The Letter Opener
"Good morning Twilight!" Spike greets the groggy unicorn as she struggles to open her eyes in the bright morning sunlight.
"Spike?" She asks, struggling to pick up her tired head.
"Good morning sleepy head," I greet her from my bed.
"Dane…? Wha- Where am I?" She asks, looking at me through only one half-lidded eye.
"You're in the hospital, Twilight," Spike bashfully answers, while twiddling his thumbs.
"Am I sick?" She asks, still a bit hazy.
"No, I don't think so. But Dane said…"
"NOTHING! Nothing, haha! You're perfectly fine!" Spike gives me a dirty look, and I return it with a threatening gaze.
"So…" Twilight manages to pull herself up a little in bed and rubs the sand out of her eyes with a foreleg. "What happened?"
About 10 hours ago…
"Holy shit… NURSE!!!"
A nightshift nurse, whose name I never got, practically crashes through the door.
"What's wrong?!"
"She's in shock! Get her a sedative or something!"
"Um," she quickly eyeballs the shaking ball of purple fur in the chair, "Ok!" She gallops out.
"Twilight! Look at me!" I slap her face.
Not that hard of course.
"You need to calm down!"
I try grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. It's no good, she's still trembling. Her eyes are darting around. And she's hyperventilating. Bad.
Thankfully it doesn't take long for the nurse to come back, with a dark gray unicorn doctor in tow. Doctor Scalpel, if I'm not mistaken. I know most of the doctors here, every time I got a check up, it was a different doctor, except for my surgeon, I saw him a lot. I'm pretty sure all those check-ups were an excuse for all of them to get a good look at the alien creature.
"What in the world is going on in here?!" the doctor asks. He spots Twilight trembling violently in my arms and hurries over.
The nurse has a syringe in her mouth, she gets next to Twilight's chair, but looks to the doctor for approval.
After briefly looking Twilight up and down, he gives a half-hearted nod to the nurse. She rears up and expertly manages the needle in her forehooves, tapping it, and depressing the syringe, spraying a few drops of the substance onto the floor. And all this while basically in mid-jump (or mid-rear?). She grabs it in her mouth again while falling back to all fours and, with a little flourish, she jabs the needle in one of Twilight's flanks.
Twilight flinches a little, in addition to her trembling, which slowly comes to a halt. Her darting eyes gradually lose focus and gently close as she drifts out of consciousness. I gently lay her head down.
The doctor levitates his stethoscope into place in his ears, and floats the listening part onto various positions on Twilight's chest. After he seems content with what he hears, he says, "It seems she had some kind of panic attack." He removes the stethoscope and drapes it over his neck. "Would you mind explaining what happened?" The doctor insists with an angry tone as he glares at me.
"Well I guess I can have that effect on mares…" Ack, there goes my old defense mechanism…
"That's not funny." He deadpans while the light blue nurse behind him stifles a giggle.
"Oh… I might have… sort of… you know… accidentally shattered her perception of reality…"
The doctor's eyes go wide for a moment, before he quickly regains his professional composure. "And how did you do that, exactly?"
"I told her the truth."
"What truth?"
"Ha," I huff, "You want me to tell you after how well she took it?" I gesture to Twilight.
"Yes, I suppose that might not be the best idea…"
"Doctor," the nurse pipes up, "should we move her to another room?"
"No, no," I interrupt, "Let her sleep here. Help me move her onto my bed, I'll take the other one."
"Hmph. I suppose it would be easier than getting a gurney at this time of night. Although I'm not exactly sure seeing you when she wakes up would be the best thing for her after what happened..."
We move Twilight off the chair and onto my bed. Surprisingly, the unicorn doctor does not use magic, and instead helps us manually move her. We get her nice and tucked in for the night.
"Hey doc, any chance you could send somepony to the library to tell Spike she's here?" I helpfully suggest. Don't wanna leave the poor guy wondering where she is all night.
"Yes, I'm sure we could do that. And how did she even get in here anyway? It's well past visiting hours…" he says, glancing out the window at the dark rainy night.
I look at it too. The rain lightly pitter-patters against the glass, beyond which is only darkness. This night is deprived of the soft glow of the Luna's moon and stars, shrouded by dark clouds. I always liked rainy nights like this…
We look back to each other and I shrug. "Magic?"
"Hmm… yes…" He nods. "Nurse, could you see to it that somepony is sent to the library?"
"Yes, doctor." She casually walks out of the room.
The doctor looks back to me. "I don't know what you told her…" he says in a low voice with a hint of anger in it. He brings a hoof to his face and lowers his spectacles on his snout. Glaring at me over his glasses, he continues, "but that was possibly one of the worst panic attacks I've ever seen. If I didn't know better, I might have thought she was having a seizure."
I can't help but avoid eye contact, and look away. This is my fault, one way or another. Maybe I shouldn't have told her…
I don't know.
She was already confused and troubled enough just wondering about it. What was I supposed to do? Lie? I have a feeling she'd be able to tell if I did. In fact, lying might have made it worse… She'd start to wonder even more about it, how bad the truth must be… if I had to lie about it.
No, she had to be told.
Maybe I can gloss over it with everypony else, but Twilight's too inquisitive… too smart for that.
"It is sometimes the case," the doctor continues, having regained his professional tone of voice, and he pushes his glasses back into place, "that the patient experiences a partial amnesia of their panic attack and its cause."
Well… Is that a good thing? I would probably have to tell her again… maybe I can try to break it to her a little more gently, at least?
"I would suggest that you refrain from mentioning anything you told her."
I look up at him and just nod in response.
"Well, good night." He cracks a small smile. "And try not to shatter any more realities while you're here…"
I give him a mock salute, to which he simply rolls his eyes and walks out the door, magically closing it behind him.
I'm just watching Twilight in her unconscious sleep, while I lie in this cold bed on the other side of the room. Sleep is not coming to me, my mind is too occupied.
I can't help but wonder if that conversation could have gone better. And what will I say to her when she wakes up?
She's on her side, facing me. Her face is so peaceful and her mouth is just a tiny bit open. She's adorable…
Tossing my thoughts aside for a moment, there is something else I've been wondering about for a while now.
Something about… pony anatomy.
She's drugged, there's no way she'd wake up…
This is my opportunity to see it up close.
Making up my mind, I sit on the edge of my bed and pull myself up with my cane. I hobble over to her bed and sit down. I just watch her breathe for a moment, her ribcage slowly rising and falling underneath the covers. I gently grab hold of the blanket covering her sleeping form, and carefully peel it away, exposing her beautiful lavender coat and her little forelegs, which are cutely scrunched up close to her chest.
My eyes slowly drift south… I lick my lips in anticipation.
Until I spot what I've waited 55 years to see up close…
Twilight's…
Cutie mark.
A real, genuine, magical, pony cutie mark. I lean over, lower my glasses on my nose, and get a real good close-up look.
Somehow, despite all the other imperfection and natural realism about the ponies that I've noticed up close, their cutie marks are the only things that seem to be… perfect. Too perfect. Almost fake. Dare I say… cartoony?
I know that they're part of their coats. So with my face mere inches away from Twilight's flank, I examine the fur that makes up the big six-pointed pink star. There's nothing abnormal about it, it looks the same as the rest of her coat, except pink. I look to an edge of the star, where pink ends in an unnatural perfectly straight border to lavender.
Hmm…
That's funny, looking really close, it seems that some strands of hair are two colors, both pink and purple. How the hell would a hair grow to be two different colors? I reach out a finger and gently brush the hairs I'm looking at…
Wow… They change colors when I move them! They're… it's…
Oh! I get it! Her fur doesn't make the cutie mark, that's not it! It's like… an image, projected onto her! Or rather, onto her fur. If I mat the fur on the border inside the star, it becomes pink. If I mat it the other way, it becomes purple again. And any strand caught halfway across the line will be half pink and half purple.
Her leg twitches a little from me brushing her fur this way and that with my fingers.
They don't just 'grow' cutie marks, the marks are magically projected onto their coats!
That certainly explains how they can just appear, and not need to grow out. It also explains how they look so damn perfect. I chuckle at my discovery and cover Twilight again, gently tucking her in.
My room's door bursts open, startling me a little bit, and a certain purple dragon hastily enters my room. He steals a glance at me for a split second, but quickly sees Twilight and runs up to her bedside, with his back to me.
Well hello there little dragon. Finally I get to see him up close and in person. Spike is a little bigger than I expected. He's just about-
He does a quick 180, hunched over a little, he glares daggers at me with his fists clenched. He jumps up onto my bed, straddles me, and mashes his face against mine!
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!" He demands, the fires of rage burning in his eyes.
And he holds a single, very sharp claw to my throat.
I gulp. "Nothing! I didn't do anything! I swear!" I wave my hands in the air defensively.
Baring his teeth at me, pointy fangs and all, Spike huffs and gray smoke blows out his nose and into my face, stinging my eyes. He presses that sharp claw into my throat's wrinkly flesh.
"I- I- I just told her the truth! A-And she freaked out! That's it!"
He squints his reptilian emerald eyes at me… and removes his claw. He backs up and jumps off me. And goes back to looking at his sleeping pony friend.
And I'm… panting again. My poor old heart is thumping in my chest.
A few moments pass as I lay in my bed, gasping for air. These ponies are gonna be the death of me.
"I'm sorry…" I hear Spike mutter.
Pant "Huh?" Pant
He turns back around and faces me. "Hey, uh, Dane right? Listen, I'm sorry about… you know…" He hangs his head in shame.
"It's…" pant "Ok…" I mean he did almost kill me in two different ways, but hell, I'd be that protective of Twilight too. She's practically his mother/sister/best friend, after all.
"I just… didn't know what happened," he shrugs, looking off to the side, at Twilight, "all they told me was that she was being kept overnight for 'observation'… and her being with… well… an alien, I guess I kinda…" He looks at me, "…jumped to conclusions…"
I'm starting to catch my breath again.
"I should have known," he shakes his head then looks back at the sleeping mare. "She's been acting funny all week, especially today. She was bound to have a major freak-out…" He stares at his feet, twisting one of them side to side on the floor. "So um… Are we cool?" He glances up at me with innocent puppy dog eyes.
"Yeah… we're cool." I offer the best forgiving smile I can muster in my current winded state.
Spike stands there, nervously twiddling his thumbs. Now he's a sight to see. And that's saying something considering how dark it is in here. He is a bit bigger than I expected, standing on two legs like he is now, he's about the same height as an adult pony standing on all fours, but that's including the spikes on his head, which are pretty big.
His purple scales are very much akin to lizard scales, small and round, like little bumps. They're shiny too, not a mirror shine, but more of a dull reflection. He has a few small clusters of scales that are a little bigger and flatter. His green spikes that run from the top of his head down along his back and tail appear to be devoid of scales, looking like very tough skin instead. The ones on his head move side to side a little bit when he moves, they're not perfectly rigid.
The spines on either side of his head are actually a lot more fleshy than anything else, they look soft even. And his soft green belly doesn't appear to have scales of any kind, it looks just like smooth skin.
"Nice to meet you by the way…" He finally pipes up, "…I'm Spike, Twilight's number one assistant!" He holds out his right claw, smiling unsurely, clearly wondering if I'd forgive and forget.
I'm somewhat reluctant about returning the gesture, given those sharp claws and my soft, fleshy hands. But I give in under the pretenses that he's making peace and that this may very well be my last actual handshake for the rest of my life. Thankfully, he's well aware of the issue and carefully grips my hand without me so much as feeling the points of his nails. I give him a good firm shake, he hesitates for a split second, but tightens his grip to match mine. He's probably not used to real handshakes, but it seems like he knows the basics.
Interesting, his scaly, but still soft, claw hand is quite cool. Cold blooded, are we? Or maybe he’s just cold because he walked here naked in the rain.
"Twilight's told me a lot about you," he adds.
"So do you always keep your claws that sharp?" I ask while wiping a drop of blood off my throat with a thumb.
"Heh heh… nah, just this one." He holds up his right index finger.
"Ah, just for threatening people then?"
"No…" He rolls his eyes, then he grumbles and looks away. "I mostly use it for…" He mumbles something.
"I'm sorry? You'll have to speak up sonny." I say in my best cliché old-man voice, holding a hand to my ear.
"Opening envelopes…" He grumbles and crosses his little arms.
"Uh, Dane? You were about to tell me why I was sleeping in a hospital bed?" Twilight reminds me.
Senior moment…
"Oh yeah… that… uh… you were… feeling kinda sleepy when you visited me last night… so you… slept! Here!"
"Last night…?" She looks me up and down, then around the room a little before realizing, "Wait a minute, why am I in your bed?"
"Because I… you were cold and I… kept it warm for you!"
"Spike, what's going on here?" She deadpans at her dragon friend.
"Beats me," He shrugs.
"Ughhh," she groans loudly and groggily gets out of bed. Her mane and tail are a mess. I guess the latter half of her slumber wasn't as peaceful as her drug-induced unconsciousness. "I'm going to freshen up." She wobbly steps her way into the bathroom and closes the door behind her.
"Spike." I motion a finger telling him to come closer.
He complies.
I whisper, "I thought we agreed not to mention anything…?" I squint at him.
"Hey, I didn't say anything…" He nonchalantly replies, shrugging.
"Well the doc said she might not remember, and if that's the case, I'd rather she didn't…"
"Why? I mean… you didn't exactly tell me what happened." He looks me dead in the eye.
"Look… what I told her… what she asked me… I didn't want to tell her. But it's a painful truth, and that's what made her flip out. Flip out big time."
"Big time, huh? I don't think you know Twilight that well, she's always freaking out about something..."
"Not like this, Spike. Trust me. So if you don't mind, I'd rather not remind her about it."
"Alright, sheesh, I get the point."
The bathroom door opens and Twilight walks out, looking fresh as a daisy.
"You two sure got to know each other fast… Dane, what happened to your neck?!" She asks, coming closer to inspect my injury.
Ah yes, my neck. Spike's claw left little more than a pin prick, but in my old age, I seem to bruise a lot easier than I used to. I run my fingers over the area, there is an almost quarter-sized bruise… hey… I feel my pulse here…
Spike looks up to me with an apologetic, guilt-ridden frown.
…My pulse. He had his claw right over my jug- Note to self: don't piss off Spike. Then again it might have just been a coincidence… how would he know where mine is anyway?
Right?
"Oh this? It's nothing, don't worry about it." I smile at the little dragon next to me.
Twilight's face says she knows I'm hiding something, but she decides not to press it. "Dane, can we talk? Maybe over breakfast?"
Oh great…
I look away, trying to decide how to respond… hey, my room's door is slightly ajar. That's funny, I didn't hear it open. I guess my hearing's going too.
"HI THERE!" A big blur of pink completely obscures my vision.
"AAAHHHHHH!!!"
"PINKIE!" Twilight yelling is the last thing I hear before I completely black out.
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Wow. I literally saw this show up in my inbox as I was checking other messages. I'll edit when I finish the chapter.
Okay, I finally finished it about an hour ago (7:30 Pacific time on the 7th), on my 3DS on the BART train, but I might as well leave a new comment now.
That cutie mark description was brilliant. I have never thought of it like that before. Also, I have read so many "dirty" bait and switches that I saw this one coming from a mile away
Yay more
You sly, sly bastard you... I LOVE IT.
Wat.
I need to unstick my head from the gutter.
wait
Dane, y u no taste cutie mark
I did a double take on the cutie mark bit. Internet points to author!
Pinkie just scared the crap out of an old man.....who had a heart attack from looking at a pony......
Something tells me it wasn't the usual"OH! I got scared so i'mma pass the crap out!" Probably more that his heart couldn't take it.
Possible portal ripping a hole in time in pace and me having to come and stop it? because that's how it really went
ALONZY ALONSO!!!
Oh, you are almost got me there.
... Is there a conspiracy to kill him as quickly as possible? He's had two near-heart attacks in this chapter alone! Pinkie....
Iz love it like butter dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Bonbon_OMG_LOVE.png
Well it looks like one existential crisis is over....in all honesty I can't wait for the next one to come on.
$50 says it's Twilight again! Any takers?
DAT SWITCH
Black out huh? not a heart attack so I guess I can't complain.
Fun chapter anyway, I eagerly await her reaction.
Yeah red write more
-cocks shotgun-
Lol blackmuffin u beat, me 2 it
Btw typing on a laggy phone sucks! !!
This is going well.
1576524 Hey Look, Diabolic... Bait! It's right there beside that switch! dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Twilight_crazy.png
Awesome chapter. Would you mind writing a version where the bait and switch ends up exactly where it looks like it's going to end up?
Nice! You had me cracking up several times there, and your descriptions of the Cutie Mark and Spike seemed pretty legit.
All in all I enjoyed this chapter very much... Until he passed out at the end of the chapter.
To anyone complaining (if there are any) about the 'bait and switch' with the cutie mark....
Good chapter. Like the way you protrude Spike here. Spike ends up being shown as a ''Flip Flop'' way to often!
The cutie mark thing was perfect, the description and the joke. Spike was perfect too. You're doing a hugely great job of this.
The whole premise of a human who has nothing to lose and went willingly to equestria without twilight fucking up magic or no damn explanation at all is already a great gust of fresh air, and then you build so well on it.
Another thing, at some point celestia and luna are gonna have to show up, and to them he'll have to tell the truth too, that would be some damn great interactions!
1576337 Wow... it's been like 1 hour and 7 minutes, and I thought I read slow... lol
We shall see...
Uh...
1576375 Glad you liked the cutie mark thing, I thought this was an appropriate place to put my two bits on how cutie marks work. Sad I couldn't snare you with the bait, but hey, that giant space is a dead giveaway lol.
1576405 1576413 1576483 1576662
1576416 Somepony's been reading too much clop
1576425 Dude, I don't even... wat...?
1576444 1576524 Gotcha!
1576448 1576475 1576560
1576450 Hey, this is MY universe! Stay the hell out, Doctor!
1576466 (Almost) Gotcha!
1576500 Do I get a cut?
1576565 Yes master!
1576568 The story or Dane's time in Equestria? lol
1576664 You want me to write a clop-based subplot starring a creepy old man and a drugged-unconcsious Twilight Sparkle?
1576693 lol, glad you liked it (sorta)
1576773 Glad you liked him. A flip-flop you say? Do elaborate...
1576781 "...Perfect..." Pretty damn good review
I'm happy you're liking it!
1576787 Ooh... yes, they will show up... You'll have to wait and see. I haven't written it yet, but I'm planning on some pretty heavy stuff for that...
Well, I totally didn't see that Cutie Mark thing coming. Ya got me... I was positive he was gonna check out her horn.
1576793 Oh come on!!! you had fun and got laid when you were with me!!! You finally asked Rose Luck out because the Sontarin's dared you too!!! Besides learn to share and avoid evil evil pears!!!
ALONZY ALONSO!!!
1576664 You do realize that would make our protagonist into that cliche creepy old man, right?
Anyway.. Great chapter! Curse your cliffhangers. For me, it's like having a rope tied around my neck
and you leave me dangling off the cliff by it. If you don't pull me back up soon, I'll die and stuff.
The story of course.
The bait and switch illicited a single response:
arch.413chan.net/1288859782062.jpg
What, another heart attack? Man, he's one resilient motherfucker. Most people conk out after the first one.
oh man if he just had another heart attack pinkie is going to feel so guilty and upset
1576793
Right down the middle
Hmm! Another interesting variation of Equestria! Ohhh now I have to go see it for myself! Hmm. . . 1576835 Oy, Doctor! You wouldn't happen to have any fixed temporal coordinates for the place and/or a spare Temporal Locator wouldja? My last one broke, I hijacked the dimensional coordinates from the project, and I just finished hand plotting the spacial vectors, so I just need that last set before I can initiate the jump. ~With regards, the Current Student of the Second True Magic. PS. You from the future says hello!
1576911 dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/lolface_Celestia.png is my response. I really liked it. It is now my head canon explanation.
1576963 Tell future me me should know better than A bow tie. Also I don't happen to have one on me but if you give me a jar of peanut butter, A bar of soap, Powdered pegasi feather's, And a drop of blood from the 3,993,477,225,735 Sontarin emperor I can make one. OH and while you're getting the soap could you grab Sonicy? she's on the desk that's actually a pig.
ALONZY ALONSO!!!
Didn't see that switch coming. Yeah... I need to bleach my brain.
On the other hoof, you did a great job describing Spike. He's a favorite of mine.
Overall great chapter (Though I hope you won't take so long posting the next one.)
(There's probably more than a few artists on DA who would be more than happy to add some artwork using you're character desc if you ask nicely)
1576834
I'm not a doctor or a vet, but I'm pretty sure a Unicorn's horn protrudes from their head. Not their flank.
1576987 Ohh, so THIS is what that was for. Remind me to thank you later in the future. Well, that accounts for the blood drop, peanut butter, powdered feathers, and soap, I grabbed Sonicy on the way out. Least I can do small localized dimensional warps without having to plot everything out before hand. Still need to improve skill over STM before I can disregard that altogether. Sending in three, two, one, mark! - Green light explodes into existance with a crackling sound and fades away - All right, check the third table to your left, everything made it through.
1576793 I have this chapter open in my first tab, but I've been really busy with a whole bunch of other internet things this evening. I promise I'll get to it!
1577032 Good jo-HOLY SHIT THAT'S AN OOD!
ALONZY ALONSO!!!
1577012 You do realize that the purpose of a bait and switch like that is to be misleading right? Hence the reason that he was being so vague until AFTER HE SAID CUTIE MARK!!! Stand facing the foot of the bed, move your eyes south... OHMYGOD! LOOK, IT'S A UNICORN HEAD!!
I saw what you did there.
.
And if anyones gonna kill our guy it's going to be Pinkie, she's gonna pop out of nowher ONE too many times and he's gonna have a coronary.
Looking forward to more.!
my dirty mind trolled me in this chapter.TWO TIMES.
1577039 Huh. I wondered where that pig went. Must'uve got to close to the warp, poor pig. . . Ahh yes, yourself from the future responds with "I wear bowties now. Bowties are cool." And the last I saw of you was headed towards a. . . fez. . . shop. . . Frak frak frak frak frak!
I've never thought about cutie marks except that I wanted my own.
Dane can't handle the Pinks!
1576835 Uh...
1576848 But... but I like watching you dangle...
1576901 Neat.
1576911 TROLOLOLOLOL.
1576926 1576937 Hehehe... She will...
1576962 Uh... I was gonna say 10% but hey, 50% sounds good to me!
1576963 Did you just chug all 5 chapters?
1576982 What is, the cutie mark thing? Or Trollestia? lol
1576996 Hehehe... enjoyed a bit too much of the more adult fics, have we? Hopefully I can do Spike's character justice. Glad you're enjoying it!
1577034 Take your time lol
1577050 Whoa nelly! Settle it down pardner! The purpose of the bait is to make you think something specific, not to be vague. I don't really see how being at the foot of the bed, that the head of the bed would be south. If anything it'd be north. Besides, in general, when looking at a person, and looking south implies looking towards the lower part of their body. But hey, no big deal, right?
1577074 Yea, she would. idk if you noticed but it's set up so she snuck into the room, Dane noted his door was open and didn't hear it.
1577103 Twice?
Where was the second one? Kinda weird, given I wrote it... I may have Alzheimers, but at least I don't have Alzheimers.
1577118 Yea, they're magical alright. And I'm sure any tattoo artist would be happy to help you with that. lol
YES. love this story. MOAR.