Doctor Knacker did not attend dinner, which was something. Luna, by contrast, did, which was also something. I must admit I’d rather missed her. I even got a smile and a hug out of her! Rare and unexpected.
Things kind of went downhill from there, though.
If I thought that hanging around making small talk with Twilight had been awkward - whoo! Dinner was a doozy! It was like someone had died!
Was that my fault? Was that their fault? Did I need to do something? Even Luna seemed miserable! Everyone kept glancing at me as though they were worried that if they looked too hard I might crack in half.
Ugh. It was like after Umbra all over again. People on eggshells. Not a fan - not a fan at all! I’m a big boy now. Can dress myself and everything. Don’t need everyone worrying about me. I’m fine. Just - just things are a little different now is all.
Either way made the meal take for-ev-er and once it was finally wrapped up Celestia and Luna were off to converse about something-or-other, who knew what.
Actually, tell a lie, I do know what they were talking about - Celestia explained it to me after giving me a quick peck and apology for leaving me to go and do it: it was kind of a catch-up thing. Covering some of the finer points of what she had not been present for on account of my...thing.
Thought they’d done that already. Oh well!
Left me and Twilight. Which isn’t a bad thing. Left me and Twilight and also me and my thoughts. Which isn’t as good. I tried to exhaust my thoughts by pacing, but this only made my thoughts worse.
For a while Twilight was content to sit quietly and pretend she wasn’t watching me with concern but this could only last so long and she cracked and asked:
“Are you alright?”
I should start charging for being asked that question. I’d really clean up.
Suppose if there was any time in my life to be asked it though it would be now.
I’m being torn apart by philosophical quandaries! Like I am every other day these days! Questions with no easy answers! Responsibility landing in my lap! No guidance at all! No obvious indication of what I should do!
“I’m fine,” I said, apparently not convincingly enough for Twilight who saw through me in a heartbeat.
“You keep saying that but I really don’t think it’s true,” she said.
I was going to say something snappy and witty as a comeback here but I came up empty so just stood like a lemon instead with my mouth open and my finger held up in front of me. Once it became obvious that I had nothing I managed to shut my mouth at least, and then clasped both hands behind my back to hide my fingers.
That didn’t work out.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Twilight asked.
“Heh, hah. That’s probably not a good idea. If I start I might not stop!” I said, resuming pacing.
Normally what goes on in my head is fairly voluminous, but I like to think I keep a pretty tight lid on it as regards any of it escaping my mouth. Purely out of concern for others, you understand. No-one deserves that.
The great thing about philosophical twaddle or at least one of my favourite things about it is that, at the end of the day, no-one was going to pop up and tell you how well you scored. Or probably not, at least. I mean, someone could, but at if that’s the case you got other problems, really.
Point is, you can think yourself in circles for hours without actually getting anywhere and still feel like you’ve achieved something. Or that’s my excuse at least. But then I like thinking about nothing to avoid my actual problems, so I’m hardly a reliable source. Hah!
And you can do all of that from the comfort of your own skull without anyone being the wiser, and as well you should.
Inside my head? Fine. Pouring it out on others? That’s just selfish. What sort of monster would I be to subject people to my undiluted thoughts? Who could sit through that? Who would sit there and subject themselves to that? What would they think of me! They’d have opinions, I bet.
“If you think it’d help to talk about it I think you should,” Twilight said, firmly.
I stopped pacing to actually, properly look at her to see if she was pulling my leg. There she sat in one of the chairs in the room we’d ended up in - what room was this, anyway? So many rooms… - appearing to be entirely sincere.
“You sure about that?” I asked with raised eyebrow.
“Yes,” she said, also firmly, nodding, very serious look on her face.
Adorable.
Well, she quite literally asked for it. Moving on over I dropped to one knee by her chair so I didn’t have to talk across half the room. Also: really easy dropping to one knee now. That’s going to take some getting used to.
“To be straight with you Twilight,” I said, resting an arm on the armest, appropriately enough. “I’m kind of freaking out a little bit.”
“Why?” She asked, more in the ‘I am here to listen please outline your issue’ sort of a why than a ‘kid asking why the sky is blue’ sort of a way. I can appreciate that.
I tried to get all my ducks in a row for the best explanation. Clearly I failed though as what came out instead was this breathless tumble:
“It was just that, you know, the idea of getting this stuff back was a complete non-starter before because it could have killed me, right? That was the kind of the stopper. So I didn’t have to worry about it. It was a non-issue. They were all there somewhere, my- that guy’s old things, but getting at them carried the risk of killing me. So we didn’t bother. Right?”
“Okay…”
I don’t know why she sounded so uncertain she knew this. I swivelled about to get a better angle. Face-on was best for this. Also meant I could gesticulate more easily. Gesticulation is important.
“It’s true! We all agreed on this! We were all there! So it just became a philosophical exercise! Does the person I am now stop existing if I suddenly remember who I was before? Do I become that guy again? Or some new, third guy, the culmination of the two? How would my old memories change how I feel about the ones I’ve made sense being here? We’re the product of our experiences, right? Would the new experiences - uh, old, the old ones...which would be new to me right now, fuck - change how I thought about my time here? I’d have all this extra experience to look at the same things through. Would I feel the same? Would I feel completely different? Something would have to happen. Wouldn’t that change me? You know? Right?”
“John, I think you need to calm down.”
I could be calm for days it wouldn’t solve anything this wasn’t going away.
And what’s with the using the name! Was she taking lessons from Celestia now?
“I can’t though! This is an issue! Before it was just a, you know, it was a thought experiment, a hypothetical, something we couldn’t do but I could fucking navel-gaze about. And I did! And I came to neat, happy conclusions all underscored by the nice, solid knowledge that it was all moot anyway. Couldn’t happen. Now it’s a possibility! Fuck that, it’s not even a possibility - it’s right there! It’s right there! We could just do it! No risk! No effort! Pop! All back in place! But what would that do to me?!”
“John-”
“Would it be bad?! Good? Indifferent? Should I? Shouldn’t I? I don’t know! There’s no right answers here! No wrong answers either! It’s just a choice! And my choice, no-one else’s. Can’t put it off, can I? It’ll always just be there. And inaction is a kind of action here! Choosing to do nothing is a choice, just like it always is! It might be the wrong thing to do, mightn’t it! Keeping that guy locked up and dead selfishly. Or whatever. So not doing anything for years might be years of doing the wrong thing! Something I’d have to live with. I’m living with it right now and it’s doing my fucking nut! That guy is in there! I’m out here! Should I be? Should I let him out? Is he me? Will it even be him coming out, given that we’ll kind of...mash together, yeah? What would happen?! I don’t know!”
“John!”
She shouted that one, and I only then noticed how flushed and out of breath my ranting had left me. Oh dear. Should probably turn that down a notch. How embarrassing!
“I’ll get Celestia,” she said, making to squeeze past me and dismount the chair. My hand moved without a whole lot of input from my brain - which wasn’t a whole lot of use right then anyway! - and landed on her hoof, which forestalled this.
“Please don’t leave me alone Twilight. I’ll - I’ll be quiet just don’t leave me right now. Thank you. Unless you want to, of course,” I said. Or croaked, given that my raving had somewhat dried me out.
And good job avoiding mixed messages on that one, jackass.
Still, it did work. Twilight stopped in her efforts to go off and get Celestia and instead settled back into the seat again, taking the hand that had clutched at her in both her hooves. Lovely girl, Twilight.
“I’m here,” she said. Which I could see. But still, nice of her. I swallowed. Wished I had a drink.
“Sorry. That all got rather away from me. It’s just sort of been stewing for a bit. It’s a point of concern. Heh, we’ve had this whole conversation before, I think? Last time I went in that machine. Remember?”
Technically speaking I think the conversation happened before I went in, but still. More-or-less correct.
“I do,” Twilight said.
“You’d have thought I’d have been better prepared given the time I’ve had since then. More fool me, eh? I suppose someone with a sliver more competence and sense would be right on top of this.”
She gave my hand enough of a squeeze to get my attention and I could see the serious look back on her face again. A particular type of serious I recognised, too.
“Don’t do yourself down like that. I don’t like it.”
That type of serious. Celestia did that, too, sometimes.
“Sorry. Again. Just... I am worried about the - “ I struggled for the right word here and came up with nothing I could use. Metaphysical? Existential? Philosophical? All very high-falutin’ but none clicked right. In the end I capped off with “ - implications. Of this.”
Which wasn’t wrong. But did sound pretty lame.
“You’re worried that if you choose to get back your memories you’ll change?” She asked.
Actually kind of hit the nail on the head with that one. Summed it up nicely.
“Succinctly put. Uh, basically, yeah.”
I mean there was some nuance she wasn’t covering here but who had time for nuance?
Twilight gave my hand another squeeze, this one of a more comforting aspect. She also smiled, which was immensely comforting if we’re going to start putting these things on a scale. I give it a ten. Out of a number that might also top out at ten.
“You’ll still be you,” she said.
Ugh. So much for discarding nuance...
“Maybe. Probably. Heh, most likely. But who is me, you know?”
“You’re you, John,” Twilight said, in what I expect she thought was supportive manner but which really, really didn’t help me.
I think the issue here - I think - was that everyone else has it in their heads that the John they know in the here-and-now and the other guy who was presently locked away in my brain are two halves of the same person, like there was some sort of continuation between the two. That they could just click together without a problem because, well, why wouldn’t they? Same person, right? Just with a little gap in the middle. What’s the issue?
If you look at it like that I can see why it might not be that big of a deal. Maybe.
But, uh, in my head these are two entirely separate people. Whether that’s right or what I have no idea, but that’s how I’m looking at it. John - me - was pulled together from scraps in a world he knew nothing about and has ended up like this. I’ve just sort of stumbled my way through things, doing my best. And arrived here.
John made the best of a bad job with no history, no context and no prior experience other than what weird bits bubbled up from time to time.
The other guy had, you know, however many years of life back home doing who-knows-what. He started as a child, got that whole experience. Got to be a teenager, got that part too. Adulthood. Everything that goes with all of this. That’s a whole heaping helping of life experience that I was not personally privy to. That’s the kind of thing that gives people worldviews and opinions.
Point is, they are not the same person. They are two different people.
Similar, maybe. I’ll grant that I’ve probably picked up a few things from the guy so we might have some common ground but so what? I have common ground with lots of people. Doesn’t mean I want to pour the contents of their head into my skull and shake it about to see what happens.
I don’t know. I don’t know, man. I could be coming at it wrong. I could be worrying over nothing. Or I could be worrying way less than I should be. How would I know?
If anything John’s probably the squatter. The other guy was here first, right? He’s been there the whole time just scrambled up and locked away. Now he’s all sorted out and ready to go only John is sitting on him. Kind of a dick move, John.
Talking about myself in the third person is weird. Especially since I’m talking about another version of myself. Yes, yes I’ll admit that. It’s best to admit that the other guy is me. Let’s take that as read. He is me, me is he. No basis for it other than guesswork but let’s just go with it. He is me.
I just remain concerned about what will happen when he and I meetup. So to speak.
The most catastrophic thing that could happen would be something like it turning out that he - that I was some sort of raving mass-murderer in my former life. That would be unfortunate on numerous levels, least of which pissing a perfectly good chance at a blissful new life up a wall and then just getting worse from there.
Can’t imagine I’d leap right back into the murdering in such a case, but maybe that’s just because all that’s kept safely away? Maybe once we’re reunited - and it feels so good - the murdering will make absolute sense and I’ll damn myself as a fool for ever having stopped.
Unlikely...
But that was at the extreme end. Unlikely, like I say. Possible! But unlikely. Such people were pretty rare, all things considered. Far more likely he - I - would just turn out to be some guy with a history of some stuff. Nothing that interesting. Whole lot of life with not a whole lot to show for it. Probably.
And then that guy and this guy - me - would mash together and...annihilate? Integrate? Reject? Make something new? Have a nervous breakdown? I don’t know.
Clearly where I was standing on this was not where everyone else was standing. How to bridge that gap? A mystery. Sometimes you’ll just never see eye-to-eye. Suppose that’s life.
Got to try though, don’t you?
“I am indeed John but, ah, well, I am somewhat concerned as to the survival of John-as-we-know-him. As it were. You know?” I asked.
“Not really?”
Good start. I brought my other hand in to rest on top of her hooves. We had a real thing going on there, now. Presumably a good thing.
I took a breath and tried to pour my brain-words into Twilight’s ears. So to speak:
“Leave aside the possibility that, you know, I did something awful back before, let’s just forget that for now. Let’s just take for example that I got something else going on up here that I suddenly find out about. Like, uh, it turns out I’m married. I have a family. I got kids or something. That’ll change a lot, won’t it?”
What a terrifying thought! Not that I’m scared of families or wives as a rule. It’s just - what a change! How I approached and thought of everything would surely change, no? And it wouldn’t just be academic, I’d feel it all! It’d all be true! True facts! Not anything I could shrug off. Serious stuff in my mind!
Apparently not so much so in Twilight’s, as she said emphatically:
“But it won’t change you.”
I pulled my hands back and rubbed my face. This was going nowhere fast.
Presumably this is the sort of thing that led Umbra to figure it was just better to tell people what they were thinking. I can see the logic, but I can’t sympathise, really. Life would be a lot less interesting. Lot less frustrating, too, but still. That and, you know, horrific violation of a person’s most private places and autonomy. But that’s a given. Everything’s a give and take.
And here I’d given all I felt I could. Time to cut my losses and agree to disagree.
“I suppose not,” I said through my hands. I felt Twilight’s hoof on my elbow, supportive-like.
“Whatever you decide I’ll support you. I’m sure Celestia will, too. We all will, all of us. You know that, don’t you?” She said. God she sounded sincere. Ponies are the best.
Well, as far as I know at least. I certainly like them. Give me the warm fuzzies they do.
Some more than others...
“Yeah, yeah I know,” I said, again through my fingers.
“And you’ll always be you. At least to me,” Twilight said.
That was kind of confusing. Frowning, I leant away from my hands and tried to count this off on my fingers. Me me, you, me...me?
“This is getting kind of convoluted,” I said.
Twilight frowned as well.
“Yeah…”
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything?” Celestia said, appearing out of thin-fucking-air. And not even in a teleporting sense! She was just suddenly there!
How does she do that?!
Twilight practically leapt out of her chair and would have hit the floor had I not caught her. As surprised as I was I had to admit to being a little gratified that I wasn’t the only one Celestia could make jump.
“Hey Twilight, you’re a princess ain’t you? How come you can’t do that sneaking around thing?” I asked.
“I - what?” She asked breathlessly, plainly still recovering. Celestia just tutted.
“You can’t imply that my skills aren’t unique,” she said.
“Ah, not a princess thing is it? Just a you thing?” I asked, popping Twilight back onto her chair. Celestia held a hoof to her chest proudly and said:
“Finely honed by myself through years of practise. Accept and expect no substitutes.”
It is a chest, right? Horse words…
Celestia then smiled apologetically at me.
“Sorry that took so long. Who knew I’d miss so much? I’d always thought two months wasn’t a long time in politics,” she said.
“You should complain. About the passage of time.”
Tapping a hoof to her chin she made a big show of considering this.
“You’re right, I should. Who’s in charge around here?”
“You. Partly.”
More chin tapping.
“Ah. I’ll be writing myself a very strongly-worded letter in which case, and I’ll copy in Luna too, just to be thorough. Tomorrow though,” she said, nodding in an assertive and affirmative manner. I also nodded in such a manner, for we were obviously in agreement on this very serious matter.
“Yeah, good idea to sleep on it first,” I said.
“What is happening…” Twilight mumbled from her seat, looking from me to Celestia and back again in abject confusion. I think it was getting a little late for her, poor thing. I gave her a pat on the head and a quick scratch behind the ears which seemed to help.
“I think bedtime is happening,” I said, looking to Celestia for backup on this.
“It might be a good idea,” she said.
Same wavelength, baby. She knows what I’m about. Mostly.
Twilight found no opposition to bedtime. There was a room for her already, apparently, and she seemed to know where it was so was off on her way following hugs and goodnights and then it was just me and Celestia wandering off to our own bed.
By which I mean, er, her bed. Ahem.
As much as I would have liked Celestia and me to have kept up some more easy, breezy banter this did not happen for whatever reason and instead we plodded along to her room in ever-so-slightly uncomfortable silence. The natural result of this was, obviously, more thinking.
Argh!
I’m me, I’m me! It’s a me I’ve had to put together, sure, but the pieces were there already and I think I did a pretty good job getting them all to fit. I’m not perfect, sure, but I’m happy, right? And that’s what counts. Right?
But there’s another, real you. You just don’t know it. You don’t want to see him, so you just keep avoiding him subconsciously. Because he might not be human in shape. Because the person you have been up until now might disappear. You’re afraid that who you are will vanish. You’re afraid that you’ll disappear from everyone’s hearts.
Afraid? Why would I be afraid?
Your own personal world would disappear, too. It means you would disappear.
As thrilling as this all is I can’t help but feel as though I’ve heard it before, somewhere else. In another language? And it’s not helpful anyway. In fact a lot of that is kind of gibberish, to put it bluntly, and not a whole lot of it applies to me anyway. I’m still no closer to an answer.
Sigh.
And it’s not as if you can really talk to anyone about it. You tried that with Twilight! Didn’t go very well, did it? Clearly this is beyond your capabilities to properly explain. Which doesn’t surprise me. It’s as much something you’re just feeling as it is something you’re actually comprehending. And that’s tricky to put into words.
I’m so tired. Why can’t I have normal problems? Like erectile dysfunction. Then at least I could just yell at my penis. How much easier would that be?
“What are you thinking?” Celestia asked out of the blue and I flinched.
“Uh. Lots of things,” I said. Not a lie.
“Anything you’d like to talk to me about?” She asked, gently.
Probably not the erectile dysfunction thing. Difficult to explain and not really relevant. Uh. Anything else? I hate it when people ask me this because my brain just empties out. Think, think…
Aha! Idea! Out of nowhere! But a good one.
“I’ve got it!” I said, beaming all of a sudden. Celestia caught some of this too and smiled, little bit of excitement showing in her features.
“You’ve decided what you’re going to do?” She asked.
“Yes! Well, kind of. How about we just use magic to just undo what she did? Break it again,” I said.
I’m a genius!
The smile did not last, neither did the hint of excitement. Instead she now just looked confused.
“Um…”
Okay that one didn’t land as well as it could have but I have others!
“Ooh! Or maybe just cut those bits out completely. Or scoop them out if that works better. One of the two. I mean, something’ll probably fill the void.”
Nature does abhor a vacuum, after all.
We’d stopped walking at this point and Celestia was just staring at me, mouth hanging open the tiniest bit. This she noticed after a couple seconds and so closed it.
“I don’t think that’d be a good idea. Even if we could do it, which I’m not sure about,” she said.
“But magic though,” I protested, and Celestia raised an eyebrow.
“There are limits to magic, John.”
“Could have fooled me, lady who moves the sun…” I grumbled.
A moment. Then:
“John, when was the last time you went to sleep?”
That’s a subject change! Not cool! And she keeps using my name! Argh! That means she thinks I’m acting up! I’m not acting up! I’m fine!
“I - I’m sure it wasn’t as long ago as you think it was. Yesterday? Probably. I can’t remember. But I’m not tired.”
I really couldn’t, actually. Weird. Guess I’d been distracted! Hah!
“Hmm. Come here.”
This she said in that very particular, very soft tone of voice that just bypassed any defence or rationality or anything else I might ever have hoped to mount. Immediately I moved in closer. Her wings spread, enclosed me, and things were very soft and warm all of a sudden.
“You’re okay,” she said in the same tones, though now much nearer and so infinitely better. “You’re okay. I know this is a lot but you need to stop tying yourself in knots about it. You’ll always have me, no matter what. I’ll always love you. Okay?”
Ach. Those words. And that word in particular. Cuts right through me. All that faff I’d been filling my head up with, trimmed away. I mean, not really all of it, but enough to feel as though a weight was being lifted. How does she do that? Maybe I’m just easy.
“Okay,” I said, thickly. Wasn’t a whole lot else I could say.
The hug broke. We had a moment. A real staring-into-the-eyes moment.
Then another thought occurred to me, out of the blue:
“Oh yeah also, that reminds me - you should really look into some of the holes in your security. Umbra was able to just pull and copy the last report of my brain scan thingy.”
Celestia blinked at me.
“...what?”
“Well that’s what she told me. Has eyes and ears everywhere, she said,” I said.
“...you probably could have brought this to my attention earlier, John.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“I was picking my moment?” I ventured. Could be believable?
She sighed, put a hoof to her face.
“I will look into this. And don’t think you can change the subject that easily,” she said, giving me a gentle jab in the chest.
“I would never!” I protested.
A hard look from Celestia and I found myself shuffling my feet and looking at the floor.
“I might. But I didn’t just now! I honestly just remember that part. Really. Sorry. Uh, I could tell you something relevant instead?” I asked. Celestia, suspicious, leaned in closer, eyeing me intently. Maybe a little too intently.
“Go on,” she said.
I swallowed.
“To put it, uh, mildly, there are a few issues I’m concerned about vis, you know, the stuff in my head. Not going to go into them in depth because I did that with Twilight already and I feel guilty enough for unloading. But just to kind of cut to the bit that might be the top ranking concern I - fuck, rambling,” I took a breath, girded my loins and spat out the real crux of the matter as I saw it:
“I’m worried that if I did get all those memories back it would change the way I feel about you. There. Said it.”
A lot harder to say out loud than it was to just imagine saying it out loud.
I really didn’t know how she would take what I’d said and was kind of worried, honestly, but when I look from my feet to gauge her reaction I found her smiling again, albeit kind of...sadly? I don’t know. Kind of made me melt in the guts.
“John, I’m not - and I shouldn’t be - the only thing in your life,” she said.
“You’re not. Heh, said that a little quick didn’t I? No, I mean, you’re not, I do have more. I have other things I do, I have other buddies - look at Twilight! That’s not what I was saying though. I just - you’re a big part and a part I like and I am, ah, terrified that that’ll go away somehow. Not that you’ll go, obviously, but that - that I’ll change in a way that has you pushed away somehow. I don’t know how. It just scares me.”
I was now wringing my hands and fidgeting because I was not kidding that thought really did scare me. She was a big part of my life right now! I had other stuff, sure, but she was the Goddamn bedrock, my fixed point. I fucking loved her and I didn’t want that taken away from me or diluted or fiddled with, damnit.
Using a wing she gently pulled me in to give me a kiss on the forehead. Very nice.
“You don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. It is entirely up to you,” she said.
Kind of the problem, Celestia! But I get what you mean.
“I know, I know. It’s just the more I think about it the more it kind of gets obvious that there’s only one way forward from this. To me, at least. And it’s the only obvious way and I’m just getting tangled up in the worrying about it.”
Over thinking, over analysing separates the body from the mind. Withering my intuition, leaving opportunities behind. Sounds about right.
“Do you want to do it?” Celestia asked.
“Hah! No. Yes. I don’t know. I don’t really want to do anything. Ideally I’d just stay in a big bed with you forever in some kind of eternal stasis and never have to worry about anything but, heh, that’s unlikely. And this isn’t going away and I’m hardly going to be able to ignore it forever so...yeah…”
Just do it. Just do it. If you don’t you’ll spend every other moment from here on out wondering whether you made the right choice or not. Just do it, you fuck!
I mean, you could still wonder whether you’d made the right choice or not even if you do do it too but, uh, well…
No. No. It has to happen. Has to. No other way. Right?
Right?
Right.
“This whole issue has been the millstone around my neck and the elephant in my own personal room since pretty much the moment I woke up. Or the moment I found out about my mixed-up brain at least,” I said. “Need to draw a line under it. Only one way to do that. Only one proper way. The other way is a life of active blissful ignorance - the worst kind. No. Got to open up that door, get it all going. Let the other guy out.”
Man am I hamming it up! Well, when else will I have a chance like this?
“Are you sure?” She asked.
“Not in the slightest. But if you’ve got time to think twice you’ve, uh…”
I didn’t actually have the foggiest idea of what I’d been meaning to say there.
“Point is action is required. Yes,” I said, pounding a fist into my palm. That means action!
“It’s up to you, John. In the morning we-”
“No, no I might have bottled it by then. Sooner the better. Doctor Knacker doesn’t seem the sort to need sleep. We can just go and see him, right?”
I figured he must have some sort of magical brain poking machine lying around somewhere, even if it was just a prototype. Celestia bit her lip.
“Actually, you wouldn’t need to…” she said.
“Oh?”
“No. I could do it. It really wouldn’t take a lot. It’s just a question of a nudge in the right place.”
Not really what I’d expected to hear. But that’s magic for you. It’s a mugs game.
“Like, are we talking the magical equivalent of a stiff breeze here?” I asked. Celestia nodded, now just chewing on her lip through what was obviously nervousness.
“Pretty much. A stiff breeze in the right place, but still.”
Like, are we talking that if I’d decided against it I might have just caught some random magic to the head one day and it happened anyway? Or not? Didn’t Umbra leave notes somewhere? She could have at least inscribed some fucking instructions on the inside of my skull. Right now we’re just guessing!
Damnit Umbra!
“What the hell was she playing at…” I grumbled. I didn’t need to name Umbra outloud for Celestia to get who I was talking about. Wavelength again, bro.
“Maybe you should ask one of her eyes and or ears. They could ask her for you,” she said.
That’s a sobering thought.
“Maybe let’s just leave it a mystery. Anyway, enough distractions. You say you can do it?” I asked, rubbing my hands, setting my feet shoulder-width apart. No wobble!
“I could. If you wanted,” Celestia said.
“I do I do let’s go let’s go, I’m fired up. Right here in the corridor?”
“Right here in the corridor, if you want. I’d advise against it, myself.”
“You would?”
“Well, you might fall over and the floor is hard,” she said.
I gave the floor a quick stamp. She wasn’t wrong.
“Alright. New plan. We get into bed first, then do it. Good plan?” I asked.
“Good plan,” she said.
So we quickly continued on our way to her room, my heart thundering the whole way. I was onto this now. No turning back. Well, lots of turning back if I wanted it but no no no none of that, please. All ahead full! We’re getting this done! Taking the plunge! Geronimo!
Force of will, son, force of will. Enough of this whinging bollocks you’ve got to seize this by the throat!
Twilight’s right! You’re you! Just hold onto that! Fucking just - whenever and whatever and whoever comes flooding back remember the you you’ve put together! It’ll jut out of the sea of the other guy like a mighty, uh, rock spire thing.
Man you bounced back, didn’t you? I think you got something going on, son.
But no matter! Just finding something and cling onto it. You’ll be fine! You’ll be you!
Don’t waste time thinking about what that means, just make it happen!
And so we’re into Celestia’s room and onto the bed. Big ol’ bed, very safe if I did indeed topple over. I’m up on my knees, Celestia’s kind of halfway off the bed. Don’t ask me why. I’ve still got my heart going fit to burst but whatever, we’re doing this. We’re doing this!
“Are you totally sure about this John? You can wait if you want, we can do this in the morning.”
“No, now please."
"You're absolutely sure? There's nothing wrong in waiting. In fact I think that-"
"Waiting would be sensible but I'm worried what a sensible me might want to do. It might not be what I know needst to happen. I don’t want to change my mind on this. Hah! Mind change. No, no. I’m settled. But, uh, one thing first.”
“What- mmph!”
That would be what it sounds like when a princess is cut-off mid question by being kissed. At length!
Figured it was a good time for it. And it did much to bolster my resolve. The wonderfully dreamy look it left on her face made me feel much, much more at ease.
Hey, I’d always have her in my life somewhere, right? So it couldn’t be all that bad, right?
I closed my eyes.
“Alright. Hit me.”
Here goes nothing. Or everything. Hah!