That's The Night The Lights Went Out In Canterlot

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.