//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Adapting (Hardwired's Perspective) // Story: Different // by Hardwired //------------------------------// One day I suddenly woke up in the middle of nowhere, I didn’t know where I was, but I felt some sort of warmth, I realized I was tucked in a bed, but which bed, I didn’t know anything, all these thoughts were swirling around my head, suddenly, 2 figures approached me, they were all blurry, I didn’t know if it was me or if they were like that. One of the figures was dark blue with a seemingly glowing and flowing galaxy on her. The other one was mostly white and had a palette of pastel colors also shining and moving for some reason, anyways, they were kind of far so I couldn’t see them very well. Suddenly, one of them spoke, I didn’t know who because for some reason I saw all blurry, I wish I could fix that. They said: “Ah I see you have woken up Hardwired.” Hardwired… where have I heard that before, suddenly it clicked on my mind, I remembered in my dream something telling me that I was destined for great things and that my name was… Hardwired! That was it! To be honest, I was afraid of saying anything to these mysterious creatures, for everything I know they could be trying to kidnap me! When that thought swirled around my mind, other bad possibilities started popping up, and it was like I couldn’t control them, they started overtaking my mind, I couldn’t think, and without realizing it I shed a tear. One of the figures said: “Don’t be sad, it’s ok.”, for some reason her voice made me feel calmer, there was something in the way she spoke. The other figure said: “He probably doesn’t understand us, Luna, he hasn’t spoken a word, if he did, he would have talked to us already”, they had a bit of a rougher voice, it didn’t have the same charm as the other. I decided to nod, to say in some way that I did understand them, again, I didn’t really want to speak, all these questions I had in my mind I just kept them to myself, I didn’t know how to express them really. Then, the melodious voice spoke again: “See! He does understand us!” She seemed excited, but about what? What was I missing? The other voice started speaking: “Well, wow, that’s a pleasant surprise, can you speak for us young one?” I didn’t know how to answer that, so I just shook my head. That same voice talked again: “Why won’t he speak, he can understand us, so why would he not speak?” I started identifying where the voices came from, the closer they got to me, the less blurry it was, it still was blurry for some reason, but at least I saw some other facial features. Then, the dark blue mare started speaking again: “Maybe he just needs some time sister, hey little guy!” I felt nice after she said that. “My name is Luna, and her name is Celestia. Luna and Celestia, Luna and Celestia, I kept repeating those words to myself, are these going to be my caretakers? Luna handed me a piece of paper and a pencil. “If you don’t feel confident enough to tell us anything it’s fine, just write it down on this paper, it’ll make you feel better.” I was starving, so instinctively I wrote: “Food.” I didn’t know where I learned how to write but damn do I have some good writing. Celestia said: “Oh ok! I’ll go make some pancakes right away, stay here with Luna, Hardwired.” I wanted to tell her so much, I just didn’t know how to express myself, so many questions, so I wrote the first thing that came to my mind on that paper. I wrote “You’re blurry.”, that’s the first thing that came to my mind, I pointed at the words to show Luna. Luna said: “Oh, you must need glasses, I’ll make some appear and you can try them on!” I gave a small nod, what were glasses? According to me, glass is the one on the windows, so windows maybe? Why the hell would I need windows? Anyways, for the first time I saw how magic worked, I saw an aura of the color of her mane around her horn and all of a sudden, poof, some “glasses” appeared. “Ok, I brought them, you try them on and tell me how they are.” She told me, it felt nice to have somepony understand me. I started trying them all out, even when I tried them, I still saw blurry, I just shook my head if it wasn’t helping. Luna’s voice tone seemed a little concerned: “Oh wow, you must really have seen us very blurry for none of these glasses to be working, here’s the last and most powerful pair, they are a bit oversized, but I’m sure you’ll get used to them.” She sounded more confident that these would work. She handed them to me, indeed they were big, but I could handle. I put them on and it was like. Wow, I could see everything perfectly now, I couldn’t believe it! I saw Luna’s smile for the first time, I saw her detailed mane, I saw all the details around her room, it was amazing! I excitedly gave a nod, and she giggled. “I knew these would work on you.” She said, I still didn’t know how to put into words what I wanted to say, it was all these thoughts and feelings of emotion. Suddenly, without any hesitation, Celestia barged into the room saying in a loud voice: “Pancakes are ready!”. Loud noises hurt but really hurt my ears so I covered them as soon as I heard the first thing that could be considered a shout. Luna went over to my bed to comfort me: “I think he doesn’t like loud noises…” It was almost like she could read my mind! Celestia looked a bit ashamed: “Oh… I-I didn’t realize that, sorry Hardwired.” She noticed my glasses and said: “Look how handsome our little boy is with his new glasses.” She gave me a faint smile, that gave me a confidence boost, anyways, I got up and left the room, Celestia and Luna were talking to each other, but I was just amazed at the magnitude of this castle, there was door after door after door! It was endless! I decided to go check out one of the already open doors, when I went to check it out, I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was filled with books, books on top of books, shelves full of them, I feasted my eyes on the glorious sight, but I couldn’t do that all the time, I had to check out other parts of the room. I saw a huge window on the second floor of what seems to be the library, books laying on the floor, a small table and some chairs to read, I decided to go check out the second floor, and saw a view of the whole town! I didn’t know what town it was, but it was quite big, well for me, it had tons of houses, shops, and I saw an apple farm in the distance! Out of nowhere, a pony came in the room! I decided to quickly find shelter next to a stand full of books in the second room. This mare looked a bit different than Luna and Celestia though. For one she was way shorter than them, secondly, she had no glowing and flowing galaxy mane, she just seemed like a regular pony like me. She was this lavender, dare I say a bit purple fur color and a dark purple mane with some strands of pink hair, and same goes for her tail. Beside her I saw something that I hadn’t seen before, it was this sort of creature, it was standing on its hind legs, he was really short, actually shorter than me which I find surprising! He was purple, but had green spread around his body, for some reason he had wings, but not normal wings, like bat wings or something, and some scales on his back! It had to be… “A dragon!” I thought to myself out loud, and apparently loud enough for the mare to hear. The mare exclaimed: “Huh? Who’s there?” She seemed worried. I decided to hide behind a shelf on the second floor, not very good cover, but it was the best I had. The dragon, on the other hand, he didn’t really hear me say anything. “Twilight, I’m sure you’re just imagining things like always, I mean, it’s stressful and all to have to organize this next semester of school, but you should get some sleep like really get some sleep.” The mare seemed to agree with him… or her, I didn’t know, he sounded like a girl but looked like a boy. “You’re right, ok, I’m going to get some sleep.” Then, she and her assistant exited the room. And a couple of seconds later, Celestia enters the room, she seems very desperate, I went over to her and she spotted me and came running towards me, and before I knew it. She started hugging me and teared up a little. “I-I thought I lost you, d-don’t run off again.” What do you mean runoff? I was just exploring the castle. “I recommend you cover your ears now,” Celestia said and I did as told, then she shouted. “HE’S SAFE! I FOUND HIM!” It still startled me a little bit, but without the warning, I would’ve had a breakdown. Luna came running into the room, she seemed worried, but all those worries seemed to dissipate when she saw me. Luna said: “We were really worried for you, why did you do that? You scared the crap out of us.” I didn’t know what I did wrong, but I still felt really bad, so I decided to write on my sheet of paper. “What’s wrong?” Luna seemed shocked at the question: “What’s wrong, well you ran off that’s what’s wrong!” She said that a little too loud for my liking, so I hid behind Celestia. Luna immediately regretted saying that. “I’m sorry sweetie, it’s just that.” She tried to give me a hug, but I backed away, why would she give me a hug after she shouted at me, that makes no sense. “Oh…” Luna seemed a little hurt. “Ok then, I guess you don’t want a hug." Celestia then told me something I won’t forget anytime soon: “Look, honey, we make mistakes even though we are princesses, we are also learning, we don’t know what you like or don’t so that’s why you need to tell us… We’ll try to not shout or talk loudly anymore, now, why don’t you go give Auntie Luna a hug?” I immediately went and gave her a big hug, hugs from what I’ve seen make you feel better, and it definitely made me feel better, and Luna seemed happy. Celestia said: “So, what do we say we go get some pancakes before they are cold?” I grinned a little and gave a nod and we were on our way to get breakfast.