That's The Night The Lights Went Out In Canterlot

Chapters

The Last Thing He Saw Was The Coolest Ever
The Red Door Painted Black
Making An Ass Out Of You And Me
Of Monsters and Things
Black Sun
Black Moon
Obsidian Horns And Black Rainbows
The Dark Menace
Black Jack
Black Star
The Goth Parade
The Black Eye
Night Court
A Long, Dark Summer
Blackwater
Night Vision

The Last Thing He Saw Was The Coolest Ever

Reggie woke in relative darkness and absolute silence. The cavern was very dimly lit in soft purple from a number of small glowing stones scattered about the chamber. The silence was deafening after the blaring his ears had been subjected to from the rave party just moments earlier.

The party was held in some Amerind caverns recently found by some kid from a nearby community, and Reggie, with a bunch of his friends from college had come down from the city to enjoy it. It was pretty loud in the cave and the light show hinted at some odd drawings on the cave walls that piqued his interest. Even though his major was electrical engineering, he had a class on anthropology, which got him to thinking about the symbols. They didn’t seem to fit any Amerind culture mentioned in the textbooks. Eventually the music’s hold on his attention faded as the technobeats started to sound repetitive, and he began focusing on the cave paintings. They showed a variety of symbols that looked like a form of phonetic or hieroglyphics, as well as drawings of figures, humanoid, fantastic animal-like imagery, as well as something that could only be fanciful if not outright mythic.

Wandering away from the main part of the crowd, he found himself walking alone down a narrow corridor. Eventually, he spied an image that just had to be fanciful: at first, it resembled a Chinese dragon, but the limbs were all fucked up, each being from a different creature, plus it had a set of wings that didn’t match. It was as if whoever drew it couldn’t decide what they wanted to draw, or maybe it was drawn by a committee that couldn’t or wouldn’t agree as to what to put up there other than agreeing to draw everything they could think of.

Absently, he used his right hand to hold a pendant he had recently bought at a local jewelry store, a Chinese dragon beautifully carved to curl and circle about itself, as he reached out with his other to touch the cave drawing. That was the last thing he remembered before waking up in this new cave.

Like the rave site, this cavern was unheated and Reggie was glad for the leather jacket, jeans and heavy boots he wore, even though he hadn’t ridden his Yamaha to the party. Getting to his feet, he looked about, surprised by the reflective surfaces in the huge crystal facets that made up the chamber’s walls, unknowingly dropping his wallet.

“HELLO!” he yelled as loud as he could and only heard the smallest amount of echo to his call. “HELLO! ANYBODY! I’M TRAPPED! HELP!” he yelled again. But no one answered.

Walking about the room, he repeated his calls but still got no replies.

He worried about how there didn’t seem to an exit, not even one in the ceiling that he might have fallen through, but on his fourth circuit of the chamber, he spied an opening. Evidently, it was hidden in shadow the first few times he passed it. He stepped through, but instantly realized the next chamber was pitched black; the only light about were those oddly glowing stones in the first room.

Stepping back to the first chamber, he looked for and walked over to the largest set of stones he could see and spent a few minutes checking them out.

“I sure hope these things aren’t radioactive!” he muttered to himself. After considering his options, he chose to use only his left hand to touch them. In the event they were deadly, he was willing to lose his off-hand if he ever needed it amputated. First, he moved his iPhone from his jacket’s outer left pocket to his right. Then he picked up the largest of the glowing stones and tapped it against the ground to shake off any dust and slipped it into the pocket before picking up the second largest and, after knocking off the dust from it, used it as a lamp to explore the next chamber.

Thankfully, the next room had similar crystal facets that reflected and magnified the light, giving him enough illumination to see with. Moreover, there appeared to be a way out from there, as well. Slowly, and carefully, he began to explore.

After a few hours of searching, he came across a chamber that had a huge volume. Unfortunately, a great chunk of its space was an inaccessibly deep chasm. But on the far side, he spied a faint glow of white light near the ceiling, indicating an exit. Furthermore, there was a narrow natural bridge crossing the chasm to the other side. Nervously, he proceeded his way over to it. From where he stood, it didn’t look too awfully wide.

Worse, it didn’t look any wider when he reached the near end of the bridge. In fact, it looked a hell of a lot narrower!

Nervously, he got on his belly and inched his way across, holding the purple glowing stone in his hand as he proceeded. He got halfway across when he relaxed, feeling the slope of the bridge change from its initial upward rise to level and now downward. But as soon as he took a breath, realizing he was almost there, the glowing rock slipped from his grasp and dropped into the depths.

Swearing under his breath, he cursed his shitty luck. Fortunately, he had seen there were no unexpected obstacles to the rest of the bridge, so he wasn’t about to try fishing out the other rock from his jacket. Taking even more care, he slowly made his way for the rest of the route before finally reaching the other side.

Once he felt he was solidly on the ledge, he scrambled on his hands and knees to the rock wall before collapsing on his right side and finally fishing out the other glowing stone from his pocket. Sighing in relief as the purple illumination lit up the chamber, he let himself drift off to sleep.

Reggie started awake, trying to remember the weird dream that shocked him. Blinking, it took him a while to realize where he was and for the disorientation to fade with the memories of the dreaming.

Remembering there was an exit still ahead, he picked up his glowing rock and got to his feet and began making his way to the exit he had spotted from the other side of the chamber.

The climb to the light source rewarded him with the view of an obviously worked mine shaft, although the ornate paneling with antique-looking lighting fixtures greatly puzzled him. Even weirder, was the fact that, while the paneling looked like wood, with various moldings, carvings, and filigree, it was in fact, made entirely from marble! Moreover, the lamps, while looking like old fashioned gas light fixtures, the glow elements were stones like the one in his hand, only they were glowing with a yellow-white light that gave off no heat whatsoever!

This corridor stretched on for about a hundred feet before he came upon a closed wooden double door. Fortunately for his sanity, this really was a set of wooden doors, with gold or brass door handles and hinges on his side of the door frame. He couldn’t see any sign of a lock on them, so he reached out and pulled the door handle.

It opened easily.

The space on the other side was a short stretch of corridor that ended when it joined another passage in a T-intersection. The short section was just long enough and with just enough extra width to accommodate a pair of strange looking statues without obstructing any traffic that would have existed for the original passageway he had just departed.

Thankfully stepping out of the cavern’s space and into some sort of civilized environment, Reggie snorted at seeing the figures.

“Whoa! Aren’t these the coolest things ever?” he muttered to himself. The statues looked vaguely equine, in that their forms had the general build of a small horse, but with vastly oversized heads and oddly shaped legs. Furthermore, they sported bat-like wings, as if they were some sort of mutated pegasi, wore dark barding and for some reason were each holding long shafted spears with an outstretched forelimb. He looked first at the body of one, then its mate, looking closely at its face. It had large eyes with thinly slit pupils and even had fangs sticking out from its lips.

“Whoa! Some seriously rich fuck had gone all out with you guys! That’s some serious imagination he put into you. And you look so bloody real!” He reached out to touch the statue.

The slit pupil eye he was looking at suddenly focused on him and widened, like a cat’s eye. But before Reggie could react, he heard a tremendously loud crack at the same instant he felt a powerfully sharp strike to the back of the head.

And everything went black.

The Red Door Painted Black

When Reggie woke, the searing pain in the back of his head instantly had him groaning and writhing in agony. He heard some voices, but he couldn’t focus on what they were saying as the feeling of his crushed skull nearly made him pass out again. However, it was the sudden release of pain that mercifully sent him back into oblivion.

The next time he woke moaning in pain, he couldn’t move. Something held down his arms and legs, keeping him from curling up into a fetal posture. There were more voices, and then after an unknown amount of time, there came another release from the unbearable agony. This went on for several more times that he could recall.

Finally, came a time that he woke without the crushing feeling radiating throughout his skull. He lay gasping in exhaustion, and tried to lift his hand to reach for his head, but his arms were still restrained. Fortunately, the hospital bed had been set with a slight rise, giving him a rather comfortable half-sitting posture.

He heard the sound of beeping coming from behind his headboard in tune with his heartbeat. He opened his eyes, but the room was pitched black. Evidently, whoever was caring for him, they were out at the moment and left the lights out. That was okay. He was too tired to want to speak with anyone anyhow. He let his mind drift, wondering just what happened to him to put him in a hospital.

The last thing he remembered was finally escaping the natural caverns and finding himself in the passageway of some large building. Oh, and those weird but cool statues. After that, nothing. Only that something hit him from behind and he never heard or saw his attacker.

He felt a sharp spasm in the back of his head at the memory of the attack, making him hiss in agony before the pain eased again on its own.

“Why?” he hoarsely asked. What had he done to warrant such an attack? “Why did you kill me?”

The feeling of something warm touching his right ear got his attention. Puzzled, he looked over that way, but the room remained totally black. But when he turned his head, the warmth spread over his face with a sharp delineation. There wasn’t any object that was there touching him, but the heat was a definite presence. Turning his head away, he felt his face instantly cool again.

Weird! That feels like a heat lamp, he thought scowling. But he knew enough about such lamps that even in a darkened room, there’d be a visible glow from the filament. He turned his head back toward the warmth again. A heat lamp, or….

Suddenly, his blood ran cold. He tried to sit up, but he was still restrained to the bed. He could hear the beeping speed up with his heartrate.

“No, no, no! No! NO! NO! NO!!” he was quickly yelling as realization dawned on him. Another sharp spasm shot through his head.

In moments, he heard someone enter the room.

“Hello, there!” a voice, sounding slightly masculine, cheerfully greeted him. “How are you feeling today?” The presence confirmed his worst fears.

“PLEASE! For God’s sake, CLOSE THE BLINDS!” Reggie cried, straining to get out of the sunlight.

“Are…you okay?” the other person asked.

“CLOSE THEM! CLOSE THEM!” Reggie screamed.

“…”

“PLEASE, FOR GOD’S SAKE, CLOSE THE FUCKING BLINDS!” he screamed.

“There’s no need to get vulgar about it,” the other person complained as he walked past his bed. Reggie heard a set of drapes being pulled shut.

“There,” the other person said. “The drapes are closed. You can calm down now. What’s wrong with a little sunlight?”

Reggie wasn’t calming down, but he had ceased to struggle against his restraints. Instead, he began sobbing.

“There, there. It’s okay,” the other person told him. Reggie felt a hand touch his shoulder. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“No! It’s not!” Reggie gasped, trying to control his sobbing. “I’m not okay!”

The hand on his shoulder tried to give him a comforting grip. “It’s alright,” the person said. “You don’t need to worry anymore. The sun is gone!”

“You don’t understand!” Reggie all but shouted at him. “I can’t see! I’m blind!”

The other person jerked his hand away as he gasped. A moment later, Reggie heard the person run out the door.

A short time later, several people came in and began going through the motions of conducting tests on Reggie, trying to determine the extent and cause of his blindness. The whole experience passed by while Reggie laid there in numbed shock.

Finally, the tests stopped and one of the people working on him, different from the first one who had come into his room, spoke directly to Reggie.

“It would seem the blow to the back of your head caused a concussion to your occipital lobes” the evident doctor announced.

“Is—is there any—any chance of recovery?” Reggie asked.

“Yes,” he replied. There was a long pause before he continued. “But there’s also a strong chance it won’t,” he said. Reggie felt heartbroken. Then he looked up to where he thought the doctor was standing.

“Thanks for being honest, doc,” Reggie said.

“Try to get some rest,” the man said, patting Reggie on the shoulder before pulling away to leave.

“Doc!” Reggie suddenly called out.

“Yes?” the man asked, returning.

“Can you tell me how it happened?” Reggie begged. “What was it that hit me? I don’t remember anything after getting hit. In fact, I never even saw it coming!” The response was a long time coming.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait for the authorities to question you for that,” the doctor said. “We’re under orders to not allow you to leave.”

“Why?” Reggie exclaimed. “I didn’t commit any crime! I’m the victim of one!”

“I can’t answer that,” the doctor finally said. “But I’ll pass your statement to the authorities as soon as I can.”

Reggie couldn’t believe what the doctor had told him. That, somehow, for some insane reason, he was being investigated for a crime! It certainly explained the restraints. He was about to ask for them to be removed, but the moment the doctor had told him the authorities were going to interrogate him, all sense in his situation fled the room.

What Reggie had expected was to be waiting for days for someone to show up. So it was quite a surprise that it wasn’t more than a few minutes before he heard someone arriving.

“Good afternoon,” a woman’s voice called out, sounding very cultured. “I am Princess Celestia, and this is my sister, Princess Luna. We’d like to speak with you about some matters that occurred a few days ago.”

“Princesses?” Reggie exclaimed. What the hell?

“Where the hell am I?” he demanded before the visitors could speak up.

“You’re in a hospital in Canterlot, the capital of Equestria,” Celestia said.

“Never heard of it! How the fuck did I get here?” he yelled, straining forward against his restraints.

“Wha—?” another voice exclaimed.

“I don’t know what sort of trumped up charges you’re trying to throw at me,” Reggie yelled, ripping right into them, “but I would like to know just what the fuck you think you’re doing kidnapping me from the very center of the United States to drag me to who-the-fuck-knows-whatever-nation this is and then proceed to beat the crap out of me! Thanks to you, and the concussion you gave me, I’m fucking blind, now! And before I answer any of your fucking questions, I’d like to have a visit from the American consular! I’m lodging a formal complaint against your fucking nation! Right now!”

There was silence for several long moments.

“Well?” Reggie demanded. “’Princesses’?” he asked. “This—‘Equestria’—is it some Middle Eastern principality? Sorry if I’m not completely familiar with every little flea bitten sandpit out here. Unfortunately, it’s true that not every American is up on the current geography of the world’s nations—well, excuuuuse me! It’s not exactly a crime to not be, especially as all have some stupid shithead out here constantly changing the fucking map every other week! But where the hell do you get off kidnapping an American citizen from the middle of my fucking country?”

The silence from the visitors lasted several more moments.

“Well, Celie! Discord has certainly missed a prime opportunity with this one!” the other quipped. Presumably this was Princess Luna. “Did you catch all of that?”

“Indeed I have!” Celestia growled.

“Our guards spoke that thou attacked them and they had to defend themselves against thee,” Luna countered.

“Well, then your guards are fucking liars!” Reggie spat back. “There wasn’t anyone there at all! I found myself lost in a cave and after hours of trying to find a way out, I got to a worked passageway. I went through a set of doors and I stopped for a moment to look at something and that’s the last thing that I saw! I got hit on the head and woke up here!”

Reggie heard them leave and the door closed behind him. He relaxed and settle back into his bed.

“Fuck,” he whispered, turning his face away to let his tears drop.

What was he going to do now? Stuck in some unknown, Godforsaken country on the other side of the planet…

“Canterlot? Equestria?” he wondered aloud. “What sort of country would name their shit like that? Who would name their nation so it sounded like a bunch of Dressage riders?”

Suddenly, the door slammed open with a bang.

“Lie to me!” one of the princesses yelled at him. Celestia, he thought.

“Wha—?” Reggie got out.

“Speak a lie to me! Right now!”

It was Reggie’s turn to be stunned into silence for several moments, trying to think.

“’I can see you perfectly fine’—?” he offered.

“What else?” he wondered. “Oh, how about, ‘You’re beautiful. I love you. I’d want to make love to both you and your sister.’ Oh, hell, no! I can’t go there! I’d rather fuck the horses you both rode in on!”

He heard several gasps.

“What’s this all about?” he asked.

But instead of a reply, he heard the door softly shut.

“Well, I’m sure to get the firing squad for that one,” he muttered.

A few minutes later, he heard the door open again, and he started sweating.

Here it comes! he thought.

“It—would—appear there has been a major breakdown of communications,” Celestia slowly told him.

“Really? Ya think?”

“Aye, and ‘tis quite puzzling,” Luna said. “We hath confirmed that neither thee nor our guards hast lied about the encounter thou hast with each other.”

“I didn’t encounter anyone!” Reggie said. “I just suddenly got wacked on the back of the head. I never saw my attacker!”

“That! Right there!” Celestia exclaimed. “It’s most curious! Luna’s guards said that you were attacking them and they defended themselves. And yet, you are not lying about not seeing them! Tell me! Were you without sight before you left the cavern?”

“Of course not! I was able to see perfectly well right up to when I got hit! I never attacked anyone! There weren’t any fucking guards!”

“Please tell us what thou saw,” Luna asked.

“I had just reached a section of the cave that had obviously been worked and carved to look like a hallway in some mansion. There was a set of double doors, and I opened them. I was just looking at a couple of statues set up by the doors and wham! I’m waking up here! There wasn’t anyone guarding anything! And I don’t know what you were told, but I attacked no one!”

“Wait! Those statues thou speaketh of, what did they look like?”

“Well, they were pretty cool looking,” Reggie said. “They looked like something only some filthy rich guy could afford to make just to have a unique set of statues. I never saw anything so amazing. They resembled cartoon horses, but were so wickedly lifelike. They had bat wings, armor, slitted pupils and fangs. Oh, and they were somehow holding spears with their hooves. I was just about to touch one to try figuring out what materials had been used to make them when I got attacked.”

“By the Three Mothers!” Celestia gasped. “He didn’t know!”

“What’s wrong?” Reggie asked. The response was a long time coming.

“We—we deeply regret thy injuries,” Luna finally told him. “’Twas indeed a gross misunderstanding.”

“What are you talking about?”

But once again, he was left alone to worry about what had just transpired.

Making An Ass Out Of You And Me

After that, Reggie was left alone for at least once full sleep cycle, which to the best of his estimate, was a night.

He woke up for some unknown reason. A little while after he woke, he heard the door open again.

“How are you feeling?” the person asked. It was the very first person he had met in the hospital. Reggie didn’t really like the idea of having any visitors, especially what crazy shit culture that would kidnap a random person from the middle of Nowhere, in the middle of Kansas, in the middle of the United States. But this guy treated him nicely, and Reggie was just too worn out from worry about his situation and the horror of his blindness.

“The headache’s not as bad,” Reggie admitted. “The rest—well, I don’t know. I can expect to get dragged out of here any moment to have my head chopped off. Or shot. Or whatever other manner of attitude adjustment that passes as such in your version of a civilized society.”

“You don’t have to worry about anything like that,” the guy countered.

“Except, I’m pretty certain I royally pissed off your princesses yesterday,” Reggie said, grinning. “I guess it was yesterday, wasn’t it?”

“Um-hmm.”

“So, I’m seriously trying to think of something that will top the shit I said to them for when they come to take me away. Please be so kind as to pass the word to my folks about my last act of defiance.”

“Where is your family?” he asked.

“The Pine family, Paul and Amelia Pine,” Reggie told him. “They live in Granville, Kansas, in the States.”

“Sorry, but I’ve never heard of it,” the other guy said.

“Well, Granville’s not very big,” Reggie said, laughing. “Neither’s Kansas for that matter, even with all the thousand of square miles it covers.”

“Uh-huh….So what are the ‘States’? States of what?”

Reggie blinked.

“The United States of America?” Reggie suggested. The response was long in coming.

“What’s that?”

“Whoa! And you people complain we don’t teach world geography in our country,” Reggie muttered sadly shaking his head.

“Anyhow, would you like something to eat?” the hospital staffer asked.

“Can you get anything from Mickey Dee’s?”

“What’s that?”

Reggie hung his head in defeat.

“Okay, what do you have?” he finally asked.

“We’ve got alfalfa burgers with hay fries, daffodil sandwiches, cucumber and tulip salad, carrot and rose salad,” the guy began. The list went on like that for a while, and Reggie listened in disbelief as he continued. Finally, Reggie caught one “normal” sounding item and pounced.

“I’ll just have the orange juice, please,” he said. “Make it a pitcher. My mouth is feeling pretty parched.”

“Of course,” the staffer said. “You’ve pretty much been out of it for a few days and they have you on IV fluids, but you still need to drink something to keep your mouth moist.”

“Sure,” Reggie replied, suddenly feeling the need to squirm. He hated needles, and only now realized the squicky feeling that had been present in his legs the whole time. Why didn’t they do it in my arms like everybody else? he wondered.

“Uh, now that I’m awake, are the IVs really necessary?” Reggie asked.

“I’ll check with the doctor to see what he says,” the guy said, leaving.

A little while later, he returned with the doctor in tow.

“Good morning. Greenleaf tells me that you’re ready to have your IVs removed,” the doctor said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Reggie said as they went to work removing the needles. He had to admit, the work was very professional, and he barely felt any discomfort.

“And your headaches are reduced?”

“I still get some spasms at times, but they’re not as bad as yesterday,” Reggie said. He was shocked when they started removing the restraints on his arms and legs.

“Uh—do—do your authorities know you’re untying me?” Reggie nervously asked.

“Indeed we do,” Celestia said from the doorway.

“Huh! Hey, uh, Greenleaf?” Reggie asked.

“Yes?” the hospital staffer inquired.

“Remember that conversation we had earlier about last acts of defiance? Looks like I’m going to be ‘shot while escaping’, so…” Reggie finished with flipping Celestia the bird from both hands.

“Luna and I are here to apologize for how you’ve been treated,” Celestia told him, taking Reggie completely by surprise.

“Yes. We are deeply sorry for thy injuries,” Luna added. “We hath instructed our healers to research and assist you in every possible manner to restore thy sight.”

“Doctor Splint, please be sure to see to this patient’s wellbeing,” Celestia instructed. “In the meantime, we have brought a friend of ours in order to assist you to get around as best we can. Her name is Fluttershy.”

“He-hello,” a very soft feminine voice spoke up. “I—I—I understand y-you have l-lost your sight. I’m so sorry. P-please let me help you, if—if y-you don’t m-mind, that is.”

“Yeah—yeah, sure,” Reggie responded, stunned by the sudden change in his situation. “I just need to—“

Suddenly, he got that squicky feeling all over again. As he shifted about in bed to get ready to stand, he came to the shocking realization that he didn’t have any clothes. Not a stitch! They hadn’t even bothered to give him a hospital gown!

The restraints that had been on his arms and legs had prevented him from discovering this fact earlier. And while he was almost willing to display his all to these “princesses” who had given him such a hard time, this newcomer sounded so nervous and meek that he suspected she’d likely faint if he stood up right now. He had to clutch at his bed sheet with his left hand to keep some decorum of modesty while he sat on the right side edge of the bed and supported himself with his right arm.

“Uh—I’d like to get dressed, if that’s alright with everyone,” he told them. “For that, I’m going to need my clothes, if they’re still in existence?”

“Of course,” the doctor said. Reggie felt something brush against his right arm and settle on the bed. Reggie felt for the object and discovered it was a pile of folded clothes setting on top of his shoes, and he felt his medallion among the fabrics.

“Thank you,” he said.

“And—uh—some privacy, please?” he added when it was clear no one was leaving the room.

“Of course,” Celestia muttered. There were the sounds of people leaving the room and the door closed leaving him in silence.

Disappointed to miss the show, no doubt, Reggie thought as he stood up and sorted through the clothes to identify and selected his underwear. And what sort of hospital doesn’t bother giving a patient any gowns? Especially any in the Middle East? Where a Western man and their women would encounter each other? Then he stopped in the act of putting on his briefs.

No. Not disappointed. She sounded—puzzled, he reconsidered.

After finishing getting dressed, Reggie carefully navigated to where his mind told him the door was with respect to the bed, using his feet to sweep the path for anything before taking a step forward and repeated the process. He silently cheered when he had run into no obstacles along the way. He opened the door and stepped through, expecting to encounter the princesses and the others.

“Hello,” he greeted. “I suppose I’m ready.” He felt a presence move up beside him from the left.

“On behalf of my sister, please allow us to formally welcome thee to Equestria,” Luna said, enveloping him with a cloak over his shoulder and an arm across his belly to hug him. “May the remainder of thy stay be without any further strife or suffering.”

Reggie puzzled at how she held him. His right hand felt at her arm while his left reached up to touch the cloak over his shoulder.

Feathers? Fur? he wondered. And there was something very odd about her arm. He moved his right hand down, feeling bone segments and joints that shouldn’t be there as he moved toward her hand.

“Pr-Pr-Princess Luna!” the newcomer named Fluttershy suddenly called out. “D-d-don’t do that!”

His hand found her hand—only it wasn’t a hand! It was a hard, solid boney mass that felt like a hoof!

What the fuck? he thought, snapping his head about, wishing he could see this “princess”. He quickly reversed his right hand’s direction and followed her arm up toward its source. Again, there were those wrong bone segments and joints.

“Hmm?” Luna questioned as his right hand reached a large body part that his mind couldn’t identify. Logically, it should be her chest, but it was at the level of his waist. Instantly, he followed it up, searching for her face. From the sound of her voice, her head should be nearly level with his shoulders, but if this was her chest, then she shouldn’t even be three feet tall!

“PRINCESS LUNA! LET HIM GO!” Fluttershy screamed.

Reggie added his left hand to searching the mystery that was forming from his examination of Princess Luna. His hands found a thick body segment rising up from the pseudo chest that reached what felt like a jaw, but if that was her neck, it was impossibly long!

“STOP IT! PRINCESS LUNA! LET HIM GO! LET HIM GO, NOW!” Fluttershy screamed.

He found a mouth, a very wide nose, a snout, a pair of long, swivel-type ears, a—spike?!? At the same time, his left hand swept back down and followed the pseudo neck to the pseudo chest and moved toward her back, only to find the root of a feathered wing! The same feathered thing that was wrapped about him!

That was enough!

He was suddenly bouncing off of objects in a mad scramble to get away. His mind had shut down all reason by now and it was time to just fucking run! Only he ran out of space to run through. There was a wall in his way. The wall ended in a corner. There was something keeping him from going any further, but voices pursued him. He couldn’t get away and crying, he fell in the corner, his back to the wall.

He sat there for an unknown amount of time before his mind began to reboot. Something was just out of reach trying to speak to him. Finally, he was able to make out what was being said.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Nopony is going to hurt you. Please don’t be afraid,” the thing was saying to him.

“What—?”

“Please, let me help you. We’re not going to hurt you,” the creature that called itself Fluttershy said.

“What—The—?”

“It’s alright. Don’t worry. We’re going to take good care of you. Please don’t be afraid,” the monster spoke!

“What—The—FUCK ARE YOU MONSTERS!?” he screamed.

“We’re not monsters,” the impossible beastreplied. “We’re ponies.”

Of Monsters and Things

“Sometimes, being rulers of Equestria just doesn’t pay enough,” Luna softly muttered to her sister as they watched from the doorway Fluttershy try to coax the human from where he cowered.

“I hear that!” Celestia responded in kind.

“What doest thou suppose went wrong?”

“I suppose—wait! Remember? He didn’t recognize your guards as guards!” Celestia looked at Luna in astonishment. “If he wasn’t expecting to see ponies as guards, then he must have been expecting something else! After all those times we explored that world to where Sunset Shimmer had fled, humans there didn’t seem to be aware of any other sapient life.”

“And with his blindness—!” Luna finished with a groan. “Oh! We are truly sorry, Celie! We did this without thinking!”

“It’s not your fault, Lulu,” Celestia said, covering her sister with a wing. “I, too, thought that with all the contact he has had with Doctor Splint and his nurse, I assumed he was aware we were ponies.”

“What’s your name?” Fluttershy decided to ask, hoping to make better progress with calming the human. At least he had stopped hyperventilating, but she suspected that was only because he had run out of the energy to do so. His body language clearly screamed that he was still in full panic mode, even though he had stopped screaming and was just speaking with her.

“R-Reggie. Reggie Pine,” the human replied.

“That’s a nice name,” she said. “D-d-do you like to walk in the forest, Reggie?” she asked, thinking to distract him from his terror. Hoping to build rapport with him, she chose to pursue a possible relation between his name and a peaceful environment that he might relate to. But her tactic held its own risks, and it made her nervous to try it.

“Yeah. Sometimes,” he said. “Why do you ask?” His question caught her by surprise. He was challenging her. That was a good sign that his panic attack was starting to weaken.

“I do, too. Sometimes,” she told him. “I enjoy hearing the birds singing and animals chattering away at each other. I often wonder what they think of their lives and environment as they go about their daily routine. I always try to listen to them.”

She continued the conversation in that vein, randomly introducing a subject to hopefully take his mind off whatever it was that had sent him into such a panicked reaction, and following where his responses led. Mostly, she let him guide the discussions before she’d bring up something new to talk about. Or she would occasionally ask a question about his home, his people, or the world where he came from, hoping to get an understanding of his culture. Eventually, he began to ask his own questions of her and her culture. Her heart leapt at that, as this was an indicator that his panic was finally broken.

Then he asked her why she was there. And she explained how she was approached by the guard force yesterday evening and requested to come to Canterlot.

“…And that’s why the princesses asked me to come talk with you, because I have a talent for relating with non-ponies,” she said as a conclusion. “I apologize for not reacting quicker to stop Princess Luna from giving you a hug. I saw too late that you were having a panic attack.”

“Except ‘ponies’ don’t have wings and horns!” Reggie countered.

“Well, it’s true that earth ponies don’t,” Fluttershy quickly admitted. “But pegasi have wings. And unicorns have horns. And of course the princesses, who are alicorns, they have both. I’m a pegasus, by the way. I hope you don’t mind.”

She watched Reggies’ eyes dart back and forth and his head jerked to tilt with micro movements this way and that, as he processed what she had told him. There were numerous minor twitches throughout his body, which she would dearly love a chance to learn how to read him. But there was some definite improvement, she could clearly see he was beginning to relax, but he also was still very wary.

“W-w-would y-you l-like to examine my w-wing?” she fearfully asked, extending one toward him, just a foot away from body. She watched his throat worked as he nervously swallowed. Finally, he nodded. “Pl-please be gentle. Our wings are rather sensitive. J-just r-reach out with your p-paw.”

“My ‘hand’,” he corrected as he raised his right forelimb to his chest then carefully extended it out. Fluttershy shivered when he made contact. Once he felt her, he jerked back for a moment before reaching out again. This time, he gently stroked the forward edge of her manus, instinctively following the lay of her feathers from the alula, over her primary coverts and her primaries.

“Those—those are some big feathers,” he whispered in evident awe. He repeated his gentle exploration of her limb.

“Th-thank you,” Fluttershy responded, blushing. He had such a kind and gentle touch. He touched her alula feathers again, but this time he held his—‘hand’—there. She watched his face and noted that his seemed to struggle with his expression. His breathing became erratic and quickened, even as he seemed to struggle with controlling it.

“Sorry,” he whispered, pulling his hand away and turned his head to not face her. If she guessed, it looked as though he might start weeping at any moment. His evident distress broke her heart.

“It’s okay,” she softly said to him. “I think I understand. If you want, you can hold my wing some more.” His face registered tremendous gratitude as he cautiously reached out to hold her wing again. It was quickly revealing how much his expressions resembled that of ponies.

“It’s just—” he began speaking before stopping as he struggled to reign in his emotions.

“It’s just—these,” he said, holding up his other hand, “these hands and fingers—they make piss poor substitutes for eyes—but—they’re the only eyes I have now,” he finished, and a single tear slid down his face. The tear fell off his chin and dropped onto the figure of a green draconequus he wore about his neck. When the tear touched the material, the medallion glowed with an inner light for a moment. It was very pretty. The carving was quite unlike Discord. She would have to remember to ask him about others of his kind when she got back home.

“I understand,” she said to him. “I really do! For a pegasus to-to lose her sight, it-it would be tantamount to a death sentence!” He silently nodded in agreement.

“M-may I ask how you lost your sight?” she nervously inquired, knowing the severity of his loss and how emotionally impacting it must be for him.

“A concussion to the back of my brain,” he flatly stated. Suddenly, so detached! His response was almost as professional as a physician. “It—it damaged the occipital lobe. It may or may not heal, and I’ll never know until I actually get my sight back—if ever.”

Then he gave her wing a gentle nudge with his hand as he suddenly smiled at her.

“Heh! Talking ponies!” he said with a chuckle. “If I could’ve seen when the first guy came in, I might have simply thought I was going crazy. But this—” he looked and gestured with his left hand at the space around him, “would never have happened. I can’t imagine how funny it must’ve looked seeing me freak out just now.”

Fluttershy was horrified that he could think of such a thing.

“NO! How can you even say that?” she exclaimed. “It wasn’t funny at all!”

“Well—in a way, you’re right. It certainly wouldn’t have been very funny if you guys were tentacled acid-blooded brain-sucking xenomorph monsters,” he said, grinning. “But freaking out over ‘ponies’? Now you’ve got to admit, that was funny!”

She had to blink several times as she thought of that.

“I suppose—if you put it that way,” she finally agreed. “But I would never laugh at somepony for having a panic attack! I know all too well what those are like!”

“Perhaps,” Reggie said. “I don’t know all the situations you might have found yourself in, but are there any of those that were completely unjustified, panicking over something totally nothing, or even silly?”

“Well—some,” Fluttershy admitted.

“And you never laughed at your own reactions for them afterwards?”

“Um—no. Never,” she sadly replied.

Fluttershy was startled as she watched him shift his body about, getting his rear legs under his frame, but he remained crouched and low to the ground with her.

“Are you sure you’re not a brain-sucking monster?” he asked.

“Of course not!”

“And your blood doesn’t eat its way through steel plating?”

“Why would you think such a thing?”

“No tentacles?”

“Um—no?”

He slowly shifted his body way from the corner where he had been crouching and inched closer toward her. He used the hand on her wing to guide his way until he was crouching right beside her, and he gently moved his right hand to lie on her withers.

“I’ve gotten over my panic attack, so I can laugh about mine,” he said, smiling to her as he hugged her. “But you evidently still haven’t gotten over yours. Rest assured that when you do, you’ll be able to laugh about it, too. I wish I could help you, as you’ve helped me. Thank you.”

“That’s the sort of advice Pinkie Pie has always been telling me,” she said, looking at him in wonder.

“Friend of yours?” he asked.

“Y-yes,” she said, smiling at him. “D-do you think you’re ready to meet the princesses?”

“I guess so,” he muttered. Then he leaned in close to her ear, using his hand to locate where hers was. “Are you sure they’re not brain-sucking monsters?” he whispered, making her giggle.

“I’m sure!” she responded in kind. “Come on,” she said, getting to her hooves and folding her extended wing. He stood up easily on his rear legs, much as a minotaur would, but his legs looked different from theirs and he used her withers as his point of contact between them. She guided him around the furniture and medical equipment that had shifted about during his panicked run and toward the two princesses still waiting at the door.

They had patiently stood there, watching and listening to Fluttershy work to calm the human down. In her thousands of years of rule, Celestia had had experience doing the same thing with numerous ponies, griffons, dragons, and other beings. But such times, she had only been truly successful after learning to read their respective body languages. The same could be said for Luna, with her sister taking more opportunities to explore and encounter such creatures in their youth. But never had she seen anypony else that had such an instinctive intuition who could go up, sight unseen, and perform such a task like Fluttershy was doing now. It was no wonder the Element of Kindness had selected her!

Then the human shocked her as he left his retreat and moved toward Fluttershy! They spoke some more and finally stood and began walking toward her and her sister.

Backing up, Celestia and Luna allowed the two to exit the room.

“Reggie Pine, this is Princesses Celestia and Luna, rulers of Equestria,” Fluttershy announced.

“Welcome to Equestria,” Celestia said to him.

“Thank you,” Reggie replied. “And—I—I have to apologize for the things I said yesterday, as well as my little reaction just now. Up until I touched you, I had thought I was still somewhere on Earth. But the mental image I had created about you just got violently ripped to shreds. I guess my mind had to undergo a bit of a reboot,” he said with a giggle.

“Anyhow, my crack about ‘the horses you rode in on’ was completely out of line,” he continued. “I’m very sorry.”

“Especially, as it turns out, we are the horses we rode in on,” Luna wryly remarked, cutting in.

“Yeah! Indeed!” he agreed with a laugh. “I’m deeply sorry for insulting and offending you by saying anything like that.”

“Quite understandable,” Celestia acknowledged. “You evidently had no idea the ‘statues’ you were looking were Luna’s guards. And they were also quite surprised, with you literally coming out of nowhere.”

“No,” Reggie replied. “No, I didn’t. And I’m sorry I frightened them. I guess, when I was about to touch one—just before I got hit, I thought I saw its eye move—although, I thought that was just my imagination. But he really was real, wasn’t he?”

“Aye, they are,” Luna replied. “Ralph and Sam art the guards thou encountered.” At her instruction, the two waiting guards approached.

“I’m sorry I hurt you so badly,” Ralph told him.

“Hey, it was an accident,” Reggie said, turning toward the two. He held out his hand, but then hesitated.

“Uh—you’re not going to hit me again, are you?” the human asked.

“Of course not!” Ralph replied with a laugh, reaching his own forelimb out to shake hooves with Reggie. “I really hope you recover your sight soon.”

“Me, too,” Reggie said. “You guys really looked so cool! I’d love to see you guys again sometime.”

“Really?” Sam asked astonished. “Most ponies are rather nervous about us.”

“Sure,” Reggie replied.

“Why would you feel so?” Ralph asked.

“Well, for one, I’m not a pony,” Reggie replied, snickering. That got the two guards laughing, too.

“Since they are responsible for thy injuries, we have assigned them to be thy assistants ‘til thy recovery,” Luna said. “At least, during the evening hours.”

Reggie turned back to her and held out his left hand to her.

“May I?” he asked. Luna nodded, then belatedly remembered.

“Thoust may,” she told him. Reggie gently reached out to her, making contact with the base of her neck.

“And I’m sorry I hurt you when I panicked,” he sincerely told her.

“We were not injured,” Luna said, stepping closer to him. “But thou were!” she said, holding him with foreleg and wing as she had before. This time, Reggie reciprocated her hug and didn’t fight it.

Black Sun

Fluttershy guided him out of the hospital and into a chariot to ride alongside Princess Luna. Reggie chose not to inquire as to what was pulling the cart. Three possibilities instantly came to mind. One: some humans. Two: some horses. Three: something else entirely. And none of those seemed to be an appropriate subject to breach. He just held tightly to the handrails and rode as best as he could.

Fortunately, the ride was smooth and fast after an initially steep and sharp incline. Then Fluttershy spoke.

“How do you like the flight?” her timid voice barely perceptible.

…

“Wait! We’re flying? Right now?” he exclaimed.

“Oh! Uh…are you about to panic again?” she asked.

“That would be my first choice, but I think it’s best I decline that option for now,” Reggie muttered.

“That’s a good idea,” Fluttershy said. He felt her shift her position to stand behind him, hemming him in. “You just hold on tight.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It feels solid, but I’ll be sure to leave dents in these handrails.” Then he started. “Uh—one question: why does this thing even have handrails?”

“Um—I don’t know,” Fluttershy said.

“Princess Luna? Any ideas?” he asked her.

“This is the way they hath always been made. Why dost thou ask?”

“Because—you guys don’t have hands,” Reggie pointed out.

“Hmm—Thee art correct. ‘Tis a bit of a puzzle,” she replied after a few moments.

By this time, there was a steep decline they were—oh, hell no! That’s not a hill! That’s our decent! he realized, lunging for the handrail and threading his arms through the bars, holding on for dear life.

Fortunately, the landing was surprisingly smooth. Even so, it took him a few minutes to get his breathing under control once again and release his death grip on the chariot.

“’Tis good to see that even in thy panic, thou keepest a level head,” Luna praised him.

“Yeah, I’m just glad I didn’t try to find the corner of the room again,” Reggie agreed with a laugh.

“We know this experience hath been stressful for thee,” Luna told him as he walked with Fluttershy guiding him. “But if possible, could thou try remaining awake ‘til sunset. We wish to attempt dreamwalking with thee. ’Tis currenly noon and we are going to retire ‘til I resume our duties this eve. And Celie will assign a pair of her guards for thy aid for the remainder of thy stay.”

“Sure. I’ll try,” Reggie replied, puzzled as to what she was talking about.

“Then good day to thee,” she said departing, leaving him with Fluttershy.

“You can come with me to get something to eat,” Celestia said, evidently joining them. “Doctor Spint informed me that you are apparently an omnivore, based on your teeth.”

“Uh—yeah—that’s true,” Reggie responded. “Is-is that going to be a problem?”

“Not too much,” Celestia said. “My ponies are primarily herbivores with only a slight amount of meat in our diet. But we often entertain griffons here at the castle and their meat consumption is closer to between a third and a half of their diet. And there are occasional visits by dignitaries of dragons.”

“Really?” Reggie asked, astonished. At least three species, with one of them having at least four widely different breeds!

“Have you ever had to contend with conflicts or wars?” he asked.

“In the ancient past,” Celestia conceded. “They were not pleasant, to say the least.”

“No, I’m sure they weren’t,” he agreed. “They never are.”

“But we’ve not had any major conflicts for over eight hundred years,” she told him.

“Oh, God, I wish we had your history!” Reggie exclaimed.

“You’ve had wars?” Fluttershy nervously asked.

“We’re still at war!” Reggie said, sighing. “We’ve been pretty much at war since before we started our written history some seven or eight thousand years ago, and we’ve practically never stopped!”

“Whatever are you fighting over?” Fluttershy asked astonished.

“Mostly stupid shit,” Reggie spat. “Usually over trade routes and acquisition of resources that various nations need, but lately there’s been a lot of societal and leadership conflict issues. Some bunch of dipshits are always popping up wanting to control other people’s lives, and somehow the idiot bastards get a lot of likeminded stupid shits to go along with the idea in order to make everyone’s lives miserable.”

“That’s too bad,” Celestia said. “Why did you ask about our history of wars?”

“From what you just told me, you’ve evidently got at least three different species of intelligent life on this planet,” Reggie said. “I can’t imagine a world with such diversity doesn’t have war as a daily occurrence. We’ve got just the one specie and wars are never ending with us. It’s almost enough to make me not want to go back,” he finished.

”To send you back, we would first need to locate the portal through which you came,” Celestia told him. “And I’m reluctant to send you back in your current condition.”

“Thank you for that,” Reggie agreed. “Yeah, I’m not in a hurry to get back at the moment. My end of the doorway was in a cavern that’s literally out in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas. Unfortunately, there’s no facility that would allow a blind person to easily find their way home. Besides, I seriously doubt you can teach me any sort of Braille that matches up to what we use back home.”

The meal consisted of a nice mixture of vegetables that Reggie was willing to try: some helpings of buttered carrots, some green bean casserole, au gratin potatoes, and sautéed kelp. He had to confirm what was what beforehand, though. They also served raw alfalfa, which he wouldn’t have minded if they had been cooked, but also hay fries, which he didn’t even trust, as well as rose salad and tulip sandwiches, which he avoided. On the options for meat, he did find they offered, for that day, some crisp cooked bacon as well as chicken-noodle soup with corn, both of which he relished.

“You’re very hungry, it seems,” Celestia observed, “although it comes as no surprise as you had been unconscious for the better part of three days.”

“Yeah, I was famished,” Reggie replied. “Luna asked if I could stay up until nightfall. Something about ‘dreamwalking’, whatever that is. But with this meal, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay up that long. Thank you so very much!”

“You still have much healing to undergo,” Celestia acknowledged. “Even if you go to sleep right now, it’s likely you’ll still be very much asleep when my sister takes her duties tonight. But she will wish to speak with you regarding her attempt to dreamwalk with you tonight. She is sure to have specific instructions to discuss with you before she attempts to probe your mind while you sleep.”

“You people are telepathic?” Reggie asked surprised.

“Luna is able to dreamwalk with our ponies and she’s had limited success with humans,” Celestia explained. “It’s not exactly like telepathy, as the idea was explained to us by other members of your kind, but there are similarities. Dreamwalking involves Luna talking with a pony, or in your case, talking with you, while you sleep. Since you are without sight and have no idea of what is here in Equestria, Luna wishes to give you a guided tour and provide some introduction to a few ponies we would like you to meet while you stay with us.”

“I see,” Reggie said, considering. “Thank you for the offer but I don’t know how much what you intend will help me, though. I am conversant with the idea of lucid dreaming, but most of my dreams are completely random. And in my species, nearly all the details of our dreams are forgotten within a few hours or days at most. Anything that remains beyond that are usually just emotions at best. Heck, most times, we don’t even know we dreamt if we don’t wake in the middle of a REM sleep segment.”

“R-really?” Celestia exclaimed.

“Why? Is that a problem?” Reggie asked, puzzled.

“We had hoped to allow you to see us, so that you would be able to feel more comfortable being here,” Celestia explained. “I will certainly convey this information to Luna as soon as she wakes. Hopefully, she can devise a strategy to allow you to recall more of the dreamwalking experience for longer periods.”

“Thank you for that,” Reggie told her. “But just to let you know, I’m not really sure I’m comfortable with the idea of someone poking about in my head. For us humans, the idea of someone able to invade our minds gives us the willies.”

“Yes, that has been expressed to us on numerous occasions,” Celestia replied. “I assure you, we do respect your privacy, and this is why Luna wishes to speak with you before she attempts this. She can better explain exactly the process and procedures as well as the risks and benefits from doing this.”

“Understood,” Reggie said, nodding. Then he considered some of what else she had told him just now.

“You said there were other humans you met?” he asked. “Did they come through the cave and were you ever able to send them back as well?”

“No, not through that particular cavern,” Celestia told him. “There was one case where another portal was opened some distance from here, but those humans left by a starship that picked them up, as well as another, earlier visitation that had arrived and left by their own ship. In addition, there is a portal that we have used to visit a world of humans, but that does not appear to have any connection to the planet from which those humans came from.”

“Starships?” Reggie exclaimed. “Then they’re not from my world! My world doesn’t have any interstellar travel. Hell, we’ve only visited our moon half a dozen times before they pulled the plug on NASA. Are you sure they were the same species as me?”

“To the best that our medical scans can determine, yes,” Celestia replied.

“Interesting,” Reggie said. “I wonder it that might explain a few of our myths and legends, as well as perhaps a few of our religions.”

“How so?”

“Well, there’s a few theories floating about that our world may have been a lost or even a failed colony of some group of star faring humans,” Reggie explained. “I don’t know the details of such, but some of those ideas made the rounds as part of our popular stories and quite a few conspiracy fringe speculations.”

“To be honest, I wouldn’t know if that’s true until we can find the portal through which you arrived,” Celestia said. “Which is another target we desire to learn from Luna’s dreamwalking. Since your lack of sight won’t allow you to easily show us where you arrived, we hope your memories will be able to guide us there.”

“True,” Reggie agreed with a rueful laugh. “It wasn’t much fun going over that chasm when I could see it, I sure as fuck don’t want to try it blind!”

“Indeed,” Celestia responded giggling over Fluttershy’s gasp. “I should not keep you any longer, Reggie. I will have a couple of my guards and Fluttershy to see you to your room and have Doctor Splint check on the progress of your recovery. He tells me that the bruising to your brain has been healing as well as could be hoped for and you are out of any current danger from your concussion.”

“That’s good to hear,” Reggie responded. “Thank you so very much, Celestia.”

After Celestia left, Reggie reached out to Fluttershy and held onto her shoulder as she guided him about the castle.

“Y-y-you really shouldn’t use such words when talking with the Princesses!” she gently told him.

“What word?”

“Y-you kn-know.”

“What are you talking about?” Reggie asked, confused. He felt her suddenly step away from his hold on her then felt a couple hooves grab him by the shoulders.

“Wh-when you said you didn’t want to try crossing a chasm while blind,” Fluttershy said to his face. “You used a word that wasn’t very nice!”

“Oh! That word,” Reggie responded, finally figuring out what she was going on about. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s part of the common speech where I’m from.”

“That was a very vulgar thing to say to her,” Fluttershy told him.

“True,” Reggie said, shrugging his shoulders. “But she didn’t seem to take offense to it. I like her. She does seem to be a down-to-earth kind of person.” Fluttershy got down from where she had reared up to hold him and he felt her shoulder back against his hand.

“Well, she has been around for quite a while,” the pegasus said. “Of course, she must be treated with respect. But I agree, I think she does like it when someone speaks frankly to her. She might think it refreshing, b-but I-I could n-never speak to her like th-that! And what you said was way too much!”

“Yeah, sorry,” Reggie repeated.

“Well, you really should go and apologize to Princess Celestia,” Fluttershy said. “But we’re here at your room.”

“Looks nice,” Reggie muttered after they made a sharp turn and he could sense a change in the echoes of the ponies’ footsteps. Fluttershy suddenly stopped, just as he expected. He gave her a moment before turning his head to look down at her.

“Just kidding. I’m still blind,” he said to her, smiling. “I guess it’s true what I’ve always heard. How a person’s other senses begin to heighten when we lose our sight. I noticed a change in the air when we stepped through the door.”

“That’s amazing!” she said, still evidently surprised by him. “Y-you’re making a joke about y-your injury!”

“Well, I’ve got two choices I can take about this,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “One is become hopelessly depressed. The other is to make light of it and make the best of what I’ve still got. To be honest, there’s a lot to be depressed over. After all, I feel so helpless right now. And so much of the life that I trained for relies on having the ability to see. But all those skills I learned are now as useless as my eyes. In addition, I may have to rely on a guide dog, or guide pony, for the rest of my life. Also, I feel so stupid knowing I’m going to be hopelessly lost in any space or room bigger than five-by-five,” he added, gesturing to the space about them using his left hand.

“However, since I’ve chosen to survive, it means I’d better develop an attitude to learn to live with this,” he said, gesturing toward his eyes. “It’ll make it easier if I can entertain myself somehow. Or even laugh about it, somehow.”

“I think you and my friend, Pinkie Pie would get along great,” Fluttershy said to him. “But—well—just laughing about your misfortunate can be a good thing, true. But on the other hoof, it may only hide just how much you’re still hurting and it can keep you from truly healing.”

“Yeah, I am aware of that,” Reggie soberly replied to her, giving her a pat on her withers. He gave her a warm smile and continued, “It will be difficult, but I will do my best.”

“Just remember, we’re here in case you need us,” she told him.

“But you all are strangers to me,” he said after a few moments.

“But we’d like to be your friend,” Fluttershy instantly said. “As Pinkie Pie would say, strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.”

“Not from my experience,” Reggie replied sighing. “Beside, even if you are as honest about wanting to help me as you’re implying, you’ve all got your own lives to lead. There could very well be a time I’ll need someone’s help, but they won’t be available.”

“We’ll do our best. I promise,” the pegasus assured him.

“Thanks,” he gratefully said.

Fluttershy guided him about the suite, and he had to be quite impressed based on how many paces it was taking to go from one side to the other. The first space they were in was a meeting room with a study off of one side, and the sleeping quarters on the other. She took through the sleeping quarters, showing him where the bed was located. He wasn’t surprised that the bed seemed to be at least king sized proportions.

Then she led him on to the restroom and explained to him how the facilities worked. The stall for doing one’s business seemed to be a trench design and as he recalled, there were movies of Middle Eastern countries that showed how they had a similar arrangement. Fluttershy showed him how to operate the flushing cycle. It no doubt would be awkward, but fortunately, the stall was sufficiently small and distinctive that he was assured that he wouldn’t accidentally step into the trench. The shower and wash basin, along with the supplies, were familiar enough arrangements that he felt confident to use them.

“How much longer to sunset?” Reggie finally asked.

“About three and a half hours,” she replied. He grimaced at that.

“It’s going to be tough pushing to stay awake until then after that meal,” he groaned. She giggled as he yawned.

“Oh, now you laugh at my misfortune! Where were you when I was making all those jokes before?” he teased her.

“Well, I know Princess Luna asked you to try to stay up so she could speak with you, but do you really think you should? I mean, you are still badly injured and should try to get some rest. I’m sure she’ll understand,” she told him.

“True,” he muttered. “All in all, I’m not that hard to wake up. Could you please be sure to wake me in time to meet with her? Besides, it’s not like I’ll have any problem getting back to sleep for her to try that dreamwalking bit.”

“Sure, if that’s what you really want,” she said. “I’ll inform Princess Celestia.”

“Thanks,” he said as she left him alone by the bed.

After she was gone, he stripped down to his underwear and laid his outer clothes and medallion at the foot of the bed, beyond where his feet would reach. After he climbed in under the covers, he was instantly out.

Black Moon

Reggie groaned as he woke up from the gentle shaking.

“Reggie, it’s time to get up. That is, if you want to,” Fluttershy whispered to him.

“Yeah. Sure. Thanks,” he said, yawning as he pulled himself out from underneath the covers.

“How are you feeling?”

“Could still use some aspirins,” he replied, rubbing the back of his head. “But I’m better rested. That nap really helped!”

“That’s good!” she said.

He reached first for his trousers where he had laid them, then his jacket and medallion, and finally his shoes and socks.

“How are you able to dress so quickly?” Fluttershy then asked after he finished.

“I don’t really need to see in order to know where I put my clothes,” Reggie laughed as she guided him toward the door.

“Have you ever done this dreamwalking before with Luna?” Reggie asked as they walked the corridor. “I’m wondering what it’s going to be like.”

“Of course. Many times,” Flutteshy replied. “I—well—I have lots of nightmares, as you might imagine.”

“I’ve no idea why,” Reggie said, shrugging. “Your nightmares wouldn’t be because she’s going into your mind, would they? I could well imagine the fact that someone’s going to be poking around my brain at night is going to give me nightmares for years to come!”

“Oh! Good heavens, no!” she instantly protested. She was silent as they walked for a while. Then she spoke again. “Princess Luna would never do such a thing to anypony!”

“I-I, to be honest, I h-have a lot of—concerns,” she hesitantly told him. “Lots of things make me nervous and give me nightmares. Princess Luna has often helped me by banishing my fears and helping me through the night.”

“Good afternoon, Princess Celestia!” Fluttershy suddenly called out.

“Good afternoon, Fluttershy,” Celestia greeted in return. “And good afternoon to you, too, Reggie. Doctor Splint tells me that your injuries continue to heal as well as can be expected.”

“Hmm? I don’t remember seeing him,” Reggie told her.

“You were asleep when he went to see you a few hours ago,” Celestia explained. “You slept through his examinations.”

“Wow! I’m usually a pretty light sleeper,” Reggie said.

“You must have been very tired,” Celestia said in a conciliatory tone. “Also, the magic he used to examine you should not have needed to wake you.”

“Magic?” Reggie asked, astonished.

“Is there a problem?” Celestia asked.

“Other than magic doesn’t exist, I don’t see one,” he replied.

Suddenly, he felt a tingling all over his body and there was the sensation of weightlessness as the feeling of the floor left his feet. “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What’s happening?” he exclaimed.

“Don’t be concerned,” he heard Celestia tell him with an amused voice. “You won’t be harmed.”

“Now, hold your hand above your head,” he heard her say; her voice coming from somewhere far below him. Hesitantly, he complied and felt a wall, or perhaps the ceiling there, just above his head. “Now keep your hand there,” she said. Then he could feel the wall (or ceiling) moving along his fingertips—and he had to remind himself that it was him moving, not the wal—ceiling!

A few moments later, he felt another wall—and this time, it was a wall—intersect the ceiling, and he was slid down it. Only, there was some odd texture to it. Instead of feeling like stone, it felt more like glass, and moreover, the pattern felt much like one would expect for stained glass windows common in churches and cathedrals. And his descent went a looong time! Eventually, his touch told him he had reached the bottom of the window and there was a small window sill, then more wall, stone this time. Until his feet reached the floor. And then he felt his feet dragging along the ground away from the wall before he was released and he collapsed. There, he felt a familiar mix of fur and feathers.

“It’s okay,” he heard Fluttershy tell him as he fearfully grabed her shoulders. “You don’t have to worry. Princess Celestia isn’t going to hurt you. She was just using a levitation spell on you.”

“I—I—see,” Reggie stammered. Okay! If they have telekinesis and a few other psionic abilities and want to call them all ‘magic’, it’s certainly fine with me! Who am I to argue?

“I hope you were not frightened, Reggie,” Celestia said as he could hear her approach. “I just figured a demonstration would be easier to convince you than an explanation.”

“Well, there’s a phrase in my world, ‘seeing is believing,’” he replied, grinning. “Even if I’m blind, I can still see. After a fashion,” he finished, holding up his hand and wiggling his fingers.

“Indeed,” Celestia replied with a giggle. “Indeed, you apparently do! Please, come. Let us get some dinner. Luna will join us shortly and she can fill you in on what she will do during the dreamwalking.”

Luna was evidently waiting there for them. The four of them had an entertaining conversation over the food, where Celestia spent the most time updating her sister about Reggie’s progress. Luna apologized to him for lacking the foresight that he had needed rest. And Fluttershy gave him a not-so-subtle reminder that he owed Celestia an apology, too, for the things he had said earlier in the day.

“If anything, it is we who owe the apology, Reggie,” Celestia told him after he did so. “You are a guest in our country, one here not as a result of your own actions or desires. As such, you had no opportunity for preparing to meet anypony in our court.”

“Yeah, there is that,” Reggie admitted. “But there’s also the fact I’m not the sort of person who would normally find themselves addressing royalty, either on my world or yours. I’ll try to keep my—colorful metaphors to a minimum.”

“To be honest, Luna and I do find your speech to be refreshing, although we’re certainly aware the manner of how you address us is sure to make everypony uncomfortable,” Celestia told him.

Luna then spent the rest of their time together explaining to Reggie what would be involved with dreamwalking. He listened very attentively, and while it still gave him an uneasy feeling, he found himself still objecting only as a result of a gut reaction or irrational fear. Logically, there was nothing to be concerned about.

After all, he finally concluded, it’s not like these horses are going to go about Granville anytime soon and tell everyone my secrets, or anything. At worse, they’d probably look at the rave or anything else I’ve ever done in the same way we’d look at a flock of penguins all dancing about looking for their mates.

After their dinner and conversation, Celestia and Fluttershy left them while Luna guided him into another room, where Ralf and Sam soon joined them.

“Thou shouldst be able to make thyself comfortable here,” Luna told him when she led him to what felt just a shapeless bag sitting on the floor.

“A beanbag chair?” Reggie asked, chuckling as he sat down in it.

“Thee hath such in thy world?” Luna cheerfully asked.

“Yeah. My parents still have a few of those things from their youth,” Reggie replied settling deep down into it. “It was all the rage back in the 1970’s.”

“We, too, find them fun to lie on,” Luna said as he heard her settle into another beanbag chair. “We find them to be infinitely versatile. Now, if thee art ready?”

“Of course,” Reggie replied. He had been instructed to simply go to sleep and she would do all the work once he began dreaming.

His eyes snapped open with the nudging and hearing his name, but of course it took him a few moments to realize that there was nothing to see anymore.

“Oh! Are we finished already?” he asked.

“It—was—quite a surprising—experience,” Luna stammered. “Thy mind is—quite—the alien environment.”

“So, it worked?” Reggie asked. There was several moments of silence.

“Dost thou not remember our conversations?” Luna finally asked, evidently puzzled about something.

“Umm—no?”

“’Tis as Celie relayed to us,” Luna then muttered. “Thy mind dost not retain the memory of the dreamwalking if thee awaken outside this ‘REM sleep’, ast thou calls it.”

“Did something bad happen?” Reggie asked.

“No—nothing bad, as we couldst say,” Luna carefully stated. “But it was a most peculiar experience, to be sure. Thy dreamscape is like nothing we hast ever before encountered.”

“What happened?” Reggie asked, quite confused as to what the problem evidently was.

“Let’s just say—We wert not exactly ourselves whilst dreamwalking thy mind,” she chuckled. “If thou dost not mind, we would like to try again. This time, we shall endeavor to wake thee whilst thee art still in a dreaming state. And if thee dost not object, we wouldst like to invite my sister and the Element of Kindness to join us.”

“Sure. No problems,” Reggie said, shrugging, quite puzzled by what was wrong.

Reggie strode through the barn in his family’s farm, looking about with fondness. The sunny daylight filtered through many gaps in the crude cut lumber that had been used to build the structure to illuminate an infinite number of dust motes in their beams.

“Well! This art much an improvement over the last time!” he heard a familiar voice behind him.

He turned to look and beheld a dark blue/black horse fluttering its wings to fold along its sides. Wait! Not a horse! A pegasus…but with a horn…

“Luna?” he inquired.

“Indeed,” she said. “At least, we art this time! Dost thou remember the last time we spoke?”

“Uh—no, I’m sorry,” he said. “This is the first time I saw you.”

“True—at least to some extent,” she muttered. “This indeed is the first time thee seest us as we art.”

“I—don’t understand,” Reggie said.

“Perhaps thou will when you speeketh with my sister,” Luna said, giggling. “Here she art now.”

Reggie turned back around and was astonished to see two huge creatures that were quite reminiscent of the Xenomorph queen from the Aliens movie, sans egg-laying uterus for the both of them. Only the creatures were improved models over the movie’s monster. For one, in addition to the insect-like limbs of the original movie monster, they both had three long tentacles jutting out from each of their sides, looking much like the serrated, segmented tails they sported. Also, they both had feathered wings, but the feathers looked to be made of the same chitin substance of their bodies. Plus, one of the creatures was canary yellow and the other a brilliant white. And the white one had a horn on her head.

Before Reggie could react, the canary yellow monster took one look at its companion and promptly screamed, running past Reggie to hide and cower behind the dark blue horned pegasus. Reggie blinked and was astonished, not sure how to respond to that behavior.

“My! My! Aren’t I the cuddly one?” the white monster spoke with an amused voice that sounded a bit more than suspiciously like Celestia’s.

“Thy art, indeed, sister,” Luna chuckled. “But we art afraid thy appearance art having an adverse effect to the sanity of Kindness just now. Canst thou address thy form whilst I assist with our pegasus friend?”

“Uh—can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Reggie asked.

“This is how thy dreams hath changed us,” Luna told him as the ruler’s horn glowed with a pale blue light and a like aura enveloped the monster cowering beneath Luna’s tail. “The first meeting in thy dreamscape, we were changed to such as this, too! It was quite an unnerving experience to not being what we art until we could counter thy magic upon us.”

As she finished speaking, the canary yellow monster was now a canary yellow pegasus with a pink mane and tail and sporting an odd brand on her flanks. But she was still trembling and keeping her eyes shut as she cowered on the ground. It was only then that Reggie noticed that Luna had a crescent moon on her own dark rump.

“That was a most unusual experience,” Celestia said. When Reggie looked at her again, the creature had morphed into a taller, white furred version of Luna. Alicorn, as he recalled the word Fluttershy had used to describe the princesses.

“It is okay, Element of Kindness,” Luna gently said to the pegasus. “Thy nightmare form is nothing to worry about. This hast merely been part of Reggie’s nightmare.”

“I don’t feel this is a nightmare,” Reggie muttered. “This just feels like a weird dream.”

“Be that as it may—” Luna began.

“—‘tis perhaps time thou art awoken,” she finished and Reggie snapped his head up in utter darkness.

“Whoa! That was a weird one!” he exclaimed.

“What dost thou remember?” Luna asked.

“A blue and black pegasus, but with a horn and a white crescent moon somehow branded on her rump,” Reggie recounted. “And there were a couple monsters that came straight out of Ridley Scott’s head that changed into horses. I mean—a horny white pegasus and another yellow pegasus but without a horn.”

“The dark alicorn thou met art our actual appearance,” Luna told him, stressing the word “alicorn”. “The white alicorn wert my sister, Celestia. The other pegasus in thy dream wert the Element of Kindness, the one thou knowest as Fluttershy.”

“She’s yellow,” Reggie recalled. “Canary yellow in fur and wings, but with a pink mane and tail. And some sort of odd brand or tattoo on her rear.”

“Those art butterflies, as befitting her name,” Luna explained. “’Tis called a cutie mark.”

“That’s what you guys really look like?” Reggie asked, excited.

“Aye, ‘tis indeed,” Luna replied.

“Wow! So strange! Not like horses at all! And yet so real!” he whispered. “Thank you! Thank you for letting me see you guys!”

“’Tis our pleasure,” Luna responded. “Although, we must take our leave from thee momentarily. The experience, we art afraid, hast no doubt upset the Element of Kindness. We shall return.”

The rest of the night continued in much the same manner when Luna returned about an hour later. Reggie was introduced to the two guards he had met in the hallway, and then later introduced to what Luna described as the other Elements of Harmony.

But in the morning, like he had warned, Reggie had great difficulty remembering specifics about the ponies he met in his dreamscape. What he could recall were mostly just impressions about Fluttershy’s friends. Pinkie Pie was friendly, albeit scarily so, for some reason. The one called Rarity seemed nice enough, but her effort to display an artificially cultured attitude was off putting. Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Princess Twilight Sparkle were all quite intelligent, but each displaying different aspects to their intellect. Applejack’s was based deeply on common sense with a quit wit and a very practical outlook, greatly reminding him of the girls from around his home town. Rainbow Dash was also a personality that displayed common sense but was tempered with a sly cunning and feisty attitude that greatly appealed to him. The third alicorn, on the other hand, was powerfully book smart, analytical and a very sharp mind which was good at ferreting out details from the littlest of clues.

And when Celestia joined them, Reggie was completely worn out and was ready to forgo anything to eat so that he could retire. He had never remembered a night where he had dreamt so much, but the constant waking in the middle of his dreams meant that he never quite got rested. However, both Celestia and Luna insisted that he eat before being allowed to return to his room, citing how much healing he still had to do.

When he was able to return to his room, he noticed how foul his underarms had gotten, but he didn’t care. Stripping down to his underwear, he went straight to bed, groaning as he pulled the covers over his head.

Obsidian Horns And Black Rainbows

“Hello there!” someone shouted, waking Reggie up from a sound sleep. “It’s so nice to finally meet you in ponyson! I’m Rarity! You must be Reggie!”

“Whut?” Reggie moaned, pulling the covers off his head. “What time is it?”

“It’s ten o’clock, so we’ve got to get started!” the unknown pony cheerfully said. “I know you humans have a pathological need of clothing to cover yourselves, and considering I’ve seen how your kind has such patchy areas of fur barely covering your hides, I can understand why. It’s positively mangy-looking! No wonder the Cutie Mark Crusaders were traumatized! Fortunately for you, the Princesses have commissioned me to design enough outfits to last you your stay with us. I’ll have you looking fabulous in no time!”

“Um—” he muttered, trying to think and grimaced. “Well, I guess I do have to get that taken care of. And pretty quickly, too, since I’ve gotten rather ripe already. The first thing I’m going to need, aside from a shower, is enough sets of underwear and then the outer garments. Does this place have any sort of laundry facilities?”

“Why, yes! It does!”

“Good,” Reggie said, considering the problem as he stood up out of bed and made his way to the restroom. “It would helpful if you can duplicate the items I’m wearing right now. I think about fifteen of each for now, if you’ve got something as soft yet durable as this cotton. Apologies for the odor, though. I’ve been wearing this set since I got out of the hospital. I’ll pass them out to you and take a shower. You probably should get them washed before trying to take measurements off them.”

However, before Reggie could close the door, he felt a warm tingle envelop his entire body and he was lifted off the ground.

“Hey! What are you doing?” he yelled.

“Measurements should only be taken directly from the pony who’s going to be wearing the garments,” Rarity haughtily said, setting him down somewhere he had no idea. “Absolutely not form another set of garments! Doing it like you suggested, Darling…that just isn’t done!”

“Seriously? Trust me, you don’t want to do that,” Reggie warned her. “You really, really, want me to go take a shower right about now!”

“Don’t be silly,” she scolded him. “It won’t take but a min—Oh! Gyahh! Sweet Celestia! Go! GO TAKE A SHOWER!!”

“Can you please send me back to the bathroom door?”

The warm tingle enveloped him once more and he nearly toppled into the restroom. After removing his undergarments and tossing them out the room, Reggie was snickering to himself the entire time he was in the shower.

After cleaning up, he toweled himself dry and started thinking of his options. Even though these creatures apparently didn’t go about with clothing, he didn’t feel comfortable doing the same.

After groping about the restroom for probably half an hour, all he had was the towel he used to dry himself off with and its like-sized mates. So, with it wrapped around his waist, he opened the door to the sleeping chamber.

Immediately, some force yanked the towel away from him.

“Hey!” he yelled as the tingling feeling washed over his body again and he felt himself moved.

“Now, about those measurements, this won’t take but a jiffy,” Rarity stated. Reggie just had to stand and wait.

But as he stood there, occasionally lifting or lowering an arm at Rarity’s instruction, he began to be aware of an extremely low pitched hum hovering about his head. It was very difficult to locate and even harder to identify.

A bug? he thought. Or something else? If it was a bug, it must’ve been fucking humongous, as he heard it flit from one side of his head to the other as Rarity moved about taking her measure of him, sometimes buzzing right in front of his face. The noise was like the blade slap from a helicopter.

For a moment, a slight breeze wafted across his face, carrying the odor of hay at the same moment he knew Rarity was to one side, still measuring his arm.

Reggie inwardly smirked, being sure to keep his face neutral.

He continued to just stand there until Rarity was finished.

“Okay! All done!” she cheerfully told him, her voice sounding odd as if she was trying to suppress a giggle.

“Good,” he muttered. “Now, about that towel you yanked from me,” he began, but was cut off when he felt a large cloth drape over him.

“There you are, darling,” Rarity said as he felt a portion of the fabric tie itself into a knot over his shoulder. “That toga should do you until your clothes come back from the laundry.” Reggie felt over his body, and found he was indeed wearing a Greco-Roman style toga.

“Th-thank you,” he said astonished. “H-how did you even know how to make one?”

“A previous visitor from your world taught it to me,” she explained.

“Oh, okay,” he muttered, straining his hearing to locate that loud hum. “Uh, can you please direct me to the bed? I need to collect some items from there.”

“It’s directly behind you, darling,” Rarity told him, “about three of your strides or so.”

“Thanks,” he said, turning about face and taking the three steps, and slowed. Another half step and he felt the edge of the bed against his knee.

Just as he had hoped, the subsonic hum followed him and moved about to be in front of him.

Then the slightest breeze touched his face again and his hands suddenly shot out, each luckily contacting and grabbing a target and he was rewarded with a surprised squawk. With a mighty heave, he spun 360, lifting the object up before slamming the hovering pegasus down onto the bed, eliciting a yelp from it.

Behind him, he heard Rarity giggling.

He shifted his grip, following the limbs he held toward the creature’s body and found he had initially grabbed the pegasus’ right foreleg and rear hind leg.

“The princesses need to do something about the horseflies here, Rarity!” Reggie said as he leaned forward close to the being’s face and smiled. “I just found a fucking huge bug buzzing about my room!”

“Okay! Okay! You got me!” a gravelly female voice called out laughing.

“So, who are you?” Reggie demanded.

“Rainbow Dash, of course,” she said. “As if you couldn’t tell! Ain’t many pegasi out there with this style of mane.”

“Rainbow Dash….the pegasus friend of Fluttershy,” Reggie tried to recall her.

“Yep! That’s me! The one an’ only! Now, willya let me up?”

“You do know I can’t see, don’t you?”

“Oh! Really? Wow! I guess that explains why you weren’t reacting to all the faces I was making at you,” she ruefully chuckled as he released her. “I just thought it was because you were like all the guards here Princess Celestia and Luna hire. Good catch, by the way. I almost got away before you grabbed me. I’ve usually got better reflexes than that.” That made Reggie laugh.

Yeah, he remembered something about her from the dreamwalking experiments Luna did last night. She was the cocky little rascal, wanting to join some flying team.

“So what brings you here?” He could tell from the nearly subsonic noise of her wings beating the pegasus had resumed hovering nearby.

“Flutters asked me to stop in and see how you’re coping,” she told him. “And I told Rarity to not let on that I was here. Didn’t expect you ta be so entertaining!” He could literally hear her grin when she said that.

“Well, come along now. It’s time for you to speak with Princess Celestia,” Rarity called, pulling his hand through her telekinesis. “We don’t want to be late.”

“Those other humans you mentioned, were they the ones that came and went by a spaceship?” he asked.

“Why, yes!” she responded. “How did you know?”

“Celestia and Luna told me,” Reggie replied. “Those people weren’t from my planet. But it is curious that they apparently had the same form, and now clothing. By the way, just a small thing that’s been bugging me since you arrived, have we met before?”

“We most assuredly had!” she exclaimed. “Last night, in fact, when Luna brought you around to see me during her dreamwalking.”

“Ah, that explains it,” Reggie said, nodding in understanding. “Then you’re the—unicorn, right? White fur with dark blue trim?”

“I beg your pardon?” Rarity asked evidently offended.

“To be honest, I don’t remember much of the dreamwalking,” Reggie explained. “As I told Luna and Celestia, we humans simply aren’t wired to remember our dreams very well. Unless the dream was particularly vivid, we often forget we ever had it. And even in cases where we do remember them, most times, it’s just impressions or emotional features that stay with us. Details of who or what we experience quickly get washed away over time.”

“Oh, you poor thing! You told us the same when we met. We ponies remember all our dreams. But for you to not remember almost half your life?” she exclaimed. “So you really don’t remember us?”

“I remember—something about you guys,” Reggie admitted. But he was also feeling the opportunity to get back at them opening up right then. “It’s easier to associate the types of critters you are to some glaring colors I remember. Names—and what you do—that’s tougher, I’m afraid. Sorry. But some parts are easier than others. Almost certainly the one who’s supposed to be in weather control has to be a pegasus, but I know it’s not Fluttershy.”

“Yep! That’s me!” Rainbow Dash happily announced.

“Okay, that makes sense,” Reggie said, nodding. “So, you’re the purple one with the hat, right?”

“WHAT?!?” Rainbow Dash angrily screamed as Rarity burst out laughing.

“And the one that’s all pink is Applejack, I think. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the blue one with the rainbow mane and tail. Was it Twilight Pie or Sparkle Pink?”

“I think you’re going to need a few more dreamwalking sessions to straighten us out in your mind, darling,” Rarity said giggling.

“I’d be happy to bop him back ta sleep so Luna can fix him, like right away!” the pegasus yelled, swatting a hoof at his shoulder.

“Hey! What’s wrong? What’d I do?” Reggie defensively asked.

“Now, now, Rainbow, dear,” Rarity scolded her friend. “Please remember he can’t see us.”

The pegasus grumbled behind him as they continued walking, while Reggie smirked with his hand on Rarity’s withers, confident the unicorn wouldn’t be looking back at him to see him grinning for pranking them both by mixing up all their names and descriptions.

The Dark Menace

Reggie knew from the turns they took that he was being directed to a part of the castle that he hadn’t been to before. But from his experience of hearing the guards stamp their hooves before opening a set of double doors, he knew he was entering another large chamber.

“SURPRISE!” several voices suddenly yelled out at once.

BAMMF! sounded and he felt a blast of wind strike his face.

Then he was on his back, screaming as his eyes burned like they were on fire. Instincts tried to make him claw at his orbs to remove the intense burning sensation, but despite his agony, he had enough awareness to fight that impulse, knowing that he could permanently lose his eyes if he tried to rub the irritant out of them. And while he forced his hands to merely shield his eyes, his fingers clawing at his forehead, he could feel some sort of debris sticking to his face under his palms.

“Hold still, Reggie,” he heard someone calmly speaking to him, the voice getting through his mind despite his screams. He tried, but keeping control of his fingers and hand was as much as he could manage in his agony; the rest of his body was on full auto-writhing. “We’re here to help! Try to relax!”

He felt his frame being pulled and straightened from his fetal curl, his hands forcefully removed from his face, his head held still from violently shaking side to side, and his eyelids forced open, exposing his burning organs to the naked air. Then he felt several somethings being removed from his face and eyes. All through that, he continued to scream in pain. Finally, the worst of the burning in his eyes faded to where it was just an intense stinging, still painful, but at least sufficiently reduced to where he could get control of his outcries.

“It’s still burning!” Reggie grunted, struggling against the restraints holding him from moving.

“I’m here, Reggie,” a new voice said. He recognized it was Doctor Splint. There was a new sensation of tingling on his eyes added to his already burning sensation, which was very unpleasant. “Yes, that’s to be expected. There is considerable scratching to the cornea and sclera, but all the confetti and debris have been removed. You may still feel like there’s something in there, but your eyes should heal up in a few days. I’ll make sure to provide you eye drops. Can I assume you know how to use them?”

“What the fuck hit me?” Reggie exclaimed as whatever was restraining him lowered him to the floor then removed. Once released, he quickly scrambled back, crab-walking until he came up against a wall.

“Are you okay, Reggie?” Celestia asked, her voice carrying concern.

“Fuck, no, I’m not okay!” he yelled, cringing from whatever other hazard might be lurking in that room. “I nearly lost my fucking eyes!”

“I’m very sorry!” another voice, this one very high-pitched, yelled out. “I expected you to blink when I shot my party cannon! That’s what every other pony does!”

“What th—WHAT THE FUCK?” Reggie exclaimed, keeping his eyes shut and turning away from that voice, as he kept an arm up to protect his face. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?”

“I said I was sorry!” that new voice spoke up again. “Everypony loves my party cannon! I use it to shoot out confetti and balloons! It’s great for getting celebrations off with a bang! This was supposed to be your Welcome to Equestria Party! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for you to get hurt!”

Reggie was stunned speechless for nearly a full minute as his mind tried to process what he had been told. In the meanwhile, he was finally able to get his hyperventilating under control, and a cold calculated hatred began to form in his heart.

“Wait,” he growled. “You use an air gun to blast confetti and shit into people’s faces?”

“Well, not an air gun,” the being said. “A party cannon! But, yeah!”

“And were you not informed that I’m blind?”

“Of course I was, silly!” the monster told him. “We met during last night’s Dreamwalking! I’m Pinkie Pie! Glad to finally meet you in ponyson!”

It was nearly another minute before Reggie could speak again.

“ARE YOU SOME BAT-SHIT CRAZY STUPID FUCKING INSANE IDIOT?!?” he suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs. “WHAT FUCKING MORON THINKS IT’S A GOOD IDEA TO SHOOT CONFETTI INTO A BLIND MAN’S FACE!? THAT’S JUST PURE FUCKING EVIL!! GET THAT PSYCHO BITCH AWAY FROM ME BEFORE I SHRED HER TO FUCKING PIECES!!”

There was silence for several moments. Then someone, possibly that insane Pinkie Pie, suddenly screamed out her sobs as she ran away.

“Well, tha’ party shur wuza flop!” Reggie hear someone with a strong country accent mutter.

“That was so-o-o awesome!” someone else shouted out. “Did you see the look on their faces?”

“Knock it off, Discord,” the country accented one shot back. “’Twern’t funny at all!”

“I think that’s been enough excitement for one day, everypony!” Celestia sternly cut in. “I deeply apologize, Reggie. I certainly didn’t expect you to be injured by this welcoming celebration. Doctor Splint, please assist Reggie back to his room.”

He sighed as he lay back, partially sitting in bed. He kept his eyes closed as that was less painful that trying to blink. Fucking things are going to unbearably itch for days, if not weeks! he thought, slipping over to his side. He had once accidently scratched one of his eyes a few years ago on the edge of a paper sack, so he knew what to expect from the coming days.

“Um—Reggie?” Fluttershy’s soft voice spoke, jolting him out of a light dozing that he had just entered.

“I—I know you’re hurting,” she continued. “But if you’d like to talk, I’m here. That is, if you don’t mind.”

His body jerked and he hissed as the sharp fiery cuts on his cornea rubbed against the inside of his eyelids.

“Hi, Fluttershy,” he groaned, sitting up and turning about to sit on the edge of the bed so he could face her.

“I’m—I’m very sorry you got hurt,” she told him.

“Well, you weren’t the one who shot that shit into my face, were you?” Reggie asked.

“Oh, no! I would never do that!” she softly exclaimed.

“Good! Because I don’t ever want to have to deal with the one who did,” he growled. “Who was it that did it, anyhow?”

“P-Pinkie Pie,” the timid pegasus admitted. “But she didn’t want to hurt you, either! Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive her?”

“Don’t tell me that you’re crazy, too!” Reggie exclaimed, hissing as his reflexive eye movements sent renewed fiery pain through his eyes. “Seriously? How can I ever forgive someone like that?”

“But she didn’t mean for you to get hurt! It was an accident! She’s very, very sorry!” Fluttershy explained. “And you did forgive Ralf for hitting you on the head and causing your blindness to begin with.”

“That’s way different!” Reggie countered. “For one, I was the scary alien bug showing up from out of the blue on his doorstep, and he thought I was about to attack his partner. I understand about him doing his duty, even if he was a little excessive in whacking me.

“And there’s just the slightest chance that my vision might return,” he continued. “But for that to happen, I’ll still have to have a working set of eye balls! It won’t do me a damned bit of good for this concussion to heal if my eyes get torn out of their sockets!

“But that Pinkie Pie was recklessly irresponsible!” he pointed out. “Anyone with a lick of commons sense would know not to blast anyone in the face with an air cannon full of confetti, much less a blind individual! You just don’t do that to a person! Even you said you wouldn’t do something like that!”

There was silence between them for several long moments. Then he felt her hoof gently lay on his thigh.

“But she’s my friend,” she begged. “And I’d like to think I’m your friend. And friends forgive each other.”

“That—creature—is not my friend!” Reggie growled. There were several more moments of silence before he could speak again. “I’m sorry, Fluttershy,” he told her. “You’ve been nice to me and I appreciate it. I do. And I’d like to think that we could be friends, too, although, I have to wonder how you can chose to have such a friend as that thing. But be that as it may, you’ll just have to accept that even friends of friends don’t necessarily have to be friends with each other.”

A sudden sobbing by the door burst out and there was the sound of hoof beats running away.

“What th—she was here?” Reggie exclaimed as he realized that that monster had been in the room the whole time and instantly covered his eyes with a hand.

“S-s-sorry! Sh-she was hoping you’d find it in your heart to be willing to forgive her,” Fluttershy explained. “She was so worried you were still mad at her that you’d not let her get close enough to apologize.”

“I don’t care if she apologizes or not,” Reggie hissed as renewed pain shot through his orbs, but it wasn't nearly as painful as the feeling of betrayal he felt. “I just never want her close enough to ever repeat what she did to me! If you’d like us to remain friends, you’ll keep her away from me!” he shouted, jerking his leg away from her touch.

“I’m—I’m—I’m s-s-sorry,” she whispered. She waited a while for Reggie to respond, but he refused to acknowledge her. Finally, she departed.

Black Jack

“Ah’m shur his eyes’re still smartin’ from tha party cannon mishap, Pinkie,” Applejack told her sobbing pink friend. “Ah’m ‘fraid yer jus’ gonna have ta wait fer him ta git over it, ya know.”

“But it’s been like three hours, already!” Pinkie Pie wailed. “How long can somepony hold a grudge?” Applejack stared deadpan at her. “PLEASE!!” Pinkie pleaded.

“Awright,” Applejack said with a sigh. “Ah’ll go talk ta him.” Although, she knew it wasn’t going to do any good. Pinkie clearly went too far with her prank when the human got blasted in the face with all that confetti.

“I—I should come with you,” Pinkie begged. “You know, just in case he changes his mind!”

“Ah don’ think tha’s sucha gud idea, sugar cube,” Applejack gently replied. “Ya know how tha’ didn’ work out so well whenya went wi’ Fluttershy earlier. Ya jus’ stay here an’ let me talk wi’ him. Ah’ll let ya know ifn there’s any change.”

“Hiya, sugar cube,” Applejack softly called as she entered Reggie’s suite. “Real sorry ya got hurt ‘n all. Ah know yer probably wantin’ ta rest up, but since ya weren’t able ta stick around, thought maybe ya might wanna have somethin’ ta eat. Ah know whenevah ah get hurt, ah always heal up faster if’n ah got somethin’ ta eat before tryin’ ta rest up from it.”

The human responded with a questioning groan as he sat up from his fetal curled sleeping position.

“What’dja say?” the creature asked, finally waking up.

“Ah said Ah’m real sorry ‘bout wha’ happened back ata party,” she replied. “Whenevah ah get hurt, it’s best ta get somethin’ ta eat before going ta bed ta rest up from it. Ah brought along sum apple pies ‘n sum apple fritters fer ya.”

“Just so long as you didn’t bring any Pinkie Pie,” he said, cringing as he shifted to sit on the side of the bed.

“Nyah, no Pinkie Pie,” Applejack sighed. “Didn’t figure ya’d wanna see her so ah didn’t bring her along, but ouch, all th’ same.”

“Thanks for the food,” Reggie finally said. “And thanks for not bringing her.”

“Sure thing,” she responded. “Ah’ll jus’ set it up on th’ dinin’ table here.”

“Ehh, where’s that?” he asked, turning his head this way and that.

“Oh, over here, in th’ middle of th’ room,” she said. “Let me getit all setup here ‘n ah’ll guide ya.”

“Here ya go,” she said as she stepped up beside him. His hand brushed against her hat as he felt for her withers, and he snorted a laugh for a moment.

“Feelin’ better?” Applejack inquired. He bent down so he could put his mouth close to her ear.

“Rainbow Dash isn’t here, is she?” he whispered.

“Why? She do somethin’ ta ya, too?” she asked astonished.

“Nothing like that,” he said he said grinning. “I was messing with her head a little while ago when they came to bring me to the party.”

“Really? Whatja do?” Applejack eagerly asked, her eyes getting bigger.

“Well, I recall some of the stuff from last night’s dreamwalking with Luna,” he told her. “It’s not easy, but I made an effort to remember all your names with your coat and mane colors. Rarity had come in earlier, but I made the mistake of ID’ing her as the white unicorn. But while I was in the shower, Rainbow Dash had sneaked in and got her to cooperate with pranking me.

“Anyhow, I got her back by intentionally mixing up all your descriptions. I described Dash as the purple pegasus with the hat! And I described the pony with the blue coat and rainbow mane as being either Twilight Pie or Sparkle Pink. It was so cute the way she spassed out over it.”

Applejack roared with laughter.

“The unfortunate side of that, is I labeled the pink pony as you,” he admitted. “Sorry.”

“Ha! Ha! It’s okay,” Applejack said, laughing. “Ah’m not offended. That’s so funny! Ah’ll have ta find sum way of using that on ‘er! Tha’ Rainbow Dash shur isa hoot!” She guided him the rest of the way to the table so he could take his chair.

“It’s gud yer gettin’ yer sense of humor back,” Applejack said. “Ah’ll be shur ta tell Pinkie.”

“Please don’t!” Reggie angrily growled, suddenly serious. “I’m still furiously pissed at her. I’m probably going to be so for days if not weeks. Even though you guys assured me that you got all that shit out of my eyes, it still feels like something’s there. Every time I move my eyes or blink, it shoots a fresh load of needles into my skull! I’ve scratched my cornea once before years ago, so I know that this shit’s going to be hurting for days if not weeks. And I’m sure as hell not going to forgive her for shit while my eyes constantly feel like there’s sandpaper grinding on them!”

“Yeah, ah understand,” Applejack said, sighing. “Still, ah’m real sorry ‘bout that. Jus’ ta let ya know, Pinkie’s real sorry, too!”

“So I’ve been told,” Reggie said. “But as I told Fluttershy, your friend was totally irresponsible, to the point that she showed reckless disregard for injuries she could cause. I’m not normally one to hold grudges, but I can’t forgive her for that. At least, not yet.”

“Gotcha,” Applejack grimly acknowledged, knowing that Pinkie was going to restart the flood as soon as she heard. “Well, we’re still here fer ya.”

“Thanks,” Reggie said. “And thanks for the apple pies. These things are great!”

“Good ta hear, sugar cube,” she said, grinning. “Gladja liked ‘em.”

“’Fraid yer gonna hafta wait a bit longer fer him ta forgive ya, sugar cube,” she reported when she returned. Sure enough, the floodgates opened up. Applejack couldn’t tell which was worse, that or the wailing siren that accompanied it. She was only able to stand there for ten seconds before she turned and walked out, leaving Pinkie to be comforted by Fluttershy and Twilight.

Wandering about, she spied Rainbow Dash through a window as the blue pegasus hovered about looking over some of the statues in the Canterlot gardens, so she moseyed on out there herself. Quietly walking up beside Rainbow Dash, she stood there, staring at the same statue long enough to make sure Rainbow knew she was there. Then Applejack reached up and took off her hat and plopped it onto Rainbow Dash’s head.

“…” Rainbow reacted. “Th’ hay? What’s that for?”

“Ah’m jus’ tryin’ ta picture ya all purple,” she said, calmly looking at her pegasus friend. Rainbow Dash suddenly blushed so deeply her body did almost turn purple!

“Well, whadyaknow! It worked!” Applejack exclaimed, laughing, which only made Rainbow’s blush even deeper. “’N he’s right! Ya are so cute like that! Guess we can all say goo’-bye ta tha’ Sparkle Pink character tha’s been hoverin’ ‘bout here now tha’ yer lookin’ like that! Hee! Hee!”

“GYYYAAAHHH!” Rainbow angrily screamed and leapt.

Black Star

After Applejack left Reggie alone, he returned to thinking about where he was going to go from here.

He reflected that while he had talents for math and logical thinking, all the skills he had developed to use his talents required sight. But without a means to keep those skills active, he worried that his talents would atrophy.

While he considered his dilemma, he first retraced his steps back to the bed and then set his pacing to wander the confines of his quarters. Walking around the bed until he reached the wall, he found the nightstand where he had left his Chinese dragon medallion and paused to put it on. He traced his fingers over the intricate carving, trying to reimage the picture of the figure in his mind from touch.

But after a few minutes, he still was unable to recall it. Dejected by his failure, he resumed wandering about his room, following the wall around until he entered the bathroom. There, he paused to brush his teeth and wash his face before resuming his counterclockwise wander. Keeping his hand out to brush his fingers along the wall, he remapped out the furniture in his mind, trying to memorize his surroundings.

That, he considered was a weakness he had to overcome: memorizing. He knew he could instantly recall how to use math formulas once he viewed them, but to recall them straight from memory was something he wasn’t accustomed to.

Likewise for things like chess. He envied those grand masters who could play games solely in their minds without even having to view the boards. And would these creature even have something like chess or any board game that he could learn and use to pass the time? Thinking of ever being able to do such a thing seemed like such an impossible task that his tears began to flow unbidden from his eyes. But what other choice did he have?

If his sight ever returned, then wonderful! But what if it didn’t? Hope for his sight to return alone wouldn’t ever give it back to him. He had no choice other than to anticipate that it was never coming back. But he needed to survive! He WANTED to survive! He needed a different thing to hope for: a hope that he could learn how to survive without his eyes. And for that, he needed to overcome his weaknesses. Starting with his ability to memorize.

As he wandered the suite, he reached the entrance to what he recalled had been explained was the study.

“Books! A fat lot of good those will ever do me here!” he snorted as he was about to proceed through the doorway. But something stopped him when his fingers told him this doorframe, as did all the others, had a deeply carved molding about it. A couple pieces of thoughts came together at that moment. One was a recollection that physical exercise was supposed to boost memory. The second was this molding was just deep enough that if he…

In an instant, he gripped the doorframe by his hands and feet, shimmying up the side until he reached the top of the doorway only a few feet up above his head. After working his way to the middle, he began doing a series of pull-ups.

After doing thirty or so, his arms had reached their limit and he dropped to the floor and he worked his arms through their pain. As tears of joy slid down his cheeks, he recalled the irony that so many of his stronger-built classmates had so much trouble reaching that number and envied him for being able to do so many. But he secretly had known the reason he could do so many was because he was that typical “98-pound” weakling. His classmates, with their bulkier muscles, had so much more weight to lift, while his muscles were far weaker—they had far less to work against. Also, he always was able to do quicker sprints, but sucked for endurance when running.

Feeling satisfied for the short bout of pull-ups, he resumed the exploration of the suite, measuring out the dimension of the study. The room was quite large, with the walls all lined with bookshelves and filled with tomes. He didn’t try to explore the interior in case there were tables and chairs, but he definitely considered the size to be adequate to convert into an exercise room, assuming he could get the ponies to construct some for him.

Then he had to stop at the question that popped into his head.

If they’ve got hooves, then how is it that they have things like chariots with handlebars, and bookshelves full of books? Who’s building such things for them? he wondered. Unable to think of how they were doing it without asking someone, he resumed his pacing, making sure to go in a counter-clockwise direction.

And then promptly screamed when he walked into someone standing in the doorway and he stumbled back and fell hard on his back, painfully smacking his head on the floor.

“GODDAMMIT, YOU STUPID BLOODY HORSE! STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, PINKIE PIE! I DON’T CARE HOW MANY TIMES YOU COME BEGGING ME TO FORGIVE YOUFOR SHOOTING THAT SHIT INTO MY EYES, I’M NOT DOING IT!” he screamed, covering his face with an arm as he turned away from the menace.

“I’m-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you,” a voice called out that he didn’t recognize.

“Wait, you’re not that insane Pinkie Pie?” Reggie asked.

“No, I’m Twilight Sparkle,” the creature told him.

“Is she here?” he demanded, relaxing a tad bit.

“No, she’s not,” the pony said and Reggie was able to fully recover his control.

“S-sorry—sorry for yelling at you,” he told her. “That—that—thing—has been after me all day, trying to get close to me,” Reggie apologized. “She’s done enough damage to me, I just don’t want her to get anywhere near me where she can hurt me again.”

“She’s very, very sorry for hurting you,” Twilight Sparkle told him.

“I know. She’s your friend. And you’ve done your due diligence in passing along her apology,” he grumbled. “I understand.”

“Uh—something like that,” the pony said, actually sounding a little contrite.

“Well, like I explained to Applejack, it’s not always possible for friends of friends to be friends,” Reggie said, getting back to his feet. “You shouldn’t worry about it. It’s not something you or anyone else can control. So, you’re Twilight?”

“Yes, I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she said, with a bit of sharpness to her tone. “That would be me, the purple alicorn.” she stressed the word. “The one without the hat. And not known as ‘Twilight Pie’ or ‘Sparkle Pink’, either.”

“Heh! Sorry about that, too,” Reggie said, choking back his laughter. “I was just trying to prank that Rainbow Dash when I said that.”

“So I’ve been told,” Twilight responded, also with a chuckle. “You should’ve seen Applejack and her going at it—oh! I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have mentioned your sight!”

“No, it’s okay!” Reggie laughed. “I may have lost my sight, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to take on the ‘PC attitude’ over it that’s all the rage back home. I’m not going to let being blind cripple me from being able to participate in life, but I’m not about to let myself get offended over how we speak about it—that is crippling—for both sighted and unsighted people.”

“It’s—It’s possible to do that?” Twilight asked astonished. “To not let being blind stop you from getting around?”

“Oh, I know it’s not going to be easy,” Reggie told her. “One day, I will learn how to navigate without my sight. I just have to work at it.”

“That’s amazing!” she exclaimed. “So, is that what you were doing when you were hanging from the top of the doorway?” Reggie started at that.

“You were watching me do pull-ups?” he asked. “I never heard you come in.”

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I had opened the door and was about to call out to you when I saw you hanging there, pulling yourself up repeatedly. I was trying to figure out what you were doing. I’m sorry if I caught you doing something ponyal.”

“Oh, I was just exercisi—wait, ‘ponyal’?” he asked, only now catching the odd term.

“Yes, a ponyal matter is what somepony would consider—well—I guess—private,” Twilight explained.

Okay, that first pun was bad enough, but to explain it with one that’s worse…? he thought.

“Nyah, I was just trying out an exercise,” he explained. “I’m not a physical specimen by any stretch, but I had read about how regular exercise can help with improving a person’s memory, which is a major problem I’m going to have to work at fixing.”

“Oh, I see,” she replied. “Sort of like how Rainbow Dash is always doing calisthenics. Wingups and the like.”

“I guess,” Reggie said non-committedly, shrugging his shoulders. “Wait, ‘wingups’? Oh, she’s a pegasus and I guess that because she’s got wings—so is that anything like pushups, but with wings?”

“Pushups?” she asked.

“Like this,” Reggie said, dropping to the floor to demonstrate.

“YES!” Twilight exclaimed. “That’s exactly like it! But with wings! Oh, this is so wonderful when we have a breakthrough with our communication!” she said, making some sort of rapid knocking noise.

“Oka-ay,” Reggie muttered puzzled as he stood back up. “So, now what are you doing making that noise?”

“Uh—oh—do you mean me clopping my hooves together?” she asked. “Don’t you have a similar gesture for your hands to signify applause? I’ve seen you humans doing that in your world.”

“Oh, I see,” he said chagrinned. “Still a lot of things to get used to in this world, I guess.”

“Of course,” she replied. “And for us to get used to with you, as well. Like how your amulet glows with magic. I didn’t think humans had magic.”

“Say, what?” he asked, astonished.

“When you finished doing your exercise, I saw your amulet glow for a moment,” she explained. “I could tell it was magic.”

“This amulet came from my world,” Reggie told her. “We don’t have magic where I come from.”

“Of course it does—” she began, and Reggie felt the medallion lift off his chest, but the chain remained across the back of his neck. “That’s odd—I could’ve sworn it was radiating magic a little while ago, but it doesn’t seem to have any right now.” There was silence for a few moments. “Hmf! Maybe I was seeing things?” she said uncertainly as the medallion’s weight settled back onto his chest.

“Well, don’t ask me,” Reggie shrugged. “I certainly didn’t see it!”

“Would—would you mind if I can examine it?” she asked after several moments of awkward silence. Evidently, she wasn’t about to dismiss the matter.

“Well, if you promise not to damage it,” he said, taking it off and handing it to her.

“I promise,” she said, taking it from his grip.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Reggie spoke up, suddenly remembering something he wanted to ask. “About this study—um—since I’m not able to read anything—I wonder if it’s too much trouble if I could ask to convert this space into an exercise room?”

“I suppose so,” she replied. “What do you have in mind?”

“Back in my world, we have a piece of gear that is essentially a metal frame that holds a number of different weight resistance activities.”

“We can certainly discuss it,” she agreed. “You could try to show us during your dreamwalking session with Princess Luna, tonight.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” he said, nodding. “I don’t think that I could talk you through it and I certainly don’t think I could draw it without making a mess of the diagram. Showing such things through my dreams might be the easiest way for me to communicate with you. You may need to remind me, though, just in case I forget to mention it while I’m asleep.”

“I sure will! I’m adding it to my list right now!” she happily said, and Reggie heard something being scribbled onto some paper.

“Ri-i-ight,” he drawled, inwardly chuckling at the idea that someone would be able to bring a list written in the physical world into the world of dreams.

He resumed mapping out his suite, to which Twilight inquired about it.

“I’m just trying to get a mental image about how the room is laid out,” he explained. “It’s important for a blind person to become familiar with their surroundings.”

“But—,” she began, but then evidently rethought how she was going to ask her question, “so this is something you’ve knowledge about? So you’ve been blinded before?”

“No, this is my first time,” he said smirking, suspecting the direction where this questioning was about to go. “Why do you ask?”

“But, if this is the first time you’ve been blind, how can you know what a blind pony—er—person—does?” she asked.

“Because there are so many people with disabilities in my world. Blindness, deafness, paralysis and missing limbs, and so forth—there have been a lot of stories and movies dealing with such situations,” he explained. “Those stories often let us know how difficult the problems are for those suffering from them, as well as for their families and close friends. In addition, many of those accounts ended up helping others who also similar accidents after seeing those stories. Having a basic understanding of how people who successfully managed to push through their trauma, in many ways, they have really helped others get through bad times as well.”

“Wow!” she gasped in awe. “That’s so inspiring!”

“Yes, it is,” he agreed. “And I’d have to say the biggest lesson those stories tell us is that so many ordinary people can overcome such extraordinary obstacles. It lets us know that if they can do it, anyone can. Only problem is, in a way, it’s all kind of a lie. I don’t think those people who succeeded were really ordinary at all. They were very extraordinary. Folks like Helen Keller, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder were people who overcame their disabilities and became heroes in our world that both blind and sighted people look up to. And while there might be hundreds who also succeeded that we don’t hear about, there’s probably thousands who don’t make it—and of course, we won’t ever hear about them, either.

“I know that for a fact,” he said soberly. “I know several classmates who were disfigured or made 'different' in one way or another that either ended up dead or in jail.

“And I can’t help worrying that I just might end up failing as well,” he finished.

That evening, Twilight came by again to escort Reggie to Luna, where the Night Princess delved into the circumstances of his arrival, trying to isolate where the portal he came through was at this end.

“This is the cavern Queen Chrysalis stranded me in when she tried to take over Canterlot!” Twilight said, looking about the shared dreamscape. She asked Luna for permission to take control for a moment and they all were shown how the former unicorn Twilight had been stranded there. Reggie watched as Twilight’s memory replayed, showing a pink alicorn’s face that was projected on every one of the large crystal facets to taunt the imprisoned unicorn, and then the unicorn began randomly blasting those projections. Some of the crystals were destroyed and pieces scattered about the cavern until the unicorn eventually blew open the very same hole in the wall through which he had escaped.

“You did this?” Reggie asked, astonished, pointing at the stones glowing with a strong purple aura.

“Well, yes,” Twilight replied. “I was just trying random spells to blast my way out of there. I guess one or two of my blasts were just permanent lighting spells. That actually is a counter to a particular trapping spell. I didn’t know what Chrysalis had used, so I had to try everything I could think of.”

“They’re not radioactive, are they?”

“What? Oh! No. They’re not harmful,” Twilight quickly responded. “At least, I don’t think they are,” she awkwardly and uncertainly amended, looking at some of the debris.”

“At least we now know where to concentrate our search,” Luna announced. “Thank thee, Reggie. Thy cooperation hast been most valuable. We must awaken thee now, whilst thee art still in REM sleep.”

“Oh! But Princess Luna! There’s one more item left on the list,” Twilight spoke up, holding up a partially unrolled scroll.

Damn! She was able to bring it in! Reggie thought as he woke.

Reggie woke disoriented and in complete darkness, but the memory of the dream was still vivid in his mind.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that!” he muttered, feeling dizzy.

“But Princess Luna!” he heard Twilight exclaim suddenly. “His exercise machine!”

“Thou should hast remained asleep, Twilight,” Luna scolded her. “Reggie’s physiology dost not allow him to recall dreamwalking whilst sleeping beyond his normal REM cycle. He hast demonstrated an ability to return to slumber much faster than ponies can. But now, we must await thy return to slumber!”

Reggie groaned as he lay his head back down on the beanbag chair and tried to tune out their discussion.

The Goth Parade

Wearing the towel about his waist that he used to dry off from his shower, Reggie searched his room as he looked for a replacement bed sheet to make into another toga. But after going through all the drawers in the cabinets he could locate and a couple of closets, he still couldn’t find anything. What he did find, he had a hard time trying to identify just what they were—but whatever those items were, they weren’t bed linen.

“So where the hell did she find that?” he wondered aloud, thinking of Rarity.

There came a knock at the door to his suite and he heard a familiar unicorn’s voice call out to him.

“Yoo-hoo, darling!”

“Hi Rarity,” he replied. “Just one question: where did you find that spare bed sheet yesterday?”

“Oh, I waylaid one of the maids making their rounds in the corridor while you were taking your shower,” she replied. “I brought it in and waited for you to finish.”

“Huh! Okay, that makes sense,” he muttered.

“Well, as fashionable as I can make them for you to wear, wouldn’t you prefer to try out some of your own clothes?” she inquired.

“What? You’ve made a set already?”

“Indeed! So far, I’ve made six sets of everything you requested!” she cheerfully replied. “Now that I know how to make them, I’ll have the rest by this afternoon!”

“Wow! That’s fast!” Reggie was astonished.

“Oh, not at all,” she demurred. “Normally, I could have had anything like that whipped up for anypony by yesterday afternoon. But your body design is so much different from ours. At least I had your originals to use as a template, but I also had to wait for them to come back from the cleaners.”

“It just so hard to imagine how you can do all that with just hooves to manipulate things,” he explained. “Or would that be called ‘ponypulating things’?” he asked, grinning.

“Are you making fun of our language?” she challenged him.

“Oh, I would never do such a thing,” he instantly shot back. Then added, “Darling.”

“Hnf!” Rarity grunted. “You’re such a goader!”

“Ha! You guys should talk!” he responded with a laugh. “I mentioned that to Luna and Twilight last night. And that Twilight then proceeded to lecture me about how you guys are able to manipulate things with your hooves just as well as I can with my fingers. She just about talked my ears off.”

“She did, huh?” Rarity asked, a knowing tone creeping into her voice.

“Yep,” Reggie chuckled. “I dare say she had Luna asleep in fifteen minutes. Two hours later, she suddenly woke up, screaming about being late taking down the moon, or something.” And Rarity suddenly burst out laughing.

“Anyhow, you should try on your outfits,” she chided him.

“Although, I do have to tell you, I’m having difficulty in deciding what patterns to apply to the rest of your outfits,” she added. That gave him pause.

“Uh, I hope you used the same colors as the originals,” he said with a grimace while frozen in the middle of the act of putting on his briefs.

“Well, I couldn’t very well do that!” she protested. “I just had to try out different colors and patterns.”

“I see,” he said, nervously gulping. “So—uh—what am I looking at here?” he asked, looking down at what he was about to put on, dreading the answer.

“Oh, that one’s a solid dark green!” she happily told him. “All of the ones I delivered should go well with each other in any combination. There’s red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet, in addition to your original set of black and white.”

“Oh,” Reggie muttered, finishing putting on the brief, which actually fit very comfortably. “Each a solid color, I assume?” he ventured.

“For now,” she cheerfully replied.

Thank God for that, he thought. Although, how am I going to avoid the violet and orange? he wondered.

“This undershirt?” he asked with his hand on the top of the pile.

“Green,” she absently replied, so he quickly slipped it on.

“The next set, I’m thinking of a flower print pattern, but I haven’t decided upon the background colors yet,” she continued.

“I—ah—uh—think perhaps it’s best to stick with the solid colors, if you don’t mind,” he quickly cut in, thinking fast. “And I could certainly use a few more in the original black and white. Even though I might not be able to see them, I know what matches best with my skin tones and all,” he said, grinning to her. “And the nice thing about black is it goes perfectly with just about any other color, including itself, so that would save me having to worry about mixing up something that shouldn’t go together, like an orange undershirt, purple jacket and green trousers. Know what I mean?”

“Well, that’s true…” Rarity said, uncertainly.

“Oh, but there’s this little problem with my blindness, I can’t tell what’s what,” he jumped in once more. “Maybe—uh—maybe some embroidery on all the pieces that I can read using my fingers, someplace that wouldn’t need to be visible, but that I can find through feel. If you noticed, there are labels on the originals, perhaps you could put the embroidery in similar locations on a convenient inside band for the ones you make.”

“Oh, I guess I can accommodate that,” she responded. “What sort of embroidery?”

“Well, there’s an easy enough code that can be put on the areas where there are tabs or labels,” he explained. “I should be able to show you with a pencil and some paper.”

“That sounds delightful! I happen to have some right here,” she told him.

“Okay,” he said, sitting at the dining table. “I hope I don’t fuck these letters up too much.”

He proceeded to write out the standard three-letter abbreviations for the eight colors: BLK, RED, ORN, YEL, GRN, BLU, VIO, and WHT.

“Why, yes, that seems perfectly doable!” Rarity cheerfully exclaimed. “How clever!”

“But before you sew those letters into them, we should probably double check how good I wrote them with Luna tonight so we can make any needed corrections,” he said. “You know, it’s actually getting pretty damned convenient to have her as a backup for my sight. I think I’m finally getting over her being able to peek into my head,” he said, laughing. Then he sobered.

“It’s wonderful that you’re learning to cope, darling,” she kindly said, touching his arm with her hoof.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “It’s certainly been a big help. But I’m only just beginning to learn how to deal with it.”

He finished getting dressed, asking her to confirm the outer garments were also the green set so they would match his underwear. After that, she led him to breakfast with Celestia and Luna. There, he faced a bit of an unpleasant surprise.

“Good morning, Reggie,” Celestia and Luna both greeted him, and he responded in kind. But then he heard another voice speak up.

“Good morning! I hope you’re feeling better!” she yelled, making him both cringe and instantly cover his eyes from any unexpected blasts. He would recognize Pinkie Pie’s voice anywhere.

“Shit!” he hissed. “I really don’t need this…” he started, but the menace interrupted.

“Please!” she pleaded with him. “I’m really, really, really sorry you got hurt. And I’d like to make it up to you. I made you these!”

That made him pause.

“She made you a pair of protective goggles, darling,” Rarity softly told him. “Personally, I wouldn’t have made them look like that, but you might like to consider them. I think you might find them useful.”

Still extremely wary, the unicorn’s statement made him a little relaxed. He knew that her friends were just trying to get him to make up with and forgive this crazy monster. It was annoying, but to be expected. He just really wasn’t ready to give in just yet.

“Here,” she said, and Reggie felt an object touch his palm. Cautiously, he took it and used both hands to examine it. It did feel like a set of goggles, pretty little heavy and a bit thick, and the general shape felt almost like a set of Ray-bans.

Shrugging in defeat, he put them on, and found them to be surprisingly a perfect fit. He felt about the edges and confirmed they completely contacted his face all around his eyebrows, along the sides of his temples, followed the contour of his cheeks and bridge of his nose, all the while they gently yet snuggly gripped his ears.

“Not—not bad,” he had to admit. “Not too bad at all. But they are a little heavy.”

“That’s because they’re bullet proof!” Pinkie happily exclaimed. Reggie had to blink at that.

“Wh-what?” he asked startled.

“Well, they’re at least bullet proof up to a .357 Magnum,” she admitted. “They failed at anything more powerful. Sorry.” He had to laugh with a snort. No, he wasn’t ready to give in and forgive her, but he had to admire her persistence. And perhaps even her insanity, too.

“So how do they protect against your bloody cannon?” he shot back. “That thing’s got to be at least eight inches across according to what Luna showed me!”

“Twelve, actually! Sorry! Nope! Won’t hold up to that, either,” she instantly exclaimed. Then a pause. “Just kidding!” she quickly added.

“Well, just to let you know, I’m still mad at you,” he growled. “My eyes still feel like they’re on fire every time I blink or move them! I still think someone like you going about shoot shit into people’s faces is dangerously irresponsible. But—thanks,” he finally admitted. “I—I—appreciate it.”

“YIPPEE!” she suddenly screamed, making him instinctively duck.

“You’re kidding about testing them with bullets, right?” he ventured.

“Nope!” she excitedly yelled. “I also tried a Baretta Nano 9mm, a Glock 22, a Ruger P90 and a Smith & Wesson 500 on them, in addition to the Dessert Eagle 357!”

“Wait! How do you guys even have those? Or know what they are?” he dared to ask.

“Oh…I just found some lying around,” she answered evasively.

“What?”

“Pinkie does have a knack for coming up with the right stuff at the right time, darling,” Rarity told him.

“We’ve—found it—best not to ask about such things, Reggie,” Celestia finally spoke up. And Luna cleared her throat, but didn’t add anything.

As they finished breakfast, it was Rarity that suddenly came up with an idea.

“Princess Luna? Since we’re all here, would it trouble you too much if we could do a quick dreamwalk?” she asked. “Reggie devised an ingenious way for me to let him know what colors his outfits were, but when he designed the pattern, he wanted to confirm that his blindness didn’t distort his writing. It would only take a moment.”

“How difficult will it be for thee to sleep?” she asked Reggie.

“With a full stomach?” Reggie countered, almost laughing as he patted his belly. “In next to no time.”

In about fifteen minutes, it was over. Corrections were easily made to the shapes and placements of a few letters on the list, and Rarity was soon happily departing with it. And Reggie learned that Pinkie Pie had actually somehow electroplated a layer of iridium on the outside surface of his goggles, giving them a bit of a natural rainbow shimmer.

“How the hell did you do that, anyhow?” he had to ask as he remained inclined on Luna’s side.

“Oh, I just had Twilight melt some down and apply it to the goggles,” Pinkie Pie happily responded.

“I seriously hope you used a stable isotope of the stuff!” he growled.

“Oh, perfectly stable!” she cheerfully replied. “Best of all, it glows in the dark, without the need for magic!”

Reggie instantly ripped the goggles from his face.

“Just kidding!” the menace instantly piped up in singsong, giggling.

“Be thou not worried, Reggie,” Luna gently told him, putting an end to the menace’s antics.

He growled at Pinkie as he slowly put them back on.

“See? I knew you’d like them!” Pinkie cheerfully exclaimed. “Be seeing you, Reggie!” she called as she departed.

“But I won’t,” he shot back.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she sadly said.

“Well, it’s not like you’re the one responsible for that,” he emphasized. “Just the cuts on my corneas.”

“Reggie,” Celestia spoke up after the others left. “Please believe I do understand your irritation with Pinkie Pie. I was there and pulled the chaff from your eyes. But you simply must let go of your animosity toward her. You did for Ralph and Sam.”

“Look, Celestia,” Reggie said, trying to explain the difference. “Ralph is a guard. I showed up out of someplace I wasn’t supposed to pop up from. And because I had no way of knowing the statues I thought I saw were really your Green Berets and Navy SEALS, I made a stupid move. Ralph saw me as the alien bug his mother always warned him about, so when he thought I was about to suck the brains out of his partner, he whacked me. I’m blind as a result.

“Yeah, it sucks to be me, but I get it!” he continued. “He was just doing his job.”

“Of course, when I woke up in the hospital, I thought I was still on Earth. There was no reason for me to believe otherwise, so I naturally assumed you, Luna, and the doctor were all human. So, naturally, I got pissed at you. Trust me, if the exact same thing I just described had happened to you, you’d make the same assumptions, and you’d take the same actions,” Reggie finished.

“Hardly!” Celestia protested.

“You would, and you’d damned well know it!” Reggie instantly countered. “If you were struck blind and had reason to believe you were being held by a foreign power on this world, you’d be seriously pissed that you were attacked, especially since you’re are the ruler of one of the nations here! But if you later learned the reality was that you were on my planet when you were blinded? I do believe you’d have the wisdom to realize that scenario was much more forgivable than what Pinkie had done. And what she did shouldn’t be forgiven. It would be totally unforgivable for one of my people to do that to a blind person just for fun, much less to a blind guest from another world.”

Of course, you’d be lucky to live long enough for a human Pinkie to ever do that, he thought to himself, cringing. If you did end up on my world, you’d certainly be dissected long before our Pinkie could even say “shit!”

“You obviously don’t know me very well, Reggie,” Celestia testily responded. “I would forgive your human Pinkie for trying to throw me a party.”

“Well, then I don’t see any other option than that we’ll just have to agree to disagree,” he said shrugging his shoulders. “I’m sorry, but I’m not you, and I can’t easily forgive her for being so irresponsible.” And I can guarantee you wouldn’t forgive our lab boys for dissecting you because you wouldn’t be alive to do so, he sadly thought.

The Black Eye

A couple of days later, he came out of the shower wearing a towel only to walk into an apparent argument going on between the two pegasi friends of Pinkie Pie.

"No, Rainbow Dash!" Fluttershy was saying, barely above her normal barely perceptible whisper.

"Oh, c'mon!" the boisterous one was yelling at her usual volume, several magnitudes above the timid one. "It'll be awesome!"

"It would very rude and I won't do it!" Fluttershy responded, slightly more forceful.

"He won't mind! Will you, Reggie?" Rainbow countered, finally addressing him.

"Won't mind what?" he curiously asked.

"Ya see? He's willing to give it a try!" Rainbow crowed triumphantly.

"Wha—?" Reggie exclaimed, instantly worried about what he just got roped into.

"RAINBOW!" Fluttershy exclaimed at a normal person's speaking volume, which to the timid pegasus, must be the equivalent of screaming her lungs out. "He did no such thing!"

"What are you guys talking about?" Reggie demanded, starting to sweat despite the coolness of the air.

"I bet that with your blindness, she can't use—" Rainbow was saying, but then Reggie heard her voice cut off in a mumble.

"RAINBOW DASH!" Fluttershy exclaimed again, this time with real evident horror in her voice and there was what seemed to be the sounds of a struggle, but in midair, it was rather muted. "You stop this and apologize to Reggie right now!"

"What's going on?" Reggie asked, totally puzzled by what was going on.

"I—I'm s-s-sorry, R-Reggie!" he heard Rainbow Dash robotically tell him. "I—I sh-shouldn't have brought it up."

"Can someone please tell me what the fuck? Over!" Reggie demanded, getting irritated. He heard the timid pegasus gasp.

"Gya-ah-ah!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. There was the sound of something that greatly resembled a Warner Brothers' cartoon character shaking its head.

"There! Ya see?" Rainbow asked. "You can do it if you want!" The quite whimpering indicated this wasn't being addressed to Reggie, and it did nothing to clarify anything.

"Uh—guys? What's going on?" Reggie pleaded. "I just got out of the shower and I'd like to get dressed."

"So what's stopping you?" Rainbow Dash's voice carried over Fluttershy quietly saying, "We're sorry about interrupting you."

"Ri-i-ight!" Reggie sighed, dropping the towel.

"Oh, my!" Fluttershy whispered in exclamation.

"That right there was what was stopping me," Reggie muttered, pointing at them with his free hand as he picked up the set of briefs he had previously laid out for getting dressed.

"We're very sorry!" Fluttershy was saying, but whatever else she was going to say got lost when Rainbow Dash spoke up.

"Oh, so you've suffered from the Mange, like most humans," she said. "It's not like it's catching, is it?"

"RAINBOW DASH!" Fluttershy exclaimed, again with real evident horror and the sounds of a midair struggle resumed. Reggie snickered, imagining what was going on between the two of them as he finished dressing.

"I—I'm s-s-sorry, R-Reggie!" Rainbow Dash robotically said. "I—I sh-shouldn't have mentioned it."

"Gya-ah-ah!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed again, once more accompanied by that cartoon headshake sound effect.

"Guys, as entertaining as this must be for anyone seeing this, I'm afraid I'm missing quite a bit," he said, sitting down on the bed to face them. He patted the mattress beside him and said, "Come on and tell me what this is all about? And don't worry about me getting offended because I'm blind."

There was silence for several moments; the only sounds in the room were the slow beating of their wings.

"It's okay," Reggie said, repeating his patting on the bed beside him.

"You see?" Rainbow asked, and Reggie could feel the air pressure change to his right as she moved over to hover beside him. "He's cool with it!" she said.

"Uhm," Fluttershy groaned, still hovering somewhere in front of him.

"Really, I am," Reggie agreed. "I might not be willing to do whatever weird experiment you two are concocting, but I'm certainly willing to talk about it. Just discussing it won't annoy me. And if it's not harmful, I might even go along with it."

"Uhm, okay," Fluttershy finally said, and the air pressure change signaled that she was coming over to his left. "If—if you say so," she added.

"Well, I won't know that until we talk about whatever it is you're planning," Reggie responded.

"As you just saw, Fluttershy has this weird ability to make anypony do whatever she wants," Rainbow Dash began. "We call it—'the Stare'," she announced with dramatic effect.

"Uh, as you can see, Rainbow, I couldn't see her doing anything," Reggie said, turning to her to give the pegasus a deadpan look.

"Sure you could! Didn't you see it just then? She used it on me twice!" Rainbow exclaimed, but then stopped as Reggie continued his deadpan expression. "Oh—yeah—right," she meekly muttered.

"Anyhow, a cockatrice once tried to use his stare to petrify her!" Rainbow resumed her explanation. "But she beat him with hers!"

"And you want to see if Fluttershy can affect me, even though I'm blind?" Reggie asked.

"Exactly!" Rainbow crowed. "Part of me bets she can, but part of me doubts it'll work."

"Pr-Princess Twilight thinks my ability is a form of hypnotism," Fluttershy spoke up.

"And my blindness might prevent it from working?" Reggie asked, considering the matter.

"That's the idea, yeah!" Rainbow Dash agreed.

"Sounds reasonable," Reggie said with shrug of his shoulders. "What's it like being 'Stared' at?"

"It doesn't hurt," Rainbow said. "It's just—weird—like you know you don't want to do what she tells you, but you're doing it anyhow. And when it wears off, you're—well—feeling a little embarrassed, is all."

"Especially when you're doing something you should embarrassed for!" Fluttershy harshly said which to a normal person like Reggie, sounded quite gentle. But in the few days that he had known her, he had begun to pick up on her mannerisms.

"I don't see any harm in trying," he finally said after thinking about it. But just to be safe…

"Rainbow? Can you hand me my shades?" he asked, pointing over his shoulder to the night stand on her side of the bed.

"Sure," she said.

"Wow! Pinkie really did a job making these! And heavy, too!" she exclaimed as she set them into his grasp.

"Yeah, she did," Reggie admitted as he put them on.

"Cool colors, too!" Rainbow added. "But only about 20% as cool as me."

"Okay, so what do I need to do?" Reggie asked. "And please promise you won't make me walk about clucking like a chicken."

"Oh! I—I w-would never do that!" she whispered.

There was silence for several minutes while Reggie waited.

"um—I—I'm s-sorry," Fluttershy timidly spoke up. "I—I c-can't think of anything to make you do because you aren't being mean. I mean, I can't get in the mood to apply it unless you're mean. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I guess I can," Reggie said, almost laughing at her wordplay.

"Okay, how about—how about I give Rainbow Dash a nuggie and you make me apologize to her for it," Reggie suggested.

"Huh?" Rainbow only got out before Reggie reached behind him and grabbed her, pulling her shoulders into a firm grasp in his lap.

"Well, if it's okay with Rainbow," Fluttershy began.

"But that's just it," Reggie interrupted, even as the other pegasus was begging to be let go. "If she was okay with it, then there wouldn't be any reason to make me apologize, now would there?" Then he began roughly rubbing his fist into the top of her head, messing up her mane.

"HEY! CUT IT OUT!" the pegasus victim exclaimed.

"Y-yes," Fluttershy said, considering the matter. "That probably works."

"REGGIE! YOU STOP THAT RIGHT THIS INSTANT AND APOLOGIZE TO RAINBOW DASH!" she suddenly yelled.

Instantly, Reggie relaxed his grip on the feisty mare and let her right herself.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Rainbow," Reggie said, turning and cautiously reaching out to her. "Are you okay? I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked. He felt her sitting there and moved his hands up. "Here, let me straighten up your hair."

"Yeah, sure," the pegasus absently muttered.

When Reggie found her head, he suddenly pounced, putting her into a headlock and resumed rubbing the top of her head with his fist. "Nuggie! Nuggie! Nuggie!" he growled as he did so, over her exclamations of outrage. Then he burst out in laughter as he released her.

"Oh, God! That was funny!" he said among his guffaws. "I guess the Stare doesn't work on a blind person," he said, taking off his goggles to wipe the tears from his eyes.

The next thing he knew, he was finishing using a real brush on some pony's mane. He blinked, positive he had just been dreaming a moment ago, where he had…

"Whoa! What just happened?" he asked.

"Wow! It does work!" he heard Rainbow Dash exclaim from directly in front of him.

"I guess those goggles shielded him from the Stare," Fluttershy said.

"Wait? What?" Reggie stammered. "You mean it worked?"

"Yeah!" Rainbow spoke up excitedly. "The moment you took them off, she nailed you. You've been brushing my mane for a good five minutes!"

"I think it looks twenty percent cooler with it so neat, Rainbow," Fluttershy teased her.

"Ha! You wish! Now I've gotta bust a sonic rainboom to put the cool back in!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed over Fluttershy's giggling.

Hmf! That's so damned freaky, Reggie thought.

Night Court

Reggie was humming one of his favorite Country tunes, That’s The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia, while he took his shower, singing the lyrics within his head. But as he toweled himself off he mischievously got to thinking. There’s enough of the lyrics that he could change and make it fit for this place. It only took him a minute or so to come up with the perfect parody to the refrain while he got dressed, but it was another hour or so before he had the entire song reworked in his head.

Just for shits and giggles, he finally started to sing, just to feel how the new song worked on the tongue:

“He was on his way home from Canterlot

Been two weeks gone and thought he’d stop

At Billy’s to have a drink ‘fore he went home to her.

Reggie said, ‘Hello’

And he said, ‘What’s doin’, Regge?’

‘Red, sit down, I’ve got some bad news, and it’s gonna hurt’

He said ‘I'm your best friend and you know that's right

‘But your young mare ain't home tonight

‘Since you been gone she's been seein' that pegasus stud Jed.’

Well, he got mad 'n' he saw red and Reggie said ‘Boy, don'tcha lose your head

'cause to tell ya the truth, I been with her myself.’

“That’s the night the lights went out in Canterlot

That’s the night they skewered an innocent man

Don’t trust your soul to no Cloudsdale pegasus fliers

‘Cause the Princesses all have bloodstains on their horns.

“Well, Reggie got scared and left the bar

Flyin' on home 'cause he didn't live far

See, Reggie didn't have many friends and he'd just lost him one

My brother thought his mare musta left town

So he went on home and finally found

The only thing our Papa had left him was a gun.

“And he went off to Reggie’s house

A'slippin' through the backwoods quiet as a mouse

Came upon some feathers too small for Reggie to leave

He looked through the screen at the back-porch door

And he saw Reggie lyin' on the floor

In a puddle of blood and he started to flee.

“Well, the Luna Patrol was a'makin' their rounds

So he fired a shot just to flag 'em down

And a batwing guard grabbed the gun and said ‘why'dya do it?’

And Princess Luna said ‘Guilty’ in a make-believe trial

And slapped her guard on the back with a smile

Said ‘Supper's waitin' at home and I gotta get to it’

“That’s the night the lights went out in Canterlot

That’s the night they skewered an innocent man

Don’t trust your soul to no Cloudsdale pegasus fliers

‘Cause the Princesses all have bloodstains on their horns.

“Well they stoned my brother before I could say

The feathers he saw while on his way

To Reggie’s house and back that night were mine

And his cheatin’ mare ain’t never left town

That’s one pony that’ll never be found

See, little sister don’t miss when she aims her horn.

“That’s the night the lights went out in Canterlot

That’s the night they skewered an innocent man

Don’t trust your soul to no Cloudsdale pegasus fliers

‘Cause the Princesses all have bloodstains on their horns.”

“Yeah! That sounds about right!” Reggie said to himself, laughing.

“HOW COULD YOU EVEN THINK OF SOMETHING SO HATEFUL AS THAT!?” Fluttershy suddenly screamed, making Reggie jump and scream in surprise.

“Wha—? Who—?” he gasped, but all he heard was the sound of retreating hooves running over the floor.

“Where the hell did she come from?” was the only thing he could think to say when his heart slowed down enough to breathe and think again.

Reggie finished singing the original version of the song to princesses so that they could understand the context.

“Honestly, I didn’t mean anything disrespectful about it,” he explained when he was finished. “It’s an old country song, decades old and just happened to be a favorite of mine. Well, while I was taking a shower, this current situation I’ve found myself, the rewording of the refrain just spontaneously came to me. It sounded so good, I just had to make a stab at the rest of the song. It was just a parody, like how Weird Al Yankovic did. A joke. Nothing to be taken seriously. And I certainly didn’t expect anyone else to hear it.” Even here, he thought, royalty can be such royal snots when it comes to their image. I gotta be careful not to lose my head over stupid shit!

There was a long period where neither of the princesses said anything, and the only sound was some shuffling of some papers.

“Looking over the two versions, we believe thy meant nopony to hear this altered version,” Luna finally stated. “While thy alterations were certainly not flattering, and thyself were darkly a butt of this, you call a joke, as the Reggie in the song was murdered, we must commend thee on thy cleverness demonstrated by integrating parts of Equestrian society into the new song.”

"However, I must insist you refrain from ever singing this, or any song, that might impugn Luna's honesty and integrity," Celestia sternly said. "My sister has suffered greatly from whispers and rumors spread against her after her return from exile. I will not have her burden needlessly added to."

"Of course, I understand and again offer my sincerest apologies," Reggie said.

With the princesses evidently satisfied with the results, Reggie's escorts began to direct him to leave the throne room.

"Wait!" Luna suddenly called out.

"One last question," she said, when Reggie was turned back around.

"Sure, anything," he said, puzzled as to what was wrong now.

"The wording of these songs, it seems to be from the vantage of a female character," Luna said.

"Yes, that's correct," Reggie replied. "The original song was from the viewpoint of the sister of the man wrongly executed. The people mentioned killed were his friend and the missing wife. I pretty much kept that same idea with the parody."

"But this mentions feathers found on the trail were too small for 'Reggie' to leave, yet it mentions 'Little Sister' doesn't miss with her horn!"

"Yes, that's right," Reggie said, grinning.

"Then the murderer was, herself, an alicorn!" Luna triumphantly crowed.

"Ouch!" Celestia exclaimed. "Then this song names Twilight Sparkle as the real killer, Shining Armor as the wrongly executed, and Cadence as the cheating wife!"

"Who?" Reggie asked, suddenly befuddled.

"There are only four alicorns in Equestria," Luna explained. "My sister and myself, our niece, and her sister-in-law."

"I know of Twilight Sparkle, but I've no idea of her brother or this Cadence," Reggie protested. "Honestly, if I accidentally offended anyone with it, I most deeply and humbly apologize."

"But thou hast intended to hide the fact of the nature of the killer was an alicorn, didst thou not?" Luna demanded.

"Well, I had some problems with how to resolve the parody and still keep the same pace as the original," Reggie explained. "Changing it to feathers in place of foot tracks, and using her horn instead of a gun to kill 'Reggie' was the only way to fix it."

There was silence for several moments, and Reggie was seriously sweating about how much trouble he was really in for.

"Then our assessment for thy cleverness is double!" Luna suddenly said, laughing. "Please, you must give a performance when we canst arrange for Twilight Sparkle, Shining Armor and Cadence to hear thee."

"Wait! I thought you just ordered me not to sing it again," Reggie protested, utterly confused.

"Well, please no public signing," Celestia finally said. "But this will be for a private performance. We're curious as to whether any of them will be able to figure out the riddles you unwittingly put into your song."

Why am I suddenly getting the feeling this won't end well? Reggie thought.

A Long, Dark Summer

The days began to pass and eventually spread into weeks, with one of the princesses’ friends frequently stopping by to check on how Reggie was doing. As well as frequently having to ward off Pinkie Pie from approaching him, although it was Pinkie who often surprised him with another practical offering to him in lieu of her apology—the next time he met her, she presented him a collapsible blind-man’s cane.

“How did you guys even make this?” he had to ask. He was about to inquire about getting a simple stick that he could use, but this utterly shocked him. The collection of thin metal tubes and bungie cords has to require more than two honking big fingernails to enable it to be constructed.

“Oh, it was easy,” was as much as he could pull out of her.

And it did speed up his progress in learning how to get around.

Twilight Sparkle soon returned his medallion, apparently disappointed that she couldn't identify whatever it was she had suspected about it. But what was so mysterious about a hunk of rock that had fallen out of the sky back on Earth? It was just a bit of olivine mineral from some pallasites that had been reworked by a local jeweler.

Prior to her visit, Celestia warned him to not mention his song or the gathering the elder princess was planning. She wished to not alert Twilight as to the nature of the surprise that was coming. Apparently, there was some issue about being able to gather the other two princesses together that involved greater preparations or diplomacy than just sending out an invite. Reggie couldn't figure out the dynamics and didn't try to follow. If it kept him from singing something that might involve getting his head chopped off, he certainly didn't feel like rushing things.

On the other hand, Twilight did stop by rather frequently, trying to glean as much info about his world as she could in an effort to locate his home in relation to a place she claims to have visited. So far, though, his impression was that she was frustrated by her inability to find his Granville, Kansas in relation to her Canterlot High School, city unknown, state unknown, and quite possibly country unknown, too?

Rarity periodically came by to ask to design more outfits for him. Evidently, the pony found his body-shape an especially radical fashion challenge. Not that she didn’t still do outfits for her native species.

But one that had escaped Reggie's notice was, despite the fact that the princesses' acceptance of his explanation that the parody he had developed had not intended cause anyone harm, Fluttershy seemed to still not forgiven him. He apologized to her and she supposedly accepted it. Of course, she always had to complicate matters by instantly asking if he was ready to forgive her pink friend. However, he still wasn’t ready for that yet. And so, after that, the quiet pegasus began to shy away from him bit by bit. He hadn’t noticed she stopped coming by at all until after the fifth week or so. But the slack certainly seemed to be taken up by visits from the others.

But whenever there was a lack of Fluttershy’s friends coming by, he would strike up conversations with his guards, Ralf and Sam, or the set of daytime guards Celestia had assigned him, Mike and Scully, or even one of the princesses would wander by and talk for a bit.

Ironically, the one that visited him the least, aside from his later realization of Fluttershy’s absences, Applejack was the closest thing to someone from his home. Her accent certainly placed her as a country gal, if the creature had been human. But she only visited if she had a shipment to deliver from her farm to the castle. And from the times he was able to talk with her, he learned of several of her hobbies; chief of which, surprisingly, was rodeo!

Come on! Rodeo? They’re all already horses! What did they do? Ride one another in the competitions? He was sorely tempted to ask her about it, but he wasn’t THAT stupid! In this world, those were the sorts of questions that would no doubt quickly have him arranged with an appointment to see the vivisectionists!

And then there was Rainbow Dash.

“Heh! Yeah, Applejack’s pretty good competition,” Rainbow agreed. “She’s pert near as fast as I am, at least on the ground, an’ I’m pert near as strong as she is.”

“So I hear,” Reggie replied. “I wish I could see you guys compete. Sorry. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to be a good audience for you.”

“Cheer up! The doc says there’s a chance your sight will return someday,” the pegasus said, setting down on the bed long enough to drape a foreleg over his shoulder for a moment. Then she was back to hovering in the air in front of him.

“Yeah, I can only hope it will,” Reggie agreed.

He eagerly left the suite with her to walk the gardens as she would take that time to play up in the air. Even though he couldn’t accompany her up there, there was just something about being with the brash pegasus that appealed to him and made it worth the effort to go out and just hang around with her.

As she zoomed somewhere up there in the sky, leaving him to bask in the sunlight, Reggie finally got to thinking about why he was out there.

It was slow and subtle, but over the weeks, he began to really enjoy her company more than the others. This one could really make him laugh with the crazy shit and pranks she'd do, and he could tell that while she wasn’t quite intelligent in the way that Twilight was, Rainbow certainly was very smart. Plus, she had a down-to-earth wisdom in which she unwittingly rivaled Applejack in yet another field. Furthermore, Rainbow seemed to have a level of compassion about her, even though she tried to hide it with occasional jokes or a brashness that bordered on rudeness. But it all seemed to click with Reggie in the end.

And that’s when he realized with a start that he had begun to really appreciate this one, even as much as he had to rely on Luna as his substitute eyes at night.

But then, that brought up some disturbing considerations. Could he, or even should he, develop any sort of attachment to these creatures? They called themselves "ponies", which should put them off-limits due to the bestiality factor. However, he could tell just from feel that they weren't anything like small horses from Earth. Add to the fact they were intelligent, which counted toward the idea of having something to do with them. Then, there was his blindness, and whatever unknown amount of time that it might take to heal—lonely people sometimes start doing—stupid shit—when they get too lonely. Intelligent or not, he wasn't sure if that—he might, some day, do something rather stupid.

But what if there was nothing wrong with it? he began to consider. What if it was okay to have a relationship with one of these creatures? What then? Could I even attract someone as wonderful as Rainbow Dash? After all, she's got her own future to look forward to, her own relationships to develop.

That brought him to the final disturbing concern: even if he could build a relationship with her, didn't he have an obligation to ask the other pegasus about what she thought? After all, it was Fluttershy who invested her time and care to break through his panic and outrage when he woke up in the hospital.

That's when it dawned on him Fluttershy hadn't been coming by lately.

Was it because she was too busy to see him? Or was she still mad at him over that stupid song?

But then he realized, that if he asked her, he might have to explain why he was asking. He wasn't sure he was ready to go there just yet—doing so would mean he was really interested in that wonderfully crazy athletic pegasus mare.

But—wasn't he?

Blackwater

"I apologize for the taste, but do not let it go to waste," Zecora finished as she conveyed her instructions to him in rhyme.

Yeah, medicines,he morosely thought. Their tastes were evidently the same, no matter the planet, it seemed.

Reggie sniffed at the vial he held. It smelled okay. There was even a hint of strawberry in the aroma.

"Okay, bottoms up," he said before swigging the test tube up. He quickly swallowed the oily liquid, not wanting to try sampling the taste first. But there was no avoiding it as the last of the substance entered his mouth.

His body's reaction caught him totally by surprise as he spat the final few drops all over himself and perhaps a good portion of the room while his body went through involuntary convulsions at the foul taste.

"Sweet Sally Salmonella!" he screamed when he could breathe again. "What the fucking hell did you make this from? Liquid cow shit? GYAAHHH! This slime puke is worse than the vegetarian burgers they sell at Walmart! Br-r-rwa-ahh!"

"Did you have to spray it all over me?" Twilight asked, sounding as disgusted as Reggie felt.

"I was aiming for Zecora," Reggie growled at her. "At least you've got it all on the outside! It's nothing compared to how bad it is inside! GYAAHHH!" he exclaimed with an involuntary shudder.

"That's why I always step to the side, when I know my potions are going to go for a fly." Zecorra's voice clearly conveyed her humor at the situation.

"I've … begun to notice that," Twilight said, annoyance also clearly creeping into her voice. "But with so much of it on me, did he drink enough to do any good?"

"I also always make the doses a little more, when some of it is sure to end up on the floor," she replied.

"What the fuck happened to the God damned strawberries?" Reggie asked. "When I sniffed it, it smelled like strawberries."

"Well, I was able to mix the brew so as to not smell like poo," Zecora told him. "Unfortunately, there is little I can do for the taste. As a result, there's always some that's going to go to waste."

"You bitches ever hear of a gelcap?" Reggie grumbled. "It's a digestible container to hold foul tasting medicines, so there's no wasting the product."

"If I did that, I'd never be able to expand my lexis," Zecora replied. "It's amazing how inventive ponyfolk are when undergoing gag reflexes."

"That's some seriously fucked up crap, Zecora!" Reggie finally said, aiming a disgusted glare in her direction.

"'Crap'—that's so new," she happily said. "And you didn't even have to choke down another brew."

Reggie merely coughed in response.

"That's odd," Twilight muttered. "Some of the medicine ended up on your amulet. It's glowing again."

"What's that mean? The potion's going to work?" Reggie asked.

"I don't know about that," Twilight answered. "I've run every test I could think of on your amulet, but it doesn't seem to have any magical properties that I can detect. I'd like to take it for further study, if you don't mind."

"Hey, why not think up of the tests you want to run on it, then ask me to borrow it," Reggie asked. "It's the only thing I've got of my home. I'd like to hold onto it as long as I can."

"Of course," Twilight replied, clearly sounding deflated.

Rainbow Dash was cackling in laughter, and from the direction Reggie could make out, it sounded as if she was rolling on the floor.

"Oh, stop it! You're killing me!" she screamed.

"Yeah, it is rather funny in the retelling," Reggie ruefully admitted. "As well as it being a few days ago for the taste to fade from my tongue." That set her into a renewed fit of laughter.

"Any improvement to your sight?" Rainbow asked, finally overcoming her mirth and settling down beside him again.

"Unfortunately, no," Reggie said as he removed his goggles to set them aside opposite of where she was sitting. "Although, lately, I've noticed I'm remembering more of my dreams. It's always been a struggle to recall anything. But—with you sitting here, I can picture you clearly in my memory. Your mane, all the colors in it. Your eyes, they're violet, and almost red—are those dreams real? I seem to recall your irises change size as well as your pupils. Is that something I'm remembering right?"

"Yeah, our eyes do that," Rainbow Dash replied. "I haveta admit, it's kinda weird and creepy how your eyes don't do that."

"That, and my eyes are so small, right?" Reggie asked, chuckling. "You guys wonder how humans can see anything with such small eyes. I've heard the guards outside when they thought I wasn't near the door."

"Why, those—!" she suddenly growled and he felt her tense up, ready to launch. "I'll give them a piece of my mind!"

"Hey! Easy!" Reggie said, quickly grabbing her. "No need to tear into them like that. Mike, Sam, Scully and Ralph—they're all cool, man!"

"But it's not cool to talk behind a pony's back like that!" she raged, still incensed. Reggie held on to her, his right arm holding onto her chest, his left, he began stroking her back, between her wings; the fingers of both hands working through her fur to try calming her down.

"It's okay, Rainbow! Calm down," Reggie whispered to her. "Easy! It's okay. They didn't mean anything bad by it," he continued to tell her, still stroking her.

She did settle down and had begun to relax to the sound of his voice and his touch. He continued to softly speak to her and stroke her. As she calmed down, he began stroking her with his right hand, too.

And without realizing what he was doing before he did it, he had reached up to her face and turned her toward him and kissed her muzzle.

"Gyaahh!" she screamed, exploding out of his grasp. "Why'd you do that!?"

Oh, shit! Reggie thought, suddenly terrified.

"I'm sorry! I—I—I forgot you were a pony!" he exclaimed, recoiling from her in case she was about to attack.

"Uhh—how could you forget something like that?" Rainbow Dash finally said from where she was hovering. "After all, I've been sitting right there with you holding me."

I've gotta face facts, Reggie seriously thought. I'm going native. But how can I explain this to her? To them?

"Reggie?"

"Sorry, Rainbow. I didn't mean it—" he began.

"You didn't mean to kiss me?" she challenged him, the skepticism dripping from her voice.

What I'm doing would land me in jail back on Earth! On the other hand, there aren't any people about….

"Fuck it! Just tell her the truth, damn it!" he hissed at himself.

"REGGIE!?" she screamed.

"Aw, shit!" he whispered. "You heard that, didn't you?" he sheepishly asked aloud.

"Yeah! And that other thing you said, too!" she spat. "I guess you forgot ponies have ears, too?"

"Something like that," he admitted with a laugh.

"What I was trying to say, I didn't mean to make you upset," he said, looking up at her. "But I have to tell you. I did want to kiss you. I've been wanting to for some time."

"Why?" she exclaimed.

"I've—I've—I've been—I'm stuck here!" he finally got out. He was still struggling to find the words, but if he didn't tell her everything that mattered right now, he didn't know if it'd ever be possible to do so in the future. It was now or never!

"I'm in a prison, Rainbow," he told her. "I'm in a prison that's several layers deep! I'm blind! I'm stuck in a room in a castle! I'm stuck on another fucking planet! And even if I went back to Earth, I'm still going to be blind! Also, with the portal likely to send me back to the cave out in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas, being blind there is quite likely a death sentence! Sort of like what it'd likely be for a pegasus to be blind!

"But you've been a lifeline, to me, Rainbow," he said. "You've been my only friend here."

"Uhh—but—what—but whatabout the Princesses? The guards? What about Twilight? And the others?" she asked, confusion very evident in her voice.

"Sure, they've helped me," Reggie agreed. "And I'm very grateful to the Princesses, especially Luna, for all the effort to let me see you guys in the dreamscape. But—you've been more than that.

"Twilight, she's seriously smart, but I get the impression that she's more interested in what information about my world I can provide her than in me.

"Rarity—I really thank her for all the clothes. My people have a dislike about going around nude all the time. But I think she looks at me as a very oddly shaped—well—thing, that she likes to experiment with her fashion sense. Speaking of which, what do you think of what I'm wearing?"

There was an inarticulate snort of suppressed laughter.

"Right, so what is it? Flowers? Paisleys? Some other weird shit?"

Uhh—can we talkboutsomthingelse?" she responded with clearly suppressed amusement.

"Uh-huh," Reggie sighed, nodding. "That what I thought."

"But you, Rainbow," he began. "You've been here for me. You're smart, honest, kind, funny, generous—"

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Waitaminute!" she exclaimed. "You're making me sound like all the Elements rolled up in one!"

"Elements?" Reggie asked, puzzled.

"The Elements of Harmony!" she exclaimed.

"That—sounds like something I've heard before—but I can't recall," he muttered uncertainly.

"Elements of Harmony," Rainbow repeated. "I'm Loyalty. Rarity is Generosity, Pinkie Pie is Laughter, Fluttershy is Kindness, Applejack is Honesty, and Twilight is Magic. You've met us all before."

"Sure," Reggie acknowledged. "Although Applejack and Fluttershy haven't been around all that much, and Pinkie Pie has been around way too much," he said, thinking about it.

"And I can't compare to the others, like that," she protested. "Twilight may be an egghead, but she's the smartest pony I know!"

"Well, don't sell yourself short, Rainbow," Reggie countered. "You're plenty smart. Sharp as a tack and always ready with a quick comeback."

"As for honesty, I'm nowhere near Applejack. I've told plenty of fibs and lies in my day!"

"But you've been honest with me," he responded.

"Well, not—entirely," Rainbow protested.

"How so?"

"Well—for example, when you asked about what you're wearing, I wasn't honest with you," she admitted. "Truth is, you're wearing flowers AND paisleys—AND—what you call—'other weird shit'!"

Reggie barked in laughter.

"And you're funny as all get out!" he said.

"I'm nowhere near as funny as Pinkie Pie," she insisted.

"Believe me, Rainbow. You make me laugh. She doesn't. She fucking terrifies me!" Reggie responded.

"Oh, it can't be that bad," she protested. "Haven't you forgiven her, yet?"

"My eyes have healed," he said, sighing. "But blasting confetti into people's faces, even if they have sight, is damned right irresponsible. Yeah, I've gotten over it. No permanent damage done. But I can't get near her without the urge to make sure my goggles are securely in place."

"And I've not given you any presents," she continued, trying to dissuade his notions about her.

"You've given me your time to visit," Reggie countered. "You've told me about your adventures and you've listened to mine. You've been both kind and generous in ways that neither Rarity or Fluttershy have been.

"In short, you've been everything and given me every reason to fall in love with you," he said.

There was the sound of a thump where she had been hovering.

"Rainbow?" he called out, concerned that she may have fainted. He slid down from the bed and reached out, crawling in her direction.

"Yeah, I'm here," she responded with a flat voice. He found her sitting on the floor a few feet out.

"I—Rainbow, I know it must make you uncomfortable to hear me say something like this," Reggie said, pulling back to sit apart from her and give her room. "Hell, it's making me rather uncomfortable to say it, too. In my world, something like this would get me thrown in jail."

"Because ponies in your world aren't ponies, right?" she asked. "Your ponies and horses aren't intelligent?"

"Not as we are here, no," Reggie confirmed, nodding.

"But I've fallen in love with you," he told her. "I know you probably don't feel the same way about me. And I can certainly understand if you never want to feel like that about me. If that's the case, I'd still like for us to be friends—just friends, and nothing special, if that'd be fine with you.

"Kissing you—it was just something—a moment of weakness on my part," he told her. "It won't happen again, if you don't want it."

They sat there in silence for several minutes. Reggie hung his head as he waited her verdict.

He felt something softly touch his arm.

"Reggie?" Rainbow hoarsely whispered. Reggie raised his tear-stained face to look at her.

Suddenly, he was enveloped in a tight hug. Instantly, he returned her grip, wrapping his arms about her shoulders as he buried his face into her neck as he wept.

"Reggie?" she said after they held each other for several minutes. "I—I don't know if I can say I'll ever love you. Not like how you're thinking about me. But it's so very nice of you to feel so. I'm—I'm just—not into such mushy stuff, if you know what I mean? But that kiss was rather nice."

She released him from her hug and he reluctantly did likewise. They sat there, facing each other.

"But for now, let's just be friends," she told him.

Then she kissed him.

Instantly, he reached up with both hand to embrace her face, caressing her as he responded to her kiss with a passion of his own. They held like that for several moments, finally breaking lip contact before leaning their heads against each other.

"Yeah!" Reggie whispered. "Yeah! I'd like that!"

He smiled as tears slid freely down his face, still holding his forehead against hers.

"Wow! That thing's really lighting up!" Rainbow Dash suddenly exclaimed.

Night Vision

"…And how art thou able to fly?" Luna asked just before Reggie woke.

Reggie continued to lie in his bed for several minutes while he contemplated this latest dreamwalking session with Luna, Rainbow Dash and her friends. Luna's question didn't bother him so much as the feeling that something about the dreamscape was wrong, something that was quite out of place.

No doubt, they were all waiting for him to reenter his slumber so that they could resume. But the oddness was keeping him from relaxing. Rubbing his temples, he tried to force himself to relax.

Force myself? he thought, snorting. Like that ever works.

Frustrated, he flung off the covers and walked over to the dresser so that he could make himself presentable to the princess.

"Hey, Ralf. Sam," he greeted when he stepped out from the suite. He felt something of a triumph in that he didn't need to hold onto one of their withers to help guide him down the passageway toward the route that would eventually take him to the throne room.

He turned off the passageway and into the correct intersecting corridor that would take him toward the heart of the castle. There were a few more turns like that which finally led to the castle's main entrance. He knew of the side passageway he could have taken earlier, but he knew that not being one of the castle staff, he was aware of how inappropriate it was for him to have used such.

Still, it filled him was a touch of pride that he not only didn't need to have Luna's guards guide him, but that he had been able to take the lead the entire time.

And at their approach, the unicorns standing guard on either side of the doors to the throne room pulled open their respective panels.

"I apologize, Princess Luna," Reggie began, rubbing the back of his head. "For some reason, I'm unable to get back to sleep."

"'Tis perfectly alright, Reggie," Luna said from her throne. She watched as Reggie finally stopped his approach just shy of the steps leading up to her and Celestia's thrones. "'Tis also remarkable about how thy navigation hast improved so. Thee arn't even using the cane that Laughter hath made for thee."

"What?" Reggie exclaimed, suddenly turning about, trying to picture the throne room in his mind.

Was it just muscle memory that led me here? he wondered.

In his mind, he could sense the dimension of the chamber. Over a dozen-and-a-half paces wide, well over a hundred long. Two unicorn guards standing on the inside of the main entrance, just as the pair was on the other side who had opened the doors for him and the two batponies accompanying him. Two batponies, one on either side of the bottom the stairs. And Luna, who was about halfway down the steps approaching him.

Reggie's head snapped about to look at one of the batponies standing at the stairs.

"Ralf? Sam? H-how do I know there are a couple of batponies standing here?"

"There is always a pair of guards standing there," Ralf replied, evidently confused.

"But how do I know they're not unicorns?" Reggie challenged. The guard in question suddenly looked at Reggie in turn. "Or earth ponies?"

"Reggie?" Luna got out before the growing headache took him down.

Reggie's last memory was the unknown guard and Ralf were rushing to catch him.

"I'm sorry," Doctor Splint said, stepping out from Reggie's bedroom to speak with Celestia and Luna who were standing in the suite's guest area. "It appears that his occipital lobe has completely atrophied. I'm afraid he will never regain his sight."

"How is that possible?" Luna demanded. "His awareness of his surroundings in the throne room was uncanny. 'Twas as if he were able to see the guards standing there!"

"He certainly wasn't doing it with his eyes," Splint countered. "You said it yourself, he was wearing those goggles Pinkie Pie had made him. Even had his vision been restored, he'd see nothing through that!" He held up a couple of films with his magic to look at the images from the ambient lighting.

"Can we go in to speak with him?" Celestia asked.

"He was complaining about severe headaches," Splint replied. "Not surprising, seeing these scans. I've given him some sedatives to keep him under."

"What's happening with him?" Luna asked.

"I'm not rightly sure, myself," Splint told her, holding the scans out to her. "As you can see from this scan, taken when he first arrived, his occipital lobe had extensive bruising. But it was light enough there was hope his vision would recover. However, this second scan not only shows the areas of bruising have atrophied, but that almost his entire occipital lobe has shrunk to almost nothing. Not only that, but these two temporal lobes seem to have expanded into the space vacated. It's no wonder he was having headaches."

"Does he know?" Celestia asked.

"Not yet," Splint said, shaking his head. "His pain was so bad that he was out as soon as I provided him with the painkillers. This second scan was taken while he was unconscious."

The world was a box. A large green box. The walls, ceiling, and floor all glowed bright green. There were exits from the box. On one side, there was an open doorway leading to a smaller room, with all the surfaces also glowing bright green. And somehow, he was able to "see" almost the entirety of that other room. Even around the corners.

There was another doorway at the far end of the box. But it was closed. The closed door also glowed green, just not quite as bright. There was finally a large balcony-style window that glowed brightly green.

Inside the box, there was a bed. This too was green, but a very dark green. There were other furnishings in the box. A dresser. A dining table with a chair. A couple of end tables on either side of the bed. A reading sofa along with and end table on either side as well as a long coffee table in front of it by the window. Most of the furnishings were the same color green as the door. The sitting area of the sofa, however, looked as dark as the bed. As did the dark green carpet covering much of the floor.

And on the bed, there were two figures.

One was human.

The other was a pony.

Reggie recognized himself as the human.

The pony was harder to figure out. She, like him, was green.

Her features looked somewhat familiar, but with the colors, he was having a hard time placing her. None of Rainbow Dash's friends—or at least the ones to whom he'd been introduced—were green.

As his awareness continued to expand, he noticed something odd about the pony. There was a pulsing organ in the center of her chest. Staring at it, he saw a rhythmic pulsing of green-yellow/green-blue going at a steady rate. But then, as he looked back at the pony's face, trying to recognize her, he saw there was a similar pulsing object in his own chest!

Weird! he numbly thought.

He put that thought aside for the moment.

Her messily cut mane looked familiar, but he still couldn't place it.

She had wings, so she was a pegasus.

Her tail was also sported an unkempt cut to it, like it had been hacked by a knife. Again, a familiar shape, but the coloration was too confusing.

Her rump was just a blank green, same as her fur.

So why was her head lying on top of my chest? he wondered.

Why do her features look so worried? And why is she crying?

He reached his left hand up to gently stroke her mane.

"Hey," he croaked. "You a friend of Rainbow?"

Her eyes snapped open and God that was so freaky! Bright green eyes and no irises! he thought.

"Hey! You're awake!" Rainbow Dash's voice cried out as her head yanked off his chest. There was a momentary painful pull, like tape getting yanked, and Reggie saw that his medallion had been lying between her head and his chest for God knows how many hours. It was glowing bright green.

"Heh! You should see your face!" Reggie snorted at the sight. "You've got my medallion permanently imprinted on your cheek! Ow! And I think in my chest, too!" he grumbled, rubbing at the sore spot.

Then it finally dawned on him.

"Holy shit! I CAN SEE!"

"N-n-no, Reggie," Rainbow said, looking wretched. "No, you can't."

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "I'm looking right at you!"

"You're wearing your goggles, Reggie."

"So you're saying there's no way to get my vision back?" Reggie asked after having his condition explained to him.

"Not with these changes to your brain, no," Doctor Splint told him.

"Then how can I see you? All of you?" Reggie demanded, pointing at the five ponies in the room with him using the set of goggles in his right hand.

"I don't know," Splint said, shrugging his arms. "But it's not with your eyes."

"Do we know what caused these changes, Doctor?" Celestia asked.

"I'm afraid I don't. I've never heard of anything like this before," he replied. "And without an understanding of how his species reacts to magic, I have no baseline by which to even guess. But if I had to guess, it's either something that happened gradually over a period of weeks at the least or instantaneously, as a result of getting hit with a spell."

"We hath noticed that his dreamscape hath been changing o'er the past few weeks," Luna intoned. "Normal colors that he shouldst experience as have become muted of late…."

"'Weeks', you say?" Twilight nervously asked.

"Four or five, at a minimum," Splint confirmed. "Anything less would likely have killed him. Unless it was a spell, specifically designed to make these changes. And the pony who cast it would have to be exceedingly skilled not to have turned him into a turnip, figuratively speaking."

"Thee knowest something of this, Twilight Sparkle?" Luna demanded.

"Zecora's potion?" Twilight ventured. "That was about seven weeks ago."

"Oh, God! Don't remind me!" Reggie shouted, almost exhibiting a gag reflex. "I only recently got the memory of that taste out of my mind!" Then he blinked.

"Wait…" he muttered. "You're not saying…?"

"It's possible the potion didn't have exactly the desired effect," Twilight began, but trailed off as she dreaded his reaction.

"Huh! So, instead of my sight back, I got—what? Some sort of perception of my surroundings?" Reggie asked. "I see everything about me as various tints and shades of green. Hard objects are bright green. Furred and feathered ponies are quite a bit darker. Oh, and the carpets throughout the castle are a dark green, too. I remember it used to be red, at least according to my dreams. It's like looking at the world through one of those ancient CRT monitors that only had a black and green display. Except…."

"Except what?" Twilight asked after the long pause.

"I'm seeing … something … I'm guessing … is your heart … in everybody's chest," he said. "They're pulsing, with a yellow-green to blue-green color. As are Rainbow Dash's wings," he added, looking at the hovering pegasus in the room.

"Really!?" Twilight exclaimed, her ears perking up. Then she began scribbling something on her parchment.

"Yeah…" Reggie nervously said. "And … your … quill, now. It's actually flickering from full yellow to blue!" There was a pause, and then Twilight resumed her scribbling. "Now, orange to indigo!" But that didn't slow her down. And her heart was also pulsing between full yellow to blue.

The others held their peace until she was done with whatever calculations she had been doing.

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshyouknowwhatthismeans!?" she exclaimed when she was done.

"That yer talkin' like Pinkie Pie?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"No!" the green—well, one of the green, Reggie reminded himself—alicorns said, glaring at the pegasus.

"It means he's seeing the world through sound!" Twilight yelled.

"Ow!" Reggie exclaimed, wincing in pain.

"Oh, sorry!" Twilight sheepishly whispered.

"So, I'm like that comic book character, Dare Devil?" Reggie asked. "Or like how everyone thinks the Batman operates?"

"I've—no idea who those are," she admitted.

"Oh. Right. Never mind," Reggie said.

"Wait! How far can you see with your sonar sense?" Rainbow Dash suddenly asked.

"I've no idea," Reggie replied. "I've not stuck my head outside the castle for some time. What do you have in mind?"

"Well, now that you can finally see," she began, "even if it's not in awesome technicolor, you can watch me as I pull off some of my signature moves!"

Reggie thought about that for a few moments.

"Heh! Sure! Sounds fun!" he said, grinning.

"Well, of course, we're going to have to confirm just how far he can see, first," Twilight said.

"So how far am I supposed ta fly out, again?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Until he can't see you anymore," Twilight repeated to her. "Then I'll signal you with a flare. When you see it, mark how far out you are. Then head on back so we can estimate his range."

"Seems simple enough," Rainbow grumbled.

"Don't worry, Rainbow," Twilight told her. "You'll be able to show off your stuff soon enough."

"I could show him right now!" she protested.

"But if you fly outside his range, he won't be able to watch it," the small alicorn countered.

"That makes no sense."

"Trust me on this, Rainbow!"

"Sheesh! Ya have ta make everything an exercise in egg-headedness," Rainbow Dash grumbled as she flew off.

"That's not even a word!" Twilight growled.

Reggie just silently grinned at the banter between them. He suspected Rainbow was just trying to push her buttons to get a rise out of her.

He watched as Rainbow flew off, her green form turning yellow, then orange as she departed and picked up speed.

"How odd the world might look like if light traveled at the same speed as sound," Reggie said.

"What's that?" Twilight asked.

"Oh, just paraphrasing something that Einstein once said," Reggie replied, glancing down at her. The baffled look on her face needed no translation.

"Albert Einstein," Reggie explained, looking back up to keep track of Rainbow Dash. "He was a theoretical physicist who discovered General Relativity and how no matter could travel faster than light. Or even reach light speed. Part of his proof was calculating how the world would look if light traveled at some other, arbitrary velocity, say … thirty miles an hour, I think it was."

"What good would that do?" Twilight demanded.

"He explained how a person, riding a bike, as they approached the speed limit, how his mass would increase, his length would shrink, and his vision would be focused into a narrow cone. Objects in front of him would become highly blue-shifted, and that at the edges of the cone, he would actually be able to see objects that were behind him and they would be greatly redshifted. And no matter how hard he tried, he'd never be able to reach thirty miles an hour."

"Really?" the small alicorn asked, evidently stunned at the concept. "But why ever did he chose that speed?"

"It was just a thought experiment he came up with," Reggie replied. "I think he did it to help put the idea of actual light speed travel into perspective, so that others could try to understand."

"Huh! I never would've thought of trying to imagine something like that!" Twilight said. "I know that in normal space-time, nothing can reach light speed. And those effects would be experienced by anypony trying to do so. But to even think of trying to explain it by changing the speed of light…" she was saying as she scribbled something down on her parchment.

"And I think I'm losing sight of her," Reggie said, interrupting.

"Oh? Oh! Right!" she exclaimed, as she fired off a flare with her horn.

"But to figure out the dynamics of that thought experiment, I'm going to have to…"

"Oh, shit!" Reggie exclaimed, diving for cover as he sighted a blue-then-purple object headed right for them all on the balcony.

"I marked that about two miles out, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash said as she suddenly came to a stop in midair, freaking the hell out of Reggie.

"Hey, Reggie! You okay?" Rainbow thought to ask.

"So, this next move is my very own patented signature move, called the Sonic Rainboom!" Rainbow cheerfully told him before speeding off to prepare for it. He had to admit that actually seeing her perform was as good, if not better, than he experienced in the dreamscape. Even if he couldn't experience the colors that he remembered from his dreams, the color shifts from watching her swoop toward and away were just as incredible. Beside him, Twilight continued to scribble note after note, her quill giving almost an impressive display as the pegasus soaring through the sky.

"So, what is this 'sonic rainboom' again?" Reggie asked her.

"It's where Rainbow Dash breaks the sound barrier and ignites a burst of magic that is just amazing to behold," Twilight happily said.

"Breaking the sound barrier?" Reggie confirmed, as he sighted Rainbow getting ready for her dive. "Wow! I wonder how that's going to look like to my sonic vision."

But then his brain triggered a warning thought that quickly grew to extreme concern. And given the expression that formed over Twilight's face, her mind was giving her the same conclusions.

"Oh—shit," Reggie muttered as he saw Rainbow Dash's figure go to a full purple.

"No! No! NO! NO! NONONONONOOO!" Twilight began screaming. "It's too late to warn her off!"

Reggie tried to take cover as Twilight erected a solid green barrier over him just as Rainbow Dash's purple figure vanished.

Then the world exploded.

The world was black.

He couldn't make anything out of his surroundings.

There was an uncomfortable weight on his chest.

Shakily, he raised his arm to feel the thing laying on him.

It felt like a pony's head, with a thick mane.

Before he could make any further investigation, the weight suddenly lifted, pulling something from his chest. The pull felt familiar.

"Who's there?" Reggie croaked out.

"Oh, Reggie!" Rainbow Dash's voice called out from just in front of him. Or just above him, considering he could tell he was lying in a bed. "I'm so sorry!"

"Rainbow? Is that you?"

"I'm so-so sorry!"

"I—uh—I can't see anything."

"I know! I shouldn't have done it! I was such an idiot!" Rainbow cried, hugging him. "I should've known what effect doing a sonic rainboom would have on you!"