R&J 01

"It's not something you can see, really. I mean, I hide it well. A few long sweaters, a little tucking here and there... it's easy enough to keep people from seeing it. But it starts to hurt after a while, you know?" my best friend Rhonda told me, and I looked up from our homework assignment to look at her in mild confusion.

 

It was just past 4pm on a Friday and Rhonda had followed me home for school to stay the weekend. We're both students at the only public school in the county, and with my house just a block away and hers outside of the town's borders we often spent our free time at my place. She spends more time in my room than I do myself, really. My mom sometimes jokes that Rhonda should just bunk up with me since she's practically my sister. The sun's light was shining into the room from the rectangular window in the West wall, reflecting off of the mirror over the dresser, and illuminated Rhonda's face in a way that made her curious statement and worried look all the more daunting. There was a light in her eyes that wasn't supposed to be there and I wasn't sure if the sunlight was the only reason for it.

"What are you talking about, Rho-Rho?" I wondered, lifting my left hand up to shield my eyes from the sunlight trying to blind me. "I thought we were doing calculus?"

Rhonda looked down in sudden embarrassment and her hands dropped to her lap to fidget. "I... I dunno? I guess I just need to talk about it to someone? And you, er... You're my best friend, Jo. You know that, right?" She looked up with a hopeful expression at that and I dropped my pencil on the table and reached out to hold her hands in mine.

"You know I am. Rho and Jo forever. We made that promise when we were like ten." I smiled, and saw her lips move into a thankful smile as well before her face darkened again.

"You can't tell anyone, ok?" she asked, and I nodded.

"You know I keep your secrets safe, hun. Now will you spill it already so we can finish our homework assignments before dinner?" I nudged with a wink, but Rhonda looked down at our hands in her lap and seemed to need a moment to steel herself. "Rho? It's ok. Whatever it is, it's ok. You know that. You can tell me anything," I tried, moving my right hand up to lift her chin a bit and make her see my smile, hoping to help her relax.

Rhonda tried to look away as I did, but then her eyes locked with mine and her shoulders dropped in defeat. "I'm growing a tail."

 

I blinked as my thoughts ground to a halt. "A... tail?"

"I'm growing a tail, Jo. I don't know why or how... I just... it's..." Rhonda continued, breaking away from me and standing up. "Don't laugh, ok? Don't. Just... Look at it!" she exclaimed, pulling her long brown sweater up to reveal a bundled up collection of purple hairs just above her hip-hugging jeans. Where her tail bone would be.

I stared at it for a moment, then blinked and stared at it again. I don't think I moved in the time it took for my mind to come to the realization that something - a tail or a ball of hairs of some sort of twine or whatever it was - was stuck to my dearest friend's back. I found myself reaching out with my left hand to touch it, and it moved when I did! I could see the muscles underneath Rhonda's skin contract as it did as well! I backed away immediately as it did, putting my hands to my mouth and trying to come to terms with the impossibility of it. Humans didn't grow tails! It was evolutionary impossible! Or so our biology teachers had told us, right?

"Jo?" Rhonda wondered, looking back at me and quickly hiding her tail from sight again as she saw my shocked expression. "I... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have bothered you with this. I just... I don't know what to do!" she stammered, falling down on her knees beside me and looking up in great worry. I brought my hands up from my mouth to rub heavily at my temples, trying to get my thoughts organized. I was trying to figure out how that tail could have come into existence. Evolution? Magic? Religious retribution for the pranks we played in the past? Even if I was more of the instigator in those and Rhonda just followed along? "Jo? Are you mad at me?"

I quickly snapped out of it at that question and reached down to grab Rhonda's head with both hands and leaned in to press a kiss on top of her head. "Never. I'll never be mad at you. When have I ever been mad at you, Rho-Rho? I just... how... er... I don't..." I pulled back again and my confusion must have been clear enough to be felt from miles away.

"I don't know how! It just started as some small pains and then the hairs started growing. And they kept growing! Every day they just got longer and longer... I don't know what to do about them! And I feel it... I felt you touching it. I felt it twitch... I don't know what it means," Rhonda whimpered, tears forming in her eyes.

I slipped off of my chair and wrapped my dear friend in a tight embrace, feeling her shudder against me as she started to cry, gently rubbing her upper back while we sat like that. "It's ok, you're still you. Nothing changed. Let's find out together, ok? We can go to the library and look up what could have been the cause? Or just look it up online if dad ever stops playing his silly games."

Rhonda sniffled and poked my side. "Your dad."

 

I snickered at my own mistake. "Right, MY dad. Sorry. You're just the closest thing I had to a sister, Rho-Rho. And we'll deal with it as sisters if you want. We got all weekend, right?" I felt her head bob up and down as she tried to compose herself again, her hand moving up behind my back to rub at her face. "You're still the same girl I played hopscotch with back in elementary. I'm never going to abandon you. And I won't tell anyone about it. Cross my heart and hope to die," I moved back a little and crossed a finger over my heart with Rhonda smiling up weakly and mouthing the second part of the sentence with me, "stick a cupcake in my eye!" and we both covered an eye with an open hand while laughing at the craziness of it all.

It was a silly little thing we picked up from a show we watch every Saturday; My Little Pony. I never really got into the old series since they were far too childish for my tastes. But the new series that started back in 2010? Friendship is Magic? Rhonda and me watched that so often that we memorized almost every episode of it. The mane six - Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy - were kicking ass while looking cute and had decent stories written around them to boot!

"You know, come to think of it," I started, motioning for Rhonda to turn around and watching her faithfully follow my suggestions. She really was too much of a follower. "Lift your sweater again?" She did, and I stared at the way she'd used several hair bands to make a bundle of hair. "Would you mind if I untangle this, Rho?"

She looked back with a painful expression. "Please be careful if you do? I keep pulling the hairs out whenever I try to."

"That's because you're working behind your back, silly. I can actually see what I'm doing." I smiled, and she relaxed a little more. "Ok, let me find a comb first."

 

"Top drawer."

I gently slapped the back of Rhonda's head at that. "Why do you know my room so much better than I do?" I got up and picked the comb and a hairbrush from the top drawer of the dresser, then moved back to where Rhonda was still sitting on the floor and looked down at her. "You know, this may work better if you lay down on the bed," I realized, and helped her off of the ground. "Higher work area and all that. And you can just let me do my thing while you watch ponies or something."

"Dragonshy?"

"Didn't we see that yesterday?" I asked, but Rhonda immediately put up her puppy eyes at it. "You know that doesn't work on me, but sure," I sighed, dropping the comb and brush on the bed and walking over to the television to put the right disc in. "You just lay down while, er, it's not still in the tray is it? Oh, yes it is," I sighed and went through the menus to find the right episode, pressed play, and walked back with the remote still in my hands to drop down on the bed beside Rhonda. "You ok, Rho-Rho?" I asked, and she nodded slowly while focusing on the television more than on me.

I smirked and turned to face the bundle of knotted-up hairs and carefully started to undo them while the title song to the series played in the background. "They're not exactly purple, though," I mumbled, trying to find the right word for the color of the hairs as they got untangled from the multicolored hair bands. It didn't look like there was much hair to begin with, but as the knot started to get unraveled the hairs got longer and longer. When I finally got the last hairs freed up I had a bundle of hair in my hands that I could wrap both my hands around and still have it stick out. The hairs stuck to the hair bands were of similar length and were straightening themselves out on the bed beside Rhonda.

 

"It's more of a fuchsia?" I commented, looking at the strands as I grabbed the brush and gently combed through them.

"Isn't that purple?" Rhonda wondered, looking up from the end credits and blushing lightly. "That feels nice, Josey."

"It's pink, actually. How does it feel exactly? A bit like when I brush your hair?" I wondered, taking my time with her tail.

"I think they're technically my hairs as well, Jo," Rhonda remarked, and I smirked.

"We could just start referring to your hair as your mane. This looks like a pony's tail," I rebutted, and Rhonda went pale. "Just relax, Rho-Rho. There's a lot of knots in this. How long have you had them bundled up like that?"

"It started last week after I came home from watching the rerun of 'It's About Time'."

"So six days ago. But they couldn't have been this long back then?" I reasoned, putting the brush aside and taking the comb to a particularly nasty patch of hair that just wouldn't come loose with the brush.

Rhonda sighed and buried her face in the pillow she was lying on. I could barely make out her mumbling into the fabric. "Tuesday."

 

I looked at the hairs and tried to judge their growing speed. Six days. Two hands and a bit. About nine or ten inches, or around 25 centimeters to keep my math teacher happy, so a growth rate of about one-and-a-half inch per day. And my math teacher can do the metric conversion on that if he so badly wants it. "So you've just been adding hair band after hair band whenever it got too long to keep in place otherwise?"

Rhonda nodded and looked back at me with a painful expression. "I couldn't let anyone see it! You know why."

"Rho-Rho, those movies aren't real. They're not going to lock you up and experiment on you," I sighed, finally freeing up the hairs I was working on and combing through the entire length of her tail without encountering more issues. "That's about it then. Shall we put a little bow around it?" I winked and Rhonda's face turned beet-red.

"Don't you dare, Jo! Don't joke about it!" she exclaimed, turning her body to move her tail away from me and flicking it in the process. I raised an eyebrow at that, then poked Rho's side.

"I'm not judging you, silly. But I'm still getting to terms with this as well, ok? You're the one with the tail, but I vowed to protect you back when David and his "gang" tried to make you into their designated victim. Remember? I'm wondering how we can keep you from feeling uncomfortable while also hiding your tail. Or at least making it seem like a fashion accessory. Maybe I could start wearing a belt with a fake tail attached to it and we could act as if we're just starting a new trend?"

Rhonda bit her lower lip at that while she pulled herself into a little ball on the bed. "I never asked for this."

I reached out and gently stroked a hand through her hair. The ones on her head, that is. "I know. But we're in this together. I'll always be there for you." I smiled down at her and she gave a weak smile back, reaching up to grab my hand in hers.

"Thanks, Jo."

 

"Kids! Dinner!", my mom called from downstairs, and we both looked up at the door before looking at each other again.

"Ok, so, let's get you one of my baggy pants and we'll tuck the hairs in there for now?" I offered, and got up to get them when Rhonda's hand stopped me.

"Let me?" she asked, moving to get off of the bed herself.

I blinked back at her but dropped back to sit on the edge of the bed at her insisting gaze. "Er, sure?"

"You wouldn't know where to find them anyway," Rhonda joked, flicking her tail at me as she walked away. I'm not sure if she did so consciously or unconsciously, but it was too cute a move for me to come up with a reply. She walked over to my "walk-in closet", which was basically just a door with a foot of shelf space behind it, the shelves removed to allow me to hang up my jackets and dresses on one side and stack up boxes with shoes and out-of-season clothing on the other side. As she rummaged through the boxes, half bent over, her tail was flicking idly this way or that, happily using its newfound freedom to show itself off like a diva on stage. It was almost hypnotic to look at.

Rhonda finally found the right box and pulled some baggy slacks from it before turning to return to the bed. Seeing me stare at her with a blush on my cheek sent her own cheeks ablaze and she quickly raised the pants up to hide her face with. "What?"

I grinned and pointed behind her at her tail flicking restlessly. "That tail makes you look so incredibly cute, Rho," I couldn't help saying to tease her, "you have no idea."

Rhonda threw the pants at me with a frown. "No fair joking around it. You have no idea what it feels like. It just keeps twitching," she muttered, taking off her jeans and throwing them my way for good measure as well. I held out the baggy pants she threw at me and got up from the bed, moving behind her to help her tuck the hairs down in them so they would stay out of sight from my parents, then gave her a soft hug.

"I'm actually kind of jealous of you, Rho-Rho. That tail just looks like the ultimate fashion accessory. If we ever find out how this happened to you, I may need to get myself one as well." I winked, turning for the door. "Want to go ahead so I can watch your rear?"

Rhonda winced at that. "If you keep saying stuff like that your mom is going to think we're lesbians, you know?"

I shrugged at that and looked away at a random corner of my room. "Better that than having her try to marry me to yet another dumb jock who happens to be her colleague's son. Erf. Frederick was so..."

"So not you?" Rhonda giggled softly, passing by me onto the landing.

"Exactly!" I sighed, following behind and closing the door behind us.

 

I didn't notice it back then. I attributed the shimmer in the center of my room to the sun's rays as it dropped down after another successful day of warming up the region. It looked similar to the shimmer you see over the streets on a warm day. The distortion shown over any hot surface. The strangest thing about it, the thing my brain immediately threw out as being just my imagination, was that it was shaped like a pony.

 

Dinner helped Rhonda relax a little even if she kept blushing at the jokes my parents kept making about having to hire a moving truck whenever she decided to move in with us and the expenses that would bring with it. How they would have to get a second job just to pay for Rhonda's tuition and not to mention the amounts of extra groceries they had to buy. Mom at least shut dad down when he started about "female hygiene products", saying she could tell him a thing or two about them that would make him lose his appetite and wondering if her cooking was really that bad that he would chance that. Dad immediately jumped in with all sorts of reasons why mom's cooking was the best, and mom milked it for all it was worth.

When we were finally done with dinner, we excused ourselves to return to our homework assignments and I caught mom and dad share a glance between one another. Maybe Rhonda was right and they were starting to think I was lesbian? Even before I was really sure of my own sexuality. What is it with parents?

I followed Rhonda up the stairs, making sure her tail would be hidden even if there was some reason why the hairs would poke out of her pants, and we went back into the, now darkened, room. I turned on the lights while Rhonda freed her tail from its confinement, and I reached for the brush to help her.

"Hey, didn't we leave the brush here on the bed?" I wondered, not being able to find it, the comb, or any of the hair bands where I had last seen them.

Rhonda absentmindedly responded as she was far too occupied reaching back to feel at her tail as if she was still coming to terms with the whole idea of having it. "You must've put it back in the dresser before we went down?"

I was sure I hadn't done so, but when I opened the dresser I found the comb, brush, and even the hair bands all neatly organized within. "Hm. I suppose I did," I mumbled, picking up the brush and staring at it a bit. It was clean. Not a single hair on it. Not mine, not Rhonda's, not Rhonda's tail's. No hair. The comb and hair bands were similarly void of hairs and this made me frown. No matter how hard I tried to keep things like those clean, I was always left with a hair or two on it. It made no sense. I closed the drawer with a suspicious look on my face, caught myself in the mirror, and shook the feeling off. It was just another mystery on top of my best friend suddenly growing a tail, and Rhonda's problem came first on my list.

 

I gently combed out her tail and we went to sit at the desk again to finish our homework, with Rhonda leaning into me a little more than usual. I didn't mind. I was trying to focus on the problems we needed to solve so I wouldn't think about how the brush could've cleaned itself and put itself away. Something didn't add up, and that was the whole problem with calculus. I found Rhonda correcting me several times as I made some mistakes that I should have normally caught, but we got through the assignment before bedtime at least.

Rhonda put on one of my longer nightgowns so her tail wouldn't be inconvenienced, and I slipped into my regular PJs. While it would help her overnight, her tail did keep flicking as we were brushing our teeth, sending the gown moving this way or that as if there was an odd breeze localized around her. It made me giggle and spill all of my toothpaste over the bathroom sink until Rhonda realized what was going on and moved to stand behind me so I wouldn't get distracted by it. She was done brushing her teeth before I was, of course. I mean, I had to clean the toothpaste from the sink and mirror and walls. It was a mess.

When I entered my room again Rhonda had already fallen asleep, laying as close to the wall as she could, with ample space for me to crawl in bed beside her. She had taken to hug a large teddy bear I won at a carnival once and which she'd adopted as Mister Safety after it helped her calm down after a particularly bad panic attack.

I didn't know everything there was to know about Rhonda, but she was a collection of fears and shyness wrapped in a bundle of cuteness and I had felt I needed to protect her ever since I met her in elementary. I turned off the light, crawled in bed beside her and closed my eyes to go sleep.

 

Two hours, and a dozen restless turns later, I found myself laying on my left side staring at the alarm clock on the dresser. Just a few minutes past midnight. We'd gone to bed around ten. What was it that kept me up? It wasn't the tail. It was just another facet of Rhonda to me. I had accepted it as such and moved on. Of course there were the questions of why and how and what next, but those could wait. We would take care of those questions together.

Was it the brush? How did it move to my dresser? There was no-one in the house except for me, my parents, and Rhonda. And all four of us had been at the dinner table. My window wasn't easily accessible from the outside, mom's thorny rose bushes underneath it made sure of that. The dining room was right next to the hallway and we would have seen anyone going up or down the stairs. How did it move? On its own? Objects like that couldn't move on their own.

I sighed and blinked at the clock. 0:14 just ticked away to 0:15. I reached up to rub at my forehead a bit. It made no sense. I stopped as I was rubbing at my forehead, feeling something odd. There was a bump there that shouldn't have been there. It hurt a little as I pressed against it. Had I bumped my head and not realized it?

I pushed it again and winced from the pain. Whatever it was, it didn't feel right. I pushed up out of bed and walked over to the dresser, trying in the light of the moon to figure out what was on my forehead but couldn't see it. I had no choice. I had to turn on the light and hope Rhonda would sleep through it.

As I turned for the light switch near the door, I caught a glimpse in the mirror of a shadow moving behind me in the darkness and quickly whirled around to look at it. As I did, a dizzy spell overtook me and I slumped through the ground like a puppet suddenly getting its wires cut.

 

It was there that I woke up, with Rhonda gently nudging me as she sat beside me with a worried look on her face. "Jo? Wake up please, Jo? Are you ok? What happened?"

I stirred and felt my muscles cramp up. I had been laying in the wrong position, on a cold floor, and every joint in my body protested as they had to move again. "Ngrrf," I mumbled, reaching up to rub at my forehead in an attempt to wake up and snapping to full consciousness as I felt the bump in the middle of it. "OUCH!" I exclaimed loudly, the pain from touching it even worse than it had been during the night.

"Did you hit your head, Josey?" Rhonda asked, helping me get up and sit on the side of the bed. "Did you really sleep on the floor all night?"

I stared blankly at her, using both my hands to feel at the area surrounding the bump. "I don't. I think I went to bed?" I started, wincing lightly as I found the edges of the painful area surrounding the bump as I gently prodded at it with my fingertips. "I got up after midnight to, er..." The memories were there, but they were getting more and more foggy as I tried to recall them. "Went to the dresser? I..." The shadow! I quickly looked around the room but got a dizzy spell immediately following the rash movement of my head and sank sideways against Rhonda's form while trying to stop the room from spinning. "Not feeling too good."

"Want me to get some water?" I heard Rhonda ask, but her voice sounded like it came from far away. "Jo? Josey?" she called out as I lost consciousness again.

 

I woke up with a wet cloth getting dabbed to my forehead, laying on my back in the bed with the blankets covering me. I blinked up at Rhonda's worried face staring down at me again and a feeling of Deja-Vu came over me. "Why is it always you who comes to my aid?" I asked her, and Rhonda smirked while taking the cloth from my head and dabbing it in a bowl of water.

"Because it's always you who comes to mine, Josey." Rhonda smiled weakly, putting the cloth back to my forehead. The cold thing felt like a saving grace to the headache I was feeling, dampening it a little and allowing my thoughts to surface more easily.

"What happened?" I asked, trying to remember what happened through the fog in my head.

"I woke to find you on the floor. You must have hit your head because there's a big bump on it. When I asked you about it earlier, you suddenly fainted again. I don't know anything beside that," she offered, and I freed a hand from under the blankets to reach out for her free hand.

"Thank you for taking care of me." I smiled, closed my eyes with a sigh and fell asleep properly.

 

It was dark when I woke up again, and Rhonda had snuggled up to my side in the bed again. The smell of soup lingered in the air and I felt the taste in my mouth. I licked around my mouth a little to get the taste out and my saliva production going, trying to focus on the shadows in the room but failing miserably. There was a slight movement in the room and I tried to look at it, but something kept me from moving my head.

An unfamiliar voice whispered something in my ear, but it wasn't in a language I knew. It just sounded like "boshashdemburibiboshbu," or something... I don't know, I was not in the right state of mind to memorize it. Somewhere inside I felt that it was going to be ok, but I don't know why I felt like that. It did help me close my eyes again to sleep, all fears surrounding the shadow or the voice disappearing from my mind.

 

I woke up refreshed in the morning, with Rhonda still clinging to my side, and turned my head to face her. Something moved with my head and I frowned a little at it. When I tried to turn my head to get a better look at it, the darn thing moved as well! I could just catch a glimpse of a shadow of a thing that looked like I was wearing a baseball cap or something, but not as wide. But I couldn't tell what it was. My movements roused Rhonda, and I turned my attention back to the sleepy girl blinking her eyes open to the morning light. "Hey, good morning, Rho-Rho. Did you sleep well?" I asked, my voice sounding a bit awkward due to lack of moist in my throat.

Rhonda stretched herself with a long yawn, which had me yawning with her, but then nodded and looked up at me to answer. Instead, I saw her eyes go wide and face get pale.

"What? What's wrong? Do I have something on my face?" I asked, and she nodded quickly. "I do? Well, get it off then!" I meeped, and Rhonda quickly shook her head. "Rho? What's going on?" Rhonda pointed silently at the mirror above the dresser, and I sighed and pulled the blankets off of myself to stand up. "Fine, fine, I'll go look." I sat up on the edge of the bed, with Rhonda still in a state of shock, and pushed up to walk over to the dresser. I still felt a little dizzy, and had to put my hands on top of the dresser before I felt stable enough to look up at the mirror. "I don't see any..." I started, not seeing anything out of the ordinary on my face, but stopped mid-sentence as I spotted the protrusion extending about two inches from my forehead.

It looked like, well, as if there was a bone growing underneath my skin. My skin looked stretched out over it. Just my normal skin. Nothing abnormal about my skin, except for how it was sticking out. It looked a bit cone-shaped. A round, cone shaped, protrusion...

 

"You're growing a horn." I heard Rhonda gasp from the bed, and swallowed at the reality of things. I was. There was a horn growing out of my forehead! I had to stabilize myself against the dresser as I felt my knees grow weak staring at the thing.

"How is... What... I don't even," I started, dropping to my knees and still staring at my reflection in the mirror. Here I was, a human girl, with a horn...

Rhonda quickly rushed to my side as I fell down, supporting me both physically and emotionally as I felt my tears break when her arms wrapped around me.

"I don't," I started, then turned towards Rhonda's form and cried without reservation. Rhonda let me. Even if I was parched from having just woken up, from not having had more to drink than whatever Rhonda had fed me during the previous day as I had laid unconscious in the bed, the tears just rolled down my cheeks and dropped onto her shoulder and upper back. We sat like that for a few minutes until Rhonda's words started to register in my mind and I slowly started to regain my composure while listening to her babbling into my ear.

"...maybe a hat or something. I could go wear skirts again, I guess? We'll go through this together. You said so yourself. I'll never leave you, Josey. You've always been there for me and didn't throw me out when you saw my tail. I will help you with finding something to mask this. Cause I love you, you know? You've been my best friend for so long, I wouldn't know what to do without you. I just wish you'd had a tail as well. I don't think we're allowed to wear hats in school."

I rested my head on her shoulder and squeezed her gently. "Rho and Jo forever." I muttered through the tears, and Rhonda leaned her head sideways against mine and repeated the last word.

"Forever."

 

"Forever is a long time, you know?" Discord's voice sounded in the room, and both Rhonda and me looked up and around ourselves to try and find where the words came. It took us both a moment, but then Rhonda gasped and pointed to a poster on my wall. The poster featured the actor John Barrowman in his role as Captain Jack Harkness, wearing a military overcoat. He looked quite the imposing figure, if not for the Draconequus curled around the man's shoulders like a boa. Discord looked far too real to be there, and his movements, while the rest of the sun-bleached poster remained stationary, was enough to cause a feeling of unease in the both of us. He didn't look like how he was depicted in the show at all. Well, he did, goatee and all, but he didn't look drawn. His head looked like a real goat's head. His claws like real claws. His scaled tail like real scales. They shined in the light coming in from the window as if he was really there in the room with us. As a two-dimensional representation of himself simply projected onto the poster.

Except he wasn't projected onto the poster. He really hung over Captain Jack's shoulders. His body disappeared where it went around behind the man's neck. He even had the tip of his tail tucked into Jack's overcoat, the dragon talons of his right leg disappearing under a lapel of it. He seemed to bask in the attention that we gave him as our minds tried to come to terms with what we were seeing. His bird-like claw stroking his goatee slowly while waiting for us to make the next move.

"You're not real." Rhonda finally breathed out, and I shook my head to it as well.

"I'm not?" Discord returned, mockingly pretending to be hurt at her statement. "Maybe you would listen to me better if," he stated, disappearing from the poster and suddenly appearing on the television - which was turned OFF - and continuing, "I was here instead? A media personality coming to you live from Equestria?"

We turned our heads to follow the sounds and Rhonda shivered. I pulled her a little closer against me and frowned at Discord on the television leaning against one of the edges of the screen as her proceeded to do stretch exercises. "Is this your doing?" I bit to him, pointing up to my forehead.

 

Discord stopped doing exercises and moved his head closer to mine to inspect my horn. It was a really strange effect to see his body in the television but his head mere inches away from mine. It was like watching a 3D movie but the effect was accompanied by a feeling of unease worse than any movie I'd seen before then. "Why, you seem to be growing a horn. How quaint," he remarked, and I felt the urge to punch him. "No, that's not me. That's you and you alone." Discord smiled, pulling himself back into the television with a sucking sound that only added to the uneasiness. It sounded somewhat like the sound wet dog food makes as it drops out of the can, but played in reverse. "Well, maybe you did have a little help. You see, we have a small problem which has regrettably galloped off into this world." Discord continued, and Rhonda and me shared a glance between us.

"What kind of a problem?" I asked, seeming more up to the task to talking with a fictional character than Rhonda was at the time.

"Well, one of my, ahem, students... has gone rogue." Discord flushed, seeming genuinely embarrassed for just a brief moment. It didn't take long before he reasserted himself as the king of chaos however, and he returned to smiling enigmatically toward us. "She's got the weird little idea in her head that Earth should become the new Equestria since it has so much more room than we have in this little box here," Discord offered, growing in size on the screen until he had to fold himself up just to fit within its borders. "See how cramped it is?"

I sighed, then mumbled under my breath, "I wonder who gave her that idea."

Discord fell out of the television screen and onto the table my television was set up on, falling flat on his back and gripping at his chest. "Oh. OH! I'm HURT that you think I had anything to do with it!" he decried, then got up to sit on the edge of the table staring at us, one leg hooked over the other and his arms folded in front of him. "Now look here, I do love a bit of chaos now and again. But Fluttershy opened my eyes to the concept of moderation. If Earth succumbs to this filly's magical tricks, it will offset the balance in a way that goes beyond chaos. There are things out there that are far, far worse than I could ever be," he revealed, his eyes narrowing at us. "The more she destabilizes this dimension, the more they're drawn to Earth to destroy everything and everyone within it. How can I play with this dimension when there's nothing left in it? You tell me that."

 

I stared at him, flabbergasted at his sudden candor. Rhonda was the first to snap out of it and pushed herself up from the ground to approach Discord.

"Rho?" I tried, but she made a motion with her left hand that silenced me again.

"I have a tail," Rhonda started, as Discord just peered up at her in mild amusement.

"So have I, aren't they great?" Discord grinned, flicking his tail behind him.

"Josey has a horn growing out of her forehead," Rhonda continued, and Discord reached up to his own horns.

"Oh, just wait until the skin breaks. Fever dreams are so wonderfully chaotic," he offered to me, looking past Rhonda and almost missing the movement of her hand until it was too late. Just as I thought she was going to hit him, he disappeared in a flash and appeared life size beside me in the middle of the room. "Now that wasn't very friendly," he huffed as Rhonda's attempt to slap him ended in her moving her hand through empty space.

She let out a frustrated sigh and turned to face Discord again, her eyes glaring at him with held-back anger.

"To be fair, I don't think either of us is very happy with what happened. First she grows a tail, then I grow a horn, and then you drop in and... what? What do you expect of us? Why do you explain these things to us?" I asked, feeling my own anger rise at Discord's continued games.

Discord knelt down beside me and reached out to tap my horn once with his bird-like talon. "Because your magic potential is the highest of all her victims so far."

I winced at the pain shooting through my head, then looked up in confusion. "What does that even mean?"

 

"There's no magic in this world," Rhonda stated, joining me by my side again and helping me stand up so we were both at Discord's eye-level.

Discord smirked at her statement and placed his feline hand on her left shoulder. "On the contrary. It has always been here. And some of you have been using it. But now this filly is unlocking it at a faster rate than it gets used and is drawing the wrong kind of attention to herself. Zecora came to check up on you yesterday, as she has with all of this filly's victims. All the princesses are hard at work to find a solution for this problem. So, they sent me, her teacher, to come explain things and, well... take you to Equestria." Discord moved his paw from Rhonda's shoulder and waved it towards the center of the room, a portal appearing there as he did. The shimmering oval showed a colorful landscape behind it, with the white walls of Canterlot not too far away.

Rhonda clung to my side and shivered uncontrollably, and I looked down at her to see her face wrought with fear. "You can't make us," I told Discord, pulling Rhonda closer and letting her hide her face against me. "I'm not going unless Rhonda's going and you can see how she's feeling about the idea."

Discord smirked at us both, then stuck his head into the portal and looked around to the left and right before pulling it out again. "I will be right back," he stated, flashing away and leaving the portal there in the middle of the room.

I helped Rhonda shuffle over to the bed and sat us down on it, pulling her close and just softly stroking her back. "It's ok, ssh... it's ok," I cooed to her, but I wasn't too sure myself. I had to keep up appearances for Rhonda's sake though. I had to be the strong one. All those panicky thoughts could wait until after Rhonda calmed down.

 

After a while, Discord's voice drifted in through the portal, as distorted as the shimmering of the world we saw through it. It sounded like he was approaching it from the other side, but he was nowhere that I could see. "...have to explain it to them. I'm not getting anywhere. Rainbow sorbet?"

Another voice replied, sounding almost an octave lower than Discord's, "No thank you, I had a big lunch."

"Suit yourself," Discord continued as he stuck his head around the corner of the portal - right into the room - and looked around to find us. "Ah, there they are. I'll leave this to you then." With that, he pulled his head back and walked off in the distance, holding a sorbet that looked to be made of rainbows in his one hand.

I looked down at Rhonda who was still shivering in fear, but as Discord moved away she seemed to shiver a little less so. I wondered at the significance of that and totally missed the stallion stepping into the room until he stood right in front of us. His coat was blue. Blue like the kind of blue you find at the bottom of swimming pools. His mauve eyes were staring up at us and his unicorn horn was so close that if I would have reached out towards it, I could have touched it without stretching my arm out fully. He was standing on all four hooves and he barely reached four feet from his hooves to his mane. The term my little pony really applied to him. His light purple mane had been combed back and looked like it took a lot of grease to keep it there, and his tail flicked idly behind him. I couldn't see his cutiemark until later, but it was a quill on an open roll of parchment. He cleared his throat at my scrutinizing gaze and raised an eyebrow at me. "Do I have something on my face?"

 

I didn't know if I had to laugh or cry at that, and ended up doing both. "Yes you do!" I exclaimed, "And so do I!" I continued, and Rhonda peered up in confusion, her panic spell broken from my sudden eruption. "Oh gods. This is so... so crazy," I sniffled in-between giggles, trying to calm down again. "So crazy. This. I don't even," I stumbled, ending up crying more than I was laughing and just staring at the colt's horn. "How, er," I tried, wiping a bit more at my eyes.

"You both have horns," Rhonda stated the obvious, and sent me back into a giggle fit.

"They're quite common for unicorns to have, yes," the stallion offered. "I'm Magic Ink. You can call me Magic, or Ink. Either works. As long as you don't call me Mink."

I just couldn't stop myself laughing from the absurdity of it all until I suddenly felt Rhonda's hand impact with my right cheek in rather a painful way. "Snap out of it, Josey! You're being hysterical!"

I reached up to feel at my burning cheek and stared up at her in shock. "I... I'm sorry?" I offered, but Rhonda already moved on to kneeling beside Magic Ink and smiled at him.

"It's nice to meet you, sir," she offered, making the pony blush lightly.

"Oh, I'm not a sir. Just Magic or Ink would work? Ink would be shorter," the pony responded in an awkward fashion. "I usually spend my time in the archives, but now with everypony so riled up about this situation, I guess mister Discord couldn't find anypony else to help you two out? Er, I mean, it's nice to meet you two as well, misses Rho and Jo?"

"Rhonda and Josey," I corrected him, still rubbing at my cheek. "Is there any way to get out of this with our sanity intact? Because if my cheek wasn't hurting so badly I would be thinking this was all a dream."

"I'm very sorry, miss Josey," Magic apologized at my correction. "Mister Discord told me your names."

I smirked at this as I had half expected that to be the case.

 

"If it was a dream, you'd be talking with Princess Luna, miss. Not to me," Magic offered in response, and took a step away from Rhonda who had leaned in to look at his tail. "Er, I don't know what your local customs are, but could you not do that please?"

Rhonda pulled away as well, blushing fiercely as she moved to my side again. "She's grown a tail of her own in the past week," I explained to the pony. "I think she just wanted to see the difference between hers and yours. Look, I know Discord said we are to come with to Equestria and all, but can we get dressed first please? We're still in our nightclothes."

Ink looked between us a moment, unsure of what I meant, and I realized the concept of nudity being an embarrassing thing was unfamiliar to him.

"Humans don't usually show themselves naked to others," I tried. "We don't have fur to cover us?"

Ink stared blankly at my further explanation, but then his ears suddenly perked up and he took another step back, right into a chair that fell over with a loud sound. "Oh! I didn't... I don't usually... Oh, I'm so sorry! Let me, er... I will just be on the other side of the portal then. I won't look!" he quickly decided, galloping through the portal and moving to stand in front of it on the other side with his eyes facing away.

"Ah, Ink?" I called out after him.

"Yes miss?" came the reply.

"Do you think being in Equestria may speed up whatever's happening to us? Because if there's any other changes we're going to look forward to, we may not want to put on too tight-fitting clothes?" I asked, "I mean, Discord did say that someone is trying to make the earth into a new Equestria, and suddenly we have pony stuff growing on us. What's the end result?"

"Er... none of the old texts said anything about Equestria speeding up anything, but the spell she stole was created to make a pony out of something else, yes. You're most likely going to be like us if we can't stop its effects," he returned.

 

I sighed and looked at Rhonda, who looked back with big eyes filled with fear. "That's what I feared ever since Discord showed his face. Ok, easy-to-dispose of clothes it is."

"Halloween last year?" Rhonda quipped, and I winced at that.

"I'm not going to walk around Equestria looking like a pirate."

"I thought you looked cute." Rhonda shrugged, trying to keep her fear down while focusing on getting us some clothes.

"Are you sure we're not a couple?", I sighed, walking over to the dresser and pulling out the brush, a pair of scissors, some needle and thread and the first-aid kit. "Rho-Rho? If the skin breaks," I started, putting everything in a shoulder bag and putting it aside as I joined Rhonda near the bed, looking at what she'd put out for me to wear.

"I'll be there to help you through it." She smiled up weakly, looking at my horn with a bit of trepidation.

A pair of baggy pants, a baggy shirt, and some walking shoes without laces later and we were ready to head into Equestria. I grabbed the bag, slung it over my shoulder, and joined hands with Rhonda as we stepped in front of the portal. "We're ready, Ink. Unless you want us to step on your tail, you may want to move out of the way," I offered, and Rhonda looked up with a frown.

"Don't joke about that. You don't know what it feels like to have those hairs pulled," she muttered.

Ink moved out to the side and looked in our direction. "Just step through. It won't hurt you."

Rhonda and I didn't move. We just held hands and looked at one another, steeling ourselves for what was to come. And it was in that moment that I realized how deep our relationship had grown. How much I needed her. And I saw it in her eyes as well. A shimmer of a tear growing in the corner of her eye. I reached up and wiped it away with my thumb. "Rho?"

"Yes?" she said, her voice laced with emotion.

"Forever," I told her and smiled as she nodded softly in reply.

"I'll never leave your side," she almost whispered as her tears started to roll.

"I'll never leave you alone. My Rho," I promised, and pulled her to me. It wasn't until she clung to my chest that I took the step that sent us both through the portal and into Equestria.

 

The feeling of passing through the portal was a little bit like stepping into a store that has a large heater hanging above the entrance. A waft of warm air that washed over us until we realized that it was warmer in Equestria than it had been in my room. Still holding onto Rhonda, I looked around and noticed the portal shimmering and disappearing as I looked at it. There was no way back anymore unless someone could make a new one. It appeared we were standing in one of Canterlot's gardens, the white walls we had seen in the distance being the outer walls of the capital itself. The inner walls were not two steps away from us and looked as imposing as they should. The movement of halberds and clanging of armor could be heard from up there, clearly indicating Celestia's guards were moving around just out of sight from us.

"You arrived just as the guards are changing," Ink explained, following my gaze. Rhonda slowly detached from me and reached behind her to feel over the area where her pants were hiding her tail.

"Something wrong, Rho?" I asked, already digging into my bag.

"It's tingling," she answered, but meeped as I produced a pair of scissors, "Don't cut it off!"

I stared at her with a dumbfounded expression. "Now why would I do that? I was planning to make a hole in your pants so your tail could be free to swing about."

"Oh," Rhonda replied, biting her lower lip. I moved towards her with the scissors and carefully cut a hole out of the back of it, then reached in with my fingers to pull her long tail hairs out in small bundles. To my surprise I could see them grow as they came out of the pants and by the time all of them were out they were already hanging down to her knees.

 

"You may want to write this into the archives, Ink; Hairs do grow faster here than they do on Earth." I chuckled weakly, putting the patch of cloth and the scissors back into my back. "Let's hope unicorn horns don't," I sighed.

"Well, hm... Let me take you to the guest wing of the palace then. Princess Twilight and her friends left for the Crystal Empire to confer with Princess Cadance, so the rooms should be empty.

I pulled Rhonda to my side and smiled at her. "We only need one room anyway. But let's. That way, if I end up fainting again, we'll have a bed I can collapse onto," I sighed. "Like I did yesterday."

Rhonda looked around at the colors surrounding us. Where Discord had looked a bit too real for comfort on Earth, this trend continued in Equestria. The colors were more vibrant, and there were more of them than in most places on Earth, but it all looked too real. The stone was real stone. It looked like real stone. I was afraid if I touched the pristine white walls I would smudge them. The grass was real grass. Brighter than that at home, but it looked very real indeed. There were all the slight blemishes in the otherwise unbroken grass field that we had at home. Small weeds trying to grow where they shouldn't, little flowers and other plants poking their heads up above the grass shoots. It had looked a lot more uniform on the television than it did in reality.

Heh, reality. "You're sure we're not dreaming, right? This is real, right?", I asked of Magic Ink as we headed for an opening in the inner walls. A long flight of steps was waiting there for us to climb it and two white-coated stallions in armor were standing guard on either side.

"If only it was a dream," he sighed, nodding to the guards as he passed them. I noticed their glances at us, but they didn't stop us.

"We must look so odd to all you ponies," Rhonda giggled softly.

"There are records of humans having visited our world before, miss Rhonda," Ink offered, "But we haven't seen one here in centuries. Or none that still resembled their old selves, that is. There are records of ponies who were formerly human, or even of ponies disappearing from our world and being found again in Earth. Some ponies have claimed the barriers between our worlds are growing weaker every day. There are even some that claim Equestria and Earth were once the same place. And it's that dangerous assumption that is giving us so much trouble right now."

"You mean Equestria could have been a place on Earth?" I wondered, trying to keep up with what Magic was saying.

"Or Earth a place in Equestria. Both are possible." He smiled, looking back and stopping dead. "Miss Rhonda, your mane!"

 

I looked at Rhonda as well and noticed her beautiful brown hair was changing color. "Oh dear. Rho, your hair is turning pink!"

Rhonda went pale and flailed her arms at the pony before us. "Quick! A mirror!"

"This way!" Magic exclaimed, galloping ahead with Rhonda not far behind. I found myself watching them run off before I realized I had to follow them! I tried to set my legs in motion, but every step I took felt like a chore, causing me to follow at a slower speed than intended. A great feeling of exhaustion and despair fell over me and I barely managed to make it up the steps before I had to sit down to catch my breath. I stumbled to the left of the stairway, dropping heavily onto the edge of the nearest wall. My mind was in turmoil, going over the events of the previous days and trying to make sense of it all.

I looked up in time to see Rhonda and Ink disappear into the main building just ahead of the stairway, unknowing of my inability to follow directly behind. I turned my head in the opposite direction and found myself looking out over the lands of Equestria. There was a train moving through the land, smoke wafting up from it as it took its passengers where they wanted to go. Lakes, forests, fields of grass, the occasional city here or there. I idly wondered where Ponyville was.

A guard moved up to me and looked out over the lands as well. "Are you ok, miss?" he asked casually, and I looked over to him.

"Is it strange to see a human here?" I asked instead of answering him.

The Guard set his forehooves up on the wall beside me and stretched himself a little, looking down at the lower plateau. "Not as strange as you would think, miss. The Princess has a lot of visitors. Not all from this realm. I will always remember the Changeling invasion. Captain... I mean, Prince Shining Armor kept us up day and night guarding this place. Compared to those pests, you're a welcomed guest."

I chuckled at that. "Back where I'm from those tales are told as a form of entertainment, sir guard."

"It does make for a good story to tell one's grandfoals, yes," he offered. "Be careful not to fall. It's a long way down."

"Thank you, I will. By the way, would you know which town out there is Ponyville?" I asked, waving my hand towards the towns in the distance.

"I think Ponyville is on the other side of the palace, miss. But I wouldn't know. You could ask lady Zecora if you see her, she's roaming around the palace grounds somewhere," he replied with a shrug. "If there's nothing else I can do for you, miss, I'll be returning to my rounds now? Have a good day."

 

I nodded and felt a little dizzy as I did. "Thank you. I think I'll find Magic Ink and see about that guest room he was talking about. I'm starting to feel a little dizzy," I returned, and stood up from where I was sitting, starting off towards the main building.

I was surprised to find the guard walking up beside me as I did and only then noticed I wasn't walking in a straight line. "Please lean on me, miss. I'll take you to the guest rooms," he suggested, looking up with concern on his face.

With my right hand resting on the guard's flank to stabilize myself, we made it to the guest room where Rhonda was sitting in front of a mirror watching the last few strands of her formerly brown mane turn pink. I sank onto the bed and moved to lay on my back when I felt the muscles in my lower back contract. It was only a small spasm, but the tingling that followed lingered and I didn't even have to look to know I was starting to grow a tail as well.

"Rho? I don't feel too good. I'm going to lay down a bit," I exhumed tiredly, "Can you get the scissors out to cut a hole in my pants please?"

Rhonda turned away from the mirror with a blank look on her face and nodded. "Your tail came out too, didn't it?"

"It's starting to, yes... but my headache is getting worse and I'm feeling dizzy," I replied, turning over on my right side to have my back exposed towards the edge of the bed. "It feels like my horn's growing as well."

"Fascinating," Magic Ink breathed out, producing a small notepad and scribbling some things down.

"Glad to hear you're having fun," I groaned, and he blushed as he looked away.

Rhonda took the bag from me and pulled out the scissors, then knelt beside the bed and I felt her tugging on my pants as she started to cut into them. "He's just doing his job, Jo," she muttered, then pulled my pants down a little and pushed my shirt up. "Yours are green."

"Eh?"

"Your tail is green," Rhonda remarked, and suddenly I felt a sharp sting where my tail would have been. "Sorry for that. Here, look," she said, offering me a small green hair which she held between her thumb and index finger.

I groaned and swatted it away with a hand. "Could've waited until my mane changed color?" I muttered, then had to squeeze my eyes closed from the pain radiating from my horn. "Is there a thing like aspirin here? Anything to keep this headache down?" I asked of Magic Ink, and he nodded.

"Miss Zecora has a lot of potions for that. I'll go get one for you," he offered, and ran out the door.

"You hear that, RhoRho? Zecora has potions for that. If we have to deal with that rhyming zebra, will you please shoot me?" I sighed, my head feeling far from wanting to deal with rhymes of any kind.

"You'll be ok, Josey. I'm here with you. Forever," Rhonda offered, gently helping my growing tail hairs out through the hole in my pants while leaning her head against me.

The gentle strokes of her hands on my tail, while soothing, were not enough to keep the pain and dizziness from getting worse. And soon I had to close my eyes as the room started to swerve and sway around me in an increasingly chaotic manner.