“He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a different kind of living being and thou wilt not cease to live.”
― Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus.

The morning's events had somewhat battered what had been Karn's uplifted mood. He still felt the keen pain of regret for losing control so suddenly. It had taken a lot of good will on the part of the town to allow him to stay, or at least that's what he guessed was the case. The sudden exercise of adeptic power when he had been trying so hard not to had left him with one incredible head ache. The stress and embarrassment he'd felt as a result of his losing control so easily had of course not helped either. All of this had occurred conveniently at a time when we was still convalescing.

His relatively newfound equine friends seemed to be accepting enough, with the possible exception of Rainbow Dash.

"How on earth can we trust him after he did something like that?"

"Dashie, it was obviously just a misunderstanding on his part."

"Yeah? What if he does it again? What if it's something worse next time?" Karn found himself agreeing with Rainbow Dash on that score. 'The scowl on her face will probably be a permanent one after this morning,' he thought. She hadn't trusted him from the opening of proceedings and it seemed unlikely she would warm to him now. Her honesty was brutal. As he was already feeling particularly low, her tone pushed the negativity he felt into a vicious positive feedback loop within his psyche.

He felt awful, she vicariously impressed the reasons why he felt awful, thus he felt worse. Rinse, vomit, repeat.

He'd fucked up rather spectacularly, and done so on his first day. Well done. "She's right, Rarity. God only knows what I'd end up doing if anything around here actually did make me crack," he intoned in a way that didn't help him feel any better. A voice in the back of his mind called him a 'self-pitying little piss cart,' let Applejack beat that one.

Rarity looked taken aback at the very idea that he could lose control in a manner that could ever be dangerous. "You can't possibly be serious? Why on earth would you do anything like that? Karn, you may have overreacted a little ... "

"I erected a shield, bent time and ran from a group of ponies that were just asking me questions," he reasoned.

"Exactly!! What'll he do if anypony freaks him out NEXT time?" insisted Rainbow Dash.

"Well, he hardly hurt anyone this time, did he!" exclaimed Rarity.

"No, but he COULD have!"

The to and fro between the unicorn and the pegasus began to bounce around the walls of his mind, like two angry ping-pong protagonists hell bent on battering each other into submission. Two strong wills, neither seemed to want to give way - if he wasn't feeling so terrible, the polarity of their situation may even have amused him.

"He made a simple mistake, that's all. He just got upset after finding himself in such an unusual situation! You cannot tell me, Dashie, that you wouldn't have done the same?"

"Not like THAT, I wouldn't have! I'm just saying we shouldn't trust him that much until we know what ELSE he's been holdin' out on us!"

The last one felt like an ice pick being driven into him. The point was a pertinent one. Karn reasoned he would've been compelled to take a similar stance were the tables turned on him. Imagine having a notebook levitating multicolored pony suddenly land at his feet, whilst stuck in a trench somewhere! His internal dialog attempted a chortle at the image, but in his dismal frame of mind it just assumed a bitter cackle.

The arguing between them over a stupid act he was guilty of began to grate on his already taught nerves. The pain in his head increased. The man with the large adjustable wrench within his aching skull gave his optic chiasm an extra twist, just in case he'd forgotten it was there. 'God dammit, enough,' he cursed internally.

"Look ... JUST," he growled suddenly, before he sighed and stopped. A sudden wave of nausea overcame him. He closed his eyes and reached out with his hands in an attempt to steady himself. His sudden outburst did not improve on the feeling that someone had jammed a pneumatic instrument into his ear and increased the pressure in his skull to a bone cracking level. He took a few breaths, eyes tightly shut, before continuing. "Please don't argue with each other over something foolish that I did? I'm the one who fu- ... ruined the morning. It's nothing any of you did. Rainbow Dash is right, I didn't cause any harm this time, but ... "

The pain in his head ratcheted up a few gears, the metaphorical nylon rip-stop straps dug into his brain and he suddenly felt quite dizzy. "Ugh ... I need to sit down. How far is it to um ... to um ... " he grumbled, as he gesticulated slowly with his free hand in the hope that one of his new friends would oblige and fill in the blanks for him.

"You mean to Sugar Cube Corner?" quipped Pinkie. Her voice at any other time would've been wonderful. Her pitch very unfortunately felt like whomever it was that had ratcheted down the straps across his cerebrum had walked around and begun plucking them. The briefest flash of an image in his mind of Pinkie Pie strumming his brain like a guitar at least brought on a half-hearted smile.

Slowly opening his eyes, he found to his relief that the world wasn't spinning. "The very one, Pinkie. Thank you, my brain appears to be in neutral at the present moment," he replied. Several pairs of eyes stared blankly back at him. "It's ... it's colloquialism," he reasoned further. There was a blink or two there he was sure. "You know ... an old saying". A chorus of knowing sounds greeted his ears. 'I must try and speak a little more plainly,' he thought. 'Better yet, don't think - it hurts to.'

"It's not that far!"

He'd hoped for something a little more specific. Throwing up in the street on his first jaunt into town would really just be the perfect way to end the day. "Wh ... what do you mean by 'not far', Pinkie? I must apologize for sounding rude, but the jack hammer in my head ... " he began, before stopping as he was greeted once more by those unknowing stares. "My head hurts a great deal, Pinkie. I really need somewhere to sit down, before I'm sick."

"Well, it's really close! You should be able to see it from here!" she giggled. He hoped the agony his neural system was currently dealing him didn't show too obviously. He very nearly felt one of his eyes begin to twitch.

"Pinkie ... "

"You've got your hand on it, silly!"

"I've got my what?"

"Your hand! I know you like hands, you did ask Spike about ... "

"Oh, my hand, I ... " he turned to obtain a better view of the edifice currently serving to halt his fall to the ground in a very untidy heap. "I gather the building upon which I now rest my hand is the very place?"

"Uh huh! Come inside! You'll be made very welcome!" She somehow managed to bounce happily through a doorway that was about half his height.

"Where does she get that kind of energy from?" he asked, bemusedly. His other friends rolled their eyes and grinned. "No, I mean really. If it can be injected, inhaled, ingested or absorbed, I would love some," he joked. He wasn't sure if they understood his meaning or not. It didn't matter. At least he could sit down again for a while.

His introduction to Mr. and Mrs. Cake, who it seemed ran the aptly named Sugar Cube Corner, was indeed a good deal more charming of a first meeting than he'd managed earlier that day. In fact, he found the couple to be extraordinarily cheerful and pleasant and very understanding of his quiet speech and tired demeanor. They at least seemed to understand that he was in pain, and immediately offered him what seating they could. The pony sized stools being out of question - it had taken some work on his part to stoop through the doorway - he received permission to seat himself upon the floor. 'With the rest of my ... therapists?' he thought to himself.

"I know I've probably said so a few times on our trek here, but I'm very sorry about this morning. I didn't expect things to have gone so pear shaped ... I mean, so badly," apologized Karn.

"Don't you worry yer head about it fer now, Karn," rolled Apple Jack. "Jest set yerself down and relax fer a while! You were startin' ta look pretty much run down out there."

To his surprise, he managed a feeble smile for her. "You must promise me that you will show me apples," he insisted. She seemed genuinely stunned by the request.

"Apples? Are you tellin' me y'all don't have apples where yer from?"

"Well, no. My family was largely given to work in the wine trade. Of course we also distilled some rather good Alsovian Whiskey too."

"Whiskey?" asked Twilight.

"Yes, it's a distilled drink made in my home Country. It's very much the custom for each clan to make its own. We use it for celebrations and such. Do you not distill alcohol here?"

"Alcohol?" Twilight asked.

"It doesn't sound like it. That being the case, I shall not introduce it to you," he stated. The idea of a town full of magical, completely inebriated ponies, whilst entertaining, sounded neither safe nor welcoming. "Apples, though. The very name intrigues me. The more so since I'd be very interested to know how much horticulture differs here than back home," he pointed out to Applejack. The concept that home was quite possibly gone, if not forever then at least for quite some time slowly wiped the weak smile from his face. Pinkie opted to try and come to his emotional rescue.

"Karn, cheer up. I'm sure we'll find out somehow what happened to you and how you got here! In any case, it's great to have a new face around town! Chin up, buttercup! There has to be something here I'm sure you'll just love, oh I bet I can guess! You'll love this!"

A large, incredibly sweet smelling carbonated beverage topped with a bewildering variety of colored sprinkles and sporting a large straw seemed to appear from nowhere.

"I ..."

"Try it! Try it! Try it! I bet you'll love it!" Pinkie insisted.

He raised one eyebrow at his vivacious companion. He wondered if the bubbles in the drinks were what made her that way? He was certainly willing to try it and find out. He allowed the first slow draft of the contents of the glass to flow onto his tongue.

The resulting effect on his taste buds and on his olfactory bulb were difficult for him to describe. He could not recall ever having tasted anything either so incredibly sweet nor indeed so tasty at the same time. He'd been obliged to take glucose tests as part of his cyclical medical examination - but whatever the hell this was made from absolutely blew that awful stuff away completely. He swallowed the first mouthful. His eyes watered, his eyelids twitched and for a moment he was sure he could actually see sounds and hear colors.

"P ... Pinkie ... I ... whoa," he spluttered.

"See!! I told you you'd like it! Isn't it great?!? It's my own recipe! I ... "

"Pinkie, I ... synesthesia! ... Sweet Jesus, what's IN this?!?" he remarked, finally staring down at the drink before him in wonder.

"Well, first I take ... "

"Let me guess. Sugar!"

"Well, there's a lot more to it than just sugar, silly, but ... "

"Sugar!" Karn exhaled deeply. "Pinkie, where I've been the past two hundred cycles, you can have no idea what a luxury something like sugar would be. Occasionally we'd use packets of glucose to gamble with! I didn't know what this much of it tasted like in one hit until now!"

Pinkie started to look concerned for a moment. "You ... you don't like it?"

Karn realized once again that he'd been less than clear. "No, no, Pinkie, I love it! It tastes ... " another exhalation, "it's just so sweet, I've never tasted anything close to this before. Alsovian Whiskey is known to be a little sweet, but fu- ... " Twilight looked around at him. "Ah. I mean, wow! The beverage is indeed wonderful, Pinkie. It just may take my taste buds a little while to get used to anything so ... wow."

His appreciative remarks, as far as he could manage them, were genuine. Whilst he could only manage gentle sips of it, the well being it brought along with Pinkie's usually happy company, finally started to ease his troubles. As if to reinforce this, her smile grew larger than before. He was astonished that was even physically possible. Once more, he felt his mood rise - how did these ponies manage to do that?

"Okay. So, I know Pinkie is master with ... well, with the creation of these," he spluttered as he raised the glass towards Pinkie in salute. "I know a little about most of you from my imprisonment within the walls of the hospital, with all due regard to Doctor Horse and Nurse Redheart, one hastens to add! Applejack, I know you're the one with the apples and as such it sorts well with your name. My dear lady Rarity makes the most incredible footwear I have ever had the fortune to put upon my person. Twilight is of course the inquisitor ... " a frown flashed his way from his current subject. "Well, I mean of course inquisitive if I may. Spike here, of course, offers such wonderful assistance, gifted with two hands, one of which I've had the benefit of shaking for a protracted period of time."

"Karn, are you sure you're okay?" asked Spike. "You sound kinda funny, even for you!"

For the first time he could really recall since arriving, there was a genuine laugh that escaped from his lips - and to his present joy, he found it shared with his company, even Rainbow Dash.

A very agreeable hour spent being introduced to Sugar Cube Corner, it was decided to make their way to Twilight's abode. The refreshments and the chance to rest a little had allowed Karn to recover his health and improve his mood enough to walk a little further unaided. Twilight had made it a point to take Karn to her laboratory in order to carry out a few simple studies on him, to see if such could offer an clue as to what had brought him here to Equestria in the first place.

Fluttershy followed a little nervously to one side of Karn as they continued their progress towards Twilight's beckoning library. She had listened intently to the to-and-fro conversation between all of them whilst visiting with Mr. and Mrs. Cake. As they walked together, she wondered why it was that she felt a connection of some kind to this human creature. After their time together in Ponyville hospital whilst he was at his worst, she had grown attached to him and felt responsible for his well being - maybe that was it?

'Okay, so it has come down to this,' Karn growled to himself. They had managed to find their way to Twilight's house without any other major mishaps. There had been a few more greetings along the way and some event free introductions. He still felt the general malaise that had settled on him since his introduction to the town outside the hospital. The pain had abated somewhat - he'd given in finally and taken some of the pain medication that Doctor Horse had offered him just prior to being discharged. At least he was lucid enough to determine what kind of analgesia he was being given, and between himself and the 'good Doctor', they'd been able to find a suitable dose.

The gremlins in his skull had at least given up attacking his mind with heavy machinery. They seemed to be happy enough to just idly kick the sides of his brain, as if they were checking to make sure it hadn't gone flat. The image was again one that he found amusing.

At any rate, he found himself seated once more on the floor of an abode that seemed to have been made from a standing tree. He was very impressed - whilst doorways were an issue with their lower height and seating was clearly something he would have to address at some stage, the manner in which the dwelling had been built was interesting.

He'd forgotten about the décor once Twilight had asked him to wear a strange metal helmet, covered with sensors. She'd promised it was painless and she had been right. However, it still felt like she was the one overreacting this time - precisely what was she hoping to determine?

"Twilight, do you really think this is necessary? I am assuming this is the equivalent of an electroencephalogram, but I really doubt it will show you anything interesting."

"I'd still like to run the test while I'm asking you more questions. I think we're more likely to discover anything interesting that way."

He raised an eyebrow and nodded his head a little with grudging agreement. 'Who knows? Maybe the Gremlins will show up - perhaps they have names? It wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen to me lately,' he pondered. "Okay, Princess, I'll grant you that much. Whilst my head is buried under this colander, by all means continue your questioning."

"Now, can you try and think back to the moment you found yourself here. What were your first sensations?"

He was expecting a question such as this, but even so the prospect of having to go dredging up that intense moment wasn't something that he was eager to do. "Oh God, I was afraid you'd say that," he managed, his voice flat. "There are a few aspects of that experience that are very hard for me to think about."

"Karn, I know it's difficult for you. But I'm really hoping we can find out what happened and figure out how you got here, not to mention how to get you home."

He paused for a moment and collected his thoughts and memories as best he could.

"The first physical sensation I can recall really was the wet ground I landed on here."

"What was the last thing you remember feeling before that?"

"It's ... very hard to describe," he said firmly. He tried to find a way to describe what he'd felt prior to his arrival in this place. "Twilight, you realize you're aware of who you are? Where you are? When you are? You are aware of your existence and that you are here," he gestured to the ceiling above them. "You are aware of the passage of time and that it is advancing in a linear fashion around you?"

He let the words sit there for a moment. He was certain that he hadn't made himself clear at all. He caught the sight of his boots once more and found it easier to concentrate on them, than to try and make eye contact.

"I am sitting here, aware of the floor under me, the room around me, all of my senses are fully intact. Now ... imagine only comprehending that your mind exists. Only your thoughts, only the idea that your essence is there. There is no darkness, for you cannot see. It isn't noisy, for you cannot hear. You feel nothing physically, you cannot sense your limbs, your body. There is ... it's almost as if nothing is there. Just your mind, on some kind of ... " he shook his head in confusion. "Infinite plane, one that bends in on itself. Your mind is just flowing around and through this ... nothingness. There was no sense of time, I mean none at all. There was just my mind, my ego, spread over this space. I don't mean space as in the sense of being in this lab for example. It just felt like ... being bound, but unbound. As if my only form was that of water running around a ball somehow. No start, no end."

He finally looked over at her, hoping that something he had said had made some kind of sense. She had that look of curiosity that he found oddly comforting. She was very interested in what he had to say, obviously, whether it made any sense or not.

"Karn, can you recall anything that happened before that? Was there anything you can remember happening just before you started to ... become 'unbound'?"

He felt his stomach sink. There was a feeling of nausea once more. He took a moment to try and relax, to let himself recover a little, before he could even begin to speak. When he finally did speak, the pain in his voice was obvious. It was clear he was recalling events that he didn't want recalled and covering ground he didn't want to tread on again. He slowly seemed to lose awareness of where he was, as the old horrors began working their way forward within his mind.

Why couldn't he stop them?

"I remember sitting in a shell hole. We'd been fighting on that planet for several days and were preparing for another offensive. It was so wet. I remember the feeling of rain on my back. I remember watching it fill the shell hole. I remember ... " he stopped abruptly. His eyes seemed to focus on something beyond the walls - like he was fixing his sight on something that existed only in his memories.

The look was one of fear mixed with horror and regret. For his part, he became unaware of the lab he was sitting in.

He could remember alright, that was part of the problem.

"I remember Coron sitting there. We were just talking nonsense as we always did. I'd been trying to drink a canteen with some coffee in it. This ... incredible flash. I would guess it was something propelled from nearby, there was no hint of artillery or the crump of mortars. Just this flash. Coron, he was right there, just talking to me. The percussion of the blast blew me quite out of my senses briefly. I remember feeling the pain that followed on from the shock of that explosion .... and he was gone, nothing more than chunks of uniform and parts everywhere.
They'd hit us first. I remember slowly recovering my senses enough to find that I was in the center of this blood bath, this open air abattoir.
Just adepts killing each other, everywhere. Screams, the sound of people being torn apart, blown to bits, ripped to pieces sounding like some hideous zipper ... and then ... this thing ... "

The disgust in his voice mingled with the other emotions already present. He began to visibly tremble, his eyes still fixed on something out of Equestria, quite out of the range of any of them to understand.

"The power being wielded by chaos and order across the battlefield just joined, somehow. It was almost like entropy itself had assumed some kind of demonic form. This ... this ball of nothing! It just began spreading. It ate everything in its path, it was just completely indiscriminate. It just grew, nobody else seemed to notice it! They just kept killing each other. And it grew! Almost as if it fed on them, chaos and order alike.
I couldn't stop them. I wanted to, I wanted them to stop!"

He could again smell the battle ground - the mud, the smell of dirt soaked in blood and rain water, the scent of death and ozone in the air, the crackling of that thing as it spread over the face of the planet - unstoppable, assuming what felt like some kind of senseless rage.

"I remember ... I remember thinking that this was how I was to meet my end. I remember wondering if my father would know how I'd died, if anyone would figure out what had happened. I drew every single screed of energy I could to shield myself, and then just as that thing reached me, I bent time and tried to slow it down enough ... I so wanted just one more moment, one more second, one more instant of existence before ... then it reached me, and the pain! It was as if someone had quite literally torn me apart, atom by atom. Just ripped me down to nothing more than the raw molecules of my former self. And yet as that happened, my mind, the part of me that's aware of who I am, of what I am ... it was as if it became detached and thrown onto that ... that plane. I couldn't stop it! I couldn't stop them killing themselves. For what? In the snap of a finger, in that one instant, just ... erased."

His memories thus dredged, he slowly became re-aware of his surroundings. His vision once more fixed on his footwear, the scent of death left him and the death screams once more slid into his subconscious - almost as if they'd been given at least some kind of burial. Once more, he could feel the floor beneath him, the apparatus on his head and hear the whirring of lab equipment. Aside from the sounds of the room, the only other sound he was aware of was that of his shuddering, halting breaths. Was he alone?

He looked up to find Twilight had stopped writing in her notebook at some stage. She was staring at him, the shock apparent on her face. The others were likewise visibly shaken.

"Twilight, what happened to them? What happened to me?" he asked, finally.

"Oh Karn, I'm so sorry," she whispered. He fought back against the wave of sadness and guilt he could now feel washing over him. He felt a hoof gently touching his right arm - looking around, he found Fluttershy standing by his side.

"Fluttershy ... what ... why?" His guardian angel gently slid her hooves up and around him and she rested her head onto his chest.

Composing herself a little, Twilight stepped towards the two of them. "Karn, I'm so sorry I put you through that again. I didn't realize it was that painful for you. I promise, I won't ask about that experience again."

"It's okay, Twilight, I know you needed to ask, but please don't make me do that again."

"Never again, I promise."

Author's Note

I've been trying to work some more dialog into the story. Lord only knows how well or badly I failed, but I did enjoy writing much of this one.

I will give no trophy to whomever can spot The Rolling Stones reference within this chapter.

2017-03-30 POST EDIT:
Removed an awful lot of soppy stuff from this chapter and made it a lot more concise I think. Tried to make the protagonist less of a heal.