Welcome to Ponyville

It’s times like these that I like to re-evaluate my life. Really ask myself if I’ve made the best decisions, if I’ve done well for myself and others. Take a good long look at what my future is going to be. Unfortunately, I’m too busy being swung around like a sack of beans, by giant, monstrous, green, animated vines! Do you know just how dizzying it is to get swung through the air like that? Really dizzying, that’s how! I bite down on the ropey vine wrapping around my torso, and it tastes like green and yuck but I keep biting, because I’m the predator here, not the prey! Stop messing with the natural order, stupid vines!

The vine coiling around my neck yanks my chin up so I can’t even bite down on anything. And more are binding to my legs and pulling them apart. Oh I know exactly where this is going. Of course a tentacle monster has to go and attack Ponyville. I’ve been summoned into Hell now I am absolutely sure. I’m living in a horrible fetish fanfic universe, where nopony is allowed to enjoy being savaged, and the evil tentacle beasts always win. It’s going to burrow into my body and inject its plant seeds directly into my womb. Or worse, my butt! It’s probably an ass fetishist, who’s going to treat my colon like a breeding ground for evil plant babies. And I can’t even move my head, the tendrils swaying above me just dripping with their sweet nectar to force down my throat, dulling my mind and sapping my will with its mind control chemicals. A slippery vine slides right up along the entrance to my little filly vagina, teasing me before it hammers brutally into me. My only solace is that horses don’t have hymens!

How about some past tense? Past tense is good, because I don’t like present tense! I don’t like present tense at all! Why am I only remembering my memories? Why isn’t it really flashing back, like in the TV show? Flash back damn you, flash back! OH GOD IT’S

Some time earlier, my eyes had trailed up, and up the mountainous column blotting out the sun, of writhing green tendrils spilling into the road in front of the boutique. An earsplitting roar erupted from the cavernous mouth organ at its apex, I may have mentioned. Screams resounding all through town in response as ponies awakened in alarm. Without a word, Rarity had exploded into motion, only the fact I already had a terrified death grip on her back keeping me from hurtling off, as she outright gallopped for the back door to the boutique. Through the window beside it, writhing green vines were already sinuating their way inside.

It was pretty much all over for me, when it got her. Rarity defended us bravely, with a frightening array of wickedly sharp scissors and needles at her telekinetic command, but the one thing she didn’t have was garden shears. The tentacles shrank back as she snipped them away, but her tools were for dry cloth and thread, not sticky wet plant flesh. They quickly got gummed up and she couldn’t get the window closed before more lashed out through it. And the window behind us just broke open then, which is when it got Rarity by the ankle.

Who am I kidding? It was over for us the moment a tentacle monster walked into town. Nobody writes a story about someone winning against a tentacle monster. They always get ruined, and brutalised and mind wiped. Even if it is full of enticing rape, it’s also full of hate and strife, and pleasure in the misery of others. Specifically the misery of Rarity, who was unceremoniously carted screaming right through her own window. She bucked just as I tried to escape the tendrils reaching for me, sending me flying back to the floor, but I could only watch as it dragged her shrieking form out, up into the air, and then... the tentacles came feeling around... hunting for me.

I can’t even walk goddammit!

I just tried to stay very still, and covered my privates with my tail as much as I could. As much as I’d enjoy getting some hot syrupy plant flesh stuffed up there, I would not want to spend the next months as a living zombie infected by some sort of sluglike plant creatures that consumed my body from the inside out, only left alive to spread the tentacle rape to others. Or, you know, however these sort of stories always seem to go. I wished it was a story, because then I could rely on plot savviness to escape and save myself, and then I could turn the story around and force the author to write me saving everyone else from the tentacled horror. But instead I was actually sitting there in the kitchen of a pastel colored boutique for ponies, trying to hold perfectly still, while seeking tendrils crawled all over my body and pressed against me. How could something like this exist? How does it even move? Why couldn’t it leave me alone?

And it neither left me alone, nor offered any hope of escape. There was a crash outside, and that seemed to spur it into action, tightening around me with blinding speed and dragging me screaming across the floor. I was in the air before I knew it, upside down by a hind leg, limbs flailing around, trying to cross my legs to keep it from getting in there. And then I was outside, hurtling screaming through the air as the tentacles retracted me away from any modicum of safety. And then it pulled my chin away from biting it, and got my other leg pulling them apart, and a thick tendril slid along me under there, forcing me to straddle it as its tip dragged ever closer to my entrance. And oh shit I’m out of flashback. No, I have to think of something else! Puppies and kittens! Oh god, the changeling comic arc. It’s not working!

“I don’t wanna be pla҉nt pregnant!” I wail in despair as the blunt tip prods right against that soft tender sensation of what surely leads right into my sweet little unicorn womb. It decides to tease me even worse though, wrapping in a figure eight around my thighs, sinuating around and lifting my tail against my will. And pressing against my—oh god it’s touching my butt! “Please not my butt!” I shriek in a total panic. “O҉ther hole! Other ho҉le!”

The tentacle creature only tightens around me at my words. My resistence is only turning it on! And soon it’s making me straddle it again, sliding right along those amazing vulva. It’s trying to turn me on! It’s trying to sap my will, by arousing me until I can’t even resist! And it’s working! This is so incredibly hot! Why can’t they just do it already and also skip the whole zombie death pregnancy too please! “What are you do҉ing!” I shriek in frustration, “Come on, just do҉ it! I can’t take it anymo—” and then a vine shoves into my mouth. But not in the way that I was expecting. It shoves sideways through my mouth, like a... like a bridle! This is a stupid fetish story. Why did I waste my genre savvy on a sneak check? Why is reality a giant writhing stalk of tendrillike vines, carrying ponies into the air and trundling right through town? Why is it so big?

I bite down angrily on the vine in my mouth, and it yanks right out. That was stupid. Now it’s going to go in orthogonally right down my throat, and stuff my stomach full of mind control sap! “Somebody h—!” I shout, and I don’t know why I bother, but I correct myself, screaming, “Somepony help! Anypony!”

With all the other ponies screaming though, I can’t imagine anypony will be coming to help us any time soon. If they could, they already would. There’s just nothing I can do! It’ll do me and then I’ll be its zombie slave and then I’ll be dead and can never see anypony again. It’s not funny when it’s really happening! I’m going to die! I... don’t try to stop myself from crying really hard. It doesn’t help. I almost made it! Why can’t I have anything good? Why am I always—

A whiplike vine snaps around my muzzle completely, tightening like a vice. I try to scream and struggle but I can’t even move. It’s holding me tight and it’s holding my mouth shut so I can’t even scream! My tears just trickle down my eyes, and my nose is running. It’s going to go in me, and I barely even got to play with it before my filly vagina proved my doom. Once again that thick tentacle vine straddles my underside. Then from above me, it—it lowers a tentacle down, and starts patting me on the head. What? A whooshing noise turns my ears around, and then abruptly the tentacles holding me loosen, and flail around wildly. My mouth is free just in time for me to give a quick shriek as my stomach drops out from under me. It’s not even trying to hold me now! What’s going on?

My feet and tail are dangling so far above the ground, that the boutique looks tiny below me. I can’t hold on—why are these things so slippery?! Am I going to die falling to my death, rejected by a tentacle monster who didn’t think I was sexy enough to violate?! I’d be utterly infuriated, if my head wasn’t swimming with vertigo. It keeps moving under my hooves I can’t—it heaves underneath me in a powerful snapping ripple, and I get flung free like a fluffy white lacrosse ball, hurtling through the air! I can’t even scream anymore; I’m too busy hyperventilating. If I have any magic, this would be a good time to use it now! The ground speeds towards a pegasus catches me.

The... ground... ...speeds? Why am I not falling? There are... big hooves under my armpits... or were those called elbow pits...

I’m still really high, bobbing up and down in the air from the arms of a... a pegasus catches me!! I look up at my savior, a yellow pegasus, with a mane the color of robin’s eggs and mild sea green eyes. It’s a... background pony that I should know. Her name’s just on the tip of my tongue. She works for that pegasus moving company. She’s carrying me through the... sky—I’m not dead! I’m going to live!

“Thank you,” I gasp up to her. “Thank you!”

“Yur gonna be okie lil filly,” she says to me in a compact little voice that sounds kind of like a cross between a sparrow, and that one lady you always find working at a college admissions office. I can’t wipe at my eyes with my hooves hooked like this. I wish I could just... I don’t even care. I thought I was going to die!

Instead, I blink until I can see through my tears, which aren’t coming anymore but still need to be wiped away. We’re descending away from the plant monster thing, which is mostly curled up now, and blackened from the bottom up. I see why, as a gout of flame erupts from down on the ground, where three very familiar ponies are standing, and not one single dragon. I can see how this is a possible, if inconceivable occurrance, because these three ponies have... barrel mounted flame throwers.

I’m seriously watching the flower trio, yes that flower trio, advancing on a giant monster with barrel mounted flame throwers. I was kidding about that, by the way! Hello? I mean I guess it makes a sort of logical, twisted sense but, those three? With flame throwers?

I think the world I’ve landed in must have rabbits the size of VW beetles, if these three will faint at the sight of them. I... sort of feel faint myself. I don’t want to pass out though, because I want to see as much of Ponyville as I can while I’m up here. I wonder if we can take balloon rides. The straw roofs spread out grandly before me along the land below, denser and closer together where we are, while still being divided by wide roadways and generous green gardens, then sparsely dotting and scattered among the misty hills beyond. I think there are crops over to my left, or something...? But that’s all I manage to eyeball before we drop below the level of the houses, and into the courtyard in front of town hall.

“Alrite, there yago,” the pegasus says, dropping me down on a nice soft bed of grass. “You take care now lilfilly.”

“Thank you so much,” I say to her again, and she blushes and smiles at that, but keeps flying, fluttering higher until she’s up and away heading back toward the charred hulk.

Town Hall is really big. It might look like three stories tall, but those are three stories for giants, ceilings towering over the heads of ponies, and I mean adult ponies. Actually, I wonder if it is this big, for possible visiting foreign dignitaries? Maybe a... dragon...ish thing? Sure, not big enough for plant monsters. Good grief but that plant thing was fucking huge. The three levels of the town hall have balconies going all the way around the building. I wonder how they got the flags all the way up on those support beams—oh, probably pegasi. But there I am, just sitting out in the courtyard in front of it along with a good amount of other ponies who look like their day has been thoroughly disrupted.

I manage to get standing, looking around. It looks like this is where they’re dumping the ponies that got snatched up by the vines. Some are huddling together. There’s a blue mare I don’t recognize, passing out blankets folded up on her back. That was a... experience I really don’t want to repeat. Now I’m stuck here, in the middle of a bunch of strange ponies, all by myself and I have to walk to get anywhere. The courtyard seems so huge. It would take me forever just to reach its edge. I feel so lost and alone, I... why would I be crying? I’m saved from the monster, that’s a good thing. Yet I can’t stop my lip from trembling, and that fear gripping at my chest, as tears well up in my eyes. I manage to take a few steps but then just sit down again. I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. I don’t even know where... where’s Rarity?

Where’s Rarity? I can’t see her! Oh, there’s no way I’m not walking now. I stumble, trying to figure out how to turn around, but no matter how I crane my neck around, I can’t see her distinctive snow white coat and elegant blurple mane. I can’t see anyone I know! Even the ones I know, I don’t know! I don’t know any ponies in town, just a bunch of strangers who could know me, but I only saw a show about them before, at best. Rarity got taken by the tentacles; I saw it happen! She has to be here then, because this is where they’re putting the ponies who got snatched up. She has to... I–I almost died back there. If she hadn’t caught me—they caught Rarity, right? She should be here then! She has to be here! She couldn’t have... my blood goes cold.

I don’t know when the simpering whimpers turn into actual crying, but I can’t stop! It’s just too much. I’ve been torn out of my house, thrown around like a doll, completely unmolested, and Rarity can’t be dead, she has to be alive! But why can’t I find her? What am I going to do? She can’t have died! Some pony runs up to me and lifts me off the ground, and I try to tell him I need Rarity right now, but I can’t even talk. It’s just some strange pony who I don’t recognize, and I never even saw on the show. I don’t even know what pours out of my mouth, but horrible terrified sobs that I want to stop and I can’t stop them!

“Sweetie Belle?!” comes Rarity’s alarmed cry, as she descends like an angel from above. No really, I jerk my head up mid sob and watch Rarity floating down to the ground, with the hooves of the pegasus carrying her firmly affixed in her armpits. Have you ever been so upset, that the sudden relief just confused you? I just sit there blanking out on the strange pony’s... back I’ve been freaking out on a pony’s back, without even knowing I was put on there. Rarity gallops as soon as she lands and rushes up to me saying, “Sweetie, are you alright?” in such a concerned tone.

“I-I’m ...eeeeuuuuu,” is about as much as I get out before a wail starts to squeeze its way out of my tight throat again. I’m getting worse again, but she’s right here! Why am I getting upset? She looks at me with such worry and fear. She’s here! She’s alive. Stop crying, you stupid filly!

It’s only after Rarity has snatched me off the stranger’s back, and I’ve fallen onto her own, that I notice I’m not the only one crying. An echo of my sobs just vanishes as Sweetie Belle’s voice speaks out moaning, “Please, stop...” and then the sobbing returns and... oh god, she feels everything I feel! Rarity has me in a heap on the ground now, and I’m right against her as she lays on her side, half curled around me, telling me it’s alright, and it’s over now, and here I am making the little filly who saved my life cry her heart out!

I stuff a hoof sideways in my mouth, biting down on it to muffle the sobs. It hurts but... it works. Shivering and shuddering I gasp to take in a breath, and every breath I let out turns into a low wail that I just can’t stop making. I keep focusing on Rarity, trying to draw in gulps of air, make my breathing smooth and even. Shut my eyes, hide my face in the crook of her leg. Whatever it takes to stop this crying. I don’t care about myself, but I am not going to let Sweetie Belle feel like this!

Finally my breathing is short, but it’s just breathing. I think I’m calm enough now, that I won’t freak out again, if I come back out and stop hiding my face in... holy cream gravy! Where the fwuck did I just stick my face? I’ve got like a... nipple pressed against my nose. It’s a big nipple! I sit up as fast as I can, pulling my head out from... whatever I was doing to Rarity’s crotch. What even was that?! I’m... I...

...

...I rouse to consciousness some time later, limply draped on Rarity’s back again, on her sequined and embroidered green saddle blanket. Did I just... did I just faint? Oh, no. I bet it’s hereditary. Every part of me feels totally deflated. I don’t even feel like I could lift my legs, and my tail drapes flatly along her butt. I... actually feel better though, after having faintedaccidentally slept a few winks. It’s like my thoughts were getting all tangled up, and even normal stuff stopped making sense, but now everything is loose and unravelled.

It seems obvious now. A plant monster made out of tentacles broke in through our windows, pulled Rarity out screaming, then me eventually. Instead of violating me, it just kept covering up my mouth or forcing it to close for some reason. When it got flame throwered by the flower trio, it lost its grip on me, and I almost got thrown to my death, but then a pegasus saved me. And similarly, a pegasus saved Rarity or... something, but Rarity wasn’t where they dropped me off. So I freaked out, because I thought she died or something, and she’s the main character! Forced myself to stop crying once I realized... Sweetie’s still with me in my head, even when I’m hurting. So I can’t make her cry like that. I calmed down finally, with my face shoved up against Rarity’s tits. And that was just too much for my little filly brain to take, I guess.

See, that’s what I mean by unravelling my thoughts. It’s easier to understand what happened, now. I’m just not as caught up in it.

“Where were you?” I say, with more hurt than I intended, lifting up my head, as Rarity stops pacing along, and half turns towards me.

“Why, looking for you Sweetie!” Rarity says spryly, resuming her smooth walk. “When that featherbrain Dipsy tried to return me to my boutique,” she says while facing forward, away from me, “Without awareness that you were with me at the time, I had some words with her! But she was happy enough to give me an extra lift to where you were likely to be.”

“O-oh, I thought they were just putting ponies all in one place,” I say now with a guilty hunch. If I had thought Rarity was somewhere else, this whole crying thing might have been entirely mostly avoided. It’s just that she was gone and... and this is a beautiful, utopian land, and in beautiful, utopian lands, your best sister and sole caretaker doesn’t get unceremoniously killed by a cruel, uncaring universe. So if she did get killed then... that means everything is terrible....

Maybe I’m just a stupid filly who throws a tantrum the moment I don’t get what I want.

I feel worst about Sweetie Belle, who hasn’t said anything since Rarity picked us up. Sweetie wouldn’t have even gotten scared. She knows all about this emergency protocol or whatever, and how giant monsters are nothing to be worried about. And here I was forcing her to be scared, and forcing her to cry, because I didn’t know those things, and I had no idea if I’d ever see Rarity ever again! I could have just asked her, and she would have said Rarity’s at the boutique safe and sound, but instead I just... whatever that was. Couldn’t stop crying. I feel so relaxed about it now, but I can assure anyone who asks, that crying like that is almost as horrible an experience as almost getting killed by a giant plant thing. My throat is still scratchy, and my eyes feel puffy, and the fur on my face is all crusty with tears, and Sweetie Belle has to feel all that. I’ve got to control myself better if... if I’ve got to worry about her too.

I don’t recognize the road Rarity is walking down. It doesn’t look different from any others, really, but the sun is to my left, instead of in front of me, and I don’t exactly remember, but I think the hospital is sunwards in the morning. That’s... east, right. I guess we’d be walking... north then.

“Um...” I speak up, watching for Rarity’s ear to swivel toward me. “Where are we going?”

“Just a chocolate cafe I know about in northside,” she says lightly. “After a morning like that, I think a cup of hot cocoa would be just the thing to calm our nerves.”

Help, Rarity’s back is too big! I need longer arms, so I can hug her more!

The northern part of Ponyville appears not to be as populated, with houses sparsely smattered among the hills. It looks like ponies here just have large... yards or something, but what fences I can see are not barriers, so much as road markers; flat wooden structures that infrequently parallel the road in low to the ground, sweeping swirl shapes, painted pink of course, with plenty of ways to walk around them. It has such a feel of openness to it. Looking out across, to where the hills even out into broad farms in the center of the valley Ponyville is in, it just catches my heart that... there’s nothing blocking me from going there.

It’s something I had only ever seen in paintings from before the Industrial revolution. Sadly, the idyllic scene of houses lazily dotting green meadows stops existing, once someone decides that all land must be owned, and all owned land must be marked, guarded and fenced off. Less sadly, cholera, dyptheria and smallpox also stop existing. But even in modern times, if you take down the fences and barriers, it reveals a land that was never divided that way, open and expansive. One unified expanse of land, that people are quick to forget in protecting their assets. They hide it from us with fences, and walls, so that we don’t even know it’s there. We don’t even know what we’re missing.

I can see from myself, just my little unicorn self atop the larger Rarity, from there all the way to the mountains on the horizon. There are possible obstacles, but there is no barrier that I could not simply walk around. There’s no signs barring me from entry. There’s something incredible about being able to see a continuous landscape expanding from here to the horizon. It’s almost a physical reaction, to behold the wind whispered waving grasses, all the way into that distance, with no fence separating you from it. I feel a breathless sigh, a sort of dizziness go through me, the dizziness of freedom. If I could learn to walk, then I could... I could go there.

Even if you see the same sort of landscape back home, it’s an immense difference when seen from behind a chainlink fence. You can stand there, your cold fingers hooked into the links, the signs posted on the fence, warning you that trespassing will be prosecuted, and you can see the same thing I see, but feel worlds apart from it. It’s not like you would do anything with the land, even if the fence weren’t there, but you still feel disconnected from it. It’s like you’re here behind this fence, in a quarantined, systemized habitat, and the world beyond the fence just isn’t something you can ever be a part of. Sort of like your very existence is one that harms, and must be controlled, and contained.

Looking out at this land north of town, it’s the same sort of feeling as when you take your hood off in the forest. I know people don’t want others to have the power to push them around, to ruin their land and exploit their generosity. That’s a perfectly sensible desire, and a reasonable fear. Humans can’t so much as touch a natural area without destroying it, it seems. But when other humans fence us out, to protect their land from us, something indescribably valuable is lost, and I don’t really think the questionable benefit of those fences is worth it. Essentially, these open lands lead to dreams, and those fences... they lead to nightmares.

One of these verdant, green hills has a large cottage atop it, nestled in a stand of thick scraggly looking trees. It’s a larger cottage than most of the houses, with a terrace on its second story. Rarity isn’t the only pony on the road, but there are many more clustering around the cottage than currently in transit. With a sign out front that bears what looks like an almond, alongside a ceramic cup, it’s pretty clear that this is either a coffee house, or what Rarity promised me: a chocolate cafe.

“Well, here we are,” Rarity says, stopping a short distance away from it. “Would you like to walk the rest of the way?”

Oh, right I can walk. Uh, sort of. “That would be great!” I say, jerked out of my entranced gaze. “I have to get used to it sometime, after all.”

Rarity descends to her belly and I again attempt to dismount, ending up on my side in the dirt of the road for my troubles, but at least not totally spilling out. Sitting up and dusting myself off, I watch as she rises up higher than me, like she were an ordinary... huh. Actually, from the perspective of a smaller filly, Rarity is about the size that a horse on earth would seem to a smaller human. I’m pretty sure humans would dwarf both of us though, if we were there. The lore is pretty clear on that: either adult ponies are about 3 or so feet tall, or else they’re literally the size of the toys, according to that one episode.

Well now, Rarity’s not the only one here who can rise up on all fours, like a pretty pony! Pushing up from my hindquarters, and falling forward to clop my hooves against the dirt, I manage to stand up fairly well. Standing, I’m about at the level of her withers, just a little too tall to see the bottom of Rarity’s belly. Her uhm, rump for lack of a better word, is a bit taller than her withers, decorated with her signature shining diamonds. I can’t see the top of my own head, but I get the feeling like if I crouched just a bit then I could fit entirely underneath Rarity’s chin. But... I stop ogling her in an analytical yet starstruck manner, and face forward saying,

“Okay, I can do this.”

Step one, three, hold, two four, swap, repeat. That’s what I have to do. I step one, and pause... in surprise of just how intimidating this is. The world is really big around me here, and I don’t know how comfortable I feel about that. The cafe seems so far away now that I started walking... but I don’t give up. I continue onto step three, hold, two four, and... swap, with a little wobble. I try to smile reassuringly at Rarity, who’s standing there watching me with a neutral expression. Then I just concentrate on walking. I repeat the process, moving my feet opposite each other, trying to get a rhythm going. Oh right, it’s supposed to be like rocking. That sort of ....wo–oah, this road has an upward slope!

I feel like I’m going to fall back, or like I can’t fall forward as easily, to keep me moving. It’s just a gentle slope; why is this so hard?! My steps lose confidence at the slight hill, and get more wobbly. Rarity walks along haltingly beside me. I almost fall back on my butt at one point, my front legs rearing up and actually pedalling in the air like a bonified pony, before they clop back down again, and before Rarity says,

“Perhaps we can work on it, later.”

A disappointed “Aw,” manages to escape me, but I sigh in aquiescence, saying, “Yeah, you’re right. I just... I hope I can walk soon.”

At least I’m getting better at climbing onto Rarity. I just have to hold on with one front leg to pull myself up to get the other around her neck, whereupon I can pull my lower torso up from there until I’m straddling her, with my little white belly once again smooshed against that pretty looking saddle blanket. And um... my other parts also can be pushed against that pretty looking saddle blanket, but only if I really angle my hips forward. So I don’t.

Of course, that means those parts are exposed to the air in open view of all, displayed under my entirely too eagerly springy tail. But honestly, what can you do? Either be exposed, or rub it on your sister, what a grand pair of decisions. It’s really not so bad though, since every other pony just about is as exposed as I am. I’d get more worried looks if I was wearing pants! This sunlight on my butt is kind of pleasant really, and the gentle breeze teases refreshingly along my, er, hind...quarters.

Rarity walks us the rest of the way to the cafe, and I sort of see why she wanted me to walk alongside her, because here we’re getting some strange looks from the ponies at the tables. It’s nopony I recognize, except possibly Colgate, but I’m not sure the white in her mane is stripes or not. But with me laying there on top of Rarity, I have to think that maybe I’m not supposed to be like this. Oh, I can tolerate any humiliation myself, but it sort of makes me want to walk again, to save Rarity from any sort of stigma. She doesn’t need them to see her carrying me around like a little baby. They might not even know that it’s my fault for being unable to walk, and nothing Rarity can do to fix that.

Rarity has some whispered words with the pony waiter, something about me having a ‘hoof problem’ and whether she can set me down at the table before going to order. The waiter, a pleasant tan and pink mare with a cutie mark of three plates, leads Rarity to a table, then actually helps me perform the dismount, so I stay on my feet. Hooves.

The tables here are the same height as Rarity’s kitchen table, round in shape with a tan colored tablecloth draped over them, and a tray of napkins in the middle. From the middle of them emerges a pole, that is capped in a broad, cloth umbrella of the same tan as the tablecloth. There are no chairs, just strategically placed packed piles of hay, one of which I manage to hunker my butt down on. It would normally be awkward to sit upright like a human, but with my forehooves braced on the table it actually feels kind of natural. Rarity leaves me alone, to order food from the front.

That’s when I hear an “Uggh.”

Looking around, I sort of lay my head against the table and cover my hooves over my muzzle, mumbling out, “Sweetie Belle? You okay?”

“I keep forgetting,” she whispers back. “It was such a nice day, except for the monster, and I should have said ‘Hey Rarity’ but I forgot.”

“It’s okay,” I say as quietly as I can, “Just say it later.” I pause and add, “S-sorry about earlier.”

“Sorry?” she whispers back.

“For all that crying, um, I didn’t mean to make you all ...headachey.” My brow twists, trying to describe how I felt afterward, which is also how she felt.

“Don’t worry,” Sweetie whispers back to me appeasingly, “I was crying too.”

“Of course you were!” I quietly hiss out, “But I made us cry, because I stupidly thought something bad happened to Rarity. I should have just asked somepony.”

“You were really scared...”

Before I can think up a response, Rarity has returned, floating in front of me a ceramic cup filled with what is probably hot chocolate, but I can’t precisely determine that without extensive investigation, since the hot chocolate is covered in a thick layer of whipped cream, with little chocolate sprinkles and a dash of cinnamon on top. And I mean real cinnamon. Not that fake stuff, that tastes like vaguely cinnamony sawdust. That was all the cinnamon you could get, outside of my childhood as a human, since real cinnamon got so badly overfarmed.

I have to admit I’m a little worried about the implications of chocolate, considering how it was harvested back home, but I just have to accept that this world is a good place, and things are going to work out somehow. If chocolate was evil, I’m sure Daring Do would go down there and put an end to the evil chocolate slavers. Or uh, something. Because it smells so good, that I don’t dare think bad thoughts about it. I hope this chocolate can partially make up to Sweetie for my little tantrum earlier. Though, considering the one before that and uh... the one before that... good god I am such a crybaby! I never cried before the... well, you know.

I can hold the cup in my hooves pretty easily. The fore...palms on my arms go from bracing against the table to lifting up, as my elbows come out and take on the burden of bearing my weight. Weird that I can just... release my shoulders like that. It lets me rotate my hooves, so their responsive pads press on either side of the cup, and from there it’s relatively simple to lift the cup up. The cup feels so warm against my hooves. Not in a bad way, not even close to burning me. It feels just like I’m warming my fingers before a cheery fire, except that their pliable, rough fingertips are pressed against the sides of a ceramic cup, instead of held out before me.

Cradling the cup securely in my hooves, I regard the steamy thing somewhat uncertainly. I don’t recall ever having sipped before, and my mouth is a lot different than when I was human. It’s actually a bit unsettling to press the cup to my lips. Because I have a muzzle, the edge of the cup hits them further ahead of uhm... “me” than I would expect. And my tongue is... weird to say the least. It keeps wanting to swell up or something, but not in a painful way. I have to hold that back, in order to get my mouth into a shape such that I can sip anything, without the liquid just running out the sides down my cheeks.

Yeah, you heard me right. I can’t even sip naturally. I do manage it though, very carefully and artificially. At first all I get is delicious foam, tasting of cinnamon, sugar, milk and vanilla. That stuff sticks in my mouth, so it’s easy to dissolve in there and swallow, but when I hit dark, rich cocoa, I have to pull back with a hiss.

So here I am, a nigh indestructible superpony of some sort, who survives wagon crashes, headfirst tree collisions, and giant roaring plant monsters, and I still can’t tolerate hot drinks. Grumbling, I lower the cup to its saucer, and switch back to bracing on the table with my toes instead of my elbows. As a human, I’d have to lift the cup to my face, but as Sweetie Belle, I can just crane my head right down to it, and blow on it to try and cool it off. Of course, doing that gets the remainder of the foam to fluff up right onto my nose.

I stare at it uncertainly with my eyes crossed, before looking questioningly at Rarity, unsure of whether I should waste it on the napkin or... what. She’s got a terribly amused look on her face, still floating her cup in her magic, and when I meet her eyes, Rarity just sticks her tongue out a teeny bit for a moment, for no apparant reason. Is she trying to tell me something? Come on, she can’t be seriously suggesting... that’s impossible, right?

So I try it, and find it easy to just curl my tongue up and lick off my nose, pulling my tongue quickly back inside my mouth with wide eyes, when I realize what it’s doing. As said, my tongue is weird now. I know I have a different face... uh... shape and all, but damn. I’ve never been able to lick my own nose, even when my nose was tiny and squashed against my face. Here in Equestria noses are so much further away, yet I find I can just swipe my whole tongue across it. Ponies must just have huge tongues. I wonder how big I could get it, but I don’t want to embarass Rarity or anything. I wonder if you could use it to—and there go my thoughts, right back into the gutter.

Partially to conceal a blush I can’t explain to anypony, I dangle a napkin on my hoof and press it to my face, delicately wiping any stray saliva off my nose.

Even if autocunnilingus is possible, there’s no way a monster of a tongue like that is going to achieve its full utility. No it’s still going to take someone else doing it for me, or me for them. N-not that I’m intending to stick my tongue up anyones’...uh...

In other news, a universal constant between our universes remains, that chocolate is love.

“Rarity?” I ask my—I ask her sister, looking at Rarity over my now half finished cup of cocoa. “Is um... where does chocolate come from?” I don’t want to know, but I just have to ask. It’s better to be disappointed and sad, than ignorant... right? Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have asked, oops.

“Hmm?” Rarity tilts her head at me ever so slightly. “The chocolate tree, I imagine?” she says uncertainly.

“No I mean—” I stare into my cup, blushing despite myself, “What part of the ...world?”

“Hem... any part?” Rarity suggests, “The chocolates of Sweedeer are of notable reputation, but it’s not like you can beat the quality of locally home grown, if possible.”

“No um, not the chocolate bars. I meant... where do the trees grow?” I clarify, feeling very confused at that.

“Sweetie, dear, I know you saw them on your way in,” Rarity tells me in a rather unimpressed tone. “That’s what I love about this cafe, you understand. Cocoa Crumble produces everything locally! Some say the imported chocolate is superior, but I say nay! Nothing surpasses a chocolate that has a taste of home in it.”

“I saw ...what?” I utter dumbly, feeling really stupid for having to ask. Probably looking really stupid too. Just stupid little Sweetie Belle, sitting there with her cocoa in her hooves, all unobservant and...stuff.

“The... chocolate trees?” Rarity suggests to me, angling her nose toward the window, “Right outside?”

“Those are chocolate trees?!” I yelp, my hooves thumping onto the table as I lean forward and look at the window... and the cup of hot cocoa I was holding lands on the table, spilling all over the place.

“Oh... oh no!” I exclaim, backing up, trying to sop up what I can with my napkin. “I almost finished it too...” I whimper in disappointment. And now I want to cry again. Scratch that, actually crying. Stop it stupid eyes; it’s just spilled chocolate! I probably won’t get any more... I already drank half of it! And all the whipped cream! There's nothing to complain about. I rear back to get a hold of myself, rubbing at my eyes and trying to ease my breathing. It sounds disturbingly like a little girl hiccupping, but it works and nothing gets any worse.

"Oh Sweetie, honestly," Rarity says in exasperation, a second napkin wreathed in her magic coming to mop up the greater part of the spill, "The silliest things, yet you care about them so much. You must feel just awful, but don't worry. I think I know just what you need."

I look up from watching the magic flow around the cloth, to regard Rarity with a note of uncertain curiosity. Rarity is already levitating her drink through the air, towards my face. Her own drink, that is, with the dark surface of its remaining liquid barely disturbed in the motion, in the delicate white ceramic cup tinged in sparkling blue.

"Tell you what, you have just one more sip," Rarity says in a flippantly practical voice, "And let the buspony take care of cleaning this up?"

"O-okay," I say uncertainly at the cup in front of me. I have to admit, the loss of my cup doesn't seem nearly so bad when I have that one more sip to look forward to. "So just um..." It's freaking embarassing, but I pinch my lips around the lip of the cup and pull it down to hold between my hooves. Tilting it up just enough to flood my mouth with the sweet, dark taste of chocolate, I find it has cooled to a pleasant temperature in the time since it was served to us. I think I'm blushing, when I release the cup, returning it to float back over to Rarity. Yep, definitely blushing. I savor that sip of chocolate and the smile she gives to me, clearly seeking one in return. I wish I could give one to her, but I'm just not ready, and I don't want to fake it.

“Thank you, Rarity,” I say, very genuinely. She looks a bit flustered at that, responding by quickly drinking the rest of hers, and standing up from the table.

“Well dear, the busponies can take care of this, I believe,” she says walking over to me. “Climb on then and we shall get on our way. Can’t keep your physical therapist waiting, after all!”

“We’re still going?” I blurt out in amazement.

“We’re dreadfully late,” Rarity says in disappointment, “I suppose it’s to be expected considering this morning. But we should at least make an appearance.”

“I—I didn’t think I mean after that...”

“What, that you’d be hurt?” Rarity suggests. “I’m very grateful that you’re uninjured, Sweetie, and if you were hurt, then we would get you to the hospital right away.”

“No I mean,” I frown in frustration. “It was... scary?”

Rarity blinks at me, then hides a titter under her hoof. “That’s no reason to disrupt our lives, dear,” she says. “It isn’t going to hurt you, anymore. Believe it or not, those occurrances are very rare, even in a town such as Ponyville! I’m sure we’ll be right as rain until next Tuesday, at least.”

When I give her an uncomprehending stare she blushes and looks away, adding, “Just a saying, dear. It isn’t in reference to any particular... ehm...”

“It’s okay, I think I understand,” I say hastily. “I um... let’s just get to the... appointment.”

“Very well,” she agrees, “Up you go, then!” Without crouching this time, Rarity stands beside me, and I can see why, because this straw bale already gives me quite a boost to get onto her. Sure is a lot easier to climb onto Rarity than off of her. A few ponies give us odd stares on the way out again, probably again because I have yet to see a colt or filly riding upon an older pony. I hope I’m not making Rarity look bad. I hope I’m not making Sweetie Belle look bad! No, I shouldn’t kid myself. Sweetie is going to get teased ruthlessly for this, no doubt about that. I can hardly bear to contain my anticipation.

On the way to the hospital, I ask Rarity, “How late are we? It’s already almost lunch, isn’t it? Has Ace been expecting us this whole time? Oh no, I didn’t think—”

“I sent a message his way,” Rarity tells me before I can devolve into hystrionics. “You remember, Cloudy Breeze stopped to chat after the monster attack?”

I pause, and... blush, and actually no, I kind of tuned that part out. Too busy being shocked about a monster attack. I guess I do vaguely recall Rarity talking with some ponies in oddly trombone like tones, but I just assumed it was part of the rescue effort. “I must have missed that, sorry,” I say apologetically.

“And sorry for crying earlier,” I add in an afterthought.

“Oh, think nothing of that,” Rarity says quickly, pausing and turning to face me, “There is nothing wrong with crying when one is upset, even if it is over a little spill like that.”

“A little spill?” I ask in confusion. “It threw me from like a hundred feet in the air!”

“Oh, that,” Rarity says with a nervous twitch to the corner of her mouth. “I thought you were referring to your chocolate.”

I pause, tight lipped. “Oh... that,” I eventually say, numbly. “Sorry for that, too.”

“Think nothing of it Sweetie,” Rarity says, her smile returning. “You handled yourself most admirably, especially as that was for all intents and purposes your first cup of chocolate ever, am I right?”

“Oh! Um,” Right, amnesia. Forgot about that. “I... yes, that was... no. It was the second time,” I work out, in a bit of mental disarray. “The first time I had chocolate,” I say evenly, “Was that chocolate fudge sundae you gave me. It was so good.”

“Ah—yes... I do suppose chocolate syrup counts too,” Rarity says with just a bit of blush to her cheeks before turning forward again to stride with me. Clopaclop go her distant hooves, a quiet accompaniment to the soothing rocking motion from on top of her warm body.

We’re just about at the hospital, when Sweetie Belle shouts out, “Hey, Rarity!” making me jolt up in shock, from laying there dozing on her back.

“Hmm?” Rarity says, stopping and turning to face me. “Something wrong, Sweetie?”

Crap. Crap crap crap I did it again. “N-no, nothing’s wrong, I just... “ I look around the sky saying eagerly, “Thought I saw a butterfly!”

Rarity rolls her eyes, but doesn’t press the issue and just takes me into the hospital reception area instead. According to the nurse at the desk... Nurse Coldheart is her name. Nurse Coldheart tells us, in that hiccuppy Louisana drawl of hers, that Dr. Ace managed to rearrange his schedule, moving an inpatient to my time slot, giving him more of a time to work on his “game” later that afternoon. So I’m happy for him, that he didn’t just have to wait there. The downside for me is that he won’t be able to see me today, which means I can’t ask him about how to walk uphill.

I wonder if there are any books on walking. Because I can’t read maybe, but now I have someone who can! Somepony who can! I just have to figure out this talking thing with Sweetie, and we can both read about stuff... maybe even on how to separate into two fillies! Or... two ponies! Two... beings? I just have to get alone for a second to talk this over with Sweetie, so I ask Rarity,

“Oh, um before we go, can I... use the toilet?”

And... in hindsight, I probably should have realized that being alone in a public restroom isn’t the most common thing in the world. Of course the ceramic tiles make everything all echoey too, even when you try to talk quietly. When I walk in there to see a mare washing up, while a stallion strolls into a stall, it does occur to me that I might not be able to talk with Sweetie, but it does also occur to me and my bottom that I do in fact have to pee.

So I do. And I try to tug on my butt to spread myself a bit so it doesn’t make as much of a mess of my vulva. It’s not very effective. That stallion is still going for a while, when I’m done. I didn’t have much in me after all; I’ve no doubt a smaller bladder. He still walks out sooner though, what with how much “fun” I have trying to get these toilet paper dispensers working. Sweetie can’t talk because he’s there, and as luck would have it, as soon as he leaves, another mare comes waddling in the bathroom and rushes into one of the stalls, while I’m reared up there on the sink.

Without my bladder as an excuse to be alone, I can’t really tell Sweetie how to warn me before she shouts, so I won’t keep telegraphing my physical reaction to it like that. I get my hooves uh, dried, and I’m probably the only pony who has to waddle out of the bathroom, staring at my my hooves as I make those uncertain hoofsteps, trying to make sure I don’t stumble, fall, or lose count. No sooner do I get out the door though, when there’s Ace’s magnificent moustache in my face, saying earnestly,

“Thank goodness I caught you!”

I fall on my butt, and to add insult to injury, the bathroom door closes on my backside, sliding me forward. “I only have a minute but I want to make sure you know Sweetie,” Ace says worryingly urgently, “Do not practice walking today. You are at a crucial point, I didn’t want to say, but if you practice, you’ll run right into some nasty habits, that are harder to give up than learning in the first place. You can walk a little, but don’t practice until we can have our lesson tomorrow.”

“I... uh...” I say, feeling muzzy headed from his sudden, unexpected closeness. “I will... um,” I stare at the ground, mumbling, “

I will, sir. Doctor. No problem. Um.”

“Thanks Sweetie, sorry I didn’t say, woah look at the time gotta go,” he says with relief then urgency, and then he darts off. Standing there feeling a bit perplexed, I can hear his hooves clopping away into the distance.

Well, that was a thing that happened.

Ace is based.

Nothing like a crisis that resolves itself in 20 minutes or so.