//------------------------------// // Chapter VII: Vacation // Story: Freedom of Choice // by Awakened One //------------------------------// Chapter VII: Vacation Gilda We’ve walked for 3 days. A word to describe Igor would be: eccentric. He refuses to take off his clothes, I can understand though, having no fur and all. We haven’t talked much during this time, except during night time, he was always the one to go grab firewood and volunteer for the first watch, seeing how he likes to sleep uninterrupted it’s a smart move. The first night he woke me up I almost attacked him, those glowing eyes in the darkness are frightening. Crystal has been very reserved, doesn’t initiate the conversations, only answering to most things. After much talk with Igor he finally showed us what his ‘talent mark’ was, a teardrop clear blue crystal that goes in contrast with his eyes, he is a jeweler, a crystal pony specialized in crystals, it’s like marking wings on a pegasus or a horn on a unicorn, the irony. I look forward into the horizon, Neighagra Falls, 10 minutes or less walking and they’ll arrive. I land near the main river, clear crystalline water. I stretch my wings, look for a nice place under a tree and start to unpack my things. The minutes pass and I hear something coming from the woods, my companions. They both come to me. Igor looks at me. “Nice spot.” “I know you don’t like the sun.” I answer him. He places down his weapon, takes off his cloak, folds it and starts to unpack. “Better that way.” He shrugs. Crystal looks at us. “I’ll set the camp. I’ll call if I need anything.” I nod. I look back at Igor, missing. Looking at my surrounds I find him near the river, he’s crouched near it. I walk to him. He places the hand on the water. “A bit cold…” “It’s autumn, did you expect anything else?” He pulls a sleeve and submerges his arm into the water… yeah, he is doing it. He runs back to the camp, takes off most of his clothes and comes back with only on his lower clothes with a towel and soap in hand. He drops his towel down with his pants and dives into the water. *Splash* A few seconds later and he is up, panting heavily. “It’s cold!” I shake my head and sigh. “Told ya.” He lathers himself and then dives again. He comes back running and picks his things, drying himself as he runs to the camp with me walking behind him. He goes to his backpack, picking his first clothes. He surely carries a lot of things. He goes behind a tree. “Don’t look… both of you.” Crystal looks at me. “As if I wanted.” Monotone. I give a knock on the tree. “What’cha doing?” “Changing my clothes.” He answers. “Why do you need to wear clothes under your clothes?” He comes back from behind it, fully clothed while drying his head and sits at his bedroll. “For walking or running, yes, I feel very uncomfortable without it.” I smirk. “So when you sleep you do it naked?” He chuckles. “You got me.” He raises his hands in the air and waves them. “No.” He blankly answers. “Humans can’t hide their, private areas, thus the clothes. And the lack of fur too. There is the good side of it, I get dry a lot faster than you.” He points to Crystal and I. I sit in front of him. “Is there anything special humans can do?” He pouts. “When comparing to ponies or griffons, humans can’t use magic, fly or have super strength. But…” He raises a finger. “humans are pretty good at creating things.” “Like what?” He points to his pack. “There are many like those, perfectly similar.” He pulls his shirt. “I had more like these too. All the same.” Crystal walks towards us and sits a bit further than me. “How is it possible? It would take months for somebody to master and produce those in mass.” “Automatic sewing machines, you just need a few humans to overlook the production.” “Like a factory?” “Yes.” I turn to Igor. “You are joking.” “No.” I sigh, have to learn when he’s being serious. “How exactly many humans are out there?” He pokes around his pack and picks a paper bag, it’s full of peanuts, and starts to crunch on them, and he’s always snacking on something. “Probably just me.” I shake my head. “No, from where you are from.” “From what I remember, 7 billions.” I start to laugh at him and he looks at me with a serious face while shaking his head, I stop. Crystal coughs. “So, there are 7 billion humans on the place where you came from. What about the other sentient species?” Igor told him about his ‘origin’ on our first day of travel, said he didn’t want anything to cause any suspicions about his past. Igor looks down. “Only humans. (Sigh) If there were any other sentient creatures out on our world, we would’ve found them.” I walk to his side and nudge him. “What is it like?” “Like what?” I get serious this time. “The place where you lived.” He looks into my eyes, first time I’ve seen him sad about something. “It wasn’t all that great, but it wasn’t that bad either.” His gaze drifts down. “It wasn’t my place either.” I ruffle his hair. “Do you think anyone misses you?” This time I get him into the mood, he gives me the widest smile while shaking his head. “Just my parents. But I always wanted to visit new places, they would probably be happy for me.” “No one else?” “Else who?” “Friends?” “Acquaintances, yes, friends, no.” “Why? You are always friendly to everybody.” “Who knows. (Shrug) I don’t mind either, I’m used to it.” He crosses his arms. “To be fair, I’m happy to be here and no, I don’t want to go back, at least not to the same place. Can you believe I almost got conscripted?” Imagining someone carefree as him in the military is my limit, I start to laugh at the thought and he follows me. Crystal looks bothered at him. “There is nothing wrong with the military, discipline is always a good thing to learn.” Igor shakes his head. “I don’t know how things are around here, but the guys who act all tough are the first to get in, I just had to lay low. When they considered my physical, being below average, both in height and muscle, they dispensed me from service.” “It’s hopeless to argue with you.” He goes back to his camp site. I look to Igor and start to snicker. “What?” “Have you ever done anything or just freeloaded all the time?” “A little of both.” He smirks. I snicker. “What was it?” “Nothing I can do here, that’s for sure. It consisted on being in a desk, writing, for hours.” That’s the most I’m going to get from him. I look at his head. “Don’t you ever groom your hair?” “Not since my arrival, you helped too.” Ah… yeah, that was me. I walk to my place and reach within my pack for a hairbrush. I toss it to him, he drops the paper bag and he snatches the brush in midair. “Nice catch.” “Why would need a… forget it. Fur.” He tries to brush his hair. I see him struggling with the brush and take it from his hand. “Let me do it.” I grip his shoulder and he tenses for a moment, then he starts to relax as I untangle his hair. “Who would’ve thought you would be so kind to –” That tongue of his, I give the brush a strong tug and it takes a few of his hair strands, he yelps. “Okay, okay, okay! Sorry!” “You better be.” In a few seconds I finish it. I take a few steps back to take a look at him, long straight black hair, he needs to brush it away from his eyes and ears. “When was the last time you got a haircut?” “4 or 5 months, I’m doing it on purpose, wanted to see how long it gets, it doesn’t look that bad.” He runs his hand around his mouth. “Need to get rid the hair around here.” “Why?” “Food crumbles and drink spills on it.” I raise an eyebrow. “Why did you let it grow then?” He opens his mouth to say something and stay that way, got him. “I guess there is no purpose on keeping it now, I may even get a haircut. It is good to scare strangers, avoids problem, like being robbed (Sigh).” “You make it sound the place where you lived wasn’t good at all.” “Like I said, not good, not bad, not mine. I’ll find some place.” “You’re thinking of something, aren’t you?” “Not now, will probably think tomorrow. Do you want help with brushing?” He points to the hairbrush that I’m holding. “It only fair.” I smirk and give it to him. “Right, I have no idea of what to do with the feathers. I’ll take care of the fur.” He starts to brush my yet. His touch is firm, yet careful, or gentle, he brushes and sweeps his hand over my fur and in a few minutes it is over. “For someone who has no fur you know what you are doing.” “Glad to help. I had animals before, no offense.” “Whatever.” He points both fingers to me and smirks. “The stunning gal needs to keep her beauty. (Yawn) I’m taking a nap. Good night.” “It’s midday…” Conversation is over, when he says he is taking a nap it means ‘back in 3 hours’… wait a second, did he hit on me? Crystal Finally some peace, a few minutes ago Gilda left in a hurry for another flight, she just told and left, each one with his problems. Yes our problems, shattered memories, what happened during Sombra’s reign and why do I feel this? This deep sadness. Perhaps I should sleep more, Igor is always in good mood, surely because he sleeps and eats like a creature ready for hibernation; that would explain his lethargy. My human companion awakes and hurries to his bottle of water. He downs the entire bottle, he is shaking and his breath is ragged. I walk to him. “Are you feeling alright?” He inhales and exhales, trying to calm himself, and sits in the grass. “Just a bad dream.” “A bad dream you say, don’t you mean a nightmare?” He shakes his head. “No, my nightmares are far worse, I can’t recall the last time I had a good dream.” He picks another bottle and starts to drink. A topic comes into my mind. “Have you said anything to Gilda? She left shortly after your chat.” “Nothing (Shrug).” “Do you mind answering some questions?” “Not at all. I won’t be sleeping anytime soon.” “How do you manage to sleep so much?” He smirks. “Just making up for the lack of rest that I had.” “It is not very healthy.” He must sleep 12 hours a day. “I know, but sometimes I feel just like sleeping, despite not being physically tired. Maybe I just daydream too much, another reason for the bad dreams. The brain gets tired too.” “So you’re just relaxing?” He looks up into the sky and falls to his back. “Yes, I am.” I go to his side and lie down. “Maybe you’re right.” “No maybes, one hundred percent sure. The reason I wanted to come here was just that, relax.” “I’ve heard no complaints from you during our travel, you seemed a bit lost.” “Just thinking.” “About what?” “Many things, the important and the irrelevant.” “Do you mind sharing?” It will be a good pastime. He leans on his hand while supporting it with his elbow. “What do you think about the princess ‘godhood’?” “Are you talking about the fact that they move the sun and moon?” “I have some theories.” I nod for him to continue. “Do you know the basic of physics?” “A very rudimentary concept, not much.” He sits with his legs crossed and starts to rummage through the grass, picking some pebbles and throwing them away. He finally stops with 3 on hand. “Do you know what gravity is?” I nod. “Imagine me, putting a lot of stones close in space, soon they’ll begin to cluster and attract other stones that are closer. Basically gravity attracts things that are closer to it, that’s the reason we don’t fall up.” He points up and snickers. “How does it relate to the sun and moon?” “Which one of them is heavier: the sun, the moon or the planet we are in?” He shows me the 3 stones. “Probably our planet.” “So it means that the sun and moon gravitate around it, correct?” “Correct.” “So, why do you need magic to something that should work without anyone's interference?” Scariest realization ever. “I really don’t know.” “Calm down, it is just a theory. I’m not saying that you should know, just that it is possible that the princesses are up to no good. Or lying, don’t know which one is worse. Or probably nothing (Shrugs).” “Do you have any other brilliant theories to share?” “This one is the funniest of them and may even sound plausible. We’re all living inside a cave, a giant cave, the sky is the cave’s ceiling that is painted every day and night, so there appears to be a sun and a moon. This theory means that the sun and moon don’t exist. It also means we are imprisoned here.” This one is even more disturbing than the prior. “I regret asking you to share your thoughts.” “Maybe this system only has 3 stellar bodies: this planet, the sun and the moon. If the planet is heavier than the sun and moon, it means both are being attracted and will collide with it. Utterly annihilating everything here. That would probably take billions of years, so don’t worry.” He waves his hand to me. “Maybe the sun is finally extinguishing.” “Alright, keep your ideas to yourself.” He salutes me. “Closing archives.” “Can we talk about something less disturbing?” “I thought it was funny.” “Funny? I’ll never forget about those things, I’m even having doubts about the monarchs.” “Calm down, just theories, I could even be lying to you…” He trails off. “Wait, were you?” “(Grunt) Forget it, alright? Let’s talk about better things.” He makes switching topics so easy, it’ll probably take me weeks to forget about this. “What do you plan for your future?” “Plans for the future? Zero. Things I want to do? A ton.” He bobs his head. “Such as?” “Traveling, I’m doing it now, we’re doing it now.” “In a manner of speaking, yes.” “Don’t you like it?” “It is a different experience, one I won’t forget…” “Come on! Perk up, enjoy our time here, go take a nap, go bathe yourself in the lake, go eat something!” “Yes, that was the reason I came here. Relax.” “What can I say? When I’m right, I’m right. (Yawn) Going back to my sleep, talk to ya later.” I still have my doubts about him, but right now I’m taking some time to rest my body and my mind. End of Chapter VII