Darkness had overtaken Lux’s senses once the portal fully enveloped his consciousness. However in no time at all, he could feel a cool breeze on his skin and hear ambient noise unlike the spiritual plain. He had a small sense of doubt that God was only placating his worries before sending him into the afterlife but he couldn’t deny what he was feeling at the moment..
He’s alive again!
Though his eyes were still heavy, which was rather from exhaustion or from his soul acclimating to the new body.
Now first things first, where am I right now?
Lux finally forces his eyelids open and views his surroundings. He laid in a comfy blanket on top of a large flat rock and he could see a wall of wooden planks barring what looked like the mouth of a cave, given that there was a door as well.
His fatigue died down after a few minutes of recuperation which allowed him to take a closer look. The cave walls had: bookshelves adorned with books of varied colours and titles, another blanket beside his own on the opposite end, many medical ailments were scattered on the floor and many gems trailed along the rocks. Wait a minute…
“Gems this close to a caves entrance,” Lux spoke out loud to himself, “rather I’m in an undiscovered part of the Earth, which is the worst news possible, or something else is happeni-”
Lux paused. That wasn’t the same voice that normally came from his vocal cords! But in the moment of slight panic, he breathed out to relax. Of course his voice is different, his body isn’t his own.
However, on attempting to facepalm while chuckling at his short-term memory he felt pain in his forehead- no more like a new appendage. He could only assume that he slapped himself too quickly which resulted in his wrist landing before his palm. However, the answer unveiled itself when he lifted the blanket to see dark grey fur covering his body…with hooves.
“Huh…HUH!”
Lux took numerous panicked breaths while wide eyed, stroking the fur on his chest. Or he guessed ‘barrel’ would be the appropriate term. He knew there would be roadblocks but stuff like understanding the person's life and relationships, not acclimating as a wholly different and quadrupedal species.
“Ok phew… ok, this is NOT what I expected!” Lux grumbled, standing upwards while wobbling on his 4 hooves. “But, it’s not like I can walk up to God and ask for a change. Best to use what I've got and roll with it.”
It was like that old phrase his friend of a classmate used to quip at every opportunity, ‘don’t cry over spilt milk’ and this situation felt like the perfect time to take it to heart.
Step by step, he trotted his way toward the mouth of the cave built as a home and stared at a particularly large reflective diamond and witnessed his full appearance. If his limited knowledge of zoology gave him any hints, Lux was now a colt bearing a dark coat that was puffy as thunderclouds. His mane and tail were an electric yellow though the mane was more eye-catching as it sleeked along his neck before unravelling at his forehead. Speaking of his forehead, a bud of a horn was sculpted there. When he tapped it, he didn't feel anything but vibrations which indicated to Lux that the organ was probably just bone.
Well, at least its a body I can get behind... the height will probably get on my nerves though.
And so he headed to the door after a few tumbles and pushed the door open, seeing the vastness of trees and bushes while a cacophony of singing birds and screeching creatures, unknown to Lux, echoed the area. For whatever reason though, a place as normal as a forest made the dark coat on Lux’ body stick up.
Rather it be a biological fear of the unknown or the sense of unease for his otherworldly circumstance, it didn't matter. What mattered was finding civilisation and find a semblance of other sentient life.
So he attempted out of the door and onto the forest grounds, only to trip over his hooves and eat dirt.
Lux’s face had disappointment written all over it. “Maybe I should get used to walking before I run. Baby steps and all.” Lux chuckled apathetically before gagging and coughing out dirt lodged in his throat.
He brought himself upright and scraped the dirt from his fur before his ears perked up upon the shuffling of near-bye foliage followed by the clattering of shattered glass. Lux turned to face the sudden disturbance to find an uplifting sight. It was a dark furred stallion like himself, but older and with a fiery crimson mane.
“Son?”
Forgoing the traditional hello or any casual greeting, the frazzled stallion hastily heaved Lux onto his back and headed inside before gently lowering his head towards the blanket the kid had escaped from moments ago. Gravity set its course and Lux slid onto the sheets. Once the crimson maned stallion felt the weight vanish, he moved from every corner of the home, before setting sights on a bowl of numerous fruits. Some of which Lux didn’t recognise.
“Oh sweet Celestia, you’re awake Darkloud!” The sweat brooding from its fur was evident of the stallion's panic as he returned to Lux’ side with the stem of a lunar skinned apple.
He took the strange looking apple with his hoof and while his body quickly acclimated to the sensation, Lux’s mind did not, staring perplexed at his instinctual action. Hooves working like hands shouldn’t be possible yet he could feel the smooth texture of the apple like he was actually gripping it.
Don’t think about it Lux… pony physics isn’t on the priority of questions right now
And said question at the top of the list was about the name the stallion called him… ‘Darkloud’. Must be the name of the passing soul God spoke about, Lux thought so I guess that means I’m Darkloud now… nope that just sounds wrong. Still, that same veil of misdirection will prevent him from being sent to a mental pony asylum, if they even exist, so Lux concluded he should steal some information from his ‘father’ before acclimating to whoever ‘Darkloud’ is… even if it meant being called a dead person, or colt in this scenario.
“Uhm, who are you?” Lux asked.
Lux- or Darkloud as he should call himself, watched as his ‘dad’ sent a pitiful glare his way. “Oh blazes, did you hit your head on that cliff?” he paced around Lux’s bed frantically while muttering to himself. Lux had expected to hear white noise but the low pitched whispers were surprisingly picked up. No doubt his pony ears at work. “I-I should’ve known you’d do something so reckless… but walking up to a hydra what in Celestia’s name were you thinking? If I hadn’t bucked the fear of Celestia into that lizard, who knows what it could’ve done!”
He cowered into a fetal position and wallowed into a cacophony of ramblings. “If only Raindrop were here, she’d have a convoluted way to jog that memory lickity split. She always had a spell for everything…”
Lux peered down at him as the stallion fell silent, forehooves over his face to avoid the puffy eyed face from becoming visible to his son. It failed poorly.
Lux had endured many things in the past, from strict instructors to arrogant pricks but what could really make him eye twitch was an upset individual, especially when he was the cause.
So in an attempt to diffuse a situation he couldn’t know, Lux hopped out of his blankets and slowly crept to the crying stallion, patting him on the back, “please cut down the water works, I-I’ll be honest with you though, I don’t have any idea what you mean… everything before the hydra incident is really hazy. I don’t know how it happened but I’m guessing it's amnesia so maybe the classic ‘talk about your life story’ cliche will work.”
The stallion steadily raised his head and nodded, returning to a standing position and smiling lovingly at the colt. “Sorry kid,” he wiped his tears and gave his best game face, “how about I try that method before it becomes permanent or something.”
The short rundown of the Darkloud’s life was simple enough for the dimensional hopper to understand. The considerate stallion before him was his father, Heatwave, a former salespony in Manehatten.
“Though I like to see myself as more unorthodox compared to the average corporate snob. I mean, why sell artefacts and relics if you didn’t earn them in the first place”
Lux smirked at the statement. Back in his days as a Conduit, the academy had acquired many support boosting artefacts after a fair share of battlefield clean ups though the only tools he took to battle were worn by foes he faced personally. “Yeah, I can get behind that logic. Like, trophies are just metal cups if you didn’t win them”
Seeing that Heatwave finished his monologue and restocked a variety of fruits from his basket, Lux walked to a shelf nailed into the cobble wall, above a cooking station built entirely with smooth stone. The colt hopped on top of the stove and extended himself on 2 hooves to reach the shelf.
He flicked his eyes to the cover of the first hard worn book in his vision, reaching past the piles of unused sticky notes and taking the jungle coloured book from its resting place.
Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone… wait, that one has wings! So pegasi also exist. Anyway, the read sounds like a cool adventure series. Just the kind of book I need to cure myself of this human to pony relapse I’m currently on.
Unfortunately, Lux underestimated the limits of a bipedal pony as his front fell forward to correct itself, resulting in the colt tipping another object from the shelf before falling off the stove sideways.
Lux’s instincts took hold and committed to the roll until his legs were directed towards the floor,stretching them outwards to slow his rotation and with a heavy clop, Lux impacted the floor without any injuries.
And although the book flipped to the ground along with him and suffered minor dust particles on its pages, the other item wasn’t so lucky. A crash rang across the home which signalled Heatwave to zip beside Lux.
“Darkloud, you're still recovering, nows not the time to make the shelf a personal... jungle.” The stallion paused once he set his gaze on the fallen object, a picture frame. The glass had scattered around the wooden frame from the surprise impact with the hard ground, but the image held inside struck a chord with Lux, yet he couldn’t understand it.
The picture had Heatwave and an even smaller Darkloud together. The little rascal was laughing his ass off while pointing a hoof at the stallion who was covered in chocolate pudding, red eyes glaring, unamused at the camera. Meanwhile, said rascal was floating while cascaded in a sunny yellow glow. And to the right was a sky blue mare with a mark of a dark cloud dropping raindrops on her flank, giggling at the kid’s antics while holding him and a magical aura.
Maybe that’s how they use alchemy here… he pondered, but as he looked closer, the cogs turned in his head. She had an electric mane that swirled and puffed out like clouds, but her only eye open from her laughing revealed the same hue of electricity Darkloud had which was the final nail in the coffin.
“Is that mom?”
Heatwave picked up the broken frame and stared at the picture solemnly. “Yep, Raindrop had a lot more patience with you than I did. I believe this was on your 8th birthday. You decided it would be hilarious to place a bucket of chocolate pudding over the door, one accident later and your mother came in with the camera.” The stallion made an awkward chuckle before replacing the glass on the picture and hoisting it back to its previous location.
“She seems like a nice woman…” Lux lowered his head, the use of past tense on Heatwave’s part made him feel as if he should respect his privacy, even if it’s information he should have access to. “I-I wish I could remember her.”
Heatwave took his eyes off him but returned just as fast, squinting at the child. “Firstly, it’s ‘mare’ not ‘woman’. What dictionary did YOU read?” he shook himself out of his confused mumbling to reaffirm his attention towards his son. “Secondly, that’s not your fault kid. That blazing hydra came out of nowhere, you couldn’t have avoided it… no pony could.”
The son and father sat in silence for a long time while a cascade of raindrops crashed outside the cave. Heatwave smiled for the first time since Lux had met him and backtracked to the front door, shoving it open. “I should get moving, there was quite a few stuff I dropped so I need to quickly restock ‘em. Make yourself at home… hopefully something in here can help you with that memory problem even just a little.”
And in a flash, Heatwave galloped into the rain. Lux sat there for a few seconds, taking in everything so far.
Heatwave must’ve had a bad time… at least he’s still charging on. Still, I wonder why we are in a forest like this instead of an actual house in Manhatten, wait no- Manehatten I mean! And where is Raindrop?
He grabbed the book still resting on the ground and climbed into his blanket. Warmth enveloped his body and he opened the first page.
“Well, nothing can rest your brain better than a good book. Il think about what I'm gonna do next… so then ‘As Daring Do trekked through the tropical jungle, the wet heat zapped her energy and slowed her every step-’”