Training as a pony sure is troublesome, because it’s too easy to motivate ponies. I don’t really understand it, because I don’t feel like I’m being too motivated. I just feel normal. I’m just so happy to be doing everything I can, to make her feel better about us, and then I end up face down on the bed, passed out all day. The instructor’s less enthusiastic at least, which tempers things a lot, but it adds a sense of unease. We don’t know how to train any more than she does. We start to get a sort of rhythm though, once she figures out we’re here to actually train our pony bodies.

And I’m really doing better! It seems like I run faster every day, without even getting too sore if I’m careful, and it’s not long before I’m practically prancing through the obstacle course. The sergeant actually asks me to show some of her men what us “civvy” ponies have learned from our time back at the barn. So I guess I must be doing pretty good indeed! And that’s where I meet... Daredevil.

“Okay, that’s it! Lift your front legs more, like this, see?” I try to instruct, bounding along with the military ponies who’re actually struggling to keep up with me. I don’t know when I started thinking of them as front legs, but here we are. We gallop in circles in a big open area where a building was originally supposed to be, then I show them about rearing up, and doing that reverse rearing up thing, where you stand on your front legs, and lift up your hind legs, and feel like kicking something behind you. Most of them get the hang of this stuff pretty quickly, and one earth pony in particular is really kicking tail, so to speak.

One pony is doing really well in my training class. She’s a blue earth pony mare, with purple and pink hair. She’s just so enthusiastic! The others are also rugged military types, but she’s enjoying it more, instead of just going through the motions? A lot of them I think are resentful that a civilian has to teach them how to walk.

“Hey,” the rough voiced mare says, confident on her hooves as she trots up to me after training. Her purple and pink tail arcs cheerfully out from her softly curving blue furred hindquarters, but don’t let them fool you. She’s one of the strong ones. I can’t even hold a candle to the force she can put into a horsey buck. It wasn’t very thick steel admittedly, but how many horses do you know who can dent steel?

Okay I don’t know any horses, so I don’t know what they could dent. But Daredevil can kick. I’m not the heaviest even among mares, but Daredevil only needs one arm to lift me up. And she loves to do it. When we get into wrestling, she’s always wanting me to be her partner, even when I can’t participate as much because I have to make sure the others are doing it right.

“Say, I never thanked you the other day,” the mare says deliberately, sitting on her haunches right next to me, holding up a forehoof. “Name’s Daredevil,” she says, freezing a moment, before adding, “Not really, but it’s a cool name, huh?”

“Pleased to meet you Daredevil,” I say happily, briefly hooking my foreleg in hers to roughly approximate a hand shake, “You probably know I’m Meadowsweet, but what did you want to thank me about?”

“Oh uh...” Daredevil looks down at the hoof I just held, a slight blush tinting her cheeks, “Just for showing us how to kick like horses and stuff.”

“It’s no problem. I’m not really even an instructor,” I admit to her a little shamefully, “I’m just one of those ‘civvies’ as they’re saying, and I was doing a little dance class back in Ainsworth, so I guess the Sergeant likes how I’m doing, enough to try and get me teaching you guys.” Noting Daredevil’s marehood, I add politely, “So to speak.”

“You can dance?” she asks, looking at me in mild curiosity.

“Just, you know, messing around,” I say, rubbing my head with a nervous laugh, “Nobody really knows how to dance, since we got four legs now, so I’ve just been improvising really.”

“Could you show me?” she asks. Then blushes and says, “I–I mean, uh... not that you have to and...”

“Sure, I could show you!” I tell her happily, standing up from where we’re sitting together on the ground here. “It’s not much to look at though. I’m just...” I make a show of rhythmically hopping from diagonal to diagonal, sticking my opposite legs out forward and back, sticking my tongue out and really rocking it.

“Haha, that’s the dance that purple pony was doing!” Daredevil declares with an amused laugh, causing me to blink in surprise as I settle to all fours, still again. “The one they were all backing away from?” she adds, eyeing me nervously.

“Yeah, but you saw the show?” I ask, skeptically.

“That episode at least. They had us watching the uh... footage,” she says, looking like she wants to hide behind a foreleg, “To prepare for any combat with a uh...”

“Oh, no that makes sense!” I declare emphatically, “Ponies don’t even move like real world horses, so you’d have to watch the show. But that’s not how I was really dancing. Check this out!”

I don’t think I’ve ever had an audience of one before. Zero or plenty. But Daredevil seems to like watching me just prancing around and shaking it to my own tune. I manage not to burst out into song, but there’s a lot of humming involved.

I finish up with that sort of S jump, where I twist along an S in the air as I descend to my forelegs, then my hindlegs. Panting and sweating, since I just did that training exercise with her group earlier, I don’t know why she’s just staring at me, open-mouthed. I’m not that awesome at dancing, am I? “So... any... any good?” I ask tentatively.

“That was amazing!” she says, starry-eyed, “You just made that up? You’re beauti— I mean,” she blushes again, “Your dancing’s really beautiful!”

“I–I’m uh... well I’m...” I reply, blushing too, because my dancing’s not beautiful, is it? Is dancing my special talent, or something? I look at my rump, but like everyone else, I’m still blank as a board. “Thanks,” I finally meekly settle on, wishing I had a real response to that.

I see a lot of Daredevil in my little sub-training class, but oddly enough I start seeing her hanging out with Dusty. It’s kind of weird, because I see Daredevil and Dusty talking together, then Daredevil just trots away once I approach. She’s perfectly friendly to me otherwise, but she never wants to be around me and Dusty at the same time. Dusty seems kind of evasive about it too, for some reason, but I do find out that he’s really impressed with how Daredevil was an actual military man, with admittedly human oriented military training. And Dusty says Daredevil really thinks I’m great, or something. And apparently she liked my dancing.

Dancing isn’t the only thing I’m good at, either. I never knew how little of my potential I was exercising as a pony, until I really had a chance to start exercising it. After a few weeks of achiness, any soreness just transforms into a glorious satisfaction. I’m running harder than I could ever have imagined, jumping even higher, and landing lightly and surely.

I’m actually starting to wake up looking forward to my training sessions! Seargant Browning doesn’t hesitate to make it hard, but I can take what she’s dealing out! You can see it in her eyes: she even starts to trust us, that we’ll help her as much as she’s helping us. She’s not gonna admit we’re doing well, but the admiration she chews us out with just shines through.

Even when not training, I start feeling perkier, and more sure of myself. I just feel better moving around in general. More natural, less clumsy. I think we all our. Our drill instructor looks like she feels that way, at least. By the time she’s pushing us as hard as she did that first day, she’s running right there along with us, and boy does she gallop like a boss.

I wish I could say it’s an earth pony power, but honestly pegasi are still kicking ass in just about every aspect of physicality. When they’re not flying, they can outrun me. When they’re not running, they can lift as much as I ever could. I’m not the strongest of the earth ponies, but the strength between earth ponies and pegasi is still a pretty even match.

Not to say I’m not weak or anything. I’m pretty freakishly strong, especially once I’ve been training to lift and move more. It’s just the earth ponies like Daredevil are another order of magnitude in strength, like breaking stone with their hooves strength. Some of the pegasi can do that too, albeit with a flying start. But aside from those top performers, I can pull my weight pretty well, all 40 pounds of it, and don’t let anyone tell you I only weigh 37 because that scale was totally biased.

Unicorns don’t have nearly the um... “constitution” that the other tribes do, so they tire out super easy. But they’re strong, and sleek, and agile, in a way that makes other earth ponies look clumsy in comparison. In fact, if I had to say how athletic I was, I find myself having an easier time moving like a unicorn, with those fast, slick moves, instead of the ones where you power through the obstacles in your way. We earth ponies start sparring with the other tribes eventually, and I can usually get the first blow on any unicorn who isn’t allowed to use their horn, where other earth ponies don’t stand a chance.

Of course if they can use their horn, unicorns zap me with a paralytic thingy, then one hit and wham I’m on the floor. So I lose every time, while a tougher earth pony just sucks it up and hits back. I think I’m getting used to that trick though. One time I get hit by that “thingy,” and when they try to kick my wobbling form out of the sparring circle, I still somehow manage to... fall in the right direction?

I’m not sure how I do it, but I hook her foreleg as I fall, and then she’s on the ground outside the circle, looking up at me in astonishment, before I topple over like a fainting goat. I still envy the earth ponies like Daredevil who can just power through it the first time, but it seems like spells stop working so good on me after a while, even if they drop me easily at first.

I’m just doing super well in a lot of ways, that some of my friends really admire. Lucy thinks I can get better at that magic thingy, and as a unicorn she’s quite willing to help me try. Lucy’s been out with the hunting party though, to get enough meat to keep our whole base in top shape. But when she’s not taking down deer with a blast from her horn, she’s quite happy to practice with me, and sometimes all that close bodily contact turns to sex, which is great for both of us.

I’m not sure about Holly, she’s been doing flying things mostly, if any training at all. Bubblegum doesn’t like to spar with me since she can kick my ass being a pegasus, and I think she prefers grappling with me at night, with Dusty, in bed. Sue and Dusty aren’t really training all that hard; I think they got tired of it pretty quick, but they’re both supportive, and they say I look awesome while I’m doing it. Awesome as in “I’d hit that.” Something about the way my body moves when I’m training just really... catches their attention. I don’t know why it’s happening that way, but I’m sure not complaining!

One thing’s for sure. By the time the next four months pass, I’m aiming to be the healthiest, most physically fit mother to ever give birth to a my little pony.

Mira has not been doing quite as well as I have, having come over here. She’s helping out all over the place, and doing her own sort of training, but... she keeps sitting by herself a lot. And I know that’s not like Mira, before or after she turned into a pony. So I find her sitting on her own one day, over by the picnic tables, where ponies (especially pegasi) like to sweep off the snow and stand on them, sunning themselves in whatever sun comes through the the white clouds overhead. I say especially the pegasi, because they can kind of punch a hole in the white clouds overhead, to illuminate the table in sunlight, the cheating bastards.

My sister’s not even sunlit as she sits on the cold tabletop, her hooves hooked over the edge as she stares off into space. I approach her with concern, saying, “Mira, have you—” And then Mira yelps and startles, turning to stare at me in astonishment. What?

“Don’t scare me like that!” says my orange bat pony friend/sister, with a pink and blue tail she’s now switching back and forth, “I didn’t hear you coming up!”

“With those ears?” I ask skeptically, eyeing Mira’s broad, conical ears with the cute little tufts on the tips of them.

“You’re just kind of really quiet sometimes, Meadowsweet,” Mira says frankly, “You gotta make more noise or something.” Patting the table beside her with a wing, she asks, “Anyway, what’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much,” I reply, hopping up on the table next to her. Plenty of room for us both. Mira lays her wing over me, and I sidle close to her, as we briefly nose at each other. She smells like herself, and lonely.

“You’ve been off by yourself a lot since coming here,” I offer sympathetically.

Sighing, Mira wing hugs me closer, shuffling her limbs underneath her.

“I shouldn’t have come,” Mira says, as I meet her eyes with concern, “I never think things ahead; it’s stupid. I left Peter behind, and he totally said I could go, but... Nick didn’t come either. And Melissa came, but she’s been... spending time with a guy named John, who I don’t really know. I just don’t have...”

“You don’t have a stallion anymore!” I exclaim in shocked realization.

“I was gonna say a pony left to hang out with, but yeah,” Mira says with a kind of ragged smile. “It’s not so bad since I got pregnant, I’m not... dying horny. I just wish I stayed back with Nick and Peter and... I’m pregnant, and it’s kind of terrifying to just sit there being like that, and there’s nobody who can help me out here besides myself.

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” I tell her out of sympathetic curiosity, “You should have people who can help you, besides just me that is. But I guess people kind of are hanging out with their... stallion and all.”

With a chuckle, Mira says, “Makes sense, right? He’s the way that they get some sugar!”

“Yeah, I understand, it’s just weird,” I mutter, staring at the dirt between us. “And now that I think about it I haven’t really... been trying to get any females more female friends. They don’t need to be introduced, because it’s not you know, awkward, like when you meet a guy?”

Mira giggles at that, saying, “Nice to know you’re on the case. But man yeah, I should just go up to John and introduce myself, but I’m afraid I might... I mean, I already have Peter. And Nick, sorta. So I can’t go just sleeping around or anything.”

“Well, Peter and Nick aren’t here, so I don’t see why you have to sit around not being with anyone,” I tell her grumpily, “We’re on an adventure! And it’s not like you’re... married or anything.”

“...so you think John should fuck my pussy?” Mira asks coyly.

Blushing, I say, “N-uh, m-maybe, but I wonder if I could...”

“If you could what?” she asks and dammit I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m going to mess this up, I just know it.

“Dusty has... I–I mean you know Dusty, right?” I tell Mira, looking into her baby blue bat eyes.

“I think so,” she says, “He’s the um... he was doing gardening back at the farm, or something.”

“Well, he’s here,” I tell her frankly, “And he’s... I’ve kind of been looking for if any... body who’s... female is interested in...”

Blinking a moment, Mira blurts out, “Ohh, you think me and he should...”

“It’s just that he only has um... Bubblegum Comet is with him now, but he’s too much for her all the time,” I relate to Mira, strategically omitting that I’ve been letting Dusty fuck me to give Bubblegum a break now and again. Not that I’m trying to hide it at this point, but how do you say something like that without sounding horrible? “Stallions... I mean pony males seem to do best with more than one mare,” I say, “Like Sue with me, Holly and Lucy, you know?”

“Just because there’s three times as many females doesn’t mean you have to have exactly three of them for every stallion!” Mira protests in frustrated offense.

“I know it doesn’t have to be exact!” I whine, “It’s just I have been...”

Looking for an excuse to be true to Sue again.

“Feeling like Dusty needs someone else,” I say tactfully, “And if you’re already pregnant, that’s even better.”

With a predatory smile, Mira says smugly to me, “You want Dusty to fuck my pussy, huh? Just stick it in my pregnant pussy and let fly.”

“W-well basically,” I blush, “Are you interested in... that?”

“It’s so weird that we can talk about this stuff now,” Mira answers in enigmatic wonder, “I never could talk about it with you before, but then there you were with Nick. You just... got pregnant right in front of—well, right behind me.”

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help it—” I start to protest, but she reassures me,

“No, no it’s okay! I like being open with you about this. I didn’t think you were into... sexy stuff, and then you just did it with Nick. I wish I could’ve seen it happen to you, because it was beautiful how Peter just... took you like that.”

“T-thanks, I think,” I reply cautiously.

“So, therefore we can talk about it,” Mira insists huffily, “It was just kind of incredible to see you feeling that. And I kind of want you to see that happen to me, too.”

Blushing, I say, “Do you... really lose it, like I do? Like I was standing there and all I could think about was him and...”

“Yeah, I... I do,” Mira says softly, “When I feel him inside me, I just start... humping back against it. I’m um... quieter than you’d think. I–I can’t talk with you, all I can do is focus on getting pregnant.”

“And you’d be willing to do that, with Dusty?” I ask hopefully.

“If he’s willing, I’d love to show you that!” Mira says and uh oh. “You look incredible when it’s taking you, and I want you to be able to see it happening to me.”

Blushing and glancing away, I ask, “B-but if you were just with Dusty, not me, then...?”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, sis!” Mira says in a hurt tone, “You’d be getting me together with him in the first place! I’d want you to be there, at least.”

“O-of course I’ll be there!” I say facing her with an anxious grin.

“So you’ll talk to him about it?” Mira asks hopefully.

“Sure, I’ll... talk to him about it,” I say, and hopefully she can’t see my tail drooping in defeat back there.

“Okay, lemme know then,” Mira says, with a playful wiggle of her own tail and rump, “And enjoy the thought that your sister wants some of that too.”

I try to be embarassed about that and all I can do is smile, saying, “I love you Mira, vagina and all. You might not be my biological sister anymore, but we still grew up together, and I love how having sex became part of you.”

“Y-yeah, we were just kids heh,” Mira says bashfully, “And I started like... putting stuff into me, and wanting to have sex with boys, a-and I couldn’t talk about it since you wouldn’t understand since you had a penis.”

“Did I need to understand?” I ask in disappointment, “I understand now, but I think it’s cool that you get those urges, whether I understand or not. I mean... it’s you, Mira. Not just any girl, it’s my sister looking at boys and having... urges and stuff. You’re not just a... a doll, you were becoming a woman, with a vagina that needs to be filled, and I really would have respected that sort of thing. I mean, when was your first time?”

“I-it was in high school,” she says cautiously.

“With... Andrew?” I guess.

Mira nods.

“Well, I didn’t know at the time,” I continue, “But now I know why you liked him, and... brought him over, and stuff. N-not just to have sex, but it was pretty clear you were enjoying... whatever you were doing together.”

“It was sex,” she says with her ears slightly going back, “It was hard to stop once I started letting him go into me. You know how it is. He was just so awesome, and I stopped getting a period, and...”

“But don’t you...” I ask in confusion, “I mean don’t human girls only stop getting their period when... oh.”

“Heh, yeah,” Mira says nervously, “Aaanyway so I wasn’t allowed to go out with him after that.”

“Oh, I thought you just stopped liking him,” I say seriously.

“Mom and dad never told you?” Mira asks curiously.

I shake my head.

“Man, I don’t get humans sometimes,” Mira sighs, swishing her tail in frustration.

“Well even if you got... I mean especially since you got pregnant, I’m glad Andrew... fucked your pussy,” I tell her with a little bit of a giggle at saying that last part, “Because maybe you’re out of control sometimes, but... I never did that with a girl because I was scared I’d... do that to a girl.”

“It’s scarier for a guy, I think,” Mira muses, “I did something stupid yeah, but I was the only one who was gonna pay for it. Andrew was gonna make me pay for it, and there was nothing he could do about it. I mean isn’t it disturbing to get urges to just... knock up some chick and make her give birth?”

“I’d say so, yeah,” I tell her faintly, “I don’t know how other guys do it, not responsibly at least. I would’ve... probably cum inside, if I had a girlfriend at age sixteen. I wanted to, at least. I-if I knew she would abort, I would have gladly made a mistake, because it feels so good, and it just hurt so much to have to go without that forever.”

Looking down glumly, I say, “You didn’t just take the easy route and play it safe, Mira. You jumped in head first, and almost... had a baby at sixteen. And it worked out in the end, and it really shows how passionate you are. Having sex, and... even having babies I guess is part of you, and you don’t have to deny it. I had to deny it.”

“It’s still bad that I am uhm... pregnant, with no way to abort this time,” Mira points out, “But yeah, it is part of me, and... part of you too now, I guess.”

“I never thought I’d want something inside me so badly until I turned into a girl,” I reply with a soft smile, “But now I know how you feel. So yes I will... get Dusty to fuck your pussy. And I’ll be there for you this time, to see you love it so much.”

“I’m just so glad you’re okay with me being like this,” Mira says eyeing me wistfully.

“I think it’s wonderful that you have those feelings,” I tell her warmly, “Even if they make mistakes happen, you’re a wonderful person for having them... and wanting that.”

Mira hugs me.

Well, Mira pony hugs me, pushing close and pressing her neck up against mine, in addition to her wing. Then her one foreleg hugs around my back, and I follow suit. She pulls back from the hug, nose-to-nose with a smile. Then she kisses me.

My eyes widen in surprise, and Mira keeps kissing me, eyes closed, pressing her lips to mine. It starts rushing through me, that my sister the golden furred bat pony is kissing me, and I quietly moan into it, my nethers awakening at the soft, steady press of her velvety lips on mine.

Mira pulls back from the kiss then, looking dazed herself, then says, “Pass that on to Dusty for me, and see if he’s okay with it, alright?”

“A-alright,” I say dumbly.

She spreads her leathery wings then and swoops up off into the sky, leaving me sitting on the picnic table looking up after Mira, wondering how I’m ever going to leave Dusty, with how much I wanna love her too.

I know it’s the pregnancy messing with my hormones, but it’s nice not to be so horny lately. It gives Dusty and Sue a chance to do what they want, instead of catering to my body’s demands to be mounted and fertilized. It’s still leaving me kind of wiped out though, because Dusty needs it at least once a day, so between me and Bubblegum... I end up having sex twice in a row sometimes. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but it feels like I can’t give Sue my all when I’m still warm and fuzzy inside from Dusty’s cum.

It’s not like I can’t do it though, and Sue’s being such a sweetheart. He’ll just lie there on his back, and all I have to do is straddle his penis and push it inside me, then he lets me go at whatever pace I like.

“You gonna flare?” I ask him sweetly, just slightly grinding against his pelvis as I feel the pulse of his heartbeat from his erection within me.

“Eventually,” he murmurs back.

Holly and Lucy are lying to either side of us, watching Sue and my sex with entertainment, but their groins are quite messy from having fun with each other, and today’s my day for Sue, so...

“You oughta do reverse cowgirl,” Lucy says behind me, “Then you can see these balls that are gonna pump another foal into you.”

“Just be careful with them,” Sue calls out cautioningly, trying to look around me squatted down on his penis.

“They’re sooo soft, mmm,” Lucy purrs, and in her tonguing of them, I bet she lets her tongue incidentally slide along my stretched vulva just to make me squeak and clench around him.

Meanwhile Holly starts nursing at me.

“Heh...” Sue says to the red-haired back of Holly’s head in his lap, “Looks like you have a foal already.”

So... they’re attending to me quite nicely. I don’t climax that time, but Sue does cum inside me, and I gladly take every drop I can hold. That should be enough, and I shouldn’t be fucking Dusty. I should get him some real mares, but... it’s not like I’m gonna get any more pregnant. Plus Sue’s being kind of an enabler. I’ll be standing there awash in the contentment and excitement of Dusty mounted up and preparing to ejaculate inside me, and in walks Sue who’s like, “Gotcha,” all smug and stuff.

And then I groan “Oh just stuff it down my throat already!” Then he does and how do you complain about that? I mean sure it’s harder to breathe, but it’s not like I’m stuck in a permanent swallowing position all the time, and when I do breathe in, I’m awash in the heady aroma of Sue’s chocolatey brown pelvis. Then Dusty starts cumming, and Sue shoves me onto him even more, and so I’m... kind of just... procrastinating on introducing Dusty to Mira.

I know it’s terrible, but I swear I’m going to do it. I swear I’m going to get him together with Mira, and with that final filly, to complete his group. It really is hard, though! People here are military personnel, so they’re very no-nonsense, disciplined, and confident in their masculinity. Which completely goes out the window when they turn into mares, so the female ones are pretty much half bonkers. Since there were almost no female personnel at this base, that means everyone who turned into a mare is half bonkers.

There are the geeks, for whom drowning in work and computers seems to be the go-to solution for denying that there are girls among them now. There are the white knight types, who seem to think that in denying their urges, they’re somehow protecting themselves, as a man would protect a woman. The best hope I have are the ones who are confused at being female, but still not wanting to be female. It seems like nobody here even wants to have sex as a girl.

But then I’ll go out at night and hear a high pitched whimper, as some lonely mare is trying not to cry as she feels more and more female, the more she stimulates herself and gives into her needs. And she hardly ever notices me, because I’m... quiet.

I guess everyone was right, back at Ainsworth. The one thing I’m best at, more than running or spatial whatsits, is sneaking around. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it seems to be something I am getting scarily good at. I find myself utterly dominating at capture the flag exercises, because nobody ever seems to notice me! I just walk around the tree, and I guess I am totally silent walking through these leaves, but a pegasus could do that by flying over them. And yet they don’t.

The pegasi are generally all way up in the sky, trying to grab each other’s tags, and as for seeing me down here, at least my pegasus friend named Brian swears up and down that I wasn’t in the middle of an open clearing, even though I could look up and see her plainly looking my way. I’m not camoflaged, just hiding at the right times. Moving with a silent fluidity, that comes more easily every time I do it.

And then the flag’s just right there. I just walk up to it, and it seems obvious to me, but I must have been psychic to know the right approach that would stay out of the eyesight of everyone guarding it. That accounts for the range of vision that ponies have, with our huge eyes! There’s one time an orange bat pony mare with purple and green hair is staring right at the flag with slitted orange eyes, after having lost the past three points, and right away, I see a way I can crawl to it under the grass up to the side of the hay bale opposite from her where she can’t see me, then just stick my hoof up and... snag it.

She bursts into motion, diving over the flag stand, and overshooting me because I just scamper around in front of it. Her wings spread, we face off and I make sure to leap away the direction she’s not protecting. She almost gets my tag, but I just—you know—squeeze behind a bush, or a wall, keep things blocking her view of me. And she screams “Flag captured! Flag captured!” once she can’t keep sight of me, while her three defenders hurry up to her. “Find her, she just grabbed it!” she shouts, “It’s Meadowsweet!!”

I can scarcely hear her scream of frustration as I’m already halfway back to my own base. I feel really bad about that one, though. After the exercise, I come up to that particular pony, an orange bat pony mare with a purple and green mane and tail. I start to shyly say, “Sorry about upsetting—”

The mare yelps and jumps a foot up in the air, wings snapping out, spinning to look in my direction in shock.

“Sorry about upsetting you! With that last point!” I say loudly, planting my hooves wide to try and make myself visible as possible and stop doing the thing already. “You really did almost get me. I just barely managed to slip away.”

Blinking her orange eyes at me, the less-orange mare says incredulously, “We had four guys on the capture point, including a unicorn and we couldn’t spot you!”

“That m-makes it easier, actually,” I admit to her, lifting a hoof, “When there’s a lot of people, it’s easy for them to have blind spots. Blind pathways? Ways you’re not gonna look.”

“Having multiple people is the only thing that eliminates blind spots,” she contests.

“Well I mean yeah if you’re coordinating perfectly,” I reply wryly, “But you have to call out where to search then, and keep track of each other. That makes it harder to keep track of me. So if you see me again, just call out a warning, then forget about everyone else. It’s harder for me to find ways to slip away if you do that.”

“Why are you telling me this?” the mare asks in confusion, “Don’t you wanna win?”

“Why would I want to win?” I reply, confused, “These are exercises, to see what we can do. I wanna try to be all y’know, sneaky and stuff. But if you catch me, that’s great too, because then that’s something you can do.”

“Well—you—that—” she states, dumbfounded.

“Sorry, I never caught your name,” I tell her, as sweetly as I can, “I know you know mine because I’m...” my ears go down, and I grumble, “Famous.” Famous not just for my guilt at winning capture-the-flag, but also for doing stupid things that I really should know better not to do.

Like getting my head stuck in the garbage bin at the cafeteria. There was a recyclable soda can in there though, and I forgot that we didn’t exactly have a recycling service out here, so it totally made sense for me to try and fish it out. But did they care? Oh no, no everyone was too busy laughing to care about how it totally made sense at the time.

“Don’t like being famous, huh?” the orange mare asks, slightly tilting her head and quirking an ear down.

“Yeah, it...” relaxing my ears, I tell her sheepishly, “It’s not always the greatest thing. I don’t really mind being famous, or not, or whatever. Mostly I just wanna get better, and have fun, and just... be a pony.”

Her surprised laugh at that is disarmingly relieving. “Yeah, we’re all trying to be all humanity this and humanity that,” she drawls, “Sometimes I just wanna straight out be this... pony um... y’y’know, this pony...”

As she trails off shyly, her tail swishes, and her thighs slightly squirm together when she lifts a hind leg.

“...female?” I ask the demure mare.

Both her ears go down.

“It’s really not that bad,” I tell her hopefully, turning to show her my flank, “Except for being pregnant, but even that, I mean look at me. You wouldn’t even think I was pregnant like this. My friend Brian says it’s exponential growth, so I’ll only even look pregnant at the very end.”

“Yeah, well not all of us are used to being girls,” she says resentfully, “Or ponies. I just—my name is... I used to be a... man.”

I blink slowly at her. She wants me to react to that?

“I mean isn’t that weird?” she says with a nervous laugh, “It’s chosen randomly, so some of us get turned into girls. And I guess you wouldn’t understand, but it’s a lot weirder than just being born that way.”

Oh.

With an entirely too womanly sigh, I groan, “I used to be male, too.”

Before her jaw can drop too far, I add, “I know I don’t act like a—or feel like a male, not um...” Ever. “Anymore. But it really isn’t all that different. You just start liking stallions instead of mares. Or, stallions instead of women.”

“Yeah, you know how...” the orange mare says with a slight laugh, then she stops, giving me a cautious look.

Then she stammers, “I–I mean okay, so you were a guy? So you know how it just sort of makes you start going crazy after a while. Like you wanna do something illegal and totally wrong. Like, you can’t stop thinking about it, as if it was your girlfriend, except it’s a guy’s thing you’re thinking about?”

“Honestly it’s the smell more than anything,” I say tentatively, trailing off when she blushes harder at that, and falls to even more silence.

“I really didn’t catch your name,” I say with a lame smile, trying not to weird her out even more. It doesn’t work! The mare retreats even further under her fleshy wing!

Wait...

I’m an idiot.

“You have a guy’s name, don’t you,” I say, ears going flat.

“W-well what am I supposed to have?” she says a little frustrated, peeking out from under her wing, “I can’t just change my name to a girl’s name. Most of us don’t even know what to—”

“Why not?” I complain in frustration, “You’re a girl now, and a pony, so why not pick a name that is’t so weird for a girl pony? Like my name’s Meadowsweet, for instance.”

“What was your guy name?” she asks curiously. Uh...

“Aaaanthony,” I say with a very confident grimacing wince.

I’m sure she’s entirely convinced.

“I’m a bit of a... special case,” I have to admit to her, “But other people have been taking new names on purpose, just for as long as they’re not guys. Until we change back.”

“Oh, so that’s why you have all those weird names,” she realizes, rubbing a foreleg under her chin.

“Yep,” I chirp, “So I don’t care what your ‘guy name’ was or anything. You can call yourself anything you want!”

“What should I call myself?” she asks, looking at me with such a pleadingly lost expression, I have to find a good name for her.

She’s an orange bat pony, with purple and green hair, and orange eyes. She’s a maintenance worker, or was, very low on the military hierarchy, and kind of resentful of having to basically do janitor duty all the time. And that’s what I’ve got to work with, as far as names go.

I try running “Tangerine Wine” past her, as well as “Grape Sweeper,” and “Purple Pumpkin,” and then she tells me something interesting.

“I don’t know if there are any purple pumpkins, actually,” she says, “But you know there’s purple corn?”

“No, I didn’t! How does that work?” I ask, confused, “All I ever saw was yellow corn.”

“Have you ever seen maize?” she asks, “It’s kind of inedible since you need to grind it into corn flour, but it comes in a whole rainbow of colors!”

“Like what colors?” I ask, recalling seeing an oddly rainbowish ear of corn, in a movie perhaps?

“Like purple,” she says, “Or blue depending on who you ask, and also brown and orange, and red—sort of dark red. Yellow of course.”

“Well you’re purple and orange,” I reply thoughtfully, “Why not call yourself Maize?”

“That–becau–huh.” She looks down at her own orange, sorta yellow orange furred foreleg.

So Maize has been training more since turning into a pony, which she enjoys a lot more than janitor duty. (Certain infuriatingly sneaky earth ponies aside.) Since the human race is in dire peril, there’s been more need for combat ready soldiers now, and there are us civvies, who are mostly doing the janitor duty around here. I know Holly and Sue have been doing a lot of maintenance stuff, rather than training.

Maize likes her new name, but isn’t sure if she’s ready to start telling her squadmates to start calling her that. And I kind of like her too. She’s practical, yet enthusiastic, with a bit of a snarky sense of humor. Watching her go after our talk, I wonder if Maize would like Dusty, and if I’m enough of a degenerate to try to get her together with him.

For better or for worse, Daredevil throws a wrench into those plans.

“Hey,” a very familiar rough voiced mare says, swaying heavily as she walks up to me.

“Hi, Daredevil,” I say amiably, looking up to regard the pony. My ears go down.

My so-called student’s purple and pink tail is drooping low over her gently curving blue furred hindquarters, and I don’t like to stereotype, but with the way she hugs her arm around me, and looks at me so dully, and the fact that her breath stinks of alcohol, I’m starting to think that there’s something very wrong with this mare.

“I hear you can get me...” she pauses as if to think on what she’s about to say, then blurts out, “Laid.”

Rather than acting embarassed, Daredevil seems to find this hilarious, laughing as she pulls away from me and almost falls over. She’s got such beautiful green eyes, if they would point in the same direction. What the heck is going on here?

“You’re onea those... chivvies Mehsweet,” she says with a noticeable slur in her voice, “Not a stuff shirt like the guys around here who’re all upset about how it’s besti... best...bestity, when I’m notta pony Imma woman!”

Pausing in washing the dishes, I’m sort of glad no one else is helping me at that chore this time, if Daredevil is gonna put on a display like this. I turn to face her, coming down from the sink to four hooves while she looks at me evenly...ish, and says, “They think I’m a... think Imma guy, but I wanna put a big old piece of guy meat heh heh guy meat right where they can’t see in fronna their own fucking faces that goes inta me down... back there, cause I don’t gotta dick, so why’re they callin me a man? I’m a woman and... and I uh...”

She hiccups, and now she looks like she’s going to cry.

“You’re totally right, and I agree with you,” I assure her hastily, walking up to the slumped mare, unsure of whether to touch her or not, “And you’re a good person, who doesn’t deserve to... to be like this.” I have no idea if she’s a good person or not, do I? “And uh...”

I really shouldn’t burst her bubble, but wincing, I admit, “You don’t have to pretend. I know that alcohol doesn’t work on ponies.”

“Fuck you!” she replies pushing an angry forehoof into my shoulder and sending me sprawling on my back. (She doesn’t have to push hard.) “I can ge’ durnk ‘f I want!”

She rolls to her side then, laughing gently to herself, saying quietly, “They said I couldn’t get drunk. Ha! I wanna’d’a get drunk, and I did. On fucking warm beer! Haha everythin’s... spinnin’”

“How much beer did you drink? ” I ask incredulously.

I only get a quiet snore in reply.

The dishes don’t get washed that night, but I nose under the mare’s shoulders, and sling her up on my back, then go trudging off through the electrically lit evening, to the medical office they have here. The three ponies there look at me with alarm as I walk in, so I announce, “She’s fine! Sorta. She’s...” Daredevil wiggles on top of me and mumbles in her sleep. “Moving at least. I think she had too much to drink?”

“How?” the brown mare blurts out in utter disbelief.

“I have no idea,” I reply, “But it must be something worse than beer, so uh, pump her stomach, I guess?”

“We don’t have a stomach pump. This is just a first aid station!” the green mare fusses.

“She seems alright, just drunk. Somehow,” I tell them, “I’ll just keep an eye on her, and make sure she doesn’t need... whatever you give drunk people.”

“We might be able to put her on an I.V. to keep her electrolytes up,” the green mare says, as confidently as a pony with no opposable thumbs can say, “We’re just terribly short of supplies here. I keep telling them we need to get equipment from a hospital, but no they can’t even confiscate basic... sorry.”

She walks up to me, inspecting the mare lying on my back, pulling back her eyelid with a hoof, and muttering, “Well she definitely looks drunk.”

“Some activated charcoal should help,” the pink and green one says, coming up with a bag of charcoal dust? A bag of activated charcoal, I guess, floating in her golden magic. “At least with whatever’s left in her stomach.”

They manage to wake Daredevil up enough to force feed her vile, inky black fluid that looks like it would be more suitable for a torture chamber than a medical office, and if I didn’t know it was just a mixture of water and charcoal dust, I probably would be heading for the hills before the Silent Hill music started playing.

Then of course Slenderman would get me.

I can’t help but wince as they shave a patch of blue fur off of Daredevil’s arm. The unicorn handles putting the actual needle into the drunken pony’s arm, and it’s really easy to locate veins in that pale pink flesh underneath. That is not a cartoon pony’s leg. You can see the rough edge of the fur, where it transitions to actual shaved flesh. Blood vessels in that flesh. I look at my own featureless yellow leg, and even on that, I can see a texture to my dense fur.

I dunno, just the reminder that we have blood vessels is kind of jarring, despite the fact that I’ve felt my own heart beating, and even bled a little on occasion. We really are living, breathing creatures somehow, with a skeleton, and blood vessels, and flesh. It feels... permanent.

Suffice to say I’ve got a lot to think about, as I sit there on my belly next to Daredevil’s cot, waiting for Daredevil to awaken. Or waiting for the heart monitor to start getting irregular, and go screaming for the medic. Night falls, and I doze off at some point, then snort awake when Daredevil moans, and waves a hoof overhead, saying, “What the hell happened last—oh jezus christ I’m still a pony girl.”

“Hey, uh—” I say as she yelps and sits up in the bed to look at me in surprise. “There’s a pan if you need to—!” I declare, and her eyes widen as yes she needs to. So I grab the pan and shove it at her, and the purple, pink and blue mare pulls it from my mouth into the grasp of her forelegs, and just straight out hurls forth the remainder of that black slop.

“Am... am I dead?” she asks incredulously, staring down at it, “What the hell is this... stuff?”

“I-it’s activated charcoal,” I tell her, “I wasn’t sure if you had eaten something worse than beer, so we kind of let it soak up the bad stuff.”

“Oh, no I was just drinking beer, I... I think?” she says, looking up from her own vomit in confusion. “How the hell did I get drunk?”

“How could you not know?” I ask in astonishment, “You were just drinking beer, and nothing else?”

“Yeah, and just some of that stupid hay,” she specifies, “But it never even hit me before, or anything. I was just thinking about things and...” she sighs, mumbling, “Boy, I need a drink.”

“Yeah, the Major General was like that, too,” I muse, as I recall the dramatic and captivating experience a few weeks ago that will surely be a tale to tell to my foals, and my foals’ foals.

Why the fuck is there so much whiskey in this fucking bottle it tastes like fucking piss fuck you fuck ponies I hate being a stupid little fucking girl who can’t even get fucking drunk. Fuck!

“I think a lot of people are.”

“Drunk?” Daredevil asks skeptically.

“Thirsty,” I reply, with a disgruntled tail flip.

“So I uh...” the blue earth pony mare looks at me cautiously, asking, “I didn’t say anything weird, did I?”

“Oh, no! No, you... didn’t say anything weird! ” I reply warily. She wasn’t in her right mind, so how could I blame her for saying that, but how would I tell her without her blaming herself? “Just the normal silly drunk things. It was just kind of weird that a pony was drunk.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll stay away from...” she sinks her head staring at her lap, moaning wearily, “Beer for awhile.”

“But didn’t you just want a drink?” I ask, confused.

“Not that kind of drink!” she replies, looking up at me irritably. Then Daredevil winces at raising her head, holding it, and adding, “I-I mean yeah that kind of drink, but I just don’t wanna say anything stupid.”

I’m not sure Daredevil is well yet, with how long she blushes and looks at me, but I smile and repeat, “You really didn’t say anything stupid.” And this time I mean it.

“Did you wait here this whole time for me to wake up?” Daredevil asks, looking at the darkness out the little window, “What time is it?”

“I, uhm, I’m not sure exactly,” I say, “But it’s really not a big deal.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she says, looking wistfully my way.

So... that’s it I guess. I know she wasn’t in her right mind when Daredevil said that stuff. It’s troublesome though, because now I know why she was talking to Dusty the other day. Of course she wants to have sex with him! Now I have even less—er—more motivation to introduce Mira to Dusty. Mira, Daredevil and Bubblegum with Dusty, and... not me.

But if I try to get them together, I could get Daredevil pregnant! I wanna get somepony together with Dusty, but Daredevil’s too cool and un-pregnant to just use like that. I already try not to stay up at night hounded by the guilt that I used Bubblegum in that way. So isn’t it better if I just... don’t say anything? If Daredevil asks him to impregnate her, great, but if she never says anything, it’d be better if nothing happened, and Dusty continues to need me to be with him.

...right?

Daredevil’s all cleaned up, and checked out, a little balder in places but not too worse for wear. Instructed not to attempt to consume alcohol until they figure out what the hell happened, she’s not too happy about that. But we walk out of the medical building together, at least, Daredevil confessing to me,

“Thanks so much for saving my ass. I still don’t understand what happened, and you just sat there for hours, waiting for me to wake up.”

“It was just in case you stopped breathing or something,” I tell her as we walk around to face each other outside the building, “Someone had to do it, and I didn’t have too much um...” Okay so I might have skipped my afternoon training, but I’m sure they’ll understand. Oh, I hope someone finished the dishes. “...stuff to do today.”

“Still, thank you,” Daredevil repeats, a cool night breeze washing past us. “I don’t know a lot of people who care as much as you do.”

I–I don’t know what to say. “People um... A-anyone would...” I rest on my haunches, holding a forehoof to my chest and just... “...thanks.”

Daredevil smiles more gently at me, and says, “You know you do make a really pretty girl, especially when you’re embarassed.”

“I–I’m not...” I fall silent, not because I’m embarassed, but only because to finish that sentence would get me struck down from on high for the world’s most terrible lie.

“And your scrunchy face is adorable,” she adds sagely, “Hard to believe you’re such a badass in training exercises.”

Daredevil trots off then, while I rub my nose furiously in my hooves to stop making that stupid scrunchy face. And it only gets worse from there. No, not the scrunchy face, thank Celestia.

Things get worse not in terms of embarassment, but worse in terms of temptation. I can’t get the thought of Dusty doing Daredevil out of my head. Despite not being Twilight trained, Daredevil manages to join Sergeant Browning’s training group, as in the group that I’m in, not the one I’m teaching.

So now she gets to run around with me all the time, not to mention sparring and wrestling. And every time we get close I’m remembering her drunk confession and wanting to force the horniness out of that beautifully passionate pony with my uh... tongue. Obviously I don’t, but it’s just a little awkward when her butt ends up in my face way too many times for me to stop thinking about that pert little blue-furred mound, and how much she secretly wants to use it. On Dusty.

With my hormones in check by pregnancy, and all the exercises and learning taking up my time. I should be able to easily stick with Sue, no problem. But then I’m touching myself at night, and thinking about how much Daredevil wants Dusty’s cock inside her. Wishing I could have Dusty just mount her and pound it into her, and then I want Daredevil to stick her face in my pussy, just like Holly does, and lick and I’d lick her too, right where she’s wet, cleaning off everything Dusty... uh...

So I’m definitely not feeling like I can just ignore Daredevil or Dusty’s group. But Daredevil’s definitely getting closer to Dusty in some way I’m not really privvy to, so that means there’s no chance with me, her, and Dusty. Not anymore. A-and that’s a good thing. I’m with Sue, and not Dusty. Nor Peter. Nor Nick. And that’s final! Dusty and Daredevil are just a thing that I want, but can’t have.

I keep thinking about it though, when I’m clinging to Dusty and we’re rolling our hips together. When Dusty cums in me, I want to see him cum in Daredevil like this. I want to see her gasp and hug him close in her forelegs, while her hind legs quiver at the shots of semen pumping into her birth canal. Dusty’s semen rushes into me just like it’d rush into her, and I moan and want it so bad. But I’m supposed to be finding Dusty mares who are already pregnant, so he doesn’t have to make things worse, and I’m supposed to be finding him mares so that I can be with him less, not more.

At least the things I’ve been learning at this secret military base are enough to distract me from my worries about D and D. We’re not just learning combat and weird pony magic. Okay it is weird pony magic, but this time it’s science! One of the science ponies I get to talking with is named Artemis, or Dr. Palmer, but he likes his first name better, especially as a pony. He’s a deep grey green bat pony stallion, with messy brown hair, and these vivid purple eyes that remind me of someone very smart.

I meet Artemis for the first time after he’s debriefing us one day, or whatever you call it when you explain what’s going on. The bat pony stallion says in a clear tenor, “We received more information from Equestria earlier this week. Just more on the basics of their wormhole technology, but many of them bear striking similarities to some of the spells that Twilight Sparkle taught you. I’m not saying we’re gonna enable you all to teleport, but we might just be able to enable you all to teleport!”

And the whole audience erupts into questions.

I talk to Artemis afterwards, as he’s using his wings to shovel his presentation papers into a pair of briefcases tied together with belts, hanging on his back. “Excuse me, Dr. Palmer?”

“Oh heavens no, please call me Artemis,” he says, turning to face me. “Oh, Meadowsweet?” he says in mild surprise, “What can I do for you?”

“Well, I was curious about that teleportation,” I say, gingerly walking up to the slender stallion, “Is it anything like what I was doing?”

He hesitates a moment. Not good. But then he says, “I can’t thank you enough for how much you’ve helped us in our research. Your abilities of spatial manipulation and awareness are unbelievable!”

“R-really?” I ask, a little perplexed, “I couldn’t do any of the stuff I did in my cell, though. Not really.”

“That was a very unusual circumstance,” he replies, unconvinced that I’m lame, “It might be that ponies have some sort of survival mechanism that kicks in when they’re under extreme duress. Of course we’re not going to test that. But you still did a lot of cool stuff in the lab! And we’re still trying to figure out how you managed to move from the lamp to...”

“...getting stuck in the refrigerator, in the faculty lounge,” I reply flatly.

“Well, that definitely was teleportation!” he says hopefully, “Or at least the folding of space in a very novel way. But this new data is unicorn only, I’m afraid.”

My ears go down at that, because I was hoping to make what I figured out actually useful, and not so frustratingly intermittent. “The Equestrians are very reluctant to talk about the magic of earth ponies,” Artemis says with an apologetic smile, “It might be like in the cartoon show, where they’re not fully aware that earth ponies have magic at all.”

“Do you have any pictures from Equestria?” I ask hopefully.

“We’re still limited to a form of morse code, I’m afraid,” he says, shaking his head regretfully. He perks up quick though, saying, “But I’m confident even with our rudimentary knowledge of pony capabilities, we might be able to get the gateway open up to ten centimeters wide, which is quite big enough to see what’s on the other side!”

“I wonder if I’ll ever get to see Princess Celestia,” I say wistfully.

“She has been talking to us,” he replies, to my great interest, “But it’s ah... abstract morse code, as I’ve said. And as lovely a ruler as she is, Princess Celestia has never been loose with her secrets.”

“Have you watched the show by chance?” I ask in hesitant delight.

“Most of us have, just to give us an idea what we’re dealing with,” he replies, “But I did watch, and enjoy a lot of it.”

“What was your favorite episode?”

He thinks a moment, before saying, “Probably the one with the shooting stars.”

“Owl’s Well That Ends Well?!” I squeal in shock and outrage.

Author's Notes:

Burn the heretic!