25.
I remember how my fingers used to dance their way over a keyboard. They’d poke, bend and shift at impossible speeds without faltering or slowing down except to let my thoughts catch up with what I was writing. I wish I spent more time actually watching how those spindly digits moved so easily because I was left wondering how I ever keep track of them all before. Now, it was a slow hunt and peck over the keys for the next letter rather than the rapidfire clicking that it used to be. How did I ever keep track of ten of them? Even so, I was mastering them with plenty of practice and even more coffee.
God, if that was one thing that Equestria never had right, it was the coffee. I think it was because ponies tended to like sweet things and the idea of a bitter drink just didn’t fly there so they didn’t put the effort into a good cup of the stuff that was needed. A long sip of that rich, black drink gave me another reason to be happy I was back on earth.
It was strange though. I had expected everything to change when I got here, but it didn’t. Sure, there was the moment where the local cops thought I needed to go spend some time in a padded room, but I had concrete evidence unlike most nutjobs claiming that they made contact with an alien species. From there, the military held me for ‘questioning’ until they realised I really didn’t know anything beyond the basics, though I do think that Celestia pulled some strings to get me out. When you’re an immortal statespony, I suspect you learn some diplomatic tricks for pretty much every situation.
I wasn’t out for long before the next wave came in the form of news crews and interviews, plane tickets and phone calls and everything else. Some thought I was a spy sent as a vanguard for an alien invasion, and others called the whole thing a hoax despite the mounting evidence, and a few oddballs pretty much asked how easy it was to get a pony in bed. My sense of ethics demanded that I kept quiet on that last one, but I think I said something about treating a pony as you’d treat a person you were interested in. In my defence, I was rather flustered at the time.
Anyways, for all I was the center of attention for the world for a while, I was amazed how little had changed about the world that sired me. There was the same politicians spouting the same rhetoric about the same problems. All the cities, provinces and the country as a whole were as I left them and so was every other nation for that matter, complete with all the weirdness, misery, strife, creativity, and beauty the collective human race was capable of. I knew I missed being on good old Sol III, but being here really drove that home.
Then, there was my family. They never lost faith that I was out there somewhere, and looked for me the entire time, and when I did finally get back, they celebrated. Everyone I knew showed to the party they threw for me, and I did my best to tell stories about how it was, but there wasn’t much to tell in the end. I pretty much spent my time as a pony doing what I did as a human excepting for beating up a cop. Sure he was a pony at the time, but he was still a cop. My brothers got a kick out of that, and my mother just gave me her patented look of shame. You really can’t win them all. Being with them all made me wish that I could’ve gotten back sooner. My brothers, mom and dad and Dusty all did all they could to make sure my old life was ready for me when I was.
That lead me to what I was doing now. I was working on getting everything that happened to me down on paper (so to speak; I am typing it after all.) as a matter of record, and so I could give something to all those that welcomed me back with open arms. Telling them exactly what happened was the very least I could do for them.
However, it was painfully slow going, no matter how caffeinated I was getting, but at least the quiet time alone gave me time to acclimate to being human. Just seeing this all helped ground me again. I turned in my swivel chair and surveyed at my familiar little office. It was exactly as I left it; cozy and small with off white walls and bookshelves holding texts on a variety of subjects ranging from economics, to game materials, to texts on sheet metal, and of course, my desktop which I was working at right now.
Somewhere else in the house, I could hear Dusty puttering around with the daily chores that had to be done as part of keeping up a household. What the heck; I’ve earned a little break from my writing. There wasn’t a rush on this, and I doubt there’d be many that would want to hear my story anyways beyond those that want a total historical footnote, but it summed up pretty quickly as a lot of dumb luck.
I stretched and turned my attention to the window and looked outside towards the stunning sunset. To think, this was just outside my window every day and I’ve never thought to look at all the oranges and reds that lit up the sky behind the city’s skyline, and it was clear I was missing out on something wonderful. A moment of just enjoying the sight made a smile come to my face and thoughts about spending that first evening with Berry washed over me. The sounds of traffic faded into the distance with the stunning panorama before me. The whole world was just me, the sunset and the last few drops of coffee in my mug. I guess as good as things were, they couldn’t ever be perfect, but at least there was more coffee in the kitchen.
It was tough tearing myself away from such a view, but it was easier after I made a promise that I’d invite Berry to join me to watch it tomorrow. It’d be like that time we did it on the back of my old truck. I wonder whatever happened to that old thing. It probably ended up in a lab somewhere and dissected, but that was alright. It’s not like I could drive it anymore anyways and if it could help anypony, it was worth losing it. I had so much more now.
Almost.
As enticing as the coffee smelled in the pot, some terrible alchemy must of happened when I poured it because it was bland and gritty and almost entirely unlike coffee in anyway I’d accept. I couldn’t help letting out a disgusted snort. Of course, it was this or swear the stuff off entirely, so I hoped the second sip would be better. It was the triumph of hope over experience, but I’d live. Maybe later, I could head out to the market and ask around. I’m sure somepony must have a worthy substitute and it was just a matter of tracking it down.
If bad coffee was the greatest of my woes, I was very, very lucky. I had the love of a wonderful mare, and steady work. I think the saying around here was “Idle hooves belong to Discord” but it didn’t apply to me. Between my work which has been growing into a pretty successful business, and all the social events my neighbors put forth, it was easy to always have something new to do and a new pony to meet. On top of all that, I think Merlot is bringing another concert in this weekend and those were always a good time, though it was funny hearing some ponies trying to recreate some of the music I brought with me. It’s nice to know I had an impact on the local culture.
This was the time to simply enjoy the life I had here, and see where things go. I settled into a seat and let myself relax when I came to realise that I wasn’t alone in the kitchen. I don’t know why I didn’t notice her before, but there she was, as clear as day. Or as clear as night as it were.
“It’s a lovely home,” said Princess Luna. She was sitting at the dining room table while she watched me go about my business.
“It’s pretty much all I could ask for,” I answered as I sipped the drink and ended up wrinkling my nose at the taste I was greeted with. Maybe it’d be better with a bit of sugar but it’d be a cold day in Tartarus before I resorted to adulterating my favorite drink. It was a shame it was nearly entirely unlike the coffee I knew, but I might as well be a good host. “Do you want a cup?”
She politely waved me off. Even that simple gesture had all the diplomacy that you’d expect from somepony that was experienced in politics. “No thank you. I’m curious though. Where art we now?”
“Oh. In my home,” I answered as I pushed the cup away from me. “You sure I can’t get you anything?”
“Quite sure. However, what I was asking of thou was where is thy home,” she clarified patiently.
“Ah, I misunderstood you there. We are in Ponyville/Winnipeg,” I replied.
She just nodded at that as if it affirmed something she already knew before she continued, “And thy name?”
“Uh with all due respect, you know me, Princess,” I said right back with a tap of a hoof against the table.
“Please humour me,” she insisted.
I wasn’t one to turn down a direct request from royalty, but this was getting weird quickly. “Okay. My name is Kerry/Scriber.”
She nodded again leaving me feeling like I was listing off symptoms to a doctor. This was getting awkward but what could I do but ride it out because she was royalty after all. The silence continued long enough to get awkward, and just when I opened my mouth to speak again, she was already speaking. “This is thy dream, Scriber. Embrace it,” she commanded.
What was she talking about? This couldn’t be a dream! This was everything I wanted and deserved. This was my home and everything was real about it. The coffee was as good/bad as I remember and my family was close/gone. But, why would Luna be here in my home if I was back on earth? That was because I was in Ponyville, wasn’t I? The logic of this place just felt so natural seconds ago, but now they were falling apart at the seams.
A grey haze poured through every doorway, window, and cupboard, filling the space until it was just Luna and I standing in the formless dreamscape. The haze felt as close as walking through a fog, or as far as looking at a starless sky at night, but there was only one feature in it beyond myself: The Princess of the Night.
Of course this had to be a dream. She wouldn’t be here if I was awake.
She looked, troubled for a lack of a better description, but she was keenly aware of everything that was in my head. Or, the lack there of. “Why let thy dream fade away?” she finally asked.
“It wasn’t anything real, your Highness, so there wasn’t any reason to hold onto it,” I answered plainly. How long had she been observing me.
She furrowed her brow. “We disagree, but it is thy dream. We are but a visitor here,” she returned. “However, that is not a debate for tonight. I wish to speak with you plainly about what I’ve seen in other dreams throughout Ponyville.”
This could be bad, but she wasn’t coming in smiting. “What sort of things?”
“Other ponies in this town seem to be dreaming of humans. There’s one mare that is scared to death about ‘pony-eating spider fingers’, and another who is dreaming about adventures with a human stallion named ‘MacClean’. I opted not to peer too deep into that dreamscape,” she said flatly. She wasn’t amused in the least, but at least she was dropping the Royal “We” and “Our”. That at least hinted that this might be off the record.
“Well, the cat’s out of the bag,” I admitted nervously. I looked out into the cloud, only to see nothing there to distract me from the princess. “And, you’re thinking about McClane.”
“Wait? When did a cat enter into this matter?” she asked.
“Human saying. I’m not sure how it came about but it means ‘the secret’s out’,” I explained.
She shook her head. “That… Doesn’t make sense, but that’s not the subject at hoof. I wish to know why there’s ponies that know about thy origin.”
I gritted my teeth. “I kind of told them. Straight up. Sorry,” I faintly admitted to the moon goddess. I don’t care what she thought of herself; she was still effectively a goddess in my eyes.
So far, so good. She wasn’t charging a spell yet, nor was she looking down upon me with wrathful, divine vengeance. Instead, she simply asked in a calm tone, “Why would thou do such a thing?”
Honesty had gotten me this far so I might as well keep it up. “Because I needed to. I couldn’t deny who I was and am and still have a happy life here, Your Highness. It was killing me holding onto the past, and trying to live here. I had to lay it all out for everypony to see, or everything I did was going to be a lie.”
She listened to every word I had to say with infinite patience. She gave off the air that she had heard many creatures bare their souls to her before and I wouldn’t be the last. “So, your matters are truly better now?” she eventually asked.
I wanted to say yes so badly to that, but that wasn’t true. The revelation from Twilight reopened the choice as soon as I had finalized it. “I wish they were, but they aren’t,” I answered with a heavy sigh.
“And, why not?” She asked. Her voice was warm, and one of a pony that wanted to help me and not accuse me of defining a royal decree.
“Because Twilight thinks she actually knows a way to get me home now. She just figured it out after I confessed to everypony that I wasn’t a local breed,” I said. “Just damn it. It isn’t fair. I was ready to drop everything, and live life here. Entirely here and then she comes out of the woodwork with an eleventh hour solution. It’s not fair!”
Her gaze never broke from me. Every word I said was the only thing on her mind at the time, and at the end she reached out to me with a wing to give side a gentle, reassuring brush. “Life is rarely fair. T’is its nature. But, let me clarify; she can open the portal?”
“Yes she can, Your Highness. At least, that’s what she said. I’m not a unicorn. I’m just some yellow earth pony that came from an extradimensional monkey man, so I don’t get magic at all, but she thinks she can jury-rig it,” I huffed as I scuffed a hoof on the surrounding grey cloud. I was getting angry and I had no clue why.
There was a pause in the conversation as Luna turned her eyes from me and started to work through ideas in her head. I wasn’t privy to those thoughts, but it was clear that they were important enough to warrant her full attention. I suppose if I was some world leader and finding that a stable portal was coming with another world, I’d want to think things through. It also hinted to me about how faint her hopes were with their experiments. They tried, but they never actually expected to make contact with Earth. Finally, she spoke up with her decision. “I'll speak with her and Celestia as soon as possible on said issue. And, if it is the case, I will confer with you again about the matter of your return to thy homeworld.”
There it was. “I don’t know if I want to go back,” I forced myself to mutter. If this was a flesh and blood conversation, I doubt I’d be heard by her, but in the dreamscape, it was simply my mind speaking directly to hers, and she knew exactly what I had just said.
“Why not?” she asked. It was another clinical question. Not one born of shock and surprise, but a simple request for information. As the steward of dreams, I suppose she had a lot of practice with this sort of thing.
“I don’t know. I want to go home, but don’t at the same time. Like I said, it’s not fair. Twilight could’ve kept this to herself and let me go on being a pony with a life here, or tried harder and figured it out a night earlier or something but no, she screwed me over again, and left me no better off than I was!” I growled. I was grinding my hooves against the ground by the end and I wanted to kick something just to imagine it was that purple mare. Her magic destroyed my life once, and she just did it again! Her blissful ignorance of how it was doing it made it all the more aggravating!
“Calm, Scriber,” said Luna, with a hoof extended towards me.
I didn’t listen and the grey clouds formed into a roughly purple shape before I started kicking at it. I could blame her and if I could blame her, I didn’t have to worry about my own decisions. It could be all of her fault and I’d leave it at that.
The sounds of hooves striking the rough pony shape again and again filled the void around us. Each time my heavy hooves landed, the shape deformed under the force and soon, it wasn’t anything but a mash of purple putty that I was trampling. It became pointless to continue, but I didn’t feel any better for it.
Princess Luna had watched the entire outburst. There was no judgement on her face. “Dost thou feel better?’
I was huffing. How could I feel this tire in my own head? It didn’t matter. I could keep kicking that form until it was driven entirely back into the clouds. “No. Why didn’t you stop me?”
“This is your mind, Scriber. For all of my power, I have none here,” she said said as if she didn’t see me at my worst. I knew better than to lash out against something that couldn’t defend itself against me, and I still did it again here.
“I guess, I’m sorry Princess,” I said shamefully.
“No need. If a pony cannot act on their frustrations in a dream, where can they? I cannot and will not interfere, but I can offer guidance and to that end, follow me,” she said, and she turned and started walking away into the cloud.
I blinked. There was nowhere to go in the sea of grey, but she was leaving anyways and getting smaller with every step. It might be my dream, but it was still a royal order I had just recieved, so I hustled to follow her. “Where are we going?”
“Wherever the mind leads us. Our minds are as much a setting for us as it is us, made up of a patchwork of our experiences that houses our conscious thought. Now, simply walk and see where your mind dwells now,” she said.
“You lost me there, Your Highness,” I admitted as I started walking partly abreast of of her. I didn’t dare be exactly beside her, but a step behind seemed appropriate.
She giggled. For an immortal with the weight of the cosmos on her back, she did have a carefree laugh. “It’s of no consequence. Just focus on answering my questions,” she stated. “Why wouldn’t you wish to return home?”
Now that was the ten million dollar question. “I don’t know. I know where I’m from. I know where my family, my old friends and that really anemic RRSP I had are from, too. And I miss them a lot. A whole lot,” I started answering. I had no idea where I was going with this train of thought either, but I kept talking. “But, I got friends here too. I started putting down roots here, and figuring out what this will all be about, and I guess I was looking forward to seeing that.”
She kept walking. “When I was in exile, I wanted nothing more but to see my family again the entire time. Even as Nightmare Moon, I craved the rivalry that my sister posed,” she mused at me. “However, I didn’t have much of a life on the moon to speak of. Just the long wait for the stars to align.”
“Yeah. I can’t imagine what that’d been like,” I replied, “But, I’ve come to like it here. But, it’s only been months since I’ve come over here and tonight was to help me move on but then Twilight ruined it all by saying I could get home.”
She shook her head. “She isn’t to blame and you know it. You couldn’t even picture her clearly when you were striking that image. So, why is this such an issue of contention for you? ”
I wanted to protest but she had a way of cutting through the flak that left me knowing she was right. I stopped in my tracks. “I fought for my life here tonight. I hurt a pony tonight to protect what I had here, and what have I done to get back my life back on earth? Squat! Nothing! I’ve been sitting here, hoping you’ve got an answer and while giving it all to have a life as a pony! How can I go back after tonight?”
She turned to face me. “I understand, but as I said earlier, life isn’t fair. If she can get you home, you’ll have to decide if it’s worth the risk to try.”
That snapped my head up. “There’s a risk?”
She nodded. “Of course there is. With any experimental magic there’s risk. Twilight could be mistaken that she actually can get you home, for example. There is a reason why the research is at the Royal Institute, where we can take the precautions needed.”
“Damn.” This portal did a heck of a number on me already. Who knows what going back could do to me?” The implications of that whirled in my head. Going through this portal once took a lot of my memories as a human and turned them on their head. How would it work in reverse? Would I remain a pony on my way through? Or would I revert to being a human? Would I look the same? Would I remember Berry?
If I left, what would Berry think?
If I stayed, what would Dusty think?
She simply waited for me as I thought about all that, but I had no answers at the end. Just a pit of worries and doubts. “What should I do?” I finally asked with plaintive eyes turned up at the princess.
“I cannot answer that for you, but what you cannot do is idle and make no choice for yourself,” she stated definitively. She was right on the money there. “Look about yourself.”
The setting had changed entirely from the grey to be a very familiar scene. It was that path between my truck and where I first appeared into Equestria. It was the same empty field, and the same tree that stopped me, and the same, beautiful sky above me. “When did this happen?”
She shrugged. “It’s your mind. It happened as soon as you did it,” she answered. As insightful as she had been so far, that was some useless zen stuff right there.
I sweeped my hooves between the truck to where the connection between the worlds. “So why here?”
She laid herself down in the long grass that flanked the path before she answered. If she was settling in, the answers had to be here. She had to know what I needed; she was a goddess after all! “This place is important to you.”
Here was important to me. This is where the most significant event of my life happened. This is where my life was destroyed and remade in an instant and even now, I was stuck here. In the distance, I could see Ponyville with it’s warm and welcoming lights, and Berry’s manor just waiting for my return, but not too far away, the portal was calling to me. I couldn’t see through it, but it still promised a return to what I knew before. I had a comfortable life and might have it again if I could only step through that shimmering field. I sat myself down between the two.
“Scriber?”
I looked up. “Yes?”
“I want you to imagine a mirror,” the princess instructed from where she was laying.
How could I say no to such a simple request? I closed my eyes and focused on creating that requested mirror. It was harder than I thought, and it became an actual straining effort, but when I opened my eyes again, there was a wall of glass waiting for a subject to stand in front of it. She didn’t even need to say a word, but with a gesture towards me, I knew I was about to look at my own self image.
The dread was sickening. Maybe, It’d force me to wake up before I could look at that shimmering mirror, but no, I stayed in my dream state as I closed with it. I couldn’t even look at it with my last few steps. I knew I was about to see my own self-image, but what if it was a pony I saw? What happens with life on earth and Dusty? Or what if I was still human? Then, I’d lose Equestria and Berry.
I opened my eyes and it saw something I never expected. My own self image was something trapped between the pony I’d become and human I was. Every feature was in a constant flux, so I couldn’t describe myself beyond mixed. “Is this how you’ve been seeing me since you stepped into my dream, Princess?”
She nodded.
“So, this doesn’t answer anything, does it?”
She shook her head.
The mirror faded away. “So what does it all mean?” I pleaded. I wanted something clear to hold onto. Not more damned riddles!
“All it means is you’ve have a hard choice to make. Nothing more or less,” she said from her place.
I shook my head. “I suppose that’s just life. There’s no easy answers, is there?”
She smiled sadly. “Never.”
I scoffed. It might be disrespectful, but it’s my dream. “Any advice?”
She knew what she had to offer, because there was no delay. “You’re further away from home than any human you know, from how I understand it. Now that you’ve seen a new world, can you truly ever go back home?” she said.
I never considered that before, and there was a truth to that. I’ve now lived in a place where the laws of physics were mutable. How could I ever explain that to others if I went back home? I knew now that magic was definitively real, that there were more worlds out there. Just the existence of this world disproved a majority of earthly physics. Emotions aside, could I make the shift back to a magicless life?
Bah, that was small potatoes. I’ve lived there the vast majority of my life. I’d be able to return to it.
I’d been thinking about it for a while though because the princess spoke again as soon as I lifted my head from my thought. “I think though, if the portal does open again, you would be the logical candidate to send through. If it works, you’ll return home, even if it stole your memories of our nation. If you retained them, then you’d have a working knowledge of both sides of the portal and would be able to open the diplomatic channels.”
I stared at her for the suggestion.
“Of course, We will not force you to do so.” She was slipping back into her regal speak. I suppose she wanted to get a move onto talking with her sister about what this might all mean to their nation.
“Thank you, Your Highness. You’ve given me much food for thought tonight, and I will think on what you said. Both now, and after I wake up,” I said as formally as possible.
She didn’t say another word, but rather faded out of my dream, leaving me on that little dirt path in the middle of a field. Now, all I had to do is figure out what way I was going to go when I wake up.