Flying With New Wings

Being who I was, waking up early was fairly normal. Especially considering that I was used to it for my job. So I wasn’t exactly surprised when, despite being on vacation with my friends, I woke up at seven in the morning and started getting ready for the day. Having had the brilliant foresight to put the clothes I would wear today by the couch where I was sleeping, I simply grabbed them and went into the downstairs bathroom for a quick shower. Stepping into the wonderfully warm water, I let it just wash over me for a minute to help wake me up. When I finally started to wash, I was shocked at the old hairs that came off my head.

“Blue?” Talking to myself was one of my favorite ways to straighten out my thoughts, and at this point it was purely a habit. “My hair’s red, not blue...”

Deciding that the lighting of the shower was messing with my eyes, I turned it off and dried off quickly, before just as rapidly putting on my clothes. Looking over myself as I did, I saw that the stupid cutie mark thing was still there. Today, I was wearing a blue shirt with khakis and white socks. So more or less my usual. Glancing into the mirror, I froze at what I saw.

“What. The. Fuck.”

My hand trembled slightly as I reached up to my hair. I hadn’t been seeing things. My hair was blue. Not that it looked bad, but what the hell?! I’d been a ginger all my life, and I’d never gotten it dyed outside of a show! And yet, there it was -- a navy blue stripe right down the middle of my hair. Squinting as I noticed something happen to a clump of my ginger roots, I stared in shock as it started to turn the same shade of blue. From root all the way to tip, a small bundle of hair changed color, and as it did, my entire head of hair grew out an entire inch. It was then that I noticed it was longer and, er... poofier, I suppose is the word, than it had been yesterday.

“Holy shit.” My voice was no higher than a whisper, as I leaned in to the mirror and stared at my eyes. “Okay, what the hell is going on? My eyes aren’t green like this! They’re blue!”

After a while, I threw up my arms and stormed out of the bathroom, throwing my pajamas on the couch. It usually wasn’t this easy to get my riled up, but I knew -- I knew that my friends hadn’t done this. We weren’t really the pranking type, and when we did get into those moods, it was something relating to electronics or video games that we did. Like when I did that phantom keystroke thing to Clayton -- man, he freaked out about that! I snorted a bit at the memory.

Anyway, those were our kinds of jokes. Nothing having to do with cosmetic changes, mainly because after having been in drama club together, laughing about hair dye or make-up was pointless since we’d all done both at one point or another. Heaving a sigh, I forced myself to stand and start making breakfast for us all. I’d volunteered to do so, since I was usually the first one up, anyway.

“Mmm... what smells so good?” Andrew asked, as he came downstairs and into the kitchen, having showered upstairs not long after I did. He stopped at what he saw. “Uhh... Thomas... what happened to your hair?”

“I don’t have a fuckin’ clue. I woke up to it like this, and I know it wasn’t any of you.”

“Got that right, we were all completely asleep... but really? You just woke up, and found out your hair was suddenly blue?”

“And my eyes are suddenly green.”

He’d come over to help me finish making the pancakes and bacon, and now he stared at me to see if I was telling the truth. “What the hell?”

“That’s what I said...”

That kind of reaction was the same from both of my other friends. I didn’t have to ask to see if they were worried about what was happening to me, I could see it in how they started to keep a close eye on me. Not that I minded... I was kind of freaking out myself. Clayton had been the last one awake and the last to bring it up, and by that point at least a third of my hair had changed.

“I don’t know what’s going on!” I finally exclaimed, tossing the controller onto the couch in frustration. “I have no idea, okay?!”

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry!”

I sighed again. “Sorry... sorry about snapping like that, I’m just... scared about what might be happening to me.”

He gave me a friendly hug, remaining silent as he did. My other two friends did the same for a minute, then they pulled back. Knowing I had their back-up, despite this freaky change, was incredibly comforting. But it was still scary as all hell. Returning to the game, Andrew and I continued to play.

“Wah!” Audrey cried.

“What?” Andrew asked, before looking at my hair the way she was. “What in the...”

I just waited to hear what else they had to say. I didn’t have to ask. Having seen it myself earlier -- and still having quite a bit of trouble believing it, by the way -- I knew what was happening. Another set of hairs was changing color.

“Uhh... whoa...” Clayton decided to say simply, as he paused in eating his strip of bacon. “Thomas?”

“It changed again?”

“Yeah... you saw it?”

“It happened once while I was coming out of the shower. I saw it in the mirror."

“Ah... that is really weird to see. Wait, it grew longer, too!”

That was true. Yesterday, my hair barely reached my ears. Now, I could feel it go down to my shoulders, not to mention it was a heck of a lot thicker than it used to be. It took a minute for us all to resume our previous activities, to which we just returned to gaming. After a while, we started some Mario Party 4, deciding for some reason that it would be a good idea to go for a full 50 turns. Let’s just say that we regretted it almost immediately, because about fifteen turns in, we stopped.

“Okay, let’s take a break from this,” Audrey suggested. “It’s almost lunch time, it’s getting kinda hot and stuffy in here, and we’re obviously tired of this game.”

“...Beach?” Clayton asked us all.

The vote was unanimous. “Beach.”

I had my swimsuit hanging to dry in the downstairs bathroom, so I headed over there and quickly changed into it. Running a hand through my hair again, it felt thicker and longer than it had been over an hour ago when we’d started the game. Looking closer in the mirror, I noticed something -- I didn’t have any of my original ginger hair left. It was all navy blue now. Glancing at the mark on my butt and remembering how much it resembled Soarin’s, I realized that my hair had changed to be exactly the same as his mane. It had the same lazy swept-back look, it was just as thick and fluffy, and it was the exact same color. If I continued to change into Soarin’, it would look exactly as it did in all the pictures and on the show. I stepped out of the bathroom, sighing for the millionth time, and met everyone at the front door.

“Ready? We stopping somewhere for lunch?” I asked. “My stomach is begging for food.”

“Nah, I made a few sandwiches for us.” Audrey held up a small cooler. “That, and I grabbed one of our big bags of chips.”

“Good enough for me!” Clayton said happily, and he headed out the door. The rest of us chuckled, and I was glad to know that even though some black magic fuckery was transforming me, my friends didn’t change at all.

I easily noticed the looks I got from the various people around town, many of them curious about my hair. Once again, it only took a few minutes for us to reach our destination, going off to a more private area to try and keep people from staring at my hair too much. Having stopped by the candy store on the way, we took the time to eat our delicious salt water taffy before diving into the water to cool down from the hot day. Not being much of a swimmer to begin with, I was the first to pull out and just hang out on the big beach towel we’d brought... almost half an hour later. My skin was well pruned by that time. After another hour or so, during which my friends and I had eaten and subsequently jumped back into the water, we finally decided to head back and cook some dinner ourselves. We had the food for it, after all. Checking my phone, I found it to be half past six. Well... that explained why I was so hungry again, it was dinner time.

“Hey, Thomas...” Andrew began to say as we started to walk back. I decided to go without my shoes for now, enjoying the feeling of the sand on my feet.

“Yo.”

“Why’re you walking like that?”

The look I gave showed my confusion, as we kept going. “Like what? I’m just walking.”

“Your heels aren’t touching the ground, dude,” Clayton piped up. I noticed that my three friends were staring at my feet, and decided to look myself. They were right.

“Huh...” I looked them over a bit. They were telling the truth, I was purely on the ball of my feet and my toes. “That’s new. I didn’t even notice.”

“Obviously. Can you lower them?” Audrey asked. Glancing around, I noticed a few people looking our way, probably because of me. Stupid hair, stupid feet doing this on their own.

“Uhh...” I pushed my heels down a bit with my weight, but they refused to budge. “Maybe they’re cramped or something?”

“Maybe.”

Clayton knelt down and tried to gently pull one of my feet down flat. My reaction explained just how bad of an idea that was. “OW! Okay, no, that’s not -- OW! That freakin’ hurts!”

Thankfully, he let go as soon as he heard me, but still! That seriously hurt! It felt like trying to bend the bones in my feet and shin the wrong way, something I very carefully explained to my friends.

“I don’t think I’m putting my heels down anytime soon,” I concluded once I’d caught my breath.

“Yeah...” Clayton agreed slowly. “How are you going to wear shoes though?”

“Uhh... it’ll just look like I’m on my toes, I guess.”

Once we were back near the concrete, I quickly put on my socks and shoes, as did my friends. We didn’t waste time heading back, and along the way I did my best to ignore all of the stares and mutterings and whispers about me. As we went, hearing the words people had to say got easier, and my friends started to surround me. Almost as if to protect me from them, or keep me out of view. Not that I really noticed until we got back, I was mostly focused on why my feet were suddenly different. When we got there, being the only one with the key, I finally noticed how they surrounded me.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked as I unlocked the door and let us in. “Are you guys playing that ‘Protect the President’ game?”

Andrew opened his mouth to say something after closing the door, but ended up shutting it. Clayton had to take a deep breath first -- and even then Audrey beat them both to it.

“Uhm... Thomas... this might feel weird.”

A confused frown came over my face for what felt like the millionth time as I watched her reach a hand to my head. The next thing I know, my face feels like it’s burning and despite how alien it is, the gentle way she grabbed my right ear felt quite nice. Thankfully, she let go only a second later, and I finally realized what had happened. I had to reach a hand up to feel them myself.

“...You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Uhh... sorry, but no.”

I gotta see this. Moving to the downstairs bathroom mirror again, my suspicions were confirmed: my ears had moved to the top of my head, and were now covered in soft, sky-blue fur, looking exactly like Soarin's. My shoulders sagged, and I found myself collapsing onto the couch soon after. Tears started to fill my eyes.

“Thomas...?” Clayton began, coming over. “You alright?”

It wasn’t hard to come up with my answer. “No, I’m not. I... I don’t know what all this is about, and I don’t know why. It’s... why me? I mean, I’m nothing special!” At this point, I sat back up and let my tears flow.

My friends, having been with me since my early high school drama club days, came over and hugged me comfortingly. Their open-minded attitude and willingness to help me despite everything that was going on was beyond comforting. Of course, that was when Andrew pulled back.

“Hey, could you stand up and turn around for a minute?” He asked. We gave him a look of ‘now’s not the time’ and he just rolled his eyes. “This is important. Just do it.”

Sighing again, I did as he asked while the other two backed up. Clayton’s face was the only one in my vision, and I was confused by the look he gained. Glancing at the oven’s clock, it read as almost seven.

“Sorry about this,” Andrew said, as he sort of reached down the back of my now-dry swim trunks. I say ‘sort of’ because it was really only the very top that he went for, so it wasn’t that awkward -- until he tugged slightly.

“Gah! What the fuck is that?!” I twisted my back as much as I could to take a look, and my jaw dropped. “I have a tail now?!”

Audrey sighed sadly for me. “I know it’s kinda pointing out the obvious at this point, but... I think you’re gonna keep changing until you’ve become 100% pony.”

I nodded silently, still rather shocked at this newest development. Now that it had been pointed out to me, I was completely enthralled by it. Taking it from Andrew’s hands, I took a moment to remove it completely from my trunks. The thing felt just as soft and silky as my hair. Well, it would probably be more accurate to call that a mane now, but still. Both of them were colored a navy blue, and rather long at the moment. This newest creation was able to reach past my knees, and my... mane went down to between my shoulder blades.

I had to take a few minutes to adjust my pants and undies to have a hole in the right spot for this thing, changing into them and hanging my trunks to air out in the bathroom again. Now that I was aware of its presence, I could feel it, and I did not like how it was being crushed by the clothes. Which is why I’d cut those holes, and now I fed the new appendage through them. Once that was all done, I found my friends starting up Mario Party 4 to play exactly where we left off, and I jumped in immediately. Anything to get my mind off these stupid events was fine with me. Unfortunately...

“Okay, this is not working,” I complained as I squirmed on the couch a bit.

“What’s not?”

“This stupid thing is making it impossible to sit normally.”

“So move it.”

I blinked at that, before facepalming at my stupidity. My friends laughed, and it made me smile a bit. These guys always knew how to cheer me up. It’s kinda why we were all best friends in the first place. To be perfectly honest, I expected it to be somewhat confusing and difficult to move the tail without using my hands. Let it be known that I was taken completely by surprise when I flicked it aside and into a more comfortable spot without even really thinking about it. They seemed to notice, mostly because of my facial expression. And maybe because my newly transformed ears perked up. Which, by the way, felt incredibly freakin’ weird.

It’s one thing getting a tail. It’s another having ears that twitch to every sound and move to relate my emotions, especially when they turn sideways just to hear things better. They even flattened on their own when the music from the game was a bit too loud.

“Dude, that looks really weird,” Clayton commented with a bit of a chuckle.

I just shrugged as we fell right back into our game mode. Which more or less meant “screw reality, let’s focus on the pretend world instead.” Sitting on the coffee table in front of us was a serving of hot dogs, potato chips of various kinds, and soda... you know, typical gaming food. In this case, it also doubled as our dinner for tonight. By the time we finished the remainder of our 50 turn friendship-destroying game, it was just past eleven and definitely my bedtime. So without further ado, I bid goodnight to my friends, and took the bed Andrew had used. It was his turn to sleep on the couch tonight. Once I’d adjusted my pajama pants to make room for my new tail, I quickly found myself falling asleep.

The nightmare from two days ago filled my mind almost immediately...