//------------------------------// // The Letter // Story: Off the Beaten Path // by PingSquirrel //------------------------------// 22. What happens, happens. That was a line in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that was used to describe the rules of causality, but I found it much more poignant in another way entirely.  That one simple line is a call for calmness, acceptance and realisation over worry, panic and denial in everything you do and happens to you.  If something bad occurs, don’t dwell on the event but move on to solutions and coping.  If something good occurs, don’t fixate on the victory but move on to reinforce it and towards the next step.  What has happened, has happened.  Move on.  It wasn’t meant that way in the book, but that’s what I took away from it. I don’t think Arthur Dent ever heard the line said in the entire book, which is a shame.  He would’ve come to appreciate the most over the run of the books because he was a man that seemed to apply it to himself on a regular basis.  He coped with the loss of his whole world by realising that his favourite corner store was gone.  He lost everything in a moment and found himself thrown into a bigger universe that was both amazing and utterly indifferent to his existence, and kept his sanity until he found something he could call home.  Maybe that’s why I didn’t like the fifth book of that trilogy; the universe slipped from being indifferent to vindictive and stripped him of everything again.   I had great sympathy for him.  Just like Dent, I lost everything I knew no fault of my own and found myself in another world without a place in it.  The big difference though, while the Guide’s universe is wonderful and wonderfully apathetic to Dent and his struggles, Equestria was caring and embracing.  In the course of weeks, I found myself with a circle of friends that cared for me.  Just knowing that they were there gave me purpose and strength to do what I needed to do to carry on and accept what has happened.  In that way, I differed greatly from Dent. Then, there’s hope.  Despite the enormity and oddity of what has happened to me, I could hold onto hope that I would return home one day to find that my life was still there.  All the comforts and tribulations that I had left behind might just be waiting for me to slide back into them.  I could hope that one day, that I might be able to just carry on as if I never slipped across worlds. But, what happened, happened. The letter I was staring at screamed that fact into my psyche, heart and soul all at once until I felt numb.  My eyes went through the motions of reading, but all I was doing right now was looking for some change in what I was seeing.  Something to keep my hopes alive. Did I really deserve hope?  What have I done since I’ve got here to earn that right?  I didn’t struggle to go home, but left everything in the hooves of others.  I should’ve done more.   “Excuse me, Mister?” a wall-eyed grey mare said to me.  That one sentence brought me back from the internal grindstone that was chewing at me to the real world again and I became aware of bustle of ponies going about their day in the post office.  I was still rooted in place by the weight of my thoughts, but my eyes lifted from the letter and to her.   She went from looking helpful to bashful under my gaze, but that didn’t stop her effort to help me.  “You’ve been standing there for the last ten minutes.  Are you having trouble reading, because I used to have trouble reading and might be able to help?” I felt numb within, but the earnest offer of aid deserved something.  I forced a smile to my face, though it fell flat with the mare. “Yeah.  I’m just fine,” I lied.         “If you say so.  Is that the Royal Seal?  Are you in trouble, Mister?” the grey mare asked as she shifted under my gaze.         I rolled the scroll back up and tucked it into my saddlebag.  “No, I’m not in trouble,” I replied flatly, “Thank you for asking, but please leave me alone.  It’s not your fault, but this is something personal.”         She was taken back by the outright rejection of her offer to help, and, after she took several hard blinks to process it, she hesitantly replied, “If you say so.  You have a good day, and I hope you feel better, okay?” I didn’t bother saying anything else to her, but returned her kind words with a slight nod before I walked out of the post-office and into the streets at a lazy pace because my thoughts were drawn back to the letter.  It didn’t matter that I wasn’t paying attention to my path; over the time I had spent here, I came to know these streets better than anywhere back home.  The knowledge came with my many trips on hoof through the town.  I knew where to find every store, shop and market in Ponyville and the names of the ponies that ran them.  On earth, I didn’t even know the owners and managers of the stores I liked.  It was simply easier here, and I had no idea what that said about me. Right now, I had one store in particular on my mind, and I was making my way there with my head down.  I’m sure several ponies tried to say something to me as I made my brisk march, but I didn’t care because I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anypony.  I just pulled my hat down to hide my eyes away from the spectators, and kept walking until I arrived at Ponyville’s liquor store.   When I entered, the clerk said something to me, but I ignored it.  It was likely a greeting, but it didn’t matter.  He could curse me out right now and it wouldn’t change my desires right now.  With so many of the being out of my grasp, the possible one seemed all the more important to me.  I just went straight to the back of the store, and picked up a bottle of rye without a care for the pony pun that was on the label.  It wasn’t the name of what was in the bottle, but what was in inside of it that mattered to me anyways.  The store’s owner just checked me right through without a word, and I made a note to thank him later.          There wasn’t anywhere for me to go really, but I knew I wanted to be alone when I got there, and I knew a place where ponies never went.  It was a dull march through the cool air.  It was getting onto the evening, and originally planned to head home after checking the mail.         Funny.  Never thought of this place as home.  Not really.  It was close in a lot of ways, but so far in other ways.         My truck came into view, tagged and marked by several scholars for research purposes.  They had declared it ‘too delicate to move’ and started doing all the measurements right there, under the tree that killed it all that time ago.   The time between then and now seemed so short and long at the same time.           Anyways, the truck was much more than a research project to me.  It was the biggest part of home I had left.  I found it, paid for it and maintained it all with money I made while I was human and I never realised how much of a bond that made with me.         I climbed onto the tailgate and sat down heavily on my flank.  This was the last time I could allow myself to be ‘home’ here, but there was a comfort to my truck that I loved and would miss it when it was gone from my life.  There was one more thing I needed to do, and that was uncork the bottle of rye.  I didn’t have fingers anymore, but teeth worked pretty good at yanking corks, and with that done, I was ready.  I pulled out the letter again, and set it beside me.         Actually, I wasn’t ready yet.  I took a swig of the sharp alcohol.  The warmth traveled down my throat easily and I sighed at the feeling.  A few more like that, and I’d be feeling it quite nicely.  I was ready.         Dear Scriber,         The informality of the letter struck me right there.  Right off the bat, it was obvious it was a personal letter to me and not a form letter sent out by the government.  You’d never get something like this back on earth.         Dear Scriber,         We are writing you today to inform you of the progress on the task of returning you to your rightful home.  (I could see that the first “you” was originally a “thee”.  Luna was still having issues with modern language  but she was trying hard to fit in.  Maybe that’s why she sympathized so much with me when I first arrived.  She knew what it was to be the lone outsider looking in, and didn’t want me to go through the same thing.)  We have made great strides in the new field of dimensional teleportation and have been very excited to see some of the results and disappointed in them in other ways.  Truly, it is well within our capability to open rifts, or highways as we have taken to calling them,  to whole new realities, and we’ve repeated the experiment several times over the last month.  Each time, we spied a glimpse of a whole new reality, before letting the highway close.  When this new magic becomes more reliable, the benefits to the nation could be nothing short than revolutionary, and we have you and Twilight Sparkle to thank for this.         After the first paragraph, I took another gulp of my drink.  I knew what was coming, but something about being where I was made it more real.  I wanted to be ready for it, or at least so numb I didn’t care.         Now, while we have found several new and effective efficiencies to the process of opening a new highway, what we are finding a great hinderance is the ability to direct where a highway will lead.  There are many worlds out there.  An unfathomable number of them as far as I can tell, and while many of them are different, there are just as many that are virtually identical to the ones we know of with minute differences to distinguish them.  Much of our efforts is spent on trying to determine and name all the defining factors of a world to get what we are referring to as its true address, but there hasn’t been much success in even finding the simplest world more than once.         It was pretty easy to see where this is going and it called for another drink.  The warmth was running through and dulling my senses pleasantly.  The numbness was welcomed. In the last iteration of the test, we tried to find a creature that would be able to help us learn the proper techniques for this kind of spell.  We are not sure what happened or what exactly we found, but four good ponies nearly lost their lives in the ensuing encounter.  When we consulted with Twilight Sparkle, she made mention of an author you brought with you by the name of Lovecraft.  I realise that it is a work of fiction, but between that discussion and the recent encounter, I have come to realise there is much more to be found than I could imagine, and much of it could be hostile and incredibly powerful. I did read that right.  Ponies nearly lost their lives thanks to me, and a human author managed to frighten an otherworldly deity.  That’s good for two shots.  One for the absurd, and the other for the depressing.  I know you have been wishing to return to your homeworld, and, while we will not abandon this field entirely, we will have to take it at a much slower and carefully planned pace so as to not threaten the citizens of Equestria or the rest of this world.  It pains me to say this, but I fear we are unlikely to be able to find your home in any time within the next several decades barring an extraordinary stroke of luck. And, there it was.  I’m not going home.  I couldn’t blame Luna for it, or anypony else, and I didn’t even want to.  The letter was getting hard to read with the letters getting all blurred.  It took me a moment to realise that I was crying.         I deeply and sincerely apologize to you, Scriber, but the good of the nation has the come before any single pony.  I have already pushed your name through Celestia’s bureaucracy to provide you with your citizenship, as well as several other documents such as birth certificates and family linage so you will not lack in any sort of official documentation.  These should arrive within two to six weeks (I could almost imagine the Moon Goddess trying to comprehend that not even she was exempt to the standard waiting period.  Maybe that’s why she called it Celestia’s bureaucracy.).   Along with the package will be information on several savings accounts that are more than equivalent with what a stallion of your age should have acquired.  We are sorry, but this is the least we could do for you.         So, that was it.  Just a sorry and a new life right out of the tin for me.  It’s better than I could expect, but somehow it was worse too.  Everything I’ve experienced and knew was irrevocably gone from my life, and just being handed something to replace it just felt cheap.  No amount of money and identification could replace memories.  Everything I was couldn’t just be traded in like that.         But, it just was.         If there is anything more I can do for you, please get in contact with myself or my sister.  Sending a letter through Spike would be the quickest way to garner our attentions.         Sincerely,                 Princess Luna The ending of the letter didn't even matter to me.  I stopped fighting the tears and just hoped nopony was around to see me now.  I was an adult, but here I was, weeping and admittedly somewhat drunk on the back of an old piece of scrap metal that used to be my home.  It had to be a pathetic sight to see me now with tears rolling down my cheeks and all of my sniffling and rubbing of my nose couldn’t hide it.  The only time I could bring myself to stop was to take another swig from my bottle, but soon that ran dry. A lazy toss sent the bottle to the long grass, and through my bleary eyes I could see the little path to my truck was no longer as cut as deeply as it was when I was here.  How many times have I walked this way to cling to what hope I had?  And, why is the world tilting to the left? Oh, right.  I just drank the whole bottle. I knew I wasn’t going to be awake for long, so I better find a bed.  I was practically liquid as I forced myself to my hooves and fell off the tailgate gracelessly.   I didn’t even swear.  It didn’t matter anymore.  And, as I made my way through the town, I knew there were those watching me, but it didn’t matter at all.  I’m a whole new pony, and I got the Royal seal to prove it. It didn’t matter if I was still misty-eyed and drunk.   Nothing mattered. Until I got to where I’d been calling my temporary home.  That house of Berry’s had more than enough space for me, and I rented a room from her, because I wasn’t going to leach off of her.  I was better than that. What I wasn’t better than right now was the locked door.  I either I couldn’t get the right key to the lock or I couldn’t get it into the lock, and I was stuck outside for longer than I thought possible failing to open a door.  Then it opened through no action of my own. “Scriber.  Are you alright?” she asked.  God, she was about the only solid thing in my life right now, but I couldn’t get through the haze in my head to answer her.  It was too much and I couldn’t think.         “You’re drunk,” she said accusingly as she took a step back from me.  She even looked disgusted at me and every bit of the pleasant numbness turned to bitter shame.  I couldn’t just leave like this after she reacted like that to me.  I needed her.         “I’m not going home,” I finally forced out, and a choked whimper followed the words.         She stared at me, and the comprehension took her. “Scriber.  I’m so sorry,” she said softly.  I know she was waiting for this, but she was mixed up on how to feel.         “I got no family.  No past.  Nothing.  I’m alone,” I stammered out as I tried to stop myself from crying again, but it was hopeless.  I started sobbing again, and I turned my head from her.  She didn’t need to see me like this, but it was far too late for that. She already had.         “You don’t have to be alone, Scriber,” Berry whispered as she stepped close and put a foreleg around me to pull me in and I was pressed to that grape fur and mane.  I didn’t even realise I was already holding her back just as tightly.  It felt good and right. “We don’t have to be alone.”         I nodded slightly and we stepped inside.         That night, I made what was simultaneously the greatest, best and worst mistake of my life.