When I wake up, I slowly take in the interesting sight in front of me, giving myself time to figure out what exactly I am looking at.
Jessica is sitting on a chair with a sketch pad on her lap, pencil furiously scratching across it’s surface. Ed is trying to be as quiet as possible while laughing behind his hand, and Julien looks self satisfied and smug.
My foreleg twitches and I roll away from them.
“Lemme alone.” I mumble. I can’t quite remember what I had been dreaming about but I know it was a good dream and plan on resuming it.
“You get what you need?” Julien says.
“Yeah, I can paint this. You sure she won’t mind?” Jessica asks nervously.
“She used to take pictures of all her roommates sleeping and post them on Facebook. She deserves this.” He says with a chuckle.
I drift back off to sleep.
I am laying on my side in an endless white expanse of clouds, my wings laid out behind me in a relaxed position. In front of me is Fluttershy, in a mirror of my own pose.
“I’m scared.” I whisper, resuming our conversation that had been so rudely cut short by reality.
“I know. I know it’s scary and I’m sorry that this has to happen, but It’s the only way to stop him, it really is.” Fluttershy promises me, reaching out a hoof to touch my cheek.
“Am I... Going to die? Will I fade away?” I whimper.
“Oh no, not at all. You’ll be different, just like I will be different when this is all over too. But you wouldn’t be here if we weren’t already really close. At least, that’s what Twilight said.” She is really doing her best to comfort me, I can tell.
I look up with a bit of humor in my eyes. “So does that mean you’re a fillyfooler too?”
In answer, she leans in to hug me and I think she is about to say something when....
“Erica.”
I jolt awake and immediately scream my rage at the untimely demise of either an extremely interesting dream or the weirdest form of inter dimensional communication I’ve ever heard of.
Of course, my scream of rage is some petite snarling and tossing a pillow at the offending white and blue pony, but I feel I get the message across.
“You’ve been asleep almost half a day. I know that you need your beauty sleep to keep up that pink mane for your imaginary lover, but still.” He smirks.
My eyes go wide. “Was I talking in my sleep?” I ask, embarrassed beyond all reason.
“No, but you were smooching and cuddling this.” He says, levitating the partially drool soaked pillow up and flinging it back at me.
“Oh, yeah...” I really don’t feel like detailing what just happened, so I turn to my computer to avoid his gaze.
It has been plugged in and is flipped open to my new Facebook page, A new friend request awaits, as well as a message.
I accept the friend request from an Isaac, whose profile picture is Twilight Sparkle with the caption “Deal with it”.
He seems to have forgotten that he set his profile picture as such though, since his message wants me to guess which pony he is.
“Hello, fellow pony! Another pony here, who has retained quite a bit of their personality, but still has slight personality problems! See if you can guess who I am from this sentence: The quantum anomaly detector has sensed 3 threats within 6 parsecs of Earth. See if you can!”
Mixing star trek and Doctor Who references? I think so but can’t be sure. Either way, this Twilight seems to be less along in the “melding” than I am, I can see where the logical bits of Twilight could influence techno babble but the attention to detail is lacking, since he didn't remember his profile picture. Also 6 parsecs is a huge range, and unless "threats" was taken as only the most serious of dangers, there would have to be more than 3.
I wonder if the spirit of our pony gets to pick how the meld works, Fluttershy would naturally want to be kind and gentle, not harming my mind any more than necessary, whereas a pony like Twilight would likely try to “teach” the human mind what it needed to know. By shoving information into it like a panicked schoolteacher. I don’t envy that poor fellow.
I type up a reply as well as a short bit of inspired writing and throw it up on my wall before closing my laptop and looking back to Julien, who has been playing with my phone.
“I texted my parents, let them know what is going on. Directed them to a few news articles.” He explains when he sees I’m no longer busy on my computer.
“I would have texted yours too but... I don’t know if you want to tell them.” He floats the phone over to me.
I sigh and look over the list of names, picking out my father and brothers. “Go ahead and send the links to them.” I say quietly, nudging it back towards him.
“Lunch is on!” Ron shouts up the stairs, and I trot down with Julien following behind shortly.
The meal is a fairly simple collection of apples and bread with butter for Julien and I, while the others chow down on leftover bacon from breakfast (which I slept through), ham sandwiches, and their own fruits. I feel a little queasy from the smell, but Julien watches with rapt attention, drooling slightly at the sight of the bacon.
“Don’t try it, it isn’t worth it.” I caution him.
“But... But it is bacon! Bacon is the best thing ever!” He complains.
“Yeah, I don’t think you want to push your luck, son.” Ron says with a chuckle.
While I eat I start to notice that Ron seems more upbeat than he was yesterday, a wider grin on his face and a certain bounce in his step. After eating, I mention that I would like to get some things out of my car, and I am led out to the garage where the car sits, the rear end mostly disassembled.
The pile of dirty clothes and the like sits off to the side, next to a ruined tent. I shuffle through it all but don’t find what I am looking for. Eventually I make my way to the front of the car, and I find my sunglasses and hat on the floor where I had fallen during the crash. The pastel blue hat rejoins my head, but when I pick up the glass I see a crack running across the bottom of one lense.
“Aw...” I feel like I am going to start tearing up but I just sigh instead, putting on the sunglasses and closing the car door.
When I turn back to leave, I see Ron has come out to resume work on my car.
“So how bad is it?” I ask curiously.
“Frame is fine, mount for the trunk is bent but I can bend that back. The rest of it is largely cosmetic.” he explains, taking a wrench to a mangled piece of metal that used to be part of the side panel.
“Thank you again for doing this for me.” I say as I move closer and rear up with my hooves on the side of the car to get a better look.
He chuckles and leans back to sit on a nearby stool.
“You are doing me a favor, lass. I had an accident a while back, lost my leg and my wife at the same time.” He says this with his gaze on the ceiling. “I spent a bunch of time refusing to deal with that, cooped up in a hospital or in my room, waiting for my life to piece itself back together.”
He looks back to me. “But it doesn't work that way. I haven’t got this far because I sat on a couch and ignored others. I got this far because I got up and got to work. Work helps me more than you’d think, and I haven’t had much to do lately.”
He points to my car with the piece of metal in his hand.
“Every broken piece of this car I fix, is a part of me that I am getting back.” He concludes, nodding solemnly.