Sirius Cabin's Sirius Campfire, Saturday morning

[cheminthehead]

Gladys had spent another night watching the stars. She wasn't sure when it had happened, but... "Why Am I A Pony?"

She was, indeed, a pony, and a rather perplexed pony, at that.

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[scary_jeff]

"No! No! I don't want to go there! There's-- other-- people!"

Jeff's protests were mostly futile; the dog kept on barking, and he kept on giving into the instinct to move away from the barking, and as such, he wound up at the campfire eventually, stuck between a fire and a guard dog.

[cheminthehead]

"That Is A Very Large Dog." Or at least it was now. "Is It Your Dog?"

[scary_jeff]

"She's Her Dog," Jeff replied, kicking back at the campfire a little in a desperate attempt to back up further.

He'd get the hang of it. "I'm Not Certain-- I'm not certain anyone actually Owns her."

[cheminthehead]

"Then She Is A Stray Dog," Gladys intoned, trotting over to stare at the dog. "You Must Not Bother The Ponies." Her eyes flared. "It Is Rude And You Could Hurt Them."

[scary_jeff]

Nana stared up at Gladys, nonplussed for a moment.

Then she resumed barking.

"Oh god," Jeff whimpered, and took the only option left to him: he sank through his knees, and curled into a little ball. "...Oh god! You're a horse."

[cheminthehead]

"I Am A Pony Just As You Are A Pony," she corrected, stamping one wee hoof on the ground at Nana. "You Are A Bad Dog."

[scary_jeff]

"Oh." Jeff blinked. "...Oh god," he repeated, "You're a Pony. Pony." It was hard to avoid the capitals at the start of a sentence.

Nana darted backwards.

[cheminthehead]

Gladys snorted at the dog. "And You Can Stay There," she told it. "We Are All Ponies. But We Should Turn Back Into Not Ponies Soon Enough."

[scary_jeff]

"Oh."

There was a pause the size of a beat.

"Well, that's all right, then." Jeff dug into the soil with his hoof. "A bit of a relief, isn't it?"

[cheminthehead]

"It Is A Relief," she agreed. "I Do Not Want To Be A Pony Forever. My Name Is Gladys And I Do Not Know If I Have Met You. I Am Usually Much Taller."

[scary_jeff]

"I Could Handle-- I could handle being a pony if, you know, everyone... was. Because it'd be a bit odd not being a pony if other people were off being... ponies."

Jeff was vaguely concerned he'd gotten a bit lost, there. "...I'm Jeff," he said, after he realised he really wasn't sure where he'd ended up, "...I Usually Am Not. Much. Taller. I'm sort of-- in the middle."

[cheminthehead]

"You Seem Distressed," she observed. "I Do Not Know If Everyone On The Island Is A Pony But Everyone Here At The Campfire Is A Pony."

[scary_jeff]

"Nana isn't," Jeff felt he needed to add.

[cheminthehead]

"Who Is Nana?"

[scary_jeff]

"Oh, Nana's the dog," he said, "She lives with me."

Which was totally different than being his.

"Or rather, she used to live in my room and now she lives in my alcove." Pause. "And I live in my girlfriend's."

[cheminthehead]

"A Dog Is Not Included In Everyone," she decided. "So Everyone Here Is A Pony. My Name Is Gladys."