An Actual Picnic
Tyler spent the night here at Twilight’s place. Unfortunately, Spike isn’t too happy about that.
“I can’t believe I have to cook for two houseguests now,” Spike grumbles as he puts a large plate of scrambled eggs on the table.
“Hey Tyler,” I ask, “What have you been doing for room and board since you’ve got here, anyway?”
“I have made a nice camp nestled in the woods, far out of sight.”
“You do realize that the forest is infested with man-eating mythical beasts, right?”
“Yes, sir, you’ve always drilled that into me: ‘Don’t mess around with the Everfree Forest.’ My camp is in a safe spot, don’t worry about that.”
“Well what about food?” Twilight asks.
“I’ve brought provisions for several days, but the apple orchard has supplemented that.”
“Really?” I ask, incredulously. “Camping in the Everfree Forest? Eating Applejack’s apples? That’s a little bit cliché, don’t you think?”
“Cliché? I didn’t think she would mind. It’s a farm, she has bushels of them.”
“Well I think she’ll kick your ass if she finds out.”
“Yeah, you should probably not steal. Stealing is bad. Are you sure you don’t want to come to the picnic lunch with everypony?” Twilight asks.
“Thanks for the invitation, but I don’t want to impose.”
“Good. It’s bad enough I have to cook breakfast for you.”
“Spike! Don’t be rude,” Twilight scorned. “Well Tyler, at least take some food from here for lunch.”
“Alright, I will do that. You know, I actually quite enjoy socializing with the ponies in town, even if I am pretending to be Doctor Whooves.”
“About that, Tyler,” Twilight mentions, “Are you sure you don’t want to forget about the disguise? We could introduce you to the townsponies. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. They all liked Dane.”
“Honestly, Twilight, I didn’t intend to become even a temporary part of this world… but I couldn’t quite help myself and I just had to enter town and talk to some ponies. There is definitely something alluring about this world,” he knowingly looks at me.
“I tell you, Tyler, you’re becoming a brony on a whole new level. You sure you don’t want to hang around?”
“The thought of staying for a while had crossed my mind. But I do have things to get back to at home.”
“Kid, you do realize you have the ability to play with time, right? You could live here for a year and be gone for a day. A minute, even. Hell, you could be gone for a negative amount of time and go back to a point before you even left!”
Tyler sighs. “There’s something about toying with time that just makes me uncomfortable.”
“Says the world’s first time traveler…”
“But perhaps I might visit on occasion? Either way, I’m not sure about losing the disguise just yet.”
We all hear the front door open.
“Nurse calling,” says the visitor.
“Is that Nurse Redheart I hear?” I shout downstairs.
“Is that Mr. Dane I hear?”
I look at Tyler. “Doctor Whooves or no Doctor Whooves? Tick tock, kid.”
“Maybe not.”
Nurse Redheart crests the stairs and stops in her tracks. She looks only mildly surprised. “Oh. I didn’t realize we would be getting more humans.”
“Neither did I. This is Tyler. He works for me.”
“Used to work for him. Hi.”
“Pleased to meet you, I’m Nurse Redheart. Mr. Dane, I came to check on you.”
“Is that right? House calls are part of the job, are they?”
“Well… not exactly. But you are, a um… special case. Obviously.”
I smile. I’m a special case.
“I’d like to listen to your heart first.”
I unbutton my shirt and she puts her stethoscope in her ears. I stop her before she puts the cold metal listening part on my chest. I breathe some warm breath onto it to warm it up and let her take it from there. She looks very curious as she listens.
“I’ll never get used to how fast your resting heart rate is. Are you sure that’s normal?”
“Actually I just checked on my phone last night–” Good thing I decided to download the whole of human knowledge instead of trusting the stupid cloud, “–between 60 and 100 beats per minute, apparently.”
“Right. Blood pressure next.”
She goes through the motions with the arm-squeezing device and seems satisfied with the result. “Looking good, just keep doing what you’re doing. And don’t forget, plenty of rest.”
“Yes ma’am.” I button up my shirt.
“Um, Mr. Dane. I wondered if I could… I mean, with you being new here and all, I thought I might treat you to lunch today, on my break.” She seems a little bit awkward asking that.
“Oh, well, I’d love to. But we’re all set to have a picnic today. Can I take a rain check on that?”
“Yes, of course, some other time then.”
“Thanks for the offer though, that’s very friendly of you.” I don’t want her to think I’m turning down her generous offer.
“Of course, just being friendly. Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow. Good day.” She flashes a quick smile and makes her way downstairs and out.
“Well that was… friendly of her,” Twilight says.
“Dude,” Spike says pointing a claw at me, “I think she’s into you.”
“What? You mean like…? No. Come on, Spike, she was just being neighborly.”
“I’m with Spike on this one, she seemed infatuated with you, sir,” Tyler comments.
No. There’s no way. Maybe? “But… why though?”
“Florence Nightingale effect?” Tyler not-so-helpfully suggests.
“Oh, please…”
I find myself wondering about Nurse Redheart until lunchtime…
The rolling grassy fields on the outskirts of Ponyville are a gorgeous sight to see. Nature's splendor all around us. Little daisies and buttercups dot the landscape around our little red and white checkered picnic blanket, laid out perfectly under the shade of a tree, atop a very low hill. Today, the ponies and I are having the perfect picnic lunch. But Spike had something to do, he said he’d catch up with us in a bit.
“Oh it is positively gorgeous out,” Rarity notes.
“I couldn’t imagine a lovelier day for a picnic,” I look off towards town. “Hey look, Spike’s coming. Finally. Ooh, it looks like he’s got something urgent to say.”
Spike finishes his sprint right over top of the picnic blanket. Something’s starting to feel very familiar about all this.
“Twi!... Light!...” He’s winded and panting from running. Suddenly he belches up a scroll in a little burst of green flame.
Ah now it makes sense. I snatch up the scroll before Twi can get a hold of it.
“Wait,” I say. “Give her the other one first.”
“Oh, right.” Spike produces the other scroll from… I’m not exactly sure where. Not sure that I wanna know, either.
Twilight reads the first scroll, “Princess Celestia cordially invites you to the wedding of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and… MY BROTHER?!”
Ah, finally. I get to be in the middle of an actual episode’s plot. I just sit back and watch Twilight’s reaction to her brother not having personally told her that he’s getting married. She even does the thing where she uses a sandwich as a puppet to mock him! And she drops the awkward abbreviation B.B.B.F.F, has to explain it, and goes on talking about her brother and how they were best friends when she was little… hey, wait.
“Wait, wait, wait. Aren’t you going to sing about this?” I ask.
“I, uh… hadn’t planned on it?”
“Oh. Ok. Continue.” Well that’s mildly disappointing. I suppose a lack of spontaneous musical numbers isn’t so bad. Maybe I could have one, and show them how to do it. Hmm… I would need to practice, and that kind of defeats the purpose, I suppose. Oh well.
They all have their moments talking about their anticipation of the wedding. But of course Twilight’s still kind of grumpy about her brother not telling her that he’d gotten engaged, but I consider that a win, because it’s got her mind off of, shall we say, other things. I’m sure once she gets back into the groove of things, Twi will be just fine. It worked for me, after all. And my life was nowhere near as exciting as hers is going to be.
Twilight asks me, “Dane, are you coming to the wedding with us?”
“Me? Oh, I would love to, but I’m old and frail, and a long trip to Canterlot would probably not be any good for me.”
Apparently nopony is buying that excuse. Despite the fact that it’s entirely legitimate.
“What? I’m eighty-two years old. I just had a heart attack like two weeks ago. Just got out of the hospital day before yesterday. The doctor said I need lots of rest!”
“That sounds like an excuse,” Twilight accuses.
“It is! It is a totally, completely legitimate excuse.”
“Are you sure there isn’t some other reason you don’t want to go?”
“Yeah, all you’ve wanted to do is hang out with us this whole time,” Rainbow Dash chimes in. “How come you don’t wanna come with us?”
“You would get to meet the princesses.”
Oh, Rarity’s right! I would get to meet the Princesses! Celestia! Luna! Eh, Cadence, I guess. I could bow before them. That would be such an honor. Maybe I could ask for citizenship. I don’t want to sound like I’m begging, though. But I’m sure they’d be ok with it. If only I was younger! The looming threat of bug-horses invading the city wouldn’t have seemed like such a big deal when I was young and able-bodied and felt invincible. Oh well, I’m sure there will be another opportunity for me to meet the princesses, and to see Canterlot!
“Yeah, and it’s basically a big party! I thought you liked parties,” says Pinkie.
Damn my old age! The party after the actual wedding would probably be amazing. “I’d love to go, I really would! I wish I was younger… But sadly, I am old and infirm.”
“I’m still not buying it,” Twilight forces the issue with a furrowed brow. “You know something we don’t.”
“Of course I do,” I scoff. “Listen, Twilight. I’ve got a whole lot of spoilers up here,” I point to my head. “And they’re for me to know and you to find out.”
“So you’re sayin’ ya know the future, huh Dane?” Applejack sarcastically asks.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what he thinks,” says RD.
“Well, he did seem to know an awful lot about us,” Pinkie adds, “and we’ve never even met him before! But can he really know the future?”
“Um, if he does know the future… I really don’t think we should know it…” Fluttershy drops a little nugget of wisdom into the conversation.
“That’s a very wise statement, Fluttershy. Listen girls, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to lie to you all. I do know a lot about you. Too much about you. And yes, odd as it may seem, I have seen the future. But don’t let that scare you, and I’ll tell you why. Because – and here’s the magical part that makes life worth living,” I knowingly look at Twilight, “–because I have injected myself into the equation, I have changed the variables. Literally anything could happen now, and it could all be completely different from the future that I’ve seen.”
“But,” Twilight protests, “if you know what’s going to happen in Canterlot, you’d tell us if it was dangerous, right?”
“Twilight, there’s danger everywhere. You could fall down the stairs and break your neck – not that that’s going to happen!” I wave my hands defensively. “–But you don’t go scrying into Madame Pinkie’s crystal ball to see if stairs are dangerous, do you?”
“So… it is dangerous?”
“Ugh. Twilight! You need to stop thinking like that! Look at what it’s doing to you, you’re getting all worked up over something you don’t even know. Didn’t you learn that lesson already? Or did you? I don’t remember. The point is: nopony should know too much about their own destiny.”
“Yeah, she did learn that lesson, the hard way,” Spike helpfully points out. “Like three weeks ago.”
Twilight sighs. “Spike is right. I did learn that lesson.” She takes a deep breath. “I shouldn’t worry about future Twilight’s problems.”
“That’s the spirit! Go to the wedding with your friends and enjoy yourselves.”
The rest of the girls mirthfully agree, and encourage her to be positive.
Three days later…
“Are you sure you’ll be alright here all by yourself, Dane?” She looks up to me, inquisitively.
“Yes Twilight, I’ll be perfectly fine. Besides, Tyler will be here for dinner, and he said he’d stay in Ponyville until you come back.”
“Alright, if you’re sure…”
“I’m positive. Go and have fun, I’ll be here when you get back.”
“Ok.”
“Say hi to the princesses for me!”
I wave goodbye to Twilight and Spike as they make their way off to the train station to meet with their friends and go off on their adventure. And I know everything will be alright.
Plus, I get to play librarian while Twilight’s gone. So far, nopony has come in for a book, at least as long as I’ve been staying here. Hmm… she’s been gone for a minute and already I’m bored. Maybe I’ll reorganize her books and see if she notices. Heh heh.
I look up, and for the first time I notice the ceiling. There’s an engraving into the wood, a stylized sun, very similar to Princess Celestia’s cutie mark, as big in diameter as the room it sits over. It’s filled in with gold leaf to make a beautiful contrast with the natural wood of the tree that it’s carved in. I wonder how long it took for somepony to make that. Beautiful.
Unfortunately, admiring the ceiling did little to quell my boredom. I suppose I could peruse the books, and see if I remember how to read Equestrian. Of course we could only guess how their written language works. Lucky for us, the spoken language is the same, so our team of linguists was able to make out most of the written words. Mostly by catching glimpses of newspapers and signage, that sort of thing.
I look across the shelves and see if anything piques my interest. Mortgages, taxes, Equestrian law… Maybe I’ll check a different shelf. Hmm. Ah! Magical history, that sounds interesting. I open the book and start reading. Luckily, I’m not too rusty and I can read it fairly well, but… but something’s wrong. I don’t know if it’s the book, or the language, but I’m having a really hard time focusing on the words. Maybe I need to sit down. Where’s my chair? I look around. I can’t… I don’t see my chair. Oh, right, there are no chairs… here. I think maybe Twilight has a chair somewhere.
“Hey Twilight? Where’s my chair? I need… I need my sitting chair. Patty? Patty, where’s my… Where are you?”
My arm… my arm feels funny. It’s… numb, I think.
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HEART ATTACK number2
Ah, so that's how we transition main characters :^)
Not a heart attack again I don't think stroke maybe?
I think it might be a stroke. Don't die, Dane!
Wait... a new chapter? But the last chapter was posted a few weeks ago, does that mean that... I travel through time and i’m now in the future? I’m in 2022! Holy shit! I need to know what happen in the last 3 years, maybe Half-life 3 and Portal 3 were finally realised, and I need to learn how to travel back in time, there are so many things I could discover, so many relics to save, heck now that I have the control of time at my hands I don’t need to tell you how hype i’m For the next chapter and how I cannot wait to read it, when I can simply travel to 2025 and read it right now, see you later (or earlier) guys, bye bye!
And yes I realise that I run that time travel joke longer that I should, but what ever, it’s my bad joke, I can used however I want
9760324
Wow that was dark.
... Dane's not the last brony. Currently there are two - Tyler's a brony now. Gettin' there, at least. The only way the story title could stay true is if one of them dies off. But that's sad! Too sad!
9760495
It's a pretty lighthearted story; I'm sure someone will happen to check in on him - probably Redheart, even.
If this were a more "realistic" and "serious" and grim story, though, well, he's either having a heart attack, or more likely stroking out, all alone. Without the inevitable "oh thank goodness I happened to visit you right this second" bit, that's very not good.
why?? a senior citizen having moments like this always get me!! T^T worse!!! twi literally left not 5-10 minutes ago!
If I would be Tyler, I would stay in the safe WhiteTailWoods rather an the dangerous EverFreeForest.