Someone Came With Her, Part 12

	This isn't supposed to happen, you think. I'm supposed to like girls.  I'm supposed to get easy access to steamy locker room scenes. I'm supposed to find a sexy lesbian girlfriend. I'm supposed to be swept off my hooves by a handsome stallion with a--

	Argh, no!  Damn your imagination!  -Damn- it!  But the more you try to suppress the image, the stronger it becomes.  Your mind is caught in a loop of carnal fantasies that are simultaneously terrifying and tantalizing.  You feel an almost unbearable heat wash over you, and you tremble even harder.

	You lie there sprawled out on the floor for more than a few agonizing minutes, cringing every time a new image is shoved into your mind's eye.  But the dirty thoughts aren't the most painful ones.

	No, the most painful thoughts involve you in a wedding dress, prancing up a white aisle alongside an unseen groom.  They involve bridal showers and honeymoons.  But the absolute worst thought to cross your mind...

	...involves a tiny foal cuddled up by your side, gently nursing from your teats.

	Trask's words seem to echo in your head.  You should settle down and find yourself a nice stallion, he had jeered.  I'm sure your foals will be precious.

	Your blood goes cold.  Are these urges all some sort of mind control?  Have you really been making your own choices, or has Trask been making them for you?

	One thing's certain: you'll kill him for this.  This thought serves as a small reassurance.  Unless Trask is some sort of desperate masochist, the idea that he would allow you to consider murdering him doesn't seem likely.  And if that's all some sort of elaborate plot to make you think you're still in control, then...well, fuck his shit.

	It takes a few more minutes before you regain your composure enough for yet another unpleasant revelation to sink in: you're a blank flank. Now you know all too well why all those ponies were staring at you on the street. It must have been like seeing a woman march around in public wearing a preschooler's outfit.

	Abruptly you get the depressing mental picture of yourself sitting in the Cutie Mark Crusaders' clubhouse, your head slumped in shame while Sweetie Belle tries to cheer up her fellow unicorn. Okay, so it's also a somewhat adorable image, but it still makes you want to groan.

	Looking downcast enough to make Eeyore cringe, you finally get up and trudge out of the bathroom.

	You don't have the energy to even try to get some more saltwater. All you want is just a good place to slump over and sigh.

	You collapse onto a suitably dingy booth seat, taking a deep breath and blowing it through your teeth. It's a surprisingly satisfying sound. You stare blankly out the scratched window, watching the ponies go about their easy, Trask-free mornings.

	You know that you're starting to slide into self-pity, but you don't care.  As far as you're concerned you're the unluckiest creature in this town, and maybe even in Equestria.

	You wonder how the citizens would react if they knew the truth.  How common are superpowered villains around here, anyway?  Do the townsponies have some sort of official policy for dealing with them?

	You wonder if Fairweather and his gang could even do anything against Trask.  Maybe it might be worthwhile to tag along with them to see what they're capable of.

	Or maybe it might turn out to be a colossal waste of energy; a label that you're starting to apply to pretty much any action that doesn't involve staying at the bar.  You don't even want to waste energy weighing your options.  Right now, you just need some time to sit around and feel pissed off.

	Out of the corner of your eye you see the bartender staring at you, looking like he's about to say something.  He shakes his head and goes back to polishing the bar top.  Smart stallion.  He knows when a mare is Not in the Mood.

	Eventually, you slip into an emotionally deadened haze.  Your eyes lose focus, and you scarcely blink.  Soon you've almost completely lost awareness of your surroundings, and mercifully few thoughts cross your mind.

	The haze is finally broken when your eyes drift to a strange spot on the far wall.  There, in the grain of the timber planks, is an odd pattern that looks vaguely familiar.  Almost serpentine, but not.  Almost equine, but not.  Almost like...

	A tiny outline of a certain draconequus.  You're about to pass it off as just a freak coincidence, but then it opens its little wood grain eyes and catches you with a devious grin.

	Then the goddam thing speaks to you.  “That was a nasty little turn of events, wasn't it? You have my deepest condolences.”

	“Let me have my hangover dream in peace,” you snort.

	The little outline marches up to a knothole and vanishes before the sound of rubber being stretched assaults your ears.  Then, like an elephant somehow shoving itself through a doggie door, a full-sized and three-dimensional Discord squeezes out of the knothole.  As soon as he's loose he topples from the wall, landing with a wince-worthy crash.

	“What the hell are you doing?” you demand.

	He calmly stands up and dusts himself off.  “What, you thought I'd never come out of the woodwork?”

	You simply glare at him.

	He hangs his head and sighs.  “I see this hasn't been good for your sense of humor.”

	With oily grace, he slips into the booth next to you.  “If it's any consolation, the whole thing about you getting turned into a mare wasn't...-entirely- unexpected.”

	You blink a few times before answering.  “What?”

	“Ah, yes,” Discord sighs.  “You still don't remember the dream, do you?”

	“No...” you say uncertainly. You had a dream about Discord, right?  But what was it about?

	Discord seems to read your mind.  “Allow me to refresh your memory,” he sighs before poking you on the top of your head.

	All in one horrible moment, the memories of the dream you had before visiting Sawgrass rush back to you.  Images flash through your mind like a a freakish slide show, hastily merging with fragments of Discord's words.

	--“one more day as a human, and then...”--

	--“why did you keep calling me a mare”--

	--A look of horror on Discord's face.  “There's a very high chance that he'll cast a...”--

	Just when it seems like your train of thought is about to go permanently off the rails, Discord lifts his finger off your head.  The memories suddenly feel like Tetris blocks falling into place—satisfying, on some strange primal level.

	Yet this is quickly swept away by a rush of raw red anger.  “You bastard!” you yell.  “You fucking -bastard-!  You knew -exactly- what Trask would do!”

	He shrugs sheepishly, twiddling his claws.  “Well...not -exactly.-  It was more of a 98.32% probability he'd use the mare-o-morph spell on the first person who tried to stop him.  Given your--” he pauses to noisily clear his throat, “--activities online, I figured you wouldn't mind.”

	“'Wouldn't mind?'” you rage.  “In case you didn't fucking notice, Trask did this to humiliate me!”

	You glare up at him, subtly enjoying the hurt look on his face.  “And why the hell were you watching what I did online?” you spit.

	He bites his lip, looking faux-innocently up at the ceiling.  “Oh, just gathering information.  Anyway, this would have all gone a lot better if you just had the courtesy to remember your dreams.  You could've met with the other helpers, and then we could've proceeded with the plan.”

	“And what plan was that?” you growl.

	“You were supposed to be a distraction.  Granted, you ended up providing one anyway, but the key was all in the timing.  Your friends Aaron and Daniel were supposed to sneak up on Trask while he was casting the transformation spell on you.  Those spells take a lot of concentration, so he would have been a sitting duck.”

	Discord draws a heavy sigh before continuing.  “But instead, you came into town late and with no idea what to expect.  All our delicately laid plans went down the drain.”

	“What makes you think I wanted to be involved, anyway?” you shoot back.  “What, was I supposed to let Trask turn me into a mare and then just walk away?”

	“My, my.  You're quite the cynical one, aren't you?  If you wanted your humanity back, all you needed to do was make Trask undo the spell.”

	“Yeah, because an evil fucking wizard would just go, 'okay, I'll turn you back,' just because I asked him.  Fuck you,” you spit.