I was alone again, yet it was a loneliness wherein I had not to worry about the outside world or that I may be discovered or persecuted.
There were no assuring shrills in my head—whose words used to blend so incomprehensibly that not a single one could be discerned, only that singularly wonderful tone of company and security. There hadn’t been anything since the inundation.
And I was scared. Yes, I admitted the thing. To be a stranger among a strange species, to have no one to whom to fall back should something unpleasant occur . . . yes, it was scary. As much as I enjoyed my personal solitude in my juvenile years, there was something calming about the fact that there were creatures not a few minutes’ fly away who would welcome you back no matter where you had come from or what you had left to do.
I was hurt. Even if I changed into a pegasus pony, I couldn’t fly. If I tried to fly, who knows what would be in the air? More guards?
A plan—these many days later, I still didn’t have one. I would have to think about that now. Whatever plan I would come up with, it’d have to be one that got me back to my family and us back together. But what would that be?
I shook my head as it began to thrash painfully. That was too far in the future, and it hurt. No, I should take small steps. First, find out where you are. Stay in the present. There is nothing but the past which will help you learn, and the present where you can apply those ideas. The future? Useless tense.
To find out where I was would be easy enough. I’d simply have to ask this pony. There would be no reason why she wouldn’t tell me. Fine.
Next: what had separated us? I winced; I could still feel that magic against my skin, a force that had just wanted to suck me into a pulp. To elucidate the nature of that energy . . . that would be more difficult. And, besides, finding that out would serve what purpose? If I figured it out, I might possibly find a way to stop it if it happened again; but if I couldn’t get my family back together, I wouldn’t need to find out how to take preventative measures.
So what could I do? What would I do?
I knew what I ought to have. What did I indeed have?
I was rescued by this pegasus pony. The emotions that I felt pulsing in her every step and breath were richer and sweeter than any I’d tasted before. I had this now. Even if it may be ephemeral, this I had now, and anything the future may throw at me would not be unable to abridge this rejuvenation. She’d given me food; she cared for me in a way that I hadn’t felt since Corporal Foil. There was this to take pleasure in and feed on if nothing else.
From this, I thought, may be my starting point.
Still, the part of my mind that held the indicative mood in enclave pulsed, such that it was hard to ignore. Questions, questions, questions, it pushed:
Who is she? Why is she helping you? What has she to gain? What has she to lose? What’s her occupation? Does she know anything about Canterlot, about your family, etc., etc., etc.
And I couldn’t explain it, but when pointed toward her . . . these questions pushed against me harder than I’d ever thought possible. From her, there radiated a firm, strained power. And I wanted to push it back, but, as with the railroad track, I was curious as to what its nature was but hesitant in fear that it would burst.
Where did I know her?
And then, as the memories rolled by of the preceding months, one after the other, they slowed and descended upon a particular sight, in the same manner as the sun descending on the facade of the building one hour, one minute after midday, imparting the bricks and glass a radiating splendor, scintillating in the midday sun, the figures adorning this mosaic twinkling in their turn. And I thought of the fear that came to me when I so laid eyes on those figures . . .
I let out so quick a gasp that I fell backward. Had I a wing at this moment, I certainly would’ve crushed it.
It was she.
It was the yellow one in the windows. I couldn’t doubt it. From her flamed the same immolation of my power to hers as I had felt when looking upon that window. She and the window figure were one and the same.
I heard footsteps out of sight. “I seemed to have misplaced the gauze,” came the voice. “I need to look for it. I’ll be just a few more minutes.”
Her words twisted around my spine, and I shuddered as they held me in their grasp.
This destroyer, this sentry of the palace and ponies—she was right next to me. At any moment, at a breath, she could inundate me just as she, or whatever it was, had done back in Canterlot.
Did she know?
I shook my head, and on the current of the relief that came back to me rode my reason. No, I thought; no, she didn’t know. She was helping me because she thought I was a hurt pony.
How deep the wasp must lie in the heart of its host! Even in his snuggest egg, the slightest jostling could knock him out and away. The host’s resulting fever, while he lies on his bed moaning, twisting in agony and delirium, is an effort to roast the wasp that lies in his abdomen; and from his pain, from his body which he has made so hostile to himself, he expunges the moist, dead egg. And here I was, in the snug intestines, feeling it grow ever-hotter, hearing the sound of her footsteps out of sight as the delirious quickening heartbeat.
Her power . . . how? She was a member of the inferiors; yet she’d managed to disperse us. What power was this? How had she gotten it? How had she used it?
And yet . . . whether it was due to an incapability to harness such power or out of sheer obliviousness, she was not using it. She was not using it against me. Though I was deprived of my family, though I was lost, alone, afraid, hungry, thirsty, injured, cold, she didn’t know I was her enemy. Better yet, she thought I was her friend.
My heart leaped.
In a series of small steps, each one logically preceding the last, I realized it: I had inadvertently inserted myself into her abdomen.
So what should be the goal? And, given that, how to formulate that series of actions, each one taking me a step toward that goal, but under the guise of innocence—better yet, under the guise of helpfulness?
First, define the goal. But as soon as I tried, my head racked itself as the recalcitrant future tense shoved its way through once again.
Start from the basics, I thought. What was—is my family’s method of operation? That was easy: under the guise of innocence or succor, to insert ourselves among the denizens of a foreign land. That had worked for as long as I could remember. Why would it not work now?
The plan is not infallible, came the other side of my brain, as evinced by what happened those days ago.
Of course. But did that mean I should throw away the plan altogether? Of course not. It had been a setback, but that could be accounted to many things, and it did not necessarily speak to any apparent fallaciousness of our method of procedure. Besides, it was fallacious in itself to assume that because it had failed in the past, the method would fail again.
But here, in this land, such an option wasn’t, at this moment, readily able to be implemented. Considering that the integrity and reliability of the method fell asunder on the back of an individual, and considering I was only an individual, not right here nor right now could I begin.
My thorax contracted. I clutched a forehoof to my chest as sorrow coursed through me. It was truly the first time I’d ever been alone. The sound of my own breathing filled my ears in the empty space left by those shrills ever constant throughout the years of my youth and adolescence. The notion of thinking in the future was scary, but the sound of my mental vacuum was scarier. When you grow up hearing a million voices in your head at every hour of the day, an innumerable train of thoughts running through your mind, intermingling with each other to form a conglomerate ineffable, sublime, and inexpressible, you feel no desire to think, for every single thought you could come up with already exists in that amorphous whole already rebounding off the sides of your temples. You just chose the one that fitted your fancy, already prepared for you by your family.
If only I were not alone! If only there were ten or so of my siblings, perhaps two brothers, eight sisters . . . no, not even that many, perhaps six of us, even four. Perhaps we could hide in the forest, and in a few years increase our numbers sufficiently to strike again, and find our lost family . . .
The indicative mood, once again, washed over me. You don’t have your family here, it said. You are alone. There is no point in speaking of what should be when you have only what is.
I thought of back home: its soothing steppes, its mysterious forests; those indescribable idyllic retreats where the heath met the lush, where the thick bushes yielded just for a moment, where the trees stood back from some small enclosure of land as if they did not dare to move upon this sanctuary consecrated by the sun, which illuminated this natural repose in visible swords of light, instilling asylum into the air of this clearing for all those fortunate enough to discover it, instilling rapture into the souls of those who lie down within its gentle touch.
My nose tingled. My eyesight blurred as memories flooded me. And when I thought of those who were still there—the old and sagacious, the infants, the mothers, and the weak—a spike of envy seized me. They were still there, still enjoying the natural sanctuaries, wrapped as they were in their daydreams and hopes. I realized that, for all they knew, we would be returning soon with news of victory, a new land to satisfy all their fancies.
And if by some miracle, I managed to get home, I would have to be the one to tell them that our august plan had gone less than impeccably. How would I control them, then? I, alone, with no plan, no former success to back up my word—how would I ever hope to console their grief and convince them that the fight is not over? I would have nothing, would be as destitute as they. Why should they listen to one who was nothing more than another gaping mouth . . .
. . . Because I had something.
I had the pony.
I had her caring for me, soothing me, pleasing me. Why? She had said she didn’t need a reason. I could only conclude that there was no reason.
And it would simply be an issue of seeing how far that no-reason extended.
She had a great amount of power—so much that she had been able to sweep us away. But I was now her ward. And if I was her ward . . . did that not mean that that power was in the wardship? My wardship?
To what extent did my power over her lie?
If my power was great enough, I could lead her to Fillydelphia under some pretense, on the way slowly expanding that power such that when the time came to take her across the ocean, she would neither question nor resist. If, somehow, I could deliver her into the hooves of our sages and magi, perhaps they could learn what I could not: the essence of her power, how it worked, how it had defeated us; and perhaps then we could build up, regather, and finally strike again . . .
At a first glance, it appeared to me that the string with which I could pull her was, at best, tentative and tenuous, as if the slightest jerk in the wrong direction would turn her from being my salvation into the formidable enemy who had scattered us back in Canterlot.
Gently, gently, then! When was the last time the wasp succeeded by buzzing noisily? Such an action only serves to drive off the potential—and now lost—victim at the horrible sight of its stinger.
But once I got her to Fillydelphia, what would I . . .
I clenched my teeth together. The indicative part of my brain, the one that thought in concretes and the future struggled against the subjunctive part, the part that thought in present and past abstractions. The latter had been present all my life, and the former was a relatively recent construction; so, by virtue of seniority, the subjunctive got the final word. You must make provisions for the future! yelled the young indicative. Even if you get her to Fillydelphia, which you’ll be able to achieve only by a tenuous string, how will you get her across the ocean? Irrelevant! yelled the senior subjunctive. What matters it what could happen now. If you could convince her to go with you even for a short distance, you would win.
Naturally, since I was tired, and since the subjunctive required less brain power, I listened to it. Besides, had the indicative offered any reasonable alternative? For too long had I limped from one makeshift shelter to the next; for too long had I rambled without aim; for too long had I allowed myself to be carried by the vicissitudes of misfortune. My pride and my dignity had been trampled on not by the inundation, not by the ponies, but by me who had allowed such encroachments to go unchecked.
No longer! I’d made up my mind. I was not going to leave without something. I had not flown so far away from home to come back destitute as before. Never before in my life had I seen so plainly the options in front of me: The road forked, and to one side there was death. On the other side, there was a prospect, even life; and though I could not see the end of that road, and for all I knew it led straight to the same end, it was a longer path, and that path depended on my ability and my thought alone.
I would find her power and use it for my purposes. I would lead her to my home—no, not home, but a direction toward home. My goal was not to get her home; my goal was to check each one of my steps, to check each one of hers, and to make sure each one led in the direction that appeared the most fortuitous. One step at a time would this journey be undertaken. And it would be taken under the auspices of the subjunctive: we would not look down the road toward the unknown future; we would look to the past to learn from mistakes, and we would ever keep our eyes on the present, analyzing what ought to occur at every passing moment, and make the decision to the best of our ability with all the information we would have at the time.
The first step:
No sooner had I started crying than she was back beside me, her hooves wrapped around me in an embrace.