It was cold. That is one of the few things he remembered. He was still young at the time. His parents spent much of the trip talking with the other unicorn leaders, leaving him with the other children. The journey was long. Many of the children didn’t survive the long days of travel, seeking a new land to call home. This was his first exposure to the harshness of the real world. Not everyone could survive. The nights spent huddled for warmth, hoping against hope that the influence of the windigos would abate.
It was on one of these that he met his first monster born of the cold. A single unicorn arrived where the children rested, his eyes colder than the snow outside. He stirred and stared at the colt with weary eyes. The colt looked to be on the brink of tears and said, “It’s better this way. Better than suffering…” He stared at the colt in confusion as the horn began to glow.
Just as he was about to scream in terror, his teacher, the colt that had been taking care of the young ones, shot a beam, knocking the colt out of the shelter. His teacher sighed, “Stay here, Golden. Keep them comfortable. I will be back.”
He nodded, doing as he was told. Despite the loud booms and cries of pain, Golden remained, keeping the other children warm and asleep. When his teacher returned he said, “It’s alright. Some allow the doubts to consume them. They allow their fear, guilt, and rage taint their judgment. I never want you to give into that. I want you to remember there is always a light that guides us. Rage, fear, violence, they don’t solve problems, only postpone them at best and amplify them at worst.”
He looked up at his teacher and asked, “If that is true, why aren’t we working with the other ponies?”
His teacher smirked and, looking at the cold unforgiving skies, “I wish I knew…”
Shane snapped awake at the lunch table. He couldn’t believe he had fallen asleep. When he came to, AJ was talking to the group about something that Shane could hardly make out. It was only now that something seemed out of place. He felt like they were supposed to be there but something felt off about the other people at the table. He then began to come back to reality. Until he had stopped picking those fights on the internet, it had just been him and AJ at lunch.
AJ just assumed that it was because he had stopped being as combative and it was probably true. He had been a lot less bitter. He just seemed to accept things as more than they appeared. He wished he had noticed his own hypocrisy earlier. Many people judged him for what he appeared to be. Still, their faces seemed so familiar to him.
It was then that one of the girls poked him, “Hey, wake up! You’ve been asleep for ages. You been having nightmares? It seems like you take a nap every lunch period.”
Another one of them said to her irritated, “Leave him be. I’m sure he doesn’t want to talk about it.” He started piecing them together a bit more. There was one wearing a turtle neck sweater hiding her face under her bangs, there was a tomgirl in jeans and a tank top with the typical dyed hair, there was a freckled girl wearing a plaid sun dress and a straw hat, there was one in a rather flashy dress more suited to the popular crowd than here with an outcast like him, and there was one in a black dress with dyed bangs.
He was missing somebody but then a thought occurred to him. These were probably AJ’s friends. Shane sure as heck didn’t remember making them. And on top of that one of them was missing. That was when the last girl got up on the stage in the cafeteria. She wore a dress very fitting to cosplay, all of it covered in colorful buttons and cute animal key chains. She shouted, “Today’s the day! Are you ready to stand up?!” She then began to play a song from an old kids movie that he had almost forgotten even existed but now he couldn’t get it out of his head.
AJ went up there and started to sing with her. Listening carefully, Shane shook his head. Something was wrong. His vision flickered a bit, a split second he knew something but the next he wasn’t sure. It was almost like AJ looked like the teacher that he had seen in his dream, but that was impossible. His eyes flickered again, the room seeming to ripple for a minute. The girls looked like a memory he had. Not too long ago either. It was strange. Something was off and he just now started to see it.
He stood. He wished he could put his finger on it but when something was wrong on such a fundamental level he couldn’t let it go. It wasn’t his nature. He remembered something he was told once, perhaps even by AJ. Chase the truth wherever it is. Don’t leave any stone unturned. The day we stop asking questions is the day we stop learning and the day we stop learning is the day we die. He asked the girl in the sun dress, “Hey, can you remind me of your name? I am feeling rather forgetful today.”
She laughed, “O’ course, hun. It’s Jackie. You really do have a hard time holding onto names, don’t you?” Jackie? Her name felt like a very poor dodge but why? Was it a dodge, or perhaps he was imagining it?
He turned to the tomboy, “And yours as well please?” She seemed far more annoyed by this than the other one and he felt the need to clarify, “I’m just shaking off sleep and I haven’t known you guys that long.”
She grumbled, “It’s Rain, you jerkwad. I can’t believe that I actually worried about you.” She seemed sincerely upset and this is what bothered him most. Where did he know her from?
He was about to question the others when another familiar face that he couldn’t place arrived in the form of a new girl. She tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. The first thing that got his attention was her flowing black hair. The second was her eyes. They seemed so sharp and alert. With a smile she said, “I need to talk to you in the side hall if you are okay with that.”
Still a bit lost in his thoughts, Shane replied, “Sure. Is it going to take long?”
The girl shook her head vigorously, “No, not long for the talk.” He found her phrasing and tone to be odd. She even seemed rather nervous, like someone was after her. Was she high? Despite that doubt, he followed her into the hall.
She looked back into the cafeteria as she closed the door behind them. The ripple he saw earlier seemed to occur again. This time the displacement seemed centered on this girl. She let out a long breath and said, “Celestia was right. The ground work is set, all I need to do is set it into motion.”
That was when it started to make sense and Shane’s eyes glazed over in a bout of madness. “No… Nononononono, No. Just no. I know who you are and no. You are not here because here you aren’t real. Do you understand?”
The girl smiled and nodded, “So you are him. I wasn’t sure if it was you or the one singing so I picked the more angry looking one.”
He hadn’t met her personally but he knew that only one person, or should he say pony, looked like that and knew Celestia. He yelled, “Haven’t you guys had enough of your fun? I stopped picking on people on the internet. I even told my dang friend so I didn’t feel completely insane! Aren’t you done driving me up a tree?”
Luna smiled, “I know you have noticed it. Celestia did all that for a reason. Your world has started to seem less normal, less stable. She knew we would need all the help we can get now that the elements have been returned.”
He didn’t like where this was going. Couldn’t Celestia just summon him in his sleep again? He had a gut feeling. Something that told him to run far away. That once he listened to her there was no going back. Why wasn’t he freaking out more? He blacked out when he was in ponyville. Was this really more normal than a fever dream? With resignation he found himself saying, “Tell me what is going on and what this plan is.”
Luna spoke in a measured manner, “This world, though based on an actual world, isn’t real. Celestia first read of you a year ago but thought nothing of it until I returned to her side. You, over a millennium ago, sealed yourself into a dream, creating a pocket dimension of your own mind. Legend has it that you did so to seal away a terrible darkness. Celestia believed you had not become unsealed because you lacked the weapon to destroy it. So she summoned you, exposing you to the guardians of the elements of harmony, implanting those thoughts into your subconscious. She knew it would only be a matter of time before you harnessed them, slay the evil, and return to assist us. She realized when she met you that you had no idea who you were, so she has asked me to guide you.”
The cafeteria grew quiet and Shane knew not if it was out of shock driving him deaf or if they had all gone back to class. She couldn’t have been joking but the fear at the implications drove him to silence. It had to be a joke. There was no way this was true. If it was, then the… No he had to ask her, not just think it. “So, what you are saying is that this life I have been living, this completely plain world with no real adventures, no big fire breathing dragons or ancient creatures, has all been one giant illusion made by my mind to keep an ancient evil in check? This very boring normal color world houses darkness so great that I would stay here for over a MILLENNIUM, a thousand Fricken years!” Luna nodded as Shane continued to rant, “And out there, I am something that implies a rank, a title, a level of nobility that disgusts me to the very core of my being. Not to mention that but I have been living a self inflicted lie and am supposed to be returning to a realm that makes me want to ram red hot pokers into my eye sockets?”
That last comment seemed to offend Luna but she cleared her throat and nodded, “Yes. I don’t know what made you what you are now but you are not the person Celestia described in the books.”
He grumbled, “Oh, I dunno why I wouldn’t be so very understanding. I am just being told the only existence I have ever known is a well made lie from a me I can hardly believe and at its very foundation seems repulsive to me. Not to mention it has been taken beyond my control because clearly, now that I am aware, the darkness in here with me will now start to actively hunt me. I should BE so lucky. Doesn’t EVERYONE wish to be hunted by an ancient evil from a bygone era in a realm born of their own mind?”
Luna stared at him unentertained, the distortion returning as she took her pony form. She stamped her hoof. “You need to focus. I know this isn’t easy but you don’t have time to stand there being sorry for yourself. I need to go before it finds me but you need to find the tools Celestia has given you and banish this evil. I will be watching.” Luna disappeared from view, Shane left alone in the now empty hallway.
He began to debate with himself on this. He was going to find a way to get back at them later. Right now, he had to figure out what the plan was, where these tools were, what these tools were, and how to deal with this darkness should he find it. He got a heavy stone in his gut. He was about to enter a world of hurt that filled him with nothing but dread. So began his adventure into the mysterious labyrinth that was his own mind.
Author's Note
This is not a cannon continuation. I liked the character so much I decided to play with the concept further(Poor guy). I will be calling this the Nopony series and it will continue until I feel it has come to an appropriate end. I do suggest that anybody who wants to show their friend an objective look at MLP show them "A Nopony in Ponyville". If you enjoy the character and want to see where he goes, please continue to read this series. Thank you in advance, those of you that actually read a fic before rating it.
Signed,
A Moderate Brony
Blackchibisan
