Becoming Raindrops

Chapters

Sunny Skies of Home
Stormy Skies of Home
Dreaming of the Sky
Friendly Skies
Drops of Rain
Outside in the Rain

Sunny Skies of Home

“Thomas, we're here. You can wake up now.”

My ear flicked in annoyance, and I curled up a little tighter. The bed was a little stiff, and something was pressing against me, but it was fine; I was warm and happy right now. I knew I was in a small, enclosed space, and staying asleep was the best way to ignore the claustrophobia clawing at my mind. As a pegasus, I couldn't handle the super small spaces, my instincts were screaming for me to get back into the sky.

“I got this.” I knew that was TJ, but I once again just curled up tighter, trying with all my heart to ignore the claustrophobia. “GOOD MORNING!”

“AHHH!” I probably would've bonked my head on the car roof, but the seat belt thankfully pinned me down. I held a hoof over my heart, trying to catch my breath. “Not cool, TJ! Not cool!”

TJ, unfortunately, was standing there laughing, clutching his sides. Andrew was doing the same. After a minute of trying to silence them with a glare, I gave up and fumbled with the seatbelt latch for only a moment before I got it to click. Both of them stopped laughing as I hopped out of the car on my own, and I took the time to smirk at them. I spotted my house behind them, and went for my pack, the item having been already pulled out. It took a bit of struggling with my teeth, but I was able to unzip the side pouch where my house keys were, and once my friends had recovered from their shock, we headed to the front door. It took a bit of time, but I was able to get just enough leverage to unlock the door, the keys clamped tightly in my teeth. Just to let you know, keys hurt when held too long.

“Huh... I guess mom's out playing with the horse,” I comment, seeing as she isn't home. Sassy, one of our cats, is relaxed on the closest single-person chocolate-colored leather chair. She looks over and meows at me. “Hi, Sassy.”

She just stares, and I ignore her and walk past. My friends know where my room is, so they drop my stuff off there.

“Hey, I'm gonna take TJ home,” Andrew mentioned as I took a minute to open the room to my Man Cave. Or is that Mare Cave now? Same initials, so they both work, I guess.

“Okay, thanks for the ride,” I say, making to give a rather awkward hug. Andrew has to kneel down to make it comfortable.

“Dude, is this your Man Cave? Nice!” TJ comments, smiling at what he sees. I grin.

It's not bad, I'll admit. I got this stuff for my birthday right around my high school graduation. It had a small table, a futon, a small HD TV that was a hand-me-down from my grandparents, a mini-fridge, and a microwave. Oh, and a few game systems and lots of DVDs and my laptop, of course.

“I think you're set for entertainment,” He states, nodding approvingly.

“I like to think so.”

“Hey, you gonna meet us at Clark for some games tomorrow?”

“I'll need a ride.”

“That won't be a problem.”

“I'll... probably go. I'll let you know, okay?”

“Sure. Later, Thomas.”

“...Later.”

I'll never admit it aloud, but seeing them go when they were probably the one thing currently letting me keep my sanity was almost painful. So when I shut the door behind me and locked it, I had to take a deep breath and calm myself down. I really, really didn't want to lose it again – especially in a body that wasn't even mine. I needed someone to talk to, other than myself, but with Mom out playing with her horse at a barn space she rented, I was on my own for a while.

I could spend some more time getting used to being a pony, I suppose... I could also spend a little time getting used to no longer being male. Just thinking of that made me shudder slightly, so that was out of the question; just ignore the change in gender, Thomas, and go get something to eat.

“Actually,” I say aloud, talking to myself like I almost always do. “Food sounds good right now.”

Of course, that's when my stomach rumbles. Walking a bit awkwardly to the fridge, still not completely accustomed to the legs, I had to spend about five minutes staring at the handle that was blocking my way to the apples. I don't know why I was craving an apple, but I was, and I wanted one right now. It was going to be a little awkward opening the door. It took a little bit of finesse, but I was able to hook a hoof around the handle just enough to pull it open. Another minute passed before I was able to pull open the fruit drawer with my teeth and grab an apple in my teeth. I had to take a moment to close the fridge without destroying the drawer, but once I did, I grabbed the apple in my hoof without thinking.

“Oh, right...” I murmured to myself as I noticed the apple being perfectly balanced in my hoof. “Magic grabby hooves. Well, time to eat.”

I promptly chowed down on the apple. At least, that was the plan, until I realized much tastier it was in comparison to when I had been human. I had to slow down and savor the juicy, deliciously crisp taste, it was just so good!

“Mmm...” I moaned slightly, enjoying the incredibly welcome taste of the apple.

Something about it made me want another one, assuming I had room afterwards. Unfortunately, by the time I returned to my Man Cave's door and had eaten the thing down to the core, I was completely full. I'd have to wait until later. Just after tossing the thing into a trash can, I froze as the door to the garage opened. I'd completely missed the garage door opening with my mom's return! Crap! And so I just stood there, frozen as my mother stepped inside, spotted me, and just... stopped. She froze, staring as a myriad of emotions crossed over her countenance.

“Err... hello?” She ventured cautiously, her various bags of horse riding items balanced in her hands as well as her purse and other items. Of course, her speaking activated my fight-or-flight response. Or in this case, flight-or-flight.

“AHHH!” I found myself screaming out of sheer panic, dashing into my cave and slamming the door shut behind me, leaning against it. If I had a mirror, I'm sure my pupils would be extremely small, kind of like how it happens in the show when a character starts to freak out. There was a tentative knock on the door.

“Open the door.”

“No!” I cried, far too scared to know her reactions to even give it a chance. “I... I'm sorry!”

“It's either you open the door, or I call the police for breaking and entering!”

And now my own mother was threatening to have me arrested. Well, that certainly didn't help my emotional state. “I-I-I can't do that, Mom!”

My hooves flew to cover my mouth as I realized what I just said. The ears I had pinned down out of fear and panic started to creep up as I heard her gasp. Whether it was in shock or figuring out how I'd gotten in the house, I don't know.

“T-Thomas...?” It was asked so quietly that if it weren't for my more sensitive ears, I probably wouldn't have heard it. “You can come out. I won't hurt you.”

I swallowed the lump that had developed in my throat, licking my lips as I thought about what to do next. “...Promise?” I don't know what made me ask that, but I've always known my mother to be good at keeping her promises.

“I promise. Now please, let me open the door.”

Once again swallowing air through my dry mouth, I nervously stepped away from the door and shut my eyes tight, my ears pinned down and tears ready to burst out at whatever disappointment I was going to hear. My wings were ready to burst open and fly the heck out of there, if need be, and I was hunched up slightly as well.

It's ridiculous what fear for a loved one's reaction can do to you.

As I stood there, too afraid to look at what she was doing, too deeply attentive to the destructive thoughts in my head, I froze when I heard the floor creak as she knelt down in front of me. What was she going to do? Oh, goodness, I hoped she wasn't mad, please don't be mad at me, it wasn't my fault, I had no control over –

“I'm so sorry,” She whispered, wrapping her arms around me as best she could, bringing me in for the kind of hugs that a mother is good at. You know, the kind where they hug you to prove they love you unconditionally and make every bit of fear and annoyance melt away. “I'm so sorry this happened to you.”

I don't think I had even realized how afraid I'd been of her reaction, because the moment she said those words, I lost it. Again. I wrapped my forelegs around her, buried my face in her shoulder, and found myself crying all over her riding clothes. That's twice in two days. Can't wait to see the third day. I don't know how long it takes for me to be reduced to sniffling and dry tear ducts again, but when I am, I just stay there in her hold, enjoying the warm, comforting embrace.

“...Thanks, Mom,” I whisper softly. I don't know if she understands how important her comfort is to me at this point.

“Anytime, sweetie,” She responds, before finally pulling away. “Can you meet me in the living room to talk? I'd like to at least change out of my stinky clothes.”

Some things never change. “Heh. Sure.”

She gave me a soft smile as she left the room, and I followed her out. She went to her room, and I took a minute to scramble onto the large, chocolate-colored leather couch that sat in between two small side-tables and near the smaller leather chair. In front of me was the closed TV cabinet, the one I never used since there was never anything good on. Not to mention the internet was a much better viewing method. I find one of my cats, the black-and-white one, Magic, coming up to me with curiosity shining in those golden orbs. After about five seconds, she snuggles up close to me and opts to lay down against my side, purring and looking at me for attention. Not a moment later, Mom comes out of the back area of the house, dressed in pajamas for the rest of the day. She smiles at what she sees.

“At least she still likes you,” She comments, and I nod, watching as she comes over and sits down next to me. She calmly places a hand on my back, and I try not to flinch away from it, still not all that used to the sensations of this body. “Thomas... could you tell me what happened?”

I glance away, licking my lips slightly. It's a bit of a nervous habit for me. I take a few minutes to explain that my friends and I had gone to bed, ready to hike the Ape Caves today... but when I woke up transformed, it was ultimately decided that we should leave. After a moment of internal debate, I opted to mention that I did, indeed, have quite the breakdown this morning while up there. I also told her that my friends were awesome and incredibly supportive.

“I've known you to be a brony for a while now,” She begins to say. “But who exactly are you supposed to be? I only know about... Twilight Spackle, was it?”

“Sparkle,” I correct immediately. “And I'm supposed to be Raindrops.”

“A mare.”

Of course that would be the next subject she'd bring up. “Yeah. A mare.”

“I'm so sorry you have to go through this,” She says again, running her hand down my head. I don't know what it is about feeling a hand go through my mane like that, but it was very soothing. “But I don't know what to do about it. Is there anything special that you need?”

I take a minute to think, but I just lean against her, seeking her warmth, her comfort. “I... I just need some... support right now.”

Mom just decides to remain silent, and keeps running her hand through my mane. “Mind if I ask a few questions?”

“As long as they don't pertain to me being a mare now.”

Thankfully she doesn't give a snort of laughter at my deadpan statement. “You have wings, so clearly you're a pegasus. But are they big enough?”

“Yeah, they are. They're perfectly capable of carrying me.”

“Have you flown yet?” The worry in her voice at the very idea made me smile. The affirmation that some things never change, no matter the circumstances, was incredibly comforting.

“No, not yet. Right now they're kinda decoration, I don't know how to move them at all. I barely know how to walk properly.”

“Are you going to try?”

“Probably. Sooner or later. At least it'll be the perfect training for being a pilot, right?”

She just chuckles slightly. “Thomas... is... is this some sort of... punishment?”

I frown slightly as I look up at her. I know exactly what she means. “No. This isn't a sort of divine punishment, no matter what the radio or the news channels say. This is happening because of a My Little Pony villain.”

“Are you sure?”

“Now that this has happened, I'm more sure than before.”

Mom nodded. “Are you going to be like the other... ponies and head to New York?”

I shake my head, “No there's enough of them heading there. Not to mention that it would take too long to catch up, so it's just easier if I stay back and support them from here until they need me.”

“I'm glad to hear that. I heard about these... PAPA people, and I was really worried you'd try and go against them.”

“I'm against them anyway, but now that this has happened... it'd be easier to avoid them as best I can.”

“You mentioned a game day tomorrow at the college. Is that a college thing, or just your friends?”

“Just my friends. I was thinking about going, Andrew already offered me a ride.”

“Alright,” She nods, before finally getting up and moving to the kitchen. “I'll make us some dinner, okay?”

I thank her, knowing she had a handle on what to cook. Magic, at this point, had followed my movements in leaning against Mom and was now laying her front half over my back, her back half resting on the couch.

“Really, Magic?” I ask her. She just continues to purr. “Oh, fine.”

I decide to just lay there and let her have her fun. At least she wasn't clawing my feathers out. Right now she found them more fun to lay against. Mom smiled at seeing this, and put the TV on to one of our favorite shows, NCIS. A little violent, sure, but it was still entertaining. A few episodes later and I had to kick Magic off of my back – where she had migrated to lay right between my wings – in order to join Mom at the dinner table.

We took our time eating for the most part. Hooves don't make it easy to pick up utensils. Of course, her having a horse and having read dozens of books on caring for them, she'd made a little salad with some apple slices for me. And let it be known that I totally didn't clean the plate in a few minutes. I definitely was polite and took my time.

“Burraap.” Okay, so I'm stretching the truth a little bit. “Excuse me.”

Mom gives another chuckle, “Even as a pony you've forgotten your manners.”

“Oops.”

We share a small laugh, as we finish our meal. She takes care of the dishes and tells me to simply do as I normally do after dinner – go back to the Man/Mare Cave and play games or hang out on the laptop. Giving her a grateful hug, I do as she suggested, and take my time to practice using hooves for playing with my decks and my game systems. By the time I'd figured out how to consistently pick up cards and hold them, it was time for bed, thankfully. So I gave my mother a hug good night, climbing into my bed with a little bit of a struggle. Once I had found my way under the covers, I plopped my head down on the pillow and closed my eyes. A thought crossed my mind just before it shut down for the night.

What were my other friends going to think of me tomorrow?

Stormy Skies of Home

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“No, but it would be easier to get it over with now rather than later.”

“That's true enough.”

“And you'll be there... just make sure they stay back, okay?”

“We will,” TJ nodded to me. “Don't worry about that. You'll be fine.”

I nodded nervously, anxiety filling me as we parked and started to move forward. Nopo – ugh, I'd been doing that recently, mostly since this morning. Taking a shaky breath, I followed my friends towards the PUB, Penguin Union Building, where our friends were meeting upstairs for some games. Mostly card games, but that's what we did. As they approached the building, I did my best to ignore the stares from the people that were there. It wasn't easy, to be honest. While it was true that there weren't many people there, for some reason, that made it all the more awkward and difficult to stay on the ground.

“Wait, how am I going to get up the stairs?” I asked as we got closer to the entrance.

“We take the elevator.”

“But the bathroom is down a small set of stairs, and I'm certain I'll be needing that sooner or later.”

“But that's also connected to by the elevator.”

“I don't want to have to rely on that thing all the time, I gotta learn how to use stairs sometime.”

“Doesn't have to be today, does it?”

“...No,” I agreed with a nod.

“Then let's get upstairs and play some Magic!”

I gave a smile and followed my friends to the front doors, where they held them open for me and headed inside. Noticeably calm upon seeing that the bottom floor was devoid of people, we went up the ramp ahead of us, and turned into the alcove that had the elevator sitting by the stairs. There was nobody there, and walked out the door into the other upstairs area. If one were to check my pulse as we stepped around the corner, they would find it speeding up faster than should be safe for any living being.

“Whoa, who’s the Raindrops?” Aubrey asked upon spotting us, blinking. “She looks so cute!”

Okay, now that definitely wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. I blinked and found my jaw working and trying to make words.

“What?” I blurted out without thinking, a look of confusion at the rather lax reaction clear on my face.

“Must be pretty weird, though,” Emma commented. “The four legs and all.”

“And the wings! Can you fly?” Justin asked.

Now that I was being barraged with questions that I hadn’t really expected, I found myself coming over with a disbelieving smile. It took me a moment to remember that these were my friends, the kind of people that didn’t care about such things.

“Well,” I began to say as I climbed onto one of the leather chairs. “I still can’t fly, don’t know how to do that yet. The four legs were annoying as hell at first, but I figured out how to pick things up with my hooves anyway. Don’t ask, I don’t know how that works aside from just explaining it as magic grabby hooves. As for who got the lucky draw... it happened while me, Andrew, and TJ were on that campout we mentioned last time we met up.”

“No way, Thomas?” Aubrey asked with a bit of a laugh. The others laughed a bit as well, realizing what she was giggling at immediately. I blushed.

“Shut up,” I mumbled, trying to glare at them. My growing smile kind of ruined it. These guys were too awesome for me to stay mad at. “Can we get on with what we came here to do? Gimme my cards, TJ.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he chuckled, tossing my bag to me.

“Ack!” I exclaimed, throwing out my front legs and catching it perfectly. I unzipped the main pocket and checked the contents. “Careful! It has my lunch in it.”

David stared, “How’d you do that?”

I blinked at the youngest member of our little group before realizing what he meant. “Like I said, magic grabby hooves. I have no idea how it really works.”

“So you really can play cards?” Justin asked, as he shuffled his big Commander deck.

I grinned as I pulled out my box of cards, followed shortly by the deck and started shuffling. “Yes.”

There was another round of laughter as I continued to shuffle my cards.

“When’d you figure out how to do that?” Steve asked.

“Yesterday. It took me all. Freakin’. Day. Now onto more important things -- who’s going first?” I responded, watching as Justin reached for his Bionicle container of dice and pulling out the big thirty-sided one.

“Of course your game is more important than being a pony,” Aubrey commented, rolling her eyes.

“Well, yeah. Priorities, ya know?”

“I gotta ask, what’s it like being a mare?”

I scrunched up my muzzle without even thinking about it as I answered, “Weird.”

There were a few more laughs all around, but Emma decided to lean over from where she sat with her cards and squeezed me in a tight hug without warning.

“You are just too cute with your nose like that!”

“I don’t do cute!”

“I don’t think you have a choice now that you’re a pony,” Justin pointed out. “And it’s your roll.”

Emma let go of me just so I could roll, and ended up being the one to go first for our game. We settled our hands and I started the game. It was an easy start, just a land... and a couple other cards. Then it was Steve’s turn. When it finally got back to me, I reached for the top card of my library and paused upon noticing a couple of older guys walking over. Both seemed to be in their mid-twenties, wearing some polos and jeans. They stood on either side of my chair, and from the way they were staring at me, an uncomfortable silence almost immediately settled over all of us.

The one on the right decided to speak up first, his voice harsh and cold and sending shivers down my spine. “What is it doing here?”

Being the smart aleck that I am, I decide to look him in the eye and answer. “I’m here doing exactly what it looks like I’m doing.”

The next thing I know, I’m on the ground, and my face hurts. There was the familiar taste of iron on my tongue. Many of my friends are on their feet, expressions varying from pissed to murderous.

“Freaks don’t talk,” The one on the left snarled.

“And neither do those who hit our friends,” Max snapped.

That’s when I realized it. The moment my friend said it, I finally figured out why my face hurt. They’d punched me. They’d punched me hard. The taste of iron, I was bleeding, and from how it felt, it seemed pretty bad.

“Friend?” The one on the right again, snorting in disbelief. “Who would honestly be friends with something like that?”

Looking a little closer at their shirts, I finally noticed something that I should have seen sooner.

It was the logo for the People Against Ponies Association.

I didn’t think I would encounter these guys so soon. It’s only been three days since I became Raindrops! And already I’m being attacked by these guys? That... that was just not fair.

“You really think that I wanted this?” I’m not sure where this anger is coming from, but now I’m standing back up and ignoring the pain in my face. One of them moved to hit me again.

“I thought I said you don’t get to talk,” He growled, moving his fist back.

Before he could follow through, his arm was grabbed by someone who had come up behind him. Another hand grabbed his other wrist and pulled them behind his back and pushing him against the chair. In doing so, it was revealed to be one of the security staff, with another taking care of the other guy.

“I don’t need to ask for an explanation.” The name tag labeled him as Jordan. “I’ve seen and heard enough to know what happened.”

“Unhand me!”

“Sorry, no, you’re under arrest for physical assault.” The other security staff responded as she cuffed the other man, her name tag identifying her as Jean. “Both of you are.”

“And make no mistake, I will be pressing charges.”

“You're not human, you don’t get to use human laws!”

“Considering that I’m not the one who attacked someone without provocation, I’m a better human than you are now, or will ever be!”

Both of the men tried to break away from the security staff, but were pulled back and led away before they could. The moment they were downstairs and out of sight, every little last bit of anger and frustration left me and the pain in my face took its place. Not to mention the fact that it was very upsetting to be attacked in front of my friends like this. I collapsed onto my haunches, putting a hoof to my right cheek and wincing at how tender it was.

“Are you alright, Thomas?” Andrew asked, kneeling down and placing a hand on my back.

“I’ll... I’ll be fine.”

“How bad is it? Are you bleeding?”

I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want them to worry about me all that much. It’s a weird personality quirk of mine. More than happy to help someone else, and not very willing to accept or ask for help.

“Thomas,” Andrew began, gently insisting that I turn around. “Show us how bad it is.”

Reluctantly I removed the hoof from my cheek, and heard a couple gasps. I couldn’t tell how bad it was.

“Can you open your mouth so we can see how badly you’re bleeding?”

It took me a moment, but I did it. There were a few sighs.

“I’ll get the first aid kit from downstairs,” Justin volunteered, already heading down.

“I’ll go get you some ice.” That was TJ. He was already heading downstairs as well.

“Here, take a look, Thomas,” Aubrey said, holding a compact mirror in front of me.

I was shocked at how much blood there was. It felt like there wasn’t that much, but from what I saw, it was kind of pooling around my tongue. There was a big cut on the inside of my cheek, and my gums were oozing blood as well. Somehow, my teeth were in one piece, and it didn’t feel like my jaw as broken. But it still hurt like hell.

“At least nothing’s broken,” I mumble, putting the hoof against my cheek again.

“Do you wanna head home?”

“No. I don’t want today to be ruined by those jerks.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah... I wanna keep playing.”

“Will you be able to, with one hoof busy holding the ice pack?” Justin asked as he came up the stairs, TJ not far behind with said ice. He handed over a stack of gauze pads. “And your mouth full of gauze?”

He had a very good point. I thanked them for the items as I gently took them. It took a minute to put the gauze on the bleeding points in my mouth, and a moment to hold the ice to my cheek. It would certainly be difficult to talk with both of these things. That was, of course, when I felt arms wrap around my barrel and pick me up. A blush immediately colored my cheeks, as Aubrey decided to sit back and hold me.

“I’ll help you with that,” She said. “I’ve got nothing else to do, anyway. Just point out the cards you want to play, I barely know the rules.”

Aubrey held me close, letting me stay in her lap like a cat. My hoof still held the ice, and the gauze remained in my mouth. Some of the others laughed at my embarrassed look, my cheeks felt like they were burning, even under the ice. I nodded to her though, grateful for all the help my friends were giving me. The game continued on, and soon after I was able to pull the gauze out.

“We’ll help you tell your mom about this,” TJ mentioned.

I nodded, “That’d be great, thanks.”

“Okay, you are really freaking warm,” Aubrey suddenly said. “Warmer than my cat! Why is that?”

“I’m a pegasus. I fly really high, and it’s really cold up there.”

“True enough.”

“...Thomas?” Andrew started to say.

“Yeah?”

“...We won’t let guys like those do that again. Okay?”

“...Thanks.”

There were nods and sounds of agreement all around, and it made me smile at how awesome my friends were. I knew, I just knew that they would keep their promise. And that was more than enough of a comfort to make this whole ordeal so much easier to deal with.

I’m very lucky to have friends like them...

Dreaming of the Sky

The first thing that I did upon returning home was grab an ice pack. My cheek still hurt like hell. I wasn’t bleeding anymore, thankfully... but it still bloody hurt. TJ and Andrew were going to hang around until my mom got home so that we could explain what happened together.

“When is your mom supposed to be back?” TJ asked.

I carefully unlocked my iPhone to check my texts. “Not long now. Should be a few minutes.” Of course, that was exactly when the garage door started to open. “Or a few seconds. Hey Mom.”

“Oh, you’re home!” She called from down the hall, putting her stuff down. “I thought you’d be out later.”

“Something... came up...” I began to say, and that was when she finally looked towards me and a worried look immediately appeared as she came over. The items remaining in her arms were dropped and abandoned.

“Oh my God, are you alright?” She asked, kneeling in front of me, where I sat on my haunches. It took a bit of convincing, but I let her gently peel away the towel-wrapped-ice pack. “What happened to you?”

My friends jumped in on the conversation here, helping me explain that I had been attacked and who by, and that charges were being pressed. It didn’t sound all that special when it was just recited like they were doing, but it still made me rather upset, considering how quickly that stupid group had found and hurt me. And in front of my friends, no less. I’ve been stewing about it all day, and even though my face doesn’t hurt as much as it did, it was the damage they left behind on my heart that hurt the most.

I mean, I’d been human only three days ago! Don’t they realize that? I never asked for this to happen to me! I wasn’t born a mare! Someone else was, and Discord decided to stick me in this bloody body. It’s not my fault...

So why did they think I should be they should punish? It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t fair. I know that life wasn’t supposed to always be fair, but this was just... I took a deep breath.

“Are you going to be alright, sweetie?” Mom asked gently, wrapping me in a tight hug. I felt the tears coming forth again, and I let them flow once more.

“I’ll... I’ll get better.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that...”

“It’s not your fault.”

With a shaky breath, she pulled back and thanked my friends for taking care of me. They said that it was no problem, gave me a final comforting pat on the back, and bid farewell as they left for their own homes.

“Is there anything you need?” Mom asked softly.

“Not right now... thanks, Mom.”

She softly kissed my forehead, something she hadn’t done in years. It really helped my emotional state, because it let me know that like my friends had promised earlier today, she would do everything in her power to prevent this from happening again. I don’t know if she or my friends fully understood how comforting such a promise was. I’d already eaten with my friends when we’d changed places for our games over to Clayton’s house.

That had certainly been interesting, especially when his brothers and father came home. The older man had been very reluctant to let me stay, worried I’d share the “curse” with his sons, as he’d so kindly put it. Clayton had told him off, saying that since we were friends, I was allowed to stay as long as I wanted, or at least until my mom told me to come home. After that, we’d moved on to getting some dinner set up. Some of us went out to the nearby Fred Meyer’s and grabbed some soda, some chips, and just for me, a small veggie tray. None of us were sure of what the soda and chips would do to my pony body, so I simply stuck to water and the veggies. Let it be known that the tray was empty in about five minutes, and I was still rather full from that, as I told my mom. It wasn’t all that long after that I decided to head to bed.

Today had been extremely exhausting, and I could feel it catching up to me. I gave my mother a good-night hug, took a few minutes to, er... relieve myself -- which was still incredibly awkward for me -- and crawled under my sheets. After this long and tiring day, it didn’t take very long for me to fall into a deep sleep.

It felt like I had just fallen asleep when I had the irresistible urge to wake up. Groaning at the very idea of getting up so soon, I forced my eyes open and blearily looked around me. It took me a moment to wake up enough, but when I did, I frowned. This wasn’t my bedroom.

“Where am I?” I asked the empty air, looking about as I slowly stood.

I was surprised to find my balance slightly different from what I had recently gotten used to. Looking over myself, I was honestly shocked to find that I wasn’t Raindrops here. I was still a Pegasus, but other than that, I was completely different. First of all, I was actually male, thank God. My coat was a fairly dark purple, and it ended just before my hooves, where I could see a dark brown.

Has my mane and tail changed, too? I wondered silently, looking about for a mirror -- but then I noticed what was around me.

“Hey... those are the Fiorello set boxes!” I found myself wandering over to two very familiar wooden boxes on wheels.

They were from the first theatrical production I had been in that wasn’t a church skit, during my freshman year in high school. The musical, Fiorello, required lots of scenes with lots of backdrop changes, so to make it easier on us and to be unique, we built two big, wooden boxes. Each of the outside walls was for a different scene, and they opened up to have another scene on the inside as well. Looking over from them, I found the set pieces for the next show I’d been a part of, Cheaper by the Dozen.

“This is...”

I found myself getting lost in all the memories that appeared upon seeing all of the old high school drama club sets for our shows. At least, the ones I participated in. Props, set backdrops, costumes, stray scripts... it all brought back lots of memories as my hooves crunched the soft, green grass they all sat on.

In between them sat a few bookshelves, and above those shelves were projections of my imagination on overdrive for whatever sat in the shelves. For the most part, they held chapters of fanfics that I written, as well as a few of the role plays that I had participated in. A lot of the bookshelves held notebooks, which seemed to hold all the ideas for stories that I’d had over the years. I recognized the scenes flashing by above these areas, rewinding, and playing again. Scenes that I would imagine happening, right down to the sound effects, all from my stories or from my imagination simply running wild.

“This is... my mind...”

“Yeah, about that...” Wait, I wasn’t alone in here?! “Could you, uh, put the more, er... explicit stuff in a place where I don’t have to constantly watch or hear them?”

Hold on... I knew that voice. “Raindrops?” I turned around, and found the body I’d been controlling for three days hovering in front of me. “No, wait, what was that about explicit stuff?”

She just pointed a hoof towards one of those bookshelf and projector pairs. There was sign in front of it that said four letters: NSFW. My cheeks turned red, especially at the scenes playing there. A moment later, a bunch of walls appeared around the entire section, hiding it from view and locking in the sounds. She gave a sigh of relief as she landed next to me.

“Thank you. That was getting really annoying.”

“...Sorry.” I mumbled, rubbing one leg against another as I suddenly found the ground interesting. Maybe I would find a nickel or something there.

“It’s fine, I mean, it’s not as bad as Cloud Kicker,” Raindrops giggled.

I raised an eyebrow. “I’m not gonna ask how that’s possible.”

“That mare is nothing but that kind of stuff.” She grinned a bit before walking past me. “Although everything else in here is really cool, Thomas!”

“Heh. Thanks.” I didn’t need to ask how she knew my name. I mean, she blatantly said that she’d been browsing my memories, so that was obviously where she’d heard it.

“I mean, I have trouble coming up with how to write the reports every day after weather duty,” She continued, waving me over with a hoof. I caught up quickly. “Granted, it’s not that hard, but I have to word it in just the right way so that I’m not rambling on and on.”

“Like you are now?” I teased.

She smacked my shoulder, “Shut up!”

“Where are you taking me?”

“To my area.”

“Your area?” I frowned. This was my mind, wasn’t it?

“Yeah. I don’t think you’ve noticed, mostly because it hasn’t really started yet, but... because you’re using my body, my mind came with it.”

“And then suddenly my mind’s in control instead of yours.”

“That was really freaking weird, let me tell you.”

“Not as weird as being a guy one day and waking up a mare the next.”

She giggled again, “That’s true. Anyway... as far as I can tell... because of the sudden mix, or because of Discord, or whatever, our minds are slowly merging.”

I stopped at that, and stared at her. Merging? But... didn’t that mean that part of my mind was going to go away as a result? I looked around myself, and found that we were getting close to what looked to be a sharp change in scenery. Behind me lay all of the set pieces and shelves and screens and memories of my mind. In front of me I saw grass of a different tint, as well as cobblestone roads encroaching on the soft grass I currently stood on. That must have been her mind. Raindrops gave me a sad smile, knowing what I was feeling at the revelation.

“Yeah... I’m really scared about it, too.” She said softly, as we started walking again.

At least I wasn’t alone. “What... what kind of merging? I mean, what exactly would we be losing in the process?”

“Well, when I first found out about it, one of your, uh... characters told me more of what was happening.”

“...One of my characters? Really? Which one?”

“He was an orange unicorn, and he called himself --”

“Muse Scroll?!” I did not expect to hear that my pony character not only lived in my head, but that he had also made conversation with Raindrops at one point.

“Uh, yeah. Him. Really weird seeing him here, I have to admit.”

“Why’s that?”

Raindrops’ muzzle scrunched up a bit as she thought, “He just acted really... weird. Kinda like he was in a trance or something. Anyway, according to him, in the merge, we’re only going to be losing the worst parts of our minds. The best parts will remain.”

I remained silent at that revelation. Our hooves started to click more loudly as the grass sharply transitioned into the less forgiving cobblestone road. After a bit, she stopped by one of the houses that resembled the ones from the show, straw roof, outer walls painted sky blue, and a masterfully carved wooden door. That sort of place. It looked very... nice, actually. I liked the gentle, welcoming feel it had. She opened the door and welcomed me inside. I stopped upon noticing the mirror near the entryway, and studied my reflection carefully.

The dark purple coat and the wings and brown hooves I had noticed already, but then I’d gotten distracted from figuring out the color of my mane and tail. They were a mixture of off-white and maroon. I hadn’t expected my tail to be as long as it is, but it wasn’t too bad, it only reached a couple inches off the floor. My mane was slicked back slightly, in a style that reminded me of Spitfire’s. The off-white coloring was surrounded by the maroon in both areas, with a small stripe in my tail reaching from my butt all the way to the very tip of my tail. As for my mane, rather than be the orange and darker orange that was Spitfire’s coloring, it was red surrounding light gray.

“You know, most stallions don’t have tails that long,” Raindrops commented, getting my attention. “I mean, a few do. Soarin’ for example. His tail’s as long as yours.”

“Yeah, but as you’ve seen from my memories, I’m not most stallions,” I grinned, coming over to where she was relaxing on her couch.

She giggled again, “That’s true. Now, I need to talk to you about my wings.”

“Uh... what about them?”

“I need to teach you how to take care of them. I mean, all you’ve used them for is when it’s an automatic reaction or something like that.”

I shuffled my hooves a bit at that.

“The muscles will... atro... atro...”

“Atrophy?” I supplied.

“Yeah, that. Not to mention the feathers are...” Here she grimaced, looking disgusted. “Yuck. Gross.”

“Sorry...”

Raindrops waved her hoof in dismissal, “It’s fine, you just don’t know how to take care of them, that’s all. Thank Celestia you’re a Pegasus here, because that means I can teach you right now!”

The grin on her muzzle made me rather nervous about how exactly she was going to do so. She started by making me turn around and sit with my back to her. Taking care not to be too invasive, she spread open my wings one at a time, and let me feel where the muscles were.

“I know that you opened my wings once or twice without it being a reaction. But you were trying too hard... right now I’m going to focus on teaching you how to preen.”

With that, she had me turn back around to watch her do it. It took only a few minutes for her, but it took practically forever for me to finish. And by Luna, I am not doing that in front of someone ever again, because that was beyond awkward.

“Yeah...” Raindrops agreed when I mentioned this. “Preening’s a private thing. The only time I’ve ever heard it not being is if it’s between you and your lover or something like that. And even that’s rare.”

“I noticed you were really careful about, uh, opening my wings,” I mentioned, hoping to steer away from the awkwardness.

“That’s because touching somepony’s wings the wrong way can be seen as, uh... coming onto them...”

Great to know. I’ve just made things even more awkward.

“Enough of that! Time for the actual flying lessons!”

She dashed out of the house with a giddy look on her face, and I followed shortly after. Raindrops took almost no time at all in making sure I knew how to flap properly. She also made sure I knew that when I was using her body for flying and not this one in my mind, the balance for turns and stuff would be different. I am proud to say that I got the take off stuff down pretty quickly. I could now take to the skies with a running start or from a stand still, although the running one was a lot easier.

Landing, however, was not fun. I kept making friends with gravity and the ground, to the point where she moved my landing practices to the clouds. Those, by the way, are way softer than they have any right to be. Except when crash landing into them. Then they suck just as much as hitting the ground. It took what felt like forever for me to be able to get in the air from a stand still, hover for a bit, and land on all four hooves.

“You did it!” Raindrops exclaimed with a happy grin from where she hovered in the air, as I stood on the large cloud she’d put together.

That knowledge may or may not have caused me to cheer like a little kid who just won a raffle for fifteen pounds of German chocolate. Not a minute later, I could feel myself getting dizzy as my mindscape blurred. Raindrops appeared worried for a moment, but the next thing I knew, I jolted upright and knocked my sheets off in the process. Blinking away the temporary light headed feeling, I frowned. Was that all just some lucid dream? Crazy dream, if it was.

“Not a chance.”

Okay, so it wasn’t a dream. That voice echoing from the back of my mind definitely belonged to Raindrops. With a yawn, I checked my clock, and sighed at what I saw. Six in the blessed a.m.! Wait. If it’s this early... I listened carefully, and seeing as it was Sunday, Mom was still asleep. As was probably the whole neighborhood. I moved the curtains to my bedroom window aside, and grinned at all the clouds up there. Perfect! After a quick visit to the office for a pen and paper, and Raindrops’ help in properly writing with no hands, I left her a note on the hall table and snuck outside. The moment the door was closed, and I knew the coast was clear, I took to the skies.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed when my balance threw me off for a moment. At least I caught myself before I hit the ground and rose up to the lowest cloud level. “Ha! This is awesome! Thanks, Raindrops!”

She gave a distracted ‘you’re welcome’ from the back of my mind. Probably enjoying my reaction as I flew for the first time. I lost track of time as I flew about, getting used to the feel of the wind in my feathers, the sensation of the ridiculously soft cloud material below my hooves, and amazing view. Actually, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that last one, because dear God, this was incredible. Not even flying in a plane could beat this!

“Plane?” Raindrops asked. I directed her to my many memories of flying in them. “Whoa.”

“Thomas?” I heard my mom call from the ground. “Can you come down here for a minute?”

I did as she requested, and flew down to hover in front of her. “What’s up?”

She frowned, “When’d you learn to fly?”

I took the time to explain all about the dream and meeting Raindrops and being taught how to fly by her. She sighed and made me promise to be careful. Don’t ask why, but I immediately did the Pinkie Promise. Mom’s resultant look and Raindrops’ laughter at it made me remember that, no, my mother was not a Brony. After explaining that such a promise was taken more seriously than the most secure documents in the world, she nodded and let me return to my morning flight. It didn’t last much longer, because my stomach growled loudly soon after she went back inside.

The moment my gut voiced its complaint, I landed and went inside for a big, big breakfast. I wasn’t sure what was coming later today, but I knew that I would enjoy flying. I also knew that I was most certainly not going to church like this, not a chance. Maybe I could visit my friends later... yeah, that sounded like a plan! The moment it was later in the afternoon and not six in the morning -- seeing as my friends had a tendency to sleep in that late -- I was going to fly over for a visit, assuming they’d let me, of course.

Oh man, I can’t wait to see their faces when they see that I can fly now...

Friendly Skies

“Thomas! Your phone’s ringing!”

My phone? Who would be calling at this time of day? Granted, it was only about eleven in the morning, but most of my friends were asleep right now. Mostly because they most of them liked to stay up into the wee hours of the morning. I still don’t understand the appeal of that. It took me a minute to land and take the phone from my mom’s hand.

“Yo.”

“Thomas, that’s you right?” It was Clayton. Probably calling to see if I can hang out.

“Yuh-huh.”

“Your enthusiasm is contagious. Anyway, can you come over in a few minutes?

“Are you setting up another party?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” I knew it!

“Cool! Who else is coming over?”

“Uhh... right now, Logan, Chris, Emily, Tanner are here... oh, and Audrey’s coming over later.”

“...What.”

“She’s come home for the week.”

“And since a week is now 365 days long...”

“She’ll be here for a while. I told her I’d pass the message on for her. Anyway, when can you come over?”

I went inside and covered the mic in my phone. “Hey Mom, do you mind if I go over to Clayton’s?”

“Not at all, I was going to go see Ginger.”

“I’ll probably come over right away. I’ve got a surprise for you all, anyway!”

“What is it?”

“I can’t just tell you! It’s called a ‘surprise’ for a reason, Clayton. Should I bring anything other than cards and stuff over?”

“Nah, just your cards should be fine. Oh, and I’ve told everyone here of your, er... situation. They don’t really believe me right now, but they’ve said that if it’s true they don’t really care.”

“Eh, that’s fine if they don’t believe it since they haven’t seen me like this.”

I talked with my friend for a couple minutes longer, got the expected time of arrival for Audrey, and hung up shortly after. Raindrops seemed to be busy looking at the memories of some of my stories, but she did answer my mental question of what kind of bag would be easiest to carry. A messenger bag, huh? Those are pretty cool, but unfortunately I only had a laptop bag that wouldn’t be able to hold my cards.

Anything with a strap big enough to hang around my neck was apparently fine, though. So I went for my usual method: the old purple gym bag my mom no longer used. Putting my cards in there with my phone and house keys and dice, I threw the strap over my head before taking to the sky again. It took almost no time at all to get to my friend’s house, considering he was only a couple blocks away. Spotting the place, I decided to land in the backyard as quietly as possible.

“So Thomas is coming over?” I could hear Chris asking from inside.

“Yeah, should be here soon,” Clayton responded.

I waited another moment before a grin appeared on my face and I knocked on the back door as loudly as I could without breaking the glass. Their resulting reactions and expressions made me collapse onto my haunches as I burst out laughing. Clayton came over and opened the sliding door, glaring at me as I continued to laugh.

“Th-The looks on your faces!” I pointed a hoof at them, a couple of them still wearing their freaked-out expressions. “That... that was perfect!”

“How the hell did you get to the backyard?” Clayton asked, as I headed inside, still laughing quite a bit. “You didn’t go through the neighbor’s, did you?”

“Nope! I flew!”

There was silence for a few minutes.

“But... yesterday you said you couldn’t fly. How could you possibly learn how to fly over night?”

“I think a better question is, what’s it like being a pony?” Chris asked. Now that these friends of mine, the ones that hadn’t been there at Clark College yesterday, knew that Clayton was telling the truth, the curiosity was clear on their faces.

I just shrugged, “It’s not all that different from being human, to be honest. I mean, there’s the lack of hands and all, but aside from that and the fact that I’m now a mare... eh. Nothing to freak out about or anything. As for the flying thing... well, this is the body of Raindrops, I told you that, right?”

There were a few nods.

“Well, the mind of Raindrops came with it. But it’s my mind that’s in control. Last night I had a lucid dream where we met in my mind. I happened to be in the form of a pegasus stallion while there, and she took the chance to teach me how to fly. So, I can fly now. I can also talk to her in my head.”

“What’s that like?”

I just shrugged nonchalantly. “Boring. I mean, she never has anything interesting to say. Ow!”

Tanner chuckled, “Did she hit you from your mind or something?”

“You earned it for saying that.”

“Yeah, something like that. So what’s the plan for our party?”

There were a few shrugs, making me laugh again. Things haven’t changed a bit with my friends, even with all this pony transformation insanity. Despite having probably seen my memories of other hang out sessions like this one, Raindrops still felt it necessary to comment.

“Your friends really aren’t freaking out about you being a pony, are they?”

Pff, we were crazy before all this started happening.

“So, what’re you guys playing?” I asked, coming over. “Cards Against Humanity? Oh boy...”

“What?”

I just used a hoof to point to my head. They just grinned and told me to relay how Raindrops reacted to the cards. With a grin that matched theirs, I scrambled onto the open chair and grabbed myself a few cards. The first card I saw said ‘Panda Sex’.

“What the -- What IS this game?!”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her reaction. I had to take a moment to catch my breath to explain to my friends, who laughed as well. Although, she did get a pretty good kick out of a few of the other cards I’d gotten. She said something about Cloud Kicker most likely loving this game to death. I told her that’s who this game was for: the inappropriately immature. I picked up one of the black cards, and laughed at Raindrops’ resultant reaction.

I grinned as I read it, “Why am I sticky?”

“Oh Celestia, it’s even worse when you read it out loud!”

We all shared a bit of a laugh, but it was even worse when I got the answers. The winner was easy to pick: ‘Pulling Out Early’. Raindrops lost it at that one. We paused the game upon hearing a rather tentative knock on the front door. Clayton put down his hand and went to check.

“Uhh... I’ll be right back, one moment.” That was an odd thing to say to one of our friends. He came around the corner and gestured quite urgently for me to follow him. I saw why upon seeing who was standing at the open door.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, recognizing the pony. I frowned a moment, trying to think of the name. “Cloud... Chaser! Cloudchaser! Right?”

“Uhh... y-yeah. At least, that’s the pony,” She nodded. “Raindrops, right?”

“Yup. So who’s the lucky one that got to be Cloudchaser?”

“Uh... Audrey. It’s me, Audrey.”

There was silence for a minute. Then I hug-tackled her.

“Oh my God, it’s been way too long since I last saw you!”

“W-Wait, I don’t even know you are!”

I pulled back with a grin, “Thomas.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“Don’t just stand outside, come on in,” Clayton said. “I’m tired of holding the door open.”

“Sorry.” We both said at the same time. I pulled out of the game so that I could chat with Audrey for a while, the two of us climbing onto the leather couch.

“So what’re you doing here? I thought you were in Ohio with your dad.”

“Yeah, well, I was until...” She paused to use a hoof to gesture to herself. “This happened.”

I nodded at that. “But that doesn’t explain why you came back here.”

Audrey looked at her hooves, rubbing one against the other. I frowned and looked a little closer at her. There wasn’t anything to indicate some sort of wound or attack. At least none that I could tell. But her wings did twitch a little bit. Unfortunately, being able to fly and able to read the emotions a pegasus shows through their wings were two different things.

“Something big happened back in... Ohio...? Am I saying that right?”

Yeah, that’s right, but what could’ve happened...? I told Raindrops before speaking aloud again. “Audrey. What happened?”

She tightened her hold on her foreleg. “I... I was attacked.”

Our friends at the table behind us gasped and stopped giving only partial attention to our conversation. I didn’t need to guess who.

“People Against Ponies Association, right?”

Audrey looked at me in surprise. “How did you...?”

I pointed a hoof at the bruise on my cheek. “We were hanging out at Clark yesterday, a whole bunch of us. Two of those jerks came up and punched me while in their PAPA uniforms. Clayton was there; he saw the whole thing.”

She remained silent at that for a while. Everyone at the table quietly asked if she was alright, worry for her well-being taking hold.

“I... I’m fine. They didn’t hurt me.”

All the worry I had felt when she mentioned being attacked, and by those fiends no less, left me. And all I could do was hug her tightly. It took her a few seconds, but she returned it. Just a way for us to make sure we were alright... especially now that we had run into somepony else in the same situation. Not a moment later, we were both engulfed in a big group hug from the friends that were with us. We just... held each other for a bit, before finally separating, and by the time we did, Audrey was wiping away some tears.

“I forgot... forgot how awesome you guys were...”

There was a few minutes of quiet. Not the kind of awkward silence where nopony knows what to say. More like the kind where we’re just enjoying the company of those who support us no matter the circumstances.

“You know, enough of the sad stuff,” I begin to say after a while. “Have you flown yet?”

Audrey raises an eyebrow at me, “No... I don’t know how.”

“I could teach you!” I exclaim without thinking. “You are missing out, dude, seriously.”

“And it’ll prove that you really can fly,” Clayton pointed out.

I paused to think about that before nodding. “Yeah, that’s true.”

Audrey thought about it for minute, but ultimately decided to agree to it. Our group of friends joined us outside, right when a couple others joined us, Spencer and Andrew. They were quickly brought up to speed on who the other pony really was, and what we were about to do. Like Clayton, Andrew had a bit of a hard time believing that I could suddenly fly when the day before I was still having a bit of a hard time walking.

“Assuming you can fly,” Andrew said calmly. “How will you be teaching Audrey, anyway?”

“I’ve got some help in here,” I replied, pointing at my head.

Audrey gave me a look, “You do realize that most people would throw you in the rubber room for saying that?”

I laughed at that, “Yeah. Like I told these guys earlier, the mind of Raindrops came with the body. It’s just me that’s in control, but I can still communicate with her. You’ll probably meet the real Cloudchaser sooner or later, too.”

“So I’m guessing Raindrops is the one who taught you to fly sometime last night?”

I nodded to Spencer, “Pretty much, yeah.” I paused a moment. “We’re gonna need a cloud for this, it’s a lot softer than the ground...”

With that I took off towards one of the clouds hovering above us. It took a while to find one that was completely dry, then I tore off a small portion and brought back down to the little group waiting out front. Thankfully, the neighborhood was fairly empty as it was, so we weren’t getting too much stray attention. Our group of friends were a bit surprised at how I could simply push around a cloud, and that it held together this low to the ground. I explained it very simply as “magic.” They stopped asking questions after that.

After helping Audrey climb onto the cloud, and enjoying her reaction at how unbelievably soft it was, I started the lessons on flying. With Raindrops helping me out, telling me what to start with and how things work and all that, it wasn’t all that difficult. I started with pushing the cloud up high and teaching Audrey how to preen, after which she swore to never do that in front of somepony ever again. I could only agree. Shortly after that, I moved us back to the lower ground and told everyone that it had been some private grooming stuff.

Thankfully, like it had been with Raindrops’ body, the instincts for flying were still hardwired into the brain. It just took a lot of practice and some instruction to learn how to associate what instinct with what muscle. Or, more often than not, what motion associated with what desired result. Such as landing and taking off from a stand-still. It took a few hours, and by the time we were finished, it was well past lunch time and nearly time for dinner.

“Okay, you were right,” Audrey said with a big, goofy grin on her muzzle. “Flying is awesome.”

I just grinned in return, “Yeah, but it makes you really freaking hungry, huh?”

Our stomachs growled really loudly at that exact moment, and we both laughed. Our friends had long since gone back inside. We moved the cloud to the backyard, where Clayton let us in. I was able to convince him that the cloud would be fine inside, it wouldn’t make anything wet. Besides, it was far comfier than any of the furniture he had.

Although Clayton didn’t agree with me, considering that when he tried to touch the cloud, his hand just went right through it. Raindrops was certainly interested in that, and I pointed out to her that humans didn’t have magic of any kind. She immediately went searching through my mind, trying to find some sort of memory that had magic in it, something about “no magic” being impossible.

“So aside from being a pony and all the insanity of PAPA, what’s up with you?” I asked Audrey, as we got back into playing Cards Against Humanity.

With a bit of a smile, she started to talk about all that she’d been up to in Ohio. While laying upside down on the cloud. Not that I could blame her, it was super comfortable. We all just continued to chat after that. Mostly about how things had changed for us since we split up after high school, how our friends were doing, those kinds of things. After a while, my wings started to twitch on their own, as did Audrey’s. Raindrops told me it was the natural pegasus desire to go flying. So that’s what we did. Today was just a hang-out day with our friends and with each other as we got accustomed to flying and being with somepony else that used to be human.

We didn’t say it out loud, but we sincerely hoped that the next few days would be this peaceful...

Drops of Rain

“Is that everything out of the truck?”

“Should be, I'll check one last time.”

“I already did, that's all there is.”

“Suhweet! We can set up a quick fire for a bit.”

“I was thinking we should skip the fire; it's late anyway, we'll probably be off to bed soon enough as it is.”

“Plus we did plan on Ape Caves early tomorrow.”

“True... so how about we set up the tent and stuff, chat a bit and head to bed?”

“I like that plan... but we've still got about an hour before we really need to head to bed. I mean, it's only eight."

"Good point. Stay up for an hour or two, then?"

"Sure. Let's set up, first."

As we set up our shared, large tent in our small campsite, we chatted about the latest developments.

“So how are you down here during college time, Andrew?”

“My classes are on Monday through Friday,” Andrew responded, as he used a mallet to pound a stake through one of his tent's securing holes. “Not Marsday to whatever the last day of the week is.”

“Yeah, that was kinda weird, huh?” TJ commented. “What's today supposed to be, again? Threesday?”

“It's just Discord, no worries.”

“Is that a pony thing, Thomas?”

“He's from the show, yeah,” I nodded. “I mean, how many villains do you know pop up out of nowhere and make one week 365 days long? Not to mention Fried-Zucchini-Day... I mean, really, that's just telegraphing his presence. Pass the mallet, please.”

“Here you go. So what makes you so certain it's him?”

“He's more or less the embodiment of chaos and disharmony. And we all know how those calender scientists reacted at the change of the days.”

“True,” TJ agreed. “But that doesn't guarantee that it's him.”

“Aside from Lauren Faust, creator of the show, and Tara Strong, voice actress of the main character, being turned into alicorns and publically stating who did it?”

“Aside from that, yeah.”

I shrugged, I wasn't exactly sure what convinced me that this was all because of the guy. I didn't care for him either way during the show, although when I watched his episodes I found his form of chaos to not be all that, well... chaotic. He just turned the world into a giant playground, and played pranks that could be either funny or harmful, but none of that was the kind of chaos this world could create. While we could more or less do what he did – minus the part of messing with gravity – we could, however, make big, giant pranks that were very funny and completely harmless, just like he did. We could also bring about lots of destruction and pain, something that wasn't showcased in his episodes, which disappoints me even now. Although, he was kinda making up for it.

“Hey, Thomas?” TJ called.

“Yeah?” I answered, as I finished pounding in the last stake on the side of the tent I was working on.

“Could you pass the mallet?”

“Sure.”

I opened the large tent by the zipper and carefully chucked my pack in to the area I was calling dibs on. We all finished putting our stuff in our spots, mostly because we knew what we were doing already, although we saved putting out our sleeping bags and pads out for later.

“How does some smores sound?” TJ asked.

I grin as we grab some of the firewood in the back of the truck, “I like this idea. I'll set up the firepit.”

“You do that, I'll get the food.”

“Dude. You're doing it wrong.”

“I can't help it, it's been a year since I last camped! And no I'm not, shavings in the center, big sticks on the outside.”

“At least the wood's dry,” Andrew commented.

We just laughed at that, we'd all experienced camping in wet weather. It could be less than pleasant. We shared stories of what we'd gone through as scouts, the funny stories, the sad ones, all of that. Then we moved on to current events. Like the strange days and such.

“So Thomas, you mentioned someone from My Little Pony being the guy who caused all this?” Andrew said.

I took a moment to swallow my deliciously burnt smore, “Yeah, it only makes sense to me that he'd be the one behind it. His very presence causes chaos. Not the kind of destructive, killing chaos we cause in war and such, more like... Fred and George from Harry Potter chaos. Pranks and such. Turning entire hillsides into checkerboard patterns with slip-n-slide roads included.”

TJ just gave a nod, “Sounds like chaos to me.”

“And now he's causing trouble here. I have no idea why, but whatever.”

“Including turning bronies into ponies.”

“Andrew, we're not in Seussical the Musical anymore. You can stop rhyming now.”

“Shut up,” He responded, even though TJ and I laughed and he soon followed.

“Anyway, yeah, he's randomly turning people into ponies. I don't know why, but I guess it has something to do with him being who he is.”

“And the fact that those two princesses are now real. Who were they, again?”

“Lauren Faust and Tara Strong. Lauren did Powerpuff Girls, and Tara's voice Bubbles, Ben in Ben 10, and Timmy Turner.”

“Really? She was Timmy?”

“Yup.”

“Well, hopefully you won't turn into a pony, eh?” TJ grinned.

I scoffed, “Please, there's like a gazillion of us awesome people out there. The odds of me getting changed is the same chance of me winning the lottery.”

“You've mentioned your luck with things like that.”

I paused for a moment. “True. All those raffles that I shouldn't have won on such low odds.”

“Yeah, how'd you do that?”

“Well,” I ruffled my hair a bit. “I don't want to say sheer dumb luck, but... sheer dumb luck.”

We shared a quick laugh at that. For those who don't know, I had really fickle luck. For things like opening Magic card packs, I sucked at getting what I wanted. For a raffle where others put in like, twenty tickets, and I put in four or two, I get first place or something I didn't want. Like senior grad party. Fourteen tickets to all of us for free, ten of mine in the TV raffle, two in a camera raffle, and the other two to other things. What do I get? First person drawn on the bloody camera.

After a few more stories, we decided to head to bed in our shared tent. The more rest we got the better. I took a few minutes to set up my pad and sleeping bag, crawling in soon after. It was surprisingly warm up here near Mount St. Helens, where we were. I had been to the Ape Caves a few years ago with my scout troop, and a small group of us had taken the easy side of the caves. The rest of the troop took the hard route. Tomorrow we would be doing both before lunch. With a giddy, excited smile on my face, I quickly fell asleep, all bundled up in my toasty-warm mummy bag.

“Tomorrow can't come fast enough,” I whispered to myself just before sleep overtook me.

1234567890987654321

“Uhh... this is awkward.”

“Yeah... I think he got that raffle luck again.”

What did they mean by that? I slowly opened my eyes to find both of my friends more or less staring at me rather sheepishly. Or something like that. Apparently noticing me waking up, Andrew opted to speak first.

“Uh... Thomas, this may seem a bit strange, but, uh... don't freak, okay?”

Andrew pulled out his smart phone and pointed the reflective surface towards me. Unlike the human face I'd expected to see, I saw a yellow muzzle, sky blue mane, equally blue eyes, and an over-all not-human face. I had become a pony, a pony that I thankfully recognized as Raindrops the pegasus, but it still meant that my fickle luck had chosen me as another winner of Discord's raffle.

I take back what I said last night. Today can take as long as it wants to get here. Can I go back to yesterday? No?

Well... crud.

Outside in the Rain

The chirping of the birds in the nearby trees made my ears twitch slightly as the sound reached them. For those who don't know, suddenly having ears that instinctively moved to almost any sound felt very, very odd. And it certainly drove home that I was no longer human. After a severe amount of struggling, and much help from my two friends, I had found my way outside the tent, and stared at the truck that sat only a few yards away. They were already cooking breakfast, making sure to avoid giving me any meat. It was as we were eating... well, they were eating and I was trying – and failing – to shovel the bloody salad into my mouth.

“I think...” TJ began to say, pointedly looking at me with pity. “That we should head home.”

Despite how delicious the salad tasted in comparison to how it would have been yesterday, I spat out my bite and violently shook my head. “No way!”

“But Thomas,” Andrew began, giving me a concerned look. “You're –”

“I'm just fine! I learned how to walk on hooves, I can make it up the mountain to the Ape Caves.”

They glanced at each other for a moment.

“We came up here to hike them, and that's what we're going to do. We did not waste all that time and gas just to turn right around.”

TJ sighed, “Look, dude...”

“And pass some of the bacon bits.”

Andrew reacted first, grabbing said item and blatantly shoving them in a coat pocket, which was promptly zipped up for security. TJ was just behind him, shoving the meat in the pan under a lid and making sure to move it closer to keep me away. I glared at them as best I could in this unfamiliar face.

“No meat, you know the rules for horses. Your mom has one, remember?”

I snort, “I know that, I live with her!”

“Then you know that we can't let you have any! Now back to the caves, are you sure you want to go? It took you thirty minutes to get out of the tent, and that was with our help in opening the door!”

Another snort, louder this time. “We came here to hike the Ape Caves. I'm perfectly capable of walking up a mile of incline to hike the caves, so we are going to hike them!”

Andrew glared at me, “Dude, what is your problem?”

“Whatever your problem is! I'm fine!”

TJ is getting quite frustrated as well, as is evidenced by him standing up and knocking over the pot in the process. “No you aren't!”

“Yes! I! Am!”

“You're only getting pissed when all we want to do is go home and make sure you don't hurt yourself!”

“I said, I'm FINE!”

“Okay, that's enough!” Andrew growled, standing up and getting in my face. “Why are you treating us like this when we just want to help?”

“BECAUSE I'M BUCKING TERRIFIED!” I scream at his face, as tears practically explode down my cheeks. The overflow makes it hard to see, and I lose all control over my emotions. “Is that what you wanted to hear?! I'M SCARED! I don't know what to do! I can hardly walk anymore, I don't know if I did something wrong to deserve this... I can't stand it! I'm not even a guy anymore! I had no control over it, I'm hardly sure if this is even real, and the only thing I know is that I'm scared of everything bad that could possibly happen! AND WHY THE HELL DID IT HAVE TO HAPPEN TO ME?! Why couldn't it have been somebody else?! WHY ME?! I'm not that special, I'm not important, I'm not a threat or anything! So why... why did I have to be the next one? What did I do to deserve this? What the hell do I do now? I... I... I don't... I can't...”

I can't say anything else; my throat hurts, I can't see with all the tears in the way, and I just end up sitting there, crying my eyes out, trying to reign them back in. I feel two sets of arms gently wrap around my small equine form; even after yelling at them, my two friends that I met in high school drama club still accept me. Even as I remain in their comforting hold, crying loud and hard, letting out everything that had suddenly built up in me, they silently comfort me.

I guess that's why we're still such good friends.

The tears take several minutes to stop, and they keep holding me until I find myself hiccuping a bit from it all.

“I... I'm sorry for yelling at you...” I whisper.

“It's alright,” Andrew responds, as they finally pull back. “It's understandable.”

“Yeah, I'd probably freak out sooner,” TJ commented. “You're doing better than I would.”

I couldn't stop myself. “That's not hard to do.”

“Hey!”

A quiet chuckle escaped the three of us, as we relaxed back on our seats, the tension I'd caused finally released. We took a few minutes to clean up the mess from knocking over the food, and washing the dishes with the water we'd brought from home. After it was all said and done, I turned to them, truck behind me.

“I... I think you're right,” I admitted quietly, shoulders sagging. “I would really like to go through the caves... but there's other weekends to do it. We can always come back another day.”

“We can,” Andrew agreed with a nod. “Especially with, what? Three-hundred days left in the week?”

I giggled, before freezing. TJ was already holding a hand to his mouth as a smirk tried to appear on his face, Andrew biting his lip from the overly feminine sound. A hoof was jabbed in their direction, where they stood by the tent's entrance.

“Don't. You. Dare.”

Too late, they were already cracking up. TJ was holding a hand to his stomach. My other friend just stood there laughing. I facehooved.

And my masculinity is going... going... gone, I thought miserably. I am so going to get them back for this.

“When exactly are we heading back?” I asked with a sigh, as I took a minute to stand and try not to fall on my side again.

“Whenever we finish packing up.”

“Then I guess we can get started on that...”

“We?”

“I can still do things! Just not stuff requiring, you know... thumbs.”

We shared a small bout of laughter, as I struggled to walk back into the tent, the door still open. I would explain how I rolled up my sleeping bag and such, but let's just say it took significantly longer than it used to.

I miss my thumbs.

After struggling for about twenty minutes to just roll up my sleeping pad, Andrew took pity and took over, telling me to walk around outside until I got it down to the point where I didn't almost fall every few seconds. So I took the moment to wander around the edge of the campsite. It wasn't very big, to tell the truth; the edge of the forest was only a few yards from the tent, and a couple of yards west of that was the truck sitting in the parking lot. Like I mentioned, it wasn't very big, but it was exactly as I remembered it. The trees were currently quite green, and it was absolutely gorgeous, looking up and seeing the sunlight shine through the leaves and branches.

“Oh, hey, you're walking perfectly fine!” TJ called, and it brought me back into the real world out of my mind as I turned to him.

Blinking in confusion, it took me almost a minute to realize what he said and I figured out that he was right – I was actually walking without tripping over my own bloody hooves. Now if only I could figure out how to fly.

“Is that everything?” Andrew asked about half an hour later. I had figured out how to help – putting out the fire and making sure it was completely out.

“As far as I know,” TJ shrugged. “But you'll have to sit in the back, Thomas.”

“Sounds fine to me. Just go easy on the turns and bumpy road.”

Andrew nodded as he shut the trunk, and opened the door for me I attempted to jump onto the seat, but I only ended up on my back. The other two laughed quite hard at seeing me slip and fall and fail so spectacularly, and I'm just lying here, unsure of what the buck happened.

Fine, be that way, legs. I'll just crawl in this time. At least that kept me from doing... whatever it is I just did. It took almost a minute of trying to pull the seat belt to realize this wasn't working, so Andrew did it for me.

“Thanks,” I said quietly, rather embarrassed at being unable to do the most basic things. It was really quite annoying, to be perfectly honest. And some bronies think being a pony is a good thing.

He gave me a pitying smile, before shutting the door and climbing into the driver's seat of his car, TJ riding shotgun. Shortly after the car started, I lay down, realizing how stressed I had been earlier really drained me, especially shouting at two of my closest friends. As I closed my eyes in this unfamiliar form, and the strain of the morning came over me and sleep started to take over, I couldn't help but wonder:

How is my mom going to react?