It's safe now
I will be the first person to put my hands up and say that I might perhaps just maybe possibly be a tiny little bit too easygoing. I can cop to that. I’m a big enough boy to admit this. I’m also very forgiving.
See, now, to me those are good things. But I’m aware not everyone shares that view. And that’s fine! Takes all sorts, right? Everyone’s different. Spice of life and all that. That’s fine.
Mostly this is the result of laziness. I really don’t have the energy to keep on disliking someone. It’s exhausting. Life is easier if you just shrug it off and keep going without having to change direction. That’s lazy but that’s how it is and how I am. Eh.
And I’m basically indestructible anyway. Or so I like to think. In the figurative sense, I mean. A stiff breeze could probably blow me over but I’d feel fine about it is what I mean. And if I think it that’s enough for me, really. I can take anything life might care to throw at me. Why shouldn’t I be able to?
Man is disturbed not by things, but by the principles and notions which he forms concerning things, yes? These things happening to me are as bad or as good as I allow them to be, yes? Think I heard that somewhere once. Force of will, son, force of will.
That’s my excuse.
There are some limits though. Or, well, not limits I suppose but, ah, points of weakness? Things that someone can do that even I find difficult to put behind me. And they don’t even necessarily have to happen to me! Just things I can’t comfortably gloss over. Malice, is one. And violating someone’s absolute territory. You know? Messing with their head.
Even then I’m still a soft touch at heart. It wouldn’t take much to win me over. I’m just a softy. And lazy. Did I mention that?
The point of all this navel gazing is, basically, that I have no idea what to think about Umbra.
Column A: Really, I have every right to be grumpy with Umbra. A rare thing in life, to be able to hold forth against someone without reservation! But think about it. I’m meant to be up here on holiday - on holiday! I’m supposed to be laughing it up with Twilight and that other one! Uh, Cadence, that was it - and instead I’m stuck here! And it’s all Umbra’s fault!
That’s a pretty good reason not to like a person. You’d be hard pressed to find someone to argue otherwise!
On top of that you have oodles of hot nonsense. She has mindslaves! That’s - that’s not a nice thing! And then there’s the other stuff! Fucking weirdo mindgames and just jerking me around and also legitimate invasions of my brain. That’s a big one! I am not a fan of that! Leaving aside the potential to kill me, it’s also just getting dangerously close to areas that I had thought comfortably put to bed forever.
I do not want anything dug up from the sealed away portions of my skull, thank you. They can stay that way forever. I am happy the way I am. If I were to be different I would not be me and I would be someone else, and I like being me. Me am in good place, me am happy.
It’s a whale of a time, being John! Whoever the other guy has had his run! He can have a rest now! He doesn’t need to come back!
Fucking philosophic nonsense who has the time to worry about this...
Though, in her defence, Umbra has so-far been pretty good at avoiding killing me by accident. In that at least she was as good as her word. Guess she’s a dab hand, er, dab hoof at mindfuckery. Snaps for Umbra. Good job you.
Not that I should be defending her, really…
Which does bring me onto column B, however.
Column B: I really don’t have the energy to actively dislike anyone, like I said. And if I just bring a hand up and cover up one eye so to speak and so only see how she acts to me when she’s being nice, well, she’s not awful.
Though, really, if your criteria for how you want to think of someone is ‘Ignore all the bad parts’ you’ll probably think that about most people…
That, and the more I think about it and the more she hangs around the more it seems to me like she doesn’t actually have a clue what she’s doing. Not that she’s an idiot or anything - oh no, not at all - but just that she’s picked something up thinking it’s going to go one way and instead it’s going another way entirely and now she has no idea how to handle it.
I even think she’d stopped skim-reading my thoughts. Can’t be sure, obviously, but she wasn’t doing that annoying thing where she replied to whatever I thought last anymore.
In a strange sort of a way I’d got used to it. Ugh. If it’s not one thing it’s another I swear.
It is weird. Like she’s showed up tooled up for the big snooker tournament, say, only it’s actually a netball tournament and she’s just left standing there holding her cue and trying to act as though she meant for all this to happen.
You know?
I don’t know. I’m not equipped for this. I’m not equipped for anything! I’d be out of my depth in a teaspoon. I kind of want to just go home, go to sleep and do my best to ignore that any of this ever happened, honestly.
And maybe have a cup of tea and a cuddle. I’m a simple man.
Wonder what Celestia’s up to...
Besides, once I’ve been rescued - which I imagine will happen any day now, surely, and for real this time - there will be plenty of other people willing to actively dislike Umbra on my behalf. I have no doubt about that.
Speaking of Umbra - as I seem to spend most of my time these days doing - she did indeed show up in the morning as she said she would, bright and early. She also brought breakfast, which I did not expect.
She was still acting odd. And that’s odd by her standards. Her baseline, to me, was an attitude of unflappable confidence of the sort that came from having it fixed in one’s head that the world is This Way and any deviations from this are just passing phases that will, in time, be rectified. The kind of self-confidence that moves mountains by denying they are there and then arranging things so that they don’t stay there. That takes brass!
That baseline is still mostly there, but there are cracks through which something else shows through from time to time, and it is unsettling.
“You okay?” I asked while eating some bread. Good bread.
I asked this because from the moment she’d entered to the moment I started eating bread she had not said a word, had spent a lot of time staring into space and - for the first time, I noticed - her mane was untidy. Not, like, a mess, but actually with one or two spots out of place. It was so unusual it practically screamed at me.
Man, I think I’ve been locked in here too long if I’m noticing stuff like that…
It takes her a bit to even notice I’d asked her something and when it finally gets through she jumps, looking down to me - me being on the bed because, sigh, what else am I doing with my life?
“Everything is entirely as it should be,” she said, which sounded convincing to me, sure.
“I asked if you were okay though,” I said.
I could see her puzzling out the phrasing of this in her head to try and work out if there was an angle she was missing. Then, when she worked out there wasn’t, she went through what words she should use to come back at me with.
It seemed like a lot of effort to be her, I have to say.
“I am...fine,” she said eventually, pairing it with a smile that just didn’t really do much for anything.
“You don’t sound sure.”
The smile left. Really, it had barely been there to start with.
“John, I have answered your question.”
I held up my bread in front of me for defensive purposes.
“Alright, alright. Just you looked a little out of sorts is all.”
A tail flick from Umbra. Not one of the amused ones - I could recognise those - so I assumed some sort of low-level irritation. Oops.
“Would it increase your trust in me if I were you keep you better informed of outside events?” She asked, after some further rumination.
“I thought the problem was your lack of trust in me? And, being honest, I’d prefer if you let me leave. Can we do that?”
Hey, you never know, right?
Another annoyed tail-flick. Definitely one of the annoyed variety. I held the bread up again.
“That is not going to happen,” she said.
“Shame. Well, second best thing then. What news from the frozen north?”
She looked at me funny for that one. I’ll take what I can get.
“There is - there are problems. Ones that I had foreseen but ones which are proceeding faster than I expected. It is disrupting my plans. I am having to improvise more than I am comfortable with.”
“I don’t want to come across as undermining you here, Umbra, but problems for you are probably good for me.”
I really felt like I was pushing my luck here a bit but, to my surprise, Umbra’s patience held pretty firm. I didn’t even get that ‘skating on thin ice feeling’ I sometimes used to get from her. She just gave me a hard stare for a second and that was it.
“That is debatable. What is good for me is good for you, ultimately. You just refuse to see it as such. Yet,” she said.
It must be fascinating inside her head...I wonder what the world looks like from where she’s standing? Untidy, I bet.
“Well, let’s agree to disagree. What sort of problems?” I asked, ever-hopeful.
“Nothing that concerns you,” Umbra said brusquely.
“Right. Probably could have guessed that.”
So I knew a little bit more, but nothing actually useful. Guess it’s better than nothing, right? Assuming she isn’t just straight-up lying to me, which is always a possibility. Even if she denies it.
She was staring at me, after this. I could not tell why.
I waited for a payoff, but she just continued doing it.
“You’re looking at me like, well, I don’t know but it’s a pretty intense look,” I said.
She didn’t say anything. Just kept it up. I shifted a bit further away on the bed, which apparently tipped the balance for her.
“Celestia is here,” she said.
Oh that gave me a jolt.
“Honestly?”
“I would not lie to you, John,” Umbra said.
See? Denial! Not that it changes things. This is flatly untrue, this position of hers supposed honesty. I’m not the best at keeping score on these things - lazy, remember? - but I’m pretty confident she’s lied to me a fair few times at this point.
Though I suppose if you say to yourself that you’re not lying then you can do all sorts of things and still say this sort of thing with a straight face. When you’re able to see only what you want to see, it’s remarkably easy to live in a problem-free world. I think I heard that once.
“Guessing that’s bad for you?”
This, apparently, was Umbra’s limit as she gave a snort and hoisted me up magically into the air before clambering onto the bed herself. In short order I found myself being snuggled. Again, teddy bear. It’s a living.
“I do not want to talk about this. I want to have fun with you,” she said.
Ominous.
“I’m sure you have something in mind?” I asked, delicately. She nuzzled the back of my head thoughtfully a moment or two. Lot more touchy-feely these days, too. Maybe I was getting to her, hah!
“Would you like me to teach you some of the rudiments of mental defence? Would that increase your trust in me?” She said. Huh, I’d forgotten she’d offered that...
“I kind of thought you’d stopped looking inside my head without permission,” I said.
“I have not stopped, I have merely stopped responding to your thoughts as I could tell that you did not enjoy it when I did.”
Oh. Well. Guess that’s halfway there?
“Well in that case uh, sure, why not. Am I going to have to picture lewdness or something? I don’t think I’d be very good at that.”
Being a meek and mild gentleman I have something of a restrained imagination. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Anyone tells you otherwise they’re lying. If they have evidence it’s fabricated. I am as pure as the driven snow.
Umbra turned me about and gave me one of her more pitying smiles.
“That might confound an amateur, but an expert can easily circumvent such activity. Most minds are crowded with such material anyway - one quickly learns to maneuver around it.”
That’s me told.
“The primary component is confidence. It isn’t enough to believe that your mind is an unassailable fortress, you instead have to know it is. Accept its impregnability as a fact, an objective fact,” Umbra said. I may have gone crosseyed.
“That doesn’t sound intuitive,” I said.
“It isn’t.”
I would put money on the fact that Umbra has never had to teach anyone anything at any point in her life. I could tell she meant well, but her technique left something to be desired. What was I meant to do, exactly?
I waited for a response to this then remembered she apparently wasn’t doing that anymore. So she knew what I was thinking, but was waiting for me to actually say something about it. That’s cooking my noodle.
“Where do I start?” I asked.
“Know that your mind is closed to all outsiders, know that it is beyond their reach and inviolate, know for a fact it is impossible for anyone other than yourself to access your thoughts and that the efforts of those that try will and always will amount to nothing. It is easy. I can do it.”
I blinked.
“Presumably your years and years of experience might have something to do with that.”
That got a smile out of her. Genuine one! I think she was touched.
“Perhaps. Try it, John. Simply make your mind as it should be.”
Yeah, ‘simply’. That kind of thing is perfectly natural!
Ugh.
Hell, give it a shot. I’m good at pretending. Let’s pretend I am a bastion of mental fortitude!
No! No pretending! I am such a bastion! The wall of my mind are high and mighty! I am the master of my domain! None may enter! Hurgh!
Kind of difficult to concentrate on this with Umbra looking at me like that but whatever, it’s a fact! None shall pass!
Umbra, out of nowhere, beamed.
“Very good! You’re a lot better at this than I expected you’d be.”
Ooh! That’s nice to hear!
“I like to surprise people. So it worked?” I asked. Umbra nodded, still grinning ear to ear. Pointy pointy teeth...
“For the better part of a second. I am very impressed,” she said.
Uh. Okay. Well that’s good I guess?
I mean it sounded pretty pathetic to me but Umbra looked genuinely chuffed. Quite nice, actually. If weird.
Her ear then flicked and her face fell, glancing off to the side, towards the door.
“I have something I must attend to,” she said, leaving the bed at once, not looking back.
“Something I said?”
“No.”
And that was that! Blow me down. One minute you’re up, eh?
Oh well. Least I still have breakfast…
And after breakfast...nothing. Nothing! Fucking nothing, again! Just tedium again! I wouldn’t mind being kidnapped if I could just have something to do!
Well, I’d still mind, but I’d mind less…
So I had another fucking nap, doodled more penises - I’d had more parchment brought by this point - and eventually started walking in the circles. Was this how actual pets felt? Fuck, no wonder they scratch the furniture. Maybe I should try?
I ended up just leaning by the window, staring out at the landscape. This didn’t do much for me because it never fucking changed but hell, at least it wasn’t the room.
“Ah mountains. You understand me,” I said to the mountains distant. They were silent, of course, but they understood me.
BRacing myself against the cill I leant out. Just for something to do, you know? And for a little refreshment, once I got through that weirdo permeable magic barrier. Stuck my head right out there! Ah! Bracing!
Hmm, hang on a second.
Something’s caught my eye. Something down below?
Try to get a better look but the angle isn’t working. Ooh, a problem! Something to actually worry about! How exciting. Hmm, let me see…
If I use one of those shutters to hang onto I might just be able to lean out a bit more, get a proper look. Could also, you know, break and I could plummet to my death in the snow but what’s life without a little risk, eh? And at this point I think boredom might be what kills me first anyway.
The shutter seemed solid enough, which was good. Certainly it held me which I appreciated.
Sure was cold outside. But I had a good view of the tower, which was what had caught my eye. Rather, something towards the base of the tower.
Which didn’t touch the ground? What? There’s a gap between the tower and the drifts. The tower just stops. And there’s nothing there. Feel like I’m noclipping.
That’s, uh, is that normal?
“What do you think you are trying to do?”
Jesus!
I lost my grip and for a wonderful second that happened to feel like a lot, lot longer I got to enjoy the feeling of falling which cut off with an abrupt jolt. I found myself staring down at the snow. The gap had disappeared, which didn’t reassure me. I’d seen it! I know it had been there! Whatever it what had been.
Umbra - who had caught me - pulled me back inside and the shutters slammed shut behind me with such violence I heard the wood crack.
I then found myself held before a very, very angry looking Umbra. I don’t think her eyes had looked redder or her teeth sharper.
“I was-”
“Why were you outside?” She snapped, cutting me off.
“I thought I saw-”
Would have continued but she pulled me in closer until I was maybe an inch from her face. This was an experience let me tell you.
“You could have fallen! You could have hurt yourself. Why would you do that?”
“Well if you-”
“I do not want you damaged!”
Didn’t see much point in saying anything, given how it had gone so far, so was just left with Umbra all up in my face, breathing heavily and glaring. The silence gave her the time to realise that she was maybe a bit too close as she set me down and backed up and played it off like it was nothing.
“What were you doing?” She asked, with forced calmness. I gestured back toward the shutters.
“Just - thought I saw something. Bit of the tower was missing.”
Umbra’s eyes actually widened and I could practically feel her trying to not look toward the shutter.
“No it wasn’t,” she said.
“Uh, pretty sure there was a bit missing.”
“There was nothing missing.”
“...right.”
The more time I spend with Umbra the more certain I become that her strengths lie mainly in the conquering and the controlling and when straying away from that - into, say, just regular conversations or trying to pull the wool over someone’s eyes without just frying their brain - she seems to flounder. It’d be almost cute if I wasn’t locked in a fucking room with her.
“Let’s talk about something else,” she said abruptly, sitting down heavily on the spot and bringing up her hooves to put on my shoulders. Odd, unexpected. “I wanted to ask you a question, John.”
Kind of unusual that she’d give me a runup to that.
“Um, okay.”
“Are we friends now?” She asked, smiling at me awkwardly.
What?
“I thought I was a companion?” I asked.
For a given value of ‘companion’. Her definition of the term had been pretty clear cut back when she’d laid out way-back-when and her behaviour since had done much to demonstrate how it operated in real terms. Teddy bear, right?
Was I wrong?! So where did this come from?!
“You are my companion. But are we friends?” She asked, pressing, eyes on mine.
She was serious! What!
“I...don’t...know…?”
Plainly Umbra was disappointed by this. Awkward smile goes away.
“Oh.”
“You kind of just sprung that on me there, Umbra, and you are talking to a man you have locked in a tower.”
A tower with a bit missing…
“I thought we had had fun together,” she said, now pouting.
“Well, uh, that’s as maybe but it takes a bit more than that. Not that I’m an expert. More a dabbler. Uh, do you want a friend?”
“No. I mean - no. Queens do not have friends. But it would - I would - it would make me happier if you thought of us as friends. And making me happy is your purpose.”
Again, one gets the feeling that Umbra has dived into the deep end of something she thought she understood but is rapidly finding out that she doesn’t really understand. On top of which, while paddling desperately - to continue with the imagery - she continues to loudly declare to anyone watching that she’s totally fine while clearly not being.
Maybe that’s just me.
“Oh, well, um, if you put it like that,” I said, but I couldn’t change my answer with a straight face. That and she’s reading my mind anyway. You can hear all this! “I, uh, I don’t think this setup is quite right for friendship, Umbra.”
“Oh.”
“You didn’t really go into this with that in mind, did you?”
If she did that would A) Be a surprise and B) Also not be a surprise, given what I have picked up about Umbra these last, uh, days? Weeks? Fuck, how long had I been here again?
“No, I did not. But I have decided that it would be best,” she said.
“When did you decide this?” I asked.
“Recently.”
“I see.”
I think she might have cracked...to be fair, being around me too long will do that to most people. Look at Twilight. Poor girl. Crazy as a loon and it’s all my fault. Hah!
Thankfully, the awkwardness of this painfully, horribly, amazingly awkward situation was punctured by the intrusion of one of Umbra’s happy-shiny servants who came dashing into the room and up to her side, stopping to bow before saying:
“My Queen, the-”
Plainly Umbra was in an interrupting mood today. With a snarl she dropped down from my shoulders and lashed out and managed to one-hoof the poor chap clear across the room so hard the furniture jumped when he hit the wall. Jesus Christ!
“Imbecile! How dare you interrupt me!”
The servant, plainly dazed, still got back up onto his hooves and was - to my mild horror - still smiling as thought this was the greatest day of his life, even as he plainly struggled to stand upright.
“You are forbidden from entering this room when I am here with John! I have made this clear to all of you!”
“Yes my Queen - a thousand a-apologies and may you grind me beneath your hooves should it please you - but the emergency requires me to-”
“I am aware of the situation!” Umbra snapped, now having stomped across the room to loom over the poor guy.
“But they have breached the outer wards, my Queen!”
That gave her pause. Whatever it meant.
“So soon?” She asked. The servant nodded furiously.
I’m sure this all made perfect sense to Umbra. Or at least I hoped it did. Would hate to think that no-one here had any idea what was going on and it wasn’t just me.
“Go,” she said to the servant. “You know what to do.”
Again he nodded before tearing out of the room at speed. Umbra took a second to visibly compose herself and then she came back on over to me, still just standing there like a git.
“John. We need to leave,” she said.
“Leave?”
“Yes. Contingency. There are more secure locations at a safer distance. It was a miscalculation on my part to keep you so close to the empire. It has brought undue attention. I shall not make that mistake again. We need to leave,” she said, moving in around behind me and giving me a light shove in the back. Oof.
“You’re taking me with you?”
“Of course. You are mine now.”
Great.
Should probably at least try and put my foot down. I turned about and I stood strong and resisted her shoving! Or did my best, at least. She was a really strong lady!
“I do not want to go with you, Umbra,” I said in a firm, clear voice. Or at least as firm and clear as I could manage. She blinked at me. Guess I got the point across.
“What?”
“I don’t enjoy being kept in a locked room. I think I am losing my mind. I don’t want to go with you.”
Good to speak in clear sentences, I felt. Make myself as clear as possible.
“But Celestia keeps you?” She asked, plainly confused.
“She really doesn’t ‘keep’ me, I stay with her because I like her. I do get to go outside sometimes. I am free range.”
She even changes my water every other day!
“But I thought you liked me? Are we not friends?” Umbra asked, confusion deepening. This really wasn’t her wheelhouse, was it?
Also, um. Had I not just...not said that? Had she missed that?
“My feelings on the subject are complex,” I said.
Which, all things considered, was probably the best result Umbra could have hoped for, really. Certainly it surprised me that I could say that in all honesty. They really were complex.
The servant reappeared, breathless.
“My Queen, the inner wards are holding but will not hold for long - we need to leave,” he panted. Must be tough sprinting with a smile pasted on your face all the time.
Umbra turned to him and snarled - actually snarled!
“I know! Go! I will be close behind!”
And off the servant ran, leaving just me and Umbra again.
Was it my imagination or was the room vibrating?
“John,” Umbra said, bringing my attention back to her. “You are - you are very confusing. I normally destroy that which I cannot understand or find a use for, but with you I am...confused. I have not been able to work you out.”
“I’m deep and rich.”
“Humour. No. You are - I just do not know what to make of you. I have to act and think a different way with you. It is - “
“Frustrating?” I ventured. She had mentioned it.
“Yes. Rewarding, also. I do not fully understand it. But I will. Later. I will find you again,” she said.
A very ominous thing to say but still gave me a flutter because it kind of suggested something to me.
“That mean you’re leaving me behind?”
“It is the prudent move. Without you, Celestia will be less inclined to follow me, and I can make better my escape. From a position of security I will be able to gather a sufficient level of strength to accomplish my goals. Then I will find you again, and we can be - I will be able to understand you better.”
“Aim high, Umbra. It’s good to have goals.”
She smiled. Actually quite warmly. Man, this lady. I don’t know, man.
“Goodbye John. For now.”
“Bye Umbra. It;s been, ah, well it’s been an experience.”
No denying that.
She made to go but paused, turned back. Oh dear.
“I am going to give you a parting gift,” she said.
Oh this could only go well.
“Uh, you really don’t have to do that, Umbra.”
She was advancing on me again.
“It is something you will remember me by.”
Oh this gets better!
“No, honestly you really don’t-”
She stopped, just as I’d started backing up away from her.
“It is done,” she said. I looked around to see what she might have done to me. But nothing apparently had happened. Was she fucking with me again? Was that her parting gift? Paranoia?
“...what?”
“Goodbye John. Be seeing you.”
And she just left! I was left staring at the door which she’d left open behind her!
“Uh…”
Holding my thumb and forefinger in a ring I brought them up to my eye then swept ‘em down.
“Be seeing you,” I said.
Seemed like the thing to do.
...was that it? Was that actually it? I waited for the other shoe to drop. Nothing dropped. Nothing at all happened. Nothing jumped out at me. But then again, it might take hours. Umbra was like that.
Room was still vibrating, though...weird.
Did the evil queen just...leave? I mean I know I wasn’t privy to the details of her various nefarious schemes or the full extent of her present capabilities but honestly I expected more from her. Next time I see her I’ll tell her how disappointed I was.
Wait, no. That would mean she’d found me again. Scratch that.
Let’s just focus on the positives shall we, eh? Apparently I’m a free man now! Just like that!
After all that I actually managed to just talk her into just letting me go?
Fucking...
This place, man. Honestly.
Maybe it’s my charming personality? Or maybe reading my thoughts is unhealthy. Maybe being around me for too long rotted her brain and led her down a path of error.
...probably the latter, knowing me. Should probably wear a tinfoil hat just for the safety of others, and sleep in a lead-lined box.
“Should I...should I try the door again?” I asked no-one in particular and since no-one in particular was around to stop me or give me any better ideas I shrugged and did just that.
This time, when I passed the door, I did not find a little flight of stairs that I knew shouldn’t gave been there, no. This time, the instant I passed the door I was outside. In a street. A weirdo crystal street. I stood blinking in the light and looking around for signs of life. I could hear life in that distant you’re-in-a-town kind of a way, but couldn’t really see anything. Backstreet?
“Don’t recognise this place at all…”
I looked around to see if I could spot a tower or mountains of anything like that but no, just a street. Some pretty big crystal buildings off over the surrounding, smaller ones, but no towers, and no snowy wilderness, at least none I could see close to hand.
So...what? I’m so confused.
Where’s my stick, anyway? Oh yeah, didn’t I leave it in an illusion? Completely forgot about that. Staggering around a tiny room kind of meant it wasn’t really that much of an issue for me anymore.
I wonder what-
“John!”
I had about enough time to turn before something very large and very white and very fast but also surprisingly soft hit me and carried me off my feet. In a whirl I was flipped turned upside down and then, with a thump cushioned by something reassuringly warm and comfy that swept in around me, was on my back.
Looking up at Celestia, who appeared to be on the verge of tears.
“Oh hey, hi,” I said.
An instant later something clamped onto my leg. Looking down I saw Twilight there, wrapped tight. She was not on the verge of tears. She was just crying.
“Hey, hey,” I said, reaching out to try and ruffle her mane and just about being able to reach with my fingertips. “Come up here, come on.”
She did, albeit with a sob, and instead wrapped herself around my body, Celestia wrapped around the both of us, cutting out the rest of the world.
With Twilight still sniffling and getting me damp, it was left with me and Celestia to look at one another.
Oh man. Eyes. Not red. Pretty eyes. Really pretty eyes.
“It - it actually is you, isn’t it?” I ask, and she just nods. I kind of get the idea that if spoke she might crack and end up bawling like Twilight. I can kind of see it on her face.
I’d like to say that’s enough to convince me but recent experiences have perhaps made me a little cautious.
“Could you - could you do something to maybe just...help me confirm that? Or else hurry this along because it wasn’t funny the first time, you know, and doing it second time, like this, that’s too much.”
Celestia - please, please actually be Celestia - looks confused for a second, then sad, then composes herself, leans down so her mouth is right by my ear before saying simply:
“Look Phillip, I’m a stamp.”
Well I’m convinced!
AhahahahahahahahaohthankfuckcansomeonepleasegivemesometeaandtakemehomeahahahahaI’msotired!
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Well! This leaves John and myself both with complex feelings! And definitely Umbra by the looks of it.
Yay complex feelings!
I wonder what this parting gift is.. Anyway, hurray! John's free again! So it seems anyway.
Thank. The. Stars.
I'm guessing the parting gift is some way for umbra to track John or disable him so she can take him again.
Im actually kinda sad we lost Umbra so quickly. There was some real good redemption feels from her and John. Oh well, yay he and Celly cuddles.
The whole time she had him in a holodeck illusion in some random house, didn't she?
You know, I honestly feel kind of bad for her, no, mildly sympathetic might be a better phrase. I hope she eventually figures this whole thing out.
9706227
Disable him? What, a stiff breeze isn't enough to knock him down any more?
It's most likely a tracking enchantment or some buried memory of Umbra that'll pop up later in his dreams so he doesn't forget her. I suspect he might be asking Celestia about the mental magics he was put through too.
I see what you did here.
I'm wondering if perhaps that brief second of John being able to fortify his mind allowed Celestia to find him and begin the rescue process, and if Umbra knew that would happen in advance.
Oh neat. I know how this works.
It’s a good thing he isn’t the paranoid type, otherwise the coming days would tear his mind to pieces as he keeps asking if what’s happening is real.
9706029
Mind control? Slavery? A bomb in his head? Doubt that he's actually free and that he isn't just snuggling up to Umbra in an illusion so she can fuck him? Because while she may SEEM like she has started to care, I highly doubt she is willing to follow through with doing so. Ultimately she didn't want his trust, but his submission, for him to be a slave, and respond to mistreatment with gratitude. Even if you "love" a dog it will treat you with fear and distrust if you hit it with a stick.
Besides, he already is owned by Celestia. She isolated him and conditioned him to love her by not allowing any frame of reference or interaction aside from her, and never tried to heal him because it would give rise to thoughts and drives that aren't centered on Celestia. The fact that Umbra was being cruel isn't the reason she failed, it was that someone else had already succeeded in doing so, minus the gaslighting.
9707088
Very much doubt that second bit of your comment, but alright.
9707151
The difference is that Celestia (probably) didn't do it intentionally.
I so want to see Umbra as the villain, but still kinda feel bad for her. Curse these complex feelings!
Oh, I see, she unfucked his leg did she? He seemed pretty okay with walking out the room and getting tackled by Twilight and Celestia. It'd be interesting if John actually becomes a social therapist for Umbra.
9707913 I don't waste time with pity. Kidnappers are #3 on my list of those who receive automatic extermination if I catch them. If they actually existed, mind-rapists would be up there at well. Which would then move Umbra up to Level 2 on the Multiple Offender List. She would die instantly.
#1's get SLOW death.
9714662
Have you caught many kidnappers?
The human Doctor arguing against opening the watch
10410636
That would have been a hell of a twist.
Personally speaking, very true.
Oh thank god are we done with Umbra? That whole bit felt so tedious.