The Stereotypical Drafts

by JinxTJL

Chapter 45 - The Realm Beyond

"It's not like I really left, you know," he murmured lowly. He let his eyes rise up, to Her watching, searching face; feeling the melancholic turn of his felt frown rise into a smile: bitter with something he didn't quite feel. "I was only having a panic attack. Hardly a day trip down to Las Pegasus."

His voice didn't sound as bad as he'd imagined. He could only lose it by doing nothing so many times, he supposed. Maybe he'd actually earn that wear soon.

////////// Bridge //////////

The contemplation drawn into the cleft of Her brow lessened with his attempt at humor, and Her mouth hooked into a flashy grin. "Ah, but weren't you?" The slick tone of Her question was an easy lead into a self-serving chuckle. "Lost such in your own mind: could it not be said that you'd left this realm for another?"

His eyes fell. He wanted to scoff; maybe even snicker. It was a joke. Obtuse phrasing. It meant nothing. Just more meaningless prose to throw onto the pile of things said to generally befuddle him. She delighted in confusing him.

But what if it wasn't? What if... for whatever dumb, overthinking reason... he took that literally?

It was so easy to just let himself consider, now, in the void left in the furrows of shock. His body too weak to flinch, and his mind momentarily broken of its emotions: it was the definition of clarity left without prejudice. There was no fear to think; no weight from the past dragging his hooves.

What pit was there in letting his imagination run?

Nightmare Moon walked in dreams, and... what were dreams at their basest but a figment of the mind? A fantasy: but apparently made physical enough to traverse? And... and maybe using such words as 'walked' and 'traversed' weren't so much of the same, tired metaphor?

Break it down. Let it run.

What was a realm? A fancy word for world.

What was the world? It was the planet, the place he lived. The dirt he walked on, the sky above his head, the air he breathed. It was Equus.

He walked Equus. She walked dreams. Minds.

What was the same?

He could leave hoofprints in the dust. Touch the dirt, and till the soil.

She could tread the roads of the mind. Touch memories, and alter ideas.

Equus... and another.

"What is the realm of the mind called?"

As his eyes rose with it, the question felt quiet: in both tone and stature. Perhaps he could have put more emotion or emphasis behind it, but the question itself was somewhat listless. He wasn't invested enough to really desire the overt answer, rather than to have his own question posed. To make it known that he'd not narcissistically brushed Her words off, as he might've.

Not so much a question, as it was a statement.

He felt smart.

Nightmare Moon seemed taken aback by the turnaround he'd posed. It wasn't immediate; perhaps a moment spent with Her eyebrow bent and furrowed, only for Her to lean back on a quiet rise of surprise. Not quite as defined by upset as shock: but more purely astonished, if not so explicitly dire.

She looked... simply surprised. No better, smarter word for it.

Oh well.

"You are... different," She mused, Her face falling into a thoughtful squint as She tilted Her head to the side. He let Her look; not shying away from the gaze even as She leaned around to stare with a vengeance at his sides, for whatever good it did Her.

Her gaze didn't make his fur crawl as much as it used to.

She soon set back, eventually satisfied enough in name even as She seemed disappointed by whatever She hadn't found. "No, perhaps not different: but changed, enough." She drew back even further, standing to Her full height with a straight back as She put a hoof to Her chin. Looking down at him.

Perhaps not for the insulting action of towering over him, but for the perspective it gave Her? Not everything was as antagonistic as he might believe.

"Shaper, more entirely... focused. It is in your eyes... the way you look at me, the way you speak: it is more... precise than it was before." She nodded: Her own eyes still not entirely focused on him. "There is true thought behind your ambling, much unlike usual."

Each quiet observation was a testament given in his favor, but for Her vacant, thoughtful tone: She may as well have been commending the qualities of a fruit. Insulting, of course, but that didn't mean it was meant that way.

It was so plainly fascinating to see Her whensoever She dropped the posture and the cunning; to just stand in witness of eyes not clouded by the rage or the plots. Maybe not ever wholly clear, but... was it right to expect that of Her?

She was more than guile, than pure calculating force. Even behind the broad, blind intelligence, he could see... consideration. Deceit in a backwards, blunt honesty. Grandeur played genuinely, but sometimes... lacklustre?

It was easy to forget Her; to see past Her character.

"Truthfully: I had expected little but the inconsolable wreck you had been for what time it took, yet..." She went quiet for a moment; tensed face stony but for consideration as She clearly mulled for words. She soon found them, and Her expression became thoughtful.

"...I suppose you chose the greater method of dealing with grief. The road of thought, rather than hasty action."

Thought, rather than action...

He let his head fall at that: to stare at the scant floor in sad, knowing remembrance of his state moments passed. Grief wasn't the word he'd had in mind... but it fit. "Yes... You could say that I... found something else to focus on."

His throat tightened around the words, and he swallowed thickly just to think of his distraction. It was such an off feeling to see Nightmare Moon in the impartial light he was standing under for however long it would shine. Having his understandably crass feelings for Her put aside by somewhat forced passivity, to see the facts and figures as they really stood.

Though, there was still an angry little stump of discontent in a sad little corner of his mind that tugged every thought down, trying to force his underlying feelings of conflict. He couldn't completely kill such a predominant part of himself, though it was easy enough to ignore for the moment.

In any such case, it was hardly a curse. He would actually loathe to become so partial again, for the grand perspective he would lose to the feeling. Not anytime tonight had the world seemed so clear. Everything so easy to see.

Was it really all just from the cleansing relief of a breakdown? Where had this wonderful clarity been before? What had changed?

It didn't really matter; though he knew it couldn't last forever. He couldn't make it through this night without passion, however little it seemed to do for him. In the cold state he was in now, he could honestly evaluate the situation and make truly intelligent decisions based on decently unbiased information rather than emotional preconceptions.

That wasn't a good thing. Because he was doing that right now in the back of his head, and he knew the correct answer he'd arrived at was the wrong one.

He had to stop running away from the reason he was panicking. Stop dancing around the subject with vague mentions and thoughtless references; and dive directly to what he needed. What he wanted.

It would hurt, at first, but it was only a step. The first step always hurt.

His eyes drifted closed, and he took one deep breath to punctuate what he would remember of being so intelligently detached. His eyes were on Nightmare Moon before they'd even opened, Her face expectant in the least.

"How do I get the soul out of my body?"

The merest mention, the barest taste on his tongue and it was already beginning to consume his thoughts. He'd somehow kept even the picture of it from his thoughts, but now it seemed fixed to the back of his eyes. A heady desire now itching to be let out, and for him to let it out.

He wanted the soul back. He wanted it safe in his hooves, and he wanted more than anything else to just touch it some more.

Still: he kept a silent, neutral expression as Nightmare Moon stared back for a moment; Her eyes roving lightly around his face while Her own sat still. "You simply believe that it can?" Her eyebrows furrowed, and Her head dipped in time to a question. "You would skip the refractory question of whether? No such tired tale of woe and pleading for answers?"

She seemed almost taken aback.

A tiny lick of aggravation touched his tongue, adding to the spiced taste of wanton need that just mentioning the soul had brought him. He frowned back at Nightmare Moon's placid face. "I am capable of occasional intelligence." He put a hoof to the side of his head, and tapped once for emphasis.

He closed his eyes, and began a brief drone; still holding his hoof to his head. "Whether I am different or not, I am still a pony. Obviously different from a crow, but similar enough as a living being. We both possess souls; and there's been nothing to make me believe that taking them would be any different. Therefore..."

He trailed for a moment as he opened his eyes, to watch Nightmare Moon's face. It was placid, but not disinterested. He blinked. "...the process should be much the same, shouldn't it? I took the soul out of a crow, so I can take the soul out of myself."

He wasn't really asking for confirmation- he was fairly confident- but he'd be a fool to deny Her a chance to interject. This was time for him, after all. He needed whatever information he could squeeze, even if it came at peril of his confidence.

Nightmare Moon stared at him for a moment, as She usually did. Was that what it looked like when he stared? Probably not. He'd been described as vacant; but She simply looked still.

One corner of Her mouth ticked up briefly. A break in the stillness. A smirk: shown only for a second. "When you speak of a difference, you mean your cutie mark, correct? Your status?" She paused for a moment, as if he'd be stupid enough to believe it was a chance to speak. "You do not believe the difficulty would stem from your position?"

Now there was a lead She seemed intent on, and now She waited for a response. A response that... he didn't think he could give? "I don't understand."

As easy as it felt to simply state, and as conducive as it was: it was still a little bitter to admit he didn't get what She was saying. His processing power was relatively incredible at the moment, but no matter how 'smart' he was, some things just needed clarifying.

Position, in this scenario, could mean... either end of the extremes of nothing and anything.

Nightmare Moon seemed slightly put-off by his brazen show of fallibility; Her face falling into an bemused, slightly angry tilt. After a moment of glaring, though, something seemed to occur in a moment of softened expression; Her mouth extending in a silent 'oh.'

She glanced once to the side, then fixed him with an ever so slightly awkward expression. "Perhaps... not the best wording," She conceded with a nod. He nodded back, and She seemed quietly mollified, in Her own inexpressive way.

Her head tilted, and She narrowed Her eyes questioningly at him. "To be less concise: have you considered that taking your own soul out would be a difficult thing? Nothing said for how different it may be to extract it from your own body; is the prospect not daunting to you?"

Her piece said: She raised Her head in finality to stare down at him from the bottoms of Her eyes, waiting apparently raptly for his answer.

He had one, easily.

He frowned, as he looked up at Nightmare Moon with his own questioning tilt. A mime of the gesture She so frequently passed his way. "Does it really matter, when you're just going to teach me anyway?"

His words hung for a moment, Nightmare Moon doing little but staring unchangingly at him: but it soon gave way to a small, tepid smile. She hummed; the noise not unlike a laugh. "It seems you've left me the fool; asking such questions in such a time."

The hum turned quickly into an open laugh, and he watched with passive eyes as She shook Her head with it. "You're correct, truly. With or without difficulty, there is little doubt in my mind that you will succeed."

Her smile widened, showing larger flashes of teeth between each word. "I can't say for sure why I asked in the first place. Perhaps to test your conviction?"

He was lucky he was already frowning; he already had his expression all set for his response. "Right," he intoned dryly; not bothering to hide the weary feeling that that tone in Her voice was beginning to bring him.

Author's Note:

Ah, now this one is interesting. It features two ideas that never made their way into a chapter: a discussion on the dream world, and a confident Light Flow! Two very foreign concepts!

Now, on the topic of the dream world: it was a concept that I had only then wondered whether I should explore. It came to me on a whim, as many things often do, which is probably why it was discarded. It's an interesting idea and it makes for a fascinating talking point, but it was tangential to the plot points I was trying to push. It'll likely see the light of day sometime in the future.

Light had a pretty noticeable shift in confidence in this draft, which I probably deliberately cut. People often ask me why Light is such a wimp, and to that question, I will provide an answer someday. For now, let's just say that Light having any sort of ability to stand up for himself is just too OOC.

To be frank, though, I felt as though I was making him too confident, and too incisive. His personality was being lost in his forward attitude, and It didn't feel very much like Light Flow.

That's about it for my thoughts on this chapter, because the musings on souls was pretty thoroughly explored in other facets. That was something I really struggled with, by the way, and wondering whether I was doing it properly probably contributed something to this chapter getting cut.