Doctor Fetlock blew upwards, knocking her own mane free of her eyes before returning her gaze to the nervously smiling earth mare in front of her. "I feel I should warn, my services are not cheap. On the other hoof." She angled her right hoof. "I provide quality service. Your very dreams will be made real and flesh. Are you prepared for this?"

The mare coiled on herself, nosing into her pocket and drawing out a jingling bag. She uncoiled, the bag sent flying to land on the center of the table, a few bits tumbling free from the sudden motion. "I am ready! But can you really do it? I want a Kirin, not just a regular pony. A stallion."

Fetlock reached with her left hoof for the bag, though it was her horn that pulled it closer with a soft glow. "Very good, but tell me more... A kirin you say?"

"Ah... think that's what they're called," demurred the mare, suddenly unsure. "Oh, Ahm Summer Blossom, by the way."

"Charmed." She turned that left hoof towards herself. "Doctor Fetlock. How did you... hear of me?" Not that she really made much advertising effort. She was in the pocket of seedy ponies and they had work for her. The nervous but smiling pony before her was clearly not one of them.

"Big Mac said you did good work." She tilted her head left and right, her stetson shifting about with the motion. "Did you... make his marefriend? Oh wow that would explain so much!" She put her hooves to her face. "Ah won't tell anypony, promise!"

Fetlock raised a hoof. "Glad you brought that up. You will not tell anyone about me, kindly. I am a very exclusive service. You've already found me, and came prepared... so we'll overlook this, this time." The bag slid off the table, bits secured. "Now let's return to talking about what you want."

Summer moved her hoof over her lips, zipping them and throwing away the key. "Mum's the word, so, a kirin!" She grabbed a pencil that was there on the desk in her mouth and got to eagerly drawing, making a crude drawing of a kirin. "I saw it once; most majestic thing you ever done seen!" She slapped her new drawing with a hoof. "It's hard to put into words, but big and majestic. He looked to me with these big soulful eyes, but he didn't say nothin', just kinda... looked through me." She shivered, but her smile only grew as she did so.

Fetlock had no idea as to the workings of kirin. This would not stop her. "I see. Large, stoic, quiet." She smiled as her mane fell in front of her eyes, forcing her to puff upwards to blow it back out of the way. "Much like the stallion who directed you to me."

"Yes! But not a pony." She pointed at the drawing. "Besides, he's taken. Ah ain't tryin' to compete with another mare. This one will be all mine, right?"

"All yours," Fetlock agreed, nodding at Summer. "His heart will be yours."

"My heart will be his," she dreamily sighed out, going limp on her stool. "What do you need?"

Fetlock pointed past Summer. "Go back in front and wait. My secretary will call you when I'm ready, or instruct you to return at a later date. I have all I need to begin this."

"The griffon?" Summer peeked back into the darkness that led towards the front part of the office. "She's kinda grouchy."

"She does good work." Fetlock shrugged lightly. "It's hard to find a good worker, and she is one."

"Won't argue that none." She hopped down to the floor. "Look, thanks Doc. Ah can't wait!" She trotted away with a hopeful smile, shivering with anticipation.

Fetlock stepped on a button. "Miss Blossom is coming out. See that she is comfortable, and stays there, until I'm done. I'll be busy with a procedure."

"On it," came the curt reply. "Be gentle?"

"She paid, be gentle." Fetlock stepped off the pad and approached a cloth divider that her magic brushed open with a sudden pull, revealing an intricate pattern on the ground. "Time to fill a hole. It's what my cutie mark is telling me." She wiggled her back end where her cutie mark rested, the outline of a pony that wasn't there. The very pony she worked to create.

She began subtly altering the diagram on the floor, her horn glowing as new marks appeared and old ones were scrubbed away gently. She had a new pony, a kirin, to summon, and that meant a new ritual. She had to get it just right.

With a pumped fist, he cheered at the screen. "Yeah, take that!" It had taken about an hour to finish that raid boss, but they had done it, and the chat was scrolling thick and fast with others celebrating their victory. It was moments just as that which has brought him to playing MMOs.

A new window suddenly appeared. It displayed a strange creature, four-legged, cloven hooved, big horn, tail with stylized tufts practically all along it.

"Kirin," it announced. "New Race Unlocked!"

He blinked softly. The raid had a race unlock?! When was that a thing?! "The heck?"

He saw others reacting to it on the channel. A lot of people had, by the look of it, already closed the window and were moving on.

He wasn't so fast. The kirin looked interesting to him. "Extended personal story," it promised in words. "Special follower!! Be the star of your own story in a way you never were before."

There was a button right there to make a new character. "How do I say no to that?" His current character was up to spec to raid, and while raiding was great, a new character to grind up might be fun to do. Besides, most of them were bipedal, but the kirin looked like a crazy dragon-horse. "That's pretty metal." He grinned as he pressed the button.

The screen faded away to a loading screen before transitioning to a kirin looking at him placidly. The character creation tools were there, waiting for him to tweak and play with the avatar that would be his new character. "Hmm..." He clicked a few colors before hitting a soft blue shade he liked, pale and wintery. "Nice." But he saw the scales on the kirin's back and their mane colors hadn't changed. He clicked one and shifted the scales to be a subtly different and lighter shade of blue. "But let's not be monochrome."

He darkened the mane and tufts to an earthy brown. He picked a nice golden shade for the kirin's eyes, still watching him patiently. "I like this look..." The kirin had a horn, dark red and powerful looking, with a little fork at the top. He considered it a moment before clicking it. A bedazzling series of options appeared.

He began clicking on them, seeing he could make the horn have all kinds of shapes and nublets. "Uh, hmm... Let's keep this... simple." He smoothed out the horn, but left it the red tone that was its default. "Awesome..."

The avatar's horn sudden began to glow when he clicked 'ok' for it and an apple floated into view, held in its magic before being devoured by the avatar. "Aw hell yeah!" He quickly figured out it was magic. A magic dragon horse thing? Who could complain about that?

"Would you like to try the tutorial?" asked the game. "This race plays differently than the others."

Tony shrugged lightly. "Yeah sure." He'd probably breeze through it, but maybe there was an achievement hiding away that he could get to. He pressed the yes button and he fell.

He plummeted through the floor as if it wasn't there. Wind howled in his ears as he screamed in surprise and fear. The wind itself seemed to become razor sharp, slicing his clothing away without nicking his increasingly exposed flesh. Bright flashes of colors streaked past him as he soared between worlds.

He flailed at the air as if he could swim against the gravity pulling him, but his hands and feet began to stiffen and harden. Slowly his fingers were drawn together, but also spread in two, pointer and index finger on one side, ring and pinkie on the other as they seemed to flow into one another, becoming something new and different. Hard hooven material began to form at the end, a familiar shade he had assigned his new avatar. "What...?"

"Tutorial begin," displayed in front of him, but the words bled away almost as quickly as they had come. He had the impression that the ground was coming and he looked down in time to see his feet had transformed in a similar way, becoming cloven hooves. The rest of him was still human and normal, if naked.

The ground was still coming, all too quickly. He put out his new hooves as if they would protect him from the impact and he smashed into the glowing pattern that filled his vision.

Fetlock's horn faded from blindingly brilliant to a softer shade as she stood up. There, in the pattern, was a human. "Hm." She preferred it when they arrived in the form they would inhabit, but... "This will do. Can you hear me?"

Tony opened his eyes. Everything was so bright... But he could see the form of a unicorn looking down at him, blowing her mane out of her eyes with a puff. He raised a hoof that used to be a hand, blinking in confusion. Everything felt fuzzy and strange. "Where am I, who are you?" was what he meant to ask, but what emerged was barely more than a grumble.

"You are a kirin," advised Fetlock in gentle tones. "A proud and powerful kirin. Your true love awaits you."

Tony frowned, thinking back to people who could even match that description.

"Oh yes, a mare, Summer Blossom." Fetlock sat on her haunches, watching him. "You are a kirin," she repeated. "With a great horn, a furred tail... You are quiet, but insightful. You remember, do you not?"

He hadn't, but it was starting to make some kind of sense. He had spoken oddly because he didn't normally speak, of course. He nodded as he tried to stand up, but his arms and legs were awkwardly shaped for the hooves that were at the ends of his arms and legs.

"Calm yourself." Fetlock circled the pattern slowly, staying outside the line where the glow began. "Your love will restore you. You were cursed, and she brought you to me to fix, but she is the final step." She pointed a hoof at one of Tony's new hooves. "See, already you are getting better. Ah, are you forgetting your name? You, dear kirin, are Winter Flame."

Winter Flame... That name felt... right. Tony quietly forgot he was Tony. He was Winter Flame. He nodded at Fetlock, trying to sway a tail that wasn't there. He would get that back soon. He just needed Summer Blossom to finish curing him. He looked past Fetlock.

Fetlock followed his eyes. "Looking for Summer? She's just as eager to be with you. Wait here just a moment. I must speak with her, then you two can go home."

He smiled, a subtle gesture, barely an upturning of his lips rather than the usual giddy expression he would have given.

"Perfect," crooned Fetlock. "Perfect." She trotted away towards the front. "Wait."

She left the mostly-human there in the summoning circle, emerging into the front office where a griffon secretary tapped busily at a keyboard. "Summer?"

Summer looked up from a couch she was laying across. "Hm? Oh! Is it done?"

"It is, but you need to know a few things." Fetlock crossed the clean but aged tiles of the rundown office towards her client. "His form will seem strange, and it is, but if you show him love, true love, he will become more and more exactly what you desire. He is your kirin. It is now up to you to finish making this so. For now, keep him out of sight, and at your side. The spirit that resides in him is delicate and must not be exposed before it has settled into its new form."

Some of that was complete hogwash, but enough of it was true, and it would give the mare what she wanted. "You have my number. Call it should you require assistance." She puffed at the stubborn mane that had fallen again. "Enjoy your new kirin, Winter Flame."

"Winter Flame..." She leaped from the couch and trotted towards the back at an eager clip. "Winter Flame! Ah'm here!"

Author's Note

In this chapter we set the pieces. In the next, things begin.

This will be a saucier tale than most of these tales I've done. That mare demands her husbando, and the human will fill that role. Of course this can't go smoothly. That would be boring, no? This tale will have some lechery, but also has a story to tell and plot to go with it.

Shall we begin?

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