It hardly felt like much of a question. Brad wrapped an arm around a mare each, drawing them close. With two gently pressed snouts against his face, he laughed. "How can I say no to that? We're just going a bit fast, I think."

Twilight's ear flicked against his face. "Then we'll slow down. There's no hurry here. There's so much you want to learn, and so much we want to learn too. About this, us, and so much else." She took a slow breath. "But, thank you. I was worried you might get scared away."

Rainbow Charm laughed at that. "Hardly." She prodded him gently near his ribs. "He may be an alien creature, but he's still a stallion, and we're two lovely mares offering what stallions want. He doesn't strike me as the wandering off sort, so why would he say no?"

Twilight huffed at RC. "Don't be crude. Brad is more than his biological sex."

Brad ran his hands over the heads and necks of both of the brightly-colored equines. "In any event, I'm glad to be here." He stood up. "But I'm not sure we could call this ah, you know, marriage? Can different species even do that?"

Twilight moved her hoof as if adjusting the glasses she was not wearing. "Technically, yes. Equestria is home to no few cross-species marriages. Being a world of diverse species, it's hardly surprising that love sometimes finds a way across such borders. We don't have any formal taboo against the process."

"Huh." Brad reached to muss Twilight's mane gently. "You sure know a lot."

"Guilty." She nuzzled against that petting hand. "A guilty habit of mine." With a flick of her tail, she looked around. "I have a book on the matter, if you'd like to read it? It could prove enlightening."

That got a new thought in him. "Can I even read your language?"

RC hiked a brow. "You've understood us so far, and we can read your signs and stuff, so why not?"

Twilight nodded towards RC. "She has a point. It would be strange at this point if you couldn't read our writing." With a glowing horn, she floated a book over from a shelf. "Here, have a look."

Brad accepted the floating book into his grasp and flipped it open. The letters were perfectly standard English ones, though they looked like someone had manually wrote them down, rather than a machine doing the work. "Huh, guess so."

Twilight rested a hoof on his leg. "Then, if you like, take that and enjoy it. It goes over what Equestrians expect from a marriage, what's allowed, and so on. It may prove enlightening." She brought a hoof to her mouth to cough into it. "Relatedly! Foals. I don't think we, um, need to worry about that?"

RC squinted at Twilight suspiciously. "How do you know? He's a stallion, we're mares. Foals happen when those two things get together, especially when everypony involved's pretty happy about it."

Brad colored gently. "Back in my world, there'd be no way that'd work. I don't remember why exactly." He was far from a scientific sort, and the specifics of why genes worked the way they did eluded him. "Do ponies even have genes?"

"46 chromosomes." Twilight inclined her head. "How many do humans have? All Equestrian species have 46, all the sapient creatures that is. Critters, and many monsters, have different amounts. That has led to the 'great speech biology' theory." She blushed then. "I'm rambling, sorry."

It took Brad a few moments to puzzle through that. "I think it's the same amount? Christ." He put a hand at the side of his head. "Does that mean we could?"

Twilight shook her head. "Maybe, but there could be other factors at play. Not every species, even the sapient ones, is compatible with every other one. Scholars are still trying to figure out why this is. My specialty isn't biology, so the specifics elude me. I do know, however, that magic can often be used to smooth out places where biology fails us."

RC stomped a hoof. "This is nice and all, but it doesn't involve us enjoying our new life." She flashed a smile up at Brad. "What do you want to do, my bipedal stallion?"

Brad moved for a window, watching Ponyville move outside with its various colorful residents. "First, I just want to put out that I'm not giving up on Earth. That's a bad human habit I don't plan to pick up on. I have a job there, and I haven't quit it, or been fired from it. So I'm not leaving there. They trust me to be there, doing my job. You okay with that?"

Twilight rubbed sidelong against one of his legs, her eyes through the same window. "Of course. In fact, if you're alright with it, I think we'd both like to take a more active role. You can help us while you're here, and we'll gladly help you while you're there."

"Yeah!" RC hopped up onto the window ledge. "We can talk to your horses. That should be a huge helping hoof to get things done, right?"

Brad tickled RC under her chin, making her giggle and lean in against it. "But you're ponies. If I was alone, I'd have no issues, but most of the people there are going to freak out if they see talking ponies just casually helping out."

Twilight flashed in a bright light, leaving a woman behind. She dusted herself off gently. "There. I've been studying you intently, not to mention some other devices I have." She twisted to look herself over from different angles. "Mmm, more mature than the mirror. I like it." Despite her new bipedal form, Twilight still sounded entirely like Twilight.

RC burst into clopping applause. "Woah! Hook a mare up!" She hopped down from the window ledge, wings flapping. "I wanna be match for Brad too."

Brad was gawking at what Twilight had become. "You're a woman."

"Hm?" Twilight inclined her head, though her human ears didn't perk as she was used to. "I am a female human. I am configured properly, I hope? Nothing out of place?"

"Not a thing," he barely got out in a gasp. "Wow. Um, but can you do that for RC too? She looks ready to explode."

"Right." With a flash, she was an alicorn again, wings fluttering. "It's very hard to do magic when I don't have a horn, so let's go back first. This will be easier if I change RC first." RC was vibrating with excitement. "Hold on." She waved at RC as her horn glowed.

RC felt the urge to stand, so she did, her arms becoming thinner as her legs expanded outwards. She gained the curves of a healthy human female, giggling with excited gasps. "Woah!" She almost fell over right then and there, but Brad caught her.

"My hero." She smooched his cheek as she got herself upright. "Woah... Seriously." She wobbled her arms as she fought to stabilize herself. "Why aren't you toppling, Twilight?"

"Practice." Twilight, back to being human, nodded at Brad. "Now, in this form, we can both lend assistance at the ranch without raising undue alarm, yes?"

Brad was stunned quiet a moment. "Seriously, amazing. But, hm." He fished out his ID and showed it to her. "People back there love to track stuff, including each other. You don't have one of these. You don't 'belong' there."

Twilight squinted at the little plastic card and its information. "I could make one like that? May I borrow this?" She worked his ID out of its safe enclosure and tucked it into a pocket. "I'll give it back when I have one of my own." She smiled at RC. "And one for you too."

"It's not that easy," Brad laughed out. "It's complicated. Man. Look. Actually." He rubbed behind his head. "This is going to sound racist, but Miguel may have an idea how to get around this."

Neither pony turned human seemed to grasp those words, expect Miguel's name. RC pointed off. "He went to Applejack's, didn't he? Oh! Gotta try this." She reached out for Twilight, trying, poorly, to wriggle her fingers in idle scritches.

Twilight burst into laughter. "Humans have a very different skin texture. Scratches do not work the same. I don't think a human could deliver the same scratches to another human." She considered Brad curiously. "Such wonderous digits, but only good for another species? Very curious."

Brad shook his head at the two transformed women. "That's an amazing trick. I don't want you two to think I'm forcing it though."

Twilight held up a hand, though it became a hoof as she fell forward back to all fours. "It was my idea. Now, you mentioned Miguel may have more answers for us, so let's go see how he and Applejack are doing."

RC hopped forward, wings flapping as she hit the ground back on her hooves. "Yeah! I want to actually work that ranch with you, instead of pretending to skulk around. Boring."

They all emerged from the library and headed up the road towards Sweet Apple Acres. Ponies waved as they went, a few bolder ones going right up to say their hellos and maybe get a pet in while they were at it.

RC slipped in near Twilight. "One thing, if we can go human, does that mean we have magic fingers too?"

"Difficult to determine." Twilight put a hoof to her chin, walking on the other three. "We'd have to test on a pony. But that's not what we've come to do today. Let's see Applejack."

They found her posing for Granny Smith, Big Mac, and Apple Bloom. She had on a new outfit. It seemed that Miguel had brought her a whole cowgirl outfit, and she was quite cheerfully showing it off with little laughs. "Check this out." She turned to show a new angle and saw Brad, RC, and Twilight approaching. "Oh, hey there!"

Miguel waved from where he'd been sitting. "Amigo! Applejack loves the gift I got her."

Brad snorted at that. "Glad to see it. She looks adorably goofy." The dress was, ultimately, made for a human woman, not a mare. He could see where it didn't hang properly. "We had a question. They want to help around the ranch, but they're about the most illegal aliens I ever heard of. Any tips?"

Miguel struck Brad, a solid punch right across the face. "Seriously?" He grunted lightly at that. "Anyway. You don't go up to someone and just ask that unless you're, never mind." He threw up his hands. "Odd times. Sorry, I shouldn't get so worked up."

He turned his attention to RC and Twilight, both looking a bit shocked at his moment of violence. "Sorry about that. Look, the ranch has taken on a few undocumented workers before. They get paid the least, and they got no room to argue about it, si?"

Twilight rubbed a cheek with the flat of a hoof. "We don't intend to earn our livings doing this, so that is of little issue. How do we apply to work as 'undocumented' workers?"

"Ay dios mío." He laughed lightly at the mares. "I'll help, the next time we're there, but you're getting ahead of yourself. They may take undocumented humans. But you two--" He paused, struck silent as Twilight rose to two legs in front of him. "Oh."

He looked Twilight over. "I hate to put this out there, but you don't look like what they'll be expecting. Come over here." He led her to the side to go over the specific phenotypes and clothing that would get her and RC in with the least questions asked.

Brad's attention was on Applejack. "So, like it?"

"Sure do." She tipped the new hat. "I'll go back to my usual hat though. It's a personal thin'. Oh, and get Rarity to tailor this to fit proper. Speakin' of, she was lookin' fer you! An' Miguel, for that matter. You two should stop by."

Author's Note

My Internet was feeling bad the day I wrote this, which made everything annoying! I wrote anyway, so there.

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