I can barely think. Even after having two hours to relax and cool my head, I'm still lying on my bed, staring at Lyra's—my—hooves. This is just something I can't make any sense of. Wasn't this the sort of shit that happens in bad fan-fics and cheesy science-fiction?

How could an exploding desktop computer convey a magical body exchange? Fuck, how am I even going to replace my desktop? “Damn it, Lyra!” I pound the mattress repeatedly before burying my head beneath the pillows again. “This wasn't our agreement, and now I'm fucked!” In spite of the tear rolling down my cheek, a grim smile crosses my face. “Enjoy running around Equestria in shorts and a bathrobe with your bare feet!”

The telephone up on top of the headboard begins blaring for my attention. The cordless handset in the charging dock is pulsing a bright orange even as I look up at it. Unfortunately at this angle, I can't make out the Caller ID. I'm not completely sure I want to answer it anyway. It isn't my voice, and I could hardly explain who I am if it's someone we know. I’ll just let it ring, not bothering to look at the CID.

How would I even operate the handset? I mean, I suppose I could maybe pick it up with my teeth, but these hooves are hardly ideal for pressing the buttons... My horn might be a better option, but I think it’d be a heck of a job... Wait, horn? Fuck, that’s right! I’m a motherfucking unicorn! I can magic that fucker to do what I want!

It can’t be that hard to use telekinesis. Rarity and Twilight both make it look so easy. Think! No, not about how Lyra probably has Rarity making real clothes for her. Lift that telephone like you would with your hands, only with your mind, damn it! Lift! Lift! Lift!

The phone topples out of its cradle, and lands on the bed in front of me. It’s not quite what I’d intended, but it’s a start, right? Hmm... Maybe I was focusing too hard? I try again, staring at the handset. It’s foolish to think that I would be able to do this without any pointers on the first day, but if I don’t, things are probably going to be difficult for me. How do earth ponies even get along with their grooming without magic?

“Damn it, why did my computer have to explode?” The thought of being unable to contact that treacherous unicorn until much later in the day pisses me off. In fact, it makes me want to hurl something across the room just for-

BANG! CRASH!

I look across the room. What remains of my computer desk is now nothing but a crumbled heap. I could have sworn that it had somehow managed to remain upright in the explosion, but I can’t deny that what is sitting there is clearly a ruin. Looking closer, though, I’m pretty sure I know why it collapsed. That telephone handset was over here just a minute before, yet now it’s over there peeking out of the rubble...

“Of course it would be one of those damn subconscious things,” I groan, rolling my eyes. “Or maybe it was because I wanted it to? Fuck, this is so confusing.”

In hindsight, simply wanting the telephone to come back to me was a bad idea. With the way the damn thing shot out of the rubble, I swear I’m being punished. Why else would it bean me straight in the head? Do I have to think in specific terms to do things?

“Alright... I want the telephone to float at eye-level, a full foot away from my face, and do nothing more until I say otherwise.” To my amazement, the telecommunications device is obeying the spoken command to the letter. To confirm that I wasn’t just hallucinating, I roll my large eyes upward to look at my horn. Sure enough, there’s a lovely sparkling aura cloud surrounding the phone.

“Yay, I guess?” I say, glaring at the hovering telephone. It’s all too convenient. Surely I can’t have mastered the telekinesis spell just like that, even if all unicorns have an innate talent for magic. Any second now, something is going to go wrong. Yep... Any second...

The sound of a car pulling into the gravel driveway distracts me from my thoughts. Sitting up, I glance toward the closed curtain, ears pricked up. This in turn is just the incident I was waiting for. Apparently, the split second I turned my attention away from the telephone is all it really takes for the spell to implode on me. Unfortunately, the spell isn’t the only thing to implode in this case.

Crunch... BANG!

The handset detonates right next to my face. Indignantly, I am peppered with shards of plastic and circuitry, but amazingly no battery acid. That sounds like a blessing, but it isn’t. I’m still left covered in a strange black powder that I don’t doubt for a second is harmful if inhaled. This can only mean one thing... “Bathing. Again.” I groan, not bothering to hide the frown spreading across my face. It’s not like anyone else can see it.

I look down at my forelegs again. If I’m going to get from my bedroom to the bathroom, I’m going to have to conquer locomotion. I’m not impressed by the prospect, knowing full well that it isn’t going to be as simple as walking around a room for a couple of minutes until I get used to four hooves and a tail. Even with the two hours I’ve spent in this body, I know my brain hasn’t made all the right connections.

“Well, here goes nothing, I suppose.” Why am I even talking out loud to myself? No one can hear me anyways. I’m just being stupid now, and distracting myself from the matter at hand. “Just get up and do it, dumb-ass!”

I wiggle across the mattress, being careful not to drag any more sheets with me. Hesitantly, I let one fore-hoof drop to the floor, and then the other. Right, this next part is simple. I just need to drag myself off of the bed, carefully so that I can get one leg down at a time. It almost doesn’t work; I slip on one of the earlier discarded blankets, and nearly lose my footing completely.

Raising a hoof, I realize I have no idea how exactly I’m supposed to walk. I try to visualize how a pony walks, but that only serves to confuse me. I know that when the front hoof comes down, the back hoof opposite of it should be coming down soon after, and when the front lifts, the back is pushing off. When the back right is coming down, the front right begins lifting, and so on and so forth. The timing and the shifting of body weight is what confuses me. I should just focus on one hoof at a time. It might come natural to this body, but not my mind.

“I hope you’re having as much fun as I am, Lyra,” I mutter, placing my front-left hoof down on the hardwood floor. The right back comes down and... THUMP. Of course I would slip and fall flat on Lyra’s—no, it’s mine now—face. “Yeah, I’m having the time of my life.”

I slowly crawl off of the clothing that is seemingly intent on tripping me up. This is so indignant, being on my hands and knees like this. Okay... hooves and haunches... Wait a minute... Crawling? Of course! How can I be so daft? Crawling isn’t all that different from an Equestrian’s pony walk cycle. The only difference is that their hind legs are fully extended.

“I can do this!” I mutter to myself. Rising shakily to my hooves, I allow myself a cocky grin. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! I don’t even think about it, I just let the memory of crawling take over. While I do indeed succeed in walking, I’m fairly certain I’d rival Berry Punch in looking like the town drunk. After all, it’s more of a drunken stagger than a true walk. Not that I care at this point. I’ve just taken victory over walking, and I can’t give two fucks about anything else. Nothing can stop me now!

Nothing, that is, except for the door. That’s easy enough to remedy, though. We have those convenient handles instead of knobs. The only real challenge is that my door opens inwardly, and the handle is just above my eye level. My brain kicks into overdrive, trying to solve a problem that should be simple enough.

Horn? Nope! While I can depress the handle, there’s no way to pull it open with my horn. Magic? Fuck no! I don’t want anything else exploding today, least of all my door. Hooves are out too, for the same reason as the horn. Apprehensively, I lick my lips. How was it that ponies deal with things they can’t deal with through magic, wings, or hooves? Oh... Right... My mouth. Great.

“There’s half a problem solved. Now I’ve just gotta figure out how to reach the handle.”

I eye the door handle like it’s my mortal enemy, trying very hard not to think in terms that might activate that accursed detonating telekinesis. After a quick moment, it seems obvious. Staggering up to the door, I gently brace one fore-hoof against it, and lift myself off the other. With my face now level with the handle, I grab it in my mouth and force it downward. So not to trip up on computer debris, I slowly inch my way backward.

Once the door is open, I’m greeted by a gigantic orange ball of hissing fluff. “Julianos, fuck off. You know you’re not supposed to be in my room.” I look him dead in the eye and stagger forward. The cat, seemingly deciding that I’m not worth the effort, runs off into the far corner of the hallway. “Give me that wide-eyed death stare all you want, fuzzball. I’m stuck like this for the next week. Get used to it.”

Closing the bedroom door is less of a challenge now that I know the trick, but I know that I would need to rig up a better system or else this is gonna get old, very fast. I stagger along the hall, which is also the landing at the top of the stairs, towards my bathroom. I can’t help but marvel that the three dogs down in the basement haven’t made a peep. With a strange creature in the house, they are usually barking their heads off.

Just my luck. The front door opens with an audible grinding squeak, and the dogs immediately start barking their heads off. It’s almost like they were asleep the whole time, and it’s only now that they realize that something weird is in the house. The suddenness of it all, and the way it rings in my sensitive equine ears startles me.

Needless to say, the fall down the stairs is not a surprise at this point. Considering my luck, I’m surprised my horn didn’t snap off in the fall. Oh, nothing is broken either, by the way—aside from my pride, I mean. Then of course there’s the fact that I’m sprawled on my back at the foot of the stairs. There are also groceries everywhere now.

In spite of it all, I can only look up at my mother dumbly. “Um... hi.” Oh wow. I just fell down the stairs, scaring the life out of my mother and making her spill groceries everywhere, and this is the best I can come up with? To borrow verbiage from Littlepip, fuck me with Celestia’s fore-hooves and be done with it. “Sorry.”

To my surprise, Mom looks amazingly understanding. “New feet?” she offers, jokingly. “And how is it possible that you’re even dirtier than before?”

I can’t help but giggling girlishly. “Yeah...” I roll over, well aware that my marehood and teats are on display for anybody coming through the front door. “I had an incident with the phone... So I was going to bathe again.”

“Your father was wondering why you didn’t answer the phone, but then he remembered that it probably wasn’t going to be possible in your shape.” She watches me as I struggle to rise back onto my hooves. “How did your fur and mane get so singed and dirty, anyway?”

“My phone exploded,” I say flatly, looking away from her.

All the groceries are still on the floor, spilt from a reusable shopping bag. Without even considering the consequences, I levitate all the cans and fruit back into the bag, and then begin carrying the bag into the kitchen. I’m more confident in my walking now, in spite of the canine cacophony in the basement. I’m still staggering like a drunk, but I’m nowhere near shaky.

“Soren... What the hell just happened?” It’s my father’s voice. Apparently he witnessed me whisking a grocery bag into the kitchen, and is now struggling to make sense of it. I manage to not break my focus.

I look at him blankly. “Unicorn magic, obviously,” I say with a hint of condescension. “You can’t go doubting now. I’m a goddamn unicorn, after all.”

“But how do you even know how to do this?” he asks incredulously.

“I wasn’t just laying there playing with myself while you were gone.” I set the bag down on the stove with a laugh. “It’s not perfect though. I kind of lost my focus when you pulled into the driveway, and my phone exploded.” Flicking my tail gently, I glance back to the foyer. “If you’ll excuse me, I really need a shower.”

Author's Notes:

Edited by ReFro

Re-edited 10 July 2017