Coming to from my slumber, I slowly rub my eyes. Put off by this, I jump up and my open my eyes wide, looking around. “Oh yeah… not a statue anymore.”
I’m still in Luna’s room, exactly how I passed out. Relaxing a bit, I yawn and stretch, cringing in slight pain every time a bone popped. “Luna?” I call out. No response. My first night of sleep in forever… I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get a dream… oh well.
Getting up, I notice some weight on me that I didn’t notice before; likely due to my anger. Looking down at my chest, I notice the clip to something. Unclipping it, something falls from my back to the ground, and it’s enough to make me jump. Looking back at it, I see it’s just a backpack. My backpack. “Oh yeah… forgot I had that… I wonder what’s in it.”
Sitting down by it, I open it up and take a look inside. Some things I can recognize, like notebooks, pencils, a bottle, and what appears to be food. It takes me a moment to recognize my slingshot, but the device is a complete unknown to me. Pulling out one of the packages of food, I take a look at the inside. It doesn’t look like its aged at all…
Giving it a sniff, nothing seems off as far as I can tell. Closing it up again, I put the package back in the backpack, and close it up. Suddenly, I’m hit with a weird feeling in the lower half of my body. What the… oh… oh crap! Literally!
Looking around the room, I find the bathroom thanks to my eye letting me know which door was it, and run over to it, nearly tripping over myself on the way there. Throwing the door open, I rush in and go about my business.
As disgusting as it sounds, it was euphoric. Not the action itself, but the fact I did it. Something about everything I do just has a touch of satisfaction to it. Probably from not having been able to do anything in the past. Looking over at the shower, I decide to go ahead and take one. Locking the door, I strip down to nothing and bundle my clothes up, leaving them on the toilet lid. Stepping into the huge shower, tub thing that seems more akin to a big hot tub than an actual tub, I take a look at the fixtures. “Lets see…. Yep… yeah… yes, this confirms it. I have no idea how this thing works.” deciding to just twist random knobs until something happens, I grab both knobs and twist. The water starts jutting from the tub faucet, at surprisingly a comfortable temperature. beginners luck strikes again! Now… lets see if I can get the shower running.
Looking at the knobs I haven’t twisted, I see one in the middle. Giving that one a try, I’m startled by water falling on me. Looking up, I see the entire ceiling panel over the tub is a shower head, giving off the effect of rain. huh… that’s… actually kinda cool.
Standing in the rain like shower, I just stare at a particular point of the tub. Suddenly, the room changes. I’m back in the old garden? What… trying to look around, I find my vision is locked in place. No… no, not again! I see Luna in front of me, smiling a sad smile in the rain. Luna! Do something, I’m a statue again!
She simply frowns and grabs me in magic, and throws me to the ground hard. As soon as I hit the ground, the world goes back to normal. Recoiling in fear, I fall to the ground, and look around, breathing rapidly. Still the same shower…
“What was that…” letting out a sigh, I try to calm my breathing. Leaning against one side of the tub, I decide to watch some of the water fall from the shower panel. Watching it fall towards me for a couple minutes, flashes of the rainbow blast from the elements consume my vision, and nearly cause my heart to stop. When my vision turns back to normal, I just curl up and close my eyes. “No… not again… not ever…”
I don’t know how long I laid there for, but it must have been long enough for Luna to come back, because I hear a knock at the door that startles me. “Null? Are you okay? You’ve been in there for a while…”
Taking a second to compose myself, I respond. “Y-yeah! I’m fine. I’ll be out in a moment.” I get up and grab a random shampoo and conditioner, and start actually cleaning myself. After that, and some body wash, I rinse off and turn off the shower. Looking around for a towel, I find one on a rack and dry myself off as best I can. It doesn’t occur to me that this is probably one of Luna’s used towels until afterwards, but I shrug and hope she won’t notice. Not like I care either way. A towel is a towel.
Going to put on my clothes, something falls out of my pants pocket when I pick it up. Looking at it, I can’t tell what it is. Picking it up, I flip it around and examine it. Pressing one of the buttons on it, the display on it lights up and I get a vague idea of what this might be. Pocketing it again, I finish getting dressed. Noticing other things in my pockets, I pull them both out. Keys and… wallet? Wait a minute… god I’m stupid. Using my eye on the object, I confirm that it is indeed a wallet. Shrugging, I carry them out in my hand, intending on putting them in my backpack. Not like they’ll do me any good here.
Upon walking out, I notice Luna sitting at her desk, writing. I walk over to my bag and put my wallet and keys in the bag. She turns and looks at me when she hears the unzipping of the bag, and tilts her head. “How’re you feeling Null?”
Zipping up my bag, I look at her. “Honestly? I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out what each of these feelings even are… speaking of feelings…”
She raises an eyebrow and motions for me to continue with a hoof.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out, I start. “Sorry about yesterday… I was still mad from… you know who…” my fist clenches at the thought of her, but I let it go. “But it still wasn’t fair to take it out on you.”
Luna offers a sympathetic smile. “It’s alright Null. Just try not to make a habit out of it.”
I nod with a smile, then look at my watch. Hm… looking around for a clock, I find one on the bedside table, and walk over to it. Comparing my watch, I find they aren’t in sync, and adjust my watch accordingly. And by that I mean I fiddled with the buttons until they read out the same time. Said time happened to be a little past six in the afternoon. Wait a minute… “Luna? How long was I asleep for?”
“Well, you fell asleep yesterday at two in the afternoon…” she glances over to her clock. “I’d say you were asleep for twenty seven hours, give or take. It was your first time sleeping in so long, I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Twenty seven hours? Jesus…”
“What’s a Jesus?” she asks with a tilt of her head.
“I’m not entirely sure…” I trail off.
She stays quiet for a moment. “It’s funny… after so long… I don’t actually know what to say to you. I thought it would be easy to talk to you… but it’s just not.”
“I don’t see why that would be. You can still tell me anything, nothing’s changed. Except I can actually talk back now.” I state.
“True… it’s still difficult though…”
We fall into companionable silence after that. After a moment, I suddenly feel a lurching pain in my stomach. Grabbing my stomach and groaning, I lay on the bed. “Lunaaaaa….. My stomach hurts… what does that mean?”
She raises an eyebrow. “How do you not know what your own body is telling you?”
“Excuse me princess, but I’ve lost all sense of self years ago. I have no idea what these body signals mean.” I say a bit more snidely then I meant to.
A look of regret overtakes her features, and she motions towards me. “Right… sorry. That was insensitive of me…” she clears her throat. “It probably means you’re hungry. You haven’t eaten since you got here, and I don’t know when the last time you ate before… before that, was.”
I let out a sigh. “It’s okay Luna. You didn’t mean anything by it.”
She nods. “Dinner should be ready soon. We can head down to the dining hall now if you’d like?”
I nod. “Yes, pleeassee… anything to get rid of this pain.” getting to my feet, I clip my backpack on again and follow Luna as she heads out the door. “I don’t remember hunger being this painful.”
“Again, you haven’t eaten in a long time. It’s the most probable cause.” she states in a matter of fact way.
I shrug and continue following her. “At this point, you’d probably know more about my body than I do. And you don’t even know what I am.”
She looks back at me curiously. “That’s a good point actually… what are you?”
I chuckle but stop when I realize I don’t remember. Hm…
I stop by a window and look at myself in the reflection. My eye stares back at me, and it’s a little unsettling. I’ve had it for years, but I never really lived with it… never really got to look at it either. Pushing that aside, using my eye on myself tells me exactly what I am.
“I’m a human apparently.” I state casually.
“Apparently?” she parrots.
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure so I examined myself.”
“With your eye?” she questions.
Turning back to her, I motion for her to continue leading the way. As she does, I answer her question. “Yeah. As much trouble as it’s caused me, it’s got its uses.”
We arrive at a set of double doors, and Luna opens them. Inside, candid chatter can be heard coming from inside. Upon looking inside, I can feel anger and a migraine growing in my head. Inside, three to each side of a long ornate dining table, is the six element bearers. At the head of the table, looking directly at me, is Celestia herself. Upon seeing me, her eyes widen in a bit of fear, but she does her best to compose herself. Twilight Sparkle, who was talking to her, noticed her change in mood, and Looked to where Celestia was. As a result, her mood changed from happy to concerned and slightly fearful. It was a similar process for the rest of their little entourage. Looking at them, they all cringed when my gaze landed on them; even Celestia herself cringed a bit.
“Well… This should be interesting...”