Her Forest

by AliziaRoElier

Catharsis

Day looked at Luna’s face. Then the trembling rigid wing. Back to her face. He slowly put together a picture of what he’d probably just done. He swallowed.

“I... just molested you in your sleep didn’t I...?” He pushed the wing up slowly with a single finger and slowly wriggled away. With his anger gone and most of his previous trauma and problems under control he was easily able to remember her standing declaration of “laying him the fuck out” when he did something she deemed inappropriate.

“I- you- you swine!” Luna spluttered angrily. Her expression darkened and she slowly rolled onto her hooves. Her entire body trembled in fury. He refused to acknowledge any other reason for her to shake. "Get over here!"

Day jumped to his feet and sprinted away like his life depended on it. A small corner of his mind reminded him he was essentially indestructible but he ignored it. He was too far gone in his fear of reprisal. The same small part of him also acknowledged that running from the enraged alicorn was the funniest thing he’d ever done.

“Don’t kill me! I didn’t know!” He turned to sprint into the forest and made the edge just as a beam of searing hot plasma jumped past his shoulder. He almost stopped in shock before the forest informed him that nothing had been hit by it and that everything was running away from him and his pursuer. With the forest in his mind, the small part of him from before rose up and he started grinning playfully while he ran further.

“Hey! Don’t you go burning down my forest!” He put on a burst of speed and grabbed a tree to change direction quickly. “Catch me if you can!”

He heard a strangled angry cry of frustration from behind and he started laughing.

The forest whipped by him while he ran feeding him information about his path and the best places to change direction and run or the best cover to hide behind for a moment. The rush of information and the extreme speed at which he was running worked wonders on his previous stress. He was back in his forest, his new home and he was playing! Only the slightest tinge of sadness marred his play.

He ran faster than he ever could before, a combination of knowing exactly where to step, planning a route that was perfect to keep him in the lead, and the new speed his metal body could generate all culminated into a protracted and wild run. Behind him, angry shouts had changed to amused threats and posturing. No longer in danger from the alicorn, Day could examine her while they ran. WIth a start he realized that he’d fallen back to sprint beside Luna.

If he was raw speed and agility, she was grace and finesse. The difference between the Princess and the six ponies from the previous day was obvious. They were ill-suited to the forest. They bumbled obviously through underbrush, disturbed burrows and plants, and crushed everything in their way. Luna flowed through and around everything like water. Combining her wings with her magic, she could sprint without fear through or above the obstacles in front of her. A quick jump and a flap of wings carried her over entire tracts of underbrush and homes. Short range teleportation aided her around dense copses of trees. He even saw her body dissolve to smoke and flow through a patch of brambles.

The forest eventually informed him just how far in they had gone. In just twenty minutes they’d run almost ten miles from the border of the Everfree. He dodged around a tree before gently tapping on Luna’s shoulder.

“We need to stop. We’re already really far into the forest.” To reinforce his words, he grabbed a passing tree and used it to bleed off a portion of his momentum. He needed to repeat the process three more times before he reached a more manageable speed. His new metallic body was significantly heavier than his old human one and so he had to be more careful managing his momentum. Beside him, Luna did not have the same problem. She disappeared in a flash of teleportation and reappeared a moment later perfectly still. Day wondered if he was able to learn to teleport - it seemed a ridiculously convenient skill.

He grinned at her sheepishly and leaned against a tree, “That was fun. I’m sorry about... um... before.” Luna approached him.

“Oh yes... about that.” She darted into his personal space and once again the clang of metal covered hoof rang against suddenly flipping blue elf. “Do not do so again!”

Day flipped in the air three times before slamming into the ground with a heavy thud. The forest around him came to life as the wildlife once again returned to their homes. He moaned into the dirt despite not feeling any pain from the punch or his subsequent meeting with the ground.

He spoke into the dirt, “Oh come on! I didn’t even know what was happening! And how does that even work? Wings? As sexual objects?” He got onto his hands and knees and then stood up. He checked his jaw to confirm he hadn’t been hurt. He couldn’t even detect a dent. “I’m not even a hor- I mean a pony! It’s not like I wanted to cop a feel or something.” He said indignantly.

Luna snorted, “I am aware. I was merely educating you. As Princess of the Night and your ally and your,” her voice dropped and he couldn’t hear the next few words, “I reserve the right to hit you when you do something wrong.”

Day shook his head. His earlier anger at the alicorn refused to return despite her outright confirmation that she would beat the crap out of him. Part of him couldn’t help but acknowledge it was amusing in a way and he couldn’t deny there was something about the pony before him that prevented him from truly being angry with her.

He sighed, “Fine... fine...” He took a moment to study her before asking, “Why are you so comfortable with me? Not that this wasn’t fun, but it is kind of unusual.” With a start he realized something was missing from his link to the forest. “Hey! The forest doesn’t hate you! I mean yeah, you’re a demi-goddess but still.”

Luna started walking in the direction they’d come and Day followed, “That is a complicated answer.” She paused and seemed to think over her words before speaking haltingly, “I know you... have known you... will know you... for a long time. Before when I explained that I intervened in your future, I didn’t explain how I knew to do so... I... see the future. Not everything, just mine. I know everything that will happen to me. I can remember dying just as clearly as being born. I can see Celestia’s future students and I can see mine, simply because they cross paths. Before me, I see my entire life. Or saw. My actions have changed everything and nothing will settled again for a while.

“I plan to use this time to change the future. While it is still in disarray, it is like clay. It can be molded and changed. But I needed the right tools, so to speak, and that is where you come in. I trust you because you were... a friend... in that future - are a friend in this future.”

Day took a few minutes to absorb Luna’s revelation. Around them, the forest had quieted to its natural state of organized excitement. Day basked in the feeling of rightness that came from the forest as they walked. “So. That’s why you keep talking about the future like its the past. That... has to be confusing.”

“Only to others. It is normal for me. I have lived like this for a very long time.” Luna smiled at him before stopping. She looked up at the sun that had crept past the midpoint in the sky, “Perhaps I should fly back to the border of the Everfree it would be faster than walking. You will meet me at the edge?” She extended her wing and stood poised to takeoff.

Day nodded, “Yeah. See you there.”

With a few powerful downstrokes, the alicorn burst through the canopy and flew toward the forest’s edge. Day started sprinting back toward the edge once more.

~*~

After fifteen minutes of blurred trees and rapid fire sensory overload, Day burst out of the forest’s edge and started to slow down. It was the first time he’d had to give the blank field any particular attention. While he looked out for uneven ground and the odd burrow or hole, he looked around. The field extended to the horizon as far as he could see in front of him. To his left, a large hill rose up to block his view beyond. To his right, the forest’s edge and the grassland extended as far as he could see. Beyond, he could see a tall mountain - a plateau really - on which a large castle was situated. He didn’t see Luna.

When Day finally bled off the rest of his speed and came to a stop, he looked up into the sky. It was completely cloudless except for a few thin wisps far above.

“Huh... well this is kinda rude.” Day spoke his thoughts aloud. He looked around himself once more before sitting down in the grass. “Nothing to do but wait I guess - she’ll come back eventually. Maybe.”

Day decided that with the time he had, he should examine himself more, specifically his newfound magic. Earlier, he’d found a manual in his head - an imaginary book he could flip open and read. There were thousands of pages of technical data about how his panels worked, what they could do, theoretical applications, and where they resided while out of view. If the ponies around him hadn’t been impatient he could have happily examined it for hours.

He looked around idly with a distracted expression as he mentally opened the book to the page he’d left off and started to read. Around him, vertical panels of blue light sprang into being to display his thoughts. Each panel was covered in squiggles and runes that, to anyone else, would be completely indecipherable. Each rune continually changed shape in place, switched position with adjacent runes, even blinked out of existence to float freely around him. Day switched his attention between the first chapter of the manual and the panels that had begun to rotate around him.

Panels blinked in and out of existence while their information was updated. He reached up a hand and touched a rune on one.

The panel, despite being made of light, made a series of clicking sounds and disassembled itself.

“So, this magic is like my body...” The first few pages of the book went into detail how magic was generated and channeled in his body naturally. It went on to explain just why it could no longer do so. He grudgingly acknowledged that it was eerily convenient that he had such a complete guide to everything - it implied to Luna’s Creator story was plausible, even probable - and Day did not want to think of the implications that would make if he accepted her story as fact.

“It makes more sense to think I’m a robot, well, android I guess. That explains how I can have a body made of metal.” Day tried really hard not to have an existential crisis. Without the eerie - he acknowledged it as such - control over his emotions that he’d arrived with he could feel the panic well up inside. “Am I even alive anymore? I mean, yeah, sci-fi has artificial intelligence but we never actually got to the point where it was anything other than fiction.

“What is it that makes me alive? I think and I feel and I dream... but I don’t eat, last night’s sleep was a special case, I don’t breathe... I can’t even have kids anymore. Oh god, I don’t even want to think about having a fucking soul!” The last few words he shouted. The panels around him whirled, spun, and turned around him in agitation. The chaotic blur of movement reflected his inner turmoil. The forest started to feed him calming feelings and sensations that Day that he could find comfort from. For the first time in a while, he could hear the forest’s voice - a harmony of voices and whispers and bellows and roars.

You are my child. You are a child of my enemy and my own desires. You are mine. And you are alive where it matters.

His surprise delayed him from responding to the forest and it faded away back to its quietude.

“Thank you.” His panic slowly ebbed away while he considered the forest’s declaration. As long as he had the forest, at least someone or something would define him in a way he could accept.

It was good enough.

Comments

[TheTownCrier]

Day is Luna's special Somepony?

[AliziaRoElier]

2223870

Hmm... I hadn't considered that. But no. Might be interesting to making him think that though. The trolling possibilities are endless.

Edit: I lied. I did actually consider that but I figured it was too clichéd and obvious.

[TheTownCrier]

A little quid pro quo couldn't hurt.