//------------------------------// // Golden brown // Story: Not Here // by ulcuran //------------------------------// With Luna’s departure, I head back inside ‘my’ room. After a few tries, I was able to sit on the table like a human with my legs hanging down not touching the ground. There is not much to do right now, can’t even leave, Luna’s sister definitely locked the doors so no luck ther- wait. She did lock them, right? I didn’t hear a lock, I didn’t even try it. Getting up from the chair I rush to the door, please tell me she forgot to lock it. I reach the door, grasp the handle as best as these hands can, and throw it open. My eyes greet a grayish hoove coming fast, oh fuc- ‘’Agh!’’ I failed to get back in time and a hoof struck my face, though it was not very painful still I staggered back a little. ‘’Oh! I’m really really reallyy sorry! Please don’t be mad! I was just about to knock on the door and the door just opened I couldn’t stop myself!’’ Shaking my head a little I try to understand what is going on. Focusing my eyes on the pony in front of me... is that a goddamn maid's dress? Blinking a couple of times to confirm and yeah that is a pony wearing a black and white frilly maid’s dress… who has a lime green mare. what the hell, this place is getting weirder and weirder by the minute. ‘’I was just bringing you, your food but look what I made, Please forgive me!’’ She was still trying to apologize? Damn, what am I the honored guest of the kin- oh, guess I am, huh. Well, a house prisoner would be more accurate but tomayto tomahto. ‘’Calm down! I’m not mad… what are you doing?’’ Was she bowing? Since she lowered her head I can see her back, are those pancakes? Oh god please the only things I have eaten since I came here were those apples, my stomach is going to stage a coup at this point storming the castle(my skull) with the odd organ here and there and hang the tyrant(my brain) maybe even establish a democracy in the body… what is wrong with me? This place is getting to my head. Wait stop, the tray is sliding off her back it’s going to fall! Raise your head, you Buffon! ‘’Oh, you’re not mad! Thank you! It won’t happen again!’’ I don’t care about that just raise your head its going to fall! ‘’Yes, yes just raise your head! The tray is going to-’’ *Crash* ‘’Eeep!’’ ‘’-fall…’’ The maid pony makes a shrill cry and covers her head with her hooves trying to hide herself, I decide it’s best to break the silence or she is going to break under this nonexistent pressure she is feeling. ‘’Look…’’ ‘’M-moonlight Sweeper.’’ That is a name? Wow, Luna was more on the normal side I guess. ‘’Moonlight Sweeper, it’s fine just raise your head alright? I’m not going to banish you to the desert or something like that.’’ She slowly raises her head some of her hair is covered in syrup. ‘’You won’t?’’ I mean I don’t think I would even be able to do that, she probably has more authority than me. ‘’I won’t, and why would I even do that?’’ ‘’Thank you.’’ She nervously smiles a little, that’s better she looks better with a smile on her face. ‘’Alright, now come here.’’ ‘’W-what?’’ ‘’Just come a little closer.’’ She takes little steps towards me and gets closer. I raise my hand. ‘’Hmn!’’ Moonlight squeals again and seals her eyes shut in fear. I lick my hand and get the syrup out of her hair, that’s better. ‘’There we go, you got some syrup in your hair.’’ ‘’I did?’’ ‘’Yes, look.’’ I show my hand covered in syrup. She looks at my hand and when she notices the syrup on my hand she brings one of her hooves to her hair and feels the sticky spot where the syrup used to be. ‘’Now how about you go and get us another plate of pancakes, yeah?’’ ‘’Hmm? Oh… oh yes! Excuse me for a moment!’’ She starts sprinting back to get some more pancakes. ‘’Be careful!’’ ‘’I wil-’’ …yeah she fell. ‘’ I’m okay! ’’ She quickly gets back up and continues sprinting. As silence takes hold, I look down and see a gruesome sight. All I can see are the parts of a hero lying on the ground, everywhere covered in delicious brown blood… My stomach protests at the sight but I can’t take my eyes off it, I can feel my mouth waterin- No! I’m not an animal, I’m not going to eat a pancake of the fucking ground, not here. I still lick the syrup out of my hand though. Steeling my will I head back inside my room and wait for Moonlight to bring back the pancakes. Lying on the bed I start thinking about her. Is she really that clumsy? Was that all an act, maybe the princess sent her after me to learn more about me after I befriended Luna? Rubbing my forehead in frustration I hear the sounds of hooves hitting the stone hallways of the castle looks like Moonlight is back. The sound stops right in front of my door and I wait for her to enter or knock. ‘’Umm… I’m back.’’ She is taking another option well with the door incident earlier I can understand why. I open the door and let her in she gets a little surprised when I suddenly open the door but fortunately, she doesn’t drop the tray this time. I step back and let her come inside, she enters with a quick thank you and immediately starts looking around the room… hmm. ‘’You can drop them on the table there.’’ I point to the table. She doesn’t say anything and makes her way to the table, oh I wonder how she is going to place them on the table. With a swift motion, she turns her neck a little to the side expertly and grabs the side of the tray with her mouth, and puts the tray on the table with ease… wow, how the hell can she do that? Seems like she actually knows what she is doing, so why did she drop the tray earlier? Did she really forget about them in the heat of the moment or was that planned? ‘’Hey, how about you join me?’’ I want to test something, maybe even make another friend if I am wrong. She stops right before she is about to leave and turns to look at me. ‘’Is… is that alright?’’ ‘’Yes, please I would love to chat with someone.’’ No, of course not I would rather be alone. She squeals again but this time it’s not because of fear but of excitement? What? ‘’I would love that too! I wanted to talk to you since I saw you yesterday at the throne room!’’ ‘’You… you saw me?’’ ‘’Yes! One moment I was just cleaning a part of the throne room before the nobles came and then all of a sudden A ballon crashed through one of the windows and it was chaos all around everyone screaming, me included, guards forming a line to protect the princess, and a pony crawling out of whatever was left of the ballon!’’ Woah, she said that all in one breath. Pausing to take a huge breath she continues almost immediately. ‘’And then the pony greets the Princess like nothing happened! But a guard tries to jump at you and you were all like hai-yah!’’ Is she doing karate moves while making the sounds with her mouth? Cute… no stop that! Don’t think about the weird pony in a maid’s dress doing fake karate moves in front of you as cute! ‘’And you almost made your escape but Princess Celestia-’’ Her name is Celestia? Yeah, she was celestial alright. ‘’- stops you and takes you out of the room.’’ Is she done? She seems out of breath, I guess it’s my turn now, annnd no, she is opening her mouth again… oh god I’m going to be stuck here for hours! ‘’Then later that same day when I was cleaning another part of the castle I got bored so I thought why not look out the window I love watching the city below so I did just that but do you know what happened?!’’ ‘’Umm, what happened?’’ ‘’I see the pony from earlier jumping out of the infirmary window! I was all like nooo! But then the Princess jumped right after him and saved him!’’ She is panting really hard right now. Well, she did just sum up the events in like a minute so that’s pretty normal. I wait for her to gather herself and rest a little. After a little, I decided to speak. ‘’Are you alright?’’ ‘’Yes…’’ All of a sudden she seems downtrodden and she hangs her head down. ‘’You must think I’m weird now.’’ What? Why would I even think that, because she got excited over something? ‘’No? I don’t think that.’’ ‘’You don’t?’’ She asks with a hopeful tone and raises her head to look at me she is almost on the brink of crying, what the hell? Why is she acting like this all of a sudden? Does she think she is weird or other people? If not then wh- oh, oh I get it this is a trick right? Trying to gain my sympathy while acting weak and vulnerable, very clever Moonlight… ‘’Of course not, now, how about you join me for breakfast?’’ ‘’Join you for breakfast? A-are you sure?’’ She asks while eyeing the pancakes on the table. ‘’Yes, I am not that hungry anyway we can even talk more while enjoying some pancakes together!’’ Nah, I’m so hungry I could eat a hors- Uh, yeah brain? If you say something like that out loud we are actually going to die. ‘’Yes! That would be awesome!’’ With that, she gains her energy right back and starts tapping on the ground repeatedly with her hooves. Hmm, she is good at this, she just changed her whole demeanor in a second, this is going to be harder than I thought it would be. Turning my head to the table I see that I only have one chair in the room. Where is she going to sit if I sit on the chair? Aha! ‘’Just wait a moment will you?’’ She nods repeatedly. I walk over to the table and push the chair out of the way, holding onto one of the sides of the table I grasp them tightly and start pulling it toward the bed, damn this is heavy or I am weak as hell seeing as how I lost to a bunny I think it might be the latter option. Suddenly it seems like the table becomes lighter I turn my head and see that Moonlight is pushing it from the side with her head, she looks up and smiles at me. With her pushing and me pulling we get the table to one of the sides of the bed quite easily. ‘’Thanks,’’ I say while huffing and puffing a little. ‘’I should thank you! You pulled so that I could sit too right?’’ ‘’Well, yeah.’’ ‘’So, thank you too!’’ We both sit with me on the bed and Moonlight on the chair we are just staring at each other, hah, now we are doing this eh? Alright, let’s do this, I’m not getting poisoned or magically-poisoned by fucking pancakes. ‘’You go first.’’ ‘’Oh, I can’t possibly do that, it would be very rude of me and you are our guest now.’’ Hoho, the politeness card eh? How about this then… ‘’Well, you are my guest now so I insist.’’ ‘’Okay! That’s fair I’m digging in!’’ Wha- she just ate one of the pancakes… so are these safe? Bringing my nose close to one of the pancakes I sniff it. It smells like… well it smells like pancakes, did she pick that one specifically? ‘’Hey, Moonlight.’’ ‘’That’s me!’’ She responds just before eating another one of the pancakes. ‘’Can I have that one?’’ ‘’This one? Why?’’ She asks and tilts her head to the side, does every one of these ponies tilt their head when they get confused? Weird. ‘’Uhh, that one was done just how I like it so… please?’’ ‘’Oh, you know your pancakes! Sure here you go!’’ She pushes the pancake towards me, huh I well I suppose I these are safe, I take a bite of the pancake and oh god… this is delicious! Before I knew it the two of us finished the pancakes in record time. While rubbing my belly I hear a light burp looking up I see Moonlight covering her mouth looking quite embarrassed. ‘’Excuse me, but those pancakes were so gooood!’’ I start laughing and lay on the bed while holding my gut, oh god it hurts to laugh but still. ‘’Hey! Don’t laugh! You know they were good I saw you scarf them down like an alligator.’’ ‘’I was hungry!’’ ‘’I bet you were! Why did you even say that you were not hungry then huh?’’ ‘’I wanted to eat breakfast with you.’’ Yeah, so that I knew if these mouth-watering pancakes were poisonous. ‘’...’’ She says nothing and looks away I almost didn’t notice it but her cheeks show just the barest amount of pink, just barely. After that, she turns around looks at me and then the bed, and then throws me a smirk. What is she thinking? Wait… no. ‘’Moonlight, no!’’ ‘’Moonlight yes!’’ Oh god, she is preparing to jump! ‘’Here I come! Cannonball!’’ She dives into the empty space beside me and I get tossed out of the bed and soar through the air like a plastic bag, landing hard on the floor just a few meters away from the bed. ‘’Agh!’’ Fuck! That hurts, I hope I don’t fucking vomit all of the pancakes. ‘’Oh my Celestia! No!’’ Moonlight rushes to my side. ‘’Are you okay?! I’m so sorry, please be okay! I didn’t mean to throw you out like that! Please don’t be ma-’’ ‘’I’m okay!... I’m okay, just… just help me to the bed, please?’’ She nods her head frantically and helps me get up and gets me to the edge of the bed. ‘’You can let go now.’’ She doesn’t let go, in fact, she is holding me even tighter. ‘’...’’ ‘’Moonlight? You can let go of me now.’’ ‘’Oh… yes, sorry.’’ She lets go and I slowly drag myself to the bed and make myself comfortable. I close my eyes to relax for a moment. *sniffle* Was that her? Please don’t be crying, please don’t be crying. Slowly opening my eyes I see she is barely holding her back from full-on crying the dam is about to burst. ‘’Oh, Moonlight… please don’t cry, I’m not mad at you.’’ Maybe I am just a little mad. ‘’Bu-but I hurt you more! You are already hurt enough you are covered with bandages I don’t want to add another one!’’ ‘’You didn’t I’m okay, it just hurt a little bit don’t even feel it anymore.’’ ‘’I still hurt you.’’ Oh, come on what do you want from me? Want me to tap dance so that I can show how healthy I am to you? No, noooo, the dam burst she is full-on crying now! What do I do, how do I comfort her? Seeing no other option I open my arms and she practically lunges at me the moment I open them. ‘’You’re not mad are you? Please, don’t be.’’ ‘’I’m not mad at you.’’ I say while patting her on the back of her head. I didn’t think that my morning would be like this, comforting a maid pony for hurting me, but that’s how it goes I guess. *disgusting…* What was that?