Navigate

by Sleestack

Of Reptiles

The rushing of blood to his head was what woke him up. His eyes jerked open and he saw that he was once again in the white void, connected by his four legs to a silhouette of a world tree, upside down, and watching a yellow snake on the verge of plummeting to its death in a bottomless vacuum of despair.

At first, he just watched the snake slither down, down, down, without any thought. But as more of the snakes top half was sinking than its bottom hanging loosely onto the root, Trip felt a sense of worry. Something in him said that this snake was important. Keep the snake. Snake good. Dead snake bad.

Trip stretched out his neck. Even though he was positive, judging by the distance, that he wouldn't be able to, he managed to wrap his mouth around the tip of the snake’s tail. He bit his teeth down upon it as forcefully, yet at the same time as gingerly as he could, but it somehow managed to begin slipping right out of his mouth. So, against all his better judgement, he forced his jaw down before it managed to completely escape his bite and reared his neck back as hard as he could. He could feel the weight of the snake shifting back onto the root just as it jerked its tail out from between his teeth and wrapped around the root, clinging for dear life.

The snake turned back at him and let out a horrible screeching noise. It lifted its head and turned back towards Trip, angrily. It lashed at him, but halfway, it stopped, and lowered itself until it was just drooping one end of itself over the other end of the branch.

It sat there limply, showing no signs or intent of moving. Trip stretched out his neck again, and was barely able to rub his nose against the skin of the neck, just far enough away from the wound so that it wouldn’t hurt the creature. He had no idea what he planned for this action to achieve, but it made him feel like he was comforting the snake in some way. The snake raised its head, and its eyes locked with Trip’s. It opened its mouth and let out something that sounded a little like a sigh, and turned its head towards the trunk of the tree.

It began rubbing it’s head against the bark. It worked its way down, until it reached its midsection, where the wound was located. As the trunk of the tree grazed the wound, the snake reflexively swayed its head in the opposite direction, but stopped itself before it pushed itself away again. It pushed forward, against the bark, hissing and screeching, but it continued forward, or at least tried to. It was like the wound was a hook or something, snagging the snake in one position.

The noise almost became too much for Trip. He tried moving his legs to cover his ears, but the roots held him firmly in place. After a while, he realized it wasn’t the high pitch or the volume of the snake’s cry, but the pitifulness of it. He couldn’t help it in anyway, and the more he couldn’t the more he wanted to.

All at once, the snake burst forward, releasing itself from the snag. The snake’s scream had reached a high of loudness and pitch, and bright red blood had begun pouring from where the the scar tissue once was. The snake rested for a minute, breathing heavily, it’s head bobbing up and down. It then began to rub the rest of its body against the trunk of the tree.

Slowly, the excess skin peeled off, and as it did, the snake slowly changed color. Its pale yellow scales slowly faded into a vibrant green, and the wound was healed to nothing more than a yellow scar. As the last bit of transparent yellow skin came off and fell into the void below, it turned around at Trip, and gave him what he assumed was a snake’s equivalent of a smile. As it’s mouth was open, a new tooth slid out of its gums, replacing the old, broken one.

It jumped forward at Trip, but in a definitely non-threatening way. It wrapped itself around his neck, and nuzzled its head against him. Trip had never been a fan of snakes, but he was appreciative of the gesture. The snake felt warm against him, which he thought was odd, because he was pretty sure snakes were cold-blooded.

The snake unwinded itself from him, and tapped him on the forehead with its nose, which seemed to kick gravity back on for him. and Trip smacked his head against one of the roots of the tree. He grunted in pain. He brought his legs up to his head to rub it, and realized he was completely unchained. As he put pressure on his scalp, he decided that a grunt wasn’t enough. He let out a long, deep moan. The snake tilted his head at him. Trip took this as a gesture of wanting more. He let out a long, throaty scream. As he pushed the air out of his lungs, the pain in his head managed to go away, just a little bit.

Once he was completely done, he looked to the snake for affirmation. The snake looked back at him, opened its mouth, and let out a shriek of its own. Trip shrugged, and screamed along with the creature. They screamed for a long time, only stopping to take breaths every now and then. The snake didn’t have to take nearly as many as Trip, though. He rationalized it as reptiles having larger lung capacity.

Soon, Trip’s throat was so dry and sore from screaming, he had to stop. The snake carried out its last bit of breath, and then ceased. It looked at him. He looked at it. It darted forward and rubbed its nose against his forehead, then darted back.

Trip shuffled his feet awkwardly. He wasn’t sure what exactly just happened, but he had the feeling that was somewhat proud of it. How many people got to say they participated in a shout off with a giant reptile? He laughed at the idea, the chuckle getting caught in his desert of a throat. The snake gave what felt like a smile. They stared at each other for awhile, Trip not being able to think of what to say, the snake not being able to talk for itself.
Eventually, the snake became somewhat hectic, constantly looking at and away from Trip. It looked into his eyes, then away. It looked back, and opened its mouth, then closed it halfway, as if it were unsure, then opened it all the way back up.

“Trip,” it said. The voice was feminine, but deep. Adult, weakened, just before the point of giving up. One he hadn’t heard in a long time. One he tried to forget. But he recognized it as soon as it came out of the snake’s mouth. Against his will and better judgement, tears began to well up in his eyes. At first, he tried to stop them. “Trip,” it said again. This time, he didn’t hold back. He let the tears roll down his face liberally at the sound of the snake. “I love you.” said the voice again. Trip choked on a sob. “I love you, I love Renee, I love your father. Tell them that. Tell them I said that.” Trip bit his lip and nodded, even though he knew there was no use in responding. This wasn’t the real thing, it was only a playback. But he gasped for air and nodded even harder. He instinctively stuck out his hoof-hand and tried to grab, but couldn’t find anything to hold onto. He ended up just hitting his hoof-hand against the bark of the tree until it started hurting, too.
“Trip,” the voice said again. “I love you.” It paused, waiting for a response. It continued as if he had said something, even though he didn’t. “You’re going to be fine. You’re strong. You’re the strongest boy in the world. I love you.” He waited for more, even though he knew there wasn’t going to be any. Silence was all that was left.

He couldn’t handle it any longer. He lowered his head to the ground and put his hands over his head. Or his hooves. Whatever. He sniveled and cried like some sort of blithering idiot, or hungry infant until there was nothing left in him. Snot ran out of his nose like a fountain, and almost every part of his face was wet from tears. His entire body shook. This was a sensation he was not familiar with at all. He wanted to say something, like ‘I’m sorry,’ or ‘Come Back,’ but he didn’t dare open his mouth.

After what felt like hours of crying, his throat was dry, his eyes were sore, and his entire body ached. He lifted his head up from his hands, and saw the snake still standing exactly where it had been. The snake lowered itself to him, and rubbed its nose against his forehead, yet again.

Trip stood and gave a solemn nod to the snake, which the snake returned. It then slithered from its root and wrapped itself around Trip’s neck and midsection loosely, giving him a herp hug. The leaned itself away from him so that they were face to face, tilted its head, and opened its mouth again.“That’s a rather interesting cutie mark you have there, sir.” It was a masculine voice, very deep, very official sounding.

A burning sense of curiosity welled up within him. He had completely forgot he was still one of them. He didn’t want to look, but he had to know. He tried to guess what it would be, first. A running shoe? A wrestling leotard? A spatula? A big, red F-?

As he turned his head, he considered the placement of such things. Why did they have to be... there? Why couldn’t they be on the midsection or something? It was such an awkward placement. If someone had an important part of their personality sewn onto the asspocket of their jeans, you’d get yelled at every time you wanted to look at it.

A hand. He saw a hand print, black. That was even more awkward, actually. It looked as if someone had smacked him so hard... there... that the skin had actually died and was beginning to decay. And that wasn’t an image he wanted people to have of him. That he like getting smacked... there.

He looked back up. He noticed more tree silhouettes. There were hundreds of them, all floating around in different directions, but at least five of them were definitely heading in Trip's direction. The one that naturally caught his eye was one that towered above all the rest, and had the most leaves out of any of the ones he saw. The snake slithered off of him and back onto the root of the tree. He looked back and saw the roots of the tree practically lash out at him, and grab him. They wrapped around his midsection, his neck, his legs, as if they were trying to find the best angle to grab him from. But they eventually got ahold of the bottoms of his feet, and started spreading from there.

He felt bones shifting, rearranging, and growing. Soon, the roots spread over his entire body, and started creeping up past his eyes and blocking his vision. The last thing he saw was the snake, smiling, and waving the end of its tail, as if it were saying goodbye.Trip gathered his thoughts managed to say one thing.

Thank you.

Comments

[spritefan10]

I'm guessing that Trip just left Equestria and what his dream in the last chapter meant by losing something were the ponies he cared about in Equestria.