Cruising Into the Unknown

“Open your mouth please,” Ashley told Emily as she examined the young pony by the poolside. It had taken a bit of doing to figure it out as she wasn’t used to working with hooves, or with half pony, half fish creatures. “Are you having any problems with the water?”

“Nope,” Emily replied with a shake of her head. “Can I leave the pool yet?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Ashley admitted as she shook her head a little. She put in a stethoscope and used it to listen to the filly’s breathing. “We don’t know what kind of effects that might have on you. It would be better if you stayed in the pool, at least for now.”

“You could’ve said that a bit more nicely,” Abe commented as he rolled his eyes a little.

“Sorry, I’m still kind of getting used to not working with animals…” Ashley said as she rubbed the back of her head a little. “But she’s going to be fine at least. For now, keep her in the pool, hopefully we’ll get some sort of contact with the outside world soon.”

“Ben, can you stay with your sister a moment?” Abe asked as he turned to the Unicorn colt. “I need to talk to the Doctor alone for a moment.”

“Okay Dad,” Ben said as he went to go talk with his sister while Ashley and Abe went to talk together off to the side.

“Look, I know you’re still getting used to all of this,” Ashley said as she looked back at the pool. “But I was telling the truth back there. I think she’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah, I know, but I don’t know if you should be getting her hopes up about making contact with anyone outside of the ship,” Abe sighed. “If we were going to find anyone, wouldn’t we have made contact with them by now? It’s been a couple of days since this happened.”

“Maybe, but we’re still doing what we can, I’m not the one sending out the messages anyway, and they don’t have all the information,” Ashley admitted. “Look, I’m not really an expert on this kind of thing, but maybe there’s some way to help her. If we could rig up a system or something to get water over her gills…”

“She’d still be unable to walk,” Abe pointed out. “But we did get that wheelchair…”

“Your daughter is going to be okay,” Ashley reassured him. “I’m not going to say this is will be easy mind you. She’s probably got it the worst of any of us, but we will figure this out. I promise, me and Dr. Sawyer are going to work on this together with anyone we can find on the ship.”

“So, what should we do?” Abe asked.

“Just keep doing what you’re doing here, there’s not much else we can do right now,” Ashley said as she got her equipment back together. She smiled back at Emily and Ben who were playing in the water. “Take good care of your family Mr. Prince, right now they’re all we’ve got until we figure out what happened.”

“Okay Doctor Richards,” Abe replied as he trotted back towards his children.

Ashley smiled a little as she watched the three ponies talking and laughing. She sighed a little as she turned and walked off towards the stairs to the top deck of the Anthem. She leaned on the railing as she looked out at the ocean for a long moment, flapping her wings gently as she thought about everything that had happened.

Back home she had just been a normal veterinarian who had been lucky enough to get a ticket on the Anthem. Here she was probably the best chance they had in the event of a medical emergency.

So, exactly what was she going to do now? There was no way she could actually do all of this on her own with the amount of passengers and crew aboard the Anthem. Not to mention there were entire species that she wasn’t even familiar with.

She sighed a little as she adjusted her bag for a moment. She still had a few more patients to check out before meeting with Sam again. She started across the deck towards the far side of the stern deck.

This was going to be a long day.

00000

Sam sighed a little as he took a seat at the Windjammer Cafe as he looked down at the plate of food in front of him. He honestly wasn’t feeling very hungry right now as he poked lightly at his food for a moment.

Being in a Zebra body was weird enough, he was still having a hard time getting used to his new gender. Ever since they had been turned into ponies and were unable to contact anyone on the mainland.

“Hey Doc,” Ashley said, which made him look up at her. The purple Pegasus was smiling as she pulled out the chair across from the Zebra and took a seat and set her food down. “How’s everything going?”

“Oh, you know, getting used to my new body, feeling useless because I don’t know how to treat ponies… the usual at this point,” Sam groaned as he ran his hoof through his mane a little. “How about you? Are you having any problems with the passengers?”

“No, they’re all pretty much cooperative,” Ashley replied as she took a bite of her food. “I think they’re hoping that we can cure whatever caused this though.”

“Yeah… we don’t even know what caused it,” Sam sighed as he poked at his food for a moment. “Or if it's even going to be reversible. I guess until then we just have to figure out how we’re going to proceed.”

“Yeah, I’m willing to help you learn more about how to treat equines,” Ashley offered. “Though we’re going to have to learn a lot of things on our own. Sam, I know this isn’t easy on you, but I’m going to be with you if you need me, I promise.”

“Thanks,” Sam said softly. He took a deep breath and then finally started to eat his food. He smiled a little as he looked in Ashley’s eyes. The purple Pegasus smiled back as she brushed her mane out of her eyes and took another bite. “Maybe you should ask around. Statistically you can’t be the only one who had this happen to you.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Sam agreed as he stretched out a little. “But I’m not sure to be honest. I’m not comfortable with talking with anyone about this just yet. And I doubt that anyone else around here who had the same thing happen to them would want to talk about it either.”

“Yeah, probably not…” Ashley sighed. She reached across the table and placed her hoof on the Zebra’s. “But I’m still willing to help you out. We need to work together after all, and live together on this ship. Sam, I know you’re not ready for all of this, but you don’t have to do it alone.”

Sam looked at her for a long moment and then smiled lightly. “Thanks Ashley. I’ve never had much of anyone, especially on this ship. I guess none of us will see our families on the mainland again, will we?”

“You never know what fate might have in store for us,” Sam said with a soft smile. “But we’re all going to have to become each other’s new friends… and families. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“I think I have an idea,” Ashley replied as she smiled a little bit. “Things aren’t going to be easy on any of us. But because we’re the Doctors here, they’re going to be looking to us to help them, both the passengers and the crew. So, what do you say we stick together?”

Sam smiled a little as he looked into Ashley’s eyes for a long moment. The Pegasus mare had a shine in her eyes that he couldn’t help but admire. She was still having a hard time getting used to it, something that Sam could understand. Their new bodies were weird enough, and while he had it worse, Ashley and everyone else were faced with the same problems.

“I’d be happy to,” Sam finally said as he placed his hooves on her’s. “Ashley… do you really think we’re going to be okay?”

“I think we’ve got a lot of things that we’re going to have to get used to before we’re really going to be okay,” Ashley answered. “I honestly don’t think we have a chance of getting our old lives back, or at least our old bodies. We’re going to have to get used to this, at least for now. So, do I think we’re going to be okay? Give it enough time and sure, we’ll be okay. We just need to get settled in and figure out what we’re going to do with our lives moving forward.”

“Easier said than done,” Sam commented and Ashley nodded in agreement. “Do you have any family out there that might be waiting for you?”

“Sure, parents, a couple of siblings, but I don’t know what happened to them, pretty much like everyone else,” Ashley replied as she brushed her mane back. “My parents always found it weird that I wanted to go into animal medicine instead of being a Doctor, but they supported me still. Guess the joke’s on them now. What about you?”

“Yeah…” Sam agreed. “As for me, well I’ve got my family, I’m an only child and my parents are back home. I think they were always a bit jealous that I’ve been working on a cruise ship, though. I’m not even sure what they would think if they could see me now.”

“Who knows, maybe we’ll find out someday,” Ashley replied with a shrug. “I really hope that our families are still out there somewhere. So, what are we going to do now?”

“I don’t know yet,” Sam shrugged. “What do you think we should do?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Ashley said as she thought about it for a long moment. “I think we should just take it one day at a time, at least for now. Our families might still be out there somewhere, but for now we have no choice but to make it through this, together.”

Sam smiled a little as he took another bite of his food and smiled a little. “For what it’s worth I’m glad you’re here with me. I doubt I’d be able to handle this on my own. Having you here is a life saver.”

“Same here,” Ashley said as they finished eating and got up, walking out of the cafe together. She yawned a little as she stretched out. “I’ve been on my feet… err, hooves since early this morning, I’m going to go lay down for a bit before I have to do some more rounds. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Sam said as he gave her a nod. “I’m going back to the med center, at least for now. I need to get a few things done right now, and after that it sounds good to get some sleep at this point.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later,” Ashley said as she leaned over and kissed Sam gently on the cheek. “Take care Sam!”

Sam blushed a little as he placed his hoof on his cheek where she had kissed him. He hadn’t expected that at all, his grey fur turning red as he shook his head and started walking back towards the med center.

Why had she kissed him like that? He was still trying to process his new body and emotions, could he even be attracted to mares? He shook his head and just kept walking. He’d worry about that later.

Just one day at a time just like Ashley had said.

00000

Sam sighed a little as he leaned back in his chair. He had finished the paperwork that he had to work on, and there was nothing left he had to do, at least for now.

He looked down at himself for a moment. This body was so weird to him, changing species and genders were both incredibly weird. He kept thinking back to the moment where Ashley had kissed her cheek. She was pretty cute, but Sam had never considered himself attracted to women, at least not back when he was human. What kind of changes was he going to expect?

He sighed a little as he closed his eyes and crossed his forelegs over his chest. He was going to have to manage, at least until they could figure out exactly how to reverse this. If that was possible at all, just like she said, one day at a time.

He nearly jumped out of his chair when there was a knock at the door. He straightened himself out and cleared his throat. “Come in.”

A silver colored mare with a golden mane came into the room looking a little nervous. She looked around as if trying to make sure that no one else was around before finally speaking up and looking at Sam. “Uh, are you the Doctor here?”

“Yeah, I’m the Doctor, though the veterinarian isn’t here if you’re here about that,” Sam said as he sighed a little. “I can help you with broken bones or something like that, anything related to your new body you’re going to need to talk to the vet.”

“No, no, I just… I needed to talk about something that happened when we all became, well, you know, like this,” the mare said and Sam looked at him confused. “Look, Doctor…”

“Sawyer, Sam Sawyer,” Sam replied. “What can I do to help you?”

“This is going to sound crazy,” the mare said as she shook her head a little. “My name is Mitchel Marlowe. I was hoping that maybe you could help me figure out why this didn’t keep me male… I know it sounds crazy…”

“No, it doesn’t sound crazy at all,” Sam replied. Suddenly everything made more sense, this mare was just like him, only with the genders reversed obviously. So what was he supposed to do now? How was he supposed to tell her that even he wasn’t sure what to do? “Look, Mitchell… I honestly don’t know how I can help you. If there’s some way to reverse this or change genders, we just don’t know about them.”

“Are you sure?” Mitchell asked. “You’re not going to lie to me about this are you?”

“Trust me, if I knew how to reverse it, I would do it,” Sam said as he looked down at his hooves a moment. “I’m sorry, given we don’t even know what caused this, we can’t really reverse it. And…”

He paused a moment as he looked away from Mitchel and shook his head. They were so similar, but he wasn’t sure how he could talk to her about this. Then again, maybe she was one of the few people, or ponies, who could understand what he was going through.

“The same thing happened to me, when all this happened,” he admitted with a shake of his head. “I don’t know how many people it happened to, but I guess there are at least two of us. I wish I could reverse it, but I guess for now we’re stuck like this.”

“Yeah…” Mitchel said and sighed a little. “My wife is taking it the hardest right now. I guess I was kind of hoping that there would be some way around this.”

“If we ever find something, I promise I’ll let you know,” Sam sighed as he gave the mare a slight nod. “In the meantime, we all really need to work together on this and take it one day at a time. Maybe there are others here and we can all face it together if we have the chance. What do you say?”

“I’ll think about it,” Mitchel replied. “This whole thing has just been, weird to be honest. I don’t know how I’m going to manage.”

“Look, I’m not an expert on this kind of thing, I don’t think anyone is anymore,” Sam replied as he shook his head. “For now we don’t really have anything else we can do. If there’s anything else, you can talk to me.”

“Okay,” Mitchel said as he got up for a moment and took a deep breath. “I’ll think about what you said. Just, one day at a time, right?”

“Right,” Sam said as Mitchel headed out of the room.

Sam sighed a little and leaned back. At least now he knew that he wasn’t the only one aboard that had their gender swapped. Still, with everything that had happened, he wasn’t sure how they were all going to handle it. Their lives had just become more complicated than anything else, and they were going to have to make a lot of hard decisions.

And he had Ashley by his side. He just had to hope that everyone aboard was going to be able to do this, even if they would never change back. He leaned back and closed his eyes once more.

For now, all he could do is wait to see if something happened. Maybe, just maybe this would all turn out to be some sort of terrible dream, but he doubted it.

Hopefully, everything would turn out okay.

00000

That evening Ashley was on her way out of her quarters as she made her way down the hallway stretching out a little. She had a lot on her mind right now, especially being worried about Sam and his own problems. She sighed a little as she stepped out into the stairwell and started down the stairs, right now she had a few more things to take care of.

Which at the moment meant going to one of the quarters on a normal check-up. She had gotten a message from the Captain about them wanting to meet with a veterinarian aboard the Anthem for some reason. She just had to hope that it wasn’t going to be a waste of time. With all the ponies aboard she was afraid that they were going to be overwhelmed.

She stopped two decks down and headed down one of the hallways before stopping in front of a door and knocked on it. After a few moments a Unicorn mare with a white coat and a grey mane answered the door. “Are you the Doctor?”

“Yeah, I’m Ashley Richards,” Ashley said as she adjusted herself a little. “The Captain said that you needed medical assistance?”

“Uh, yeah, my wife she injured herself earlier today,” the Unicorn said as she nodded back into the room behind her. “She came back as a Pegasus so she was trying to, you know, fly. It didn’t exactly go well.”

“Of course it didn’t,” Ashley sighed as she brushed her mane back for a moment. She checked her medical equipment, as long as she wasn’t too badly injured, this should be okay. “Alright, show me to the patient. I should be able to help her out, I just need to get a look at her to see what’s wrong.”

The mare nodded as she opened the door up fully and lead Ashley inside. Lying on the bed was a Pegasus mare with a red coat and darker red mane. One of her hind legs was all crooked and looked like it was broken.

“Hey, I’m Ashley, what happened to your leg?” Ashley asked as she started taking out her equipment.

“Well, like Diamond said I was trying to fly, and, yeah I kinda crashed, guess we’re not ready for that yet,” the Pegasus commented as Ashley started to work on her leg. “I would’ve thought that we’d be flying as soon as possible, you know?”

Ashley smiled weakly a little as she looked back at her own wings. She honestly hadn’t even considered flying yet as she was focused more on helping others. The other pegasus kind of had a point though, if they had wings shouldn’t they be able to fly?

She shook her head at that thought. Horses weren’t exactly built for flying anyway, so how were they even supposed to fly? she just shrugged a little at that, not really sure exactly what to think of all of this. Then again they were clearly not normal horses, so maybe they could fly, who knows at this point.

“What’s your name?” Ashley asked curiously as she worked on setting the leg.

“Scarlet,” the mare replied with a flinch as ashley kept working. “Am I going to be okay? Should I take any medication or anything?”

“Well, given we’re not sure what medicine will work on these new bodies just yet or safe dosages, I’m not sure,” Ashley admitted. It was something that they were likely going to have to experiment with, and was probably going to be one of the bigger problems they faced, as they only had so much medication on board. “For now you just need to stay off your leg while we do what we can, okay?”

“Okay,” Scarlet replied as Diamond came over and placed her hoof gently on her wife’s. “How are you handling your new life?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a new life,” Ashley commented. She knew the chances of what she was going to say were slim, but she wanted to keep the passengers reassured. “There’s always a chance that we’ll figure out how to reverse this. For now, I like to think of it more as we’re being temporarily inconvenienced.”

“I don’t think so,” Diamond replied. “A lot of power would be needed, if not outright magic, in order to do this. There has to be some reason or power behind it, and I doubt it’ll reverse it on a whim.”

Ashley looked between the two of them for a moment. Why were these two mares so willing to just give up and accept their new bodies. Most of the people she had talked to aboard the ship seemed more interested in getting their old lives back, so something about this felt weird.

“I’d rather be human again,” Ashley commented. “This whole situation has too many problems. We’re going to run out of food eventually and this ship isn’t going to last forever. We’re kind of stuck here unless they figure out how to get the ship running again.”

“I’m sure they will, we can adapt easily enough,” Scarlet said as Ashley finished. “But would it be so bad if we never returned to our old lives? This is a chance to start over and create whole new lives for us.”

Ashley paused a little at that and thought about it. She was right of course, this was the same kind of argument she herself had made earlier. But that didn’t mean they should stop looking for a way to reverse this. She just shook her head and sighed a little.

“No, even if we never go back to our old lives, we shouldn’t give up on it,” she said. “These aren’t our bodies, this isn’t our life. We shouldn’t resign ourselves to these bodies, okay? If we do and tomorrow everything can be returned to normal, there won’t be any point.”

“If you say so, Doctor,” Diamond said as she looked at Scarlet for a moment. “But at the same time false hope isn’t going to help matters either. If everyone thinks that we could be turned back into our old forms then it’ll just be a disappointment when we never do. We’re approaching it more realistically by accepting our new forms than you are by holding on to that hope.”

“Maybe, but the rest of the passengers would be better off having that hope than without it,” Ashley reminded her. “Anyway, you’re looking fine. Just stay off that leg and you’ll be fine, okay?”

“Okay,” Scarlet told her. “But think about what we talked about at least, okay? Maybe you’re right, but deep down you know we’re right. These are our bodies now, maybe this was how it was always meant to be.”

Ashley frowned a little at that. Now this was just sounding crazier and crazier, so she gathered up her supplies and started back for the door. “I’ll check on you again tomorrow to see how the leg is healing, okay?”

“Okay,” Scarlet said as Ashley pushed the door back open and headed out. Scarlet frowned and turned back to Diamond. “She’s going to be hard to convince.”

“Perhaps, but she’ll come around to our way of thinking eventually,” Diamond said with a shake of her head. “They all will once they realize that there really is no way back.”

“And what if she’s right and there is a way to return to our old forms?” Scarlet asked. “What if we’re just lying to ourselves about this just like the rest of them?”

“No, returning is impossible, not if we’re right about there being a greater purpose,” Diamond said with a shake of her head. “Humanity had its chance to rule the world for thousands of years. Now we’re going to have to build a new world. And you and I are going to be among the mothers of that new world, we just need to make sure that we’re ready for it.”

She smiled as she leaned in and kissed Scarlet on the lips. “We just need to find the rest of them if we’re going to succeed.”

Scarlet smiled as she kissed back. “You’re right of course, so where do we start?”

“Well, there are around 5000 other ponies on this ship,” Diamond pointed out with a chuckle. “I’m sure there are others who feel the same way we do. And others who can be convinced to join us. All we have to do is start looking.”

00000

“And there we go, we have power again,” the first mate said as Captain Smith let out a sigh of relief as they felt the engines start up again. “Chief Hampton says that everything should be in order, though she doesn’t know how long the engines are going to last without maintenance though.”

“Right, so we’re going to need to find a port to reach eventually,” Captain Smith said as he looked at the map of the world. The ship was in the middle of the Mediterranean fairly far away from the coast. “If we make our way back to Italy that might be our best chance right now.”

“Yeah, maybe,” the first officer agreed. “So, what are we going to do now? The crew and passengers deserve to know about this.”

“Agreed,” the Captain said as he picked up the PA system. “This is the Captain speaking, I know all of you have felt that the engines are starting to run again by now. While we are still unsure of exactly what we’re going to do next or if there is anyone out there, this is at least a start. Hopefully moving forward we can find more people out there, but I won’t lie and say this isn’t going to be easy. We’re going to continue to try and find a way to communicate with the mainland. I’ll let you know more as we figure out how to move forward from here, good luck to all of us. We’re going to make sure of that, if there is anything that any of you can do to help, please inform the crew. We’ll be back underway shortly as soon as we figure out our new course.”

He deactivated the PA and called down to the engine room. “Chief, what’s the current status of the engines?”

“They’re running perfectly, we should have enough fuel for a week or two, but after that we’re going to have to find more fuel or port,” a woman’s voice answered on the other end. “We should be ready to go, I’ve run as many tests as I possibly can on this thing. The systems are working fine we just needed to figure out how to work them with these hooves. How are things topside?”

“We’re going to figure out a course from here and run some extra tests up here,” the Captain answered. “Thank you for all your hard work, Chief.”

“Of course Captain, I’ll let you know if anything else happens,” the Chief said as the system shut off again.

He leaned back in his chair and looked out the bridge window at the ocean beyond. There were a lot of unanswered questions about what had happened to the ship. So for now they just had to try and figure out if there was any sign of life out there in the world. There was still no sign of life out there or some sort of answer on the radio.

He flipped through the channels of the radio on the bridge. Most of the time there was just static like before until suddenly a voice came through the static on the emergency channel.

“Aiuto, la mia barca è stata catturata da una tempesta e sto prendendo acqua. Per favore, se qualcuno può sentirlo, la mia posizione è…” The voice said in italian. It took a moment for the Captain to realize what it was saying.

It was a call for help.

00000

“Sounds like we’ll be underway again soon,” Ashley commented as she headed into the medical center. “Anything new going on here?”

“No, not really, no new patients tonight,” Sam answered as he looked up from the book he had been reading. “What about you? How did things go with that patient you went to see?”

“Pretty routine really, just a broken leg, I was more weirded out by the way she and her wife were talking,” Ashley answered as she shivered a little. “It’s hard to explain, but it felt like they were a bit too accepting of everything that’s happened to us.”

“Weird,” Sam agreed as he set his book down. “I thought everyone aboard would want to go back to our old selves. I guess people deal with this kind of situation in different ways, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Ashley agreed though she was still not sure about this. “I agree with you though, I guess we all have to deal with it in our own way. So what about you, did anything interesting happen today?”

“Well, you were right about one thing, I’m not the only one who got my gender swapped by this whole thing,” Sam commented. “A woman, or I guess mare stopped by earlier to ask more about it and she said she used to be a man. So, yeah, there is that at least, I just don’t know what to actually do with this information.”

“Well, we know a little more about what happened at least then,” Ashley replied as she took a deep breath. “So, what do we do with this information?”

“I don’t know yet,” Sam admitted. “There’s a lot of things we could do admittedly. At least with the ship moving again we might get to some form of civilization soon. It’s at least some sort of answer to what’s going on, right?”

“Unless they don’t know anything either,” Ashley pointed out and Sam just shrugged. “But yeah it’s at least a good chance. At least let’s give it a try, at the very least it’ll be a good way to get more resources.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. He yawned a little as he checked the time, it was getting late and there wasn’t much reason to stay up any later. “Well, I’m going to call it a night and head back to my quarters.”

“Look, uh…” Ashley said as she rubbed the back of her head a little. “Do you mind if I join you? I don’t know if I want to be alone tonight. I can sleep on the couch if you don’t mind…”

“Okay, that would be… nice,” Sam replied as he gave the purple Pegasus a gentle smile. “I don’t mind at all. I mean, I’m not sure I want to stay alone either. Just let me call up to get someone to watch down here overnight in case we’re needed.”

He picked up the phone and after a few minutes of testing managed to make a call to get them to send someone down to the medical center. He nodded as he offered a hoof to Ashley and hung up. “So, shall we milady?”

Ashley smiled a little as the two of them headed out of the medical center together. “Let’s go.”

00000

Sam took a minute to get his key to work before he finally managed to get the door open and lead Ashley inside. There wasn’t much to look at in the room as it was just crew’s quarters for the ship’s doctor, but it was homey enough.

“I know it’s not exactly the luxury suite, but its home,” Sam said as Ashley took a seat on a couch and Sam sat down next to her. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea… I mean I’m still kind of getting used to this body and… yeah.”

“Don’t worry about it, we’re not going to do anything, right?” Ashley said with a chuckle. “Unless you want to…”

“No, no, I’m not ready for that by a long shot,” Sam said as he blushed a little.

“Thank you Sam,” Ashley said as she leaned over and rested her head on Sam’s shoulder.

“For what?”

“For everything,” she replied with a smile. “I mean, I honestly don’t know what I’d do if I was alone in this.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Sam agreed. He nuzzled Ashley gently and placed his hoof on her’s.

Maybe this wasn’t so bad. If he had friends like Ashley, he didn’t have a lot to worry about going forward. Now he just had to figure out what he was going to do now with his new life. But at least he didn’t have to do it alone.