“Explaining one's recent loss as more of a continuous journey rather than a dead end, giving one of the invaluable opportunity to gain strength and learn about oneself, and thereby turning this terribly tragic affair into something hugely positive.”

• Cecelia Ahern

"You really shouldn't be so stubborn. Celestia knows what on earth could've happened to you if any of the guards had caught you roaming around like that!"

Twilight had apparently been on her way to pester Karn with her usual unending, creeping barrage of questions at the same time that he'd attempted to actually make some use of his legs. Evidently getting his arse off the God forsaken mattress his inclement health had chained him to equated to 'roaming'. He had in fact walked stiltedly back and forth across the room when she burst in. If there was something she quite clearly didn't know about yet, it was that after so many years of training and fighting, any kind of sudden motion or noise as that was going to trigger an immediate response. Instinctively, he'd spun and whilst his reflexes were indeed still there and working exceptionally well, tragically the atrophied muscles of his legs and hips had not.

Collapsing to the floor in a fashion that must have looked for all the world like a drunken rag doll, Twilight shrieked and ran to his assistance. To add to his embarrassment, he was once again accosted by the spear wielding guards and of course the usual hospital staff.
'Jesus' he thought to himself. 'Just what I need - getting caught lying on a tiled floor like some kind of ... ah fuck it ...'

"Look! I was simply trying to get out of bed and move my legs! I wasn't roaming anywhere other than the eighteen or so feet provided to me here in my room!" he growled. The guards moved menacingly closer. The briefest moment passed, during which Karn looked up at his inquisitor. She seemed genuinely upset by his angry outburst, and knowing this left him feeling guilty. 'So now I have guilt to compound the agony in my legs' he sighed to himself.

He took a few breaths and allowed his selfish train of thought to leave him. "Look - I'm sorry, Twilight. I just wanted to get up and start moving around a little, get used to being active again and stretch my legs. I can't lay in a bed forever. I'm sorry I lost my temper with you, I understand you mean well but ... I really need to be getting more active before my legs waste away any further."

His apology and explanation seemed to soothe things over - with Twilight at least. These guards of hers, or he at least assumed they were hers, weren't taking any chances. It wasn't until Twilight assured them that things were okay that they returned reluctantly to their guard duties outside his room.

Twilight slowly helped him to his feet, and he shuffled back to the side of his bed. Seating himself down, he allowed himself to catch his breath. His rescuer glared at him, clearly upset that he'd been up and around against what seemed to be the advice of the Doctors. Karn recalled having a bullet strike his left scapula, twist and exit through his left clavicle and aside from having a useless left arm for a while and miraculously not bleeding to death, he was expected to be back on the line in no more than a week. Clearly things were somewhat different in this universe within which he found himself.

"Twilight, I'm sorry about my roaming antics. It's just starting to drive me crazy, this business of being stuck ... well, here," he exclaimed, raising his arms to indicate the four walls within which he had been confined. "Can I ask how long I've been here now?"

"You arrived in Equestria about a month ago. Most of that time you've been extremely ill, it's only been recently you've been coherent and able to interact with us."

Karn allowed the concept of a month to roll around in his head. It seemed odd that there were many things that this place shared in common with his own, yet so much was different. Like the fact he was making idle chit chat with an alicorn in his own language, inside a hospital run by ponies of various colors, under the watchful eyes of guards armed with spears. Then of course this business of 'magic' which had been touched on. Clearly this was not in any way an adeptic skill, but the few times he had witnessed it impressed him. He wanted to play his adept abilities closer to his chest for now. If anything, there would be fewer questions from Twilight, Rainbow Dash would be less likely to be standoffish and of course Fluttershy less afraid of him.

He closed his eyes and gave a sigh. "Well, what is it you've come to inquire after today? I'm sorry I'm not too talkative, it's just that between the brass band bashing away at the inside of my skull and the thumping that gravity so recently delivered to my goodly person, I'm not altogether myself."

Twilight raised an eyebrow at him. "Brass band?"

"It's an old saying where I'm from. Do you have musical instruments in this world of yours?"

"Well, yes we do, but why would you be listening to ..."

"Nothing, it's just a figure of speech, Twilight. My head just hurts like hell. So, you know. A brass band, lots of noise, confined space ... " Karn rolled his hands around to demonstrate the degree of cerebral confusion and pain that such would suggest. Twilight finally got the reference.

"Ah, I think I understand," she smiled.

In many ways, Karn found himself enjoying these moments with Twilight. She could be very exhausting and could often fire off several questions compounded into the one sentence. At one point, he even laughed and asked if she could borrow a full stop from one of her friends. It had taken some time to explain that half-hearted joke, too. She was exceptionally bright though, very logical, very nearly pedantic sometimes. Her grasp of science and mathematics and natural philosophy did appeal to his own nature. Aside from the headaches, difficulty dealing with eight subjects in single sentences and getting around the differences in scientific nomenclature, he found himself enjoying her visits quite a lot. 'Baby steps, Karn,' he thought to himself ... 'Christ, was I ever a baby?'

"At any rate, princess, you are now aware that I am clumsy. I may also have developed a disagreement with gravity. What may I help you with this incident filled morning?" he inquired, as melodramatically as possible.

"This might seem to be a bit of an odd question to ask you, Karn, but ... "

"Oh princess, I live to hear your odd questions. Come! Give me your best shot."

The exasperated look on Twilight's face remained unchanged. He called it 'giving me the look'. She was oddly pretty when she looked at him thus.

"Karn, I have a feeling you may have been a soldier of some kind where you are from?"

The mention of the word 'soldier' hit Karn with near physical force. Its effect was electric. His body's sympathetic system quite suddenly ratcheted up a gear. Momentary flashes of decapitating chaos adepts with blades of pure energy from his hands crashed through his mind, flashes of bodies torn apart with power, the stench of cadaverine and putrecine suddenly blew into his memory with full violence. The unexpected horror of his visions thrust themselves fist-like into his stomach.

Flinching forward on the side of the bed, he vomited explosively over the tile floor.

"OH MY GOODNESS! NURSE, WE NEED HELP! NOW, PLEASE!" called Twilight, somewhere in the back of Karn's mind.

When the sudden flashbacks ceased and he regained enough control of his senses to open his eyes, he found himself staring at his own filth spread across the floor next to his bed. He also realized with a shock that he was cold, clammy and shaking. Nurse Redheart and Twilight were at his sides, helping to steady him somewhat. He felt unable to form words for a moment and just tried to catch his breath. Someone offered him a glass of cold water, which he sipped at to get the taste of vomit from his mouth and settle his cramping stomach. Doctor Horse - whom Karn had chosen to nickname 'The Good Doctor' - had offered him something he assumed was an anti-emetic.

Twilight wondered why such a straight forward question would've caused such an acute reaction?

Once he'd finished searching for and located his composure, he slowly turned to Twilight. The look of curiosity had been replaced by one of worry this time.

"Well", he managed finally, "... yes. You could say I was. Nurse, I ... ", he started. Unable to find the right words, he shook his head and tried to apologize once more. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea I would be that sick."

"It's okay now, but please remain in bed until you are feeling steady!" she insisted.

Somewhat chastised, Karn nodded his acquiescence and turned back to face his royal visitor. "You're going to tell me that you told me so, aren't you?" The princess just frowned at him. "... weren't you? I can see the very words sitting on your lips. If you are going to question me, allow me the privilege of throwing a query your way now and then," he joked. The attempt at dry humor rolled off her like water. He wondered if such composure took a great deal of practice, or if she was naturally this way. "Well, you were, weren't you? You certainly weren't going to complement me on my appearance and how my health has improved! Nor chasten me over the poor standard of my boots!" Gesturing theatrically to the air at the foot of his bed, Karn continued. "Officer Commanding this court-martial, I direct the witness to answer the question and ... "

"Karn, why were so sick when I asked if you were ... well ... you know ... "

The silliness Karn showed vanished. "A soldier."

"Well ... yes," she stammered. Was that a flinch from her that he had detected? He was sure it was. Interesting.

"Twilight, you don't need to be quite so nervous about mentioning that now. It's difficult to explain, but well ... when you just came out of nowhere with that question, it brought up a lot of old baggage that I endured where I'm from."

"I don't understand. You carried baggage?" she asked, as she tilted her head very slightly. It was another gesture that Karn found pretty about her. Why would he think that a pony was 'pretty'? He actually found her pretty and yet she was a pony for fuck's sake. He shook off his sidetracked train of thought and sighed.

"It's just another figure of speech, princess. I meant that there's a lot of my history still fighting away in my mind. I still don't know a great deal about your world or what your customs are, and I don't know that I'm ready to share what I went through before I arrived ... well, here. I'm not entirely sure what role a soldier fills in your world, but in mine ... " Karn stopped mid sentence and stared off into the distance.

Twilight could see that there were thoughts on his mind that horrified him, or at least things he was unwilling to share.

When he finally continued, there was the very faint sign of a tears in his eyes. "Twilight ... I've done an awful lot of things in the name of 'good' and 'order' that I am not proud of. I guess I'm a soldier, but more specifically I am what you would call a secondary master order adept. I have been so for a very long time," he stated. He squinted his eyes at her quizzically. "I am still not entirely sure how you measure time here."

"We measure time in 'years', here. A year is the time it takes for our world to revolve around our sun. The difference between one planetary rotation and the next is considered a 'day' and there are approximately three hundred and sixty five of those days in a year."

Karn nodded. "Well, we measure time based on the revolutions of my home world around its 'sun' or 'star' too. There are approximately 350 rotations per 'year', and we call that a cycle. Since we travel from one star system to the next, for the sake of consistency we always measure time by our home configuration," he reported. He could see Twilight noting down these details in that notebook of hers. He was half convinced she was born with the thing. "Twilight, I'm approximately two hundred and fifty cycles old."

Twilight almost dropped her notebook and her wide eyes stared at him. "But. ... but that's ... two hundred and fifty years old!"

"Well, if you like. Yes, I'm about two hundred and fifty 'years' old," he agreed. His philosophical equine friend remained staring at him with those dish pan eyes. He didn't wait to find out if the look was permanent or not. "It was determined that I had adept powers at the age of four, and since then ... well, I've been training to be a 'soldier' if you like. I attained my basic rank and entered combat when I was twenty one, and I have been fighting for order ever since. Well, at least until I got here."

Twilight regained her composure, cleared her throat and returned to writing furiously in her notebook. "So ... you've been fighting now for ... wow," she observed. Karn found himself worried that this realization may actually harm what friendship he had with this pony. "I guess I can see why you reacted the way you did when I ... well, mentioned that you might be ... um, I'm sorry, Karn, I didn't mean to startle you like that. I had no idea."

Karn managed a weak smile. "It's okay, Twilight. How on earth would you have known?"

"This whole thing about being an adept that you keep mentioning. Can you tell me more about that? Does that have anything to do with what you arrived with?"

Karn caught his breath. His smile vanished immediately and he found himself staring very strongly at her.

".... what I arrived with??" he asked firmly.

There was a hint of danger in the tone he asked with, which caught Twilight very much off guard. His voice was suddenly monotone, measured and insistent. Almost as if she had crossed a boundary of some kind. "Well , I mean the medical supplies, or at least I think that's what they are, you um, were carrying something that was a strong pain reliever and some other chemicals, bandages, sutures and such."

Karn stared at her. The look of danger below his visage was still very much there.

"Twilight ... you're not telling me everything, are you."

"I, well ... um ... "

Karn learned ever so slightly further towards Twilight, his eyes remaining fixed on hers. It was almost as if he was measuring her, or - and the thought was troubling to her - analyzing her.

"Twilight ... medical supplies are not all you found, were they."

"I ... well, I ... "

"Twilight, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Where I'm from, we 'soldiers' carry very dangerous weapons. Your friends out there ... " he started as he motioned at the door with his thumb, "... are armed with spears. Trust me when I tell you that some of the equipment I carried can be deadly enough to make those things look like fence posts. For your safety, for my safety, for the sake of every pony around this ... this place, please tell me ... what else did you find?"

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence while the princess looked wide eyed upon this Jeckle-like character that she had discovered so suddenly. Karn remained perfectly still, almost as if he was wound up like a clock. He gave every impression that he could erupt at any moment, and that when he did the speed and force, even in in his semi-incapacitated state, would be too much for her to contain.

Karn, noticing the look of pensive fear that had overcome Twilight, decided that she had obviously meant no harm. He visibly relaxed and commenced the slow breathing again, and that horrible look in his eye directed her way slowly subsided. Closing his eyes and allowing himself a particularly deep breath, he relaxed back onto the bed a little.

"Oh shit, Twilight. I'm so sorry. I've been involved in all kinds of activities that I don't want to have to describe to you right now, and when you mentioned anything that I may have brought with me when I arrived, I guess I kind of overreacted."

"Oh Karn, I'm sorry if I keep making you so upset, but ... the thing is, we still don't know a great deal about you. We just don't know you well enough to, well, trust you. We don't know what you could do at any moment and you're obviously still very traumatized."

Karn allowed a small, simple smile for his interrogator. 'Interrogator' he thought. The term here had slowly seemed to take on an almost kindly meaning. Where had had come from, it meant machines of pain, agony, often the removal of body parts to obtain information. He much preferred this pony's methods to the ones he had witnessed, and to his horror had participated in.

"Karn, the kingdom of Equestria is ruled by a princess. Princess Celestia, in fact, and ..."

"Ah, so your earlier exclamation directed at my floor bound person 'Celestia's sake' was related to her?"

"Yes, the one and the same."

"Out of curiosity, do you often use the name of your nobility in such a manner?"

"Well, I hadn't thought of that. Who is this 'shit' you keep referring to? Was that one of the people in charge where you're from?"

Karn guffawed to himself. Whilst the observation was not true, it could very well have been a fitting metaphor for a few legates he served under. "Oh, well, it's a profane exclamation, Twilight. I apologize for using it, but after a few hundred cycles, it becomes force of habit."

"I see," she muttered, accompanied by more scribbling in her notebook. "Does that also apply to 'fuck', 'Jesus' and 'God dammit' as well?"

Hearing her vocalizing the profanities made Karn cringe a little. "Well, yes, indeed it does. Please, I know I have a problem and habit of using such words, but ... it just sounds very wrong coming from you," he ventured, as he found himself wincing with each mention. He really didn't want to go introducing these otherwise pleasant ponies to these kinds of profane exclamations. Especially 'pretty' ones. A pony raising emotions pertaining to attraction. What the hell was going on in his head?

"I see," she muttered once more. The interminable scribbling in that notebook of hers continued.

"Well, yes, Twilight. Could you do me a favor and not repeat them? Better still, please remind me as strongly as you can if I ever do use such language?"

"Karn, once you are feeling somewhat better I would like you to come and meet Princess Celestia, so we cover a lot more of your background together. The other item you brought with you when you arrived is very, very securely locked within the confines of the castle, and nopony other than Celestia, myself and of course you is aware of it's presence."

Karn was somewhat relieved at this piece of news. He was not entirely at ease, though. "Twilight, you must promise me that nobody will touch whatever it is, play with it, use any tools on it, handle it, or otherwise try to take it apart. The results could be ... well, deadly."

"You have my word!" she affirmed.

Author's Note

Just some expansion on who Karn is, and his growing connection to the world he is now in. I've thrown this chapter together overnight, and tried my best.

POST EDIT 2017-03-20
Just some minor clean up work and fixing a few issues with the dialog, hopefully making it a bit easier to read. A little bit of the excessively soppy sugary word play has been trimmed, too.

... our world to revolve around our sun.

I realize that strictly speaker, the world would be remaining motionless as Celestia raises the sun, but I wanted to tie some of these scientific aspects to our own world for the sake of the story.