I heard things before seeing anything. Opening my eyes just felt like too much work at that instant. Perhaps I was curious a little as well.

Easy was snickering, I knew her voice. "He thought he knew better than you, and he paid the price for it. Got off lucky if you ask me."

I heard a soft thump and a muttered unkindness from Easy. Work's voice rose with a bit of anger, "he saved me. There can be no question in it. I... owe him respect if nothing else. These injuries." There was a pause, but I couldn't see what he was doing. "He suffered them fighting for us."

Gentle hooves touched on my front. That was the precise moment my brain registered that I was not wearing clothes. That isn't to say that I was exposed to the elements. I could feel a blanket under and over me, but nothing else besides that. The touch had made me think about it, and thus aware. "I wonder how upset he will be... At least he seems healthy despite it," spoke a worried Water, voice filled with a fretting hope.

Easy broke into a second round of laughter. "You should be over the moon itself. Now he can, you know, do things." I couldn't see her, but I could feel her eyebrows waggling suggestively.

I tried to respond, but it came as a groan. I sat up, the blanket flowing from my body, pooling in my lap as I did so. That hadn't hurt nearly as much as I feared it might. I could feel Easy's magic press against me, supporting me. "It's alright," I insisted. "It doesn't hurt."

Flashes of the battle played in my mind. "But it really should... Why doesn't it?"

Water sat down beside me. "You were... perhaps blessed, sir? Your choices from before came back... They saved you much pain, but... Please don't be too upset."

Was I a pony? Was that what it had done? I didn't feel like a pony. I had sat up like a human. A glance revealed very human hands, and a lack of fur on my arms and my chest, while hairy, didn't qualify as pony furred. Did I have a snout? I had to assume not for the instant. I figured I would see a great big muzzle between my eyes if I had one of those.

I tried to wriggle my toes, but they refused entirely to obey me, as if they had fallen asleep, dead to the world.

I must have made quite the face. Water was suddenly coiling around me, her arms wrapped around, her soft hooves pressing. "Please don't be alarmed, sir..."

Work stood up from the fire, turning towards me. "I owe you a measure of thanks, for fighting." He raised a hoof to pat at some bandages that covered his side. "These could have been much worse, I dare say, if you had fled, or froze. Thank you for standing with us."

Easy nodded softly. "I don't suppose you saw me?" She grinned brightly. "I burnt one to a crisp, and took care of the other one you'd knocked over so it didn't get back up and go for a second round. I never really thought about using magic like that. Turns out, I'm a mare of many talents."

Those were all fine words, but they certainly were distracting from what I wanted to know. What had the poison joke decided would be the ideal joke to play on me? I reached for the blanket to toss it aside, but Water's magic wrapped around my hands, pulling them back. I could feel her shivering against me. "Water, your nervousness is only making this worse. Let's just look and get it over with." I mean, there were fixes for it, right? The Mane 6 didn't stay in their joke forms for longer than an episode.

Water drew back, breathing a little heavily, but seeming to be trying to comport herself. "Very well then. If... I don't know what to say, except that none of us here see you as anything but the same person that we wish to accompany."

Off went the blanket, tossed aside. There it was... My legs were pony legs, covered in hair that matched the hair on my head. Soft and thick, it didn't look like I had just gone without shaving. I had pony legs. They terminated in the same hooves that the others always had.

That thick fur poked up a little beyond the belt line, but tapered off into the smoother human flesh beyond it. I thrust a hand under myself as I leaned to the side. I had a tail. It was a thick tail that twitched when I felt it. I could feel me touching it even as I felt it. The sensations from an entirely new limb was more disorienting than I would have given credit for. My brain struggled to map it. I had live with a nice human structure for years, so pardon me for being used to it. It was, I think, a literally biological thing.

My various synapses didn't have this in the plans. Like shoving a new part in a computer, it had to pause and search for drivers, decide how to address the new part, establish communication, and a host of other steps before it dared to actually start using it. Thinking of it like that calmed me a little. I just had to finish booting up my... tail... and it would be alright.

A soft brush pressed against the new tail and began running down along it in slow strokes. "Your tail is well structured, sir." Was Water trying to be supportive?

I wasn't sure how to take that, at all. I was still searching for drivers. I could feel the tail. I could feel it being brushed. The sensation scoured across my brain in odd ways. At first I could just feel the contact, but the resolution seemed to sharpen over time. The tail was coming online, being accepted by my stunned brain.

The connection deepened. Having my tail brushed by someone else was... nice?

Easy suddenly snorted, covering her mouth with both hooves as if trying really hard not to laugh.

Work softly coughed, turning away. "Madame, your attention is... having an effect."

As if the tail and the lack of toes wasn't enough, there rose another hint of the perversion visited on me. Between my powerful thighs was an inhuman projection growing into the flickering light of the campfire. That was not what any human man should have, even if some of them might have daydreamed of it. I had not grown, really. It made me wonder if ponies were fairly equivalent already, though I doubted Work would let me compare. The shape and layout of it had changed.

And that's enough of staring at my... equinity? It wasn't my manliness anymore... I grabbed the blanket and pulled it right back over my shame. "Where are my clothes?" This is exactly what clothes were for! Not having one's parts dangling out was a fine part of being clothed.

Easy was still failing at not snickering as she floated over my clothes. They were slightly stained from the fight, but a lot less than I would have guessed. "You haven't even noticed," she said in a teasing sing-song. "And nobody else here is daring to say it, so it's up to me." She dropped my clothes right on my head.

Which squished something down. I could feel another part coming online slowly. There was only one bodypart that could be up there. "I have pony ears," I sighed out defeatedly. "I'm a damn satyr."

Work dared to peek, then turned as he saw a blanket was covering the objectionable bits. "I can't say I know what that is, sir, but you haven't changed." Oh, the look I gave him. "That isn't to say you haven't changed at all, sir," he hastily added. "I just meant that you are Ian Langerman, leader of this expedition, and that remains true."

Easy hopped up to her hooves. "You're still my boss, boss."

Water began dressing me with her magic. "I am still charged with your comfort and well-being... I apologize for my failure. This was my fault. I should ha--"

"--No," I cut her off, standing up and wobbling in place. Hooves were not human feet. The balance was different and I struggled to regain it, but they were my hooves. "You wanted to protect me. I was the one that was squeamish about it, so this is my fault. Did we make any progress while I was out, or did we camp here?" I turned my thoughts towards the mission. That seemed like a much easier thing to worry about.

Work pointed at the cart. "You rode in it, Sir. We may leave the forest today if we press hard."

"Then let's get going." I was dressed, through basically no fault of my own. My tail gave a soft twitch as I took my first step as if to aid in my injured balance. How did it do that? I reached back there to feel that Water had put a hole in my pants to fit the tail. It seemed tailored, sewn neatly to admit the tail without being a ragged tear in the fabric. "You have many talents."

Water beamed, clearly recognizing that I had noticed her work. "I thought it prudent, sir. I doubted you would cease wearing clothes, even if there's less need for it."

Work was kicking dirt over the fire, snuffing it. "Easy Breeze, get him something to eat. I think he's ready to start moving."

I was. I really was. I took the food that was given to me, but barely paid it mind. I chewed on it absently as I walked, trying to get mastery of walking back. My legs moved in, mostly, the same way. The balance of my hooves at the end is where things were altered. Instead of projecting forward, they were a rounder foot placed directly beneath. "So, how expensive are poison joke cures?"

Water blinked at me with wide eyes. "What do you speak of, sir? They have a cure for this ailment?"

Oh, right. Zecora was not here, nor would be for centuries... Well... "We'll figure something out." I was supposed to be a clever human. If I couldn't figure out something, I deserved to be equipped with a horse's ass. On the bright side... "You all look fine. Water Lily's cream must have worked."

Easy bumped into me from the side. Interestingly, my hooves were fairly good at simply not moving if I didn't want to move. "If you had just let your marefriend finish greasing you up everywhere, we could have avoided this, but it worked out." She pointed up at where my shoulder had been bitten by the wolf by uncomfortably massive stakes. "Your changing fixed most of the damage. By the way, nice work with that sword. Not, you know, subtle or anything, but you got the job done."

Work shook his head as he worked under the harness of the wagon and got it moving. "That is the important matter, in the end. We prevailed, and there were no... losses." He swiveled an ear towards me. "At least, in this case, I understand the thrust of their humor, sir."

"They decided to hurry it along." I stepped up on a log and hopped down, testing my hooves and getting a better grasp of how they worked with the rest of my body attached. "I said this was my home, and Equestria is a land of ponies."

Water sighed softly. "I will mourn your loss with you, Sir..." She glanced away a moment. "Your smooth legs, so silky and..." She huffed softly, clearly upset at their loss. "At least... you still have your hands, those... long and sensitive digits..."

Easy snorted explosively. "Damn, mare! Save it for after the sun goes down."

With a raging blush, Water trotted along beside me.

Author's Notes:

Our group is emerging from the woods! Ian has suffered the slings and injustices of an unfair world, but he presses on. Is being a pony satyr all bad?

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