Breathing This Great Huge Thing

The next day, Xaquik went over to Tubs’s house in the morning to get ready for the day on the lake. They ate cereal and started talking plans.

“Someone should wear something with pockets, so we can carry our stuff,” Tubs told Xaquik, as they stared into Tubs’s closet. The majority of it was filled with warmer wear, as in the hot months he, like most ponies, just didn’t bother wearing anything. “You should just go naked, so you can show off your exoskeleton.”

Xaquik smiled. “Yeah, that sounds alright with me.”

“What do you think about this?” Tubs pulled a light sun dress from his closet, and held it up against himself. It was a sort of cream color, and ended at his stifle joint. “It has deep pockets.”

“Try it on.”

He slipped into it easily, and looked at Xaquik for hez approval.

“You look good, I like it. Do you think you can carry all of our stuff?”

“I might get a vest or something if we need extra pockets. How much do you think we’ll be bringing?”

“Some money for the tickets, the tickets, something for the train ride. I won’t be brining anything, I don’t think I need anything. Maybe a pocket knife, and a few band-aids just in case? And whatever Orbit and Sunluk are going to bring.”

“I think it’ll be enough.” He slipped out of it, folded it quickly, and threw it onto the bed.

Xaquik fingered the soft fabric, and asked, “Do you think Sunluck or Orbit will wear anything?”

“Sunluck might, I don’t think Orbit will though.”

“Sounds about right.”

After a while, Oribit and Sunluck came over and the stress that comes with trying to force yourself to have a good time pushed it’s sickly fingers between them all. Tubs pulled his dress on, put a few things in the pockets, and out they went. Sunluck wore a vest with pockets, and Orbit just went naked like Xaquik.

Rainbow Falls was about two hours away by train, and they passed the time by playing card games or reading or listening to music. They all tried to give Orbit an easy time, and he mostly stared out the window.

Xaquik gathered many sidelong and outright stares. Generally, ponies shrank away from hef, then cautiously relaxed as they noticed how close and romantically Tubs treated hef, and the whole little group of ponies listening to hez story about changing into some mentally disabled pony in a stunt of experimental therapy. Ze seemed happy to smile at everypony ze caught staring, and after a tense ten mintues, the coach re-achieved the more normal air it usually held.

In his staring, orbit noticed a pink mare through the door that viewed into the another coach. She wore a shirt at least, probably more, and for some reason Orbit felt like he should know her. But the feeling passed, and even the fleeting excitement it deposited left no substance for the vacuum within.

About an hour in, Tubs fell asleep, leaning half onto the window behind his seat, and half onto Xaquik next to him, his arms folded over his chest and legs spread far apart.

“He always has trouble staying awake on trains,” Xaquik said as ze shifted to support him better. “I think it’s the motion and the noise that kind of make him drift off.”

Sunluck observed him trying, and failing, to keep his mouth closed in his sleep. “He’s kind of cute like this, in an odd way.”

Xaquik giggled, “Yeah, I think so too.”

For the rest of the train ride, Xaquik and Sunluck talked to orbit, tried to cheer him up, and played more games with each other.

When they finally got to Rainbow Falls, they all shuffled out onto the station and started making their way down to the lake. It was a huge, glistening basin, visible from where they were, that stretched about a mile in every direction and swallowed rainbows from the falls.

The boat sat at the shore of the lake, using up a large portion of the area near the pier. As they started trotting across the wooden planks, Xaquik smiled at everyone looking hez way, and the few ponies playing in the surf seemed to pause a moment to watch.

Orbit found it hard to focus on anything, and just stared at the water that appeared between the cracks of the planks as if it were locked in a wooden prison. Everything smelled different, spicier, wetter, more pepper than the cinnamon of Ponyville, and easier to breathe in; he realized that that, at least, was nice.

The boat had been built for touring. It went around the whole lake, pausing at the waterfall, and coming back to the pier. They climbed up the bridge and paid their way in. Ponies mingled on the deck; there were a few shops actually on the boat that sold food and Rainbow Falls souvenirs. They made their way over to the railing and watched the water while they waited for the ship to depart.

Many ponies reacted to the sight of Xaquik. Quite a few came up to hef to ask about who ze was and if ze was friendly. More than a few wanted hef to transform into them, and more than a few hung back in reserved fear. But after a half hour of commotion, they mostly drifted away.

“You’re quite popular, Xaquik,” Sunluck said to hef, smiling.

“Well, I’m glad everyone seems to be okay with it.”

“Yeah, sure, Equestria is a very accepting place.”

Tubs hugged hef with one arm. “I’m glad you feel welcomed.”

“Thanks, honey.”

As the boat neared the waterfall, the mist slowly absorbed them all into a wet hug. Sunluck stood doubled over, with her hands on the middle of the railing, leaning out and trying to catch a bit of the rainbow. “I can’t taste much—it’s super watered down.”

“Go figure.” Tubs said.

“Further upstream they have pools of just rainbows, no water. Do you think they’ll let ponies swim in those? Can we go there today?”

“Yeah sure, if we’re all up for it. And hey, if you’re willing to jump in I bet they’ll let you swim. But I don’t think having rainbows splashed up your nose and vagina is going to be comfortable.”

She looked down at herself and frowned. “If it’s really so much like hot sauce as they all say, anyway. I forge shoes, stallion, I bet I can take a little heat.”

Xaquik giggled as Tubs smiled doubtfully at her.

Orbit stared at the rushing, rainbow water and tried to will himself to be happy. He wanted to be, he thought, for his own sake and everyone else’s. He stared up at the sky, watching some pegasi fly around in happy sweeps and curls. The hollowness within him still screamed out, but brittle as he felt there was nothing inside to protect. He stared down at the railing, then absently looked over his shoulder. The pink nurse and the art-smothered pony stood just on the other side of the boat.

They were at the waterfall, everypony taking pictures and crowding on one side of the deck, when ze noticed hef. Bristles, who was scribbling furiously with an oil pen into a notebook that proclaimed to be waterproof, saw Xaquik—a glorious bug creature with asymmetry punched through zefs legs and arms, standing there next to the farrier that ze remembered drawing.

Nurse Firm noticed hef becoming still, and turned to face hef, saying, “Bristles, relax, breathe.” She grabbed hef by the elbows as ze started to yell wordlessly and back up sharply. “Listen to the water, Bristles, listen to the thunder!”

Screaming, jerking desperately to free hefself from Nurse Firm, Ze stumbled and fell, one hoof coming up sharply and slamming into Nurse Firm’s jaw. She wavered; it was just enough for ze to free hefself, pushing hard away from her to—

Ze slammed hez back into the railing, the world tilted around hef, and suddenly the water reached up swiftly to consume hef.

Nurse Firm ran to the rail and tried to call for hef, while her own desperate hands started ripping off her shirt and skirt so she could swim—but as she struggled out of her long-sleeve button-up, something massive sailed over the railing next to her. It was a light green pony, with no mane or tail, reaching out to brace into the water.

It had been instinctual. Orbit was a trained lifeguard, after all, and he saw hef fall. It hadn’t been anything but understanding and urgency that had propelled him across the deck and smoothly over the rail. But the water, as it came up for him, reflected so clearly the crisp, castle-like clouds and the rolling rainbows that faded into the clearest blue of the atmosphere that ate at the edges of the cumuli, the air, and at—he thought he saw—the better half of a pale crescent moon, hanging in the day where it should not have been.

As he crashed into the sky, the rainbows, diluted as they were, stung every orifice on his body. They burned; in the half-black half-blue-rainbow, he squinted out hef fighting to stay near the surface. The stinging getting to hef as well, hez screaming traveling dully to him.

He swam to hef and started grappling with hef, trying to calm the flailing arms and legs, and mouth that already choked in water to the lungs. Ze began to sink, calmer now, and he grabbed hef by the waist to drag hef back up. As he turned upward, he noticed for the first time the dark all around them—the impenetrable side of the ship just above them. He swam sideways, to get out from under it, and as he did ze started thrashing again, giving one last fight. A solid blow connected to his diaphragm and involuntarily the air spilled out of his lungs. With both of them empty, they started to sink again.

Swimming as hard as he could, pumping legs and the arm that wasn’t hooked around Bristles, Orbit tried to just make it to the surface. But the boat moved too, and it floated in the same direction he swam, forcing them to stay underwater.

Bristles was no longer conscious. Taking hez limp body, Orbit started moving in the other direction, thinking to cross the length of the deck and come up to the closing the gap between him and the surface. But suddenly, the boat started moving that way again.

Frustrated and running out of oxygen in his system, Oribt turned around and dragged Bristles the opposite way once more. Whatever happened now, he knew he had to stick to this direction. The gap shrank, and spots of dark started corroding into what little vision he had left. He felt himself shake, harder and harder with each stroke, the water becoming golden and clear blue.

It was the sky. A monster in his lungs, but it was the sky. He dragged Bristles through the open, empty blue. There were clouds down below, and a dark thunder cloud just above them that he had to fly out of the way of. Suddenly, inexplicably ecstatic, he pulled the sleeping Bristles with him up, and up, and into a portion of the sky that felt immediately colder, yet he could tell was hotter. The membrane wasn’t invisible anymore; he was pulling them both out of another cloud and into the real sky, the sky that lit up brilliantly orange and fiery yellow on one side, blending and dancing over the clouds into deep indigo and purple on the other.

Some force kept them going and as they went higher and higher his friend fell away from him to rest on the cloud they had been navigating around. “I’m sorry,” he heard hef say. And he went up and up into the sky, a pressure on his back, rising higher and higher and higher until the only thing he could see was empty color.

Orbit jerked up and spasmed the water out of his lungs. He held himself up with one arm, turned sideways so he could get it out. The medic moved out of the way swiftly, and Orbit became aware that there were no hands pressing onto his stomach anymore.

The first thing he saw was Sunluck, staring into his face, deeply concerned. Then he made out Xaquik and Tubs right next to her, also distressed.

“Step back, please, let him breathe.” The medic pony shooed them back a few hooves, and examined Orbit while pain floated in and out of his head.

Nurse Firm sat looking flustered and sweaty, shirt hanging tucked into her skirt, next to Bristles, who choked on the ground like Orbit. It seemed the water was out of hez lungs, but ze remained unconscious. A stretcher arrived shortly, with two burly pegasi who flew hef off to get more advanced medical help. Nuse Firm stood to follow, but before she did, she turned to Xaquik, Tubs, and Sunluck.

“I have to follow—but you’re friends of his, yes?”

“We are,” Xaquik said.

“Can you thank him,  please, when he’s come back to his senses, for saving Bristles’s life?”

After a while, Orbit found himself eating a piece of whole wheat bread in an examination room, with Tubs, Xaqiuk, and Sunluck sitting on chairs in front of him and himself on the padded table. Dimly, he let the piece of bread in his hand fall back into his lap with each bite.

“Are you okay?” Xaquik asked.

“How do you feel?” Sunluck asked.

Tubs asked something equivalent, just using his eyes.

Suddenly, Orbit felt it was intensely foolish to describe what happened. Too stupid and somehow sophomoric. “I feel okay. I ache, but the rainbows don’t sting anymore since I showered off.”

Everything fell quiet again for a moment. Then, Orbit said, quietly, “I’m sorry.”

Sunluck exploded, “Shut the fuck up, with that bullshit! You saved that damn pony’s life!”

He nodded. “I know that was good—I meant about earlier. I honestly don’t remember the last time I was just happy. Without something bad happening immediately or some guilt settling over me. I can’t stop being miserable. I’m sorry. I think you all know that I just want to kill myself. I just wanted to apologise for that.”

They waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “But..?” Sunluck urged.

“But nothing. That’s it—I want to die. That inconveniences you, and I apologize.”

Sunluck angrily stood up and sat next to Orbit on the examination table. She pulled his arm toward herself so he was leaning onto her side. There wasn’t anything to say, so she kept quiet. Xaquik stood up, and so did Tubs. Ze walked over to hug Orbit around his waist. As much as Sunluck wanted to shy away from the bizarre, creepy exoskeleton arm that rubbed across her ribcage, she didn’t. Tubs stood back a little; instead of crowding in, he just took Orbit’s other hand and held it firmly, putting one arm over Xaquik’s back.

Orbit tried to feel something. He felt all of his friends pressing on him, but nothing inside. It was only more warm flesh. He closed his eyes and imagined again moving through the sky, with Bristles in tow. It wasn’t good enough. It would never be good enough.