Back in Ponyville, now, and feeling unsettled about my situation.
My situation, not my circumstances. My circumstances were pretty great. Got my dinky little house in the castle grounds in Canterlot, that’s great. Got a room always open for me in another, gaudier castle in Ponyville, that’s also great.
Still making my little lopsided toys for the all the kids, even with two steady hands - turns out I’m just bad at making them, who knew? I got shit to keep me busy is the point, and I got nice people coming out of my ears, I’m fucking golden.
My situation though nags at me.
Heh, nag. Horse joke.
For real though.
If I was conveniently orphaned or had just somehow popped up without parents - some sort of very disappointing designer baby, perhaps, abandoned in disgust - then I could probably just about deal with it.
‘It’ in this instance of course referring to my being here and not on Earth. ‘It’ being me getting transplanted into some strange magical land and shacking up with one of the local goddesses. Getting caught pinching her bottom by her sister, one of the other goddesses. I hang out with horses who have wings. There’s magic. That ‘it’. I can deal with that.
Home had been familiar, sure, but this place was pretty damn familiar to me now, and I was sure as hell having more fun with the horses than I had been with the humans.
But I was not conveniently an orphan, I was only half an orphan, and somewhere dad was still...aware of me. And if he was aware of me he would at some point become aware of me having disappeared. And he would worry. And knowing this twists me in the gut.
And that’s about it! Was hardly brimming with other connections that might make me feel bad about being torn from the bosom of my home planet. Fuck, my life was a turgid trudge before whatever happened to me happened to me. Only friends I had were work friends and they only hung out because we worked together. Girlfriend had gone. What the fuck did I have?
This was a pretty sweet deal for me, up until I remembered everything! Even with the limp! At least it gave me character! I fell over sometimes! It was fun for all the family.
Too late for that, so hell. Crossed that bridge, didn’t die, haven’t really turned into someone else as far as I can tell, golden, fucking golden. Everything else is fine. It’s just worrying about dad worrying about me. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got it. But it won’t go away.
What was that Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy thing? About threads of guilt? Attached all the way back to one’s home, getting stretched and distorted? I got one thread, and it’s this, and it’s doing my fucking nut.
So that’s the issue, that’s my issue.
What the hell am I going to do about it?
Can’t just sit around doing nothing, can I?
Well, I could, but I’d feel like a right prick.
Got to do something about it. Ignoring it - my usual go-to for things that make me unhappy - just isn’t going to cut the mustard forever. I distract myself, I do some things, I hang around with Twilight or Celestia or whoever, I mess around and have a laugh but the gnawing always come back, always the worrying. It’s not going anywhere!
So I got to do something. And for this one I really, really think that I have to be the one to do it. Somehow. Just feels appropriate, for one, and for another, my alternative was, well, asking for help.
Normally I’m kind of fine with that these days! Getting nursed back to health can do that. Kind of softened my natural reluctance to ask for any help. But there has to be a limit, right?
Couldn’t go running off every time something big looms going “Celly Celly help me” or “Twily Twily help me.”
Eurgh, Twily. That sounds weird. Never even think that again.
Still! The point remains!
Can’t very well just curl up into a ball and let them look after me forever.
Well, I could. And a part of me really, really wants to. That really indolent part of me somewhere right deep in the damper hindparts of my brain that just wants to do as little as possible and stay in bed (either Celestia’s or mine at a time with her in it, I’m not choosy) and let everyone else do the worrying.
That part is always there. I think it’s some sort of vestigial leftover of some earlier state of being. Something primordial and selfish and lazy. Everyone’s got to have something like that in there, right? That’s my excuse at least.
But no! None of that. Not this time.
I mean how hard can it be? They’ve got magic coming out of their ears around these parts. Twilight’s always reading this or that book by this or that ancient so-and-so who seemed to know the answer to whatever problem needed dealing with at the time. I can do that! I can read!
Well...I can’t, actually. Okay, first hurdle. First of many.
Just take it in stages. Any problem is less of a problem if you break it down into stages. All things are big and scary until you take them apart. Like a Tiger II.
...weird pull, but sure. Maybe just wait for the problem to break down and be abandoned by its crew, I guess.
I mean, I’d probably end up having to go and ask for help anyway given that this is probably wildly outside my abilities but at least when I do go crying to them I can say that I did something.
Kind of weird though, right? If I really was serious, wouldn’t I go to those who can help most first rather than faffing about myself, likely to no real result? I don’t know why. In my head this was just a me thing.
And besides, what if, say, only seconds were passing back home anyway? I’d have loads of time! Oodles!
And if not, well…
Look, I don’t have to justify myself to you, myself.
All of which is a real long way of explaining why I was sitting under a tree with one of those books Twilight had lent to me (lovely girl, Twilight), trying to read it.
Oh, and it was nice outside. Hence the tree. Otherwise I’d have been inside.
I’d like to say I was making solid progress but in the time I’d been slacking off on the quote-unquote ‘work’ Twilight had prepared for me to help me get into the swing of reading Mareain - and, having got my memory back, that name works on multiple levels now I tell you what - it seems that everything I’d learnt had just plopped out of my head.
So I’m back to square one I have no-one to blame but myself. Mea culpa. Languages were never my strong point to start with so not only was I lazy I was also on the backfoot from the get-go.
But I was determined. Had it all planned out. I’d knock this on the head, get it all down pat, lean on Spike to point me in the direction of the weighty tomes without informing Twilight, figure out whatever happens after that and boom, job done.
Yeah. Yeah that’ll work. Sure. I’ll buy that.
Am I playing for time? Am I procrastinating? Am I worried that, were I to bring this particular issue of mine to Twilight or Celestia they would drop something important they had to do in favour of helping out me, their buddy and, ahem, special friend respectively?
I don’t know. I just have a plan and I’m sticking to it.
“See spot. See spot...run? Seriously?” I muttered to myself, turning the book on its side. “This is some hot convergent bullshit, no way did this happen.”
I read and re-read the line but, as far as I could make out, that was what it said. Unreal, man. I had to shake my head. This place has issues.
“Howdy John,” came a delightfully folksy voice, so folksy I didn’t even have to look up to know who it belonged to. I looked up anyway, of course, and saw exactly who I expected to see.
Which is to say Applejack.
“And a howdy to you, too,” I said, giving her a wave as she sauntered - no, mosied - on over.
One of the nice things about being in Ponyville and not Canterlot was that I was forever bumping into people and having a nice natter. The downside being that none of those people were ever Celestia but, hell, can’t have everything.
And blah blah whole point of splitting my time was so that I wasn’t always hanging around with Celestia yada yada personal development growing as my own person bllaaaahhhh. I’d say no-one cares but I know at least one person who does. And she can come to me in my dreams and stare me down, so I kind of want to stay on her good side.
“Whatcha doin’?” Applejack asked once she’d reached the comfortable shade of the tree.
“Reading,” I said, tapping the book with a finger. I then held it up so she could get a better look and she leaned in, peering. Once she read the cover she looked a little on the confused side.
“Ain’t that a book for foals, though?” She asked.
“Got to start somewhere,” I said with a shrug.
She continued to look confused, but then she got it and then looked quietly appalled instead of confused.
“Ya can’t read?” She said with a level of incredulity that I admit might have stung a little. I gave her a little bit of the old raised eyebrow action, to show my feelings on the matter. My hurt feelings.
“I can read, I just can’t read your bizzaro language - it’s all Greek to me,” I said.
And back to confused for Applejack.
“Greek?”
“Exactly. Anyway, I’m just going over the basics again because I - idiot I am - squandered and wasted my time rather than sticking to the rather comprehensive lesson structure that Twilight outlined for me, nice girl that she is. So I’m getting back up to speed. Hence why I’m now engaged in reading about the pleasant adventures of this dog named Spot. It’s thrilling stuff. And educational!”
“I read that book, it ain’t about a dog,” she said, pointing.
She got me. For a split-second she actually got me. Then I remembered that this book had pictures. The grin she utterly failed to suppress also kind of gave the game away. I stuck my tongue out at her and she let out a guffaw which she mostly managed to muffle behind a hoof.
“I thought you were supposed to be honest?” I grumbled.
“Don’t mean I can’t have fun.”
Interesting position. I’d have to concede that.
“...fair play.”
Sudden, vivid memories of those times people would learn I was colourblind and start shoving pencils under my nose and lying about what colour they were. Only those guys had been right dicks, while Applejack was alright.
“So how is the book?” She asked, smiling the smile of the gently-poking-fun. I could play along with this.
“Oh, real page-turner, let me tell you. What’s just happened - and I don’t want to spoil this for you if you haven't’ read it so cover your ears now - is that spot, who is a dog, is running, and we are seeing that. I can’t wait to see what happens next, personally,” I said, making a great show of licking my fingers and turning the page.
“Ooh! I love this part!” Said a voice from above, a voice belonging to Pinkie, her head popping out of the tree with no warning whatsoever. I reacted accordingly:
“Jesus Christ!”
She then promptly fell from the tree and landed with an audible splat in my lap. I did not want to know why she went splat. I hoped to God it was just for the comedic value, given that was what she seemed to run on in lieu of anything us mortals might require.
It goes without saying that she also managed to land in the perfect sitting position, precisely placed so that I was holding the book in front of her. You could not have pulled it off better if you’d planned it for six months.
Fuck teleporting I want that magic. If it even is magic.
“He’s still running!” Pinkie gasped in shock, hooves pressed to her cheeks, eyes wide. I checked the book to verify.
“That he is. Think that word’s ‘Continue’ - not really a word for kids, is it? Or is it? I have no frame of reference. ‘Continue...to...see Spot run’. Pulse-steadying stuff.”
At least Spot looked like he was having a good time.
“Quick! Turn the page! I have to find out what happens!” Pinkie said with great urgency, tugging on my wrist, trying to coax me into doing her bidding.
“I thought you knew what happened?” I asked.
“I do! But it might have changed! Quick!”
I could naught but obey and, turning another page, was rewarded with another, louder gasp from Pinkie.
“HE’S STILL RUNNING!”
Make that Spot and Pinkie having a good time.
“Is that Pinkie I can hear?” Rarity asked, coming up out of my blindside and reacting with pleasant surprise on finding the three of us lurking on the other side of the tree. “Oh! Hello. Fancy bumping into you here!”
Was I sitting at a crossroads? What was this?
“Hello Rarity,” I said while Applejack tipped her hat in greeting. Pinkie raised a hoof and waved hap-hazardly, nearly catching me in the face.
“Hi Rarity! I’d say hello but I’m engrossed in a mile-a-minute plot! John! Turn the page! Anything could happen!” She said, prodding me on the nose while tapping my wrist again.
Again, how could I say no? I turned the page and Pinkie let out a lower gasp this time, the gasp of the truly shocked.
“He’s stopped running…” She said, awed, moving her face towards the book until her muzzle was barely an inch away, as though proximity might allow her some greater understanding of what had just happened. I, helpless adrift like a raft at sea, looked to Rarity and smiled, beleguard. She smiled back, politely, and asked:
“Um, is there a particular reason you are sat under a tree reading a foal’s book, John? Not that I mean to denigrate how you choose to spend your time! It is simply, ah, unexpected…?”
“John’s brushin’ up on readin’ Mareain,” Applejack cut in. I looked over at her. What gives, lady? Undermining me in front of the cool kids?
“Did I do something wrong to you?” I asked her.
“I kinda just like watchin’ you squirm,” she said.
“That’s...deeply unsettling…”
It really was.
“He doesn’t know how to read? But I thought he - I thought you’d been fixed up, good as new! You don’t know how to read?” Rarity asked, astounded, looking from Applejack and then to me, disbelief and mild pity written plain across her features.
At what point should I feel personally attacked. I gritted my teeth and, finally, surrendering, closed the book. Who can read under these conditions anyway? Under this relentless assault?
Pinkie was audibly dismayed, but she got over it pretty quickly, resolving her to just contentedly curl up on my lap and - from the sound of things - go to sleep.
“I can read, I just can’t read this. I’m what you might call functionally illiterate. At least around here. If I was writing in English I’d write rings around the lot of you. Then you’d feel my pain,” I said, wagging a finger at Rarity who was entirely unruffled.
“I’m sure we would, darling,” she said, patting me on the head. I sat there and took it like the big boy I was.
“Why do I put up with this…”
“Because you’re a softy?” Pinkie suggested, not having apparently gone to sleep (or having woken up), reaching up to pat my cheek, presumably just so I was being patted twice. I looked to Applejack on the off-chance she felt the need to join in and pat some other part of my skull. Thankfully, she did not, and was just watching the other two, unimpressed.
“...fair play. Again. Goddamnit, you guys got me dead to rights, you do,” I said.
It’s the eyes. And the voices. And the honest-to-goodness fucking sincerity of the bastards. Gets me every time it does. Some more than others, admittedly, but as a whole they really do seem to be a weakness of mine.
They’re just so bloody nice!
Rainbow Dash then arrived, zooming in from somewhere and coming to a dead halt in a rush of wind that had all of us scrunching up our eyes.
“What’s everyone doing hanging out here? Did I miss something? Oh, hi John - what’s with the book for babies?” She asked, flapping in place and pointing to the book still held, now closed, in my hand.
Fuck, is this an intervention? By accident? Into my literacy?
“I’m just doing a little light reading and I thought doing it outside would be a pleasant and relaxing experience. More fool me,” I said, brushing off some of the dust that Dash’s arrival ahd kicked up.
“Yeah! And I’ll have you know the Spot-verse is deep, rich and compelling!” Pinkie declared. I looked down at her.
“Think you might be overselling the bit there, Pinkie.”
She looked up at me and blinked in honest confusion.
“What bit?”
“Nevermind,” I said, giving her hair a little ruffle and getting a squeak out of her for my reward. Delightful!
“Hey guys, is something happening?” Twilight asked, being as she was now the next one to arrive, wandering up out of nowhere.
That’s it. This tree is cursed. Or I’m cursed. There’s no other explanation for this.
“Hello Twilight,” I said, having given up caring at this point. Leaf on the wind. Wherever and whatever happens, there I am.
At least Twilight looks happy, and when Twilight looks happy everything does feel that much better. Can even take the edge off of sitting underneath what is obviously the cursed tree of contrived coincidences.
“Hello John, what’s up?” She asked.
“I was reading. It’s now become some sort of group mockery session. I’m the target. Welcome,” I said, spreading my arms. Rarity huffed.
“Mockery indeed! As though we’d be so harsh,” she said.
“I could be harsher,” Rainbow said, as though she’d only been warming up. In fairness to her she had just arrived moments ago.
“How is the reading going?” Twilight asked, ignoring both of them. She’d been clearly ever-eager to ask but equally ever-aware that asking too much might be seen as badgering, so had held back. This though was a perfect excuse to ask and so she’d leapt on it.
“He’s startin’ over, he says,” Applejack said before I could say anything. I glared at her, but she just smiled back. After all that tool-fixing I did for her? To betray me like this? With words? Why Applejack, why?
I didn’t get drunk and insult her choice of headwear, did I? You think I’d remember something like that...
Twilight blinked, perplexed, head cocked.
“Starting over?” She asked.
Way to grass me up, Applejack, yeesh.
“I may have been a little lax in my studies as I think I’ve mentioned before. But - but! - I just need a little refreshing. Then I’ll be back to where I got last time and back on to improving. Scout’s honour,” I said, holding up a hand. Which I assumed was what you were meant to do when you said that.
What with me never having been a scout and all. What with me never having had an abundance of honour.
For whatever reason what I’d said perked Twilight up immediately.
“Oh! Do you want some help? I can help! We can sit down together and, uh, I can help!” She said, brightly, with overwhelming enthusiasm. The others looked at her sideways. Rarity smirked, Pinkie stifled a giggle by cramming both hooves into her mouth and Applejack rolled her eyes. Presumably I was missing something important, some in-joke.
“Um, if you’re offering. And if you’re not busy, obviously! Wouldn’t want to distract you.”
“Not a distraction! It’s fine! I have plans for this!” She said, clearly extraordinarily excited that this had come up.
This did not surprise me in the least, her having plans. I was, after all, already operating within the learning structures of her previous plan. Agreeably I was doing a cackhanded job of it but that was my fault, not Twilight’s. Twilight is tops, the problem lies with me.
“Well, if you’re sure.”
“Of course! We can start right now! Or, uh, later if you prefer. Whatever works for you! Oh, I have to go and prepare, get everything ready. Um, you can come over later if you like? Wait, you stay at the castle, don’t you? You’ll be coming there anyway/ Haha! Forgot! Silly. I’ll - um - I’ll go get it ready. Yeah. It’s not a distraction, I planned for this. See you later!”
And off she galloped. I was a tad stunned, honestly.
Couldn’t she fly?
“Whoa. If I knew she was going to get that excited I’d have asked her sooner - did you see her little face light up?” I asked, looking about at the others. None of them met my eye. Weird.
“Yeah, if nothing else is happening then I got some stuff I could be doing. See you guys later,” Rainbow said before zipping off as quickly and as gustily as she had arrived.
“You were here for, like, thirty seconds!” I called after her, but to no avail for she was long, long gone. Meanwhile in my lap Pinkie was tapping her chin.
“I think I left the oven on. Should probably check that. Have fun learning to read, John! And don’t let anyone spoil the ending!”
She then, accompanied by the sound of a spring, shot straight up back into the tree which rustled briefly, shedding a couple leaves. I assumed this meant that she was also long, long gone.
“What,” I said, clutching at straws, looking to Rarity or Applejack for something, anything, but they appeared almost (but not quite) as lost as I was.
Rarity recovered first:
“Yes, well, I suppose there are things we could all be getting on with, hmm? I imagine we shall run into one another soon enough! Oh, and do have fun with Twilight, John,” she said, capping it off with another smirk as she turned to leave. As she left I held my hands up before me, as though begging the universe itself for answers.
As is typically the case the universe did not deign to provide any. I search for meaning in the meaningless. How absurd of me.
That just left Applejack. I turned to her.
“This has been a very peculiar morning. And that’s by my standards,” I said.
And I’d been kidnapped before! And fallen through dimensions. My standards were high.
“Things did go a little strange a lotta fast,” she said, tipping back her hat.
“That’s because I am the axis about which this whole universe turns, Applejack,” I said with as much straight-faced bluster as I could muster. I was basically Zaphod Beeblebrox - most important thing alive!
Though, actually, that was because he was in a fake universe in which he was the most important thing, wasn’t it? And I really don’t think that’s the case with me.
Importantly Applejack got that I was joking and chuckled appropriately.
“Sorry for raggin’ on ya back then,” she then said with obvious contrition but I waved her off. I could take a joke and it had all been a joke, so no harm done.
“Oh it’s fine, it was pretty funny. Guessing you’ve got important stuff to go do now, as well?” I asked.
“Ah do,” she said. So folksy! “Just saw ya while I was walkin’ ‘tween errands and figured I’d see how you were doin’. Then all that happened.”
“It did indeed. Well, off you toddle, don’t let me keep you. Got anything down the farm that needs fixing?”
I did still do that for her now and then, as required. Now I had steadier hands I was probably a little better at it, in contrast to my toy-making abilities. So that was nice. I could fix a bucket like a motherfucker.
“Not right now. Maybe end o’ the week?”
I nodded.
“I’ll swing round then, sound good?” I asked.
She nodded. Business nods, for we were serious people talking about serious things. Like buckets that needed fixing but not yet.
“Sounds good. See ya later, John,” she said, turning and waving and departing. I waved too.
And, once she was gone, I let out a breath.
“Can’t say Ponyville’s boring,” I said to myself. Just me about the book again.
Of course, I then looked about just in case anyone was hiding and waiting to pounce - Celestia, mainly, as she seemed to take an inordinate amount of pleasure in scaring the pants off of me all the time - but was pretty definitively alone.
Ideal reading conditions.
I started over, being as how I’d kind of lost my place in the fast-paced, twist-a-minute plot. Wouldn’t want to get to the end and not understand it because I’d missed some vital piece of the story, would I?
“Alright Spot, Pinkie says you’re going to deliver, don’t let me down. See...Spot...run. Hah! I’ve got this in the bag.”
By the time I went to Twilight I wouldn’t even need help!
...probably...