The sun blazed in the window and I woke up with a start, reeking of booze and cigarettes. I grumbled something that might have been language at some distant point in humanity’s past, rolled out of bed, and instinctively made my way towards the bathroom. Not only did I have a freakishly realistic dream, I’d remembered most of it too. I wasn’t used to that, and I pondered the implications as I scrubbed myself down in the shower. Maybe all that practice at lucid dreaming was paying off?
Regardless, I found myself in a good mood as I hustled through my morning routine. I was even humming to myself as I started the dishwasher and coffee maker. While the appliances did their thing, I got my shit together for class. You’re probably familiar with the routine, so I won’t bore you with all the trivial little details, but one thing did jump out at me. There was some sort of grit caught in the spinning bands of my dice ring. So, being the diligent owner I am, I went to give it a quick cleaning in the bathroom sink. A bit of hot water and some soap go a long way, and I managed to get whatever was stuck between the pieces of steel out. Not much to it, really, but something on the inside of the ring caught my eye as I was drying it off, and I took a closer look.
Instead of the company logo I’d grown so used to seeing on the inside of my ring, Celestia’s cutie mark was staring back at me.
Naturally, I swore. Profusely, with incredible volume, and at great length. I may have wilted the tomato plants growing on the neighbor’s balcony, and a nun may have caught fire somewhere on the planet, but I had no way to be sure if either of those things actually happened.
Once I settled down, I pinched myself. Hard enough to draw blood, in fact, and that instantly disproved the hypothesis that said I was still dreaming. Which meant that everything I’d thought I dreamt up last night… had actually happened.
The frantic beeping of the coffeemaker finally snapped me out of my stupor. I shoved the ring back onto my finger, while giving a tremendous mental shove to the concerns that swarmed around the concept of Equestria is a real place and you can go there any time you want.
I had classes to get to, damnit. Mundane concerns came first, come hell or high water.
The rest of my day went by in a blur of sound and color. Classes were uneventful - if you don’t count watching freshmen accidentally light entire material samples on fire, that is - and I eventually found myself back at home. Rather than bother cooking I ordered a pizza, and I spent the time between placing my order and answering the door doing one thing I was good at: thinking.
I wasn’t going to go back to Equestria today. No way in hell. I still needed time to process what’d happened yesterday. A ghost of that raw animalistic terror I’d felt while facing down The Unconquered Sun drifted into my mind, and I fought off the urge to drown it in alcohol the way I had the previous night. That’s a quick trip to the ER for alcohol poisoning if I ever heard of one.
Instead, after I ate dinner, I spent the rest of the evening on three time-tested ways to forget about worldly troubles: Homework, video games, and television. The rest of the week proceeded in much the same way. Wake up, be a responsible adult, slack off. Wake up, be a responsible adult, slack off. Wake up, be a responsible adult, slack off.
I’ll be honest here, it was boring. Productive, educational, but ultimately boring. When Saturday rolled around and I finally had some free time, I sat down on the couch and told myself to confront the facts. Fact one: I had visited Equestria, unintentionally, and I had proof.
Not only was my ring visibly altered, but there were several hours missing on my bike computer’s GPS tracking, and my phone’s browser history showed that I’d watched a clip of the Apollo 11 moon landing at around the right time. All ultimately circumstantial, but I couldn’t leave it at that. It was too damned tempting.
Fact two: In addition to inadvertently visiting Equestria, I had an open invitation to return. Granted, I’d be supervised by the Book Princess the whole time I was there, but I could imagine worse fates than that.
But why would I return now? It’d only been a week, and I did have a fairly major test coming up. I couldn’t just go swanning off to another world on a whim. ...But if I planned for it, it wouldn’t be on a whim, now would it?
That settled it. I was going back. Not today, not tomorrow, but at the end of the month. That would give me enough time to plan things out and pack up some essentials, while also giving me time to deal with my obligations here at home. Before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled out my phone and made an appointment in my digital calendar.
9 AM, September 30th 2014:
Go back.
Bring phys/geo/bio/engl. texts.
I spent the rest of the day doing decidedly mundane things. Cleaning the apartment, taking out the trash, cooking, things like that. I even went for a ride to the supermarket to do some shopping, mostly to restock my cupboards and fridge, but I made a point to grab some canned goods. I had no idea if I could eat Equestrian foods, after all, so it made sense in my mind to bring along a can or two of ravioli or whatever until I could find out for sure.
The last thing that passed through my mind as I lay down to sleep was that I was going back to Equestria, and this time? I was bringing science with me.