A Chance Meeting
"...So?" I asked quietly, rubbing the back of my neck with the side of my forearm.
Evening Glow paused, still processing what I had told her.
After I had spoken to Sweetheart, she all but dragged Evening Glow back, to see what she made of the whole Dissociative Identity Disorder diagnosis. While at first I could tell she was trying to hide a bit of a scowl, she looked more and more interested as I explained the circumstances.
"Well…" Glow pursed her lips. "It does sound like a pretty textbook DiD case. If you don't mind, I have some follow up questions."
"Of course." My lips grew thin.
"I'd like you to describe again what you first remember."
I thought back.
"A train whistle and a pain in my arm."
"Arm?" Evening Glow raised an eyebrow.
I suppressed an eye roll. Stupid horse terminology.
"Foreleg." I corrected myself. "Then I opened my eyes, figured out my leg was broken, and carried my dumb ass into the forest."
"You don't have any memories or something of a previous traumatic event?"
"Well if you don't count jumping off a train as a traumatic event, then no."
"Well." Evening Glow trailed off. "I suppose that's why you didn't know what the Stream of Silence was."
I gave off a sheepish grin. "Not a prohibition event?"
Evening Glow gave me a small smile. "No. But I am curious how such a young filly knows such a word."
I guess it makes sense ponies never had to have an alcohol prohibition, bu- Oh god did ponies even have alcohol?!
I mean, even if they did… could I really ever hope to get some? I mean sure, I was an adult, but I was also in the body of a child. And I didn’t want her to be introduced to alcohol at such a young age, I know exactly how much that can screw somebody else up.
She was young and vulnerable. I had to protect her. But at the same time…
At the same time I'm getting completely off track.
"Yeah, so here's the thing…" I trailed off. "I'm not exactly sure how old Sunny is, since I don't have any memories before like, yesterday, but I'm pretty sure I'm almost double her age."
The mare's eyebrows shot up.
"Yeah," I continued. "I have two decades worth of memories. Pretty sure she's younger than that."
"That'd be a fair assumption." Evening Glow's muzzle twitched. "But how can you remember that long if Sunny is not even that old?"
"Well, here's the kicker…" I paused. How do you tell a pony you're a human? Humans don't exist in the show, at least from what I've seen. Would I be blown off as being something the psychologist had never heard of?
But I knew I knew I should tell the truth. That was the only way to really help Sunny.
And then again, the show had both Cerberus from Greek mythology, and a giant Ahuizotl from… Mayan, I think, mythology. Maybe a human wasn't that crazy.
"Have you ever heard of human beings?" I finally finished.
Evening Glow's mouth grew thin and I gulped nervously.
"They went extinct Celestia-knows how long ago."
I froze as a shiver ran up my spine. I opened my mouth but no sound came out.
"Are you saying you remember being a human, Jenny?" Evening Glow chewed on her lip.
I nodded mutely.
Humans were real? And extinct? What if I had been teleported forward thousands or millions of years, and had found myself in t-
Wait no, that was utterly ridiculous.
"So now that we're being honest, Jenny." Evening's face relaxed a tad. "Is there something you want to tell me? Something to help both you and Sunny?"
Tell her? No, I had about a million questions though. Lik-
Oh.
We're back to that.
I could keep denying it. Play dumb.
I'd probably get caught in another lie. And I had Sunny to worry about now. I mean… I'd probably not be in trouble, but forced to get help.
But I didn't want to detox. I didn't want to quit drinking. It's what kept me going.
Sunny complicated everything.
I could either tell the truth for her safety, or lie and handle things on my own. I was definitely more used to the latter option.
Lying was safe. Besides, what did I care about this stupid kid? Telling the truth only would get me in trouble.
She needed an answer.
"...Yes." I spoke quietly. "You were right, I'm an alcoholic."
The psychiatrist didn't respond how I expected. I expected her to chew me out, or call in the nurse, or even tell me she was putting me on some sort of Alcoholics Anonymous thing. But she didn't.
She kept asking about substance abuse Sunny might have seen. Maybe her father was an alcoholic and that led to me being who I am.
Problem is that normal cases of DiD didn't involve other already existing beings latching onto the brains of other beings. An "alter", as the psychiatrist called it, was a fragmented bit of psyche, that became an individual.
What was happening to Sunny and me, although it seemed closest to DiD, was something altogether different that Evening Glow wasn't fully understanding. Not that I could blame her, I couldn't understand either.
"No." I repeated. "All I can get is that she loves her sister, but nothing about the rest of her family. If she's awake or whatever she's ignoring any questions and hiding."
The only response I received was a frown.
"You don't believe me." I stated, staring straight into her eyes.
"No, I do. I believe you're an alter, and you… identify as a human."
I hated that word in this context. Identify. You either are or aren't something. There's no halfway in between. Life is black and white.
"So… what now?"
"Well, I will update the staff on this, then my job here will come to a close and the hospital staff take back over. I do believe the family who rescued you wanted to visit you tomorrow, though."
"Oh." I hummed. "That's nice of them."
Evening Glow nodded. "With that, I'll see about what I can do for you. Until then, I'll turn you back over to Nurse Sweetheart."
And so it was that she left and the nurse returned.
Turns out they had no more plans for me, at least for that day. It was actually after lights out, and Sweetheart's shift had ended. She was staying late for me.
Another pang of guilt shot through me and I lowered my gaze to the floor, which just made the desire to find another bottle to lose myself in that much stronger.
I nearly jumped when I felt her hoof lay over my shoulder. I know in my world nurses weren't supposed to lay a hand on a child patient they weren't giving care to without a parent in the room, but… eh, ponies and no parents. Extenuating circumstances.
"There's no reason to feel guilty." Sweetheart gifted me a kind smile. "I didn't have to stay after, you were just worth making sure you were okay."
Well that's… nice.
"I'm off for the night now. If you need anymore help, the nightshift is here and will get you anything you need." She continued, taking her hoof off me. "You don't have to have a nurse watch you if you're just using the bathroom, if you think you can manage it alone. Do you need anything before I leave?"
I took a quick look around the room, my gaze settling on a nearby lamp. How the hell do those work with hooves?
"Could you turn that on?" I asked meekly.
Sweetheart gave me a tired smile and flicked the lamp on. "Good night Sunny." She whispered.
And then a moment later the door was closed and she was out of sight.
Well, it was no doubt extremely late, but my mind was still buzzing, and I was unwilling to be alone with thoughts. Without a bottle or some drug to make everything okay, there was only one solution.
I turned back to the book on the nightstand. Earlier, they'd put my broken leg in one of those arm casts so I couldn't really do much with it. And since I didn't have a good grasp on hoof magic, I couldn't just pick it up.
I stretched out my good foreleg and looked at it. The bandaging was thick, and went up to, and past the elbow, so I kind of had to twist both a fully outstretched foreleg and my head to get a decent look at the underside of the hoof.
I didn't know what I was expecting. It looked like a horse's hoof, just cartoon. There was an indented portion where the soft part --the frog, I think it was called-- was. Unlike horses, though, it was completely clean and dirt free. There were no extra long hairs or anything grabby to indicate how to pick things up. There didn't feel like magical magnets anywhere in the hoof.
So I guess I was stuck flailing my hoof around like an idiotic amputee.
Joy.
Channeling the inner asshole feline everybody has, I knocked the book off the nightstand beside me with the side of my hoof.
The cover was definitely that Daring Do story, but the cover was a hardcover without any words, just the picture of Daring on the vine.
Now let's see… any and all limbs were out of the picture, so how do I open the book and turn pages? I suppose I could try my tail, if I could figure out how to move it. I turned my head, and frustrated myself for a minute trying every possible combination of flexing butt muscles to move it. I thought I saw it twitch to the side while clenching the left cheek, but ultimately gave up.
I groaned and planted my face into the book. That's about when I realized I was a giant idiot. I flicked the cover open with my nose. It opened easily. Facing the dilemma of not being able to express myself with a facepalm, I decided groaning loudly was the best idea.
"Jenny you fucking goddamn idiot." I swore at myself.
Myself didn't respond.
I impatiently flicked several pages until I landed on what looked like the first chapter, and got set for reading.
It took me several moments of blankly staring at the page in front of me before my brain decided to make me faceplant into the bed again.
The book was in a foreign language. Not just a foreign language, one I had never seen before. It definitely looked like one of the Asian languages, kinda like a mixture between the unique style of Korean characters, and the blocky, simplified characters of the first script of Japanese.
Problem was that I could both read Japanese and a small bit of Korean, and I couldn't make heads or tails of a single character on the page. I flipped through a few more pages, and the result was the same.
With a huff, I pushed the book off the bed and flopped onto my back.
"Sunny?" I ventured. No response.
No TV. No books that I could understand. Nothing to entertain me.
Flinging the book off the bed did bring me some brief joy, I just had to imagine it was one of overpriced textbooks. But with that, I was back at square zero.
I wonder what those ponies that are coming to see me tomorrow are like? Something Script and… that's all I got. Apparently rescued me from inside a blaze, so likely a hero type.
I did a messy job tucking myself in with my mouth, and slowly drifted into a dreamless slumber, wondering where my life was going next.
I found myself staring at the new pony. She had light green fur, and a short, deep purple mane I could only describe as a punk pixiehawk with frosted tips. At first it was an eyesore, but the more I looked, the cuter it looked. Her butt tattoo was a rolled up scroll with two quills crossed in front of it.
"Well hey there, Sunny," she simpered, adopting that stupid high pitch tone some adults take with kids. "I'm Penny Silvan, but all my friends call me Pen. How are you this morning?"
"You're the social worker?" I guessed. If she was, that probably meant the family that found me was waiting to meet me.
A hint of a frown appeared on her face. "Well guessed there, little one. Bit of a firecracker too, eh?" She winked.
Why don't you take that stupid attitude, roll it up, and shove it wh-
"Only got so many hours in this life." I replied flatly. "Can't waste time. What are you here for?"
Pen seemed a bit put out by me. "You woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, huh? Something eating at you?"
I resisted rolling my eyes. "No, I just slept bad and am a travesty on first impressions."
Pen opened her mouth, but no words came out. She smartly shut it for a moment, then returned to a normal tone.
"The family who found you is here to see you. I'm just here to make sure everything goes peachy."
Should I feel bad for being a dick to her? Probably. Did I care? No. I had woken up again for the second time as a different species in a different world, had two useless arms, and was a damned kid again. Excuse me for being in a bad mood.
Plus, try getting comfortable in bed when you can't bend your arms. Or forelegs, whatever. It sucks. Sleep didn't come as easily when sober, much less a fucked up quadruped.
"Sounds mint." I replied dryly. I was met with a confused look. "Sounds good." I corrected myself with a sigh, resisting the urge to roll my eyes again.
"Alright, I'm going to bring them in." She winked, adopting the annoying high pitched tone again. "Don't go anywhere!"
I waved my forelegs. "Couldn't if I wanted to."
It wasn't long until she returned. A minute or two. I was busy re-arranging my position against the pillow and trying not to sit on my tail, which was harder than it sounds, when there was a knock on the door.
"Occupied!" I called out. I heard a snicker from the other side of the door. As the door opened, I spotted four ponies. Two mares, a stallion, and a foal.
The first mare was of course, the social worker. The other mare had a yellow coat, green eyes, and curly orange hair. She was an Earth Pony and had carrots stamped on her ass. The stallion, a unicorn, had a gray coat, a purple mane, the same green eyes, and an open scroll as his butt mark. Maybe he and the social worker were related.
And then there was the foal. Judging by the shape of the snout, a filly. Same color coat as her mom, and kind of a two-toned mane. Sand colored, and then just a lighter shade. Her eyes were purple and she had no cutie mark. She stared up at me with big eyes, mouth apage, then turned to her mom.
"Mom, this isn't the same pony!" She squeaked.
"Yes it is, honey." The mare spoke back.
The filly looked back at me, then back at her mom. "Nuh-uh, that pony was all black and cool. This one looks lame."
"Noi! Be nice!" The mare admonished, pulling the filly back and hiding her behind her forelegs. She then turned to face me. "I am so sorry about that. I'm Golden Harvest, this is my husband, Written Script-" she nodded to the stallion, who gave me an unsure smile. "-and this troublemaker is Noi." She motioned toward the filly, who gave a sheepish grin.
"I'm…" I paused. How should I introduce myself here? They'd probably know me as Sunny, and I doubt they'd been informed of the full DiD situation if they were just visiting.
Ah, fuck it.
"Jenny." I finished. "I'm Jenny."
There were several moments as Golden and I quietly stared at each other, and just as she was opening her mouth, Noi piped up from under her.
"Are you from Hell?" She asked innocently.
I almost choked on air.
"Noi!" Golden chimed again, but Noi, unperturbed, continued.
"You were all black and fiery when I saw you. Are you part Hellhound?"
I bit my lip as a smile crept up on me.
"Yes, and do you know a Hellhound's favorite meal?" I crept closer, fixing her with an unblinking stare. "Little. Pony. Foals."
She let out a mad giggle and jumped forward at me. "I'm not scared of you! You're a little foal too!"
"Oh yeah," I replied nonchalantly. "I was already eaten."
"Wh-" Both of her ears flopped sideways.
"Don't think about it too hard, shorty." I grinned.
I looked up to see a sweet smile affixed on both Golden's and Script's faces.
"You two are gonna get along famously." Golden chirped.
I blinked.
“Wait, what?”
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Oh good, more chaos. And as an added bonus, the social workers are never going to figure this one out.
D'aaw, what a nice surprise to wake up to.
I can't remember many stories like this where the whole 'human' thing is revealed so early. At least for now the hospital staff are pretty chill about it.
Also the 'humans are extinct' bombshell really has me exited, I'm exited to see where you're gonna take this story next.
And remember quality over quantity, take your time. I can't speak for everyone but for me it was worth the wait.
11017102
Oh, they absolutely won't.
11017130
I have a very interesting path I'm taking that, if I do say so myself.
11017133
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/034/999/1de.gif
So it’s one of those worlds
11017180
yes.
To author:
KEEP UP THE WORK PLS!
WELL. I sense an adoption is around the corner...
This has to be the most amazing thing I've ever heard. Mine seems to subconsciously like knocking over glasses of water onto my own game controllers, though...
This was great! I agree with 11017130— take your time and make sure the story is up to a standard you like. Don't just rush out chapters because you feel like you need to.
Trust me, I have experience in this...
She made the first step. Now we just have to hope Sunny never wants to drink something herself... Or that a decade or two in a body that never got addicted will be enough for Jenny to not need to worry about going back into the bottle due to drinking a couple beers.
She does get a lot of points for being responsible with Sunny's body, though.
Extinct humans and people believing she's a figment of Sunny's psyche. Interesting, let's see where this goes.
In the comments of an earlier chapter, someone complained of how so many "human in Equestia" stories involve the human being reluctant to explain their true situation. This is a solid example of what that's perfectly understandable.
I love this story
Man, this is exciting.
that foal is adorable
11017258
One of what worlds?
11017353
Yes sir/ma'am!
11017369
Eh, it might. Who knows?
And yes, that line was inspired.
11017452
Indeed. Sobriety is a hard road.
11017847
I'm glad!
11018427
11018942
Noi is the most cutie patootie.
Well, now I'm hooked on another intriguing as hell story. Why do ponies even know about hell and mythology thereof? Where's her sister?
And also, where did I encountered similar premise of multiple travelling head companions?.. though it was without humans, so not entirely. Gah, memory is weird and unreliable.
11019191
To be fair, mythology is explicitly true in the show.
The sister point will be approached next chapter.
11019181
One of those worlds where humans use to exist in and Equestria exists in what came after Humans died out.
11019181
I can't deny that
Temporal Guarduans?
11019950
What?
11019994
Temporary Guardians. I believe that is what they meant to say. Or guess. And that would be my guess as well. Although Temporal Gardens would make for an interesting pony name.
It's hard, being a channeled mind of an extinct species. It's hard and nopony understands.
At least kirin hooves are cloven. That allows for a bit of extra possible physical manipulation.
And yes, Jenny accidentally radiates massive big sister energy. I recognize it from my days as the younger sibling. (I still am the younger sibling, of course, but the days of my sister messing with me for her own amusement are... mostly over.) Looking forward to more.
11022901
Oooh, that makes much more sense. That will also be addressed in the next chapter (which should be out in a few days!)
11023167
The sister energy was intended. However, I'm surprised it worked well, considering I've never had a blood sister and was always the younger sibling. It is not something I'm used to.
And not just extinct. Ancient and extinct. Imagine having the mind of a dinosaur merged with yours.
Just, y'know... Intelligent.
Is that a SPOOKY MONTH reference?!
Does this mean she gets cool powers from the Other Side?
absoluteanime.com/s-cry-ed/kazuma-alter.jpg
So otaku, much anime.
Oddly reminds me of something Silver Quill said in the 'Questria series. I think it went like...
Is she called tha because she's N'oi-ing?
Noi? Hrm. This is one of those names that's really on-the-nose, isn't it?
Seems Sister is out of the picture for the moment? Curious.
This story is a terrible stereotype for people with D.I.D. D.I.D does not work like this and so far Sunny has been showing NO signs of trauma with tells me the author doesn't even know how D.I.D forms. You need years of mind breaking extensive trauma to get it. Also, no, alters are not their own people, they're just fragments of your personality. I don't care if this is just a story about some dumb ponies, this is a badly written character with D.I.D and I feel like the author didn't actually do any research and took it from the Arson people on Tiktok who fake D.I.D and claim that innerworlds exist.
Edit : OH AND the fact that Sunny says she formed D.I.D after her mother died. That is so fucking stupid. Terrible representation, spreading misinformation, stereotyping people with an illness, AND spreading the stereotype of how they are/how they act/how they feel.
11131750
Question is, how closely does a story about magical talking horses, and magical dimensional hopping of fully form consciousnesses, have to obey the strict definition that is in the DSM.
Even the magical talking psychologist in the story says her condition doesn't really fit the definition of D.I.D. in the magical land of talking horses, and cities made out of clouds.
Please take a calming breath.
When this first came out i though i would not like it but after reading so far it is realy good so far thank u
11156685
Yeah,:also Sunny needs help.
Good fucking god, thank you! This was the sentence that makes or breaks it for me, and it makes.
Still, though, an alcoholic is nothing like a drug junkie. That scene with the morphine was still wildly inappropriate and off.
11297048
For real.