The Middle
David shot up, gasping loudly. His eyes darted down to his chest, expecting to see charred flesh. Instead, he wore an old t-shirt and a pair of jeans. He patted down his body for a few moments, just to make sure that everything was still there, then flopped back down on the bed with a loud sigh. “Oh... oh, that sucked!”
Taking a few steadying breaths, he slowly at back up and looked around. “What the hell?” he muttered.
No longer in his aunt and uncle’s farm in Brenham, he slowly stood from the bed, his old bed, in his old bedroom in San Francisco, where he’d grown up. He walked to the middle of the room, gingerly stepping around a few piles of dirty clothes and various old toys, his eyes scanning the room. All his old posters still hung from the walls, like they had been when he’d left for college over 6 years ago. David walked to the window, and much to his shock, found the same view he’d had for 14 years growing up, the same street, even the bent street sign from the first time he’d tried alcohol and swore he was "totes cool to drive."
Shaking his head, he left the room and began to walk downstairs. The rest of the house was exactly as he remembered, as well. He paused in the main room, spinning around to take in his surroundings. “So... uh, is this... is this heaven?” The walls offered no answer. “Um, hello? I, uh... if this is heaven, where are the Filipino bikini models?”
After several seconds of silence, he sighed. “Whatever.” Leaving the main room behind, he went to open the front door, and jerked to a halt, his jaw all but hitting the floor.
The humble suburban street was gone, replaced by an endless field of grass. He took a few tentative steps forward, feeling the grass crunch beneath his bare feet. A sweet, earthy smell filled his nostrils, like freshly cut grass with a farmstead musk just beneath the surface. “What in the blue fuck?” He spun, and started when he found the house gone, replaced by rolling hills covered in lush grass. “Okay, what the hell, seriously? My heaven at least has to have electricity! Is th—”
A loud whinny cut him off. Spinning around again, his breath caught in his throat. “Oh, my god.” Stretching out before him into the horizon, a seemingly endless herd of ponies mulled about. Some were eating from the thick grass, while the smaller ones were galloping around and braying lightly in play. David craned his head up, but the herd had no end that he could see. “What... what is...”
“The Eternal Herd.”
David let out a very high-pitch squeal and nearly jumped out of his skin. Standing beside him, apparently from nowhere, were two ghostly beings, one a deep blue, the other brilliant white. The appeared vaguely equine, but their bodies shimmered and danced, as if viewed from underwater.
David opened his mouth to ask, but he stopped, his shoulder slumping as realization hit him. “Oh, no, you two again? Even in death you won’t leave me alone?!”
The two wavering shapes cocked their heads to the side, before the blue one spoke, her voice cool and powerful. “Ah, Sol, I believe he refers to our... corporeal avatars.”
“Ah,” the white one said, slowly nodding before looking back to David. “I see now. Well, David, we have never met before. Those you interacted with on the mortal plane are mere... representations of us.” Her voice was sweet and gentle, like a morning breeze.
“So... you’re not Celestia and Luna?”
“For simplicity’s sake, we both are, and are not.”
David blinked. “Yeah, cuz that’s so simple,” he muttered before turning back to the massive herd before him. "So, what is that?”
“The Eternal Herd,” the blue spirit said. “The final resting place of all ponykind. The spirits of all those who came before and had their time, and of those yet to come, waiting for the siren call of life.”
“Okay.” David nodded, as he slowly walked towards the herd. “So, why am I here?” He let out a snort. “This punishment for not taking your little shot?”
The white spirit giggled, a melodious sound like wind chimes. “No, no. You are destined for... what is it your kind calls it... heaven. My sister and I simply... delayed your arrival for a bit, so we could ask you something.”
David came to a stop. “Heh, ten bucks says I know what.”
“Tell me, did you ever consider conversion?”
“Oh, yeah, for a good long while. When the portal first appeared, I was so stoked to learn there was intelligent life elsewhere, you know? That it was so fuzzy and cute was just a bonus!" As he spoke, a pink mare, maybe in her teens, trotted up to him. Though she said nothing, her eyes gleamed with intelligence as she smiled at him. “Then when the portal started to grow, and then they came out with the serum, I was actually kinda eager. I mean, of course I was nervous about it. But... man, I’d give my left arm to be a pegasus,” he said with a laugh, as he slowly reached his hand out towards the mare. She smiled again and nuzzled into his hand, a quiet whinny escaping as he gently scratched behind her ears. “Oh, can you imagine it? Flying! Under your own power! No planes, no engines, just your own wings! Can you imagine how th—” He looked back to them, and let out a sheepish chuckle. “Well, I, uh, I guess you kinda can.”
The blue spirit chuckled quietly at his sudden meekness. “It sounds like you were excited. Why didn’t you go immediately?”
The pink mare stepped away from David, nickering at him and nodding her head. He gave her a small wave, and she galloped back to the herd. “Honestly, and I know this sounds stupid but... things kept coming up.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked further into the sea of ponies, who all smiled at him and gave him space.
“First it was work, then school, then work again. I watched more and more of my friends get... well, ponified, I guess. Then one day, I finally decided to do it. I called the Cal Tech Bureau, fully ready to do it.”
“So, what happened? Why did you not?”
"I saw a report on the news about how there were less than a billion humans left, and I just... hung up the phone. Told myself, 'I'll do it next week.' Heh, two months later, another report about how there were less than a million, then a hundred thousand. When it hit that I was one of just a thousand estimated humans left, I had an... an epiphany, I guess you can call it."
"Which was?" the Blue asked.
"Hehe, you're not the first to ask. Once it got down to a hundred, the media was all over us! Asking why, 'Why haven't you converted yet? Is it a religious thing? Political? Are you afraid of horses?' I remember thee was one guy who was holding out until they figured out how to make him an Alicorn. Last I heard, dude became an earth pony." White giggled at that. "Then there was that crazy radio guy who thought it was all some left-wing conspiracy. Gay frogs and all that. Swore he'd never convert. Pfft, wuss converted three days ago when the first red spot appeared on his skin."
"I am impressed with you ability to dodge the question," Blue said, and as David growled at her, he swore he could see a sly grin on her effervescent face.
David eased down to the ground, laying down in the thick grass with his hands behind his head. The two spirits joined him, folding their ghostly legs beneath them. He looked up at the warm blue sky. “You know, and I know this is gonna sound stupid considering who I’m talking to, but I never really believed in God. Just never made sense to me. But, I do believe that the universe is alive.” He sighed, tracing a cloud with his eyes. “She ebbs and flows, constantly shifting and growing, she has moods.”
The white spirit smiled. “That’s very poetic.”
“And she’s a stone cold bitch.”
The blue spirit let out a bark of laughter. “Now that is poetic.” The white one cast a sharp glare to her sister. Blue clear her throat. “What do you mean by that, David?”
He smiled. “I mean she’s a heartless beast, constantly trying to kill us. For millions of years, she’s been trying to get rid of us, but she never could. She threw everything she had at us: solarwinds, cosmic radiation, meteors, polar shifts, ice ages, earthquakes, supervolcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tidal waves. Every single kind of natural disaster you can think of, and every single time, mankind got up, dusted ourselves off, and said, ‘Thank you, ma’am, may I have another?’ “
David shot to his feet, holding his arms wide. “We took is all!” He let out a laugh and spun around. “We were like a bad case of fleas, we just refused to die!”
The two spirits stood as he spun back to face them. “It got so bad, she eventually had to go to a completely different universe, one that operates by and entirely different set of physical laws just to beat us!”
The white spirits turned to the blue, the two sharing a look of puzzlement, before turning back to him. “I... we don’t understand.”
Slowly, his grin faded, his eyes losing some of their fire as he gazed out upon the rolling hills and the sea of ponies meandering about. “Neither did I, at first. But then my friend Bobby came to visit a few months after he converted. Bob was always a surly asshole. The kind of contrarian misanthrope you can't help but love. But when he came by he was... different. Like, he was still a dick, but he had mellowed way out. That's when I finally realized that those who converted really weren't human anymore.
“I mean, when the reality first set in, we did what humanity does best: we defied. The Human Liberation Front, the Moscow Summit, the UN Salvation Task Force. We fought, did everything we could think of to fight it. But at some point...” he sighed, his shoulders slumping, “we... just gave up. We rolled over, said, ‘Okay, universe, you win.’ “
The white spirit cocked her head. "That doesn’t seem to warrant enduring what you did. What you went through, must have been one of the most painful ways to die.”
David let out a grim chuckle. “Yeah, it... it sucked pretty bad.”
“Then why? Why go through that for such a... a meaningless gesture?”
“It wasn’t meaningless!” David smiled at them. “Don’t you get it? We were losing ourselves! Mankind’s existence has been about defiance and stubbornness!” He slowly waded further into the sea of ponies. “Started as tree dwellers, and we conquered nature itself! Born without the ability to fly, and we went to the moon! We weathered every storm, cured every virus, defied every odd! And after all of that, we... we just... gave up?!"
As he spoke, a small group of unicorn foals meandered towards them. David let out a quiet laugh. “You ponies don’t get it, man. You’re herd animals, you’re docile! You fear the unknown. You see danger, you flee in terror!” As he screamed, he charged the group of foals, sending them running. He spun, smiling widely at the two spirits watching him calmly. “Man? We see a dark cave, we have to know what's in it! We see a deep hole, we jump in! We see danger, and we charge to it, screaming, ‘Fuck you!’ “
The herd surrounding them were all facing inward now, observing the flailing human as he charged towards the spirits, arms extended. He passed right through the blue one, who watched with a bemused smile as he fell to the ground in a huff. The ponies slowly edged closer as he collected himself to his feet, his manic grin fading.
“It wasn’t right,” he said, his eyes never leaving the ground beneath him. “Over millions of years, mankind fought, kicked, screamed, spit, bit, clawed, scraped, and chewed our way to the top of the evolutionary ladder. And after all of that we just... fade away?” He looked up at them, a bitter smile on his face. “I just couldn’t let that happen. I... I had to give us a proper exit, that last act of defiance! I just..." he sighed, "I just wanted to remind the universe that we were here, you know? A final, screaming, bloody testament that said 'Mankind was here'. I just... wanted us to be remembered. And if I had to endure a little pain for that, then, well, I've broken my arm three times in three places. I can take it if it means that for all time, humanity would end the way it began, with a bang, not a whimper."
A few moments of quiet, the only sounds the rustling of the grass in the gentle breeze and the soft clip-clop of hooves. Finally, the blue spoke. “That makes no sense!” David jumped slightly at her surprisingly aggressive tone. "Mankind has not disappeared! It is simply changed form. As if you had evolved into a new species."
David laughed bitterly. "Yeah, when I actually say it, it does seem kinda silly." He looked back across the endless herd. "Heh, iunno, maybe I just did it for my own ego. I mean, I'm a certified nobody. Just another college dropout with no family to miss him. Maybe I just... wanted to matter one more time. Or," he said with a shrug, "maybe I did it out of fear of losing myself. Or maybe I really did do it for some cosmic purpose." A few moments of eerie silence. "Or maybe I'm just insane," he said, looking over his shoulder at the spirits with a grin. He laughed loudly, causing a few ponies to jump. “It’s like my Dad used to say. ‘Dave,’ “ he spoke in a gruff tone with a very thick Texas accent, “ ‘I wanna leave this world th’ same way I come in: butt nekkid, screamin’, an’ covered in someone else’s blood!’ “
At this, the blue spirit laughed loudly, like the boom of a church bell, while the white spirit stood, a warm smile on her ghostly lips. Even the amassed ponies nickered and stomped in approval. David looked around, confused. “Um, it wasn’t that good a joke.”
“You misunderstand, David.” The white spirit stepped next to him, draping her ethereal wing across his back. “They are not laughing, they are expressing their approval.” She shot a bemused glance to her sister, who was just starting to calm down. “As is my sister, if not in her own... unique way.” The blue spirit stuck her tongue out as she stood up.
“You see, this is why we saved your species.” The human gave her a perplexed gaze as she started to trot away, him quickly scampering to her side. “The events that led up to integration, the convergent event, it was all unavoidable. A ‘fixed point,’ if you will. No force, not even us and all our counterparts across the realms could have stopped it.”
“Wait, uh, what do you mean ‘coun—’ “
“But,” she cut him off, a sideways grin on her face, “we recognize that you humans, apart from all the races in all the realms, are unique, for the very reasons you said.” She once more put a wing around his shoulder. “Your... tenacity, your stubbornness, you utter refusal to accept even the most firm of truths You are a race that refuses to be told 'No'.”
David’s chest puffed out slightly, a smug grin on his lips.
“However, your greatest strength was also your greatest weakness,” the blue spirit said stepping along side them. “You kill yourselves in droves over petty things like land, resources and faith. You poison your planet without care, kill entire species without batting an eye, let your children go hungry because their parents do not believe as their rulers.”
David’s chest deflated quickly.
“So you see, child, the more positive aspects of your nature prove you to be a wonderful race, capable of achieving possibly more than any race ever has or ever will. The universe, no, the entire multiverse needs a race like humanity. You just needed... temperance."
“So... you turn us into ponies?”
The white spirit giggled that melodious giggle again. “Well, it was that or death.”
David rolled his eyes. “Right, right.” He took a few more steps before he jerked to a halt, slowly turning to face them. “So... wait, you’re saying that all the stuff I talked about, all the things that make humans, well... awesome, are still gonna be there?”
“Yes.”
They all blinked at each other.
“So, why in the hell didn’t you tell me all of this before the violent, painful death?!”
“Well, it was as you said.” The blue spirit leaned down close to him, placing her ghostly hoof on his shoulder. “David, you really were the last human. We still would have had this conversation had you decided to go through with the conversion.” He opened his mouth to yell, but she silenced him with her hoof. “We do not allow ourselves to directly interact with the mortal realm. This is why we left our avatars there, to guide without direct knowledge of things to come.”
The white spirit walked over to them. “This was to be a joyous occasion, the last of humanity now what they should be.”
“Except for the fact that I’m, you know, dead.” He stared at them pointedly.
The two sisters shared a knowing glance, before turning to walk away, melting into the crowd of ponies that watched them. “That depends on you, actually,” the white one said nonchalantly over her shoulder.
David blinked. “Wait, what?” He rushed after them, gently pushing his way through the sea of ponies.
They stopped, turning to him. “Well, yes, you are dead.” The white spirit examined her hoof casually as she spoke. “What you went through was indeed terrible, an experience that none should have to go through, and for that, you may continue on to paradise, if you so choose.”
“Or?”
The sisters smiled at him. "Or, you could make a very human decision," said Blue.
David stared at them for several moments before a smile slowly spread across his lips. He chuckled lowly, shaking his head and rubbing the bridge of his nose. Finally, he looked back at them. “Can I be a pegasus?”
The two sisters closed their eyes, and a brilliant flash of light made David squint hard and raise his arm to shield his eyes. When the light faded, he looked back to see the sisters gone. Around him, the herd had come to life, all the ponies galloping towards him. He spun around and gasped.
Ahead of him, maybe two hundred meters away, the flowing fields ended, giving way to a vast expanse of stars glinting brightly against a black sky. The ponies galloped off the edge of the grass, taking on an ghostly visage as they stepped into the blackness. As the herd thundered past him, a large pegasus stallion stopped next to him, wings flared. He stomped several times, nickering and nodding his head towards the vast expanse before taking off. David grinned at him. “Oh, yeah! Bobby told me about this, the whole, ‘run with the herd off the cliff’ thing!” He turned to face the expanse of space. "I jump into the void and then I wake up as a pony, right?"
The stallion whinnied impatiently, stomping a hoof to get David's attention. David turned and the stallion took off at a slow trot.
David moved to follow, but paused, thinking of what the sisters had told him. The stallion soon noticed that he wasn’t following and turned around. He stopped several feet from David and stomped again, braying loudly.
David simply grinned. “No.”
The stallion cocked his head to the side, then whinnied loudly, nodding to the starry cliff.
“I know what you want,” he said with a wide grin. “I’m supposed to get all mad that you challenged me and follow you, then jump off the cliff, and get ponified. Well, I’m not gonna do it, and you can’t make me!” With that, he blew a raspberry at the large stallion.
The stallion looked him up and down and nickered, turning his back to him. David stood tall, confident he’d won, until...
Pffbbt
David blinked. “Did... did you ju—” A wall of foul order smacked into him, He recoiled, gagging and waving his hands in front of his face. “Oh, you nasty motherfu—”
The stallion nickered again and took off. David laughed and followed. “Get back here, you stank son of a bitch!”
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While Dave has a point about humanity, but just because ponies has a slightly better understanding with mother nature, doesn't mean they also don't face a congoline of horrors eager to exterminate them.
Ponies had to work their way up from the bottom of the pecking order too.
And the sad part is... Blue kinda has a point, the human race here did what life is supposed to, adapt.
“However, your greatest strength was also your greatest weakness,”
The truth of all things.
In other words, in the super long term, the New Foals introduce the drive and ambition that ponies in general lacked. And New Foals in turn gain the sense of unity ponies have as a whole WITHOUT needing a common enemy as human do half the time.
But do humans go to Paradise or the Eternal Herd now? Or do they get a choice?
7858701
Ponies have a better understanding of Mother Nature? Ha, I say! Ha ha!
What I've seen in the TV show convinces me that ponies are colorful little control freaks who see Mother Nature as public enemy #1, red of tooth and claw. In their world messy, chaotic, dangerous nature is to be battled, conquered, tamed, and harnessed for the benefit of pony civilization. Ponies control the sun and moon, the seasons, the weather, the lives of formerly wild animals. . . and "nature" is squeezed into a few rebellious pockets like the Everfree Forest, where ponies fear to tread.
Which is basically the same view most humans had towards the natural world for most of our history, prior to about the 1960s when the ecological movement took hold. It just hasn't happened yet in Equestria.
7860126
You do make an interesting point over there. But I would also say that it takes a certain type of understanding to actually control nature. It may not be the same way we understand it, but it's an understanding all the same.
*sat
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Am I helping? I don't know if I'm helping here. I'm like captain nitpick over here.
I like this guy, even if he is a little insane. Which he is. But he's a great vehicle for breaking down humanity to its cosmic essence. And I really like the concept you've got here with White and Blue.
7975668 most authors appreciate sugestions, and 'mitpicks' of spelling and grammar. However, it is usually considered to be more polite to offer this in PM, that way the comments do not get cluttered after the fixes are made.
7858701
Dude you made it sound all creepy again. Two words, the Borg. They take the drive and ambition that the borg generally lack and the new drones get a sense of unity without needing a common enemy.
The conversion bureau stories read mostly like horror stories with cute cuddly borgs. But it mostly depends on which story that defines the newfoals or why the fusion is happening. Some good, some bad. Sure humanity has it's ups and downs, but they are getting better with time. So blue and white are only partially right. The day the earth stood still, had a great quote. It's humans time to evolve, don't take their chance from them. Yet it was in these stories or not. Depends on how you want to look at it.
Plus how the newfoals are assimilated not just culturally. But fully assimilated into ponies, there is fridge logic to have there. Technically the newfoals are a new race. As such they will outbreed and consume the old ponies. So that's two species down the drain for a new one, that Celestia and Luna get to command. Kind of makes you think when it's put like that. :) True horror isn't the monster, it's the one that smiles kindly. Why do you think little creepy girls make some of the most awesome scares?
Edit: Plus the whole unity thing, even ponies have issues with it. One human manage to threaten the world and that wasn't even Armageddon level. Yet several ponies nearly single-han... Hoofedly?<--- that a word? Nearly caused Ragnarok in their world. I don't know if that's a good thing.