Becoming Raindrops

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?