“Hey doc,” you greeted the therapist, sliding onto that surprisingly comfy couch again.

“Welcome back,” he smiled, “I didn’t expect you to show up.”

“I’m not sure I expected to show up myself.”

“Well then, what made you decide?”

“I…” you hesitate, “I couldn’t go back.”

“To your dream?”

“It… How could it have been a dream?”

“Physiologically there’s not much else that could explain what you described to me. I did a bit of research on the topic, and it turns out that incredibly lucid long, continuous dreams are common in coma patients with little to no cognitive impairment. But there’s something else I realized that makes me liable to agree with you. What you experienced was not a dream.”

“Really, so it was real?”

“Real?” he scoffed, “Of course not. Since when are pastel ponies real?”

You froze. How did he… “Ponies? Uh… who said anything about ponies?”

“I did, and I have to say, I’m disappointed.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh you know exactly what I mean. Picture this,” he spoke, “I’m sitting at home, it’s a Saturday morning, my daughter wants to watch her favorite TV show. So like the caring father I am, we sit down to watch the season finale of My Little Pony. Except all of the sudden this brand new character they introduce is one from your story. One you told me by name that you stuck your dick in.”

“Wait, what?”

“I understand if you think that this is a waste of your time, and I really don’t care that you’d waste my time with that bullshit. As long as your insurance keeps paying I really couldn’t be bothered about you dicking me around. But the issue here is that you’re lying to yourself, and you’re doing it in really crude and hurtful ways.”

“Hold on I…”

“To spin such an intimate sounding story, I… I thought you were making some progress, but nope. Turns out everything was just a fabrication. And how did you even know about Queen Chryssalid or whatever? You had to have done a significant amount of research to come up with the steaming pile you fed me last week. Whatever really happened to you, to mask it with that…”

“Come on, I was telling the truth! Everything I told you, Chrysalis, Metamora, all of it… It really happened!”

“Sure it did. But that’s the other part that continues to fascinate me. You see, all the other characters you talked about, they were in the show. All of them except Metamora.”

“Wait… what do you mean?”

“Yeah, she was the only character that didn’t show up at all. Which makes me think this is more about her than you wanted me to think. Just tell me who she was!”

“She’s exactly who I fucking said she was,” you yelled, “I thought you were supposed to fucking listen to me you overpaid shitbag.”

“You know,” he seethed, pausing to rein in his anger, “I am paid to listen to you, but you’re here for a reason too. Lying to me, to yourself… Those aren’t going to get you anywhere.”

“I’m not lying to anyone!” you defend, struggling to decide between anger and tears, “Everything I told you was the truth.”

“So what you mean to tell me is that you were teleported to a land of talking cartoon horses-”

“Ponies!”

“Are you serious right now? You’re actually sticking with your pathetic story?”

“It’s not a fucking story! How many times do I have to say it was fucking real.”

“Right. Real,” he scoffed, “Because the first thing that always happens when you wake up in another dimension is that you get ambushed by true love.”

“It wasn’t…” you tried to explain, “Not at first it… You wouldn’t understand.”

“You’re right. I don’t understand,” he countered, “I don’t understand why you keep sticking to this crock. You’re a grown ass man talking about having sex with the characters of a children’s TV show. That’s messed up.”

“I don’t know shit about your fucking TV show, dude. I know what happened, and nothing you say is going to make me change my mind.”

“Wow, you really aren’t lying about this. You honestly believe you woke up in a world of pastel ponies, found true love, subverted a societal order, gained magical powers, singlehandedly ended a revolution, and then brought someone back to life? I don’t think I even know what to call half of the complexes to cover that.”

“Huh, you finally get it.”

“Oh, I’m finally getting it, alright,” he quipped, “I’m getting that you’re much more broken than I thought.”

“I’m not broken! For the first time in my fucking waste of a life I finally wasn’t broken. I finally had all the pieces. I was happy.”

“Face it. You have a problem. Let’s call it depression, but with the level of delusion you’ve managed to stack on top, I’m not sure there isn’t something physically wrong with you. You thought you were dying and you invented some kind of absurd fairy tale to give yourself some last chance at living happily ever after.”

“I didn’t fucking live happily ever after, I woke up and now I’m stuck here trying to convince you to believe me for whatever fucking reason. You think I’m happy about this shitshow? I don’t believe this.”

“I think you’d have trouble finding anyone to believe this. And aren’t you, you know, ashamed of, I don’t know, fucking horses?”

“No. I’m fucking not. I made sweet, sweet love to sentient, consenting creatures and it was fucking spectacular. I’d tell anyone that asks,” you declare, “Best lay I’ve ever had. Fucking someone that’s half bug, half pony, and all fucking mine.”

“If I were you, I’d be careful who I told this story to. They might think you’re crazy,” he chided.

“You know what,” you snapped, leaning forward as if you were going to stand, “You can just fuck ri-”

Suddenly there was a sizzling sound in the air, a kind of searing static that immediately caught your attention. He noticed it too. There, right between the two of you was this unavoidable sonic presence, like a TV without signal - just you couldn’t turn away, couldn’t shut it off. It just drew louder and louder, bigger and bigger, brighter and…

Wait, brighter?

Sure enough, right there in the middle of that cloud of almost visceral sound was a pinprick of violet light. You were both transfixed, staring at the dot as if it were real.

Was it?

“Doc, you seein’ this shit?”

He nodded, looking briefly at you, and then back at the dot, now a pulsing orb of energy the size of a grapefruit. Something about it was familiar, something about it was new. But there’s one thing that you knew, and that’s that you were looking at magic.

Magic you knew.

There’s only one place you knew that had magic. Of course it was just as likely that you were having a horrendous stroke.

Yep, that was probably it. As that orb pulsated and grew, bathing the room in a purple glow you could all but feel your brain melting right then and there. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.

You were broken.

But you hoped nonetheless. You watched as the orb started to bend and morph, changing from a basketball of solid energy to a torus of ethereal mist, the speed at which it grew rapidly increasing. It doubled, tripled, quadrupled in size. It was easily large enough that you could walk through it. It was…

It was a portal.

No sooner had you realized what you were watching than it took on the purpose you had assigned it. The growing stopped and the empty area in the middle started to fill with a vortex of white, pouring from the edges, closing the gap as it formed an ivory sheet separating your plane from the next. Separating your plane from the one that wasn’t real.

It wasn’t real.

It sure felt real though. And as soon as the last wisps of energy met in the center you knew it was. Because instead of staring at a mysterious magical anomaly, you were staring at something else entirely. You were looking at the one thing you knew couldn’t be fake. You could see clear as day, on the other side of that portal…

Her.

You froze, your mind at war with half telling you to run through as fast as you could and the other half nagging you that running to the portal was running away from reality. You didn’t know which side was going to win out this time. But you knew how to find out.

“E-Em?”

“Anon!”

She looked like she wanted to run through the portal too. But you didn’t want her in your world. Not for a second, not for an instant. Not if you had to give everything to prevent that from happening.

“Can I… Is it safe?” you asked, walking right up to the portal.

“Of course it’s safe!” Twilight’s voice came as she stepped into frame. Two for two, this was happening.

“Actually… Hold on a second,” you paused, turning to the terrified therapist, “Doc, you still with me?”

“W-What is…”

“Told you this wasn’t a dream. But if you want some proof, that sexy piece of flank right there,” you motioned, pointing at her, “yeah, her with the pink hair. That’s Metamora. I don’t think she’d enjoy finding out that you told me she wasn’t real.”

“You what?” she asked, staring daggers as he shrank into his armchair.

“Relax. I never stopped believing for a moment,” you lied. You had almost given up. You were so close.

“I-” he shook, looking like he was losing his mind, “…real.”

“Oh actually, one last thing. You got the other bugbutt over there?”

“Pharynx?” Twilight asked.

“Aphelion?” Metamora questioned in tandem.

“No, the other other one. Chrysalis.”

The therapist froze.

“Anon I-” Chrysalis tried to apologize, stepping into view on the side opposite Twilight.

“Whoa, hold on. You can say whatever you gotta say in a minute. But first I need you to do me a favor. Right here, right now. No questions.”

“Anything.”

“First, tell this fine gentleman who you are.”

She looked at you in confusion, complying after a pause, “I’m Queen Chrysalis, former leader of the Changelings and esteemed member of the new Equestrian regency.”

“Now tell him who it was that last fucked you.”

She blushed, stuttering, “P-Princess Celestia.”

“Oh shit, damn I did not expect that,” you cackled, “Alright, let me rephrase. Who was the last human that fucked you.”

“You, obviously Anon. You’re the only human I’ve met!”

“Great. See, doc. This bullshit enough for you yet?”

“S-She’s a horse!” the therapist called out, “You fucked a horse!”

“Manners, doc! You can’t just go around calling ponies whorses,” you laughed, “Now one last thing, Chrissy. Go ahead and turn around and show the good doctor where I fucked you.”

“Y-You want me to…” she hesitated. You only nodded in return. Her eyes widened, looking to Metamora for a response. She just shrugged. Slowly but surely, Chrysalis turned around, struggling against her embarrassment to swing her tail to the side.

“Take a good, long look doc. You see this on your fucking TV show?”

He didn’t respond, frozen in place with a look split between panic and revulsion on his face. Your job here was done.

“Alright Chrissy, that’s all he needs to see. You still look great by the way,” you winked, “So how does this work. Do I just jump through this shit?”

Twilight and Metamora nodded.

“Well then,” you grinned, getting up from the couch and standing next to the portal, “Only one last piece of advice for you, doc.”

“W-What?”

“If I were you I’d be careful who I told this story to. They might think you’re crazy.”

You stepped through.

You were finally home.

You were finally awake.

Author's Note

If you ever find a therapist this combative, you've probably found a shit therapist.

I'm not exactly happy with the degree I had to scapegoat the therapist to make this chapter work, but idk maybe a brony fucked his mom or some shit. Yeah, let's go with that. Poor unnamed therapist dude. Can't catch a break.

Cutting it close on the chapter-a-day front with like 6 minutes left to spare. Phew.