A car passed by, the mist trailing in its wake, scattering the red glow of its tail lights. The rain washed away days of dust and litter from the asphalt towards the side ditches, coming from the dark skies heavily until no individual drop could be heard over their combined noise that turned into almost a roar.

Huddled under the low bridge, he was alone, a part of him deep inside wishing he could weep alongside the clouds. A battered plastic bottle was standing just a step away from the bridge, filling slowly yet steadily with rainwater. He was sitting not far away, his hands peeking from under the cover of his shelter to cup the water so that he could splash it on his face. Yet, no matter how much he scrubbed his face or washed his mouth, he could not remove the stain of what was done to him, of what he had to endure.

With an angry groan, he scrubbed and scrubbed, reminding himself that he was yet alive, that he was free. He could strike back and he would strike back, he only needed to plan and then execute the plan. It was so simple, yet...

His stomach growled, reminding him how he was chased away from a dumpster he was digging in not long before the rain started. Those people couldn’t even spare him the scraps, and he hated them, yet he dared not attract any unneeded attention, and so he left without more than a scorching glare aimed at whoever it was that denied him food.

He knew it was just simple human nature, the hatred of others, the disgust at the downtrodden. He had likewise been distrustful of those less fortunate than him until he joined their ranks. Perhaps it was his punishment to endure, and maybe it was what he deserved. After all, he knew who he was, and it was simple logic that he must suffer as much as he wished others to suffer for his own enjoyment.

His hands stilled. No - he knew what he was, and there was nothing wrong with what he was. Luna told him that-

He blinked the not-eyes, realizing with a sudden clarity that he was dreaming. The sounds could be heard yet not with his ears, and the images in front of his eyes were creations of his own mind and not the reality around him, lacking both focus and details. The smells, the sense of touch, everything that there was that he felt, was not quite real.

He hadn’t had hands for quite some time now, and now, without much more than a thought, he felt his dream self turning into a pony. His blue fur, his dark-blue mane with its white streak, his cold gray eyes, and his black circle of a talent mark were all there.

Wild fake-blinked and looked around. He remembered sleeping under a bridge, and he remembered having his bottle of water stand under the rain, but not together. This particular bridge was not quite right either - he didn’t remember it.

Most importantly, he was now aware he was dreaming. It was lucid dreaming, wasn’t it? And without Luna’s presence as far as he could see, and he suspected he would have been able to feel her in his mind if she came to him.

Wild could use her help because he had no idea why he kept dreaming these odd dreams. Did they hold any meaning? Was he to learn something from them?

Could he control them?

An invisible hand of his extended and he focused. If he was aware of being asleep, of dreaming, then he had to have the ability to change it all. After all, everything he was experiencing now was inside his own head.

The world around him twisted, chunks of it flying away like bricks, things turned flat, everything growing distant yet close, and there was something now circling in the sky-

He stood, and all around him was a blur of vaguely recognizable shapes filled with colors that told him what they were, yet they slipped from him when he tried to focus on them. In the center, in stark sharpness, was a house, a familiar house. The flames were silent, not a single crackle or pop sounded as they licked at the walls, consumed and blackened the paint, cracked the stone. He could almost hear a scream coming from within, from down below, yet there was no sound at all.

The awareness of being inside a dream came slower this time, but he knew it wasn’t what he wanted to see. He focused, twisting an invisible hand again, closed his eyes-

And his real eyes opened. The details of the dream were already fading from his mind as the quiet noises of the outside slowly trickled into his consciousness. There was no grogginess to his mind, no sleep to go back to - he was entirely awake and aware. There was only a single realization - he couldn’t control what he dreamed. He groaned in frustration - his dreams belonged to him, so why couldn’t he control them? His mind was his own, it had to be, he had control over it to a degree he didn’t even know before, and yet, and yet...

Wild moved from his bed. He barely noticed as he completed his morning routine, ending it with applying a descarring ointment. It could be his imagination or a trick of the light, but the scars seemed more faded, less clear, more smudged. It wasn’t yet the result he wanted, but he was coming closer and closer to it. No matter how slow it was, no matter how much time it would take, he would not abandon it, and his scars would be gone forever, the last outer reminder of his past and his old body.

As he looked up in the mirror, he could almost see how he looked like before, and he was disgusting. Unhealthily skinny, with dark circles around his deep-sunken eyes, and balding thin hair alongside a few patches of what could have perhaps been a beard someday. However, from behind the glass, the real him looked back - a pony with thick, dense, healthy fur and mane, and eyes of gray that were cold yet, nevertheless, did not have any darkness around them. He flicked his left ear, watching the scar he would not be able to get rid of. His eyes shifted to the white streak in his mane - was it from stress or was it his natural color? He didn’t know - ponies, from what he had learned, had all sorts of colors everywhere in enough patterns that his own could very well be natural.

After completing his morning routine, he decided to go outside. He moved, each step nice and even, his breathing deep and calm, and his entire focus was on it. One, two, one, two. Breathe in, breathe out.

Meditation was a practice he had gotten somewhat used to, and perhaps it was time to use it to... he didn’t know what it was exactly yet, but meditation was definitely useful for him now even if he couldn’t describe why.

Moving meditation worked the best for him, allowing a part of him to focus on nothing but physical sensation of his body in motion. Sitting and just breathing didn’t entirely do it for him even if he could meditate that way.

One step after the other in a still slightly odd equine gait. He had gotten used to it after all this time, but the memory of being bipedal still lingered, and he expected that he would never quite get over having four legs instead of two.

When he was a human, his arms naturally swung as he walked, but now his arms didn’t exist, and his hands only existed when he willed them to. They were almost weightless despite being able to sense things just as well as his human hands had once done if not even better. However, when he didn’t need them, he could just not have them. It was odd yet it was also a relief - he didn’t need to carry arms with him everywhere. Even though he didn’t actually experience a change in the overall amount of limbs, he felt lighter and more nimble, likely because all his limbs were now legs.

In truth, he could no longer describe walking as just placing one foot in front of the other. The equine gait was different, and there was a variety to it that didn’t exist, couldn’t exist in humans. Human feet worked in a one-two sequence, no more and no less. The steps may be wider or more frequent, and there was a difference between how one walked and how one jogged or ran or sprinted, but it was always a one-two sequence. However, equine gait had four ways of moving, all different from each other. It was a one-two-three-four sequence for walking, from back left to front left and then from back right to front right. At any moment, there were at least two hooves on the ground if not three. It was an odd way of walking, and Wild continued to wonder how he didn’t stumble constantly.

The next step after it was the trot. It was faster and, in a way, the closest to a regular human gait. First it was back left and front right, then back right and front left, together, almost making it a double of how humans walked. It was a cycle of one-two, after all, and it felt the most comfortable to him.

Wild walked through the building of the Royal Orphanage and, once he was outside, he shifted from it to trotting. One double, two double, one double, two double, an easy cycle that took enough of his focus yet not too much of it. If not for how the rest of his body felt, he could perhaps imagine that he was still a human.

He didn’t think he would want to go back to being human. While his new body was very different to what he was used to, he thought it was better in every single way. Faster, more stable, stronger, more agile. And, of course, there was also the beauty of it. When looking back, he now realized just how ugly humans were, how awkward and how just generally bad they were physically. Slow and weak, and they couldn’t even walk soon after birth. Wild wondered what would have happened had any other species developed sapience. Without a doubt, ponies reaped the benefits of evolving from a naturally strong foundation, and when adding magic into the mix... No, he would not want to go back to being human, that would mean giving up his newfound power and, if he were honest with himself, joy.

Wild enjoyed being a pony. There was the fur, a comfortable layer between him and the weather, and it helped that it also looked nice. The variety of colors that ponies possessed was, without a single doubt, enjoyable to look at as well. Humans had to wear clothes and paint themselves to look anywhere close to this natural beauty, and Wild never really knew whether he wanted to get a tattoo or dye his hair or wear outrageously colored clothes. Now... he was content with his coloration even if it was somewhat dull in the face of many other ponies.

He wouldn’t wish to give up being a pony.

He sped up, going from trotting to cantering. Canter was different from a trot or a walk - it was a beat of three instead of four or two. One leg, then two legs at once, then one leg again, and then there was also a very small pause when all the legs were in the air. It was somewhat odd to move to the beat of three - no matter the speed, humans always moved to the beat of two. This was perhaps the most difficult way of moving to adapt to, but Wild managed even if he still felt somewhat odd about it. It took more of his attention now in order not to stumble despite his good sense of balance and a neat-perfect sense of where exactly his limbs were.

From cantering, he switched to galloping, the fastest gait a pony could have without adding wings into the mix or, alternatively, magic - although teleportation didn’t exactly require a gait at all. The sequence of galloping was, once more, one-two-three-four, but it differed from walking in that there was a pause when all the hooves were in the air like in cantering. It was a strangely freeing feeling, making it seem like he would simply fly off. And perhaps he would if he was a pegasus instead of a unicorn, although he wouldn’t wish for wings - having direct control over magic was far more valuable than the relatively simple ability to fly.

From walking to trotting to cantering to galloping, the movements were all different, and even now they took a large chunk of Wild’s attention. He shifted from one to the other every so often, feeling all too aware of how odd it was, of how unlike any of it was to what he was used to when he was a human. Despite this oddness creeping on him every so often, there was a sense of freedom to it all, and he felt just how fast he was, without a single doubt easily outrunning the fastest human even at a relatively sedate pace.

Wild continued his moving meditation, thinking of nothing at all but where to place his hooves, letting his own thoughts flow past acknowledgment and conscious understanding until there was nothing but him and pure motion. One, two, three, four. Then one, two, one, two. Then one, double two, three, pause, one, double two, three, pause. Then one, two, three, four, pause, and one, two, three, four, pause. From one to the other, smoothly and deliberately.

Unfortunately, despite his desire for peace and calm, certain thoughts tugged at him insistently, begging him not to ignore them lest he would suffer the consequences. However, he was used to suffering. What was more of the same thing to him? An old acquaintance. Certainly not a friend, never a friend, but suffering and him were inseparable. Either he caused suffering or he received it.

The letter

Wild had to write it, he knew. His future relied on help. He had no skills worthy of a job - no matter what was told to him - and he had no education worth the name. He just couldn’t simply believe what he was told because he was told an impossibility. Basic language skills and some mathematics were enough for a job? Everyone he had ever known would laugh at the notion. His parents, his classmates, his teachers, his trainers, everyone had insisted that he had to finish school and then go to college, and he needed, he had to do well in order to be worth anything. No one would need him if all he had was language and the ability to count things. Everyone had it, and that meant it held little value, and that, in turn, required him to know more, to have skills that were rarer, all so that he would have anything at all.

Equestria, as far as he could see, could seem like a paradise, and all that he had heard so far said as much. However, when something seemed too good to be true, it usually was. Without blood, sweat, and tears, nothing could be gained, that much Wild knew from experience. Nothing was ever free, nothing was ever just given. Perhaps it could be argued that parents gave, but Wild knew he was indebted forever, and it would be his duty to look after them in turn for what they have done for him.

Breathe in, breathe out. One, two, one, two, slow but steady.

He needed to write the letter yet... he didn’t want to. Why bother? He couldn’t imagine working a job. From nine to five, five days a week... what exactly would he do? He was not even qualified enough to be a cashier. And, without a doubt, there were far more ponies who actually had a talent for it, and he, naturally, did not fit, and he would not be better than any of them, and so who would hire him?

He was entirely worthless. Yet he was told he wouldn’t be kicked out... however, he had yet to see anyone older than him around. So, either what he was told was a lie, or... he didn’t exactly know.

He needed to write the letter. There were no two ways about it. Without any skills, he was doomed to a homeless life forever. He shuddered at the thought, remembering how it felt when hunger twisted his stomach, when his limbs felt like they were too heavy to move around, when-

He shut that line of memories, pushing them back. He still had time. He could write a letter. And it would be better if he did it now.

Wild forced himself to take step after step back, bringing him closer to the inevitable. Once he was back in the building, he made his way over to the library where he could finish the letter - proper spacing, proper greetings, proper introductions, proper everything included.

He marched to the library, got the book about proper letter writing, and sat down. With sharp focus, double-checking, triple-checking what he wrote, he penned a letter.

First, he measured out exactly where he would begin. Faint lines made with a pencil were of great help, and he made sure the lines were all nice and even, perfectly angled against each other. Each line was measured carefully and, after he checked it numerous times, it was perfect. Perfect spacing, no curving or tilt. He finally wrote down his full name on the first line, the country on the second line - and the symbol that stood for it was far better than his first attempt at it. After that, the next line was the settlement, and he wrote down the Royal Orphanage. The line after that one was the street name, house number, and apartment number - thankfully, he only needed to write down the number of his dorm.

He paused for a moment and stretched, feeling glad he didn’t have to use any physical hands for this. Nevertheless, sitting as still as he was made him feel slightly uncomfortable, so stretching helped. He skipped the line after his contact information - he didn’t forget it this time - and almost wrote the date before he stopped. He looked at one calendar hanging from one of the bookshelves, then stood up and walked around, making sure each calendar spotted the same date, and they were, so they could be trusted. Perhaps he would need to keep track of the days by himself in the future - it was an oversight on his part for not having done so before. Now, unfortunately, days would matter more than just time that passed by him.

He returned to the letter and, after checking that he did indeed skip the line, he wrote down the date. That was simple enough. Then, according to the rules - which he checked once more just to be sure - he needed to skip two lines and write his salutations. He consulted the rule book about them.

Most salutations begin with “Dear”, after which comes the name of the recipient. A salutation must use title capitalization and end in a comma. If name is unknown, using a job title is permitted. If the recipient is of noble descent,-

He didn’t exactly know if Steady Hooves was a part of the nobility, but he was certain it would be mentioned. Besides, from what he knew, nobility had a different kind of names - Celestia and Luna were certainly atypical pony names. Steady Hooves did not strike him as a noble name. He then checked if he needed to write something like Sir or Madam or Mr. or Mrs. or any of that but, from what he had just learned, such terms were rather outdated and no longer used in writing.

Dear Steady Hooves,

It still felt a bit too personal - he had not called anyone dear in his life - but, according to the rule book, it would work.

Finally, it was the body of the letter, and he consulted the book again.

Formal letters must be straightforward and direct. The sender must get to the point of the letter as quickly as possible.

Wild was glad for that, although now that he thought about it... he didn’t know what to say. He knew what he wanted, but how would he write it down? He put the letter aside for the moment, carefully placing it where he wouldn’t crinkle or smudge it on accident. He grabbed an empty piece of paper to write on and started writing out what he wanted.

Wild almost sighed in relief when he realized it was indeed a smart thing to do - the first attempt was absolutely bad. He was rambling, his writing was uneven, and it was, overall, a mess. However, he didn’t let it get to him - he continued on. No matter how much time it took, he would get it.

There was no other acceptable option.

Author's Note

I am definitely quite familiar with avoiding doing something until I have a burst of energy and desire to do it, and then I get it done. Woo for Wild, another step towards betterment!