Author's Notes:

A huge thank you to:
Evo
Korenav

For supporting me on patreon.

Bloom and Mac had a surprisingly easy time of adjusting to my request. And it did feel good to regain just a little bit of my old persona again. Granny Smith was a lost cause though, the mare dipped between being sharp as a tack and out of her mind seemingly at random. I could yell in her ears for hours and not get closer to her understanding. It was fine, I rarely spoke with her anyway.

As long as the people in my immediate vicinity kept it in mind, I could safely ignore it while I was on the farm unless I needed the toilet. But to be fair, pony toilets were unisex. It didn’t matter what you had downstairs - you needed to sit down to use it. Otherwise you’d end up pissing all over everything and that’s a mess that nobody needs to clean up.

Why am I talking about piss again?

Anyway, the point is that getting them to call me by male pronouns had a profoundly positive effect on the way I felt. The long sojourns to the bedroom so I could hide under the covers were gone, and I always had a supportive person around if I needed to talk about something. Still, it was crippling. I never imagined how tough it would be to have dysphoria. Magic is a bit of an asshole.

My calming hours kicking trees and conducting maintenance work on the farm was interrupted by the arrival of the prophet of doom. “Hello Rarity,” I grunted, putting the boot to another tree. “I don’t see you down here so often.”

“Good afternoon dear. I must know, how do you endure this heat while working?” she fawned, fanning her face with an arm.

“You get used to it. That or accept that the sweat is part of life.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“I’m sure even a lady like you sweats sometimes Rarity.”

“I pay very good attention to my glands.”

I frowned at her bizarre statement and took a moment to catch my breath. “Come on, spill the beans. You can be direct with me.”

“Well whatever do you mean?”

“You’re not loitering around me for friendly conversation. Are you?”

“Is there something wrong with me speaking with a friend?”

“We barely even talk with each other. And don’t think that Applejack didn’t tell me what you were up to the other week.”

Rarity gasped theatrically, “I was only trying to be a help.”

“Well I’m not in the market for a stallion right now, or ever, as a matter of fact.”

“Oooooh,” she smirked, “You’re into mares.” She whispered the last part as if it was a huge deal.

“No. I’m not interested in anything romantic right this moment. And I don’t know when I will be. There’s a lot on my plate.”

“The Apple family do eat a lot…”

“Not that kind of plate, the metaphorical kind when there’s lots of stuff going on that I haven’t dealt with yet.”

Rarity seemed deep in thought which was rare. She was an incredibly impulsive person, always pushing things onto other people with little regard for how they felt. “I suppose it was silly of me to think…”

“What is it?”

“…I was hoping that I could take your measurements. I don’t mean to offend, but you’re the tallest mare I’ve seen who isn’t a Princess, and I don’t exactly get the opportunity to work on them!”

I shrugged, “That doesn’t seem like a problem to me.”

“But Applejack said that you wouldn’t like a dress.”

“I wouldn’t. I mean, I wouldn’t want to wear one in public. But if you really want to…”

Rarity squealed so loud that it nearly popped my ear drums, before pulling me into a hug, “Thank you so, so much darling! I won’t disappoint!” There was a stiff pause, before she slowly pulled away, her cheek and front leg matted with a fresh helping of my own sweat.

“Rarity.”

“I-I must go clean myself! I-I will be back to organize a time later!”

Rarity turned tail and ran as fast as her legs could carry her; I couldn’t help but laugh at her. What a silly woman. Maybe she’d think twice before getting so excited next time.

The next day I wandered down to her home and place of business. As casual as I’d been about doing her the favour, I was a little bit worried about ending up in a dress. I knocked on her door, and to my surprise she was actually inside. She seemed equally surprised to see me. “Oh! I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.”

“I got work done early, so I thought I’d come over and organize that time you were talking about.”

Rarity looked a little less than perfect. Her makeup had faded, and her hair wasn’t quite as well style as it usually was. She was wearing a little pair of red reading glasses and had a tape measure around her neck. Still, if she was distress at the idea of me seeing her like this, she didn’t show it, a beaming grin threatened to split her cheeks in two.

“Of course darling! I can always make time. Come in, come in!”

She ushered me inside. It was the first time I’d seen Rarity’s home. It was a total mess, with fabric and mannequins tossed all over the place. Some were half dressed in unfinished ideas. From the state of the large table in the centre of the open plan living area – it seemed that she’d been busy. “None of these are for me, I take it?”

“Oh, no dear, I’m afraid that the grand galloping gala is coming up soon and my work is in high demand… I dare say that making an ensemble for you will be a welcome break!”

“Sounds like more work to me.”

Rarity tutted at me, “No, not at all. I know how fast I work. This deadline is a mere temporary stress, amongst other, more permanent ones.”

I stood behind one of the feminine dummies with a frown, I really did eclipse them in size. I don’t think the mass of my body would be a problem when changing me back. “Are you sure? I can just come back another time.”

“That won’t do at all, come along. While you’re here I may as well take your measurements, it will only take a moment.” She pushed me towards a podium. I stood atop it and silently worried about it shattering underneath my weight.

The tape measure was wrapped in a light blue glow, and before I even knew what she was doing it was wrapped around my chest like a snake. “Just relax. Let the air out of your lungs.” I followed her instructions and untensed myself. She zipped around my body at a blinding speed, scribbling down notes as she went.

“Do you have an idea on what you’re making?”

“I’m not sure yet, I wanted to get your opinion first.” Rarity being considerate? Hell had frozen over. “Applejack was rather upset at me for what happened.”

“You didn’t know.”

“That is no excuse dear, I wanted to apologize.”

It wasn’t that bad. Nothing had come of it in the end anyway.

“Well, apology accepted.”

“Now, you were very adamant about not having a dress. But I still want to make something that you might use in the future, clothes are meant to be worn after all! I can’t say I’ve ever made anything but a dress for a lady…”

“I’m not a lady. That’s the problem.”

“Ah yes, you’re right. I’m in two minds about it though. Should you be in the presence of polite company, they’ll surely expect you to wear a dress. Despite your size, you still have the muzzle of a mare.”

“They don’t sound very polite if they wouldn’t respect my choice of clothing.”

“I use ‘polite company’ in a disparaging way. The average Canterlot noble is boorish and rude. In fact, I’d be very pleased to make something offensive to their sensibilities. How does a suit sound?”

“A suit? I work on a farm.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t have nice clothes. I gave the same effort to Applejack last we went to the ball together.”

“Oh, Applejack in a dress? How did it go?”

“Dreadful! I never want to do it again.”

“Who are these dresses for then?”

“I made a few friends up there. And as much as I may find some of them wanting, I cannot refuse their business, I’m responsible for Sweetie Belle after all. This is the busiest time of the year for dressmakers.” Rarity looked over to a box full of different fabric with a pensive look, “Hm. I have a lot of wonderful ideas!”

“Just don’t run yourself ragged for my sake.”

Rarity wasn’t listening. She’d pulled a pen from somewhere and was frantically scratching some kind of design onto a piece of paper. “Hm yes, very good darling.”

I sighed, “I’ll see you later.”

I left the boutique and wandered through town. Now what could I do with myself? I very rarely got time to myself when the farm was in season. There were all kinds of ponies mulling around, but I wasn’t going to walk up to one of them and strike up a friendly conversation. I’d gotten a reputation as a grump, or just really shy, depending on who you asked. I found myself outside of the library again.

I really didn’t want to get another earful from Twilight about magic. But in the absence of better options and common sense, I found myself going inside anyway. The place had been cleaned up since my last visit, and Twilight looked almost pleased with herself. “Oh, Gerry! Just the stallion I wanted to see.”

“We tend to use the word ‘man.’”

“Never mind, you can tell me all about your world when we finish this spell! I’ve made a lot of progress since last time!”

My heart sped up, “Really? Really really?”

“Really really. I’ve forwarded my results to the Canterlot College of Magic. And I’m receiving some good signals back from them. There are still a few obstacles left though.”

“What happened while I was gone? I thought you’d gotten stuck the last time we spoke.”

“The Princess managed to find a book in the archives that was in much greater detail than any of the others that I could obtain. It seems that transformation magic is a controversial subject, and as such many of the books that detailed it were destroyed or locked away. The book had exactly the answers I was looking for, power sources, replication and how to make them permanent. It’s actually annoying that we didn’t find it earlier!”

Yeah, kinda’ weird.

“Okay, so? What do you need to do?”

“The answer to our power source problem isn’t a matter of finding a source strong enough anymore. It’s about the strength of the magic flow. We can create a magic vacuum in a certain area using spells, put you inside of it, and allow the flood of surrounding magic do the work for us.”

It stood in opposition to what Twilight had said about ambient magic to me before. But I wasn’t about to poke holes in her plan if she was so confident about it. Perhaps the magic wasn’t the cause of the problem at all.

“Just like how I arrived in Equestria?”

“Yes, exactly. We can replicate those circumstances in a controlled environment. Then by applying the principles of transformation magic we can cast a self-replicating form to transform your body back to it’s original state and keep it that way for good.”

“Won’t I turn back again when I hit magic air?”

Twilight’s face… I can’t really describe the expression that she pulled when I asked the obvious question. It was the expression of a woman hurtling towards a difficult social situation with none of the grace to escape from it unharmed. Twilight was not the most charismatic mare at the best of times. “Uh… Gerry, I have something to tell you. And I need you to promise me that it does not, under any circumstance, leave this room.”

“…Okay?”

“I’ve been tossing and turning in my sleep trying to figure out why you even transformed in the first place. Such a thing without external magical input would be impossible. This is a complicated spell after all, but I didn’t cast it. I’m not even certain if I was the one who brought you here in the first place.”

“So what does that mean?”

“…I think somepony cast the spell on you. And they knew that you were here.” I stared a hole through her, processing the accusation in my brain. “The only ponies that knew you were here before the process started – were me, and the Princess.”

“You dragged me through town, couldn’t it have been somebody else?”

“No, you were already transforming then, remember? We were taking you to the hospital.”

“So you think that the Princess of your entire nation just waltzed on down to the library while you were conducting an experiment for her, hid in a bush, and zapped me as soon as I came through the universe’s asshole?”

“I wouldn’t use colourful language like that…”

“Twilight, do you really think that?”

She seemed in pain as she said it.

“Yes.”

Things just kept getting better and better.