• Published 6th Nov 2016
  • 2,784 Views, 43 Comments

Again - OfTheIronwilled



A pony falls into Megan's well. It isn't the first time this has happened... or maybe it is.

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Never

Megan sighed as she patted her old girl on the snout. The horse snorted gleefully, and gingerly pressed her soft nose against the shaking touch of Megan's fingers. The young woman stroked the animal, desperately tried to focus on the texture of her fur and luscious mane, instead of on today. Because today, familiar and nostalgic, beat down on her back. As soon as she looked at the calendar this morning she wished she hadn't. So now she was just trying to... ignore it.

Megan sighed again.

It had been years. Years, and she still couldn't stop thinking about what happened to her. Or, more accurately, what hadn't happened to her.

She wasn't even supposed to be thinking about it. She knew that. Whenever she did it just... confused her, by how vivid it had all seemed at the time. How real and haunting it was now that it was really gone for good. It wasn't good for her to reinforce this lie in her head. So she didn't think about it. She forced herself not to, despite how much the nostalgia ached in her chest here, despite the dream she had again last night, for the third night in a row.

-- And oh, it had been a wonderful dream. A soft pink body with an electric blue mop of hair; all of her real friends sitting by her as she brushed them; the feeling of soft manes beneath her palms. It had been so bright, so wonderful and calm...

She woke up from that dream tense and soaked with sweat.

Megan shook her head. No. Don't think about it. She was a young woman now. All of that was behind her.

There was also a scream and a splashing sound behind her.

Megan dropped her hand as her horse snorted and jerked in fear. Both of her arms fell heavy to her sides, heavy and numb. Her hearing cut out to a ring, to the frantic jump of her pulse. She sucked in a ragged breath, shook her head-- it was just a bird, or some sort of animal, it couldn't be anything else. Realistically, it couldn't be her again, it--

"Hey, little help?! Hello?!"

Megan blinked. Cleared her throat. Breathed.

When Megan was little, she had been kidnapped. Or at least, that's what they told her.

Her parents came outside one day to find their daughter gone. They searched for her days, weeks, months... over a year went by, with the entire town desperately trying to track down the bright little girl who went missing. When she did finally come back, it was to worried faces, the flash of police lights, and then to a group of men speaking to her at her house.

Megan told them everything. About how she saved the ponies from the terror of the demon Tirek, who wanted them to pull his chariot, and then plunge Ponyland into an eternal darkness. She told them about how Firefly was the one to take her there, and about how she quickly befriended all of the ponies in the castle, to the point where she loved staying with them. Megan described every adventure in vivid detail; she explained about sea ponies and dragons and wizards, and the hundreds of other forms of magic she had experienced with her pony friends. Her pony friends who, as she had insisted, were her very best friends. She hadn't thought she was gone from home for so long, and she was sorry... but she still missed the ponies.

Her mom and dad had only crushed her into a sobbing hug. She heard one of the men she was talking to call her delusional.

For months of her life following coming back home, she was dumped from small blue room to small blue room, from smiling man to smiling woman. They thought she was lying, no matter how much she promised she wasn't; no matter what she did or what she said, all of them told her that she was either lying or mistaken, clearly having twisted this fantasy to cover the trauma she had experienced. They studied her, examined her thoughts, forced her to draw pictures, gave her medication.

Eventually she figured out that the only way to make them happy was to pretend to agree with what they said. Eventually she didn't need to pretend, because she'd convinced more than just the doctors.

And then, years later, just three days prior to now, it came back into her life. She had forgotten. She really had. Megan's family never brought it up because they didn't want to think about it, which made it easy for time to whisk her childhood memories away. Until the dreams came back, she was almost normal.

Now, there it was. Behind her. They were here again.

She couldn't do this. She was better. They weren't real.

"Hey! You're Megan, right? I know you're up there!"

She was sweating. She couldn't breathe.

Megan numbly turned around and tried not to vomit. She stared at that damn well, at the sounds of sloshing water and the raspy voice rising from its depths. Behind her, her horse fidgeted in its stall.

She walked slowly up to the well. She couldn't feel her legs. When she peered over the stone edge, she felt her world cant to the side, and her vision go faint.

It really was one of them. Not the one she expected. She thought for sure she would stare down into that well and see a familiar shock of pink fur and blue mane, smiling like a doof at her from the water pail. But now the water pail wasn't down there, and the pony who was, wasn't Firefly.

The blue coat practically burned her eyes, and the rainbow on her head and behind weren't any better. Those big cute bug-eyes, like two fish bowls in the ponies head, gazed up at her in a vibrant magenta glint.

Megan shivered, and her hands twitched. She resisted the urge to scream.

"What do you want?" Megan whispered.

"It is you!" the pony exclaimed. Her voice echoed off the stone. "Listen, I don't have time to explain, but Equestria is in big trouble! Princess Celestia and Twilight sent me to get you. They said you'd be able to help us, somehow. We have to go like, right now."

Megan blinked at her. Equestria? Princess Celestia?

God... she really was crazy, wasn't she? Megan shook her head. She couldn't do this.

"I don't care. Get away from me and never come back," she mumbled.

The pony narrowed her thick eyelashes and glared at her. Her hooves sloshed at the deep water below her. "Yeah, yeah, nice to meet you too. Celestia said you might be like this. Look, I didn't like flying all the way out here either, but my friends are in trouble. I don't know what the hay a monkey-thing like you would do, but apparently you know a lot about friendship."

Megan shook her head again. She turned around stiffly, slowly. Her whole body ached and shivered.

"Um, excuse me, Megan," the pony barked. "but I didn't fly all the way from Equestria just for some girl to be a jerk! What happened to the loyalty you had to your pony friends? The Princesses told me you used to help ponies all the time!"

Megan didn't stop walking.

"Hey! I'm Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty, okay? And even with all my awesomeness, I can't do this alone. I don't know what the hay is wrong with you, but we need you to save Equestria! My friends could be getting hurt right now!"

She kept on going, with her twitching hands shoved over her ears, until she reached the closest tree. An apple tree, the ruby red fruits glistening in the light. Megan focused on their colors, the shining of their skin, as she sat down at the tree's base. Anything but the pony in her well. This wouldn't happen again. It couldn't.

"Fine. I'll find somepony else to rescue my friends!"

There was some more sloshing, and he clicks of hooves clawing at smooth stone.

"Ow! Uhh.... I might have a problem."

Megan leaned against the tree.

"Hey! Are you there?! Come back! I-I think my wing might be busted or something. I can't fly. Hello?!"

She stared up at the sky and rubbed her shaking hands to her blue jeans.

"Hey, so maybe I was kind of a jerk to you, since you weren't expecting a flying pony and all, but I kind of really need your help! How deep is this thing? I... I can't keep myself above the water for too long. Hello? I... please! Help!"

When Megan was little, she had been kidnapped. A man drove up to her ranch and desperately pleaded for her to go with him, to help put out a fire that was threatening his pets. Megan, a brave little girl, had of course gotten into his car, and was stolen by a sick, disgusting, lying man. She didn't know where he took her, or what exactly he did to her while she was with him -- they never told her that. All she knew was that she was taken from her home, from her loving and caring parents for over a year while they chased to find their daughter, hopefully alive. When Megan escaped her captor late one night and returned home, she blocked the memory of the traumatic experience by twisting it into a fantasy scenario, where she was a hero surrounded by cute equine friends. It was a way of coping, they had told her parents.

Maybe, just maybe, if she let herself go through this fantasy, she would finally believe those people. The dreams would stop, and she could finally stop being that lonely girl who wished for friends so badly that she had to create her own. Maybe it was just because she was avoiding it before, and now they would finally be gone for good.

Megan smiled. Her face hurt.

Maybe.

"Help me! Help me, please! My friends will die if I don't get out of here!"

Megan sat, her back to that apple tree, until the screaming and splashing turned to a cold, final silence.

Comments ( 43 )

Oh wow. That was a lot darker than I was expecting.

Huh. Interesting.

For some reason fimfiction won't let me give the fic a thumbs up, so I just want to say that this is pretty cool and well written, and I'll have to check out your other stuff. I'll try to thumb again later.

ooo this is good and a bit of slice of life with dark there..

Since A mighty demonslayer grooms some ponies , I hadn't read any fic which would deal with Megan's psychological damage after her experiences as ponyland's hero, or why young children should not be send to fight villains, witches, monsters or demons.
Fuck you, Aslan.

I had this opened in one tab and forgot about the dark tag after a while.

I really did not expect that.

I didn't really like it. Make no mistake, I'm not flaming or anything and this was an extremely well written scenario.

Megan went home in a day at most, she would have the intelligence and common sense NOT to say anything about magical creatures or Ponyland.

Her siblings often went with her throughout the series and probably had alibis as to where they've been in terms of spending the night or traveling for several days.

She is caring enough to not let her drown. At most she would have gotten her outta the well and sent her on her way if she wouldn't or couldn't help.

7700530

Thank you for your input! Really, all of those complaints are very valid. You see, I honestly don't know much about G1, but I've had this idea bouncing around for quite a while. I figured I'd just go ahead and have fun writing this (plus if nothing else this is good writing practice). Really I should have watched more G1 to learn more about it before I wrote this... but I got impatient. If I ever write another G1 fic, I'll be sure to keep those sorts of things in mind. Again, thank you! :twilightsmile:

Dang... I mean, shiet jose... Really earned that dark tag:fluttercry:

Would you ever consider writing this into a full length fic? One where Megan accepts the call to action? IMHO the personal conflict you set up is too delicious to leave there. Cognitive dissonance for the win!

7701321 if you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out "The Well of Pirenne "

7700874

I do understand that it's a bit AU, and as I said it's really well done. I mean what is fanfiction but the authors playing with the worlds and characters of another? ;)

I just personally believe that unless it's a crackfic, a character acting OOC can...detract from that sometimes.

I do like your writing style alot and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of your work.

Fuuuuuuck. You really earned the Dark tag on this.

I can't say I liked it, but it definitely got a strong reaction out of me - and the one intended I suspect.

It's like a darker version of Saddlesoap Opera's story. Nice work.

I want to hate it, but it was too well made.

Thank you. But also screw you.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Man, I was thinking you couldn't start an idea like this and justify giving it barely 2k words, but then you went Well of Pirene: Bad End. c.c Wow, that was great.

9458632

Thank you. But also screw you.

Thank you! This might be one of my favorite compliments/insults I've ever gotten :rainbowlaugh: And honestly this is the reaction I was going for, so I'm really glad you love/hate it!

9458051
Thank you so much for your nice review! (I meant to thank you earlier but I'm bad at remembering things :fluttershyouch:) It was really nice to see that you seemed to like it so much, and that you'd recommend it to more people.


Also side note, a lot of you tend to be making comparisons to Well of Pirene. Never read it, but maybe I should :twilightsmile:

9464678
The line was a post some one left on a, I think it was an Estee story? It was probably Estee. I thought it fit really well.

And I really did like it a lot, though I can't say I enjoyed it.

9464678
I had to look up the Well to know what it was. :twilightblush: Still, happy to be of service! The story was certainly one of the better sadfics I've read.

Short but chillingly effective. Brilliant work.

My first thought was "You can't leave a dead horse in a well -you'll poison it"
Wonder what the people who fished the body out thought. :rainbowhuh:

Feels like it needs a sequel.

Comment posted by AdamAperture deleted May 31st, 2019

9458632
This sums up my feelings all too well. Great story, I hate it.

9654059
Yeah, same. Holy damn.

Comment posted by TheAncientPolitzanian deleted Oct 2nd, 2021

9654025
that well is going to get pretty crowded if there's a sequel.

And that would be how it goes, wouldn't it. Exactly like this, no question. Take pills until you conform.

We all deserve to burn.

I want a sequel so bad, nice job with the story!

While beautifully written, it highlights the lengths we as a people go to suppress any outspokenness or nonconformity - give the subject pills to make them pliant, then TELL THEM what happened to them, and that their story is just make-believe.

Again, this story was well-crafted, and worth the read...

... But, I cannot justify a like for something that freshly brings to mind facets of society that thoroughly sicken me to my core.

So yes, great writing. Especially good tie to Gen1. But the subject matter makes me what to kick a hole in someone's skull with my steel-toe boots.

My favorite things to stumble across on this site are usually comedies of various flavors, but sometimes I find special little gems like this one. (Perhaps more of a Black Pearl.)

The story is short but I feel it's just long enough to give me what I need without driving me away. It's well written and explores this dark psychological scenario very well along with giving me just enough information to allow my imagination to fill in the darker corners all on my own.

Weeping Child out of 10

9657848
Rainbow Dash is literally the G4 Firefly. As in, she was going to be an updated Firefly, but the big thing was Hasbro has no trademark for that anymore so it was nonviable.

But you can see early drawings floating around from old early production of G4 in which she's still a G4 Firefly.

When Megan was little, she had been kidnapped. Or at least, that's what they told her.

Oh dear, you're going full-on Every Heart a Doorway.

Megan sat, her back to that apple tree, until the screaming and splashing turned to a cold, final silence.

:eeyup:, you went there.

I thought I had read this before. I have. Still good though.

This was an interesting story, and effectively written. However, even before reading your comment confirming it as such, the description of Meghan staying in the pony world as opposed to going home between episodes as depicted in the show felt like it was written out of ignorance rather than a deliberate deviation.

Cannot say, It is bad. I is good, really. But still... But still... But still, fuck you, man!

Ooh, this is delightfully morbid.

Woof that did not go how I expected. :rainbowderp:

But definitely a good dark story.

Question. what happens when someone else sees the body?

I know pretty much nothing about G1, but that felt really forced.

I have to note, that I find notion of a horse drowning rather ridiculous... even more so for a Pegasus. They naturally float.

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