I'm a spiteful old man. I've spent my entire life trying to fulfill my wish. The same thing every one of us wants. It's 2070. I'm the last brony alive, 82 years old. But I did it. I created the portal. And I'm jumping through. No regrets.
I'm a spiteful old man. I've spent my entire life trying to fulfill my wish. The same thing every one of us wants.
The year is 2070. I'm the last brony alive, 82 years old. But I did it. I created the portal. And I'm jumping through. No regrets.
I've actually finished writing this story! Can you believe it? It's also available in book form, Click Here to go to lulu.com
When I was a young lad, I had become swept up in the fandom of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. And who didn't back then? Only the people who never tried it, that's who! And I wasn't one of those people that got 'converted,' oh no. I knew what it was, but I brushed it off at first. Little by little, curiosity got the better of me.
'Curiosity killed the cat' they said.
It was only a small appreciation for a simple thing at first. But then, as for so many others, it became an obsession. A raging lust for all things pony. That old meme picture of Rainbow Dash straining and the caption that read 'NEED MORE PONY' comes to mind.
Now I had never been the type to be obsessed with anything. And you might think that any sort of obsession like that would eventually run its course.
But you'd be wrong.
While it's true, most ordinary fans eventually lost interest. Who can blame them?
'It's just a cartoon' they said.
I'm the last fan alive. I should know, I checked. And I'm 82 years old. Believe me when I say, I have met my fair share of diehard fans like myself. I couldn't tell you how many cutie marks I've seen tattooed on wrinkly old asses.
'I totally don't have Big Mac's cutie mark tattooed on my ass'
All those good people are gone now... But most of them helped me a great deal in my endeavor. Well, it started as my endeavor, then became ours. It was for all the bronies and pegasisters and even the girl-bronies that didn't like being called pegasisters. I even married one of those. Oh, Patricia…
'We can do this Dane, you and me. We'll do it!' She said.
I was amazed at how many like-minded people flocked to be of assistance. Once we had even a semblance of a workable theory… yes, just a theory… we had everything we could ever need to make it happen. Money, technology, hell, even entire teams of scientists and researchers were donated to the cause. Even the land that this giant facility was built on, almost 50 years ago, was a gift from one rich brony. Gabe Newell, I think his name was. Nice fella, can't remember for the life of me what he did for a living. Dead, long since, just like everyone else.
We even got funding from the US government for a time. Once they found out we had some semi-working prototypes, they hounded us. We eventually caved, we knew they'd probably try to take our tech and our ideas, and maybe even kill us for the trouble if we denied their contracts. Of course, we only showed them a tiny portion of our actual results. Eventually Uncle Sam gave up on us and cut funding. Not that it mattered, we were swimming in money by then. Almost all of it is spent now. The last ten years or so have been real rough. Everyone was either dying or losing interest. Almost no one left to help now, and absolutely zero people dedicated to the cause anymore, the few people I have on staff are just employees now. Young’ns who wouldn't know a G4 pony if it bit them!
'This man knows nothing about physics or even science in general! He's just a con man!' They said.
While it's true, I don't have the most brilliant mind in terms of book smarts, I make up for it in problem solving abilities, reasoning, and the occasional stroke of genius. Besides, we hired physicists, by the dozen. We had a pool of genius minds, with mine right at the top, controlling everything, processing every idea. I may have had only two years of college, but I'll be damned if I don't know more science now than the smartest pencil neck on the planet. And math. My dear sweet Celestia, you would not believe the amount of math behind all this.
What was I getting at anyway? I think I'm having a senior moment. You know I may have Alzheimer's… but at least I don't have Alzheimer's. Hehe, love that joke. Gets the grandkids every time.
'Grandpa, tell us a story from another dimension!' They would say.
And I would regale them with an amazing tale from any one of the other worlds I've seen, not necessarily ponies. Some time, about maybe 35 years ago, we succeeded in building and using the Alternate Universe Viewer. It's an incredibly huge and complex machine and it required its own nuclear power plant to run it. You would not believe the paperwork we had to go through to build that!
You ever heard the theory that there's an infinite amount of alternate universes? Well it was right. Any idea how long it took to look through an INFINITE number of parallel dimensions? Well actually not too long. We eventually had to give up on just looking and spent a good few years developing algorithms and software to sort of search them for us. We managed to par it down to about half a million. That's right, half a million dimensions of ponies. Eventually we had found that these universes follow roughly the same time line as our own does. This lead to a whole new problem. It was already well in the future of the ponies we knew and loved. Many of us got to watch them live their lives out… to the end. But amidst the tears a solution was found. Compared to everything else we had accomplished up until then, it was actually pretty easy. While we were hard at work, trying to figure something out, my wife Patricia had a little stroke of genius. Amazing how sometimes a small idea can have a profound effect. I won't go into details, but with another year or so of R & D, we were able to effectively add ‘rewind’ and ‘fast-forward’ buttons to the Viewer.
And while we sorted through the different universes, we eventually developed another technology essential to our goal. Teleportation. My, that was a monumental day for us. Naturally, we kept it a secret… from the world. The last thing we wanted was for it to be abused, or for it to be stolen and our throats slit to silence us. But I wouldn't be exaggerating when I said we partied that night. A lab full of scientists and old bronies, some of them both, got shitfaced and rocked that lab.
'We're close, so close I can almost taste the hay' Ray said.
He died almost a year ago. He was the last. Besides me, that is. The young’ns I have helping me around the place now just think I'm a crazy old man. A rich, brilliant, crazy old codger who's obsessed with a cartoon as old as he is, and who happens to have technology under his thumb that the rest of the world thinks will never exist.
They put up with me though. I know I'm a grumpy old fart. The world's beaten me down, and I'm downright spiteful. I hope they can forgive me for what I did…
It doesn't matter now. I'll never see them again. I made sure of that.
No, I didn't kill them, if that's what you're thinking.
"Dane, sir, we… we did it! We actually transported an object to dimension alpha six-zero-four!" Tyler was jumping for joy.
That strapping young lad was brilliant in his own right, he solved a lot of problems, things only a young mind could think its way around. Of course, I just about shit myself when he gave me the news. Not only had we successfully transferred matter to another dimension, but it was MY target dimension. I kissed that kid like I had never kissed a man before.
I regret nothing.
I hobbled my way through corridors, and into the 'Ring of Fire' as we called it. A gigantic ring shaped building, the diameter of seven and a half football fields, it housed the actual Ring of Fire. It was a device that basically shot a single hydrogen atom in a giant circle, the point of the ring. I like to think that it goes a little faster than the speed of light, but we were never able to measure it accurately. The physics behind it are complex, but basically the near- or super light speed travel could be used, indirectly, to create a sort of… worm hole, for lack of a better word, to the dimension of our choosing. The Viewer let us choose the dimension, and could approximately line up the times of the two universes to be connected, with a shitload of math and computers, and an unbelievable amount of energy, the wormhole would be opened at the center of the ring, and would last just about one second.
When I got to the lab near the center of the Ring, the team was all jumping for joy, they sat me down and showed me a monitor connected to the Viewer. What I was looking at was nothing more than an empty aluminum Pepsi can laying in the grass.
Not just any grass… the 'greener' grass, as is said.
While I sat there having a stroke, they all looked upon me expectantly.
"You've all done a…" I choked up as a tear slid down my cheek, "a fine job. Can I… see it in action?"
"Of course!" Tyler went into the control room and got ready. I tried to stand up but I had trouble. Some of the kids helped me up, and walked me over to the control room.
'No more than one person in the control room while the Ring is active.'
That was a rule I made, for 'safety.' Or so that's what I told them. But the team was happy to let me break my own rule and I joined Tyler at the controls. He opened the blast door that lead to the dead center of the ring and stepped in. He practically skipped up onto the giant round platform. I never knew why it was so big. Bob designed the platform, was he planning on taking a school bus with him? When Tyler got to the center, he placed a very small potted plant on the platform. Likely 'borrowed' from someone's desk.
He skipped back to the control room, and shut the blast door behind him. I knew the basics of the controls, but I examined his every move. He finished pushing buttons and just stepped back. We both stood staring through the small window with baited breath. After about two minutes of warm-up the machine finally started doing its thing.
The center room with the platform began to grow dark. It was lit just fine, but we were more or less creating a black hole. Sort of. It's complicated. But it sucked up the light just the same. The tiny dot of black that created darkness around itself floated about four feet above the plant. It got darker and darker in the room until the dimensional rift practically exploded, in an amazing mixture of darkness and light, for just a split second. When it settled down, and the whirring of the Ring slowed down to silence once again, the platform was empty.
Tyler pushed some buttons and turned a monitor to show me. The Viewer, still looking at the Pepsi can. We both waited some more. I knew we could only line up the time so much. According to the math there was a roughly five hour margin of error.
The screen went blank, completely white, for just a second. And then, a little potted plant fell on the grass, a couple feet away from the can.
It was beautiful.
"Tyler, this is amazing! Get a lab rat, we have to test it on a live animal!"
"B-But sir!"
"No buts! This is for science! Now go!"
I shooed him out of the control room. And closed the glass door behind him. I smiled at the team through the bullet proof glass wall next to the door. They were happy. I was happy. We did it. I did it. I started this all 55 years ago. My life's work. I'd probably go down in history. Tears started coming out. Not happy tears. Sad tears.
For what I was about to do to them.
"Computer, seal control room door, protocol twelve-twenty-eight."
I heard the locks on the door click into place. I'm not sure the kids heard it. I went to the controls, and did everything Tyler did, followed the sequence as best as I could remember. The Ring started whirring, and that's when they noticed. I looked back briefly at their panicked and confused faces, some of them rattling the door. I couldn't bear to see them. At least I could barely hear their muffled yelling through the thick glass.
'Screw them.' I told myself bitterly.
They would have me wait months before even trying to send a chimp through. I'm an old man, I could drop dead any minute. And knowing my luck, I probably would, before getting to go through, if I'd let them have their way. But I wasn't about to. I was seizing the moment. It was mine. My entire life spent for this one moment of time.
There was no way in HELL I was going to let it slip through my fingers.
I finished setting up the controls, I had a little more than two minutes now.
"Computer…" I choked. "Initiate self destruct sequence eleven-oh-nine."
"Confirm self destruct sequence one-one-zero-nine?" The facility's control computer asked, in her horribly cliché female British robot voice. I hated that damn voice.
"Confirmed."
"Self destruct sequence activated. Facility will self destruct in twenty minutes."
I looked once more to the team of kids behind the glass. Panicked and running around, the room was emptying. 'Good,' I thought, 'hopefully they'll just get out and not try to save this place.'
There was only one of them left. Tyler. He looked at me, holding a little cage with a white rat inside, and he mouthed the question 'why?'
I mouthed back, 'You know why,' making little hand gestures to get the words across. After a little pause I waved goodbye and then made a gesture to tell him to go. He reluctantly obliged.
I pulled the manual override lever on the blast door, it opened and I hobbled through. I pulled the lever on the other side and the door closed behind me. I walked as carefully as possible, I did have time, and the last thing I wanted to do was fall and break my hip.
I finally set my cane on the platform and stepped up onto it. The rift was starting to form. I made my way to the center, and I sat down right beneath the dark black orb. I hurriedly took my glasses off and put them in their case. I clutched my cane, and closed my eyes.
It wasn't long before it became silent.
And here I am, floating in the dark silent void. I think this is only my consciousness, I can't feel my body. It feels like it's been hours now, just alone with my thoughts.
Suddenly, I feel tired.
I let it embrace me.
Pain. Pain everywhere.
But that means I'm alive.
I'm alive!
I struggle to open my eyes amidst the pain. I can't see much from my old eyes… but I make out some green.
I open my eyes. The brightness hurts, but I fight it.
"You're awake!" I hear.
I look around the blur before me and I barely make out a white blob.
Clip-clop, clip-clop
The blob comes closer. Judging by its shape, color, and movement I can only assume it's a pony.
My heart jumps.
'I'm here!' I think to myself.
I reach out my hand to it and try to say something. My arm feels all tingly.
'Oh buck.'
"HHHHNNGGRR!!!!"
"DOCTOR!!!!"
Everything after that is complete a blur. And not just because of my eyesight. I remember being almost conscious several times, but I don't really remember what happened.
"Are you awake?"
I manage to nod.
"How do you feel?"
I shake my head 'no.'
I hear hoofsteps.
"Doctor, he's awake."
More hoofsteps.
"Well hello there. How are you feeling?"
I shake my head again.
"That's to be expected."
I try to say something, but I quickly realize I have a tube down my throat.
"Please try and relax, I'm afraid you've suffered a myocardial infarction, that is, a heart attack."
I might have guessed…
"But not to worry! You're on the mend now. We expect you to make a full recovery. But for now, you just need to rest."
The next few days pass in a blur. I'm asleep most of the time, but on the rare occasions that I'm lucid enough, I see doctor and nurse ponies, just doing their jobs. It keeps me going. Even the clopping of hooves on tile floor is a very calming, reassuring sound that just puts me at ease whenever I hear it. I'm actually starting to feel better, at least when I'm awake enough to think about that.
One thing that's been concerning me though, not a single pony has asked the question. You know which one.
'What are you?'
There is a slight possibility I wound up in the wrong dimension. You wouldn't believe how many Equestrias had humans. Most had only one or two, but some had lots. We came up with the theory that there was probably at least one dimension for every single fanfiction ever written. There had to be, there was a dimension for everything, anything. I spent years, maybe over a decade, trying to pinpoint the one Equestria that looked the most canon to my eyes. I hope this is it.
Hoofsteps.
I look at the purple blur of a nurse that's approaching me.
"Uh, hello?" the blur greets me. Unusual for a nurse to just stand there and greet me.
I shake my head a little to try and wake up a little more.
"My name is Twilight Sparkle."
Must. Not. Have. Heart attack.
I think the EKG gives away my panic because she gallops off to get a nurse or something.
When she comes back, my heart rate has slowed down a bit, and a white nurse just kind of eyeballs me briefly and leaves the room.
"I'm sorry, did I startle you?"
I nod. Still got the tube in my throat. It's a horrendous thing that makes me feel thirsty all the time. So. Very. Thirsty.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"
I try to point to my glasses case which I believe is on the side table.
"What?"
Oh come on Twilight, I know they're right there. Look where I'm pointing!
"You want this?" She levitates the case.
I nod.
She puts the case on the bed and I struggle to open it. Thankfully she gets the hint and opens it for me.
"Oh! Your glasses, of course!"
My glasses float onto my face and I finally have some sweet clarity. I look around the room and take in as much detail as I can before I gaze upon the lavender mare beside my bed.
Even the Viewer did not do her form justice.
Their eyes are not nearly as big as you'd expect, but still big. That's the first thing I notice. Her colors are all correct, even the pink highlight in her mane. But everything is so rich and real. Her coat is actually what you'd expect a horse's to look like, it has a slight sheen that makes different shades of lavender along the curves of her face where even the tiniest shadow is made by the soft light of this room. And it's flawed. Not in a bad way, though. There's a spot or two where her fur has been matted against the grain of the rest of her coat, like maybe where she scratched an itch. Those tiny imperfections just make it that much more real.
Her muzzle is little longer than what you'd think. Even the whole shape of her face is a lot less round and a lot more real-equine. But she somehow still manages to look nothing like a horse. Her mane is not nearly as perfect as in the show, it's not messed up, but it's just so… real in its imperfection.
As I drink in her form, she seems to be doing the same to me.
Of course, she breaks the silence first, since I'm incapable at the moment.
"What are you?"
Ah, there it is. I relax and let out a sigh. Finally.
"Is your species related to primates?"
I nod. Right down to business, eh Twilight?
"But obviously you're more intelligent."
Nod. Wait. What do you mean 'more'?
"I'm assuming you can talk?"
Nod.
"Where are you from?"
I stare at her.
"Oh, right, sorry," She says with a sheepish smile. "I just can't wait to ask you everything!"
Oh Twilight… You're just how I've imagined you… all these long years.
"Well, you look tired, I'll let you rest. The doctor says they'll take the… tube out in a couple days."
I watch her leave, and as soon as she's gone, sleep takes me.
A few days pass by, I'm not sure how many, because I'm still sleeping most of the time. They took the tube out a while ago. I can barely talk since that thing's been in there so long. They started feeding me jello. It's alright, but how do they make it? Isn't gelatin usually derived from… hooves?
"You have visitors!" A nurse yells at me from the door.
Twilight canters in. Every pony I see never ceases to amaze me. How their ears and tails express emotions just like their faces. How they walk. Their legs aren't just the stumps that you're used to. They're actual legs, with visible joints, and actual hooves. Twilight's hooves, for example, are just about the same purple as her coat, but since they're enamel and not fur, they're distinguishable.
"How are you?" She greets me with a smile.
"I'm feeling better day by day," I croak.
"I brought a friend with me, I hope you don't mind."
I shake my head 'no.'
"Fluttershy! Come on in!"
My heart jumps at the mention of her name…
Nope, still beating. Fluttershy… will she be as adorable and shy in real life?
She slowly steps in the room, with her long pink mane covering one of her gorgeous aqua green eyes.
Oh my Celestia… yes. Maybe even more adorable. I wonder if they have pacemakers here… I'm gonna need one for all these introductions…
"This is Fluttershy, she's the one that found you!"
"Um… hi…" She squeaks out.
I give her a nod, in addition to the huge smile I'm already wearing.
"And I don’t believe I ever got your name…" Twilight asks.
"Dane."
"Dane? Well, that's an interesting name," Twilight notes. "So where are you from, Dane?" She asks casually, smiling widely.
"Not from this world…"
"What?" Twilight blurts out in surprise, Fluttershy 'eep'-s. Twilight composes herself and asks, "How?" deadpanning in disbelief.
"Science."
She smirks at the word. "Hm, so what then? You're from another planet?" She asks sarcastically.
"Not exactly. Just a different dimension."
"You mean like… a parallel universe?"
I nod.
"Really? Wow! How did you do it? Did you use magic? What was it like?"
"We don't have magic. Just science. I worked my whole life to get here…"
"Why?" Fluttershy innocently asks.
I open my mouth to answer, but no words come to mind. Why did I do it? I know I went through the portal because I waited my whole life to do it, but what made me want to do it in the first place?
Sure I was a fan, but why forsake my own world, my species, my life, even my family, to come here? I worked for 55 years for a reason that was now lost on me.
"I guess… I came here because of you guys." It's as good a guess as I can make right now.
There's a little confusion and an awkward silence in the room. But I had no intention of lying to them or stringing them along. I'm too old for that crap.
"…For… for us?" Fluttershy asks.
"What? Does that mean you know who we are?" Twilight accuses.
"I know it's kinda creepy… don't hate me for it…"
"Why would we hate you?" Flutters puts her forehooves on the edge of my bed and looks up at me through her flowing pink hair.
"How much do you know about us… exactly?" Twilight inquires.
"Too much."
Twilight looks almost offended. I'm not sure Fluttershy's getting the message. "Well… if you know so much about us… it's only fair we know all about you then."
Well played, Sparkle, well played.
Somehow, Twilight pulls a piece of parchment, a quill, and ink out of nowhere. I'll have to ask her about that sometime. Though I'd put my bits on magic. She also puts on a pair of reading glasses.
"What is your species called?"
"Human," I answer with a smile.
This is actually the first time I'm really witnessing levitation. Almost all the hospital staff are earth ponies with the exception of only a couple unicorn doctors, at least from what I've seen anyway. It's amazing actually. Her purple aura is barely even noticeable. You'd have to be paying attention to see it. And it's more of a faint glow than a rippley, sparkly aura. But it is still a little sparkly.
"And what does your species' diet usually consist of?"
Don't beat around the bush, do you Twi? "We're omnivores… Can't really eat grass or hay or flowers. But I haven't eaten meat for something like… 20 years." I smile contently.
Fluttershy is interested by my response, and cocks her head. "Why wouldn't you eat meat if that's what your species eats?"
"So I could come here." And I damn well came prepared.
"Oh, my…"
"You say you used science to cross universes, I take it your species is technologically advanced?"
"Yes, probably a lot more than you are. Without magic, we've had to make technology to fill our needs."
"Are you a scientist?"
I chuckle at that. "Not officially, but I'd say I should get the honorary title."
She smiles gently. "You say you worked your whole life for this, exactly how old are you? If you don't mind me asking, that is…"
"82, and I've been working towards this since I was…" I think about this for a second. "…27."
"Wow…" Twilight's eyes go wide for a second and she scribbles away on the paper. "Are there any other humans who would want to come here?"
I sigh, "Not anymore…"
Twilight catches on right away. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Were they your friends?"
I nod. "And my wife..."
She tries to change the subject. "Um… how is it that you become so fond of us and this world?"
I flinch. I didn't expect that question so soon. "Twilight, that might be uh… a hard pill to swallow… maybe we could talk about that later?"
"Ok..." she looks disappointed, as if I'm withholding a juicy piece of gossip from her. "From what I can tell, you're a biped, is that right?"
"Yep."
"Now, when Fluttershy found you, you had a few things with you, other than your clothing and what was in your pockets... A long wooden stick, a small potted plant, and an empty metal can. What are these things?"
"The stick is my cane… it's a walking stick. I can't walk as well as I used to… The plant and the can were things we sent through as an experiment. Just to see if we could."
"And speaking of clothes, do humans always wear them?"
"Ah, yes… we do."
"Why?" Fluttershy asks with a quizzical look on her face.
"Keeps us warm. Got no fur. Also because of our body shape. Certain things are… heh heh… a little too visible… if you catch my drift." I wiggle my eyebrows like the creepy old man that I am.
Twilight goes wide-eyed. "Ah," she says as she looks back to her note paper and scribbles away.
"Oh, my." Fluttershy looks bashfully away from me.
"Actually, I might need some more clothes, Twilight. I didn't have a chance to pack…" I was actually just making a note to myself, that day, that I should pack a suitcase, just in case they got it working.
"Oh that shouldn't be a problem, I'll just ask my friend R…" She suddenly stops and glares at me.
I return her glare with a creepy smile.
"I'm going to pretend you don't know which of my friends is a fashion designer."
"Fine by me, Twi." I continue smiling.
"Right, well, um, I think we'll just let you get some rest. It was a pleasure talking to you!"
"No, no, the pleasure was all mine." I smile at them. "Oh, Fluttershy?"
That's what I am. I'm a selfish old bastard. I shouldn't have activated self destruct. Tyler's devastated, confused face is burned into the back of my eyeballs. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget what I did.
'They're not bronies.'
That's right… none of the kids were. I'm the last. The last one I could find that gave a shit anyway. There were some still alive out there, some even younger than me. But they weren't dedicated, they weren't real bronies.
'I've got a family here.'
'I'm retired.'
'I'm too old.'
Excuses, excuses. All I ever got. All the good people are dead now. I am the last brony.
The kids on the research team… they didn't work their whole lives for this… but maybe they still deserved a piece of the cake... I don't know. I could go back and forth with this all day. They weren't in it for the ponies, or even the dimensions, anyway. I know that much.
I think.
They put up with my crap for the technology. For science. Right? Reinventing physics and disproving Einstein, that's why they worked for me. And they did it, right? They're young, they have the rest of their lives to take all of our ideas and discoveries with them. Even if self destruct protocol 1109 did include destroying as much data as possible, they still have it in their heads. Probably some of them already stole as much as they could get their grubby little hands on anyway. Maybe all my hard work, our hard work, will finally see the light of day.
'They got what they wanted.'
But then why do I still feel like shit? Why can't I push Tyler's face out of my mind? Those teary puppy dog eyes. That frown framed by a 5 o'clock shadow. The kind of young man with ambition in his heart and a spring in his step.
'Me.'
He reminds me… of myself. That's it… He's just like I was, when I was his age.
And I destroyed his hopes and dreams.
Dear Celestia, what have I done?
"Are you crying?"
I want to lie. I want to deny it.
But I just nod 'yes.'
"Oh… cheer up Mr. Dane! The hospital food's not THAT bad!" Nurse Redheart says as she slides a tray of food on top of me.
I can't help but chuckle between sobs.
She gives me a soft smile. "That's better. Now eat up, you need your strength."
I sniffle and nod at her with a little smile.
She canters out of the room and gently shuts the door behind her. I look down to my food. Salad, a little bit of jello, and some indescribable mush.
Hmm… this mush ain't that bad. I wonder if this is the usual food for patients, or is it just because I'm old. At least I still have my teeth.
Oh, who am I kidding? It's terrible.
Beans? Peas maybe? I give up.
My room's door opens, and a nurse pokes her head in. "You have visitors!" She says in a sing-song voice.
Twilight slowly steps inside.
"Good afternoon, Dane!" She greets me.
And she's followed in by none other than the Element of Honesty herself.
Breathe, Dane. Breathe.
"Whoa, nelly…"
Whoa nelly is right.
Applejack and I just eyeball each other for a moment. You know, the first time I saw her, in the show of course, I thought she was tan… not orange. Then again, I'm pretty damned colorblind. And after a while, I saw orange when I looked at her. But now I'm back to having trouble. In fact, I'd have to say her coat might look more orange in a certain light, and more tan in another.
Then again, I'm pretty damned colorblind.
The different shades of color created by the tiny, soft shadows cast by her muscles… oh my, she's actually quite muscular. Well, maybe 'toned' would be a better term. It can't be an earth pony thing… the nurses aren't like this. I wonder if that's considered attractive? Or if not, what's the cutoff for the amount of muscles on mares? I hate to think that she'd be considered…
Twilight gives her a little nudge and a dirty look.
"Uh, I mean, pleasure to meet yer acquaintance!" She tips her hat with big awkward smile.
Twilight grumbles a little at this.
I giggle at it. "Nice to meet you too. I'm sure Twi's told you already, but I'm Dane. And don't worry… I know I probably look like some kind of big scary alien to you guys."
"I was gonna say 'a shaved monkey.' " Applejack deadpans.
"Applejack!" Twilight scolds her friend.
"What?!" She returns.
I just laugh! This is funny! 'Shaved monkey!' Wow, talk about fanfiction cliché!
The two mares in my room soon join in on some hearty laughter.
As it tapers off, Twilight says, "Well, he did say his species was related to primates."
"Ya mean monkeys?" Applejack cracks with a quirky smile.
"Well yeah, it's true. We're most closely related to chimpanzees, or so I've heard."
"Oooh!" Twilight exclaims with wide eyes, then quickly summons her writing tools and scribbles down some notes.
"So where ya'll from anyhow?" Applejack asks as Twilight finishes up her notes.
"Another dimension!" I proclaim in a spooky voice, while giving her my best jazz hands.
"Really? So like a-whole-nother world?"
I nod with a content smile.
"You know," Twilight starts, looking over her reading glasses and pointing the soft end of her red quill towards me, "the term 'dimension' is technically inaccurate for what you're describing..."
Applejack rolls her eyes.
"A 'dimension' is a degree of freedom," Twilight continues. "Zero dimensions is no degree of freedom, just stuck on a single point. One dimension is the ability to move back and forth in a straight line, like a train on tracks. Two dimensions…"
If Twilight were my employee, she'd be fired.
On the bright side…
I'm being lectured by Twilight!
YES!
"…hypothetically they influence everything, so that may be testable. But anyway, what you're talking about would be an alternate, or parallel, universe, not a dimension," she finishes with a smug smile.
I look to Applejack, who silently mouths the words, "She does that," to me while Twilight's not looking.
"So…" Applejack tries to resume normal conversation, "are there ponies in that other dim- uh, I mean, where you come from?" Now more comfortable with me, she steps closer, making unfamiliar little clinks and clacks along the tiled floor that I didn't pick up on before.
Applejack… is shod?
Funny, knowing as much as I do about this world, from the show and from the Viewer, that there are still things that would surprise me. The whole horseshoe thing was consistently glossed over in the show, and I suppose it just wasn't something I was looking for while scouting alternate universes.
"Uh…" I stammer, just coming out of thought. "Ye… no… kinda."
"Huh?"
"Well, there are equines, but they're not… um… intelligent."
Applejack cocks her head sideways at this, and Twilight begins scribbling furiously on her note parchment floating in mid air.
"So ya mean to tell me, that where you're from, ponies are dumb animals and the monkeys wear clothes and talk?" Applejack asks with disbelief.
"Humans… and pretty much. That sounds awfully familiar though…"
Applejack giggles "An' I s'pose the ponies are like slaves to the humans?" She jokingly asks.
Uh oh.
They take my silence as an answer. Twilight just looks over her reading glasses at me in surprise.
Applejack glares at me. "Really?!"
"No! No, it's nothing like that!" I wave my hands in the air defensively. "They're more like pets…" I cringe. "I hate to put it that way, but they are! You know, we love and care for them, admire them even!"
I can't say anymore. I'm panting. I feel like I just ran a marathon.
Applejack comes much closer and puts both her forehooves on the edge of the bed. She gently strokes my arm with a (yes) shod hoof. "It's alright sugar cube. I think I know what you're tryin' to say." She smiles gently at me, with her face so very close to mine. I manage to look into her sour-apple green eyes for just a moment.
Her kind eyes relax me, but they do nothing to stop my battered old heart from pounding in my chest.
"Are you alright Dane?" Twilight asks me.
I nod weakly in response.
"We better let you rest then, come on Applejack."
I keep my eyes closed as they clip-clop and clink-clank out of the room.
But the clip-clop comes back. I crack my eyes open to see Twilight standing in the doorway.
"Don't worry Dane, we're not mad at you or anything." She smiles. "I'll see you tomorrow."
She gently clicks the door shut.
And my damn doctor back home said I was healthy enough for sex.
At least I'm feeling good enough to get out of bed and go take a dump by myself. Not entirely sure I'll ever get used to squat toilets. Oh well, small price to pay, I guess.
I shuffle back over to my bed, putting most of my weight on this far-too-short-for-me IV pole. I sit down on the edge of the mattress and try to catch my breath after the long hike back from my room's bathroom, all of 15 feet away from my bed.
While I relax, I glance over to the empty bed in my room. Obviously, there's two reasons why it would be unoccupied. One, this hospital is simply not that populated, it is a small town after all. Or two, the staff are deliberately keeping me to myself.
That option in itself would have a couple possible implications. They could be doing it for my condition, to keep me relaxed or something, or because I might scare another patient…
KNOCK KNOCK
"Come in!"
Ah, for once a nurse hasn't announced the presence of visitors.
"Hi Dane!"
"Hi Twi."
"You look like you're feeling better."
I nod absentmindedly and crane my neck a little to get a better look at who's following closely behind her.
Well, well. If it isn't the renowned fashionista.
I think I'm getting used to these introductions, I'm still breathing normally.
My, my. And here I thought Nurse Redheart had a white coat. Rarity's is almost brightening up the room. And it looks absolutely flawless. Shiny and smooth. I can't completely observe her form, as much of it is obstructed by smooth white saddlebags (perhaps silk?) with a diamond-shaped clasp on each bag.
I never did settle what color her mane is. Some people say blue, some people say purple, and some say indigo, which, if you ask me, is vague enough to fit. I might have thought Applejack's coat color-shifts in the light, but Rarity's hair most definitely does. Parts of it shimmer royal blue, and others a deep purple. Her curls are exquisite, like a work of art. And somehow… they don't seem stiff. They bounce around very softly with her movements, as if they're natural, and not the product of copious amounts of hairspray. Maybe it's some kind of perm.
"Dane, this is my friend Rarity," Twilight gestures behind her. She gives me a look that tells me to play along, but it's not reflected in her voice at all.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Dane. I've heard so much about you!" She says, not losing her composure for a second at the sight of me.
"And I, you, Miss Rarity," I say.
Twilight gives me a dirty look.
"Oh? I suppose Twilight has told you all about her friends, hmm?" She smiles and bats her very real-looking eyelashes at me.
"Not really." I crack a creepy smile.
"Hmm… Well Twilight says you're from a completely different world. So if Twilight hasn't told you about yours truly, then who has?"
Twilight glares daggers at me and slightly shakes her head 'no.'
"Yes. Actually, you're very popular where I'm from."
"I… wha…" Rarity stammers, looking very confused.
Twilight grumbles a little bit.
"You all are, this whole world is. That's why I wanted…"
"WAAA-HA-HAAAAA!!!" Rarity cuts me off. "My designs' fabulosity have transcended the very fabrics of time and space! I am THE premiere fashionista of the multiverse!"
Twilight and I stare at the white unicorn until she finally wipes that grin off her face, and clears her throat in a very ladylike manner.
"Well isn't that grand?" She notes subtly.
Twilight and I find humor in her pitiful cover-up, and we start chuckling.
"What?" Rarity innocently asks, looking between us. "Hmph." It sounds almost like a giggle.
"Oh Rarity, come on. That was a little funny," Twilight insists.
"Hmm," Rarity giggles, "Perhaps just a tiny bit… So, Dane, Twilight tells me you might be interested in some outfits?" She asks excitedly.
"Yes… actually, it's more of a need than an interest now…" I glance over to a chair by the window, the light of Celestia's setting sun barely clipping the edge of it. On it, in the shadows, are my old clothes. "It seems the doctors had to cut my clothes off to operate, and well… it would be a little um… uncomfortable for me to prance around town in the nude."
"Oh." I think she picked up on my meaning. "Well, I came prepared!" She levitates a yellow tailor's measuring tape from one of her bags, and straightens it out to full length in her faint blue aura. "Could I take your measurements?"
"I would be honored."
She proceeds to take several measurements of my upper body, probably way too many, but she's probably just being thorough because I'm so different. She writes them all down on a little notepad with a pencil, sometimes writing and measuring at the same time.
"I need to measure your hind legs. Do you think you can stand?" She asks.
I nod and pull myself up, using the IV pole for a little help.
"You are quite tall, aren't you?" She looks up to me.
"Heh heh. Yeah I guess so."
She goes in to measure my legs and…
"AAAAHAHHHHHHHH!!!" She shrieks in horror.
"What? What is it?" I ask, thankfully she didn't startle me too much.
Twilight hurries over.
"Darling! The cut on your leg!"
I glance down at the unsightly surgical cut on the inside of my right leg.
Oh, that.
When I was becoming lucid enough to talk to about the surgery, the surgeon explained everything and apologized profusely for the incision they made on my leg to harvest the arteries for that double bypass they did. It runs from my ankle in a wavy, almost zig-zag, pattern all the way up to just below my crotch. I thought it looked bad too, but the surgeon explained that they had no idea where to look, so they just kept cutting until they found what they needed. I didn't mind, and I kept telling him not to worry about it. I'm just happy I'm alive and that they had the knowledge and technology to do heart surgery like that. And I think all the doctors, and myself, are grateful that I'm not that anatomically different from them, on the inside anyway.
"Yeah, I know it looks bad, but they had to find the arteries to use for the bypass surgery."
"Bad?! BAD?! This stitch-work is absolutely horrendous!!!" She cries dramatically.
I hear Twilight stifling a laugh.
"Heh heh, yeah I guess their stitching isn't exactly top-notch either."
"Dear, that's an understatement. Anyway, I will be needing you to um… ahem… lift up your hospital gown… if you don't mind?" I think I see a blush under that fur.
How that's even possible is beyond me.
"Ah. Um…" I look over to Twilight who has a strange look in her eyes. "Twilight, would you mind… stepping outside for this part? Please?" I smile awkwardly at her.
"Alright." She looks a little disappointed, and trots out of the room, magically closing the door behind her.
The last thing I want is Twilight examining my old junk. I'm sure Rarity will have the decency to look away at least.
I lift up my gown, which, by the way, fits perfectly. Although it's not a whole lot more than two rectangular pieces of thin fabric tied together.
Rarity goes in for some measurements. "Is that about the usual size for human males?" She looks up at me inquisitively.
I guess I was wrong…
Now it's my turn to blush. "I'd certainly like to think so," I say as I look away from her.
She giggles and takes some more measurements. Again, probably too many.
"Could you turn around please?"
I comply.
"Ah, you have a cutie mark."
Uh oh. I forgot about that.
"That's funny, it looks familiar."
I clear my throat. "That's not a cutie mark, Rarity."
"It isn't?"
"Nope. It's a tattoo."
"A 'tattoo'? What's that?"
"Well, it's um… not naturally occurring. It's artificial."
"Oh. Is that something humans do?"
"Yeah… it's not related to anything like special talents, it's just a form of art… I suppose."
"Art? Hmm… you have interesting tastes. I'm sure Applejack would love it!"
"Right… Applejack. Um Rarity? I don't suppose you could keep this… under your hat, so to speak?"
"Why's that darling?"
"It might be a little difficult to explain to the Apple family why I have Big- um… a certain familiar cutie mark for a tattoo."
She looks from my face back to my ass, and her eyes widen in realization. "Oh. Oh! I thought I'd seen that before. Yes, well, I'll try not to mention it…" She nervously giggles as she gets back to measuring.
"Like I said, this place is very popular where I'm from…"
"No need to explain darling, I can see that it's a touchy subject for you."
A few moments of measurement pass.
"You know, I also don't have any way to pay you for this… If I was younger, I'd work for it or something, but I'm afraid I'm a little past that time now…"
"Oh, darling, don't fret! They don't call me the Element of Generosity for nothing! Besides, what kind of ponies would we be if you just popped into this world and we didn't do everything we could to lend a helping hoof?"
"Th- Thank you, Rarity. If there's ever anything I can do to repay you for this… just let me know."
She's about to protest, but she looks up and sees me on the verge of tears, and says, "Yes, of course."
A few measurements later, and Twilight is called back into the room.
"All done Rarity?" She asks.
"Yes we are. And I think we should let Mr. Dane here get his rest, he looks a bit tired."
I lay back down on my bed and prove her point.
"It is getting late," Twilight adds, looking at the coming darkness out the window.
Rarity walks over to the chair with my clothes on it. "I hope you don't mind if I take these with me for reference?"
"They're not doing me any good now."
She levitates them into her saddlebags and joins Twilight at the door.
"Good night Dane!" Twilight bids me farewell.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Dane!" Rarity says.
"The pleasure was all mine, Miss Rarity. Take care now."
Could I die happy now?
I'm not sure anymore. As awesome as this is… what I did to get here is starting to weigh heavy on my mind.
'You can't change the past.'
And I also can't do anything to make amends for what I did either…
The nurses are warming up to me. I mean, as more than just a patient. Their day is at a slow spot, so these three are just lounging around the nurse's station, filling out some paper work and drinking coffee. I felt good enough to walk around a little today, so while I was out in the hallway, I asked if I could join them. I pulled up a wheelchair and tried to pull my conversation skills out of the dark recesses of my brain.
"I don't get much of that anymore. I go to work, come home, and take care of my foals," Nurse Coldheart says half-heartedly.
Coldheart is a pale yellow mare with very light blue curly hair, with a lighter-blue highlight. She has a kind of harsh voice… it's actually a little unpleasant.
"At least you have foals and a husband to come home to…" Nurse Heartache quips.
She has a very nice, well-kempt light-purple coat and very light pink, almost white, mane and tail. Her figure is actually a little skinny compared to her coworkers’. Her mane is kept in a bun. It must be a dress code around here.
She continues, "And I don't know about you girls, but nothing relaxes me more than a nice hot bath and a glass of wine."
The other two 'ooooo' at that.
"How about you, Nurse Rayne?" I ask.
Nurse Rayne, the only nurse (whose name I know, anyway) who doesn't have the word 'heart' in her name. She's a dull, dark blue. Not an inky, midnight blue like Luna would be, but sort of a grayish dark blue. Her mane and tail are slightly wavy and very deep purple. She's also the only nurse I've seen who has something besides a cross for a cutie mark, hers is a… crossbow?.
"Oh please, call me Dusk… And, well, I'm not much for drinking, but I enjoy a good book from time to time," she replies with a little smile.
"What about you Dane?" Heartache asks.
I sigh. There was a time when I had free time. There was a time when I was a family man. But the older I got, the more time I spent working. Because I knew I had less and less time to finish the job.
My only son eventually distanced himself from me and my daughter-in-law never liked me. I saw my grandchildren less and less, until it was only at mandatory family gatherings, for holidays and such. And they're grown up now, and could probably care less about their crazy old grandpa. I offered them jobs with me, but they turned me down.
Patty and I used to do things together…
We took vacations once in a while, did some fun things. And we'd just spend time with each other at night, sometimes we'd have romantic dinners, candlelight, wine, all that jazz. Just enjoying each other's company. Way, way back when… we used to go dancing. I never could dance for shit, but she didn't care. Patty was a queen on the dance floor… sometimes I feel bad that I couldn't have been a better dancing partner for her.
Ever since she passed on, I've had nothing to do but work. Sometimes I would fall asleep behind my desk, and just wake up there the next morning.
"I… actually haven't had a whole lot of free time lately. But I guess I finally got some, coming here."
"You mean this hospital, or this 'world'?" Nurse Coldheart scoffs.
Me being an extra-dimensional being is not the easiest thing to believe, apparently.
"Both," I shrug.
Nurses Heartache and Rayne giggle a little bit.
"Oh," Coldheart complains, "look what the cat drug in." She looks over to her approaching coworker.
Nurse Redheart walks up to me.
"Can it Coldheart," she shoots back at her, barely even glancing her way.
The other two look uncomfortable at this display, their ears go a little flat, but they stay quiet. There's clearly some kind of tension going on between Redheart and Coldheart.
Redheart stops in front of me. She's holding something shiny in her mouth.
"I brought the… item you requested, Mr. Dane," she says with perfect clarity, despite having her teeth clenched on the metal thing.
She gently places it on my lap.
"I still don't know why you wanted this… but Dr. Sutures said I should supervise you… while you use it." She seems to be trying, unsuccessfully, to soften the tone of her voice for me, after giving that comeback to Coldheart.
I pick up the thing and examine it. "Oh, it's a razor! Finally… Thank you!"
A straight edge razor to be precise. Like from an old timey barber shop. Except it's all metal, even the handle. Obviously meant to look like a surgical instrument. I knew they'd have a razor somewhere around here, they have to shave fur to operate, right?
I wipe some moisture off the polished metal handle with my thumb. I look up to the white mare in front of me. Undoubtedly saliva. I carefully unfold the sharp tool and get a feel for it in my hand, Nurse Redheart takes a step back. Her and the others eyeball me precariously as I move the sharp instrument around.
I see this and quickly fold the blade into the handle.
"Well I guess you're waiting on me then?" I ask the white mare in front of me.
"Yep," she responds dryly.
I grab hold of my cane and make to get up. They took me off the IV, so I've had to substitute my cane for the short IV pole. Speaking of short, this wheelchair is short too, so getting up is a little bit of a challenge, but I manage to sort of rock my way out and up.
"Well, good day ladies. Nice talking to you." I wave goodbye and they wave back, and go on about their business.
After the long trek back to my room, and its bathroom, I quickly realize a small problem. The mirror, and sink for that matter, are quite low. I've managed to stoop down to wash my hands, but shaving is another story.
But before I can think too much about it, I hear a chair being scraped along the floor and into the bathroom.
"Thanks," I say to Redheart while positioning my posterior for placement.
What few chairs there are around here are also low, so sitting is more of a controlled fall for me.
Warming up to shave, I notice Nurse Redheart staring intently at me. She has taken a keen interest with several things about me, but she always keeps it brief. In the interest of professionalism, I suppose. I can't help but wonder if the doctor's order of supervision was just an excuse for her to watch me.
I turn on the hot water, and I open the blade and set it under the running water. I could feel Redheart's questioning gaze piercing my skin.
"It's something my dad told me… many, many years ago. 'You always want a hot blade, son.' "
I take the bar of soap, lather it up on my hands, and apply it to my relatively short, white beard. Now, I've never actually shaved with a straight edge before, but then again, I've never been in a universe inhabited by talking ponies before. First time for everything I guess.
Sadly, the sink doesn't have a drain plug, so I let the water run. I pick up the razor and very carefully start on my right cheek, holding my skin taught with my left hand, and I place the razor where I'd like to end my sideburns with my right.
One stroke in and Redheart pipes up, "Aren't you afraid you'll cut yourself?"
"Well, actually yes. I've never shaved with a straight-edge before, and there's a reason we call them cut-throat razors." I smile as I mimic slicing into my jugular, with a very generous distance between my neck and the blade, of course. I add a little squishy noise for effect.
She winces at the thought while I continue.
It took a while, and fortunately it went without incident.
"Why do you do this anyway? Shave the fur off your face?" Nurse Redheart innocently asks.
"It's not really fur, it's a beard. And it'll just keep getting longer if I don't. There was a time when I would've had a goatee, or a soul patch… but I'm too old for that now. Just a clean shave for me," I say as I dry off my face with a white towel.
"Hi Dane! …You look different," Twilight greets me as she enters my room.
"Yeah, I shaved my beard."
"Oh, that was a beard?" She ponders a bit, tapping her chin with a hoof. "So is it a cultural thing to shave it?"
"Eh… some cultures have certain facial hair styles. But not really, it's more of a personal preference for me."
"Interesting… Well I brought a friend with me!"
Said friend lethargically walks into the room.
Well, hellooooo Rainbow Dash.
That rainbow mane… it's like hair highlights, but not. Her colors do blend into each other a little bit. And yes, her mane is messy.
She looks slightly annoyed. Twilight probably dragged her away from a comfy cloud nap or something. But her eyes fill with curiosity when she gets a look at me.
"Wow, what the hay are you?!"
Twilight inserts her face into a hoof. "Have you listened to a word I've said for the past week?!"
"Nah, not really," Dash responds with a guilty smile.
"Ugh…"
"Nice to meet you too, Rainbow Dash. My name's Dane. I've heard so much about you…"
"Really?! I mean, uh, yeah, of course you have." She tilts her head up proudly, and puts on a smug smile.
And she flares her wings.
Wings. Glorious sky blue wings. I haven’t seen any pegasus wings in person yet. Fluttershy had hers tucked in the whole short time I saw her. And, come to think of it, none of the doctors or nurses are pegasi… at least I haven't seen any. Perhaps all the pegasus healthcare professionals work in Cloudsdale? I have seen a few patients… but they all shy away from me…
Back to her wings. They're… small. From a realistic standpoint, I mean, they're too small to lift something her size. But hell, I'm a different universe, one with magic. I think I'll have to throw away all my preconceived notions of reality. Sure, I've seen her wings in the Viewer, and they're actually a hair (or feather) bigger than they were in the show. It's just that, up close, in person, everything's different, and way more real.
Each (relatively) big primary feather is distinguishable, and some of them are… kind of beaten up actually. A couple of them have breaks in the… feathery part of the feather? I'm not exactly a bird expert. Anyway, most likely the result of over-use and crashing. I'm sure Rainbow Dash, of all pegasi, would preen regularly.
Right?
And she's got down! Her… uh… wing-pits are full of fluffy lighter-blue down feathers! I bet she'd be real ticklish there…
"So, um, what was your name again?"
"Dane." I smile a little more than I was already.
"Dane, right. What have you heard about me, exactly?" She playfully asks, holding a hoof out in question.
"Well, let's see… you're the fastest flier in Equestria…"
"Yep."
"Element of Loyalty…"
"Yeah."
"You like taking naps…"
"Hmm…"
"Apple cider…"
"Totally!"
"Daring Do…"
"Awwww yeah!"
"And long walks on the beach."
"Wait, what?"
"Huh?" Twilight pipes up.
"Just kidding!"
"Ha. You're a pretty funny, uh… whatever you are." She flicks a hoof in my direction.
"Human," I point out.
"Hey, you got claws!"
"Well, hands…"
She flies over to me. Her little wings move so much air, I have to close my eyes because of the dust she kicks up! She lands in front of Twilight, shoving her aside a little bit.
Dash leans on the edge of my bed and picks up my wrinkly old left hand in her sky blue hooves.
I try really hard not to start feeling her hooves.
"Five talons?"
"Fingers."
"Whatever!" She rolls her eyes. "What's with the gold ring?"
Ah… she noticed the gold band that's practically embedded in my finger.
"Oh, it's a… a wedding ring."
"Wedding ring? Like… like unicorns have?" She looks to Twilight for an answer, who just shrugs.
For once, she's not taking notes… and she looks a little out-of-it… hmm…
"So you're married?" Dash asks, still examining my hand, turning it around in her (actually very soft) hooves.
"Eh… widowed…" I sigh and glance down.
"Oh… um. I'm sorry." She gently places my hand on the bed and looks around nervously. She scratches the back of her neck.
"It's ok Dash… don't worry about it."
"So, um…" she nervously tries to change the subject, "where ya from?"
"Haha… a-whole-nother world, Dash."
"Whatdya mean a-whole-nother world? Are you an alien?!"
"I… kinda? I'm not from another planet-world. I'm from another dimension-world."
"Universe," Twilight casually corrects me.
"Another dimension? Wow, I didn't even… you know, think there were other dimensions! That's so cool!"
I nod with a smile at that thought.
"So why'd you come here? Was it an accident? Do we have to find a way to get you back?!" She flares her wings again.
"HELL no. I'm here to stay."
"Oh…" She looks intrigued by my choice of words. "Ok, that's cool. So why'd you come here then?"
"Ah… because you're so awesome…" I point a finger and wink at her.
She chuckles at that. "Yup, it's true!" She smiles smugly.
Twilight grumbles a bit.
"Hey, you're awesome, too, Twi!" I add defensively.
She giggles, "Well thanks! It's just that Rainbow here has trouble being humble sometimes…" Twilight glares at her friend, who merely shrugs in response, still smiling.
"Hey," Dash looks back to me, "it was nice talking to you, but I gotta get back to work. It's supposed to rain tonight!"
"Ah, that's ok. Work comes first, I understand." Weather duty… maybe she's on a lunch break or something?
"Alright then, I guess we'll be going. See you soon, Dane!" Twilight says as she makes for the door.
"Yeah, I'll see ya around!" Dash follows her friend out the door, but she stops at the door and turns back. "You know, you're pretty cool for an old guy!"
"Rainbow!" I hear Twilight yell from in the hallway, scolding her friend.
Dash makes a point of ignoring that.
"Thanks, Dashie."
She pops an eyebrow up at that name, but doesn't think much of it as she smirks and makes her way out.
On my way out of the bathroom, I spy a tiny, little, very light blue, down feather by the foot of my bed. I quickly look around to make sure nopony's watching.
I stoop down and pluck it from the floor.
Twirling it around in my fingers, I can't help but wonder…
I bring it to my face and it tickles my nose as I inhale…
Smells like…
Sweat… and body odor.
Ew.
"Dane?"
I open my eyes. It's dark in here.
"Who's there?"
"It's me, Twilight Sparkle."
I turn on the lamp on the bedside table and reach for my glasses.
"Come on in, Twi."
"I'm sorry to bother you so late…"
I look out the window and see nothing but darkness, except for the few rain drops quietly pitter-patter-ing on the glass.
"No, no, it's alright." I couldn't turn down a visit from her anyway.
I look over to her while she slowly treads towards me. But she's alone.
No Pinkie…
"Didn't bring a friend tonight?" I ask with a little smirk.
"Um, no… I was kind of hoping we could talk… privately…"
Oh, no…
I pull myself up a little in my bed. "Is this about the ponies in my world? Because–"
"No, no. It's not about that…"
Thank Celestia.
"And actually I talked with Applejack about that. We both understand, if ponies where you're from are not intelligent beings, then there's really no reason they can't be… pets." She doesn't look particularly happy saying this. "Some ponies have small monkeys as pets, so I guess it works both ways, right?" She looks up to me with a small, unsure smile.
"Besides," she continues, "she and I agreed not to mention that to anypony else…"
"Good, good. Probably for the best." I nod.
"So… what I actually wanted to talk to you about…" She trails off, looking down at the floor.
"Yes?"
"I just… I don't… how do you know so much about us?" She looks me with pleading eyes, staring me dead in the eye.
"Ah yes… that…"
"I know you told me you 'knew too much' about us… but… I'm sorry, I didn't completely believe that… at first… I thought you probably just heard of us. The stories about the Elements have spread even to the Griffon Kingdom. But… I do believe you are from another universe, and… if that's true, then how do you know all this?"
"I… I didn't mean to scare you or anything…"
"Oh no, I'm not scared, but I just… I don't know. It's the way you've talked to all my friends. You knew Rarity was a clothing designer. That didn't surprise me much, but then you knew that Rainbow likes apple cider… and taking naps… and that she's a fan of Daring Do. Those are not things anypony outside of Ponyville, and maybe Cloudsdale knows. And you talked to them, to me… like you know us. I've been trying to ignore all of this, trying to convince myself it's all just coincidence, but I just can't anymore. It's… it's eating away at me… I have to know!" She looks back up at me, her gaze shifting between my eyes, pleading for an answer.
As if she's searching for the truth in my very soul.
Thunder rumbles somewhere far away.
"Twi…"
"See! Even that!" She points an accusing hoof at me. "You're using a nickname that my friends use! Well, mostly Applejack, but still!"
"Twilight. I was planning on telling you sooner or later. Remember? I told you it was going to be hard to hear."
"You said it would be 'a hard pill to swallow.' And… I guess I am scared. Not of you. Just… what you're going to say."
I sigh and rub the bridge of my nose.
"You might want to sit down, Twi."
She telekinetically moves the chair by the door over to her behind, without so much as looking at it, and sits in it. She opts for more of a slightly curled-up laying position, rather than a on-her-haunches position.
I… practiced this speech. For years I did. I'm sure most of us had some version of it in our heads. This is what I would say, when she asks.
But now… it's all wrong. I can't say it, not like this. I'd sound like a jackass saying it the way I wanted to. I'd break her heart, or scare her away. I have to start from scratch.
And I would ask her if she's sure she wants to know, but… this is Twilight we're talking about here. Of course she wants to know.
"Do you want the long version or the short one?"
"The long one," she quickly replies, "tell me everything."
"Alright, Twi, but I have to warn you, you might not like what you're about to hear. But I swear to you, I swear to Celestia, it's the truth."
She nods hastily, eager to hear what I have to say.
I take a deep breath.
Where to begin? Where to begin…
"Do you like movies, Twilight?"
"What?" I caught her off guard with that one.
"Do you like movies?"
"Well, yes… I mean I usually prefer books, but I guess I do like movies."
"Ok, imagine everypony could have a box, with a screen, that would play movies for them, in their homes."
"Ohhhh… kay?" She looks thoroughly confused.
"Except it doesn't really play movies by itself, the movies are played somewhere else, and the box, we call a 'television' or 'TV' for short, could pick up those movies and show them to you as they're played."
"I'm not following," she says flatly.
"Bear with me…"
"No, I mean I'm really not following. How could you play movies somewhere else and see them on these 'teevees'?"
"Magic."
"Y- You said you don't have magic!" She points a shaky hoof at me.
"Haha, gotcha. We don't. Science and technology. That's how. The signals are sent by electromagnetic radio waves… bah, I'm getting off topic."
"No, please go on." She whips out her writing supplies again.
"No, Twilight, don't write this down."
"Oh, ok." She levitates the paper, pen, and ink out of sight.
"Twilight."
"Hmm?"
"Don't. Write. This."
"I'm not!"
"I can see the paper floating under your chair."
She grumbles.
"You might not want to anyway… after you hear the whole thing. If you want, I can explain the details later. Now, please?"
"Alright, fine." With a small flash, her note taking tools disappear.
"Where was I? Oh yes, TV. When you have a TV, movies aren't enough. Shows and news reports and documentaries are made just for them. The shows generally come in short, half hour episodes."
Here comes the fun part.
I sigh. "Have you ever been obsessed with something, Twi?"
Of course I already know the answer.
"…Yes," she meekly responds, still unsure about all this.
"There was one TV show…" I smirk. "It was wrong, you know, each show catered to a specific audience… and by all rights, I shouldn't have been in the audience for that one. None of us should have. But somehow… somehow it just… everything about it was right."
I look up to Twilight, her brow is furrowed, still contemplating what I'm saying.
I stare at her for a second, and think about how I should go about this.
Lighting flashes and thunder rumbles, much, much closer this time.
"Have you ever loved a story so much, Twilight, that you wanted to be IN it?"
Her expression softens.
"I did… and I wouldn't take 'no' for an answer."
I look at her again. I think she's getting it. Her eyes are darting around the room. She's clearly thinking about it.
"Don't be scared, Twilight. When we… finally got the Alternate Universe Viewer up and running… we saw so many universes… it really put things in perspective."
And by 'perspective' I mean I had a mental breakdown.
"When you see a copy of your world, of your whole existence, but with one tiny difference… you realize that you might exist just because somebody sneezed in another universe."
Oh shit, she's breathing too fast.
"Twilight? Twilight!"
I move close to her and gently pat her cheek.
"Twilight, look at me." I grab her chin and point her face towards mine. "You. Are. Real! This world is real, nothing can change the fact that you EXIST!"
She's definitely hyperventilating now and she starts to tremble.
"Good morning Twilight!" Spike greets the groggy unicorn as she struggles to open her eyes in the bright morning sunlight.
"Spike?" She asks, struggling to pick up her tired head.
"Good morning sleepy head," I greet her from my bed.
"Dane…? Wha- Where am I?" She asks, looking at me through only one half-lidded eye.
"You're in the hospital, Twilight," Spike bashfully answers, while twiddling his thumbs.
"Am I sick?" She asks, still a bit hazy.
"No, I don't think so. But Dane said…"
"NOTHING! Nothing, haha! You're perfectly fine!" Spike gives me a dirty look, and I return it with a threatening gaze.
"So…" Twilight manages to pull herself up a little in bed and rubs the sand out of her eyes with a foreleg. "What happened?"
About 10 hours ago…
"Holy shit… NURSE!!!"
A nightshift nurse, whose name I never got, practically crashes through the door.
"What's wrong?!"
"She's in shock! Get her a sedative or something!"
"Um," she quickly eyeballs the shaking ball of purple fur in the chair, "Ok!" She gallops out.
"Twilight! Look at me!" I slap her face.
Not that hard of course.
"You need to calm down!"
I try grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. It's no good, she's still trembling. Her eyes are darting around. And she's hyperventilating. Bad.
Thankfully it doesn't take long for the nurse to come back, with a dark gray unicorn doctor in tow. Doctor Scalpel, if I'm not mistaken. I know most of the doctors here, every time I got a check up, it was a different doctor, except for my surgeon, I saw him a lot. I'm pretty sure all those check-ups were an excuse for all of them to get a good look at the alien creature.
"What in the world is going on in here?!" the doctor asks. He spots Twilight trembling violently in my arms and hurries over.
The nurse has a syringe in her mouth, she gets next to Twilight's chair, but looks to the doctor for approval.
After briefly looking Twilight up and down, he gives a half-hearted nod to the nurse. She rears up and expertly manages the needle in her forehooves, tapping it, and depressing the syringe, spraying a few drops of the substance onto the floor. And all this while basically in mid-jump (or mid-rear?). She grabs it in her mouth again while falling back to all fours and, with a little flourish, she jabs the needle in one of Twilight's flanks.
Twilight flinches a little, in addition to her trembling, which slowly comes to a halt. Her darting eyes gradually lose focus and gently close as she drifts out of consciousness. I gently lay her head down.
The doctor levitates his stethoscope into place in his ears, and floats the listening part onto various positions on Twilight's chest. After he seems content with what he hears, he says, "It seems she had some kind of panic attack." He removes the stethoscope and drapes it over his neck. "Would you mind explaining what happened?" The doctor insists with an angry tone as he glares at me.
"Well I guess I can have that effect on mares…" Ack, there goes my old defense mechanism…
"That's not funny." He deadpans while the light blue nurse behind him stifles a giggle.
"Oh… I might have… sort of… you know… accidentally shattered her perception of reality…"
The doctor's eyes go wide for a moment, before he quickly regains his professional composure. "And how did you do that, exactly?"
"I told her the truth."
"What truth?"
"Ha," I huff, "You want me to tell you after how well she took it?" I gesture to Twilight.
"Yes, I suppose that might not be the best idea…"
"Doctor," the nurse pipes up, "should we move her to another room?"
"No, no," I interrupt, "Let her sleep here. Help me move her onto my bed, I'll take the other one."
"Hmph. I suppose it would be easier than getting a gurney at this time of night. Although I'm not exactly sure seeing you when she wakes up would be the best thing for her after what happened..."
We move Twilight off the chair and onto my bed. Surprisingly, the unicorn doctor does not use magic, and instead helps us manually move her. We get her nice and tucked in for the night.
"Hey doc, any chance you could send somepony to the library to tell Spike she's here?" I helpfully suggest. Don't wanna leave the poor guy wondering where she is all night.
"Yes, I'm sure we could do that. And how did she even get in here anyway? It's well past visiting hours…" he says, glancing out the window at the dark rainy night.
I look at it too. The rain lightly pitter-patters against the glass, beyond which is only darkness. This night is deprived of the soft glow of the Luna's moon and stars, shrouded by dark clouds. I always liked rainy nights like this…
We look back to each other and I shrug. "Magic?"
"Hmm… yes…" He nods. "Nurse, could you see to it that somepony is sent to the library?"
"Yes, doctor." She casually walks out of the room.
The doctor looks back to me. "I don't know what you told her…" he says in a low voice with a hint of anger in it. He brings a hoof to his face and lowers his spectacles on his snout. Glaring at me over his glasses, he continues, "but that was possibly one of the worst panic attacks I've ever seen. If I didn't know better, I might have thought she was having a seizure."
I can't help but avoid eye contact, and look away. This is my fault, one way or another. Maybe I shouldn't have told her…
I don't know.
She was already confused and troubled enough just wondering about it. What was I supposed to do? Lie? I have a feeling she'd be able to tell if I did. In fact, lying might have made it worse… She'd start to wonder even more about it, how bad the truth must be… if I had to lie about it.
No, she had to be told.
Maybe I can gloss over it with everypony else, but Twilight's too inquisitive… too smart for that.
"It is sometimes the case," the doctor continues, having regained his professional tone of voice, and he pushes his glasses back into place, "that the patient experiences a partial amnesia of their panic attack and its cause."
Well… Is that a good thing? I would probably have to tell her again… maybe I can try to break it to her a little more gently, at least?
"I would suggest that you refrain from mentioning anything you told her."
I look up at him and just nod in response.
"Well, good night." He cracks a small smile. "And try not to shatter any more realities while you're here…"
I give him a mock salute, to which he simply rolls his eyes and walks out the door, magically closing it behind him.
I'm just watching Twilight in her unconscious sleep, while I lie in this cold bed on the other side of the room. Sleep is not coming to me, my mind is too occupied.
I can't help but wonder if that conversation could have gone better. And what will I say to her when she wakes up?
She's on her side, facing me. Her face is so peaceful and her mouth is just a tiny bit open. She's adorable…
Tossing my thoughts aside for a moment, there is something else I've been wondering about for a while now.
Something about… pony anatomy.
She's drugged, there's no way she'd wake up…
This is my opportunity to see it up close.
Making up my mind, I sit on the edge of my bed and pull myself up with my cane. I hobble over to her bed and sit down. I just watch her breathe for a moment, her ribcage slowly rising and falling underneath the covers. I gently grab hold of the blanket covering her sleeping form, and carefully peel it away, exposing her beautiful lavender coat and her little forelegs, which are cutely scrunched up close to her chest.
My eyes slowly drift south… I lick my lips in anticipation.
Until I spot what I've waited 55 years to see up close…
Twilight's…
Cutie mark.
A real, genuine, magical, pony cutie mark. I lean over, lower my glasses on my nose, and get a real good close-up look.
Somehow, despite all the other imperfection and natural realism about the ponies that I've noticed up close, their cutie marks are the only things that seem to be… perfect. Too perfect. Almost fake. Dare I say… cartoony?
I know that they're part of their coats. So with my face mere inches away from Twilight's flank, I examine the fur that makes up the big six-pointed pink star. There's nothing abnormal about it, it looks the same as the rest of her coat, except pink. I look to an edge of the star, where pink ends in an unnatural perfectly straight border to lavender.
Hmm…
That's funny, looking really close, it seems that some strands of hair are two colors, both pink and purple. How the hell would a hair grow to be two different colors? I reach out a finger and gently brush the hairs I'm looking at…
Wow… They change colors when I move them! They're… it's…
Oh! I get it! Her fur doesn't make the cutie mark, that's not it! It's like… an image, projected onto her! Or rather, onto her fur. If I mat the fur on the border inside the star, it becomes pink. If I mat it the other way, it becomes purple again. And any strand caught halfway across the line will be half pink and half purple.
Her leg twitches a little from me brushing her fur this way and that with my fingers.
They don't just 'grow' cutie marks, the marks are magically projected onto their coats!
That certainly explains how they can just appear, and not need to grow out. It also explains how they look so damn perfect. I chuckle at my discovery and cover Twilight again, gently tucking her in.
My room's door bursts open, startling me a little bit, and a certain purple dragon hastily enters my room. He steals a glance at me for a split second, but quickly sees Twilight and runs up to her bedside, with his back to me.
Well hello there little dragon. Finally I get to see him up close and in person. Spike is a little bigger than I expected. He's just about-
He does a quick 180, hunched over a little, he glares daggers at me with his fists clenched. He jumps up onto my bed, straddles me, and mashes his face against mine!
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!" He demands, the fires of rage burning in his eyes.
And he holds a single, very sharp claw to my throat.
I gulp. "Nothing! I didn't do anything! I swear!" I wave my hands in the air defensively.
Baring his teeth at me, pointy fangs and all, Spike huffs and gray smoke blows out his nose and into my face, stinging my eyes. He presses that sharp claw into my throat's wrinkly flesh.
"I- I- I just told her the truth! A-And she freaked out! That's it!"
He squints his reptilian emerald eyes at me… and removes his claw. He backs up and jumps off me. And goes back to looking at his sleeping pony friend.
And I'm… panting again. My poor old heart is thumping in my chest.
A few moments pass as I lay in my bed, gasping for air. These ponies are gonna be the death of me.
"I'm sorry…" I hear Spike mutter.
Pant "Huh?" Pant
He turns back around and faces me. "Hey, uh, Dane right? Listen, I'm sorry about… you know…" He hangs his head in shame.
"It's…" pant "Ok…" I mean he did almost kill me in two different ways, but hell, I'd be that protective of Twilight too. She's practically his mother/sister/best friend, after all.
"I just… didn't know what happened," he shrugs, looking off to the side, at Twilight, "all they told me was that she was being kept overnight for 'observation'… and her being with… well… an alien, I guess I kinda…" He looks at me, "…jumped to conclusions…"
I'm starting to catch my breath again.
"I should have known," he shakes his head then looks back at the sleeping mare. "She's been acting funny all week, especially today. She was bound to have a major freak-out…" He stares at his feet, twisting one of them side to side on the floor. "So um… Are we cool?" He glances up at me with innocent puppy dog eyes.
"Yeah… we're cool." I offer the best forgiving smile I can muster in my current winded state.
Spike stands there, nervously twiddling his thumbs. Now he's a sight to see. And that's saying something considering how dark it is in here. He is a bit bigger than I expected, standing on two legs like he is now, he's about the same height as an adult pony standing on all fours, but that's including the spikes on his head, which are pretty big.
His purple scales are very much akin to lizard scales, small and round, like little bumps. They're shiny too, not a mirror shine, but more of a dull reflection. He has a few small clusters of scales that are a little bigger and flatter. His green spikes that run from the top of his head down along his back and tail appear to be devoid of scales, looking like very tough skin instead. The ones on his head move side to side a little bit when he moves, they're not perfectly rigid.
The spines on either side of his head are actually a lot more fleshy than anything else, they look soft even. And his soft green belly doesn't appear to have scales of any kind, it looks just like smooth skin.
"Nice to meet you by the way…" He finally pipes up, "…I'm Spike, Twilight's number one assistant!" He holds out his right claw, smiling unsurely, clearly wondering if I'd forgive and forget.
I'm somewhat reluctant about returning the gesture, given those sharp claws and my soft, fleshy hands. But I give in under the pretenses that he's making peace and that this may very well be my last actual handshake for the rest of my life. Thankfully, he's well aware of the issue and carefully grips my hand without me so much as feeling the points of his nails. I give him a good firm shake, he hesitates for a split second, but tightens his grip to match mine. He's probably not used to real handshakes, but it seems like he knows the basics.
Interesting, his scaly, but still soft, claw hand is quite cool. Cold blooded, are we? Or maybe he’s just cold because he walked here naked in the rain.
"Twilight's told me a lot about you," he adds.
"So do you always keep your claws that sharp?" I ask while wiping a drop of blood off my throat with a thumb.
"Heh heh… nah, just this one." He holds up his right index finger.
"Ah, just for threatening people then?"
"No…" He rolls his eyes, then he grumbles and looks away. "I mostly use it for…" He mumbles something.
"I'm sorry? You'll have to speak up sonny." I say in my best cliché old-man voice, holding a hand to my ear.
"Opening envelopes…" He grumbles and crosses his little arms.
"Uh, Dane? You were about to tell me why I was sleeping in a hospital bed?" Twilight reminds me.
Senior moment…
"Oh yeah… that… uh… you were… feeling kinda sleepy when you visited me last night… so you… slept! Here!"
"Last night…?" She looks me up and down, then around the room a little before realizing, "Wait a minute, why am I in your bed?"
"Because I… you were cold and I… kept it warm for you!"
"Spike, what's going on here?" She deadpans at her dragon friend.
"Beats me," He shrugs.
"Ughhh," she groans loudly and groggily gets out of bed. Her mane and tail are a mess. I guess the latter half of her slumber wasn't as peaceful as her drug-induced unconsciousness. "I'm going to freshen up." She wobbly steps her way into the bathroom and closes the door behind her.
"Spike." I motion a finger telling him to come closer.
He complies.
I whisper, "I thought we agreed not to mention anything…?" I squint at him.
"Hey, I didn't say anything…" He nonchalantly replies, shrugging.
"Well the doc said she might not remember, and if that's the case, I'd rather she didn't…"
"Why? I mean… you didn't exactly tell me what happened." He looks me dead in the eye.
"Look… what I told her… what she asked me… I didn't want to tell her. But it's a painful truth, and that's what made her flip out. Flip out big time."
"Big time, huh? I don't think you know Twilight that well, she's always freaking out about something..."
"Not like this, Spike. Trust me. So if you don't mind, I'd rather not remind her about it."
"Alright, sheesh, I get the point."
The bathroom door opens and Twilight walks out, looking fresh as a daisy.
"You two sure got to know each other fast… Dane, what happened to your neck?!" She asks, coming closer to inspect my injury.
Ah yes, my neck. Spike's claw left little more than a pin prick, but in my old age, I seem to bruise a lot easier than I used to. I run my fingers over the area, there is an almost quarter-sized bruise… hey… I feel my pulse here…
Spike looks up to me with an apologetic, guilt-ridden frown.
…My pulse. He had his claw right over my jug- Note to self: don't piss off Spike. Then again it might have just been a coincidence… how would he know where mine is anyway?
Right?
"Oh this? It's nothing, don't worry about it." I smile at the little dragon next to me.
Twilight's face says she knows I'm hiding something, but she decides not to press it. "Dane, can we talk? Maybe over breakfast?"
Oh great…
I look away, trying to decide how to respond… hey, my room's door is slightly ajar. That's funny, I didn't hear it open. I guess my hearing's going too.
"HI THERE!" A big blur of pink completely obscures my vision.
"AAAHHHHHH!!!"
"PINKIE!" Twilight yelling is the last thing I hear before I completely black out.
The rolling grassy fields on the outskirts of Ponyville are a gorgeous sight to see. Utter perfection in nature's splendor. I'd almost think that they keep the grass trimmed – it's so short – if it weren't for little daisies and buttercups dotting the landscape.
I head for a little splotch of red and white on the grass under a tree. A spot with the six coolest equines, and the coolest purple reptile, circled around it. A picnic with my friends. They are the only thing that breaks this expanse of nature's beauty.
Oh, sure, we had nature back home. But it was never this vibrant. Never this grand. And never this pure. What little greenery we had that wasn't carved and crafted by man and machine, beautiful in its own right, was still always somehow spoiled by humankind. A grassy meadow with a power plant off in the distance. A lush forest with an airliner flying above it. A sandy beach with a concrete wave-breaking wall off shore. Here in this field, there's nothing, no sign of civilization… for miles, as far as the eye can see!
"Isn't it beautiful, honey?" I turn and smile at my gorgeous wife. The love of my life.
She smiles warmly at me, and pulls me closer.
Beep.
Suddenly a hoarse, irritated voice answers from behind, "Oh… it's beautiful alright…"
Beep.
I turn and face the source...
Beep.
Tyler. Haggard and unshaven, Tyler. The one young scientist in my employ that might've actually looked up to me. The one who might've actually believed in what we were trying to do. Tyler, who I let down… who I betrayed.
I open my eyes. The brightness hurts, but I fight it.
"You're awake..." I hear.
I look around the blur before me and I barely make out a pink blob.
I close my eyes and fall into the soft embrace of sleep… But after what seems like only a minute, I gain some strength and wake once more. Fate, it seems, is not done with me yet. I don't remember what happened, but even though I can hear I'm on the heart monitor again, I quickly decide that I have not had another heart attack, judging by how lucid I'm starting to feel. Enough to open my eyes again and squint at the blur in the bright light.
Trying to reach over to the table for my glasses isn't too easy, but the pink blur decides to help me.
"Here, let me get that for you," she says in a mellow tone, soaked in sadness.
Next thing I know, the blur has her forelegs on either side of me and I see pony teeth holding my glasses coming out of the fog and towards my face. I close my eyes, and feel a brush of soft fur against my nose as she nudges my spectacles into place.
Opening my eyes again, they focus on Pinkie… well actually… Pinkamena.
The straight-maned pink pony is sitting on a chair next to my bed, very close to me, ears laid back, staring back at me with depressed and droopy eyes. With a closer look, I see her hair is not perfectly straight. It's hanging down, having no volume to it at all, but it's a little wavy and very frizzy. And her coat is dull, reflecting not a drop of the sunlight that's pouring in through the window.
I clear my throat and croak, "Hi."
"Hi," she responds quietly, looking down.
"So, um," I clear my throat again, "what happened?"
"I, um…" Suddenly the wall is very interesting to her, as she turns her head so I can't see her eyes. "…startled you."
Oh yes… I remember now. She managed to sneak up on me, and pulled a Pinkie.
"I'm sorry." She sniffles and rubs her nose with the back of a foreleg.
"It's ok, I'm not mad."
"But I am… I'm mad at myself…"
"I forgive you, Pinkie." I smile as best as I can in my weak state.
She whips her head around and locks eyes with me, giving me a death stare. "But how can you? I can't even forgive myself! All I wanted to do was sing you the welcome song and make you happy…" she sniffs, "give you a cupcake maybe… but noooOOOO, I had to be a big dumb meanie pants and… scare you…"
"I…"
"And you know what the worst part is? It wasn't even an accident! I mean, it kinda was… but Twilight knew I would do that. Why else would she take me to meet you last, out of all her friends? I begged and I pleaded with her to take me here so I could say 'welcome to our planet, Mr. Alien,' but she kept taking everypony else first… Fluttershy kinda made sense because she found you, then Applejack, because Twilight said you like apples for some reason, then Rarity, because she said you needed clothes, then when she picked Rainbow Dash, I knew something was up, because she didn't even say why she had to go before me. But I waited and I waited, until this morning-"
This morning? Thank Celestia, I've only been out for a few hours.
"-when Twilight was supposed to take me here, but she wasn't home, and neither was Spike, so I just walked over here by myself… And then I… I…" she sniffles and rubs her watering eyes with a foreleg. "I'm such a bad pony!" She wails and sobs, burying her head in the edge of my bed.
Poor Pinkie. She didn't mean it…
I reach over and gently stroke her mane. "You're not a bad pony, Pinkie, you didn't mean it."
She keeps her face mashed into my bed. "But… but I DID!sob I wanted sob to surprise you! sob I knew sob you were sob sick, but I sob was so excited that I sobFORGOT!"
"Pinkie… we all make mistakes… and bad choices. It’s how you deal with them that defines you. Come on now… cheer up." I pat her on the head.
She just stays there, still face down. Breathing raggedly from all this crying, sobbing occasionally between breaths.
"Hey Pinkie…" I lean closer. "If you cheer up, I'll let you…" pause for dramatic effect, "throw me a party!"
Her ears perk up. She sniffles some more and pulls her head up. Wow, she's a mess. Bloodshot eyes and her face is soaked in tears. And so is a very large spot on the edge of my bed.
"Really?" She brings up a leg to rub her eyes. "You'd let me throw you a party?"
"Pinkie, I worked my whole life to come here, I wouldn't miss a Pinkie Pie party for the world," I finish with an honest smile.
Huh, it just dawned on me: what I just said is quite literal. I really did give up my own world for such things…
"You… wouldn't?"
I shake my head 'no' with a reassuring smile.
"Are you… sure?"
I nod. "As long as it's not a surprise party," I tease, gently nudging her with an elbow.
That earns a tiny chuckle from her. But that weak smile turns into frown again.
"I still don't think I can forgive myself," she sniffles.
"Hey, if a crazy old alien can forgive you, of course you can forgive you."
"Do you really forgive me?"
"Of course! How could I stay mad at you? All you ever want to do is make ponies smile, right?"
She looks down and sniffles, her lower lip quivers and her sad eyes start welling up with tears again. "It's TRUE!!" she cries.
She surprises me by jumping onto my bed and burying me in a fluffy pink hug while loudly sobbing on my shoulder. After my initial shock, I hug her back and pat her gently on the back.
"There, there, Pinkie. It's ok, just let it all out…"
I hear the door click open, and Nurse Redheart pokes her head in.
I recognize her presence with a small nod. She merely examines the scene I'm in with a raised eyebrow, but a small smile quickly graces her lips before she backs out of the door frame, gently pulling the door closed again.
Pinkie cries her heart out on my shoulder, and I continue to comfort her.
I still can't quite wrap my head around the fact that I hugged Pinkie… It was a very tender moment, and the poor thing needed a hug right about then…
…But right now she's just being annoying.
"…And then she said I couldn't bring my welcome wagon in the hospital because it has explosives! I mean come on! They're just fireworks! They're not really…"
"Pinkie."
"…And the loud noises might wake the patients up, but it was in the morning! What kind of sleepy-heads are gonna miss breakfast?! It's the most important…"
"Pinkie."
"…Waffles and pancakes and fried hay and scrambled eggs and…"
"PINKIE!"
She blinks a few times at me. "Yes?"
"It's your turn."
"Oh! Sky five!"
Without even looking at the board… "Wow! You stung my bumblebee…" Pinkie's too good at this game. "How are you so good at this game?"
"I dunno!" She smiles innocently and shrugs.
Two soft knocks come from the door and it slowly opens, revealing a certain purple unicorn.
"Hi Dane, hi Pinkie." She looks curiously at Pinkie. "Well, you look a lot better, Pinkie."
Ah yes, she's become a lot more vibrant than earlier today…
"I KNOW! I feel SOOO much better now!"
…In more ways than one apparently. Not long after we broke our hug, the flat, lifeless strands of her mane poofed up to a big lively (and messy) bundle of pink curls on her head. Interestingly, her curls are rather small, her cotton candy mane almost looks like a big, messy pink afro. Almost. And her coat livened up too. Its healthy sheen now reflects tiny bits of the orange sunset filtering in through the window.
"And Daney-Waney here really helped me get me out of the dumps!"
I cringe at Pinkie's nickname for me.
"Not that I was really in a dump! That would be silly, it's just a metaphor! At least I think it's a metaphor…" She turns to me, "Was I in a dump?" she asks with her head cocked sideways.
"No, Pinkie. I'm pretty sure it's just a metaphor." I can't help but smile at her antics.
"So Dane," Twilight looks to me, clearly concerned, "the nurse told me you're doing fine, how do you feel?"
"Well for a guy that's had like five heart attacks since he got here? I'd say I'm doing pretty good."
"Good, good…" She responds in a neutral tone, my joke seemingly having gone right over her head. "Hey Pinkie, aren't you here a little late? Visiting hours are almost over…"
"Nurse Redheart said I could stay overnight if it was alright with Dane and Nurse Coldheart said I should probably be kept overnight for observation anyway! I wonder what she meant by that…?"
"I was kind of hoping to talk with you, Dane…"
"Actually, Twi, I need to talk to you too…"
"You do?"
"Yeah… if all is well, they're probably checking me out of here tomorrow, and, well, I don't exactly have a place to stay. I probably should have talked to you about this sooner…"
"You can stay at my place!" Twilight insists a little too fast, maybe hoping to beat Pinkie to the punch.
Pinkie does look a little down, "Aw…" she mumbles.
"Great! Thank you, Twi, This really means a lot to me. I uh… I-I'll try to repay you… somehow…"
"Oh, it won't be any problem at all, besides, I'd like to get to know you better." Twi manages a weak smile.
"Oh, would you…?" I wiggle my eyebrows.
Twilight shakes her head and nervously tries to correct herself, "W-What? No, I didn't mean it like that, I-"
Poor Twi, she looks pretty blue. So to speak. I mean, she's purple, after all. But my jest made no improvement to her mood…
I sigh. "I'm just teasing, Twi."
Pinkie's chortling into a hoof.
"Oh, right, of course…" She sighs and looks downtrodden. "I still want to talk to you though…"
Hmm… I wonder if she remembers what I told her last night. Maybe she did forget and she wants to ask me the same question all over again? Either way it'll probably be another disaster. I really need to think of a way to break it to her easier… I'll buy some time.
"Well I should get out of here tomorrow, we'll have plenty of time to talk then, right?" I offer with a smile.
At least we could be somewhere private. Maybe she'd be more comfortable and relaxed in the library anyway… She was so tense last night.
"Oh. Right. Sure." She nods slowly.
"I'm throwing him a party tomorrow!" Pinkie jumps into the air, throwing her forelegs up.
"But no surprises, right Pinkie?" I playfully ask.
"Right! No surprises! I promise!"
"Should be fun, right Twi?" I look around. "Twi? Huh. Where'd she go?"
Pinkie shrugs, "I dunno!"
Twilight's acting funny. Maybe she does remember after all… I'll have plenty of time to talk to her tomorrow, but I can only hope she doesn't start a riot until then…
"Hey Pinkie, it's still your turn."
"Tree two!"
Son of a… "You burned my phoenix…"
The next day…
"Say 'ahhhhh.' "
I comply and the standard over-grown popsicle stick touches my tongue and presses down, the magical field holding it tickles my tongue a little, a feeling that's kind of reminiscent of static electricity. Not the shock, but more like holding a statically-charged balloon against your skin.
Dr. Sutures, my main surgeon, is examining my throat with a penlight. He's an older stallion with an aqua green coat and a graying blue mane and tail. Nice fellow, almost always wearing a cheery little smile. Cutie mark of – you guessed it – a needle and thread making a stitch. It almost looks like someone was stitching up a cut on his flank and they left the needle hanging from the thread on it.
The wood stick lets off my tongue so I close my mouth.
"Alright, now let's listen to my work." He puts his stethoscope in his ears, levitates my hospital gown aside (totally invading my personal space), and he puts the–
"AH!" I jerk back a little.
"Sorry! Sorry! I forgot you haven't got a coat! Here…" He levitates the cold metal listening part to his mouth and breathes on it. He then places the less shockingly cold device to my chest. "See? I remember that trick you taught me." He looks away from me while he listens to my ticker, repositioning the stethoscope several times in between, and ordering me to breathe in certain ways.
He goes on to check my blood pressure, look in my ears, and other menial things like that. Thankfully, he doesn't grab my balls and ask me to cough… I'm not even entirely sure how that would work with hooves…
Satisfied with his work, he proclaims, "I think it's safe to set you loose. Just stay on the prescribed medications and we'll see you in a week for a checkup. Just relax until then, try to take it easy, and for Celestia's sake no more scares from your new friends! And after that we'll have to determine what kind of physical therapy would be best suited for a… stallion of your age, to improve your strength."
"Well, thanks for all the help Doc." I offer my hand for a shake.
"Pleasure was all mine." He puts his hoof in my hand and shakes. He pulls me closer. "You know, I'll be writing a paper on you, and they're having a big medical symposium at Canterlot University, they'll probably ask me to give a lecture!"
"Good for you! Glad I could help advance your career."
"Ha! I'm just a small town surgeon, I don't think that'll ever change. In fact I hope it doesn't. It'd just be nice to have some time in the spotlight, that's all. I like it here. Nice place, Ponyville. You're going to like it too. Sure, we've had more than our fair share of catastrophes, but everything always seems to work out in the end."
"So I've heard," I say with a smile.
"Well," he says as he hops off of his little doctor's stool, "I have to go make my rounds, but I should see you again before you leave. But just in case I don't: goodbye!"
"Goodbye, Doc. It's been good."
I'm finally getting out of here. Next stop, Ponyville!
I feel as giddy as a schoolgirl! I'm going to see the town, meet the ponies, go to Pinkie's party…
…I wish Patty could be here with me to enjoy this…
My eyes shoot open. Self check! Breathing: Little fast. Heart rate: Definitely still pumping. Pain: Nope.
Phew…
So why is my arm all…
What the…?
There appears to be a giant fluffy pink blob on top of my left arm. No wonder. How'd she even…? Wait. What the hell did I do last night…?
Last night…
"Pinkie, I'm pretty beat. I think I'm gonna hit the hay."
"Oki doki loki!" Pinkie bounces up from her sitting position on the floor and lands on the bed next to mine. She pulls the covers over herself in one swoop. "GOODNIGHT!"
"Uh… Goodnight, Pinkie…" I slip myself under the covers and reach over to turn off the table lamp next to me.
Wow, she's already snoring…
Yeah, that's what I thought! She went to sleep in the other bed.
But… this is kind of nice. Breathing softly and quietly, her slumber looks so peaceful. And she's so soft and warm…
Sniff
Mmm… sweet, but artificially so. Like cotton candy scented shampoo. I think I could get used to this. She's like a giant, heavy plushie that tempts me to snuggle while I fall back to sleep.
If only I didn't have to take a leak so bad!
I hear the door click open. A small wave of panic washes over me. This is a small bed! I'm practically spooning with Pinkie! I don't want anypony to see this! Nurse Redheart pokes her head in the room and…
Suddenly my old defense mechanism kicks in.
I look at the confused nurse through half-lidded eyes, crack a wry grin, and wiggle my eyebrows at her. Her expression changes from mildly confused to absolutely mortified in the blink of an eye and she quickly backpedals out the door and fumbles with the door handle before closing it rather harshly.
…I cannot believe I just did that.
Pinkie begins to stir. I try nudging her, maybe she'll move over or something. No luck. I try pulling my arm out from under her… dear Celestia, she's heavy! If I could just… wedge my other arm… ARGH… behind her back… HNNG…
THUD
"Pinkie!"
I look over the edge of the bed to see her still fast asleep on the floor, snoring quietly. She kinda just… rolled off. Oh well, she looks fine to me. It's Pinkie, she's practically made of rubber anyway.
Sitting at the edge of my bed, I shake my arm to get the blood flowing again and get rid of that annoying tingly-sleeping-limb sensation. With cane in hand, I rock myself to stand up, and head for the bathroom.
Flush
I hobble out of the bathroom and… Pinkie's off the floor and back on the bed somehow. My bed. Oh well, I'm taking hers then.
Dane…
Daney…
Daney-Waney…
My eyes flutter open. I blink a few times, trying to focus on the enormous grin with eyes right in front of my face.
"Mornin' Pinkie," I croak.
"GOOOOOD morning sleepyhead!"
I reach over to where the bedside table should be, I feel nothing but air. I turn over, about to look for the table on the other side, but my pink companion swiftly puts my glasses on my face, her snout briefly smushing up against my forehead in the process.
"Thanks…" I wipe my forehead with the back of a hand, her nose felt a little moist…
"Sooooo… how come you're in my bed?" She asks with a huge smile.
I scratch my head. "You hijacked mine…" I say, pointing over at my previous sleeping spot.
"No I didn't silly! I was in this one the whole night!"
"I… you were?" No she wasn't. Wait a second. Does that mean… "Pinkie, did you wake up… on this bed?" I point to the one I'm residing on for emphasis.
"Yeah-huh!"
"So I was sleeping in the same bed as you, when you woke up?"
"Yep! You sure were!"
She followed me back to this bed? What gives?! Oh, and great, now it looks like I jumped in bed with her. Just great. "Pinkie… I… but… you…"
"It's ok Daney! If you wanted to cuddle, you could've just asked! Duh!"
Could've just asked her…? To cuddle? As awesome as that sounds, it's kinda dirty… My face falls into my palm and I rub my temples with my thumb and index finger. "Dear Celestia I hope I didn't accidentally wind up in some clopfic universe," I mutter.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing Pinkie." I smile up at her.
She cocks her head sideways, looking at me, and says, "Ok…" Her trademark grin reappears in an instant though. "Now that you're awake, I have to go to work! Sorry I can't eat breakfast with you! Buh-bye!" She waves quickly and dashes out of the room, leaving the bed sheets waving in the wind from her wake.
Well. That was interesting.
"Well hello Miss Rarity," I happily greet the fashionista. "Now who might that be?" I crane my neck to look behind her.
"Why hello Mr. Dane!" She cheerfully greets me with an excited grin. "This is my sister, Sweetie Belle! I hope you don't mind her tagging along. You see, I'm watching her today." She moves aside, but her little sister sidesteps with her, remaining hidden behind Rarity's tail.
I can't help but smile.
"Now don't be shy Sweetie Belle, go on and say hello to Mr. Dane."
"Hi Sweetie Belle," I offer with a little wave.
"Hi," she greets me unsurely, not moving from cover.
Rarity looks at me apologetically, "I'm sorry, she's usually not like this."
"Oh it's no problem. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"
"Well, I bumped into Twilight this morning and she mentioned you were being checked out today. But I hadn't finished your new clothes yet! And I know you'd rather not go trotting around town in your birthday suit, so I thought I'd drop by and see how you look… innnnn…" she turns her head back to her saddle bags. Her horn glows as a couple folded garments float out of her bags. "…your new ensemble!" She sings.
"You finished it? That's excellent!"
"Well," she rolls her eyes, "almost. I'm not quite finished with a piece or two, but this should do the trick for now."
The clothes land in my lap, and I carefully pick them up to examine them. I grab the shirt first from its neatly folded position. Hang on, how would she even know how to fold a human shirt? Hmm, maybe it's not so different from a pony shirt. Anyway, the white cloth is soft and smooth, and the whole thing textured with tiny diamond shaped indents. Each speck of an indentation is blue inside… blue diamonds, her cutie mark. Figures. On the surface, it's a button-down dress shirt with a collar and cuffs. But the patterned material feels like flannel, soft and fluffy. The collar and cuffs are also made from the same material, they're not starch-stiff like the ordinary dress shirts I'm used to, although they almost looked like it at first glance. The buttons are each formed from a sparkling deep blue gem, perhaps a sapphire, diamond-shaped like her cutie mark, and set in gold.
"Nice buttons," I say, completely undermining their extravagance.
She giggles, "Oh yes, I was quite excited about that. I so rarely get to work with fasteners!"
Sweetie pipes up, "It's true!"
Rarity and I spend a second looking at the little filly, expecting her to say more, but she slowly scoots back to her hiding place. Am I really that frightening to her?
"…I suppose you wouldn't get to do buttons too often… It's a gorgeous shirt," I compliment while holding it up, admiring it. "And so soft too."
I lay it down next to me on the bed, and I pick up the (also suspiciously properly folded) pants by the waist and let them unfold and hang down. They seem to be some type of khakis, but a very pale peach color. Intricate swirly designs adorn each pant leg, a big S shape being the central part of the design. They designs are done in a dark brown color and they don't look overly gaudy, actually on the contrary, they look quite tasteful. Rubbing the fabric between a finger and thumb tells me this cloth is similar to the shirt, that sort-of flannel, that is probably going to be amazingly comfortable and warm. Yet, somehow, it still looks almost as smooth as silk on the outside, and even gives the appearance of well-pressed trousers.
Still, I think I might have preferred some good old fashioned blue jeans. Just out of sheer habit. I never did quite understand why jeans fell out of style in favor of red khakis, of all things… Kids these days.
These pants seem just like any old human pants as far as form goes. She must have copied my surgically-removed (shredded) blue jeans. Pockets, zipper fly, gold-and-sapphire button, loops for the belt that I never wore, the only things missing were the ass pockets. Which I never used anyway. She must have thought jean-style stitched-and-riveted ass pockets looked a little tacky on these fancy pants. Hehe. Fancy pants.
"These pants are magnificent. You even got all the details right."
"Well I did have your… ugh… denim pants to go off of. Is that dreadful material popular where you're from?" She asks incredulously.
"Well… it was, when I was younger. Everyone wore pants like those. Blue jeans, they're called."
"I don't see how anypony could consider denim to be fashionable… ahem… no offense." She blushes a bit, looks away, and bats her mane with a hoof.
"Hmm… well let's see…" I tap my chin in thought, "they were the pants of working men once. Now, if I remember right, and mind you this was way before my time, rebellious youngsters thought that wearing them would be… sort of… a sign of defiance against their parents or society or what have you. And well, they just stuck. Sometimes that's how fashion works, I guess…"
"Rebellious youngsters, you say?" She looks thoughtfully at Sweetie Belle behind her.
"What? I liked that fabric!" Sweetie replies.
I may have just started a new fashion trend in Equestria.
"Oh! I almost forgot, one last thing. Here." She levitates another, much smaller folded garment my way. I snatch it from the air. A plain white silk item, maybe a handkerchief, I unfold it, and… underwear. Briefs, just like my former undergarments. Stretchy elastic and all. Silk briefs.
As I ogle the silken briefs, my thoughts spill off my tongue, "Rarity, you are a saint!"
"Oh… well… heh heh…" She blushes and smiles guiltily. "Well? Aren't you going to try them on?"
"I uh…" I eyeball the little filly in the room.
Rarity sees this and politely asks of her sister, "Sweetie, be a dear and turn around will you?" She lowers her head to Sweetie's height, and whispers loudly enough for me to hear, "Mr. Dane doesn't like it when ponies watch him dress."
This, coming from the mare that didn't want Spike seeing her and her friends get dressed…
Sweetie turns to face away from me, and I guess there's no sense in asking Rarity to look away after what happened last time.
Silk underwear first (I'm not passing this up), one leg at a time. I rock myself off the bed to stand, and pull them up under my hospital gown, which, thankfully, prevents Rarity from seeing exactly what she's looking towards at the moment. Or maybe she's just curious about fit. Hmm.
And… oh Celestia… "these feel goooooood…"
"So, what exactly are those for? If you don't mind me asking. I know they're an undergarment, of course, but why wear them?" Rarity asks inquisitively.
I moan in pleasure as I sit back down on the edge of the bed, my ass caressed by pure, smooth silk. "They uh… they just keep everything in place, you know?" I gesture to my crotch. Although my question was rhetorical, I'm actually fairly certain she doesn't know, since I've had to see a pair of stallion balls bouncing away every time I've said 'goodbye' to a doctor.
I begin putting my new pants on.
"I see…" She looks confused for a moment, then thoughtful. She shakes her head, as if to clear her thoughts, and asks, "So how are you feeling Mr. Dane? All ready to leave this, ugh, bland hospital room and see the town?" She finishes with a smile.
"Well, that's what the doctors tell me," I reply with a wry smile.
"Oh, now don't be ridiculous. You look fit as a fiddle!"
I stand up and pull up my pants. They're a perfect fit. "Well considering I'm an 82 year old man who's transcended the very fabric of reality with an experimental portal… and then had a heart attack afterwards, I'd say I'm doing pretty good."
"Darling, you must tell me more about your, erm, world and how you got here. Maybe even a bit about the clothing your people wear," she slyly suggests with a wink. "Go on, put your shirt on." She gestures to the shirt laying on the bed.
Sitting back down, I gingerly lift off my hospital gown and reach for the shirt.
"Oh my."
"Hmm?"
"It's nothing dear, but I simply must have a word with these surgeons. It seems as though none of them could make a proper stitch to save their lives!"
I look down to the slowly healing vertical scar on my chest, and rub my fingers over the stitches. That's actual Equestrian thread in my skin. Sewn by an honest to goodness pony surgeon. Who performed actual surgery on my battered old human heart. They've done it since the beginning, but now, for the first time, a pony has quite literally touched my heart.
"It can't be that bad," Sweetie says, having turned back around to take a peek.
We both look at her again in anticipation, but to no avail, she turns away once more.
"You wanna see it, Sweetie Belle?" I ask, "Come on, I'm not gonna bite you." She turns her head back to glance at me. "Come 'ere, have a look." I motion with a finger for her to come over.
She reluctantly treads towards me, looking at the floor. When she reaches a comfortable distance she looks up at my chest and, "Ew, yuuuuuuck!"
"Sweetie Belle!" Rarity scolds.
"AHAHAhahahahahahaha! Ah ha! Ha… oh… ow. It's alright Rarity. It is a pretty bad stitch, isn't it Sweetie Belle?"
"Yeah! Even I could've told you that."
I smile at Sweetie, who seems to be warming up to me, if slowly. She's an adorable little thing, and looks so much like her sister. The family resemblance is plain to see in her face, she really could pass for a much younger Rarity, if not for her pink and purple locks and green eyes. Her coat doesn't share her sister's luster either, but to be fair, Rarity probably spends an awful lot of time grooming.
I lift my new shirt over my head, not even undoing the buttons, somewhat to Rarity's disappointment, I notice. I smooth out the garment over my chest and button the collar. I fumble with the cuff buttons for a moment. Always hated cuff buttons. Not that I wore dress shirts often. A blue haze engulfs the button I was tinkering with and it situates itself.
"Let me help you with that," she offers, now buttoning my other cuff.
"How do I look?" I hold my arms out to the sides, palms up.
"Absolutely ravishing darling!"
"You look smashing!"
"They're so comfortable, and beautiful too! Did you help your sister make these, Sweetie Belle?"
"Well um… just a tiny bit." She swirls a hoof around on the tile floor.
"You really have outdone yourself Rarity."
"Nonsense. I already told you, I'm happy to help. Besides, it's not every day I get to design something completely new. I do enjoy a challenge from time to time you know."
"A challenge? For you? Surely you must be thinking of somepony else." I smile and wink at her.
"Well usually she only makes dresses. For ponies," Sweetie flatly remarks.
"I've made a tuxedo or two in the past," Rarity says more to me than to her sister. "Well, I'd love to stay for more flattery from you, Mr. Dane, but I'm afraid that will have to wait, I simply must get back to work! I do have a few orders to fill today."
"Perfectly understandable, I know what it's like to run a business. You two go on ahead now, I'll see you later. And thank you once again for these spectacular clothes, Rarity, I… they're… fabulous. I really can't thank you enough."
"It's no problem at all! Well, goodbye Mr. Dane!" She starts walking out. "Come along Sweetie Belle."
"Bye Mr. Dane." The little filly bids me farewell with a small, but sincere smile on her face.
Rarity suddenly turns around. "Oh, I forgot to mention, I should have the rest of your ensemble completed in time for the party tonight. Ta-ta!"
"Goodbye ladies!"
That's right… Party tonight…
I come out of the bathroom and see a strange new pony sitting on the previously-vacant bed in my room. Dark gray coat, white mane and tail, and yet, ridiculously colorful for the grayscale earth pony he is.
"What happened to you son? Ya get in a fight with a paintbrush and lose?" I ask as I hobble over to my own bed.
Different colors splotch up on each of his hooves, as if he trotted through paint buckets, and more on his flanks, ears, tail, muzzle, and mane.
Looking mildly insulted by my greeting, he dryly responds, "Oh. So you're the 'human,' " he says with an air quotes gesture. "And what happened to you old timer? Get in a fight with time and lose?"
I give him my best old man grumble. He looks like some kid's terrible original character. I damn well better not be stuck in the universe of some shitty self-insert fanfiction. Get the hell out of here kid, this is my universe now.
"Heart attack," I finally grumble in response.
For a moment, he looks apologetic. He then lays down and rolls over on the bed to face away from me. Hmm… He has a painter's palette for a cutie mark. Maybe he really did get in a fight with a paintbrush…
"Hi Twilight!"
"Hi," she greets me, lacking any of the cheer and happiness that I'd usually expect from her.
"Are you here to pick me up? I'm cleared to leave and ready to go."
"Yeah… that's why I'm here." She looks at the floor and around the room, seemingly anywhere but me.
"Well gee, I could always stay here a little longer if you'd like…"
"I'm sorry Dane, I didn't mean it like that."
"Oh, I'm just teasing, Twi. Cheer up! We're finally going to have some time to talk, just you and me!"
"Yeah… right… you and me."
"Aren't you the least bit fascinated by all the cool stories I have about my world?" I suggest while giving her my best jazz hands.
Her ears perk up a tiny bit, her eyebrows raise in interest, and she gives a small nod of affirmation. "Yes, actually." She looks up to me, "I am."
"Well then! What do ya say we get going then?" I push myself off the bed with some effort.
She nods again, listlessly, and heads for the door.
Suddenly, my roommate finishes taking his dump and exits the bathroom. A brief moment of silence ensues as we all look at each other.
Twilight speaks first, "Oh. You have a roommate now?"
"Uh, heh heh. Yeah. New roommate. Twilight. Twilight. New roommate. Ok, let's go!" I shuffle closer to Twilight, attempting to guide her out the door and away from this would-be main character.
"Hey, wait. Aren’t you the Element of Magic?" Painter-colt asks.
"Yes. I am," Twilight answers in a neutral tone, not too strange, given she's a little down in the dumps at the moment. I really need to talk to her and smooth this whole thing out.
"Sorry kid, we really gotta get going. C'mon Twi, we got stuff to talk about, remember?" My universe now, pal.
"Yeah. Sorry, maybe we'll meet again later," Twi admits apologetically.
I finally nudge Twilight out the door, and just as I walk through…
"Where do you think you're going?" Nurse Redheart stands in our way, with a wheelchair at her side, and a cheeky smile on her mug. "Go on, in the chair. Hospital policy. Besides, I don't need you falling over and breaking a hip just to be stuck in that bed for another week."
"I was going to ask, you know…" I smile back at her while I manage a controlled fall into the short wheelchair.
The white nurse takes the liberty of pushing me down the hall, with Twilight walking at my side.
I turn my head to look at Redheart, who's pushing the wheelchair with her forehooves, walking only with her hind legs. "Nurse Redheart… about this morning..."
"Oh, don't worry about it sugar."
"I just don't want you to get the wrong idea…"
"Honey, I don't have any idea at all. That mare just does strange things sometimes."
Sigh
"What are you two talking about?" Twilight asks curiously.
"Pinkie."
"Pinkie."
"Never mind," Twi replies, and puts her focus back on walking.
Hearing too many hoofsteps behind me, I decide to take a look and I find Nurses Heartache and Rayne are following us. "Well hello ladies," I greet them with a little smirk.
"Hello Mr. Dane," Rayne happily greets me.
"All ready to check out?" Heartache asks.
"Yes… I quite think I am."
We all pile into an elevator. The doors close and some quiet smooth jazz fills the otherwise silent ride down. When the doors open, more familiar faces greet me. Dr. Sutures with his ever-present cheery smile. Dr. Monitor, who looks at me through his small spectacles with his know-it-all smirk. Dr. Stable (the only earth pony doctor I know of) gives me a weak smile that's betrayed by his arrogant eyes. Dr. Care wears a soft professional smile to match her demeanor. And Dr. Scalpel fights back a happy grin so as not to harm his stoic and serious image. Nurse Coldheart joins us as well, cheerful but keeping her distance from the mare pushing me. Even my anesthesiologist is here, a perky, skinny earth colt, who found a perverse enjoyment in anesthetizing a strange new creature.
The cacophony of hoofsteps fades to silence as we all draw to a halt in a warmly lit and very earthy colored reception room. Several potted plants and colorful paintings decorate the place, it's a stark contrast from the bland hallways and rooms. And a single gray stallion is sitting on a bench, reading a magazine. He stares at me, and the veritable brigade of medical staff surrounding me.
I'm wheeled up next to the receptionist's desk and the dusty brown mare behind the desk nudges a clipboard over to me.
"I just need you to sign at the bottom, please," she says with a warm, if slightly unsure, smile.
I take the available quill and give it a quick dip in the nearby inkpot. I gently scratch my signature onto the paper. Before placing the quill down, I rub my fingers on it and feel several indentations. Bite marks, no doubt.
"Thank you!" the receptionist says as she takes the clipboard.
As I turn back, a paper bag drops into my lap. Courtesy of the pharmacist, who has the most ridiculous name. Annie Histamine. Nice mare though.
"Here you go Mr. Dane. Now remember, twice daily on the red ones, one every morning on the white ones, three times daily on the big ones."
"Thanks Annie."
She merely smiles warmly in response.
I take a good look at the two doors between me and the outside world. Radiant sunshine pours in through the glass panes of the doors, making little dust motes sparkle in the air. The light is so bright, I can't even see outside. My heart patters faster in my chest, and I get all jittery with excitement.
I take a deep breath, point my cane valiantly in the doors' direction, and command, "Onward!"
The white mare behind me takes the initiative and leads the charge with my wheelchair. The double doors slide open automatically and I close my eyes from the brightness.
My face is awash with light, gently warming my skin. I hear the rustle of leaves as a breeze blows through the trees. An avian symphony of chirps and tweets graces my ears. I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding, and replace it with fresh, crisp springtime air.
Opening my eyes, the first thing I see is the long and winding path to town. Two young pegasi are flying above, laughing and chasing each other in some game. It's becoming hard to see… my eyes are welling up.
All of a sudden, from my peripheral vision, five mares come into view.
"Hi Daney! We came by to walk you to town and show you around!" Pinkie proclaims as she bounces in place.
I bring a hand to my face, pushing my glasses up to rub my eyes. I last only a moment longer before I break down into sobs.
Several hooves pat me gently on the back and arms, trying to comfort me. It works, and I cry even harder…
Tears of joy. Tears of grief. Of heartache, happiness, love, and loss. Of guilt and shame. Tears for my wife. Tears for myself. Tears for my friends. Tears for an impossible goal accomplished… A battle hard fought and won… Tears for all those I've let down… for those I've betrayed…
'With enough energy, you could rip a hole in the fabric of reality.'
A simple enough idea and an equally simple phrase, yet it rang aloud in my head. I'm a man who believes anything is possible. Anything at all. The laws of physics be damned, they were written by people, by humans. Imperfect beings who could not possibly see the whole picture. Theories, very good and very accurate, supported by good evidence, but theories nonetheless. An educated guess, effectively.
As I sat there, staring blankly at my computer screen, the idea snowballed inside my young and thoughtful mind. More ideas were tacked onto it, sucked into it, rolled up all into one giant idea. And question after question popped up, too. Eventually half of my brain started playing the pessimist. All the laws of physics would say 'no,' Einstein would say 'no,' we don't even know if the multiverse theory is correct, and even if it was and we could, we would need an impossible amount of energy to do it.
After who knows how long of both sides of me fighting with each other tooth and nail, the pessimist had beaten the optimist to a bloody pulp. But then, in his darkest moment, when things looked the most grim, came a tiny ray of light. A beacon of hope. A new weapon that the optimist could wield in his defense of the terrible pessimist.
A simple memory, obscured by only a few years' time. A bit of actual knowledge, a rarity from my brief tenure in college. Something my chemistry professor once said.
"What's wrong with this reaction class? Hmm? That's right, it defies a law of physics."
At the time, my mind was blown. I don't remember what reaction it was, or what law it was. But what I thought was an infallible law, and unbreakable wall, was, well, broken. Proven by experimentation. So I thought, the 'laws' were actually just our best guesses, not stone, but fluid. Constantly being altered and added to. But if even one could be broken, who says the others couldn't at least be bent?! And so the optimist stood tall with renewed vigor, and cut down his opponent with every weapon he had at hand.
"Laws of physics…"
"Imperfect!"
"Other dimensions cannot exist…"
"Unknown!"
"Not enough energy…"
"We'll engineer a way around it!"
After all, why couldn't we do it? Humanity has had a long and winding history of performing the impossible, and we do it almost on a daily basis.
We built monumental pyramids without iron tools.
We built ships and sailed across vast oceans.
We built aircrafts and conquered the sky.
We have weapons that can wipe an entire city off the map.
We construct buildings so tall they touch the sky.
We can travel the circumference of the Earth in less than a day.
We have perfected nuclear fission to the point of being able to reactivate dead radioactive cores, providing nearly unlimited energy recycling.
We can use light, fucking light, to send information anywhere we want instantaneously with the lightest of touches on a pane of glass.
We defied the restricting forces of our own planet and sent astronauts all the way to the moon.
We built a thinking machine, then sent it into outer space to tell us about another planet... twice.
We have gazed upon the structures of other galaxies around us.
We have looked straight into the black hole in the middle of our galaxy.
WE CAN CREATE LIFE!
Where there's a will, there's a way. That's the genius of the human mind. We don't limit ourselves to what we have. When we want something more, we reach out and take it.
So I reached out, and grabbed my cell phone.
"Hey Bob, it's Dane."
"Argh… It's two in the fucking morning!"
I glanced at the wall clock. "Oh shit, I'm sorry man!" I really lost track of time while I was thinking."
"Yeah, yeah, fuck you." He yawned. "Whatcha need?" He said in a tired and gravelly voice.
"Hey, uh, don't you know a physicist?"
"…Yeah."
"Can I have his number?"
"It's a 'she' actually, her name's Julie."
"Is she hot?"
"…"
"You know what, never mind."
"She's married anyway, hang on, I'll get you her number. Ok, it's 555-555-5555, ya got that?"
"Wait, 55…55?"
"Yeah, please tell me you're not gonna call her at this time of night…"
"No, of course not! Don't be ridiculous. Thanks buddy!"
"Go fuck yourself with the pointy end of a rake, Dane."
"Will do, toodle-oo!"
I hung up and immediately dialed Julie's number. It went straight to her voice mail, so I decided to call her in the morning.
There I was, sat at a table with Julie the physicist. I was all jittered-up on coffee because I hadn't slept at all the previous night. She agreed to talk to me over lunch, but only after I made a few exaggerated claims about a new age of physics and the like. I had been losing her ever since she found out I had more questions for her than she did for me.
"...well that's because Einstein's theories are supported by a ton of physical evidence, you know," she said with a snarky tone, as she took a bite of her tuna sandwich on whole grain bread.
"They're called theories for a reason, why would you automatically accept them as fact?"
"Yeah, ‘theory,’ not ‘hypothesis.’ The difference is that one is supported by evidence. You know, by actual science?"
"But just because they hold true for some things, doesn't mean they will for everything. At the end of the day, a theory is just a theory. To accept it as 100% fact is just… ignorant, I'm sorry to say it that way, but it is."
She stopped mid-chew and glared at me for a few painful seconds, then swallowed and continued, "Well like I said, they hold up under any experiment." She finished by giving me the stink eye.
"But we aren't capable of pushing those experiments farther. We're limited by technology, aren't we? And what kind of scientist says to himself 'No, I can't push the boundaries of human knowledge because everybody tells me I can't.' Does that sound right to you?"
"Ugh…" She was thoroughly done with me right then. She even grabbed her purse in the motions of getting up and walking away.
"I-If you look into this and it leads to a discovery, you could be famous!" I desperately attempted to change her mind.
She took a final swig of her latté and slammed the paper cup down on the table in a manner of finality, she was done with it. And me.
"Aren't you even the least bit curious that any of the crap I've been talking about could be done?"
She pushed herself up out of her chair with a hand on the table.
"Don't you even want to know? Where's your scientific curiosity?"
I don’t know what happened. But right then, something I said struck a chord in her. She stood stock still, frozen in the motion of getting up to leave. Julie stared at the hand she had placed on the table, on her ring finger was a simple gold wedding band with three tiny diamonds set into it.
She sat back down and leaned her face into her palm, sitting like that for several seconds.
"I… guess I see your point about pushing the boundaries. I still don't think it's possible…" she looked me in the eye, "…but I suppose… that's the point of experimenting, isn't it?"
"THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!" I clapped my hands together in excitement.
"I'm going to regret this, but what now?" She asked, looking utterly defeated.
"Ok, so, we need to rip a hole," I demonstrated with hand gestures, "in the wall separating our reality from other dimensions!"
She sighed dejectedly and put her face in the palm of her hand. "Jesus. You're insane."
Two years later…
"Why are you science-y types so adamant about your laws of physics anyway?" I asked Julie who was sat across the table from me.
"Um, maybe because it's all we know? They define our entire world and everything in it, everything we know is governed by those laws. Take them away and you destroy our notions of reality, all that's left is chaos." She smiled. "It's kind of a frightening concept, to be honest," she giggled at her response. She knew damn well that she had helped start the fire that would bring that frightening concept to life.
Bob said, "Chaos, huh? Well Newton can kiss Discord's ass!"
Everyone around the table laughed.
"You bronies, I swear," Julie shook her head, "you're all nuts."
"What do you mean, 'you bronies'? You watch it too!" I accused.
"Yeah, but just because you jerks got me addicted. I'm a victim of circumstance," she insisted, feigning innocence.
John, another physicist we found, leaned over the table, looking at Julie with a sly grin. "You know, you never did tell us who's your favorite…"
Everyone looked to her with bated breath. She rolled her eyes. "I guess if I had to pick one, it'd be Rarity…"
"Fluttershy is best pony," Bob quickly stated.
"Vinyl Scratch," Mick said.
"Gil~da," Eve sang.
"Spike!" John proclaimed.
"Come on guys. Everyone knows that one does not simply pick a favorite pony!" I stated with appropriate hand gesture, true to the meme.
"Oh please, Dane…" Eve protested. She was an enthusiastic physics student, at the time.
The waitress brought out our drinks.
"Guys, how 'bout a toast." I held up my bottle of Miller. "To the theory!"
"TO THE THEORY!" They all said together, raising their bottles and glasses up high, and clanging them together in a toast to our finished product.
It was little more than a pile of paper at the time. But we were all confident that it was a polished product. A theory with very few holes in it. Something that, although outlandish on the surface, could be taken seriously if it was read and understood. Not accepted – hah! – but taken seriously.
Julie sighed. "You do realize that it's not an actual 'theory' until there is factual evidence to support it. It's currently only a hypothesis and not even a particularly good one."
"Yeah, like I said, a theory," I answered.
"Why do I even bother… you know, I really liked working on this with you guys, but you do realize that this will never make it through peer review, right Dane?"
"Who the hell said anything about peer review? Hah! I'm not gonna let a bunch of real scientists walk all over our Theory."
"I hate you so much right now."
"Well," Mick spoke up. He was a quiet guy, but a damn genius. "If the Theory is ready, what do we do now?"
"Don't worry Mick, I know a few people."
"Well the 'Theory' is ready then. Looks like you got your wish, Dane," Julie said.
"Heh… not my whole wish…"
"Are you alright Dane?" Fluttershy asks me with the cutest, most adorable look of concern in her eyes, and a hoof gently placed upon my knee.
I sniffle a couple times and nod, smiling under bittersweet tears.
The ride into town is peaceful and quiet. I'll assume that witnessing a wrinkly old alien crying maybe… sort of… killed any conversation that might have occurred. I don't mind though. I'm just enjoying being under Celestia's warm sun and breathing in the fresh air after being cooped in that sterile hospital for so long, even if the wheelchair ride is a bit bumpy along this dirt road. I'm not complaining, in fact, I'm savoring every moment.
My lovely escorts keep a leisurely pace, taking turns pushing me down the path to Ponyville. Humble suburban houses pass us by; green, well-kempt lawns and white picket fences. Twilight still looks distant, I'll really need to talk to her as soon as possible. It seems like her friends haven't really noticed, or maybe they're merely shrugging off her mood as something that will pass. The rest of them look merry enough, with the possible exception of Rainbow Dash. She's lazily flapping along, her head and hooves dangling in the air as she moves, looking bored as all hell.
Very few ponies are milling about out here… look! That powder blue earth pony is mowing his lawn with one of those old fashioned push mowers! He takes a break from his chore to watch us pass. He wipes the sweat from his brow, and runs a hoof through his salt and pepper mane. This stallion is not too sure what to make of what he's seeing, but he's still very passive about it. Further down the road, we get a few weird looks, but nothing too bad. It's a huge relief to know that I'm not frightening anypony. Then again, word of my existence has probably spread around the whole town by now.
Oh hey look, it's Time Turner, er, Dr. Whooves, the local watchmaker– wait a minute. I don't recall if we ever actually cataloged him as one of the confirmed ponies in this town. Hm. Well anyhow, he's just casually sitting in the shade beneath a tree next to the road.
He greets us with a casual wave as we pass by. "Afternoon ladies."
A slight British (Trottingham? –ish?) accent is obvious in his voice. And what's this? He's not looking at me funny. Not by a long shot. In fact, he's locked eyes with me and he's smiling as if-
He winks at me.
He winked at me! The kind of wink that signifies an unspoken truth, a secret perhaps, shared between two people. Something that only the two of us, two entirely different beings from two entirely different worlds, are privy to.
This can mean only one thing!
The unassuming, spiky-haired, hourglass cutie mark, chestnut stallion is the real, genuine, actual time lord!
Oh no! That also means he must know what I did! I mean, ripping open a hole between dimensions is probably some horrible atrocity that'll bring about the apocalypse! Or… alter a fixed point in time… or… maybe weaken the walls of this dimension and… cyberponies will try to take over Equestria? Or something… like that. Daleks? I dunno.
I glance back at him just as we pass him by. He's still smiling warmly and gently, eyes locked with mine once more. Smiling. Definitely smiling at me specifically. Like the cat that ate the canary. He knows something. And he knows I know something. Well, whatever I did can't be all that bad, given that he's not scowling at me in his silent time lord rage. If there's a problem, I'm sure the good doctor will let me know about it in due time.
But hey, he's the damn Doctor! Maybe he'll let me see his blue box!
This is so exciting! I've spent decades learning, memorizing, scrutinizing every detail about every little scrap of information we collected from this world, and despite that, it can still surprise me! I have a strange craving for excitement right now. I'm in Ponyville for crying out loud! This is it, I'm living the dream! I want to do something… risky. Foolish. Stupid. Something that'll make me feel young again!
I turn to my left, where the rainbow pegasus is suspended limply in the air by her barely-flapping wings. "Hey Dashie!" I snap her out of her boredom trance and she lazily lifts her head to meet my gaze. "I bet you can't push me into town in ten seconds flat!"
She perks up instantly. "Is that a challenge?!" She puffs out her chest and puts her forehooves on her sides.
"You bet your flank it is!" I retort, with a little shake of my cane in her direction.
"You're ON!" She narrows her eyes and points a hoof at me.
Dashie zips behind me and rips the wheelchair out of Twilight's magical grip, much to her dismay.
"Rainbow what're you-"
"I hope you're ready for a ride, old timer!" She says right into my ear as I hear her wings starting to flap rapidly.
Her head is right next to mine, she's taking a firm grip of the chair handles in her forelegs. I clutch the armrests of the chair and try to steady my breathing. Suddenly the landscape in front of me is rapidly approaching! The rest of the girls start yelling incomprehensible pleas, and neither of us care as they fade out behind us. We're flying into town! Literally I think! The dirt road whizzes beneath me but I'm not being jostled by any of the bumps!
Dashie breathes heavily into my ear, the regulated breathing of a true athlete. I might happen to lean just a little bit closer to her…
Everything becomes a big blur all around me, I can't even focus my vision looking forward, we're going around so many curves anyway, nothing's staying straight. My stomach becomes unsettled, it groans and gripes at me, feels sour, threatens to upchuck my lunch. My eyes water from the wind, I think I caught a bug in my teeth, and a sharp pain rings in my ears from all the air passing by.
But damn. I feel alive.
For the first time since… Celestia, I don't even know how long it's been…
Pony suburbia is left in our dust. Bigger buildings packed closer together start whizzing past us. The wind, blowing through what's left of my hair, gradually slows and an all-too-familiar big round building slowly comes into view up ahead. I hear Dashie's wings stop flapping altogether as she glides us to a halt right in front of town hall.
She zips over in front of me, smugly hovering in mid air with her forelegs out to the sides, as if to display town hall. "Ten. Seconds. Flat." She crosses her forelegs, smiling at me like she just won a bet.
I try to catch my breath, "It… sure… was!"
"Y'know, you're pretty cool for an old timer," she smirks at me.
Rainbow alights on the dirt road and casually looks around, seemingly impatient that her friends are running so far behind us. Our little joy ride, awesome as it was, hasn't left me too worse for wear, my breath comes back quickly, and my stomach starts to settle. I can take a moment to look around while Dashie impatiently taps a hoof on the ground, then checks a nonexistent watch on her wrist.
Of course, the imposing figure of town hall looms over me. A perfectly round wooden structure, its quality craftsponyship and attention to detail are obvious even from a distance. Artful designs are carved into every wood trimming on the place, and the paint renders the whole thing bright and colorful.
A look around reminds me that town hall sports some unique architecture in this neighborhood. The rest of the buildings are far more organic in their shapes, Tudor in design, and almost universally capped with thatched roofs. I wonder if ponies ever get the urge to nibble on a roof...
It's almost a little disorienting being around such organic shapes. I feel like I'm used to everything being perfectly square. Sure, I've been cooped up for a couple weeks in a hospital where the only thing that wasn't square was a few patterns painted on the walls, but back in my home world, for as long as I can remember, every inch of civilization was… square. Concrete blocks, glass walls, the best thing you could hope for to break the uniformity, the unending monotony, was perhaps a wall sitting at an odd angle. A wall of a building that's curved into a cylindrical shape. That's about it. These buildings, well aside from town hall anyhow, seem so natural. They look as if they've grown out of the ground itself, rather than being constructed on top of it. Seeing these houses that aren't perfectly in line with each other, that have bending roofs and curved walls, abstract shapes… it feels… odd. A good kind of odd though. A refreshing odd. I'll have to ask Twilight about the whimsical architecture some time.
I hear hooves galloping behind me.
I turn around in my wheelchair and see familiar faces running my way. Twilight messily skids to a halt next to me.
"Dane…" she's out of breath, "are you alright?"
"Never better!" I gleefully respond with a slight shrug.
Rarity gracefully trots up on the other side. "Rainbow that was terribly irresponsible of you."
"Hey, he asked me to!" Dashie defends herself, pointing the blame at me with a hoof.
"Ya got me," I admit with a sly smirk, "I sure did."
"Hmph, now I'm all sweaty. I'll have to take a bath before the party," Rarity complains, not whines.
"Hey Twilight, since you're here," I look to the poor pooped-out purple pony whose tongue is hanging out of her mouth as she tries to catch her breath after that sprint, "Why exactly are most of the houses in Ponyville so… not square? Is it just an architectural style, or…?"
She gives me the most confused look of confusion I've seen in quite a long time, that question must look like it came totally out of left field. "Wha…? I… uh…" She scratches her head and looks at the ground in thought. "Something about there being very little straight timber in the forest? I think? Where did that question come from anyway?"
"Oh, you know, I just had a lot of time to admire the scenery while you gals were catching up to us, right Rainbow?" I turn and wink at Rainbow.
She chuckles, "Yeah, what took ya?"
"Well what with Dash's little stunt, I reckon we got some time to show Dane around town now," AJ remarks with a little smirk.
"Oh good, let's stop by Carousel Boutique then, shall we?"
"OOOH! Let's show him Sugar Cube Corner too!" Pinkie chimes in, hopping around us in a circle.
"I don't see why not," Twilight says with a sigh.
My heart flutters at the mention of the two landmarks. Oh, how I've waited for this day…
"Good a place to start as any, I s'pose. This here's Ponyville's Town Hall," Applejack gestures toward the familiar building.
"How's the roof?" I ask slyly.
"Why it's…" AJ pauses and looks at me with her eyebrows knit together. "It's just fine and dandy, now that we got 'er all fixed up," she finishes, still eyeing me suspiciously.
Fluttershy takes her turn pushing me, and my seat starts slowly moving. I turn around and smile at her. She looks away so that a bit of her mane falls out of place and covers her eyes from me. She gently replaces the stray lock of hair with a hoof. Flutters still seems a little bit unsure, but I'm sure she'll warm up to me soon. Dashie is back to lazily hovering around again, but she's still much more peppy now than she was before.
We go around town hall slightly, passing a fountain.
"And this here's Buckingham Fountain," AJ points out.
I can't help but chuckle at the name, both for its inherent pony pun and because I'm a native Chicagoan. My laughter confuses all of them, but they let it slide, taking no offense from it.
We enter a thoroughfare branching off from the open area encompassing town hall. The signpost marking the street name leaves me snickering, 'Stirrup St.' Pony puns just don't get old, it seems. Humble Tudor-esque homes pass us by as we leisurely stroll down the road. It's a beautiful sight to see, as though it were meant to be in some old painting. The dirt road is worn in the middle, where so many ponies must walk, so it slopes slightly upward to the buildings on either side, where some stray grass and flowers grow wild around the edges of the houses and shops. The right side of the street is dimmed by shadow, while the left is still bathed in the brilliant late-afternoon sunlight, glinting off the window panes. Signs hang from the shops, moving slightly to and fro in the gentle breeze, advertising their shops' wares and services. Hay's Hardware, some accountant's office, a farm supply store, I can't help but smile at this one: Quills and Sofas. But for what the signs can tell me, my nose can tell me even more. A breeze brings me a strong whiff of flowers before I spot Flower Sisters' Floral, the sweet smell of cocoa foretells the appearance of Bon Bon's Confectionary, and finally, though I cannot yet see it, the buttery scent of freshly baked bread could only be–
As we round a corner, I see it.
We all stop to admire what must be one of the town's prized landmarks. While it's not exactly a life-sized gingerbread house, it sure does give the impression of one at first glance. With round gingerbread cookies for roof shingles, icing and gumdrops around the edges, candy canes around the front door, that top floor that looks exactly like a cupcake with candles stuck in it… that odd pony silhouette holding a candy cane… is that a weather vane? Yessir, Sugar Cube Corner is quite the sight to behold.
"Weeeeeeell? What d'ya think?" Pinkie steps into my field of view and grins at me like a maniac. "This is Sugar Cube Corner! This is where I work! And where I live too! I live upstairs in the cupcake part! Teehee! I live in a cupcake! And when I'm working here it doesn't even feel like work most of the time because I love baking but also because I'm super duper close with Mr. and Mrs. Cake it's like we're one big family! I get to play with their foals–"
She's rambling in classic Pinkie Pie style, tuning her out just a tad. "It's certainly a sight to see, I'll give it that," I say more so to the others than to the still-talking party pony.
"Pinkie Pie!" Applejack practically shouts to get her attention, "We don't have that much time sugar cube, we need to get goin'."
"Oh, silly Applejack! It's only five o'clock!" In the distance, a bell tolls. "See? We still have half an hour!" Pinkie starts casually bouncing (as casually as one can bounce) off in the direction I assume we'll be headed.
The bell rings four more times. I guess it is five o'clock.
AJ takes a turn pushing me down the road, and suddenly I'm admiring the scenery again. I can't help but think something's missing, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Oh well. Not much special appears down this road, though the place is still quiet and serene. Too quiet, now that I think about it… I would have imagined this town being a little more warm and inviting, but the farther we go the more uncomfortable I feel. There's just something missing–
Wait, not some thing. Some pony. Several someponies, the place is empty! No wonder I feel uneasy, Ponyville, what I know to be a lively place, looks like a ghost town!
Where IS everypony?!
"Hey Pinkie! Where the hay is everypony?" I ask.
"I dunno!" She answers gleefully.
I smack my face into my palm. Wrong pony to ask.
"Hey Dashie, why's the town so empty today?" I ask.
"Beats me," she shrugs indifferently.
I just sigh.
"Hey Twi- Twilight are you ok?"
The poor mare looks positively downtrodden, but she perks up a little when I call her. "Uh, yeah. I'm fine."
"You don't… look fine," I say, not really sure what more to say…
"I'm just thinking, that's all."
While not an outright lie, she's definitely dodging the question.
"Yes darling, what's on your mind today that's got you thinking so much?" Rarity chimes in.
"Ya know ya got your friends to talk to if need be, right Twi?" AJ earnestly adds.
By now we've all stopped moving and everyone's looking at Twilight.
"I- I know. I know. I'll uh, well I just need to think about this on my own for a bit. That's all." Twilight locks eyes with me for just the briefest of moments, but in that split second, I feel a jab to my heart. For her little face just expressed so much pain and worry, and I have seen that face before. But not on her. She quickly irons out her facial features, making a strong face for her friends' sake.
I can't help but wonder if our little conversation is starting to come back to her, or if perhaps she never forgot it at all. Spike said she had been acting funny for several days prior, I wonder if this is how she was.
"Twilight," I grab her attention, but I have no idea what I can say that will help. I know what she's going through, and there are no words that can just magically make it better. Oh, how I wish there were. How I wish I could just take it back, make it better. But even after she gets past this, it will remain in her mind, a scar on her soul that will never heal. I should know, I have that same scar. I was a fool. I should never have told her. I should have lied through my teeth, to her, to all of them. And now, here I am, trying fix a problem that I created with only a handful of words, when I know it will take weeks of comforting and reassurance to just begin the repairs. Not to mention that I'd rather not draw this out in front of the rest of the girls, in public (even abandoned as it is out here), and it seems like Twilight feels the exact same way. "I know what you're going through. We'll talk about it, ok?" I say, as sincerely as I can. I suppose the least I can do is reassure her that I'm here for her. "I'm here for you, Twi."
She only nods absentmindedly.
We continue down the road, turning a couple times at intersections. The girls remain quietly concerned about Twilight's somber mood, and they continue to occasionally reassure her that they're all willing to listen to whatever problems she may be having, clearly having learned their lesson from last time.
But every time they prod her, she shrugs it off. Insisting that it's something she must deal with herself. I can only sit in my wheelchair in thoughtful silence. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. Unable to ease her mental suffering without involving the others, unable to do anything but sit in this damn chair and get carted around by her oblivious friends. But, quite frankly, I'm amazed she's taking it this well. She has a strong will, that Twilight. Sure she had the panic attack of the century about it already, just like I did, but afterwards she's still soldiering onward. Me, I was an absolute train wreck for weeks.
Perhaps this is her way of coping. Deep thought. I suppose that makes sense, she's a bright one, that Twilight, she probably needs to think on it and come to her own conclusions. Yeah. That's it. She'll just think it over, and talk to me about it when she's good and ready.
"We're he~re!"
Rarity's sing song voice snaps me out of my reverie.
"Well, Mr. Dane, this is my establishment. What do you think?" She smiles a smug little smile as she canters towards the door of…
"Carousel Boutique. Where everything is chique, unique, and manifique," I recite with half a smile.
"Oooh, very good, Mr. Dane. Very good!"
We all enter Rarity's home –slash– business, pony mannequins and all that jive, but I can't find it in me to even care about my surroundings. Just Twilight.
"Are you worried about Twilight?" Fluttershy suddenly asks me.
I look at her, "…Yeah. I am."
"Well I'm sure whatever is bothering her, she will figure out on her own," she finishes with a sweet little smile.
"How can you be sure of that? What about that one time, with the… you know…" I lean in close for a whisper, "that doll she enchanted and made the whole town go cuckoo over it?"
"Oh." She looks curiously surprised. "How did you know about that?"
"Not important," I say with the wave of a hand. "She went nuts, remember?"
"Beg pardon, sugar cube," AJ steps next to Fluttershy. "But Twi only went a little loony 'cuz we weren't payin' her troubles no mind."
"A little?" Dash remarks.
Applejack glances over to Twilight, who's idly sitting on Rarity's red velvet fainting couch. "She didn't ask us for help this time. I reckon she's got her reasons not to. No sense in tryin' to pry it from her."
"I suppose." Even if those 'reasons' were that her conundrum was something so shaking and confusing that she'd rather spare her friends from the same suffering she's going through.
"C'mon now, Twi will talk about it when she's good 'n ready. Let's see what Rarity's got cooked up for you."
"Yeah, let's see how frilly it is!" Dashie teases merrily.
"Maybe I should go talk to Twi…"
"Oh, Mr. Da~ne!" Rarity calls me from a doorway in the back. "Your ensemble is ready!"
"Uh, just a minute Miss Rarity!"
"Nonsense darling, we haven't much time." She trots over and starts pushing me towards the back room.
"But, but… Twilight…"
"Oh, don't worry. I'm certain the party will cheer her right up! And if not, Pinkie will."
I quickly glance around, "Speaking of Pinkie, where did she get off to?"
"I believe she had something or other to attend to. Not to worry, she'll be back before you know it."
"Oh, alright…" I give up.
AJ, Fluttershy, and Dashie make to follow us through the door.
"Ah, ah, ah! You three can wait outside. Mr. Dane doesn't like being watched whilst he dresses." Rarity insists, rather condescendingly. She closes the door on her friends, and whispers to me, "Besides, watching the model dress tends to have a negative effect on the presentation of the ensemble." She winks at me.
Having been already outfitted, by Rarity, with a shirt and a pair of slacks, she now presents me with a suit coat and necktie.
The coat looks as magnificent as the pants I'm already wearing. The same light peach color, with a few tasteful accents, swirly lines done in a dark brown. One button, hmm, again a blue gem in the shape of her cutie mark, set in gold.
The necktie is a medium blue silk thing, patterned with very elaborate swirly lines of white and darker blue, with a very ornate design as the centerpiece… three blue diamonds. What a surprise.
I'm starting to see a trend here.
I give her a sly smirk. I think she catches its meaning. I'm going to be a walking billboard for her business. And I know it. And I know she knows I know. But with this level of quality, for free on top of that, I'm perfectly ok with this. "Rarity, this outfit is absolutely magnificent," I say, unable to wipe the smirk from my face, its unspoken meaning clear to both of us.
I pop my collar up, getting ready for the tie.
"Would you like me to tie it for you?"
"Oh… no thank you. I'm pretty sure I still remember how to do this."
In my haste, I fumble and screw up twice, but I manage to tie it right, third time's the charm.
"Oh my, a double Windsor knot! Somepony wants to look especially fancy today!"
"Well, it is a very special day for me," I say, my eyes starting to water at that thought. "But even so, I always go with a double Windsor. Pat-" the sharp and painful memory of my missing loved one jabs me in the gut. "Patricia… my wife, she… hah, she always said I looked best with a double Windsor. Even if it was usually too formal for all the… business meetings I'd be… wearing a tie to…"
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"
I clear my throat, swiftly changing the subject as I run my fingers through what's left of my hair. "I've been meaning to ask you something Rarity." I look at her intently.
"Oh?"
"Why exactly DO you have bridles on those mannequins over there?" I point an unsteady finger. "What kind of clothing is that?"
Rarity glances behind her at the articles in question, before turning back to me and blushing ever so slightly. "Mr. Dane… perhaps it's different where you come from, all of your kind wear clothing, after all, but… tell me, how many ponies have you seen around Ponyville who are wearing some manner of clothing?"
"I… haven't seen anypony around town… at all, actually… what's up with that anyhow?"
"Very well then, in the hospital perhaps? Who was wearing clothing?"
"Well the doctors…"
"But nopony else, correct?"
"Yeah, nopony wears clothes around here, I know," I say with a shrug as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. "Believe me, that's old news."
"Ah. Exactly. You see, in a town where clothing is rare, one in a business such as mine must venture down… other… avenues… in which to make sales."
I nod, implying she should continue…
"If clothing is not worn every day," she explains while making hoof gestures, "and occasions calling for fancy dress are, well, rather limited… here… and sadly, since the occasional commissions from wealthy customers in Canterlot are far and few in between, then other purposes for which articles of clothing are used are… my only option… in order to make business at all, as it were," she finishes with an awkward forced smile.
"Other purposes?" I ask, not quite catching her meaning.
"Other purposes," she nods her head toward me, in a sort of 'if you know what I mean' way.
"Oh. Oh! Oh. So you're telling me that those bridles are…" The word's on the tip of my tongue, but I'm not entirely sure I should spit it out.
"Intimate apparel. Yes darling," she finishes with a defeated sigh.
My mouth hangs open for a moment and my throat makes some tiny squeaking noise while I calculate a response. "I see…"
"I do hope you don't think any different of me because of…"
"Oh no no no, don't be ridiculous Rarity," I quickly dispel that notion with a wave of my hand. "We're both adults here, anyhow."
"Oh good," she smiles once again.
"But… but don't you make enough green-"
"Green?"
"Oh… um… gold?"
"Ah."
"So don't you make enough money making dresses for rich ponies? Like what's-her-name? That pop star?" I snap my fingers a few times, her name's right on the tip of my tongue.
Much to Rarity's amusement, apparently. Her eyes appear glued to my fingers, she shakes her head and answers, "Sapphire Shores?"
"Yeah! Her!"
"Well she did buy quite a number of dresses… and then she never came back. I'm not entirely sure why. I don't expect I disappointed her… though some ponies say she's always looking for new styles… perhaps she thought those bedazzled dresses were the upper limits of my creativity? I just don't know."
"What about that guy? Uh… Fancy-" Shit… has that happened yet?
"Fancy Pants?"
"…Yeah?"
"Well I did do one dress for his… 'companion' but sadly that was it. Seems none of those other snob- I mean potential customers came to fruition."
That was a close call… I think I'm gonna have to go over where, or actually when, I am. "Ok then, you don't sell many dresses to Canterlotians, what about Ponyville… -ians?"
"A few. But even the wealthier families in Ponyville tend to be much more conservative when it comes to clothing." She sighs.
"Well, do you sell much of… that around here then?"
She smiles warmly, "Thankfully, yes. I do dominate the market here in Ponyville. And it certainly keeps my business afloat," her smile fades, "Even if I'd much rather sell a glamorous dress to every mare in town…" She looks wistfully at one of her bridled mannequins.
"Well maybe you'll at least sell a suit or two after the stallions see this handsome devil sporting a Rarity original." I finish putting the suit coat on. "How do I look?"
"Marvelous! Oh, do stand up darling. Let me see my work. Do you need help?"
I try to rock myself up and out of the chair, but it's so damn low. "Think you could give me a little nudge?"
"Of course."
I rock again and the gentle tingling of magic presses against my back just enough to help me up.
Rarity squees with delight. "Oh we simply must get the others in here!"
"Ah, I think I can make it out there on my own," I say with a confident smile. My back is stiff from sitting so long, but I shuffle towards the door anyway, cane in hand.
"Ta da!" Rarity announces to her friends.
"What do you think?" I strike a pose, holding my cane off to the side.
Ooh's and ah's. Pinkie's back, smiling with the rest of them. Hell, even Twilight seems to have brightened up a bit at my dapper appearance.
"You look good, Dane," she says to me, a small smile present on her face. A slightly pained, but very genuine smile. There's happiness there, maybe it's for me, but I'll be damned if it isn't there. There is hope for Twi, after all.
"Thanks Twi. That means a lot to me." I can't help but smile a sad smile too. "Well ladies, shall we get going?"
We approach the tree-library, and the town is still as dead quiet as it had been earlier. We stop a few feet from the door. THE door to Ponyville's one and only living tree library. The Golden Oaks. I've had dreams about this door. Oh, what happened when I stepped inside changed from time to time, but the door itself always remained the same. Except now it's before my eyes in the waking world. With such clarity. The red paint bestowed upon the sturdy wooden door is just slightly faded. The candle painting is much more than a painting, it's an exquisitely detailed engraving. Drips of wax are even-
"Daney!" Pinkie shouts in my ear. "Before we go in there I have to tell you something! I know I promised no more surprises but I couldn't help myself so I set up a surprise welcome-to-Ponyville-and-our-planet-sorry-I-scared-you party! Except it's not a surprise anymore because I just told you it's a surprise even though it's not a surprise because I just told you it's a surprise but it's not. So you won't be surprised will you?" She implores me with wide eyes and a huge grin.
"Hehe, no Pinkie, I won't."
"Ok good but do you think you could act just a little surprised for all the ponies who are gonna shout 'surprise'?"
"Sure, why not?"
"Great! Ok everypony! Follow my lead!" Pinkie clicks the handle to the door of my dreams, and gently nudges it open. She speaks abnormally loud, "We're just ordinary ponies and an ordinary alien walking into an ordinary library to do ordinary library-y things!"
I can see nothing as Rainbow wheels me and my chair into the inky black darkness of the library.
CLICK
"SURPRISE!"
The sheer intensity of the greeting actually catches me by surprise.
And now I see why. A big, warm smile creeps its way across my face. So this is where everypony was hiding!
For some reason, at the moment – I don’t know why only just now – I find myself remembering the good old days. All of the milestone parties, the late nights spent waiting for some experiment or other to conclude. The times when it felt too late to go home, and we were too awake to go to sleep. Those good old times when I was among good friends, sharing fun and laughter together. It suddenly seems, for the first time in many long, lonely years, that I’m enjoying that almost forgotten experience once again.
I’m laughing. A wholehearted guffaw of the body, mind, and soul. The kind only to be had from true, honest-to-goodness enjoyment. I can barely breathe! My chest hurts! It feels so good. It feels like relief, it feels like something I haven't had for a good long time… happiness. I don’t even know why I find it so funny, that I am being accused of lying. But then, that's the name of the game.
“Horseapples!” My accuser accuses one more time, a cute little giggle following shortly after.
The chuckles take their time leaving me, and it takes a moment to catch my breath. When I'm able, I reply as coolly as possible, “You have just two cards in your hoof. And almost the whole deck on the table, liable to go back into your hoof if you're wrong. You are this close to winning, are you sure you want to risk it, Derpy?”
“You're not very good at bluffing,” she smiles back to me.
We’re playing ‘Bullshit’…or ‘Horseapples’ as the ponies call it. A simple card game. Each player discards as many cards as they like on their turn, and says aloud that they are so many cards of a particular number, incremental from one player to the next. But they can lie about it. Then any other player can call 'bullshit.' If they lied, the discarding player has to take the entire discard pile into their hand. If the cards were as said, then the player who called 'bullshit' gets the pile of cards. The player with no cards at the end wins.
Ironically, despite having damn near half the deck in my hand already, the three cards I just discarded were not twos, as I had claimed. How Derpy knew that, is anyone's guess, but like she said, I'm bad at bluffing, and laughing like a hyena certainly didn't help. I chuckled a little more before reaching over and scooping up the entire pile of cards.
“I knew it,” she proudly says.
“Not my fault I’m bad at the game.”
“Two threes,” she says, discarding her remaining two cards.
Which would make her the winner.
“Bullsh-! I mean horseapples!”
Derpy smiles a devilish smirk and gestures to the only two cards on the table.
I sigh loudly and reach to flip her cards over. "Are you kid-" Two threes. “Derpy, you… you’re a trip, you know that?”
She shrugs playfully. “You're pretty bad at this game.”
I laugh as I lean back in my chair. "Oh… I haven’t had this much fun in ages.”
Applejack returns to the table. “So uh, another round?” She asks. “Or maybe you’ll wanna play somethin’ a might easier for ya?” She kids.
“Just rusty, AJ, just rusty,” I defend.
“Uh huh, sure.” AJ smiles wryly.
Pinkie Pie appears next to me, seemingly out of thin air. “How’s the game going Daney? Didya win?”
“Oh, yeah, I uh, came in…" I count on my fingers. "…sixth place. Right, Derpy?”
She smiles warmly at me and sticks her tongue out.
Pinkie glances around the table, trying to recall how many players there were originally. “Out of six?”
“Heh heh, you win some, you lose some.”
“Awww, better luck next time!”
I watch as Pinkie disappears into the party. It’s getting late and it’s starting to thin out. Looking around, I realize that I don’t see Twilight anywhere.
“Hey AJ, where’s Twilight?”
“Uh… I dunno Dane. Maybe she went upstairs a little earlier, she did seem kinda tired today." She looks away. "Hey Berry! You up for another round of Horseapples?”
Berry Punch walks over and puts her mug of cider on the table. “Yeah count me in!” She sits down and gets comfortable.
“Hey Lyra?” AJ glances around. “Oh, where’d that mare get off to? She wouldn’t stop talking about ya a minute ago!” She points at me.
“I don’t know,” I shrug.
Lyra’s nice, but in all honesty, I’m much more worried about where Twilight went. Or actually why. I guess I hadn’t paid it much mind earlier, but she did seem a little down. I hope the other night’s episode hasn’t come back to haunt her.
Crap. What if it has? I should definitely go check on her.
AJ returns from her brief search for Lyra. “Ah well. I can’t find her, guess we’ll play one round without her.”
“Actually AJ, play one without me too. That non-alcoholic cider of yours is running right through me.”
“Alrighty. Ya know the washroom's all the way at the top of those stairs there. Need any help gettin’ up there?”
“I can help him, Applejack,” Derpy graciously offers.
“No, no. I can make it on my own, but uh… could one of you nice young ladies help a tall old human get out of this tiny little damn chair?” I grip my cane and rock myself up and off of the short little pony chair, with AJ nudging my back to help. When I’m finally on my feet, AJ offers her assistance again.
“Now you’re sure you can make it up there on your own?” She skeptically asks.
“Positive. You young ladies go on and play one without me. I might be a while, this old man's prostate ain’t what it used to be.”
With excuses made, I set off for the stairs. Only a month or so ago, they would've been painful for my knees, but not a problem at all. It's amazing just how much a little heart attack can take out of you. The stairs loom before me, dauntingly, but I take them one step at a time. One painstakingly slow – and painful – step at a time. I feel like Applejack is watching me go, itching to come to my aid, but I don't look. A man needs to keep some of his dignity, plus I'm hoping I'll find Twilight alone. When finally I reach the little landing between floors, I hear a toilet flush. The short little door opens, and none other than Lyra Heartstrings appears.
“Oh! Hi Dane.”
“AJ was looking for you, uh… you must’ve been in there a while.”
“Yeah. Don’t eat the cupcakes!” Lyra warns.
Shit. I've consumed quite a few of the sugary confections–
“Just kidding! I had spicy food for lunch.”
Oh. Letting out a breath, I mutter, “I… I didn’t need to know that, Lyra…”
“Don't worry, I opened the window!” Lyra says as she gingerly walks past me.
“Gee, thanks.”
She giggles as she heads downstairs. Of course I wasn’t actually planning on using the facilities, but at my age, I'd be crazy to pass up a bathroom. Besides, Lyra saw me here, so I might as well, for appearances sake.
As it turns out, the library’s ‘facilities’ appear to be an afterthought to the building. Then again, the 'building' was clearly an afterthought to the damn tree. So I suppose… by that measure, this broom closet with a squat toilet and foal-sized clawfoot bathtub is actually an extravagance. I take my leak and after, stoop down to wash my hands under the tub’s ‘Cold’ faucet. There is no sink… there’s no room for one.
The white porcelain handle squeaks loudly with each turn I give it, and with the water running, the faucet leaks from around the handle. The valve needs repacking. A white bar of soap sits in a soapdish just above the faucets. I lather up and I notice that the soap is strangely devoid of any pony hair. I would've thought it'd be impossible for a fur-coated pony to keep a soap bar hairless. Maybe Twilight has some kind of spell for that, who knows?
Leaving the tiny bathroom that has given new meaning to the term ‘water closet,’ I duck my head to get through the door, and, seeing that the coast is clear, I begin the journey up the last steps to the actual second level. Seven more grueling steps behind me, and I see that the library's living quarters appear devoid of all party paraphernalia, and of Twilight.
"Twilight?" I call out, hoping for an answer.
None comes to me.
Making my way across the room, I see on the table near the hearth – the 'kitchen' table, you might say – an amber glass pill bottle. Its label reads: 'Sleep aid - non-magical.' The wad of cotton is still under the cork. Maybe poor Twilight thinks she won't catch a wink tonight…
I sigh.
To me, that seems to confirm it, she's troubled about something. And what that something is, I fear I already know.
Across the room, I pull the glass balcony door open and find my target sitting out there all alone, peering through her telescope at the stars of the twilight sky. Silently I stand in the doorway, wondering if I should even bother her at all.
Twilight moves her head back from the lens, but doesn't turn to look at me. "Do you have stars, Dane? Where you're from?" Though she hides it well, her words are soured by sorrow.
I sigh again.
I can hear it in her voice. I know better than to answer the question. It'd be pointless to answer, she's not asking the real question, or perhaps she's already answered it herself. What really matters now is that I begin walking to her side. So, I was right to be worried about her after all. Poor Twilight. She's had this thing on her mind for a whole day now? No, wait. I was unconscious for a while – two days now. Two whole days! She's been stewing over this horrifying, breakdown-causing, life-altering philosophical conundrum for that much time. Two days, with this kind of thing weighing on her, it might as well have been three years, or something. Why? Why couldn't she just be like everyone else? Just totally ok with all the more philosophical implications of the existence of alternate universes, and her place therein. Aware of the implications, but unburdened by them? Why did she have to be… like me?
Although I suppose… if she weren't, she wouldn't be Twilight Sparkle.
She clears her throat. "Have you ever looked up at them and- and felt-" A single sob escapes her as I approach. "Just small and insignificant?"
"Oh Twilight," I say as I step by her side, "you are anything but small and insignificant." I reach my hand over and gently stroke her withers. Though she doesn't react to it, she does turn her face away from me, hiding her pained expression. Her shoulder muscles are tense right now, and she's holding her breath.
Then she stifles a couple of short sobs.
A glance around reminds me that this world is sorely lacking in seating. I curse quietly to myself, looking down at the hard balcony floor. I might not regret this, but I will definitely pay for it in the morning. But it's for Twilight, she needs me right now. So I grip my cane tightly and lower myself down on my knees. I ease myself down into a miserably uncomfortable sitting position where I can be at eye level with Twilight.
I put my hand on her withers again, this time giving a slight press in my direction. "Come here, Twi. Come here."
She rests her head on my shoulder and the dam bursts. Twilight cries. She bawls.
"That's it, go on. Let it all out."
It breaks my heart to see her tormented like this. With every sob she heaves, I feel more and more like shit. How could I have done this to her? How could I put her through this anguish? It wasn't ignorance on my part. I knew better. I knew! Not many can fathom the depths of what Twilight is going through right now… but I can. I did. And I opened my big stupid mouth anyway.
What a bastard I am…
"Why did I have to open my big mouth?" I mutter to myself.
She shakes her head 'no.' Between sobs, she manages to say, "I'm glad… you told me."
"No you're not. Now, just let it all out."
As I hold her, patting her gently on the back, I think about what I told her the night before last. I should've kept my big mouth shut. I should have continued gleefully ignoring Twilight's attempts at prying the whole truth from my crusty old lips. But alas, she's far too intelligent for that to have succeeded… she undoubtedly would've come to her own conclusions in time, and I'd bet any money that they would've been right.
No, Twilight Sparkle is too smart for that.
I suppose I had little choice in telling her… but how I wish she wasn't taking it so hard! In her wretchedness, I see my younger self… oh so many years ago. I know that pain, perhaps better than anyone. Indeed, I wholly understand it. Why could I not have spared her this misery of feeling so very small and insignificant, just as she had put it?
Her cries finally peter out, but I keep her held tight. The most important thing right now is that she knows someone is there for her.
"Let me tell you a story, Twi."
She says nothing, still resting her head on my shoulder, taking ragged breaths through her mouth.
"Once upon a time… there was a handsome young human. And when he looked up at the stars, he saw wonder and possibilities. A multitude of worlds just waiting to be explored. Now, see, the stars were there but they were not clear. For many months, he and his friends worked on their, uh, 'telescope,' constantly making adjustments and improvements."
She sniffles.
"When finally their work paid off and the day came when they could see clearly, to look upon another world entirely, whether it was fate or just dumb luck, that very world the young, enterprising humans looked upon… seemed to be only a reflection of their own. As if they were looking not into a mirror, but at themselves. Looking at themselves, looking into the telescope, looking at themselves. Like a hall of mirrors."
Twi seems to have bated breath as I continue my fairy tale.
"The young human looked and looked, and finally caught a glimpse of his own 'reflection.' Except it wasn't him at all. His reflection seemed to have a much more daring taste in facial hair styling, because the reflection wore a handlebar moustache."
She moves slightly in my embrace, perhaps unsure of where I'm going with this, coughing and sputtering just a little as she moves.
"Now, you see, Twilight, the young human had never had such a moustache – big, bushy, and macho. So it was that this wasn't a reflection at all, but another world entirely… one where all the same humans existed, and apparently everything was the same, except for that damned moustache. In that moment, the young human – only him – saw in the stars, no longer wonders and magic, but instead he saw just how small he was compared to those stars."
She starts sobbing again, and I gently stroke her mane.
"The young human would later say that what happened afterward was just a blur to him. He knew, though, that he ran off and locked himself in his office. His friends had to break the door down to get to him. And he knew that it took a good seven days before he could even eat food without someone shoving it down his face. To make a long story short… he was fucked up."
Twilight heaves a sob that could almost pass for a mirthless chuckle.
"But…! That's not the end of the story at all. The young human had his friends who loved him very much. They were there for him in his time of need. They reminded him that he was loved, that he was needed, and that he was special. With their help, eventually the young human could see again, and he could see that the colossal, imposing stars no longer made him feel small… at all."
She sniffles.
"Listen to me, Twilight. No matter what the multiverse has to say about it, you are in no way insignificant. You are your own mare. You make your own choices, your own mistakes. Nothing can change the fact that you exist, and that you are uniquely you. Not even another universe's Twilight with a moustache, so to speak."
Twilight nods weakly on my shoulder.
"Good, good. Now I'll be here for you, Twilight, and if I could, I'd love to hold you in my arms forever, but I'm afraid I'm just about to pass out from the pain in my back. Think you could help me to just lay down on the floor for a minute to stretch out?"
Weakly, she removes herself from my now-wet shoulder and gently helps me roll to the side and lay down on the floor of balcony. I straighten out my legs and groan in sweet relief.
"Oh thank you, Twi."
All of a sudden I see Applejack galloping over, assuming something must be wrong, what with me on my back.
"Dane! What happened? Are you alright?"
"Oh I'm fine. Just laying around."
"Well, uh if you're fine, then why is Twilight cryin'? Oh, consarnit, Dane! I told you those dead foal jokes were in bad taste!"
"Hey. Applejack. You laughed, ok?"
"I, uh- That is to say…"
"That's not even what's going on here." I wave my hands dismissively.
"Then what is?"
"I think Twilight just needs the comfort of a friend right now."
I’m sure it has been decades since the last time I was awoken by having things thrown at me while being shouted at. Unpleasant though as it is, believe me when I say there are still worse ways to wake up in the morning.
In this morning's case, it is Spike who's shouting something very angry… something or other about pancakes? I'm not fully awake yet, I'm still kind of hazy. Oh, I see. He's upset that I 'broke' Twilight. Before I can get out of bed properly, he storms off, mumbling something or other about Rarity.
My aged body painfully protests as I try to force it up and off of this cot, while my joints audibly protest with cracks and pops. Twilight is sitting over at the 'kitchen' table near the hearth. Her weary eyes are locked onto a plate of festively decorated pancakes, apparently mulling over whether or not she wants to eat them. I make my way over and pull up a tiny stool right next to her spot at the table.
"Twilight?" I ask.
"I’m not hungry," she mumbles lazily.
“Hey, look at me.”
She lifts her head slightly. Her eyes are baggy, her mane is messy. It looks like she didn’t sleep much. Oh I had foolishly hoped that spending time with her friends last night would’ve helped. But I guess not as much as I would’ve liked.
“What’s the matter? Huh?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you still in a funk because you’ve come to the realization that the multiverse is a huge place and that you’re an infinitesimally small part of it?”
“Yep.”
“Yeah, I’ve been there. Done that. Bought the T-shirt. Lucky for you, I know the solution.”
I scootch my stool a little closer to Twilight and wrap my arms around her, pulling her tight into a big warm hug. I hold onto her until she loosens up and rests her head on my shoulder.
“You know Twilight… hugs are therapeutic. Scientifically proven. By science.”
One little chuckle escapes her.
“Ah ha, there we go.” I let go of her and pat her on the back. “Better?”
“A little,” she admits.
I use a fork to take a morsel of pancake and hold it up for her to eat. “Here comes the choo-choo train!”
She somewhat reluctantly opens up and bites the pancake off the fork. She masticates for a moment then asks, “Do you have children, Dane?”
"Oh, sure I do. Hell, I have grandchildren."
"What are they like?" she asks.
A wry smile creeps its way across my face. I take another chunk of pancake on the fork and hold it up. Twilight concedes and opens her little horsey mouth. I deposit the morsel.
"Well, where do I start? My son – only child – his name is Randy. He's uh… in his fifties now." I sigh, recalling the good old days. "He was a good kid. A lot like his mother, very smart, very outgoing. But as he grew older, he became… sort of a self-entitled little prick. No idea where he got that from. His wife is… a decent person, but she doesn't like me very much. Actually, she probably hates me. Really, the only reason I'm invited to holiday dinners and the like is because she wants to keep up appearances."
"And your grandchildren?"
"Heh." I take another chunk of pancake and present it to Twilight.
Unamused, she is nevertheless getting the picture, and accepts the bite.
I continue, "The grandkids were awesome when they were little. Don, Jess, and Mary. Although I rarely saw them, I was their goofy grandpa that would dote on them and tell them amazing tall tales. But, sadly, like all kids, they grew up too fast. Still I see them once or twice a year, but then it's usually just, 'Oh hi, grandpa, how are you?' you know what I mean? Small talk, chit-chat. I can't say I blame them, they're good people – grown-ups too, now – they've got busy lives of their own to worry about. Their crazy granddad just sort of falls by the wayside…"
"It sounds like… you've lived a long and full life… but it's sort of… sad."
At this point, the pancake feeding is a matter of course, and goes without question or resistance.
"I have no regrets, Twilight." I think for a second. "Ok, I have lots of regrets, but that's not the point. The thing is… I have been… so very lonely since Patricia passed. The only thing that I had left was… this. You. Ponyville, Equestria, your friends, everypony." A smile creeps across my face. "And here I am, among friends again. My story has a happy ending, doesn't it? But what about yours? Your story – your life – is just beginning, and it's going to be amazing, Twilight. Focus on that thought. It's gonna be a while before you get out of this funk you're in, I know. But if you keep focus on the positive thoughts, everything'll get better, I promise you."
Twilight looks like she wants to say something, but we both hear the sound of the front door opening, downstairs.
I call down, "Hello? Spike? Is that you?"
“Hello?” A strange masculine voice calls back from downstairs. It sounds vaguely familiar.
“We’re upstairs,” I say. “Come on up.”
Twilight and I look at each other; neither of us apparently knowing who it is. We both wait patiently for the mystery visitor to make his way upstairs. A brown stallion slowly emerges from the little doorway at the top of the stairs, it takes me a moment to realize exactly who I’m looking at.
It’s Doctor Whooves. Or Time Turner. Or whatever is name is. I saw him outside yesterday. He winked at me as if he knew me. Knew what I’d done. I hope he’s not mad at me! I have done something pretty obnoxious when it comes to the universe or multiverse or space-time continuum…
“Listen,” I say, defiantly holding up my index finger as if I know what I’m talking about, “I have a perfectly good explanation–”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
I don’t? “I don’t?”
He shakes his head ‘no.’
Wow, ok. He’s not mad at me? “So… you’re not mad about me… uh… contaminating the timeline or toying with this universe or anything?”
“Actually, I’m not mad at you about anything. I’ve been… enjoying watching you from the shadows. Seeing how your story unfolds.”
Twilight loudly clears her throat. “What happened to your accent?”
“My wha-? Oh. Heh. You’ve got me, Twilight. I’m not The Doctor.”
“Doctor? I never said you were? I don’t know who you are, just that your fake accent wasn’t entirely convincing, and then it disappeared completely.”
“Hang on,” I interject. “What’s going on here? You’re not The Doctor?”
“Hmm, no. There never was a Doctor ‘Whooves’ here. You should know that more than anyone,” he says, looking at me. “And I may not be THE Doctor, but I do have a doctorate.”
“Ok, well, who the hell are you then?”
“Don’t you recognize my voice, sir?”
Twilight is equally as confused about the situation as I am. Who is he? Why does his voice sound so strikingly familiar to me?
Ah hah, it’s come to me! I point my finger at the not-doctor. “You sound like Tyler.”
“You’ve got me, sir.”
“But… but… you’re a pony…?”
“Well it had you fooled, it’s pretty good, isn’t it? This is the result of our new holographic disguise generator.”
“A hologram? We never had any–”
“Alright, will somepony tell me what’s going on here?” Twilight demands.
I agree with her. “Yeah. What are you talking about? You can’t be Tyler. The facility…”
“…Never actually self-destructed,” he finishes for me, wearing a sly smirk on his horsey pony face.
“You mean…” A smile spreads across my face as I realize what he’s done. “You slick bastard. You bypassed the lockouts on our own universe. You… you used the device to time-travel!”
Twilight looks at me for an explanation, her little eyebrows mushed together, and her lips slightly pursed into a little ‘o.’
“Twilight, I believe… this is Tyler. He’s a scientist. He works for me.”
“Used to work for him,” Tyler corrects. “Dane is legally deceased now, so…”
“Take that shit off, kid. Let us get a look at you!”
“I really shouldn’t. I’ve probably disturbed this universe enough. Two humans are too much.”
“Kid, you literally just spilled the beans in front of a native.” I gesture to Twilight. “I mean, what kind of idiot does that?”
Twilight gives me a dirty look and grumbles under her breath.
Tyler nods his head in concession, and one of his forelegs bends in a very unnatural way. Then his pony disguise disappears, and there stands a very familiar young man in plain clothes, with a very large electronic device strapped to his wrist.
“Oh Tyler. It’s good to see you.”
“I’m still a little confused, but it’s nice to meet you, Tyler. I’m Twilight Sparkle.”
“Listen, Tyler,” I start, “I’m… so sorry about the whole… you know.”
“ ‘The whole’ trying to blow up the facility that gave me my career and was the single most important contribution to science and technology of the 21st century? Probably the millennium?”
“Yeah… I know my pitiful apology must sound like… a pitiful apology, but… I really am sorry. I’ve felt really terrible about it this whole time. I feel like… it wasn’t right for me to try and take that all away from you… especially not since… well I kind of feel like maybe you were interested in this particular world, too.”
“Wait, wait. You blew up your portal machine?” Twilight asks incredulously.
“Tried to, apparently,” I correct. “It might be a little hard to understand for someone who can just teleport to places on a whim, but the technology I had control over, was the single most powerful thing in our world. In the wrong hands, it could’ve been disastrous.”
“Well, sir, you left the technology in very capable hands. And we’ve been able to do so much more with it since you left. And… I might have had some interest in this place. How could I not? It was about the only universe we ever looked at or worked with. It was special to you, so it was special to us.”
“How long have I been gone, anyway? I mean, I know all that is relative. What I mean is, how long have I been gone for you?”
“Something like ten years.”
“Wow, you sure took your dear sweet time getting here. But I suppose you had the time. I didn’t…”
Tyler sighs.
Twilight asks, “How did you make yourself look like a pony? It was very convincing. Are you sure there’s no magic in your world?”
“Yeah, that is one seriously cool gadget. Is that our tech?” I ask.
“It is our tech, actually.” Tyler moves closer to Twilight and shows her the device strapped to his wrist. “This device can generate a near-perfect hologram around the wearer, and obscure a certain amount of their shape as well.”
“Can you disguise yourself as anypony or human you want?”
“Admittedly, it was an enormous challenge to get the pony to work properly. But technically, yes, I can. Unfortunately, preparing the disguise is an exhaustive process, and the device can only produce one disguise.”
“Will it work on a pony?”
“I suppose there’s no harm in a little experimentation.” Tyler removes the device from his wrist, and places it on Twilight’s foreleg.
He presses a button and Twilight appears to transform into a contorted mess of brown stallion body parts.
“Oh Celestia.”
“Oh God.”
“What? What’s wrong?” Twilight asks.
“Um, Twi, try rearing up and standing on your hind legs only,” I helpfully suggest.
“Alright.” She apparently does, and although his posture looks a little peculiar, there’s Dr. Whooves standing right in front of us.
“You know, its unofficial name is ‘the Changeling’,” Tyler comments.
I clear my throat loudly, and shake my head ‘no.’
“What’s a changeling?” Twilight inquires.
“Oh it’s just a…”
“It’s a human term for…”
“A disguise-d…”
“Human?”
“Right. I’m going to go and look in the mirror.” Twilight walks up the stairs to her bed.
“Oops,“ Tyler says.
“It’s alright, kid, I’ve already said worse things…”
“You have? Well, it’s not the end of the world.”
“Wow. This thing is amazing!” Twilight calls down from the loft area where her bed is.
She walks back downstairs, looking like a contorted ball of Doctor Whooves. “How do you turn this thing off?”
Tyler assists her with the deactivation and removal of the rather impressive holographic disguise generator.
Twilight, being visually Twilight again, asks, “This is amazing. I can’t believe this device is purely mechanical!”
“Well, electronic, but yes,” Tyler comments.
“Non-magical,” I suggest.
“What other technology do you have in your world?” Twilight asks.
“Oh we have so many things, Twilight. Tyler, what other new tech have you guys come up with while I’ve been gone?”
“Well by far the biggest thing is that we’re working on commercializing teleportation for long distance travel.”
“We’ve found that if you travel to another dimension first, for a split second, we can use that as a sort of dimensional sling shot to shoot you back to our world. I believe that might’ve been your idea, actually. It reduces the energy cost significantly. Also, if we teleport more people in a single go, energy usage scales non-linearly. So if we teleport a container full of people, roughly the size of a school bus, it starts to become very economical. We’re thinking the first public ‘flight’ will be available in about five years.”
“Amazing. Simply amazing! You know, it’s too bad we don’t have much to show Twilight, I really wish I had remembered to take my cell phone from my desk before I came here. You would love it, Twi. You wouldn’t happen to have yours on you, would you, Tyler?”
“No, sorry.”
“ ‘Cell phone?’ That’s not that little black rectangle thing, is it?”
“Yeah… it is sort of like that, actually. How do you know, Twi?”
“I might have… oh… taken it from the hospital, while you were still unconscious.”
I smile. “You stole my cell phone?”
She gets all flustered. “I was gonna give it back! I’ll go get it.”
Twilight returns shortly after with what is indeed my cell phone.
“Lucky I did remember it! You are gonna love this Twi. This little thing is going to make those clanky old computers you have in the basement look like… clanky old computers.”
“Really? Because it kind of just looks like a little slab of polished black glass. You can see light through it. Wouldn’t there need to be at least some wires inside of it?”
“Ah, the non-magic magic of clear printed circuit boards.”
We all hear the door open and close downstairs.
“I’m back, Twilight,” comes Spike’s voice from downstairs.
We all kind of glance at each other, apparently worrying about Tyler’s presence here, but not worried enough to actually do anything about it.
Spike crests the stairs. “Hey Dane, I’m– whoa. Who’s this?”
“Spike, this is Tyler.”
“Hi Spike.”
“He works for me,” I add.
“Used to work for him.”
Spike holds up a little claw. “Are you humans gonna be a regular thing around here now?”
“I don’t think so, I’m just visiting,” Tyler says.
“Alright, well anyway Dane, I just wanted to, you know, apologize for earlier. I know you didn’t mean to make Twilight all… whatever. But she does look a lot better now. Are you feeling ok, Twilight?”
“I think I am, actually. Dane was just about to show me his ‘cell phone.’”
“What’s that?”
“I have no idea!” Twilight squee-s with delight. “But we’re about to find out.”
I hold up my phone, doing my best to emulate a hand model presenting a useless set of kitchen knives on an infomercial. “Let me show you the wonders of human technology.”
Tyler spent the night here at Twilight’s place. Unfortunately, Spike isn’t too happy about that.
“I can’t believe I have to cook for two houseguests now,” Spike grumbles as he puts a large plate of scrambled eggs on the table.
“Hey Tyler,” I ask, “What have you been doing for room and board since you’ve got here, anyway?”
“I have made a nice camp nestled in the woods, far out of sight.”
“You do realize that the forest is infested with man-eating mythical beasts, right?”
“Yes, sir, you’ve always drilled that into me: ‘Don’t mess around with the Everfree Forest.’ My camp is in a safe spot, don’t worry about that.”
“Well what about food?” Twilight asks.
“I’ve brought provisions for several days, but the apple orchard has supplemented that.”
“Really?” I ask, incredulously. “Camping in the Everfree Forest? Eating Applejack’s apples? That’s a little bit cliché, don’t you think?”
“Cliché? I didn’t think she would mind. It’s a farm, she has bushels of them.”
“Well I think she’ll kick your ass if she finds out.”
“Yeah, you should probably not steal. Stealing is bad. Are you sure you don’t want to come to the picnic lunch with everypony?” Twilight asks.
“Thanks for the invitation, but I don’t want to impose.”
“Good. It’s bad enough I have to cook breakfast for you.”
“Spike! Don’t be rude,” Twilight scorned. “Well Tyler, at least take some food from here for lunch.”
“Alright, I will do that. You know, I actually quite enjoy socializing with the ponies in town, even if I am pretending to be Doctor Whooves.”
“About that, Tyler,” Twilight mentions, “Are you sure you don’t want to forget about the disguise? We could introduce you to the townsponies. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. They all liked Dane.”
“Honestly, Twilight, I didn’t intend to become even a temporary part of this world… but I couldn’t quite help myself and I just had to enter town and talk to some ponies. There is definitely something alluring about this world,” he knowingly looks at me.
“I tell you, Tyler, you’re becoming a brony on a whole new level. You sure you don’t want to hang around?”
“The thought of staying for a while had crossed my mind. But I do have things to get back to at home.”
“Kid, you do realize you have the ability to play with time, right? You could live here for a year and be gone for a day. A minute, even. Hell, you could be gone for a negative amount of time and go back to a point before you even left!”
Tyler sighs. “There’s something about toying with time that just makes me uncomfortable.”
“Says the world’s first time traveler…”
“But perhaps I might visit on occasion? Either way, I’m not sure about losing the disguise just yet.”
We all hear the front door open.
“Nurse calling,” says the visitor.
“Is that Nurse Redheart I hear?” I shout downstairs.
“Is that Mr. Dane I hear?”
I look at Tyler. “Doctor Whooves or no Doctor Whooves? Tick tock, kid.”
“Maybe not.”
Nurse Redheart crests the stairs and stops in her tracks. She looks only mildly surprised. “Oh. I didn’t realize we would be getting more humans.”
“Neither did I. This is Tyler. He works for me.”
“Used to work for him. Hi.”
“Pleased to meet you, I’m Nurse Redheart. Mr. Dane, I came to check on you.”
“Is that right? House calls are part of the job, are they?”
“Well… not exactly. But you are, a um… special case. Obviously.”
I smile. I’m a special case.
“I’d like to listen to your heart first.”
I unbutton my shirt and she puts her stethoscope in her ears. I stop her before she puts the cold metal listening part on my chest. I breathe some warm breath onto it to warm it up and let her take it from there. She looks very curious as she listens.
“I’ll never get used to how fast your resting heart rate is. Are you sure that’s normal?”
“Actually I just checked on my phone last night–” Good thing I decided to download the whole of human knowledge instead of trusting the stupid cloud, “–between 60 and 100 beats per minute, apparently.”
“Right. Blood pressure next.”
She goes through the motions with the arm-squeezing device and seems satisfied with the result. “Looking good, just keep doing what you’re doing. And don’t forget, plenty of rest.”
“Yes ma’am.” I button up my shirt.
“Um, Mr. Dane. I wondered if I could… I mean, with you being new here and all, I thought I might treat you to lunch today, on my break.” She seems a little bit awkward asking that.
“Oh, well, I’d love to. But we’re all set to have a picnic today. Can I take a rain check on that?”
“Yes, of course, some other time then.”
“Thanks for the offer though, that’s very friendly of you.” I don’t want her to think I’m turning down her generous offer.
“Of course, just being friendly. Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow. Good day.” She flashes a quick smile and makes her way downstairs and out.
“Well that was… friendly of her,” Twilight says.
“Dude,” Spike says pointing a claw at me, “I think she’s into you.”
“What? You mean like…? No. Come on, Spike, she was just being neighborly.”
“I’m with Spike on this one, she seemed infatuated with you, sir,” Tyler comments.
I find myself wondering about Nurse Redheart until lunchtime…
The rolling grassy fields on the outskirts of Ponyville are a gorgeous sight to see. Nature's splendor all around us. Little daisies and buttercups dot the landscape around our little red and white checkered picnic blanket, laid out perfectly under the shade of a tree, atop a very low hill. Today, the ponies and I are having the perfect picnic lunch. But Spike had something to do, he said he’d catch up with us in a bit.
“Oh it is positively gorgeous out,” Rarity notes.
“I couldn’t imagine a lovelier day for a picnic,” I look off towards town. “Hey look, Spike’s coming. Finally. Ooh, it looks like he’s got something urgent to say.”
Spike finishes his sprint right over top of the picnic blanket. Something’s starting to feel very familiar about all this.
“Twi!... Light!...” He’s winded and panting from running. Suddenly he belches up a scroll in a little burst of green flame.
Ah now it makes sense. I snatch up the scroll before Twi can get a hold of it.
“Wait,” I say. “Give her the other one first.”
“Oh, right.” Spike produces the other scroll from… I’m not exactly sure where. Not sure that I wanna know, either.
Twilight reads the first scroll, “Princess Celestia cordially invites you to the wedding of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and… MY BROTHER?!”
Ah, finally. I get to be in the middle of an actual episode’s plot. I just sit back and watch Twilight’s reaction to her brother not having personally told her that he’s getting married. She even does the thing where she uses a sandwich as a puppet to mock him! And she drops the awkward abbreviation B.B.B.F.F, has to explain it, and goes on talking about her brother and how they were best friends when she was little… hey, wait.
“Wait, wait, wait. Aren’t you going to sing about this?” I ask.
“I, uh… hadn’t planned on it?”
“Oh. Ok. Continue.” Well that’s mildly disappointing. I suppose a lack of spontaneous musical numbers isn’t so bad. Maybe I could have one, and show them how to do it. Hmm… I would need to practice, and that kind of defeats the purpose, I suppose. Oh well.
They all have their moments talking about their anticipation of the wedding. But of course Twilight’s still kind of grumpy about her brother not telling her that he’d gotten engaged, but I consider that a win, because it’s got her mind off of, shall we say, other things. I’m sure once she gets back into the groove of things, Twi will be just fine. It worked for me, after all. And my life was nowhere near as exciting as hers is going to be.
Twilight asks me, “Dane, are you coming to the wedding with us?”
“Me? Oh, I would love to, but I’m old and frail, and a long trip to Canterlot would probably not be any good for me.”
Apparently nopony is buying that excuse. Despite the fact that it’s entirely legitimate.
“What? I’m eighty-two years old. I just had a heart attack like two weeks ago. Just got out of the hospital day before yesterday. The doctor said I need lots of rest!”
“That sounds like an excuse,” Twilight accuses.
“It is! It is a totally, completely legitimate excuse.”
“Are you sure there isn’t some other reason you don’t want to go?”
“Yeah, all you’ve wanted to do is hang out with us this whole time,” Rainbow Dash chimes in. “How come you don’t wanna come with us?”
“You would get to meet the princesses.”
Oh, Rarity’s right! I would get to meet the Princesses! Celestia! Luna! Eh, Cadence, I guess. I could bow before them. That would be such an honor. Maybe I could ask for citizenship. I don’t want to sound like I’m begging, though. But I’m sure they’d be ok with it. If only I was younger! The looming threat of bug-horses invading the city wouldn’t have seemed like such a big deal when I was young and able-bodied and felt invincible. Oh well, I’m sure there will be another opportunity for me to meet the princesses, and to see Canterlot!
“Yeah, and it’s basically a big party! I thought you liked parties,” says Pinkie.
Damn my old age! The party after the actual wedding would probably be amazing. “I’d love to go, I really would! I wish I was younger… But sadly, I am old and infirm.”
“I’m still not buying it,” Twilight forces the issue with a furrowed brow. “You know something we don’t.”
“Of course I do,” I scoff. “Listen, Twilight. I’ve got a whole lot of spoilers up here,” I point to my head. “And they’re for me to know and you to find out.”
“So you’re sayin’ ya know the future, huh Dane?” Applejack sarcastically asks.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what he thinks,” says RD.
“Well, he did seem to know an awful lot about us,” Pinkie adds, “and we’ve never even met him before! But can he really know the future?”
“Um, if he does know the future… I really don’t think we should know it…” Fluttershy drops a little nugget of wisdom into the conversation.
“That’s a very wise statement, Fluttershy. Listen girls, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to lie to you all. I do know a lot about you. Too much about you. And yes, odd as it may seem, I have seen the future. But don’t let that scare you, and I’ll tell you why. Because – and here’s the magical part that makes life worth living,” I knowingly look at Twilight, “–because I have injected myself into the equation, I have changed the variables. Literally anything could happen now, and it could all be completely different from the future that I’ve seen.”
“But,” Twilight protests, “if you know what’s going to happen in Canterlot, you’d tell us if it was dangerous, right?”
“Twilight, there’s danger everywhere. You could fall down the stairs and break your neck – not that that’s going to happen!” I wave my hands defensively. “–But you don’t go scrying into Madame Pinkie’s crystal ball to see if stairs are dangerous, do you?”
“So… it is dangerous?”
“Ugh. Twilight! You need to stop thinking like that! Look at what it’s doing to you, you’re getting all worked up over something you don’t even know. Didn’t you learn that lesson already? Or did you? I don’t remember. The point is: nopony should know too much about their own destiny.”
“Yeah, she did learn that lesson, the hard way,” Spike helpfully points out. “Like three weeks ago.”
Twilight sighs. “Spike is right. I did learn that lesson.” She takes a deep breath. “I shouldn’t worry about future Twilight’s problems.”
“That’s the spirit! Go to the wedding with your friends and enjoy yourselves.”
The rest of the girls mirthfully agree, and encourage her to be positive.
Three days later…
“Are you sure you’ll be alright here all by yourself, Dane?” She looks up to me, inquisitively.
“Yes Twilight, I’ll be perfectly fine. Besides, Tyler will be here for dinner, and he said he’d stay in Ponyville until you come back.”
“Alright, if you’re sure…”
“I’m positive. Go and have fun, I’ll be here when you get back.”
“Ok.”
“Say hi to the princesses for me!”
I wave goodbye to Twilight and Spike as they make their way off to the train station to meet with their friends and go off on their adventure. And I know everything will be alright.
Plus, I get to play librarian while Twilight’s gone. So far, nopony has come in for a book, at least as long as I’ve been staying here. Hmm… she’s been gone for a minute and already I’m bored. Maybe I’ll reorganize her books and see if she notices. Heh heh.
I look up, and for the first time I notice the ceiling. There’s an engraving into the wood, a stylized sun, very similar to Princess Celestia’s cutie mark, as big in diameter as the room it sits over. It’s filled in with gold leaf to make a beautiful contrast with the natural wood of the tree that it’s carved in. I wonder how long it took for somepony to make that. Beautiful.
Unfortunately, admiring the ceiling did little to quell my boredom. I suppose I could peruse the books, and see if I remember how to read Equestrian. Of course we could only guess how their written language works. Lucky for us, the spoken language is the same, so our team of linguists was able to make out most of the written words. Mostly by catching glimpses of newspapers and signage, that sort of thing.
I look across the shelves and see if anything piques my interest. Mortgages, taxes, Equestrian law… Maybe I’ll check a different shelf. Hmm. Ah! Magical history, that sounds interesting. I open the book and start reading. Luckily, I’m not too rusty and I can read it fairly well, but… but something’s wrong. I don’t know if it’s the book, or the language, but I’m having a really hard time focusing on the words. Maybe I need to sit down. Where’s my chair? I look around. I can’t… I don’t see my chair. Oh, right, there are no chairs… here. I think maybe Twilight has a chair somewhere.
“Hey Twilight? Where’s my chair? I need… I need my sitting chair. Patty? Patty, where’s my… Where are you?”
What’s going on? Oh I hate that noise. On and on, beep beep beep. I see light. I think my eyes are closed. I try to open them, but I can’t. I can’t quite feel anything. Why am I so tired?
Faintly I hear the clip clop of hooves on tile floor. Something irritatingly familiar about that sound… something… oh no. I’m in the hospital again. I don’t know what’s going on! What’s going on?
Think, Dane. Think.
I try… I try so hard to think. How did I get here? How did I– I can’t remember! Alright. I’m in the hospital bed. Right. I can’t feel anything. I can’t move. Can I move? Focus. Move my arm. Come on! A finger? Blink my eyes! Argh. It’s not working!
Think.
Ok, I can’t move. I can’t see. But I can think. I’m in the hospital. Ok. My heart! It must be. The annoying beeping machine… I listen to the beeps… oh it does not sound good.
I wonder if there is any hope this time. After all, how many second chances could I get?
All I can hear is that horrible beeping machine. I hear no one else around me. I am alone. I am… dying alone! I have spent my entire life to come here… and be among friends, while, in the process, watching all my real friends die one at a time. I watched my dear, sweet, beautiful wife die! I was alone, so alone. Then I came here, I made it! I jumped through the portal, and I was with friends once again, but now I am alone… again. Dying alone. Oh the irony! That I should be in Equestria, yet still die alone.
I suppose it’s a fitting end for me. I’ve been alone for so very long. I’m the last of my kind, after all… the last brony. And I made it here… but at what cost? While we toiled away trying to achieve the impossible goal of going to the promised land, we wasted any chance we might’ve had at keeping the My Little Pony fandom alive. I say ‘we,’ but really, it was me. All me. I did this. It’s no wonder there were never any new bronies popping up, I hoarded all the diehard fans all in one place… and all we ever did was work on a stupid machine… when we should have been spreading the love and good word of the ponies.
I can see that now, so clearly, but sadly, it’s far, FAR too late. I destroyed the fandom. I am the last brony, and I’m also the reason that I’m the last… What have I done? I can’t believe how much of a bastard I am!
I think I hear someone walk in. “Dane? I don’t know if you can hear me, but I brought the best doctor, and we’ve got a box full of the latest medicine. The doctors are talking now. Hang in there, sir…”
It’s Tyler. Oh, Tyler… I’m so sorry I almost blew up your dreams and ambitions. Why did I do that? It was selfish of me. I’m such a bastard. He said he wasn’t mad at me for it… but I hope he forgives me. Please, please! Tyler, forgive me!
I think I hear somepony crying… I think it might be Twilight. Poor Twilight… I hope my intrusion into her world hasn’t ruined anything for her. I’m sorry that she’s weeping for me, I wish she weren’t. That’s never what I wanted. I’m sorry, Twilight. I’m sorry! I wish I had another chance to tell her… I’m sorry that I intruded… I’m sorry that I caused your mental breakdown. I want to think that you will get over it, and you will, but it will forever be a scar on your soul, just as it is on mine.
Somepony else walks in the room. “Miss Sparkle?” It’s Dr. Sutures, my surgeon.
“…Yes?”
“I realize this must be very hard for you right now, but… you are the closest pony we have to a next of kin.”
“What about Tyler?” I think that’s Spike.
“He’s not actually related to Dane. And Dane has been living with you, in your care, so that makes you the one we have to inform.”
“What… what’s wrong with him?” She asks, still sniffling.
“To put it simply… he’s had a stroke.”
“Is he going to pull through?”
“Unfortunately, it seems it was several hours before Mr. Tyler found him in the library. These things are very time-critical, and… it does not look promising.”
“Well, what about the human doctor that Tyler brought over? What did they have to say?”
“She concurs with me and… several of our doctors do as well. I’m sorry…”
“What about magical treatments? Maybe I can find some spell…!”
“I’m afraid now is not the time for unconventional techniques. He’s far from stabilized at the moment, and even if he was, we’d have no way of knowing how he’d react to magic…”
“Hey, doc.”
“Yes, Spike?”
“What are the options here?”
“I’m not legally allowed to answer your questions unless Miss Sparkle permits it.”
“You can answer any questions Spike has…”
“Well, Spike, we can wait and see what happens, or we can… take him off of life support.” The doctor sighs.
Twilight starts crying again.
“Doc, if we wait and see, what’s the best case scenario for Dane?”
“I’m afraid, Spike, that right now, the best case scenario is that he might gain some lucidity, but he would likely remain on life support, in a nursing home… for the rest of his life.”
“How did this happen, anyway? He seemed just fine!”
“These things just happen sometimes. He’s 82 years old. I didn’t even realize he was that old when we first operated on him. If I’d’ve known his age, I probably wouldn’t have.”
I suppose I’ve been lucky… to have what little time I’ve had here. I so wish Patty could’ve been here with me to share it. She would’ve loved this place – obviously – but now that I’ve been here, I know even more how much she would have enjoyed it. We could have been together… at the picnic, in the hospital, even. We would have painted Ponyville red. Oh Patty… we’ll be together again soon, pumpkin. I suppose it won’t be long now…
“Hey, doc,” I hear Spike again.
“Yes, Spike?”
“If we… um… pull the plug, will he be in any pain?”
“We will do everything we can to ease his suffering.”
“Alright. Let’s do it.”
“Erm... Spike, I’m afraid I’d have to hear it from Miss Sparkle. And… aren’t you a little bit young to be making that kind of weighty decision?”
“Listen, doc, I have a writ from Princess Celestia herself, giving me power of attorney.”
“…You… Really?”
“Yeah, it’s right here.”
I can hear little fleshy feet walking closer to me.
“It’s alright, Dane. Everything’s going to be alright. I’m… I’m going to take care of you. Ok? Twilight… she’s in no shape to make choices for you. So I’m gonna have to do it for her. For you. Ok? …Ok.”
Good call, Spike. Good call. The last thing I want to do is become even more of a burden on Twilight than I already have been.
I hear Twilight sobbing again, very close to me. In fact, she’s not the only one. I hear lots of ponies crying. In a way, I hope it’s all of the girls. I hope they’ve come to see me off. But then, I hate that they have to be here. That they should suffer because of me. Even if they’re suffering for me. Because that’s what grieving is. And I’ve selfishly put this upon them. It seems everything I’ve done is selfish. I’ve intruded into their world, and they’ve accepted me. I knew they would, and I took advantage of that kindness. And I hate myself for it. I have so very many regrets… but I did it. I got my wish…
Now I wish I hadn’t…
A kind voice whispers in my ear, “I’m sorry I never got to know you better.” It’s Nurse Redheart.
