Chapter Five
“Home Sweet Home”
Terra, Pinkie and I stood in front of what seemed to be a fairly ordinary house (for Ponyville anyway).
I held up the archaic key, glanced at my companions and took a deep breath.
“Well, here goes nothing.” I said as I approached the door and maneuvered the key toward the keyhole. However, before it went in, both key and keyhole glowed and the house itself began ripple, like it was made of water.
After a moment of this, the house had transformed and looked like something that came out of my world, but with a better color scheme. It was large, but not so much as to be unnecessary, and it had two stories.
I looked at the door and noticed that the key had changed to look like something from my world, being positioned just short of going inside the door knob. I shrugged and proceeded to unlock the door, opening it to let Terra and Pinkie Pie in, who were both staring in awe.
I looked around for a light switch, but I couldn’t see one. After pondering for a moment on how exactly I would’ve designed a magical home in a magical world, I got an idea and grinned.
“Ladies.” I said with dramatic flair “I bid thee welcome… to Casa de Leon!” I finished with a snap of my fingers, which caused all the lights in the house to turn on, each glowing softly.
The girls ‘ooo’d’ and ‘ahh’d’ while I looked around at the surprisingly quaint home. I saw that the entire first floor of the house was mostly one big room, with a living area on my right and a dining room and kitchen to my left, with a hallway down the middle.
The living room was probably the most decorated part of the main floor, with a large L-shaped couch taking up the corner connecting the living room and hallway walls, a recliner positioned next to it at an angle with a small coffee table set up between it and the couch. There was a rather large TV sitting on an entertainment center opposite the couch with a long coffee table in place between them, and I noticed a rack of wooden TV trays next to the entertainment center.
‘Wow, the living room seems to have been designed with comfort in mind, and it looks like I could handle a wide variety of situations with this set-up’ I nodded in approval, then turned to look at the dining area.
It was actually a dining room/kitchen combo, with the wall between it and the hallway extended to support a counter. The dining room was simple, in that all it had was a large table that could easily seat about 10 people comfortably, with as many chairs positioned symmetrically around it (four on either side, one at each end).
‘I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of staying here anymore; this whole place has a… permanent home-type feel to it, which is kinda strange for a dimension-hopping hero.’ I thought, but mentally shrugged ‘Doesn’t matter. I think I’ll check out the kitchen later, though I imagine it’ll have everything I need to cook with. Let’s go check out the rest of the house, maybe there’s a room for Terra.’
I looked at my companions and saw them looking around the house in awe.
“C’mon, girls. Let’s check out the rest of the house.” I said, gesturing down the hall.
It wasn’t much, it only had two doors at the very end, one on either side. The door on the right led into a roomy bathroom, but there wasn’t much to look at in there.
The door on the left actually opened up to a set stairs leading to the second floor, which turned out to be where the bedrooms were.
The stairs led up, then the floor curved around.
Okay, I’m gonna do my best to describe this so bear with me here. To start with, we walked up the stairs and turned around, seeing that there were two doors on our right, and two doors at the other end.
Considering the layout of the house, I surmised that the door at the end on the left most likely led into a small restroom, while the other three were bedrooms. When we opened the door next to us, it was indeed a bedroom, though there weren’t many furnishings apart from a large bed and a couple of dressers with a closet. The room next to it proved to be nearly identical, so I assumed these were guest rooms.
Opening the door at the end on the right, my jaw dropped.
It wasn’t terribly furnished itself, though more than the other two, and it was also almost twice as big. The bed wasn’t much bigger, but I honestly didn’t give a crap about how big the bed was, I was more interested in the fact that the room seemed to be split between a bedroom and some kind of office. Seriously, there was an L-shaped desk in the corner with a large computer monitor on one side, with the other side neatly organized in preparation for office stuff I couldn’t do on the computer.
I decided to examine the PC under the desk, rolling the very nice office chair out of the way. Unfortunately, I’m not a computer geek outside of playing games on one or using office programs, so to me it looked just like something you could buy in a store, granted I could tell it looked expensive.
“Wow, this house is super-duper cool, Leon!” Pinkie exclaimed while jumping on the bed.
“Yes, it is really lovely.” Terra said, looking curiously at the computer.
I took a seat in the office chair (holy crap, I could sit in this thing forever!) and looked at Terra.
“Well, now that we’ve seen the place, which room do you want, Terra?” I asked and she gave me a shy smile.
“I think I’ll take one of the smaller rooms, if that’s alright.” She murmured, rubbing her arm.
“Sweetheart, if you want this room, you only have to say so.” I said, gesturing to what was obviously the master bedroom, though she shook her head.
“No, this looks like a room for someone who could use the workspace, I think you’ll need it more than me.” She said, giving me a warm smile.
I shrugged “If that’s what you want, I’m not gonna argue with you.” I said with a smile, but cocked an eyebrow at her curiously “Are you sure, though?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” She replied with a smile.
I nodded and stood up from the chair, at which point I noticed Pinkie had stopped bouncing on the bed and had climbed off the bed to pick something up, which she now stared at.
“Pinkie? What’s wrong?” I asked her, and she turned slowly towards me. In her hands, she held a book; a journal to be more exact and she had it opened to one of the last written entries.
She hands me the journal and I look at it, my heart sinking as I read. It was the other Leon’s journal and this particular entry detailed what his plan for Twilight was, and why he’d had the house built. He’d planned to retire from saving worlds and remain in Equestria with her.
I said nothing, only opening one of the drawers to the desk and sliding the journal deep inside it before closing the drawer once more.
“What are you going to do, Leon?” Pinkie asked me, and I was quiet a moment before answering.
“I don’t know.” I replied, still looking at the drawer where I’d put the journal “I just… need some time to think, that’s all.”
“You’re not mad at Twilight, are you?” She asked and I shook my head.
Despite everything that had happened, I couldn’t hate Twilight. I wasn’t even angry at her. All I felt was sorrow in regards toward her suffering. I wanted to help her get over it, but at the same time my presence might just make it worse, cause her to lose herself to the memory… and I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing her like that.
After a moment, I looked back to Pinkie and Terra and gave them both a winning smile.
“Let’s go back downstairs, shall we? I’ll make us some food, since I have no idea when the last time I ate was.” I said, which garnered a smile and nod from both of them before they left. I followed them, but stopped at the door and glanced back to where I put the journal.
‘Rest easy, bud. I’ll keep an eye on Twilight for you.’ Then I turned and went downstairs with Pinkie and Terra.
As we exited the hallway, I looked into the living room and was startled to see Twilight Sparkle (and just a little… excited?) sitting on the couch. She looked at me when I entered and her face became strained, like she was having trouble deciding on what to feel and I didn’t blame her.
She rose from the couch and walked over to me, though she stopped just out of arm’s reach. She looked flustered and her mouth was opening and closing in an attempt to speak. Eventually she shut her mouth, took a deep breath and spoke.
“Leon, I wish to apologize for dragging you here against your will. I… wasn’t thinking clearly.” She looked away from me, her expression pained “I’m so, so sorry…”
I stepped forward and placed a comforting arm on her shoulder while smiling at her.
“It’s alright, Twilight, I’m not angry at you and I don’t hold anything against you.” I said soothingly and she looked at me in surprise “I know you’re in a terrible amount of pain, especially considering how close the two of you were. If I’d been in your position, I probably would’ve done the same thing. But… if you really don’t want me to leave, I’m gonna need you to promise me something.”
“What is it?” She asked, confused and I looked her in the eyes.
“No more tears.” I said resolutely, and then gave her another smile “Besides, I don’t think he’d want you crying all the time over him. I’m sure if he were here right now, he’d ask you to forgive him for causing you so much pain.”
She looked at me for a moment, before nodding and wiped away a couple of small tears with her hand.
“There’s nothing to forgive, if anything I couldn’t have been prouder to have known him than I did at that exact moment.” She said, with a sniffle “He died a hero. Everypony will always remember him for that, whereas I will always remember… what we had together.”
Her face fell “But… those memories are all the more painful because I know I’ll never be able to make more of them with him. I remember him… the joy we had, the moments we shared… and all it does is make me miss him more.”
My felt my own heart breaking for her.
You see, when a person dies, they cease to be. To most everyone, they may see an obituary for that person in the paper and think “How sad” before going on with their lives. The reason for this is because they had no connection to that person what-so-ever.
Then there’s people who knew that person before their death and they feel a sense of loss. They’d known that person on a more personal level, were probably even friends with them, and they feel that loss acutely. But after a short amount of time, a handful of weeks usually, they’ll go back to their lives while still remembering whatever impact that the person made on them.
But the real damage… the most acute loss is felt by the people who’d known that person and loved them, most often the parents or siblings, but also by someone they’d had a deep connection with that went further than ‘just friends’. These people are crippled by the sudden loss of someone who’d been an integral part of their lives and are often driven mad by their pain.
You ever hear stories of people who become addicted to drugs or waste away in bars drinking themselves into oblivion? Yeah, more often than you’d think, they’re doing all that because they lost someone who’d been so important to them that they literally couldn’t envision their future without them and are looking for an escape from the kind of heartache very few people could ever understand because what is happening to them is that they are being crushed by every single memory they’d ever shared with that person.
In such an event, there is very little you can do for them. You can show support and try talking to them, but in the end it will be up to the mourner to reconcile their heart.
I decided to wrap Twilight in a gentle hug. She seemed surprised by this, but returned it.
“I’m not gonna say I understand what you’re going through.” I told her calmly “I’ve never had a connection to someone like the one you had with him. But I promise that my door is always open if you ever feel you need to talk, alright?”
She broke from the embrace and gave me a small smile.
“Thank you… Leon. I’m glad you’re not angry with me.” She said, relief in her voice “And… thank you for talking to me, I’m sure it’s more than I deserve. However, I’m curious as to how you ended up with his key.”
“Spoilers.” I said with a wink, though I wasn’t entirely sure on how I ended up with the key, either.
Her face became indignant and her mouth opened and closed several times, once again trying to find the right words to say to me, but I merely chuckled and went to the kitchen, stopping before I could round the corner.
“Hey, since you’re here, you wanna stay for lunch? No idea what’s available, but we’re gonna find out.” I asked her with an eyebrow raised.
She stared at me a moment before giving out a sigh and nodding her head with a small smile.
As it turns out, his pantry was stocked with quite a bit of food (save for cow, pig and chicken meat), so I made a delicious pasta for lunch and the four of us had a relatively normal chat about the goings-on in the world, with no mention of the guy who came before me.
All in all… it wasn’t a bad start to things, and I felt I could forget about the world I came from.