//------------------------------// // Whatever they say they know we’ll stay // Story: Bedbound (And Beyond) // by Cackling Moron //------------------------------// “And this is the tertiary library.” Holy shit I swear it was even bigger than the secondary library. “Are these all, uh, forbidden tomes of arcane lore?” I asked, just to make some conversation, not expecting an actual answer to my stupid, flippant question. “The tertiary library is mainly fiction,” Twilight said, taking what I’d said one-hundred percent seriously. On closer inspection I could see that, as opposed to the first two, most of what was on the shelves in the tertiary library were a lot less weighty and most were even paperback. Serves me right for not looking properly first, I guess. “Extensive,” I said. Twilight gave me the kind of wide, warm smile where her eyes even closed. Seriously, getting dangerously close to devouring some of these guys out of how cute they are, it’s a concern. Though the real danger was my rising urge to just give Twilight a good stroke and maybe a scratch behind the ears. God I was tempted. But no. That’d be weird. “Thank you!” She said. “Of course it goes without saying that you can borrow any of these while you’re staying here - help yourself!” Oh, would that I could, Twilight. Would that I could. You know, a normal person in my situation would probably have been ‘Hey Twilight, I can’t read your exotic horse language - would you mind giving me a few pointers?’ and Twilight - being nice - would have been more than happy to help. I however was a few slivers shy of normal, I’d say. And besides, Twilight was already going out of her way here looking after me and putting me up. Who was I to lay even more work on top of her? She probably had her own shit going anyway. “Very kind of you,” I said instead, ignoring all of that. I’d deal with it later. The tour continued. The place seemed less the endless, infinite labyrinth of opulent and classical luxury that Celestia’s palace had been, but the whole everything-is-made-of-crystal schtick added a certain level of novelty. Crystal bathrooms! Crystal reception rooms! Crystal galleries! Etcetera. My legs were starting to hurt by the end of it and I was glad to reach a crystal dining room, where apparently I was to sit and wait while Twilight went to check on Spike. I considered Spike while I sat. Tiny lizard in a land of unicorns and such? I made a judgement call: dragon. Why, in a world as twee as this, should a dragon not also be adorable? It would make about as much sense as anything else. Though of course I’d quietly, subtly ask Twilight to confirm later. Guessing to Spike’s face would be beyond the pale. What rudeness! Sat on a crystal chair by a crystal table I waited. While I waited, I continued to consider things. I considered the various ponies who had stared at me so on the way in. Now, now that I’d had time to settle in a bit, I felt less put-down by that. I mean, what would I have thought had I seen a bizarre creature being escorted by a princess? Twilight was one, after all, so was presumably locally-known. What a weird thing to see! I could excuse them this, and as ever I was a big boy, could rise above such things. Tomorrow would be better. I’d stride through whatever. And if it sucked I would stride back and hide here, because Twilight at least was nice. But no. Tomorrow would be better. Further consideration was forestalled by the return of Spike and Twilight, who brought with them food. I sat like a pudding as the table was laid and everything set out. I did not ask what it was. It smelt nice enough, and beggars can’t be chooses. Though I hear if wishes were horses beggars would be kings. The relevance of this was unclear. Thanks, brain, really helping a guy out. Once everything was settled the other two sat and eating started. We were the three of us clustered down at one end of the table, which was vast, and it was a bit silly. But that’s palaces for you. Extravagant. “Thanks again for this, Twilight,” I said, then: “You too, Spike. For the food, I mean. Twilight in a more general sense.” “S’alright,” Spike said, chewing. “It’s really not a problem. All of this must be very confusing for you,” Twilight said. She used magic with her cutlery. That ponies had cutlery at all was still amazing to me, but I suppose this made a smidgen more sense. But only a smidgen. I watched her going at it for a second or so before shaking my head, realising I’d been lost in thought. “Uh, a little I guess.” Confusion tended to roll off my back, or at least I had noticed it had a tendency to do so. “So what’s the deal with you, anyway?” Spike asked around a mouthful of food, earning himself a sharp look from Twilight. “What?” “Guest. Rude,” she hissed. Spike rolled his eyes and closed his mouth, apparently taking a only one meaning from what Twilight had said. “Nah it’s fine, I’d be curious too. What you want to know?” I asked. He gestured vaguely with a fork. “Well what are you? Twilight said that Celestia said that you’re a human and that you’re not from here, but that doesn’t say a lot. If anything that raises more questions!” Twilight continued glaring daggers at Spike. “Twilight, hey,” I said, getting her attention. “Seriously, relax. Not a problem.” She appeared to take it in board, and I looked back to Spike. “I don’t know what to tell you, son, you’re looking at me. This is a human and it isn’t supposed to be here. Well, one kind of human, at least. There are others.” I knew this, but the details were beyond me. Again, this is astonishingly aggravating. My brain was firmly established as one of those guys who you ask about something, doesn’t know the answer and then when you’ve explained it says ‘Yeah I knew that’. It was all there somewhere, just nowhere that was of any use to me. I gritted my teeth. “Yeah, I don’t know what else I can tell you.” “So no ponies where you come from?” Spike asked, testing the waters. “Nope. Well, yes, but not like this. They can’t talk. And aren’t quite so brightly-coloured. No dragons either,” I said, taking a bold stab in the dark, as this was different to outright asking him. Judging from his face I think I might have nailed it. Go me. “The impression I get is that it’s quite like here, only miserable. And no magic. I could be wrong though, given the state of my head.” This I finished off by tapping a finger to my temple. In case anyone forgot where my head was, I guess? “I’m sure it’s a very interesting place,” Twilight said, diplomatically. “Oh, probably. I’m probably well clear of the mark.” Honestly, I did my best not to think about it. It hurt when I did, so why would I? The blanket feeling of home was a place where things just rolled along, the weather was grey and everything was normal. Equestria? Horsetopia here? Not so much, at least by my half-remembered standards. But then again I was the alien, so really my normal was not the normal everyone else was using. Conversation continued burbling along from there, and I like to think I gave a reasonable account of myself. I mentioned airplanes, which I could picture, though with no-one inside them; the Forth Rail Bridge, given that I’d remembered it before and a few other bits and bobs of humanity, or at least what I could manage. I felt it best to avoid mentioning what smidgens of history popped into my head, as all of it was fairly depressing and lacking in context. I hoped I was just remembering it wrong. Spike seemed satisfied, Twilight seemed practically incandescent with interest and pressed me on just about everything I could think of. I did my best to oblige. If I came at questions sideways I seemed to do alright at remembering, it was only when my brain realised what it was I was trying to do that I ran into problems. So the longer I came at things sideways the more chance my brain had to rumble me and give me another of those wonderful headaches. Whatever had happened to me? Nothing good, plainly. Before too long it became pretty clear I’d pushed too head as my head was throbbing something fierce. “Ah, just gimme a minute, Twilight, I just - ow - ow ow ow -” “Oh I’m sorry, that’s my fault again isn’t it?” Twilight asked, ears folding backwards. Hadn’t seen them do that before on anyone I’d met. Again, cute. But I had no time to appreciate it as i was too busy clutching at my skull. “No it’s cool really - ow, fuck - just should really know my own limits.” I cradled my head and cursed softly for a minute or so, reaching and groping blindly for the glass of water that had been set out for me. I did not find it, at least until Twilight nudged it towards me. “Thanks,” I said. “You know, neurologically speaking your symptoms are quite idiosyncratic. Celestia noticed it, too. Her notes mentioned that she’d meant to contact a specialist about it but I don’t know if she had the chance before she decided you should come here. I can ask her, if you like?” Celestia decided? Heh. Half-truths. And I know with me being a human mystery box I could have been anything, but me being a neurologist or anything even remotely to do with the brain seemed pretty unlikely. All Greek to me. Or whatever the hell Celestia’s book was written in. Wait, was it written in Greek? No, no, that’d just be silly. “Sounds like a plan,” I said. ‘A specialist’ always sounds kind of alarming, even though plumbers can be specialists. I imagine the notes were referring to some kind of brain specialist, to use the technical term. I hoped they wouldn’t tell me that it would have to come out. But again with these notes? That was the second time they’d got a mention and this time my curiosity could not be swallowed quite so easily. “Also, Twilight, can I, uh, can I have a look at these notes sometime?” “Sure, I don’t see why not. They are about you, after all,” she said, still smiling. God, ponies were a cheerful bunch. I swear I was putting years of my life just hanging around them. Dessert was offered once the main course was dealt with, and dessert turned out to be - in this instance - cupcakes of prodigious size, apparently left earlier by a friend of Twilight’s for reasons she had not disclosed at the time, other than to say someone might want one later. Prescient. I demurred, because the cupcakes were the size of my head and I feared for what would happen if I ate one. Twilight and Spike had no such reservations and insisted I was missing out. Twilight spared mine, for her friend had delivered exactly three, in a further surprising move, and Spike looked to be making moves on mine once he’d finished his. Once that was done I offered to help with cleaning up but was denied, to my frustration. I wasn’t completely useless, damnit! Just mostly. And how was I supposed to show them how mostly useless I was if they never let me help? Damn polite cheerful ponies. Twilight then dug the notes up for me and I took them to bed, the plan being to peruse them, snooze, and then wake up fresh to be shown around town and to her friends, who she was cagey about other than ‘You’ll love them!’. I trusted her, obviously, and was keen to see the notes. Nothing like light reading before sleep, after all. Or so ran my theory. I ran up against some problems. The notes were, of course, utterly unreadable for me. I’m not sure why I’d expected otherwise. All that left me with was the size of them to really gauge the depth of detail Celestia had gone into. And the notes were not a slim volume. She really had had me under close observation. Close personal observation too, at least at first, with some of the doctor’s own notes incorporated later. Or so I assumed. Why else would the writing have changed? That at least I could notice. Just a guess, of course. Guesses were all I had. There were even drawings! Labelled drawings. The labels were meaningless, obviously, but the drawings themselves were pretty damn impressive. Kind of creepy to see myself so well-rendered, yeah, but, uh… I paused, frowned, weighed the notes in my hands. Looking from the outside, someone could find that sort of thing a little sinister. Looking at it from the inside, as it were? Also a little sinister. But not hugely. I was willing to forgive a lot. Maybe that was a character flaw but eh, there I was, forgiving shit left right and centre. Of course, again, who had made the notes probably played a bit of a part in my willingness to be relaxed about the whole thing. But even if Celestia hadn’t been involved I couldn’t see my opinion changing that much. I was alive, wasn’t I? Alive and being looked after. I felt I had pretty good cause to give these magical horses the benefit of the doubt. Briefly, I thought back to Luna saying that I was a relaxed individual, and I wondered whether this had always been the case. Had I - prior to my arrival and inexplicable brain-frying - been an especially anxious individual? An angry one? This line of thought did not fill me with enthusiasm, which was why I kept it brief, ramming it down and slapping the notes to bring myself back to the moment. “Thanks, notes,” I said. “You’ve told me a lot I just wasn’t able to understand any of it.”