You were thinking this was some sort of cosmic joke, or perhaps a off color prank by Discord. That was hours ago. Since then this experience had become your own personal blimp to Tartarus with the Human, Anonymous, sitting in the pilot seat.
“Whew! That was a good memory.”
You were laying on your side, in the middle of the pathway between the memories, with your eyes closed. Your torturer had been acting like a foal in a candy store. He seemed either incapable or unwilling to slow down, going to the next memory as soon as the last one ended.
“I’m going to go back and watch the last one again. Remember that one?”
You didn’t even bother to reply. You just laid there with your eyes closed, trying to fall asleep. There was a small chance that Luna would visit your dream where you could send her a message. Perhaps you could beg her for help, to somehow free you from this insanity.
“That was the one where Twilight tried transformation magic on me and turned me into a deck chair.”
Surely your sister would likely then pass on the message to Twilight Sparkle. Then she and her student, Starlight Glimmer, would come up with an ingenious plan to mount a rescue. Then in no time at all you would be out of the Ascended Realm, back on the beach, and far, far away from the human. If you ever saw him again after this it would be too soon.
“You okay there, Princess?”
His voice sounded very close. You dared to open one of your eyes to look at him. As much as you didn’t want to, it was the polite thing to do. You saw that he was stooped over you, bent at the waste in an attempt to get his face closer to yours.
“You don’t look so hot.” For some reason he chuckled at that. Perhaps it was wordplay at your expense. You are the Alicorn of the sun, after all. “Maybe I should just keep going without you? There are only…” he looked down the path, probably to count the remaining memory viewing portals. “Seven, eight, nine….” Yes, he was counting them out loud. He turned back to you, held up both hands and spread his fingers wide, “At least twice as this many.”
At least twenty more memories to go. You and he had already watched several dozen memories containing mishaps, accidents, and other unfortunate circumstances that he had somehow lived through. There was even a memory where he bought a double-bladed, razor-whip Chop Jimmy from the con-artists known as Flim and Flam. Chop Jimmy’s were outlawed for a reason! If you weren’t extremely careful with hoofing them they assuredly would take a limb clean off! Luckily, Anonymous had accidentally dropped it, causing it to misfire, where it wrapped around and bifurcate a sycamore tree. You had wondered why a gardener had decided to remove the tree from the Royal Arboretum. Now you know that it wasn’t removed by choice and Anonymous was to blame. You made a mental note to address a royal Demand Letter in his name to the royal arboretum.
“You should go on without me. I am only here to guide and you seem completely capable to do so yourself.” You closed your eyes again in an attempt to reach the dream realm.
“Okay, iffn you’re sure.”
“But do let me know what you discover at the end of your path.”
You could hear him walking away, swishing something through the air. “Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. Ooh, I wonder if the memory of when Spike sent me to Canterlot by dragon fire is in here somewhere.”
You let out an undignified groan.
Normally, one can send a dragon fire message by writing on a piece of paper, then having a dragon magically burn it while the dragon had the recipient in mind. It was a simple spell that was unique to dragons.
But a body is several thousand times the flammable volume of a scrap of paper or a scroll of parchment. You vividly remember that day in the throne room. It was just after lunch. You remember because the royal chef had served a mango salad with peanut dressing which had been absolutely was divine. You had just opened Day Court when a wispy, screaming mouth appeared next to your head, hovering several hoof lengths above the white marble dais. It then proceeded to take several hours for the spell to convey the human’s entire body from Ponyville to Canterlot. All the while he had been aware of his body burning on one end of the spell and being reconstituted on the other. To this day the Crown is still receiving therapy bills from several noble houses.
You deigned to rolled on to your back to kick at the air like a little filly having a tantrum. You had to get out. You had to escape this madness! There was no way the human could ever make heads or tails of all these memories. They had nothing in common!
Your ear flicked at a sound. The gentle slap, slap, slap of cloth shoes beating upon Everwater tiles was rapidly approaching your position.
“Cee-cee! I think I figured out why I’m here, what all these memories have in common! We can finally go!”
It sounded to you like Anonymous had accomplished what you thought to be impossible. You rolled back over onto your hooves and stood up. You would finally be free! Your smile was genuine for the first time since your sister had returned from her banishment nearly eleven years ago.
Just as he begun to speak, the Ascended Realm started to send the both of you back to the mortal plain. You could barely make out what he was saying as both your and his forms were fading from this plain of existence. “I’m going to be the Alicorn of …!”
Then you were back on the sandy shore of the Eastern coastline, from the very same spot where you had left several hours ago. The wave action from the surf had half buried your favorite sun hat in the sand. It was a lovely hat. Luna had bought it for you from the local Cap Shack this morning. It sat well upon your head without prickling at your ears. It's firm, woven grass brim will be greatly missed, at least until you find a replacement.
The Ascended Realm had sent the two of you back so quickly that you had missed what Anonymous had said. Now Luna and you needed to take the train back to Canterlot for the coronation of a new Alicorn. You were going to see Anonymous fourteen hours from now and it was far, far too soon.