Getting Braeburned

This is an optional epilogue describing what could happen when the main story ends. Please note that this is a little bit bittersweet compared to the main story.

A long while later...

Your eyes grow to what feels like window size as you stare into the glowing abyss. Streams of yellow sparks dance across a shimmering array of bright green dots. Your inner instincts tell you to feel terrified, but your conscious mind keeps replaying what Princess Celestia has spent the past few hours telling you. You glance up at the cavernous walls of Celestia's Canterlot palace. You can't help but sense that you'll be going into a spiritual execution.

Of course, you can't stay. Celestia told you as such. Rarity told you as such. Even Braeburn, for all that the whirlwind romance of the past month has meant to you both, has admitted under the influence of a lot of moonshine that he knows you'll leave sooner rather than later... although he spun a different yarn while sober. With the sudden thought of that particular golden-maned stallion, you feel a cold chill across your heart.

You turn completely around. The collection of ponies all seem to have about the same flat smile, plastered in different ways across their different faces. A little bit of anger flashes through your mind. Why? Why aren't they crying? Won't they miss me? You keep on looking backward, even as you move your legs back and march towards the magical abyss. You hear the low hum of the spell, going all through your body from your toes to your nose.

You feel so hurt that you can barely open your mouth. Your conscious mind has already flashed through dozens of perfectly sound reasons-- from your family that you love being worried sick for you back on Earth to the odd little mutations inside your own body from exposure to Equestria magic, possibly fatal over too long a time-- for you to be where you are now. That doesn't make leaving any less painful. Appleoosa, Braeburn right at your side, is more than home to you; it's like a sort of Garden of Eden for you to frolic about with the best friend you've ever had. "Goodbye," you say to the ponies.

From Applejack to Celestia to Twilight and the rest of them, they all say "Goodbye" back to you. It suddenly hits you as you gaze at Celestia's motherly expression, with those big, soft eyes. They're trying to keep from bawling too. They can barely take it as well. You take notice of the pain, and some kind of profound understanding flashes between you and that beautiful alicorn.

"It doesn't mean forever," Braeburn says. Your eyes drop down to the familar stallion, those wonderful, sparkling green eyes of his looking as big as yours. You keep saying that. Celestia keeps saying that. What the hell does that mean? Please!

You think of a response, but the yellow sparks already start to shoot across your body. You take a sudden breath as your senses go blank. It feels too much like dying, pure bright light overwhelming each of your senses. You somehow sense that you're flying, off away towards Earth somehow.

You find yourself flashing back, almost like watching yourself a big cinema screen, to three days ago. You see yourself lying alongside Braeburn on a mound of dirty hay, both of you panting from having just re-consummated your love. You see the other you looking the stallion eye to eye and noticing an oddly reserved, distant expression. You didn't quite understand what that meant at the time.

You suddenly flutter against something... something gritty, but not still too hard. You blink. You first sense the taste. It's absolutely awful. You realize that you've bitten your lip, and that's already mixed up with this omnipresent smell of rotten eggs all through your head. You force yourself to stand, totally dizzy. You find yourself backed up against cold, damp bricks. Breathing in a smog filled patch of you, you shut your eyes completely. You hear a torrent of cars honking, swerving, and splashing through rainy roads off in the distance.

"I left Equestria... for this?" you grouse. You try to snap yourself fully awake, but you slip instead back out of consciousness and right into your memory of your last special time with Braeburn. Now, your flashback feels one hundred percent, completely real, like stepping into a time machine.

You gaze at that handsome face, his golden-brown mane curling across his cute chin and up his cheek. You replay what you said to him back then. The words come out so naturally, so easily, despite having all the power in the world.

"You know something?" you ask Braeburn, reliving that moment from a few days ago, "If you were..." He slinks a few inches closer to you, his muscular hooves rubbing up against your chest. "If you were human... and if you were a girl... I'd..." You gulp. "I'd ask you to marry me."

You relive that moment back when Braeburn just smiles and rubs his head against yours. Thoughts suddenly speed through your head like bullets against a paper target. Braeburn! Why did you lead me on! Why didn't you ever tell me that I had to get back to Earth soon or else I'd turn into some horrible pony-x-mutant thing from too magic exposure? Or that Celestia accidentally sent Twilight to Earth as they studied where I came from? Or how Twilight ever did get back? Or why everypony now feels somewhat afraid of Twilight? Or why Twilight looks like she just lost a fight with a pony-sized cheese grater? You grit your teeth. Why didn't you tell me I couldn't be with you!

Looking back, you have a thousand questions that should have been answered. Yet pretty much all Braeburn told you was that Celestia wanted to take care of it all. Then, as you stepped into the Canterlot Castle towards her royal laboraotry, Celestia just kept on babbling that "Earth is partially safe, unstable ground for ponies", "You have to say goodbye", but "Goodbye doesn't mean forever." Whatever that all means, dammit! You jiggle your head around. Past, present, and future just squish into one big mush in your brain. You wonder if you're even alive anymore.

*Splash*

You swing your arms in the air, jerking away from the wall. You step to the left. You look down at your drenched shirt and over at the bike messenger, now disappearing into the empty horizon.

"Hey, I'm walking here! I'm walking here, you dick!" you shout, giving the one-finger salute. You pause. "Well, I'm back on Earth..."

Three days later...

You make the lonely trek up your apartment stairs. You stop to glance at your reflection in the window. You look pretty tired. Of course, you had to be tired, forty-eight hours of pure hell plus twenty-four hours of a weird re-adjustment back to your previous life. You never were a political guy, but going from a state-wide missing person smothered in hugs and kisses to a virtual non-person shuttled from DoD office to DoD office like a prop without freedom or rights will probably make you a cynical for life.

You fumble for your keys in your big poofy greyish-white jacket. I can't thank the DoD for this, at least. You feel a lot more comfy not being tied up inside it and an eyeless black hood over your head. You yank the door open, mosey a few feet inside, and you collapse onto the couch. You lean over to kick the door shut before sighing.

You told them the complete and total truth, sparing no detail from the moment you woke up in Appleoosa to that goddamn bike messager. Those people, standing above you as you sat in those cold, grey rooms with handcuffs on, looked on you with the emotions of mall manniqueins. Even as you described fumbling your hands around Braeburn's plot, they just kept on asking questions. They just kept on prodding. The tests. The drugs. The needles. Those cold, gloved hands.

You smack your hands against your face, determined to put all that behind you. We came to an understanding. I accept their little story of being kidnapped by the mob, and they leave me alone. You throw your coat to the side. You dig yourself back into the smooth big couch, eyes closing.

"Hey, there!"

You seem to pop three feet straight up. Your head flies around every which way before you immediately make out some commotion from inside your bedroom. You scurry over, heart going like a jackhammer. You fling the door open.

Braeburn steps off of your bed, his mane tossing in the air behind him. He leans back and grins. You feel so overwhelmed that you can barely breathe. You should say something. You should clear things up. Yet you can't think to do any of that.

Your heart screams out for one thing, and one thing only. You leap through the air and grab Braeburn. Both of you collapse onto your bed. Before he can put a word in, you shove his face forward and kiss him. You've never kissed anyone else this passionately before, arms digging into Braeburn's neck and pushing him into your embrace, and you know that you never will again.

He curls his head back and forth. You just want to be a part of him almost... or make him into a part of you. In seconds, you find yourself running kisses across his chest and clasping your hands onto his front hooves. You stop to just lay your head against his chest. You let out a happy sigh.

"Ah said it didn't mean forever, partner," he says, nudging his hooves against the back of your head. You open your mouth to say something, but you feel so wonderful that you just can't keep from crying. "Ah can't stay very long... you saw from Twilight that things are still rough between ponies and human fellers in general, 'cept you." You feel him curling his bottom hooves up your legs. "But ah can't keep poppin' in ya'lls place from time to time. Like every other day. Promise"

"I'll see you every other day..." you begin, a dark feeling coursing up your chest like mercuriy in your veins, "for how long?"

Rather than reply, Braeburn pulls you up onto the bed. You're totally perched over him now. You make matching smiles. Braeburn puts his cowpony hat over your head, slowly and dramatically. "Ya'll should know," he says, breathing that savory taste of apples onto your face as he talks, "that if'n ya'll were a mare... ah would ask you to marry me."

You kiss.

"I do."

The, uh, other end

Thanks for reading