Author's Notes:

In which Twilight works through some personal problems.

Well, we made it. I think. Pretty sure, at least. Twilight seems a lot more relaxed, at least. The van rumbles steadily along beneath us, as outside these steel walled confines, the highway cuts straight and true across the countryside. We began the journey with seven ponies, and one human driver, and we now fill the van the van with ten ponies, and still one human.

Among the three we rescued, I’ve finally managed to find Mira. For the first time, me, Nick and Mira... the first three ponies in the world, are together again. Together with Nick and I, Twilight Sparkle has spent the night saving Mira and the others from effective house arrest, then saving Mira and the others from... some sort of radio tracking thing the police forced them to wear. Mira hasn’t been starved, but she has been trapped in a house and terrorized by the police, and so for the first time in a month, Mira is safe. But...

I’ve never seen my sister look quite this low before. She doesn’t even protest with a snarky reply, when I joke that this whole pony thing isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. My golden furred batpony of a sister just lays her pink and blue maned head down, and... accepts what I’ve said, as if she was starting to feel like it is the truth.

“Mira, I’m... sorry,” I tell the droopy pony, laying a soft yellow hoof on her less yellow furred back.

“You didn’t say anything to offend me,” Mira grumbles flatly, not un-drooping in the slightest. Even her wide, conical ears are droopy.

“No, I’m not talking about right now. I mean... I’m sorry about the whole ‘pony’ thing,” I reply, sitting up straighter and collecting my legs nervously close to my sides. “I was such a... sad sack about it. I thought I was helpless, and powerless, and... maybe I still am, but I’ve been surprised all month a-at what I can do.”

The others are sort of looking at me, but I have to say this, because I dug my grave and heck if I’m gonna let Mira get buried in it. “Some really strange things have happened to me,” I tell her, “I don’t even know how I... carry things with my tail. It just sort of... works. I don’t have any hands, but it’s hardly been a problem. There’s just always another way.”

With memories of a well lit room with stone walls, and a slit in the door, my ears fold when I tell her, “I was... pretty sick after getting out of that um... prison, but now I can run, and jump like... six feet straight up. And that’s nothing compared to a pegasus, or... you, but it’s a lot for me.”

Waving a vague hoof at Mira’s side, I think she gets that I’m talking about her wings.

“I can’t wait to fly,” Mira says with a little blush, turning onto her side to face me. “That’s one thing that I was... really hoping for, until I got stuck in that house.”

“Well, you can fly,” I tell her with a smile, “Every pony with wings has managed to get up in the air so far. Nobody’s gone far enough to reach the clouds yet, though. But my point is that even though I can’t fly up... that high, I can still jump higher than I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve done so much that I never would have done, if I hadn’t been forced to by this whole pony thing.”

With excitement, I tell her in something of a giddy squeak, “And I haven’t failed at it! I don’t know how to explain it, but I’m succeeding at things I try to do. I don’t feel more capable, but I guess I just don’t want to do things I’m incapable of anymore.”

“So... you like being a pony?” Mira asks skeptically.

I rub my forehead with a hoof, and I’m not sure I want to go that far yet. “What I’m trying to say is,” I tell this pretty bat pony sister of mine, who looks too cute to be a pony who’s not supposed to be a pony. “I’m sorry I acted like turning into a pony was a... a curse. When I saw you turn into a pony, you were so happy about it. A-and you were right, is what I’m trying to say.”

As I look around at the ponies listening to my... thing, or whatever, in particular is the look of surprise and almost... relief from Twilight Sparkle. She’s holding back a smile, but at the same time it looks like she’s on the edge of crying. I... I don’t really understand. Looking around at the others, there’s two more new ponies in our group besides Mira. A green and blue pegasus mare I’ve never seen before today named Brian, and a younger looking earth pony filly who’s red and blue named um... I dunno.

“It’s because you’ve all been cooped up in that house all this time, that you think ponies are lame,” I tell those two, then turning back to Mira say purposefully to the thankfully less glum bat pony, “You’re thinking you were wrong to be happy, and that reality en...sues or however that goes. But I think if you get a real chance to be whatever... kind of pony you’ve become, you’ll be right, and I’ll be wrong.”

Mira lifts her head, and looks at me thoughtfully, while I admit sheepishly, “Being a pony actually is kinda awesome, even just an earth pony. It’s way better than I thought it was.”

A thought, and I add, “...I still miss having hands.”

Mira holds back a snort of laughter at that, and I blush, protesting, “I know it’s obvious, but it’s just one of those things that’s hard do get used to.”

“At least you got to have hands,” says the filly we rescued, looking at Mira with an amused twinkle in her eye.

“Thank goodness for small favors,” Mira drawls, rolling her catlike eyes, lifting and spreading one of her fuzzy bat wings.

“Can you use your wings like hands?” I ask curiously, “Do they feel like hands?”

“Um... sorta, and no, very no,” Mira answers, sitting to her haunches and lifting up her forehoof. “This still feels like my hand. My wings are just... wings. I dunno how to explain it. But they do have fingers, and,” She spreads one again, and without looking at it, folds the bony extensions, in what might be the vague approximation of a curled fist.

“I can sort of use them like hands,” Mira says uneasily, “There’s skin between the uh—” blushing, Mira cups her wing close self-consciously, before spreading it again and saying, “Yeah, s-skin between the fingers, so I can’t do stuff like cross my wing...fingers. Also they’re um... not so coordinated, and it’s really only the little finger claw thing that I can hook stuff with.”

Mira noses under the arm of her raised wing, remarking distractedly, “They’re weirder than I imagined, but not anywhere near as weird as pegasus wings!”

The pegasus named Brian holds back a snort at that.

To the great lowering of my stress levels, it turns out we did make it to the farm after all. There’s no more terrifying cloak and dagger moments. No more confusion and subterfuge. Well, okay a little subterfuge. We have to stop one more time after about 20 miles for Twilight to change up the appearance of the van, but other than that, we reach the farm without incident.

We’re all sleeping by then, just kind of lying together on the floor of the van, except for Twilight, who... it breaks my heart to see it, but about when Patricia yawns and stretches against my side, I notice Twilight’s standing there beside us, and lifting a hoof over us. I don’t think she sees me. Then, she turns and moves to the opposite side of the van, curling up facing away from us... by herself.

I dunno why she does it. I dunno why we do this. It’s just all that singing, and working together, and saving people, and I’m kinda tired, so I don’t mind when someone lies against me, and then someone else, and then Mira who flops down half on top of me. I feel like I should mind. I’m risking myself and my all too friendly fillyhood again, even though being pregnant, that particular organ isn’t something I need to worry about. But still, I’m naked here! One slip and somepony could be elbow deep in me!

We haven’t really had any chance to wear clothes since this pony thing started, and I get that ponies don’t normally wear clothes, but it’s just hard to get used to. I’m not freaking out, but I do keep seeing people’s genitals just kind of hanging out back there. I’ve seen more testicles in the past month than a man should ever see. I have fur, but nights still get pretty cold, so I guess this is the first time I realize how accustomed I’ve gotten to sleeping together with other ponies.

Because it’s the first time I realize how Twilight hasn’t.

I worry about Twilight Sparkle as everything on the farm returns to normal. Or whatever counts as normal anymore. We continue learning to become better at being ponies, and neither cops no soldiers come barrelling into our secret little location. The spring is well on its way, the snow has melted, and this makes sense because our farm is not located in Minnesota.

The spring thaw is why Twilight calls us around, and steps on the soapbox she scooted over in her magic, announcing, “Attention, everyhuman! Some of you have expressed concern at whether or not you can digest certain foods. I just wanted to say that it is quite acceptable, healthy, and tasty to graze. Grass is your friend, and you should find it tastes good.”

“How do we eat it, though?” a mare in our group whines, “Just bite it?”

“Oh! Yes,” Twilight says happily, “You do not have to pull it up or bite it off all the way to the ground. Just bite off what you feel comfortable with from a grass tuft. And there are still plenty of beans and barley, so if you don’t feel comfortable with grass... there are options!”

We separate and among others, I find myself standing among the blades of freshly grown green grass, on yellow hooves, with a green tail that actually looks like a really different green than the grass. I bend down, which is to say I crane my head down, taking a bite of grass, and chewing experimentally.

It doesn’t taste anywhere near as good as I imagined, but when I imagined eating grass, I was starving to death, so I was imagining it tasting as good as the best thing I could ever eat. As-is, it’s juicy, and crisp, and fresh tasting, so much more than the stocked grains we’ve been eating. Grains, and... beans, lots of soup, and... hay. Not much else. Not like there’s a cupcake supplier way out there on our shoestring budget.

The joke is our shoes wouldn’t have strings.

So I eat my grass and worry about Twilight, and... she told us how to graze, but again, she’s not out here with us. So I go poking through the barn, my hooves clumping softly on the mussy, straw strewn wood, looking around for the purple unicorn. I find her off in her special little... corner that we’re not supposed to go into because all her spells are set up there. It’s not out of sight or anything, just kind of... full of a lot of glowing lines and diagrams, that you could mess up if you walked into. Or... some ponies could, if they did. I’m not entirely sure how it works.

She’s muttering something incomprehensible, horn alight, moving floating pictures around of some kind of an office complex. Looking my way as I approach, the purple unicorn says quietly, “Oh, hello Meadowsweet. Why aren’t you out with the others?”

“Just curious what you were, um... doing,” I say, having no real other reason to come here I can think of, since it’s not exactly copacetic to tell Twilight I feel bad for her, when I don’t even know if what she’s going through is something I should feel bad for. Plus I am curious what she’s doing, except for the um...

“Except for the horny details,” I make sure to add, “They’d just go right over my head.”

After giving me a look, Twilight says curtly, “I’m trying to figure out how the police knew we were going to perform an extraction,” her magic pulling up a number of floating images of places, and desks, and... offices. And oh, the floating pictures are moving pictures, as I see some bald dude walk down a hall in one.

Twilight continues, “My contacts were able to install some surveillance spells, so I should be able to get some idea how much they know about us.”

“Do you think it was a pony?” I ask worriedly. Twilight glances at me, and I add, “I mean, could one of the human ponies here be giving them information?”

“Not likely,” she says, turning back to her surveillance spells, “They wouldn’t need to try to sneak locational devices to our farm, if that were the case. If a pony here were to betray us, then we wouldn’t be here. We’d either be captured again, or...”

She lets the sentence hang unfinished, and I don’t really want to finish it for her either.

“The grass is a real hit,” I say eventually, “Way better than all the... food we’ve been eating so far.”

“I just can’t wait until you get to see Equestria,” Twilight says with a fond smile, looking past her floating pictures and diagrams, “We can get you all some real food then, and you won’t even remember the taste of grass.”

“Well, I’d still appreciate it at least,” I say, scooting a hoof shyly along the floor, “If I was... human, I’d just get sick if I tried to eat grass. Ponies can eat so much more without any trouble. About the only thing I miss is mea...” Okay maybe I shouldn’t finish that sentence.

“How could you miss yourself?” Twilight asks idly, still distracted by her work, “And what does that have to do with the food you eat?”

“Never mind,” I say, blushing, “I just wanted to tell you that um... I really have been enjoying being a pony, even if Sunset Shimmer... forced me to be this way.”

Twilight pauses her work, and looks at me, “You... would not believe how little I hear of that,” she says seriously, “Most of you humans don’t go much further than getting upset at being ponies, and asking how long until you can change back.”

“W-well of course I value my humanity,” I reply, lifting that hoof nervously, “I just think being a pony has been pretty nice... too.”

Twilight smiles at that, like genuinely smiles, saying, “It’s so nice to hear of that. I wish more of your people could... settle down about the whole ‘pony’ thing. It breaks my heart every day to see peoples suffering over a little... over such a terrible life change. But I’m sure Princess Celestia will know what to do. She might even be able to change you back herself!”

“What’s Princess Celestia like?” I ask, “Is she... as nice as she is in the show?”

“She’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen,” Twilight says with a dreamy-eyed smile, looking off into the distance, “The morning rays of sunrise, bringing light to the darkness, and warmth to everypony in Equestria. She’s the hope of a new beginning, when you wake up, and you know everything’s gonna be okay, because the night is over, and a new day has begun.”

Uh...

“Okay, just to be clear, I was asking about the pony, not the actual sun...” I tell Twilight cautiously, getting an irritated glare for my efforts. “T-t-that is to say, it sounded like you were talking about the pony,” I stammer hastily in my stupidly sweet voice, that probably sounds totally insincere, “Because all that stuff is just normal for the sun, but if it’s true for the pony, she sounds really special.”

Twilight’s glare softens, and she smiles soothingly, telling me, “It’s true for the pony. She really is that amazing. At least I think so.”

Twilight can’t be my enemy. It just doesn’t make any sense. There’s a wonderful, beautiful pony inside her, if she’d just relax and let it out sometimes. I can’t imagine an evil pony who could be so moved by... by the princess raising the sun. Twilight’s passion, and her dedication, and the love that she hides away, this is not a pony who could just be a... a jerk just pretending to be nice. I try to be suspicious of her, to be wary, but I just can’t. I can’t stop feeling like she needs us to trust her, as much as we need her to trust us.

She can’t be my enemy but I am starting to think that there is something wrong with her. She’s so very determined to hide it, but the more I try to help her, the more I live with her, I can’t help but see it. It doesn’t feel like she’s evil, just... terribly hurt, in a way that she bottles up inside and can’t share with us. I try to include Twilight, and not just let her sit by herself, ignored, and she... resists gently at first, but she just doesn’t even want to talk about it.

“Twilight,” I tell her, “C’mon, everyone’s singing by the fire.”

“Sorry, I’m...” she says with an amused look at me, “Really not interested in singing right now. Between you and me, I’m bushed. I’m just gonna turn in for the night.”

“Hey, Twilight,” I chirp cheerfully, trotting up to her, “It’s another cloudy day. Wanna come out, some of us are trying to get some kind of kickball game together.”

“Using what ball?” she counters.

Blushing, I reply, “Well it’s more like a sack, but still.”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” she says, rolling her eyes and trotting in the other direction.

“You wanna come sit over with us, Twilight?” I ask her at our impromptu crate shaped dinner tables. “Nick’s uh, friend Brian is a real fan, and you seem kind of lonely sitting over here by yourself.”

“I’m fine,” she grumbles, looking up at me from her rice and beans. “Sorry, I would just really prefer to eat alone,” she says mildly, turning back to her food.

“Twilight?” I whine, poking my head around the corner.

“Can I help you?” she asks, giving me a wary look.

“Well, you were just here by yourself—” I start, but she cuts in saying in a weary tone,

“Meadowsweet, I cannot be around ponies all the time. I was instructing pegasi on what I know of wing care just this morning. Some of us are perfectly happy being by ourselves, which is what I am. Perfectly happy.”

“Well, okay then!”

She’s not perfectly happy though. I’ve seen the longing ache in her gaze when we’re hugging each other, or nuzzling, or doing whatever ponies do. Fed up with this dodging around the issue, I finally just stand myself in the way as she’s headed out of the shower area. She gives me a challenging look, but before she can say anything, I say,

“Twilight, we need to talk.”

“...what?” the purple unicorn says sweetly, looking at me like I’m an idiot, “Did I do something wrong?”

“It’s what you’re not doing, that’s the problem!” I protest, stomping my hoof in the scattered hay. “You... I... I’ve been really enjoying being close to ponies since this happened, and I think you would too. You’re a pony too, aren’t you?”

I’m not moving, so Twilight turns back into the room we’ve been using for hosing down dirty ponies. She snaps her tail at me, but takes a slow breath in and out. “Ponies don’t have to be close,” she replies neutrally, “To a degree, it’s more a matter of circumstance. You are all isolated in a foreign environment, in which you don’t feel safe, or free to roam, so you’re going to naturally grow closer together. It’s perfectly natural for a pony to seek solace from her peers. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“How does any of that not apply to you?” I say, following her into the room, before she can run away again. She knows I’m mad, because my ears are going back, even though I don’t want them to! “You’re not avoiding us because you like it. You’re avoiding us, because something’s wrong, and you’re making yourself miserable because of it!”

“I’m not miserable!” Twilight protests, her own purple ears dipping back as she turns sideways to face me, a cute scowl on her face, “There’s nothing wrong, and there never has been, because I like being alone, thank you very much!”

“No you don’t!” I fuss at her, two little girl ponies standing at odds to each other here in the barn, “I’ve seen how you look at us. You want to be closer to us, but you’re not letting yourself. Like it or not, you have a problem, Twilight. Something is wrong, and you’re not gonna feel any better if you don’t talk with someone about it!”

“Oh, you want me to confide in you some dark secret, because you still don’t believe I’m not Sunset Shimmer?” Twilight snaps at me, with a bitter glare.

“No, I do believe,” I say to her unbelievable disbelief, “I just think there’s something you the real Twilight Sparkle needs to talk about with someone. Sunset Shimmer was just pure evil, but that doesn’t mean the good guys never have problems!”

“And I suppose you are the special snowflake that I’m to confide in,” Twilight says grouchily, deliberately looking away from me, “Even if I did have problems, which I don’t.”

“Don’t confide in me, then,” I practically beg this troubled unicorn girl, “I don’t care about me, but you have to talk to someone about this. I don’t know if it’s blaming yourself for what Sunset’s doing, or trying to teach a bunch of humans how to be ponies, or if you just miss your friends.”

Twilight snorts a laugh at that, remarking, “Yes, because I just love cuddling with my friends all the time, which is why I always have them sleep in different beds any episode that they sleep over.”

Sighing, I tell her, “I don’t know, I just... can’t stand seeing you hurting like this!”

Twilight Sparkle stiffens at that, lifting her head high in something that... isn’t pride. She abruptly turns to face me then with a... smile on her face that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. With a slight, very slight tremble in her voice, she says in an amused tone,

“You think you know my problems so well. It’s adorable, honestly.”

She struts away from me with a flip of her tail, saying mockingly, “You think you can just say something nice to me, and fix everything?”

“No, I...” I manage to get out, before she’s angrily in my face again and holy crap her eyes are huge.

“Well you can’t!” she shouts in my face, making my ears go back for two reasons rather than just one. Why is her face so big, and angry?! “You think you’re so great, but you can’t do anything, and you know why?”

Before I can frantically shake my head, Twilight Sparkle shrieks, ”Because you are not her!!”

...

I begin to hear some cries of alarm as ponies and possibly humans start to head over this way, but that’s all that breaks the silence that Twilight stares at me. She looks not so much hateful, but also fearful, like... like she wants to take back what she said. Like she wants to restore my trust in her, but she feels like she just failed at it.

“Twilight, I—” I manage to say, before a pony’s in the room, exclaiming,

“What’s going on? Why were you scream—-”

Twilight holds steady for one more second before the tears brimming in her eyes threaten to overwhelm her. “Ohh!” she exclaims, galloping past me, all the way out of the barn, leaving the rest of us standing there in varying degrees of confusion.

“What happened?” the mare (who happens to be Brian) asks, her soft blue tail switching almost unconsciously, as she looks after the fleeing unicorn.

“I’m not... her?” I reply in a puzzled worry, “Who’s she talking about? One of her friends?”

“Maybe Applejack,” Brian says, rolling her eyes.

“Why Applejack?” I ask curiously, coming alongside her as we head out the door I guess to search for Twilight.

“Because you are nothing like Applejack,” Brian says emphatically.

Brian takes to the sky, while I field questions from some other worried ponies heading this way, but I really don’t have any answers at this point. Twilight does, though. She just needs some time alone right now, I guess.

“I’m sorry for alarming everypony,” Twilight Sparkle says in a calm tone the next day, with those of us concerned gathered around. “You all know what wonderful friends I have back in Equestria, but I had to come here all alone. I suppose I didn’t realize how much it was getting to me, how much I miss...” she trails off and looks down, then looks back up with a pleasant smile, saying, “I really do miss my friends, but that doesn’t mean I’ll leave any of you hanging. My friends will be there when we get there, and I know they’ll understand when they find I’ve got a lot of ponies—er—people to save.”

Looking at me specifically, Twilight says, “I apologize for unloading on you, Meadowsweet. I should have told you what was bothering me, instead of letting it build up inside. You had no idea I was getting upset.”

“It was an upsetting thing to talk about,” I reply warily, an ear tilting in unsureity, “I just wanna make sure you’re gonna be okay.”

“Yes, Meadowsweet, I’ll be fine,” Twilight says with a gentle smile, “And you as well, take care of yourself. And... let me know if I start...” she blushes, and concludes sheepishly, “...doing it again.”

“No problem, will do,” I tell her easily. And that is the end of that.

So Operation “Grow some balls and ask Twilight why she’s avoiding everypony” meets with limited success. Twilight’s actually making... some effort to be with us. So I’m glad about that.

I’m also glad because now that Mira’s with us, I get to know my sister all over again! Actually, Mira’s mostly been hanging out with the two she was rescued with, the green mare named Brian and the red and blue filly. Can’t blame her, really. Stuck together for a month, mutual adversity, of course you’ll form fast friendships.

Nick’s been... practicing his magic a lot, which I don’t know a lot about what he does there, but he spends a lot of... time with me too. That time usually includes horny rutting at some point, though he has yet to finish in me again, even though I’m already safe due to being pregnant.

“Nick...” I say, supremely conflicted, quivering there with my heated hindquarters drippy and empty under my tail, as he stands there ejaculating. Ropes of fertile semen leap out of his jerking penis and landing on the dirt. That was just inside my melty, stretchy girl place, and now it’s ejaculating everything outside! That’s... fine. It’s not like I want to get bred like some kind of girl. It just... feels kind of bad when he doesn’t, because I like the feeling of it doing that in there.

“Alright... heh,” Nick says, cracking an eye open, his penis still. “Turn around and let me finish ya too.”

I’d protest, really I would, but it just feels so good when his thick, powerful tongue pushes into my passage, I lift my tail for him right away, and breathe in delight as Nick’s snout slides up to my rear and fulfills me. I kind of wish John was here. It’s so much fun to see what’s happening to my body back there. It feels amazing, but I can’t see Nick’s lips and tongue spread apart and slide around in my soft, pink, fleshy folds. Seeing it happen to John, doing it to John makes me feel... better about what’s between my own legs now. Seeing it happen to John, I can learn how my own body quivers and clenches, and winks before Nick’s attentions.

Also I’m totally still a guy on the inside, so of course I’m going to like eating out a girl’s pussy. I just don’t... currently happen to have... a penis.

Even if I was a girl on the inside, I don’t know why I’d keep wanting Nick to impregnate me, if I’m already pregnant. You’d think I could be satisfied with the electric pleasure that rolls through me as I stand there helplessly orgasming around his tongue. But even as I orgasm, the urge is staggering, to have his penis in there, pumping me full of cum. I want him to finish, and I want a million stallions to finish in there, and I don’t know what I’m thinking while this orgasm sings within my veins, clouding my mind and turning my thoughts to penises, semen, and impregnation.

Laying back and looking at my belly, it’s hard to believe I’m pregnant. I’m certainly not showing yet, even a month into it. Aside from the soft, slightly darker nipples that rest between my spread thighs, which people tell me are called teats on horses, my belly is slim and smooth, light pink with a generous dusting of my wispy, yellow fur.

That slim belly is supposedly what is transforming into an incubator, a great, round, swollen belly growing a little pony inside. It’s weird because I can’t imagine a little pony just being in there, but I can sort of imagine growing a little pony in there, as if I could do it on command. I guess being technically female, I can sort of just naturally... feel how to do it. But it’s still a miraculous yet terrifying sort of thing to think about. I’m changing in there... albeit very, very slowly.

The sheer amount of time pregnancy takes is pretty staggering. It turns out I was wrong about 9 months, and 11 months is actually how long pregnancy lasts. I don’t know where I got 9 months from. I know so little about female biology it’s kind of humiliating. I never had to know, before, because I didn’t have this all too responsive vagina following me around wherever I go. Or anyone else’s vagina to deal with, either.

I don’t particularly feel pregnant, only a month or so into it, but how do I know what feeling pregnant feels like, and how do I know I’m not mistaking it for something else? I’ve changed so much, it’s hard to tell where the female stops and the pony starts. I’m walking on—no, galloping on hooves. I’m doing... weird things with my tail, and my freaky long tongue. And it all feels so natural to me. Part of the transformation, I guess. I can’t even really remember what it felt like to have five fingers on each hand.

I’m lucky really, in that the tail’s the only truly inhuman biology I acquired. It’d be amazing to be able to fly, or to cast magic, but... watching pegasi trying to preen, and breaking down into tears because they can’t figure out how to get their feathers to go right, that’s something I don’t have to do. Even the bat ponies with their membranous wings are... well, using them as hands, and... as cloaks I guess, and with their freaky batlike eyes and wings... suffice to say a great majority of them had pretty pegasus OCs, not bat pony ones. To see that when you look at yourself in the mirror... it’s just not something I have to deal with.

And don’t even get me started on unicorns. I thought it was just like... a magic horn, but the more I watch them practicing with Twilight, the freakier it gets. Their brains are different. Like... they can do multiple things at once, like on the show.

But that’s not natural for humans, so that change alone has sent a few into sort of... short little seizures. And they’re so scared when they come out of it, even Nick, like... not feeling quite... themselves anymore. That horn goes both ways, it seems, and even if I was cool with being able to read, walk, levitate a cup, hold a conversation, and fiddle with a rubik’s cube at the same time, I wouldn’t be so comfortable about having what basically amounts to a lightning rod stuck straight into my brain.

I certainly wouldn’t want to lose that kind of thinking when I changed back to being human. It’d feel like I was going retarded! But instead of worrying about that, I get to just wander around the farm, doing my exercises, calming myself, grazing, and just being a pony. It’s um... easier, if not nearly as exciting. You wouldn’t think it’d be easier to be utterly helpless, and yet here we are.

Alas, my paralyzed idyll is not to last, for Twilight gathers us all together one morning with a grim look on her cute little purple snout.

“I wanted more time to train you all, but I’m afraid some ponies have forced our hoof,” she says somberly, “You may have been approached by the sienna orange haired, turquoise pegasus pony known as Donald, and I forgive you for not coming forward sooner, but I’m afraid she has put us all in grave danger.”

There was some muttering at that, and I, for one, never even got a chance to talk to Donald. She was the... oh no.

“Apparently, she was an active member of your nation’s military,” Twilight states irritably, “And she considered it her duty to get us all locked up again. If I had just known... but that’s beside the point. Donald and four other ponies left the farm at approximately midnight last night, and are headed approximately due west, about 20 miles from here by now.”

Murmurs got worryingly quiet as everyone looked at Twilight with varying amounts of confusion and fear. “Now I never wanted you to think that you are prisoners here,” Twilight states, holding up a placating purple hoof, “You’re all free to leave at any time. I just don’t think you really have anywhere to go, and wanted to give you sanctuary in Equestria, while the princess and I deal with the situation.”

“So we can’t go to Equestria?” a filly shouts in distress.

“No, no we can go to Equestria,” Twilight says with a pleading smile, “It’s a little rushed, but I really do think we’re ready to open a large portal, if we all work together. If... too many of you leave us and try to make it on your own in this world, I might have to go back to Equestria on my own, and just hope that your government deals with the rest of you equitably and doesn’t torture any more of you. But as it stands, if you’re with me, I think we’re all capable of going to Equestria... tonight!”

“Tonight?” is among the murmurs of response at that.

“The er... deserters shouldn’t encounter civilization for at least another day, in the direction they’re going,” Twilight adds in a hopeful tone, “And by the time they mobilize an attack on our location, I think we can all be long gone!”

Magicking up a three dimensional hologram of some sketchy ponies around a slowly opening portal under a bunch of twinkly purple stars, Twilight says, “I’ve been working out the ritual, and it’s best to open a large gate like that outside of direct contact with sunlight. Contact between our companion suns can... well... it’d make traversal unsafe, and possibly make the superstructure of the gate explode violently, so it’s really best if we do it under the cover of night.”

She laughs nervously, lifting a hoof and saying, “Besides, the light show’ll be more impressive in the dark, right? Eh heh...”

“What do we have to do?” another pony in the crowd asks, and Twilight’s ears sag in relief, as she says,

“First, I want pegasi and bat ponies to abandon our policy of flying below the radar, and practice clearing clouds. The more starlight we can get, the better. So any of you with wings, I need you to fly high as you can, and... see if you can keep the skies clear above us. Don’t wear yourself out, but just see what you can do, so that we’ll be ready for tonight.

“Second,” she says, looking at... me, actually, “I need help in preparing the materials. Any earth ponies can definitely assist with that. Mostly it’s a matter of mixing powders, and various reagents that align your world with my own. I could do it myself, but... well our timetable just got a lot shorter, so I’d really appreciate the help.

“Unicorns, you should already know what to do,” she continues, “Practice your dimensional translocation exercises, no actual teleporting of course, and see if you all can get to the point where you can combine your magic together without any sparking.

“So, without further ado, are we ready to do this?” Twilight asks. There’s a vague muttering agreement, but she says, “C’mon I wanna hear some enthusiasm! Are we ready to do this?”

“Yeah!” everypony vaguely cheers.

“Are you ready to go to Equestria? ” Twilight asks eagerly.

“Yeah!” is a solid cheer this time. It feels kind of like—

“Then let’s do this!” Twilight shouts, rearing up and leaping off the stage.

They come at all sides
They won’t let us get out
They’re coming for us
But there’s no need to pout

The way has been tough
The way has been rough
But we won’t let them stop us
‘Cause we’ve had enough!

We’re ready to go.
We’re ready to say
Equestria,
It’s a brand new day!

It doesn’t exactly feel like a song, I mean we’re not literally singing. It just seems like there’s something in progress around us, as we work together to mix various powder, liquids, gels and... stuff. Some of it’s really volatile, actually, and there’s more than one time that somepony gets a faceful of coughing smoke. But we manage. As earth ponies do, I imagine.

Also I kind of feel like I know the words.

Flying so high,
There’s no reason to fret
Not coming down
Till our freedom is set!

We can’t take them down
But we can clear the way
To the world that we found
We ain’t got time to stay.

We’re ready to go.
We’re ready to say
Equestria,
It’s a brand new day!

The pegasi soar like eagles, yet cut through the air like sparrows. No apparent advantage whether your wings are fleshy or feathered, I can hardly see them at the apex of their ascent, just tiny dots of color against the grey, until cavernous holes the size of houses burst open in the clouds overhead, revealing the bright blue beyond. Mira tells me excitedly about it later, that there were gale force winds blowing them around up there like paper planes. The forces involved in removing or even altering those giant fluffy things are pretty crazy, it turns out.

Now we know what to do
Now we know what to know
Equestria
Is where we’ll go.

We’ll take on the task
We’ll light up the night
Not gonna give in
We’re going to fight

We’re ready to go
We’re ready to say
Equestria,
It’s a brand new day!

The unicorns are glowing bright. Twilight personally attends to them, making sure they’re getting all the weird light-shapes in the air correct. When it comes to ponies, Twilight Sparkle knows unicorns like the back of her uh... horn. She knows exactly what to do and what to say that will get them ready for the task at hand. Unlike pegasi, or earth ponies, Twilight knows her own tribe up and down, inside and out.

With the evening falling
We will bring a brand new day
Equestria is calling
Together we’ll find our way.

The stakes are set
The lines are drawn
At the end of the day
We’re gonna bring back the dawn!

Night falls and a great flat expanse out behind the barn has been carefully dug by hoof, trenches according to Twilight’s precise instructions, that she fills with the strange, sparkly interdimensional powders she prepared, a giant spell circle, the first in history perhaps that actually stood a chance at working.

I didn’t think Twilight was gonna do it. I didn’t think we were actually going to Equestria. But she’s stuck with us all this time, and now it’s finally happening. No more dinners of beans and hay, with terrible consequences at the other end of the digestive tract. No more fear that the military is going to find us, and effortlessly eradicate any hope of freedom we had. We’re gonna be in Equestria, where the human government wouldn’t dare invade, even if they could.

We’re ready to go
We’re ready to say
Equestria,
It’s a brand new day!

Even us earth ponies play a part in the spell, interestingly enough. Mostly just sitting in various locations, and thinking calm thoughts, to avoid disrupting the spell casters. Of course it had to be earth pony hooves scraping out these trenches. I’m sitting on my belly on the rough dirt in my spot of the circle, as the horn of my friend, and every unicorn on the farm lights up in sparkling light of all colors of the rainbow. Their magic flows from them, arcing down to contact with critical points on the spell circle, making all the powder filled trenches glow with a beautiful pink and blue light.

Now the time has come to go
Let newfound light between us grow.
We passed the point of fear or doubt
We’re ready all to scream and shout.

We’re ready to go
We’re ready to say
Equestria,
It’s a brand new day!

My idle humming to a... tune finishes up, as things really start to get in gear. It’s an adrenalin rush to even see this. The hairs on my coat are standing on end, and I have this weirdly weightless feeling, even though I am very solidly, undoubtedly connected to the earth. The skies above us are clear, and the stars are shining, a beautiful canvas unfortunately faded and slightly orange tinged from the city lights from further down in the valley, but still present and eerily twinkling down on our little group of ponies here. I wonder what the stars look like in Equestria.

“Okay, everypony. You’re doing great!” calls out Twilight Sparkle, the master caster here, but also looking from pony to pony and calling out commands. “I need more hornlight, David! Stella, remember the hyperdimensional matrices! Dial it back Andrew, you don’t want to push now, you want to feel a resonance here.”

This is... the greatest thing I’ve ever had a chance to participate in, even if I’m pretty much just staying out of the way. I’m awestruck with how a cascading pillar of light buds out from the center of the circle, and grows taller and taller, like a pink, purple and blue flame.

“We’ve almost got it!” Twilight shouts over the deep bass rumble that resonates over the whistling of the whipping wind. “Just a little higher, and the antenna should be able to pick up Equestria’s frequency!” It’s great, until the wind starts to howl, buffetting the purple unicorn as she cries out in surprise. The flaming antenna wavers and gutters, looking more like a vortex than a flame.

“Okay, there’s just a little interdimensional turbulence!” Twilight shouts out, her horn blazing bright pink to trace pink runes of light in the air before her, “I think I can compensate for this, but it might get tense for a little moment. Darryl, I need you to send your magic through these runes.”

“Got it!” shouts a filly unicorn in the crowd.

“Andrew, Mark, Grace, David, Joe, you five need to trace this pattern here.”

“Right!” they call out, as Twilight’s horn light cuts trenches through the earth with an envious speed that once again makes you wonder why there are earth ponies at all.

“Mark, change your pulse frequency from 5 to 7,” Twilight continues to call out, “Joe, you need to turn 44 degrees clockwise! Every earth pony!”

My ears perk up in surprise.

“Think about ponies!” Twilight shouts, “Imagine finding everypony you ever wanted to find in Equestria! Try to call out them, reinforce their images in your mind’s eye!”

Okay... wow, really? I think about Applejack, and Pinkie Pie, and about how cool it was that Mira got to be a bat pony, and how I wonder what Rarity and Fluttershy talk about in the Ponyville day spa. Just fashion, or do they share something in common besides girliness? Fluttershy was supposed to be freaky good at sewing, apparently. The images flood through my mind so easily, it’s like I really am in Ponyville, no it’s like I’m Pinkie Pie who just knows every possible pony who ever lived.

“Alright now let me just...” Twilight’s horn light flickers and flashes, “Recalibrate the alternations, reverse the polarities...” I can’t hear further what she says as she falls to mumbles. But then Twilight’s eyes brighten and a complex diagram of pure magic expands from her horn, and hovers over the circle, tingling as it touches each of us. “There!” she shouts eagerly, “Everypony pour everything you have into it! We want to get this portal open as wide as possible!”

The horn light intensifies, and the thrill of powerful magic is flowing all around me in a way that I can almost feel. It’s so intense there are pink and blue trails of light all around us in strange, kaleidoscopic patterns that look kind of weirdly familiar. It’s hard not to think about ponies now, like it’s pulling everything I ever thought about a pony to the front of my mind, and... beyond? Like I’m obsessing over every little detail of every pony I’ve ever seen or experienced, except it’s the magic spell pulling it out of me.

Everything brightens, and the swirling oval of flaming light is buoyed over a bed of increasingly pure white. There’s a tension in the air that just increases and increases, as the swirling fire takes on a sort of teardrop shape. Is that the gate? Is it going to open? It abruptly rockets up into the air with a silent thoom, and a sudden release of tension that kills every unicorn’s hornlight, and knocks everypony standing off their hooves in a silent blast wave.

The humming and the wind fall to silence in the confusion, as everypony tries to reorient themselves. If I wasn’t sitting down... well, even I feel drained, and dizzy. Struggling up onto my hooves, I look around at the mess, and in the darkness left behind from our failed spell, ponies are already complaining, or whining in disappointment, as they too crawl to their hooves again. The one I’m really worried about though, is Twilight. She was so sure this would work.

“Well, that almost worked,” I tell her, the unicorn mare almost unseen in the darkness. Adding a gentle giggle, I say, “Maybe we should try for a smaller portal, then only go through one at a time?”

Twilight doesn’t answer. She’s still just standing there, looking upwards. I um... curiously, I look upwards too, but all I can see is that magic teardrop thingy, shining like its own star as it diminishes into the distance above us. It finally sort of... bursts into a ripple of light, that... sort of looks like it’s growing brighter?

The blue, pink and purple light spirals outwards above us in the sky, growing into long curtains of light at first, that spread into beautiful patterns. They glow with a soft serenity, brightening the whole world beneath them as they spread to cover the sky in shifting kaleidoscopic patterns of light. It’s one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen. A bunch of ponies are oohing and aahing at the phenomenon, and asking what is it.

“This’s amazing, Twilight!” I tell her encouragingly, “Even if we didn’t succeed, it’s like the aurora borealis!”

The only thing Twilight murmurs in response though is, “It worked...”

“It did?” I ask, but she just repeats as if to herself,

“It worked...”

Then she says, “It worked. It worked. It worked!” and then still looking overhead, she’s jumping and dancing and laughing in delight, shrieking, “It worked! Hahaha it worked! Yes! Yes! Yes! It’s working!”

“Wh—” I respond as Twilight lights up her horn, vanishing from where she is and appearing about ten feet from the rest of us, announcing to all of us confused ponies with the biggest grin,

“I can’t believe it worked, you complete and total morons! You did it! You actually did it!”

With her horn alight, fearsomely illuminating her features, Twilight Sparkle looks absolutely frantic with excitement. “You have no idea what you’ve done!” she crows, “Of course you don’t! I made sure of that! I made sure of everything! You are sooooo...” she chuckles, and the chuckles turn to laughs, and the laughs don’t quite turn into shrieks before she shouts in utter glee, “You are all so screwed! You have no idea!

“You have no idea, and you fell for it the whole time!” Twilight declares with another giddy giggle, spitting out bitterly, “You and your stupid world can go die in a pit for all I care. It’s over, I don’t have to put up with your bullshit any longer. I don’t have to deal with your whining, and your flailing and,” she starts prancing back and forth, tossing her mane dramatically and loudly whining, “Oh look at me I’m a pony how terrible! How will I ever live with myself for not being a big dumb ugly human? I can’t be a perverted ponyfucker if I am the pony! Oh no, I don’t have hands, I can’t wipe my own ass without those!”

Staring at us with a grimace of unimaginable fury and disgust, she snaps humorlessly, “You monkeys can have your tedious, boring lives. I’m gonna find her, and ditch this stupid backwards world and there’s nothing you can do about it. So long, you stupid, simpering, whining weaklings, and thanks for breaking it for me!”

Then Twilight Sparkle vanishes in a brilliant flash of her horn’s pink light.

Even though it’s a new moon, we can see each other crowding together in confusion, in the glowing pink, purple and blue light of... whatever it is we’ve done overhead. Nobody says anything, no sounds other than the now calmly whispering wind in the leaves of the trees, and the occasional shift of pony bodies. Someone coughs.

“What the fuck?” exclaims a little filly in the crowd.