Tra-La-La Dee-Dah Dee-Dah!
Vrooooooom!!
That's the sound a car makes!
Vroom! A nice and soothing vroom over a perfect asphalt road!
But there are different kinds of roads! And different great car sounds for them!
When the road is really old and hasn't been paved in a long long time, sometimes cars will make a vr-craklcragkrak sound!
Or if it's a soft dirt road then cars go vr-thffffcrggthff while leaving an awesome trail of dust!
James loved the noises! He loved them and listened to them as car after car went by! He loved the vroom's of the cars sailing smoothly over the town's sparkling black asphalt! He loved the vr-crakl's of the cars as they bumped about his childhood suburb! He loved the vr-thff's of the cars spraying clouds of dirt down the streets of Ponyville!
What a wonder! The sounds of something so complex functioning efficiently! Combustion and turbines and pistons and belts and axles, all to wheels which ground their way along on the roads! Those glorious sounds!
Vroooom!!
Vr-craklcrag!!
Vr-thffcrgthff!!
From the wheel, to the road, to his feet, up his legs, and through his body! He felt those fulfilling sounds of a system in order! A system working in harmony!
"Ahem. Please forgive my intrusion. However, if I may say... this scene is most—hehe—entertaining."
James walked!
He walked along with big bounces in his steps as the cars went by! He walked past the timber-framed cottages and said hello to the ponies in the windows, whether they were putting out a pie or saying hello to the birds or just catching a faceful of beautiful sun! He walked on the sidewalk and called to the neighborhood dogs who barked at him from their lawns, teasing them a little just he always had for years! He walked under the clouds and whistled up to the pegasi flying between them, asking them about the day's weather! He walked across the driveways and nodded to the parents who were out washing their cars and his many childhood friends playing basketball at the short basket!
Everywhere he walked, it was all great!
Except sometimes.
Sometimes he walked by a cottage and somepony had left their hay bales in very unneat stacks! He stacked them!
Sometimes he walked past a driveway and there was a mailbox left open with no mail in it! He closed them!
Sometimes he walked and he had to go around the pony-drawn wagons which had not been parked very flush to their owner's homes! Not very flush at all! He flushed them! (Tee-hee!)
And even once – one time, as he strolled by the old house where lived those mysterious neighbors he had never seen or known, whose lights had always been off every Halloween – he walked along a white picket fence where one of the boards was sticking out badly!
It was not straight!
Well, he straightened it! He put it back in line with all the others, the way it was supposed to be! He put that fence back into wonderful harmony!
"As amusing as this is, I should press on. First, I do apologize sincerely for having entered uninvited. I was cautioned to avoid contacting you in this manner, for several reasons, and until now I have abided. Perhaps this first meeting between us would not be so awkward if we had both taken the advice we were given and introduced ourselves earlier in a more even space."
James whistled!
Not a song which he knew or remembered! It wasn't even his own air! The song came from the whole world!
The cars helped, of course! Their engines and wheels very much liked to hum the bassline! The steady clip clop clip clop of hooves joined the melody as well! But they weren't all! The wind itself chimed in, and so did the wind chimes hanging from the neighbors' porches! From the bazaar came the market hawkers in their stalls singing like a choir while they vended their bottles of mane wash and bags of caramel daisy treats and customized clips for safely preening pegasus wings! Even the hamburgers on the grill of the annual neighborhood cookout sizzled away to the tune!
James went to the park with the glimmering lake where he had always gone swimming every summer while growing up, and right next to the lake was the gazebo where Ponyville's many musically talented ponies liked to gather for their weekly practice! They were all too happy to be a part of the great tune, and they played away to it like they had been doing it their whole lives! What a zoo of instruments! Each their own voice, but melting together like a rich cake of a symphony!
Whistles and words and whooshes and woodwinds and whumps! A music so breathtakingly perfect in its sound filled the sky to every corner!
Except somewhere.
At the gazebo with all the Ponyville players James saw little Poppy! Beautiful, beloved Poppy! She was whacking away wildly on a drum just like she had done the other day when they had been trying to earn cutie marks for some very courageous crusaders! Oh but beautiful, beloved Poppy must not have heard the song which the rest of the world did, because her hooves crashed on the drum to the sound of a broken guitar torturing an amplifier!
It was all disordered!
James rushed over right away to help his sweet and extraordinary filly! He picked her up, gave her a hug bigger than the lake, kissed her smile on each cheek, put her down, and started softly patting away on the drum himself in time to what he knew absolutely to be the world's rhythm!
Poppy watched his hands go a-bum bum bum, a-bum bum bum, a-bum bum bum! And the beat joined her! She started bobbing her head! She snuggled up close to her drum, raised her hooves, and took over from the man!
A-bum bum bum-da-bum tiddily-bum bum rump-pa bum!
Her drum sang operatic! Magnifico!
James smiled at his cherished filly! His astounding prodigy! His beautiful, beloved Poppy whose love was so massive that it didn't matter where he went; all directions led to her love's center!
With Poppy joined in, everything played together just right! The tune had come back to gorgeous harmony!
"Regardless, let me explain why I am here now. The draw you are experiencing at this moment is... enormous. I don't have any sound idea what it even is, but I have never seen anything like it before. Do not worry; I don't believe it is dangerous. Or at least, I have seen no signs of that yet. But I thought it inauspicious enough to risk warning you. Is this native to your species?"
James danced!
Not in any way he knew how! But what was there even to know? Sometimes he was a joy! Other times he did a happy! At the biggest heights, right at the very peaks of his dance, he was a love! That's really all there was to dancing!
And there wasn't anybody, anypony, or anything that didn't dance with him!
The dandelions in the grass knew how to shake it, just like they had done in the field during every breezy spring day of his youth! The fireflies were choreographed like fireworks, lighting the very same field as they had always done during the great summer nights! Around the little stream with the small bump of a bridge before the lovely woodland cottage, every type of animal from little critter to humble giant performed a ballet! And just over the fence was a vast farm orchard where each tree swayed about, rolling their ripe, plump apples in a happy sort of hula!
James skipped right over the fence, flying so high that he might as well have been a pegasus! Back down in the orchard he found a particularly bountiful tree (but of course, they all were bountiful!), scooted a basket under it, a gave its trunk a playful tickle! Juicy apples rained from the branches and filled the basket! He hugged up his basket-load in his arms like a beautiful baby and carried it out of the orchard as a treat for the rest of the dancers!
But maybe he hadn't needed to! No matter where in town he went, every dancer already had a basket of apples with them! In the park, in the square, downtown, uptown, lefttown, righttown! They danced, and they ate, and the juice flowed like golden rivers, right down into the smiling storm drains! Nobody and nopony danced without an apple!
Except someones.
Down by the schoolhouse there were many fillies and colts, and girls and boys, who didn't have a basket of apples! Not one basket! Not one apple! Not one stem! Bless them, they still all tried to dance, but they couldn't joy! They couldn't happy! They couldn't love! There wasn't any dance they could do; not with their hungry little tummies!
It was not right!
James carried his basket right on over and ploped it down amongst the foals and children! Here an apple, there an apple, everywhere a tasty apple! He scooped them up by the armful to give them away! No one got an apple with a bruise or a brown spot, because of course every apple was red, shiny, crisp, and delicious! He used his bare hands to pull the apples apart into perfectly shaped wedges; wedges shaped just like the smiles they put on the little ones faces!
And when there was one apple left, he split it with three eager, admirable crusaders! They all got a little practice in at dancing and chewing at the same time! The world danced again in fantastic harmony!
"... Hello? Are you ignoring me? Understand please that I deeply and truly apologize if I have trespassed unwanted."
James read!
Oh, but the words didn't make any sense, though it didn't matter! Book after book he spun the pages, devouring all the nonsense in an instant! He was a nonstop nonsense reader! The only time he ever paused was to flatten the creases out of every page, and to undo every dog ear, and to stitch up every binding, and to wipe clean every dusty cover, and to rub out every mistaken ink blot, and to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’! When he was done he shelved every book back into its proper place, no matter where he had found it!
But James was only one James! It was probably going to take a very very long while to read and sort everything! The libraries together were super big, after all! Every school, every town, every tree; they were just one mega library!
Thankfully he had help!
James tossed many of the books to his dragon buddy! Faithful Spike always knew where everything went, and he was always eager to help! Faithful Spike didn't question, or doubt, or balk, or do anything off-kilter at all! Always helpful, always faithful Spike, who from the very first hello had always believed in James!
And so around the libraries the two went! Reading books! Putting books away! Reading more books! Putting more books away! James straightened any crooked stacks which Spike sometimes had trouble carrying! Spike surfed on top of the book cart which James pushed and navigated the way for them both! James hoisted Spike high to get at those hard to reach shelves! Spike gladly took every book from James that belonged in those down low places!
There wasn't a moment without teamwork!
Except somewhens.
Now and again Spike didn't do his job quite so well! It happened kind of randomly! Sometimes at different rooms! Sometimes at different shelves! There was no pattern that James could see!
Faithful, faithful Spike would act glum or gruff, and he wouldn't want to put a book away! Faithful, faithful Spike would act quiet or withdrawn, and he wouldn't want to ride the cart and lead the way! Faithful, faithful Spike would act upset or scared, and he wouldn't allow James to pick him up!
James worried very much that something was wrong with Spike! But after awhile, when he couldn't see who or what was causing Spike to change, James started to worry that maybe something was wrong with himself! James started to worry that he was making Spike not right!
It was not balanced!
He took Spike over to the kiddie room! Toys and children's books were scattered everywhere waiting to be put back on their tiny shelves and in their toy chests! A nice stool was in the corner where many times the friendly library lady had read to crowds and crowds of eager-eared little foals and children! James brought Spike over to the stool, sat on it, put the dragon on his lap, and asked what was wrong!
Was Spike hurt? Had James hurt Spike?
Was Spike angry? Had James angered Spike?
Was Spike sad? Had James sad-ed Spike?
Spike did not think James had hurt him! James was very happy to hear it because a friend is someone who tries to fix every hurt big and small! And because a friend is someone who tries to fix every hurt big and small, he asked Spike again what was wrong!
Spike reached out and grabbed a book from the nearest shelf! It was a children's picture book with big thick cardboard pages, and it had the dragon's own face on the cover! But more than that! As Spike showed James, every page had a picture of the dragon on it!
But they were all wrong! Every Spike in every picture was wrong somehow! One was too tall, and not just tall but distorted! One was too wide, and not just wide but lopsided! One had a tail way too very short! One spat little clouds of ice! One was pockmarked by many missing scales all over his body like a frightening bout of dragon-acne!
Something was different on the very last page! On the very last page was not Spike! Instead there was a lovely lady of a mare, with a mane curled like a violet ocean wave! She was looking back at all the pages in the book, and it sort of seemed as if she didn't like any of the ugly things she saw inside!
Spike frowned!
James closed the book, set it aside, and then himself pulled a book out from the shelf! The new book had his picture on it! And, as the man showed Spike, every page of course had a picture of the man on it! And yes, they were all wrong somehow!
Hilariously wrong! A nose way too big, but the man laughed because it reminded him of his dad! A body way too out of shape, but the man laughed because he knew he had eventually proven to himself what his body could be! A walking gait which was bent over in the most ridiculous way, but the man laughed because he would happily walk like that to make a friend smile!
On the last page of his book was not a picture of a lady! Only a picture of himself! Himself, happy and carefree!
James closed his book and put it on top of Spike's book, and he told Spike not to worry! Sometimes a picture wasn't worth a thousand words! Sometimes all that was needed to capture a picture of someone was only a handful of true, important words!
Faithful! Brave! Trustworthy! Purple! Green!
Spike smiled!
Together they got up, put their books away, and then worked in unison to clean the kiddie room! They got the books on the shelves and put every toy neatly back into its toy chest! They tidied up and got the whole place back into united harmony!
"Are-... are you even lucid?"
James waved!
He waved to everyone, no matter who they were, or how he knew them, or how he didn't know them! He waved to the ponies plowing the fields! He waved to his friends who were sitting about on one of their cars in the fast-food parking lot! He waved to the mayor of Ponyville and all her staff working hard at the town hall! He waved to his comrades as they jogged past him, neat and ordered!
When James got downtown there were many, many, many, many people and ponies to wave to! He had to use both his hands if he was going to wave to everyone! The movie theater had a crowd spilling out the front; they all needed waves! The bowling ally had a line going out the door also; waves for all! Even the barbershop was overflowing! That's what happens when a busy barbershop is run by just one old man and one little manestylist! Oh well, a sea of waves for them all!
And all the folks were happy to wave back at James right away! There wasn't anyplace where they weren't!
Except some—the ice cream shop.
The ice cream shop was very busy like everywhere else, with every table at the outside patio full! Ponies shared bowls of ice cream with people, and people shared cones of ice cream with ponies! Most of them did wave right back at James, even when they had their hands or hooves full, and even when they had melted ice cream on their noses and snouts!
But there was one single table where no one waved!
Right in the middle of the patio was a table with four very lovely, very adored, very sexy, but kind of upset ladies! They weren't mad; not really anyway! But they weren't at all feeling good! Something was unsettled!
Something had been left wrong!
James knew who they all were of course! In fact he recognized three of them very intimately! He knew what had been left wrong, and he knew what needed to be done to make it right!
He went to the first girl who was the youngest; high school aged! He apologized for how it hadn't worked out between them! He had been young, and rushed, and stupid! Where a man would have made decisions with his heart, a boy hadn't known the difference between his heart and his hormones! It didn't matter how much of what had happened had made him feel hurt; if he had been wiser and less selfish, he wouldn't have hurt her so badly!
But it was alright! She apologized to him too! After all, had she not also been young, rushed, and stupid? Had she not also been eager to prove that she was a woman and not a girl? That was all water under the broken bridge now! She had moved on and was happy to see that he had as well!
James went to the next woman who was just a bit older than the first; the longest relationship! He apologized for how it hadn't worked out between them! He had really tried to take their relationship very seriously, so that it would have lasted forever! But things had sometimes gone wrong, as they do, and every time that had happened he had been a terrible person and had pinned all of his frustrations on her! He had thought that because he had been trying so hard, she had been at fault! There were plenty of mistakes he had made though, and he should have admitted to them! Most of all, he was very, very sorry for having yelled at her a few times! His temper made him very, very sad!
But it was alright! She apologized to him too! She had been bothered sometimes but how super serious he had been sometimes, with many useless rules and many strict arrangements, like their relationship had been a math problem he could have solved with all the right steps! But never once had she tried to sit him down and let him know about her frustrations with him, except of course when it had been too late and things had started exploding! Maybe if they had done more talking through their mistakes then they could have taken their relationship to a better place! She was glad at least for all the lessons they had learned together! Even the painful ones!
James went to the third woman who was only just a smidgen younger than him; the relationship that had failed really quickly not long before he had enlisted! He apologized for how it hadn't worked out between them! He had been looking for a fast recovery after his longterm relationship had fallen apart, and he had really felt like his experiences had taught him everything there had been to know! Whoops! Maybe they could have had a real relationship instead of just some mutual sex, if only he had been a better, more honest, more humble person!
But it was alright! She apologized to him too! Honestly, she hadn't been that serious about the whole thing! And hey, it had been fun!
And finally James went to the last lady; the pony!
All the three previous girlfriends watched him very eagerly to see what he would do! The pony herself nervously twiddled the many bracelets around her legs, wondering also what the man's plan was!
James stood before the sitting pony, rubbed his chin, shrugged, and then he bent down and kissed her on the cheek!
The flushed pony rubbed the blessing happily while the three past girlfriends cheered and clapped their hands! They wished the two of them good luck! Maybe all the hardships and lessons had been to make this one work! They even stood up and got everybody and everypony there at the ice cream shop to give applause and shout encouragements!
With everyone there waving excitedly the whole place was lit up, brought back to terrific harmony!
"Hm. Very well. I would be grieved to know that I had grossly intruded upon somepony against their will, so I will depart. However, allow me to leave an impulse behind with you, just in case. Forgive the spell; it is only to ensure persistence beyond this world."
“Remember my sister.”
"Thank you. Farewell."
James basked in the wonderful harmony!
It was all around him, as it was supposed to be! Nothing was crooked; it had all been made straight! Nothing was out of rhythm; it had all been put in sync! Nothing was still; it had all been given life! Nothing was out of sorts; it had all been brought together in cooperation! Nothing hurt was left behind; it had all be swept up in forgiveness!
Friendship was magic!
Except... there.
Beyond all the joy and life and friendship and love about him, James saw the sky surrounding him in the distance. And it was wrong. It was bright and blue, and that was fine. But painted on it was a huge rainbow. And the rainbow...
... the rainbow was wrong.
It was not in harmony.
James wanted to stay with all the bliss around him. But the rainbow had to be brought to harmony. So he walked over to the horizon. He had to hoist himself over the first house in the way. Then he had to take a very big step over the forest. At the mountain he only had to lightly skip over. Then he was there, standing next to the horizon.
Behind him the whole world – his home, Ponyville, and the rest – had shrunk down to the size of an ant colony. He still heard all the sounds of harmony coming from it, but it was so distant. The joy, life, friendship, and love were like a parade which had gone far, far down the road, almost out of sight.
James looked at big rainbow right in front of him. The colors on it were not quite right, though he wasn't sure how exactly. There were six colors in all: purple, yellow, blue, pink, orange, and violet. The order felt right; something else was wrong.
Then James realized it: the colors did not shimmer in the way a rainbow should.
Four of them flickered, sometimes weakly but sometimes greatly. They were like old neon lights in the dark which struggled to stay fully lit. Sometimes they held strong, for a few long moments at least. Maybe those colors had something which was just a little loose that he needed to tweak? Maybe he only needed to make a few adjustments in order to get them back into perfect working harmony?
The violet also flickered, much worse than the four others. Whatever the others needed, it needed much more.
The sixth color though. The pink.
It was not lit at all. Not even a flicker.
James could only tell what color it was supposed to be by looking at it very closely. He reached a hand up and gently tested the purple by laying his palm upon it. It was warm, especially when it flickered brightly. He felt the warmth not on his palm but in his heart. Next he moved his palm to the pink.
It was cold like steel. Frost covered his whole body.
James was very, very worried. He looked back at the small and distant harmony going on behind him, all of it blissfully unaware of the broken rainbow.
Everything needed to be brought back into harmony.
James braced himself, digging his heels against the mountain. He steadied one hand against the orange, and then with his other gave a hard push onto the pink.
The pink swung open, hinged on its top to the blue, and when it hit the limit of its swing it reverberated with the jangle of a thin metal door.
Inside the pink was a room so dark that James couldn't determine how big or small it was. Sunlight streamed in through the door he had opened only to wither into black nothingness mere inches inside. After a moment of staring into the room James began to think that it wasn't a room at all, but simply just an endless darkness. Simply just the nothing outside of harmony.
There was only one thing there, plainly visible to him despite the darkness.
There was a pony an unhappy distance away from the door. She was pink, but like the rainbow she was not lit. She was sitting with her back to James so that he could not see any identifying cutie mark, and there was nothing unique about her incredibly straightened mane and tail. She drooped where she sat, and now and again he saw her shiver.
Each shiver was accompanied by a loud, loud sound which filled the whole darkness. Each shiver, a single drop of water broke the stillness of an unseen pond.
James tried to call to the sad pony, to know who she was or what she needed, but like the sunlight his voice quickly dissolved in the darkness.
He bit his lip and looked back at the distant, distant, faraway echoes of harmony behind him. Dandelions danced. Poppy drummed. Books slid into their proper places with satisfying thunks. All of it was so faint in his ear now, so separated from the rainbow and the pink.
The sad man lowered his head.
A drop of water broke a still pond inside him.
Everything needed to be brought back into harmony!
He gripped the top of the orange and climbed inside the open pink. The pink shut behind him with a metallic clang.
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What could it all mean?
Well this is quite the fever dream. Was that Luna trying to talk to him?
8309873
Yes.
On a another note I love the fact that your version of equestria is in many ways completely opposite to other authors in that sex is considered completely and utterly taboo. It actually makes for a fun read.
8309887
Even way back when I started with What Separates I tried to make it a stiff rule to keep to the cartoon in a fairly literal way. Just for my own work I decided that faithful to the source was going to be a very strong rule. It's not an absolutely hard rule and I've bent it when I've felt it would help the story, but for every deviation I've tried to stop and really think very hard about it.
To that end, regarding sex, my thought was: American standards and practices. A cartoon with a children's audience cannot mention sex, so therefore ponies in a sense cannot mention it either. I thought it was too far if they absolutely didn't know what it was and the magic of love handled everything, so I just kept it as an utterly taboo topic. They never mention or talk about it unless circumstances force them to.
Please, no magic ex machina to fix his problems. Strugle makes the story, and its core of the human condition
8309943
In a world where dreams have real impact, something in this dream could certainly help to solve his problem. But why would you assume magic? Haven't you read enough of this author to have more trust in them than that?
I see a rough conversation ahead.
8310254
Its just... i´ve come to hate magic in most stories, both in concept and in narrative function. Most fiction here wich try to distinguish mankind from the equine kind either pull something like "magic immunity", "technological prowess" or "talent for war and violence" as a way to justify the human trait of a character. This story so far has been fantastic, i love the analisis and introspection, and i was afraid the taint of magic would diminish our human protagonist.
Sorry in advance for any spelling mistakes, english is not my main lanugage
8312068
I'll clarify it right now, just because I don't consider it a spoiler: the purpose of this chapter is not to provide a magical solution to anything. Just moving various plot pieces along.
There's a similar spirit in all this as there was in Melancholy Days. This was a long time ago now but, that story ended with James openly admitting his fears and troubles to Twilight and she specifically pointed out that there were no magical solutions to them. The story ended with his problems technically unresolved. One of the points of the story was that there aren't magical solutions to things like depression.
Here, this story isn't a hunt for the right magical band-aid. Rather, the idea that magical band-aids might even have the power to affect personal relationships is part of the story's whole conflict.
Holy acid trip Batman!
DUUUUUUUUUUDE.. that's some good sh*t.
That fruit must be full of LSD