Somewhere Over the Moon

Chapters

Prologue
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
Under Lock and Key
Nothing to Write Home About

Prologue

It had been a very long time since I last had a nightmare. So long that I would not even remember it if I did not go out of my way to recount my failures, they are many, but worthy of remembrance. More than any pony in Equestria I can rightfully claim that I have never made the same mistake twice. I paused and reflected with some annoyance that this has not stopped me from making all new ones.

Walking through dreams is a complicated affair, but one I had grown accustomed to. They say in order to perfect an art one must invest at least 10,000 hours. I have invested quite a bit more in my nightly charge. Even so, no amount of familiarity could prepare me for what happened next.

Sleepers are like little worlds, but they are rarely isolated. Threads connect us to the ponies we love, and indeed the ponies we hate. Finding yourself in Pinkie Pie’s dreams is a simple endeavor. I often found myself there quite by accident, much to my chagrin. I did not have many of these connections at all. So you can imagine how I felt when the two closest to me were severed, one at a time.

My teacher, my other half, my big sister. Just like that, she was gone, and tremors shook the dreamlands as my heart shattered. I curled up on the soft grass of some nameless landscape and tried to recover, but fate would not offer me any respite. My first real friend since becoming a nightmare myself, she was gone too. I felt something very vague, and undefined. This was betrayal, but I knew not of what sort.

I pressed a hoof firmly against my chest and struggled for a breath that should not have been necessary, and yet...

Tears started to pour down my face, matting the fur and falling to the ground with a steady tapping sound that seemed to send echoes through the world around me. I had failed again, everypony dreaming that night would no doubt feel the echoes of their ruler’s despair. Such weakness is... it is unseemly.

But what did they matter, anyway? Celestia and Twilight Sparkle were gone. I had never been more sure of anything before in my life. Even in this state of heartache, my past betrayed me. You finally got your wish it said, do you not remember when you longed for this day? Now you are truly alone, and nopony will be there to stop you from doing whatever pleases you.

It’s the final straw. I did not know myself then, so how can I know myself now? How can I ever know myself again without Sister to show me? Without Twilight to guide me? I lowered my head to the ground and shielded my face with a wing, listening to the soft metronome of too loud and definite tear drops splashing to the ground.

Drip.

I blinked, and the cruel solidity of my chambers begins to crowd my beleaguered vision. “How long did I sleep for?” I grumbled as the soft glare of sunlight managed to bore it’s way into my mind like a railroad spike. I have delicate eyes.

A steady drip of soda pop fell down from the distant ceiling and splashed against my ear, which I flicked with irritation.

“Oh don’t worry, you slept through the entire night! Just like a wittle filly...” That sardonic tone barely required a thought to be placed. "I've actually been trying to wake you up for hours. Screaming in your face didn't work, mooning you didn't work, It's always the little things that annoy us enough to force a response." He snapped his fingers and the dripping stopped.

“Discord... I am not in the mood for your games.”

“And why not? You didn’t sleep well? The princess of dreams didn’t have any nightmares did she? That would be such a shame...”

I finally rose from my cushion, a suitable replacement for a cloud in the heavens, and looked around for my persistent tormenter. “If I did, it would be no concern of yours! I...” I stop short and finally begin to remember the events from before I awoke. “Discord... Where is my sister, and where is Princess Twilight Sparkle?”

“You know some ponies don’t really like watching trains, but I find it really fascinating to watch them switch tracks.” His serpentine likeness was only just visible in the corner of my room. Damn glare, the sun can be such a nuisance.

“Where. Is. My. Sister!?” My sister and... colleague, had encouraged me to avoid such acts of intimidation, and had claimed that it was a sign of wisdom and restraint to avoid that particular voice amplification spell. I was far beyond playing games with a spirit of chaos, however.

Discord reached up with one clawed hand and dug around furiously in his ears before removing a comically large fragment of brimstone. “She’s gone, your little friend is too.” His sneer was awful, just like old times. “You’re all alone, Luna.”

“It... It cannot be so!” My terror was impossible to restrain. “Tell me where they are immediately! Or I’ll-”

“Or you’ll whatt? Poke around in my dreams and keep me from getting a decent night’s sleep? You haven’t been relevant for just over 1,000 years now. The only thing that ever gave you strength was your sister, and I didn’t even need to get involved. You threw that away all on your own, didn’t you?”

With a wail of rage I leapt from the ground and soared at my offender. I was so stupid. Had I not made that mistake the first time we confronted each other, all those centuries ago? So much for my perfect record on repeat offenses. Of course he vanished in a puff of smoke, and of course that damnable snapping of digits echoed through my chamber not a second later. Chains of liquorice wrapped around my figure and pulled taut, slamming me into the ground.

“Tsk Tsk... You know, I was going to let you be my understudy. Nightmare Moon wasn’t all that bad, at least you had ‘some’ style back then. You weren’t entirely without flare, but that said I can’t say I find your present demeanor agreeable. Besides, eternal night is not nearly chaotic enough to suit my interests. I don’t think I’m going to let you set one hoof on this stage now.”

“I will never forgive you for this!” I struggled uselessly against my imprisonment. Even magic did not avail me, as the bonds merely absorbed any magical interference before growing in size. It was starting to get quite painful.

“Oh come on, like I’ve never heard that line before.” He snapped his fingers and I found myself face to face with the villain. “See Lovely Lulu, there’s a reason why you’re destined for irrelevancy, you’re just not that creative.”

I admit that despite my rage, it hurt to hear such a critique of my character. It hurt even worse because it was coming from him. He had betrayed me, betrayed my sister, betrayed Twilight... I hadn’t even been involved in one step of the dance.

“Now take me for example, I can get very creative. I just love improvising!” He coughed loudly and dramatically. “By way of example!”

For Five Score! Divided by Four!

Your Memories Removed! Your Body Confused!

He halted his chant, the dark aura of chaotic energy swirling around him seemed to recede a bit. He coughed again to clear his throat and pulled a script from the air behind him, a pair of reading glasses materialized on his loathsome snout.

“Blah Blah Blah, Insolence, Blah Blah Blah Far Away Land... Ah! Here we are!”

Your inhibitions unchecked, your sanity wrecked!

A lifetime of irrelevancy is sure to be a bore!

But you have to admit! It’s better than the moon!

I smiled and gloated, or at least as much as one can while bound in crushing candy chains. “Thou thinkest that thy curse will hold true? The ending does not even rhyme!”

Much to my alarm, the receding chaos stormed toward me. This wasn't the trickster magic I was accustomed to. This wasn't cotton candy, chocolate milk, and bamboozled stallions. This was darkness. I shuddered because what it really reminded me of was myself, the way I had been one thousand years ago.

The last thing I see are his sickly yellow eyes and furious sneer. “Since when did Chaos ever need to rhyme?”

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

“Nopony must know of this...” I stammered while looking down at my exposed cutiemark. It took a second or two to realize what I had just said. “Ugh! This should be a dream! Why isn’t it a dream?” I dragged out the word dream with a childish whine that almost resulted in the nervous grinding of teeth.

I turned the lights off and sat down on the closed toilet, sitting in the dark was often an invaluable technique for calming myself down. Denying my senses any input gives them less to work with, except for when I was feeling particularly imaginative. Right now I was a bit too preoccupied to start inventing nightmarish creatures that were crawling up the bathtub’s drain.

The cutiemark on either of my thighs wasn’t so easily avoided unfortunately. It was a bit weird and... well, neat, actually. The blotch and the crescent moon stood out against the darkness very faintly. It was not at all like typical black light effects, or glow in the dark illumination. The light seemed unusually natural, considering the source, and it pulsed as though it were alive. One of my ears did its best to flick as I focused my attention on my shiny new cutiemark. I grabbed at it with both hands and yelped, silencing myself last second as much as I could.

“I hate when it does that!” I growled out. “It feels so weird...”

I released my ear and calmed down. My issues were so much bigger than twitchy ears, and right now it wasn’t worth the distraction. I looked back down at the small representations of the night sky. The soft glow was quickly starting to hypnotize me, and if I listened close I swore I could hear the soft hum of something... indistinct.

“Ha!” I shouted a bit too loudly, given the hour. “It’s magic!”

I had to admit, I suddenly wasn’t so bent out of shape. Real magic, and it wasn’t a dream! It was a motherfucking miracle. I had half a mind to paint myself up like a clown. And then the other foot dropped.

‘This is Luna’s cutiemark.’ I took another worried glance back down. ‘What the hay am I doing with Luna’s cutiemark?’

Unbidden, my mind filled with the events from the previous week. Josh kissing my hand, the little girl on the bus, and the episode with James that I had soundly placed out of mind for the sake of my sanity.

Delicate. Flower.

I stumbled backwards and yelped. The heels of my feet had struck the side of the tub, and they could go no further, but the rest of me wasn’t so convinced. I tumbled backwards into the tub with a loud thud.

I winced and clutched the side of my head for a few moments before a sharp knock on the door sounded the presence of another. “Are you alright in there?” I heard Robert’s gruff voice echo through the bathroom door.

“Y-Yes! We are fi-” I coughed and clutched at my throat. Did... Did my voice just crack?

. . . Did I just use the royal we?

“I’m coming in.” He shoved open the door, and I mentally smacked myself for not opening the counter drawer as a makeshift deadbolt.

Instead what I did was cry out and cover up my privates with a towel. In retrospect a pointless maneuver, it’s not like I had anything he hadn’t seen before, or vice versa. “Robert... I’m naked.”

He paused in the doorway and cocked his head. “I can see that.” He closed the door behind him and then flicked on the bathroom lights. The light was almost blinding after my long sit in the dark. I closed my eyes defensively and pulled back.

“Jeez Eric, got yourself some nice tattoos there.” When I opened my eyes he was hunched over by the side of the tub, and was poking my cutiemark experimentally.

I swatted at his hand nervously while using my spare to hide behind the towel. “What are you doing?! Stop that!” I recoiled further into the tub and winced when the cold metal of the facet grazed my back. “It’s not a tattoo...” I whimpered.

“Are you sure?” That old big brother tone entered his voice and his lips curled into an expression of knowing mirth. “Because it looks like you tattoo’d Luna’s cutiemark onto your butt.” He clasped his hands together and laughed out. “Oh Eric, now you really are a princess!”

I don’t know what I was thinking. My heart rate was sky high, so I guess that’s evidence toward the conclusion that I hadn’t. My hand sailed out and collided with his face, the echo from the slap was almost deafening as it ricocheted off the walls. In the aftermath, I was hyperventilating with my hand outstretched, and Robert’s face was red like the inside of a plum. It was obvious there was going to be a bruise. He clutched the side of his face with a pained expression.

I gathered my senses, and upon recognizing my extremely effeminate position I yelped and curled inward, wrapping the towel completely around myself. “Not a tattoo...” I mumbled out before purposefully avoiding his gaze.

“Relax Eric, I know that. I was just teasing you.” Robert rubbed at his jaw. “You should really stick to slapping, they’re way worse than your punches.”

I ignored his last statement. “How can you tell?”

“That it’s not a tattoo?”

I nodded quietly.

Robert reached over and pulled back the left sleeve of his shirt, around his arm was a band of ink for every year he’d been alive. I didn’t need to count to know there was 31 of them, and pretty soon there would be 32. The closer they got to the base of the wrist the more faded they appeared. The first 18 must have been done at once, because they all had the same faded greenish black colour.

“Because that is what a real tattoo looks like.” He stated matter of factly. “Whatever you’ve got going there, it looks like a birthmark, but... It’s like someone painted it on.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re not going to get a white moon that is that unblemished at a tattoo parlor. Unless you found someone who has perfected mysterious techniques from the exotic orient.”

“It’s a cutiemark...” I half whispered to myself.

Robert beamed down at me. “It sure looks like it!” He walked over to the sink and wet a rag with cold water before applying it to his face. “So how’d you get it?”

“I had a nightmare, so I decided to take a shower.” I exaggerated a shrug enough for the gesture to be visible through the towel. “I just woke up with it, this morning.”

“This morning, huh?”

Once again, I nodded.

“Well, happy birthday I suppose.” He reached his hand into his back pocket and dug out a small orangish-brown envelope before tossing it to me. I stretched my hands out from under the towel and caught it.

“What is this?”

“It’s your birthday present.”

“But... why? You didn’t even know I was going to be here yesterday.” I looked down and started scrutinizing it carefully, ready for a prank.

“Read the envelope Eric... I was going to mail it today.”

Sure enough the package had my old address in Wisconsin on it.

“Go ahead, open it.” He sat Indian-style against the bathroom door and leaned into it, clutching the cold rag to his face.

It wasn’t that difficult to open, though I did end up resorting to my teeth. I guess in my emotional state I lost quite a bit of my dexterity, because I kept fumbling with my hands. With a slow rip I tore at one of the ends. I gently tapped the side of it against the towel and the contents fell out onto the relatively yielding safety of the material, instead of the hard surface of the tub. The first object I noticed was a necklace. It was hard to miss with the large dark blue crystal perched in the center. The crystal was held in place by the most amazing wire-wrapping job ever. It was elegant in a sort of dark way, possessed of both sharp edges and graceful curves. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen in some jewelry shop.

“Robert... How did you get this?”

“DeviantArt, 200 dollars.”

“You bought me a necklace off DeviantArt?” I raised a brow at him.

He winced at the quickly developing bruise. “Hey, if you don’t want it, I’ll wear it.”

“No No! I want it, it’s just...” I looked down at the necklace and folded my fingers around the pendent. “Thanks...”

I reached down and picked up the second object, which was a letter. It was handwritten ink on blank white printer paper. It was also unevenly folded, but I always had a hard time with that myself.

Hey Eric

I know we didn’t get along very well growing up. But I just wanted to write you for your birthday and tell you how proud I am of you. This is your first birthday way from home, right? You finally got out man, and I think thats great!

You seem to really like shiny things, and this made me think of you. I hope you don’t mind that it’s basically jewelry, I know how sensitive you can be about your masculinity (Or lack thereof! Ha!)

Happy Birthday

Robert

I folded the letter up and slipped it back into the envelope. “Thank you...” I fiddled with the chain of the necklace a bit. “It was very thoughtful, we appreciate your gift.”

Eric snickered, and I clapped a hand over my mouth.

“We, huh?”

“Robert! You can’t tell anyone about the...” My voice talespinned into a squeaky whisper. “Cutiemark...”

“Hey, don’t worry Luna.” He stated mockingly. “I won’t tell anyone, it’ll be our little secret.”

I ignored his teasing and stood up. I bent over and snatched up the extra towel, draping it over my shoulders. The first towel was wrapped around my waist, so most of my figure was now obfuscated enough to suit my nerves. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” He stood up. “If anyone asks, I slipped and fell into the doorknob.”

“If anyone asks, I fell in the shower, and my voice did not crack.”

He held out a hand and we shook on it. “Deal.”

I climbed out of the tub and yawned. “I should get some more sleep.”

Robert nodded and opened the bathroom door. “After you milady.” He held his hand out like some kind of manservant.

I was about to become my usual indignant self, but a flash of heat from my thighs interrupted me, and instead of yelling at him I merely huffed. “We are more than prepared to strike thee a second time.”

Robert looked incredibly confused by the archaic speech, but he stood up straight and stopped with the charade.

“Much better.” I replied, and stepped proudly out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom.

When the door closed behind me I fell back against it. The wave of heat dissipated and I was feeling absolutely frigid all of a sudden. I slid down until I was sprawled out on my rear, a detail that only reminded me of the mark I now shared with a certain cartoon horse. I closed my eyes and ran a tense hand through my hair.

What the hell was happening to me? Why was I speaking so strangely? Why was I acting this way? I felt like an absolute stranger to myself. Am I going to start speaking in caps-lock soon? As abrupt as some of the changes in personality were, it was getting very hard to tell where Luna began and I ended.

‘Assuming there is any difference at all.’ I thought bitterly.

My other hand was still holding the necklace my brother had given me, and I stared at it. It glinted in the soft light of near-dawn, and scattered the light around pleasantly. It really was beautiful.

‘I bet it will match my coat quite well. Tia will be so jealous!’

My eyes widened.

Ah ha, yeah... No. We’re going back to sleep now.

I mean I am going back to sleep now!

With a frustrated sob I picked myself up and stepped lightly to the bed. A cold feeling in my chest was still spreading out through my veins and making me shiver, so when I collapsed onto it I scooped up all of the blankets and bundled myself in them tightly.

The insulation from the blankets didn’t seem to do much besides trap the cold in. I thrashed about a bit trying to get warm before finally giving up and curling up into a ball with my back against the wall. It felt like icy fingers were wrapping themselves around my heart, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to cope.

As I got myself situated however, a gentle pulse of warmth resonated from where my new cutiemark was located. It did a pretty good job of driving off most of the cold, though it remained particularly bad in my chest. I couldn’t really help myself at that point, I murmured happily and reveled in the feelings sweeping through my body.

Sure, everything was changing, and this was my body. My precious body. But isn’t change what I was looking for in the first place when I left home all those months ago? The mental changes were especially frightening still, but all of this still felt... really nice!

I drifted off to sleep then. The warmth filling my body continued to battle that invasive coldness. Those twin sensations ushered me into sleep together.

I’ll never understand why people claim you can’t dream in colour, or read in your dreams. If anything colours were exaggerated in my dreams. Reading was as simple as noting the address and names on the side of the mailboxes, and based on those, I wasn’t too far from my father’s house. I probably could have left if I wanted to, but the natural gravity provided by the dream’s intensity pulled me forward, and I didn’t see a reason to fight back. The secret to relaxation in the dreamlands is to just go with the flow.

For the most part, anyway.

My father and mother divorced early on after my younger brother had been born. He was a bit of a lecherous pig, and I didn’t really enjoy his company much anyway. He always hollered after women or acted like some kind of stud whenever I was around. It’s the same way he acted around guys in general, really, and it was as though I was expected to find him cool for this behavior. He was trying to earn my respect, and that was his first step towards losing it.

I had an older sister from before he met my mother, and he never acted that way around her. He acted like... Well, what I hope qualifies for himself. He would never act that way around me, and I always resented him for that. Her as well, but since I never interacted with her it was hardly an issue that ever came up.

That soft and gentle inertia led me to the front yard of his house. The grass was well kept and there was a large tree for shade, as well as a trampoline. Dad met an overweight singer at his local church, and she was desperate to get married and have kids. I guess her biological clock was running out and such. She had rich parent, so.Dad made out like a bandit. She was so grateful that she didn’t even care about his wandering eyes, or hands.

The picket fence was gone. That was new, I certainly didn't remember that from the last time I visited. Around the perimeter of the yard were long wooden stakes with wire stretched in a hexagonal pattern around them. On the other side of the wire was a thick brown cardboard, like when you get those little tubes of biscuit dough for dinner. While scrutinizing the layout an understand dawned on me. He was replacing his old picket fence with a wall.

That gravity began tugging at me once more, and I knew I had to find my father. At this time of day I assumed he would be in the backyard working on his garden. So I rounded the house and made my way towards it.

When I dream, I make a game of noticing the interesting incongruencies. To veer on a Jungian tangent, dreams are intuition based, and less sensing based. This might account for why people claim you cannot read or see in colour in dreams... But that’s a thought exercise for another time.

The first thing I noticed about this dream was that everything ‘was much larger than it should have been. The stakes went up to my shoulders, instead of my waist. The house towered like a castle, and I could even make out a pennant flying high at the top. When I finally reached the garden the vegetables had received the same treatment. The pumpkins were as big as carriages, and the the heads of lettuce were as big as cardboard boxes.

“Eric?” I heard my father’s voice call out in an angry and confused tone.

So, It was one of those dreams.

I turned around to face him. My father was always a big man. He worked for a moving company for most of his life, and never cut his hair, and in this dream his size was also exaggerated. He looked like a towering barbarian king come to demand his offering of slaves.

“What are you doing standing around? Get back to work!” He tossed a shovel at me, expecting me to catch it. I calmly stepped to the side, and it clattered to the ground by my feet. My only response was a smirk.

His jaw went slack, and his face turned red. “What are you doing? Pick up that shovel!”

“Yeah, I just don’t think that’s going to happen.” I looked down at the shovel and spat at it. “Sorry pops, no free labor today!”

He marched the rest of the distance between us and thrust a finger against my chest. The waves of anger tugged and twisted at the dream, disturbing the flow and amping up the intensity. Things were getting out of hand. If they continued, the gravity would likely be too strong for me to fight against. I’d find myself in a nightmare, and those are unpleasant on the best of nights.

I acted on instinct, even I do that in dreams on occasion. I shoved the towering man back with unexpected strength. When he stepped back his face was a blistering beet red, and he swung at me. I ducked beneath the blow and scooped up the shovel by the handle in one movement, then rolled around his side and behind him with the next. Before he could recover from his attempted haymaker I brought the metal end of the shovel down on his head, hard.

With a crack that echoed through the dream he collapsed onto the ground in a heap. I lifted the shovel high into the air and prepared to stab it down like a spear right into his back, but before I could complete the movement a voice called out to me.

“Stop!”

I took one of my hands off the handle and lowered the shovel to my side. Standing by my father’s side was one of his newer kids. Jordan, I think this one’s name was. Jordan was the oldest from what I remember anyway. He stood by my father's crumpled body and his slingshot was drawn like he was David fighting Goliath. If this were anyone else’s dream I’d feel like I interrupted something important, but since that was obviously impossible, and this was mine, I couldn’t help but feel like I was meant to be upstaged again.

By a kid with a slingshot.

“You step away from my father!” He bellowed.

“You step away from mine!”

Jordan shook his head with an expression of righteous anger. “He’s not your father! Stop pretending to be Eric!”

“What the hell are you talking about? Of course I’m Eric! Now get out of the way while I finish this stupid dream!”

Jordan pulled the cord on his slingshot back a bit further. “It’s not a dream, it’s a nightmare, and you’re not Eric. Eric doesn’t have eyes like that.”

“What?”

“Eric has brown eyes, yours aren’t even human.” He spat at me. “They’re weird and funny looking, like a demon’s!”

I felt a sharp icey stab of pain in my thighs, and pulled the waist of my pants out so I could look down and see what the matter was.

That’s weird, when did I get Luna’s cutiemark?

It was pulsing too, fading from a dark purple to pitch black. The purple light was almost malevolent, and my mind immediately drew a comparison to cancer. I looked around wildly for something to serve as a mirror, and the dream provided.

I tossed the shovel to the side and walked down to the back yard’s driveway. The gravel had come loose here, and there was a large puddle of water in the indent. It functioned perfectly as a mirror, and I bent down to get a good look at my reflection.

Jordan was right, my eyes did look weird. They were a vibrant glowing turquoise, and had a narrow slit for a pupil. It was extremely disconcerting, and somehow they brought up memories I couldn’t quite put into context. They filled me with terror, that was key. Something very very bad was happening to me.

I took a step back from the pool of water, and turned around to face Jordan. Instead I saw my father back on his feet. He had the shovel from earlier and was winding it back with both hands. I didn’t even hear the impact as it smashed into my face.

Bad end, I guess.

I tried to gasp out for breath when I woke up, but it had been too abrupt. Already I could barely remember what had happened, and traces of memory were ransacked by the creeping feeling of dread that came with sleep paralysis. I needed to move! I needed to breathe! Both were denied to me, and I started to whimper in my own mind as shadows in the room crept and moved about. At least the terror was alleviated a bit by the rays of sunlight sweeping into the room. If this were my night, my punishment for swift departure from sleep would be quite a bit steeper.

Unable to move, unable to breathe, imprisoned in my own body... Just like being imprisoned in the moon.

Warmth filled me again, and I started to regain the feeling in my legs. I kicked and thrashed to exercise my reclaimed freedom.

I sat up straight and shivered. I’ve never been in any moon. What was wrong with me? I peeked down my pajamas and sighed with relief. My cutiemark was black with a white moon. Black, not purple. Why was I so relieved to see that?

I made my way into the bathroom and cranked on the facet. I cupped my hands under the stream and splashed my face with soothing warm water, then took a good long look in the mirror. There was no sign of stubble or shadow, none at all. The skin was pale, and I couldn’t help but notice that my face looked a bit more feminine somehow. It seemed overnight I had lost the need to shave, and also acquired some crazy eyelashes. My eyes were still brown at least, so no changes there. I peeked down at my cutiemark again and sighed.

‘It’s going to be time to get a legal name change soon, Eric. At least you’ve always liked the name Luna. You could have ended up as her sister, right?’

My towels weren’t in the bathroom anymore, so I went back into Robert’s room before drying off my face. My bag filled with clothing was still laying on its side in the center of the room, so I picked it up and spilled the contents out onto the floor. There was nothing in there but clothes and a few grooming items: an electric razor, a bottle of skin cleanser, and a bottle of toner.

Look, the first step to maintaining health is prevention. If I was going to age I was going to age gracefully damn it. My mom and dad were in their 50s, and I’ve seen what waits for me otherwise.

‘You’re turning into an immortal princess of the night, remember? Age is a thing of the past! Always look on the bright side of life!’

I sorted through the clothing until I found a pair of jeans. Not my favorite pair, but they were the first thing I spotted so I put them on.

Strangely, putting them on was a bit of a chore, but it wasn’t like I had gained any weight. If anything I had lost a few pounds while on the road. I struggled briefly getting them up and over my thighs, and when they were on they didn’t fit right at all. They were too tight in some places, and too loose in others. What was even weirder was that they were too long. While walking around I would repeatedly catch my heel on the bottom of the pant leg. The last time I had worn them they stopped at my ankle.

I slipped them off with a bit less effort and tried the next pair, but experienced the same problem as before. I went through my entire pile of clothing and experienced more of the same, for the most part. Some investigation with the mirror helped me realize that not only did I have a shiny new cutiemark, I now had prominent hips as well.

A cutiemark belonging to some princess from a cartoon show had been relatively easy to handle, back when it didn't include the unfortunate side effect of turning into a girl too. I really need to figure out my priorities here. Am I upset because I’m turning into Luna, or am I upset because I’m switching teams?

I tossed my pants back into the duffle bag and put my pajamas back on. Glorious PJs, you are a source of hope for fat people and TF victims the world over.

By the time I finished cleaning up after myself a loud bang came from the doorway. Robert flung open the door to the bedroom with John hounding him from behind. He dashed inside with a plate of eggs and a cup of orange juice, then slammed the door in John’s face.

“What are you two doing in there? What new conspiracy are you hatching?!” John shouted through the door.

“Keep at it, and I’m gonna show ya!” Robert called back. The sounds at the door stopped.

Robert sighed and placed the plate and cup down in front of me. He then marched over to the door and swung it open. John tumbled forward onto his face, as his ear had been placed against the door.

“Seriously, I want some privacy with Eric. We spend enough time together.” John looked like he was a dog being abused. “We’ll hang out later today, okay? Whatever you want to do.”

John nodded meekly and trudged off for his own bedroom. Robert closed the door gently before turning around to face me.

“I thought you could use some breakfast. Figured you’d be up, or that you’d better be, it’s nearly noon.”

I took a forkful of cold eggs and chewed them quietly. “Thanks.”

“So... Anything new?” He asked covertly, though we both knew what he meant.

I gulped down the eggs and took a large swig of OJ. I hesitated before deciding to tell him. “I haven’t shaved since the middle of the day yesterday, and my pants don’t fit anymore.” I shifted uncomfortably. “They don’t fit right.” I amended.

Robert beamed like a saint on the day of his canonization. “My last girlfriend left some of her clothes here, you can try on some of her jeans!”

“Not very funny.” I hungrily finished my eggs in between words.

“I was being serious...” He fished out a pair from the closet and tossed them on the ground beside me. “They’re nothing excessive or anything. Any skater would love to snag a pair.”

He was right, they were pretty tame as far as jeans go. There was a bit more to my reluctance though. Wearing clothing tailored for a girl would be giving in! It would be letting... whatever is happening, win!

“Look, just try them on, if you don’t like them you don’t need to wear them.”

I grumbled, huffed, and made a show of being miserable, but in the end I still picked up the pair of pants. Robert just kept staring at me, and I looked up at him. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all. Please continue.”

I glared in reply. “Turn around. Or leave the room, I do not care which.”

Robert rolled his eyes and turned around to face the closet doors. It took me a moment to realize they doubled as mirrors, and that making him turn around changed nothing. I growled out angrily and pulled off my pajamas before slipping into the jeans.

As it turns out the jeans were a perfect fit. Robert turned around and raised a brow after looking me over. “Uh... Yeah. You definitely weren’t like that last night. By which I mean... this morning.”

I pulled off the jeans in frustration and slipped back into my PJs before collapsing backwards onto his bed. “I don’t know what’s going on!”

Robert took a seat next to me and placed a hand on my shoulder, and for once in my life I actually didn't mind being physically close to someone. I curled up and pulled a bit closer in response.

“I know what’s happening.” He smiled down at me.

“Y-You do?”

“Yes! You’re blossoming into a beautiful young woman! It took you long enough.”

Robert snickered as I yelled out angrily and rolled over to shove him off the bed. “Joking! I’m joking! Don’t worry, I’m sure there has to be an explanation for this!”

He pulled out the chair to his desk and took a seat before booting up his PC. I was content to glower at him from the bed while he did his thing. His desktop was nothing but a black screen, as evidently his copy of windows was ‘not genuine’. Aside from that it was immaculate and clear of icons.

Occasionally he’d ask for any suggestions when it came to where to look for other cases, and I’d bitterly call out some brony community that I wish I didn’t know about. We went back and forth like this for an hour, and didn’t find anything.

“Fuck it!” Robert called out in frustration. “If someone needs to be OP, it may as well be us!”

He brought up Twitter and mused loudly. “I don’t really want to use my twitter account for this, do you have one?”

I scoffed at him. “Of course I do not have a Twitter account, I thought you were my brother.”

Robert repeated what I said in a mocking tone. “Of course I don’t have a Twitter! My name’s Eric and I’m too high and mighty to use facebook or other social networking sites!”

I scrunched up my face at him as best I could. “Just make a new account or something.”

“Good idea!” He snickered. “Lets see, we will name it ‘mlp4evar’!” He found this name hilarious. I found it retarded.

“You’re never going to get any bites with a name like that!”

“Just watch me.”

He spent a few moments setting up the account, and then another minute typing up the message, which read as follows:

Woke up with a Cutie Mark today!

I’m confused, but happy!

#mlp #bizarre

“So what do you think?” He pulled away so I could see from the bed.

“I think it looks like a child wrote it.”

“Perfect!” He grinned before clicking the submission button.

I rolled my eyes and got up off the bed. “So what do we do now?”

Robert shrugged and got out of his chair. “Relax? It’s your birthday. That’s what you do on your birthday. Arcane symbols plastered to your rear be damned.” He moved over to the door to open it, but didn’t wait for me to leave first this time.

As it happened, by the time we finished screwing around in his room it was just after noon. Mom had gone to work hours ago, and John was busy sulking in his room. Robert got to work cleaning up the kitchen, and I timidly followed behind him.

“You can use my room until we figure all of this out.” He said while tossing the dishes into the dishwasher haphazardly.

“Really?” I froze in my tracks. No one in my family had ever really given me anything, or really gone out of their way to take care of me really. I couldn’t help but think about the letter that I had received with the necklace I was currently wearing. My hand instinctively reached up for the pendant to hold on to, and I was flooded with that by now familiar warm feeling. “Thanks... That actually means a lot to us... me! It means a lot to me!”

Robert laughed and shook his head before wiping his hands off on a dish towel. “Don’t mention it. Sleeping on the couch for awhile isn’t going to kill me.” He walked over to the fridge and removed his keys from a magnet. “Unfortunately, I have class today. So you’re going to have to spend your birthday with John.”

I grimaced, but nodded my understanding. “I am sure I will be fine. Thanks for everything, again.”

He smiled from the doorway and gave a little mock bow, then spun on his heel and marched out the door.

I was alone.

In my absence the family had acquired one of those huge wall-mounted HD Television sets. Channel surfing didn’t reveal anything of real interest, so I switched it to Chiller and pulled out my laptop. As always, Skype was open as soon as I unlocked my user account.

The first thing I noticed was somewhere in the ballpark of 87 missed messages from Josh. This was unsettling, because even he is not normally that energetic. I skimmed through most of them and went to the bottom. It was mostly just him randomly asking if I was invisible or something with varying degrees of urgency. Since he was still online I decided to figure out what was so important.

Wintermute: How can I help you?

Nightwatch: Guess what?

Nightwatch stands at attention, eagerly awaiting your guess!

Wintermute: Uh...

Wintermute: You woke up with somepony’s cutie mark, you don’t need to shave anymore, and your pants no longer fit properly?

Nightwatch: =O

Nightwatch: You’re right!

Nightwatch: Well, half right. My hair is also turning dark blue, and my eyes are fuschia.

Nightwatch: Also, they look kinda weird, like a cat’s!

Nightwatch: Or...

Wintermute: Or that OC you stole, you mean?

Nightwatch: I didn’t steal it! I just think she looks cool is all.

Nightwatch: Anyway, how did you know? I can’t find anything about it on the internet.

Nightwatch: . . . Who’s cutie mark did you wake up with?

Wintermute: …

Nightwatch: Well?

Wintermute: Luna’s. My hair and eyes are still perfectly normal, though.

Nightwatch: I knew it! I knew there was a reason for everything!

Nightwatch: Now I know why I got all of those feeling about you when you were staying with me!

Nightwatch: It all makes sense! You really ‘are’ a princess! And I’m one of your royal guards! This is so exciting! Aren’t you excited?

Wintermute: Hold on.

Wintermute: I am not Princess Luna, and you are not some random Nightguard.

Nightwatch: That sure doesn’t seem to be the case!

Nightwatch: Don’t you remember Season 5? The finale?

Wintermute: I try not to. It sucks.

Nightwatch: Discord sent everypony to Earth! It all makes sense! I even had a dream!

Nightwatch: For Five Score, Divided by Four! That’s 25! And we both just turned 25!

A bit of what Josh was telling me was starting to take root. It ‘does’ make a certain kind of sense. Something about all of this is reminding me of the bus ride to San Diego, and my mind wanders to the fake phone number in the pocket of my jeans.

Wintermute: Lets say I believe you. I’m still Eric. Maybe I ‘like’ being Eric. I don’t want to be Princess Luna, and I don’t plan on being her even if my body changes to look like hers!

Nightwatch: Oh don’t be ridiculous. You don’t like being Eric. That’s why you ran across the country.

Nightwatch: And you never stopped being her. You just forgot you were her.

Nightwatch: Heck, I bet if you look back on your childhood in this context, it all starts to make a lot more sense! Mine certainly does, and there isn’t even a canon personality for Nightwatch!

I squirmed uncomfortably on the couch and ran a hand through my hair. I briefly considered how long I had before it was a swaying mass of magic, but was interrupted by a knock at the door, and the soft sound of something being dropped at my doorstep.

Wintermute: I just got a package. I’ll be back in a bit.

Nightwatch raises her hoof proudly in a salute.

Nightwatch: talk to you in a bit Princess!

I issued an exasperated sigh and walked over to the door, opening it with all the weary anxiety of someone who is apparently a long lost princess of a magical land far away. There is no one there, just a small brown box. It’s postmarked from last week and is addressed to me, so I pick it up and take it inside.

I flipped the box around a bit and found a return address:

James Concord

16132 Everfree Ln

Los Angeles, CA XXXXX

Well isn’t that just a sterling endorsement? I tossed it to the couch across from me and stared at it like the possible explosive that it was. Eventually my curiosity won out, and I crossed the distance. I took the box in both hands and tore it open with alarming speed. Something soft tumbled out onto the couch, followed by a piece of paper that drifted lazily to the cushion beside it.

It was a Nightmare Moon plushie. A really good one, too. A jolt of cold ran through my veins and I turn to my laptop.

Wintermute: Look I need to go, right now.

Nightwatch: Are you okay?!

Nightwatch: Please tell me you’re okay, I’d never forgive myself for letting you leave!

I don’t stick around to read what he or she is saying. I close the lid to my laptop, grab the Nightmare Moon plushie, and squeeze them together under one arm. I only just remember the note that tumbled out as well, and storm back into Robert’s room.

I snatched up the plush from under my arm and flung it at the bed across the room from me, then set my laptop down on the desk beside Robert’s keyboard. With the note clenched firmly in my left hand I slid down onto all fours and then fell back onto the floor. I stared at it for a few minutes, breathing loudly and trying to get my heart rate under control, then I finally begin to unfold it.

Dearest Luna,

Birthdays are a wonderful time to reflect on the past, and prepare for the future, don’t you think?

XOXO

Discord

Tears began to stream down my face, and I held a hand up to my mouth to stifle any sobs. Why is such a short stupid letter affecting me like this? I am not Luna!

I crumpled up the note and threw it away from me.

“I am not Luna...”

The tears continued to well up in rebellion. I curled up against the desk, fighting to reclaim my composure. Eventually I gave up and pulled myself over to the the bed. After burrowing under the sheets I reached out for the Nightmare Moon plushie. It made me feel terrible just to look at it, it’s a reminder of what is happening to me. It’s reminding me of a past I just don’t want. How could anyone want it? And yet, it’s comforting. It’s very soft, and oddly cool to the touch, It reminds me of the moon.

Just like the moon.

My body is wracked with sobs and I clutch the little toy tighter. I can’t stop thinking about what that little girl said, what Sarah said to me.

“Your sister hasn’t given up on you! So you can’t give up on her!”

With those words in mind, I drift into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

I woke up a couple of hours later and frantically checked my hair in the mirror. It still looked the same, but I guess it could be a little longer? I shrugged and decided to count my blessings. Eyes still look normal as well, as added bonus.

I still have the Nightmare Moon plush squeezed in under one arm. It really is a neat little thing. From anyone else it would be a thoughtful birthday gift. I always admired how Nightmare Moon looked. She was way more beautiful than Princess Luna, especially the way Luna looked in season one. That was just...

‘Pathetic.’ was the first word that sprang to mind. Nightmare Moon was definitely cooler, not to mention more mature, and adult. I shook my head vigorously and cleared my thoughts.

What the hell is wrong with me? Nightmare Moon is a villain, and that helmet looked retarded! Besides, I matured just fine on my own by season two.

'Really? Thinking of ourselves as Luna now?' I lowered my head sadly and placed the plush on top of the pillow.

Well, I left Josh pretty abruptly, so maybe I should inform him of my well-being. No reason why I can’t do that from Robert’s computer. I took a seat in the chair and got to work.

Wintermute: Hey.

Wintermute: I just wanted to say everything is fine. I got a Nightmare Moon plushie in the mail and decided to go think about stuff.

Nightwatch: How disgustingly thoughtless!

Nightwatch: Does it have a return address? Are you alright?

Wintermute: I am fine. No, there does not appear to be a return address.

Wintermute: In any case it is remarkably well made, and I am pleased with it.

Nightwatch: Really?

Nightwatch: You’re pleased with it?

Nightwatch: But you’re... you know. Luna.

Wintermute: Yes, well. I remain unconvinced.

Wintermute: NotALuna.

For once, Nightwatch... I mean Josh, seemed at a loss for words. I took the opportunity to browse the web for awhile, and noticed the page was still open to Robert’s fake twitter account. It already had a reply.

FionaS

Hi!

If it’s not too much trouble... Would you be willing to elaborate?

#cutiemark #mlp

My face flushed red with embarrassment and I snatched up Robert’s keyboard. I typed out furiously and perhaps with more shame than was necessary.

mlp4eva

Sorry! Just a prank intended for a friend! Really Sorry!

I felt pretty guilty lying like that, but I was feeling very paranoid all of a sudden. And despite all the blushing, unusually cold. What if she needed help? What if she was like me, or Josh?

It didn’t matter, right now what mattered was finding answers for myself. I did a routine search on all of the websites we checked earlier, but didn’t find anything of note. If other people were speaking out I was too incompetent to find them. I sighed and shoved the keyboard away. Twirling about in the chair managed to amuse me for awhile, but after a time I grew bored, and noticed that I was actually quite exhausted, in spite of the nap I just had.

It was the middle of the day, why the hell would I be exhausted? Oh, right. Because I am Princess Luna, apparently.

I fought pretty hard to maintain my diurnal freedom. I browsed the web for silly things, I tried to kick back and watch a movie, but nothing was nearly as appealing as getting some more sleep. With a bitter yawn of defeat I crawled back into bed, hugged my Nightmare Moon plush close, and curled up on my belly. I didn’t even need to put a sheet up over the window like usual. The strong presence of daylight had an almost soporific effect that soothed and lulled me to sleep the way pitch darkness used to back when I was...

What? When I was human? I’ve still got my fingers and toes. I haven’t given up my humanity just yet.

Robert was right though. Birthdays are for relaxing, and that’s just what I was going to try and do now.

It was hot down here. It was hot and smelled incredibly unpleasant. I looked around to get a better understanding of myself and my setting, but it was hard to make a guess. I was standing in a pretty non-descript rock tunnel. It was well lit, despite the lack of a light source, but dreams did not always have to make linear sense. Intuitive, not Sensing again. The area was bright because it was a place that wanted you to see. In these subterranean confines, that did a lot to unnerve me.

I walked forward on two conspicuously human feet, and I wasn’t sure if I was happy or sad over it. I still had my Nightmare Moon plush with me, and that seemed perfectly reasonable.

I don't really experience them very often, but occasionally I'll have a dream where I somehow know the meaning to life, the universe, and everything. I don't usually remember much when I wake up, I just get the feeling I lost my grip on years of information. This was shaping up to be one of those dreams, and I was already starting to feel drunk and not myself.

Although the place was well lit, and wanted me to see things, they were not without their own shadows, and I made use of them whenever necessary. I guess down here the monsters didn't need to hide in the darkness. A word for the place tickled at the back of my mind, and I dove deeper and deeper into those passages. After all, it was merely a dream, and I am not afraid of dreams.

I am in my element as it were.

I finally came to a large antechamber in the bowels of the system, and what I saw in the center shocked me.

“Sister!” I cried out, but it was Luna’s voice, not mine, that I heard.

The regal white form was wreathed in black iron chains that dug into her coat and left faint burns and blisters everywhere. It looked like she hadn’t moved for years, but she stirred when she heard my voice.

“Luna?!” Her own cry responded to mine, filled with hope. She turned her head as much as she could and I gazed into her large pink eyes.

I could see my reflection in them. I was still human, still Eric. Only my eyes and frame were different. Celestia looked noticeably crestfallen when she saw me, and much of her hopefulness evaporated.

“What happened to you Luna?” Tears started to well up in her eyes, before streaming down her face and splashing to the ground. The hungry nature of the place drank them greedily, and seemed to glow brighter for it.

I placed a hand on her side and she winced, like she was afraid of me. I couldn’t help but notice how her eyes lingered on my little Nightmare doll. I pulled my hand away sadly.

I paused for a moment, trying to think of how I should reply. “Discord happened to me. To us.” I looked at the ground to hide my immense guilt. “He did the same to Twilight Sparkle. He caught me before I was even finished waking up.”

We were both quiet for awhile, though I think Celestia’s silence was due to her state. It looked painful to even breathe with all those chains wrapped around her.

“We’re in Tartarus, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” Celestia croaked weakly. “Discord happened to me too.”

“Yes, I saw the episode.” I muttered, falling to my knees beside her.

“What?”

“... I will explain some other time. You must be dreaming, I can help you get out of here.”

My sister’s tears finally stopped and she shook her head, grimacing with the effort. “You cannot help me.”

“Of course I can! We are dreaming, I am unstoppable here!”

“Luna! You cannot help me. You cannot even help yourself...” Celestia coughed weakly. “You are not yourself right now. Not in body, not in mind, and certainly not in spirit.”

“So what am I supposed to do then? Just leave you here? I will not!”

“Luna, even if you stole me away with you, my body is still here. There is nothing you can do about that.” She paused before continuing. “You must find Twilight and the rest of the elements, they are the only way you can stop Discord!”

That cold feeling welled up inside of me, and I stomped my foot against the stone with a loud crack. “How am I supposed to do that? Why am I supposed to do that? Why isn’t my help ever good enough?!”

Celestia flinched at my outburst, and I was not sorry.

“Ever since my exile ended, you have done nothing but shut me away! Whenever our kingdom was in any real danger, you made sure I was away! Why?! Tell me!”

“Luna... I just worry for you, maybe you could handle things on your own, maybe we both could, but the elements are so much safer. They’re so much easier and certain!”

‘She thinks you’re unreliable. She doesn’t trust you.’

‘Birthdays are a good time to reflect on the past, and prepare for the future, don’t you think?’

It hurt, a lot. It felt like someone had stabbed me in the chest with an icicle, and I cried out, dropping the little doll to the floor, and It vanished in a whirl of black smoke.

I struggled to catch my breath, and Celestia looked on with concern.

“...Luna?” She struggled in her chains. “Please tell me you’re okay...”

“I’m fine.” I whispered, then reached out to hug her. “I haven’t given up on you, so you can’t give up on me. Alright?”

Much of my sister’s tension seemed to melt away in my arms, and I began to really regret being human. It was a good thing we were dreaming, because of that, humanity was not strictly necessary.

A transformation sequence wasn't even necessary, I just was. I folded my hooves under me and nuzzled her. “I am not helpless... You, Princess Cadance, myself, we may not be bearers of harmony like Twilight Sparkle and her friends, but we are still alicorns.” I shielded her with a wing. “We can still make a difference on our own. Are we not products of harmony ourselves?”

Celestia weighed her thoughts carefully, that much will never change about her. “Yes... Yes, I’m sorry, you’re right Luna.” She wheezed softly through her labored speech. “Just do your very best, and I’m sure you’ll find our way out of this mess.”

I nodded, and felt the not so gentle inertia of the dream pulling me away. “I need to go soon, Sister.”

“Luna! I just... I wanted to say, you were right about him. You were right about Discord.”

“It’s not your fault, you were just being yourself.” I smiled down at her. Me, the younger sister, smiling down at her. “You try to bring out the best in others, it’s just what you are. We’ll get through this too.” I laugh gently, and am delighted by the sound’s bell-like quality. “Hope and love, right?”

My sister smiled at me in return. “Hope and Love.”

The tugging is becoming more insistent, and I rise to my hooves to follow it.

The sun is starting to set when I wake up, and for once I remember one of my dreams, very vividly. I don’t know if it’s because I am that much Luna or...

No... Josh was right, wasn’t he? I was always Luna. Celestia was always my...

Well, that explained my relationship with the show, and at least I’m not afraid anymore. I know where my home is now, I know who my family is, and I know why I’m not there. It was taken from me, and I need to work on taking it back.

I sat up in bed and stretched. My bones and tendons cracked and groaned in all sorts of fun new ways. There is no way this is going to stop at a cutie mark and the need for new clothes, and I for one am ready for it. At least... I think I am?

Certainly I am more ready for it than when I was just Eric.

I climbed out of bed and stumbled over to the door. Walking on two legs all of a sudden isn’t so easy, but I remember myself quickly. Switching gears, that’s the hard part. I just had to remind myself that I still have two legs.

The house was quiet, and when I reached the kitchen I discover why. My mom, Robert, and John were seated at the table around a small store-bought cake.

I reached up to scratch my head and yawn. My hair is definitely longer now, but no one seems to notice, except maybe Robert, but he has an excellent poker face.

“We were wondering when you’d get up.” My mom commented with naked irritation.

“Happy Birthday!” John and Robert both called out, John’s enthusiasm didn’t exactly feel sincere, but Robert’s picked up the slack.

We took a bit to light the candles, and Mom insisted we sing the most awkward performance of Happy Birthday in the history of the human race. I stared at the little 25 on top of my cake and huffed to myself.

‘Quite a bit older than 25, actually.’

I blew out the candles and made perhaps the most realistic wish of any of my birthdays. I wished for all of my memories of home back, because already that dream was starting to feel pretty fuzzy, and I am not so sure how much like Luna I feel anymore. That really didn't take long at all.

Memories have a scary power, when you really dwell on it.

Everyone cheered softly, and Robert slugged me on the shoulder, though not very hard. I flinched in anticipation of another 24 hits from him, but they never come, and we start dividing up the tiny cake. Predictably, after we each get a slice we start going our separate ways. Mom heads for her room like she always does after work, and John retreats back to his room. I managed to take a few bites of my cake before Robert pulled me aside and spoke with a serious tone that was rather unlike him.

“You should go have a talk with Mom.”

“About the Luna thing?”

“About everything,” he paused. “I don’t think she even recognizes you as her kid anymore.”

“That’s not exactly my fault you know?” I look down in an effort to hide my guilt, because honestly she does not really feel like my mother anymore.

“It’s not exactly anyone’s fault, just go to her.”

“How do we even know she is my mother? It seems pretty likely that I’m actually Luna here.”

Robert licked his lips and stared at me, his eyes narrowing. “Unless your existence as a magical horse in some kind of past life retcons her squeezing you out of a very small hole, and then basically sacrificing her own life goals for you, she’s still your mother. I don’t care if you’re the Dunwich Horror.” He guided me with a hand against the small of my back and then gave a soft push. “Now go.”

I conceded to his logic and marched my happy little self into my Mom’s room, and she seemed pretty surprised to see me, because she jumped.

“Oh... Um, happy birthday?”

I nod in solemn appreciation. “Thank you.”

I stood in the doorway for a while, and we both picked at our cake in silence.

“So um...” I stammered. “How is work going?”

“Work is fine,” she nodded slowly. “I got a few more cases, so I’m taking care of five people a week now.”

I nodded in understanding. “Right, because you’re a CNA...” I took another forkful of cake, followed by another, until it is finally finished. I placed the empty plate on the dresser by the door and walked over, taking a seat on the bed beside her. “I uh... I missed you?”

She stared at me for a moment, then scowled. “No you didn’t.”

“I didn’t?” I tilt my head in response.

“You were gone for seven months, and at no point during that time did you call me, not until you needed to come back.” She drank from a glass of wine. “You called because you were out of options.” She looked me in the eyes. “You didn’t.”

“I'm... sorry.” I looked away in sadness, and tried not to think about how I let a family member down again. “I am not very good at family stuff.”

“Well, we've noticed.” She said, taking another gulp of wine. She reached out with a hand and seized my chin, pulling my face until I’m looking her in the eye again, but without enough force to hurt. “You don’t even look the same anymore. Not like my son at all...” She shook her head. “Pretty eyes though, wish my eyes were like that.” She looked me over carefully, and stopped at my hair. “I’m not sure how I feel about the streaks though. It makes you look kinda gay.”

I considered telling her everything right then, and opened my mouth to speak.

But I didn’t say anything, she was halfway through this bottle of wine, and it was a big one. It just didn’t seem prudent.

I got off the bed and walked over to pick up my plate. She didn’t say anything further, and neither did I.

Before visiting the kitchen I made a stop at the bathroom to get a good look at myself.

I had gotten a haircut before leaving Wisconsin three days ago, and when I had arrived in San Diego it was still very short, but that had changed over the course of the day. My ears were hidden behind long strands of black hair, with streaks of light blue. I guess no magic mane for me, at least not yet. Strictly season one hair for me.

My eyes weren’t brown anymore, either. They must have changed while I slept, or just when I hadn’t been paying attention. They were a bright turquoise, and like my cutie mark they had a faint glow to them.

Robert must have been getting something from his room, because he wasn’t in the kitchen when I arrived. I loaded the dishwasher carefully, and began sorting the various dishes more neatly than the way Robert had left them throughout the day.

I had to agree with my mom. Those eyes... my eyes, were very pretty.

Under Lock and Key

Robert entered the kitchen before I could even finish. He had his wallet out in front of him and was scrutinizing its contents carefully. He gave a satisfied nod and slipped it back into his pocket before looking up at me.

“You and Mom are never satisfied with how I fill the dishwasher...” He grumbled.

“Well that’s because it’s wrong.” I finished washing one of our nicer knives and began drying it with a towel.

That’s odd, by all accounts I had been getting gradually smaller. I’ve maybe lost an inch or two by now, and yet I’m looking down at Robert’s eyes.

“Uh... Eric, what are you doing?” Robert looked down and tilted his head. “Look, practice is good and all, but you don’t have hooves yet.”

“I don’t know what you’re talkin-” I shook my head and looked down. “About...”

I had been standing on the tips of my toes for some time now, and hadn’t even been aware of it. Simple mistake, anypony could make it. I’ll just lay my feet flat.

I swung my arms around and Robert had to step out of the trajectory of the knife I had just lost my grip on. I tried to regain my balance but that just pitched me forward, which sent me right into Robert. It's a good thing he caught me and the impact was minimized. Apparently standing with my feet flat would require coordination, a degree of balance that previously would have been necessary to stand as I was now.

Robert looked down at me, and for the first time since all of this started he looked actually afraid. The time for joking was over I guess. I grimaced and shoved myself out of his arms.

“I’m okay, everything is fine.” I tried to right my feet again but gave up as soon as I started to lose my balance.

‘Damn it.’

“Eric, can we speak in my room?” Robert mouthed the word now.

I looked around to see if we were the only ones present, we were. I shrugged, but dutifully followed.

When we got to his room Robert shut the door behind him. I trotted over to the bed before taking a seat. Robert made way to his computer chair and then spun around to face me.

“Eric, I’m a little concerned.”

“Oh?” I raised a brow at him. “You are only just now getting there? It’d be nice if we could ever be on the same page. I’m freaked out and you think it’s a joke. I’m okay with it and you start freaking out.” I rolled my eyes. “So what has you worried all of a sudden?”

Robert’s eyes went wide and he started to lean back, and away from me. “Wait... You’re okay with this?” His voice started to carry, and I glared at him. He lowered his voice to a hiss. “I just got done talking to Josh. He’s convinced he’s some pony named Nightwatch now. He’s convinced you are actually Luna...”

“So what if I am?” I leaned back to prop myself up against the wall. “I do have her cutiemark, don’t I? Why else would I have it?”

“Yeah, well. Now Nightwatch has a tail.” Robert rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked at the ground. “She also has horse ears now.”

“Pony ears.” I corrected. “And what of it? Did you for some reason think I was turning into some kind of humanized Luna?”

“Why shouldn’t I have thought that? Until your feet started acting up, that is exactly what it looked like...” He looked me dead center in the eye. “You don’t have a problem with the idea of turning into an animal? Because I guarantee you, the world will have a problem with that.”

I crossed my arms defensively and huffed. “Humans are animals as well.”

He remained silent after that, and stared at me with disbelief. Finally, when it became evident that I had nothing more to say, he spoke up. “I told my friend Ed, he’s way into the occult.” He pointed at me with his index finger. “We’re going to find a way to fix you.”

“I don’t want to be fixed...” I pulled away from him, and closer to the wall.

Robert got out of the chair and pulled himself up onto the bed until we were facing each other. He reached out to hug me, and I didn’t have the heart to stop him.

“Eric, if this happens... You won’t be able to stay here anymore. There’s no way we can keep a... a pony here.”

“I wasn’t planning on staying here.” I replied matter of factly. “I was planning on going home and saving Celestia.”

My exasperated brother released me from his embrace and collapsed on the bed. “Oh god... Eric? How far gone are you?”

I sniffed and lifted my head with pride. “How far gone am I? You are lucky I respond to that name anymore.”

“Just... please humor me on this? Please? I don’t want to lose my brother...”

A surge of warmth radiated from my pendant, and my cutiemark. I found myself nodding before I had even consciously considered it. “...Okay.” I whispered. I could tell from the way Robert’s body went slack as the tension left him that he was relieved. “So what happens now?”

“Now we go to the beach! If we can’t fix you, I at least want your last human memories to be of somewhere fun!”

I tilted my head. “But it’s the middle of the night. Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose of going to the beach?”

“You don’t think it’s worth going to the beach, because it’s nighttime? That doesn’t sound very Lunaish, you know.”

I laughed at that. “Yeah, I dunno it’s just...” I felt a very strange pang of longing, a kind of homesickness that used to haunt me in the past as a kid, but never like this. “I think the night sky here is just going to make me miss the sky back home even more. If that makes sense...”

Robert’s smile faltered and I could tell that he was as upset and confused as I was, but he pressed on anyway. “Well, the cool ocean breeze will do us some good. It’s not healthy to be cooped up in this dusty town all the time.”

“Yeah, I won’t argue with you there!” I smiled and hopped up off of the bed. “So uh... Just let me get changed first, I guess.”

“Sure thing.” Robert smiled in return and left the room. It seemed to me that he was just happy to get his way in this.

The door closed with a soft click, and I got off the bed to rummage through my bag of clothes. It was sorta hard to imagine ever not needing them, but when I thought about it, I really wasn’t going to need them much longer. I wasn’t sure if I should feel liberated or horrified about that.

I decided if we were going to the beach I might get a little wet, even at this hour. So I decided on a pair of dark blue cargo shorts that had always been too big for me, but by now were massive. I grabbed a belt to hold them up, and a black t-shirt to complete the outfit.

I stripped down before going to the mirror to inspect myself. It was incredibly awkward to even consider that a thing worth doing, but then again I had spent the entire day wrapped up in either clothes or blankets, or both. I kinda wanted to see if anything important had changed.

My reflection was pretty... Captivating? Different? I’m not sure how to describe it. Without my clothes on I could easily see how much of me had changed. I didn’t even have a spec of body hair on me, anywhere. This struck me as odd, because I’m pretty sure women have some of that themselves... I shook my head. It seemed logical to assume that the hair could just turn into fur, but apparently it was just easier to shed all of it and grow magical horse fur from scratch.

My hair had finished up its own changes as well. I now had an abundance of long light blue hair that did a very good job of resembling Luna’s mane in season one. Although it twisted to frame my face in a manner that really should have required a stylist, I could tell it was definitely starting to grow more lengthwise, as opposed to evenly spaced.

In a general way, I pretty much did look like a humanized Luna. Aside from the chest and uh... Down below, that is. There was a faint glow surrounding my cutiemark that could not have been just from it catching the moonlight from the window, as it was evenly illuminated on both hips. Somehow just staring at it made all of the changes feel connected and according to plan. It felt like a sign that things were going to improve. Like I had labored under some kind of illness that was only just now starting to clear up. Despite my building anxiety over the past few days, staring at this just relaxed me. I could probably stare at those stupid marks literally for hours, but was interrupted by a sharp pain from my rear.

If you’ve ever tried to sit in a chair that didn’t exist, only to slam down onto your tailbone, it was pretty much like that. I fell forward and gripped the dirty brown carpet with trembling hands. There was nothing subtle or quick about this change at all. It felt like segments of something that never existed were snapping back into place.

‘I guess I’m getting my tail then...’ I thought with a grimace. Very weird, I would have thought it would be more of a snaking... growing feeling? This was like getting struck by a really thick rubber band over and over again, and each time it hit you it was a little further out than it should have been.

Finally the sensation stopped, and I collapsed onto the floor completely. I took in a few deep breaths to center myself and lifted myself up as best I could with my legs folded under me and my hands on the ground on either side of them.

It was hard to say what had been the bigger change, my cutiemark first appearing or the tail that was now curled loosely around my side. I rose to my feet and covered the lower half of my face with a hand. Yup... Definitely humanized Luna at this point.

I reached out to touch my tail, which is a thought process most people will never get to follow. That was an idea that brought me some amusement, at least. The hair was the same colour as my mane, and roughly the same texture, albeit a bit smoother? The feeling in it was very numb for the time being, and it twitched occasionally. I guess that makes sense, adjusting, adapting, whatever. It was like a limb that had been asleep for as long as I could remember, and was only just starting to stir with renewed blood flow.

Someone knocked on the door, and this drove me out of my introspective state of mind. I needed to do something about this tail before I could get dressed, but was drawing a blank. I could hear a bit of arguing on the other side of the door, and the doorknob started to turn a bit from weight being applied to it.

I pulled my shirt on over my head, and could feel my hair tickle my back. It was definitely going to take some time getting used to having long hair now. It was such a weird sensation after a lifetime of cutting it short. I grabbed my shorts and slipped into them. Luckily they were big enough that my tail didn’t get caught on them, but it did trail out of one of the legs. I didn’t have time to fasten the belt before the door opened, so I just stood there with my hands in my pockets, trying to hold my shorts up.

Robert was in the doorway arguing with John. They stopped talking when the door swung open and just glowered at each other. The scuffle ended when John broke eye contact and looked at me, and I shivered. I knew that look. I’ve given that look before... I think? In another time, another place? It was the look of Cain ready to have a go at Abel.

John stormed off to him room in defeat once more, but I knew things were coming to a head in this household, and that was only going to get worse once my condition became common knowledge. Robert entered and closed the door with a sigh.

“We’re going to have to do something about him soon, or he’s going to lash out.” I whispered.

“I know.”

“No, I mean he is really going to lash out,” I gulped. “Like Nightmare Moon style.”

Robert snapped and kicked his desk before spinning around. “Then send him to the moon or something, right?” He growled.

I shook my head, and proceeded to completely miss the point. “First of all, it was Celestia that did that... To me.” I considered for a moment. “Also I am pretty sure that would require the Elements of Harmony, and I don’t have those.”

My brother just looked at me for awhile and squinted. “I was joking.” He looked me up and down, then fixed his eyes on my pant leg. “I see you got your tail then?”

He looked much more nervous than before, and I guess I could sympathize. The hair thing had only started an hour or two ago, and now I had grown an entire tail. We didn’t need to voice the mutual understanding. The changes were getting faster.

“Y-Yeah... I did.” My tail flicked slightly now that my attention was on it, though it was still for the most part restrained by my clothing. It was much less numb than before and somehow this boosted my spirits quite a bit. Part of me just wanted to reach down, pry it free, and hug it close. I’m not ashamed to admit it! The stupid thing was pretty valuable to me!

‘I bet I could spend hours just brushing it.’ I thought with glee. ‘It is important to maintain a fine appearance!’

Well... That lit up my face like a lantern. I folded my hands behind my back, and my tail drooped with shame. I couldn’t keep the corners of my mouth from smiling, though. ‘Ha! My tail is expressing my emotions! That is so...’ I shook my head. ‘Normal? Why does it feel so normal?’

Robert scrunched up his face about as effectively as a human can manage, and went over to his desk. “We should get going now, I guess. Before you’re on all fours or whatever...” He pulled open a drawer and dug around before coming back with a pair of scissors.

I instinctively grabbed my tail with a hand and backed away, at some point it had pulled free of my excessively loose shorts and was swishing about with anxiety.

“Oh chill out, I’m just making a hole.” He grabbed the waistband of my shorts and yanked me over roughly.

A few snips and it was done. He let me go and I stepped back and away from him, still balanced on the tips of my toes. The hole he made was small, so it took some effort to fit my tail through, but that was probably for the better in the long run. I picked up my belt and fastened the thick cloth through the two metal rings that acted as a buckle. It was comical how much of it was dangling loosely on the other side. I guess my waist is just a bit thinner now, giant shorts aside.

“There, now we can go to the stupid beach, and anyone who sees you will probably think you’re just some weird cos-player.” He shook his head. “Not that there will be anyone there but maybe a couple of drunks... It’s Tuesday night. We should be fine as long as we don’t go on the pier.”

I nodded in agreement, and looked down when a familiar warm feeling started to flood my body. A soft glow could be seen coming from under the legs of my shorts, and Robert seemed to notice as well.

“Oh christ, what now?!” He grabbed his keys and shoved himself into his jacket with disdain.

The feeling spread up to my head and I began to feel incredibly dizzy, it focused in on my ears and I felt that annoying familiar twitch. I leaned back against the dresser to steady myself and reached up to see if my ears had changed.

Nope, typical human ears, false alarm... I guess.

Didn’t seem like the magic glow from my cutiemark was dying down anytime soon, though.

“Let’s go...” Robert grumbled darkly, and led me out of the room.

Somehow I got the distinct impression he was no longer so certain that our ‘Night on the Town’ was a good idea, but once he makes plans it’s pretty much impossible to get him to back off. So out we went.

The ride to the beach was short and uneventful, even if it was on the other side of the city. The night was better than I thought it would be, that’s for certain. On more than one occasion Robert grabbed my shoulder and yanked my head back through the window. Evidently enjoying the cool night wind in your mane is against the law. He did not take my comment regarding the creation of new laws very seriously.

We parked in a lot at the base of the winding staircase that went up to the pier. It was dark here, and Robert was convinced no one that really mattered could see me that way. Robert’s car had seen better days, the beat up Honda Civic was road-worthy, but I didn’t envy Robert the money he was using to keep it on life support. I started to wonder how he could afford school, a car, and his wild lifestyle with just a part time job at a call center. He must do a lot of saving during the summer months.

The beach was so much colder than our little town had been, and I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. Body hair accounts for more warmth than people seem to give it credit for. Or maybe that’s just part of the whole changing thing.

It didn’t last long though, another surge of warmth from my cutie mark, and suddenly I didn’t feel quite so cold. My ears flicked in confusion and for once had the mobility to follow through. I reached up with a clumsy hand and jumped a bit when they caressed soft fur.

‘Jeez, pony ears and a tail, it’s going to be really hard to muster a poker face from now on...’ My ears wilted back to prove my point for me.

Robert stared at me when it happened, I think it was the first time he had actually seen the transformation in action. He did not seem put at ease by it, instead he folded his arms and leaned against the side of his car. He looked more miserable than I've ever seen.

I stood balanced on the tips of my bare feet and folded my arms behind my back. It helped with posture. “So what are we doing now?”

“We’re waiting.” Robert replied curtly.

My newly equine ears flicked with curiosity and I tilted my head in response. “Waiting for what?”

“Them,” he responded as an old beat up station wagon pulled into a spot adjacent to us. After the vehicle finished parking and shutting down, two men hopped out and marched on over. They complimented each other, I will admit that much. One was tall and thin, the other was short and rather portly.

The short one had an unkempt collection of brown hair that was probably as close as a human is going to get to having a mane. His face was unshaven, though he lacked any significant beard or cultivated facial hair. He wore a pentacle around his neck and wore a shirt advertising some band that was definitely too edgy for me. I was altogether unimpressed. It was hard for me to respect the kind of man who came to a beach wearing combat boots.

The tall one had a far more conservative look about him, though his partner was a textbook unwashed male, he was a bit more elegant and clean. He wore a silvery gray shirt and dark gray shorts with a pair of black sandals. Around one wrist was a thick silver bracelet with the different phases of the moon carved into it. It didn’t quite fit his skinny wrist, but I thought it was wonderful all the same.

Robert approached the short one and essentially tackled him in a hug, which was returned, albeit with less enthusiasm. The tall one seemed incredibly uncomfortable.

“Edward! I’m so glad to see you! Thanks for coming out man!” My brother spared no time identifying the fat one, and I bristled quietly.

“What’s the meaning of this? I thought we were supposed to do this later! Something about one last night to relax or whatever?” I glared imperiously from my position on raised toes.

Edward stalked toward me with a look of naked wonder on his face. A fascination he quickly struggled to disguise as he attempted to make idle conversation. “Wow Robert, you weren’t kidding.”

Robert awkwardly greeted the tall man before turning to face me and my displeasure. “And uh... Hey Andrew, how are things with Ann?”

“We broke up.” Andrew replied in a deadpan voice that made Robert wince and immediately switch social targets.

“Listen... Eric, I’m sorry to spring this on you, but you’ve noticed it as much as I have. The changes are happening more quickly.” He shook his head. “We may not even have another night, but I don’t see why we can’t just hang out. You can answer a few of Edward’s questions and we can walk along the cliffs or whatever!”

My tail and ears made my unhappiness known with a few sharp flicks. “Fine, I guess I don’t see the harm in that...” The things I do for my family.

Edward spared no time getting right up in my face. I raised a brow at him as he curiously paced around me, scrutinizing my every feature. Andrew looked almost as embarrassed as I felt. There was a sharp sting from my tail and I cried out before whirling around against the nosy little rat.

“What do you think you’re doing? That’s enough!”

Edward stood absolutely still, a light blue strand of hair from my tail still held between his thumb and forefinger. He quietly slid it into the pocket of his jacket and dusted his hands.

“Sorry about that... Just wanted to see if it was real is all.” He narrowed his eyes at Robert. “Your brother has gone to greater lengths than this to prank me before.”

My lips tightened into a frown. “I’m sure.”

“Listen, can we just try to calm things down?” Robert wormed his way between the two of us in an effort to diffuse a territorial dispute. “Let's just start walking, alright?”

We all followed after Robert, some of us more meekly than others. The pier acted as a sort of divider between the sand of the beach and the rough wave sculpted rock of the cliffs. Even at night you could see the myriad things etched into the stone by bored passersby and love struck couples with a swiss army knife on hoof.

Or hand, for that matter.

We finally reached a quiet spot without any illumination and settled down. I sat on the edge of the cliffs with my feet dangling just far enough over the side for the waves to tickle them as they rose up. Andrew was amazingly less shy when he took off his sandals and sat beside me, though it was obvious he was doing his best to not look in my direction. Sometimes he did anyway, and I would catch him blushing.

I felt odd about that. It wasn’t that I was flattered or offended by it. What was peculiar was my absence of feeling one way or another. There was only a nebulous understanding that we were not even in the same class. We may as well have been different species. I guess pretty soon that would actually be the case, but still.

Robert and Edward were off discussing things. My ears swiveled to hone in on their conversation, but I found it uninteresting for the most part. Edward wanted to know why they hadn’t taken me to his place instead of going on this insipid adventure first, and Robert wanted to know why Ed was being so insensitive.

I peered up at the sky. The stars were difficult to see through the marine layer, but the moon was big and bright. It would be full soon, I knew.

‘It will be full in 31 hours.’ I mused quietly, and then blinked. Wait... What?

I leaned onto my back with my arms crossed behind my head and stared up at the moon. Something felt off about it, was it too small? Too distant? Was it just the nature of it in general? I had a sinking feeling that I wouldn’t be altering the course of day and night anytime soon. Maybe having an intimate understanding of its cycle was just the best I could manage? I closed my eyes and felt the gentle pull of its gravity against the water around me. It was a soothing feeling, and I could just imagine reaching out to that force, greeting it warmly like a distant relation, and then gently mani-

Searing pain unlike anything I had ever felt before raged through my skull and shot through the rest of my body. I screamed very loudly, and in a shrill high voice. I grabbed at the sides of my head as if that would somehow contain things, even as I started kicking and thrashing about. I could feel Andrew’s hands wrap around my wrists before being pinned to the slick rock, then a moment of hesitation as he climbed on top of me to keep me from slipping into the water.

“Eric!?” Robert’s voiced sounded distant despite its urgency. I heard the sound of heavy footfalls, and felt someone lifting my necklace up over my head before replacing it with something else. My thighs were on fire and the pain in my head was only getting worse. Even so, I managed to open my eyes and look at what was happening.

Edward was staring at me in wonder, Andrew had been shoved off of me and was on his rear, limbs splayed out to catch himself, and Robert's hands were gripping my shoulders tightly. He was shaking me back and forth and crying.

“See? I told you we should have just taken her to my place.” Edward grumbled.

I was starting to fade and lose consciousness, but I wasn’t giving up without a fight.

“Shut up and help me get him to the car...” Robert grunted and placed his arms around me before trying to stand up.

Edward reached into his jacket and pulled out a small but thick metal bar, it was painted a dull gray and reflected no moonlight. He raised it into the air and brought it down on the back of Robert’s head.

That expression would have been funny under less violent circumstances. Robert’s mouth dropped open as though he were trying to exaggerate an ‘O’ sound, and his eyes were wide. He dropped me, my impact with the ground only made me fade faster. He fell to his knees and slowly turned to face Edward. He was confused, and I could tell the blow was almost certainly a knock out.

Edward reached out with his foot and shoved Robert off the side of the cliff and into the water. “We’ll take mine, thanks.” He placed the bar back into his jacket and turned to Andrew, who honestly looked more startled than Robert had, if that were possible.

“Come on, help me get her to the car.”

That’s about when I lost consciousness.

The sun was too bright, and the ground was too hot to walk on with my bare feet. Why feet and not hooves, I wondered? I danced from foot to foot and raced in the only direction I had time to consider, straight ahead. Time didn’t really make sense, and I was in too much pain to keep track anyway.

Eventually I did reach a comforting blanket of shadow, and abruptly the sun was gone. In its place was a glorious and peaceful night sky that was littered with diamonds of gentle light, and in the center of it all, a brilliant comforting moon. A real one, not the tiny placeholder I had grown up with.

I trotted forward on my hooves and looked around. I felt at peace. This was a sanctuary for me, and I could spend hours exploring every inch and never be less enchanted by it.

I came to a massive rock wall, and in the side was a fissure large enough to form a narrow canyon. I had to wriggle through at first before the area really opened up, but when it did I had to take a breath to steady myself. The moon was hovering overhead, and was so large the opening in the rock above me could not fit its entirety. The light from above reflected off the walls and gave everything a faint silvery glow. It reminded me vaguely of a memory in some other place. A place where I stood on two legs and my cutie mark had only just appeared, glowing with that same light. I shook my head to clear it of such outlandish thoughts and proceeded deeper.

The air here was thin and damp, and reminded me of altitudes one might reach while napping on a cloud. The wind sang through the chambers and carved the layers of rock into a monochromatic rainbow while also tugging at my mane and tail. My wings I kept firmly tucked into my sides to avoid unnecessary discomfort. In certain areas I could see drawings, little cave paintings of a time when the sun and the moon had been friends.

It seemed over time, such had stopped being the case.

The narrow passageway curved outwards rather abruptly and formed a large chamber, and upon entering it the crack behind me slammed together like some great burden had been lifted off of it. I jumped away from it, flapping my wings restlessly and alighting on the ground with the soft patter of gilded hooves. I turned away from the wall, content that my safety was no longer in jeopardy.

The moon could be seen, clear and completely, from the much wider opening. It radiated magic down to the ground I walked until it was like a wellspring of moonlight. In the center of the chamber was a massive dial. Many circles trailed the circumference of the dial, and in each sat a reflection of myself. At the start was a human man I could only barely associate with, in each circle it became increasingly me, increasingly a pony, but even when it was completely a pony it was not completely myself. Its mane was the soft light blue of my youth, and it did not drift in the air on winds that did not exist. The circles winded back around until the pony was a human once more. The focus of the moonlight danced around and centered on each it its own time, and I could sense that the dial itself was a source of great confusion. Though I knew not to what.

I circled the dial cautiously, doing my best to sate my curiosity from a safe distance. Aside from the obvious there was nothing truly remarkable about it. There were no more clues as to its nature, but I could not help but feel attracted to it. It had a certain gravity all its own that made me want to come closer, and closer...

I shook my head to clear it of the strange effect. Something was happening in the sky above, and it demanded my immediate attention. The sun had finally caught up to me, it looked like. Every inch that its light claimed in my sanctuary felt invasive, and I scooted back in fear until my rear was pressed up against the cold stone wall on the opposite side.

The sun pushed the moon out of the sky, and the ground shook with the occasional shard that crashed down from the impact. Springs of moonlight bubbled up from the ground where they landed, only to be dried up by the light of the sun, which slowly crept toward me and was now beginning to land on the dial.

The construct shifted and screeched under the oppressive gleam, and a single solitary shadow landed on a phase in between pony and human, an occurrence that to me appeared quite auspicious. I didn’t have too much time to dwell on this, because the entire thing, reflections and all, collapsed into a twitching pool of liquid darkness. It oozed over and away from the sunlight. Which of course meant it was heading in my direction.

I could not stop myself. I screamed, begged, and pleaded for the sun to halt its jealous advance. I tried to tell it what it was doing from my pathetic place down on the ground, but it either did not hear me or did not care. The caustic liquid was almost upon me, and I took wing in earnest. It didn’t do me much good.

Tendrils lashed out like a frightened child or animal, and wrapped themselves around me in an embrace that choked the air out of me and pulled me down. I felt cold all over, but at least I was safe from the sunlight. As long as I was surrounded by that eternal night it would be safe, and so would I. Even if I was human, and I noted with some dismay that I was. I was even male to add insult to injury, though my abdomen ached and burned with a persistence that was really starting to get to me. That, coupled with a burning from my thighs, dragged me from that pitch black pool and into the searing light of day. I opened my eyes and screamed.

The sun was in my eyes when I woke up, and it was blinding. That didn’t do a lot to distract me from the unbearable agony I was feeling just south of my waistband, though. My cutiemark was burning with enough energy to make my legs twitch and my toes curl in like some cruel mockery of hooves. It was a safe bet that I was changing again, and given where those changes were centered I was convinced I didn’t want to watch.

I groaned and thrashed about while tears slowly trickled down my face. I didn’t sob, but there were times when I certainly wanted to. It had probably only been a few minutes, but it felt like hours before the pain finally receded. I stole a glance down the front of my shorts just to check on things and sighed. Yup, I was definitely a she now. Time to make a full scale assault on the birth certificate, we can get that pesky name out of the way while we’re at it. Eric is a terrible name for a girl. Luna would be far more appropriate.

This definitely was not the cliffs where I had passed out, either. I was having difficulty remembering what had happened there just in general. Whatever happened it couldn’t have ended well, because I was in some tiny room with a bowl of water and a bowl of cheap store bought salad. Around my neck was a thick but relatively pliant leather cuff that was attached to a really thick and durable looking chain. The chain itself was wrapped around a support beam for the ceiling. If I had to guess I’d say I was in some kind of cabin. The room was clear of items, aside from the kind of cheap bed comforter you might find in a Walmart, and a large pot nearby. There wasn’t even a clock for me to keep track of the time.

‘Pretty sure it’s 4:32 in the afternoon, anyway...’ I thought bitterly. Evidently my knowledge of the moon extended to what time of day it was.

Sparing a final scrutinizing look around the room, I decided that random knack would actually prove useful. It didn’t look like I was going anywhere anytime soon at least.

The room was painted with occult symbols of all sorts, and apparently some of them were still drying. So my makeshift cell was a recent development. Around each of my wrists was a small metal cuff of some rough metal, and both were held shut with simple Masterlocks. They weren’t attached to anything though, which had me vaguely confused.

This was all very weird, and somehow painfully familiar. The events from the night before started to trickle back to me in reverse, and I felt nothing but outrage. I tugged at the chain around my neck half-heartedly. I already knew I wouldn’t be breaking it, not like this. Maybe when things finish up I can buck the support beam, or rip the chain apart with magic, or something.

Speaking of magic, what the hell had happened to my head last night? It felt like someone stabbed me with a red hot poker. Not that I’ve ever actually felt that, but I feel comfortable with my comparison. I reached up tentatively and poked around, and yelped when my hand brushed up against a narrow protrusion coming out of my skull.

It wasn’t as long as in the show yet, but it was pretty close in size to an average unicorn horn. A thought occurred to me: ‘I wonder if I can do magic?’

I licked my lips with anticipation, and well, also because they felt pretty dry. What was I going to try first? I turned about in my cell with my tail swishing erratically, and searched for something worthwhile.

‘Right! The chain! It couldn’t hurt to start there!’

I stared at the length of metal links until my eyes started to go cross, and thumped my foot against the hardwood floor in irritation when things didn’t seem to take.

‘I don’t even know what I am doing...’

I grit my teeth and growled before releasing my frustration with a high pitched yell. “Stupid chain! Break!”

A crackling feeling filled my mind and faint midnight blue sparks flared from the tip of my horn. The chain was abruptly seized in an aura of the same colour.

“Wha-”

I didn’t have time to vocalize my confusion, the aura gave a sharp yank on the chain. I yelped and reached up for the collar around my neck just as I was pulled with the chain and slammed into the support beam. My vision filled with stars and I started choking for air.

The door to my room slammed open and in its place stood a very irritated looking Edward. “What the hell is going on here!?” He stomped over to where I was curled up, but took a step back when a few errant sparks flew from my horn.

“Oh you know, just trying to break free of this chain. The usual thing someone does when you KIDNAP THEM.” My voice elevated in volume towards the end, and he blinked like this was the first time he’d heard my voice.

Edward grumbled to himself and started pacing around the room. I glared at him from my spot on the floor, but didn’t get up.

“Of course I kidnapped you! Whatever is happening to you, whatever the hell you are, it’s magic! Do you know how fucking long I’ve been trying to get that right?” He took a step toward me. “How long we have been trying to get that right?” He shook his head. “The hell does it matter to you if we collect a few strands of hair or take some blood samples? You’re lucky I don’t take a hacksaw to that horn and try it for a wand.”

“Are you absolutely serious? That is disgusting!” I finally rose to my feet, and he crept back a bit in surprise. “You’re a disgusting individual! When I get out of this I swear I’m going t—”

I’m really running out of creative ways to describe how much something hurts, suffice it to say my threat was cut off when the bones in my feet started to crunch together, and left me with an ultimately more equine alternative to human feet. I wailed out and collapsed onto my rear, then I wailed out again because I landed on my tail. I looked down and noticed that my new feet—Horses still have those, I reminded myself, only the hard bit is called a hoof—didn’t even have any fur covering them. The hoof itself was a light shade of blue, so it would blend in with the fur when it did start growing in. But at the moment it was kind of disgusting. I did my best to focus my attention on Edward instead.

“I don’t really think I have much to worry about. Every time you get uppity, some new change seems to incapacitate your ass.” Edward replied smugly. “I don’t have time for you right now, Andrew will be by in a bit to check your food and water.”

All I could do for now was glare at him as he slammed the door behind him. I can’t imagine myself ever wishing that I could just hurry up and be a pony more than that moment. I turned to reach out for the comforter to huddle against, or at least to cover my hooves with it. A snap sounded from my horn that startled me, and I realized that I had forgotten to reach out for it with my hands, a soft blue aura was holding it in the air before me, and as soon as I realized what was happening it fluttered to the ground softly.

I stared at it for a few moments before reaching out and pulling it over me.

It turns out that Andrew coming by soon actually meant Andrew would be coming by three hours later. Also, I found out what the large pot was for. You think you can cope with these sorts of things, you think you’ve had plenty of dreams where you walked on hooves and everything worked out just fine. The reality was quite a bit different, and the second I put weight on my feet so as to stand, a wave of vertigo overtook me.

I am not ashamed to say I threw up. I actually take pride in the truth that I had the presence of mind to aim for the pot.

Things got better quickly. I adapted, and it wasn’t as though it was unfamiliar to me. Like every other change there was a faint euphoria, a sensation that this was right and somehow true. I wasn’t sure if that was positive reinforcement from my body to help me cope, or if it was just memories welling up from inside of me.

The water bowl was emptied by me using the liquid to clean my mouth. I drank whatever was leftover, and ate the salad to replace what I had lost. By the time Andrew came in he actually had work to do.

The youth was dressed all in black now, but not in some goth style. He wore slacks and a collared shirt, for example. Though he did seem altogether miserable, which I suppose is a fairly goth thing to be. It was hard to not feel sorry for him, even considering my own predicament.

“Andrew, was it?” I inquired politely. “Would it be alright if I asked you a question?”

“Uhm...” He started stacking the bowls gently. “Yes?”

“Why is it in every hostage situation where there are partners, one of them is a ruthless asshole, and the other one is an actual human being?” I smiled at him mischievously. “Am I supposed to show you the magic of friendship and redeem you or something? Because I can totally do that you know, pony and stuff.”

He stopped what he was doing and just stared at me. There wasn’t a flicker of mirth or agitation. If anything he seemed a little confused. “Not yet,” he replied softly.

He looked down at his watch to check the time, and I decided to take this opportunity and build a foundation for myself as spooky and wise.

“It’s 7:48.”

He stared at his watch and then looked back up at me. “How did you know that?” Again, no emotion, just confusion.

“I’m turning into a pony princess that is partially responsible for controlling day and night, and you’re surprised that I can tell what time it is?”

Andrew nodded as if that explained everything, which I suppose technically it had. He moved over to the large bowl and then looked back up at me.

“Are you sick?”

A hint of concern? I’ll bite. “Not anymore,” I replied.

“Okay.” He placed the stacked bowls into the large pot. Then stood up and made way for the door. He hesitated there, though. “Is it true? Do you have that mark, I mean?” He looked at the floor like he was breaking some kind of rule. “Edward looked you over when he brought you here, but I didn’t think it was very polite to do the same... Guess it seemed unnecessary.”

“What, you mean my cutiemark?”

He nodded slowly. “If that’s what you call it, I guess.”

I pulled at the waistband of my shorts and lowered them just enough for him to see the crescent moon and night sky on my thigh. He blinked in amazement.

“You are touched by the goddess...” He made some kind of gesture and bowed his head according to some practice I didn’t recognize.

“Psh... Implying I’m not the moon goddess.” I replied. “Or at least as close as this place is going to get.” I lifted my wrists up and emphasized the makeshift manacles. “I showed you my little coming of age mark, what are these for?”

“They’re iron, Edward thinks they’ll dampen your magic and keep him safe.”

“And what do you think? Am I some mean Fairy that is going to carry you away from your family?”

He shook his head, once again emotionless. “I think they’re not cold-iron, so it wouldn’t matter if you were.”

He turned, opened the door, and left. About thirty minutes later he came back in with fresh supplies. The water was a bit cleaner and cold instead of room temperature, and the salad had dressing on it and a plastic fork to go with it. He placed all of these down on the floor just out of reach, and stopped.

“Edward says you can move things with your horn now. He told me to make you use your magic.” He turned back to the doorway to see if anyone was watching. Then he scooted the salad and water a bit closer with his foot.

He left the room in silence and closed the door behind him. I shook my head and spoke to the room, or myself.

“Why is there one in every story?”

They didn’t come at night, and I was curious why that was. Surely Andrew had to be one who would celebrate the night, and Edward seemed far too driven for sleep. I wondered if he was making any progress with his little experiments.

My primary concern was cabin fever. I tried to get some sleep to escape the worst of it, but as soon as that sun went down sleep was just impossible. I was far from unengaged, though. I could feel the moon move through the sky all on its own. It was like watching your kid learn to ride a bicycle, and made me feel strangely homesick.

I was curled up on my side to accommodate my increasingly pony body, though at the moment my new hooves were still the only change. At around midnight wisps of light fur began streaking there way up from my hooves. An hour later it was hard to tell where the hard nail of my hoof ended and the fur began. It was starting to look a bit less unnatural, and I was honestly a bit relieved. I was worried I would look weird and I don’t know... A bit more realistic than what is depicted in the show? That did not seem to be the case. Heck, even the colour had an usual cast to it. The colour just didn’t feel like it belonged here with everything else.

As I mentioned, I wasn’t bored. I was quite content to lay there tuned into the moon like some kind of mystery transmission. My horn was growing along with the fur, I could tell. If I concentrated enough I could almost feel it winding its way out like a corkscrew through my skull. It was developing a pretty nasty point, too. That would be a pretty handy weapon if Edward couldn’t find a way to deal with it first.

By the time dawn began its approach, my legs were almost completely covered in fur. The growth was strangely comforting and reminded me of how ticklish I was. I laughed more than a few times, and when it reached the point where it started to overlap with my cutie mark, I took a look at it. It was perfect, I don’t really know how else to put it. It was like my cutie mark had sat in the center of a blank canvas, and now the rest of that was being filled in. They fit together perfectly. My legs bent to take on a much more appropriate shape around the same time, and I stopped bothering with the whole walk like a human thing. It’s a good thing I wasn’t able to escape, because well... I wouldn’t have been able to escape anyway.

The sun was officially up when I felt a sharp stab in my back. I did my best to take off my shirt and take a look. because of the chain around my neck, my shirt was now abandoned and sent down the length of the chain until it was against the support beam.

A pair of tiny wings were growing from my back, which definitely explained the pain. They weren’t growing out from the top, you know, like a pair of angel wings or whatever? These were almost actually coming from my sides, in the middle. I was pretty sure that once they were finished growing their proper home would be tucked in along my sides, not along my back.

‘Wings! I can’t believe I’m going to have wings again!’

‘I mean... I can’t believe I’m going to have wings for the first time ever.’

When Andrew came in at around 10:16, he found me curled up on top of the comforter as if I were a pony already. The lower half of my body was totally equine, and my tail flicked about like a slow metronome. His eyes widened when he saw my wings, the same way they had widened when he saw my cutiemark. I didn’t blame him. They were starting to get pretty big, I could even move them a little bit, and I stretched them out a bit just to display them with pride.

The sun was streaming in through a skylight, and was already starting to put me to sleep. So I wasn’t much for conversation. He replaced the food and water in my bowls and made to leave.

“Thank you.” I whispered politely.

He just nodded in an embarrassed and awkward fashion, then left.

It was getting really hard to use my hands. I couldn’t manipulate the provided fork with them, and I was really glad to have my horn already, because I just didn’t have the face structure to be eating directly from the bowl. I couldn’t do much yet, but I could move things around. All it took was a little imagination on my part. That mysterious transmission was a good teacher, and I snatched up the fork in a gravity all my own. The salad may have been cheap, but it was tasting better increasingly, and I noticed more good stuff was finding its way in. This time there were even cucumbers.

I shuddered, picked those out, and hid them. I couldn’t really put my hoof on it, but I just didn’t want to eat them. I also didn’t want Andrew to know I hated his little offering. The rest of the salad was delicious, and grinding it down between my teeth was taking less and less effort. Those must have changed too. I was going to need to brush them soon, I wondered if I could get Andrew to smuggle me in a toothbrush.

I finished my dinner and smiled before curling up around my comforter. I knew I should probably be a little more pissed off, a little more afraid, but it was getting really hard. Everything felt perfect, everything was just... eventual. I didn’t need to worry about my human life anymore, I was a captive, for the time being I reminded myself. My mother’s deep seated childhood issues weren’t my problem anymore. John wasn’t my problem anymore. Robert was...

I started to cry, gentle tears streamed down my face and I pulled the blanket a little tighter between my curled hands. How could I let myself be calm like this? My brother was probably dead because of me. I was a terrible sister, and I deserved to be locked away like this.

I dwelled on those thoughts and slowly fell into sleep. That cold feeling from before was more intense than ever, and even the warmth of my cutiemark seemed faint in comparison.

That crater again, my sanctuary. The moon wasn’t in the sky though, it was at my feet. I lifted a forehoof and inspected it curiously. It was difficult to imagine, but hadn’t that been something else recently?

Ah, a dream then.

I cantered around the little cell and felt that it was altogether familiar. I rested on my haunches and considered. I did not think I would be able to fly up and out, that did not seem possible to me in the context of the dream.

The dial was as recondite as ever, the shadow that it cast was now much closer to the circle that was purely a pony. I must have struggled with it for hours, but I could neither change it, nor discern its purpose.

Then the sun began to rise, and its light poured into my cell. So not a dream then, a nightmare. I did my best to puzzle out an escape, but there was none. I had no friends here, no family with dreams I could escape to.

The dial twisted and melted into liquid night again, and just like before it swept toward me like a tide. I didn’t even bother resisting this time. When it reached me I was curled up in a ball, and I stayed that way when it dragged me under.

It was cold, very cold, but once again that wasn’t such a bad thing after the heat of the sun. I drifted in that place for longer than I could count. Sometimes it felt like I had to take a breath, so I did, and I breathed it in.

It hurt at first, it felt a bit like I was choking. I am reminded of the first time I tried Greek yogurt, and how difficult it was to swallow. The suffocating feeling was something I could press on through, but not the series of sharp pains in my side and belly. My eye twitched and I felt at once enraged and terrified.

The darkness melted away, but I still had more than a bit of it with me, and with determination born of anger, I rose to meet the sun.

“Wake up you stupid horse!” That was what I had the good fortune to wake up to. That and Edward’s boot against my side. It hurt, but not a lot. Either I was made of stronger stuff now, or he just wasn’t very strong. It could be a little bit of both, I snorted.

“Hey! Watch her wing!” Andrew called out with concern. Guess he does have a will of his own. So he wasn’t being mind controlled then, good for him.

“Like I give a fuck about her wing! We need to figure out how to get this stuff to work! She can use magic and we can’t! I’ve seriously tried everything, I even went full on Harry Potter and used her tail hair for a wand core!”

It was nighttime now, the moon was already in the sky, and shining directly down through the skylight to greet me. It was full. I was full too, I noted. My hands were gone, my face was utterly alien, and I was covered with fur all over. I rose to my hooves and battled with another bout of vertigo. It wouldn’t be dignified to lose my lunch right here in front of this villain. I stretched my wings and yawned.

“What the hell do you want, Ed?” I ran a hoof through the fur along my side to clean it of some dirt that had come loose from his boot. “We are trying to get our beauty sleep.”

“Don’t get all royal we on me! I want answers.” He grabbed a chair that was new to the room and moved to sit down. I turned my head and inspected a hoof demurely, my horn lit up and the chair scooted an inch or two behind him. He crashed onto the ground with a yelp.

“I don’t have any answers, at least not the ones you’re looking for.” I turned back to face him. “You’re just human, as far as I know. It sure does suck to be you.” I looked around the room and took a few paces forward. My shorts must have come loose during the transformation, because they collapsed into a pile behind me. “Look at all of this wasted effort...” He looked up at me from the floor, his face was incredibly red at this point. “It’s all bullshit, you know? There’s no magic in any of this. You wouldn’t know a friend if it bit you on the ass.”

He jumped to his feet and pulled out that metal bar from before, the one he had used on my brother. I was faintly aware that Andrew was saying something, but I couldn’t hear it over Edward’s red rage of terrible revenge.

“I am not in the mood for your arrogant princess bullshit! I’ll get the information I need if I have to cripple you for it!”

I didn’t even have time to think. I flapped my wings once out of fear and took a step back, but he tackled me to the ground and started hitting me in the head over and over again with the bar. He didn’t seem to know where to aim the blow, but quantity was starting to make up for quality of hits. I was getting dizzy real fast, and cold all over. I reached up with a hoof to feel for the necklace Robert had given me, but it was gone. I dimly recalled losing it at the cliffs.

Edward finally got off of me and dropped the bar onto the ground, there were a few traces of blood on it from where he’d managed to break the skin on my head. He was hyperventilating and looked like he was about to pass out.

“Andrew, go get me the hacksaw...” He weezed out.

But nothing happened.

“Andrew, go get me the hacksaw, now.”

He turned to focus his attention on his accomplice, but as it turned out, Andrew was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh you son of a bitch!” Edward was back on his feet again and going full throttle. He stopped in the doorway and sneered at me. “Don’t you go anywhere Princess! I’ll be right back!”

I didn’t go anywhere, and he was back a few minutes later while I was still struggling to clear my head. I saw the glint of metal, it was a blinding light, just like the sun. He was taunting me again, but I couldn’t quite make it out. Everything was so cold, I was sinking into a pool of ice water, and when the sharp edge of metal was placed against the base of my horn, it exploded.

This was not a dream, I was sinking in that pool of liquid darkness for real this time. The harsh presence of metal didn’t exist. I heard a clattering sound. My cuffs and the chain around my neck clattered to the ground uselessly. They had nothing to hold onto anymore, I was insubstantial, just a cloud of dark night air.

Just a nightmare.

Nothing to Write Home About

What a way to close off another year, to think I’d be forced to run back home with my tail between my legs. Things were not supposed to be like this. I grunted and tossed my bag of clothing into the trunk of my ex-roommate’s car. Seven months ago I had abandoned the state where I had grown up, in favor of a new life. I was looking for somewhere to be myself, somewhere I could finally settle down and succeed. I didn’t end up finding any of those things, unfortunately. I bounced around between friends and at one point or another found myself experiencing almost every region in the country.

Work was hard to find, and even when I did find it, it was as though fate conspired to keep me hapless. I didn’t even want to think about how I lost my last job. That was just... Okay, I can’t blame everything on destiny. I was pretty much asking for it that time. Seriously, what in the seven circles of hell was I thinking?

“You’re sure you’re going to be alright?” Josh asked as he climbed into his vehicle.

I climbed into the passenger’s seat beside him and scowled. “Does it really matter?”

Josh let out a sigh. He shifted the car into gear and slowly exited the parking lot. “Just because I can’t be the one to help you doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. You’re a good person, and I can’t think of anyone who deserves to have a happy life more than you do.”

“Yeah well, what we deserve doesn’t really matter.” I muttered with an expression dark enough to give thunderheads pause.

“You’d get more jobs if you weren’t so dramatic.” Josh couldn’t help but glance at me, even while driving. His lips curled into a pained smile. “So, getting back to my earlier quest-”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine. My family is cruel but I don’t think they'd want me on the streets.”

The suburbs of Madison Wisconsin were as silent as we were for the rest of the trip. Everyone was still inside. It had been a long winter, and it was as though people refused to believe it was finally spring. Every so often Josh would speak up, as though he were about to start some topic to make things less awkward. A noncommittal grunt was all it took to shut him up.

We finally reached the express terminal, and after beating the bus driver to death with his own shoes, Ozzy went on to play a great show. Sarcasm aside, this affair was pretty dull and uneventful as well. He pulled my bag out of the car for me and handed it over like a ‘true host’, and insisted he wait with me for the bus.

“That’s really not going to be necessary, Josh.” I waved him off with an irritated sigh. He was always so clingy around me. I guess he’s one of those people with ‘a calling to serve others’ or some such thing. It made me wonder why he was allowing me to leave at all, but he claimed it was ‘for my own good’, that in order to learn and grow I needed to be somewhere else. Good riddance, as far as I was concerned. The guy was insufferable. What happened next only served to prove my point.

He deftly grabbed my outstretched hand and kissed it. The position forcing him into a slight bow. “Safe travels then, my princess.”

I blushed so hard that I swore my limbs were going numb with blood deprivation. I looked around wildly and noticed a few less than savory folks snickering at me. “Josh!” I yelled all too loudly. “What the hell are you doing?!” I finally regained my senses and yanked my hand back. I was breathing hard, my shoulders rising and falling with the effort.

Josh, that bastard, he just smiled at me and winked. Then he turned around, hopped into his car, and sped off.

“What the hell was that about?!” I growled into the cold evening air. A few individuals who hadn’t been looking at me before had joined their fellows. I flinched, I hadn’t meant for my voice to be that loud, or to carry that far.

I pulled a massive pair of headphones from around my neck and slipped them over my ears before retreating to a safe distance. The gentle sounds of saxophone music and rain calmed my tired nerves, and I struggled to get my heart rate under control.

‘It’s too much.’ I thought bitterly. I should really see a therapist or shrink or something, get on some medicine, because getting myself under control is not getting any easier. I glanced back over at the crowd of people. Some of them were laughing amongst themselves, and although I wasn’t lacking in clarity—I knew that they could be laughing at some ridiculous picture on their smart phones—I was equally certain that what they were laughing at was me.

I frowned and skipped to the next song, hoping it would do a better job of calming me down. Waiting for the bus wasn’t helping my nerves either. The city didn’t even have a proper greyhound terminal, and catching the bus required sitting in an open air transfer point where local buses met. Every minute that passed by my heart beat a little faster. ‘What if the driver had an accident? What if I’m at the wrong transfer point?’ I reached into the pocket of my cheap black jacket and felt around for my tickets before inspecting my pants pockets. A faint wave of relief washed over me when I finally found them, but it was like a drop in the ocean in the long run.

04:45 PM 04/29 Madison(e) to Chicago

There was quite a bit more information beneath that, but honestly it was all Greek to me. Just a bunch of gate numbers and codes relevant to some employee with a computer. So I was at least there at the appropriate time, but that didn’t do anything to reassure me regarding location. I leaned back against the plastic cage I had placed myself in and rest my eyes. ‘You double checked before leaving. You triple checked. Just calm down.’

The bus must have pulled up while I was battling my inner demons, because when I opened my eyes it was parked by the curb across the street. With a panicked yelp I rushed over, bag of clothing in tow. I felt pretty self conscious struggling with my bag. Once again I fought to rationalize my actions. I was pretty sure the bus was going to be there for 15 minutes so everyone could have a smoke, but that didn’t stop me from fleeing like it would leave just as I stepped in front of the doors. Then everyone on the bus could laugh at me, just like the people with the phones had.

I handed my ticket to the bus driver just as he was lighting up a death stick of his own. I fought to keep my breathing under control after the short dash, but it was no use. The composure train had left the station.

He took one look at the ticket and muttered out through pursed lips. “Eric Delano?”

“That’s me.”

He looked up at me. “Got any ID?”

“Oh, yes! Of course!” I dropped my bag and fumbled for my wallet before handing it to him. I flinched at the perceived faux pas of not removing the card myself, but he seemed content to take it all in stride.

“First time riding a bus like this?”

“Uh... Yeah.” I lied through my teeth, as if that would help me save face at this point. First time nervousness will excuse everything, yeah right.

He yanked open the compartment under the bus and gestured to me. “Go ahead and toss it in.” He said while flicking his cigarette clean of ash.

I dutifully grabbed my bag, and after swinging it back and forth a few times for leverage, I released it into the compartment. The driver slammed it with a loud click, and I practically sprinted onto the bus while everyone else enjoyed their break.

With the bus abandoned I made my way to the very back, and wondered why any group would fight to escape that place. It was so peaceful back here. Maybe it was just the principle of the matter? I opened my messenger bag and began shuffling through it like the over sized purse that it was. With a bit of effort I wrestled my laptop free and plugged it into the conveniently provided power outlet. No internet yet, that would have to wait until the driver started the bus. I closed the lid to my laptop and kicked back along the three seats lining the back wall of the bus.

Not much longer after that, people began to re-board the bus. My heart started beating again as I began speculating as to who amongst them would do battle with me over the coveted sleeping roost. Would it be the obvious tweakers behind door number one? Or what about the rock hard ex-con behind door number two? Amusingly enough, they both took seats toward the front of the bus and began discussing, of all things, something involving rape countermeasures. I didn’t even bother to hear the rest of that conversation.

My senses were pried from introspection when a boy about my age prowled down the aisle and towered over me. I sat up, evacuating my position of vulnerability.

“Sorry to disturb you, but I was back here before everyone got off the bus.” He pulled his bag from the overhead to prove his point.

“Oh, sorry about that...” I mumbled, the colour was starting to rise in my cheeks. “I’ll just find somewhere else to sit.”

“No need!” He said as he swung himself down into the chair nearest the aisle, cutting off my escape. He placed his bag on his lap and started digging through it, removing a few pieces of candy and popping them into his mouth merrily. “We can sit together! Share the road!”

Oh joy of joys. Maybe I can ditch him at the next transfer point. Another distant voice rang out in my head. I could always just get up and leave. ‘You don’t need to stay here just because he told you to.’ But something in the way he carried himself just made me want to do exactly as I was told. I opened my laptop and turned myself awkwardly so that he couldn’t see what I was doing.

“So where are you headed?” My companion said in a perfectly friendly and socially reasonable tone.

“San Diego...” I responded as was expected of me. That I could have lied did not even occur to me. I was not a very good liar. “What about you?”

“I’m heading to LA! Guess that means we’ll be traveling together for the next two days!”

‘Dear Odin, I would ask you for help but you’ve clearly saw fit to screw me already. I hope you get god-cancer, the end.’

The bus hummed to life and my precious internet signal was delivered unto me. I recoiled in on myself like the frightened creature I was and set to work ignoring my shiny new friend. We were halfway to Chicago before he spoke to me again.

“You looking at porn or something?”

“. . . No?” I couldn’t even begin to isolate my loathing from my voice. I don’t believe I even tried.

“Let me take a look.” He leaned over the seat and snuck a peek at a conversation I was having with my friend Josh.

A well drawn OC for one of Luna’s Night Guard was the only attention grabbing detail on the screen. Josh prefered the term ‘Thestral’, and didn’t seem to care that Thestrals were pretty soundly the intellectual property of some British fantasy author. I quickly minimized the portion of Skype that displayed profile images and cursed myself silently.

“Do you mind? I’m trying to have a private conversation with one of my friends!” I growled at him and somehow found a way to shift even further away.

There was an awkward silence, but I was grateful that he seemed to understand he had overstepped his bounds. He stared straight ahead for a while before speaking again. “So you’re into My Little Pony then? Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, stuff like that?”

“My friend is, I’m not. Why? Are you a Brony or something?”

“Not really, I have a daughter, and she’s really into it. If I don’t know how to hold a conversation with her about it she gets really upset.”

“That series ended like five years ago. Why would your daughter care about it?”

He shrugged his shoulders and took a candy bar from his bag. “Reruns.”

Josh sent me another message that urgently demanded my attention. I replied with frantic keystrokes.

Wintermute: Can’t talk now, really nosy asshole sitting next to me.

Nightwatch: You should really watch your language princess!

Wintermute: Why the hell do you keep calling me that? Is this some kind of inside joke?

Nightwatch: It’s not really a joke.

Nightwatch: Well, maybe a little.

Nightwatch: In your time staying here I’ve just realized that there is a lot more to you than most give you credit for. You can be a bit... difficult to deal with, but I get the impression that you’re someone worth protecting, and dare I say it, respecting!

Wintermute: Okay. So why the hell aren't I a prince, or better yet, a king?

Nightwatch: A delicate flower like you? Please.

Wintermute: . . .

Wintermute: Your first born is mine. I am going to cut them into pieces and sacrifice each bit to every Eldritch Abomination I can think of, and a few that I can’t.

Nightwatch: See? This is what I am talking about: Delicate. Flower.

Nightwatch: That and my birthday is coming up, I’ve never really cared about that in the past (I mean except the big 21, but come on :3) but I dunno, for some reason I’m feeling really excited!

Wintermute: When’s your birthday again?

Nightwatch: May 1st! The day before yours!

Wintermute: Well, now I feel like a jerk.

Nightwatch: Why is that?

Wintermute: I can’t exactly get you anything this year, and as much as you irritate me sometimes, you’ve done a lot for me and I dunno...

Nightwatch: That’s okay! I’m not getting you anything either!

Nightwatch: Getting me nothing will be my birthday gift to you.

Nightwatch: Didn’t you say you couldn’t talk?

Josh didn’t need to tell me twice. I closed my laptop and tucked it under the seat in front of me. I struggled to get comfortable in vain, and I guess my travel buddy was feeling it too, because he started talking again.

“I’m James, by the way.”

“Eric.”

“So why don’t you like the show, out of curiosity?”

I really wasn’t happy with where this conversation was going. my relationship with Friendship is Magic was Fire and Ice. I hated it, I loved it, I loved to hate it. My friends were almost entirely bronies to this day, and they described me as ‘Tsundere for MLP’.

“A lot of the stuff it seems to preach, like the importance of friendship, or the struggle between harmony and chaos, are things that I believed in to begin with. I’ve never really felt at peace with my family, so friends were far more important to me. I never really believed in gods, because they never answered when I talked to them.” I paused and wished desperately for something to drink.

James seemed to have a sense for such things, because he held out a bottle of water and asked with a smile. “Thirsty?”

I stared at the bottle quietly, debating whether or not to accept something from a stranger. Thirst won out and I broke the seal before taking a sip.

“You can keep it, I’ve got more.” He gestured to continue. “You were saying something about gods?”

“Gods are almost always jerks, anyway. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think there’s something out there, something higher than me. I guess if I had to put a name to it, I would call it Harmony.” I took a much larger sip, my mouth was starting to get dry from all the explaining. “So here comes this show that takes all these nebulous feelings I had, and then parades them around with all the seriousness of a children’s show. It even had real gods, the way gods should be. Except they’re not, they’re ‘just princesses’. It was like they served their people, instead of the people just worshipping them. The whole thing felt vaguely insulting, like it was picking at old wounds.” I paused, I had really gotten into this explanation. Where did all this come from? “And the series finale was absolutely disgusting.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Really? How so?”

I turn to get a good look at him, for the first time actually paying attention to the little details. He was a bit unkempt. His brown hair was beyond taming, and the whites of his eyes had a slight yellow tinge that sort of grossed me out. I tried to remember what illness would cause that, but was drawing a blank. Jaundice, maybe?

“I don’t really want to talk about it, it was just messed up, especially for a children’s show.”

He hummed thoughtfully and twiddled his thumbs. “Fascinating.”

“Quite.” I muttered with a hint of sarcasm.

We spent the rest of the ride to Chicago locked in another one of our awkward silences. When the driver announced our stop and pulled in, I was understandably in a hurry to get off that bus and far away from him. James, however, took his sweet time getting up and gathering his things. Before moving down the aisle he turned toward me and held out his hand.

“See you on the next bus, my good friend.” His smile was from ear to ear.

I’m not sure what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking, I couldn’t have been thinking. I took his hand in mine and shook it, and smiled right back.

“Yeah, see you then.”

The layover at the Chicago terminal was an hour long, and the sun had long since set when we started boarding. I hesitated while handing my bag to one of the workers and stared up at the sky. Too cloudy to see anything, I reflected that I hadn’t really seen the moon or stars since moving to Wisconsin. Broken English snapped me out of my revery and I handed off my bag before climbing up onto the bus and making for the back. James was not on yet, but I was certain he would be on not long after me. Instead of taking the very back like last time, I say one row ahead, and took an aisle seat. In a show of uncharacteristic assertiveness, I even placed my messenger bag on the window seat. Thus did I broadcast to the world my desire to remain undisturbed.

‘I AM A CREATURE OF SOLITUDE’ That is what my display was code for.

Sure enough, James was in the next group of people to board the bus. He smiled when he saw me, but that expression of joy soured quickly when he saw where I had chosen to sit. He didn’t say anything as he slipped into the very back, and I placed my headphones over my ears in any case. After the bus got started I curled up over the span of my two seats and stared out at the murky Chicago night. It was beautiful in it’s own way, though the pollution being pumped out combined with the street lights to give the air a diseased yellow colour. I immediately thought of James’s eyes and shuddered before propping my head just under the window.

Falling asleep certainly took a while. The bus was bouncing up and down, and that coupled with my inability to see where we were going from this angle was giving me a mild case of motion sickness. Eventually I started to nod off, the music from my headphones lured me to sleep and drowned out the disrespectful jerks who didn’t seem to think the driver’s requests to remain quiet during nighttime trips applied to them.

Sometimes while in the process of nodding off, I’d stare out through the cracks in the seats to the row behind me, and I’d see James sitting there with his arms crossed. He never took his eyes off the row of chairs in front of him.

I didn’t like his expression, not even a little.

This had to be a dream. It just had to be, because the air was colourful in a way that stretched my imagination and yet seemed all too familiar. Also, my sister was a horse.

I want to cry out to her. To tell her for the umpteenth time not to trust that... that thing beside her. Together they battle something far larger than either of them. The notion of something larger than the forces of harmony and chaos makes me want to quiver in a corner like a little filly, and I am ashamed. I am ashamed because part of me is glad that I am not there. My big sister will take care of this, my big sister always does. Except she doesn’t take care of things. Not this time. The creature smashes her down from the heavens and into the dirt, and her new friend banishes the creature back to the pit below with a snap of his fingers.

Moon and stars, he’s stronger than I remember him. How could he have become so? In a puff of condescending smoke, he is beside my sister. She begs him, pleads for help, but I think in this moment even she knows what is going to happen next. He dances around, all wit and cunning, and with a great flourish of drama kicks my sister down into the molten rock below.

Setting switches with the abrupt subtlety characteristic of dreams, and we are in a castle. My friend... Twilight Sparkle is there. I feel so ridiculous calling this creature my friend, but why? The spirit of chaos arrives, and already he begins filling her head with lies. She trusts him.

It isn’t fair. She is so young, her coronation wasn’t even a decade ago and already she was having it stripped from her. She doesn’t realize what is happening until the curse is long since begun, and then she’s gone. The spirit disappears, and I’m left alone.

I stay there for some time, drowning in the silence, and then his voice starts to drift up through the dream.

“Why are you getting so worked up Lulu? It’s just a cartoon for little girls!”

I woke up with a start, and earned the attention of the people sitting across from me for my trouble. I turned my head and squinted out the window. For once it seemed like I got a decent sleep while on the bus, because the sun was up. We must be pretty close to St. Louis at this point. I took my headphones off and placed them around my neck, and was greeted by a crunching sound from the row behind me. My stomach started to rumble and I couldn’t help but sneak a peek.

James had removed a large green Ziploc from his bag, and it was filled to the brim with cucumber slices with the skins still on them. Just the way that I liked them. He smiled the same way he always smiles. He took another bite of his slice and finished it before making his next move. “You want some?” He held out the bag. “We can always share them. You’d have to come back here though. I don’t really feel like leaning forward with the bag every time you need to grab one.”

I wrestled with the invitation before reaching a conclusion. I did have some money left, but my reserves were low enough that any dollar I had was very valuable, and worth conserving. I swung myself from my seat using the momentum of the bus to help me along and collapsed into the chair next to him. “Yeah... Yeah I do...”

He held the bag open for me and I reached inside.

“Take as many as you’d like!”

I swallowed at the blank check being offered to me and fought to restrain my hunger impulses, or I was likely to take off with the whole bag. ‘Why must my body be a furnace?!’ Erring on the side of humility I took two. This was not nearly enough to fill me, but god did it make me feel better. Each one had a slight coat of dew-like moisture, and yet had managed to avoid becoming soggy. They were more delicious than any cucumbers I have ever had, and in that moment I probably would have christened them the greatest food stuffs I had ever consumed.

We danced around the issue of the food for a few minutes, him trying to make idle chatter and me trying to avoid the fact that I desperately wanted more. I’ll never understand other people. How the hell can they just sit there like that with a perfectly decent meal? If they weren’t hungry, why were they eating? If they were hungry, why isn’t it gone yet? After a few more glances at the big bag of cucumbers that he was for the most part ignoring, James smiled upon me once more and said “Do you want the rest of them? I’m not actually very hungry.”

I snatched the bag with speed and a lack of grace that was borderline rude. James’s face lit up with amusement and he removed a bottle of cola from his bottomless bag of goodies.

“Guess you really were hungry. How do they taste?”

“Oh my god they are so amazing...” I managed to blurt out between slices of cucumber.

This garnered a chuckle, and he leaned over and patted me on the shoulder. “Good. Hey, do you smoke?” He pulled a medium sized object from a charger and presented it to me. It was one of those electronic cigarettes, but in the shape of an ornate pipe.

I’ve never really experienced peer pressure growing up, I accomplished this by not having peers. Everyone always felt so... beneath me, in grade school. High school had it’s own distractions. So suffice it to say I wasn’t prepared for the feeling of guilt that welled up inside me when I even thought of turning down this guy’s gifts. He had been so polite and generous to me, hadn’t he? Wouldn’t it be rude for me to deny him, after all he had been through to become my friend?

“I... Don’t.” I finally stammered.

James smiled. “Suit yourself!” He raised the pipe to his mouth and inhaled deeply, puffs of water vapor streaming from his nostrils. The air was filled with the smells of vanilla, blueberries, and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was intoxicating just via contact, and I was really starting to regret my decision, but I was never one to reverse my position, at least not this quickly.

While James continued to inhale from his majestic pipe, I decided I would compensate myself by inhaling what was left of my cucumbers. It didn’t take long, and once I started balling up the bag he reached over and clapped me on the back.

“You eat like a horse, did you know that?” He laughed like this observation was somehow hilarious. All I could think about was how the uncomfortably friendly individual was touching me again.

My heart rate was starting to peak by the time the bus pulled into it’s stop, and we were all ordered off the bus so that it might be cleaned and refueled. With the gift of my aisle seat, I took off in a flash, and nearly forgot my messenger bag in the process. The terminal in St. Louis was large enough for me to hide from James for the whole hour we were stuck there.

I decided that even after the bag of cucumbers, I was still starving. In retrospect they hadn’t been very filling at all. So I wasted some of my money on an incredibly over priced miniature pizza from the building’s food court, and quickly isolated myself to a corner before eating it. I nearly panicked and bolted from my position when I saw James round the corner, but he wasn’t looking for me. He was talking to three other people that looked to be about the same age as us. They were smiling and laughing and apparently having a good time in general. This suited me just fine, keep the bastard distracted while I relax and get some real food in me.

I finished my snack and made for the line forming to re-board the bus. By the time I got there it was already overflowing, and I was starting to get worried that there wouldn’t be room for everyone. That might not be so bad... actually, the next bus might not have James on it.

Who was I kidding? If I got bumped to another bus, I had every reason to believe my stalker would be there waiting for me. He’d just have to concede that there wasn’t room for him either. I took the last place in line and began to fidget anxiously. I could see those three people that James had been speaking with before, they were near the front of the line. Every so often one or two would run outside to smoke a cigarette, with the girl holding their place in line. I grit my teeth and tried not to make a big deal about the situation. If they left the line then they should go to the back of the line! What is even the point of having a line otherwise?

“Hello again!” James called enthusiastically as he walked by me. His hand darted out like he was trying to make me flinch, just like my brothers used to always do.

What really rendered me shell-shocked is what he had actually ended up doing. He did not slug me, he didn’t even clap me on the shoulder. He reached out for my chest and pinched me. Right through my shirt, where my nipple would be. I shut down immediately, trying to process what exactly was going on. My first thought was: ‘Did that just happen?’ My second thought was: ‘Am I supposed to scream rape yet?’

In the end I had absolutely no idea what to do. I didn’t think I should tell anyone. It’s not like it was anything serious, they’d probably just laugh at me and tell me to stand up for myself if it bothered me. No, it was clear that the only appropriate tactic was avoidance. I flinched away from him and sealed my lips tightly in a look of disapproval. I didn’t say anything back.

James smirked and strode confidently toward the front of the line where the other three were situated. “See you on the bus!” He called back with enthusiasm.

‘Please let the bus be overbooked. PLEASE let the bus be overbooked.’

The bus wasn’t overbooked. Somehow they had managed to book a person for every seat without overbooking at all. There is no God. I was more certain of that then ever before. To make matters worse, every seat at the front of the bus was taken. James and his motley crew had already set up shop in the back, and that is where the last remaining seat was.

It was going to be a long ride to Las Vegas.

Sitting next to James was a very awkward experience. It was like nothing had ever happened at the terminal, and honestly I was starting to wonder if anything had happened.

The three people he was hanging out with were on their way to Vegas. They seemed nice enough, although they weren’t really in my social caste, not that I belonged to such a thing. There names were Caleb, Chelsie, and... Honestly, I never got the last one’s name. He was an odd kid that everyone seemed to pick on. He seemed to take it in stride though. It was like he had taken so many drugs that he was just permanently happy and oblivious. He wore a hat that was in the likeness of that green platypus character from some old Disney show, and the ear flaps were comically large and reached down to his waist.

The four of them took turns with James’s pipe, and eventually they even managed to talk me into giving it a try. The flavors were much more intense than I had anticipated, and I choked the first time. The rest of the group smiled and laughed, like they had initiated me into the higher mysteries. I did feel sorta different after the first time, but the cartridge they were using must have had a bit of nicotine in it. Something like that would account for such a thing.

The ride to Denver was long and cramped, and with everyone so up in each other’s business, I couldn’t speak to any of my friends online. My real friends, I reminded myself. They wouldn’t make me feel uncomfortable like this, so out of my element. But then, maybe it is a good thing to be out of your element every once in awhile?

When we got to Denver we lost a majority of the passengers and acquired a couple dozen more. Everyone was much more spaced out and I used that opportunity to move closer to the front. James didn’t really seem to like this idea much, but I told him I needed to get some sleep, and he accepted that. It was a bit difficult to get any shut eye with those four partying constantly. James had made full use of his never ending bag of treats.

Things were much quieter and relaxed up front, but unfortunately after switching buses in Denver, we no longer had access to Internet, so once again I was cut off from the outside world. I managed to get some shut eye early on, and when I woke up we were quite a distance from the city. The sun was high enough for it to be early morning, and the bus was surrounded on all sides by green hills. It was a pretty peaceful setting.

Then we entered a tunnel, and what happened next was like visiting Narnia or something.

The tunnel seemed to go on forever, and a few of the people near me were starting to panic. In the row of seats just in front of me, a little girl stared at the wall as it whizzed past us with a look of spiritual awe, and my expression wasn’t much different once we exited the other side.

The green hills were gone, and were replaced with massive coniferous trees capped with snow. Everything was covered with snow. I was awestruck at the idea that anything could still be blanketed in the white stuff this close to May. It was like I had been transported to another world.

Then I got a good look at the mountains. I had thought I had seen mountains growing up in California, but that didn’t even compare to these. These mountains struck a chord deep in my soul, and soared into the air before being obscured by clouds. A few of them even looked like massive towers with turrets of stone jutting into the sky. I wanted to know why no one had built any monasteries on them, or castles. A castle on top of one of these mountains would be good. Surely we had the technology for such things now.

I shook my head to clear the idea. “Castle on a mountain eh? Very original Eric.” I curled up on the seats and stared up through the window to watch the mountains as they passed.

Apparently my show of wonder didn’t go unnoticed, and the little girl from in front had taken an interest in me, deciding she had stumbled upon a kindred spirit. She would occasionally poke her head over the seat and stare at me when she thought I wasn’t looking, before darting back down when she felt I had seen her.

I must have been feeling pretty silly and energetic after passing by the mountains, because I actually played along. After awhile it turned into a game of who could make the silliest face. In actuality, it was more like me making faces and her mimicking them, but laughing first and letting her win seemed the sporting thing to do.

Her parents weren’t very far away, but they seemed okay with us interacting. Normally parents are terrified of me being near their kids, like I’m some kind of pedophile if I allow myself to be within five feet of their larval offspring. I chalked it up to her being hyper, the trip being long and crowded, and them being exhausted.

Eventually I started fiddling around with my laptop and she hopped into the seat next to me.

“My name is Sarah.” She spoke, her voice revealing the same unease I felt when talking to strangers.

“I’m Eric.” I replied quietly, as though afraid I’d scare her away like a flock of birds.

“Where are you going?” She tilted her head. I got the impression she was worried that I’d get irritated with her for asking so many questions. I tried to consider how Chelsie or Caleb might respond, and suddenly Her fears didn’t seem too unfounded.

“San Diego.”

“Is that where you want to go?”

That follow up caught me completely off-guard. “No... Not really.”

“So then, where do you want to go?”

“I dunno. Home, I guess.”

“Your home isn’t in San Diego?”

I scoffed at the idea. “No, definitely not.”

“So then where is it?”

I closed my laptop and started putting it away. “I guess that’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

She nodded. That answer seemed to finally satisfy her stream of inquiry. That just made things awkward as she sat there trying to come up with a reason for her to be there.

“Where do you want to go?” I attempted to ease the tension.

“It doesn’t really matter where I want to go.” She crossed her arms and sulked at her parents. “It only matters where they want to go.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the pint-sized display of anger. That seemed to wound her a bit, but I pressed on. “So when you’re an adult, where do you want to go?”

Her little blue eyes lit up and she practically jumped from her seat. “Appleloosa!”

I blinked, it couldn’t be. She must be talking about the horse club or something, this trip was already way too uncanny. “Come again?”

“You know, Appleloosa?” She stared at me like I was mentally handicapped. “It’s in the south?”

It’s a bit late in the day to be crushing a kid’s hopes, so why the hay not. She can visit Appleloosa when she’s all grown up.

“Of course! Right. I knew that, I just thought you were talking about some other town, that’s all.”

The two of us sat there, and the silence was even more awkward than before. She looked like she was about to speak several times. Her mouth would open and close like a fish trying to breath water on land. Finally she slipped off the chair and went back to her seat in the row in front of me. I couldn’t help but feel like some profound failure at dealing with little kids.

We passed into Utah, and the sun started to make it descent toward the horizon. It was amazing how empty this country is. I reflected on how it took riding a bus to really appreciate that truth. I wouldn’t want to live here in a time before cars. Not that I’d ever actually owned one myself.

I curled up on my two seats and started to drift off, and every so often Sarah would peek at me through the cracks in her seats. As long as it wasn’t James, I could stand the invasion of privacy.

A few dreamless hours of sleep later I awoke to a desert landscape and a night sky littered with stars. It was hard to see them through the bus’s light pollution, but they were there. Part of me wanted to order the driver to stop so I could run off into the desert, find a cave somewhere, and sleep next to some roaring fire that I would magic up with my absolutely pathetic survival skills.

Sarah was peeking her head over the top of her seat again, and she yelped when she saw that I was awake.

“I’m not going to gobble you up or anything, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

She poked her head back over the side with a huge smile on her face, like what I had just said was hilarious and proved everything at the same time.

“Hello again.” She stated with a sense of pride, like she found some ancient treasure and was about to present it to the world.

“Hi.”

Her smile was tarnished by an expression of uncertainty, and she glanced around nervously before continuing. “Uhm... I just wanted to say that your sister is still out there. I just know it!”

I tilted my head, part of me wondered if I wasn’t still sleeping, but then I remembered I had an uncanny awareness for such things. “I don’t have a sister.”

Sarah looked mortified by what I had just said. It was like she had been my sister, and I had just openly denounced her. “But you do! You do have a sister! She hasn’t given up on you, so you can’t give up on her!”

I squinted at her, my mouth dropping open in disbelief. “Kid, I think you’ve got me confused for someone else.”

She dropped back down behind her seat, I could only just make out that she had crossed her arms. “Somepony,” she corrected me with a quiet snarl of frustration. “And you’re the one that’s confused... not me...”

I contemplated that odd little exchange for what must have been an hour before drifting back to sleep. I know it’s impossible to sleep without dreaming, so I marked their absence as a consequence of the bus bouncing up and down. It would explain why I never felt rested, and why sleep just felt like a way to skip ahead through time, at least. The dreamless sleep was really starting to mess with my mind, though. I’ve always been pretty good at lucid dreaming, or knowing when I was asleep, but I can’t remember actually getting bent out of shape if I didn’t have them.

When I woke up the sun was still down, and we were pulling into Las Vegas. The bus did a pretty good job of getting to the station while also making sure not to go anywhere near anything interesting. When we arrived, I waited for everyone else to get off first. I didn’t want to deal with people in any capacity right now, and that included dealing with traffic. Sarah reached down over the side of her seat and grabbed my hair with a sharp yank. I yelped in anger before apologizing, and then said my goodbyes. Her parents came over to collect her, apologized, and dragged her off.

Eventually Chelsie and the other two came up and said goodbye as well, they practically dragged the nameless one by the collar of his shirt. I had no idea what they’d gotten up to back there, and I honestly didn’t want to know.

I was confused at first when I didn’t see James get off the bus. It must have been a blessing, maybe he was locked up in the bathroom finishing a beer or something. I grabbed my bag and got off the bus with all due haste.

Waiting in the terminal was a bit exciting. All I could think about was the prospect of being almost done with this terrible ordeal. I saw Sarah one last time as her family headed for the exit. She waved, so I waved back. Chelsie and Kaleb spent a few minutes arguing by the rental lockers, then they took off without a word. Still no sign of James.

The sun was starting to come up by the time we started to board the bus for LA. I didn’t want to risk running into James in the back, so I took the seat immediately behind the busdriver. With the big plastic shell surrounding him I was a bit cramped, but I figured I’d also have the best access to the WiFi. If you went all the way to the back it tended to drop in and out constantly.

My heart stopped when James appeared out of nowhere. He reached forward and pinched me, just like before, and my mind died a second death.

“Hey! Mind if I sit here?”

‘YES! I ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY MIND! I WILL RIP YOU TO PIECES AND USE YOUR SOUL FOR FIRE WOOD YOU INSUFFERABLE DEGENERATE!’

“S-Sure...” I think I threw up in my mouth a little.

He took a seat and the already cramped quarters became my own special hell. It was almost impossible for me to open my laptop up and make use of it. But I made it work.

Nightwatch: Hey! GUESS WHAT?

Wintermute: Today is your birthday?

Nightwatch: Tonight, specifically!

Wintermute: Okay then.

Wintermute: Look, I can’t really talk, there is some perverted asshole sitting next to me and he keeps trying to pinch my chest.

Wintermute: And also he's a rubbernecker.

Nightwatch: =O

Nightwatch: Has he violated your honor?!

Wintermute: I... What?

Nightwatch: Give me his name and face, and he shall not see another sunrise!

Wintermute: I think this is getting out of hand. Look, I already said I can’t talk. Warning issued. I will talk to you later, Happy Birthday.

Nightwatch: Thanks!

I minimized Skype and opened up a folder of videos saved on my computer. What decently engaging and lengthy show can I watch, that I also have no issues being seen to enjoy in public? I settle for old episodes of the Game of Thrones. Secretly I hoped this would reinstate my manhood and prevent the lecherous bastard sitting next to me from treating me like some schoolyard fill- I mean... schoolgirl. That is definitely what I meant to think. To myself. I am having a conversation with myself aren’t I?

“Oh hey! I just started that season last week! Mind if I watch with you? I’ve got earbuds!” He smiles at me and holds out a dirty white iPod headset. I groan and remove my own, so I can at least avoid putting those filthy things into my ear.

He takes one of the ear buds and places it in his ear, and I do the same with my end. We watch the last couple episodes of the season before things wind down to a close. I close the media player and let out a relieved sigh.

“Welp, show’s over.”

“Ooh! Can we watch something else now?”

“Uh... What do you have in mind?” I have a pretty good feeling I am going to regret asking.

“Ever since you mentioned that MLP Series finale, I’ve been dying to see it! If it’s as awful as you say I’m sure my daughter and I can bond while complaining about it!”

Oh yeah, I definitely regret asking.

“I’m really not in the mood to watch that show right now.”

“Why? Because you’re afraid someone might see?” He grinned viciously, trying to egg me on. “Come on, after all that testosterone we just injected a little estrogen isn’t going to kill you.”

“Really. Not. In the mood.”

James leaned over until he was practically whispering in my ear. “I’ve been pretty patient with you, given you water, given you food, and shared my pipe with you. I’m practically your personal Jesus Christ, and the entire duration of this trip all you have been is distant. You’ve been a spoiled little princess. Not the way you respond to an offering of friendship.” He leaned back and smiled that bright smile. “So let’s just watch the stupid show, alright?”

I meekly complied and started searching for it on Youtube. It didn’t take long, the video was pretty notorious, and I guess it was receiving a lot of hits lately, how coincidental.

The video opened without the usual intro that would inspire me to grit my teeth, instead it was just dramatic music. Discord had arrived in the capital to inform Celestia that something terrible had escaped from the bowels of Tartarus. Bowels is not the sort of word I ever expected to hear from a show for little girls.

Every time Celestia spoke I wanted to look away from the screen. She and her sister had been the only reason I had ever watched this stupid show. Episode one and two got me hooked, and everything that didn’t expand on their relationship was just filler to me.

In light of that, it was very difficult for me to face what was going to happen next. Celestia wanted to assemble the elements of harmony, but now they were scattered so far apart. Things had been simple when Twilight was still a student in Ponyville. Now she was a princess in her own right, Rainbow Dash was a captain of the Wonderbolts, and Rarity had her own shop in downtown Canterlot, a district second in traffic only to the royal quarter. Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie at least still lived in Ponyville, but it would just take too much time to round up everypony individually.

Celestia rushed off with Discord to seal this creature back where it belonged. Just a few moments and it was a done deal. With Discord’s help, she wouldn’t even need Luna.

She wouldn’t even need Luna.

She wouldn’t even need...

Then of course the betrayal happened. Celestia was knocked down into the pit below. Discord arrived at Twilight’s room, zapped her to who knows where, and now for the worst part, the final confrontation with Princess...

Wait, what? Why are the credits rolling?

I grit my teeth together trying to figure out what the deal was. Was this some poorly conceived troll?

“Well I don’t know what you’re complaining about! I think that was a great ending!” He clapped me on the shoulder. “It’s pretty daring, you know? A girl’s cartoon that ends with the bad guy winning? Maybe I misjudged that show.”

I looked around at the related videos, and started digging through the comments. There had to be an answer. “Hold on, that’s not the whole episode, I think that one’s a joke. Let me find another one.”

I tried a few versions of the episode, and each time it ended the same way. I did notice one thing of note, however. Some of the comments were just as pissed off as I was, and for the same reason! The unusual part being that everyone seemed to be inquiring about a missing scene over ponies that didn’t even seem relevant to the plot. Why the hell would Berry Punch have a final showdown in the series finale? She didn’t even have a voice role in the show.

“Well, looks like you must have just misremembered something. It’s been five years, right? No biggie.” He sniffed and popped his headphones out of his pocket and plugged them into his ears. He flashed me a condescending smile and added. “Thanks for letting me watch. I know it was a big deal for you.”

“... Sure, no problem.”

The short remainder of the trip was awkward, he kept to himself and listened to his music, and I put my laptop away before listening to mine. We pulled into Los Angeles a bit later than expected, and because we were sitting behind the driver we were two of the first off the bus.

I was beyond ecstatic to be away from him. That creep had been nothing but a nightmare ever since we’d met, delicious cucumbers be damned. If I saw him again I was going to bust the teeth right out of his smile. My heart rate was increasing, and I decided to make way for the bathroom. Maybe splashing some water against my face would calm me down.

The bathroom was filthy, like most bus terminal bathrooms are, and there was an ethereal ambiance playing over the speakers. The water smelled awful, or at least, maybe the plumbing did? Regardless, the cool water went a long way to calm my nerves, and as added bonus no one was in there with me.

Blessing became curse when I heard the door swing shut and click into place. My eyes started to go wide even before James rounded the corner, smiling that omnipresent smile.

“Hey man! Traveling across the country like that was an experience! We should do it again sometime!” He came within arms reach of me.

‘Do it Eric. Punch him in the jaw, just do it!’

I didn’t do anything, he just kept talking. “What’s your facebook?”

“I don’t... I don’t use facebook?”

“It’s 2020, and you don’t book face?”

I slowly shook my head no, my expression was tortured like a child that had just been caught cleaning the toilet with his brother’s tooth brush. By his brother.

“Well, you should really get my number, Luna.” He sneered at me and reached out with one hand, burying his gnarled fingers through my hair and into my scalp. I yelped in surprise and tried to pull back, but he held fast. “After all, I’ve got yours...”

His yellow eyes sparkled malevolently and he just held me there, staring into my eyes. “Now little Lulu, I hope this whole experience hasn’t made you... uncomfortable. I’ve invested a lot of energy into making sure you don’t place a single hoof onto my stage. So things better stay that way. Kapeesh?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, you god-damned nut job! I’m not Luna!”

“Hmm? Oh, maybe not yet anyway. But you were starting to wake up early. You alicorns are so high maintenance, I honestly can’t stand you.”

James made a face and delivered in a mocking tone. “It practically took weeks to get little miss Princess Mi Amore Cadenza out of her damn fortress. Why can’t all alicorns be as useless as you?”

I winced. My heart rate started to escalate faster than ever before. tendrils of green and black smoke started to waft from his eyes.

“Anyyyyyyway. Since you accepted all three of my gifts, I get to do this now!”

You’ll never have the leading role!

But don’t despair, you still have goals!

We shared our food, our drink, our hearth!

Perceive this darkness inside your heart!

By the time the curse was concluded I was gasping for breath and clutching my chest. The black and green smoke rushed into me through my nose and mouth, and I struggled to stay on my feet and conscious. The last thing I remember saying was “But... it doesn’t even rhyme...”

James huffed, a trail of dragon like smoke shooting from his mouth. “Oh Luna, don’t even start.”

I came to when a loud angry banging echoed through the bathroom. I looked around wildly, I was alone. The facet I had been using was still spilling out into the sink, and a small folded up piece of paper was sitting on the counter.

Got your number! Here’s mine: 666-2317 >:)

I groaned and slipped the note into my pocket before shambling to the door. I opened it expecting security guards, instead I found a man and his son, who was dancing madly the dance of the rainmaker.

He shook his head angrily and stormed in right through me. “God damn junkie, you’re lucky I didn’t have time to call security.”

I did feel pretty lucky, because at that moment my bus was boarding, and I raced toward it like someone desperate to escape a nightmare.

The trip wasn’t even in a Greyhound, it was some offshoot charter brand or something. There was no power and no internet, and the little televisions hanging from the ceiling didn’t work either. I resigned myself to an unpleasant ride, but consoled myself that it would at least be short.

When I got to San Diego, no one was waiting for me. Which wasn’t surprising, I said in my email that I could get back to the house on my own. A couple of hours on the trolley and a few transfers later, and I had arrived at my childhood home just in time for dinner.

Or I would have been if anyone was there. I wasn’t sure why the door was locked, I told them I’d be showing up today. With some difficulty I jumped high enough to grab the roof of the parking structure surrounding our condo. I pulled myself up, the small rocks on it’s surface digging into my skin. I walked around to the tiny cell that functioned as our back yard and leapt down into the grass. The sliding glass door was never locked, and getting inside was easy at that point.

I took the time to shower, shave, brush my teeth, basically remove all the disgusting homeless person that had built up during my trip, and curled up on the couch with a book to read. My mom was the first person home, and her surprise was equally gratifying and insulting.

“Oh! Hello!” She said through clenched teeth. “You’re here today!”

I blinked at her and stood up. “Well, yeah. Didn’t you read my email?”

“Oh sweety, you know I don’t check my email.”

“I called you in advance and asked if it was okay for me to stay here awhile, when you said yes I told you I’d be sending you an email with more info about when.”

“Yes... Well.” She stood there stiffly, a condition that only became worse when I tried to abandon my exasperation and hug her.

“Well. It’s good to see you again.” I said. “Hopefully I won’t be here too long.”

“Oh... No. Take as long as you need!” My mom flashed me one of her rehearsed smiles.

I shook my head and went to the kitchen to start working on dinner. My older and younger brother, Robert and John, respectively, came storming in an hour later.

Somehow they were built in the greek image of perfection, and I was the slight and waifish figure that provoked... well, creepy assholes on public buses to pinch their nipples. At least I was taller than them, but that didn’t stop them from abusing me. Somehow I managed to land the youngest sibling slot despite my seniority.

“Hey Eric!” Robert clapped me on the back, a social gesture I wish could be banished to the enchanted confines of the moon. “Wasn’t expecting you here today! What are you making for dinner?”

“...Soup.”

“Can we get a little elaboration?” John chimed in.

“It’s chicken tortilla soup.” I paused. “Robert, please get off of me.”

Robert’s eyes went wide and he pried his hand free before waiving it in the air like a daring lion tamer. “As you wish your royal highness!”

That phrase made me quake like a leaf, and I couldn’t keep it under wraps. For the first time since I could remember, my older brother looked worried about me.

“Hey, are you okay? You didn’t catch anything did you?” Robert grabbed my chin, my family doesn’t really respect the concept of personal space. “You look like shit. Your eyes are sorta yellow.”

I shook him off and began stirring the soup. “I’m fine! Get off of me! I just haven’t really slept in a few days.”

John hated to be outdone by Robert. He grabbed the ladle from my hand and shoved me aside. “Then go get some rest you big idiot, we’ll handle dinner tonight Cinderella.”

The faint pounding in my head that had persisted ever since that stop in LA came in full force. My hand shot out and wrapped around John’s throat like a wolf’s jaws around a rabbit’s neck. “Don’t. Call me that.” I used my other hand to retrieve the ladle from him. “I started dinner, I’m going to finish dinner. Or is that not alright with you?”

“Uh... sure man... whatever, right?” John backed away, but Robert wasn’t so easily cowed.

“You’re sure you’re alright then?” He placed a hand on John’s shoulder and slowly pulled him away to safety.

‘Yes. FINALLY some respect, I am older than that prepubescent little idiot, and I deserve to be treated as such!’

I shook my head to clear it of the pounding, and let the ladle sink into the soup.

“Actually, I’m not really sure.” I stammered and took a step back. “I think I’m going to go lay down or something.”

“You can use my room.” Robert said, he lead me there like I had no idea where I was going, but thankfully avoided grabbing my hand.

The room was just like I remembered it, stuffed with bad music posters and pictures of barely naked women. But at least the bed was clean. I curled up on the mattress without much of a fight. I couldn’t stop shaking. Robert held the door open for a second longer and muttered.

“Get some sleep, alright?”

He didn’t need to ask me a third time.

It was all my fault, I should have been there! I should have been there!

Where had I been instead? In bed, observing the dreams of adolescents and foals?! The fate of Equestria hung in the balance and Princess Luna was NOWHERE to be seen! That makes what, four times in a row?

I looked around wildly, no... Not in bed, not back home. I was still in the moon. Still in that infernal inferior celestial object as it whirled around the sky at the behest of my big sister.

I hated her. I hated her more than words could express. How could she choose his help over mine? It was her fault! It was her fault all of this had happened to us, happened to Twilight...

I gnashed my teeth and stomped at the magical walls of my prison with rage-fueled vigor. The stars danced madly overhead. Celestia can move the sun and moon, but she wasn’t very good at manipulating the stars. Even I was barely capable of such.

But they loved me, at least. Even at my worst they cared for me, and when the stars come right, well...

For Five Score, Divided by Four...

Patience is a virtue, I guess.

I woke up in the dead of night, covered in sweat, but with a dry mouth. You can’t explain that, science did it. A cursory glance at the alarm clock informed me that it was now five in the morning, the sun would be rising soon. I considered going back to sleep, but in all honesty I was feeling absolutely disgusting. I needed a shower like never before.

‘No matter how hard you scrub, you’ll never be clean Luna!’ A mirth-filled voice echoed through my mind. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and padded out of the bedroom and into the full bathroom right next to it.

The shower felt really great, and got rid of the sweat nicely, but it didn’t really do much to make me feel cleaner. Stupid mocking head voice. Why do you always know the future?

I climbed out of the shower and began drying myself off with two of the only things I had left behind. I was surprised they were still there, actually. Two towels, one dark blue and the other black. Considering what I finally noticed next, they were oddly appropriate in colour.

On either side of my thighs there was a small unevenly shaped blob, pitch black in colour. they were an odd shade of black that should have been impossible, with tattoo ink anyway. I ran my hand along them expecting to feel hair or fur or something, but there was nothing. It was difficult to describe really. Inside each was a small crescent white moon. It only took a second to realize what I was looking at, and when the penny dropped my mouth dropped with it.

“Well, that wasn’t there before...”