The room was a prison, not through any application of force, rather a conscious decision made by myself.

My brief foray into the outside world was enlightening. This place wasn't all terrible, even if I would have preferred to be back home with the things I was used to, like electricity, and furniture that was my size. The company of Twilight and Applejack was nice enough. Still, I would have preferred to be back home. It looked like this ambient magic, or whatever Twilight had called it, had other plans for me. So until she found a way to fix me I was stuck here.

After my angry rant about the current state of things, Twilight and Applejack had bowed out of the room, leaving me with my thoughts again. Maybe I shouldn't have shouted at them, but I wasn't exactly acting rationally when she had told me I was undergoing a horrible metamorphosis into something else, I silently hoped that they understood why I was so upset. I curled up under the sheets of the bed, not wanting to look at myself.

The next morning was uneventful by my standards. I woke up with nobody there to greet me, apart from a few beams of light piercing the curtains that covered the windows. My body felt sore, and I dared not to look upon it knowing what was happening. A hand probed my chest and stomach, finding nothing out of the ordinary. However, when I reached my incredibly fucked up legs, I noticed that they felt a lot hairier than they used to, almost as if I was growing... fur.

I sighed.

I struggled to pull myself to the edge of the bed. Being halfway between mutant and human, I was unable to walk on my own without the assistance of another. After my cuss storm the previous night, I elected to allow them to enter on their own terms, rather than calling out for them like a spoilt child. I brushed a hand against my shin, feeling the thin layer of fur that had begun to grow. I sat there on the edge waiting for something to happen.

It eventually did. A purple snout poked through the doorway, "Gerry, are you okay?" Twilight asked with no small amount of trepidation.

"Not really."

Twilight pushed open the door, a tray of food in her magical grip. Her eyes gravitated towards my legs, they looked incredibly strange, I didn't blame her. "Oh dear, is that..."

"Fur? I guess you were right," I bent down and brushed a hand against it, shivering slightly, it was connected to me. I was no stranger to body hair but it was much more consistent than anything I'd experienced before. It felt like I had grown a thousand fingers on my leg. She gave me an awkward grin, placing the tray down on the bed next to me. "What the fuck am I going to do?"

Twilight sighed, "It's a tricky question."

"I mean, I could try to go back home, but what if I stay like this? I'll end up in some kind of top secret lab, getting cut up and investigated. Obviously that assumes I can even get home in the first place."

"Gerry, I know it isn't much of a consolation considering the circumstances, but we're here for you. Even if you can't go back home, or turn into a pony, we'll be here to help." Twilight gave me an earnest smile, I mulled over her words in silence,

"I'm sorry about last night."

"Don't worry about that."

I did anyway. I pulled over the tray and placed it on my lap, she had gifted me with a couple of slices of buttered toast and a glass of orange juice. I ate in silence as Twilight ducked down to have a closer look at my legs, I could hear her suck in air as she investigated, was it really that bad? After eating the first I reached for the glass, but found it incredibly hard to properly grip. No matter what I did, my fingers would slip, I couldn't move them properly to grab it.

I gave up, looking at my palms with a sigh. I could see a little black splotch in-between my thumb and finger, and I had a creeping dread of what that meant. It was changing my hands too, just like my legs. "Twi, my hands..."

"Let me see," I displayed my palms to her.

"There's not much there yet, but I can't pick up the glass, and there's a black bit there, just like my legs."

"That would mean that you're undergoing a similar process there too. It looks like we may be right about you turning into a pony."

"I lose my hands too? How the hell do you pick anything up?"

"It's actually fairly complicated, a combination of a localized levitation field and the motion of the bottom of the hoof to create suction."

"I don't need a lecture Twi," I rolled my eyes, "It was semi-rhetorical."

"You're rhetorical or you're not," she huffed, "Not being able to pick up objects is the least of your concerns."

"Just trying to lighten things up a little," I sighed.

"Look at it this way, it could be worse."

"How could it be worse?" I scowled.

"You could die," she stated, "Or you could turn into something with no ability to communicate, or maybe your brain functions could be damaged transforming you into a mindless animal."

"This isn't making me feel any better Twilight."

I hadn't washed myself for a few days by that point. After I pointed this out, Twilight had ushered me into the bathroom and stole the only clothes I had, saying that I needed to clean up. Leaving somebody who is very unsteady on their mutant feet-hooves in a bathroom, full of sharp, hard surfaces seemed like a bad idea to me. I gripped the sink for dear life as I wobbled over to the bathtub.

The oil coating my skin created intricate patterns in the water as I washed away a good few days of stress. I sighed and leaned against the curved rear of the bath, closing my eyes. If I had the option I would have chosen to stay in there for hours, but I felt it would be rude to do so. So after a few minutes of relaxation I set about the task of cleaning myself with hands stiffer than a starched rock.

It was a big fucking ordeal.

I was too prideful to call for Twilight to help, and a little bit embarrassed being naked. I decided that I was perfectly capable of washing myself. I sat up and brushed my hand against the provided bottle of shampoo ineffectively, my fingers refusing to clench. I frowned and brought up my other arm, wedging it between both of my hands instead.

"Fucking hell," I grunted. I couldn't figure out how to get the cap open. Without the use of my fingers, even a simple task such as that was a struggle. After a few minutes of creative thinking I pushed it down against the edge of the bath to pry it open, then I held it above my head to pour some out. The bottle nearly slipped out of my hands, sending a tremor through my heart. Did you know it's really awkward to wash your hair without fingers? It's impossible to get into every nook and cranny, and on a few occasions I ended up scratching myself with no way to adjust the angle of my fingers.

I nearly drowned myself out of frustration. But I decided to persevere and scrub myself with a brush on the side of the bath. The soap was a real bastard, much, much worse than the shampoo bottle; being three times as slippery. I managed to get a little onto the bristles of the brush, which would have to do. Thankfully the brush had been designed with the clumsy, immobile digits of a equine in mind making it easy for me to slip my hand through the handle.

I slowly scrubbed myself down. The brush was fairly rough, I guessed it would be used on somebody with fur, rather than skin. I glanced back down at my legs, floating uselessly in the water. My feet had all but disappeared, a black stump being left in their place. Above them caramel coloured fur had grown up to just above my knees. I couldn't believe that they were part of me.

The brush travelled down to my legs. I shivered as I felt the sensation of the brush tugging at it, a thousand times more sensitive than my old leg hair, and much thicker. I absently mindedly brushed through it a few times, getting progressively harder with each stroke. In the back of my mind, I wondered if I could scrub it off and go back to normal. A stinging sensation brought me back to reality, I looked down to see a red cloud growing in the dirty water.

I pulled the brush away and winced. Somehow I'd managed to scrub right back down to my skin, some of the fur was stuck to the brush, forcefully pulled away by my subconscious. I needed to get out of the water fast before I got dirty again. It was a struggle to pull myself over the edge and out onto the floor, when I did I flopped onto it like a fish out of water.

My leg throbbed. I'd managed to get blood on Twilight's floor. She was going to kill me, if I didn't end up killing myself in a daze first. The childish part of my mind immediately began to think of ways to cover up my actions, the last thing I wanted was for Twilight to find out and question me about it. But what the hell could I do? I was a naked guy who couldn't walk or use his hands, who was now bleeding onto the floor of a near stranger.

I heard the trotting of hooves outside the door, and I was momentarily paralysed by fear. What was wrong with me?

"Are you okay Gerry? I heard a commotion."

"No, but don't come in... I need a second."

She was silent for a second, "Do you need help?"

I scoffed to myself, I was far beyond help. "Just give me a damn second okay? I'm not..." I banged my head against the tub as my leg throbbed. "I fucked my leg up Twilight. I don't know why."

"Is it okay for me to come in?"

"I'm naked."

"Making sure you're okay is far more important than what state of undress you're in! I'm here to help you!"

But why was she there to help me? She didn't even know me, what was in it for her? I closed my eyes again and tried to whisk myself back home, but no matter how hard I focused I remained. And then my mind wandered again, what if Twilight knew more than she was letting on?

"Do you know what's happening to me or not? How can you help?"

She was silent again, I could hear her pacing in the corridor. "I can't. I don't know, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try."

I closed my eyes again, "Fine, just come in."

The door opened and Twilight gasped, hurrying over to me and holding up my leg in her magic, "What happened?"

"I fell."