I groaned and sat up. I need a better bucking bed. This thing wasn't designed for birds. I'd been a phoenix for a few days now and I'd started to get more used to it. Of course, I'd probably never be fully used to it, but progress was nice.

I stretched out the best I could, then flew over to my food containers to get some breakfast. I sat still on my table as I chewed my jerky and thought to myself. Well, no point in studying and practicing fire magic anymore. Or magic in general really. I sighed. Why is my Dad such a bucking idiot? I swallowed and flew up to the door. It was closed. Great. Oh well, at least I was turned into something with the kind of magic I like, even if I'm not as powerful as I was when I was a Unicorn. I opened my mouth and brothe a torrent of fire at the door, quickly reducing it to cinders. I flew through the doorway to see Dad sitting on the sofa reading a spell book. He looked up at me, smiled and started a psychic link.

"Hey, Vesper," he greeted. Hey. He looked past me at the door and quickly put out the spreading fire. "And you didn't jut open that because...?" I squawked out of annoyance. How am I supposed to open a door with wings?! I can't even satisfy myself with these! "Uh... Okay, fair point." I mean, seriously, I'm fine with not having my bitch anymore 'cause that would just be weird- "Welp, there's a horrible image that will be stuck in my head all day." -But I can't even do it myself! "Okay, too many horrible images now. Please stop." I mean, it's be fine if I had some form of front hoof like Griffons do, but what am I supposed to do with wings?! "Please stop!" Or if I could bend my claws enough, that'd be fine, but no! "No! Stop!" I don't even know if it all works the same for birds! "STAHP!" If I could just bend the right way, I could use my beak to- "SO MUCH NOPE!" Dad smashed through a window on a Support Circle and flew away.

A few ciders later, he'd calmed down enough to get back to the conversation.

"Well," he said inbetween sips of cider, "that's a way to start the day." Do you have anything planned? "Other than getting you a new door, no, not really." Oh. "Yeah, the stuff inbetween the adventures and battles is kinda dull." Just then, Twilight came (he he he...) downstairs holding in her magic what looked like a small neck brace, similar to what female Solaris wore. It had a small bar connected to it with two chains.

"Cloud! Vesper!" She exclaimed with a grin. "I've finished the prototype for the thought projector!" Dad grinned back.

"Great! How does it work?" Twilight floated it over to me and fitted it onto me.

"First, you need to deactivate your telepathic link spell." He did. "Vesper, grab that small bar with your beak." I did. "Now, when you bite down on it, it should activate the neuron recognition system to-" I let out a muffled squawk to tell her to get on with it. "Right, sorry. Bite down on the bar and think something." I bit down on the bar.

"Buck abstinence," I thought-said. "Hey! It works!" Twilight clopped her hooves together excitedly.

"Yes! I was worried that the amplification of the electrical currents would fail due to mistranslation from the-!"

"Twilight!" She gave me a sheepish grin.

"Sorry..."

"But thanks. Really. I can't pay you back properly since none of my 'tools' fit me anymore." Dad sprayed cider across the room and started coughing as Twilight blushed deeply. I was laughing my bird-ass off.

"I-I-I-I-I- Huh?!"

"Why with the bucking mental images?!" Dad choked. "Why?!"

"Oh, come on!" I thought-exclaimed at the same time as my laughter. "It's nothing compared to the stuff before!"

"Twilight getting fucked with a strap on by my bird-daughter is not nothing!"

"I wouldn't just use that, I'd use my other 'assets' as well!"

"Wait, what do you-? OH BUCK, WHY?! WHY WITH THESE REALTA DAMN MENTAL IMAGES?!" I laughed harder, keeling over.

"I-I'm g-going back upstairs..." Stammered Twilight blushing ridiculously deeply and avoiding eye contact. She quickly retreated back upstairs. After a few minutes, we'd both calmed down.

"On the subject of eating," I started, causing Dad to spray even more cider across the room and start coughing again, "do you wanna hear the story of how I learned to fly and first ate meat?" I gave him a minute to recover.

"Buck it, why not," he replied. "My brain is already tainted this much, why not taint it more?"

"I was twelve at the time. It all started on a seemingly normal day, when my school's bully thought it would be a good idea to try his hoof at me..."

"Hey, fire-butt!" Called an annoying voice. I turned around to see the school's bully, Dick Bag, sneering at me with his two cronies, Douche Bag and Annoying Prick, at his sides.

We were in school and lunch break had just started. This was the first time Dick had tried targeting me. Usually, other kids just stayed away from me because of the time I fought off a small pack of Timberwolves, so-

"Woah! Woah! Woah!" Dad interrupted. "The time you did what?!" Oh yeah, I never told him about that...

"I'll tell you later," I replied. "Anyway..."

Usually, other kids just stayed away from me because of the time I fought off a small pack of Timberwolves, so I never had to worry about bullies. I never felt lonely either, I had a friend from before then. Unfortunately, she wasn't with me at that moment.

But it wasn't me it was unfortunate for.

"What do ya wan', Dick?" I asked. He laughed and his cronies copied him.

"Your accent sounds so stupid!" He exclaimed. "Why do you even have a Bucklyn accent if you don't go to a school there?"

"'Cause I grew up there, dumbass!"

"Why? Did your Dad leave you there before he abandoned you?" While I understood the basics of your situation, it was still a touchy subject for me at the time.

"Why won't I visit you often?" Dad asked.

"Time flows differently in that universe," I replied. "Two weeks here is a few months there and Dicklord needs time to recharge his magic."

"Wait, if Discord and the other version of him can only keep a Pony in a different universe for two weeks or so, how come you're here pretty much permanently?"

"Spoilers."

"Oh."

"As I was saying..."

While I understood the basics of your situation, it was still a touchy subject for me at the time. I could talk about it with Mom just fine, but nopony else understood.

It was for that reason that the insult cut deep.

"Shut up!" I shouted. "He didn' abandon me!"

"Then where is he?" Dick asked snarkily, his cronies giggling.

"He jus' lives far away! Really far away..." I muttered the last part sadly.

"Yeah, he went there after he abandoned you!" I got angry.

"Eat shit, ya son of a whorse!" The kids around us went quiet, a lot of them gasping at what I'd said. Dick looked angry as well.

"Don't say things about Mommy! I'm not afraid to punch a b-bitch!" Like most twelve year olds, Dick wasn't accustomed to swearing and stumbled over his words a little. I glared daggers at him.

"Neither am I." Dick backed off slightly looking a little scared. He'd never been in a real fight before and was scared to get into one.

"Vesp, don't start a fight!" Called my friend's voice from just behind me. She'd arrived at some point, back from the bathroom. Seddan Done, my only friend, was the only Griffon that attended our school. "Just walk away! Be the better Pony!" I took a deep breath and nodded, walking away from Dick and towards her.

"Yeah, run away!" Exclaimed Dick. "Just like you Dad did!"

And then his jaw was dislocated.

"I can't believe the stupid teacher punished me as well," grumbled Seddan. "I was trying to stop the fight..."

Dick had run crying to a teacher and now Sed and I were cleaning out the school well. The well wasn't used by the school anymore and had pretty much turned into a glorified bin that students threw all sorts of trash into. I'd lowered myself into it with self-telekinesis and Sed flew down. While my magic was stronger than others my age, it was still fairly weak in general.

I grunted in reply, still angry about Dick.

"Look on the bright side, Vesp, at least he'll never target you again."

"I should'a punched 'im twice..." I muttered.

"Come on, cheer up! You'll probably be the hero of the school now!" I couldn't resist smiling a little.

"A wolf slayin', dick beatin' hero?"

"Who doesn't love a hero that beats dicks?" We both laughed. I stopped when I noticed something next to one of Sed's claws. It looked like a piece of paper, but something about it caught my eye. I floated it to me to read it. "What's that?" It was the instructions for a spell, but the top of the page was damaged so the name of the spell wasn't readable.

"It's some kinda spell."

"What does it do?"

"It doesn' say. I'm gonna cast it!" I started forcing magic into my horn. Like I said before, I wasn't great with magic back then, so I didn't really have the hang of moving magical energy around my body yet. Sed looked a little concerned.

"Are you sure that that's a good idea?"

"Y-Yeah!"

"Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah, this spell just t-takes a lot a' magic..." After about a minute I had enough energy. "Here we go!" I cast the spell and we both immediately passed out.

It was getting dark when we woke up. I didn't really notice though, I was too busy looking at myself standing in front of me. I was speechless and so was I. Then I looked down and realised what I'd done.

It was a body swap spell.

And I was a Griffon so I couldn't change us back.

And Sed didn't know how to use magic.

And we were stuck in a well.

"Stop starting sentences with 'and'," interjected Dad.

"I'm trying to make it dramatic!" I exclaimed.

Anyway, so we were stuck in a well with no way out and no way to get back to our normal bodies. Obviously, we argued for a while, but that went on for like an hour so I'm just gonna skip past that part.

By the time we stopped arguing, it was night. Interestingly, Griffons have a good amount of dark sight, so everything looked different to me. Unfortunately for Sed, who was used to having dark sight, experienced the opposite.

"Whoa..." I murmured, looking around. "I can see in the dark really well now..."

"Yeah, with MY dark sight!" Hissed Sed.

"This is so weird..."

"Wait, how are we going to get out of here?" I looked back to her. There was an awkward silence.

"Uh..." Sed double facehoofed.

"DAMMIT!"

We agreed that it would be easier for me to learn to fly than it would be for Sed to learn to use magic, so she started trying to teach me. After a few hours, I had the basics down and was able to just about fly to the top of the well. I ran home to get Mom to help Sed and switch us back.

"Oh," said Dad. "That was a bit of an anti-climactic ending."

"I guess so," I replied.

"But how are you able to fly so well if she only taught you the basics? And when did you eat meat?"

"A while later we decided to switch again for fun and then it just sort of became a normal-ish thing for us. I eventually got decent at flying and ate meat and Sed learned the basics of magic. She moved away towards the end of the year though. We didn't see each other again for a long time. Not until..." I had another flashback to the worst day of my life.

"What?" I sighed.

"...Nevermind..." Dad frowned.

"I'm gonna get that story out of you eventually."

"Yeah... Sure... I'm gonna... I'm gonna go lie down for a while..." I flew back to my room.

Author's Notes:

What could be this mysterious event that Vesper won't talk about?

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Sorry this took longer than usual, I got writer's block 75% into it.