//------------------------------// // Circles // Story: How to Survive in Equestria with Insomnia // by NerfedFalcon //------------------------------// Twilight left me at the entrance to the maze and disappeared. I don’t know whether she was just using a flash spell to make an exit, or if that was actual teleportation, but it didn’t matter. I was alone for the time being, and the maze wasn’t going to solve itself. It started out simple enough. I didn’t mind going into any dead-ends, because I knew the left hand rule would eventually get me through to the middle. Twilight said there was a fountain there, so I’d at least know when to stop. Maybe I’d be able to get a drink of water as well. Considering we were at the peak of a mountain in a world run by magic, I doubted it’d be unsafe. I’d gone a short ways in when I realised I was going in circles. I’d just passed the same bush three times, and I’d taken a moment to look at the flowers to ensure it actually was the same bush. After that revelation, I decided to turn around and head back another way, even if it meant losing my left hand rule, but only came to the same intersection with the exact same bush. “Is this someone’s idea of a joke?” I asked, sitting down opposite the bush. A couple of the flowers started moving, and I leaned in closer, wondering what was in there. Suddenly, something jumped out of the bush and shouted, “Yes!” I screamed and threw myself backwards, managing to tear through a hedge in my panic. The thing followed me through the hole, declaring, “That was my idea of a joke! Why aren’t you laughing?” “That wasn’t funny!” I shouted back, standing up. Then I remembered the scream, and blushed slightly. “Just who the hell are you to go around scaring people like that?” After a pause, I added, “And how do you know English?” “Celestia isn’t the only one who’s been playing this game for a long time. I’ve met my fair share of humans before, and it’s only proper that I learn to speak with them, too. Oh, where are my manners?” Floating in midair, he pulled his snakelike body into what started as a bow, then turned into a makeshift Ouroboros for a moment. “I am...” “The Cheshire Cat’s second cousin?” I was being sarcastic, but he either didn’t notice or care. “First once removed, to be precise, but not a bad guess at all. My name is Discord, professional draconequus and god of chaos.” He started to spin around me, looking me over with his beady eyes. “I sensed a major surge of magic here a few hours ago. May I assume that that was you?” “I had a part in it, but it was mostly Twilight Sparkle.” “Twilight Sp...? Ah, yes. She’s always been far too clever for her own good. Doubtless she read about your kind in some ancient history book and cast a spell to bring you forward so that she could show you off to all her friends and to her precious mentor as proof of her ability now that she’s become an Alicorn.” All of that was in one breath, and his head had started spinning around independently of his body about halfway through. “Actually,” I corrected, “it was an accident involving a magic overload, and I’m not from the past. I’ve never seen anything like this before. I’m from another dimension entirely.” Once again, his head tilted sideways in an impossible manner. “Are you sure?” “As sure as I can be of anything in this place.” He stood on the ground in front of me, scratching his chin, his mismatched limbs catching my attention for a moment as I tried to figure out which graveyard he’d stolen them from. “Well, now, that is interesting. I hadn’t assumed that little,” he said something I assumed was Twilight’s name in CE, “could muster the power for that. Not without...” He trailed off, staring into the sky. “Without what?” “Oh, it’s nothing you should be concerned with. Anyhow, I’d better see to the princesses. They’ll want to know I’m here, and Twilight would have my head if I was to play with you any longer. If you want to reach the fountain, try turning left at every blue bush you come to. The rest, you’ll probably need some trial and error, but what fun is life without it?” Laughing to himself, he clicked his fingers and disappeared. “Well, that was pointless,” I said to myself as I started walking again. “I must be mad. Then again, I’d never have come here otherwise.” Except that’s not quite true, I thought as I passed the first of the blue bushes Discord mentioned. The leaves themselves were actually blue, and not just the flowers. This is a great big cosmic accident, and I won the lottery. A right turn at an unmarked corner. There was no significance to your arrival in Equestria. But maybe it’s better that way. After all, you weren’t any kind of hero back home, either. Blue bush, left. I wonder how my family are doing. By now, they’ve probably noticed I’m gone, if time works the same way between our worlds. They might not even be awake yet, or World War III could have come and gone in my absence. Straight on, forced left turn, into a dead end. Right when I go back, because going straight again would just go backwards. Could ponies have a nuclear war? They seem too peaceful, and too controlled by Celestia. But no dictator, even a benevolent one, can ever not have detractors... Another guess. Going right is an immediate dead end, so it has to be straight. Are there other kingdoms of ponies? Are there other species? I’ll probably never know, cooped up in Canterlot. But for the foreseeable future, I’ll only ever be here. With Twilight, Celestia, Discord, and... Who else is there? Two ways I can choose from, straight or right. Blue bush here, but no immediate left turn. Straight on it is, then, since it’s about as left as I can go. I’m not likely to do much socialising, but I should at least learn a couple of names and twenty words of CE. I managed a week in Paris on that much once, though it helped to have family who knew more French than I did. No intersections yet. How are my family doing? Are they wondering where I’ve gone, without leaving a note? Whether I was kidnapped or not? Still nothing, but a few turns at least. Damn it, now I’m thinking in circles! I need a distraction of some kind for myself. I need to get off this navel-gazing... And there was the fountain, sitting in the middle of a large courtyard. Seeing the clear water flowing from its exits reminded me of how dry my own throat was, and I ran up to it, taking a drink from the basin to sate my thirst and clear my head. After about a minute just drinking the water, I feel against a nearby tree, its large leaves shading me. The sun seemed larger, or closer, than the one I was used to. I hadn’t realised just how much I was sweating until I took my jacket off, laying it around me like a blanket. Even if I couldn’t even sleep in broad daylight, I could at least take a rest. Besides, I couldn’t remember the way out if I tried, and I’d want to not have sore feet when I went back into the maze. ~~~ For all her life, she had never been known by any name other than Cloth. Before she’d learned what kind of cloth it was, her parents had disappeared and the only ponies willing to take her in were the servants in the castle. She eventually learned their trade, but had always felt like an outsider to the palace, both its actual residents and its live-in employees. About the only thing she was good at was keeping a low profile. Servants, she’d always been told, were supposed to be invisible unless they were specifically requested. She’d managed to avoid the notice of just about everypony else for the longest time, and sometimes she wondered whether it really was better that way. The only time she’d broken that code that she could remember was when she’d investigated the commotion in Princess Twilight’s room the night before. Another of the servants had come with her to see what had happened. She’d run off when the thing that the princess had apparently summoned had tried to talk to her in some unknown dialect. She still couldn’t believe it. Even the princess couldn’t have been that powerful as to summon something that had never existed before, right? “Excuse me,” she heard a voice say, and she squeaked and froze up, afraid to turn around. “Are you one of the servants who attended Twilight Sparkle last night?” Turning around, she nodded slowly, not wanting to offend Prince Blueblood. She’d heard the stories of servants that had ‘talked back’ or ‘gotten in the way’. “That’s good. I’d like you to walk with me for a while. There’s a few things that I want to ask you about...” ~~~ I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I only barely felt Twilight poking me with a hoof under the tree. “Hey,” I said, waving with one hand before leaning against the tree and yawning loudly. “What time is it now?” Looking over her shoulder, I could see it was at least sunset, the beautiful orange colour almost drawing me towards it. I turned to my watch, but then realised something. “Hey, how does time work here?” “What do you mean?” she asked, tilting her head slightly. “This watch of mine, I don’t know if it’s accurate at all. There’s no reason at all why time in my world should work like yours, with twenty-four hours in a day...” She looked at my watch for a minute, then started charging a spell. Instinctively, I flinched back, but I didn’t feel anything as just the hands on my watch began to glow, moving slightly until Twilight let go of her spell, letting them move as they had before. “Sixty seconds, sixty minutes, twenty-four hours,” she replied. “Your watch is now accurate to the second, and it should stay that way. You were about three minutes and twenty-two point five seconds fast before.” I didn’t have a response to Twilight’s accuracy, or the fact that she’d noticed my watch was fast, so I couldn’t stop her next question. “But how did you get a watch so small as to fit on your arm? That’s an amazing invention. Never having to keep it in a pocket, or pull it out... I don’t need a watch myself after learning a time-keeping spell, but for other ponies, that’d be amazing. Are you some kind of clockmaker back in your world?” “Nothing so interesting,” I replied. “Wristwatches are pretty common where I’m from. Hell, this one wasn’t even that expensive.” The time, as I checked it, was about twenty minutes past six, I assumed PM. “Did I really stay out that long?” I wondered out loud. “It’s nearly sunset. You’d better get back inside before someone notices you’re gone. I can...” “Don’t, Twilight. I can find my way out without going through torture.” “...I was going to offer to lead you out. I hadn’t forgotten what magic does to you.” She looked away from me, frowning, and I felt myself blushing. And now I look like an insensitive douchebag to the only pony who I can actually talk to. I started to apologise, but she held up a hoof and shook her head. “I memorised the maze’s path years ago. Follow me.” As we set off through the maze, I began, “Oh, I met somebody else in the maze before...” “Discord?” Twilight said. “He asked me a lot about you. There wasn’t much I could tell him, though. He shouldn’t bother you too much; he’s usually in Ponyville these days. The only pony keeping him from going completely insane and trying to take over Equestria again is there, after all.” “Sounds like there’s quite a story behind that. But I’m not really interested in the past, for now. I need something to do in the present that’ll keep me busy. I’m my own worst enemy when I get bored.” I started to fidget with the cuff of my jacket, emphasising my point. “Hell, even when I was just wandering around here, I started thinking in circles. But I don’t think I’d really be able to get out into the city without causing some kind of uproar...” “What kinds of things did you do back in your world?” “I’m not sure they really have analogues in this world. I know you probably have games of some kind, and it’s possible that you have some kind of drama or theatre, but again, the problem would be getting to them. And...” I’d forgotten what I was going to say next, because my stomach rumbled again. “Heh, guess it’s about that time. Forgot to each lunch, that’d do it.” “So you actually were asleep all that time?” “Don’t be so surprised. I can sleep, I just usually don’t sleep all night through. And I still get tired, so sometimes I just fall over in the middle of the day.” I stretched out my arms and yawned. It was a reflex, but it proved my point fine. “And I don’t think many ponies, even if I could communicate, would appreciate me yawning at them. People usually don’t. They think I’m just antisocial.” “Are you?” Twilight asked, stopping and turning around. The question took me off guard, and I had to think for a minute. “I tend not to handle myself well when I’m actively talking to other people. Using the term widely, of course.” Twilight nodded, and I continued, “I can handle myself just fine when I’m given time to think about what I’m going to say, though that hasn’t stopped me from writing stupid things too. But stuff like those outbursts I gave you and Celestia happen a lot more often in person. “I tend to avoid social contact wherever I can, because I know that talking to someone too long will end in me saying something I shouldn’t after long enough. I’ve hurt myself that way too many times to take a chance on it anymore. Family, friends, friends of friends... I don’t have anyone left that I can talk to, without feeling like I’ve blown it, and I can never really connect with them again. “And that’s not even getting into the people who made fun of me for who I am. In school, I was bullied pretty much constantly, and any attempts I tried at making friends fell apart immediately. I’m not sure how much of it was me overreacting to good-natured ribbing and how much was actually trying to hurt me, but enough of it hurt all the same. Nobody is ever truly antisocial, but after I’ve been hurt too many times, I’m not willing to try again. I guess that puts me further out than most. So yes, I am antisocial, by that definition.” Twilight didn’t say anything for a little while. When she finally spoke, she seemed almost angry, or at least forceful. “You said you weren’t interested in hearing about my past with Discord. But now, I want to tell you, and I hope you’ll listen.” She barred the path we’d been walking down with her wings, and I sat down against the hedge, mumbling some level of consent. “It was about a year ago. For the last thousand years, he’d been trapped as a statue in the gardens here. When he broke out, we noticed the changes immediately. At first it was just clouds made of cotton candy that rained chocolate milk, but things quickly started getting completely out of hand. My friends and I... Well, long story short, we were the only ones who could do anything about it. “Discord split us up, and he did... something to each of us, except me. He lied to us, twisted us, and turned us into mockeries of ourselves. He only left me alone, so I could see all my friends distorted, as though our friendship was for nothing. I actually believed that for a while... but someone was still immune to the chaos. It was Celestia. “Through her actions, I was able to regain control of myself, and I helped my friends to get themselves back too. We managed to return Discord to his stone imprisonment. It wasn’t until later that Celestia thought of reforming him, which was mostly pretty successful. But that’s another story for another time. “For now, there’s one lesson that defeated Discord in the end, and that’s what I want to tell you. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how hard it is to find or maintain, friendship is always worth fighting for. Having tried and failed in the past is no excuse for giving up. Even if it’s only one pony, even if you never actually meet them, and no matter how much you argue or whatever you say, that friendship is worth fighting for. Never forget that.” The first thing I wanted to say was to call her out for hitting me over the head so hard with it, but I didn’t say that. I don’t know quite how I held myself back from it, but maybe it was that I’d been thinking how to reply for her entire tirade. In the end, what I said was, “I don’t know if I can, anymore. But I guess... Being here, it’ll be good for me. A fresh start...” Before I could continue my navel-gazing, my stomach rumbled again, followed by Twilight’s. “But now’s not the time for this shit,” I laughed. “Let’s get something to eat.”