You know those moments where you’re certain something is a good idea? C’mon, you know the ones. After some major victory or another, you want to celebrate. Maybe it’s your best friend’s bachelor party and you’re in Las Pegasus, or you’ve just lead a royal legion to victory against a changeling horde outside the Badlands. That doesn’t matter right now though. The only thing you particularly care about is celebrating.

Yeah, this is the exact attitude I had going into last night. Right off the bat, my decision making abilities can be considered faulty. Downing an entire bottle of hard cider that hasn’t been stored in optimal conditions? That definitely isn’t a great idea right off the bat. Going drinking with a bottle of questionable cider in your belly is even worse. Why not get black-out drunk to make the bad decision trifecta?

Is it any wonder that I find myself duct-taped by my hooves to the ceiling in the Sagittarius Hall’s common room? There is literally no recollection of the previous night in my mind beyond hitting a liquor establishment with the GGs, Blossom, and Beat, and returning to the common room to practice. Whether or not we actually practiced any music last night, I have no idea. All I can tell is that everybody else is passed out on various furniture, in addition to an adolescent dragon who somehow ended up beneath a flipped couch.

“Um... Guys?” I call out in a tone that could very well be considered whining. Given the vicious headache and my intense desire to vomit, I suppose that much could be permissible. That of course isn’t even mentioning how sore my throat is. How much did I sing last night? “Could one of you maybe, I dunno, wake up and get me down from here?”

I haven’t the slightest clue whether or not any of them can even hear me. It would be unsurprising if the rest of them are too smashed to wake up any time soon. With nothing else to do, I look around, and the more I look, the more I see unfamiliar ponies in the mix. There are a couple of ponies who look like they could be med students, and a few more that are definitely musicians sprawled out with their instruments. Just what kind of epic party did we throw last night?

A problem occurs to me as my joints begin to ache. My positioning on the ceiling is not a standing one, but rather a splayed out one, not unlike da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. That being said, I am belly down with my hooves taped to the domed ceiling around me. This position does not do a lot in terms of modesty, either, practically putting my teats and vag on display for anyone that looks up.

Ugh, I’ve gotta stop looking down; being at this height with this headache is really not helping my nausea. “Guys? Hello?” I cry out again. “Please let me down from here! I’m... I think I’m going to be sick.” No response. “Guys, please!”

Why does my voice have to be so bloody quiet? Did I scream drunken obscenities all night? I really need to get down from here, not just to puke, but I also really need to pee! “Guys! Get me down from h—urp!”

My worst fears are realized as my stomach’s contents force their way back up my throat. What feels like liters of bile and undigested cottage cheese pulses and burns all the way back up my esophagus. All of it surges in a continuous stream—a near endless fount of vomit, erupting from my mouth and nose.

Hanging there, all I can do is choke and sputter as I cover the hardwood floor beneath me—just left of a coffee table—in puke, praying that it ends before I suffocate. The longer it goes on, the more I feel a familiar sensation creeping up on me. My face begins tingling with paresthesia and the insides of my eyelids are dancing with streaks of phantom light as blood rushes into my head.

When I finally blackout from oxygen deprivation, it feels like only a few seconds have passed. Immediately upon opening my eyes, however, I can tell a lot more than just a second or two has passed. All of the ponies, griffons, and other species below have all vanished from sight. There’s absolutely nopony left in the common room. Everypony just woke up, left the mess and forgot about me!

How long have I been up here? If this were an aboveground complex, I could probably reference the light from a window with what I know, but in here, there’s no way for me to tell. Oh sure, the common room has a nice ebony grandfather clock, but those things are never positioned with the pegasus taped to the domed ceiling in mind. As it stands, the only thing that I can really tell is that it is half-past something. For all I know, I could have been here most of the fucking afternoon.

Maybe if I can just pull one of my hooves free, I can get down from here? My sore joints crying out in protest, I begin tugging each hoof individually against the securing tape. It isn’t at all easy, but spurned on by the desperate need to evacuate my bladder, I can almost swear that one of my hooves is coming free. Just a bit more and—

“Honestly, I can’t believe that my student wards would behave in such a manner,” a very familiar voice complains in an angry tone, accompanied by the sound of a slamming door. Sure enough, a light-gray unicorn with a bichrome white and purple mane stomps into the common room just beneath the dome, setting down a clipboard, a paper cup full of coffee, and a number of cleaning supplies. “I mean really, do they honestly expect to get away with behaving like hoodlums and trashing the common room?”

Oh, that’s definitely Twilight Velvet! Maybe she can help? I’m just about to open my mouth to beg for her help when she continues her ranting. “I mean seriously! Somepony even drew crude moustaches on all of the paintings on the walls! On a day when the janitorial staff is on vacation no less!” she mutters angrily. “If I catch any of the ponies involved in this crass, drunken revelry, I have half a mind to impose some demerits and maybe even make them clean all of this themselves.”

Suddenly, watching her takes a sip of her coffee, I no longer feel the urgency to get down. Surely I can hold my bladder back until it’s safe to come down, right? All I’ve got to do is not move, not make a sound, and pray to whatever deity will listen that she doesn’t look up.

I can just imagine the condemnatory letter I might get from Princess Luna if she finds out about last night and additional demerits. She could revoke my scholarship, and she’d have every right to do so! I haven’t just disgraced myself; I’ve disgraced her! She’s worked so hard on her public image since returning to her previously abdicated position on the throne alongside her sister, and I—as her first sponsored student—will have tarnished her reputation. Ponies will look at my example and think, ‘What pony in her right mind would sponsor this boor’s education? Oh, right! Princess Luna!’ or ‘Why couldn’t Her Highness have chosen somepony more like Princess Twilight Sparkle as her first charge?’

Tears of shame begin clouding my eyes and spilling down my cheeks as I begin to tremble. This is why I don’t drink; bad things always happen! I get—Lyra—pregnant, or duct-taped to a ceiling, or embarrass important ponies! Why did I ever think getting smashed to celebrate getting a cutie mark would be a good idea?

Whether it’s simply bad karma, or Discord getting a laugh at my expense, the idea of staying up here flies right out the window. As each second passes, the tape on one hoof begins losing its grip, while the others start to pull out strands of fur in my fetlocks. Basically, crying now is definitely appropriate had I not already been doing so. First my forelegs come free, and then...

A bad morning gets worse, and then the other shoe drops, though I guess in this case it isn’t so much a shoe as it is a fully grown mare. It’s not like there’s enough room for me to reach terminal velocity, but it doesn’t make my impact with the coffee table any less destructive. As I flip tumble through the air, my back strikes the table almost dead on with enough force to break the surprisingly flimsy piece of furniture in half. Following the impact, I bounce to the floor, landing on the back of my neck with my rump angled directly over my head.

Bad things don’t just come in... whatever count we’re at now, though. The dorm mother’s piping hot cup of coffee, of course formerly seated on the table, makes its final descent after being unceremoniously catapulted through the air, coming to rest on my quite visible arse. If I thought nothing compared to sitting on one’s testicles, I now know that I am wrong. Having scalding hot coffee splashed over your vagina is one of the most painful things a mare can ever experience.

The sudden shock and agony of having my groin and teats splashed with that burning liquid is far too much for my poor, strained bladder, causing it to release its contents... all over my face and body—in front of another pony no less! The shame of it all... lying here in a pool of puke, covered in my own piss.

I would pretend that I’m thankful that Luna cannot see me right now, but I’m too busy sobbing loudly at my own disgrace and agony. Even with my eyes clenched shut and tears rushing down my forehead, I can tell that Twilight Velvet is looking at me with varying degrees of admonition, pity, disgust, anger, and maybe a smidgen of sympathy.

Silence reigns supreme as I lay sobbing in my own mess, but finally, after what seems like an eternity, Velvet sighs. “Well, that was unexpected,” she mutters in an unbelieving tone. “I’d tell you how much trouble you’re in, missy, but... Silver Script?” In spite of the urine on my face, I crack open one eye to watch her face. She’s shaking her head in disbelief. “Is that you?”

“Guilty.” Nothing like confessing both to being yourself and playing a part in this whole mess. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you don’t need to tell me how much trouble I am in.”

“But... how?” she asks, obviously referring to my change in size, and my new cutie mark. “I saw you just yesterday morning and you were like you always are.”

I eye a roll of paper towels floating in her magical grasp as I place my hind hooves on the floor and twist my body until I’m in an upright. “Tested a potion in preparation for my period of independent research and study; ended up curing my dwarfism, and earned my cutie mark,” I explain hastily in attempts to minimize the amount of time my mouth remains open. Need I forget that my mane is now covered in pee and congealed vomit? “May I please have some of that paper towel?”

She keeps the stern gaze going, but is kind enough to grant me the paper towel. “Why all of this?” she berates as I wipe off as much filth as I can. “Surely you could have just had a small get-together with your friends.”

I pause post-wipe at that comment. “I honestly don’t know how any of this happened,” I admit, depositing the soiled towels in a nearby waste bag. “I could have sworn I only planned on getting a little drunk with Ice Blossom and Chill Beat before making a little music. Beyond the shots of tequila at the bar, I remember nothing.” I catch her surprise at my admission that I was blackout drunk, and shake my head. “Yeah, I have no idea how I ended up on the ceiling.”

“I see,” she mutters, “and upon waking up, everypony simply forgot about you?”

Trying to wring as much of that ick out of my mane—oh yeah, I’m definitely going straight to the dorm for two showers after this—I sigh. “Seems that way,” I admit, wiping my hooves. Did Ice Blossom really forget about me, or did she pass out before whatever led to the ceiling thing? “I take full responsibility for the mess, ma’am. I can’t do anything about the markings on the paintings, but you have my word that I won’t head back to the dorm room until this is done.”

Looking at the mess that is the dorm room, she nods. “You’re going to need a lot more towels and cleaning solution,” she gives me an appreciative half-smile. “Since you’re being so cooperative, I’ll leave you a key to the janitors closet, so take what you need. If anypony comes looking for you while I’m writing up my report, I’ll make sure to send them your way. Make use of them if you can.”

Surprisingly, my first ‘visitor’ is Gale. If I am honest with myself, I don’t care how she found me. With the way my fur sticks to me—matted with grime and things I’d rather not think about—in ways that make every movement horribly uncomfortable even without the bruises and hangover, it’s understandable that if I’m a little cranky. By this point, the time spent scrubbing vomit out of some of the furniture is easily exceeding an hour and a half, so when that bloody griffon saunters in, I nearly explode.

“Any idea why the fuck I was taped to the fucking ceiling when I woke up?” I grumble, kicking an empty spray bottle of the Equestrian equivalent of Lysol or Windex or whatever at her. “Seriously! Everypony fucking ditched me up there!”

Whether it’s the tone of my voice, or the angry look I shoot her as she draws near, Gale visibly flinches—not an easy thing to accomplish with a griffon. “Wow, you’re grumpier than a hung-over minotaur,” she comments. “Wait, ceiling? I thought somebody let you down from there!”

“Aha! You do know how I got up there!” I shout, accusingly pointing a grimy hoof at her.

“Whew, you certainly smell like you’ve had a bad morning.” She looks appraisingly at me as I sigh, moving across the room to right an overturned sofa. “You really don’t remember a thing about last night, do you?” she asks, joining me on the opposite side of the sofa helping to reorient it. “I knew you were wasted, but not that bad.” A wry smile crosses her beak. “Maybe I should leave some details for you to find out from the others—”

“Unless you want me to test a feather removal potion on you...”

Finally, she grins. “Relax, I was getting there.” She snaps up a trash bag and gathers up all of the discarded paper towels. “I gotta tell you, we kinda put you up there for your own good.”

“Being stuck up on the ceiling doesn’t seem very beneficial to my well-being,” I point out, placing cleaned cushions onto a sofa one after another. “That’s like... cutting off one’s nose to spite their face.”

“What you just said doesn’t make a lick of sense,” she counters. “That being said, being stuck on the ceiling is infinitely better than letting you wrestle Gaius.” Oh, okay. That makes a bit more sense. “Anypony drunk enough to try to wrestle the griffon that literally wrestled bears and won in the colosseum isn’t in their right mind. Need I remind you that the bears he wrestled didn’t get back up?”

“Okay, so you have an excuse for putting me up there,” I admit. “After all you fuckers ditched me up there, you better believe I’m getting back at all of you. You won’t know when, and you won’t know how. Just know that—ah fuck it. You’re not done here until I’m done.”

So it goes, we each tend to different parts of the room in silence, neither of us particularly eager to speak up. Still, part of me is still being nagged by a single thought. How did she find me? If nobody knew that I was still up there, there’s no way she could have found me by chance. Wait...

“So aren’t you going to ask?” she finally speaks up, an upward curl at the corners of her beak. “How did I find you?”

I roll my eyes, already having a good idea of the how, even if the how doesn’t quite make sense. “How did you find me, Gale?” I ask in a good-humored tone.

Sitting and posing somewhat dramatically, she reaches into the plumage on around her neck, and withdraws a bronze trinket—the compass of Rum Starling—and holds it up to the light. “I figured now would be as good a time as any to get this thing back to you. As to the how, it appears that when you’re in a panic, it can lead you to the things you need, even if you have no idea where it is.”

She makes to throw it, but I shake my head. “With everything I’m covered in, I don’t want to touch that right now.”

“Fair enough.”

My next visitor is Locus. I did ask the guy to get the results to me as soon as possible, but I honestly wish I had the opportunity to get cleaned up before meeting him. At least, as he strides into the room with a thick sheaf of parchment, he has the common decency to not comment on my scent or appearance. No, instead the guy looks fucking elated to see me.

“Silver! You were right!” he exclaims, dropping the heavy stack onto a table I only just finished polishing. “By Celestia you were right!”

Yeah, by this point, my hangover headache is only getting worse due to dehydration—there’s not much in terms of drinks in here right now, and I’m too focused on getting the room cleaned—and I’m way too tired to be thinking anything other than ‘cleaner goes on table, scrub’. “Right about what?”

“The samples!” he squeals like some sort of giddy school-filly. “I’ve never seen anything like this!

“Right off the bat, your first tissue sample was unlike anything I’ve ever seen!” he explains, pulling a sheet from the top of the stack. I honestly have no idea what he’s showing me; it could be a comparative analysis of two different DNA strands, or a drunk pygmy riding a spiral. “Your DNA bore several unusual gene sequences, the likes of which I’ve never seen in a living specimen. Some of it looked almost... simian in nature, but still so very much pony.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Gale smirking, and I can’t help but smile as well. There’s something kinda satisfying in knowing something a guy like this doesn’t know. Still, I let him continue. “Sure, ponies have experimented with gene splicing and the usage of recombinant DNA to produce chimeric new ponies—much to the objection of the general public—but all of the subjects in that short-lived study were stillborn.

“Yet there you were, a completely functional example, with a mixture of active pony and foreign DNA,” he exclaims. “Given all that, your dwarfism and lack of a cutie mark was nothing less than a symptom of a bigger problem. By all rights, none of your organs should have functioned properly, never mind your ability to interact with clouds! Certainly, you’d be sterile! The very fact that you were alive—”

Taking only a moment to give Gale a questioning look—one she meets with a nod—I smile at him. “Here’s a pretty well-kept secret: I wasn’t always a pony, or a mare. In fact, I wasn’t even originally from this world,” I answer, unable to restrain a chuckle as the guy is almost literally floored by the statement. “A lot of crazy shit happened almost a year ago, and I was torn from my world by a crazy unicorn and a body swap spell gone wrong. Left me on my world in a unicorn’s body, and my body here in Equestria.

“The world I came from... it didn’t have magic, at all. So my original body started undergoing a transformation into one more suited to this world of magic and ponies.” I look at the sheaf of papers. “I guess there were a few hangers-on in spite of the transformation, and my survival was just a result of good old-fashioned, motherfucking magic. So what’s changed?”

The stallion looks carefully at the pile of parchment, and removes more than half of the contents. “Like you theorized, the potion did indeed alter your DNA,” he confirms. “That in itself is something I’ve never before seen done with alchemy. All of your... garbage DNA, for lack of better phrasing, was removed and the gaps seemingly filled in based on some unseen template. It made you a complete pony, one that was capable of growing to full maturity and bearing a cutie mark—congratulations, by the way.”

“It was one heck of a party.” Gale interjects, and in spite of myself, I laugh.

“What about the other part of that sample?” I ask a bit more awkwardly. “Anything conclusive?”

“I can’t say for certain,” Locus says, adjusting his glasses, “but it would appear there is some sort of aphrodisiac compound in those samples. That being said, I get the impression one of my lab mice is probably trying her darndest to get into the cage next to hers right now.”

So that’s it—mystery solved! I was an impossible, sterile dwarf because of some remaining human DNA, and now I’m one-hundred percent pure pegasus mare. Though I was so worried about it before, when I was sterile, I can actually have children now.

There’s a dangerous thought. Since I didn’t hit estrus again during the summer, there’s a good chance I could be one of those odd mares who hits the second in the autumn. If I ever decided that following my studies I might want to take a sabbatical and raise a foal, I could probably convince Blossom—

“So if there’s nothing else, I’ll leave you two to your work,” Locus’s voice interrupts my bizarre line of thought. “Good luck with your studies.”

I just stare dumbly at the table for a few moments as he trots out through the door. Did I really just miss half of what he was saying to me because I started thinking about sex and having foals? What the fuck is wrong with me? It can’t be the hangover, that’s for sure.

“You do know that he was at the party, right?” Gale groans after a minute of silence. “He came in looking for you during the party, but you were so caught up singing about fighting the establishment and losing that you didn’t even notice.”

“You mean technically, I could have roped him into helping?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.”

Unfortunately for Gale and I, everybody else involved in last night’s drunken revelry never shows up. For the next few hours, we are left cleaning furniture, collecting up trash, bagging cider and mead bottles, and sweeping the floors. After returning the key to the janitorial supply closet to Twilight Velvet and taking the trash out to Sagittarius Hall’s waste drop-off point, the pair of us reek—one more than the other.

Gale’s almost ready to argue over which of us gets first crack at the shower, until she catches sight of some of the puke crusted into the primaries on my left wing, and remembers that I’m not usually a gray and amber pinto. Yeah, I think any good friend would yield the shower at that point, especially given all the dirty looks and crinkled noses in the hallway. I deserve this much.

... or so I think. I’ve barely begun to wash my coat when there’s a knocking on the bathroom door, followed by a squawk from Gale. “Oi, you’ve got guests.”

“Can they wait?”

“Hey, Silver!” I hear Beat call through the door. “We heard you got caught and ended up cleaning the whole common room.”

“We are terribly sorry we were unable to help!” Blossom’s voice this time. There’s much sincerity and sympathy in her tone. “I am so terribly sorry we left you up there by yourself.”

“Yeah, I’m kind of cleansing myself of my shame right now,” I answer, irately scrubbing my wings as vigorously as sensitive feathers will allow. Every bone in my legs ache, making the ordeal all the more painful. “Shit my joints are going to hurt tomorrow.”

“Actually, I was hoping to invite you along to the bathhouse with us,” Blossom counters. “I realize that you are already cleaning, but in Neighpon bathing is much more about relaxation. A pony cleanses before relaxing in the ofuro, to let the waters wash away a day’s troubles.”

“Yeah,” Beat chimes in. “I even introduced my little sis here to a communal bathhouse almost like a traditional Neighponese sentō here in Canterlot. It’s a really nice experience, being close like that. You’d probably like it.”

“You mean, I can just wash, and crawl into a bath and laze around with my tits out for a while?” I ask, not really expecting them to understand my meaning enough to formulate an answer. I mean, ponies don’t have as much of a teat taboo by my understanding. “Can you give me five minutes to get the piss out of my mane?”

“I tell you, there’s nothing like a trip to a place like this to help with a hangover,” croons Beat as she reclines over the edge of the large bath to watch Ice Blossom help scrub my back. I gotta admit, it is pretty nice, especially with Blossom going at my back with a loofa. So what if this is pretty much your stereotypical anime setting? This is fucking awesome. “So did you and Gale really clean up that entire mess? The puke in the middle of the floor included?”

Stifling a moan as Blossom brushes against the base of my left wing, I shoot the unicorn a lopsided grin—not that she can see it with her blue and white mane hanging down in front of her eyes like a jagged sheet. “Oh that? That was mine. I made it when I woke up taped to the ceiling. Most of it was mopped up into my coat when I landed in it after bouncing off the table. Just before getting my lady bits scalded with hot coffee.”

I can literally feel Blossom wince in sympathy as I say this. “It sounds like you’ve had a very... productive morning.”

“Won’t lie, this still beats waking up after having a drunken threesome with Lyra and Bon-Bon when I was the one in Lyra’s body and Bon-Bon was a stallion.” I let out a good-natured chuckle to let them know I’m not angry. “I’m much more mentally stable now than I was then. Oh sure, I’m highly uncomfortable with magic, and I may be a bit warped—not that I wasn’t already—but aside from that stuff with Aqua Regia, my life is almost normal. Waking up taped to the domed ceiling of the common room feels like proper excitement. It was exciting enough to have stories to tell and lessons to learn, but not life-threatening like jumping down a lamia’s throat and blowing it up from the inside.”

“You said you were eaten alive the first time,” Beat jibes. “Your story keeps evolving, like you’re some sort of braggart.”

Surprisingly, it’s Blossom who laughs at this. “Silly sister,” Blossom chides, “Silver is my knight in... silver armor.” Much better choice of wording, given the fact that I’ve actually met the Prince Shining Armor. Saying I’m anything in shining armor could have some seriously kinky connotations. “I’m certain if she were fighting for me, as she was for that foal, she would tear the world apart.”

I think she seriously overestimates my power. I could probably lay waste to like... half a city before being cut down by the guard. “Yup!” I agree in a joking tone. “The mare that can’t even remember last night will take on the princesses for the pony she loves.” Wow, when I put it like that, I sound like a really shitty super hero. “What happened last night, anyway?”

Contented that I’m clean enough to enter the water, she gives me one last rinse with a removable shower head and helps me up. Oh, right. I suppose it’s good to mention that my joints are really sore now. “You chose to serenade us with drunken renditions of what you claim were the songs of your people.”

“Oh? Any songs I know?” I ask sarcastically. “That is to say, I probably know what I was trying to sing, but they probably weren’t anything close to the songs I know.”

“Well, there was the one about fighting the law,” Beat comments, flipping her mane out of her eyes. “That was a pretty popular one. Once everypony figured out the chorus, they were pretty into it. Then there was a song where you suddenly started singing about a chameleon lying in the sun in the middle of the lyrics. It might have been a bit more enjoyable if you hadn’t confused them all.”

“I liked the one about the mare taking names, despite how dark the lyrics seemed,” Blossom quickly adds, helping me over the lip of the bath. “My favorite one was that one about Supermare. You really sounded into that one.”

“Aside from all that,” Beat concludes as I flop limply into the hot water beside her. I can’t help but cringe as the hot water returns some of the heat to my burned genitals. “Not all that much happened. You sang, you got drunker, and you tried to wrestle Gaius. So I helped tape you to the ceiling. Sorry again we forgot.”

I’m just about to scold her for being reckless when I could swear I hear boys talking. I flick my ears toward the divider wall separating the mare’s side of the baths from the stallion’s. Sure enough, my suspicions are confirmed. “Dudes, you all saw that too, right?” some young colt says in what he probably thinks is a whisper. “She totally flashed us her pussy, like she knew we were here! Total bucking tease!”

“I dunno, man, it didn’t seem right,” another colt says. “She looked like she didn’t have much of a choice. My mom moves like that when her joints are sore after a day at the warehouse. I think she was in pain.”

“Doesn’t matter, saw pussy,” a third chimes in. “I’d totally bang the earth pony though. Some ethereal beauty to those flanks if you ask me.”

Oh bloody hell. Are there really colts, probably early teens, on the other side of the wall watching us bathe? Is that really a fucking thing here in Equestria? How stereotypical can this trip to the bathhouse be? Fantasize about my marefriend, will you? “Huh, I thought I heard something; must’ve been my hangover playing tricks on me,” I comment idly, scanning the wall opposite the bath. There, between two faucets on the wall, there’s a small hole in the wall, just large enough to fit a bar of soap—or peeping toms to take turns watching mares bathe. I don’t let my eyes linger in order to tip the boys off.

Leaning close to Beat’s ear, I whisper, “Got some peepers on the other side. Hole in the wall between the third and fourth faucets from the left.” I grin, inclining my head in one direction. “See that can of hairspray by the door?”

She smiles, lighting up her horn and completing my trip with the pained cry of a young pervert as she sprays the peep-hole with hairspray.

Author's Notes:

Sorry about the delay. Stuff happening and distractions such as Terraria. Back in the saddle though, and things are on the road again. Thanks go to E3gner and NightmareKnight for editing as always. Additional edits/pointing out issues requires thanks directed toward Fourpony and Shachza.