//------------------------------// // 3.6 - Pony Pillow Talk // Story: Quantum Vault // by WishyWish //------------------------------// April 11, 2027 Baltimare – The Hungry Ursa Sunday Quantum couldn’t remember how long it took to cry herself to sleep. Grey shafts of light dawned on a typical Baltimare morning. Ponies went to work, school, or wherever their hearts or compulsions directed them to go. At The Hungry Ursa, the usual morning poker game was forming. At least one seat stood empty. Quantum Trots lay on her back in bed, her limbs sprawled out all around her. The blankness of the ceiling was a perfect foil to how she felt inside; staring endlessly at it seemed an almost natural thing to do. She never heard the whooshing noise that preceded Hal’s voice. “You…ok?” Quantum didn’t move. “…I’m sorry about before, Hal. I keep telling you off every time you try to help me.” The toasty orange pegasus with the checkered red and green turtleneck floated into view and perched on the edge of Quantum’s bed, his holographic wake neither disturbing the covers nor creating a sinking feeling in the mattress. “Nah, don’t worry about it,” he offered softly. “You know it won’t be the last time for either of us. Besides, I was out of line too. My folks have always been your typical nuclear couple. I guess…maybe I don’t know what you’re going through.” When Quantum didn’t reply, Hal felt a need to keep the conversation going. “What was your dad like?” “I have no idea,” the minty mare frowned skyward. “Mom wouldn’t talk about it, and I never asked. For all I know, Tilt could be my father.” His eyebrows peaking with worry, Hal bopped his device several times with a hoof, looking to put his friend’s mind at ease. “If it helps, Tissy says that’s very unlikely. There are no specific readings for it, but you weren’t born in Baltimare and your mother’s profile isn’t showing any evidence that she even knew Tilt before settling in this city. Quantum rolled over onto her side, squinting at the advances of the sun through her drawn-back curtains. “If Tissy can run my mother’s historical profile, can’t she tell me who my father is?” Hal smiled softly. “Tissy told me she tried that before you even vaulted into Draw Out’s body. She thought…you might appreciate it. Even she couldn’t make any sense of the readings. It’s as if that information was blotted out of existence on purpose, for some reason.” “Tch.” Quantum sighed, “So it’s back to potentially being any stallion I come across that was alive and old enough to spawn the year I was born.” She took a huffing breath and shook her head softly. “Sorry. I get it. There’s no way to know and that has nothing to do with the here-and-now. Thanks for trying.” “What did your mom say?” Hal asked apprehensively. Quantum paused. Rolling back over on the bed, she sat up and shook herself down more thoroughly, chasing away sleep and fluffing out her mane. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got a job to do. Run the numbers for me again, will you?” Hal raised an eyebrow and was about to question his classmate’s intentions, but thought the better of it. Instead, he offered a wry grin and took to his device as if it were a playbook. “Ninety-three point seven says you and Draw Out are history. Forty-four point two percent says it’ll be Cozy Hearth instead. Seventeen point five says neither, and…hmm…” he poked the device, frowning, “…four point eight percent says you’ll both live happily ever after. On the plus side, it looks like Tilt won’t get away with it in any scenario that one of you buys the apple farm.” Quantum folded her forelegs. “And if I leave town, and somehow get Cozy to come with me?” Hal blinked, “Bus accident. Eighty-eight point one.” “Suppose we don’t take the bus?” “Mugging. Eighty-nine point five.” Quantum’s horn began to glow softly, “…suppose I pack heat…?” “Lightning bolt. Ninety-four point seven percent chance. “And if I go find that creamy, mare-inizing punk and hoof him in the face right now?” Quantum growled. “Tissy says Tilt’s thugs are never far away, and none of Draw Out’s friends would be willing to go so far as to risk their lives to defend him. He’d squish you like a parasprite. The only shot you’ll ever get on him is a cheap one, like last night.” Quantum threw up her hooves in exasperation. “That’s ridiculous! How can you have an outcome for every single possible scenario I can even think up, and how can they be so specific!?” Hal smirked, “Tissy’s a quicker draw than you. You should just assume everything you can think up, she’s thought up already.” As quickly as it appeared, the toasty stallion’s smile faded. “Cutie…maybe it’s time to consider just getting out of town on your own.” “You said before that would only raise the likelihood that Cozy Hearth will die.” “That was before you screwed up Draw Out’s relationship with her,” Hal retorted, checking his readouts. “Now signs are pointing to both of you surviving if Draw Out runs away with his tail between his legs…but the most likely scenario in that case is that Tilt will sweep in and take Cozy for his own. And I wouldn’t count on her just quitting her job and trotting away. She’s too proud, too devoted to her foals, and too convinced that she’ll never find work doing anything else.” Quantum slammed one of her hooves down on the other and gritted her teeth. “Not if I have anything to say about it. That jerk.” “Cutie,” Hal sighed softly, “If you leave town, at least Draw Out and Cozy Hearth will live. They might not be very happy, but you never know, right? Maybe Cozy will find a way out of all this on her own.” “I’ll just have to think of something Tissy hasn’t considered yet!” Quantum declared, fixing her toasty classmate with a look. “And since when did you want to just give up?” “…since it could save your life. You’re my friend, Cutie. That means something to me.” The minty mare remained silent for a time. On the other side of the window to Draw Out’s suite, the day was continuing to blossom. At any moment in the next forty-eight hours, Quantum realized she could find herself on the receiving end of Tilt’s switchblade. She spoke without looking at her companion. “Hal, I just need to know one thing. Are there any numbers on my mother since last night?” In the window, Quantum saw her toasty companion shake his head. She felt a deflating sigh well up within her, but forced it down. Maybe her words had no effect. Maybe it really was too late to change the future. Maybe, she thought, But there’s still something I can do in this place, at this time, to make somepony else’s future a little brighter. Quantum stood and made for the door. Hal spoke up. “Where are you off to this time?” “Cozy’s room,” Quantum replied. “I need to fix her life. And Draw Out’s. I have no business screwing up other futures just to pursue my own dream.” Hal’s honest smile turned up into a grin, “I didn’t want to give up anyway.” He pulled out his device; like a pianist cracking knuckles before a performance, the pegasus stretched his fetlocks and prepared to go to work. “But listen – if the percentage of your death goes up even one more point, you need to get out of town.” He bopped a few buttons, and a red light on the top of the device began to pulsate in a constant, slow rhythm. “It’s not foalproof, but if I keep you under constant surveillance I might be able to get an idea when you’re in danger by having the system constantly run your numbers and set off an alert if they skew too much. Promise me you’ll run away if the stakes get too high, okay?” “Fine, fine,” Quantum waved a hoof, “I promise.” “Cutie…” Hal nagged. “Alright! I promise!” Quantum tipped her glasses down slightly and stared at Hal overtop of them; her naked eyes boosting her sincerity. “I promise. I’ll opt for the ‘everypony lives’ scenario if things get out of hand.” “Good,” Hal nodded in approval. Quantum approached the door and went to pull it open, but the minute her magic took hold of the knob and began to turn, a force on the other side turned it the opposite way. Taken aback, the minty mare relented and let the door open by itself. There, standing in the hallway, was the delicate grace of the forest green Cozy Hearth, her imprisoned heart cutie mark wriggling with uncertainty. “Huh?” Quantum observed, “What are you doing here? I was just about to come and see you.” Instead of scowling, Cozy Hearth offered a hesitant smile. “I thought…I don’t know. Maybe you’d still let me in.” Quantum threw back the door and stood aside with a merry ‘I’ve got this’ grin. “Sure! Come on in!” Bewildered, Cozy Hearth wandered into Draw Out’s room, allowing her beau to shut the door behind her. She glanced about, staring right through Hal, and then glanced over her shoulder at the minty mare. “Aren’t you mad?” Quantum’s wheels turned nervously in her head. “Mad? Why should I be mad? Are you mad?” Cozy cantered into the room proper, “Well…yes, I am. You were a jerk and you deserved it, but…” she put a hoof demurely to her lips, “…I did throw a drink in your face. I-I should apologize for that.” Quantum remembered what it had taken to scrub the scent of turnip rum out of her coat for the second time. She sniffed her shoulder idly, wondering if she put on enough stallion musk to get the job done. When she looked back, she found Cozy Hearth standing in the center of the Spartan room with her head down, pawing nervously at the carpet. Hesitantly Quantum clopped over. “Hey,” the fake Draw Out asked, ‘his’ voice dripping with honest concern, “what’s the matter? You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” Quantum patted herself on the flank, “See? Washes right out. Better for your body than drinking it, right?” Cozy Hearth giggled and flexed her wings in a long stretch, as if she were wriggling tension out of them. “Well…I suppose it is better than falling asleep in a puddle of the stuff at the card tables…” Quantum let out an encouraging laugh, “Right? And hey…” she threw a glance at the mirror just long enough to get in character, watching the golden-coated, broad-muzzled stallion look back at her. Then, she went as far as to take up one of Cozy’s hooves in her own. “…I’m sorry. That was an awful thing to say last night. You were totally in the right. Uhh…forgive me?” The forest green pegasus peered up at Quantum without raising her head, while the mint-coated unicorn plastered on her most well-practiced grin. “W-well—” “I promise you’re not going to lose a customer!” Quantum interjected. Hal rolled his eyes in unison with the narrowing of Cozy’s. Cozy smacked Quantum’s hooves away and turned to the mirror. “And that’s what I hate about you!” The green pegasus growled, staring at her own flushed cheeks in the mirror, “You’re a jerk, a card shark, a tight rump, a braggart, insensitive, and you think with the wrong head, but…” she peered over at Draw Out’s bright eyes and worried expression, “…then you do something sweet, or say something that would give any mare’s heart a twitter, and I end up forgiving you. That’s a hell of a thing, you know that?” She thrust one hoof at Draw Out’s reflection with such force that Quantum flinched, “And do you know why? Because in those teensy, tiny little moments when you actually show you give a damn about life, I see what you’re hiding under that luxurious pelt of yours. I see what you don’t want to show anypony else. I don’t know if it’s because you really are a toad, or because you’re just scared to be yourself, but I think there’s more to your heart than what you show the world. And so here I am,” she flexed her wings broadly, “standing in this Celestia-forsaken room again…with you.” Quantum blushed. When Cozy Hearth finally turned her attention from the mirror to the window, Quantum stared at Hal and mouthed the words, What do I do now? “Awwww, no!” Hal barked, thumping his chest. “Bro-pony solidarity says that’s one lesson I’m not gonna teach! You know all about temporal mechanics – figure out stallion mechanics on your own!” The toasty orange pegasus with the frosted mane tips booped open a white sheet of light and stepped through it. “I’ll give you two some privacy. You’re a mare – just treat her the way you’d want to be treated and it’ll all work out fine…I guess!” You guess!? Quantum lipsank desperately. Hal pointed at Quantum, “Hooves in the game,” and then at Cozy, “Head over hooves. Just be nice and don’t say anything stupid. Oh, and have fun!” Cackling merrily, Hal vanished as the pane of light closed over itself and vanished into nothingness. Quantum gritted her teeth under her lips and filled her mind with the satisfying image of beating her classmate over the head with his own pocket protector. “Treat her the way I’d want to be treated…” she whispered. Thinking about it, the only thing she could come up with if she were in Cozy’s place would be to buck Draw Out in the face and storm back to advanced physics class. She looked into the mirror, and Draw Out looked back at her. Hesitantly she touched his mane, wondering what her own looked like right now. It was bothersome not being able to attend to her own appearance, even if nopony else could see what she really looked like. Her sea-green locks were probably just their usual mass of unkempt, frizzy loose ends; borne from endless hours crawling around under some cold machine. Somehow, that bothered her now more than it usually did. Her cheeks turned a cerulean hue again when she noticed Cozy Hearth was staring at her in the mirror. “Treat what…?” The forest green pegasus asked. Quantum cleared her throat. “I-I meant…you deserve to be treated the way I’d want to be treated. You know…if I were in your hooves.” Smiling warmly, Cozy Hearth stepped closer to her stallion and put her hoof on Quantum’s jaw, tracing the length of it. She batted her painted eyelids coyly. “Oh sweetie,” she cooed, “I knew that’s what you were really thinking. How about we just go and bury the pitchfork, hm?” “S-sure,” Quantum nodded, looking everywhere but into the other mare’s vermillion eyes. Cozy Hearth matched every retreating step Quantum took, never allowing the former to put any distance between them. When Quantum felt her rump bump up against the spongy softness of the mattress, she swallowed noticeably, and Cozy giggled. “What’s the matter, lover?” Cozy Hearth cooed, “dragon got your tongue?” Quantum opened her mouth to speak, but only a yelp came out as her pressured knees buckled over the mattress and she found herself sprawled out on her back. Before she had a chance to so much as breathe, Cozy fluttered her wings and landed softly on top of her – each of the foresty pegasus’s hooves pressing down on a minty one. Quantum shivered. “I…uh…” Quantum blundered, “…listen, I…I can’t…you know. What you’re expecting.” “Ohhhh?” Cozy giggled, nipping the tip of Quantum’s muzzle, “And just what do you think I’m expecting, honeypony? How shameful!” “R-right!” Quantum nodded excessively, “Shameful! So let’s just—h-hey…” Quantum tried pulling at her own limbs, but found that the delicate pegasus mare standing on top of her was stronger than she looked. Swallowing, she glanced at the nightstand clock. “It’s nine in the morning! A-aren’t you hungry…?” Grinning broadly, Cozy leaned in and, of all things, licked Quantum’s horn. “Starving, sweetie. Starving. Good thing I’ve got a couple of bananas and a pile of sugarcubes right here.” Flailing one hoof, Quantum somehow managed to smack the latch on the drapes, mercifully sparing Draw Out’s boudoir from the prying light of the morning sun.