Chapter 1: A Visit to the Doc
Uh, hi. Hi there. Where should I start? I’m not sure, really. It’s very easy to say to somepony: “Just go ahead and talk,” but it’s a lot harder to actually do the talking.
I suppose my name is as good a place to begin as anywhere else. I’m Cherry Berry. You already knew that, though. I filled out all those forms your receptionist gave me. I have…well, I struggle with sleeping. Insomnia, I guess you’d call it. That was on the form too. I suppose I’ve never had a good relationship with sleep. But lately it’s been getting…a lot worse.
This is all…new to me. I wouldn’t have thought that therapy could help with my problem, honestly. I’m pretty private. Not really a therapy sort of pony. But Berryshine said that she couldn’t help me anymore. Said she couldn’t deal with my ‘issues’ on her own any longer.
I won’t lie to you, that hurt me. When your baby sister says she’s the one having to take care of you…it was a bit of a wake up call.
I’ve struggled with my sleep since I was a foal. Bad dreams, night terrors, sleep paralysis, the lot. I’ve never liked lying down in the dark and trying to turn my brain off. It made me real anxious, when we were little. It was just me and Berryshine back then, and I was always so worried about her. I felt like I could never let my guard down. If I was sleeping, who was watching her, you know? Probably stupid, but I guess kids usually are.
I never really knew my parents. Maybe that’s the root of it, just like Sighoof Freud says. Daddy or mommy issues are always the crux of the matter. But I don’t even remember what mine did to buck me up. My earliest memories are all just me and Berryshine. Dark forests, lots of rain. Holding her hoof, trying to keep her moving. Trying to keep her warm. Trying to sleep, but listening to her cry instead.
I’m not much older. Only a couple of years. But the big sister has to look after the little one. That’s the way it’s always been for us.
The first few years were okay. We ate a lot of mushrooms. A lot of berries. A lot of grass. Not great fodder for growing foals, but we didn’t starve. And at the time that seemed like enough. We’d steal stuff sometimes; or rather I would. I never liked to let Berryshine get too close to any of the houses. You never know how ponies are going to respond. They might chase you off, or worse, they might take a shine to the toddler, and not to the older kid with the cut lip. They might try and take her.
So we were wanderers. Never stayed in one place for too long. We stuck to the wild parts, mostly, forests and woods. But not too wild — once we went too deep, and Berryshine nearly got eaten by a wolf. I didn’t sleep for a week after that. I was too scared to shut my eyes.
There was one year that was…a real tough one. It was a dry summer, and our usual foods were getting rarer and rarer. Even decent grass was getting hard to find. I gave Berryshine what I could, and stuck to the dead yellow grass. But even Berryshine was ending every day still hungry. The animals were hungry too, and I could hear them prowling closer every time we settled down to rest. During the day I was so exhausted we could barely make any progress — we were stuck in the drought area with no real way out.
And when the days started to get colder…I just didn’t know what to do. I’d had no time to build up a store of anything. No time to let us build up a little summer fat. We were already skin and bone. Berryshine was always saying she was hungry. Sometimes it hurt so much she’d cry. And I’d just lie awake listening. Listening. I couldn’t even comfort her. What would I say?
We stumbled across a village one day. Cozy little cottages, window boxes with geraniums and nasturtiums and all that good stuff. One of the houses, on the very edge, had a vegetable patch with carrots growing in. Berryshine took one look at that and made a beeline for it. I tried to catch her — it was daylight, complete madness to try and steal them then! But then I saw that they had blankets drying on the line. Thick, woolly, plush blankets. Big enough to wrap two fillies up three times over, warm and soft enough to keep out any amount of cold. I looked at them and I thought that maybe I could finally get some sleep, if I had a bed and blankets like those.
I followed Berryshine through the hedge. She went for the carrots, I went for the blankets. I had some crazy idea I could cut them up and make us some winter clothes from them like I’d seen other ponies wearing. I couldn’t sew, of course. Didn’t even have a knife to cut with. But the nights were getting so cold I guess I wasn’t thinking straight.
By some sort of miracle we got in and out without any trouble. And that night we found a hollow tree just outside the village, with a hole in just big enough for us and our pile of new blankets. We wrapped ourselves up and ate until we couldn’t eat anymore, and Princesses, I remember how delicious those carrots were. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been full. I slept like a baby that night.
I loved that hollow tree. I think it was the shelter that lulled me into staying. There’s nothing like having a roof over your head, is there? It kept us safe from the rain and the snow and the cold, and we found enough food in the woods and in the village to keep us better fed than we had been in months.
But I guess we hit the same place once too often. We went into town one evening to visit a couple of our usual spots — an apple orchard and a nice old stallion who had the unfortunate habit of letting his pies cool on the windowsill — when we found that some concerned citizen had called in the foal-catchers.
They didn’t call themselves that, of course. They caught us red-hoofed with the pie, and told us they were the Celestial Sisters of the Solar Temple. They asked us if we’d like to come with them, but it was pretty clear it wasn’t a question. I tried to make a run for it, but when they got Berryshine, what could I do? We got in the cart with them, and off we went.
The orphanage wasn’t too bad, at first. Food every day — even if it was just different variations on porridge or oat bran — and our own beds for the first time in our lives. Berryshine made some friends. I didn’t like the other kids much. Everyone had a story like ours; it was just more of the same. Ten times as many miserable colts and fillies without any families. I just didn’t want anypony else to look out for. Berryshine was more than enough.
Some things were good, of course. There was a cherry tree growing in the schoolyard, and one of the Sisters taught me to make cherry cobbler. I liked the kitchen. It was away from the other foals, very calm and quiet. Clean, warm. All the things I hadn’t had before. Concentrating on the ingredients and the mixing was…good. It gave me a bit more of a sense of calm. I got a bit obsessed, I think. Practised over and over till I got it right. When I was certain it was the real deal, I gave some to Berryshine, and when I saw the smile on her face, my cutie mark came in right then and there.
But my issues with sleep carried on. The Sisters said that Berryshine and me had to sleep in our own beds, and even though I could see her at the other end of the dormitory, it wasn’t the same. I couldn’t even tell you how many times I’d wake up in the middle of the night, sweating and gasping and reaching for her, thinking something had taken her.
One night, it was particularly bad. I had a nightmare I hadn’t had before. More vivid, somehow. The colours were brighter, I could feel it all. It was like it was really happening.
I dreamed that I was falling, head over tail, down and down and down and down, that I couldn’t even see the ground beneath me. I just knew somehow that I was going to keep falling forever. I woke up absolutely screaming, and all the other fillies woke up too. Then when they saw me, they started screaming too.
Whew.
I’ve never told anypony this next bit. You might not believe me, I suppose. In many ways that would make everything easier. But Berryshine says her friends tell her that therapy only works if you’re really, properly honest. So…here goes, I guess.
When I woke up from that falling dream, I had…wings.
I know what you’re thinking. She’s an earth pony. Yes. I am. Or…sometimes, I am.
I was born as an earth pony — I think. Certainly my earliest memories don’t involve any extra limbs or horns. But I somehow managed to grow them during that night.
Everypony was petrified, of course. How can somepony go to sleep an earth pony and wake up a pegasus? It doesn’t make any sense. It still doesn’t.
They ran and got the Sisters, and they were terrified too. Had no idea what to do with me. They took me away to a separate room for the night. Locked me in. I remember being towed out of the dormitory past Berryshine, and the look on her face…it chilled me even more than those two alien limbs on my shoulders did.
I lay there in my little locked room, and stared at my wings. It was horrible. Awful. What kind of monster was I? To have changed species overnight?
When dawn came, the fillies started to scream again. I could hear them even from the other end of the orphanage. And then the door unlocked and Berryshine was pushed in. And guess what she had?
Yep, got it in one. Berryshine had wings too.
I held her to me tighter than I’ve ever held anything, and the Sisters had a very loud whispered conversation outside our door.
“We must write to the mages…or somepony! This is beyond anything I’ve ever seen! These foals could be cursed!”
“What if they’re changelings?” One of the other Sisters hissed back. “Or worse,” she lowered her voice further, “If it’s an illness, what if it’s catching? We can’t risk all our foals for the sake of these two!”
It was everything I’d ever feared. I knew we had to get away. So that night I smashed the window, and we both half-glided, half-fell, down on our new wings and ran straight back into the woods.
I’d planned to just go back to our old way of life, but Berryshine was…miserable. She missed her friends, she missed our regular mealtimes, and she even missed the Sisters. We hadn’t even been out a week before she was suggesting we go back. I tried to tell her they’d separate us, experiment on us, do who knew what, but she wouldn’t listen. We argued — for the first time ever, I think — and she ran away from me.
I was chasing her, and I didn’t think about where we were going, and we ended up bursting into a clearing where a group of pegasi were gathering flowers. I tried to grab Berryshine and get away, but she went right up to the adults and started chattering away to them. She wouldn’t come when I called her, and when she told them we had no parents they declared that we just had to go back to their town with them — Cloudsdale, they said.
They found us a home with an old lady. Well, not so old, I guess, now that I’m older myself. Probably no older than you are now, Doc. Windfeather, her name was. She was a teacher. She started teaching us to read and write straight away. She even wanted to give us flying lessons. Berryshine took to it like a duck to water, but I…I never liked it. It felt unnatural. I’m an earth pony. I don’t want to fly.
We stayed there six months. I started to let down my guard, a bit. Windfeather was kind, and she loved the cherry cobbler I made for her. She bought me a toy balloon, and I slept with it every night. I liked my cloud bed. It was so soft, and it shaped itself to me perfectly. I started to relax about going to sleep again. And then…then I had another dream.
I dreamed that I was pulling a plough, a huge plough, the size of a house. I had to plough the whole world with it, I knew I did, and I was running out of time to do it, but I couldn’t even make a start. It was so heavy. I tried and tried, until the harness cut into my neck and my hooves were cracking. I knew I was going to kill myself doing this, but I couldn’t stop.
I woke up, terrified, and then I felt myself start to fall through the cloud.
I tried to spread my wings and flap like Windfeather had taught me, but there was nothing there. My wings were gone again.
I tried to grab onto something, but when you’re an earth pony, a cloud is just a cloud. My hooves went straight through it, and then I started to fall.
I screamed, and I heard Berryshine wake up and start screaming too. The ground was rushing up at me, and I thought that was it for me. Wingfeather came for me, of course, but it was a close thing. Far too close.
When she looked at me, I saw the horror in her eyes. The repulsion. She put me on the ground and stared at me, and stared and stared. I wanted to talk to her, but I just…couldn’t. I could see what she thought of me.
There was another little cry, and then Berryshine fell too. Wingfeather snapped out of it and grabbed her before she hit the floor, and when I saw her I just dropped to my knees and vomited. She had a horn. A unicorn horn.
Windfeather started to ask something, but I knew we couldn’t wait. We just couldn’t have this conversation with her. It would end the same as before, with a locked door and mages on the way to experiment on us. I grabbed Berryshine, threw her on my back, and I ran.
Nopony came after us.
We drifted from place to place for a few years. I was terrified to sleep, every night. I didn’t know when those awful vivid dreams would come. The changes didn’t happen often, but they did change. Sometimes I’d go to sleep as an earth pony, and I’d wake up with wings again. I never felt anything — no pain, no discomfort. I’d stay that way for a week or a month or a year, and then whoosh, they’d be gone again. Berryshine could wake up as any of the three races. Even more of a mess than me, but she somehow took it in her stride a little more. Maybe because she started younger, I suppose.
A few years ago we came to Ponyville. That pink pony, the party planner, she was waiting for us on the main street with a banner with our names on. I don’t know how she knew we were coming, but I’ll never forget the welcome party she threw for us. There was cherry cobbler instead of cake, and it tasted like heaven.
We settled down here. Ponies were kind and helpful, and I was old enough now that nopony tried to put us in an orphanage. Mayor Mare even offered us a little cottage to rent while we found our hooves.
Life was going well for us. Berryshine went to school, and I started working for the Cakes every now and then. I still had the nightmares, the fear. I never knew what I would wake up as, but I found ways to cope with the problem. I said we had a big family — the Cherries, like the Apples, you know — and everypony bought it. I said we had cousins in Las Pegasus, and I kept a flat there for when we had our wing issues. I even spent a horrible year living in the Crystal Empire after this shitty dream about freezing to death in the snow. Woke up as a crystal pony. Let me tell you, going from flesh to rock is not a pleasant change.
But on the whole, I felt like things were going better. I even tried dating last year. Met a stallion at a Cherrypicking Guild convention — a bunch of us meet up and talk about our growing techniques and our recipes — you’ll have to take my word for it that it’s a lot of fun.
His name was Cherry Fizzy, and he was gorgeous. Tall, long black hair, eyes like frickin’ emeralds, and the sweetest heart I’ve ever come across. We got to talking and we just didn’t stop all night. He had all these brilliant stories from his cherry orchard — I almost choked on my drink from laughing too hard. I tried to say no when he asked me for a second date, but…when was I ever going to meet a pony like him again?
So I said yes, and yes again to a third date. I tried to keep him at a distance for a few months, but it was so hard. I was so excited just to get to know somepony that wasn’t Berryshine. So when he suggested that he let his cousins look after his farm for a while and he come live with me in Ponyville, I jumped at it. I didn’t think anything would go wrong; I’d had nearly two whole years incident-free, and I was just so head over tail for him I couldn’t say no.
We had a month together after he got here. It was amazing, Doc, I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. I got to spend all day every day with him; working on recipes, planting some little cherry saplings of our own, just being together. I took him up in my balloon a few times, and he loved it! And every night we’d cuddle until I fell asleep. I didn’t fight it anymore — I looked forward to our time together in the evenings. It was just perfect.
Maybe that was what did it. Maybe I just…relaxed too much. Let my guard down. Maybe it comes the most when I’m not fighting it.
We went up to bed one night as normal. Snuggled up and fell asleep. But then…I had a dream. Same as the others. Even you must be getting the hang of the pattern by now. I had the same dream, where I'm endlessly falling with no way out. And I woke up with wings.
I woke up early, just as the sun was rising. Fizzy was still asleep. I left before he could wake up and give me that same look that everypony gives me when they understand my…issue. The same look the Sisters, that Windfeather gave me. I couldn’t take it from another pony, and certainly not from him.
I went to Las Pegasus, and left it to Berryshine to pick up the pieces of my shattered dream.
It’s gotten worse since then. A lot worse. Bad dreams every night. I change once every few weeks now. Sometimes more. I feel like I’m breaking apart. What am I? What am I going to be tomorrow? What if it’s worse than a pegasus or a crystal pony? I could wake up as a dragon and burn my house down if I breathe out wrong. Or I could turn into a diamond dog and start trying to eat meat. Would I try to eat Berryshine? I don’t know. I don’t even know who I am, who Cherry Berry is. I just…I’m chasing myself round and round in my head, Doc. All day. Every day. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I’m just scared. I have no control over anything.
I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t know what to do, and Berryshine can’t help me. It doesn’t scare her like it does me. I just…I think she’s right. I’m so tired of it all. I need help. I want to change. To be better, even if my issue…won’t get better. Can…can you help me, Doc?