The blaring sound of my alarm once more alerted me to the fact that it was seven in the morning.
"I should really turn that off. It's a waste of battery. I think. It probably isn't, but it's better to be safe than sorry, right?"
Grabbing my phone, I opened it up to turn off my alarm for good. Now I just had to hope that I didn't accidentally sleep in after doing that.
"I've been waking up at seven for years now. Surely I can manage it on my own, right?" With that thought and a significant lack of confidence in my own ability to do what I just said, I got out of bed and stepped into the restroom. Taking care of my private business, I turned on the shower and began to undress.
Despite my best attempts, my clothes smelled terrible. It's not surprising. I have been moving around and sleeping in the same clothing for five days straight now. At least my jacket will see some salvation from my own body odor until I get it patched up. I learned last night that sewing wasn't a very common skill in Equestria due to the fact that ponies rarely, if ever, wore clothes. Which meant that it would be a while before I could get my jacket fixed. At first I thought it strange that views on nudity here seemed to be a near perfect inverse from my world, but in the end I decided not to question it. As long as no one was being hurt by it, then it wasn't my place to go around questioning someone else's culture or lifestyle. That was my view back home, and I'm sticking to it here.
I also learned that denim is a thing here, but it's not popular with the nobles so no one gives a shit about it.
"Rich assholes being out of touch. Add that to the list of parallels." I finally stepped into the shower and assumed the same hunched over position I had yesterday.
"Wait… I've been here for five days. How did I not realize that sooner? And didn't Luna say that that Twilight pony and her friends would be here tomorrow?"
…
…
"Shit." Not sure why that was my first reaction. I mean, that was a good thing, right? Twilight would, supposedly, have a solution to the language barrier when she got here, and-
"But I already came up with my own solution, didn't I? Or, well, Luna and Celestia came up with a solution. I just went along with it." I was still a little pissed off at Luna for throwing me into the deep end there, even if I could understand her reasoning behind it. Didn't mean I had to approve of her actions, though.
"Just gotta hope she keeps her promise. Cause I'll raise Hell on Equis if she doesn't." At the moment, I don't think I have to worry about that. Luna seemed trustworthy enough.
"Then again, so did Jessica." Eddy's fifth girlfriend. We weren't even rich, yet the gold digging whore still tried to drain his and dad's bank accounts dry. There's a reason that relationship only lasted two months.
"Times like those, I'm glad I never entered the dating scene." Grabbing a bottle of soap, I put a glob of it in my hand and began to wash myself. While I couldn't read the writing on the bottles themselves, I could make some reasonable assumptions based off of the pictures on the bottles.
For example, there was an orange bottle with a pair of feathered wings prominently featured on the front. I assumed, rather logically, that this was a special soap or shampoo designed for pegasi wings, so that those ponies could keep their feathers clean and nice looking without causing any sort of damage to the wings themselves. I left that bottle alone, since it wouldn't have any use for me.
The rest of my ten minute shower was uneventful, and I wasn't possessed by a ghost again as I clothed the lower half of my body and brushed my hair. Then I found a pair of scissors sitting on the counter.
"That… I did not put those there." I dumbly stated aloud. I knew they weren't there yesterday either. In fact, I'm fairly certain that there wasn't a single pair of scissors anywhere in this bathroom until just now.
"Either that, or I'm going blind. Or forgetful. Or both." Not even old enough to drink yet I've already got dementia. That's gotta be a new record, right?
"The fucking spirit put it here, didn't she?" Was she listening in when I was thinking about cutting my hair to its usual length yesterday morning? I guess it doesn't surprise me. A ghost with mind reading powers would be a normal Tuesday at this point.
"But why would it care so much about that?" I picked up the scissors and gave them a closer look. They were a regular pair of scissors, nothing obviously wrong or suspicious about them.
"Why do they look like they were designed for human hands? Shouldn't they be designed to work a ponies hooves? I know that Shining said they were rather flexible, but I doubt a design made for something with fingers works well for a creature with hooves." Setting the scissors back down on the bathroom counter, I thought over the possible reasons as to why I shouldn't use them.
"Maybe there’s a magical enchantment on them that'll set my hair on fire." Highly unlikely possibility, but I'm in a bit of a paranoid mood this morning and I'm making the mistake of letting my mind go into fourth gear with wild theories and unlikely probabilities. I like to think of myself as being practical and rational, but I will admit that there are moments like these where my mind will throw both of those character traits of mine out the window and dive head first into a pool of paranoia and irrationality.
"Ok, get myself out of the pool and climb back into the window. Think about this rationally. What reason would the spirit have for giving me a pair of scissors?" Perhaps the threat wasn't the scissors themselves, but rather an implication of something related to the scissors.
"Or I'm overthinking things again. The spirit hasn't done anything overtly malicious to me yet, non-consensual possessions aside.” Then an idea came to mind. Well, more of a theory. A crazy theory. A theory so crazy that it makes MatPat’s FNAF videos sound sane by comparison.
“Could the spirit and the demon be one in the same?” I was well aware that sleep paralysis demons weren’t real. They were auditory and visual hallucinations. Tricks of the light and nothing more. I initially dismissed it as another figment of my own mind. But thinking about it, one detail sticks out to me. One that didn’t make sense.
The fact that the demon spoke Equish.
Why would a figment of my imagination speak a language I didn't know?
“Was it actually Equish, though? Or was it my mind piecing together something that sounded enough like Equish to masquerade as it?” That was a very likely possibility, but I’m at a point where discrediting more supernatural explanations would make me, in simple terms, a fucking idiot.
"If it was the spirit, then there's still one question to be answered."
"Why would it try to harm me now, when it has seemingly ignored so many other chances to do so?" I seemed to be finishing my thoughts out loud a lot more recently. Should probably put a clamp on that. Don't wanna make my temporary roommates (castlemates?) concerned.
Looking back at the pair of scissors that started this entire thought process, I came to a decision. Picking them up, I positioned them in a way that would allow me to use the damn things.
"This is either going to be a long-overdue haircut or the greatest- no, second great- no, hmm… Well regardless of where it places, I'm sure it'll have a spot in the top ten."
(Shining Armor’s POV)
"We're good at war, and the only reason we're good at it is because we've had a lot of time to practice." Was the response that Jack gave me.
“That can’t be it, can it?” I pushed. “There’s gotta be some other reasoning. Couldn't they have just invaded the islands and ended the war that way?”
“They could’ve.” Jack admitted. “But in the end, they decided to drop the bombs instead. If they went through with an invasion of the Japs home islands, well… a lot more people would have died in a war that had already taken millions.” He sat back on the spot of the couch he had claimed after the video started, seemingly thinking for a moment.
“I guess you could say that they went with what they believed to be the lesser of two evils. Two cities destroyed for a million lives saved.”
“I get what you're saying. But it's one thing to have the power to wipe an entire city off of the map. It’s another to do it not once, but twice. The idea doesn’t sit right with me.”
Jack didn’t respond verbally, instead choosing to nod in understanding. We sat in silence for a moment before Princess Luna began asking Jack questions about humanities space programs.
The memories of last night still hung heavy in my mind. Now that I had more time to think about his words and let them sink in, his logic, while bucked up, did make sense. From a strategic standpoint, dropping the bombs made sense. There was a chance to end the war much sooner, so they took it.
"But two entire cities?" Even if it meant the end of such a bloody conflict, was the price really worth it? My guard training and experience as Captain practically screamed 'yes' at me, yet my morals were giving me a calm and firm 'no'.
"Is this what Truman felt when he had to make the choice in the first place?" I remembered Jack mentioning that Truman was the leader of America when the bombs were dropped, and that, as Commander-in-Chief, he was the one who had to make the decision at the end of the day. "Did he have to fight a war against his own morals?"
My internal musings were interrupted as I entered the kitchen and approached the pink alicorn currently making some pancakes entirely from scratch. I guess Princess Celestia was a better cook than I thought, if Cady was able to make food this good from ten century old ingredients.
"Good morning honey." I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "How are you feeling?"
"A bit drained, admittedly. But I'm still going strong." She replied, though her smile was a bit weaker than usual.
"Magic burnout?" I questioned. Princess Luna had warned us about the possibility. Even after she had been taught how to maintain the protection spell in her sleep so that Cadance could still get some rest, the drain on her magic reserves would be constant.
Cadance nodded her head. "Yeah. I started feeling it yesterday. I barely even noticed it then, but it's really starting to kick in now."
"Maybe you should take a break tonight. Let me take over." My offer was swiftly rejected by a shake of Cadance’s head.
"No, no. I'll be fine. We should stick to the plan. You and Jack go out to meet Twilight and her friends when they get here tomorrow. I'll hold down the fort."
"Are you sure?" I pressed, not entirely convinced by Cadance’s words. "You remember what happened to me a couple days ago, right?"
"As long as Jack keeps that picture, I don't think I'll ever forget." She mirthfully replied, a chuckle sneaking past her lips once she finished speaking. Then her mood grew more serious. "I know you're worried, Shiny. But I'll be fine. It's just one more day until Twilight gets here and fixes all of this."
"And you say I'm stubborn." I replied.
"That's because you are~" Cadance retorted in a sing-song voice. Before I could provide her with a response to that statement, the door to the kitchen opened.
"Good morning, Shining. Cadance." Jack called out from the doorway, putting the Equish lessons Princess Celestia gave him last night to good use, even if he did mispronounce the word 'morning'. I can't really bash him for trying, though. He did get pretty close on his first attempt. Turning to face him fully, I had to do a quick double take once I saw his hair.
Instead of going about halfway down his back as it used to, it now only reached down to the end of his neck. He had also brushed it in a way that ensured none of it covered his forehead.
It wasn't perfect. The left side went down slightly more than the right and several strands of hair were noticeably sticking out of place.
Cadance had noticed as well, and pointed to Jack's head. He responded by giving a thumbs up with one hand and a thumbs down with the other. After we both pointed at the thumbs up, he nodded and took a seat at the kitchen counter. I decided to join him.
"Sleep well?" I asked.
"Yes." He replied.
"Good job." I said after a moment of silence, moving a hoof over my mane as I did so.
"Thanks." It felt so weird to see him reduced to simple one or two word responses, but at the same time, it felt nice to have some sort of a conversation with the guy without us needing to be asleep.
A brand new awkward silence had come to take the place of the old one, one that thankfully didn't last long with the arrival of Cadance and plates of-
"Pancakes?" I asked, more surprise in my voice than even I expected.
"No need to sound so shocked. It's not that different from the waffles yesterday." She teased while placing the plates on the table. "It's practically the same recipe. Just different ways of cooking it."
Taking my first bite, I could tell what she meant by those words. They tasted exactly the same as the waffles yesterday.
That didn't mean that they were bad, not by a long shot, and I'm not just saying that because my wife is an alicorn. They were legitimately very good. She did an amazing job making them with what little resources we have here.
Looking over at Jack, I noticed a distinct lack of the near orgasmic reaction Cadance described him having when he had her cooking yesterday. He was clearly enjoying it, don't get me wrong, but he wasn't going as far as the pink alicorn described. I mentioned this fact to Cadance and she laughed it off.
"Trust me, you should've seen him yesterday. It was almost like he hadn't eaten anything in months."
I think the 'Source: Dude, trust me bro' joke from Jack's homeworld fits perfectly here.
The rest of breakfast went by uneventfully, and as I got up to leave, I heard someone clearing their throat. Turning to see Jack as the culprit, I waited to see what he would do.
"Knock the bastard dead, Shining."
Assuming the… whatever word that was… was referring to Sombra, I nodded and left the castle, making my way to the border for my daily patrol.