//------------------------------// // chapter 31. Subliminal // Story: Becoming Fluttershy // by Hope //------------------------------// I open my eyes too soon. Waking up at dawn, or this close to it, is not my preference, but Shining seems to be in control just enough to make that particular part of my daily schedule compulsory. Outside I can hear ponies and people talking. Immediately, Shining notes that his wife is one of the speakers, which makes me want to bury my head in the pillow so much more, but I notice a red blinking light from right next to the fluffy face shield. Erica’s phone, I pull it close with my magic, not bothering to get up. A few facebook updates, messages that offer help but are either out of our way or from people I think are a bit creepy, so I dismiss them. Finally I get to a new friend request, which is from Mi Amore Cadenza. I wonder for a moment whether the one I hear freaking out one tent over really managed to setup a facebook account before even learning to walk. After accepting the request, I notice that this Cadance is in another state, and appears to be with a different group of people. A bit of mental cursing later, I realize I am going to have to deal with this a second time. I mean, Shining will. Yup, totally caught myself there. Anywho, Shining would have to deal with this craziness for a second time, but at least this time he wouldn’t be under a slew of mind control spells. I slowly get up, brush my mane and tail mostly straight, and trot out to greet the group. “In all seriousness,” I hear Pinkie say. “Why are you hiding in the tent?” I wonder for a moment if royal guards are compelled to make dramatic entrances, or if that’s just Shining. “I think that may be my fault. Also, good morning. It is hard enough to get sleep when my body wants to wake up at the crack of dawn.” I say with a small frown. At least the urge to go jogging had let up a bit. “OH GOD HE’S HERE!” Cadance shouted. “Don’t look at me I don’t even know you I don’t want this to happen....” I look to the tent with a bit of exasperation and sigh. “Listen, Shining understands. He wants me to guard you with my life but he knows that you aren’t Cadance.” I think for a moment on that, and how close to lying it comes, and mutter quietly; “At least, not yet.” “In other news I have eighteen pairs of ribs to Fluttershy’s fifteen.” Reid says. I have no idea what he is talking about, so I just assume it makes sense somehow. Cadance, or Linda I suppose, speaks up. “...okay, the part from Julien was comforting, but Reid what are you thinking?” “I suck at actually comforting people so I’ll just go on a random tangent?” That actually makes a good amount of sense, and is yet another similarity between Reid and Pinkie, if the show is an example. All those songs can’t seriously be on topic. “....fair enough...” Linda concedes. I figure its time for my big dramatic ‘which one are you’ scene, if anything just to get it out of the way. “Also, if you keep hiding in a tent, you’ll never realize that another Cadence just posted a picture of herself on Facebook. Raising a very interesting question. Which one is real.” I point out calmly. “I am pretty sure we have the real one.” Erica ponders. I would ask her what she means but I’m pretty sure she will tell us anyway. “Um, infinite realities being what they are, I have to indicate by default they’re both real.” Reid points out helpfully. I have no idea what they are talking about, but Ian seems to. “I think they mean who is the imposter.” “Figment could sniff them out. Right Figment?” Reid looks at his stuffed companion, and I wait to see if it will talk before I remember that it isn’t Spike. Don’t know why I thought it was for a moment. “Aaanyway,” Erica says. “I think we have the real one, because I haven’t felt any instant love for her, and a chrysalis version of Cadance would be syphoning love away from others.” Yup, explanation was bound to happen. Ginny looks at her in confusion. “Wait, is that how Changelings work? I thought they just consumed the magical vibrations generated by love.” “I thought that they had to mask themselves.” Harold says “I thought they were ugly.” Jacqueline shrugs. Erica raises a hoof as if she is in school, wanting to answer a question. “I happen to be half Fluttershy. I know exactly how they feel. You suddenly become attracted to them when they use their power.” “I thought they were pretty cute.” Reid chips in. “Okay sorry, I’m still having a panic attack here but now it’s worse. Will the other Cadance want to kill me?!” Linda starts to panic. Reid excels at one track thinking, as he continues unabated. ”I have a Changeling OC, from the tribe of sorrow....” He says. “Hey, she is sad. get in there and give her a musical while I go get everyone breakfast.” Erica says, looking like she has a headache, or simply wants to toss something off a cliff. “I dunno, I don’t think this is musical number kind of sad and I’m still in my PJs.” He says with a small frown as Erica turns to leave. “PJ’s make everything better. Getting food now.” Erica says. “Then why don’t you wear them?!” He asks, as confused as I am at Erica’s newfound grump. Erica turns back and shouts from the other side of the campsite. “Because they are itchy on fur!” Then she grabs her phone in her teeth and leaves. Reid smiles after a moment. "I get it." Ian looks at him curiously. "Sorry, thinking out loud." Reid says. After a moment of thought, Reid scrabbles at the tent zipper for a few seconds before Ian, helpfully, opens it for him. Then Reid tossed in his necklace, and I wonder for a moment where it came from. "OW! What the--?" Linda says from the tent before pausing for a moment. "Wait, is this the Element of Laughter?" I decide I want to be in on this conversation as well, and quickly teleport myself into the tent. Stealth teleporting would be difficult except Shining seems to want me to try as many different spells as possible to keep his skills sharp. "Yeah. And Shy has the Element of Kindness. And to my knowledge Chrysalis has no changeling army, or supercharged love magic." Reid says with a shrug. "So basically the tables are turned and stuff like that." "She also is probably a human, just as scared as we all are." I suggest. "WAAAA!" Linda's wings flare in shock, closing her eyes and turning away from me. Reid looks a bit annoyed at my sudden appearance. "Okay seriously, I’m the teleporting one, how did you get in here?" I grin. "Literal teleportation. I am a guard with guard magic. and a unicorn. You'd be surprised how many attack spells an Equestrian guard is taught." "Five?" I smirk. "Six." Actually, thats only the nonlethal ones, but those are the ones Guards are allowed to talk about. Reid nods, tapping his chin. "Oh, right, the Harmony number, should have spotted that." Linda, meanwhile, was cowering in the corner, even though the tent doesn’t have a corner, she was doing a remarkable job of it. "I’m not looking, I’m not looking, I am my own mare--WOMAN! My own woman!" I really want to laugh because it is such an amusing sight, but she doesn’t need that now. "Never thought I would have women desperately trying NOT to fall to my handsome charms." I say, noting I sound a bit more upset at that than I should be. "...Yeeeeeeeah not touching that one." Reid says. "Anywho. Linda, you have to look at him sometime. Better to do it when you’re prepared. Julien no sudden kissing to mess with her." I hadn’t even considered it, thanks for the mental image, Reid. "I’ve known her less than a day. Sorry, but I’m not that type of stallion." I say. She braced herself as though about to be hit by a gust of wind, and opened her eyes before starting to turn her head. "I... am in.... control." Reid smiles and pats her gently. "He’s over there. Just turn your head to the right. Sloooooooowly....." She nods and takes a few breaths before turning. "I... am in... con..." When she finally turned far enough to see me, she seemed to freeze, staring at me with a blank expression. I smiled nervously. A tense silence fell over us. "...damn." She said, almost sounding disappointed. Reid leaned in towards her. "What?" "I hate to say this, but it’s something we both agree on." She said, and I started to worry that she was about to say something really nasty. "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..." Reid actually had to take another breath just to keep this up. "...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees?" "....he’s totally smoking hot." She said breathlessly. Face, meet hoof. Hoof, meet face. Reid regarded Linda with a determined gaze. "The punster in me wants to go pyro... But more importantly, can you control your urges?" "I..." She nodded, glancing away from me, to my regret. "Yes. Yes. I’m okay now. He is hot, and this is a fact, and it is not effecting my decision making process." I smile before standing. "Okay, good. Now I’ve got to start taking down our tent." I say before turning and trotting quickly out and over to our own campsite. A moment later, Linda tries to get out of the tent, but ends up falling on her face with a loud enough thud to rouse me from my riveting job of trying to force a tent into a manageable shape. I stop folding up the stubborn tent and look over to her with concern not only from Shining, but my worry as well. "You okay?" "Aside from the stickers on my snout? Yes." Linda said sourly. Reid grinned. "It onleeeeeeee, takes, a moment..." Linda groaned. "Oh noooooooo..." I sigh and stop the music with a hoof after trotting over from my tent. "No. Sorry, I know its funny but we have enough issues right now." I look over to Linda, who looks genuinely distraught from all the morning’s events, and I have to try not to give her a Shining-induced hug. "Try walking small steps first, it’ll be fine, took me an hour or two." I say while pulling bits of grass and thorns off her nose with my magic. "And count your ribs," Reid added. Linda glared at Reid before starting to take her first few steps. "Ignoring you now." Reid giggled mischievously. "Fair enough, I’m going to go pester Erishy." After Reid left the campsite, the newly ponified cosplayer and I were left alone to learn to walk and finish packing up camp, respectively. After several minutes of awkward silence, during which Linda managed a few feet of progress through the campground, I finally decided that talking was preferable to whatever annoying song was stuck in my head at the time. “Try alternating opposite legs, front left and back right, followed by the other two. If you try to move the same side at the same time, you’ll end up on your side.” I pointed out. Linda flushed with a bit of embarrassment but nodded with determination, before putting my advice into action. It took her a bit to get the rhythm down, but soon she was making a gradual circle around the tents, with a pleased expression and her head held high. Better than a royal recluse any day. “So what's it like having a royal guard in your head?” She asked with a chuckle on her next pass. “Stressful.” I deadpan as I can practically feel Shining laughing in the back of my head. Try boot camp. Shining quips. “I wonder what it will be like to have Cadance talking with me, or do you think that it happens to everyone?” She asked with a bit of hope in her voice. “I can't say for certain, but by looking at the other ponified members of our little group I can guess that it depends a lot on how close you are to your pony. Erica has merged with Fluttershy as much as I think they can, pinkie and Reid seem to still be at arms length, Shining and I have kept pretty compartmentalized, except for me using words like compartmentalized, but I don’t know how long that will last.” I say, as I roll up the tent and began shoving it into the carrying case along with some chunks of grass my shields pulled up. Still getting used to magic. On her next trip around, Linda seems thoughtful. “Cadance only really got a few minutes of screen time anyway, right? Who's to say that she is at all like me? I could stay my own person for a while.” She ponders out loud. Shining decides that's the moment to list to me a few dozen similarities between Linda and his wife, just off of observing Linda for a day. I decide that delaying the inevitable freakout until others are around to help contain the frantic princess would be a better idea than having her run off or something. “Shining says he hopes that goes over well.” I say with a bit of sarcasm. Linda stops her jog around the clearing, and sits next to her tent, looking at me with a fair bit of worry. “Do you think that Cadence is okay? I mean, I haven't heard her talking to me or anything. I hope shes not scared.” Linda says, kicking the grass with one hoof. “I’m not sure you’ll get anything from her in the first day, all that I got from Shining on the first day were some strong urges to keep to his code of duty and honor. He didn’t seem frantic when he started talking to me though, so I am guessing it’s not too bad.” I reassure her. Linda smiles and slips into her tent, coming back out with her purse in her teeth and setting it down in front of her. “So! Magic.” She says far more gleefully than I really think is safe for a newly christened magic user. I chuckle and levitate a rock over to her. “I would try this before you try making anypony fall in love.” I say meaningfully. “For.... Reasons.” I add before standing back and throwing up a pretty strong shield between us and the rest of the campsite, tinting the whole area in a rosey glow, which if Erica ever refers to it as pink, I will kill her. Linda raises an eyebrow at the love spell comment, but smiles and turns her focus to the rock anyway. I watch as she glares the poor rock into submission, and for a moment I wonder if it wont start floating just to make her happy, but alas, it has no emotions. “Try visualizing what you want to happen.” I suggest. She nods and closes her eyes, taking the moment to imagine what she is trying to do with the rock. I take that same moment to look over the scene. A week ago, I never would have thought that teaching a fairly attractive pony princess to levitate rocks would be on schedule someday. Secondly, I wouldn’t have organized my day into a schedule mentally. I can thank the guard pony for that. I realized just as I was starting to zone out, that a light blue aura was surrounding the stone. Of course the pink princess would have blue magic, and I would have rose colored (not pink!) magic. Gotta love fate. “Congratu....” That was about as far as I got before Linda shot her eyes open and jumped from the sudden noise of my voice, shooting the rock off to the left and ricocheting off my shield to impale itself into the ground an inch or so. “....lations.” I finished with a chuckle. She pouted and pushed me with a hoof. “Hey, you startled me, its not my fault.” She complained. “I know, I know, but good job! Practice on some more rocks, and you’ll be back on your phone in no time.” I say with a friendly smile as the bubble dissipates around us. About this time, Reid, Harold, and Jackie returned to the campsite, helping Linda learn how to actually prance. I thought this was a little unnecessary, but who am I to stop a Pinkie clone from giggling madly as the potential alliteration of the situation. There was quite as bit of talk amongst the group over whether or not the last two humans currently in the campsite would become the ponies they liked, which was doubtful since I know for a fact Erica liked Derpy a lot more than Fluttershy. The chances of the cosplayers getting their favorite ponies were slim to none, but I was too busy actually packing up camp and sneaking glances at Linda per Shining’s “orders” to contribute to the conversation. Reid gives me a sidelong glance. “Soooooooo, sexy rating, one to ten.” “Eleven, thats not even a fair question.” I say with a smirk, out of earshot of the others. “And what about Julien, hmm?” “That was julien, Shining is still locked up in here.” I say, tapping the side of my head. “Uh huh. You absolutely sure that none of his sexual preferences are seeping into your subconscious as you unknowingly merge into.... Wow, your names are bad for portmanteau.” “I know, hasn’t been a problem before. In response to your question, how are you doing?” I ask with a smirk. There is no way that Reid can’t see how unanswerable his question is. “Well.... Pinks and I are both decentralized thinkers, so I’m handing her some of my trains. Of thought. I think about multiple things.” He tilts his head. “Which reminds me, here’s a fun little awkward question: Shiney and Cadance are newlyweds, yesno?” “That would be an affirmative.” I say, wondering which of the many awkward questions I have already asked shining is going to be brought back up. “Sooooooo Newlyweds do newlywed things, and you know, newlywed things lead to small cute things, which is why I’m wondering whether we should be expecting any small cute things in the future. Actual concern here. Not joking.” “No. Shining and Cadance were waiting until they sorted out some upcoming issues before going for kids, so they cast some spells, I didn’t go into specifics. Basically, no.” “Oh thank God. Thank the Holy God for his mercy. This is me, thanking God. This whole thing is incredibly weird as is. Although.... did they do any newlywed things?” “More than you can possibly imagine.” I say with a smirk, which quickly reverted to a grimace. “There was a bit of Shining for you, heh.” “Rrrrowr.” Reid taps his hoof as we watched Linda work out her magic some more. “So... prior to gaining hooves, what was your opinion on the intimate relations of colorful quadrupeds?” “I made it a point not to concern myself with it. I didn’t care. Now, it is a more pressing matter, obviously.” I say, rolling my eyes. “Ah. Hmmm. Point.” Reid stares at nothing for a while. Then he turns to me. “So were you and Erica, you know, a thing?” “No, I am her roommate and her friend. To be honest, I think she needs a friend more than a guy or girl anyway.” I say. “Hm. Well.... I guess I can try to be that. We are vocal sisters.” He says with a friendly smile. Yeah, maybe that will work out. We can hope, right?