Blurred Lines

by Material Defender

Chapter 2: Visit

"Ugh..." I woke up the next morning to a very nasty dull pounding in the back of my head, as if someone had taken a hammer to it. I nearly lost my balance simply trying to get out of the couch, and was thankful that my parents weren't around to witness my sorry state, as they had left the house in my care to go sight-seeing around the world. Dad was certainly an affluent man to be able to maintain all sorts of payments on his house instead of leaving it to me. He probably had people sort out his bills and other things.

And for me, those 'people' allocated a monthly allowance for me to spend as I pleased. It was a decent trade, and Dad had expressed his utmost confidence in leaving me in charge of the home, or at least in name. That I was well on my way through university only bolstered his insistence, and good old Mom and Dad were already packed and good to go before I had even accepted. They had certainly been looking forward to this trip.

So here, I was, a young adult well onto his way towards a career with a house all to himself. It was far from bad, and I had exhausted my entire list of silly things to do within a single month, work aside. The one thing I still did on a regular basis was moonwalk across the wood flooring of the house whenever I was in my socks. That never got old.

And now after my daily freshening-up came my daily breakfast: today, a simple bowl of cereal and milk, and an apple, my favorite fruit. I sat down at the table and began reading the newspaper as I ate, letting the sustenance of fruit-based-but-not-actually-containing-any-fruit cereal give me the energy to begin the day. The contents of the yesterday's newspaper wasn't anything interesting, so I put it down to see a familiar miniature pony that I had left there the day before.

An Applejack miniature, one of the first I had ever bought.

I sighed, and picked it up, rotating the small object between my fingers as I rubbed the side of my head. That thing yesterday was just so out of whack that I didn't really have any words for it. Someone out there knew that I watched My Little Pony, and although I didn't see any harm coming from it simply by ignoring the detractors, it could definitely be used against me as a tool of annoyance.

"You stirred up quite a bit of trouble for me yesterday, AJ..." I said to it. The lack of response was expected: it was just a toy, after all, and I placed it back down on the desk and gave a look out the window. Still cloudy, still cold, and... yep, still raining. Just fantastic.

I didn't remember just how early I had fallen asleep last night. Dazed was probably the best way to put my disposition towards yesterday; it was all just an obscure mess, and trying to remember anything aside from the important and insane was like trying to mentally walk through a pool of thick mud only to strain yourself tired and getting nowhere. It was tiring, and today was Friday, which meant only some light classes today and I would be out for the weekend. I thanked my astute self for having the wisdom to finish all my work yesterday.

So party time tonight! That meant junk food, lots of gaming and subsequent net browsing, and... ponies.

No new seasons at the moment, unfortunately, but I always endeavored to watch an episode every week out of habit. Besides, the show never lost its charm on me, and I figured that it would be a good time killer. But that was later, and right now, I needed to get dressed and head off to class.

Well, it was a Friday... maybe I didn't need to change clothes.

---

So my concern with waking up in a shirt I went to sleep in won over my laziness, and I ended up changing, but kept the jacket since I was going to need it anyway. Commute was about as hectic and annoying as usual, with traffic beginning to pile up halfway on the route due to an unfortunate accident. That was why I liked to leave home early just in case such things happened.

The class, my math one, was during mid-morning, and I think I had absorbed enough of the material to do well on that quiz. A couple of chats later with Travis on the way out the door left me feeling fairly confident in my ability to maintain a good score on my tests, which left my mood quite high for the day. But work is never done for a student, so I decided to grab some lunch at the dining hall again before moving back to the library for some studies. Morning me wasn't good at foreseeing things like that.

The rain had lessened up by the time I reached the hall, so my jacket remained unharmed. The campus was understandably with less people today, since there were always those who wanted to get a head-start on the weekend's activities, and missing a class wasn't going to be too bad, right? I wasn't one of those people, but their motives were understandable.

I paid my fair amount to the cashier and bid them a nice day before turning to enter. As I stuffed my wallet back into my pocket, it happened again. The tingly feeling in my head, only less fazing this time and more like a dull swirling inside my own mind. It left me mostly in control of my faculty and without panic, but as I walked through the doors into the dining hall, I passed someone that drew my eye.

It was a girl, and familiar flashes of brown, yellow, and orange played out across my mind yet again.

Like the absent-minded buffoon I was, I stopped right where I stood and idled as my mind rebooted itself at what it had just seen, and following its re-initialization, my mind immediately yelled 'She's right there, you idiot, turn around!', and in the span it took for me to blink, I did just that.

Damn. Gone again. I could have sworn I saw her that time. But we had just only brushed past each other two seconds ago. There was absolutely no way she could have slipped by me again, not without making noise, or breaking the rules of reality. But there was a wall of people behind me, all crowding around the entrance to the hall that would have made it impossible to break out of without causing some kind of commotion.

People passed by me completely ignorant of my situation, as I stood there a while longer. I didn't wear glasses, nor was there any record in my family history ever needing them, but seeing some as... natural as that was disconcerting to me. Maybe I was hallucinating. I made a note to pay the Andrews family doctor a call to make sure I didn't have something up in my noggin.

I continued walking down the tiled path, past tables of other people as I reached into my backpack and pulled out some paper and a pen; taking down notes of these occurrences was probably my best bet at trying to figure out what the hell was up, as it certainly didn't seem to be pranking anymore, and last I recalled, pranking didn't involve some sort of way to make people feel the willies before pulling the wool over their eyes.

There were lots of people in line, so I took the time to fill in the details on the occurrences on this day, and the one before. No relation between the times of occurrence, nor did there seem to be any discernible pattern for the location save for the fact that they'd all happened here, on campus. I didn't know anybody that could possibly want to prank me since I kept my hobbies mostly secret, and I had no prior history of mental disorders.

I sighed; all the clues were hanging on by a thread by the minute amount of details it had going for it, and I stored the notes back inside as I picked up a tray and began piling food onto it and sliding along with the rest of the line. So engrossed was I in thinking about this whole thing that I near bumped into the person in front of me and dropped my tray. This whole affair had put me in more stress than I was in, even during final exams.

The queue moved fast today, though, and before it I made my way back out to the seating area and made my way back to the table I had been at the day before. As I sat down, the thought that I might have let slip my preferences online in social media somehow came up to me, and I switched on my phone to see if any of that had been true. After a quick scroll and a check for anything MLP related, I found nothing.

As I took a bite of my sandwich, I put the issue aside for the time being and stared at the glass ceiling above me as a cascade of water pattered on top of it. Rain, rain... good to see, nice to enjoy, except when it was all over you, and it liked to come unannounced and disappear like a ghost right after that. After a few more rounds of weather-based musings and suddenly aware of the smudge of crumbs across my mouth, I picked up my napkin to clean it off only to see that there had been a note underneath it all along.

And it wasn't just a random piece of paper that I might have picked up when I grabbed it earlier; no, this paper was special, because it had my name on it. Prank: one; mental illness: zero. So there was someone behind this after all, and they were crafty as hell. It must have taken some elaborate planning to try to sneak this into the specific napkin that I had picked up, because there sure wasn't anyone around that walked up to my table and went 'oh, look, perfect time to plant a note underneath his napkin'.

Curious, I picked up the folded note and read it:

We need to talk. I'll meet you at your usual study room at the library in half an hour.

...I had hoped that the note would be a bit more descriptive than that, like a name, or at least some initials. Even stating that they were a guy or a girl would have been nice, and maybe stating that they might be human would have been, too. In any case, I didn't have anything to lose: the library wasn't too far away and was a public enough location for a meet-up. if anything bad happened, I could just call the cops or high-tail it out of there like no tomorrow.

Assuming that whoever was behind this wasn't a prankster, though. I had a lot of questions for whoever the person or people responsible behind all of this, and I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't going to let it stand. I wolfed down the rest of my meal and gathered my things: time to get to the bottom of this.

---

I sat in my usual study room, again irritated at the lack of proper heating for this entire library. It always seemed that something was broken in here; last week, it was the lights, and this week, it was heating. Besides that, it was still ten minutes to the supposed meeting I had been called here for, and I sat around browsing the internet for pictures of cats to kill time until whoever it was arrived.

The thing about study rooms that they were usually well-contained. Sound usually almost never made it into here, and you almost never heard anything from the neighboring study rooms unless someone was trying to throw a party inside a place roughly as big as a jail cell. So when I heard the door opening, I looked up to see... well, I wasn't sure what I was expecting.

She was, quite literally, the most beautiful girl I had ever laid my eyes upon. Or maybe that was due to the fact that she seemed to be Applejack in human form. That Stetson hat that she always wore, orange plaid shirt, brown jacket, blue jeans, and cowboy boots and that blonde hair with a red tie at the end to pull it all together. Whoever she was, she certainly put in some effort to pull off the look. Heck, she even had the freckles to match.

I waited for her to seat herself, not wanting to play my hand yet; besides, I was interested in what she wanted to talk about. After she'd done so, we stared at each other for several minutes, and I could get the feeling that she was waiting for me to ask a question. Well, I was going to eventually, but I was waiting to see if she'd do anything first. Sure enough, ten minutes later, she did.

"...so, aren't you interested in knowin' why I called you here?" she said, nailing Applejack's voice dead-on. "No questions or anythin'? 'Cause if not, I'm gonna start talkin'."

"Who are you?"

"Well, that's obvious, ain't it? I'm Applejack."

I leaned forward and stared into her eyes. "No, you're wrong," I said slowly. "Applejack is a fictional character spawned from a toy line about ponies. I'm asking who you are, and I'd also like to know why the hell you're dressing like Applejack. And what's with the voice? And the accent?"

"Why, that's... me. I ain't lyin', sugarcube, I'm actually Applejack! Do you realize how much trouble I had to go through just to get here, all that work, just to talk to you?! Oh, darnit, I knew I should have listened to the Princess...!" she said, leaning back on her chair in exasperation.

"So you're not willing to tell me who you are. That's fine. Did someone put you up to this? Someone paying you? How did you know that I watch My Little Pony?" A look of realization spread across my face. "Oh, I'll bet it was my parents, wasn't it? They had you going through my stuff and that's how you found out. This is all just one big prank, isn't it? Where's the cameras?" I looked around the corners of the room and under the table, trying to see if there were any shady devices hanging about. "Devices? Oh, you're wired, aren't you?"

By this time, we were just about ready to start pushing each other's buttons, and she was far from satisfied with my reaction. "Listen, I'm tellin' you, I'm the real Applejack—"

"Yes, you've said that already."

"—no, but I mean it! You just have to believe me, I..." She stopped, closing her eyes and inhaling a deep breath. "Okay, I have to find some way to prove this to you. You and I, and this whole place here?" she said, gesturing to the world beyond the windows. "That ain't real. I'm not real. You aren't real. This is all just one big dream world, all in your head!"

"Trying to say that this is all a dream?" I whistled. "Man, I've heard some crazy excuses, but I think that you really need to work on your lying. You're about as good as the real Applejack when it comes to that."

She screamed in frustration. "That's because I am the real Applejack, you... idiot!" Again, she stopped herself from blowing her lid, and turned her head aside. "Okay, AJ, just calm down, I'm sure there's a way to—" Then her expression went blank and went silent for the longest time. Freaky.

"Uh... hello?" I asked, waving a hand in front of your face. "Damn, just how much are you getting paid to pull crap like this...?" I wondered out loud. "Hello? Earth to, um... Applejack? Applejack, you there?"

So I just sat there awkwardly for about twenty minutes, going back to browsing the internet and trying to catch in attention every once in a while. But as she sat there motionless, I occasionally glanced at her face; she definitely captured the look of what I had thought Applejack would be like if she were human. Green eyes, freckled face, and that demeanor that just shouted 'southern girl'.

If she didn't go brain-dead and our conversation had lasted longer than a few minutes, I would have been able to establish a proper opinion on that. But I decided to prod her no further and resumed my browsing. God, I sure as hell hoped that she wouldn't end up staying the whole time like this. I had to leave campus in like... four or five hours, and if she was still like that by the evening...

"Aha!" I looked up to see Applejack staring at me with the fire of challenge in her eyes. "I know how I'll prove it to ya, because I just asked Princess Celestia for a huge favor! Don't believe me? Well, I'll show you in a few moments..."

"Princess Celestia," I deadpanned.

"Yep, the one and only," she said smugly.

"The Princess Celestia? Ruler of Equestria and princess of the sun?"

"Mmhmm."

"And you say, that she—who is not here, I might add—is going to... 'prove' something to me?" I said, with added air quotes. "Well, then, 'Applejack', what exactly is Princess Celestia going to do, then?"

"I told you already, I am Applejack. And this ain't some prank or something that somebody else is tryin' to play on ya! You're in an actual dream world, and this whole..." She gesticulated wildly with her arms around her. "...place is one big lie! All in your head! And I'm goin' to prove that to ya!"

"Sure doesn't feel like a dream world. In fact, this place feels... pretty damn real, if you ask me."

"You know how yesterday you were feelin' all weird and stuff?" she asked. "That was because of me. Well, not me, that was the princess. You're in a coma, and you're stuck in this dream world. And the only way the princess could put me in here was to... gosh darnit, how do I explain this...? Okay, she tore a hole in your dream world and stuck me in here! That was why you felt all giddy yesterday like someone smacked you up your head."

"So, assuming that what you're saying about me being in a coma is true—which it's not, because that would mean that I'd literally be brain-dead—then I'm probably laying somewhere in Equestria with a bunch of ponies around me?"

"That's what I'm sayin'."

I sigh, holding up my hands in an exaggerated gesture of disbelief. "I'm... sorry, but I'm not buying this. This is just... wow, I mean, you have totally taken this prank down to crazytown, no doubt about that." I started packing up my things. "Listen, can't you just tell me your real name or something?"

"I told you already, for the last time, I am Applejack!" she shouted. I was pretty surprised that none of the staff had come up to warn us yet; usually any prolonged amount of loud noises in this library was reported pretty quickly. "Listen, don't you remember who you are? You're an actual pony, a pony who's very important to me." She grabbed my wrist as I turned to stand up. "Please. Just try."

"I'm sorry, Applejack... but I don't know what you're talking about," I responded. "My name is Ian Andrews, and—"

"—you're an environmental engineerin' major. And you also happen to like agriculture, too. Your favorite fruit is the apple, and your parents are away on vacation. You had a math quiz today in your class during the mornin', and you spent yesterday sleepin' away this whole problem at home."

"Nice try, but that's all stuff anyone can learn from me if they—"

"—just five minutes ago, you were browsin' the MLP wiki for Applejack. You read up on the episodes 'Over a Barrel', 'Applebuck Season', and 'The Last Roundup'. You were also lookin' at pictures of cats. This is all when your laptop thingy was facin' away from me."

"Well, when you put it like that..." Cameras. Definitely had to be cameras. She did a pretty damn good job at hiding them, though.

"I told you... Ian. I'm the real Applejack, and this place... isn't real."

I scoffed. "Well, yeah, you can tell me that it isn't real as much as you want, that doesn't change the fact that it's real, and it's my world, my... universe, or whatever. It's kind of hard to get metaphysical about this stuff, when everything is actually here, and actually exists, and works, and all that stuff. I might have had an easier time believing you if I was floating around in some sort of endless purgatory or something, but that isn't the case."

"Listen, I can still prove this to you, just give me some more time...!"

"I'm not so sure about that. You're really persistent about this, aren't you?" I check the time on my phone: just a little after two. Not too shabby, though at this point, it was probably better if I studied from home instead, and away from... her. "Listen, I can't fault you for effort, so I'll give you that. You can just give this all up now, alright? Just... go back to whoever hired you to do this, and leave me alone. And if you can't... well, I'd like to think I'm a nice guy, so I'm willing to give you a chance. Just call this whole thing off and I won't involve the police."

"But..." She went quiet. Was she finally going to stop playing these games with me? "But... you're the whole reason why I came here in the first place..." Her head lowered and she stared at the tabletop. "I really mean what I said... can't you trust me?"

"Yeah, I could tell," I said back to her. Just mere moments ago, I think I probably was ready to blow over the whole absurdity of this situation. Now she was bringing on her sad, and I'd probably be lying if I said I didn't feel just an ounce of regret about it. So I stood there waiting, backpack slung over my shoulder and a hand on the doorknob, just to see what she would say next.

"I... can prove it to you, right now!" she said. "Look at your hand."

I hold up my free hand and wiggle it around. "What about it?" I said, shrugging.

She shook her head, smiling. "That's not what I'm talkin' about, sugarcube. Look at your other hand."

I looked back at my other hand, half-expecting her to immediately respond with some half-sorry excuse to try to keep me here just a bit longer. There was nothing in my other hand except for something that I clearly knew I had a grasp on. No crazy talk, no thin-ice reasoning. Nothing but a simple—

"—apple?" I said, shocked. The doorknob... had been turned into an apple. And I sure as hell had that things in my sight not more than twenty seconds ago. I look at her smiling face and back at the apple, releasing my hold on it and then kneeling down to examine it closer. "How the hell did you do that?"

"Magic, sugarcube. You'd be surprised at what it can do." To prove my point, I again held the fruit in my hands, and then tugged, pulled, and pushed it around, and it came apart, fleshy fruit bits and all, leaving only the stub of the doorknob in place.

I looked back at her, slowly shaking my head. "No.... freaking... way..."

She giggled that cute laugh of hers, and my heart fluttered for a moment. "I told ya, Ian... I can prove it to ya. Look back at it again." So I did, and sure enough, the red peeling of another apple sat tightly in the doorknob, reflecting the room's lights back at my eyes. And that wasn't even saying that the destroyed bits of the previous apple were still intact all over the floor.

"O... kay..." I said. No one had opened the door... not that it was possible, since I was quite literally kneeling right where it would open. I raise a closed fist and smash the second apple clear off, sending the partially-destroyed fruit rolling across the floor and into the corner behind Applejack. Yep, definitely still a fruit. "Alright, so maybe I believe you..." I said. "But I'm still having one hell of a time trying to absorb the rest of this stuff that you're talking about."

"That's fine, we can take our time," she said. "You're goin' back home, aren't ya? Take me with you."

Whoa. That was a quick leap right there. I didn't think I ever had another girl in my house since my high school days, and even then, that relationship was... short-lived. And now this girl just shows up out of nowhere and asks to just crash at my place? I could hardly believe it.

She nodded at me. "That's exactly what I'm askin', sugarcube. Hope you don't mind lettin' me stay at your place for a bit, right?"

I blinked at her. "You... just read my mind?"

"Only 'cause I asked the princess. Right now, I can't tell what you're thinkin'. I was just... interested in your response, and anypony worth their weight in talent with magic could probably just toss up an apple out of nowhere." Well, that was... strange. She said 'anypony' like it was casual. Or maybe it was something she planned, but that was irrelevant. Fine, so I believed she had something to prove. I had to give her something out of nowhere, something that she couldn't possibly be able to fake right in front of my eyes... and I figured it couldn't hurt if I got something nice out of it, too. Nothing shady or lewd, of course, but my car was getting old...

"Okay... I'll take you along. If what you're saying is true... then I'd like to give you—or the princess, whoever's the one doing all this crazy reality-altering magic or mumbo-jumbo—another test. If what you're saying is correct, then I'll take you along with me. If not... then I'll know you're lying."

She stood up out of her seat and walked straight up to me, tipping her hat towards my head and giving a light nudge in my shoulder as a challenge. "Then I'll take you up on that, sugarcube. Let's go." She reaches her hand past me and as she opens the door, I notice that the doorknob has suddenly returned. I stand staring at it for a moment as she walks on out past me, and I couldn't help but notice the strong scent of apples coming from her clothes.

---

"So... if you're an actual pony, how the hell do you know how to use a human body?" I asked Applejack. We walked across campus towards the parking lot just beyond the university's English department offices, right across the street from it, and were waiting on the stoplight to turn green before crossing.

"I don't know," she said, letting the rain pour off her brimmed hat as she stood next to me, her shoulder touching mine. I guess the intimacy part wasn't exactly lost on her from her pony form, human or not. "I guess I just sort of took it from you? At least, that's what the princess told me. It's your world, so she just sort of put me in here and your mind just filled in the rest of the details."

"So... you're saying that the way I'm seeing you is because that's what my mind wants to see?"

"Uhh... sort of?" The light turned green, and I crossed over as she kept up with me. "I'm not too interested in all that egghead stuff... I just left it to Twilight and the princesses to figure it out. But, yeah, I guess what you said works."

"Twilight and the princesses?" I asked, smiling at her. "Sheesh, I must be one important pony for them to go so far." I was too busy mentally cursing the leakage of rainwater in my shoes and ruining my socks, and didn't notice her lack of a response. "So, AJ, why did they send you? Did you all just draw straws over it or something?"

"...wasn't like that," she muttered back.

"Sorry, I didn't get that."

"We didn't draw straws," she said, her voice low and her head hanging as her hat blocked the sight of her eyes. "Let's just get to where your... car, or whatever you call it is."

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Okay... if you say so..."

The parking lot wasn't anything grand in terms of looks; in terms of size, however, it definitely fit the bill. The lot was separated into four separate sections, and was almost always near capacity during the actual school year. Since my class was during the morning, though, I was spared the worst of it and actually managed to find a spot close to the route to campus. Located right at a corner and underneath a lamppost, it was easy to find.

"So... here we are," I said. "And here's my test: I want you to turn this thing into a sports car."

"A... what?"

"Yeah. A sports car. You can do that, can't you?"

"Well... if this thing is a car... then I don't think it'll be too hard to figure out what a sports car is." She did her weird blank-look thing again, but returned after a few seconds and smiled at me. "Sorry 'bout that. Talkin' to the princess and stuff. So... yeah, I think we can do that."

"Great. Do you need a picture, or anything...?"

"Mmm... nope," she said, after pondering it for a moment. "Alright, then, here we go..."

We stood there for several minutes, staring dumbly at my car as she simply kept looking back and forth between it and me with a grin on her face. The cold wind at this time of day stung hard coupled with the rain, but that wasn't worrisome to me; I was too interested in seeing how she would make this work, but with each passing minute, my enthusiasm faded.

"Um... so, is anything going to happen?" I asked, looking at her as I pulled out my car keys. Perhaps this test wasn't going to cut it, after all. Maybe I could figure out how she did the whole apple thing later, but I was fairly certain that even if I decided to cut it off here, this wasn't going to be the last I saw of her...

"Look back now, sugarcube." As I twirled around my car keys, I noticed that they felt... different. Thinner in terms of flatness but also a lot more bulky as well. I looked into my palm and noticed that the worn steel of my old car keys had been replaced with a new one... a key and an alarm where my old ones had used to be, along with the rest of my house keys. And on them was the logo of the car company I had been thinking of the whole time: it was a key for a Bugatti.

And then I turned my head, and my car was nowhere to be found. Instead, a Veyron colored in resplendent black sat there, in perfect condition and beyond anything I had ever imagined, even when I had seen it on television or in magazines. I walked forward, running my hand along the smooth surface leading up to the driver's side door... there was no way I couldn't believe her now.

"Uh... this is the right one... right?" she asked.

"More than right, but..." I looked at her, shaking my head. "How did you know this was what I wanted?"

"The princess told me that she doesn't actually know anything 'bout this, and neither do I. We just sort of worked the spell to do what we wanted to, which was to give you whatever you wanted. You said a 'sports car', and your mind filled in what you wanted for us. So what you have here..." she said, nodding at it. "...is what it gave you."

"Nice..." I said, tapping the unlock button on the alarm. The car chirped and caused Applejack to jump back, and she nervously laughed in response.

"I... didn't realize it could do that. So, uh... this car thing... sorry, I'm still sort of new to this. I can... I mean, I know what it is, because since I'm here, your mind's just telling me what it is I'm lookin' at, but... you... drive this thing? Like a pony-less carriage?"

"Yeah. So, I guess this means you passed the test," I said. "Do you have a place to stay?"

She looked down at the pavement and kicked the ground. "Uh... not really. Do you think I could... stay with you?" she asked, giving me a hopeful look and the most innocent smile she could muster.

"Are you sure you want to?" I asked. "I mean, we've only just met, so..."

"No, we haven't," she immediately blurted out, then turned red as she covered her mouth. "Er... I mean... I know you. The pony you, that is. And you're... really important to us. Twilight and the rest of us, that is. That's why we're doin' all this, you know? For you, since you're... in here."

The way she kept talking about 'me', I got the feeling that she volunteered for this. That sounded very much like Applejack, always willing to put her friends before herself, and always honest about it. And the way she talked about 'me'... left me wanting to know more about who I really was. Not Ian Andrews, university student, but the pony me... whoever I was, for good or bad.

So I took the plunge, and decided 'why not?'

I nodded slowly. "Sure, I guess there isn't much of a problem..." I walked over to the passenger's side and opened the door for her. "Not to be... you know, overreacting towards this sort of thing, but you know how to get into one of these?"

"Yeah. You just sit down in it like a chair, right?"

"Pretty much. Now if you don't mind, miss," I said, gesturing to the interior with a bow. "Your transport awaits you."

She snickered. "You're such a gentlestallion."

"And you are quite the lady," I responded. Gentlestallion? The word itself sort of made me laugh, but I guess coming from her, it fit perfectly fine. "Seated properly?" I asked, after she had properly eased herself inside.

"Yeah... just fine, Ian. You sit on the other side?"

"That's correct. Just a moment..." I shut the door on her and quickly jog around to the other side and take my place as the driver. I put the key into the ignition and realized, at that very point in time... that I had absolutely no idea how to drive a sports car. I mean, it was just another car, right? So long as I didn't drive it like I had no head, I would be perfectly fine... or so I hoped.

"Somethin' wrong, sugarcube?" Applejack asked, having noticed my pause as soon as I had stuck the keys inside.

"Uh... yeah. Nothing. Just a... well, I've never driven a car like this before. This is all new to me, so I hope you'll understand if I'm... well, rain and cars never did really mix that well. This is like upgrading from a rusty old plow to a shiny new one, except this one can go way faster than the old one, so you have to be careful otherwise you'll end up hurting yourself."

"Oh..." she said, nodding in agreement. "Yeah, I can understand that. You sure you got this?"

"Well... can't you just teleport us home, then?" I asked her. "You know, since you can do all this magic stuff and all that."

She shook her head. "I'm afraid not. The magic doesn't work like that. The most we can do is just change small details, like... replacing stuff where a doorknob would be, or changing around stuff that you have. We can't just up and go poof and then we're at your house. Your dream world doesn't work like that, it just... well, it has rules we have to play by, and nothing we could do will change that."

Damn my mind for being so stubborn. "So the long way, it is," I said as the car rumbled to life. I put my hands on the steering wheel and exhaled. "Okay... this is just like driving a regular car, no biggie... just... don't crash or anything and don't go fast. This is just like your old car, except it moves and handles differently, so it's nothing like your old car... yeah, not doing myself any favors," I muttered. "Aw, to hell with it."

I switched the car into reverse and slowly, oh, so slowly, begin to back out of the parking lot. It certainly didn't help that there was one car, then two, and then four piling up as I slowly backed out, and put the car into drive. The car was automatic transmission. Did Veyrons even come in automatic transmission? Damnit, this was not the time for that. I gradually put pressure onto the pedal and begin navigating the car through the parking lot's maze of arrows and directions.

"Hoo... see, that wasn't so bad, right?" Applejack said. "I mean, we haven't... crashed or anything. Yet."

I turned out onto the street and stop at a red light, just in time for me to ask the important question as we waited.

"So... Applejack. Who was I? The pony me, that is."

"You don't remember?" she asked, taking off her hat and scratching the back of her head. "Shoot, I guess I should have expected this, what with the way you've been actin'... do you remember what kind of pony you were, at least?"

"Nope, not a clue. The only thing that I do know is of... well, through the show. About ponies." I kept my eyes on the street, not really sure how I'd break it to Applejack that how I knew about her was through watching a show designed for young girls. "Not much other than that, I'm afraid. I know about the whole world and all that, and you, and your friends, but I don't remember anything... about me."

The light turned green and continue forward. The silence in the car was stifling, and it was certainly a lot less quieter than my old hunk of junk had been. At least I could drown it out with ambient noise with that, but here... well, the only option was the radio, and I wasn't entirely sure how'd she react to my world's music. Best to play it safe and use baby steps later on.

"You're a unicorn named Brightleaf," she said. Brightleaf. Huh. That definitely sounded like a name a pony would have. "You worked on the farm with me and Mac, right when Caramel left to work with Golden Harvest at her farm, and you've been a good friend to all of us. You were a big help with that magic of yours."

"Nice to know that I wasn't a complete jerk," I said amusedly, a response that she shared in as we both laughed.

"You were a really nice pony, you know that? You even saved the farm during one of our worst seasons, right when the weather teams from another town messed up the water order for Cloudsdale and almost ended up ruining our crops. You worked with Twilight to get water to us, and practically saved the whole harvest."

"So..." I said, pausing to let the mood wear off before pressing on. I turned onto the street that went just by the entrance to the highway that I took to get home. "...what happened to me?"

I didn't realize that I had begun picking up speed as I turned onto the freeway, and the sudden lurch brought surprise to us both. This car definitely did not lack in power, that was for sure, but I wasn't going to get cocky in such inclement weather. I ramped it down and kept the car locked into the slower lanes, where I could drive at my leisure. Applejack just stared out at the falling rain, amazed by this whole world that I had supposedly created, and didn't say much until we were halfway through, passing by an old golf course that my father used to frequent.

"You... just went to sleep one night, like you always did, and you... you didn't wake up the next day," she said, her face turned away from me as she looked out her window as the passing blurs of light from other cars. "When that happened, we just thought you were... I don't know, just sleepy or tired... but when you didn't even get up later that day, even when we pushed you to..." She shook her head. "Twilight came over and said that you'd fallen into a coma."

"A coma..." I whispered. "Do they know how it happened?"

"That was the problem," she said. "We didn't know how it happened. Not even Twilight and her giant library of all sorts of books could tell us what happened to you. And when we brought the princesses..." She sharply inhaled and swallowed hard. "...that was when we learned that not even they could help you. We thought... you were gone, and we couldn't do anythin' about it."

"Well, you're here now. That must mean that you found out something, right?"

"We... did, if you could call it that. We learned after lots of hard work and research that your coma wasn't a regular one... it was somethin' so rare that nopony ever recorded it in history. It didn't have a name, but it was a coma that only appeared in unicorns, caused by magic somehow... Twilight said that a unicorn's horn is usually the focus of any sort of magic, but in certain cases, the magic might not be channeled properly..."

"And that happened... to me," I said. So I was in a coma because of some stupid magic, and my horn. Gee, thanks, horn, you're being so damn useful to me right about now. Nice to know I could count on you to put me into a coma and create one hell of a really detailed dream world for me to waste away in.

And it was hard to deny that, really. I wasn't diagnosed, so I couldn't say, but all of this felt real. The cold stagnant air in the car, the sound of rain pelting the roof, and the sound of breathing and the slight scent of apples from Applejack... and the smell of a new car piled on top of that. All these little details just irritated me to no end right now, though, as I attempted to find any sort of flaw that I could pick out, even the smallest one, that could at least hint me that this place wasn't real.

"Yeah... it happened... to you," she echoed. "There... isn't really any cure for it, Ian. Brightleaf. Whichever one you want to be called, I guess. That's why I came to you here... to let you know about it."

"That I'm what? Stuck in here forever? To be honest, I don't really think it's that bad. The world's certainly not as bad as it seems, and I'd like to think I'm doing pretty well in here." Which was true, since I certainly wasn't in a bad position, nor did I have much else to think about. I guess it was actually merciful that I was actually living a life inside of my own head, if not until I grew old and my mind stopped working.

I veered off towards the right as we headed down the exit ramp and into a quieter neighborhood of the suburb I had come to know and love. At the very least, once we got home, we could discuss this in further depth. And maybe I actually wanted to see what this world of Equestria was like beyond the constraints of the show that my mind had made up for it. If they couldn't find a cure outside, then maybe there was a way for me to break out of my world from in here.

"You don't... want to go back? To see your friends and family and maybe say good-bye one last time?" she asked, her voice so low that I could barely catch it over the sound of the rain.

I turned left from the middle of the street we'd been driving on, passing by a park and beginning the final stretch leading up to my home. Remaining silent, I thought of how to best approach this answer. Would it be better if I never responded at all? Nah, that was such a complete jackass move that I think if someone had approached the version of myself that wasn't in this mess and asked that question, I would have kicked him in the balls.

"I don't know... not yet, at least," I said, turning into the driveway of my home and putting the Veyron into park. "It would just feel... strange, you know, if I kept my memories. I've been living in this world for twenty years now. If I just woke up as the old me like that, I'm not even sure if those old memories would even come back. Or whether or not they'll clash with what I know right now."

"I understand," she said, mimicking me as I opened the door and exited the car. "That's why I'm here. To talk to you about all these sorts of things... and to help remind you of everything you've forgotten."

"And I appreciate that. I guess with this thing," I said, tapping the top of the car. "I think I actually believe you. One thing to just drop out of nowhere and start turning things into apples... another thing to switch a man's car out with something else right in front of him."

"Well, we can do somethin' else if you don't believe me still—" she began to offer.

"No need," I said. "I think this is enough. Now come on, let's get inside before both of us get sick."

---

"This is a pretty nice house you got here," she said, hanging up her hat and jacket on the coat rack on the wall next to her. "You live here by yourself?"

"Yeah. It's owned by my parents, though, and they have everything taken care of, mostly by other people they hired. I guess they didn't want to tie me down with payments and taxes while I was studying," I said, dropping my keys on the living room table and tossing my jacket onto the couch. I shook my head around, clearing off all the droplets that it had collected and dried it off with a towel from nearby restroom. "I guess you can take the guest room... no one ever really stays here, anyway, and I don't get many visitors."

"That'll do just fine," she called back to me. "Do you have anythin' to eat around here?"

Aw, crap. I realized that, well... I had an omnivorous diet. There was meat in the fridge, and there certainly wasn't any lack of it, to be sure. Dad loved his bacon and so did I. Well, if there was any more incentive to go on a veggie diet, this was it, and I sure as heck didn't want her to end up disgusted with me for... eating the meat of other dead animals.

"Uh..." I said, rushing out to the fridge and checking inside as I left the towel on the counter next to the sink. Good, I hadn't gone shopping yet, so I could just... finish what little of the bacon and meat I had left... or throw them out. "Are you fine with some salad?" I asked.

"Yeah, salad'll be just fine," she said, walking into the kitchen. "Wow, it's mighty roomy in here. Even bigger than the Apple family home back at Sweet Apple Acres."

I toss together something that looked appealing, at least to me, and then tossed in some tomatoes I had for good measure and sprinkled it with dressing. Not willing to leave my guest to eat by herself, I prepared one for myself, too. The food certainly got her attention as we sat down at the dinner table, and I gave her a fork.

"A fork..." she said, holding it in her hand. "Seems like they were made to be used with hands."

"Certainly feels that way, doesn't it?" I said, chuckling. "I'm not even sure how any pony that's not a unicorn can pick these things up. Hooves are pretty... unique. Must have been one heck of a sight, working with those stubby little things." I didn't want to make a show out of my eating, so I downed the salad in record time—unimpressive, considering that it was just greens and tomatoes—only for Applejack to accompany to the sink.

"You eat fast," I said.

"So do you," she replied. "Do you have paper, by the way? And something I can write with, and something that can color in green and yellow?"

I took her plate and began washing it along with mine, looking over my shoulder to see if that mug that I normally kept around the table was still there. "Uh... yeah, look in that mug over there." I nodded towards the corner of the dinner table crowded with old newspapers, and a small bunch of pencils could be seen protruding from behind it. "The paper's underneath it, and I think there's a pencil and some colored ones in there, too. You can use those."

"Thank you kindly," she said as she walked away. I could hear the clinking of her checking around for the proper pencils, and I looked over my shoulder at her as I did the dishes, trying to see what exactly it was that she was trying to do. Her back was towards me, so I couldn't see anything, but I did hear a lot of furious scribbling.

"What are you drawing?" I asked.

"You'll see..." she said. Well, I guess I should have seen that one coming. "All done!" she exclaimed, as she dropped the pencils down and turned back to me.

"Well... aren't you going to show me?" I asked.

"Nope. I'll just leave it here for you so you can see for yourself. Where's the guest room at?"

"Up the stairs, hang a right, last door on the left."

"Thanks again!" she said, and she disappeared before I even had a chance to react. I dried off the plates and forks and stored left them hanging on the drying rack, grabbing the towel nearby and drying my hands off as I walked to the table. On it sat a simple drawing of a tree leaf, colored in: half green, half yellow, and symmetric. Written next to it was "Brightleaf's—your—cutie mark".

I picked up the paper and stared at it.

"Hey, Ian? Do you mind if I use the bathroom?" she shouted from upstairs.

"Yeah, go ahead!" I shouted back. A smile appeared on my lips.

So this was my cutie mark. It fit me pretty well.

Comments

[Material Defender]

So, this is an experiment, mostly to see if I could:
-write a story within a certain number of chapters (this will be 10 or so).
-write a sad story.
-write from a first-person POV.
-write a humanfic without any fantastical elements (aside from those in the story) like sci-fi or crossovers.

And before you ask, no, this is not a self-insert.

[RandomEncounter]

An interesting experiment. I'm curious to see how this eventually plays out.

[Commentator]

1724365 Is it sheer coincidence that my name IRL is Ian, and my waifu is Applejack, and one of my dream cars is a Veyron Super Sport?

... I'm scared.

[Jet Howitzer]

Well, this is quite interesting. And well written too. Hate to say it, though, but the Veyron is a bit... overdone. I'd much rather have a Lotus, or a Porsche. Something that isn't a 1000 hp monstrosity. But, your story, your choice.

I approve, and grant this my seal of approval.

AVANTE!
-Jet Howitzer

[Material Defender]

1724695 So am I.

1724726 Nope, just a coincidence. I usually try to make sure my names aren't reused in my stories to avoid overlap.

1729715 I didn't think it was overdone. Go big or go home, right? And thanks.

[Jet Howitzer]

1729991 Fine... I'll admit it. I just don't like the Veyron. At all. It's got all that speed, and it can't corner for shit.

[Material Defender]

1730034 Truth be told, I would have used a hovercar, but that would mean that I'd have to explain how it worked within the rules of the dream world, which is essentially what our world is. And we don't have hovercars.

Not yet, anyways.

[Jet Howitzer]

1730047 Using a modern day supercar is good, but I wouldn't have used a Veyron. Personally, I'd have gone with a Lotus Exige, but that's only because it's probably one of my favorite cars of all time. As it is, it's fine. The only problem is that, well, you said that the car wasn't lacking for power... I just want to point out that that is a massive understatement. Like, immense. Anyway, keep at it, and continue this. I like it, and I want to see this go somewhere. Oh, and what's the status on the rewrite?

[Material Defender]

1730058 Over halfway done at the moment.

[Jet Howitzer]

1730061 Wunderbar! Do we have an ETA, or is this more like: 'When it's done, you'll know.'

[Material Defender]

1730075 Most likely the latter, but I don't think it'll take more than a day or two. Assuming that nothing in real life decides to interfere again, that is.

[Jet Howitzer]

1730093 Yes, the infamous 'Real Life' I've heard of that. Hell, I've even had to wrestle with it a few times. Nothing too serious, though. Anyway, just let me know. And I trust that you're up to date on my tales?

[Material Defender]

1730111 Yep. Though I'm not usually a fan of the general universe that they all take place in since I usually get lost and can't tell them apart.

[Jet Howitzer]

1730151 What do you mean? What's confusing you? I'd be more than happy to help to alleviate any concerns you might have.

[Material Defender]

1730191 It's mostly just the whole story thing, and when you end updating them all separately, I usually just end up losing track of which story is which and which one has which character and all of that stuff. Nothing that bad, as I usually get back on track once I've read it. Besides that, probably best to take it to PMs, don't want to end up clogging the comments with talk about other things.