Tree Hugger descended the stairs into the basement of the collegiate building. She’d been living on Earth for four months and wasn’t overly impressed with the repressive attitudes of the natives. Thus far, it seemed as if humans were more interested in telling everyone else what not to do, forcing others into conforming to their own twisted ideals of what made a society.

Like the clothing she was wearing. A shirt served absolutely no purpose on a pony, and a pony wearing pants was just plain ridiculous. In Equestria, if a pony chose to wear something, she was most likely headed somewhere fancy. On Earth, clothing was mandatory, regardless of how superfluous or itchy it was.

She arrived at her classroom half an hour early, and wasted no time in discarding the hated garments clinging to her body. There were pillows in the middle of the room and she draped herself over them. Soon the students would show up, and she would be the subject of their artistic visions. For many of them, she figured it would be their first time seeing a pony up close.

She found it humorous that the class was called ‘life studies’. One could waste one’s life studying life; or one could go out and actually experience it. Like her, for example. She’d seen and done things in Equestria, and now she was seeing and doing things on Earth. Life was all about experiences. Today, she was letting others experience a pony for the first time. As much as Tree Hugger enjoyed new things, the joy she felt when others broke out of their own comfort zones was the greatest feeling in her world. Earth, she’d determined, had a lot of closed minds which needed opening.

The first student arrived, a male whose eyes tried their best to open as wide as a pony’s upon seeing her. His colorful tie-dye shirt seemed appropriate for an artist, as did the scraggily beard he was struggling to grow. Tree Hugger picked up good vibes from him – he seemed genuinely curious, hampered by shyness and his own societal norms.

“Like, I’m Tree Hugger.”

“I’m Tucker. Nice to meet you, Miss Hugger.”

“Formalities are so unnecessary, Tucker. Like, can I call you Tuck?”

“Uh, sure. Can I call you Tree?”

“You can, or you can call me Treesy. Treesy is a totally righteous nickname. Am I your first pony?”

“I’ve seen a few ponies around, but you’re definitely the first one I’ve talked to.”

“Groovy. Like, I hope all your expectations have been both met and completely shattered at the same time.”

“Um…” Tucker put a finger to his chin. “I’d say mission accomplished.”

“Way cool, but you need to get more comfortable in your own skin. Like, you’ve got this bright aura trying to shine through but you keep it covered which is like, a total bummer and junk.”

“Get comfortable in my skin… you want me to get naked too?” Tucker took an involuntary step backwards.

Tree Hugger laughed. “Like, only if you want to, dude. Your prof would probably get a kick out of a nude artist who paints in the nude. But what I meant is you need to embrace who you are on the inside and stop hiding yourself. I don’t mean with clothing, but if you want to get rid of it, don’t let me stop you. I can’t stand it myself unless I’m going to the Gala or something else real fancy. You know what I mean?”

“No…”

“Where I come from clothing is optional, and very rarely chosen. It just gets in the way.”

“You have fur.”

“Our coats are actually made up of hairs, dude. If you got closer, you could see that for yourself. I don’t bite, so you don’t need to stand on the other side of the room. I mean, unless you want to, in which case that’s totes cool too.”

Other students started filing into the classroom, and many of them had the same startled reaction to Tree Hugger as Tucker had had. Then the instructor came in and said some things, some of which Tree Hugger agreed with, and others that she didn’t. But it wasn’t her class to teach, so she stayed silent. She was naught but the model for the evening.

For the first half of the class she remained still, lying on top of the pillows. She’d made herself comfortable before the professor showed up, and she wasn’t planning on moving until she absolutely had to. The hardest part was not falling asleep.

Posing for portraits was an easy way to make income, a thing which she begrudgingly admitted she needed. Sometimes her belly craved something different than Earth’s grasses and flowers. Sometimes she wanted a roof over her head for a night. Sometimes she needed bus fare. Mostly though, it was a few hours she could shed her clothing and truly be herself.

That humans could consider something as natural and elegant as their own bodies to be taboo dimmed her aura. She’d seen a few humans sans clothing – she wasn’t always the only model in the classroom. Humans had a completely different look than she was used to. Not bad, just different. For Tree Hugger, different was always good. Diversity, inclusion, tolerance for everyone’s differences. Not conformity. Conformity was merely an artificial construct to fit into repressive societal norms. Society needed to be more accepting of diversity. Everyone pretending to be the same in order to be accepted harshed her vibes.

Halfway through the class the professor asked her to change poses. Tree Hugger had a pose in mind; she pictured a tree and did her best to become the tree. She hopped onto the dais and balanced on one of her hind legs, bent the other behind her, and raised her forelegs above her head. It wasn’t a natural pose for a pony, but Tree Hugger was used to it. She’d been assuming the same pose for years – it had always been a hit in Equestria, and it was just as good on Earth. Perhaps more so, as humans were bipedal so this was closer to their own expectations. In a way it let her be closer to these curious contradiction creatures.

Tree Hugger had long ago learned that the easiest way to hold such a difficult pose was to not think about it. The more she pondered it, the more like she was to lose her balance.

Instead she used the time to study the artists. Tucker was front and center. He looked up periodically, but spent the bulk of his time painting his canvas. She was the muse, and she couldn’t wait to inspect his interpretation. The same was true of his classmates. They’d all look up from time to time, but their attention was focused on their own canvases. She found it funny that she was doing all the studying of life in this ‘life studies’ class, while all the students were doing was painting her. Life was full of ironies like that.

At some point her mind drifted, pretending that her tree pose was instead that of a telephone pole. She imagined all of the various conversations passing through the wires she supported. Her thoughts were interrupted by the professor saying that class was nearly over. Tree Hugger stretched, returned to all four legs, and addressed the professor. “Like, I have two last requests before class ends, dude.”

He was taken aback – models didn’t often make requests, and when they did, it was usually related to what they were uncomfortable with doing. Most models just took their clothes off and posed where he told them to. “Okay?”

“First up, before everybody packs up and leaves, I want to see everybody’s work. I like to see what I inspired.”

Everyone agreed, and she slipped on a robe – yet another requirement if she wasn’t posing. Celestia forbid that the students who’d just spent the last two hours looking at her naked see her naked. Tree Hugger strode around the classroom. Some of the artists had gone for realism, painting her exactly as they saw her. Others had gone abstract. Most were croquis drawings to be finished later, but some of the artists had been inspired enough to finish their works. Those artists had ignored her later ‘tree’ pose entirely to focus on completing pictures of her at rest. Tree Hugger’s favorite was the one where the artist had painted her true to life with one exception – she’d inverted her colors, giving her a burnt orange coat and two-toned green hair. It was realistic and unique at the same time. Most importantly, it gave off good vibes.

Once she was done, the professor asked about her second request.

“Like, this class is all about nude painting, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then I want all of your students to, like, paint me. Like literally and junk.”

He looked at her strangely. “On your body?”

“Yeah, man. I want to like, roll on a canvas, dude.”

At first he wanted to object, especially since Tree Hugger hadn’t provided a canvas to use. But he was an artist first and foremost, and denying another’s artistic vision wasn’t something he wasn’t comfortable with. Before he could even give his approval, she’d slipped out of her robe and one of the students had fetched a blank canvas from the storage closet.

“Like, we might want to do this outside. This is totally gonna get messy.”

The professor was about to protest that the school didn’t allow it, but she was a pony. There was probably more leeway in having a nude pony outside than a nude human. At the very least, there were no rules currently stating that ponies couldn’t be nude on campus. So they all headed outside; as far away from any potential collateral damage as possible. They picked up a bit of an entourage in the process – a pony trotting around on campus was unusual enough to attract attention.

Eventually they wound up in the grassy commons between the library, cafeteria, and one of the dorms. A tarp was laid down, and the canvas was placed in the center. Tree Hugger stood off to one side, and the students began squirting paint on her at random. She was a mishmash of colors, but that didn’t matter to her. It was a familiar sensation, the way she always ended a sitting. She was a muse to others, but her own muse needed to be sated as well. She’d learned that artists would almost always accommodate her. None of them liked to have their own creativity hampered, so they encouraged her. Many of them were just surprised to see a model take an interest in being anything other than the subject of the painting.

Once she was adequately covered in paint, she rolled around. Sometimes she rolled for enjoyment, sometimes she rolled leisurely, and other times she rolled as if her life depended on it. This time she opted to roll around deliberately. Slowly, she contorted her body in ways she thought would make the most impact on the piece. One minute her belly was resting against the canvas, her legs extended in four different directions; the next she was spinning on her back, legs skyward, paint splattering everywhere. Students who thought they’d been far enough away raised their arms to protect their faces.

Tree Hugger pressed her snout into the painting and then rolled one last time for good measure – the canvas was a sloppy mess of colors, completely unrecognizable as a nude portrait. She scooted to the edge of the canvas and stood up.

Tree Hugger’s tail was for all intents and purposes a horsehair brush and it was still dripping with paint. She dipped it into some black paint and signed her name in Equestrian and English both, and capped it off with a hoofprint. When she was done, several students ran up with towels and helped scrub the excess paint off of her.

“What should we do with it now?”

Tree Hugger shrugged. “Like, hang it up in the classroom or sell it and donate the proceeds to charity, man. It don’t matter to me, as long as it’s doing somebody some good.”

The professor handed her an envelope filled with cash and Tree Hugger thanked him. She turned to Tucker. “Want to join me for dinner, Tuck? My treat.”

Tucker said the same thing as any other broke college student being offered free food. “Sure, why not.”

An hour later Tucker found himself in a forest not far from the campus. Tree Hugger was munching on grass and flowers, and had gathered nuts and berries for him.

“Eat up, Tuck. All natural. No artificial ingredients or colors.”

Author's Note

Story notes: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/1048810/story-notes-life-study