The Brink of Disaster

So, okay, made it to the library, made it to the reading room, and then Sweetie went and asked me to tell her about how sorcerors are 30 year olds who never stuck it in. Shit.

“30 years without uhm... married... um... stuff...things...” I just can’t lie to her like this. “Do you... know how the foals get into mommy’s bellies?”

Sweetie’s pondering silence is telling.

“I um... hadn’t thought...” Sweetie says tentatively. Her voice is somewhat distressed when she says, “They don’t just get in there, when you’re old enough? I didn’t know I had to do something to be a mommy! Is it like a cutie mark?”

Around that general area, yeah.

“I know how it is for humans,” I admit cautiously, “But would you like to help me find out how it works for ponies?”

Sweetie gives a wavering ummm, and says, “You mean like, asking Rarity?” very self consciously.

“Oh, no,” I say definitively, to her sigh of relief, “I think I said enough to Rarity, when I told her I um... the stallions thing.”

“Those lumberjacks were really um... strong and big...” Sweetie says in a tone that suggests she understands my sentiment, if not the meaning behind those feelings.

“I hope not everypony is that handsome...” I say, surprised that I do sort of feel like that’s the truth. “It’s just hard to talk, when you’re thinking I mean, when they’re all muscly and smell good um...” I’m practically talking to myself here, so why’s it so embarassing to admit these things?

“It’s kind of making me tickly down there,” Sweetie points out, shyly.

“Uhm,” I say in rational, respectful disagreement, except it’s kind of true. “Oh you had to make me think about it,” I mumble quietly, pressing my face into the desk.

“Sorry,” Sweetie says distressfully.

I lift my head enough to shake it, “No, it’s not you. I’m just... saying stupid stuff. I’m going to think of these things, as long as I’m you. It’s just ...natural?” I reach a hoof down there and, oh it’s so gosh darn soft. Just, adjusting it like, trying to get the worst of the tingles to stop um... something.

“Are you doing it?” Sweetie asks hopefully.

I start to say something to contradict her but cut off and sigh, just saying, “Yeah, if you don’t mind...”

“It feels really good,” Sweetie says with a delighted huff when I don’t stop stimulating myself, and herself back there. “Nopony will find out either, because they have to knock first.” It sounds like she’s trying to reassure me, but also that she’s about as excited about this as I am.

It’s easiest if I lay on my back, leaning against the bookcase wall, though certainly not the most comfortable position. I just leisurely let my little pony legs slide apart, and touch my rough pad against those velvety soft vulva, little flower petals firmly closed over the entrance to ...my vagina. That makes my tail flop up off the ground in a confounded ripple, at the novelty of being like this, and also the strangeness of it. Something I never thought I’d feel. I love the magic and ponies and all, but this female thing is just something else...

I don’t even rub, just sort of wiggle the flesh around there, like a light massage. That itself is enough to make my lips tug on each other and...and on the clitoris I bet, in a delightfully indirect way. I don’t mind the cramped position so much, because it reminds me of all those times I had a problem when I was younger, and the only safe place I could let it out was in a ...practice room.

“I used to do this, Sweetie,” I whisper to the air, “Except as a boy I mean... I just had to do it, but I was at school and... and I did it in one of the library’s practice rooms, for music. A lot...”

“You never got caught?” she asks in the tone of a distracted daze. It’s so weird how we’re both caught up by these pleasingly soft tingles emanating from my nether regions.

“Not ever,” I say, “I wanted to get caught but um, it would have been so embarassing.” I don’t add that people would hate me for it and call me a... monster.

“Anypony could just walk in right now and see me,” Sweetie says passionately. “I-if they didn’t knock...”

I pause in ...having fun, to put both hooves down there, spreading myself apart thrillingly. Just like a penis would if it went in there. “You’d be all spread out for them,” I mumble equally passionately and tensely quiet. “They’d see everything between your legs and it... wouldn’t be secret anymore.”

Sweetie just whimpers in response. So I release my hooves, letting those lips slide closed again, closing my legs and curling my hooves forward in front of me. Then, I say dramatically, as if I was talking to someone who came in (except quietly), “Oh no, I fell over, because I’m having such a hard time walking.”

I stay like that until Sweetie giggles, and whispers admonishingly, “What are you doing?”

“Just letting you know nopo—um, yeah nopony is going to see you down there, if you don’t want them to,” I tell her reassuringly.

“Well you can’t stop them from seeing all the way,” Sweetie points out. “But yeah... being um, open like that is a lot... different than just walking around.”

“But it feels good,” I suggest hopefully.

“Yeah, it feels good,” she agrees ardently.

“Well, if you don’t mind then,” I chirp out, and happily start touching myself again, teasing this little body of mine with pleasures even I can barely comprehend. Not overwhelming pleasures, just... strange ones. Everything about this is so wrong, but I just can’t feel bad about something that feels this nice. Nice is maybe the wrong word for it. Nice, and also important? Niceiportant?

“W-we should read about this,” I stammer, a bit lust addled to even say that. I’m starting to feel that intense tingling down there, and my hoof is becoming moist as I goad myself into arousal and... sexual receptivity. “There are books that... tell us about how ponies do this. Even stallions...”

“Ooh that would be amazing,” Sweetie says in an equally horny guff. “A-and I think that stallion I was sitting on was n~nice...”

“Huh?” I half say, and half pant.

“The... the magic picture...” she says distantly. “N-now I know why I didn’t mind hurting Rarity... it just feels so good...”

Okay, no. That makes me stop. “Hurting Rarity?” I say, with a glimmer of horror invading my aroused mood. “What picture was this?”

“The one in your world,” Sweetie prompts unhelpfully.

“There are a lot of those,” I say uncomfortably, unkinking my tail from pressing back against the floor and letting my legs closer together again. “What was... happening in it?” I ask hesitantly, “You said you were um, sitting on a stallion...”

“On his thing,” Sweetie adds softly, less eagerly than before. “His p-penis was very big, and I was um... like you did with my hoof, except his penis.”

“And Rarity...?”

“Oh,” Sweetie realizes, “Oh, the picture had him on my bed on his back, and I was um... reared up, except my hooves were on his knees, and behind me Rarity was... crying, a lot. S-she looked like I really hurt her. And I looked so happy because it was the bottom thing and I guess I didn’t care.” Sweetie ends in a mumble, and I sigh in relief.

“Sweetie, I know that picture,” I say to her. “Do you remember what direction you were facing?”

“I was, um, away from her?” Sweetie says uncertainly.

“So you didn’t even know she was crying,” I point out helpfully. “You were just enjoying the um... stallion, and she saw you, and him.”

“But why was she so upset?” Sweetie asks with a whimper.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, when I resume touching myself again, it seems to calm down my whimpering little other. “Don’t worry Sweetie,” I purr to her, a hoof stroking my own lower belly as if I was comforting her, “That was just a silly joke in my world. The stallion was in a story once, where Rarity wanted to do this with him... and he wouldn’t do it with anypony except... Applejack.”

“A-applejack?” Sweetie says in a shocked tone.

“Yeah, and then Rarity did more and more silly things, to be like Applejack, to get him to like her instead. She tried to pull a plow, and buck apples, and wear um... cowpony clothes. She was so mad at the end she even jumped in the mud, because she thought he only liked dirty farm ponies.”

“The mud?!” Sweetie crows, but I shush her, and she says quieter, “She would never! Rarity thinks being dirty is uncouth.”

You’d be amazed what someone will do to get laid, Sweetie. But I actually say to her, “It was just a funny story. But after that, everyone every human I mean, humans made stories of that stallion doing it with other ponies, and never Rarity. Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh,”

“Big Macintosh?!” Sweetie ‘whispers.’

“And you!” I whisper back less shrilly. “So you were just enjoying yourself, and didn’t know he wouldn’t do it to Rarity.”

“Oh, so it was his fault,” Sweetie says in sudden realization.

“Nnn—...um... yeah...” I say, having to pause in my ill gotten minstrations to think clearly. I explain to Sweetie, “He just wouldn’t like Rari...um... there’s nothing wrong with a stallion, if he just doesn’t like somepony. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.”

A thought occurs to me and I sing quietly, “Sometimes he’s too short, too tall, too clean,”

“Too smelly!” Sweetie answers in astonishment.

“Too strangely obsessed with tubs—” I cut off at the sound of that. It’s not that I’m loud, but... did I really just sound exactly—I mean—of course I did. I always do now, but... I mean...

That was Sweetie’s exact line. I didn’t even mean to make it sound just like her. It’s just so weird how effortless it is to sing like that. It makes me feel kind of bad, for those voice actors who have to work so hard at it to get Sweetie Belle’s voice right. I wonder if ponyland has voice actors. It makes me feel... like I shouldn’t have a voice this beautiful.

“You saw that?” Sweetie asks me in astonishment.

“Yeah, um... did you really trap Big Macintosh in a pit, to break the curse?” I ask, curious how accurate the show was.

“What were we supposed to do?” she hisses back quietly. “There was no stopping him!”

Instead of wisely answering that, I ask in a muddled tone, “Can Big Macintosh really...drag a house...?”

“Well, he is an earth pony,” Sweetie says, as if in obvious explanation.

Good lord he’d probably kill me, like Superman jizzing into Lois Lane.

Oh, hi. I’m a cute little unicorn girl hiding in the tree library and masturbating, while arguing with the true owner of her own body and thinking up jokes about Superman having sex. Welcome to the bottom of the barrel!

“That’s incredible,” I say, just thinking about Big Mac pulling all those apple carts, that one picture. All those apple carts... so strong and tightly muscled...

“But how... how did you know the song?” Sweetie presses, “You just had nmf... pictures. They didn’t m-move or anything.”

“I did have pictures that move,” I offer, neglecting my groin so I can answer in a relatively calm tone, “But they were on um... hiatus... so I wasn’t watching them again. You have to make a lot of pictures to make all the movements, so they don’t happen as often as still ones.”

“What else did you see about me that was moving?” Sweetie asks in ardent anticipation.

“Not much,” I confess. “A talent show, Diamond Tiara’s cutecinera, um... your birthday party, where you dressed up with makeup and a dress, and it made you cry, because then everypony was playing with Rarity.”

“Oh Celestia I can’t believe you saw that,” Sweetie Belle says abashedly. “I thought you... so that’s how you knew...”

“It’s okay, I saw the good side of it too,” I tell her calmingly. “Like, did you know that the other kids made Rarity start the party?”

A pause, and Sweetie says, “...really?”

“Yeah, um... probably. I could be wrong, but... that makes more sense than her just being mean to you. They were gonna leave, so to make them stay she had to give them um... party stuff and cake.”

There’s another pause, and Sweetie says, “I never thought about that before. I guess she wasn’t trying to steal my spotlight...”

“Even if it’s not her fault,” I mutter cautiously, “It’s still okay to be upset at ponies who steal your spotlight and give it to her.”

“But she’s always so much better at it than me!” Sweetie says in frustration. “Maybe she should have my spotlight.”

“Sweetie,” I say easily, “What would it sound like in the woods, if no birds sang except the very best one?”

Sweetie Belle is silent at that.

“Exactly,” I declare, “So don’t worry about singing just because somepony else is better at it than you are.”

“Yeah, I guess...” she says disenhearteningly.

“Well, fine. When we’re doing this you can’t help but sing!” I point out, demonstrating by spreading myself and trailing the edge of a hoof on the teeny little vulva down there. It sure makes me want to sing. I can’t even tease Sweetie Belle, without teasing myself. This is so weird.

“That’s—not singing... it’s it’s just squeaking and grunts and...stuff,” Sweetie grunts haltingly.

“Sounds great to me,” I say, happily dragging us both into the cycle of pleasure again. “I don’t... care about Rarity’s... party favors. This is what’s really good.”

“It is so relaxing,” she admits gladly, “I like... this part too, and also, also the squeezy thing at the end. Everything about it is just amazing.”

Man, I never thought I’d hear Sweetie Belle say that. I can’t even imagine me saying that with her voice. This is so weirdly wonderful. Weird, but fun! “Alright, just relax then,” I tell her, easily leaning my bouncy curls against the empty bookshelf and pushing my hips more into what I’m doing. It’s so good to push into myself like that. “I-it feels the same way for me too, so I’m... happy to do it...”

As I proceed, the nervousness of the past day just drains out of me. I can’t believe what happened this morning. No, I can believe it—I mean this is Ponyville after all—but I can’t believe it happened this morning. And now here I am beating it off in a library nook. Well, beating is a huge exaggeration really. I just love these feelings so much, I’m just enjoying it for now, just teasing it out of me in little squeaks and deep breaths.

Had I the opportunity, I would surely have gotten as wet as a fish in the ocean, and that would surely have prompted me to seek out a good supply of toilet paper. But it turns out we don’t have that much time left. I’m too patient I guess, just feeling so serene and decadent. I barely feel something start to trickle against my hoof, when there’s a knock at the door. My groin quivers unhappily the moment my hooves leave to flail around madly, searching for purchase. Grabbing the table and climbing up with it, I shout, “Yes, who is it? I mean, come in!”

A blue mare with an orange mane and those cute spectacles on her nose pokes her head in the door, saying, “Sweetie Belle?” in a nasally chirpy voice.

I try to hide my blush at the sheer convenience, that everypony expects you to be naked when they walk in the room. I just went from lewd to normal so fast, it made my head spin. “Um... yes?” I say hesitantly. Wasn’t this mare at the library the other day? She just pulls her head back and says outside the room, “Here she is, madame.” And the strange mare’s reasoning comes clear, when Rarity pushes the door open and trots inside.

“Ohh,” I say, “That was the librarian.”

Rarity doesn’t answer, looking around the room appreciatively saying instead, “They have done so well with this library. These reading rooms are positively darling!” When her gaze lights on the table she says a little less happily, “Oh, I see you have a... cookbook.”

“Yup,” I say with no regrets whatsoever. “Thought I could learn some new recipes!”

Rarity visibly winces. “Yes, that... that would be lovely Sweetie, erm... let’s just put that book carefully away and we can go and enjoy some dinner.”

Rarity lets me walk to the exit of the library. The outside, full of ponies, looks so bright from how I was hidden away from the sun in the library. At the threshold, she stops my hobbling walk by touching my chest with a hoof and says, “Ap, Sweetie. Why don’t you ride the rest of the way?”

I sigh at that, and she says down to me in a surprised tone, “Is anything wrong?”

“I sort of... want to walk everywhere now,” I tell her. “I know I shouldn’t but... I mean, my hooves just... I can move! Not well but I mean... it’s just embarassing, having to... make you do this for me.”

Rarity smiles down at me and says, “Think nothing of it, dear. If you are so put out by my offer to help you, think of it as a favor to Dr. Ace. He did tell you to try and avoid walking until you had another session with him.”

“Yeah but that’s all the way to tomorrow,” I say, before I catch myself and blush harder. “I mean... it’s not long but I mean... okay, I won’t have any problem with riding you.”

As I ride on my sister into the late afternoon sun, I find myself still wondering why I feel so freaking impatient. That’s another thing I’m still getting used to. The vigor of youth, I guess? Maybe it’s just that I feel so hopeful now. You can only go without any hope for so long, before you stop feeling excited about... pretty much anything. But now, with hope restored, everything just seems so much more... immediate. Potentious!

And I have been really sedentary lately, like even more than I usually am as a human. I’ve had no long, evening power walks, no dancing in the apartment to a song I heard a million times before. Just... riding, and... being a pony. I don’t want to say it’s boring, but it’s just.... Everything’s happening so slowly now. In my old life, I don’t want to say I was rushing headlong toward my inevitable annihilation as fast as possible, but... time sure flies, when you think you’re beyond help.

And maybe a little of this is about being a kid again. This is so cool though, I’ve never really been a kid before. I um... especially one who lives such a blessed life as Sweetie Belle. I just can’t help but wonder what we’re going to be doing tomorrow. We could be arranging flowers and I’d still be excited. Especially since I get to eat the flowers now! ...probably not allowed to eat the flowers if we’re arranging them.

But we’re allowed to eat the flowers at dinner, and that’s as novel an experience as ever. I never would have thought Violas would taste like spicy licorice. I start to ask more about this morning, but I’m distracted by the tastiness of this food. I could totally cook something like this, couldn’t I? It’s just sauteed, with a little oil and vinegar. And thanks to Sweetie Belle’s taste buds it’s warm and satisfying instead of harsh and bare tasting like stir fried vegetables usually are. But, it does distract me from what I’m saying, so Rarity speaks up asking me,

“Sorry, you were saying something about this morning Sweetie?”

“Mmph?” Not my best moment.

I have to clear my mouth first, then I say, “Oh yes, what about your... window? I mean I don’t r-remember stuff like that so, is there a window... store or something? How do you clean up after these ...things?”

A soft chuckle from her earns me the words, “While I might have to get somepony to look at the latches, it doesn’t look like any serious damage was done to the boutique. Just a bit of a scare, really.”

“I still wonder what that was,” I say, going back to eating.

I don’t get very far through my food before Rarity actually answers me, making me look up again as she says, “Well, since you asked, I may have dipped my ear into the local grape vine today, and I may be wrong in this, but apparantly this was an imported plant, not something from the Everfree!

“Little miss Rose had to cancel her business trip,” Rarity quips smoothly, “As one of her pet projects got into the fertilizer. Or that’s what Pansy was saying, and she talked directly with Lily.”

“Fsmore of those things?!” I blurt out, subsequently gulping apologetically, and wiping off my mouth with the napkin.

“Oh no dear, no no no,” Rarity says appeasingly, raising a hoof with an uneasy look at my little... accident there. “...no. Rose’s little flower trio may get up to some rather ambitious projects, but this was a rare find and they certainly have never had anything so dangerous as to snatch ponies out of their own houses before. Just a bit of bad luck, I imagine. Some innocuous exotic that turned out to be more exotic than expected. I couldn’t say for sure, dear. I simply don’t know the first thing about caring for plants. I dare say I wouldn’t be able to keep so much as a cactus alive.”

“Actually cactuses are really easy to overwater,” I mention, trying to go back to my food. Then I wince and say “I—I mean I think they would be easy to overwater, since they grow in the desert and stuff and... sorry.” I just shut up and eat from then on.

“It’s quite alright, dear,” Rarity says looking at me in concern, but I’m not making the mistake of opening my mouth again, if it’s not to pull food into it. Between Sweetie’s inability to read what I need, and my inability to stop revealing freaky older pony knowledge, Rarity’s going to find out one way or another. But I just can’t tell her, because then Sweetie would tell her about what I did to her, how I was touching her... and me. And I’d...

I don’t know what they’d do to me, but it wouldn’t be good. Probably return me to the hell of my old existence, if they could, just to punish me as much as possible. I-it’ll be fine though; we just have to keep it secret for now, and then... oh god I have to tell Lyra. What is she even really like? Her personality is wholly fan generated, outside of the unusual excitement she showed in that first episode. Does fan content count here? Oh I hope not, because I would just die if Princess Celestia tried to abandon Equestria to be with her hot boyfriend, Notevil Goodguy the Redblack.

No. The comics are not canon. The comics are not canon.

My bathtime—well—our bathtime is spent half luxuriating in the warm water, and half trying not to pay attention to how the slicked down fur really shows off Rarity’s two nipples, darker than the rest of her skin down there on her lower belly. Not many people spend a lot of time thinking about how they had their lips pressed against their young mother’s breast at one point, but I guess I’m just special that way. And since there’s no way a relationship this close could be anything but a mother and her daughter, that means Sweetie Belle’s lips, the ones I feel right in front of my face, were once pressed up there under Rarity’s belly and suckling out the milk. I wonder if Sweetie remembers that. She’s almost young enough to. I should tell Sweetie to treasure those memories, if she can.

N-not that I’m into Rarity’s teats or anything. I just mean that it’s an easy memory to forget since you’re so young, and it’s a nice one that you shouldn’t have to forget. Okay maybe I am a little into um... they’re probably as soft as min— as I feel, down there. But, instead of dwelling on that, I occupy my lips instead with blowing bubbles in the water. And it sounds kind of funny actually, especially when Rarity starts splashing me trying to get me to stop, but can’t stop laughing while she does so, when I refuse to stop.

After the bath, I make sure to get toweled off and... Rarity gets my back with the towel, and lets me get hers. Did I mention these ponies are so warm and soft? Yet they don’t break; there’s this undeniable strength beneath the pliable and yielding flesh that I scrub this towel along, ruffling my sister’s snow white fur.

Toothbrushing is... something I can sort of do on my own now. It’s a lot harder to hold onto little things with one’s hooves, than holding onto big things. Just not as much... surface area, I guess. It’s not really surface area, but more of a leverage thing? Anyway, it’s fine if I use the tip of one hoof to brace the brush against the other. Sure it looks silly and awkward, but it’ll be a cold day in Hell that I let Sweetie’s teeth get as bad as they forced mine to be.

I’m eh... kind of shutting down, on my way over to the bed. I just fade in and out, trying to figure what hoof to put forward and find myself drooping on the spot. Rarity finally just grabs me and tosses me the rest of the way—no wait, scruffs me—so I land lightly on the bed with a muted squeak.

I will be so glad to get this walking thing down, but I have to admit the mental strain does make it really easy to go to sleep. I fiddle around with my hind legs until they scoot under the covers, then carefully pulling the covers up around me, until Rarity’s magic enwreathes them and snugs them right up against me. I look at her loving—I... I mean, I can’t be looking at her lovingly, that would just be so wrong of me. But I look at her, feeling... something when she bends forward, and pushes her nose under my bangs, giving me another light kiss on the forehead.

“Good night ...sister,” I say, even though I shouldn’t, before she walks out.

She turns with a smile in the low light and says, “Good night, dearest sister.”

“Thank you,” I blurt out, sounding so loud in a quiet night only disturbed by chirping crickets. “...for everything,” I manage to mumble. Rarity doesn’t answer me, just has a thoughtful look towards me, then turns and trots out of the room. The door left open, I can see her shadow receding before the hall light switches off too.

“Rarity helped you too?” Sweetie Belle’s voice comes in the soft darkness. “I thought she was just helping me, and didn’t know about you.”

“She is. You’re right,” I tell her. “But, she gave me—I mean—you baths, and she helped me with walking, and carried me around. She didn’t have to do that. And she ...tucks me in at night.”

“But Rarity always does that,” Sweetie protests naively.

I just sigh at the darkness. “She sure does,” I remark wryly, “Rarity is such a wonderful ...um... pony.”

Sweetie pauses, before saying, “She’s the best sister I could ever have.”

“Me too,” I agree softly. I start to drift off but then struggle awake saying, “S-Sweetie?”

“Yes?” she asks uncertainly.

“Do you remember breast.. um... do you remember when you drank your mother’s milk?”

Sweetie pauses, and says, “I think so? I don’t really remember that very well, mostly just the taste. I think we were um... at the market once? Not always though, just one time. I hadn’t even been thinking about it.”

“Well, um... try, if you can,” I advise her. “It’s one of those things that’s really good to remember. I’d ask you to write it down but... I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” she says, “I’ll have all night for um... thinking, so I can just think about it then.”

“That’d be...fine...”

So said, together the two of us, well one of us at least, drifts off blissfully to slumberland.

I dream of Sweetie Belle tonight. She has a worried but determined expression as she gallops along the brick courtyard. Her uneventful failure at track and field left her in reasonably good shape, but that had been deteriorating lately, what with the struggle to study everything in school and still leave time for choir practice.

To stay in shape, she had started galloping at every opportunity, just trying to work up a good heart rate when she got the chance in her vanishingly few moments of activity. In this case, her goal is simply the bathroom, before she returns to the choir to sing as second soprano. She doesn’t even make it to the bathroom though, her hoof skidding on wet brick as she slides forward and tumbles forward onto the floor. Recalling her training at falling, Sweetie leans her shoulder into the fall preparing to half roll to a halt and resolving to be more careful next—her leg snaps.

Sweetie Belle’s scream is one of furious despair, not pain. Though she can’t even see straight or breathe from the pain lancing through her ankle, what comes out of her is just a cumulation of all the little things going wrong. The failed ambitions, the dead end city college, left behind by her friends, never comfortable with new ones. Living in this horrible dry dusty place with no way out, besides perhaps doing good at school and getting recognized for her hard work and high achievement. And the moment her leg broke, she knew that there was no escaping this. This disproportionate retribution was completely uncalled for, because the universe apparantly just randomly does that. She couldn’t see how she could ever get ahead, when she just kept falling further and further behind.

That’s why she screamed. Her reaction to the pain was mostly just a gasping sweating fighting to breathe and not pass out from it. No pain killers until a half hour later, when they finally get her in the ambulance. A cast on her hind leg, wheeling around on a wheelchair the whole time during her recovery. A painful, frustrating recovery at that, with a deep grinding feel in her tortured leg bones. But at last, it’s time for the cast to come off. With a flourish of the saw which can cut cast but not skin, her weak skinny foot comes out. An x-ray later and...

Whoops, they missed something. 3 weeks delayed on vital leg surgery, Sweetie still gets it, and fights through the difficult recovery, and at last her leg doesn’t hurt so much again.

“When can I run again?” she asks the foot doctor.

He looks at her as if she’s stupid, and says, “What? Never.”

“What?!” she exclaims aghast.

Rarity comforts her later, saying gently to the young, but not that young unicorn, “I’m sorry dear, but you have to understand some injuries will not heal. Afraid there’s not much you can do to solve that.” And sure enough, no matter how Sweetie tries to solve it, there’s always that tenuous feeling in her leg, where the bones don’t align right, and repeated stress just starts fracturing them again.

That’s not her biggest concern though. Sweetie Belle can still walk, at least. And she can dance, though not very well. And she can sing better than anypony in the choir, even if she doesn’t get to be first soprano, who is the only one who gets solos. But... her allergies are getting worse. Allergy season just gets longer and longer for her, and she goes from sneezing, to sneezing fits. Asthma, congestion, the terror of your chest being too tight to breathe. Perhaps it’s the air she breathes, full of smog and spores from the cattle farms out of town. She talks to a doctor about it, and he simply shakes his head.

“You can try taking allergy medicine,” the doctor horse at the hospital says, with that tired expression of someone who’s seen a thousand young girls fall prey to this polluted air, “But there’s no cure for allergies. Once they get worse, well, they can only get worse after that.”

Sweetie tells that to Rarity, that she can’t even go outside sometimes, and it’ll be forever. Rarity just smiles sadly, and says, “I’m sorry dear, but you have to understand some ailments may not be cured. If you cannot heal, then you’ll simply have to live with it from now on.”

Sweetie’s weight has been going up, from eating all those sweets, and the hearty dinners Rarity cooks. And with mysteriously lacking any motivation to exercise properly. Disturbed to feel her abdomen jiggling when she trots, she looks into how hard it is to work off accumulated fat. The library book she checked out lists various fat deposits, the most unhealthy one being in the abdomen, where once fat has deposited there, it cannot be worked off, and remains until almost starvation conditions.

She... she still tries. It doesn’t work though, she just makes herself sick, and can’t stop eating. “You’re getting older, dear,” Rarity says to her. “You aren’t going to be as spry or healthy as you were in the prime of your life. Age is not something from which you can heal. You just have to accept that, and move on.” Sweetie doesn’t want to move on, but she has no choice.

The health care she enjoyed as a filly gets revoked, with nothing to replace it. Years and years with no checkups, no doctor to rely on, no surgery if anything goes wrong. “Sometimes, medicine is simply too expensive to pay for,” Rarity explains. “There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just a bad mixup that will have to work itself out in time, because there’s simply nothing we can do about it. Just accept that you live in the real world now.”

Sweetie goes to school. My school. She walks to school. She studies, but doesn’t do well enough to be notable. No university can she transfer to, because tuition has doubled, then tripled in the decades she was growing up. “School is just expensive,” Rarity said to her. “You’ll just have to get a job to pay for it.” And Sweetie’s best attempts barely make enough money to pay for snacks, much less for a nice school, so Rarity just shrugs and says, “I’m afraid sometimes we can’t get what we want. You’ll just have to settle for a poor education, accept that, and move on.”

Sweetie’s at school, and she doesn’t care. She’s at home and she doesn’t care. She’s always hurting inside now, and so lonely, but nobody cares about this tired looking broken mare. She can’t cry, ran out of tears long ago. She just walks up to Rarity and I struggle to reach her because I don’t want her to say it. I don’t want her to feel it! Sweetie Belle pleads to her sister mournfully, “Please help Rarity, I can’t seem to feel happy anymore!”

“Welcome to the real world, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity says with a gentle smile. “Some injuries will not heal, even those of the mind. You’ll just have to settle for being miserable, accept that, and move on.”

There’s a blue flash and a tearing sound, and I fall through—something, landing on my hooves shouting at I see myself there shouting at me but I’m not Sweetie Belle but I am and I can see myself shouting, “It’s not real! It’s not the real world!” And I’m she’s I’m she—I’m—

I’m looking into a mirror. Sweetie Belle is in there, but of course she is. It’s just my reflection, right? When I turned into Sweetie Belle? But how did I do that? I was just... what was I doing? I was talking to Rarity about my depression, wasn’t I? Rarity is still there, standing aside from the mirror with a neutral expression on her face. “You’re not stupid, Sweetie Belle,” she says critically. “You know there’s nothing in there. It’s just a reflection. The real world is out here.”

“No!” I shout in sudden anger. “You’re wrong! You’ve always been wrong! The real world is in there! You’re just a... a nightmare!” Rarity lurches forward at that, moving...weirdly, giving me barely enough time to leap through the mirr—I hit the smooth surface of the mirror. It’s just a mirror. It’s not a portal. Why is it not a portal?! The Rarity thing is coming for me! I don’t want to be out here, but there’s nothing against my hooves but a mirror! Why can’t it be magic, and let me in? Why can’t it be... there’s... somepony else in the mirror, just a dark shadow in the back of the room. I can’t see her clearly, my eyes are... blurry from... tears?

Her cornflower blue hoof phases through the mirror before my eyes, the mirror I’m leaning on. That inexplicable hoof proves forever that this is not a mirror. It’s a portal. I fall through the portal, tumbling together with the mirror Sweetie Belle, and behind me, the horrible world in the mirror just shatters.

“Sweetie Belle, are you okay?” I ask in alarm. She doesn’t answer. I rear up onto all fours, and at my hooves is a sort of badly sewn looking full sized Sweetie Belle doll, missing a few seams, with cheap button eyes. It was a trick, all along. The mirror... the other world made me think I was in a mirror, but the mirror was a portal to escape that horror, and the reflection on the other side was just a doll there to block me from realizing it. It’s not the doll’s fault though. It was used as much as I was. I lift up the Sweetie doll in one hoof, catching my breath, then look around for my savior saying,

“Thank you! Um, whoever you are?” With nopony in the room and no answer, I just chuck the Sweetie Belle doll onto my back, and start walking. I came out into the real Boutique, and I walk right on out of it, where outside ponies are themselves walking to and fro, and fillies and mares are running and playing. Right outside in the morning sun is my best sister Rarity, who exclaims in a tone of frightened relief,

“Oh there you are, Sweetie! You gave me such a scare! Did you escape the mirror?”

“I did,” I tell her, maybe a little bit proudly. “I won’t ever go there again,” I say determinedly. “My home is here, with them,” I point to my two smiling friends, “And with you,” I turn my hoof to point at Rarity, but then just run up and hug her. It feels so much better to hug her when I’m the right size, not some oversized, worn out mare, who couldn’t even win at a game that had been rigged against her from the start. I love being a filly, and I love this second chance and Rarity is the best sister I could ever have.

“Go on then,” Rarity says, looking at Apple Bloom and Scootaloo who are both the picture of excited impatience. “It looks like thy friends are ready to play with you.”

“I wi҉ll!” I say to her, not even caring if I squeak. I run to my dearest friends, and they’re still there with me. We run off together, and nothing hurts us. Everything heals. And stupid old nightmares can go fuck themselves, because I have a journey to begin, my new life.

After uh... something about a pole swinging cutie mark, the dream finally dissolves into wakefulness, and I mumble something about pizza and... the sunlight is gone, my friends have faded away, and I’m alone in my bed illuminated by the cool pleasant moonlight streaming in my window. What was that? Some... pony saved me? I can’t remember very clearly, just that Sweetie got... mirror saved, somehow. Without a word, I get up from the bed, pulling myself up from spilling onto the floor, to shuffle unsteadily across it. 1,3 2,4. I can see myself in the mirror, in monochrome by the silvery moonlight. My hair’s uncombed, and my fur is rumply. My eyes look worried and still sleepy.

Silently, I creep over to my window. Rearing up, I hook my hooves over the edge, and outside the moon is still high in the sky. I could sleep more, I think. A noise makes my ear flick, and I see below a pair of ponies stumbling down the street, hanging onto each other, singing some godawful tuneless song about presenting the presents. There are a few lights on here and there, most of the town only lit by moonlight. Up here on the second story, I can actually see pretty far. Hard to make out details in the distance, in the dark of the night. But this town, this... world is alive. I push off the window, and use the wall to turn myself, hobbling back to my bed which I climb up onto, gathering the sheets around my chin.

Then I ask uncertainly, “Sweetie Belle?”

“Oh, you’re awake!” she says out of nowhere. Her voice sounds kind of scratchy, like... badly recorded record scratchy. But it’s no problem to understand her when she says “Even after I just got up and walked over there, and did all that, and I didn’t even... notice you stopped sleeping...”

She sounds... really sad at that. Blinking into the darkness, I ask her, “Is it... hard to pay attention to what’s going on, when you’re like this?”

“It’s... okay,” she says shyly. “Kinda yeah. It’s just... you’re always moving me and I’m not ever moving me. So it’s easy to just sort of not do anything, and just... be.”

“I sort of know how you feel, Sweetie,” I say with a sigh. Not that I know how she feels physically, but emotionally... yeah she’s too detached... this can’t be healthy. We have to do something about it.

“Where can I find Lyra?” I ask Sweetie. “I forgot to ask in the library.”

Sweetie giggles at that. “Yeah,” she agrees, “We were kind of distracted.”

I know she can feel me roll my eyes. “That... might have been a bad idea,” I say unamiably, “But I could never resist doing it in practice rooms. Anyway, where’s Lyra?”

“I um...” Sweetie pauses uncertainly. “I see her at the... library sometimes. She also works at the um... laboratory tower. That’s where she talked to me and Scootaloo and Apple Bloom.”

“Do you know where the laboratory tower is?” I ask hopefully.

“Sure,” Sweetie says, “But it’s really easy to see. Just look for the big spiral looking lightning silo thing.”

“Ohh, I wondered what that was,” I mention gleefully.

“She just... it’s a working place for lots of ponies so I don’t know if she lives there,” Sweetie says uncertainly.

“It’s fine,” I say chirpily, “We’ll find her and... do something about this.” I should warn her that Lyra can’t know about what I did either, should communication be achieved somehow, but I just don’t have the heart, or the survival instinct. I’ll just have to... not touch myself or anything and... be really good about it until we do, and until I can get... separate from Sweetie Belle.

That leaves just one more question I don’t want to know the answer to. “Sweetie?” I ask nervously, “You did follow me into my dreams this time? You shouldn’t, though. I didn’t mean to... you shouldn’t have had to feel that.”

“No?” Sweetie says distantly. “I can’t follow still. Why? Was I in there?”

“Y–um...” I firm my chin in confusion. “Sorta? I guess I might have just been um... dreaming about you.”

“About me?” Sweetie says excitedly. “What did you dream about me?”

“Horrible things,” I whisper, covering my eyes with a hoof. “I don’t... want to talk about it. I’m just glad you weren’t really there.”

She doesn’t press me further, leaving the room quiet in its disturbed silence, giving me just enough chance to slip away into sleep again. My sleep is blissfully dreamless, until the morning comes with Rarity to awaken me.

“Oh Sweetie Belle~?” comes her lovely voice through my ears. I open my eyes in time for her to say, “You’ve been sleeping in, it seems. But time is getting on, and sunrise was almost a half hour ago, so let’s get a move on and get some breakfast in your little tummy!”

I blink at Rarity from buried where I am in my covers, and say uncertainly, “Are you... buttering me up for something?”

“What? No!” Rarity says in surprise, eyes widening from where she stands in the doorway. “Certainly not—no! No I...” She sighs. “No I am not,” she repeats more evenly, “The only thing I want from you is your presence at breakfast, and perhaps something done to make your mane more presentable.”

I’m... skeptical. But I guess it is every parent’s dream that their daughter won’t give them trouble getting up in the morning. I sit up in bed saying, “OK Rarity, I’ll um...” it occurs to me that my morning routine involves getting up, being naked, and that’s it. “Just let me get over to the dresser,” I say, wiggling my butt out of bed sideways, my tail sliding along behind it as the rest of me puddles onto the ground. There has really got to be a better way to get down off things. Maybe I can ask... ooh, my physical therapist, who really is a thing, who I have access to!

Anyway, I stumble over to the dresser and yeah, my bangs are in my face again. Funny how you don’t notice your hair’s doing that, until you see yourself in the mirror and your eyes are partially obscured.

...funny how I felt like I was seeing myself in the mirror just now.

Nothing to be done about it though. I remain wary to memory loss, but I really don’t have many memories that I need to retain, other than that the place I came from is terrible, and I never want to return. Otherwise I just couldn’t care less really. Rarity helps work out my mane with her tickly, ice blue magic: only to hold the brush of course. She doesn’t magic my mane directly; why I’m not entirely sure. But I close my eyes at the pleasant feel of a brush running through my hair, down behind my ears and on my neck, and along the curly length of my tail. It’s so relieving to get loose hairs out, like a tension you weren’t aware of, suddenly absent from your life.

I help brush Rarity, and it’s clear she’s taken care of it herself, but I don’t really mind, because it’s something I am able to do, and things like that are very hard to come by these days. I know how good a brush feels on my hide, and it’s even better when somepony else is doing it. ...yeah I’m really getting into this unicorn thing today. I feel... unsurprised. Even when I stand on my hooves, I’ve had a whole week to get used to it. It’s just like I remember now, rather than some strange, alien experience. A bit worried, I try to remember what it was like standing on two feet, and wearing shoes.

I had these really durable leather shoes with rubber soles. They looked really classy, but I only got them because they lasted so long. A decade at least. You could pay a little extra for shoes that lasted that long, even if you barely had enough money to get by. The only hitch is, they were heavy; really heavy. Like, you drop them on carpet and you still hear a thud. No idea why that rubber was so heavy, but I could practically walk down 30% grades without slipping so... it was a love/hate relationship. My hooves feel so light in comparison, but then again, my bare feet felt so light in comparison too.

Yup, no memory problems. Rarity accompanies me to help me walk along, letting me go in the toilet entirely by myself (thankfully). It still feels weird to pee, without having anything to pee with. I don’t have to overthink it though. I can just plant my hooves in the right spot, and bear down, and the angle will get it perfectly in the bowl. These weird toilets really work well for ponies. Human toilets, I either had to sit on them, or hold my penis in my hand, to have any hope of aiming it in the bowl. When you’re a taller man, peeing standing up, even if you get it perfectly right, there’s always unavoidable splashback. Y-yeah no memory problems, alright.

Breakfast is a refreshing glass of apple juice (no doubt that apple juice) and a bowl of what looks like green granola and milk, but tastes like grass. I wish I could read the side of the box, because the winking pony illustrated on it is surely surrounded by some terrible cereal pun. I don’t ask Rarity because... she doesn’t know I can’t read. And I don’t ask Sweetie Belle because... shit I should have talked to her in the toilet. But we’re not alone now, so I’m not free to just open my mouth like a muppet and go “HAY SWEETIE BELLE WHO I AM NOT WHO IS IN MY HEAD CAN YOU HEAR ME I THINK RARITY IS LOOKING AT ME FUNNY HAY DO YOU THINK SO WEIRD HEAD VOICE SWEETIE?”

So instead, we talk about therapy. Not me and Sweetie, me and Rarity. “I wonder why d-doctor Ace wanted me not to walk,” I say thoughtfully. “I don’t know what he’s going to teach me in... um, how many days did we see him?”

“Well, we missed a day due to that terrible overgrown weed,” Rarity says disinterestedly, tapping a hoof on the table as if... yeah, she’s doing some form of counting. “I believe you’ve seen him a total of 4 times now,” she concludes looking up to face across the table from me. “This will be your fifth. You aren’t continuing to have amnesia, are you?”

“Oh! No, certainly not!” I say to her, as comfortingly as I can tell her, while having a voice like a rubber duckie. “It is just my regular memory problems, um, just normal forgetting.”

“I do hope he is correct about ‘crucial point’ because it would be ever so helpful if you could walk again,” Rarity says with a sigh, then drops her spoon in the cereal. “I mean to say that is of course you are walking, but simply that you can... practice, more.”

“I understand, sis,” I say to her. “I am pretty terrible at walking still, and you still need to carry me all over the place. I’ll try my best, but it hasn’t even been a week so... it might take a while. It must be really hard for you...”

“Think nothing of it,” she says with a mane flip. “You just recover as best you can, and give me a chance to make myself dreadfully useful. It’s what any good sister would do, after all.”

I frown at that. “I’m... not a very good sister,” I say to Rarity carefully. She gives me a fretful look, but relaxes when I continue saying, “I ran away from you, when you were just trying to take care of me. I know you were busy, and didn’t have much time for me, but I still did it. I just felt like anything I tried just hurt you, um... when I did... stuff.”

Blushing at my lack of fan-knowledge, I say, “I don’t actually remember what I did, just that you were really upset and... you had every reason to be upset, even if I wasn’t trying to make you upset. That’s even worse, really. Because then you can’t blame me, so you have to pretend you’re not upset, and just get more angry inside.” At least, that’s how I think the episode went.

I... guess it worked because she has tears in her eyes... “Oh Sweetie you are such an exceptional filly,” she says in a tone of tormented love. “What are we ever going to do with you?”

I’m... not sure it comforted her or not. “P-physical therapy?” I ask with a quaver in my voice. “I mean,” I say steadying myself, “We’re doing physical therapy, right?”

“Why yes, physical therapy!” Rarity says, her mood brightening as soon as I offer a change of subject. “I do have high hopes that Dr. Ace can get you on your hooves again, on a more permanent basis. We may wish to look into some form of ...assisted transportation, if you continue to have issues though. I can’t be there to carry you around everywhere, after all.”

“Well there’s the wagon, um...” I hesitate, but continue, “When Scootaloo’s wagon is fixed, there’s that. Maybe there’s something Dr. Ace knows that would be better than a wagon, and not bad like a wheelchair.”

“We can always ask him,” Rarity says, “But again, there is only so much time in the morning, and he’s a very busy pony, so let’s do our best to make the most of it.”

“It’s only been 4 da—times,” I say hopefully, “So it probably won’t help a lot, but he did say something about a crucial...something yesterday, and I tried really hard not to walk a lot, so I hope today is going to go well.”

And to everyone’s great surprise, it went very well, without one single incident.