//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 Slave To The Mind // Story: A Change Of Heart: Luna’s Gaze // by The Royal Equestrian //------------------------------// Machine gun fire echoed over the city, spreading chaos among the scene Douny was observing with great shock and crippling anguish. He saw civilians and soldiers being chewed up by the unrelenting hail of copper and lead. The soldiers held up a flimsy resistance, but due to the approaching army, they never would have been able to do much. After the gunfire had ceased, the attacking soldiers appeared from the left of Douny’s view. He wished he had never looked toward them. One of the soldiers stood out to Douny, he had a similar uniform being in an olive drab shirt, forest camo pants, jungle boots, an M1 helmet, and an AK74u on his chest. But what stuck out to Douny was the patch on his shoulder, it was a crown with an eagle behind it. It became even more clear when he pulled off his helmet to reveal a much younger-looking Douny behind the shadow of his helmet. “No” was all the older Douny could weakly whisper before his younger counterpart spoke. “The cowards are on the run, keep pushing them, we are going to burn this God-forsaken city and its people to the ground for their treasonous acts against humanity!” The young Douny ordered, looking to his men as he continued. “If they want to save the orcs and elves then so be it, let them pay the price for what they have done to us!” With that, the young Douny’s men followed the order without question. “No, this can’t be… I won’t let this happen again.” The old Douny growled, pulling out his 1911 from the pouch that he had on him. Though when he lined up the shot and squeezed the trigger, all that came out was a metallic clunk from the hammer hitting the firing pin. Unfortunately for the older Douny his younger self heard the clank and pulled out his 1911, though as soon as it fired and the round was about to hit Douny the whole scene stopped. Douny opened his eyes to see the frozen scene in front of him and the bullet with his name hovering in front of him. “What the hell?” The man whispered looking around him, he soon found a bright white light in front of him with another one of those ponies coming out from it. Though this one looked far different from the ones his seen so far, this one was taller and had a rich dark midnight blue coat, cyan blue eyes, with an ethereal mane with stars, and constellations on a blue backdrop, though one thing that stuck out to him the most was the fact that this pony had both wings and a horn. “Hello, strange creature, thou art the one Twilight spoke of we presume?” The mare said in a royal tone that Douny was all too familiar with. “Yes, I am, my name is Douny O’Whelan, and what may I call you?” Douny replied in a somewhat shaky voice, trying to calm himself down from what had happened. “Thou may call us Princess Luna, tis a pleasure to meet you.” Luna answered, offering a hoof to shake as she kept her regal stance. “I’m sorry if this comes off as rude but, are you real? I’m assuming that this is all some sort of dream.” Douny let out once he finally felt calmed down. “We can understand how thou hast come to this conclusion.” Luna started, looking at the frozen scene around them. “Yes we are very real, and thou art correct that this is a dream, we were brought here by thous night terror, which I must say is most troubling,” Luna admitted, looking back to the ragged man with a small amount of concern in her eyes. “I appreciate the help, but I would ask that if you are actually real, you not to do this again. I don’t like someone poking around inside of my head no matter how good their intentions are.” Douny said as he sighed. “If tis what thou wishes, but I will tell thee we are keeping a close eye on thee, thou art still an unknown to this world so we must take the proper course of action.” Luna replied firmly “I can understand that, I promise I will not be a burden on you or your people.” Douny replied, giving her a small bow. “We thank thee for thous promise, but we are sorry to leave on such short notice, but we must attend to our duties, sleep well Mr. O’Whelan.” With that Luna disappeared into the night sky and the dream around Douny disappeared along with it. —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Douny woke up on a damp pillow, he guessed it was the nightmare that made him sweat so much he made the pillow damp. But that was of little concern to him right now, for right now he was hungry he took his bag up the stairs with him and looked around for a kitchen of some kind quietly, given the fact that it was so early in the morning that the sun hadn't even come up. His search was quickly rewarded as he found Twilight's kitchen, it was very clean, the counter was made out of similar wood as the rest of the place but with a slightly darker tent, and the stove was not too dissimilar to one you would find in the 1950s or 60s. With that Douny began cooking breakfast for Twilight, Spike, and himself, he had some things he would want to ask them, and he didn't want to have to ask and answer questions with nothing in his gullet. Not long before Douny was done making waffles, and coffee Twilight was up and came down to the kitchen. She would be lying if she said seeing Douny's towering form didn't make her jump a little, but that quickly went away as she smelled what he made. "What are you doing up so early, the sun isn't even coming up for another two hours or so?" Twilight asked, looking around the kitchen at what the human had made. "I had a nightmare and woke up, I knew I wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep so I decided to make breakfast." Douny answered drowsily not looking up from his work on a new batch of waffles. "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. Is there anything I could do to help?" Twilight asked with concern. "Nothing really needs to be done. Plus I'm 32 I'm more than capable of handling a little nightmare" Douny stated as he finished the last batch of waffles. "Wait, you're only 32?" Twilight asked, tilting her head to the side. "Yeah, I'm almost middle-aged, is that a problem?" Douny replied with a cocked brow. " No, it's just… I thought your kind would at least match our life span given most sapient creatures on Equis do." Twilight explained with a curious look. "Wait, what do you mean by at least match?" Douny asked, turning to face Twilight and giving her a curious look back. "Well, ponies, griffins, and other creatures of the like tend to live for around 200 to 300 years give or take." Twilight answered, waving her hoof in a circle to emphasize her point. "Hmm… well my kind used to only have an average lifespan of 80 to 90 years, now it's around 100 to 120 years," Douny answered the question he knew Twilight was thinking. "That still seems incredibly short." Twilight said, looking at Douny with concern in her eyes, and her ears drooped down. "I guess so, but it doesn't really matter too much to me, memento mori." Douny said, going back to the food he made to make himself a plate and a cup of coffee. "What does memento mori mean?" Twilight asked, giving a puzzled look. "It means, remember we all must die." Douny nonchalantly explained not seeing the concerned look that Twilight was giving him. "That's really morbid Douny, who even came up with a phrase like that?" Twilight asked, with a slightly saddened look. "A man by the name of Socrates was the one to originally come up with the concept of the phrase, so I guess it would be him." Douny explained walking over to a table on the other side of the room. Twilight got food and coffee too and went to join the man at the table. "So against my better judgment, do you have anything else you can tell me about your world?" Twilight asked, looking at Douny with a small measure of excitement. "I guess I could tell you about our technology and what little I know of my world's magic." Douny pondered, and when he looked at Twilight's happy face he knew that was a great place to start. —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The events that got Douny to Equestria were replaying in his mind, he just couldn't understand why Hal did what he had done in the end, Alrick he could understand, he had constantly been playing political intrigue with him for as long as he could remember being king. But Hal was like a brother to him, that's why he made him his right-hand man after all, and if he couldn't trust him who could he really trust? He even wondered if he could trust the pony who took him in. Sure, Twilight seemed friendly enough, and she didn't seem to hold any malice in her heart, but who's to say that wasn't an act? For all, he knew she was just trying to get him comfortable until she did… something. Douny was snapped out of his train of thought by Rarity's hoof steps. He had almost forgotten that he was in her boutique, from what he could remember she wanted him to stop by to get the measurements for his new clothes. Which Douny was happy about, he didn't much care to constantly show off his wounded body. "Are you feeling alright darling, you seem to have something dreadful on your mind?" Rarity asked, giving the ragged man a genuinely concerned look. "It's nothing, just got a lot on my mind, I guess I haven't fully come to terms with being in another world quite yet." Douny said trying to sound as convincing as possible, which didn't seem to earn the man any points to get the mare to drop the subject. "If something is troubling you, you can feel free to talk to anypony for help. I know you live with Twilight, I'm sure she would be glad to help you with whatever is troubling you." Rarity added, giving the man a soft smile. "I appreciate the concern, but I don't need help with this. It's nothing that serious, trust me." Douny brushed it off, he hoped the mare would take the hint, and luckily for him she had. "If you say so. But the offer to talk is always open." Rarity finished, as she got her tape measure to get started on her work. The next two hours were mostly silent as Douny got himself measured. He had chosen for Rarity to make him clothes that were copies of his favorite outfit, a brown tweed sports coat, with a burgundy red waistcoat and off-white dress shirt, and a pair of khaki colored chinos for his pants. He was lucky he didn't need to go to a cobbler yet, since he still had his leather boots, which served well for decent footwear. "Thank you Rarity, I really appreciate you helping me out with my clothes problem." Douny said, as he started to head for the door. "It was no problem darling, now come back around this time tomorrow and I should have them ready for you." Rarity replied, giving the man a wave as he left out the front door. As Douny had gone outside Twilight was happy to see him, she had been waiting for him since he went in. She was an escort of sorts. Most of the ponies in Ponyville really didn't trust the human. Most seemed to think he was some kind of demon from the Everfree. Which no matter how much Twilight tried to say otherwise no one besides her friends seemed to listen. Douny had noticed the glares as well, the worst offenders by far were the pegasi, who seem to have it out for him, though they never tried anything. Mostly due to the fact that the man was a bit more than two times their height. Twilight gave him a look that seemed apologetic. "Don't give me that look, it's not your fault that they are acting ignorant." Douny nonchalantly said, as he stretched his arms and back. "I know, but I'm just sorry that they are acting this way, you have already been through enough stress as it is, and they seem to just want to add on to it." Twilight drooped, not being able to meet the human's eyes. "Well, it's not affecting me at all. Trust me there were much worse treatments some people would do to outsiders back where I come from." Douny explained, giving him more flashbacks to that night when he had given those orders. "Anyway let's not let that spoil the mood, I heard that Rainbow Dash wants to see where I'm at physically, I don't know how much I can do with this busted up shoulder but I'll give it a shot." Douny added. "Alright, but after that I want us to try to heal that wound up." Twilight said, giving no room for argument. "Fair enough, though I would want to go to someone who can extract stuff from my body, the wound likely still has bits of metal in it." Douny agreed, as they started walking. "Alright, then it's a plan." Twilight finished, walking along with Douny, to RD's place. —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Yeah she did, you know Douny if it wasn’t for you, me and her may have never met, I can’t begin to thank you enough. Sir things are getting chaotic there is a massive rebellion going on in the next province we normally could handle it ourselves but they are properly equipped and are extremely well organized! Because you wouldn’t see reason, you backed out of the plan because you care more about those dark elves and orcs than you care about your countrymen!." Hal's voice echoed in Douny's head, almost deafening him until his anger couldn't take it and he hit the punching bag with his leg so hard it busted off of its supports. "Woow chill out, you just busted the chain off!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, attempting to hold the human back, which she had barely succeeded. Douny eventually did calm back down, now that he could think clearly he agreed that he may have gone a bit overboard with the latter half of those hits. For the life of him, he could understand where those thoughts came from. One minute he was fine, chatting with Rainbow and Twilight as he went to work on the punching bag. Then the next thing he knew his mind slipped into thoughts about Hal. "Is everything alright Douny, you went a bit out of control there for a minute?" Twilight spoke up, looking the man in the eyes with a good amount of concern bleeding from them as her ears went down. "I'm fine, I guess I got a bit too focused and I forgot my strength." Douny replied, trying to get her to believe him, which worked on Twilight, but from what Douny could see Rainbow Dash could see right through it. "Well if you say so, but please try to be a bit more careful. We still need to go to the hospital and I don't want you to get any more injuries before we get there." Twilight lightly scolded. "I'll be outside when you're ready, don't take too long." Twilight added, as she stepped outside. Douny looked at the door for a moment in thought he truly didn't know what had gotten over him. But one thing he knew for certain is that whatever it needs to be put under control. Douny sighed knowing that wouldn't be an easy task in the slightest knowing himself. But now wasn't the time to think about how he was going to go about controlling that, because when he looked back to Rainbow, he knew she had some words to say about his small lie. "What the buck actually is going on, I know it's more than just focusing too much." Rainbow demanded, giving the man a very displeased look. "You're right, it is more than that. But I can handle it, it may take me some time but I don't need any help." Douny stated with a large amount of authority in his voice in hopes that it would stop the conversation there, unlucky for the man, the mare he was talking to was a bit of a rebel. "First off, don't talk to me like that, it won't work." Rainbow stated counting with her primary feathers as she went on. "And secondly you obviously can't handle this yourself, just look at what you did today. It looked like you had completely lost it." Rainbow finished, fixing her gaze with his eyes to match his look. "And who would be able to do that? I don't think any of the ponies here could help me in the slightest, much less would they want to." Douny stated matter of factly, but that seemed to only earn a confused look from the cyan pegasus. "What do you mean by that, I'm sure plenty of ponies here would want to help you if you gave them the chance." Rainbow said, tilting her head in confusion. All that did was earn a sigh from the human. "You obviously haven't seen how they look at me nor the passive aggressive way they treat me." Douny said, rolling his eyes. "Honestly I think the only reason they haven't run me out of town is that they might not legally be allowed to." Douny finished crossing his arms. "Wait, they are all really doing that, why haven't you told anypony?" Rainbow said, surprised at the revelation. "Who could I tell, even if the town's mayor were to not hate me. It would still be political suicide to go against what the public wants." Douny explained, as he massaged his right temple. "Look I'd love to stay and chat more about this, but Twilight is waiting for me out there, I'll see you later Rainbow Dash." The man finished grabbing his stuff and walked out the door. Leaving Rainbow Dash there to think about what he had said. "Well if Mayor Mare won't help him then I guess someone has to." Rainbow Dash said to herself as she tried to come up with a plan to help the man. —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For the most part, the walk to the hospital was silent; very few things between Twilight and Douny were said. Up until the latter half of the walk that is when Twilight decided to ask a few questions which started out mostly harmless. That was until a certain question that the lavender unicorn asked. "So how was it back on Earth?" This had soured his mood, but he kept a straight face to let everything feel fine. It wasn't Twilight's fault for asking the question, the extent of his conversations with the mare had mostly been about the technology and a little bit of the magic. But he had failed to tell her anything about the planet or the people on it, and secretly he hoped he'd never have to either. "That's a tough question Twilight, it's also not a pleasant one to answer." Douny replied honestly as he looked up to the sky wondering if he should tell her about his world. "Oh, I I'm sorry I I didn't m mean to" Twilight tried to back peddle until the human cut in. "I never said I wasn't going to answer it, it's not your fault either I had been vague about my world for too long I suppose." Douny sighed, preparing himself for his explanation of his world and people. "You see Twilight, something you have to keep in mind is that in my world things are quite different. It's not all sunshine and rainbows as I've told you before war happened more often than I would like to admit. Not to mention genocide. It's not just exclusive to my kind either. The other races do it just as much, if not more often than we do given some of them are more aggressive than my race. Orcs, Dark Elves, and Goblins are such species that are more aggressive than humans, though I will say the goblins are more sneaky with it. Overall it's a mixed bag because I know now that it's not all of them that are like that, but at the time I was foolish to believe they were all thieves, murderers, warmongers and so much more. But now that I'm on Equis I feel as if it's a new path for me to take. Perhaps a form of salvation. But I can't be sure." Douny finished his long winded response which seemed to have Twilight in deep thought. Which Douny was fine with as they were only a few blocks away from Ponyville General Hospital. They walked the rest of the way there in silence, upon seeing Twilight with the wounded human a pony in all white with a light pink mane came to get them a room to wait for a doctor as she asked the wounded human questions about his injury. Which Douny simply said he got shot and needed metal taken out of the wound itself, which confused the nurse but she would do that for the doctor since with that description he would likely get a scan from a unicorn doctor to search for metal objects in the wound. When the doctor came in he could tell it was a blue unicorn with a white mane. He confirmed the answers to the questions with Douny and then told him what they would need to do. Which he would need to have a magical scan by the doctor to find the metal pieces in the wound and would need to get an X-ray for potential broken bones that they might need to set which the doctor told him with the recovery he could be looking at a month in there care which the Human was fine with, he really didn't have anything better to do yet anyway. After the doctor left Douny relaxed in the hospital bed and laid down taking a small nap until it was time to go. Unlucky for him he had another nightmare and nearly sprang out of the bed scaring Twilight half to death. "Are you okay Douny?" Twilight asked with deep concern in her eyes. The man took a moment to breath before answering. What he saw, no he couldn't focus on that right now. He then looked at Twilight seeing that she was extremely worried, almost painfully so. He had to do something now. If what he's going through is putting people who want to help him, a stranger in such a state, then he needs to let someone help him… and that someone might just be her, he let out a sigh. "No Twilight… no I'm not okay, I'm far from it. I can't seem to get over that fight that brought me here and it's taking a mental toll on me." Douny admitted flipping back on the bed. "I need help Twilight, and out of all the ponies I've met, I trust you the most to help me through this." He finished. "I would be happy to help you Douny, now what is bothering you?" Twilight asked, with a slight smile that he was trusting her to help him