//------------------------------// // Spring: As Normal As It Gets // Story: Earth-Chan in Equestria // by zack black //------------------------------// Earth-Chan had a little moments pass to finally reflect, and what a reflection it was! Having wondered into the local town of lantern lit paths, she'd stumbled upon a fountain. It's spring water cascading down into a pool, it's flow creating a curtain of liquid beauty that attracted Earth-Chan, mesmerizing her in so many ways. When she got closer it's reflective surface acted as a mirror and for the first time that day, she could see who she was. Who she'd become. And to be honest, she looked nothing like a horse! What was with the eyes? They were ten times the size of a human's! And look at her hair! Mane. Whatever! Look at it! It... It... Oh there was the green! She had green! She wasn't completely blue after all! The relief that swelled up inside her was quite immense from such a lack luster discovery. Comparatively, learning about running had been much more exciting, but something about having more familiarity covering her made things better. She smiled at her self and immediately frowned, then opened and closed her maw rapidly. She stuck her tongue out and waggled a good waggle before she blew a raspberry and slipped it back into her mouth. She made puppy eyes to herself, tried the whole winking thing, and even won a staring contest! Finally done gushing over her face, she began to go through some more thorough inspection. She stepped back a bit, craned her neck and took a side look. She was rather skinny than she was use to, though the universal appeal of losing weight was not lost on her. She let out a satisfied purr and continued her pony anatomy class. Her legs were shapely, meaning she had the right muscle tone for a horse, if a little lenient in some places. Her rump noticeably kept a little bit of it's mass, though nothing too out of proportion. She liked it. She liked her rump, and the brown thing that was plastered across it. Oh, wait yeah, what the heck was that? She had dirt on her? Was that from sitting in the grass? Breaking her trance from the makeshift water mirror, she swirled her head around and gave her butt a good look-see. With out all the rippling and trickling it was clearer to see that she was rather heavily stained on both sides of her flanks. That wasn't very nice to look at. She should fix that when she had the chance. It didn't smell bad, and didn't really feel messy either. But it clashed heavily with her blue and that was a no go. Still, she checked out pretty okay. Not really horse like at all, but for the most part she could get use to seeing herself. Once she got use to seeing in general that is. The last thing to look at was her tail, but it was really more of the same. Her mane and tail shared their coloration, albeit different continents. Once she soaked herself in she looked back to the fountain and scooted closer, sitting in front of it and returning to her simple pleasure of watching it flow. A new set of questions started to resonate inside her head, finally her thoughts moved on to something a little deeper than physical appearances. Questions like, Why? She knew where she was suppose to be, she knew what had happened to her. Nothing was missing, all the memories were there. Her mistakes weren't going anywhere. But, yet, she felt none of it. The scars were gone. The pain wasn't there. And neither were her humans. Why? What a good question. None of this felt real. What Discord had sung started to replay in her head, causing her to gently tap her hoof to the beat presented. "Cataclysmic blast?" She repeated, scoping out every syllable, trying to find clues. What had that been? Surely she hadn't blown up, those scars didn't have nearly enough penetration to dismantle her like that. What was the blast? Why did it mean she had to be here, why did it mean she was suppose to be a pony? Stretching out her hoof, she passed it through the curtain of water and let it splash against her. She slowly traced the hoof towards her own reflection. The water began to break and split, her new face was slowly obscured, distorted and disheveled. Eventually it broke completely into a unrecognizable blob of blue and the occasional green. "What purpose is there for a Child of Creation... without her own creations?" She hadn't heard it til now. The voice was different. She had a new sound. It was soft at base pitch, but rasped with emotion. She didn't recognize her own dialect anymore. She didn't recognize a lot of things recently. The new sound only pushed her mood deeper south. Her ears pinned back as the pondering became too much. She needed a distraction from all this and fast. She was on the brink of tears again and, for some reason, the relief from last time didn't seem probable. "Um, Ma'am? Y-You've been at the fountain for well over a couple hours now... I'm not a stickler for the whole loitering rule, but... I'd like to at least ask if everything's okay?" She hadn't been paying attention again. Always so caught up in herself. Last time she had an excuse, discord was the master at sneaking, but this pony had literally just walked up to her clipping and clopping like crazy and she'd never even heard a peep! Getting startled for a record breaking second time since being awake, the blue mare gasped and quickly turned away from the fountain, setting her now soaked hoof back on the stone tiled floor, dripping profusely. It hadn't dawned on her how absorbent she was, or that the water would have very 'chilling' consequences. Blinking over to the source of the voice, she spotted a very gray maned pony sporting a nifty police vest. His look of concern was unmistakable, with the hint of growth as she showed more and more signs of shivering. She couldn't help it, that fountain had betrayed her. She had been bamboozled and she had no one to blame but herself. It was the tree all over again! "It's late out, Ma'am. Suppose to get chilly here soon, what are you doing splashing in the fountain at this time of night?" The gruff sounding police officer had a bit of crisp in his voice that Earth-Chan found soothing. The question itself was hard pressing though and completely ruined her enjoyment. "U-Uuuuuh, yes. I was, errrr.... Eugh... Blending in?" She offered with a sheepish smile, curious as to if she was in trouble or not. Her shivering had now managed to encompass her entire body as she sat. Her flicked her tail around so that it would wrap against her hooves a little and offer some smidgen of warmth. "Right...." The officer responded, slowly approaching her with a perplexed stare. "....That aside, you look cold." Earth-Chan let out a whimper as a breeze rolled by, as if cued by the officers words alone. She couldn't handle this much right now. It was one thing to live in torture. It was another to slap ones self into a tree. But, contracting hypothermia became a very serious scare like no other. One that Earth-Chan had almost no basis for other than a few sensations she'd felt from humans. She'd learned a lot from those sensations. It was a lot of what kept her afloat during recent events, but if one thing hadn't been stressed enough, it was that dying alone, broke, and more relevantly COLD was Not a good time. "Yes. Very." She nodded to the Officer with a forced smile, trying hard not to whimper again. She wasn't good at holding it in. Her little noises seemed to emphasize her answer and the night guard stopped his questions and took action. His vest was given to her out of courtesy and he began guiding her to the police station. Swept up, all of the sudden, his arm around her withers, Earth-Chan was left defenseless to the nice gesture and allowed herself to be guided. The guard was consistently reassuring her that everything was gonna be okay. His soothing voice back in full force. Through all the shivering, she couldn't help but smile a bit. This was a good first impression. She hadn't really expected much, she'd been told how she looked, her one real give away had been whisked away with a little bit of chaos. She could play this game. She could blend in. This was going to be easy. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Yeah, no. This was impossible! It had gone wrong the second she'd woken up! Sure, the warm bath was nice. She'd gotten into a bit of trouble with the soap after dissolving every bar they had, and that led to a little bit of chastising, but for the most part she'd been treated quite well last night. She got a cell all to herself, one with extra blankets and pillows added to the bed. She had no unneeded company. And the key to her own cell was kept on the night stand in there with her. It was seclusion paradise! But the second dawn hit, the second old 'Mister Gruff' had unlocked the door to the station and waltz back into the jail house, Boom, here came the questions. What happened last night? It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, but where do you live? Why didn't you ask to be lead home? Do you not live here? Where did you come from? Can I get you anything to drink? It was never ending! It was suffocating! How was she suppose to blend in if she had to stick with a lie the entire time? She was terrible at lying, literally no experience in the art. The second she tried to give an answer he'd do some kind of follow up tactic like, 'Oh, that's nice, where are you visiting from?'. What was she suppose to say? Milky Way?! And oh, don't get her started on the whole. 'I don't know if I can keep you here for too long, do you have another place to stay?' scenario. He brought HER here, thank you very much. She let out a breath, collecting herself finally after suffering a mild panic attack. 'Mister Gruff and Snooty' had been waiting for an answer to his last question, having slowly risen from his chair and already heading for the door to the Station's kitchen. He turned his head, pushing the door open with his hoof while looking back. "Last chance...." She didn't know what to drink. She'd never been parched before. She'd only really felt the sensation since he had brought it up. The needs she now had were very difficult to keep track of. Where most needs would fall into place as regular acts of survival, she was still having to fill in a lot of gaps consciously. No wonder she was so distracted. What a perfect excuse. Shaking her head, she recognized that she had been backed into a corner by pleasantries, she was forced to choose. Being rude did NOT blend in! She went with what she knew best and requested a simple glass of water. It was an amazing fall back given how well acquainted she was with the compound. Weird thoughts crossed her mind about tasting herself for the first time as 'Gruffy von Eisenhower' disappeared into the kitchen, seemingly satisfied with her answer. She waited for a bit. A tad longer. And suddenly she had an urge to not wait anymore. She remembered that the fountain wasn't that far away. She remembered that she still had a lot of questions to answer and still no real answers. She all too recently remembered how uncomfortable that had been. So, with an abrupt stream of new logic, it suddenly made perfect sense to take a blanket from her cell, walk casually to the jail door aaaand make a break for it. For all her efforts, she couldn't help but be a little rude.