"This is for me?" Bon Bon's illness, Ponid, was starting to clear up. She was a fine, bipedal, Bon Bon, her tail lashing with confusion behind her. "Why?!"

Lyra inclined her head slowly. "Yeah, I'm a little confused too. I mean, it does look pretty sweet."

"Literally," Bon Bon wryly agreed, looking to me. "So why?" She waved at all the cooking supplies and the obvious sweet ingredients. "What are you even thinking?"

"Just a hunch." Truth there. "But I do have one more gift." And I drew out a cook book filled with various sweet recipes. Candies and the like. "No hooks, no catches, promise." I extended it towards her. "Just something fun to try."

Bon Bon wrapped her fingers around the book, pulling it close. "I can't promise anything. I'm not that good of a cook to start. If everything gets messy, it's your own fault."

"Accepted." I thrust a hand at her. "Just have fun with it."

She squinted at me, taking the hand with obvious uncertainty. "By the way, Ponid still sucks. I think I'll pass on trying that again."

"You did quite a service already. Don't even worry about it." I had ideas anyway. "Have fun." And I was gone with a snap of the fingers.

Lyra reared up for a better look at some of the bags and boxes of ingredients. "Wow. What're you gonna make first?"

"Why not lean into it?" Bon Bon smirked as she grabbed an apron and slung it into place. "I'll try for some bon bons, but no promises it'll be any good."

Which led me to Twilight and her magic crew. Celestia and Susan were easy to spot, towering over the smaller ponies around them. "What did you want to announce?" Twilight was looking at me curiously. "Learning that we were speaking in syllables has been ground breaking! I feel certain, with this, we can draft spells more easily and avoid inefficiencies we didn't even know we had."

Some of the ponies glanced at one another. Clearly Twilight had not shared that nugget with them yet. "Thank you, Twilight, but that's not what I'm here for." I gestured at the isolation room they had planned to use on Bon Bon the first time. "Two things, big things."

The entire room was focused on me. No pressure... "First, we can turn someone back into a human if they want, and I plan to offer that to every pony in the lab. But..." I brought my mismatched fingers together. "I also plan to not let it past that. The recording of this conversation is already deleted." A cheat, that. "There won't be any, except one of us singing nursery songs with wild abandon. Any patient of mine that wants to be human can be, end of that topic. I will erase their files. They were never here. I will restore their human life, so they can walk away and go back to it, with some money for the misery we brought on them. No strings. Just, done. One of you will perform the spell, once we have the facility to keep them clean while you do it, and that'll be that."

Susan clopped her hooves. "That's exciting, but why not share it?"

Autumn raised a brow just next to her. "Yeah. Wasn't that the whole point?"

"Humanity is not ready for this." Cliche, I know. I know! "The consequences of the entire species being genetically frozen is... too big for us to even fully understand." I put palm to palm. "I'm not trying to be a jerk about this, honest, but we could be signing our own doom, as a species. One perfect disease, and there would be 100% lethality as genetic diversity shrinks with every generation. I can't... support that."

Susan pointed at herself. "Even if you made me a woman again, my life is in tatters. You could hire me, sure, go back to being a cafeteria lady, we got that. But my family's... scattered. Can you fix that?"

She was not asking entirely as if it was impossible. Rumors about the breadth of my powers had spread. She knew enough that it could potentially... maybe... be a thing I could do.

But then I'd be grabbing the lives of two people I didn't even know and forcing them to where I wanted them. "I'd do everything in my power to make sure you slid back into society, make sure your paperwork checks out and all that... But I can't--" Well, wouldn't more like. "--force other people. You'd have to approach them yourself."

"Yeah..." She had no other questions, settling down and leaning a bit against Autumn.

Twilight raised a hoof high. "Was there anything else? I'm fine being a pony, thanks. Magic has so much more to figure out. The science of it is just barely being scratched at."

Celestia gently set a wing on Twilight's back. "I admire your dedication. I am also content as I am. Thank you."

Ripples worked through the crowd as ponies decided one way or the other. The lab would be quite busy with such chatter for a while as people made up their own minds on the offer. "The other part of this. I do work for this company, and this lab. I don't mean to shirk that duty." Oh, curious looks. "I have an idea that'll make them their money back, and may be fun for you all at the same time."

Lyra inclined her head. "Well, Bonnie's having fun, so you're not bad at figuring out things. What's the idea?"

That was echoed eagerly around the room, most wanting to hear what I was thinking. "I motion we end Ponid." A few brows went up, a few heads tilted. Little huhs and whats echoed. "I will clean you all." The cheat I refused to use earlier. "But that doesn't mean I'll be releasing you. The world is hilariously not ready for a flood of adorable little ponies galloping around."

Twilight gestured out over the others. "Then what do you plan to do with us? If you're just going to keep funding our exploration of magic, well, alright. But that hardly seems like it'll make the company much money in the short term, possibly the long term, depending on how long term we're thinking."

"You'll love it." I clapped my hands together. "You'll be stars."

And so it was that the lab stopped being a lab. It was built poorly for lab purposes anyway, if you thought about it. It took a lot of yelling and convincing, but they eventually let us try a demo run. Those first people, a smiling family, got treated to a wonderland, a fully-inclusive resort filled with magical ponies that were friendly and sociable.

One family led quickly to a dozen, and more followed after that. Every floor had tourists at any time of the year. Being inside, we didn't care much what the weather was, or the season. We had everything we needed already. We had luxurious rooms. We had cafeterias. We even had a local source of candy, that Bon Bon was paid for. She seemed to enjoy the work, so bonus points there.

Some of the patients had left, to start new lives, or try to restart their old ones. They had proper IDs in working order, given support to get through the legal system to prove they were alive and such. Those that remained did so because they wanted to be.

About the scientists. Many of them left. Not the company, mind. The company had work for them in the other labs, which were still labs. Some stayed, the ones curious enough about unicorn magic to want to join in that exploration.

The guards were no longer there just to keep the patients in line, but to protect them from the guests. Ugh, lemme tell you, some people think they have the right to anything on vacation, and keeping them from bothering the ponies was a job and a half, so they didn't lack for things to do.

Not that the tourists were all bad news, hardly. The younger ponies, that weren't also guards, frolicked with the human children with bright smiles. The older ponies lounged with the guests, chatting, playing more sedate games, and generally socializing peacefully.

The lab was a resort, and not a bad one, if I said so myself.

"Bonnie." Lyra was watching Bon Bon prepare something likely sweet. "Why didn't you leave? I mean, woulda followed you anyway, but you were trying to get back to being a human for so long."

"Even if she pops someone back into being a human." Bon Bon kept shaping little balls out of something. "The ponid doesn't just go away. I'd still have Bon Bon, up here." She paused just long enough to point at her head. "So I could be a confused and miserable human, or a mostly-human Bon Bon that has a sweet job, literally, and a friend that won't quit her."

"Never!" Lyra hopped up, wrapping her arms around Bon Bon from behind, hugging tightly. "I love you, you know that, right?"

Bon Bon's pony ears twitched atop her mostly-human head. "I... I love you too, stupid horse." She shoved Lyra away with a smirk. "You gonna help me or just keep watching?"

"Aye aye!" They gladly worked together to make up a new batch of treats for locals or visitors to enjoy.

Autumn smooched Sunburst's blushing cheek. "Susan, thank you for staying. I know you didn't have to, but we are getting married."

Susan's ears twitched before falling. "I'll get out of the way."

"No!" burst Sunburst, living up to his name. "No... We don't want you to go."

Autumn bobbed her head. "First, you have to be best stallion or mare. You get to pick." She wobbled a hoof between herself and Sunburst. "We fought for like a day over which of us got you. We decided you get to pick, and we'll roll with that."

Susan burst into a sudden fit of laughter. "For one, I'm a lady, not a guy. Shouldn't that narrow it down a lot?" She pointed at Autumn, then Sunburst. "Why would I ever be best 'stallion', not being one of those?"

Sunburst rubbed behind his head. "I figured... you were one of my best friends, so...."

Susan grabbed him in a hug, her magic helping to squeeze him. "Aw, you doofus, both of you! Doofuses! I'm surrounded by them!" She let him slide back to the ground. "Still, best man plans bachelor parties, and I'm not up to doing that. Gonna stick with 'best mare', since at least I'm a girl. That isn't me picking favorites. You're both my favorite nerds."

Sunburst adjusted his glasses carefully. "I-I see, yes, that makes sense... I'll have to find another best man."

"Why not Twilight?" Susan and Sunburst looked to Autumn. "What? She's a good friend."

Sunburst chuckled at that. "She's still not a guy. Am I destined to have a girl for a best man?"

Autumn leaned in, touching her head to Sunburst's. "You know she'd like it, and maybe panic trying to figure out how to do it, but she'd do it. She likes you. Um, not that way." She rolled her eyes. "I'd have to talk to her if it was. We're friends. Not as close as Susan, but friends."

"Yeah..." Sunburst rose to her hooves. "Yeah! I'll go ask her."

Amusingly, they were not the first to be wed in the facility. Miss and Mister Cake tied the knot practically the day they could, with no doubts and no hesitations. Ponies they remained, tied together with joy, and also providing the resort with cakes to go with its candies. A health spa we were not, with sugary offerings galore.

The priest we got to come oversee these ceremonies was... confused, but he got into the flow of things when he came into a room of ponies singing along with the wedding songs being played.

The world would welcome their ponies, even if they expected them to stay in their resort at first.

Author's Note

And fin. There's plenty of future ahead, but this story is set down here. I hope you enjoyed this walk with me.

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