The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.

―Maximillien Robespierre, prominent politician of the French Revolution and architect of the Reign of Terror.

The first thing that I could recall after my bout of unconsciousness was waking suddenly with a start in my room. For a moment I allowed myself to relax with my eyes closed, safe in the knowledge that my transformation into a pony was nothing but a terrible and vivid nightmare. However, my ignorant bliss was interrupted when I reached my hand up with the intention to brush my fingers through my hair, only to find instead that it was impossible for me to feel my fingers or even move them apart.

Already, a part of me knew that what I believed only a moment ago to be a dream was in fact cold reality. Despite this, I was still reluctant to open my eyes and confront what I would undoubtedly find. When I had finally summoned the courage, I was greeted with a stump where my hand had previously resided. Fighting down the scream that bubbled up from my throat and instead reducing it to a whimper, I tightly shut my eyes and prayed to God that this wasn’t really happening to me. After an indistinguishable amount of time, though the darkness that remained in the sky when I first awoke had long been banished, I once again forced myself to open my eyes and take stock of my situation. Looking at my furry stump, it was clear that my pony self had a coat that was a dark blue.

At that moment, my only coherent thought was to get to a mirror as quickly as I possibly could. After I had struggled out from under the blankets and wiggled my way over to the edge of the bed, I realised that I didn’t really know how to properly get off of the bed and onto my hooves at the same time. I opted to simply roll out, which seemed to be effective enough, as I managed to plant all four of my feet onto the floor without much difficulty.

Even though I had been able to stand up, making it over to the mirror still proved a significant challenge. I had no idea in what order I needed to move my new legs to be able to move forward. Rather oddly, one of the things that I found myself thinking at this conundrum was how much easier this problem would be if I had instead focused on the biological side of engineering rather than the mechanical.

Even as I lifted my front right foreleg and attempted to take my first step forward, I knew that this wasn’t going to work properly. I had to pause for several moments in order to conclude what leg I needed to move next. I opted to move my back right hoof, followed by my front left and then my back left.

By repeating this pattern, I was able to make my agonizingly slow way over to the mirror that was positioned in such a way as to be impossible to see until I was standing directly in front of it. Even though I had developed a walking cycle that was serviceable, there were still a number of points where I nearly tripped myself up in my own clumsiness. I also had to pause for a short time along the way, to properly sort the jumbled signals that were being sent to my brain.

I winced every time my hooves clicked on the hard stone floor. Not only was it startling for my body to be making such a sound, it also served as an ever-present reminder of what I had been forced through. The sound, coupled with my frustration of being incapable of even just walking across the room, caused my anger to grow with every step.

My rage was replaced with dumb shock, however, when I finally reached the mirror. I stared at it for several moments before my brain was able to fully process that I was indeed looking back at my own reflection rather than some image of a random pony.

What disconcerted me most about it, was that nearly everything about my new face and body was completely different to what I had before, even the hair colour. In place of my normally brown hair was a mane and tail that was jet black. On top of this was the fact that I appeared to be slightly taller than the average pony’s height, if Shieldwing and Blade Storm were accurate indicators. My build also seemed to be on the thin side, a complete contrast to my normally average height and build.

The only things about me that was even remotely similar were my irises, which remained a moss green. However, even this was wrong as the eyes that they were housed in were enormous, leaving them as an island of familiarity in a sea of the unknown.

The only other thing that I was grateful for was the fact that I appeared to be an Earth Pony. Certainly whilst it would have been nice to fly or use magic, I don’t think that my mind would be able to process an entirely new set of limbs, or the ability to manipulate a force of nature that only a month ago I would have found the possibility for its existence to be ridiculous. At least this way, I was similar to a human.

My shocked gazing at the mirror was interrupted when there were a few short knocks at the door before I heard it open followed by the unmistakable sound of hooves on the marble floor.

As they grew closer, I began to panic on who it was that was coming for me without at least offering the courtesy to wait for me to give my consent before entering the room.

When I looked at the doorway, I saw the last pony I wanted to see. The second that I laid my eyes on her all of the rage and pain that I felt came flooding back to me in a single moment. There was Princess Celestia, looking at me with the same calming smile she always wore, seeming to be completely ignorant of my hatred for her, and the pain she had caused me. Upon seeing her face, my rage simply exploded and drowned out all of my fear of her, both my primordial fear of her power and my learned fear from yesterday. All I knew was that I wanted to wipe that smile off of her face and make her feel even a modicum of the pain that she imparted onto me.

Letting out a bestial snarl, I attempted to launch myself at her with as much force as I could possibly muster. My legs abandoned me on this endeavour as the tensing of my body to prepare for the leap caused me to lose my balance resulting in a tumble to the cold, hard floor.

Even at that setback, I still refused to simply release this opportunity for revenge and began crawling toward her in much the same manner as an infant would.

Before I could close even half of the distance between us, I was engulfed once again by her golden aura which promptly halted my attempt to reach her.

“Please calm yourself,” she spoke, her tone not betraying even a hint of nervousness at being approach by a half mad individual, “I know that you are angry at me, but I am only here to make sure you are okay and then I will leave you alone.”

Understandably, I was cautious at this but I knew that for the moment it would be impossible to reach her, let alone hurt her, so it would probably be best to co-operate to get her away from me as quickly as possible no matter how hard my anger screamed at me to keep struggling to reach her.

Giving her a nod of permission—I could not bring myself to speak to her—I was quickly transported back onto the bed where the next few minutes were spent with me trying my very best to control myself as Celestia examined me both with her eyes and magical senses just out of my reach.

“I’m sorry that the transformation was so painful Joshua,” Celestia uttered apologetically, “but the complexity of the magical weave prevented us from including a spell that would numb the pain.”

Choosing not to respond to her I instead opted to stew in my anger as Celestia continued to perform tests on me to ensure that my transformation was successful.

“So I take it that you are pleased with your cutie mark then?” she spoke suddenly , interrupting the terse silence and disarming me with the randomness of her question.

Certainly I was shocked by this statement, as I had assumed that I would not have one. I had completely neglected to check to see if one was present. It made sense, after all. If the entire point of Celestia’s plan was to allow me to live in an environment inundated with magic, I should be affected by it just the same as all of the others.

Turning my head I did not at all expect to see what I had pictured there. It was a ball of yarn with two needles sticking through it, which was about as far as one could get from mechanical engineering as possible.

The shock of this revelation made me completely forget my previous assertion to not speak to the princess at all.

“Why is it a ball of yarn and needles?” I spoke, the disbelief quite plain in my voice.

“Well,” She smiled back, “I can only assume that it is because your special talent is knitting.”

At her blatant disregard for my own intelligence by talking to me if I was a child, my anger began to flare up again, though I quickly brought it back under control to allow me to continue with my questioning.

“But I don’t like sewing, I haven’t once even entertained the notion to attempt it. I’m a mechanical engineer, not a goddamned tailor for Christ’s sake!”

“That career clearly was not what you were meant to do,” Celestia said, “cutie marks embody what a pony will be best at, based on their inner essence. In your case, it seems that you would be best at being a textile artist.”

For a minute, all I could do was sit stunned at what I was hearing. In the past, I had read about cutie marks, and how they appeared when a pony discovered their “special talent”. However, by having myself transformed into a pony, rather than being born as one, revealed something much more sinister about the whole thing. All the books that I had read on the subject had, in some form or another, explained how every single pony had endless possibilities for what cutie mark they would receive until they discovered something that they were good at and made them happy. Instead, by taking into account the information I had just received from Celestia, it appeared that all ponies had a predetermined “destiny” from birth, based on their inner essence—which I could only take to mean genetic makeup—which they would eventually discover in the natural course of their lives.

“Cutie marks are an indicator of a pony’s role in society aren’t they?” I whispered, less of a question and more of a voicing of my own horror.

“That’s a rather cold way of putting it,” Celestia spoke with a soft laugh, “I think of it as letting a pony know where it is in the world that they belong, and what it is that will make them happy.”

“But what if a pony doesn’t like their special talent, what if they’re not content with it?” My voice rising to a more audible volume as the information began to sink in.

“Joshua, I assure you that is impossible. A mark will always ensure that a pony is happy with their destiny. You too will feel its effects soon enough, just as I did when they were first brought into the world by my mother.”

At this admission that I could be controlled so easily, I began to feel panic rising in my chest. Soon enough my cutie mark would ensure that I would be complacent in the role that my genes selected for me even if at the moment I was not.

Sensing my rapidly growing inability to talk further, Celestia chose that moment to leave. When she had passed through the archway of the door however she stopped for a second as if suddenly remembering something and turned to face me again.

“One final thing,” she spoke, “your name.”

“My name?” I echoed, my current state preventing me from formulating a more direct question.

“Yes, I fear that it doesn’t really fit your new pony build, so I think that a new one would be appropriate. If you wish to still go by Joshua as a nickname, I can understand that. But when speaking with those that you don’t know, I strongly advise that you go by the name of Clickety Clack. After all, your transformation was partially for the purpose of aiding your integration into pony society, and it would be silly to go by a non-pony name wouldn’t it?”

As she once again turned to leave, a final question escaped my lips.

“Why did you do this to me, Celestia?” I asked, as my emotions seemed to drain away under the realisation of the sheer weight of the events that had recently befallen me.

At the question the smile on Celestia’s face was suddenly replaced with a hard line as she seemingly took additional time to articulate an answer.

“Joshua, it was not easy for me,” she replied, sorrow entering her voice, “but you must understand that if I did not you would have died.”  

At her answer I simply could not control my anger any longer and I found myself shouting at her at the top of my lungs.

“I don’t care, Celestia! It would have been better to die as myself, than be transformed into this... thing!” As I shouted I shoved my two front hooves into her face as I continued. “Look at these, Celestia! You’ve mutilated me, you cut off my hands and left me with these stumps! You took away my very humanity and denied me any choice in the matter and for what?! To satisfy your own conscience, after it was your carelessness that brought me here?!”

All throughout my tirade Celestia sat staring at me as her features betrayed little emotion. Once I had finished I collapsed exhausted onto my bed as bitter tears came unbidden to my eyes.

As soon as she witnessed my sorrow, Celestia immediately rushed to my side to comfort me. I pushed her off and quickly looked away, all my fear of her divinity forgotten. Thankfully, this made her get the message that I didn’t want to be around her any longer. Shortly afterwards, I heard the sound of her golden shoes on the floor slowly making their way away from me.

As I turned to see her depart I could see little indication of any impact that my words had had on her as she still seemed to maintain the same regal bearing and pace that she always exhibited, obviously my plight being of little consequence to a being as powerful as her. My spiteful thoughts were quickly discarded when she turned to face me a final time and I could see a single tear beginning to roll down her face.

Upon seeing this image for the first time since my transformation, I did not feel anger when I saw her, only sorrow.

“Celestia,” I called, so softly, I half expected her not to hear it. As she turned I could see a glimmer of hope entering in her eyes.

“I understand why you did what you did, but I never wanted this,“ I said, my voice carrying resolve in it that offered no alternative, “It was your own fault that brought me here, Celestia, and I was the one made to pay for your mistakes. You took my right to choose, and warped me into something that is nothing like what I am. I can never forgive you for what you have done to me, Celestia, and I’m afraid that I will probably hate you for the rest of my life.”

Pausing for a moment, I attempted to swallow the rather large lump that was lodged in my throat before I completed my speech.

“I don’t want you to come see me again. Once I am finally able to actually function properly, I will leave this place, and we will never see each other again. Understand?”

Nodding slowly Celestia once again resumed her practiced walk out of my rooms. When I finally heard the door softly shut behind her, I allowed the courage that had filled me briefly to depart as I cried myself to sleep.