//------------------------------//
// Home Sweet Home, More or Less 
// Story: George Trestale, God of... Something 
// by DrOcsid 
//------------------------------//

After explaining the events that the seemed to be the ultimate cause for everything that's happened until now, Lyra's immediate response was, unsurprisingly, a decently long burst of laughter.

"Are you kidding me?!" she said, "That's amazing!"

"Amazingly stupid, maybe."

I stood up and stepped back to admire the giant machine that had caused all this ridiculousness. Lyra walked up next to me, eyeing the coffee-stained control panel.

I walked over to get a closer look at it. "I gotta wonder, though, if this still works after that whole thing."

"Well, why don't you try it out, then?"

The control panel consisted of a large screen and a keyboard. Pressing a red button to the right of the screen, the machine began emanating a whirring noise as the screen flickered on. The word "K.E.V.I.N" appeared at the top, white letters on a pure black background. A password prompt was blinking below it.

I turned to Lyra. "Well, this puts a downer on things."

"What happened?"

"I need a password to use it. A password I, myself, probably set."

"...Oh. That is a problem."

I looked around. "Maybe there's something in here I wrote it on. Like, a journal or something."

However, before I could start looking, Tetesac walked back into the room.

"George, it is getting a bit late in the day. Would you like me to show you where your house is?"

"Oh!" I hadn't thought about that. "Sure, one thing though. Do you know what I set the password for this thing as?"

"I'm afraid not," he said, walking up beside me. "I generally tried not to intrude in your privacy."

"Well, that's a bit disappointing. I guess I'll figure that out later."

"Yes, you will have the entire day tomorrow to get everything straight."

Lyra piped up. "And start the tour, right?"

"Yes, and start the tour," Tetesac said, one side of his mouth curled up in a smirk.

On the way to my house, I took the opportunity to ask Tetesac some more questions.

"So, what was I like before I got memory wiped?"

"Largely the same as you are now, as far as I can tell," said Tetesac, looking away. "Sarcastic, lively, but reserved. You do seem calmer, though. Not to mention, less... driven to madness."

"Right. Anything else about me?"

"Well, let's see... You're 26 years old, your birthday is the tenth of October, and your favorite color is green. For some reason, you take pride in the fact that you wear glasses. I can't imagine that as much now," he said, eyeing my cracked lens.

"Oh, speaking of," said Lyra. "Let me help you with those."

The glasses levitated off my face and bent back into normal shape, as the cracks on the lenses disappeared. I stopped walking, cuing the other two to do the same, and I grabbed them out of midair. They looked brand-new.

I put the glasses back on and looked around. "God damn, Lyra! Pony magic really is something, isn't it?"

Tetesac seemed to cringe at this comment. Not paying much mind to it, I started walking again and tried to think of another conversation topic.

"So," I finally said, "Was I well-known or something here? Those guards were pretty keen on letting us in when they saw me."

"Oh, yes," said Tetesac, looking at me over his shoulder. "I held you in rather high status. Over time, I ended up giving you a good few privileges that the average citizen didn't have."

"Really? What made me, of all people, so special?"

"Well, aside from you being quite good at your job, the two of us were also good friends. I may have had a hand in garnering some respect for you from the general population."

"Huh. Well, I'm sure as hell not complaining."

We were out on the streets now, each of them illuminated by a multitude of streetlights. After some more walking, we found ourselves in a small neighborhood. Lyra and I admired the various houses as we walked, noticing that some people were staring out their windows at us.

"Ah, here we are." Tetesac stepped off to the side, and silently waved his arm towards the house we were now standing in front of. "I believe you have your keychain, yes?"

I walked up to the door with the keychain and singled out a key, as if out of pure instinct. I shoved it into the lock and turned, unlocking the door. Slowly, I opened it, revealing... complete darkness.

Looking back at them, I walked into the house, looking for a light switch. After some feeling around, I found a switch and flicked it. The house suddenly illuminated, revealing what actually seemed like a pretty normal living room. There was a large bookshelf made of some sort of dark brown wood, taking up most of its adjacent wall. A couch sat in the corner, with a single potted plant placed next to it. A green rug sat in the middle of the ragged carpet that made up the floor. It all felt very homely.

"Huh," I said, admiring the room. "Nice place I've got here."

Tetesac and Lyra walked in, also looking around. "Yes," said Tetesac, "It's rather cozy, isn't it?"

Not answering him, I went over to the bookshelf and pulled out a random book.

"Not As Evil, by... Humphrey Walt. I wrote a book?"

"Ah... yes." Tetesac walked up to me, looking amused. "That was your first and only attempt at publishing a fiction book. I can't say it went well."

"Why is that?"

"To be very blunt, the book flopped. Very few people liked it. You always claimed they just 'didn't understand the premise'."

"Huh. I've gotta read this myself sometime."

"I suppose that would help in giving you a more objective view of your own writing. See, there's one good thing that came out of this!"

At this point, Lyra walked closer to the bookshelf and levitated a different book in front of herself, looking confused.

"Atrocities of the Equestrians, by Joan Ritter."

"Oh. Her." Tetesac knew of this author, apparently.

"What? Do you know the author?" asked Lyra.

"Yes, an elderly woman. She's a well-known author here, though I personally view her more as a propaganda artist. You wouldn't believe the sort of lies she cooks up."

"Like what?" I asked, my attention now fully on the book. I was awfully curious about this, for some reason.

"Oh, the various stereotypical ideas. Earth ponies eating our babies, unicorns using black magic on our kind, things of that matter. It's really nothing you'd want to read about, unless you felt like making yourself irrationally angry."

I placed my own book back on the shelf. "Looks like ponies really are looked down upon here. Like, even more than I thought."

"Yes, indeed," said Tetesac. "If you weren't who you are, I wouldn't be surprised if you were publicly stoned by the townsfolk for bringing a pony here." He followed this sentence with a very contradictory laugh. "That is a joke, of course. Not many believe the writings of Ms. Ritter. Most are simply afraid of the ponies. I can't say that means bringing Ms. Heartstrings here was a perfectly safe idea, but I doubt anyone would have done anything to the two of you."

"Have you ever considered doing something about the prejudice towards us Equestrians?" asked Lyra.

"Well... Yes, I would very much like to, but I'm currently in no position for it. My main concern is keeping my people's hopes high. I can't afford to complicate that by attempting to change one of their most common beliefs, at least not right now."

"What, is something big planned?" I asked.

Tetesac seemed momentarily shocked by this question. "Wh- Ah, no. Of course not. I just need to wait for the right time. And speaking of time, it's getting late, isn't it? I should be heading home. Royal duties, and all that."

"...Right. Alright, I'll probably go to bed soon, too."

"Wait," said Lyra, "Where am I going to stay, then?"

"My assumption would be that you'd stay with George," said Tetesac, "That is, if you're both alright with that."

"I'm fine with it," I said, shrugging. "You fine, Lyra?"

"Yeah, sure!" Lyra seemed rather enthusiastic about staying here. Oh well.

"It's settled, then," said Tetesac. "I'll come back here in the morning, and we can discuss more about getting your memories back."

I silently waved to Tetesac as he left through the front door and shut it behind him.

I walked over to the couch and plopped myself down onto it. "He's nice, isn't he?"

Lyra walked over to me. "Yeah, stereotypically nice. It's almost creepy."

"Well, you know what they say."

"What do they say?"

"I don't know. I just figured you did."