Iron, Wine, and American Mouths

I thought I'd never live to know a world where hospitals didn't charge you for treatment.

Keyword being thought.
"You're serious? I owe y'all nothin'?"
The lady at the front desk looked up at me with a patient but incredulous expression. "I am serious, Miss Applebake, this is the third time you've asked me. Medical expenses are covered by the crown." She answered. "All we ask is that you stop by in a month for a follow up to make sure your recovery is going smoothly. If you feel sick in any way, pertaining to these injuries and within reason, do not hesitate to call or walk in."

Goddamn!
"Well, I, thank you kindly, ma'am." I said with a smile.
"Just doing our jobs, hon. Have a good day."

I trotted out of the hospital and looked around. Wonder what I could do to find a place to stay for the night? Maybe I'd pull a John Mulaney and start pushing folk around, sayin', "Excuse me! I am gay. I am homeless. I nearly died last week. I'm NEW in town~."

..Nah.
Instead, I made to wander aimlessly about, and as I did, I realized something funny.
I was tall. Real tall, standing at least half a head above every pony I passed, and they all knew it, the way they all kept throwin' their heads around to do a double take. Sometimes, I'd give the folks a casual nod or wave, and that would make em blush and look away, or in the best cases, they'd just wave on back with a smile, like the mail lady pegasus blondie with the cross-eyes.
Friendly place.
Only weird case was a pink-on-pink mare who jumped as high as I was tall, gasped like she never breathed before, then ran off like she was getting chased by the Hunt.

I decided not to dwell on it.
After a while, the gravity of the situation settled in some. I really was a stranger that rode into town, and if everyone kept sayin' I was an Apple family member.. and Applejack was the one that found me on her farm..
Rumor mill musta been flyin' fast.

Actually, y'know what? I decided that I owe that Applejack lady a thanks and apology for that night. So I asked around some, and some friendly ladies running a flower shop pointed me in the right direction.

I passed the gates to "Sweet Apple Acres," hell of a name, and I heard some kinda repetitive thwacking sound. Was someone cuttin' down a tree? I moved in the direction of it, and saw that lady movin' a bucket full of apples to a cart.
"Miss Applejack?" I called out. She looked up, and her ears flicked a bit.
"Oh, you again. Thought you promised I wouldn't see hair nor hide o' y'all."
"Yeah, well, I was kinda dyin' when I said that, so.."
She grimaced a bit, clearly remembering the grisly image of my broken body. I decided to get this conversation back on track. "Wanted to give y'all an apology, and my thanks, for that night. My name's Bonfire Applebake.' I held out a hoof in offering. She bumped it back.
"Applejack. Pleased as punch to meetcha, though I don't recall seeing you at the family reunion."
"Folks keep sayin' that." I said, looking off to the side a touch frustrated.
"Are you.. not an Apple?" She tilted her head, confused.
"Well, I uh--"

Before I could explain myself, a little filly came running up the path, shouting like there was no tomorrow. "Applejack! Applejack!" she shouted, "Rarity wanted me to tell you about the plan for tomorrow at the Social!!"

Applejack tipped her head down, and the little one whispered all conspiracy-like into her ear. Applejack nodded and whispered back, then the kid grinned and nodded, turned to run, and only then just noticed me. She looked up at me with big wide eyes.

She was tiny compared to me. Barely made it past my knees.

"Oh, where are my manners," Applejack chuckled, "Miss Bonfire, this here's my little sister, Apple Bloom. Apple Bloom, this is Bonfire Applebake."

The youngin' gasped, "ARE YOU ONE OF MAH COUSINS?"
A quick glance to the big sister, seeing her eyebrows cocked like a gun, told me that the answer was, "No, I ain't, despite what it looks like."
She got confused then. "But.. but..!"
"Tell ya what. You got homework to do?"
"Yeah.."
"I gotta talk to your sis about somethin, but if'n I'm still round these parts by the time you're done with it, I'll get to tellin' you about the time I escaped from a burnin' building and defeated a magma spewin' monster. How's that sound?"
The girl couldn't have been more delighted if I'd handed her some deep fried caramel apples.
"Okay!!"
She sped off like a bolt. Kids is the same in all universes, I guess.

I turned back to the lady, and saw she had a curious look on her face, lookin' over at the filly.
I sighed. "Look, miss Applejack, I'mma be real honest here.."
That seemed to get her attention. "I ain't from.." I gestured around at everything. "Here. Not this town, not this country, not this continent, not this.. planet - hell, I ain't even sure I'm in the same dimension no more. I ain't just a fish outta water, I'm a worm that ended up on the moon."

As I spilled them beans, I looked out into the horizon. The wind brushed my hair softly, then danced upon the leaves and the grass, and my lips lightly parted, a sigh resting upon them, ready to be blown off like a wish on a dandelion.
There was a bit of silence, and for a moment I worried I done said too much, but then, I looked back to her, and she just looked.. some kinda mix of happy and sad that I ain't got the vocabulary for.
Sue me, I'm from the American south. I didn't go to a good school.

"You don't say..?" She said with a soft tone of voice. "Well, where you from, pardner?"
"The United States of America. Real mess of a country. Nasty place."
"Amareica?"
"No, no, America, M-e-r."
"Weird name. How'd you end up here, then?"
"Y'know, it's the darndest thing. Let's just say, my last 'employers' were in the process of 'terminatin' me with 'extreme prejudice'," I chose them words carefully in case the little one was listening in, "and I called out for some divine intervention." I waved my hoof all magic like, "Next thing I know, a rainbow blasts me and I'm on the edge of y'all's farm."

The mare seemed a mite surprised. It was like she had an uncanny ability to pick up on liars, and I'd told her nothing but the honest truth.

"Hoo-ee, that's story you got on you. You must be needin' some help then, huh?"
"Well, yeah." I finally let the sigh I was holding up go. "I was wondering if I could work here while I get my hooves under me. Earn my keep and such, helpin' around the farm like any ramblin' man oughta do."
"What's a man?"

I snorted. Couldn't help it, the way she said it was so damn innocent, reminded me of the way Geoffrey from Fresh Prince said "What's a woman?" that one time. I chuckled and snickered, before correcting myself. "Slip of the tongue, does ramblin' mare work any better?"
"Hah! I reckon so, but I'm still curious about what a man is."
Miserable little pile of secrets, I thought to myself.
"I'll tell y'all later."

She tapped her hoof to her chin thoughtful-like. "Hm. Tell ya what, let's see how well ya buck apples."
Well now that got me confused. "Uh.. Don'tcha mean, pick, apples?"
She chuckled. "Well now I know for sure y'ain't from these parts."
She placed some empty wooden buckets she had on standby under a tree, fit to burstin' with apples ripe for the pickin'. Then she kicked the damn thing, and with a burst of magic like I never seen before, apples came raining down from on high.
I whistled low.

Then she set up some fresh buckets for another tree, and pointed to it.
"Buck the apples off of this here tree, and I'll let my family know we got an extra set of hooves on the farm."

There was magic to it, I knew that. I weren't much good at plant magic, though, considering my element was the thing that tended to kill plants but good. I pressed my hoof up to a tree, then an ear, listened in on it, and heard its requests - right here, please, it whispered. I warned it, I ain't gonna be gentle, and it replied, that's okay. I nodded. Well. If y'all say so.

I aligned my rump with the tree, did a few practice kicks in the air, and then backed up for the real one.
Applejack studied me with an even expression on her face.

Lift up, coil, kick, THUNK! I felt the shocks n' vibrations run wild through me, and I swore the earth did shake a little. Then I heard the literal fruits of my labor come on down. Not all of the apples fell from my kick, but a good amount of them did. I grinned, and shook my head n' mane all proud like, holding my head up high.

Applejack smiled and nodded approvingly. "Not bad, sugarcube, not bad. You held back a bit, I can tell. These trees can take a buckin', so don't you worry about breakin' em."
"Was more worried about burnin' the poor thing down."
"..Wha?"

I turned a bit to show my.. what was it again? Cutie mark? Yeah, that. "I done got this last week, and I can't make heads or tails of it, worried it means I burn things or something."
She nodded her head. "I getcha. Well, so long as y'don't go burnin' down my orchard, and you got yourself a place on this here farm."
"I'll do my best, miss. Now where'd'ya need me to buck?"

Sundown had come round. Applejack's gramma had invited me to supper, even though I weren't part of the family. She weren't hearing none of my excuses, kept tellin' me I needed more meat on my bones, that I spent too long without a proper meal.
I mean.. she weren't wrong, I'd been survivin' off canned foods for years now. I only had the pleasure of eating at faerie feasts when they wanted something out of me. All other times? I was on my own, and the fae don't pay in dollars.
They pay you in time still alive.

Granny Smith, though, she served a meal worthy of a Texan Thanksgiving, full o' food I ain't had in years, like cranberry sauces and pies and hearty noodle-veggie soup, real tasty stuff, and no strings attached to boot. At some point during the meal, Apple Bloom, the lil' filly, asked me about that story. Moreso, excitedly reminded me about the offer.

And so I found myself at the dinner table, recalling a pretty rough night on the job.

"..Now at this point, the salsamander, it was puking up the magma like nobody's business, the heat making this ol' abandoned manor catch fire real quick, and that's when I realized what it was doing! It was fixin' to make a nest of magma out of the manor, keeping it hotter than a furnace to make it a prime place to lay its eggs."
Apple Bloom listened to me slack jawed and wonder-struck.
"Obviously, burning the house down I like I planned too weren't gonna work, but what I did have was a dam full a' water up the road, and if I managed to open the floodgates, the water could cool the magma to rock and trap it inside its own nest!"
"Whoa!"
"And that's when I try to get out, and the only safe places to walk, is the furniture that hadn't been consumed by the lava yet. I had to literally play 'the floor is lava'!!"
"NO WAY!"
"Yes way! So I'm hopping around the furniture like a big ol' frog, careful not to slip and fall into the stuff, and it's working up a sweat in me! Sh-shucks, I'm getting thirsty just remembering it!"

I was. I scooped up the glass of water with a hoof and had a hearty chug. I slap it back down and keep goin. Had to watch my language around the kid.

"Finally, I make it to a window, and jump through! And I find that just about all the grass near the house is already on fire, so I gotta run through it, real quick, and as I get outta there, i realize, the forest itself is catchin' fire! So I gotta outrun a forest fire, and those things travel a lot faster than you think!"

By this point the rest of the Apple family is also listening into my story.
"Now, I had two choices - I could take the long way round up to the dam, and likely burn up, or," and I paused for dramatic effect, "I could use my grapplin' hook to climb up the dam."
"You had a grapplin' hook?!" Apple Bloom shouted.
"I did! So I threw that thing up as high as I could get it, and it hooked right on the edge of the dam, and I start scramblin' up there like a lil bug, trying not to pass out from all the smoke and heat, and then when I finally make it up, y'know what I figure out?"
"What! What!" By this point the filly's bouncin' in her chair.

"The floodgates. Have rusted. Shut." I tapped my hoof against the table with each period there.
She held her hooves up to her face, excited and concerned for me, and I kept on going. "Now, I'm telling you this with the pretense you never, EVER do what I did. Cuz what I did next was stupid and dangerous. Stupid dangerous! Could get your hurt real bad, or killed."

"A-aight.." she got a bit worried there, so I picked back up the excitement with one sentence alone.
"I found a crate of dynamite in the abandoned mines nearby."
"NO WAY!"

"I did! And I was too hopped up on adrenaline to think any better, so I rushed it to the edge of the dam, and just dumped that crate down the sides into the fire! Then I gun it, running like the wind to not get blown up. Fifteen seconds later, ka-BLOOIE!" I threw my forelegs up in the air and accidentally knocked over my cup. I grabbed my napkin, and kept telling the story while cleaning up the water, "The dam straight up explodes, the entire lake flooding into the ghost town, and I'm still scrambling, cuz now there's debris flyin' everywhere, and I duck back in them mines until the noise finally stops!"
"Whoa..."
"And y'know what I saw after all that was done?"
"What?"

I made a sweepin' gesture with my hooves.
"I stumble outta them mines, and I see the water floodin' into the ghost town with the salsamander's nest smack dab in the middle, turning the entire place into a lake with a perfect island in the middle. That salsamander could never break out, cuz every time it cracked a hole in its nest, why, water would just come flowing in! I beat the monster and stopped that fire... And hoo boy, was I tired after that. Pretty sure I fell asleep in a minecart."

Apple Bloom hopped around the table in excitement, "That's so cool!" Then she stopped and pointed at my butt. "Is that why you have a cutie mark in fire? Cuz you can handle it real well?"
I looked at it, pondering the thought. "Maybe, maybe." Wasn't about to tell the excitable filly with a spirit for adventure about my affinity to fire magic. "I don't fully understand this thing, I got it while out camping one night."

Not a lie, I was camping in the orchard when I got it.
"You're so cool, Bonnie!" Apple Bloom said, jumping up and hugging me tight suddenly, which made me freeze up a touch. Applejack was lookin real amused, and Big Mac had a soft smile on his face.

Now, everyone else in this house been callin' me "Miss Bonfire", but the kid just cooked up a nickname for me then and there. A feminine nickname, too. Wasn't sure how to feel about that.
The weirdest part was that when she said it, I felt a touch more comfortable with the thought of being a lady now. Just a smidge, I hadn't lost it just yet.

"Well, I appreciate it, kiddo, but it's gettin' late. I reckon I better find myself a place to sleep for the night."
The kid looked real disappointed, then her ears perked up and she looked at the rest of her family. "Can she stay with us? Please please please pleaaaaaase?" She threw in some professional grade puppy dog eyes for good measure. Applejack and Big Mac deferred the decision to Granny Smith, and she assessed me through her squinty ol' eyes, the wisdom of the ages looking down on me like a court judge.

"Wellll I reckon y'can stay fer now, but you best be sure to do your chores n such, y'hear me, young lady?"
"Yes ma'am." I knew not to disrespect the elders of a house like this. My Gramma was the same.
Good woman, she was. God rest her soul.

The Apples had one of them couches that folded out into a futon, and Granny produced a quilt from somewhere.
I weren't quite ready to tuck in just yet. I kept starin' at the mirror in the bathroom after the others had gone to sleep.
I lifted up one hoof and pressed it against my cheek.

Squiiiissh.
Yup. That's the horse's mouth. Stuck my tongue out and made a funny face, pulling my lips up into a bit of a flehmen.
I looked real stupid. I snorted in amusement, then licked my lips and had a bit of a chew.

I felt oddly comfortable in this carcass. It was nice, which was why I kinda quietly freaking the hell out. By all rights, I should be upset with the lack of manliness under my tail, and way more panicked about the whole "turned into a goddamn horse" thing. I reckon I should've been struggling to even walk like some newborn babe- er foal- but, no. I hadn't done any of that. No problems at all.
I hadn't put any thought into readjusting how I walked, grabbed objects, how my body language worked, nothin'. It's like my body came off the rack and I slipped right in ready to go. My soul was a cassette tape and they just popped me outta my truck's tape player and popped me in a radio. That kinda situation.

Now, I ain't one them furries I done seen wanderin' round convention centers durin' my travels. Me being cozy with the new horse body, that weren't the same thing. Least, I sure hope it weren't.

I wandered into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water. My hoof was able to magically grasp the glass just so, keeping from falling and makin a big ol mess.

The part that was gettin' me the most was the fact that everyone here saw me as a girl, and I wasn't too sure how to feel about that, cuz, hell I reckon the Ol' "Battle of the Sexes" works different here.

Took a sip of my drink. Stared out the window.

What the hell did them scientists call it? Sexual di..cottony..? Some shit like that. Truth of the matter was, Big Macintosh and I were built about the same. I reckon if I got turned into a human girl, that'd make my life hell, but here, that didn't look to matter so much. Course, I sure as shit was talkin' out my literal horse's ass, maybe there was a whole new layer of man vs woman stuff I weren't aware of yet. Mare vs stallion. Heheh.
Oh well. Burn that bridge when we come to it.

I sat there in quiet contemplation, sippin' my water and watchin' that moon sail across that starry sea. A little song bubbled up in my throat, and I couldn't help but quietly murmur that song my pop used to play all the time on the stereo.
"I see, a bad moon risin'.."