'Selfish.'
That's what I am. I'm a selfish old bastard. I shouldn't have activated self destruct. Tyler's devastated, confused face is burned into the back of my eyeballs. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget what I did.
'They're not bronies.'
That's right… none of the kids were. I'm the last. The last one I could find that gave a shit anyway. There were some still alive out there, some even younger than me. But they weren't dedicated, they weren't real bronies.
'I've got a family here.'
'I'm retired.'
'I'm too old.'
Excuses, excuses. All I ever got. All the good people are dead now. I am the last brony.
The kids on the research team… they didn't work their whole lives for this… but maybe they still deserved a piece of the cake... I don't know. I could go back and forth with this all day. They weren't in it for the ponies, or even the dimensions, anyway. I know that much.
I think.
They put up with my crap for the technology. For science. Right? Reinventing physics and disproving Einstein, that's why they worked for me. And they did it, right? They're young, they have the rest of their lives to take all of our ideas and discoveries with them. Even if self destruct protocol 1109 did include destroying as much data as possible, they still have it in their heads. Probably some of them already stole as much as they could get their grubby little hands on anyway. Maybe all my hard work, our hard work, will finally see the light of day.
'They got what they wanted.'
But then why do I still feel like shit? Why can't I push Tyler's face out of my mind? Those teary puppy dog eyes. That frown framed by a 5 o'clock shadow. The kind of young man with ambition in his heart and a spring in his step.
'Me.'
He reminds me… of myself. That's it… He's just like I was, when I was his age.
And I destroyed his hopes and dreams.
Dear Celestia, what have I done?
"Are you crying?"
I want to lie. I want to deny it.
But I just nod 'yes.'
"Oh… cheer up Mr. Dane! The hospital food's not THAT bad!" Nurse Redheart says as she slides a tray of food on top of me.
I can't help but chuckle between sobs.
She gives me a soft smile. "That's better. Now eat up, you need your strength."
I sniffle and nod at her with a little smile.
She canters out of the room and gently shuts the door behind her. I look down to my food. Salad, a little bit of jello, and some indescribable mush.
Hmm… this mush ain't that bad. I wonder if this is the usual food for patients, or is it just because I'm old. At least I still have my teeth.
Oh, who am I kidding? It's terrible.
Beans? Peas maybe? I give up.
My room's door opens, and a nurse pokes her head in. "You have visitors!" She says in a sing-song voice.
Twilight slowly steps inside.
"Good afternoon, Dane!" She greets me.
And she's followed in by none other than the Element of Honesty herself.
Breathe, Dane. Breathe.
"Whoa, nelly…"
Whoa nelly is right.
Applejack and I just eyeball each other for a moment. You know, the first time I saw her, in the show of course, I thought she was tan… not orange. Then again, I'm pretty damned colorblind. And after a while, I saw orange when I looked at her. But now I'm back to having trouble. In fact, I'd have to say her coat might look more orange in a certain light, and more tan in another.
Then again, I'm pretty damned colorblind.
The different shades of color created by the tiny, soft shadows cast by her muscles… oh my, she's actually quite muscular. Well, maybe 'toned' would be a better term. It can't be an earth pony thing… the nurses aren't like this. I wonder if that's considered attractive? Or if not, what's the cutoff for the amount of muscles on mares? I hate to think that she'd be considered…
Twilight gives her a little nudge and a dirty look.
"Uh, I mean, pleasure to meet yer acquaintance!" She tips her hat with big awkward smile.
Twilight grumbles a little at this.
I giggle at it. "Nice to meet you too. I'm sure Twi's told you already, but I'm Dane. And don't worry… I know I probably look like some kind of big scary alien to you guys."
"I was gonna say 'a shaved monkey.' " Applejack deadpans.
"Applejack!" Twilight scolds her friend.
"What?!" She returns.
I just laugh! This is funny! 'Shaved monkey!' Wow, talk about fanfiction cliché!
The two mares in my room soon join in on some hearty laughter.
As it tapers off, Twilight says, "Well, he did say his species was related to primates."
"Ya mean monkeys?" Applejack cracks with a quirky smile.
"Well yeah, it's true. We're most closely related to chimpanzees, or so I've heard."
"Oooh!" Twilight exclaims with wide eyes, then quickly summons her writing tools and scribbles down some notes.
"So where ya'll from anyhow?" Applejack asks as Twilight finishes up her notes.
"Another dimension!" I proclaim in a spooky voice, while giving her my best jazz hands.
"Really? So like a-whole-nother world?"
I nod with a content smile.
"You know," Twilight starts, looking over her reading glasses and pointing the soft end of her red quill towards me, "the term 'dimension' is technically inaccurate for what you're describing..."
Applejack rolls her eyes.
"A 'dimension' is a degree of freedom," Twilight continues. "Zero dimensions is no degree of freedom, just stuck on a single point. One dimension is the ability to move back and forth in a straight line, like a train on tracks. Two dimensions…"
If Twilight were my employee, she'd be fired.
On the bright side…
I'm being lectured by Twilight!
YES!
"…hypothetically they influence everything, so that may be testable. But anyway, what you're talking about would be an alternate, or parallel, universe, not a dimension," she finishes with a smug smile.
I look to Applejack, who silently mouths the words, "She does that," to me while Twilight's not looking.
"So…" Applejack tries to resume normal conversation, "are there ponies in that other dim- uh, I mean, where you come from?" Now more comfortable with me, she steps closer, making unfamiliar little clinks and clacks along the tiled floor that I didn't pick up on before.
Applejack… is shod?
Funny, knowing as much as I do about this world, from the show and from the Viewer, that there are still things that would surprise me. The whole horseshoe thing was consistently glossed over in the show, and I suppose it just wasn't something I was looking for while scouting alternate universes.
"Uh…" I stammer, just coming out of thought. "Ye… no… kinda."
"Huh?"
"Well, there are equines, but they're not… um… intelligent."
Applejack cocks her head sideways at this, and Twilight begins scribbling furiously on her note parchment floating in mid air.
"So ya mean to tell me, that where you're from, ponies are dumb animals and the monkeys wear clothes and talk?" Applejack asks with disbelief.
"Humans… and pretty much. That sounds awfully familiar though…"
Applejack giggles "An' I s'pose the ponies are like slaves to the humans?" She jokingly asks.
Uh oh.
They take my silence as an answer. Twilight just looks over her reading glasses at me in surprise.
Applejack glares at me. "Really?!"
"No! No, it's nothing like that!" I wave my hands in the air defensively. "They're more like pets…" I cringe. "I hate to put it that way, but they are! You know, we love and care for them, admire them even!"
I can't say anymore. I'm panting. I feel like I just ran a marathon.
Applejack comes much closer and puts both her forehooves on the edge of the bed. She gently strokes my arm with a (yes) shod hoof. "It's alright sugar cube. I think I know what you're tryin' to say." She smiles gently at me, with her face so very close to mine. I manage to look into her sour-apple green eyes for just a moment.
Her kind eyes relax me, but they do nothing to stop my battered old heart from pounding in my chest.
"Are you alright Dane?" Twilight asks me.
I nod weakly in response.
"We better let you rest then, come on Applejack."
I keep my eyes closed as they clip-clop and clink-clank out of the room.
But the clip-clop comes back. I crack my eyes open to see Twilight standing in the doorway.
"Don't worry Dane, we're not mad at you or anything." She smiles. "I'll see you tomorrow."
She gently clicks the door shut.
And my damn doctor back home said I was healthy enough for sex.
At least I'm feeling good enough to get out of bed and go take a dump by myself. Not entirely sure I'll ever get used to squat toilets. Oh well, small price to pay, I guess.
I shuffle back over to my bed, putting most of my weight on this far-too-short-for-me IV pole. I sit down on the edge of the mattress and try to catch my breath after the long hike back from my room's bathroom, all of 15 feet away from my bed.
While I relax, I glance over to the empty bed in my room. Obviously, there's two reasons why it would be unoccupied. One, this hospital is simply not that populated, it is a small town after all. Or two, the staff are deliberately keeping me to myself.
That option in itself would have a couple possible implications. They could be doing it for my condition, to keep me relaxed or something, or because I might scare another patient…
KNOCK KNOCK
"Come in!"
Ah, for once a nurse hasn't announced the presence of visitors.
"Hi Dane!"
"Hi Twi."
"You look like you're feeling better."
I nod absentmindedly and crane my neck a little to get a better look at who's following closely behind her.
Well, well. If it isn't the renowned fashionista.
I think I'm getting used to these introductions, I'm still breathing normally.
My, my. And here I thought Nurse Redheart had a white coat. Rarity's is almost brightening up the room. And it looks absolutely flawless. Shiny and smooth. I can't completely observe her form, as much of it is obstructed by smooth white saddlebags (perhaps silk?) with a diamond-shaped clasp on each bag.
I never did settle what color her mane is. Some people say blue, some people say purple, and some say indigo, which, if you ask me, is vague enough to fit. I might have thought Applejack's coat color-shifts in the light, but Rarity's hair most definitely does. Parts of it shimmer royal blue, and others a deep purple. Her curls are exquisite, like a work of art. And somehow… they don't seem stiff. They bounce around very softly with her movements, as if they're natural, and not the product of copious amounts of hairspray. Maybe it's some kind of perm.
"Dane, this is my friend Rarity," Twilight gestures behind her. She gives me a look that tells me to play along, but it's not reflected in her voice at all.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Dane. I've heard so much about you!" She says, not losing her composure for a second at the sight of me.
"And I, you, Miss Rarity," I say.
Twilight gives me a dirty look.
"Oh? I suppose Twilight has told you all about her friends, hmm?" She smiles and bats her very real-looking eyelashes at me.
"Not really." I crack a creepy smile.
"Hmm… Well Twilight says you're from a completely different world. So if Twilight hasn't told you about yours truly, then who has?"
Twilight glares daggers at me and slightly shakes her head 'no.'
"Yes. Actually, you're very popular where I'm from."
"I… wha…" Rarity stammers, looking very confused.
Twilight grumbles a little bit.
"You all are, this whole world is. That's why I wanted…"
"WAAA-HA-HAAAAA!!!" Rarity cuts me off. "My designs' fabulosity have transcended the very fabrics of time and space! I am THE premiere fashionista of the multiverse!"
Twilight and I stare at the white unicorn until she finally wipes that grin off her face, and clears her throat in a very ladylike manner.
"Well isn't that grand?" She notes subtly.
Twilight and I find humor in her pitiful cover-up, and we start chuckling.
"What?" Rarity innocently asks, looking between us. "Hmph." It sounds almost like a giggle.
"Oh Rarity, come on. That was a little funny," Twilight insists.
"Hmm," Rarity giggles, "Perhaps just a tiny bit… So, Dane, Twilight tells me you might be interested in some outfits?" She asks excitedly.
"Yes… actually, it's more of a need than an interest now…" I glance over to a chair by the window, the light of Celestia's setting sun barely clipping the edge of it. On it, in the shadows, are my old clothes. "It seems the doctors had to cut my clothes off to operate, and well… it would be a little um… uncomfortable for me to prance around town in the nude."
"Oh." I think she picked up on my meaning. "Well, I came prepared!" She levitates a yellow tailor's measuring tape from one of her bags, and straightens it out to full length in her faint blue aura. "Could I take your measurements?"
"I would be honored."
She proceeds to take several measurements of my upper body, probably way too many, but she's probably just being thorough because I'm so different. She writes them all down on a little notepad with a pencil, sometimes writing and measuring at the same time.
"I need to measure your hind legs. Do you think you can stand?" She asks.
I nod and pull myself up, using the IV pole for a little help.
"You are quite tall, aren't you?" She looks up to me.
"Heh heh. Yeah I guess so."
She goes in to measure my legs and…
"AAAAHAHHHHHHHH!!!" She shrieks in horror.
"What? What is it?" I ask, thankfully she didn't startle me too much.
Twilight hurries over.
"Darling! The cut on your leg!"
I glance down at the unsightly surgical cut on the inside of my right leg.
Oh, that.
When I was becoming lucid enough to talk to about the surgery, the surgeon explained everything and apologized profusely for the incision they made on my leg to harvest the arteries for that double bypass they did. It runs from my ankle in a wavy, almost zig-zag, pattern all the way up to just below my crotch. I thought it looked bad too, but the surgeon explained that they had no idea where to look, so they just kept cutting until they found what they needed. I didn't mind, and I kept telling him not to worry about it. I'm just happy I'm alive and that they had the knowledge and technology to do heart surgery like that. And I think all the doctors, and myself, are grateful that I'm not that anatomically different from them, on the inside anyway.
"Yeah, I know it looks bad, but they had to find the arteries to use for the bypass surgery."
"Bad?! BAD?! This stitch-work is absolutely horrendous!!!" She cries dramatically.
I hear Twilight stifling a laugh.
"Heh heh, yeah I guess their stitching isn't exactly top-notch either."
"Dear, that's an understatement. Anyway, I will be needing you to um… ahem… lift up your hospital gown… if you don't mind?" I think I see a blush under that fur.
How that's even possible is beyond me.
"Ah. Um…" I look over to Twilight who has a strange look in her eyes. "Twilight, would you mind… stepping outside for this part? Please?" I smile awkwardly at her.
"Alright." She looks a little disappointed, and trots out of the room, magically closing the door behind her.
The last thing I want is Twilight examining my old junk. I'm sure Rarity will have the decency to look away at least.
I lift up my gown, which, by the way, fits perfectly. Although it's not a whole lot more than two rectangular pieces of thin fabric tied together.
Rarity goes in for some measurements. "Is that about the usual size for human males?" She looks up at me inquisitively.
I guess I was wrong…
Now it's my turn to blush. "I'd certainly like to think so," I say as I look away from her.
She giggles and takes some more measurements. Again, probably too many.
"Could you turn around please?"
I comply.
"Ah, you have a cutie mark."
Uh oh. I forgot about that.
"That's funny, it looks familiar."
I clear my throat. "That's not a cutie mark, Rarity."
"It isn't?"
"Nope. It's a tattoo."
"A 'tattoo'? What's that?"
"Well, it's um… not naturally occurring. It's artificial."
"Oh. Is that something humans do?"
"Yeah… it's not related to anything like special talents, it's just a form of art… I suppose."
"Art? Hmm… you have interesting tastes. I'm sure Applejack would love it!"
"Right… Applejack. Um Rarity? I don't suppose you could keep this… under your hat, so to speak?"
"Why's that darling?"
"It might be a little difficult to explain to the Apple family why I have Big- um… a certain familiar cutie mark for a tattoo."
She looks from my face back to my ass, and her eyes widen in realization. "Oh. Oh! I thought I'd seen that before. Yes, well, I'll try not to mention it…" She nervously giggles as she gets back to measuring.
"Like I said, this place is very popular where I'm from…"
"No need to explain darling, I can see that it's a touchy subject for you."
A few moments of measurement pass.
"You know, I also don't have any way to pay you for this… If I was younger, I'd work for it or something, but I'm afraid I'm a little past that time now…"
"Oh, darling, don't fret! They don't call me the Element of Generosity for nothing! Besides, what kind of ponies would we be if you just popped into this world and we didn't do everything we could to lend a helping hoof?"
"Th- Thank you, Rarity. If there's ever anything I can do to repay you for this… just let me know."
She's about to protest, but she looks up and sees me on the verge of tears, and says, "Yes, of course."
A few measurements later, and Twilight is called back into the room.
"All done Rarity?" She asks.
"Yes we are. And I think we should let Mr. Dane here get his rest, he looks a bit tired."
I lay back down on my bed and prove her point.
"It is getting late," Twilight adds, looking at the coming darkness out the window.
Rarity walks over to the chair with my clothes on it. "I hope you don't mind if I take these with me for reference?"
"They're not doing me any good now."
She levitates them into her saddlebags and joins Twilight at the door.
"Good night Dane!" Twilight bids me farewell.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Dane!" Rarity says.
"The pleasure was all mine, Miss Rarity. Take care now."
Could I die happy now?
I'm not sure anymore. As awesome as this is… what I did to get here is starting to weigh heavy on my mind.
'You can't change the past.'
And I also can't do anything to make amends for what I did either…