//------------------------------// // At Large // Story: The Ash // by Raging Mouse //------------------------------// Chapter 24: At Large Welder swallowed and gagged. He scooped his hand into the water basin and brought it cupped to his mouth, slurping some water. The black disk was as foul-tasting as its components were unidentifiable, though he sometimes suspected it at least partially contained his own waste, reprocessed once he’d disposed of it down the hole of the waterless basin. He’d been told that it was food. He didn’t doubt it, as he was still alive – if a bit thinner and weaker than before. He looked down at the half-finished cake in his hands. Consistency like soft bread and taste like ammonia and dirt. He’d tried to find some combination of word cards that would convey how bad it tasted but without any ‘taste’ word he’d been stumped. Another word missing from his cue-card vocabulary was ‘bored’, and it most certainly applied. There was nothing to do apart from the occasional tests of his intelligence and reasoning that the green pony asked him to do, and they’d been childishly basic. She’d also asked some peculiar questions about his arrival – ’did’ ‘you’ ‘come’ ‘here’ ‘want’ ‘to’ and ‘did’ ‘you’ ‘harm’ ‘ponies’ ‘want’ ‘to’? That didn’t bode well, though he should have expected it. If he couldn’t even breathe the native atmosphere then everything that followed him to this world would probably poison the natives as well. Still, he didn’t like the insinuation that he’d done so on purpose and had most insistently waved the ‘no’-sign at her. His demand to know why such questions were even asked went unheeded. It wasn’t the first question to be ignored. ‘Where’, ‘Twilight Sparkle’ was permanently laid down by the glass. He’d also taken to laying out information about his own status, ever since he felt increasing worry about his slowly mounting nausea. The cakes tasted horrible, but not that horrible. Something made him feel constantly sick. Maybe it was his hygiene? The only clean water was in the basin. There was no warm water and no soap. He cleaned himself as best he could over the dry basin, not wanting to pollute his drinking water, and also tried to wash his clothes, but he still felt grubby all the time. It all added up to feelings of frustration and loneliness. And fear. He was pretty sure he hadn’t seen the green pony in over a day. A little light came from above every now and then, which he assumed to be daylight, but it filtered through a gray material that looked a bit like ice from below and didn’t amount to much more than a murky gray gloom. He was becoming depressed at the thought of spending much further time like this. He’d sleep when he felt drowsy, but would wake up shivering and with aching muscles. The air was a bit too chilly, and the stone he was surrounded by didn’t help. There was no mattress and if he tried balling up his clothes into a makeshift pillow then he’d be too cold to fall asleep. He guessed he’d been in the glass room for about nine days now, and he’d sure lose his mind before nine more days passed unless something changed. He regarded the half-eaten cake of undetermined origin in his hands. He really didn’t feel up to the task of finishing it. He set it down on the edge of the water basin with a sigh before standing and stretching. Stiff joints creaked and popped, and he groaned appreciatively, feeling a bit better. He considered his situation. Perhaps if he couldn’t complain directly about his food then perhaps he could ask for different food? He was sure he’d seen that word. He went over to the stacks of words by the back wall of his stone hut and hunted through the piles. There had been a system to the piles but he’d discovered it far too late when he’d already ruined it by returning the cards to piles with similar word sizes rather than words with similar usage. It took a while therefore to find ‘different’, ‘food’ and, as an afterthought, ‘please’. He’d taken to studying the Equestrian markings, trying to decipher the written language, and had made some basic progress. He assumed the symbols were related to Equestrian phonemes, but nothing guaranteed a direct relationship. They didn’t seem to be pictograms: he’d only seen a total of twenty-three different symbols. He looked at the symbols on the ‘fronts’ of the cards. He’d begun calling the sides with the bigger markings the fronts. His cards inevitably had the text he could read in smaller print, no doubt since he’d be able to read them up close rather than pressed up against wavy glass. Consequently the Equestrian text was printed large. By now he could identify about fifty cards from their Equestrian markings alone, and the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ cards with only a casual glance even though there were other cards with equally short words on their fronts. Equestrian, he assumed, had more vowels (and if so then less consonants, provided his letter count was correct) than the average for common human languages, allowing for a larger selection of short words. Thus he studied the cards in his hands as he strolled towards the glass. He glanced up, did a double-take and threw himself back with a strangled yelp, sending the cards he’d held flying to the sides. He landed hard enough on his backside to force the air from his lungs, and he sat stunned while staring at the two ellipses of purple fire that glowed in the darkness on the other side of the glass. The burning ellipses winked out for a split second, like blinking eyes. Then a bright point of light appeared above them and soared upwards, shining down on Twilight Sparkle. Welder blinked stupidly at the pony before picking himself up and walking to the glass. He looked down at the pony: there was no doubt this was Twilight Sparkle, but the glowing eyes were definitely new. She seemed to just tranquilly regard him. “Twilight? Is that you?” The pony blinked again, momentarily quenching the purple flames. Then another, weaker mote of light formed at the tip of her horn and detached. It floated forward, up to the glass and through it. Welder backed away warily just before it stopped. He inspected the light cautiously, but it just hung in the air at shoulder height, shining a bright purple. Then he looked past it at Twilight, who met his gaze with her head tilted and an eyebrow raised. She started tapping a hoof in a very familiar expression of impatience. Welder reached out with a hand and very hesitantly put his right index finger next to the light. Before he could react it was drawn to his hand, disappearing in a flash and making a weak purple glow travel up his arm. He drew a startled breath. “Hello, Welder. How are you?” It was Twilight’s voice. Except she hadn’t really said those words. He’d heard her speak the same unintelligible language the other ponies used, but somewhere along the way his brain had decided it understood her perfectly. “Twilight! We’re have you been? I – I’m mostly fine, but I am slowly getting more and more nauseous. Also, I don’t think that cake I’m eating gives me all the stuff I need.” Twilight nodded. One of her ears flicked irritably. Her horn was engulfed by purple fire. Welder looked at it wide-eyed. It streamed past the tip of the horn before coming to a point of its own, creating the ghostly image of a much longer horn superimposed on Twilight’s actual one. She seemed to be looking up into the air inside Welder’s glass enclosure. “Your air hasn’t been properly recycled, despite the fact that I had written down careful instructions at the University. The cakes were ever only going to be a short-term measure. I should be able to fetch you some of your own food.” Twilight sighed. “All this means is that I’d have to stay here – which is impossible – or that you’d have to come with me to where I’m going, at least for a while.” Welder sensed his opportunity and fell to his knees while clasping his hands. “Twilight, I’m going stir crazy in here. If you can arrange it then please, please take me with you!” This made Twilight huff. “You don’t understand my situation, Welder. There’s a lot you haven’t been told, I gather. First among those is that I’ve essentially become an outcast. The princesses have turned hostile towards me. If you’d travel with me then I couldn’t guarantee your safety. I’m not going on a pleasure trip but am essentially fleeing for my life. And where I’m going is probably unpleasant.” Something seemed to occur to Twilight and her expression changed. She looked wide-eyed at Welder. “On the other hoof... we’re about to run into a hard limit concerning you and I’m probably the only one who can help you past it. In fact, now that I think about it you’d probably be guarded if I tried to return later. Perhaps... perhaps I’d better take you with me right now.” Welder nodded eagerly, causing Twilight to sigh. “All right. I’ll have to gather some things and figure out how to get you safely out of there. I’ll probably be gone for a while.” She disappeared in a purple flash. Welder started pacing around his prison, letting a hand drag against the glass walls. Thoughts came to him unbidden. Twilight had seemed different. Of course, this was the first time they’d actually met face to face, but her behaviour was off as well. She’d said she’d gotten into trouble with the rulers, so that could explain it. Perhaps it was the way she’d startled him that changed his perception of her, but she also seemed slightly larger in real life compared to the spirit world. She’d said she was heading into peril. Did he really want to go with her? He found he was surprisingly determined to do so. Maybe he simply craved freedom, maybe he was indeed going mad: it didn’t matter. He’d probably outlived his entire species. High score right there. Now he wanted fresh air and new vistas. He sat down after two and a quarter laps and leaned his back against the glass, burying his face in his palms. High score for surviving the end of the world? Yep, he was definitely losing it. Twenty minutes later there was another purple flash announcing Twilight’s return. She’d appeared at the same spot as before. Welder stood up and looked with considerable interest at the items hovering in the air above her head. There was a large and ancient-looking book with a very strong-looking chain dangling from it, as well as... Welder looked closer. “What is that?” Twilight looked up at the largest object and shuddered. “It’s... armor. It will serve as a disguise.” Welder opened his mouth to object but thought better of it. It was true that nobody would be able to recognize the pony inside of that but disguises tended to lean heavily on being inconspicuous as well. You were anonymous inside that thing, but the outfit itself... Welder didn’t know the first thing about barding, but even he could tell this was something special – and not only due to how he instinctively backed away from it. He’d seen horror movies with the same aesthetic. “Don’t you think you’ll be recognizable anyhow together with me?” “I’m sorry, Welder, but the time hasn’t yet come when you can roam freely. I’ll move you to somewhere safer and make sure you are comfortable. Then I have to go elsewhere and I can’t take you with me. I’ll check up on you more frequently, and I’ll work on how to make this world safer for you, but it’ll take time. I’m forced to divide my attention between several things at the moment.” Welder sighed. “All right, thanks anyway. Anywhere’s got to be better than this.” “We shall see. For now I’ll have to take a couple of temporary measures. I managed to find a useful fetching spell and should be able to get you some cold weather gear with it. Your species seems to be quite adept at increasing your temperature tolerance by varying your clothing. This will come in handy, since it’s wintertime here in Equestria.” Twilight walked around the outside of the glass until she was next to Welder. “First things first, though. I’ll use magic to create an inexhaustible supply of air in your lungs. I’ll also protect you against poisoning.” She concentrated and her horn flared to life, shooting purple flame once more. Welder noted that it also danced down her mane. Then he noticed that he was also enveloped in purple fire and yelped. He flailed at the ethereal flames in panic for a moment before managing to control himself and realising that it wasn’t any actual fire. Then the flames disappeared and he looked up to see Twilight grinning at him. “That should do it. How do you feel?” Welder’s eyes darted this way and that while the rest of him held still. “Um... normal? I don’t feel anything special. Wait, the nausea is disappearing!” He smiled and took a deep breath. No doubt about it: a foulness in the air that he hadn’t been aware of was now gone. He smiled gratefully at Twilight, who smiled back before shutting her eyes and concentrating once more. This time the purple fire enveloped a section of the glass wall. The wall warped and an opening appeared. When it was large enough to serve as a doorway for Welder the glow dissipated and Twilight opened her eyes again. “Hurry now. Tell me what kind of clothes you’ll need in as much detail as you manage. Then we need to get going.” Welder nodded and thought for a moment before launching into a lengthy description of winter clothes. Twilight kept her eyes shut and her horn blazing while he talked, and one by one various pieces of clothing appeared and landed next to her. He laughed happily once he saw the tags: they were his size. He tore off his shirt – and hesitated. Then he decided he didn’t see any need to be embarrassed, considering Twilight was still keeping her eyes shut, tore his pants off and quickly put on proper clothing (with actual cotton, he noted), including underwear. “This feels great! Much better than the first ones I was given. No offense.” He paused. “Hold on. You said you fetched these clothes? You mean these are actual ‘made on Earth’ clothes? You found where I came from?” Twilight nodded slightly but looked sad. “Yes, Welder. To all three questions.” Welder stared at her while his mouth worked soundlessly. Then he took a long, deep breath and held it for a couple of heartbeats before releasing it as slowly. “Tell me what’s left of Earth.” Twilight looked away. “Welder, I’m sorry. There’s hardly anything left.” A moment passed while Welder looked inwards. He... was unmoved. The news that his entire civilisation, species and home planet was gone seemingly didn’t affect him. “Hardly anything, huh.” Twilight turned and looked at him. He supposed she’d look endearingly sad if it wasn’t for the tongues of purple fire licking her eyes. “There’s a small, cold and barren planetoid surrounded by dust and gasses. It also looks like your sun was affected. It’s smaller and redder than in your memories, and there’s a lot of interstellar debris.” “Well where did you find all of these clothes?” “Kind of nowhere, really: most of the material from your planet is still stuck in non-dimensional spaces. Ironically that makes it easier to find and fetch even though they can’t be said to have actual spatial coordinates.” Welder fell silent and studied his hands. His lips moved in pace with some internal monologue. Then he looked back up at Twilight. “Could there be other survivors?” “Well, yes – but don’t get your hopes up. It’s a distinct possibility, though it’s extremely improbable. Non-dimensional space isn’t survivable. Someone might have been lucky and gotten ejected out of a portal, like you did, but if they faced even a fraction of the difficulties you faced then they most likely didn’t survive – and that’s if they were ejected near a planet.” “But what made me fall out of – of your sun – if nothing else is doing that?” Twilight shrugged and shook her mane. “The physical laws of N-D space don’t lend themselves to easy study. I haven’t the faintest clue. But if you’re taking the news this good then we really should get going.” “All right.” Twilight walked towards the darkness, lighting the way with a light on the tip of her horn. “This way. Oh, and you have practiced climbing down cliffs, yes?” “Yes... wait. Why does it matter right now? I’ve practiced with equipment yes, but not barehanded!” This made Twilight stop, but only for a moment. “I’ll figure something out.”