//------------------------------// // Questions and Disbelief // Story: Behind the Shower Curtain // by 6-D Pegasus //------------------------------// The rest of the evening went by rather uneventful for Ryan. After the voice, or Twilight Sparkle as it had self identified, supposedly left him alone, he had remained in the bathroom, still staring at the curtain in disbelief. Question after question ran through his head. Did he really just make contact with an alien species? And how could they already speak English? And what in the world were those names? Ryan had called out for the voice again for several minutes, hoping for a response. After a while, he finally decided whoever he had been speaking with had indeed decided to leave, and he gave up and left to finish up with his day. He still had yet to brush his teeth, and he could practically hear the soft mattress of his bed calling out to him. Of course, he made sure to leave the bathroom door wide open. If the voi- if Twilight really did return, he wanted to be sure he'd hear her immediately. Now, as he lay tossing and turning in bed, his thoughts refused to drift to anywhere but the strange interactions of the day. Sure, it had passed his little test, but for all he knew he could've just been dreaming the whole time. Maybe he was still dreaming right now; the mind was a powerful thing after all and could easily have concocted this whole scenario. He had read up on some disturbing stories in which people have experienced years of an imaginary life, all while being unconscious for merely a few minutes. He shuddered at the thought. He began to reach a hand up to pinch his arm in some silly attempt to test if he was dreaming, but the blanket of sleep began to slowly descend upon his mind, and he decided against putting off his much needed rest any further. With what little energy he had left, he tilted his head up to sweep his eyes around his dark, mostly empty apartment. There was no scarcity of sound by any means; muffled through his front door came the distant, ambient sounds of the city. The honks of cars, incoherent voices, and occasionally passing footsteps created a sort of white noise that permeated through the fog of sleep while also strengthening it. He had worked aggressively over the past year to finally afford this place, which had put a strain on the few social relationships he still had. In fact, now that he thought of it, his new mysterious company within his shower curtain had been the last friendly voice he had held some sort of casual conversation with in over a year. As suspicious as he was over whether it had been real, he'd be lying if he said it wasn't a little pleasant. Whoever this Twilight Sparkle was, she sounded... genuinely friendly and sincere. He turned again in his bed and sighed deeply, sparing one final glance at his apartment as the weight upon his eyes gently lowered his eyelids. The wider space, the gentle heating, everything was far better than his last place. The only thing that remained the same was the pang of loneliness he felt every time he drifted off to sleep. "...psssst..." "..." "...psssssssst..." "Wuh-?" Snort. "Fi- five more minutes..." "R- Ryan? Are you there?" Another snort, followed by a long snore. "Ryaaaaaaan?" "..." "Oh for Celestia's sake, it's like I'm waking up Spike..." A pause. "In that case..." "..." "RYAN!!" "Huhwahdahe- ow!" Ryan shouted in pain as the sudden scare sent him tumbling out of bed onto the carpet. He groaned from the impact and slowly climbed to his feet, silently praising his decision to not go with a harder flooring material. He blinked his eyes groggily and shook his head to clear his mind. He gave his apartment a quick once over and groaned internally upon landing his gaze on the several still-packed cardboard moving boxes sitting in front of his front door. He moved to begin unpacking them when, after a few seconds, he registered why he was woken up in the first place. "Hey wait a minute, who's there?!" He ran to the middle of his apartment, searching around for any signs of a potential intruder. "What do you want?" "Ryan, it's me! From yesterday? Or last night I suppose." The feminine sounding voice echoed out from his bathroom, its door still wide open just as he had left it last night, and once again his mind gave him a quick refresher on yesterday's interactions. Oh. Right. Slowly, he approached his open bathroom and peeked in, his eyes falling upon his white shower curtain. "Tw- Twilight Sparkle? Is that you?" "Yep, that's me, but you can just call me Twilight! Good morning, Ryan!" Oh dear God, this really is still happening. "Uhh, good morning to you too, Twilight." He reached for his phone and unlocked it to gaze at the time, which read 10:24 AM. Oh wow, I slept all the way to ten? I must have been more tired than I thought. The voice—no, Twilight—hummed contently in response. "So! I have so many questions for you! As a precaution, I've cast a sound-proofing on my bathroom to make sure any sounds on your end don't make it out here and attract any unwanted attention when guests are visiting the library. Not that any of them should ever be up here anyway, but still just in case! I've also told Spike that this bathroom is completely clogged and to just use the downstairs one, so we shouldn't need to worry about him. I talked with one of my friends about it and she offered to let Spike use the shower at her boutique whenever he needs to." There was a soft giggle. "He seemed more than eager to go for that, no questions asked! Hehe I wonder why..." A brief flicker of recognition crossed Ryan's mind. Spike? I swear she mentioned that name yesterda- agh my legs. Before saying anything, he quickly ran out and dragged his desk chair into the bathroom, plopping it right in front of the shower curtain before taking a seat. While his mind was certainly awake now, his body didn't seem to take kindly to being made to stand for a while right after waking up. "Uh, who's this Spike? I think I heard you bring him up yesterday a couple times." "Oh, Spike's my dragon assistant! He helps me out with managing the library, as well as with... hmmm..." A brief pause. "Actually he helps me out with pretty much everything! He lives with me here at the library, so when I heard the shower turn on here, I thought it was just Spike taking another one of his unusually long showers. I'm guessing that was you instead?" "Yeah, I had just finished with my shower before I heard you the first time and-" Ryan blinked. Wait a minute. "Woah woah woah, wait, you said Spike is a dragon?!" Twilight hummed in confirmation. "Mhm! Yeah, I know it's a little strange. As far as I know, Spike is the first dragon to really grow up among ponies. Sure, there's a few settlements with dragons throughout Fillydelphia, but they usually only stick to themselves." "... you have dragons?!" There was a quiet scoff. "Well, yeah? Most of them live in the Dragon Lands some distance southeast of Equestria." A brief moment of silence. "I... don't suppose you have those over there?" Have dragons here?! "Twilight, dragons don't exist here on Earth! Neither do unicorns for that matter, they're both considered mythological creatures. And even in legends and stories, they're usually more... wild... and not living in cities or taking showers or, well, talking." "Ooooo this is fascinating!" Ryan could hear her practically bouncing around in excitement on the other end. "Some of the creatures here don't exist on your world, and yet are present in your legends and myths? This is so exciting! Oh wait wait wait! I want to know just how many of our species exist as myths for you!" Ryan blanched. "There's more?! And they're all sentient creatures that can talk and everything?" "Uhuh! So first off are my species, ponies, which is split into three main races of unicorns—like me!—, pegasi, and earth ponies! There's also a fourth race known as an alicorn, but there's only three known alicorns so they're a bit of an exception." "Pegasi? That sounds like..." Ryan's mind raced through its memory of mythological creatures. "Is that plural for a Pegasus? And what's up with alicorns? Only three in the world?! Are they, like, endangered or something? " Twilight chuckled. "Yep, 'pegasus ponies' works too, but it's just a lot faster to say 'pegasi'. And no, the three alicorns are actually all rulers of Equestria. Or sort of. The Royal Sisters, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna rule over Equestria together. Princess Cadance rules over the Crystal Empire just up in the frozen North of Equestria. It's too large to be considered as just a city, and it's too far and isolated from the rest of Equestria to be properly maintained and managed from Canterlot, so Cadance was given the responsibility of presiding over it alongside her husband, Shining Armor." Ryan nodded calmly, while on the inside having a near mental breakdown trying to process the influx of information. "Well aren't you quite familiar with your leaders?" He snickered a little. "Anyway, yeah we do have, well, normal ponies, but they definitely aren't capable of like, being a working citizen of a country or something. The pegasus is also a creature of mythology here: a winged horse. And I'm guessing an alicorn is a pony with both wings and a horn?" "Well, I am the personal..." There was a brief pause. "I like to stay up to date with Equestrian history! And mmm, alicorns are a little more than that. Oh! That reminds me, there's technically another race of ponies exclusively from the Empire called the Crystal ponies! They're a bit like earth ponies in that they lack wings or a horn, but..." Twilight paused. "They're sort of more... crystally? They also hold a special kind of magic attuned to the Empire itself, sorry there aren't too many books about them circulating the public libraries yet, so I can't really tell you too much about them." Ryan took a deep breath in before slowly releasing it. "...magic?" "Uhm, what about it?" "You're saying magic is real over there too?" A quiet gasp, then silence. "... Uh, Twili-" "You don't have magic?!" Ryan winced at the short-range, verbal onslaught on his poor eardrums not even a half hour after waking up. He reached up to massage his now ringing ears. "Ow? Chill with the yelling please, Twilight. And to answer your question, no. No, we do not. I feel like it should be more a surprise your world has magic instead of ours lacking it.." Twilight stammered "Bu- but magic is everywhere! Within every creature! Within, well, everything! If I plucked a random pebble from outside, I'd probably be able to detect even the tiniest of magic signatures inside. I- I can't begin to imagine a world completely devoid of it... Are you sure there's no magic anywhere where you are?" Ryan laughed. "Yeah I think I'd know if magic was re-" Then he paused, glancing at the ceiling in thought. How... would I know if magic was real here? There's gotta be a million things we didn't know existed yet not even a hundred years ago. He laughed again, a little drier this time."You know what, I'm actually not sure anymore. Anything is possible at this point. I'm talking to you after all from like, halfway across the universe or something with hilariously low latency. If it's real here, I suppose we just haven't discovered it. Speaking of which, how is magic used over there?" "Every species on Equus has magic in them and can also access the magic field in different ways, but its our pony species that by far can use magic the most. Unicorns can actively channel magic through their horn for basic things like levitating objects or casting light around them. Pegasi passively channel magic through their whole body to fly and manipulate weather, mainly clouds. Lastly, earth ponies passively channel magic to have higher strength, endurance, and stamina, but also have a strong connection to the earth that lets them tend to crops way better than anypony else!" Ryan hummed back in acknowledgement, encouraging her to continue as he desperately scribbled notes down on a notebook he grabbed off his desk halfway through Twilight's little lecture. "Alicorns are a special case. In addition to being able to use magic the same way all three pony races can, each of them have a special kind of alicorn magic within them that's attuned to their special talent. Cadance is the princess of love, and so she can feel the love between all ponies all throughout her Empire and, with the help of an artifact called the Crystal Heart, amplifies that love throughout Equestria." That sounds pretty sappy. Ryan jotted down more notes in his notebook and hummed for Twilight to continue. "Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are the princesses of day and night respectfully, and so they both draw power from their respective celestial bodies of the sun and the moon. Naturally, Princess Celestia uses this magic to control the rising and setting of the sun in the sky, and until Princess Luna's return, she also did so for the moon. Princess Luna is now once again in charge of the movement of the moon across the sky, but she also is tasked with monitoring the dreamscape to ensure all ponies in Equestria sleep without nightmares." Ryan stared forward at the curtain, his mouth wide open. His pencil fell away and clattered noisily to the tile floor. "...Ryan? You still with me?" "..." "I know that was probably a lot to take in, but if you have any questions, just te-" "THEY CAN MOVE THE SUN?!" Now it was Ryan's turn to shout in disbelief. A quiet whimper sounded out from behind the curtain, and Ryan surmised Twilight was probably massaging her ears just like he had previously. "I mean, the moon too, but the sun?!" "Well, how else are they supposed to rise and set?" Ryan blanched. "How else?! Doesn't your planet rotate on an axis? You know, to give the appearance of rising and setting?" Silence, broken by a sheepish, nervous laugh. "... noooo?" Ryan deadpanned. Unicorns, pegasi, dragons, alicorns that can move entire stars, magic?! When I said anything is possible, I didn't mean THIS level of anything! Ohhhh what could possibly top this? A curious thought passed through his mind. "Say Twilight, about how old is this Princess Celestia?" "Oh, I think a little over 1,500 years old! Princess Luna is just a little younger by about ten years according to the records." "..." "...Ryan?" "I, uh..." Yep, there goes my brain. Out the window it goes, taking all my common sense with it. "Wow... that's a lot..." A soft rumble echoed throughout the bathroom. Ryan's eyes widened as he realized just how long it had been since he last ate. "Uh, Twilight?" "Hmmm? What is it, Ryan?" Ryan stood up and shuffled awkwardly on his feet. "I, mmm, haven't eaten yet today... and noon is fast approaching, so I'm gonna have to head out for a bit to-" "Wha- you're leaving already? But it hasn't even been a half hour..." A hint of sadness and disappointment snuck its way through Twilight's tone, and Ryan couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt. "I barely even got to any of my questions... When will you be back?" "Well, I was thinking in about forty minutes. How long were you wanting to talk?" "... three hours?" Three hours?! She... was looking forward to this that much? Hmm... Ryan bit his lip. "Well, I mean, I could probably grab something really quick from a place close by and head back right away. That'd take me only about twenty minutes or so. Would that be better?" "Oh?" There was significantly less sadness in Twilight's voice now. "Yes! That would be perfect!" Ryan heard what sounded like hooves clapping together. "Alright then, well, I'll be back in a bit!" Ryan grabbed his phone and began to head for the front door. "R- Ryan, wait!" Ryan wheeled back around in confusion and rushed back to the open bathroom door. "Yeah, what is it Twilight?" There was a few seconds of awkward silence, during which Ryan heard what he imagined was Twilight fidgeting on her hooves. "Can... can you play that music from yesterday again? If I remember right, you had some object that let you play music wherever you were and, well, I really liked it." Ryan blinked as he recalled his little "experiment" from the previous evening. "Oh! You mean the Bach cello suite?" A pause. "Is that what it's called? It was really beautiful, and I nearly fell asleep to it." Ryan laughed quietly. "Yeah, it's a really beautiful piece. Okay, how about this." He picked up his laptop and carried it over to the chair still sitting in front of the bathroom curtain before dragging his laptop charger over to plug it in to one of the bathroom's sockets. After a few seconds of searching, he found the piece he was looking for on YouTube. He made sure to set the video on loop, then hit play and turned up the volume to fifty percent. "Are you able to hear this?" He heard of gentle hum of content from his shower curtain. "Mmmm, yes I can hear it, that's the one. Thanks so much, Ryan..." Her voice began to trail off. "The recording of this first cello suite is about nineteen minutes, so hopefully I'll get back right when it ends. Just in case though, I set it up to repeat when it ends so it doesn't leave you hanging." "Thanks Ryan, I'll be here waiting for you. I still have to..." A long, soft yawn sneaked its way into Twilight's sentence. "... ask you about the rest of our 'mythological' species..." Finally, Twilight's voice dropped quiet enough to the point where, if she was still talking, it could not longer be heard over the sound of classical cello resonating and amplified by the miracle of bathroom acoustics. Yeeesh, if only I could fall asleep that fast! Ryan suppressed a giggle as he turned around and made his way out the front door. No doubt there were probably a dozen or so more nonexistent, mythological creatures roaming around Twilight's world, but he'd rather deal with those impossibilities on a full stomach.