Kin With The Scales

by PaprikaBluesAndCo

Rating: teen
Tags: Romance, Drama, Original Character, Spike, Comedy, Suicide / Self Harm, Starlight Glimmer, Main 6, Profanity, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Human
Length: 25420

I thought I was a human, up until I met Spike, and he complemented my hoard. Now I wanna be a dragon, but i don't wanna lose my job. The hell am I gonna do??

Sal Carmine Manchester (they/them) is just an average guy. They work a horrible job, they hang out with their friends, they hate the way that their face looks when they look in the mirror, they hoard all physical forms of music. Normal human being things.

But when their employer forces them to work with Twilight Sparkle, they meet Spike, and realize that they and the dragon have a lot in common. Now equipped with the horrible knowledge that their identity doesn't match their body, Sal must find a way let their inner dragon breathe freely without getting laid off. Because if they lose their job, they'll be sent back to Earth, and lose contact with the one creature that understands their burning soul.

NB Human to Dragon TF story.
Contains Genders™. Do not eat if allergic.

AU where Spike has grown up and molted by the start of season six, ponies are commonly 4 feet tall, and Equestria has had contact with Earth for a few years.

Published 2024-01-28 02:10:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-04-08 12:32:50 UTC

1: Staring At The Edge of A Long Way Down

The alarm clock on my phone went off. I groaned, groped around for it, and shut off that stupid shrilly saccharin song. I rolled out of my floor bed and stomped my way into the bathroom to wake up. Splashing the frigid water on myself usually does the trick, but today.. it was just impossible.

Today was the day I was getting transferred to fucking Equestria.
I didn't mind the place, I'd vacationed there with family before, but living there sounded miserable. Saccharine sweetness and doors meant for creatures way shorter than you, and all the guff they have about friendship, even though they knew about our histories of war. They more or less found out immediately, not long after the worldgates opened up a few years ago.

But live there I must, or I'd lose my job as an outfield information technician. Which was just a fancy word for data entry.

My employers came to the conclusion that since Equestria just obtained the Internet from humanity, it would be a good idea to offer our services as a means to digitally archive everything. You know, just in case. One of the leaders of the country, one Twilight Sparkle, thought it would be a phenomenal idea, and thus we were hired as digital data archiving consultants. To that end, since I was on the lowest rung of the corporate ladder, my entire department was getting shafted across dimensions - it was either that or "lose our jobs to those talking horses". My boss's words, not mine.

Unfortunately, humans are not as psychotically enthusiastic as ponies are about trains, and therefore, I had to be up at 3:30 in the goddamn morning, because the only way through the portal was via train. Probably for security reasons or something.

I brushed my teeth, swished water in my mouth, and spit. Then, I started to do that weird thing again. I stared in the mirror, and regarded my own face once again. It's not that I was ugly, I just didn't feel right about it. A peel of my lips back into a snarl helped, somehow, but that wasn't a professional face to make on the job, so I relaxed my mouth again. The same flat lipped resting bitch face that would give any poker player a literal run for their money.

A knock at my door. A heaved sigh. One of those days, who could be up at this hour, I don't wanna go to work, I open the door.

Two humans, Matt and Jerome stood on my porch. My boys. My most trusted companions. It's only because of them that this whole chunk of my life was gonna be anything near worthwhile.

Matt was the skinniest dude I'd ever met. Long jet black hair, very pale skin, and no matter how much he ate, his ribs were always visible. He was a bit of an ass, a chronic snarker, but his sardonic attitude was what kept our shitty boss off our collective ass most of the time.

Jerome was in his usual business casual look. Ever since Left 4 Dead came out, he took it upon himself to be as physically, mentally, and probably even spiritually close to the Louis character as possible. Down to the red tie and optimism. His only shortcoming to being a downright clone of the guy was that his skin color was lighter, on account of his dad being black and his mom being Mexican.

They had a rental truck behind them, the bed of which was sporting a few cardboard boxes. I turned back, looked back at my own boxes, and frowned at em.
"You think my shit will fit?" I asked.
"Probably!" Jer said. "You're just packing your music right?"
"And my clothes," I added, "but that all fit in my backpack."
Matt snorted and waved his skeletal hand off. "Yeah it'll fit, but it'll take up the rest of the space."
"Just don't drive like a maniac, I spent a good chunk of change on packaging materials."
"Yeah, yeah," he teased, "Wouldn't want your precious hoard to get damaged now would we."
I sneered. "It's not a hoard. It's a collection."
"The difference being..?"

..

"Ask me that question again after I've had my coffee."
"Oh, great idea, Sal! I hear the Equestrians make a killer cup of joe!" Jer piped up. I could tell he was hoping to get a move on, but didn't wanna be rude and interrupt.
"If it outdoes Starbucks, I'm happy." I groaned, and moved to start loading my cargo.

Coffee. That bittersweet taste was one of the things that kept me going in this life, and this particular cup was spectacular. Dark, rich, smooth, a cavalcade of emotions and flavors, brewed and steeped to nigh perfection. No sugar or cream needed - and I lost myself in the mire.
The train tracks rumbled in a nearly perfect rhythmic pattern, as if the Equestrian penchant for musical harmony extended out into their own infrastructure, the beat of which provided a perfect drum for the music playing in my head as I ruminated with the dark concoction.

I could imagine Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks describing this cup to his recorder. "Diane," he'd say, "I am currently on a passenger train making a bee line towards the pony populated kingdom of Equestria - a curious categorization of government, considering there are no kings nor queens presiding over the land - only princesses. That's right, Diane, immortal princesses that bear the magical aspects of all three common tribes in the country. Strange leadership aside, they make some of the best damn coffee I've ever-"
"Hey, Sal."

I blinked. Right. I was not Special Agent Dale Cooper. I was Sal. Sal Carmine Manchester, average dork working a dead end job.
"Earth to Sal, you there?" Matt waved a hand in front of my face, and then started snapping his fingers.
"Yeah, yup, yeah, I'm here, I'm alive." I pushed his hand away.
"Good coffee, right?" Jer smiled.
"Too damn good." I nodded. "I was experiencing ego death and turning into Special Agent Dale Cooper." I joked and cracked a rare smile.
"..You didn't, take anything illicit before we got here, did you?" Matt asked, concerned.
"No, it was a joke, I'm clean." I sighed and dropped the smile on the ground, where it shattered; the joke was lost on them. "I'm really enjoying the coffee though."
"Yeah, I bet. You went catatonic dude." Matt looked at me with a tilted head, "Anyways, now that you had your coffee.. What's the difference?"

"What."
"Between a hoard and a collection?"
"..Oh yeah.." I nodded and started to think. "A hoard...has no curation. I'd just be taking and keeping like, well, a hoarder. I pick and choose based on my tastes."
Jer gave a warbling smile. "Taylor Swift is part of your 'taste'???"
"Shut it, her old stuff was good!" I defended.
They laughed a bit.

"What about a dragon hoard?" Jer asked me suddenly. "Like, Smaug, or that one bitch from Shrek. They have hoards, but it's always," and here he did his best impression of the Ancestor from Darkest Dungeon, "GLITTERING GOLD.. TRINKETS AND BAUBLES.. PAID FOR IN BLOOD."

I let out a snort. He continued, "It's always stuff that's valuable. You've got a dragon kinda hoard. Like how long have you had all that music?"
I screwed my mouth up. "Shit, nearly ten years now..?"
"Yeah, see, you value the hell out of anything in it. Dragon hoard." Jer nodded and took another sip of coffee.
"Are you calling me a dragon, Jer?" I asked.
"I dunno dude, I've seen your fursona.." Matt nonchalantly joked.
"Pfft. That was high school, jackass," I said in our usual friendly ribbing, "you thought JoJo's Bizarre Adventure was cool."
"Fuck you, it still is!"
"Is my fursona still cool?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Sure man, fuck it, why not." Matt shrugged. "It's the modern day. Fursonas are in again. I've watched Patricia Taxxon. So are you a dragon?"
"You say that like dragons are real, and I'm one in disguise."
"Ah, what a tragic fate..!" Matt grew poetic. "A secret so well kept, not even you know it..!" His face returned to its normal grin. "We are literally traveling through a magical portal to help a talking horse with her Wikipedia project. Anything is possible, bucko."

We got off the train and started hauling our boxes onto a rental wagon. Which sucked, but I understood why. Equestria banned cars from their country ever since their attempted introduction. Apparently some sneaky leftist told one of the princesses about the pollution, infrastructure cost, noise, and general unpleasantness they made. As a result, no cars, only trains.
It did mean that the air was a thousand times cleaner, though, and I took a deep breath. Some of the coffee taste still on my tongue had a meet and greet with the crisp autumn air. It was nice.
"Hey! Sal, you jackass, are you gonna stand there like a retired sailor yearning for the sea, or are you gonna help us push the damn cart?!" Matt shouted at me. I snickered. If his insults weren't so damn creative sometimes, I'd be way more offended. I moved over to help out.

"Okay! Push!" and off we went. The harness thingies you're supposed to use to pull the cart obviously didn't fit our bodies, and on top of that, none of us had a strong build. I personally hated that fact.
After what seemed like a good long effort, we stopped to take a break. We were all huffing and puffing, Matt looking the worst of us, and as I turned and leaned on the cart, I saw we'd barely fucking made it a quarter mile from the station.
"DAMMIT!" I growled.
"Hey, 'scuse me-" a random pony trotted up to us.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, we're in the way, we'll move it soon-" I grumbled.
"Naw, I was gonna ask if y'all needed help?"

I blinked. "What?"
Looking down at the pony, I could tell she was one of the ones with no wings or horn. She had a kinda-orange-brown coat, blonde mane, and a goddamn cowboy hat.
"Y'all don't seem much the labor type, so I figured I could lend a hoof. Or ah, heh, a hand."
Jer smiled gratefully. "That would be amazing of you, miss! We're heading towards.." He pulled out a piece of paper. "15 Greener Avenue. We don't have any money on us-"
"Ah, don't fuss over it." She waved us off before hitching up to the cart and pulling it like it was made of paper. We looked at each other, shrugged, and followed the pony.
"Name's Applejack. And y'all're..?"
"Matt."
"Jerome!"
"Sal.."

Applejack looked up at us curiously. "Don't humans have a buncha names squashed t'gether?"
"Yeah," I answered, "But from what I hear you ponies tend to refer to each other with the full name unless you're good enough friends. And I think I speak for all of us when I say I really don't want everyone here to constantly refer to me as 'Sal Carmine Manchester'."
Applejack barked a laugh. "Ha! Yeah, I reckon that makes sense."

"Besides," Matt got that glazed look in his eye, and I knew what was coming. "To invoke the full true name of a human is to call upon their basest essence; to hear your full named uttered is scarcely favorable to your soul.."
Applejack blinked.

"Aheh..! What he means is, ah, when someone says your full name, they're usually really upset with you." Jer intervened, his face looking exactly like an embarrassed anime character. I snorted.

"Well, Matt, Jerome, n' Sal, it's a right pleasure to meet y'all. I run the local farm, Sweet Apple Acres with my family. What brings you bunch down to our little humble town?"
We all somehow sighed at the same time. Jerome answered. "We're employees for Advanced-Maxim Information Technologies, LLC. To translate that into.. lay-mares terms, we got sent here to help with a data archiving project."

Applejack's ears perked up. "Oh! Y'all must be here to help my friend Twi with the book-ta-computer project she has!"
"That's probably it, yeah." I nodded.
"Well, I'm right happy you're here to help, Twilight's only just started, and she says that even with help, it'd take a few years to get all the books done."

Matt and I grimaced. Jer, obviously, looked delighted.
"I can't speak for my peers here, but I, for one, cannot wait to immerse myself in the culture! It seems like a great learning experience!"
"That's the spirit!" Applejack cheered him on. Yeesh, it was like he had found his people.

We made our way to the house that we were all going to be sharing and found it concerningly small.
Applejack frowned. "Hm. Y'all sure this is the place? Looks a mite.." she looked back to us. "ill-fittin'. Unless y'all're a herd- no, even then.."

Matt shrugged. "The Boss was always a cheap bastard."
We entered the house, and joined in Applejack's frowning. It was a one-bed, one-bath. A living room, a kitchen, and a backyard patio.
The walls seemed.. dilapidated. The windows were all broken and letting cold air in. We inspected the bathroom and saw black mold in the shower. We ran the tap, and the water came out greyish brown.

I licked my teeth.
".. Alright, I can take the back patio. Jer, you fine with using that couch as a futon?"
"Sure am!" He moved to try and unfold it.
Matt moved into the bedroom without verbal acknowledgement, but it was agreement enough for us. I heard a thump, confirming that he was unloading the first box.

Applejack looked appalled. "You ain't even gonna complain?!"
"If we complain, we lose our jobs." I growled.
"And we always make the best of a bad situation!" Jer added on.
Applejack shook her head. "That just won't do! I ain't about to let somecreature sleep on the cold hard floor."
"Ah, Sal just does that. They sleep on the floor!" Matt laughed.
"You.. do?"
"Yeh." I picked up one of my boxes from the cart.
"...Why?" She asked.
I shrugged. "Feels good. I get gender from it."
"Uh.. gender?"

"Oh, man, you ponies are innocent." Matt laughed. "No, see, there's some humans who are born one gender but don't-"
"Ah know what transgender is!" Applejack interrupted. "Mah big sis done came out the closet a while ago!"
"Oh, pog, sorry." Matt said.
"What I wanna know is why you get it from sleepin' on the ground!"

I put the box down on the patio, which had an awning and some walls. I'd have to find a way to get some privacy, but I could make it work. I turned to Applejack and shrugged again. "I dunno, I just do. Beds suck. Always so springy and soft. I'm happy with a slab of concrete, so long as there's like, a blanket between me and the actual ground."
Applejack gave me an amused look. "You sound like my buddy Spike."
"Buddy spiked?!" Matt shouted jokingly.
"Abort, abort!" Jer joined in as he fiddled with the old couch, and he yanked on the lever too hard. It suddenly exploded out, the springs flying up like knives and embedding into the ceiling. Jer yelped and ducked for cover.

Matt emerged to see what the commotion was, and we all stood there, staring at the ruined couch and the ceiling.

"That's it, I can't stand for no more o' this. I can talk with Twilight 'bout having rooms set up for y'all in her Castle."
"WHAT?" Matt shouted.
"HUH?" Jer looked up from his hiding spot.
"Really?" I asked, skeptically. "You don't even know us."
"I know y'all well enough to know you're good folk who deserve a better place to rest your head! Now git your boxes back in the cart, let's go talk to Twilight."
"But-"
"But nothing! If'n your boss even thinks about firing you over bad conditions, he's got another thing coming! Now git a move on!"

Ponies, man. Too nice for their own good.

We found ourselves in this big ass castle. Jer was a little put off by the crystalline aesthetic, but for some reason the entire thing just made me feel really cozy. Maybe it was just how damn quiet the place was. We sat on some bean bag cushions, the most accommodating of chairs for any entity. Applejack explained the situation to the princess - I guessed internally that Applejack and Twilight go way back, because on our planet, the only chances of a farmer being that close to an immortal princess were reserved for the romance section at Barnes and Noble.

"Of course I can set up living quarters for you all!" The Princess said with a smile. "After all, since you're going to be helping me directly with this project, it'll make this that much easier. Besides, this castle has more rooms than I know what to do with. It won't be a problem at all."

Applejack sighed in relief. "Ah just don't rightly know why y'all's boss tried to get you to live in that house. More broken down than the Castle of the Two Sisters, it was!"
Twilight furrowed a brow. "Which house?"
Jer pulled out the paper again. "I got an email from our manager saying we were to move into '15 Greener Ave'."

Twilight was silent for a bit. Her horn started to glow, and some manilla folder popped into existence. She looked through it, pulled out a paper, and said, "I knew it! That address has been condemned for a year now, on account of health and safety hazards. It's due to be torn down next week." She looked up from the paperwork, to us, and said, "Did you not see the big yellow tape around the building saying, 'condemned - do not enter'?"

".. What yellow tape..?" Jer asked.
"I didn't - did you?" Matt turned to me.
"No."

Twilight turned to Applejack, who solemnly nodded. "I'm 'Fraid they're honest, Twi. I didn't see hair nor hide of a warning."
Twilight scowled, but said nothing. "Well, I don't wish to jump to any conclusions, so let's just say there were some unfortunate circumstances that nearly had you living in... unacceptable conditions. Regardless," she gently plucked the printout from Jer's hand. "I would like to retain this record of your superiors' orders, on the off chance that.. well, let's just say, 'just in case'. That sound alright?"

I looked at my boys, they looked at me, and then we all started nodding our heads saying, "Sure, yeah, uh-huh, sounds great, yup."

"Excellent! Then without further ado, let's get your living quarters situated, and you'll be free to do as you like for the rest of the evening. I simply ask that you report to my office at 8:45, bright and early-"

"THERE YOU ARE." I flinched, and slowly turned my head to find the source of that horrifically bland and normal, yet somehow grating voice. Burlane, our boss, burst into the room holding a piece of paper in his hands. "What're you boys doing, sitting around on your asses? You find that house I got you yet?!"
"Yes, sir, but," Jer started.
"Great, then it's time to work, dammit, up, up, move, get archiving!" Burlane hadn't seen Twilight yet, apparently.
"Hey boss, maybe if you shut your sorry pale ass up, you'd see the Princess behind you who has an issue with our room and board." Matt growled.
"!?" Burlane turned around, and immediately his toxic demeanor was replaced by that slick politeness that he put on whenever someone higher up than him was in the room. "Ohh, Princess Twilight, a pleasure to meet you in person, ah, apologies, I just have to whip these three into line, I'm sure a wonderful leader like yourself would understand, haheh." He tried to give the shittiest bow I'd ever seen.

"Why yes I do, Mister Burlane. But as a leader of a country I must also take into consideration the needs and wants of my subjects, and I'd like to address a discrepancy I've come across." She'd gone from informal and friendly to a political menace. "It's come to my attention your company allegedly rented out a building for your employees to reside in, but I've found that it was condemned last year, and due for demolition quite soon. Your employees claim they weren't informed of any of this, and when they entered the building, there were no warning signs to prevent entry."

Burlane's face twitched into rage, before returning to a diplomatic neutral. "Ah.. I see the issue here. Jeromy, as per my last email, I had contacted you saying that there was a clerical error, and that you were supposed to go to 17 Greenes Avenue. Here, see?" He held the paper up in Jer's face in a very rude motion. The usual.
"Sir," Twilight began, but was interrupted.
"You three boys know better than to waste the Princess' time! Now get moving, we have work to-"

"SIR!" Twilight shouted, ripping the other paper from Burlane's hand. "First of all, I have lived here for many years now, and I can state with extreme confidence that there is NO 17 Greenes Avenue! Secondly, I've already made the royal decree to have your employees situated in my castle, for both their comfort and my convenience, as they will be a trot away from my archive project. Third, if this is about the fact that I am paying your company by the hour, then you'll note in clause 7 Subsection 1a that no work shall be done until the agreed upon date, which is TOMORROW. Fourth, I am royalty, and do not take well to being interrupted!"
"Ah, yes, your majesty." Burlane said with a frown.
"Thank you. Now that these items are settled, I will see you all in the morning." She nodded to us three, left with Applejack, and Burlane scoffed.

"Talk about a ROYAL pain in the ass, right?" He laughed. We didn't. He picked up on that.
"Oh, c'mon, you boys used to be fun! Remember that, fun?"
"No sir, I have a selective memory disorder." Matt snarked. "It's called spacing out syndrome. It's terminal."
"Ha! See, you get it, Matty. Alright well, since her Majestic Bitchiness won't pay us till tomorrow, I'm gonna go out and have some more fun. You boys in?"
"We still gotta unpack." I said, flatly.
"..No fun. No fun at aaallll. Whatever. Be there at 6 AM sharp or I'll take your paychecks hostage."
And then he left.

I gently laid out each jewel case and vinyl sleeve out into the shelves of my new bedroom. Twilight popped in to check on me, and a lizard that was a bit shorter than her followed. "You settling in well, Mist- Miss- um.."
"Just Sal is alright, Princess. Thanks for acknowledging that I'm not a girl or a guy." I nodded at her.
"No problem. And just Twilight is alright, I honestly hate pulling the royalty card. If Mister Burlane hadn't.. nevermind."

I gave her a gentle smile. I felt I was running low on smiles and would need to stock up soon. "As for settling in.. I've run out of space to put my belongings.. you wouldn't happen to have anymore storage shelves, wouldja?"
"Why do you ask? I thought you had finished unpacking your music..?" She tilted her head.
I opened the second out of tenth box. "No."
I emptied out another collection of music tapes, CDs and vinyls onto the bed gently. She saw the pile and the remaining boxes and gawked. The little lizard, however..

"Dude! Sick hoard..!"
I somehow laughed and frowned at the same time. "It's not a hoard."
"Spike!" Twilight chastised. "That's not polite!"
"Among dragons it is! Complimenting another dragon's hoard is one of the highest honors!" He defended, raising his arms and flaring out the wings that I had only just now noticed.

My mind went into overdrive.
That's a dragon? Holy shit that's a dragon. Dragons are real? Dragons are real! That dragon just talked to me!
That dragon just complemented my h- my collection?!

Something clicked in my brain.

"But they are not a dragon Spike, you can't--"
"What kinda hoard do you have??" I butted in, bending my knees down to the dragon's level. He struck a pose and proudly declared, "Hah! I got the best one: A hoard of FRIENDSHIP!"

My brain slipped for a moment and I laughed, and I saw anger flash in his face. A jolt ran down my spine.
He may have been shorter than me, but he could probably thrash my ass. And if complementing a hoard was of the highest honors.. insulting a hoard, even with just a laugh? I'd rather not find out what that would do.
I reeled myself back in, and offered him a fist bump. "That's sick as fuck my guy. That's awesome. A hoard that none but time can take away. You can call me Sal, Spike. Honored to meet you."

He blinked, smiled, and my quick thinking was rewarded. He bumped my fist back, and we nodded.
Twilight silently observed the both of us, and then she and Spike wished me a good night. I grabbed a comforter from the bed, dropped it onto the floor, and splayed out on it, trying to fall asleep in my clothes.
The cool hard texture of the rock floor was perfect. I heaved a big sigh and considered the issue at hand.

A dragon had just called me another dragon. Stacked on top of the weird turn the conversation on the train took, I began to feel that strange discomfort with my face take shape. I rolled onto my belly, and looked at my reflection in the crystal wall. That lack of a snout. The oval shape of my head. Boring eyes. I snarled at the reflection, and all I got in return was a realization that I really hated how flat my teeth were.

I had no idea what I'd just gotten myself into up until that point. I growled, slowly increasing the volume, until I managed to shape the feelings into one word:
"mmmrrrrghgghrhrghghghfhghfffffFFFFFUCK!"

2: Let's Strike a Match, My Dear

Six AM. We showed up, as threatened, and didn't see Burlane at all. Obviously, but some days he made good on his threats. Probably trying to be a "good boss" by keeping us on our toes.
We settled into our chairs, and booted up the computers, discovering that they ran Linux distros.
Jer smiled. "Well now I like Princess Twilight even more! She's a lady of taste!"

A few "sudo dnf update"s later, and we were ready to get cracking on the project. We heard the sound of a creature shuffling towards the room. Spike peeked his head in, and gave us all a confused look.
"Uh.. why are you guys up already? Twilight said to arrive at 8:45."

"Yeah," Matt answered, "But Burlane is the guy who signs our paychecks and he said to show up at 6."
Spike looked around. "Mm. Well hey, since you're all up, you guys want breakfast?"

"Oh hell yeah." I said and got up, grabbing my water bottle to give it a refill.
On our way to the kitchen, Applejack and some other ponies showed up. I didn't know their names, there was a marshmallow colored one, and one with a rainbow styled mane.
"Heya Rarity. Heya Rainbow. Hey Applejack."
Well that answered that.

"Hey yerself, cowpoke." Applejack greeted. "Did Twilight get that letter from Griffinstone about helping 'em set up some worldgates yet?"
"Oh, yeah, definitely." Spike shrugged. "She's agitated about it because of that Bearlane guy."
"Burlane," Jer gently corrected.

"Uh, who are you three..?" Rainbow asked.
My eyes lit up. We'd practiced for such a question! We tri-fived each other and shouted, "WE DEM BOYYYYS, AAAAYYY!"
I could tell Rarity was stifling a giggle. Rainbow, however, started rolling around in the air laughing, saying something to effect of, "They sound just like the CMC!"

After she recovered, we introduced ourselves properly.
"So, what are you doing here?" Rainbow asked.
"Oh, they're here to help Twi with her archivin' project." Applejack answered.
"Huh. Really? I thought she was hiring a company to do it.. Advanced.. maxy..." Rainbow tried to remember.
"Advanced-Maxim Information Technologies, LLC?" Jer supplied.
"Yeah! That!" She nodded.
"Yeah, we're employees of that company. Burlane's our boss." Matt shrugged.
"Well, I wish y'all the best of luck. We're gonna go help Twi get ready for Griffinstone." Applejack nodded to us. We nodded back, and started to move.

"Oh, Spikey-wikey, darling, I didn't get to thank you for your help these last few weeks! My ensembles made it to the Canterlot Trotsworth Showcase because of your help.."
She magically pulled from her bags the most beautiful looking gemstone I'd ever seen. The jewelry commercials in America could only dream of making their products look that good.
"Oh, wow! Thank you Rarity!"
He took the gem into his claws and hugged her, and she smiled warmly. "You have grown so much taller since your molting, Spike. It still surprises me that you can hug me like that."
I kept staring at the gem.

"Uh.. Sal? You're drooling." Rainbow said.
I snapped out of it. "Huh, what?" I wiped my mouth off on my sleeve. "Oh, sorry, I'm good. It just, it looks like.. I dunno, candy? Like forbidden candy."
"What?"
"I dunno! Humans have a, a running gag online that certain inedible things are 'forbidden food'. Like lava is the forbidden hot sauce, molten glass is forbidden honey, toothpaste is forbidden gogurt..?"

Every pony in the room blinked, but Matt just cackled. "Oh my god, no, you're right! Forbidden candy! You're right!"
"You better not eat it," Rarity squinted at me. "It's for Spike, and nobody else."
I waved a hand dismissively as I moved it to open my water bottle. "I didn't partake in the tide pod thing, I'm not gonna be doing this either."
"Tide pods?" Rainbow looked incredulous.
I sighed, hard. "People on the Internet tried to eat laundry detergent pods as a challenge a few years back. The kind that immediately break down and release the chemicals when in contact with a liquid."

Jaws dropped, and they looked up at Matt for confirmation. He fell onto the floor laughing as a result, to which I took a sip of my drink. As he kept on rofl-ing, Rainbow looked back at me. "I thought humans were supposed to be smart??"
"Allegedly, yes, they are," I sighed again, pinching the bridge of my nose. "But there's a century worth of capitalism-induced-stupidity they inflicted on themselves that I don't feel like touching on."
"Why did you say 'they' like that? Like you're not a human?" Rainbow said, very much aloud, to my displeasure. Poker face mode switched on fast. I closed my water bottle and swallowed.
"I'm human."
But some days I wish I wasn't, I thought.

Applejack cocked her eyebrow at me like it was a gun. "Uh, Sal," she started, "Can ah talk with ya for a moment?" I blinked at her, confused, and looked at Matt, who was still prone, and recovering from his giggle fit. Then, to Jer, who gave me a thumbs up.

"Sure," I grunted. "We can probably spare a few minutes, while he's down for the count."

We entered a different chamber in the castle, where Applejack suddenly turned on her haunches and eyed me up.
"You do know ah can tell when somepony's- er, somebody's lying, right?"
I made a face. "I didn't, though. I am human."
And I hated it.
"Y'ain't telling the whole truth, sugarcube. I can kinda.. feel your heart flinch every time y'say it."
"I'm human though."
Flinch. Oh wow, she was right.
"See, you're.. what's Twi call it, uh.. lying by omission."
"It's not your problem, okay? It's nothing. I promise."

Applejack twitched an ear. "Well now that's just a plain ol' lie. So now it is my problem!"
"Why??" I said, feeling an itch of frustration.
"Because it's my job! I am The Element of Honesty, so this kinda deal is my bread and butter."
What??
"You ain't just being dishonest to others! Yer being dishonest with yerself! Now I been honest with you, so it's time to be honest with me. What's going on, sugarcube?"

My heart flinched again. I reached for my water bottle, only to find I'd left it in the other room.
"You can trust me, sugarcube. Cross my heart, swear to fly, stick a cupcake in mah eye. Ah won't judge." She repeated the motions of some kinda promise. I sat down on a nearby chair, and held my head in my hands to think.

"I.. fuck, I dunno how to say it. I.. wanna.. No, I just.. you see.. No.. Hmm. I.. envy .. Spike. I envy Spike."
"You envy a baby- Naw, he ain't a baby no more, a dragon?"
"Y-yeah. I.." I froze up. Was I about to tell her everything? I guess I was. "I'm.. I don't.. like.. being.. human. Yeah. I don't like being human."
She motioned with a hoof for me to continue.
I swallowed. "I saw Spike and immediately thought, 'God I wish that were me'. I want the claws, the scales, the horns.. the fire. I want that heat, man. I.. He complemented my music, called it a hoard, and, and..." I trailed off.
Applejack smiled. "Well ain't that a peach in a pile of pears."
"What..?"
"You got y'self a case of, uh.. consarn it, what did my big sis call it.. dis.. discordia? Naw, naw, that ain't it. The.. 'wrong body' thing."
"Dysphoria."
"That's it!" Applejack beamed. "And you're in luck, cuz I reckon Spike's been feeling a mite lonely."
"Really?"
"Eeeyup! I betcha my stetson that he could use a dragon friend, even if the skin don't match the soul. I think you should try and make friends with him."

I thought about it. He did complement my h- my collection. I decidedly nodded. "I'll try."

"You usually skip breakfast??" Spike asked, bewildered as he dropped a heaping plate of eggs, pancakes, and hash browns in front of me. Matt was already done with his, looking satisfied and yet somehow still hungry.
"Usually," he answered, "our boss Burlane doesn't let us out of the office until lunchtime. We can't even snack at our computers, so we just usually tough it out."

Jer quietly enjoyed the meal, and I couldn't help but wonder if dragons had unique diets.. so in turn, I ate my food, while watching Spike pull an honest-to-gods ruby gem out of the pantry, crush it down with a mortar and pestle, and sprinkle the shards onto his own pancakes.
I eyed the shards up, and decided to take a small risk. I cleared my throat, and said, "Hey, Spike, can I.. try... some of that..?"
He eyed me up curiously.
"Please..?" I tacked on.
"Well, since you were polite, I guess."
"Just a smidge, I'm just curious." I pressed my thumb into the bowl of shards, sticking some dust to my skin, and held it up to my face. Its redness glistened in the light, and I licked.

It was an intense ride of red. Imagine if someone managed to make a candy out of a mixture of old bay, chilli powder, red licorice, fireball whiskey, strawberry, and other noticably red flavors; somehow all working together in this violent and unbelievably spicy mixture. It was.. good. Delicious, even. Like I'd been missing out on this flavor all my goddamn life.

"HAHAHA! OH MY GOD, SAL! I WAS RIGHT!" Jer howled with laughter, slapping his fists against the table.
I snapped out of it. "Huh, what?!"
I looked over to see Matt washing his mouth out in the sink, spitting and coughing.
Not worthy of the heat, something warbled in my spine.

Spike was staring at me with awestruck eyes, a slack jaw and... something else, I couldn't tell what. He looked at Jer, then me, then asked, "Right about what?"
"The dragon thing! Remember yesterday??" Jer said, I remembered.
"You knew they're a dragon?" Spike exclaimed.
"I just guessed! They have a hoard of music, dude-- how did YOU know??"

Spike shrugged. "They have dragon blood, dude. It's weak, but I can feel it. One of their ancestors must've scored with a dragon."
Matt was still trying to get rid of the spice, gulping down a glass of milk, when he spit it back up. Coughing, he managed to sputter out, "Dude, aren't you like 8??"
Jer recovered and had a sip of his orange juice.
Spike must've got that question a lot. "I'm 28."
"You're older than me.." I muttered.

It was Jer's turn to spittake. My boys proceeded to slap each other on the back trying to clear out their throats.
It at least explained the weird instinct I had to respect the dragon. I guessed that dragons respect their elders, and he was mine by seven years. Which was weird because he was 3/4 my height, the height of most other ponies I'd seen.
Still, I felt like pissing him off was a bad idea. Not even because he'd hurt me, just because I'd lose the only other dragon I've met in my life.

Where the hell did that come from?

While my boys recovered and cleaned up their mess, I decided to ask a question.
"So, Spike, how come gems taste like that..?"

"I can answer that!" Twilight said, entering the dining hall. "After magical creatures die, their magic is decomposed and returned to the ground. The harmonic properties of magic mean that each aspect is attracted to itself, building up in composition until they form a gem! So a dragon that is hungry needs a rich variety of colors in their diet, or else their body won't function properly, especially since they have long life spans and powerful magic. This explains their natural hoarding behavior, which if left unchecked, can lead to a lot of territorial dragons fighting over limited food. Not to mention the destruction they can cause."
"So.. gems here are inherently magical..?" I asked.
"Mhhm! Judging by how Jerome and Matt are coughing, I'm guessing you had a taste and found it lacking?"

Matt was about to point out that I liked it, when I gave them both the "Don't." Expression™. They both kept coughing but shut up. My expression turned grateful and I gave them a nod of my appreciation.

"Uh, yeah. Why is that..?" I asked.
"It's because most humans don't have a natural magic pool, nor the necessary enzymes in their saliva to digest magic gems." She answered, "So their body regards it as a foreign object and rejects it."

Matt blinked. "Most?"
Twilight huffed. "It's a recent thing that I haven't totally proven yet, but I've hypothesized that some humans have either developed or inherited magic pools. They're usually very weak, but that's the case for any infant creature."
Matt's eyes widened and shone like the stars. "So anyone could learn magic if they tried..?"
Twilight's eyes sparkled in return. She then composed herself and laughed nervously. "Well if you.. really really wanted to try and learn, well.." She got lost in thought for a few seconds, then said, "Spike, could you take Jerome and Sal up to the computer room so they can get started? I wanna talk with Matt."

Matt looked to me, and I gave him a thumbs up. Then, I saw what was on my thumb. He nodded, and Jer and I made our way to the office with Spike. I looked at my thumb again.
Yup. A small patch of scales was beginning to develop on my thumb. I pressed my tongue against my teeth, and felt a rougher patch where I'd licked the red dust.

Oh, shit.

The project had finally begun. The three of us, along with Twilight, had started with the highest priority books in her collection. We huddled around the table as she gingerly lifted the protective casing from the other side with her magic.
"I need you all to be very, very, gentle with these." She urged. "They're ancient books, some of them preceding even Princess Celestia and Luna."

Jer raised a hand. "Yes, Jerome?"
"Uh, how old are they?" He asked, lowering his hand.
"Over a thousand years old," Twilight said casually.
All three of us pogged at the same time.
"ÜBER GILF.." Matt said with half feigned, half genuine reverence, and we all cracked up.

"What's an oobergelf?" Twilight asked, and then realized she wasn't gonna get an answer as we kept cackling. She slowly developed a small smile on her face, and waited for us to calm down.
"You know, I may know little about human cultures, but I can tell you three are very good friends."
"Aw, yeah, heh. We Dem Boys. Even though Sal isn't a boy." Matt smiled, wiping a tear from his eye.
"They're still one of De Boys tho." Jer nodded.
"How long have you three been friends?" Twilight asked us. We were stumped.

"Middle school...??" Jer offered.
"I thought we met in fifth grade.." I said.
Matt shook his head. "We started our shit in the summers between. I know this cuz that was the same year that my Dad, uhm.. you guys know."
Jer and I nodded darkly. I couldn't believe I had forgotten about that. Twilight seemed to notice the grim tone, and shifted the topic back on track.
"Well! As I was saying, these books are very old. So old that too much light can damage them."
"That explains the candles." Jer noted.

Just then, Burlane switched on the lights. Twilight shrieked, said something to the effect of, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!", and shielded the books in a blanket of her magic.
"Dude-" I was interrupted.
"You three boys getting work done in here, or having a sleepover?! Chop chop, let's go, get started!" Burlane clapped his hands loudly enough to make Twilight pin her ears back. Or maybe she was just pissed at him, I wasn't sure.

"Burlane! With all due respect, we're handling ancient artefacts that can be damaged by modern lights, PLEASE turn those off!" Jer gritted his teeth into a forced smile.

"Why would lights damage books? That doesn't make sense." Burlane stared at us like we'd all merged into the same body.
"Cuz light is a form of energy, and too much energy will damage anything??" Jer continued, exasperated. "Do you need an example?"
"Sure." our boss shrugged.

Twilight was about to say something, but Jer nodded to us, got up, and pulled out his pocket laser that he used for meetings, aiming at Burlane's eye. Burlane shouted, swatted at the laser, and backed up, before pointing at Jer.
"That's gonna come out of your paycheck if you damaged my eye."
Twilight flew up, literally, to Burlane's face, and shouted, "And if you damaged these ancient priceless books, then your company isn't gonna receive a single BIT! or DOLLAR! Now turn the lights off!!"

Burlane rolled his eyes, but obeyed. Twilight finally relaxed her magic, and her own muscles. She landed with a bit of a thump.
"Thank you," she said, trying to be polite. "Now, let's get started. I have a friendship mission, the train leaves at 10:30 today, and I do not want to be late."

9:55.
"Burlane said he would be back from the restroom an hour ago.." Twilight mumbled. "I can't stick around, my friends and I are needed in Griffinstone.."
Ten minutes before he fucked off to gods-know-where. A neeewwwww recooooord!

"Forget about it, Twilight," Matt groaned, reading another passage and typing it out into his computer. "We work just fine without the guy. Even better, actually, because his dumb ideas don't get involved."
Twilight growled. "Can they send someone else to help lead this project?? I don't want to leave you three without proper supervision."
"Everyone else at work does, ma'am, we'll be just fine." Jer smiled.

Her frown deepened. She heaved a massive sigh, then nodded. "Alright. I guess my only request is that you make sure Burlane stays away from those books. They're the highest priority due to their age and rarity, so the sooner they're archived the better, and given his.. history of behavior.."
"You got it, bossmare!" Jer gave a thumbs up in the dark. Matt and I followed suit, and I saw that the patch of scales on my thumb had grown more since the last time I saw it.

Twilight didn't notice, and smiled. "I guess I can trust you three. You seem to take this job very seriously, despite your goofing around. Very well, I'll be back tomorrow. Good luck, boys!"

Ticky-tack, clackety-clack. A page turn here, an 'oh, shit,' there. The silence began to grow deafening.
Jer rolled over on his chair to me. "Heeeyyy. I just noticed this room has a record player~..."
I grinned.

After some fiddling with technology meant for hooves, we managed to get an album going. We'd manually swap the record out, because we didn't know how the queue feature functioned, and I didn't wanna break anything. Definitely not my own records, if anything else.

"So," Jer said, "you're able to eat those gems."
"Yeah." I grunted.
"And they're magical. Which means you just ate a dose of magic."
"Mhhm."
"Is the magic doing anything to you..?"

I went quiet.
These were my boys. I could trust them. "Yeah." I said. "You guys wanna see?"
Jer and Matt saved their work, put bookmarks in their progress, and huddled up with me. I showed them my thumb.
"Whoaaaaa." They said together. By this point, the thumb was engulfed in scales, and my thumbnail was gone.
"That's not all. Look at this." I stuck my tongue out, which had become thinner and forked at the tip.
They gawked for a long time. My tongue started to get dry, and I closed my mouth.
"Imagine making out with that.." Jer said absentmindedly.
"Dude, gross!" Matt laughed.
"Oh, I can imagine, alright." I grinned, before I realized the trap I just walked into.
"So you're saying.. you can Imagine Dragons?" Jer snickered. I socked him in the shoulder lightly.
"Shut up," I laughed.

At some point I needed to use the restroom.
I got up, left the room, and ended up nowhere near a bathroom. I found Spike chilling out in one of the big rooms full of bookshelves, and decided to say hi.

"Yo, Spike," I tried to be casual, "Uh, you got a second?"
"Sure, what's up?"
"Eh.. I've got a bit of a problem.." I rubbed my hand on the back of my head.
"Well, if it lasts for more than twenty-four hours.."
I snorted. "Gross. No, dude, look at my hand."
I squat down and showed him the slowly developing patch of claws. It had started to spread out to my palm and other fingers. His eyes went wide and he dropped his comic book.
"Oh, shit! Hang on, I'll send a letter to Twilight to fix you!" He started reaching for a parchment.
"NO!" I screamed, and stood up. He stared at me like I had a knife.

The silence hung in the air, echoing into the castle, and I cut it down with a sniffle. I slowly got back down onto my haunches. "I... don't tell her. Please, I don't wanna fix this. Or, no, this.. I think this is what the fixing looks like."

He was quiet.
"Spike, bro, c'mon, I'm desperate. My entire life suddenly makes sense, and if I'm doing this," I gestured to the scales, "then this has gotta be right for me, y'know??"

Spike regarded me with eyes like I'd never seen before. Regarding, judging, calculating, having a major inner monologue. If this were an anime, this moment alone would be an entire episode.

"Do your friends know?"
"Yeah. They're cool."
"Does your boss know?"
"..no."
"Does Twilight know?"
"Nnnno. No."

He scratched a fin thoughtfully, then reached into a bag next to him. He huffed, a little puff of smoke coming out from his nostrils, and he held up a sapphire.
"I shouldn't be doing this, but you kinda have a point, man. And seeing you stressed out like this is kinda freaking me out so.."

I swallowed. "Sorry."
"It's fine, but I need you to swear to me, on your dragon's honor, that you'll tell Twilight about this."
I blinked. "What about my boss?"
He pursed his lips. As he kept quiet, I grew jealous of his snout being long internally. His wings looked so nice. His eyes had such a fucking vibe.
"From what Twilight told me about him last night, he seems like a jerk that doesn't respect anyone."
"Heh, he only 'respects' people if they hold money up to his face." I joked.
"Like how you're 'respecting' me right now?" He joked right back.

My heart skipped a beat. From where I was squatting, he was eye-to-eye with me. Maybe a bit higher up on his bean-bag throne.
"No, man. You're holding food up to me. Or, I guess medicine. Or both. That's different." I shuddered.
Spike smirked. "Oh yeah?"
He held the gem up to my face, I made to take a bite, and he yoinked it back.
"Nuh-uh! Beg for it, big guy."
".. Seriously?" My eye twitched.
"You said that I'm older than you. That makes me generally your superior." His smirk developed into a grin, and he waggled the gem in his pinched fingers. "That means, by dragon's rules, I can boss you around."

"I'm not doing that." I reached for the gem with my draconic half-claw, only for it to be blocked by a gust of green-on-yellow fire.
The tips of my fingers were singed, protected only by the scales themselves. I hissed in slight pain and shook my hand to soothe the pain. Wings. Scales. Flaming breath. He had it all.

"Spike.. c'mon, man.." I growled.
"C'monnnnn, you can do it, can't you?"
"Spiiiiike..!"
"Do it for your BIIIG BROTHER..."

Something snapped, and I got on my hands and knees.
"Gh! Fine!! I swear! I swear I'm gonna tell Twilight tomorrow, when she gets back okay?? C'mon man, I need this, I need more of this, I'll fade out and die if this reverses!! I'll do anything for you, man!"
"Anything..?" His salacious grin was killing me.
"ANYTHING!"

He shoved the gem in my mouth.

Electricity. Sweet blue everlasting. Every single neuron in my body went into overdrive as the magic wracked my body. Blueberries and toxic antifreeze and Gatorade. Electrolytes, frozen treats, and Blue Curacao. And the kind of cold you get when you step into a shower after a long exhausting task.

I fell to my side. Sweating bullets. My feet felt different. I looked down and confirmed it. My shoes were fucked, ruined by the rough scales and sharp claws. A dewclaw began to sprout atop my heels.
"Haha, holy shit, nice."
Spike was looking down at me from his beanbag perch. The comic was long forgotten, and I knew he had a fresh fantasy in his eyes. He dropped down and regarded my claws.

My claws..
He held them gingerly in his, smiling. The neurons within them hit different than my human skin, the scales reached up to my forearms now. I flexed a finger and felt every scale stretch and squash to accommodate the movement. I gave a shuddery breath.
I saw the tips of my claws condense and sharpen into a fine point, where the natural process that was my fingernails had begun its new life.

"Huh.. You've got some really good digging claws."
"Th.. thanks?"
He looked into my eyes.
"You wanna hang out at the quarry later today?"
I sat up.
"Uhm- Sure. Why not? Just you and me?" I said.
"Yeah. Yeah." He nodded at me, then jerked his head in the direction of the office. "We both should probably get back to work. I was already slacking off before.. y'know.. what we just did."

Burlane came back an hour later, looking stressed as fuck.
"You boys working?!" he shouted, breaking all of our concentration.
"YES, SIR, WE ARE." Matt said, irritated that he'd lost his place in the book he was copying.
"GOOD - No, not good, work harder!! The company's life is on the line here!"
"With all due respect, sir-" Jer frowned.
"Hey, Jer, I'm talking here!" He snapped at Jer, who promptly shut up. "Thank you. I just got word from my uncle that this entire endeavor is going to make or break this fiscal year. We have two months left to get all these books and get our payment, or else we are SCREWED."
I bit my lip, and then he kept going. "But! BUT! There's a silver lining to this. Equestrian bits are backed up by GOLD."
Jer legitimately perked up at that.

Burlane kept going. "SO. If we manage this before the end of the fiscal year, that means CHA-CHIIIING, you hear me? For all of us, including you boys. Hell, with your money combined, you could probably buy a house or something. So! New orders from me. I want you boys working AROUND the clock, non-stop, as much as you can. If you can avoid eating, drinking, or sleeping, DO IT. I need you to put in as MUCH time as you CAN. Do I make myself clear?"

"..Twilight said -" Jer started.
"I don't give a rat's ass what that horse said! We're just here for her money. Take shortcuts if you need to, these are old books, no one cares about them, okay?!"
We grumbled some acknowledgement and he moved to where his desk was supposed to be.
"Hey, where's my stuff?"
Matt looked up from his work again. "Twilight refurbished one of the guest rooms into a personal office for you."
"She did?" Burlane asked. It was a lie, Matt had done it.
"Yeap, it's three doors down the hall on the right." Matt gestured.
"What, you're not gonna show me where?"
"..You said to not stop if I could, Burlane." Matt eyed the boss.
Burlane blinked, then grinned, "Ahhh, ahh, yeah, that's right, it was a teeeeest! Good job, keep at it boys."
He left the room, and we let out a collective sigh of relief.

"So..." Jer said, slowly eyeing up my body. "Which elephant in the room should we address first?"
"Let's start with the fact that Burlane's an idiot. There's no way we can finish this project by mid-January." Matt groaned.
"And then we're gonna get fired and lose our work visas.." I bemoaned. "Which means.."

Which means I'd lose contact with Spike. And furthermore, I'd lose out on his supply of gems.
"A dragon body doesn't function if it doesn't have a steady diet of gems.." I vaguely recalled Twilight saying that.
"Which, brings us to item two. You're scalier." Matt noted.
I nodded.
"How's it feel, Sal?" Jer gently questioned.

I slowly, intently, ran a claw down the desk I sat at, digging up the wood into a long, damaged scratch mark. I looked up at my boys.
"Really, really fucking good." I grinned, before the smile clattered to the ground. "But I dunno how we're gonna do this, boys."

Jer's optimistic attitude kicked in. He placed a hand on my shoulder. "The same way we always did it. We'll do it together, and no matter what, we stick together, and things will turn out alright."

"I'll be honest, uh.." Matt started, "I have a vested interest in sticking around too. Twilight wanted to see if she could teach me magic personally because no one else seemed interested up until now. She told me that the last human that had potential was a Christian and.. yeah."
Jer snickered.

By the time that 7 pm rolled around, none of us could focus anymore. We called it a day, saw that Burlane wasn't even in his office, and decided to hit the town. I felt my claws click on the floor, the bones shifting up slightly and forcing me to walk on my toes.

I opted to switch into a long flowy skirt which covered my hindclaws, and a hoodie to hide my foreclaws in the front pocket. While I adored the feelings I was experiencing, the current state I was in made it look like I was poodling.
I licked my teeth. Sharper now. I swallowed. "Hey uh, guys? I think I wanna be alone tonight."

They looked up at me in alarm. Shit. The only times I said things like that were when a depression spiral was about to start.
"Not like that!" I raised my claws up in a placating gesture. "I'm good. Great even! I just.. today was a shit load of fuck, and I need time to process it all."
"Fuck, don't scare us like that.." Jer looked a bit pissed, but relieved.
"Yeah," Matt half-grinned. "You better not be planning on offing yourself on day one of your dragon HRT. People would pay good money for that and you got it for free so far."
Jer chuckled. "DRT. Dragon Replacement Therapy."

I pursed my lips. "Not.. entirely for free."
The boys raised their eyebrows. I sighed. "Since Spike is older than me, by dragon's customs, uh.."
I was trying very hard to not make it sound like it could potentially be a toxic or abusive relationship. "I have this instinctual urge to respect his wants. Obviously there's a hard line in the sand here but.. he has authority."

...

".. That sounds like the proving grounds for a toxic relationship, dude." Matt said.
"Right??" Jer agreed.
"Like you barely even know the guy."

Ugh. These humans. Of course they wouldn't get it. It's a dragon thing. It works differently..
I shook my head. Weird ass thoughts. Coming in from my nerves shifting, most likely.

"Yeah, that's, kinda why I need the solitude. I gotta brood my mood. I gotta jive on the vibe. I gotta soul search this." I tried to explain. "I'm not gonna be able to do that if we're at a loud ass bar."
They nodded, and clapped their hands to either side of my shoulder. I reciprocated, placing my claws on theirs.
"Remember, Sal. We dem boys. If shit gets too queasy, you let us know. Okay?" Jer asked me.
I nodded. They let me go.

3: I Bringeth Forth the Drama, Unabridged, and Unignored

The quarry wasn't exactly hard to find. The town of Ponyville had distinct districts, and plenty of sign postage. From there it was just a matter of following the unique set of dragon tracks in the dirt path to get to my destination.
I came upon a steep hill, and instead of going to long way around, I opted to slide down the side with my dragon claws, a soft crumbling playing along to my descent.
I landed on an overhang above the quarry proper.

"Oh, hey," Spike said, his legs kicking off the side, "I didn't think you'd actually show up." He had a bag with him, which I guess was logical. He had to carry his shit somehow.
"And disrespect my big bro?" I scoffed. "Fuck that."

I noticed his silence. He seemed almost embarrassed.
"Aheh, yeah," Spike nervously said, "about that. I don't really know where that came from.."

I screwed up my mouth. This was the same dragon that just teased my DRT (dragon replacement therapy) until I begged for it, right?
He shrugged before I said anything. "It's just not every day that I have clear power over someone.. so.. I wanna apologize-"
"Dude, no, that was hot as fuck."
"What??" His eyes snapped up to me, he was definitely blushing. I was too. "We barely know each other though!"

I snorted. Exactly what Jer and Matt thought. Maybe this wouldn't end up horribly. I decided to push it.
"Okay. Then we just get to know each other. Let's shoot the breeze a bit."
I sat down next to him on the ledge, trying to come up with an idea. I recalled the comic he was reading..
"What were you reading, earlier, before, y'know.."
His eyes lit up. "Oh! The Power Ponies!"
Bingo. Jackpot. Uno. Yahtzee. Dead on, Jack. He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out an issue of the comic and handed it over. He went on a ramble about each of the ponies and their special powers.

Some of them were equivable to human superheroes like Hulk or the Flash, others were a bit more tough to pin down their analogues. It seemed that the narratives of the comic were more in the clear-cut-good-vs-evil style before everything got super dark and gritty, and way before they managed to find the right balance between grit and stupid fun.

Which honestly was a breath of fresh air for me. I always enjoyed the shenanigans that came from Adam West's style of Batman.
I finished reading the comic with him; the dastardly Hardware Horse and his plans to build the biggest grilling deck-patio by using all the forest's trees were thwarted for now. His army of toolbox dads would have to grill the HayDay Burger another day.
He then asked me about my own world's superheroes, and I found myself at a loss.

"We have like.. WAY too many.."

"...So then the roaches that Angelino fed start tracking him down, and the luchadors realize that the roach-shaped stain turned out to be a real prophecy." I rambled on about my favorite superhero movie, MFKZ. "So the luchadors start following the roaches, and they end up breaking into the Macho's facility and rescuing a scientist as well as Angelino and Vinz."

Growlllll.
My train of thought derailed and crashed into a ditch as I started to look around. "Fuck was that?"
"My stomach." Spike answered. "We've been here for a while."
"Ah, shit, that'll do it.." I looked around the quarry. "So.. how do we get us some gems?"
"Well, I usually get em myself, or Twilight gets them from the jeweler's if the quarry runs low."
"Wanna try our luck, then?"
"Sure!"

Dig, dig, dig, dig.
Crumbling earth and rubble.
It turns out that hunting for gems is very hard when you don't have any way of detecting them. Apparently that Rarity lady had a knack for it and incorporated such things into her fashion lineups, which sounded a bit tacky to me.

"So.. what do you do for a living exactly? I know you live with Princess Twilight.."
"Oh she's.. Kind of my big sister. Or Mom, depending on how you look at it. She hatched my egg, and raised me alongside her mentor, Princess Celestia. I'm her Number One Assistant."
"What, like, a secretary? Or a butler?"
"Eh. Little bit of both."

I stopped digging and eyed him up. "You're not being overworked, right...?"
"Pfft. No. If anyone gets overworked, it's Twilight. She's always up late studying or running herself ragged trying to figure out the latest friendship problem, or beating up the monster of the week with the others. Though as long as I make sure she gets food and some sleep, she functions just fine. Unless there's like a big problem she can't figure out."

"Where I assume she gets help from her friends..?"
"Yeah, preferably before she goes crazy."
"Well, I guess there's worse people to make into a god." I resumed my digging.
"What?"

He looked at me weird.
"Is she not a god??" I asked.
"What's a god?"

Man, I wish that were me, I thought.
"Nevermind. Human culture thing, I guess. Uh.. but yeah, Twilight's good to you?"
"I sure hope she is. It'd be weird if I still lived with somepony who was mean to me all the time."
MAN, I WISH THAT WERE ME.

"You sure? Sometimes it's hard to recognize when you're being used." I said, with genuine concern. He shook his head.
"Nah. If anypony did, it'd be.. Rarity. I.. I've had a crush on her for the longest time, and was pretty much a willing peon for a bit. Pincushion, errand boy, gem hunting tool. The works."
"Damn. That sucks ass, bro."
"Yeah, but.." He looked off into the distance. "We're fine now. Not GOOD. But fine. We're friends."
He crushed a whole ass rock in his claws when he said that. I decided not to push it.

"I think I found one?" I pulled up what was absolutely a gem, but it seemed dull, colorless, almost depressed? Spike plucked it out of my claw, and huffed a sigh upon seeing it.
"Yeah, this one's not ripe. See the lack of color or luster? Means it's not ready." He took the gem and stuffed it back into the dirt. "The mining ponies must've been through this area and got the gems already."
"How long will it take?"
"For them to be ready? Probably a few months."
I frowned.

"Hey, don't look at me! Typically it takes longer, but because of the Everfree forest, things die more frequently."
"Damn. I guess it's for the best that I talk to Twilight about it then."
"Yeah. Definitely." Spike nodded. He climbed out of the ditch we made, and offered a claw down to help me climb out. I reached out, and found his grip insanely strong. He lifted me out with less effort than I was expecting, and I promptly lost balance and fell atop him.

We stayed like that for a good few seconds, before I rolled off to the side, definitely flustered, and he giggled.
"You make the funniest faces when you're all worked up like that."

I ended up regrouping with Jer and Matt on the way back to the castle. The second they spotted me with Spike, though..
"HA! You owe me five bucks." Matt grinned.
Jer shook his head, slapped a five in Matt's hand, and folded his arms. "You are hopeless, Sal. He knew you were gonna go hang with Spike."

Spike shrugged, "Not my fault I'm so cool and interesting." He joked.
Matt had that dramatic swoon about him. "Alas," he falsely grieved, placing the back of his hand to his temple, "Our dear friend has been led astray by the wiles of this beaste! Oh, woe to us, for De Boys stand at the end of their friendship..! Aboo! Aboo-hoo-hoooo!"

"Shut uuuup.." I tried to playfully jab him in the gut, but he dodged.
"So.. why are you two covered in dirt.?" Jer asked.
"We went to look for gems."
"Ah.." Jer nodded. "I think it can digging in the ground for tubers."
"Uh, what?" Spike asked.
"Don't worry about it, it's a meme. Human running joke on the Internet." Jer answered, then defined his answer.

"One of these days I'm gonna borrow Twilight's computer to see what this meme stuff is all about." Spike shook his head.
"Oh, speaking of tubers, we got you some food." Matt handed me a to-go box. "Gnocchi and lasagna. No meat, obviously, but they did have like.. a soy crumble alternative."
"Oh hell yeah. Let's head on back though, yeah?"
Everyone nodded.

The castle was dark inside for some reason. Spike fumbled for the light switch, flicked it on and,

"SURPRIIIIIIISE!!"

I'm frozen. A sea of eyes and noise. Chattering, cheering, maybe. So many goddamn people in the room. Some kinda pink superball asking me a load of questions, I can't hear them over my pounding heart. No, no, no, no, no.
They're gonna drown me again. I could hear that fucking song. "Our God is an awesome God, he reigns.."

No, no, no, no!! Stop! Stop!!
STOP!!
Run, run right now, right FUCKING now! Not again, not fucking again. Don't even know where I'm going. Bare feet on a concrete floor. Then grass. The noise stops.
My heart doesn't.

"Sal! Saaaaaaal! Sal!"
Jerome, I think. I don't know.
A concerned face crests over the hill. Definitely Jerome. He spots me, I growl. He puts his hands up in a placating gesture.

"Easy bud. No baptism today. We're not in a Christian country."
That didn't help. I growl again.
"Can you talk?"
I shake my head. If I talk, they'll hear me.
"I'm gonna sit right next to you. That ok?"

I'm silent for a bit. I nod.
He sits down next to me.
"I'm gonna help you ground yourself, okay?"
He places my water bottle down in front of me, opens it up, and gently pours it near me.
"Not holy water."
He holds it up to me.
"Can you take one sip for me, please?"

A few drops make it in. Crisp. Clear. Forces me to breathe differently, but not steady.

"Sal?"
Jer looks up. It's Spike.
"Hey, Spike, keep your voice down." Jer. "They're having a PTSD attack."
"Sounds serious. Can I help? I've helped Twilight with this sorta thing.."

His eyes. His eyes looked like the demons that my parents warned me about. He wasn't a demon right? I'm not a demon right? My claws. Fuck. They were right. I'm a monster.
Jer says something. I can't hear. I don't want to be saved anymore. I'm , I'm, I'm,--

"Hey, hey, I see you spiraling in there!" His eyes glared into mine. "Look at me, Sal."
I didn't wanna anger him. I did as he said.

"Take a deep breath."
Inhale.
"Hold for four seconds."
One.
Two.

Three.

"Now breathe out."
Exhale.
"Okay, again."
Inhale; one, two, three, four; exhale.
"Again."
Repeat.
"You're doing great, Sal. Again."
Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

"Good, now, what did Angelino do to fend off the police?"
Huh?
I blinked.

"In the police raid. What did he do." He repeated.
The movie? Why was he asking about that? He.. well, I.. I knew the answer to that.
"H-he. He threw a pizza. To attract the roaches. And used Vinz' flame to set the other cop on fire. And he got a gun to shoot the third guy."
Jer looked intrigued at this method. It was working, too. I was coming down from it, and I felt my muscles relax a little.

Jer leaned in a bit. "You wanna talk about what happened?"
"N-no. Not yet."
Spike held up the to-go box. "You dropped this."
Oh, thank the gods, food.
It was a little smashed, but I didn't care. I grabbed the food with my claws and shoveled it all to my mouth.
"That help?" Spike asked. I nodded.

After a few minutes, I was steady.
"So.. what happened?" I asked.
"Turns out Pinkie Pie stayed in town so she could throw you three a surprise party." Spike answered. "You freaked out and ran."
I swallowed another glob of pasta and potato. "I ... I don't do crowds well."
He studied me up, then nodded, getting up. "I'll go talk to Pinkie. She must be devastated right now."

I felt a pang of guilt. Jer placed a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, it's alright. She didn't know, none of us even met her up until then."
I swallowed more food.
"I just.. I got reminded of the baptism."
"Ooh. Yeah." Jer nodded. "Well, look at the bright side! Definitely no Christians in Ponyville!"
"Really?"
"Yeah. I haven't seen a single church. And also.. you're turning into a dragon, dude. I really doubt any missionaries would try to push their dogma on the guy who's turning into a dragon."
"Haha.. yeah. I'm not a, demon, am I?"
"No, dude, you're a dragon. Your parents are still wrong."
"Mm.."
"Maybe they mistook all your dragon traits for demon traits. Not like they'd know the difference. They see you growing horns and claws, and they'd assume it's 'the Enemy'. OoOoOooo." He punctuated his argument with a silly ghost noise.
I paused. "Horns? What horns?"
".. Oh, shit, did you not know?"
"Know what?"

He gingerly placed a hand on one of the nubs on my forehead. My eyes widened, and I broke out into manic laughter.
Jer grinned.

"CANNONS TO THE LEFT OF THEM, CANNONS TO THE RIGHT OF THEM, CANNONS IN THE FRONT OF THEM, VOLLEY AND THUNDER!"
Matt had apparently become the life of the party by channeling his power in theater and performing monologues to the ponies. He always knew how to work a crowd.
He somehow got a hold of a really big stick, a hefty branch that wouldn't go amiss in a wizard's arsenal.
I knew what he was reciting, too. He was performing a poem from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

I'm pretty sure that's where it was from, anyways.

Pinkie Pie - I assumed that's who that was, because she was pink and talking to Spike - nodded solemnly over and over as Spike explained what happened. She looked up, saw me, and her mane puffed up from straight to curly like dough in a timelapse. She almost jumped towards me, before she looked to Spike, and opted for an enthusiastic wave. I gave a tired wave back, and perused through the snacks. I served myself some punch and some cookies, then climbed the stairs to my room.

After snacking on the food, I put on a CD on my old Walkman, put on the headphones, and stretched out on the floor.

Day two of the project had begun. Burlane has thankfully been elsewhere when we started, allowing us to continue without interruption. By about 1:40, Twilight returned, and burst into the room. She seemed like she'd lost sleep over the idea that we'd fuck this up, and then she blinked.
"Oh! Oh, good, I was worried that something would happen." She giggled nervously.
"Ah toldja Twi, these fellas take their job mighty serious." Applejack followed her into the room.

"Welcome back, bossmare." Jer waved idly as he transcribed another passage from the book he was working on.
"The books we're done with are over there." Matt jabbed a finger to the Done Pile.
Twilight looked over and balked. "YOU DID ALL OF THOSE ALREADY?" Apparently we were ahead of schedule.

"Yeah. Trust but verify, you can check the files on your own computer, Twilight." I answered.
She did just that, logging into her PC and reviewing each document carefully. As she did, her smile grew wider and wider. "Absolutely no discrepancies or mistakes! You even replicated the diagrams..! How did you do that?"
"Oh, I'm a hobbyist artist. I brought a digital tablet with me." Jer smiled.
It's true. I paid him to draw some art of my fursona once.

Twilight squealed in delight and clapped her hooves. "You three are doing amazingly! If you keep this up, we might have this project done much faster than I had originally calculated!"
We looked at each other. A small glimmer of hope began to shine in our eyes.

I then remembered what I promised Spike yesterday.
"Hey, uhm, Twilight. Can I talk to you about something? It's a bit important."
"Hm? Oh, sure." She then furrowed a brow. "Applejack, I know you have to get back to your farm, but if you or the girls run into Burlane anywhere.. could you let me know?"
"Sure can, sugarcube." She trotted off. Twilight and I left the room. I had kept wearing my dysphoria hoodie and long skirt, so I figured she hadn't seen yet.

"So what's going on, Sal?"
I heaved a long, heavy sigh. "So, I'm in a weird situation. Uh.. Spike made me promise to tell you this yesterday, it's kinda important.. do you remember yesterday, at breakfast, when Matt was recovering from trying the gem dust?"
"Uh-huh?" Twilight looked concerned.
"I uh.. I tried some of it too, and, weeeeeeellllll.." As I drew out that last word, I slowly removed my claw from my dysphoria hoodie's pocket.

Her eyes grew to the size of novelty dinner plates.
I flashed my half-dragon teeth. "It was really, really tasty."

My ears were still ringing from the sheer magnitude of her shouting "WHAT?!"

She pulled me with her magic over to one of her library sections and proceeded to skim through every book in search of an answer.
I sat at across the table from her, perfectly still, afraid that I'd be hit by a stray tome.
"This doesn't make any sense! How is it that you're turning into a dragon?? There's nothing recorded about any other creatures turning into dragons before.."
"Well, earlier Spike said that I had dragon blood in me." I shrugged.
"But how?!" Twilight asked. "Terran creatures don't have naturally occuring magic! Earth barely even has a natural magic cycle!! Dragons would never be able to survive there, there's no way that you inherited dragon blood!"
I leaned back in my chair and thought about it.

"Well.. dragons exist in human culture, right?" I suggested. "So then.. what if this isn't the first encounter between these two worlds?"
Twilight stopped flying books around and looked at me.

"It's entirely possible this isn't the first worldgate that was established on a societal level. Especially because, well, there's a lot of human lore about dragons, even though scientists never confirmed their existence. The stories always involved either stealing from their hoards or outright killing them, so if dragons from a bygone age attempted contact with humanity before, it's entirely possible that the relationship ended on a really sour note. Especially if you consider the fact that the Library of Alexandria, which was an accumulation of human knowledge, burnt down and sent humanity into a dark age where magic and witchcraft was considered demonic and punishable by death, and, well.. the puzzle pieces kinda line up."

Twilight silently pondered the idea. She reshelved the hovering books, and hummed in thought.
"It's possible, but to confirm that we'd have to get in contact with historians from the dragon lands. And we haven't exactly.. opened up relations with that chunk of our world."

I raised my eyebrows. "Hasn't this country existed for a thousand years? How come you guys haven't?"
"More than that, actually, and we used to. But after Discord's first reign of chaos and the banishing of Nightmare Moon, the neighbors more or less closed off the borders. They heard about how those two were defeated, and thought that we'd do the same to them."

"A valid fear to have, t-b-q-h."
"What's that mean?"
"To be quite honest." I shrugged. "But that's neither here nor there. What are we gonna do about the whole 'ask the dragons for their diaries' thing? Send me and Spike in?"
"What?! No, not at all. First off, Spike is barely a young adult, more of a late teen, in a dragon's eyes. Secondly, you're not even a dr-"

I was looming over Twilight and partially on top of the table before I'd even registered what she said. She was holding up a magical shield, studying me with suddenly academic eyes.

Maintaining eye contact, she pulled a pen and a pad towards her and wrote aloud,
"Notes. Sal Carmine Manchester, born human, sex disambiguation declined, early 20s. After consuming an Equestrian gem, patches of scales and other draconic attributes began to develop. Noted to exhibit draconic behaviors prior to arrival to Equestria and subsequent exposure to magic, primarily hoarding and preference of stone flooring for bedding. Proceeding arrival, subject developed kinship with Number One Assistant at 21:45 hours. Subject also reacts aggressively towards verbal denial of alleged heritage."

"Was that really necessary??" I grit my teeth, sitting back down as she lowered the shield.
"Yes, I wanted to see if you would react to being called human."
Flinch, ow, my heart. That dysphoria pang again. She gave a sheepish grin. "Sorry."
Then she stood up, levitating the pen and pad, and circled me.
"Have the scales developed anywhere else?" She asked. I hiked up my skirt and stuck my leggy out real far.

"Fascinating!" she chirped, and wrote down, "Subject's orthopedic structure displays signs of being magically altered as time proceeds. Heel and Achilles tendon now stand higher than previously observed; subject's legs may transition from plantigrade to digitigrade, as is standard for adult dragons."

Oh fuck yes! Very gender. I put my leg down; She looked up from her notes to me. "Does it hurt?"
"Kinda, but in the way that growing pains tend to."
She nodded and wrote down, "Subject expresses minute pain, comparing it to pains typically experienced during pubescence. Anything else?"
"Eating more gems makes it jump forward for a bit."
"Subject observed that consumption of Equestrian gems accelerates development for a brief amount of time. Care to demonstrate?"
".. Aren't I supposed to be working on the archival project right now?"
She shook her head. "You three are already well ahead of schedule. We can spare a bit of time."

I shrugged. "Aight."
She squeed, and magically retrieved a gem from what I assumed was Spike's stash. This one was green. A brilliant emerald that seemed to hold a secret of nature the more I stared at it.

"Is that one of Spike's?"
"It is, but I was going out to replenish his gem supply today anyways."
"If you say so.."
She placed the gem in my claw, and I popped it into my mouth.

Barley, lemon-lime soda, rich green vegetables - peas, spinach, lettuce, celery, and other things I don't know the name of. A mash of sour candy mixed in, and green tea, and I felt like I had just eaten digested sun, aged in a cask of old plants that had decomposed long ago, leaving naught but the chlorophyll behind.

"Observation of gem consumption matches with previously stated. Scales now reach past subject's elbows and knees, respectively. Small bumps atop head indicate horns in progress. One bump at end of spine indicates initiation of tail development, possible additions to spinal bones, x-ray suggested. And lastly, subject has not developed wings despite their relative age. Possible side effect of not having a substantial magic pool until recently."

My torso was prone on the table. I slowly pushed myself back up into sitting upright, and worked my jaw. Then Twilight jumped on the table and opened my jaw with her magic and shone a light inside. "Oral interior is identical to that of a young adult dragon. Teeth are healthy and well aligned, no record of dental health prior to transformation."

Woah. My eyebrows shot up.
"My teeth were fucked. My parents never took me to the dentist." I groaned as she let me go, moving back to her seat.
"Correction. Subject reports significant improvement in dental health, citing neglect of dental visits during human youth."

"Y'know, when Spike told me I should talk to you about it, I didn't expect to be suddenly analyzed."
"Why not?!" She threw her hooves up in the air. This is a landmark moment for ponies and humans! A scientific marvel! A potential chance for humanity to smoothly integrate into our societies when they see that with the power of magic and friendship, we have so much in common! A-"
"A problem."

Twilight stopped and looked at me. "A problem?"
"Yeah. If my boss hears about this he'll fire me for conflict of interests or something."
"Hear about what??" Burlane asked from behind, entering the room. I smelled grease and bread. Fast food, most likely.

I didn't jump, but Twilight did. That bastard had a tendency to do that. I shoved my claws back in my hoodie pockets and kept my hindclaws above the skirt's length. I struggled to maintain composure as I came up with an adequate lie. Twilight looked up at Burlane in a mixture of annoyance and slight fear.

"I've developed a magic pool, sir."
He sneered weirdly. "So, what, you're gonna become a wizard?"
"Studying under Twilight in my free time, yes."
"Well you don't have free time right now, do you? Get back up to the office and back to work. Once you're done with the project, I couldn't give a rats ass about what you do. So move!"
"I'm on lunch."
"Lunch? Sally, you and I both know we're not in America, there's no such thing as a lunch here."
"Actually, Mister Burlane," Twilight, my savior, spoke, "all creatures in Equestria are entitled to two thirty minute breaks, and one lunch break with a minimum of forty-five minutes, up to an hour and a half. Deliberately withholding breaks from a creature can be a detriment to mental, physical, and magical health, and therefore is considered a misdemeanor in most cities. Punishable by up to fifty thousand bits based on severity of the infraction."

Burlane sputtered. "Two thirty minute breaks? Nothing will ever get done!!"
"On the contrary, Burlane, your team is performing admirably. Should they have all needs properly met, it's entirely possible that they can finish the project much faster than I initially projected."

Burlane slowly raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"
"I am willing to negotiate performance bonuses if this all goes swimmingly." She smirked, countering with her own eyebrow.
I practically saw dollar signs flash in my boss' eyes, before he reeled back, and folded his arms. "I sense a 'but' coming on."
"Indeed. But, and I cannot stress this enough, your employees are to be given every respect and accomodation they ask for, and that is legally required by Equestrian law. We ponies take labor very seriously. A happy and healthy worker gets more done." She smiled, satisfied.

..

"Sure, whatever." Burlane snorted. He set his square jaw, and clenched it, so I could tell he was pissed with this development.
And when he got pissed, he started to plan.

Once upon a time, the department I worked at was actually more than three people and the worst boss ever. It was a robust team of employees that actually gave a shit, until the CEO brought his nephew, Burlane onto the team. He didn't initially start out his career at this particular department, but after a particularly nasty strings of resignations citing a "hostile work environment" in the higher echelons of management, the CEO shoved Burlane into middle management and proceeded with the damage control as opposed to any actual restitution. The rest of our team eventually started to be quietly worn down, as Burlane's horrible attitude grated our ears.

And then he started to sabotage us.
It was never proven true, but the team started seeing negative marks our performance reviews for things we may or may not have done. Whenever someone pissed Burlane off, he got quiet and started to plan a way to sabotage that person's work, and then that person was either fired for some reason, or jumped ship before it got worse.

And then it was just us three, me and my boys, sticking together and lifting each other up. The only reason we had survived under Burlane for this long was because we all started to develop paper trails of each other to prove we were all up to par. Ever since then, we've been at a tense stalemate, and with the job economy being as fucked as it is, we would be just as fucked as he would be if we all lost our jobs.

So there we all were, stuck at a stalemate until a weak chain link could be broken in the de-fence. All Burlane had to do was wait until he had something he could spin into a valid reason to fire just one of us, and the other two would follow suit eventually. But at long as he left us alone, we did too, and didn't complain about his tendencies to anyone higher up. It had worked, up until now.

Which is why I was absolutely terrified to become a full-fledged dragon. He could absolutely spin my transformation into "use of illicit drugs" or something.
I was raised human, built my ideals on human thoughts, and unemployment was a fate worse than death in the American economy.

At least your loved ones could collect life insurance if you played the cards right.

Though, it'd probably all be used to pay for the funeral costs.
Some days I wish I had Jer's optimism.

4: How Lucky Am I, That I Can Afford To Be Alive?

Author's Note

Content warning: This chapter contains actions approaching an eating disorder and allusions to transphobia, abuse, and suicide!

Anyways enjoy funny dragon tf

4: How Lucky Am I, That I Can Afford To Be Alive?

The cold of the New York winter can kill. I knew it would to me. I huddled up in my corner of the subway, hoping that the lack of direct exposure to the snow wouldn't kill me. Cold blooded, I had forgotten about that aspect of being a dragon.
I heard the sounds of footsteps and radio chatter, a police officer was nearby. I kept quiet. The only thing that would suck more than death by cold, would be death at the hands of a cop. The cold is at least impartial, and doesn't care. The cop? The cop would care. He'd care so much about killing me he'd brag about it for years to come. The dragon slaughtered by a pig. What bitter fucking irony.
The wind howled like a banshee, and snow somehow began to come in from the tunnels. I heard some sick song come towards me, and I looked up to see a lady of death slowly approaching, howling that miserable tune that sounded like my alarm.

My alarm?

I jolted up and shut off my alarm. I was on my bedding, curled up, in Twilight's Castle.
A nightmare. Fucking, duh, of course.

Doesn't stop my heart from pounding.

I grabbed my dream journal. I liked to see what my psyche had to say to me. "Had a dream where I was homeless in New York City and was a full fledged dragon dying of cold," I wrote down.

It was obvious what that was about. I gave a humorless laugh. I didn't even live in New York.
I looked at my claws. Would this entire thing be worth it? Probably.

But the darker thoughts swirl in like a thunderstorm, and cloud my vision.
What if I become a dragon before I get back to America? What if I try to apply for a job and no one hires me because, well, who'd hire a fucking dragon?
What if the police accuse me of identify theft, and arrest me? What if my rights are stripped because in the eyes of the law, I'm not a human? Dragons don't get rights, would they?

What if my transition causes me to lose my job? Burlane would be able to get at Matt and Jer that way. None of us would be able to get a job at all. We still had rent to pay. Would they hate me? No, no, We Dem Boys, we made a fucking pact. But, if they can't live in America, and they leave, would I ever see them again? I know Jer has family in Mexico. Matt would be a drifter, probably, he's train hopped before. But me? I have nothing. If this hadn't happened before our job was done, I'd be fine. Maybe it shouldn't have happened at all, maybe--

A knock on the door clears my thoughts.
"Hey Sal! Breakfast!" Jer calls out.
"Be there in a bit!" I reply.

I considered what Burlane said. That once we got paid, my boys and I would be able to buy a house with the money? Maybe I could delay my transition, stave off on the gems, and then go whole hog once the job was done.

And so I had opted to not eat anymore gems, so that the developments wouldn't get more obvious. They still continued, regardless, but now that my magic had to keep my scales alive, the growths had gotten exponentially slower.

At least it was Wednesday. The week was already halfway over. I got up to go to work.

Friday.

Day two of no gems. I could tell it was bad for me to do this, on account of the wooziness and headache, but I didn't wanna risk it. Being slightly unhealthy with a job was something I was willing to tough through.

Twilight said she had to go teach her new student today, some pony by the name of Starlight Glimmer. She entrusted the work to us once again, and I sat down at my computer to start.
I could do this.

Saturday.

We had the day off, and Spike joined me and the boys to go bowling. The entire time, Jer and Matt were making references to GTA IV, joking around, "Let's do some bowling," and "I don't want to go fucking bowling!" despite very obviously being at the bowling alley, bowling.
My head throbbed. I just wanted to sleep.
Spike looked over at me.
"It's your turn, Sal." He called. I got up, and the world bent inwards for a second. I grabbed my ten pounder bowling ball, and found it felt more like twenty. I rolled the ball down the lane with no regard for spin, technique, or even aiming.

It immediately hit the gutter.

Tuesday. Week two.

Spike took me down to one of his favorite restaurants, Sugarcube Corner, which was run by that pink menace from before. They seemed to be primarily a patisserie, but they had some rudimentary breads and whatnot. I stared down at the muffin, feeling apathetic towards it.
"Dude, you okay?" Spike asked me.

"Sal?" He asked again.
"Huh? Oh, I'm fine."
"You don't look fine." He said with suspicion.
"Okay, look, I just-"
"When did you last eat a gem?"
"Last uh.. last .. Friday?" I lied.
"What? Why?!" He asked.
"I was trying to slow down the transformation.."
"That's not a good idea. You're supposed to eat them daily, Sal."
"I know, but, look."

He glared at me.
"If Burlane fires me, I lose my work visa, which means I won't have access to any gems whatsoever. This is just me.. pacing it out, trying to keep my job going so I don't lose this altogether."
His frown grew deeper, and he sighed. "I guess that makes sense. But you're part dragon now, you need to at least eat enough to sustain yourself."
"I'll have one soon, okay? I just wanna.. keep this under wraps."
"At least eat normal food too."
"I'm doing that!"
"Really?" he raised a brow. "That muffin of yours doesn't look very eaten at all."
I took a bite, and grumbled, "See? Just fine!"

I swallowed, and found that I was not fine. My stomach started to perform a acrobatic fucking pirouette off the handle. I gave a thumbs up and a fake smile.
He huffed a sigh and got back to his cupcake.

Wednesday, week two.

I couldn't read the words on the page. My vision warped and doubled. I clambered out of the room, and struggled my way back to my bedding.

Thursday, week two.

I was keeled over on the toilet, puking up my last meal. Matt and Jer stood in the doorway, concerned. I hacked, wheezed, and then laid against the cool crystaline wall.

"When was the last time you ate a gem?" Matt asked.
"I dunno. Last week, I think." I gasped.
"Dude, that's not healthy. Twilight said you needed them to survive." Matt frowned.
"I know, I know but, if Burlane finds out, he'll fire me."
"Would he..?" Jer questioned my line of thinking.
"He fired Jo-Ann for her transition, man," I groaned, "I know the official reason was her 'slacking off and browsing Reddit', but he didn't have any issue until she came out."

The boys sucked in air through their teeth.
"Look, Sal, you have a point, but you're like, dying." Jer said, and he squat next to me, holding up a gem. "Spike said you need to eat this, like now. Or you'll die."
"And if YOU die..." Matt growled. "Y'know.." He pointed at himself and Jer.

Oh yeah, right. I forgot. I nodded, accepting that I'd eat it for them, if nothing else.
I grabbed it, and felt that desperate craving again. I put it in my mouth, and sucked on it. That sweet taste filled my senses, and I suckled on it like candy, letting it trickle in slowly.
My senses returned to me. I felt better. They smiled.

Saturday again, week two.

"Your development has slowed down. Pretty significantly." Twilight observed as she took notes.
"Yeah."
"How many gems have you been eating daily?" She asked.
"Uh.. I haven't had any since Thursday."

She looked up at me in shock. "You're not supposed to do that!"
Well that confirms it. If a goddess of knowledge and friendship, and surrogate mom to a dragon, tells you you're not supposed to do something, she's probably right.

Even then, though...

"We told them that already." Jer said from his computer across the room. He had a gem on his desk, and a recently procured barcode scanner. He seemed to be futzing around with the two, studying a book on gem's magical properties. He looked up at me, disappointed.
The gem looked really, really good. My stomach rumbled.

"I know, I know, but I'm in a bind where if Burlane learns I'm transitioning species, he's gonna try and use that to fire me. I lose my sponsored visa, and then I'm double fucked because I won't have access to gems at all."
Twilight grimaced, and shook her head. "You need to talk to me about these things. I can figure something out if you like."
"No, no, I'll be okay. I'll be fine. I just.. if I can handle it till the project is done, I'll quit and.. move here or something. I dunno."
She tapped her hoof to her chin thoughtfully. "I suppose that's understandable.. but I don't like it. Can you please at least have another gem, for now?"
"Hey, actually, yeah. Take the one I'm using, I can get another later. You need it. Catch!" Jer tossed it over to Twilight, who caught it in her magic.
She floated my next dose to me. I sighed, and accepted. As long as it didn't accelerate the growth.

"Spike cares about you, you know. He really hates to see you starve. "
"I know."
"Do you care about Spike?"
"I.. I do."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"Cuz I didn't expect to start turning into a dragon a few weeks ago. I'm running on improv here, and I wanna at least come out the other side ready for the potential fact that I might not be employed next year."

She huffed, angry with something. Probably me. "It's obvious this is hurting you. And it's going to keep hurting you and everyone you love if you keep this up."

I kept the gem, but didn't eat it.

Wednesday, week three.

My horns had grown a little from that gem on Thursday, so I opted for having a bit of gem dust instead. I had crushed the gem Twilight gave me and licked some every other day, and while it didn't feel like I was dying anymore, it was still not enough for my dragon blood. I was back to being horridly woozy.
"Dammit." I growled as I looked myself in the mirror. I bared my teeth at myself, and found an immense quantity of gender feelings. Those teeth looked fucking spot on for what I wanted. I heaved a sigh. Maybe I could go for gem dust twice a day..?
I nodded to myself in the mirror, and they looked miserable.

Later that night, I went to go chill with Spike again. Matt was studying magic with Twilight and that other mare, and Jer was seemingly lost in a book on magical engineering. So, I ended up chilling with Spike.

"You look a bit better," he grumbled. "But I swear, if you don't keep up your gem intake.."
"Why do you care?" I snapped, stupidly. He looked rightfully upset.
"Because you're the only other dragon friend I know and I don't want you to die?! SHEESH!"
"..Sorry."
He sighed really hard. "It's fine."

I hated hearing that. I hated making him upset, but this was a delicate balancing act I was in. He'd heard my reasons already. I'd heard his arguments. He dropped the topic.

"..Can I see your hoard?" He asked.
I smiled for the first time in a good while. "Hell yeah."
We went up to my room. My head spun with each step.

"...and so this album, The Moon and Antarctica, was the starting point of Modest Mouse's work under an official label, and at the time a lot of fans were worried that the authenticity of their rawness and emotion would evaporate under the siren's call of big money, but nowadays it's agreed to be the best album yet."

Spike paid rapt attention to my ramblings, seemingly genuinely interested in what I had to say. "And what do you feel about it?"
"Well, I'm no Anthony Fantano, so I'm not about to give their most critically acclaimed album a B-tier, but it's not my favorite. That would actually go to Strangers To Ourselves, which was the second to last album. To me, that was the perfect blend of production and..."

Next thing I knew I was on the floor, and Spike was hunched over me.
"Sal! Sal!!"
I looked up at him.
"How many claws am I holding up!?"
"S.. seven.." I moaned. My head was pounding.
"Oh, thank Celestia.."

He relaxed and lay down next to me. We stayed quiet, but I could tell from the grip on my scales that he was more than worried by now.
He was scared.

I was too.

By the end of the third week, Spike had enough.
"Sal!" He shouted, carrying what was definitely a small cup full of gems towards me. "I gotta talk to you, right now!"
I tensed up, and almost made to run, but he was already up in my grill.
"Why in Tartarus are you still starving yourself?!" His wings flared and his fins seemed to spread wider.
"I'm not--"
"Yes you are! Snap out of it!! You can't just ignore your own body! Every time I've hung out with you these last few weeks, you've been in an awful condition!! You're pretty much killing yourself!!"
"I can't afford to lose my job, dude!! I'm on a sponsored work visa, if I get fired, I get sent back to America!"
"WHO CARES!" He shouted into the air, throwing his arms up in frustration. "Twilight could probably find some stupid loophole or something!"
"My boys might not be able to get a job here, and I can't abandon --"
"Matt and Jer have been worried sick about you too! Twilight's noticed you having trouble at work!! You're in pain, everyone can see it! Stop trying to be stupidly selfless!"
"I, I,"

I mean shit, he had a point, but I still felt queasy about the risks. My life had always been about keeping my head down, not making a fuss, staying quiet. It was easier that way. Spike had enough of my hesitation.

"Sal, I swear to Celestia that if you do not eat these I'm going to force feed you them myself!!"
He had this look in his eyes. His snout curled up into a snarl, bunching up at the base like a dog snout does. His tail lashed side to side.
And then I made a really stupid choice.

I turned tail and ran.

The brain goes into a panic easily. Being chased by a four-foot-five-inch dragon down the streets of a somewhat unfamiliar town makes a brain very panicked, even if that dragon cares about you.

An ancient lizard in my brain screams to run, run and never stop, and I comply. I scramble up a wall, claws dig into wood and thatch, and I make it to the roof.
Scurry across it, jump from roof to roof, hear the shouts and protests of ponies below me, make the mistake of looking behind me. Spike has the advantage, he is like Mario with it, jumping the gaps with ease.
Super Mario, baby! Super FUCKING Mario.

"FUCKING MOVE" my neurons scream. My muscles kick back into gear, and I make to slide down the roof into the street.

Hardcore parkour, I remember the training I took on how to fall, I tuck my head in and roll, my arms and legs take the majority of the bumps and scratches, those scales proving beautifully tough, even when starved.

Starved. I'm starving myself. I'm so, so, hungry. I grow more exhausted. He has the advantage, he's fed, he is stronger. His wings spread from the rooftop, the fucker can fly, another advantage. Adrenaline goes into the afterburners, I'm running on empty.

I wonder if this is how the gazelle must have felt as primordial man jogged towards it for the fifth time on its final day.

He's closer, closer, too close, still flying.

Impact. Pain.

It's a mess of tangled limbs, wrestling me, he has an extra limb. His tail snakes around my legs; his arm, it's stronger, holds one of mine down. He holds the gems in the other. His legs are so damn sturdy. I can see the muscles at work.

He could kill me right now. He looks pissed enough to do it.

My other arm is still flailing out of panic, the last bastion of escape. He tries to feed me them, my arm is too much of a problem, keeping his hand away. Maybe, just maybe, I can-

He pulls back, shoves the gems into his own mouth, and grabs my other arm.

He leans in.

It's a multi-faceted taste. A twisting kaleidoscope, I can't even put words to the flavors. It is the rainbow, and motherfucker, I can taste it.
I can taste his spit, too.

Everything ached.
But it was a dull ache that indicated that the pain would leave in good time. My scales were now up to my shoulders and hips, and all my joints felt re-established. My horns were visible now, poking out of my hair.
I twitched the little nub that was my tail.
I leaned back against the tree I was sitting under.
I looked into the sky, and saw the slow developments of my snout. My nose was poking out a bit more, and my chin was spread a bit more outward and horizontal.

The sun was high in the sky, shaded perfectly by the tree. Ponies and a few other humans passed by, the general din of life a soothing little rhythm to my ears.

"Sal," Spike croaked. "Why?"
I was quiet for a while.
"I'm scared, Spike."
"Do you think you're alone in this?"
"...I guess I do."
"Why?"
".. I'm the only one turning into a dragon in the worlds, man. I'm in a transient state. I'm not Equusian or Earthling. All within the span of a few weeks. I'm not ready. I wanted to slow it down until I was."

Spike was quiet for a bit.
"You wanna know a secret?"
"What?"
"If you wait for the right time, you'll die before it shows up."
"... Yeah.. fair." I groaned.

A few minutes passed before Spike said anything else.
"You know, that chase was kinda fun." He chuckled.
"Really?"
"Really. I didn't expect you to climb the wall like that."
"I know parkour, mothafuckaaaaaaa."
He laughed. We stayed silent for a bit.

"Why'd you even run?" He finally asked.
"Well.. you looked like you were gonna kill me."
"Nah. Everypony would have my head if I killed you. Kick your flank? Yeah, I definitely wanted to do that."
"Mm."
"..I hear humans kill each other often."
"Yeah. The equicide to homicide ratio must be insane. Humans can't go ten years without some armed conflict somewhere."
"Twilight told me it used to be way worse, before Equestria. Lots of nasty stuff, war, torture, hatred.. worse things. Things probably not good to mention in public."

I thought about Matt for a moment.
"Yeah. Worse things. Dunno why Twilight thinks this worldgate shit's a good idea." I screwed up my mouth.
"'Cause the magic of friendship can solve any problem. At least, on this planet, it can."
More silence.

"Just .. don't do this again, okay Sal?" He pleaded softly.
"I won't. You fed the gems birdie style to fix it, dude. Kinda can't top that with a round two."
"Oh, yeah, I bet you'd *~love~* a round two." He elbowed me.
"Pfft-! Shut, the hell, your mouth!" I said, before breaking into laughter with him.
We eventually calmed down and leaned back on the tree to keep on chilling. He placed his claw on mine.

"That Burlane boy's back in town. He's your boss, right?" Applejack asked us.

We looked up from our dinner plates at her. She'd invited us over for dinner with her family, apropos of nothing beyond being a friendly neighbor.

Heheh. Neigh-bor.

"Yeah," Matt answered, scratching his fuzzy facial hair, "But he's a boss in the way that a video game character is a boss. Rude, destroys lives, can be beat with a really specific strategy."
"Not quite a good leader then." Applejack chuckled.
"We didn't even know he was out of town in the first place." Jer frowned. "What tipped you off anyways?"
"Well, he done yelled at my big sister at the train station." She gestured over to the absolute hulk of a lady, who kept quiet. Orchard Blossom, I think her name was. She looked absolutely despondent.

My heart went out to her. This was probably one of her biggest fears made manifest. Mine too, I suppose.
"That young'n don't know th'meanin' o' respect for nopony! Walks around like he owns Canterlot, he does!" Applejack's old lady crowed. "No creature calls my grandaughter a freak n' gets away with it! If I see him again, you bet your bits I'm fixin' to wallop his sorry keister!"
"Can we help?" Matt joked. "Actually, scratch that, he'd fire us, and we can't afford to lose our jobs."
"Now why's that, Sonny?" The old mare asked.
"Dunno if you keep up with the news, lady, but the economy is busted." Matt began. "A big plague hit our country a few years back and everyone had to stay home. Didn't even really work, a huge chunk of the country still got infected. As a result, a lotta jobs got shelved and never brought back. Hence, the whole thing about us trying keep our heads down under that jerk, Burlane."
"Now I reckon y'all've had yer shots?" She eyed us with suspicion.
"Yes ma'am." Jer nodded.
"And rightly so! Wouldn't want no one gettin' my dear sweet grandaughters sick. Why, back in my day, we'd have sold one'o'our kidneys for one o' dem cures, so you whippersnappers oughta be grateful!"
We nodded.

Moving away from the topic, Applejack regarded my claws. "Reckon you found yourself a solution to your dysphoria, huh, Sal? How's yer transition?"
Orchard perked her ears up and looked at me.
I nodded, and pulled my sleeve back, showing the scales off. The little kid - Applebloom? - just said "Whooaaaaaa!"

"It's gonna slow down a bit as more of the gems are dedicated to maintaining what's already transformed, but all of my limbs are draconic now. Torso and head are still a work in progress." I explained.
"Woulda been less of a WIP if you didn't starve yourself." Matt muttered.
"I was scared, okay??" I defended. "You guys are in my corner, but I dunno how the rest of the world would react!"

Orchard Blossom cleared her throat. "Well, I-" she had a deep voice, but I could tell she trained it to be more feminine. "I was scared too, y'know. But.. my family done showed me the world has less power than the ones who back ya up."

Jer nodded. "Hey, yeah, she's right. We got your back, Sal." To that end, my boys slapped me on the back to reassure me.
"And ah sure as shootin' do too!" Applejack nodded. "N' Twilight and Spike, and I reckon the rest of my friends would support you without a second thought. Y'all ain't alone."

I smiled.

I was back at my desk, full steam ahead. Reinvigorated, full, and alive once again. I was catching up on the work I had slowed down on these last few weeks. And I was going a mile a minute.
That's when I noticed something.

Jer wasn't at his desk. I looked around the room and didn't see him anywhere.

"Hey uh, where's Jer?" I asked Matt.
"He was working on a project last night. Slept in." Matt said.
"A project?? What kind?"
"I'm not surprised you didn't notice, you were catatonic. He's on that Michael Reeves shit again."
"No fucking way. He hasn't built a fucked up robot since high school."
"I know, right?" He snickered. "Apparently he ran into that Rainbow lady a few days ago and saw her pet turtle. Tortoise. Whatever."
"Isn't Rainbow a .. professional aviator? Like she's trying out for this country's version of the blue angels?"
"Yeah."
"So how does she care for the tortoise?"

"He can fly." Twilight answered from her desk, going over my work to ensure I was still accurate.
I was stunned.
"No way. You're fucking with me."
"I'm not. I took a gem, enchanted it with a spell, then attached it to these tiny propellers. He's like a little drone."
"You're serious??"
"One hundred percent."
"So, what, he's geeking out about gem enchanting now--" I started to say, but then,

"GUYS!" Jer burst into the room. "I wanna show you something, ven acá!"

Oh he was getting really autistic with this. He only spoke Spanish when excited.
"'Come here'? Why?" Twilight asked.
"I figured out something cool!!"

There was a drone in the room, with a tasty looking orange gem beneath its carriage. To the left was an anvil. Like a straight up, almost cartoonish anvil.
"So, like, logistically, I'm not supposed to be actually reading the books, just transcribing them, but I read that whole thing about how gems can be enchanted via language slash spells and affixed to objects, ¿verdad? Pues, yo.. no, mira."

He picked up the controller, switched on the drone, and then maneuvered it over the anvil. He pressed a button, and the damn thing was lifted up by the gem. He piloted the anvil slowly around the room, then placed it back down, and turned off the drone.

We were stunned.
"How the fuu..!" Matt sputtered.
"It was easy! I read that each gem is like a snowflake, every imperfection and deviation in color giving it a unique signature. From there, it was just a matter of coding an algorithm hooked up to a laser to measure this gem's unique frequency, connecting that frequency to the drone, and then making sure the gem stays put so the connection isn't lost!"
He flipped the drone over to reveal the gem was duct taped to the chassis.

"And this is like one of those cheap thirty dollar drones! By all rights that shouldn't work, but it did!!"
Jer was stomping the ground and waving his free hand a bit, and for a moment I forgot what that behavior signified.

He was stimming. For the first time in half a decade, his autism sparked back to life after being suffocated by American values of normalcy and productivity. He looked profoundly brighter, even, like my budding magic could pick up on the fact that he was suddenly alive again after a time where he just put on a fake smile to pretend he was always okay.

He hopped around in excitement, and he jumped over to us, and we joined in on his hype, the three of us holding each other's shoulders and cheering.
How damn lucky am I that I lived to see this happen?

Matt was still trying to learn how to do magic. No matter how he flicked his hands, though, the apple would not budge off the table.

"This would be easier if we turned you into a unicorn." Starlight said. Twilight seemed kinda indignant about that remark.
"Yeah, I bet you solve all your problems like that. Just warp my bones! Make me walk weird, it's FIIIINE." Matt sarcastically cheered.
"I dunno dude, I'm handling it pretty well." I smirked. "Sounds like a you problem."
He smiled and flipped me the bird.

"I know you're doing well on your studies, I just don't know why you're not able to conduct any magic through your body.." Twilight mused. Matt joined in, scratching his chin again.
"Probably the same reason we use planes to fly. We just don't have the tools built in. And if that's the case .." Matt moved over to where that big ass branch was sitting.

"You kept that?" I asked.
"Duh. Big ass stick? It's what all the greatest wizards use. Dresden. Gandalf. Merasmus. Taako from TV."
"Taako had an umbrella." I pointed out.
"Still a big ass stick." Matt countered.
"Touché."

"You're suggesting an implement?" Twilight tilted her head. "To compensate for your lack of a natural magic outlet.. That's.. huh. That makes sense. Give it a try!"

Matt held the staff aloft and made the face of a wizard attempting a big spell. My draconic blood picked up on power gathering upon his staff; He sucked in a big air of breath, before slamming the stick down with intent, and shouting, "MOVE!", projecting his voice so that it echoed throughout the room.

The apple was whole and sitting on the table one moment, and vaporized against the wall the next.

...

"Well, you have the power, it seems. Next, we can focus on controlling and metering out that power!" Twilight smiled, "Spike, could you please..?"
"On it." Spike got up from his bean bag and went to hunt down a mop. I followed.

As we left the room, I heard Matt cackle, mad with power, the sound echoing like a villain in his lair.
"That doesn't sound good.." Spike mused.
"He'll recover. He was like this when he first went hunting for food."
"What, like, hunting-hunting?"
"Yeah. Nailed a buck, skinned its fur for warmth, ate the meat."
"Don't you all live in that United States place? There's food everywhere there!"
"Yeah, but for a while, Matt was homeless in the rural parts. His dad.. he died of lung cancer, and left the house he owned to his shitty girlfriend at the time. Left Matt nothing but his hunting supplies. It took us a good two years to rescue him and get him to where we live now. Economy shit."
"Wow.. what a jerk!"
"You don't know the half of it. I'm pretty sure the will included the statement, 'Go learn to be a man.' Real piece of work, that guy. Doesn't even top the things he did to Matt."
"Like...?"
"Things not good to mention in public." I frowned.

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."
"He's still here, at least. He stuck around for Jer and me."
".. And is it the same for you?"
"Yeah. My boys kept me going. None of us would be alive without the other two. We made a pa- a promise. A promise to.. y'know, not beef it."
"Were you.. suicidal..?" He gingerly asked.

I stopped walking, and sighed. Spike stopped and turned to look at me.

"Yeah. Tried once, because I thought I'd never make it to my twenties anyway," I quietly continued, "and some days, I still don't think I'll make it to twenty-five."

Spike gave me the manliest hug he could muster. "Don't say that." he whispered.
"Well I'm still here, for now."
Not exactly the smartest thing for me to say. Spike looked up at me with a mixture of rage and sorrow. I could see the words in his eyes, burnt up by emotion and mixed into an incomprehensible pile of ashes. I returned the hug, and tried to answer the unspoken bequest.
"I'll try. That's all I can really promise to anyone."
"Thanks. If you.. did that, I'd.."
"Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry."

We stayed there, hugging, and forgot about the apple stain for a while.

5. I'm Just Gonna Wait For the Nausea To Set In

Apparently the internal organ structure of dragons is different to humans.

Like, duh, right? But the TF artists on furaffinity never thought about the inevitable and abrupt restructuring of organs, glands, and hormones that would come when the transformation reached the torso.

Well, maybe a few freakish outliers did, but I hadn't met them. Regardless, the majority of my transformation had been adjusting my extremities, and only now had the transformation begun on the insides.

To that end, I was sick, cranky, and in a lot of pain. I had attempted to go to work that day, but Spike and the boys took one look at me, nodded to each other, and dragged me out of the office into my room.
They plopped me down on my floor bedding, sat a laptop nearby, and put on a marathon of various detective shows - Twin Peaks, Columbo, Monk, House M.D., and HBomberGuy.

Spike knocked on the door, and I gave a gruff heave of welcoming. He padded his way in, sat down next to me, and said, "Feeling any better?"
I shook my head. "Figures," he let out a small chuckle, "Nobody really knew how this was gonna go down. Here."

He placed down a small bowl of gem dust in front of my face. "You don't have to eat it immediately - but it'll help. I think. If your body is just reacting to the clash between your dragon stuff and human stuff, speeding up the process will probably help."
"Hhrgghhh."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, you don't want it to get worse. But it's going to, before it gets better."
"Hrrnngn."
"Oh, quit whining, big bro knows what's best."

It was always a weird mix of feelings when he pulled the draconic authority card. Especially because it always worked so damn well. I quit my rumbling and craned my neck forward to reach the food - OW!

I heard a loud popping sound come from my neck, and Spike looked at me.
"Oh. Yeah. Right. Dragon necks are longer than human necks.."

Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, there was ABSOLUTELY another bone growing in there. My spine had just split open to make room. Ow! Fuck!
"You're okay, right? Flip me the bird if you're okay."

I slowly raised a fist to Spike and flipped him off. He chuckled again, relieved. "Okay, good to know you're not paralyzed.. But you probably don't wanna move, huh?"
"Mm-nm." I agreed.
"Okay, here."
He reached his claw into the bowl of dust, scooped some out, and held it up to my snoot.
My eyes rolled to him slowly in a deadpan.
"Oh, c'mon, you're not above this and you know it, big guy."

I wasn't, but it was always fun to be a bit of a brat about it first. Even if I was in pain. Walter Rabbit once said sometimes a laugh is the only defense we have. Maybe. It was hard to really think clearly.

My nostrils, stretched out far enough from my face to be visible in the center of my vision, twitched when they caught the scent of the dust. It smelled so damn good. Imagine a Thanksgiving dinner, but each dish was from places like New Orleans or Mazatlan. And those cities had gone through the nitrous cycle to be eaten.

So sue me for not being able to come up with a good description, I was in pain, and crystalized magic smelled and tasted amazing.
I suppressed a sigh, lest the dust get blown away, and licked it from Spike's palm.
In response, my neck jutted out a bit more, revealing that my body was not satisfied with just One New Vertebrae. I let out a pained whimper, and Spike pulled his claw back a bit.

Desperate to get this over with, I reached out further, my neck muscles flaring up, to get at the gem dust again, only to feel a third bone growing.

This wasn't like the tail. The tail only had one direction to accommodate for, outwards away from my ass, but this was introducing new bones into a place that already had em. I could feel the muscles sandwiched in between the new vertebrae, and it SUCKED.

My claws grabbed wildly for something to scratch at, instinct responding to the pain as if I was in danger. I felt them dig into something, and gripped, and Spike flinched. "Ow- hey- ow - Sal, Sal, Sal, that's my leg, ow," he hurriedly whispered. His own claw flinched from the pain, dropping the scooped up shards on the floor.
I was in too much pain to acknowledge what he said. My breathing quickened again, my abnormal heart rate going up and down, trying to find the right pace for my bloodstream.
Spike grabbed the scruff of my neck, and squeezed in an attempt to get my attention.

The world went white for a moment. Then, I came down from the shock of pain and felt.. relief. I let out a sigh of pleasure, and let go of Spike's thigh.

"..Sal? You okay, dude?" Spike whispered, gingerly rubbing the slight bleeding on his leg with his free claw.

"Dunno what you just did, but do it again." I grumbled.
He squeezed again. There was a flare of pain and discomfort, a slight squelch, and then relief. "Oh. I think you just need a massage.." He kept kneading my scales, and the pain began to eb out. There was still the ruthless growth of the bones, but that was on par with the pain I felt normally. It turns out that my muscles were being stretched way beyond their limit with the sudden additions and needed manual relief.

"Hey, Spike?"
"Yeah?"
"Make," I paused to groan, "make a note to tell Twilight about this later. If there's others like me, they're gonna wanna know.."

I didn't move my neck, but I heard Spike pull out a piece of paper from his bag, and write it down.

"..What the fuck was I thinking earlier? Walter Rabbit, his name is ROGER Rabbit.." I muttered to myself.
"Huh?" Spike asked in the middle of his work.
"Don't worry about it. Pain messes with my thought process a lot."
"Is.. is that why you were acting strange when you weren't eating? Cause you were in pain?"
"Yeah, probably."

Spike put down the paper and resumed his massage, going from my neck to my shoulders.
"Is it just me, or do you have a tendency to try to ignore the pain you're in..?" He asked.
"I feel like the boys would've noticed that and brought it up.."
"Yeah, but they do it too."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Twilight likes to keep track of your hours worked. You three pulled like, 69 hours of time last week."

"Haaah, nice," I giggled, before Spike suddenly tensed up and dug his claws into my shoulders.
"No! Not nice! You're working way too much!"
"Ow, ow, Spike, Spike, that's my shoulders, your claws are sharp as fuck, ow."
"Yeah, well, you got my leg earlier, and I need you and the Boys to stop working so damn hard!" He squeezed harder.
"Spiiiiike!!" I pleaded, my poor heart racing again.
"Say it! Say you're gonna pull back on the overtime and make sure the boys do the same!"
"Okay! Okay! We'll dial it back!"
"To how much?"
"F-forty five hours max!!"

He finally let go and lay down atop my body.
"Good. I hate it when you're busy with too much work."
"Y.. you do?"
"Well.."

He was quiet for a moment. "Twilight and her friends all get to go around saving the world and solving friendship problems all the time. I was lucky to have such a chance, like, twice.."

I stayed still, hoping he'd continue.
"And every time I try to get closer to them as a friend, it kinda backfires. I know they love me, but.. sometimes I'm like a spare on a carriage with six wheels."

He sounded like he had some really mixed emotions in his voice. "But you and the boys? You just.. you guys seem to like me. I don't just tag along like I do when I'm with Twilight and the girls. You've taken me bowling and to Sugarcube Corner, you talk to me about comics and music and dragon stuff.. and we all hang out whenever you're all free and.. I just want more of that."

He sat back up and resumed massaging, nice and gentle again. "I want more of you around. And I can't have more of you when you're making yourself less."

I was really tempted to get him with a dismissive 'gay'. But that was a heartfelt as fuck moment. I looked back at him, feeling the muscles in my neck getting used to their new positions. Having a neck as long as his was made it easier to look at him sitting next to me.

"Huh. That's a first, I think."
"What do you mean?"
"Like.. besides the Boys.. most folks just wanted me to, I dunno, obey?"
"Like who?"
"My parents."

Spike was quiet for a second. I got worried I somehow offended him, but he scooted closer.
"What did they do?"

I took a deep breath and rested my neck forwards again. "A lot. They.. well.. I guess like.."
"Gimme like, absolute basics. What was the most common occurrence?"
"If I did anything that was 'evil' or 'wrong' or 'demonic' in their eyes, they hurt me. What defined those terms was entirely up to their whims. How they hurt me was also entirely up to their whims. Sometimes my mom would get her nails done at the salon and scratch me with them like a cat."
Spike stopped massaging me.

"Spike?" I turned back to look at him.
He seemed to be looking straight at my shoulders. I craned my neck a bit to see a little bit of welted blood coming up from the scales.
"So.. did I just..?" He hesitantly asked.
"Huh? Oh, no no no, you're okay, you're fine!" I placated, "It's-. You're not them. You didn't know."
"You sure?"

I rolled over onto my back, reached out, and grabbed his claws, and interlaced his fingers with mine. "Don't second guess yourself. If you think I need to work less, then I need to work less. If I have to eat more gems, then I have to eat more gems, even if you get the message across by having to forcefeed me them. You're a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for."

He smiled, squeezed my hands, and then lay down atop my chest.
Ohhohohoohohoo, his scales felt SOOOO nice. Red alert, dragon boy is soft, so soft, red alert.
"Feeling any better?"
"Well, I'm not in absolute agony, so yes. The number one big bro strikes again."
He giggled and adjusted to get comfy in this impromptu snuggle.

Matt and Jer knocked on the door.
"You two good in there?" Jer asked, "I heard shouting."
Spike blushed a bit. "We're fine. You can come in if you want."

So they did.
"Goddamn," Matt exclaimed, "there's two lounging lizards now!"
Spike and I looked up at him with a deadpan.
"Think you just accidentally pulled a microaggression, Matt." Jer said, moving into the room.
Matt placed a hand to his chest and turned his nose up. "I regret nothing."
Jer snorted and looked back to me. "You feeling okay, Sal?"
I gave him a thumbs up, opting to stay silent as I pressed my snout into Spike's back.

Ooh. He smelled nice, too.
Spike rumbled softly, before sitting up, and raising up my head with a claw to show off my neck.
"We figured out why they were in pain. Turns out their neck was growing in length.
"New bones in there.." I muttered.
"Ohhhh.. explains the shouting. That must've sucked."
"Yyyyeah. Yeah," Spike hesitantly agreed, realizing how weird it would be if the boys found out we clawed each other.

"Are you bleeding..?" Matt pointed to Spike's thigh. Speak of the devil, I guess.
"Oh, that! Sal clipped me with their claws when their neck was really growing, cause the pain was freaking them out. Don't worry, I've had worse."

Matt and Jer looked at each other. I knew why, it's because anyone who says they've 'had worse' means it. They looked to me for confirmation, and I made a face and made the 'so-so' gesture with my claw. They nodded and changed topic.
"Well, anyways, it's lunch. You two want anything?"
"Get me a half dozen donuts from Sugarcube Corner." Spike immediately replied. "Tell Pinkie it's for Spike, she knows my usual."
"Oh, oh, right, hey, Boys," I snapped my claws, "New executive order - Spike's been wanting to hang with us more-"
"Awww, does the Big Man miss us when we're working?" Matt said endearingly yet sarcastically.
Spike looked indignant, but before he had a chance to reply, I said, "Yeah, actually, so I'm putting forth the motion that we work less overtime. All boys in favor say Aye."
"Aye." Matt and Jer said in unison.
"Was kinda getting sick of staring at books in candlelight for twelve hours a day anyways. Now what do you wanna eat?" Matt pointed at me. ".. If you even can.."

I rolled onto my back and mused on it.
I was still queasy and not really in a mood to eat food that wouldn't melt in my mouth. But on the other hand..
"If there was like, Burger Crystal, that would hit the spot."
Spike snorted. "That doesn't really exist."
"Then, yeah, no, not really in the mood for solids right now. I'm just gonna snack on this gem dust Spike gave me." I said.

"Suit yourself. Just don't die, alright." Matt pointed at me. I raised up a hand into the air in a lazy thumbs up.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I remember the pact."
"What pact?" Spike asked Matt as he left. He then turned to me.
"What pact." He repeated, nudging my prone body.
"Too queasy to talk about it in necessary detail. Remind me to tell you later." I grumbled.
He squinted at me. "Pinkie Promise."
"Yeah, yeah, I pinkie promise -"

"Ah-ah-ahh! You gotta say the words!" Pinkie said, making my entire spine jolt.

I screamed very bravely and shot up into the air, where my claws dug into the crystal ceiling. I clung there, while Pinkie approached me on suction cups.
"Bwugh," I said, intelligently.
"Wowza! You're coming along great in your dragon replacement therapy, Sally Wally!"
"Don't. Don't call me Sally."
"Carmy Marmy?"
"No."
"Sal-a-mandy?"
"Sto- actually. Hm."

Pinkie looked at me with big round eyes expectantly.
"Okay, Sal-a-mandy is fine. But how the hell did you hear us, and why are you involved in a Pinkie- oh. nevermind."
"Well, duh! I'm Pinkie! And you promise!"

"Yeah, but in human cultures, a Pinkie promise means we like, -" and here I dug out a claw to wiggle my pinky finger around, "swear on the pinky finger. I guess it's assumed that it gets cut off or something if the promise is broken, I dunno."
"Hhhuh. I think I like my promise better." Pinkie giggled. "And as for how I know, I have pinkie sense! For example, see how my tail's all twitchy?"

It was.
"That means something's gonna fall!"
"Like whaAAAAAAAAT?!"

It was me. Luckily, Spike had the foresight to move the guest bed right under me, preventing any bones from breaking. I bounced majestically on it then slid off the side down to the floor, my legs still resting on the edge, and my head on the ground.
"Ow."
Pinkie bounced down onto the bed and landed like she was made of air.
"So! The words are, 'cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!'"

Oh heyyy. That was the thing Applejack did during my first day of work. Sheesh, that was a month ago now. I grumbled, performed the ritual, and from my prone form I saw Pinkie peer over the edge of the bed with a big grin.
"Okie dokie lokie! Now remember to tell Spike later, or else!"
She bounced off the bed, and stopped on her way out the door.
"Oh yeah! Spike!"
She dug into her fucking hair and pulled out a box of donuts. "Herrre ya go! I was feeling a wobbly left forehoof and a sniffly nose, so that meant that a very special dragon wanted his usual!"
"Oh, awesome!" He handed over some bits to Pinkie in exchange for the food, and then she was gone.

"Don't mind Pinkie," Spike said with a mouthful of donut, "You get used to it."
"It's fine, she's acting on rule of comedy."
"Rule of what?"
"Y'know, she can only do things if they're funny. Rule of toon."
"Well, who's it funny for..?"
"I dunno, but like.. if this were a cartoon, someone would be having a laugh at my expense." I groaned, righted myself, and looked out the window of my room to see a blue pegasus with a purple mane rolling in the air laughing. She caught herself, sheepishly waved at me, then flew off.

Then the nausea came back, amplified by Pinkie's shenanigans.
"Augh. Oh, no."
I held a claw up to my mouth and tried to find a proper receptacle for puke. The window was right there, sure, but you never know who could be passing by.
Case in point, I looked out there and saw Princess Motherfucking Celestia having a chat with Twilight.
I leaned back before my stomach had the chance, and Spike saw my green face.
"Bathroom?"
"Bathroom."

I don't know when we got there, but it was in the nick of time. I hurled, and what came up wasn't pretty. That's all there really was to say on the matter.

I returned to my floor bedding and curled up, groaning in newfound discomfort. Between the sudden adrenaline rush, the strain of hanging upside-down on the ceiling, the subsequent fall, and the puke, I was back to square one in terms of muscle ache.

Groaning, I rolled onto my belly and rested my head on my arms.
"Hey, Spike," I huffed, "What're the odds you continuing that massage for me?"
"Sore again?"
"So sore."

"..Could you take off your shirt?"
"Hhghuh?" I blushed.
"I can massage you more easily without it." So did he. Okay. NOW was the perfect time to hit him with, "That's gay, bro."
"Pffha! Like you weren't getting a whiff of me earlier, bro." He grinned.
"Like you weren't clawing the shit out of my shoulders like you were intensely mating me, BRO."

Spike burst into laughter, and I couldn't help but join in, even tho my stomach voiced some complaints as a result.

The laugh eventually tapered off and we calmed down. "Okay, okay," He said, "Now come on. Take off that shirt before I burn it."
Aw heeeelllll no, this was merch from an obscure indie band that I saw once at a bar in Colorado. One that faded into obscurity that one could never recover from.
It was priceless.
I took the shirt off, tossed it into the drawer where my clothes went, and flopped back down onto the bedding.

I could've sworn I saw him lick his lips, but before I could process that, he went back to making dough out of my body. I groaned as he mostly focused on the muscles in my shoulders, grunting in contentment.

Spike started humming a little song, and suddenly my brain booted back up. "Animals Crying by Statues of Cats." I said.
"How did you know that?" Spike stopped.
"I'll be damned if I'm a dragon that doesn't appreciate their own hoard's contents."
Spike chuckled and got back to work, humming a different song. My eyes perused over the multitude of shelves worth of music, and silently contemplated which song he was humming now.
"Hm.. Elizer's Waltz by Disparition."
"Damn! I thought you'd get it mixed up with the other version."
"Nah, the original is a lot more waltz-y in rhythm."
"I'm surprised you listen to Welcome to Night Vale."
I chuckled. "I don't, actually. I just really really like Disparition."
"Awww, whaaat? But fictional podcasts are like comics for your ears!"
"Matt likes Night Vale. Big fan of Joseph Fink's prose."
"Really?"
"Yeah. He'd probably gush to all fuck about the villains."

We played that little musical guessing game for a while, him humming a song as he squished my muscles, and me successfully guessing every time. I was like some musical version of Akinator with it. By the tail end of the massage, I was finally in less general pain, and scarfed down some gem dust. I kept it down and finally felt the generalized sickness come to pass.

He squeezed into a particularly pleasant knot, and giggled again. "Okay, lemme try another."
He then took a deep breath, and hummed for a very long time. I strained my ears to try and notice any details, but the drake was definitely going for ambient. A toughie. But then I listened in closer, and registered a soft rhythmic clicking noise. From there, I tried to recall anything that was ambient with that specific rhythmic beat.

"..Lighter Based Thamic Rendering by Gallimaufry."
"Okay, come on! That's supposed to be super obscure! How have you listened to anything from Gallimaufry?!"
"How have you?"
"Oh, the last time some teen dragons passed through here, one of them gave me a copy. Told me to, 'Listen to some real dragon music'."
"Daaaaammnn. Kinda wack."
"To be fair, I haven't listened to much dragon music. Anyways, how do you know about it??"

Well, fuhhHhuuuUuuUCK, ough, what is that knottttt,?" I groaned as Spike hit a particularly sore spot with his knuckles. He stopped, and gingerly explored the spot below my shoulder blades, and I recognized that he was touching a developing second set of the shoulder blades.
"Oh, damn, your wings are gonna come in soon." He said.
"Whhhhaaaat..?"
"Yup. You'll be growing these bad boys soon enough." He flexed his wings, and. Gods, they we're so pretty. I could see the anatomy, how muched they looked like arms stretched out for the purpose of flight. Thin, leathery webs of skin were made slightly translucent in the sunlight coming in from the window, allowing me to see all the blood vessels inside. I absentmindedly touched one of them with a claw, and Spike sheepishly grinned, very much aware of my awe.

"I haven't learned how to really fly with them. I can take off, glide, and on a good day, land properly. Twilight tried teaching me, but, you know how she is."
"Oof. Yeah. More theory than practice."
"Yeah. And even though she can be a great teacher, it just hasn't worked for me."

"Well, to be fair.. her aerodynamics are different."
"How?"
"Flying ponies have feathers. Like birds. The feathers do half the work for them because they passively generate lift. It's a similar principle to how airplanes work."
"..Hhhuh. So, how would I go about flying without feathers?"
I sat up, and shrugged. "Probably like a bat. Since birds and pegasi don't need to put as much work in, they don't need to bend the joints as much."

I tried to demonstrate this by holding my in arms aloft and waving via only the shoulders. "Bat wings have to kinda.. trap the air and push it. So they bend the joint inward on the downswing to gather that pressure and push it."
I think did the same motion, but bent my other joints along with it. He stretched one wing out, and mimicked the motions. Then, he jumped, gave his wings a flap,

"WOAH-!" He said, before bonking his head on the ceiling, and landing directly on top of my gormless ass.
"Ow."
"Ow." He agreed.
We stayed there, one dragon atop the other, groaning.

"Oh my," said a new voice.
Spike and I looked up to see Princess Fuckmothering Celestia in the doorway, standing next to Twilight, who looked completely stunlocked.

You know. My parents are complete whackjobs. Always told me as a kid that one day I'd meet God as part of my little life story.
They were technically right, but they never specified which one.

Princess Celestia nearly blinded my blood, she was chock full of bright magic. Standing next to Twilight, the two of them radiated power nigh unlimited, and suddenly I understood exactly why every single other country on Equus closed its borders.
The only thing stopping Equestrian world domination was Celestia's sense of decency.

"AGGK-!" Spike sputtered, "MOM!? I-It's not what it looks like!!"

OHHH, FUCK ME, THAT'S RIGHT, SPIKE MENTIONED THAT CELESTIA RAISED HIM.

I tried to get up and make some form of bowing motion, only for my claws to get twisted in my blankets. Spike, in turn, tried to get off of me, only to get tangled up as well. We struggled to escape the prison of our own making, before I suddenly heard Celestia burst into laughter. Spike and I stopped for a moment, watching the Goddess of the Rising Sun crack up at the sight of two drakes tangled in blankets. Stomping a hoof, wings flared, head pulled back in uproarious guffaw. Twilight looked up at her mentor with a sparkle in her eyes.
Pun intended.

Her warm, gentle, intricate magic surrounded the both of us and gently set us free.
We were set down on the floor gingerly, standing up in front of her, and Princess Celestia smiled warmly, wiping a tear from her eye with a wing.
"Thank you for the laugh, my little dragons."

Well, there's worse first impressions to make. Celestia turned to look at me head-on.
"You must be Sal Carmine Manchester."
"A- hh- hhyup! Yep, sure that's me, your highness-!" I tried to give a bow, but she stopped me.
"There's no need for formalities, Sal. A friend of Spike's is a friend of mine."
"Oh- okay," I nodded. "So, what uh, what brings you down here from Mount Olympus?"

With a head that tall, it's no surprise my joke about the Greek Gods didn't fly over her head. She stifled another giggle, and said, "Well, my dearest Twilight had told me that a human that was helping with her archiving project had been turning into a dragon, and I simply wished to see the results for myself." She wrapped a wing around Twilight, who gave a dumb wavery smile in return.

Dearest Twilight?
Oohoohoo, lesbians.. I tucked that particular thought away for later, and focused back on the situation.

"Spike thinks this started because one of my ancestors was a dragon." I wrapped an arm around him and tried to be casual about it.
"Hmm.. Not entirely out of the question." Celestia mused. "There was a time where dragons attempted contact with your world a long time ago."

I raised a fist weakly into the air. "I caaaaaalllled iiiit!"
Celestia tilted her head by like two degrees. "Called it?"
"Sal theorized as such a month ago. If it's more than a thousand years ago, that lines up with a point in Earthling history where a place of great knowledge burnt down and magic was ostracized." Twilight explained.

I heard a set of footsteps approach my room.
"Yo, Spike," Matt called from next to the alicorns, "We got you the donuts."
"Actually, Pinkie stopped by to give me my order." Spike shrugged.
"Oh." Matt looked up at Celestia like she was any other person. "Sheesh, you're WAY taller than they say. Y'want these?" He held the box up to Celestia.
"Ooh, why yes, thank you!" Celestia grinned and took the box in her magic, and ate a whole donut in one bite. Matt had already stalked off back to the office but the time she looked back. "And which one was that, Twilight?"
"That's the one I'm teaching alongside Starlight - Matt Somerville."
"Hm. I appreciate his casual nature. And the other one? The one mixing magic with human machinery?"
"Jerome Martin-Galloway. But everyone just calls him Jer."
Celestia smiled warmly and turned to me. "You three have definitely found the magic of harmony in your own special ways during your stay here. I can only hope it continues to guide you when you return to America."

My face twitched into a frown for a moment.

Celestia had this look in her eye. Oh, she noticed that.
"Tell me, Sal, is something bothering you?"
I made a little groan. Spike looked at me with a worried expression on his face.
"Maybe." I answered.
"We're all here to lend an ear." She gestured to Twilight and Spike, who both nodded. I sat down on the bed and huffed a sigh. Spike sat down next to me.

"I.. I'm worried about going back to America. Even if I don't get fired, outsiders to the status quo aren't treated with the greatest kindness. This whole transformation, it's been great, but it's definitely made me a greater outsider than before. Everyone here is.. well, a lot nicer. America fucking sucks, y'know?"
"Sal! Language!" Twilight chastised me, before Celestia gave another laugh.

"No, I'm afraid I agree, it fucking sucks."
Spike and Twilight looked up at Celestia with baffled expressions on their faces.
"It does!" I exclaimed. "All we do is bomb other countries in the name of 'freedom'! We don't even have healthcare!!"

"While the issue is, a touch more nuanced than you're making it, I will admit that they have attempted to strongarm me and the other Princesses into allowing them to establish a military base on Equestrian soil." She allowed herself an exasperated eyeroll.
I snorted. "Yeah. Typical. I just.. Not even a month ago I thought this place was gonna suck to be in, but.." I looked over to Spike. "Now I don't wanna leave, and I bet my boys don't want to either."

Spike blinked, and then deadpanned, "You're aware that you're talking to the most powerful ponies in Equestria, right? They could just let you live here."
"I know, but that seems like cheating!!" I groaned.
"It's not cheating if we offer it, Sal." Celestia smiled.
"I can absolutely look into obtaining citizenship for you Boys!" Twilight exclaimed.
"Yes, my little Princess of Paperwork here can tackle any legal documentation you throw at her. You're in good hooves."

Twilight giggled and nuzzled her.. probably-girlfriend. Celestia returned the gesture, then looked to me and Spike.
"Unfortunately, Twilight and I have other matters to attend to before I return to Canterlot. It's been a pleasure speaking with you, Sal. Try not to play too rough with my little Spikey, okay?"
"Mooooom!"

I couldn't help but grin. "If anything, he's been too rough with me."
Celestia cackled again as Spike, flustered and embarrassed as can be, proceeded to jab me in the side repeatedly with a claw.

"Hey, Twilight. How long have you been dating Celestia?"
"How did you know I was??"

I gave a shit eating grin. "You just told me."
I got a throw pillow to the face as payment for my detective work.

Author's Note

It's me. I'm the freakish outlier that thinks about these things