Where the Rainbows Touch Down

The next three days we stayed at home.  I didn’t want to go anywhere, and Garnet probably felt bad enough about the last experience at Sweet Apple Acres that he was likely recovering from the guilt.

Two of those days Garnet stayed at home with me since he had the weekends off.  We played chess on an old wooden set that Garnet owned.  It surprisingly wasn’t that different only that the “king” was a “sun” piece, the “queen” was a “moon” piece, and the bishop was a “heart” piece.  It was a decent time-waster, as I was searching for moves three spaces ahead but Garnet was able to quickly counter and games sometimes exceeded the two hour mark from us countering moves back and forth and making things unpredictable.

On the third day, Garnet went back to the offices.  Apparently they needed him for some extra paperwork that had to be done that day, so I had free range of the house.  I was told what food was available but that eventually we’d have to take a trip to the market and that Twilight would be coming around later that day.  He made me an egg and wished me farewell and for the first time in nearly a week I was by myself.

I quickly figured out the radio and started scanning through stations.  The three biggest were the classical music channel, a rock music channel, and an electronic dance station.  I set it to the rock music station after finding I liked the music it played and went over to the book shelf to find a way to entertain myself.  A book with a cover containing a pegasus mare dressed up like an archaeologist appealed to me, and I sat myself down and read it.

The book itself was quite good, but the entire experience of reading it was surreal.  I frequently got lost in it to the point I looked up to check where that my position had not changed; repeatedly looking out the window, I found it hadn’t, but I was still in the place I still considered a dream.  It was like I was reading a fantasy novel while living in a fantasy novel.  A story within another story.

Around noon, there was a knock on the door.  I grabbed a slip of paper and marked my place in the book before heading to see who was there.  I opened the small window in the door and looked outside to see Princess Twilight standing outside, smiling at me and carrying a small bag in her mouth and a large parcel on her back.  I opened the door for her and let her inside.

“Can’t you carry those with your magic?” I asked her as she set the bag down on the counter.

“I tend to chat if I do that,” Twilight said.  “And as much as I love talking with the other ponies here, I do have an appointment in a while.”

I nodded.  “Do you want to take a seat or are you heading out soon?”

“I can stay for a little while,” Twilight said.  “I have to meet someone nearby anyway.”

I sat down on the couch.  Twilight grabbed the bag again, this time with her magic, and brought it over to me.  “I wasn’t sure if you had eaten anything, so I packed you something special.”

She gave me the bag and I opened it.  Inside was a small plastic bowl with cover containing a salad with a sweet vinaigrette dressing and something inside it that I couldn’t make out.  I went over to the kitchen and grabbed a fork and returned to the couch as Twilight sorted through the contents of the box.  I tasted the salad and immediately felt a familiar taste come into my mouth.

“Is this chicken!?” I asked with delight.  “I didn’t think I’d ever taste meat again.”

“It is, actually,” Twilight said.  “There are some proteins we need that can’t be found in vegetables so we occasionally have meat.  It’s expensive since we only need it in small quantities, but I can get these from the local farmers who let the animals die naturally.  They’re cut and cleaned so only the edible pieces remain.  I thought you might like it, and the farmers will appreciate the extra money coming in, too.”

I smiled at the purple uni-alicorn.  “Thanks, Twilight,” I said.  “The rest of it tastes good, too.”

“Thought you might like it,” Twilight said.  “At least you seem to be well-fed.  Anyway…” Twilight passed over the box with her magic.  “These are the clothes that came in.  I’ve got a few pairs of regular t-shirts, some button-up collar shirts, some pants and socks and underwear, and figured an extra pair of shoes and a set of sandals might help you out.”

I looked through the clothes.  I laid the shirts up against me and found they all were the perfect size, as were the pants and shoes.  “How did you find out my size?”

“I went over to the Office of the Guard and looked at your profile,” Twilight replied casually.  “It included a height and weight, but I had to guess on the neck size and the shoe size.  I placed a special order to the tailor in Manehattan the day after the report came in from Celestia; figured you’d need them quickly if you were staying…”  Twilight’s voice faded out as though she was hesitant to continue.

I neatly folded the clothes and put them back in the box, having nowhere else to put them, and set the box aside.  I picked up the bowl of salad and the fork and continued eating.

“So, how have you been getting along here?” Twilight asked.

“Alright, I guess,” I replied.  “I met the Cakes and the Apple family a few days ago, and they’re reasonably nice.  Applejack sent us home with an apple pie after we visited her.  But I keep getting strange looks from the other ponies in town.  They’re all still afraid of me.”

Twilight frowned.  “I’m surprised they’ve held the grudge that long,” she commented.  “I would have figured they would have calmed down now that they’ve seen you with the guard.”

“Not the case, apparently.  And the Apple family seemed to only be calm because they saw the explosion that brought me here outside of the Everfree forest and not from within, while the Cakes were busy enough not to be with the panicked masses that saw me arrive.”

Twilight shrugged.  “It’s a start.”

“Yeah, but five days later and I still have everyone looking at me like I’m a monster.  Heck, I was over at Applejack’s when three fillies attacked me while playing some ‘monster tamer’ game.  Knocked the wind out of me.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide.  “Oh, dear…” she said.  “Even the fillies are getting in on the paranoia?”

“What can you do at that age but to teach them?” I asked.  “Not exactly an easy thing to do when all the adults feel the same way.”

“Well, besides the fillies and the other ponies so far, has Garnet been treating you well?”

“It’s nice to know he’s supportive of me.  He always makes sure I’m comfortable, well-fed, and is there for the moral support.  I think he kind of feels bad about how the others are treating me, though.  He occasionally blames the hate and paranoia on himself.”

“What about you?”  I stopped putting a bite of the salad in my mouth as she asked this question.  “Where do you think the blame lies?”

I didn’t know what to say.  I found the book about the archaeologist sitting on the coffee table and picked it up.  “I’ve been reading this book today.  It’s good, but it’s clear it’s supposed to be a fantasy novel.”

“The series is a personal favorite of mine,” Twilight said proudly.  “I own all nine books.  And they’re all very fascinating.  The sort of book you can get lost in for hours.  I can complete most of them in a day.”

I studied the book for a moment longer.  “To me, it felt surreal reading it.  Like I was reading the fantasy novel while living a fantasy novel.”  I sighed and put the book back on the table while Twilight’s expression changed.  “I guess it hasn’t hit me that I can’t return.”

“I thought it did already,” Twilight said.  “I mean, there was the breakdown at the library, the running out to the field to see if anything remained…”

“But that was only denial,” I said.  “I couldn’t believe I was stuck here.  I still can’t believe that I’m stuck here, that there is no way to return home.”  I set the salad down and threw my hands in the air.  “I mean, half of me is saying ‘You are dreaming, Trent Phillip’ even as I’m talking to you.”

Twilight had a blank stare for a moment as though unsure of how to process it.  Eventually I saw a small shimmer in her purple eyes.  One of her hooves reached for my hands and touched it.  It was weird, as I could feel the harder bone of the side wall and the softer skin and fur of the sole as she grabbed my hand with her groove.  She lifted my hand and placed it against the side of her face.  It was odd; it felt warm and soft, and I could feel the heat from her cheek in addition to the warmth of the magical energy in her.

“Is this real?” she asked me.  “What do you feel?”

“I feel the softness of your coat,” I said.  “I feel the warmth of your cheek, and even the magical energy you have inside you.  I can even feel the bone of your hoof grabbing me around the wrist.”

“Is that not real?”  Twilight asked me.

I started at her for a while, then frowned myself.  “You are a librarian and a princess.  Surely you must have read somewhere that the mind can play complicated tricks on a person… pony, rather.”  I released my hand from the grip of her hoof.  “It won’t take something that simple to realize the possibility of me being at home or just being knocked out is a possibility.”

Twilight shrugged.  “I suppose not,” she said.

There was a long moment of silence between us.  I finished eating the salad and took the bowl, lid, and fork over to the sink.  I rinsed the bowl and lid and put them in the bag, and cleaned the fork before putting it away.  Twilight remained on the couch while I did this, and remained sitting as I took the bag and brought it back over to the couch.

“Thanks for the salad,” I said.

Twilight nodded.

“So, why are you over here?” I asked.

“Well,” Twilight said, taking a deep breath, “a contractor is coming out here.  We’re going over specifics for building a house for you, to hopefully be completed in about a month or two.”

I nodded.  “Am I going to have to pay for this house at all?”

Twilight shook her head.  “Celestia is.  She sent me a letter saying that I was to make the plans with the contractor for a house that would fit you and put it in the area of Garnet’s house.  You don’t have to pay a thing, since technically you and the house would be considered government property.”

I fiddled with the bottom of my shirt for a while.

Twilight eventually sighed and got up, levitating the bag with her magic.  “Well, I suppose I should go.  The contractor said he’d be around to check out the site in a few minutes.  I hope things go more in your favor.”

I nodded.  “Thanks Twilight.  For doing all this for me.  I don’t know how I can repay you.”

Twilight smiled.  “You don’t have to.”  She got up on her back legs and threw her front legs around me in an awkward sort of hug, which I returned.  We stayed like that for a few seconds before she got back down and headed for the door.  I opened it for her.  “Don’t be a stranger, Trent.  You can come around the library any time you need help.”

“Thanks again, Twilight.”

With that, she left.

And I felt more alone than I did before.

* * *

I looked at the stack of papers on the counter, a cup of warm tea in my hand.  There were three sheets in the stack, all sort of fanned out.  The skillet on the stove started to sizzle with the sound of oil and vegetables as I looked up to Garnet.

“…this is what you were out doing?” I asked him, still looking out at the papers.

“I actually returned half an hour later than I normally do,” Garnet said, taking out a long wooden spoon.

It was a few minutes after five.  Garnet must have gotten off at four thirty, as he immediately started cooking dinner when he got home.  I picked up the stack of papers and shook them at him; I don’t think he saw it.  “…you think this will help me out?”

“Maybe getting a job will give you something to do.  Even if it’s not the thing you want to do, it would take your mind off the fact that you’re, well… here.”

Garnet began to stir the vegetables as I looked over the papers.   Another pan with rice, egg, corn, and carrot cubes was boiling, and the oven was on containing something that I was unaware of.  “Let’s see…”  I set down all the papers except the top one, plain white with black typing.  “‘Opening within the Ponyville Guard.  Must be capable of performing forensic duties and have decent physical strength for patrol.  Paperwork may be involved.  Starting pay at 17 bits per hour plus benefits.’  I could do the forensic part.  I don’t know about the physical, though.”

“They said it’ll be two to three months of training,” Garnet said.  “I had to do six, but since you’re a little different, so are the rules.”

I set the paper off to the side and picked up the next one, a pink paper with blue writing.  “‘Opening at Sugarcube Corner.  Need assistant to help with mixing and baking various pastries.  On-the-job training provided.  Need to be able to stand up all day and work within close quarters.  Starting pay at 10 bits per hour.’”  I tossed it aside.  “Not if that Pinkie’s gonna be there.”

“Oh, please,” Garnet said as he used the spoon to now stir the pan with rice.  “You’re not telling me you’re going to decline just because of Pinkie are you?”

“Look, I get she’s nice, but she’s a little too hyper for me.  You yourself said she was like having the combined energy of six ponies.”

Garnet stopped stirring his vegetables for a moment.  “Fair enough,” he admitted.

I pulled over the final sheet of paper.  “‘Opening at the Ponyville Post Office.  Need a ground worker to allow more pegasi for long-distance deliveries.  Must be able to lift weights and walk around for long periods of time.  Starting pay at 14 bits per hour plus benefits.’  Great, a job that would bring me out among the ponies that hate me.”

“Oh, the post office ponies were some of the most agreeable ones I met.  Two in particular, a stallion named Care Package and a mare named Der—”

“The way you introduced that implied there were a fair amount that weren’t so agreeable.”

“Oh, they were to me.  But I had at least five places if not more turn me down.”

“What were they?”

Garnet sighed.  “The local music store denied me because they didn’t have an open position available despite the sign on the outside.  A construction guild denied because they weren’t willing to teach you.  The mayor’s offices denied me because you would cause a scandal if seen there.  The local flower shop denied me because they bluntly stated they didn’t want you there, as did a potential position at a local sandwich shop.”

I took my turn to sigh.  “I suspect they were all just plain scared of me and didn’t want me there.”

Garnet shrugged as he opened the oven.  “I suspect so.”  He didn’t appear satisfied and closed the oven before turning off the vegetables.  “Still, those three I got were some of the better ones out there.  I mean, the guard has benefits and protection, the mail is government-related and allows for fast progression, and the bakery was… well, available.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” I deadpanned.

Garnet rolled his eyes.  “Do any of them look interesting?”

“The guard position has traces of what I was originally doing, but that’s about it.  I’m still not sure about the physical part, though.”

Garnet opened the oven and used his hooves to pull out a tray from inside.  In the tray were four strips of what looked like oven roasted chicken breasts, covered in a dark brown sauce.  “The training would help you.  You’ve got strong legs, it looks like, so all we’d need to do is work on upper body strength, which we can do some of here.”

Garnet and I sat down on the table.  Garnet arranged two plates of vegetables and rice before placing a piece of the ‘chicken’ on the rice.  “What is that?”

“Meat substitute,” Garnet said.  “All the proteins of meat without most of the guilt.  I dress it up with herbs and sauce to help the taste, though.”

I took the knife that Garnet gave me and cut off a small piece of it.  It tasted like a barely dressed up vegetable, but the sauce helped, as did pairing it with rice.  It also felt a little heartier than most of what I’d eaten minus the salad Twilight had given me earlier.

“Twilight came around with the clothes, did she?” Garnet asked.

I nodded.  “Around noon or so.  She was meeting with a contractor close by about designing a house for me and dropped them off on her way.  Did she tell you about that at all today?”

Garnet nodded.  “You haven’t changed into them yet?”

“I thought about it.  I’ll finish today with these clothes since I don’t plan on wearing them anywhere.  Also, I don’t exactly have a place to put them.”

“We can always just buy a set of drawers and place it in the bedroom.”

I let out a deep breath.  “I’m assuming there isn’t another place to sleep other than the couch.”

“Not really,” Garnet said.  “But the bed is more comfortable.”

I poked around the plate, eating a bite every once in a while.

“…are you okay?”

I didn’t answer.

“Trent, please, tell me.”

“I was looking at a book you had.  One about an archaeologist that went after rare items.”

“Ah, the Daring Do series?  Personal favorite of mine; I once got to see the author at a book signing she did at the local store.  Was that you reading Quest for the Sapphire Stone there on the coffee table?”

“Yes.  But… it was strange.  I was reading what was clearly meant to be a fantasy novel, but every time I looked up…”

“…you thought you were living in one?”

I stared at him for a moment.

“Twilight told me about your little conversation this afternoon.”

I had to avert my eyes from his.  They weren’t angry with me, but I still didn’t want to face him.  Especially after I had practically insulted his home.  I wasn’t sure why I didn’t want to.  “Look, I mean no offense, but this whole place is just…”  I got up from the table, ducked into the living room, and went over to the door.  “I… I-I-I just feel like I should be in a dream.”

“What is there to convince you this is all a dream?” Garnet said, walking into the living room to meet me.

“Well, there’s magic everywhere you look, a bunch of talking horses, your history includes two beings that control the celestial objects, the weather is controlled by horses with wings, and your nearby local forest contains beings that apparently are considered monsters.  If that doesn’t sound like the setting of a fantasy novel, I don’t know what is.”

“So then all those tears you’ve been crying weren’t real?  They were just your mind playing tricks on you?  How about the screaming?  Or the explosion that brought you here?”

“The explosion was real!” I shouted at Garnet.  He was setting me off more than normal, which probably ticked me off even more.  “If it weren’t for that explosion, I wouldn’t be here right now, whether or not this was real or all just a dream!”

“If that explosion was real, then why can’t this be real, too?  I mean every reason the town has to hate you is because you appeared in an explosion!”

“That could just be a construct!  Something my mind created to seem more realistic!”

“Oh, so I’m a construct, am I!?  Well, then, why don’t you go and hit me and we’ll see how it feels when you have a hoof against your face?”

“You wouldn’t dare!  You’re an officer of the Guard.  You’re supposed to keep the peace!”

“I am completely willing to use force to maintain that peace.”  Garnet was no longer shouting but every word dripped with anger like I’d never heard before.

“Oh, really?  Then how come you aren’t using force?”

“Well, to be quite frank, I thought you weren’t a monster.  But it seems I was wrong.  You’re not a monster in looks, but your quick temper and constant piss-poor attitude is enough to make you a monster in itself.”

My mouth dropped but for a long time I couldn’t even speak to respond.  I spluttered and stuttered but couldn’t even make a full sentence.  “Why you… I c-c-can’t even… how could you even… why d-did you…”

Garnet didn’t say anything else.  I gave an annoyed grunt and walked over to the door and heaved it open, watching him the whole time.

I finally regained my voice.  “Well, if this is a dream, then perhaps Twilight has been lying to me this entire time, as well!  You know what I’m going to do?  I’m going to go over to the library and expose it for the lie it is!  I’m going to get her to send me back with her magic, or potentially go to this Celestia she mentioned, since someone around here in this fantasy novel must be able to wake me up!”  I turned around to leave.

“Trent, wait…!”

I turned back around.  “I’m not waiting with you any longer!  So long, Ga—”

I was on my floor on my back in less than a second, staring up at the ceiling.

I had forgotten that the doors were too small for me normally, and in my haste to leave had slammed against the wall and frame of the door.  I lost balance before I even realized what I was doing and fell, leaving staring at the ceiling with a gaping mouth and barely able to see Garnet behind me with a hoof up to his face in horror.

I took a minute to come to my senses.  I was still breathing, my heart was pounding, and I hadn’t passed out.  But I did feel a warm sensation on my head, followed by the feel of a liquid beginning to slowly drip down my forehead.  Unbelievingly, I pulled a hand up and put it to my head, dipping it in the liquid on my head and put it in front of my face to see what it was.

“I… I’m bleeding…”

There was no question about it.  My fingertips were stained red, and from the feel of it there was more leaking out.  I raised my head a little and looked up at the doorframe, normally a plain wood, was also stained with dark red streaks.

Garnet finally regained his motion.  “…oh my god!”  I heard his hoofsteps retreating, followed by the sound of running water.  It wasn’t long before he was back over and my head was placed under a pillow and a warm rag on my head.  I could see his blue eyes over mine, but they barely registered as his hoof pressed down gently on the rag on my forehead.

“Trent… Trent, are you okay?  Trent, please answer me!  Don’t you pass out on me!”

I blinked a few times, but I wasn’t sure what to say.  It wasn’t long before I could feel the tears, but they weren’t of pain.  Or maybe they were.  I couldn’t tell.

Garnet left, closed the front door, then came back with a long piece of white cloth that had been dunked in some sort of liquid.  It stung as he put it around my forehead, and I could only guess it was some sort of alcohol.  Garnet didn’t stop until the cloth went from my eyebrows to my hairline, and even then he reinforced it by wrapping it around a few more times for thickness.

“Can you sit up?”

I did as he asked, and after I seemingly refused to walk he dragged me over to the couch and sat me up.

“I… uh… I-I’m going to go call the nurse.  I’ll be right back.  Um… stay… stay there.”

That wasn’t hard to do.  I was barely responding to anything by the time that Garnet returned with two ponies in white caps, one the nurse pony that had met me in the office of the Guard, and another that was a brown unicorn with an x-ray cutie mark.

“How long ago did he hit his head?” the doctor asked.

“About twenty minutes ago,” Garnet replied as a light shined in my eye.  I blinked from the brightness as he continued.  “We were in a sort of argument then he whirled around and smacked his head on the door frame.”

The doctor nodded then looked over to me.  “How do you feel?”

I gestured to my forehead.  “I feel warm… I can’t feel anything in my legs.”

“Can you walk?”

I tried moving my leg.  It felt unresponsive.  “…no.”

“What do you remember?”

“I slammed my head into the door and found I was bleeding.  Garnet cleaned it and bandaged it before putting me on the couch.”

“Let’s have you lay down.  I’ll just use my magic a—”

“Doctor.”

“Yes?”

“He is completely invincible to magic.  It’s a strange condition because of his entry.”

“Oh…  Well, then, help me lay him down on the couch.”

I shifted my body around while Garnet and the unicorn lifted my legs and placed them on the couch so that I was lying down with my head on a pillow on the arm and my legs dangling slightly off the couch.  The doctor couldn’t use his magic on me, but he could use his magic on the bandage and proceeded to strip it clean.  It was only then I saw how red and splotched the thing was.

“Wow…” the doctor said.  “I’m surprised he doesn’t entirely have a concussion; he seems to be recovering.  Is the clean bandage ready, Nurse Redheart?”

“Ready and available, doctor.  Do you need to clean his forehead first?”

“Just the towel with water and cleaning agent should do.  I don’t see anything in the wound, so he probably just hit it hard enough to puncture and scratch.”

The white nurse pony gave the unicorn a damp towel and once again my head was dabbed off and cleaned before another bandage was put on it.  After the doctor was satisfied, I was left to lie down.

“You’re showing symptoms of acute stress disorder,” the brown unicorn said.  “We’ll need to keep an eye on it for the next week or so in case it blossoms into the full disorder, but for now just keep it easy.  Take the rest of the night to rest and hopefully you’ll start getting some feeling back into those legs by tomorrow morning.  Nurse Redheart here is going to administer a steroid into your legs to help them out, but until then take pain medication and keep the bandages on your head clean.”

The white nurse pony quickly and painlessly put a large needle in my leg, cleaned it up and bandaged it.  Then the brown unicorn and the white nurse left and I was back to being alone in the house with Garnet.

Garnet came and sat down next to me on the couch.  “Are you okay?” he asked, seemingly choking on his own words.

I didn’t know what to say, except…  “I’ve finally realized it’s not a dream.”

“How?”

“No one could experience pain like that and not be woken up from a dream.  …I’m stuck here now, and nothing I can do can change that.”

Garnet closed his eyes and looked down.  I turned my head slightly and could see tears dropping and staining the bright white coat.  “I’m sorry I called you a monster.  If I hadn’t lost my temper, none of this would have happened.”

I reached out and put a hand on his cheek.  “It’s not all your fault,” I told him.  “You’re right in that I’ve been rather negative despite how kind you’ve been to me.  But even then, that wasn’t your fault either.”

Garnet nodded and lightly placed a hoof on my wrist.  “It must be hard being torn away like that.  One moment you’re in your lab and suddenly you’re in the middle of a field in a world inhabited by ponies.  I don’t think I could ever imagine that happening to me.”

I just took a few deep breaths.  Eventually, Garnet left and soon returned with a soft blanket, which he covered me with.  I pulled it close as he came over and leaned his head on my chest.

“Garnet?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.  For everything so far.”

Garnet smiled.  “So does this make us friends?”

I shrugged.  “Why not?  We’re already roommates; might as well get used to it.”

Garnet chuckled a little.  It wasn’t a laughing matter to me, but I smiled along with him.  Might as well accept the fact my former life is gone…