I was standing outside Fluttershy’s cottage by the bridge over the creek with mom beside me, she walked past me and flipped her mane like she does.

Mom began looking around quickly, then back at me. “Snickers, why are we at Fluttershy’s? I swear we were just at Twilight’s…” she was quiet for a second and her eyes fell to the grass between us while she thought. “No, I don’t know how I got here with you. We were having a moment, not being ourselves…”

“Twiglina cast a spell and sent us into a Harmonic Vision,” I said. Mom looked at me and cocked her head.

“Whatever do you mean? Harmony doesn’t offer a vision so soon after another… it would risk damage to your mind or spirit, if it did. Let’s go back to Twilight’s, Snickers, I’m sure she’ll have an answer of some sort.”

I stood up and shook my head. “No can do. We’re here, we’ve gotta go through her house,” I pointed to the tree, “to get out. Whatever’s in there, though, may not be what you’d expect.”

Mom faced Fluttershy’s and stepped closer to it. “Well, come along, dear. I would prefer not to do this alone, and I won’t have you going into some vision without me, this time. The real me,” she chuckled, “figuratively speaking.”

I nodded and stood with my shoulder against her foreleg for a second, then she stepped and I stayed close to her side as she took to a canter until we reached the door. “I hope you’re really you, because if this is just some… whatever, and you can’t help me…”

“Snickers, I’m real, I’m here, and I won’t leave you. I promise you that.” Mom said giving me a side hug before her magic opened the door. It was a wall of blue light, which didn’t seem so bad. “Well, ladies first, I suppose,” she said walking into the light.

I rushed under her and we went through together… and mom screamed. I stepped out from under her and smirked. “This isn’t so bad.”

“Not so bad?!” She balked at me as a twirling length of multicolored ribbon floated past me and part of the plaid ceiling dripped between mom and me. “This place is beyond ghastly! Such horrible palettes, the clashing colors, the garish… everything!”

I giggled. “Hey, at least it’s not blood or the guts of animals, right?”

Mom looked at me in total shock. “What in the wide realm of Equestria would make you say something so horrid, Snickers?”

“Oh, yeah… you wouldn’t know, would you? Well…” I took a minute to fill mom in with the highlights I could remember. “So, that’s about it. Now we’re here,” I gestured to the inner cottage that looked like something brought everything to life and made it look awful to mom’s sensitive constitution.

“Oh, Snickers, I’m so sorry to hear everything you’ve been through… perhaps I should scold the voices as Fluttershy had? It seemed to work for her.”

“Yeah, but you’re not her. You don’t talk, you fix… so fix this and maybe you’ll get out of here safe and sound, okay?”

Mom hugged me tightly. “No, not with you. Whatever these things want with you, they’ll have to not only go through me, but I’ll share the penance you have to pay, whatever it may be.”

I won’t lie, mom really won a lot of points with me on that one. She actually cared about me, and I didn’t get the feeling or scent she was about to rub her stress away… she was actually there with me, for what felt like the first time. “Thanks, mom. But, seriously, let’s see what we can do here.”

Mom let me go and opened the door. “Very well, but first I’ll need some sewing equipment from my boutique. Come along, we’ll have this place fit for royalty before anypony knows what’s hit them.”

I slipped under mom and we walked out through the doorway of light again… then we both screamed. The door slammed behind us and locked us in a red hazed sky with clouds blacker than anything I’d ever seen, they seemed to suck light around them in. The grass was shiny and sharp, a frog hopped from the trail into the grass and it was skewered by the razor blades they’d become. There was a crack of thunder and we noticed the tree was old and dead… then it started to rain and mom’s white coat started to turn red with each drop that struck her.

“Oh? Oh?! Eeek!” Mom screamed and pranced side to side. “Blood! It’s raining blood?!”

“Mom?! You’re gonna step on me, stop!”

“Oh… Snickers… Stay under me, this is… the worst possible thing! I need to find something to cover us,” she gagged and started trotting along the path. A familiar scent filled both our noses and we looked at the once water in the creek.

“Is that…” I asked when we both noticed the white thick slime that stank like musk and salt.

Mom gagged again and retched. “Oh… sweet Luna, don’t look at anything. Close your eyes, darling, don’t look,” she instructed.

“I can’t, I have to see where I’m going. How are you doing, mom?” I asked the mare who’s coat was now soaked red with blood. The fur under her was dripping onto me, but I didn’t care about that at the moment.

“Horrid… I’ve never felt so awful in all my years,” she snorted out, clearing blood from her nose. “Ugh, it tastes like cheap copper and costly iron.”

I felt my stomach turn a little. I’d been eating some fish every day, red meat wasn’t on the menu for years, if I even worked my way up to that, and certainly not raw. And there mom was, covering me to the best she could under her while suffering through raw blood for me. “You can do it, mom. Look, to the left is a store, I think!”

Mom slowed and tried to look where I’d indicated, but she was having trouble seeing through the thickening blood in her vision. “I’m not sure, but I do know where our house is. We’ll go there and clean up, then worry about… whatever the fuck this is. Oh, I apologize! It slipped out, honestly, don’t use that as an excuse to--”

There was a flash of lightning that startled us and we started moving again, faster now as the bloody mud sloshed around her legs and up to my knees, not including what was splashed up onto me from her pace. I still didn’t care, mom was actually trying to keep me safe from that horror show, and that meant more to me than being clean.

I felt the blood lessen from mom and glanced out, pleased to see it had stopped raining on us for a moment, even though it was still raining pretty good outside of a small area for us.

“Snickers, be a darling and remind me to reimburse Stone Ground for the door to his abode? I’ve removed it as an impromptu umbrella, you see.” She said with a slight pleased tone. I glanced from under her and saw a door above us in her blue magic, for what little it did for us being covered in mud, blood, and a mix of the two.

“Hey, there it is!” I said excitedly and resisted running ahead to the door. Mom’s magic opened the door with ease and we rushed inside to the clean and organized interior.

Blood pooled around us at the door and I stepped out from under mom, we looked one another over, and sighed in defeat. Mom walked ahead through the show floor and straight to the stairs with me behind her. We climbed the stairs and I saw each time her hoof touched the carpeted everything the blood from her body would leave a stamp-like impression.

We got to the bathroom and she put me in the shower, following me in and we both took a seat. “This may be the best shower of our lives,” mom said turning the faucet on. The pipes rumbled and the shower head started raining on us.

Mom stood up and lifted her head into the flow when I looked at my hooves and screamed again. Mom looked at me and then at her body and coat, joining me. We scrambled over the edge with her help from me and both slipped on the floor since we were now coated in a mix of blood from the rain and… stallion’s semen from the shower.

Mom barely made it to the toilet before vomiting while I didn’t manage to get my hooves under me before I started spewing at least away from under myself and opposite mom’s noises. I couldn’t open my eyes for over a minute, not until a towel wrapped around my head and from my neck behind my ears to my snout with a unique rolling motion, cleaned most of my head in a single pass.

It didn’t help I was crying, it did help that my eyes were now clear from the toweling and tears combo, though. Lose-win. Yay me. I saw mom and she was a horrible mess of pink, Pinkie Pie pink. She was crying, too, only quietly. “Oh, my sweet little stallion… I’m so sorry about that,” she said, “I wish I could hug you, but we’re so…” she sobbed and used the same towel to wipe her face before throwing it aside. “The next time I get a chance, I’m taking us both to the spa for the ultimate deluxe package.”

I hugged her, getting half my face coated in the slurry again. It was so gross to every sense I had, and several I may not have. Mom gently hugged me back. “Mom?”

“Yes, Snickers,” she asked quietly.

“If you get pregnant from this, I had no part to play in it.”

Mom burst out laughing and hugged me tighter, I had to push back and move away, pointing to my face again. Mom toweled me again while grinning. “If I get pregnant from this, then some spirit will have some explaining to do.”

We both took time toweling one another off the best we could, mom only almost threw up once more, which was pretty good considering everything. “So,” I finally asked once we were cleaner and doused with perfumes, rubbed with powders, and were wearing fresh clothes. I made a point to tug the cuffs of my shirt. “Now what do we do?” I asked mom.

“Well, since we’re in the most horrid nightmare possible, I believe we should either make the most of the time we have, or return to the cottage to finish what I was about to begin.”

I shook my head. “Locked, maybe even aged to ashes, now. What else could possibly be the way out?”

Mom, wearing a nice dress that covered her from neck to tail while leaving her hair lying flat; since hair had to be clean to be styled. No way around it, we were covering absolute grossness under classy coverings. Mom shrugged at my question, though.

“Wanna just hang out?” I asked.

Mom tapped her chin, then looked at her hoof and grimaced before putting her hoof on the carpet and wiping her chin on her lapel. “I don’t see why we can’t spend a little time relaxing with one another… oh, my. We haven’t done even that, yet, have we?”

I shrugged. “No, but I’ve been a very busy colt and you’ve been a very busy mare, right?”

Mom shook her head. “That’s no excuse for me to… regardless, we’re here now, so let’s hang out. First, games!”

“What about food?” I asked.

“Like the shower or rain? I imagine the food to be some perverse inversion of their real counterparts in some ways. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it; until then, meet me in Sweetie’s room while I check the status of the main floor and it’s leak protection spells and wards.”

I nodded and trotted to Sweetie’s room, picked a couple games, and when mom got back we sat down and drew our cards. “Snickers, I must say that even though we’ve been through a lot in this vision, you’re still as charming and attractive as when I first saw you on my doorstep a crazy week ago.”

I sighed loudly. “It’s been one hell of a week, that’s for sure. I just hope that after I wake up next time, I can live in this body I’ve been given, rather than struggle to survive pretty much every day.”

“Don’t feel so melancholy, darling. There’s going to a be a time when you look back and know this was the worst thing to happen to you in your whole life.”

I snorted. “What? Running through blood, bathing in semen, and vomiting under the bathroom cabinets?”

“No, that I’ve got UNO on first turn,” she giggled behind her hoof at my shocked face looking at the skips and draw two’s and draw fours stacked against me.

I looked at the cards magically held to my hoof and picked a single card, placing it on the stack. “Draw two,” I said and grinned at the shocked, impressed look on her face.

“Well played, my young stallion, well played.”

We played our games for nearly an hour looking out of the window every so often to see the blood rain covered window, the quiet sound of it hitting the window letting us know it was still there. Mom had set up the gramophone and a record was playing a jaunty little tune for us, mom got up and went to the window, used her magic to clear the outside, and looked out.

“Yes, it seems this is less of a horror and more of a repainting of the city at large,” she chuckled. Mom turned back to me and stood over me. “Snickers, may I share a secret with you?”

“Of course, I won’t tell anypony.”

Mom smiled a bit. “I’ve never heard you say ‘anypony’, darling, it’s a nice thing to hear. Anyway,” mom looked around, even though the boutique was empty save for us, “ahem…” then mom started talking with a weird accent I’d never heard, it sounded funny, “hi hon, doncha believe it, but my mom and dad’re outta town for the month.

“I was so surprised, once, when they dropped of my sister I nearly had a heart attack… and that, darling, is the voice I was born with. You can see why I changed it, I’m sure.The accent is actually my mother’s from northern Manesota, while my father is from the Vanhoover area. I’m quite pleased I don’t carry his accent within me,” she smiled at me and her horn lit, closing my mouth. “Do keep you mouth closed when a lady is present, you shan’t be uncouth while under my care.”

I swallowed and sat up taller, then mimed zipping my lips. “I won’t tell a soul, not that anypony’d believe me. But, why hide your accent? I think it’s kinda cute.”

Mom reached to flip her mane, stopping when she remembered it was flat. “Thank you, darling, but after I received my cutie mark I begged and pleaded to be sent to a special school in Manehattan that teaches ettiquette, manners, and how to act in social situations. From age seven to nine I was quite intent and focused in my studies to change myself.

“My goal wasn’t to change who I was, even though that was what happened; my goal was to change my image to what Manehattan and Canterlot would see as a mare of class, sophistication, and regality so I could design clothing for the masses of the elite and noble classes.” Mom posed dramatically like the proud mare she was.

“Alas, upon returning to Ponyville was lackluster at first. Pinkie Pie was new to living here and threw me a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party and was quite surprised to find out I already lived here, but was away at school. I moved back with my parents and welcomed my newborn sister into my life.

“This building that we now live in, do you know what it was?” Mom asked me, sitting down across the gameboard from me.

“Um, a brothel?” I asked seriously. A checkers chip bounced off my fourhead.

“Whyever would you even think such a thing?” she laughed and put a hoof to her chest. “No, there hasn’t ever been a brothel in Ponyville, of any kind,” she cut me off before I could snark at her, “no, this was the old town hall. The shape and grand size should tell you of its previous purpose.”

I thought over the dimensions and came to the conclusion she wasn’t full of it by nodding.

“It was in disrepair, to say the least, but once I was exhausted of living with a crying foal that was surging, parents with no concept of personal space or privacy that led them to being introduced to Mister Ed years ago… that was mortifying, and my family’s cooking akin to eating coal from a barbeque, I bought this building using gems I found in a nearby valley.”

“Can you show me the valley, sometime?” I asked.

“Certainly. It’s quite lovely and dog-free, I hope. If not, I have ways to dispatch of them without any harm done,” she waved her ability, whatever it may be, off like it was nothing. “Anyway, I bought the building and moved in, and while living here I hired construction workers to fix the frame and enchanters to enchant the building against all the damages I’d mentioned on your first day here.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I remember how much of an ass I was, not to mention finding your dildo and you teleporting it away.”

“Yes… and after I’d used it not fifteen minutes before you arrived,” she smirked and I looked at my hooves in horror.

“Oh God, ew. I never wanted to touch your secretions!” another checkers piece bounced off my forehead.

“How rude!” She covered her mouth. “And didn’t you have to use your mouth to remove it from the box?” My jaw went slack as I remembered that part, I’d forgotten it in place of watching her reaction. “Close your mouth, darling… you can now say you’ve done something no stallion has done, but hundreds have wished for.”

I closed my mouth and swallowed the massive amount of saliva that had built up, then smirked. “I didn’t know so many stallions wanted your huge dick in their mouths… I’ve never noticed, but I’ve never really been looking, I guess,” I looked at her teats. “Are those actually your nuts and it’s between them?” I pointed. She looked down and then back at me. “Close your mouth, darling, it’s uncouth,” I said mocking her voice and pretending to flip my mane.

Mom actually mocked me! “Meh neh meh. Whatever, darling son of mine. If it related to my body, I’m sure many a stallion has wished for that as well. There is, after all, no wrong way to fantasize.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. “Well said, mother; well said. Heh-he,” I giggled into my hooves, regretting it when they touched my lips. “We totally screwed this vision over, I think. We didn’t die, get attacked, or have anything besides some various goo cover us.”

Mom smiled at me with a nod. “Yes, quite correct. And, if I must say so, I’ve enjoyed this time we’ve had. If only it didn’t have to happen during a fever dream, of sorts.”

“Who says it has to only be now? When I get back, I’m willing to spend the day with you.”

“The thing is, Snickers, that I’m behind on my work--”

“No, I get it,” I took the cards back into my hoof, “sorry I asked.”

Her magic lifted my chin so I had to look at her. “What I was going to say, before you began a pity party of one, is that I’d appreciate your help in the matter. Perhaps you could assist me and find your true calling, or perhaps you’ll be a… model citizen once we’re done.”

“That’s it,” I threw my cards at her and when she gasped and moved back, I ran to her and hugged her tightly. “Puns are the best! But next time, leaf them to me; you’re not too good at it.”

Mom sorted the cards while hugging me back. “I’m not so sure, I do have good roots in the matter.”

“Psh, you’re making me sappy,” I said and she laughed loudly.

“Oh, darling… I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened to this point. I promise, and this time I mean it, to be the mother to you that you deserve. There will be problems, arguments, disagreements, times I send you to your room, and others where I go to mine just to be away from everything… but no matter what, I’ll never treat you awfully. I’ll never swear at you, intentionally make you feel worthless or hopeless, and I’ll make time at least once a day to spend just with you. Not working, just with you.”

I nuzzled into her and sighed. “Thanks, mom.”

There was a weird feeling that I now can explain. It was hope, trust, and love. Three things I didn’t feel as much, if at all, for Rarity. But at that moment, Rarity truly became my mother. It was up to her to keep the title, though.

*ting*

“Did you hear that, Snickers?”

“I think so, what was it?”

*ting*

The sound came again, this time it resounded for a few seconds, tapering off before three ponies stepped through the doorway avoiding the hall, just literally appearing to walk through the doorway. The same three stallions from each time I saw ponies.

“What the fuck are you gonna do this time? Torture us, make us fuck?” I asked, shoving mom away… which I regret now, but then I was in the moment. “Go fuck yourselves off outta my head!”

The black stallion with white mane stepped forward. “I am Discordance. I represent death, discordance, and imbalance.”

The white one with black mane stepped up. “I am Order. I represent order, conformity, and consistency.”

The grey one with white mane stepped up last. “I am Harmony. I represent harmony, balance, and life.”

They talked together, then. “We are unsure of your kind, Conundrum.”

“You bring disharmony to everything I try,” Order said.

“You bring order to everything I disorganize,” Discordance said.

Harmony smiled at me, the only one with emotions, it seemed. “I approve of your kind, what shall we call you?”

I was taken a little by surprise. I looked at mom and she shrugged a little bit, almost unnoticable. “Um… I’m a pony?”

Harmony laughed like a jolly old fat man while the others smirked at me. “We know what you are now, but before you were a pony… what were you?”

“Oh… a human. Wow,” I said clicking my tongue, “it feels weird saying that again.”

Order stepped up. “Human, you were not to speak of your kind, so I stopped you.”

Discordance stepped up. “I allowed you to remember, don’t forget that.”

I glared at both the stallions. “You also tried to rape me and my… friend, Scootaloo.”

Harmony stepped up. “I sharpened her hooves.” The other two glared at Harmony, who just smiled back at them. “Lessons must have limits, brothers.”

Three checkers chips bounced off the three unicorns’ heads and mom stood over me. I stepped under her, it really did feel safer under her. “You three can leave my son, and the rest of us, out of your little games. Shoo, you have no need to be here. Send us home and don’t come back, or have any of us do the same.”

Discordance opened his mouth baring dozens of razor sharp fangs in his mouth. “You shall not order us like-- urk!”

Several more checkers chips hovered around mom. I looked up and saw a look of such determination on her face; I’d never felt so protected and loved. “Yeah, don’t mess with my mom, or she’ll make you sorry!”

C’mon, I am just a colt, after all. I can’t be expected to do anything else sometimes besides cheer my bad ass mom on.

“That’s right, darling. Mom’s gonna open a can of whip snaps on these old fuddy duddy’s!”

Discordance coughed the chip from his mouth and looked at mom curiously. “Surely, brothers, she jests.”

“Nay, brother,” Order stepped beside Discordance, “she is serious about protecting her charge, just as we do for ours.”

“Order, do you mean the representatives?”

Mom nailed Order between his eyes. “Excuse me, but a Lady is in your presence, and you should be doing all you can to appease me.”

Disharmony and Order lifted a forehoof and stomped them on the floor, conjuring dozens of dildo’s that were various sized, shaped, and having a multitude of functionality. Mom’s horn lit brightly and I stepped from under her to gawk at the multitude of toys, wondering which she’d choose for her stress relief over the moment.

Mom’s eyes vanished behind a blue glow and I was pulled back under her by magic. “No, you vile ruffians!” The sex toys melted and reformed into a net that flopped over the stallions in a multicolored, vibrating, writhing from rotating motor mess. “You shan’t have your way with Snickers any longer, if I have anything to say about it!”

“Very well,” Discordance and Order said together. A stomp of their hoof and she vanished. “She is in the corporeal realm once again.”

I shivered from the chill in the air in mom’s absence. “What do you want, then? What can I do to end this? All of it? To never have to come back or anything? I’ll fuck you, seriously. Spit roast me… it won’t be the first time I’ve been through that.”

Discordance moved close enough to nuzzle me. “Little human in a strange land, we took from you your right and left hand.”

Order was next and I didn’t mind the nuzzle. “We took your body, we changed your mind. We bound your words with our time.”

Harmony moved between them and they stepped away. “We shall let your kind pass throughout our realm in peace, a few and no more shall we lease.”

They all rhymed together and it was kinda like a song, but I started to get drowsy. “Ponies from the past will rise to be your hosts, when the bodies die you return to ghosts. When your time here is spent, to where you left shall you be sent. A special spell we cast on you, four by four and two by two. If you wish to meet your end, return to the beginning where your life shall end.

“Two by two and one by one, the spell we cast cannot be undone. It is hidden and you are who we see, magic is the key to your destiny. You shall leave here soon with your mark, on a great journey you must embark. Find the truth within and you shall see the affect you have made on us three.”

Harmony stepped over me and leaned down, giving me a nuzzle. “Wake, colt. And live… be yourself, it’s most entertaining to see my brothers so flustered… and I think a little more freedom is called for, especially to those closest to you.”

Author's Note

Well... he's finally out! Now to see what happens to our loveable colt next!
Better things, really.
And a lot of random!