It’s been about three weeks since I made my last entry, marking my first month in Equestria gone and past, and the second week of my second month being here on an alien planet has arrived. I feel like I should record these entries daily, but I feel it’s more of a hassle to do it like that when I could just give updates about what’s changed over a greater period of time.
For example, I could mark out every minute of every day of my life, but it would be boring to write the same thing hundreds of times in a row, with only a few scant exclusions happening per day.
The basic layout is this: I wake up, I help Fluttershy with her animals, I go off to work at Bonbon’s shop, I cook and prepare treats and candies all day long, clean dishes after finishing a batch of whatever I’m told to make, service customers when I’m told to go to the front counter, and then after eight or ten hours of work, depending on how many orders we get before closing time, I’m home and I’m either lazing around at Fluttershy’s cottage, helping her out with whatever she needs me to do, or I go for walks around the village or the nearby forest.
The only difference between each day is whether or not someone I know shows up to the shop to talk to me, ask me questions about how I’m fitting into the whole, ‘living in another world’ thing, or to get something sweet to start the day out.
It’s weird to think that candy is a valid breakfast decision for these ponies, but then again, the only ones that I see in here to get candy at the crack of dawn is either Rainbow Dash if she has to wake up early for her shift as weather manager (don’t even get me started on the fact that the pegasi handle the weather) or Pinkie Pie.
Seeing that mare take an entire batch of milk chocolate squares and stuff it into her mouth really disturbs me. She unhinges her jaw like a snake, and then she chews on the chocolate like a chipmunk that stuffs its cheeks with nuts, wax paper and all. Doesn’t even swallow the entire thing in small portions. Just all at once.
I honestly expected her to start choking when I saw the two pound ball of chewed chocolate visibly sliding down her neck. It baffles me how that mare manages to stay as slim as she does. I think I remember seeing her eat like ten pounds of food throughout the entire day. You’d think that she’d become a butterball or something.
Anyway, I digress about my update schedule in this journal of mine...
I suppose if things start changing drastically, then it might become a weekly, maybe even a daily thing.
I actually bought my journal last week, and spent the nights up to this point writing out what’s happened so far. I’ve gotten the most important events down, such as what happened before I came here, what got me here in the first place, and my thoughts on certain things up until now.
I suppose I should fill in a few details that I’ve missed in my original entries, reading back through these now. The day after I got hurt at Sweet Apple Acres, Pinkie threw a big party for me that was this childish party that she had thrown, pony equivalent to kid games and all. It served as a sort of ‘welcome to Equestria/Ponyville’ party for myself that jointed as an introductory to a lot of the residents of the town that may have only seen me in passing.
A lot of the ponies in the town had assumed that I was just this odd looking pony that had been saved by the ‘Elements of Harmony’ (The name some mare I didn’t recognize told me when I was introduced) and that I was going to be staying in Ponyville until I get back on my feet. A few of them, when I introduced myself and told them that I was a human, straight up ran away screaming, leaving me standing there awkwardly while everyone else stared at me like I was the devil himself.
Makes a guy really feel welcome around here when these people, who didn’t know that I was a human and just thought that I was some weird pony, finds out that I’m different from them and freak the fuck out on me.
It really gets under my skin when I’ve talked with a few of them myself before they found out, and they were perfectly fine with me before!
Ugh…
Lastly, it also served as an introduction party for humans as a recognized species in Equestria.
I’ll tell you, I’m pretty sure I gave myself whiplash when Pinkie told me about humans being a recognized species in Equestria now, and then she dragged me over to Twilight when I started asking every question that was on my mind and she would just give me roundabout answers about how Twilight told her this and that.
That led into a conversation with Twilight about how she’s been reporting on me since I had arrived, and that the princesses of Equestria now recognized humans as a species on their planet.
At first, I thought it was odd to do that simply because of me being a single human, technically I’m an invasive species, and the fact that humans were also extinct on this planet, but seeing as they technically could pull more humans over to this world, or they could theoretically open up a portal that could allow humanity free access to their lands, I gave it a pass. I guess me being a good person meant that I did well enough to represent humanity to be given a chance at a new life on this planet.
That put a lot of things into perspective that sort of put me into a shock that quickly spiraled into panic, such as me being an ambassador for humanity and that even the smallest things that I did would have a ton of negative consequences if the wrong people saw it and reported it to the authorities. That started a downward spiral of wondering whether or not I was going to be a good enough person to represent the wants and needs of humanity as a whole, and then how there could be drastically different cultural things here that I haven’t ran into that could be incredible taboo to them, but is an average thing that I do in my day to day life.
Then I realized that I was here by myself, and until there’s more humans and I’m personally delegated to being an ambassador to humanity, I should only really care about my own needs. Fuck the political atmosphere back on Earth, that shit was complicated enough when I left that you don’t need to add this bullshit to it as well.
Anyway, after my little freakout about becoming what is essentially a protected species in the eyes of Equestria, as well as an impromptu ambassador for humanity, and realizing the headache that brings, I was brought back from my panic to the living world by a cupcake being smeared all over my face by Pinkie.
Damn her for making me look a fool because of all of the icing that spattered my jacket, but it made me forget about those troubles and laugh away those worries for now.
As an afterthought, I realized that it was rather odd for Twilight to be reporting on me without saying anything about it. Then I thought about it, and realized that I’d probably do the same thing if I was in that situation, probably with more of some alphabet organization paying a visit to me in the middle of the night.
Afterwards, Twilight pulled me to the side and assured me that I shouldn’t have to worry about anything that might deal with the political ramifications of a new species being introduced to the world, and that I should just keep living as I normally would. She gave me a scroll and it basically said the same thing she said, just a little bit more roundabout and sugarcoated in the way it said what Twilight already told me, complete with a small silver coin stuck to the paper. Twilight explained the coin was supposed to signify that I was a citizen of Equestria until I get official papers drafted up for my person.
The day after the party was actually the weekend, and Bonbon didn’t have me come in on the weekends for some reason. Which when I asked her on the start of the next week, she just shrugged and said that she didn’t think I would be up to working on the weekends.So I visited Rarity, and she was trying to gift me more clothes.
I straight up told her no and that I was going to pay for them.
That led to an escalating argument between the two of us where she refused to take my money because she said that I should be saving it for something important, while I was telling her that I was going to pay for it because I had money and is one of the main reasons why I had pushed myself to make said money.
It eventually got to the point where I had to walk out of the store before I blew my lid about her being stubborn in her generosity. I wanted to make sure she didn’t have her business tank because of me, nor was I too keen on continuing that relationship of me taking her stuff constantly.
I guess the way that I viewed it at the time was that there was only so much kindness one person was willing to give out before they have no more, and I didn’t want to push them to that point simply because of my own needs.
Sure, I wanted the clothes, and for them to be given to me for free was great, but I didn’t want it to become a habit, nor do I want to fall into that habit of just taking without trying to recompense for it. I’ve seen what happens to people when they do that.
So I walked off, and found myself in the Ponyville Park. Kids Foals were playing with one another, ponies were strolling through the park or enjoying picnics, and a few animals were running around. Some were dogs that barked and panted as they ran around, some were cats that sat in the laps of their owners, enjoying the petting they received, and a few other animals were sprinkled in, creating a more open, wilder feeling to the park.
Still, I used the time to calm down, enjoyed another walk through the park, then found a nice hill that overlooked Ponyville to sit on. I remembered something was familiar about that hill, but didn’t realize what it was until I started writing this down.
It was the hill that I saw in Fluttershy’s dream.
I was interrupted from my interesting sit atop a hill by none other than Rainbow Dash, who confronted me about Rarity. I guess she happened across the mare after I had stormed out and she told her side of the story.
She came to me and tried getting aggressive, and thankfully I had calmed down before she came at me like that. If she came at me immediately after Rarity pissed me off, I’d have probably put a couple of knots in her skull in my anger, especially since she was giving me an outlet for my own aggression.
In the end, I pushed it off and informed Dash about my side of the story. She understood what I was getting at, so she went off to tell Rarity about it, and even apologized for confronting me about it in the way she did. I waved it off since she was just trying to protect one of her friends, and went back to relaxing. I think I spent the entire day on that hill. I watched the sunset on that hill.
It was rather scenic there.
The next day I went back to Rarity’s shop, and she apologized for her behavior, telling me that she disliked it when she argued over something that was already set in stone in her head, but I simply waved it off like I did with Rainbow Dash. Despite everything, I still got a bit peeved when she said that she was giving me a discount, but at that point, I knew that I wasn’t going to get away with what I wanted from her, so I took what I could compromise with her.
I got some nice casual clothes to fit into my wardrobe, which I liked since it meant I didn’t have to worry about the clothes she’s already made for me getting dirty, in case I helped out on the farm again, or if I got them messed up with sugar or flour at Bonbon’s shop.
I spent some time with Twilight, helping her out with this experiment consisting of me standing somewhere in her basement and what felt like she was trying to tickle me from the inside with a feather, and spent some time with Bonbon, since I saw her sitting at the park by herself, looking really glum.
Apparently she was supposed to be meeting someone there at the park, but that someone didn’t show up until like two hours later, which I spent hanging out with her because I didn’t want to see her sad. Finally, I spent some time helping Fluttershy around her house and with feeding or washing her animals.
I suppose that I should point out that I’ve noticed that Fluttershy’s become a bit more… bold in her actions and words ever since I first met her. Nothing too drastic as of yet, but she doesn’t stutter as much as she used to when I first saw her, and she does tend to get… touchy-feely towards the end of the day, especially after dinner.
Which was at a more appropriate time now since I wasn’t getting home long into the night from working on the orchard. It's nice to be able to see the sunset while I'm not climbed up on top of a tree or hauling bushels of apples around.
I’d normally either sit on the couch and enjoy one of the many books Twilight let me borrow, or I retreated to my room to listen to music and drift off in my own thoughts. When I read on the couch, she’d rest her head on my shoulders, reading over the book I had, or she’d lay her head in my lap as she stared up at the ceiling or at the fireplace.
I’d sit there until I felt tired (or uncomfortable) and I’d go up to my room to sleep, or to pass the time until I was actually tired. When I went up to my room to listen to music, I would feel her watching me every step I took, and I caught her a few times looking like someone had decided to destroy her favorite childhood toy in front of her. It was genuinely making me feel bad, knowing that I was causing her to be unhappy in her own home.
However, there’s some days where I feel more… exhausted would be a good word. I think it’s more of... that I feel like I don’t want to interact with anyone when I get home from work.
I suppose that makes me seem like a bit of an introvert, and that with my prior lack of social experiences that I should probably feel glad that I get some alone time, but I just feel… empty.
Like I’m yearning for something… something else, or maybe something more.
Don’t get me wrong, I love it here, and without that constant worry of being caught in the middle of everything without having any involvement in it means I’ll be able to focus on other things that I’d need to focus on. Things like the fact that I’m currently alive in another planet with alien inhabitants all around me, and I’ve basically integrated to their society. Honestly, they’re not that different from us, save for a few smaller things that I’ve noticed.
But there’s just a constant pit that’s been sitting in my stomach since I’ve been here, and it’s getting bigger every day, little by little.
Maybe it’s homesickness.
The next week was much of the same, but without visits to Rarity for clothes. More or less talking with Twilight, hanging out with several ponies around town that were comfortable enough around me after finding out that I wasn’t a pony, and spending time helping out with Fluttershy.
Last Saturday, I got my journal, and after spending time with everyone else, I spent about an hour or two writing in this journal before I went to bed. Of course, these quills and inkwells took a bit to get used to, since I was used to ballpoint pens and graphite pencils. Still, after a little practice of making sure my hand doesn’t drag on the page I’m writing on, I don’t have to worry about ink stains on my hands or ruining the paper that I was using to detail my existence.
I forgot to mention that Luna tends to visit me in my dreams often. Every time she comes to visit, the same thing as the first time happens. The world freezes, everything melts away, and I’m left standing in a massive dark void while she appears behind me. Doesn’t matter how much I twist and turn when I realize the world’s gone, she always appears behind me.
After she arrives, I tend to default to that sitting room that I showed her the first time and we talk with one another until she either needs to leave to stop a nightmare or I wake up.
Then, sometime during the last week, I introduced her to video games.
I remember that I having a dream/memory of playing video games, specifically God of War 3. I was pissed off because I was in the middle of a boss fight in God of War 3 with Hercules on the hardest difficulty, and was on the verge of winning while near death, when the world did its familiar freeze, and shattered. I remember crying out in frustration and throwing the controller that I had been holding, which disappeared as soon as it left my hand. The familiar clopping of hooves on stone met my ears as I glared at where the screen was, huffing in my anger.
“What ails you Daniel? You appear irritable.” Luna asked, and I spun to level my glare at her.
She flinched and recoiled slightly, and I let out a sigh to try and ease my stress at losing while I was so close to winning, pinching my brow before dragging my hand down my face in my exasperation. “It’s… nothing. I was just in the middle of doing something and was about to complete it when I got interrupted.”
I don’t even think she’d understand a word I’d say if I told her what I was actually doing.
She nodded her head in slight understanding, though she still did look lost. “If I may ask what you were doing to cause you such strife?”
I froze, looking off into the void as I was split down the middle of showing her what I was playing, and what she would think about such a violent game. I could see out of the corner of my eye, Luna was growing increasingly impatient at my indecision.
“You know what? I think I’ll introduce you to a large part of modern human culture.” I stated as I snapped my finger, and started to recreate my human bedroom.
It was small, large enough for me to fit a bed, dresser, desk, and a chair in it and for the two of us to stand in it without touching, but that was about it. On my desk was my gaming consoles, all of which I’ve had to fight for, and my computer and TV monitors, connected together with a bundle of intertwined wires running to and fro one another. The room was clean, with only my bookbag sitting on the floor next to my bed marring the floor.
Luna looked around with a blank stare on her face. “What is this place, and these contraptions?” She asked, staring at the monitors on my desk.
“This was my bedroom back home. Those contraptions are display monitors for the computer and gaming consoles I have.” I answered, pointing to the monitors on the desk in the corner.
Her expression showed her ignorance, and I scratched my head to try and explain it to her concisely.
“Alright, so take a picture, right?” She nodded her head. “These displays are basically moving pictures for whatever the computer, which is a machine that allows it to connect to what we called the internet, which enables it to do a lot of different things, such as looking at these moving pictures, communicating with other people across the world, research and studies for students and teachers, books, so on and so forth.”
She nodded her head, but she still had that blank look on her face. “Look, here, I’ll show you.” I sat down in my computer chair and turned on my computer, which started humming softly.
“What’s with all of these… things, down here?” She asked, pointing towards the wires.
“They’re so that all of these machines can connect to one another. Humans don’t have magic, so we can’t just connect things into a leyline and hope it works.” I did a small twirl of my finger as the monitor flashed on, showing a bar for what it’s loading in the background.
“We run everything with electricity. To the light shining through the bulb above your head to the power that makes this thing,” I tapped the computer with my finger, “that allows it to do everything I said it did. To do that, we have these things called wires that connects a device to one another that allows it to read its inputs and outputs data that may be readable to our brains.”
The monitor flashed with color and onto the login screen, and I logged into my computer, typing in my password with practiced ease like I had done it a thousand times before.
Though, knowing me, I probably had done it at least ten thousand times. I enjoyed video games, even as little as I could get away with playing them.
“I’ll show you a few pictures and videos.”
I scrolled through my documents and pulled up pictures that I had taken on certain holidays, like Christmas day with the family, or of the Fourth of July, or a few that were taken of football games since my brother was on the football team. I showed her pictures of fireworks going off, with sound coming through my speakers.
She looked surprised at the sound coming from the devices in front of her. “They also play sound?”
I nodded my head as I went to the next video. It was weird, I could remember just about every image, video, and game on my computer and gaming consoles, but sometimes I’ll just blank out and forget something that may have been obvious. A name to a face, an important date, even sometimes forgetting about holidays and other events.
It was odd how my brain was wired like this.
“Now that I know the concept to this… computer, you called it?” I nodded in acknowledgment. “What was it that you were doing that caused you to become hostile?”
I scratched my head awkwardly. “Alright, so there are these things called video games. They’re like regular games that you’d play with cards or on a board or whatever, but it’s on the computer. I was in the middle of dreaming about playing one of these games, which is supposed to be a difficult game to test your coordination and abilities to adapt in combat, and I was about to finish the battle I was having when you came here.” I said, picking up the controller that was once thrown at the void but was completely untouched, and started up God of War 3.
“...God of… War?” She asked, sounding disturbed.
“Yes. It’s a game that follows a human that goes against old Greek gods because they tricked him into killing his family. It’s a long and bloody series that ends with him killing all of the gods.”
She looked morbidly fascinated by the idea. “To kill a god… It’s unheard of on our world.”
I turned in the chair to look at her in surprise, where she had bent down to stare over my shoulder at the screen.
“There’s gods on Equus?”
She nodded. “There have always been gods. At least one to represent each race on Equus. However, many have become weaker than they once were. They gained power through prayers, and in exchange, they’d offer their services to those that called for their aid.”
This sounds more and more like I just stepped out of a Greek Mythology story, just with less gore and death, and more friendship and happiness… I couldn’t help but think while I stared at her.
“...Huh.” Was my response instead of anything that I was thinking.
She snorted in amusement at my brilliant response, and I shook my head to clear my mind of the bomb she just dropped on me.
“So, you wanna try to play God of War?” I asked, a small grin on my face for the inevitable as I loaded up the first God of War game.
I won’t lie, I had some low expectations for the pony princess when she picked up the controller and started the game, but I never expected this.
I took about ten minutes to explain the bare minimum for her to understand how things were going to work. What the context of the game was, where it took place, how to use the controller to move the character.
She took the controller from my hands when I told her just about everything I could off of the top of my head, and allowed her to get used to the feeling of the game’s main menu.
It took her thirty minutes to get through the first pack of monsters. She couldn’t really figure out how the joysticks worked for the first few minutes and kept dying after rolling around in the middle of the group. Then she found out how to attack after about five minutes, but she was somehow missing a majority of the time.
How that happened, I don’t know, since the attacks basically homed in on the nearest enemy that you’re facing. It took her thirty minutes and a lot of frustration on both of our parts before she managed to finish off all of the enemies without dying.
Frustration from me, because it was almost physically painful to see this sort of struggle with basic enemies on the easiest difficulty.
Frustration from her, because I was biting my knuckle and groaning every time she died, and would grow increasingly agitated after each hit that had managed to get past her attempted rolls. She grew almost ecstatic after she realized that was the last enemy, and then took five minutes to figure out how to progress.
She kept trying to jump over the side of the boat, then spent time jumping up the walls, before I gave her a hint to look for shining objects.
I didn’t want to backseat game for her, but Luna’s obviously struggling with the most basic of tasks in a video game.
So, she took a minute to look around, and finally found the obvious trapdoor had run over several times and ignored. After that was the first Hydra head, and she was having issues with that because she clicked the prompt off that showed her how to block, and she kept trying to strongarm her way through it.
After I told her the button, she managed to get through that portion of the game.
She did fall a few times on the rafters, which I thought was funny. Her first idea was to simply fly over it, which I guess is a natural idea for a flying pony to do when they see an obstacle like that.
All she did manage was to just jump to her death a few times until she realized that Kratos didn’t have wings like she did.
Dunno how she missed that detail, since she had been staring at his back the entire time anyway… Probably staring at his ass or something.
After about an hour after starting the game, she managed to get to the main part of the first boat, which was usually cleared after the first five or ten minutes of someone’s playthrough.
I knew I was in it for the long haul, but seeing Luna’s increasingly vibrant language and strings of curses after each death was hilarious to me. She managed to get through this part of the tutorial with only one death, which just showed her improvements.
And then she got to the second Hydra head, and flipped her shit after ten minutes of dying. She didn’t know what that prompt was on the screen when she saw the button being depressed rapidly, until I told her that it was her queue to press the button as fast as she could. It seemed like that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for her, since she took one look at me, and the controller broke in half in her hands.
She then magicked another one into her hands and pushed it into my hands, and told me she wanted me to see how I played.
I shrugged and restarted the campaign, and took less time to work my way through to the part she had given up at than it did for her to quit at that point. I knew how to mix the combos together with lights and heavies, and I knew how to grab and swing the enemies around to cause as much damage as I could. I also showed her some of the secrets that I had learned from playing the game through a couple of times. Things like breaking barrels and other environmental things for that red stuff.
Then I got to the second hydra head and beat it in one try.
She snorted like an actual horse and disappeared in a flash of light, and I simply shrugged it off.
I figured that I’d see her again tomorrow, and continued playing the game until I woke up. I started the day with writing in my journal about my dreams so that I don’t forget them, since the first few times Luna had visited me, I had forgotten to write them down immediately and forgot most of the details of our talks by the time I came home from work. Then I got ready for work, and headed out.
Turns out, Luna was extremely pissed about being shown up at something, since she didn’t visit me for a few days. I didn’t think of it after the first two days, since I figured she was busy with work or nightmares, but then after the third, I had a hunch that she was pissed off at me when she didn’t show up again, and I was looking forward to talking to her.
The fourth night, I actually had a nightmare which I seem to vaguely remember, even while I’m writing this.
It starts off as a normal day on Earth, where I was coming home from school, but then I somehow end up in the middle of the forest and everything’s on fire. I’m tied to a tree that was on fire, and I’m surrounded by ink black, swirling shadows.
No matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t break the bonds that held me to the tree. I couldn’t make out any details in those shadows besides grins filled with yellowed teeth, each ending in a razor sharp point, and blood red eyes that seemed to stare into my soul. I could make out whispers and murmurs, each of them saying something vaguely negative about me.
Each of them were recognizable, things that were said to me from random people that I met in my life that had just been buried away for years or even decades. Kids my age that thought I was some egoistical rich brat that thought he was better than everyone else because I wore suits all of the time, things that those bastards in the mafia said to me while growing up, stuff like that.
At first, they were just petty insults that were aimed at me, disconcerting whispers that I caught as I walked down a hallway, or a scathing look that I got from someone.
The voices slowly grew louder until they were yelling and screaming at me, eventually melding together into a wailing cacophony of barely understood noise. I could only pick out a few words at a time before the next insult was hurled at me in this swirling hurricane of negativity and ungodly wailing.
I didn’t know what to do.
I just simply sat there, tied up to the tree, staring at the ground as those voices continued to echo in my ears.
After what felt like hours, the familiar return of the void assaulted my senses, and that sound of clopping hooves on stone was the only thing filling my ears.
“Daniel, art thou well?” Luna’s voice was concerned, and I finally looked up from my downward gaze at the burning forest floor, now turned to void. She visibly recoiled when she looked at my face, and her eyes were piercing into mine as I stared at her before turning my attention back to the ground.
“I… I’ll be fine.” My voice sounded dead to me, and I’m sure it may have sounded worse to her than myself.
I’m not really one for letting insults get under my skin, and I typically brush them off without a second thought, but after that, after having every insult that you’ve ever heard in your life being hurled at you in a nonstop barrage for what seemed like hours, from people you once trusted or loved as family before being subjugated and forced away…
I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone else in that situation would feel worthless and unloved.
“I apologize Daniel. I had been avoiding you for these past days simply because of my own hubris. I came only when I saw that there was a nightmare in this area, and when I realized it was your nightmare, I was hesitant to see you again…”
She seemed like she wanted to say more, but I shook my head, sighing softly. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine...” I reiterated, running a hand through my hair.
“Even as that may be, from what I saw, that nightmare of yours would haunt any pony for a long time. Is there some sort of past trauma that stems from that location?” She asked, and I nodded.
“It was… where I was found by Twilight and her friends. Those voices were all voices I’ve heard before. Things people have said to me because...” I shook my head. “I don’t know why they did it. All I know is that everything that was said was things I had heard from others before.”
Luna looked downtrodden by that revelation, so I decided to deflect and returned to that familiar sitting room, taking my usual seat. I reclined into the chair more than I usually did, staring into the fire.
“If there’s anything I could-”
I just shook my head as I interrupted her. “Look, I know what you’re trying to do, and for right now, I just…” I took a slow breath, looking at the floor before releasing the breath in a deep, heaving sigh, “...want to forget about it.”
She looked surprised for a second, before growing sympathetic and nodding her head to my request.
“Then how about you show me that… game you showed me before? The God of… War, was it?”
I glanced over at her, slightly surprised that she wanted to try the game again. “Really? After last time, I figured you were done with video games. Starting you off with that game probably wasn’t the best choice, but-”
I felt her hand on my mouth, stopping me from speaking, and I looked over at her with a deadpan expression.
“I admit, it tested my patience, but it was obvious you were patient with me and showed great skill in these games of yours. Simply discarding them because I had a hard time with them does not mean I will not give it another shot.”
I finally cracked a smirk at that. “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now, I’ll let you know that I’ve been playing video games for a long time, and that’s the only reason that my hand-eye coordination is much better than yours. All I can say is for you to keep going, no matter how frustrating things may be, and maybe, you’ll be as good as me.”
We both laughed at the good-natured jab, and we sat down once again to start up the games.
Nothing much changed over the next few weeks, except that I noticed it was getting colder very quickly. It was the end of August when I arrived in Equestria, and now it’s the middle of October, or whatever the months are here.
I’ve never actually heard anyone talking about what month it was or what the day is. I just assumed since I woke up that it was the same as ours. So until I find otherwise, I’ll just keep using this system.
I’ve noticed that people were starting to get excited about something. I keep hearing the word, “Nightmare” within whatever conversations I pick out at work. Maybe it’s a plague of nightmares going around the town. It would explain why I haven’t seen Luna for several nights at a time, and when I do see her, she seems exhausted.
I now chop firewood when I get home. Fluttershy seemed irritable about having to buy more firewood for her evening fires one day, and when I asked about it, she regressed back into her former shy self, saying that it was nothing and that I shouldn’t worry about it.
Of course, I took it upon myself to sort this out, since I knew back home that people buying firewood by the cords would get very expensive around this time of year.
I wouldn’t say I’m an expert at wood chopping, but I had done it before. There were times when my father seemed to not want to deal with me when I was becoming rebellious around my teenage years, and instead of having someone try to beat it out of me like normal, he sent me to my grandfather.
My grandfather…
He was a simple man.
A man of few words, and very soft spoken. He lived off of the land after coming home from his war, and made his money from helping other people with their problems or selling whatever he didn’t need to others. He had a garden that he grew himself, and he always seemed to be prepared for what the seasons threw at him. If there was a drought, he had enough pickled food and stored clean water to last him until it ended. He hunted for his meats and always had extra stuff since he only was feeding himself. He would cut down a tree and make firewood for the winter, and would sell the excess.
It was here where I was sent over to my grandfather to work for him.
He had me working alongside him, and we would spend hours upon hours using axes and saws to cut a tree that he had cut down into sections, and then we would cut the sections into smaller sections, and then those sections in half, and then we would start splitting those sections up until you get the logs of firewood you needed.
It was a long and tedious process that had put more blisters on my hands and aches in my muscles than I cared to remember. The times that I complained was met with either punishments in the forms of more tedious or strenuous chores that were just picked up on the fly by my grandfather, or having something chucked at me to get me to quiet down.
I learned quickly that, even when he was past seventy years old, he was a man that had worked all of his life, and had a better body than most people a third his age would have.
And did he have an arm.
I still have a scar on my arm from where the log had hit me when he showed me that he was purposely missing before. And he verbally warned me that the next time that I said that he couldn’t aim, he’d clock me upside the head.
I digressed about my grandfather, but I felt like I should write down what I remember before it slips me. Memories of my grandfather, while hard and boring to me at that time, were probably some of the best times I had.
It was that… bond that we had while working.
I never found out what happened between my bastard of a father and him, but whenever I asked about it, he would get this stare. It was like he was staring through me when I stood there, like he was a thousand miles away, and would start muttering to himself under his breath after a while. I guess it was bad enough that he wanted to block it out, and me bringing it up made him remember.
Another digression…
So, after work, I went out to do my business, a nice sizable pouch of money that I would carry on my belt now.
It was weird getting used to it at first, having a heavy bag of coins hanging from my hip now, but it was the way they did it when they used coins for trading before, why couldn’t we do it now, right?
I had intended to first buy the axe that I was going to use, but while I was browsing for tools at this cart that was lined with different gardening or outdoor tools, Applebloom was passing by and decided to make herself known. She pulled me away from the cart, much to the chagrin of the guy that was trying to sell me this axe that he claimed was enchanted, and brought me over to Applejack and Big Mac with their stall.
They were packing up for the day it looked like, and I offered to help them out, since I was unwillingly forced to converse by the youngest Apple of their family, which they took gratefully. We got to talking about what had been happening since I had last seen them.
I let it slip that I was looking for an axe to use for firewood, and they offered me one of their old axes that they haven’t used in a while, along with a grindstone.
Now, when I thought of the word ‘Grindstone’, I thought first of a store back home.
Kind of dumb of me to think about, but it was what came to my mind. Then I remembered that we’re not on Earth and I shouldn’t be thinking of a store that just sells oils and teas. I tried to tell them that they didn’t need to give me the axe or grindstone, but lo and behold, they were perfectly fine with giving me a grindstone and an axe.
So after helping them drop off their stuff and their carts, I was given this grindstone and an axe that was obviously well worn. The wood used for the haft of the axe was aged and looked to be blackened with soot, which made me wanted to question what happened to it, but I just thanked them instead when I saw their expressions. I carried the grindstone and axe back home, and set up the grindstone outside of Fluttershy’s shed. I cleaned up the axe by removing the rust and sharpening its edge, and got to work.
Fluttershy was gone, and I figured it was on one of her many spa trips that she has with Rarity, once every weekend if I’m recalling correctly. I took one of the random trees from the forest near the house. I cut the tree down, removed the limbs from the tree, and dragged the tree back towards the house.
I know that in some states in America, you needed a permit to cut a tree down, but I figured that it’d take too long for me to find the right people to talk to, then to pay for the permit, wait for it to get approved, and all of that shenanigans. By the time that was done, we’d be out of firewood and the firewood I’d cut would be too wet to burn properly.
I figured that, if push came to shove, I’ll play the fool. Make up a story about how it was fine for humans to cut a tree if it came to the need for firewood.
So, about an hour into cutting the tree into sections, which was just one part from the rest of the tree, Fluttershy arrives home with Rainbow Dash. She starts freaking the hell out about me cutting a tree up in her yard. Rainbow Dash asked what her problem was, and I just stood there, waiting for the answer, wiping my brow of the sweat that was gathering there.
Apparently she thought I had cut down one of the trees that her birds lived in. I told her that I wasn’t that stupid, and that I went into the forest and cut a tree down for firewood, and then the two of them freaked out about me going into the forest. Supposedly, from what they were saying, the forest was evil or something.
Looked like a normal forest to me.
I told them that they shouldn’t worry about it, and went back to chopping the wood. Rainbow Dash shrugged, but Fluttershy seemed extremely exasperated by my nonchalance about the evil forest, so she ran inside and locked both Rainbow Dash and myself out of the house. Rainbow Dash was carrying a few bags for her, and when she went to go drop them off, she found out that she was locked out by the buttery colored mare.
Rainbow Dash tried coaxing her out of the house, and had no luck. She asked me to do something about it, and I stopped after hacking my way through another section of wood, and tried to talk with Fluttershy. She wasn’t having any of my shit, because she didn’t make a sound when I knocked on the door and tried to talk to her. I asked Rainbow Dash what was her problem, but she only responded with another shrug.
“That forest is evil and all, but you made it out just fine!” Was her response. I couldn't help but shrug before going back to cutting the firewood, and asked Rainbow Dash about her day after a bit of silence.
Apparently her and Fluttershy went to a place called Cloudsdale to meet up with Fluttershy’s parents. Fluttershy had some personal questions to ask and spent most of the day with them, but she seemed happier that she came to talk with them.
Up until she came home, she seemed much better than she had been for a while. That kinda struck a nerve with me, and I stopped mid swing.
I always worried whether or not I was making Fluttershy feel bad. Despite what Luna said, I feel like she might’ve misread the situation.
Sure, it might seem obvious that she might like me because she had a dream like that about me, but everyone has a dream like that about anyone they might find appealing. A famous actor, a runway model, a highschool crush, hell, maybe even the girl that worked the counter at McDonalds if she looked good enough.
Now that she’s spent some time around me, she’s probably miserable that I’m stuck here with her because she found out that I had some heavy packaging to go along with me. I try to do what I can, but it might not be enough for her.
The more I thought about it, the darker my mood got and the more depressing the thoughts got. I was spiraling down further and further into that pit that I always work myself into. I think about something, and I just self deprecate until I feel like I wasn’t worth anything.
Rainbow Dash finally noticed my souring mood, and asked me about it. I looked back at the house and scratched the back of my neck awkwardly, taking a deep breath to calm myself down. I then told her my fears of what was going on, but she just burst out laughing at that. She said that Fluttershy seems to do nothing but talk about me when she was hanging out with her friends without me, and it was rather obvious she had a crush on me.
I was skeptical, especially since she had now locked me out of the house, but Rainbow Dash just continued laughing when I voiced my skepticism and took off, flying away back towards town. I simply rolled my eyes, letting off a bothered sigh at her dismissal of my worries, and went back to work.
I remember that I was starting to get unbearably hot in my clothes, so I decided that the cool Autumn air would cool me off quickly and took my shirt off. I tossed it over towards the grindstone and got back to work for a few minutes, then I decided to start playing some music in the background. It was a drastic change in what I’ve been listening to up until now, but it seemed to fit my mood at the moment.
~~~~
Fluttershy was watching Daniel through her bedroom window. She felt bad for ignoring him and Rainbow Dash, but she was so caught up in her exasperation and incredulity towards his nonchalant nature towards that damned forest that she had to get away before she said anything that she may have regretted. She had spent about ten minutes hiding her head under pillow and trying her best to exclaim her frustrations in a manner where she wouldn’t be hurting him, and now was just watching Daniel through the blinds.
She didn’t notice the shadows that were dancing in the forest as she saw that Daniel had stopped chopping at the tree, and decided to remove his sweaty shirt. Her face flushed with embarrassment as her eyes widened, taking in the scene before her.
It seemed like in slow motion as she watched him grab the lip of his shirt and pull it up and over his body. She watched as he peeled away the wet garment to reveal the toned musculature of his torso. Her eyes slowly drank in the details of each muscle, where sweat collected into a droplet that raced its way downwards until it fell onto the ground or disappeared into the seam of his pants.
The longer she stared, the hotter she began feeling herself, a pit of fire being alight in her stomach as she continued to drink in the details, where Daniel would run a hand through his hair and shake it, trying to let the cool air run through it, and only managing to give him a more wild look that brought a deeper desire she tried to bury to the forefront.
She pulled her eyes away from him and closed the blinds on her window, digging her palms into her eyes. “You’re a perv, Fluttershy! Such a dirty girl for spying on your roommate while he’s working for you!” She harshly whispered at herself, but that did nothing to quench the fire that was starting to work its way through her body.
She could smell something that made her redder than she already was, and noticed a slight dampness in her panties. “O-oh… my Celestia...” She cursed under her breath as she breathed heavily, trying to get control of herself.
She noticed that she wasn’t hearing the rhythmic chopping of wood from outside after a few minutes, and peeked outside to see Daniel fiddling with his phone, before an unfamiliar sound emerged from the device.
It was like the music she had been hearing from his device before, and quite enjoyed to hear when he decided to listen to the music, but instead of grand performances that cascaded into a cacophony of pleasant sounds that told a story, it seemed soft and dour, still telling a story, but one that may not be happy by the end of it. There was no eruption of violins and cellos from an ensemble or orchestra, but instead seemed to be one or two instruments she wasn’t familiar with, playing with a deeper tone than she normally heard from the small, hand-held device.
A full minute passed of this slow, saddening tempo that was set by these instruments before there was an addition of soft drums in the background. What surprised her was the addition of vocals that came in shortly after the drums.
Weee chase misprinted lies
She was surprised by the melancholy she heard in this human’s voice, matching the gloominess of the song that she was hearing. The song was interrupted by the occasional chop that came from Daniel, who’s expression became bleak and despondent, as his pace seemed to match this slower paced piece of music.
Weee face the path of time…
The finality in those words brought a chill down her spine, mixed in with the anguish from his voice and the backing track of the rest of this group, it created a rather despairing piece that made her feel ultimately sorry for him. It made her start thinking bad things, and she had to shake her head to clear her head.
And yet I fight,
And yet I fight this battle all alone…
No one to cry tooo,
no place to call home…
Those words struck hard against the mare, and her eyes widened in shock at her interpretation of the lyrics.
Was that what Daniel was feeling at this moment? That he had no one to help him? To support him in this time? She fought back the tears that sprung up in her eyes as the song continued. Had she not been doing enough for him? She tried her best in making him feel welcome in her home.
Then, as the song seemed to be reaching a crescendo, the longer she went on listening with these thoughts swirling around in her head, it finally struck her that he might feel alienated. He was doing his best to acclimate to this new world he’s found himself in, but he was the only human on this planet. He was isolated from his people, and that has led to a concoction of emotions that may make him feel overwhelmed in this world.
And yet I find, and yet I find…
repeating in my head...
...If I can’t be my own,
I’d feel better dead…
A pit formed in Fluttershy’s stomach at those words, and she stared at Daniel. She could see that a dark cloud had formed over his head, and that he seemed to be muttering alongside to the song as he swung downwards with the axe, the expression filling her heart with fear and trepidation.
That pit seemed to grow deeper as she watched him pause in his next swing and stare at the edge of the axe, a recently sharpened point that she started shaking her head at as she feared the worst. She watched as he grabbed the wooden shaft of the axe, his blank, despondent eyes staring forever at that edge, and brought it forward onto his chest without hesitation.
She let out a scream as she sat up swiftly, looking around in panic. She noticed that it was dark outside and pulled the curtains open to see if there was anything outside. Seeing nothing but the axe buried into the wooden block he had been using for cutting the firewood, she scrambled out of bed frantically and shot out into the hallway.
Her ears swiveled around to home in on the sounds throughout the house, and homed in on the sound of movement downstairs. She practically threw herself down the stairs before dashing towards the kitchen, where Daniel was cooking dinner. She just about tackled him into the counter as he started to turn around to look at her.
“What’s-” was all he managed before he grunted as he got pinned to the countertop and Fluttershy, who was starting to cry uncontrollably.
He took a second to study the crying pegasus, wondering what had happened to get her like this, before he stopped the stove as to not burn his food, moving it over to one of the other burners so that he could comfort the timid mare.
He wrapped an arm around the mare and corralled her over to the living, sitting down on the couch. “Shh, shh, what’s the matter Fluttershy? What’s got you like this?” He asked, but she continued to just cry into his shoulder and he simply sighed softly before he wrapped his arms around her, rocking her back and forth slowly.
They sat like that for an hour, with Daniel simply consoling her by hugging her protectively and rocking back and forth, occasionally speaking up to see if she’ll be willing to talk about it, only to be met with her gentle sobbing, or a shake of her head, and he would recline back into his silence, staring at the fire.
Afterwards, she sat up, rubbing her bloodshot eyes from the remaining tears still collecting in the corners of her eyes, and stared up at Daniel, who was lost in thought staring at the fireplace, which he started when the sun started going down.
He noticed her absence after a moment and turned to look at her, a small frown on his face as he stared down at her.
“Are you okay Fluttershy?” He asked her quietly, and she nodded her head shakily, sniffling slightly before leaning in on his shoulder once again.
“Y-yeah… I… I had a bad dream… a-about you...” She mumbled, and Daniel turned to look at her, before nodding his head.
“Wanna tell me about it?”
She shook her head. “N-no… i-it was a dumb dream a-anyway...” She whispered, and he bobbed his head back and forth slowly.
“Alright, that’s fine… You hungry?”
She started to shake her head, but her stomach growled at the mention of food and he chuckled softly, her face heating up in embarrassment. He stood up, rubbing her on the knee comfortingly, before moving back towards the kitchen.
Her face started to feel like it was boiling at the rather intimate interaction she just shared with Daniel, but couldn’t stop the smile that was working its way onto her face.
~~~~
Besides that isolated event of Fluttershy tackling me into the counter as she sobbed her eyes out, everything has been normal, or at least normal enough. I still wonder what that dream was about that it made her so distressed, but I won’t press her for the information. After all, I don’t want to push her too hard since it seems like I’m on thin ice. Last thing I need is for her to lock me out of the house another time and for her to keep me locked out.
She didn’t even question how I got back inside that night, and I don’t think I would’ve had the heart to tell her that I knew how to pick locks, and had used it to get back inside after cutting up that tree and starting on splitting it into quarters for firewood.
The next day, I had made great headway into cutting the firewood, stacking a lot of it where she had kept her other cord of firewood, and then the day after that, I was practically finished with that tree.
I remember asking Fluttershy afterwards about the forest that she freaked out about before, and she told me that there were dangerous animals that stalk the woods, and that she just scared for me after I told her that I went into the forest.
I guess it makes sense now, but it just seems like a massive overreaction by her.
I’ve seen a few large creatures stalking the edge of the cabin though, so I’m a bit worried about them wandering over to the cottage and eating one of Fluttershy’s critters.
She’d probably be really heartbroken over that.
I’m more worried, however, that they’ll smell food on the inside of the house and break down the door and something, so I started thinking about stuff for self defense.
I thought of a gun, then threw that idea out of the window because for one, they didn’t have guns here from what I’ve seen, and two, the one gun that I do know about in the world is fuck-knows-where with the princesses or rulers of the kingdom, and the small pistol caliber isn’t going to stop a bear that’s rampaging through the house.
So yeah, that idea is tossed out.
Then I thought about a knife or something, and realized that a knife isn’t going to really stop a six hundred pound ball of fur and muscle from tearing me a structurally superfluous new behind.
Then I remembered bows were a thing, and asked around about them from a couple of people I knew.
I asked Bonbon first, since I figured I’d start with her. It didn’t help that I was already at work when the idea popped into my head, and she was the first pony that I saw, but she said that she’s never heard of a bow before.
I couldn’t help but look incredulous about that. What the hell did they use in wars outside of sword and spears? Did they fling rocks at one another in hopes that they can occasionally crack a head open?
Then I remembered, after all was said and done in this little adventure of mine that I had, that they hadn’t had a war in over a thousand years, and that bows were created for hunting at first and got adapted for war, and that ponies were primarily herbivores.
I have a fucking talent for forgetfulness of some very important details. It also doesn’t help that I’m just thinking of the ponies as humans, and it’s only moments like this where our cultures clash that cause me to remember that I’m dealing with a different species of sentient creatures.
So, I figured that Bonbon wasn’t really one for bothering with international politics around the world, and I decided to take a trip to Twilight’s after work.
Of course, she wasn’t home. My luck seemed to be on a downward spiral in this entire ordeal of mine.
Spike told me that she was out doing something with her friends, talking about a gryphon of all things.
I mean, it’s not all that far fetched, seeing as there’s dragons, talking cows, and literal human/pony hybrids in this world, but it just stacked on the craziness of this world that I was living in now, and that I really need to more educational books here instead of just focusing on the dry, boring novels that they have here for entertainment to read at the end of each day.
So, I decided to look up a book about military equipment of the modern army of Equestria, and it turns out that there’s not really any documentation on it.
Like, what do they do in case there’s some sort of war that breaks out on their borders by some warmongering assholes that have some sort of deep seated hatred for ponies? Bombard them with friendship and rainbows and hope that stops the slaughter?
After being disappointed with the lack of information that I sought after, I decided to go home and ask Luna about it the next time I saw her. Speaking about her, haven’t seen her for like four days. She had probably been busy trying to make sure all of the citizens of the nation sleep soundly.
I don’t envy her for her job. I can’t imagine some of the shit that she’d probably see in people’s dreams. I’m sure with how peaceful ponies are, they’d probably dream about gumdrops and lollipops or something like that.
I went home and finished up what was left of that firewood, and then Fluttershy came home, a little offput. She told me that there was some mean gryphon that Rainbow Dash was apparently friends with that came here to catch up with her flight school friend. She ended up blowing a gasket on everyone, and then got run out of town by none other than her previous friend.
I thought about asking Fluttershy about the military in Equestria, but then decided against it. She probably didn’t have much knowledge in the first place, on the basis that she seemed to be scared of an aggressive butterfly fluttering by.
Of course, that led to me thinking about her parents or siblings, and that she probably had a parent that was in the military and taught her about it. I started imagining Fluttershy’s parents being two extremes, with her father being a giant among the ponies, and was a complete badass, and her mother being completely timid. Probably runs at the sight of her own shadow.
It’d be even funnier if it was the opposite.
So, the next day, I went to work, and after work, I went to Twilight’s again. She was there this time, but she had no idea what I was talking about when I was describing a bow. She told me about her brother in the military again, and that he never spoke of practicing with a piece of wood with a string attached to it. That brought up ancient military history with her, and she asked me for as much information as I could remember from school.
I was never really interested in history, so there’s quite a few gaps in my brain about all of the wars and conflicts of medieval times and afterwards, and that didn’t seem to please Twilight, since she wanted to know as much as she could about human history.
I told her as much as I could remember in that time frame, but sitting here now, I’m now remembering little tidbits of information about random historical wars that I didn’t remember at the time of visiting, and I made a note to myself with a random slip of paper to tell Twilight about them the next time I visited her.
She asked me about the origin of bows, and I wasn’t exactly too sure myself. I told her, “I think it came from a period before we started recording history, when we were all nomadic tribes of humans wandering the continents. We needed a way to hunt for food and not have three people die by being gored by a boar, or trampled to death by packs of wildebeests or a mammoth.”
That brought a sour look on her face, since she most likely forgot that I was an omnivore.
That left Luna as a final lead into my search for a bow, since I had no clue how to make one, and that’d be my way of defending the homestead in the case of an attack.
Of course, speaking to her outside of dreams is next to fucking impossible, since I don’t know where I’d write a letter to, and I’m sure she probably gets swamped by paperwork outside of doing her dreamscape stuff, so she probably wouldn’t see it for a couple of weeks or something.
And waiting for her in a dream is not always going to work, since she puts her work before play and sometimes is so exhausted afterwards that she doesn’t even think to visit me. Either that, or she’s just too busy to keep up with me.
I can’t help but feel like that’s a bit self-centered of me to think of it like that, but she was actually quite fun to speak with in my dreams, once you got past that initial scare of her always showing up behind you in the dream after sucking away all of the light and shattering your dreamscape.
And she really was getting hooked into video games. Ever since the second time she’s played them, she tends to want to keep playing them. It’s amazing seeing her practically begging to coming to me to get her fix of playing video games. Honestly, it makes me glad that I can at least talk to her about some of those things, rather than them being wastes of space in my head.
Of course, I don’t really remember many games as vividly as I did with God of War, since I spent a lot of time playing those games, so there’s not much I can do when I blank on something in a video game and the whole thing ends up crashing.
So yeah, that was a bust. Luna showed up in my dreams last night, but she, like Twilight, had never heard of a bow.
When I described it to her, and then materialized one in front of me to show one to her, she got this really interested look on her face as she studied it. She then disappeared afterwards and I was left standing in that void until I woke up.
Hell, I might’ve just revolutionized war here in Equestria, and that idea doesn’t sit well with me.
I don’t want to be remembered as that. Hell, you could see how Oppenheimer felt in those interviews he had, that vacant look of disgust and despair at the thought of what his creation did to Japan.
Anyway, with that as a dead end, I figured that the next best thing for me to do would’ve been trying to create one. I don’t know how well that shit would work, since I’ve never made one, and I’ve never seen one do it, so I wouldn’t know what to look for besides that you’d need a tree that was like ash, elm, or yew to make a good quality bow. I’d probably need a dozen tries to do it properly, since my first couple of ones will probably snap from being shaven down too far or having a notch cut too far into the wood.
My first attempt was just as I expected. I took a thin tree and tried to shave it down to a basic bow shape as much as I could, but when I checked the tensile strength of the wood after shaving it, it snapped. I can start on another one the next day, but I don’t want to cut down every tree in the forest to try and get a bow. Makes me feel bad to do that, and I don’t want to fuck up everything here like the British did with their isles.
It’s nearing that time of the year again when Halloween rolls around back on Earth, but it seems like there’s no such holiday celebrations for it. If there was, you’d have people stocking up on candy and putting up decorations everywhere to celebrate it.
I’ll have to ask someone about the holidays on this world. It’d be weird if they didn’t have a holiday or celebration for things in this world.
Maybe I can introduce them to the concept if they don’t have that yet.
So, I found out later that holidays were a thing, and that their version of Halloween was something they called Nightmare Night. Twilight went about explaining it to me, but my first thought went to that history book that I had been forced to read by Twilight when I first arrived.
The conversation went a little something like this:
“It’s called Nightmare Night!”
“It’s called what?”
“Nightmare Night! It’ s a holiday about traditions and blah blah blah!”
Saving myself having to listen, or read, her ten minute tirade about the holiday while also slinging passive aggressive comments about me not knowing about it from the books I was forced to read, even though I skimmed through the holidays because it seemed to me when I was reading it that nobody really knows what specific date that they celebrated the holiday, they just did it whenever they felt like it was time.
Didn't really make sense to me reading through the books, and it still doesn't make sense to me now, even as I'm staring at the pages of the book that is specifically made to tell people about the holidays of the country.
The most important bit to me was that Nightmare Moon, the evil alternate persona of Princess Luna, was a part of a traditional holiday, where the kids would dress up to avoid being eaten by Nightmare Moon, and then a portion of their candy would be sacrificed to a fucking statue that they have sitting outside of town.
Of course, anyone with half a brain stem would realize that there’s a problem here. There’s a holiday that’s teaching kids to be afraid of one of their princesses, one of their immortal rulers over this kingdom, and that fear that was taught early by this holiday will coalesce into a deep-seated fear or prejudice towards her. Possibly even hatred or outright hostilities against her.
“Don’t you see a problem with there being a holiday that breeds fear into ponies at an early age about one of their princesses?”
“What do you mean? Princess Celestia isn’t the main focus of the holiday. That’s reserved for the Summer Sun Celebration!”
I skipped over the question I wanted to ask about this new holiday that she just talked about to bring it back to the issue at hand, and the fact that I was a bit miffed that she just completely forgot about Luna there.
“You remember that there’s Princess Luna as well, right? And you have a holiday that is to instill fear of her into young children, and that you need to sacrifice objects to her in order for you to sate her supposed bloodlust, right?”
“She’s not Nightmare Moon anymore, Daniel.” I couldn’t help but facepalm at that.
Bless her soul, she’s got book smarts, but she has as much common sense as a plastic bag fluttering in the wind sometimes.
“Yeah, but younger ponies won’t be able to tell a difference, and when they grow up to see the princess, they’ll immediately make a connection between her and the statue that they were throwing candy at and taught to fear in case she comes to eat them, am I not wrong?”
Twilight got a thoughtful look on her face at that, and nodded slowly. “I suppose I can see that. But I honestly doubt that it’d come to that. Hey, here’s an idea! Why don’t you try to invite her out to celebrate with us?”
I swear you could’ve heard my facepalm on the other side of the universe at that suggestion.
“I don’t think she’ll appreciate being invited to a holiday that is designed to teach fear about her to her citizens.” I stated, my voice as flat and deadpan as a box of cardboard.
“You never know until you try~!”
“Fine, I’ll speak to her and see if she wants to come to Ponyville to celebrate the holidays with us. I will warn you that I don’t see her every night when I dream, so it might be some time to run that by her.”
“How about we all try to contact her through our dreams about it?” Spike suggested while he was biting down on a big ass gem, which I still couldn’t help myself cringing about when I see it or hear it. Just the idea of a big gem like that, something that’d be worth millions of dollars back home at that size, would be casual chow for a group of dragons.
“That sounds like a great idea! Good thinking Spike!” Twilight exclaimed, and I had to roll my eyes at that.
I figured it was implied that everyone here would try to flag her down about this if they really wanted her here. I couldn’t help but think condescendingly.
After I left that trainwreck of an idea behind me, I couldn’t help but think, “It’d be cool to finally meet her in person. After all, we’ve only seen each other through the dreamscape since she first introduced herself to me.”
Then I remembered that she visited me while I was bedridden in the hospital and cursed my shoddy memory once again.
That quickly left me to realize that my birthday would arrive soon afterwards.
See, I never really liked my birthday. Mostly because I had the shit beat out of my every year by a bunch of older men, but also because it was the anniversary for when I learned about… that poor girl.
So, yeah, not exactly happy to celebrate it. I might just spend the day like normal. I might just go isolate myself away for the day. I might not do any of that and actually celebrate it, since this is a new world after all. They can’t get me here, right? So I can let that past fade away to time, and I can learn to love the day again.
Hell, I might even tell Pinkie about it. She keeps popping up from time to time to ask me the most random questions, like what I was doing on a specific day two weeks from now, or if I was busy three months from now.
How the fuck am I supposed to know whether or not I’m busy three months in advance? I’m only assuming that I’m going to be at work, unless something drastic comes up.
During work the next day, Bonbon asked me if I had plans for the next two weeks, and I told her that I didn’t have anything planned out for the foreseeable future. That led her to telling me that I was going to be working overtime to meet the demand of candy for the upcoming holiday. I asked her about Nightmare Moon, acting like I was ignorant of it, and she gave me a brief explanation of the holiday. When I asked about the correlation between Princess Luna and Nightmare Moon like I did with the bookworm, that seem to give her more pause than it did Twilight.
She ended up dismissing it in the end, saying that I was looking too far into it, but I couldn’t help but feel like shewas seeing the issue there and didn’t want to draw attention to it. Either that, or she just really couldn’t be bothered. Bonbon has that attitude sometimes, and I can’t tell sometimes whether or not it’s because she’s trying to keep up a facade, or that she genuinely doesn’t care.
So yeah, most of my days for the coming two weeks will be making candy for the upcoming holiday. Can’t really say that I’m disappointed about it, I knew something like this would happen eventually.
I saw Luna in the dream world about two days after Twilight’s little proposition, and I asked her about the coming holiday. She had no idea that there was a holiday that was coming up, but that she was seeing the citizens (though she called them subjects) in Canterlot (still can’t believe they named it that) were setting up decorations to inspire fear into young foals.
I told her what I knew about it, and she got this dejected look on her face about it. I tried cheering Luna up, and invited her to spend the holiday with us down in Ponyville, but she said that she was busy during the holiday.
Before she left, I told her, “You should show everyone around that you’re not what they think you are. Don’t let them believe you’re still Nightmare Moon. You’re Princess Luna, and you’re better now because of the experience.”
That got a sad little smile from her, but she still disappeared without a word, and I couldn’t help but sigh in frustration at that.
Bonbon gave me the holiday off, but she was running the shop by herself that day. I asked her if she was sure about it, since she looked like she needed help, but she was being adamant about it. I could tell that the last two weeks had taken a toll on her, with dark bags having formed under her eyes and with her unsteady gait, and she almost dropped a batch of salt water taffies onto the floor if I hadn’t been there to catch it.
I couldn’t help but give her a cocked eyebrow and a grin, and she caved in about giving me the time off.
Honestly, afterwards, she surely would’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of orders that were coming in. With the two of us, we still had to rush a lot of what we made to keep up with the demands. It was one of our busiest days in the shop, and I was exhausted beyond belief afterwards. I set my feet for home, and I was ready to sleep. However, that was not what happened at all.
This is a story about how I celebrated my first holiday in Equestria, Nightmare Night.