Your Family and You

For a long moment, silence filled the hall as we both stared wide-eyed at each other. A small part of my mind dimly noted just how weird it was to see my own body moving on its own without me being in it. It felt… off. The scar on my face crossed in a different direction and went to the opposite eye than it did when I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Everything about me looked reversed and the sight was jarring.

The main part of my mind didn’t really care about these little things though—it was too busy letting out a high-pitched scream while banging its fists against the inside of my skull.

We remained still for a few more seconds before suddenly moving at the same time.

“What did you do?!” I—she—he… Me-Celestia shouted.

“What do you mean, what did I do?!” I yelped, a pair of wings I couldn’t control flaring up by my sides. “What did you do? What kind of spell was that to be casting while you were just walking around, oblivious to the world?!”

“What?” CelestiMax said as she struggled to sit up. She seemed to be having trouble staying upright and ended up sitting in a weird, cross-legged fashion with her/my hands braced on the floor like a pair of forelegs. “Oh no. This is not my fault. It was a simple transcribing spell, nothing more! It’s only function is to put my thoughts down onto paper so I can go over them again at a later time!”

“Yeah, well… apparently you fucked it up!” I tried to adjust myself into a more comfortable position but just ended up feeling like I was sitting like a dog. Damn, I forgot how uncomfortable it was being a pony.

“Magic isn’t easy to use, okay!?” she/he snapped. “There’s a reason why it takes years of practice to use even some basic spells. If you don’t know how the magic formulas work and don’t follow the steps perfectly, it has very drastic, very unexpected outcomes!” Struggling to her/my feet, she had to brace herself against a support pillar to keep herself upright. “Why do you think not everypony can do the same level of magic as the Battlemages? Because they aren’t mentally conditioned or prepared to do so! There’s a reason we start teaching unicorn foals so young!”

She took a few tentative steps away from the wall and after a moment of wobbling, seemed to be able to keep her feet. In fact, she seemed to be getting a handle on being bipedal faster than I was remembering how to be a quadruped.

“Fuck…” I grunted as I tried to maneuver my four hooves underneath me. Not only were my legs longer than they were last time, but now I had a pair of wings as well that were making balancing a nightmare. They opened and closed sporadically whenever my back muscles twitched.

“Fix this!” I snapped at her after I collapsed back onto the floor for the third time.

“Weren’t you listening?” she huffed, crossing her arms over my/her chest. Okay, this was getting difficult to keep straight. “For one thing, we can’t just ‘fix this’. I have no idea how this—” she pointed between us with a closed fist “—even happened. We’d need to find the proper spell or else we’d risk making this worse.”

“Worse than it already is?”

“Have you ever seen a pony teleported into a wall?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s not pretty. We can’t just go about casting spells at random and hoping for the best. And for another thing, in case you haven’t completely processed our situation yet—” she waved a closed fist about in front of her face “—I don’t exactly have my horn anymore!”

I froze, my eyes going cross-eyed as I tried in vain to look up at the horn now jutting out of my forehead. “I-I… I don’t know how to use magic! Are you telling me we’re stuck like this until I learn?! That’s going to take ages!”

“No. Most certainly not,” CeleMaxia said as she wobbled over to me. Slipping an arm under my barrel, she helped me to my hooves. “This is not permanent. We just need to… need to… um…” She trailed off and an unsure look crossing her face.

“We need help,” I said. “Twilight or Luna or even—”

“No!” she shouted sharply, causing me to jump and nearly collapse again. “No, we can not tell anypony about this mishap!”

“Why not?!”

“Do you have any idea the field day the press would have if they found out about this?” she asked as she began to pace. Reaching up to rub her chin, she flinched upon coming in contact with my beard. Making a disgusted face, she turned about to face me again. “And that’s not to mention… no. No, the fewer ponies that know that we’ve switched bodies, the better.”

I shook my head. “I have no idea how we’re going to keep this quiet. If you can’t use magic and I don’t know how to… we’re going to need a third party eventually.”

“Yes, yes we are,” she agreed. “We’ll include Lulu in this when we find the proper spell. Until then, we just act like nothing happened. We can work this out. It just looks worse than it actually is. We just need to find the spell to reverse this mix-up and we’ll be fine.” A thoughtful look crossed her face. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find either. The Archives would be a good place to start. There’s a section just for spells. As long as we stick together, we should be able to—”

Both of us froze as a shout came from down the hall. “Ah! There you are! We were looking for you.”

Luna trotted down the hall, accompanied by a swaying Primrose who had a dopey smile on her face. A thin trail of smoke was still coming from the corners of her mouth, and her eyes were bloodshot. She giggled as she bumped unsteadily into Luna’s flanks.

“We were beginning to become worried over your absence,” Luna said as the pair reached us. Glancing at Max-Tia, she smirked. “We half expected you to be in trouble somewhere. Although, can you blame us, given your track record?”

“Uhhh…” She/he glanced over at me. “Thanks?”

“There he is!” Primrose giggled. “We’ve been, um… been… we’ve been looking for, um… something.” She paused, a blank look crossing her face and her eyes dimming, only for her to perk up upon looking at “Princess” Max again. “There he is!”

“Is she okay?” I asked, and my ear twitched at the unfamiliarity of my new voice.

Luna nodded. “Of course, dear sister! Although—” she looked down at the swaying batpony “—the Healers might have given her a bit too much of her medication. They did assure us, however, that she should mellow out in a few hours.”

Giggling, Primrose turned and began to stumble away from the group, but Luna unfurled a wing and pulled her back to her side.

“As you can see though,” Luna continued, “until that time she’s quite the hoofful. We nearly lost her over a balcony railing earlier. We recommend getting these two back to Twilight as soon as possible to both avoid potential injuries and so that they might rest.”

Me-Lestia cleared her throat and gave me a pointed look, subtly nodding her head in Luna’s direction. I floundered for a moment, mouth opening and closing, before choking out. “M-maybe… maybe we, er…they… that is to say, maybe we should allow them to stay the night?” At Sunny-Me’s minute nodding, I continued. “It’s getting rather late, and I think it would be better if they stayed here until morning.”

Luna scratched her chin with the back of her hoof. “You make a good point, sister. It is rather late for them to take a train, and it’s rather dangerous to use the chariots at night. We don’t want either of them falling off in the dark.”

Himlestia breathed a sigh of relief.

“Exactly,” I said quickly. “It would be better if—”

“But fear not, dear friend!” Luna said, thrusting a hoof into the air. “We have another solution!”

“You do?” Sun-Brony and I asked at the same time, both of us bewildered.

“Indeed! We shall have you both home post-haste!” Wrapping a wing around Primrose, she moved her to stand right next to my Celestia-driven body—which currently had a worried look on her/my face.

“What are you doing?” she/I asked.

“Getting you home!” Luna chirped happily. “Now, do try and stand still, friend Max. And do be warned, teleportation can make one feel queasy afterward!”

“Teleportation?” Maxlestia looked confused for a moment before her/my eyes widened as Luna’s horn lit up. “Wait, Luna, no—!” She/I darted out a hand to stop the spell, but it was too late. In a flash of dark blue magic, both Primrose and my human body disappeared and I was left alone with Luna.

The magic around her horn faded and she turned to smile at me. “There! They have been returned home to Ponyville. Young Twilight might be surprised at their sudden arrival, but we think she shall like having her mate back for the night.”

Gnawing hard on the inside of my cheek—almost to the point where I could taste copper—I stared at her. After a moment, her smile faltered.

“Tia?” she asked. “Is… is something the matter?”

Finally easing up on the flesh inside my mouth, I sighed heavily and shook my head. “Moonbutt… why? Why you gotta fuck me over like that?”

~ ~ ~ ~ > > < < ~ ~ ~ ~

“Are you finished yet?” I asked, deadpan. When I received no reply, I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Are you going to be alright? Do I need to get someone to get a Healer?” Again, no reply and I sighed. Looking down at my hooves, I grumbled. “Come on. It’s not that funny.”

At my hooves, Luna continued to roll about on the floor. This had been going on for several minutes now. She had started off laughing loud enough to make my ears hurt, but now no sound escaped her save for a high-pitched wheeze. Tears streamed down her face as she tried to get a much-needed lungful of air.

Sucking on my lip, I glared down at her. “Come on, Moonbutt. This is getting ridiculous.”

She waved her forelegs at me and silently shook her head, unable to make any noise other than the wheezing gasps. Rolling onto her stomach, she tried to crawl away from me but apparently didn’t have the strength to do so. Instead, she just squirmed on the floor, her wings slapping against the marble.

“Oh, come on! It’s not that funny!”

“N-no, please, stahp,” Luna finally managed to squeak out. “N-n-no more! We’re… we’re gonna pee!”

Clicking my teeth together, I growled out. “Luna, I swear to God, if you don’t get ahold of yourself, I’m going to fucking sit on your head and smother you.”

Luna paused long enough to glance at Celestia’s flank, only for her to start dying again. That was, until I suddenly flopped down upon her. Hard.

“Alright, alright!” she cried out, her voice muffled under my weight. “We yield! Cease crushing us immediately!”

Staggering to my feet, er… hooves with some difficulty, I huffed. “About damn time.”

“We apologize,” Luna said as she stood as well. A few persistent giggles escaped her, but she was finally able to compose herself. “We did not mean to make light of such a… serious situation.” She tried to keep a straight face for a moment, but cracks began to appear in her facade.

“Look,” I said, trying to cut off her impending giggle fit. “Is there anything you can do to fix this at the moment?”

“Neigh,” she said, shaking her head, “and unfortunately, we won’t be able to help tonight, as we have Lunar Court, which shall take up most of our time.”

“Great,” I grumbled. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

Luna smiled and shook her head. “Relax, friend Max. We shall take you to Tia’s sleeping quarters. You can stay there tonight, sleep, and we shall begin searching for a solution to this in the morning.” She paused, a thoughtful look crossing her muzzle. “That is, unless your mate figures out the proper spell before us. But that would require Tia telling her what has happened.”

“I doubt that’s going to happen,” I grumbled. When Luna gave me a confused look, I explained. “She didn’t want anyone finding out. Something about the backlash. She wasn’t even going to tell you until we had the spell to reverse this, so I highly doubt she’s going to tell Twilight what’s happened. In fact, she’s probably going to try and pretend she’s me until we sort this out.”

There came a ‘snrk’ from Luna’s direction, and when I looked over I saw her biting down on her lip, her chest twitching and spasming.

I glared at her before sighing. “Just take me to Celestia’s room.”

Not trusting herself to speak, Luna motioned with a wing for me to follow her. It wasn’t long before we were standing outside of Celestia’s bedroom, which was good as I was still rusty when it came to walking like a pony. I’m pretty sure the sight of her sister’s body swaying and staggering down the hall behind her like a newborn did nothing to help Luna’s composure, but she somehow managed to get us there without breaking down into laughter again.

Lighting up her horn, she pushed the door open a crack for me. “Here we are, and this is where we shall leave you. Sleep well, friend Max, and we shall figure this out first thing in the morning. If you need anything, do not hesitate to call on one of the maids.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, an ear flapping against my head. I watched her head off down the hall before turning my gaze back to the open door. I hesitated for a moment before letting out a long, drawn-out sigh.

Pushing the door open further with my head, I slipped inside and closed it behind me.