It had been two weeks since everything had happened. Two weeks since I had moved to Ponyville and been officially adopted by Pinkie Pie as a member of her family. Two weeks in which I had gotten used to being my own being once again... well... sort of.

Strife was still around after all.

"Yo Cain, are we going to spent all day hanging upside down from the Cakes weathervane, or are we going to actually do anything interesting today?" Strife asked, her voice echoing in my head before the ghostly image of her slipped from my shadow and plopped her ass on the roof next to me.

Seeing Strife before me, in the form of Eris from a Crossed Arrow, was something I had gotten used to. Strife seemed to like the form after all, and there was no arguing with her to make herself more unique. Especially when she reminded me that here in this Equestria she was unique. After all, I, Diamond Tiara, and the rest of the Mane Six were really the only ones who knew so…

But seeing her before me in that form always left a bad taste in my mouth. It reminded me of the very thing that was eating away at my mind that very instant, and why I had stopped helping Mama Pinkie Pie make some cupcakes for some foals birthday party. Something that I thought I had taken care of, but it seemed was still troubling me.

"Right now Strife, I'd really just like to sit here and think, if you don't mind." I replied tersely, not even bothering to look at my sister. This earned me a harrumph, but I cut her off before she could complain. "This is still my slice of time, and until it becomes your turn again, you can get over it."

Another humph from her was all I got for a moment as she settled for instead watching the pony folks going about their day below. No doubt thinking of things she'd love to do to them just to mess with their day. I in the meanwhile, sighed and looked down at myself, the very source of my frustrations.

The body that was displayed before me was the same as Discord's or Eris's. The only thing that made me any different was that my head was a halfway point between feminine and masculine. As if someone had taken the facial structure of a stallion and a mare and merged them into one form.

It was the face I looked at everyday when I looked into the mirror, when Strife wasn't being a brat and appearing instead. It was a face that belonged to me…

But didn't feel like me.

This wasn't the first time I'd felt like this, by any means. I'd had these feelings pop into my head about every other day since leaving Canterlot. Usually though, I could just brush them aside and move on with things... but today…

Today the feelings simply didn't want to go away.

"Ugh... there's gotta be something I can do..." I muttered to myself, forgetting that I wasn't alone. Ever really.

"What's this? You're finally speaking about what's bothering you?" Strife asked, a smirk spreading across her face as she shifted, lying on her front and grinning as she said "Do tell, I'm just dying to hear what's eating you up inside. Maybe I can make it worse, heheh~"

"Why do you think I've NOT been mentioning it to you?" I replied in annoyance, shaking my head and sighing as I gestured to my body. "This is what's been bothering me."

Strife simply stared at me for a moment, then asked "So you're upset about the fact you've gained a few extra pounds? Given we've been eating a bunch of Pinkie's treats, that's no surprise."

I couldn't tell if she was joking or not, so instead I just rubbed my nose and said "No, I'm upset that my physical body is nothing more than a copy, even if a slightly shifted one." I gave Strife a glare as I said "And don't try to say I should be happy I was given such a handsome body."

Giggling at that, Strife just rolled her eyes as she said "Please, I'm the one that rocks this form, not you. I'm surprised you've kept it for as long as you have." She poked my face, a grin spreading across her muzzle as she added "Any chance your going to stop being lazy and actually DO something about it?"

"Mommy, is that dracosnake thing talking to somepony?" We both heard briefly, glancing down to see a random foal down below looking to its mother curiosity. The mother was shaking her head, simply saying "Just ignore the crazy freak dearie, this town is full of them."

Strife growled and hissed, trying to raise her eagle claw to cast a spell... and then remembering I was currently in control. "Hmph, is that why you don't like the wonderfully chaotic form you reside in now? Because it makes you look like a freak?"

"Oh don't try that with me Sis. I'm not in a mood for it." I replied sternly, then sighed as I went on.

"This body isn't mine. I know we can't be humans again... but I don't want to be just be a copy, even a somewhat twisted copy. It's bad enough I can't even be sure whether we're the real Cain and Strife," Strife snickered at this, no doubt finding it amusing I still had problems with that, "I shouldn't have to look like Discord, or Eris, or some amalgamation of them both!"

I flopped my hands back as I said that, making two of the tiles from the roof flash and grow legs and arms. They took each others hands, parachuted off, and walked on down the street, startling a few ponies along the way.

"Careful there Cain, remember what both I and Twilight told you. Our emotions can affect our magic, and we've got loads of chaos magic floating around in us." She said with a smirk as she watched them go. She then turned her gaze back to me and sneered as she declared "So do something about it Cain. We can freely change our appearance. I know we haven't messed with it much, but I already know we can shapeshift ourselves into whatever form we want, even make it our permanent form."

"So why haven't you done something about it?"

This time, I didn't throw my arms up. Instead I folded them over and wrapped my tail around the weathervane so I could pull myself up and say "Because I don't know what I want to look like! When one has the ability to look however they want, how does one decide? Not all of us can be fortunate like you to be perfectly happy with the form they're born with."

"Have you thought about trying different forms until you find one you're happy with?" Strife asked, as if I was stupid and couldn't think of that myself.

"Suuuuurrrreee, I'll just spend gods knows how long randomly trying hundreds, millions of different combinations. Maybe within a week I'll find the perfect one for me." I replied tiredly. In reality, during one of the times Strife had been asleep, I had tried that. Even had Pinkie Pie help…

I shuddered as I recalled that it had ended up becoming more like that weird mismatch mini-game from Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon. And that despite her promise not request something weird, she had ended up suggesting what, once I had transformed into it, that weird flower duck thing Daffy had been turned into once.

After that, I had decided continuing wasn't worth my time.

"Well, if you’re not going to do something about it, stop complaining." Strife remarked as she flicked my nose. Doing it to anyone else would have had no effect, but somehow I still felt a twang from it.

Sighing though, I nodded, figuring that the answer wasn't just going to walk on up to me and smack me in my face. I was going to have to find some way to solve this problem on my ow-

As truth would have it however, it did come walking up to me... or at least towards Sugarcube Corner. A certain white and purple unicorn... one that Strife loved to call Marshmallow when she wasn't paying attention... and reminding me that doing things on my own wasn't a necessity.

"Actually... I... I think I am going to do something. And I know just the pony who can help me do it." I said, slithering on into a window on the other side and giving a rather unintended start to Mrs. Cake.

At least her shriek of surprise entertained her two demon children with those soulless eyes of theirs.

Rarity, unlike the others save Pinkie Pie, was always able to tell whether it was me or Strife standing before her. And after a brief trading of greetings and some small talk, I was able to get her to listen to my request for help.

And, unsurprisingly to anyone who even remotely knew Rarity, was more than willing to help. She had squealed at the opportunity to help me figure out a form that I could be happy with. I had made quite clear I didn't want something fancy or otherwise extravagant. I wasn't Strife after all, who wanted to make a big splash.

"True, but that doesn't mean you can't look fantastic anyways." She said with a smile as she pulled out some papers, already drawing and doing sketches, though rather than dresses or clothes, she was instead coming up with ideas of what I could look like. "Do you have any preferences?"

"Well..." I began, thinking about it for a moment as I looked in the mirrors arrayed around me, considering my form. I thought about it for a good long moment, or rather, a fair amount longer as I finally heard Rarity clearing her throat, signalling she needed an answer.

"I'm not sure if I want to try and make every part of my body different. It might work for Discord and Strife, but I'm personally not too keen on it."

"Hmm..." Rarity said, taking about half of her designs and tossing them aside. "Well then, have you ever thought of taking on a single form?"

My answer to that was an immediate "Yes. I'd thought of just making my form a pony, or even a griffon or a Dragon." I chuckled, adding after a moment "I'd even considered trying something weird or different like a Llama or a Diamond Dog. But I thought about that... and well, it wouldn't be all that unique."

I sighed as I looked over to the mirrors. "I want something that feels like me... but is unique."

Rarity hummed at this, adding a few pieces of paper and sketching some things while throwing a few of the other remaining ones away. "Give me just a moment Cain, I think I'm getting some inspiration here..."

After a moment, she had seemed to narrow things down to a dozen sketches, but before she floated them over for me to try and transform into, she called out "Have you thought of making yourself more into a proper Draconequus?"

I blinked at that, confused. "Is there even such a thing as a proper Draconequus? I thought Discord was the only one."

Rarity gave an uncertain shrug, saying "Actually, I don't know, but I wasn't really meaning it that way darling. You see, the term Draconequus doesn't exactly describe even Discord all that well. Chimera does it a bit better, but the only Chimera's I know of only have THREE different parts."

She turned, her eyes glimmering as she said "Rather, perhaps you could simply focus on those two parts. Draconic, and Equine, and make yourself look more like whoever envisioned the term was originally thinking of."

I hummed at that, looking back at the mirrors and considering her words for a moment. That... that actually didn't sound like a bad idea. I wasn't quite sure if it was what I was looking for…

"Well, I wouldn't be looking like the dragons you and your friends have seen before. Heck, even as I am, I resemble a Chinese dragon more than the european styled ones Equestria is familiar with."

"I thought your world didn't have dragons... or any mythical creatures whatsoever. How could there be these... chinese and european ones?" Rarity asked, and I shook my head at myself as I explained to her that different regions of the world had come up with different versions of some of the same creatures.

She found that... rather odd, and in a way, so did I. But we weren't there to discuss Earth Mythology. Or any mythology really. We were here to try and help get this annoying feeling of not being ME to go away.

"So, what have you got for me then?" I asked her, and she handed me the designs. They all seemed to combine some mixture of Pony and Dragon, but in different fashions. One of them actually looked like a Quilin... but I handed that one back to her.

I also handed one that had the arms as hooves. No way I was getting rid of the closest thing I had to human hands.

This left only a few more. Rarity hummed as she looked at the ones that were left, glanced at the pegasus wing on my back, then "Ah~hah! Idea!~" and ran off as I tried the ones I had left. They certainly didn't look bad, and I supposed in time I could grow used to them, but that was true of this form too.

Of the designs I had left in my talons, the one I liked the most were one that had my head become more equine like, while I gained a scaly body with a long trail of mane going down my back to the tip of my tail. I tried the color suggestions Rarity had on it, but it just wasn't clicking with me.

"This is getting irritating, and I haven't even been at this for ten minutes!" I growled to myself, the sound of Strife snickering in my head making me growl. Before I could start tearing the designs I had to shreds in a sign of growing agitation, Rarity let out a cough.

"Excuse me Cain, but I think, perhaps, that you should try this." She handed me a sheet, and I looked over it. And looked over it for another moment, turning it this way and that. With a hum to myself, I closed my eyes, and snapped my fingers.

When I opened them again... I saw a Draconequus with a blue coat of... short, penguin like feathers coating most of my body, reaching up to the elbows of my dragon arms before shifting into sandy colored scales. The coat also stops about six inches below my chin, where more scales burst forth and run down my front and all the way along my underside to the tip of my tail. Equine legs had replaced the buffalo and lizard legs, though they were a bit more slender than most normal Ponies legs were.

Long silvery hair that spools down around the sides and back of my more draconic framed face twinkle in the light of Rarity's showroom, and from about the middle of my neck shorter, feather like hair of a similar color slips all the way down, ending just about a foot before the end of my tail where a single fluffy poof remains. Some more feathers, in various shades of blue, poke out from the side of my head where my reptilian ears are now hidden.

This... this was... I mean, there was no doubting it at all as I stared at the form before me. It would be obvious to anyone who saw this and looked at the expression on my face.

This... this was me!

I let out a squee, lifting Rarity up with my magic and whirling her around, briefly ignoring her cries of "Put me down!" and "Waahaha!" before I brought her in for a tight, warm hug. I kept the hug going for more than a minute, thanking Rarity over and over again, even prancing and hopping about almost like Twilight after she had shared her cutie mark story with the CMC.

"Where'd you get the idea for this?" I finally asked as I set her down and looked back at the mirrors, admiring the form that I knew, without a doubt, was me. At least here in Equestria.

Rarity took a moment to reply, head and eyes still spinning a bit. She placed a hoof to her head to stop her head from twirling anymore. Her eyes took a moment more. "Well, I was thinking of what you mentioned, and remembered a picture I saw in the Canterlot Art Museum. It was a painting of some sort of feathered serpent from the lands to Equestria's south, in Mexicolt."

That earned a snort from me, and a questioning look from Rarity that I didn't answer. "Feathered Serpent huh... yet, it definitively fits me. In fact,... I'm kind of surprised I hadn't thought of it myself, since they're a mythical beast from an ancient people I found fascinating."

"Well, from what you told me..." Rarity said as she took the design she had made and moved to store it away, seeming to be quite pleased with it herself. "It sounded like you had gotten so wrapped up in the fact that you weren't you that you couldn't even really think of what you wanted to be."

She sat back down next to her workbench, pulling out some of her previous work as she added "Really, I think you just needed someone besides that sister of yours to give you some perspective." She smiled as she said "I don't know much about you as Pinkie Pie seems to, just by being Pinkie, but I did recall you spending a whole day going through Twilight's library, reading books on history, magic, about all sorts of creatures that inhabit our world... it seemed... appropriate."

It was. The creatures of old Aztec mythology had been something I had always been interested in, and now here I was, looking like a feathered serpent. Maybe not a specific one, but it was pretty awesome, and it felt like me. It didn't feel alien, it didn't feel strange or like it didn't belong…

This... This felt like me.

Smiling, I turned back to her and said "Really Rarity, thank you. Not only for designing it... but also for helping me fix my problem. It was very generous of you."

"Not a problem at all darling. We all need some help every now and then, especially those of us who might get wrapped up in thinking about their problems that they can't see the way to solve it." She chuckled as she added "Your not the only one who I, and our friends, have helped with that."

I nodded, smiling as I pulled her in for another hug, before declaring "Now then, time to go show off and strut my stuff!" I flew through the air, or rather, slithered through. Then I poked my head back in and asked a simple question of my fashion forward friend.

"Got any advice on how to do that?"