//------------------------------// // 40 - Sloth // Story: Just Roll With It // by sunnypack //------------------------------// Chapter 40: Sloth Everything was how I remembered it. The streets were the same, the houses were the same, the slow traffic crawling up the road, and the nosy kids that lived a block down from my own humble little abode. The house was still there, all in its weathered glory, and apart from the lawn, which was ragged and unkempt, nothing seemed amiss. I mean, the lawn was always that way, but nothing seemed out of place. It was strange. “Hey!” I started, my eyes searching around until they fell upon a girl about half my age. She was staring at me with eyes that felt like they were digging a hole through my chest. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable under that soul-weighing look. “What?” I asked, a little put-off by her behaviour. I’d never seen her around here before. The girl continued to stare at me for a while, her navy skirt fluttering a little in the breeze. People on the footpath seemed to ignore her, even though her behaviour was out of character for a neighbourly resident. “Aren’t you meant to be somewhere?” she finally asked, cocking her head. I stared back at her in incomprehension. Somewhere? No. I was where I already belonged, there wasn’t anywhere I needed to be. For some reason the girl grew cross and folded her arms. I noticed her hair was silken black, but her eyes were a startling cyan. Was she wearing contacts? Strange girl. “You can’t be here,” she insisted. “They need you.” I blinked at her, giving her a rather patronising smile. “Sure, okay,” I said. “Whatever you say.” Her expression darkened, but instead of engaging with me further, she stormed off. I was left gazing after her, her look of utter disappointment tore at me more than it should have. She was just a stranger, right? Why did she care about me, or anyone close to me? “Hey, Harmony!” I glanced up and saw Jason, one of the few friends I’ve had at school. I waved a greeting to him. I shook my head of brooding thoughts. “What’s up?” I said, leaning against a post. Jason grinned at me and gave me a nudge. “Haven’t seen you around for a while, thought you just up and left on an adventure with your Dad again. Didn’t I ever tell you that you live one of the coolest lives ever?” He shook his head. “But you never let me tag along.” He waited a while as I raised an unimpressed eyebrow at his not-so-subtle suggestion. Finally he chuckled and shrugged. “Anyway, where’ve you been?” I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came out. “Oh…” I trailed off, my thoughts returning to that girl. Was this one of my excursions with my Dad catching back up to me? She did look strangely familiar. I haven’t had time to gather my wits about me, it’s been so busy since I… what was I doing? “N-Nothing,” I finally choked out. “I didn’t go anywhere. Or something happened.” Jason eyed me coolly. “Just because you get to go on adventures doesn’t mean you can just leave me out of it,” he growled. “Come on, tell me what you’ve been up to!” He crossed his arms. “I’m your friend!” I nodded genially, that’s right. He was my friend. Along with all my friends back on Earth— “No!” I yelled. “Who are you?!” ‘Jason’ sighed, his eyes flashing a malicious yellow before disappearing. “I rather thought you might not have noticed,” he grated. His voice sounded like I’d thrown a boulder in a blender. “Hmm, your mind is well shielded, do you have someone guarding your dreams? A pity, I would have loved to have just taken what I wanted.” “You!” I cried, lunging forward with outstretched hands. ————— With a primeval yell, I jolted back into the conscious world. “ARRGH!” My hands grasped at the air, my strained breathing accompanied me in the darkness. Sweat dripped from my brow, my clothes clinging to my flushed body with every heave of my ragged breath. I felt like I was hot and cold at the same time. There was a small flash of light to my right. Frantically, my gaze swept across the room as I leapt out of my cover. Before I was blinded I caught them. Those— YELLOW EYES. “Harmony, stop!” Discord lurched back, body pressed flat against the wall, eyes wide with fear. I realised that my face had twisted into an expression of terrifying loathing. Horrified, I stumbled back to my bed, fractured images of my nightmare fading away in the wake of what I had done. “I’m sorry,” I babbled, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Tears, heavy and thick with remorse and guilt tumbled out. Memories had flooded back from the recursive dream curse. Oh Discord, what am I going to do? I hate being like this. I want to go home. Home. Far away from this strange land with its magic, and struggles and the unbearable mantle of responsibility. I wanted to say all that, I wanted to tell Discord everything, but I didn’t, the tears just kept coming instead. I flinched at the touch on my shoulder. “Harmony…” Discord trailed off at whatever he saw in my eyes when I met his. The fear was gone, replaced with a deep concern that made me feel even more ashamed. Going home? This was supposed to be home. Going to Earth and forgetting everything about this place would mean forgetting Discord, Tempora, Luna… and Celestia. “Harmony,” Discord repeated gently, his own eyes held back welling tears, but I saw his deep resolve to hold them back. I was supposed to be the stronger elder brother wasn’t I? Instead I was a wreck and even after I scared the living daylights out of him, Discord was sitting here comforting me. “It was just a dream,” he said, patting my shoulder awkwardly. “Just a dream.” A dream, yes a dream. A guilty dream about going back to Earth and just leaving everything behind. Discord, how are you so strong? How do you know what I’m feeling? I looked up into his compassionate gaze, there were shadows playing in the recesses, as well as understanding. He knew what it was like to be alone and different. He knew what it was like to want to go home and not being able to. What was I doing thinking about myself when Discord had suffered so much more. Discord’s arms drew around me and pulled me into a hug. “Don’t leave,” he whispered into my ear. I jerked in his grip, but he only held on tighter. “You… found it?” Discord nodded, and I suddenly understood. My desk drawer was open and a half completed letter sat on the desk. It was my farewell letter, something I wanted to leave when I considered briefly leaving with my Dad’s Dimensional Device. I never wished more than anything to be struck by lightning at that moment. Discord was shaking, but I knew he was holding back his feelings. My arms, moments before limp at my sides, crept up and I hugged him back. “I wouldn’t leave you, Discord. I just… I don’t have an excuse,” I mumbled in shame. “I’m sorry.” What kind of family was I? Intolerant of Celestia’s behaviour that was merely part of her upbringing? Bringing stomach-gnawing anxiety down on Discord? I didn’t deserve his heartfelt affection, I didn’t deserve it at all. But I knew what I had to do. I had to earn it. “From now on,” I told him, “there’s going to be changes.” I pulled him away from myself, with a firm grip. Discord eyed me plainitively, but stayed silent when he saw the look in my eyes. “Starting with this,” I growled with new-found resolution. I stalked over to my desk and took the letter in my hands. With a decisive yank, the letter was torn in two. Discord’s expression slowly morphed from downcast to hopeful. I held out my hand, thinking about everything we’d been through together. “I want to be different, and I want it to be with you.” Smiling from ear to floppy ear, Discord took my hand. What he communicated with his eyes were more than any words he could have said. —————— Celestia had finished with her tutoring session when she spotted me in the hallway. She hesitated briefly, but quickly turned away, moving at a near gallop away. “What?” I stood there for a moment, shocked that she had just simply ran away from me. I realised she had disappeared around the corner. “Oh dang it!” I growled to myself and sprinted down the hallway after her. Celestia was halfway down the next hallway when I shouted out. “Wait!” Celestia paused at the end of the hallway, but she didn’t turn back. I slowly wiped a hand across my face and took a deep breath. “Uhh…” my thoughts were in a scramble after the chase. Celestia stood silently at the end of the hall. “Can you please turn around?” Celestia hesitated, then faced me, her eyes sliding away when I tried to make contact with her. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing seemed to come out. It felt like I was trying to talk around a ball of tar lodged in my throat. “I…” Discord appeared, with an exasperated expression. “Oh just say it already!” he snapped at me. He turned to Celestia. “You’re just going to stand there looking at him?!” Celestia blinked at Discord with carefully schooled features. After a moment, she turned around. “No,” she said. Discord’s eyes widened and he turned to me gesturing urgently. I saw my only chance at amending things slip away. “I’m sorry!” I blurted out after her. I saw her droop slightly. She turned back, her eyes avoiding my own again. “I… I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that,” I continued. “Forgive me?” “I’m sorry too,” she said in a small voice. “I—” Celestia bit her lip. “I thought you wouldn’t want to see me after we shouted at each other.” I swallowed thickly and nodded. “I was being selfish,” I admitted. “Not everyone has to see the world the way I do, and…” I moved forward, stopping in front of her. I crouched down, finally locking eyes with her. Surprisingly, I saw the same things floating around in there. I almost laughed at the tragedy the universe had thrown together for us. One big broken misshapen family. I took a deep breath and continued. “It was my fault,” I said, giving her a hug. “I should have known better. It’s my job to understand what you’re going through, not tell you how I felt about it.” I sighed. “What you said just drove me over the edge, but nothing excuses the fact that I blamed you for it, and lost control of my temper.” “I’m sorry,” Celestia said into my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, I just wanted to impress you. They always say you have to tell the truth, you have to tell the truth or bad things will happen. I guess they weren’t telling me the truth.” “No,” I replied sadly. “They were right, I was just too blind to see it.” We gripped each other tighter. “From now on,” I told Celestia. “I want to be someone you can trust. Someone you can be proud of. Nothing you say will ever make me angry again, I promise.” “You do?” she said. “Then I promise I'll be nicer to everypony, no matter what.” I grinned at her and hugged her proudly. “Thank you,” I said. “You're a better pers— pony than me.” Celestia giggled softly. “Of course, you're not even a pony.” I tapped her on the nose. “You know what I mean.” The sound of Discord waddling close broke us apart. Discord smacked his claw and paw together in a loud clap that startled the both of us. “Hey I’m hungry!” he exclaimed. “Where’s Luna?” —————— We found Luna in her bedroom, just after she had taken a nap. She immediately noticed us all together. “You made up?” she inquired hopefully. At Celestia’s nod, she grinned like a madmare and tackled us all with a shrieking hug. “Yes!” she cried ecstatically, “I was worried since Harmony was have dreams about going back—” She froze mid-crouch to a leap, and shrank back. “Oops,” she mumbled, carefully avoiding a look in my direction. “You what?!” I spluttered. “You went into my dreams?” Luna nodded sullenly. I clenched my fists, closed my eyes and forced myself to relax. Luna was worried about me, that’s all, and it’s not like she did what that— I stopped myself before I could go further. “Thanks, Luna,” I said finally. I didn’t know I would be tested on my forbearance so soon. “No it probably wasn’t a good idea to dive into my dreams, but I understand what you did was because you were worried about me.” I sighed. “So what was those yellow eyes all about?” I gave a nervous laugh. Luna had quite the capacity to make nightmares. “Trying to scare me into staying. It kind of worked, if that’s what you were trying to do.” “Yellow eyes?” Luna asked. She got up from her crouch slowly with a confused look. “I thought I got it right. I had blue eyes.” A chill went down my spine. “No yellow eyes, you were the one that told me I was needed, right?” Luna nodded emphatically. “We do need you here,” she said, but I wasn’t listening. Yellow eyes.