This can’t be right.
This can’t be right.
Twilight is a stallion in this world; her brother is her sister, her parents are reversed, and her mentor is known as a father to ponies for crying out loud! That’s another thing: the Prince of Equestria has a little brother instead of a little sister here. He also has a legion of guardmares under his command instead of stallions! Other ponies are like this too; Apple Bloom is Buck, Applejack is a stallion among stallions, Red Gala is all woman despite how she looks...
… and I’m still female as well, despite Spike being a boy…
I… I know what the gimmick is in this dimension. I know with certainty. All the genders are flipped here! Every, single, one…
… So why is Rainbow Dash still a mare?!
I don’t think there’s any question about that either! Dash’s snout is round like a mare’s and hi-, screw it, her eyelashes are long as well. Her tail is as long as a mare’s too, as is her colorful mane. She’s a little shorter than Dusk on top of things, which is perfectly normal for most girls around her age.
Lastly…
… well…
… j-just look at those hips for the love of Solaris! Those are child, er, foalbearing hips right there.
Trust me. I know my hips.
‘W-what’s going on?’ I’m forced to ask myself, still unable to properly process what I’m looking at. ‘Why is she different? Why would everything else be consistent up to this point except for a main character like her?!’
My thoughts keep on spinning as the two downed ponies begin to stir and move around in their mud puddle, trying to separate themselves from one another and get back up.
‘This can’t be right,’ I attempt to convince myself, trying desperately to understand what I’m even seeing here. ‘It just can’t! Up to this point the only real variation I’ve been able to clearly spot in this world, versus the one shown on the cartoon, is… is...’
My train of thought suddenly comes to a complete, screeching halt as the answer finally reaches my mental lips.
‘... me.’
…
‘... Is it… possible?’
“Heheh… Uh, e-excuse me?”
A scratchy voice summons me from out of my innermost thought, forcing me to return to the present. Looking forward, I watch things unfold as a blushing Rainbow Dash… wait, blushing? Did… did that happen on the show? I don’t think so, from what I remember... But Pinkie also didn’t have piercings either in it, so… Ugh! This whole meeting is either going to leave me with a headache or just plain old heartache by the end of it; I just know it.
… Whatever. So, anyway, I watch in a daze as a blushing Rainbow Dash smiles softly at Dusk’s unmoving form. The flying I-can-only-keep-assuming-for-now-mare continues to giggle as she lifts herself further up into the air. Oh great. To add even more fuel to the ‘Rainbow is a mare’ fire, even her voice sounds the same! Dusk’s, Applejack’s, Colt!Pinkie’s… even little Apple Buck’s voice is deeper than hers!
“Lemme help you with that!” she suddenly offers to Dusk, who’s still flat on his face in the mud. He sits up groggily and turns around to face the blue pegasus, but she zooms off right over my head before he gets the chance. She returns a second later, though, with a fluffy storm cumulous in her furry hooves. Unintentionally flashing her colorful lightning bolt Cutie Mark in my face for a moment, she proceeds to hop on top of the cloud and give it a few quick jumps, resulting in a downpour of rainwater falling right on my charge’s poor head. Sitting in wet mud, his entire body now soaked thoroughly, Dusk looks like a picturesque example of an unhappy unicorn.
“Oops!” the mare says with a snort from up in her new cloud perch... Mysterious mare(?) aside, the whole ‘sitting on a cloud’ thing still startles me whenever I see it happen. Heck, it still startles me that I get to see it at all! They keep clouds so darn close to the ground here in Equestria...
After giggling to herself for a little bit longer, the rainbow-themed pony eventually stammers out, “I-I guess I overdid it! Um, uh… how about this?”
I take a step back, and fight hard to stay standing, as the pegasus begins to make tight flying turns around the puddle, creating bursts of wind which quickly leads to the creation of a freaking multicolored tornado! Ah! Again, I find myself wishing that crap like this was just an exaggeration for a cartoon’s sake!
“I call this, the Rain-Blow Dry!” Rainbow hoots over the wind as Dusk rapidly gets assaulted by a storm of colors.
... I, meanwhile, am left feeling like parts of that speech have been left out. I can’t remember the exact words anymore after all these years, granted, but I also can’t shake this nagging feeling that something here is clearly different. Considering how the prior encounters felt the same, except with stallions instead of mares... it says a lot about this whole strange situation.
What on Earth and Equus is going on here with this pony? She’s acting differently from how the other main characters I’ve met so far did. She blushes she stutters, she’s nowhere near as cocky as I remember her being, and she’s not even saying all her lines! It’s like she’s trying and failing to remember a script…
… Which is a lot like what I’ve been doing, actually…
…
… Maybe… just maybe...
"... Damn it all, Barb. Don’t get your hopes up now."
What? But, brain, I-
"Broke down into a crying mess when Solaris turned out to not be one himself," I finish for… er... me...
…
… Sigh… Fine fine. I’ll just… I’ll just let this play out I guess.
"Good girl."
Shut up, brain.
“Hopefully that did the trick,” the speedy pegasus says cheerily as she slows down the flapping of her wings and thus lowers herself to the ground. “You’re welcome!” she adds ‘helpfully’ as she lands fully and opens her eyes to inspect her work.
Putting my suspicions on hold for now, and curious as to what had actually happened while I was busy sorting out my mind, I circle what was left of the mud puddle and stand next to the flyer. She has the best seat to check Dusk out right now... I take a gander at his condition myself right as Dash starts to cover her mouth with a hoof; trying to suppress her sudden laughter.
She ultimately fails in the end…
… and so do I.
I find myself falling backward into a heap alongside the stunt pony as the hilarious image of the now spiked-do Dusk Shine burns itself directly into my mind. Just… snort, s-so funny! Oh my goodness, he looks like one of those Japanese cartoon characters! He reminds me of that old blond one with the orange suit, from that show Nathaniel used to watch with Jason!
The fact that Dusk is not happy about this in the slightest is only serving to make this even funnier.
Not as enthusiastic about the whole affair as us, looking to all the world like a stallion ready to kill somepony quietly and professionally, his voice takes on a blunt edge as he states steadily and clearly “Let me guess. You’re Rainbow Dash.”
I’ll give Dusk this much credit, at least he didn’t growl as he said that. He really is growing up!
I’m so proud of him.
Realizing that she’s being talked to, Rainbow lifts herself off the ground in a, well, dash. She gets up so fast, in fact, that I, having been unintentionally using her barrel as a pillow during our laughing fit, get sent flying up into the air as a result.
A whip of Dash’s tail and a burst from her left wing corrects my path at the last possible second though, resulting in me landing firmly, if roughly, across her back. Blinking, it takes me a good couple of seconds to figure out where I even am right now so that I can begin to dismount myself back to the ground.
She kindly lowers herself downwards so that I can accomplish just this.
I’m caught by surprise by the act, but I accept it after a moment and offer her a small nod of my head in thanks. Turning her own head, whipping her long and only slightly air-damaged mane over her withers, the blue pony smiles at me as well before lifting herself back up and returning her attention to Dusk.
“That’s me! You heard of me before?”
“I heard you were supposed to be keeping the sky clear,” Dusk retorts grumpily, returning to his default state. With a sigh, my purple friend surprises me by taking the mature route of starting over. Aw, he’s learning! True, he still seems a bit ticked off over it all, but at least it’s something. “I’m Dusk Shine, and the Prince sent me to check on the weather.”
With a flap of her feathery wings, Rainbow swiftly returns to the now pure white cloud and makes herself visibly comfortable within its, I can only assume, fluffy embrace.
“It’ll be done in a snap,” she assures Dusk, looking down at him from her makeshift bed. “Really! I’m just practicing my moves a bit with them first.”
More exasperated than angry at this point, my charge only tilts his head to the side and asks plainly “Practicing for what?”
At the question, Rainbow Dash grew as giddy as a little schoolgirl.
“The Wonderbolts!” she nearly squeals, happily pointing a hoof off into the distance towards a Wonderbolts advertisement poster. Dusk and I turn our heads towards it as she goes on. “They’re gonna perform at the Celebration tomorrow, and I’m gonna show ‘em my stuff!”
I know the Wonderbolts. They were mentioned in the show a few times, from what I can recall, and it was always Rainbow’s dream to join them. Since coming here I’ve learned a little bit more about their organization... despite never paying them any real mind, and never even attending a derby or flyby.
I’ve learned how they’re not just stunt ponies, but also a completely separate branch of the Equestrian military nowadays. Whenever there’s a big problem on the horizon about to strike against Equestria, the Wonderbolts head out first and try to deal with it themselves. That having failed, they can easily escape with their lives and provide important information concerning the enemy to the rest of the remaining branch. From there the situation gets told to Prince Solaris and it swiftly gets dealt with appropriately. In admitting that she wants to join them, Rainbow Dash is basically saying that she either wants everypony to see her skills or that she honestly wants to prevent disasters from befalling Equestria before they even happen...
… What can I say? My lessons with the Bluebelles were really in depth.
“The Wonderbolts?” Dusk asks doubtfully, the mocking tone clear in his voice.
“Yep!” chimes Rainbow Dash happily, none the wiser.
“The most talented flyers in all of Equestria?”
“That’s them!”
“Pfft!” articulates the studious Dusk with all the grace and dignity he can muster. Oh dear. “Please. They’d never accept a pegasus who can’t even keep the sky clear for one measly day.”
Harsh, but not unfounded. Not just anypony can be a Wonderbolt. They only accept the best of the best from what I’ve gathered. They only accept ponies who can fly as fast as they can gracefully and who are as brave as they are determined.
In translation; they only accept ponies like the Rainbow Dash from the show.
“Hey!” the (still debatable) pony in question shoots back in a huff. Her cheeks puff out too and she blushes as well, a motion I know for a fact this time didn’t happen on the show. I know it didn’t because little Ash replayed this part specifically about two thousand times back in her youth, all for one particular line.
That line being…
“I could clear this sky in ten seconds flat!”
… I still don’t know why my daughter liked that silly line so much.
Moving on; since nopony is watching me right now, I decide to use this time to take a step back. I did so so I can get a better look at the cloudy skies above. I want to make sure I can see all of it right now, and that not even a single cumulous is out of my field of vision. My reason for this? Well… Solaris can actually move the sun, Pinkie Colt can actually hover in the air without wings, and Applejack can actually knock all the apples out of a tree with a single buck…
By that logic, I want to watch it fully as this Rainbow Dash of questionable origin makes Dusk eat his next two words.
“Prove it.”
There they are.
Let the show be-
Whoose!
-gin.
...
… Jesus tapdancing Christ that was awesome.
“... Loop the loop around, and wham! Heh, What’d I say? Ten. Seconds. Flat. I’d never leave Ponyville hanging!”
Dusk is more statue than pony at this point; with his jaw firmly locked in place and his eyes bugging out to the point that them falling out was a legitimate concern. Frankly, I can’t blame him; mine are pretty much in the same state right now. Numbly, I rotate around and watch as the pony (whose father probably made unholy love to a jet engine) performs a victory aerial lap around us overhead.
She laughs her prismatic head clear off just looking at as. “You should see the look on your face!” she chortles directly to the still petrified unicorn beside me. “Ha! You’re a laugh, Dusk Shine! I can’t wait to hang out some more.”
Choosing not to elaborate further, she performs a single corkscrew in midair and begins to speed away…
… only to stop and land near the bridge right in front of us. Something had apparently caught her eyes. Trotting up to the edge of the structure, Rainbow Dash lowers her head around a corner and then audibly grips her prize with her teeth. Yanking her head back with a snap, the object surprisingly turns out to be…
... a pretty yellow sunflower.
Rainbow must have been thinking the same thing as me because the next thing she did with the tiny little thing was chew off the end of its stem, swallow it, and then… sits down so she can happily braid it through her mane as she hums.
…
… She flies off once again before I even have the chance to ask. Now left with a brain full of more questions than answers, and more confusion than stability, all I can think to do is…
“... Wow… She’s amazing!”
… realistically play the part of a starstruck little girl; because I honestly am one right now.
Hey! Don’t judge me! I’m entitled to have some childlike wonder in this life, okay?!
Just… wow! Ignoring the whole issue with her being a her instead of a he for a second, as well as everything else; I never knew that it was possible for any living thing short of a cheetah to move that fast! Ten seconds! She really cleared the whole sky in only ten seconds! From my spot down here, even as short as I am now, I was still able to see how the clouds in the far-off distance suddenly disappeared one after another. That rainbow coattail could probably be seen for miles out! The cartoon wasn’t exaggerating! It wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest! Oh, how I wish my children were here to see this with me! Ashley would have loved to watch it for sure, seeing as how this was basically her childhood, and even little Nathaniel would have gotten a kick out of the impossibility of it all at least!
And Jason…
… Oh who am I kidding?
Jason would have probably been too busy trying to get everpony to wear clothes to even notice.
Ha!
I finally decide to turn to Dusk, who is still speechless here. I’m ready for him to either mentally come to terms with the amazing mare any second now... or for him to provide for me a scientific explanation of how she’s either possible or impossible. Hehe. Turning around… I almost poke my eyes out on the unicorn’s now spiky mane.
Snort. Haha, oh goodness. I forgot all about Dusk’s sudden ‘makeover’! Now why did it come out like this, I wonder… oh! I know! Dusk’s hair gel! It must have re-hardened itself thanks to the heat provided by Dash’s tornado, thus turning the mane into this odd shape. Giggling even further under my breath, I, rather sillily, give the borderline ‘weapon’ I few experimental pokes with a claw… Yup! It’s pretty darn solid! Haha!
Dusk finally moves thanks to this, leaving his stupefied form to stare at me blankly. After a time, which I use to continue to snicker over how ridiculous he now looks, Dusk catches me completely off guard by saying one single word.
“He.”
I stare back in silence, my laughter ceasing completely.
Gesturing his head to where Rainbow had left from, Dusk, of course with a grumble first, simultaneously admits to himself and corrects for me that, “‘He’ is amazing.”
“... Wha?” is all I can really say in the end. I turn myself away and watch as the last of Rainbow’s colorful trail vanishes on the horizon. I’m quick to point out to Dusk that, “B-but you were the one who said, that she was, and then she... her hips… Just... What?!”
“I know,” Dusk concedes with a grunt. “I know… But then I got a better look at him during that tornado... A much better look. Bleh.”
“...”
… I’m sorry, but your call to a one Barbara The Dragoness has been interrupted by the trainwreck that is her mind.
Please hang up and try again another time.
“You’re going to have to trust me on this one… Eh. Whatever. Come on, Barb. On to the next stop.”
Clipclopclipclopclipclopcli-
“... Aren’t you coming?”
“... Y-yeah, Dusk,” I finally say after a second, though I’m still trying to sort out my new feelings on this subject.
I soon realize that said feelings actually have a name.
They like to be called ‘disappointment’.
Prince Solaris’ prophetic words from this morning suddenly echo in my mind.
“... five certain stallions in ponyville…”
Sigh… I had the answer all along. Solaris gave it to me plain and simply through his Seer powers, but this Rainbow Dash was just so different and strange that I… I-I dared to hope.
I dared to hope when I should have known that there was none to be found here.
Him being a he explains away quite a bit of that rainbow pony’s weird quirks, especially the ones that made me think that he was a reincarnated person like me. He’s probably had a rather different life than Rainbow the Mare, or at least different enough to result in a pony with a slightly altered personality. Maybe his mother played a bigger role in his life here where it was Rainbow's father in the other world, or maybe he had a different foalhood as a colt in this world than she did as a filly over there. Either way, something strange and similarly one-sided must have happened to him earlier in his life. Everypony else I’ve met so far seems to be exact replicas of their mare or stallion-halves, so only a really extreme event like those first few examples comes to mind as to why this Dash is now the way he is.
How he’s different is a bit easier to spot now, now that I know that he’s a he. It’s certainly not because he’s not Dash or anything, as I originally thought. He’s just a little less arrogant and hotheaded here, and a little more blushy and giggle-y. From a tomboy to a feminine colt, I guess you could say; that’s all it really was in the end...
… Sigh… I really should’ve known better than to think that someone like him was special like me. I really should’ve known, and I really shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up the way I did. I shouldn’t have, just like I shouldn’t get my hopes up thinking that perhaps other things are different in this world as well… Like that the other two friends are mares in this dimension instead of stallions...
...
… Or that… Rarity… isn’t a stallion here too…
… Stars above, grant me strength for what comes next.
Well… we’re here. City Hall's entrance. It didn’t take us long to reach this building, not even two minutes of walking from the bridge. Just a hop skip and a jump, one could say.
It felt longer for me though, seeing as how my mind is anywhere but here at the moment.
…
… Look...
… I’m not stupid.
I’m anything but stupid.
Call me a child, call me young; call me inexperienced or foolish or even emotional. You wouldn’t be wrong in saying any such things about me right now. This is who I’ve become, truthfully...
But don’t call me stupid.
I’m not by any definition of the word.
… I remember the show... Rarity is behind these doors.
Rarity... who is now a stallion.
The same Rarity who made pretty dresses and had a generous heart.
The same Rarity who I claimed was just like my beloved husband who I miss so much...
… The same Rarity who is likely going to be the same gender as him right now.
…
… Spike had a crush on her.
I am now the Spike of this world.
Therefore, logically... I should have a crush on this pony too.
…
… Like, freaking, HELL.
I’ve been steeling myself for this day for years now; for the day that I meet a pony who is like the man I once fell head over heels for. I haven’t even opened these doors yet to confirm my suspicions, but I still know for a fact that they’re true. Rarity was pretty much Jason to a tee, after all; with only species, gender, age, and spatial dimensions separating the two from being the same person.
Now the gender and spatial dimensions parts have been removed, leaving only the age and species.
Said species is one I’m unfortunately now more accustomed to seeing regularly. I’ve gotten so used to them, in fact, that I can easily read romance novels about them and no longer feel alienated like I once did...
… This doesn’t mean I’m ready to start a relationship of my own with one though. I’m not attracted to ponies that way. I’m not attracted to dragons either, come to think of it...
…
… I’m… I-I’m actually not attracted to anyone anymore, now that I'm really analyzing this.
Male, female, stallion, mare, human, pony; I, as much as I loath admitting it, am simply too young to feel anything substantial yet. I’ve been reduced to a blank slate… Why I was even attracted to humans in the first place slips my mind from time to time.
There are days where I’ll try to picture a random male in my head. I’ll imagine all the little things about them that would always interest or excite me about them back on Earth, gather the feelings together into one big old handsome man, and ultimately feel… nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
What’s worse, I’ve been steadily seeing the signs of this affecting my mind. Meatier romance novels have been replaced with books with simpler premises, complicated relationship tales replaced with cheesy fluff, and tomes of commendable length… Well I simply don’t have the patience for them anymore for one thing.
I also don’t understand them for another.
It’s like I’ve forgotten what romance even is anymore; or, putting it into even grimmer terms, it’s like my understanding of it has devolved to a point befitting a real child of the age of seven.
I… I-I once even found myself thinking about my own relationship with my husband, who I loved like the sun itself, as, in the exact words I used in that horrible split second…
… ‘icky’.
Brrr
Through my memories I remember why I loved and still love Jason, and it's through the admittedly cheesy romance novels I remember what it means to truly give yourself to another. Why I went through the pain of bearing children, why I dedicated my life to raising them and staying by that man’s side; through these silly books, I find it easier to remember my feelings.
Through these feelings, I continue being myself and no one else; certainly not Spike, and certainly not a child.
Though my understanding of love has regressed I will not fall prey to this body’s cry that ‘boys have cooties’, just as I will not allow the pony behind these doors to steal my heart away from Jason. If I have to live the rest of my centuries-spanning draconic life as a widow, blatantly rejecting the notion of ‘till death do us part’, then so, freaking, be it.
The show does not dictate my life.
“Barb? What’s the hold-up?”
“... Nothing, Dusk,” I tell the unicorn before me honestly, stepping up beside him in front of the twin doors. I pull out my checklist as he opens them with his magic, and soon we journey further inside. We’re ready to take care of the next task and nothing else... Both of us, myself absolutely included. Do your worst, world.
Bring, it, on.
“Next up,” I speak with confidence, bringing the list before me. “Decorations! Ah... Oh…”
...
“... Oh…”
“Yes,” Dusk agrees to my statement. “The decor is coming along nicely. This oughta be quick. I’ll be at the library in no time! Awe-inspiring indeed.”
“...”
“... Barb?”
Though Dusk glances at me… I do not return the favor.
My eyes are no longer behind the protection of a thin piece of parchment but instead focused elsewhere.
Specifically, they’re focused now on the tall white unicorn stallion in the center of the room.
His horn is aglow in soft blue light as he speedily levitates banner after banner, and decorations aplenty, to their proper places. His mane is a seemingly messy pile of curled purple locks and his tail, longer than a normal stallion’s, is similarly spiraled. Three blue diamonds make up his Cutie Mark, which can be found on decently muscled hind legs. He works out more than Dusk; that much is certain. His jaw possesses the telltale sign of a stallion, being lightly square in shape, and lastly he’s fairly tall. Not as tall as Applejack, but close. He’s at least taller than Dusk, and certainly much taller than me.
He’s also… a-also…
“...”
“Barb?” Dusk asks me again, growing concerned.
I look up at him this time, then back to the white stallion…
...
… With youthful speed fueling me, I awkwardly shuffle myself behind Dusk’s foreleg and try to look as tiny and inconspicuous as possible. I soon bury my head in the fur as well, shrinking as far down to the floor as I can manage.
“Don’t let him see me… D-don’t let that pony see me...”
“Barb?” Dusk asks me for the third time, now clearly worried. “What’s the matter? Talk to me.”
“P-please don’t see me, Jason… Please don’t see what I’ve become…”
“Who? Barb, you’re talking nonsense,” he prods, running a hoof through my spines in a calming manner. “Come on, Barbara... Come on my little assistant. Let’s get this over and done with so you can take a nice long rest at hom-”
“Hmm?” a new voice suddenly pipes up, halting Dusk’s petting and leaving me frozen in place. N-no. Oh God no. It… i-it sounds just like... “Are you two back there by chance the inspectors that were supposed to stop by today?”
Shakily, I lift my head.
The white unicorn is addressing us while his back is still turned our way.
“Just a moment, please!” he begs in a voice that’s both deep but elegant; clearly refined and cultured. He continues with his work a moment later, never sparing us so much as a glance as he talks with himself. “I’m ‘in the zone’, as it were. Hmmm; shine always does the trick, does it not? Why, Elusive, you are a talent!”
Finally, he turns to us.
“Now, um, how can I help yo-”
His eyes are… a-are the bluest of blues. Even as they grow wide in shock, this fact remains true.
“Wha wha wha?!” the… unicorn gasps animatedly as his gaze falls to Dusk Shine and his uniquely damaged mane. “Oh my stars, my good sir! Whatever happened to your coiffure?! That can not be what it was intended to be!”
Dusk blinks at first before drawing his attention away from me.
“Oh, you mean my mane?” he asks J-… Elusive, glancing up at his own purple hair as he does. “Well, it’s a long story,” Dusk admits with a roll of his eyes. “I’m just here to check on the decorations and then I’ll be out of your way.”
“Out of my way?” Elusive replies with another gasp, hoof on his chest. “I’m afraid that will no longer be possible, my good fellow! The travesty that is your mane will simply haunt me for the rest of my days if I allow it to exist for even one second longer!” The white stallion then puts a foreleg across the back of Dusk’s neck and drags him across the floor. “Come along now,” he orders unwaveringly, clearly not going to take a ‘no’ for an answer.
“Wait!” Dusk shouts as I step up from out of his legs and stand to the side. “Where are we going?! Help!”
At the pace Elusive is moving at, the two of them are quickly out of sight... thus leaving me all alone in this fully decorated room...
“...”
… I eventually built up the courage to silently follow after them.
Dingalingaling
“Ah! Welcome to the Carousel Boutique, but I’m afraid that I’m a bit tie-… Oh! Why hello there, little one. You’re… Hmm… I think he said his name was Dusk… You’re Dusk’s assistant, aren’t you? Sorry for stealing him away from you so suddenly, dear, but I simply had to fix his mane. You understand, yes?”
“...”
I say nothing as I raise my head and stare numbly at Elusive. A moment later I passively scan my eyes around the rest of the heavily tinted pink room, looking for my charge.
“If you are looking for him,” Elusive quickly explains for me, as he uses his magic to clear his show floor. “Then I’m afraid you're in for a little bit of a wait. I forced him into my shower not two minutes ago. He desperately needs it, don’t you agree?”
“...”
Again I remain mute.
… I’m alone with Elusive.
Alone with…
...
"... They have the same eyes."
… Shut up.
"They have the same voice…"
Damn it to hell and back, brain; shut up and stay shut.
"B-but they have the same expressions!"
SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP
"THE COLOGNE"
NO
"THE AIR AROUND HIM"
NO
"THE PASSION FOR HIS WORK IN HIS EYES, THE WARMTH OF HIS SMILE"
GODDAMN IT DON’-
"JASON!"
Damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it all to hell!!!
Huff… Huff...
D-damn it… damn it… It’s…
Sniff
… I-it’s not, freaking, fair.
It’s not fair in the slightest.
Elusive is too much like him. Too. Much. Everything about him, down to the littlest detail, is Jason in essence. He’s younger, yes, but so was my husband when we first met.
We met when he was this age himself.
All my memories of him are flooding back into me as I shakily gaze at this busy unicorn. Everything I love and miss about my beloved is slowly floating its way to the surface of my mind, leaving me nothing more than a ruined crying mess.
Sniff
W-watch. Watch it now as these tears begin to fall and as I turn away in shame. Even as a teen this would occur; whenever another was crying near Jason he’d be able to sniff it out like a shark sniffs blood in the water. Friend or stranger, it never really mattered to him.
It’s how the two of us first met.
… He was rather obtuse otherwise, and not as capable at translating others’ emotions such as anger or frustration... but crying? C-crying was Jason’s kryptonite and Batsignal, all wrapped into one.
Watch it as it proves to be Elusive’s now as well. D-don’t play dumb with me, you sick world; I now know your gam-
“Dear, whatever is the matter?”
Knew it.
F-freaking knew it.
They’re the same, I now know. My heart’s pitter-patters are telling me as much.
"I’m... falling in love with his stallion."
NO!
No d-don’t do this to me! Please! Don’t take Jason’s memory away from me as well! Y-you can’t replace him with a damn horse! I WON’T LET YOU!! I still love Jason with all my heart, and he’s alive out there damn it! As long as I hold on, as long as I keep fighting to regain what I’ve lost, someday we might… I-I might… m-might…
...
"... I’m never going to see him again," I cruelly tell myself cold and emotionlessly, unable to drum up even the slightest sliver of light to soften the blow. "I accepted this fact long ago. My daughter, my son… my love… I accepted my death and all that it represented."
...
… I’m not replacing him.
I won’t.
… I-I don’t want to…
… Don’t make me, please...
Glump
… I suddenly find myself in the middle of a warm, fuzzy hug.
“There there,” the teenage tailor speaks softly, as he runs a hoof through my spines. “Whatever it is that’s troubling you, I’m sure that it will be over soon.”
...
"…"
… Please… p-please let me summon the power to at least hate this pony. Please give me the option...
"..."
… No? Not even a little frustration, or just the strength to growl? My heart isn’t pure; I know quite well that it contains the fire to hate another. Please let me use it now to protect my memories… Please… I can’t have used it all up ‘hating’ Solaris. There has to be a dark light from my early days of cursing this life… G-give me a fraction, or an inch. Give me something to work with, anything…
"..."
...
… Fine… Be that way.
I’ll just do the next worst thing then...
… I’ll smash this illusion in a million stupid pieces.
It’ll be a simple task; I’ll just ask an equally stupid question. It’ll be stupid in the fact that I already know what the answer is going to be. My mind knows it, as does my soul, but my heart, selfish as it is, refuses to listen.
This will end up being like with Solaris all over again. This will be just like when I was forced to decide between being adopted and leading my own life or throwing it away to take care of Dusk. My heart decided the outcome of the decision that day, bypassing even my head to get what it wanted. I’ll allow it to do the same thing here; to take the reins of this situation away from me, and to do what is illogical with them.
"... This will be like with Solaris again for one other reason," I tell my fragile self, my thoughts having caught on with my soul’s desperate plan. "One, agonizing, reason…"
From within this one-sided embrace, I look up at Elusive.
I open my mouth for him...
"L-lyh oui ihtancdyht draca funtc, so pamujat?"
...and pour my whole heart out uttering a single line of foreign words.
"… This will be like what happened with both Solaris and Dash; when I foolishly held onto the belief that there was another out there like me… and was ultimately disappointed beyond description."
English... I-I had just broken through all my carefully placed mental barriers to speak English aloud for the first time in seven years. It unsurprisingly came out strained and possessing an Equestrian accent; this body of mine is unused to speaking in such a way, after all. I never trained my new tongue to speak it... And why should I have? It’s gibberish to ponies. There’s no other language on this planet like it from what I’ve researched. It’s structured the same way as Equestrian, the native language, but it isn’t pronounced anywhere near as beautifully.
But I had still spoken it all the same.
I had spoken it bluntly in the hopes that Elusive could understand it.
In the hopes that Elusive was a human as well...
… In the hopes that Elusive was Jason, having died and been reborn like me.
“C-can you understand these words, my beloved?” is what I had just said to him, hoping beyond hope for him to understand. I knew it wasn’t to be; I knew it in my head and my soul.
Only now did I believe it in my slowly breaking heart as well.
Tears stream across my face as no answer comes, and as the stallion lets go of me completely. There… I-I did it. I broke the ‘spell’.
Now… look at me, pony. Look at me like a child or, better yet, as a freak. Look at me through new eyes... Look at me through eyes Jason would never use on me!
Prove to me that you aren’t him so that I can be through with you forever!
Let me have my memories, Elusive. Let my husband live within them forever. I… I-I don’t need you in my life! I don’t need you to become an object for me to project my feelings onto. My heart belongs to me, and I will continue to hoard it like the greedy little dragon that I am.
I… I-I don’t need you… I-I… I have my m-memories… I’ll have them forever...
Clop
…
… There’s a hoof now planted firmly under my chin.
Forcefully lifting my head upwards, so that my eyes could see into his own, I find Elusive staring at me intently. He’s looking at me, just as I wanted… but it isn’t with a face that holds a questioning expression as I was expecting.
Instead it holds... a small and kind smile.
I blink back tears as I end up being the one to look on questioningly, unsure what’s happening.
The young stallion, in seeing this, lets loose one loud yet refined “Ha!” in amusement. Settling down from this, having apparently had his fun... Elusive finally tells me, as plainly and kindly as he can, “Don’t go throwing the words ‘my beloved’ around so readily, little lady, haha.”
The very ground beneath me vanishes as my world suddenly stops spinning.
“W-w,” I stutter feebly, taking a single nervous step away from him. “W-what… did you just say?”
In seeing my shocked reaction, Elusive simply smirks.
Smirks...
“... Oui'na meypma du kad ouin raynd pnugah dryd fyo.”
… and then burns my entire reality to the ground.
Only chaos remains in his English-speaking wake.