Now my brain feels like mashed potatoes

Author's Note:

There is a writing contest floating around and I heard about it and it asked for scary and I thought to myself "What's scary?" and I realised I didn't actually really know what I find scary so I moved along sideways a little and thought "What's uncomfortable?" and had an idea for that and wrote two lines for it and then felt so uncomfortable I had to do something fluffy with Celestia instead just to make myself feel better.

So this. More of this. I'm in this kind of mood lately, apparently.

Should really get on with some of the longer stuff again. Ah, in time. I'm not on the clock, am I?

Am I?

Celestia felt like death warmed over.

Henry - the human pen-pal whose home she had more-or-less invited herself to one day quite out of the blue - had taken her out for the night to show her a few of his favourite places to go out for the night. As it turned out he had a lot of places that were his favourite.

And what she was feeling this morning was the result of this.

“My head…” she about managed to say before the effort of speech became too much for her and she gave up, contenting herself instead with screwing her eyes as shut as possible and trying not to move.

She tried to go back to sleep, reasoning that if she was asleep she could wake up later and feel better. A solid plan, foiled by her total and completely inability to get back to sleep.

“Whhhyyyyy…” she moaned into whatever pillow she happened to have her face pressed into. Answers were not forthcoming and the pillow remained silent. Though, thankfully, it also remained soft.

Then there came thundering the sound of Henry approaching. For someone walking in socks across a carpet he didn’t half make a horrible racket, a racket which only got worse once he actually came into the room. Reaching out blindly Celestia grabbed the first other pillow she could and pulled it in over her head. This helped a bit, but not a lot.

And it helped a lot less when he took the pillow away from her.

“Rise and shine, Seabiscuit,” he said as she tried to squirm beneath the duvet, failing to understand that half of the thing was hanging off the bed and pooling on the floor, something she’d done while she’d been asleep.

“No noooo no rising no shining…” she protested weakly.

Had her eyes been open she would have seen Henry putting his hand on his hips.

“Come on. Don’t want to spend the whole day in my bed, do you?”

She was about to point out she was perfectly happy exactly where she was when what he’d said sunk in. His bed? That didn’t make sense. He’d folded out the sofa for her stay here, she knew that, so what was he talking about?

“What? Your-”

Thinking about it was far too much effort she quickly discovered, and also made her head throb alarmingly, so she stopped bothering.

“Ngh, no, not important. Stay here. Quiet,” she said, screwing her eyes shut more tightly.

“Tsch,” Henry tutted.

He did something - she heard him do something, some sort of fabric-y whooshing noise was involved - and all at once the room was far, far, far too bright. It was horrendous.

“What’s that horrible light?” She groaned, shielding her face with a leg.

“That’d be the sun.”

Slander!

“That’s what the sun’s like here? I hate it. Go away, go away, shoo,” she said, waving a regal hoof in the direction of where she wanted the sun to go.

Much to her consternation the sun did not seem to want to obey her.

“Shoo!” She said more loudly, wincing at her own volume and clutching her head.

The room did get dim again though, which helped take the edge off.

He’d pulled the curtains to once more, not that she’d noticed this. Contentedly she smiled and rolled over, groaning a bit more at the effort involved and how her head seemed to keep spinning even after her body had finished moving.

“Still got it,” she said quietly, cooing in delight when Henry rather kindly went to the extra trouble of taking the duvet off of the floor and putting it back where it belonged: over her.

“Oh that’s nice. Thank you,” she said.

“Quite alright. Take it you’re feeling a touch worse for wear, then?” Henry then asked. Celestia hissed in discomfort.

“Why are you talking so loudly and not just letting me rest perfectly still in complete silence?” She asked, slipping further beneath the covers until only the tip of her horn was poking out. She’d taken her pillows with her.

“Because I’m a monster, clearly,” Henry said.

No arguments from her.

“Horrible monster…” Celestia mumbled.

Nothing else followed this, though he did not leave. Eventually, the awkward mental image of him standing there looming over her forced Celestia to wriggle back out again, albeit the bare minimum, just so she wouldn’t be quite as muffled.

“I don’t like beer,” she proclaimed.

“Decided that, have you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You put away a fair amount of it for someone who doesn’t like it.”

“That’s how I decided I don’t like it,” Celestia grumbled, not anywhere near the mood for such smartarsery.

“Ah, cunning.”

She cracked one eye and peered up at him questioningly. He was just so upright! At first she thought he was swaying in place but then she realised it was more her view of him that was swaying.

“How are you even standing up?” She asked. He shrugged.

“Practise.”

An answer that perhaps warranted closer examination when she was feeling more on-the-ball, she felt, though she was immediately distracted from this by Henry proffering a large glass of water that he had apparently been holding behind his back until just this moment.

“Here’s some water,” he said, in case she’d missed it. She hadn’t, taking the glass with both hooves and immense gratitude.

“Oh, thank you,” she said with resounding and genuine thankfulness, leaning up as much as she felt able to before gulping down the whole thing in practically two goes. Little tastes better than water after a heavy night. Even sipping from a puddle would have been acceptable at that moment, though less than ideal.

Henry took the now-emptied glass back and Celestia flopped back flat again.

“I feel better already,” she said. And she did, too. Not completely, but a little, and at times like this a little was worth a whole lot.

So recovered was she, in fact, that she was better able to grapple with her situation re: being in his his bed and not on the sofabed, where she was meant to be. Wincing some more she hauled herself into something approaching a sitting position and squinted about the room and the bed.

“Why am I in your bed?” She asked. Henry shrugged again. He did that a lot, she’d noticed.

“You stole it from me,” he said.

A few blinks from Celestia for that one. Sounded unusually belligerent for her - had things really got that bad? Was she an angry drunk now? That wouldn’t do.

“I did?” She asked.

“Take it that your memory of last night is a little spotty?”

“No, I can remember it perfectly,” she lied.

“Perfectly? That’s pretty impressive. Care to give me a rundown? My memory’s not as good as yours, you see,” Henry said, tapping a finger against his skull loud enough to make a thunking sound.

“Uh…” she said, before launching into a very broad-strokes retelling of their night out. She kept things vague and loose, fudging a few of the place names and letting Henry correct her as she went. She - rightly - realised he was doing this purely to make her squirm, but his amusement over her increasingly mangled recollections of the names of where they’d gone and what they’d drank kept her going.

She might even have got a few of them extra-wrong on purpose just to make him laugh. Maybe, might have.

Though the closer her retelling got back to the bed (his bed) the more fumbling she got, as certain, particular concerns came to the fore.

“-and then we got back and...into your bedroom...we…?” She started, tentatively, delicately, looking to him to fill in the blank, kind of hoping that it wasn’t about to be filled with what she was worried it might be filled with.

Henry looked distinctly unimpressed.

“No, none of that,” he said, flatly. “You. Just you. In the bed.”

“So there wasn’t…?” Celestia probed, thinking it best to be sure, eyes widening in fright as Henry paused and shuffled his feet nervously. He couldn’t keep up the act though, and cracked a second later.

“Heh, no. None of that. We were having a fun night of it. Then when we got back you decided that you wanted to sleep in my bed. That’s all. I had no part in that decision-making process.”

“Oh. Oh! I see. Good. Good?” She asked, not sure where he came down on what was avoided and what might have happened. He just smiled indulgently at her, which made her feel much, much better.

Not her head, obviously. The intangible kind of better.

“Apart from having my bed stolen out from under me yes, good.”

He said this, but Celestia wasn’t really listening. She was trying to recall the specific chain of events that had led (or could possibly have led) to her wanting his bed over the one he’d already very kindly provided her. What had led to that?

She mulled. She’d given her broad-strokes replay, but now she needed details.

They’d been out, they’d been having fun, they’d been talking about all the things they’d been talking about in their letters but face-to-face now and much louder and at greater, drunken length.

Nothing about beds there…

Later, when places had started closing, they’d wandered back here and…

“You alright there?” Henry asked, finally noticing the look of rapt concentration on her face and that was also mouthing quietly to herself as she ran through what they’d done.

“Shh. Then there was...oh! Then there was the arm wrestling thing! I remember now!” She declared, delighted, eyes snapping wider and prompting immediate regret in the rest of her for having done so. Henry smiled.

“Ah, now it comes back to her.”

And it really did, too. It was coming back to her in great dollops now, unfurling out from the murkier portions of her brain.

They’d got back to his. Henry had fried something - both of them had thought this a capital idea. They’d eaten whatever it was he’d fried (and it had been pretty good) and they’d drunk some more. Then, not long after that had happened, he’d floated the idea of having an arm wrestling, just out of nowhere.

He seemed to find the sheer novelty of the idea amusing. Arm wrestling a horse! What a lark! Think of the anecdote he’d have! Celestia hadn’t been so sure.

“I should warn you, I’m stronger than I look,” she’d said. Henry had scoffed, too busy clearing detritus off his dining table to pay much attention to any warnings.

“Of course you are. Enough stalling!” He’d said.

And there he’d been, sat at the table, arm ready, brimming with confidence. Still unsure, Celestia had hobbled over, sat down herself and, after only a brief moment of awkwardness over the best arrangement for arm-to-horse-leg contests of strength (mainly involving the best way to grip a hoof and where exactly her joints were meant to go) they got started.

Bam, Henry went down immediately, down so hard he fell off his chair.

“Bugger me!” He’d exclaimed, sending Celestia into a flurry of giggles just from the sheer delight that was seeing his alarmed face popping up beside the table. Dignity in tatters - what little of it there had been to start with - he had scrambled back to his feet, righted his fallen chair and sat right back down again.

“Alright. Wasn’t prepared for that, that was on me. I’ve got it this time!” He said, resetting position. Celestia stopped giggling.

“Are you sure?” She asked, a touch concerned.

“Damn sure, all over this.”

It took him slightly longer to lose the second time and he didn’t fall over, but he still lost. He had been amazed. She looked so delicate!

“How in God’s name are you so strong?” He had asked, goggling at her. He wasn’t a small man, and she was, well, she wasn’t small either, but she was a dainty, pretty magical horse! It just didn’t add up!

“Magic!” Celestia had said happily. Not the full story, but enough of a story for the drunken moment.

That had got him frowning.

“Well that seems like cheating to me,” he said.

Celestia distinctly remembered pouting at that point.

“I can’t turn it off, it’s how I’m put together!”

His frown became a glare, and she pouted harder. He was the one to fold first. It had been a hell of a pout. In the right circumstances, Celestia could pout powerfully enough to stop a full-grown man at twenty paces. Probably.

“Bah, fine then. Guess I’ll just try harder,” Henry said with renewed confidence, once more getting into position.

“But you’ll hurt yourself!” Celestia protested.

“Yeah, by winning!” Henry said.

He had not won, though he did try very hard to.

And that had happened. It all clicked now, she remembered. Grinning at the memory she looked at Henry who, from the sheepish look he had about him now, was also busy remembering the precise details.

“Heh, okay, I remember that part. And I remember that you’re a sore loser,” Celestia said, a hoof emerging from beneath the covers to point accusingly at him. Henry gasped, affronted.

His strenuous, wasted efforts at defeating her had in fact left him a quite literal sore loser and going to bed with a hot water bottle hadn’t done a lot to fix it overnight, but he sure wasn’t going to admit to that.

“I’ll have you know I’m an excellent sport,” he said instead.

Smugly, Celestia snuggled.

“I think I got the bed because you bet you could beat me at that and lost,” she said, grin now a superior smile. She was fairly certain he’d thrown it in as an incentive to keep her going at one point. Or she’d wanted it and he’d thrown it in. One or the other.

“The bed had nothing to do with the arm wrestling!” Henry said indignantly, sagging then when he was forced to add: “The bed was because we were flipping cards into a hat afterwards. You beat me on that, too.”

Now that she genuinely had no recollection of, but she could well believe it.

“Aww, poor human!”

“Ugh, give over you. Why’d you even want my bed anyway?”

She snuggled some more. This much was easy to remember.

“Because it’s comfier than the sofa,” she said.

“Then why didn’t you just say that! I would have swapped!”

He would have, too. He was free and easy like that.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Henry stalled.

“..can’t really argue with you there,” he admitted, before sitting delicately on the end of the bed while Celestia remained dug in. She still felt better, but she most certainly did not feel good.

Eventually, Henry said:

“I’ve got a question for you, actually.”

“Oh? What?”

“We, uh, we bumped into a few of your associates last night while we around and about.”

By this he meant ponies.

They weren’t exactly swarming this side but they weren’t exactly uncommon either these days, and Henry had distinct memories of a lot of them gawping at his horsey pen pal and also occasionally bowing and scraping.

He’d found it a little odd but hadn’t thought a whole lot about it. Still seemed the sort of thing to ask about though.

Celestia had gone very still and very quiet.

“Yes?” She said, slowly.

“Uh, what was with all the, you know, deference?” He asked.

“Deference?” She asked, wincing, hoping he couldn’t see her wincing.

“The bowing. To you.”

He neglected to mention the part where she’d somehow seemed to know each and every one of them by name, too, mostly because he’d forgotten that bit.

A key aspect of the wheeze and a key aspect of the appeal of this trip was that Henry had absolutely no idea who she actually was. She hadn’t set out to misdirect him, she’d just not mentioned a few key details here and there and, amazingly, Henry hadn’t ever come across those details himself.

He sailed through life as light and breezy as a particularly myopic cloud. It was how he stayed so cheerful.

Celestia had found his attitude therefore quite refreshing, and hadn’t seen much need to puncture it with unnecessary information about who she actually was or what she actually did. Not until it became relevant, at least. He didn’t need to know after all, did he?

It was going to make answering this question a bit tricky, however.

“Um…” she said, playing for time.

“Is it because you’re taller?” Henry asked.

Celestia went quiet again, this time more because this was one of the most out-of-the-blue statements she could possibly have heard at that moment. She blinked and looked down at him. He looked to be completely serious.

“Yes,” she said.

“Huh,” Henry said. Then he gave her a platonic pat through the duvet “You guys are a strange lot. I’m going to get you some more water. No sense wasting the day, eh? You’re going back soon! We’ll just have a quiet one, eh?”

“I could stay here and you could have a quiet one?” Celestia ventured but Henry just clucked his tongue and lunged to standing.

“Nope, sorry. I’ve got some ruins to drag you around and bore you with so you’d better brace yourself - they don’t look kindly on people or magical horses throwing up on the ancient masonry.”

“Oh why did you have to mention that…” Celestia groaned.

“Hmm. Okay. Water and a bucket. I’ll be back.”

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