//------------------------------// // Poker hands // Story: Being of Two Minds // by cosmofur //------------------------------// This was no simple game, Parker knew the stakes were high and he may as well be playing chess with death from the Seven Seals. But his opponent was unreadable, emotions being held tight behind a flat mask. Yet Parker knew they had chosen this distraction, for that very reason. There was too much to think about and no enough opportunities to act on those thoughts. All thoughts about anything, or everything else, had to be suppressed, a basic need for sanity demanded this. Parker had no choice, make his opponent concentrate on the here and now, to block out all other thoughts or memories, or else be stuck in suspension, unable to act and unable to avoid the horror of that loss of control. A hard decision had to be made, Parker looked across the simple table, at his own face, and laid down two playing cards. “Draw two.” There was a pause, Parker wondered if he had been heard. He was about to repeat himself when Red Wood seemed to wake up and quickly flicked two fresh cards off the deck his way. Parker fumbled a bit to find an edge on the cards to pick up with his hooves. He noticed that he won himself a second pair with these, but he really wasn't playing the card game to win. He looked at Red Wood and wondered again about what was going on in the Ponies head. There was a hollow feeling in his own stomach, which he wasn't sure about, how much emotional bleed was there between their two minds? Or was he just naturally horrified by the news they had overheard without any deeper meaning? Parker noticed Red Wood was looking over his shoulder and not at the cards. Parker glanced behind himself and realized what Red Wood was looking at. In the mirror had been an image of the interior of a train car. A private car that less than an hour ago, they had watched Luna board through their shared eyes. But now the image was dark, just the remains of a faint red glow of lantern light through closed lids. “She’s falling asleep” Red Wood said in flat helpless voice. “It’s been a long day. For all of us.” Parker agreed, then scrunched his face in self anger, he was trying to avoid this subject. “Will we see her, or will she just swap with one of us, like before?” Red Wood asked. “Not sure, but you should sit closer to the mirror now, I think that will make it so you’ll be the one to get control next.” Parker told him. Red Wood nodded, but then disagreed, “No you should go next, the train’s on it way to Canterlot now, the Princess will want to talk to you first, not me.” Parker answered, “Maybe, but I think Banyan needs you more now than the Princesses need me.” “Indeed! Both of you have valid points!” A new voice joined them, and suddenly without any flash or special effects, Luna was there. She was back in her natural dream form, no longer forced to wear the appearance of a male unicorn, her sudden appearance and strong presence knocked both identical stallions off their makeshift chairs. Red Wood was on his belly, bowing with his head against the ground. Parker felt no strong urge to do the same, so he sat up and nodded his head towards the Princess with a what he hopped was a polite gesture. Luna urged Red Wood to stand, and gave a small nod back to Parker. Taking several steps, she looked around. “I see you redecorated.” The formerly all white room, now was re-sized to be larger, with more simple pieces of furniture, some of which had color, of sorts. It was in no way ‘designer’ but flat white colors were now mixed with sold plastic looking reds, blues and browns. Most notable was the ‘mirror’ which had previously been the main centerpiece of the entire room, was now pushed off against one wall. There were several square bench like chairs in front of it, like seats at a theater. Parker said, “It not very good, but I found a way to use the macro editor’s file browser in the book reader to edit some simple things.” Luna gave Parker a long look, “Your words confuse me. I assume you are referring to your alien form of magic?” Parker gave her a nod. “I see you have cards now. Is this how you have spent your time?” Red Wood answered first “Y..Yes, your majesty, I’m sorry if this seems the inappropriate time for games in light of …” Red Wood turned his head, he wasn’t going to let the Princess see him cry. With a thin smile, “No good citizen, finding something light and distracting to think about, would be a welcome distraction from the heady events of this day.” Luna’s horn glowed and she pulled an extra bench chair from the corner to the card table. “I should consult with my sister as soon as I am able, but first let us leave behind some of the weight of this day. Deal me in please my good ponies.” Parker gave the Princess a wry look, both he and Red Wood had small pile of chips in front of each of them, so he took a bit from each pile and gave Luna roughly a third of the whole. “Game is basic five card poker, no wilds, no jokers. Red Wood already knew about Poker so I guess it’s the same game on both of our worlds, oh right, on my world the top two cards are Queen and King, but Red Wood tells me you call them the Maid and Princess.” Luna smiled as she took the deck of cards into her hoofs. “It is interesting that we have the same game on both worlds and they are so similar. About twenty centuries ago we also called the top two cards King and Queen, but I’m not sure about this ‘joker’ you refer to. Is that the knave?” As she was talking, without any sign of magic glow on her horn, Luna easily folded and shuffled the cards like a pro. Despite them being hard and inflexible like small sheets of metal, they were nothing more than simple polygon geometry flats with text labels indicating their value and suites with no color or artwork. Red Wood gave Parker a nervous look. He wasn't sure if playing against the Princess was a good idea, even if they won, wouldn't that be a sort of loss? Luna smirked at the two Stallions expressions, “Do not fear, as Princess of the night my duties have kept me from becoming nothing more than a casual player in such games. Besides I see no way to cash out these chips into real bits.” They started playing, it seemed all three were surprisingly evenly matched, none were complete novices but despite her fancy hoof shuffling, Luna had a very bad poker face. Both Parker and Red Wood found it easy to read her emotions which ran hot to cold. After a few quick hands to feel each other out, Luna started directing the conversation away from cards, which was clearly her very poorly disguised motivation for the game. “Pray good pony, please give me three cards.” She asked Parker, when it was his turn to deal. “You showed no surprised by my statement about the day being a hard one, and you have not asked the questions I was expecting of you. Why is this?” Parker hesitated a moment before answering, he had created this crude card deck from a macro code attached to the book reader the Doctor had left, because he had wanted Red Wood to stay distracted, to give him something other than his grief to think about. But Luna had no way of knowing how much they already knew. Parker dealt her the cards and then after giving Red Wood a glance, the other Stallion just nodded knowing they couldn’t avoid the subject forever. “After your sudden departure and Red Woods arrival here, I realized I better work on getting the display mirror to show us the outside world. I knew it could do it, but it took sometime to find the right command set. I’d say a little less than an hour after you left and Red Wood arrived, I got the commands to work. Just in time to hear Storm Wing give his report to you.” Red Wood interrupted, “I heard him tell you all my neighbors and friends are dead, or worse.” he told her in a dead flat voice. Luna looked down at her hoofs. “I greatly sorrow that you should learn such dire news, especially in such a sudden manner. Had I known you were listening, I.. I ah.” Luna stumbled over her words. “I would have tried to inform you in a more gentle way.” She finished. Red Wood looked up at the Princess, looking straight at her for the first time since she arrived. “Princess, do you really think there is any gentle way to tell somepony that?” Luna the hard practical Princess, locked eyes with Red Wood, and perhaps for the first time in living memory, she broke the stare first. She looked down, “I sorrow for all our little ponies. No there is never a good way. Do not doubt me though, this is not the first deadly disaster I've had to oversee.” Her voice was careful and controlled, right to the end of her sentence, until she tried to continue. Then her voice broke with sobs, “but not since the tribal wars and King Sombra, have ponies caused so much hurt to each other. I never thought I’d see that again.” Luna then calmed herself, pushing away from the table, “I’m sorry gentlecolts, I need to end this game and return to my own body.” Turning to Red Wood, “You son needs you, and I will need time to discuss with my Sister the events of the day. So please take control of your body when the train arrives in Canterlot, but my Sister will need to discuss issues with Sir Parker the following morning, please do whatever it is you must, to arrange that.” “Yes Princess.” Both the identical stallions said at the same time. Luna stood and finding the center of the room she closed her eyes and felt for the thread of magic that would lead her back to her normal dreamspace. Finding it, she let out a soft sigh as the comfortably familiar spell pulled her away. In the netherspace between dreams, she turned to look back, for several moments she saw the two bright lights of Red Wood and Parker floating in the unnatural structure of the manufactured dreamspace. But their ties to that space was starting to weaken, and as she watched she saw them drift off leaving the boxy structure behind them. “So they are only in the artificial structure when the physical mind is awake, and leave it for normal dreams when the body is fully asleep. There is much new magic to learn here.” Luna Thought to herself as she wished she knew of a way to bring Twilight here to study it. She could see two organic looking spheres that were the Stallions true dreamspaces float away. Thin tentacles of spirit lines still tieing them to each other and the boxy structure. One was already starting to flash red and dark, “That would be Red Wood, forsooth he will have nightmares. Alas I can not offer him comfort, my duty is clear. For the sake of all my other ponies I must see Celestia.” Luna thought to herself. She sent a tentacle of will towards the Stallion’s nightmare and wished him “Stay strong Red Wood, your son will need you on the morn.” Then with no further glances back, she followed her own spirit lines back to her body and apartments in Canterlot Castle.