And I lie in it
Jack did go for a wander around Canterlot and Jack did attract attention immediately, but then again he’d expected nothing less.
Not that it was overly negative attention or anything like that. Ponies stared, sure, but they’d stared in Ponyville back in the day, at least at first, and they’d also stared and run away back when he’d been trying to do his monster thing. Being the centre of attention wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t unusual either.
As long as they didn’t gasp too loudly or cross the street too hastily Jack barely noticed, content as he was to just wander along soaking the place up. Personally, he still found the novelty of it - magical pony city! Half of it kind of floating! Other bits of it actually floating! Magic! - incredibly satisfying.
Ponyville was nice, but it wasn’t that strange, really, once you got down to it.
And it was while he was wandering along and soaking it up that he happened to see coming his way, walking along happy as anything, a brace of ponies and - to Jack’s immense delight - a Changeling.
He’d rather forgotten about them and that whole kerfuffle with finding out what to do with them, but then it all came back to him. Better still, this particular Changeling saw Jack and stopped dead. And not just from the shock of what he looked like, either. She’d plainly recognised him, which could only mean one thing. Jack’s smile reached almost ear-to-ear.
“Eggs! Eggs you lovable, scampish rapscallion you! How are you?” He boomed, making all those ponies within a dozen or so feet flinch and the nearby shop windows flex. Striding over he made an internal note to tone it down in future.
Eggs - flanked by friends who were plainly wondering what else about Eggs they didn’t know - could only stand rooted to the spot while looking him up and down in blank-faced shock.
“Jack? You look really different,” she said.
“It’s the hair, isn’t it?” He said, patting a do that simply wasn’t there.
Having left his time in the mountains being set on fire occasionally behind him it had started to grow back, but was nowhere near the Spider-Jerusalem-before-he-went-back-to-the-City levels of ridiculous it had been when they’d met the first time. Mostly right then he just looked a little fuzzy.
Eggs again goggled at the sheer scope and scale of Jack’s gem-dripping swag and majesty. There was a lot to take in. His hair hadn’t really been the first thing she’d noticed.
“Uh, yeah.”
Here the conversation stalled for a second until Jack forced things forward, giving a wave to Eggs’ friends.
“Hello Eggs’ friends, I’m Jack. Not from round here, broke her out of a jail one time, all in good fun, hello.”
The two ponies - whose names Jack instantly forgot on hearing them, much to his annoyance - were actually vaguely aware of Jack, in the sense of having heard that Princess Twilight associated with something big and unusual.
The jailbreak story was news to them though, and Jack and Eggs actually had a reasonably good time relating the anecdote to the two of them, after which the atmosphere was much more relaxed.
“So how’s it going? How’s life in this fancy-pants city? I must know!” Jack asked.
By then they’d all moved into a nearby ornamental garden (Canterlot was lousy with the bloody things) to sit and be more convivial. Eggs and friends sat on a bench, Jack sat on the floor.
“Things are good. I really like it here. Got a job, too,” Eggs said happily to nods from the two ponies flanking her. Jack wondered if they always moved around like that, and if so if they had any particular reason.
“Ooh, a job. Very fancy,” He said.
Only then did Jack finally notice that Eggs and her friends were all wearing identical - and adorable - little shirts and hats, plainly a uniform of some kind. Jack tried to make out the logo but it just looked like a squiggle to him, and told him nothing.
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “You are all...phone sanitisers?”
“We work at a pretzel stand,” said one of the ponies. She was blue. Beyond that she was an enigma. A cheerful enigma, but an enigma all the same.
“For some reason I kind of expected you to end up doing something involving breakfast,” Jack said to Eggs. He could not have explained why he’d expected this, he just had.
“Pretzels can be a breakfast food,” Eggs said firmly. She had strong feelings about this.
“That sounds a lot like pro-pretzel propaganda to me, Eggs, but you’re the one with the experience so I’ll bow to your wisdom. You still living on that floating island thingy?”
“No, I moved off of that. Most of us did. It was only temporary anyway. I have a place. Could show you, if you want?” She asked, adjusting her wings briefly and settling herself more comfortably on the bench.
“Far too kind! I wouldn’t want to impose,” Jack said, holding up a hand.
“It’s no problem, I-” Eggs said, but all further details were curtailed by a forceful cough from someone nearby. Eggs and co turned, as did Jack, to find a pony in half a business suit standing there and not looking especially happy.
“Would you mind leaving, please?” Said the pony once he’d noticed that he had their attention.
This was unexpected, at least to Jack. From the sudden slump of Egg’s shoulder and the supportive bunching up of her friends it seemed like like a surprise to them and more something they were familiar with but not fond of. Not that Jack noticed them doing that. He was looking at the suit-pony in confusion.
“Uh, there a reason you’re asking?” He asked.
The suit-pony only then properly noticed Jack - which suggetsed a certain level of focussed obliviousness that would take a lifetime to perfect - and double-took, but carried on with remarkable coolness all the same.
“Yes, that is my bench and I’d rather not have to clean it after a Changeling has been seen using it.”
There was a lot wrong with this statement. Beyond the obvious, unexpected prejudicial outburst, surely it was too late now anyway, Eggs having already sat down. Had this guy not thought this through?
Also what did he just say?
“Pardon could you run that by me again? Am I missing something here?” Jack asked, squinting at the pony and then to Eggs and friends to see if they had any answers. Eggs was presently looking very put-upon and her friends had both put hooves around her shoulders, but this didn’t give Jack any fresh information to work with.
“Apparently,” said the suit-pony so Jack’s attention returned to him.
“Your name on that bench or something?” Jack asked.
“It is, actually. I sponsored it. This whole garden, in fact. So if your friend wouldn’t mind vacating first the bench and then the garden entire I’d very much appreciate it.”
Honestly Jack hadn’t expected that answer. Not that it changed much.
Then something clicked in Jack’s head.
“Hang on a minute, I know you. You’re that guy from the train. The one who was yelling at the engineer. Hi again.”
“Yes. Hello. Could you please-”
“Yes yes yes. See, now my urge right now is to pick you up and pop you in that tree over there, but that’s the sort of thing that’d get me in trouble right now because I promised Twilight - “
Then, for possibly the first time in his life Jack had what felt almost scarily like a good idea. It struck him like a bolt from the blue and unfurled in his mind like some sort of brilliant flower. It was an idea so good he was amazed it had in his own head, of all places.
He remembered back to the train, back to this self-same guy throwing around his weight because he knew important people. And now here Jack was, about to just let the fact he was buddies with a princess slip past like that wasn’t a big deal to most other people. He coughed and then gave the rest of that sentence a second shot:
“Princess Twilight, rather. I promised Princess Twilight - after having just seen Princess Celestia - that I wouldn’t cause trouble around town. And I’m not going to break that promise. That said though I can’t rightly let you just-”
The pony felt that he plainly had let Jack have his moment for far too long, and interjected:
“Now you just hang on on a minute!”
Jack reached out and put a finger to the pony’s muzzle. It was the shock of this that shut the guy more than anything else, though Jack’s enormous size also helped.
“Shush your mouth sounds there, uh, what was your name again?” Jack asked, realising he had no idea.
“Toffee Nose,” said Toffee Nose, with every appearance of pride. Jack was genuinely taken aback. He doubted he’d ever get the hang of pony names.
How determinative was a pony name anyway? Would a pony named Mr Bun The Baker be destined for baking, or would they be able to embrace their dream of being an OBGYN? Would a pony dubbed Massive Fuckup be cursed to fuck up massively? Why had Eggs stuck with the - admittedly rather cute, if odd - name Eggs Benedict? Where’d she got it from?
Was there anyone called Seabiscuit and had Jack just not met them yet?
Mysteries like this ran like rivers through the universe.
Jack realised he was getting distracted.
“For real? You poor bastard, you never stood a chance, did you? Anyway, as I was trying to say, I know people too, hmm? People perhaps a little higher up than the people you know? And people who - oh, might object to your shoddy treatment of fellow Equestrian citizens? Especially since - and correct me if I’m wrong here - wasn’t it Celestia’s rather nice idea to let Changelings be citizens if they wanted to? Wasn’t that her idea?”
Toffee Nose suddenly didn’t look quite so casual and comfortable with the situation as he had a few moments before. In fact, he looked decidedly uncomfortable. He shifted on his hooves and glared at Jack and glanced at Eggs, still hiding behind his legs.
“...yes,” he muttered.
“Yes! Yes it was. Thank you, I wasn’t sure. So, you know, I mean, she was pretty nice to me a minute ago when we were talking but do you think she’d be as pleasant if she knew you were here just being a tosspot for no good reason?”
Toffee Nose said nothing.
“Want to find out?”
Toffee Nose continued to say nothing and Jack rolled onto his hands and knees and crab-walked over to cup a hand to his ear as dramatically as possible.
“Sorry didn’t catch that.”
“...no I do not want to find out. Your friend may continue using my bench.”
“That’s what I thought you said but I wasn’t sure. How very kind of you. And perhaps you’d like to apologise to my adorable friend here and then move along and enjoy the rest of your day?”
It looked as though there were a good few other things that Toffee Nose would rather do but the daunting proximity of Jack - and his regal connections - were sufficient enough to overcome his reluctance.
“Sorry,” he said in the tightest-lipped manner possible and without looking anywhere near to Eggs before immediately turning and leaving. Jack watched him go with a dead stare before rolling back into the same sitting position he’d been in before the whole mess started.
Once very sure that the guy was well out of earshot Jack turned back to Eggs and friends with a look of absolute astonishment on his face.
“Oh my God I can’t believe that worked! Most of that was total bullshit. I was just making it up as I went along. Was it convincing? Did you buy it?” He asked, leaning in conspiratorially.
The two ponies nodded enthusiastically with expressions of delight written across their faces. Eggs just looked to be a little stunned.
Despite having now won permission to sit on Toffee Nose’s bench - and it really did have his name actually, physically on it as they discovered - the whole kerfuffle had rather soured the mood, and the group dispersed. Eggs waved goodbye to her friends who trotted and then led Jack back to hers just to have a chat and show him how she was doing with life now. She’d insisted.
She lived in an apartment towards the outer edges of Canterlot, the slightly less grand portion. Still nice though. Sure as hell nicer than his hometown, as Jack was keen to point out to her. They had to step over fewer drunks and no-one tried to sell them drugs. Eggs did not know what he was talking about.
Getting up to Egg’s place was an experience. The interior of the building was less roomy than Jack was used to, what with Ponyville’s alarmingly high ceilings and open spaces. He managed, it just took some squeezing here and there, and once actually in Egg’s rather nice little apartment he did have to stoop. He was used to this, though.
It was better once he’d sat down. Egg’s sofa groaned and he took up all of it, looking around while she busied herself making drinks for the two of them. That ponies drank coffee at all remained something of an endless source of wonder to Jack, and he imagined it always would.
He’d have preferred tea, but Eggs did not have any. Jack had been appalled but had let her off and told her so.
Before too long she came back, balancing two mugs on her back. Again, Jack was struck by how everyone here seemed to be living in a world that had not been designed with them in mind. Nodding thanks he took his teeny-tiny pony mug and gave its contents a blow.
“Thanks for standing up for me,” Eggs said, sitting in the single seat opposite the sofa. Jack shrugged it off.
“Man, Eggs, it’s not a big deal, honestly, I just ran with it. That guy is the first pony I’ve met who’s been less than pleasant, which was surprising.”
“Still, it means a lot to me. Thanks.”
“You get that a lot?” Jack asked.
“Less, now,” she said.
The implication being that it did still happen. Jack could read the room.
Eggs hopped back down off her chair again, the tension of the moment apparently too much for her.
“I’ll get some snacks. Pretzels okay?”
“Do you get a staff rate or something?”
“Basically.”
“The perks! And yeah sure, very kind of you.”
She went off. Jack hung around on the sofa some more, looking around the place. It looked cosy and homely enough. Coffee table, bookshelves, stuff.
The bookshelves caught his eye. Not for the books - he wouldn’t have been able to make much of them - but rather for the pictures that also occupied the shelves. Setting his mug down he carefully dismounted and moved over to have a closer look.
Eggs had a surprising number of pictures, it turned out. Busy lady with a rich and full social life.
The biggest was a framed picture that showed a group of Changelings in front of someplace Jack did not recognise. He did - to his surprise - manage to recognise Eggs in the picture, though all the others were strangers to him. Whoever and wherever they were, they all looked plenty happy.
Presumably a bunch of Eggs and her Changeling friends prior to them all going their separate ways and making their own way of things now they were citizens? Or something like that. Jack was making guesses, but it seemed convincing to him.
He looked over the other pictures. Jack spotted the two ponies that Eggs had been with earlier in a few of them, along with some others. It looked like Eggs had been quite the busy bee in enjoying life, as well she should be. Jack swallowed. Something was building up from somewhere within his gut, and he wasn’t the sort of noxious emission he was used to.
For one thing he didn’t really get those anymore.
There came the sound of a pretzel-laden plate being set down.
“You okay?” Eggs asked and Jack shuffled back to his seat.
“I’m dandy. Was just looking at your pictures,” he said, waving a hand towards the bookshelf. Eggs looked bashful and munched on a pretzel. It still amazed her that she wasn’t sick of the things yet.
“Oh, those. I, well, we never really had pictures before, or friends, or, well, much of what I do now and I guess I’m still kind of just...in love with it all a little.”
“No need to explain it to me, Eggs. I’m actually very happy for you. You’ve carved out a lovely little life here and that’s fantastic,” he said.
Then he thought a second or two, reaching out to pick up his drink again, thinking some more, then:
“Eggs, you and I are kind of loose acquaintances, aren’t we?” He asked, turning the mug in his hands. It looked hilariously small, now, but Jack was not laughing. The coffee was still steaming but he downed it anyway and felt a distant warmth but little else.
“That’s kind of a weird way of putting it but yes,” she said.
“Could I vent to you for a second?”
This caught Eggs a little off-guard, but she rolled with it all the same. She wasn’t made of stone, after all, and she knew how things were. Sometimes you just needed to vent. Who didn’t? She could listen with the best of them.
“If you want? Wouldn’t you prefer to do that with Princess Twilight?” She asked. Jack gave a pained grin.
“Uh, heh, no, no. I like Twilight, but there’s just something about talking to someone you only kind of know, you know?”
She did know. It was one of those things. Often easier to unload onto a stranger. Someone could have explained the logic behind it, but neither of those someones were Eggs or Jack. But they just got it.
“I get it, yeah.”
“Thanks. And do stop me if I start sounding a little maudlin.”
“You say what you need to.”
“Very much obliged,” Jack said.
He then took a moment to gather his thoughts.
“Did I ever tell you what my deal was?” He said, once the moment had elapsed.
Eggs shook her head. “Not really. Just said you weren’t from around here.”
“Didn’t think I did. And no, I’m not from around here. I’m from a different world entirely, if you can believe that. It’s full of people like me - species-wise, I mean - animals that don’t talk and no magic whatsoever.”
“That doesn’t sound very believable,” Eggs said, reasonably enough. Jack couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. Just a little one.
“I know, right? But trust me, I lived it. And anyway, I was there, one face among billions, just trudging along. I was just some guy. I worried about the future, didn’t really like my job, dealt with things day to day. Normal. Would have just, you know, lived my life without a ripple and died and that would have been that.”
He swept his hand in a very emphatic ‘done and dusted’ kind of a gesture and looked to see if Eggs was in the mood to interrupt him. She did not though, and so Jack continued:
“Instead, I wind up here. Don’t ask me how, I can’t really remember. Just did, and that was that. And I can’t go back. That’s important. According to Twilight it is physically impossible for me to go back. So I’m stuck. Just like that I go from some guy to the only example of my kind on a world entirely unlike my own. So that’s all of my cares and worries and fears just plucked out of my hands - pop! - gone. Just like that.
And it’s not like I’ve got a whole lot to worry about now! Nothing serious. Look at me! I’ve turned into some - and am still turning into - some kind of invulnerable collousses...thing…”
He frowned.
“Collusses? Cololosses? Colossus? Fuck, one of those...”
“I think I get it,” said Eggs, bringing Jack back on-topic.
“Yeah, yeah, so anyway, I haven’t eaten anything in days and don’t apparently need to anymore. I can eat, but I just don’t get hungry now. That’s weird. I tried to cut my hand with a knife just to see if I could and I broke the fucking knife. Also pretty weird.”
No-one had been around to see him try that, and it had been mostly done out of idle curiosity rather than any real desire to actual be cut, but there you go. The results had been just as described. He owed Twilight a knife.
Well, he owed Twilight rather a lot, he felt, but also a knife on top of that, now.
“Oh, and magic - the big-deal thing that didn’t exist back home but does here and is important - does bugger all to me. So basically I’m golden. I am above mortal concerns, it seems. So that’s all my worries gone and nothing coming in to fill the void. Except the terror that I’m turning into some kind of weirdo monster.”
Jack stared at his hands a moment and tried to remember what they’d looked like when they’d been the size they were meant to be. It was getting a little difficult.
Bereft of anything helpful to say and not really sure what else she could do right then, Eggs offered Jack a pretzel. He took it nodded thanks, taking a bite. He hadn’t been hungry, obviously, but eating did help make him feel a little more grounded.
“And it’s not as though I chose to leave everything I had to worry about behind, I didn’t run away from them. I was taken away from them. I didn’t want to leave mum behind like that. I didn’t want to leave Sophie behind like that. I didn’t want to leave dad to, well, let’s not split hairs here he’s probably dead by now - and that’s kind of the point, I wasn’t there for that. I was here, probably doing something stupid because what else do I have to do?”
Eggs shrugged.
“And honestly, Eggs, I’m a lot more scared about what’s happening to me than I’ll admit, even to myself. I sure as shit ain’t telling Twilight how worried I am. I mean look at me, I look different from the last time you saw me, right?”
Again Eggs looked over the enormous, alien thing currently hogging her entire sofa and taking up a significant slice of her living space.
“Little bit.”
“Again, kind, thank you. I’m changing. When I first arrived in Equestria I was, oh, let’s say a little over five foot seven. Tall for round here, but pretty average back home, all things considered. Know how tall I am now?”
“How tall?” Eggs asked, because that was what was expected of her.
“A hair over eight foot. Roughly. Maybe. The measurements here aren’t what I’m used to but approximately that’s what it looks like to me. That ain’t normal. And I’ve bulked out all to hell. I look like a fucking brick wall. That ain’t normal. And it’s not stopping. What if it never does?
She had no answer to this. Who could? Jack hadn’t really expected her to. That’s what venting was for - asking rhetorical questions that make everyone who hears them a little uncomfortable so that the questions stop eating away at your insides.
“But you know what really gets me though? What still gets me?” Jack asked.
Eggs shook her head.
“Those times when I’m glad I got stuck here. Because it wasn’t my fault and it took me away from everything I was worrying about. Since I’m stuck here I didn’t need to worry about watching dad die by degrees while I try to help mum look after him. That all happened away from me, far away, out of my hands and out of sight and none of that was my fault.
Don’t need to worry about trying to find a place to live with Sophie so we can move out of living under her parents even though the numbers wouldn’t work and both of us knew we couldn’t really do it. Because I get to live in a fucking castle here for free. And I don’t need to worry about my shitty job that reminded me every day I should have been looking for something better even though I never did because money is useless to me now, basically. What do I need to buy? I can live in a cave and eat rocks. I have lived in a cave and eaten rocks!”
“You have?” This was news to Eggs.
“It was a phase I was going through.”
Eggs considered this and asked the hard question:
“Rocks good to eat?”
“Honestly? No, not really. Anyway, uh, where was I? Oh yeah. And if I’d run from any of that - if I’d just slipped away on purpose, got here somehow by choice - I would have been a coward, would have left everyone else holding the bag. I couldn’t have done that. Might have thought about it, considered it, but I never would have. I couldn’t have.
But it doesn’t matter. Because I didn’t. It was done to me, I had no choice. I get all the benefits and none of the responsibility because it wasn’t my fault. And if Twilight had found a way back and I hadn’t taken it? I would have been a coward then, too, and the choice would have been back on me.
But she didn’t and she can’t, so it’s out of my hands completely. I am without blemish. A leaf on the wind. Everyone else got the shaft but it had nothing to do with me so my conscience is clean. And sometimes I think about that and I don’t feel all that bad and - and I think that makes me a bad person.”
Things got very quiet after that. He’d obviously finished saying all he’d wanted to say, and Eggs was now trying to come up with what the hell she was meant to say in response. While she did that, Jack reached out for another Pretzel. They were rather moreish.
“I don’t think you’re a bad person, Jack.”
“Kind of you to say, but you don’t really know me.”
“I think I know enough. Princess Twilight likes you and I think that says a lot. You stood up for me. That, and you don’t really do anything bad. Not really bad, at least. I was part of an invading army,” she said, by way of contrast.
That was enough to snap Jack at least partway out of his sudden low ebb.
“You were?!” He asked, alarmed. Eggs gave him an odd look.
“Did no-one explain that to you?”
“Uh...maybe…”
If they had, he had forgotten.
Jack thought about this revelation, grunted, then rapped a knuckle against the side of his head.
“But you’re so adorable though...ugh, you’re right. Said I’d stop doing this. What am I doing? Being invited here and then talking your ear off! Think I’m just in a bit of a funk for whatever reason. It happens. I’ll get better. Things have been going alright. Things are good. Things are good, Eggs! Sure my life took a turn but it wasn’t a bad one, was it?”
“No?”
“No! No it was not. This place is a bonafide wonderland and I should just appreciate it, get on with it. No use getting hung up on stuff I can’t do anything about, right?”
He stood up as suddenly as possible in such a confined space, a move that lacked drama on account of him having to stoop not to tear through the ceiling.
“Sorry for unloading on you like that. Christ, what a whining bastard! All this time in civilisation is giving me far too much time to think! Let’s go do something fun, eh? Do ponies have bar billiards? Let’s go play bar billiards.”
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<hug>
Bad news for you there Jack. You know those chunks of Pink Kirin Salt that are sprinkled over those pretzels? Yeah...
Granite is a bit gneiss though!
I don't even know where to start. This series is such a painfully perfect exploration of the concept. It's more or less everything I ever thought about trying to say with an HiE. I love it and it means a lot to me.
Wow. An actual character in a HIE that is realistic about never coming back home. I love this story.
You could say she put him... between a rock and a hard question.
I've run out of shame.
I DONT SAY
BLAH BLAH BLAH
oh i think you do
I DONT THE ONLY TIMES I DO IS WHEN I SAY I DONT
Jack is on a roll, and is not stopping.
That was satisfying.