Green Dream was asleep again until late in the morning, until bright sunlight was streaming in through the edges under the bottom of the box against the ground around her. She dreamed of giving birth, not really knowing how it would feel, but she pushed something heavy out of her back there, and a foal plopped down between her hind legs back there. She licked the foal, and walked with it and shit, and as she was heading to school with her foal, she kinda started giving birth to another one.

It was okay, she just stopped and grunted urgently until the need to push eased and the second foal plopped down between her legs. She and her first foal helped the second stand up and get cleaned off of girl goo. Then they were walking together and the third foal started coming out of her.

Green Dream had a small army of foals with her when she got to school, enough that all of the seats in the classroom were occupied. Dream started giving birth against the seat she was sitting at and kind of blushed sheepishly and started pushing it back in. The teacher wanted to know what she was doing, but Green Dream was too embarassed to say. All the seats were taken. She couldn’t keep giving birth to foals all willy nilly!

Eventually she just kind of had to squat there, squeezing the foal out like she squeezed the spatula, lifting it in her arms and presenting it to the teacher, all apologetically. Miss Cheerilee shook her head disapprovingly, and took the foal in her own forelegs, then opened her mouth, shoving it bodily in. The foal sank into the teacher’s belly with powerful muscular gulps, and Green Dream started to get nervous because she forgot about the umbilical cord.

So the filly ended up getting pulled by the umbilical cord coming out of her crotch, as the teacher lay there just swallowing with determination. Except Cheerilee was a little filly named Blueberry now, and Green Dream was jerked by the umbilical cord, as the filly’s mouth pressed against Green’s snatch entirely. Then, looking up at Green Dream with green eyes full of unconditional love, Blueberry started to push her tongue inside.

Princess Luna didn’t bother cutting the rind off the pineapple that morning. She just needed something to swallow that didn’t feel like a squirming foal covered in menstrual blood. That was the absolute, unconditional and total last time she ever visited that particular filly’s dreams, no matter how the filly seemed to suddenly appear out of nowhere. That filly was probably just awakening from a 2 year coma, or something terribly common like that.

Green Dream awoke, squinting at the line of bright sunlight from under the box, and murmured to herself, “Heh... wonder if I can find any friendly carnivores willing to pay top dollar for some nice fresh tasty pony babies.” She was pretty sure that all of Equestria would mobilize to give her a hysterectomy if they ever realized what she dreamed about.

Green Dream took her time getting up, and continuing her munching of grass in a sharp right angle, adding a smaller branch below the big turn above. She didn’t really want to be seen in town until school was out. She headed over there, and kind of dozed on a hill for a while, until she heard the school bell. Hopping up from there, she ran into town to stake out the playground again.

Watching the foals dump into the thing eager to get their energy out after school, Green Dream did notice that there were way less colts playing there than fillies. To her delight though, it looked like colts were only playing with other colts, and with such a poor selection on their part, it was inevitable that one of them would be sitting off by himself. She was surprised that the first lonely pony she noticed was a filly, actually. Definitely a problem colts faced even in a happy pony society that was gender segregated.

So this pale purple colt with scruffy hair that was some sort of blue green is looking at the other colts playing tetherball, all two of them, and of course they don’t invite him to join. She took a priceless opportunity when the colt spotted a swing that wasn’t in use and sat on it, having a great time kicking to vaguely swing all by himself since there were already like three other fillies pushing each other on the next swing over.

Marching into sight on the playground, then heading up to him, she said brightly, “Hello! Just curious, are you waiting for somepony, or do you need a push?”

Green Dream was fairly sure this was how every group of close friends ever formed, but she tried to tell herself that she didn’t give a fuck if it didn’t work. She never had a chance to experiment with this the last time she was a kid, because she didn’t know if it was something you could experiment with. The whole business of growing up you’re taught to always ask permission just in case, and you miss opportunity after opportunity because of that, and by the time you figured out your proper minded parents are just as lost and clueless as you are, it was already too late because you were all grown up and under contractual obligation to work your life away. 

People act like coming of age is a freeing experience, but then they point at the contract you signed because you were a stupid kid, saying, “Oh by the way you might not want to suffer the consequences of going back on this.” So Green Dream was more than ready to say “fuck you” to those assholes. She was happy to ruin her future, get herself killed, or any of all those empty warnings that parents abuse their children with. She didn’t care if it wasn’t focused on her future or career. She was gonna look back at this and laugh one day, if it killed her!

So the colt looked at her kind of owlishly with soft blue eyes, and hot damn, he was a unicorn! Then he said, “Do I know you?” all warningly and critically and shit.

“Nope!” she replied with a shameless smile, “I just moved here. Wanna be friends?”

“I uh... I guess so?” he said, looking comfortable as a fish out of water, that hadn’t yet realized it was well and truly captured in a trap.

“Well you don’t *have* to,” Green Dream said wryly, “My name’s Green Dream. What’s yours?”

“Trick,” he said, “Trick Moonbeam.”

“Well, pleased to meet you, Trick!” Green said gratefully, “Sorry to bother you like this. It’s just you looked like you were lonely, but could you introduce me to your friends if you’re not, because I totally am lonely!”

Frowning, she said, “Or alone, at least. Currently alone. I don’t have a lot of friends right now.”

“Yeah, but don’t you want filly friends?” he asked, looking at the three fillies kind of giving the two of them odd looks.

“I don’t need just filly friends,” Green chastised him amusedly, “I think every filly should at least some friends who are colts. Unless you think a filly can’t push you on the swings?”

“No, no, I don’t, just...” he says nervously with an appeasing smile.

“Just let take care of it,” Green Dream said confidently, situating herself behind his swing, “Now let’s see here...”

She reared up like the other fillies did to push their friends, and promptly missed the swing, falling chin-first into the sand behind the swings. “I swear ptheh,” she said, spitting out sand and wiggling herself upright again using the sideways method, her hooves slipping in the sand as she did so. “I swear a filly can push you on the swings!” she crowed out defiantly.

Even the colt was giggling at that point, but red-faced, Green Dream said, “All right, here we go!” then she reared up and pushed on the colt right where his hips were resting firmly in the swing’s seat. “Hunf!” Then she stumbled back a step or two on all fours before she reared up to push him again a little further. And pretty soon she was shuffling back on her haunches, pushing him steadily with a rhythm matching with the resonant frequency of the colt/swing system. The expansive mathematical derivation of this solution pretty much boiled down to pushing him hard enough to make the swing go higher, until he was outright laughing and she was declaring proudly, “Told you I could do it!”

“You’re strong, filly!” he called out, looking back as he swung down and up again.

“My name’s Green Dream!” she called out back, waiting for him to return before asking, “You’re Trick Shot, right?”

“Trick Moonbeam!” he called out, leaving her hooves to soar away again.

“Trick Shot it is!” she called back, as his ass swung in her direction. She couldn’t see balls from the way he was sitting on the swing, but from the profile of his jaw and his coltish timbre, and the total lack of eyelashes, she was pretty sure either he was a colt, or she was going to have a very interesting filly for a friend.

“You want a turn?” he called out, after Green Dream pushed until she was panting and aching in her back, and she stopped, saying,

“Thanks... that’s a lot more tiring than I thought it would be!”

He climbed off then, and oh yeah, those were definitely balls. Cute little fuzzy purple spheres getting all ready to impregnate some filly foolish enough to inflame his desires. His blue/green tail dropped in the way then, and she shook her head, bumping the swing with her naked hips on the way around it. 

It took a few tries, but Green Dream managed to get seated pretty firmly, even if she was sitting on her own tail. She noted with some bemusement that her ass filled the swingset more than his did. She was sure it was still a scrawny little foal’s ass, but it was a nervous yet tantalizing idea that she was starting to get curves at this age, whatever age that was.

“Okay, you ready?” he asked behind her. 

Oh hell yes she was ready. She hadn’t actually gotten anyone to push her on the swings since she was like 9, or whatever age this was. Even then it was just her parents always supervising her, never any of the other kids. 

Green Dream realized she hadn’t actually checked to see if he was being supervised yet.

“Go for it!” she shouted out, clenching the knuckle of her hooves around the chain, and swinging her hind legs that hooked so easily over the edge of this swing.

It was actually uncomfortable when he pushed her. Two hard little hooves pushing into the small of her back. “Push lower!” she commanded, “Where I’ve got more padding!”

His next push was right on her ass, which felt much better. She tried to kick her hooves to the rhythm of the swing, and with an exhilirating rush, his next push swung her faster and higher, then faster, and higher!

“Woo hoo!” she called out joyfully, kicking back as it almost looked like she was gonna swing higher than the buildings all around, even though rationally she knew that it wouldn’t get that high. 

“Pretty cool, huh!” he called out from behind her.

“It’s so *fast!*” she called back, having a hard time articulating how the giddy acceleration took hold of her, and her weight sank in the seat as everything rushed forward to her kick, and then rushed back into his hooves.

“Ohkay,” he panted all too soon, “I’m getting tired!”

“Release me, then!” she declared, “I shall take the swings for my own!”

All that complicated math was easy when you had legs that could feel when kicking met with the most mysterious resistence, so with powerful strokes of her legs, she kept the swing going up and up and this was awesome!

“Oh, you can do it *yourself!*” he declared as if it was an amazing thing and—oh yeah, that actually took some figuring out when you were a kid. Green Dream was like a superkid! Or... like an adult.

“I’m just kicking to keep it going,” she insisted, dragging her hooves in the sand to slow to a stop, “I can’t start it without a push. Anypony could do that!”

“Hey, can we have a turn yet?” a red and blue filly asked, standing together with a yellowish one. 

“Only when I’m done with him!” Green Dream replied in a chiding tone.

A beat, and the filly asked, “...what?”

“Yes you can have the swings,” Green Dream said, “C’mon, Trick let’s go over there.”

He followed along, and Green resisted the urge to lift her tail, for now at least. “So, what’s your deal?” 

“My deal?” the colt asked.

“You know,” she said, stopping to face him just outside the sandbox, “Are your parents supervising you? Do you have friends who just aren’t here? What else do you like to do besides the swings?”

“I like to... play ball sometimes,” he says unsurely, “And my friend Pete likes to play Go Fish. And I don’t really like school but...”

Green Dream was gonna get double teamed by two colts while Blueberry watched. This was amazing. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was. “So who are your other friends?” she asked hopefully, “They aren’t here today?”

“Well, they’re all colts,” he said demurely with a sheepish sinking of his ears. His ears pricked back up as he added, “And... you like colts for friends.”

“I like lots of ponies for friends,” Green Dream said enthusiastically, “But *especially* colts.”

“Why especially?” he asked, looking self consciously confused. Because he was a colt, no doubt.

“Because I’m not a colt!” Green Dream declared, and against all logic and reason, she was correct! “I like being friends with ponies who are different than me. Now, you wanna go play, or ditch this playground, or what?”

“I’m not supposed to leave until my sister picks me up around sundown for dinner,” he said.

“Oh, well,” Green said, already envious of the colt because she really was hungry for... something, “We’ll just have to be back before then. Is there a creek around here we can explore?”

“Sure, but... you sure it’s okay?” he asked cautiously.

“What, are you chicken?” Green Dream asked cheekily.

“It’s mostly me and my older sister, Shina,” he told Green Dream on the way to the creek, “Our parents are usually out taking the train places. But they work on the train, not taking it for fun. My dad is a conductor!”

“I’d like to meet Shina sometime. She sounds nice,” Dream said thoughtfully, and depending on whether Shina was... a certain way would have a big effect on her relationship with this colt, no doubt.

“She’s really strict though, and very grumpy all the time,” Trick said glumly.

“It’s probably because your parents aren’t around to help you out,” Green Dream said, “She’s just scared she’ll mess up, because she has to be the mommy. Maybe I can help out!”
<!-- TODO: too philosophical, make it simple and to the point -->
“Okay, that sounds good,” Trick said, unconvinced, “When do you want to meet her?”

“Maybe on another day,” Dream replied, “Let’s just play for now. Do you know any cool stuff about this creek?”

Dream would be lying if she didn’t say she checked him out. He definitely had two cute little fuzzy purple balls between his legs. She also maybe leaned down a little extra far to look at the water and lifted her tail really high using her new tail moving skills she’d picked up from Blueberry, just in case the colt wanted to see her down there when she called him over.

She didn’t outright invite him to fuck her though. If he mounted up and went to down she’d totally go with it, she told herself, but until then she had to make sure he could keep a secret before risking telling him. She didn’t want her grand conspiracy to sexualize foals get blown open when someone talked to their parents after she revealed her power level. How exactly Green Dream got a grand conspiracy like that, she couldn’t precisely say, but it seemed like the sort of thing that Filly Anon would do, and Green Dream really was curious what it would be like having sex as a kid.

Plus he was kind of cute. In a... totally not gay way of course.

“Oh that’s neat!” Dream said, as the rock she’d balanced in the inside of the little “U” of her forehoof went skipping across the water like she meant to do it that way. “Where’d you learn this trick?”

“From my sister,” he said happily, “She wasn’t so good at magic as a blank flank either, so she had to learn to skip stones with just her hooves.”

“I bet I could get way better at skipping them than you,” Green said a little self-consciously, but not very. “I get all my superpowers right away up front, and they’re all lame superpowers like skipping stones.”

“Like in a comic book?” he asked uncertainly.

“No, like an earth pony,” she explained tiresomely, having no clue what she was talking about, but Green figured if she tried to explain and someone called her out on her bullshit, it was practically just as good as asking in the first place. “Unicorns have super crazy cool magic spells, but you have to wait to get them, and practice and shit. Earth ponies just... do stuff, and it works. How long did it take you to learn... this?” 

She skipped another stone across the pond.

“A while actually,” he admitted, “My sister’s really good at it though.”

“And I’m a natural,” Green said smugly, “See? It’s my superpowers!”

“Oh, I thought those were just normal... huh,” Trick Shot said thoughtfully.
<!-- TODO: pond? -->
“I don’t really know,” Green Dream admitted, sitting on her butt by the pond, “It just seems like that’s how it’d work.”

He came up and sat beside her, like actually pushing his butt against hers, saying fondly, “Thanks for saying hi to me. You’re pretty cool, for a filly!”

“You’re pretty cool too, for a colt!” Green Dream shot back playfully, not moving, not wanting to end this... warm contact. “Maybe you can show me who your friend is sometime, so I can go bother him.”

“Why would you want to bother Cliff?” Trick asked with puzzlement.

“Well, let’s say you try to introduce me to him,” Green Dream postulated, “You say ‘Hi Cliff. This is my friend, Green Dream!’ And he says, ‘You’re friends with a filly?’ Then you say ‘U-uh n-no I meant she’s my... classmate. C’mon l-let’s go play somewhere without her.” He says, “Fine by me,” and I never get to talk to you again.”

“W-what?” Trick asked, hurt, but it was important for him to know, she thought at least. 

“Or,” Green Dream postulated, “You say ‘Hi Cliff. This is my friend, Green Dream!’ And he says, ‘You’re friends with a filly?’ Then you say, ‘Yes. she’s really fun and I want you to meet her!’ Then he says, ‘What are you some kind of faggot? I don’t play with fillies. What are you gonna go have a nice tea party, huh faggot?’”

“Cliff wouldn’t say any of that!” Trick protested, “Also what’s a faggot?”

“My point is,” Dream said, blushing at having used one of those words that could get her in big trouble, “I don’t know who he is, but if I introduce myself, then he won’t think you’re weird for being friends with a filly. Then we can all meet together, and I’ll bring my friend my...”

It was with a bemused pause that Dream realized she might in fact have a friend to bring. “My friend Blueberry, and we can do all sorts of cool stuff. Though I don’t like tea parties.”

“Why not?” Trick asked, giving Green an odd look.

“Because tea tastes yucky!” Green Dream replied, sticking her tongue out in a grimace, “Coffee is way better than tea.”

“My sister won’t let me have any coffee,” Trick said unhappily.

“Oh yeah,” Green Dream said with a bemusedly distant look, “I forgot coffee is addictive. Maybe I shouldn’t start drinking it after all. Does that mean I’m not addicted to it anymore?”

She certainly hadn’t felt any achingly unpleasant alcohol cravings in the last day or so.

“What’s addicted?” Trick asked.

“It’s where it’s hard to stop doing it,” Dream said, “Which isn’t always bad. It’s just once you start drinking coffee, it’s hard to stop. So you just keep drinking it from then.”

“But I don’t want it to be hard to stop,” he said with worry.

“Trust me, there are some things you want to be addictive,” Green said, “Coffee’s probably not one of them. It’s only a little hard to stop anyway. You get a headache, and then extra sleepy. And then you’re okay in a few days.”

“Well, that sounds... not too bad,” he confessed.

“Tea is the same way actually,” Dream stated, “It might have less caffeine, but it might have just as much.” Twisting her face up again, she said, “And that means you have to drink something yucky!”

A pause for his lack of comprehension, and Green Dream sighed, “I guess it’s best to just drink water for now.”

***

The next few days were an exercise in social acrobatics that Green Dream had never been through before. Fortunately, she didn’t give a fuck, so most of it went over smoothly. Dodging adults, trying to find times to play with Blueberry and Trick, drinking water, and spelling out creative words in the grass she was eating. She snuck real food when she could, grass when she couldn’t, and if she wasn’t wet in the first place, she could sit in her cardboard box, listening to the raindrops patter on the garbage bag around it.

She found some more hiding places, mostly unlocked grates and trap doors into basements. There were a lot of places to hide in Ponyville in fact. Nopony seemed to suspect anything though, since Green Dream watched her fucking language, and whoever saw fit to deliver her to her parents, didn’t care enough to keep after her once the incident had passed.

She saw Twiggles, for all that she cared about that now. Why the fuck did she want to change back so quickly anyway? If she had a freaking *womb* inside her, it’d be a shame to waste the opportunity to experience that. She still hadn’t managed to get into the Twibrary Castle to research when fillies started getting fertile. Hell, she didn’t even know if she *could* masturbate. It was weird not having that constant compulsion on her brain, never able to achieve satisfaction due to forever alone status. Weird, but fun.

So one day, on a tip from Trick, Green Dream went strutting right up to a colt, once Trick Shot had managed to get away from him long enough for her to approach. He was a bluish colt, whose mane and tail were a rich brown. Just a regular average mud fucker, with no horn or wings. “Sup,” she said upon walking up to him.

“Sup?” he repeated in a reedy voice that wouldn’t stay that way for long when puberty hit.

“It means what’s up,” Dream explained, “What’s good fam. How’s it hanging. How’s it going. You just looked like you were standing around with nothing to do, so I thought I’d come up and say hi.”

“Well maybe I would if my friend hadn’t ditched me,” he said, looking around without paying much attention to the green filly, the poor fool.

“Oh really?” Green Dream said in amused concern, “My name’s Green Dream. What’s yours?”

He looked at her cautiously then, saying, “What’s it to you?”

A bit of sassy spice it seemed. “I’m new in town,” Green Dream said innocently, “And I was looking to make some friends.”

“Can’t you go find some fillies to bother?” he asked with the irritability of somepony who’s not used to talking to the sort of gender Green Dream was at the moment.

“Oh sure, I could,” Green Dream assured him, “But you seemed way cooler than any filly.”

At the colt’s slight blush at her compliment, she pressed on, saying, “My parents say I’m not supposed to be friends with colts, but I don’t see why. If I wanted a filly I could just look in the mirror! Do you know why they’d say that?”

“N-no, I mean, it’s just something grownups say,” he said with a shifty glance away, “I don’t really think that colts and fillies couldn’t be friends.”

“Great! Let’s be friends, then,” Green Dream said with a big smile, holding out her forehoof. “I promise it’ll be totally awesome.”

He hesitated still, saying, “I’m not gonna do filly things with you. I’m a colt, not a filly.”

“Well I’m not gonna do filly things with you either,” she said, unrepentantly, “Those are just things that fillies do with other fillies. Fillies and colts do different things together.”

“Like what?” he asked challengingly.

“Like...” Dream fought the urge, “Special... somepony things.” And mostly succeeded. “Your daddy did something with other fillies when he was a colt,” Dream claimed boldly.

“How do you know what my dad did?” the colt asked with a suspicious squint.

“Because you have a mom,” Dream stated, “Your dad had to do something with her, at least. And what about her fillyfriends?”

Dream listed off various hopefully innocent enough euphemisms, “You can’t play house without a filly to be the mommy. You can’t learn how colts and fillies are different without a filly to compare with. And you can’t show off how much more male you’re getting, without a filly to show it off to. If you just show a colt how strong you’re getting he’ll be like ‘Yeah, me too. Tell me something I don’t know!’”

Sighing, the colt said testily, “First off, house is a game for fillies—”

“What? How?” Dream asked in shock, “I can’t play house without having a daddy. That’s a game only colts and fillies can play together!”

“And... second I don’t...” he said with a furious blush, “Care if colts and fillies are different. It’s just...”

“You sure?” Dream said teasingly, “You’re not even a little curious about what’s under my tail?” She managed to swish her tail in a way she hoped was demonstrative of that.

“You have a... a fillyhood,” he said, still blushing.

“And you have a colthood,” Dream said practically, “That doesn’t mean we can’t play together. I like the same games you do.”

“I don’t like house!” he protested.

“Have you ever played house?” Dream asked in confusion, “I haven’t ever played it, because I never had any colts for friends. But you played it? Which of you colts was the mommy?”

“We never played it!” he retorted, “We just... it’s just dumb.”

Dream paused at that, saying cautiously, “Well I never said it wasn’t dumb. It’s just hard to think of games only colts and fillies can play, that just fillies can not. I like coltish games too. What were you gonna play?”

“We were just... going to go to the clubhouse and—” he started to say, as Dream squealed delight, 

“You have a clubhouse?!”

“Girls not allowed!” he asserted hotly.

“Why not?” Dream whined. Then it occurred to her he might not consciously know. “Is it because girls tease you? Because I won’t!” she suggested, “Is it because you think girls are bad?”

“No,” he said defensively, looking away.

“Is it because... you like to talk about girls?” she asked, getting at least an ear twitch in return. “You like to say things about them that... you’d be stupid to say to their faces?” she asked.

His hot blush said yes, but before he could protest no, she assured him, “It’s okay, really. You can talk about girls however you want. Just let me know if you wanna talk about me, and I can leave you alone. But... I really don’t mind.” She felt uncharacteristically reserved, as she said blushily, “I bet I’d like most of the things you say, even if you think I wouldn’t.”

“Why do you always wear dresses?” he asked, giving her a challenging look.

Dream blinked, looking back at herself, seeing only a soft green and very naked unmarked ass behind her.

“You know what I mean!” he declared, irascibly, “You wear dresses and all you care about is clothing, and... and you hardly even wear it!”

“I do wish I could help answer that,” Dream said solemnly, “But I don’t have any dresses. If I did I think it’s because I might... look pretty? Maybe I’ll get a dress as a gift someday, and that’ll be why I have to wear it. But I like wearing nothing at all best. I don’t know about other girls.”

Walking in a small circle to contemplate herself, Dream said, “I feel... softer, and... and lighter inside than colts do I think. I’m still pretty heavy, but... I just feel like... helping.”

“Helping?” he said cluelessly.

“Well, don’t you think I would look cute in a dress?” the green filly asked, turning to face him. “Maybe even a cute little pink one?”

She judiciously ommitted the fact that frilly dresses symbolized puffy labia.

“See, that’s what I don’t do, is care about if clothes are cute, or pink,” he said.

“Only because your clothes are all not cute and... and just a collar and stuff,” Dream retorted, “Don’t you think *you* would look cute if you wore a pretty pink dress?”

“No! I...” redfaced, he retorted angrily, “No! That would look stupid! A colt in a dress?”

“It’d be really embarassing, huh,” she said soberly, “You’d never live it down, and you’d always be worried about people remembering it and judging you.”

“Well... yeah?” he replied, confused that Dream basically agreed with him no doubt.

“I think that’s the biggest way I feel different than if I was a colt,” Green Dream said thoughtfully, “I think about wearing a dress and... it’d just be cute. I don’t care about people remembering or judging me. All I care about is... looking cute for them. Helping.”

Thinking about it made it more and more apparent. She’d been denying it up to now, but when did she stop caring about herself as much? Green Dream didn’t think it was healthy to only care about others, but she definitely felt less... bound to pursue her own identity, than when she was a human male. Was that a female thing, or a pony thing? Or did it happen a long time ago, and she never noticed?

Green Dream felt like it was a female thing. It just felt... softer than she used to be. Because now it was a *good* thing for her to be... soft.

“S-so that’s probably why girls like dresses,” Green Dream said shyly, not sure of herself, but it was the best answer she could come up with, “Because it doesn’t feel as bad to look stupid and girly, if I’m making someone else happy. Wow that sounds sappy. Am I really a fuckin... waifu?”

“A fuckin’ what?” the colt replied uneasily.

Dream shook her head out, saying, “It’s just—weird thinking how different I am from boys already. Can you imagine how you would be different, if you were born a filly not a colt?”

The colt didn’t seem to know how to respond, and Dream didn’t blame him. This was kind of bothering her now. “So you seem really cool for a colt,” she said warmly his way, “And I wouldn’t mind hanging out with you sometime. I need to make some friends since I moved here, and I don’t mind if they’re all fillies, but I was hoping that maybe it would be okay if I were friends with you?” At his continued reticence, she said, “You don’t have to tell me where your clubhouse is even. And I won’t make any trouble when you wanna talk about stuff that... you don’t want to say in front of a filly.”

“My... my friends would think I’m a girly wimp,” he protested. “I can’t just...”

“I’ll arm wrestle you to get your friendship,” Green Dream offered.

“What?” he asked, utterly befuddled.

Looking around, the filly hurried over to one of the buildings and dragged a crate over, of stuff that she probably shouldn’t be temporarily stealing. Then she squatted beside it, and leaned her elbow on the crate, looking up at him and saying, “C’mon. If you aren’t a girly wimp, why don’t you try and beat me at arm wrestling? You have to be friends with me if I win of course, but do you think you can beat me?”

“Of course I can beat you!” he declared proudly, settling on the other side of the crate and lifting his hoof much more smootly the same way. “Then let’s see what you got, tough guy,” Green Dream said slyly, and the intimacy was suddenly risen as her hoof hooked in his own and she was touching him. Then he yanked her arm really hard and she almost lost it right away. Straining an inch away from the table, she said tightly, “No fair... I wasn’t... ready.”

“Am I too strong for yo—” he said smugly, right when Green Dream jerked her own arm as strongly as she could. Caught off guard, he only managed to increase his resistence once they were up and at a neutral position. 

He was *so* *strong.* Dream’s arm was burning already. She leaned against the crate, looking at him intensely, trying to push past the steel wall of his resistence. “Gonna... *make* you my friend...” she growled grunting as she fought to overpower him.

“Go ahead and... try it...” he growled back, sweat rolling down the side of his face. Dream couldn’t move him. He was... he was pushing her arm down! She couldn’t stop it! She squealed tightly at the pain of trying to resist, until with a thud, he smacked her hoof against the crate.

Dream sank her head in defeat as he stood up from the crate, saying smugly, “Well I guess that’s that.”

“It sure is,” she said in dazed admiration, “*Man* you’re strong. Fillies like that, I think.”

“Yeah, well, tell your filly friends all about it,” he said gruffly, turning tail as Dream struggled up, trotting up beside him, saying,

“My name’s Green Dream. What’s yours?”

“I beat you,” he said flatly, “That means you don’t get to be friends with me.”

“Does it really?” Dream asked slyly, “I don’t remember ever saying I don’t get to be friends with you if I lost.”

“Well—but that’s just like... the other way of if you won!” he spluttered in consternation.

“If I won then you had to be my friend,” Dream said chirpily, “And I really did try to win, and you really are stronger than me. But I wanted to arm wrestle you to show you weren’t a girly wimp. Now you can be friends with me, and if anypony thinks you’re a girly wimp, then they can arm wrestle me, and see what a girly wimp *really* is!”

He stared at her in complete, speechless astoundment.

“So what’s your name?” she hopefully queried.

“C-cliff Notes,” he said, probably not really understanding why. Well her butt was gonna show him why, even if her personality didn’t.

“I’m really glad to meet you, Cliff!” she replied in happy excitement, “Can we go see your clubhouse? I love clubhouses, especially if the adults can’t see into them. It’s okay if it’s no girls allowed I just want to see it a little.”

“I guess... sure?” he said, giving her a sideways look, “But not if any of my friends are in there.”

“If you insist,” Dream said in amusement, “Now let’s go!”

The clubhouse was amazingly perfectly amazing. It was converted from an old shed, but had a whole second room added onto it, as well as stairs up to a second floor where there was a lookout, complete with cheap looking children’s telescope mounted in the window. Dream did not know this, because Cliff whispered to her, “Wait here! I want to make sure it’s empty!”

“Trying to keep me all to yourself, huh?” she asked in an improperly teasing tone.

“No I just don’t want my friends to... see that I let a filly into the clubhouse,” he said grumpily, “Now please, wait here.”

“Okie dokie loki!” Green Dream said, delighted in how close she could come to that line. It would seem that not everything was terrible about being female after all.

So she waited behind the stand of trees that almost shaded the clubhouse, until Cliff went up to it and entered the door. Shortly thereafter, he emerged from the door again and went trotting, red-faced up to Green Dream. “You didn’t tell me you *knew* Trick Moonbeam!” Cliff said in a furious huff.

“Oh is *that* who your friend is?” Dream asked, with wide, innocent eyes, “We’re friends already! You didn’t know?”

“Just...” the blushing Cliff reconsidered his decision to befriend a female for one of many times in the future, then said, “Just come on. He doesn’t... he doesn’t care either.”

Dream trotted (hee hee, trotted!) along with Cliff, following the colt into the light colored wooden building. Pleasant sunlight filtered in from the doors and windows, and there was also some kind of old style lamp that brightened the room significantly. A pale purple unicorn colt with scruffy green hair was awaiting her and Cliff in there, as two sets of young hooves clicked on the floor boards.

“See? I toldja he’d like me!” Dream said happily, “This place is amazing! Is that a second floor? And a ladder! Wow!”

“We store most of our stuff up on the second floor,” Cliff said vaguely, “So that it—wait whaddya mean ‘toldja?’”

“Why else do you think Trick ditched you?” Green Dream said with a shrug, “I wanted to be friends with you, because you’re friends with him. I wanted to do it by myself though, because if you hated me, then he wouldn’t have to stand there while we were yelling at each other. And it worked out great! So, what do you have on the second floor? Any snacks?”

She reared up to put her hooves on the ladder, and... the joints of her hooves just hooked over the rungs of the ladder, so there was no reason she couldn’t use it. A little tricky to get off the ladder at the top, but she walked her forelegs along the floor up there until she could climb her hind legs up the last few rungs. 

“Woah, you got a telescope!” she declared, then peeked over the edge, saying down to the colts, “That is so clubhouse. You can see all the bad guys coming that way! How good could you see somepony who was far away outside?”

A silent beat, and she pleaded, “C’mon up! Let’s play something. Or what were you gonna do in your clubhouse today? I bet I can do it too.”

Green Dream struggled to catch her hind legs on the ladder, but getting down it was easy enough. She didn’t want to separate herself from these colts at all right now. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly as she returned to stand with them, feeling her ears moving down all weirdly, “I just get really excited sometimes. Were you gonna do anything? Or just mess around?”

“What we were gonna do,” Trick said dramatically, “Is try to find our cutie marks!”

Huh. “Really?” Dream asked, blinking as she sat haunches down, thus annoiting the building with her girl bits, “You don’t want to get them, then?”

“What?” Trick asked with utter confusion.

“Of course we want to get them!” Cliff declared, frowning at the green filly.

Trying to sound uncertain, Green Dream said, “Oh, well it’s just... everypony I talked to said they got their cutie marks when they weren’t trying to get them. I know Aa...Applejack said she was too busy greeting her family to even notice it appeared. Who have you talked to about their cutie mark story?”

“Uh... we...” Cliff muttered, glancing away, as Trick admitted,

“We haven’t asked... you can just ask ponies?”

“Sure!” Green Dream said in surprise, “I thought it was hard to stop them from telling their story, because it’s always really important to them!”

“Well that might be a good idea,” Cliff said reluctantly, sitting on his dusty tan haunches too, “It sure beats trying to get our cutie marks in hoofball.”

“What about Duster?” Trick asked, looking out the window of the clubhouse.

“I just wanted to show Cliff I was awesome enough to be his friend,” Dream said frankly, “You said Duster was um... easier.”

“It’s just... embarassing to be friends with fillies, okay?” Cliff said, blushing and looking away from the green one.

“It’s okay to be embarassed,” Dream said, “We can even be secret friends! Where we only tell our friends that we’re friends and anypony else who doesn’t like it doesn’t have to know about it. I’m sure not gonna tell my parents I’m making friends with colts!”

Blanching, Cliff said, “Oh heck no, my parents would flip if they thought I was friends with a filly.”

“That’s stupid, but it doesn’t stop it from being true,” Dream said irritably. “But you have a clubhouse!” she added more joyfully, “And a big one, too! And you can’t even see it from Duster’s house. So if I bring my fillyfriends here, we can hang out with each other, even if our parents tell us not to!”

“Well they don’t... tell me not to,” Trick said, rocking a little on his hooves, “It’s just... not something you see a lot.”

“Wait’ll we get out of elementary school. Then things get *really* stupid,” Dream said with a roll of her eyes. “Alright, so, can I bring my friend Blueberry over tomorrow afternoon, and maybe somepony else?”

“Assuming Duster’s okay with it,” Cliff replied carefully, “This is his family’s land after all.”

“I’ve already got the perfect game for us to play,” Dream said in devilish delight.

The colts showed her all about their clubhouse, waiting for Duster to get done with his chores. Dream tried not to show how freaking... hungry she was when they revealed a box of cookies for snacks. She was worried the grass wasn’t doing good enough though. She had to fight not to just jam ‘em all into her face, and her stomach ached for more.

“Wow, you really like those cookies,” Cliff said giving Dream an appraising look.

“They’re really good, it’s just...” she winced an apologetic smile, “My parents don’t really give me a lot of snacks. So I like them when I can find them.”

“Well, go ahead and have those then,” Cliff said, “My parents give me snacks whenever we run out.”

“Not if you eat a ton of them, they might start to worry!” Dream protested. Looking reluctantly at the box, she tried to assuage her own urges, saying, “I’ll... I’ll just save them for later, okay?”

“Hey guys, are you in here?” a third colt’s voice could be heard in the doorway on the floor below.

“Duster!” Green Dream cheered as the other two colts froze in panic. Peeking over the edge to look down at the orange earth pony colt with red hair, the raven haired green filly declared, “Hi! My name’s Green Dream. Your friends told me so much about you!”

“What?” he said, staring up in alarm, “But the sign says No Girls Allowed!”

“That was before I moved to Ponyville,” Dream said blithely, “I just made friends with Trick, and he said he had two awesome colt friends. So I wanna be friends with you, too!”

“Why do you wanna be friends with colts?” he asked suspiciously.

Dream was not gonna risk telling him that just yet, not literally at least. “Because I’m not a colt,” she ventured assertively, “So I can already do all the things fillies can do, but if there’s something colts can do, then I need to make friends with them. Just like you need to make friends with fillies. Seriously, what is with this town and having colts and fillies separated so much?”

She didn’t reveal that in her old “town” it was even worse. But now she had a second chance, even if she had to do it as a girl. Twilight being an asshole had turned out to be a good thing, after all. Green Dream hadn’t even thought about staying here, and maybe doing things right this time around. So far it was awesome!

Well, except for the fact that she kept getting hungry...