Ryan

A cry of delighted surprise rang in the ears of the many ponies. The airborne earth pony expressed her familiar emotion when she notices a new pony in town. On her daily routine to greet familiar friends in Ponyville, Pinkie found a pony who should could not call her friend. Though she knew her relationship with this stranger would soon change, as it did with every other she had come across.

It was early in the morning that she saw this pony. Pinkie always woke extra early so she could chat with her many friends before assisting the Cakes with either their baking or their foals. The days that new ponies came into town were far and few between. It wasn’t unusual for Pinkie to be overly elated in such situations.

The pony who stood in front of her was a grown earth pony stallion. His white coat greatly contrasted his black mane. He was standing directly in the center of the street. No baggages accompanied him. His face was blank. He stood staring into space with a smile that was barely noticeable.

    “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie and I’ve never seen you before! That must mean you’re new!” Pinkie fell to the ground, too distracted to catch herself. She quickly picked herself up from the dirt and stood with an eager smile and wide eyes.

    “Hi.” The stallion’s reply was emotionless. It didn’t have a trace of sadness, happiness, annoyance or any emotion. He enunciated the h more than would be normal, so it sounded more like “high” than “hi”. It was a lazy, thoughtless “hi”.

    Pinkie was a little surprised, but she didn’t think anything of it. An odd hello wouldn’t take Pinkie off her guns. “Well . . What’s your name!?”

    “I’m Ryan.” His voice didn’t change with this phrase. The same emotionless tone. It was almost comical. He stood in the same spot, with the same, small smile.

    Pinkie giggled, “That’s a silly name! Well, Ryan, welcome to Ponyville! Wanna play a game?”

    “Yes.” No change. He didn’t seem to have any thoughts.

Pinkie wasn’t sure that his acceptance of her offer was sincere, but his voice gave no detail in hinting he wasn’t. Pinkie was bewildered. “Well, we should probably go to the park and out of the street!”

    “Okay” Yet he still stood in the same spot. He showed no signs of moving.

    “Uh, let’s go.” Pinkie approached him and grabbed him by the hoof. He followed willingly, not showing any signs of resistance. He was a feather light. “Why were you standing in the street anyway?”

    This time he didn’t reply. He held the same smile, looking ahead.

“Okay then.. Well, what do you want to play when we get to the park?” Pinkie hoped to get some information about him, anything.

    “Let’s play. . . Vageta and Kakarot.” Pinkie noticed that when he spoke he left out the letter t. She also had no idea what the game “Vageta and Kakarot” was, but she was glad she had got him to create a complete sentence.

“How do you play that game?”

    “I’ll show you.”

“Okay!” It was up until that moment that Pinkie hadn’t noticed Ryan’s cutie mark. It was incredible hard to notice it considering there was no cutie mark on his flank. Ryan was a full grown stallion, at least the same age as Pinkie. The fact that he bore nothing on his flank sent a chill though Pinkie’s spine.

“Okay. You stand here. You’re Kakarot. You’re charging up ‘n’ stuff.” They were standing in a grassy opening that laid in the center of the park. Pinkie agreed to pretend she was charging up while Ryan walked to the other side of the field. He seemed to place an h infront of vowels when they were at the first letter.

Pinkie flexed her muscles and let out a beastly grr on her back hooves. Ryan stood twenty hooves away and had . . . a moustache on his face. . . where'd he get a moustache?

Pinkie could hear him talking to himself. “Hey, Vageta. What’s, um what’s your scouter say about his power level?” What the hay was he talking about? He jumped to the left a couple feet. Pinkie was surprised to see an electronic. . thing on his eye and the moustache gone.

“It’s roughly nine thousand plus.” He jumped back. The eye thing was gone, and the moustache was back.This was weird, even for Pinkie standards.

“Oh, that’s, that’s pretty good. Um, have you checked its batteries?” Again he jumped back to the other character.

“No.”

“Then, you should probably check it.” His voice was so dead and emotionless. It hadn’t creeped Pinkie out until now.

“Oh, it’s,” He flipped the thingy over in his hoof. “They’re good.”

“Oh, then there’s no way it can be right, and you should break it,” said his moustached other.

    “Okay I’ll break it.” He then smashed it in the same manner one would smash a piece of paper.

He stood back with his normal smile, looking at Pinkie across the field. “Ookay, that wasn’t weird or anything.” Pinkie walked up to him and grabbed his hoof. “We better go see Twilight. I just don’t know what to do with you.”

“Okay.”  He was so empty. No thoughts, no emotions, and Pinkie had no idea what that “game” in the park was all about. She had to find out though.

“So. . . where are you from anyway?” He had to have come from somewhere. Instead of replying though he just turned his head and look at her with his emotionless face. Pinkie was struck with fear, and she wasn’t an easy pony to startle. This just wasn’t natural.

Pinkie had so many questions about this pony, but everytime she tried to ask him something personal he just seemed to ignore her. He wouldn’t answer about the past, only the present. He wasn’t hostile, he wasn’t anything. It could drive a pony to madness.

The walk to Twilight’s treehouse took much longer than Pinkie had anticipated. She only hoped that she was home. To Pinkie’s relief the door opened. The familiar green dragon stood in the threshold.

    “Oh, hey, Pinkie. . Who’s this?” Spike examined the ultimately neutral pony, again coming up short on noticing anything that might hint at who he was.

    “Hi, Spike! He’s-”

“I’m Ryan. . . Russia has the bomb, so you guys know.” The two sane individuals in the vicinity look at him in bewilderment. Neither knew who or what Russia was. This pony definitely had something very off about him and Spike didn’t know what to think about it.

Without taking his eyes off Ryan, Spike called, “Twilight, can you come down here.” He shook the confusion out of his head. “Well, come on in, Pinkie. Bring weirdo with you.”

Twilight stepped from the last stair as Pinkie exited the threshold. “Hi, Pinkie.” The smile that Twilight planned to great Pinkie with faded into a face of confusion. One eyebrow up. “Who’s this?”

“Hey Twilight! This is Ryan!” Pinkie had regained her composure and lost most of her fear that Ryan’s downright oddness had brought on. “He’s a weirdo I found on the street! I was hoping you’d help me out with him!”

Twilight wasn’t sure what to think of this. “Well, uh. . Hi, Ryan! What brings you to Ponyville?”

“Hi. . . I came because. . . I have a dream.”

    “A dream?” but Twilight was cut short.

“A dream that one day there will be a world. A world where we can smile and embrace one another. A dream to live in a world where discrimination and hate is not a reality, but a past thought that has died. A world where good men live, live to breath, to laugh, to love. A world where greed and depravity don't even belong in a dictionary.

A dream where every man, woman, child and animal never has to cry. . . unless they watch the season two premiere of this show.

A dream where hunger is abolished and beauty is found within the hearts of one-another. The blind following of false gods crumble, as the truth in our hearts will reign high in the world. A triumphant roar will come from all of our mouths and we will know, ALL WILL KNOW, that we are men and we all hold the passion for tenderness, for unconditional peace, for a brighter future, for a world that says NO to the sins of our past and embraces new ideals, new unity, new love.”

Twilight, Spike, and Pinkie all stood with their mouths open. What in all of Equestria could he have been talking about? Peace and unity were already widespread throughout Equestria and what could he have meant by “the season two premiere”?!

He just stood. His face had returned to its prior emotionless, empty smile. The room remained silent and all eyes were on Ryan. He felt no pressure or annoyance as a normal pony would. It didn’t seem as though he felt anything.

In truth he did feel, though his emotional range was very limited. He was content with where he was and what he was doing almost all the time. He didn’t have many thoughts. He would never ponder the possibilities of tomorrow or fear the outcome of a current activity. There was no should or shouldn’t for Ryan. There wasn’t a reason for anything either. He didn’t have a reason to live, but he didn’t have a reason not to live. Some might argue that not having a reason to live is reason enough to have a reason not to live, but Ryan didn’t think about such things.

The fact was that he thought about nothing. His mind was empty. The responses he gave when he socially interacted, which only happened by chance, were completely thoughtless responses. Ryan’s random outbursts such as his dream speech were things he couldn’t explain, though he never did try to explain anything. He just followed the path laid out.

“W-what was that all about?” Twilight finally said in utter confusion.

“What.”

“That whole speech! Your dream! Everything!” Nothing this pony said seemed to make any sense.

“Oh. I don’t know.” No information. That seemed to be the only thing to expect from him.

Ryan spent the rest of the day at Twilight’s treehouse. Pinkie Pie had left to help the Cakes shortly after recovering from Ryan’s speech. Throughout the day Twilight attempted to learn as much as she could from Ryan by running various tests and pushing him to tell her more. Every so often he would blabber an out of context speech or phrase that always caught Twilight off guard.

The day had become late and the horizon visible from one of the various windows in the tree had become a shining spectre of colors. Twilight had surprisingly learned much about Ryan. Nothing about his past, but many things about his mental state. She now knew that he had no thoughts, and few emotions. While he was content with being in a state of nothingness, Twilight felt sorry for him. He knew not the joys of friendship and the feelings of love, but what you don’t know you don’t miss.

Still, Twilight didn’t feel it right to let him continue on living in the such a manner. She decided she would take it on herself to help him become an actual intelligent being. It was a must that he live a worthwhile life in her opinion. “Why don’t you stay with me for awhile, Ryan? I can set up a bed for you.”

Of course his answer was, “Okay.”