“I’m still standing,” I sang out loud, my just barely off-key voice rattling off the porcelain walls of the rehab area, “Here in my underwear! I’m still standing, can be most anywhere…” I let my happy warble trail off, as my eyes saw poor Long Strides cringing on the floor, her ears flattened back against her head, with her hooves jammed in them as if trying to block out my song of triumph. Which is ridiculous of course, as I have a pretty good singing voice.

“What in the name of Tartarus was THAT?” Long Strides asked, getting up and worrying a bit of wax out of her ears. As silence returned to the room she cracked open one eye to look at me warily, removing her hooves from her ears one at a time.

“It is the song of my people,” I said, with a wide, wide smile as I stood there looking at her.

I knew I was being silly, but for the first time since I got to this wacky land of horses I was actually standing under my own power. I looked down at where the straps of the support harness lay slack on the floor around my hooves and felt like doing a jig. A second later I mentally shrugged my shoulders and broke out into a little side step. At which point the universe reminded me I was mortal by neatly tangling up my hooves and sending me crashing to the floor.

I laughed. After the stresses of the past while it felt good, so I laughed some more and then a completely hilarious thought hit me and so I kept laughing until Long Strides came over to look down at me, concern on her muzzle.

“You okay, down there?” she asked. “You break something? Land on a vial of Poison Joke I didn’t see earlier?”

“No...ha ha. I just… heh… realized something,” I giggled out, trying and failing to stop my laughter. “I really DO have two left feet!”

“Um, yah,” Long Strides said, puzzled. “Everypony does, and two right ones as well.” That just made me laugh all the harder until I ran out of breath minutes later and had to stop.

“You done now?” Long Strides asked, having realized that I wasn’t in distress, just crazy, at least by her standards.

“Ya,” I said, drawing in a deep breath and smiling. “Help me up?”

“That’s my job,” Long Strides said, bending down and scooping me up to my feet, er hooves. “How are you feeling? Shaky?” I pushed my awareness down into my body. There were more random twitches then I would like, but I was holding.

“A little twitchy,” I admitted. “But it feels good to be up and moving again.”

“I bet,” Long Strides said, and she started buckling the support harness around me again.

“Hey! What gives?” I asked. I thought about trying to stop the therapy mare, but by now I trusted her pretty much completely with my body. Particularly after the fourth or fifth “Involuntary Reaction” of my lower extremities to her touch. So, I just stood there while she wrapped straps around my torso.

“James, you are a good patient, and from what I’ve seen, a good pony,” Strides said as she hooked up the completed harness to the framework overhead, “but you are a terrible liar. I can feel the tremors going down your hips and thighs. You are making huge leaps forward in your therapy, but if you try to push too hard you are going to wind up hurting yourself.”

She hit a button and the hoist attached to the frame pulled upwards drawing me with it. Long Strides had a fine touch with the mechanism though, so instead of pulling me up into the air, the winch instead took some of the weight of my body off of my hooves. I quirked an eyebrow toward Long Strides.

“So, am I walking or not?” I asked, testing just how much power I could put against the ground.

“Oh, you’re walking,” Strides said, walking over toward a treadmill. “You’re walking right over here where your going to spend the rest of the day walking, with support.” I gulped at how much walking that was and made my way over to the treadmill, gingerly stepping on.

Over the next five hours I learned something new about my physiotherapist. She had a sadistic streak that she had kept hidden from me. It was the only explanation I could think of for why she kept pushing me. Okay, to be honest she didn’t have me walking for the entire five hours. Her job was to make me better after all, and that doesn’t really work if you have your patient walk themselves to death.

No, she had me in a routine. Ten minutes of walking, followed by two minutes of rest where I was allowed to either just stand in place or pull up my legs and hang in the harness. Every third break Long Strides would stick a water bottle in my mouth that had some sort of terrible tasting mixture of water and electrolytes. Sometimes the treadmill would tilt to simulate walking up or downhill and I would have to adjust my stride to match.

She didn’t even let me off that treadmill for lunch or for the bathroom. When I had to take a leak she held a urinal up to my bits and told me to let fly. When lunch came around, the mare strapped an actual feedbag to my muzzle and told me to keep walking while I ate. I had no choice but to continue labouring under the urgings of my cruel taskmistress, plodding forward one tragic step at a time. All Long Strides needed was a whip to make the image complete.

Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but to be honest, I think she would have had me walking until I fell asleep in the harness and kept me going even in my sleep. As we started into hour six though, the day’s labour finally caught up with me and I tripped, stumbled and would have fallen flat on my face if it hadn’t been for the harness wrapped around my body.

Long Strides was at my side in about half a second, shutting off the treadmill and making sure I hadn’t actually hurt myself. As the treadmill beneath me rolled to a stop, she winched me fully into the air and swung me over to a padded table that she lowered me down onto. Once I was safely down she started rubbing my whole body down with damp towels that both cooled me and swept away the sweat I’d built up.

Once all that was done, she started into a deep massage that started at my back end and worked all the way forward to my nose. I was a barely conscious pony puddle by the time Long Strides was done, adrift on a cloud of the endorphins brought on by the ministrations of the rehab pony.

“Is he ready to see me?” my ears twitched toward a voice that sounded familiar to my lazy thought processes, and a moment later the misshapen face of Discord appeared in my vision. “How you doing there, James?”

“You,” I tried to shout at the draconequus in an angry voice. “You shcrewed up my collar, made me wanna lump ev’ry mare I came across. Mmade me ‘barrassed in fronna prinshesses. You farging icehole.” All that came from the one tiny corner of my mind that was still functioning, and I even tried to take a swing at Discord, but there was just too much inertia from the completely relaxed parts of me and all I did was wave a hoof feebly.

“Wow, he really is mad,” Discord said, looking over at Long Strides. “I’m sort of glad I let you convince me to wait until now.”

“You shet me up,” I slurred at Long Strides, before taking a gulping breath. “You know that son of a beach almosh wrecked me and Derps.”

“I know,” Long Strides said, drawing a groan of pleasure from me as she rubbed an area near where my neck and spine joined. “Discord wanted to apologize and I figured it would be best if you were relaxed first.”

Any ongoing resentment I had toward Discord was drowned by whatever the hell it was Long Strides was doing to my nerves, and I made a mental note, in crayon, to never get romantically involved with the deceptively strong mare. If this is what she could do to me with a simple massage I’d never survive actually sleeping with her. I however, am a pony of iron determination, and I fought off the evil massage long enough to express my displeasure with eloquence.

“Glerg,” I said, fixing my single open eye on Discord, by which I meant “Go ahead.” Discord must have been fluent in relaxed mumble as he figured out my meaning easily.

“Look James, I’m sorry, “ Discord said, grinning down at me. “I never meant for the side effects to get this bad, and I’m already working on a replacement collar for you. If you’re wondering what happened, basically some of the spells in the collar interacted with each other, including the compulsion for you not to take it off.”

Long Strides stopped massaging me when she heard that, and fixed Discord with a death glare that could have fried bacon at planetary ranges.

“What exactly have you done to my patient?” she asked with a growl. “Explain yourself.”

“Heh,” I mumbled, just barely above sleep. “Kick his ash.” Knowing I was in good hooves, I let my open eye close and I start drifting off on the wonderful cloud Long Strides had made for me.

“I had to do something to keep him from trying to take it off, “ I heard Discord say in a frantic voice as I floated toward sleep. “If he takes his collar off anywhere other than Earth, he might not ever be able to be human again.” Which was the last thing I heard before I fell into the deep, dreamless sleep of the physically exhausted.

The next morning I woke up and walked slowly down to the hospital cafeteria for breakfast. Yup, I walked under my own power, and despite the previous day’s exertion I wasn’t sore in the slightest, which I put down to the expert massage Long Strides had given me afterwards.

“You owe me a couple of questions,” Lyra said, plopping herself down in front of me.

“And good morning to you too, Lyra,” I replied, munching on a piece of toast that I could have filed to a point and stabbed someone with. “How goes the hunt for a place for me?”

“I’ve got it narrowed to just a few places,” Lyra replied, sliding some jam over to me. “Okay, first question. You said humans wore clothes, why?”

“A few reasons,” I replied slathering some jam on the dead bread absently. I was missing something. I just couldn’t put my hoof on it. “The main thing is humans don’t have fur, so we need the clothing for temperature regulation, because of that humans don’t like being naked in general.”

“Huh, interesting,” Lyra said, making a few notes. “What about purely ornamental stuff, like collars?” She gestured toward the black band around my throat, and as she did it was like someone had flipped a switch that lit up a dark room in my head. Everything that had happened last night just before I fell asleep leaped into my mind, including the last words Discord had said. I stood up and jogged from the room.

“Hey, wait up,” Lyra said, pounding up behind me, easily faster than my current best speed. “What’s wrong?”

“Ornamental stuff is up to personal preference,” I said, turning toward the physio room. “Sorry to run and answer but I just remembered something super important.”

“Um, okay,” Lyra said, clearly confused. “See you at lunch?”

“Come find me,” I said, calling back to her just before I went into the therapy area. Long Strides was already there getting ready to start her day, some paperwork in front of her. She looked up as I came barrelling wide-eyed through the doorway, and held up a hoof.

“Stop, before you trip and fall,” she said, in a voice both meant to calm and command. “Discord explained everything after you fell asleep. Have a seat and I’ll tell you what he said.”

“I was right,” I said to her, plopping my butt on an exercise mat, “There is some sort of mind control whammy in the collar, isn’t there.” I trusted Long Strides, but it was all I could do not to be jumping up and down right then.

“Yes and no,” Long Strides said, holding up a hoof to forestall any questions. “Along with all the other spells on it, Discord put in a compulsion to keep you from fiddling with it and accidentally taking it off.”

“Why?” I asked. Sometimes the simplest questions were the best.

“Discord explained to me some of how the transformation part of the collar works,” Long Strides said, and I could see her looking into her memories. “The collar doesn’t so much transform you, as replace your body with a stored template.”

“So, what you’re saying is my original human body is stored in the collar?” I asked, touching the collar gently.

“As a template,” Long Strides said. “So right now, you are a pony. Who can be a human, but if you took the collar off right now, the template of the human ‘James Allens,’ would be erased from the collar forever.”

“And I’d be stuck as a pony,” I said, trailing off. “That’s a stupid design. Why did he make it that way?

“Because he figured that riveting or welding the collar around somepony’s neck would make them freak out,” Long Strides said bluntly.

“Yah, that would do it,” I replied pensively. “Can I ever take the collar off safely?”

“Back on your Earth,” Long Strides said, coming over to sit beside me, “And also any place that has enough magical energy to keep the collar going even if it isn’t on you. I only know of two places like that in Equestria.”

“And those are?” I asked, prompting.

“Twilight Sparkles’ work room,” Long Strides said, “and Princess Celestia’s solarium. Other than that, never take the collar off except when you’re home. Got it?”

“Got it,” I replied, seriously. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

“Lots more treadmill work,” Long Strides said with an evil grin.

“Ugh,” I groaned back in response. “So yesterday wasn’t to tire me out so I wouldn’t punch Discord?”

“Oh, it was that as well,” Strides said, gathering up her paperwork. “But what we are doing here is building muscle memory, making the motions of pony movement automatic for you. We’re also building up your endurance, because to be perfectly honest a five hour walk should be nothing for an earth pony, but you were all but out on your hooves at the end.”

“Pretty bad, huh?” I asked, chagrined at my weakness as I moved over to the treadmill.

“For an adult pony?” Strides asked rhetorically, as she buckled the workout harness around me. “Yah, it was pretty bad, but for a pony literally just getting his hooves under him for the first time, it was pretty damn good. Don’t let that go to your head though, because with the way I’ve been seeing you improve I’ll be making things harder each day.”

“So, walking isn’t good enough for you, eh?” I asked, flashing her an intentionally cocky grin. “Oh the cruel demands I slave under.”

“You want I should bring your Matriarch in to kick your butt?” Long Strides asked as she started the machine up at a slow walking pace that I knew would be speeding up soon.

“You know about all that?” I asked, concentrating on keeping my movements smooth and uniform.

“It isn’t everyday somepony gets adopted into the Lunar Herd,” Strides said, grinning. “The proclamations went out while you were on the treadmill yesterday. Don’t be surprised if you get a lot of ponies coming up to you asking for things once you get out of hospital.”

“Ya, right,” I mocked, finding my rhythm. “Luna just looks in on me because I’m new and a little weird. I don’t have any influence over her at all, and I don’t want any either.”

“You know that, I know that, the Princess knows that,” Long Strides said. “But all the little climbers and socialites are still going to see you as a way to get their agenda in front of a princess.”

“Well, the only agenda I’m working on is getting up to speed,” I said. “Speaking of speed, are we staying at a walk today? Because, if we are I’d love to get some music in here.”

“Some music would be a good idea,” Long Strides said, nodding. “Because today we are going to try to move you up to a trot, which is the ‘working’ gait of a pony. It’s our most efficient moving pace and even a unicorn can keep one up for hours. An earth pony, properly channeling their magic, can literally trot any other land animal in Equestria into the ground.”

“Damn,” I said, impressed. “Humans have a similar advantage on Earth.”

“Really?” Long Strides asked, looking at me with a bit of skepticism. “From what I’ve heard your native species only has two legs. How could you possibly outrun anything?”

“Speed-wise humans aren’t all that fast,” I admitted, with a little wounded pride for humanity. “But we can outlast just about anything because we can dissipate the heat we generate better than just about anything else.”

“Really,” Long Strides said, putting a hoof to her chin. “Makes sense though. If you can keep cool you could just keep going until you ran out of energy. Anyway, looks like you’re warmed up. Ready to kick it up a notch?”

“Bring it,” I said, and slowly the speed built up on the treadmill. I started walking faster and faster until something in my body shifted. I seemed to stand up a little taller and my body shifted to a new pace. For three whole strides, after which I tangled myself up completely and went sprawling. The harness again the only thing saving me from a face plant.

Long Strides scooped me up, got me back on my feet and explained what happened. A trot isn’t a fast walk, it’s a completely different way of moving the legs. I spent about an hour with her learning how to move my legs in diagonal pairs instead of one at a time. Even then there were several false starts with me tripping over myself as I moved from walk to trot, but after awhile I had it down and I was trotting along like a champ.

“So, about the music?” I asked, my head bouncing back and forth with my body’s motions. “Something a little peppy might be nice.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Strides said, getting up from where she had been intently watching my legs. “You okay on your own for a bit?”

“Go,” I said, with a laugh. “I could do this all day, which is good because I probably am.” Long Strides laughed at that, left the room and came back about twenty minutes later. She was dragging a charcoal grey pony in her wake who screamed “sophisticated” with her every motion. She wasn’t drop dead gorgeous, but she was elegant as hell.

“Hello Brother,” the mare said to me, with an English accent and pulling a cello of all things off of her back. “Long Strides has asked me to play for you during your exercise session, and as I require hours of practice each day I was more than willing to acquiesce to her request. However, I must ask if you have any objections.”

“Definitely not, Ma’am,” I said to the mare, still trying to get used to the posh atmosphere that seemed to surround her like a cloud. “I’m desperate for any sort of diversion, especially as I’m going to be stuck here for several hours. Consider me something of a captive audience as it were.”

“Very well, Brother,” the mare said. “Any requests?”

“I don’t know cello music well enough,” I said, shrugging a bit and then having to recover as the motion threw my stride off. “Whatever you think is best Ma’am.”

“I am Octavia Melody,” the mare said, settling herself and her instrument into position. “You may call me Octavia or ‘Sister’ as you prefer.”

“Sister?” I asked, taking a sip of water.

“Princess Luna is a patron of the arts,” Octavia said, making a few experimental draws of her bow along the strings. “I have had the honour of being a member of the Lunar Herd for some few years now. Now, I will thank you to not speak further unless you need to.”

There was no way I was going to argue with that, so I closed my mouth and concentrated on trotting. A moment later, the room was filled with an incredible wave of sound that seemed to lend colour to everything. Despite wanting to simply concentrate on my form, the music invaded my brain through my ears, and set up shop behind my eyes.

No longer was I stuck on a treadmill, in a room, in a hospital. Instead I was on a gentle trot through the countryside, the scenery moving effortlessly past me as I clip-clopped along. That went on for awhile, and the music picked up a notch as I climbed an imaginary hill, picking my way up its steep trail. Then down the opposite side, as my trotting moved between quick fast steps and slow powerful ones.

As I traveled along I was greeted with birdsong and the occasional small dog who zipped along with me. At one point there was even a small shower that I moved on through, the pitter-pat of the raindrops clearly sounding against my ears and coat. It was a wonderful, glorious experience. The imagery of which was provided solely by the power of a single instrument in the hooves of a mare who was truly gifted.

“I’ve never heard better music in my life,” I told Octavia as the final notes echoed away.

“Hey, no stopping,” Long Strides said, wacking me lightly on the butt as a reminder that I still had a few hours to go. “But James is right. That was really something. Thank you, Octavia.”

“It was my pleasure,” Octavia said, nodding in acknowledgement of our praise. “Same time tomorrow?” Long Strides and I both nodded enthusiastically. Octavia just smiled and packed up her instrument, while Long Strides busied herself putting together a feedbag for me. Without the distraction of Octavia’s music my stomach was reminding me that I had missed lunch.

“YOU!” Lyra shouted as she pushed passed a leaving Octavia to enter the room. “You were supposed to meet me for your questions in the lunchroom.” Long Strides froze, her mind clearly locked up trying to process the sudden jarring interruption after the hours of blissful peace Octavia had given us.

“Lyra,” I said, keeping up my trotting on the treadmill. “I told you to come find me, remember? And as you can see, I’m a little tied up at the moment.” I nodded to the safety harness that was strapped to me, and it seemed to break Long Strides out of her paralysis.

“Not to mention my patient needs his food,” she said, approaching me with the feedbag as she scowled at Lyra, who had the grace to look embarrassed.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Lyra said, backing up a couple of paces, her ears flattening and her eyes downcast. “I’m really sorry, but it’s important that I talk to James. If I promise to wait quietly until after he’s eaten can I stay?” Long Strides tilted her head at me in a silent question and I nodded my permission with a roll of my eyes.

“Fine,” Long Strides said, still not very pleased. “You stand silently in the corner until I say you can come out and talk to James. Remember this, I have plenty of medical tape in this room. I hear so much as a peep and I’ll muzzle you for a week. Got it?” Lyra was not a foolish mare and recognized a threat when she heard one. Wisely she didn’t say anything, simply turning herself so that she stood face first in the corner.

“Smart mare,” Long Strides said, turning back to me and strapping the feedbag to my own muzzle. “As for you, eat up. We’re barely halfway through today’s session and you need the energy.”

She was right, and whatever Long Strides had put in my feedbag had my mouth watering from the scent alone as I set to with a will. Oats and carrot slices greeted my tongue, followed by raisins for sweetness, as well as something small and hard that burst in a small explosion of spice when I bit down on it. When I tried to thank Long Strides for the food she gave me another light swat on the rump and told me to concentrate on what I was doing. After food, a long drink and another application of the urinal my keeper/jailer/therapist decided Lyra had waited long enough.

“Well, I had really wanted to see what you would have looked like with a muzzle Lyra,” Long Strides said, and I swore there was something more than a chuckle in her voice. “But you’ve kept to the rules so I guess you can come over and talk to James now.”

“Th-Thank you,” Lyra said, moving gingerly to stand beside the treadmill keeping as much distance as she could between herself and Long Strides, who idly started going through a box labelled “Tape” and making wistful sighs.

“What’s up, Lyra?” I asked, keeping my pace. Again Long Strides was proved right in what she had told me about ponies. I’d been at this for hours and I was barely feeling the strain. More, I could feel the food I had just eaten giving me fresh energy and pushing me onwards.

“Hi James. Anyway, a couple of things,” Lyra said, trying to focus on me. “First off, I may have found you a house. It’s a one year lease with an option to buy afterwards. The place is a little run down, but it’s super cheap. You can easily afford it on what Discord is paying you.”

“Great, what’s the catch?” I asked, smiling. “There’s always a catch with these things.”

“Wellll,” Lyra said, drawing out the word. “The place is run-down because no one wants to live there. You see, it’s right next door to Derpy’s place.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked, a wide smile splitting my face. “That’s perfect!”

“Hey, watch your pacing,” Long Strides interrupted. “Come on. One, two. One, two.” I am not a foolish stallion. I stopped talking for a minute and concentrated on keeping my legs moving in the smooth trotting rhythm they had been doing all day, while Lyra wisely waited until Long Strides gave her a nod before continuing the conversation.

“Well, you wouldn’t know it, but Derpy has something of a reputation for collisions,” Lyra said, grimacing. “The house in question has been an accidental landing pad for her more than a couple of times.”

“Don’t care,” I said, determined to have a place near my friend. “Start negotiating with the owner.”

“Right,” Lyra said, nodding. “Okay, now for my questions. First question: Are humans meat eaters or vegetarians?”

“Neither,” I said, drawing amusement from the look on Lyra’s face as I said that. “Humans are omnivores. We do best on a mixed diet of meats and non-meat foods.”

“Okay, that takes me to one of my contingency questions,” Lyra said, screwing up her face in disgust. “On Earth, do humans eat ponies?” I was so surprised at the question I nearly stopped cold. As it was I screwed up my rhythm for several strides and I had to fight to bring it back under control, earning both of us scowls from Long Strides.

“Okay, first off you have to understand one thing,” I said, once everything was back on an even keel. “On Earth, humans are the only sentient species. We are quite literally alone in a world of unthinking, unspeaking animals. So yes, some humans do eat our version of ponies, which are tall, beautiful animals called horses.” Both Lyra and Long Strides faces moved in interesting ways after I said that.

“James,” Long Strides said, her face unreadable. “Do yourself a favor. Never refer to ponies as whorses… in any context, ever again. Got it?”

“Um, sure,” I said, knowing I was missing something but not wanting to piss anyone off. “Um, yah. So, most… equines are used as riding animals or beasts of burden. Very rarely are they eaten, and before you ask. No, I have not eaten equine.” Lyra let out a breath at that.

“Okay, I’ll start talking to the owner of that house, and let you know how it goes,” Lyra said, taking her leave. Not before Long Strides tagged Lyra’s back with a piece of medical tape without her noticing.

“Okay,” she said, smiling at me. “Let’s keep going. I have some paperwork to deal with.”

“Right,” I said, bearing down and the next few hours flowed by in the mindless tedium of trotting. The sun was sinking down by the horizon when the treadmill finally began to slow to a walk and then a stop. Long Strides unstrapped me, got me to a shower stall and proceeded to wash me down.

“How do you feel?” she asked, as she started toweling me down. “Any weakness, sore spots or other problems?”

“No, I feel pretty good actually,” I replied, just before my stomach rumbled loudly. “Other than the fact that I could really go for something to eat.” Long Strides cocked an eyebrow skeptically before running a hoof down each of my legs, paying special attention to each of the big muscles there.

“Well, I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t feeling it with my own hooves,” the therapy mare said, “but as near as I can tell, your nerves and muscles are firing in perfect sync now. Other than your lack of experience you are almost identical to a native born Equestrian.”

“HOT DAMN!” I yelled out, wrapping both my forelegs around Long Strides in a big hug. “Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I had a good patient,” she said, smiling back. “I’d still like to see you for a few more days on an outpatient basis, but I’m willing to discharge you from hospital right now.”

“That’s awesome,” I said, smiling, but then my face fell as I realized something. “Wait, there’s one problem. I have no place to live yet.”

“Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about that,” came Discord’s deep voice from behind us.

“Hi boss,” I said. I was still ticked at my employer, but he had apologized and I could understand why he had put the compulsion on the collar. So I decided not to hold a grudge. “You’re not thinking I can stay with you tonight, are you?”

“Jimmy, my boy,” Discord said, wrapping an arm around me. “You have more options than you think. Derpy at the least would offer you her couch if you asked. Luna made you a member of her extended family and that means you could even ask for a place to sleep at the palace. Finally, I made some sleeping quarters at the office, for my employees.”

“Um, so I’m definitely being discharged?” I asked Long Strides, who signed a last piece of paperwork with a flourish.

“Yup, as of right now,” Long Strides said, before holding up a hoof. “However, I refuse to clear you for work tomorrow.”

“What?” Discord said, rounding on the therapy mare. “I need to get him on the job as soon as possible. Besides, tomorrow will be a milk run. Easy peasy, no surprises.”

“Discord, three days ago this stallion was bedridden,” Long Strides said, a small growl in her voice. “Two days ago he couldn’t walk, and today was the first time he trotted. His progress has been nothing short of a miracle, and I refuse to jeopardize it by letting him push himself beyond what he is ready for.” Discord stomped back and forth for a minute, muttering darkly before turning back to me and Long Strides.

“Fine,” Discord said, clearly not pleased but also not willing to push things too far. “It took awhile to find someone like Jimmy, I guess I can wait a bit longer. When do you think he will be ready?”

“You’re being awfully reasonable about this, Discord. Not like your reputation at all,” Long Strides said, cocking a Spock-like eyebrow at my boss. “But… if there are no complications, and he progresses like he has… You can have him the day after tomorrow.”

“THANK YOU!” Discord exclaimed, sweeping Long Strides up into a huge hug. “If I don’t get some deliveries made soon, I’ll have to disappoint Fluttershy. I really don’t want to disappoint Fluttershy.”

“As long as James is able to handle a canter and a gallop as well as he handled the other two gaits, I won’t have a problem signing off on his status,” Long Strides said. “Just take care of him, okay?”

“Thank you,” I said, interrupting Discord before he could say anything else as I hugged Long Strides hard. “You got me back up and running again, and I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”

“Just take care of yourself,” Long Strides said, smiling with her entire body. “Now shoo, and I’ll see you tomorrow bright and early.”

Author's Note

And so we come to the end of the first section of the story. The next few chapters will concentrate mainly on James' first few delivery runs. I have 3 particular places for him to make deliveries initially, if anyone has any suggestions I'm willing to hear them.

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