Taste Tests

Oh no, my word count is dropping! Just kidding, I actually had to break this chapter up into two pieces.

At least with this hospital visit, I’m not even going to get the chance to keep my secret secret. I wish I could throw myself at their mercy and hope for the best, and guess what? Thanks to their magical hospital scanners, I’m going to get my wish granted whether I like it or not! What a magical wish granting land, am I right? That’s a good place for it to be revealed, anyway. It means I can enjoy this one last train ride, and then ask forgiveness later, and nobody’s going to die or be trapped in a hellish nightmare forever.

As soon as they force me to stop being such a snake.

I sigh, letting my chin sink down to the ledge of the window, where I remain leaning on the wooden frame as the train clacks and rumbles quietly beneath me. With the formerly open land around the train now a little more constrained by the forest, I don’t see many pegasi, or much of anything else for that matter. Watching trees, trees and more trees gets old pretty quickly. They’re not even apple trees.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo have the right idea, playing a game of hide and seek around and under the train benches. I get the impression the adults don’t like it much, but they prefer letting them play, to the unpleasant experience of active children who are trying to keep still. I’d probably be right there with them, if I could only stand up on this train. It looks like I’ll have to wait to get off a moving train before I can even think about trying to move around again on my own power. It doesn’t stop me from watching them though, with a tight longing in my chest.

I slide down to lie there on my side, with my legs easily folding out beneath me towards the edge of the seat cushion. After a while, I manage to roll to my back entirely, my tail pushing down against the seat as I wiggle my little white legs up in the air friskily. I really want to move around. I’ve been sitting still for so long. But all I can do is look at my little pony feet and my little pony belly and the curls of my mane currently mooshed down against the cushion, that like to drop down into the periphery of my vision.

I never wanted to be the little pony. It might not seem like it, from how positive I’m reacting, but on some level I know that I could have woken up as a toothless crocodile and I’d still be deliriously giddy about being here. All I ever needed was something impossible to happen. The precise nature of that impossibility just doesn’t matter. Being Sweetie Belle is admittedly up there in the top ten ideal experiences, but it’s the kindness of existence that makes everything worthwhile, no matter what or who you wake up to be.

So, I’m not complaining or anything, being Sweetie Belle and all. But I do kind of miss having hands. Wiggling four little baby hooves out above me just isn’t as satisfying as stretching my fingers.

“Sweetie,” comes Rarity’s amused laugh, “What on earth are you doing?”

I stop wiggling my hooves like a retard, and turn to look up at her through the transparent green divider. “Hoofy kicks?” I suggest timidly. Rarity manages not to laugh to her credit, though she puts her hoof over her face to hide a smile. She doesn’t tease me about it at least. I probably deserve it.

“Never mind, darling,” Rarity says, and returns to her quiet vigil over the other Crusaders, turning away from me. Thus, once again I’m left to do ...whatever.

It occurs to me I still don’t have a plan, for when they find out about me.

“Ugh,” I grunt disgruntledly, flopping over on my side again. It’s that sour feeling in your muscles, not like lactic acid but, just like you want to jump up and run about until you’re exhausted. It’s so hard to think, when I’m primed and ready for playtime, and don’t even have the coordination to do it. “How much longer is this gonna take?” I exclaim and immediately wonder why I said that. Aren’t I happy this is taking longer?

“We’re beyond the halfway mark, Sweetie,” Rarity says over her shoulder. “In fact they should bring the food cart around soon.” She looks at me and smiles, adding, “That would be a nice break in the monotony, now wouldn’t it?”

“Goll-ly, Rarity,” Applejack speaks up in a disgusted tone, reminding me again that she’s actually here with us. “Can’t you see the filly is stir crazy? She needs runnin’, not eatin’!”

I frown at those words. “Actually I am kind of hung–”

Applejack rolls off the bench, landing with a solid clop on the moving train. She turns to me, and barely has to walk a pace to get right up over me. I stare up at her like a deer in headlights, while she says, “Well come on, y’gotta learn to walk sometime.”

“I can’t walk, though!” I protest, curling my hooves against me defensively.

“You were doin’ alright before,” Applejack says smoothly. I look at Rarity, but she’s leaning on the divider and regarding Applejack with a small silent smile.

“We’re on a moving train,” I say turning back to Applejack. “I’ll fall over!”

“So?”

I open my mouth to protest, but nothing comes out. I look down then look up again brows knitted in incredulity. “So...” I say very uncertainly to the orange cowpony, “That’s bad!” Applejack responds by scruffing me. Okay, yes this is getting kind of old.

I dangle helplessly, which of course puts all four hooves in an ideal position to be set down in a standing stance. My knees would be knocking together, if they weren’t spread apart trying to keep from falling over. It’s just a train, not a maglev, so it’s clattering and rocking back and forth slightly, which makes anxiety leap in my throat. “What if I fall?” I whimper out shrilly.

“Then you get back up again,” Applejack says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. I can’t help but notice the other two Crusaders peeking out from under benches at me, to say nothing of the other passengers, who are looking at me with varying degrees of sympathy and disdain. “You gotta work off some of that energy,” Applejack says gently, but unsympathetically. “If you fall, that’s fahn, because if you wear yourself out from gettin’ up again, then you won’t be drivin’ us and yourself crazy with all your wigglin’!”

My anxiety slightly fades before her unflinching logic. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think Applejack has outsmarted me. She mistakes my shock for hesitance, and adds, “Don’t worry, ah’ll spot ya,” sidling up close to me, her barrel like a warm furry orange wall alongside me. Lifting one leg, I take a cautious step. Nothing happens of course, because all I did was lift a leg and then put it down. It’s the other three I have to deal with, that are the problem at hand. The train lurches under me, and I slip sideways.

“Easy does it,” Applejack says, propping me up before I topple over.

“Long as you can keep me from hitting my face,” I mutter unenthusiastically. “My nose is so sore.”

A funny noise makes me look behind me in disgust. Stop it, worst pony. You’re not supposed to sit there all smug on your train bench up there snickering at my suffering. I’ll bet that love in your eyes is...

Is...

...wow. I look away from Rarity, blushing despite myself, and focus on my legs. I am not used to people loving me. Or ponies, for that matter. I take my cautious step again, pausing halfway through when I notice that, even with only three legs down, I’m still balanced, rocking naturally to the other direction when the train wobbles underneath, my tail acting as a—oh, hey!

I put my hoof down, and look at my tail. It’s actually up, and swinging there perkily. I hardly even have to think about it to get it up there. The tip of it twitches excitedly. Which is to say, I’m excited. I look forward again determinedly. Lift up a hoof, put it forward, so far so good. Rear opposite leg then, on the right. That second hoof hits the floor underneath me, but at an odd angle, like I’m leaning back on it. Which I do, a surprised shriek escaping me as it slides out, and I fall on my butt.

“C’mon then, get up,” Applejack says, using her nose to roll me to my belly.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” I say limply, still unnerved by the fall.

“Well fahn, get up nice and slow then,” Applejack tells me disapprovingly, “But you won’t burn off any’a that energy. You gotta work up a good head’a steam if you want to feel less restless.”

I look at Applejack in thoughtful respect, then rise to my feet, then wobble and... fall over again. The train keeps moving!

“You’re doin’ great, Sweetie!” Apple Bloom says over to me approvingly, if insincerely. “Go ahead, one more time!”

I try to stand up again, and my legs just slide out from under me, landing me on my belly with a soft thump. “What is even the point?” I huff, “I’m not going to get better at walking, not on this train.”

“The point ain’t to get better,” Applejack says in an authoritative tone, “The point is to get tahred! Now get up and really put some effort in it!”

Pouting, I pull my hooves in, bracing them on the ground and pushing up. I manage to stand then, stumbling once as the train goes over another irregularity in the track. “Okay... okay I can do this...” I chant, breathing hard. I try stepping with my right hind leg first, and it just hangs in the air, with me unsure of where to touch it down. I pull it back from as far as I can stretch, then just shift the weight from my front left to my hind right. Doing that pushes me forward, off balance, and... my other two legs flail and clop forward, leaving me splay legged, and leaning forward too far. I try to hold it but I just can’t... stop... I almost hit my face when I fall, but something grabs me, and it’s Applejack, easing me less painfully to the ground.

“One more tahm,” Applejack says encouragingly.

I have to have gotten up and fallen down a dozen more times at least, by the time the food cart arrives. It’s gotten to the point that I think I’m teaching myself how to fall over, more than I am how to walk. The rolling clatter announces itself, as I lie on my side panting, readying myself for another attempt. The Crusaders are still cheering me on shrilly, but the bigger ponies both turn their heads to the other train car, when a magenta mare with a blue mane wrapped up in a bun comes pushing a metal cart, its handle pressed firmly up against her chest. We all get out of the way of the food cart, well Applejack drags me out of the way, but the rest of us get out of the way on our own power.

The mare stops the cart with her teeth near the center of the train car, then says in a bright bouncy voice, “Alright everypony, we have mozzagonia sandwiches, chickpea stew, hay fries, selection of fruit, a spinach/barley mash with basil, fried cattails...” and I find my mouth dropping open at her happily auditory recital of the ...menu as it were. Half the stuff sounds delicious, half the stuff sounds like stuff I’d never eat, and half the stuff I don’t even recognize. I can sure smell it though. The stews are in big deep pots on the lower level, with silvery square trays on top holding the hot servings, the fruit in a bag on the side, and the hay...fries in a bag on the other side.

“Oh Sweetie, your favorite!” Rarity suddenly exclaims, excitedly.

“Huh...?” I say, looking at Rarity cluelessly. I realize then, “Oh, you mean the–the food, right!” My pupils narrow, as I realize I hadn’t paid attention to what Rarity was referring to, at all. How am I supposed to know Sweetie Belle’s favorite food? Would it taste like it was my favorite food? Rarity gave Sweetie Belle cantaloupe, and it tasted like cantaloupe! What if Sweetie likes something the most, and I find it tastes terrible, even though we have the same nose?

What breath I’ve managed to catch comes short and quickly, as I try to drag a solution to this out of my stubbornly recalcitrant brain. Come on, what did Rarity say was Sweetie’s favorite? Why wasn’t I listening? I don’t care if it tastes like a sewer, I’ve got to eat it and pretend it’s really good! But how can I, when I don’t even know what to ask Rarity to–

“Here you go, Sweetie,” Rarity says casually, levitating a sandwich on a plate down to the bench in front of me.

I blink at the sandwich, my gears still spinning with the clutch pulled out. It’s a rather innocuous looking thing. Very plain textured bread, sliced in precise triangles, no crust. It smells... mmm... oh that’s actually nice. I don’t know what it is, but it smells tart and vanilla-ish. There’s something white sticking out the sides. The sandwich doesn’t have much filling, but what’s in there certainly adds to the bulk of it, more than just the lightweight bread slices.

I start to just eat it, but then I stop in puzzlement. The slices are lying awfully flat on the plate. Do I just bite a corner? Am I supposed to lift it in my magic? Probably my hooves. Yes, definitely my hooves. Hooves that I have no idea how to use. I look at a hoof. It’s relatively clean, I suppose because I haven’t been walking on it. My ears tilt down, remembering that Rarity is watching me. Instead of fussing over how, I just go push my hoof down on a slice, trying to do... whatever Apple Bloom did back then.

I push the sandwich around on the plate, at least. The cart attendant is rolling her cart into the next car, by the time I manage to get it to tilt up enough, that I manage to get my other hoof... my other front hoof underneath it. Thankfully, my back hooves seem decidedly less articulate than the front ones, because I do not want to be a spider pony grasping things with all four hooves. In a similar act of universal benevolence, this sandwich isn’t heavily stuffed, and is pretty compressed, so it doesn’t spill its guts forth when I squeeze it between my clumsy hooves. It’s like one of those cheap sandwiches you’d find in plastic wrap at the coffee shop.

And, this is what my life has been reduced to. Less coordination than a baby pony, spending like five minutes just to eat a packaged sandwich. I take a bite of the smushed thing. Then I take another bigger bite. It actually tastes chewy and scrunchy and sort of... is that provolone?

I turn my head up to Rarity with a smile, saying, “’s gloo–” but stop myself before I go and make an idiot out of Sweetie Belle again. Chewing on the oddly grassy bread, and the plump white slices of some sort of fruit intermingled with a mild nutty cheese, I find it’s a very gooey sort of sandwich, not entirely unlike a s’more. I carefully chew, making sure every bit of it is swallowed, before looking up at Rarity, and saying, “Thank you sis,” in a polite tone. “You were right, I do like this!” Rarity is looking at me a bit awkwardly at that statement, so I hurriedly add, “Uh, the bread is a little funny, though?”

Rarity purses her lips. “Hmm, probably wheat,” she says in an unimpressed tone, “You’d prefer amaranth, I suppose. Well, this is a degree of separation from ‘roughing it’, so I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with such for now.”

I’d respond with something witty, but it’s pretty clear what Rarity wants me to do, so I just resume eating my sandwich. I could use some water...

“May I have some water?” I therefore ask, and it is Rarity whom I ask, as she is the one who set me up with this sweet sandwich. She smiles at me and says, “You certainly may. One moment while I flag down the attendant.”

“You don’t have to–” I say, but Rarity is already trotting off into the other car, where the dining tray was previously rolled, in an unremarkably obvious manner that I clearly don’t have to describe again.

“I hope you don’t mind a bowl,” Rarity says, returning with a cream colored bowl. “You were having enough trouble with the sandwiches as-is,” she grumbles in a disapproving tone.

“Sure!” I cheer approvingly, though I don’t succeed in sounding approving, with how my mouth is gaping open. “I mean, is that okay?!” I ask with trepidation. “I mean, are bowls a thing? I mean–” I really should learn to stop talking.

“As long as you don’t mind being treated like a foal,” Rarity cautions, lowering the bowl to the bench where I can see it’s full of clear water.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” I say happily, equally happily sticking my nose into the bowl and siphoning out water. My sister is the one looking at me with trepidation now, so I wipe off my chin and explain to her, “It’s like you said. A lady must um... let others pull the cart when you can’t ...walk.” Dammit brain, you can do better than that! How did Rarity say it so poetically? Come on brain, you can come up with dirty limericks on the spot, but you can’t describe why it’s ladylike to slurp water out of a bowl?

Rarity smiles anyway, and leaves me be without further trouble, but it’s a placating smile, like one you’d give a little kid who has a poor understanding of what’s going on.

This is all Sweetie Belle’s brain’s fault.

The train crosses a bridge at one point, a flat topped golden archway over a yawning chasm cut like a knife out of the land. It grabs my attention because of the sound of the waterfall thundering down in the distance on our right. This divide seems out of place in the bountiful thick forest, nothing inside it but worn solid rock. My sister pulls me back into the train saying, “Don’t lean out the window so far, Sweetie.”

“What was that?” I ask after the train has passed beyond it and there’s no more to look at.

“Some place you never need to go,” Rarity says, harsh enough to make me wilt. I deserved that. Or, wait no, Sweetie deserved that for going to the Badlands... and... I probably would deserve it, given half a chance. I’m not in trouble yet though, even though I am. She is. I’m confused.

“An old relic,” Rarity continues to murmur, “Ponies like to refer to it as Ghastly Gorge. A fitting name if you ask me. It clashes terribly with the surrounding landscape. I wish they would just fill it up with dirt and be done with it.”

“Where would they get that much dirt?” I wonder, mentally trying to imagine filling up a canyon like that.

“W-well they wouldn’t,” Rarity admits, “It’s just an idle fantasy. There are a lot of dangerous places, even in Equestria, that have not yet been properly ponified.”

Seriously? Ponified is a thing?

“It looked really pretty, for a dangerous place,” I say testily. “All the trees were getting kind of boring.”

“Sweetie,” Rarity says placatingly, “If you think that is impressive, just wait until you recall our family outing to the Grand Canyon!”

“Plus, then they couldn’t build that beautiful bridge!” I continue stubbornly.

“Sweetie, if you think that bridge is beautiful–” Rarity starts.

“I know, I know,” I respond grumpily, “There’s lots better bridges out there. Doesn’t mean that one isn’t pretty.”

We fall silent for a moment, then my head shoots up again, and I exclaim in shock, “Tha҉t’s Ghastly Gorge?!”

...ugh... maybe my special talent is to be a rubber duckie.

“Hmm?” Rarity says looking down at me with a curious expression, “Why on earth would you be remembering Ghastly Gorge? I’m fairly sure you’ve never been there.” Her voice takes a suspicious tone toward the end.

“Oh, um... Rainbow D–” I chew on my lip thinking twice before saying that. “Scootaloo said that Rainbow Dash trains there sometimes,” I settle on at last.

“I say what now?” Scootaloo pipes up, popping in on our conversation, next to me on the train bench. Thanks Scootaloo, my blood wasn’t running cold enough until you helped out there. Oh, no, Scootaloo, of course it wasn’t you who said it, it was actually a cartoon television show what said it, which I watched in humanland, which is full of humans, which I am, and not Sweetie Belle. I just had to try to get creative here, bringing Scootaloo into it. Well, I can’t possibly ruin my story any worse, so I just keep going with it.

“You told me once—you were the one who told me, right?” I ask Scootaloo. “I mean, that she um... trains in the... Ghastly Gorge...”

Scootaloo nods, oh thank Celestia, saying “Yeah, but you were never all that interested in that stuff I mean, it’s all... athletic and stuff.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?” I say in mock alarm. Scootaloo gasps in genuine alarm. It’s fucking adorable. Okay distraction achieved, I’m going with this.

“You must never tell a lady she is fat!” I continue in that incorruptible voice I’ve fallen in possession of, sticking my nose up and putting a hoof on my chest. “Or she may have to sit on you!”

“I didn’t mean to!” Scootaloo protests painfully, stopping short with a “Wait wha–”

“It’s too late!” I say in as low a pitch I can manage, which is not very low. I wiggle around to stick my bottom half at her going, “You cannot escape this big fat butt!”

“Sweetie, stop it!” Scootaloo utters backing up from me off the seat, but she can’t stop giggling, so I figure she can suck it up.

“If only you had known!” I pronounce, scooting backwards toward the sound of her laughter, “What the consequences would be! But you didn’t, and now it’s too late! My butt hungers!”

“Sweetie, language!” Rarity snaps at me sharply, making me look up at her nervously, where the older unicorn is holding a rigid poker face. Unfortunately, that’s the exact same time my rear end topples over the edge of the train seat. I squeak in alarm, as my gut hits the edge of the seat, trying to hold on with my front hooves, but inexorably sliding off and landing on my butt back on the floor of the train. I wish that last part was intentional, because I would have to be a master comedian to pull that off intentionally, but thankfully gross incompetence also fits the bill.

“I’m O.K.!” I call out from the floor.

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Rarity belly laugh before in the show. She’s always laughing politely, or wryly, or mixed in with the group. I wonder if Tabitha St. Germane had a problem making a convincing laugh for Rarity. She’s a masterful voice actor though, so it probably was just deemed a character trait, or not a high priority. Actually it’s probably a little bit of both. I certainly hope this experience of mine isn’t some elaborate setup, and they don’t have Tabitha chained somewhere behind the set right now, currently being mercilessly tickled. But... if that isn’t the case, then Rarity’s laugh (not Tabitha’s) sounds genuine, but silly. A lot of whooping.

I think I’m going to make it my solemn duty to make Rarity laugh like that as often as possible.

First I have to get back onto the bench, though.

The apples herald the arrival of Ponyville. My eyes are the size of dinner plates as the apple trees rush by, not wanting to miss one instant or micron of detail. This has to be Applejack’s farm. It has to be! Orchard, I mean. South orchard? I wonder which way this train is approaching the town. I wish I could recall the map of Equestria from memory. The Badlands are south, right? The sun winking straight down through the puffy clouds above us offers little in the way of direction.

“Whatcha lookin’ at, Sweetie Belle?” Apple Bloom says popping up on the windowsill next to me.

“Apples!” I exclaim without thinking. (What a surprise, there.) “I mean,” I correct myself, “Your– this is your orchard, right?”

“Sure is!” Apple Bloom says brightly, looking out through the trees, “Ain’t it pretty?”

“Yeah it–” Melancholy strikes me right in the chest, and I lean more on my cupped hoof saying, “It sure is...”

If this is Applejack’s orchard, then we have got to be getting close to Ponyville. I wonder if the buildings will be pink and white, or brown and tan. I wonder what season it is. It’s not winter, definitely. I know how much snow falls in the winter, in Ponyville. At least three feet deep...er... well, three feet deep, assuming ponies are tall as humans, so probably less than three feet. I’m going to have to be careful not to measure with feet anymore, or I might... wait, don’t I remember ponies using feet to measure with? Ohh, why didn’t I watch the show more carefully?

Of course there’s one way I could avoid all that hassle of resolving show references, which is to come clean to them up front. I could also jump out of the moving train, and try to live my life as a wild filly, swinging through the apple trees, living on apples and bathing myself with rain, never once touching the ground for the rest of my natural life. Or maybe I could just wait for the hospital, and let them make the decision for me.

The valley Ponyville is in, is the bottom of a great basin. The incline up from Appleoosa is so smooth and gradual, you don’t even realize how high you are above sea level, until the short hills you climb become great dips and long plunging drops, and the valley opens before you far below. Applejack’s orchard runs right into those steep hills, rows of trees climbing them effortlessly to bear their red fruited bounty. The bulk of the orchard is on the valley floor, but it just expands as far as is feasible, even after hitting the edge of the basin.

One second I’m looking at trees, and then the tree line sweeps down a steep hill, and there before me is the entire town of Ponyville gleaming before my eyes. The buildings are white and pink! I can’t believe that is the first thought that comes to my mind. Holy crap I am literally looking at Ponyville right now! I can see the town hall, the biggest building by far but still dwarfed by the town’s overall size. Much of it looks like the little cottages are just meandering around, but much of the center has more elaborate buildings of different colors than the cottages, arranged in broad circles. Market squares, no doubt. Why are market squares shaped like circles?

In the distance far ahead of the train, there’s that spiral tower thing. I know it’s a landmark in Ponyville, because it’s big and weird looking, and not a cottage. That’s the full extent of my knowledge of what the heck it’s there for. I do seem to recall that the later episodes made a good amount of effort to omit it from existence. I imagine in the private design notes, it’s labeled the “we don’t know that the fuck this is the storyboarders were drunk never use this” tower. The town conforms organically around several rivers, bridges dotting them and the occasional water mill trundling away. I can see wind and water power, though probably for simple mechanical acts like grinding flour and nothing directly electrical. I’d really like to see more, but the train is descending down the tracks fast, and the town is approaching.

But before I look down, I turn my head up, and through those pink and lavender locks of hair atop my vision, I can see the tall rounded mountains circling the far distant other side of the valley basin. Alongside the very tallest of them all is the white city gleaming in the sun, the city of towers, the library citadel, the neighbor of the sun and moon. It’s very faint in the hazy midday air, but there atop the tallest mountain, I can see Canterlot. It rouses a feeling in me not distant from sadness, that such a beautiful thing could just be sitting out there for me to look at. One day I might even be walking its very halls. Because it’s a real place now, this is all real, and I’m somehow really here!

Below, where the train is heading down the tracks that run along the edge of town, there are small blobs of color moving around with a clear purpose. Ponies! I can’t tell if they’re earth ponies or unicorns at first. The small blobs of color rising into the air are obviously pegasi. With ponies the size of grains of rice, it’s not really possible to pick up many features, but with the train drawing inevitably closer to the town, I can start seeing features and details on the nearer ponies. The rooftops are getting closer, making more distant ponies more obscured. Soon the train has brought us below the roofs, and then we’re among the ponies, and inside Ponyville.

The most spectacular thing about it: I do recognize ponies now! The ones on the expedition were strangers, but this is Ponyville, and tons of ponies from the show are here. I catch a glimpse of who I might think to be Lyra, or at least some pony who’s bright aquamarine in color. And there’s that blue pony, the unicorn stallion with the stars! And there’s the aeronaut! The one with cherries on her butt! She doesn’t have that Amelia Earhart hat on. And there’s–! There’s foals! I ignore the taller ponies now, trying to make out the teeny tiny ones scampering about at their feet. I don’t recognize them all, but a few stand out. There’s Featherweight, and Liza and ohmygosh there’s Dinky! Wait, no that’s an earth pony, with Dinky’s colors... and hair style. There’s Diamond Tiara! She practically glows with the way she’s strutting around! I wonder where Silver Spoon is? I wonder what that custard yellow cylinder is, waving in front of me? It’s blocking my view, hey! Wait a minute.

“Hello? Earth to Sweetie Belle!” Apple Bloom is shouting in my ear, confirming the existence of radio technology and space exploration in Equestria. I tear my gaze from outside, and look at her dumbly for a second, before laughing nervously and saying, “Sorry, I was just looking at all the ponies.”

“Y’ might wanna try the other side of the train,” Apple Bloom says, “That’s where you can see the hospital!”

And, there goes my good mood.

Apple Bloom doesn’t understand why I’m suddenly sulking. All she can tell is I have some kind of bizarre aversion to the hospital. It’s not fair that I don’t tell her. She doesn’t deserve to see her friend so conflicted. But I try, I really do I just... I can’t take even one little look into her wide round eyes without imagining them cold and shadowed in disapproval. No, not disapproval... alienation. I feel like I actually have friends, with her and Scootaloo around, and the thought of throwing that away fills me with such dread that it only makes me even more sulkier and silent.

Rarity manages to get me on her back, well at least I go without protest, but I don’t really help her pick me up at all. It’s a silly delaying tactic, but I just don’t care at this point. Every pony walks off the train then, onto a quaint little train platform not unlike the one at Dodge Terminal. This station isn’t a terminal of course, and soon after we’ve left, the train continues quietly chugging on past us, further along down the tracks.

Rarity and I follow the direction of the train, while Applejack escorts Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in the opposite direction. Presumably they’re going back to that apple orchard we passed, where Applejack and Apple Bloom live, and Scootaloo... I still don’t know what’s going on with Scootaloo. But she follows Applejack.

“Bye, Sweetie Belle!” Apple Bloom calls out to my and Rarity’s retreating posteriors. I turn as much as I can and wave to her. “Feel better soon!” Scootaloo calls out. There isn’t any sort of tearful parting, and they just charge off after Applejack after that. No reason for tears because they expect that they’re going to be seeing their friend soon, maybe even tomorrow. They don’t think that she’s going away forever or never going to see them again. I wish I could expect that too, I really do.

Not like it matters anyway. Won’t be long until they pull me out of Sweetie’s brain like some kind of leech and toss me in the waste receptacle. I keep trying to tell myself that ponies wouldn’t do that, that they’d help me, that they’d save me somehow, but I just don’t know. I just don’t know what they would do, and I just don’t know what to do. Sitting on Rarity’s back and regarding the hospital in the distance, it feels like I’m being escorted to the gallows.

The Ponyville hospital is out of town a ways, on the same side of the tracks as the train station. Though it is far within the flat valley, the mountains in the distance still seem to nestle closely around it. Their suddenly great size makes for that illusion, since their peaks are just in line with the hospital’s sloping, shingled roof. The many windows look pink in the diffuse light from the late afternoon sun drifting gently down to light them up, without reflecting brightly in any specific one of them. The building has a medical cross of sorts, at the very height of it, and another one on a stone placard, mounted around a flower garden growing alongside the pathway leading to the hospital’s front door. The awning in front of that door looks a little out of place, like it was added after construction. The support beams are a pleasant ruby brown color, holding up walls of what look like a tan stucco.

I just can’t look at that building and imagine that they have anything bad in there. It just looks like a wonderful, welcoming place. But there can’t be anything good in there for something that takes little fillies and walks them around like puppets. I don’t feel like a puppet. Strange as they are shaped, Sweetie’s arms are my own arms, and Sweetie’s legs are my legs, and Sweetie’s tail is my... uh... nothing. But how I feel doesn’t matter, since the hospital can find out the truth. The truth is... I don’t know what I am. And the thought of finding out, that I’m something monstrous or murderous or, or alien is just... I... I just want to be Sweetie Belle.

“Sweetie, you’re shaking!” Rarity exclaims, as we pass in through the broad double doors. To my surprise, instead of swinging open, they slide aside automatically, sliding closed behind us. “Are you alright?” Rarity asks me with concern. I’m trying to stay calm, but it’s not working. It’s just not working, but I don’t want to have another breakdown. I just can’t!

“I’m f-fine,” I tell her unconvincingly, “I’m just n-nervous about the hos... the hospital.”

“Would you like to wait on coming here?” Rarity asks me tenderly, “I hadn’t known you were so anxious about it!”

“No!” I exclaim in terror. “We have to!” They have to examine me here, or I’ll never be forced to tell the truth! They–wait what am I doing?! I should be escaping from here! All I have to do is tell her and I can be Sweetie Belle forever! And I can live and everything will be wonderful and nopony will ever suspect a thing. And... Sweetie Belle will never be heard from again.

I look back at the double doors from atop my confused sister, no from atop her confused sister. Why am I letting them do this? I’m terrified of what they’re going to find, but looking at those doors fills me with an even greater terror. It’s like I’ve been playing all this time, just dancing around the issue and waiting for other people, or ponies, to solve it, but... I have no idea how to bring back Sweetie Belle, or save her from whatever trouble she’s in. If I walk out those doors... if Rarity walks out those doors I mean, then all this anxiety and guilt will just go on forever. But that’s better than dying! Why am I even conflicted? It’s either me or Sweetie Belle! Don’t I have any kind of desire for self preservation?

Don’t I have any... don’t I want to—don’t I want to...?

Oh... right.

I can’t help but recall how ardently I clung to life at a child. I really had something good back there, or thought I did. But, as I learned how the world worked, and those I loved were destroyed around me, what I thought was a good thing turned out to be pure poison, and it was the only thing on the menu. There didn’t seem to be any point in living, if all you could get out of living was stuff you didn’t care about, hurting others, and then death, and nothing after that. If death is nothing, then what is life, right?

Not that I’d ever an hero or anything. If there’s no reason to live, there’s no reason to die either. If suffering is meaningless, then why avoid it? Nothing to be afraid of about life at all... except nothing. But though I never tried to kill myself, I sure didn’t have any sort of sense of self preservation. Especially in recent years, when I just gave up on finding love, friends, happiness, anything really. The world was just too terrible a place, for anything I could get would not be worth what it would cost me. Fictional cartoon ponies gave me more sexual satisfaction than a real woman, and half the fault of that was the real women themselves!

My whole life, I always thought if I could just have some magic, some assurance that the world isn’t as easily understood as I feared, something to make me doubt my inevitable annihilation, then I would be able to care about myself again. Yet... some part of me feared that it wouldn’t be the case. You can’t just get over the emotional scars that are a completely ordinary existence with nothing wrong happening at all. I should be fighting to save my life now, and damned be the consequences. Everything around me is so beautiful. The olive green wallpaper, the blue cushions on the low benches, the mountain photographs on the wall,. They’re so beautiful it hurts. I want to keep experiencing this, and everything I can in all the world, forever and ever. I never want to stop living. I don’t want to die. I never did.

But, I just don’t have it in me to care about what I want, even now.

It’s so easy when I realize it. I just slump down bonelessly on top of Rarity and let the nurse walk up to me and ask what’s wrong. Looking at her dully, letting her poke and prod me however she wishes. I would go through this kind of anxiety a thousand times, before I’d harm someone like Sweetie Belle. I may be a coward, and a snake, and utterly spineless, but... even though I’m too terrible to save her, if these ponies can do it, despite me, then... I really don’t give a fuck whether I live or die. The wonder I feel at every experience is overwhelming, but the fear of losing it pales in comparison to the fear of destroying something worthwhile, or someone real, someone who isn’t just a big hollow nothing, pretending to be something.

“Sweetie Belle, please,” Rarity’s voice cuts through my long winded introspection. “Can you answer her questions?”

I blink, tilting my head up slightly. I lift my hooves up to pull my curls down, as if I could hide behind them, saying abashedly, “I wasn’t... listening, sorry.”

“Do you have any headaches?” the nurse barks in a gratingly disagreeable voice, around a clipboard she’s filling out. Oh paperwork, what would hospitals do without you?

“No headaches, no,” I say honestly. “My head feels fine, it’s just not... um... right.”

“Dizziness?” she goes on unperturbed. “Difficulty focusing? Any numbness or paralysis, in any parts of your body?”

I start to shake my head, then say, “Oh, wait. I couldn’t move my tail at... at first.” I look back at the thing and try to flex those muscles again. It lifts up as if to say hi to me. Huh, I think there are muscles inside the tail, or something? It feels weird.

“I’m getting better at it now though,” I add. The nurse is frowning at me, as if I didn’t quite say what she wanted to hear, but she writes something down on the clipboard anyway. She probably just figured out that I don’t have amnesia. Soul scanner, here we come!

“How about shortness of breath?” she adds. I shake my head. I don’t know how long my breathing is supposed to be, though it’s a lot faster than I’m used to. There’s no way for me to tell if that’s normal or not. “Irregular heart rhythms?” she follows.

“Definitely not that,” I say. Irregular heart rhythms suck, and being familiar with them almost sucks just as much. But thankfully, unless very justified panic attacks count, my heart has been as regular as a sunrise, beating strongly and confidently. Sweetie Belle has a good, healthy body, and so much life left in her, it’s intoxicating to experience.

“How about anxiety?” the nurse asks. I blink. “Unprovoked mood swings?” she qualifies, “Panic attacks?”

“Yes,” I say in a defeated tone. I don’t want tell her about my reaction to the hospital, but reluctantly I say, “I’m scared of the hospital for... reasons. A towel made me cry, and also when I got in the cart.”

Right, the cart. The cart that this poor nurse knows absolutely nothing about. “There was a cart I rode in on our ...way here,” I explain, “And I got scared trying to walk, uhm... but I was okay, and that made me... cry. Being okay made me cry. And dizzy. Then I passed out, and didn’t wake up until we were on the cart.”

“How long has this been happening?” the nurse asks curtly, though not without a sympathetic look in her eyes.

“Three days,” I and Rarity say simultaneously.

“Well, at least you remember that much,” Rarity says, turning her head aside, all flustered. (It’s adorable.)

Rarity does speak further though. “Sweetie had an... incident,” she says, “Involving some stale magic and a juvenile alicorn cascade.” The nurse gave her a blank look and Rarity clarified, “Magic horn surge,” with a grumpy pout.

“Oh, a flare-up, yeah!” the nurse says in realization, marking it down on her clipboard. “We don’t get many of those, sorry. This is an earth pony town, you know?”

“Quite alright,” Rarity says politely, and very noncomittally. “We’re certainly not going all the way to Fillydelphia, with Sweetie in her condition!”

“Alright, I need you to come with me,” the nurse says. Rarity follows her amiably, with me still helplessly tagging along for the ride. “Think you can get up on a scale, miss?” It actually takes me a second to realize the nurse was talking to me now, not Rarity.

“Oh! Um, yes,” I say disjointedly, looking over at her. “I mean, probably? I can stand up.”

The medical scale is unimpressively prosaic. The platform to stand on is a lot larger than a human scale, to fit a grown pony no doubt, but otherwise it’s just a scale. I’m no expert on medical equipment, but it’s quite a few steps removed from a mystical soul scanner, if I had to hazard a guess. Apparantly I weigh 20.3 pounds, and ponies use the Imperial system (goddamnit). I didn’t think I was that little!

After the incredible accomplishment of standing on a scale, the nurse takes me for an even more prodigious task, sitting there patiently while she wraps a little blood pressure cuff around my arm. Also makes me sit with a thermometer in my mouth. She tells me a temperature of 102 is normal for ponies. Which is good, because otherwise I’d be hallucinating from a high fever. Actually, considering that I see myself as a magical little unicorn girl, I probably can’t count that out just yet.

The nurse’s examination surprises me with its mundanity. This I find, is not much different than any other doctor’s visit I’ve been at. Besides the unable to walk part, of course. (The nurse helps me up onto the examination table.) It doesn’t seem any different at first, but then I realize this is just the nurse, who’s going through standard check-in procedures, so it’s not going to be anything special until the doctor arrives. I also realize that the nurse just wrapped and unwrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm, without having hands to manipulate it with. And before you ask, she was an earth pony. So, not all that mundane, actually.

Even though I do recognize the nurse, from some episode at least, I sure don’t recognize the doctor. She’s a peach colored mare with a bright blue mane, parted around an equally peach colored horn on her head. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised I don’t recognize her, since the hospital was barely covered in the show, and the two times they visited were both different doctors entirely. If it was even the same hospital, in those two episodes?

I’m actually kind of relieved that mister muffin top isn’t my ...pediatrician. He was kind of creepy. Yes I know, pot, kettle, but I swear I’m totally not creepy at all. I’m lurky. Entirely different things.

And... a unicorn. I squeeze my eyes shut when her horn lights up, readying myself for whatever doom I seem bound and determined to drive myself into. “So, having trouble walking I see?” I hear the doctor say in a smooth alto, pitched deliberately casual. “And... amnesia? That’s very unusual. Trouble with the light level too, I suppose?”

There’s only one place I can feel the presence of her magic, and it’s quite a bit distant from me, so I crack one eye open. From where I’m sitting on the examination table, I can see the doctor using her magic, but all she’s doing is standing there looking at me quizzically. Her horn is still lit up, but the only thing wreathed in her cobalt blue magic is a—oh, a floating clipboard, with my chart on it. And a pencil.

It registers to me then, what the doctor has asked me about, and I open both eyes fully, smiling embarassedly and saying, “Oh, no. No, my eyes are fine. I’m just a little bit... nervous.”

“Well, don’t you worry, honey. We’re going to take good care of you,” the doctor coos with something of a smitten smile. “Why don’t you tell me about what happened to you?”

“I... um...” I was eating my hot pockets while beating it to horse porn using the skin flaps of my belly to—no, no I don’t remember at all what I was doing. Also I hate Hot Pockets. And my belly doesn’t have flaps. Didn’t. Still doesn’t. I was never the most shapely of manly men, but I wasn’t that bad. I always had a fragile constitution, with a lot of upper back pain from long hours stupidly at the computer, but I never did fit the image of the stereotypical basement dweller. Even though I do love basements, they’re vanishingly rare in a modern society that relies on electric refrigeration, and mass produces cheap houses, thus can’t be assed to dig a big hole under them first.

Really, that’s one of the reasons I became so socially isolated. It’s not that I was horrifying or disgusting to look at. I just looked... normal. The kind of person you wouldn’t think twice about. You wouldn’t look at me and see a failure; you’d see someone you assumed had a decent job, and a wife and kids, and annoying extended family members coming by around Thanksgiving, that they nonetheless loved very dearly. It’s a sad truth, but people are so determined to blame the victim, that they’ll genuinely imagine social rejects to be subhuman monsters. The quiet, ordinary looking fellow over there doesn’t even earn your recognition that he might be a problem, much less your ire.

At least I hope that the reason nobody would help me is that they just didn’t think anything was wrong. I like to think that people will help those in need, even those who are male adults, even if they have no obligation to do so, and the reason they didn’t is just me failing to telegraph my situation to them. Maybe it’s a vain hope. Oh well, it’s in the past now.

“Sweetie here suffered a horn surge,” Rarity fills in for me. “I’m sorry, but she doesn’t remember anything about the event.”

The doctor turns to her and asks, “Can you possibly fill me in, then? You’re, I assume, her...?”

“Sister,” Rarity says easily.

“Right, sister,” the doctor responds agreeably to Rarity. “Now, I want to tell you now that amnesia is a very rare condition, and one of the things that does not cause it is a horn surge. Surges are a normal, if rare, part of a unicorn’s childhood development. While it’s possible she may have cast a memory spell on herself inadvertently, it’s far less likely than something like turning herself into a potted plant. Were there any extenuating circumstances?”

Rarity shrinks back a bit at that last part, lifts her hoof, as if hesitant to talk about it for some reason? “Yes...” she says reluctantly, “Sweetie here managed to get into a ...research project of a friend of mine. While there was nothing Twilight herself had set up which could have done this to Sweetie, there was a lot of old magic involved.”

Rarity paused to emphasize, “Very... very old magic. I’m afraid determining the cure for her amnesia might be a job for my friend, and not something we can identify today. What we need your help with, is the effects she has suffered. Sweetie Belle can barely stand, and not even walk a single step! The surge has left her in a magical state of affairs that is quite simply hazardous. And her memories are so jumbled! We need to learn how to deal with that, at least until Twilight can figure out what did happen to her.”

What Rarity is saying makes so much sense, while still being so unthinkable that... I just don’t know how to feel about it. Is she covering for me? Does she know? Is Twilight going to be the one to find out? Does that mean I should tell her? Does it mean I shouldn’t?

The doctor pony leans toward Rarity, pensively asking, “Twilight, as in Twilight Sparkle?”