> A Leg Up > by pabrony > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > An Interesting Visit > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Well, that was certainly an interesting visit," Kerfuffle said with a light chuckle as I walked with her to the door. "I am truly sorry about what happened," I said. Wrapping her arms around me, Kerfuffle replied, "The fact that you, Sunset, and a few of yer friends have magical powers, that really wasn't a surprise." She then leaned back, holding onto my shoulders. "Besides, do ya think that was the first time something like that happened?" [Earlier in the day…] "Sunny, I'm home!" I shouted as I walked in from the garage. "And I brought my friend, Kerfuffle, from rehab to meet the babies." "Is Sunset even home?" Kerfuffle asked as we got silence as a response to my shouting. "I would think so," I said as I made my way through the house, checking in all the rooms. "I mean, her car is here, so logic would dictate that she would be here too." After checking the entire house, I went back to my purse to retrieve my phone. Where the heck are you hiding? I texted to Sunny. A minute later I got her reply. I took the girls for a walk since it's a nice day Any idea when you'll be home? Gimme about ten minutes "Can I get you anything to drink?" I asked Kerfuffle as she flopped on the sofa. Tapping her chin, she answered, "Do ya have any cider, by chance?" "Hard or regular?" "Regular would be fine for now." I went to the kitchen and returned with a pair of open cider bottles in my right hand. "To disabilities!" said Kerfuffle, raising her bottle once I sat down in my recliner. "May we always be proud of them!" "Uh, yeah," I replied nervously, clinking the top of my bottle with hers. "Ya know, this is a fancy house ya got here, Sparks," she said with a smile. I fiddled with my cider bottle as I awkwardly thanked her for the compliment. Following that reply, however, an uncomfortable silence hung in the air.  "Is something wrong?" Kerfuffle asked after a minute or two. "NO!" I shouted. "I mean, no." After a nervous chuckle, I continued, "What would give you that impression?" "Well, yer mood did a complete one-eighty as soon as I proposed the toast with our cider bottles," she explained. My bottle slipped from my hands as I continued to fidget. Surprisingly, the glass didn't break when it made contact with the floor; though it did fall on its side, emptying most of the contents onto the carpet. "Sparks, what's wrong?" she pressed. "Its...I still haven't fully accepted my disability yet and it's been nearly nine months since the accident," I replied as I set my drink on the end table. Kerfuffle moved over and sat on the arm of the recliner. "Listen, having to walk with a cane isn't that bad of a disability," she said, putting an arm around me. "Heck, I was walking with one fer most of my life. It's just some-" "That...wasn't the disability I was referring to," I interrupted. She tilted her head in confusion before I elaborated. I grabbed the hem of my shirt and slowly lifted it up to my navel. "It's this one." "Heaven sakes! What happened there?" she asked, staring at the vertical scar on my stomach. I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I revealed to Kerfuffle the fact that I had no uterus.  "Oh ya poor dear," she said, pulling me into a hug. "Why didn't ya tell me about this before? Ida never proposed that toast in the first place." I wiped my eyes clear. "I guess I'm just embarrassed by it." It was then that the front door opened and the double stroller got pushed inside. "Hey babe," Sunny called from the foyer. "Whose car is in the driveway?" "That'd be mine," Kerfuffle replied. A couple of minutes later, Sunny walked into the living room with Gleaming in her right arm and Solaria in her left. "Hello, you must be-" Kerfuffle got up and introduced herself. "I'm Kerfuffle, spelled like it sounds with a double 'ff' fer the 'fuff'." Sunny set the girls down and stood there with a blank look on her face before snorting and eventually went into a full-blown laugh. Kerfuffle did a fist-pump as Sunny fell back into her bean bag chair, laughing her butt off. "I still have it," she said with a giggle. Sunny's giggle fit quickly spread to the rest of the room as the girls began squealing, laughing, and clapping. It didn't stop with them, either. My somber mood did another huge reversal as well, as I started laughing like one of the cartoon weasels in that old movie that Sunny likes. "Well now, I've never gotten that big of a laugh to my introduction," said Kerfuffle as she strained to keep her own laughing under control. The house was filled with laughter for probably a good two to three minutes before we all settled down. That is, until Spike walked in the room, yawning. "Don't any of you have any respect for those of us who want to sleep?" he asked as he plopped his butt on the carpet. "Just what was so funny in here, anyway?" Then he noticed Kerfuffle. "And may I ask who you are?" Kerfuffle looked at me and mouthed, "Should I?" I responded with a simple nod of my head. I thought Sunny was going die from laughter as Kerfuffle extended her hand and said to Spike, "I'm Kerfuffle, spelled like it sounds with a double 'ff' fer the 'fuff'." I barely saw Spike shake his head before my eyes closed from laughing. "That is what you five are cackling about in here?" Spike groaned. "Ugh, I'm going back to sleep." I wiped the tears from my eyes as I continued to laugh at the exchange between my rehab friend and my number one assistant. While my eyes were still closed I heard Kerfuffle begin laughing harder. "Okay...wha...what happened...now?" I asked as barely got my eyes open. I got my answer immediately when I looked across the room. "Sun...Sunny? Did...did you...really…" "Yeah, I laughed...hard enough to shoot...milk from my nipples," laughed Sunny as she pulled on the dark spots that had appeared on her shirt. "I'll…I'll be back in a few minutes." As Sunny left to change her clothes, Kerfuffle got out of her seat to pick up Gleaming. "Aside from the blue hair and skin, yer the spitting image of Mama Sunset," she cooed. "Hehe, that she is," I agreed. "She's got Sunny’s no-nonsense attitude when it comes to going to bed or getting a diaper changing." Solaria began to whimper out of jealousy as Gleaming was being bounced on Kerfuffle's right knee. Something odd happened, however, when I picked Solaria up though. The connection to my geode began to waver slightly as I nearly stumbled back to my chair. "Sparks! Are ya okay?" Kerfuffle shouted, setting Gleaming down to help me. My main focus was on Solaria's safety. I had managed to catch her with my telekinesis just before she landed hard on the floor. "Yeah," I answered as Kerfuffle helped me back to my feet. "Thanks." "What happened?" Kerfuffle wanted to know. "I don't know," I told her as Sunny came running into the room. "I picked up Solaria and I felt my energy begin to drain." "Kind of like the way your spectrometer drained our friends at the Friendship Games?" Sunny asked as she checked on the younger twin. "I...guess so," I responded hesitantly. Sunny and Kerfuffle both checked on me for a couple of minutes before I happened to notice that Gleaming wasn't on the sofa any longer. "Hey, Kay? Did you set Gleaming back on the floor?" I asked. "No. Why?" I motioned toward the sofa. "Because she's not on there anymore." Just as my wife and friend whipped their heads around to look, a pinkish glow began to envelop Kerfuffle's prosthetic leg. "Twi, what are you doing?" Sunny asked me. "It's not me. I promise." The shock factor of what was happening disappeared from the three of us a little slower than we would have liked. Because by the time we came to our senses, Kerfuffle's leg was up against the ceiling. "What the heck is going on?!" Sunny shouted as she climbed on the sofa in an attempt to reach the prosthetic.  I looked at the floor and found the answer. Equestrian magic. "Um, Sunny?" "Not now, babe," she answered. "Sunny?" "Twi, I'm kinda busy at the moment," she growled as she began using the sofa as a trampoline. I paused a moment to think of something that would get her attention. Then it dawned on me. "Sunny! Equestrian magic!" "I can see that, Twilight," she snapped. "But where is the source of it?" "Look on the floor," I deadpanned.  Sunny and Kerfuffle both turned their attention to the floor and when they saw what I saw, things got...interesting. The reactions from the two of them were completely opposite to what I had expected. Kerfuffle was balancing on her right leg laughing her rear-end off while Sunny began having one of my meltdowns. "Solaria! Sh-sh-she's got Equestrian m-m-magic?!" Sunny shrieked. "How? She's not a pony! There have not been any Equestrian artifacts around here, have there?" Sunny stared off into space. "What if she was possessed like Juniper's mirror or Vignette's phone? We're not going to be able to change her back because of the rift between Applejack and Rainbow Dash…" Sunny slowly walked out of the room as her one-sided conversation slowly turned into an incoherent mumbling.  I realized that my powers began to return as the glow around Solaria's hands faded. So as Kerfuffle's leg began to descend, I caught it with my telekinesis and floated it over to my rehab buddy. "Tha...thanks," she laughed as she put her prosthetic back on. "I know ya said that ya had magic powers but I thought ya were just pulling my leg...pun intended." A small giggle escaped my lips at her joke while Sunny returned in her zombie-like trance, mumbling in Equestrian. "Hey, Sunny, I have a theory of how this might have happened. However, there is one piece of information I need," I told her. She looked at me and answered in Equestrian which prompted me to remind her that neither me nor Kerfuffle could understand her. After apologizing, she asked what I needed. "What age do ponies discover their magic? Unicorns specifically," I asked. Sunny’s face turned white as a ghost. "Unicorns can levitate small objects as early as five months. Why?" "I'm sensing a nerd moment coming," Kerfuffle chimed in. "Haha," I said before going into 'nerd mode', as Kerfuffle described it. "Anyway, based on Equestria's months being the length of one lunar cycle - which is twenty-seven point three days - divided by the average length of our months being thirty point four days equals point eight-nine-six. That converts into the fraction one hundred twelve over one hundred twenty-five." "Twi, please don't tell me what I think you're going to tell me," Sunny deadpanned.  "Well, taking that inverse and multiplying it by one hundred twenty-one point six days - the average number of days in a four-month-old human child - and then dividing that by the length of the lunar cycle-" With a blank stare, Sunny finished, "You get five months old…" "Yep," I replied. "And since you're technically a unicorn, the girls have your Equestrian DNA." Sunny collapsed onto her bean bag chair - barely conscious from the shock of our discovery - as Kerfuffle asked for an explanation as to how a unicorn and human could have conceived. After a nervous chuckle, I began, "Basically what happened was that my doppelganger from Sunny's world cast a three-day gender-swapping spell on me as a wedding present," I explained. "So when we returned from Equestria, my reproductive parts had become that of a male. Do you follow me so far?" "So far, I am," Kerfuffle replied.  "Okay. My counterpart assured both Sunny and I that if my body happened to produce any sperm, it wouldn't fertilize any eggs that Sunny may have ovulated during the time of our honeymoon," I continued as Kerfuffle burst out into a full-blown laugh. "And since Equestrian magic doesn't behave the same in this world as it does in Equestria, I ended up with the nine-month flu," Sunny softly finished. Kerfuffle wiped her eyes and replied, "I know that was one surprise you guys weren't ready fer." Sunny and I both shook our heads. "And now Solaria has another wrinkle in yer lives." "Yep," Sunny and I said in unison.