Twilight's Twisted Spell.
Straight From the Horse's Mouth.
Twilight’s eyes flew over Doo Little’s spell book as her friends gathered around her. With only a few hours left to spare, she and the others finished everything they needed to get ready for the “Best Night Ever”.
Rarity had taken care of the dresses, Rainbow Dash and the others hand all done their part to prepare, and all Twilight had to do was make sure they arrived in style.
“Perfect, I’m ready!” Twilight said, closing the spell book as she looked over at Spike. “Spike? If you please.”
“Sure thing, Twi,” Spike replied, placing an apple on the ground as everypony trotted back several paces.
With a flash of magic, the apple gradually grew larger and turned into carriage ripped from the pages of a foal’s tale, earning a few cheers from her friends as they admired their carriage.
Apple themed carriage? Check.
“Thanks, everypony, but that’s just the start. Fluttershy, did you bring your friends?” Twilight asked.
The shy pegasus nodded as four mice peered out of her mane, crawling onto the bare grass as Fluttershy took her aside. “Twilight, are you sure they’ll be safe?”
“You have my word, Fluttershy. It’s just a ‘mile in your hooves’ spell. It’s perfectly safe for ponies to use.”
“But, um, they’re not ponies.”
“The same principals still apply. Don’t worry, nothing will go wrong,” Twilight reaffirmed, letting her magic dance over her horn as she focused on the small group of mice.
Marvin the Mouse lived a fulfilling life. He had a family of fourteen, a stable job at the Fluttershy’s dish helper, and he had even gotten a thumbs up from Angel Bunny once!
Impressing that rodent wasn’t easy, but by cheese did it make Marvin feel proud to be a mouse under the Fluttershy’s protection. So, when the Fluttershy asked for volunteers to help her and her friends, Marvin jumped at the opportunity, crawling into her mane with three others as she left the cottage.
Their yellow goddess never asked for help outside of the cottage, not since his grandfather was a field mouse.
Marvin could only grow up seeing the world outside through a window, staring at the distant horizon as he imagined the world outside his nest. His idle curiosity and desires had taken a back seat when he became a father, but feeling the fresh air brush through his fur reawakened that youthful sense of adventure.
He eagerly leapt onto the patch of dirt with his friends, feeling the coarse earth run through his paws as he scratched at the ground. Marvin was so enamored with the bare dirt that he and the others didn’t even notice the subtle glow surrounding their bodies.
The world turned upside down and inside out in a fuzzy flash. Sound was spinning as the world was ringing, or was it supposed to be the other way?
Falling to his front paws, Marvin shook his head as a series of sounds assaulted his ears. He heard several of the tall one gallop off as the Fluttershy’s friends began to complain, only for one voice to rise up as his vision finally grew clearer.
“Perfect! We still have one horse that can help us!” Twilight cheered pointing a hoof up to Marvin.
Up? How was she pointing up? Why did he feel bigger and… Where were his hands?
“… What wicked wish was this?… What blessed cursed has gifted me this sorrow?” Marvin suddenly asked, earning a look of complete surprise from the gathered mares.
“You can talk?!” Twilight balked, trotting back a few steps as Marvin swayed on his long legs.
“You… Understand? Only the Fluttershy can hear us,” he said, letting his gaze drift to the mare as he took a shaky step forward. “You… My goddess and my devil, an immortal I could only speak with under Angel’s ever watchful gaze, please! Tell me why I have turned into this beautiful monster?!” He cried, stamping a hoof on the ground as the mares flinched back.
“What the buck is going on?” Rainbow Dash asked, causing the large mouse horse’s head to turn to her.
“Buck… Buck, such a crude word, but in times of panic, crude words hold great weight. When thoughts are frantic and the mind cannot be consoled, the use of a single, harsh, obscenity can summarize the sorrow in hearts and the minds that are fraught with despair. Yes, buck, what in buck is going on?!
“I have lost much in but a moment, a sudden flash that tore me away from my life and flung me into yours. I was but a humble mouse living in a comfortable house, free of the burdens of knowledge.
“A sudden flash of mystic power, blooming like the flowers that once towered over me. Now I stand above the beauty of nature, above the very dieities I once worshipped out of love and fear!
“My tongue is not my own and yet is conveys my words and pain better than any rodents tongue could! A gift of speech and free thought, but at the cost of so much more.
“This pounding in my chest, making a melody of my panic, a tune of terror reminding me of-of the excitement and fear that races through my mind as I stand on unsteady hooves.”
Taking a breath, he tried to take another step, only to stumble and stomp on a cat’s tail before it cried and ran away.
He couldn’t help but stare as he regained his footing, his mind working faster than his words as he watched the Fluttershy comfort the feline.
“A cat, a predator I once, and still do, fear. Despite my size and my strength, the demon still haunts me when she cowers at my presence. I have bested the beast that makes orphans of youths and devours whole families, but I have become something so much worse,” he lamented.
“I am but a freak! A monster most foul in the body of gods, striped of my paws and given idle hooves that can’t fit through my home!… No… My home. What will my wife and thirteen children think of me?!”
Finally succumbing to the weight of gravity, Marvin fell to the dirt as he cried out to the sky.
“Oh, Great Cheese, what have I done to deserve this?! I admit my sins and follies for daring to wish for more! For flirting with desires out of my reach, for hoping that the winged goddess of my home ever gave me Angel Bunny’s place atop the food chain!
“I have forsaken my fore-father’s words and wished for more! But do I deserve such a cruel twist of fate! Oh, mother I—”
In a flash of light, the fully-grown stallion had turned back into a small mouse, to the relief of everypony and animal that had witnessed… that.
“… We shoulda just taken the train,” Applejack stated in a quiet voice.
Twilight could only nod as she tore the spell book apart, promising never to use it again as she tried to wipe the memory from her mind.
That... That wouldn't go in the Friendship Report. Ever...
