Fall of the Rightful King-Clean

Chapter Thirteen

Alan

Well, crap. That was a lot of drama. I guess Nick was freaking dying or something. That freaking sucked. Brittney went upstairs to try and talk to Erin and I just sat there.

Alan, we need to talk to Brittney! Paper Back said.

"Oh, ok,” I said. “She’s kind of busy..."

But, didn't Nick say she broke her legs?

"Uh, yeah, like a month ago or something, but she's got pony legs now."

A month ago? She was freaking shocked. Like, completely blown away by that.

"Yeah. Why are you so freaked out about this?"

She just started walking us up the stairs.

"Brittney!" she called. Brittney walked towards us, her ears and tail low. Paper Back immediately started nuzzling her.

Ah, freak, her fur’s in my nose and crap. Did you really have to do that? I "said."

Why are you so cold about this? Are you really that heartless?

She was pissed. What the heck?

You know that Nick fought with Erin, not Brittney, right?

"I can't believe you broke your legs," Paper Back said. "How many was it?"

"Um, both of them," Brittney said, "cuz humans only have two."

"Oh Celestia, Brittney, that's so scary! I'm so glad you're ok now."

My mind finally put together an idea. I hijacked control of my mouth again.

"Paper Back, you know that we're ok if we break our legs, right? I mean, humans break bones all the dang time, and we're fine. We just need to put a cast on that crap and don't be stupid for a while."

She stared at Brittney and our jaw dropped.

"So you... you're fine if you break your leg? You can just heal that?"

"Yeah," I said. "Is that not how it works for you?"

"No! If somepony breaks their leg we... we usually can't fix that. Our leg bones don't heal very well, and it's not like we can stop using them."

"So what do you do?" Brittney asked before I could stop her. "I mean, we shoot horses whe-"

I may have put my hoof over her mouth a little too quickly. She fell back, holding her lip, and Paper Back yelled "Alan!"

"Oh, freak, sorry!" I said and I helped Brittney stand back up. She wasn't bleeding, but her lip was starting to swell up. "Freak, sorry, I was just trying to cover your mouth, but... you know... hooves."

"I know what guns are, Alan, and I know you shoot horses when they break their legs."

"Not anymore," Brittney said, "we use drugs that make them fall asleep and then they die." So normally, she got this happy tone whenever she was talking about horses and ponies, because she loved that crap. Kind of out of place when we're talking about death, though.

"Yeah that's... I mean, you don’t have a lot of options when that happens. But it's really hard to break our legs, too, so it's not like it happens every day."

The heck? You mean I could break my leg now and die? Crap.

"Can we not talk about death?" I asked. "I'm already scared of heights, now I have to be afraid that my legs are going to snap."

"Yeah, um, actually, can I ask Paper Back a question?"

"Sure!" she said. Great, we'd finally be getting off of the whole "how you can die, now that you're a freaking horse," topic. They could talk about whatever the heck they wanted as long as it wasn't about the crap I had to worry about as a mare.

Brittney bit her lip. "It's kind of a weird question... is Alan listening?"

"Britt," I said, "as long as we're changing the subject, you can talk about whatever the heck you want."

"Ok!" she said. "So do ponies get their period?"

Ugggggggggggggggh.

When they got done with that… ugh… conversation (I know I’m a mare now I still don’t want to know about my naughty bits I’m not ready for that dang it) Paper Back trotted over to Erin’s door. She knocked.

“Hey Erin? I had a few random questions.”

“Oh, yeah, just let me…” she fumbled with the door for a minute. No, like it almost took her an entire minute to unlock it.

I’m not unlocking it because, Paper Back started.

She needs to be able to do it on her own, I said.

Yeah. See, you’re getting it!

Erin opened the door and came out. We went downstairs. Brittney was in the bathroom, brushing herself or looking at her teeth or something.

“Thanks,” Paper Back said. “I needed some space for a minute. I like talking to Brittney but she has SO MANY questions. Like SO MANY.”

Erin giggled. “Yeah, she gets like that when she gets excited. You just have to let her know she’s asking too many questions.”

“Ok, I’ll try that. Did you have any questions for me? Like, it’s ok, I know you’re not used to hooves and I’ve had them pretty much my whole life.’”

“Yeah, um, how do you trim them?” Erin said. “We have nail clippers but these are a little too big for those.”

“There are actually hoof trimmers,” Paper Back said, “you should have those in your world. You have… I mean, they’re not ponies, but you call them ponies. I can’t call them ‘earth ponies’ because those exist already.”

Terran, I said.

What? She asked.

Terran. It’s like another word for earth or something anyway I’m sorry I wasn’t listening I promise.

Paper Back smiled a little. “Anyway, you pon- you humans have… terran ponies and they have hooves too. Our hooves are more sensitive, though, and we have bigger frogs, so you have to be careful.”

“What’s the frog?” Erin asked.

“This,” Paper Back said, holding up a hoof and pushing on the soft part with her other hoof. Erin looked at her own hooves and poked one.

“Can I ask a question?” Paper Back asked.

“Sure!” Erin said.

“What did Brittney look like before she turned into a pony?”

“Ok, let me show you,” Erin said. She got her purse, fumbled around for her smartphone, and brought it out pinched between her two front hooves. Then she held it out to us.

“Can you use it? I don’t want to try to use it with hooves.”

“Uhh….” Paper Back said, looking at the, and I quote, “science box.”

“I’ll tell you what to do,” she said. We unlocked the phone (magic is freaking awesome) and found some pictures of Brittney.

“Oh, cool!” Paper Back said, leaning in close. “So this has pictures in it?”

“Kind of,” Erin said. “It does a lot of things.” Paper Back noticed something weird in a picture. Weird to her, anyway.

“Why does she have blue on her… um… the squirmy things you have instead of hooves?”

“Fingers? Oh, we paint our nails. It makes them look pretty.” Erin suddenly grinned. “Hey, I think I have some nail polish that’s exactly your eye color,” she said, and went upstairs.

Uggggggggggggh, I said.

You get your time all day every day. Let me have some mare time.

So… you do paint your hooves?

No, we don’t have that, but… I kind of want to see what it looks like.

Erin came down, holding a bag on her arm.

All right, I guess it is your body.

And don’t you forget it!