Hidden deep
“Sorry about Rarity. I kind of expected her to make something a little, uh, subtle. Triumph of hope over experience, heh. Probably should have specified,” Twilight said, keeping her head down, very much aware now of the attention we were drawing. I was too, but my new duds were proof against the stares.
Before, they’d been looking because they were scared at the new things (probably), now they were looking in appalled fascination. A step up!
That and I was genuinely feeling great. Chalk this up as a personal foible but I thought the outfit went so far past overblown that I couldn’t help but love it. Clearly it spoke to something deep inside me.
Significant? Probably not. But it’s the little things that make life worth living, when it’s all said and done.
Or so I think, anyway. And what do I know?
“Do I look concerned, Twilight? This is great!” I said. She looked up at me, squinting either in disbelief or just as the loudness of my appearance.
“Really?”
“Yeah! Look at this! I’m amazing! And ridiculous. Uh, don’t tell Rarity I said that. I really do like it though. And she made it for me!”
This was important. As leery as I was about people doing things for me and giving me things - and that was pretty leery - at the end of the day this was something that someone had made. Where before there had been nothing there was now this! That impressed me on a fundamental level. Snaps for Rarity.
“As long as you’re sure,” she said.
“Adamant. Like I said, I look like a wizard who has gone far beyond caring. Me of, uh, well just one colour but a very, very sparkly version of that colour. Which kind of reminds me, actually, I had another question for you, clever-clogs that you are.”
This brightened her up at once, and might also have put just a touch of pink in her cheeks.”
“Shoot,” she said.
“Magic. What’s the deal with that?” I asked.
This had been circling my brain more or less constantly since I’d woken up in magic horse land, mostly because it seemed that magic had a pretty significant hand in my having ended up here at all, so anything I could learn about it could only be good. That and it should be interesting, right?
And totally not because I entertained a dim and distant hope of becoming an actual, legit, bonafide wizard at some point in the future. That’d be crazy. First things first, just get the knowledge in.
One step at a time, son.
If Twilight had looked happy at the prospect of being asked something, finding out what it was I was curious about seemed to have plug her into some sort of infinite source of sheer rapture. The look on her face was so bright I swear I need to shield my eyes - smiling ear-to-ear she was!
“Ooh, that’s a very good question! To answer it I’ll need to cover some background material first…”
Not long after she said this, I had cause to regret asking.
It was like someone had turned a hose on me. A hose of words and context that I was clearly expected to understand but which I did not. Names! Dates! Places! An unending stream blasting at me with ever-increasing speed the more Twilight got into her subject.
She just looked like she was having so much fun that I didn’t have the heart to beg her to stop. Instead I just took to nodding, agreeing and letting it all roll over me.
I wondered what Celestia was doing. And as I wondered I spotted something which caught my eye. A dot in the sky. Not cloud, this I was fairly certain of. Not a plane, obviously. A pegasus, then? I had seen one or two in the air before now. Just not quite so high or so far away.
Maybe it was something else?
“Not meaning to interrupt you there Twilight, but what’s that?” I asked, pointing.
“-ig hat sages- hmm? What’s what?” Twilight stumbled mid-flow, seeming to break out of whatever academic trance she’d settled into, blinking and looking around as though she’d forgotten where she was. I pointed harder.
“That, that thing. Rapidly approaching. Very rapidly approaching.”
What had been a dot was quickly becoming not a dot, but something larger. Definitely a pegasus now, I could see, but I’d asked now and I couldn’t exactly un-ask.
“What- oh, that’s just Rainbow Dash,” she said, shielding her eyes with a hoof.
“Another friend of yours?” I asked. Twilight nodded.
What were the odds? I guess Ponyville was a pretty small place, Twilight was a princess and I did stick out like a sore thumb. So maybe it was to be expected?
Still, this Rainbow lady was not very far away now, and I must admit to feeling a little nervous at just how fast she was obviously going. Not sure what the air brakes are like on a pegasus but there have to be limits, surely.
“Does she often come at you with such terrifying velocity? Should we duck?” I asked.
“It’ll be fine. She’s probably just...showing off. Probably.”
Twilight didn’t sound entirely convinced by this, and I noticed her edging in front of me.
Rainbow Dash came to a halt mere feet from us, doing so so quickly she produced an actual screeching sound from nothing but contact with the air itself. Don’t even ask me about that. Also don’t ask me how she then managed to just stay bobbing in midair supported only by occasional lazy flaps of her tiny, adorable little wings.
Physics be damned! Cartoon horses have their own rules!
Flying is pretty cool, though. Wish I could fly.
“Hey Twilight. What’s this thing?” She said, waving a hoof in my direction. I didn’t mind. At least she got straight to the point.
“He’s a guest, I’m just showing him around,” Twilight said.
Rainbow looked me up and down a bit more.
“It looks like Rarity attacked him,” she said.
“I know, right? Look at me. I look amazing,” I said, giving another turn. This one turned out to be a mistake as my balance gave out and it looked for a good second like I was about to fall over again, stick or not. Twilight caught me though with magic and righted me again. Good save!
“Thanks,” I said, giving her another pat. I couldn’t really help myself. She went more pink.
Rainbow looked distinctly unimpressed.
“Right,” she said. “So what is he?”
‘Abrasive’ would be the word I’d use were I asked to sum up Rainbow right now. But what of it? Here I was, some thing wandering along with her friend, what was she supposed to do? Jump on top of my head and then fall into my arms? Who would do that?
“He’s a human! From a whole other world. But he can’t remember it right now and he nearly died getting here, so he’s a little delicate right now,” Twilight said, seeming to feel some measure of proud for me because of this. I hadn’t done much to deserve this, but whatever made her happy.
Also: me? Delicate? How dare she. I’m as robust as anything, me. Just don’t ask me to stand on one leg. Or remember anything about my life in any real detail. Other than that I’m fine.
Rainbow gave me another look, this one slightly less scathing.
“Another world, huh? How’s that working out for you?”
“Pretty good, so far. Apart from nearly dying on arrival and the memory loss. Hello. I have a name but I can’t remember what it is,” I said. Was getting pretty sick of that at this point. Kind of a mouthful.
“You don’t have a name?” She asked, frowning.
I frowned too. What I’d said was pretty unambiguous.
“I do have a name. I just can’t remember what it is.”
To me this was an important distinction. She did not appear to agree.
“How is that better than not having one? What are we meant to call you?”
I shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter to me. Call me anything. No skin off my back.”
Her frown deepened. She seemed to be taking my lackadaisical attitude as a personal slight.
“That’s crazy, doesn’t that bother you?”
I shrugged again, starting to perhaps feel just the tiniest bit put-upon.
“Not really. Does it bother you?”
“Yes!”
I wasn’t entirely sure it was meant to work that way around, but what did I know? Not my business telling people what bothered them.
“What do you want me to do? Just pick something?” I asked.
She nodded, vehemently, rainbow hair flapping.
“It’d be better than nothing!”
Man, she wasn’t letting this go, was she?
Just pick one at random. Don’t think about it or you’ll get a headache. Just reach in and snatch one, just to make her happy. Anything for a quiet life, remember?
Oh, wait, I’ve got it. Got just the thing.
“John Doe. How’s that work for you?” I said, being the hilarious motherfucker that I was.
Her muzzle wrinkled. I wasn’t sure she got the joke. How could she?
“Like the deer?” She asked, head tilting.
What?
“What? No, just the first bit. John, alright? That work for you? Name enough?”
“Yeah, that’s good, John,” she said, putting particular and peculiar emphasis onto the name.
Guess I was a John now. Whee. I looked down at Twilight.
“That work for you?” I asked her.
“It’s very you,” she said.
Whatever that meant.
Small talk then happened. Rainbow flapped alongside us as we continued wandering on our way to wherever, Twilight filling her in on some of the other details of me and my arrival. I was a conversation piece, don’t you know.
Rainbow did not seem overly impressed with my status as some kind of royal guest. She was far more interested in hearing about back home, and I did my best to oblige her, ignoring the warning look and reminders about my health that came from Twilight.
It was fine, actually. I told her about planes. This didn’t seem to trouble my brain, probably because I wasn’t thinking about people. Why was it only other human beings that gave me trouble? I rattled off the full extent of my (limited) aeronautical knowledge - mentioning how I used to hear Concorde when I was younger, this being quite a distinct memory - and Rainbow was in awe. Then she noticed she was in awe, coughed, and played it cool.
Cute, very cute. They were all so fucking cute. I needed a lie down in a dark room.
“What’s the fastest one though? The fastest plane?” She asked, eyes wide, almost nose-to-nose with me.
“Uh, well, there was a rocket in the sixties. I think? X-something. Got up to mach six? Like, four and a half thousand miles an hour or thereabouts? I think? That fast enough for you?”
How did I even know that?
Rainbow’s eyes honest-to-god twinkled.
“Wow…” she breathed.
I didn’t know a lot about speed but it was a pretty big number, so I guess I could see where she was coming from.
My head throbbed. Not painfully, but noticeably. A little pressure on the temples. A gentle warning from my ever-so-helpful brain that it was probably best to wind it down for now.
Twilight must have noticed as she gave my robe a tug and mouthed ‘Are you okay?’ at me. I nodded, smiled, reached to pat her again and thought better of it - best not to make a habit. She might get annoyed.
I really wanted to, though!
“Well, I should probably get hi- get John home, now. We missed lunch,” Twilight said. The big crystal tree castle thing was visible now, not that far off.
“Huh?” Rainbow said. Then she looked around. “Oh, oh right. Yeah, yeah! That’s alright. Go feed that guy! I got stuff to do anyway. Awesome stuff. You know.”
I did not, but I took her word for it.
Twilight got a wave and I got a weird hoof-stroke-fist bump thing and then Rainbow was off like a shot.
“Girl’s got pace,” I said, watching her become a dot again. Twilight hummed in agreement and we continued on our way, on the home stretch now.
“She was very bothered about the name thing, wasn’t she? What was up with that?” I asked. Twilight did not answer and when I looked to her I could see she was quite deliberately holding her tongue.
Her silence spoke volumes.
“Was it bothering you?” I asked. She bit her lip.
“Maybe a little. It was kind of awkward introducing you when I couldn’t call you anything. Kind of awkward not being able to call you anything, actually.”
Urgh, ponies.
“Why didn’t you say anything!”
“I thought it was a touchy subject for you!” She retorted.
Urgh, ponies. Again.
“Well it wasn’t. Settled now anyway. You feel a compelling need to call me anything just call me that. John Doe. Just John, actually.”
Still didn’t sit quite right for me but it was a bit late now. I’d made my bed.
“Is that a normal name for humans?” She asked.
Good question. I thought about it.
A lot of names were still swirling around inside my head. Jack Chirac. Sandi Toksvig. Gustavus Adolphus. Harun al-Rashid. Ruth Davidson. There were a lot to choose from. Kind of overwhelming, actually, especially given that most of the context for them was just an inch or two beyond my fingertips.
The names I got, who they were or why I knew them I didn’t.
But better than nothing, right?
“Humans got a lot of names,” I said, to cut to the quick. “This one’s just a joke. Kind of.”
“How so?”
“Oh, John Doe was a name rolled out for whenever they couldn’t identify someone. Get it? Ya get it?” I said, leaning over her.
“I get it,” she said, flatly, staring up. Worth it.
Figured it’d be just as well leaving out the part where it was often used for corpses. A little morbid. Probably count as doing myself down, too, and I could do without another telling off.
Wouldn’t mind another hug, though...
“How come Rarity and, uh, Pinkie didn’t bring it up? The name thing?”
“Rarity was probably too polite. Pinkie, uh, well, could be anything, really.”
“Fair do’s,” I said. Wasn’t a whole lot else I could say to that.
Still. What a day, eh? Got clothes. Got a name.
That’s, like, halfway towards being a whole human being, right? That’s got to be pretty good? And I was getting lunch, too! That’s at least three quarters!
I’ll be a real boy in no-time.
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It really was the only choice.
9353377
He's pretty much just a headless torso dredged out of a river anyway.
Disciples of Logan no doubt.
Reminds me of that "Johnny Ringo" song. Lyrics kinda fit too.
9353390
I am instantly suspicious of this comment and how accurate it is.
If it turns out travel to horseland makes your head explode and Sunbutt made some errors trying to humpty dumpty his brain, I'm going to go AHA! and refer back to this comment.
NOOO I CAN NO LONGER CALL HIM NIBLESNARF
9354105
I DID THIS PURELY TO SPITE YOU.
9354105
It's ok. He'll always be Niblesnarf in your heart.
9354105
The hell's a Niblesnarf? xD
Can't call him Phil McCrevise now. Darn =(
9354299
It was that or Gareth Gobblecoque.
Pinkie already knows who he is...
So, in this case voice of truth was Rainbow :P
9354279
This horror.
9360340
I was sad not to see him in world. It's just such a big dork.
Weird how he just can’t seem to remember any actual humans. Guess everyone went to the rapture and he got lost in transit or something lol.
That last line… the notion that he might be artificial crossed my mind, but I'd set it aside as a distant possibility. It just got bumped a bit.
...or given the outfit, he could have called himself Tim. Tim The Enchanter!
9701583
He missed a trick
9636999
He's Lore, memory wiped, and rebooted
9826482
Distant sequel to Nemesis.
Acá en Argentina también llamamos a los desconocidos muertos por un nombre: Natalia Natalia.