No Going Back

by ferret

Rating: teen
Tags: Cheerilee, Berry Punch, Dark, Alternate Universe, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Adventure, Sex
Length: 32408

In the magical land of Equestria, my dream comes true, when I become a mare! But now my adventure’s over, and it’s time to return home. My old life was a nightmare, and Equestria is too beautiful for words. Can’t I just... stay here?

("sequel" but can be read on its own, without first reading Returning Home)

It’s a dream come true, when I find my way to Equestria, and turn into a little pony, a mare! This can’t be an accident. I must be in a story! The problem is, I know how these stories end. I’m supposed to learn the lesson that my old life was worthwhile after all, and return home. But Equestria is a wonderful, beautiful land, and the longer I live here, the more I fall in love with it. There’s nothing for me to return to, besides loneliness, sorrow, and eventually death, so can’t I just... stay here?

I just want to be the little pony!

Published 2017-09-29 23:20:21 UTC
Last updated 2017-10-25 07:48:34 UTC

Ponyville

I find myself staring, open-mouthed, at the charming village of Ponyville before me... until I start to fall over again, wavering, and stumbling, then hissing in pain when my exhausted muscles have to overcompensate to keep me standing. When I do stumble forward blindly through the field, I feel like I’m going to fall forward again, just soar right into the village, as gravity itself turns on its side. I move my hooves methodically, with a growing determination and a tremendous hope welling up in me. Things are going to be... okay? I’m not going to die?

I...

I start to pass by the cottages, and I’m there. I’m here. I’m walking through a village I could only dream of before. Ponyville is all around me, so different yet to familiar, like the static backdrops of the show, but with everything moving around me from all angles, as genuine hooves propel me along. Walking through a paradise I could have never hoped would ever be real. My hooves, m-my hooves clop on the pathway between buildings, and they no longer sink into the packed snow, because I’m not lost in an empty wood. The smell of chocolate brownies wafts past me, and I... I don’t...

It’s just all so overwhelming. I’ve never felt this much before! I have to choke back a sob, leaning or falling against the side of a building. And then I see it. If there’s any doubt where I am, it ends when I fall to my haunches at the sight of the statue. It’s facing the other way, but I can tell exactly what it is. There’s a frozen fountain of pink pumice, and on a dias in the center rears a pony with a saddle carved into her back. I know that statue. This is Ponyville!

This can’t possibly be reality. No reality would be as kind as this. This couldn’t possibly have been an accident. Am I... in a story? Oh, I hope I’m in a story. Reality was the worst possible thing I could imagine: a universe with no story, no serendipity, no author watching over it, only cruel, uncaring random physics, rules that make it easier to be dead than alive. But here, in front of a fountain that has never been drawn from behind, those rules have been... violated. It should be a logical contradiction for something this good to happen to me. That means I’m in a story! That means I’m safe!

I walk up to the fountain on... on hooves. I just stand up, and it feels like I’m floating, but the soft clip-clops resonate up my pony legs. The statue pony’s familiar smile greets me when I walk around the base in awe. The fountain is not flowing, but there is a veneer of ice on the bottom. In that icy sheet, I see the vague reflection of... a pony. I still can’t see myself very clearly. I’m just a wobbly blur of pink and dirty white, but it’s thrilling to see myself like that. I’m making a shadow over the fountain’s bowl that no human could make. I can’t believe this is real.

Oh... oh I hope I’m in a story so much. A really, real, for-real story, for real. There’s nothing I could wish for more. I would suffer lost in the snow for a thousand days, if I knew that someone was watching over me, and everything would work out alright in the end. Are the main 6 here? Am I going to meet them? And of course, I’ll get to befriend them all, as Twilight Sparkle herself works very hard to find a way for me to—oh no.

Oh no, oh no. If I am in a story, then I know how it ends. These stories always have the protagonist trying to... to return home. They have family, or a career, or something waiting for them back there, and I’m no exception. Except that my worst nightmare is waiting for me back there! I-if I meet the main 6, it’ll be the beginning of the end, and in the end, the status quo is restored. I awaken from my dream, better for the experience, human, and male, as if Equestria were never real at all. All I’ve ever wanted was to be in a story, but I don’t want to be Dorothy! I don’t want to—

“Scuze me miss, are you alright?” I hear a warm voiced mare say, just behind me. I squeak in alarm from where I still perch by my forelegs on the edge of the fountain, stare fearfully behind me and... it’s a pony. Not one of the main 6. Thick purple curls fall over her pink furred shoulders. “Seriously, are you okay?” the mare asks me, looking uncomfortable at my open mouthed stare. “You look exhausted!”

“I’m just...” I say in a voice that is not my own, and I’m so thirsty, it’s all... scratchy. “I’m kind of new to Ponyville,” I finally manage to rasp out, sounding (appropriately) like an exhausted girl, “I’ve been walking for a long time to get here...”

“Walking? How long?” she asks concernedly, taking half a step back as I push away from the fountain and stagger to my hooves again, managing to stand before her. “You didn’t get caught in that snowstorm the day before last?”

“I... yeah and also kind of... new at walking,” I tell her, wondering if I can just collapse and she’ll take me home, and nurse me back to health with hot soup. It’s really weird seeing a pony looking at me evenly, eye to eye. I really am as tall as her, because we’re both... ponies.

“You need to get to town hall right away!” the mare tells me, looking leery at even touching me. “They’ll be able to set you right up.”

“O-oh, thanks?” I tell her uncertainly, “Where is um... town hall?”

“That way, till you get to Hayfield square and then turn right,” the mare says pointing a hoof.

“Thank you um...” I say uncertainly.

“Lilac,” she says, “And who’re you?”

I freeze, staring at the mare in horror. I still have a male name. A really male name. How could I possibly use it now? “I uh... I’ll catch you... later, Lilac,” I say unsteadily, stumbling forward on exhausted but frightened hooves, at which point she glares at me angrily and walks away with her nose up in the air.

Now that I look at it, a lot of ponies are looking at me out of the sides of their faces. I must be a sight. I can barely walk, and I’m utterly exhausted. I’ve fallen down so much, my coat is streaked with crusty dirt and there are dead twigs hopelessly tangled in my mane and tail. I’ve never walked so much in my life. My new body’s never walked at all. I’m thirsty, and cold, and...

I just turn right at the first square I reach, hoping that’s the one she spoke of.

It must have been Hayfield Square though, because the street opens up into a large expanse, bordered by a trickling creek covered in soft pink bridges. The center of this expanse is dominated by a huge building. You never really understand how big Ponyville’s town hall is until you see it with your own eyes. Or... your new pony eyes, I guess. The doors into it tower over me, easily big enough to admit a medium sized dragon, never mind a little pony. The second floor balcony has soaring columns all the way up to the roof that... it’s a really intimidating building, that’s all.

I squeeze my way inside, and immediately regret my decision. There are so many ponies going about their business. I–I don’t even know where to start. It’s really hot in here, like uncomfortably so. The ponies are all talking with each other and busy and I’m a dissheveled wreck in the entryway, just waiting for them to notice a... a bum wandered in. There are booths that some ponies are lining up in front of, with signs indicating what each is intended for, I assume. I have to assume, because... I can’t read.

I stare with dawning horror at the signs of elegant calligraphy that are just... gibberish. Scribbles! Scribberish! None of the writing I realize, on the walls or doors, or anywhere makes any amount of sense. “I can’t read?” I say in a small voice.

“Excuse me miss, can we help you?” A greyish green stallion with elegantly coiffed brown hair is trotting up to me. A stallion. Oh help he’s taller than me.

“I–I–I’ll be right back,” I whisper faintly in response, falling down, and then... stumbling my way through the crowd to the tunes of “Hey, watch it!” and “Get off the salt, you lush!”

It’s only once I’m outside, and... down an alleyway that I’m safe again. I didn’t even think... I didn’t think about what it’d be like facing a stallion like this. I mean I did, but that was when it was just a fantasy... and I can’t read! Am I going to have to learn a new alphabet? A whole new language? What am I speaking, then? What was he speaking? It’s just Equish, right? Why isn’t it the Equish alphabet then?!

Why are there such horribly amazing smells in the air? I don’t have any money. I don’t have anything. I’m just a... just a homeless bum who stumbled into town half drunk one day. That’s why everypony’s looking at me funny. Is there a... a homeless shelter, in Ponyville? How could there possibly be something like that, in such a paradise as this? I can smell soup and it’s coming from inside somepony’s house, I think. Or is it a restaurant? There are signs telling me, but I can’t read them. For instance, I can’t tell if that—oh wait, yeah that store is definitely Quills and Sofas. But the others? I just want some soup!

I don’t know when I start crying. I just... stumble along on unfamiliar hooves, and more wasted water starts running down my cheeks. I’m so tired, and I can’t read, and... I don’t know what to do. Do I ask somepony? I’m afraid to even speak out loud! They’ll... they’ll think I’m a beggar because I am. Because I don’t belong here, and I’m just gonna get sent away. They’ll never let me live here. I can’t go back! Not after finally, impossibly being a mare! Not after being here in Ponyville, in a story. I can’t live without this! I feel horrible, and cold and hungry as I sink to my belly, leaning heavily against the wall again, and I’ve never felt so alive before. I can’t give up hope like this! I–I’m not ready to leave. What am I going to do? I don’t want to die, but... but I need to stay here!

I... crawl to my hooves again. It feels like everypony is watching me, judging me, seeing a human man, not a cold, hungry mare. I–I don’t want to be that, not ever again. I have to find something... some way to show these ponies I’m a good pony. I just want some soup. How would I even drink soup?

I shuffle down the road with no destination in mind, just... safety somewhere. I’ll just... just knock on a random door and... and they’ll help me instead of close it in my face, because this is Equestria, and that’s how things work here, right? It has to be. This village is too beautiful to be cursed with realism!

“Hello there!” comes a bright, quirky voice behind me. A voice I would recognize anywhere. I clumsily turn and then stare, open mouthed at Princess Twilight Sparkle, a bright lilac unicorn with a deep blue mane striped in pink and purple, and soft lilac wings added to her sides. She’s here she’s—no, no she’s... she’s not here to send me home, yet. I still have time. I still haven’t met her... her friends yet.

“Sorry to bother you,” Twilight says with a half smile beneath her beautifully violet eyes. “But you seem to be new to town, is that correct?”

I can’t believe I’m looking at Twilight Sparkle. She’s even more beautiful in person than I imagined. Glowing with health, bearing a friendly smile her coat a resplendant lilac, and her mane a deep indigo blue. A pink and white striped scarf that looks deliciously warm wraps several times around her thick neck, then drapes over her barrel behind her.

“It’s really you...” the words escape me beyond any rational thought. “Twilight Sparkle...”

Then I start to panic, because fancy crap, why did I say that? There’s no way a normal pony would just know somepony, for no reason at all!

Lifting her hoof to her chest, Twilight modestly says, “Oh, you’ve heard of me, huh?”

Wait... isn’t she upset that I know her name?

“I am pretty well known, it’s true,” Twilight says teasingly, swaying on the tips of her hooves like she thinks it’s cute. (It is.) “But don’t let that fool you. I’m just a pony like you.”

Then she... she fluffs her wings ohmygosh she actually did that! “Maybe with a few extra additions, heh heh,” she says.

I remain speechless, and her smile grows uncomfortable. “I’m not here for any particular reason,” she says quickly, “Just doing some shopping, you know. But I thought you should know that it’s something of a Ponyville tradition that ponies who move here get a pretty big welcome celebration...” Oh no.

“Pinkie Pie,” I say flatly. Can’t escape that, certainly. And here’s Twilight just walking up and telling me about it. It seems that like it or not, my introduction to Ponyville is finally going to begin.

“I suppose you’ve heard of my friends, too,” Twilight says a little crossly. Did I upset her? I really don’t want to rock the boat right now. I can’t believe Twilight’s here!

“I found Pinkie a little overwhelming,” Twilight says, while I try to think of what to say to this star on earth, “And you looked like you could use some advance warning.”

“I... yeah,” I say, trying to think what say, what to do. If I leave Ponyville, will that put off Pinkie’s welcome party? Where would I go, though? I’m falling over on my feet! I’m talking to... to a pony who could help me. I need something to eat so bad. I just don’t want to start something that railroads my story down to its unfortunate end. I—I should just ask somepony else. But they could say no, while Twilight’s pretty much thematically obliged to help me.

“I guess I’ll... leave you alone now?” Twilight says, tilting her head uncertainly at me. It looks like her patience is wearing thin.

“But...” I say despite myself. It’s okay, just let her go. I can do this all by myself. I don’t need her help, if it gets me sent home in the end. “That would be fine,” I say, forcing a smile, “And um... thank you.”

Why did I thank her? She just looks confused. Shit, what do I say? “For...” I wrack my brain, “Being such a nice princess! P-pony. I mean. T-thanks.”

Twilight smiles at me, saying, “My pleasure. Now I really do have to be going, so you take care, miss...?”

“Um,” I say intelligently, brain stopping once again as I realize that I still have no pony name.

“Miss Um?” Twilight asked hopefully.

Shaking my head in disgust, I say, “No, um... it’s... I’m sorry I...” Nothing is coming to mind. Why can’t I think of a pony name?

Twilight says, “Quite alright,” then waits for me to answer. I just... can’t. What if I forget it, and use the wrong name? Her look becomes strained at my tense silence, and she says “Aaanyway, ta ta.”

Twilight Sparkle trots away then, and once again I’m safely dying of exposure. Crap.

“E-excuse me,” I desperately ask just... just a random pony with a... pet carrier in her mouth and somewhat familiar looking colors of yellow fur, blue and white mane. “Do you know where I could get s-something to eat, and maybe a... a blanket?”

The lanky mare transfers her carrier’s handle enviably easily to an upraised forehoof, saying in a fruity voice, “Well gosh, find a shelter I suppose? I don’t really know where you’d find one in Ponyville though. If you want I could get you a...” She looks to my side then, and her warm, brown eyes widen. “Oh wow,” she says, “Looks like the princess wants to have something to do with you. Ask her to help you. She’s the most helpful pony anywhere!”

Glancing in the direction she’s looking, I see Twilight Sparkle once again approaching. No! I was so close.... Turning back forward, it’s too late. The pet carrier pony is already gone, trotting away and leaving me to my fate. This story is just going to make me starve to death, if I don’t get help from Twilight, isn’t it? I try to walk away from Twilight, as if she’s not making a beeline for me, but she startles me to a halt again, saying,

“Excuse me miss.”

Oh, that’s right... I’m a “miss” now! I can’t even feel my toes at this point, much less my marehood. Can ponies get frostbitten? I might literally be dead, in that case. Or at least parts of me.

Twilight says to my sorry self, “Sorry to bother you again, but can I ask where you moved from?”

Well... maybe I can just tell her enough to get some food? Oh, I want something to eat so bad. It’s hard to think! “I don’t know if I should say,” I admit honestly. What should I say? My stomach wants to growl but I’m just so tired... I–I can’t put this off. “I guess it’s...” I tell her hesitantly, “I mean I don’t really have any other choice. I...”

My raspy voice drops to a girly whisper of a whine as I admit, “I’m so hungry.” Worriedly, I add, “Um, sorry, I mean...” I have to tell her. It’s the only way.

I look at her as squarely as I can, and tell Twilight Sparkle, “I’m from a place called Earth.”

“Um...” Twilight says, appraising my serious snout warily, “Yes, you are? Most ponies call it Equestria. But I meant what township are you from?”

Oh. Uh. Right we’re standing on earth. Literally. “No, I mean, I’m from a different universe,” I emphasize urgently.

“You know there’s only one universe, right?” Twilight drawls searching my pony face for answers.

I guess she wouldn’t know, then. “Right, but-but if there was a portal into another one—” I start to explain.

“Then they would both be part of the same universe, just not connected with each other by way of conventional spacetime,” Twilight finished with that cocky smile of hers.

I guess she would know, then. Wow. She’s... definitely Twilight Sparkle.

“Specifically, such a portal would connect two distinct units within the universe, like worlds or lands, or there’s a properly abstract term that doesn’t imply solid bodies that I like to use,” Twilight goes on and oh my stars who cares? I just want to eat already! “Called verses,” Twilight finishes smugly, “As in many verses that form the universe.”

“Fine,” I say with a frustrated huff that sounds like a horse, “I’m from a different verse.”

“No you’re not,” Twilight chirps, actually looking at me this time with a surprised laugh, “Nopony’s ever come from another verse before. Is this some kind of joke?”

“No, I came out of a portal in the middle of the woods,” I tell Twilight seriously, “There was nothing but woods around me. I didn’t know where to go, or if there was anything at all—” Oh fuck my throat is giving out. It burns so much to cough like this. I don’t have the strength to cough like this. I need medical attention, stat!

“S-so I went in circles, until I found a river,” I hiss out stubbornly, rocking on my feet as I try to stay standing before the princess, “And... well, I sort of couldn’t find any, and I was getting hungry I just... I made it to Ponyville, but it took d... days, and I’m really not sure who I ask, to g-get something to eat and I’m... really tired...”

I jerk back to consciousness, finding myself sandwiched in between the princess, and a bright pink pony with a really big butt, and a bright magenta mane. “Pinkie...?” I say disorientedly.

“Don’t talk,” she says quietly to me in her squirrelly little voice, “We’re gonna take care of you.”

The two of them lead me to... oh my stars it’s Sugarcube Corner. How did I miss that?! It’s a giant cupcake! I guess I wasn’t looking up. They lead me in, and the heat hits me like a wall. Of course Sugarcube Corner is heated. Everything is heated, except for me! I can’t help but notice Pinkie Pie also has a warm looking thick scarf, not just over her neck, but draped over her back.

Twilight herself has on a thinner pink striped scarf, but not much else, but she doesn’t even look cold. A princess thing, perhaps? And I have on a... big bunch of nothing. At least I didn’t walk into town, with a pair of men’s underwear draped across my back.

Twilight trots back outside, as the blistering heat makes my arms and—makes my four legs tingle. “Ow, this...” I say, lifting a foreleg sensitively, “These are starting to hurt. Ow, ow is this supposed to—”

A confusing blur later, I’m back outside, through the bakery’s back door, beside some empty crates and flour sacks, and belatedly I have to guess that Pinkie Pie has dragged me back out in the cold. Her warm hooves leave my shoulders as she gasps dramatically, but in genuine alarm. “I forgot!” Pinkie Pie says to my face, “It’s been so long, I forgot that ponies get really hurt when they get really cold! You need to stay out here, and warm up slowly. Wait here I’ll be right back.”

She vanishes through the door, and I don’t know what to do, so I just stand there. At least I can still stand. Walk, maybe not so much. The... frosty chill actually does make the needly burning in my limbs fade away. Are they going to have to amputate? But I still feel fine! But if I can’t warm up... what am I gonna do?

Pinkie Pie charges out again, with a thick blanket that she throws over me. Not sure what good that’s gonna do. I’m too tired to even shiver anymore! Then the pink pony pulls a... a balloon out of her hair, except that it’s really loose and floppy, and filled with water. She slaps it on top of the blanket on my back, then pulls out another, and another. “I have two more heating up,” she tells me, “Don’t move, just let them heat your barrel, and when they cool I’ll get more, until you’re warm enough to come inside.

“O-okay,” I say in bewilderment, looking at the uh... stuff on my back that’s just radiating heat through the blanket. Oh, it’s hot water. I get it. “Thank—” I start to say, but Pinkie Pie has already darted off again. I stand there, just... puzzled by her reaction to my predicament. That was weirdly specific knowledge for Pinkie Pie to have. I guess it’s just Pinkie being Pinkie. As the blissful warmth slowly radiates into my torso, the pins and needles start up again in my legs. “Pinkie, I think something’s...” I say, louder than I expected.

Then Pinkie Pie’s just there, saying, “Yes? Something’s what? Something’s wrong?”

“My... legs are still hurting,” I say, wincing and lifting one, and that just makes it flare with pain.

“That’s... gonna happen,” she says with a wistful look in her baby blue eyes, “Just try to grin ‘n bear it, okay? It’s just your little hoofsies waking up from being so cold!”

It hurts a lot more than just an arm falling asleep, but I nod and say, “Okay, thank you Pinkie. I just can’t believe I have hooves. ”

“What else would you have?” Pinkie asks curiously.

Wincing, I say, “Well I used to be a...” Wait... should I tell ponies that I was a human? They might react badly to it! Should I tell the main cast? They might... think I need to return home even more, if they don’t think I’m a real pony. I—I turned into a mare. Maybe that’s forbidden here! I don’t know. I don’t know anything, other than Pinkie Pie’s looking uneasy, and my hooves feel like someone’s rolling a cactus along their surface.

I need to find more information, so first taking a look around to see if Twilight is hovering near, I lean close to Pinkie Pies, and whisper, “Say, Pinkie, do you happen to have ever heard of anything like a human before?”

“You were a humin?” Pinkie declares loudly, straightening up in shock.

“I... oh, you have heard of them,” I say glumly. Of course I had to drop right into Equestria Girls canon.

“Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t,” Pinkie says noncommitally, tilting her head left and right, “What is a humin like, besides not having hooves?”

Or... maybe Equestria Girls isn’t canon?

“I didn’t say they didn’t hav... oh, I technically did, I suppose,” I admit reluctantly. Damn, Pinkie Pie is sharper than I expected! “T-they’re bigger than ponies,” I tell her cautiously, “More a...aggressive, and they walk on two feet. Sound familiar?”

“I dunno, it sounds pretty weird,” Pinkie says with a roll of her eyes. “But, don’t worry about it,” she adds, patting me on the head with her hoof, “Just try to put up with having four hoofsies, for now, and you can bet your britches my friend Twilight will figure out a way to help you get back on your feet!”

Of course she will. Of course this is only temporary. Oh stars, I don’t want it to end. I’m in pain, and miserable, and Pinkie Pie saved my life. I already like it better here than anything I could ever have back home.

“D-don’t cry! I didn’t mean it!” Pinkie stammers frantically, “Maybe Twilight’ll mess up and um, um, um, make you a sparrow instead?”

I totter trying to wipe my eyes clear, and Pinkie pulls a handkerchief out of her tail and... no seriously, she pulls a pink handkerchief out of her tail and lets me press my eyes into its soft, pink cloth.

After failing to blow my nose, I swallow my sorrow, and manage to tell Pinkie Pie, “It’s... it’s okay, Pinkie. I’m just so scared now that I’m a pony, because I like it very, very much.”

“So, huminnies don’t get scared?” Pinkie asks curiously.

“Humans,” I correct her, though it does sound kind of odd to say that word, now that I think about it. I can’t quite put my finger on it, though. “It’s really no problem,” I try to console her, “I just don’t know how to tell you how glad I am to see you. I don’t know how to thank you, just for... being here.”

“You can thank me later,” Pinkie Pie tells me with a bright and very genuine smile, “When you tell be all about your adventures! How you got lost in the snow, and how you ended up in Ponyville!”

I have to smile through the pain. “S-sure whatever you say,” I tell her, still faint from the notion that I’m speaking with Pinkie Pie right there, snout to snout, well not that close anymore. But her bountiful magenta curls, her soft round, pink curves accented with yellow and blue balloons, her beautiful smile. It’s really—there’s a distant ding within the bakery.

“You just sit tight,” Pinkie Pie says comfortingly, “I’m gonna go switch out some of those hot packs.

While she does that, I manage to sit on my belly again. I can’t at first, because my limbs surge in pain even when I try slightly crouching down. But finally I’m sitting there buried under a warm blanket, and a shiver starts to go through me. It’s like the chill retreats within me, and digs into my core, hiding from the radiating heat. “O-o-oh b-b-boy,” I say as my muscles awaken and everywhere that’s not touching a hot pack starts feeling icy cold.

I didn’t even realize how cold I was. I just sit there shivering, feeling like a melting pony popsicle, while Pinkie makes sure I feel entirely too warm under this blanket. The pain in my limbs has faded to a dull burn, and Pinkie seems satisfied with my condition. “Okay, I think you’re warmed up enough now,” Pinkie Pie says, “You can finally come inside.”

I blink at her.

“You don’t have to if you don’t feel like it,” Pinkie Pie says gently, “But when you’re ready for it, I really need you to come inside.”

I stare at Pinkie in dawning realization, as she looks back in confusion. This is going to be one of those stories, isn’t it. “What?” Pinkie asks self consciously.

“Nothing,” I tell her, looking away sullenly, “Just let me...” I try to stand, and... fail. I’m too tired to even stand up.

“Not a problem!” Pinkie says in a chipper tone, sticking her nose under my belly and somehow heaving me up onto her back. I lie there limply, while Pinkie moves underneath me. I’m actually feeling her... her body move beneath me as she carries me in. Together, we uh... come inside.

At last, I’m in the warmth. The beautiful, life giving warmth. I don’t know how it stays so warm in here. Twilight Sparkle still isn’t around, but Pinkie just lets me puddle uncoordinatedly in front of a table, with the blanket still wrapped around me. “I c-c-can’t believe I didn’t n-notice this place,” I say, hardly able to speak from how much my teeth are chattering. But I’m alive! “I m-m-must have walked p-p-past it a dozen times. It looks s-so different from below!”

“I’m just surprised you didn’t notice the smell!” Pinkie Pie said, gesturing towards the back and oh my gosh she’s right. Brownies and marshmallows and cream and cinnamon oh I want some cinnamon so bad and sugar and cherries, and it just smells incredible in here. I didn’t even notice, because I was so focused on getting warm, but I can smell a ton of delicious stuff in here, including... Pinkie Pie.

I... must have... unconsciously smelled Pinkie Pie, when I was lying across her back. Because she’s right there, and I already remember how she... smells. Something between ginger and allspice.

“Sugarcube Corner makes the best gingerbread this time of year,” Pinkie says, distracting me from my nose to look at her questioningly, “You can smell it all the way across town!”

All the way across...?

“How good is a pony’s sense of smell?” I ask, extremely curious.

Pinkie Pie looks at me like I’m insane. “Um... good?” she says uneasily. Oh shi—shoot that’s right. How is she gonna know the difference, if she hasn’t been human? I am such an idiot sometimes, it’s hilarious.

“Sorry, you wouldn’t be the one to ask,” I reassure Pinkie Pie. It’d have to be someone who suddenly got a pony’s sense of smell, or maybe someone who studied the science of olfactory... stuff I guess.

There was a soft chnk. It makes my ears twitch. At least their burning tingles faded quickly.

“Oh hey,” Pinkie says loudly, “That sounds like the toaster. Be right back, cutie!”

She... thinks I’m cute? That’s so amazing. I’ve never been cute before! Not since I was a very little ...boy. Am I not just a mare, but a cute mare? I bet I am. These stories never have the protagonist change into an ugly mare.

Pinkie Pie trots up again, with a large tray held easily in her mouth, balancing a tall glass full of purple fluid in it, next to some gorgeous smelling warm bagels, one covered in cream cheese, and one half of a bagel, just... plain.

“I know it doesn’t look like a lot,” Pinkie says apologetically, dropping the little plate and its half a bagel down on the table in front of me, “But pleeeeease take little bites, and eat it really slowly. If you really haven’t eaten in days, you might not be able to eat very much at first, but I promise it gets better.”

Has Pinkie Pie almost... frozen to death before? I... I don’t know how she knows all this stuff. I don’t know all this stuff, so I don’t know if she knows, or if she’s just guessing! It’s true I haven’t eaten in... days, or ever depending on which body you consider. And hypothermia would hasten any problems there.

“I’ll be fine, I think,” I tell the pink pony uncertainly, “It’s only been a few days, but it was getting really cold out there...” And with that, I look to my bagel, actual, amazing food that I never thought I’d see again. But... how do I eat it? Do I just... bite it?

I try poking the bagel with a creamy white hoof. It slightly stutters along the plate as my stiff nail taps it. A pink hoof hooks around my own then, just... curls around, and firmly moves my hoof back to my haunches on the floor. “No, silly,” Pinkie says, as I look at her grip on my hoof questioningly, “Use your tongue!”

I look up abruptly, to peer over at the large pink horse. “R-really?” I ask in astonishment. That can’t be true... but it’s canon, so is it really a thing?

“Yeah, see?” Pinkie says, and then I’m completely fascinated by her anatomy, which may be our anatomy, as she sticks her long, orange tongue out of her mouth practically all the way down her chest, down to her own cream cheese bagel. Her tongue wraps around the bagel like some kind of serpent, then just flicks and the bagel goes flying into the air. I watch the bagel’s descent until it falls neatly into Pinkie Pie’s mouth, her freakishly long tongue once more vanished into her mouth.

The bagel drops back to her plate with a big bite taken out of it. “Fee?” Pinkie Pie says with full cheeks, “Ish gool!”

That. Is what’s in my mouth?

I don’t even know what to think of that! What are ponies? Are we all part... giraffe?

“What?” Pinkie says, blushing through her fur somehow, and looking down at her own chest. “Do I have any cream cheese on me?” She looks up at me with an amused expression, saying, “Not that you could tell!” followed by a genuine giggle-snort.

Not that you could tell? ...huh. Pinkie Pie’s cream cheese is... pink for some reason.

Dazedly, I shake myself out of trying to understand Pinkie Pie. “N-nothing,” I say feeling supremely self conscious for having gone this long without even taking one bite of a stupid bagel. But I don’t want to just stick my tongue out in front of her. Is that a normal thing ponies do? I wouldn’t even know what to do if some big long orange... tentacle came out of my mouth! “I’ll just—um...” I say, taking the easy way out this time.

I just lower my face to my plate, and... try to get my lips around the bagel. It’s... actually kind of hard to do that without hands. I manage to get a bite eventually though, and straighten up with a proud smile.

“Oh! I get it!” Pinkie exclaims and a—a light bulb literally appears above her head? What the—it flicks out and just vanishes, as Pinkie jumps up, bounding over to the door, where a chill goes through me, as I can see Twilight Sparkle has entered, accompanied by an elegant white unicorn with blue diamonds on her rump. Rarity also has a very thick maroon scarf wrapped around her neck, and... laying over her back, and on her head she had this adorable fuzzy looking hat, of the same color, that perches askew on her perfectly coiffed blurple mane.

Pinkie is squealing excited words at her friend, but I look away before making eye contact with Rarity. This is going too fast... I’m gonna meet them all, then some incredible trial’s gonna come up, then... then they’ll find a way to return me home. That’s how those stories go, but I’m not ready yet! I don’t want to start this adventure, because I know how it ends, and I don’t like one bit of it!

I just take another bite of my bagel, try to take one at any rate. The darn thing keeps trying to escape me when my lips bump into it. Finally I just brace it against a hoof so that I can take another little bite out of it, then another.

I straighten up in surprise then, because Pinkie’s there beside me with her two friends, looking at me with sympathetic, loving eyes. Pinkie coos at me, “You’re just a little foal, aren’t you?”

The... no I—oh fuck I just inhaled—ack, help I can’t stop... so freaking ex... exhausted, and I swear this stupid bagel just went into my lungs. Juice. There’s juice. I can stop the heaving dry coughs if I... I need to wet my dry throat so much, but... but how do I use a cup? Why oh why did I try to eat this bagel, without drinking something first?

Then the pink pony saves me again, by tilting the glass with her hoof, right into my confused nose. Am I supposed to put my teeth on the lip? No time to ask! I just stick my whole snout in there, and start sucking up juice. Oh stars this is concord grape juice. This is absolutely sublime! This is the best thing I’ve ever drank!

My ears twitch, as Twilight gently tells me, “It’s okay little filly, you don’t have to make up stories. You’re not in trouble. I need to go research aging spells, so you hold tight and we’ll have you fixed up in a jiffy!”

Oh, this can’t end well.

“No, wait,” I gasp out, pulling free of the life giving purple elixir. I gasp for breath, noticing that I’m doing so through my mouth, if that weren’t obvious. So glad ponies aren’t anatomically correct in that regard.

“I’m not a...” I say, and wait... should I say it? What if she does turn me into a filly? Would that increase my lifespan? How long do ponies live?

At last I just settle on honesty as the best policy. If it won’t have terrible consequences (and it certainly will) then I can just go read about aging spells in the library. You know, after I... learn how to read.

“I’m not a filly,” I tell the two of them honestly. “I’m not supposed to be a p-pony. I... I’m acting like a foal because I’m not used to this... this body. I wasn’t a pony, in the other... verse. Yeah, that’s it.”

Did I say too much? They’re not gonna try to send me home now, are they? I don’t want to give them enough information to do so, but something tells me it’s pretty much inevitable in a story like this. What happens if I try to stall for time?

Rarity’s voice sounds even more elegant than I remembered, when she says, “Verse?” Her softly shadowed eyelids half close then, to give a disgusted look at Twilight, as Rarity says dryly, “Oh, now you’ve got her saying it, do you?”

“It’s a more accurate terminology!” Twilight protests, just like she would. And they’re all meeting me now.

“This is so clichéd...” I moan, just going back for more of that juice.

Well, Rarity seems sympathetic to my plight, but Twilight just wants to batter me with questions. She even gets me to recite the alphabet, which is a very bizarre experience, because it’s not... the alphabet.

“A B C D,” I start to say in a sing-song voice, then stop in confusion. “Wait, no, it’s... is it B after A? A B C D... what the heck is D anyway?”

I don’t make it through the whole alphabet, but Twilight’s already crowing about how I know an alien alphabet, and Rarity’s trying to calm her down, and Pinkie’s trying and succeeding to get me to drink some water. My terrible thirst quenched, I try to help Twilight as much as I’m willing to. At least my... oddly memorized alphabet should be safe to share. Doesn’t the alphabet start with Q?

As I answer her questions, I just feel so... tired, with this warm blanket still piled over my back, and my lips no longer cracked and dry. They’re still a little cracked, I guess. I wonder if there’s Chapstick in ponyland. Certainly would be possible to use... beeswax...

And then... motion and... someone’s waking me up, standing me up.

I don’t even know I just drift off again and... and softness swallows me. I don’t remember the last time I’ve slept this comfortably. There’s always aches or pains, or automotive traffic, or train whistles blaring in my window, or lawnmowers, or leaf blowers. I just float in this incredible softness, forgetting everything. Deliciously slowly, I become aware of my body again, and how I’m... curling my hands down over the edge of a rabbit soft blanket.

I drift in and out of consciousness there, feeling pure bliss, until I start to smell soup. Why am I in a cart race, to see who wins the soup? How did I get here? Something nudges me, and I hear a cheerful voice say, “Wake up, sleepyhead.”

“Mhm?” I mumble, my eyes slipping—

That wasn’t my voice that mumbled.

“Oh—” my eyes snap open and I look down not at hands, but at creamy furred hooves curled over a soft blanket. “Oh—” I repeat, surrounded by the balloons and boxes and... bathtub, and candy pillars on the walls. I made it. I’m alive. I’m here!

“Oh I’m okay!” I sigh in utter bliss, a girl’s voice coming from my chest, and it just comes naturally to me. I don’t have to fake it at all, because I’m a little pony, and a little mare who Pinkie Pie thinks is a cutie!

“You want some soup, miss Okay?” I hear a cheerful voice call out to me. Pinkie Pie! That’s right! I turn in wide-eyed shock to see the living, breathing pony who could have bounced into my TV screen and made herself at home, but... but her mane is in actual curls! Broad, swirly, tufty curls that poof out from her head in a volumnuous mess.

She gestures to a round... thing? It’s some kind of container I guess, but the top doesn’t match the bottom. It looks like a bowl, that someone put a—

“Oh, a lid. Of course.”

Wait... she got me ...soup?

My muscles scream in protest when I sit up, but I struggle up to find myself in Pinkie Pie’s bedroom, in Pinkie’s bed, like it was cut straight out of the show, except more... real, and from a new perspective. I can see the stairwell leading out of the room, and I suppose if it were the Pinkie Pride episode, then the camera would have been over there. I look at Pinkie Pie just unable to express my gratitude, gushing, “Thank you so much. That would be...”

And then I notice Princess Twilight Sparkle, alse standing in the room, just behind Pinkie Pie and to the left. My left. I notice the pony who’s pretty much destined to return me to... to somewhere I don’t want to think about right now. She’s looking at me tensely, and I’ve forgotten what I said to her, or if I did anything wrong. Is she going to kick me out because I did something wrong? Isn’t that what happens to characters who don’t want to return home?

Her violet eyes widen as I stare at her, and—I’m staring. Oh no she thinks I’m staring. I tear my gaze away from the lilac beauty to face a more energetic experience of pink. I should say something casual, so the princess doesn’t suspect that I’m afraid of her. “T-thank you so much,” I repeat to Pinkie Pie. That’s all I could think of? Really?

While I’m just blanking, Pinkie Pie easily just flips off the lid of the soup bowl with her hoof, and the amazing, savory smell it was giving off floods the room even more strongly. I lean over to where the bowl is on a table beside the bed. It’s steaming hot and smells of salt, carrots and peas.

“Well go ahead, dig in,” Pinkie Pie says encouragingly, “It shouldn’t be too hot.”

Should I just... stick my nose in, like with the water? It might be too hot though, and I do not want to get soup up my nose. Just... drink it like a cat? That doesn’t seem optimal.

“How do I...” I ask vaguely, looking at Pinkie hoping she can help me figure out how to get all this soup inside me as fast as possible, and pointedly not looking at the purple princess in the room.

Twilight’s stepping forward to peer at me curiously, almost like a circus exhibit, or one of her experiments, neither of which I want to be. “Do you not have soup in your native verse?” Twilight asks curiously, making me meet her eyes in bewilderment.

“What? No, we have soup,” I say in utter confusion, “I’m just... how do I eat it?”

“Like this?” Pinkie asks, and demonstrates, biting at the air above the soup, then... tilting her head back, and making a sipping sound. “Mmm, nomnomnom!” she says, looking at me with an expectant smile. She wants me to bite the soup? What? I just want soup for goodness’ sake! It’s right here tormenting me with it’s delicious soupiness!

“So I just—” I look down at the soup in frustration and just... I try to delicately lick up some soup like a cat, but that just burns my tongue.

“You don’t have bowls in your native verse, of course!” Twilight cheers like right next to me, peering into the bowl together with me. “You see, a bowl is a concave receptacle for hot liquids and cereal, that—”

“I know what a bowl is,” I say with an irritated huff. Clearly the story is just fucking with me at this point. “How do I use it?”

Then I realize who I just snapped at. Oh hay, Twilight’s looking at me like I’m an idiot. I probably am. I definitely am.

“The... bite grip?” the purple horse suggests tentatively.

“Thank you! Yes,” I say in relief, looking from Twilight to the soup with curiosity, “What is that?”

Twilight gestures with a few limp shakes of a forehoof at the bowl, saying, “There’s a lip on the side... you bite that, so that you can lift the bowl.”

A lip on the... oh does she mean the literal lip of the bowl? I guess that could work? I’m going to spill hot soup all over myself, aren’t I? Biting down on the rim, I do splash a little soup. Oh no and it’s getting on Pinkie Pie’s sheets, too. Why didn’t I climb out of her bed before diving headfirst into filling the pit of my stomach? The world may never know.

Okay, easy now... don’t want to flood my mouth with hot soup... just tilt it a teeny little bit... then the flavor explosion of hot soup flows into my mouth. That bagel was cardboard compared to this. I think I give a moan of pleasure from the taste of it. It’s all I can do not to guzzle it so fast that it pours out my cheeks. It tastes of tomatoes, and carrots, and beans and love.

They’re both looking at me. I can’t talk to them like this. Do I take another sip, or what? This is a lot less convenient than hands. Shakily returning the bowl to where I lifted it from, I look down at it, remarking thoughtfully, “It’s not very convenient if you can’t talk while holding it...”

“Some ponies hold the bowl in their forehooves,” Twilight says helpfully attracting my... ear wow, my ear just sort of turns forward to listen to her. “But it’s common etiquette to only pick up the bowl when you’re drinking soup. With your mouth, I mean.”

That’s... fascinating. Ponies don’t just have some kind of magic, easy solution to drinking soup, but they have some form of etiquette for dealing with the issues it raises. I think... I think I’m going to take another sip.

I’m in the middle of my attempt, when Twilight says, “So, they have bowls in your verse,” swaying on her hooves in what looks like she’s trying to be subtly suggestive, but adorably failing at it. “But they have a different design?”

I um... can’t answer her with a bowl in my mouth. But I take care of that, swallowing the amazingly hearty substance. “Oh, they’re the same design,” I say once the bowl is on the table again, looking at Twilight amiably, “But they have a different use for the lip of the bowl, what you call the bite grip.”

“Really? What’s that?” she asks curiously.

...huh.

I stare down at my bowl, whose sloping lip is perfect for a pony to bite onto, and it’s strange but all I can say to that question is, “I don’t know...”

There’s a glass of water beside the soup. I am so thirsty. Worse still, this soup is really salty! I wonder if I could drink some water.

Pinkie Pie says “I don’t suppose you could...” murmuring something quietly to Twilight, while I try to just... hug the glass between my hooves? Is that how you do it? I don’t want to spill.

“No problem, Pinkie,” Twilight says happily, turning to her pink friend, “And thank you for this chance to get to know her better!”

Oh, right. Twilight’s trying to get to know me. She’s going to befriend me. Gotta move the story along after all, or you’ll lose readers. I shakily pull my forehooves away from the water glass and just try to think what to say.

Pinkie breaks the tension by speaking in Spanish. “Mi casa su casa! Anything you need, just go ahead and use it.” It’d be a lot more mind blowing to hear that, if I hadn’t already seen her singing in fluent (bad) Spanish on the show. I look between the two of them, but Pinkie seems to be satisfied with whatever she was trying to say. She goes bouncing down the stairs leading out of her room, leaving me alone with...

Twilight Sparkle.

Author's Note

Twilight Sparkle

My life is incredible. Somehow, impossibly, wonderfully, I find myself sitting here in Pinkie Pie’s room, in Pinkie Pie’s bed, in Ponyville, in Equestria. My Little Pony is real, Friendship is Magic, and I’m a pony. I’m a cute little pink haired, cream furred mare, where once I was a nondescript, brown-haired man. As one of those few men cursed to be overjoyed at getting turned into the little mare, I couldn’t possibly be happier.

Some cosmic being had to be smiling down upon me, or sitting up there laughing at me, because something happened that never would have through random chance alone. My portal led to Ponyville, not the vacuum of empty space. I turned into an earth pony mare, not a burbling blob of melted protoplasm. I guess technically I was for those first agonizing minutes/hours. I passed through the portal, went through that pain. I walked through the cold forest, slept in the snow, followed the creek, and then I appreciated the applesauce out of Ponyville.

It didn’t mean I wasn’t in trouble though. Probably suffering hypothermia, I was too worn out to even shiver. I don’t know how close to death I was, but I certainly wasn’t doing very well, when I reached town. I was saved when a lilac princess came into my life. When nopony else would help me, she and her friend Pinkie Pie gave me food and shelter, and left me in Pinkie’s own bed, instead of leaving me out in the cold. That may sound like other ponies are callous and cruel, but in fact ponies did seem like they were trying to help me, just coincidentally unable to. This is of course because I’m in a story, and the first thing these stories dictate is you’ll meet the main 6.

Unfortunately, the last thing these stories dictate is that you’ll return home.

Staring at Twilight Sparkle from Pinkie Pie’s bed, I’m alone in a room with the omnipotent being who probably has the power to send me back right on the spot, I don’t want to go through with this story, but I don’t know what consequences there are for a genre savvy character to try to ruin the story. Is everything going to start being terrible again, as our author abandons us, and we’re once again left with nothing but undirected chaos? What would Twilight do to me, if I tried to fight my own destiny?

On some level, I don’t want to ruin the story. Sure I don’t want to go back, but I’m immensely grateful just for a chance to live like this, and authors have good reasons for bringing things back to normal. They won’t let me suffer like I once did. I’ll return home wiser, and with a new motivation to clean up my life and really live. That wouldn’t be... terrible. It just means I have to be a... guy.

I have to return home, because my readers don’t get to live a fantasy, so why should I? If I return home, then people who read my story will feel like there is nothing wrong with their world, that my story doesn’t challenge the notion that their reality is the best reality. If I don’t return home, then readers will wonder if there isn’t something wrong with their world, and wish for something better, and then become as miserable as I was.

I couldn’t inflict my life on someone else. I can’t afford to remain a pony, and I must go back, so why am I so scared of Twilight Sparkle? How she looks at me, the violet eyes that almost seem to glow, this immense power just radiating off her elegant form as she stares at me. I just... I don’t want to have to worry about otherworldly authors, or returning home. I just want to eat my soup!

And actually my throat is so thirsty it feels tacky from swallowing all that soup. What I need is water, which is handily provided in the tall glass beside my soup bowl. “Don’t mind me,” Twilight murmurs, for some reason, while I try to pick up the cup with increasing alarm. I can’t... I can’t even pick up the glass. My stupid hooves are shaking and—and I don’t know how to use them!

“D-do you think I could, um...” I say wondering if it’d be okay for me to just stick my nose into the glass, and to Tartarus with not spilling everything all over the place.

Twilight thankfully misinterprets my question, and the cup slips right out from between my thirsty hooves. I follow my gaze upward and... oh sweet Celestia. The cup is floating before me, wrapped in sparkling, magenta light, in a wonderful display of physical forces that should be literally impossible. Without any kinetic force on anything between her horn and this cup, Twilight Sparkle is levitating it up in the air.

Everything I’ve seen so far has been crazy, impossible, and spectacular. But her magic...

It could be nanobots. Her horn could emit a stream of nanobots that glowed as they burned their payload, to lift whatever it is up into the air. But I mean, everything could be nanobots.

I could perform experiments on that horn, take measurements, eliminate every sensible answer other than magic. If it truly violates the laws of thermodynamics, then I could be looking at something right now which is not just unexplained, but genuinely unexplainable. Not just contradicting the models of the laws of physics that humans had thought were true, but contradicting the natural laws themselves.

I... don’t know a lot about physics, honestly. Just enough to find it a depressingly well studied dead end. Enough to know that magic as it appeared in the show should be impossible. Enough to know that portals into other worlds should be impossible.

But that portal, I could write off as a one-time plot device. If I’m going to be living in a world where magic is commonplace... then the physical laws of the story have got to cater to it, including the laws governing death.

And I’m going to have to leave this place? Oh I hope it’s not one of those all-just-a-dream endings. At least give me some evidence of this magical realm, so I can hope that one day, when I die, I can finally have a chance to be a girl, instead of just being... dead forever.

I’ll probably have a... a cupcake, or a horseshoe, or something I can’t write off as just a dream. That’d be okay, right? Then I could live with being... myself, long enough to make it to whatever heaven awaits: humans, or ponies.

Honestly, if I’m aiming at Heaven, I probably should delete that folder on my laptop computer... the one named “Pictures / Pony / .hiddenunimportant”. Holy crap, does this mean I can have sex for real? I don’t know how to feel about that! Somepony’s talking to me. I probably should respond to her.

In the reality that there is a cup of water magically floating in my face, Twilight Sparkle says, “Just firmly brace them, without biting down hard, and they should tighten reflexively at the weight on them.”

I look at her in consternation. She probably thinks I’m an idiot who doesn’t know how to use a cup.

“I uh, drank from a cup before. It’s just I’ve never seen your magic,” I tell Twilight distractedly, “Is it—” I turn back to look at the floating cup, curious out of my mind . The water isn’t floating out of it. If it negated gravity, the water would start floating out, right? Is it just like holding it in a hoof, but remotely?

“What does it feel like to do that?” I finally ask her, poking an edge of my forehoof against the floating glass. It feels... sparkly.

“To lift a cup?” Twilight asks. Vaguely I nod. What did she think I was talking about?

Twilight retreats the cup back to herself, both her horn and the cup still glowing in magenta light that dances with sparkles. She looks at it uncertainly, then says to me, “It’s um... I just wrap my magic around the cup and lift it. It’s kind of hard to explain to an earth pony—”

Her violet irises narrow then and she stammers, “u-um n-not that I think anypony’s stupid. I just meant you don’t have a horn to deal with, and it can be a real pain I mean, even for me, it took me a while to learn things like lifting cups, when I was a very little filly. Do um...”

It’s kind of strange, seeing such a powerful being getting all awkwardly nervous, but it is Twilight Sparkle, I suppose. Twilight relaxes somewhat, and her voice bears more curiosity when she asks, “Do they not have unicorns, where you’re from?”

Understatement of the eon.

“No they don’t...” I say faintly, “They don’t have any of this.”

Twilight just floats the glass over towards me again, and tilts it slightly. I bite the edge of the magic cup, finding it curiously weightless, yet weighty. I cautiously tilt it enough to get water to pour into my mouth. Then Twilight just releases her magic, and the weight of the glass clacks on my teeth as water floods out of it so fast it goes right down the wrong pipe, because of course horses can breathe through their mouths. Great job, pony evolution! My cough knocks the cup right out of my lips, and I hunch there trying to clear my throat from wet coughs, trying to apologize for...

for...

Right, she has magic. When the cup flies out of my mouth, Twilight Sparkle just catches it in mid-air ... and the water that splashes out of it.

“Careful,” Twilight says in an almost motherly way, returning the floating spheres of water to the cup, then floating it towards me again. “Sorry, I thought you had it.”

“I just didn’t know you were going to let go of the cup,” I murmur in embarassment, “I didn’t know the... common etiquette for that, if you hold it the whole time or not.”

Soon I’ve got the cup in my mouth again, and this time neither of us let it spill. My parched tissues receive the water with an aching wonder. I can’t drink enough, biting to tilt the angle of the cup higher and higher, while Twilight continues to have me hold it, saying, “It really is fascinating how your verse’s ponies are so different from our own.”

My verse’s... ponies. She thinks I’m a pony in the original world, doesn’t she. Humans are just a myth in this universe, and she can’t even comprehend what they would be like. I try to smile at her, saying, “Thanks... Twilight.”

Then something occurs to me: this purple unicorn has wings! “Or, do you prefer Princess Twilight?” I ask curiously, “Or Twilight Sparkle?”

“Twilight is fine. We’re all friends here,” is her easy answer.

I envy Twilight’s calm confidence, even in crazy situations like this. But Twilight keeps grilling me, pointing out that I have no unicorns, or bite grips, and... huh.

“You seem to want to manipulate everything with your hooves,” Twilight says as I fumble with the soup bowl. “Is that how you do it, in your old world: stop and lift everything with your hooves?”

I can’t... I just can’t leave her that ignorant. She doesn’t even know. But the more I tell her, the greater a risk my story will end and she’ll send me back. I–I don’t know. How much do I need tell her? How much do I want to tell her?

“In my world, I don’t...” I wince, trying to sugarcoat this, but I want her to understand. “I don’t have hooves.”

Twilight looks at me stupidly, mouth hanging open. She recovers fast though, saying, “But... you do have hooves!” She points to my... my dirty cream colored hooves, with her own hoof. Oh no, she... she thinks I was always a pony! She doesn’t know that the portal changed me into a pony!

“I sort of... changed into a pony,” I have to admit, and I immediately regret it. Should I have told her even that? Now she’ll try to change me back, won’t she? Twilight’s looking at me suspiciously, and I can’t go lying to her. I’d never keep my story straight. “I don’t know how, or why, but I just... woke up like this,” I tell her noncommitally, “I used to be a... um... do you know what humans are?”

“Vaguely,” Twilight drawls, waving a dismissive forehoof. Oh stars, the mirror is canon.

“Mythical Monsters Made Manifest mentioned them, once,” she remarks, “I think they’re native to Zebri—wait, you were a human?”

What?

No seriously, what? Humans are native to... Zebrica? Oh that makes so much more sense than the high school dimension. What if ponies and humans happened, how would a human society really develop under those conditions? I have got to get to a paleontology museum.

...aand Twilight notices me staring.

“I’m sorry,” I say with a blush, “It’s... yes, I was a—” I wish I could tell her a pony. But she’d find out then, and then she’d find out that I lied to her!

“A human,” I admit at last. I could never say I’m a man. That would just kill me, if everypony had to know. I don’t want to even think about going back to that. “I must have transformed,” I say, smiling nervously, and trying to sound casual when I say, “That’s why I said I wasn’t supposed to be a pony.”

“Oh no, you really are in trouble then!” Twilight declares just like I wish she wouldn’t. “Not only did the transfer process take away your home and loved ones,” she says dramatically, “But also thrust you into a strange form, totally alien to you!”

Trying to smile calmly without alarm, I tell her, “No, it’s not so—”

“Well, worry not!” Twilight cuts in, and I guess she wasn’t even listening to me at this point. Looks like she’s on a roll, telling me how she’s gonna send me home, and then saying, “I just hope your transformation won’t give you a negative opinion of ponies in the future.”

“I really don’t mind,” I tell her frantically, “I just...” I just what? I love being a pony? That’s why I can’t drink, or walk right? How do I tell her I’m having trouble, without making her think I hate being a pony? “It just takes some getting used to,” I assure her, feeling a little more genuine in my smile knowing that I welcome the things I have to get used to, in order to be a mare.

“I’m sure I could get you back quicker, if you tell me about the process by which you came here,” Twilight asks cagily. Dammit, I can’t escape this, can I? She barrages me with guesses about how I came to her world, each one more fantastic than the last.

“No, no I’m just... I’m not anyone special,” I tell Twilight cautiously, afraid to reveal what little I might know about the process of coming here. “Nobody knows me or c–cares. I’m pretty much nobody. Nothing special about me, and I c-certainly wouldn’t have access to technology that could do... this.”

I wish it wasn’t so easy to describe myself as an incompetent loser.

“Were you a test subject of an experiment?” Twilight asks innocently.

“Sometimes I wonder about that,” I grumble. But with an inner sigh, I look to her and say, “No, I’m just... someone. With nothing anyone would remember about.”

“Then how did you get here?” Twilight demands with an impatient frown.

What do I tell her? She’s not taking the hint that I don’t have any clues to give her! I don’t want to give her what little clues I have! Does my story demand it?

An ugly feeling wells up in me as Twilight innocently says, “If you tell me, then I can get you back, and you can return to your normal life. That’s why I’m asking, because I want to help you!” Of course she wants to help me. Anything I tell her is just going to ruin everything. There’s just no way out of this. I’m gonna have to... lie.

“I don’t remember anything,” I say, trying to remain calm, “I just went to sleep in my bed, and woke up face first in the snow, as a pony. It’s really okay though—”

Brightening, Twilight declares, “Oneirology isn’t unheard of, but there are pretty hard limits to what a dream can project. I’m sure you’ve pinched yourself at least once in the past week of searching for Ponyville.”

Week? How would I...? “How does a pony pinch herself?” I ask curiously.

“...by nipping your own arm?” Twilight replies with a confused look. Huh, that does make sense, as far as pony linguo and anatomy goes. Of course my question about pinching allows her to go into another diatribe about how she’s going to return me to my human life, and I can only sigh in frustration.

“Never mind,” I try not to snap at her, “I just wanted you to know that I’m okay. B-being a pony.”

Twilight looks at me like I’m an idiot, who doesn’t know what he—or she is okay with. I look down at my forehooves again, and I just want to be a pony. I don’t want to rush through my whole entire story in just one day. I haven’t even seen what I look like! Oh, actually...

“Do you know if there’s a mirror in here?” I ask Twilight hopefully. I don’t even know what color my eyes are!

“I think so, but this isn’t my room, so no promises,” Twilight says, giving me an odd look, “Why do you need a mirror?”

“I have been able to see myself a little bit in water, and windows,” I admit, “But I haven’t seen a mirror yet. I’m just curious what I really look like... as a pony.”

“Well alright. I’ll see if there’s anything in her closet,” Twilight says, facing a door in the wall, and then her horn lights up. Her magenta light illuminates the door, swinging it open, then she trots over to it, poking her head in its dark confines, looking around. “...huh,” I can hear Twilight vaguely mumble something to herself, something about free spirits I guess, as she moves into the closet.

If I’m going to see myself, I want to see myself standing like a pony, not laying on my back in Pinkie Pie’s bed like a ...human. That of course means I have to get up now. It hurts to even lean over. But I dunno, the best way to heal is to get fresh blood to the injured areas. That means circulation, and that means... moving.

I can’t exactly... step out of bed, so I just slide my hind legs off, thumping down on the wood floor with my very female rear end. I didn’t know your vulva would just push up against stuff! I uh... I would’ve hurt myself a lot just now, if I had balls to land on instead. I wonder how many girls know how much it hurts to land on your balls. That’s sort of a transformed girls only thing, I guess.

I’ve just begun crawling up off that soft-feeling rump, pulling myself upright by walking my forehooves forward, when Twilight comes out of the closet. She noses before her not just a hand mirror, but a full length mirror in ornately carved wood, rolling on little wheels. I am standing correctly, right? I lift my hooves, checking their position. I can feel them again, all four of them, and the novelty of feeling my broad, flat hooves pressing against Pinkie Pie’s floorboards is fascinating in of itself.

“Okay, if you’re sure about this,” Twilight says, attracting my attention. She’s giving me a worried look, her magic moving the mirror away from my ability to see in it. “I want you to know that you are very aesthetically pleasing as a pony,” Twilight says nervously, “Even if you are a bit filthy, currently. It might disturb you to see this, but I assure you that you look very normal, even if it might seem strange to you.”

Did... Twilight Sparkle just call me cute?

“I think I’ll manage,” I tell the princess, unable to stop a little giggle from bubbling up in me at how clinically Twilight Sparkle said that. “So um...” I say, leaning to try and look into the mirror her magic’s still holding. “Bring it over here, please?”

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Twilight replies seriously. This isn’t going to be a problem, is it? I know I’m not as fat as Woah Nelly! Twilight finally swings the mirror around so I can see in it and...

...

There’s a little pony looking back at me in the mirror. A soft pink mane hangs over my head, that looks like it’d be in curls if it wasn’t frazzled and disarrayed. There is no horn hidden in it, and no wings decorate my sides, making me a simple earth pony. With my hooves the same color as the rest of my keratin (my fur) you can’t easily tell where fur ends and hoof begins. Creamy, off-white fur covers my entire body, from my softly rounded snout, to the fetlocks of my hooves. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s off-white, because I’m absolutely filthy.

Guilt swells in me as I don’t even want to think what state of Pinkie Pie’s bed is in. Smears of dried, crusted dirt mar my creamy white fur. My hopelessly frizzy and snarled pink hair feels like it wanted to be soft, beautiful curls somehow, but instead it’s a mess of leaves and twigs, and split ends. My tail is ragged and sore, and I think my environment managed to yank out clumps of the long hairs, when I was too numb to even notice.

The messed up mare in the mirror looks surprised with her hoof raised, which is my hoof hanging there in front of me. Striking blue eyes blink, and stare, as I look at myself in the mirror, huge and round, bordered with little wispy black eyelashes. Are those my eyes? If I wasn’t all dirty... I guess I’d be kind of cute? I try to imagine myself all brushed and washed and... with my soft pink curls looking less like snarls, I guess. I have this innocentish look that seems so familiar. Where have I seen a pony like that before?

Oh.

“I’m Twinkleshine, without a horn,” I say flatly, returning my forehoof to the floor. That’s just... well, it’s not exactly creative. It’s still pretty incredible, but why would I just randomly have her color scheme? Am I supposed to be some version of her? But I’m an earth pony! I guess some ponies just look like each other? Would ponies think Twinkleshine and I were related? Or is there a difference, I’m not seeing?

Indeed, Twilight confidently protests my claim, saying wryly, “I wouldn’t say that. Her snout isn’t as rounded as yours, and she has oval eyes, I’m pretty sure—wait, how do you know Twinkleshine?”

I—shit!

“Well, I’ve... seen her, um...” what do I say? I don’t want to tell her about the show! That’d blow her little pony mind! I don’t want to send Twilight Sparkle into a spiral of depression as she enters an existential crisis! Please tell me that’s not part of the plot!

But bizarrely, Twilight only seems to grow angrier at my reticence. Stepping aggressively forward, she says in utter disgust, “Are you seriously that much of a crazed fan, that you even have to stalk my friends in—” She knows I’m a fan?! She knows about fans?? Of course she does, she’s probably been studying us like insects for years, just like she’s looking down at me like an insect! Oh... oh stars, she’s taller than me.

“How do you know Twinkleshine?” Twilight says in a furious squeal, coming up to me even as I sink down, which makes her look even bigger. “How do you know my name? How do you know anything? You’re a human mare from another world! Another verse! An entirely different reality! How did you know about Sugarcube Corner?”

I—I didn’t think about that—she knows, doesn’t she? Why would she think I don’t know about her? What’s going on??

“How did you know Pinkie Pie, and me? How could you be a fan of us, if you live in an entirely separate reality from our own? Were you spying on us across the dimensions?” Was I?? Does the show count as spying? I try to tell her I didn’t mean to spy, but my words catch in my throat as she gets right up to me and shouts,

“How? Were you sent here intentionally, to target us? Why would your verse want to target the Elements of Harmony, if not for malicious intent! Do you have that capability? What are you going to do to us?!”

I try to look away from her, desperate to get away from her, and that... that huge mirror is hovering in her magic and creaking worriedly. “How did you know my name?” Twilight shouts in my face, in anger and fear, “How did you know my name?!”

“Twilight, the mirror—!” I manage to squeak, just as with a loud crack, the thick, polished wood splits in half, scattering splinters like rain. The glass shatters, shards raining down in Twilight’s magic as if in slow-motion.

A look of shock and guilt floods Twilight’s face, as she steps back from me, looking at the ruined mirror and shaking her head, saying softly “I’m so sorry, Pinkie.”

She did that on accident?!

Twilight’s eyes have never looked colder as she spears me in her gaze again. “We’re not gods,” she says in a weary voice. What?!

“We’re just ponies, who happened to be at the right place at the right time,” Twilight tells me all too calmly, “Yes I have wings, and yes I did save the Crystal Empire, but not alone, and not just with those 12. It’s perfectly alright if you want to respect and admire me and my friends, for what we’ve achieved as ponies, but can’t you see this is going too far?”

“What...?!” I say in a somewhat less terrified squeak. What’s going too far? She thinks I went through that portal just to be her fan?

“This!” Twilight answers my rhetorical squeak, throwing a forehoof in my direction, where I lay puddled shaking on the floor. Oh no why am I shaking? W-what’s wrong with me?!

“You went and starved yourself out in the wilderness,” Twilight says almost sadly, “And you constructed some sort of highly advanced magical... prank, just to get my attention?”

She thinks I constructed the portal? She thinks the portal is a prank?!

“Just to impress me?” Twilight insists, and I try to shake my head, but she goes on, stating emphatically, “I’m a princess, not some kind of deity, missy!”

Rubbing her forehead beneath her horn, and then glaring at me, she says, “Why couldn’t you just... take the train to Ponyville, and talk to me? You think your magic can’t impress me, just by showing it to me?” How... what? How was I supposed to—just take the train to Ponyville?!

Her tone of voice grows bitter, as Twilight groans, “This is about Trixie, isn’t it? You think that it’s just a big game of one-upmareship, where you have to be bigger and better than her, or I’ll just be a big snob! Is that what you think?”

“I don’t—a snob?” I ask with a shrill break in my voice, trying to stand up and I can’t—w-why am I crying? “What are you saying?” I beg of her, my eyes flooding with tears that I can’t stop.

Then she just grabs me. Her magic just latches onto me and I can feel it. Not all of me, but just my head, dragging me by my head up to her, so her face is just an inch away from mine. I can’t move away! Help!

“I want you to get your friends,” she tells me cooly, “And have them all report to me at the library.” Oh please someone help I can’t do that! Can I? I’ve never been so terrified in my life, and she won’t let me go! “No more grandstanding, no more risky stunts, no more lying to the pony you’re trying to impress.”

She lets me pull away then, to at least a small distance, but I just want to run until I never see her again, and my chest is hurting, and I hate her and I love her and I can’t handle this! What’s wrong with me? Why can’t think? I wasn’t—I lied to her! She knew! When did I lie to her? All I remember is lying to her! I can’t even remember what the lie was!

“Get all your fellow fans to the library, and I’m going to have a very long talk with you about the consequences of putting a pony up on a pedestal,” she tells me impassively, even regally, “Being a fan is one thing, but what they did to you, or you to yourself, is entirely unacceptable.”

I’m having a hard time talking, because when I say, “How am I supposed to do that?!” my voice cracks with a sob that I can’t hold back, just shuddering there and crying in front of her, trapped and scared and I can’t handle this. “I don’t even know how I got here!” I sob, “I don’t even know any fans; how would they all fit in the library?”

“I didn’t mean all my fans,” Twilight says, rolling her eyes at me. Then... then what does she want? I told her that I don’t know any fans! I was all alone. I just... went to Equestria one day. My television exploded, but oh no that was the lie I told. I told her I just woke up in Equestria, because I was trying to hide it from her.

“Just tell me the ones who orchestrated this,” Twilight says impatiently, “Don’t tell me that you worked alone.”

But I did! “I... worked alone?” I squeak in terror, eyes still wet with tears. She doesn’t want me to lie, but she doesn’t want me to tell the truth?! “Orchestrated?” I whine in confusion, my fogged mind belatedly picking up on her strange accusations, “I didn’t orchestrate anything! How do you even know about the show?!”

Then Twilight just... stops. Drops me to sink to the floor. She’s just staring at me with an unreadable expression. I’m going to die here. She’s going to kill me for knowing her dark secret. “What show?” she asks, suspiciously. “Are you talking about a stage play?”

“N-no, more like a movie,” I say, trying to get ahold of my shuddering breaths.

And then she suddenly doesn’t believe me anymore! “Are you asking for movie rights?” she asks and I can’t ask for movie rights since she’s real! “Because there are channels for that sort of thing, that don’t involve pretending to be a lost traveller from another verse,” she says. But I am!

“I am a traveller from another verse,” I desperately squeal, trying to calm down as I try to explain, “I have a s-show that I watch, that’s like a movie and you’re all in it! That’s how I found you! I mean that—that’s probably why I got sent here, because... because I wanted you to be real!”

Twilight facehoofs again, saying, “Okay, let’s just start over again.” Why is she doing this to me?!

“Twilight, what did you do?!” comes a shrill shriek from behind the purple princess. Pinkie just bounds into the room, staring at me in horror. Oh no, does she hate me too?

“Oh, the mirror?” Twilight replies with a nervous laugh, “Sorry I got a little too—”

“Not the mirror!” Pinkie shouts, then leaps at me like a panther! My heart stops, as a scream catches in my throat and then her warm pink arms wrap around me, and she pulls me to her chest. S-she’s comforting me? Stars fall, I can’t understand it! Why is she comforting me, when Twilight was so angry with me? What did I do, to get Twilight that terrifyingly overwhelmingly angry? She was like a force of nature! And why can’t I stop crying?

I try to breathe, and... and just sob into Pinkie Pie’s fluffy chest fur. Which I probably have, but I do, and I don’t care if I make a fool of myself, because I’m scared and upset and it’s just hitting me like a tidal wave!

Twilight squeals in utter frustration then, and vanishes in a bright flash of magenta light.

Pinkie just sits with me on the floor, and lets me do this... thing. As time passes, I start to become aware of what I’m doing, or at least what just happened. I had an honest to gosh, genuine freakout. I’ve never been so terrified of a little pony before, or of anything really. I don’t think I’ve ever felt things this strongly before. Is it because I’m a pony? Is it because I’m a girl? Is it because I have hope again?

Darn it, this is so weird... I’m not used to being so loud and—frankly obnoxious when I cry. I’m not used to so genuinely losing control of myself. My terrified sobs fade blessedly quickly though, and soon I’m just trying to breathe more evenly in the warm embrace of my... my friend? Is it really that easy to be her friendxs? What does Pinkie Pie think of me, reacting so terribly to her real friend?

I try to explain, saying quietly, “She’s a lot scarier in person.” But no, that was terrible. I just called her friend scary, when it’s me, and my weird... girly reaction that’s the problem.

“There there, it’s alright,” Pinkie says, releasing me enough to sit beside me, and patting me on the back like I was a foal, “You doing okay now?”

I’m afraid to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry,” I say, trying to think how to make it clear to her that I don’t hold anything against her friend.

“What are you—” Pinkie asks, as it comes to me.

“I’m just not...” I look at her earnestly, saying in a sweet, girly voice, “It’s just so different!”

Sighing and looking away from her blue-eyed gaze, I tell Pinkie Pie, “I’m not used to... being this way. I didn’t think I would feel so s-scared about it. I couldn’t even think! I...” Stars, I am such a girl.

“You’re talking about how you were a big, brave humin, instead of a timid little pony, huh?” Pinkie says with a hopeful smile. I start to tell her that it’s something else, a something that is involved with a certain foal bearing tunnel into my hips. But actually... is it because I’m a girl? I don’t know anything about how timid ponies are, and Pinkie just suggested that they were. Would I be crying into her chest at being verbally accosted by Twilight Sparkle, even if I was a stallion?

It’s easier than telling her I used to have a dick.

“Yeah, that’s it,” I say tentatively, “I’m just...” a mare? A wimp? An emotional wreck? “Ponies are really brave, though,” I try to reassure Pinkie Pie, “I’m just so much more...”

What is even going on with me? Trying to imagine what could be different about me besides my hypothetically fertile reproductive passage, I lift a hoof and just... try to find a smile. I don’t know if I succeed. I feel kind of worn out and numb, honestly, but I manage a smile for Pinkie Pie.

...my cheeks are wet.

“I’m just so much more emotional now,” I tell her nervously, “I haven’t been able to cry in... in a good long time. And now I can’t not cry!”

“You want ponies to make you cry?” Pinkie asks me in genuine confoundment. Oh stars, if only she knew. If only she knew how much I’ve wanted to cry.

“It’s a lot worse when you have so many tears inside,” I tell her frankly, “And you just can’t let them out.”

Pinkie’s... smile weakens.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be a downer,” I tell her, holding up a hoof defensively, “I’m just trying to say how much I love being a pony m-mare.”

“What do you mean?” Pinkie Pie asks innocently, “What else would you be?”

“A–uh, j-just—” I stammer, realizing that I haven’t told Pinkie yet. I told Twilight, and... and she decided to send me home. I don’t want to hear that from Pinkie Pie. “Things are really ...different in my old verse,” I admit to her grudgingly, “Our bowls don’t make sense, and we can’t pull cannons out of thin air.”

Pinkie Pie giggles at that, saying, “Guess I’m pretty unique, there! So, what else is different about this verse of yours?”

I stare at her speechless for a moment, then stammer, “I–I was just joking about the party cannon!”

“Well, good, because it is a joke!” Pinkie replies, with a wink of her baby blue eye.

“So it—okay, sorry, I...” I say, trying to figure out if Pinkie Pie just said her party cannon was real, or if she said it was fake. I fail.

“I shouldn’t make assumptions about you or anyone here,” I say in the voice of a glum girl, “It looks the same, but it could be totally different from what I expect. I keep forgetting that I really don’t know much about this world.”

“What do you wanna know?” Pinkie Pie asks, sitting back from me, facing me and cocking her head in an adorable sort of confusion. Do you get to call things adorable when you’re adorable? That’s not my first question, but this is... something I’ve never had since coming to this world. This is actually an incredible opportunity. I’ve stumbled and fumbled my way so far, but I have no idea what I’m doing, or what sort of world I’ve really been dropped in.

But Pinkie Pie is a native. She lives here, and she’s always lived here. She’s not just a native. She’s Pinkie Pie! And she just asked what I want to know?

“I don’t know where to start!” I say with a shaky laugh, thinking furiously. If I ask the wrong questions I’ll just get Pinkie Pie answers, like how does your Pinkie Sense work, or questions like that. But if I can ask the right ones... Pinkie Pie knows things that other ponies don’t know. In the show, I mean, she knows secret things, forgotten things.

“Well, take your time,” Pinkie says with a smile, standing up beside me. “But are you okay now? Like, really okay? I promise Twilight’s not gonna come barging in here again, not after she telepran away like that.”

“What? No, I’m—” I start to reassure her, but an uneasy fear rises in my chest at the thought of Twilight barging in here, and... I’m not so sure I understand my own chest anymore. “I’m kind of glad she’s not coming back,” I tell Pinkie Pie cautiously, “But I don’t hold it against her. I’m just kind of... in a delicate place right now, and really could use some time to get used to this... verse. I haven’t even seen much of your ...restaurant?”

“Bakery,” Pinkie Pie corrects casually, “And if you want I can show you around! I can’t really go running around town though, because I’m kinda working here.”

I plant my forehooves on the ground and try to brace up on them. Oh stars, everything aches. Just how injured was I, wandering out for three days in the snow... naked? “I’m not... going to be running around town either,” I tell her wearily. “I feel so much better but I swear, everything hurts. I’ll just... just be a second. You don’t have to...”

Pinkie Pie holds out a hoof to me. When I cautiously hook my forehoof in hers, the soft round pink pony pulls with a startling amount of strength, steadily lifting me right up to my... hooves. Huh. I just sort of tilt up onto them, like an unfolding lawn chair.

“Take all the time you need,” she says with a... with her head darting towards me, and briefly nuzzling under my chin as I tilt my own head back in surprise. “I am gonna get back to my baking though, if you don’t mind,” Pinkie says, keeping her snout to herself after that, “Just let me know if you need any help. And if you have any questions, please do ask! Just a warning though, if you do go downstairs you better be ready. ”

“Why’s that?” I ask, blinking at her and just... standing in place, trying not to move my aching muscles too much.

“The ponies who run Sugarcube Corner are named Mr. Carrot and Mrs. Cup Cake,” Pinkie explains helpfully, “And not too long ago, we had two adorable little foals, named Pound and Pumpkin Cake. They’re not allowed upstairs into my room, but if you head downstairs, be ready, because they’re very rambunctious, and they’ll probably be curious to pieces about you!”

“Oh, right! I do have a very important question,” I tell Pinkie Pie hastily, leaning towards her, sorely. “You can go then, while I take it... easy for a while. A-and maybe I can ask you more questions about your world, if you don’t mind, once I get downstairs.”

“Sounds good to me!” Pinkie says, facing me squarely, and declaring, “Go ahead then, hit me with your best shot!”

A beat, and she adds in a whisper, “That means your very important question.”

“Right, right, sorr—right,” I say intelligently, wavering on my hooves. “I um... how do I go down... stairs?”

Pinkie Pie helps me down the stairs, then heads to the kitchen, while a unicorn and a pegasus foal immediately run up to me and start climbing all over me. Well, Pound is the one climbing on my back.

“Sorry I gotta...” Pinkie says with an apologetic wince.

“No it’s okay,” I wave her off, “I’ll... just say hi to them, I guess,” I reply, looking down at the little orange filly named Pumpkin.

“‘inkie ie!” the golden Pumpkin Cake tells me imperiously, apparently associating me with the baker, as the foal then starts nosing around my legs.

“Okay, but once you’re done with them, come find me in the kitchen, and you can ask me all the questions you want!” Pinkie says with a bright smile. She trots off then, while I um... wince as I painfully sink down to my belly, to help Pumpkin who’s reaching up and trying to climb up my side, to be up where Pound is.

“Y’know, ponies riding ponies is kinda weird,” I remark to the two in amusement, after I stagger to my feet again.

Pumpkin responds by stuffing the end of my tail in her mouth and chewing on it. When did she...? Ew... how do I make her stop?

“My tail’s dirty!” I whisper to her anxiously, “C’mon, leggo you shouldn’t be chewing on it. Pumpkin, that feels weird, please—”

“Sorry, I’ll get those two,” a beautiful blue mare says, coming trotting up to me, as I hold up a forehoof, saying,

“N-no, I really don’t mind.” Well, I do mind how Pound Cake is smacking my sore shoulder blades, but... Mrs. Cake saves me anyway.

“Oh it’s no trouble, dearie,” Cup Cake says, and she is significantly larger than me when she walks over to me. She plucks Pound Cake off my back, and he flutters right to her wide, blue posterior, then she scruffs Pumpkin, who releases my tail and just dangles there, blinking up at me impassively.

“You two are a couple of very lovely foals!” I declare, honestly in a daze. I didn’t think the twins would be this... cute! With their little button noses, and their beady little eyes, tiny little horns and wings, they’re just so adorable! It’s kind of comforting, actually. I was worried foals would be those weird little things like in the show, with their little button noses, and their beady little eyes and... wait a sec.

Mrs. Cake goes trotting off with her foals, in a direction I probably shouldn’t follow. Because Pinkie went the opposite way, and also I’m too sore to turn around. Wincing with every step, I drag my screaming muscles into gear, hobbling through the brightly decorated gingerbread house, that is a lot more than just a gingerbread house.

There’s one place I want to go right now, and I have no idea what it is, but I have an idea where it is. Pinkie’s headed out of sight by now, but I can follow the sound of Pinkie Pie pleasantly humming. I’m so curious what she does here, curious about so many things about this world.

I approach a cool room that looks like it’s rimmed with kitchen cabinets, with counters of a puzzling shade of blue. As I head into it, I try to think what questions to ask Pinkie Pie. I hope she’ll be able to give me some of the answers that I so desperately need. Taking in a slow breath that expands my chest beneath me, rather than in front of me, I step one hoof after another, entering Pinkie Pie’s kitchen.

Author's Note

What would you ask Pinkie Pie?

Pinkie Pie’s Kitchen

The pink baker is hard at work, humming a tuneless song, as she zips between counter, oven and cupboard. She’s not like zip zipping, but just sort of smoothly skipping around in a well practiced rhythm.

Meanwhile I’m a wobbly, sore little pony mare, not sure of all four of my hooves underneath me.

“Oh, hey ...you!” Pinkie says, upon seeing me struggle into the kitchen, not pausing in the slightest, “You’re all up and about, huh?”

“Just curious what you... get up to back here,” I say, “I hope I’m not getting in the way.”

“Not at all!” Pinkie declared, a brown egg briefly balanced on her nose before falling onto the edge of a bowl, whereupon her hoof whisks away the two halves of shell just in time for the egg’s contents to fall. “I actually talk to myself all the time, so it’s nice to have some company!”

“Huh,” say I. “Well I’ll... just stay out of the way then.”

“What were you curious about?” she says amiably, using sort of a ladle to scoop sugar out of a burlap bag. If having a handle in her mouth encumbers her speech, it’s not very obvious.

And holy shit am I curious about just everything. I don’t know where to start! She’s rolling dough out with what looks like a golden rolling pin, just right on the counter, flattening out the dough. Not on a board or anything, but it doesn’t seem to be sticking...

“What are your counters made out of?” I ask curiously, looking at the enigmatic smooth blue smooth surfaces. They’re like a solid form of sky, with little white streaks throughout them like clouds. “Are they painted?” There’s actually a central table that isn’t that odd shade of blue, but is warm and wooden, with images of fruits and candies painted all along the cabinets underneath it.

“The cabinets are painted, but the countertop is colored marble,” Pinkie says, using a dough scraper, and then her nose to fold the dough up, before rolling it out again. She does this a few times, while I think for a moment, then ask,

“What does it mean when something’s colored? Is it like a dye you add?”

“No, it grows blue,” Pinkie explains, while rolling, “You have to rotate it 30% during the spring thaws, and coat it with fluorite, which adjusts the crystalline structure to absorb red and some green light, but not blue.”

“Oh, that... rock farm wasn’t a joke then,” I say, feeling even more confused than before I asked.

“Maybe it was?” Pinkie replies accomodatingly, at last dividing the pastry dough into thick strips. With her mouth, she pulls a box with a bunch of off white bricks in it, and dumps them into a pastry bag, sealing it shut in her hooves and then squeezing it under her arm to dispense the contents in long, thick trails on top of each pastry. “Was somepony making a joke about a rock farm?”

“No, it’s fine, it’s just...” I feel a blush creeping up and say with a quaver in my soft voice, “Y-you just know a lot about rocks, that’s all.”

Pinkie doesn’t reply to that per se, but does start humming in a pleased tone, a wordless tune that I can’t quite place. She actually does consult a recipe book just briefly, before rolling up the strips of dough by hoof, one after the other. Placing them on a tray, she does it a second time, spreading dough out on her counter, dividing into strips, coating, and rolling up, after glancing at the recipe book.

Curious I look at what she’s reading—oh right, I can’t read. There’s a pretty picture of a toasty pastry with sort of slices through it though, and what clearly is an ingredients list, from the way it’s bulleted. If I squint, it looks kind of like cursive, but no recognizeable letters present themselves, and like cursive, it’s just impossible to tell where one letter stops and another starts, if these are even sequences of letters. For all I know they could be short, wide ideograms.

The title though, the title of the recipe (on the page) is almost legible! It’s just gibberish and all, but it’s in more of a printed style, with letters like “EIPKWPDINWF” but of course... not exactly those letters. The “E” has a longer middle stem for instance, and the first “W” runs into the “P” before finishing, whereas the last one is almost doubled before running into the “F.”

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Pinkie says curiously, and I look up from the cookbook to see she’s paused in her baking to watch me er... “reading.”

“This is a cookbook, right?” I ask her. Pinkie nods, looking a little concerned. Blushing, I toe the wooden floor, saying, “See, I can’t really... read your language.”

“But you can speak my language?” Pinkie asks, looking from me to book.

“Yes, it’s really weird,” I reply, shaking my head in confusion, “It sounds like you’re speaking in my language.”

“Which is?” Pinkie prompts.

“It’s a language called Equish,” I answer easily. Wait.

“Equ...ish,” I repeat slowly, trying to work out what my mouth is saying. It doesn’t seem different from what I... always say, but I know that the name of my language isn’t a horse pun! “I guess my uh... s-spoken language changed to yours,” I admit to her cautiously, “But it didn’t come with any ability to read.”

“Oh, that’s too bad!” Pinkie declares in sympathetic shock, “Are you gonna have to learn to read all over again?”

“I guess so...” I say, looking forlornly at her cookbook, “I can’t even tell exactly what letters you use.”

“Well, this one is ‘be’,” she says, pointing with a hoof at the big letters of the title, “And that’s ‘air’. The next one is ‘e’.”

“D-don’t you have baking to do?” I ask worriedly, looking over at her trays covered in—

“Eep, you’re right!” Pinkie squeaks interrupting my train of thought and darting over there. “Okay, okay let’s see, cinnamon...” she mumbles, taking a shaker and generously dusting over all the things.

“What are you making?” I call over, as Pinkie lays the finishing touches to whatever they are.

“Bear claws,” she says idly.

“What’re bear claws?” I ask curiously.

“These are bear claws!” she declares cheerfully, picking up a tray of them in her mouth, and depositing it on her rump. Effortlessly balancing the metal tray there, she heads over to the ovens.

Pinkie approaches not just one, but what looks more like a wall of ovens. Heat blasts out when she opens the oven door (with her mouth), and slides a tray of pastries into it (with her mouth).

“That’s a lot of ovens!” I declare. I resist saying that it’s more than I remember from the show, but maybe they just didn’t show this room, or this wall. “I guess that’s why it’s so warm in here.”

“Yup,” Pinkie chirps, trotting back to the baking area, where she starts mixing more ingredients, “It’s a nice perk in the winter, not so great in the summer.”

“How do they... I mean, how do ovens work in your world?” I ask her, looking over her shoulder at the mixing bowl full of white powders, like flour and sugar and... well I really don’t know since it all looks just white.

“Do they... have um... fire, somehow?” I try to specify, struggling to remember what ponies could possibly use for technology. Would they have electric heating coils?

“Don’t be silly, they use heating coils!” Pinkie says, answering that question once and for all. Is she psychic or something? “They use the sunlight gathered every day, to put that special bit of sunlight into everything we bake!”

“So like, solar panels?” I ask, limping back to the ovens to peer inside at what clearly are glowing red heating coils.

“‘Scuze me,” Pinkie says, coming by with another tray of unbaked treats. I have trouble ‘scuzing, but she gently nudges me aside. She slides that into another oven, and... oh hey, each oven has a timer next to the temperature dial, which she sets for 13 minutes. “I guess you could call them panels?” she says thoughtfully, “It’s just the luminous wood. Most buildings around here have that.”

“Luminous wood?”

“Yeah!” Pinkie cheers, “Around the windows and corners of the buildings. Sugarcube Corner needs extra sunlight though, so its roof is shingled with the stuff!”

“How does the um... sunlight get from the roof to the ovens?” I ask, tilting my nose overhead, “Don’t you have problems on cloudy days?”

Pinkie canters off, and returns with another tray. Pushes me a little further aside then, to put her treats in another oven. Then as if I wasn’t terribly in the way, she says amiably, “We’ve got a pretty good amount of light stored under the bakery. It’s usually not a problem. And as for how it gets to the ovens, I don’t actually know!”

I look at Pinkie seriously, and she shrugs, saying, “I’m a baker, not a construction worker. All I know is they put the wires in the right places, to feed the light into the heating coils, and then the ovens just magically bake the treats!”

“Wires, huh,” I reply seriously, rubbing the side of my face with a hoof. Heh... I have a snout. “Guess I’ll have to talk to some construction workers, then,” I conclude a little sheepishly.

“Can’t win ‘em all,” Pinkie quips, “But I’ll answer any questions that I can answer! Like how many ponies do we feed a day?”

“How many... ponies do you feed a day?” I cautiously prompt.

“It’s usually a pony every oneoh minutes or so,” Pinkie rattles off, “But during a rush we’ll get ponies lining up to get seen every minute! So... two rushes of about 220 ponies... three hours in the morning, midday, and evening... I’d say about 3200 ponies!”

“Two... twoh?” I say in utter bafflement.

“You know, two-two-ohh?” she replies.

"Two hundred twenty?"

A laugh bursts out of Pinkie Pie at that. Mightily swallowing the laugh, she looks aside and says, “Sorry, I...” She giggles again, “Sorry, it’s just... I’m not making fun of you or anything. Really, I’m not!”

Blinking cluelessly, I stare at the pink horse, replying bemusedly, “Fun of me? What’d I say?”

“Well,” Pinkie wavers, “Two-hundred is four times more than two-ee-two, but it’s an easy mistake to make if you forgot to carry the zero. What’s twin-ty supposed to be?”

“Twenty is... two times ten?” I try uneasily.

“Huh... well it’s pronounced two-oh,” she replies, “Or just twoh. Don’t worry, it’s okay if you’re just not good at math. Lots of ponies aren’t!”

“No, I... two... oh,” I realize, eyes widening.

“Yes, two-oh,” Pinkie says with a gentle smile, “And ten times two-oh-oh is two hundred, or hundreds two. You probably should stick with smaller numbers though, until you get better at counting.”

“I’ll... remember to do that, yeah,” I tell her honestly, “There’s a lot I have to learn about your world. So...”

Looking from where I’m standing by the ovens, I can see the dining area in front, where a line of ponies is already gathering. Some are sitting around on the tables out there, and Mrs. Cake is handing a box of goodies to a green and white pegasus mare, who takes the string of the pink box in her mouth, and trots off with it, tail bouncing up happily as she does. Mr. Cake trots past me entering the kitchen where he starts working with stuff, with... maybe not quite as much enthusiasm as Pinkie Pie.

“So a lot of ponies come here,” I say. “More than three... oh-oh-oh.”

“You can also say three-nee-three,” Pinkie chirps, then takes a sort of padded folding clip in her mouth, a pot holder just like in the show, and pulls open one of the oven doors, snaking her neck in and pulling out a tray of golden steaming... things which I guess are called bear claws.

She puts them on a prettier plate, with a spatula, then picks up the whole plate and trots off past me, to the front, where some of the seated ponies immediately brighten up, smiling and cheering to see Pinkie Pie arrive. Eventually she trots back with an empty plate, and immediately goes about making more.

Looking at the next batch of bear claws passing my nose, they smell absolutely incredible, but just looking at them I have to exclaim, “Oh! They do look sort of like bear claws!”

Pinkie snorts, but doesn’t lose the plate in her mouth, continuing on past into the dining area. Mrs. Cake passes her on the way back to the kitchen area, and passes me too, saying, “Scuze me, dear.”

I try to keep out of the way, while also watching in fascination the ponies just going about their ordinary day. Mrs. Cake snags some more pre-prepared treats in her mouth and prances back to the front. She continues in that practiced rhythm, moving goods steadily that ponies apparently ordered yesterday or some time before, pausing to sell others the fresh treats that Pinkie’s bringing forward, now that Mr. Cake’s taken over a majority of the mixing and preparation.

They’ve clearly been at this for years. They all work together seamlessly, even Pinkie Pie, like oiled gears in a pastry producing machine. I feel like a sore thumb, myself. Just a dirty little fake pony stuck in the back here. Pinkie even seems to notice my unease, pausing at one point to give me an apologetic grimace on her way back into the kitchen.

“Sorry if I seem reeeally busy,” she says, “I just love getting these morning ponies all happy and fed!”

“No, it’s great. It’s a real honor, to even see this,” I tell her honestly, looking around at the increasingly messy kitchen, “I doubt most ponies get to see you back here making this stuff.”

“It happens now and again,” Pinkie replies noncommitally, “So, did you have any more questions, or do you just want to keep watching us baking?”

Huh, Pinkie even noticed what I was doing. I guess I’m not as invisible as I’d hoped. It’s starting to get really weird being on this side of the screen. I can’t just sit there and watch the ponies anymore, because they can watch me! Thinking on that while Pinkie works, I take a look over at the warmly dressed, well brushed, finely combed ponies sitting around the dining area, and then take a look at my own dirt-stained hoof.

“Oh, there is one more thing I really should ask,” I call over to Pinkie shyly, with that hoof curling leerily to my chest, “I don’t suppose I could take a shower?”

Two busy mares and one busy stallion turn to look at me, and their eyes all get really big. Relative to the size of their irises, at least.

“Go on honey cakes, I’ll handle the display prep,” Mr. Cake says, trotting towards the storefront, while Mrs. Cake clops off a few steps in another direction, turns back to look at me and says,

“I’ll just go get the bathtub ...cleaned up, bathroom is this way.”

The big pink and blue pony trots off into the back of the store, while I look on curiously, glancing at the stairs that she passes by.

“Your bathtub isn’t upstairs?” I ask Pinkie Pie in confusion.

“Not usually, no,” Pinkie remarks, leaning out the kitchen doorway and giving me a puzzled look.

“Not usually?” I ask, giving Pinkie Pie one right back.

Raising her eyebrows, Pinkie lifts a hoof and shrugs, saying, “It’s usually not a bathtub at all! It’s Gummy’s tubquarium.”

A surprised laugh escapes me.

“Sorry,” I say to a confused Pinkie Pie, “I just can’t believe I never thought of that before.” Oh great, now I confused her even more.

“Okay, you can come back!” Mrs. Cake calls out, saving the day and everypony’s dignity. Wincing as I try to move again, I nevertheless follow her, hoof after hoof. A shower sounds incredible right now.

Like everything in this town, the Cakes’ bathroom is a fascinating slice of pony society. The first thing I notice are the bath toys, piled into a basket by the door, that Mrs. Cake slides aside with her rear hoof. The floors aren’t shiny smooth, but the tiles have a texture to them as I hesitantly place my hooves on them, walking into the bathroom.

“Shower’s all yours,” she says, waving a hoof in the direction of a porcelain bathtub with a shower pole coming out of it. I wonder how ponies build those.

I take a look at the spigots, and there’s two of them, with a twistable lever in the middle that I assume switches from the shower to the bathtub faucet.

“You need any help?” she asks with an oddly adoring look at me.

“I’ll let you know, but I want to try to figure this out myself,” I remark, walking up to the tub, and just... lifting my right arm up and hooking it over the tub, followed by my left arm. With those hooves planted, I’m basically standing, with the edge of the tub pushing my belly up. “Almost got it, hold on,” I say, lifting a stiff hind leg and... uh oh. I can’t... exactly get my hind hoof to reach the edge of the tub. “Hup!” I say, jumping my back legs off the floor, but it’s a pitiful little hop. And then I’m just briefly scrabbling with my back feet, before they sink to the floor, leaving me still draped over the tub’s edge, groaning as my butt muscles protest the abuse.

“Let me help you with that, dear,” Mrs. Cake says behind me, and then her hoof feels kind of... soft as she sticks it between my legs, and lifts under my thigh, which hooks over her, the barest sqeak of protest escaping me as I tumble into the tub with a clatter of hooves.

“Perfect ten,” I mumble into the porcelain.

Mrs. Cake makes to leave while I climb wincing to my hooves again. The bottom of the tub has a rough surface, a no-slip grip thing I guess. I call out before she leaves, “Wait, one question! Which is the hot and which is the cold?”

She turns and gives me a curious look, then turns her body, and trots back to the tub I’m standing in. “This one’s the hot and cold,” she says, pointing a forehoof at the left spigot. “This one switches to the shower,” she remarks of the lever, “And this one turns the water on and off.”

I stare at the faucets, dumbfounded.

“Uhm, be sure to give a few minutes for the water to heat up, before you turn on the shower,” Mrs. Cake says, seeming a little disconcerted as she looks over my faucet fascination, “If you move the temperature knob, try to turn it back when you get finished. We have it set to just the right temperature, for our tastes at least.”

“Sure, I can do that,” I tell her with a warm smile, “Thanks so much for helping me out like this.”

“Oh it’s no trouble, dearie!” Mrs. Cake declares, caught almost by surprise by my thanks, “Just get yourself cleaned up, and dried off. Don’t push yourself too hard though. If there’s anything any of us can do to help, you let us know.”

“I actually don’t know much about getting dried,” I have to admit, my smile growing sheepish. “Ponies don’t just... shake off, do they?”

“Proper ponies don’t, I imagine,” the blue mare replies with a twinkle in her eye, “But you probably don’t want to get water all over everything in there, so you should use the dryer.”

“The... dryer?”

Mrs. Cake gestures to a... a thing. It looks kind of like it came out of a Dr. Suess book. A flexible tube going to a conical mouthpiece that looks to be made out of... brass? Sort of? It goes into a series of pipes mounted on the wall beside a large grating with a fan behind it. It’s got a big pink button and a dial for what I assume is either heat or wind speed, and a few other odd switches, all helpfully labeled in a language I can’t read.

“I might need help with that, after the shower,” I say with a nervous laugh, “Hot air I understand, but it looks kind of... tricky.”

“Okay then!” Mrs. Cake says brightly, “You just let me know and if there’s anything else you need I’ll be happy to take care of it!”

She trots off, and I’m free to figure out the bathtub shower. It’s ridiculously easy to adjust, and when the water warms up, I swing the lever with the side of my hoof, as the water from the faucet trickles to a stop, and the shower gutters its way on. It lands on my... butt, which is a thing that I have. Huh.

It’s actually kind of fascinating, because this is the first time I’ve really been free to really feel my body, outside of aches and pains. I’m not dying of exposure which is nice, and what’s so fascinating is that when the shower comes on, it arcs over my head, and lands behind me, on me. It doesn’t feel like I’m crouching, or bent forward, just standing here, and my butt’s behind me.

The dirty white fur back there immediately becomes soaked, and the water runs down the slicked surface, right into my tail. I still haven’t even tried to move my tail. Um... hm. I can feel the water running through my tail hairs that lose their natural clumping into thick, curled locks, to relax limply in the warm water. I can feel the tail... slide on the bottom of the shower, when I shift my butt to move it around. Can’t figure out how to lift it though.

Clumsily backing away from the faucets, my entire head enters the warm shower of water, and it feels so immensely good. My bouncy mane also slicks down, and I just stand in the shower, eyes closed, just feeling that warmth pouring down on me. Then, lowering my head beyond the stream of water droplets, I look around for whatever it is I’d use to scrub fur... oh, that looks promising. I hope it’s not a toilet brush.

Well, I find a stiff bristled brush, that has a handle I can get my mouth around. I can’t help but think that manipulating things with my mouth can’t possibly be sanitary. How many other ponies wrapped their lips and tongue around this brush handle? ...three, probably, but still.

There’s uh... soap, but I really don’t know how I’d pick it up, so I just use the bristly brush as a sort of fine toothed comb, stroking it down my own hide, where there are streaks of dirt that don’t just wash out. It doesn’t work very well though, because my mouth and neck are too sore to apply much pressure, and my furry horse hide is too sore to scrub much at all. I’m pretty much hurting all over, and the shower is blessedly warm, but I still wince painfully with every little movement. My hooves feel outright ragged at the water’s touch.

“So, how you doin’?” Pinkie Pie asks, startling me in place. “Oops, sorry!” she says from where she’s standing like right there beside me.

“Pinkie!” I say in cautious surprise, “Nice to see you. Here in the shower. With me.”

“I’m not in the shower with you silly, I’m next to the shower,” she says with a pleased nicker, just like the horses we are, apparently. I can nicker now?

“I guess it’s not any sort of private thing here,” I venture, “Just... standing around with other ponies in the shower.”

“Well I could try, but our shower’s not really big enough for two ponies to stand in it at once,” Pinkie says, looking over the bathtub with an appraising frown, while I stand there with warm water cascading down around me in the shower.

I have to laugh at that, and say, “Okay, you have a point. So... mind helping me with this brush here? I’m still too... sore to really lean into it much.”

“No problemo!” Pinkie says, tonguing up the... the brush into her mouth. I’m not sure if she wants me to tell her where, but Pinkie interprets my silence as consent, squirting a dollop of soap onto my side, from a bottle she picked up sometime back there. Just the right width to be squeezed with a hoof finger... thing. Then she sets about scrubbing and oh my stars is it luxurious. I wasn’t pushing hard enough it seems, and the stiff bristles had been poking my skin, but as Pinkie really leans into it, the brush scrubs my skin with a thick and deep ache of satisfaction.

The water turns muddy with all the crud that was dried onto me melting off my hide, and freeing the hairs of my fur to be brushed smoothly again. I’m not hurting if I don’t try to move a muscle, so I’m just standing here in bliss, while Pinkie works me over like a wise-cracking mother hen. I don’t even notice Mrs. Cake approaching until I hear her bouncy voice saying, “Well somepony is enjoying herself!”

Herself.

With a swelling gratitude again rising in my chest, I look to my left where Mrs. Cake has joined with Pinkie Pie. The rather large blue mare, with the pink frosting hair, she says, “Just coming by to check if everything’s going okay with you.”

“Oh, it’s fine, thank you,” I say warmly, half closing my eyes before Mrs. Cake adds a little nervously,

“I also was kind of curious just what brings you to... Ponyville.”

I give Mrs. Cake another look, and her face is smiling pleasantly, but her eyes are shining with curiosity. “It’s just you were in an awful way, and it must have been terribly urgent for you to brave that storm, exposed, just to get here?”

Pinkie’s here, but... it couldn’t hurt to tell my tale, maybe with a few... details omitted, could it?

“When I grew up, I never felt like myself, because...,” I say and oh good I’m off to a rousing start. Maybe I should just stuff my foot in my mouth and call it a day.

“...for personal reasons,” I finally settle on, “I just had some serious problems with my life. The worst thing is, there was nothing I could do about them. Nothing that would work, at least.”

Pinkie Pie shuts off the water, and remarks, “Well, you’re about as clean as the shower can get. What was wrong that you couldn’t do anything about? Somepony didn’t like you?”

“No, it...” I say, trying to think while also being distracted by the feeling of my belly fur dripping. “I didn’t like myself, and there was no way to change it, or make it better, or anything. I just had to live with it, every day, for the rest of my entire life.”

Well, I have their attention now. “I wanted to be a—a pony, just like you Pinkie, and... and nobody in all of history had ever done anything like that before,” I tell her. “My world was full of that: things people wanted to do, that they just couldn’t do. There were things that could never be made better, and I was one of those things.”

With a bit of unease, I lift a hoof and say, “Um... so, I get out of the tub now, or...?”

“Oh! Yes, right,” Mrs. Cake says, shaking herself out of whatever she was imagining, and trotting up to me as well. I’m not much help, since all I can think to do is tilt my head so Pinkie has an easier time wringing out my mane. Mrs. Cake uses a sort of... rubbery towel thing, to get most of the water out of the fur on my back and belly with two clean swipes.

“There you go, dear!” Mrs. Cake says pleasantly, “You’re not dripping anymore, so you can head on over to the dryer.”

I climb out of the tub, much in the same way I climbed into the tub, except this time Mrs. Cake hooks my forehooves and heaves my butt over the edge. The hot water has done wonders for my sore muscles, which is to say they’re still sore as a burr, and it hurts to move. Once I’m out of the tub, something grabs me and yanks from behind, and I look in surprise, to see Pinkie Pie wringing out my tail, by hugging it in a hoof and squeezing the water out all along it to the tip.

It’s amazing, and I watch in shock, because I’m not just watching that happen. I’m feeling Pinkie Pie squeezing and sliding along the wet fur of my tail. I’m actually feeling my tail! I never really felt it until that, but I could feel the strong pulling on my back, and the sliding, and how it gets lighter with the water pouring out of it.

“A tail, for instance!” I exclaim still looking back at it, trying to move it. “Has anypony ever been born without a tail?”

“That’d be pretty weird...” Pinkie says frankly.

Mrs. Cake’s a little more lenient, saying, “I’ve seen ponies with very short tails. I suppose at least somepony has to be missing one entirely.”

“Well I was,” I tell her, “I didn’t have a tail, and... and nothing I could do would ever give me one. But now I...” I look back at my tail again, saying in wonder, “Now I do. That’s the kind of world I’m in.”

“Huh, so you mean other ponies without tails could get them?” Pinkie asked thoughtfully.

“Sure, let’s go with that,” I tell her distractedly, watching in fascination as with the turn of a knob, a smooth, hot wind comes out from the vents in the wall, washing over my whole body. If I thought I was warm from the shower, this. This just floods warmth into every inch of me. It feels so good it’s shocking.

“Oh wow, I love the dryer,” I say adoringly, leaning against it... and then pulling away, so that it could blow over me better. “How does it heat the air?”

“Heating coils, you mean?” Pinkie asks, right next to me but thankfully downwind of the dryer.

“Oh, so like a real hair dryer,” I say, rolling my eyes at my own cluelessness.

“Not just like,” Pinkie chides me, “It really is a real hair dryer! Even if it feels like a dream~”

“R-right, of course it’s real,” I say with the conviction of a wet pony standing in the path of a full body hair dryer. Which is to say, slightly out of it, and insecure about losing her position next to the thing, before she’s finished drying off. “This is all... completely and totally... real. Ponies have towns, walls have dryers, magic is real...”

“Not every bathroom has a dryer,” Mrs. Cake explains with a bashful blush, “But with the foals, we’re sure glad we invested in one!”

Pinkie tosses a towel at my face, and asks curiously, “So, how did you get your tail?”

“Would you believe my T.V. exploded?” I tell her, looking down at the towel and realizing that I just unconsciously caught it with a forehoof, and sandwiched it against my shoulders. It’s a fluffy, peach colored towel, that I guess I can... drape over my back, or something?

A number of towels, and ponies, descend on me then, with Pinkie asking, “What’s a tee-vee?” as Mrs. Cake’s hooves ruffle the towel around on my mane.

“It’s a... a little box that plays movies on it,” I tell her, “And it exploded, and I guess it made the movie real! And then uh...” Oh hayfeathers, I do recall at least attempting to say I woke up like this. “I don’t exactly remember what happened after that,” I tell Pinkie cagily, “Until I woke up in the middle of the woods, with a tail, as a mare.

I feel another tugging on my tail, pokey, and repeated, looking down to see Mrs. Cake bent over with a brush, combing my poor tangled locks free of any extra twigs and leaves. “Oo go on,” she says around the brush, “Don’t mine me.”

“I don’t mind at all,” I tell her, with even more warmth in my heart, “In fact, I can’t believe you’re both treating me so amazingly.”

The blue matron blushes at that, but continues dedicatedly brushing, while Pinkie’s brush starts sliding through my mane.

“I didn’t know where I was,” I tell the both of them, trying not to move my head too much as I squat there on my quite certainly female haunches. Or my tail, for that matter. “So I went searching in circles, but I couldn’t find anything. It had to be the most boring, unremarkable forest ever.”

“Which forest was it?” Mrs. Cake asks distractedly.

Blinking a moment, I reply uneasily, “I actually don’t know the area very well... if you... face the front of town hall and walk past the left of it, a few blocks later there’s a square called Hay... something.”

Mrs. Cake pauses from brushing for a moment. “Hayfield square, if I’m picturing it right,” the big blue pony ponders pleasantly. Then she goes back to it. Wow, that brush is really working. My hairs just relax right around it, and all the tangles just spool out.

“Right, Hayfield... square,” I say, distracted from watching and feeling a pony combing my own tail, “And then you take a... left from there. That’s the direction I was coming from, when I came into town.”

Pinkie Pie snorts a giggle. I look at her curiously, and around my sodden, pink bangs, I can see she has the most amused smile on her face. “It’s just funny because you’re right,” she says, “The White Tail Woods is probably the most boring, unremarkable forest in all of Equestria!”

I guess my head hair is done, because Pinkie falls back and holds her tummy, laughing to herself so lightly, I just have to laugh along with her.

My chuckle comes out more like a soft giggle, and I say, “Remind me not to get lost in there again.”

“Oh I dunno,” Mrs. Cake says in amusement too, “The White Tail does get a bit interesting once you start getting to the dragon mountains. But it is pretty plain. Most ponies like it that way!”

“I’m not most ponies,” I fail to resist quipping. Pinkie Pie finds this (along with many other things) terribly amusing.

“So, I was lost in the White Tail Woods,” I continue, blowing my bangs away from my face as Pinkie continues eagerly brushing my mane, “And the first night was the hardest, because I didn’t know if I was gonna wake up. But I did, and I kept searching. I found a creek finally, and followed it downstream, not before another night had passed though. But once I followed the creek, it led to a path, and that path led to Ponyville!”

Shaking my head, I sigh, and add, “I don’t know anything about how ponies work, so I guess I would have been okay. It felt like it was pretty close for a while though.

“Oh my, that does sound like quite an ordeal!” Mrs. Cake says, rubbing the towel around my neck to get the last of the dampness out.

“Well, it was the closest I’ve ever come to dying,” I have to admit, blowing my bangs out of the way again. “But that’s just because I haven’t done anything really daring before then. I’m sure other ponies go through stuff like this all the time. I made it to Ponyville okay, and I’m here now, so... so I’m okay with getting lost in the woods for a while.”

“Still, you shouldn’t be getting into those situations,” Mrs. Cake fusses, pulling me over to the dryer again. I guess she’s not quite satisfied with the state of my fur, which makes sense considering how cold it is outside. She and Pinkie both rub me until I’m blushing from how much my fur is sticking out. Who knew ponies could be this... fluffy? You can’t see the heating coils inside the dryer vents. Whatever secrets it contains seem to be hidden in darkness behind the metal slits.

“I hope you’re not planning to do anything like this ever again,” Mrs. Cake’s voice says warningly.

“Oh,” I say, tearing my eyes away from inspecting the deliverer-of-bliss. “Oh I definitely agree,” I tell the blue cake maker enthusiastically, shuddering inwardly at the very thought of being out in the cold like that, or of going back. “I won’t ever do anything like that again,” I solemnly swear to her.

It might have been taken more seriously, if my bangs hadn’t fallen over my eyes again. Mrs. Cake tsks, while I lift them on the side of my hoof, so I can see her approaching me with what look like a few hairpins in her mouth. Her hoof takes over the task of lifting my bangs, and she snakes her head forward, pushing pins into my hair with an enviable deftness.

Once she’s done, Pinkie Pie holds up a mirror for me to look at, and it’s pretty amazing. My hair’s a little bouncier than I’d expect, but the pins hold it up quite nicely. I’m a cute little pink haired earth pony, whose hair looks bouncier and more full bodied, instead of floopy now. “Say, you’re good at this!” I exclaim, looking at myself in the mirror. “You can’t even see the pins!” Looking at Mrs. Cake appreciatively, I have to say... um...

Actually you know, Mrs. Cake’s hair really does look like cupcake frosting. It’s in thick ripples on top of itself held together with... hairpins, somehow? “Is that how you get your hair to...” I wave a hoof uncertainly, not sure how to politely tell a pony her hair looks like cupcake frosting.

Mrs. Cake gives a soft laugh, and replies, “Not entirely, dearie. I do use a bit of mousse, and glitter on occasion, but I’ll let you in on the secret...”

As she speaks, she lifts her hoof up to her head, and hooks the edge of it onto something, pulling a long hair stick out of her hair. Then her ripples of frosting unripple, and her pink hair flops right down over her eyes. Like entirely over her eyes. She’s got huge bangs!

Pinkie Pie’s laughter is infectious as Mrs. Cake tries in vain to see the two of us. Her snout is even poking through her bangs! The cake matron sort of folds her hair back up then, pushing the hair stick back in to hold it in place. And once again, her mane has that trademark ripply frosting look to it.

“That’s so neat!” I have to gush to her, sounding more like a fangirl than a grateful refugee. “I didn’t even know you could do that with a mane!”

“Oh ask around,” Mrs. Cake says with a knowing chuckle, “You’ll find a lot of mares have their own tricks to a well behaved mane. You can’t always keep your mane in top shape, from a positive attitude alone!”

The blue missus gets an uncomfortable look on her face though, as Pinkie Pie starts looking at her expectantly, then leaning reeeeeally close.

“Well, unless you’re Pinkie Pie,” Mrs. Cake admits, with a roll of her eyes.

Pinkie with her cotton candy mane... that’s so funny. It’s not tangled. It’s self cleaning!

“Some ponies even dye their manes different colors,” Mrs. Cake advises, overlooking my amusement, “Or have them permed!”

Permed, huh? I heard of that before... something people do with their hair, that’s all I know. And heh... dyed. “Like the mayor dyes her hair grey?” I ask with a subtle smirk.

Mrs. Cake actually blushes at that though, lifting a hoof and murmuring, “Oh, well... we try not to talk about that anymore.”

Oh. Uh... yeah, that... was kind of dickish of me.

“It’s the mayor’s private business,” Mrs. Cake lightly chides me, but then another smile breaks out, and she leans closer to me saying excitedly, “But between you and me, I think she does it to be more dignified.”

Mrs. Cake sounds quite indulgent when she says, “There was a bit of a scandal about the mayor’s mane a while ago, involving some scamps you might see around town, the Story Mark Seekers?”

And just like that, my whole worldview exploded... again.

Author's Note

After a shower, try aiming a hair dryer at your body. You can thank me in gold bars.

Into Nowhere

The episode begins, and already I know it is going to end. I don’t want it to end, but it always does. I’ve watched it a dozen times. I’ve seen them those dozen times, the little cartoon ponies on my screen, doing incredible things. I’ve seen ponies who don’t just control the forces of nature, but are the forces of nature, ponies who, despite this, live humble, content lives full of happiness and friendship. Everypony has a place in the world, and nopony lives an unfulfilling life.

It’s all so beautiful it makes me want to cry, if I could cry anymore. Watching these ponies makes me forget my aging back, ruined from decades of sitting. It makes me forget my penis, which demands that I penetrate a girl, something I’ll never be allowed to do. The show makes me forget the cravings that have hounded me since puberty, to be the girl, penetrated. An emptiness in me that I can never fill, a child I can never bear, and a hairy, tall, deep-voiced body that many people would find handsome.

I’ve even found myself handsome! There’s nothing about my body that I really hate. It’s just not me. I see a stranger when I look in the mirror, stranger and stranger every day. Is that bad? Maybe. Is it bad that it’s something I can never escape, that will never change in any way that I want it to? It feels... horrible...

Except some minor health adjustments, due to exercise, I’m just stuck like this. I could exercise, and try to be healthier, but why bother? I’ll never be an alto, no matter how hard I train, so it’s just... easy to forget about taking care of myself. The rewards of hard work and exercise feel like a booby prize to me, and it’s all that there is for me.

I looked into surgery once. Everyone curious about changing sexes would. All I found were superficial procedures that only gave you a crude, limp facsimile of a vagina, and never, ever a womb. I found hormones that poison your glands and leave you dependent on the drugs for the rest of your life. I found genetic engineering that can’t even make a rose blue, much less change a single celled zygote. Altering a creature of billions of cells, and of many decades of aging and maturing? By the time anyone figures that out, I’ll be dead, and no one will care.

No, my only hope is magic, which is good as saying I have no hope. The voice I long to sing with will never come, because there is no magic in the world. I’ve hoped for it, sought after it for almost my whole life, but all that I’ve found are charlatans and madmen. Years, decades, I just can’t keep up hope with so much time to see that there is none.

We’re all trapped in a cage with no key, no lock, and no door. People will pretend that someone is going to come save us, but no one ever comes. One by one, we can do nothing other than age, and die. Success, failure, benevolence, malevolence, none of it can help a dead man, and that’s all I’ll ever get to be. My accounting studies just move numbers from one place to another, and the universe is a zero sum game. Once I’m dead and forgotten, there’ll be even less evidence that I ever existed, than evidence for the purple unicorn in the television set that I watch. Twilight Sparkle is more real than I’ll ever be.

It’s not my laptop, but an actual television monitor that I sit in front of, slouched on the couch, watching Twilight Sparkle jump into yellow booties, so I can forget about how I’m going to lose all this stuff, and my home, and live out on the streets, because I can’t be assed to renew my certification this time. I just don’t have it in me to care anymore. Why bother?

My laptop is off to the side, currently unused. The only computer-like thing I’m using is attached to my TV, a recording and playback device that I managed to load with good quality versions of the My Little Pony episodes from a er... questionably legitimate source. I don’t really have much else on it, never have a reason to watch “real” TV. Just... ponies. And the occasional nature documentary.

Why do I like ponies so much? I don’t know. I don’t know why I insisted on them, all the way back in my childhood, when I refused toys like trucks and blocks, and made up stories about the ponies going on adventures. Who cares about stacking Legos, when Clover and Diamonds are trying to defeat the evil sea serpent in the bathtub? Something about ponies, and animals in general just... resonates with me, in the same way that my male body does not. They walk on four little hooves beyond the screen in front of me, and just look so... stable, so sensible. And me, some kind of tottering behemoth only able to stand because of my flat, wide clown feet, with no way to get on all fours and just... run.

If I ever had any hope to be a female human one day, being a fantasy animal like one of those ponies was just outright ridiculous. And yet... it’s the only thing I’ve ever really wanted. The magic to be something like Twilight Sparkle, or Pinkie Pie, or any of the ponies. Even a background pony—preferably one, in fact—because I would probably screw up in a main-character role.

I’d do just about anything to make ponies a reality. But no amount of bargaining will ever make it happen, so I have to live from day to day, struggling to find something worth living for, when everything that sings to my soul can only ever do so from behind a TV screen.

The song Twilight sings is stupid and forced, but the chorus is timeless and catchy. I’ve sang along with it before, in my horrible voice: a perfectly decent voice with nothing wrong with it in any way, except that no one will ever love me in the way that I need to be loved. Twilight goes about the song trying to find her place, never giving up hope that she can find it. If only that wasn’t such a beautiful lie.

That’s when things start getting odd. There’s been something wrong with my TV for a while, which has made me worry that I’m going to have to replace the cheap, secondhand thing. The defect is something like a rainbow (no really) aura where the color starts spreading out from brightly lit parts. Like pressing your finger against a computer monitor, kind of.

I’ve had that problem for a while, trying to make full use of the television set, but the distortion starts to get worse during the end of the song. At first, I think that my TV is just finally giving up the ghost, but then the playback starts to skip, and finally stalls out on the last note of Twilight’s soliloquy before the final chorus.

I get up in alarm with her sweet high voice continually ringing like a bell, worried that my television might be shorting out or damaging my television recorder, which was a pretty expensive little device. The dancing pegasi frozen in mid-air dissolve more and more into rainbows, like looking at the show projected onto a soap bubble... prism... thing. Then my TV explodes.

No, really. I’m actually knocked back by some sort of concussive shock wave that... oddly makes no sound at all. Toppling off-balance onto my butt, I stare open-mouthed as the bent wreckage of my television just sort of... crumples in on itself, before an expanding something overcomes it. It looks kind of like a floating mirror, but what it reflects is not my crummy, 1-room apartment.

What I see before me is a quiet, snowy wood. I crawl to my knees, looking at the bizarre projection in space, that looks not like a television screen, but like... a portal. Then... I feel cool air caress my cheek. It’s... it’s...

Is it a portal to Equestria?

For all I know, it could be a portal to Minnesota. Why would a random space-time anomaly just happen to point to the one place that has both magic and ponies? Just because my TV was playing the show? What am I looking at, some kind of alien technology? I look around me, but there’s no one else in the room with me. Just me in my underwear, my pony laden laptop, and a quietly humming hole in space.

It looks like a strange sort of projection, but the scene within moves three dimensionally as I walk around it, and a slight breeze in the branches of the sleeping trees makes it clear that this is not just a floating portrait. Peering at the glowing, ethereal edges gives me no idea what the nature of this portal is. Looking at it from the back shows the other side of this snowy forest lying through it.

If it is Equestria, could they help me? Could I find Twilight Sparkle, and... and annoy her until she changes me into Filly Anon? I can’t believe I’m even considering this. There’s no way this is what it looks like. There has to be some catch.

God, what I wouldn’t give to be Filly Anon.

I’ll probably die if I just jump through. I should probably get help, take pictures, call someone about it. I should go to the other room, plan my course of action, put on some clothes. But how long is it going to last? If it... if this portal disappears before I go through it, I don’t think I could live with that. I’d be the man who took the blue pill, never able to forget the only chance he ever had for happiness, an opportunity that just closed in front of his eyes, while he stood there and did nothing.

I dive through the portal.

Hey as far as suicide methods, that has got to be one of the coolest, right?

The pain hits me like a truck. It’s excruciating and horrifying on a level I can only barely comprehend. It feels like it’s shattering me and flooding into the cracks. It’s the only time I’ve ever been unable to stop screaming. And yet... as this crawling burning madness invades my deepest core, I can’t feel like this was a huge loss. My essence feels laid bare before a howling wind, but I have nothing worth hiding. My only secrets caused pain. And what have I got to lose?

As I... distort, it oddly stops hurting as much. I can see the world around me exploding, snow flying everywhere, trees erupting by their roots out of the ground, and all the while this sort of pulsing drone that makes my tormented bones feel like chalk on a blackboard.

I don’t even know what’s happening at this point. I figure it just killed me, and the fading pain means that my body finally failed, and soon I’ll be nothing more than a frozen corpse somewhere off in the forests of Minnesota. The human teleportation experiment was a success. There were no survivors.

After a while though, I just... start to feel cold. A chill breeze blows through my... arm hair? The rumbling thrumm is dying down, and I realize that I’ve stopped screaming. I also realize that my throat is sore. I open my eyes and see white. No not the snow. I see white ...arms. A white chest, and a white belly, and a pink...!

I stare unbelievingly, even now, at a soft pink tail coming out from under me. I’m lying on my back, vaguely, and the only salient fact about myself that I can tell is that I have a tail. No really, I’m not even a recognizable anything at this point, my body and my arms are just... shapeless and twisted in a way that should have hurt terribly if I remained alive.

As I lay there, I still find myself for the most part helpless to move. My body continues to shift around in strange, nauseating ways. The bones slide under my white skin, no my white furred skin, distorting its surface with their impossible movements. I can’t stop moving my bones in that... way. I’m still getting pulled and tugged around unnaturally. But the pain is fading, and my arms and legs are curling all by themselves above me, in bizarrely satisfying cracks and pops, to resemble the forelegs and hindquarters of a... a pony.

I don’t know why it changes my gender last. Whatever this magic is flowing through me, it seems... confused, like it got halfway done assembling a machine and then found an extra part that didn’t go anywhere. Me being the machine, I suppose. But my masculinity, or stallioninity stubbornly holds on, until my arms and legs are no longer shifting, curled above me in such a strange fashion. All but one of my fingers are gone, making my hands feel... incredibly strange. There’s this creamy white fur already thick over my whole body. Then... I feel it.

Because of more nerve endings I guess, the one change I feel most strongly, is the one I care about the most. That is compared to say, my spleen or my heart, which is beating at a thousand times a minute right now, mind you. I breathe in short gasps, as I... respond physically to something very provocative happening between my legs. It’s still a very... male anatomy. I’m not especially concerned, because if I can change into a pony, then I sure as sugar can find a way to change into a mare! I wouldn’t let h... h-uh, hell...? That place I’m thinking about won’t even stop me. I’ll one-on-one with Tirek as a cute little mare, if that’s what it takes to be a cute little mare. Oh please let me be a mare....

Turns out I don’t have to worry though, because then there’s this incredible release of pressure. My groin just... I don’t want to say it just falls to pieces, but it changes, dramatically. No blood at any point, but things are certainly starting to look fleshy down there. The whole process is about as comfortable as pulling away from really gluey tree sap, along with the rest of my body’s bizarre movations.

There is a sudden pain then, as two certain somethings draw up tightly against me. “Achtchsk!” is sort of the sound I make at the suddenly increasing discomfort and tension, though it’s barely a tiny hint of the pain that suffused my every cell a moment ago. This tension too releases then, the two little spheres popping up into my pelvis and just... vanishing within me.

It’s so strange that none of this really hurts anymore. I felt like every molecule was igniting into sparkles, but now the flashes of pain and discomfort feel like they’re... restoring, rather than further distorting. Everything about me seems to be finishing up, as I lie there in exhaustion, surprised that I’m alive, and even with how strange my whole body’s experience has been, surprised at what’s happening between my legs. .

The heavy pressure feels like I’m being filled with clay, as my pelvis collapses and widens before it. I can actually feel it pushing up into me, like an inflating balloon, except I’m the balloon. I feel pressure like that all over my body, molding me and shaping me, but nowhere else is the feeling quite so... concave. My vision wavers between blurry to clear, as I manage to roll onto my side, feeling... things moving inside me, under my nose, in my chest, and between my legs seems to be... it must be... a...

“Thank you,” I manage to croak out, as tears start flooding my eyes. Those words are in a voice I never thought I’d hear. Not a man’s voice, but high and sweet. Not a voice I knew, or recognized, but one I wanted. I knew I wanted this badly, but I never realized just how badly until now. “Thank you,” I repeat in that strange voice, thanking whoever, or whatever did this to me. “Thank you—” I manage to say a third time, before I start getting choked up with sobs. And that... changes everything.

I don’t know if it was just me or... guys in general, or humans in general, but you know that burning sensation when you cry? Think of that times ten. As puberty came upon me, it was like I was using lemon juice for eyedrops or something, in the rare instances when a tear came to my eye. I stopped being able to cry almost entirely, lucky if I could get even one tear to trickle down my cheek, no matter how distraught I was.

I think something was wrong with me, allergies I guess, but I don’t know for sure. I was a guy, so nobody was really concerned with of all things, a man’s inability to cry. Sad things left me dry eyed, and hopelessness made it harder to feel sad about anything. My burning, reddened eyes would feel gritty and raw, yet I was so desperate for some sort of expression that I sought out this pain, and did it deliberately. I came to treasure the few sad songs that for all it hurt, could at most give me a single tear.

So yeah... I got a vagina, maybe, I think, but what’s really a life-changing experience is breaking down into sobs there in the strange looking pit that’s replaced the forest I thought I was entering. Feeling my own tears hit the frozen ground. I can’t stop crying, but I don’t sound like a dying babboon in making these sounds. I sound like a... like an emotional wreck of a girl. I only have the vaguest ideas about what just happened, but being able to cry and not feeling bad about it, that’s... that’s something I would never deny to any girl or guy, if I had the power to do so.

Emotional release is great and all, but it isn’t very good at keeping you warm. I’ve got a pair of... er... very large men’s briefs barely hanging off of one of my feet. And... that’s about it. I lift my head, looking around for the portal... nothing. I think I really would have missed it, if I didn’t jump through right then! Then again, I have no idea how long I’ve lain here in violated agony. Maybe it was minutes, maybe hours. Am I... done?

I... don’t feel any weird movement within my body anymore, so maybe it’s done? Maybe I could try to move now?

I test moving my left arm, then my right, then each of my legs. My tail continues to lie there limply, but the rest of me seems to respond with relative familiarity. My feet have grown long and slim, and my knees feel sort of stuck in a crooked position. Almost half the length of the arms curled above me is what used to be my hands. Though naturally crooked when lying down, I can curl my the ends of my arms even further, curling my arms into two crude looking but hopefully functional hooks. The tips of those off-white cylinders, my forehooves... they feel sort of like my middle fingers.

Curious, I try to move my other fingers, besides the middle ones. Nothing happens, of course. My thumb doesn’t even... I don’t even have a thumb pad to move it with, just a long, slim palm, that forms my lower leg. My hoof crooks down at my wrist, where you’d think my elbow would crook up, and my elbow crooks up right next to me, where my shoulder would go. My hind legs are... a little easier to comprehend, odd as that may sound. One toe for each of them, with a heel almost halfway up, and my knees more fixed in place than I’m used to, within two broad, wide thighs.

I manage to roll onto my side, and it’s pretty obvious I have no wings. Am I a unicorn then, or an earth pony? The encroaching chill has me worried, so I twist a front... arm/leg around and rub its thick side against my forehead. There, I only find the smooth, round curve of my cranium, beneath a bountiful bush of pink hair. I’m an earth pony.

Sighing in relief, I let my hoof curl back down in front of me, and try to start thinking about getting up and finding my way out of this place. If I could get on my belly, maybe I could—wait um—

I have to struggle there for a while, growing less cold as I try to roll over with my ungainly limbs tangling against the ground. Finally, flopping back my side with a sigh, I try rotating only my upper torso, bracing my forehooves against the earth one after the other like I’m crawling out of a pit, then pushing myself up on them. My hindquarters remain limply on their side, but I’m at least... halfway standing? This is an... incredibly awkward position, but there’s only one way out of it. The twisting tension to my lower body gives me leverage to swivel my hips, curl one of my crooked hind legs tightly underneath me, and plant it down.

Okay three hooves down, one hoof to—woah. Actually, up on three hooves like this, there’s nowhere for my fourth to go, besides putting it down beside the other rear hoof. I lift my head up, continuing to lift it up far further than any terrestrial horse, until my neck settles against my shoulders, and I’m... standing, I suppose.

I feel like I’m going to fall forward, like this comfortable stance has me off balance somehow, but I hope that’s just a temporary thing. My head feels... independent from my body, like my shoulders were just a place for it to land and roost. I can still feel the rest of my body though, the icy chill against my skin, the weight on my legs, the tail dragging...

Oh, hey! I can feel my tail! The soft pink hairs drag against the earth as I stand, and belatedly, I realize that I can feel them dragging, tugging at me. In fact, the earth feels kind of... gritty underneath them. I’m not sure what I’m feeling there.

Standing, I have no wings to learn about, so I guess this is pretty much it. I try to take a step and immediately faceplant. Ow... pony snouts are more sensitive than I thought they’d be! It’s really, really chilly out here, and I’m not sure on my hooves. I seem to be standing in some kind of cavernous bowl carved out of the earth, with... oh dear. With torn, fallen trees lining the border.

“Did I do this?” I ask fearfully, looking around as I stand on four shaky legs. There is nothing around me but a chilly silence. At last, I try cautiously reaching one forehoof out, before trying to sink my weight on it. It works, and I move a hind foot. Two limbs later, my underwear catches on my trailing hind leg and I fall on my face again.

I manage to turn my cheek this time at least, so my sensitive snout doesn’t get smacked right into the dirt. Groaning, I carefully collect my legs under me and, shakily, stand again. It’s easier the second time, but I still feel really unsteady. Kicking my hind leg to discard those accursed briefs, I try to walk again. I succeed surprisingly easily, simply by alternating the limbs I move forward. It works just like I had planned in my madness. A madness in which a creature who would never be able to stand on four legs spent a lot of time figuring (among other things) that a trot is the equivalent of a four-legged skip, and a gallop would be a rapid series of powerful leaps, with the hind legs and the forelegs moving together.

...maybe I’ll just stick with simply plodding for now.

I wobble unsteadily forward in one, two, three steps, and then I almost run into the portal again.

It balloons open smoothly in front of me, appearing out of nowhere as I rear up in panic, flailing my forelegs, and thening learn firsthand what it feels like when a mare’s rump smacks onto frozen, gravelly dirt. I start to scoot back in fear, but the portal is just... sitting there, serene and smooth, with a barely perceptible hum. Through it, I see my apartment again, the couch that I was sitting on, the kitchenette/bar behind it that I heated coffee on, despite hating coffee, the pillows that my parents sent to decorate my couch with, because they didn’t know what else to do, the bottle of lotion whose... uses are better left unsaid.

My laptop’s open on the coffee table as I peer at it curiously through the edge of the portal. It seems to be still displaying its contents, some... questionable acts with a stallion, that may have had something to do with the bottle of lotion and tissues.

A warm breeze wafts from the portal.

I look around at the edge of this... crater I’m standing in. The sky is white overhead, and the trees are bare of leaves. Snow lies everywhere. I look back at the portal, already feeling a chill pervading me. Ponies don’t care about the cold, right? I can just... do this naked, right? But where do I go? I have no idea which way Ponyville, or even Equestria is. I’m pretty obviously a pony, so there’s no reason to think the rest doesn’t exist, but not a sound comes to my ears, no matter how hard I listen. Only the hum of the portal, the rush of automobile traffic, and the quiet whirr of my laptop’s cooling fan.

I should go back. This portal seems to open in my presence, so it should be safe to go back through it and get some supplies. I could get some warm clothing, some pony appropriate food, my laptop, and any number of things. I could leave a note for anyone who came by, to stay away from the portal unless they want to be painfully transformed into a pony, and possibly one of the opposite gender. I could call my parents, tell them I’m going away for a while. I could call NASA, or... whoever you call about stuff like this. I could do all that stuff, but in order to do so, I might have to change back into a man.

It’s almost vertigo I feel, as if the ground is a cliff, and the portal in front of me is a pit below me. I’m afraid to get up, because I might get closer to it. I should go through it, just temporarily, but I just can’t.

Swallowing my fear, I rise to my er... wrists, and then manage to get my hind hooves planted under me. Straightening one foreleg and planting the hoof of another, I manage to stand sideways to the portal on my left. I’d rather be standing facing directly away from it, but I don’t want to risk learning how to change directions when I walk. Not so close to this thing. I simply walk sideways to it, distancing myself until it closes again, leaving no evidence that it was ever here. You know, except for the giant crater and all.

Once away from the portal, I test my weight on each of my four hooves. It feels like standing on the tips of my toes, except those tips are broad, flat and stable. I guess I traded clown feet for clown toes, then? Are my hooves slim and dainty, or large and brawny? I’m...

I’m standing on hooves. I’m a mare! Can I get pregnant now? Did the magic go so far as to grant me that? I can’t see why it wouldn’t! What if I get raped? Do ponies have abortion services? This is amazing! I look around at the quiet woods.

Are there any ponies at all?

A chill sweeps through me as the wind blows overhead. Looking at my fallen underwear, it smells of the spicy saffron cinnamon of a man’s groin. I don’t think I smell like that, anymore. Wincing, I bite the edge of it in my teeth, and clumsily throw its fabric over my back. It’s... all I’ve got to cover myself with. I look longingly back at where the portal was, still trying to convince myself to go back to being human, just for a little bit. If only I had the courage to go back long enough to get a coat. Maybe I should just—wait. No.

No no no. I hobble away from that portal as fast as my pony hooves can take me. How did I not see it before? How did I not realize the connection here?

There was a story I read long ago, but have never been able to find since. It told of a man who came upon a group of old men weeping in the desert. He asked why they were so bereft, and they pointed him to a door standing there incongruously in the sand. “Through that door lies only sorrow,” they told him. “Through that door lies the greatest treasure you have ever known.”

The man did not understand, and the old men refused to explain, stating that it would do them no good. But curiosity burned in his breast, and he opened the door, preparing for the worst. He went through to find a great city hidden beyond it. In his adventures there, the city’s beautiful princess came to fall in love with him. Wedded to her, he one day became the king. People respected him for his judgement, the city prospered with trade from mysterious sources, and his wife eagerly accepted him into herself, until she gave birth to his son. He could never have imagined his life would have gone this way. Truly things could never be better for him. Could they?

Years passed, and the question hounded him. Was this all life had to offer? They said the greatest treasure lay through this door. Was his city, his wife and child that treasure? Or were they only the beginning of an even greater journey? In his older years, the man was not as able as he once was, and longed for the adventures of his youth. He wondered if something more lay beyond that door, and one day he made love to his wife, kissed his new daughter, praised his son’s achievements, then went through the door to see what was on the other side.

On the other side was the group of old men, weeping in the desert. The king saw them, and remembered their strange words so many years ago. When he turned around, the door was just a door. There was nothing through it besides the empty desert sands beyond stretching as far as the eye could see.

My hind legs kick frantically as I scramble out of the crater and then stumble into the woods. Only sinking up to my heels in icy snow stops me from senselessly fleeing further away. Looking back at the dark brown crater, I find myself shivering, not just from the cold. I remember that story, how horrible it was, and how I would never, ever look a gift horse in the mouth. No, I’m not going back there, not if it risks me being in an aesop about how terrible it is to explore, how awful you are for hoping you can find a better life for yourself.

I never in a million years thought that my wish to be the one who does not go through the door twice would ever actually happen. To me, it was just another adventure I could never have. Baseless speculation. What happened just now is impossible. This... this incredible experience has got to be a dream. Some kind of delusion. I feel fine, if cold, but I’m standing on four legs. I have a fluffing horse pussy. And that’s about all I know about myself, but it’s more than I ever could have hoped for.

Stories like the old men in the desert, they don’t really happen, but people dream that they do, and the way to end the dream is to end the story. To walk through the door, and find yourself waking up boringly human again... and...male. You can’t stop it, because you can’t avoid waking up, so the dream will always find a way.

I’m fine. I’m doing... fine. So I’m shivering, that’s nothing to worry about. Ponies can handle the cold. I can handle the cold. I have fur now. If my subconscious mind is going to give me a wonderful dream like this, it wouldn’t go so far as to make me perish from exposure to end the dream, would it? As I gaze with confusion and dread at the source of my coming, that dark pit in the woods, soft white flakes start to descend from the sky, landing on me, and painting the dirt of the crater in white speckles.

Okay, moving. Right. I gotta get moving. That’ll warm me up good. But where to go? The woods are all around me, in a frustratingly flat landscape. Underbrush isn’t thick in the winter, but I can’t see any sort of a landmark except for the crater. If I could climb a tree I might have better luck finding landmarks, but like this, I can barely walk. Any direction I go could end up being the complete opposite direction to wherever the ponies are living.

All I can do is wander in wider and wider circles, until I come across a landmark, or some sort of creek. You can almost always find civilization if you travel downstream far enough. I don’t know if there’s any better way to find your way. Maybe walk in one direction until you find a landmark? Well, the crater is pretty visible for now, so I can use that as a landmark. If I also mark my trail, I can probably keep up the concentric circles plan just fine.

So I take my first step into the unknown, trip over a hidden branch, and fall flat on my face in the snow.

This could... take a while.

A while is right! I barely manage to make two circles of the crater, before visibility is poor enough that I can’t see the crater anymore, through the falling snow. Are there pegasi above, making it snow? I am in Equestria, aren’t I?

“Hello!” I call out in a sharp, bell-like lilt. Then with my butt sinking into the icy snow, I lift my forehooves to my snout and shout as loudly and harshly as a little girl can do, “Hello?! Is any— anypony up there?!”

No answer.

I can’t lose hope though. I’ve transformed into a pony, so there has got to be some significance about that. There have to be other ponies somewhere. I just have to suck it up, and keep going, and... going... and going...

An unbearable amount of walking later, I groan to myself, “I’ve never walked before in my life,” after standing up from tripping over something, again. My muscles are aching, and my hooves are sore, and I can’t figure out how to lift my tail so it’s becoming heavily encrusted with snow, dragging behind me.

I can’t stop though. The wind whipping through my mane seems to steal the warmth away from my skin, but I don’t feel as cold if I keep moving. As long as I keep going, the icy chill won’t eat up through my legs into my chest. I’m getting hungry, but there’s no berries, or even leaves to eat, not that I’d know what was safe around here. At least there’s plenty of water to eat.

To my horror, the light starts to fade. I’m falling over exhausted by now, and I’ve still found nothing but dead underbrush and sleeping trees. No landmarks, no creeks. My thought to mark my trail has saved me a few times over the day: noticing a tree that I kicked until there was a gash in the bark, making sure to keep those far to my left, so that I can increase my search radius. But now it’s... it’s getting dark. I try to quench my thirst with some frozen snow, but that just makes me feel horrible and shiver even more. All I can do is walk forward, step after pony step. How could I have actually walked for so long, that it’s getting dark?!

Despite my earnest effort, everything around me dims to blackness, then utter blackness. If the moon is out, it can’t be seen beyond the thick cloud cover. When it’s too dark for me to even see, it becomes painfully clear how I’ve lived my whole life surrounded by bright city lights. I can’t even see the hoof in front of my face. I’m cold, tired and sore, and I can’t even walk anymore, because I’ll run headlong into a tree trunk that way.

I—I’m shivering so hard, and I can’t walk to keep myself warm anymore. I’m not going to make it, am I? I should’ve gone back. I should’ve found somepony by now. I stand there shivering in an immense darkness more profound than I’ve ever seen. It feels like I’m a tiny speck lost in an empty, black void, nothing in existence besides me, the snow I’m ankle deep in, and darkness beyond. I just...

I just collapse onto my belly. Not from exhaustion, but in frustration, because I don’t know what to do, and I don’t want to die. Not now! Not when I finally became the most beautiful thing I could imagine! My belly is so cold against the snow. I can’t stop the cold, can’t stop just dying here stupidly with not even a chance to survive. I hate it so much.

Do I get to go to pony heaven, or is it just ontological annihilation like with humans? I don’t know. I’m so scared... my cannons scrape against the frozen ground as I curl up and just shiver, trying to stay awake, curling everything tightly underneath myself, trying to make myself fluffier, trying to keep warm somehow. I lost the underwear somewhere back... there, but it was useless anyway. Just like everything in this stupid, horrible nightmare of a stupid, horrible world. I just wanted things to be better, and now all I get to do is... die?

At some point in my bitter, terrified sobs, I realize that I’ve passed out. There’s this cold... heaviness all over me, and I can’t feel even the slightest warmth within me. I jerk up in terror, at the primal fear of being trapped in a dying body, paralyzed for my last moments. Doing so makes my head pop up out of the snow into the bright, morning daylight.

I... what? I look around at the serene, snow-covered forest, a shining whiteness covering over everything, including myself. Apparently it started snowing again during the night, while I was... sleeping? Looking up, I shake my head to scatter the snow that’s piled on top of it.

“I...” I say in a girl’s voice, in utter befuddlement, “I survived the night?” My sweet voice is tired and scratchy, but... intact. Everything feels cold and sore, but I try standing up. One after another, my hooves plant underneath me and raise me up out from where I was lying in a pit in the snow. That snow cascades off my back and I look back at my own cream colored, pink tailed rump with astonishment, before throwing my head back and declaring to the world, “Aw, yeah! Earth pony master race!”

Of course, then I have to walk some more.

I start shivering again, once I start moving, strangely enough. I wonder how close I did come to dying back there? I try to occupy myself as best I can, and distract myself from the pit of hunger in my stomach. “W-winter W-wrapup, Wint-ter W-wrapup~“ I sing in the silence. My voice is... well it’s honestly higher in pitch than I’d find ideal. There’s nothing I love more than the sexy caramel voice of Nowacking making that DJ-horse sound absolutely incredible. But at this point, I’m not even close to complaining.

Maybe when I find out that I’m magically barren and also made out of cloth and stuffing, or maybe cheap rubberized plastic, with a snarky cowboy teasing me for thinking I’m real, then I’ll be upset. Having a voice that sounds even girlier than I wanted? Honestly the little particulars like voice, height, tightness, and uh, species, never really mattered all that much to me. As long as I could be... what I needed to be, I was fine with everything else. Being a soprano is qualitatively better than being a baritone, for me at least.

As I trudge on, I get through all the songs I can remember, and turn to impressions. I can actually do a pretty good Twilight, I think. I try to do Pinkie Pie, but I get as far as “I’veneverbeensoex” before I fall over my words since I’m doing nothing but shivering it seems, since I’m still not used to having this (relatively) long, flexible snout, and since I’m already exhausted halfway through the day. In fact, I was exhausted and hungry when I started out today, and so very thirsty. But I survived the night, when I thought I was gonna die. So now all I can do is trust that this body will hold out long enough for me to find help.

I really am exhausted though. I can’t keep walking all day. I have to stop, and take more and more frequent breaks. Once I even doze off on my feet, half leaning against a tree. I snort awake, and woah it sounds like a horse. But then I realize I drifted off, and I can’t waste this precious daylight, since I’m basically stuck in one spot all night.

Then, I have to figure out how to unlock my legs.

That uh... wow, they’re really—oh there it goes I can lift that hoof now.

Then, I can get on with my adventure!

I stop walking at one point and try to dig through the snow some, to see if I can find anything edible under there. The rotting leaves laying beneath the snow taste horrible. I can’t believe how hungry I am. I’m only walking forward at this point, because I think there’s food waiting for me there. I’d go all the way back to where I started, if I could just get some food in my belly. It audibly growls, just like in the show, but unlike the show, this isn’t adorable at all. I can’t...

I can’t keep walking like this, if I don’t find something to eat. I feel so weak and hungry and tired. Can—can ponies eat holly? They can eat poisonous stuff, right? Well, I don’t even find any holly, just oaks, ash and maples all bare and dead asleep. And it’s... it’s getting dark again.

I’m a little prepared for the darkness, this time. I try to find something to make a shelter with, but I’m not exactly what you’d call a wilderness survivor. Plus I’m too tired to try and gather this stuff. I feel like I can barely lift my legs to move forward! But I do dig out a sort of... shallow pit, at least, so I don’t have to melt the snow under me this time when I sleep.

Then I just kind of collapse into it, curling up in the fetal position, as my whimpering turns to crying, because I’m going to have to walk more when I wake up. It’s only been two days, and I already feel like I’m dying. Heck, I felt like I was dying on the very first night! I just... didn’t.

Sleep doesn’t come easy, believe it or not. I have to fight down the powerful urge to get up and go find something to eat, even though I know I need sleep, and there’s nothing out there to eat. I wonder for a moment if I would even like grazing, and I swear it’s like a punch in my gut as visions drift through my mind of standing in fields of juicy green, tilting my head down and biting, uh, grass. What I wouldn’t give for some grass... or some more conventional pony food too. Cupcakes, and fritters, and apples, and pies, and birds, and milkshakes, and muffins, and potato chips oh I want some chips so bad.

Somewhere in that... thing, I once again fall asleep, and when I awaken the morning er... gloom greets me. The sun isn’t out, but at least the landscape is visible. I look around dully, and I just want to go back to sleep. I just want to lie here and let this stupid world finish me off, like it seems to insist upon. Is this how dreams really go, before you wake up? All this pain and walking and joy, and hope will be forgotten, and when I awaken I’ll only remember disconnected moments from my journey?

At this point, that’d be better than remembering the whole thing. I can’t possibly be dreaming anyway. I’d have woken up in my bed a thousand times over the past two days. No, what’s happening to me is so surreal, that it has to be real. I try to climb to my feet, and just... collapse. Frustration wells up in me as I sink down, wondering why I even bother to try.

Then a... white rabbit comes out of the undergrowth, and hops past me. Not even seeming to notice me, or care, the little thing twitches its nose and swivels its ears around in a most unconcerned fashion. Then it leisurely hops across the surface of the snow into some other dry bushes.

“What was the point of that?” I mutter.

But somehow, it helps. I pick myself up again, and return to my widening and increasingly wandering circles. I push through bushes of my own, pondering the significance of that morning as I walk. “That’s the first living...uh...” I stare dully at the trees before me, “...animal I’ve seen since coming here,” I finally conclude hoarsely. I’m so thirsty, I stop to try to eat some snow, but it makes me so cold, and... I am having a hard time thinking about whether it’s worse to be cold, or to be thirsty. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I feel parched, but... huh, I don’t feel hungry at all.

Indeed, I feel like I’m on the precipice of collapse as I slog on through the snow, trying not to trip over anything... again. But my stomach is oddly quiescent. I feel kind of... woozy, but otherwise fine. I’d eat something if it was right in front of me, but... I dunno, maybe this is some kind of earth pony power. I just don’t care enough to want to eat anything.

When I find the creek, I almost can’t believe it. I hear it before I see it, when one of my wonderful, beautiful, conical ears turns towards my salvation. Snapping my head around, I can’t believe it but I hear a tiny, muffled trickling. Abandoning my awful quest to walk in circles, I shove my body in that direction and hurry on towards the noise.

I find a creek, a frozen creek, mind you, with only a little trickle of water dribbling through a shrinking hole in the ice.

“Oh thank—” I start to exclaim, but the only word I can think of for God is “God” and that sounds way too evil and nasty to be the word I was thinking of. Shrugging, I fall back on, “Thank Celestia this is here.”

I can see myself in the twisted, frozen ice. I see vague, distorted reflections, mostly just a sheen of pink that’d be the mane on my head. My fur doesn’t really register, so similar it is to the color of the snow around me. No way I could see myself in this thing, I guess. Maybe if I find a pond, or... a mirror I guess. I wonder what color my eyes are.

I know this is probably definitely a really stupid idea, but I do stick my head down and try to take a drink from what part of the creek is still liquid. I manage to at least get a little water into my mouth. I guess I’m thinking that giardia can be treated, but dying of thirst cannot, but I don’t really think I’m thinking very much at all anymore. Not with more walking to do, nothing to eat, and the icy chill in the air penetrating even my bones.

No, I just... stick with the plan. I turn away from the trickle, and plod downstream, down the slight downward grade that directs the creek’s flow, when the water isn’t mostly frozen solid. As I walk, the creek meets with another frozen creek, so my idea of following the creek is looking promising already. I have to run into civilization soon, if there’s any to be found. I can’t really find it in me to be excited though. I’m just worn out, and ready to be done, and safe and warm with lots of food and happy ponies and stallions and—

...and things.

I have to avoid the creek’s banks, which grow kind of steep at some point. It’s a pretty young creek though, so I don’t think it’s gonna turn into a huge canyon any time soon. I think about singing, but my throat kind of hurts from being so dry, and I thought I told myself I wasn’t going to drink from the creek, didn’t I? Did I drink from the creek? I don’t even know anymore.

Am I really going to be... going for stallions? My thoughts turn back to those lines, and it’s kind of weird to think about. I’ve always liked “stallions” I mean, but with me in the equation, sex always felt wrong. Now I could actually court straight stallions, and... and have their babies, I guess? I feel remarkably unenthusiastic about that, much like I remain unenthusiastic about anything at this point. But it is an... interesting thing to think about, if I ever...when I find civilization.

It’s kind of nice to be able to think about it in a detached sort of manner. If I’m going to be a mare, I’m probably going to have stallions trying to get inside me. If ponies go around naked all the time, it’d be too easy to get impregnated, just like on your way to the market or whatever. I’ll have to learn about defending myself, not that I don’t want stallions inside me, but I really don’t want to get stuck with pregnancy. But why would I want to be a woman, if not to get pregnant?

I wonder what gender ratios are like in Equestria? I don’t wanna be a lonely single mare just like I was a lonely single man. Am I going to have to share a stallion with other mares? Do ponies form harems? But the show is so locked down that it only depicts monogamous happy couples. That’d be good for me though, because more stallions means stallions would be more desperate to get inside me. Wait no that’s bad, isn’t it.

I really hope this isn’t Minnesota.

I collapse again, when I see an actual walking path. When it passes close enough to the creek for me to notice the break in the trees, I slow and turn my head to see the path, then just... topple in exhaustion. It’s a relief that fells me, and also drives me back to my four feet: a sign of civilization. Lurching out of the bushes, I’m lucky I’m on the right side of the creek. I don’t think I could navigate the steep banks to cross it, with how tired I am. I end up wobbly legged but standing; standing on a snowed over, but well beaten path, a clear break in the trees. Now the only question is... which way leads to shelter, and food, left, or right?

Left is the direction that continues to follow the creek downstream, so that’s the way I go. The path curves away from the creek, and I lose sight of it, but a path this big has gotta lead somewhere. If I can just keep going a little further, maybe I can find... something. Anything but these snowy woods. I’m so cold, my limbs are sluggish and weak. I can’t feel my hooves anymore, and my tail is still dragging in the snow. At this point I’d almost have accepted the fate of being a stallion, if it meant finally finding someplace warm. Almost.

I round a bend, finding a break in the trees that leads to...

I stop and stare.

Am I hallucinating? I thought I was in Equestria, but I never believed it. I turned into a pretty pink-haired mare, and even that wasn’t enough to drive it through my head that things are different now. That good things can happen. That amazing confluences of events can come true. I see serendipity.

What I see before me across a snowy field, is a row of cottages. Like candy houses, their eaves and windowsills are a soft pink. Carvings of hearts and leaves decorate the shutters. Each cottage is built on a sturdy, unpainted wood frame with creamy white walls the same color as my fur. Generous heaps of straw form thick slanting roofs, that are covered in white snow. Smoke trickles out of little chimneys embedded in them. In the dimming evening light, the windows are glowing with cozy warm fires from within.

Beyond the cottages, there are ever more cottages lining well trammeled snow covered paths. The paths lead away from where I stand, further into town, and on those paths... there are ponies. Colorful ponies trot to and fro, standing on four hooves just like I am, but living in a village that they built with those hooves. I would recognize these cottages even if I hadn’t seen them for a thousand years. I can’t believe it, but I know exactly what I’m looking at right now.

Ponyville.

Author's Note

Though this story is a requel to Returning Home, it should stand on its own. Reading the original story isn’t necessary, but may be helpful to understanding the characters. In fact, the original story is pretty deliberately infuriatingly vague, and I’m dreadfully sorry for that, so you might want to read both at the same time, to get an idea of what’s not being said.