//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 - Curiosity Killed The Cat // Story: My Life, Recreated // by Ephraim Blue //------------------------------// Chapter 6 - Curiosity Killed The Cat It's just a phrase. It didn't actually happen. It's what the phrase is telling you that I think matters. What is the phrase telling you? I think it says: 'Don't be curious'. But curiosity is such a wonderful thing... Why would we want to give it up? Let me ask you this: When in your life have you ever been curious enough to get in trouble for it? Many times, probably. When your curious about something, you try to learn all you can about it. For example. Say you wanted to see if you could sneak onto your parent's computer when they weren't home. You do that, and succeed. Then, when they aren't home again, you do the same thing over. This time, you stayed on even longer because you wanted to test your limits and see if you could get the maximum amount of time on their computer. Then, you go ahead and risk it for a third time. 'No harm', you're probably thinking at that point. But then, you were too curious to your limits. You were still on when they got home. When they see you on, you get punished, and they no longer trust you for what you've been doing. That's a way curiosity could be bad. But... there are still ways curiosity could be good. Say... you're in the police force, or better yet, the FBI. You have to look for some rouge criminal that has been on your radar for some time. You have learned all his tactics, how he moves, what he does, ect. But there is always the chance that he could change tactics. You're curious about that, so you suggest that to your peers, but they don't listen and you start to agree with them. But your still curious about your theory. You decide to test it once. Low and behold, your theory was correct, and you capture him. Your peers now praise you for you thinking of something that they thought wouldn't work. You were curious to come up with something, and you got praised for it. That is how curiosity could be good for you. But now I'm wondering. Who came up with the phrase: 'Curiosity Killed the Cat'? Sad story time. Curiosity did kill two of my cats that I had a couple of years ago. I'm sad now, so I'm going to put down three periods to wait for a bit. ... Okay, I'm fine now. Thanks for waiting. But seriously, who came up with that phrase? I'm going to get several comments from nerds who feel like telling me who came up with that phrase when I don't really want to know. MOVING ON! Why would someone come up with those phrases? Probably to keep little kids from being curious about something that they didn't know, and didn't need to know. But if we're going to be curious anyway, why come up with phrases that might only delay it for some time? I have to write the actual story now. But have something to think about. What has happened to you that you regret because you were curious? Canterlot Castle Library Unknown Date "H- How did you open that door?" Celestia asked me. "What are you talking about?" I asked back. "It's just a door. You turn the knob and it opens." "It wasn't there earlier," I heard Sunset Shimmer say in a voice that was barely heard in the air. "The door wasn't there before..." "I told you it was," I said to her. She looked at me with surprise. I pointed a hoof at my ear. "Good hearing." "But how did you open it?" Celestia asked again. "Is this going to be a joke? I told you, it's a door. Turn the knob, and it opens." "We tried that," the guard said. "The door didn't budge an inch." "Really? It worked fine when I went in." I saw light coming in from the window, a lot brighter than from earlier. How long was I in there? "That's why we're asking how you opened the door." "And I'm telling you, that I turned the knob and walked in! Simple as that!" The guard grunted and walked over to the door. Once he was in front of it, he had his horn glow. The knob glowed with the same light from his horn. The knob shook and raddled, but the door showed no sign of opening. "It's not opening," he said. "Try doing it without magic," I said. "I can't use it, and I opened it just fine." "Tried that too," he said. As if to prove his point, he grabbed the doorknob with his hoof and rattled it as wildly from when he used magic. "Still doesn't open." "That's strange..." "What's more," Celestia said, making me turn to her, "is that that door had an illusion spell on it. it made the space the door is at look like a normal bookshelf. Even I was fooled by it." "Well, if it was there when I went in," I began, "then I wasn't affected by it." "But how can it not affect you, but affect me, The Princess of Equestria?" I shrugged. "How should I know? I don't know much about magic here." "Then what do you know about magic?" Sunset Shimmer asked me. "I know that there isn't magic in just unicorns, but in pegasai and earth ponies as well. Pegasai have in their wings, as well as being able to control whether. Earth ponies have the ability to grow food, and natural connection to the ground beneath our feet. Unicorns are the only ones who can use their magic for different purposes." "For example," I continued, "Celestia, you use your magic to raise the sun during the day. Luna uses her magic to raise the moon at night. Two very different things, don't you think?" I got no immediate answer. Celestia had a face of shock on, while the other two just had a look of confusion. "Who's Luna?" the guard and Sunset Shimmer asked at the same time. I stepped back a bit at what I said. Oh, dear... "H- How do you know that name?" Celestia asked, her voice a bit shaky. "How do you know that name?" "I- It was in a book," I replied. It was the truth. "But how could you read the books?" Sunset Shimmer asked me. "You can't read Equestrian." I started sweating. "I- I- I heard it from somewhere..." "Nopony has heard that name for nearly 1000 years," Celestia said. "And if nopony has heard of it, how could they have spoken of it so that you could have heard of it?" I felt a single drop of sweat fall beyond my muzzle. I had run out of lies to hold my secret. The secret of my knowledge of the future. If there's anything you don't want to do, it's know the future. Whether it's your own, or someone else's, you don't want to know it. It could be a good future, or a bad future. But what you really don't want to do is tell them their future. Why don't you want to do that? Simple, it could change. If they knew their future and they didn't like it, wouldn't they want to change it? Probably. And if that changed, wouldn't every point of time after that just change? Yes, it would. Lets give an example. Say Sunset Shimmer never went to the human world and stayed Celestia's student. Well then, would Twilight ever become her student? No, she wouldn't. Then the entire show would change, right? Right. "I- I shouldn't tell you," I flatly replied, looking at the ground. "You shouldn't know." "Why not?" Sunset Shimmer asked. "I shouldn't tell you that either..." "Why not?" she asked again. No, don't push me to that. I had my limits. Whenever I started to get annoyed at someone or something that person was doing, I started to get angry. And let me just say, that you would not like me angry. I didn't answer. I just turned to the exit and started walking out. "Where are you going?" "Away," I replied. "You shouldn't know why I know that name." I was just outside of the library when it happened. My hooves no longer touched the floor, and I was suspended in the air. A golden light surrounded me. "Hey! Put me down!" I said. "Not until you tell me how you know that name!" Celestia harshly replied. "Teacher!" "Princess!" Those two voices spoke at the same time. The only difference between them were the different sayings, and the difference in the voices that spoke. "How do you know that name!" I struggled against the magical field that held me up. I looked down at the ground that seemed so close. I tried to reach for it, but Celestia hoisted me even higher into the air when she saw what I was doing. "This isn't funny, put me down!" I looked at the ground again. Do you remember in the last chapter when I listed several fears and that it was all just your imagination? Well, no matter how hard we try to believe that, there are times where we forgot all that and became scared. For me, this was one of those times. I had a fear of falling from really high places. If I didn't realize that I was in a high spot, then was fine. But when I could see the ground, I started imagining myself falling to the ground. That's what I was afraid of. "Do I look like I'm laughing?" Celestia asked with her harsh voice. "How do you know that name?!" I started struggling again. "I can't tell you. I... I just can't." "No excuse." She took me in her magic and flung me across the room. I loudly screamed in fear as I nearly hit a bookshelf, but she stopped me just inched before that happened. "Princess, that's enough!" the guard said. I couldn't see what was happening, for my face wasn't that easy to move in a magical grip. "Do not interfere!" she screamed at him. The next sound to be heard were muffled sounds of a voice, and some banging against some unknown(to me) surface. I was flung once again across the room. This time, my back slammed against the wall. I grunted and closed my eyes in pain. It wasn't the worst pain I'd felt, but it certainly did hurt. "Tough little colt aren't you?" she said, her voice with a false sense of security in it. "If you tell me how you know the name now, I might now have to do worse." I opened my eyes and saw her staring at me. I looked around the room, and saw Sunset Shimmer and the guard in a magical barrier, preventing anything that they could do to help. Anger started flaring through my body. She had no right to treat ANYone like that. Not me, not then, no one. I felt my anger come to life as it sometimes did. "I can't tell you," I replied, hiding the hatred in my voice. I felt something new inside of me. Something I'd never felt before. Not anger, nor hatred. "But... there is something I wish to ask you..." "Oh? And what is that?" That new feeling climbed all the way to my head. "How would you like it if I did this to you!?" There was a glare of light shine above me. The next thing I knew, I was falling to the ground. The ground hurt when contact came. I shook it off and tried to understand what happened. I saw Celestia slammed into a bookshelf, and the barrier that was around Sunset Shimmer and the guard was no longer there. I turned between Celestia and the two who just had looks of shock. "W- What happened?" I asked. "You don't know?" the guard asked. "You just flung Celestia into the bookshelf!" I looked at her. "I did" But... How?" "You tell me. You said you didn't know how to use magic." "Magic? I used magic?" "Yeah," Sunset said. "You yelled: 'How would you like it if I did this to you!?', and then you levitated her into the bookcase!" I looked at what I had done. That memory was now embedded into my head. I watched it happen over and over again in my head, unable to forget it. Fear took over, and I ran. Not the fear of being afraid of something else... but of myself. Being afraid is something is one thing, but of yourself is another. You could fear what you could and could not do. I ran outside of the library. "Blue, wait!" I heard Sunset yell. I didn't listen. I continued running down the hallway. Twists and turns appeared in front of me, and I made it past every single one. Turning had become a lot easier, along with running, as I got used to traveling on hooves. I tried to remember the way I came. The way that Sunset had lead me down the halls and to the library from the front gates. I couldn't. All the turns looked alike, and all paths were similar. A sudden bright flash erupted in front of me, and the guard that was in the room earlier appeared in front of me. I skidded to a halt. "Blue, wait," he calmly said. I turned and tried to run in the opposite direction. Another flash came, and he was in front of me again. "Stop running, we can sort this out." "How?" I asked. "How can something like that be sorted out? I flung Celestia into a bookshelf! How can that be sorted out?" "I don't know, but running away isn't the answer." "And how would you know, huh?" I started taking slow steps back. "Running away has nearly always been on my mind. Not because of coming here, but because of the horrible life I had before all this started. Why should being here be any different?" "Now, just calm down Blue-" "How can you just put this like it's something that happens everyday?" I cut him off. "Why should I be calm?" "Blue, this is getting out of control... Please, calm down!" I started to panic again. I turned once again to get away, but another teleportation spell quickly stopped my movements. "Blue, clam down!" That feeling from earlier started to kick in again. That feeling from right before Celestia was flung into the bookshelf. No! I told myself. I don't want to hurt anymore ponies! But the feeling didn't go away. That small feeling of a new power inside of me. Not with anger... Not this time. This time, I knew what was happening. The feeling crawled to my head once again. There was a glowing at the tip of my head, and then a bright flash. For an instant, I was dazed. When I regained my senses, I was no longer in the hallway with the guard. I was outside, right in front of the drawbridge that led in and out of the castle. I had teleported. How, I had no clue. I could see the drawbridge in front of me, wide open. The only thought I had then was getting out. I ran across as fast as I could. I was across the bridge in no time, and back into the normal city of Canterlot. There were two guards behind me at the end of the drawbridge, but they payed me no mind. A sudden flash behind me caused me to turn around. The unicorn guard was following me. "Hey!" he called to the two guards. "Don't let him leave!" He pointed to me. The two guards nodded and they all started walking toward me. The two new guards were both pegasai. "Leave me alone!" I shouted at all of them, but they all continued advancing. I tried to remember the feeling that was from earlier, right before I teleported. I couldn't feel it as well as earlier, but I did feel the power flowing into my head. In an instant, the flash happened, and I was in a new location. After my few seconds of being dazed again, I took at where I was. I recognized this place as well, but it was slightly different. It was that alley that I woke up in yesterday. It had more trash in it, but it was still the same place that I woke up in. I wasn't certain, but I knew that teleporting only worked with taking you someplace you've been. I also knew that teleporting took a lot of magic. It took so much, that any normal unicorn would use up all their magic just trying to cast it once. But I had just cast it twice without any trouble. How did I do that? I wondered. There was a faint flash behind me. "Oh, this is getting annoying!" I said while turning around. But when I finished turning, there was no one there. "Huh?" I looked around, but there was no indication of any teleporting from around me. "What was that flash?" That's when I looked down at myself. There was a new feature about me. On my flank, there were four orange bubbles. "What...?" That's all I could manage. My cutie mark had appeared, but I had no idea what it meant. I checked the other side of my flank, and sure enough, there were four orange bubbles there too. I then heard voices of the guards coming down the street. In an instant, I hid myself behind a trashcan not to far from where I was standing. I heard the voice of one of them as they walked by. "He couldn't have gotten too far, could he?" "Not sure," another replied. "He did teleport. He could be anywh-" I couldn't hear his voice after that. The sounds of the crowd drowned them out. I stayed still and waited for about five minutes. After that time had passed, I got up and started walking in any direction I wanted. I could see the castle in the distance, but I stayed away from it. I was walking in the opposite direction. If you're ever trying to hide from someone, you want to walk unless they've seen you. If you're running, that would draw attention. You only run away from them if they see you and have begun chasing after you. There's one other thing about getting away from someone. If you're small, then it's easier to find your way through a crowd, easily avoiding anyone(pony) that comes across your path. If you're taller, than it's harder to move around, but easier to find the one you might be looking for. I never saw the guards, and I had no idea how long I walked. I found the train station first. It was being loaded up. Luggage in one car, and ponies in another. I looked to my left and saw a board across a wall. February 21st Train Schedule 7:00 - Ponyville 8:00 - Manehattan 9:00 - Fillydelphia 10:00 - Trottingham I read no further than that. I didn't need to. That sign gave me two pieces of information. One, the date. I now knew that it was the 21st of February. However, the year was still unknown to me. But that didn't matter at the time. Speaking of time, I looked at the clock next to the sign. 6:55 was the time it read. "All aboard!" I heard a pony say. I looked over at him and saw him in front of a two doors. "All aboard for Ponyville!" he shouted. Several ponies noticed this and got onto the train. Without thinking another thought, I jumped into the crowd and onto the train bound for Ponyville. I quickly found a seat and sat in it. I looked out the window and saw the unicorn guard from earlier. He spoke something to the conductor that I couldn't hear through the glass. The conductor shook his head once he was done. He spoke something else and turned around. While turning, he took a small glance at me and walked away. Then he realized that he had seen me, and turned around again. He shouted something at the conductor just as the train started moving. He ran up to the window I was at. I just smiled and waved at him. He screamed at me, but I could only hear muffled sounds through the glass. The train moved faster and faster. Soon enough, the train left the station and I could no longer see him. I sat back in my seat. Surprisingly, there were no other ponies in the car I was in. That probably being that most ponies would ignore the car on the end, where I was. I thought about the day I had so far. It wasn't so great, and one of my favorite songs popped into my head. It was called 'Bad Day'. "Where is the moment we needed the most? You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost... They tell me your blue skies fade to gray, They tell me your passion's gone away. And I don't need no carryin' on!" I loved this song when I was in elementary school. I sung it every day after I heard it the first time. "You stand in a line, just to hit a new low... You're faking a smile, with the coffee you go... You tell me your life's been way off line, You're falling to pieces every time. And I don't need no carryin' on!~ 'Cause you had a bad day! You're takin' one down! You sing a sad song, just to turn it around!" It really does help. You should try it. "You say you don't know! You tell me don't lie! You work at a smile, and you go for a ride!" What a coincidence! I had a bad day, I'm singing a sad song, and I went for a ride! Check! "You had a bad day, The camera don't lie! You're coming back down, and you really don't mind! You had a bad day! You had a bad day." There were probably a few reasons why I sung this song when I was younger. I always had bad days, and it helped bring my spirits up. "Will you need a blue sky holiday, The point is they laugh at what you say. And I don't need no carryin' on!~ Cause you had a bad day! You're takin' one down! You sing a sad song, just to turn it around! You say you don't know! You tell me don't lie! You work at a smile, and you go for a ride! You had a bad day, The camera don't lie! You're coming back down, and you really don't mind! You had a bad day! ...Ooh...Holiday!" A holiday sound nice right now. I like summer break. "Sometimes the system goes on the brink, And the whole thing it turns out wrong! You might not make it back, and you know that you could be well, oh that strong! And I'm not wrong!~ Yeah!~" Still love this song, even though I might not be able to hear it properly anymore. "So where is the passion when you need it the most? Ooh, you and I... You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost... Cause you had a bad day! You're takin' one down! You sing a sad song, just to turn it around! You say you don't know! You tell me don't lie! You work at a smile, and you go for a ride! You had a bad day! You've seen what you like! And how does it feel, for one more time? You had a bad day! ... You had a bad day." The song continued to repeat in my head several times as the train made it's way to the destination. Train February 21st ??? It was when the train started to slow down that I looked out the window. While the train came to a stop, I took in all I could of the familiar sights of Ponyville. One place that I truly recognized from the show. The train stopped and I heard somepony tell everyone that we had arrived, and had to get off. I hid myself in a crowd of ponies and got off the train with them. I stayed with them for a bit while they continued to walk around the station. "All aboard!" I heard another conductor call. "All aboard for Fillydelphia!" I ignored him and broke away from the crowd. I ran into the familiar sights that I knew. I was in Ponyville. One of the many places I'd never thought I'd ever go in my life.