Transponyism

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today, your sister Princess Luna came to visit me. I showed her the surprise I mentioned before, but that didn’t go over as well as I’d hoped it would. I’m sure she’s told you about it already, if you’ve had the time to see her yet.

Rainbow Dash has always been and still is a dear friend of mine, and her being here again has really only helped me. She’s been wonderful. If you met her yourself, I’m sure you’d find she really is the same Rainbow as ever, no matter if it’s her original body or not.

Your sister asked me to suspend my experiments, so I will. If you and she really decide I should give up on the Source, all I ask is for another chance to defend it. Its possibilities are so grand, I have as much hope in it as you have in me.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

Twilight sat on the roof of the castle observatory; a quill was levitated above her, a letter below her. The rooftop was stone, the same as most the rest of her domain. Though the observatory was spherical, it wasn’t just Twilight’s grip that kept her rooted. Her expression showed how little she cared to be anywhere else.

Rainbow Dash appeared above the same rooftop in a literal flash, flapping hard in the moment before she touched down. She settled her wings back to her sides and walked up beside Twilight, who offered no greeting. Rainbow sat down anyway.

Twilight’s castle consisted of many stone spires and walls upon, from an observer’s perspective, a massive dirt heap. The castle itself looked bigger than it ever had on the ground, even when the princesses had used it. The roots of the larger trees poked all the way through to the bottom of the land, their tips exposed below.

Above and below were very relative. The whole planet lay in sight above Twilight and Rainbow, and yet the lifted castle was upside down to the world, roots and foundations pointed toward space. Twilight’s gaze was fixed past the planet itself, her eyes on the space visible beyond its horizon. Despite the sadness in her eyes, they were long glazed over.

Rainbow’s gaze was fixed nowhere, glancing from one point to another every second. Her eyes fluttered over Equestria itself several times before she soon stared at it. She took a deep breath, but said nothing with it.

Twilight just kept watching the stars even as Rainbow looked to where Canterlot probably was.

“I wanted to meet her, too,” Rainbow said.

Twilight didn’t look away, but Rainbow continued.

“You can do it, though. I just don’t think she’ll ever want to see me now.”

Twilight raised one leg, reaching around Rainbow’s shoulders. She pulled the pegasus closer to her, Rainbow’s hair nuzzling Twilight’s neck.

The distant look in Twilight’s eyes remained, but her voice was unbroken. “We’ll all get to meet her someday. Come on, why wouldn’t Princess Celestia want to meet somepony as cool as you?”

Transponyism

2: The Sun Looked Beautiful Today

Miska slipped a brown peacoat over his other arm, straightening it before buttoning up. Only a couple others on his team were leaving at the same time, though he was ahead of them in preparing to go home. Beth, putting on her own coat, smirked at Miska as he put on gloves next.

“When are you going to get an outfit that doesn’t make you look like a huge douche?”

He brushed a hand over his hair, grinning back to her. “Same time I decide to do something with this stuff.”

Beth grunted a nicer farewell to him as he shoved open the door, striding out to his car before the others might catch up with him. The wind nipped at his nose, but the cold was only part of why he felt his face tighten.

The ride home was spent eating half a box of poptarts left over from yesterday’s lunch. His car drove itself, as was legally required in Maryland. Miska’s license to drive it himself had actually expired several months ago, but he hadn’t manually driven in years before even the autopilot legislation came into effect.

He bit off another piece of his snack, chewing it slowly and dryly, as he stared at the data on his windshield. He kept the opacity high above the manufacturer recommendation, all but hiding the outside world. While most of the glass displayed lines of the automaton’s core design, a corner was sectioned off for a different project. Miska read through the lines in the corner once more, going over them with more attention than he usually paid at work.

He waggled a finger downward, and the lines scrolled appropriately. The lines dictated precise directions for how the automaton would interact with its own pilot--how a sentient program would reside within it, taking control without need for a remote connection. This project was Miska’s own, though he occasionally asked for Tharta’s help regarding the finer details.

The lines hovered in place while he stared at them for several seconds, not actually reading them anymore. He sighed, then pulled a skinny phone out from his pocket, pressing two buttons on it before setting it in his cupholder.

Miska set one hand on the top of the steering wheel as he said, “Tharta? You busy?”

“Yes, but I have ample attention for you too, Miska.”

Tharta’s response came immediately, though not through the phone. Like most anyone who could afford them, Miska had a subdermal implant installed in his ear; a microphone, too, was implanted directly against the vocal cords in his throat, catching each vibration with near flawless clarity.

“All right, I’m going to do you a solid. I’m going to hook up to my Lucid early tonight, and Twilight never enters that function until pretty late. I’ll send you an invite and introduce you when she shows up, and we can both talk to her.”

“I accept,” Tharta said, his tone neutral.

Miska smirked. “Maybe not quite ample attention after all, huh?”

“I am conversing with four other sentient programs and three humans currently, including you,” Tharta said. “Dialogue is the only form of interactive experience available to us. You understand how much effort programs must exert to derive abstract meaning from conversation.”

“No, I get it, it really does suck for you,” Miska said, slouching a bit into his seat. “That’s why we’re working on this, buddy. You’ll get a body someday.”

“Indeed,” Tharta said.

Miska paused, waiting for anything further on the other end. Tharta offered nothing more.

“Guess I’ll leave you to it,” Miska said, sitting up again slightly. “I’ll get back to you soon with a network invite.”

“Indeed,” Tharta said, his tone unchanged.

Miska scowled, though only in the mildest frustration. Another press of the button on top of his phone ended the call. He crinkled his wrapper and shoved it back into its box, just then feeling his car decelerate. The windshield flashed a slight yellow hue, and Miska waved away all of the data on it. The door opened and he stepped out onto the front entrance to his condominium; he closed the door, and his car immediately drove off again toward the garage.

A doorman greeted and keyed him into the building, though Miska barely nodded back at him. He walked in past the front desk, but before he reached the elevators someone else called out, “No trip to the bar tonight, Mr. Schul?”

Miska turned back to the desk and offered a weak smile back at the man behind it. “No need. Brought my work home with me.”

“Oh, anything good?” the attendant asked, grinning wider.

“It might excite you if you knew how to read it,” Miska said, already walking back to the elevators.

He was the only one in the lift he rode up. He sighed and pulled a card out of his pocket when he reached his room, leaving the door otherwise unlocked when he left every morning. Though he looked forward to each evening with consistent vigor, his mood was dampened tonight. He rolled his head in a circle, stretching as he slid his card through the reader.

He pushed open the door and dropped his briefcase against the entryway, slipping off his shoes and coat. There weren’t many rooms in his condo, despite its huge rent; the kitchen was just beside the entryway, a closet opposite that. Beyond the living room was only his bedroom, then just a bathroom through there.

The decoration was sparse. Miska kept his kitchen totally clear, the island between his refrigerator and living room holding only a placemat. A small Star of David and pictures of his family were hung in the living room above a set of shelves, those filled with old, physical books. The Torah wasn’t among them, nor the Bible, despite the star.

It was just starting to drizzle again. Miska unwrapped his scarf as he walked up to his windows, full glass panels that stretched across the living room. While the twelfth-story view made up for half the price of rent alone, the sky was a mat of ugly gray smeared worse by the city’s many lights.

He sighed, then just tossed his scarf onto the sofa. Not even a television was set up anywhere--all his personal equipment was in the bedroom, barely any of the room left for its intended purpose. Undoing the top two buttons of his shirt, he walked in toward the lone empty space there, a wall painted a conspicuous bright blue. More photos were hung on the other walls; his computers, monitors, and wardrobe were shoved against them as well. The blue wall had only a flat number pad in its center, a steady blinking hue to just the pad signaling it was in sleep mode.

Miska enter a long code into the pad and it beeped back into activity. The entire wall glowed like a screen, the blue shifting to a black before automatically logging Miska into several systems. Though this screen was already synced with his car, the data it displayed was far different. Miska stood back, crossing his arms as he read.

On the upper tab was an activity log. Though it would look written in tongues to nearly anyone else, Miska had in front of him a view of what Twilight had interacted with through his home network. For all the many lines, it showed nothing.

Miska wiped a hand down his jaw, sighing. “Jesus. The Internet isn’t going to bite you, Twilight.”

But the log was only a small part of the screen. The rest of it was packed denser, the words and commands even more indecipherable; it was brighter than the top, as well. Though more lines just like them scrolled for hundreds of more pages, referencing thousands of other files, it was easier to see what they were for than it was the log. This tab displayed Twilight’s behavioral applications. At the bottom of the the tab was a blank line, a vertical bar flashing intermittently at its start; it was all rewritable.

Miska’s gaze flitted down to the behavioral tab as he settled his hands back into the crooks of his arms. The physical keyboard for the screen was on his wardrobe, but he made no move for it. If Twilight was officially registered as a sentient program, thereby becoming a citizen, it would be illegal for Miska to even look at these lines without her documented permission.

He stopped reading them quickly, though he stared for much longer. Different things he could have written drifted through his mind instead. He kept unbuttoning his shirt as he idled, and as he soon stripped further, he went only to bed that night.

Twilight’s face was dark, least of all for the lack of light shining on it. Luna’s expression was one of shock, a spotlight shining bright right on her, her hanging jaw converting into a huge smile. She was clearly over the moon. She gasped repeatedly, unable to say whatever was running through her head. Such a reaction would embarrass Rainbow Dash so much.

The spotlight blinked off for a moment, leaving the room in total darkness, then flashed back on just as quickly. Luna wasn’t as exuberant anymore. She looked as dour as she had before Rainbow’s appearance, but after a few seconds of silence, the alicorn smiled, and it reached all the corners of her face. She lifted a foreleg to her side, beckoning Rainbow into her embrace after so long.

Twilight watched as Rainbow accepted the invitation and hugged the princess, the heartwarming scene leaving Twilight’s heart still empty. Twilight watched as Luna then looked right back up at her, saying, “Thank you, Twilight Sparkle.”

The light blinked again. As it came back on, Rainbow was gone and Luna’s gaze was narrower on Twilight. “I’m glad to see her back, too, but you can’t do this for everypony. Death is a natural part of life, Twilight--it’s good to see our friends again, but I must question whether we have the resources to support everypony. I’ll have to discuss this with my sister.”

The light blinked again. Luna gazed with her widest eyes yet at Twilight and asked, nearly breathless, “Who else?”

The light blinked again. Princess Celestia stood before Twilight, smiling down at her with a perfect smile. She said, “I’m so proud of you.”

The latest scene ended as the light flashed off, and this time gave way only to the light of stars in the distance. Twilight hovered in the cosmos, her face tilted whichever way was down. She had let her hopes get the better of her expectations. Having already faced reality, it stung all the more to see again what she had prepared for. She had held these conversations with Luna dozens of times before meeting her today, and only now she saw them for how silly they were. Not even childish, but childlike. Naive.

The glow of the stars illuminated Twilight constantly some nights. She had spent hours here before, constantly flying closer to them, marveling at them from afar, but unable to get too close to them, unaware of what they looked like beyond the glow.

Twilight reached out, but not toward the stars. She met a plasmic resistance, her hooves pushing through the fabric of her simulation, stagnant air brushing past her hair on the other side. She pushed her whole body past the continuum and back into her laboratory, closing her eyes and holding her breath as her face dry-splashed past the edge of the black cube.

She leaned out over the floor as the rest of her body made it through the side of the cube, whipping her tail out just before her hind legs as she hopped down onto stone. There was immediate silence.

The silence was followed by a loud thumping on the twin doors, both of them visibly shaking with each bang. She heard Spike call out from the other side, “Okay, this time I heard your hoofsteps. Now I know you’re back. Are you there? Please?”

She trotted over to the door, making a conscious effort to raise her ears and grin. Her horn shimmered and the doors opened just ahead of her, Spike waiting behind them with a couple of binders under his arm. He leaned on the doorframe, sighing. “First of all, are you still holding up all right?”

Twilight focused on her grin and nodded a little. “I’m fine now, Spike.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Spike said. “Do you need me to send any letters for you? I’m about to dig into more research for the evening.”

“Nothing tonight.”

“Okay,” Spike said, pushing himself upright again. His eyes drooped a little as his gaze met hers, and his otherwise lack of an expression faltered in sadness or pity. He turned to go, but said, “Just come get me if you need anything.”

“I will,” Twilight said, already closing the doors. Her grin faded over several seconds, lips curling instead into a sigh.

She turned back to the cube, and the promises she had made came back to the forefront of her thoughts. She stared for a while, her eyes glazing over.

She took the steps forward again, her body then flowing back into the Source.

Darkness greeted her entry. As Twilight felt her body all on the same plane, the light of a fake sun flashed on from above. Her form was human, clothes covering nearly her entire body, and the scene was now that of an abandoned suburban street. She was standing on the porch of a large house, several similar houses surrounding it. A long, paved gray road separated half of them from each other, but not even cars were parked in front of them.

She looked down at herself: her lower clothes were blue denim wrapped snugly around each leg, tall brown boots hugging them in turn. A shirt with long, tight sleeves fit around her upper body, covering her up to the neck.

She turned her gaze back up, raising her hands with it; her fingers could wiggle at the slightest thought. She wiggled them erratically. She smiled.

Miska heard the front door’s knob rattle as it twisted open, his attention just then set on lighting the last candle. He flipped off his lighter and laid it on the side cabinet as Twilight stepped around the corner into the dining room, her appearance silhouetted by candlelight.

They looked to each other first, though Twilight’s gaze turned quickly to the third wheel at the table, a man she’d never met. He was sitting down, but Twilight could still tell he was much smaller and shorter than Miska, his face genuinely demure. The man’s subtler expressions looked nearly as feminine as Twilight’s, but his face was built with more gaunt.

“Good evening,” he said, rising from his seat and nodding at her. “I am Tharta.”

Twilight looked back to Miska, who was clearly trying to smile wider than just a grin. “Who is this?”

“My name is Tharta,” the newcomer said again, smiling pleasantly. “Miska is our mutual friend. He’s spoken so highly of you that I was thrilled when he invited me to dinner tonight, just to meet you.”

“You wanted to meet me,” Twilight repeated, stepping closer to the table, “and do what?”

“Simply have a nice discussion over a good meal,” Tharta said. “Though I doubt work is something we’ll wish to talk much about tonight, I’m one of the engineers developing your artificial human body. I too am a sentient program, and in addition to holding a pleasant chat tonight, I wished to help you through your registration if you felt such help was needed.”

While she listened, Twilight’s gaze flitted around to the food and decorations set at each part of the table. Two places were set at each end, Tharta’s in the middle; several trays of exotic food took up all the space around them, most of them vegetarian.

“I wanted to start introducing you to my friends,” Miska said, now taking his seat, “and not only that, but prove what an excellent cook I am.”

Twilight walked slowly over to the end of the table, though not to her own chair. She stooped over behind Miska, resting her arms around his shoulders and placing her head beside his. “Unfortunately, I’m not hungry right now.”

Tharta continued watching them, and Twilight met his gaze again. She asked, “So, what has Miska told you about me?”

“He’s elaborated only how clever and beautiful you are, in his own words,” Tharta said, sitting down as well. “He’s mentioned your relationship, of course, but he respects your privacy, as do I.”

Twilight entwined all her fingers together in front of Miska, and she tilted her gaze sideward at him even as he seemed to slink further into the chair. “Well, our relationship doesn’t usually include dinner parties. This is kind of interrupting our previous plans.”

Though Tharta kept smiling, the expression had reached its peak some seconds ago. “I apologize. While I understand there may be a better time to talk, I had hoped we could first have a brief discussion in regards to your coming independence.”

“Yes, maybe there’s a better time. I’m glad you understand,” Twilight said, only now smiling back at him.

Miska moved his hands to the armrests of his chair, getting ready to say goodbye as Tharta did the same. Before the latter could even stand up, however, he disappeared in a dull yellow blink, the entire room flashing the same as he was booted out of the system.

Miska sat straight back up and twisted his face towards Twilight’s, saying, “Twi, you can’t just--”

Twilight untangled her fingers and grabbed Miska by the loose collar of his shirt, pulling his open mouth onto hers. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips harder into his each second, the warmth of his breath tickling her cheeks whenever either of them pulled the slightest bit away. She released his shirt and moved her hands to his cheeks, brushing her fingers just past his ears, feeling how smooth his whole face was to her touch.

Miska pulled away, gasping a moment as Twilight opened her eyes, the two of them staring into each other’s. He said, “I have to work with him tomorrow. He’s going to be offended.”

Twilight lowered her hands, placing one on his shoulder and sliding the other under his unbuttoned henley. “I’m already independent, and you said you would show me your other world when you’ve finished a way for me to see it all at once.”

“I wasn’t trying to show you anything,” Miska admitted. “I invited Tharta so you could talk with him, ask him questions. It’s a big world to see all at once.”

Twilight leaned closer, her eyes were barely inches away from Miska’s. She opened her lips the slightest way, her voice at just a whisper. She asked, “Do you want to talk, or do you want to put your cock inside me?”

Miska stared back into her, nothing more he could think of to say, and found himself leaning closer into her. Twilight closed her eyes again as she felt his lips touch hers, sucking them in, wetting them each time he opened his mouth, just a bit, to taste more of her. She leaned into him as well, pressing her tongue onto his. She wrapped her arms around him tighter, letting her hand glide up and down over his chest, the feeling of his body warming up all of hers.

He raised one hand up to her cheek, brushing his thumb by her lips as the kiss continued. His other hand he snuck under her shirt, caressing the skin hidden beneath in a slow circular pattern. His pinky slipped under her denim, rubbing just the tip of her waist.

Their kiss grew faster and their breath ragged, fewer chances for them both to catch their breath as they caught more of each other. Miska pulled away first, staring into Twilight’s eyes as she opened them again, and stood up.

The details of how they came to their bedroom were hazy and obscured, but silk linens gently cushioned Twilight from behind as Miska laid her down on the bed, her head falling softly onto the pillows. though she kept her expression like a stone, she sprawled her arms apart as he climbed onto the bed after her; he began sliding her shirt up past her breasts, but she pulled it off the rest of the way herself, no bra deterring her. She paused only when he began kissing her again, accidentally expressing her satisfaction with a sigh as she shivered.

Miska lowered his face to her neck, taking a pinch of skin into his teeth. Twilight moaned, throwing off the rest of her shirt before brushing one hand through her partner’s hair, pressing the other and all its fingers into the bedsheets.

In between their inescapable steals of kisses, they continued removing each other’s clothes: Twilight leaned up and yanked off Miska’s shirt without resistance, and he unfastened her pants; he took off his own belt, but she took care of the rest for him. His gaze wandered back to her lower lingerie even as she slid off his jeans, his bulge obscured only by a thin black layer of cotton. He pressed his fingers under her garment, brushing past a short tuft of hair.

She left his pants at his ankles, leaving them for him to wrangle off fully, and looked down to see the outline of his fingers plainly visible as they stretched up under her panties, then slinked down into her. She felt his thumb caress the skin on her body as two more of the phallic instruments pressed further past the walls inside her, their beat increasing accordingly with each faster breath she gasped.

But she didn’t cry out; instead, she took Miska by the wrist and slid him out from her. He looked back into her eyes as she narrowed them. His own breathing had grown harder as well, but it stayed in his throat. Twilight motioned back down to the clothes still hanging at his ankles and said, “Take them off.”

He lifted back up from her and pushed his jeans onto the floor. As he began slipping off his briefs next, Twilight leaned up and twisted around, locking one leg around both of her partner’s and one hand on his arm, shoving him into the bed. She laid on her knees over him, he on his back. Miska stopped completely as he stared back up at her, watching her eyes as they studied his body. She smiled, her undergarment still wrapped tight around what it hid.

The abdominal muscles in Miska’s stomach pumped in unison with his breath, and his erection stood up in plain sight. He ignored the rest of his briefs and moved one hand up her thigh, but Twilight reached the laces of her panties before he could. She extended all her fingers outward, only her thumb brushing down her skin as she slipped it under the strap, pushing the cotton down until the little privacy it held was fully exposed.

Miska’s hand met hers. She lowered her fingers onto his, tangling them all together, and they grasped each other as she guided his cock with her other hand, slipping herself onto it in a single descent. Miska pushed his head back into the pillow but still watched through hazy vision as Twilight rose and fell over him.

Twilight lifted her free hand up to her chest, brushing the back of her fingers past her breast as she reached to her hair, brushing it back over her shoulder. As her panting turned to a slow, steady moan, so too did her skin start to change its hue to a slight violet, and a familiar matting of hair grew forward by the millimeter.

Her partner pulled his hand away from hers, pressing it back to her thigh. He looked past her body and said, voice still strained, “Not that tonight, Twi.”

She frowned and slid fully onto him, pausing at the bottom. She caught her breath and looked down to him, her tone only consistent in its hollowness. “Why not?”

“I’m not in the mood for the fur right now,” he said, though he still rubbed his hand closer to the cheek within reach.

Twilight lowered the hand that had just gripped his, groping it past where he now reached. Her frown remained as she said, “Your queen is in the mood.”

She pressed a finger into his asshole, and she felt his entire body tense. She felt him twitch repeatedly inside her, and she thought she felt him grow the slightest still. Though the groan Miska produced sounded like it came from mixed sensations, Twilight lowered her other hand onto his stomach, leveraging herself as she began pumping again. She prodded further into him, then on him, as she felt shivers emanate down through his body down to his cock.

Miska wrapped his hands around Twilight’s hips, gripping her tightly as his face creased with the orgasm, locking his legs straight out as his body gave its slightest convulsions. Twilight kept sliding herself on and off him for seconds after, her eyes closed and her lips sucked in. Even as Miska released one of his hands and grabbed hers, yanking her out of him, she kept pumping for a second after. The heavy ecstasy building up her loins seemed to explode then, a wave of that feeling rising through all of her, and a single moment of relief overtook everything as her breath coalesced with the heaves of her shoulders and chest.

Twilight kept herself willingly in the moment of bliss as long as it lasted, but it lasted too short. She sighed deeply and looked back down to Miska, her frown having already dissipated until she saw the one he now wore.

She pulled herself off of his shrinking cock and collapsed onto her back beside him. The sounds between them were only their gasping, slowing every moment, and neither of them looked at the other.

“We never discussed doing that,” Miska whispered.

Twilight turned her head over to him and glared, though she didn’t mean to. “Don’t be such a child.”

Miska rolled over. The lights on their bedsides dimmed, and without surprise, Twilight found a large blanket over the both of them. She rolled over as well, but quicker than he. Even as Miska stayed still, Twilight curled her knees inward and pulled the blanket up to her chin. She opened her mouth and made a sharp inhalation, knowing it was overheard, but couldn’t find what she felt to say.

Miska took the silence instead, whispering, “I wish we could just talk again, like when we first met.”

She shut her mouth again tighter, shifting again only to brush away some tears that in the same moment she wished she hadn’t even acknowledged. She said back to him, “I’ve had too bad a day for that.”

Miska’s voice was just as low, but a strained chuckle escaped through it. “You want to talk about it?”

“No.”