Pony On

When Alex awoke, the first thing he noticed was that he wasn't dead. Or at least, he probably wasn't. For all he knew, he had died and been brought to a world full of Aurora May lookalikes. There wasn't really a way to know what a person experienced after their death, after all.

Quite honestly, he felt like he'd been stuck in a washing machine with hammers tumbling alongside him. But hey, at least now he was up for a simile or two.

Still bleary-eyed, Alex kicked the quilt off himself with numb feet, leaned on numb arms and pushed himself out of bed, feeling for all the world like he'd need to re-learn to walk when this was over. He blew his once-brown hair out of his once-navy eyes and made his way blindly to the wardrobe, leaning against what he knew was the desk for support.

Come to think of it, his hands and feet weren't quite numb. There wasn't any of the telltale pins and needles for one, and he actually could feel the surface of the desk and the carpet. He simply couldn't wiggle his fingers or toes. It didn't feel like there were any to wiggle in the first place. Maybe his hands had fused together from the disease, and he'd just guessed his time of death wrong. He'd probably die later in the day, but still, no regrets.

Finally at the wardrobe, Alex squinted at his reflection, cursing himself once more for not being a morning person. He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his fused hands and looked again, but still couldn't see more than an orange blob. With each blink, though, the world slowly got clearer. Blurred grey dots became wide eyes, larger grey shapes morphed into his hair, swept to the side as it always was, and the orange blob transformed into... fur?

Yup, that looked a lot like a coat of fur, if he was seeing things correctly. So he'd been turned into an animal of some sort.

"Wow," Alex heard someone mutter. Strange, he'd been testing his own voice, but that sounded like someone else's.

Of course, now the human-turned-animal had nothing to say without sounding entirely stupid. Contemplating his predicament, he absently lay on his side, attempting to get his breath back, figure out an explanation and test his voice all at once. Naturally, he ended up relaying his observations to himself.

"So I've turned into an animal with bright orange fur and grey hair, no idea why those are separate but there you go. I have hands and feet, or I guess just feet, that don't have toes, so maybe they're hooves? Maybe I actually have a single toe on each foot, like the Widow from the Binding of Isaac... Ooh, my ears move like a cat's, but they're longer... Wow, I have a horn! Unless that's something else. It's pretty solid so it could be either or..."

The only thing he looked remotely like was a cross between a unicorn and a traffic cone. Also his voice was oddly high-pitched, almost like a girl's. Actually, it was exactly like a girl's voice, which disturbed him far more than a minor transformation into a mythical farm animal. Either way, he promptly put his observations to the side. What he really needed now was a plan of action. One better than 'pretend I'm not dying and look desperately for a cure', preferably.

Alex laughed at the irony. He was actually learning to walk again. Here he was, solver of the bi-verse's puzzles, inventor of the quark microscope, learning to stand up. That this time he was walking on all fours did nothing to make him feel better.

It didn't feel like crawling, either. For one thing, you crawled on your knees, not your feet, and that hurt a lot. This didn't hurt at all; in fact, it felt more natural than walking normally, understandable given the current condition of his body.

He'd tried to walk normally of course, but that felt like his back was dying if he did it for too long, and his centre of balance was way off thanks to his longer neck and lighter body.

The horn didn't seem to do anything but sit on his head and look pretty. It would have been cool if he could do magic with it, but that was for magicians' wands, not Alex's forehead... Although maybe he just needed to think of an activation word, or find the power within him.

Yeah, right.

The orange flavoured unicorn looked himself in the mirror. He was really glad he only liked baggy clothes - strange as he looked, he was fairly comfortable in the blue zipup hoodie and black sweat-pants.

Actually, he'd have to get used to using feminine pronouns for... herself. That discovery hadn't exactly been the most settling in history, and had involved more swear words than most drunk sailors would think up.

Really, the eyelashes should have given it away.

Alex walked down for breakfast as his... her family were just starting lunch as normal. She was going to use the shock factor to explain without interruptions, flee before anyone had recovered, then lock herself in her room until her mother had put down that rusty knife she'd found at the back of a drawer one day. Then she was going to apologise profusely and ask for more... appropriate clothing.

Quite honestly, it was a suicidal plan, and that was usually the mark of a workable plan. She hoped.

Literally trotting up to the table after a few minutes of fumbling with the door handle, Alex's plan-if-you-squinted-hard-enough was put into action. "Hi everyone!"

His mother was the first to look up, akready on a hair trigger from worry about her son. She just stared for a second or two, blinked, rubbed her eyes and repeated. Alex rolled her own eyes and sat down awkwardly at the table, noticing a quick glance from her father.

Three, two, one.

A fountain of coffee sprayed over the table, broken by a quickly upended plate in front of Alex. Wondering how she'd managed to do that with hooves, the polymorphed scientist decided that it wasn't exactly the most important issue and turned to face his sputtering dad.

"Hey, the cure worked. Thought you should know. I got the letters back from the doctors and they said to go ahead with it, so I did, but it had a few more side-effects than I'd planned for. I've learnt my lesson and will never again design a cure without knowing exactly what it does."

It took everyone a moment to process that, but Katie spoke up first. "So... you're a pony?"

Alex glanced at an orange hoof, trying to figure out how to use the knife and fork. "Am I? I almost figured that I'd accidentally made a hallucinogen. And I'm actually a unicorn, see the horn?"

"Huh..." Alex rather thought her family was taking this well, all things considered. She glanced over at her mother, who now wore that blank face she used whenever she looked at her son/daughter's experiments, and her father, who had just let out a tremendous sigh.

"Well, I want to have a word with you about warning us beforehand-"

"Beforehoof?" Katie snickered, and Matt's forehead came into contact with the table.

"I just want to have a word with you after brunch, champ. Katie, stop making this awkward. Al, I'll get you something you won't need cutlery for, you look like you're having trouble with that." With that, the father of the house left the table. Alex's eyes flicked nervously around the room, resting on the twins, who were... staring at her in awe.

"Pony..." Amy whispered in wonder, looking at the once-a-human like she was a dream come true. Which she probably was, being a unicorn and all.

"I'm Alex, remember? Blue eyes, brown hair, genius and saviour of the world?" She wondered if she was actually getting through to them.

Stanley turned brightly to the parent still in the room. "Mum! Alex is a science pony!"

Samantha just forced a smile as Matt came back with some buttered toast. "I-I know, dear, he's a unicorn."

Brunch passed fairly smoothly, albeit silently and awkwardly, until finally, everyone but Matt and his son-slash-daughter filed out, leaving them sitting next to each other. Being the dad, Matt started first, and rather abruptly. "You didn't find a cure, did you."

It wasn't a question. It was a fact. "No I didn't. The illness shouldn't exist, and I kinda feel like it isn't from our universe."

"So from the bi-verse, then?"

Alex stifled a laugh. "You didn't listen very closely to that, did you? The bi-verse is made from two universes, identical except one's made from antimatter. If something shouldn't exist in one universe, it shouldn't exist in the other." She took a drawn out breath to allow the explanation to sink in. "I think it might be from some parallel dimension, or maybe the world is actually a computer simulation and some hacker's changing things. Either way, I'm a unicorn now."

Matt gave a little hum, then closed his eyes for a second. "And the letters to the doctors? That was a will, am I right?"

So he had guessed. "Yeah, guess you aren't a detective for nothing. I also mailed some letters so my friends could be ready to sign it when I got to their homes. Post's way faster since they got quadcopters."

Matt gave a humourous grin. "I never thought that'd actually work. The announcement was even on April fool's day!" He gave a short laugh, then sobered and trained a questioning look on Alex. "So are we telling your mother?"

This time Alex laughed for real. "I'm not suicidal, and didn't you say something about blood pressure yesterday? Her head might pop off if we tell her."

"I can just imagine her diary entry today. 'Dear diary, today my son is a unicorn. That is all.'"

Oh god, of course this came up quickly. Alex pawed the ground nervously, a grimace set onto her tiny snout. "Heh, funny thing. Technically, your daughter is a unicorn."

Matt blinked twice, then tumbled to the floor in a heap of hysterics.