Synch

by sunnypack

18 - No Plan Survives First Contact with the Human - Part 2

After taking no more than three steps outside the chamber I hear a shout behind me.

“WAIT!” I heard accompanied by the clatter of… hooves? Sorry, I was still trying to get used to the idea that there were talking, uhm horses. Actually I didn’t know what they were. Their colours were an absolute mystery, their manner was strange but not alien (except I wasn't too sure about the pink one) but they were both just... just... not human!

Was I dreaming? Was this reality? What were these incomprehensible beings?

I shook my head doggedly. No! This was the quantum age! We were the agents of logic and reason!

An icy tendril snaked down my spine as I considered a possibility that I might be going insane from isolation. First it was the talking carrot and now I had made the leap to creating imaginary friends. I paused. They had looked vaguely familiar…

I smacked my forehead. Of course! The paintings down the halls. Hah! This proves it, I was crazy and it was just a reconstruction of my mind.

I turned back and thought that since they were to be my companions for the duration of the journey, there was no reason I shouldn’t be civil. I cackled. Nah, time to have fun.

Twilight rounded the corner almost smacking straight into me.

“Oh, I do apologise”, I gushed meekly (though maybe a bit overdramatic?).

Twilight blinked and reflexively replied, “Oh, that would be my fault. I didn’t expect you to actually stop.”

I turned up the ‘I’m offended’ attitude, indignantly puffing my chest.

Twilight glanced nervously at Pinkie who had just bounced around the corner to meet up with Twilight.

“Ooh Twilight! He- I mean –She’s still here!” she babbled, eyeing me up and down.

Twilight was about to say something before Pinkie interjected.

“You should come with us back into town!” she declared, jumping up on to the table to meet me in the eye.

Oh God, I was staring into the Abyss. And if you stare into the Abyss long enough... it stares back.

I smiled weakly. My own imaginations couldn’t hurt me, could they?

Flashes of A Beautiful Mind, a certain Tyler Durden and a crazy Swedish horror film went through my mind. Emilia had a broad taste, that’s all I will say about that. I shuddered, movie night.

It occurred to me that I had not responded to Pinkie’s request. Pinkie is pink, I was still trying to get used to that. No, no. Distractions, distractions. I had let an uncomfortable pause lapse between us.

I smiled weakly.

“S-sure? No, I mean sure!” I stated emphatically. I mean if I stayed at a castle dreaming up of random imaginary friends, I could get into serious trouble, maybe I should just follow my subconscious in the form of these creatures.

My argument for leaving weakened when I considered what I would be abandoning.

“W-wait! I can’t go. There’s food and water here. Shelter too” I explained, awkwardly not knowing why I was getting so worked up about a couple of miniature caricatures of horses.

Pinkie pretended to think about that for a while before knocking a hoof to her head, I winced as I heard an audible thump.

“We have all of that, silly!” she exclaimed bouncing up and down and occasionally left to right, which caused me to have logical seizure.

I turned back to the saner one.

“Is she always like this?” I asked, massaging my temples. I don’t know why I’m asking a figure of my imagination this question. It was kind of like asking yourself, ‘are you crazy’?

Twilight absently shook her head then got back onto track from her last line of thought.

“Pinkie, we can’t take him-or-her back with us”, she started. Pinkie immediately settled down, throwing a sad face.

“Why not?” she moaned pitifully. Even I fought the urge of an oncoming heart attack.

Twilight was a little more battle hardened then that.

“We need to find out more about hi- erk –her, what gender are you anyway?” she asked, while Pinkie muttered about getting an ‘apple bloom’ to do the job. “I have the sneaking suspicion you were lying to us back there.”

“Hey you know, people do crazy things when they meet talking horses”, I replied, albeit a little too smugly.

“We’re not horses. We’re ponies!” Twilight corrected, a wrinkled brow flashing across her face.

“But you’re a unicorn, how does that work?” I shot back.

“What?” Twilight asked, completely baffled.

“I mean if you’re a unicorn, you can’t be a pony”, I stated as I thought, quite logically.

“T-th-that has got to be the most blatantly tribalist thing I’ve ever heard somepony say”, Twilight gaped. Even Pinkie had a hoof over her mouth.

“Oh”, I said. “I didn’t realise that was a cultural no-no.”

They both looked at me critically. Twilight broke the awkward silence that seemed to happen every minute or so that I hung out with these ponies.

“Okaaay, I’m going to choose not to be offended if you tell us what you are”, she offered, wiping her hoof across her face in a decidedly human-like gesture. I didn’t know my conscious was that easy to offend.

“I am an engineer”, I proclaimed. Twilight smacked her forehead in a suspiciously human-like gesture of a face-palm although in this case it was more like a face-hoof.

“I don’t believe it”, she muttered, before addressing me again.

“Not your profession”, she ground out. “Your species.”

I decided a little role reversal was in order.

“What has my species got to do with my profession? That’s specieist!” I defended mockingly.

“It’s speciesism and we just want to know your species!” Twilight replied, the last word coming out at a shout.

Pinkie put a calming hoof on Twilight.

“But you already know”, I told her in a mysterious deep voice.

“What?” Twilight repeated for the umpteenth time.

“You’re my subconscious so therefore you know everything I know”, I explained. Ha! I was beating my own subconscious. Wait, that’s never a good thing.

Twilight seemed to think so as well.

“I don’t know why we are wasting our time with a crazy pony, you’re clearly insane and you need some help”, she growled, heading for the exit. I swallowed, unexpectedly that comment had hurt me, even though I knew it was only myself speaking. Was I that far gone?

Pinkie cheerfully yanked back on Twilight’s tail. I winced, that would have hurt. Though Twilight didn’t seem to show any outside discomfort. Wouldn’t that hurt the spine? My subconscious was weird. Oh well logic didn’t apply la la la!

Pinkie whispered something to Twilight. Twilight argued back in an angry whisper. Pinkie folded her arms and shook her head with a disappointed look on her face. She said a few words, to which Twilight looked shocked at for a moment before drooping her head and nodding reluctantly.

Twilight made her way back to me, sighing.

“I suppose you can come back with us.”

I frowned, thinking about my right to stay in this castle.

“This castle doesn’t belong to you, you can’t stay here”, she reasoned before I could even say anything. Well that was true, what I was doing was technically illegal and a guilty feeling stabbed through my heart.

I felt a rising onset of mischief course through my frame.

“Make me!” I yelled as I gave Twilight’s flank a light slap. I leapt to the side, expecting all hell to break loose and shot for the library’s exit archway, disappearing from their view in less than ten seconds flat.

-----
Twilight stood frozen for a full five seconds before tilted her head disturbingly past the point of comfortable flexibility to look at Pinkie.

A dangerous glint in Twilight’s eye set even Pinkie’s sense tingling. Literally. She was feeling knee pinchy.

Something scary is about to happen!

Twilight leaned close to her friend, an aura of deadly calm and measured mayhem leaked from the normally rational, normally sane unicorn. This was no normal circumstance, though. This was war.

“You saw that Pinkie”, it wasn’t a question.

Pinkie nodded cautiously anyway.

“Do you want to play a game of t-ag?” Twilight asked, voice cracking on the last word.

Pinkie nodded, but time slower and much more reluctantly.

“Then. Let’s get to it!” Twilight belted out, stretching to a full gallop towards the open archway.

Pinkie made a mental note to never slap her friend’s flank.

-----

Around halfway to the door of the castle I realised how stupid my plan to run away from my figments of my imagination was. I looked at my hand. That slap had felt solid. It felt real. I asked myself again, how far was I gone? Her flank was soft…

I shook my head of disturbing thoughts.

I sighed. I better follow my figments of my imagination before I got into trouble with the real authorities. I turned back to see the livid visage of Twilight, the completely enraged unicorn. Following close behind was Pinkie, the reluctantly, but happily, tagging along pony.

I had a few options-

You know what? Scratch that.

Run! RUN! RUN!

I glanced back at the ancient castle, appreciating the view one last time as I crossed the rickety bridge. I thought about how majestic and sombre the castle had looked, truly a work of art, despite the otherwise flamboyant creator. I drank in the details like it was the last time I would ever live. I don't know why I thought this, I could always return, right? What could happen?

Nah, that would just be tempting fate.

Author's Note:

This is a short chapter, compared to the last part I released. I was going to write more on the journey but now I'm tossing it up with finally getting the mane six in on the action (although they aren't essential to the plot but will alter dialogue dynamics) or perhaps diving back into the world of Synch to move the plot further... or a third option explore the conspiracy rising in the west.

Don't worry the chapter order doesn't really affect the flow of the story too much, it can be by demand for this arc.

What chapter would you like next? Leave a comment below.

And as always, thanks for reading!

Comments

[Cavalorn]

Hilarious chapter

[DaedricPrinceSheogorath]

This insanity is brought to you by, the Shivering Isles, home of the Court of Madness and the Daedric Prince of Madness, Sheogorath!

[LordBucket]

If I were to encounter unfamiliar creatures in an unfamiliar place and they talked to me and were nice about it, I don't think I would immediately leap to the conclusion I'd gone insane and then be rude to them. Especially when those "unfamiliar" creatures something so familiar as a unicorn and a horse.

I mean, honestly...think about 4-5 years before the MLP phenomenon. Pretend you had no idea who they were. You'd still recognize a unicorn and you'd still recognize a pony. Unicorns have been able to talk in almost every piece of fiction they've appeared in, ever. Talking horses have appeared in fiction since before televisions were in color. Even with no awareness of MLP, talking horses and unicorns would be immediately familiar to anyone, and they're both "safe-seeming" creatures, like dolphins and puppies that aren't going to inspire a fight or flight reaction in anyone. Think about it. You see a horse, what's your immediate reaction? "Oh, look! Horsey!" It inspires thoughts of rocking horses, merry-go-rounds, knights in shining armor and romantic carriage rides through the city. Happy, safe thoughts.

Would anyone who had a unicorn walk up and start talking to them react by assuming they'd gone insane and start acting rude and stupid to the nice, friendly talking horses?