> Behooved!
>  by Crescent Pulsar
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Behooved!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Through some inexplicable means, Anon had found himself transported to Equestria. That was rather inconvenient for him, so he had enlisted the help of Twilight Sparkle to figure out a way to get him back home. In the meantime, he figured he should take advantage of the once-impossible opportunity to explore another world.

With his hands in his pockets, he wandered around Ponyville aimlessly, looking to be inspired by something that would keep his mind off of the sex he was going to be missing out on. Ponies were cute and all, but they were too close to animals for his tastes. If he was lucky, some might make good drinking buddies. Unless salt was their equivalent of liquor, that is.

The ponies took notice of him as he moved through the town, but their attention generally didn't linger long. He supposed that they were accustomed to strange sights and happenings by now. However, when he noticed that Lyra was among those who hadn't spared him a second glance, he became curious enough to make a detour.

Entering the park proper, he stopped in front of the bench that she sat on in a human-like way and asked, "Say, do you have a particular interest in humans?"

Cocking her head, Lyra said, "I don't even know what that is."

"You're looking at one," Anon said, as he thumbed his chest.

Lyra looked him over before bluntly concluding, "Sorry, but there's not much that I haven't seen before in other creatures." She couldn't stop some of her distaste from showing on her face. "Also, it looks like you're bald or balding in most places... Do you have mange, or...?"

"The hair situation is normal for humans," Anon replied, nonplussed.

"Why did you ask me that, anyway?" Lyra inquired, curious.

Anon absently scratched the side of his face as he formulated his response. "Oh, well... In the universe where I come from, you and many other ponies are characters in a fictional cartoon, and some fans thought you had a strong interest in human beings and their hands."

"Huh," Lyra voiced, mildly affected by that information. "Interdimensional travel isn't anything new, but that's the first time I've heard about us being fictional in another universe." She paused before adding, "Am I a main character?"

"'Fraid not," Anon answered.

Lyra looked slightly disappointed, and opted to address another part of their conversation instead. "So, if some fans think I'm interested in hands, which I'm not, what do humans think about hooves?"

"Nothing much?" Anon replied, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I mean, they're hooves, so I'm assuming they wouldn't feel nice."

"Why would you assume that?" Lyra asked, giving him an odd look. "We can give great massages with our hooves."

"Hooves are hard and painful where I come from," Anon informed her.

Stroking her chin thoughtfully, Lyra ventured, "It would be easy enough to find out, right? You can pat me on the back with your hand, and I can pat yours with my hoof."

Having nothing better to do, Anon nodded his head. "Alright."

Lyra hopped off of the bench before walking up to him sideways and offering her back. Anon knelt down on one knee and pat her with a hand despite feeling a bit weird about doing it. Not knowing how many times he should repeat the action, he pat her a half dozen times before pausing and asking, "What do you think?"

Shaking her head lightly, Lyra replied, "I honestly can't see the appeal."

Anon remained on his knee as she walked behind him and gave his back a pat. As soon as her hoof made contact, stars exploded within his vision and a rapturous groan was forced from his throat. He melted into a figurative puddle, as everything in his brain that gave orders to the rest of the body spontaneously went on a vacation and sipped from dopamine drinks on bliss' shores.

Between the groan and the sight of him collapsing onto his face, however, Lyra had become alarmed and began to hover above him with worry. "Oh my gosh! Are you okay!?"

With half of his mouth pressed into the ground, Anon absently mumbled, "I'm in heaven..."

"...Huh?" Lyra voiced her confusion, not sure if she had heard him correctly.

Suddenly Anon was before her on both knees and one of her forehooves held between his hands, his gaze intense and full of reverence and love. A bit weirded out by this, Lyra asked, "What are you doing?" When he didn't reply quickly enough, she prompted, "Hello?"

Anon finally directed his gaze to hers and requested, "Please touch me with your hooves."

"What?" Lyra replied, becoming uncomfortable. She tried to pull her hoof away, but Anon's grip suddenly became like a vice. "Hey! Let go!"

"I'll give you anything," Anon fervently said, his expression manic, "do anything. Just caress me with your hooves one more time!"

Lyra squealed in distress, yanked her hoof out of Anon's hands, then whipped around and bucked him in the face before galloping away. He soared a good distance before falling onto his back, barely conscious, where he stared up at the sky with a grin and hearts in his eyes. He was unaware and uncaring that his nose had been pulverized, that several teeth were missing, and that his tongue lolled out the side of his mouth.

All he could see were the undersides of a pair of aquamarine hooves.





Twilight Sparkle was in her library, with several stacks of books around her and on the table to help with her research, and several papers scattered over the tabletop that had the workings of a spell that would open a portal to Anon's universe. She was in the middle of dipping her quill in the inkwell when the library's doors slammed open, which sent the quill flying, but not before hitting the inside of the inkwell and spilling it over some of the work-in-progress spell.

"Princess Plum!" Anon shouted as he rushed into the room. "I want to be a pony!"

Twilight Sparkle had her mouth open to express her anger about the sudden intrusion, and what it had done to her work, but the demand was so unexpected that she paused and asked, "You want to what?"

Anon reached the table and planted both hands on it as he leaned in and solemnly repeated, "I want to be a pony."

Seeing the state of his face, Twilight Sparkle gasped and exclaimed, "Are you alright!? What happened!?"

"Never mind that!" Anon dismissed with a sweep of his hand. "Can you turn me into a pony or not?"

Taken aback, Twilight Sparkle regarded him with a dubious expression and measuredly replied, "I should be able to perform that level of metamorphosis now, but why—"

"Great!" Anon cheered. "Can you change me now?"

"Hold on," Twilight Sparkle said as she held out a hoof, which Anon's eyes snapped to. "This is really sudden. What brought this on?"

At first annoyed by the delay, Anon couldn't help becoming delighted because of the subject of his answer. "I've discovered what I want most in life, but I can't fully enjoy it unless I'm a pony."

"Oh?" Twilight Sparkle voiced her interest, intrigued by that condition. "What is it?"

"Hooves," Anon immediately said, dead serious.

Twilight Sparkle stared at him.

Then she stared at him some more.

"Well, alright," she finally accepted. Far be it from her to judge or question what may become someone's cutie mark. It could be something like a hooficurist or a doctor that specialized in hoof care, for all that she knew. "Does that mean you don't want to return home, or...?"

That made Anon pause, because he hadn't even considered that. When he thought about it, though, the answer was obvious: he was going to go back to his world, where his family, friends and life were, and flaunt his hooves, which only he would have — at least, if he could help it. That might make it difficult to find someone who would be willing to have sex with him, what with being a pony and all, but having hooves would be totally worth it.

"I still want to go home," Anon replied with a decisive nod.

Twilight Sparkle proceeded to take care of the mess on the table before fetching a book that had the spell she wanted to cast. It was a high-level spell that had once been beyond her ability to cast, and she had never really needed it for anything before, so she would need the book to supplement her lack of familiarity with it.

After looking over the spell a few times, she looked up from the book and asked, "Are you ready?"

"Hit me with it!" Anon responded, excited about the outcome.

Before Twilight Sparkle began, she informed him, "Fair warning: there are many physical features being addressed with one spell, requiring the details to be nuanced. So, don't be surprised if I have to cast it more than once to get everything right."

"Gotcha," Anon acknowledged, motioning for her to get on with it.

One incantation and magic beam later, he found himself falling from the air and landing on his back, knocking some of the breath out of him, which came out of his mouth in the form of a cute squeak. He didn't really notice that, however, because the first things he saw when he tilted his head down were his new forehooves, as they hung limply in the air above him. He marveled at them as he was filled with joy and contentment, then angled them so he could see their undersides, where he got to admire how much they looked like Lyra's and Twilight Sparkle's.

"Oh, whoops," Twilight Sparkle awkwardly voiced, feeling embarrassed once she saw the result of her spell-casting. Said result was an Earth pony filly with a green coat and black hair. "Looks like I was a bit off with the age and sex. Are you okay?"

"Perfect," came Anon's belated, absentminded reply, which was directed at his hooves because he was barely aware of anything else.

Twilight Sparkle blinked her eyes a few times, not having expected that answer. Just to be sure that she heard "him" correctly, she asked, "Are you saying your transformation is perfect?"

"...Yeah," Anon breathed out dreamily, the word 'perfect' being the only one that had registered to him. He proceeded to apply his hooves to his face, rubbing his cheeks while simultaneously nuzzling them back. "So perfect..."

"Well... great!" Twilight Sparkle declared, glad that her little mistake had turned out so well.

Before anything else could be said, she noticed a bright glow coming from Anon's flank, and watched as a cutie mark appeared there. It was a question mark whose dot was replaced by the underside of a hoof, one where the sole was shaped like a heart. This amazed and excited her, because it really did appear that Anon would get what he wanted out of life by becoming a pony.

Seeing that Anon hadn't noticed the appearance of his cutie mark, she pointed at it and enthusiastically directed, "Look! You got your cutie mark!"

When Anon finally managed to get into a position to see it, the sight of the hoof elicited a smile.





Anon eventually learned about the unexpected changes in sex and age, but it just didn't seem important anymore. Now that she had her own hooves, she was on cloud nine all of the time. It was almost like that moment when Lyra had patted her on the back, except without the incapacitation factor being included. She wasn't even worried if she never had sex again. So long as she had hooves, she would be happy and content.

The days blurred by in a rosy haze of hoof-related activities, self-discovery, and being treated like a child — which didn't bother her like it would have in the past, and was great when she got special treatment or something nice to eat. She was almost sad when Twilight Sparkle was ready to send her home, but was nonetheless looking forward to reuniting with certain people and showing off her special hooves to the human world.

Shortly after setting foot back on Earth again, she encountered someone who was taking a stroll in the park that the portal had sent her to. She proved to be irresistibly cute to them, who couldn't help picking her up and hugging her. Once they got that out of their system, they held her out to admire her, and she placed her forehooves on their arms to brace herself and feel more safe being held above the ground. When her hooves made contact, however, she discovered that her hooves affected them in the same way that Lyra's had affected her when she had been a human, causing them both to fall to the ground as a result.

That was when she realized that there wouldn't be any point to showing off her awesome hooves unless people actually appreciated them. Thus began her crusade to spread that appreciation, which simultaneously gained her devoted followers who would protect her and do whatever she wanted — anything to be touched by her hooves one more time. She quickly became too public to capture and secret away, then she had too many followers for those afraid of her to convince the public that getting rid of her was a good idea and that the casualties would be worth it.

Eventually, so many loved her, or would prefer her to the usual suspects of uninspiring, out-of-touch, self-serving, dishonest and corrupt presidential candidates, that she was elected president. She was so moved by everyone's love and expectations that she genuinely wanted to give back for once, whereupon she became an alicorn who could touch anyone, anywhere, with phantom hooves. Not long after that everyone had experienced her heavenly hooves, and got a pat from them every day henceforth because using her hooves was so fulfilling to her, which ushered in an era of peace and prosperity.

She was still too self-absorbed to notice, though.