A Journey Unthought Of

by Hustlin Tom

Chapter 5 REVISED

It was a cold, damp morning. I was utterly miserable. I had tried to cover myself with bits of collapsed boxes in the middle of the night to insulate myself, but that plan hadn't worked. Instead I was surrounded by soaked cardboard that had melted down around me. As soon as I started to feel a blissful warmness despite how I had felt numb and damp a few minutes ago I knew I was experiencing hypothermia. It wasn't my first time, but I knew if I didn't find somewhere dry and warm very soon I would go to sleep and not wake up. I'd seen it happen to others, and by God I wasn't going to let it get me!

That's when the truck had driven into the area. It's not often you see any large vehicle get off the road in the inner city. The place where I and a few others had decided to stay that night was a vacant lot. It sat underneath a stretch of highway that bent around and over it. Whatever building that had once stood here was torn down and ripped out years ago. A weathered sign on the property line near the adjoining street had read that development was underway, but it was also many years old. More likely than not the site was a victim of the Great Recession of 2008, and whatever grandiose plan that had been made for it was long scrapped, gathering dust in some file bin wherever the city hall was in this town.

The truck hissed as it hit the breaks and switched into park. Then they came for us. We were a gilded city's downtrodden. We were the living embodiment of the statement 'There is something wrong with this society'. We were the dispossessed. The shunned.

Now, however, we were wanted.

They grabbed us and dragged us into the waiting van. I was too weak to run or resist in any kind of way. If they were willing to take me out of this place, I didn't care where we went: I wanted to live.

When next I became conscious, I found myself in a small, well-lit room. I was lying on a cot that extended out from the wall nearest me. There was a toilet a few feet to my right. It looked like a prison cell, but brighter. As I sat up, I realized that it was clean; not one iota of dirt or dust surrounded me. I was warm. The bizarreness of my situation was dulled by that small comfort, but as I looked down I saw I was in a set of white, form fitting clothes that I know I had never put on. Food came eventually through a slot at the foot of the door on the opposite side of the room, but no one replied when I tried to speak with them. Hours passed. The light above dimmed, but never fully turned off. I don't know how long I was there, but the waiting was agony. I couldn't tell which was worse: starving, cold, and able to go where I wished, or having all of my needs except my freedom satisfied.

Finally someone came to my door; an older woman with glasses and a clipboard.

"You are going to become a part of history," I remember her saying, "The greatest achievement in science since the creation of the atomic bomb: teleportation of large masses across continents."

They came for me when I was sleeping. I was dressed in my environmental protection suit, and escorted down several hallways. There was a long elevator ride down to the test chamber. I was forced at gunpoint to stand in front of a large circular cavity in the wall. The segmented panels around the hole reminded me of teeth, like I was being sacrificed to some demonic beast. Sparks flew from inside the cavity, and as the lights dimmed I saw a black and white window grow inside the cavity. I had finally realized that this was some kind of gateway, and that they meant to shove me through it. As I was tossed into the Void, my body fragmented into thousands of shards that floated in midair. I was consumed completely by the beast, and then it swallowed.

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My eyes flew open. I realized I was still on the floor of Lyra and Bon Bon's cottage, and I breathed a little sigh of relief. I was safe. I was nestled under a thick blanket with an equally-thick blanket between me and the hard floor, with a soft, downy pillow to rest my head upon. It was the best awakening I’d ever had. All those things I had dreamt about were in the past; they couldn't hurt me now. It was mid-morning from the look of the sun through the front window. Today marked the second day of my stay in the little cottage. Things were of course still rocky between Bon Bon and I, with Lyra doing her best to mediate between the two of us.

As I sat up I caught the smell of vanilla extract and warming cookie dough. I stood slowly, my joints creaking a little as I did, and I gave a little grunt of satisfaction as I popped as many of them as I could. Slowly I made my way towards the kitchen area, rubbing my eyes awake as I did. When I came into the doorway I stopped and bristled a little: Bon Bon was doing the cooking. She hadn't seen me yet; she was too busy taking care of the last of the dirty bowls and utensils she had used. Part of me wanted nothing more than to pretend I hadn't gotten up yet and just go back to my bed to wait until she vacated the room, but I knew that at some point I had to do my best to come to terms with her. Lyra was doing everything she could to make peace between us, and her sincerity eventually made me feel guilty enough to try and offer the earth pony some sense of cordiality.

I cleared my throat softly. She turned her head to look at me: as soon as she realized what the sound was her expression became more guarded. She had been smiling, but she wasn't now.

"Morning," I said as I fully entered the room.

"Morning," she replied curtly, as she turned back to her dirty dishes.

"Where's Lyra," I asked as I approached the small table near the wall closest to me, and selected an apple that appealed to me most.

"She's out getting groceries."

"Ah."

I took a bite of the green fruit in my hand: it was pleasantly tangy.

The silence continued on for a while. The tension in the air could be cut with a knife.

I broke the silence first in an attempt to offer an olive branch, "What're you cooking?"

She glanced in my direction for a moment before she responded, "They're called 'Lemon Snowflake Cookies'. Do you know what cookies are?"

My agitation grew because of her condescension, but I did everything in my willpower to bury it, "Yes, I do." I took a moment to dispel it completely as I put a bit more aggressiveness into my next bite from the apple. "Do they have something to do with your..." I wasn't sure of what the proper word was, so I put my finger in the air and drew a circle around the strange tattoo on her flank.

She looked back at the area I was designating, "My Cutie Mark?"

"Sure."

For a split second, Bon Bon's smile returned, albeit somewhat subdued, “Sort of. A pony gets their Cutie Mark when they find their talent. It's a sign of their own unique experience when they discover it: it’s mine and mine only." Her smile grew as she reminisced, "I found mine early as a filly. Both my parents were culinary aficionados. As I watched them growing up, I found my little niche in the family business making sweets.”

She stopped smiling suddenly when she realized how much she had said and to whom. She quickly returned to her task, vigorously scrubbing her mixing bowl. "So," she continued after a few seconds of silent work, "I suppose you don't have Cutie Marks where you're from?"

I twirled my apple between my thumb and middle finger as I thought about the question. "There's nothing really obvious like with your...Cutie Mark," I struggled with the concept as I tried to take the word seriously, "There are tests humans can take when we're young that give others an idea what we're good at. Some people swear they're absolutely true estimates of who we are, but they don't necessarily dictate our talents."

Bon Bon paused her work to look back at me curiously, "So what is your special talent?"

I searched my mind, looking through my past for that glimmer of light, for a memory of a bright future. I'd made mistakes, living one moment at a time, never looking back or forward. My life for so many years, from my youth until now, had been bouncing around from place to place, tossed about like I was in a small boat in a large, turbulent ocean. Choice then became practice, and practice became habit. It had been so long since I was actually able to stop and think about more than what I was immediately about to do that I wasn't sure where to start.

"I honestly don't know," I replied, vocalizing my realization.

She glanced at me for a moment longer, then her gaze trailed off. Finally she saw that the bowl she was working was already clean, and she put it down. Taking up the next one, she began to mechanically work on it with a dish rag. A small "Hm," escaped her throat.

I looked down at my apple for a moment, and found that I wasn't very hungry anymore. Putting it down, I leaned on the table behind me, my hands holding the edges. The silence returned, as we each considered our thoughts.

With a sigh, I stared at the back of Bon Bon's head, "Look, I know you still don't want me here. I know I ruined your tidy, orderly life, and I'm sorry for that. In all honesty, I don't want to be here either."

This caught Bon Bon's attention, and she turned to look at me curiously.

"I don't know where I'm from is in relation to here, but I had no friends, I don't know what is going on with my family, and I have no home. Every day was a struggle to get by as I looked for my next meal, hoping I wouldn't go hungry each night. I was expecting to die, but then they, whoever they are, scooped me up from the streets and sent me here." I waved my hands once in the air for emphasis, "I don't know why I'm here to bother you, but there's nothing I can do to change what happened. I'm here, whether we like it or not."

My peace said, I waited for her response.

A buzzer dinged on the oven, which stole both of our attention. Bon Bon put down her rag and the bowl she had been holding and reached for a set of cooking mittens. Slipping them on, she reached for the oven and opened it slowly. Reaching underneath the cookie sheet with one hoof, she found the center of balance and carefully brought it out, Walking on three hooves, she put the yellow cookies onto a cooling rack she had set up near the sink. Taking off the gloves and closing the oven, she reached up into an overhead cabinet and got out a small container of powdered sugar. I watched and waited impatiently as she wordlessly sprinkled the white stuff over each individual cookie.

As she finished prepping the last one, she carefully nudged the nearest cookie to her off the sheet and into her hoof. She then turned and silently offered it to me. Looking her in the face, unsure of what exactly she meant by the gesture, I slowly took it from her. I brought it to my lips and ate it. I was surprised by the tartness of the cookie at first, but it ebbed away as the mellow sweetness of the powdered sugar took over.

"Mmm," I softly exclaimed as I finished the last of it, "That was phenomenal."

"Thank you," Bon Bon said in return, in a softer tone than I had ever heard from her before, "It was a recipe my grandmother taught me."

"Well, she obviously knew what she was doing," I declared with a small smile.

The earth pony mare looked back at the cookies with a smile, and then back to me. It seemed like she couldn't decide on an expression, as she keep switching between a smile and an uncertain frown.

"I'm going to be honest," she declared as she continued looking up at me, unsure how to feel, "I don't know if I like you, but now at least I feel like I better understand you."

I nodded softly, "I guess that's all I can ask for."

Comments

[Rikki]

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Y no comments tho?

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[Hustlin Tom]

9705671
Iunno, LOL.

[Luckyfanisaac]

She glanced at me for a moment longer, then her gaze trailed off. Finally she saw that the bowl she was working on was already clean, and she put it down. Taking up the next one, she began to mechanically work on it with a dish rag. A small "Hm," escaped her throat.

I was surprised by the tartness of the cookie at first, but it ebbed away as the mellow sweetness of the powdered sugar took over.