//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 Your Mommy on My Mind // Story: My Daughter Chrysalis // by Scarheart //------------------------------// Edited by Shadow Blades Do you know what it's like to go nuts and actually see it happen, to be aware your own mind is going batty? It's the weirdest thing, I tell you! Curious to know what was going on in my little head while it was mind raped? Wanna know what it felt like to have all those nightmares and deepest, darkest fears wadded up into one mass and yanked into a hallucination before your eyes? It sucked rotten eggs. Really, really rotten, foul-smelling eggs. I could use more colorful metaphors, but come on, the kids are reading. I feel enclosed, as if something is wrapped around me. Everything is so jumbled and so confusing. Nothing makes sense. My life doesn't make sense. Why is my past haunting my present? Why can't I just move on? What did I do wrong to deserve this? I'm shattered, broken and the pieces are everywhere. I can see the faces of those I've killed. They stare back at me with blood running from their eyes where tears should be. A boy stands out among them. I know that face. I hate that face. I am afraid of that face. I want that face to forgive me. I am beyond forgiveness. The blood forever stains me, therefore I must hate that which cannot ever forgive me. What is wrong with me? Hate a child? Never! It was I...it was me...my trigger, my decision. Why was he armed? Why did the village… Curious...thou art ridden by a guilt beyond the scope of your control. Such a waste of energy and thought for such a thing beyond your power. The past is beyond thy reach, creature. The future is the bleakest of mornings to come for thee, yet... This must be the evil of my own making, greeting me, taunting me. Everything I have ever done in my life keeps repeating itself, the moments where I failed, where I struggled, where I feared the path I walked. I hear voices, at first screaming at me. I am called terrible things. Is this some sort of nightmare? Ah, so thou art a human… “What?” The first fight I ever got into, I was eleven. He was thirteen. He kicked my butt everywhere, but I kept coming after him to the point where he left the field of battle. I kept screaming at him to kill me if he wanted to beat on me. I knew I was losing. My bloody nose, swelling left eye, and split lip told everyone watching who was winning. I got in a few good hits, though. The whole front of my shirt was covered in my own blood. That was the first time I was called crazy. For weeks after having my butt handed to me, I would taunt that kid and tell him to finish the job. I kept after him. He ran away. Something pauses out there, as if noticing me for the first time. Odd. I don’t feel as though I have a body. Was that the beginning of something I never fully understood? Did that make me crazy? I remember mom seeing my condition after that fight, going into hysterics. Dad wanted to kill someone. I told them nothing. Kids don't rat out kids because we're not snitches. I didn't feel very much like a hero when the doctor reset my nose. I fainted from the pain. What an interesting creature thou art. "What is that? Who is that?" Weird. I guess I've spent my whole life getting crapped on and really didn't care. Like the time my dad first took me out to learn how to drive. I crashed the car into the bed of a pickup truck. The driver was drunk and cut in front of us, slamming on the brakes. He thought I looked like the guy his wife was sleeping with from a glance while passing us. I was fifteen. The dude had to be fifty! I was woozy from the crash when I felt these meat hooks for hands grab me by the neck and collar and try to yank me out of my seat. Dad yelled at the guy to stop, but his seat belt wouldn't unfasten and he had the dashboard in his lap. The drunk didn't realize I wasn’t the jerk he was looking for when he got a good look at me. Dad managed to pull the guy off me and hold him down after a scuffle until cops arrived. So which begs the question: why did I drown myself in alcohol when the option was there not to? I'm pretty stupid. I broke my leg playing football my junior year of high school. I was a wide receiver and I had a few colleges looking at me. Nothing huge, mind you. I knew I wasn't pro football material. It would have been a neat dream to chase. Breaking my leg halfway through the season ended my football career. I was having a monster game, too. Too bad. Be thou a warrior? Once did thy dreams encompass hopes of striving beyond what thou thought a small life of no consequence? I can hear someone whispering my name now. I know her voice! It's been a part of my world for most of my adult life. There's another voice, less intrusive. Things are becoming clearer, my thoughts and memories no longer jumping around randomly. The monsters lurking at me fade away, but I know they're there, in the shadows of my mind, watching. Waiting. Thy name is Michael...passed down through the generations to the first son...fascinating. What a strange tradition... But it is not her. It is not my daughter’s voice. There is a buzz somewhere out there, around me, beyond it, just on the edge of awareness. It undulates not with sound, but with the sensations of emotions, thoughts, and other things beyond my understanding. I feel cold, but slowly realize it's not the last cold. I see the faces of my family; mom, dad, and my sister. They stare at me through the blackness, questioning me about why I abandoned them, abandoned my world and my race all for a bunch of fake ponies. Don't they understand? I'll come home one day, when...when… I see the face of my other daughter, the one I have seen grow and become beautiful and intelligent… "No..." Thy world fascinates me, human. "What are you?" That is not my daughter. That is not my little Chryssie. The presence I'm looking at emerging from the darkness around me pauses, just beyond what I can see, regarding me with eyes like my daughter's. I can make out a shape and nothing more. I shiver at the very presence of this shape like my child's. I feel...resentment and curiosity. I can't feel anything else except...envy? "Am I going insane?" Perhaps. Wouldst thou not invite sweet release for thee from the coils of reality? Thy mind is clouded, scarred, yet thou hast desire. We shall meet, human. I desire to meet thee within mine sanctuary. Thou mayest see mine glory and mine children which raise me above all the world. Thou must face thine judgement, human. Thou hast taken love reserved for mine heart from mine child and taken it for thyself. "Who are you?" I am a mother. "What do you want?" I desire mine daughter returned to my bosom. "Chryssie?" Chrysalis. "...so what, you're mad at me?" Yes. "Why?" Her love is not thine to have, mortal. "I don't understand." Of course not. Thou art not of the Changeling race. Thy ignorance of what is cannot be helped. Hence I do not rip thee asunder now and will give thee an opportunity to account for thyself, to be measured before mine eyes and weighed for thy actions. Celestia has thee under her wing and I dare not raise mine ire upon thee until she can no longer protect thee beneath her considerable shadow. There is a pause; an uneasy silence as the nothingness around me feels constrictive. I can only feel those eyes, boring into me, seeing into my soul and taking me apart piece by piece. It's really weird. I am aware of nothing but the conversation and the darkness and the unmoving eyes staring at me. I can't move, can't breath, can't do anything. I feel nothing, sense nothing. All I can do is look forward. I can't even feel my own heart beating. This has got to be the strangest conversation I've ever had. It feels like a surreal parent-parent conference, like we're in a custody battle. Oh, hell… it is a custody battle! I want to scream. Right. Now! As a matter in fact, I do just that, adding, “Bring it on, you buggy-eyed bi-” Art thou not curious as to why I am able to communicate with thee? "It hadn't occurred to me until you mentioned it." Mine child established a link with thee when she was reverted to a foal, a means by which I know thee not capable of performing. The happenstance of thy first encounter with her was her desperate casting for a hive. Thy mind became her thing and she made it so, for that is her need, her power. She found thee in thy insignificance, yet thy emotions drew her as a moth to a flame. Such a waste. Thy power is negligible. Thou art unremarkably normal, save for a bit of insanity. "Thanks." Thou wert unfit to raise mine child. "Kind of a moot point. She's already almost an adult, whoever you are." I think sarcasm escapes her. I am she who gave Chrysalis life. I cradled her egg. I put magic within her, made her in mine image. I gave her dominion over her children so she may better serve me. It is that dominion of the mind with which she linked herself to thee so she might survive. She has thrived from thy love. Thus another reason I must meet thee eye to eye. "I really don't think she's going to see you as her mommy." Irrelevant. I am she who gave her life. She is my property and must therefore be brought back to the Mind. Thy journey shall be most entertaining. You may yet live long enough to meet me. "What if I refuse to go see you?" Then there shall be war between Our Empire and Equestria. "Damn, lady. Deliver ultimatums much? I don’t know what’s dumber: you demanding your daughter’s childhood from me, or threatening a war with a country who had nothing to do with this mess." She ignores my words. I do not take the loss of a queen lightly, human. Chrysalis is mine offspring. I will go to war if mine child and the one who took her from me are not delivered before me. I believed her lost to me for three years. I mourned for her, wept for her, raged against the cruelty of fate! Thou knowest what it is to lose a child! I have seen thy memories! I have feasted upon thy pain and suffering! "What do you mean? You saw my memories? That was you?" Mine agent did bring unto my awareness thy mind, thy meddling of mine flesh and blood. Indeed it is so, human. Your anguish was mine. My anguish was yours. We know the loss of our flesh and blood. A third reason to spare thee from mine wrath. "Why are you trying to find reasons to not kill me?" There's a pause. Those eyes narrow at me for the first time, shifting. There is no other movement. Her voice to this point has been even, neither angry nor happy. I think a Vulcan would have been impressed. Now there's a definite shift in her attitude. I wish to test thee. There it is. Anticipation. Eager anticipation. It's in the way those harlequin eyes swirling with jade and sapphire light flare at me. So smug. So confident. Looking down at me, dismissive. Wait… "It goes both ways." Sudden realization. It is horrible. I feel violated, invaded, desecrated. So you begin to understand, if just a little. The link with mine daughter. The link you share. I can feel it, touch it, touch thee. This has officially become the weirdest conversation I've ever had. It's even stranger than the one I had with Discord. Even though I haven't been able to so much as move or break eye contact with the thing speaking around me, it's just too surreal. At least Discord was entertaining in his own way. This ‘lady’ in my head, claiming to be my daughter's mother is flat-out scary. I'm talking Alien Queen scary. Apparently she's been picking through my head. I'm realizing that now. She's putting things back where they belong. I'm beginning to feel it, the horrors go away slowly. They're yanked, plucked, and organized with ease as though... "Why are you helping me?" Mine child was overzealous in his efforts to please me. I accept his folly as my burden and wish to set things to rights. I bear no malice to thee, human, only resentment in my inability to correct my own daughter from the path that tore her from my fold. It is unseemly for a queen to be raised by a mortal. However, I am not wroth with thee. Nor will I pass judgement upon the in such a...crude place as this. Okay, I'll give that one to her. My mind is a mess. Has been for a long time. "Do you have a name? Mine's Michael." Wait. She already knows my name. Way to go, stupid! My name cannot be said in thy tongue. "Language barrier?" Nay. Thou art not worthy to know it. I love you too, you snooty master race wanna be bitch. "Okay, I shall call you Sil." Take that! Ever seen the movies Species? The alien hybrid posing as a human? That Sil. It seemed to fit. I don’t know why, it just does. As you wish. "So, what are you? Some sort of goddess? What is the purpose of your existence?" A pause. She's trying to read into my questions. I am the mother of all changelings. Mine purpose is to protect mine children and to remind them to remain within the shadows. I am no goddess. I have seen so many dawns, the years mean nothing to me. Mine children feed, I am sustained. In return, I give them mine vigilance eternal. Chrysalis was the first changeling in a thousand years to reveal her hive. I am most certainly not a bitch. Is that amusement in her tone? Oh! Sil can read my thoughts. Wait... or is it thoughts within thoughts? My brain is a terrible place to wander around in. Thou art a savage, Mr. Spriggs. Thy kind are barbarous despite the glorious accomplishments. Come to my gates, barbarian. Thou shalt need thy savage nature before thy journey ends! Bring mine daughter. We shall not speak again until then. It was certainly...interesting to meet thee. Until then. Then Sil was gone and darkness enveloped me like a warm, welcoming blanket. With spiders hidden in it. Big, nasty, hairy spiders...with big nasty teeth! I wake up. Not slowly, unsure of where I am, but with my eyes snapping open, staring at the ceiling. No, there's a dark shape obscuring the white ceiling and blocking the light. I blink, my surroundings blurry and out of focus. My head is pounding. I should know because that is what it's doing right now. My eyes come into focus and I can see the popcorn ceiling tiles and the lights dangling from white cables from the ceiling. White lamp shades, wide and plain fit like over-sized sombreros over harsh light bulbs. I can hear a beeping to my left. I follow the sound with my eyes and see a rather old looking machine befitting a movie prop from the 1950s pinging away happily. There are wires taped to my head. I'm starting to feel them and gingerly touch the connections with numb fingers. Sensation is returning to them. I notice a green curtain has been drawn around my bed. Of course. Can't scare the ponies with the sight of a middle aged white man who just had a conversation with... "...who was I talking to?" I croak, rubbing my eyes. Rather, I try to. My arms sort of flail against my head fingers brushing against my numb face, my nerves apparently deciding not to join the party. Am I paralyzed? No, they flop about in the general direction I want them to go. I panic a little. Okay, I panic a lot, but in silence. Feeling drained and exhausted, I adjust myself in my bed. I find myself angled up thirty or thirty-five degrees to some sort of a half sitting position. I wince as the last waking memory I had haunts me with an unfriendly tweak. I can't tell what time it is, but I am slowly becoming aware of the sound of someone snoring softly to my left. It seems to come from another bed on the other side of the privacy curtain. Roommate? Oh, crap I'm in a hospital. I hate hospitals. People go to hospitals to die. Happens all the time. I sit up with a grunt and notice I'm in something resembling a hospital gown, but for ponies. It fits terribly, chafing in certain areas. There's nothing else covering me other than the blankets. "Oh, swell," I complain under my breath, "they probably all saw me naked and laughed." I hope they don't take my tattoos seriously. I was young, drunk, and thought dragons were cool. Hell, I really don't think about them anymore. Nobody to show them off to. Besides, the scars on my shoulder sort of messed up the artwork. It looks like a dragon with its head blown off and in its place is a ragged healed over pit three inches long and half an inch wide. The rest of my shoulder bears the marks where other bits of shrapnel tried to hug my shoulder intimately. You know, it seems like every human in these stories wind up in the hospital at some point or another. Are we really that retarded? I'm going to assume the answer is yes. At least my nerves seem to be remembering they have a job to do. Tingling sensations begin to pop up like pins and needles everywhere, starting from my toes and fingertips, before marching slowly up my limbs and towards my body. It’s a disturbing experience to say the least. I rub my eyes and find my fingers are a little more responsive. In the process, I poke myself in the left eye. Dammit. Yay me. Well, I really don't feel inclined to make a mad dash for freedom. I'm too tired to get up and move about. I'm already bored. I'm thirsty. I'm remembering the conversation - if you can call it that - with a being probably every bit as powerful as Celestia in my head. I'm not entirely sure my brain has been scrambled back to 'normal'. What is normal, anyway? I certainly don't fit in with any notions of what normal is in this world. My brain feels like a baby seal that managed to survive the clubbing, but is waiting for the sailors to come back for the next round. My body is still aching as the nervous system realizes my skin is everywhere on the outside of my body and simply has to make sure every square inch has some sort of sensation! Ever have that dream of ants all over your body? God, I want a cigarette right now. I haven't had a smoke in years and I'm craving one real bad right now. I'm also realizing something else; I can't sense my daughter. Sil did indeed violate me. No, wait...it’s there! Faint, like a buoy on its last charge of battery juice in the middle of the ocean. I focus on it for a moment, then abruptly have a wild thought pop up and moon me. I'm going to kill her. If she wants a savage barbarian, she's going to get one. Out of spite, I'll put on my best Ugly American impression. I'll be the guy with the enormous beer gut and wearing the Hawaiian shirt and straw hat. I'll have five cameras dangling around my neck, but always insist on using my cell phone to take pictures. I'll speak the native language poorly using an outdated language book and I'll absolutely butcher the local dialect. Then I'll demand to know why I can't find a decent burger joint in whatever town she's decided is her capitol. I'll scream about having rights and that she and her kind can't do this or that to me. That'll teach her. Yeah, Sil, you don't know who you're messing with. I think my mind isn't quite right yet. Oh, my aching head making think stupid, stupid things! I can hear the faint sound of hoof steps on the linoleum floor. I'm assuming its night time. It's pretty quiet past that sound. Well, there's my snoring roommate. As I think of him, he snorts and a different bodily function makes itself known. Chrysalis pops in, her eyes half closed as she's sleepy and floating a cup of what I suspect is coffee in front of her. Steam rises from it. Her unicorn disguise is still in place. What was her cover name again? Midnight Emo? No, that's too dumb. Midnight Emerald! Right! She's careful to keep it away from the swaying curtains she slides by, holding it to one side. My little girl looks exhausted, her mane a disheveled mess. I think she's been sleeping in the chair next to my bed. Her eyes shift as her nose twitches, crinkling in disgust. Naturally, I smell it a split second after that. "Hey pumpkin," shoving my melancholy aside, I greet her with a weary smile. She is exactly the face I wanted to see as I don't know anyone in this place. My opinion of Equestria has taken a bit of a nosedive since that...thing happened to me. Seeing it for the first time with Luna after emerging from that portal thing was breathtaking. Having my brain scrambled with a side of buttered toast...not so much an enjoyable experience. “It wasn’t me.” "Daddy?" she looks up, peering through strands of her mane, a hopeful smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "You're awake!" Chryssie crows, shambling forward, her coffee forgotten as it drops unceremoniously to the floor. It clatters and rolls, splashing forgotten hot liquid out of my view as my baby girl is nuzzling me happily. Gingerly I wrap my barely responsive body around her neck and embrace her as best I am able. I feel very sluggish. I grin into her neck. "I'm so glad to see you, kid!" She smells like she needs a shower. "I'm glad you're not drooling on yourself," she quips, drawing back to look me in the eye. Her lower lip trembles as she is on the edge of tears. "I-I-I thought I’d l-l-lost you." Her relief nearly drowns my senses. My changeling daughter, once again, flings herself upon me, the wet works beginning anew and with a vengeance. I'm really confused, relieved, and wanting to go home right now. I want to take my kid with me. This place sucks if visitors are getting their brains invaded! I'd write a letter to the ambassador, but I'm the only human on this world! I start laughing in her mane despite myself, patting her and stroking the magnificent mane she's grown out. "Don't cry, my girl. It's going to take more than -" I frown, boggled as to what exactly had happened to me. "Say, what knocked me out? I had this weird dream where every memory I ever had mixed together in the most god-awful nightmare that never ended." Chrysalis settles back, keeping a hoof on my forearm as she takes a moment to compose herself. She rubs it as her eyes focus on a point on my chest. "The way I understand it," she begins slowly, still collecting her thoughts, "someone had been poking around your mind without your permission. As they did so, they forced a lot of magic into your brain. They didn't use any precautions and started getting sloppy with the safeties required for mind reading and memory searching. You ended up getting what Lady Fleur de Lis called a ‘magic seizure’. Your head overloaded with more magic than it could handle and it began to manifest your memories into hallucinogenic form." I grunt, rolling my eyes, "Sounds about right. Looked worse. Felt like I was in a living hell. Then I woke up here and decided Purgatory was going to be about as good as it's going to get for me." My eyes bore into her. "How are you holding up? You don't look like you've slept much." "It's only been ten hours since you were attacked, daddy," she says with a shrug. "So it's night?" I blink, pausing as her words sink in. “Wait a minute, what do you mean I was attacked?” “I don’t know all the details, dad. Celestia got really mad, and I mean pissed and went after whoever it was that attacked you. They went after your memories. I felt them use the link we have. I really don’t know anything else. They won’t tell me anything other than you’re going to be fine.” She glances at the wall above me. “It’s a little after ten." For a moment, she shifts out of her unicorn guise, arching her back and sighing audibly. Her disjointed voice hissed through her fangs, "It's pretty quiet and there's nothing but patients and nurses and a couple of doctors now." She flares her eyes and flashes a grin before resuming her disguise. "Other than the on duty nurses, the only other pony to check on you has been Fleur." "She does seem nice," I agree, but follow it with a bit of a face, "but I think she's a bit formal. I don't know, but there's something about her I can't quite bring myself to want to trust." I’m not about to tell my daughter I think Fleur’s been flirting with me. It’s… weird… Or maybe I’m just weird and only imagining it. "Well, duh, daddy," Chryssie says with an eye roll and a sigh, "you've only met her this morning and had lunch with her. I'm not all that sure of her myself, but so far Princess Celestia has asked her to be your ranger buddy." She grins. "Don't use that term, honey," I guffaw, tapping her on the nose with a finger. "It doesn't fit." Not to mention she doesn't look the sort to be willing to sit in a foxhole and roll around in the muck and dirt. Still, the mental picture appearing now is rather amusing. I chuckle at the image of Fleur next to me in a fox hole behind a mounted M240B. Glorious! Not that I'm being sexist or anything, but Fleur does not strike me as the sort of lady who could go without her creature comforts. Maybe its the stereotype. Maybe I'm just being a moron, but something about her does not exactly scream 'loves camping, fishing, hiking, and canoeing'. It could also be that adorable little French (Prench?) accent she flaunts like a poet. God, how long has it been since I’m putting a mare in the same context as a woman? I shudder involuntarily at the sudden revelation. Yeah, I think I need to get back to Earth. I just weirded myself out badly. "I think we should blow this popsicle stand and go home," I grunt as I sit up. "I didn't travel to some other world to get involved in their stupid politics." I'm promptly shoved back into bed by my daughter's hoof. "You're not going anywhere until I'm sure you're not going to go crazy and fall apart on me," she growls. "I love you, daddy, and I don't want to lose you. Besides, I don't think it's going to be possible for me to go anywhere." I stare at her, gaping stupidly. A nurse enters the room. She notices the coffee on the floor and frowns disapprovingly at Chrysalis. She's a white mare with a silvery mane and tail. Her scrubs conceal her mark. What's with all the unicorns around here? Her horn is glowing and she's levitating a clipboard in front of her. A pen is poised. "Awake?" she asks with a smile. "Nope," I reply amicably. My attention falls back to Chryssie. The nurse gingerly steps around the puddle on the floor. Clucking her tongue against the back of her teeth, she glares again at my kid and goes into the bathroom. She emerges with a towel and holds it out expectantly. "Your mess. You clean it up, young lady," her voice commands sternly. Grumbling, my daughter takes it begins sopping up her caffeinated mess. The usual check up routine commences: how do I feel? am I seeing spots? do I have any numb digits? what is my name?... The list goes on and I comply with her questions, answering them politely and with a smile. She takes my blood pressure, draws some blood, keeps staring up and down the length of my body like I'm going to sprout hair everywhere. I feel about as comfortable as Bigfoot in a peep show. "When can I leave?" my question warbles with a crack. There's a small table next to the bed with some water set aside for me. I clear my throat, grab a glass of water and get a quick drink. "When the doctor says you can. Right now, he says you can't, so you'll have to stay put." She smiles at me through her stern visage. Great. One of those no-nonsense types. "We’re keeping you overnight for observation. We’ve been checking on your recovery every hour since you came in here. It was touch and go for a while, mostly because of your anatomy and brain patterns. I think your biological makeup saved it from being much worse. Magic seizures are no laughing matter. Ponies have been known to go completely insane from such episodes. Now hold still while I check your mind." "You're not getting into my head," I tell her flatly. Scrambling on my back, I push away from her, cringing as I place my right hand up between her horn and my skull. "I'm not going in it," she reproaches me firmly, "just a check for your mental condition. It's quite harmless and won't hurt you." I shake my head. "No! Go away!" Did I mention I hate hospitals? Right next to that strong dislike are talking horses flinging magic into my brain like my skull's the microwave and my brain's the meatloaf that never quite gets cooked all the way through. Or something like that. No matter how you look at it, I'm a thirty-seven-year-old man throwing a temper tantrum like a six-year-old. I've already felt one idiot waltz through my mind in ice boots. Then he invited his mom in to redecorate. I really don't look forward for another round. I haven't been to a hospital since a trip to the VA hospital fourteen years ago. Chrysalis looks up from her cleaning, levitating the soaked towel to a hamper by the bathroom door. "Dad, let her do her job. The sooner she does it, the sooner you won’t have her hounding you for your brain." "Thank you, Midnight," sarcasm chuckles forth as the nurse gives her a wry smile, but reserves for my grim determination as she menaces me with her horn. "Mr. Spriggs, we can do this either the easy way, the hard way, or the very embarrassing way." I had to ask, "What's the embarrassing way?" "You don't want to know, Mr. Spriggs. You seriously don't want to know." Her smile is fixed and...creepy. Is that a twitch in her left eye? Me no like-e twitch-e eye. I relent, close my eyes and cringe, awaiting for everything to shatter and my brain to be reduced to a puddle of goo. As I await my inevitable demise, the nurse begins to explain to me in a voice coated with amusement. "We had to remove the excess magic from your brain. Though we do not have extensive knowledge in regards to how a human brain functions, we simply applied a spell to create a magic void in the form of a glyph on the back of your skull. There is currently a pattern on your scalp to help keep excess magic from seeping in. It's completely experimental." I stare at her. "Wait, you mean I'm a guinea pig?" She looks at me evenly. "You're coherent, aren't you?" A smile forms for me. "You're in good hooves, Mr...-" she glances at her clipboard, "- Spriggs. Please give us a chance to prove we know what we're doing. You're the first human we've ever treated and the doctor in charge of your health really wants for you to leave this hospital in far better condition than you came in." "That makes me feel so much better." "Please don't be that way. We want to help. I understand Princess Celestia nearly destroyed half of one of the palace wings while looking for the pony who assaulted you. The rumors and gossip have been absolutely wild with speculation!" Her horn finishes glowing. "All done!" I blink incomprehensibly. "Done? Already?" Chrysalis giggles behind the nurse. "Daddy, you're so lame." "I told you, it was just a follow-up. The procedure was done already under the instruction of no less than three experts in the field of mind magic as well as the doctor who performed the removal spell." The nurse jotted a few things down on her clipboard. She looked up from her work and smiled. "I'll just take this to the doctor and let him know there are no traces of hallucinogenic magic remaining in your brain waves. He'll be pleased to hear that!" She departs with a flippant toss of her tail at me. I really don't know what that means, but I think she's making fun of me. Or flirting. God, I hope not. Not with the flirting and the mares and the...just no! "So pumpkin," I begin after a moment of lingering after where the nurse just departed the room, "are you feeling alright?" The curtain of course blocks my view of the door. Mike, stop it. "Better now,” she concedes, throwing me a soft smile. “You’re okay.” "Do you want to stay in Equestria?" She goes silent for a moment, her eyes reflecting her train of thought. "I-I don't know, daddy. I've learned so much in the month since I left home. It's hard for me to make friends because I'm afraid of being discovered and I'm limited to where I can go. Now there's guards following me everywhere I go." Guards? "What do you mean? Is it because I was attacked?" She nods. “Well, to be fair, there’s always guards following me because of what I am.” "Oh, Jesus Christ why did I come here?" I groan, covering my face with both my hands. "I should have stayed on Earth." Bits and pieces of the weird dream are beginning to creep back to the front of my thoughts. Sil. "I'm willing to bet this whole mess is my fault." "No!" Chryssie snaps at me, shaking her head violently from side to side. "It's not your fault, daddy! You coming here means more to me than anything. I'm glad you came! I'm so happy you did!" "Pumpkin, I think I put your life in danger," I say glumly. "My life was in danger the moment I set hoof in Equestria. Celestia warned me it would be that way and promised to find a way to let me find my own way here. She's been good on her word and been nothing but awesome to me. The few friends I do have are amazing ponies! I've got a chance here, daddy. I'm starting to believe it. I just want your approval and your blessing." Tears are brimming in her eyes again. Okay, that's it. My little girl is crying and I'm butter in her hands when she does that. I force myself to a sitting position, swing my legs out over the side of the hospital bed, ill-fitting hospital gown be damned. I wrap my arms around my daughter and pull her in for a hug. "I'll stay for as long as you need me," I promise in her ear. "It may be longer than even that, I'm afraid," quips a feminine voice rather reluctantly. Fleur de Lis trots in quietly on silent hooves, wearing a smile as she pokes her head around the curtain. She sees what I'm wearing and covers her mouth with a hoof. "Oh my, this is simply precious!" The white mare erupts in a fit of girlish giggling better befitting a teen finding out who her best friend's latest crush is. As she comes to stand next to Chrysalis, her horn glows and the air around us hums for a moment. I have no idea what she just did, but I’m not hearing my neighbor’s snores anymore. Blushing furiously, I break the hug with my kid and grab at blankets to cover my bare backside. I don't say a word, but I do eyeball the laughing unicorn suspiciously. I don't think she minds my lack of modesty. Few ponies seem to wear clothing unless it's related to their professions. I manage to grunt, "What do you mean?" "Let's just say certain entities have found out about you and Émeraude de Minuit and have deemed the entirety of the peace between pony and changeling upon your cooperation." She is clearly unhappy with the news herself and her face falls even further when she sees my darkening face. "So I can't go home?" There's an uneasy silence as I process the mare's words. Wait. The dream. It all comes back to me. "Oh, dammit!" "What is it, Monsieur Spriggs?" Fleur slides gracefully next to Chrysalis. "You look as though you've seen a ghost." "I don't know if it was due to whatever the hell happened to me," I started slowly, mindful to adjust the blankets to cover more of myself, "but I think I got visited while I was out." Chryssie tilts her head to one side with curious worry. "Visit? From who?" "I don't know," I shrug. "She sounded like a million of you talking at once. I never got a good look, but I just saw these eyes. Creepy, creepy eyes." I shudder at the memory of the dream. "I don't want anyone ever poking around in my head ever again." "Very strange," muses Fleur, her expression unreadable. "Daddy, you keep looking at me weird." I tap my temple with a finger. "Pumpkin, I think I met your real mother while I was delirious." As my kid stares at me incredulously, I quickly go over the dream-thing I had while I was out, leaving out little as my attention falls squarely to the white unicorn mare. Fleur listens with rapt attention while Chryssie blinks in utter confusion. I think she mouths the word 'mom' a few times to herself, her eyes downcast as her attention ebbs inward. I don't think she's ever really thought of her real mother. Neither had I, up to this point. When I finish, there's a moment of silence while Fleur de Lis mulls over my story, her expression troubled as she glances at Chrysalis for a moment before returning her focus to me. "I must inform both Celestia and Luna of this development," she says quietly, casting a furtive glance at the door as if expecting an unwanted intrusion at any given moment. "In the meantime, there are guards posted at your door, Monsieur Spriggs. If you need anything, alert one of them. Consider yourself under the protection of the diarchy." "Lady Fleur?" Chryssie asks with some fear in her voice. She looks up to her, then to me before back upon the mare. "What's going on?" "I do not know," admits the unicorn with a sigh. "Anything concerning changelings is to be greeted with suspicion in regards to the Empress. She is the shady sort, non? Always, with her the secrets and the shadows and the hidden things of intrigue! The game she plays is unknown to me, perhaps unknown to the princesses. This makes her all the more dangerous, would you not agree, ma petite fille?" "But is she -," my daughter is cut off with a gentle hoof placed to her lips. "Shh! Be silent for the moment. I cannot answer your question as I do not know the truth. The answer will come in its own good time, non?" Fleur smiles a lovely smile, all doubt erased from her appearance as she stands. "Now, I shall go to Celestia and tell her what you told me, Monsieur Spriggs. Rest assured, you are in capable hooves and are quite safe here." With a quick nuzzle to my worried kid and a warm nod in my direction, she rises to her hooves and trots from the room, an air of determination set upon her graceful form as it sashays beyond the curtain and out the room. The moment of silence in the room doesn't last very long. "So, do you think she's pretty?" I blink at the question, not exactly comprehending. "Who?" Fleur? Oh, well, yeah she’s pretty easy on the eyes… God dammit, Mike! First thing I’m doing when I get back to Earth is find a woman and get laid. Equestria is doing...things to me! Her deadpan expression is priceless. She drops her disguise, her magic closing the door at the same time. Buzzing her gossamer wings, she stretches for a moment before repeating the question - slowly. "Do you think she is pretty? My mom!" "I really didn't get a very good look at her, pumpkin," I say wryly. "It was a dream, or something like that. Both of you have the same eyes, I think. Why do you ask? Already wanting me hitched?" I shudder at the thought the moment those words leave my lips. I did not have a pleasant xeno experience and I really was not relishing another meeting like that. I shiver, make a sour face. "Daddy, are you all right?" her words are full of worry as she speaks, approaching and giving me a gentle nuzzle. "You're scared. You saw something bad, didn't you? Don't lie to me. I can feel it coming from you right now." "Chryssie, I just had a monster invade my mind, go through all of my memories and pass it on to something that made me feel like a helpless baby," I say quietly, my hand going through my daughter's spiderweb mane just behind her ear. She's frightened, maybe almost as much as I am, but for other reasons. I feel as though I had met Satan and just discovered he's really a she and she's out to do dirty deeds. My head swims and not in a good way. I close my eyes and sigh, shudder, fighting back the tears. I hate Equestria. "Do you blame me?" her question is tiny in her voice, full of shame. "No!" I snap my eyes open and blaze into hers, fierce as I sit up, cupping my other hand to the other side of her head. I pull my daughter to me until her muzzle is nearly touching my nose. "I will never - NEVER - blame you for this. I love you. You're my kid. You keep me going. I'm proud of you, pumpkin. Proud! This was not your fault. This is beyond both of us. We need to stick together. Got it? Thick and thin!" Tears brim the corners of her eyes. She offers a smile. Forcing it. "I'm scared, daddy. I don't like seeing you like this. It's so wrong!" We embrace. "So when will you be happy with yourself?" The question is blunt, unexpected. Honest. I let her go, slump back into my pillow and stare at her, not knowing how to answer. She's asked me before, but it's been a while. For years, she's become more and more aware I have never been happy with how my life had turned out. There's always been the sense she's kept me propped up, keeping me from falling over the cliff and into the black hole far below. "I don't know, kiddo." Lying to Chrysalis is like trying to tell the tide to stop. I can't do it. Our link won't allow it. She reads me all too well. It goes both ways. "Maybe one day I will." Her question sobers me and I blink the tears away before addressing hers with my thumbs, wiping them away as they begin to spill from her eyes in large drops. "Maybe when I get home I should go visit mom and dad and drop in on my kid sister. Maybe I should start there. What do you think?" I used to be happy. It all changed when...when... Well, you should know by now if you've been following me. Discovering a weakness within one's self and not knowing how to fix it or solve it or ask for help about it can create a very deep hole. I'm starting to realize that. I'm starting to realize how much I've come to depend on my changeling daughter to keep me upright, to keep me from falling down. I need to stand on my own, but how? It's never been humanity I hated, but myself. I've known that, always have, but refused to confront it. I still don't want to. It's terrifying. My thoughts wander back to Sil. She saw me for what I am, every detail. She saw everything that made me who I am, found me weak, small, insignificant. Yet she also saw something else; she saw the love I have for Chrysalis and how much of my being I put into doing everything I could to raise her to the best of my abilities. She envied me. She hated me. Sil sees me as a threat. I took her daughter away from her and now she wants some measure of revenge. Those are my thoughts right now as I recall the dream again, going over every detail my memory can dig up. Yay me.