Chapter 9
“A well placed shoulder can hold the heaviest burden.”
“That meal was delicious,” Noah praised, smacking his lips as he finished the last of the salad, “I just wish there was more, I’m still famished.”
Ditzy blushed slightly at the praise, “I’m glad you liked it, but it was nothing special, a simple home cooked meal.
“Nothing special,” Noah asked in disbelief, “A home cooked meal is anything but nothing special, all the effort that you put into it, the love, and the care. All that can make a simple home cooked meal better than fine dining.”
Ditzy blushed further at the continued praise, “Well… Thankyou, I’m glad you liked it.”
“Liked it, I loved it,” Noah pondered a moment, his hoof raised to his chin, “Although it needed something, maybe a bit more protein.”
Ditzy froze for a split second, “Well I was all out of fish unfortunately, I can maybe pick some up in the market tomorrow but it can be a bit expensive.”
“Hmm, yeah, fish would be great. However I think a bit of red meat would really hit the spot,” Noah said rather nonchalantly. He began salivating slightly, “I know, a nice steak would really hit the spot.” He stopped, noticing the shocked face of Ditzy and Dinky’s confused expression, “However just some fish would do fine,” he quickly added, hoping to avert a crisis.
Ditzy relaxed a little, she was still a little worried about Noah’s penchant for red meat, however she cast that thought aside for a moment, “I’ll see about getting some fish for tomorrow night,” she quickly replied.
“So what happens now?” Noah asked casually.
“Well I could show you to your room it might help you to get settled in early tonight.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Noah replied, “Lead the way.”
The trio left the table, led by Ditzy and flanked by the ever adorable Dinky, Noah soon found himself in a sparsely furnished room. A small bed was push up against one corner, a nightstand accompanying it, against the opposite wall stood a wardrobe and chest of drawers combination, and against the third wall a small bookshelf.
Ditzy looked around the room, “This is the guest bedroom, it has everything you should need,” her tone grew sombre, her head dipped, and her voice lowered, “It was going to be Dinky’s room for when he returned, but she prefers to sleep next to me.”
Noah saw the change come over the mare, a spark of empathy lit in his heart, a nod of understanding was given, no more words needed to be spoken. Noah drew in close to Ditzy, and embraced her with compassion, “It’s perfect,” he whispered to her, “More than I could have asked for.”
Ditzy drew in a ragged breath, her eyes watering at the corners, for all the love she had for her child, she missed the feeling of a strong embrace from another who cared. Tears began to roll down her cheeks, she turned away, and quickly excused herself to go clean up the dishes.
Dinky looked up at Noah, her own mind and feelings in turmoil, unable to truly comprehend what her mother or even herself was feeling. She wrapped her forelegs around one of Noah’s, in return he began to stroke her mane soothingly.
“Mommy doesn’t get sad often, but I don’t like it when she does,” Dinky spoke in a soft voice.
“Everyone needs a cry every now and again, and I can’t blame her, all she needs is a strong shoulder to cry on,” Noah responded in an equally soft voice.
Dinky buried her head in Noah’s cloak, “Thank you,” came her muffled reply before she broke off the embrace and rushed from the room.
Noah was left to himself, he stood for a moment mulling over the scene that had just played out, he was sure that he had done the right thing in comforting the mare but he had a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that told him this might cause some trouble.
Shaking himself from his thoughts he turned to the wardrobe, carefully pulling his gifted cloak over his shoulders and placing it on a single coat hanger, taking a moment to revere the gift and the kind soul that had given it.
Noah next turned to the bed, took off his backpack, and unceremoniously emptied the contents onto the sheets. He began to pick through the contents, the strips of cloth and rags denoted the damaged clothing he had woken up in. He made a mental note to find a seamstress to repair the articles of clothing before placing them carefully into the top drawer of the chest. I’m hoping that they might glean some clue as to who I am, or were, he thought.
The bag of currency he had most recently received was emptied out into a neat little pile, two hundred coins, Noah thought to himself, should be enough to pay back the spa ponies, however I may want to avoid spending it all at once. He scooped the coins back up into the bag and placed that into the draw of the nightstand.
The next items he turned to were a number of large books, study material for my tests if I remember correctly. He took the books and arranged them in the empty bookshelf, “I’m going to have to get more books,” he said to himself, “That shelf looks pitifully lonely.”
There were fewer items on the bed now, a number of notebooks he flicked through, hoping that they might spark a memory. While they felt familiar, and he understood their contents no memory had yet to surface. He resided himself to investigating them later and placed them in the bookshelf alongside the textbooks.
The next few items caught Noah’s undivided attention. A flat device, seemingly a sheet of glass, and rimmed by plastic on five sides, a number of buttons and holes were noted. A similar rectangular block of plastic was broken along all sides, contained two hinges along one side and a latch like mechanism on the opposite face. A couple of cords leading to and from smaller blocks of plastic were among the final items he looked over.
These items sparked fierce familiarity within Noah he closed his eyes finding himself once again in the realm of his mind. The magenta orb was listing lazily above, picking at random shells from the sun above, analysing them and replacing them.
Noah found himself in the hallway below, a single window before him lighting up and flashing for his attention. In the window he saw technology, nothing like he had seen here yet very familiar to him. The orb above returned the current shell, its attention drawn to the new memory, <May I?> came the felt question.
You may, Noah responded in his mind, the thought echoing all around. The information from the memory, while still overwhelming was a trickle compared to the earlier onslaught. With the help of the orb he processed the information quickly and efficiently the shells of the memory floating up to join with the sun.
The orb before him radiated intrigue and confusion, apparently this technology was very much alien to it, as such Noah decided to school the orb in the memories it had processed. They began to float above the hallway and soon found themselves in a place between the sun and the hall.
A multitude of pictures began to swirl around them as Noah picked appropriate shells from the sun. Information on computers, laptops and tablet PC’s were drawn on in an effort to explain. The orb continued to radiate intrigue, yet it became more and more confused. Searching further for the right information Noah looked to simplify the concepts, narrowing down the information to the most simple of ideas, yet the orb continued to radiate more and more confusion.
Noah became exasperated, with a last ditch effort he pulled up the simplest idea he could, a diagram of the Hydrogen atom. All other pictures stopped flowing, the information flowing back into the shells of the sun. The orb sat in wonder, wonder exuded from its core, along with the constant confusion. It posed a one word question, <What?>.
Noah looked to the orb, confused at how such a simple concept was so unknown, then and there he knew he was truly lost. He thought for a moment, unable to explain the concept any further, a flicker of light crossed the sky, a voice heard once before echoed a statement for Noah to hear, Simplicity, the voice reminded him, before silence fell upon the realm. Noah mentally sighed unable to proceed any further, and withdrew from his mind, he snapped back to the conscious world in time to hear a knocking on the door frame.
“How is your unpacking going No One?” Ditzy asked, she entered the room slowly and surveyed what Noah had already put away, her gaze drifting past the bookshelf and landing on the items on the bed as she sidled up beside him.
“Good, I remember what these are,” he gestured to the Laptop, Tablet and their associated chargers, “But I came to a stark realisation.”
“Oh and what is that,” Ditzy replied, confused at the items that lay before her.
“I’m more lost than I first thought, and so I’ve come to two conclusions about where I am,” he looked into the eyes of the mare beside him, drawing her undivided attention, “This isn’t a hallucination I know that much. So this means I’m unconscious and this isn’t real, or I’m alive and fully awake and one a completely different planet or in a completely different universe.”
“It’s also rather simple to determine which one it is. If I am alive then I will wake up tomorrow remembering this conversation and any dream I had. If this is another planet then I can find home by studying the stars, they wouldn’t have changed. If this is another universe…” Noah grew quiet for a moment, “If this is another universe, I am well and truly stuck.”
“And what will you do if you wake up tomorrow and remember this?”
“First thing, I’m going to go to the hospital a rent out their padded room for an hour, after that I’m going to continue on with my day.”
“Well even if you do forget, I won’t,” Ditzy strongly stated.
“Oh and why is that?” Noah enquired.
“Because you were kind to me, comforted me however briefly and gave me a shoulder to cry on. Kindness like that shouldn’t be forgotten.”
Noah stood silent and thoughtful for a moment, “I don’t think I’m going to fit on the bed,” he said suddenly.
The sudden change in conversation threw Ditzy slightly, “Well you can drag the mattress on the floor, and I’ll pull out some spare pillows and try as make you as comfortable as possible,” she turned to leave.
“Thank you Ditzy,” Noah said, he paused for a moment looking like he wanted to speak, finally as Ditzy began to exit the room he spoke softly, “And Ditzy… between you and me, I want to remember this conversation too.”
Canterlot Castle, East Wing Tower,
As dusk settled all over Equestria the revered Princess of the Night stirred in her sleep. Unaware of what had befallen the kingdom earlier in the day she rose slowly to begin her royal duties, setting the moon in motion across the inky sky and guarding the dreams of the ponies that slept.
The first task ran like clockwork, the moon obeyed her very command and peeked above the horizon as the final rays of sunlight disappeared from the world. The silent handover between sisters had been completed once more and the ponies began their foray into the realm of dreams.
As usual Princess Luna started her shepherding with the ponies in the more remote parts of the country. The dreams of those isolated could be especially troubling to the simple pony and thus the Princess took it upon herself to remedy those nightmares first, the thanks she received in reply an earnest pay for her duties.
It was a few hours into the night when her ethereal sight fell upon Ponyville, throughout the population dreams where most pleasant, some a little odd but nothing too frightening. Except for two particular ponies, a couple of sisters reliving a nightmare about being attacked by a behemoth of black, a living shadow.
Luna analysed the dreams and found them not to be figments of imagination but memories turned nightmares. Playing her role as shepherd she soothed the mares, and pulled at the strings of the dream to imbue an ending not so terrifying. At the end of her excursion into the dreams she had the two mares easily escape, and run into the open hooves of the town guard who would protect them from this ‘monster’.
Luna sighed at the thought ‘monster’ all too often the mind would play tricks on itself, recreating harmless objects and animals in the world around into merciless beasts. Though with her job done for these two mares, the sisters slept peacefully, no longer dreaming of nightmares, but instead of the family they loved and cared.
Luna thought it strange that the sisters had dreamt about the same black shadow-pony, and in near identical situations, as she floated through the dreams of the rest of the Ponyville citizens she noticed a continuous figure consistent in quite a few. A very large cloaked figure, in a number of cases caring and gently, guided along by a small filly on nonsensical adventures. In other cases the figure was viewed with a deep sense of apprehension, and slight fear of the unknown.
Luna pulled herself from the trance, unsure of how to proceed, to act on incorrect or inadequate data could be harmful, especially if innocence was to be assumed. She delved back into the dream world, searching out the town guards of Ponyville. In all cases she found not a single mention of the shadow performing acts of harm.
But in the mind of one particular mare, the dream took a different turn. The setting, a regular spa with faceless ponies milling about and enjoying their treatments, as the dream wore on the same cloaked figure entered the premises. The figure in question turned to face the mare, her breath caught in her throat, swiftly the figure drew forward, not an inch from the mare, the glint of white fangs seen from beneath the hood.
A black hoof drew back the hood with a sharp action, a flash of deep red then solid blue and finally shining black covered all sight as the dream grew to darkness. Luna sat perplexed at what she had seen, the dream was not a nightmare, she could easily deduce that much. As the dream continued the blackness was replaced by clouds and the soft blue sky.
The setting had changed, a lake, surrounded thoroughly by grass that grew at least two metres tall. On the bank of the lake there lay a picnic blanket, the picnic settings discarded as the two figures seated on the blanket lay wrapped in each other’s embrace. The same ‘monster’ from the sister’s dreams was viewed in a new light. With their forelegs entangled the black shadow-pony leaned down across the mare’s neck, his large size dwarfing her.
With careful movements he drew his fangs from his mouth and slowly dragged them across the mare’s neck, stopping just over her major arteries and giving a little nip before continuing across her neck. The mare sighed contentedly in response…
Luna hastily withdrew from the dream, the emotions present and the isolated setting warning her of the nature of the dream. Nightmares where meant to be soothed, but the type of dream that the mare was experiencing, that was best left to the dreamer. The Princess of the night continued her foray into the dreams of ponies, soothing the nightmares and cherishing the thanks received, yet remaining vigilant for any anomalies that may point to the shadow-pony.