Fall of the Rightful King-Clean

Chapter Seventeen

It was only a few minutes of stalling like that before I forced myself to head upstairs. I didn't want to have to face her. I hadn't wanted to face the reality of my illness this whole time, but I didn't think I had a choice anymore. Besides, we saw how well that worked out.

I knocked on the door. No one answered, but I heard soft crying from inside. I opened the door. There was a small pegasus sitting on the ground, pink fur, blue mane and tail. She was wearing four purple socks. I bent down.

"Hey," I said.

"Nick!" she said, and turned around. I gasped.

She was gorgeous. Her blue mane tumbled down around her face, framing it perfectly. Her eyes were enormous and were a dark blue, like the deep ocean. Her muzzle was petite and her face had elegant curves. Even her legs and hooves seemed elegant and gentle.

She looked down. “This is me now,” she said.

“You’re beautiful,” I murmured. She snorted. “Oh, now?” She stepped closer and started nuzzling me. She felt for my arms with her hooves, and started rubbing my hands.

"So you're wearing socks?" I asked, a little smile in my voice.

"My hooves got cold," she said. She sat back, looking vaguely in my direction. Her eyes looked normal, but they definitely weren't looking at me.

"What's it called?" she asked in a tiny voice. "What ah… are you dying from?" She was very careful when she pronounced her “Rs.”

"It... doesn't have a name," I said. "Not yet. They said they might name it after me, but the doctor will probably just name it after himself." I tried to smile.

"Nick, I can't laugh right now," she said. "I feel so bad I can barely breathe."

"Sorry," I said. "They say that it's similar to a tumor, but it's different. It hasn’t responded to treatment. They said that they could come up with more treatment ideas, but they're not hopeful that it would extend my life by more than a few months, and they'd be painful the entire time, so... I didn't want to suffer the whole time if it wasn't even going to work, so... Good news is, until like a few weeks before the end, I won't have a lot of symptoms. It doesn't even hurt right now."

Tears were pouring down her face. She was hugging herself with her front legs and wings, and her mouth was open in a silent scream.

"Erin, please, talk to me," I said, putting my hands on her shoulders. "Say something. Say everything! I'm so sorry I didn't trust you with this, and I deserve whatev-"

"Don't leave me!" she burst. After that, it all came out in a flood. "I'm so sorry about what I said, and I know I was so mad that you didn't trust me, and I'm still mad about that, but I don't want to lose you and we have to figure this out,"

"I know," I said softly.

"I love you so much, and I know this pony thing is hard for us, but I'm the pony and it's really hard for me too and I want to help you out and be there for you but we've got to support each other during this-"

"Erin," I said.

"Because we are going to fix this. You're not going to die and I am getting my eyes back. But for right now I'm a pony and I'm sorry but it's easier for me to deal with my new body if you're comfortable with me and so-"

I kissed her. It was weird. It was fuzzy. But it was her. She immediately stopped, and after a moment of surprise, melted into my arms. It was several seconds later that we broke off and she started crying again.

"Hey, it's going to be ok," I said, wiping the tears from her face.

"I don't wanna lose you," she said.

"You won't. I love you no matter what you look like. And besides, you're still really pretty."

"Thanks... but I meant you dying too," she said miserably.

I sighed. "We'll figure it out. There's a... kind of scary idea I have. Manuel said that Alexander was the only one who would have the magic to fix me. So, if we can't come up with anything else... maybe I can find out what he wants and work out a deal."

She was quiet for a long time, just leaning against me. I don't know if it was comfortable for her, but my leg was starting to fall asleep. It was a weird position.

"But you're not going to talk to him yourself, are you?" she asked.

"I don't know yet. It's really just a last resort thing."

She leaned in and hugged me again.

"It's dangerous," I said, "but it's the only chance I've got."

"We'll do it together," she said.

"Um, sorry to spoil the moment, but you're making my leg fall asleep, can we-'

"Oh thank goodness, it's not just me. My hips were really starting to hurt. Should I put my-"

"No, here, put your legs... um..."

“Can I do this?”

“No, now your wings are in my face.”

I hadn't expected cuddling to be so complicated, but I ended up lying down with her on top of me. That really shouldn’t have taken us so long to figure out. She rested her head against my chest, one ear listening to my heart. I carefully rubbed the other.

"Can I touch your wings?" I asked.

"Please, yes," she said. "They're itchy and I can't get at them with these dang hooves!" I ran my fingers though her wings and a few loose feathers came out. She sighed softly and grinned.

"Is this called preening?" I asked.

"I don't know, I've never had wings before. I really need to figure out how to take care of these things. I tried asking Paper Back but she doesn’t really know how to care of wings. Hey, what’s my tramp stamp look like?”

“Your what?” I said, starting to laugh.

“My tramp stamp. The tattoo ponies get on their legs.”

“Cutie marks?” I checked her leg. “You don’t have one.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed. “Do I get that later?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “both Alan and Brittney had one right away. Though… now that I think about it… I can’t think of any other cutie marks I’ve seen. On anyone. That’s… weird.”

Her stomach grumbled loudly.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said. "I didn't eat lunch or dinner since I was... you know, turning into a pony."

"Let's get you some food."

I prepared some oats. She didn't want to eat out of the bowl, "I may be a pony but a girl still has standards!" so I ended up feeding her. It was either that or watch her try to use a spoon, blind, with hooves. We'd have to figure out something for her to use utensils and such, but not at the moment.

Alan walked in. "Hey, Nick? Paper Back wanted to talk to you." His eyes, which had been pointed in different directions, zeroed on to me. She walked close and held out a hoof.

"Hi! I'm Paper Back." she said. Acting on impulse, I bumped her hoof with my fist.

"Close enough?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said with a smile. "So Alan said you've got something really wrong with you, right?"

"Yeah," I said.

"And you said Derek told you that Alexander's opening a portal?"

"Right."

"Well, it has to be to Equestria, right? So I need to go through to go home, and we have to get Alan into his own body anyway! You should come along so that we can get you healed! The Princesses have to know some kind of magic that can help you."

This was definitely possible, but it brought up another, scarier point.

"So if Alexander's opening a portal... what's he going to do with it?"

Paper Back shrugged. "As soon as he gets through, the Princesses will take him out. They defeated Discord, Nightmare Moon, and Tirek. Alexander can't be worse than them."

That was an encouraging thought. Maybe we could just let Alexander open the portal. The Mane 6 would use the Elements of Harmony to defeat him, rainbow magic fixes everyone.

On the other hand, that didn't seem like a good plan. Maybe as a last resort. I had no idea how powerful Alexander was in comparison to the things they'd fought in the show, and there was every possibility that we'd be fine. But there was every possibility that he'd be an enormous threat.

"Uh, can't he?" Alan asked. "Brittney didn't say that anyone changed the world except Discord."

"So Discord will take care of him!"

"Right, and he didn't join up with Tirek?" Alan rebutted.

"Well... the episodes we watched showed that the villains always lost. And I know you're going to say it's just a show, but everything I recognized looked like it definitely came from the real Equestria."

"Yeah," Alan said, "fine. But even if they never changed the show to be a better story, which they sure as heck could have, this is Earth. Here, the bad guy can win. Heck, they usually do."

"Either way," I said, "just waiting isn't a valid plan. I like the idea of finding a portal to Equestria. Can we look into that in the morning?"

Morning came far too quickly. I still felt exhausted when I woke up. It took me a moment to remember why a pony was sleeping next to me, but then I recognized Erin's round eyes. She stirred and blinked awake, then smiled.

"Hi," she said. "Did I scare you?"

I smiled and ran my hand along her cool hoof and leg. "No, beautiful, just made me think I was in heaven."

"Oh, wow, that was cheesy," she said, giggling. She put a hoof in front of her muzzle. "Do I have horse breath?"

"No worse than usual," I said, smiling. She swatted me with her hoof.

“Ladies first,” she said, hopping off the bed and heading for the shower.

A few minutes later, the water stopped.

“Nick?” Erin called.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Can you come in, please?”

I opened the door. Erin was standing in the tub.

“I’m having trouble washing my wings,” she said. “Can you help?”

“Yeah,” I said. I grabbed a bath brush or whatever it was called (it was Erin’s) and scrubbed her back and wings. She lifted her wings.

“Can you get under them?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, reaching around her to scrub under her far wing.

Suddenly, icy water blasted me from the side and I fell on my butt.

“What the… Erin!”

Erin was giggling. She had a hoof on the water lever.

“Oh, you’re paying for that, I said, tickling her neck, then trying her back and wings.

“I’m not ticklish there,” she said, turning around and whacking me with her wings, getting me even wetter. I started tickling her ears.

“No, Nick!” she squealed, her legs buckling and her wings jumping around. “Ah! That’s not fair!” I kept it up for a few seconds and she sat down, pouting dramatically.

I kissed the top of her head. “Now we’re even.”

After we'd all showered and eaten, we sat together in the living room.

"All right," I said. "So what's the plan?"

Brittney raised a front hoof and started to bounce up and down.

"You can just talk," I said, and she lowered her hoof.

"Can't we just find the Equestria Girls portal?" she asked.

"Weren't those movies non-canon?" I asked.

"Uh-uh," she said, shaking her head. "On twitter they said that it was canon."

"Oh wow," Alan said, holding his head in her hooves. "We're talking about kids’ movies and whether or not they're real."

"Um, since I got a tail, I'm kinda more open to Brittney's suggestions," Erin said.

"I don't think we're going to be able to use that, even if it is real," Paper Back said. "Derek said that Alexander's trying to open a portal. Do you think he got his hooves on the statue and Celestia or Twilight tried to block him? Maybe that's what's going on! He's got this tower somewhere-"

"It's by Hanstadt," Brittney said. When we started at her, she said, "What? It's like ten hours west of here by train."

"But how did you know that?" I asked.

"I looked it up on my phone."

"With your hooves?" Erin asked.

"Nope! I used my tongue!" Brittney said. She stuck out her tongue and wiggled it around.

"Ok," I said. "So Alexander's probably got his hands on the statue and is forcing open the portal. Maybe that's why everyone's changing! The spell is breaking out of the statue and affecting everyone."

"That doesn't explain why I got brought here," Paper Back said, "and we can't get to it if Alexander has it. I still think we need to find the ponies who made the TV show. I mean, maybe they got here through the portal and told stories about what happened, but maybe there's something else going on and they have a way to talk to Equestria!"

"That's not a bad idea," I said. "Well, Britt, you know the most about the show. Who do we talk to?"

"Um... there are a lot of ponies who work on the show, and there are even ponies who started with the show and left later. So there are lots of ponies we could talk to!”

“But there are writers and animators and editors, and there's no way they could all get everything right all the time,” Erin said.

“Yeah, I said. “Even if you had someone come to Earth to make the show. Plus, Lauren hasn't been involved since season two.”

"She still laid out the stories and characters," Brittney said. "That's more information than she should have."

"Ok, but she said that the stories were just stories she made up as a little girl when she was playing with her dolls." I added.

Alan snorted. "Yeah, that's what she wants you to think. Besides, how do you know that?"

“I… might follow her on twitter. It’s not important!”

“I still think it’s a good idea,” Brittney said.

I thought about it. “Well, like Erin said, three of you used to be human and you've turned into ponies. I'm not going to find it too hard to believe that someone was using magic to make the show accurate. So can we find Lauren Faust?"

"We looked into it," Alan said, "but we didn't look really, really hard. It was just kind of a casual thing before. If we get working together, we can pull this off. I've got some people I could ask from my podcast."

"So you think we can find her?" I asked.

Alan shrugged and started heading upstairs. "Dude, we have to get Paper Back back home and help you. We have to find a way. We can totally freaking do this." He magicked open the door, turned on his computer, did some stuff with the sound equipment I didn't understand, and sat down in front of the microphone.

"Ok, everyone out," he said. "I've got a special episode to make. Not even going to edit this, so I have to get it right the first time."

We shut the door.

"Ok," I said. "We can try checking her Wikipedia page. If we can find out what city she lives in, maybe we can check the phonebook and see if she's in it."

"Usually those numbers are unlisted, but it's worth a shot," Erin said."

"I'll go on the pony forums and see if anyone knows where they might be!" Brittney said. "Some of the fans can be a little scary."

"Ok, let's go," I said. Through the door, I could hear Alan starting his recording.

"Hello, Spookbusters. You are not going to believe what happened to me..."