//------------------------------// // Ch. 11: Motel Musings // Story: The Great and Powerful ... Walter? // by Westphalian_Musketeer //------------------------------// The rest of the meal passed uneventfully, and soon we were all once again piled into the Prius, Pablo and Enrique still in the trunk. “I don’t know about you guys, but that was one of the best meals I had in a long while!” said Vinyl while cleaning her teeth with a toothpick. “Indeed,” I said, “we had become quite famished from the day’s exertions. It was quite refreshing, some incidents aside.” “Again,” Serah said apologetically, “Sorry for spilling my drink all over the table.” “Your apology is suitable,” I replied. “I’m still sorry for not being very skilled, it would’ve easy to get your cups refilled.” Zecora inclined her head to Serah and me, then sighed. “And I’m sorry for not respecting you as a person, Zecora,” said Enrique. “Yeah, what Enrique said, but to Nurse Red—Serah,” said Pablo. Serah gave a sincere smile and said, “Apology accepted. Just don’t go doing that again. Okay?” There was some whispering in the trunk, then Pablo asked, “Never again?” I turned my head to stare daggers at him, and he cowered. “Okay,” he said. Well, that was certainly a lot of apologizing going on, it was certainly a good thing that I had nothing to say sorry for. It was then that Luis had turned into the parking lot for a local Holiday Inn. “Hey, we’re here. Merille and I will go in and pay for all eight of us, then we’ll come back and help everyone with their stuff.” I opened the door with a quick spell once the car came to a complete stop, and we got out of the car. Looking over to Luis and Merille as the headed for the lobby. “Two rooms!” I called. Luis looked back over to me and gave a quick nod before heading inside the lobby. “Wait.” Vinyl wondered, “Why would we need to get two... OH! Now I get why!” “Correct, this isn’t Europe,” I said. “Don’t need four folks piling into the same bed. Eight into one prius is quite enough. The question remains, who goes to which room?” Snips and Snails ground their hooves into the pavement, looking at it intently. “We’ll stick to one room,” they said. I sneaked a quick glance to the lobby, from which Luis and Merille were coming back to us, Merille twirling two sets of key’s on his finger. “Got the rooms, right beside each other as well,” Merille said. He stopped by one door as Luis grabbed our bags from the trunk. Merille opened the first door and held it open as Luis dragged my bag into the room. The process was repeated for the belongings of Zecora and Vinyl. They didn’t even have to ask which room we were taking. I looked over to Pablo and Enrique, guessing that the four of them had come to an agreement prior to brief trip to the motel. Luis rubbed his shoulder as he walked up to Merille, “Care to handle your bag and mine?” he asked. Merille nodded, handing him the keys, then heading to the car while Luis opened the other door. He held it open, and Pablo and Enrique stepped inside as Merille brought his own bags. I walked over to the other room and poked my head inside, spying the two colts. “Anything either of you are going to need from the suitcase?” I asked. Enrique shook his head. “No, we’ll be fine, thanks for asking though.” I nodded and trotted over to the other room, where Vinyl, Zecora, and Serah had already entered. It was your usual setup for a motel room. Two double beds with a night stand between them on the right side of the room, and the bathroom past that. On the left side of the room there was, from closest to the door to farthest, a desk with a chair and phone, a dresser with a television on it, and a table with a coffee maker on it. The carpet was a light brown, no doubt to hide dirt, if the feeling on my hooves was anything to go by. The walls were painted beige, and the window was covered with a dark forest green set of curtains. Vinyl quickly turned to us and said excitedly, “Alrighty then! How about this, me and Zeccy got dibs on the bed next to the window, while Trix and Serah get the other bed!” I looked over at Serah, then nodded. “Very well.” I walked past her to the bed. “Just... no drinking in bed... please.” She looked at me while chuckling nervously. To my left I could see my bag nestled underneath the table with the coffee maker. I hopped up onto the bed, and lay on my side on the spot closest to the wall, and consequently furthest from the night stand. I heaved a sigh. I was finally some place I could rest after a day’s hard journey. It was a vast improvement to sleeping in a literal ditch with no shelter. Vinyl sat down on her side of the other bed before inspecting her glasses. “You know,” she said, “We’re all going to the same place, yet none of us even know our reasonings behind it. We could have all just stayed put and not do anything, yet here we are. So, I just gotta ask, what’s your reasoning for going on this trip?” “And leave solving this situation to that foolish filly, Twilight Sparkle?” I said, shutting my eyes and turning my nose to the air. “Please, Trixie does not leave such things to chance.” Zecora took a moment before she finally spoke up. “I don’t know if I have a part to play.” She looked idly at the rings on her foreleg. “I just want to know why I became this way. How this form I had come to obtain, and what must be done to go back again.” I looked to Serah as she pulled herself up onto the bed and sat at the foot of it. “What about you, Serah? Sounded to me like you just ended up being dragged along by Vinyl.” I didn’t even bother lifting my head from the mattress. It was just so comfortable. She shrugged and said, “Well, I before I met Vinyl, I was in a position where I had almost nowhere to go... And I when I told her that I was curious about the whole New York situation, she offered to let me go with them. So, with nothing else to do, I took up on that offer.” “Y tú, Vinyl?” I asked. “What made you decide to travel across the country?” Vinyl had laid down on the bed and said, “To get some answers to my questions. ‘Why was it me that transformed?’ ‘Why into Vinyl Scratch of all ponies?’ and ‘How the hell do I change back, if I can at all?’” It was then that I heard Vinyl’s ringtone for her cell phone. She took a quick look at it. “Sorry... But I have to take this call.” Hopping out of her bed, phone floating along beside her, she left the room. I looked down at myself, and realized an important detail from my travels. I was positively filthy. Wincing, I thought to myself, A show mare shouldn’t allow herself to be in such a dreadful state any longer than is needed. I rolled to the edge of the bed, then a got off. Walking past Serah at the foot of the bed, I looked up at her. “I need to freshen myself up, in case Vinyl asks when she gets back.” With that I rounded the corner and walked into the bathroom. I stepped into the room’s bathroom suite and looked around. The bright fluorescent lights lit up the room quite nicely. The hotel room was like the other two dozen or so I had occupied in my life. I levitated my hat and cape off and set them to the side. I lifted the toilet seat and went to the toilet. No, I’m not telling you the details. Why? Because a magician never reveals their secrets. With that piece of business done I turned to the bath. Looking at it I knew that it would never have been suitable for a full grown human to actually bathe in, too tight. But I clambered into the tub and was quite pleased to see I could enjoy a full soak bath with no difficulty at all. By god it had been months since I had an actual bath, only showers, frequent as they were. I summoned my magic and turned the tub handle. A cascade of water flowed out and a few cold drops splashed against my face. A small, cold puddle made me withdraw my hooves for a moment until the bathwater was much warmer. The water pounded into the porcelain in a thunderous cacophony in which I couldn’t hear anything that was going on outside. I dunked my head underneath the flow of water and let it soak into my mane and wash out over my neck. The feeling of the water pushing against my scalp was like a masseuse relieving all my stress for the day. I turned off the flow lay comfortably within the tub. I swished my front hooves for a moment before smiling. It was too good. I heaved a great big sigh as I let my head sink into the water, my eyelids growing heavy. My eyes snapped open as I realized something: I’d forgotten to get a bar of soap or any shampoo from the bathroom counter. I looked over to it, then remembered I could just float anything I need over to myself. I did so, and grabbed one of those tiny bars of soap, and the shampoo bottle, bringing them over to myself. Getting the soap and shampoo was one thing. Figuring out where to apply each was a tad more complicated. I was covered in fur, but I still had my distinctive mane and tail. Deciding that clean was clean, I opted to empty the shampoo bottle over my back. I floated over a cloth, wetted it in the water, and used it to knead the shampoo into my coat. Fairly soon, my cornflower blue fur was streaked with white suds and bubbles. I rolled onto my back to rinse it off, then repeated the process for my neck and chest. Cleaned up, I opted to stay in the tub and bask in the warmth. I earned it. Travelling all day from that backwater hick town of Ponyville to Manehattan... I blinked, processing the thought that had just come across my mind. Ponyville to Manehattan. I hadn’t travelled there. Trixie! I thought. Hmmm? Trixie is enjoying this too much. Could you be a dear and leave her alone? Our memories are bleeding together, becoming one incoherent whole. I’m pretty sure the importance of this trumps whatever pleasure you're gaining from this faux spa treatment, I responded. Ridiculous, Trixie has never had problems with her memories since she was a little... b-filly! Little filly in Hou... Houst-Baltimare! Trixie, enough with the lying, our deal with compartmentalizing isn’t working. What’s happening? I asked. Trixie does not need to answer you! So you’re just going to ignore the problem? Great, just great, two personalities were fusing, and one of them was a complete and total jerk. Hold on... I had been acting rather strangely, stuffing Snips and Snails in the trunk, yelling at Snips, insulting Vinyl. I had been the one acting like a great and powerful bitch! I sat there, staring at the bath faucet and contemplating this. Our memories were mixing to the point that I had barely been able to keep tabs on it. I slid deeper into the tub and pouted. “This is it, it’s impossible to solve this...” I frowned and bared my teeth. “No, that is something Trixie would say...” I looked down and stared at my hooves. “And something I would say... But... I need to be better than both of them. I need to be strong to make it through this.” I stood up in the bathtub, horn glowing as I opened the drain. “I can do this! I can make it to New York and help save the world! I can speak in the first-person!” I shut my mouth and looked to the door, not wishing to be listened to as I monologued. I may not be the man I was, I may not even be the mare I am, but I shall be great and powerful! I’ll be such no matter what the world throws at— “Wahah!” I slipped in the tub, dashing my head against the porcelain. "Oww." I floated a towel to myself and dried off. I had to use two towels because off all the water my mane and tail still held. Climbing out of the tub, I looked at my cape and hat. They were still dirty, but I could clean them before we got to New York for my greatest performance yet. I opened the door and stepped back into the room. Zecora and Redheart were both sitting on the floor at the foot of one bed. Judging from the mound of covers beside Zecora, Vinyl was already asleep. I walked over to Zecora and Redheart. “Girls!” I whispered. “You have got to try having a bath! You can actually fit in the tub given how small we are!” “Really? Those tubs were notorious for always being tiny!” Serah whispered with glee. “I have to agree, they dont look quite comfy.” Zecora smirked while she she glanced back to the bathroom door. “I know, but think about it! We’re tiny too now. Might as well take advantage of it.” I threw my hooves in the air. Serah raised an eyebrow at me before giggling, “Wait, you can actually talk in first-person?” “Well I have to say that it quite a surprise,” Zecora laughed hesitantly as she got up, “you’ve only spoke in third from what I’ve surmised.” “Remember the saying that Einstein did his best thinking in the bathtub?” I asked, and they nodded. “Let’s just say I’ve had a bit of a revelation... But I think it’d be better if I told you all at once, tomorrow, when the musical blowhard is awake.” Serah gave a worried glance over to where Vinyl was laying, “Yeah. When she wakes up.” Zecora shifted as she got up from Serah’s spot, “I agree, but as for me, I believe its time for some rest.” She took a moment to size up Vinyl’s bed before she hopped onto it and hid herself under the covers. I jumped up onto the other bed, and Redheart soon followed, burying herself in the covers. “Before we go to sleep, I have to warn you about something, Serah,” I said. She looked at me with wonder, “What is it Trixie?” “When I’m asleep, sometimes I kick... It was before all this happened so I don’t know if that’s true. Just a forewarning.” I used my magic to pull the covers over myself as I lay on my side, facing the wall. I closed my eyes, and adjusted my head on my pillow. “Good night.” *** Opening my eyes, I saw a massive grey blotch. I shook my head, clearing my vision. I looked down to see that I was standing. My head darted back up, examining an immense granite boulder contrasting against a clear blue sky. Embedded in the side of it was a mining pick, the iron head jammed in a solid eight inches. It made no sense at all, I had fallen asleep in a motel surrounded by ponies that wanted to spill things on me. "Ah crud, a lucid dream." I turned about, looking up and down the quarry. "Alright, where's the bear that usually attacks me in this?" "Stop messing around and help harvest the rocks!" The shout was accompanied by a sharp pain on the back of my head. "Ow!" I glanced behind me. A cream earth pony with a thick brown mustache and mane scowled at me. Returning my attention to the rock and pick, I focused my magic on the handle. I tugged, I pulled and I strained to remove the pick. Sweat beaded down my right temple and dripped onto my clenched teeth as I stepped closer, willing the tool to obey me. Reaching the pick, I wrapped my front hooves around the handle, and pulled. Grey faded into the edges of my vision as the pick shifted, then flew out of its place, spinning into the sky. I smirked in triumph as I watched the trajectory of the mining pick spin end-over-end... right into another boulder, where it remained lodged. "Well, I've had worse lucid dreams before." I then heard sniffing and growling behind me. "Ah crud... bears."