I've seen a lot of emotions going through my brother: anger, sadness, and a few more, but panic had never been one of them. He sat on the floor, leaning on his hands as if he didn't want to fall on his back and kept staring at something he thought was a talking stuffed animal. There were so many sentences in my head to make this moment really enjoyable. It went from "Take me to your leader!" to "I want to play a game," although that would have required a tricycle to pull off. When I was about to ask whether he had heard "the good news", I almost laughed to myself, which would only have provoked my brother. Not that he was very violent, but him being up so early was a sure sign of no sleep and significant quantities of alcohol and THC circulating through his bloodstream.

"Pinkie broke through the fourth wall," I finally said, smiling. Pinkie was the pony I used to explain to him the world of "My Little Pony" and why I love it so much. Although he didn't like watching the series, he had to laugh. I don't mind people not liking it, but it's the same as with a new dish: first you test, then you judge. I had to give Nils some credit in that matter; he was always fair with new stuff. He was still sitting on the floor, staring at me. I could almost hear his brain cells working, although it couldn't have been a lot due to his lack of sleep. I had to help his brain since it was too late to pretend being a stuffed animal with a speaker anyway. You know, like those Furby things. After all, I was still standing on the couch, and my face was, unlike my brother's, very active.

"Gimme a break, I can't look that bad." I don't know why, but my sense of humor decided to drive on maximum in that situation. I could see that I had activated my brother's as well since I could see his face changing back to a normal expression. That, in turn, reminded me of my glasses still being stuck between bed and nightstand, and if didn’t get them on my nose - nostrils - soon, I could add "skull bursting headache" to my list of problems. Last time I had this problem was when my dog got in possession of my glasses and transferred them into something I would describe as chewing gum-ish. Two days without glasses. By the frequency I had to rest my eyes, you would have thought I slept all day. Furthermore, my face felt kind of naked since I had worn glasses since I was six years old. Nils seemed to have regained some sense and got himself up, which meant him being two feet taller than me even though I was still standing on the couch.

Although my brothers and I had the same mother, we had different fathers, which resulted in my brothers, thirteen and seventeen respectively, being taller than me. They both took after their father, my stepfather, and I took after my mother. As the eldest brother, it wasn't always easy to gain respect from both, and sometimes that was necessary. I had to tear Nils a new one from time to time, mostly when he had a bad episode, which succeeded mostly thanks to my figure. Dirk, on the other hand, was just sassy as most of the kids his age and constantly questioned his borders. Above all, he was the pet of my mother and had too much freedom and knew how to use it. My mother fulfilled every one of his wishes, which sometimes reminds of Cartman, which had a funny side effect. Since he never had to lift a finger, he had no idea how to make a microwave pizza or how long it took to warm something up.

Nils seemed to have come back to his senses and slowly approached me and reached out his hand to touch my back as if he was looking for the small machine that made me talk and move. "What are you?" At least this question proved that he recognized my voice. I already wondered whether my voice had changed, but since everyone’s voice sounded different in their own heads, I had no chance to check for that. Some time ago, this led to me believing I could sing, and I needed one round of Singstar and a handful of laughing friends to prove me wrong. I guess Geier Sturzflug would have kicked my ass for my version of their song "Bruttosozialprodukt". But I loved music and decided to concentrate on instruments, although I didn't know how to play anything else than the flute at the time. The thought of a flute-version of "Disturbed - Down With The Sickness" on YouTube is still awesome. Luckily, my adolescent mind came to reason back then, and so I learned to play the guitar, though it was little more just reading some tabs on the Internet.

"So, how is it going? I'm your big baby brother." That was a running gag between us which found its start in the local Media Markt. I had taken him there to buy a new game - I can't remember which one - but it was eighteen plus. When I had been about to pay, the cashier hadn’t ask me for my ID, but had turned to my brother and had asked him if my parents were okay with me buying that game. No one had seemed to notice that he had been just sixteen at the time. You can imagine the mocking on the way back home.

He pulled his hand back, which made me smile even wider. I knew there would be problems concerning my current situation, but at the same time, it was just hilarious. "Please tell me the pot was bad. How come...? I mean, you look like one of those little ponies from that crappy cartoon!" He had a point. I had no idea how it happened. I guess I imagined this from time to time, but just because I had an idea, I knew it was impossible.

As much as I wanted to believe in magic, deep inside, I knew that it was an illusion made by mirrors that caused pretty assistants to levitate a few inches from the ground. Maybe there was a god who actually wanted to make my wish come true. But since I was an atheist, my faith found its end in my childhood, and it wasn't even faith in God. I had been certain that there was a house where the Care Bears lived. Once, my mother took me into the city when I was about four years old, and we passed a house: very pink, very decorated with loads of hearts that seemed to radiate love. Now I know what kind of house that was, but back then, I called it the "Care Bear House". My mother was always open about those topics and had no shame inflating condoms on my sixth birthday when we were out of balloons.

"How should I know? I woke up like this." I started to realize more and more that this situation was crazy for me - in a good way though - but had to seem mighty disturbing to other people. My brother took a few steps back and looked to be on the verge of losing it. Last time I saw him like this was when a girlfriend of his had fallen down the stairs drunk.

"Listen, I'm fine. As far as I can tell, I’m still me. I just look different." I had to avoid him running downstairs and waking the whole house. I needed to explain it to everyone, but panic wouldn't make it easier for me. I jumped off the couch, only to remember that hooves were not made for laminate and crashed full speed into the coffee table. First thing I had to take care of. Not being able to move properly was bad enough, but sliding around was just annoying. How was I supposed to convince everybody that I was fine when I was bruised and sore all over?

"Nils, listen carefully. Please go into my bedroom and get my glasses from between my bed and nightstand. Also, I need some anti-slide socks; they are in the lowest drawer of my closet. Could you get both for me?" He nodded and slowly went into the hallway to my bedroom. He must have had just as many questions as I had, just different ones. I wasn't interested in what happened, but what was next. Nils probably cared more about what happened or whether he was dreaming. I stood up and placed myself on the small carpet in front of my hallway. Nils stepped out of my bedroom and brought my glasses and the socks.

"Could you please put on the glasses for me; my eyes are burning a little." He didn't say a word, just opened the frame. He bent down like I was a little kid and wanted to put on the glasses, but he hesitated.

"Umm… how?" At first, I didn't know what was wrong. Then I reminded myself that I was a pony, and my ears weren't in their usual position. I thought that some tin-wire would work, but that would have been uncomfortable on my fur. But fur wasn't a bad idea whatsoever. It was rather short but very soft and even a little sturdy.

"Just put it in my fur; that'll do it." Finally, I could see properly again. The feeling had the same relieving effect as my journey to the toilet earlier. For those who don't have glasses, it's like seeing HD-TV for the first time. Relieved, I let myself fall back and sat down on my thighs for the first time. Sitting like this was much more comfortable because it was the same sitting-position as in the series. In reality, I had never seen a horse sitting like this, and as far as I knew, they never do. Cats and dogs could sit like this, but to my knowledge, horses even sleep standing up. I guess using real animals as models only worked to a certain degree. I began to wonder which knowledge was still useful at all since this was far beyond reality.

"Could you help me with the socks too?" My brother nodded again, and I lifted my right foreleg to him. He slipped over a sock which didn't seem to fit, like an extra-large condom on a medium sized… you know what I mean. Nils, who seemed to be more awake than a few minutes back, identified the problem and rolled the sock up like a sleeve so it would stay on my hoof. We repeated this procedure with my other foreleg and with my hind legs as well. I had to stand up and hand them to him. I was never so glad to wear clothes. Although it seemed normal to be naked in the series, it wasn't for humans. Well, we're just taught to always dress, and you can't lose a habit like that with being a pony for hardly an hour. With socks on all four hooves, I now had more friction on floor, which made walking around just so much easier. I went back to the living room. After a jump that might have made me look like a dog, I sat down in the newly learned seating position.

"So, what now?" With that question, my brother wasn’t so far away from my own thoughts.

"Well, to sum it up: yesterday I went to bed human and woke up as a pony.” That was about everything I could certainly say about my situation.

"So we have about the same degree of no idea?" I just nodded. My brother pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it up. Normally, I don't tolerate smoking in my apartment, but that wasn't the problem at hand right now. He blew out the smoke, and I had to cough.

"At least open a window." With a sigh, he got up and opened the window facing the street. It was bad enough that our basement always smelled like cigarette and something I liked referring to as "the green".

"What's your plan? You can't walk around like this." He had a point.

"Is there another option? Moreover, I think this is so cool." The brony evolved. The brony became a pony. I just played the music in my head.

"Seriously? You look like an oversized stuffed animal. By the way, how do you plan on explaining yourself to others? They’re gonna slice you up to see what happened to you."

"You watch too many trash-movies. No one just slices something up that can talk and prove intelligence."

"So you should start running." Good thing he got back his humour. It seemed like he could handle this now.

"Okay, all joking aside, how do you plan on explaining yourself?"

"What's with the Internet again?!" someone shouted. That rang a bell. My other brother, Dirk. He had this annoying habit of coming to me whenever there was something wrong with the Internet or his computer. Most of the time, those problems came from a bad Wi-Fi connection or because he caught a virus again. Nils and I were still sitting on the couch when Dirk entered. Just as Nils, he looked around.

"Didn't you just talk to Timo? I bet he's downloading again." Of course, it was my fault that he didn’t know how to use his laptop. Just like my grandpa. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't block their connection. Our router never had that kind of function, but try explaining it to them.

"Did he seriously buy one of those gay pony toys?" You had better watch out that the gay pony toy didn’t hit you with his hoof. I know, not very brony-like, but I heard this shit from him every day. Recently, I installed a satellite cable plus TV in his room, and he didn't even thank me. I had to climb up into our attic. I know it didn’t sound like much, but I was freakishly afraid of heights. All it took was the third step of our ladder.

"The gay pony toy is about to kick your ass!" Just because someone didn’t like something doesn't mean they had to make everyone hate it. For instance, I'm no friend of hip-hop or rap music, so I didn’t listen to it. When a friend or my brother listened to it, I didn’t say anything. My mother said I have more influence on my brothers than I thought, but in those matters, I couldn’t see it. Dirk's reaction turned out a little different. First he dropped his jaw like Nils, but recovered after a few seconds and fired back.

"How do they say: you are what you eat? Seems to work the same way with TV." For a teenager, that might have been hurtful, but I was just bored.

"You're not surprised, are you?" I thought I could pay him back for the 'gay pony-toy'.

"Honestly, how could I be surprised about you anymore?" I knew what he meant. I had done a lot of stupid things in my life. If I ever told some of it, I'd still be in jail. We had never hurt anybody, but two cars, several trees, and some hedges might beg to differ. And since my friends were of the opinion to tell some of this and some of that, my brothers knew about it all.

"Dirk, I'm a pony. A pony! I turned into another being." Although most of the time I didn’t give a damn about his opinion, I was disappointed.

"So it's not your fault with the Internet?" All he cared about, typical for him. I showed him a sock-covered hoof.

"How, you wiseass?" At least he got the subtext and left the room. "And stop yelling around when you lose again in League of Legends." He had the same habit as Nils did at his age when he lost. That had cost me more than one N64-controller. On his way down, he left all the doors open as usual so that my dogs stormed into the room. Fiete entered first and instantly sat down next to Nils without even so much as looking at me. Fanny, on the other hand, sniffed at me a little.

"C'mon, stop it Fanny; you're drooling all over me again." I shoved her aside, and she sat down on the couch as well. I noticed her being just slightly smaller than me, which showed me how small I actually was. Not that being small bothered me. I was still looking at all the pros and cons.

"Should I get Mom? I mean, sooner or later, she'll see you like this, right? I don't think you can hide up here forever."

"I guess you're right. Look, if you can find her and maybe prepare her for a little shock." Nils headed down and left me alone on the couch. Until now I was excited about being a pony, but slowly I began to worry. Could I live my life like this? What about working or even leaving the house? I stared into the black TV. The new me was reflected inside. I was a unicorn. Maybe I could use magic to gain back my human form. For this, I had to learn about magic first, but when I thought about how long it took Twilight to be able to use magic properly, this could take a long time. Also, she was talented in magic. I could hear my mother and brother coming up the stairs.

"There is a little... surprise. Maybe you should brace yourself."

"What's wrong? Did something happen to Timo? But then you would have called a doctor." More likely a veterinarian, I smiled to myself. As long as my humour was working, I was quite happy. My mother now stood in my kitchen and looked around, but she instantly spotted me on the couch.

"What a cute pony toy." Before I could do anything, she picked me up and held me in her arms.

"Where is this surprise now? And where is your brother?" I couldn't see Nils - I couldn't actually see anything - but I was almost certain he was smiling ear to ear.

"Down here." She released her pressure on me.

"Timo? Where are you?" I raised a hoof, so it was right in front of her face, and I instantly hit the ground. My mom took a few steps back and looked down on me. Her face didn't give anything away.

"Good morning. I'll take my coffee black, lots of sugar." Curse you, brain! My Mom slowly sat down without taking her eyes off me.
"What...how..." she stammered. What followed was a one hour talk. Nils brought my laptop to show her "My Little Pony". I told her about bronies and what happened to me, which was actually kind of obvious. She already knew I was watching some kind of TV-show for kids, but that was about it, and she didn't care to know any more.

"And I thought you would never make something of yourself," she finally said and proved where I got my humor from. "But Timo, how can you stay this calm? I'd totally freak out if this happened to me." Parents still knew how to ask the best questions.

"I don't know. Just the simple fact that something like this is possible. Moreover, it means that magic, maybe even Equestria, actually exists. There are so many possibilities. Also it's very exciting to be another being. I have a new look at my environment but still am the same." Her eyes widened, especially when I mentioned magic. My mother believes in everything esthetical, which is kind of related to magic. I knew what she was going to ask next.

"And yes, I'm talking about real magic. This horn on my head is, as far as I know, a medium of canalisation for all kinds of magic I have to learn first." In the meantime, my brother finished his third cigarette, and my mother couldn't decide whether to be excited or horrified.

"So, what will you do now?" This seemed to be the question of the day and even my life.

Author's Notes:

Again, thanks to Beks for translating.
Edited by JBL