An Excerpt from the Dream Journal of Scarlet Letter:

I'm twelve again. I'm twelve again and everything feels incorrect.

I tell myself this is all just a phase. Every filly hates their body. I'm internalizing what I've read in books, right? Colts must feel awkward too. I'm normal. I'm perfectly normal. I say it over and over like a mantra, to convince myself not to speak up. If I'm normal then if I say anything, then I'm just taking attention away from ponies who really need it. So I'm normal. That's how it is.

But it never feels correct.

I look at myself in a mirror and I see little things wrong. The mane, too short, too boyish. The way my voice sounds when I say 'hello'. My face.

What's wrong with my face?

As I'm watching the mirror I'm growing older.Hair sprouts where it shouldn't be, I've got scruff around my chin, my voice is turning into a deep bleat. I'm backing away, trying to ask it to stop, but it won't. My mane's turning salt and pepper gray like my father's, I'm seeing wisps of that grayness through me. My face is still so wrong.

What is wrong with my face?

I start crying. It sounds hideous. It's wrong. Fillies don't cry like that. Dad says colts don't cry. I shouldn't cry.

But my face is so wrong.

Everything in that mirror is so wrong.

I smash it. I use my hooves, like my Dad says farmers do when they bring in their fruit harvest. I see shards of glass hovering through the air around me. Every single one reflects my face back, reflects what I am.

I scream.

Scarlet woke up screaming.

Her hooves went to her face and began touching, pushing, trying to make sure it was still there. There was no scruff around her chin, no bulge near her throat. Her mane was the same disorganized mess she had left before. Everything was going to be okay. She was still her. She was still fine.

The wrong feeling was still buzzing in her skull but it was okay. It went away now. Sometimes it just went away. And sometimes when she had these nightmares it lingered in her skull, hunched over and breathing at her.

She blinked and focused. First things: establish place. Establish time. This was a small, very white place. There were curtains. Alright, not in the Society anymore then. When most of your facility is underground, you don't tend to maintain curtains in your comfy rooms. What else? The sheets she had kicked off her bed were a soft, white linen. Celestia above, what was with this room and white?

There was a smell in the air, an alcohol smell, an iodine smell. Disinfectant. She was in a white room that had been disinfected many times over. Which meant hospital. Which, in all likelihood, meant Ponyville General.

The door to the room swung open and Nurse Redheart burst in looking as concerned as Scarlet had ever seen her. "Are you alright? I heard screaming," she panted. A first aid kit hovered in the glow of her magic. Scarlet wondered how far down the hall she had been that it had taken her so long to get here.

"I'm... fine," she answered slowly, looking down at her hooves. "Was a nightmare, that's all."

Nurse Redheart's expression of concerned melted into relief, then evaporated entirely. "I see. Be careful, then, you'll wake half the other patients. These walls aren't very well soundproofed, you know."

Scarlet pulled herself fuzzily to her hooves, sliding off the bed. The ground beneath her still felt unstable, but if she focused she found it was easy enough to walk. "How long was I out?"

"They brought you in late last night. You were shuddering in your sleep, so we gave you a calming potion and left it to run its course. It seems to have worn off." Nurse Redheart sniffed. "And you, young lady, should still be in bed. From what I hear, you broke a mental compulsion spell. I paid enough attention in my classes to know that this is the sort of thing that often caries backlash."

"Mmm." Scarlet bit her lip. It was true. When she had learned how to break compulsion magic, she'd been told as much. The best case scenario for a spell-breaking maneuver like the one she had tried was exhaustion, mental burnout, and nightmares. The worst case scenario is that the spell wasn't cancelled out after your first attempt and you spent days, weeks, months, maybe even the rest of your life fighting its influence. Perique had ended up fine anyway. She hadn't needed to take the risk.

But it had worked out.

Even if she still felt like a pony trapped in a doll when she moved her limbs. It had all worked out.

Nurse Redheart was talking again. Scarlet strained, trying to make sense of a sentence she obviously hadn't processed the first time through. "-k you, I guess, is what I'm trying to say."

"That was... what?" Scarlet blinked. "Sorry. Um. I wasn't there for a minute."

Nurse Redheart rolled her eyes, exasperation bleeding into the air around her. Scarlet shrank back from it automatically. "You need to get your hearing checked. I said that I guess I should say 'thank you'. Floral.. 'Til yesterday, she really thought it was her own fault."

Scarlet breathed a sigh of relief, then flushed red and warm. Had she just received a compliment? From Nurse Redheart? Not even a back-handed one either, a genuine thank-you. It was a good day. She smiled back as naturally as she could manage. "I... thank you too, I guess, then."

"For keeping tabs on you? It's my job. Now you should get back in bed, I want you under observation for a few more hours before anyone in this building even thinks about releasing you."

Scarlet shook her head. "Not for that." She bit her lip. That had come out wrong. "Okay, yes for that, but also thank you for um, what you said before."

"About the report? Please. That was for Floral's benefit, not yours."

"No, um, before that even. When you said I was selfish." Scarlet took a deep breath. "You... you aren't wrong. I am. And I'm sorry about that. I guess I just, I don't know how else to be."

Nurse Redheart sighed, closing her eyes. Scarlet felt agonizing seconds tick by before she replied. "I appreciate that you see how selfish you are, but saying you can't help it is a lame excuse. You have to start trying to be a better person eventually. You can't just hide behind your personality like a shield."

"I know. But I also don't know how to stop." Scarlet bit her lip. "Look...I. What I'm trying to say is I'm selfish, and I might always be selfish, and I don't think I can get rid of that part of me entirely. The best I think I'll ever be able to do is channel it in a way that helps people other than me."

Nurse Redheart was staring at her now. Scarlet felt the floor beginning to fall away again. She shouldn't have said anything. This was a bad idea. She should try to leave now. Yes, run away. Running away was a good idea.

"Next time you have a case that requires you interview a patient, don't lie or I'll get you banned from the hospital. You want a chance for an interview or to get information, you see me first. And you tell the truth. Do you understand me?"

Scarlet blinked in surprise. Was Nurse Redheart volunteering to be an informant?

"I said, do you understand?"

She nodded. Yes. She understood. This was okay. Things had turned out okay.

"Good." Nurse Redheart's exasperation softened. "Incidentally, your marefriend's in the hallway. Should I let her in?"

Scarlet smiled back. "I'd like that."

Nurse Redheart slipped out the door, and Scarlet dragged herself back onto the bed to wait.

She didn't wait long. What felt like seconds later, the door swung open and Scarlet stared into Perique's concerned eyes. "...Hey, mama. I'm fine."

Then the world was nothing but hugs, and touches, and leathery wings enveloping her. And it was alright, again.

An excerpt from personal correspondence, left in Scarlet's home care of Dragonfire Statue:

Hey, Scritches,

I'm coming down to see you in a couple of days. Things got dealt with faster than we figured on. Turns out stretching rabbit meat with rat meat is almost perfectly legal back home, so the spicy meat pie enterprise is a success. Only one customer came down with an infection but I'm pretty sure they ate at Gruntilda's first so we're good. Got three other birds working our stands right now, and I cashed out. Figure we can take a little vacation when you get back. You'd like that, right?

-G

Author's Note

Hey all.

Thanks for reading, favoriting, and commenting on this story. I didn't expect it to be a hit outside like, my significant others and friends. And they're obligated to say they like it. Getting feedback from almost total strangers made my day, as has every new follow picked up.

Also, genuinely sorry this epilogue isn't a sexy one. I tried thinking about how to make that work, but ultimately this is a smutty mystery, not pure smut. For that you'll have to pay attention to my future stuff, because if all goes well I have a collab planned with a way better author for these characters. It'll be hot I think.

I'll have a post-mortem for the story up on my blog within a day or two, so check back over there and/or follow me if that sounds like something you want to read. (UPDATE: Read it here.) In the meantime, I'm going to leave my pair of lovebirds here.

See you in Vice City.