“You were never meant to see this, Twilight Sparkle.” Adorned on the walls, pictures of Ponyville’s residents littered every conceivable surface area. Raising a hoof, she saw she was standing on a picture of her friend Cheerilee with a small colt, taken during Nightmare Night. In the middle of this maelstrom of photographs, stood the jade green pony with the auburn hair.
Twilight looked about, a cold grip crawling up her legs. “What... is this?” she gaped, her hooves inching ever closer to the door. The pony looked about, his eyes taking in every small detail.
“Can’t you see Twilight?” he asked, tittering his tongue. “For Celestia’s prized pupil, you’d think you’d recognize Ponyville when you see it.”
“I can see that!” Twilight shouted, surprising herself. She was confused. She could see pictures - so many pictures of herself and her friends. Some of them were public, others, though- one was of her sleepover with Rarity and Applejack. Yet another was of Pinkie Pie’s birthday party taken from inside the barn. Her hooves shook as her eyes started to narrow. “What’s it for? Why do you have Ponyville in your cellar?” The jade green unicorn took a step forward, but Twilight’s horn quickly roared to life, awash in her aura. “Not another step!” she challenged.
But the stallion shook his head. “Or what? You’ll zap me? Tear me apart limb from limb? Please Twilight, you’re quick to defuse a situation, but in an out and out fight you’re hardly what I’d call experienced.” To prove his point, he took another step forward, causing Twilight to flinch, but she held her ground. “Not without your friends to turn your opponents to stone.”
“D-don’t come any closer, you!” Voice cracking, the unicorn mare tightened her muscles, her mind reeling as she looked at picture upon picture. Lyra and BonBon, Fluttershy talking to Big Macintosh, Sweetie Belle and Spike walking out of Rarity’s Boutique. “You can’t threaten me!”
He stopped, and his smile shrunk. “Threaten you? Why would I want to?” he asked. The air of confusion too thick to breathe, Twilight made no move to drop whatever spell she was preparing. “Twilight Sparkle, as Celestia as my witness this is much more benign than you make it out to be. In fact-” Returning to his desk, the unicorn’s horn flickered with red-orange light, picking up a roll of parchment and levitating it over to the mare.
“What’s this? Some kind of spell?” Twilight countered. Her glare only faltered for a moment, her eyes falling upon what could only be the Royal Seal of Celestia. The breath escaped her as her magic dissipated, the green pony cracking only a slight smile of reprieve. “Why... you receive letters from the Princess!?”
Nodding, the pony returned the paper to his table, a sad smile on his face. “Yes, she and I have been in correspondence for some time now.” His eyes were lost among the faces along the walls, the pony sitting himself down. “I fear that I will have to explain myself to you?” He cast a sidelong glance toward the unicorn, whose expression told him all he needed to know. “Of course. Can’t leave well enough alone. Twilight Sparkle, amateur detective. I’d have thought you’d have learned you lesson after Pinkie Sense.”
“Stop that!” Twilight snapped, fury behind her eyes. “Just because you write a letter to the Princess doesn’t mean a thing!” Her eyes darted around the room, falling again on the pony centered in the room. “What is all this, and... what’s your name!?”
“Hyde.” The jade pony’s head dropped as he uttered his name, his eyes closing slowly. “And this... this is Ponyville as I’ve come to know it.” Looking along the faces that stared out at them, Hyde continued. “Every aspect I can find, solidified. Documented. Kept safe to the best of my ability.”
Twilight shook her head. “That doesn’t mean anything. You’re a terrible riddler.”
“It’s not a riddle, Twilight.” Hyde sighed, picking up a piece of paper nearby. Approaching the mare, he watched her muscles tense as he approached. Making no sudden movements, the pony offered the page. “Here, read this.” Twilight took the page, giving the pony a once over before her eyes looked over the words.
“January 28th. Rainbow Dash is at the central building at Ponyville with the gray pegasus with the blonde mane. Suspicious confirmed - her name is indeed Derpy, as claimed by another pony. I am now free to discuss openly with her, but must remain vigilant! I cannot raise questions about her job, living conditions, or family.”
Twilight read the passage again, silently, her brow furrowed as she made her second pass. Shaking her head, she looked up at the stallion. “I don’t get it. Why can’t you ask Derpy what her job is?”
“Because it’s not mine to say, Twilight!” Hyde exclaimed, shaking his head. “There are hundreds of jobs out there - some I’m sure I’ve never heard of.”
“Hyde, you don’t decide that!” Twilight interrupted. “If you’ve never talked to her, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist. How egotistical can you get?” The lavender pony shook her head about, trying to understand how a pony could come to believe himself to be the center of the universe.
However, Hyde ignored her, picking up another picture, but this time he didn’t show Twilight the contents. “Look, I don’t... expect you to understand. You should probably leave before I do something inexcusable.” Looking at the picture, the stallion sighed wearily, but it only prompted the other unicorn to take a step forward.
“What do you mean, Hyde? I... I can’t walk away from this. Not if I think you could be of harm to anypony.” Twilight’s words were harsh, but the jade unicorn made no effort to correct her. “Tell me, what’s so important about Derpy’s job? Why can’t you ask her about it? What is with the pictures?”
Hyde looked over to Twilight, his eyes hardening slowly. “In short?” he asked, with no intention of waiting for an answer. “Because it’s not mine to say. Because she’s real now. Because without these pictures Ponyville is subject to anything and everything!”
Twilight stared, her expression blank. “She’s...” she drew out the next word long and hard, “real now?” Eyes askew, Twilight shook her head as she stepped toward the jade pony. “Are you crazy? How was she not real before?”
“Because... because she wasn’t.” The useless answer bounced harmlessly off Twilight as Hyde brought his gaze along the ground. “You don’t know Twilight. What I would give to be like you. Your world is so real and yet so intangable. Tell me. What does Pinkie Pie do?”
“Pinkie Pie?” Her best parrot impression aside, the studious unicorn raised her eyes to the ceiling. “She makes parties. She’s random. She lives above a bakery where she works-”
“There. Right there.” Hyde interrupted. “What if I was to tell you that Pinkie Pie was insane? Hm? That you never see shipments of flour and sugar to Sugar Cube Corner. That every single cupcake she’s ever made had once been a candy colored pastel pony that nobody ever cared to ask who their name was!?”
“Stop!” Twilight screamed, the jade unicorn backing down. “Sisters, you really are crazy.” Twilight muttered, putting her hoof to her head. “Do you honestly expect me to believe all that!?”
“Of course not!” Hyde bickered, his horn sparking to life as three pictures along the wall were torn from their nails, parading in front of Twilight’s eyes as they danced along in his magic. “These photos show the supply truck you’ve never seen. The love and care that she puts into every baked treat, and finally this is a photo of the ledger that details the names of every single pony living in Ponyville, from birth to death.” Slamming the pictures on the floor, Hyde came eye to eye with Twilight, his face a mask of pain and anger. “Do you see, Twilight? The holes I’ve filled in your life before your very eyes. Both scenarios were equally as likely- And I’ve seen them both through.”
Twilight preformed a double-take, her eyes hardening on the pony. “Excuse me? You’ve seen them both?”
“Hundred of times,” Hyde claimed, throwing his head back to part some of his hair. “Sometimes Applebloom is in on it. Othertimes she kills everybony in town, or she’s stopped before she can get to Rainbow Dash. Sometimes it’s a movie! Or Gummy is behind the whole thing.” Hyde sat back down, his hair landing in front of his eyes again. “Twilight, what I do here is not something anybody can do.” Looking back at his cutie mark, the phoenix quill seemed to sparkle as he considered it. “Again and again I can see these stories play out in front of me. To see every available outcome, all at once. All the time.”
“Hyde, that’s... impossible.” It was absurd to think about, an aspect only considered in books. “Don’t you think you just have an overactive imagination? You don’t need... pictures of everypony to prove the world isn’t this horrible place.”
“Did you know that in the hands of the wrong author, you and I would be in the throes of coitus?” Twilight choked on her spit, the pony’s face shifting from alarm to anger to retribution.
“Ex-cuse Me?”
Hyde sighed, shaking his head. “Your world isn’t real, Twilight.” Again he stood up, his eyes trailing toward the window. “Not to me, anyway.”
“It’s not real. But you said Derpy was real.”
“She is, Twilight. To you. To you, and Rarity, and Applejack, and Mayor Mare, and Luna, and Trixie, and Spike. Your world is real to you. It exists.” Hyde trailed, his eyes closing as he considered his next words. “But it’s not. It’s just a story. Exploitable as any other.”
Twilight stayed silent. Nothing seemed to make sense. But even as she knew she was as real as anything she could touch, she could tell behind his voice that Hyde truly believed what he was saying, and… she could feel the experience. “Exploitable?”
“Jesus, don’t say it like that.” Hyde shivered, his tail twitching. “We’re only a couple years into it, no matter what I do or say here won’t matter, but for you, in this reality, aren’t much more than a puppet to be controlled by the whims of another being,” he paused then, putting a hoof to his mouth as he stared at the ceiling. “Not… that I would consider them a higher being, by any means. But one that could easily change reality in a way that would make Discord blush.”
“How is that not a higher being!?” Twilight huffed, slamming her hoof down. Hyde leaned away from her as sparks flew from her horn. “I can’t believe I’m even listening to this!”
Hyde swallowed, Twilight going unanswered.
Upstairs, a clock that sat upon an end-table cooed out three times.
Hyde looked down at the floor. Twilight was suddenly very aware of the slight ticking sound of the clock upstairs. The long series of clicks and clacks did little to tear her attention away from Hyde. Eventually, he opened his mouth and let out a long, sad sigh.
“Stupid.”
Twilight lifted a foot off the ground, but remained determined not to lower her horn. “What?”
“I’m so stupid.” Putting his hoof over his horn, Hyde rubbed it absently. Then he put his hoof under his horn and acted like he was pulling himself back up to meet with Twilight face to face. “Why are you even here listening to this?”
“Because I… I…”
Hyde barked out a sharp laugh. It was Twilight’s turn to shiver in place. “You don’t even know how you got here. What lead you here, amateur detective. You just were. Right. Here.” Standing up, he waved his hoof at Twilight and suddenly she felt her magic dissipate. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I believe I’ve… made a mistake letting you come here.”
“Letting me…!” Twilight’s mouth filled with cotton as the air was taken from her lungs.
Hyde dropped his hoof on the ground. “Enough with the charade. This is my doing and there’s nothing more for you here.” He looked at his legs and kicked his forehooves slightly, making a dull knock on the table near him. “You ever notice sometimes, ponies move a little too much when talking to each other? Normal ponies just stand around and talk but sometimes you all are just a little more active than you have any reason to be?” He spun around and found Twilight just staring at him. She didn’t really seem to be at a loss. She even seemed to understand.
He hoped she did, for just a brief second. Of her own accord, he hoped she understood. “This was selfish of me. It’s just so desperately lonely sometimes. I just…” he trailed off, putting a left hoof on a picture on the floor. He looked down at it, cocking a small smile. “You have a bright future ahead of you, Twilight Sparkle. Rough and difficult, but rewarding. And that’s not me talking, either.”
Twilight moved her lips, but for the first time it seemed that words were failing her. She didn’t feel right here, but she didn’t even know what ‘here’ really was, not anymore. “I don’t remember how I got here,” she finally said. Hyde gave a soft smile.
“You won’t know anything about this place when you leave. I hope you never see me again.”
Twilight looked down at her hooves. “I’m supposed to make friends, you know.” She sighed. She fidgeted on the spot, her movements stiff and awkward. “But, can I be honest with you?”
Hyde nodded.
“I hope I never see you again, either.”
Twilight Sparkle trotted through Ponyville, a spring in her step and a smile on her face. She waved at passersby and shopkeeps alike, stopping momentarily to make friends with a couple of new faces in town. After sharing a few funny stories, she nearly bumped straight into a large white unicorn taking pictures nearby, and he shooed his little fillies out of Twilight’s way with a quick apology. Twilight brushed it off with a laugh, and offered to take a picture of the father with children, which he happily accepted.
Snapping the picture, the camera quickly printed out the image, and the father took it with glee. Twilight leaned over to get a good look, hoping that her hair didn’t get in the image. Of course, it was a perfect shot. The father had his arms around his daughters’ shoulders and had picked them up in a big hug, their faces masked with joy. He thanked Twilight for the photo and she gave it one more look before they left.
In the background was a jade green unicorn taking a picture of her and the family, but when she looked around there was no such pony around. She shrugged. Ponyville was very busy these days. She started walking across the road when a piece of paper flew against her leg, trapping itself. Picking it up with her magic, Twilight brought it up to her face and read the torn page.
“January 28th. Rainbow Dash is at the central building at Ponyville with the gray pegasus with the blonde mane. Suspicious confirmed - her name is inde—”
“Excuse me.” A voice cut Twilight out of her thoughts. Looking up, Twilight smiled at a familiar face. A gray pegasus, one eye a little lazy, was holding a basket that was covered up. With a whiff, she could smell fresh baked goods were hiding under a handkerchief. She seemed eager to walk past, and even though the pegasus could have clearly flown by, with her eye the way it was it was best not to take chances with cargo in tow. Twilight neatly stepped aside and the happy gray mare trotted by.
Twilight opened her mouth to say goodbye to a friend, but suddenly… she wasn’t sure about her name.
Author's Note
I couldn't find the import from GDocs button. I assume it's gone. I can't even get it to indent.
