The Stable

I had slept surprisingly well, considering the circumstances. I guess I should give credits to Starlight’s promise, as well as the predictions and foresight of Pinkie Pie, the Minister of Morale and element of Laughter.

We had managed to arrive at the cave of the Stable late, last night. In the dark of the late hour, and the exhaustion of the long trek; we had chosen to camp in the cave, rather than approaching the gate itself. If it was on purpose, or if by chance; who is to say, I am still not quite ready to judge.

There is a sense of warmth beside me, almost as if I had had a dear companion by my side. Not a Deer, or a Cow, but an Equine. Half by half, I had expected it to be either Starlight Glimmer, or even Pinkie Pie herself. Maybe I am still dreaming? There is always the chance, there is another new member of our small group of travelers; though I could not for my life recall, who or when or even where this could have been.

In the end, it proved a fruitless challenge. The Stallion had either been in the cave as we arrived, or stumbled upon it while we were sleeping. He had not bothered killing or even hurting any of us; but is now comfortably leaning in against my flank. Maybe he was merely enjoying the comforting warmth of a Mare’s body? I guess I could not blame him.

“Trust Pinkie Pie to be fluent in Zebracon!” I ponder, as I hear Pinkie Pie’s voice, greeting the Stallion by my side.

“Oh, and Starlight has a gift for you!” she then adds, as the Zebra stallion replies to her greeting.

He looks stunned; hearing the mare addressing him in perfect, fluid zebra. There had been little contact between the Zebra and the Ponies before, short of the diplomatic and trade that broke down not too far back.

As if on cue, the flap slips open and the necklace is slipping out. As I am looking, the item is slowly floating through the air as if by magic; approaching the zebra stallion, who is likewise following it with his gaze. Despite the slow motion, the necklace is finding its place around his neck in a mere few minutes; locking around him, holding him in a firm, yet gracefully gentle grip.

“How did you know?” the Stallion inquires, as he is noticing his glyph on the necklace.

“You are the last in line, thus it is yours!” Starlight Glimmer points out.

“I had a vision, of you waking up, in this cave at this time!” Pinkie Pie explains.

That is the cue, and I feel the mark on my necklace starting to glow. Only this is not the usual magic of a regular Unicorn’s spell. Something is wrong, something is off. I feel as if the ground had slipped out from right under my very hooves.

At first, everything looks normal. I can see everyone in the cave, just as before. I am having this strange and queasy sensation, and as if someone had been trotting over my grave.

An undefined moment later, my vision is starting to blur, as I feel my consciousness melting.

“Is this how it feels, when you have your soul ripped out of your body?” I manage to ponder, before my individuality evaporates.

The essence of me is still there, lingering in a limbo-like state; my body evaporating all around me and floats towards the center of the gathered crowd. I feel the essence of my comrades gathering in a pool as a central mass.

While I am in this state; I am blending with the other souls and we slowly, but unavoidably merge into one. For a moment, we remain in a single unity of souls. Disembodied, but free.

The moment passes, and the entity I am part of is splitting into two individuals.

I am still part of them, just as they are part of me. Pony, Zebra, Deer, Cow, Giraffe, and even the Bat.

Once I am once more one, myself; my body is slowly starting to assemble itself from the parts that was the unity I had been accepted into. There is no way around it, I am still a part of the unity. I have all their memories. Yet, I am no apart from them. None of them exists as individuals anymore. They are all lost, so that I can be the Chimera Mare I have become. I have my Stallion, my Companion by my side.

Fortunately, the body of a Pony and the Zebra is so close, one could fuse them together.

My head is further up in the air now, with a longer neck from the Giraffe, as a part of me. I also have her horns on my head, not yet knowing or understanding how this is going to change my life.

I move gracefully, with the hooves of the Deer. She was such a nimble and sensitive friend, the short time I knew her. Now she is part of me, I remember everything she was put through.

I have a Cow’s tail, as a gift from Moo Oonah. How does this change anything? I have no idea.

One side of my body is that of the Pony I once was, but with the Zebra version of what had been my mark; my other side is that of the Zebra, but with the Pony’s cutie mark. Thankfully, the stripes does not change anything for me. I am still myself, as far as the body goes.

On my back, I have a pair of black bat wings. Should I complain? Even if I never fly, I could still enjoy having them. Couldn’t I?

My companion looks like a male twin; just that his body is mirrored, and he has his glyph and mark in place of mine.

“My promise still stands!” Starlight Glimmer points out, with her usual certainty.

“Sorry, Starlight; neither you, nor I can enter the stable! But, your two new friends can; they only need to figure out how this words first! Then they can join the community and move between the cave and the stable at will!” Pinkie Pie now enlightens Starlight.

Incidentally, she is also explaining a great deal to me and my companion. While this may very well have been on purpose on her part all along. Naturally, I expect Starlight to have known this as well; being a Ghoul and all that. She just could not make herself let us know. Could she? How could she, could I have done that if I had been in her Pony shoes? I do not know, and neither do I want to know.

“Che Mare!” I ponder, as I am pondering my position.

“Yes, Che!” Pinkie Pie exclaims, as the form of her body suddenly changes to resemble me.

She is still the same pink Ministry mare, but her body now clearly is purposefully resembling me for a purpose.

“How did you do that, Pinkie?” I ponder, not yet openly questioning what I see vocally.

“Simple, my dear Che; I picked up this form, in order to demonstrate what you need to do!” she points out, with a giggle in place of the lecturing voice.

“Of course, she is a holographic representation of who she used to be!” I realize in stark shock.

“While I may have been born a common Earthpony, my dear Che!” she is reminding me; “I was never what you should consider normal or regular, by any standard!” she then continues.

“Would Princess Luna ever have chosen you to be a Ministry mare, had you been a regular run of the mill Earthpony?” I ponder, instantly knowing the answer to my own question.

I may not be like Starlight Glimmer, never mind Pinkie Pie, the obvious is simply obvious.

While it may be a holographic representation, of the mare known as Pinkie Pie; but she still is more Pony than I had ever been, even before I had become the Chimera I am now. While she is an Earthpony and not a Unicorn; she seems to have an instinctive understanding and sense for the Magic and Arcane as if she had been one.

She is looking at me, and it feels as if it had been Pinkie Pie herself looking at me. Had this been any other Pony, than Pinkie Pie herself; I would have been itching to back away and try to hide. Now, this is her; Pinkie Pie.

As I am looking at her, I notice the tips of the horns starting to glow and picks up a radiant glow as if it had been a Unicorn’s horn. Or, in this case, the horns of a Giraffe. I, myself; am part Giraffe. I have the horns, to make the point.

“Now, focus! You can do it! Just picture the door, on the surface of the rock before you!” she now points out.

“How?” I ponder, considering her words.

As I am focusing on her, I am focusing on her words; my horns starts to glow, just as hers does.

While she is depicting the door on the surface of the rock-face before me, the image in my head is slowly but certainly taking form; and as the image is gaining clarity, the door is also gaining substance on the wall in front of me.

“Now, open the door and enter!” she points out, instructing me to follow the path she had just drawn up the outlines of.

As I reach out, and open the door; I can clearly see an empty, black void before me. A space between the wall, and the cave inside the stable.

“Step right in, but do not forget to close the door behind yourself!” she continues.

“Oh, okay; and, thank you, Pinkie Pie!” I respond, just before I step into the room I had just created.

My companion is following me into the room, before he is closing the door behind himself.

I can no longer see, or sense the cave, behind myself; in which, Starlight Glimmer and Pinkie Pie is still standing in.

While my horns remain aglow, I can see the room in which I am standing; just as clearly as I can still see and hear my companion.

I see his horns, as they start to glow; right before he is opening the door, to the next room.

As he steps in and I follow him; we enter the stable and I close the door behind myself.

While I had not been told, there is one single lone mare standing there and waiting; Starlight Glimmer, the original founder who established the village and the stable within which I am now standing.

“You are one curious looking Pony, if you are indeed even a Pony?” she exclaims, as she sees me and my companion stepping into her stable.

“Yes, and no” I respond.

“Zoo Maré was, but she is still party of us!” my companion adds.

“Those necklaces, my original double sent you as her proxy?” she now suggests.

“I, we carry the promised items! She paid a steep price, for the items she had been promised!” I point out.

“She could not return, or enter the stable; not in the shape, or form in which she had found herself!” my companion adds.

“The ministerial gifts, you have them for us?” she inquire.

“Yes!” I respond.

I open the door, and step right out. Once I closed the door, I trot through what is to be my home. I open the other door, before I step out and pick up the saddle-bag left to us. The bag still contains all the pip-bucks.

Of course the cave is empty, Starlight Glimmer had left while I was entering the stable. I had known it, it had just never quite registered with me. Not until now, that is.

I step into the void between the cave and the stable, before I close the door. I trot back to the door into the stable and close it behind myself. I make the effort of preventing even her to see anything behind that door.

Once I had closed the door behind myself, I open the flap to the saddle-bag and extract the buck intended for her. It already carries her mark, the mark of Starlight Glimmer.

As opposed to any previous and more primitive version of the Pip-buck, this does not require a technician to put it on. The small metallic item slowly fuses to her right fore-leg, just above her hoof.

“Thank you!” she exclaims.

“You are quite welcome!” I point out; “I am merely delivering the gift, paying for my entry!” I then add.

“”I am eternally grateful, for your acceptance into your midst; when one such as I had never expected your graceful acceptance!” my companion points out, in a remnant of his ancestral dialect and, and in the traditional singsong rhymes

“I can not deny my heritage!” he ponders, knowing all too well the truth of it.

Of course; as a Chimera, we both share that heritage now. I am just as much the Zebra in the room, as he is. Or, just as little.

I ask nothing in return, for the favour I had delivered; even despite the price, I had paid along my companion. I can never be a Pony, more than he could be a Zebra. Of course, that goes for all of us; we’re neither Pony, Zebra, Deer, Giraffe, Cow or Bat. Never again. Never again, could either count ourselves as part of the greater community. Our heritage lost, in place we now have this; to be Chimera, and to have a companion. I have one such as myself, one whom I can confide and trust into the bitter end. Whenever that may be.

“I will summon my followers, early in the morning; so that I can share with them, the gift you delivered for me!” Starlight explains, with a wide grin spreading out all over her face.

With the door closed behind me, I am alone; I have none, beside my companion.

The walls are cold, dark and hard. So very hard, and unforgiving.

There is none, on either side of the respective doors, I could as well make them cease to exist. Starlight Glimmer may have been happy, for the delivery I had put before her. I had just done what Pinkie Pie had predicted, for a Pony who can never be a Pony or amongst her own kind. As a Ghoul, she is cursed, to stay alive while everything she ever cared about crumbles in one way or the other.

Maybe I should be grateful, for the one thing I still have; my companion, whom I could spend my dark hours with.

First now, it hit me just how long the day had been. I had gone through a few things I never knew. Now I am alone, shut of from everything I ever knew. I may be alive, but isn’t that a cold comfort; in this desolate, darkness?

I attempt to lie down, and my companion soon share his warmth, for all it is worth.

The room is quiet, save for the twin noises of our breathing. That is everything I have, in the darkness.

While I do not exactly hear it, but I still do sense a double bed materializing out of thin air.

“This is the least I could offer!” I note reads, I find resting comfortably on the pillow in the middle.

“There is a third pillow?” I ponder.

“We have a home!” I breathe.

“Let us share this one blessing in the cold, dark of the night!” he points out.

I hear the jubilant tone in his voice, even if it barely is a hint.

We climb up and nezzle into the ned. I soon find myself drifting off to sleep; in the warm embrace of the promise, the bed is offering.