Our Town (a tf/tg clop)

"We were looking everywhere for you!" my mother's voice, curt and sharp with anger. My father looks upset and exhausted.

"I was just-" I reply feebly. We had been out in the mall, and I swear I had only looked at the shop a second and then they hadn't been there. I was upset. It was so unfair that they were mad at me. The fact that this trip to the mall had been meant to be fun (had been fun) meant less than nothing - the contrast stung me to a sullen hot tearfulness.

"Why didn't you follow? Don't you know how much trouble you've caused?!" she says, pulling me along. I look up at her, her large adult hand engulfing mine. I glance through blearily eyes at my father, but he either looks away or looks ahead. (It doesn't matter.) My childish psyche has learned that these are not real questions so I delay the moment when she follows up:

"Well?" she says. I shrink from her anger.

I shudder awake. Gone are my parents' faces and gone the childish scenario. As the dusk had fallen I had found shelter under a boulder in the dusty desert. I bless my pony body for its hardiness to the elements - as a human I couldn't have slept outside. As a pony it was effortless so long as it wasn't too cold/hot/wet.

There is nopony here. My heart feels lower than it had done since I had been captured. It is not just that there was no water in this accursed place - I had no plan, no instinct to find anything of any sustenance at all. I remembered a time only months before when I could do these things, but my talent - the thing I had felt was most me had been lost. Everything I had earned, through struggle, since coming to this awful horse-run place had been lost.

I was lost.

I scanned the horizon. I was not so sure that the direction I had to travel was in front of me. Was it behind? My hoof-steps trailed behind me, but what if I had been going in circles? The sun shone hotly on my bright pink (fuchsia) body.

That body was one of the reasons that some nasty ponies had laughed at my aspiration to be an explorer. Pink ponies were fun, fertile femme-ponies. Stallions would fight for a pink pony, I was told. I couldn't help think at the time that the other explorer ponies were sandy colours with grey manes, none - not one - looked like me. They were also mainly stallions. When I showed them - when I was accepted... it was an amazing feeling.

I trotted away from my hoof-steps, reasoning that I must have known where I was going. The sun rose. The dirt kicked up behind my hind hooves. The dust coated my forehooves. The dust tickled my underbelly and the protusions which I reluctantly acknowledged were... teats. The dust even crept into the place I refuse to think about.

The sun climbed higher and I became acutely aware that my mouth was dry. If I was not in this body I would have been despairing, but my body knew better than my human psyche what it was capable of. This body would continue towards water for miles and miles until it dropped.

I was never a horse lover in my human life. I grew up in a city. Horses were a thing countryfolk enjoyed. They went on hunts. They drew pictures of their dogs, but they included pictures of horses leaping over fences and chasing after the dogs, bearing their human riders who wore special clothes: red and white, broken up by the black of their boots, and the sparkly silver of their spurs and whips. It all seemed rather irrelevant. The ponies here were nothing like them of course. These ponies were rather like the dogs that children enjoyed. Not many people knew (I loved dogs so I did) that the cute doggies were all taken from the working doggies, many of whom hunted alongside the horses. These dogs nipped and ripped and hung onto the prey, as they had done since the wolves which they had been adopted from had done the same. Apparently tribes of humans had tamed them when they had come for scraps from the, more successful, human hunters. Eventually the wolves and the primitive humans had accepted each other into their lives - both trusted the other, and both died together. Horses were not quite in the same category as doggies it seemed - but many horse skeletons appeared in graves of early humans too.

As my mind wandered, it was kinda wont to do that, I saw a settlement in the distance, but it was obscured by the heat rays from a midday sun.

The wonderful sight of pegasi stallion flapping about in the sky and the promise of water and food was almost too much to bear. My thigh, tattooed by its Mark, jolted with joy.

I waved to the pegasi happily. Ponies were a happy race. Whenever I sighted a pony settlement it had always been a joy. They would set me right and they would make sure I got back to the royal Court and to the only ponies in this place who understood me. Maybe with all their magic the Princesses of this strange kingdom, with their scientists, would find a way to return me to my True Home.

The pegasi approached, slowly. Pegasi usually flew fast - they loved the feel of the wind in their feathers normally, and their talents reflected the connection with the sky - always rain, clouds and citrus (a metaphor for freshness I had been told). I ignored the feeling of dread. This couldn't be our Town. I had walked away from my hoof-steps. If I had my Talent then I would be surer, but losing a Cutie Mark couldn't rob you of your memories. I can't have been wrong?

The pegasi dropped to the floor and trotted towards me. Dust covered their coats. One was a mare with a dusty black coat and striking white mane. The other was a dusty red colour pegasus with a darker mane.

They both stopped and looked at me rather blankly.

"Hail!" I called them, trying to work out if they were friend or foe.

"Hail stranger. Are you lost?" the mare asked kindly.

"No, but I was looking for a friendly pony town." I emphasised friendlily - hoping to subtly indicate that their neighbour town was anything but friendly. I scrutinised their response closely, ready to flee if they turned out to be in league with Our Town.

"Don't worry. We're friendly." the stallion said. The mare gave him a cold look.

"You must be talking of the weirdo town over to our East." the mare continued. "Yeah. They're loopy there. Don't worry our village elder is sending an official dispatch to Celestia about the crazy bitch that leads them."

I sighed with relief. "You know the elder?" I asked.

"Of course! Everypony knows her. Even the Dogs know her!" she shakes her head. "She's the meanest bitch in the desert. If you met her... I hope you're ok." She trots by me side and puts a comforting wing over my back.

I try to blink back my tears. It had been so long since I had felt genuine friendship. "Ye---- no." I choked. "I don't want to talk about it."

"It's ok mare. Us ponies never leave a mare behind." she said friendlily. She made a sign to her friend which I didn't understand and he flew off.

"Here have a drink, you must be parched." the black pegasus took out a canteen from a saddlebag and hoofed it to me.

I took an eager glug of the drink.

"So tell me how come you're all the way out here. Sweet thing like you." she smirked.

I rolled my eyes. How many times had I heard that.

"I travel all over Equestria. That means I have seen all sorts of magic that ponies don't understand." I said - ok I admit I was trying to impress her.

"Oooh really?" she said. "Did uh the magic say anything else? I mean this desert is boring as Cerberus on a hot day." she chuckles, unimpressed.

I smirked beside myself, my spirits lifted by her attitude and my adjusted situation. "Yes!" I shook my head at her behaviour, "It said that I would find myself here." I said. When the magic had 'said' it, it had sounded more impressive. Still all the best ponies in the land had consulted the Magic - the Harmony, they called it - and they said it only brought Good.

"Wow. Weren't you already... uh back home." she said. It was a throw away comment but in that moment it felt as if the world melted away. I had a home. I had lost it. This world had given me a mark that made me seek an identity... an identity that existed... back home. Back on earth.

I didn't have too long to reflect on my revelation. The village buildings emerged in front of me. Something about them looked familiarish, but I couldn't tell. My reflections were interrupted by a green coloured mare, "You look shattered! Come stay on our beds... I'm afraid they aren't very comfortable." the mare, who is rather cute :p, says apologetically.

"That's nice of you, but I must get back home - er to Canterlot." I complained, but I did feel suddenly incredibly tired - perhaps the emotional experience of the last week had taken it out of me?

"Oh darling that's too bad! Well the train is out at the next station but you might make it to the station after next." she says. "It's five miles away." she adds as an after-thought.

I couldn't face that. I knew it was folly but I had to rest - if only for a few hours - before I set off. "Ok. How much."

For some reason this question put her off. "You mean... bits?" the mare asked.

"Of course." I replied, a little suspiciously.

"Oh it' um 10 bits?" she replied, her eyes had lost their mirth and she was looking dead on at me, rather eerily.

"Uh..." where had I felt this feeling before? I shook my head, dispelling a funk that had seemed to fall on me since the pegasus had been sighted before. I grab the mare by her throat. "What is this town called?" I screech angrily, furious at the high pitch of my mare voice.

The mare smirks. "Surely you remember Our Town." I scream and try to clamp down on the mare's neck. A magical haze grasps me, one that is familiar - Starlight Glimmer!

I feel sick to my stomach and try to race away. My hooves try to strike the ground, but the magic, which starts from my cutie mark - the treacherous two lined tattoo on my hind quarters, the sign of a horse to be used by her master - soon blinks me elsewhere.

My hooves clatter on dark damp, clattering rock. Darkness surrounds me.

"Fuchsia! That was so entertaining!" comes the hated voice of Starlight Glimmer from somewhere. "My friends here don't understand a good story." she continues.

It is dark and I am utterly terrified. I don't know where to run. A wetness on my face reveals I am crying. A keening reverberation from the crystal reveals that I am screaming.

"It is so good to hurt somepony that understands what hurt is." Starlight says, as if she is satisfied.

I stop screaming. Maybe I stop crying. Anyway I bolt. Humiliatingly I hit the wall. The cave is pitch black. I don't know how to escape!

"I can understand why you wanted to leave here Anon." she puts deadly emphasis into my real name. She couldn't know that.

The pink lavender face appears in front of me. It offers a hoof of friendship. I see the shimmer of crystal and turn away. The visage screeches in manic laughter as I do so.

"You think you belong somewhere else." she spits. "You don't think I have been there too!?" she howls. "You found nothing here, just as you found nothing on Earth!"

I was too stunned to even respond. Celestia and Luna, even Twi, had never been so candid.

"But when my place rejected me I didn't cling on. I built something new!" she adds.

The clopping of pink hooves brings the mare herself into view. Her magic lights up the crystal of the cave. I can see her eyes are sparkling with tears.

I lunge at the hated figure. Her horn sparkles for a second. Usually the unicorns here struggle to hold even a plant pot in their magical field. Starlight took me off the ground with barely a thought. She didn't even pause in conversation D:

"The village!" she explains. "Most ponies are slaves to their destinies." she says. I roll my eyes - I had heard that propaganda every day in the nursery before I met Party Favour.

She pushes her nose up to me, the look in her eyes coldly, I get the horrible thought that she might be able to read thoughts. "I free them from that." she says. "You know about that Anon! Because you are from a place where there are no Ponies." she places her muzzle up to mine, her lips unwantedly seek mine - "A place of freedom." she sighs.

She places a hoof in the place I have lost. "Instead you chose this place." she closes her hoof painfully between my legs, nipping whatever was there.

She cackles with glee. "The Princess of this place is called Twilight Sparkle." she says. "You know that don't you?" she asks.

I nod. Of course.

"She hates the mare you have become." she says.

I scoff. "Twilight is the only real friend I have here!" I shout. "You are nothing next to her, and she will come for you!" It felt good to tell her.

Starlight only chuckles as my hoofsies struggle in her magic. "No, little Fuchsia. She does not despise what you were, but what you became. You became a whore. A silly pink whorse." she reaches between my legs again - somewhere where my cock would have been as a human - and despite myself her touch excites something in me.

"The magic of this place has its strange ironies." she says, gently touching my sensitive 'cock' with a hoof tingling with magical energy. Nopony had every stroked there. Not Party, or Double Diamond... It might sound stupid, but I didn't know that a girl's private place could be touched... like that.

"We ponies have different destinies. I was intended to pursue magic, as was that fool you call Princess." she says. "Only I chose what magic really is... freedom." she says hoof closing painfully between my legs - I scream. The last thing I see is her horn blazing purple fire in the damp crystal dark...