Til You Make It

Dr. Triage came by the next morning to check up on me. He was the epitome of a pony country doctor; he wore a clean doctor's coat over his greying unassuming brown self, and carried a black bag with his stethescope and various other tools. Even more interesting is that he was a unicorn, the bag floating alongside wrapped in a light brown glow that matched his horn. That explained the oddly expectant looks Candy and Wheatgrass gave me now and then-- I was supposed to have telekinesis or something!

I took a deep breath as he set the bag on the nightstand; I had something to tell him and... hell, tell my hosts too, before I lost the nerve.

"Doc... and Wheatgrass, Candy, I have something to, well, admit to." Nervously, I rubbed my front hooves together. "I'm... not originally a pony. I'm not even from this world." I paused, and Doc gave what I took as an encouraging gesture.

"Until three, no four days ago now, I was a bipedal naked ape." I nodded to my wallet, which I'd put on the little table by the bed as well. "Um... I don't know how to use my horn, if I can even do the telekinetic thing. Could you open that and pull out the card in the little window?" Obligingly, the good doctor extracted my driver's license.

"Well, well. It says here you're one Alex Stone indeed. I take it this is what you looked like?" At my nod, he helpfully showed the card to the other two ponies. "I do say, that does explain the ill-fitting rags you were half-wrapped in, those bizarre foot coverings and whatnot. Given my examinations of you these several days, I would have to say your transformation was quite thoroughly complete."

Candy surprised me by smiling. "Well, welcome ta Equestria, Alex! I'm guessin' ya got here on accident?"

I hung my head a bit. "Yeah. I was looking at the Andromeda Galaxy, saw a funny light and tried focusing my telescope on it... that's the last thing I remember before I woke up in here yesterday."

"Huh." Wheatgrass sat back on his haunches and rubbed his chin. "So... what's it like, bein' a pony now?"

The question made me blink. "Well... it's really different and weird. I didn't have magic or anything. I stood on two legs, no tail even, and had hands. They're these things with, umm.."

Doc Triage saved me. "We know about minotaurs, who somewhat resemble what you describe. I suppose dragons and gryphons count as well, though they tend to refer to their forelimbs as claws or talons."

I looked from the aged doctor to my hosts. "Wow... I, well, this is a lot nicer of a reception to the news than I expected. I kinda expected you to freak out, or call me crazy or something."

Doc smiled warmly. "Don't fret, young stallion. While magical transformations and such are quite rare, it isn't completely unheard of. If you like, I could write to some experts to see if they could reverse your condition?"

I blinked. "Well... sure, why not? Honestly, the only thing wrong with being a pony is when you're not supposed to be one."

Doc Triage (definite Doc, not Dr.) chivvied Wheatgrass and Candy out of the room and commenced a professional examination of me. A good bedside manner kept the thoroughness of said examination from being embarassing. Aside from ensuring the health of his patient directly, he had another motive: clinical explanations of self-care and why it was important. Hoof care was a lot more complicated than I realized! I was also apparently just barely into adulthood, somewhere between 18 and 20 years of age. I quite surprised Doc when I told him I was in my late 30s before whatever happened-- that I was basically getting into middle age.

The last examination was totally different to anything else. He held up what looked like a tuning fork with cyrstals for tines and ran it over first my hooves, then the marks on my sides, and lastly my horn. The crystals glowed with various colors, primarily blue and green.

"Excellent, excellent, your magic is in good condition as well. Given your unusual nature, I am not surprised you do not know how to use it. I doubt I could easily use the abilities of your kind were our positions reversed. If you wouldn't mind, I'd be glad to give a quick lesson in the most basic and ubiquitous of unicorn magics?" At my nod, he levitated out the little reflex-testing hammer and placed it on the hardwood floor.

"First, reach inside yourself. Look for a limb, a hand, if you will, you didn't have before." That part was rather oddly zen-like. Strangely, unlike previous attempts at meditation, I actually felt a sense of self, and the surroundings. I opened my eyes, and was surprised at a glow, as if I were wearing a bright blue headlamp. In my surprise, I let go of the feeling and the glow immediately quit, albeit with a faint twinge at the base of my horn, a wisp of smoke, and the faintest noise like an engine backfiring. Oops... without prompting, I reached for that extension of self again, finding it more quickly and this time holding it. Doc's smile was approving and encouraging.

"Wonderful! And be careful of dropping a spell or having it interrupted, the feedback can get very painful. So can overuse, much like any muscle. Now, wrap the hammer with your new limb." I absently stuck my tongue out the corner of my mouth as I focused on the hammer. Just the intent seemed enough; that overall awareness of the room's contents shrank to the medical tool lying on the floor; a glow matching that around my horn surrounded it.

"Good, good! Now, picture lifting it, gently as if you were offering it to somepony, a few feet off the floor." I swallowed, and imagined just that, carefully lifting something delicate up. There was a little wobble, and finally the device was actually floating in mid-air, still surrounded by the glow. My heart hammered in my chest, I was doing magic. Real, honest-to-goodness magic, the impossible!

"Now, one last task, you're doing well. I want you to set it back on the floor. Gently rest it in place without letting it fall. You're placing it, not dropping it." I nodded, which made the hammer bobble a bit, before trying to follow the instructions. It dropped too quickly, but I still had a 'grip' on the thing. At least I kinda settled it down without much of a clatter. A more deliberate 'letting go' ended the spell without backfiring.

"Thanks, Doc. That... wow. There's nothing like that where I come from. No magic. I just did something that people only ever dreamed of doing."

Doc Triage smiled warmly, putting a hoof on my shoulder. "That's why I do what I do, my friend. There's amazing beauty in the things we experience every day. Now, I want you to practice every day; just like a muscle, a unicorn's magic can weaken and atrophy. Soon, you'll be as adept as any moving things about."

I nodded, still grinning like a fool. "I understand. Using a crutch too long, a person's body gets used to leaning on it, rather than rebuilding the leg it's trying to help."

Before Doc Triage left, he gave me a list of exercises to help me get used to my new form, and reminders on caring for myself. They were actually printed checklists for physical therapy and new parents. I set them on the nightstand, though with my hoof rather than horn, not sure if I'd accidentally crumple the paper.

***

There is a great, atavistic pleasure in accomplishing a difficult task by hand, of turning ordinary land into life-giving food, neatly tilled, smoothed, and planted.

That said, doing things the old-fashioned way is a pain in the tail. Come to think of it, that was about the only part of me that wasn't sore after a day of raking and planting. There was still plowing to do as well; Wheatgrass ducked into a harness and yoke attached to an old-fashioned plow and took off after helping me get into a much lighter one with a rake on it and showing me how to use it.

It was an ingenious little system. A two-wheeled device with tines that could be raised or lowered with a tug on one of two straps running to the harness. The plow worked in a similar way, but Wheatgrass told me that first, he wanted the furrows to actually be straight, and second, that it took an Earth Pony (and not a pony from Earth) to pull.

Given that running the rake was really wearing on me, and it looked like Wheatgrass was having an easy time of it plowing, I believed him. He was rolling soil over at a good clip while I was panting a bit merely breaking up and smoothing out what he'd done the previous day. It felt weird to work a machine with my mouth, but like walking on four limbs, repetition got me used to it.

Without even a radio to distract me, the task got pretty boring. When I spotted a stick lying in the fencerow, I got an idea. Why not combine work with practice? I faltered a bit at first, but kept at it, simply levitating the stick in front of me while keeping the rake moving. The ends of the rows were the trickiest, trying not to drop the stick or send it flying while I worked the machine and moved in other than a straight line.

Lunch was a pleasant affair, under an old oak by a lane that ran between fields. I'd left off levitation practice an hour or so back when I was feeling the first twinges of over-exertion. Still, I was able to hold my daisy sandwich more or less steady and take bites from it.

"Thanks again for helpin' with the plowing and planting, Alex. Yer workin' hard for any unicorn, let alone one with barely a week's experience bein' one. At this rate, we're gonna get tha crops in afore the scheduled rains."

I shrugged, while working on the mouthful of daisy sandwich I'd just taken a bite of. The flavor was, well, different, not bad. "It's only right. I mean, you and Candy are giving me somewhere to live, and I've been eating your food and all. There's only so much lazing around a guy can do, too." I looked down at my hooves. "'sides, if I can't get home or even back to my old self... this is a second chance few people ever get."

Wheatgrass nodded approvingly. "Glad ta hear. I admit, it's good ta have a colt 'round the place again. Been a coupla years since our third foal left ta find his fortune." He glanced at the remains of lunch, then up at the sun. "Whelp, time ta get back to it."

I snorted. "You're older than I used to be, and you've still got more get up and go than a teenager. I think I'm beginning to understand just what Earth Ponies have going for 'em."

The nice part about working in a field was the time to think. The ponies here were so welcoming to someone new. I wondered how much was social, and how much was biology? I seemed to be quite accepting of my new shape, and surprising myself at how quickly I was adapting. Was any of my own situation from my wish to be different?