Author's Notes:

A huge thank you to:
Evo
Korenav

For supporting me on patreon.

Sorry for the long break between these chapters. Been a bit busy with another project in real life.

I noticed a continuity error, Mac already knew that Gerry was originally male when he asked about pronouns. "Honesty" has been adjusted slightly to reflect that. It's nothing major, you shouldn't need to go back and read it again.

I did end up going out with Rainbow and AJ just to take my mind off things. Being stuck on the farm all the time was liable to make me stir crazy. It was a quiet tavern in the middle of town. There weren’t many other ponies there. We shot the shit for a few hours. Rainbow is an interesting pony. She has an abrasive personality that might rub a lot of people the wrong way, but she’s friendly enough to get away with it.

I might have drunk a little too much. I knew that I had to do some work the day after. A half-day at best. So I thought, what’s the harm? Like many of my decisions, fate and malice had collided in a particular way. Not only was I suffering from a throbbing headache and overly sensitive eyes, but my crotch area felt like I just sprinkled… something spicy into it.

What fresh hell had I entered? The answer was simple, I’d gone into heat.

Despite Applejack’s numerous warnings, I was simply not prepared for the fever that overcame my body. The dread I felt was not one of dysphoria, as it seemed that Celestia had taken care of that for me, but rather one of anxiety. I didn’t know how Equestria as a civilized society of animals would deal with it. Would it be like a human’s period? A fact of life that everybody ignores for politeness sake. Or would it compel the stallions around me into a sex fuelled rage, the likes of which would only be seen on the most dangerous parts of the web?

The burning itch in my crotch area was like a rash. I immediately called upon my most trusted advisor, Lady Applejack, for assistance. “AJ! I’m dying!”

Applejack wore her own face of imminent disaster as she strolled through my door at a leisurely gait, “Hold yer’ darn hay! I warned you about this!”

“I didn’t know it was going to happen today!”

“Yer’ like a little filly.”

I twisted under the covers as I tried in vain to find relief, “I may as well be! How am I supposed to deal with this?”

She shrugged. “…You get used to it.”

“What? Not even a bag of cold peas or anything?”

“Granny Smith don’t much like those Peas…” For God’s sake. There was something wrong with this family, “…Or oranges, or grapes, or pears.”

“For a mare with such a connection with fruit, she sure hates most of them.”

Applejack pulled me out of bed and smoothed out my mane. “Go take a cold shower, otherwise you’ll just have to make do. You’re a tough enough fella...”

I tried not to show it, but it was impossible. I reacted negatively to her using a masculine pronoun on me. It made me feel like a tremendous dick for a variety of complicated reasons. The effort it took for me to make such a statement in the first place, only to have to go back on it just a few days later. Most importantly though it reminded me that Celestia had fucked me over again.

“…Or mare.”

“Ugh. Everything’s fucked up. I can’t believe she did that. Especially to Twilight.”

“Twilight only lost trust, you lost a lot more.”

I stretched myself out and grabbed a clean towel to dry myself with, “I don’t think a cold shower is going to help.”

“I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you buddy. Get yourself clean.”

I followed the doctor’s orders and blasted myself with a stream of cold water. It certainly took my mind of the itch I was feeling. But as soon as the water had run out and I’d dried my body, it came back with the same feeling as before. Applejack had advocated for what I could only call a placebo. I held my complaints close to my chest and went downstairs.

“Mac’s already out in the fields,” Applejack mumbled, a wood spoon held between her teeth.

“Is there anything I need to know?”

“Nah. Just don’t go bumping uglies with whichever stallion walks in your direction first and you’ll be right and fine. If a teenager can do it, so can you.”

“I never want to hear you say the term ‘bumping uglies’ again.” Applejack smiled and put out a plate of food for me. I sat down at the table and chowed down. Granny Smith was having a late morning, which was unusual. She was always up at the crack of dawn.

“Is Granny Smith okay? She’s usually awake and about by now.”

“I think she’s feelin’ a bit under the weather. She wants some bedrest.”

I cleaned off my plate and sat back in the chair. I really didn’t want to work in this condition, but would I come off as ungrateful if I asked AJ for a day off? I decided to do the worst of both instead. “Gee, I sure wish that was me right now.”

“I warned you not to drink so darn much. You got some serious hay for brains sometimes. This is nature’s way of saying that I was right.”

“Nature isn’t on your side AJ. What do I have left to do today? If I hurry up it’ll be over sooner.”

Applejack rattled off a list of menial tasks for me to handle. With a great amount of effort I staggered through the orchard and saw to them one by one. By the time I was done my head was splitting and my eyes were watering. It took around an hour, but it felt much longer than that. I caught a glimpse of Mac a few times while I was working, but I didn’t feel much like talking at the time.

Not that I had a choice in the matter, the man approached me himself. Mac was the type of pony who you talk at, not talk with. I’d extracted some longer discussions out of him before – but I’d never had him tell me anything not work related without my prompting.

“Ya’ll holding up?”

“No. I feel like death.” Mac frowned. Much to my joy – there wasn’t really a way for other ponies to tell when you were in season without asking. I still felt the need to say something tough. “I have a terrible hangover, and I’m currently experiencing how the other side feels, if you catch my drift.”

Mac’s eyes widened as he cottoned on to what I meant, “That’s… interesting.”

“I know. I mean… I didn’t really know much about heat before this whole ordeal anyway.”

“Every mare goes into heat eventually… You had any luck changing back?”

“No, the exact opposite actually.”

“How’d you mean?”

“I don’t know. Princess Celestia got involved and she just made things worse. Now I don’t even know if I’d want to change back – you know? If she offered on the spot right now, which she can’t. I don’t think anyone can change me back. So she decided to make my mind fit the body so to speak.”

“...Huh.”

“So I’m like, a full mare now.”

Mac looked concerned, rightfully so. “That don’t sound too right.”

“It’s not. Twilight was furious, and they haven’t even seen each other since. She didn’t tell her a single thing about it, she just manipulated her because she thought it was for the best.” Mac shook his head. “I got thinking that, if there was no way to go back, maybe Celestia was right though.”

“Ain’t you just saying that because she wants you to?”

“True. Maybe it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. What I don’t want is to near vomit every time I see myself in the mirror. She took something from me, she took my choice. But a lot of people don’t get choices for things much worse than this.”

“I’d be mad.”

“I was too. But that boat’s sailed now. I’ve got to deal with it. I guess I’m too much of a coward for anything else.”

Mac seemed upset, “Just you wait a sec. You’ve been nothing but brave since you showed up here. Putting honesty first, helping out on the farm, you wanted to go to Canterlot to get answers, didn’t you?”

“Thanks Mac. Seriously,” I patted him on the back, he was kind of sweaty though. “I’ve given up.”

It was harsh but true. What was there left for me to try? Celestia and Twilight’s relationship was on ice. Twilight seemed confident that it was simply impossible to do now since Celestia’s advice was bogus. I was content, but not happy, to sit back and relax for a while with my newly rewired brain. Maybe enjoy my work on the farm for once.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. Confronting Celestia again didn’t sound palatable to me, and it depended on whether Twilight wanted to see her again so soon anyway. I highly doubted that I could arrange an audience on my own.

“Don’t wanna’ hold you down with all this complicated stuff.”

Mac huffed out a blast of warm air, “You’ve been down on this farm long enough to talk with me and AJ. You’re part of the family.”

I laughed, “What? Just like that?”

“We’ve got hundreds of relatives, what’s a few more?” He chewed on his straw; his jaw set stiffly. “You ever got a problem, we’re here for ya’.”

I was never one for sappy stuff, I elbowed him in the side and laughed it off. “You just want me for my fantastic irrigation management.”

Mac wobbled slightly under the pressure, “AJ think’s it’s a mighty fine bonus.” I glanced down at one of the ditches I’d helped construct. The farm was already pretty sophisticated when I arrived – but the eye of a trained professional means there’s room for improvement. I was proud of that work. It had made life so much easier for them knowing that they didn’t have to worry about things like that anymore.

“It’s not a bonus, that’s what pays my room and board. Have to say though, real lucky I ended up in a town with so many farmers.”

“Did ya’ travel for work a lot?”

“I’d only just started. I took the first job I got offered, and I probably should have been pickier about them. The place was a total dump. Leaky roof, bad food, worse boss. In the middle of damn nowhere too, the only thing to do was work or get drunk off whatever the other guys snuck in. This town though, much nicer.”

Mac nodded along to my tale. I talked a bit more about my time on the old farm. The heat had been expelled from my mind somewhat. Mac was easy to talk to. He was frank if a bit quiet. He wasn’t judgemental about anything I had to say. He even took the heat thing in stride. Although he did live with an adult sister. He’d heard it a hundred times before.

“Back then I was sharing a rickety shithouse with ten other men. No privacy. Isn’t that crazy? I thought places like that were relegated to period novels and western movies.”

“This was back when you were still a stallion?”

“Yeah, all this body swapping stuff only started when I came here.”

“Okay.”

“There was one sink and one toilet, and a couple showers. It was always either too hot or too cold. And I didn’t exactly have fur to moderate things.”

“…You didn’t have fur?”

“Yeah, I was… well you wouldn’t know what I was. But I didn’t have fur!”

“Like a dragon?”

“I didn’t have scales. It was just skin, you know, like what you have under the fur?”

“Ah’ can’t imagine that.”

“You’d probably freak out if you saw it.”

“Nope.”

“You definitely would.”

“Nope.”

“I swear Mac.”