Sunburst regarded the small mouse and its little quivering nose. "I hope you're ready to help science." The mouse was not. The mouse was incapable of understanding the concept, or even really the meaning of the noises coming out of Sunburst's mouth.

It was, at least, a friendly mouse. Sunburst reached in and the mouse scurried up onto his hoof. "Good girl." It had been easier to get a female lab mouse. Most scientists went with male mice, fearing the variability of estrus cycles or something like that. That little girl seemed alright with him. She allowed him to gently hold her between both hooves, nose twitching as she sniffed at him. "It's me."

The mouse knew who he was, at least. That large friendly thing that fed her and made odd noises at her. "I'm going to cast a spell on you. It may feel funny..." Not that the mouse could know what he was saying or draw any comfort from his care of her potential discomfort. "Maybe, afterwards, you can tell me what it was like."

He set the mouse down in a different enclosure. She had a lot more room to scurry around than the first one, seeing as it was large enough for a human, which was the goal. "Alright, enough delays." The mouse did not need reassuring. He did... "Let's do this..."

He grabbed a bundle of paper and, with a flick of his magic, unfolded it to many pages attached with staples that he laid out, one big spell. One big song. "You're a girl mouse, so..." He gestured at the big sheet. The symbol for female was drawn at the top, to be certain one did not get it confused. "No reason to give you one more thing to be confused by."

He had not told Twilight. He hadn't told anypony he was ready to even try the spell. The thought of somepony else knowing he'd hurt a mouse like that...

It was silly. He was silly. He shook his head violently. "Focus." He dragged his eyes to the start of the spell, mouthing each note as if singing the spell, which one could do. He found the beat and began to bob along with it, feeling as ready as ever he would be. "Next stop, humanity."

So he played the song. It was long. It was complicated, and he barely noticed either, carried way with the totality of what it was to be a human. A girl, in that case, which was an odd thing to experience. It wasn't that he had become one, no, he was a stallion. But, working that spell, he felt as if he had set his hoof upon the surface of what the other side was, to know it, even fleetingly.

He hadn't noticed it, but tears were flowing. With the realization, he could feel the sting of them and he noisily snorted the phlegm it produced, trying to press on past it, to put it aside. He had been reminded what it was to be human. He was alright being a pony, but that stark reminder pierced deep. But he had a spell to cast. There was no time for distractions.

It was for the best, he realized as he worked, that he had not allowed others to see him. The spell was so long, large, and complex, it would probably create a cascade with any other pony in the room. Maybe even if they weren't a unicorn? Not a theory he planned to test that day. A wave of human transformation would be... He threw the thought aside, getting distracted wasn't the idea!

He wasn't watching the mouse. He couldn't, focused as he was on each note following the ones before it, some coming at the same time, requiring intricate knots in his horn, but he was pressing through.

It hit him. He was performing a major act of magic. Had his magical handicap faded? Or would he wake up the next day with the largest hornache the world had ever known. Both were possibilities! Even both at the same time, technically. He felt quite silly, not realizing that much sooner. Maybe he should have given the spell to Autumn Blaze and let her try it?

Too late! He was deep into the spell. Forward was the option, the only one. He had to finish.

He struck the last note, his horn emitting an odd light. A pity he wasn't there to see it, flopping over limply.

Which is about where I came into things. One thing our little love lab had, cameras. Every room basically. When our brave and maybe a little stupid stallion flopped over, one of the techs noticed, who called a guy, who called a girl, who bounced it on towards me.

Sunburst fell unconscious. His spell worked.

What a post! Well, alright. It was clear they were hoping I'd settle things. I wasn't a doctor... Still, I wasn't going to let Sunburst suffer for the mistake of others. I could at least check on him.

"BRB," I called out, one letter at a time, then I took a step to the left, and down several stories.

I emerged floating above Sunburst's limp form. "You alright?" He didn't answer, to no particular surprise. He was breathing though! That was good! Not in any dangerous position or place, I decided to just leave him for the moment. I'd just make it worse by poking and prodding. Again, not a doctor, and he wasn't dead or dying that I could tell.

A soft thud drew my attention. I twirled in the air to face the enclosure that took up about half the room, beyond the huge spell that Sunburst had been working on when he passed out. "Well... hello there." There was a woman, a naked woman, eyes dilated with abject terror. She was scrambling against a wall as if she could somehow get through it, or climb it, I wasn't sure which she was trying to do, but she was failing on both counts.

She had made a mess of herself. Considering she had been a mouse a moment before, I wondered how that even worked... No time to consider the digestive track of mice that became humans. "It's alright," I gently assured, even if she likely couldn't understand me. She had a human brain, but that didn't mean she understood English. Why would she?

Perhaps a side effect of being a new human, she was largely... together, except where she'd made a mess. Much like in her mouse form, her hair was as long as it naturally wanted to be, which was fairly long, coming down in a long carpet of dark brown across her back, and in her other parts where hair tended to be. Mice did not shave, and that translated over without alteration.

And she was scared. Of course she was. She had been a little mouse, then she was not. She had no idea what was going on, but it was really strange. But she slid to the ground, twisting and approaching on all fours in a scuttle that looked awkward on human limbs, trying to move as a mouse would, but she was managing, coming at me and looking at me as if I was more curious than whatever had been in her mind.

Had she forgotten she changed? No... It was deeper than that. It had... just simply stopped mattering. Like a mouse with an ear growing out of their back, it was... just a thing, like all things. If it wasn't tearing them apart, they got over it. She was a mouse, still a mouse. Could she become more than a mouse? Perhaps... "Hello." I wiggled a few fingers at her. "Nice to meet you."

She made an odd noise. Perhaps, had she still been a mouse, it would have been a little squeak. Human vocal cords did not work the same way, and she found that out, making all sorts of noises now that she knew she could make new noises, and not the old noises. She grunted and she shouted and she mumbled. Communication had become her entire world. "It's alright," I assured, watching and listening as she tried so hard to... do something. Maybe she just wanted to squeak properly?

That was when she began to sing. It had no words. She arched her back, tilting her head upwards as she made her strange little song with groans and almost-whistles that came together in what was, clearly to me, a song. She was watching me as she did it.

Was that a mouse song? Well, a mouse song, performed with the wrong instrument. She was trying to talk to me! But I didn't speak mouse, and I definitely had no idea what mouse-but-human songs meant. The urge to cheat was growing maddeningly. I could make a translator, surely! Didn't she deserve to be understood? She was in a scary situation, an unknown one, and we put her there.

The least I could do was understand...

I drew out a hearing cone and popped it in my ear.

"Hello, are you friendly?"

"Hello, are you friendly?"

"Hello, do you have food?"

"Hello, are you friendly?"

"Hello, is there danger?"

Mouse song, communicating mouse needs. But more than that, it was a greeting. "Hello," I sang back, not as a human would, but with a rodent squeak so high pitched only mice could hear it. Except she was a human. I had to repeat it a few times, lower each time, before she seemed to pick up on it with her human ears.

"Hello." She inclined her head a little and brushed her hands over her face, where her whiskers would have been, but female humans didn't usually have those. "Hello."

It was a very simple communication... But she was still a mouse, under all that. At least, she seemed calm. I was just another mouse, a friendly mouse.

I went back to Sunburst, gently poking him and looking him over. He seemed alright, just... not awake. "Come on now." I gave him a gentle little shake.

"Huh?" His eyes drifted open before clenching shut. "Owwww!" His hooves came up to clutch at his horn. "Owwwwww."

"That bad, huh?" I dug out a few aspirin and offered them to the ailing unicorn. "It worked."

With a miserable groan, he rolled up onto his haunches, his eyes still clenched shut. "It worked? It really worked?" He didn't dare to crack open an eye and see for himself. "Any mistakes? Is she alright?"

"Hello."

She had said it not at me, her eyes directly on Sunburst. With recognition? "Hello."

Of course, Sunburst wasn't wearing the translator. "She says hi."

"That's her?!" He tried to open an eye, barely getting it open before he slammed it shut. "Oh wow... it worked... She sounds... uh, funny?"

She was singing mouse songs as best she could, as a human. Considering, she was doing just fine. "I think she recognizes you."

"Hurt? Hello."

Huh... "She... can tell you're in pain. She's probably more worried about you right now." That. That was a human thing, that level of keen awareness of how others might be feeling. It was one of our many super powers, and the mouse had gained it without realizing it. Many animals had some level of sympathy, but humans had it down pat, and it was mostly built in, so it was working for the mouse. She could see him groaning and holding his horn and being miserable.

She made new noises, but no translation came. Was she trying to express something entirely new? "Sunburst, this is amazing, but you clearly need to be looked at, and to rest. You got that?"

"Yeah..." He flopped slowly down. "Make sure somepony... keeps an eye on her... please."

"You got it, now go to bed, young man." I snapped my fingers and he fell through the floor, onto a nice soft bed, where he could be taken care of.

That left me with a friendly human woman with the brain of a mouse.

Author's Note

This chapter raises so many questions. So many! Still, go Sunburst!

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