Solitary confinement is a pretty good place to practice orgasm, I’d say. No other forms of stimulation, nothing to do, lots of time on your hands. If as a mare, I didn’t get so wet, it’d be awesome, but with my supply of water... restricted and unsure, I’m less than inclined to try for a second orgasm, however fabled females are for being able to achieve those.

Still, even the one was incredible, just by itself. I never felt this good as a human. I can really understand why Twilight used... me, if she felt like this!

When Nick had sex with me, I just lost it, any restraint just gone. We went at it like rabbits. Which is a good indication that I am now pregnant. In prison. Yep. But I wanted him to do everything to me that I did to Twilight Sparkle, I wanted it so badly, and it felt so good when he gave it to me, that I couldn’t even think about holding back.

That’s how good Twilight Sparkle felt when I did it to her. If I was her, if I was alone, with a... a human man, and if I was an... evil changeling, then would I seduce him? Would I pretend to be Twilight Sparkle, just to get him to have sex with me? Would I have thought he’d never love me, if he knew what I really was? If my penis felt that good inside her, then is it... bad for her to want to feel that way?

I have no penis anymore. Instead, I have a vagina, and quite probably a womb. A very, very fertilized womb. It doesn’t feel like I have anything, but I can’t deny how that bottle felt, and how Nick’s ejaculation felt, way up inside my belly. Is this all there is to being pregnant? Just... sit here, and get pregnant? Will I feel like this when I start changing, and swelling with child? Just sitting here like normal, a little pony mare, the same as I always am, except with a little... extra pudge?

It feels too normal. I feel too normal. It feels like something about me should change when I get pregnant. I should feel different, like a different person as I change from a mare to a mother. Nick came inside me a few days... or... something ago, but there’s no way I got pregnant then and there. Now’s the time when it would happen to me. That fertilized egg floating inside me touching my womb and awakening its... female stuff. Am I going to even notice when it happens? Or is my pregnancy just going to start sneaking up on me?

If I know Mother Nature, sneaking up’s a pretty safe bet. My I guess is that I’m going to start feeling less afraid of, and more loving the pony inside me. I’ll start feeling love for my own baby, with no reason to love them, and it’ll seem just fine to me. I’ll start acting all important and mature, and thinking about preparing for the child’s future, and other stuff like baby clothes.

Actually, do ponies think about baby clothes? All they ever wore in the show was diapers. Am I going to start feeling good about changing my baby’s diapers? It sounds just revolting to me right now. Am I going to have to use my mouth to do that?

I don’t even care if I become my mother, as long as I can get out of here, and feed the yawning chasm in my belly. What I wouldn’t give for some more cookies, or... or anything.

I’m not sure if I should lay on my belly, when I’m... like this. Would that hurt the baby? Do little ponies have to worry about hurting their foals, when lying on their belly? Why am I a little pony? Why is anyone a little pony? I lay on my side, and just... stare at the wall, trying not to think about any of that stuff.

I believe I did mention earlier that I am not very good at trying.

Sleep takes me at odd times. More from boredom than anything. I find myself pacing around the cell, around and around until I collapse from exhaustion. It doesn’t take long, because I’m so hungry. I take a drink from the water bottle every now and again, trying to make it last. But I don’t need water anymore. I need food.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungry. It’s actually making me dizzy, how much my belly aches for food. I’m listless and bitter, feeling like I’m eating myself from the inside out. Considering it’s been days since I had food... probably days since I had food, that might not be an unreasonable assumption.

I’ve never been hungry enough that my body starts cannibalizing itself before. It’s a hunger that’s so absolute, it’s not a matter of whether to eat or not, but how. I moan out loud, that I’d eat fried eggplant, moldy hay, instant ramen, anything but of course no one answers me. I’m just sitting here in this cell, with no end in sight to the outright pain that leeches through every inch of my body begging for sustenance.

A few little hunger pangs still don’t stop me from making a game, at one point, with the water bottle and my tail. I am really bored in here. I’m not worried about breaking the bottle, because I... I ran out a while ago, despite trying so hard to make it last. It’s so empty, and I’m so thirsty again, but the empty bottle is the only thing to play with in the room, barring the sink, which I don’t wanna mess with.

The game is supremely unimportant, but consists of smacking the bottle with a hoof, then trying to catch it with my tail before it tumbles too for me to reach. I am really bored. Though it is a really good chance to get better at using my tail. I’ve been avoiding the least human thing about me these past months. Now that I actually try to use it, it’s really peculiar. I didn’t think the hairs would be that sensitive. It’s really... responsive, letting me not just swish it. I glare at my tail, trying to understand it, trying to understand myself, and I have no more luck at that than when I was human.

Laying on my side, I can swish my tail to smack the water bottle to and fro. I can really feel the round curvature of the bottle where the bright green hairs of my tail lay against it, pressing lightly against the little decorative bumps on the bottle’s side, as well as the rough ridge of the twistable cap. I can tell when that bottle is snagged in my tail, enough that when the bottle rolls into it, I can catch that bottle with my eyes closed!

I wake up after... some time. I’m so hungry. My throat is burning and dry. They’ve forgotten about me. That’s what they did. They don’t hate me, they just don’t care anymore, and just forgot I was here. They found out I couldn’t help them, and now they’re leaving me here to die because they don’t even think about me. Well, I don’t want to die! But how do I do anything at this point? I need food, not a stupid unchanging horrible death cell!

I think at one point I start screaming. Well, shouting that turns to screaming. Because scared little girls can’t shout like the men they’re supposed to be. Nobody bothers me about it so I can shout myself hoarse, swearing at them, just saying incoherent things. I think my cell is haunting me. It’s a big white ghost, and I’m trapped inside it.

After... some amount of time, I stop pacing to flop on my back, staring upwards. I find myself thinking about things like my childhood, my own mother, and my slow disaster of a life that would have ended in nothing but loneliness, sadness and failure, had Twilight Sparkle not come into it. My life is still ending in failure, mind you, and I’m dreadfully lonely and sad in here, but...

But I can’t believe my friend Nick was just willing to help me out like that. I can’t believe my sister just dropped everything to chase after windmills with us. Even though it turns out we were probably stupid to have tried this, I get the impression that she’d do it all over again.

Mira’s been... excited about me, and worried about me in a different way now that I’m a pony. When I was human, the only emotion she had left for me was empty smiles and pity. All anyone felt around me was that uneasiness you feel, when something’s going wrong with someone’s life, and you can’t figure out why, so you ask yourself why nothing went wrong for you, and why you aren’t just as much of a failure as they are?

It’s that feeling where there’s something wrong with the world, someone or something who doesn’t quite fit, and that makes you feel insecure about your own place. If there’s a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit after all, that means the pieces that do fit are suspected of being in the wrong place. I was always that outlier, that... oddity who doesn’t fit. And now that I’m a pony, I should fit even less. Yet it’s like an answer to a question I didn’t even know I was asking. I feel like I’ve found something, where before I was beyond help, and so lost. Now I’m a pony, and that overhead light is really annoying.

In a brightly lit, solitary cell, down a long, empty hallway behind a locked door with only a little slit in it, I sit up to my haunches, glaring at the light overhead. I’m a little pony sitting on her haunches, green haired and yellow furred, with eyes the color of I don’t remember. I’m just just a stupid little pony who doesn’t even get to sleep because they won’t turn out the lights. Reaching up to it, I’m way too short to reach the ceiling, and I broke the sink, so surely I can’t use that to climb up there?

It turns out my patch job on the sink is actually pretty sturdy with the pipes jammed inside each other like that. It creaks a little, but holds my weight. Either I fixed it good, or more likely, I’m really small and light. With a hind leg hooked on the sink bowl, I stretch out for the ceiling, and... success! Sort of.

There’s a sealed metal grating keeping people from messing with the light. It’s got a hinge though, so they can unlock it when they need to change the bulb. Typical fluorescent tube, just the kind to subliminally annoy you with the super-fast flickering. I can’t reach it through the grating, but I have four very stiff hooves now, one of which I smack against the hinges until they pop loose. Then it’s as simple as peeling back the grating, to reveal my prize: the accursed light fixture.

And after all that, I can’t figure out how to wiggle out the fluorescent tube with just a hoof!

With a strangled shriek of frustration, I drop to the floor and sit there panting and crying. Even that little thing has me exhausted. I’m so hungry I could eat anything. A human could’ve pulled that bulb out. I just want some darkness, so I can sleep! So I can stop thinking! I’m gonna pass out again, and when I wake up it’ll be bright again, and—and I can’t get my butt up there, so my tail can’t snake around the bulb. Because I have a tail, a freaky green tail that I can actually move.

When I regain consciousness, moaning weakly at the light shining in through my eyelids, I don’t feel like I’ve slept a wink. I don’t even remember falling asleep. I don’t know how long it’s been. I crawl to my haunches, staring balefully up at that light.

Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way. I’m clearly not a human, but how am I different, besides clumsy hooves? I have itchy, frizzy fur that really could use a brushing, but I can’t see how that’d get the light out. I have a dissheveled tail, but even doing an impression of a cat in heat doesn’t get it high enough, and I fall over when I try to do a head stand.

I’m just an earth pony! There’s nothing special about me, that I could take advantage of! I’m just a human, except without any thumbs, and a tail. And a girl, I guess, but I certainly can’t use my vagina to grab that light fixture. Never more have I wanted ponies to have an octopusoir for genitals. Could I use my ears? My eyelashes? My mane?

Actually, didn’t Pinkie—wait, no that’s Pinkie Pie, so it doesn’t count.

I sleep for like... an hour, I think, and all I am is more thirsty for it. Nobody’s coming, the light’s still shining down, and of course I woke up with my tongue comically hanging out of my mouth again, wasting water to drool it on the floor.

Wait a sec... I stick out my tongue again, and... oh my.

Some... exploration later, and I’m once again climbing the sink, really wondering about how sturdy it feels. Stretching my arm out and hooking the edge of the light fixture with a forehoof, I’m going to get electrocuted, aren’t I? Well, I... I don’t care.

I lick the fluorescent bulb, and it tastes like dust and it’s actually really hot. I probably should have thought of that before trying this. Not too hot though, so I kind of squirm my tongue around behind it, and pop it out of the fixture. The light level falls, and I’m... holding a fluorescent bulb with my tongue.

What are ponies?

The second bulb comes as easy as the first and darkness descends. It’s even darker than I imagined. It makes it difficult to clamber down, and... place the bulb next to the other one against the wall. The only light now is coming through the slit in the door from the hallway. I’ve...

I’ve never been so relieved to be enveloped in darkness.

I sleep then, like really, really sleep. Just flop on my side on the floor and sigh happily in relief. Then I drift off to pleasant dreams of galloping through fields of green, with the bright, warm sun shining down on me from overhead. I don’t really remember much from them, but I do awaken feeling happy and content. Then I remember that I’m dying in a prison cell.

Standing up, I feel my hooves press on the rough tiled floor, and even in total darkness it’s obvious I’m a little pony. I rear up and peek out the slit, see no one and hear no one approaching. It’s quiet. If I hold perfectly still, it’s possible to even imagine that I’m not a pony. I can hear my heart beating, but maybe I’m just a heart, with no hooves, no weird ears, and no tail that is most certainly not telling me how it’s curled around me, up against my side.

I splay my tail out beside me, and that’s a little better. If by better, I mean not feeling like a pony. It feels weird being a pony, though! I just want to sit here, being a... a featureless incubation chamber, just a big furry tribble with nothing to worry about besides eating and budding. I sleep a while longer, I think. When I’m not facing the slit, it’s hard to tell if my eyes are open.

I can’t tell how long it’s been. I begin to wonder how wise this course of action with the light was, when I start feeling like someone’s watching me. Butt against the wall in the darkness, every little sound sounds loud in my ears. Nobody should be able to see me back here. I’m perfectly hidden. In a cell where they already know where I am, without any cover to protect myself with. I feel like someone, no something’s out there, just observing me, biding its time.

I’m afraid at first, but then I start to wonder. What could be watching me in the darkness here? Can it not find me? Why is it watching, then? What is it watching? I can barely see myself, even by the dim light shining in through the slit. It wouldn’t be able to see how I’m laying, or what I’m doing. It wouldn’t be able to see my little hooves, or my pony ears, or snout. Wouldn’t be able to see me covered in fur, without any clothing whatsoever. Is it trying to help me? Hurt me? Why is it just watching me?

I kick into the darkness at some point, trying to provoke a reaction, any reaction, but all I hit is a sturdy, concrete wall. So I just turn in confused circles and sit on my belly again, wondering why I’m here, wondering why I’m here.

I awaken from vivid dreams of a doomed ocean liner, when my eyes snap wide, because the door clanks again, and ponderously unlocks. The hall light is shining through the slit in the closed door more brightly than usual, so I should have known that blindingly bright light would flood through the widening gap door as it opens.

I swear I feel my pupils shrinking, as I stare worriedly into the light shining in from outside. It hurts to look at but I can’t look away. I’m so scared. Are there guns there? There’s a suited man out there wrapped in a halo of hall lights, saying in a shaken voice, “Holy shit! Y-you try anything, and I won’t hesitate to shoot! There’s no way out of this hallway that isn’t locked, too!”

“What’s wrong?” I ask in that high, sweet voice that I’ve been given, not moving a muscle in fear that he’ll just pepper the cell with bullets trying to find me.

“What happened to the lights?!” he demands, not coming one step into the shadows.

“They’re not working,” I tell him simply, cautious to admit my culpability in this. At least, I admit to him, “I told you I wanted them shut off.”

“Just... no sudden moves,” he says, throwing another water bottle into my shadows. Of course I start to skitter to my hooves at that, which makes him jump back in alarm, pointing his gun at me again, until I just slide back down to my belly again, still and quiet.

“I’m just a little pony,” I tell him in confusion, “What harm could I possibly do to you?”

He responds by slamming closed the heavy steel door, which locks again with a clunk. Once again, the only light in the room is coming from the slit. Then he clomps away, down the hallway, muttering, “The commander is going to have to hear about this.” Now that I’m awake, I can hear the distant door unlock, open and close, then lock again as he leaves the limits of my world once more.

My world is not as limited as you might think. I can just sit here, cradling the precious water bottle in my hooves, the soothing fluid making my throat cry out in ecstasy. I’m so hungry, but this water bottle keeps me together with the security that at least I can have something to drink now and again. I fade in and out, thinking about things, and my thoughts seem clearer, somehow. I remember Nick turning into that purple haired, grey unicorn, how he walked around so delicately and lithely, without even thinking of it. He was more careful in his movements as a pony, more precise.

“I don’t suppose you could use your magic to get me out of here?” I ask him.

“Sorry,” Nick replies sadly, “I haven’t figured out how to use my horn yet.”

“It’s okay,” I tell him soothingly, “How are you doing?”

“Ugh, they caught me too,” he says, head sinking low between his shoulders, “They put me in a room where the lights won’t go out, and there’s no water in the sink. I think they’re trying to wear me down.”

“Me too!” I declare in surprise, standing up and walking over to him, “But I managed to put out the lights. How do we convince them that we didn’t do this?”

“Twilight got us good,” Nick groaned, “They don’t even care that turning into a pony is impossible. Teleportation is just extra impossible!”

“Oh, is that why they wouldn’t believe me?” I declare worriedly, “What do I tell them, though? I don’t know how I’d make up a believable story!”

“Don’t even try,” Nick says wearily, “We’re not trained in that, and it’d just make them more suspicious.”

“Oh, Nick...” I say sadly. I want to lay beside him, and give him a hug, but my hoof strikes the stone wall between us. I stand there watching him instead, as he sits there on his side, just out of reach. “I’m sorry I got us into this mess,” I tell Nick sincerely, “If I hadn’t trusted Twilight... then distrusted Twilight, then none of this would have happened.”

“It’s Twilight’s fault, not yours,” Nick insists, looking at me with shining, green eyes.

“She used me so easily, though,” I plea with him, “I don’t even know what she’s trying to do!”

“Turn everyone into ponies?” he counters, “Seems straightforward to me.”

“But why ponies, not changelings?” I retort, “And why did she turn you into a unicorn? You might be able to change us back, then!”

“I don’t know anything, anymore,” Nick says, shaking his head, “She was using us the whole time. She knew we’d follow her and... and why should we believe anything she said? She left that evidence on purpose! She probably said that the police weren’t trustworthy, so that we wouldn’t go to them!”

“Well, it certainly worked,” I remark wryly. Nick fails to laugh.

“Hey, you two!” Mira says, trotting up to us. “Why so serious?”

“Mira!” I exclaim, looking at her hopefully. She’s... adorably gorgeous. Her mane in thick locks of bright blue and purple, bounces pleasantly around her ears. The orange of her fur is so bright, it seems to shine in the darkness like a beacon. Her little bat wings are tightly folded at her sides, and her blue and purple tail descends behind her.

“What happened to you?” Mira asks us worriedly, “They were taking you away!”

“The military picked us up, Mira,” I tell her heatedly, “They think we did it! They caught us with the machine, and they won’t believe that Twilight can teleport.”

“They didn’t get you, too?” Nick asks, looking to the bat pony in concern.

“Oh!” Mira says, her look of surprise falling into a cringing wince, “No, they didn’t even look twice at me. You... probably should pretend like you didn’t see what kind of pony I turned into,” she says tetchily.

Oh. Oh wow that would’ve been bad.

“I will, Mira,” I assure her eagerly, “And I promise I’ll make things better, somehow.” Mira can’t hear me anymore though, because she’s an orange. Sighing, I turn away from her, and... huh, turning makes all the colors swirl around. I turn in place excitedly until I’m dizzy, and with a bemused sigh, sit down on my haunches and look at the... slit. Light trickles in through it, and all around me is darkness.

Where did everybody go? Why did everybody go? It felt like I could really hear them, and see them, and almost touch them. Was I sleeping? I didn’t feel like I woke up. Even now there are whispers swimming in the darkness.

“Oh, no...” I croak fretfully, and my voice sounds so loud compared to before, because before, I wasn’t really speaking. I fumble with the light tube, but there’s just no way. I can’t see the fixture, or the sink very well, and even if I could get it up there, wiggling a tube out is a lot easier than wiggling one in.

The next... time period spent in my cell is not exactly what I’d call pleasant. I keep seeing things and hearing things, and going off on these flights of fantasy that really fly, if you know what I mean. I’m out on the wing of a plane. I’m in my secret tunnel, miles below the earth, fleeing as it floods with lava. I’m hungry, and tired, and at least I have water, until I lose the bottle to the cruel, salty seas.

Eventually, I think to try staring fixedly at the slit, the only source of light in the room. It should stop me from going crazy, I think. Or is that just more crazy? It’s not as narrow a slit as you’d think. I can almost fit a hoof through it, just as-is. It looks small from where I’m sitting far away, but I bet it’d be bigger up close.

The oncoming ocean is rushing at me as the tide returns with a vengeance, and I swim through the air away from the waves, to peer closely at the slit. There’s actually a lot of room inside it. You wouldn’t think a thin little slit would have so much room. I could fit my hoof through it, and maybe if I got close enough, I could fit my whole body through it.

A shock goes through me as I realize that there’s a way out, a way they forgot to protect. Should I go through it? I’m not supposed to go through it. I could get in big trouble. But this cell is like a monster, hunting me in the darkness, trapping me in these small confines, giving me nothing to do until I’ve gone completely mad. How many days has it been? How many years? I waver uncertainly, hanging on the edge of the slit. Then, I hear a low growl behind me.

As I squirm desperately through the extra space, something is rushing at me from the darkness, something that can see me because I’m the only thing on which the light falls. With my upper torso through, I hook my hind legs on the lip of the slit, and shove my ass through, then press my forelegs against the door on the outside to yank my hind legs free. I scoot back away from the door on my butt, squealing in fright when something slams into the door inside my cell. Then... all is silent.

I find myself in a dimly lit hallway, one that I’ve walked down before, but never had a chance to get a good look at, alone. My breathing evens out, and my heart rate slows until, frazzled and dissheveled, still staring at the cell door, I exclaim,

“What the fuck was that??”

There’s no one to answer me.

“What did I...” I gasp out, just to hear a voice, even if it is the voice of a scared girl. “Am I out of the cell?” I rush up to the door and feel at its smooth metal surface with my forehooves, just unable to think that I might be on the other side of it. It’s impossible, and I can hardly believe it, but I’m staring at the outside of my cell door. I stand up on all fours and look at myself. I’m still just as green and yellow as the day I was transformed, though my tail is a little scorched from where the lava almost got me. My... uh... what?

Pressing my forehead against the cool metal of the cell door, it’s abundantly clear that no horn grew there overnight. “The lava was real?” I ask in confusion, looking again at the burnt hairs in my tail, “How? That was just a dream! Wasn’t it?”

I back up from the door, and rear up to the slit again, but it’s just a slit again. Within is impenetrable darkness. All that gaping, yawning otherness of the slit is I dunno... folded away? Did I really pull myself through that little thing?

I pace up and down the hallway, looking around fearfully and muttering to myself, “This can’t be real. This has got to be a hallucination. Next, I wake up in the d-darkness of my cell, and everything’s gonna be normal again.” I don’t, and it’s not.

I am so hungry. How long has it been since I last ate? I lost the second water bottle to the ocean somewhere back in the stormy sea, but it was mostly empty by then. What I really need now is pizza. Oh heck yes, pizza with tomato sauce, cheese and beets. Wait, no that was just something someone said from the show, to handwave away any thoughts of ponies eating pepperoni. Oh I would kill for some pepperoni. I don’t care if I’m a pony, I’ll eat just about anything at this point. Pepperoni, beef jerky, filet of salmon, pork chops, ribs drenched in barbecue sauce...

I try to do whatever it is I... did before, but the door at the end of the hallway has no slit. It’s a lot flimsier than my cell door, but I’m afraid to try and buck it down. I’m absolutely terrified of going back into my cell, so that’s not an option. The hallway becomes my new prison, then. I’m not going to try to break the lights in here, not after what happened back there in my cell, whatever that was. I’m not desperate enough to do that again, not... yet. I still expect to be waking up any moment now, trapped in a cell, with only the darkness as a blanket.

Thankfully my despair is short-lived, because after one... sleep period, I hear something: furtive movement beyond the door. I’m hungry, and thirsty, and tired, and all I can think is if I catch them off guard, maybe I can get some food. They’re gonna shoot me and I don’t care, because I’m so hungry I’m gonna die anyway. I’ll just run past them, a-and get some cookies or anything I can get my mouth on before they catch up to me. It’ll be hilarious and harmless japery, chasing me around like a goose, until I return to my cell fat and happy with all the pepperoni I could possibly want.

I back up silently from the door, and crouch, staring forward intently, feeling like my whole body is one big, coiled spring. The door softly unlocks, and swings open, and it’s a... pony? A pony!! I spring at the purple haired green furred stallion, and end up leaping forward with enough force that I can knock the surprised unicorn head over heels, and slam him to the floor, exclaiming urgently to his face,

“Food!”

He seems paralyzed in fear.

“I need food do you have any food?” I ask him frantically, “I am so hungry, I—I’m sorry!” then I jump past them, and go galloping headlong through the corridor, trying to reach the cafeteria and engage in my fantasy involving lots of food and Yakety Sax.

That’s when I run into the second pony, who manages to knock me prone and hiss into my face, “Be quiet! We’re trying to get you out of here!”

“Oh, so...” I say, trying to stumble to my hooves before the brown furred mare with a mane in thick, curly, purple bangs, “I—I’m not doing very well. You have food, right? And water? And...”

“What the hell?” the stallion down the hallway says in alarm. He comes running up to us, saying, “Her cell door is still locked! How did she get out?”

Oh. Oh no.

“That’s... huh,” the mare says, looking at me with new eyes. “How did you get in the hallway, anyway? We were gonna tell you we were coming once we got to your cell.”

“I... really can’t explain it,” I say with a wince, “But I think I... squeezed through the slit in the door?”

She blinks at me a second, before shaking her head violently, and saying, “Never mind that for now. We are breaking you out of here, and we’re not gonna even look back.”

“What if they catch us?” I ask fretfully.

“They won’t catch us,” she replies dismissively, “If we can stay quiet.” Swinging her tail in the direction of the unicorn stallion, she adds, “John there disabled the guards, for now, but only the ones in our way. We need to get moving. Can you walk?”

“I... yes?” I say, wobbling on my hooves, “I’m a little worn out, because I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten,” I tell her, and... him, I guess. The two ponies are both standing with me in the hallway, looking at me with worry. It’s... hard to focus on them.

“Okay, that’s what I’m here for,” the mare whispers, walking up to me. “Get on, and we’re gonna get you out of here.”

While the stallion trots past us, the brown furred mare clumsily turns her side my way, before looking over her shoulder and saying, “Get on my back. I’m not kidding.”

“No I—I wouldn’t think you are. I’m just a little surprised!” I squeak in embarassment. Lifting a hoof alongside her, I... I don’t know if I should put my front hooves over first, or...

“Your front right leg over my shoulder,” she says curtly, “I did this three times already, and that’s how it works.” I... do that, awkwardly hugging the mare as she says, “Now your right rear leg,” and I have a little trouble scrambling over, but something pushes my rump and I slip up heavily onto her own posterior.

I’m actually kind of small compared to her. My hooves don’t quite touch the ground. She grunts a bit at my weight, but turns her head aside, whispering back to me, “They really haven’t been feeding you! You’re like a bundle of twigs!”

“I feel... fine?” I tell her in confusion. “How many days’s it been?”

“Talk later,” the purple and green stallion says, “Once we’re in the van.”

The mare answers in motion, and I can actually feel her body flex underneath me. That’s indescribably awesome in some way I don’t quite comprehend, just feeling how warm, strong and alive is the being beneath me. I end up having to wrap my arms around her barrel to stay on, but she bounds along underneath me, as the two ponies make their way through a confusing set of corridors and offices, more than one with a slumped over figure at a desk or behind a window. I wish I could say more about it, but it’s hard to tell exactly what I’m looking at, riding by on a galloping horse.

“I knew they were keeping ponies here!” I hear John whisper to... whoever this mare is. Are these human ponies? Or is his name like “Long John” or something? I don’t know. I don’t even have the energy to thank them. Heck, I barely have enough energy to hang on.

“Thank goodness for lax security protocols,” she mutters back to him.

“Wait!” I ...try to whisper, but it comes out more like a rasp, “Nick’s still in there! He’s a pony too you need to... save him!”

“Let me know if you see him, when we get there,” the mare tells me, “There are two more teams going after other prisoners.”

The cool night washes over me, as the ponies run out of the building we’re in. It’s a... place I can’t really say I recognize in the dark, nor do I have much time to, because we head straightaway to where there’s a tall, stone wall, topped with razor wire, with a huge mound of dirt right next to it.

“Okay, um,” the mare says stopping at the dirt, “Can you make it through this tunnel on your own?”

Oh, I see. It’s a huge tunnel dug under the fence. By... diamond dogs?

“I think so,” I say, sliding off of my savior. It’s pitch black inside the tunnel though. I... “I don’t want to get stuck down there,” I say fretfully, “Is there enough room?”

“Look, if I could fit, then you’ll have no trouble,” the mare says, “Just get in there, and I’ll slide you the rest of the way.”

“O-okay,” I say nervously, trying to climb into the hole. It’s not all that hard to squeeze through, but the tunnel is longer than I thought. Crumbly dirt surrounds me, below, alongside, and above. I hesitate before creeping forward another step, and then the mare’s forehead mashes up against my butt. With a squeak, I’m sliding forward, in an upward scooping motion as the tunnel slips by me, and I get pushed out into the cool night again.

“That was... unexpectedly terrifying,” I say shakily, as the other two pull themselves out of the hole. “Maybe next time... bring a light?”

The mare just walks up alongside me again, saying, “Almost there. Get on again.”

I do so, and she and the stallion both trot forwards, across a long, clear area, and then through a stand of trees bordering a road. I really can’t see very much in the dark, and it all happens so fast, but they approach a big, hulking van parked on the side of the road, and light floods out briefly, as they open the rear doors and dump me right in.

There’s a blue haired, orange filly in here, looking totally exhausted, worn out, and... thin, there’s a green pegasus mare with soft azure hair in much the same state, who has a bandage wrapped several times around her whole barrel, over her folded wings. Then among a few others, there’s... Nick. Nick!

The grey furred, purple haired unicorn’s seen better days, it looks like. “Nick, I–I think we’re saved!” I tell him, scooting up to him.

“Oh please, not again,” he groans, lifting his head, and turning to look at me. His eyes widen. “Meadows?” he asks in confusion, “That’s really you?”

“Of course it is!” I tell him, hesitating a bit, then adding, “I mean, I’m pretty sure I know who I am.”

He pulls me into a hug.

“Oh man, they really hated you,” he soon says, pulling me to arm’s length. “How much did they feed you?”

“Um... two packages of uh... cookies,” I say, looking around the van, “Say you wouldn’t have any more cookies or anything at all, maybe?”

A brick red mare with blue hair speaks up then, lifting a package on her hoof and telling me, “Here, we brought crackers and water. More food for you back at the—” I snatch the package of crackers out of her offered hoof. Then I realize I’ve just done so with my mouth.

“Wow, you’re really hungry,” she says, wide-eyed, pulling back her hoof, “Try not to eat too much. You need salt and sugars right now, so... crackers. We have some water bottles, too.”

All too few crackers later, my stomach is protesting being awoken from its death bed, so I have to quit. Everypony else who wasn’t getting fed seems to be in the same situation. “I hope no pony is too far gone,” I say fretfully. “I feel just awful, and they actually fed me!”

“I got three meals,” Nick says frankly, “Mostly from refusing to talk without getting food. They... they think we destroyed humanity. I can understand if they’re mad.”

“Can you?” I tell him, laying flat on the floor of this thankfully well lit interior of the van, “They wouldn’t even listen to us, and so what if we destroyed humanity?”

“...seriously?” the blue haired, orange filly says, with a skeptical look in her tired looking deep red eyes, “Nothing wrong with destroying humanity?”

“Well no, it is wrong,” I tell the sad looking little filly, “But what good is starving us going to do?”

“I don’t know,” she says miserably, “I don’t know how I ended up in that closet, or how my keys got stolen, but they didn’t care. They thought I was in on it. They didn’t care...”

She shudders and curls up in the fetal position, turning her back to the rest of us, and with her wings quivering, it looks like she’s just a little bit too worn out to cry.

I don’t know what to say to her, but Nick does. “Hey, don’t turn away from us,” he says gently, laying a hoof on her shoulder, “It’s okay to act funny. We’re all acting funny. You don’t need to be alone.”

Maybe it’s the right thing to say, because the filly looks around at him, and grudgingly turns to clumsily squat on her haunches, staring at the floor of the van, but facing us.

It gets kind of confusing then, because the final three ponies being held at that facility get dumped in the van next. I can’t help but notice Mira’s not one of them, but she wasn’t caught in the first place. She told me herself. In a ...hallucination. Shit.

Then six more ponies pile into the van, who unlike the rest of us are a lot less tormented, and a lot better fed. “That’s all of them,” one of the colorful rescuers shouts to the front, “Let’s get out of here!”

“Wait, are you sure there aren’t any more ponies in there?” I ask, worried about Mira.

“This should be all the ponies that were listed at this facility,” the brick red mare tells me, “I dunno about if they took any more elsewhere.”

“I just hope Mira’s okay...” I say woefully.

“If she was with the lot of us, she’s probably fine,” that mare replies to my worries, “They had us all in a compound, and we kind of broke out, en-masse. So that’s where we’re headed, to the place every pony holed up after escaping.”

The van picks up, and unimaginably, inconceivably, I’ve just been broken out of prison. I’d like to think that this is a terrible thing, that they’re just going to catch us again, and that we were wrong for evading justice, but I’m just so relieved to be out of there that I can’t convince myself that this is a bad thing. Not in the slightest.

The van twists, and turns, gets on a freeway at some point, if the acceleration is any indication. Ponies are small, but it’s still pretty packed in the van back here, and I’m not the worst smelling prisoner of the bunch. Gag inducing odors aside, we’ve gone through all the crackers they had. I don’t think they expected to find this many ponies, this hungry.

Everyone’s in a little more high spirits, though that was even more of an ordeal than I thought. I end up sitting with Nick for most of the trip, both because there’s no room in here, and because he’s the one I’d prefer to be squashed up against. Curling in his warm, and admittedly slim embrace, I drift off to sleep, probably the healthiest sleep I’ve gotten since leaving the convention center.

And oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, I don’t feel a driving urge to get him to fuck me.

I think most of us were having a hard time getting any sleep in that complex. I can’t believe that they’d do that to innocent people. I can’t believe Twilight would set us up like that. Did she know that they were going to be... to be starving little fillies?

Well, little fillies physically, at least.

Nick’s asleep with his head laid along my side, though I just woke up a little while ago, just in time to have some... girl talk, I guess. Squashed up against my thigh is that orange and blue filly, and the blue and green mare, with the bound wings has a leg on my chest, and her long, blue tail curled around my head. It’s... kind of crowded in here.

“So your name’s Meadowsweet for real?” the filly asks me curiously once I stir vaguely awake.

“Maybe not for real real,” I say unsurely, in a creaky, tired sounding voice of a girl who really needs her morning coffee. I don’t actually drink coffee. “Some um... pony did something to me, that might have changed my name, in... all of my memories,” I tell the filly with a bit of a wince, “It’s kind of really bad, but it sounds worse than it is, but... yes, my name really is Meadowsweet. It’s weird to think of my own name as a pony name, but I guess it’s not bad?”

“Sounds good to me,” she says, with a little head tilt, “What do you think mine would be?”

“I dunno, depends on what kind of um, person you are,” I say, looking her over, “I guess um... Sunchaser?”

“I’m not really a chaser,” she murmurs with a frown, “I do like the sun, though...”

“So Sunny...” I say, then I suggest “Freckles,” right as she declares, “Biscuits!”

“Sunny Biscuits, that’s a good one,” I say, relieved. My relief dampens though, when I add, “But just to be sure... tell me your human name. When I transformed, my pony... name replaced my human one. I don’t think it was related, but just in case.”

“Susan Thomas,” she says worriedly, “So your name’s not really Meadowsweet?”

I wince at that, saying, “No, my name really is Meadowsweet. But people keep telling me that my name used to be Andrew.”

“You used to be a guy?” another pony speaks up. It’s one of the prisoners, that pegasus mare from before, with the soft blue hair. She struggles to sit up, but with a hiss of pain, settles to merely leaning on her elbow, lifting her head to look our way.

“I uh... yeah,” I tell her, trying not to think of all the many ways that I have been a not-guy so far. “Why do you ask?”

“Well I was a...” her blush shines through her green fur as she says, “A guy.”

“So you want a pony name that sounds good on a girl?” I ask uncertainly.

A confused smile breaks on her face at that. “Yeah, I don’t want to hide it or anything. It’s just that the name Jacob doesn’t really fit with my new...” she says nervously, glancing down at her own green belly.

“...equipment?” I venture cautiously.

A giggle bursts out of the filly at that, but the pegasus mare just gives me a haggard look. “Y-yeah,” she says, head sagging wearily.

“I dunno, you’re blue and green, so... sorta like the Earth? Terra... Firma?”

“Not gonna name myself dirt,” she mumbles, laying her head back down, “I really can’t think right now.”

“You’re not the only one,” I sigh, “Maybe I’ll have actual suggestions later...”

Then I kind of lay my head down and stare forward, because I’m already tired from talking with her, and we both need... food and water. And then I’m out like a light, again.

Any weary depression that may have overcome me is soothed upon awakening, by the realization that I’m out of that place. I’m going to be okay, and... and somepony came and saved me. I don’t even know who these ponies are, or what they’re doing, but they can’t be worse than that... that cell.

The van rumbles along, and some of the other ponies talk, but every one of the escapees is pretty run down and worn out, and our rescuers don’t seem to know what to do with us. They can’t really do much until we get wherever we’re going, where there’ll be food and water, and... and not that cell. I’m really not picky at this point.

I sleep again at some point, just drowsing mostly. It’s been quite a while on the road, I imagine, but my sense of time is so distorted, I feel like I’m just gonna wake up in that awful cell again any minute now. At last, the van slows to a stop, and the driver gets out. The ponies in back with us rouse quickly, and the purple and green unicorn... lights his horn up with a pale aura, which then unlatches the latch on the back door, and swings it wide open, I wish I could say that bright sunlight poured in through the open door, but what we’re greeted with is still the blackness of night.

“We’re safe here,” one of the mare rescuers says, once she’s climbed out of the van. She turns back to us, and says, “Everyone okay? C’mon out, we’ll get you some food and... stuff.”

Though languid, ponies are quick to rise and stumble out at the mention of food, and it’s a testament to my months of walking practice, that I only appear to be as uncoordinated as most of them, instead of totally collapsed and feeble as I should be.

I still kind of... fall out of the van, and the chilly night air immediately starts eating at me fiercely. I land on dirt though, and... dirt means grass, and grass means food, doesn’t it? My eyes are adjusting quickly to the starlight, seeing shapes of ponies moving around and groaning.

From a distance, some ponies are making their way over to us in a clumsy trot. “You’re back!” one says in a high pitched voice, “Did you run into any trouble?”

“Easy as pie,” the mare who spoke from before said, “These unicorn horns really work well. Those guards were sleeping like babies!”

“The ponies they were keeping prisoner there were not doing well,” another mare says urgently, “We need to get them some food and water, and medical attention if... possible.”

“I don’t know if any of us are doctors,” the one replies. (I can’t really tell exactly who’s talking in the darkness.) “Someone may know first aid, but surgery...”

“There’s a pony with broken bones...” the other says, “But they’re er... they didn’t protest when we loaded everyone up. I tried to splint her... immobilize her wing. They only broke one of them.”

It was that blue pegasus from before, it had to be. I... I didn’t even realize her wing was broken. That must have been why she was having such a hard time... sitting up.

“Alright, let’s get everyone into the barn, and we can tell them what’s what,” the voice of the approaching pony said, then she clumsily turns, and starts walking away.

“C’mon,” I hear a familiar voice, and turn to the larger mare who er... carried me before. The brown one with the curly purple hair, though her colors are kind of hard to see in this nightlit dimness. “We’re gonna get you all fixed up,” she says, “So hop on, or whatever.”

“What about the p-pony with a broken wing?” I ask hoarsely, looking back at the van. “Does she need to be carried?”

“She’s already on a pony’s back,” the purple haired mare replies soothingly, “I just don’t want you to be walking like that. It’s kinda disturbing.”

“Uhb, I—” I try to swallow, feeling already thirsty even after the water they gave me. “I can still walk, but s-sure, I guess,” I say, taking the few steps over to her. I really do feel very unsteady on my hooves, lifting them like they’ve got cement blocks tied to ‘em. About... half of the ponies needed to be carried out, though I certainly was among the worst off. I can’t help but think that my... experience in the dark contributed to that. They were giving me water, at least.

The mare’s warm, brown body moves underneath me, steady strides taking me into a barn out on the edge of a field. I squint in the light as the barn is illuminated in various lamps, with extension cords snaking around the walls. There are some... beds here, like fold-out cots I think, and there are tables that have all sorts of stuff on them. I see bandages and bottles of disinfectant, which is good, and some open books with various sorts of informations on them, good, and some paper plates with some sandwich makings and chips—!

“Hey!” the mare I’m riding exclaims, as I squirm my body right off of her and slide to the floor, but I can’t spare her any thoughts, for I have a date with destiny.

Author's Notes:

Destiny is a metaphor for chips.