I woke up Tuesday morning without any sign I was human anymore. I probably couldn’t leave the house without fear of being captured and experimented on. And yet, it was the happiest day I had in years.

The loss of my hands was a bit of a bummer but I could expect no more bodily changes. I was a technicolor pony now, but I was a finished technicolor pony. Ruby’s full-length mirror confirmed that all the build-up led to me becoming the spitting image of the pony Berry Punch. While I thought I looked a bit more like a horse than the show’s art style allowed, there was no mistaking me for anyone or anything else than that specific little horse from a discontinued little girl’s cartoon.

With my spine bent that way it was now and how long my neck was, I had no choice but to walk on my former fingers and toes. Four hooves. Ruby could only watch me practice walking around her bedroom for so long until she suggested she ride on my back. For practice. Of course.

Ruby had shrunk even more overnight, becoming a precious partial-pony preteen. She even had an adorably stubby horn half the size of Comet’s. So her weight was no issue on my four legs. I walked slowly enough she mostly just held onto my shirt for turns. I kept my boxers on as well for my own sense of security and shame.

Ruby rarely wore pants, seeing as they were a pain to put on without the use of her legs, so she had plenty of dresses that still fit for now. Her transformation had given her feeling below her waist but she never learned how to walk in the first place and her legs were completely atrophied.

Not that she was sitting in her chair all that much anymore. The “for practice” pony rides quickly turned into her main form of transportation around the house. She clearly enjoyed it and I loved feeling useful to her. On my back she was the perfect height to cook and she cooked breakfast and lunch for all three of us. I had no complaints about eating the same vegetarian meals she did because my Ruby cooked them.

I didn’t spend every moment with her that day, but I only snuck away to try and get a benzo out of my hoodie pocket in secret when I knew Mom wasn’t going to catch me. Pills were incredibly hard to handle without fingers and I accidentally crushed some. So much so they didn’t last through the day. Oh well, I had Ruby. She was a great drug. I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol that day.

Later that night, since Ruby still had fingers, she was straight with me and told me I smelled and wanted to give me a bath. I was hesitant to be naked in front of her, but eventually I sucked it up and let her wash me; I didn’t want to make her stink and I wasn’t sure how to wash this body by myself. It wasn’t my weird horse vagina anyway, right? It was Berry Punch’s.

Ruby for her part, was clearly enjoying washing a heliotrope-colored talking pony. Maybe a little too much, but I have to admit I was enjoying being the idol of her affection. That Fluttershy plushie didn’t leave her lap yesterday but now she was hardly leaving my back.

“You know, Pinchy, pretty soon I’m going to be giving you the baths,” I told her while she was drying me off. I patted the top of her pink little head for emphasis; if she could stand she had to be less than four feet tall now. I wasn’t sure how young she was becoming but I didn’t think she looked more than ten now.

She responded to that by pulling the towel she was using on my mane down over my eyes and poking me in the muzzle. I flexed it away from her touch and she giggled at me. I stepped on the end of the towel and pushed the towel off my head.

“I won’t mind that,” she said. “You’ll probably still need help as well. We can do a buddy system.”
That seemed like a solid idea to me.

“Are- ...you’re worried about turning into a pony too, right?” I asked my almost fully-ponified daughter. Her hooved legs had some strength to them now but she couldn’t do more than flail them or gently squeeze them around my barrel as I walked. I could see the fur creeping around her collar bone and it was mostly down her lithe arms now. Her beautiful lime green eyes seemed enormous on her little face. I could stare at those saucers forever.

“I was terrified,” she admitted. “But I’m going to have you and all of our friends as ponies too. And I’m going to get to walk! At least for now until we figure out how to reverse it.”

“But you’re going to lose your hands!” I said as I showed her my own fore hoof. “You saw me today, I can barely operate a door knob! You’re so talented and not going to be able to draw or make any of the things that you do.”

“I guess I’m going to have to get good at using my magic then,” she said tapping her horn. I looked at it warily.

“You actually think that thing might work?”

“Mom, you’re a talking purple pony from a cartoon. Magic is real.”

I smiled at her logic. I couldn’t argue with her.

“If anyone can do it, I know you can, Pinchy. I believe in you,” I encouraged.

“I know. And that’s one of the reasons I know I can do it,” she said. Ruby was rubbing my barrel and back as she said this. At first I thought she was petting me until she nodded approvingly. “Dry enough!” she said as she grabbed my fresh-ish clothes and assisted me getting them on. I survived my bath.

With me now clad in boxers and shirt she wordlessly clambered on top of me as per our new mode of transportation. She kicked futilely and slid a bit trying to get up. I instinctively knelt down and offered a hoof to assist her onto my back. Once she was up and secure I walked us back to her bedroom and helped her onto her bed. Once she was situated she patted the spot next to her.

“Don’t sleep on the floor tonight; you’re clean. I don’t think you’ll stink up my bed,” she said.

“I don’t know…” I replied with a grin already stuck to my face. “I’ve heard horses fart in their sleep and that might get pretty rank.”

A melodious giggle escaped my little girl on the bed. “You dork! Get up here before I change my mind.”

I hopped up onto the bed and curled my body around her. Ruby leaned against my middle and picked up her phone.
Throughout the day, Ruby was keeping in touch with our pony friends since she was the one still with the fingers.

Minuette and Chad were staying nearby in a motel while they looked for more ponies. Derpy called Minuette back! For at least a minute. According to her, Derpy said she flew to London to see a doctor. A doctor. In London. She tried to get answers and warn her not to go to a doctor but Derpy said she had to go and hung up. She couldn’t get a hold of Derpy again.

Meanwhile, Carrot Top’s phone would still ring but she never answered. They were also trying to find a way to contact a person who might be a ‘Daisy’ pony and hit a dead-end for a pony named Sunshower Raindrops.

Comet Tail, like me, spent most of his day getting reacquainted with his family. Thanks to Minuette showing up with him to show he wasn’t the only one and Chad to show it wasn’t infectious his parents seemed to handle it better than Mom did. When he got away from them he was trying to pull some strings and get someone to pull some surface-level information on students from the university. Comet was sure, statistically, there had to be at least a couple of human-turned-ponies who passed through the school system. While waiting around for people to call him back he watched the series finale and said it wasn’t what he remembered so he was marathoning all the other episodes he never saw to figure out where the scenes he remembered were from.

Ruby made an adorable yawn and sat her phone off to the side.

“No new developments,” she informed me as she slumped down beside me. She giggled when I wrapped my hoof around her and tucked her to my chest like a plushie. She squirmed a little and I let up slightly but she stayed put as my little spoon.

My future was potentially ruined. Considering a few days ago I was ready to throw it away anyway though, I was very content with where I was now.

The night was young but the only thing I wanted to do was hold her.

---

We had to keep the light dim and the sound low in these tunnels. We couldn’t risk them finding us. Comet Tail provided the low light from his horn and I provided the liquid courage. I took a swig of the wine I brought out to our shift and offered the bottle to him. He accepted it and took a pull.

“I hope Twilight and her friends can find us here,” I whispered. It had been over a day down in these tunnels. Over a day since Ponyville was attacked. Where was that librarian? Where were the guards? The princesses?

Comet Tail put a hoof around my back to console my worries. Even in the low light I could see he was scared too so I put one of mine around him. All the ponies taking refuge down here were scared. As spotters we were on the lookout for those...creatures.

At least, we assumed they were creatures. They shifted and changed as they crawled over our roofs, like shadows around a campfire. One minute I thought they were giant spiders, then dragons, then horses. They could slip under one door and tear another one off its hinges. When I got too close I saw they had too many faces. Too many wings. I couldn’t begin to count their legs.

The worst part wasn’t that we couldn’t figure out what they were. Ponyville being so close to the Everfree Woods you were used to seeing something weird every other weekend. The terrifying part is that they were scooping us up and carrying us away to where that giant… volcano-thing had erupted. No one knew what they were doing but we feared the worst.

So we ran. Away from the fire, away from the Everfree and away from the open plains and towards distant Canterlot. There were so many of us at first, but they picked us off until we took refuge into one of the cave systems. They scuttled after us for a while but they fell behind and eventually stopped chasing us completely.

What could keep creatures like that away?

“What if...” I whispered carefully into Comet’s ear, “what if they didn’t follow us because there’s something worse down here?”

Comet Tail frowned at me in a way that said ‘you’re not helping’. I wanted to laugh at his adorable frown but it died in my throat; I had been drinking, but I wasn’t crazy. So instead I booped his nose.

That got a smile out of him. I picked the bottle up by my teeth and took another few swigs and set it down gently in front of him. We had to ration the food and water we had and with so many foals the adults weren’t eating. But damn it, I was thirsty and the foals sure weren’t going to start drinking now.

Comet picked the bottle with his magic, studied it, then took a small sip for himself. When he set the bottle back down I got curious and went to check its contents for myself. A yellow hoof stopped me by the nose; he booped me.

I grinned up at this stallion and saw him looking smug. I had to retaliate. So I booped him back... with my own nose… and then a kiss.

At first he tentatively reciprocated and his tongue found mine. Our breath was wine. His musk was strong and feral… but then he just stopped and pushed me away.

“Berry, no,” Comet rejected softly. “Not again. Not now.”

“I wasn’t asking you for a foal, you conehead,” I hushly whispered. “I’m just… “

“Drunk?” Comet offered.

“...scared,” I admitted before adding “...I’m drinking because I’m scared. And you...” my voice trailed off.

Comet held me as consolation and petted the back of my mane. His body was so much warmer than the cave.

“If anything happens… ” I whispered. “...keep Ruby safe. She’s the only thing that matters.”

“That ain’t true, you matter to-,” Comet cut himself off. I saw his horn flare brighter and he hugged me closer.

“Comet?” I asked. Then I felt it too: the cave was vibrating. It was getting stronger. The vibrating was building until I could hear it. Comet let go of me and pushed me towards the way we came. I saw the cave around me glow brighter and realized I was glowing now; Comet cast an illumination spell on me.

“Go! Warn the others!” Comet directed me as he stood his ground. I barely heard him over the reverberating grinding noise all around us now.

“You’re not staying here!” I shouted over the noise.

“I’ll delay’em! Don’t worry, I’ll catch up!” he shouted as he gestured to his horn. Before the argument could continue the ground in front of him started splintering and sinking away. I saw giant stone claws tear through the gapand several stone limbs emerge…

Then the piles of rock flew straight up to the ceiling of the cave several meters above us with a thud. They looked like a pile of moving, coiling rocks sliding over each other. The deafening grinding rock noise died down.

“Useless piles of spawn!” came an articulate voice from below. A familiar gray horse head with two long mismatching horns poked its head up out of the hole. “I knew we should have taken a left at Albuckquer-” The head stopped speaking and looked at us. A crooked, toothy grin grew clear from one ear to another. “Why hello, my little ponies! Am I interrupting?”

I knew this creature. Was he the one behind it all?

“Discord!” I called. His teeth grew from ear to ear in a smile. He plucked one of his horns off his head as if a hat and and brought it to his chest.

“The original,” he said with a bow.

“Discord, do you know what’s going on up there?” Comet Tail asked.

“Beautiful, ugly chaos!” Discord smiled happily. He clutched his still detached horn to his chest. “It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.”

“I… what? Do you know where the princesses are? Are they safe?”

“...what?” Discord looked incredibly amused with himself. It looked like he was trying to hold in a laugh “Have you been... ‘living under a rock’?” He snickered. “Don't tell me that you're... completely... ‘in the dark’?”

“What happened?!” Comet begged again for answers.

“Well, ...let me just show you,” Discord offered. When he smiled his teeth became rows of razor sharp teeth. There was a strange metallic smell in the air. He brought the tip of his still-removed horn to his lips and blew into it.

A long, flat trumpet note echoed through the caverns. It grew louder and the walls all around began vibrating in response. As he played, strange red markings appeared down his serpentine body. The red glow overwhelmed Comet’s magic and extinguished it. We were awash in nothing but that red light.

When he stopped playing his note a chorus of hundreds of tortured voices cried out in response all around us. The shrieking calls carried through the stone walls and reverberated inside of me. I became keenly aware that the ‘grinding’ noise was actually a symphony of individual claws digging through solid rock. They were all around and all digging now towards the draconequus who called them. The draconequus who was now laughing so hard he was in tears.

“Run!” Comet shouted. We both ran in the only direction available: back to the chamber we were hiding in. Surely they felt the earth around us shake and they’re already packing up and fleeing? Surely Ruby and Minuette and all the other ponies are okay?

The tunnel collapsed around me. The rocks squeezed me and picked me up. I thought I was in a claw then a mouth and finally a ribcage. My stone prison galloped back towards the laughing chimeric monster. I panicked and screamed. The vise coiled around me until I couldn’t breath.

I flailed and kicked my legs at the ribs for breath. They splintered. When I kicked again they broke. The bones were full of hissing snakes. They licked up my legs and tickled my barrel with their tongues. With my gulp of air I screamed and kicked more. Discord’s sinister laughter beat at my chest.

“Mom! -Mom!”

---

My consciousness was dragged out from my dreams by that voice. I didn’t remember opening my eyes. I was just suddenly aware that I was gripping that little rose-colored filly too tightly. She was strangling against my deathgrip and practically beating at my chest and screaming for me to let go. I did.

She suddenly fell backwards off the bed and beyond. There was a thud and a small “ow” as she hit the floor.

“Ruby!” I called out as I tumbled off the bed after her. I barely missed her as I ragdolled onto the floor right next to her. We lay there in shock for a moment before we both tried to sit up.

I stared at her face. I knew her face: It was Ruby. I could tell it was the same Brianna I grew up with but her pony transformation was complete: she was finished.

While she caught her breath I couldn’t help but study her: her soft coat completely covering her face, her little barrel rising up with each breath, her mesmerizingly large eyes, her little muzzle scrunched up as she fought to untangle her nightgown...

I sat up onto my back haunches and began trying to figure out where the clothes ended and the little filly began. Once those were sorted it was only a matter of time to untangle them from each other. I tried to push the sliding underwear back up onto her rump for the sake of her decency but couldn’t push the tail away and pull up on the fabric with just my stubby hooves. Just as I felt we were starting to get situated there was a knock on the door.

Without waiting for a response Mom let herself in. She looked still awake. Likely up looking at Facebook or watching TV before she heard a little filly calling for her mom. We had done our best to avoid each other all day. But, now there was a squirming filly needing help. We exchanged glances for just a moment before both turning back to Ruby.

“Are you alright?” Mom asked her as she approached and bent down slowly to help fix her clothes. It took her all of three seconds to effortlessly fix everything and sit her upright.

“I’m okay...” Ruby mumbled irritably. She tried to rub the sleep from one of her oversized eyes. After she did she looked down at the forehoof she used. Then at the other. I could tell from how her ears worked up and down and how her nostrils flared she was trying to fully process the loss of her hands. A mix of horror and fascination quickly passed over her features as she worked her ‘wrists’. She studied the nails of what felt like her only remaining finger on each ‘leg’. I was going to give her a moment to work through it but Mom had other plans.

Mom smiled at the tiny filly before her and brushed Ruby’s pink mane to one side of her face with one of her hands, robbing her attention from her hooves.

“Oh, sweetie,” Mom said with glistening eyes. “You’re so adorable! You look like one of your little ponies. Like Pinkie Pied.”

“P-Pinkie Pie...” Ruby corrected.. Without a response to the correction and without warning, Mom picked her up. A small “eep!” escaped Ruby as she did so. Ruby’s legs instinctively kicked and tried to find purchase before an arm came around to hold her bottom and held her like a baby.

I stood up immediately at this action. I was half the height of this woman but I was ready to knock her down if she tried anything funny while she held her.

“What happened, baby?” Mom asked as she intrusively ran a finger over Ruby’s jawline in examination of Ruby’s new features. “You were shouting.”

I remembered why we woke up. Those predatorial eyes glaring down at me. I could still see those razor sharp teeth curling into a red grin. The world seemed to still be shaking under my hooves. I sat down before I fell down. My rump felt carpet but my hooves could make out the texture of the cave floor.

Ruby squirmed uncomfortably and looked down at me then back up at the lady holding her. “M-… Brian was having a bad dream and was holding me too tight.”

Just a ‘bad dream’. Right. That was a dream, wasn’t it? It seemed so real. Then again, I haven’t had a dream in years. Maybe I just forgot what dreams felt like?

“Brian?” Mom asked timidly. “Are you alright?”

I nodded wordlessly.

“Were you dreaming about the My Little Pony finale?” Ruby guessed. I nodded again before I spoke.

“Y-yeah. I was dreaming about when Discord captured us,” I told her before I caught what I said. “I mean… when Discord captured them.” In my defense, that was a very vivid dream. Ruby tilted her fuzzy little head and thought carefully before replying.

“But you never saw the finale,” Ruby pointed out. I thought about that and realized she was right. She turned back to Mom. “Can you get my phone? This could be another clue to all this. And I want to see if Minuette finished turning into a pony too.”

I checked the clock on Ruby’s nightstand. It was only 10 o’clock at night. Minuette would surely still be up. Probably Comet Tail too. I wondered if he was alright? Last I saw him he was in the stomach of one of those stone creatures too.

Wait no, that was the dream. Before that…

I could remember a smoke that choked the pegasi out of the sky. I could hear the screams of ponies being plucked off their hooves and carried away by those writhing amalgamations of sooty body parts. I remembered a little filly’s voice crying out as she was dragged away.

“Brian?” Ruby called me back from wherever I was. Mom was holding her and her phone. “I asked if you were alright?”
Honestly, I felt hot in my own coat. My limbs shook and I could feel a phantom prick in my legs where my fingers used to be. I felt nauseous and weak like I usually felt in the morning. I put on a brave face and nodded.

“I’ll be okay. I’m always a little shaky when I wake up,” I insisted. “Hey, let me know how Minuette and Comet Tail are doing, alright?”

Ruby frowned, not quite believing my lie but looked at her phone in Mom’s hand then back at me. “Okay… Mom is going to take me to the living room so she can sit down to text for me. Do you want anything to drink?”

I thought about the alcohol still in my bag. I shook my head. “No. I’m good.”

With reluctance still on Ruby’s filly face, Mom carried her out of the room. I was alone.

I walked with uncoordinated legs over to my bag in the corner of the room and just went limp and fell down next to it. It was an odd feeling laying on my stomach and still feeling somewhat upright because of how long my neck was.

I rolled over onto my side to get a feeling of normalcy. That didn’t cut it either though; since waking up as a full pony, my field of vision had been somewhat widened and even in the dim light of the room I could make out colors better than I thought I should. These heightened senses disagreed with my stomach so I closed my eyes and focused on the carpet bristles against my face.

I wasn’t that bad. I had my last benzo about five hours ago. I didn’t need to dip into the Jameson just yet. I would be fine. I just had to sleep this off…

I pretended the carpet was Comet’s fuzzy chest from my dream. I remembered the world falling apart around us and the rocks crashing down on us…

And that was as far ahead as I could remember. I knew Ruby was in it. I thought there was a poem... but it slipped just past my thoughts and back into my subconscious. Dreams were like that, weren’t they? Once you stopped thinking about them they grew fuzzy.

But there was more. I remembered the beginning of that episode from somewhere. And I remembered Minuette said Celestia was thrown into a ‘volcano’. That must have been that giant fire on the horizon where those soot-covered creatures carried off the ponies.

Surely those creatures weren’t in that episode. Not in a cartoon for 6 year old girls. I wondered if I was blending nightmares with things I saw in video games or movies. There were the stone creatures that came with Discord as well.

I hadn’t remembered a dream for most of the last decade but this one was so vivid. I remembered the smell of ash those creatures carried. How they left little handprints as they climbed over thatched-roof cottages. And their multiple faces of different creatures full of burning eyes. The countless wings on their backs… Did I come up with those? Were they from a video game? Did Comet Tail remember these creatures? He only mentioned the stone ones.

I had so many questions and once again no answers. I was a talking cartoon pony: who was to say these monsters weren’t out there too now? What if people turned into those things just like how I turned into a pony?

What if the soot on the creatures was from that inferno? If Celestia fell into the fire… if ponies were being thrown into it...

My thoughts were all over the place and I didn’t want them anywhere. My mouth felt too wet. I kept worrying the dirt under my hooves would shift and shake from those monsters digging toward us from every direction. I felt wet and sticky. I felt like I was drowning. Once the panic set in I remembered I was safe and dry on Ruby’s bedroom floor.

I didn’t want to have that dream again. I didn’t want answers, I wanted obliviousness. I needed alcohol. Just enough to stop this encroaching nightmare. Comet would understand.

I climbed back to my hooves and then sat down in front of my bag onto my haunches. My hooves slipped several times as I worked the zipper open. I saw my phone sitting right there on its side. The bottle of Jameson rested next to it, the shirt it was wrapped in on me now.

With one hoof on the front and one on the back I carefully threaded the bottle out. After several attempts I managed to drop it gently onto the floor. Using my hooves like this was a bit like using chopsticks.

I was terrible with chopsticks.

I tried holding the bottle between my thighs and twisting the cap in my stubby front hooves. I couldn’t get a grip on the metal cap. Finally I grasped the sides of the bottle with my hooves, bit down on the cap and twisted the bottle.

The cap came loose. I twisted the bottle instead of the cap until the cap was screwed off and spat it off. I pressed the tip of my muzzle to the open bottle and inhaled. I could smell the malt but also grass. Vanilla. Trees. Earth. There was even an odd fruity smell that I didn’t notice before. It had to have been this pony nose. The smell was so much better and stronger than when I was human. I was almost certain my boxers became a little wet.

I tipped the bottle up and took several long pulls. My longer face meant deeper pulls and my longer neck meant longer build up until the dry heat of the alcohol finally was too much and I stopped. I pulled the bottle away and sighed out the heat. Jameson had been a treat for years but now I could taste and appreciate more than I used to thanks to my new pony taste buds. It was so good I was shamefully aroused. It was exactly what I needed.

The noise inside my head became more distant. The wetness was gone and I was warm instead of hot. I brought the less-full bottle back to my mouth and took another pull just for good measure. My stomach got a little overwhelmed but I was an expert at holding my liquor down. Satisfied, I stood up to get the cap and put it away when the unthinkable happened: I knocked the bottle over.

I panicked and tried to pick it up. Hooves clinked on the bottle as it gushed out onto Ruby’s carpet. I tried to grasp the neck, it rolled and poured out more. Finally I bent my head down and bit down on the mouth of it. I picked it up with my teeth. I carried it over to the cap.

Of course I heard those unmistakably heavy steps coming back to the room at the worst time. When she came in I was trying to pick up that damn cap and get it back onto the bottle.

“Brian!” she cursed my name. I gave up trying to get the cap back on. I sighed and looked up at her. I didn’t care about the pissed off look on her face. I cared about the hurt look on Ruby’s little filly face.

“What?” I asked her knowing full well ‘what’.

“You know not to bring alcohol into my house!” she talked down at me. I stood up on all fours and stood my ground. I did my best best not to look Ruby in the eye.

“Yeah, I know how you feel about alcohol. This is the first drink I’ve had since I got here. I’m tapering off.”

“Is that what that is? You spilled it? Brianna’s room?”

“I did! It was an accident” I defended myself. “I have to be sneaking around because you would have dumped it out!”

“Yes I would have! This is unacceptable! I won’t put up with this in my hou-”

“Brian?” Ruby cut us both off. We looked at her. “How much did you bring?”

“J-just two bottles! There’s that and a bottle of Jack. They weren’t even full!”

“Can we check?” Ruby asked.

“Yeah! Go ahead! I was only trying to keep you in the dark because they’d get dumped.”

With that Mom sat Ruby down gently on the floor next to my bag and began going through my nearly empty suitcase. She found the Jack Daniel’s easily enough. Then she found the white Lawson hoodie and I saw the little baggy for the benzos hanging out of it. There was crushed, loose powder still in the bag.

Oh shine. This looked pretty bad.

“And what was this for?” She accused me as she showed the baggy to Ruby. Ruby looked over at me, shocked and hurt.

“Valium. For the withdrawal symptoms. For the alcohol,” I told her the truth.

“So you’re drinking and doing drugs under my roof?”

“This is hardly my biggest problem right now,” I sighed into my hoof. “Listen. I’ll admit I’m an alcoholic. This is how I’m dealing with it! I’m stressed out and feeling sick, alright? This whole thing is stressing me out. You’re stressing me out!”

I pointed a hoof at Mom and she flinched. I was almost satisfied with my power until Ruby spoke up from her spot on the carpet.

“Brian, please be nice to Mom,” she pleaded. She looked up at Mom next, “Don’t yell at him. I know he’s doing his best.”

“Brianna, don’t defend him,” Mom warned. “I’m glad you two are close, but he’s no good. It’s his fault you’re in this predicament right now. I’ll let him stay but I don’t want any of these drugs or alcohol under my roof.”

“You stupid bitch!” I growled at her. There was a strange trill to my voice, almost like a whinny. She flinched but not as hard as I expected. This was unbelievable! She honestly believed this pony transformation was all my fault. After all my friends told her otherwise. Several times. “What would I have to gain from this? You think I like dealing with you?? I’m here for Ruby!”

“Brian!” a tiny voice cracked angrily, it was Ruby. “Please. Stop yelling at her. She’s stressed out too. We all are.”

I sighed and looked up at the mountain of a human in the room. Mom really did look even bigger now that my head barely came up to the widest part of her. But Ruby was right, this situation was probably stressing her out too. I know I would be upset if someone I hated might have done something to Ruby.

“I’m... sorry for yelling,” I told her. I tried to mean it. At least for the sake of peace.

Mom nodded then crossed her arms uncomfortably. “I’m sorry for accusing you of things you said you didn’t do. But what you did admit to doing was drinking and doing drugs here. You knew I wouldn’t put up with that.”

“What are you suggesting?” I asked her openly.

“No more,” she told me. “If you don’t want to follow my rules go somewhere else. You’ve seen what it does. For our safety I won’t allow it.”

I swallowed my anger. I knew where she saw it. I saw it first hoof too. The yelling, the violence, the abuse. I wasn’t him though; I wouldn’t hurt Ruby!

I looked over at my pink little pony to show myself she was fine. But those large green eyes looked pained. I was confused until I understood and looked away.

We were tearing her apart. People she loved couldn’t get along. Even sober yesterday we couldn’t stand each other. We’ve been fighting and yelling at each other for over a decade. We would never get along. But now there was even more tension between us and we all understood why:

We were both Ruby’s Mom.

It was stupid, I knew she wasn’t actually my daughter, she was my sister, but Mom was so crap and I understood a bit more why I became Berry Punch. I was there to love her and protect her and encourage her. Compared to this human, I was always better. If anything Ruby took care of our Mom. Ruby would be safer with me. My friends and I would fix this pony thing. Not her. All Mom was good at was eating food and drinking soda. It made perfect sense why I turned into Ruby’s pony mom.

So it was decided.

“You don’t want me here,” I told Mom. “And I don’t want to be here. Sober or not, we don’t get along. We’ll go stay with Comet.”

“Mom...” Ruby whimpered at me. Her ears were folded back and those beautiful yellow-green eyes were about to break. “I can’t leave Mom; our Mom. She’s my best friend. She needs me.”

“But I need you!” I pleaded.

She looked down at her little hooves and shook her head. “Please don’t make me choose,” she begged. “This isn’t fair! I can’t choose between you two.”

I wouldn’t let anyone hurt Ruby. Yet I was doing just that. Just by being here. By making her choose between her family. Even if I didn’t like part of that family.

So that was it then. There was only one way to stop the fighting.

I ambled over to my little pink filly and sat down in front of her. I hugged her and she reciprocated. I petted her mane with my foreleg.

“I’ll be fine,” I promised her. “You stay here and take care of Mom. I’ll go stay with Comet Tail until we fix this.”

“Brian, don’t go!” she pleaded. “You’re being stupid! You can stay! Just stop drinking!” She hugged me way harder than I thought a filly her size could.

“It’s not the alcohol. Mom and I are going to keep fighting no matter what,” I told her. I thought about all the fights Mom and I had while I was growing up. “This pony thing is making it worse. I feel like… I’m your mom. And you feel the same weird connection.”

She answered by constricting around me harder.

“We shouldn’t be under the same roof,” I heard myself say. “And I know you need to be here for… her. Comet Tail will keep an eye on me. When we figure out the cure you’ll be the first person we fix.”

Ruby cried and wouldn’t let go, “Please stay. Please. I don’t want to lose you.”

“We’ll stay in touch. Everything will be fine.”

I looked up at our Mom towering over us. We made eye contact. In that exchange we made an agreement. “Take care of her. Protect her,” I told her. For once, Mom bit her lip and nodded.

“I will.”

Mom and Ruby helped me pack my backpack and secure it to my torso. It was nearly 11pm in Lawson, Missouri. There was hardly anyone out at this hour. Which is a good thing because I wasn’t spending another night in this house.

I was wearing a shirt, hoodie, boxers and sweatpants. My backpack was secured carefully to my left flank. Mom and Ruby saw me out the back door. It would be a relatively short walk through the dark town to Comet’s place. I made the walk countless times in high school.

When I left with my tail between my legs I forced myself to not look back.

I wouldn’t let them see me cry.

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