The stallion had a visitor.
He couldn’t recall if the visitor was with him now or had visited earlier. Ever since his failure, time stopped having any meaning. His struggles became nothing but memories as he shut himself away in his loneliness, but he had a visitor.
They conversed for a time, though it was mostly her doing the talking. Upon reflection, the stallion thought he could have said something to her, but he couldn’t find the words anymore. She mentioned his condition. It reminded him of what they were discussing.
She said she watches over ponies’ dreams, and how she hadn’t seen a ripple or tremor from his part of the dreamscape in months. At first, she wrote it off as a pony at peace. Then, she learned of his situation and grew worried. She mentioned being concerned at that point, now that she could see him.
He recalled a sad smile gracing her lips when she proposed an idea. Two choices were given, and neither would end happily ever after. So, she left, asking him to think, to give her an answer when she visited again.
The clockmaker’s gift chirped. She was gone, or had been gone for hours. It mattered not to the stallion. He brushed the visit off like he did to the doctors and nurses.
But…
There was that choice she gave him, one that could change everything with a single word. For the first time in days, he felt like trying. For the first time in forever, he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be trying to do.
The first thought to reach him was one of suicide. Certainly, the choice would help him with that, and he really did feel like ending his struggle, but something called against that plan. Something deep within him screamed for him to think harder, to do something else with this choice.
‘Gift’ was the word that reached him next. He was being given a gift, just as he had been given many throughout his stay in the white room and blue bubble. He was gifted with caring neighbors who pulled him from his destroyed home, with hard-working medical staff who slaved tirelessly to save his broken shell, with—
The bird chirped again.
He let his head fall to the side to view the contraption again. There was a time he tried to solve its purpose. A time he cared to keep his mind strong with puzzles and formulas. A time he still had hope.
Motivation. He wondered if he could find that again. His gaze wandered over the sheet covering him, over where his bare chest would be, then back at the bird. Maybe he could…
Clockwork wasn’t his field, that much he remembered. With the medical staff calling him Vapor Trail, he deduced his trade earlier. Was there much difference, he wondered. The machine chirped again, and he noticed the name on its clock face: Twisted Springs Clockworks.
Wherever the voice originated within him throbbed. The name was familiar. It called for him to find the pony who made the bird. It wasn’t much, but he had something to do if he chose.
The mare gave him two choices. She could transfer his soul into a ponnequin, or leave him to fight for his survival. If he chose to be a machination, it would last twenty-four hours, but the separation of his soul from his body would doom him to never heal. If he chose to continue as he had been, he could grow stronger, and she would grant him a small boon to increase his chances.
The first choice was more of a death sentence, but he could move and do as he pleased for that final day. There were stories of some who took that option who then fought to survive because of the renewed hope they received, but most merely withered in their beds. She gave him a projected zero-point-one percent chance of living after the swap ended.
The second choice gave him nothing new to see or do. He would have to lay in his bed, strapped to all the machines, for the rest of his days. If he fought, his chances were higher. With the mare’s help, they rose further. The chances of him making a recovery with this option were still a paltry fifteen percent.
He recalled an old mathematical statement involving percentiles. It didn’t mean anything in the world of academics, but those ponies living day by day would know its usage. “If your chances are low enough, one and one-hundred makes no difference.”
Still, he remembered being an academic, and how that statement couldn’t be farther from the truth. But if he thought about it, the scenario he was in now couldn’t be saved with a bit of mathematics. The way he felt now, he couldn’t see himself fighting much longer, if at all.
With nothing to lose, or as little to lose as he could recall, he made his choice.
He had a visitor.