After the incident in the bathroom, Twilight had volunteered to watch over me like a hawk. I'd messed up my leg pretty badly which only made walking even harder than it was before.

I don't think she believed me.

So once again I was confined back into the room, away from the curious eyes of others and away from anything I could use to kill myself with. Twilight decided that it would be a good idea to bring Applejack back to talk with me for a while, the entire time she was away I was thinking of things I could say. I didn't like talking about myself because it reminded me of how boring I was; even as an alien curiosity in a new world.

And so I remained silent as two overbearing ponies burst into the room, almost as if to hold a surprise party for me. Applejack's beaming, fake smile faltered when she gazed at my fucked up legs, half pony, half human and freshly bandaged. I rolled my eyes and silently dreaded the awkward silence that would soon follow.

"Howdy Gerry," she greeted me.

"Hi," I humoured her.

"So... how's your... leg?" she asked, cringing slightly after it left her mouth.

"Oh yeah, it's great."

"Right."

Twilight's eyes darted back and forth between the two of us. I stared at her with a frown, until she gave up, her body slumping with a sigh.

"Twilight, why did you think that this was a good idea?"

"This is what I normally do in these kinds of situations!"

"Ah' don't think that friendship is going to solve this little problem Twi," Applejack commented.

"Can you at least keep him company for an hour? I need to get out and run a few chores."

Applejack looked at me, I shrugged in response.

"Fine."

"Can we at least move out of this room?" I asked, "I'm tired of lying in this bed."

Twilight had made sure to close the curtains in the library before leaving, leaving us in a darkened lobby. Applejack lit a couple of candles around the place, making it pretty cosy in the end. Despite this the conversation between us was not forthcoming, and we spent a good few minutes in silence.

"This sucks," I complained, kicking my leg out from the cushion I was sat on.

"How'd you end up with that bandage?"

"I fell in the bathroom," I said reflexively. Applejack looked at me strangely.

"You ain't telling the truth," she said, sounding as confused as I felt.

"What do you mean?"

"Ah' can tell, they don't call me the element of honesty for nothin'. Honesty is the best policy."

My arms itched slightly, I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. I twisted my arm around my back and scratched at the needles poking at the surface of my skin. "Don't tell her alright, she's worried enough about it already."

AJ nodded.

"I was washing myself, and got a little overzealous with the brush on my leg."

AJ frowned, "That don't sound too healthy partner."

"I know! I didn't mean to. I just zoned out for a bit, I guess I didn't realize how harsh that thing was."

"So Twilight didn't ask what happened? You don't fall over and get an injury like that."

"She took my word for it."

"There's more to this than you're letting on."

"Nope, that's it. I brushed my leg too hard."

"So why did you lie to Twi?"

"Because I'm getting tired of her doting on me all the time. Even with my stupid excuse she's forcing me to lie in that bed all day under constant supervision. I can barely get any time to myself any more."

"You're still missing something partner."

"Well I don't know what the fuck it is. Maybe I was just being stupid, like stupid enough to think I could scrub the hair of my leg and go back to normal, is that what you want to hear?"

"Ah' don't want to hear anything, I want you to be more honest with yourself. Lies only cause trouble."

I leant back against the pillow and looked elsewhere, distracting myself with the spines of the various books on the walls.

"My brother, Mac, used to do that all the time, and it only got him in bother with Granny. Like when he'd used to steal some of the cider from under the kitchen counter when nobody was home. Eventually Granny found an empty bottle in his room and gave him a speech he wouldn't forget."

Switch the topic.

"How many people live on your farm then?"

"Me, Mac, Granny Smith, my little sister Applebloom, and that's it."

"How do you run a farm with so few workers?"

Applejack chuckled, "What do ya' mean? We've done just fine as we are."

"I mean, why don't you have any farmhands? Or other workers?"

"Never really saw the use in bringing in more. Sometimes family will come to town during cider season and lend a hoof, but that's only for a couple of months a year. Our farm here in Ponyville has been standing for nearly one-hundred years, and it ain't going anywhere any time soon."

"It must be a lot of work."

"We go at whatever pace we like, it's our farm after all. We make enough bits to get by," Applejack scoffed. "You worked on a farm too right? What was it like?"

I frowned, where should I start?

"Well, it's... it was dried out shithole in the middle of nowhere. It was a miracle anything grew on the land the owner had. He was a real piece of work, put out advertisements for people with good qualifications and put them on menial, manual labour jobs. He got me by doing that, but I wasn't about to turn down work."

"You got one of those fancy... what would you call it now?"

"A degree. I got a degree in Agriculture from my nearest college, stupid, naive me thought that it'd get me a well paying job on a big farm. I ended up tilling dead soil for a fat slob who sat in his run-down house all day. We got to sleep in a crappy little shack next to it, I can't believe the thing even stood up."

"Don't sound too nice partner," Applejack shook her head.

"It wasn't, it was isolated, it ended up ruining my relationships with people I cared about. I got paid jack shit, not that there was anything to spend the money on out there."

"Why didn't you get yourself your own place?" AJ asked.

"Pft, no way I could afford that. It was either sit on that farm for peanuts, or go out and try my luck somewhere else; and they don't come with free accommodation. You know how hard it was to find a job over there? People would have killed to be where I was. I couldn't move somewhere else, I was trapped.

"And you know, that's exactly what he wanted. Paying shit money for long hours, giving us a shack that a homeless guy wouldn't sleep in. He knew he could push his luck, because what could we do about it? There were fifty guys waiting out back for the job we were in. He could just replace us with the next unlucky bastard."

Applejack frowned, "Ah' tell you what, if you ever need a job around here come see me. I'm sure we could find a use for somebody with skills like yours."

"I think I'm a bit averse the farms right now, I'll think about it."

"Well the offer's always there."

Twilight eventually returned and saved me from Applejack talking more about her extended, extended, extended family. She seemed very pleased with herself, presumably because we were talking like normal adults rather than screaming and throwing our own shit everywhere. Twilight levitated her grocery bags into the kitchen before returning a taking a seat.

"What have you two been talking about?" she asked.

"Well, I've been telling Gerry about Apple Fritter's third cousin, whose just had a foal recently."

Are these guys ponies or rabbits? I absent mindedly slipped a hand under my shirt and scratched at the trail of hair running up to my belly button. The fur was starting to spread to my upper body. I clumsily rubbed my eyes and flopped back onto the couch. "What's eating you?" AJ asked.

"I'm worried about... my body? I guess."

"Well it ain't killed ya' yet."

"Yet, being the prime word here."

"Don't be so pessimistic Gerry. These things have a way of working out."

"Good consolation, oh! You might not die a horrible death because things just work out."

"Show a bit of optimism for once Gerry," Twilight scolded me. "You're worrying yourself. And getting all stressed about it isn't going to help."

"I have emotions though Twilight, sometimes it's hard to just put aside everything that's going on and just accept it."

"I... uh."

"I appreciate the concern, and it's more than most people would do. But not worrying isn't going to make this problem go away."

Twilight frowned and shook her head, "I'm just trying to say that a positive attitude can go a long way."

"If you got turned into another species would you still espouse a positive attitude?" I asked, waving a crippled hand in the air.

"She'd probably just panic. Actually, you panic about a lot of things Twi. Remember when..."

"Yes, yes, yes!" Twilight interrupted to save herself from what I assumed was an embarrassing story. She sighed and gazed at me for a moment, her eyes narrowing. "Was your face always that long?"

"Funny stuff Twilight, you should be a comedian."

"No partner, your face is actually looking a little... odd there."

My hands drifted up to my face and ran down my cheeks, to my lips. Where I found that they now jutted forwards significantly. "What the hell! When did this happen?" I asked. "Is this getting faster?"

"It might be. If what we theorized earlier is correct, this body changing process is making you more receptive to magic input. If magic is the cause of this, you're taking in more magic and accelerating the process at the same time. Maybe if I grabbed my analysis machine..."

"Twilight can you please ditch that fucking box for one minute and try and stop this?" I exclaimed through my forcefully pursed lips.

"But magic is everywhere, the only way to stop this would to be to isolate you completely from any source of it. Which would mean isolating you in a container so tight that you can't breathe, or sending you to the other end of the universe where you might not be as so lucky to find intelligent life!"

"What are you saying Twi?" AJ responded, placing a hoof on my arm in a poor attempt at reassurance.

"What I'm saying is that there's no practical way to isolate Gerry from magic, we live in a world saturated with it! I don't think we can stop this."

I slumped down, defeated. I really was going to lose everything. A small voice in the back of my mind told me that it was nothing worth keeping, but I silenced it. At least back home I was in my own body. "This is so fucked up. Why does this shit always have to happen to me?"

AJ leaned over to Twilight, "Don't ya' think his voice is sounding a little... higher?"

"For our sake, I hope not," Twilight grimaced, the dark implication settling into her mind like a foul smell that no amount of scented candles would combat.