> Blurred Lines
>  by Material Defender
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: Pause
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The morning was quite misty, as it usually was during this time of year in early fall. Silence pockmarked with the sound of birds chirping were the only sounds that accompanied me as I walked through the university grounds on my way to the library. The street lamps were still on during time of morning, making the whole journey appear as if I were walking straight through a swamp.

Eventually, the arched dome of the university's library could be seen through the haze, and I immediately sought refuge inside from the biting cold air. I laughed at myself for always underestimating these mornings, and dressed less than appropriate for the soon-to-be colder weather. And for that, I was thankful that I was a regular customer at the on-campus coffee shop, where brews of all sorts kept many a student warm during these frigid times.

And here now, in the library, it was moderately heated and immediately brought relief to my skin. I walked up to the front desk, hoping that the text I had reserved would be in today, despite it being so early.

"Hello there," I said to the librarian. "I'd like to see if my book has arrived."

"Of course. Could I have your ID, please?" I handed over my student ID card, slightly tarnished with wear over the years of use. She immediately scanned it and looked to the computer monitor for my identity and book status. "Ah, yes, Mr. Ian Andrews? Your book arrived a while back. Please wait here while I retrieve it for you." She handed back my card with a smile and disappeared into one of the many back rooms of the library.

Taking a sip of my hot chocolate, I leaned against the desk and observed the library's adornments from my leisure position. A number of great abstract paintings hung on the walls around, perched up and down the height of the atrium as a glass ceiling showed the darkened skies above. The desks on the first floor, normally filled with study groups, sat empty as they stood next to the towering shelves with multitudes of references and texts.

A click from the nearby office clock made my ears tick, and I looked to it to see that the time had just only hit eight in the morning. Within an hour, the first students would be making their way in here, occupying the tables and study rooms throughout the many floors of the library.

"Here you are, Mr. Andrews." I turned around to see the librarian place the book on the counter, opening the cover and scanning the barcode. "I'll have to ask that you be careful with this book. As you can see, it's beginning to fall apart in a few places, and it'd cost the university a lot of money to replace it."

"I'll be careful with it," I assured her. "Doesn't the library do repair services?"

"Not with this one," she said, shaking her head. "At this point, actively attempting to repair the materials on this book would only end up damaging it more. It's a shame, since it's such a recent edition, too. If only the budget cuts weren't so bad... and if students like yourself weren't so reckless with the book."

"On behalf of my peers, I apologize," I said jokingly. "Well, thank you, then." I checked the book and saw that it was due back at the library in two weeks, but I only needed it for the span of today. It had been hell trying to reserve this book without another student - a graduate student, most likely - taking it from under my nose. Reserving it had been the only way to guarantee that I'd actually be able to obtain a copy, if only temporarily.

I found an elevator and took it up to the top floor. Usually, there would be at least a table, room, or chair empty for me to use, and I liked sitting by the windows as it gave a great view while studying. Sure enough, the entire top floor was completely vacant, and I was left to pick my seat as I wished.

The corner rooms were always the best, as they offered a great view overlooking the main campus that was unmatched anywhere else, so that was naturally my first choice. Settling down inside, I flipped open the book and began examining the contents for what I needed.

It was a fairly obscure text, but as an environmental engineering major with a side interest in agriculture, my professor had recommended it to me for reading. I wasn't entirely sure now, since looking over the text, the author was extremely disorganized and used words that not even I knew, so it was a waste of time. I sat back and sighed: this book was definitely going to be in the return box before I left.

Downing the rest of my lukewarm beverage, I checked my phone to see if I had any other plans for the day. As it turned out, I didn't: today happened to be one of my off-days where I had no classes. That meant that aside from my standard bouts of playing video games or watching various shows and My Little Pony, it was simply a day to relax.

Fumbling with my pockets, I struggled to fit my phone inside when it began to ring. Giving a huff of frustration, I pulled out the device and checked to see who was calling: Travis, an acquaintance of mine who I met during one of my math classes. We didn't exactly hang out a lot, but we kept in contact well enough.

"Hello?" I said.

"Ian, dude, just here to remind you that we have that math homework due tomorrow! Proofs and all that, remember?" he said.

"Aw, crap. Yeah, I'm on it, thanks for reminding me."

Travis laughed. "No problem, Ian, just looking out for all us students. At least our study groups have been somewhat helpful for the class, after everyone's... uh, bad performance on the midterms. Anyway, I'll catch you later." The line clicked as he hung up. Well, at least he was always dependable, so there was that.

And now here I was, stuck in the library with nothing to do. I was doing fairly well in all my classes, so I figured that using this day to relax couldn't hurt. But, first things first: I had to return this obsolete text to the front desk. I couldn't believe that I went through so much time and trouble to get it... and decided that I was probably better off gleaning proper tree-growing habits from agricultural magazines.





I visited the dining hall nearby, looking for a quick meal before I ran to my car for my math book. The mist had picked up into a light drizzle now, and dozens of students scrambled by me as I pulled out my umbrella. At least in this case, I was well-prepared, but the cold wind still stung.

Soup was always a regular favorite of mine during these times, and today made no difference: I gave myself the liberty of stocking up on various crackers and other foodstuffs to consume along with it. I usually didn't like eating at the dining hall, but given the current climate, I relented due to the proximity of the building. At least I could get to my classes easily enough from here, and I didn't end up having to drive my car.

The line wasn't too long, as most of the students preferred to eat at other locations; the university was pretty close to downtown, only a walk away, so I guess that most went for better fare instead. I wasn't too picky, so I picked up my tray and chose my intended food. And with my food in hand, I walked out of the cafeteria and stopped, thinking about where I would sit.

I'd never been here before, nor did I want to make a habit out of it, so I decided to find myself a nice cozy corner of the dining hall, in one of the more secluded sections that also had a nice carpeting to it, unlike the hard cold tiling of the greater dining areas. I sat down with my food and proceeded begin eating, bringing out my notes and reading them over. It was mostly a menial task to make myself look busy while eating; after all, in a dining hall that was occupied mostly by people eating in groups, it was a bit sad to eat by yourself, and I think that opinion rubbed off on me a bit. So I decided to make myself look busy.

I guess it would be fortuitous that I had decided to look at it; the ones in particular I had randomly pulled out from my pack were my math notes from our most recent class, and much like what Travis told me, there were proofs. Lots of them, and hard to boot. I flipped a few pages in mental disgust, again reminding myself of my displeasure for the mathematical field as I continued consuming my lunch.

And then the sound came. No, it wasn't a sound; more like a feeling, masquerading as a sound. I looked up, a feeling like nails on a chalkboard in my mind, as if it were screaming to tell me something, to focus on something just beyond my knowledge. I didn't know what it was, and I frantically began to look around only to stop myself from looking stupid shortly after. There was nothing wrong, nothing out of place. It was just me... and I had no idea why I had done that.

So I settled back into my routine again, now feeling embarrassed as the sole couple sitting a few tables away had taken notice of my sudden outburst, and I again attempted to busy myself by burying my attention in the notes. That didn't work, though, and I was unsurprisingly alarmed: nothing like that had ever happened in my entire life to elicit such a reaction from me, and certainly not from such a mundane situation like the one I was currently in. Was I going insane?

I downed the last of my now-lukewarm soup with a few quick gulps, and pack up my things at a leisurely pace, so as to not again create a new incident. I leave the tray and its dinnerware contents at the cafeteria's collector, and make my way out of the building and again into the cold biting wind and now hard-hitting rain. Days like these I did not particularly enjoy, since super cold and super wet meant a pretty miserable me that didn't want to do anything else besides bundling up in my bed the moment I got home.

But I still had classes, and any student worth his salt would always put those over anything else. I couldn't say it wasn't hard to just walk to my car and drive home, though, and that thought remained with me every step of the way as I headed across campus, past the library and through the campus' center. Not much longer after that, the four-story building which housed today's class was visible, and I dodged a pair of students reminding everyone of the upcoming student body elections before heading through the glass doors inside.

The building wasn't anything special, nothing like the computer science majors' dedicated labs building, or the arts building with all their specialized classrooms for every artsy profession. This one was pretty generic, just a building with some offices at the top, and a bunch of classrooms underneath. I walked up to the second floor, hung a right, and headed straight down to the end of the hall, where the one on the left was my next class.

A window sat at the end of the trek, and I stopped there to admire the outside scenery. The administration building for the campus sat right across from here, and it was certainly a sight to behold, bearing architecture hailing from colonial times, and there were dozens of students camped out underneath its grand entrance to avoid the cold and rain. I was glad that I didn't have to join them anytime soon, and whipped out my phone to check for classes.

As soon as I did so, that feeling returned. Only stronger this time, and the hairs on the back of my head immediately stood on their ends. Suddenly, I heard a sound... except it actually was one this time, not some tingly feeling in my head, but very faint like someone was calling out to me from far away and from behind a door. I tried to focus, trying to hear what the hell it was trying to say; I closed my eyes and concentrated.

It was saying my name.

My ears rang, and all sound of the rain hitting the window bled out from my mind, as it felt like I had suddenly gone deaf and that lone noise grew louder. I opened my eyes and turned around, and saw nothing in the hall, no one there except for myself. My mouth hung open in pure disbelief, and that little thought in the back of my mind again grew bigger. This... wasn't normal, or at least in the scope of normal I was used to. Twice in a single day wasn't a cause for alarm—yet—and I dearly hoped that it would just go away after a while.

Hope, of course, being the operative word. Going mad wasn't really something I had planned in my schedule for this term, and I wanted to see if the effects were recurrent before deciding on a course of action or getting anyone involved. And just like that, the feeling had left as suddenly as it had came, and no trace could be felt of it. I violently shook my head for a moment, letting the disorientation override the prickly feeling in my head.

Right after that, I checked my cell phone: the time was five minutes until class, and yet there was no one here. For any class on campus, it was guaranteed that there would always been a few people who showed up early. I guess I was the only one. Figuring that I shouldn't waste any more time on this issue any longer, I opened the door and stepped into the classroom.





After ten minutes past the hour, I realized that no one showed up to class at all, and a quick check to my email reminded me why: obviously, they had been cancelled, due to the professor having something come up on such short notice that he couldn't arrange for a replacement. And that certainly made me feel like a fool.

So what else was there to do this day, when I had finished my classes? I had no idea, and I had begun my way back down the stairs again when something caught my eye. Something very, very noticeable; a blur of brown, yellow, and orange barely exited the corner of my eye as I went down the stairs, and prompted me to increase my pace in order to catch whoever it was walking down there.

And yet again, it eluded me. I made it to the bottom of the stairs in record time, only to see... nothing. There was still a sizeable space between the bottom of the stairwell and the nearest hall and exits, so I should have been able to catch whoever it was. I kicked myself mentally again: I knew what I saw, and it was a person. Definitely a person. And if that person had been walking down the stairs, I would have noticed another important detail which I had idiotically ignored on my rush to learn who it was.

There were no footsteps. In a dead quiet building, with no one in here other than me and the sound of rain, footsteps should have echoed louder than anything around. And when you're walking down the stairs yourself, the telltale sound of another's footsteps should have been easily heard. Yet when I had stopped at the bottom of the stairs, only silence greeted me.

Either this was one really elaborate prank by somebody who was both really annoying and incredibly dedicated that just so happened to be hiding close by, or... I was losing my mind. Both choices were equally far-fetched, and I was fairly certain that no one had entered in the building after me. Then that would mean that if the prankster guess was true, then the person might have been in here to begin with. Or not. They could have just played a random prank on any person that came in here. Or not. Lots of exchanges between myself and I ensued.

And then another idea implanted myself into my head, one that quickly silenced all my thoughts and made me unceremoniously shove it into my mind's cabinet labeled 'bullshit'. As I walked outside into the downpour again, I crossed the campus made my way to my car, determined to make it back home and just put this whole day behind me. Listening to the radio on my commute, grabbing something to eat as I arrived home, and then just burying myself in schoolwork and videogames after that.

I didn't touch any of my MLP things, and the small amount of merchandise I had regarding near my computer left a sour taste in my mouth. I spent the rest of that day downstairs in the living room, letting the mind-numbing contents of television pull me away from that thought. Brown... yellow... and orange. I must have been tired more than I thought, and I fell asleep on the couch, the white noise from the running news report lull me to dreamland.

Brown... yellow... and orange.

I guess someone must have been pretty dedicated to this prank to dress up as Applejack.
> Chapter 2: Visit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Ugh..." I woke up the next morning to a very nasty dull pounding in the back of my head, as if someone had taken a hammer to it. I nearly lost my balance simply trying to get out of the couch, and was thankful that my parents weren't around to witness my sorry state, as they had left the house in my care to go sight-seeing around the world. Dad was certainly an affluent man to be able to maintain all sorts of payments on his house instead of leaving it to me. He probably had people sort out his bills and other things.

And for me, those 'people' allocated a monthly allowance for me to spend as I pleased. It was a decent trade, and Dad had expressed his utmost confidence in leaving me in charge of the home, or at least in name. That I was well on my way through university only bolstered his insistence, and good old Mom and Dad were already packed and good to go before I had even accepted. They had certainly been looking forward to this trip.

So here, I was, a young adult well onto his way towards a career with a house all to himself. It was far from bad, and I had exhausted my entire list of silly things to do within a single month, work aside. The one thing I still did on a regular basis was moonwalk across the wood flooring of the house whenever I was in my socks. That never got old.

And now after my daily freshening-up came my daily breakfast: today, a simple bowl of cereal and milk, and an apple, my favorite fruit. I sat down at the table and began reading the newspaper as I ate, letting the sustenance of fruit-based-but-not-actually-containing-any-fruit cereal give me the energy to begin the day. The contents of the yesterday's newspaper wasn't anything interesting, so I put it down to see a familiar miniature pony that I had left there the day before.

An Applejack miniature, one of the first I had ever bought.

I sighed, and picked it up, rotating the small object between my fingers as I rubbed the side of my head. That thing yesterday was just so out of whack that I didn't really have any words for it. Someone out there knew that I watched My Little Pony, and although I didn't see any harm coming from it simply by ignoring the detractors, it could definitely be used against me as a tool of annoyance.

"You stirred up quite a bit of trouble for me yesterday, AJ..." I said to it. The lack of response was expected: it was just a toy, after all, and I placed it back down on the desk and gave a look out the window. Still cloudy, still cold, and... yep, still raining. Just fantastic.

I didn't remember just how early I had fallen asleep last night. Dazed was probably the best way to put my disposition towards yesterday; it was all just an obscure mess, and trying to remember anything aside from the important and insane was like trying to mentally walk through a pool of thick mud only to strain yourself tired and getting nowhere. It was tiring, and today was Friday, which meant only some light classes today and I would be out for the weekend. I thanked my astute self for having the wisdom to finish all my work yesterday.

So party time tonight! That meant junk food, lots of gaming and subsequent net browsing, and... ponies.

No new seasons at the moment, unfortunately, but I always endeavored to watch an episode every week out of habit. Besides, the show never lost its charm on me, and I figured that it would be a good time killer. But that was later, and right now, I needed to get dressed and head off to class.

Well, it was a Friday... maybe I didn't need to change clothes.





So my concern with waking up in a shirt I went to sleep in won over my laziness, and I ended up changing, but kept the jacket since I was going to need it anyway. Commute was about as hectic and annoying as usual, with traffic beginning to pile up halfway on the route due to an unfortunate accident. That was why I liked to leave home early just in case such things happened.

The class, my math one, was during mid-morning, and I think I had absorbed enough of the material to do well on that quiz. A couple of chats later with Travis on the way out the door left me feeling fairly confident in my ability to maintain a good score on my tests, which left my mood quite high for the day. But work is never done for a student, so I decided to grab some lunch at the dining hall again before moving back to the library for some studies. Morning me wasn't good at foreseeing things like that.

The rain had lessened up by the time I reached the hall, so my jacket remained unharmed. The campus was understandably with less people today, since there were always those who wanted to get a head-start on the weekend's activities, and missing a class wasn't going to be too bad, right? I wasn't one of those people, but their motives were understandable.

I paid my fair amount to the cashier and bid them a nice day before turning to enter. As I stuffed my wallet back into my pocket, it happened again. The tingly feeling in my head, only less fazing this time and more like a dull swirling inside my own mind. It left me mostly in control of my faculty and without panic, but as I walked through the doors into the dining hall, I passed someone that drew my eye.

It was a girl, and familiar flashes of brown, yellow, and orange played out across my mind yet again.

Like the absent-minded buffoon I was, I stopped right where I stood and idled as my mind rebooted itself at what it had just seen, and following its re-initialization, my mind immediately yelled 'She's right there, you idiot, turn around!', and in the span it took for me to blink, I did just that.

Damn. Gone again. I could have sworn I saw her that time. But we had just only brushed past each other two seconds ago. There was absolutely no way she could have slipped by me again, not without making noise, or breaking the rules of reality. But there was a wall of people behind me, all crowding around the entrance to the hall that would have made it impossible to break out of without causing some kind of commotion.

People passed by me completely ignorant of my situation, as I stood there a while longer. I didn't wear glasses, nor was there any record in my family history ever needing them, but seeing some as... natural as that was disconcerting to me. Maybe I was hallucinating. I made a note to pay the Andrews family doctor a call to make sure I didn't have something up in my noggin.

I continued walking down the tiled path, past tables of other people as I reached into my backpack and pulled out some paper and a pen; taking down notes of these occurrences was probably my best bet at trying to figure out what the hell was up, as it certainly didn't seem to be pranking anymore, and last I recalled, pranking didn't involve some sort of way to make people feel the willies before pulling the wool over their eyes.

There were lots of people in line, so I took the time to fill in the details on the occurrences on this day, and the one before. No relation between the times of occurrence, nor did there seem to be any discernible pattern for the location save for the fact that they'd all happened here, on campus. I didn't know anybody that could possibly want to prank me since I kept my hobbies mostly secret, and I had no prior history of mental disorders.

I sighed; all the clues were hanging on by a thread by the minute amount of details it had going for it, and I stored the notes back inside as I picked up a tray and began piling food onto it and sliding along with the rest of the line. So engrossed was I in thinking about this whole thing that I near bumped into the person in front of me and dropped my tray. This whole affair had put me in more stress than I was in, even during final exams.

The queue moved fast today, though, and before it I made my way back out to the seating area and made my way back to the table I had been at the day before. As I sat down, the thought that I might have let slip my preferences online in social media somehow came up to me, and I switched on my phone to see if any of that had been true. After a quick scroll and a check for anything MLP related, I found nothing.

As I took a bite of my sandwich, I put the issue aside for the time being and stared at the glass ceiling above me as a cascade of water pattered on top of it. Rain, rain... good to see, nice to enjoy, except when it was all over you, and it liked to come unannounced and disappear like a ghost right after that. After a few more rounds of weather-based musings and suddenly aware of the smudge of crumbs across my mouth, I picked up my napkin to clean it off only to see that there had been a note underneath it all along.

And it wasn't just a random piece of paper that I might have picked up when I grabbed it earlier; no, this paper was special, because it had my name on it. Prank: one; mental illness: zero. So there was someone behind this after all, and they were crafty as hell. It must have taken some elaborate planning to try to sneak this into the specific napkin that I had picked up, because there sure wasn't anyone around that walked up to my table and went 'oh, look, perfect time to plant a note underneath his napkin'.

Curious, I picked up the folded note and read it:

We need to talk. I'll meet you at your usual study room at the library in half an hour.

...I had hoped that the note would be a bit more descriptive than that, like a name, or at least some initials. Even stating that they were a guy or a girl would have been nice, and maybe stating that they might be human would have been, too. In any case, I didn't have anything to lose: the library wasn't too far away and was a public enough location for a meet-up. if anything bad happened, I could just call the cops or high-tail it out of there like no tomorrow.

Assuming that whoever was behind this wasn't a prankster, though. I had a lot of questions for whoever the person or people responsible behind all of this, and I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't going to let it stand. I wolfed down the rest of my meal and gathered my things: time to get to the bottom of this.





I sat in my usual study room, again irritated at the lack of proper heating for this entire library. It always seemed that something was broken in here; last week, it was the lights, and this week, it was heating. Besides that, it was still ten minutes to the supposed meeting I had been called here for, and I sat around browsing the internet for pictures of cats to kill time until whoever it was arrived.

The thing about study rooms that they were usually well-contained. Sound usually almost never made it into here, and you almost never heard anything from the neighboring study rooms unless someone was trying to throw a party inside a place roughly as big as a jail cell. So when I heard the door opening, I looked up to see... well, I wasn't sure what I was expecting.

She was, quite literally, the most beautiful girl I had ever laid my eyes upon. Or maybe that was due to the fact that she seemed to be Applejack in human form. That Stetson hat that she always wore, orange plaid shirt, brown jacket, blue jeans, and cowboy boots and that blonde hair with a red tie at the end to pull it all together. Whoever she was, she certainly put in some effort to pull off the look. Heck, she even had the freckles to match.

I waited for her to seat herself, not wanting to play my hand yet; besides, I was interested in what she wanted to talk about. After she'd done so, we stared at each other for several minutes, and I could get the feeling that she was waiting for me to ask a question. Well, I was going to eventually, but I was waiting to see if she'd do anything first. Sure enough, ten minutes later, she did.

"...so, aren't you interested in knowin' why I called you here?" she said, nailing Applejack's voice dead-on. "No questions or anythin'? 'Cause if not, I'm gonna start talkin'."

"Who are you?"

"Well, that's obvious, ain't it? I'm Applejack."

I leaned forward and stared into her eyes. "No, you're wrong," I said slowly. "Applejack is a fictional character spawned from a toy line about ponies. I'm asking who you are, and I'd also like to know why the hell you're dressing like Applejack. And what's with the voice? And the accent?"

"Why, that's... me. I ain't lyin', sugarcube, I'm actually Applejack! Do you realize how much trouble I had to go through just to get here, all that work, just to talk to you?! Oh, darnit, I knew I should have listened to the Princess...!" she said, leaning back on her chair in exasperation.

"So you're not willing to tell me who you are. That's fine. Did someone put you up to this? Someone paying you? How did you know that I watch My Little Pony?" A look of realization spread across my face. "Oh, I'll bet it was my parents, wasn't it? They had you going through my stuff and that's how you found out. This is all just one big prank, isn't it? Where's the cameras?" I looked around the corners of the room and under the table, trying to see if there were any shady devices hanging about. "Devices? Oh, you're wired, aren't you?"

By this time, we were just about ready to start pushing each other's buttons, and she was far from satisfied with my reaction. "Listen, I'm tellin' you, I'm the real Applejack—"

"Yes, you've said that already."

"—no, but I mean it! You just have to believe me, I..." She stopped, closing her eyes and inhaling a deep breath. "Okay, I have to find some way to prove this to you. You and I, and this whole place here?" she said, gesturing to the world beyond the windows. "That ain't real. I'm not real. You aren't real. This is all just one big dream world, all in your head!"

"Trying to say that this is all a dream?" I whistled. "Man, I've heard some crazy excuses, but I think that you really need to work on your lying. You're about as good as the real Applejack when it comes to that."

She screamed in frustration. "That's because I am the real Applejack, you... idiot!" Again, she stopped herself from blowing her lid, and turned her head aside. "Okay, AJ, just calm down, I'm sure there's a way to—" Then her expression went blank and went silent for the longest time. Freaky.

"Uh... hello?" I asked, waving a hand in front of your face. "Damn, just how much are you getting paid to pull crap like this...?" I wondered out loud. "Hello? Earth to, um... Applejack? Applejack, you there?"

So I just sat there awkwardly for about twenty minutes, going back to browsing the internet and trying to catch in attention every once in a while. But as she sat there motionless, I occasionally glanced at her face; she definitely captured the look of what I had thought Applejack would be like if she were human. Green eyes, freckled face, and that demeanor that just shouted 'southern girl'.

If she didn't go brain-dead and our conversation had lasted longer than a few minutes, I would have been able to establish a proper opinion on that. But I decided to prod her no further and resumed my browsing. God, I sure as hell hoped that she wouldn't end up staying the whole time like this. I had to leave campus in like... four or five hours, and if she was still like that by the evening...

"Aha!" I looked up to see Applejack staring at me with the fire of challenge in her eyes. "I know how I'll prove it to ya, because I just asked Princess Celestia for a huge favor! Don't believe me? Well, I'll show you in a few moments..."

"Princess Celestia," I deadpanned.

"Yep, the one and only," she said smugly.

"The Princess Celestia? Ruler of Equestria and princess of the sun?"

"Mmhmm."

"And you say, that she—who is not here, I might add—is going to... 'prove' something to me?" I said, with added air quotes. "Well, then, 'Applejack', what exactly is Princess Celestia going to do, then?"

"I told you already, I am Applejack. And this ain't some prank or something that somebody else is tryin' to play on ya! You're in an actual dream world, and this whole..." She gesticulated wildly with her arms around her. "...place is one big lie! All in your head! And I'm goin' to prove that to ya!"

"Sure doesn't feel like a dream world. In fact, this place feels... pretty damn real, if you ask me."

"You know how yesterday you were feelin' all weird and stuff?" she asked. "That was because of me. Well, not me, that was the princess. You're in a coma, and you're stuck in this dream world. And the only way the princess could put me in here was to... gosh darnit, how do I explain this...? Okay, she tore a hole in your dream world and stuck me in here! That was why you felt all giddy yesterday like someone smacked you up your head."

"So, assuming that what you're saying about me being in a coma is true—which it's not, because that would mean that I'd literally be brain-dead—then I'm probably laying somewhere in Equestria with a bunch of ponies around me?"

"That's what I'm sayin'."

I sigh, holding up my hands in an exaggerated gesture of disbelief. "I'm... sorry, but I'm not buying this. This is just... wow, I mean, you have totally taken this prank down to crazytown, no doubt about that." I started packing up my things. "Listen, can't you just tell me your real name or something?"

"I told you already, for the last time, I am Applejack!" she shouted. I was pretty surprised that none of the staff had come up to warn us yet; usually any prolonged amount of loud noises in this library was reported pretty quickly. "Listen, don't you remember who you are? You're an actual pony, a pony who's very important to me." She grabbed my wrist as I turned to stand up. "Please. Just try."

"I'm sorry, Applejack... but I don't know what you're talking about," I responded. "My name is Ian Andrews, and—"

"—you're an environmental engineerin' major. And you also happen to like agriculture, too. Your favorite fruit is the apple, and your parents are away on vacation. You had a math quiz today in your class during the mornin', and you spent yesterday sleepin' away this whole problem at home."

"Nice try, but that's all stuff anyone can learn from me if they—"

"—just five minutes ago, you were browsin' the MLP wiki for Applejack. You read up on the episodes 'Over a Barrel', 'Applebuck Season', and 'The Last Roundup'. You were also lookin' at pictures of cats. This is all when your laptop thingy was facin' away from me."

"Well, when you put it like that..." Cameras. Definitely had to be cameras. She did a pretty damn good job at hiding them, though.

"I told you... Ian. I'm the real Applejack, and this place... isn't real."

I scoffed. "Well, yeah, you can tell me that it isn't real as much as you want, that doesn't change the fact that it's real, and it's my world, my... universe, or whatever. It's kind of hard to get metaphysical about this stuff, when everything is actually here, and actually exists, and works, and all that stuff. I might have had an easier time believing you if I was floating around in some sort of endless purgatory or something, but that isn't the case."

"Listen, I can still prove this to you, just give me some more time...!"

"I'm not so sure about that. You're really persistent about this, aren't you?" I check the time on my phone: just a little after two. Not too shabby, though at this point, it was probably better if I studied from home instead, and away from... her. "Listen, I can't fault you for effort, so I'll give you that. You can just give this all up now, alright? Just... go back to whoever hired you to do this, and leave me alone. And if you can't... well, I'd like to think I'm a nice guy, so I'm willing to give you a chance. Just call this whole thing off and I won't involve the police."

"But..." She went quiet. Was she finally going to stop playing these games with me? "But... you're the whole reason why I came here in the first place..." Her head lowered and she stared at the tabletop. "I really mean what I said... can't you trust me?"

"Yeah, I could tell," I said back to her. Just mere moments ago, I think I probably was ready to blow over the whole absurdity of this situation. Now she was bringing on her sad, and I'd probably be lying if I said I didn't feel just an ounce of regret about it. So I stood there waiting, backpack slung over my shoulder and a hand on the doorknob, just to see what she would say next.

"I... can prove it to you, right now!" she said. "Look at your hand."

I hold up my free hand and wiggle it around. "What about it?" I said, shrugging.

She shook her head, smiling. "That's not what I'm talkin' about, sugarcube. Look at your other hand."

I looked back at my other hand, half-expecting her to immediately respond with some half-sorry excuse to try to keep me here just a bit longer. There was nothing in my other hand except for something that I clearly knew I had a grasp on. No crazy talk, no thin-ice reasoning. Nothing but a simple—

"—apple?" I said, shocked. The doorknob... had been turned into an apple. And I sure as hell had that things in my sight not more than twenty seconds ago. I look at her smiling face and back at the apple, releasing my hold on it and then kneeling down to examine it closer. "How the hell did you do that?"

"Magic, sugarcube. You'd be surprised at what it can do." To prove my point, I again held the fruit in my hands, and then tugged, pulled, and pushed it around, and it came apart, fleshy fruit bits and all, leaving only the stub of the doorknob in place.

I looked back at her, slowly shaking my head. "No.... freaking... way..."

She giggled that cute laugh of hers, and my heart fluttered for a moment. "I told ya, Ian... I can prove it to ya. Look back at it again." So I did, and sure enough, the red peeling of another apple sat tightly in the doorknob, reflecting the room's lights back at my eyes. And that wasn't even saying that the destroyed bits of the previous apple were still intact all over the floor.

"O... kay..." I said. No one had opened the door... not that it was possible, since I was quite literally kneeling right where it would open. I raise a closed fist and smash the second apple clear off, sending the partially-destroyed fruit rolling across the floor and into the corner behind Applejack. Yep, definitely still a fruit. "Alright, so maybe I believe you..." I said. "But I'm still having one hell of a time trying to absorb the rest of this stuff that you're talking about."

"That's fine, we can take our time," she said. "You're goin' back home, aren't ya? Take me with you."

Whoa. That was a quick leap right there. I didn't think I ever had another girl in my house since my high school days, and even then, that relationship was... short-lived. And now this girl just shows up out of nowhere and asks to just crash at my place? I could hardly believe it.

She nodded at me. "That's exactly what I'm askin', sugarcube. Hope you don't mind lettin' me stay at your place for a bit, right?"

I blinked at her. "You... just read my mind?"

"Only 'cause I asked the princess. Right now, I can't tell what you're thinkin'. I was just... interested in your response, and anypony worth their weight in talent with magic could probably just toss up an apple out of nowhere." Well, that was... strange. She said 'anypony' like it was casual. Or maybe it was something she planned, but that was irrelevant. Fine, so I believed she had something to prove. I had to give her something out of nowhere, something that she couldn't possibly be able to fake right in front of my eyes... and I figured it couldn't hurt if I got something nice out of it, too. Nothing shady or lewd, of course, but my car was getting old...

"Okay... I'll take you along. If what you're saying is true... then I'd like to give you—or the princess, whoever's the one doing all this crazy reality-altering magic or mumbo-jumbo—another test. If what you're saying is correct, then I'll take you along with me. If not... then I'll know you're lying."

She stood up out of her seat and walked straight up to me, tipping her hat towards my head and giving a light nudge in my shoulder as a challenge. "Then I'll take you up on that, sugarcube. Let's go." She reaches her hand past me and as she opens the door, I notice that the doorknob has suddenly returned. I stand staring at it for a moment as she walks on out past me, and I couldn't help but notice the strong scent of apples coming from her clothes.





"So... if you're an actual pony, how the hell do you know how to use a human body?" I asked Applejack. We walked across campus towards the parking lot just beyond the university's English department offices, right across the street from it, and were waiting on the stoplight to turn green before crossing.

"I don't know," she said, letting the rain pour off her brimmed hat as she stood next to me, her shoulder touching mine. I guess the intimacy part wasn't exactly lost on her from her pony form, human or not. "I guess I just sort of took it from you? At least, that's what the princess told me. It's your world, so she just sort of put me in here and your mind just filled in the rest of the details."

"So... you're saying that the way I'm seeing you is because that's what my mind wants to see?"

"Uhh... sort of?" The light turned green, and I crossed over as she kept up with me. "I'm not too interested in all that egghead stuff... I just left it to Twilight and the princesses to figure it out. But, yeah, I guess what you said works."

"Twilight and the princesses?" I asked, smiling at her. "Sheesh, I must be one important pony for them to go so far." I was too busy mentally cursing the leakage of rainwater in my shoes and ruining my socks, and didn't notice her lack of a response. "So, AJ, why did they send you? Did you all just draw straws over it or something?"

"...wasn't like that," she muttered back.

"Sorry, I didn't get that."

"We didn't draw straws," she said, her voice low and her head hanging as her hat blocked the sight of her eyes. "Let's just get to where your... car, or whatever you call it is."

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Okay... if you say so..."

The parking lot wasn't anything grand in terms of looks; in terms of size, however, it definitely fit the bill. The lot was separated into four separate sections, and was almost always near capacity during the actual school year. Since my class was during the morning, though, I was spared the worst of it and actually managed to find a spot close to the route to campus. Located right at a corner and underneath a lamppost, it was easy to find.

"So... here we are," I said. "And here's my test: I want you to turn this thing into a sports car."

"A... what?"

"Yeah. A sports car. You can do that, can't you?"

"Well... if this thing is a car... then I don't think it'll be too hard to figure out what a sports car is." She did her weird blank-look thing again, but returned after a few seconds and smiled at me. "Sorry 'bout that. Talkin' to the princess and stuff. So... yeah, I think we can do that."

"Great. Do you need a picture, or anything...?"

"Mmm... nope," she said, after pondering it for a moment. "Alright, then, here we go..."

We stood there for several minutes, staring dumbly at my car as she simply kept looking back and forth between it and me with a grin on her face. The cold wind at this time of day stung hard coupled with the rain, but that wasn't worrisome to me; I was too interested in seeing how she would make this work, but with each passing minute, my enthusiasm faded.

"Um... so, is anything going to happen?" I asked, looking at her as I pulled out my car keys. Perhaps this test wasn't going to cut it, after all. Maybe I could figure out how she did the whole apple thing later, but I was fairly certain that even if I decided to cut it off here, this wasn't going to be the last I saw of her...

"Look back now, sugarcube." As I twirled around my car keys, I noticed that they felt... different. Thinner in terms of flatness but also a lot more bulky as well. I looked into my palm and noticed that the worn steel of my old car keys had been replaced with a new one... a key and an alarm where my old ones had used to be, along with the rest of my house keys. And on them was the logo of the car company I had been thinking of the whole time: it was a key for a Bugatti.

And then I turned my head, and my car was nowhere to be found. Instead, a Veyron colored in resplendent black sat there, in perfect condition and beyond anything I had ever imagined, even when I had seen it on television or in magazines. I walked forward, running my hand along the smooth surface leading up to the driver's side door... there was no way I couldn't believe her now.

"Uh... this is the right one... right?" she asked.

"More than right, but..." I looked at her, shaking my head. "How did you know this was what I wanted?"

"The princess told me that she doesn't actually know anything 'bout this, and neither do I. We just sort of worked the spell to do what we wanted to, which was to give you whatever you wanted. You said a 'sports car', and your mind filled in what you wanted for us. So what you have here..." she said, nodding at it. "...is what it gave you."

"Nice..." I said, tapping the unlock button on the alarm. The car chirped and caused Applejack to jump back, and she nervously laughed in response.

"I... didn't realize it could do that. So, uh... this car thing... sorry, I'm still sort of new to this. I can... I mean, I know what it is, because since I'm here, your mind's just telling me what it is I'm lookin' at, but... you... drive this thing? Like a pony-less carriage?"

"Yeah. So, I guess this means you passed the test," I said. "Do you have a place to stay?"

She looked down at the pavement and kicked the ground. "Uh... not really. Do you think I could... stay with you?" she asked, giving me a hopeful look and the most innocent smile she could muster.

"Are you sure you want to?" I asked. "I mean, we've only just met, so..."

"No, we haven't," she immediately blurted out, then turned red as she covered her mouth. "Er... I mean... I know you. The pony you, that is. And you're... really important to us. Twilight and the rest of us, that is. That's why we're doin' all this, you know? For you, since you're... in here."

The way she kept talking about 'me', I got the feeling that she volunteered for this. That sounded very much like Applejack, always willing to put her friends before herself, and always honest about it. And the way she talked about 'me'... left me wanting to know more about who I really was. Not Ian Andrews, university student, but the pony me... whoever I was, for good or bad.

So I took the plunge, and decided 'why not?'

I nodded slowly. "Sure, I guess there isn't much of a problem..." I walked over to the passenger's side and opened the door for her. "Not to be... you know, overreacting towards this sort of thing, but you know how to get into one of these?"

"Yeah. You just sit down in it like a chair, right?"

"Pretty much. Now if you don't mind, miss," I said, gesturing to the interior with a bow. "Your transport awaits you."

She snickered. "You're such a gentlestallion."

"And you are quite the lady," I responded. Gentlestallion? The word itself sort of made me laugh, but I guess coming from her, it fit perfectly fine. "Seated properly?" I asked, after she had properly eased herself inside.

"Yeah... just fine, Ian. You sit on the other side?"

"That's correct. Just a moment..." I shut the door on her and quickly jog around to the other side and take my place as the driver. I put the key into the ignition and realized, at that very point in time... that I had absolutely no idea how to drive a sports car. I mean, it was just another car, right? So long as I didn't drive it like I had no head, I would be perfectly fine... or so I hoped.

"Somethin' wrong, sugarcube?" Applejack asked, having noticed my pause as soon as I had stuck the keys inside.

"Uh... yeah. Nothing. Just a... well, I've never driven a car like this before. This is all new to me, so I hope you'll understand if I'm... well, rain and cars never did really mix that well. This is like upgrading from a rusty old plow to a shiny new one, except this one can go way faster than the old one, so you have to be careful otherwise you'll end up hurting yourself."

"Oh..." she said, nodding in agreement. "Yeah, I can understand that. You sure you got this?"

"Well... can't you just teleport us home, then?" I asked her. "You know, since you can do all this magic stuff and all that."

She shook her head. "I'm afraid not. The magic doesn't work like that. The most we can do is just change small details, like... replacing stuff where a doorknob would be, or changing around stuff that you have. We can't just up and go poof and then we're at your house. Your dream world doesn't work like that, it just... well, it has rules we have to play by, and nothing we could do will change that."

Damn my mind for being so stubborn. "So the long way, it is," I said as the car rumbled to life. I put my hands on the steering wheel and exhaled. "Okay... this is just like driving a regular car, no biggie... just... don't crash or anything and don't go fast. This is just like your old car, except it moves and handles differently, so it's nothing like your old car... yeah, not doing myself any favors," I muttered. "Aw, to hell with it."

I switched the car into reverse and slowly, oh, so slowly, begin to back out of the parking lot. It certainly didn't help that there was one car, then two, and then four piling up as I slowly backed out, and put the car into drive. The car was automatic transmission. Did Veyrons even come in automatic transmission? Damnit, this was not the time for that. I gradually put pressure onto the pedal and begin navigating the car through the parking lot's maze of arrows and directions.

"Hoo... see, that wasn't so bad, right?" Applejack said. "I mean, we haven't... crashed or anything. Yet."

I turned out onto the street and stop at a red light, just in time for me to ask the important question as we waited.

"So... Applejack. Who was I? The pony me, that is."

"You don't remember?" she asked, taking off her hat and scratching the back of her head. "Shoot, I guess I should have expected this, what with the way you've been actin'... do you remember what kind of pony you were, at least?"

"Nope, not a clue. The only thing that I do know is of... well, through the show. About ponies." I kept my eyes on the street, not really sure how I'd break it to Applejack that how I knew about her was through watching a show designed for young girls. "Not much other than that, I'm afraid. I know about the whole world and all that, and you, and your friends, but I don't remember anything... about me."

The light turned green and continue forward. The silence in the car was stifling, and it was certainly a lot less quieter than my old hunk of junk had been. At least I could drown it out with ambient noise with that, but here... well, the only option was the radio, and I wasn't entirely sure how'd she react to my world's music. Best to play it safe and use baby steps later on.

"You're a unicorn named Brightleaf," she said. Brightleaf. Huh. That definitely sounded like a name a pony would have. "You worked on the farm with me and Mac, right when Caramel left to work with Golden Harvest at her farm, and you've been a good friend to all of us. You were a big help with that magic of yours."

"Nice to know that I wasn't a complete jerk," I said amusedly, a response that she shared in as we both laughed.

"You were a really nice pony, you know that? You even saved the farm during one of our worst seasons, right when the weather teams from another town messed up the water order for Cloudsdale and almost ended up ruining our crops. You worked with Twilight to get water to us, and practically saved the whole harvest."

"So..." I said, pausing to let the mood wear off before pressing on. I turned onto the street that went just by the entrance to the highway that I took to get home. "...what happened to me?"

I didn't realize that I had begun picking up speed as I turned onto the freeway, and the sudden lurch brought surprise to us both. This car definitely did not lack in power, that was for sure, but I wasn't going to get cocky in such inclement weather. I ramped it down and kept the car locked into the slower lanes, where I could drive at my leisure. Applejack just stared out at the falling rain, amazed by this whole world that I had supposedly created, and didn't say much until we were halfway through, passing by an old golf course that my father used to frequent.

"You... just went to sleep one night, like you always did, and you... you didn't wake up the next day," she said, her face turned away from me as she looked out her window as the passing blurs of light from other cars. "When that happened, we just thought you were... I don't know, just sleepy or tired... but when you didn't even get up later that day, even when we pushed you to..." She shook her head. "Twilight came over and said that you'd fallen into a coma."

"A coma..." I whispered. "Do they know how it happened?"

"That was the problem," she said. "We didn't know how it happened. Not even Twilight and her giant library of all sorts of books could tell us what happened to you. And when we brought the princesses..." She sharply inhaled and swallowed hard. "...that was when we learned that not even they could help you. We thought... you were gone, and we couldn't do anythin' about it."

"Well, you're here now. That must mean that you found out something, right?"

"We... did, if you could call it that. We learned after lots of hard work and research that your coma wasn't a regular one... it was somethin' so rare that nopony ever recorded it in history. It didn't have a name, but it was a coma that only appeared in unicorns, caused by magic somehow... Twilight said that a unicorn's horn is usually the focus of any sort of magic, but in certain cases, the magic might not be channeled properly..."

"And that happened... to me," I said. So I was in a coma because of some stupid magic, and my horn. Gee, thanks, horn, you're being so damn useful to me right about now. Nice to know I could count on you to put me into a coma and create one hell of a really detailed dream world for me to waste away in.

And it was hard to deny that, really. I wasn't diagnosed, so I couldn't say, but all of this felt real. The cold stagnant air in the car, the sound of rain pelting the roof, and the sound of breathing and the slight scent of apples from Applejack... and the smell of a new car piled on top of that. All these little details just irritated me to no end right now, though, as I attempted to find any sort of flaw that I could pick out, even the smallest one, that could at least hint me that this place wasn't real.

"Yeah... it happened... to you," she echoed. "There... isn't really any cure for it, Ian. Brightleaf. Whichever one you want to be called, I guess. That's why I came to you here... to let you know about it."

"That I'm what? Stuck in here forever? To be honest, I don't really think it's that bad. The world's certainly not as bad as it seems, and I'd like to think I'm doing pretty well in here." Which was true, since I certainly wasn't in a bad position, nor did I have much else to think about. I guess it was actually merciful that I was actually living a life inside of my own head, if not until I grew old and my mind stopped working.

I veered off towards the right as we headed down the exit ramp and into a quieter neighborhood of the suburb I had come to know and love. At the very least, once we got home, we could discuss this in further depth. And maybe I actually wanted to see what this world of Equestria was like beyond the constraints of the show that my mind had made up for it. If they couldn't find a cure outside, then maybe there was a way for me to break out of my world from in here.

"You don't... want to go back? To see your friends and family and maybe say good-bye one last time?" she asked, her voice so low that I could barely catch it over the sound of the rain.

I turned left from the middle of the street we'd been driving on, passing by a park and beginning the final stretch leading up to my home. Remaining silent, I thought of how to best approach this answer. Would it be better if I never responded at all? Nah, that was such a complete jackass move that I think if someone had approached the version of myself that wasn't in this mess and asked that question, I would have kicked him in the balls.

"I don't know... not yet, at least," I said, turning into the driveway of my home and putting the Veyron into park. "It would just feel... strange, you know, if I kept my memories. I've been living in this world for twenty years now. If I just woke up as the old me like that, I'm not even sure if those old memories would even come back. Or whether or not they'll clash with what I know right now."

"I understand," she said, mimicking me as I opened the door and exited the car. "That's why I'm here. To talk to you about all these sorts of things... and to help remind you of everything you've forgotten."

"And I appreciate that. I guess with this thing," I said, tapping the top of the car. "I think I actually believe you. One thing to just drop out of nowhere and start turning things into apples... another thing to switch a man's car out with something else right in front of him."

"Well, we can do somethin' else if you don't believe me still—" she began to offer.

"No need," I said. "I think this is enough. Now come on, let's get inside before both of us get sick."





"This is a pretty nice house you got here," she said, hanging up her hat and jacket on the coat rack on the wall next to her. "You live here by yourself?"

"Yeah. It's owned by my parents, though, and they have everything taken care of, mostly by other people they hired. I guess they didn't want to tie me down with payments and taxes while I was studying," I said, dropping my keys on the living room table and tossing my jacket onto the couch. I shook my head around, clearing off all the droplets that it had collected and dried it off with a towel from nearby restroom. "I guess you can take the guest room... no one ever really stays here, anyway, and I don't get many visitors."

"That'll do just fine," she called back to me. "Do you have anythin' to eat around here?"

Aw, crap. I realized that, well... I had an omnivorous diet. There was meat in the fridge, and there certainly wasn't any lack of it, to be sure. Dad loved his bacon and so did I. Well, if there was any more incentive to go on a veggie diet, this was it, and I sure as heck didn't want her to end up disgusted with me for... eating the meat of other dead animals.

"Uh..." I said, rushing out to the fridge and checking inside as I left the towel on the counter next to the sink. Good, I hadn't gone shopping yet, so I could just... finish what little of the bacon and meat I had left... or throw them out. "Are you fine with some salad?" I asked.

"Yeah, salad'll be just fine," she said, walking into the kitchen. "Wow, it's mighty roomy in here. Even bigger than the Apple family home back at Sweet Apple Acres."

I toss together something that looked appealing, at least to me, and then tossed in some tomatoes I had for good measure and sprinkled it with dressing. Not willing to leave my guest to eat by herself, I prepared one for myself, too. The food certainly got her attention as we sat down at the dinner table, and I gave her a fork.

"A fork..." she said, holding it in her hand. "Seems like they were made to be used with hands."

"Certainly feels that way, doesn't it?" I said, chuckling. "I'm not even sure how any pony that's not a unicorn can pick these things up. Hooves are pretty... unique. Must have been one heck of a sight, working with those stubby little things." I didn't want to make a show out of my eating, so I downed the salad in record time—unimpressive, considering that it was just greens and tomatoes—only for Applejack to accompany to the sink.

"You eat fast," I said.

"So do you," she replied. "Do you have paper, by the way? And something I can write with, and something that can color in green and yellow?"

I took her plate and began washing it along with mine, looking over my shoulder to see if that mug that I normally kept around the table was still there. "Uh... yeah, look in that mug over there." I nodded towards the corner of the dinner table crowded with old newspapers, and a small bunch of pencils could be seen protruding from behind it. "The paper's underneath it, and I think there's a pencil and some colored ones in there, too. You can use those."

"Thank you kindly," she said as she walked away. I could hear the clinking of her checking around for the proper pencils, and I looked over my shoulder at her as I did the dishes, trying to see what exactly it was that she was trying to do. Her back was towards me, so I couldn't see anything, but I did hear a lot of furious scribbling.

"What are you drawing?" I asked.

"You'll see..." she said. Well, I guess I should have seen that one coming. "All done!" she exclaimed, as she dropped the pencils down and turned back to me.

"Well... aren't you going to show me?" I asked.

"Nope. I'll just leave it here for you so you can see for yourself. Where's the guest room at?"

"Up the stairs, hang a right, last door on the left."

"Thanks again!" she said, and she disappeared before I even had a chance to react. I dried off the plates and forks and stored left them hanging on the drying rack, grabbing the towel nearby and drying my hands off as I walked to the table. On it sat a simple drawing of a tree leaf, colored in: half green, half yellow, and symmetric. Written next to it was "Brightleaf's—your—cutie mark".

I picked up the paper and stared at it.

"Hey, Ian? Do you mind if I use the bathroom?" she shouted from upstairs.

"Yeah, go ahead!" I shouted back. A smile appeared on my lips.

So this was my cutie mark. It fit me pretty well.
> Chapter 3: Flash
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The first and most glaring thing that I had to contend with: Applejack was a girl. And not just any, practically one that would easily turn heads no matter where she went, with that southern accent, hardworking and honest personality, beautiful face, and—dare I say it—buxom body. And she was staying here. In my house. If I had been stupider, this would have been a recipe for disaster, but I knew quite well that if I tried anything shady, she could probably break my bones and not think twice about it.

The beginning of her stay and our relationship didn't start out like that, though: as a basic test, we simply began switching things out in the house. One type of flower in a flowerpot with another one, and other things like that; simple, but easy enough that she couldn't just have actually pulled my eyes like she did with that car, and went 'hey, managed to pull this out of thin air for you!' only for it to be some elaborate trick. With the amount of swapping I had her do, I was fairly confident that she was genuine.

After that, things just sort of segued into... normalcy, I guess. Today was now Saturday, and I had the unfortunate chance of running into her as she was using the shower. How, one may ask, did I manage to pull off such a mishap within my own house? I have no idea myself, really. I had woken up one morning and everything was all quiet. So the first thing in my mind was the bathroom, since my room didn't have one; the other one was within my parents' master bedroom, and I usually left that one alone.

So, like the sleepy idiot I was, I just strolled on into the bathroom and proceeded to immediately start brushing my teeth. About twenty seconds afterwards, I noticed a blushing face in the mirror and the towel that was being held up to cover her body. And it was right then that my mind kicked in and elicited a reaction from me. And the best my mind could react with?

"...oh," I muttered. "Good morning, Applejack."

"Uh... Ian... do you mind?"

"Yes, I do. Sorry about that, I'll just... go to the other bathroom now..."

Good lord, the size of her—

I take the time to physically slap myself on the way out of the bathroom, feeling my cheek getting stabbed by the toothbrush still in my mouth. It was still morning, and I definitely did not want my little self down there making decisions that would involve some very prompt ass-kicking from a woman who physically dealt with hard labor for a living.

My parents' master bedroom bathroom was nothing short of luxurious: the whole bubble bath spa thingy, fancy tiled floors, and a general area that was as big as my own room, if not bigger. It was a shame it didn't get much use, and even more of a shame that what use it had now was my secondary toothbrushing station. So I fooled around at the sink, finishing my brushing and giving myself an approving look in the mirror like I did every morning.

"...uh, Ian? Sorry 'bout that, I don't know what happened," Applejack, now fully clothed, said as she entered the roomy interior. “Wow... this is some really fancy stuff.”

“No worries,” I said. “I’m curious: do you think that reaction was natural, or...?”

“I... I think it was. I mean, how I’m dealin’ with this whole thing is because I’m sort of playin’ it off of what your mind’s been tellin’ me. I guess since you folks wear clothes all the time, it’s sort of embarrassin’ to be seen without ‘em?”

I snapped my fingers at her. “Bingo: you are correct.” I gargle and spit before dropping my toothbrush into the empty cup next to the sink, where my parents would have normally kept theirs. This bathroom was going to be mine from now on; Applejack could use the other one. “So, Applejack, what would you like for breakfast? I can make some omelets if you’d like...”

Now that was a strange thought: I’d never made any omelets in my entire life.

“...sure. Well, whatever you want to make, Ian, I’m fine with it...” she said, pulling down her oversized T-shirt to cover her shorts. Well, more like my shorts, and my shirt, and she was just wearing them; ostensibly, the clothes she had shown up in were the only ones she had, and they were all mostly drenched by the time we had gotten home yesterday. So I gave her some of mine.

“Uh... you sure you don’t want something else to wear?” I asked. “I could just go dig out something more presentable or even go through my mom’s wardrobe, if you want...”

“No, it’s fine, just... darnit, I’m just so used to not wearin’ clothes that when I go from regular ol’ pony me to somethin’ like... this, it just takes some gettin’ used to. I mean, I’m fillin’ in the blanks that it’s supposed to be normal, but it’s kind of freezin’ right now...”

“Oh, I think I know what you need, then...” I scurried out the door and headed straight for my room, digging through my closet for... yes, there it is. Pajama bottoms-slash-pants, or at least a really tacky black-and-red plaid that I normally reserved for when my legs felt like they were about to fall off due to the cold.

“...what’re you lookin’ for, Ian?” I turned around and tossed the pajama pants to her. “...pants? Well, I guess this’ll work...” She dropped the shorts and I immediately turn around, blush growing on my cheeks.

“So, uh... I’ll just go downstairs and make breakfast now, alright?” I said, not even giving her a chance to say anything before I walked out with my eyes closed, then snapped them open and make straight for the stairs.

“Uh... thanks for the pants?” she slowly responded. "Uh... am I supposed to—" Nope, not going there. I ignored the remainder of her statement as I reach the top of the stairs and headed down as fast as my cold-afflicted legs would take me, and slid across the smooth wooden flooring straight into the kitchen. Socks were always good for that.

"Eggs... eggs... eggs..." I muttered, sticking my head into the fridge in an attempt to prolong the time I had to think. Omelets? Why omelets? God knows that I'm only going to end up burning them or some stupid crap like that. Maybe something different. Damn, there wasn't a lot of stuff here in the fridge. Just eggs. And maybe hash browns. Were there even any of those left?

I slammed the lower fridge door shut and wheeled open the one for the freezer. Was there... yes! In a package of ten, there were exactly two hash browns left. I would actually be able to make something palatable today, good for me! I swiped the package off of the freezer door shelf faster than my dad would be in the kitchen the moment someone mentioned the word 'pizza'.

Sliding my way over to the stove, I grabbed a fresh pan from the dishwasher nearby and flipped it on to medium heat. I had to let the whole pan heat up first, and until then, now would be a good time to catch up on anything on the television or watch something I had already recorded on the DVR. Perhaps Doctor Who, or The Walking Dead, or even My Little—

D'oh, I thought as I mentally facepalmed. Nope, not with Applejack here.

But the new episodes! Damnit, this was a tough choice, but she won out. Never was I more debilitated by my sudden cut-off from my entertainment. Too outlandish, too violent, and too... close to home, when categorized in that order, certainly didn't help. She probably had a hard enough time adjusting to her body as it is.

"Uh... Ian... are you okay?" she asked, coming into the kitchen and flexing her toes on the cold tiled floor. "I don't know how you folks can stand to live like this all the time... it's downright uncomfortable."

"Just let me get the heater," I said, strolling over to the thermometer on the wall and setting the base heater startup temperature to... well, what it was right now: roughly sixty degrees. Any less and we'd practically be standing outside, minus the wind. "There, it should be coming on right about... now." The heater kicks into action right as I finished, and I smiled at her in the way that one would smile at someone after pulling off a self-proclaimed spectacular feat to an unamused audience.

"...you sure got a lot of them fancy contraptions in this world," she said, hugging herself as she walked over to the couch and sat down on it. I darted up the stairs and grab a few spare blankets sitting in my parents' closet, and quickly deposited them on the lap of my freezing damsel-in-distress.

"Better?" I asked her.

"Much better. T-thank you," she stuttered, sighing happily as she bundles herself up. "Oh, I think your pan's ready."

Damn, she didn't give me enough time to bask in her endearing and somewhat innocent acceptance of the blankets. Truth be told, I was very much inclined to join her, but I had a breakfast to cook, and I was descended from a line of lumberjacks, or so my father told me. Puny insignificant cold like this should have been no annoyance to me, but then again, my beard was not present during this time. Probably a good thing, since I wasn't sure how Applejack would react to it.

Sock-skating over to the stove, I opened the styrofoam egg container sitting on the counter next to it: four eggs. Okay, maybe adding something else to make the meal more substantial would have been nice. The next easiest thing I thought of making was oatmeal, but I hadn't made that for ages. And we didn't have any of the prepackaged versions, just a bag of oats in the pantry.

Bah, to hell with everything else. Eggs and hash browns it was. I felt partially embarrassed that I couldn't sweep her off her feet in a most spectacular fashion with a three-course meal that would have looked and tasted fantastic. Instead, I was in my pajamas cooking eggs and hash browns for what must have been the most pathetic breakfast I've ever made in my entire life, even worse than the failed one I had trying to make waffles on Mother's Day.

I grabbed a spatula and got to work. Drip of oil, drop in the eggs—two for each of us—and then let that baby cook while I started messing around with the stupid plastic-wrapped hash brown package and eventually relented to using a pair of scissors to cut that damn thing wide open. Now I had hash browns that were as hard as bricks and covered with frost, so I dropped them on a plate and send it off to the microwave.

College student cuisine. Or is it lazy man's cuisine? Perhaps both.

The eggs begin to come together nicely, and I spend some time tussling with them as I pretend not to notice that gaze coming off from my left. Applejack quite clearly had her eyes pointed in my direction as eviced by her face right out of my peripheral vision, most likely to see if, or rather, how badly I'd mess up cooking something when it wasn't as easy to put together as a bunch of leafy greens and salad dressing.

Eventually, I flicked my head to meet her gaze, only for her eyes to widen like a deer in headlights. She immediately turned away afterwards, suddenly finding the coffee table in front of her an infinitely more interesting subject than myself. It sure felt weird to have a person... pony... pony-person staring at me like that. She huddled together and hugged her knees, staring at the blank television screen ahead of her. Boy, that was awkward.

And that wasn't taking into account the soul-crushing silence that permeated the room.

"So..." I began. "...how's... life on the farm?"

Oh, yeah, real smooth, myself. Real smooth.

"It's... nice. A little different since you're not there. You showed up to help every so often, and your magic really helped out during the worst of the applebuck season. Just so you know that you were actually... uh, helpful, that is."  She sniffed and rubbed her nose, looking back at me without surprise now.

"That's... nice..." I said. "How's the family?"

"They're great!" she said, her mood brightening. "Mac's always workin' hard on the farm, as usual, and Apple Bloom... well, she's really different now, what with her new grades. Talks all the same, but now she's about as smart as Sweetie Belle."

"Really?" I asked, genuinely happy for her. "That's fantastic!"

"...you don't remember that either, do you?"

I looked up at her to see that she's returning a hard stare. "...what? Remember what?" I asked.

"It's nothin'." She goes back to sulking, laying down on the couch and pulling the blanket over her head.

"Applejack..." I said, plating the eggs and retrieving the lukewarm microwaved hash browns from the microwave. I placed the potato ovals into the pan and let them sizzle before I continued. "...Applejack... is there something that you're not telling me?"

No response. Well, then, if she wanted to put it like that...

"...Applejack. Do you want to talk about it?"

"...no."

See, was that so hard? I let her answer sit and go back to cooking breakfast. I liked making my hash browns just a little bit burnt; it gave it a nice crunch that I enjoyed. Hoping that she would enjoy it, too, I plated the hash browns next to the cooling eggs and clear my threat. "Breakfast is ready."

The normally proactive Applejack just gives me a groan before getting up, dragging the blanket she has on with her all the way to the table before seating herself and giving a disinterested look at the plate I put in front of her. I flash her a dry grin and hand her a fork, which she takes without much in the way of thanks. This was far from the Applejack that I knew in the show... it was like the life was just drained out of her.

And unless this whole game was a joke by Discord, I highly doubted that she would have been this way otherwise. So I returned again with the questions as she began to miserably poke around her plate with the fork.

"...you don't seem to happy about this," I slowly said, with as neutral a tone as I could manage. I didn't want to get a rise out of her, otherwise I would end up getting nowhere. Something was eating away at her, and I just had to know what.

"...stuck in a cold room eatin' a cold breakfast. It ain't that green here, the sun's blocked by clouds, it's windy and cold, and I hate not bein' a pony when I could easily make it through this sort of weather without freezin' my hooves—feet, whatever—off. I don't know how you can stand it, Ian. Aren't you miserable like this?" she asked, plopping a bite of eggs in her mouth.

"Well, this sort of weather only comes around once a year," I pointed out. "When you have extremes like the hotness of summer, sometimes chilly weather like this is a nice change of pace." And it was true: the summer temperatures had lasted well up through the end of November before winter finally kicked into gear. Probably had something to do with that 'climate change' that I heard being thrown around every once in a while.

"I think I would be fine with it if I were still a pony. Which I'm not." She was just a bag of grumbling today, wasn't she?

"Well, the heater's going to take some time to work, but I can already feel the air heating up in here. Can't you?"

"Why didn't you just turn it on yesterday?" she annoyedly asked.

"...I... forgot?" Really, it was an honest mistake. I was so used to not wasting power by just burying myself in blankets when I went to sleep that it completely escaped me that I even had a heater in the first place. "Really, if it's this much of a problem for you, just head back. I don't want to trouble you with—"

"No!" she shouted, slamming her fist into the tabletop. She realized her mistake and quickly collects herself, staring down at her plate as a fierce blush formed on her cheeks. "It's... I'm sorry, I'm just gettin' a bit antsy bein' here, that's all. Maybe when the house has heated up, I'll feel better, but... damn that Lyra and her obsession with humans..."

"What?" I had thought that Lyra and humans was a fan-given thing. "What about Lyra and humans?"

Breakfast got sidelined here and my hash browns went unattended. What role did Lyra have in this whole situation?

"She... you know, she's not all crazy 'bout humans and all that, you know?" Applejack said, putting her fork down and hugging her arms again. "But you were the only one in Ponyville who would listen to her, talk to her 'bout it. Not like some crazies hidin' away in some study goin' over all the little details, but you sort of got into it with her, meetin' up every once in a while at a cafe or somethin', and just chattin' the day away 'bout humans with all their hands and feet and jokin' all 'bout it. I guess it sort of stuck to you, because that's how things are now, in your dream world."

I placed my fork down as well, folding my arms and leaning back in my chair. "So... you're saying that you... that I'm a human because of something that Lyra and I used to talk about in our spare time?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I didn't think it would be somethin' big enough that you'd end up makin' an entire world out of it. But Princess Celestia told me that the mind works in lots of mysterious ways. But this whole thing, with you bein' a human... it ain't real. It's a lie."

"It certainly feels real enough to me," I replied, feeling just a tad bit offended that she was trying to invalidate my entire years' worth of human existence with a simple line. "You're saying that this whole thing, this world—my life—is a lie? Sorry, Applejack, I'm afraid you're going to have to start a little bit smaller than that, because it's going to take a hell of a lot of proof to prove that."

"I... I know, Ian," she said, sighing and rubbing her head. "I shouldn't have worded it like that... it's not like a lie, but a... a really fancy illusion. Yeah, somethin' like that. I know that you aren't really all willin' to accept that on such short notice, but maybe I can show you that I'm right. Slowly, and if we—the princesses and I—can start breakin' down those thoughts, then maybe we have a chance of bringin' you back to Equestria."

"I can agree on that. I mean, I get that you're trying to tell me it's fake, but I'm pretty damn sure that all the experiences that I've had are more real than you think." I sighed; it wasn't her fault that she didn't know better. "In any case, you were talking about Lyra. What was my relationship with her? And all the details... I'm pretty interested in knowing all the aspects of my other life."

She sighed and released her breath with a happy sigh, thankful that air was finally heating up. "You were... pretty close. Always havin' conversations over books you'd read, and both of you were in Twilight's book club. The first time you met her, well... she was pretty amazed how you were the only pony 'round who didn't laugh in her face when she started talkin' to you 'bout humans and stuff."

"I'm sure the pony I used to be is much better than I am now..." Which was a lukewarm comment, to say the least. I had only the faintest ideas of the pony known as Brightleaf. At the moment, he—or rather, I, but I just couldn't bring myself to think that way yet—seemed more like someone's OC straight off the internet than an actual representation of myself. It was like listening to the life and times of someone else that isn't you, but everyone told you that it was.

There was the strangest feeling associated with something like that.

She smiled at me. "Well, sugarcube... your apple didn't fall too far from the tree, if that's anythin' to you."

I tilted my head questioningly at her. "Somehow, I really doubt that."

"Yep, that's a lot like Brightleaf, alright," she said, taking the time to nibble on her food every once in a while now that the temperature was more bearable. "Always second-guessin' everythin' he does... sometimes to a fault. You care 'bout others, right?"

"I..." I paused. I wasn't the most generous person in the world, but the friends that I'd made were some of the most important people in my life. They just... didn't really factor into this situation at the moment. "I... guess so?"

"And you cared 'bout me. That much is true, right? And I'll even lay it out for you, sugarcube. You didn't really plan on leavin' me behind at that library yesterday, either, right?" she said, smugly smiling at me. She was trying to press my buttons, that much was true. But why, I didn't know. I didn't think Applejack had it in her to play these sorts of games.

"What if I answer 'yes'?" I said carefully.

"Well, you sort of already answered for yourself, takin' me, a lonesome girl who you probably didn't know, all the way back to your own home with you. And you fed me, clothed me, and even let me sleep here, too." She confidently takes another bite of her eggs. "That makes you a good pon—er, person, do you understand?"

"I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here, Applejack... why is this important?"

"It's important because it means that even in this little dream world of yours, you're still the same. If you're anythin' like I expected you to be, you're always worryin' yourself silly over others. You don't like to show it, but you appreciate carin'. And when others care for you."

"I... think I'm getting it? I mean, I'm not a bad person, just fairly... average, I guess," I said, finally getting back to my hash browns as I give her a look. "Why this all of a sudden? Does this have something to do with my relation to you?"

She doesn't bother shying away from the question this time. "You're darn right it does."

"Okay... well... what is my relation... to you, exactly, Applejack? Since you're so willing to answer me this time, I'd like a straight answer from you." I cursed the hash browns for being cold; I would have stuck them back into the microwave, but I didn't want to give Applejack any way for her to cut the conversation short.

She was one step ahead of me, though. No sooner had I finished my sentence did she scarf down the rest of her food and pushed her plate forward towards me. "Sorry, Ian, I'm done. We'll talk 'bout it later, okay? I'm goin' upstairs to see if I can't rustle myself up something warmer. I promise that we'll talk 'bout it later today. Is that alright?"

I shrugged. "Well... I guess that'd be fine. Oh, you can leave your plate here, I'll wash it for you."

She smiled back at me, making my heart flutter with the sincerity behind it. "Thanks, sugarcube, I'd appreciate that." The conversation ends there as she just turns around and heads back upstairs. I honestly was more confused with myself than I was with her. Why had I decided to just let that conversation pass me by? Everything was just there, and when it came to that point, I felt perfectly content to just let it slide.

Maybe it was just a facet of my old self popping up, reminding that she could be trusted. And it wasn't like she was just going to walk out the door and run away, after all. I gathered up our plates to prepare them for washing and notice something hiding behind a pile of newspapers on the opposite side of the table, where'd I'd sat in the previous morning.

The toy Applejack, sitting perfectly in view of her side of the table.

Maybe she wanted to talk to me about that first.





I walked upstairs to my room, now realizing that one of the first things I should have done was to immediately store any pony-related materials in some place where the sun didn't shine. As it was, I walked over the top of the stairs and notice that there isn't any activity going on up here. Perhaps Applejack merely went back to the guest room, or was in the bathroom. But such wishes are always hopeful thinking.

She was waiting for me in my room, sitting on the bed staring at the My Little Pony Season One character poster I had hanging above my computer desk. She didn't even bother paying attention to me as I walked into the room and sat down next to her.

We sat there for a few minutes, both staring at the poster and all the pony merchandise I had sitting on and around my desk. Eventually, though, she found the courage to break away and look me straight in the eyes, saying nothing... but telling me everything I needed to know.

"So you're probably wondering about all of this...?" I asked, just to make sure.

She nodded. "Tell me everythin', sugarcube."

"You aren't... mad... or anything, are you?"

"Sugarcube, if I were mad, do you really think I'd be sittin' here talkin' to you 'bout it?"

"Point taken. I suppose you noticed the little... uh, you on the table downstairs?" I asked, awkwardly gesticulating towards the door. This was going to be one hell of a time for me. No use in complaining about it, though, best to just get it over with...

She nodded again. "I did. Though I don't have a hat..."

"Yeah, it was a... limitation... on the whole toy series. I apologize for Hasbr—er, the toy company for not making you in your complete likeness." That wasn't to say that she herself wasn't wearing her hat, either. "Do you have any questions to ask or anything, to get it out of the way...?"

"Just one, actually: how much do you know?"

"I... uh... well, let's see..." I mumbled to myself. "Assuming that all I know is up to the end of season 2, then... right after the invasion of the changelings, with Cadance and Shining Armor. Were those all true, by the way?"

"Truer than the sky is blue," she replied, looking back at the poster. "Sheesh, it looks like everypony is on that poster. Er, well, the important ones, I guess. Shoot, I remember that whole dang wedding... still tears me up to think that we all just turned our heads away from Twi like that..."

"You know, I never figured you to be more preoccupied with a dress than your friend's wellbeing, Applejack," I recalled, of the scene where she attempted to find and speak to her friends of Chrysalis' presence only to find them doting over their dresses instead. "You're always about honesty. Why didn't you just simply ask Twilight to provide you with proof? You knew she wouldn't just toss things around left and right without being able to substantiate them."

Applejack sighed. "I know, sugarcube, I know. But at the time, it just seemed like she was bein' all clingy to her brother and just didn't want to let him go. I should have listened to her then... I mean, who the hay just goes and starts accusin' a princess of tryin' to steal her brother away? You're right in sayin' that Twilight would have been able to tell me somethin', at least. I feel kind of stupid now."

"She was never one to do something dumb when her actions mattered the most. Although she did kind of confuse me myself, given how she didn't just drag one of you or even just Spike along to verify that something really was going on," I said. It felt really strange to be able to hear all of this straight from her mouth. Kind of like asking a dead historical figure what happened back in their day and they could recall it as if it were happening.

"Well, I suppose there's that," she said. "And there's also the fact that there were plenty of times that the princess was bein' rude, but we all just sort of chalked that up to bein' antsy for the wedding. We all learned the hard way 'cause of that."

"I didn't get much of that, either. Being rude at your own wedding is no way to rid yourself of stress. If anything, it'd only make it worse because now you're just making everyone else just as stressed as you are," I said, giving a quick glance to my computer to see if it was on; I had a tendency to do that occasionally, but I was glad to see it wasn't this time. Didn't want her catching my pony-themed desktop.

She smiled at me. "I guess you're right. But we... gosh, I don't know. It was like we were all too caught up in the wedding excitement to really pay attention to anything else. And Twilight just seemed like the only crazy one out of every other pony there and was just tryin' to go against the flow."

"Two sides to every coin," I mused. "So, what does all of this mean, then?" I continued, gesturing to all of my pony items. "What does all of this supposedly stand for within my dream world?"

"That's simple, darlin'. They're your memories. I remember tellin' you 'bout all the adventures I went on with my friends," Applejack said, her tone reclining into a reminiscent tone. "From how we met all the way to present day, and it seems like your mind didn't want to get rid of that."

"So out of anything pony that I remember, it's... only the stuff you've told me?" Darling. Did she ever call any other pony in the show by that word?

"It would seem so. I wonder why that is."

And wonder I did. So if I was dropped into a dream world as a former pony, why would it only have picked up what Applejack told me? Why not the more important things: like my name, cutie mark, and immediate family? Or where I was born, where I played as a kid, and all the other things from my personal life that should have been priority for subconscious transfer?

Well, it was silly of me to think that, anyway, when the answer was sitting right beside me.

I looked at Applejack and raise an eyebrow at her, which she returned. "What's wrong, sugarcube?"

"You called me 'darling'." Her face immediately went white and her eyes widened, and she turned to look at the wall again.

"That was... nothin'," she quickly responded.

"The way you reacted to that, it sure didn't seem like nothing."

"I told you already," she said, giving me a soft punch to the shoulder. "It was nothin'."

"You really are bad at lying, you know that?" I moved closer to her, enough that we were touching shoulder to shoulder. "Applejack..." I said softly, apprehensively staring at the side of her head as she looked on. "...what am I to you?"

To be honest, I wasn't sure whether or not I would like the answer. I was someone important to her, that much was known, but how important... I recalled distinctly hearing her yesterday, during my question about who they chose to come for me, that they didn't draw straws. She'd volunteered for this, to jump into the depths of another's mind without any concern for her own well-being. That she might end up the same as me, stuck in her own dream world as she wasted away in the real one. Or that she might be stuck in this world with me, forever.

We said nothing for a long while, and it easily topped as the most tense moment in my entire known life, almost feeling like it stretched into eternity as we sat there. The clock continued to tick along and it felt like everything just stopped... until she turned her head and stared into my soul with those emerald green eyes of hers.

"I can't... I can't tell you... Ian... Brightleaf... but I can show you."

The reason why my mind remembered what she'd told me.

"Just... just close your eyes and... I'll show you."

Why it was her words, and only hers alone.

"Applejack... are you... sure about this?" I asked her.

She was the most important thing in my former life.

"Darlin'... I have never been more sure about anythin' in my entire life..."

I closed my eyes, and waited for the imminent contact. I felt her arms wrap around me, and a growing warmth approaching my cheeks, and tensed my body in anticipation. The scent of apples grew strong, mixed in with the smell of the body soap from the shower as her heated breath began to fall onto my face.

We were... lovers?

"W-wait, Appleja—"

And then our lips met. It was a very gentle touch, pressing forward only slightly as she held her side of the kiss for several seconds, then pulled away. She didn't give me any time to respond, nor to open my eyes, before she returned yet again, pressing harder and pressing in her tongue this time... an act which I reciprocated. Just as it seemed that we were about to take things to the next level, she stopped, pulling away with finality this time as I finally opened my eyes.

"...is that enough, darlin'?" she simply asked, arms still held around my neck.

"...yeah..." I dumbly responded. "I... I had no idea, Applejack, I—"

She put a finger on my lips to silence me. "Don't blame yourself, darlin'. You didn't know any better," she assured me, before pulling her finger away and pulling me into a hug.

"But..." I was as important to her as she was to me. And the moment she first met me, she must have been... ecstatic, beyond all belief, to just be able to meet me again, if it... wasn't me. Wasn't myself; the person—pony, that she knew. "I... Applejack, I'm so, so sorry... about what happened yesterday. You must have been in so much pain, but.... but..."

I felt the need to say it: why didn't you just tell me? It seemed sudden now, but there were plenty of opportunities to make it more sudden than it did now. And at those times, I wasn't really sure if I would have believed her. Maybe I would have: a guy like me didn't exactly have a bombshell of a woman asking him out on a date every other day. And someone as beautiful as she was just willing to do such a thing for me, to dive into the proverbial depths of hell itself just to find me... I felt undeserving of what she was giving to me.

Her love. Her pure, unconditional love.

"It's okay, darlin'..." she whispered, tightening her hug. "We're back together now."

"But... I... still don't remember anything..."

"One step at a time, Ian... one step at a time. The princesses are workin' on ways to try to restore your memories, and they told me that... that interactin' with the things most important to you would help with that. That was why... when I saw that your mind still remembered all the things that I'd told you, that you recognized who I was... maybe you didn't remember anythin' else. But you remembered me."

I should have been elated, but all that I experienced was a cold stab in the pit of my stomach. "So... what... what if you fail?" I asked. "What if you can't rescue me?"

"Then..." she began. "I... don't... know... I don't want to leave you here alone, Ian."

"Been alone for most of my life," I said, smiling sadly at the ceiling. "Learned to live by myself pretty well... though when you put it in a light like this, I guess it isn't so great. But I'm glad to have you here, at least."

"Oh... Ian..." she mumbled into my shoulder. "I wish it were just... just easy to come in and pluck you out of your dream. To have you return to bein' who you are... my coltfriend... a true brother to Mac and Apple Bloom... and a member of the Apple family. I want you back, so badly..."

"So I guess I now know why you girls didn't bother drawing straws. It had to be you."

"...yeah..."

We sat there, hugging each other for a while. At the very least, my assumptions had been correct, though that only just now raised the stakes a bit. Disbelieving things I used to believer were true was the first step in trying to get myself out of the prison I'd made for myself... but that would take effort. I began to contemplate ways of trying to screw around with reality until I felt my body exhale... and my vision began to blur.

"...Ian...? Ian?! Ian!" I heard Applejack shouting, as my arms went slack and my head began to tilt backwards. My eyes closed themselves and all sound faded away, replaced with flashes of blinding white and the sound of my own rhythmic heartbeat thundering in my ears. Had they succeeded? Was it really as easy as that?

As it turned out, no, it wasn't. But as the flashes and thumping stopped, my vision was replaced with a pure white, no longer grating but soothingly welcome. I felt... disembodied, as if my own being of presence was just simply... floating there. White gradually began to give way to blue... then green... then brown... and then... faintest traces of red. I looked down and what I saw wasn't feet... but hooves. Green ones.

This was... Brightleaf.

And I was standing in... Sweet Apple Acres! For a split second, I felt my senses go into hyper-awareness, trying to take in every single possible detail around me as I struggled to maintain my grip on my current state of mind. But it wasn't to be, as I could feel my focus bleeding away at an alarming rate, and before long, my vision slowly began to shrink into a tunnel of white. The ringing returned, though it seemed like a cacophony of reckless bell ringing than the heartbeats it had been before.

White gave way to black and before long, I could feel the warm air tinted with a ting of frost channel into my lungs again. That was... interesting. But it also gave me the insight, that one shred of proof, of what had been. What I had to... convince myself was real.

"No, please... please, darlin', don't do this to me... please... please... please... oh, Celestia, help him! Can't you help him?!" I heard Applejack cry out. I was laying on the bed now, and slowly opened my eyes to find her sobbing into my chest. "Not like this...! Please, not like this...!"

"Applejack..." I coughed out. "It's... okay..."

She gasped and immediately shot her face in front of mine. "Ian...! You're... okay?"

"Yeah... I'm fine. What happened to me?"

"I... I don't know. The whole time I was just... so helpless. You just stopped breathin' and... and then I thought... you were dead! Or dyin', and I tried to talk to the princesses and just... if you died, I don't know how I would have lived with myself! And heavens to Betsy, don't you ever do that to me ever again!"

"Well, I'm here now," I said, rubbing the side of my head. "So you obviously didn't plan for this to happen, because I sort of had a little revelation during my little trip to near-death-land."

"Really? What'd you see?" Applejack asked, curious. And now literally straddling me as both of her arms were perched on either side of my head, and she stared at me. "Did you... did you remember?"

"A little bit..." I said, giving a small nod with my head. "I was standing... somewhere, pretty sure it was Sweet Apple Acres. I saw bit of sky, grass, tree, and... apples. Then I looked down and I saw my hooves. They were... green. And that was as far as I got before I ended up back here."

"That's... that's great, darlin'," she said, giving a heartfelt smile as she lowered her head onto my shoulder and rolled her body over next to me. "I... think this just might work."

"So do I," I said, wrapping an arm around her as we lay together. "Say... Applejack?"

"Yes, darlin'?" she asked.

"Can we just... stay like this for a while?"

She tilted her head and pecked my cheek. "Of course."