//------------------------------// // Cytosine // Story: Mancala // by Schismatism //------------------------------// Sleep never comes fairly, ever, and the last night was one example thereof. If you'd thought for one second that I was going to get back to resting my pretty little head after seeing the moon completely bereft of Luna, you'd have been wrong -- and from the adrenaline spike I had when I saw that she wasn't actually there, I'm surprised I got as much as I had. Actually, let's put this in different terms. Let's start with my thought processes around, ohhh... 9:00 PM or thereabouts. 'OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG...' Carry on from there for about fifteen minutes, during which I was chewing on my own hooves, running in mental circles, and generally being utterly useless while gibbering like someone who'd... er... just been released from the hospital. I was reasonable enough, at least, to keep my mental breakdown limited to a gentle squeak instead of a dull roar, especially after I heard a 'thump' from the next room, indicating that someone was more or less fed up with my shenanigans. Oddly, I owed my partner in rooms a significant benefit, as that was what eventually shook me from my little miniature fugue state. Once my head was halfway back together, I immediately stopped making noise, silent as a lamb. Well, a lamb who had her pulse hammering in her chest and head like a twin drumbeat. So, yes, very lamblike. Around ten minutes afterwards, once I'd settled down from a simmering state, I took stock. I was nowhere near as good as planning as Amber, my sister, but I had a few skills imparted to me by college, so... - A. WHERE THE HELL IS LUNA?! -- A.a. Luna never fell into a Nightmare state, e.g. the entirety of history as I knew it was wrong and I was afloat. Not helpful. Also unlikely because Celestia is in a sensible state on grounds of Ponyville existing and did not become Corona Sun, also Luna is not around. Okay. -- A.b. Luna fell there, and was purified and/or encapsulated, meaning she was somewhere else. -- -- A.b.1. Luna is likely somewhere in Canterlot or nearby. Everfree Castle is a good starting point. Great. -- -- A.b.2. Luna is elsewhere, outside range of intervention. Unlikely, Celestia would probably keep her close at hoof if possible. Sun and/or Moon spiritual factor a possibility. -- -- -- A.b.2.* Luna is encapsulated in a body outside range. Phobos/Deimos? Outside star? 'Aid in Escape', look into. -- A.c. Luna is dead. Not helpful. Also unlikely because of A.a. Alright. For most people, the knowledge that an impending apocalyptic event would have been less than pleasant. They'd likely board up their doors, or barricade, or do some other useless nonsense in order to make themselves feel better. For me, that felt like a lifeline nonpareil: I knew where things were going, or where things were at least likely to go. It was the siren's song of hope, and I wasn't about to let it get away this easily. With that in mind, I continued onwards, taking a few deep breaths before arranging a few more thoughts. Silently, I cursed: if I were willing to risk my laptop's destruction, I could have brought about this composition much more readily. Still, thinking... - B. Where the hell am I? -- B.a. Composite hallucination options. Dreaming, dying, coma, dead. Hypothetically useful, but only hypothetically. Ignore until possibilities arranged. Again, my little mental pattern broke, and I groaned as I considered that. It was the one thing I'd intentionally ignored ever since I woke up in the spooky haunted forest du jour, and it was absolutely not something I wanted to think about, but... there it was, looming at the forefront of my thoughts like an oversized lumberjack. What if I was dying? Dead? This sure didn't seem like a utopia of any kind, but it could have been created from some wayward patterns, and I might even have constructed this as some sort of comatose dream. For all it's worth, we don't know much about the brain, nor what really makes us... us. The Wild Guard could've just been imprints of my own brain, guiding me ever towards what lay ahead. In case you're concerned, I was never particularly enamored of that mode of thought. I've had way, way too many dark moments where it practically took over, the whole 'nothing matters, it's all a dream' line. Every time, I've shaken myself free, because of people who I'd already met in that first day. But for that brief instant... well. That thought sank its hook in, and then I ripped it right the fuck out. -- B.b. Construction arranged by someone else. Low viability. Virtual reality had never been a thing when I'd been torn outside my worldline, if indeed that was the case. Nor had anything else of that nature ever happened, at least as far as I knew. Sure, it was hypothetically possible to bury someone in a world of their own making, but... well, imagining it as a VR world, a hallucination, or some nonsense someone else put together was barely a step up from a dying dream, and much less likely to boot. Besides, who'd steal an art student off the street just to put her in something like this? Might as well ask a colourblind comp sci major to critique the Mona Lisa. Moving right along. -- B.c. Reality... ... Here my attempt at mental order froze, and shattered to the ground. The likelihood that this was all some sort of expensive trick ran up against the wall of reality, and split just as you'd expect. No way was this all just some dream, either... I'd fallen once or twice, and felt the pain of an impending sprain long enough for me to move away. That wasn't just some standard impulse, that was actual pain, and I knew more than enough that you don't really feel pain in a dream. I was... here, as it were, and in a body which wasn't my own, yet felt as natural as a sheet of cotton. Whatever monstrosity had taken me here, it had left me with all I needed to move and walk and talk, and yet, it hadn't given me anything else. I was... I was... Well. I don't know how long I was in that mental fugue, but it must have been well over an hour before the rustling of the curtains brought me back to some semblance of reality. With a small smile, I brought up a slip of paper which I had, by chance, torn into a square form, and began to resume an exercise I'd half-heartedly attempted earlier - a fold here, a crease here. It felt somewhat easier, for some reason: there a brief motion, there another, and ... before long, I'd formed from a single square a small, pyramidal box. My own type of paper crane, the box was barely a centimeter wide, and could maybe have held a marble, but the way it folded up... I smiled wide at the fact that, at least, I had managed to create this. This was simple, and plain, but it was mine, and it was made with my own magic, nothing else. And then my magic tore it to shreds, by will or by demand or by merest chance, and I threw myself against the wall next to my bed, and I sobbed silently at what I'd gained. Others, throughout Ponyville, were nearly as bereft of slumber as the newly-minted Divided Gem. Had Princess Luna, at that point, been in possession of her full capacity, she would have seen the pattern between the dreamers, and those who could not, however they might have wished, fall to their own hallucinations. She might have warned her sister. Things might have changed. But all she could do was gently guide the weavings at her disposal, that they not warp and weft indiscriminately, all while the Nightmare continued to whisper imprecations in her ear. A doctor dreamed of a puzzle box just out of reach, every side painted in a splendid array of shades and hues. He knew the ways in which they could fit, by which they could become whole again, but with every turn of his hoof, the wrong sides moved into place. His eyes always moved to the opposite side he meant, and despite his finest motions, the child's puzzle simply would not cooperate. If he'd a glimpse of the jewel trapped in the well, perhaps he could have worked it out... but no such solution presented itself. A mint-and-alabaster unicorn tossed and turned in her room, the sound of shouts in an alien language echoing in her mental ears. She hadn't seen the newcomer to Ponyville, but she still felt that the explosion of magic which had laid her out for half the prior day was an ill omen. A song followed those shouts, or perhaps that was backwards... and she found herself humming along to the memories she'd never recognize as such. Outside her dreamscape rested a crystal of purest diamond, the point pressing forth. A filly dreamt of what she imagined would be her future cutie mark, snoring quietly as she envisioned flames taking over the whole of Equestria. Her tail lashed to and fro, nearly waking her brother as she slumbered merrily, and to her side, an unadorned candle lit itself, harmlessly. In her mind, she would grasp those flames, and bring herself to the attention of the Princess herself, and join in that magnificent flame. On her flank, an image rose, and to her side, a ruby glittered... A member of the Wild Guard saw herself rising to high acclaim, after having secured a true asset for Equestria. Her dream, at least, was untroubled. A young nurse paced back and forth in her home, waiting expectantly for the teapot to boil. She hadn't yet gone to bed, couldn't, feeling as though there were something just out of reach. It was pressing at the back of her brain, aching for her to discover it, and yet she was a bare millimeter apart from that. The kettle whistled, but her ears barely caught it, her mind spinning as her body performed on rote, fueled by the thought of a tiny, lavender spinel. She poured herself a cup, and smiled again, turning her thoughts back once more. And, outside Ponyville, but not too terribly far, an alicorn with a mane like the aurora stared out into the distance, her mind distraught by the image of the Thestral she had visited earlier, and her heart sinking with the concern that maybe, again and always, history would once again repeat. Day 2: Ponyville NAAAA, na na na, na-neeah, naah, na-ah... "FUCK OFF," I shouted as the strains of Great Big Sea wound their way into the air. There were alarm clocks, and then there were alarm clocks, and this was one of the latter. The fact that I'd intentionally set it didn't matter right now: turning it off, on the other hand, was the top priority. That, on the other hand, was about to wait for a few moments. With a practiced twist, I threw my left arm over my shoulder, slipping out of bed with the casual grace of a master. Or, at least, that's what I'd like to say I'd done. Instead, the blankets I'd twisted upon myself caught on my horn, my hindleg caught another fold, my left foreleg caught another, and in short form, I managed to roll out of bed and impact upon the floor with the casual grace of a sack of raw potatoes. A knock on the door immediately followed up, even as my tablet continued to blare the aforementioned tune - and while Consequence Free was an excellent way to wake up under most circumstances, it was beginning to get a bit grating. Even so, I couldn't give more than a perfunctory, "MMMF!" towards the door, as the blanket had caught on half my face, and the other half was trying its very best to form into a noose. Rather than risk the possibility of tightening that even further, I relaxed onto my sore back and leveled a one-eyed glare over at the offending tablet, positioned nicely next to the dresser in such a manner that it'd require me to get up and actually turn the damned thing off. It was an old trick, one which precluded me actually throwing and/or smashing a piece of valuable equipment, and yet at the moment I cursed my own foresight almost as thoroughly as I did that tablet. I should have known... It was only a few moments before the proprietress came by, knocking thrice upon my door before she unlocked it. My quiet 'mmmf!s' might have had something to do with that, but I did want to communicate my distress as clearly as possible, given the circumstances. Finally, upon cracking open the frame, she gave a gasp and rushed over to me, looking almost as distraught. "Oh, I'm so sorry, dear! Hang on, and I'll get you out of there in a flash, all right? Now, just hold still." A pink-coloured -- and flavoured? -- field enveloped me and the blanket both, precluding me from seeing much of the mare who had come to my impromptu rescue... and from letting my deeply sarcastic response escape my mouth. In a mere second, she had me untangled from the sheets, and resting on all four... hooves, though it certainly didn't do much for my empty stomach: I'd just gone through a makeshift tilt-a-whirl, and was not feeling happy. Disregarding my obvious distress, for one reason or another, the mare slid right over to my tablet, giving the device the gimlet eye. "How do I...?" she asked, leery of touching the likely flashing and moving device, especially when it went from Consequence Free to Yoko Kanno's Tank!. The audial assault didn't do anything for my sense of disease, and I quickly gulped down through a wave of nausea, before gasping out, "Tap once in the middle of it, then drag that... urfgh... circle to the right." To my distinct approval, the music immediately stopped, leaving the room in a near-silent state which felt at odds with my own mental and physical composure. "Th...thanks," I managed to grind out, taking in a long, deep breath. Now that I wasn't being physically assaulted by a jazz orchestra, I had the time to center myself and take in the rescuer - or, at least, the mare who I expected was responsible for my reprieve. To a bit of surprise, the first thing I noticed was the pinafore she was wearing, as well as the shirt: an oddity in a society of nudists, though not terribly out of place in consideration. Above that was a kindly, slightly-wrinkled muzzle, with two jasmine eyes framed by a mat of cream fur; her blonde mane was a straight style rarely seen outside films, with a navy blue streak through the center and a bun tied tightly in the back. All told, she looked... very much like the host, which to my mind was a bit of an alarm. I didn't quite curtsy - not quite sure why I felt a sudden need to, but I did lean down upon one leg, which seemed to meet with some approval. "Thank you for your assistance, Missus..." Here I paused, unclear on how to address her, to which she obliged with an uncertain giggle which might have come from a woman half her age. "Oh, I'm Ivory Hearth," she introduced herself with a similar half-bow; in the corner of my ear, I caught a half-suppressed giggle from the hallway, but decided to pass on any investigation for now. "My husband says he owns this place," she added, giving a blink-and-you'll-miss-it wink at the very end. Ah, one of those arrangements... well, I could deal with that. The fact that Ivory was checking me for any sign of twitching, also something I could work with. "Some people think they own cats," I returned with a half-nod, an ear of my own tilting to catch the telltale sign of sizzling coming from my backpack. "Do you mind if I get that? It's my other alarm..." I paused in consideration of the fact that I was more or less handling very advanced electronics, and the way that Mrs. Hearth reacted to an otherwise intricate device put me somewhat less at ease. Alarm two, ringing incessantly. And I wasn't talking about the sizzling of a pan. "What is this, exactly?" she asked with a tilt of her head while one hoof tapped here and there on the screen, eliciting nothing whatsoever: I'd locked it down six ways to Sunday, and I wasn't about to give my passcode to anyone. With a shift of a hoof I managed to turn the alarm - and the phone - off. The laptop was fine, but these two... "It's kinda proprietary right now," I replied, lying through my teeth as I wove my story. "Different people react to different, ah... blast it, what's the word...stimuli? For some folks, you get the smell of coffee, for others, the sound of a chime, for me..." Here I waved my hoof at the tablet in question, which she relinquished after a momentary pause. "Some music, and alternately, the sizzling of a pan. And having to actually be awake enough to do more than just throw a clock across the room, or push a button, that helps." I laughed quietly, fully awake now, and waved a hoof at the bed - and at the piled-up sheets next to it. "Sometimes it backfires though." Another quiet nod and chuckle followed, and the third penny dropped - or perhaps that was the only one. Nothing so weird as myself could possibly have come in through Ponyville, and yet she was treating me like just another guest. Minotaurs, gryphons, dragons -- those were a known factor. Zebras, even. A changeling like myself... that couldn't possibly be average, not from what little I knew. Yet, Mrs. Hearth had been, all along, treating me like a regular guest, and like my cornucopia of impossible technology was just another eccentricity. Either something was rotten in the state of Denmark, or I was being taken for a ride. Either way, I wasn't about to put up with it. Shutting my tablet down and tucking it into my pack, I gave her a serene smile, asking of the proprietress (and very carefully not humming Master of the House within my head), "Might you know of a spa within this fine town? I'll of course be returning, but I'd hate to stink up the place any further, and a private bath would suit me better." For an instant, her smile fell as she saw that I was bringing with me my entire life, but she quickly perked up at the thought of raiding the ponies in question with a patsy right there. "Oh, I can take you right there! Easy as can be, it's just down the street, it'll be barely a minute." Har, har. We can play the game, can't we? Sorry, miss, but I'm not going to be helping you rip off Aloe and Lotus -- or whomever -- that easily. "No need, thanks a ton, but I think I'm good now... I do have a bit to take care of before I go there, and I'm sure that a quick pick-me-up will do me some good. I can't impose, after all," I added, referring to the fact that brunch, lunch, dinner, supper and other such meals were very certainly not included within the hostel's retrospectively ostentatious charges. "W--well, then, I hope to see you again tonight!" exclaimed my host, to which I could only give yet another long nod and a smile. "I'm sure you will." Turning away from the Red Mane, I let my congenial smile turn into something a little more sere. 'Yes', I quietly thought to myself, 'there's nothing like someone really pissing you off to wake you up.' Under other circumstances, I might have been wrong about all that, but one thing cemented my certainty: the fact that I was now an empath, and all I felt radiating from my hostess, dear old happy-to-help Ivory Hearth, was little more than plain, certain greed. Greed which intensified sixfold when she heard 'proprietary'. And with that, I took my leave towards what I was assured was Sugarcube Corner: a cup of coffee and a scone were calling my name.