Wake up!
I jerk upright, flailing my arms as I somehow tip myself out of bed and meet the wooden floor face to face. I groan and push myself off the ground, contemplating just how much bodily harm I’ve managed to inflict on myself in just one day.
“Goddammit, Twi… Would five minutes have hurt?”
The response I get is cold at best.
You were asleep for nearly three hours. That was hardly the first time I tried that, it was simply the only time it worked.
I sigh. “Alright, fair enough. Just… give me a minute, okay? I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
And yet you didn’t have your English homework done.
“Hey, there was a Jurassic Park marathon on, my hands were tied.” I grab my pillow and prop it against the wall behind my back, then wiggle my phone out of my jeans pocket and check the screen. No panicked texts from Mum, excellent.
What’s- Never mind, right now I want answers about how you are aware of my identity.
I roll my eyes. “I already told you, television show. You do know what those are, right? I mean, t.v. existed in the Equestria Girls’ world, so…”
Yes, I did learn about television in that world, but- Hold on, ‘Equestria Girls’?!
“Yea, though I imagine you probably just thought of that as ‘Canterlot High’ world or something.” I grab my laptop off of its resting spot on my bedside table and boot it up, opening YouTube and quickly typing into the search box. “Regardless, television exists here, and well, that’s how I know your name. It’s not some miracle, a good portion of the world is at least vaguely aware of who you are.” With a grin, I click on the video that pops up and enjoy Twilight’s silence as she and her friends appear on screen. It’s a scene from Rarity Takes Manehatten, I think.
As the clip plays, a panic that is definitely not my own starts to assault my senses like an oncoming storm. I frown and can’t help but flick myself in the forehead. “Stop that, it’s really annoying.”
Oh, excuse me if my panicking is annoying you! What did you expect? How would you react if you saw yourself on that screen?! I’ve just found out my entire life is privy to a million other eyes, so I think I’m allowed to freak out a little!
I flinch as Twilight’s panic reaches a new level in my own mind, followed by a wave of nausea. It feels way too much like sensory overload to me, and I instantly clap my hands over my ears as Twilight’s voice goes shrill in a futile attempt to block it out.
What, are me and my friends just some sick form of entertainment for your people?! How are you even able to see us? It shouldn’t be possible!
“Twilight…” My voice is faint as I slam my eyes shut to stop the sudden headache dancing around my head. “Please stop. Calm Down.”
Calm down?!
I whimper and barely register the quietly murmured oh from Twilight, but feel the grip of the mental hurricane slowly recede as she seems to take a few deep breaths. After a moment, I straighten up and let out a sigh. The flurry of emotions that aren’t my own are still there, but they no longer seem to be grappling with my senses for control.
I’m so sorry. I just… panicked. I didn’t mean to do that to you. Are you alright?
“Just… give me a minute.” I mutter, running a hand through my hair, flinching away from the differently textured strands of the pink and purple patch. “Jesus Christ, is that what I’ve been doing to you all morning?”
I can hear her chuckle in response.
Sort of, though I don’t really have any of my own senses to get overwhelmed, I suppose.
I wince. “Sorry.”
It’s fine. It’s not like I’m not used to dealing with panic attacks.
I grin slightly. “Ah yes, the Lesson Zero incident. I remember that.”
I… Lesson Zero?
“Erm, that time you forgot a letter to Celestia and ended up enchanting Smarty Pants.” My small smile falters as I feel a slight resurgence of nervousness from Twilight. “Sorry… I guess having your dirty laundry known by a complete stranger would be a bit scary, huh?”
Yes. It, um, it is a little. I’m trying to go about this as calmly as possibly, but… Well, perhaps it’d better if you just told me.
I sigh and close the laptop, climbing back up on to my bed and staring at the ceiling. “Ok, well, you're part of a show called My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, in which you and the other Elements of Harmony are the stars. Of course, Spike and the CMC are also predominant characters, but regardless… There are four seasons that more or less chronologically follow you from your defeat of Nightmare Moon up until your battle with Tirek. Oh, and there are two movies featuring your two visits to Canterlot High. So yes, people who watch the show know more than a bit about you. However, if it makes you feel better, I’m ninety percent confident what we see isn’t the whole continuity of your life, and we’ve never seen you in the bathroom or drunk or anything.”
I hear Twilight sigh.
A little bit, yes, but that still doesn’t explain this. It shouldn’t be possible! Different dimensions of reality shouldn’t be accessible to one another!
I snort. “Of course. Most people would freak out about their lives being on display for an hour, but Twilight Sparkle gives it five minutes before moving onto the impossibility of the situation.” I chuckle at her echoing snort. “At least you’re practical. “ I sit up slightly and give the situation some thought. “No one here knows anything about alternate dimensions of reality, princess. My Little Pony is an animation created by the illustrious Lauren Faust. A bunch of people write it and animate it. Hell, you have a voice actress, God knows how that works if this is real and I’m not just crazy.”
But that doesn’t make any sense! I… I must speak to this Lauren Faust at once!
I roll my eyes. “Not possible. Even if we could get within five feet of her, the minute I opened my mouth we’d land ourselves a cozy spot in some psychiatric ward for an undetermined amount of time. I’m not particularly keen on wasting the rest of my high school career doped up on meds in a maze of never-ending whitewashed walls. So… No. Not going to happen.”
But this might be the only opportunity to understand how this works! We have the opportunity to be the pioneers of inter-dimensional research! Besides, I… Um, I want to know exactly what in my life people are watching.
With a sigh, I sit up and gesture to the Rarity poster on the wall. “I can tell you that. I may not be some uber-fangirl of the show, but I have seen more or less every episode in my usual attempts to kill time. As for ‘inter-dimensional research’, your just going to have to accept this is what it is, even if it doesn’t make sense. Who knows? Maybe that’s how all dimensions are connected, and we’re all actually just forms of entertainment for one another.” I blink. “That’s a pretty scary thought, actually.”
How do you think I feel? Though I suppose that is an acceptable explanation for now. There are more pressing issues to deal with, anyways.
“Exactly! For example,” I point at my head. “No offense, but how do I get you to leave? The less time I spend talking to myself, the better.”
She huffs.
I already told you, I can’t leave, and I do literally mean can’t until we find the creature the girls and I came here after, we’ll need a connection to her brand of magic to trigger a re-opening of the dimensional void.
I sigh. “Perhaps my time would be better spent researching mental illnesses, after all. Ok, assuming I decide to go along with all this, what exactly are we going after, anyways?”
For once, I don’t get a response. “Twi?”
To be honest, I don’t really know. She’s an old… problem that Celestia thought she had dealt with centuries ago, but she suddenly popped back up into existence and since then everything has just been a race to track her down. Her true identity is a mystery, even to Celestia, but she is incredibly dangerous. She’s… a jumper, of sorts. There are a spare few in existence with the natural ability to transverse dimensions, and she is one of them. We don’t know where she originally came from, but she holds no qualms about ripping apart worlds just for her amusement. She came to Equestria to access the link to your dimension. The girls and I followed her through in an attempt to stop her, and I…
“And you woke up in my head, gotcha.” I frown. “Gotta admit, sounds like you didn’t really think that one through, princess. Do you even know what it is she wants with my world, or how to find her?”
…No.
I sigh. “Bloody brilliant. Does our great villain have a name, then? Or do we just refer to her as ‘she’?”
Twilight huffs in response.
Hey, if I’d known I’d be jumping dimensions I would have prepared a bit more information, we didn’t even mean to follow her through. We just… weren’t fast enough to catch her. As for a name, Celestia refers to her as ‘Traveler’.
I shrug. “Traveler, works for me. So I suppose…”
I’m cut off as I hear the front door open, and Mum’s voice call from the living room.
“Andie? You home?”
I start and jump up, erratically smoothing down my hair before grabbing my hat out of my bag and pulling it over my head. “Shit, my mum’s home. Stay quiet for a minute, alright?”
I hear Mum call again, a little more insistently as I dart across my room and pull open the door just before she reaches it. She’s standing outside, hand poised to reach for the doorknob, and I offer a guilty grin when she quirks a confused eyebrow at me.
“So you are home. I though perhaps you’d been called out to an emergency Mock Trial meeting, or something.”
I wave my hand at the suggestion and dart past her, headed for the kitchen. “Nah, they won’t start panicking till competition time in March, so unless someone’s made a huge breakthrough on approaching the case, or Cole’s really screwed something up… again, they’d have no reason to hold an unplanned meeting.” I open the pantry door and rummage through, looking for something sweet.
Mum wrinkles her nose and hands me the package of Oreos off the top shelf. “Only two.” She grabs the jar of peanuts and pours her own snack into her spare hand. “You know you should be a little less hard on that boy. I doubt everything that goes wrong in that group has to do with him alone.”
I roll my eyes at that. “You haven’t met him. He may be well-meaning somewhere deep inside…” I shrug. “Really deep inside, but he’s still got the attitude of a white male supremacist with the socio-political views of someone who belongs in the deep south in the mid-twentieth century. My personal feelings on his views aside, half our team is Asian, he’s basically asking for trouble. I think I actually dislike him significantly less then everyone else, I’m just the only one comfortable telling him to shut it.” I trail off and steal a third cookie when Mum isn’t looking. “Hell, I don’t even really dislike him. I just think he’s ignorant and doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.”
Mum purses her lips and flaps her hands at me. “Alright, alright. I get the idea. Just don’t be too hard on him. I swear you’re the one child I’ve ever met that has to be told not to stand up for herself.” She blinks. “Not that you shouldn’t defend yourself, just don’t…”
“Exact revenge to the extent of stealing someone else’s phone, downloading their embarrassing pictures, and putting them up on the school website.” I shut the pantry door, a little harder than necessary. “Geez Mum, that was three years ago!”
Mum places her hand on my arm. “You got expelled, dear.”
I huff and cross my arms, it’s childish, but I can’t help it. “She deserved it.”
“I know. Just… be careful, alright?”
I nod and grab my keys from the bench, shimmying my way over to where my track shoes are lying on the floor. “Don’t worry. Cole’s a prat, but he’s only just that… a prat, not a real problem or anything. No one at school really bothers me anymore.”
“Because you keep them all at arms length.” I look up and Mum throws me my headphones. “Believe it or not, I’m not ignorant to the way you conduct your school life. Could you pick up some milk and coffee while you’re out?”
I scowl and she only glares back in response. “You were going for a run anyways. It’s not out of your way.”
I wave my hand and pull one shoe on, then the other. “Fine, fine. See you later.” With that, I slip out the door, and quietly jog down the hall and the three flights of stairs in our apartment building that lead to the ground floor.
I’m barely out the building when Twilight’s voice is shrieking in my ears again.
What in Equestria was that about the embarrassing photographs?!
I scowl and select a music playlist on my phone, cranking up the volume till it’s blasting through my headphones. Maybe that’ll drown her out. “Oh, shut up.”
The music does a more or less effective job of being louder than my new resident pony voice, but I can still faintly hear Twilight demanding that I turn that down over the guitars and drums. More than that, I can still feel her presence there in my mind, like an odd-shaped puzzle piece wedged into place. It bothers me in a way that the voice doesn’t. I don’t think crazies normally feel like they’re sharing brain-space with another sentient creature. I end up taking the long way around to the supermarket at almost a sprint in an attempt to not think about it.
I’m not an athlete. Other people run to lose weight or stay in shape for their sports or whatever. I use it as an outlet. Sometimes, everything gets too loud, and every task simultaneously too difficult and far too easy. I end up bouncing off the walls for hours or not wanting to leave the house for days. When I was younger, I never knew what to do with all that extra… energy. It ended up causing some problems. For a time back when I was little, Mum was convinced I had ADD, or bipolar disorder, or, well, something… Dad always said I just needed to figure out my own way of doing things.
I started the running as a way of clearing my mind. When I’m short of breath and feel like I’m about to fall over, it’s hard to concentrate on anything else, which means my brain more or less shuts up for a pleasant little while. It’s not a lot, but the hour or two a day when I don’t have to listen to myself try to think about four or five things a day helps with the other… stuff.
Which is why still being able to detect Twilight there is so disconcerting. Chances are, if it weren’t for the music, I’d be able to hear her clear as day as well.
As I near the street of shops, I slow and rip my headphones off, thankful that Twilight has ceased her incessant braying again. “Goddammit, why isn’t this working? This almost always keeps things quiet!”
Twilight’s voice comes out hesitant.
What do you mean?
I growl and wave a hand in a general gesture. “This! Running helps me more or less shut off my thought processes above the bare minimum for a couple hours. Half the time it’s the only thing that gets me through the day sane, but I can still feel you! Hell, if it weren’t for the wonders of really loud rock I’m pretty sure I’d still be able to hear you just fine.
All right, first of all, that makes zero scientific sense. You can’t ‘shut off’ your brain. Second, even if you do this to keep yourself from thinking much, that wouldn’t work on me. I’m not an active brain process. My presence is a part of your conscience, which is why you can feel it as part of you. Further proof I’m not a figment of your imagination.
“Okay, ignoring the conscience shit, don’t give me a lecture on scientific sense! If we are the same, even in essence if not in person, then you’ve got to know what I’m talking about.”
…Explain.
I sigh, and run a hand through my hair, grimacing slightly. “According to you, we hold the same ‘essence’, but aren’t literally the same person. So not doubles, but still sharing some basic traits that make up part of our being. The way my mind functions is a part of me, it’s not a genetic mutation or some disorder, it’s just part of the way I work. Assumedly, something like that would likely carry over in your ‘essence’ bullshit. Besides, I’ve seen a couple of your freak-outs, they aren’t too dissimilar from mine.”
I can almost hear Twilight thinking.
I do have what might be defined as… bad spells. They were much worse when I was younger. Intense application to my magic studies helped when I was a kid, but with my friends, I don’t need that sort of thing much anymore. They’re there to help me work through the times when I can’t hold it together.
I snort rather indelicately. “Well, I can’t do magic, doesn’t exist here. Which, by the way, is evidence for you being a part of my fucked-up headspace. And I don’t have your magic of friendship bullshit, either.”
Twilight’s voice is quiet.
You… don’t have friends?
I shove my hands in my pockets and cast a half-hearted glare at the patches of pine trees that seem to be all over the place in my town. It’s actually a pretty dreary place with all the tall, overhanging plant life and moss from the never-ending rain. “No, I don’t. So if you thought your grand quest was going to be as simple as grabbing my five best buddies and whatever equates for a dragon in this world, then shooting motherfucking rainbows everywhere, think again. My world doesn’t even have any harmony to return to, we’re pretty good at screwing things up on our own without inter-dimensional help!”
Twilight is silent for a long time.
…No…no friends at all?
I soften slightly. “Well, I have Reyna, but she’s at college a good couple hundred miles away, so… No, not really. I don’t see why you have any right to lecture me though, if it weren’t for Celestia kicking your ass off to Ponyville, you wouldn’t either, so—“
I’m cut off as I walk straight into another person, who, upon inspection is my English teacher, Mrs. Backleson. Fabulous.
“Andie.” She raises an eyebrow… an obnoxiously bright red drawn on in an upside-down v eyebrow. Which, coincidentally, only stands to make her overly curled bleach-blond hair and ridiculous clown-like makeup only worse. “Were you talking to yourself?”
I stare at her and contemplate my response. Awh, fuck it.
“Actually, I was Mrs. B.” I say, offering her my biggest shit-eating grin. “I find it quite enjoyable actually. They say interaction is important for a healthy lifestyle. So, I thought to myself: I could do this with other people, but then I’d have to listen to their opinions, which would suck. I’m much better off agreeing with myself.” I try not to laugh at the look on my teacher’s face, and am happy to note I’ve even shocked her highness into silence. “Now, if you excuse me, I need coffee. Toodles!” With that, I dart around her and double-time it to the supermarket.
That was completely insane!
I slip past the sliding door of the supermarket and allow myself a small smirk. “I get that a lot, actually.”
It’s not exactly a good thing, you know.
I wave away her comment and maneuver my way through the store. There are only two grocers in this entire town, so this place is always packed. Afterschool is the worst, with all the little kids that can’t be trusted at home while their parents shop. I take the easiest path, cutting through the hard liquor aisle where most people wouldn’t dare be caught dead or alive at four-thirty in the afternoon, not with the way gossip spreads in a place like this. It’s amazing, we live less than half an hour away from one of the most politically and culturally active cities in the United States, yet all anyone gives a shit about down here is what their neighbor is up to.
There are so many people here… Do you live in a large city?
I snort and cast a wary eye at the one straggler wandering the aisle. Confident that he’s too out of it to notice me, I mutter a quiet reply. “What, this one-horse town? If you want people, I’ll take you out to the real city. This place is tiny compared to a lot of the other areas around here. Unless we’re talking deep countryside, in which case we’re a fucking mini-state. “
What’s—
“I’ll explain later, okay?” I hiss, before sidling out of the aisle and rejoining the mob. Dodging around the screaming kids and my peers that come here in search of junk food, I grab a bottle of milk, enough for Mum and me, then search out the aisle that contains Mum’s life-source: Coffee.
Naturally, the minute I get there an unfortunately familiar voice shrieks rather close to my ear.
“Andie!”
“Jane!” I force a smile at my… friend? Well, technically, when looked at from a distance, a very large, obscure distance, what would be observed as my friend. Yes. “Hi. Fancy seeing you here.”
She grins. “Well, it is a grocery store. Did you just come here from a run?” Without waiting for an answer, she casts an eye to the coffee packets and continues. “That’s nice. Anywho, I really need a favor. See, my mother is busy on Friday, and I need a ride to the game, so I was wondering if you could… y’know.”
“Jane…” I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. “I thought I made it clear I wasn’t doing this anymore.”
She frowns while still managing to show off a set of perfect white teeth. “Doing what?”
I wave a hand. “This. I just can’t. I’ve told you before I’m not interested in social company at the exchange of favors. This year, there are going to be no more rides anywhere from me, or from my Mum. I’m not loaning you money, I’m not taking you to the mall on credit, and I’m not buying you food. Additionally, someone else is going to help you with your homework and correct your essays.”
Her eyes glitter and I know I’m in for it if I let her get in a word edgewise, so I raise a hand and continue. “Save it, Jane. You can tell me I’m a crap friend, swear at me and tell me I’m a bitch, or you can go back to your old favorite and just call me a dyke. I really don’t mind. For all I care, you can shove off. I’ve had a crap day and I’m not in the mood for an argument.”
She pouts. “I didn’t even say anything, Grace. You can be so mean sometimes for no reason, no wonder no one wants to hang out with you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Mean? No, not usually. Brief and to the point? Yes. And y’know, it might do you good to remember that we’re “friends” because almost no one wants to be around you either.” I rub my eyes and grab a random packet of coffee before turning my back to her. “Look, just leave it alone, ok? If you’re pissed, go spread a rumor about me, or something. Doesn’t bother me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It’s not until I’ve paid and am slowly trudging my way home that I remember the horse currently residing in my brain. “…Twilight, you there?”
…I must admit. While she didn’t say anything offensive, I really don’t think I care much for that Jane girl.
I can’t help it, I laugh. “Finer words were never spoken, princess.”