The young pegasus mare mopped the sweat from her orange-furred brow with a towel as she entered her dorm room. It had been a good run around campus—not too long, but not so short as to not overexert herself. Rather, she had been out just long enough to build up a dull ache in her legs.

In spite of the discomfort, she was content. Pulling off her t-shirt and discarding it onto her bed, she allowed herself a smile. Every day, she was able to push herself a little bit farther and run a little bit faster. Off came her running shorts as she allowed her pride to sink in, leaving her in only her sports bra and panties. Why shouldn’t she be proud of her accomplishments? Every day of training was another step away from the day that nearly broke her so many years ago. If anyone had a right to feel a little awesome about herself, she did.

Her wings twitching in expectation, she laid her towel across the seat of the swivel-chair before seating herself in it. The young mare reached down to her right leg after she was seated, and gripped it just above the knee. With the years of practiced ease, she slid the prosthetic off. She grimaced momentarily as she flexed the muscle in her leg and the phantom sensations of the knee she no longer had.

Cradling the sleek prosthetic in her arms, she inspected it for any flaws. There wasn’t so much as a chip in the carbon-fiber limb, much to her relief, so she spun her chair about to face her desk and retrieved the prosthetic maintenance kit from the bottom left-hand drawer. Much like the removal of her limb, caring for the cherished sporting prosthetic was second nature by this point.

The cleaning and polishing of her little bit of athletic freedom relaxed her. Wiping down the inside of the socket with a cleaning solution-soaked rag washed away the accumulated residue of sweat, and applying a fresh coat of varnish kept it looking good as new. The act eased the tension in her body and bolstered her pride in having a prosthetic that was as good as, if not more effective than, the limb she had lost. The only thing a little routine maintenance couldn’t fix was the ache in her stump; there were, however, other options for that.

She allowed herself a smile as she packed the kit back into its drawer. Next was easily the best part of winding down after a good run, and it was only one drawer up. Pausing as her fingers grazed the handle, she recalled that she had yet to remove the sock covering her stump. The young woman thumbed her sock off with her free hand as she withdrew the bullet vibrator and its wireless controller from the desk.

The sleek silver capsule sat between her palm and her thumb as she lowered her hand to the cut-off of her leg, about as ready to get to work as any inanimate object could be said to be. Her thumb clicked the remote’s lowest setting at the very instant it touched the area around her stump. A wave of relief began to radiate from the point of contact and a low buzz filled her ears.

A contented sigh left her as the vibrations teased the muscles in her leg. Slowly, with her guidance, she led the bullet on a path around the entire surface of her stump, overriding the ache and replacing it with a pleasant numbness. It’d never compare to the pleasure it could bring her applied elsewhere, but in a way, relief from pain was every bit as satisfying as dealing with her own libido—if not more so.

Transferring the bullet to her right hand, she flicked open the laptop on her desk and tapped a key. The screen flared to life after a moment’s pause, revealing complicated anatomy diagrams over a window that had been her chemistry homework. A few practiced keystrokes, and those windows were minimized and her media library was open.

Just as she pulled on her headset, however, the screen went mostly black. Aside from a stylized, apple-shaped retort, the only things visible on the screen were the alias ‘PotionPony45’, and the options ‘Accept Video Call’ and ‘Decline Video Call’. She didn’t even hesitate when she clicked accept.

The image on screen resolved into the image of a light yellow mare in a labcoat, standing at a lab table across from the camera. Her back was turned as she fidgeted with something in front of her, but after only a second, she peered over her shoulder and smiled. “Hey Scootaloo,” she said, brushing a lock of her red mane out of her eyes. “I was starting to think you’d flaked out on our regular conference call, too.”

Scootaloo laughed as she dragged her right hand away from the stump of her leg, pausing midway up her thigh. “Don’t be that way, Apple Bloom,” she replied, waving her free hand dismissively. “You know Sweetie wouldn’t miss a call if she could help it.”

The earth pony on screen turned and leaned against the table behind her, her arms crossed in front of her. She wore a tired expression, and her frown made it clear that she wasn’t convinced. “Easy for y’all to say,” she grumbled, her familial accent momentarily slipping through. “You get to see her practically every day, while I’m pretty much stuck with these weekly calls. It sucks that I can’t see y’all more often.”

Shrugging, Scootaloo allowed the vibrator to creep further up her leg. “We miss you too.” Her hand grazed the edge of her panties, and she chided herself mentally. Apple Bloom was clearly at work, and even when she wasn’t, she still got a little weirded out by her openness regarding doing that. Stress relief or not, her masturbation made Apple Bloom uncomfortable. “So what’s up? You’re usually not at work this time of day.”

Apple Bloom’s eyebrow shot up before she glanced around the lab. “Oh, right,” she said, pausing only to yawn between words. “Miss Silver called me in today, and said we’d be trying something new.” As if to accentuate her point, a silver pegasus mare in a labcoat and an eye patch wandered through the background, holding a beaker of pink liquid up to the light. “She was understanding enough about the call, though. Gave me a short break in order to catch up.”

With a laugh, Scootaloo ran her free hand through her mane. “At least she’s not some crotchety old stallion of the opinion, ‘You came to the Crystal Empire for an apprenticeship, not to chat with your friends,’” she said in her best mock geezer voice. The temptations of the vibrator grew too much, and she slipped it down the front of her panties.

An “Amen to that,” came from somewhere offscreen, causing a roll of Apple Bloom’s eyes.“One of my daughters gets the same trouble from her elementary teacher for reading ahead. ‘You come to learn what I teach you, not what you want.’”

“Anyway, how about you, Scootaloo?” Apple Bloom interrupted before her boss could say any more. “What have you been up to?”

A pleasured sigh escaped her throat, and she realized that her face was beginning to grow warm, and the bullet was only resting on her mons pubis. “I just got back from a run,” she admitted, trying to keep her voice steady. “I was going to see if Sweetie Belle wanted to go do something today, but when I ran into her, she said a friend of hers was having a rough time of things, so the two were going to the arcade to burn off some steam. Said something about a tournament.”

Apple Bloom laughed heartily and then sighed. “Oh I’m sure there’ll be plenty of happy nerds there, regardless of the game, then.”

“Oh! And I’m apparently getting another new roommate,” Scootaloo added. “Mrs. Primrose stopped by and said I’d be rooming with a transmare that’d begun transition on her own. Should be interesting.”

“Are y’all sure yer comfortable with that?” she asked, looking slightly pink herself. Had the sigh given Scootaloo away? The look on her face all but said that she couldn’t believe Scootaloo was actually doing that while in the call. “I know she’s probably harmless an all, but if she still has her stallion bits... Well you know how Sweetie can get switched and doesn’t exactly think right.”

“I’ll be fine,” was her only response. “I don’t think they’d stick anybody who’d take advantage of an amputee with me.”

“Well, tell me how it g—” Apple Bloom’s eyes went wide. “Aw heck.”

Scootaloo could hear that Silver mare speaking off-screen again. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but I may have inadvertently created a new lifeform... again.” There was a small bit of apprehension in her voice. “Could you bring me the taser and the homunculus containment kit? No rush, but this one has tentacles.”

An apologetic smile flashed across Apple Bloom’s face and she reached for the computer. “Sorry, Scoots, gotta run!” she said before the screen blinked back into her chat client window. A moment later, a single message popped up. Tell Sweetie I said ‘Hi,’ and that I should be back in Canterlot next week.

Just like that, Scootaloo was left alone with one hand down the front of of her panties, a vibe buzzing against her pubic mound, and a burning warmth between her loins. “What the hell; I might not get another chance depending on how strange this might get, so...” She flicked back to her media library to pull up a high-energy playlist—something to get her heart racing—and again reached into the middle drawer...

For the first time since she started up with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, Dee was entering the women’s dormitory without a hungry anticipation of what was to come. Certainly, she was anxious and a bit excited by the prospect of seeing somebody that she knew, but this was the first time her entrance to the building hadn’t been on the pretext of sex. Mostly though, she just wanted to lie down.

She barely paid any mind to the corridors Sweetie Belle led her down—just enough to get the gist of where in the building she was. Her attention was predominated by thoughts of what would come next. It wasn’t meeting with her new roommate, or even coming out to her mother that occupied her thoughts, but rather her education and how it played out in relation to her future. It wasn’t enough to just know what she had wanted to do; she needed to know how the changes to her identity played into things.

Looking back at what she had said when she met with the counselor to discuss his plans and placement, she realized that he had been incredibly short-sighted. Why had she ever thought that she would be happy playing incomplete games as a beta tester in hopes of getting her foot in the door to design games? All that would have done was take all the enjoyment out of video games, thus ruining them.

No, if she wanted to make a living playing video games, she’d have to find another way. Today’s tournament had even given Dee a few ideas, but she’d need to speak with the counselor again to iron out the details, and which courses she would need to drop. None of that was here or there, though. At the very least, it could wait until tomorrow.

When she passed a familiarly-decorated doorway, she was snapped out of her silent musing by the the shouting on the other side of the door. She knew it was none of her business, but her curiosity got the better of her. Not bothering to look at her friend’s face, she tapped Sweetie Belle on the shoulder and tilted her head toward the door.

“But, Daddy, why do I have to leave Canterlot High?” they heard Diamond Tiara whine. “You just said that we weren’t being expelled!”

“You can’t Daddy your way out of this problem, Diamond,” came Filthy Rich’s frustrated response. “Silversmith and I had to go before the board of trustees to promise even more support towards this institute than our sponsorship already provides, just to convince Their Highnesses not to expel you both from the program, and they were still incredibly displeased with us. If anything, you should be grateful; instead of an expulsion on your record when you apply for business school, you left voluntarily because you decided the program wasn’t for you.”

“But why are we even being asked to leave?” she grumbled, and Dee could hear something like the slamming of a dresser drawer. “It’s not like we broke any laws.”

Dee Pad could actually picture Silver Spoon just sitting on her bed, shaking her head at her friend with a sad expression. Diamond might not have recognized what they did as having been wrong, but if the letter was any indicator, Silver Spoon definitely did.

Another, gruff male voice voice answered, “No, not any laws,” leaving that we know of implied as he trailed off. “But you have both violated parts of the school charter. Silver Spoon, you’ve been rather quiet, so I assume you know exactly why this is happening.”

The long silence told the two eavesdroppers that Silver Spoon was probably the focus of attention inside the room. “Yes, Father,” she answered with a heavy sigh. “We’re being asked to leave because of the... inappropriate portions of our relationship, misuse of campus facilities, and disruptive behavior that could harm the image of the institute.”

“How... how is our relationship inappropriate!?” Diamond shouted. “Mares love each other all the time!”

“Diamond Tiara, we were having sex in the locker rooms, bathrooms, and pretty much anywhere we thought we could get away with it!” Silver Spoon screamed so loud that Dee was sure the entire dorm hall had heard. “We were making pornography and selling it on the internet! We even roped a few of our peers into it all! That is how it was inappropriate; if anyone had recognized any of the places we’d made videos, the school would be under intense scrutiny... Just think of what that would have meant for the businesses our fathers run if it got out we’d been making porn!”

The pair of eavesdropping friends realized that the conversation was likely to get a lot more awkward if they prolonged their stay. Besides, they had a place to be. Even as the voices in the room rose to a new decibel level, they were already off again. Though neither of them felt bad about Diamond and Silver Spoon getting scolded by their fathers, they still felt enough sympathy for them to know that they wouldn’t want anybody eavesdropping on them through it.

Dee tried to distract herself from the niggling sense that this all somehow tied into everything that had happened. What if the administration had looked into what she had been up to and somehow found a link to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon? The rational part of her mind insisted that it was purely coincidental at best; they wouldn’t have been able to get enough dirt on them over the span of an afternoon. Nah, they were probably aware for months and were just waiting for the final straw.

It usually didn’t take as long as it had for her to get this far in the dorm hall. In fact, she even considered that they might have even run a loop once or twice back on the second floor. A glance at her friend explained why. Sweetie was holding onto her elbow while she chewed away at one frayed edge of her thumbnail. Her brows were knitted, and her gaze was unfocused; Dee wasn’t even sure that she’d heard any of the argument they’d been eavesdropping on.

Just as Dee was considering asking what was up, Sweetie paused in front of a door just around the corner from Diamond’s room. She stared at the door for a moment, as if seeking the answer to some unspoken riddle, before nodding to herself. The horn atop her head pulsed with a green aura, and a three note knocking resounded from the door. After a minute passed and no answer had come, she knocked again, louder this time.

“Could she be out?” Dee asked, eying the door with rapt attention. “Close to dinner, which means the matinee should still be on at the theater right now..”

“No, she’s in there, alright,” replied Sweetie Belle in a tone of finality. “We have a weekly video chat with another friend right around this time.” She frowned and looked away. “I kinda missed it because of everything that happened. She won’t have, though; it’s probably just a case of her headphones being too loud—again.”

Sweetie fumbled about in her handbag before withdrawing a key. “This is yours now,” she said, taking Dee Pad’s free hand in placing it in her palm. “Do you want to do the honors?”

She slid the key into the lock, but no sound was to be heard as the deadbolt slid out of place. Trembling slightly, her hand moved to the door handle. She almost pulled back—it almost felt like she was intruding on someone else’s life—but Sweetie Belle’s hand came down atop hers, and they opened the door together.

The room wasn’t at all what Dee expected, though that wasn’t exactly saying much. For having been the room of an asexual, she imagined the room would be decorated in a spartan manner—maybe a few photographs or mementos, but nothing else. What she hadn’t been expecting was one wall of the room being plastered with posters and pictures. Nor would she have thought she’d see a plain looking prosthetic limb propped up against the side of the bed. Most of all, though, she hadn’t expected a dark red flag displaying a blue shield with the yellow crest of a yellow horse rearing; it was the flag that Sweetie Belle’s childhood cadre had designed to represent their little group: the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

It all clicked into place. She recalled hearing that Apple Bloom had taken a prestigious apprenticeship under one of the top alchemical researchers working for the world’s leading pharmaceutical company, but that had resulted in her leaving the country for the Crystal Empire. Likewise, her cousin Babs Seed was already attending university, a benefit of her city education and the scholarship she’d won. Something about an essay on anti-bullying. Obviously, that left only one person that she was aware of: Scootaloo—the mare whose cerise mane she could see peeking over the top of a high-backed chair.

The making of a smile began to make its way across Dee’s face as her brisk pace brought her closer to her new roommate. If it was Scootaloo she’d be rooming with, things wouldn’t be too bad. In spite of the bullying she and her fellow Crusaders had faced, or maybe because of it, Scootaloo had become pretty fair-minded. Dee could even relate to her on the grounds of being self—

The occupant of the chair let out a low moan.

She froze in her tracks as she came up beside the chair. What have I walked in on? she asked herself in the silence of her mind. Spinning on her hoof, she turned to face Sweetie Belle with a crimson blush bleeding through the soft brown of her coat. Her hand trembled as she brought it up to her mouth to stifle her gasp.

“Sweetie, she’s—” Dee’s eyes flicked toward the chair before she shook her head and began staring at the ceiling with the full intent of not looking down again. The burning in her cheeks was almost too much to bear. Hadn’t anyone told her that she was getting a new roomie?

Sweetie Belle put her hand on Dee’s shoulder and lead her away from the chair. When her friend pushed her backwards onto a bare mattress, she finally allowed herself to look down again. “I’ll talk to her, okay?” she said with a forced smile. “You just... worry about calming down.”

A quick glance at her lap revealed that, in spite of what had happened today, she was not so traumatized that the male part of body would not react to an admittedly arousing sight. There was a small bulge rising beneath the skirt of her dress, and she was now minutely aware of how hard her penis ached and strained against her panties and spats. She placed her hands against the tent in her skirt to cover it up as she willed her erection to subside, but try as she might, she couldn’t get the sight out of her head.

Even as Sweetie Belle walked back to the chair, the image of its occupant danced at the forefront of Dee’s imagination. It didn’t matter that the chair was facing away from her; she could still see Scootaloo with her one leg up on the desk while her stump simply protruded over the edge of her chair. Her sports bra was pushed up over her breasts as she teased one of her nipples with a rather slick looking bullet vibrator. That did little to distract Dee from the fact that Scootaloo had her panties pushed aside and was pistoning a large black dildo into her pussy with great fervor. With her headphones on full blast, she was oblivious to the world.

It was hard enough trying not to be aroused by the sight, but she also found that she felt... kind of jealous—not of the toy, but Scootaloo. If I’d had a vagina, Sweetie would have fucked me silly last night, she thought with some consternation. This is so fucked up, what happened to the me that used to get off imagining myself being the one doing the penetration? I never even tried it and yet I...

A tear leaked down her cheek as she watched Sweetie Belle pluck the headphones off of Scootaloo’s head. Dee was certain that Sweetie was saying something, and judging by the now-airborne phallus, she had sufficiently startled the pegasus mare on the chair, but she couldn’t hear a word; blood roared like thunder in her ears, and each breath came faster and shallower than the last.

Her hands clutched the fabric of her dress tightly, and she found that she was trembling again. Why is it like this? she thought, struggling to prevent herself from hyperventilating. Every time something goes my way, something tears me down. I reconnected with Sweetie and the others abandoned me. I actually managed to enjoy myself being me while accepting the feminine me, and my mouth nearly got me sexually assaulted or worse... Now my body’s still reacting like a man; how can I live here in the women’s dorm like this? What was I thinking?

Before she knew what was happening, Sweetie Belle was right there with her, nearly crushing Dee as she was pulled into a warm embrace that reminded her dearly of her mother. It didn’t matter that Sweetie’s large breasts were squishing her own budding bosoms in that very moment; right then and there, she felt inexplicably safe... that nothing could hurt her there.

“Shh, it’s alright, Dee,” Sweetie soothed, pressing her forehead against Dee’s and stroking her mane. “You’re fine, see?”

Dee sucked in a deep breath through her mouth and held it for a moment before expelling the bad air through her nostrils. The barely audible tinkle of a magical field nearby was filling her ears. “Calming charm?” she asked once she no longer felt like her heart was going to race so out of control that she might have a heart attack.

Sweetie pulled away and, looking her in the eye, nodded. The green aura surrounding her horn faded away into nothing, and with some concern, she wiped a tear away from Dee’s face. “After what happened today, I’d been racking my brain trying to remember it,” she said. Flicking her eyes to the side, she added, “You were having another panic attack, Dee. Was it what happened today?”

Rather than answer, she looked away in order to hide the guilt on her face. “No, I... not exactly,” she fumbled, trying to sort out what she wanted to say in her head. “I mean, it crossed my mind, but it wasn’t what really set me off.” She unclenched her hands, wincing at the pain in her palms from where her nails had pinched her, even through the cloth.

“It was my erection, Sweetie,” she said. Turning to face Scootaloo, who, standing beside the bed, had at least had the decency to put on a pair of shorts. “I’m sorry Scootaloo; I didn’t mean to... I just—when I saw you clopping, my body reacted, and then I started thinking that I can’t stay here! How can I pretend to be a mare if I still react like a little colt with his first stiffie?”

Sweetie Belle opened her mouth to speak, but Scootaloo interrupted her, placing her hand on Sweetie’s shoulder and shaking her head. The unicorn mare nodded and gave Dee some space. “Dee, right?” she asked, a soft smile permeating her own still-flushed expression. When she received a nod, Scootaloo continued, “Yeah, I remember you! Long time no see. Sweetie told me you were having a bad time while you were freaking out...

“You said you reacted like a stallion when you saw me relieving a bit of stress back there,” she stated without accusation, “but what is it that you were thinking when you saw that?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Sweetie asked, giving her friend a dirty look. “You can see that it bothered her, so—”

Scootaloo pressed a finger against her lips in a gesture of silence. “Hear me out,” she said, turning back to the brown earth pony on the bed. “Did you think to yourself, and pardon my language, ‘Damn, that’s some fine pussy; I’d love to stick my dick in it!’ or something similar?”

Both Dee’s and Sweetie’s jaws dropped as they stared at Scootaloo, blushing profusely. “I... but... no!”

“Did you think, ‘God, look at them slim titties; the small breasts get me so hard’ or anything about the nudity in general?” Dee shook her head. “You had to have thought something. Looking at you, you must have been on hormones for at least a year or two, so it’s not like it was just a random thing.” Scootaloo shrugged and walked backwards toward her own bed. “You can be honest here—no judgment.”

Looking away from Sweetie, Dee began to twiddle her fingers nervously. “I was... jealous,” she admitted. “I thought about last night, and how, if I’d had a vagina, Sweetie Belle would have gone all the way with me and not stopped after I’d given her the blowjob.” Her voice trembled and lost a bit of volume with every syllable, but when she next spoke, her voice was resolute. “I imagined myself in your position, but with Sweetie instead of the dildo... about how she could have fucked me silly.”

To say that Sweetie Belle looked embarrassed was putting it lightly. The mare looked like she could rival Apple Bloom’s brother in the red department. “J-just put it out there, why don’t you!” she stammered, shifting her gaze between the two. “Not like it wasn’t awkward for me too.” Her face was overtaken by a scowl and she quickly added, “And don’t be so open about my penis!”

Scootaloo shrugged, smiling at Dee Pad. “My point is that you weren’t turned on because you saw me having a go at myself,” she explained. “You got turned on because you had a thought that you found arousing. I call that perfectly normal for a stallion or mare.”

Dee began to smile, accepting Scootaloo’s explanation, until something occurred to her. “Wait, if you’re asexual, why were you clopping?”

“It just means that I’m not sexually attracted to stallions and mares,” she replied simply. “I’m not going to say no to a stress reliever that feels good just because it doesn’t match up with the perceptions of others. A girl has needs either way.”

Her smile returning, Dee collapsed back onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “So that’s why you’ve been through so many roommates,” she said with a laugh. “For you it wasn’t anything sexual and they couldn’t live with your openness about it?”

“Yup?”

Finally, the dam burst, and Dee was in hysterics. The situation at that very moment just seemed so incredibly silly. She’d gone from being horrified that she’d walked in on her new roommate masturbating to openly talking about that very topic with the mare and admitting to having sexual thoughts in her presence. It sounds like some massive leadup to a joke. An asexual, a hermaphrodite, and a transmare all walk into a bar...

“Dee,” Sweetie Belle said softly. “I’m going to go grab us all some food, since neither of us have really eaten anything. In the meantime, maybe you should take some time to rest. Today’s been a long day, for you especially. Get some sleep, okay?”

Her diminutive friend barely responded with a weak nod. Sweetie was, after all, right; today had been exhausting both physically and mentally, especially when coming down off the emotional rollercoaster of the previous evening. At the very least, Dee could afford a few moments’ rest. She was safe here. Nobody was going to hurt her here; she’d just take a quick nap and...

Author's Notes:

I was going to write a witty little 'Night Before Christmas'-esque bit of exposition for you all right here, but the two cats that I'm sharing my bed with tonight assured me that it was quite unnecessary, so instead you get good old vanilla flavored Author's Notes.

Not much to say here. We have the beginning of a subplot—possibly more—with the introduction of two "new" characters. There are probably a number of questions about why I chose Scootaloo and wrote her in the interpretation I did. I suppose I should address this: I am not a proponent of 'Scootabuse'. Even in Displaced, when Scootaloo had her wing severed in a hang-gliding accident, I didn't try to glorify it. In the case of the amputee Scootaloo, it's simply a case of a lot of things compounding that just sort of made sense inside my head, as well as a desire for some diversity.

Next, you were probably wondering why I chose to have an asexual roommate for Dee. Hopefully, Scootaloo's interaction regarding the whole panic attack in this chapter will make some of that clear. I reckoned that an asexual would have a unique point of view on things regarding sexuality—a point of view that would be helpful in supporting Dee in these confusing times. After all, Sweetie Belle can only shoulder so much of this on her own.

Hopefully, things should 'pick up' in the next chapter—once I get started on it. I'm not saying it's going to be action packed, but it's definitely a gander into the troubles of a transwoman, as well as the dawn of a new day.

Also, keep an eye out for a blog post in the near future. I'm going to be making a request of the readers, something that will influence a subplot.