What Separates

by Zurock

Chapter 12: Review

Wanting to make sure they were alone and that no pony would have a chance to interrupt them, Rainbow Dash lead Twilight away from the cottage. She refused any of the unicorn's invitations to begin questioning until they had made some sufficient distance. Finally stopping alongside the stream several dozen yards from the cottage, Rainbow Dash turned to face her friend while lazily hovering in place. Though her wings beat laxly as she steadily bobbed in the air, her face registered the alert seriousness with which she was taking the matter.

"Alright," Rainbow Dash began, "so what's the deal with this guy you've been dragging around?" And to try and clarify that she was looking for the actual answer, not the details that Twilight had originally told her, she added with emphasis, "And I mean the real deal."

Twilight pulled her head back with hesitation, leaving one eye turned towards her friend. This wasn't one of the topics she predicted might come up. And besides, didn't she already explain this once before? "It's like I said," she slowly responded. But within her voice lingered a small amount of hidden doubt. "The Princess has sent him here to-"

"No!" Rainbow Dash slapped her forehead with her hooves and then held them out in exasperation. "The REAL deal," she stressed. "I mean like, who is he? Where he's from? You know, what's up with him?!" Twilight's dodgy behavior only pumped the airborne pony full of more agitation and she rolled her eyes up while moaning, "And don't give me more of this, 'Oh well the Princess dada-dada-dada.' I know you've actually talked to that guy about all this stuff, who he is an everything." Eyes narrowing, she moved in close and demanded, "So, what's the deal?" Every sentence carried the weight of an accusation as the pegasus floated in and pointed a hoof right in Twilight's face. Her wings stiffened and the frequency of their beats sped up, bearing a load of the stress she was feeling. All of her frustration was being channeled towards the indicted pony.

Flustered and taken aback by the offensive forthrightness of her friend's questioning, Twilight's mouth moved but she remained mute. Her deep violet eyes peered back at Rainbow Dash and tried to compensate for her silence while she dug for the right words, but the reserved panic they reflected didn't wind up helping her. "That's... it's just... well..." the words sputtered out without direction. There wasn't a start she could bring herself to take off from as every trail of thought seemed to expand into an abyss that she wasn't sure she could navigate. She had absolutely every intention of filling in her friends about everything... in time. Yes. Absolutely, in time. That is, when the time was right. Which would probably be later. Hopefully. "It's complicated, Rainbow Dash," she tried to express. "You're right, I have talked to him a lot. We had a whole, long conversation about it. We went into quite a bit of detail." There was an emerging calm in her voice as she got back on track. In some ways being confronted was an idle release of steam from an overpressured system, and that much at least helped to soothe her.

Rainbow Dash, however, wasn't experiencing the same thing. She could not believe how aggravating this was turning out to be! All Twilight was doing was rehashing what James had told her when she was interrogating him at the cottage! "It's complicated, it's complicated," they said. "But we've totally talked about it, just not to you," they said. Every bit of her sour mood was worn on her face, easily transmitting across the air to Twilight.

"There... hasn't been time to explain," the unicorn hastily tried to justify.

"What? No time? Like when you were hauling him around yesterday? There's been time," Rainbow Dash argued. "Like, right now, for instance." Her patience was wearing thin with these excuses. What was the trouble with just giving a straight answer?

Twilight hung her head down, having no more deflections at the ready. "I just need you guys to trust me on this," she strained to say, almost begging.

Taking a moment to pull back her aggression, Rainbow Dash eased up on her wings and carefully descended to the ground to stand in front of her friend. She didn't want to upset the pony, but she just didn't know how to draw out the honest answers without stirring up all these evasions and diversions. Twice before when talking to Twilight she had essentially asked about this stranger and both times the unicorn wasn't forthcoming. What more was there to do now? Somehow the answer had to be pried out.

Gently, and with all the understanding she could put into it, Rainbow Dash asked her friend, "How do you expect us to trust you about it when you don't trust us enough to tell us what's really going on?"

Hurt by the statement, Twilight snapped her back head up with an inaudible gasp. "I... I do trust you guys!" she said weakly. But she couldn't hold the position and it drooped back down again. "I just don't know... I don't know how to start explaining it," she admitted.

Rainbow Dash moved a little to the side as she approached in the hope of being less intimidating. "Twilight," she lightly intoned to her friend, "I DO trust you, too." She wanted that to be unabashedly clear. That's not what was in question. What was getting her angry wasn't any thoughts about misplaced feelings of trust, just that she was so completely fed up with the lack of answers. "But," she emphasized, "that's why I want to know the truth about this guy. I'm asking you because I trust you."

"Rainbow..." Twilight whispered.

The pegasus grew sternly serious again but her concern for her friend didn't leave her. "So, can you tell me about him?" she sincerely inquired. "Like, back at the field, when we first saw him... what was up with that whole thing he did... with the knife?" Earlier she had posed the same question to him through implication. There wasn't any doubt he directly understood what she was asking, but in the end the answer he gave really wasn't suitably comfortable for her. Twilight was always so good at making things sound simple and logical. But if her friend has been having a hard time figuring out how to explain everything, maybe this won't get as far as she had hoped? Maybe she won't do any better here?

Twilight sighed. "It's complicated," she answered, again repeating the word that both she and James had independently settled on to describe things. She shook her head, contemplating for what seemed to be the thousandth time what exactly she could say to explain it, or at least what she understood of it. Looking back up at Rainbow Dash, she closed her eyes and decided to give into the trust she believed in. She was just going to try going for it.

"I guess the thing to understand," she told her friend, "is that, where he's from what happened isn't a very unusual thing. That sort of thing just happens. I mean... that's what I took away from talking to him."

"Not unusual?" Rainbow Dash faintly questioned. That actually lined up with what he had said as well. Or rather, the casual way in which he said it. He plainly told her, with an understood acceptance, that the other man was going to kill him. So he acted first. For him, that was the end of the story. But now, like before with his answer, the pegasus just couldn't wrap her brain completely around it. "We've been up in some pretty tough spots before," she reminded Twilight, "but even though we've had to stand tough and even fight, I've never felt like we would have to..." She swallowed once, but then suddenly didn't bother finishing the statement.

"I know," Twilight answered. "But that's simply the thing to try and understand. It's just a different place where he's from, and that's the way it is. I don't... I don't really know why it's different right now." Again she was shaking her head thinking about that enigma. She had spent a chunk of her free time puzzling over it in the past two days. Pulling out history books, psychology books, anything she thought could be useful in understanding the "why" of how ponies operate like they do and what might be different for any other race. But a few extra minutes and some books naturally haven't wound up solving one of the many great mysteries of the universes.

Struck by a sudden rush of optimism as she rolled through her memories, she perked up. "But I think there's more to it than all that. What I mean is... I don't really think he's as different from us as he might seem," she insisted. How different does one have to be in order for integration to be impossible? She didn't want to accept that the friendship she believed in would ever be able to cast an individual out. In the past it has stretched pretty far in order to be inclusive. If he ultimate end goal of Princess Celestia's orders was to accept him into Equestria, then it has to start with the belief that he's not incompatible with them. "No, I don't think he's too different," Twilight said again. "He's just from a place that seems so incredibly different."

"Where IS he from, anyway?" Rainbow Dash was suddenly driven to ask.

"It's complicated," Twilight repeated, before sighing, again, and rubbing one of her temples. She didn't even mean to use that particular word another time, but now apparently it was the most straightforward, natural descriptor of this whole mess. Committed to trying to explain things to Rainbow Dash and already in hip deep, she didn't bother stopping to revise her words. "Do you remember that tower you saved him from?" she asked.

Rainbow Dash responded with a dry stare. It was only the most memorable, life-threatening thing that had happened in the past few days, after all.

"Right, well," Twilight continued, "it was basically a dimensional doorway."

The words didn't seem to convey much meaning to Rainbow Dash and she remained silent. The only acknowledgments she gave were a cocked eyebrow and an attempt at cleaning out of one of her ears. Not unexpected for what was surely not the most everyday subject to bring up.

Nothing to do but try again, Twilight reasoned. "The tower acted as a portal to a whole different universe," she explained. "It brought him here through that portal, but he's from that other universe."

The was some glimmer of understanding registering on Rainbow Dash's face, but it could be seen that a complete grasp of the idea hadn't been made. All the further implications had yet to sink in as well.

To try and finish bringing the idea across completely, Twilight pulled a trick out of a her mane. "How about this... did you read 'Daring Do and the Domain of the Gemstone Horn'? It's one of the newer ones. The one with the aliens."

"Ugh, yeah," Rainbow Dash said with regret, derailing her previous train of thought. "I mean, it was alright and everything, but I don't really like the directi-"

"Alright, well, it's like in that book," Twilight cut her off before she got lost complaining about the series' outlier. "In the story, the titular artifact served as the key for those alien ponies to go back to the world they came from, 'the space between spaces.'" the unicorn quoted from memory. "The tower was like the Gemstone Horn except instead of sending aliens back to their world, it brought James from his to ours."

It was probably one of the weaker references to written material she had ever had to make, but it was the only one she knew of that Rainbow Dash could possibly have even read. The analogy paid off though, as the confusion mostly cleared off of the blue pegasus' face. It wasn't entirely devoid of disbelief, but the idea had still been firmly planted. "Okay... I think I get it," was her tentative acknowledgment.

"So, you see," Twilight brought things back around, "he's from some kind of existence beyond our own. A place that is impossibly far away. And some of the things that happen there aren't... exactly the same as what happens here. And that's why it happened like it did."

Silently, Rainbow Dash walked over to the stream. She watched the babbling water flow along as she quietly ordered her thoughts on what she had learned and the nature of the entire situation. There was only a low murmur from her throat as she juggled the considerations around in her head.

Twilight suddenly felt the need to elaborate more on the circumstances. To defend the nobler goal of unity that she was pursuing and to dissuade Rainbow Dash from potentially being alarmed. "It was all an accident how he came here, though! He's not here to cause any problems. I know he doesn't want to." She knew? She hoped. "In any case, that's why the Princess has him here with us to learn about Equestria. So he can discover the things that are different here for him, and why he won't have to... do the stuff that he might be used to doing..." This wasn't sounding nearly as reassuring out loud as it did in her head, especially with the fading strength of her voice as she trailed off.

The murmur from Rainbow Dash swelled up. The dumb clothes. The disclosed and unreserved honesty. Watching over the animals at the cottage all day, including being safely one-upped by a ferret. Even the goofy voice he used to talk to that kid squirrel. Rainbow Dash turned her head back towards Twilight. "No, I guess he doesn't SEEM too bad. So he should get a chance to prove himself." She gazed back down at the running water. "I'm still going to keep my eyes on him, though," she determined.

A mix of relief and hesitation poured into Twilight. She guessed this was an improvement on the situation? It felt good to let all these details be heard by somepony else, at least. But what did- "Wait..." Twilight realized, "is that what happened? You abandoned Applejack to spy on him?"

---

James shut the cottage door behind him as he went back outside. The three squirrels were enjoying their tearful reunion so perhaps it was best to leave them to it without any disturbance from onlookers. He caught a glimpse of Rarity and Spike again on his way out, still in front of the mirror while indulging the beauteous pony's vanity. Applejack was also inside when he left, having stretched herself out on a long, cushy sofa to relieve her aching muscles.

The only pony outside who was immediately visible was Fluttershy, dutifully busy settling in the many animals she and Twilight had brought back. Because of the hard work all of the other ponies had done in finding homes for the rest of the displaced animals, there was now enough room in the new pens and cages for the recent arrivals. The doting yellow pony was flapping between the enclosures, shifting what food was available and restocking water to suit the change in population composition.

No sign, mane nor tail, of Twilight, Rainbow Dash, or Pinkie Pie, James noted. It was too late in the day for them to do anymore wandering of the forest, surely. Perhaps they were somewhere else around the cottage exterior? Other than those guesses he didn't have any ideas... but maybe it didn't matter. There wasn't much to talk about with any of them at the moment, or so he felt. Fluttershy, however...

She was quietly exchanging some whispers with her new, small friends. The trades were just a delivery of whatever instructions were necessary to help them enjoy their temporary stay at her cottage while she received any of their outstanding needs. James waited on the side to give the busy girl the time to finish up. After only a few minutes she slowed down as the chaos of the many settlers' arrival gave way to a calmer order. That was when he decided to approach her.

"The squirrel family has been reunited and they're taking the time to celebrate," he told her.

"Oh, I'm so glad," was her elated answer, delivered in her unique, soft tone. She bore the gentlest smile and her eyes faintly sparkled with an incredible delight. This was not the harried, tired pony he had first encountered yesterday. What the hours of worry and toil had taken from her earlier was now restored because of the results of this day's endeavors. The positive turn of events had paved over every crack of despair and smoothed down every mound of anxiety. "Poor little Rocky was just so crushed by what had happened that it broke my heart seeing him so very sad... but everything worked out in the end and it's just so wonderful!" she said gaily.

James nodded, but he was having an awkward moment of reservation. There was a newness that he felt; that things weren't the same in this particular meeting. Something here was just... different than most of his previous encounters with any pony. The presence of something much more natural had broken through, yet he wasn't able to identify it immediately. With all the other ponies, he had to endure their first encounter tensions and scrutinizations. It was similar to meeting someone new, albeit there were certainly circumstantial complications here. You meet, you greet, behind your mask you size them up and make hidden notes and judgments. You learn their name and face, but not their person. His dealings with virtually all the ponies had that underscore playing in the background. True that Twilight had gotten reasonably comfortable with him but it was obvious that both he and her were clearly still feeling out the exact dynamic of their relationship. Every interaction between them was affected by her commitment to Princess Celestia's orders. Every pony he was meeting was presenting only the part of themselves that they thought was most appropriate to show to an extraordinary new stranger.

Pinkie Pie was the one real exception, actually. She never carried around any suspicion, or gave subdued leers, or presented any other face but her own. What was different between this experience with Fluttershy here and with Pinkie Pie was that the pink, wild pony had an undirected randomness that seemed to render her unknowable. Or, at least, for now anyway. In all probability she wouldn't be the first outgoing person he had ever met who had deeper layers to them once you really got to know them. But she was certainly the most... excitable, that's for sure.

But now, here, alone with the joyful pegasus outside her home, it became increasingly obvious that were no layers to peel back or masks in place. The turn around of emotion for Fluttershy gave her cause to let her blissful personality shine through unfiltered. Here he was meeting a pony as she "naturally" was. The circumstantial inhibitions weren't coming into play. All there was... was who she was. The moment it all struck him was when he observed in a sudden realization how exactly the happier parts of her personality matched the description that Twilight had first given of her. This wasn't just Fluttershy the pony, this was the true friend which Twilight knew.

As much as it put him at ease, it also stirred some conflict in him. Again, it put the ponies' character on a very deep, complex human level, and not on the level of the candy land paradise that had been pressed into him by other sources. Unlike the argument between Applejack and Rainbow Dash, at least this matched the conception in personality. But it was so hard to just say that they were merely ordinary people when they apparently didn't fall prey to the ordinary vices of people. And why? "Magic"? That had been easy to accept when he was dazed and confused, but now...

Something that more immediately caused him concern, however, was that she was in very high spirits and so he didn't feel right bringing up the sour topic of his specific involvement with the dimensional tower. After what she had been through it would be pretty horrible of him to accidentally strike at her merriment, even with the best of his intentions. He didn't see any reasonable way to bring the conversation around to where he wanted it to go without that problem arising, but he was still driven to try and talk about the subject somehow.

"I'm glad things turned out as well as they did," he said to her. The many critters that she had been settling and tending to seemed to be suitably adjusting and were comfortable enough now that Fluttershy could give her full attention to James. He continued, "It was a pretty terrible situation all around."

"Oh, it was awful," Fluttershy agreed. But she still radiated positive energy. "Everything is going to be alright now, though. I'm sure my new friends here will be able to join the others soon. I really feel so much better now!" Her wings spread and she soared over to one of the other cages in a animated fashion, smiling at the birds inside. "I was so upset with what had happened, but everypony stepped in to help and set things right again. Thank you so much!"

It was gratitude meant to be given to everyone who assisted, even James and Spike who had stayed behind, but he didn't say anything to accept it. It felt too unearned. "That's great," he responded with some masked insincerity. "It was a responsibility you never should have had to bear, though."

"Responsibility?" She floated the question out into the open air. With her teeth she opened the cage door and ducked her head in. A bird inside bounced over and they touched beak to nose, Fluttershy smiling as she rubbed away. The tone of her answer switched to carry some rejection to his assumption. "I helped the animals because I wanted to," she told him. "Actually, the animals of the Everfree Forest aren't my responsibility at all. They usually prefer to get by on their own, without help from ponies." Here she withdrew and shut the cage door, floating back down to James. She kept on, "But not all the animals of the forest are mean or aggressive... some are really very nice. And when the tragedy happened they weren't afraid to ask for help, so they sought me out."

"Sought you out?" he asked. That's right, though. Twilight had specifically mentioned her special talent was in communing with animals, but it was the animals of Ponyville she took care of. Not the animals of the forest.

Fluttershy nodded. "Oh, yes. And I couldn't turn the poor dears away! I wanted to help them so much." Her smile widened. "In a way, this tragedy has actually been very good... I don't get to meet that many animals of the forest. But because of what happened, I had the chance to make many new little friends these past few days! Many I never would have met otherwise. Even though what happened was so sad... something very good still came out of it." This silver lining, combined with the fresh hope of the day's successes, seemed to have completely eliminated every last trace of sadness and anxiety in her. She was incorruptible. This was one happy pony.

"That's... a very positive outlook," he said to her in surprise. Even with all the anguish she had been going through, somehow she had managed turned it all into something positive in the end. The event that destroyed the homes of the animals she cared so greatly about instead became the event that made her new friends. "I don't think... that it particularly justifies..." he started to say, but he faltered. There might not be any way to do this without attacking her happiness, and he really didn't want to wind up doing that. "What I mean is... that's... wonderful and all, but this whole situation should have never happened," he settled on.

"But it did happen," she answered. "So... I just want to be glad for the good that came out of it, instead of being upset over all the terrible parts of what happened."

After a moment of silence he softly surrenders. "Okay..." he said, "that's very good." It was dumb to try and talk about this. She didn't need to hear the how's and the why's. She didn't care to hear them. In the end this whole endeavor, the entire attempt to "help", was all for his own stupid self.

---

"I was just watching out for Spike, you know? Didn't want anything to happen to him while they were alone, so I kept a lookout," Rainbow Dash said as if it should have been obvious. Between helping Applejack move some birds around or doing nothing but sitting around and watching Spike and the stranger from the shadows, of course she made the choice any sane pony would make.

"I guess I understand why you felt like you needed to," Twilight said, "but Applejack really could have-"

Rainbow Dash kept on as if she hadn't been interrupted, ignoring her friend's pleas. "And besides, who cares? Everything turned out fine anyway. Applejack came back, no problems. And nothing at all happened at the cottage." As far as results went, the brash pony thought she was completely vindicated.

"R-really?" Twilight asked, abruptly catching the mention of uneventfulness at the cottage. That was a relief to hear in confirmation. Not that... she thought anything was going to have happened anyway! Of course nothing would have! Don't be silly.

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash casually laid out. "They just watched the animals and sat around talking mostly. So... nothing. Nothing except when that ferret showed them up." She looked back in her mind, playing the scene over again in her head. Hopping about like clowns at a circus, they couldn't even catch one measly, weaselly animal. "Heh," she chuckled to herself.

Twilight looked at her with a dumbfounded stare. "What?"

"Ah, it's nothing," Rainbow Dash dismissed, still suppressing laughter. "They're just slowpokes is all."

It didn't sound like there was a point to that frivolous nonsense. So anyway, nothing happened at the cottage according to Rainbow Dash. That's good to hear. Twilight forced herself back on track. "Well, I still think you should apologize to Applejack," she earnestly told her friend. "It wasn't fair to leave her behind like that to do all the work. Especially without telling her."

"Okay, fine," Rainbow Dash relented. "You don't have to twist my leg about it. I'll say I'm sorry the next time I see her."

"Why don't you go say it now, while she's still her?" Twilight strongly suggested.

"Alright already!" the impatient pony said, buzzing with annoyance. She stretched her wings to limber them up and then lifted herself off the ground. Taking off with steady flaps towards the cottage she muttered, "You don't have to be so pushy about it."

Alone for the first time today, Twilight just took a moment to breath. Even still, she couldn't keep from recapping things furiously in her head. At the very least, nothing seemed to go tremendously wrong. Their work with the animals has been a phenomenal success, she now had one pony's confirmation that there were no troubles in her absence from James, and the worst that came up today was some strife between Applejack and Rainbow Dash (which didn't seem nearly as surprising in retrospect as it was initially.) These past few days have been a stream disorienting events, but maybe all her worrying has only been herself letting her fears get the better of her again. Things seemed to be working out fine overall and there was nothing serious to worry about. Nothing at all.

"I better check with Spike and ask him about what happened," she suddenly thought to herself. Her hooves made shushed clops on the grass as she shuffled back towards the cottage.

Comments

[LayDownHunter]

Hmm, James learned quite a lot about the Ponies in this chapter. He also looked a couple of lessons from Fluttershy about optimism. Brilliant stuff, let's hope they start to trust him more soon.

[Skalula7]

Pinkie Pie was the one real exception, actually.

pinkie pie being a Mongolian confirmed.

[DDDDDDDDD23]

It seems like magic has given all ponies a fear of conflict.

[KvAT]

9011110
I feel like it's more that the concept of harmony is ingrained into them, whether by nature or nurture. Conflicts happen, of course, but it's almost like they subconsciously vilify it.