//------------------------------// // chapter 60. Eyes to the sky. // Story: Becoming Fluttershy // by Hope //------------------------------// I am standing on the side of a rocket that doesn’t exist, as beings made of imagination are wont to do. I can remember the talk with Nate, and the conclusion of it where he was led to a tunnel going down. Simple metaphors, no need for complexity in the time of a crisis. So I lean back and fall off the rocket, the wind of my descent whipping around me and buffeting this small grey pony body. No descriptive traits wasted on a temporary form, since subconscious doesn’t really need a form anyway. I slow and stop as I reach the base of the rocket, buried in the middle of the sphere garden, and I press a button to open the blast chamber so I can enter. The center of Erishy’s subconscious is a glass floored room, under the floor are the two halves of this new mind at rest. Above it as a ceiling is the nozzle for an imaginary escape shuttle. A bit heavy handed in the symbolism, but give a girl a break, it sounded like a cool setup. Standing on this glass floor is a human man, Nate. He looks scared and maybe confused as he watches me climb down the ladder into the chamber, so I can stand next to him. “Ah, I thought I heard someone. My name is Erica. Sorry about the...” I point at myself, shrugging apologetically. “Not enough time to work on it.” he looks at me with more acceptance than I would expect. Then again I don’t know exactly how much to expect as an aspect of somepony’s subconscious. “Well... I think it works. As an artistic tableau, that is.” I feel a bit of a blush appearing as I turn back to the ladder, thinking of a way to redirect the conversation away from unexpected flattery. “You give me far too much credit. Well... Too much credit in the wrong catagory. However...” I start back up the ladder, waving to him to follow me up. As I reach the top of the first ladder, I can hear him following and I start up the one that leads to the top of the rocket. As is convenient, the gravity shifts so that we are standing upright on the side of the craft once we are well above the blast chamber. Then finally we reach the cockpit of this device, where two seats are prepared for an implied evacuation. “Got to think of the future!” I say, popping up next to Nate and tapping the metal hull excitedly, as I am once again in my element, talking about a project. “Indeed.” He replies cautiously. “Kind of poetically sad...” I muse, rubbing the spot I had hit, to make sure there are no dents. “That the rocket would have to burn away everything else here in order to take us into the future.” I expect some sort of rebuttal, telling me that such an idea is unrealistic and needlessly destructive, but instead he nods. “Well, a viable future is something we are desperately in need of at the moment. If you are sure of yourself then proceed.” I shrug, maybe he has been thinking of running away just as much as we have been, and gained some sort of understanding from that. Maybe he is playing a supportive role. “It will likely never be used. This is one of many contingency plans, a mind afraid of the past will flee to the future. Do you like the little plaques? My idea,” I say proudly. “I...I really don’t want you to give up your past,” he insists. “Somebody I knew had something like that happen to her. It…” For a bit, he looks into the distance, filled with pain and emotional turmoil. I wonder what it would be like to jump into his head, and stroll around to see what he needs patched up. His powers could change the world, yet it seems he has been forced to use them on ponies. It’s a waste, really. We aren’t that important. “I never want that to happen. Ever again,” he continues, shaking his head in sorrow. “Hm...” He looks aside, hiding tears, or possibly weakness itself. “What was that?” “It’s a distraction, Nate. Do you burden yourself as some sort of arbiter between life and death?” I ask as I push some wires around, plugging in a coupling I had been working on before his appearance. “Oh, uh, no,” he laughs, looking back to me. “I don’t believe anybody has that right. I concern myself with what happens in this life. With what we can control, and with learning how to withstand what we cannot, and maybe even emerging a bit stronger on the other side as a result of the experience.” I hear the fervent denial of responsibility in his tone, but I also hear the reverence for life, and the pain of those who have lost theirs. “But you were perfectly content with wholesale mind melting in order to save a few lives.” I point out, not looking towards him but rather looking at my own indistinct hooves, blurred and made by imagination alone. “It’s in my nature,” he dismisses, after a short pause. “I have seen so many lives wasted through inexperience and the stupidity of youth. I have been given a power, yes, but I wield it wisely. I don’t waste it on the doomed, but only to rescue those that would do the most good. And I don’t use it lightly.” I finally look up to meet his line of sight, and he seems to shrink away from me. “But I am totally out of my league here. I have never encountered a mind like yours. It makes me feel tiny, petty and cruel. You need not fear that I’ll be forcing you to do anything. Not anymore.” I can’t help but laugh. My mind isn’t unique, or powerful. My mind is just sheltered. I’ve been given the chance to dedicate too much time to imaginary rockets and gardens. Nonetheless I am curious as to why he won’t be trying to force us into anything. “Why?” I ask, gently. He studies his hands, instead of me, as he ponders his answer. “Regardless of how I may have ended up in this situation with you, I am a free agent. At least for now,” despite this positive spin, he looks like it disgusts him, a frown becoming a scowl. “I am not here to destroy you. I honestly believe that I can save you, save all of you, but so far nobody believes me. But...but looking around here, at your mind...I thought something vital was being destroyed when the two personalities merged, and, in at least two cases, that is exactly what happened. But not here. Both Fluttershy and Erica have survived, at least so far as I can see. That is all I seek to accomplish, to save two unique and deserving individuals from being thoughtlessly destroyed to bring a fatally flawed mish-mash in its place. I don’t...I… I need to think this out.” With an all encompassing sigh, the doctor closes his eyes, and I move us into the glass floored room. It’s just less distracting to be here. “You regret what you've done, don't you? That wasn't a lie," I point out, looking up cautiously at the rocket motor above. I then flinch as he raises his voice, shouting more at himself then at me. “Done? Done?!” he shouts, “I’ve done nothing! I’ve spent my whole life hiding behind words. Will words bring back George? Or Gary? Or Danielle? No, they are dead, dead and gone because I failed to act.” I wait, but he just sits, his face hidden in his hands, the quiet pressing in on us from all sides. I don’t want to argue, I really don’t want to confront him, it wouldn’t do any good. "You regret," I say again. He opens his eyes but stares at the ground. “Yes,” he says simply. "Do you regret for the right reason, though?" I ponder, trying to prod into his reasoning, his sorrow that seems to stick to him and haunt him. “They were my responsibility,” he almost weeps. “She asked me to be her therapist, and he surely would have asked if I had been there. They had let me into their hearts, into the sources of their pain. I should have known what would have happened if I left them alone. I never should have left Los Angeles.” He seems to struggle with this mistake, trying to find a solution, the magic bullet, an answer that would solve all his problems. Noone can solve all their problems. “Or...failing that...but no, Danielle was very slow to trust. I never would have been able to talk her into trusting another with her fears.” "So do you regret that you failed, or do you regret that they died? Two very different things, as I am sure you know," I frown, leaning in to try adding some sense of concern, since I’m sure he thinks that I am an apathetic third party. He closes his eyes again, shaking his head ever so slightly. “I regret that I didn’t have the chance. When someone is facing the choice of whether or not to take their own lives, they need to have every argument, both logical and emotional, to convince them to reconsider. Just like…” He stops mid-word, before steadying himself and starting over. “My argument was not present. It had never been offered, because I never conceived that the situation would get that bad that quickly. Maybe I would have failed even then. But at least I’d know that I’d done my best.” "So in regret of all that, you have done... what? What are you here for?” “This?” he asks, looking up and waving a hand at the glass floored room, the rocket above, and the mostly bare walls. “This was the pursuit of a delusion. The delusion that all humans sharing bodies were identical with Danielle and Gary. That they would all eventually be murdered by their ponies, deliberately or inadvertently. As I’ve just finished admitting, that belief was wrong. Now...well now I fix this mess, and maybe try to go home and fix my practice so I’m really helping ponies instead of trying to shape them to my wishes.” "Well that sounds nice. Helping humans and ponies. How much of the escape attempt and the fellow victim thing was an act?" I ask curiously, relaxing as I can feel the heaviest part of the conversation pass. He sighs and looks away from me, and admits what I had by now figured out. It was an act, put on for a very specific goal. “They are keeping ponies here, but for no other purpose than to remove them from society. This is PAPA after all, and their designs are not very deep. I talked my way in, and the escape attempt was supposed to end in this room, with your two personalities forcefully separated. I was informed that this was all that they wanted, that they would let you go if I succeeded. I was so determined to get what I wanted that I brushed aside any number of contradictions that must have occurred to you just hearing this.” "Your motives have changed. I understand why you did what you did. I am sure that Fluttershy will too. In fact, I know she will. But now what will we do? A dream can only last so long. If you want, I can play the obedient slave quite well, a tiny kink of mine,” I laugh, feeling my cheeks warm at the idea, though knowing that I would probably get myself killed. “No, that would waste time as they seek to prove that you’re truly broken. What I was thinking was more along the lines of a medical emergency. They are not going to risk getting caught with your dead body. I can put you into a trance so deep that only a professional would be able to tell that your heart is still beating. Do you trust me enough to do this?” "If they thought I was dead, they would weigh me down with concrete, and toss me into the nearby lake. I would rather be broken than dead. If you promise to fix me. I’m sure you can make me obey you until we are free. I do trust you, just not their level heads in an emergency,” I point out. “Alright.” He sits for a few seconds, rubbing his temples. “Alright,” he repeats, then he stands and moves us to the garden, and I am standing next to myself. It feels so cold.