This is the only chapter.
The Conversion Bureau: Contemplation and Discussion
It was about half past four when Penelope heard the knock on the door, a quick rapping that reverberated through most of her apartment.
"Just a second!", she called, getting up from her chair. Walking to the main door as quickly as she could, Penelope opened it up and allowed the person on the other side to walk in.
Or, rather, the pony that walked in.
"Good afternoon, Morn! How are things?"
"Jss fne. Lt me pu meh thengs don and I'l tel yu.", Morn (or Good Morning, as was his proper name) said, his mouth filled with a couple dozen brightly colored pamphlets. Walking over to Penelope's little living room table, Morn laid them on there, drying stray saliva drops off with a hoof.
"Just fine.", Morn repeated, turning back to face his next-door neighbor. "Things are slow as all heck at work. Spent half the day just going through paperwork."
"That sucks.", Penelope replied. "Not that many customers?"
He shook his head. "Things are a trickle right now. I hear it's actually worse in a lot of different cities. They're actually considering shutting down some of the smaller European and African branches and just keeping the bigger ones open."
"It's that bad?"
"You better believe it."
Walking (or waddling, as is the more accurate term; Bright Morning wasn't exactly the most slim or athletic pegasus out there) back over to Penelope, he asked her, "Wanna order pizza tonight? I'll pay."
"......Sure, why not? You're not going to order daisies on the whole thing again, are you?"
"Of course not!", Morn said, trying (and failing to suppress) a sudden blush appearing on his face. "So I forgot that humans can't eat flowers. That was just a one time thing!"
"You've done it the last three times we've ordered pizza!"
".......Really?"
"Yup."
After Penelope went ahead and ordered the pizza herself, and Morn sat down to watch the news, she found herself drifting over to the pamphlets lying on her table.
"Would it be all right if I took a look at these?", she asked.
"Oh, go ahead! Go ahead and take one if you want to, actually!", Morn replied, nodding rather enthusiastically.
Doing just that, Penelope picked one of them up (one that wasn't still drying from spit, that is), and begin to read it. Almost appallingly glossy, unnervingly brightly colored, and upbeat and peppy to an extent that could only be done non-ironically by an Equestrian, the pamphlet was a curious thing, filled to the brim with information about Equestria, it's society, and most importantly, it's occupants.
Skipping from page to page of the thing, looking through the bits and pieces of information about the four species of equine, Penelope turned to Morn. "Is this a new one? Never seen it before."
"Yes indeed.", Morn replied, stretching out one of his wings to poke at the pile. "We plan on releasing them within the week. So the higher-ups think, it's now a matter of convincing humans of all the, um, bennies that come with conversion."
"Do you think it'll work? I mean, most people already know a good deal about what ponies are capable of."
"It's actually part of a larger ad campaign, and they're really confident that it'll work." Morn shrugged (well, as much as a quadruped can shrug) and admitted, "If nothing else, it'll at least bring in a bit more interest." The way he said it, Penelope wondered whether or not he was going to say, "I think.", or "I guess." right afterwards.
Soon after that, the pizza arrived, and two proceeded to their dinner, eating and chatting about various inanities all the while; most notably, Morn mentioned that his branch of the Bureau was actually expecting one of the royals sometime in the near future.
"It's not going to be Princess Celestia or Princess Luna.", Morn admitted, globs of cheese now stuck to the outside of his muzzle. "Maybe Twilight or Blueblood or....I don't know, one of those ones."
"Blueblood?", asked Penelope. "Isn't he the one that's writing all those horror novels under a human penname?"
"I think so. He won't admit it to anyone, from what I hear, though."
They ate and conversed for a little while longer, before the meal almost came to an end.
Just as Penelope was finishing up her last slice of pizza, she noticed Morn's eyes suddenly light up with a look of......determination, ambition, something like that.
"You know, Penelope.", Morn said, wiping his face off with a paper napkin. "In all the time that we've been friends, there's something I've always wanted to ask you. It's nothing romantic, not really; it's, well, something else."
His eyes flickered over to the living room table (or, rather, what was on it), and Penelope understood in a moment.
"You want to know whether or not I'm interested in becoming a pony or not."
Morn nodded. "I don't mean to upset you or offend you or anything, but....well, seeing as I work for the local branch and we technically do talk about it a lot, so....."
Penelope had been expecting this for quite some time now; it had been a given, considering his line of work and own genuine passion for the job, that he would ask her sooner or later. As a matter of fact, she was genuinely surprised that it had taken him so long to ask her, having gone four years or so without even showing interest in her potential conversion.
"....Well.", she said, all too well-aware of how avidly he was listening to her. ".....I honestly never really gave it much thought to be honest. I mean, yeah, it would be neat to have super strength or fly or cast spells. It would be nice to have a really long life span, and I suppose that it might be kinda cool to have a really crazy hair color, but....I don't know. It might be all right for just a little while, but I don't think that I could ever do it on a permanent basis."
"...Really?", Morn asked, looking a little genuinely confused. "I'd figure that all of those were great reasons to convert. Heck, I'd do it for the chance for a greater lifespan alone, if I was a human."
"But that's the thing, right there.", Penelope replied, "It's all well and fine to have all those benefits, but....well, I like being a human. I like being the way I am."
"Well, of course.", Morn said, nodding his head. "Nopony-- no one ever said that you're any worse for being a human." He paused for a moment, in thought, and added, "But that's the thing. If you did converted, you'd still be as human as ever on the inside. You'd be on all fours. You'd have a muzzle and a fur coat and hooves and a tail. Your ears would be pointier. You might have wings and be able to walk on clouds, you might have a horn that you could cast magic from, or you just might be able to break down stone walls with your legs. You'd still be you in the end. You'd still be human."
"Not quite."
"What do you mean?", Morn asked.
"It's.....I have no doubt that what you're saying is true, and I have no doubt that, if I were to do it, I would be the same inside. The thing is.....it still wouldn't be me, because my body is just as part of me as my mind is."
Morn blinked. "I don't follow you."
"All right......" Penelope looked around the room for a moment or two, trying to drum up ideas. "Let's say that you were given an opportunity to become a......you know, those things that all the princesses are."
"An alicorn, you mean?"
"Yeah, that's it, an alicorn. You got the chance to become an alicorn. Wings, horn, longer legs, the whole shebang. Would you go for it?"
"To become an alicorn?", Morn asked, his eyes almost literally lighting up with delight at the thought. "Of course I would!"
Penelope's mouth snapped shut at this.
".....Bad example...Let me try a different example." Her eyes flickered around the room again. "Let's say that you had the chance to switch from being a pegasus to either an earth pony or unicorn...your choice. Would you go for it?"
At this, Morn's brow lowered in thought, and for a little while ( in which time Penelope took to throw the pizza box and other remnants of the meal into the trash), said nothing.
"...I don't know.", he eventually stated. "I'd still be a pony and everything, I suppose, but....."
His eyes rotated around to look down at his wings.
"It would be difficult to give them up.", he eventually said. "My wings, I mean."
"And why is that?", Penelope asked, stretching out an arm and grabbing one, just where it met with the body.
"I've lived with these wings all these life. I've spent my entire life flying with these wings. I lived in a city made of clouds for most of my life, for Celestia's sake! These wings.......they define me, I guess."
"But you'd get the chance to do magic or grow plants super quick or punch through boulders or something like that. Wouldn't that make up for losing those wings of yours?"
".....Not really, no."
"And that's where I'm coming from.", Penelope finally said, raising her hands up. "It's difficult for you to consider giving up your wings to become a unicorn or earth pony because of how attached you are to them. Now, imagine how much more I would have to change to--no, not just that. Take a look at me, take a look back at yourself and figure out for yourself how much conversion would make me give up."
Doing just that, Morn begin to, well, look over Penelope's body. Although he felt distinctly dirty at first, he scanned over the various features of her body....and then begin to realize what she was talking about.
Like, well, all human beings in Bright Morning's eyes, Penelope's body was an oddity in his eyes, a strange marvel that even outdid the forms of the gryphons and minotaurs in sheer strangeness. Her body long and slender in a way that the pony body was simply wasn't, Penelope's torso (itself long and strangely flexible) extended into seemingly unnecessarily long limbs, each branching into an appendage with either long, flexible fingers or somewhat stubby toes. Aside from her mane, there was little to no hair visible on her body, and her chocolate-colored skin was in full view where not obstructed by clothing. Her face was almost flat (well, in comparison to a normal pony's face), her green eyes small and forward facing, her mouth filled with teeth for cutting and tearing meat.
And then Morn looked back on himself. His body, in direct contrast, was short and rounded in comparison. Standing no taller than the table he had just sat at dinner to, Bright Morning's torso was more oval-shaped, with short legs ending in simple hooves, capable of simple manipulation via the joints but little more. His body was covered in thick but soft fur, as green as a freshly cut lawn in early summer, and a long yellow mane hung from his head. His bright blue eyes were large and set in the side of his face, which terminated in a large muzzle filled with flat grinding teeth. And, to top it all off, there was the tail, a bright green one that swung to and fro from the couch as he sat there.
Gears began to rotate in Morn's head, as the comparison was considered.
".......That is true, I guess," he said, each word coming out bit by bit, "but---well, I think I can see where you're coming from. More or less. I still think that you'd really like being a pony."
"And I have no doubt that you're absolutely right.", Penelope replied. "But, nonetheless, I still like this body, and I wouldn't want to give it up so readily."
It was at this point that the discussion between the two temporarily came to a halt. After the two finished cleaning their dishes, they soon found themselves back in front of the television. About half way through a particularly bad talk show focusing on the use of Poison Joke as a recreational drug, something occurred to Penelope.
"I think I might have figured out why things are slowing down so much at the Bureau."
Morn's ears perked up at this (quite literally, I should note), and angled towards Penelope."What do you mean?", he asked, suddenly feeling strangely upbeat. "...You're not saying you've figured out how to boost numbers, have you?"
".....Not quite."
Penelope muted the TV and turned to Morn. "....The way I see it," she began, "the reason why conversion numbers are so low lately is that....well, you've basically run through the vast majority of people who were......aligned towards conversion."
"Aligned?", Morn replied, rubbing his chubby stomach with one of his hooves. "What on Equestria does that mean?"
"I'll explain......Maybe it's just me, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of people out there who have had the opportunity to convert but hadn't because they actually also feel adjusted to being human; they're used to being human, they like being human, and they're not so willing to change."
Morn nodded. "It's kind of redundant, though; people don't want to undergo conversion because they don't want to change bodies, but.....you know."
"There's a point to all that." She paused for a moment or two. "Morn, do you remember when the Conversion Bureaus had just opened?"
Of course he could. As long as he lived (so he believed), those first weeks would be among the happiest of his life. Seeing all those people come in, seeing them all transform in the blink in an eye into new and lively forms, seeing them smile and laugh and cry out of sheer joy, seeing all the new ponies hug and embrace each other, seeing all the love and happiness and friendship flow all around--he would remember that all his life. How couldn't he?
"I do.", he said, somehow able to distill all those good memories into those two words.
"Do you remember the kinds of people who were primarily there? The primary categories of people who were there?"
Morn's memories shifted back, and he began to sift through them, examining them in greater detail.
"....Well," he noted. "A lot of them were elderly people. Old folks, you know; old men, old women, all there because they were hoping that conversion would give them a chance to, I don't know, experience life to the fullest again! Feel young again, feel strong again, that sort of thing!"
"Sounds about right.", Penelope quietly replied. "Isn't it also true that a lot of the people who came to the Conversion Bureau's were there because....well, of its regenerative properties?"
This was also quite true. A great number of the people who came for conversion were ill in some manner or another. A great deal of these has some sort of fatal disease or ailment (cancer, mostly), but there were also a good number who came in because of some ailment or infirmity that they wished to get rid of. Blindness, deafness, arthritis, senility, whatever; you named it, there was someone willing to come in that had it and wanted it good and gone. He wasn't sure where, but Morn swore he heard somewhere that he had once heard of a human who had undergone conversion simple in order to cure his baldness; he was very sensitive about it, so the story went, and felt that nothing else was going to be effective enough.
After affirming this to Penelope, she went on to ask, "And what about the third major group? The.....um, gallopers, or whatever the hell they were called?"
These, too, were quite familiar to Bright Morning.....although not in the manner that the other two groups were. Unlike the first two groups, who signed on to conversion primarily out of a desire to fix some impairment or to give themselves longer lifespan, the gallopers (as they had been named somewhere along the line; Morn had no idea where the somewhat inane name had come from) were distinguished by their interest in, shall we say, the more fringe benefits of being a pony. Although they varied considerably from person to person in characteristics, attributes, and desires, all members of this group viewed the chance at conversion as a golden opportunity of some sort or another. Some converted for the opportunity to wield great strength as an earth pony or to sour through the skies as a pegasus or to wield magic as a unicorn (it always stung his earth pony colleges that a great more people were inclined towards the latter two), some wished for the desire to have children with whatever oldfoal partners they had fallen in love with, and some simply wished to acquire cutie marks to acquire greater insight into what they were supposed to be doing with their lives. A diverse bunch, to say the least.
"All right then.", Morn reaffirmed. "What does it all mean, then? What's the big deal that there are these different groups who wanted to convert?"
"What do they all have in common?"
Morn turned his head towards the ceiling and began to think. And think.
"....It.....it was a matter of well-bring for the most part. A lot of the old folks did it because it gave them longer lifespans, while the second group did it because it would fix them up...."
"But where does the third group go into that? How does that third group fit in there?"
Morn pursed his lips. "I.....they don't really fit into that general category, no. In the case, all those newfoals went over because.....because becoming a pony offered them something that they wouldn't have as a human."
"And I think that's ultimately why the numbers of converts have dropped so recently after the initial flood. All those groups converted because conversion offered something that trumped whatever discomfort they had with abandoning being human. Thing is, because you've run through all those people, everyone else just feels that whatever benefits they might get just aren't worth the costs."
Morn simply sat there for a moment or two, frozen in place. Eventually, his jaw slowly opened. "Are you....are you saying that the only reason people came to us so quickly at first was because conversion was the lesser of two evils?"
"No, I'm saying that you've basically run through all the people who had the greatest personal benefits from conversion."
Morn sat there for a little while. "Are you saying that we should just.....close up shop, because no one else is going to convert?"
"Not in the least! You're still getting people coming in, aren't you/?"
"Of course!", Morn exclaimed. "Nowhere near the numbers we were used to, but yes!"
"That's because there are people who will still need your services, and there always will be!" Penelope grabbed one of the pamphlets off the table and pulled it open, turning the pages and flipping them in front of Morn's eyes. "As long as there are old people worrying about running out of time, there will be conversions! As long as there are people who become ill or inform, there will be conversions! As long as there are people who want to have children with the ones they love but can't have it happen, there will be conversions! As long as there are people who dream about flight or magic or simply being able to beat the living shit out of stuff, there will be conversions! Not as many conversions as you might like to have, but...yes, there will be conversions in future, no matter what!"
Morn's face briefly morphed into a smile. A small one, mind you. "I don't suppose that conversion numbers will ever, you know, go back to their old numbers, will they?"
"Unless there's some sort of major shift in human culture or Equestria threatens to kill everyone that doesn't convert, I seriously doubt it."
Morn smiled again. A little bit.
For a little while, the two were silent for a little while longer, before Morn noticed the time and decided to turn in for the night. Just as he finished saying his goodbyes and went to leave through the door, he suddenly stopped.
"Penelope?", he asked.
"What?"
"....You know, I could try mentioning the whole temporary transformation thing at work tomorrow. I think there might have already have been a little bit of talk here and there, actually.....If such a thing actually were to become available, would you--"
She shrugged. "If it were available......well, I suppose I'd be interested. Always was curious what having a pair of wings like that would feel like."
