Tight Fit lived up to his name, wriggling into small places to get in equally small pipes. He had selected a random tavern as the test case and had his men and the diamond dogs work together to get water flowing close to it, underground, where he connected to the pipes with his smaller ones and worked it the rest of the way away from the main tunnels and slowly upwards.

The ponies who owned the tavern gawked at him as he installed a sink, but the promise of eternal effortless water was not one they said no to. He told me after the fact that it took a good portion of a day, but that he learned a lot doing it. It'd take a lot less time the next time, he assured. Once he had the sink ready, he attached the last of the pipes, then reached up with a dramatic smile and holding his hoof over the lever.

"And this--" He pushed down and the water began to flow down into the sink, filling it. "--is your indoor well."

I had noted we planned to do a sewer line to take away the waste water, but we weren't quite ready for that.

He had taken it as a challenge. Even as the ponies cheered at their new indoor well, he was working on attaching the outgoing pipe. The water would flow all the way through if he had anything to say about it.

He had come home exhausted, but so satisfied. Perhaps just as importantly, talk began to spread through town like wildfire. We hadn't made it a secret that other ponies would get their own indoor wells and excitement was growing as it was proven we could actually do it, and we weren't even charging them for it.

Well, we were, if you think about it. This was all coming out of their tax money. Still, not quite how the average person thought. Even a human would be hard pressed to really understand tax money was their money, so it was free.

That was when I let him see the phone. Specifically, I showed him the article on flush toilets. "Does this make sense?" He was uncertain at first, but I assured, "Go ahead, take it and study it. Just be careful with it."

His magic glowed around the phone as he took it from my grasp gently and set it on the table beside himself, peering at the little letters and pictures. "How do it... turn the page?"

So I showed him how to click and drag. Turned out unicorn magic was picked up by the phone, which struck me as strange, but good. "Go ahead, read, study, and consider what a version made for a pony would look like."

"Huh... Hmm..." He tapped at his chin as he scrolled down, then back up sharply, slowly back down. "Hmm... Sir, why couldn't you come a few dozen moons ago? This is all terribly exciting, I find myself wishing I had my youth back to tackle it with."

"Then your daughter wouldn't have been here to meet me," I noted with a little smile as I began to wax poetic. "Which means I wouldn't have learned about you, and we never would have worked together in the first place."

"Hmm." He tapped the screen with a hoof. "Sewer gas?"

Had I lost him that quickly? I pivoted topics and we talked about sewers and why the gas from one would be something worth avoiding.

"I have a present." Water Lily coiled partially in on herself, her glowing horn taking out a little glass bottle from her pocket. "It took quite a bit of study, but I have it."

She had been studying? "What do you have?" I crouched down to be more even with her.

She advanced suddenly, knocking me right over onto my back. "Stay," she firmly ordered as her magic grabbed at my pants and began working them free. Tight had wandered off, thankfully. "I'm going to restore that wonderful smooth skin of yours."

"You found a cure for Poison Joke?" My surprise was as naked as my bottom half. "That's great!" But if she had it, how had it been a secret years later? A forgotten discovery?

"It's quite difficult to test, so you'll be serving that role. I'm fairly certain." The cork of the bottle popped out with a loud suction noise before she brought it closer to me. "Let's focus on your feet. I know those hooves are not what you're used to, so..." She began to dab cool cream just where the hard surface of my hoof met with living flesh. "My wonderful furless marvel, let's restore you."

There was a soft tingling echoing through what my ankle and downwards. Something was surely happening, but I couldn't see it with her basically sitting on me, facing away. She was watching it in my place. I just got to admire her clothed back end, as lovely as it was. I raised a hand to gently pet her along her side and down over her rump.

She flicked her tail. "We can play after this," she gently admonished. "Right now I am your physician." She leaned forward, laying across me as she brought her head closer to my changing foot. "There we are... Wonderful furless skin."

That was when she licked me, right on the bottom of my foot. I couldn't help but laugh and squirm a bit and her hooves came in to hold the foot still. "Hold on there. I need to do the other one. You don't want to be half-hooved, do you? That would be the worst of all options, I imagine."

I got myself under control as I felt her starting to apply the goop to my other, er, only hoof at that point. Right where tough hoof met skin, the tingles coming back with it. "Thank you, for this. How long have you been working on this?"

"Since this happened to you." She flicked her tail right in my face. I doubted it was an accident. "I still loved you, and still do, but I knew I had to help you, and who else would do it? You are a brave creature, walking along so deformed from your birth form without making a fuss. If I suddenly had your legs, I would be beside myself with panic." She turned an ear. "Maybe a little turned on at having such bare skin, but mostly panicked."

I took gentle hold of her tail, brushing along it with my fingers. "You could be just as smooth, if you wanted, but you don't do that."

"I do not," she admitted. "You enjoy the feel of my fur, but you were not rushing to grow out your hair. You take great pride in controlling what little hair you do have. Why is that?"

Was it the same thing? "I suppose the body I have looks better with managed hair."

"And my body looks better with soft fur." She peeked over her shoulder. "I am glad we can share our bodies with each other." She stood up, stepping off of me and revealing my two human feet at the end of pony legs. "Closer to normal."

That... promised to maybe be bad. I pushed up to my regained feet and rapidly confirmed that my stance was off. Pony legs wanted to stand one way, human feet preferred another, leaving me in an awkward between. "Can you do the rest?"

She was eyeing me, looking over my hips and down across the furry part of my anatomy. "There is one thing." She held up a hoof. "Just one... I wish to be your partner... Forever, and would like children."

The stallion part of me began to react to her plain request for foals. "I have no... particular objection to that."

"You clearly have more than 'no objection,'", she noted, watching the reaction. "Which is why that one part I want to keep. It will give us our children. I need to figure out a way to get everything that isn't that back to normal... Will you suffer a little longer, for us?"

I leaned from one foot to the other, practicing my footing. "It's better than hooves, I think. I'll just need to practice, again. Water, thank you."

"No objection?" She lifted an ear. "That is... a very sensitive and personal part of your body. I would object to mine... not being mine." She leaned forward faintly, tail lashing. "Is that love?"

What if I was alright with my strange inhuman equipment? The way it worked on Water was a delightful additional bonus. "It is part of love." I reached for her, the one pony that didn't object to my touches, and began petting her soft ears and head gently. "Figure out how to get my legs back though. I don't need pony legs."

"No you do not," she flatly agreed, suddenly turning away. "I will return your human ones as quickly as possible." Without further word, she trotted off, leaving me in quite a state.

At least I had hands.

A sudden laugh broke that thought. Easy's head was peeking out from under her blanket. "She just did that... Cruel mare. Poor stallion. Don't look at me though. You won't get any pity hornjobs out of me."

"Jesus!" I grabbed for my clothes, scrambling to get decent again. "I thought you were out."

"I was taking a nap," she corrected with a leer. "You don't have to rush. I've already seen that, even mid-use." She sat up, blanket rolling off of her. "Besides, if I touched you, Water would murder me, then cry herself to sleep. We wouldn't want that."

On the positive, her presence and attitude had done a nice job of acting as a dousing of cold water. I was entirely unaroused, and soon dressed. I could fit into my old shoes again, that was nice. "No, we would not. Did you get the ladders?"

"Days ago," she corrected, rolling her eyes. "Didn't I mention it? The dogs are busy pounding them into the stone. I even tried one, climbed right down into the waterways and back up again without a problem. There's a lot more holes to get laddered though."

"Your dad's doing great work. That tavern's thrilled with the outcome, and it's priming everyone else."

"You don't need to tell me." She hopped down, her glowing horn pulling a bundle of paper free of a drawer. "I have a long list of ponies and businesses that want to be next. Everyone's that anyone wants water on demand."

Possibility. "We don't have infinite budget." I pointed at Easy. "Why don't you schmooze with these ponies a little, drop a hint that contributions towards the project will bump them up the priority."

"Will it actually?"

That was a plain question, but with a plain answer. "Yes. Everyone will get one eventually, but we can start with those who are paying for the work themselves. Meanwhile, have your dad work on getting a public fountain going. I want something nice and central, where ponies will rejoice to only have to go there instead of all the way outside the city."

"Ooo, yeah, that'll get tongues flapping." She clopped her fore hooves and got into a lively trot. "I'm right on that, Boss."

"One thing! There should be very clear signs that the fountain is not for splashing, entering, or making dirty. We want to be hygienic."

"What?"

"Healthy." Language was a funny thing at time. "No one wants to drink another pony's sweat, right?"

Her face screwed up with distaste. "Yuck, no. Alright, that makes sense. It's not a river. I'll let him know." And off she went to deliver the news.

She really had turned out to be a good manager.

Of course, I had other things to do.

Author's Note

A return to humanity... mostly? Would you be alright with this arrangement?

Written early for patreons who got this ahead of everyone else. Want to get early chapters, or even your own story written? atreon!

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