It turns out a unicorn filly of about my age is just the right height that, when she rears on her hind legs, she can brace with her front legs against a sponge, against the small of her big sister’s back, and scrub quite effectively. I scrub Rarity’s back with such a sense of satisfaction, because her skin just has the right amount of give to it, and she gives such pleased noises when I reach the spot. You know, that one spot on your back, that even all the arcane power of a magical unicorn isn’t good enough to find? Her back is really big from my perspective. I feel more like scrubbing a canvas. It would have been way different, if I was a full sized human and she was almost small enough for me to curl my hand against. Just gently wrap my arm around her side and cradle her into my strong embrace, my fingers gently slipping to her—
OK, I’m done scrubbing.
One chilly, then warm rinsing later, the plunging rush of hot water in the tub begins to rise around us, until it’s all the way up to my neck sitting down. Rarity finds this sufficient, and I find it absolutely blissful. The hot water soothes my muscles and steams around my face, my soft little girly curls floating in the water. Rarity lays all the way down, so she may be up to her neck too, and I sort of... I snuggle up against her side. It’s probably just instincts. She’s like a mother figure to Sweetie Belle. But I just really want to be close to her, I dunno. You know how it is. Shut up I’m being sentimental.
Later when we’re all blown dry, she has me draped on her warm back again, carrying my weary body to the little bedroom she herself set aside for me. “Thank you, Rarity,” I tell her quietly.
“Hm?” she glances behind at me, “For what?”
I can’t answer, so I don’t answer. I just lean my head against her withers, and hold her close. She doesn’t press me to explain further, so I think that answer is sufficient enough. I wish I could tell her. But what I’m doing is so wrong, yet perfectly fine if you really are a little unicorn filly.
Once again, Rarity helps me into bed. It’s amazing, but I wish I didn’t feel so terribly guilty about all this. Rarity would be so horrified if she knew the truth. While I can’t think of a logical reason why you couldn’t tuck a grown man into bed, the very idea fills me with revulsion, and I can only imagine what she would think of it. The fact that I’m deceiving Rarity is just icing on that cake of evil. If she knew, she’d back up in horror, and yell at me, and call me disgusting, and then tell me to get out. My room, her house, Ponyville, Equestria, that’s what she would want. I hate taking advantage of how she thinks that I’m just a helpless little unicorn filly, even though I feel like a helpless little unicorn filly, and look like one, and sound like one. I should tell her.
But I think this is my favorite part of the entire day, being tucked in. I just love the feeling as the blankets and pillow conform around my body, guided by her steady hoof. The warmth I feel in my heart that someone cares enough to do this, to make sure I get safely to sleep, it’s just beyond compare. I don’t simply enjoy being tucked in; I feel like I need it, and, given my past nights here, I can’t help but wonder if I do.
That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t tell Rarity the truth, though. What I need doesn’t matter. I don’t have any right to be treated like this. What I’m doing is unforgivable, and I should be treated like any older male, with intolerance and disdain. But... this bed feels so good, and my limbs are so sluggish, and my eyes are sliding shut, and... Rarity is there in the doorway, giving me a comforting smile before she leaves. And I just can’t give that up... she doesn’t know, and as long as she doesn’t know, I’m safe.
Relaxed in my bed, my forehoof eases south, for the one reason that I really, really don’t deserve to be a unicorn filly: I’m just another typical chauvanistic male masturbator. I hesitate this time, though. While I am terribly pent up, I can’t help but wonder. The fear of being impure isn’t what stops me. The threat of how dirty or ugly I will become for pleasuring myself is not enough to stay my hoof, if it ever was, but I can’t help but remember last night, and the night before, in this very same bed. And every time I tried to masturbate...
Pulling my hoof away from my crotch, I scrunch the blankets to my shoulders, and shiver uneasily, rolling onto my side, in what would be a very human motion, were it not for the tail shifting around underneath the sheets. My groin feels soft in anticipation between my legs, like the gentle cooing of a dove, but maybe this time I’ll just... let myself fall asleep... and there won’t be any... maybe there won’t be any... this time... nightmares...
...
“You are special, Sweetie Belle!”
“Why?”
“You are destined for great things!”
“You have so much potential!”
“You could be anything you want!”
A whimper.
“Don’t worry, we’ll support you.”
“We have your back, all the way.”
“You feel uncertain now, but you are just too young to understand.”
“You’ll be ready, don’t worry.”
A moan.
“Time to grow up, now!”
“You are grown up. You won’t fail.”
“That was just a temporary thing.”
“You would be succeeding if you were trying.”
A cry in the darkness, faces pressing all around.
“Perhaps it’s time you got yourself a job.”
“You have to do your part of the bargain.”
“You can’t just expect a free ride.”
“You have to suffer before you can succeed. It’s a rite of passage.”
A scream of fear, the suffocation of drowning in hatred and contempt.
“You failed after suffering because you didn’t want it enough.”
“You have to perform your duties. Stop complaining.”
“I can’t hold your hand anymore. I have all these kids to care for instead.”
A desperate gasping, nowhere to go hands dragging you under again wrapping around you and taking you down with them.
“When you find the right girl, I’ll be fine with being a grandmother.”
“I don’t have time for you anymore. You refuse to succeed, even though you’re ready.”
“Why don’t you grow up, and act your age?”
“You aren’t doing what you’re supposed to do.”
“Sorry, this place is only for children. You’re not welcome here.”
A hot scream of pain.
“You have only yourself to blame.”
“Being alone is part of growing up.”
“This was meant to happen.”
“You can’t expect me to give you special treatment.”
“Life’s not fair.”
Panicked wailing.
“Children are our future.”
“Not you, anymore.”
“You just stay there out of sight, so you don’t scare the children.”
“Do your duty, or fail and die. Why do you choose to fail? It’s not cruel it’s just reality.”
An angry scream.
“You don’t deserve to cry. Other people have it worse than you.”
“It’s time you took responsibility. You have no excuse anymore. You are not a child.”
“How may I help you? That will be thirteen-ninety-nine plus tax.”
“I will only love you if you have a job.”
“I will only talk to you if you have a job.”
A long scream.
“You’re dangerous if you just sit there. You’re just a leech on society.”
“I can’t be your friend anymore. The baby takes precedence.”
“Nothing is wrong. You are alone because you choose to be.”
“Why don’t you just go out and get a job?”
One long continuous scream.
“Stop being so greedy.”
“Sorry, I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave.”
“It’s good for you to suffer, for the sake of these children here.”
“After all, they are destined for great things.”
“They have so much potential.”
“ENOUGH!” the night demands, the burning, salty water sluicing away, the weeping knife wounds all over my body sealing up like eyes that were closing, to reveal smooth unbroken... horse hide?
Where am I? The room I’m in is a place of total darkness. All I can feel are my hooves on the ground. My ears turn to and fro, but I can’t hear anything other than confused whispers. Wasn’t I just in bed? Where’s Rarity?!
A dim pulsing attracts my eyes, a guttering blue light like a candle left fallen over on its side. I walk over there, my gait curiously effortless. It just seems so obvious to put one hoof in front of the other. I find the light, looking at the fallen, weary figure as I do so. Her light is dim but it is still present. Beneath her plain, cornflower blue tail, a moon is inscribed, on hindquarters marked with patches dark as night. Wings adorn her side, and a small horn emerges from her forehead. It’s... it’s... i-it’s...
My tail sinks to the floor as, rising up to tower above me, is the impassive visage of the Princess of the Night. There’s no mistaking what I’m seeing in front of me. It fills me with confusion and fear. “We are sorry, young filly,” she says in a young voice that hides a timeless age, deep in the darkness cloying around us, “The moon continues to ...wane, yet we have much to discuss. What brings on thee these nightmares of such hopeless despair?”
“Y-you can’t be here!” I shout at her, scooting back from the princess of dreams. “Oh no, I’m going to tell you!” I’m trying to stay calm and not hyperventilate but I’m dreaming and “she’s in my head and she’s going to see me!”
“Child, stop–” Luna says trying to touch my cheek but I ignore her, stuttering in a panic,
“I-I have to wake up. I can’t think about it. I don’t want to die! I have to I– I have to..” Squeezing my eyes shut, I try the oldest trick in the book, well my book at least. Opening my eyes while closing them is the most reliable way I’ve found to wake up from a dream. You just keep trying, and eventually you open the right set of eyes.
“Stop!” Luna’s commanding yet desperate shout comes grabbing at me and lifting me up, but I just concentrate on my bed, and my sheets, and moving my body and opening my eyes. “Don’t do thi–” she manages to shout, and then my eyes, my real eyes, snap open.
For one horrific, terrified second, I wonder if I opened my eyes, and awoke from the dream of being Sweetie Belle entirely, to be human again. But the muted shades of Sweetie Belle’s room are above me, and I can feel her sweaty hooves clutching the blankets as my own, and I can hear the soft, high pitched gasps of her breath... and there’s the distinct presence of a tail filtering up behind my butt. And then the true horror hits me. I saw Princess Luna. In my dream. It had to be her. She knows. She has to know! She-she’s gonna—
And then the other thing hits me.
“I think I know what season I’m in,” the voice of Sweetie Belle whimpers quietly in the darkness, sounding like a filly who’s finally realized just how fucked she is.
Meanwhile, the Princess of the Night crept like a filly into her older sister’s bedchambers. It was noisome and uncouth of her to awaken her sister before the morn, having put her through so much already, but Celestia was so graceful of such things now, to a fault even. Thus, she forbade Luna from forbidding herself to enter her sister’s place of repose. So that’s what Luna did, at her sister’s own behest.
“Sister,” Luna whispered, hating every moment of her sister’s awakening, the gentle prodding drawing Celestia from a long earned rest. But this was something Luna could not leave unspoken one moment longer, or she would lose the nerve to disappoint her sister, again, again. “Sister,” she said more urgently, her sister Celestia’s eyes sliding open, and the white curve of her sister’s neck rising from the pillow bed. Before her sister could ask what was wrong, in such a warm caring voice, Luna just said it.
“We cannot do this.”
And even as she said it, her voice dripped with accursed weakness and failure. “Luna, what’s wrong?” Celestia asked her quietly enough that it didn’t rouse the attentions of their loyal guards.
“We are not... ready,” Luna bit out unhappily. “Our power continues to wane. We cannot protect the dreams of the foals. We cannot p-perform our duties. We cannot it is just too—the nightmares toy with us, they continue to strike us deeply, we cannot...”
“Luna,” Celestia said, lifting her chin up with a hoof. “Sister,” Celestia said more gently. “Remember you are one pony, now.”
Luna blinked away tears, turning aside, stammering, “W-we re–I remember. We–I am, it is– it just is so very–” Celestia pulled Luna into a tender embrace, like that of a mare easing a filly’s nightmares. Luna knew it was untoward to think that way, but for now she just allowed herself to sink into that warm comforting breast. It took Luna a... moment to compose herself, after which her sister murmured to her,
“It was her, again?”
Luna didn’t answer, but that was answer enough for her sister. “Sweetie Belle,” Celestia said in a troubled, thoughtful, and unusually cold tone of voice.
“She suffers so,” was all Luna could say, her heart going out for the filly, that she no longer had the power to free from the clutches of nightmares.
“What was it this time?” Celestia asked, and Luna dearly wanted to talk about it, but she ignored her ache and said,
“I shouldn’t.”
“It was your dream too, sister,” Celestia said, pulling Luna to hooflength. The two sat there in the pre-dawn morning, the smaller one unwilling to part from convention, the larger unwilling to allow her not to. “Would you talk to me about your own dream?” Celestia pressed.
Another pause and Celestia pursed her lips, whispering almost inaudibly, “I’ll never tell.”
Luna couldn’t help a laugh bubbling up in her gut. Such gall, yet such compassion. She would tell her sister, and find relief in that. But that meant she had to tell it, and to remember what she’d seen. Warring between fear and comfort, comfort won out for this night, if nothing else for the sheer iniquity of that dream.
“She was afraid of the changes her adulthood would one day bring,” Luna began, “It was a normal dream for a normal filly, but then...”
“There always seems to be a but then,” Celestia mentioned, just a tad piqued. Luna ignored that and continued though. She started, so she had to see it through.
“When she dreamed of adulthood, everypony who had helped her get so far suddenly left her side, and smiled as they expected her to perform her ...duties alone,” Luna’s tone grew more weary and lifeless as she continued without pause, to get it out as quickly as possible. “It was like as all the ponies in Equestria had an unnatural love for ...foalhood, in this case, that transcended reason and destroyed friendship. She was afraid that a number in her age would mean the difference between succor and exile. And... she never did anything wrong. She did her duties as prescribed, and she–she just wasn’t good enough. She was not what they wanted. They came to hate her for that, to see her as a failure, no, as a monster. She was something dangerous to them, somepony who would h-harm their foals. She was so alone, and it hurt her so much...”
Luna ignored the tears in her eyes and looked at Princess Celestia, entreating to her urgently, “Nopony should ever have to feel that way.”
And to her surprise, there were tears in Celestia’s eyes too.
Luna looked aside, hastily rubbing her pastern across her eyes. “Something troubles that filly,” she muttered darkly, “Her fears are unnatural; she has built for herself an unrealistic fantasy world, perhaps in response to abuse, or a past trauma, that she remains trapped in during her dreaming hours... the nightmares feast upon her visions, and only grow stronger.
“And we can do nothing!” Luna exclaimed, hitting the pillows beneath her in frustration, “Because of our weakness, because of the elements of–” Her sister interrupted Luna’s increasingly bitter tone of voice, a supporting hoof on her withers, saying urgently,
“You will be able to help that filly. And you will one day regain your strength. Harmony does not destroy, it only seals. The moon waxes as swiftly as it wanes.”
“What until then?” Luna asked in a challenging tone. Celestia turned her head aside, saying nothing. “And you know how the dream ended?” Luna shot out bitterly, “We tried to soothe her, to no avail. She was terrified of us! Her terrifying dreams she accepted with a horrible resignation, but nothing filled her eyes with fear more than the princess of the night standing before her. She was terrified!”
Luna paused in the intensity of her speech, and settled to her haunches, saying quietly, “She was terrified of me.”
Her sister looked long her way, and then Celestia said deliberately, “I will do what I can, sister,” making Luna’s breath catch in her throat.
“Thanks be to thee, sister!” Luna said, leaping forward despite herself, to embrace Celestia with an eager energy. She stiffened, and pulled back to herself, saying “We–I know this is much to ask of thee, but”
“Think nothing of it, dear sister,” Celestia said with a smile. It was only a half smile though, for she cautioned, “But this may not be as simple as riding up in shining armor to save a little filly. I fear there may be something more going on, one that hungry nightmares cannot totally explain. We will both help this filly, sister, but a more subtle approach may be needed.”
Luna blushed, admitting, “We were rather direct about attempting to disperse her nightmares. It went not well. But what dost thou suggest?”
Celestia just smiled, with that twinkle in her eye.
Rarity comes in the dawn’s light, to awaken Sweetie Belle for breakfast and therapy, but what she trots into is nothing but a silent room, and an empty bed. Rarity pulls aside the tossed, dissheveled covers frantically, but there is no unicorn filly to be found in them. The bed is completely empty, the window swinging open, and Sweetie Belle nowhere to be seen. “Sweetie Belle?!” she exclaims in increasing alarm and dismay. “Oh no. Oh no no no no. Sweetie Belle, where are you?!” she calls out the window, turning away from the bed around and around, and looking across the whole room. “She can’t walk,” Rarity mutters frantically, “So she can’t have gotten far. Why would she run away? Again!”
“I’m under here!” I shout out, having woken abruptly at Rarity’s panicked screams. I can’t see her, but I can hear that Rarity goes immediately silent, save for the clomping of her hooves on the rug. Then I see her magic enfold the sheets, and pull them up. Then she cranes her head down until I can see her face, from my current ...position, crouched down on my belly, looking out from under the bed.
Rarity’s face sags with relief. “Sweetie, you–” she lowers to sit heavily on the floor. “You nearly gave me a heart attack! What are you doing under there?”
“S-sorry,” I say to her, without leaving my safe place. “I was hiding from...”
Earlier this morning, scrambling in the darkness. Manage to fall out of my bed with a thump and a high squeak. I can’t walk I can’t run what am I gonna do? I can’t escape the... but she was depowered still! It was Woona Luna! But big! Does that mean I have to do the Nightmare Rarity? No, no, that can’t possibly have been canon. But what if Luna comes for me? What if she sends guards?? They’ll they’ll– I pull myself forward under the bed, desperate for a hiding place. They’ll find the rumpled sheets and no Sweetie Belle, and they’ll assume she ran off into the night. That’s right they don’t know I can’t walk! I could walk in my dream! Why was I Sweetie Belle in my dream? Works out good for me, but, but I’m real I have to be! I can’t be made up!
I quiver there that night under the bed, torn between an existential crisis and a “the bat ponies are coming through your window to carry you to trial” crisis. My eyes are wide open and if there was any light under here I’m sure they would be practically glowing. If I stay under here, they’ll think I ran away, and they won’t even look because it’d be stupid to hide under the bed, so they’ll go away looking for another little filly not me. I am so screwed. They wouldn’t fall for that. I can’t make any noise and I have to stay completely still or they’ll hear me. Oh no they’re bat ponies so they have super hearing! What do I do?!
Unable to think of anything, I simply remain under the bed shivering in an increasing sense of despair. Eventually I’m just feeling worn out inside, waiting in despair for the inevitable, the whisper of wings outside, the shouts and struggling, waiting for Rarity’s screams to save me, because she doesn’t know, because I didn’t tell her. I didn’t tell her!
Eventually, the time wears on and I feel my eyes sagging closed again. I snap them open. I can’t fall asleep under any circumstances. Luna will come for me then, and she’ll see everything. Oh, what am I going to do tomorrow night? I can see the moonlight slowly creeping across the rug in front of me, as the moon dips lower in the sky, readying for dawn. That won’t stop the royal guards though, even if Luna is too busy with the moon to bother with some pitiful filly eating brain monster who’s not even worth her time.
...my eyes start sagging closed again. I struggle them open. Why can’t the guards just get here already and get it over with? I can’t fall asleep. I just have to think about how uncomfortable the floor is down here on my bones and joints, even though it is pretty comfortable to just sit here, surrounded by a confining yet cavelike bed, the sheets draped over the edge to hide me completely. I wonder if ponies are natural burrowers? That wouldn’t make them a lot like Terran ponies. I wonder if they really rock farm... and it would explain how Pinkie Pie learned to drill with her... hair...
After a blessedly dreamless sleep, my head jerks up and hits the bedspring mattress at a sudden scream, “Sweetie Belle?!”
“...monsters,” I conclude. I suppose technically I’m the monster, but bat ponies seem like monsters, so they totally count. Why was I assuming they were going to come get me again? Wait no, why didn’t they? Luna saw my dream, so she knows I’m not a real filly... right?
“You were hiding from monsters,” Rarity says in a flat voice, “Under the bed.”
“Yep, monsters,” I chirp out from under there. “Really scary ones.”
“But...” Rarity says, this time in edging confusion, “Aren’t the monsters under the bed?”
Yes. “No,” I answer. There’s honestly not much else I can say about that. Who even believes in monsters under the bed anymore? What does she think I am, a little filly oh right.
Rarity seems nonplussed, but recovers quickly, saying instead, “Would you... like to think about coming out from under there?”
I look down at my hooves. It’s kind of dusty under here. I’m so glad Sweetie Belle doesn’t have horrible allergies. “...yes, please,” I say, hopefully loud enough that my voice filters out from underneath the bed, and not as quiet as a scared rabbit.
“Yes, please?” Rarity emphasizes, shifting on her hooves in continued confusion.
There’s a quiet from under the bed, and then, finally—after all I’ve done—I finally have to summon the courage in myself, to truly own up to the consequences of my actions.
“...I think I’m stuck.”
One bed lifting and hair detanglement later, I receive a lecture about how the bed is no place to be hiding under, and how I mustn’t forget how worried my sister is, that something more dire may happen to Sweetie Belle. I take it pretty passively, nodding and mumbling agreement when I can, because I do agree that stressing Rarity out more is not something I want to have happen. But also because my head is racing with more thoughts than I can even think.
If Luna is like that, then I must be all the way back in season 1. Why am I all the way back there? Luna’s second episode happened in season 1, didn’t it? I can’t remember and I can’t pull up any sort of wiki on it, or read books for that matter! Did it happen in season 2? I know it happened before the crystal empire because Luna was in that one too. And before A Canterlot Wedding. But that was the season 2 closer. Am I in season 2? Is my show knowledge prophetic? If reality itself resembles season 2, why wouldn’t it continue to be that way through seasons 3 and 4?
My thoughts continue along those lines all throughout the morning. I hardly notice my hair being briskly brushed. My meal of a hearty cereal and milk, which I can drink on my own—with two hooves at least—is spent in near unresponsive silence. Rarity looks at me uneasily, and says, “Looking forward to the session this morning?”
“Huh?” I blurt, my staring contest with the cereal bowl interrupted. “Oh, um, yeah...” I trail off, wondering about season 1 and season 2 and wishing I had a better memory about the order of such things, and wishing I knew if what I knew was just a fake story, or the real future, since the past wasn’t a fake story, so—
“Did you sleep well, last night?” she asks, in a leading tone, her spoon paused in her magic as she looks at me with concern.
“Oh, um, no I had a nightmare,” I mumble, thinking about—
“You had a nightmare?” Rarity exclaims. “How are you doing? I can offer you a hug if you prefer to accept it, though I wouldn’t wish to embarass you like the last time.” She thinks she embarassed me? I did kind of tell her not to hug me... but that was for her, not me.
“I hugged you all the way down the stairs,” I point out, since my riding position does closely resemble a full body hug.
“Yes, but perhaps you need somepony to hug you,” Rarity counters smoothly. I don’t really have a verbal answer to that. She walks around the table to me, pushing her head into my side insistently. “You can’t let those feelings fester,” she says to me, “True distress is not something you should ever consider fighting on your own.”
I look at her large elegant head, right up next to me in a sense of ... not so much awe, but respect. She might be right, or she might be really right. In any case, I try to smile and hug her head, getting my hooves then slipped down to the level of her neck so she can pick me out of the chair. Cradling me close to her, Rarity sits there and hums a wandering melody. I think she’s... I think she is rocking like this to calm me down, and it works... really well. I suppose I can worry about that stuff later. I wish I could hug Rarity forever...
“Mind telling me about the nightmare?” Rarity remarks almost casually, after my heart’s back to its normal pace, and my breathing has evened and slowed. Feelings of consternation at her question make my lip firm, or... my muzzle tighten up or something. I could tell her about it, if that would help. Tell her about how it hurt so much worse in the dream, when I had to grow up, and I found that people had deceived me about the true, cruel nature of reality. They were all just trying to get by, and I had just gotten too old for them to waste any more time on. Higher priority to the children who still might not fail, and all. But the way they said it, it was like... well it was literally knife wounds in the dream, but it hurt my heart more than the dramatic alteration of my physical appearance. More a symbolic gesture than literal... I think.
Makes my flesh crawl thinking of those wounds opening up in me. I really don’t know what was up with that. Maybe I’m even more twisted than I originally imagined. And so cruel to inflict that on Sweetie Belle’s body, too. But do I tell Rarity that? I can’t tell her about Luna, because the dream princess seems to have passed me by for some reason. Somehow I gave Luna the slip, and it just feels so wrong wasting that chance by telling Rarity and giving up to Luna already. I gotta tell Rarity something, though.
The memories of the show drift in my head, trying to figure out when I am and what to do about it, but what I finally fixate on isn’t from the show at all. It was something that Rarity actually said to me the other day. She said she saved the world. Once. Once...
Once!
“It was a dream about a really scary monster,” I lie through my teeth. “He looked like all sorts of animals stuck together. He had a lion paw and an eagle claw, and two horns that were both from different animals, and only one fang on his face.” I look at Rarity for some sign of recognition, and she looks back at me seriously a moment, before her face breaks and a chuckle escapes her.
“Sorry dear, but that is just such an amusing picture,” she says. “Did he perchance have a scorpion’s tail?”
I blink at her, and shake my head. “Just a white... tuft thing. Maybe it’s a monster I read about in a story before. Have you heard of anything like him?”
“Well, there are a number of chimeras in the world,” Rarity says, setting me to the floor as she speaks. There I collect myself onto my hooves, almost naturally, intently leaning on her upcoming and possibly very important words. “I myself have seen a manticore face to face, and let me tell you, that was quite enough of chimeras for me! I seem to recall Applejack has trouble with one, on one of her delivery routes through the Haysead swamps. They tend to be more common in southerly areas and of course across the sea in Oisea. Why do you ask?”
I blink at her again. “But, not a lion paw and an eagle claw?” I try to clarify, “I mean, you never saw anything like that?”
“If you are referring to gryphons then yes,” Rarity says with a toss of her mane, “I have occasionally made aquaintance with ones of such sort. Sadly none have ever walked through my doors demanding to be made fabulous!”
“No not...” Ohh, yeah! Gryphons do have lion paws and eagle claws! I never thought about it that way before. “I meant only one of each,” I tell her, “And two different wings, one bat and one um... bird. And two different feet too, I mean he walked on two feet. The monster. In my dream.” Don’t look away don’t look away don’t look away—dammit.
Rarity shakes her head, saying, “That is quite the imagination you have, Sweetie Belle. But worry not, you will never encounter such a... mismatched creature in the wild. It would never survive. Certainly not long enough to threaten even an adorable little filly like you~”
She pinches my cheek at that, jiggles my head back and forth, and a second later I have to wonder how she just pinched my cheek. This hoof thing is a lot more complicated than I imagined. But I smile with relief and say, “Thanks, sis. I won’t have to worry about him bringing me nightmares anymore.”
“He was the one bringing you nightmares?” Rarity asked, in a way that sounded like she was trying to sound unconcerned, which was concerning.
“No, but, uhm, I bet he would,” I assert hastily.
Losing her gaze again, I admit to Rarity in a soft, unhappy filly’s voice, full of uncertainty. “I really don’t know why I’m having so many nightmares now at all,” I say. Wow, I forgot how good it felt to speak honestly.
“Perhaps you’d like to... hm...” I look up at her, but Rarity is already frowning and looking away. “Best finish your cereal, Sweetie,” she says. “I just need some time to ...think on the matter.”
Ohh right, I was eating. I clamber back into the seat and eat, with time to spare to glance at Rarity strutting about the kitchen continuing to hum, getting her things ready for whatever she’s going to be doing today. Besides dragging me around, that is. Which she does, with grace and gusto.
When we head out in the early morning, I suppose I would be more confident about what, or who I saw if I actually had the guts to interact with any ponies. But Rarity happily steers me clear of what look like a teary-eyed parting, on the part of three mares who must be the flower trio. Well, Daisy and um... the pink one are teary eyed at least, while Roseluck seems to be trying to physically shake them off her legs, while dragging a suitcase along with her. She admonishes them in tones muted by our increasing distance, that not even my radar dish ears can pick up, beyond something about give it a break already. I wonder if they’re as craven as the show makes them out to be, or maybe they all secretly badass mercenaries. Watch out, here comes the F-team!
Other than that, it’s just ponies walking who may or may not be Sparkler and Carrot Top, for instance. I don’t see Applejack on our way. Or any of Rarity’s friends for that matter, hm...
Oh right, Rainbow Dash and Twilight are off down on that archaeological dig. Huh, and I have yet to see ... wait, where the freak is Pinkie Pie?
Any thoughts of having woken up into an inverted Cupcakes scenario are thrust out of my cute little filly brain the moment we get to the hospital, and I start thinking about how I get to have another few hours or so to spend with the hot-as-balls doctor Ace. With a similar check-in procedure, that seems ridiculously unofficial for a hospital procedure, I’m soon once again at his mercy. Or, sitting in his office, placing my forelegs to conveniently obscure certain groinal areas, while he and Rarity continue to banter in that off-sexual way. Then she leaves me with an elegant hair scruffle, and heads off to open her Boutique, thus putting me once again at his mercy.
“Hey, Lil’ Sweetie,” Ace says, somewhere in front of me in a friendly tone, as I stare intently at my hooves below me. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” I say. Shoot that was like the most clichéd obviously not fine thing to say. “I mean... great!” I say, looking up to him with a Scootagrimace™. Oh great, good job me. Why don’t I just use the second most clichéd, obviously not fine thing to say?
“Let’s just get started,” I sigh in a defeated tone, looking at the soft expression of empathy on his firm chiseled woooah that didn’t feel promising. Stop shifting around down there, body! I am not attracted to him! I’m just a little filly, who doesn’t have those feelings!
The doc gets me working on the climbing exercises, just to make sure I still have them down, then lets me collect myself and says “We’re about ready to get you started walking! How’s that sound, eh?”
I nod at him shylypolitely.
Ace strides to the window of the hospital gym that we’re still in, half turning his head my way and saying with a smile, “Hey, how about we take you outside to do this? The weather’s gonna be just gorgeous, and you look like you could use some fresh air.”
Well, not compared to my old life. As Sweetie Belle, I haven’t spent a solid week inside hiding from pollen clouds, with nothing to entertain me but what I can find all by myself on a computer. Heck I was outside for hours yesterday! But maybe ponies aren’t in a horrible dystopian society of uncaring fools locking each other away, paying daily tribute to their own jailors in the holy name of optimism. So I guess I could–
“C’mon then!” Ace says cheerfully, walking up sideways right in front of me. I don’t fall over, but my eyes widen at the temptaceous closeness of his tan hide. I could just reach out and touch him and his dick would be real, and he’d be real also. I look at him—his face I mean—with what are no doubt dilated eyes, and he’s got a... sort of hurt expression on his face. What?
“I guess we can get you a chair,” he sighs, turning away from being sideways to me. He... he wanted me to...! “I– I don’t have any problem if you want to um, carry me, I mean,” I say excitedly. “I mean, never mind. I just... chair get.” And now I’m mumbling again. Just the thought of having that much contact with his well groomed posterior. I bet he smells even better up close. I can totally recognize his musky scent by memory, after just our second meeting. I wonder if it’s natural. I can’t be thinking this though, I have to resist but it’d be so cool and I could even maybe touch a little...
“Yeah... that’s okay Sweetie Belle,” he says in a rather frank tone, “I know you want to be more comfortable with touching me, but for now let’s just go with the chair.” When he’s gone getting it, I feel like I somehow screwed up so bad. Just the way he said that, and left me, I want to cry from the disappointment. But I know it’s just my f-female parts making me feel like this. I don’t really want to stretch that softness around his penis and feel it pounding inside me. That’s just my biology working against me. He’s right to get the chair, because there are things I can imagine, that might even be possible now, and they’re enough to make me quivery all over, and maybe even a little damp between my young horse legs.
In the wheelchair and not on his back, he wheels me outside to where the hospital has a partially enclosed park behind it. To what looks like mowed lawns, but after I skillfully dismount the wheelchair and end up face first in the grass, I can see the blades tickling my nose are pointed at the top, not cut flat by any sort of blade. I collect my legs under me and stand up, facing the doctor with a distant expression. I feel the sunlight hitting my back and hindquarters with a warm, nurturing tingling. It actually feels relaxing to stand in this sunlight, as if Celestia herself is cradling me, like Rarity did this morning.
“I think this was a really good idea,” I say, with maybe a little smile towards him. Not directly at him, but sideways, so I don’t have to face him head on. I think he was a really good idea. Heh.
“Well, thank you Sweetie,” he says. Oh gosh I just complimented him! What is wrong with me? Nothing’s wrong, for a horny little girl. “Now let’s see what you can do.” I think he’s... wait, what?
“Try taking a step,” Ace says to me, kicking back on the grass and waving his forehoof encouragingly. “You still remember that much at least, don’t you?”
“Yeah I, um... there.” I say, lifting my dainty, very female and receptive little hoof up, and placing it firmly on the ground before me.
Dr. Ace watches a second, then groans, tilting his head back. “I can see we’re gonna have a lot of work to do.”
It turns out by “take a step,” he meant take a pace with all four legs. He was really surprised that I couldn’t do even that. Not that he should have been, if we only had been working on walking at all yesterday. But I can’t blame him in the slightest, because guess what he told me today? He actually told me the order that I put my feet in! I mean, maybe I should have had instincts or something, but nopony besides Ace had thought about it enough, to be considerate enough, to actually tell me how to do it. He’s so amazing...
...he’s so adequate. Yes. Nice. Nice guy. Such a guy.
“You have to move 3 after 1 before you move 2 and 4,” he says, earning a look of confusion from myself standing there on the grassy lawn. After a pause, he leaps to his feet, and struts over, pausing at my tensing since I don’t really have any way to flee my body’s natural attraction toward him. Then walking slowly again, until he’s up next to me. “Your hooves are numbered,” he says, walking around me in a clockwise circle, starting with my front left hoof. “1, 2,” he says, lightly touching each of my stubby little legs. “3, 4,” he continues for the back ones. Oh shoot, am I lifting my tail for him? I didn’t mean to—it just goes there naturally!
He comes around in front again, saying, “4 hooves, each has a number. Easy to remember. Now I want you to lift them when I say the number, okay? Two. No, that’s one. Two, yes. Four. Three. Very good, Sweetie!” I blush at that; next I’ll be earning gold stars on the stickerboard for how hard I tried. But, he works me through until I have the hoof numbers down. I’d have called them 00 01 10 and 11, but 1,2,3,4 is easier to say so I guess that’s good.
Then he tells me how to walk.
“Okay, put 1 in front of you. Now lift 3, good job you planted it all by yourself! Now you’re like a pair of scissors, see? So lift 4 and it’ll... yes, you have to–no no wait, hold on.” He rushes forward to me before I can topple, making me bump against his upper legs instead. Eeeee I’m touching him this is so... something.
“Sweetie,” he repeats, nudging me back to neutral. “You need to push pull with two hooves, 1 and 3. You remember those right? Lift 1. Good. Now lift 3. Good. Like scissors, but you only hold on with 1 and 3. 2 and 4 are just for balance now. Pretend you’re just petting the ground with 2 and 4. What you need to do is just lift 4 and... yes! You moved 4 forward, and that made 2 move forward. See how you’re like a scissor again, only not as extreme?”
... most of the lesson went something like that.
“As soon as 4, you lean forward and just punch the ground with 2. Punch it good!”
“Alright now just move 1 a teeny little bit, just a teeny bit in front of you this time.”
“See how it’s easier when you don’t stretch out so much? But even just creeping along, after that 4 you’re still falling forward onto 2, even if you barely feel it. Isn’t that cool, Sweetie? You’re walking!”
“I a҉m!” I shout over to him excitedly. I’m not walking, but I did that last single pace just right!
“Alright,” he cheers back, skipping on his hooves so adorably. “Now 1 and 3, remember. One and three!”
I move one and three, then stumble, then 3 catches on the ground, then he catches me. His broad front hoof presses warmly into my chest, where I’d have breasts if I was still human. Well, still human, and gender swapped. He stablizes me, and says, “Doing great, want to take a break?”
I look at him, and look down and, it’s about then that I realize just how hard I’m breathing, from exertion and other things. “Maybe a little,” I tell him breathlessly. He sits, carefully separate from me, while I sit facing him, feeling flushed for more reasons than one. And while we sit, he continues to just gently prod me about what I’ve just done.
“1 and 3, then what lifts up?”
“4,” I answer, “Then 2 plants.”
“Remember you hold on with...”
“1 and 3. Then 2 and 4 for the other half.”
Ace smiles, saying smoothly, “I want you to picture that in your mind, holding on with 1 and 3. Then when 2 plants, you switch to 2 and 4.” He actually taps hoof number 3, saying “Three, then 1, 2 and 4. 3 then 1, pushapulling with 2 and 4. Think of it like rocking back and forth, back and forth.”
After the break it’s... a lot easier to do what he says. Getting it solid in my mind’s eye without worrying about actually moving, brilliant idea. I notice I am after all rocking back and forth, like a ship at sea, every time I alternate these leg things. 1,3, 2,4, 1,3, 2,4.
“That was fifteen steps,” he calls out. “New record! How are you feeling?”
“I’m walking!” I say with an astonished, yet bright smile. I’ve never felt quite at home since awakening, or before that for that matter, but now my body is doing exactly what I tell it to, and it’s working! I’m a cute little unicorn foal, white as Santa’s beard, and I have muscles and bones and tendons that pull around, to make me toddle forward. 1,3 2,4 1,3 2,4! 1,thr–I fall over. Not on my face thankfully, but on my side. And I just can’t help it; this is such an amazing feeling, I just can’t help laughing right there on the ground.
Much counting and exertion later, Ace finally says our session is almost up, and that he’s got a match this afternoon. Go figure, a doctor taking time away from his patients to work on his tennis game. I am not complaining though, not one bit. It’s still ironic, but I can’t thank Ace enough. Somehow he made the utterly confusing, totally comprehensible. I can’t even explain it by his helpful explanations alone, nor by his unbreakable patience, nor by his keeping me from falling. He’s just, well, a really good doctor. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun in physical therapy. I... don’t think I’ve ever been allowed to have physical therapy at all, actually.
Well there was that one week, when I shattered my ankle. But then they were like, “Oh, I guess that will have to do,” and left me to heal the scars on my own over the next 2 years or so.
So I’m pretty confident physical therapy is not nearly this awesome, back in humanland. This is just beyond cool. When he trots up to me standing there, I lean right into him and rub my face on his– I jerk back then, and blushing, sink down onto my hooves. I was gonna just get underneath him and let him go to town on me, is that it? But I just felt so... touchy feely! I mean, maybe I could just, you know, do that again, but not get buried under his incredible bulk for the plowing of a lifetime? It’s so weird that I want to feel like that really bad, but I also want to not feel it. But I also want to feel things that are part of having sex, without going all the way?
I just don’t know what to feel!
“Hey, it’s okay Sweetie,” he tells me consolingly, from a careful distance, which makes me feel sad. “Tell you what, let’s get you to take one more trip across the lawn, then we’ll wait together for your sister to come. Then when she comes up, you can walk to her!”
I... I really don’t want to smile at that, but that would be, admittedly, kind of awesome. So I have to unbury my face and smile at him. A little.
And the one way I never expected Rarity to react to it, was fainting right there on the spot.
Me and Ace, Doctor Ace, are just having a great time on the outside lawn before Rarity comes up. And by having a great time, it means I’m exerting myself huffily, trying to coordinate my movements and discovering just how much more exerting it is when you have to be careful about every little step. It’s certainly not the most efficient way to walk. But, hey. For the first time in... four days it’s been? For the first time, I can walk all on my own, without Ace even holding me up or catching me. Not that I don’t want him to, but it’s kind of exhilirating just to be able to move again, after so much sitting still.
And then we wait there sitting on our bellies. I start to say he can leave me to wait for Rarity, but then I recall how old I am ...supposed to be, and he’s probably supervising me. I think he wants to see Rarity himself, anyway. And uh... whatever else they’re doing besides seeing... in their own private time... that I certainly would never want to just accidentally walk in on. It’s sitting my little plush unicorn belly there on the grass, that I see the snow white figure of Rarity approach, emerging from the doors of the hospital proper. Ace nudges me, and I wink at him, then jump onto my hooves. I wobble a bit trying to remember the numbers, and which hoof is which, but then I manage to plant one hoof after another, and I look up from my hooves with a big smile to see Rarity plummetting to the ground in a limp heap.
WHAT
I uh, only know one way to walk, so my stumpy waddle is quickly outpaced by his alarmed trot, but when I get there Rarity is just smiling up at him, and thanking him over and over again. She... she seems fine, just flushed and... I guess she was just so relieved that... she had been so worried about it, when the relief valve opened, all the blood just ran out of her head. Isn’t that really the only time you ever would faint, from relief? That or blunt head trauma. Hyperventilating. I guess there are some other feasible situations, but for Rarity the relief of seeing me walk seemed to do the trick.
It’s... kind of weird how relieved she is. Not like it was ever in question that I’d be awesome enough to walk again, but ever since the session this morning, she’s been acting as pleased as the cat with the canary. She chatters with Ace casually, and unrestrained, like there was some dreadful onus over her head that had been graciously lifted. It’s my hooves not hers, though! There’s even a spring in her step as she carries me from the hospital. Even though she has to carry me still! And so we sit there shaded by a cloth umbrella canopy from the summer heat, with her telling me of something about a client wanting silver stitchwork, me trying to look at her calmly and not worriedly. There’s nothing wrong, I mean. I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t feel like I’ve earned this hot fudge sundae.
No regrets.
Believe it or not, Ace actually asked me not to practice walking! Well okay, he did ask me to practice walking, but he said not to overdo it. He said thinking about what I learned would help more than doing it, at this point. I guess this is... going to take a while. End of week, he was optimistic. But that’s just for walking... it seems so unreachable at this point. I’m not even going to make it one more day, much less the rest of the week without getting... caught.
