Improbable Truth

by Charon the Chronicler

Chapter 2: I Hate Paperwork

Despite Ponyville being nothing more than a figment of my fevered mind, I found it to be quaint. It maintained all of the same building styles and colors from the show, as well as the friendly ponies that inhabited it. Such a beautiful, peaceful ̶

“WOOOAH!”

Okay, maybe not. I was blindsided from my left, sending me flying into a store. Shaking my head, I picked myself off of the purple duvet that had saved me and dusted myself off. Of course I wasn’t quite used to standing on three legs as a quadruped, so I fell onto the red couch on my right. Apparently, the shop owner decided it would be a good idea to store quills on the shelf above, and my crash had dislodged the box somewhat. So upon collapsing on the red couch, the quills finally broke free of their repressive regime between an ornamental vase and another box of quills, and found themselves attacking some poor, insane, sap. Namely, me.

The shopkeeper, watching the entire event, just buried his head into his hooves. I got up, quills still interspersed throughout my mane, and walked to the counter.

“So…” I coughed nervously. “Your, uh, couches are very sturdy, very comfortable.” The purple duvet chose that moment to give a sickening ‘CRACK’ and promptly fell apart.

“Just leave,” he moaned. I decided it would be best if I did. I shook my head and let the majority of the quills fall out. On the street, I saw a familiar cyan mare with a prismatic mane looking around frantically.

“Oh NO!” she stammered. “I flew into him so fast, I viperized him!”

“First off, it's ‘vaporized’,” I stated while walking up to her. “Second, I’m fine. Third, why?”

She turned to look at me, snorted, and fell over laughing. “BWAHAHAHA! Oh my gosh! Did you get into a fight with a chicken?”

“No, you sent my flying and traumatized the poor guy in there” I pointed backwards. She looked at the shop, then back at me, and fell over once more, bucking her legs up in the air, snorting in laughter.

“Yuk it up, Skittles, but I’ve got to go to town hall.” She got up instantly at that, hovering in the air, a scowl trained on me.

“Hey! It's Rainbow Dash, best flyer of Equestria!” She aggressively jabbed her hoof in my face. I grabbed her hoof and shook it.

“Windell Green, a pleasure.” She stopped glaring at me and just stared in befuddlement. I began to walk towards town hall once more. She stared at me for a moment, trying to understand my sparkling personality. She must have given up on her anger, because she started flying after me.

“Why do you want to go to town hall?”

“Several reasons. The main one is I need a map of land under jurisdiction of this town so I can settle just outside of it.”

“Why?” I chuckled at her slight voice crack.

“I’m not sure how taxes and society in general works here, and I think that it would be better, for both this town and I, for me to build a house outside the limits where I won’t bother anyone.” She nodded at my explanation.

“But where are you going to get the money to build a house?" she asked as she flew in front of me. "Do you need a job? I can probably get you on the weather team, it's something I could do to make up for, you know… You look a lot like one of my favorite teachers from Cloudsdale, other than the mane and coat colors. Oh! Maybe you can ̶ ”

“Listen,” I interrupted “I’m flattered that you would offer me a job, but I’m going to have to refuse, not just due to my medical issues, but because I’ve already got an idea where to find an employer who might need my skills. I just need to find her and I can get started on building my temporary home.”

We both stopped to see a brown stallion with spiky chocolate brown hair running frantically place to place holding some sort of metal flashlight in hoof. Ponies stared at him, but just ignored him after a couple moments.

“Skittles, can you tell me if I’m seeing things, or is that guy really running around like that?” Rainbow ignored my nickname and explained while flying onwards.

“That’s Time Turner. Sometimes he gets panicky about kumquat metrics and stuff like the Veil, the Void, and ‘timey-wimey wibbly wobbly’ stuff.”

“I think you mean quantum mechanics.” Rainbow rolled her eyes.

“Pfft, whatever. That’s egghead stuff.”

“Well, it seems like the Doctor is really panicky right now.”

“Why did you call him ‘Doctor’?” Rainbow asked.

“The nickname seemed to fit him,” I answered as we spotted town hall. “If you haven’t noticed, Skittles, I tend to give everyone I meet nicknames. I have a good reason for that, but I won’t tell you.” She nodded. At least she accepted my desire for privacy.

“Thanks for accompanying me here.” I said as we walked up to town hall. I may not like to socialize much, or at all, but having someone by me without ulterior motives is always nice.

“No problem!” Rainbow piped up “It was the least I could do after almost ‘vaporizing’ you. And plus, who would have protected you if another pegasus crashed?” She flew up high and gave a few jabs to an imaginary foe. I chuckled a bit at the sight, and gave her a wave as I walked into the circular building. I noticed a black cloud of smoke slowly going over Ponyville as I entered Town Hall.

At least I know when I am. Just before ‘Dragonshy’. Thanks for the subtle hints, mind.

No problem.

Not you, I’m talking to the unconscious, insane part of our brain.

How was I supposed to know that?

You’re me! You should know! What do you even do?

Meh. Sit around eating imaginary chips with the rest of our psyche.

THAT MAKES NO SENSE!

When did we ever make sense?

“Are you going to sit there and grumble, or do you need my help?” A voice broke through my thoughts. A yellow earth pony mare with a neat, scarlet mane, bearing a notepad cutie mark stared at me from the top of a staircase by the stage, presumably leading up to the mayor’s office.

“Uh…” Maybe this wasn’t the best start. I cleared my throat. “Sorry, but do you know where I can find the maps on the borders of this beautiful town?” The mare’s face brightened when I complimented her home, and gave a nod.

“I could show you the official documents if you’d like.”

“That would be lovely” I shot her a grateful smile, and she waved me to follow her as she trotted down the staircase and went behind it to reveal a heavy oaken door. Opening it let a musty odor and cold air seep out, as if it couldn’t fly fast enough to escape the horrors of old paperwork. The mare took a lantern hanging by the door, and tapped the underside a few times before a faint blue glow emitted from within it.

“The battery gem is running low.” She muttered. Holding it in her gritted teeth, she made her way down the creaky stairs, into the dark, where the bureaucratic nightmares lay sleeping. Despite my aversion for all things ‘contracts, land, and money’, I followed her down.

“Nopony has wanted to see the records for years.” She stated through clenched teeth.

“I guess I’m just curious” I answered. She nodded, seemingly accepting my curiosity.

When we reached the bottom, I was pleasantly underwhelmed. Instead of endless bookcases extending into the darkness, there were only two along the wall, a filing cabinet that had seen better decades, and a sad, wooden table in the middle of the room. The mare placed the lantern on the table and began to trail a yellow hoof along the spines of some dusty books.

“We normally keep records of ponies near the Mayor’s office.,” She mentioned. “Most of this is just official clutter that hasn’t been touched in a long time. Including the borders. Last time we had to go over that was when the Carrot family had a land dispute with the Apple family thirty years ago. Back then, they weren’t quite the friends they are today. The way Granny Smith and Orange Root tell it, not a day would go by without casualties from a thrown apple pie or carrot cake. Ah! Here it is!” She pulled out a heavy black book, and with a mighty grunt, dropped it on the table. It gave a creak, but the old guy held strong. She opened it up and started trailing through the pages and finally came to a page with a map of Ponyville, complete with borders of the town and family properties.

“Ponyville hasn’t grown much, or at all recently,” the mare said as I memorized the map. “Mayor Mare says that if Celestia allowed information about the Elements of Harmony to go public, we would get more tourism and immigration, but she accepts that they want privacy.” She froze.

“You’re not from here, are you?” she gulped.

“No.” I let her sweat a while, while she tried to work her mouth. I smirked. “But I won’t say anything. I’m planning a couple months of seclusion.” The mare let out a sigh of relief. Then she jabbed me in the barrel.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” she grunted. I nodded with a chuckle.

“Thank you Miss. I hope you have a nice day” I said as I began to walk out.

She raised an eyebrow. “That was it?”

I nodded and waved as I walked back upstairs. I got out of the building and headed east. There was a small clearing to the south-east of Ponyville, by the northern tip of the Everfree, out of Ponyville jurisdiction, and just by the river. The only neighbor I would have was possibly a bigger introvert than I, and she was on the outskirts of the Everfree and the northern forest joined to it. I would be in the northern forest, close enough to the river to gather water and bathe in the morning, yet far enough from civilization so that I would not bother anyone. Of course, I had to remember that although I may perceive my neighbor as Fluttershy, they wouldn’t actually be Fluttershy, so it would be best if I explained my situation to them, no matter how much I didn’t want to. When I crossed the bridge, I spotted the little cottage.

And there seemed to be a revolution. Animals were stampeding about in chaos, birds were gorging themselves on seeds, turtles had been flipped upside down, and there was a bear parading a pole around with a snow-white rabbit atop his head, who was seemingly orchestrating the madness.

Oh, and Spike was tied to the pole.

“HEEEELP MEEEEEEEE!”

“Nope. Gonna go build my shack.” And I trotted into the woods behind Fluttershy’s house.

<><><>

The sun was setting when I was done digging the trenches in the clearing. I had spent my first hour gathering sticks and stones (and nabbing a tattered sheet someone stupidly threw away) to make a very temporary shelter. Think of a teepee, but dial it back a couple notches. It would keep most of the rain out, but if anything more than a light breeze hit it, it would fall apart like a dyslexic kid at a spelling bee. As for the trenches, my hooves seemed fine, but I was positive my hands were bleeding from digging the ten meter by ten meter trench. It wasn’t like I would use fine motor access for my fingers anytime soon. And digging a meter deep was pretty tiring. Nonetheless, I washed my hooves in the river and wrapped them in pilfered blankets, just in case.

I would be lying if I could say what a meter was, since animals had various sizes that did not match up, and I didn’t want to go through the trouble of calculating what a meter was from the curvature of the Earth or the weight of water. So I just assumed a meter was one body length.

Exhausted, I pulled my tattered blanket over me as I lay on my moss bed. The teepee was closed, the crickets began to chirp, and my first day of lucid insanity was ending.

But the chirping suddenly stopped.

I tensed. Was there a predator nearby? Was I going to die? All because I was too scared to live in civilization?

A melody began to play. And somehow, for some reason, I relaxed. Everything would be alright. I let out a deep breath. And as the first lyrics began, in that alien, yet comforting, tongue, consciousness left me.

<><><>

A small crowd of ponies moved discreetly to the lake north-east of town. Ponyville had many secrets; Granny Smith’s zap apple recipes, Carrot Cake’s family ties to the Apple family rather than the Carrot family, Filthy Rich’s addiction to lemon meringue pie. The Element bearers were simply more recent (and probably the biggest) additions to the town’s large repository of secrets.

But the oldest, and the most mysterious, was the Singing Lake. Few ponies knew about it, since it was generally agreed that it would be left for others to discover on their own, or shown to very close loved ones. In fact, Granny Smith had only discovered it when she stealthily followed her brother as a filly. Of course all those who went to the Singing Lake agreed that a large part of its beauty lay in its mystery. But its true beauty came once a week at sundown. For every end of the week, just as the sun set, a song would play.

Nopony knew where it came from, as it seemed to come from the center of the lake itself, but there was nothing there. And it would sing strange songs, sometimes in their language, sometimes in a language so foreign, the ponies were sure it was not of that world. And every performance was unique, and sometimes oddly relevant to current events.

Now some would say that it had to do with natural or harmonic magic, but ponies were not strangers to either magic or harmony. Unicorns that visited it said there was not a trace of odd magic, to the chagrin of the more inquisitive listeners. If it were harmonic, the ponies would easily join in. This was raw music, untainted by magic, yet brimming with emotion, and it was a mind blowing to the select few Ponyville residents who witnessed it.

When the few ponies came by the lake in eerie silence, they expected a melody about the events that occurred on Rockpick Mountain, a song of bravery and dragons. They were mistaken, yet not disappointed.

As the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, a lone violin began to play a sad tune. And a young voice began to sing

Ah shun yun

Instruments began to join the violin.

Kel vil ayes runal,
Crunaya ti nolumes terrusas
I ti grunas fumals
On tis vunes quanars

Vil umaes re li terrume
Ave I vil I veer
I fynes
I gruneer

At once a chorus of voices joined in.

Jun vil nu rumaeis lu mura!
Kulama vil nu qayeis lu ve
Li shona mi vil sura
Ti polave i ploave
Kim ki yark renura
Ya teriraman kunave

A tired voice replaced the young one.

Ah shun klum

R’ave re vil qayis ve
R’ave re vil qayis fyne
On grunve?
Vil qayis ve kruname

On mak ti ja wana on ja krenelma
Ker vil yene
Grunas heltan fumas
Vunes zotanner

Jun vil nu rumaeis lu mura!
Kulama vil nu qayeis lu ve
Li shona mi vil sura
Ti polave i ploave
Kim ki yark renura
Ya teriraman kunave

A deep, ragged voice sang in place of the tired one.

Ah shun yanas

Jes fayas numa
Jes glyns mi krunamime
Lu ime cun vilte pomlma
Jun humannime fumas he terrume

Dunaime vi fenyrs
Ker re vil yeneis mol
Gronime tis grunas he refyr
Ker yene tis lomis

Jun vil nu rumaeis lu mura!
Kulama vil nu qayeis lu ve
Li shona mi vil sura
Ti polave i ploave
Kim ki yark renura
Ya teriraman kunave

An old, yet strong voice rang out.

Ah shun punares,

Vil qayis bula vilte reloma
Humana nuy on wana
Vil ceris telouroma
Ker jes unums vil qayis yena

Jun vil rumaeis mura.
Kulama vil qayes ve.
Li shona mi vil sura
Ti polave i ploave
Kim ki yark renura
Ya teriraman kunave

And the instruments stopped. A lone voice, neither young, nor old, neither male, nor female, whispered, yet rang strong in the silence.

On ot qa moli krefara ker vil gruneer

Comments

[Charon the Chronicler]

I actually didn't want to publish this yet, but I felt I couldn't really end it for a time like that. I plan on uploading one or two chapters every two to three weeks. As for why I don't write author's notes up there --/\-- I feel like it ruins the flow for those who start reading when the author is already a long way down. So for the author's notes, look no further than the comments. If you feel like I've done bad somehow, don't hesitate to tell me why. Disliking or insulting me without reason is kind of like throwing dog poop at your neighbor with a freaky hairdo. You're just throwing shit around without telling the people around you what irks you.

As for the song, don't bother trying to google translate, I made it based on Latin structure and a few English words, while keeping similar words similar. So if you want to try and decode it, fine, it's a ballad written by yours truly in a language based on French and English, and it contains some serious insight on what will happen. FORESHADOWING!

Also, if you're worrying that I'll be sticking with Windell as he interferes with the Mane Six's adventures, you'd be worrying for nothing. This is a story meant to take place alongside the original series, all while exploring what the background characters are doing, what the main and side characters do that aren't part of the episodes, and the interaction between them all.

Questions, comments, concerns, comical anecdotes? Tell me.

[guang]

I do love new takes on HiE, and you seem to have a very eloquent writing style as well. Color me impressed and extremely interested.

[Atrunia]

This story is already spectacular, bravo sir, bravo.

[suppermug]

what is the songs name -.-

[Veo Skride]

Some really smart humor that is starting to make me love this story.

[Trithtale]

What is the name of the song?

[Charon the Chronicler]

5640807
6937179 A song I came up with called "Ballad of the [Redacted]"

[Lesolan - Rest In Peace]

THAT MAKES NO SENSE!

It was at this time that I knew that I needed to stop reading this story, as my suspension of disbelief could suspend no further. Having spent my life with my eyes open, I can honestly say most of the shit going on in here with Mr. Special Snowflake would never have happened. At first I tried to play it off as the whole 'anything can happen in the multiverse'. But then I realized how poor a story it makes to have to constantly come back to that excuse.

[wlam]

6939120
I can't honestly debate that. Considering it has only been two chapters yet, though, I'm willing to give it a chance there.

[Grayfire]

"Like a dislexic kid at a spelling bee" by far the best comparison I have ever heard

[Always Breakfast]

This guy is convinced he's having another months-long episode and he's still in human-world. So why is his first instinct to build a house despite probably not knowing the first thing about how to do so, using his bare hooves/hands and presumably stolen tools and materials, on the edge of a forest that he thinks is a symbolic interpretation of extremely hostile territory, on land that is only open for use in the context of his hallucination and in human reality would still be state-owned and subject to the very taxes and squatter laws he's trying to work around?

Especially when he was just in a perfectly usable hospital. Hell, staying there would have disproved an episode after a while, when nopony could turn up any evidence of the groundbreaking disease he name-dropped that would've made medical journals nationwide. Even knowing that he dreamed most of his first episode would've fallen apart after a while.

It's an interesting conflict to be sure, but even then there's a limit to suspension of disbelief.