Caramel Gets Lost
(Alt title: Caramel Comes out of the Closet)
Admiral Biscuit
Sept, 2012
Caramel was standing in the Apple’s barn, shifting his weight from hoof to hoof. He wasn’t panicking, not yet. He was apprehensive.
Last year, he had lost the grass seed during winter wrap-up. Big Macintosh had yelled at him for a while, then lead him to Miss Applejack, the team leader. She hadn’t yelled at him, but she was disappointed in him. And he really admired her. One of these days, Caramel was going to ask her on a date, he just knew it. And it would be magical. In a romantic, not snowplow affected by a come-to-life spell way.
But not if he couldn’t find the grass seed again. Nopony who messed up the same job twice would have a chance with Miss Applejack. Sometimes he felt lucky that they still let him work on the farm, but he was real good with his hooves. Plus, he got to admire the flanks of his soon-to-be special somepony.
Caramel stomped his left forehoof in frustration. Couldn’t let his thoughts go there, it wouldn’t get the job done. He was here a day early, just so he would know exactly where the grass seed was; in fact, he had every intention of sleeping on top of it, of guarding it with his body, defending it against all who would move it…he chuckled at the thought.
But it was nowhere to be found. He walked deeper and deeper into the barn; nothing. Finally, he was almost against the back wall. He had found seeds for nearly every crop he’d ever seen planted, and more besides. He moved a sack of ‘Genuine Wildwood Weed Seeds’ off a small table, and nickered in surprise at a small door thereby revealed. Caramel couldn’t remember if there was a storage shed off this particular barn, but if there was, than this door might be the way in, and maybe that was where the grass seed was. He took a deep breath, frowning at the skunky odor of the Wildwood seeds, and pushed the table aside with his muzzle.
The door was stiff and creaked as he opened it. Inside it was pitch black, and Caramel’s frown deepened. He was a grown stallion, not some little colt who was afraid of a little dark, unknown place. He wished Miss Applejack were with him, though. She wouldn’t be scared.
He stuck his nose in and sniffed around. He couldn’t smell grass seed; the pungent herbal odor of the other seeds were stuck in his nose. He shrugged, and stepped into the dark.
* * *
It seemed like it had been forever that he had been in there. He knew it wasn’t; it couldn’t have been. But he did wish he had brought a lantern. He had tried to pace off the confines of the room, and it seemed to stretch before him, like a tunnel. Long and narrow. But what could it be a tunnel to? Surely the Apples wouldn’t have dug a mysterious tunnel that started in the back wall of one of their barns; they were far too sensible for that. Pinkie Pie might have, if she had a farm.
Resolutely, he kept walking. If he was going the right way, he would be back in the barn in no time at all. If he was going the wrong way, soon he would reach the end of whatever this was, and he could turn around, and go back. He decided that perhaps, to get back to looking for the seeds sooner, trotting was in order. After he had done that for a bit, his hooffalls echoing strangely up and down the corridor, he thought cantering might be better.
He had almost decided that perhaps a full-on run was in order, when he crashed into a wooden door. Such was his relief, that the pain in his nose went completely unnoticed, especially since it felt to him like there were branches or roots or maybe skeletal hooves or spiderwebs rubbing against his head. With a sudden cry, he scrabbled his hooves against the door, eventually finding a knob. Sobbing with relief, he struggled with it for quite some time—it was awkwardly positioned, and very slippery. He could hardly grip it with his hooves at all.
The door squeaked open, and Caramel’s eyes were filled with wonderful, amazing light. He happily trotted out of his tunnel prison, and began to whistle. Specifically, he pursed his lips, sucked in a breath of air, and then froze.
His pupils shrank, and his ears began twitching. He could hear, to his right and slightly ahead of him, a steady drip…drip…drip. A slight breeze rustled the trees outside the window. Off in the distance, he heard unfamiliar mechanical noises.
He was undoubtedly, unquestionably, in a mare’s room. The bed had a pink cover on it, and little bottles of probably expensive perfume, conditioners, soaps, and who-knew-what-else were scattered on bedside tables, the windowsill, and the dresser. But the bed was too big, much too big for any of the Apples, and it was too high to comfortably get up on. The posters on the walls all depicted strange, peach-faced monsters, and the writing was unfamiliar. The floor was littered with bits of cloth. When he pulled one up with his mouth, he determined that it was some kind of clothing, although far too big for a pony to wear, and it hardly looked like the kind of thing a pony would wear anyways.
At this moment, Caramel came to several realizations simultaneously, and they crowded into his mind so fast that he could not, for a moment, sort them out. They were:
A. He had not found the grass seed
B. He was not in the Apple’s barn
C. He was in some giant pony’s room
D. He was in some giant not-pony’s room
E. He had no idea where he was.
When Caramel had sorted these ideas out a little bit, he did the only thing that an adult stallion would do, finding himself in such a situation. He panicked and began running in circles as fast as he could. Eventually, he tired himself out. Finding himself perched somewhat precariously on an end table, he jumped onto the bed and burrowed deep under the covers, taking solace in the warmth and darkness they offered. His breathing slowed, and he fell asleep.
Susan staggered back to the frat house, her navigation greatly impaired by the vast quantities of alcohol she had consumed. Her path of travel led her across the sidewalk, a lawn, bouncing off several trees in a manner not unlike a pinball, and she finally tripped over a curb and fell in the street. Giggling, she staggered back to her feet, fell over again, and determined to crawl for a little bit. A convenient parking meter provided a good location to pull herself back up, and she managed to stagger a few more feet before realizing it might be easier to walk if she took off her high heels.
Now barefoot, her travel was much improved. She began singing an off-key rendition of a Lady Gaga song, which was barely recognizable since she couldn’t remember the words, and was giggling frequently.
Eventually, she made it back to her rental house, which was silent. All her roommates were gone for spring break, but she’d stayed behind, claiming she needed the time to study rather than admit she was nearly flat broke. The quiet had finally driven her to desire human contact, and she’d spent more time and drank more than was wise at her friend’s party. After a little trouble getting the key to fit in the front door, she finally made it inside.
Susan tossed her heels by the door, and walked into the kitchen to get a tall glass of water, which hopefully would help to mitigate a hangover in the morning, and threw her coat across the kitchen table.
She managed to get mostly undressed while sitting on the toilet, a commendable accomplishment since she was holding her head in her hands most of the time to keep it from floating away. She staggered into her bedroom and managed to pull on a t-shirt before she passed out across the bed, completely oblivious to the unexpected lump under the covers.
A few hours later, she staggered into the bathroom again, her bladder informing her that she was going to get up, half-drunk or not, and when she finally returned to her room, she pulled the covers over herself as she curled up on her side, hoping that the room would settle by the morning. In a moment she was snoring softly.
Caramel half-woke to something poking him in the side and a cold flank. He muttered a curse against covers that wouldn’t stay put, then shifted around until he was nestled against something warm that had a soothing heartbeat. His brain registered the scent as Berry Punch (an understandable mistake), and he promptly fell into a deeper, more comfortable sleep. He dreamed of a Pinkie party followed by a walk in the park.
Susan woke again at 6:30, an unfortunate habit caused by early classes every semester so far, managed to make it to the bathroom without opening her eyes, and got back into bed. As she pulled the covers towards herself, her arm brushed across something warm and furry. “Mmm, I missed you, Rover,” she muttered softly, throwing an arm across what she believed to be her dog. She dreamed of playing fetch in her backyard.
A few more hours passed, until Susan finally woke up. She stretched, bumping into Caramel, and for a moment, she still thought it was her dog, then she remembered that her dog was at home in Cleveland, and so this was not, in fact, her dog. Caramel, meanwhile, woke up, opened his eyes, and suddenly remembered that he was not asleep in his bed or Berry Punch’s or anypony else’s for that matter, and there was a very strange monster looking at him with a look that had, in a moment, gone from happy memories to vague alarm. Caramel did what anypony would do in that situation, and bolted away from the source of his fright, which, unfortunately, was cut short by the wall of Susan’s room.
Susan’s alarm turned to concern as Caramel smashed into the wall hard enough to knock her framed Lady Gaga poster off the wall, then fell over on his side. She had no idea whatsoever what the strange creature was, but she did know that it was clearly terrified of her, and had also managed to injure itself. It looked like a horse, but much smaller, and with fatter legs, a shorter muzzle, and much larger eyes. It kind of reminded her of Pokeman for some reason she couldn’t quite place her finger on.
She leaned over the prostrate figure and began stroking its mane. It was definitely some kind of horse, she reasoned, or maybe a donkey. Aside from its head, it looked almost like a miniature Clydesdale.
Caramel slowly came to his senses. The collision with the wall had managed to give him brief retrograde amnesia, as well as cause an inability to focus his eyes, so when he saw the blurry face hovering over him, he muttered, “Where am I? What happened?” He did not expect the response he got.
When it spoke with a clearly male voice, Susan’s first thought was that she was only wearing a thin t-shirt and a pair of panties, and she shrieked and jumped backwards. A moment later, she realized what had just spoken in clear, understandable English, and she screamed, scrabbling backwards on her hands, butt, and feet, until she crashed into the wall of her room. She yanked a ‘Got Hemp’ poster from the wall in an attempt to protect her modesty.
At that precise moment, with Caramel’s vision and memories coming back, and Susan’s world-view undergoing a profound shift, both of them were thinking the exact same thing: This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. I’m imagining this. They both closed their eyes. When I open my eyes, this will be nothing more than a bad memory. A moment passed in peaceful silence. Simultaneously, both opened their eyes, and in unison, they spoke. “You can’t be real.”