?” Rarity says jovially. Neither of us are sure what to say to that. “Well, have a good day then, Sweetie,” Rarity says uncomfortably, beginning to trot off.

“Bye, Rarity!” I ...quietly exclaim. She smiles, and trots off a little less uneasily. Soon, the posterior of my sister is the last thing I see vanishing around the corner toward the library’s sunny exterior. And so I’m alone, in the library. Nopony bothering me, or taking me anywhere, or expecting anything of me. I can’t read a single word, but I have an idea of what to do about that. And I just... almost died this morning, didn’t I.

Or did I? Rarity seems seriously blasé about that affair, and I’ve never had the opportunity to put my life in danger before so I don’t know if that’s a normal way to feel about near death experiences. But what about that fall the other day? Was that only the magic of the helmet, or are ponies just indestructible? But I was falling from a lot farther than I did off of Scootaloo’s scooter. That was the kind of fall that leaves you nothing more than a mangled corpse on impact. And that thing freaking threw me! Did I really just almost die?!

The walls of this library are a light tan in color, what looks like the natural color of the wood of the tree. Throughout the library there are aisles of separate bookshelves, piled up with books, but the bookshelves on the walls appear to be carved into the walls of the living wood of the tree. The floors in contrast are eerily uncarved, perfectly flat despite having a slight texture of the grain to them. I can feel the ridges and sworls in the wood underneath my hooves. How does something like this even get constructed? Or... grown? Now that I’ve seen a building made out of the fattest trunked tree I’ve ever conceived of in my life, I wonder why others like it aren’t as common. Expensive perhaps? Hard to grow, or maybe it’s someone’s special talent? I wonder what a tree house growing cutie mark would look like?

I’m not alone in the library, if that was ever in question. Being a public library in the afternoon, there are several foals here, and surprisingly few parents. They’re just walking in and out, and sitting around reading on bean bags and cushions. I have to wonder, are foals just naturally more well behaved than human children? I’m supposed to be what... 8? I know I would never have ever destroyed a book when I was 8, but I was on the end of the bell curve, and most kids would start wrecking property the moment they get a chance.

I really sympathize with why kids do that. When your every moment is supervised, and it suddenly goes away, you want to get back at the people who restricted you for so long, make it so they can’t hurt you anymore. And you know it’d upset them if you started coloring in books, so you get that devilish drunken shifty eyed grin on your face and pull the marker you’ve snuck with you out of your pocket. And once you’ve had a chance to test your limits and still found them less limiting, you just go crazy, and any games you play quickly devolve into running around and screaming, because you are just so very excited that you don’t know what to do with yourself.

But here, foals are pretty much just... reading. Putting a book on the cart and walking outside. A few whispering to each other over what they’re reading, but certainly not going mad with power. Are ponies really that much different than humans? Or is it something else? I can’t help but get the nagging feeling that it’s something else. Every foal is body swapped with a human? Yep, something mysterious.

Oh my gosh, there’s Dinky! Or... I mean, a foal who might be Dinky, who might or might not have any relation to Derpy and/or Carrot Top, but definitely Sparkler, who may be a delight to be around or a horrible pain since the sum total of her spotlight in the show was getting irritated at a sticky lid on a peanut butter jar. I probably... shouldn’t approach this foal. Looks like she’s really into whatever it is she’s reading anyway. It’s a um... picture book. Of squirrels, apparantly.

She glances up as if she sensed me staring at her, and I hurriedly look away. I—I can introduce myself later, it’s fine. I just have to walk out of here...for now. I lift a hoof and I’m not sure which... oh right, I still have to count. Ugh.

“1,” I mumble quietly putting that hoof down. “3, 2... 4, 1... 3, 2 huh.” Feels kind of off beat, but I am moving forward closer to the bookshelves in the back. Not the ones flush to the wall, but the ones where ponies can walk between them. I continue to count out, trying to feel that bumpy rhythm that makes my tail sway back and forth, until I’ve managed to get into the bookshelves themselves. Using push-pull I manage to pull out a necessarily random book, and I manage to lean it up against the bookshelf itself, gently biting the corner of the binding to pull it open. My hoof is way too uncoordinated to turn pages without risking tearing something, so I just leave it open to whatever page it starts out at as.

“Sweetie Belle, are you there?” I hiss out as quietly as I dare.

After an uncomfortable moment, her voice comes, also whispering quietly, “Yes, but is it safe to talk now?”

“I’m going to pretend I’m reading out loud,” I whisper looking at the book where the picture has some ponies walking underneath a smiling sun, “Very quietly. And you can pretend too, so if anyone hears us talking they will think I’m just reading.”

“That’s a great!” Sweetie exclaims, then says quieter, “That’s a great idea,” So I just start right into it.

“One day someone woke up inside a unicorn,” I whisper out, “Wanting to find out how she got in the unicorn’s body, she went to the—”

“She?” Sweetie asked critically. “But you’re a stallion! I mean but he was a stallion all along.”

“Not right now I’m not!” I whisper out indignantly, mumbling “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“But she was still curious why he thought it doesn’t matter,” Sweetie recited quietly.

I bury my nose further in the book and grumble out, “She went and touched her filly parts until she orgasmed, and if she was a stallion that would be really bad, so she’s just denying it to try and pretend she’s good.” Something feels off about that explanation, but it’s got to be the truth, right? Regardless, I did something unforgivable and it doesn’t matter how I feel about it.

There is a thoughtful silence from Sweetie Belle. I spare a glance to look around, seeing nopony walking past the shelves where I am hiding back here. I have to snap back to the book, and mouth out her words as if I’m saying them, when she speaks up a bit vindictively, saying, “She had another she in her head, who was really curious why it’s bad for stallions to orgasm, so—”

“No I mean,” I interrupt her anxiously. This was a bad idea. The problem with getting information from Sweetie Belle is I should just leave my foot in my mouth where it belongs. Or, hoof as it were. “It’s bad for a stallion to touch a little filly on her... petals,” I say, searching for a euphemism that would actually have meaning that I don’t have to explain to the real Sweetie.

But Sweetie takes that in stride, continuing with, “Her other head pony was really curious why it’s bad for a stallion to touch a filly between her legs, so this creature who was a pony went on a big adventure to find out why it’s bad. Or maybe just told her,” Sweetie finishes with a resentful hmph.

Boy the picture in this book looks cheesy. I wonder what these ponies are so happy about. Instructions for having a picnic, perhaps? Just a story? I have got to get us back on track here. All this bottom talk is making my bottom feel the floorboards beneath it as I fidget my tail around restlessly. I can’t even tell Sweetie for sure, since I don’t know how ponies work. What if they don’t get pregnant despite having reproductive organs and just have wishing stars grant them babies instead? ...yeah, but I really don’t want to tell her and assume everything is the same. Those foals were so well behaved, maybe they’re just more mature than human kids?

“She wanted to tell her, even though she was scared to tell her,” I continue the ‘story’ I’m reading, always at a quiet whisper. “But she had to check some books first, to make sure it wasn’t just only bad for human stallions. There was a very important problem though, that she needed the real filly’s help with.”

“What was it?” Sweetie asks in a thoroughly engrossed tone.

It’s kind of hard to admit, even now. I was a huge reader all my life, from the age of 3 and onward. Books were my most trustworthy companions throughout my life, until I started feeling like they too betrayed me, but then electronic books and online spontaneous textual braindumping took their place. I once ended up in a foreign country on a family vacation and the inability to read was terrifying. But even then, I knew enough of the language to recognize words here and there. This is just... where do the letters even divide? It’s some sort of cursive. That’s right, a printed book and it’s written in extra flowery alien cursive. What is my life.

“She needed her help because she couldn’t... read...” I barely mumble out.

Sweetie’s pause was even longer this time. “Oh!” she declares triumphantly, then in a hasty whisper, “That’s why I couldn’t read anything on your magic portrait. It had pictures, but the other things must have been letters! I– she um, she was very happy to help him—help her read, since she was really good at reading, and she hasn’t been able to help her at all this entire time.

I stare at the book, unable to even. At last I manage to whimper out quietly, “You have helped me so much, Sweetie. I—she was so grateful she didn’t even know what to say.”

“Wh—so she then said what she was so grateful about,” Sweetie continues peevishly, “Because the filly in her head couldn’t even do anything.”

“But the filly talked to her,” I counter, “And told her she was okay. It was so nice not to worry that something terrible happened to her. And before she was stuck like this, she saved the fil—s-stallion, from... from a whole life of sadness and fear. She showed the stallion magic, and even though the stallion was a filly now, the world was magic and that meant she knew everything was going to be okay. The stallion thought he could never be happy ever again, and the filly she... she made h-her so h-happy...”

I can’t even see the book anymore, so I just focus on wiping at my eyes while Sweetie weeps apologetically, “I’m sorry, I don’t know it’s just so sad!” I have to bite my lip... her lip, but it settles down enough that I can take a breath in and out.

“Sorry, I’m the one doing it,” I whisper to her seriously. “It’s because I’m so happy it—I... sorry.”

Yeah, opening my mouth... bad idea. “Let’s just find the books,” I mumble at her.

“The ones about stallions touching me?” she asks innocently. My horn fits neatly in groove of the book’s binding when I press my forehead into it with a sigh.

“We need to find books about ghosts,” I say, “And other... possessy things, to find out what I am.”

“But...” Sweetie says, with an adorable yet invisible pout.

“We need to find books about ghosts...” I repeat, adding guiltily, “And then maybe books about... your special place.”

Taking another look around, I only see a foal wandering further away from us. I guess we were discreet enough. I look at the book still lying open, but instead of closing it I make sure to say, “And the real filly inside her head could read the signs, so she knew where to find books on ghosts and incor—creatures that don’t have bodies of their own.

“Like Nightmare Moon,” I finish, closing the book.

I’m in the process of picking it up and putting it where I got it from while Sweetie whispers, “Nightmare Moon? Why her?”

“You remember,” I prompt her, looking idly at my hoof there against the shelf of books. So weird to see an animal appendage, right next to humanity’s greatest achievement. “She could turn into mist and float around, kind of like a ghost.”

“How do you know?” Sweetie asks amazed.

I have to roll my eyes though. “Remember my magic portrait?”

“You had pictures of her too?” Sweetie asks in an aghast tone.

“Sssh,” I hiss cautiously, “Yes, lots of pictures that I can’t um... show you anymore.” Dang. That’s kind of sad. Wait no, real ponies >>> imaginary ponies, even if I can’t get pictures of NMM being badass. But it’s still kind of sad. I would love to show these ponies some of the pictures they inspired. Not... all of the pictures they inspired, but you know, the ones that don’t lead to an angry mob hunting you down in the night with torches and pitchforks.

“Just look for where ghost books are, and creatures,” I say, “I can um, walk as far as the adult section, but you just tell me...” I pause because I think somepony is looking at me. Foal wants to return a book it looks like, a cheery red earth pony with a book in her mouth. “Boy that was a good story,” I say slightly audibly, “Time to go find the thing ...about things!” And with that, I count my way out of the bookshelves, leaving the filly free to look at me leerily, then put her book away.

I carefully edge around the corner, mostly by leaning on it and dragging myself around. There’s no stairs in the other room thank goodness, but if there are any, I’ll be in trouble. I have to learn sometime though, right? Maybe if it’s just a few stairs I can try it. But no, I’m not supposed to practice. So just... hobbling along enough to get where I need to go.

The main part of the library is a lot bigger, and... it’s kind of scary the way the ceiling arches so high above, and everything is sized up for ponies who are a whole lot bigger than me. It doesn’t help that those ponies are literally walking around in here. I feel like a dwarf among giants. Or a child among adults, yeah. Not... comfortable with this, but to hell with the idea of spending my second childhood afraid to leave the children’s section. So I manage to present my face toward a promising row of aisles, with books along the wall of each aisle. Standard library fare. “Is this good?” I whisper to Sweetie.

“Oh! Um,” she whispers surprisedly, “No, this is the fiction section. I think I saw non-fiction behind us.”

So I make the lengthy process of turning around, which involves sitting down and half rolling to drag myself in a 180 degree circle. I... definitely don’t want to make a habit of this. A few ponies... adult ponies are giving me funny looks. I think I’m starting to see what Ace meant. So, no learning this allowed. I am committed to not committing these movement hacks to memory. I hop lightly to my feet again and can’t lift my hoof off... ugh, right pushapull and counting. I count my steps as quietly as I can, blushing up a storm for anyone who might be watching. Gosh I hope no one’s watching. I must look so stupid. At least with the greater atrium of the library being much, much larger, it’s easier to avoid other ponies than in the children’s wing.

But... eventually I manage to lose even that bespectacled blue pony’s interest, and none of them there try to accost me or herd me (heh) back to where the kiddie books are. So as I’m left alone, I risk whispering, “Okay, this looks good. Now which aisle...”

“That one over there says Creature-something to... Cooking,” Sweetie suggests.

She doesn’t qualify herself, so I hiss, “Left or right?”

“Oh, um... left,” I walk forward to the aisles, using them to pull myself to face leftwards. Then I start walking slowly, pausing at each aisle. “Which one?” I whisper.

“That—um, no wait...” she says, until I pass the aisle I’m in front of, then, “That one! Turn right!” I do my best to mouth out her words as she speaks them, as if I’m psyching myself up to uh... look up a book. Then I look at the shelves and shelves of unreadable books in front of me.  “Other side,” Sweetie whispers, so I look to my right instead.

“See anything?” I say.

“Um, a book about... great serpents, and.... another one about... chime-ras.” I orient myself there and start drawing my hoof from title to title, with Sweetie listing off each... creature in question. Sometimes you can see them illustrated on the binding, but many of the books are just featureless, and without a barcode to be seen. Almost all hardback. Finally she says, “Specters,” and I pull that book out.

“Okay,” I say, managing to lean it up against the bookcase again. “’I’m’ going to read this and ‘I’m’ going to try and figure out what to do with ponies who are possessed.”

I look at it a moment, before prompting, “That means you, Sweetie.”

“Oh! Um,” she says again. I just mouth out her words, looking at the book as intently as I can without being able to read it. “The Sleep Safely prim...primmer, to spectral um, feno... feno-meno..n...”

I blink at her... uh... words. She whispers, “Look lower, now. I finished reading the title.” I look a little closer, and sure enough the inside cover is facing me, with something big and bold on the first page, clearly a title. There are no pictures in this book.

“Okay, sorry,” I say, deliberately tilting my eyes to the body of text below the title. I hope she can read it without me scanning the lines, because I have no way to tell what line she’s even on.

“Many years ago,” Sweetie recites quietly while I mouth out her words, “I had the pleasure, to meet a coal...eagh... eah-goo-eh who statted that no um... guide has delivered a comp... comprey... comprey hens I’ve summary of super... natural feno-meno...n.”

Okay... this... is not good. It takes her 20 seconds to attempt to read just the first sentence. God? You are an asshole. Sweetie dutifully continues, and she is very good at reading... for an 8 year old little girl. Dammit, why did I have to be such a child genius?

No I’m not bragging. It’s the most frustrating thing in the world, if a certain dream hadn’t tipped you off, it sucks to be so super smart as a kid that you’re impressing everyone, and then just fall behind and fail at life the older you get, because nobody wants to admit there’s so much more to success than just being smart. And now even having an 8th grade reading level in 3rd grade is screwing me over, because it honestly didn’t occur to me that Sweetie Belle herself might not have learned to read as well as I did.

“What the polterghost has levitated may even since a chair... asterisk superlim...limnital—” I have to close my eyes to get her to stop. She’s practically just sounding it out at this point and I’m even more lost than she is. “Open my eyes, I can’t see—” Sweetie says frustratedly.

“Sweetie, do you know anyp-pony who can help us?” I interrupt her. “We need help. I can’t do this you can’t... this is just too much for us to do on our own. There’s got to be somepony who could... who we could talk to about... this.” I look down guiltily at my soft white girl belly. Of course there’s nopony I could safely tell about that. I just don’t know what to do though!

“Um, well Rarity...” Sweetie says reluctantly.

I shake my head... our head I guess. “Rarity would freak,” I say in a very convincing (if quiet) tone of voice. “It has to be somepony who... isn’t very close... um... who couldn’t get hurt by this.”

“We could trust my friends, but—” Sweetie whispers.

“But they couldn’t help us,” I finish for her.

“Yeah,” she whimpers unhappily, but then adds on a more forceful note, “What kind of pony could help us?”

“Well she’d need to know magic...” I mumble. “And she’d have to be smart and really... sneaky I guess. Good at keeping it secret. Um... not just smart but like, she’d be interested in what’s happened, instead of horrified or scared. Somepony who’s really into... weird... stuff.”

“Does it have to be a mare?” Sweetie asks in a note of curiosity.

I blink in surprise, saying, “No, why? I mean– I-I’m a little nervous about stallions like Rarity ...said.”

“It’s okay,” Sweetie says consolingly, “I am too. But just you keep saying ‘she’.”

“Oh, um... because it’s... sort of default?” I reply uneasily. Something doesn’t feel quite right about that, like I’m missing something. “She can be gender neutral,” I point out, “If you don’t know whether it’s a mare or a stallion, right?”

“I guess,” Sweetie says without conviction, “I just use hey and hem and stuff.”

“Hay and... hem?”

“Yeah, like,” Sweetie says reiterating in a chirpy tone, “Well hey’d need to know magic, and hey’d need to be smart and sneaky... like that.”

Is that what I think it is? “How would you use ‘hem’?” I ask carefully.

“You um...” she pauses to think, “like if somepony is... um... if I want you to give somepony ice cream, I’ll tell you ‘Please give it to hem.’ That’s... kind of a dumb example... I dunno”

“No it’s fine,” I whisper excitedly, “And is there also heir and um... hemself?”

“You do know them, then?” Sweetie asks.

“They sound just like they, them, their and themself,” I clarify. “You just started with aitch instead of thuh.”

“Oh. Huh,” she says back quickly, “But they and them is for when it could be lots of ponies. Hey and hem is for only one.”

“Gotta warn you,” I say to her, “I’ll probably use ‘she’ on accident a lot, until I get used to that.”

Just then a pony walks down the very aisle we are in. I freeze, looking up at the green h-h-him oh jeez another hot stallion, why... he’s got an aqua colored swoosh of a mane and green fur, and he’s a big strong looking earth pony and n-naked a-and he stops and looks at me thoughtfully. It’s possibly because here I am with a book about ghosts, talking to myself in the aisle. I just shut the book wordlessly and put it back on the shelf s-somewhere. Then I face the other way and almost fall over trying to walk, just scrunching my muzzle up and counting as fast as I can.

I just... keep going until I’m in the corner...what passes for a corner. The walls are round in fact, but some curve more than others and this doesn’t have many ways other ponies could see me talking to myself. Is it... safe?

“I think we can talk,” I mumble, pretending to browse the featureless selections.

“I just wanted to say there is a pony you could talk to,” Sweetie says. “I got distracted, sorry. I should have said right away.”

“No, it’s my fault too,” I say. “But... you know someone? I mean some one pony, who could help us?”

“Well, I dunno about help us,” Sweetie prevaricates, “But she’s really good at magic, and really sneaky and um... really weird. She’s kind of scary actually, but you said she should like weird things.”

“Will she ...hurt us?” I ask, “Or I mean, she won’t tell on us, will she?”

“Ohh no,” Sweetie says emphatically, “That’s what she would be telling to me, so I think she wouldn’t want to tell.”

“She wouldn’t... kidnap us?” I ask anxiously. Then I correct myself and ask, “Foalnap us?”

“What? No!” Sweetie whispers, “She just... she gets really excited sometimes and um... you said somepony who would get excited, so... I just...”

“Where did you meet her?” I ask curiously. This seems like quite the coincidence if a filly just knows some mare like this.

“Um, she moved to Ponyville when the s-secret project closed, the... you know, the one about Nightmare Moon,” Sweetie whispers nervously, “I’m not supposed to tell that I know, but you know all about it already, the students from Canterlot who foresaw her coming and um, snuck into Ponyville. So she was Twilight’s friend, and Twilight made friends with Rarity, so that’s how I know her.”

I blink slowly. “Y-yeah yeah I know all about all that,” I bluff frantically, “All sorts of magic pictures um, stuff.”

“So you do know about her!” Sweetie says brightly. “She’s the green one with the golden eyes, well not really green but I forget what Rarity called it, and a lyre as a cutie mark.”

“Lyra Heartstrings?!” I hiss out in a considerable degree of disquiet. Then I correct myself, saying in a quieter disquiet, “Oh gosh, um, I mean... I have pictures, but lots of them have the wrong name, so I don’t know what her name really is, but,”

“No, you got it right,” Sweetie mumbles.

“I don’t know how accurate my pictures are,” I tell Sweetie Belle, with a little hoof stomp for emphasis, “But I am not going to ask” an orange mare pokes her head around the corner, looking at me curiously.

“...going to pick this book for my summer...project,” I say, so very smoothly, putting my hoof on the bookshelf and pretending I didn’t see the mare. “No, this one isn’t right either. Oh this one looks good!”

“...she’s gone,” Sweetie says after I bury my nose in the book for a while. From the full color illustrations it’s pretty obvious what I’m reading. Didn’t know this was the cookbooks section. I have no way to read the instructions. How the heck is that any way to prepare a pie?

Nevertheless relieved, I sink to my squishy butt again, letting the cookbook just topple over. “Sorry about that Sweetie I just can’t find any good place we can talk,” I say unhappily.

“They have reading rooms here, we could go there” Sweetie whispers helpfully. I hang my head in shame. Why did I not think about that.

“Yeah, that’s a... good idea,” I say feeling drained from all the subterfuge. “C-can you just go into them?”

“Yep,” Sweetie whispers, “If they’re not being used. Anypony who needs them is supposed to knock. B-bring the cookbook though, so it will look like we’re reading!”

I look at the rather large thing on the floor, then at my teeny little white hoof.

“...how?” I ask dumbfoundedly.

“Uh, on your back?” Sweetie says, as if that were obvious. I look at my back. Looking down the smooth white surface only dimpled by my shoulder blades, all I see is my tail balancing that round little unicorn rump, I’ve got plunked down. It’s a big thick pink and purple brush coming out of my rear, composed of terrible softness, and above that tail no gripping surfaces, only smooth furry flesh. I wiggle to my fee—hooves again, looking at that curvy round rump, not a flat surface to be found on it. There is a little bit of a ‘small’ of my back that dips down, but I can’t contort my neck that much, so it’s hard to see.

“I don’t think this is going to work,” I say unconfidently.

“Why not? What’s wrong?” Sweetie asks. In explanation, I take the book in my hoof, and... it’s kind of awkward to lift up. I end up tilting it against my hindquarters, and then use the bookshelf as a brace, to lever my backside underneath it. I try my best to keep the book balanced, but as soon as I leave the bookshelf’s support, the cookbook slides right off.

“I didn’t know you could,” I tell her dejectedly, “I don’t know how to carry things on my back. I think it might be another special thing only ponies can do.”

“Why didn’t you just hold onto it?” Sweetie asks me cagily.

“Because my hooves don’t reach back there?” I answer, as if it’s anything less than obvious.

A pause. Sweetie then exclaims in astonishment (thankfully quietly), “Oh stars, you think you can only grab with your hooves.” Again, I blink.

“You can grab stuff with your back too,” Sweetie explains. “It’s really easy.”

I... uh...

“...really?” I whisper, taking another look at my back. I try poking my butt.

“Not there,” Sweetie says, “On top. No a little more forward, yeah right there.” Following Sweetie’s directions has my hoof in a very awkward bend since I can barely reach back there, but a curious feeling when I press down on that spot. I mean, if I was touching another unicorn, it would just feel like any other part of her, but touching myself it feels kind of like a... hoof.

“This is so weird,” I say, poking it again.

“You always walked on two legs,” Sweetie says speculatively, “So, no wonder you didn’t know about holding onto things with your back, since your back was always sideways instead of straight!”

I sigh, saying, “Let’s... just talk in the reading room.” And it is far too easy to hold onto something with my back. A literally spine tingling sensation to be sure, but putting weight on there almost makes it seize up on its own, and it’s just like my hooves. You push into the book and... it stays there. It doesn’t even rock. It’s not like velcro it’s like... magnets or something.

I think the weirdest thing is how uncannily these strange abilities are tailored, to conform these ponies to fit what the show envisioned.

The reading rooms are easy enough to find now that I look for them. Walking to them is less easy. But I manage to wobble along the wall, using it for support until I find one of the little nooks here and there, with its door framed in living wood, curving out from the main room to delve into a little alcove within the tree trunk, like the bookshelves but more so. There’s a small table and a desk lamp here, and... no seats. Okay, good. I hate having to coordinate sitting on something with this body. The table is shaped like a tree stump and... in fact I think it is a tree stump because it appears to be growing out of the floor.

I stop once I inch my way into the room which is thankfully empty because I feel like my brain is going to burst from the tense tedium of trying to walk like this. It’s like when I started beating scrambled eggs with my left hand instead of my right one. That’s what walking feels like. Everything’s slow and deliberate and jittery and non-automatic. As soon as I stop, the book falls off my back and hits the floor. Oops, I didn’t... mean to... stop doing the thing with my back. How do I even imagine that, pushing into something on top of me in order to balance it in place?

Oh well, I made it into the room. I stand awkwardly before the book with a nervous expression, finally just craning down with my neck and biting down on the edge of the cover, dragging it over to the table where I can use my hoof to lever it up there. Okay, cook-book in place. Now I just have to... go back over there and close the door.

One frustrating trip around the table and back, and I’m finally in a cozy little reading room. The desk lamp is pleasantly lit with... something. The light shines in my eyes too brightly to look at it directly, but it seems like a pretty straightforward incandescent bulb. There is a bookshelf in the wall, but it’s mostly unpopulated with books, and the ones there are disorganized, on their side and not really stacked together. I can only guess that people, or, ponies put their reading material there when done.

But... more importantly, we can talk.

“Sweetie, my world didn’t have magic,” I explain to her in the quiet...er quiet. “People built a tunnel in a huge ring, and it was so big it could go all the way around Ponyville. They worked for years and years on it to make it perfect, decades even, all so so they could send the tiniest, smallest speck flying around this tunnel, faster than almost anything else in the universe. Then they used house sized magnets to make these specks run into each other and explode.”

I hold up my hoof again, “And they couldn’t do what this hoof can do.”

“B-but hooves aren’t magic...” Sweetie says with defensive apprehension. “They just... grab on things.”

“Maybe not,” I respond distantly, “But the fact that you have them is magic. It’s just too nice. It’s too much of a coincidence. It’s serendipity.”

“Seren-what?” Sweetie prompts me.

“Serendipity,” I repeat. “It means when... good things happen more often than you’d expect.”

I feel somehow less than satisfied at her simple quiet answer, “Oh.”

“What about that um, mare?” I ask, trying to settle in. It’s easier to stand, but there’s less room to do so and it puts my head hovering more over the book, though whether that’s good or bad for reading I can’t confirm. “You know Lyra Heartstrings?”

“Well, Rarity knows a lot of ponies around town,” Sweetie says noncomittally, “But yes, remember when we awoke the Lurm?”

“Um... I may have missed that,” I say uneasily.

“Well miss Lyra talked to me about that a lot. Supposingly nopony had seen one in centuries, so it was really special even if it um, tried to kill us.”

“So, a monster?” I say trying to imagine what the episode would be like.

“Well, we did set its nest on fire.” And now I’m having a lot easier time imagining what the episode would be like.

“Sorry I couldn’t read,” Sweetie says interrupting me from my fantasizing, instead of actually asking her what happened and what the creature was like.

“Oh, it’s okay,” I say feeling a bit guilty about that even if I am disappointed. “I forgot how um... you know Twilight Sparkle?”

“Um, yeah?”

“She was a little foal when she was reading, and they were big books without any pictures in them. I w-was like that, so I forgot other ponies wouldn’t read like an adult...”

“Miss Twilight is really smart,” Sweetie says self consciously. “I could never be as smart as her.”

“She is really smart,” I agree, “But she also worked really hard at it, to read those big books. If she didn’t work hard she’d be more like um... like how smart Cheerilee is.”

Sweetie giggled.

“What? Cheerilee’s smart too!” I protest casually.

“No, it’s just weird feeling my voice saying just Cheerilee,” Sweetie says, “Instead of miss Cheerilee.”

“My magic pictures didn’t say if she was a miss or a Ms.” I say, “So I could only call her Cheerilee. But I’ll call her miss Cheerilee now. That sounds better.”

“What’s the difference between a miss and a Ms.?” Sweetie asks in puzzlement. “I mean I know they’re different, but I never thought about it.”

“A miss is a la—a mare, who hasn’t been married yet,” I explain readily. “Or um, in a ...herd, or whatever you... have here,” I explain less readily.

“We have marriage...” Sweetie says in a sort of avoidant hesitance, so I press on.

“So you can only call someone—somepony a miss if she hasn’t been married before, and you can only call her a missus if she is married, but you can always call her a Ms. that’s just like a mister.”

“What do you call a stallion who hasn’t been married before?” Sweetie asks.

I resist the urge to say available. “Um...” I blush as my cultural bias starts tripping me up again. “I only know um... bad words for them.” Let’s see pimp, gigolo, neckbeard, loser, Don Juan, there’s a spectrum really but they’re all horrible.

“...sorcerer?” I try at last.

Sweetie laughs at that, “Sorceror? But what does not getting married have to do with magic?”

“Oh,” I say relieved that I can explain something for once. “There was no magic in my world, but some people thought um, pretended that there was magic, that it was just really rare. So anytime something rare happened, people would pretend that was where you could find magic.”

I lean on a hoof, feeling kind of funny for talking to myself, with Sweetie Belle’s mouth. I wish she was like, a ghost across the table from me, and not just a voice. Pretending she’s over there I continue to explain, “So since it was really rare that a man would get to 30 years old without having suhhhhh...”

oh, fuck me

“Sweetie, do you know where babies come from?” I ask tentatively.

“Oh yes,” she says confidently, “From mommies’ bellies.”

...shit.
> The Brink of Disaster
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, okay, made it to the library, made it to the reading room, and then Sweetie went and asked me to tell her about how sorcerors are 30 year olds who never stuck it in. Shit.

“30 years without uhm... married... um... stuff...things...” I just can’t lie to her like this. “Do you... know how the foals get into mommy’s bellies?”

Sweetie’s pondering silence is telling.

“I um... hadn’t thought...” Sweetie says tentatively. Her voice is somewhat distressed when she says, “They don’t just get in there, when you’re old enough? I didn’t know I had to do something to be a mommy! Is it like a cutie mark?”

Around that general area, yeah.

“I know how it is for humans,” I admit cautiously, “But would you like to help me find out how it works for ponies?”

Sweetie gives a wavering ummm, and says, “You mean like, asking Rarity?” very self consciously.

“Oh, no,” I say definitively, to her sigh of relief, “I think I said enough to Rarity, when I told her I um... the stallions thing.”

“Those lumberjacks were really um... strong and big...” Sweetie says in a tone that suggests she understands my sentiment, if not the meaning behind those feelings.

“I hope not everypony is that handsome...” I say, surprised that I do sort of feel like that’s the truth. “It’s just hard to talk, when you’re thinking I mean, when they’re all muscly and smell good um...” I’m practically talking to myself here, so why’s it so embarassing to admit these things?

“It’s kind of making me tickly down there,” Sweetie points out, shyly.

“Uhm,” I say in rational, respectful disagreement, except it’s kind of true. “Oh you had to make me think about it,” I mumble quietly, pressing my face into the desk.

“Sorry,” Sweetie says distressfully.

I lift my head enough to shake it, “No, it’s not you. I’m just... saying stupid stuff. I’m going to think of these things, as long as I’m you. It’s just ...natural?” I reach a hoof down there and, oh it’s so gosh darn soft. Just, adjusting it like, trying to get the worst of the tingles to stop um... something.

“Are you doing it?” Sweetie asks hopefully.

I start to say something to contradict her but cut off and sigh, just saying, “Yeah, if you don’t mind...”

“It feels really good,” Sweetie says with a delighted huff when I don’t stop stimulating myself, and herself back there. “Nopony will find out either, because they have to knock first.” It sounds like she’s trying to reassure me, but also that she’s about as excited about this as I am.

It’s easiest if I lay on my back, leaning against the bookcase wall, though certainly not the most comfortable position. I just leisurely let my little pony legs slide apart, and touch my rough pad against those velvety soft vulva, little flower petals firmly closed over the entrance to ...my vagina. That makes my tail flop up off the ground in a confounded ripple, at the novelty of being like this, and also the strangeness of it. Something I never thought I’d feel. I love the magic and ponies and all, but this female thing is just something else...

I don’t even rub, just sort of wiggle the flesh around there, like a light massage. That itself is enough to make my lips tug on each other and...and on the clitoris I bet, in a delightfully indirect way. I don’t mind the cramped position so much, because it reminds me of all those times I had a problem when I was younger, and the only safe place I could let it out was in a ...practice room.

“I used to do this, Sweetie,” I whisper to the air, “Except as a boy I mean... I just had to do it, but I was at school and... and I did it in one of the library’s practice rooms, for music. A lot...”

“You never got caught?” she asks in the tone of a distracted daze. It’s so weird how we’re both caught up by these pleasingly soft tingles emanating from my nether regions.

“Not ever,” I say, “I wanted to get caught but um, it would have been so embarassing.” I don’t add that people would hate me for it and call me a... monster.

“Anypony could just walk in right now and see me,” Sweetie says passionately. “I-if they didn’t knock...”

I pause in ...having fun, to put both hooves down there, spreading myself apart thrillingly. Just like a penis would if it went in there. “You’d be all spread out for them,” I mumble equally passionately and tensely quiet. “They’d see everything between your legs and it... wouldn’t be secret anymore.”

Sweetie just whimpers in response. So I release my hooves, letting those lips slide closed again, closing my legs and curling my hooves forward in front of me. Then, I say dramatically, as if I was talking to someone who came in (except quietly), “Oh no, I fell over, because I’m having such a hard time walking.”

I stay like that until Sweetie giggles, and whispers admonishingly, “What are you doing?”

“Just letting you know nopo—um, yeah nopony is going to see you down there, if you don’t want them to,” I tell her reassuringly.

“Well you can’t stop them from seeing all the way,” Sweetie points out. “But yeah... being um, open like that is a lot... different than just walking around.”

“But it feels good,” I suggest hopefully.

“Yeah, it feels good,” she agrees ardently.

“Well, if you don’t mind then,” I chirp out, and happily start touching myself again, teasing this little body of mine with pleasures even I can barely comprehend. Not overwhelming pleasures, just... strange ones. Everything about this is so wrong, but I just can’t feel bad about something that feels this nice. Nice is maybe the wrong word for it. Nice, and also important? Niceiportant?

“W-we should read about this,” I stammer, a bit lust addled to even say that. I’m starting to feel that intense tingling down there, and my hoof is becoming moist as I goad myself into arousal and... sexual receptivity. “There are books that... tell us about how ponies do this. Even stallions...”

“Ooh that would be amazing,” Sweetie says in an equally horny guff. “A-and I think that stallion I was sitting on was n~nice...”

“Huh?” I half say, and half pant.

“The... the magic picture...” she says distantly. “N-now I know why I didn’t mind hurting Rarity... it just feels so good...”

Okay, no. That makes me stop. “Hurting Rarity?” I say, with a glimmer of horror invading my aroused mood. “What picture was this?”

“The one in your world,” Sweetie prompts unhelpfully.

“There are a lot of those,” I say uncomfortably, unkinking my tail from pressing back against the floor and letting my legs closer together again. “What was... happening in it?” I ask hesitantly, “You said you were um, sitting on a stallion...”

“On his thing,” Sweetie adds softly, less eagerly than before. “His p-penis was very big, and I was um... like you did with my hoof, except his penis.”

“And Rarity...?”

“Oh,” Sweetie realizes, “Oh, the picture had him on my bed on his back, and I was um... reared up, except my hooves were on his knees, and behind me Rarity was... crying, a lot. S-she looked like I really hurt her. And I looked so happy because it was the bottom thing and I guess I didn’t care.” Sweetie ends in a mumble, and I sigh in relief.

“Sweetie, I know that picture,” I say to her. “Do you remember what direction you were facing?”

“I was, um, away from her?” Sweetie says uncertainly.

“So you didn’t even know she was crying,” I point out helpfully. “You were just enjoying the um... stallion, and she saw you, and him.”

“But why was she so upset?” Sweetie asks with a whimper.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, when I resume touching myself again, it seems to calm down my whimpering little other. “Don’t worry Sweetie,” I purr to her, a hoof stroking my own lower belly as if I was comforting her, “That was just a silly joke in my world. The stallion was in a story once, where Rarity wanted to do this with him... and he wouldn’t do it with anypony except... Applejack.”

“A-applejack?” Sweetie says in a shocked tone.

“Yeah, and then Rarity did more and more silly things, to be like Applejack, to get him to like her instead. She tried to pull a plow, and buck apples, and wear um... cowpony clothes. She was so mad at the end she even jumped in the mud, because she thought he only liked dirty farm ponies.”

“The mud?!” Sweetie crows, but I shush her, and she says quieter, “She would never! Rarity thinks being dirty is uncouth.”

You’d be amazed what someone will do to get laid, Sweetie. But I actually say to her, “It was just a funny story. But after that, everyone every human I mean, humans made stories of that stallion doing it with other ponies, and never Rarity. Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh,”

“Big Macintosh?!” Sweetie ‘whispers.’

“And you!” I whisper back less shrilly. “So you were just enjoying yourself, and didn’t know he wouldn’t do it to Rarity.”

“Oh, so it was his fault,” Sweetie says in sudden realization.

“Nnn—...um... yeah...” I say, having to pause in my ill gotten minstrations to think clearly. I explain to Sweetie, “He just wouldn’t like Rari...um... there’s nothing wrong with a stallion, if he just doesn’t like somepony. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.”

A thought occurs to me and I sing quietly, “Sometimes he’s too short, too tall, too clean,”

“Too smelly!” Sweetie answers in astonishment.

“Too strangely obsessed with tubs—” I cut off at the sound of that. It’s not that I’m loud, but... did I really just sound exactly—I mean—of course I did. I always do now, but... I mean...

That was Sweetie’s exact line. I didn’t even mean to make it sound just like her. It’s just so weird how effortless it is to sing like that. It makes me feel kind of bad, for those voice actors who have to work so hard at it to get Sweetie Belle’s voice right. I wonder if ponyland has voice actors. It makes me feel... like I shouldn’t have a voice this beautiful.

“You saw that?” Sweetie asks me in astonishment.

“Yeah, um... did you really trap Big Macintosh in a pit, to break the curse?” I ask, curious how accurate the show was.

“What were we supposed to do?” she hisses back quietly. “There was no stopping him!”

Instead of wisely answering that, I ask in a muddled tone, “Can Big Macintosh really...drag a house...?”

“Well, he is an earth pony,” Sweetie says, as if in obvious explanation.

Good lord he’d probably kill me, like Superman jizzing into Lois Lane.

Oh, hi. I’m a cute little unicorn girl hiding in the tree library and masturbating, while arguing with the true owner of her own body and thinking up jokes about Superman having sex. Welcome to the bottom of the barrel!

“That’s incredible,” I say, just thinking about Big Mac pulling all those apple carts, that one picture. All those apple carts... so strong and tightly muscled...

“But how... how did you know the song?” Sweetie presses, “You just had nmf... pictures. They didn’t m-move or anything.”

“I did have pictures that move,” I offer, neglecting my groin so I can answer in a relatively calm tone, “But they were on um... hiatus... so I wasn’t watching them again. You have to make a lot of pictures to make all the movements, so they don’t happen as often as still ones.”

“What else did you see about me that was moving?” Sweetie asks in ardent anticipation.

“Not much,” I confess. “A talent show, Diamond Tiara’s cutecinera, um... your birthday party, where you dressed up with makeup and a dress, and it made you cry, because then everypony was playing with Rarity.”

“Oh Celestia I can’t believe you saw that,” Sweetie Belle says abashedly. “I thought you... so that’s how you knew...”

“It’s okay, I saw the good side of it too,” I tell her calmingly. “Like, did you know that the other kids made Rarity start the party?”

A pause, and Sweetie says, “...really?”

“Yeah, um... probably. I could be wrong, but... that makes more sense than her just being mean to you. They were gonna leave, so to make them stay she had to give them um... party stuff and cake.”

There’s another pause, and Sweetie says, “I never thought about that before. I guess she wasn’t trying to steal my spotlight...”

“Even if it’s not her fault,” I mutter cautiously, “It’s still okay to be upset at ponies who steal your spotlight and give it to her.”

“But she’s always so much better at it than me!” Sweetie says in frustration. “Maybe she should have my spotlight.”

“Sweetie,” I say easily, “What would it sound like in the woods, if no birds sang except the very best one?”

Sweetie Belle is silent at that.

“Exactly,” I declare, “So don’t worry about singing just because somepony else is better at it than you are.”

“Yeah, I guess...” she says disenhearteningly.

“Well, fine. When we’re doing this you can’t help but sing!” I point out, demonstrating by spreading myself and trailing the edge of a hoof on the teeny little vulva down there. It sure makes me want to sing. I can’t even tease Sweetie Belle, without teasing myself. This is so weird.

“That’s—not singing... it’s it’s just squeaking and grunts and...stuff,” Sweetie grunts haltingly.

“Sounds great to me,” I say, happily dragging us both into the cycle of pleasure again. “I don’t... care about Rarity’s... party favors. This is what’s really good.”

“It is so relaxing,” she admits gladly, “I like... this part too, and also, also the squeezy thing at the end. Everything about it is just amazing.”

Man, I never thought I’d hear Sweetie Belle say that. I can’t even imagine me saying that with her voice. This is so weirdly wonderful. Weird, but fun! “Alright, just relax then,” I tell her, easily leaning my bouncy curls against the empty bookshelf and pushing my hips more into what I’m doing. It’s so good to push into myself like that. “I-it feels the same way for me too, so I’m... happy to do it...”

As I proceed, the nervousness of the past day just drains out of me. I can’t believe what happened this morning. No, I can believe it—I mean this is Ponyville after all—but I can’t believe it happened this morning. And now here I am beating it off in a library nook. Well, beating is a huge exaggeration really. I just love these feelings so much, I’m just enjoying it for now, just teasing it out of me in little squeaks and deep breaths.

Had I the opportunity, I would surely have gotten as wet as a fish in the ocean, and that would surely have prompted me to seek out a good supply of toilet paper. But it turns out we don’t have that much time left. I’m too patient I guess, just feeling so serene and decadent. I barely feel something start to trickle against my hoof, when there’s a knock at the door. My groin quivers unhappily the moment my hooves leave to flail around madly, searching for purchase. Grabbing the table and climbing up with it, I shout, “Yes, who is it? I mean, come in!”

A blue mare with an orange mane and those cute spectacles on her nose pokes her head in the door, saying, “Sweetie Belle?” in a nasally chirpy voice.

I try to hide my blush at the sheer convenience, that everypony expects you to be naked when they walk in the room. I just went from lewd to normal so fast, it made my head spin. “Um... yes?” I say hesitantly. Wasn’t this mare at the library the other day? She just pulls her head back and says outside the room, “Here she is, madame.” And the strange mare’s reasoning comes clear, when Rarity pushes the door open and trots inside.

“Ohh,” I say, “That was the librarian.”

Rarity doesn’t answer, looking around the room appreciatively saying instead, “They have done so well with this library. These reading rooms are positively darling!” When her gaze lights on the table she says a little less happily, “Oh, I see you have a... cookbook.”

“Yup,” I say with no regrets whatsoever. “Thought I could learn some new recipes!”

Rarity visibly winces. “Yes, that... that would be lovely Sweetie, erm... let’s just put that book carefully away and we can go and enjoy some dinner.”

Rarity lets me walk to the exit of the library. The outside, full of ponies, looks so bright from how I was hidden away from the sun in the library. At the threshold, she stops my hobbling walk by touching my chest with a hoof and says, “Ap, Sweetie. Why don’t you ride the rest of the way?”

I sigh at that, and she says down to me in a surprised tone, “Is anything wrong?”

“I sort of... want to walk everywhere now,” I tell her. “I know I shouldn’t but... I mean, my hooves just... I can move! Not well but I mean... it’s just embarassing, having to... make you do this for me.”

Rarity smiles down at me and says, “Think nothing of it, dear. If you are so put out by my offer to help you, think of it as a favor to Dr. Ace. He did tell you to try and avoid walking until you had another session with him.”

“Yeah but that’s all the way to tomorrow,” I say, before I catch myself and blush harder. “I mean... it’s not long but I mean... okay, I won’t have any problem with riding you.”

As I ride on my sister into the late afternoon sun, I find myself still wondering why I feel so freaking impatient. That’s another thing I’m still getting used to. The vigor of youth, I guess? Maybe it’s just that I feel so hopeful now. You can only go without any hope for so long, before you stop feeling excited about... pretty much anything. But now, with hope restored, everything just seems so much more... immediate. Potentious!

And I have been really sedentary lately, like even more than I usually am as a human. I’ve had no long, evening power walks, no dancing in the apartment to a song I heard a million times before. Just... riding, and... being a pony. I don’t want to say it’s boring, but it’s just.... Everything’s happening so slowly now.  In my old life, I don’t want to say I was rushing headlong toward my inevitable annihilation as fast as possible, but... time sure flies, when you think you’re beyond help.

And maybe a little of this is about being a kid again. This is so cool though, I’ve never really been a kid before. I um... especially one who lives such a blessed life as Sweetie Belle. I just can’t help but wonder what we’re going to be doing tomorrow. We could be arranging flowers and I’d still be excited. Especially since I get to eat the flowers now! ...probably not allowed to eat the flowers if we’re arranging them.

But we’re allowed to eat the flowers at dinner, and that’s as novel an experience as ever. I never would have thought Violas would taste like spicy licorice. I start to ask more about this morning, but I’m distracted by the tastiness of this food. I could totally cook something like this, couldn’t I? It’s just sauteed, with a little oil and vinegar. And thanks to Sweetie Belle’s taste buds it’s warm and satisfying instead of harsh and bare tasting like stir fried vegetables usually are. But, it does distract me from what I’m saying, so Rarity speaks up asking me,

“Sorry, you were saying something about this morning Sweetie?”

“Mmph?” Not my best moment.

I have to clear my mouth first, then I say, “Oh yes, what about your... window? I mean I don’t r-remember stuff like that so, is there a window... store or something? How do you clean up after these ...things?”

A soft chuckle from her earns me the words, “While I might have to get somepony to look at the latches, it doesn’t look like any serious damage was done to the boutique. Just a bit of a scare, really.”

“I still wonder what that was,” I say, going back to eating.

I don’t get very far through my food before Rarity actually answers me, making me look up again as she says, “Well, since you asked, I may have dipped my ear into the local grape vine today, and I may be wrong in this, but apparantly this was an imported plant, not something from the Everfree!

“Little miss Rose had to cancel her business trip,” Rarity quips smoothly, “As one of her pet projects got into the fertilizer. Or that’s what Pansy was saying, and she talked directly with Lily.”

“Fsmore of those things?!” I blurt out, subsequently gulping apologetically, and wiping off my mouth with the napkin.

“Oh no dear, no no no,” Rarity says appeasingly, raising a hoof with an uneasy look at my little... accident there. “...no. Rose’s little flower trio may get up to some rather ambitious projects, but this was a rare find and they certainly have never had anything so dangerous as to snatch ponies out of their own houses before. Just a bit of bad luck, I imagine. Some innocuous exotic that turned out to be more exotic than expected. I couldn’t say for sure, dear. I simply don’t know the first thing about caring for plants. I dare say I wouldn’t be able to keep so much as a cactus alive.”

“Actually cactuses are really easy to overwater,” I mention, trying to go back to my food. Then I wince and say “I—I mean I think they would be easy to overwater, since they grow in the desert and stuff and... sorry.” I just shut up and eat from then on.

“It’s quite alright, dear,” Rarity says looking at me in concern, but I’m not making the mistake of opening my mouth again, if it’s not to pull food into it. Between Sweetie’s inability to read what I need, and my inability to stop revealing freaky older pony knowledge, Rarity’s going to find out one way or another. But I just can’t tell her, because then Sweetie would tell her about what I did to her, how I was touching her... and me. And I’d...

I don’t know what they’d do to me, but it wouldn’t be good. Probably return me to the hell of my old existence, if they could, just to punish me as much as possible. I-it’ll be fine though; we just have to keep it secret for now, and then... oh god I have to tell Lyra. What is she even really like? Her personality is wholly fan generated, outside of the unusual excitement she showed in that first episode. Does fan content count here? Oh I hope not, because I would just die if Princess Celestia tried to abandon Equestria to be with her hot boyfriend, Notevil Goodguy the Redblack.

No. The comics are not canon. The comics are not canon.

My bathtime—well—our bathtime is spent half luxuriating in the warm water, and half trying not to pay attention to how the slicked down fur really shows off Rarity’s two nipples, darker than the rest of her skin down there on her lower belly. Not many people spend a lot of time thinking about how they had their lips pressed against their young mother’s breast at one point, but I guess I’m just special that way. And since there’s no way a relationship this close could be anything but a mother and her daughter, that means Sweetie Belle’s lips, the ones I feel right in front of my face, were once pressed up there under Rarity’s belly and suckling out the milk. I wonder if Sweetie remembers that. She’s almost young enough to. I should tell Sweetie to treasure those memories, if she can.

N-not that I’m into Rarity’s teats or anything. I just mean that it’s an easy memory to forget since you’re so young, and it’s a nice one that you shouldn’t have to forget. Okay maybe I am a little into um... they’re probably as soft as min— as I feel, down there. But, instead of dwelling on that, I occupy my lips instead with blowing bubbles in the water. And it sounds kind of funny actually, especially when Rarity starts splashing me trying to get me to stop, but can’t stop laughing while she does so, when I refuse to stop.

After the bath, I make sure to get toweled off and... Rarity gets my back with the towel, and lets me get hers. Did I mention these ponies are so warm and soft? Yet they don’t break; there’s this undeniable strength beneath the pliable and yielding flesh that I scrub this towel along, ruffling my sister’s snow white fur.

Toothbrushing is... something I can sort of do on my own now. It’s a lot harder to hold onto little things with one’s hooves, than holding onto big things. Just not as much... surface area, I guess. It’s not really surface area, but more of a leverage thing? Anyway, it’s fine if I use the tip of one hoof to brace the brush against the other. Sure it looks silly and awkward, but it’ll be a cold day in Hell that I let Sweetie’s teeth get as bad as they forced mine to be.

I’m eh... kind of shutting down, on my way over to the bed. I just fade in and out, trying to figure what hoof to put forward and find myself drooping on the spot. Rarity finally just grabs me and tosses me the rest of the way—no wait, scruffs me—so I land lightly on the bed with a muted squeak.

I will be so glad to get this walking thing down, but I have to admit the mental strain does make it really easy to go to sleep. I fiddle around with my hind legs until they scoot under the covers, then carefully pulling the covers up around me, until Rarity’s magic enwreathes them and snugs them right up against me. I look at her loving—I... I mean, I can’t be looking at her lovingly, that would just be so wrong of me. But I look at her, feeling... something when she bends forward, and pushes her nose under my bangs, giving me another light kiss on the forehead.

“Good night ...sister,” I say, even though I shouldn’t, before she walks out.

She turns with a smile in the low light and says, “Good night, dearest sister.”

“Thank you,” I blurt out, sounding so loud in a quiet night only disturbed by chirping crickets. “...for everything,” I manage to mumble. Rarity doesn’t answer me, just has a thoughtful look towards me, then turns and trots out of the room. The door left open, I can see her shadow receding before the hall light switches off too.

“Rarity helped you too?” Sweetie Belle’s voice comes in the soft darkness. “I thought she was just helping me, and didn’t know about you.”

“She is. You’re right,” I tell her. “But, she gave me—I mean—you baths, and she helped me with walking, and carried me around. She didn’t have to do that. And she ...tucks me in at night.”

“But Rarity always does that,” Sweetie protests naively.

I just sigh at the darkness. “She sure does,” I remark wryly, “Rarity is such a wonderful ...um... pony.”

Sweetie pauses, before saying, “She’s the best sister I could ever have.”

“Me too,” I agree softly. I start to drift off but then struggle awake saying, “S-Sweetie?”

“Yes?” she asks uncertainly.

“Do you remember breast.. um... do you remember when you drank your mother’s milk?”

Sweetie pauses, and says, “I think so? I don’t really remember that very well, mostly just the taste. I think we were um... at the market once? Not always though, just one time. I hadn’t even been thinking about it.”

“Well, um... try, if you can,” I advise her. “It’s one of those things that’s really good to remember. I’d ask you to write it down but... I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” she says, “I’ll have all night for um... thinking, so I can just think about it then.”

“That’d be...fine...”

So said, together the two of us, well one of us at least, drifts off blissfully to slumberland.

I dream of Sweetie Belle tonight. She has a worried but determined expression as she gallops along the brick courtyard. Her uneventful failure at track and field left her in reasonably good shape, but that had been deteriorating lately, what with the struggle to study everything in school and still leave time for choir practice.

To stay in shape, she had started galloping at every opportunity, just trying to work up a good heart rate when she got the chance in her vanishingly few moments of activity. In this case, her goal is simply the bathroom, before she returns to the choir to sing as second soprano. She doesn’t even make it to the bathroom though, her hoof skidding on wet brick as she slides forward and tumbles forward onto the floor. Recalling her training at falling, Sweetie leans her shoulder into the fall preparing to half roll to a halt and resolving to be more careful next—her leg snaps.

Sweetie Belle’s scream is one of furious despair, not pain. Though she can’t even see straight or breathe from the pain lancing through her ankle, what comes out of her is just a cumulation of all the little things going wrong. The failed ambitions, the dead end city college, left behind by her friends, never comfortable with new ones. Living in this horrible dry dusty place with no way out, besides perhaps doing good at school and getting recognized for her hard work and high achievement. And the moment her leg broke, she knew that there was no escaping this. This disproportionate retribution was completely uncalled for, because the universe apparantly just randomly does that. She couldn’t see how she could ever get ahead, when she just kept falling further and further behind.

That’s why she screamed. Her reaction to the pain was mostly just a gasping sweating fighting to breathe and not pass out from it. No pain killers until a half hour later, when they finally get her in the ambulance. A cast on her hind leg, wheeling around on a wheelchair the whole time during her recovery. A painful, frustrating recovery at that, with a deep grinding feel in her tortured leg bones. But at last, it’s time for the cast to come off. With a flourish of the saw which can cut cast but not skin, her weak skinny foot comes out. An x-ray later and...

Whoops, they missed something. 3 weeks delayed on vital leg surgery, Sweetie still gets it, and fights through the difficult recovery, and at last her leg doesn’t hurt so much again.

“When can I run again?” she asks the foot doctor.

He looks at her as if she’s stupid, and says, “What? Never.”

“What?!” she exclaims aghast.

Rarity comforts her later, saying gently to the young, but not that young unicorn, “I’m sorry dear, but you have to understand some injuries will not heal. Afraid there’s not much you can do to solve that.” And sure enough, no matter how Sweetie tries to solve it, there’s always that tenuous feeling in her leg, where the bones don’t align right, and repeated stress just starts fracturing them again.

That’s not her biggest concern though. Sweetie Belle can still walk, at least. And she can dance, though not very well. And she can sing better than anypony in the choir, even if she doesn’t get to be first soprano, who is the only one who gets solos. But... her allergies are getting worse. Allergy season just gets longer and longer for her, and she goes from sneezing, to sneezing fits. Asthma, congestion, the terror of your chest being too tight to breathe. Perhaps it’s the air she breathes, full of smog and spores from the cattle farms out of town. She talks to a doctor about it, and he simply shakes his head.

“You can try taking allergy medicine,” the doctor horse at the hospital says, with that tired expression of someone who’s seen a thousand young girls fall prey to this polluted air, “But there’s no cure for allergies. Once they get worse, well, they can only get worse after that.”

Sweetie tells that to Rarity, that she can’t even go outside sometimes, and it’ll be forever. Rarity just smiles sadly, and says, “I’m sorry dear, but you have to understand some ailments may not be cured. If you cannot heal, then you’ll simply have to live with it from now on.”

Sweetie’s weight has been going up, from eating all those sweets, and the hearty dinners Rarity cooks. And with mysteriously lacking any motivation to exercise properly. Disturbed to feel her abdomen jiggling when she trots, she looks into how hard it is to work off accumulated fat. The library book she checked out lists various fat deposits, the most unhealthy one being in the abdomen, where once fat has deposited there, it cannot be worked off, and remains until almost starvation conditions.

She... she still tries. It doesn’t work though, she just makes herself sick, and can’t stop eating. “You’re getting older, dear,” Rarity says to her. “You aren’t going to be as spry or healthy as you were in the prime of your life. Age is not something from which you can heal. You just have to accept that, and move on.” Sweetie doesn’t want to move on, but she has no choice.

The health care she enjoyed as a filly gets revoked, with nothing to replace it. Years and years with no checkups, no doctor to rely on, no surgery if anything goes wrong. “Sometimes, medicine is simply too expensive to pay for,” Rarity explains. “There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just a bad mixup that will have to work itself out in time, because there’s simply nothing we can do about it. Just accept that you live in the real world now.”

Sweetie goes to school. My school. She walks to school. She studies, but doesn’t do well enough to be notable. No university can she transfer to, because tuition has doubled, then tripled in the decades she was growing up. “School is just expensive,” Rarity said to her. “You’ll just have to get a job to pay for it.” And Sweetie’s best attempts barely make enough money to pay for snacks, much less for a nice school, so Rarity just shrugs and says, “I’m afraid sometimes we can’t get what we want. You’ll just have to settle for a poor education, accept that, and move on.”

Sweetie’s at school, and she doesn’t care. She’s at home and she doesn’t care. She’s always hurting inside now, and so lonely, but nobody cares about this tired looking broken mare. She can’t cry, ran out of tears long ago. She just walks up to Rarity and I struggle to reach her because I don’t want her to say it. I don’t want her to feel it! Sweetie Belle pleads to her sister mournfully, “Please help Rarity, I can’t seem to feel happy anymore!”

“Welcome to the real world, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity says with a gentle smile. “Some injuries will not heal, even those of the mind. You’ll just have to settle for being miserable, accept that, and move on.”

There’s a blue flash and a tearing sound, and I fall through—something, landing on my hooves shouting at I see myself there shouting at me but I’m not Sweetie Belle but I am and I can see myself shouting, “It’s not real! It’s not the real world!” And I’m she’s I’m she—I’m—

I’m looking into a mirror. Sweetie Belle is in there, but of course she is. It’s just my reflection, right? When I turned into Sweetie Belle? But how did I do that? I was just... what was I doing? I was talking to Rarity about my depression, wasn’t I? Rarity is still there, standing aside from the mirror with a neutral expression on her face. “You’re not stupid, Sweetie Belle,” she says critically. “You know there’s nothing in there. It’s just a reflection. The real world is out here.”

“No!” I shout in sudden anger. “You’re wrong! You’ve always been wrong! The real world is in there! You’re just a... a nightmare!” Rarity lurches forward at that, moving...weirdly, giving me barely enough time to leap through the mirr—I hit the smooth surface of the mirror. It’s just a mirror. It’s not a portal. Why is it not a portal?! The Rarity thing is coming for me! I don’t want to be out here, but there’s nothing against my hooves but a mirror! Why can’t it be magic, and let me in? Why can’t it be... there’s... somepony else in the mirror, just a dark shadow in the back of the room. I can’t see her clearly, my eyes are... blurry from... tears?

Her cornflower blue hoof phases through the mirror before my eyes, the mirror I’m leaning on. That inexplicable hoof proves forever that this is not a mirror. It’s a portal. I fall through the portal, tumbling together with the mirror Sweetie Belle, and behind me, the horrible world in the mirror just shatters.

“Sweetie Belle, are you okay?” I ask in alarm. She doesn’t answer. I rear up onto all fours, and at my hooves is a sort of badly sewn looking full sized Sweetie Belle doll, missing a few seams, with cheap button eyes. It was a trick, all along. The mirror... the other world made me think I was in a mirror, but the mirror was a portal to escape that horror, and the reflection on the other side was just a doll there to block me from realizing it. It’s not the doll’s fault though. It was used as much as I was. I lift up the Sweetie doll in one hoof, catching my breath, then look around for my savior saying,

“Thank you! Um, whoever you are?” With nopony in the room and no answer, I just chuck the Sweetie Belle doll onto my back, and start walking. I came out into the real Boutique, and I walk right on out of it, where outside ponies are themselves walking to and fro, and fillies and mares are running and playing. Right outside in the morning sun is my best sister Rarity, who exclaims in a tone of frightened relief,

“Oh there you are, Sweetie! You gave me such a scare! Did you escape the mirror?”

“I did,” I tell her, maybe a little bit proudly. “I won’t ever go there again,” I say determinedly. “My home is here, with them,” I point to my two smiling friends, “And with you,” I turn my hoof to point at Rarity, but then just run up and hug her. It feels so much better to hug her when I’m the right size, not some oversized, worn out mare, who couldn’t even win at a game that had been rigged against her from the start. I love being a filly, and I love this second chance and Rarity is the best sister I could ever have.

“Go on then,” Rarity says, looking at Apple Bloom and Scootaloo who are both the picture of excited impatience. “It looks like thy friends are ready to play with you.”

“I wi҉ll!” I say to her, not even caring if I squeak. I run to my dearest friends, and they’re still there with me. We run off together, and nothing hurts us. Everything heals. And stupid old nightmares can go fuck themselves, because I have a journey to begin, my new life.

After uh... something about a pole swinging cutie mark, the dream finally dissolves into wakefulness, and I mumble something about pizza and... the sunlight is gone, my friends have faded away, and I’m alone in my bed illuminated by the cool pleasant moonlight streaming in my window. What was that? Some... pony saved me? I can’t remember very clearly, just that Sweetie got... mirror saved, somehow. Without a word, I get up from the bed, pulling myself up from spilling onto the floor, to shuffle unsteadily across it. 1,3 2,4. I can see myself in the mirror, in monochrome by the silvery moonlight. My hair’s uncombed, and my fur is rumply. My eyes look worried and still sleepy.

Silently, I creep over to my window. Rearing up, I hook my hooves over the edge, and outside the moon is still high in the sky. I could sleep more, I think. A noise makes my ear flick, and I see below a pair of ponies stumbling down the street, hanging onto each other, singing some godawful tuneless song about presenting the presents. There are a few lights on here and there, most of the town only lit by moonlight. Up here on the second story, I can actually see pretty far. Hard to make out details in the distance, in the dark of the night. But this town, this... world is alive. I push off the window, and use the wall to turn myself, hobbling back to my bed which I climb up onto, gathering the sheets around my chin.

Then I ask uncertainly, “Sweetie Belle?”

“Oh, you’re awake!” she says out of nowhere. Her voice sounds kind of scratchy, like... badly recorded record scratchy. But it’s no problem to understand her when she says “Even after I just got up and walked over there, and did all that, and I didn’t even... notice you stopped sleeping...”

She sounds... really sad at that. Blinking into the darkness, I ask her, “Is it... hard to pay attention to what’s going on, when you’re like this?”

“It’s... okay,” she says shyly. “Kinda yeah. It’s just... you’re always moving me and I’m not ever moving me. So it’s easy to just sort of not do anything, and just... be.”

“I sort of know how you feel, Sweetie,” I say with a sigh. Not that I know how she feels physically, but emotionally... yeah she’s too detached... this can’t be healthy. We have to do something about it.

“Where can I find Lyra?” I ask Sweetie. “I forgot to ask in the library.”

Sweetie giggles at that. “Yeah,” she agrees, “We were kind of distracted.”

I know she can feel me roll my eyes. “That... might have been a bad idea,” I say unamiably, “But I could never resist doing it in practice rooms. Anyway, where’s Lyra?”

“I um...” Sweetie pauses uncertainly. “I see her at the... library sometimes. She also works at the um... laboratory tower. That’s where she talked to me and Scootaloo and Apple Bloom.”

“Do you know where the laboratory tower is?” I ask hopefully.

“Sure,” Sweetie says, “But it’s really easy to see. Just look for the big spiral looking lightning silo thing.”

“Ohh, I wondered what that was,” I mention gleefully.

“She just... it’s a working place for lots of ponies so I don’t know if she lives there,” Sweetie says uncertainly.

“It’s fine,” I say chirpily, “We’ll find her and... do something about this.” I should warn her that Lyra can’t know about what I did either, should communication be achieved somehow, but I just don’t have the heart, or the survival instinct. I’ll just have to... not touch myself or anything and... be really good about it until we do, and until I can get... separate from Sweetie Belle.

That leaves just one more question I don’t want to know the answer to. “Sweetie?” I ask nervously, “You did follow me into my dreams this time? You shouldn’t, though. I didn’t mean to... you shouldn’t have had to feel that.”

“No?” Sweetie says distantly. “I can’t follow still. Why? Was I in there?”

“Y–um...” I firm my chin in confusion. “Sorta? I guess I might have just been um... dreaming about you.”

“About me?” Sweetie says excitedly. “What did you dream about me?”

“Horrible things,” I whisper, covering my eyes with a hoof. “I don’t... want to talk about it. I’m just glad you weren’t really there.”

She doesn’t press me further, leaving the room quiet in its disturbed silence, giving me just enough chance to slip away into sleep again. My sleep is blissfully dreamless, until the morning comes with Rarity to awaken me.

“Oh Sweetie Belle~?” comes her lovely voice through my ears. I open my eyes in time for her to say, “You’ve been sleeping in, it seems. But time is getting on, and sunrise was almost a half hour ago, so let’s get a move on and get some breakfast in your little tummy!”

I blink at Rarity from buried where I am in my covers, and say uncertainly, “Are you... buttering me up for something?”

“What? No!” Rarity says in surprise, eyes widening from where she stands in the doorway. “Certainly not—no! No I...” She sighs. “No I am not,” she repeats more evenly, “The only thing I want from you is your presence at breakfast, and perhaps something done to make your mane more presentable.”

I’m... skeptical. But I guess it is every parent’s dream that their daughter won’t give them trouble getting up in the morning. I sit up in bed saying, “OK Rarity, I’ll um...” it occurs to me that my morning routine involves getting up, being naked, and that’s it. “Just let me get over to the dresser,” I say, wiggling my butt out of bed sideways, my tail sliding along behind it as the rest of me puddles onto the ground. There has really got to be a better way to get down off things. Maybe I can ask... ooh, my physical therapist, who really is a thing, who I have access to!

Anyway, I stumble over to the dresser and yeah, my bangs are in my face again. Funny how you don’t notice your hair’s doing that, until you see yourself in the mirror and your eyes are partially obscured.

...funny how I felt like I was seeing myself in the mirror just now.

Nothing to be done about it though. I remain wary to memory loss, but I really don’t have many memories that I need to retain, other than that the place I came from is terrible, and I never want to return. Otherwise I just couldn’t care less really. Rarity helps work out my mane with her tickly, ice blue magic: only to hold the brush of course. She doesn’t magic my mane directly; why I’m not entirely sure. But I close my eyes at the pleasant feel of a brush running through my hair, down behind my ears and on my neck, and along the curly length of my tail. It’s so relieving to get loose hairs out, like a tension you weren’t aware of, suddenly absent from your life.

I help brush Rarity, and it’s clear she’s taken care of it herself, but I don’t really mind, because it’s something I am able to do, and things like that are very hard to come by these days. I know how good a brush feels on my hide, and it’s even better when somepony else is doing it. ...yeah I’m really getting into this unicorn thing today. I feel... unsurprised. Even when I stand on my hooves, I’ve had a whole week to get used to it. It’s just like I remember now, rather than some strange, alien experience. A bit worried, I try to remember what it was like standing on two feet, and wearing shoes.

I had these really durable leather shoes with rubber soles. They looked really classy, but I only got them because they lasted so long. A decade at least. You could pay a little extra for shoes that lasted that long, even if you barely had enough money to get by. The only hitch is, they were heavy; really heavy. Like, you drop them on carpet and you still hear a thud. No idea why that rubber was so heavy, but I could practically walk down 30% grades without slipping so... it was a love/hate relationship. My hooves feel so light in comparison, but then again, my bare feet felt so light in comparison too.

Yup, no memory problems. Rarity accompanies me to help me walk along, letting me go in the toilet entirely by myself (thankfully). It still feels weird to pee, without having anything to pee with. I don’t have to overthink it though. I can just plant my hooves in the right spot, and bear down, and the angle will get it perfectly in the bowl. These weird toilets really work well for ponies. Human toilets, I either had to sit on them, or hold my penis in my hand, to have any hope of aiming it in the bowl. When you’re a taller man, peeing standing up, even if you get it perfectly right, there’s always unavoidable splashback. Y-yeah no memory problems, alright.

Breakfast is a refreshing glass of apple juice (no doubt that apple juice) and a bowl of what looks like green granola and milk, but tastes like grass. I wish I could read the side of the box, because the winking pony illustrated on it is surely surrounded by some terrible cereal pun. I don’t ask Rarity because... she doesn’t know I can’t read. And I don’t ask Sweetie Belle because... shit I should have talked to her in the toilet. But we’re not alone now, so I’m not free to just open my mouth like a muppet and go “HAY SWEETIE BELLE WHO I AM NOT WHO IS IN MY HEAD CAN YOU HEAR ME I THINK RARITY IS LOOKING AT ME FUNNY HAY DO YOU THINK SO WEIRD HEAD VOICE SWEETIE?”

So instead, we talk about therapy. Not me and Sweetie, me and Rarity. “I wonder why d-doctor Ace wanted me not to walk,” I say thoughtfully. “I don’t know what he’s going to teach me in... um, how many days did we see him?”

“Well, we missed a day due to that terrible overgrown weed,” Rarity says disinterestedly, tapping a hoof on the table as if... yeah, she’s doing some form of counting. “I believe you’ve seen him a total of 4 times now,” she concludes looking up to face across the table from me. “This will be your fifth. You aren’t continuing to have amnesia, are you?”

“Oh! No, certainly not!” I say to her, as comfortingly as I can tell her, while having a voice like a rubber duckie. “It is just my regular memory problems, um, just normal forgetting.”

“I do hope he is correct about ‘crucial point’ because it would be ever so helpful if you could walk again,” Rarity says with a sigh, then drops her spoon in the cereal. “I mean to say that is of course you are walking, but simply that you can... practice, more.”

“I understand, sis,” I say to her. “I am pretty terrible at walking still, and you still need to carry me all over the place. I’ll try my best, but it hasn’t even been a week so... it might take a while. It must be really hard for you...”

“Think nothing of it,” she says with a mane flip. “You just recover as best you can, and give me a chance to make myself dreadfully useful. It’s what any good sister would do, after all.”

I frown at that. “I’m... not a very good sister,” I say to Rarity carefully. She gives me a fretful look, but relaxes when I continue saying, “I ran away from you, when you were just trying to take care of me. I know you were busy, and didn’t have much time for me, but I still did it. I just felt like anything I tried just hurt you, um... when I did... stuff.”

Blushing at my lack of fan-knowledge, I say, “I don’t actually remember what I did, just that you were really upset and... you had every reason to be upset, even if I wasn’t trying to make you upset. That’s even worse, really. Because then you can’t blame me, so you have to pretend you’re not upset, and just get more angry inside.” At least, that’s how I think the episode went.

I... guess it worked because she has tears in her eyes... “Oh Sweetie you are such an exceptional filly,” she says in a tone of tormented love. “What are we ever going to do with you?”

I’m... not sure it comforted her or not. “P-physical therapy?” I ask with a quaver in my voice. “I mean,” I say steadying myself, “We’re doing physical therapy, right?”

“Why yes, physical therapy!” Rarity says, her mood brightening as soon as I offer a change of subject. “I do have high hopes that Dr. Ace can get you on your hooves again, on a more permanent basis. We may wish to look into some form of ...assisted transportation, if you continue to have issues though. I can’t be there to carry you around everywhere, after all.”

“Well there’s the wagon, um...” I hesitate, but continue, “When Scootaloo’s wagon is fixed, there’s that. Maybe there’s something Dr. Ace knows that would be better than a wagon, and not bad like a wheelchair.”

“We can always ask him,” Rarity says, “But again, there is only so much time in the morning, and he’s a very busy pony, so let’s do our best to make the most of it.”

“It’s only been 4 da—times,” I say hopefully, “So it probably won’t help a lot, but he did say something about a crucial...something yesterday, and I tried really hard not to walk a lot, so I hope today is going to go well.”

And to everyone’s great surprise, it went very well, without one single incident.
> Nothing Goes Wrong
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Color me nervous when we trot out the door this morning. Well, she trots and I lay like a lump. Rarity too pauses, and nervously glances out the door’s window, before very cautiously stepping onto the earth outside the elegantly violet door leading from Rarity’s beautiful boutique. But there are no giant plant monsters to greet us today, just a nice bright day with birds chirping and leaves rustling. We are greeted with the sight of an ordinary town, albeit some of the buildings were still damaged. The sun is on the edge of the sky, and the morning air is cool on my back. 

Mornings are best in the summer time, without the forbidding chill of winter, and without that tired heat of afternoon. A fresh start so to speak. There is plenty of time for things to warm up still. And thanks to the sight of occasional colorful pegasi flitting about overhead, I have no worries or fears that today would get too hot to bear.

My neck gets sore, from pushing back from Rarity and craning up to watch those flying swatches of color, who are somehow pushing clouds around that should be orders of magnitude larger and more distant than they are. The pegasi seem to be gathering what clouds there are closer together, and that’s as much as I can really watch of that, before giving my neck a break.

“Pegasi have to work all the time, to keep the weather right,” I say thoughtfully to Rarity.

“Nopony works all the time,” Rarity corrects, without turning more than half an ear. “The pegasi of the weather team take shifts. That’s where one pony stops working, and another takes on in her stead.”

I start to nod, but a peculiarity of her wording sticks with me. “How do you know it’s a her?” I ask. “Are weather teams gender um...”

“Her not her,” Rarity says, making me very confused. She pronounces the first slightly differently with more of a ...southern drawl? “Ponies refer to each other as colts and fillies when possible,” Rarity continues in an explanatory tone, “It makes matters a good deal easier that way. But when the sex of a pony is truly unknown, you may say her instead of her.”

“Her instead of...” I silently mouth, then exclaim, “Oh, heir!”

That gets Rarity to stop, and glance back at me. “That’s what I said, dear...?” she says warily.

“It just sounds similar to ‘her’,” I explain with a blush. “It’s no big deal. I was just... thinking yesterday about gender and um, why we use certain pronouns.”

Rarity sniffs, but turns forward and continues on. “Pronunciation is a difficult affair,” she says, “Much of it depends on who you are speaking with, and their family line. But if you know a pony well, what she says is generally self evident.”

“Okay, now I know you definitely said she, not hey,” I say, once again in confusion.

Rarity seems flustered now though. “Well of— of course I, I didn’t mean to say ‘she’” she stutters, “It’s simply convention it’s... perhaps inaccurate I will admit, but I presumed you were... speaking of your friends, who are all fillies!” Her ears smile in self satisfaction at that. So of course I go and say,

“Is there a reason not to make friends with colts?” That makes Rarity blush even harder, because darnit I just implied to her that I was looking to bone Button Mash or something! Which I’m not!

...I’m not. 

“I mean,” I say, correcting my wording hastily, “I mean, other than that I have to say hey instead of she, there’s no reason right? Colts can be friends too? Just, in theory?”

“It’s perfectly fine,” Rarity says mutedly. “Most would see it as unusual, but if the right... colt comes along, it’s not unheard of, it’s simply that each tend to stick to their own kind. You’ll understand when you’re older, but colts have very different lives than we do, and different... things to deal with.”

“Like what?” I ask so innocently. There’s no way I could pass up a chance to fluster Rarity like that!

“Like...” Rarity says, as if she doesn’t know what to say, “Hats!” her answer brightly comes.

“Hats?” I ask in genuine puzzlement.

“Yes, the fashion among colts is to wear hats habitually,” Rarity says fluidly, “Whereas fillies do so only on special occasions, as a complement to their existing ensemble! You will rarely see a colt in a hat store, and you will rarely see a filly in a hat repair, so they would feel put out if a colt were to accompany along with a herd of fillies.”

I ponder on that a moment. Some loopholes there, certainly. “What about Apple Bloom’s bow?” I ask.

“A bow is certainly not a hat!” Rarity declares confidently.

“It still goes on your head though,” I have to point out.

“The fact remains,” Rarity says, without saying what fact remains. “Imagine if her brother Big Macintosh were wearing that bow.”

I imagine and... oh my. That... I haven’t even seen Big Macintosh, but if the pictures of him do any justice, he’s... with a bow, he would be totally... 

“He would be totally ado҉rable!” I exclaim, biting my lip at that stupid cracky voice of mine. It is so true though, and what’s so wrong with that?

“Well, would Apple Bloom be ‘totally adorable’ without that bow of hers?” Rarity presses.

“Um, yes,” I state evenly, not sure what she’s getting at.

“She can wear a bow at normal hours then,” Rarity says smugly, “And Big Macintosh can only wear one when he wants to look... adorable.” Her voice ends on something of a sour note. I get the impression from her that he’s a stallion who would not appreciate nor be appreciated looking adorable. “Thus, bows are categorically different from hats, as far as colts and fillies are concerned!” Rarity says brightly.

Categorically different? Really Rarity, saying words like that to a little kid?

I’m at a loss to question her claim for a while, and Rarity walks beneath me silently, carrying us along while I ruminate. 

“What about Diamond Tiara?” I speak up suddenly.

“Oh look, we’re here!” Rarity says brightly, trotting quickly to take up the remaining ground between us and the hospital.

I suppose I should be disappointed, but admittedly I am being something of a little shit. I’ll bring up Applejack later. Hats, haha. The silly thing is ...it might just be true. Roughly true. Not true at all and just patronizing me? I really don’t know enough to tell if colts wear hats more often than fillies. Seems one’s hair would make wearing a hat difficult in many cases, unless of course it was a...

...giant hat...

Dr. Ace doesn’t have a hat when we see him, just a gorgeously combed swoop in his mane, held tamed away from his eyes by a sweat band. Boy, I just... like looking at him so much. Which is why I don’t. Shut up it makes perfect sense. I don’t know, Rarity said I couldn’t be affected by him, but it just... I just feel affected by him. When he talks to me, and when he helps me to the back lawn. And especially after we get moving and he starts to sweat from gallopping around and attending to me. The way it slicks his fur down over those muscles, it—okay, not freaking out. He’s just a normal pony.

“Alright,” Ace tells me. “You have everything down I taught you, it looks like. You’re doing great!” I can’t stop a smile from inching on my face as he tells me I’m doing great. I want to get every step right for him...because he’s a ...high quality professional therapist, who knows lots of medical stuff. Yep. 

“Talk to me, Sweetie,” he says, laying a steadying hoof on my back. “Are you doing okay?” He’s—! He’s supposed to do that, to make me stand stably. It’s not a girl thing, just, just a doctor thing. I really want to... nuzzle his shoulder. I guess that couldn’t hurt? He’s just so friendly and I’m so um... not-affected-being. I just shyly touch the side of my nose against his warm hide because it’s okay it’s... I’m not doing okay, am I.

“I’m trying,” I whimper, shying away from my urges despite trying to not worry about them, while shying away from his hoof’s touch. “I just... there’s so many things I keep wanting to do that I don’t know... don’t remember doing... before.” I manage to meet his gaze with a worried look saying, “My walking is fine, just... I keep wanting to do things, and I don’t know why. I... no, I know why, but I’m afraid to feel it.”

It doesn’t look like he understands, so I try to gather my thoughts, and stop getting them clouded by my all too responsive body. “I’m not used to having these um... touchy feelings, I guess,” I decide on at last. I could have said big dumb girl butt touchy feelings, but I don’t think nuzzling somepony in his elbow/shoulder thing counts as a butt for either of us. It just leads to a butt in the future, my butt specifically, being used as a shaft leading straight down into the foal mine. 

“I should just... be okay with them,” I say with my weird teeth clenched in frustration, “Because there’s nothing wrong with acting this way. I’m just not used to it. But I should be getting used to it, but I’m not getting used to it!

“And here I am telling you all this,” I say in exasperation, “And you’re not even a psychologist!” My stupid voice is wavering I should just shut up, but I’m just so frustrated with this! “I’m just telling you, because my stupid body makes me feel good about you and I keep thinking you’re nice, and I can’t even relax when you touch my back, because I keep thinking about things!”

I just can’t continue, just... standing there on four hooves that feel like toes, and glaring at him. My eyes are burning with tears that I can’t stop, and I just can’t stop...

“Would you like to talk to a psychologist?” he asks, looking at me sadly.

That makes me drop my gaze and look at the floor, fall to my butt, you know the drill. “Yeah, I think so,” I say in a subdued fashion.

“Would you like a hug?”

I look up to him and he’s got his hoof out and yes I would god yes I would like a hug but it’s so weird to want it so much. I try to say, “N–n....” but I just can’t say it. Not looking at him. I can’t! The word barely escapes my mouth, “yes.”

So he hugs me. It’s corny as hell. Not even tight, just wrapping a hoof around me, and I just half collapse, leaning against him. He’s just... so close, and he smells so good. I live a whole life without feeling anything like this, and then suddenly I’m just Sweetie Belle. Hugs aren’t supposed to feel this good. “Why does it feel so good” I manage to croak out. I don’t know if he even understands me. Because if it isn’t obvious, I’m sitting here crying again. He doesn’t answer though, just hugs me or, rather lets me hug him.

“Okfine,” I say, pushing him away as soon as I can stand it. “Let’s just...” ugh, it’s still hard to talk. I’ll just take a few breaths. In my dumb fuzzy white chest, that just feels feels way too much. “Let’s just talk,” I say finally. “I mean walk!” shit 

“I meant walk,” I insist, “Let’s just walk. You said today was special. I avoided walking as much as I could, just around in the library very slowly. My friends were all busy and it... I just want to walk again. So we should do that, and not this stupid sappy um...” ugh I sound like such a petulant child. “Stuff,” I conclude, just wanting to get past this... whatever this is.

“Hmm...” is all he says at first, getting a judicious look in his eyes. Then he swings his hoof and pats me on the back, and by pats me on the back I mean he whacks me so hard that it throws me off balance and almost bowls me over. “Fair enough!” he says cheerfully while I flail about to keep myself upright, torn between outrage and confusion. “Let me tell you what you’re gonna do today,” he continues. “I want you to be walking by the end of the day, without counting. How’s that sound?”

“I can’t do that!” I gasp, upon reaching some semblance of stability again. Then I frown, saying, “I mean, I think I can’t. I don’t even know which hoof is which. Is one morning really enough for that?”

“I could tell you yes it is,” he pontificates, standing beside me powerfully, “But wouldn’t you rather see for yourself? Come on, stand up Sweetie Belle, and we’ll really get started.”

He doesn’t even have me walking at first. Ace just calls out the hoof numbers, until I... actually, I do have trouble remembering which is which number. How could I forget that? I need those numbers to walk on them at all, right? But he calls out “1!” and then shows me which one is 1, then he calls out “3!” and so on. Once I have that down... again, Dr. Ace makes me shout out the numbers too. He calls a number, and I repeat the number while lifting my hoof. Then he... tells me to stop calling out the numbers, and it feels genuinely unsettling to do so. It’s like I forgot which hoof is which all over again, just because I started calling out the numbers. I was going to call out 3, and lift 3, but now I just have to lift it... whatever it is.

We go back and forth on that a while, calling and then not calling out the number, until it stops... feeling unsettling. I just think 3 when he says it, and lift it, so it’s no different than if I shout it out first. That’s what my rational mind thinks, anyway, even though clearly it is very different.

“Aren’t we going to walk, though?” I ask, when Ace switches to calling out 2 numbers in succession, and having me call and answer, moving the hooves in question to indicate I know which is which.

“Sure Sweetie,” he says curtly, “Now try 3, 1!”

“But—”

“3, 1!”

“OK. 3... 1.”

This goes on for like a solid hour, with me taking breaks every 15 minutes or so because it’s just hard to wrap my head around all these numbers and hoof motions. But with an unwavering patience, he gets me all the way up to sequences of 4. It’s like a drawn out game of Simon Says, that’s what it is. Except hooves instead of buttons. He calls out “1, 2, 3, 4” and I raise my hooves in a clockwise circle, and he calls out, “1, 4, 3, 2” and I raise my hooves in the counterclockwise direction. things like that. I’m not calling them out at all this point, my only contribution being the quiet crunch of hoof on grass whenever I plant one down again. I’m... standing on fingers...

Okay that throws me off, and I stop responding, just wobbling there. “Sorry,” I say gawkily, “I just thought my hooves were... strange for a minute. Um... never mind.”

“Take another break?” he suggests. I about collapse onto my belly.

The next period of time is spent on tail exercises. As if I wasn’t feeling weird enough about my body already. He has me lift and lower it, and... attempt to lift and lower only the tip, like a flicking finger. Tails are so complicated, I don’t even know. It feels like they have muscles all the way up the darn things, even though I know the only attachment points have got to all be in my back beyond the base. 

After giving my tail a few guiding taps with his hoof, it’s easy to move the way he wants me to. I can sort of move the tail left and right, like a cat would when irritated. If that cat had a brightly colored tail full of volumnuous curls. It feels kind of like... leaning left and right, to move my tail right and left. Sensible, since my tail has to go left for me to lean towards the right, to balance it out.

Then Ace just tells me to relax, and I give a sigh of relief, my tail bouncing right up into its natural arc. That throws me off too, because I just... relaxed didn’t I? “Um... Dr. Ace?” I ask before he can continue. “My tail feels...” my god I have a tail. “...relaxed,” I say, “But it was relaxed before, when it just hung down. Shouldn’t something be holding it up like this?”

“You’d be amazed how easy it is to ignore tension in the body,” is his quick answer. “Massage artists make their whole living on that. Your tail has some tension right now, but it’s where you want to be. You are relaxed, and what you feel is just the perfect tension. Lots of muscles feel less relaxed to be relaxed. Think of it like... like a spring.

“Like a spring,” he says demonstrating with an imaginary spring between his forehooves. “You can squish it, then it bounces back. You can pull it wide, then it bounces back. Your muscles can uhh... pull wider, making your tail go down, but they’re just fine right now the way they are. Your signals were seriously crossed and uh, you know what happens when you stretch a spring way too far, and it gets bent?”

“It stays stretched out!” I exclaim in surprise. That makes so much sense. Why would every muscle be longest at rest? Sometimes... but then why was my tail hanging down before? “...but it stays stretched out,” I say cautiously. “It’s a broken spring, then. My tail was.. t-tail was never broken, it was my head that was.”

“And that’s where the spring is,” he counters smoothly. “Your tail muscles don’t care how long or short they are. They only exert themselves when changing length. But in your head is that little thought of how a tail should move, and it ratchets your muscles right up perfect.”

Okay now I’m starting to lose the analogy. Like, a winch in my spine?

“It’s a mental spring,” he says in a forgiving tone. “It’s a reflex.”

“I guess...” I say, looking back at the volumnuous purple and pink emerging from my white bottom. I try lowering it again, trying to feel it like that. It sort of...

“Your tail doesn’t feel tired like that, does it?” Ace asks behind me.

“No it still feels tense though, like it’s hard to hold it there,” I mutter.

“But it won’t get tired? The muscles won’t get tired keeping it down like that?” he asks pleadingly.

“No, but it still feels—” 

Oh. “Ohh,” I say with newfound respect for my tail, and for Ace’s understanding of physiology. My tail bounces right up of course, but the muscles that move it there don’t have any harder a time holding it up than they do down. Just like a ratchet, like he said. And when I really concentrate, I can almost imagine the pully-up feeling in my tail, the feeling that makes it curve cheerfully, is actually inside my head. Just like a tingly imaginary sense at the base of my skull.

“That’s just...” I say, looking up at him wide eyed, “Fascinating!”

“Most ponies don’t realize how cool their tails are,” Ace says with a lucky grin. I have to smile back if a bit... shyly...

“Alright, now do 3,4,1,2!” he orders. Blinking, and straightening, I lift the hooves in... oh shoot I can’t have forgotten already? No, that’s 3, that’s 4, that’s 1 and that’s 2. It’s dreadfully slow, but I do still remember. It isn’t a few repetitions before I’m speeding up again to an acceptable level.

Then he starts... naming them after flowers? what...

“Okay, remember Sweetie, 2,3,4,1 is daisy, and 1,2,3,4 is daffodil. Now, do daisy!”

Okay... 2, then 3 then... “Sorry, what’s daisy again?” I ask uncertainly. I hope this isn’t going to lead to another musical number with Ace. I don’t know if my mind could take it a second time.

“2,” he says counting each number as I raise the hoof, “3, 1, 4. Good, again. 2,3,1,4. Again. That’s daisy. Now, do daisy.”

I don’t really... understand how these particular orders of hoof motion are important for walking. They seem totally random to me. But with a half hour to go, he has me able to do daisy, daffodil, buttercup and lilac for him.

“Alright,” he says with a commanding aura, “Now I want you to remember one more. Move your hooves when I say. 1, 3, 2, 4.” I do so without hesitation, beaming a bit proudly. “One more time,” he says. “1,3,2,4.” I do that one again. It seems familiar for some reason... “One more time,” he interrupts, and I do so. “Okay,” he concludes with relief, “That one is called ‘walk’.”

I blink. “Oh, yeah it— that is the walking order, isn’t it,” I realize with some curiosity for where this is going.

Ace doesn’t respond, continuing to say, “Okay, now daisy.”

Flustered, I fail to do daisy. “2,3,1,4,” he repeats. I do... that. “Do daisy.” I do it again. Daisy, right. Daffodil, daisy, daisy, buttercup, walk. Wait, walk?

“Do ‘walk’, Sweetie,” he urges. I pause and lift a hoof... just out of nervousness, though. It was the walking order, wasn’t it? What was that again? It was... it started with 1...

“1,3,2,4,” he prompts. Relieved, I tap those hooves on the grass in order. Next he has me do daisy, walk, buttercup, walk. I forget again, and he reminds me. Then, I do walk, buttercup, walk, daisy, lilac, walk, daisy, walk, walk, walk, walk... wait a minute. Why am I moving forward?

I blush horribly, feeling like I don’t even have control of my own legs. I can’t believe I didn’t anticipate that. He calls out walk and I move those hooves, and he does it again, and it just turns into the walk forward that I practiced so much two days ago. I’m just... walking at his command. I’m not even thinking about it, he just says walk and I... walk.

“Okay, stop!” he says as I reach the edge of the lawn. Ace trots up to me, and with a strong hoof spins me bodily around 180 degrees, facing back the way I came. “Now, do... daisy,” he instructs cagily.

I completely blank on what daisy is.

“2,3,1,4,” he prompts. Frowning, I lift those hooves. “Daisy,” he says again and I lift those hooves. “Now, walk,” he says. I start walking and— “No, don’t walk,” he interrupts. “Just do ‘walk’.”

I... do walk, deliberately just lifting my hooves in that order. “Now do daisy,” he says. I do that. I’m not even going to think about questioning it at this point. “Now do walk, three times,” he says. I pause, but then repeatedly do walk deliberately holding back from leaning forward. “Great!” he cheers, “Now do walk, until I say to stop.” I do it once, twice, three times, just repeating it in smooth successions. “Okay, stop,” he says, letting me stop. “Wipe your brow,” he says.

Wh? Oh. I uh, at his orders, I lift up my hoof and lean back to rub the cannon along the forehead beneath my horn, where—surprisingly—a sheen of sweat has developed. I put my hoof down.

“Now, do walk, until I say to stop,” he instructs. With a sigh, I again start tapping my hooves in that order over and over again, just three times before he says “Stop.”

Ace smiles at me and says, “Now walk forward, until I say to stop.” I...I did this before, I already did this so why am I hesitating? I put hoof 1 forward and...and do 1,3,2,4, just repeating it to walk forward, starting slow, but growing smooth and even as the repetitions go by. “Stop!” he calls out. I stop. Where...?

I lift my head to look, and I’m already halfway across the lawn. He gallops up to me in a rush saying, “You’re doing great, Sweetie! Now I want you to walk, leaning to the right so you go in a circle.”

It... takes me a few tries, but it really is impossible to walk while leaning, without turning that way. My shaky, broad circle around is the... first time I ever turned around, by myself, without an instructor pushing me, or a wall, or a bookcase. It seems impossible, yet there are my hooves moving spryly beneath me in that repetitive rhythm, the back hooves pushing while the front ones catch me as  I move forward, and the other side of the hospital lawn swivels into view in front of me. I stop in mild shock. Should this be even... happening?

“Okay, now walk, Sweetie!” he cheers. I... the lawn is right in front of me, waiting for me to cross it. My weird hoof finger thing wavers in the air and plants firmly on the ground, then the next one wavers, and I lean into it just the way I have been doing all this time, planting it ahead of me and pulling up hoof number 3. And it’s just repeating ‘walk’ from there, over and over again. I walk. I’m...

“I’m walking!” I exclaim, tripping on my pastern, and falling flat forward on my face.

“I’m okay!” I shout out, once I separate my nose from the turf.

Despite this, Ace trots up to me and asks, “You okay, Sweetie?”

I try to answer, but I’m having trouble with a giddy nervous bubbling laugh that forces its way out of me just looking at that gorgeous horse man with four legs coming up to me so surely, and I was just like that. “I-I-I’m wal-walking I w-heh-was really r-hehe-really walking I-hehe-I’m w-he-walk-he-walkin-heheheh.” Yeah I’m pretty much incomprehensible.

It’s strange because I can’t laugh, but I can’t talk without giggling. I just sit there silent, breathing hoarsely, full of a desperate tension as what I want to deny happened really did happen. He wasn’t kidding; he wasn’t optimistic; I wasn’t just pretending to walk, as a pony. I can walk. I’m really walking! I’m...

I’m Sweetie Belle...

“Sorry,” I say, once I’ve collected myself enough to speak, with maybe a little hiccup. “I’m—I’m okay now,” I assure him. “It was just too much; I never... I mean I was starting to worry if I’d ever walk again.” 

That’s a lie, because the truth is I never in a million years ever even dared to hope that I would ever walk like this. I never even hoped I’d be doing something like walking as a pony. I was the parapelegiac who threw away their crutches. I was the fish who took its first steps on land. I wasn’t even thinking about it, and it was happening. That’s how walking should be, not stupid counting.

But... pretending that I really am a little pony, who was just a little worried about being able to walk again, rather than never having walked like this before, that’s almost the same effect.

He helps me up to my hooves, because I have hooves now and I’m okay with touching them to the warm, strong, capable hooves of that hot hunk of okay okay not thinking about that. Thinking about walking. 

“We only have an eighth hour or so left,” he says while helping me up, “So I want to make it count. I need you to walk, yes walk to the other side of the grass, and I want you to lean right as you do, so you turn around to come back. Once you’re turned around, lean left, to turn around again. You’ll be making a sort of figure 8.”

I gulp, tight throated, and nod, “I can do this,” I say seriously. “I... really can.” Staring at the edge of the lawn across from here, I put hoof 1 forward. 1, 3, 2, 4, 1,3, 2,4, walk, walk, walk... Ace walks right alongside me, moving at a sedate pace so my shorter hooves can keep up. All I have to do is repeat this and okay, time to lean... and he bumps me in the shoulder every time I don’t turn quickly enough, until I’m all the way around facing where I came. I walk. I walk! 

It doesn’t even feel like a pattern of hooves anymore. It feels like a pushing and a swaying, just sway, sway and I just keep my hooves going the way they have always gone. Ace tugs my side me gently, a mere reminder, and I start leaning left towards him this time, walk-walk-walking, the grass scrunching under my hooves in an immensely satisfying way. I look over to the distant other side of the lawn, and I walk there.

This is most certainly the reason that Rarity squeals so loudly the moment she returns to pick me up, seeing Ace and I walking together around and around on the lawn. She is so happy to see me walking, and I’m so happy to be able to show her this. Her Sweetie Belle is getting better! I even get to walk all by myself back to the hospital building itself.

Once the hospital surrounds us, I manage to lose my coordination. I guess I was getting too used to having a wide open lawn to walk on. These doorways and walls are just... tough, and for all that I have been walking, it’s at a slow pace for a filly, much less a full grown mare. So from there, Rarity lets me ride on her back. Lying there atop the warm smoothly moving Rarity, I feel utterly exhausted. I can hardly put two thoughts together. It isn’t long before I’m flopped out on his extremely cushy couch in his cherry wood panelled office, both mentally exhausted and emotionally drained, while he tells us what’s what.

“Now I won’t joke with you,” Ace said seriously to Rarity standing there too nervous to sit down. “Sweetie Belle is going to need a lot of help getting around. She’s got it in her to walk, and she’s made a ton of progress over the last week. But it might be a while before she’s up to walking around on her own. It’ll take a lot of practice, and a lot of stops and starts before she’s comfortable with it. It isn’t just the motions; you have to be comfortable with them, and getting used to that takes time. I’m fairly sure she’ll have a lot of support and encouragement, if you’re the kind of pony I know. But I can’t emphasize this enough, Sweetie Belle is going to need somepony with her at all times in case of emergencies, and she’s going to need a pony she can learn from while she works out walking on her own. She’ll get tired very easily; believe me it’s harder than it looks for her.”

“You got that right,” I mumble from the cushions, not really caring if anyone hears me.

“So she might at times need somepony to carry her,” Ace continues smoothly, addressing me directly then, “And I know you don’t want to be babied, Sweetie Belle, but a little babying might be good for you until you’re back on your hooves, and not just back on them literally speaking.” He turns back to Rarity and says, “So I just want to make sure she has somepony who can watch over her for a while.”

“It certainly shall be done,” Rarity says confidently. “I wouldn’t even think of letting her languish, and I assure you, she will be taken very good care of!” She gives me a sober look and says, “She’ll probably be sick and tired of it before the next week is out, but she will certainly have all the support she needs.”

“I don’t mind,” I cut in chirpily. “It beats not walking!”

“You’ll have an advantage Sweetie,” Ace cuts in, drawing my attention... and ear. “That now I think you’re ready to practice on your own. So now that you’re settled enough to practice on your own, you should advance a lot quicker than you have been.”

“You call this advancing slowly?” I exclaim popping my head up perturbedly. “I lear—remembered to walk, in just a week!”

Ace laughs lightly. “Thanks for the compliment Sweetie,” he says warmly, “I’m glad you’ve been improving so well! But even though you can advance a lot faster now, it doesn’t mean you should. I don’t want you to push yourself too hard. You don’t need to practice, if you feel tired or worn out. Give your mind a rest before starting up again. Remember, learning to walk is easy, but your goal is getting comfortable with it.”

“I’ll do my best,” I say noncommittally, squirming nervously at Ace’s attention. This stupid couch is really soft and nice to rub on. Which I’m not going to do because it’s just more being weird and girly around the stallion of my dreams. Oh god I jynxed it, didn’t I. I swear if I have a dream about Ace now, I’m going to ...do something very rude. Though frankly I wouldn’t object to a dream about his couch. I could go to sleep like this...

“And keep in mind Sweetie,” Rarity says tilting her head to look at me worriedly, “The ponies who are helping you will be hurt very much if you take advantage of them, so please be honest about your feelings. Nopony here wants anything but the best for you, so don’t worry that something you might say will have us forcing you, or working you harder than you feel you can achieve.”

“Wouldn’t even dream of it,” I mumble sleepily.

“Alright, give it two day’s break,” Ace utters curtly, “And then another maybe a week of morning workouts with me. After that, we can probably take it down to once a week, while you work out the rest on your own. If you’re not running on four hooves before the month is out, I’ll eat my shorts!”

I smile at him, then my smile falters. “Wait, seriously?” I ask with a skeptical eyebrow lift.

“Pfff, no. That’s just an ‘expression’ Sweetie,” Ace says dismissively waving a hoof at me. “I just mean I am very confident that you will do well.”

“Okay, because you’re the only pony I know wearing shorts,” I say. My eyes widen then and I almost cover my mouth and say, “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that! I just was curious I mean I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it just,”

“Chill, lil’ Sweetie,” he says jovially, “It’s a lot colder in Trottingham, and I just sort of got used to it!”

“O-oh, is that where you’re...from?” I ask hesitantly.

“Yeah, but don’t worry. I like Ponyville just fine,” he says with a smile. “Though you’re right, with this summer heat I really don’t need to be wearing these things.” He hooks the nail of his hoof around the edge of the shorts and a-a-a-a-and I barely have time for my eyes to widen before he pulls them down exposing his smouldering, steamy, surely sweaty, salty stallionhood.

"...what?" he asks us cluelessly. I see Rarity facehoof out of the corner of my eye but I can't look away. H-h-his package isn’t even erect. Why can’t I look away? WHY

“You like it?” Ace asks with a shake of his hips. Something squeaks inaudibly out of my lips. My mouth lips, my mouth lips. “It’s a real racket!” he says, with a delighted chortle. I-he’s-I-oh my gosh he’s—

“Honestly, Sweetie,” Rarity sighs at my side, with that careless toss of her mane, “What did you expect, a hoofball?”

I look at Rarity incredulously, then back to Ace’s smoking hot hindquarters so firm with just the right amount of bulge to them and a...

“Oh, you meant his cutie mark,” I say.

“What else could I possibly mean?” Rarity asks coyly. I give her another incredulous look and... is that a smile? She’s fighting back a smile, I just know it. Maybe I can burrow my way into this couch cushion, where I can be the founder of a subterranean kingdom in these cushiony folds. Defended by the knights of loose change, ever vigilant against the dustbunny hoard, I shall remain the princess of bedsprings and pocket lint.

“I... think she’s had enough,” Ace says, kicking the shorts off his rear, with but a single raised eyebrow.

“Indeed,” Rarity says, still mightily suppressing that smile, walking side saddle to my couch. “Come on up, Sweetie. You can walk outside the hospital if you like, but I still don’t trust those stairs.”

“Yeah—um, the bathroom um—” shutting up now. My hoof emerges from the cushions, and hooks on Rarity’s shoulder, pulling myself from its depths to topple over, belly down, onto her prepared saddle blanket. My legs sink to snug on either side of her in a very natural manner.

One very not awkward and calm exit from the doctor’s office later, I finally find the voice to whisper to Rarity, “I need to use the toilet.”

And yes, I did start feeling a need to use the toilet, right around the time his shorts came down. Pure coincidence, I swear on my mother’s grave. Must have been that trip to the drinking fountain... complete with hoof pedal to turn it on. Rarity kindly obliges, carrying me down familiar hallways towards the bathroom I visited before. When she comes to a halt and kneels, I slide off of Rarity and manage to retain my footing...hooving, staring up at the doors to the two bathrooms. Picking the one for fillies, I again enter the—wait.

I use the door frame to slide myself back, looking up and to the left at the...other door. I glance back at Rarity who walks forward saying, “Having trouble Sweetie? I’ll get the door for you hold on.”

“No, no it’s okay,” I reassure her with a raised hoof. “I just... what’s in this door?” I ask, pointing at the one that doesn’t lead to the bathroom I went into before.

“You mean the one labeled ‘Broom closet’?” Rarity asks with a single flat ear.

I swiftly blush and mumble “Nevermind,” shoving open the real bathroom door and easing my way in there. Standing a few moments I—looking up at an orange mare walking out the door trying to get past me. “S-sorry, excuse... sorry,” I stutter, lifting one hoof and then the other, then just falling forward on it to stumble my way past her, out of her way. She gives me an... odd look from where I ended up beneath the sinks, but shrugs and keeps walking exiting the door calmly.

Oh, shoot! If I had held my pee, then I could have talked to the real Sweetie. Darn it! Of course the public toilet’s not empty, anymore. So I just... silently point myself at the stall door that isn’t closed and locked, and start counting. 1,3,walk, walk, walk, moving smoothly forward in more than a drunken waddle, until I’m all the way inside the stall, and can close the door, sliding the latch shut above me. M-maybe they wouldn’t notice if I just talked with—a stallion grunts from the other stall. NOPE finishing and getting out of here.

After I’m done with that most unremarkable toilet usage, the sink is way too tall for me, which wouldn’t be a problem if I wasn’t already tired. But I just ignore my confused weariness, and pull myself up and push the spigot with a hoof. I’m just... not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing here. I let the water slick down the fetlocks on my hooves, and climb down from the counter to shake them drops off them, one after the other, before noticing the blow dryer... at eye level.

The door opens and Rarity comes in herself. “Since you reminded me,” she says quietly to me in passing. I try not to pay attention as she saunters easily over to an open stall, closing the door behind her. With a sudden flushing sound, another stall door opens and the stallion I heard earlier walks out and immediately begins washing his hooves. That snaps me out of the morbid fear of having to hear Rarity piss in a toilet again, and I turn away, looking at what does look like a hand dryer mounted on the wall, albeit with us noticeably lacking hands.

I reach up (it’s not high even for a filly) and push the button, whereupon a noisy rush of hot air makes my ears flatten. Wincing at the noise, I quickly dry off any remaining dampness from my hooves in the hot turbulence. It’s so weird that they have things like this, but then you go outside and you’re looking at medieval cottages and ponies hitched to wooden wheeled carts. I still can’t figure what is powering this stuff, aside “magic.” The only electricity Rarity has... apparent electricity at least, is her overhead lighting, which was quite flush with the ceiling and walls, no exposed wires, sockets or cords.

Yeah, yeah, I have a freaking horn in my head, and I’m still expecting to find any other excuse for how things work.

I let the air dryer blow itself out, as such machines are wont to do, and wobble my way to the door. I don’t know what’s more frustrating, whether I still have to take a breath and prepare myself before trying to walk, or that it’s an incredible improvement over what I’ve been doing so far. Either way, I peek around the edge of the door to see an empty hallway, then carefully ease myself around the door’s edge, until I’m sitting there on my de-pissed haunches, waiting for Rarity to come out. When she does I’m quite relieved to get up on her back again, just to not have to think about walking so much.

A pony approaches us again, on Rarity’s way through town. She was trying for a low key lunch at her boutique, I suppose for my sake. I just kind of hide my face in my hooves, as the strange pony approaches, descending from the sky to trot towards us purposefully. Why couldn’t it be Fluttershy? I would have liked to see Fluttershy. I bet I’m totally embarassing Rarity like this, like it’s a total faux pas for even a young pony to ride on another. I should be walking on my own two–er—four hooves, shouldn’t I? I can’t even hide under her legs, so how am I supposed to deal with... um...

I think the mare’s only physical flaw might be her color. The ordinary blonde of her mane meets with a fur of a greenish blue that wouldn’t look out of place in the bottom of a shallow swimming pool. But she has a delightfully rounded figure of soft curves that compliment the svelte frame she wears them on. Her clear, blue eyes are warm and friendly with just enough vacant anxiety in them it makes me want to just hug her right there. Her mane is flat, much like Twilight Sparkle, but cut short at the neck to make room for her rather... impressive looking wings. They don’t extend past her rear, but they’re bigger than the other pegasi I’ve seen. It makes me feel sort of... thrilled... I probably shouldn’t be staring at her wings.

“Good afternoon, Rarity,” she says in a soft spoken round voice, and oh my god she sounds as cute as a button. Ohmygod she has freckles! “Is this your sister?” she says to Rarity, while looking at me shyly. I don’t know what to say I just... blush...

“Hello Helia darling, and such a good afternoon it is too. I think I can smell the afternoon showers already,” Rarity says drawing this um, ‘Helia’ pony’s attention away from me momentarily. “This is Sweetie Belle,” she then says bringing Helia looking right back at me. “Sweetie, this is my friend Helia. She’s a sunlight monitor.”

“Pleased to meet you, uh,” Helia says holding out a hoof uncertainly, ducking her chin and smiling at me. I don’t want to weird her out or anything, so I force myself to reach up a forehoof and touch it to hers. I hope that’s what she wanted.

“Sweetie Belle,” I lie.

Her relieved smile comes as our hooves touch and part. Ponies are so fun to touch, even if she was walking on that hoof a moment ago, and I just washed my hooves. It fills me with a sort of light fluffiness. I should respond before her smile wavers again.

“I’m pleased to meet you, too,” I say, hiding my nose under my curled forehooves atop the equally soft Rarity (although her blanket is much rougher to the touch) hoping I don’t sound too nervous. “I um...”

“Have you seen Thunderlane?” Helia abruptly asks Rarity, turning away from me. At first I think she’s asking me, but then I realize she looked at Rarity again, once I sneak a peek. “We were supposed to work on our cloud shearing today.”

“Afraid not,” Rarity says with genuine disappointment. “I sometimes see him down by the down and thread, but I’ve had my back full with poor Sweetie here this week. Eh, no offense, Sweetie Belle.”

“None taken,” I say distractedly, looking at Helia standing beside us. I could reach out a hoof and just stroke her side and rub my face all over her uh... but I don’t. Because that would be hella weird. But she’s so... rubbable!

“Thanks anyway,” Helia says forgivingly, spreading her graceful wings. “See you later!” She walks away a few paces before taking off, still sending a breeze blowing over Rarity and I, as she rises up into the air. I said her color was her only flaw, but her cutie mark is a sunflower, as yellow as the stripes in her mane but with a warm brown center to it that somehow provides the perfect contrast for her strange fur color.

“Good day, dear!” Rarity calls after her, waving a hoof. She just resumes walking again after that, the slighest of pleasant nickers resonating in her throat as she trots along.

“Who was that?” I ask unthinkingly.

“Helia, dear,” Rarity says casually, “Helium Mist. I believe I already introduced you.”

“But, I mean is she a special um... pony?” I ask, struggling to voice what I don’t really understand myself. There was just something about her.

“No more special than any other pony, I would assume?” Rarity says uncertainly.

“She was just... so... lovely!” I exclaim at last, receiving some satisfaction at that, before I stop to think about the words coming out of my mouth.

“She certainly is easy to look at,” Rarity says admissively to my blushing silence. “She was so insecure about her colors as a filly though, until she wound up with that cutie mark. Really provides the perfect accent to tame those wild blues, don’t you think?”

“I was thinking the same thing!” I utter in astonishment. “I didn’t even know I mean, that she was insecure, but her cutie mark is really pretty... so is the rest of her too.”

“She has a natural beauty to her, I agree,” Rarity says wistfully. “Much like yourself!” she adds on a brighter note. “If you eat well and stay in shape, I don’t imagine you won’t fail to turn a few heads yourself!”

“You too,” I say impulsively, trying to change the subject as I hug my limbs more tightly around her.

“Oh, psh, me?” Rarity says, her tail flicking behind me. “Trust me dear, this beauty is entirely earned.” The way she says it sounds ... oh no, she’s insecure about her appearance. Of course she is; it’s Rarity.

“You’re the most beautiful and elegant pony I know,” I say honestly. And... hey yeah, I am saying that honestly! I’d say it just to make her feel better, but this is Rarity we’re talking about, the unicorn who can make a fluffy bathrobe and slippers look good. She can walk around Canterlot in nothing but a giant hat and put all the fancy dresses to shame. You can’t not appreciate her attractiveness. Especially when we’re in the bath together.

“That’s very flattering dear,” Rarity says patronizingly, “But let’s see about getting you to remember more than an armful of ponies, before making such comparisons.”

She walks four more paces before I get it. “Ugh,” I groan, burying my head in my hooves. “That’s right. I have amnesia.”

“Forgot, did you?” Rarity asks me, in a playful whimsy.

I roll my eyes where she can’t see them, but otherwise manage to remain silently, royally owned, until we reach the boutique. I see it and brighten up immediately, saying in an excited voice, “Ooh, can I walk from here? I can see it, so I could make it, I think!”

“Of course, Sweetie,” Rarity acceeds, moving out of the roadway to kneel to the ground so I can get off easier. “I can’t expect you to ride me everywhere,” she remarks, “Soon you’ll be going anywhere you wish, under your own power!” She winces at that and, looks wanly at me, halfway off her, saying, “Provided that you stay out of the Badlands.”

Pushing free from her, I... fall on my belly with an oof. But wiggling my hooves around, I rear up again, and manage to get planted on all fours, before turning my head to regard Rarity, speaking with purpose. “I wouldn’t even dream,” I say emphatically, “Of ever doing anything like that again.”

“Things happen, Sweetie,” Rarity says unexpectedly tenderly, standing up beside me. “I would appreciate perhaps you give a little more advance notice however, should you attempt something as ambitious as that. And preferably, listen to reason.”

“I am all about listening to reason,” I agree confidently. I look at the boutique, then down at myself. My four soft white hooves are firmly planted in the dirt, and my tail is perched just perfectly behind me. As I stand up straight, my head is resting easily over my shoulders. “Now let’s see if I can wa҉lk!” I say eagerly back to her.

The ground is a little uneven, but I just ignore the slight upward slope, and fail to come close to falling over like at the coffee shop. Counting 1,3, then 2,4, then segueing into that repetition Ace drilled into me today, I... walk forward. It probably looks like I’m high on ketamine or something, but it works! I am moving forward, and the boutique approaches. Rarity follows slowly along behind me, her magic enwreathing the door and swinging it open even as I approach, so I don’t even have to pause to walk in. The bell jingles overhead. “You can meet me in the kitchen,” Rarity says behind me as I concentrate on stumbling forward. “I’ve a few things to tidy up, and then I’ll be right in to whip us up some lunch.”

It’s stupid, but I’m so gosh darn proud of what I’m doing. It’s not much, but it’s something I can do, and I can work on it more in the future to become even more useful. Now I just need to find out what’s happened to me, and to Sweetie Belle, and figure out some way that we can separate, preferably into two adorable fillies, rather than a filly and a muskrat or something. I certainly wouldn’t appreciate living the rest of my life as a muskrat.

Sweetie told me of a pony known as Lyra Heartstrings, and I even got the name right. I don’t know if she obsesses over humans like in the fan universe, but she’s the best hope I have of somepony qualified in big magical shenanigans, who isn’t in a position to be hurt by the truth. I can’t tell Rarity because she’d be devastated and angry, and I’m honestly terrified of what would happen. Twilight is out since she’s... uhm... not here anymore, and I can’t assume she wouldn’t just go straight to Rarity. I know my headcanon regarding Twilight Sparkle, but I’m less confident about the real one.

But Lyra’s an unknown; everypony is an unknown really, but at least she’s a known... unknown. Better than just asking a random pony at least; Sweetie Belle actually recommended her, and Lyra sounded pretty qualified to help, too, from what I understood! I’ll find Lyra at the... funny spiral tower if I have to, because I can walk now. I can walk across the boutique, and—

Woah, getting a little dizzy, as I have to turn at the wall, and lose track of my footsteps. Hoofsteps, that is. I certainly don’t walk face-first into the wall. But rather, I resume walking again, and it’s really walking walking with only a little counting. I just know I will only get better from here. Today I march into the kitchen looking for a tasty meal, tomorrow I march across the world!

I think all the hairs on my body escape their flesh, at the sound of a stallion’s voice right behind me, saying, “Well, hello there Sweetie Belle!” All my legs go so stiff, that I pop right up into the air.  “So nice to finally see you come around,” he says in a loud boisterous bark that sounds horribly familiar. Whipping my head around behind me, I can only say two words to the ponies sitting there at Rarity’s kitchen table again.

“Mom! Dad!”
> Just Act Natural
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rarity’s father, a beast of a stallion, wears the very same straw hat I remember him wearing, and that tasteless floral shirt a different shade of white than his greyish white coat of fur, distinguished by three footballs on his hindquarters. In contrast to his coat, his hooves are dark as coal, and his deep brown hair almost seems to sway out from under the brim of that straw hat, completing it with a neatly groomed moustache growing from the end of his nose. His blue eyes match his mother’s. I mean my mother’s. I mean his wife’s.

Rarity’s mother has the same blue frilly shirt and white pants I remember, the very first pants ever seen in the show if I recall, mostly concealing her deep pink coat of fur and her cutie mark. Her mane is done up into that impossibly gigantic bun, with an ill fitting sun visor shoved over and around it, looking rather ineffective with the way it can’t get past her impressively long horn.

Sitting at Rarity’s kitchen table, the two look a lot different than that carefree happy-go-lucky attitude they had in the show, upon returning from their vacation. I dare say the two of them both look pleased as punch to see us. The last two ponies I ever expected, or wanted to see, and they look pleased as punch.

“Please excuse us for one moment,” Rarity says politely, then physically drags my frozen form back into the hallway.

“Just. Act. Natural.” she whispers harshly in my face.

Then she shoves me back into the kitchen. I don’t have time to turn my head and look at her questioningly, I don’t—I, uh...

Uh.

“Hi...” I venture uneasily to the verylarge ponies who I remember so well for their brief appearance. It was the wrong thing to say, but anything is the wrong thing to say at this point, as far as I can tell.

“What?” the rotund mare jibes, in that thickly nasal voice of hers, straight out of the Bronx. “Not happy to see us?”

“Yes,” I say intelligently, “I mean, no I mean, um...” I look at Rarity, in a panic. What am I supposed to say?

“What Sweetie is trying to say is,” Rarity clairifies, while I try to figure out which way is up again—I mean—while I try to figure out what story to go with. “Yes we are both so delighted to see you!” she declares in a very bright tone, then in a disaffected afterthought, “And we have some matters to discuss.”

“Oh, those can wait,” says my... she says... not Rarity, the other she, the mom she. “We’ve been gone for so long, I just want to give you both a big hug!” She stands from the table and comes our way, and Rarity nudges me forward, and the most fucked up thing about all this is that these are my parents. 

I know they’re not my parents, but these are my parents!

I can’t even look at them, without feeling the same way that I feel around Rarity except... more. They’re just so familiar! Not just from the show. It can’t just be from the show. But—like... I don’t know. Maybe Sweetie’s memories are finally starting to bleed over? Because I can remember them from that one time other than the show that...

uh...

Nothing’s coming to mind. My mom hugs me.

She feels like my mom, is the thing. She’s so soft and accepting, and she has plenty of room for both me and Rarity despite Rarity being just as...big as she is. My father nuzzles my mane in that heartwarming way that he always... but he never did, because I can’t remember a thing. It just feels so familiar. It’s almost like I didn’t get one single memory of Sweetie Belle’s, but I inherited all of her feelings completely intact.

Actually that would explain a lot.

"What's wrong, Sweetie Belle?” mom asks. I shouldn’t think of her like that though. What was her name again? She’s not my real mom; it’s just this stupid body! She worries over my mane, wuffling out, “You’re positively downcast!”

“Oh, no. I’m fine,” I say shaking my head free. I look at Rarity again. Does she want me to tell them? Do they already know?

“So nice to know they’ve resumed carriage service,” Rarity says quickly, “I hadn’t thought you would be arriving yet,” giving them a very broad smile. Oh god they don’t know, do they. “I trust your return was not otherwise delayed?”

“Oh, no,” dad corrects her over the back of his dismissive and very large hoof, “But we couldn’t go one more day without seein’ ya, not one day longer, so we pulled a few strings to get here. The cab driver was very reasonable, once Snookums had a word with him.”

“I charmed him with my marely wiles,” mom declares, with a coy wink.

Oh so that’s what it feels like. I had always wondered how it feels, coming to realize that your mother and father had sex at least once. I don’t know if I’m more nauseous because of that, or because of the paranoid terror that grips me. Those two they oh jeez charmed with eughk

“I need to use the bathroom,” I say very calmly and confidently, except they’re all staring at me in worry for some reason. Worry about me? What a silly idea, haha!

I raise a hoof. Oh wow I have hooves! Haha. I...don’t know if I can turn around easily without pushing off of the walls in this little kitchen. I look behind me at the door, but how to get there? It’s not a little kitchen I mean, but I really needed a lot of space to turn around yesterday. So naturally, I moonwalk the fuck out of—oh right I don’t know how to walk backwards, either.

“It’s right up the... stairs, Sweetie...” Rarity says, in a supremely conflicted fashion, then with a frustrated huff just grabs me by my scruff and gallops out of the kitchen.

With a twist of her neck, I’m flying through the air; Rarity’s magic grabs me, and shoves me firmly onto her back. From there, it’s up the stairs at a rate many ponies with upset stomachs would disapprove of. It’s only an instant though, and she’s there in front of the bathroom, dumping me right off.

I try to stand up, from my familiar status as a miserable pile of pony on the floor, and Rarity tells me raggedly, “We are going to tell them. I was intending to tell them! Just, let me do the talking, and hurry up and use the toilet.”

I’d say something, but I’m kind of trying not to throw up right now. I don’t have anything to throw up though, since we didn’t even eat lunch! I just... crap how do you walk again! 1,3,right... push with... okay, I walk into the bathroom and look at the bowl on the floor and—oh god, dry heaving. I have got to calm down; this isn’t healthy. Okay, I’m in the bathroom... shit I was supposed to call it a toilet room. I’m in the toilet room, taking deep breaths trying to get my hairs to stop standing on end. I look at myself in the mirror and, yeah, just as I suspected. Sweetie Belle in there, is looking frazzled as all heck.

“Sweetie, we need to talk,” I tell my reflection. It doesn’t answer of course, because it’s just a reflection. But the real Sweetie Belle... probably doesn’t think I was addressing her directly. “C’mon Sweetie,” I say tiredly, letting my head sink to the porcelain sink. “I really need you to tell me about your parents. What should I say? Who are they really? Does football exist, and do they call it hoofball or what?”

After a second, I open one eye and lift my head. “Sweetie?” I ask the empty air. “Sweetie, this isn’t funny,” I say with a horrible tremble in my voice. “Come on Sweetie, I know you can talk to me, please. Sweetie Belle!”

The bathroom is silent.

“Sweetie Belle...” I say tremulously, backing against the wall and looking around at nothing. “S-sweetie Belle? You can’t y-you can’t...”

Okay, I am calm. I can remain calm. I can she might not come back if I don’t get help! It might be too late any minute now! “Help!” I yelp out, turning for—I fall down, but pick myself up again, crawling for the door. The door opens in my face knocking me over again, but I don’t care. “Rarity, he҉lp!” I desperately squeal, as my sister rushes in.

“Sweetie Belle, what’s wrong?!” she asks in sudden panicked worry.

“Sweetie Belle is gone!” I wail, struggling to my feet again but it’s not working right.

“What?!” Rarity shouts back at me.

“I can’t—!” I can’t tell her though! I can’t hear Sweetie, but I need help! She needs help! “She was here, I swe҉ar!” I verbally backpedal, frantically making it to my feet—toes—hooves!

“Sweetie Belle, she’s... you’re not gone, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity says in furious admonishment. “You’re right here! It’s okay Sweetie, you need to remain calm!”

“I am calm!” I shriek. “I am standing right here!” shouting between breaths. “I can walk! I can stand and walk! I’m not...” I’m not really sure what happens after that, but all I can remember is Rarity’s face wavering through the tears, and fading, and... then... I’m on something soft.

I’m in bed?

I peep my eyes open, and I’m in my bed, which is to say Sweetie Belle’s bed. Was it all a... oh, and Rarity is at the side of the bed looking very worried, while my parents are on the other side, also looking at me full of worry. I guess it wasn’t all a dream. I can’t say I don’t feel a lot better though. What was that just then?

“You just had a bit of a fainting spell, Sweetie,” Rarity tells me gently, without prompting.

“Is that ...normal for me?” I ask her in a fickle tone of voice.

“Sure as hay it ain’t!” my father... her father angrily cuts in.

“You were awfully scared Sweetie,” Rarity says, her eyes darting from him to me. “It’s not normal for anypony to swoon under such conditions, but you’re not normally so very... under so much stress as you are now.”

“Well, what is so stressful about going to the toilet?” mom says irately. I try to get up out of bed as best as I can. Thankfully the confusion that dogged my brain seems to have cleared. I still have a bit of trouble getting down though, and this time instead of Rarity’s hooves, it’s the pink hooves of my mother lifting me and easing me to the floor, to stand unsteadily beside my bed, in my room in Rarity’s boutique, with my loving parents on either side, and my sister standing at the foot of the bed, closer to the door.

She better not be getting ready to make a break for it.

“Now that she’s awake,” mom says in a very ticked off manner, “Are you going to tell us what the hay is going on?”

Rarity even stumbles over her own words, saying, “Yes, um, you see it’s nothing very seriously bad persay, depending on your interpretation, you see, it’s...”

I save Rarity from her nerve wracked difficulty, in saying it, by saying it myself.

“I have amnesia,” I tell my parents in a serious tone of voice. “Also I have trouble walking,” I add, “And I have been getting some help to remember how to walk again.”

“Y—thank you, Sweetie,” Rarity says, her shoulders sagging as her head dips down in resigned relief.

I wish I had a camera for the look on my parent’s faces. Utterly priceless. You don’t see horrified confusion like that come along every day. Alas the moment is spent berefit of photography equipment, and I really didn’t want to antagonize these ponies, and mom shouts “What?!” while dad shouts, “How?!”

“Sweetie just ran into some—” Rarity starts, before I cut her off again, trying to amend their panic, sitting up to say,

“I ran away.”

They’re all just looking at me now, so I take a breath and continue. “My friends and I snuck down to a place in the Badlands, to help Scootaloo with Rainbow Dash. We um, got into trouble with an ancient thing, and when Rarity found me, I was just like this. You have to ask them though, if you want to know more, because I don’t remember any of it until Rarity saved me.”

“...because I have amnesia,” I make sure to confirm.

“That’s the most—” dad manages to rough out, before mom interrupts, exclaiming to Rarity scathingly,

“You watch over your little sister for one week, and that happens? What is wrong with you?”

“Why are you yelling at her?!” I say in a hurt tone. I wish they weren’t, but the memories are rushing back to me. I do exactly what I have to do in this situation. Redirect his enmity at yourself, then he won’t be able to hurt either you or your sister, because you have the immunity of being an honorable defender in his eyes. “I ran away, not her! Rarity didn’t do anything wrong!”

And now he rips into me and picks at my defenses, trying to find some way to get to me, so he can still win. Naturally I ready to drop all defenses, and pretend to give into his every demand, making him feel powerful and for the moment, satisfied. “Sweetie,” my dad says in an even tone, with an appeasing smile, “You’re such a good filly, standing up for your big sister. But you’re too young to know what you’re doing. Your older sister shoulda known better.”

I...compliments? Smiles? Oh. Oh, right. This isn’t my dad it’s... Sweetie’s mom. And her dad. I... have no idea how to respond to this. And now, mom is adding emotionally, “Oh my dear little girl, I should nevera left you alone!” pulling me to her chest and wrapping her warm neck behind mine. And over her shoulder, dad’s nodding at her approvingly.

I’m... “You could have... left me... alone?” I claim intelligently all smooshed feeling. “It’s um... it’s okay, I promise?”

“No Sweetie, it is true,” Rarity says admissively, as my mom releases me to stand shakily, my older sister facing me and her, squarely. “I was not a good sister to you, and I should have treated you with more care and less... antagonism. But I have since, I feel, more than made up for it—”

“Oh, here we go!” mom drawls out with a roll of her eyes. “Can’t even own up to something without pulling out the excuses.”

“They are not excuses, mother!” Rarity says in frustration. “I really did do everything I could to help my dear sister!”

“After you let her get hurt,” dad cuts in seriously, “When you were supposed to be watchin’ over her.”

“I’m not that hurt,” I mutter. “I’m just sort of...” but they’re both rounding on Rarity now, who in irate protest, retorts to our parents hotly,

“And since then, I have done nothing but watch over her! I have learned from my mistakes, and she’s... she’s perfectly fine! She just can’t... walk well anymore, or remember her... life... and perhaps a few t-terrible nightmares but,” Rarity backs up a step.

“Nightmares?!” mom exclaims, “This is serious, Rarity! Look, whatever you done to her, you can’t just sweep it under the rug and everypony forgets about it.”

“We put our trust in you,” dad says angrily, “And you let us down, and you let your sister down.”

“She saved my life!” I shout at their backs. Their butts. Oh no, I’m not looking at my parents’ genitals, nope. Thankfully, they wholly turn to look at me in the silence. Wait why am I thankful for that. Oh god. Rarity herself seems caught halfway between furious and sorrowful, unsure of where her tears should go.

“She followed us all the way out into the desert,” I say frantically. “The Badlands. We didn’t bring water I I don’t know why I forget but we were in big trouble out there, then something happened something really bad was happening to me, and Rarity stopped it, and carried me home. She... saved me...” I can’t really stand steadily anymore on my shaky legs, so before I fall, mom cradles me and ...puts me on her back. Hm.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” dad says, rounding on Rarity again.

And mom is right behind him, swivelling smoothly and saying, “You were just gonna wait until we got back from vacation to let us know?”

Rarity sniffs, saying “I assure you mother, I have had the situation as under control as poss—”

“You call this under control?” mom says swinging a hoof vaguely at me on her back. 

“She fainted!” dad adds in agitated urgency.

“You fainted!” Rarity snaps back at him.

“And this has been goin’ on all week?” he retorts, completely ignoring that last remark.

“You’re right, I should have mailed you the moment anything happened,” Rarity cries sarcastically. “And let you take care of everything for me!”

I really don’t know what to do. Should I defend her? Is she wrong? Who’s supposed to be angry at whom? I’m not used to family, help!

“Is it so much to expect that I might be responsible for once?” Rarity says supremely offended. “I was taking care of it, and I did tell you there were matters to discuss!”

“With you, that could mean the end of the world, or a bad manecut,” mom responds to her with another disapproving eye roll.

“You shoulda just mailed us,” dad explains patiently, “And told us right away. We’d have been here lickety split, and you wouldn’t have had to—”

“She’s my sister!” Rarity shouts at him tearfully. “It was my responsibility. It was my week! I wanted to...” her voice just kind of dies out as she stands there, with a terrible look on her teary eyed face, of horror, realization, and shame.

“...excuse me please,” she says quietly, and runs out of the room as fast as her hooves can carry her.

In the thick silence afterwards, I end up saying “Shouldn’t... somepony go after her?” That seems to break my parents out of their shock, and mom sits back on her haunches right away, covering her face with her front hooves saying,

“I can’t believe I just went and did that!”

“And right in front of Sweetie Belle too,” dad says putting a hoof on her shoulder. “What a way to end a vacation.”

“I’m so sorry Sweetie,” mom says putting her hooves down and twisting to look directly at me. “We’re a family we shouldn’t be fighting like that. Your sister is just sometimes so... but that’s no excuse, and I’m sorry if we upset you just now.”

“I–I’m fine, really,” I state staring at her uncertainly. “I just got really um... I mean, how hurt do you think I am?”

“Oh I don’t even know,” she says in exasperation, turning forward and hanging her head. “Just the thought of my sweet little filly getting hurt is just terrible, ya know?”

“Something about amnesia?” dad asks looking over her head at me thoughtfully. “That’s a thing where you forget stuff, right?”

“I... think so?” I say. “I mean, yes,” I say a bit less wafflingly. “I don’t remember... almost everything. The um... thing in the Badlands... did that. But I remember how to talk at least, and I remember you. I remember...  some things about Ponyville. Um...” Gosh I would love to get some time alone right now. If I could talk with the real Sweetie Belle, she could fill me in on all sorts of

Oh.

No.

It all comes rushing back to me. That’s why I passed out! That’s why I was so upset earlier! The real Sweetie Belle was gone! I couldn’t get her to talk to me! I’m immediately locked in a rising panic, wondering what I should do, if I should tell them but no... look how upset they got at Rarity, over just the suggestion she might be hurt. They’d be screaming and wailing and hurting and dying if they found out Sweetie Belle was... w-was... d-didn’t have a way to...come back. She’s just having trouble coming back, that’s all. I can just ease them into it slowly, while she’s r-resting inside me, and talk to Lyra and she’ll know how to bring Sweetie back. She has to! But I don’t even know Lyra!

“Please Sweetie,” mom exclaims with a pained grimace, “Not so tight! Are you really okay? You’ll get better, I promise! You can just... learn everything again!”

After realizing I’m grabbing my mother with a vicelike death grip, I force my legs to stop squeezing her very pliable flanks. “I–I–I’m fine,” I say with a broad smile. “J–just had a thought about... not remembering, I mean it’s really sad but you’re right I can totally get better I ca—” I swallow shakily. “J-just check on Rarity. We should, I mean. Check on her.”

“I dunno Sweetie,” dad says looking around the door out of the kitchen reluctantly. “You know how your sister can get sometimes.” He jerks his head back then and looks at me awkwardly saying, “I mean, you do, right? Or did you forget all that too?”

I blink at him cluelessly, but my rusty gears do manage to turn, before he gets even more alarmed as I say, “Yes, I remember she cries a lot and... takes things seriously. Once she um... got embarassed at a fashion show, and she was going to go into exile because of it. I don’t... remember anything else specific. But yeah, a little...”

“I dunno about a fashion show,” mom says looking over to dad. “That was a look in her I haven’t seen in quite a while.”

Now that I have to force myself to calm down, I can vaguely hear the sound of sobbing coming from the other side of the house. Why is she sobbing? I should be the one sobbing! She isn’t the one who got Sweetie Belle k–uh— in even more trouble. Both my parents—no, no her parents—the parents of the filly I have to save somehow, both go trundling reluctantly up the stairs after Rarity. With me on my mom’s back, I end up coming along for the ride. Rarity is pretty much completely incoherent behind the door to her room, at least I certainly don’t speak blubber. And... she’s locked her door. So, there’s that.

“Believe me honey, the best thing we can do is leave her alone right now,” dad says appeasingly to me. Wait, to me?

“I know you want us to go and check on her,” mom says in an apologetic manner, “But it’s okay, you know how your sister can be. She’ll get it all out of her system, and then we can have a nice long good, friendly chat.”

“You do know, right?” dad asks me uncertainly.

I blink at him. “Oh! Yes, I know how Rarity can... be. You didn’t have to do it just because I asked...”

“What exactly don’t you remember?” mom asks in a puzzled tone.

This is going to be a long afternoon.





“Where did you go on vacation?”

“The Bahaymas.”

I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.

“Are those a tropical island?”

“Yes, Sweetie. You remember that?”

“I u-uh yeah I do.”

This is such a good idea.

“What do you do?”

“...answer questions?”

“No uh, I mean, what do you... oh! What’s your special talent?”

“We’re chefs by trade, but each with different specialties, as you can see right... oh, gosh these stupid pants!” Mom stares at her butt irately, while I busily tell them everything I don’t remember, by asking them about absolutely everything.

“Don’t you get hot in those? Or, do you usually wear them? ...aren’t the baha...aymas hot?”

“That’s three questions, Sweetie,” dad tells me gently.

“Be nice honey,” mom snarks at him, “They’re related.” Down here, we’ve retreated to Rarity’s kitchen, where I was slid off mom’s back to sit at the table, vaguely like a pony is supposed to sit, while they stand before me, helping me so much. And... my god they’re so big, and... and friendly!

“No, we don’t Sweetie,” mom answers me, “These are to keep us cool in the hot sun. We just haven’t had a chance to undress since we got back.”

“Clothes keep you... cool?” I ask in total confusion.

“Well, yeah?” mom responds, seeming confused herself. “Unless they’re thermal fabrics? I don’t know honey. You’d have to ask your sister. It’s her specialty!”

Telling them everything I don’t remember. It’s the most obvious excuse ever, to mine ponies for information! I can still figure this out! Sweetie will be b...back in no time. Maybe I should check if she’s back.

“Can I go to the toilet?”

“I dunno honey, can you?” Dad says.

“I... what?”

I don’t like that smirk dad is giving—hey! “Very funny,” I say disapprovingly. “As a matter of fact, I...”

I can’t make it to the toilet on my own, right? No, I won’t do that to them. Not after that. I’ve got to at least... 

“I can try!” I tell him assertively. Then, I purposefully flop down to the floor. Rolling to my side lets me rotate on my side like a poor quality turntable. That works better than expected. Facing the right direction now, I stand u—oops. I um... I heave my hooves into the air and stand up... yeah. Okay I’m standing up, and facing the right direction. Now I just have to... figure out stairs...

“Sweetie?” my father says in no small amount of alarm. “You alright? You can make it, right? You’re looking mighty shaky there.”

With a gulp, I admit, “That’s the biggest thing that I... forgot, is h-how to walk. I’ve been practicing all week though, and I think I’m starting to get it! ...back. Starting to get it back.”

With one hoof after the—wait no wrong hoof. Ugh! Okay, start with counting. I step 1, 3, 2...4. Repeat, without counting. Onethreetwofor! Okay no, that was sort of counting. Just 1, 3, walk, walk okay walking. With that train of thought broadcast very obviously in my ungainly movements, I begin walking out the door—

“You sure, Sweetie?” mom says worriedly. “Your father didn’t know you were really having trouble. He didn’t mean it like that!”

“What she said,” dad says behind me. I can’t listen to them and walk at the same time though. It totally makes me lose my concentration. Approaching from behind, his concerned voice says down to me, “Why don’t you just let me—”

“No!” I interrupt him hastily. “No, I can do it. Just... let me concentrate.” Through a mixture of counting to warm up my engines, and not counting, and concentration, I fulfill the amazing task of walking through the hallway into Rarity’s show room. There’s a u-u-uh, a pony there.

“Is miss Rarity available?” a chestnut colored mare with purple hair leans down and asks me, in a thickly fruity voice. I’ve never seen her in my life, in or out of show. I... guess Rarity is seeing customers?

“No she’s not,” I say uncertainly, trying not to let my desperation show. “She had to close this afternoon, because of family... um...” That’s as far as I get before my parents trot up behind me to save my words from their untimely death.

“Oh, sorry hon,” mom tells the mare in easy embarassment, “We just got back from vacation y’see, and had some ummm catchin’ up to do. Things went a little unplanned. I’m sure she can see you later though? What’s ya name?”

“Cocoa Twist,” the chestnut mare says with a grateful look at my mom. “I’m sorry this was such a bad time, but I was inquiring as to the progress of my harvest festival gown.”

“I’ll make sure to tell her,” mom says, with a nervous smile. “Sorry for the inconvenience!”

“No trouble at all, miss...?” she says, my mom quickly responding amiably.

“Cookie Belle,” she says, “You mighta seen me at the big bakery northeast of here, but I bet nothing that you’ve tasted my cookies!”

“The Cookie Crumbles!” the mare says with a bright smile. “Not only that, but I bet you’ve used my ingredients!”

“Oh yeah!” mom responds with equal enthusiasm. “Chocolate chip is a huge hit among the foals. So glad Ponyville’s growin’ something besides apples these days, you know?”

And it’s only now that I notice the mare, Cocoa being her name, has a bona fide chocolate bar as a cutie mark. My eyes trail from there to a movement up the stairs, where Rarity has ventured part of the way down, just barely looking around the curve of the stairwell. She vanishes back upstairs, the moment our eyes meet. Hm.

“It’s not much,” Cocoa says to mom, giggling self consciously, “I do what I can. I simply can’t imagine why chocolate fell out of production here!”

“Somethin’ about the trees being harder to grow I guess?” mom, er... Cookie Belle says speculatively. “I just bake ‘em.”

“A little effort makes it all worth it when you put a smile on somepony’s face,” the mare says heartily. “Now, unless you’ve turned into a dressmaker, I’m afraid I just wanted to stop by for a moment. I’ve a crèche or two that needs checking.”

“Don’t let me keep you,” mom says amiably. “It was nice meetin’ you!”

“Likewise Mrs. Belle!” Cocoa says happily, trotting right out the door.

Well, that was a thing that happened.

“Earth to Sweetie,” mom says, once again confirming that we’re on a habitable planet, and waving a bright pink hoof in front of my eyes. “You don’t have to be so shy! It’s not like you. You have to tell us if something’s wrong.”

“N-nothing’s wrong I just... bathroom,” I state worriedly. “I just have to go to the bathroom. Um... yes.”

A pause.

“Because it’s right next to the toilet room!” I add hastily. “Because I totally need to um, use the toilet.”

“Well, go ahead,” quips dad encouragingly if a bit uneasily. “Don’t let us stop you!”

“Oh, right!” I gulp, facing forward. “Um... one moment.”

I lift a hoof and... no, I don’t have any trouble waddling up to the stairwell. It’s empty clear to the top where it curves around to reach the upper level. The stairs though, I just don’t know. I can rear up easily enough, and place my front hooves on the ...second step, but when I try to walk up them, like I’ve been walking forward, I’m just too bottom heavy. I mean, I literally fall back onto my bottom, with a disturbingly cute squeak. From my mouth.

It only takes me three tries to give up the ghost. There’s got to be some trick to it. I can’t hold onto the railing and, now that I look at it, the railing clearly isn’t meant for holding onto. Do I just pull myself up the stairs? But I don’t have any arms! Oh, well I technically do, but they feel like legs now. Legs that don’t pull! 

“I’m uh... I might need some help,” I casually mention, after somehow managing to fall all the way onto my back at the bottom of the stairwell, laying there looking up at their concerned snouts.

“Sure thing, Sweetums,” dad says, nosing underneath me to right me, then biting down on my neck and hauling me up—apparantly dads can scruff too—and trotting quickly up the stairs, before setting me right down again.

“Thanks... thank you, I mean,” I say, not wanting to appear ...impolite? I look and... there’s the bath—err—toilet room, off to the right of here. Walking forward until my nose bumps against the wall, I easily push myself around facing the proper direction, and hug the wall all the way, until I enter the door to the most private sanctum I have managed to find in this world. It doesn’t help my mood that right before I’m out of earshot, I can hear my mother mention to dad worriedly, “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

But, whether ears up or ears down, I’m once again alone.

“Sweetie Belle,” I whisper, standing beside the toilet bowl. “Can you hear me? Please answer, I need to know you’re okay.” There’s no answer. With a shuddering sigh I continue to whisper, “I don’t know if you can hear me, but... I’m going to fix this. I’m going to find Lyra right away as soon as I can, and we’re going to get you back s-somehow.”

“It’ll be okay, Sweetie,” I whisper. To her? To myself too. “It’ll be okay, Sweetie...”

I don’t even know why I came up here. What did I think she was just going to magically reappear? Technically she did magically reappear the first time, but now I’m supposed to be able to predict it, and it’s supposed to happen when it’s most convenient? I’ve got to do something, and I’ve got to get to Lyra, but first I have to deal with—

“Hey, Sweetie you done in there?” my dad’s muffled voice comes through the door. “Hurry it up I need to use the loo too.” Pausing to consider my... bladder situation, it’s silly but I really don’t need to pee at all. I foolishly went back at the hospital, just before we came here, so now I can’t get more than the barest trickle out, despite straining. I suppose I didn’t have to even make an effort, but I didn’t want to lie even more if I could help it. But with just a bit of soiled tissue flushed down the drain, I walk straight to the wall, and then orient myself to toddle the fuck out of there.

“Sorry I took so long,” I say upon walking out of there. He just shakes his head dismissively, and trots past me, the door closing behind him. And oh noooo I walk the fuuuck away from there. One hoof after another, yes, 1,um... what was the number again? Oh, just walk already! I manage to get far enough without falling on my face, that the the happenings in that room are certainly far too inaudible to lead me to think about my own father’s thick penis. No wait. Sweetie Belle’s father’s thick... thing I’m not thinking about, that he uses to pee with. After I do fall on my face and pick myself up again, I notice mom is there, looking like she’s trying not to laugh.

“Gotta say the shy thing really doesn’t suit ya,” she says amusedly. “With your looks on top of it, you’re putting it on way too thick. You trying to be all uptight like your sister now?”

“Rarity’s not uptight!” I protest. “She’s elegant.”

“Well, do me a favor and let your sister handle that sort of thing,” mom says, “And you keep on being curious and sincere, like the sweet little filly that you are.”

“I’ll um... try,” I say reservedly. Wait, my... looks? “And Rarity has good looks too!” I insist belatedly. “She’s a beautiful pony even when she wakes up in the morning and brushes her teeth!”

“Oh I know Sweetie,” mom says with an apologetic ear wilt, “She just has that elegant grace that’s kind of intimidating, you know? So she puts off a bit of vulnerability and it makes her so scrumptious the stallions can hardly resist!”

Wait no, wait when did the conversation go this way.

“And you, you’re... beautiful in a way that...” mom continues humming uncertainly before concluding, “I don’t think anypony could ever be intimidated by it. You just look so friendly, and approachable! I think you got it from your father to be honest.”

“She got what from me now?” dad says cheekily, poking his head out of the bathroom on his way out.

“You see?” mom says happily to me. “Just look at that face!”

I look and through his bristly moustache he looks... sort of lost? I don’t really know what she’s seeing. Then again, I didn’t marry the fellow.

Oh jeez, I could marry a man. If this keeps up... sufficiently long, and I don’t end up male again, I could end up with a stallion like this in bed with me, without anyone or anypony’s sexuality being questioned beyond my own. Though I quail at the fact that I have to be the one looking some stallion in the face and telling him “I do,” it is pretty glorious to think about the sheer amount of butthurt that would generate. 

What I’d do is I’d take a selfie, and post it on tumblr with the message “me and my gay lover #bunintheoven.” Not that I would ever become pregnant in a million years, but it would just be the sort of thing to write that gets people riled up, and smacks them, with a clue by four made of solid cognitive dissonance. I’m just softhearted, I guess. Whenever people are trapped in a broken paradigm like that, it just warms my heart to upset them, disorient them, and give them one more chance to break free.

Not like tumblr exists in ponyland....

“Alrighty then dears, long as we’re upstairs,” mom says, pausing to look at Rarity’s (still) closed door, “We may as well just start gettin’ you packed.”

I look at her and... oh. “That’s right!” I say in realization. “You’re back from vacation that means... so I was just staying with Rarity this week, and usually I live with you?”

“Oh hon, your memory’s coming back?” mom says in excitement.

I blink, then shake my head slightly, saying, “No, just that. Nothing else is coming to me.”

“We better get started if we want to get cross town before evening,” dad says with a hearty whuff. “Got a lot to pack, after all!”

I nod at him, and then at my mom, saying, “Okay, let’s... let’s get started then.”

One trundle across the hallway again, and I’m already feeling exhausted. Just remembering what hoof to put in front of what is so draining, especially with how slowly I move, and taking into account the horribly curving walls of this place’s hallways.

I have to lean against the wall, sighing and looking at my stupid hooves. “Sorry, it’s just hard to learrremember how to do this,” I say to my parents, barely catching myself at my shaky alibi. If they found out, it would hurt them so bad... I just can’t bear to see it. Besides, what could they do to help? They’re just my parents.

...Sweetie Belle’s parents.

I need a... a professional who’s like, professional detachment and stuff. I can only hope Sweetie’s tip about Lyra will pan out. Maybe I should see like a... therapist or something. But wouldn’t a therapist freak out even more, when I don’t fit their assumption of just being crazy? If there’s anything I’ve learned about therapists, in my old world at least, they won’t ever consider that what torments you is anything more than a delusion, and a personal failing on your part, that you alone can fix. No, what I need is a research scientist. I can only hope that Lyra’s the one I’m looking for, because I am solid out of options at this point.

My parents manage to usher me into my room, where my father removes his straw hat with the power of his mind, revealing to everyone, everywhere, forever that he is indeed a unicorn. How the heck did his horn fit under that hat? Oh it... oh. I remember the same thing happens to me, when I put on a helmet. Maybe horns are retractable or something? I mean, for a colorful spiral of bone, it sure doesn’t seem retractable. Just... magic space shenanigans, I guess. But a magic straw hat? Why didn’t he just cut a hole?

I’m going to ask, but then I find myself captivated as my parents busily help me pack my stuff. “You just rest, Sweetie,” mom says to me beside the door as things begin to levitate around her, “We’ll get everything ready for ya lickety split!”

Lickety split is right. When my parents get going, it looks like Twilight is reshelving the library, and granted it’s both of them working together, but there’s still a lot of stuff flying around in all directions! Are they controlling them all independently? Isn’t this kind of powerful for a unicorn? I mean Twilight was hella powerful compared to most, right?

I squint and watch more closely, and it’s really fascinating, because if you pay attention you can see that a lot of the magic is being used judiciously. As in, magic to unlock something, but a hoof to pull it open, or magic to fold piles of clothing, but a nose to lift it and hindquarters to carry it.

Whatever division of labor this is, magic is fucking awesome! But it’s not so much the skillful use of telekinesis that impresses me, so much as the revelations regarding my living situation.

Mom’s magic is a different shade of blue only slightly, but it’s pretty obvious from how it feels different from dad’s. I watch it illuminate the covers of my bed, removing the thin blanket, the sheets, the pillows, and then the... mattress. Then the mattress comes apart into sections! Then in the area underneath the mattress is filled with a whole bunch of containers like, cases. The mattress parts go into some of them and then... the bed frame... they’re packing the bed! Of course! That explains everything!

Wait, was I trying to explain something? I don’t get it, but I’m very curious. I manage to walk over there, and... there’s practically nothing left of the bed, just a ton of pastel colored, neatly closed cases. A cylinder for the mattress’s... core I guess, and some square suitcases for the bed posts, and a bunch of weird lumpy ones that have the mattress parts, and the panels all slide neatly into a rectangular pink one. I mean granted there’s a whole lot of these suitcases, but still, that bed broke down right nicely and it wasn’t... really a kind of bed you’d expect to be temporary. I guess one pony’s sturdy oak is another pony’s modular design?

At least they don’t take the dresser. That thing is one solid block of wood, and I’d be scared if there were a quick way to disassemble that. But the toy chest? That goes right into the pile. The posters on the wall? Yup. Even the rug folds up, and then rolls up to fit into a compact cylinder. The contents of the dresser, mostly clothing for some unfathomable reason, get folded neatly into luggage bags, the kind with the wheels on them and the handle you pull behind you with your hand, while you’re walking on two legs, as a human. What we end up with is a whole ton of disparate looking suitcases and chests that looks strangely familiar for some reason.

I have to say I inspect that clothing, with more than just a cursory glance. It appears to be um... dresses of some fashion, sized to fit the particular pony posterior that perpetually ...follows me. Damn I almost had that alliteration, too. Not just dresses, what look like t-shirts, and striped socks, and lots of hair thingies that I... never wear. Oh my, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders cape. I suppose wearing that all the time would ruin it, but there it was in one of the drawers. That blue and gold pony symbol really does look crudely stitched onto the back. It’s so beautiful. Um... rather large purple sunglasses, and a broad brimmed purple hat. Like three scarves. Why was any of this stuff even packed?

“Oh hey Sweetie,” dad says, finally noticing me nosing around at everything curiously. “You wanna help a bit after all?”

“Could I?” I ask skeptically, turning that nose to face him nervously. “I don’t have any magic I mean... I might but I haven’t even tried it yet.”

“Oh Sweetums, don’t worry you’ll get better at magic,” he says with something of a strained smile. “But until then, you can carry stuff the ordinary way.” With that confident statement, he uses his dark tipped hoof to knock one of those rolling luggage cases over crashing down on top of me wait what—! Oh.

The handle for pulling the luggage falls, and slips right over my head entirely, and the case tilts up on its wheels behind me. This isn’t a handle, after all. It’s a harness. I’m... I’m harnessed to a suitcase. My life is weird.

Then he throws like three more on there, and the pile behind me is now noticeably taller than I am. “Can ya get those?” he asks pleasantly giving me an expectant look. I... honestly don’t know the answer to that. Sure, no problem? Not in a million years can I pull more than my own body weight on those two tiny little wheels?

I walk forward and with a jerk the luggage pulls me back. But it isn’t heavy as it looks, so I try walking forward again and it starts rolling along behind me. “I guess—” losing concentration, I trip over my hooves, not quite falling over, but the luggage harness thing digs into my chest. Or whatever you call the part of me facing forward, below my chin. But isn’t my chest really the part facing downward, behind me? Why does it feel like my shoulders, then?

Grimacing at my own confusion, I say plainly and simply, standing still, “I guess... I can.” Then, I just ignore the weird sensations, and lift hoof number one, and... 1,3,walk, walk, etc. I’m... sort of getting this! The doorway out of the room yawns around me, as I go smoothly through it, my little hooves clipping on the firm surface of the hallway.  I’m outside of my room now, all on my own. Or whatever that room was, that I’ve been sleeping in. Looking back, I note with some surprise that none of this luggage behind me has fallen off. Looking forward, I note that Rarity’s hall curves around, so I’m now nose-to-nose with the wall, and have to figure out how to turn left again.

It’s a lot harder to do, when you’re attached to several suitcases.

Why couldn’t Rarity live in a square building?

My parents pick up the luggage behind me, that does fall as I fight myself around to line up with the hallway, replacing it on my improvised pony cart to give me another shot at it. Several awkward turns later, I find myself facing the...stairwell.

I sigh hotly. “Darn it!” I say, with my voice catching in a worrisome way. Why does everything have to be so hard, and frustrating! I can’t even do the simplest things. They’re taking care of everything, and I’m not helping at all. I shouldn’t be upset; there’s nothing wrong with a genuine inability, that I’m just not practiced enough to overcome. But I am. Why can’t I just... why do I have to wait here like an idiot, and I don’t even know how to lift this luggage harness off of me. It’s so unfair!

“Sorry, I... need some help,” I mumble, wiping my totally dry eyes with a totally dry side of my fuzzy hoof. I made it like what, 20 feet before having to ask that? This is so fucked up... and now Sweetie is in trouble again! Maybe! And I’ve got to figure out how to save her!

“What’s that Sweetie?” mom asks, and then she says in abrupt realization, “Oh, the stairs! Are you having trouble with them?”

“Yeah, I... I just don’t want to fall,” I admit mutedly.

“Well don’t worry,” she says, cheating and levitating the handle of the luggage off over my head, my pastel curls shuffing as it slides past and they fall back into place. “You just cool your hooves here, while your father and I get the stuff into the carriage.”

They start trucking everything downstairs, and I watch in frustrated but resigned interest. They don’t just magic everything, and even have some trouble with the really heavy looking wheely ones, bumping them down a step at a time. It’s interesting, but... well, I dunno, I just... have other things on my mind.

While they’re doing so, I take a look over at my siste—at Rarity’s closed door. I wonder if she’s willing to come out yet? That bottomless pit of my stomach is pretty empty right now, and I was sort of hoping she’d make something to eat. Not that I’m greedy or anything; I just don’t want to try to make something myself. Even if I’m not as bad at Sweetie at cooking, trying to do it in my current state would be an unmitigated disaster. Rarity’s a great cook though and... I hope she’s doing okay.

Squaring my shoulders... my elbow shoulders, I start toddling over in that direction, away from the stairs. Arriving at the door I say, “Rarity?” but there’s no answer. I lift a hoof to clumsily knock and... it pushes the door open a crack. Rarity’s door isn’t locked anymore, or even latched. It was just barely closed. I wonder why—ugh. There isn’t any sound coming from within, either. I’ve just got to make sure she’s okay, even if it is her room... I shouldn’t be trespassing, but maybe just to check and make sure she’s still here and... okay.

Pushing the door open enough to squeeze through, the eternally undying inner fanboy in me is squeeing at the sight of Rarity’s signature four poster bed, complete with crimson sheets, table lamp, and thick magenta curtains tied up along the diamond checkered pillars that dominate her boutique’s interior design. The soulless, calculating inner scientist in me is wondering if her bed is as modular as mine was, but the fanboy is squeeing. And the ...something inner something in me is sort of noticing that Rarity is in here after all. She’s lying there limp there in her bed, with her side slowly rising and falling.

But what catches in my heart, is that curled against her, also sound asleep, is a sizeable persian cat, whose purple highlights to her long fur make her identity unmistakable. Opalescence must just have climbed up in bed with Rarity, and gone to sleep with her. Rarity’s pearly white body is slightly curled around Opal, with a limp hoof resting in front of the cat. If Opalescence minds the very slight horsey breathing Rarity is making, she sure doesn’t show it, with the soft, almost imperceptible rise and fall of her own ribcage. Opal’s forepaws are splayed out in front of her, one limp on top of Rarity’s forehoof, the other pressed against it. The thickest, fluffiest part of her back is pressed right up against Rarity’s underside.

Have you ever had a cat sleeping against your belly? No, I mean, without any clothing on. Heaven doesn’t even begin to describe it. I really don’t want to disturb one hair on either of their hides. Yet here I am facing my sister, with the door out of here solidly behind me.

...shit.
> Something to Someone
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Standing in my sister’s bedroom unannounced was probably not one of my better plans. My sister sleeps there in her bed, on dissheveled crimson sheets, with her cat there against her belly and over her hooves, providing more comfort to Rarity than I ever could. I’m not jealous though. After living with cats enough, you just have to accept that cats have such an uncanny power to be comforting.

I look around nervously, trying to figure out how I’m going to turn around without making any noise. Okay this might be a problem. But what’s also a problem is Rarity seems a lot more upset than I thought she’d be. I mean, she weathered all this crap I gave her, and then one little argument with our parents and she’s crying herself to sleep, well before the sun has even gone down. 

Wait no, Sweetie Belle’s parents, who just feel like my parents. Ugh, this is so confusing. I hope Sweetie didn’t go silent because we started to merge or something.

Oh no, what if we did start to merge! They might not be able to get us apart again! I mean, that wouldn’t be bad for me but for Sweetie Belle it would be just awful! I uh... I think so, at least? 

Sweetie seemed a lot cooler with a lot of things than I thought she’d be, when I started hearing her. I really don’t know her very well, I guess. But it does lend strength to the idea that she’s just a delusion I was comforting myself with. Probably foolishly in hindsight, I try to put myself in Sweetie Belle’s mindset, to see if that gets her to come back. I mean if we did merge, I should be able to know what she thinks about, right? I don’t mind if I end up being her, but she—well—I mean, I guess if I am her, then she doesn’t mind, by definition.

My worries are slightly distracted by my fath–her fath—our father poking his nose in the doorway. I silently lift a hoof pointing at Rarity and give a hopeful grimace, swirling it around, like I’d really like to turn around and get out of there. I think he gets the message, because he tip-toes (more so than usual) in and picks me up, then backs out the door with me in uh... mouth. Once outside and standing, he sets me down. I manage to head a safe distance away from her room, while he pulls the door quietly shut behind me.

“What were you doing?” he whispers at me harshly. “Can’t you see she was tryin’ to sleep?”

Oh. I guess he didn’t get the message.

“I just went to check on her,” I whisper back, “I didn’t know she was sleeping. And then I had to stay there, because I don’t r-remember how to turn around very quietly, and we haven’t practiced walking backward yet.”

He gets a troubled look in his eyes, and says on a different subject, “Sweetie, you can’t just practice with Rarity. This is something serious. You gotta see a doctor about this!”

I blink at him.

Oh. “Rarity took me to the hospital right away!” I assure him. “I meant practicing with the physical therapist... that I’ve been seeing all this week. Rarity’s been really good about getting me there.”

He still frowns though. “I see,” he says unreadably, and turns to trot over to the stairwell saying, “C’mon Sweetie, we can’t keep the carriage rider... oh right, you can’t walk.”

My head snaps up straighter, and I give him a very disappointed look, saying, “I can walk! See?” And I—er, 1 is the walky foot, so I’ll call it the walky foot...hoof. I wobblingly move towards him, without falling over at all. Walking, yes. I am totally getting the hang of this, and don’t have to count anymore. I am totally kidding myself. At the top of the stairwell, I do have to pause. I look warily down the stairs, and say to him, 

“Um... but I probably shouldn’t try stairs yet.”

“Well, hop on, then!” dad says, presenting his side to me. He doesn’t sit down. I guess...that’s just something Rarity does. It’s fine though, I’ve been practicing climbing a lot! I rear up and... gosh he feels warm. I’m... I’m not sure I want to climb up this... stallion.

“C-can mom carry me?” I stammer out, dropping to fours again and wishing I hadn’t gone and jynxed it by touching him. He’s a... I mean there’s nothing wrong with him, but I’m a filly. I have different... things now, and... it just feels weird. I can’t just think about him sexually; he’s my dad and all, but he is also very powerful and warm and... nice to look at.

“I suppose,” he says thoughtfully. “I’ll go get her if ya need. Something wrong with riding me?”

Yeah, that’s what it is. I’d be riding a stallion. Something I am not ready for. I—I mean, the real thing I’m not ready for is a stallion riding me, and then pregnancy, and labor, and childbirth, and well, shoving things in there in general. I’d like to penetrate myself, to see what it feels like, but definitely on my own terms, with my own... penetraty thing. For all I know, a pencil will be too big. So it’s me not him that’s the problem. With that in mind, I say evenly, “I’m just a little unsure about um... s-stallions; it’s something that h-happened to me. I didn’t think it would apply to you, but... it sorta is.”

“Did a stallion do something... not so good to you?” he asks quietly, with a dangerous glint in his eyes.

...wow. I am never, ever, ever telling him. If he found out what I did to Sweetie, he’d... oh my gosh I can’t believe I was ever even considering it. He’d kill me! Or at least hate me, until he got us separate, then kill me. So “No,” I lie, “A stallion never did anything to m...me,” but thankfully that’s all the lying I have to do for now.

The rest is the truth, when I say, “What happened was a lit up machine...thing, that me and my friends found in the Badlands. We were trying to find a meteor, but there was this instead. I had a horn surge that messed it up, or Twi—or Rarity’s friend told me that, but there was no stallion anywhere the whole time. I had to ask my friends what happened, but I don’t remember anything that happened until after the machine broke, and... after I woke up from that, I couldn’t remember most of anything else, either.”

“I can’t tell you why I’d be leery... yeah, leery of stallions though,” I say, technically telling the truth. Even though the reason is that I don’t want to die, rather than I just don’t know, I definitely can’t just go and tell him. 

“Asides just being a little filly, that is,” I add, with a bit of a nervous laugh.

“Well, you just talk to the doctor,” he says uncertainly, “Uh, talk to the doctor yeah, and see what you can do.”

He doesn’t know what to do any more than I do, but at least he has the excuse of being ignorant. On our way down, on my mom’s back, I see that pile of crayons and have a thought. I wonder if she... “Hold on, I need to draw something!” I call out quickly.

“Sweetie, the carriage driver won’t wait forever,” mom says to me in irritation.

“It’s important,” I clarify. “It’s um, for Rarity.”

Mom pauses then, and sighs as I lift my leg off her back and start to slide down anyway. “Just hurry it up Sweetie,” she says, “I’ll have a talk with him, but we want to get home before it’s dark out!”

“Okay, thanks m...mom!” I say with a bit too much hesitation for anypony’s liking. But wobbling my way over to the bench, I pick up the blue crayon in my mouth. Whew, made it that far. Okay... it’s the closest I have to black, and it does look black-ish against the pink paper. I work out the outlines as best as I can remember them, then grab the white... oh hey, an actual use for a white crayon. 

I’m... pretty sure the real Sweetie Belle did a much better job of this, but I finish the crude scrawl as quickly as I can, and attempt to draw a heart around it. The purple doesn’t really look great as a heart though, and blue would really look better, if I had something thicker that was blue, maybe to glue on the... okay, no. No. Just, no. Purple heart. Not doing that again Assuming Sweetie Belle did it the first time, in this... world, but it’s likely. I think the message will get across just fine, without ruining another of my sister’s entire days of gem collecting.

Anyway, at least that important task is out of the way. It’s very important, considering my sister’s ...considering her sister’s reaction earlier. This Sweetie Belle feeling I’m feeling is going to get really annoying fast, I think. If only I could talk with her about it... there’s got to be a way. She can’t be gone. I just have to... put up with my parents, and find somepony with the skills needed to help. 

My crude artwork being done, I hurry out to the... I creep out to the outside of Rarity’s boutique, looking around for my parents so I won’t have to strain my brain thinking about moving my limbs in the right order. They are thankfully still waiting there, because I’d hate to explain to Rarity that they got bored of waiting and abandoned us, or anything.

Mom and dad are standing by a red and yellow checkered carriage, piloted by a strange pony with a yellow coat and a green mane. Mom smiles as I come out saying, “Oh, here she is. Sorry for the trouble miss Trailer.”

“Kids, right?” the carriage pony says gruffly, flicking her tail. “Just hurry it up ‘cause my fare doubles after sunset.”

We um... hurry it up, and I end up being the only one riding the carriage actually, because it’s mostly holding our luggage. Which is mostly my luggage. Did I really have to pack an entire bed? Probably not. Sweetie Belle didn’t, at any rate. My parents trot along with the carriage pony, making smalltalk about Ponyville and what’s to get up to around here. Something about the uh... pony fair, coming up. It’s not a very descriptive name. I don’t really ask questions, because I’m relatively safe surrounded by all this luggage and free to dwell on the horrific existential dilemma of the real Sweetie Belle. 

I do look around for that spiral tower as we travel along, trying to find it, so I can gauge the distance that I’d have to... walk. But if it’s ever visible, I miss seeing it, before we get home. 

The carriage continues down a hill and around a ridge as the daylight dims. There’s not much to see at this point. It’s all shades of black and shadow. Sweetie Belle’s house is... tall. Infuriatingly tall, for one who can’t stairs. A three story, single family cottage, with planters, and a bush garden, and a forested area behind it, beyond which I can only see darkness. As the carriage stops, I start to hear the rush of water from a nearby stream of some sort, and a soft creaking issuing from the building across from us. I look up, and see shadowed above us in silouette to the red sky, the steadily turning motion of four broad flat panels set in a fan shape. Turning in pace with the evening breeze.

It’s a windmill... we live next to a windmill...

I am going to go into that building. I am going to explore every inch of the inside of that building, and I am going to follow every cog in that mechanism, and I am going to find out what in the name of Equestria and Earth, that ponies use a windmill for. But maybe when I’m better at walking, and when my parents—her parents aren’t right there, and maybe when it’s not getting dark. That is a freaking windmill. That is so cool!

Mother pays the carriage driver, in the first actual display of bits I’ve seen since coming here. From the driver’s wide smile and the way she rears up when driving away, I’d guess the amount was the evening rate after all. It’d be really cool if my mom was loaded. Sweetie’s mom. Whatever. Just the thought of my mother having money, not going for want of anything, all mysterious and stuff, and leaving me to my own devices, to teach me about self reliance and modesty.

Why yes, I fantasize about being in an allegory. Doesn’t everyone?

I’m careful to climb down from the pile of luggage, my bare hooves scuffing the grass as I er, tumble to a heap on the ground. It’s a soft landing though, so once I get my tail out of my face, I smile at them—comfortingly as I can, at least, and look at the door. 

They seem to be wondering if I need any help to get in, so I say, “Don’t worry, I got this under control.” Then I dramatically lift a hoof and... whoops, wrong hoof. Okay, starting with the left hoof, I carefully walk forward, slipping a bit once I inadvertently transition from grass to a stone road made of what look like broad, flat cobbles, leading right straight up to the threshold of the door. Mom’s easily keeping pace. Actually she’s taking multiple trips there and back while I slowly work my way to the door, until I feel the coarse roughness of a welcome mat beneath my hooves. Mom opens the door for me with a nervous smile, her broad pink hoof just pushing it open, giving me a chance to shuffle through the darkness, going from scratchy cloth to the clunk clunk of a wooden floor.

In the house, the encroaching darkness is driven away by the same pleasant lighting as you’d find in Rarity’s boutique, as mom turns on the lights with the flick of a switch on the wall above and behind me. I look around the room, seeing wooden floors, floral rugs and a peach colored wallpaper decorated with embellished swirls and hearts. I stand there feeling a bit lost, while behind me mom says, “Just make yourself comfortable. Your father and I will get our luggage.” I um...

I guess this is supposed to be my house now.

It feels like a silly thing to realize, but the whole afternoon has been kind of a bombshell. As if attack by giant plant monster weren’t the craziest thing to happen to me this week. I have parents. Sweetie Belle has parents. I walk forward a step, just to make sure I can, that I’m not just imagining the surreality of standing inside somepony’s house and feeling like it’s my own. It’s not just a strange house. It’s an impossible house. It just looks like an ordinary house from the inside, but that wallpaper is so ...distinctive, and the floors are just so... wooden! It’s hard to explain. This is a house right out of the show, is what it is. Rarity’s boutique is so blatantly obviously impossible, that you don’t feel strange about thinking it impossible. Here, everything illuminated in subtle brown and sepia tones, it looks normal at first... until you realize the portraits hung on the walls are of ponies, not humans, that the books on the bookshelf over there are in an unreadable cursive, and there’s not a computer or television set to be seen in here.

My parents walk in, heavy with the burden of luggage on their backs as they plod over to a wooden staircase, going up a stairwell in the back of the house, then turning the corner out of sight. I only watch for a moment before springing to action. Waddling to action. I make my way back outside, and there’s a bunch of other luggage there. But I can at least help carry the... hmm... where... oh, there it is! I spot the carry suitcase harness thing. 

Biting down on the handle of that suitcase, I try wiggling it, and it pops loose. With the whole harness telescoped out, I can push the suitcase with my hoof to tip it over onto my head. Um, it’s backwards whoops. I’m facing my luggage instead of away from it. Okay, I lay down, twisting around trying to turn around. When I stand up in triumph, with the harness successfully aligned to my chest, my parents are watching with what can only be described as confusemusement.

“I’m helping!” I explain quite clearly. 

Dad gets it, and he clops forward saying, “Thanks a bunch Sweetums, let me just load ya up.” He puts a bunch of stuff on my base ...case thing, and I start leaning forward into it, once again summoning my will to move my hooves in the proper order. I actually stumble and lose a bag once, but these cobbles are really uneven! No, I mean they’re flat, but there’s little spaces in them that the wheels can get stuck on. Once I’m in the house I can move smoothly...until I hit a rug, but with a little grunt I manage to get it moving over that too, all the way to the base of the stairs.

I’m not stupid or anything, so I leave my stuff there, flopping on my side to wriggle out of the harness, then pushing it up with my forehooves until my head is free. I sit up like a... dog, and mom is there beside me, carrying something on her back. “Good job, Sweetie!” she says happily, “You sure are a little darling, arentcha?”

“Eh heh... um, you’re welcome,” I say trying and failing not to blush. I feel a little proud though. I really want to help out as much as I can! So climbing to my hooves, I once more make my way outside, and grab another big bag in my teeth. Pulling back on it, I fail to remember that I have not yet been trained on how to walk backwards, and just have to stop pulling and look at my hooves in confusion. But then I scoot around, using the bag to pull myself around it, until I aim my sights at the front door. Lowering my head, and just pushing it with my foreh—ow wow, I have a horn. Whoops. 

My horn is too blunt to push through the canvas, thankfully, but it does give me an idea. I don’t know if this is the way you’re supposed to use a horn, but I hook it under the handle to the bag, and try to straighten my head up, getting pulled forward as the bag tilts my head back down in the opposite direction. I can’t really... walk like this, but I can brace my forelegs on the bag, and push with my hind legs, sliding it across the road towards the door step. Yeah, I’m a little white suitcase moving unicorn dynamo!

I think my parents deliberately slow down on unpacking, just to watch me attempting to push, pull, or crawl my way in with another article, but heck if it isn’t just so much fun. I have to be really creative, and I bet it totally counts as walking practice, and I’m not just sitting there being a useless lump, even if I can only move it as far as the bottom of the stairs. I’m helping! 

I’m getting way too excited about this. I have a giggle bubbling up in me when the last suitcase is inside the house, and I’m standing in the doorway looking out into the darkened evening. The house is lit making out there look really dark and ...intimidating, but also making me feel so incredibly safe. I have a house to stay in, and Rarity’s boutique? Isn’t that just so cool? Isn’t it? No? Well it feels like it, so nyuh!

It’s probably more physical labor this evening, than I’ve done since waking up; actually... before my awakening was also kind of miserably idle. Only reason I wasn’t a fatass back then, is from a distinct loss of interest in bothering to eat anything. But I’ll eat something now! I’m totally hungry! And I feel safe in this warmly lit house, and excited and... kind of wobbly but that’s okay. 

After they get all my stuff—and really the vast majority of that luggage was Sweetie’s—up the stairs, mom reveals the other ground level room, a modest kitchen with nice oak cabinets and a smooth white countertop that feels like porcelain. It’s high enough for me to see over, but more their height for bracing your forehooves.

I’m surprised to see them come down from upstairs completely naked. I mean, I was expecting it with how I’ve been a naked little unicorn during this whole process, and they explained about the clothing. It’s just startling to see how different they look. Mom actually isn’t... as fat as I thought she was. The pants really made her butt look big. 

No, seriously.

But what’s striking is how bright pink she is from nose to butt. Somehow her vivid purple hair makes her seem even pinker. Like, my hair is a pale pink, at best. She’s got this pretty pink fur all over her though. She keeps her earrings on... wait how the heck do ponies have earrings? It certainly isn’t the way you’d expect creatures with ears like that to have earrings: large golden orbs hugging the base of her ears, instead of rings embedded in the lobe of the ear. Then again, who wants to have heavy metal dragging them down whenever they swing their ears around?

Her cutie mark is a simple three cookies, chocolate chip from the looks of it. Three guesses as to what my new favorite food is going to be, and the first two don’t count. She doesn’t smell like cookies though (not yet at least). She has a more sandy, oceany smell along with their luggage and stuff, because...she just went to a tropical island, of course. How did they... get there?

Father isn’t as strikingly colored. His pale tan coat leads up from his broad, dark hooves, to his short brown tail and moustache. He has kindly looking bushy eyebrows, and a mop of brown hair for a mane. It probably could be combed around his horn better. He has a huge horn, by the way! It’s really uh... unicorneriffic. He doesn’t have any more accounterments or jewelry, which makes sense in a sexist sort of way, but he looks just fine without anything on at all. It’s only fair really; if men get to be the only ones with facial hair, women should have something distinctive about them too, like jewelry. Not that men have any choice about having facial hair... jewelry that grows back, now that would be a horrifying concept.

His cutie mark is three footballs. They look kind of...fuzzy though, like the lines don’t quite match with what I imagine. Cutie marks really are part of your fur coat, I guess. Wasn’t there that episode when Snips and Snails shaved their cutie marks right off? These emblems shining on my parents’, and Rarity’s ass aren’t projections, but careful inscriptions in the fur, as if an individual one of Rarity’s white hairs suddenly transitioned to blue, and then back to white again. An impossible thing to grow, but certainly possible with magic. I really do kind of wonder if a cutie mark could change.

I try to avoid looking at his genitals, not that he’s making a show of sticking them in my face or anything. But he has balls, same color as his coat, and... well I don’t really look further than that. At least I’m not getting nauseous anymore. It’s kind of cool that he has a... er, which is to say not that I would ever think of doing anything with him, because that would result in retard babies. I wouldn’t want something like that to come out of me.

A–and also because I’m totally not into stallions! That’s exactly what I am thinking, and not anything like a little filly would think! I swear I’m not gay! Or, I’m lesbian, or whatever you call it! Or maybe I shouldn’t kid myself, but I’m not going to come onto my freaking father. That’s just too weird. Also the fact that he’s a four legged animal. And male. I’m totally not into men, and the thought isn’t totally threatening to turn me into a blushing mess of giggles.

...football.

There in that cozy warm kitchen, the three of us gather around the short squat table in there, to sup on the exquisite gourmet meal my mother prepares, of cold peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I am absolutely starving, and... well, standing around our little kitchen table, I’m actually extra eager to start eating it so that I don’t have to watch them eating it. The easiest way I know to avoid getting grossed out by people eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is to eat them yourself. So I do, bending down and lipping up the bread sinking my teeth into it and taking a big satisfying bite. Oh my gosh it’s raspberry jelly. I think I can officially consider my parents sort of maybe on the level of really cool. Wait...

Wait no, Sweetie Belle’s parents, not mine! Mine are jerks! Well, a jerk, and dead, respectively. Did I like, merge with Sweetie Belle and just lose her memories permanently? But I’ve been feeling like this the whole time, just not so weirdly family-y. 

Is that why she can’t speak to me? Her feelings are blocking her off or something? I wish I could say my bubbly mood continues throughout the sandwich, but by the time I’m done, I’m feeling sad and scared again. I don’t want to kill her. I just have to find a way to bring her back. I just... I’ve been really busy this afternoon and... and I don’t really know what I can do without being able to walk...much. I’ve got to find that magical unicorn science building. If not the aptly named Lyra, surely there are some smart ponies there who could... like... not be my family, or go straight to the police, or... something...

......

After I’m done with that big old huge yawn that consumes my attention, I guess I might have been overdoing it a bit today. Starting to feel sleepy, now that I have a chance to relax. My parents get the hint of my gaping maw, thankfully yawning after I finished swallowing, and mom says, “Well we’re fed and we’re home, I guess you could skip brushing your teeth just for this meal if you wanna go to bed.”

“No that’s okay,” I say fighting back another yawn. “It’ll...just a few minutes. Can skip the bath, though...”

They glance at each other, and dad says, “Don’t worry, you don’t need to take a bath tonight. Just come on up to your... mother will help you up to your room. I’ll just make sure it’s all... set and stuff.”

He gallops up the stairs, and mom looks at me seriously. I look at her like a deer in headlights, while she takes some time to inform me in melancholy tones, “Your father really needs you, Sweetie. You can’t go tellin’ him that you... just... get better soon, okay honey?”

“I...” 

I don’t know—she looks so... sad!

I try to comfort her, saying, “I shouldn’t have any... problem. If I do, I’ll... I’ll tough it out, until I’m ...okay.”

“Okay Sweetie, just... do your best,” mom says with a frightened grin. “And try not to get into any more dangerous ruins,” she says in false amusement. “You’ll be okay. You’re Sweetie Belle! You’re a very brave, wonderful little filly.”

“Thanks m—” I start to say it, then stop myself. Then I have to stop myself from stopping myself, because even though I feel like I shouldn’t say it, even though I feel like I should, actually I should.

...okay try that again.

I’m still supposed to say it. It’s not true, but it’s an... okay thing for me to say. It’s not true, but I feel like saying it, and I’d alarm everypony by not saying it. “Thanks mom,” I repeat more evenly, the simple act of saying it making a flutter of emotion in my chest. “A little help to the bath—tooth brushing room would be nice.”

“It’s called a washroom, Sweetie,” mom says, accomodatingly. “And the bathroom is behind the kitchen, and the toilet is out back.”

“Okay,” I say submissively, and... then sidling before me, is her broad pink flank.

“Go ahead and uh, climb up,” she says. “You’ll be walkin’ soon, just gotta get that Ace fellow to show you about stairs and things.”

I gratefully climb up on her, and only have to kick my hind legs a little bit to get up on her while she’s standing. As a two headed pony duo, we go up to the... I can’t help but realize I’m actually laying against my mom’s flesh, not a blanket or anything. Have to ask Rarity for that blanket, but until then, mom feels... nice and warm on my belly, and soft.

As a two-headed pony duo, we go up the stairs, and I get to see the second floor, where the washroom is located. So called, because you wash there, but it’s too small to have a bathtub. So, basically a convenient sink to spit your toothpaste into. Same peach colored wallpaper, but more pictures I don’t recognize, portraits really, of bright fields of flowers and a blue pony standing next to a tree.

One of those bags we brought with us is in here, and apparantly it’s Sweetie Belle’s bathroom bag, because mom lifts a toothbrush out of it in her magic so like Rarity’s. It’s the toothbrush I’ve been sticking in my mouth the past days. Nice big handle, easy for a foal to hold onto, who hasn’t figured out magic yet. I should mention that their toothpaste also tastes like hay. I think it’s intentional. After I demonstrate the incredible grace and beauty of a pony brushing her back teeth I’m pretty much droopy eyed and ready for bed.

The bed isn’t even uh... put back together really. The mattress is whole there next to the partially assembled frame, on the floor with a sheet hastily thrown atop it and a soft pillow at its head. I slide off my mother’s back straight onto the soft mattress, and squirm to pull the sheet over myself—it catches in mom’s magic, pulls tight in the air, and snugs down right around me. Made into the bed heh... it feels so freaking good to lay down. I don’t even look at the room I’m in. I just want to collapse after... after all that. My eyes are already closed, when she kisses me good night. I feel so safe here...

I’m not exactly sure when Rarity is going to be finished sewing. She hums pleasantly, her little machine purring away as she feeds the fabric into its cycling needle. I’m getting sort of bored waiting for her. There’s really nothing to do but sit here in her boutique, listening to her work away. How long am I going to have to sit here? The sewing machine stops.

I look up at that, and Rarity is looking very weary, and confused. “I’m sorry, Sweetie,” she says pushing back and stumbling to all fours. “I’m afraid I don’t feel very well.” She goes upstairs to lie down, leaving the brightly colored boutique a very empty place. Worried for her, I climb up the stairs and go down the dim hallway to her room.

Rarity really doesn’t look so good. She lays there in her bed, looking run down and weary, and so old. Her mane is looking grey and limp, and there are deep bags under her eyes. Everything about her is just getting really... bad!

I tell her something is wrong, and she seems to realize it for the first time, looking at her skinny, wrinkled hooves. “What is happening to me?” she says looking at them in horrified alarm. I don’t know though! She’s getting old so fast, it’s like she’s wasting away! “Sweetie Belle, you have to find Twilight,” Rarity says in a frightened tone. “She can fix this.” Nodding in a fright, I gallop out of her room and down the stairs, where the ground floor of the boutique seems weirdly round around me as I charge forward, seeking the egress into Ponyville.

Ignoring the ponies outside, pushing past them in a panic, I charge into Twilight’s library, where the librarian’s desk has been replaced with a simple platform on which she is standing, the purple unicorn a more welcome sight than I’ve seen in a while since coming here, and sneakily trying to be Sweetie Belle.

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?” she says leaning down to look at me in alarm.

“Rarity is getting old!” I shout at her.

Twilight smiles at me and says that ponies are going to get older, and it’s a natural part of the cycle of life. But “No!” I tell her. “Really fast!” Twilight doesn’t want to believe me, and I follow her around the library trying to convince her, as she shelves books, begging her to help my sister. She doesn’t believe me until... until a book falls from her hoof, and when she goes to pick it up, her hoof is shaking tremulously. It’s sagging and shrivelling up all boney and knobby right before my eyes and—and Twilight is too! Her mane is already gray and her back is sagging and weak.

“Stop this, Sweetie!” Twilight tries to shout to me, but she’s stumbling and quavering in her voice. Her eyes look so old but they’re so scared. “What are you doing to me?!” Twilight says accusingly.

“I’m not doing anything!” I cry. I try to help her, but nothing I do works. Twilight is just getting older and older, so fast, and I can’t hold her together.

“Sweetie... please... help me...” Twilight begs with terrified tears in her eyes as her arm just—just comes off in my hoof. And she screams a horrible hollow wail that sounds like the wind blowing over a dirty desert ruin as she just shrivels, drips, dissolves, her skin barely clinging to a pony skeleton that crumbles to dust before my eyes.

Twilight is wrong. I can’t be doing this! I’m just a little filly! I don’t even have my magic yet! My hooves are so dirty... her black ashes make my forehooves gray with soot. My harmless little unicorn filly forehooves. I didn’t do this to her! I didn’t mean to! The library looks... old.

Time is going by so fast, the library looks so old around me. Wasn’t it a living tree? Why is there dust everywhere? How long have I been standing here? Did I lose track of time? The shelves start to collapse, and the ceiling creaks overhead, and I just run. I just gallop away, trying to get out from there before I wait too long and the library falls apart on top of my head.

I make it outside with the groaning collapse of old, neglected rotting wood behind me, and for some reason Rarity’s boutique is clearly in a straight line downhill from this very library. I know it’s a straight line because... because every pony I pushed on the way here is there, and they’re all so scared, and they’re aging so fast they’re dying right on their hooves. I know it’s a straight line because... because I did it. Something infected me. It must have! Why would I be standing here young and spry while everypony in town is old and enfeebled, passing away before I can even remember who they are?

My friends, they don’t want to go! They’re hugging each other, but they can’t stop it! They’re begging me to help, to save them and I don’t know how! I can’t keep them alive if they just keep dying so fast! The hollow wails fill the air now as ponies succumb to the final sleep so goddamn quickly. The boutique—in Rarity’s boutique, I rush into her room, but there’s nothing left but ash, a pony shaped silouette of ash, forever stained in her decaying bed. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I...

I’m doing this! I have to get out of here I have to stop this! Ponyville needs me to get away because of this c-curse this thing that’s making bad things happen. How am I going to get away though? I’m in the middle of town, surrounded by unsuspecting ponies that I can’t pass without them dying forever! I have to... have to get to a forest, where there aren’t any ponies. Right over...there! I run out of the boutique and around the corner and abruptly I’m in a moonlit forest, absolutely and totally alone.

I’ve never been so glad to be alone. No more cries of fear and anguish torment my ears. I may be f-forever cursed like this, but if I stay here in this quiet forest completely alone, I can keep the other ponies safe. I start walking through it, finding myself captivated by the light that can be found here. Not just the moon and stars, but luminescent flowers in shades of purple and pink, some even bigger than myself, coming from trees and vines so mysteriously entwined in the shadow those flowers do not cast. It’s awe inspiring, honestly. Where am I, even?

I walk around a tree and suddenly I’m right in front of a shocked looking Sweetie Belle. I’m staring nose to nose with her. I thought I was supposed to be Sweetie Belle! Oh no!

“Get away!” she shrieks, stumbling back shouting, “You have to get away! Before...” her outstretched hoof pointed at me is quavering like an old lady.

“Oh no,” she says, walking in anxious circles, “No no no no! I made it! I escaped!”

Sweetie Belle is such a tall, graceful pony above me. “You have to stop it!” she yells at me, pushing me down in her big, strong grown-up form. It’s... it’s not staying strong though. She’s past the prime of her life, already!

“I can’t stop it!” I bawl back at her. I didn’t mean to! I didn’t want any of this to happen! Something about me keeps infecting these ponies, making them get so old, and waste away.

“Not me too!” Sweetie wails in tears, her body shriveling into that of a creaky old mare. “I don’t want to go!” she begs me, with a shaking hoof that can’t stay—a colossal spear descending from the sky slams into the torso of the ancient Sweetie Belle before me and obliterates her mid-shriek, her entire form just blasting apart in a wave of the deepest blue.

I literally have no idea what the fuck just happened.

“Cursed things!” comes a familiar voice from above, a rather awkward looking Princess Luna in ill-fitting armor descending, to yank the spear from where it is embedded in the bare ground, with her teeth. It’s... actually kind of a dinky looking spear, more of a toy really. “You cannot have her!” the princess shouts angrily around it, into the dark forest, where, now that I look I can see ponies hovering there, just at the edge of my vision, just standing there, staring with empty eyes.

Luna turns over her shoulder to me, and stares at me with an enraged expression. She angrily bites out, “Oh featherblight!” just as I feel like I’m falling and I—

I wake up upside down on the floor, tangled in some bedsheets, next to a... mattress that is also on the floor? Was that a... oh please tell me that was a dream! I roll painstakingly to my belly, not standing up, but just huddling forward on my haunches, staring at the floor and shivering in the warm night air. What did Luna mean? Why was she... does she know? Did... I still felt like Sweetie Belle though! I didn’t even tell her. All she saw was Sweetie being... saw her making ponies get older and older.

“I’m sorry, Princess Luna...” I whimper in the silence. “I’m sorry S-sweetie,” I say, not expecting an answer, “She thinks she’s saving you... she thinks she’s saving you and all she’s doing is saving me...” My expectations are more than met, when the only response is the steady creaking of the windmill outside my house. Because... I’m in Sweetie Belle’s actual house, that she has apparantly. And her parents came to pick me up! They were on vacation! I—!

I could probably get them to comfort me right now.

As I start to walk, the sheets fall from around me, but I... need something covering me right now. So I just sort of bite the sheets and pull them over my head, using my tail to... oh and my butt to stabilize them, as I stumble out of my room, to seek comfort from ponies I don’t even deserve to be in the same room with. I reach the... stairs.

Their bedroom is downstairs. Of course their bedroom is downstairs! Of course Sweetie has to sleep in the attic! Of course she had to vanish on me, just when I was starting to feel okay about things! I just... I make it to the top of the stairs, but I just refuse to leave the top of those stairs. I know my parents are okay, that it was just a stupid dream, but I’m so scared, and I can’t reach them!

Even with my sheets wrapped around me, I can’t sleep at first because I’m too busy crying bitterly. But that too fades away, and I just slip off into an exhausted slumber, far more exhausted than from just loss of sleep alone.

I think there’s no better way to wake up in the morning than by your father falling over your body on his way up the stairs to wake you up. Oh wait, did I say no better way? I meant many, many better ways. He didn’t continue to fall down the stairs, thank g—thank whoever, but he just face planted on the top of the stairwell after tumbling over me on his way up, like the little lump underneath the sheets that I was.

“Holy Crackerjack, Sweetie,” I hear his surprised, if casual sounding voice say, while he picks himself up there. “Why are you sleepin’ all the way over there?”

I really kind of don’t want to answer. Maybe I can just pretend to be a blushing red lump under these sheets here. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. “I–I was uhm... trying to g-get down the...stairs,” I force myself to admit. At least I can say that much. Was I really going to just crawl into bed with him? With them? 

Where the holy heckbunnies did I ever get the right to expect Sweetie Belle’s parents to comfort me? Oh no, I had a big scary nightmare. Time to trick and deceive more ponies, and pretend to be just somebody’s darling little girl, just so they’ll take care of me and I don’t have to be scared anymore.

I don’t even get to telling him about my nightmare though, before dad picks me up, sheets and all, and with a dizzying swing, he’s slung me over his shoulder. he’s uhm... biting the sheets I think, and wrapping them around him, so that I dangle there against the side of his other flank? It’s hard to tell, since I’m sort of entirely wrapped in my sheets at the moment. His flank feels so warm through it, I can already feel my heartbeat evening out from the shock of being fallen over.

When dad heaves again, I land on a couch, and just as I do so, the sheets spread back to drape neatly over that couch, leaving me curled in a seated position on its cushions, a surprised looking pretty little unicorn girl exposed in full. I just kind of sit there a moment, blinking silently at him and... at mom standing over at the table.

“Good morning?” I venture at last.

Mom’s face breaks in a smile. “Good morning, Sweetie,” she says easily, going back to sip at her... is that a cup of tea?

“Hey it worked, didn’t it?” dad says snarkily, dragging my ear his way. Resolutely, I drag the rest of my face his way too as he adds, “Sometimes you just need a little ride downstairs in the morning, eh?”

I look at the sheets around me, and then up at his strong, powerful frame, and say softly, “It wouldn’t be called a... swinger ride, would it?”

He purses his lips at that, under that moustache. “Can’t say I think it’s called something, Sweetums,” he tells me honestly, “But that sounds like a pretty good name for it!”

I remember the day when my dad...my other dad returned from college, and couldn’t give me swinger rides anymore, because I’d gotten too heavy, and he’d gotten too mean. It wasn’t really something I missed terribly, but it was a... landmark in the downward spiral that was my life, if you could even call it a life. A landmark that’s sort of gone now... not that there won’t be a day when Sweetie Belle’s father can’t lift her anymore, but... actually that might be not true, if she’s going to be a petite or a skinny unicorn. He does look awfully strong. 

But even if it is true, I still got a swinger ride today, nothing more official than a term for being carried in your own bedsheets. He doesn’t even know how such a mundane act was something I was never, ever supposed to be able to experience again. It really gives a sense of impermanence to things, that certain permanent landmarks in my memory, irreversibly declaring the end of my childhood, suddenly aren’t so permanent anymore, or irreversible.

I think I’m really beginning to like impermanence.

Breakfast is... good. We have more of that tasty amaranth, with butter and some kind of sweet, dark jelly. Elderberry sounds familiar, but I don’t think I’ve had it before. It certainly is tasty! The house is back to normal again. My parents were unpacking while I slept apparantly, so mostly my room is the last place with suitcases left lying around. I feel bad for making them pack up my whole entire room for just a week across town, until I remember that it was Sweetie Belle who did that, not me. Because I am not merging with her. She is real. And we can get her back. Somehow.

Mostly breakfast sticks with me because of where we eat it. It’s not unusual, just in the kitchen as with Rarity’s, but it’s a kitchen I’ve never seen in the show. For all I might be Sweetie Belle now, I don’t recognize the place at all, and that makes it seem fresh and new. Even if it has that homey feel to it. A feeling that I lost forever at age... well, I sound like a broken record thinking like this. It’s really nice to have it back. Even if I don’t have the fond memories associated with the wallpaper, with its horizontal leaf print stripe on it, or that portrait hung by the oven, not of my parents, but of ponies nonetheless. It’s a pleasant combination of familiarity and wonder, which is... probably pretty unique to my current situation.

“Who’s in that portrait over there?” I ask excitedly, for instance.

“Oh, those are my baking buddies!” mom says. “The ponies I work with at the bakery. Do you remember the bakery?”

“I remember you talking about it,” I say graciously, “Perhaps I can visit it sometime, to see you work?”

“Maybe even jog your memory!” dad says happily. He seems oddly content with my situation, like it’s just a case of the hiccups, as opposed to a serious mental illness.

“Is it uhh do ponies get amnesia often?” I ask. “I’m glad you’re not upset, but I wouldn’t mind if you were a little.”

“Oh I’m furious Sweetie,” he laughs, ruffling my mane. Um. “But it was just some contraption that did it, and the problem is past us now. Don’t you worry Sweetums if I see hide nor hair of anything like that, I’ll buck it so hard the Sprockets’ll feel it!”

“Sprockets?” I ask curiously.

When dad looks away, seeming embarassed, mom speaks for him, saying, “It’s a story series your father likes to read, about little mechanical ponies that walk around on their own!”

“Oh, that’s so cool!” I say brightly, giving him as approving a look as I can manage. “Maybe I could r—” Sh...oot. I can’t read, can I? Again. Oh, there! That’s proof that Sweetie Belle is real, because you don’t start being able to read and then stop, unless you are two different ponies! Or unless you’re severely delusional with dissociative—no, no, bad brain, Sweetie is clearly real. I just... don’t know if she’s still...there anymore.

“You wanna read ‘em sometime?” he asks, looking at me pensively. “They’re the kind of books that don’t have pictures in them, just to warn ya.”

“M-m-maybe I’ll just stick with foal um... picture books... for now,” I say shrinking to my belly and blushing at the edge of the table.

Oh, I should mention this table has no chairs! I mean, the table at the coffee shop just had bales of hay you could sort of crouch on. Or eat, probably. The lunch place Rarity liked to go when eating out had chairs, and her kitchen table had stools, so maybe she just likes chairs? But it is simply no trouble to stand and eat. I feel perfectly relaxed standing in place, and not even stiff. Though standing to eat does kind of occupy all four of my legs, it doesn’t take hoof grips to pull up a piece of bread in your lips and bite off pieces with your flat incisors.

I’m really going native I guess, heh. Uhm. Heh. I’m using my mouth not just sloppily and awkwardly, but actually starting to be careful and neat with it. I can keep all the crumbs that fall landing safely on my plate. I just lick them up afterwards, leaving nothing but slight smears of jam behind.

It’s weird because... it’s not something I should be good at. But I’m a pony, so it just feels natural, and I do have a very flexible and supple set of lips and tongue. Oh yeah, I totally went there, but no seriously. I’m not doing anything more than eating with my face, but I’m starting to feel less like an animal, and more like simply... a... person, who picks up their bread with their lips.

“You sure do like toast!” mom says cheerfully, after I mop up the last of the crumbs. Looking up from the plate somewhat guiltily, with my tongue literally covering like half of the plate, I pull up and close my mouth on the big orange thing. It really isn’t a tongue at all, when you think about it. It’s a different organ that appears to serve the same purpose, but whenever I try to lick the plate it just extends and spreads out like it’s growing, yet somehow fits nice and compactly in my mouth afterward.

Welcome to the world of my little pony, where you stand on your fingers and toes eating baked grass for breakfast with your prehensile lips and your amazing telescoping tongue. Wow that sounds weird when I think about it. Ponies are a lot weirder than I thought. It’s kind of scary, how this is my body now, not something I just experience from a third party perspective. I wish I could ask how ponies are different from humans, but I don’t even know if humans are a thing here, much less if they’re something a kid unicorn would ask about.

“I do like toast,” I say to her, pausing at a thought. Something I remember from the show back then. “Maybe not if it’s black, and liquid though,” I make sure to add.

Mom and dad share an adoring glance with each other, and mom says, “It was very bright of you honey. I bet you’re gonna be a great cook one of these days, just like your mother!”

“I’ll um... try later, maybe,” I acquiesce with a reluctant look from mom to dad and back. I wish I knew how what she was talking about matched with the show, but I’m too nervous to... well, just going over the possibilities for... I’m feeling shy, okay?!

Stupid filly body making me feel these stupid shy thoughts; no who am I kidding. I was shy as a six foot tall, older adult male. I don’t feel anxious or anything, just... can’t think of a good thing to say, so it’s pleasant to just... listen to people, and be with them, while ruminating over what I’m going to say. Until everyone leaves to live their own lives, and nobody notices I’m just left all alone again.

There’s a knock at the door. “Come in!” mom shouts over her shoulder. Two rooms away, the door opens, and coming into our house is my beautiful white unicorn sister, Rarity. Elegant as the unicorn I would wish I could be, slender and sure of her movements, and so tastefully dressed in what amounts to a saddle for little fillies.

“Hello, Sweetie!” Rarity says, giving me a pleasant smile on seeing me looking right at her. “Good morning mother, father! Is Sweetie ready for her morning exercises, yet?”

I look between them a bit confusedly, and mom says to me, “Ya know, that thing where you walk better?”

“Oh right, I still get to do that!” I say in honest surprise. Dishonest surprise would honestly serve me better, since I keep blurting stuff out honestly, stupidly revealing stuff when I’m honestly caught off guard. “I mean, I still have to do that,” I correct myself. “It’s so much trouble, but I think I can put up with it.”

Father actually chuckles at that, which kind of worries me, because I don’t get the joke, and he doesn’t explain it. Nevertheless, a new day has dawned, and I’m one step closer to walking again, and I am going to figure out a way to get my gimpy little self down to that spiral tower thingy which was a... laboratory or something? I don’t remember. Then try to find Lyra, and... just sort of test the waters to see if she’s the kind of pony who would help me instead of send me up the river without pause. Obsessively eager for knowledge would be good; I could work with that sort of a personality.

I hate just stewing like this. No, really. I want to do it right now, every second going by possibly one second too late. I hate having to wait until I get done with Ace, and done with Rarity and all this stuff, and I just want to go play! Work, I mean. Work to bring back Sweetie Belle. It would be so easy to just tell them, but I just... I’m just not ready to give up myself, just for an irrational hope of saving her faster. If I was sure Rarity could bring her back, or if my parents could rush me to the... her parents could rush me to the soul restoration chamber, maybe I’d... trust them. But otherwise, Rarity’s still a sister, and they’re still parents, with that dangerous glint in their eyes at the very thought of their dear little daughter coming to harm. They might regret killing me, just to bring her back faster. Maybe. But one look at her sweet, happy, smiling face and they’d know that my murder was all worth it. Loving parents are... freaking terrifying.

I don’t even know why Sweetie came back! Or where she went! Or if she’s still here? All I have is her silence to comfort me. Even my own family, I just can’t trust them, because they may mean everything to me, and Sweetie Belle might mean everything to them, but... I’m not Sweetie Belle. I’m nothing to them.
> Baby Steps
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Rarity?” I ask as she dutifully trots me on toward the hospital. I didn’t want to ask in front of my—our—her parents, but I tell her, “Sorry about yesterday. I, um...”

“Oh, think nothing of it Sweetie Belle,” Rarity says lightly. “It’s just been a very long week, and I wasn’t ready to face certain... things.”

“You really did save me,” I repeat to her. “And you’re still here helping me learn to walk again.”

“You have no idea how much I appreciate you saying that, Sweetie,” Rarity remarks somewhat flippantly, “Yet I fear I am a good ways away from being ready to raise a foal of my own.”

I almost fall off.

“W–what?! You... I mean o-of course it’s totally normal to do that!” I stammer out. “You um... you want to d-do that thing where you have a foal, after all! Even though I’m your sister, not your f-foal, you... um...”

Rarity takes a detour then, sitting me down on a soft, mushroom bench. (It feels like a real mushroom, but sturdier.) 

“Sweetie, I don’t believe I told you about sister week since your amnesia,” she says seriously, touching my shoulder with a hoof. “The Sisterhooves Social was... well it’s Applejack idea to er, ‘rile’ things up as it were. But Sister Week is an opportunity besides that, for older sisters to... assess whether they’re ready to foal or not.”

“You knew about the Social?” I respond in surprise. Rarity grimaces and looks away. Oh shoot, that had to be like, the last question I wanted to ask.

“I may have... given the impression I was too... uninterested to know of such things, but yes, Applejack is my friend, after all,” Rarity says, looking at me again. “I wanted to spend Sister Week doing special things with just the two of us, and that huge order came in I—I botched the whole thing. You just made me so mad! It...”

She shook her head and sighed, “It showed me that I’ve a lot to learn about caring for somepony younger than I. Which is, ostensibly, what Sister Week is all about.”

“So by... taking care of me, you were...” I try to work out.

“Practicing!” Rarity clarifies for me. “It’s just a little tradition, so that young mothers aren’t thrown into their new role wholly unprepared. Like foalsitting, but over an entire week, rather than an afternoon. I have to admit I didn’t expect I would be so bad at it, that you’d run off all the way to the Badlands to get away from me!”

I blink at her. “Didn’t you ask Scootaloo?!” I exclaim in some distress. “You think I ran away because of you?”

“...yes?” Rarity says, smiling desperately.

“I only know what Apple Bloom and Scootaloo told me,” I say, obviously excluding Sweetie Belle from that list, “And I’m not sure if I should say, but... and I’m not trying to get out of trouble, when I say it was Scootaloo’s idea.

“Scootaloo wanted to go find the meteor that was falling, or something, t-to impress a um... somepony, and I just... didn’t feel like I had any reason to stay.”

“Tch, Rainbow Dash...” Rarity says, tonguing her teeth as if the taste of that name didn’t agree with her. She still looks... sad.

“But I didn’t go there because of you!” I continue to protest. “I just... I mean I don’t remember, but I don’t think I did.”

“Quite alright Sweetie,” Rarity says uncomfortably, “Let’s not dally here any further. We have an appointment to get to.”

“...wait, what about Rainbow Dash?”

“It’s... complicated, Sweetie. Now let’s go.”

And so, to my great excitementreluctance, Rarity takes me to physical therapy.

I wish I wasn’t so constantly aware of my little unicorn body. I certainly have not been making a big deal lately, about the feel of my bouncy little unicorn curls, my curly, swirly little unicorn tail, pointy little unicorn horn, and pudgy little curvy unicorn thighs, but Ace sets me straight there, right away. In physical therapy this morning, I’m quite well aware of every inhuman strange pony inch of me. With his very physical interaction, I can’t help but be aware of my body. My new body. Sweetie Belle.

I’ve got to learn to walk as her as fast as possible. That’s the only way I could have any hope of getting the help that she needs. Sweetie gave me the clues, and then faded away, and it’s like a... like a quest. A magical quest to find Lyra, and figure out how to feel her out if she can be trusted, then tell her to help because Sweetie is gone and I severely do not want her to be gone. I have to walk as fast as I can, even if being with a stallion like Ace is... distracting, and I’m feeling very physical around... him.

It probably doesn’t help that I didn’t masturbate the day before, or before that... or... before that? So I’m all primed and ready, well recovered from my last orgasm, sensitized and ready for another. Hopefully with his penis inside me, since of course I can do that now. Of course that would be the first image that crosses my mind, upon seeing how he’s not... wearing shorts today...

I try not to stare at him, so curious about the thought of being bent over and made a mare. It’s disgusting really, and scary. My little hips just... have that potential now. I try to treat him like just another pony, but his scent is so obviously masculine, and as we progress, he keeps touching me, just so lightly and carefully, on my back and on my thighs to... to steady me. But that sort of thing unsteadies my imagination. I wonder how it would really feel....

“Earth to Sweetie,” he says again dragging me out of my staring in dazed shock at his thick, muscular legs, with a stylized tennis racket inscribed on either side of them.

“Oh, um, right. I can walk and talk. I’ll just...”

“Just sing after me,” he says encouragingly.

“I have to si҉ng?” I yelp apprehensively, my ears going down on their own. I am still not comfortable with doing this...

“It’s the easiest way,” he shrugs. I–I think I can even hear a tune playing. It’s hard to pick up on—

“Take one step, and one step again,” he sings, taking a step beside me, and tilting his head encouragingly.

“Take one step, and one step again,” I reluctantly repeat, watching his legs so I don’t have to think where to put mine.

“If you walk and talk, you can walk with a friend!” he sings all cheesily, standing beside me and taking exaggerated steps forward, looking back expectantly.

I know exactly where this is going, but I do repeat, “If you walk and talk, you can walk with a friend,” trying to let the reluctance leave my voice, and just relax into the beauty of it. It’s easy to step forward with the beat of the song; everything just sort of falls into place that way. 

“If you jump on the ground,” we sing together, me matching his simple hops in the air, “And you can’t make a sound, and your voice can’t be found—” I cut off in surprise, jittering to a halt, because I didn’t even notice, but Ace started harmonizing with me! Wait... did I ...stop?!

I look at him scared, and he gives me a calming look, singing encouragingly, “just sing~” giving me the opportunity to repeat him again. I don’t... have to? But I feel like I can!

Like I really want to...

“Just sing...” I sing uncertainly, and his growing smile makes my heart swell. And we sing together. This isn’t so bad, really. As we sing, I find it so easy to dance forward again. I wonder if this is how the real Sweetie feels trapped in her body like this. But even if I kind of really want to do it, I still feel like I’m the one moving and singing, not like someone’s moving my feet for me. I just keep knowing the exact right things to do.

“I can walk and sing, I can do most anything!” he prompts me while I somehow simultaneously sing along, the two of us making a broad circle around the green as we do, hooves firmly hitting the turf. “If my feet hit the beat, I’m never incomplete,” I sing with a bit of a cheeky smile at my... was it my rhyme?

I find myself singing alone, yet somehow still feeling accompanied, my once hesitant steps growing ever more confident, because it’s just like a marching song. “Never lost what to do...” I sing, and don’t have to remember when to put my feet down, I just aim them to land with every beat of the tune, while the words easily and beautifully pour out of me.

“You can walk and talk,” we sing, to my growing delight in the confidence of my movements. “If you walk with a song!” It’s so cool how Ace even harmonizes with me, as we round the hospital onto the front green with the path leading back to town. 

Ace is such an awesome coach. I’m walking, really walking! It’s no trouble at all to strut down the street singing my little heart out. It feels welcoming, the ponies hopping alongside me and Ace, but also just the song. The more I give in to it, the more I feel like it’s proud or, or relieved or something. The world is just brighter like this, this amazing world of ponies where against all logic and reason we can come together and sing in harmony.

That’s how the song ends! Literally how it ends. “My own harmony!” Everyone lulls with anticipation, as Ace sings “Harmony,” to me, such a teasingly leading note. It makes me shiver inside as it comes out of me, that final answer to his unknowable question. I’m so giddy I’m just dancing along with everypony cheering as the song comes to a triumphant end and I fall on my face.

“Uffh!”

It’s not quiet. There’s a nice gentle overture of voices talking to each other near and in the distance. I remove my face from the cobblestones, lifting up on my front hooves to look around, and finally realize we’re all the way into Ponyville. The hospital is outside of town, if that wasn’t obvious. Well, we’re not outside of town anymore! There are ponies walking to and fro some fluttering in and out from the sky, and I’m lying in the middle of this colorful parade. Standing up, I shake my head, lifting a hoof unsure of whether I should use a leg to brush myself off or what.

“Sorry, I guess I slipped,” I tell Ace to the left of me, with my cheeks feeling hot. “A-anyway, where were we?” I take a...step...uh... why am I all... wobbly again? I put a hoof down and I lift it again and I... step forward. What was it, number 1 again? Why can’t I just walk anymore?

“Alright, Sweetie, now just hold to it,” Ace says beside me. “One step at a time, you can do it.”

“I thought I had it!” I say, surprised by a sob in my chest. “Why isn’t it working anymore?”

“You did have it!” he asserts to my shaky, uncertain form. “You got a taste of just how good you’re gonna do. Now all you gotta do is practice until you’re back up to steam again. Just put one foot after the other. Plant your hooves. Think walk, walk, walk, walk...”

I manage to walk, in fits and spurts, somewhat hindered because I’m trying to contain my whimpering. I don’t even know which legs to put where just thinking about it. I close my eyes trying not to think about it, but that makes it even more confusing, and I snap my eyes open, wobbling on the spot. Then with another frustrated sob, just force myself forward. I can’t even see the hospital anymore. Where are we?

“Alright, now ease it to the left,” he says, with his strong, manly hoof guiding my back. I look up at him in... something between confusion and gratitude, and still manage to sound sound resentful when I say “I d-don’t even know where the hospital is...”

“It’s just around the corner, Sweetie,” Ace croons to me, pointing at the road in front of me, where I can’t quite see around the house to our left. Pony pedestrians are here, saddlebags and all, but for a frozen moment I have a flash of that dream that... that memory where every corner is just more and more houses... oh hey, there’s Bon-Bon!

A somewhat pudgy looking cream colored pony, with curly bangs of pink and blue comes strutting in the direction opposite us, passing by while my wide green eyes pick up her two-toned curly tail, and the practically edible looking 3 candies decorating her rump. She doesn’t see me staring as she passes by (thank Celestia) and I don’t say hi to her or anything because I don’t exactly... know if she knows that Sweetie Belle knows of her, or what her real name is. Heck for all I know she’s not even a candy maker but some kind of super spy secret agent.

Pff, yeah as if. There’s only room for one sweet treat seller / secret agent in this town, and Pony Joe has got that in the bag. Uh, wait Pony Joe lives in Canterlot. ...I glance thoughtfully behind me at Bon-Bon again, and oh wow her ass is gorgeous—I mean—No, she doesn’t even have a laser pen or a radio watch, just some saddlebags that are not at all overstuffed with apples. I’m just drawing crazy conclusions, clearly still paranoid from my revelation about the flower trio earlier yesterday.

Wow, was that really... yesterday?

“C’mon Sweetie, let’s get going,” Ace prompts beside me. “I can carry you if you need, but I think you can make it all the way back on your own, without a song.”

I have many questions, but I’m still working on being able to walk and talk. I just nod nervously, and start bearing to my left. The road doesn’t look... scary anymore. It’s because I recognized somepony. These aren’t just strangers in cars; they’re ponies I could get to know. In fact, weren’t ponies singing with me?

Huh, they just... started walking after the song was done. I don’t feel like I was leading anypony in song, but... I guess that’s how that magic singing stuff ends, off camera? That’s what I’d do anyway, get done singing somepony’s song, and just walk on to whatever my business was. No big deal, just another day in Ponyville.

Feeling a little warmer about the town, because I can actually recognize ponies here, sometimes, I toddle my way around the corner to the left, and sure enough, there’s the hospital, off in the distance waaaaaaaaaaay

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

okay not that far away, but still farther than I want to walk.

“Straight shot, Sweetie” Ace says to me in encouragement. “Just start your feet going, and let your hooves do the walking.” I swallow dryly, and plant a hoof, lift a back hoof, and trip-trap sway-sway forward, trying to let my hooves just keep going where they want to. I have to take a break, when it just overwhelms me staying coordinated like that. But soon I’m getting all the way to the hospital courty-aah fuck there’s an upward incline.

“You okay, Sweetie?” Ace asks as I stumble to a halt. “Need another break? Try to talk to me if you can, so you don’t think about the walking so much.”

“H-how do I walk uphill?” I ask him. A pause for his astonishment and I hastily clarify, “I can walk uphill I mean, see?” I manage a few robotic looking steps. “It just feels like I c-can’t fall forward enough. Because it’s... uphill. A little.”

“I think we can nab that one today,” he says thoughtfully. “You can show yourself. But we need to get to the exercise room first, so can you handle it for now? It’s just a tiny incline.”

“Y-yeah,” I say, trudging forward. “It was... just the... thing... that... ugh...” I really wish I could walk and talk like I’m supposed to, but I pause to think, then say to him, trying to stumble forward as I do, “It’s not bad enough...to... stop me just... wanted to ask when... uhm...”

“Reading you loud and clear, Sweetie Belle!” Ace says happily. “C’mon, step 1,3 2,4! Give me a walk, walk, walk. You’re doing it!”

I smile, despite myself. I’m not doing anything I wasn’t doing earlier, but... I have made a ton of progress that I never thought was even possible. Ponies must just have... really plastic brains or something. Man, I’m a little pony, and I’m walking on hooves like I was born this way. That is so cool to just... experience.

All the pieces are in place, the slim muscles, the ligaments and bones, some weird spatial anomalies I don’t really understand. My body just fits well into this weird horsey walking gait. Obviously ponies walk like ponies, but it’s such an interesting experience to have this sort of motion feel like the easiest way for me to move.

My little hooves tapping the walkway, I resolutely place one after the other as we get into the actual hospital. (Ace holds the door open for me to creep through.) My tail’s bouncing behind me, in time with the swaying of my hips. Just gotta remember to push with my hind legs and catch with my forelegs, trying to fit in a nice, confident, easy gait—

“Hang another left, Sweetie,” Ace says, making me stumble. “Oops, sorry,” he adds bashfully. “But we’re here. Just get to your left if you can, and you’ll be in the exercise room!”

“Thank you f-for all this,” I mumble emotionally, just feeling my way to get around through the doorway to the exercise room.

“Whassat again, Sweetie?” Ace asks, leaning forward and tilting an... ear. Right.

“Thank you for all your... help,” I say more clearly, looking up and back at him, this strong man pony helping me walk again. He’s standing right where I need him to catch me if I fall. “I can’t believe how good I’m... how much better I’m doing.”

I face forward again, closing my eyes and shuddering a breath, then opening them and... walking. The room opens around me, as I stutter out dazedly, “E-even if... song makes it... it’s easier to walk... singing...”

It’s that same exercise room we were in before, with the mirrored wall and the comfily padded floor, and the stations that different patients can work at in parallel, with some leeway there. I say some leeway because Ace assembles an amalgam of two stations, by laying boards one after the other on braces that lock into them ...somehow. A sort of extensible ramp, that he can make shallower or steeper just by sliding the boards more or less overlapping each other. It hooks to a sort of table bench with a telescoping base. In short, it’s a pretty brilliant idea for training some pony who hasn’t figured out walking uphill yet.

He puts it as steep as possible, like a 60 degree angle, and says, “Okay, climb that.”

Oookay, not walking yet, I guess? I stand in front of it and rear up like with that column I was climbing and my mother, and put my white forehooves on this sheer wall. The pushapulling is really nice for climbing, because it lets you effectively have a grip on sheer surfaces as if they were a handhold, with the caveat that it gets weaker with more uneven surfaces that you can’t get your hoof flat against. In this case it’s child’s play (zing) to hold there while I walk my back feet up, planting their toes and pushing with them to move my front feet forward, easily inching my way up the steep plank to where it’s hooked on the table up top.

“Okay,” he says from just below me, “Now climb back down.”

That’s the other reason I like climbing, because I don’t usually get to be above big ponies like him.

So, I reverse the process, planting my forelegs, and letting my hind legs slip lower, one after the other, so I always have 3 legs pushed in at a time. While I watch curiously, Ace lowers the table with the crank in his mouth, and slides the boards out further, until it’s at more of a 45 degree angle.

“’kay, climb that,” he says. Climb...? Oh. I think I know what he’s getting at. 45 degrees still looks way too steep to walk up, but it’s easy enough to climb, so I get to the top, and then back my butt down again. With a sly smile, he puts it at like 15 degrees or something, barely a hill at all, and says “Climb that.”

Without hesitation, and something of an equally smug smile, I go up this new incline, not leaning forward and expecting to walk, but pulling myself up. The lower the angle gets, the less I have to pull myself up it, making a very smooth transition between climbing and walking. Can’t believe I didn’t realize this before. At like 5 degrees, almost flat I get confused, not climbing up, but climbing down. My tail curls against my side as I start to turn around to “climb” down but... why don’t I just walk down?

“Alright, part 2,” he says, making my ear turn to him. “Walking down.”

Walking down is actually... lots trickier, because I always climbed down backwards before, and there isn’t a smooth transition between facing up and facing down. Thankfully there is a smooth transition between 5 degrees and 60 degrees. I successfully walk down almost flat, and then just a teensy bit of a hill, and... stumbling the next angle up, but Ace catches me against his thick meaty chest. D-d-amnit I’m a little filly, not supposed to think of those things, not supposed to think of that musky chest fluff...

A few stumbles later, and I’ve finally figured to lean back towards my butt when climbing down. I still say that’s one of the weirdest things about being a pony. Forget hooves; it’s having your butt behind you, instead of below you. My caboose is now literally a caboose. So, leaning backwards, towards my ...tail, I avoid falling forward while climbing down, letting the force go into my braced forehooves. And this works... surprisingly well. This pushapulling thing is really strong! I’m eventually creeping on wavering, wobbly legs, head-first down a 60 degree slope, with Ace on the floor there, arms spread should I ever slip, to fall into his manly, welcoming embrace. I feel like I’m looking into a sarlacc pit.

Okay I may have a little bit of a problem with stallions.

I nevertheless remain unloveandtolerated, making it down the slope entirely on my own, despite feeling like all my blood was going straight to my head. From... being tilted forward down, of course. Yeah, that’s the only reason!

“I know it doesn’t seem like much, Sweetie,” Ace says appeasingly, “But an even slope is the first step to conquering a big obstacle in your life.” He waggles his eyebrows at me.

“...what obstacle is that?” I ask in reluctant obedience.

“C’mon!” he says trotting gayly for the exit to the room. “Before you go for today, let’s see if we can get you all the way up to the second floor, and back down again!”

“Oh,” I say with a fluttery nervousness in my chest. “Stairs.”

He’s... correct again. I mean obviously, it’s his job and all. The stairs leading up to the hospital’s second floor are in two flights, and they’re a lot different than walking or climbing up a smoothly inclined plane, but not that different. He has me go up one of the flights, and it’s the same deal, just when I rear up and plant, my hooves are horizontal instead of at an angle. It means I have to lean forward more to correct it, but mostly it’s just climbing a step with my back legs, one after the other, then climbing a step with my front legs. Going down is similar, though I have to bunch up on each step collecting my legs underneath me before reaching down for the next step with my forelegs. Sort of a gaflump, gaflump, gaflump motion.

But it works. I’m at the bottom of the stairwell now, having just climbed to the top, and I didn’t even have to go down butt first. I just look up at him silently upon reaching the floor, too stunned to really even know how to think about all this. I guess I can... I guess I can climb stairs now, then?

“Your sister was telling me your house has lots of stairs in it,” Ace says, as he leads me out of the stairwell and down the hall to the front waiting room. “So I want you to practice on those, just what we did here, but make sure you have an adult present to catch you if you do so. You can go down backwards, if you don’t feel up to it, but you’ll find going down head first is much more natural after you get the hang of it. Besides that Sweetie, I just want you to try to walk while doing things: talking, singing, if you can do it with your dinner that would be good. You want to get so used to walking that you can do it without thinking, and doing something else will force you to take your mind off it, and let you just move more naturally.

“I think you’re ready,” he says, with me trying to listen as attentively as possible without falling over my toes walking. “You have lots to practice now, and a lot to improve on. I want you to do it all by yourself for the next couple days. I’ll see you again on Wednesday morning, and you can tell me all about what you’ve done. Then maybe we can work on more gaits, like the trot and the canter.”

“Not tomorrow morning?” I ask uncertainly.

“You need a lot of practice now, Sweetie,” he explains patiently. “Just work at it for a few days on your own, and we’ll see if you’re ready for anything new when I see you next.”

In the waiting room is my father, and Rarity, but not my mother. Sweetie’s mother, damnit. I meant... I don’t know what I meant. Having a family is almost as weird as having someone else’s family that feels like my own. I cluster a little close to Ace on seeing them, just a bit uneasy about the feelings I’m having for them. “Can you do that for me, Sweetie?” Ace asks again. I blink, and look up at him and

pressed right against him

I stumble back away from Ace and smile nervously, my tail all wiggly at the thought of... yeah I’m horrible I know. “Super clear, d-doctor Ace!” I chirp up at him. He smiles at me, then his smile goes kind of serious, and he looks over my head and says, “Oh, before you go, I’d like to have a word with you, if that’d be okay mister Belle.”

Mister...oh, my father and sister both came over upon seeing me, of course. Dad nods agreeably, and trots off back behind the reception area with Ace, while Rarity smiles down at me.

“You’re walking so good, Sweetie!” she says, with that pleased squeal to her voice. “That doctor really is a miracle worker, is he not?”

“He’s ama҉zing!” I say to her with honest passion. Then I resist sounding more like a weird, gushy girl, glancing aside and raising a hoof saying more casually, “I mean, he’s okay.”

“To his honestly earned credit, he’s saved both of us a great deal of trouble!” Rarity retorts meaningfully.

“Both of us?” I ask in an uncertain tone. “How did he help you?”

“Sweetie, darling,” Rarity scoffs with a toss of her mane, “Imagine if our parents were to return, and you hadn’t even been able to walk yet. I would have been in considerably more hot water than I am as-is!”

“Oh,” I say in realization, putting a pastern across my mouth maybe a bit lost in thought. Rarity’s broad white flank attracts my gaze again, and she’s come to be laid beside me, ready for me to mount up on her. I’d refuse, but... I’ve been walking this morning for an hour at least. ...that sounds really wimpy, but I’m still getting used to walking, so that’s how it is. I just meekly climb onto her, feeling the now familiar sensation of my sister rising up, warm and living underneath my belly.

Father returns from the back, and exchanges a few words with Rarity. “Where am I supposed to be today?” I ask them, once gathered.

“Oh, nowhere in particular,” Rarity tells me easily. “As it is your summer vacation. I don’t recall any obligations on Sundays outside of this new physical therapy ...thing. Would you like to go and play with your friends?”

My eyes widen. “Would I?!” I exclaim in excitement. I haven’t seen them for days! Or, a blur of Scootaloo yesterday...or... some time ago, but it’d be really fun! Oh, plus maybe they could sneak me over to that tower place. “Is Scootaloo’s wagon fixed yet?” I follow up hopefully.

“I believe so,” Rarity says thoughtfully. “You could ask her when you see her. It shouldn’t be hard to track her down as she’s not taking deliveries today.”

“Great!” I say enthusiastically. “I still walk really slow and not easily, so I want to make sure I’m not gonna hold them down.”

“Aw Sweetie,” dad says as he walks alongside Rarity. “Any friends of yours are gonna want to stick with you no matter what. You’re a little sweetheart!”

“And you too,” he says angling his head at Rarity, who blushes at the statement and looks forward silently. He draws her gaze back to look at him though. “You’re so good with your lil’ sister’s friends,” he tells Rarity. “I dunno how you keep up with all these ponies in town. Ya always seem to know what sorta pony everypony should know.”

“Well, I have to keep an ear on the grapevine, so to speak,” Rarity says dismissively. “To find the latest trends, what ponies are looking for. What kind of designer would I be, if ponies didn’t see just what they wanted, the moment they walked into my store!”

“Your dresses are beautiful,” I cut in, hugging her back more tightly, nestling my head up in her shifting shoulders. “But even without dresses at all, you’re still the best sister ever.”

“Well... I... ...hmph!” Rarity tries to respond, but just snaps her head forward again, blushing hotly now as she and father walk—no—trot across the Ponyville townscape. Excitingly comforting pony trotting.

Rarity knows where I’ll find Apple Bloom, and therefore in theory Scootaloo, so father goes off to do his cooking side job, giving me a moment alone with Rarity before my friends are once again with me.

“I think you were in more trouble with yourself, than with our parents,” I say out of the blue there.

“Hmm?” Rarity asks, not slowing, but turning an ear at my statement.

“When they found out,” I clarify to her. “They really weren’t mad, but you were mad at yourself. I know you want to help me, and you’re really sad what happened, but I just want to tell you that it’s not your fault.”

“Oh, but Sweetie it is,” Rarity starts, but I interrupt her with a firm,

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes it is, Swe—”

“No. It’s not.”

Rarity stops in the street, and looks back at me wanly. “Are we really arguing about this?” she asks me, in a rather unimpressed tone.

“Just... humor me on this,” I say, blushing and laying my head against her again.

Rarity doesn’t answer, or move, making me tense a bit nervously. I hope I didn’t say something really wrong.

“It’s not your fault either, Sweetie Belle,” she says to me. Before I can lift my head she starts trotting forward again, leaving me wondering as I ride on her back. Did I think it was my fault? I know it’s not. But just... thinking about how it’s not my fault feels relieving. Thinking about how it’s not even Sweetie Belle’s fault, even though she went and did this, feels relieving. I have to save her even more now, because in her wonderful, crazy adventure, she never deserved to be punished like this. I just have to figure out who can help me, and how to approach them.

Rarity and I stop for lunch together, as seems to be customary with her now. It’s a quiet out-of-the-way place as usual, and she helps me order a simple sandwich. I at least remember the part about liking amaranth bread. What can I say, it’s just good! When I’m good and full, my sister helps my good and full belly up onto her back again, and trots off in search of my friends. I mean, Sweetie Belle’s friends. Rarity asks for directions from ...some earth pony who’s purple and blue, who saw Apple Bloom and Scootaloo over down by the fountain. That’s where we end up going, and where we end up finding them.

There’s a beauty in Apple Bloom’s plain appearance. Her short, banana yellow fur is not the sort of thing that would stand out among pastel ponies, but her bright tomato red mane and tail make her very distinctive in appearance. She looks... familiar, like someone you look forward to seeing. Her big, friendly orange eyes and her round face with its easy smile make her just a very approachable pony in general. Even if she does snort when she laughs. I may have said, but that beautifully soft pink bow that she wears is just perfect for smoothing out the clash in the colors between her mane and fur. It waves in the air slightly when she whips her head back and forth, and even droops a little when her ears go down, pulling it with them.

Scootaloo is just as glowingly healthy as Apple Bloom, but in a wilder sense. She definitely has that Commander Hurricane spirit, even if she is colored kind of like a pumpkin. As a matter of fact, her colors are anything but pastel, very dark and saturated. I wonder if she gets teased about that. I wonder if she would mind me telling her that her mane reminds me even more of grape juice than does the purple part of my mane. She’s more motile than Apple Bloom, though both seem to be running around the fountain playing who can hide the longest or something, but Scootaloo is the pony equivalent of a hummingbird, both in her wings and in her activity. Her sleek, slim, but very warm body telegraphs that brilliant sense of motion, which Scootaloo embodies.

Actually I’m kind of fat, compared to the two of them.

Okay, not fat fat, but just, you know... rounder. Rounder in belly at least. Apple Bloom definitely has the thickest, widest hind legs between the three of us. Three guesses as to why, and the first two don’t count. I don’t want to say the attribution of marshmallow fits but I—that is to say, Sweetie Belle—seem to have an average build, while my friends are very athletic, even as far as ponies go. It doesn’t seem set in stone though, if Sweetie Belle has only had eight years to grow this body, and has only been running with these three for less than one. I could still be fat, or skinny when I’m older. When she’s older. I...

I wish I could grow up like this.

“Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo shouts, zipping right up to me, and then... sinking back down to the ground level, right beside Rarity and I. Apple Bloom gallops right up after Scootaloo, both looking up at me with big, bright eyes.

“Hi um, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom,” I say from my seat atop Rarity, feeling a little on the spot with how excited they are to see me.

“Ain’t seen you in a day or two!” Apple Bloom says. “Can ya walk yet? How’re you doin’?”

“I’ll let the three of you catch up,” Rarity interrupts, kneeling down so I can dump myself off of her. “I have a few errands to attend to. Do you have your wagon, Scootaloo?”

“Oh jeez, I totally forgot about that,” Scootaloo says, hoofing herself in the face. “Yeah it should totally be ready I just need to go pick it up.”

“Why don’t we all three go do that?” Apple Bloom suggests brightly.

“You feel up to walking that far Sweetie?” Rarity asks me hopefully. I reluctantly start to nod, despite not really feeling up to that, when Scootaloo says,

“She doesn’t have to, don’t worry. I can give her a ride on my scooter, until we get the wagon.”

Oh right... that.

I wish Rarity well, and she leaves us to our own devices. “Sorry she’s asking you to like, babysit me or something,” I say to them. “I really can walk lots um... better, but still really slowly, and I only just started learning about hills.”

“Ain’t no problem, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom says, flicking her tail over in the direction of a certain scooter laid against the fountain. Beside it are two helmets, and that doesn’t include Apple Bloom’s: one blue, and one green. “Scoots can give you a ride if’n we need it,” Apple Bloom continues to say, And it ain’t like we’re always running around. Maybe we can go to the creek or something, just play around there so’s you can move all slow like without feeling like we’re runnin’ away from you.”

“Well um, that’d be nice, but don’t feel a need to...” ugh, how do I tell them I need their help without like... saying something stupid?

“What were you gonna do without me?” I ask in a sort of cagey manner.

Apple Bloom blinks at that. “Play down by the creek?” she tries hesitantly.

“Oh,” I say feeling a bit unsatisfied at her answer. “Well then, let’s go, I guess?” Hmph.

While Scootaloo puts on her own helmet, Apple Bloom helps me with mine. I try to watch how Scootaloo does it. The catch just snaps together so it’s just a matter of pushing it with the two edges of your hoof, and then later opening it... somehow. Apple Bloom does the same as Scootaloo, also using her mouth to pull the strap tight. “Thanks, Apple Bloom,” I say to her gratefully. “I’ll have to figure out how to on my own sometime though.”

“C’mon, mount up Sweetie!” Scootaloo calls over, steadying her scooter with a hoof on the handlebars orienting it right at me. “Let’s go get my wagon back!”

“You had to put it that way,” I grumble under my breath, looking down at my hooves, and then taking a step... feeling slightly less unfamiliar with doing so. The scooter looms before me, and I tilt slightly to walk alongside it, looking at the platform thoughtfully. “OK hold on,” I say more audibly, yanking back to rear my front legs up in the air. With an unbalanced flail, I manage to clop them down on the scooter’s handlebars again. Scootaloo holds it steady as before, while I walk my other hoof on. 

Then she leaps on it all at once, her hooves coming on top of my shoulders as she whirls around to brace her body against me. I’m trying to think innocent thoughts, but that filly’s belly is hot as an oven and I’m still not used to not having any clothes on. At least my tail’s in the way, but that’s a problem in of itself because I don’t want to end up grinding on Scootaloo with the darn thing. It just feels so intimate, the warm, tender, yet powerful way she leans close against me as her wings engage, and our pony toe stabilizers leave the earth, allowing us to be propelled forward at a dizzily increasing speed.

“S-scootaloo,” I have to say breathlessly. “Not too—fast...!”

“You are such a wimp, Sweetie,” Scootaloo laughs right beside my ear. It’s not a mean laugh though, and the noisy buzz of her wings evens out until she’s just about keeping pace with Apple Bloom galloping alongside us. Galloping is too strong a word really. It evokes imagery of a 3 ton beast, pounding thunder into the countryside as he rockets across the grassy plains, but Apple Bloom’s just a dinky little pony, dwarved like the rest of us by trees, doors and eaves, and other ponies, light enough she doesn’t hardly even disturb the road dirt as she runs along, in those repeated consecutive leaps that are collectively called a gallop. Apple Bloom makes it look so effortless, running along with a laugh in her voice and a spring in her— “Left, left, Sweetie!”

I snap my head forward and WOAH STATUE jerking the handlebars over, we barely miss just crashing right into the thing. “Sorry, sorry!” I say in shame, “I’m watching, really!”

“Take us around the square, captain!” Scootaloo shouts in response. “We’re almost there!”

“Where is there, anyway?” I say forcefully trying to make myself audible without turning around, focusing forward to turn the handlebars slightly left and right to guide the scooter out of harm’s way while the hot orange pegasus filly rubbing against me handles the propulsion. Maybe some more force is necessary.

“What’s our heading, engineer?” I bark out even louder. Not literally bark out, of course. Ponies trying to bark would be very silly. No, I just sound like Sweetie Belle, hollering over the sound of WOAH a cart just drove right in front of us. Who put me in charge of steering anyway? I think I’m losing my balance!

“Hang on Sweetie, just right through there!” Scootaloo exclaims, while I try not to emit a rising cry of alarm at the irrevocable tilting of our scooter, as we hurtle towards the yawning abyss of an open door right up in front of shit, stairs!

The scooter hits the stairs on the threshold to the door and stops short. I tumble forward over the scooter’s handlebars, and Scootaloo tumbles over me. We both end up rolling over each other, piling to a stop on what appears to be a solid stone floor.

“Sorry...” Scootalo says to me, crawling to her hooves and shaking her head. “I forgot you didn’t know how to ollie.”

“It’s okay,” I say, not bothering to get off my haunches, just collecting my back side underneath myself, and looking around at this shop. “This is um...”

I don’t see any artificial lighting. It’s only sunlit in here as far as I can tell, and somewhat dusty, but it’s perfectly easy to see all the strange contents of this shop. It’s a shop in both contexts, with a grinding stone, a thick metal door on the wall that looks like a furnace, and a workbench surrounded with several odd looking tools on articulated arms attached to the wooden rafters overhead, but it also has a window display where (surprise) there are scooters advertised for sale, but also some other things, like one thing that looks like a pedaled, wheeled sled, and a selection of unicycles, and some odd contraptions I can’t really identify, that could be used as vehicles, like a cane attached to a kite, attached to a... rotating disk?

There’s also something of a display floor, or just... part of the floor inside, where carts have been strategically placed, all solid oak wood construction, down to the archaic looking wagon wheels, with a surprisingly minimal amount of bright and colorful paint, mostly used as trim, and to draw flowers and hearts on it.

“Wow,” I mention quietly, “It’s like this place is selling anything with—”

“Wheely!” Scootaloo interrupts me, not to talk to me though, but calling out while she gallop ahead deeper into the back of the store. “Do you have my wagon? I need it!”

“Hold your horses!” a voice calls in the back, a mare’s voice that sounds sort of like Rainbow Dash, but a bit lower in pitch, and I dunno, broader? Like if Babs and Gilda had a magical lesbian spawn. “Scootaloo?” the mare asks coming around on four very healthy looking if short pony legs. For her voice, she’s actually a pretty diminutive looking pegasus pony. I can only say this from a relative comparison with other ponies, as I seem to be a pretty diminutive looking pony, but this pony appears to be fully grown, despite only having a partial head’s worth in height above Scootaloo. The mare’s dark grey fur provides a nice neutral contrast to her brightly bicolored green and yellow hair, and her cutie mark is I’m probably never going to see this pony on a regular basis, so why am I even bothering to commit her to memory?

Anyway, her cutie mark is a swath of rainbow, going past a wheel. While I fiddle with the catch under my chin, seeing if I can use these clumsy flat hooves to undo my helmet somehow, this rainbow tire mare talks with Scootaloo in an indignant tone.

“I thought you’d come crawling back to me!” she says to the suddenly squirmy looking pegasus... other pegasus. I suppose it’s not strange, since they’re always flying around way above where I can reach, but this is only the second time I’ve been in the room with two pegasi. Assuming Scootaloo even counted for that. Still have to find out what her deal is there.

“You fixed my wagon, right?” Scootaloo says persistently.

“Only after you trashed it!” this Wheely mare counters hotly. “You know what they call a pony who hurtles around at high speeds that could get their wagon broke or worse?”

Scootaloo whimpers.

“A daredevil,” Wheely finishes in a gentler tone. Scootaloo looks up at that, seeing Wheely smiling at her. “Yeah I fixed your wagon,” Wheely says in a dismissive tone, “If you keep going around breaking things like that, somepony’s liable to get hurt, so cut it out, okay?”

“Okay,” Scootaloo says, at least looking mollified.

Wheely leans forward to cup Scootaloo’s chin in a hoof. “But don’t stop going fast,” she says in tender advice to Scootaloo. “It’s part of what makes you such a cool little filly, and if you keep it up I bet you’ll be blowing us all away by the time you become a mare.”

Wait. Is Scootaloo going to trust me, if a grownup told her to go fast? Oh—hey, that worked! The sticky-up part slid under the catchy thing, that... my chin strap comes unlatched, okay? I don’t know what you call all that stuff. Feels good to let my hair out to shuffle lightly over my head.

“I was the one who said she should go slower,” I speak up, my bright, high voice easily crossing the length of the store. I stand up, discarding my helmet beside me, to start heading towards them shakily. “I said—um—” I have to stop, to talk. Still have a lot to go before I can just walk and talk like that. 

“I said,” I call out standing still, “That if she goes slow now, then when she gets good she can go fast without breaking anything. But if she goes fast now, I—” I manage a step at least before stopping again. “If she goes fast now she won’t git gud. She can’t ever go fast without breaking stuff, unless she goes slow, first. But she can still go fast!”

Words tumbled out of me, I focus now on just moving my hooves right to get across the stone floor and slowly approach them, my movements gradually getting more confident as this morning’s practice starts to come back to me. As I struggle up to them, I can see the pony named Wheely is giving me a thoughtful look. I hope I’m right about this and not just delusional about how things really work. It’s not like I’m an expert in extreme speed after all.

“This your friend, Scootaloo?” Wheely asks.

“Oh!” Scootaloo declares, looking over at my unsteady approach. “Yeah! This is Sweetie Belle. She’s in one of the families I live with sometimes, but we made friends last year, at Diamond Tiara’s Cuteciñera.” Scootaloo leans closer to Wheely and whispers less than subtly through her teeth that, “She has amnesia, but we’re still friends.”

Ignoring that last comment, I speak up close to them now, saying, “Pleased to meet you Ms. Wheely um...”

“Wheely Bop,” she says holding out a hoof as though to shake hands.

I start to bring my hoof to hers, but then “Woah!” I blurt out in sudden excited realization. “Are you related to Bee Bop?” I exclaim hopefully.

Okay oops, that sounded a bit too... extra-knowledgy, and over-eager fangasmy. I bite my lip as she blinks at me, and just awkwardly lower my hoof to pat her outstretched one. I guess I’m supposed to pushapull to shake? The hoof touch is enough to snap her out of it, and she just pulls her hoof back, saying to me, “Yeah, she’s my sister. Are you in her class or something?”

“No! Um... maybe. Um... I’m just...” I stutter out, stepping back with a hind leg. “I have amnesia,” I explain as calmly as I can, “So I get excited when I can remember what I can.”

“Ah dunno a filly named Bee Bop,” Apple Bloom remarks, having walked in behind us while Scootaloo was introducing me.

“We might have played with her before?” I say turning to Apple Bloom. “She was blue and um... or no, maybe green. I don’t remember, sorry.”

“Golden haired?” Wheely prompts hopefully. “Hasn’t got her cutie mark yet?”

“Maybe we should get her into the Crusaders!” Scootaloo hops up, suggesting excitedly.

“I think so?” I answer as best as I can. “We maybe only really met briefly or something, I don’t know.”

“Wow, amnesia,” Wheely attests somewhat dizzily. “I can’t even imagine. How’d you get that?”

“We got... lost,” I say, at Scootaloo’s worried glance, “In the Badlands and I found a... glowy machine thing. I don’t remember it, but obviously I mean, but... yeah.”

“You found a working remnant?” Wheely says with wide eyes, “Just wandering out in the Badlands? Are you for real?”

I blink and shake my head. “No, um, we were just following the expedition. You know, about the meteor?”

Wheely pulls back at that, blushing slightly, saying, “Oh, uh... I hadn’t heard, actually.”

“You remember Jm. Twilight running off, right?” Scootaloo says to Wheely. “With like half her friends, and a bunch of ponies from Fillydelphia?”

...gem Twilight?

“Oh, yeah, that was crazy when...” as she trails off, Wheely’s deep, magenta eyes get even bigger. “You’re the missing foals?!” she exclaims at us. “You, Scootaloo?” she boggles at the little pegasus. Scootaloo in response smiles guiltily, and tries to shrink away.

“Wayl they found us,” Apple Bloom says, in a bold and irritatedly petulant tone, “So we’re not anymore. And we’re okay now. ‘cept Sweetie Belle, but we’re takin’ care of her.”

“It’s really no big deal,” I blush, trying to verbally squirm out of... whatever this is. “Just a little cart ride, and some dumb mistakes.”

“No, no, it kinda is,” Wheely says seriously, turning to face me. “That’s an unfluffed area,” she emphasizes, “It’s not safe down there, and you three got out of that with nothing more than amnesia?”

“Just me, and... wait, unfluffed?” I ask with a confused lip curl.

“You know, terrafluffing?” Wheely prompts me with a searching look.

Not entirely from lack of understanding, but the only thing I have to say to that is,

“what”

“It’s just a fancy word for farmin’!” Apple Bloom says, coming up to stand beside me and turning to give me an appeasing look. “Like what they’re doin’ over in Appleoosa. Makes the land safe again?”

“I have so many questions,” I mutter. “But... we really need to go, and we need Scootaloo’s wagon. So I don’t have to be... y’know,” I don’t want to say it again, so I just wave my forehoof around and try to look at Apple Bloom meaningfully.

“Oh! Right!” Wheely answers, instead of either filly, speaking up to the room in general. She spins and gallops off into her back room again. “Hold on,” she calls back on her way there, “I’ll just go get it off the stand.”

Wheely then returns with the wagon in tow behind her, handle hooked on her ...tail. Red painted wood boards, pretty white trim, nice round little grey wheels that look like stiff rubber, but I don’t even know how ponies would manufacture rubber tires. It rolls easily behind her on the smooth stone floor.

“Awesome!” Scootaloo shouts, charging over and looking at the wagon, pulling it off Wheely’s tail with a hoof, to roll it back and forth easily on the ground. “You even fixed the wobbly wheel!” Scootaloo exclaims delightedly.

“Just glad to help,” Wheely says, blushing a trifle under her greyish fur. “Take good care of the poor girl, and try not to smash her up again, okay?”

“I will, thanks Wheely!” Scootaloo says with a huge smile. She then picks up her scooter and rolls it over, and starts about attaching the wagon to it... with her mouth. I watch with interest, but it’s kind of hard to see how a pony could tie a hitch with just their lips and tongue, and a hoof to brace things under.

Afterwards, Scootaloo hops up on her scooter and starts testing the wagon attached behind it. “I can go so fast with this thing,” she says eagerly, doing figure eights around the cart display as she pulls the wagon experimentally behind her. “I’ll be doing cool tricks before you know it, just like Rainbow... Dash.” Scootaloo’s slight pause, and her slight downward ear tilt convey a storm of emotions about that particular pony. But the fact that it doesn’t stop her, that says something about Scootaloo too.

“Hey, about that,” Wheely says, putting a hoof on the wagon to stop Scootaloo, long enough to listen to her at least. “Your friend there, Sweetie Belle right?” Wheely says, giving me an uncomfortably direct look. “You listen to that filly,” Wheely tells Scootaloo, “She gives good advice.” Scootaloo looks at Wheely with big eyes, and nods silently.

Wheely lets the wagon go, though Scootaloo just balances there, reared up on the scooter’s handlebars, with her wings still spread, but also still. “She’s right,” Wheely emphasizes. “If you go slow and steady now, and you don’t go faster until you’re ready to, you can get a lot faster and better in the end than if you just try to force it all the time. So um... go fast, but pace yourself. Try not to bring me any more busted equipment, okay?”

“I will,” Scootaloo says, giving a curt and adorable salute. “Thanks, again for fixing it!”

Scootaloo aims her way out the door and rolls up between me and Apple Bloom, and Wheely Bop goes in the back of the house again. I look at the wagon with a nervous unease as Apple Bloom vaults right onto it and I... hesitate there touching the edge and try to think of my strategy. This wagon could be the key to my first chance to really do something about this, and I’m not going to let one opportunity pass me by as long as I don’t know if Sweetie Belle is okay or not. But that means... I have to tell some pony.

It’s the best chance I’ve got, for it not to blow up in my face trying to tell some pony. It’s the best chance I have, for finding some pony who can help since I last saw Twilight Sparkle, way off in that archaological dig. A pony who might actually be able to do something about this. Or help me talk with Twilight, and the princesses safely, without risking my identity. But... that means I have to tell someone. 

“Are you coming, Sweetie?” Scootaloo says irritably.

“Yeah! Yeah... just... um...” I feel my ears dropping and just force them up. There’s nothing wrong, it’s just a little errand I want to run. I just have to tell her... a little.

“Say,” I tell my friend, “I think I remember a spiral shaped tower, somewhere in Ponyville...”