I checked the door really quickly and... it had no lock. Did Equestria have locks much anywhere? I doubted it for a moment. Maybe ponies just didn't steal from each other.

I didn't mind that part, but... Wait! I slipped the saddlebag on and trotted into the restroom. There was a privacy lock. Even ponies wanted to be private in there. I nosed it shut with a click and stood over the trench as I dug out those papers.

I realized quickly it was kind of dim. I set the messy stack down on the tile and fumbled with the lantern with little success. There were no matches. It was just me, and a lantern that wouldn't light.

Well... shoot... Fire. Mankind had mastered fire. Mankind had mastered fire over and over to reach the very stars and delve into the mystery of the tiniest things. Man had fire magic. Fire and electricity.

I was still a man, at least in part. I grabbed a mental bookmark with a little flame on it and pulled it open to a new page. "Prometheus, don't fail me now."

The first spell was visible. It was nothing but an idealized fire icon. 🔥, and nothing else. There were no arcane sigils or dense magical explinations, just a circle around the fire.

Fire was a simple thing, perhaps. I held up the lantern and focused on the wick, holding that image of the fire. "Light, light, light," I repeated to myself in a mantra. "Light..." I felt a strange suden rash tickle over my back in an instense prickling pain. I held it back, gritting my teeth.

It worked, the wick glimmered and sparked to life, casting light through the bathroom. "Yes." I hummed an electronic victory jingle. "Y... oh." There, in the reflection, I could see something happened. "Shit."

What was looking back at me wasn't an earth pony, exactly. I had a patchwork of thick scales across my back, a bright blue-purple in color. "Did... Damn." How did I hide that?

Answer: I didn't. There was no way to hide huge scales across my back. "Dang..."

I stared, dumbfounded at the vivid patchwork of thick scales now decorating my equine frame. Even my tail had transformed, the hair at the base having fallen out, moving down along the underside of the tail from the midpoint and onwards and leaving the base garbed only in my pelt.

Clearly, this fiery first foray into my latent fiery capacities carried a cost...though one whose permanence remained uncertain. Dread and awe warred equally inside coming to grips with such an extreme anatomical alteration from what I could only assume had been primordial magics.

A knock at the bathroom door nearly made me leap from this alien flesh. "David? Are you alright in there?" came Twilight's muffled concerned voice. "I thought I sensed arcane activity..."

Panic seized me imagining her reaction seeing scaly mutations marring my still novel pony physique. Even if reversible, would such savage spell spillover shake her faith in my self-control after witnessing the memory extraction mishap earlier that very evening? Surely suspicions around reckless ambition hung poised to undermine trust.

But scales meant skills unlocked by bucking limits through daring imaginations unleashed. Had not her lessons emphasized such intellectual frontiers challenged sterile safety of the mundane? Risk and reward danced eternally intertwined along innovation's razor edge - was not magic but science's twin tempered and elevated through courage chasing those stars seared into our souls?

I stood at the crossroads quavering. Would confidence prove justified through frank vulnerability? Or demons conjured by doubtful pride collapse hopes of hearth and home if channels remained flooded by fear?

There at the mirror waited truth my actions etched unto form and future. With anxious breath, I turned the handle to face the music prepared or not...

But first! I grabbed the papers up and stuffed them away in a hurry. Whatever Twilight had to say about what happened, it was not the time to see a single one of those papers. I threw the saddlebags over myself, which hid some of the scales. Not nearly enough. "Let me open the door."

"You alright?" She backed from the door as I opened it. "I jus... David?" She looked me over quickly. "You... You aren't a kirin. You weren't a kirin!" She stomped a hoof. "A pony does not advance to being a kirin! One is either born a kirin, or one is not."

I shrank back, terrified a moment of the frantic Twilight. "S-sorry?"

"No, no, sorry. I'm sorry." Twilight looked instantly awful. "You did nothing wrong, I think?" She tapped at her chin. "I mentioned, before, ponies can and do develop elemental ties. Earth ponies have it in the name. Pegasi are air aligned. Unicorn a step above them, mastering magic." She looked so smug mentioning that. "Water ponies are sea ponies. Lovely creatures. Fire... Fire belongs to the kirin. Unicorns can learn fire spells, to a degree, but they aren't fire."

She glared at me anew. "You are showing all the signs of a kirin in puberty."

I moved around her, towards my room. "I didn't plan on it. I just tried to tap into a human things. Humans have been using fire for tens of thousands of years."

"That's a long time." Twilight trailed after me. "Enough for it to be innate... And you reached for it... But you have a pony body..." She mused as she tapped at her chin. "Your mind was ready for fire, your body was dragged along. A fire pony... A kirin..." She suddenly sped to get in front of me. "Do you have any idea what this means?!"

I stopped, rather than charge into her. "Um, what?"

"Well, for one." She sat and clapped her hooves with a big smile. "You get to be the first kirin at the school. Exciting! There is the whole Kirin Nation and you casually stealing their holy roots, but that's a later thing."

I blinked in surprise at Twilight's abrupt shift from concerned apprehension to evident scholarly delight over my inflammatory misdevelopments. Clearly her natural academic curiosity was overpowering any cultural protocol qualms - an intriguing mindset model to keep in mind navigating future taboo transformations.

"You...actually want to flaunt me to the whole academy?" I asked uncertainly, making my slow way towards my room. "What about not, you know, angering the kirin nation by parading their sacred embodiment in pony lands without permission?" I had caught that part!

Twilight waved a dismissive hoof keeping enthusiastic pace beside me. "Oh I can liaise proper diplomatic channels later, that's just paperwork." Her eye sparkled eagerly. "This is a wondrous chance to directly observe the physiological and magical phases of a newly Awakened kirin! Do you realize how scarce quantitative metamorphosis data is for kirin development?"

I had to chuckle at her evident priorities, categorizing my existential crisis as valuable field research fodder first and foremost. "You certainly have a knack for finding scholarly silver livings wherever you look, don't you?" My smile turned thoughtful. "But I admit the notion of openly being some awe-inspiring kirin holds certain appeals..."

Twilight grinned back slyly, clearly already mentally penning scientific lecture tour proposals for unveiling her star pyric protégé. "Now you're getting it! This serendipitous little mishap has opened all sorts of educational outreach possibilities!" She playfully elbowed me. "Though some scaled glamour to finish that look may be in order for maximum mystic impressiveness when I take you on the road..."

I had to laugh imagining the grand menagerie fabricated fanfare Twilight's ambitions would likely unleash left unchecked. Still, she made disconcerting upheavals feel fun. "But, so, not a pony anymore?"

Twilight hiked a brow. "I never said that." She stopped at my door as I headed inside. "A pegasus is a pony, as is a unicorn, or a gem pony, or a sea pony... We're all ponies. It's just..." She rolled her hooves. "Typically, some elements are much harder for a pony to develop into. Most ponies don't have a natural affinity for fire."

I waved up at Twilight's horn, then back at her wings. "So you... are... What'd you start with?"

Twilight stood tall and proud. "I was a studious earth filly. I earned my horn at a young age and got the rare opportunity to grow into a unicorn without the luck of bloodline to fall back on. The wings." She spread those wide. "I earned as an adult, during my endeavors to keep the nation safe and the ponies in it secure. I am, thusly, an earth and air pony with a strong penchant for magic."

That didn't sit right with me. "Unicorns can't be the only ones with magic."

"They're the most specialized in it," countered Twilight without even a hint of hesitation. "All ponies have magic, but unicorns specialize in it."

A growing part of me was sure that was a bit of pony racism, but also a big part of me wanted to close the door and hide the other evidence of what I was doing when that... "Oh! The lantern's lit in the bathroom. You'll want to put that out."

Twilight squeaked and dashed off, likely to do that. I closed the door and threw my saddlebag off to the floor. "Fail..." Or success? I flopped onto my bed and curled, just to find a warmth pressing against me. It was alive, and nuzzling.

It was Twinkle. I nudged at her. "Why are you here?"

"I've been waiting for you. I thouht you'd be back in a jiff, just a quick trip to the bathroom, nope! You come back and you're a whole new thing." She scrambles up onto my side. "Fascinating, look at you." She reaches out to feel over my new scales on my back. "Does that hurt?"

Fortunately, it didn't. Ticklish, mildly, was more accurate, and triggering my lack of being used to being touched. "I'm fine."

I tensed instinctively at Twinkle's curious inspection of the vivid azure integument coating swathes of my altered physique. Even the gentle pressure of investigative prodding drove home the alien emergence marring this equine shape I had only just begun adjusting to from the start.

Wiggling at the ticklish sensations, I rolled partly dislodging the tiny explorer now scrambling to avoid getting crushed by my bulk. "Yeah, the new look doesn't seem to cause actual pain oddly enough," I affirmed, awkwardly craning my neck to survey the damage myself. "Just feels weirdly tingly all over..."

I paused, frowning thoughtfully. "Do I really seem that changed from the outside beyond the decorative scaled additions?" Carefully maneuvering upright, I turned an uncertain eye Twinkle's way.

She pursed her lips, tapping one delicately. "Hmm, well you don't seem to have sprouted any scary extra heads or gone on power-mad rants yet, if that's what you mean." Her impish grin returned. "Honestly you seem like the same old David still getting used to crazy magic stuff. Just, you know, a little extra fiery fabulosity now!"

I huffed, and a lick of flame escaped my snout when I did it. I started in surprise. "Fiery, right..." I sank on my belly on the bed. "Right... I'm a fire hazard now. You sure you want to be here?"

"Very." She curled against me. "My interest has only increased, and I care about you. Let's get some sleep."

What did she really think? A pity I hadn't had the chance to read those notes.

I chuckled ruefully at her playful reassurance even as relief flowed through me not detecting any deeply altered core Self still present behind the draconic accents. Only the exterior evolutionary eruptions marked this as no typical teenage identity crisis - on the inside, the same tentative scholar peered out.

"Well that's certainly good to know..." I murmured, giving her an appreciative scritch between the ears. I reached tentatively towards the sealed saddlebag holding emotionally revealing papers and stolen glimpses. "Nice to know some risky ventures yield only superficial scattering burns leaving the heart unchanged."

With a steadying breath, I firmly drew hoof and gaze both away. "Now then, perhaps I should go reassure your sister I'm not broiling any books before bed?"

Author's Note

Kirins are neat, and now David is one, a developing one. Yay?

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