Chapter 1: Rise and...
Wakefulness came to her like an oil spill rising to the top of a lake of sewage. A series of slow and unfocused blinks had to pass before her vision cleared enough for her to tell she was awake. Her mind took a very long second to process her vision. The slowness signaled unease as her cognitive processes continued to start up. Bleary vision fed her a unintelligible slurry of shifting colors as the barest sensations of proprioception indicated to her that she did have a body. A rasping whistle confirmed the existence of her auditory senses; a long moment later she connected the raspy sound with the feeling of air passing through her throat and mouth and a painful soreness in her trachea.
Proprioception continued checking body parts off as information came in, meanwhile the psychedelic blur of colors melted and shifted in a wholly antiphysical manner as the deep seed of abstract unease matured into an intellectual panic that her body was barely responding to her commands. For several long seconds she was aware of her lack of breathing which no amount of thinking could will into resuming. The deepest primal fear of death overrode all her thoughts and the world snapped into sharp focus as a surge of adrenaline was released throughout her body. She snapped upwards in what she now realized was a bed as she exploded in a coughing fit, heart beating so fast she felt she was vibrating. Her throat, and whole body she now realized, felt like what she imagined having the entire top layer of skin ripped off your body at once and then being submerged in saltwater would feel like.
She retained just enough consciousness over the next few minutes to wish for the absence of sensation to return as she was wracked with pain that permeated more of her body than she ever could have imagined she had. At first she spasmed uncontrollably in an instinctual attempt to move away from the sudden flood of pain signals from all around, and inside, her, this agitation, in turn, lit her whole nervous system alight in protest. Tears flowed freely and thickly from her eyes and she wailed in an uncontrollable reflex that was as much dry heaving as sobbing and coughing. She was completely unable to realize any of that, however, as the pain became too much for her and she froze up, solid as a day old corpse. This relief lasted for a split second before a wracking cough-sob broke over her body and sent her into renewed agony.
A few long minutes of torture later she had experienced more pain than she had ever remotely thought possible. Some far, far part of her mind boggled that she had remained conscious, if only barely, throughout it.
Her breathing calmed down into a regular, shallow sob, and she regained enough cognitive power to take in her surroundings. Something pink and furred took over most of her vision, belatedly she realized it was actually two different parts of her body, her snout and her right foreleg, though she had not recovered to the point of being able to have language to name them. They were both soaked in enough tears to matt her fur down in large clumps, she reeked of salt. Past her leg she made out what she eventually identified as a sheet.
She coughed powerfully, which devolved into a series of suffocating sobs as her trachea closed up. The coughing moved her across the bed, rustling her fur for the first time she was cognizant of it. The sensation was totally alien, millions upon millions of holes across her entire body growing needles that scraped and dug into her skin so that she wondered that she hadn’t been diced or leaked blood like a tomato thrown into a pit of spikes. Another shot of adrenaline blazed through her and her throat opened with such force it felt her neck would burst. She sucked down air so fast she feared she might swallow her tongue.
She suddenly became aware of her thermoception, specifically that she was furiously hot. Sweat rushed from each of her pores with such force that for a brief moment they felt like geysers. This sent the sea of needles coating her body into a wave of motion that sent her into yet another new agony.
Burning, cutting, stabbing pain dominated her for endless minutes of torment while she struggled every moment to breath and tame her lungs and trachea. Her entire body seemed to reject her. She would have been happy to simply die and enter oblivion, her entire life had been torment so far, but fear and instinct prodded her struggles along.
Slowly, ever, ever, so slowly the agony subsided, or perhaps she somehow became use to it. In effect, she was able to redirect some of her cognition away from internal begging for mercy and relief. Study of her immediate surroundings proved disorienting, as every new object and stimulus she encountered sent a flash of a migraine alongside a volume of words and concepts to describe and explain.
By the time the tears on her forehooves had dried, for that was the only measure of time she possessed, she had observed the entirety of her surroundings.
She was laying on an ornate pink bed replete with frills and silken bed drapes bundled at its corner posts. The sheets, covers, and pillows were all matted with drying tears and strewn about the bed chaotically, much as her own body was. Beyond the bed was a mostly circular room she estimated to be about eight of her body lengths in radius. Words and concepts for measuring length and surface area flitted through her mind, but reaching for them gave her an unbearable headache.
The room itself was painted in various pinks and whites and corniced with intricate goldenwork depicting scenes too fine for her weary eyes to attempt to decipher. Flowers of all colors stood spry and proud from wall sconces placed evenly about the room. Paintings of various styles and subjects dotted the room, though she eventually noted that many of them contained depictions of what she assumed was her.
Directly opposite the bed was a wooden double door with carvings depicting creatures like her bowing before an inlaid blue, crystalline heart on one door and an inlaid golden sun on the other. Warm emotions she couldn’t quite find the words for ached in her chest briefly.
On one side of the room a glass door flanked by nearly ceiling to floor windows and covered by translucent pink curtains lead to a wide stone balcony. On the other side of the room a large sofa and a few large pillows were arranged around a coffee table and a currently unused fireplace. On either side of the fireplace was a single wooden door with no noteworthy decorations. On the fireplace mantle sat a couple of small marble busts, a golden orrery, and other, smaller paraphernalia. A globe about a third her size and covered in rich and vibrant colors sat in a finely decorated golden stand nearby.
Fresh morning light filtered in from the balcony windows and softer light emanated from small amber crystals placed high along the walls, just below the golden cornice, bathing the whole room in rosy early morning shades.
She found the whole room somewhat agreeable, though too bright for her sore, squinting eyes. After all her tears had dried and no new ones poured forth she decided that lying in the bed for eternity was not a particularly enticing idea and so she reluctantly built up the strength, and the courage, to move.
The feeling of millions of strands of what she now identified as her fur raking along her body was a thoroughly odd feeling but carried none of the hypersensitive pain as previous. Her limbs moved precisely, if sluggishly, at her command, and she found that the more she moved the better she felt. Cramps and kinks in her joints and muscles cracked and shattered as she exercised them. The metaphor of a statue coming to life entered into her mind unbidden.
Eventually, she found herself standing on her four hooves beside her bed. She stepped forward experimentally only to find a tugging sensation willing her back to the bed. A flood of paranoia entered her mind, words, concepts, and emotions relating to spellwork and traps came like a flurry into her thoughts. They were quickly replaced by embarrassment and self-effacement when she found a feathery appendage, what she quickly identified as one of her wings, trapped beneath a thick cover. Though confused and suffering a headache from these emotions and glimpses of personality she still managed to easily extricate her wing from its soft, warm prison.
She stretched both of her wings and flapped them instinctually before a primal desire forced her gaze to the window. Her wings fluttered at her sides expectantly. She imagined herself soaring in the air for a few moments, the aerial daydream the first real pleasure she had experienced, before a flash of vertigo destroyed it.
She frowned at these conflicting feelings for flight and for the first time reflected on herself. Memory did not extend beyond this morning’s agony. She was aware that she had existed before today, but those memories were missing or hidden from her for some reason. She found she was still panting heavily and covered in tears and sweat, and that she smelled disagreeably. Her entire body was one giant, aching sore that she thought could only come about from something like one hundred straight hours of Wonderbolt training. More words and concepts flashed painfully into her mind at the thought of “Wonderbolt,” but no memories.
She found that she was not particularly concerned at her lack of memory or knowledge, though she felt that she should be. Compromising between this indifference and concern over her indifference, she decided to inspect the room for clues.
The first item that caught her attention was the large double door beyond the foot of her bed. She walked over to it and leaned in close to inspect the decorations on it, and that’s when she hit her horn on the door. Confused, she looked up, going cross eyed in the process, to find a pink, spirally engraved horn jutting from her forehead.
Then she blacked out.
When she awoke she somehow felt even worse than she had before. A dull pain that felt like her skull being fractured from an infinite number of points in slow motion suffused her head and she whimpered pitifully as fresh tears spilled freely out of her eyes. She would have screamed until her throat bled were the pain not so great as to paralyze her jaw with her teeth gritted together so hard she feared they would shatter like ceramic.
By the time she stopped crying and these new tears dried, which felt like a very, very long time compared to the previous, she became aware that she had an entire new sense. Thaumioception, she wanted to call it, and she could feel a numberless amount of strings and pins all inside, on, and around her. Some of them flowed so fast that concentrating on them made her dizzy while other seemed totally static. Some strings and pins felt like they would be blindingly bright if she could see them, while others she thought would be so faint that if they were visible her eyes wouldn’t be able to make them out.
Then she realized she understood the concepts of this, it was called magic. More knowledge than she could ever hope to scrutinize all at once floated through her mind, but she understood enough to know that she could utilize this magic with her horn to perform spells. She realized that her blackout and latest agony was her mind finally processing this previously suppressed sensory input and the concepts and language related to it. It was obvious that she knew a lot about it.
Another powerful migraine exploded in her mind and she had to catch herself from falling muzzle first onto the carpeted floor. The waves of pain running through her horn disabused her of any notion that she might utilize her magic in the near future. She thought that was a bit of a shame, but, considering that she had no idea what she might use magic for at the moment, she decided that was far down her list of priorities.
Feeling dizzy and weak, she sat, well, really fell, onto her flanks, and decided to study the double door more closely. As with the first time she observed it, the engravings on the doors made her feel warm. Not like the physical warmth of the fever she had which sapped her strength, but an emotional warmth that empowered her: pride.
And love. The thought of being loved by the creatures depicted on the doors filled her with a new strength, and for an infinitesimal moment she saw what she thought was a memory. Thousands of the creatures bowing before her, confetti in the air, and the taste of love so thick it might drown her.
She shook her head and found herself feeling better. Her body felt cooler and her headache had dissipated to a dull, far away ache instead of a pounding migraine.
She turned her attention to the inlaid marks on the door. First, the blue crystal heart framed by two low ribbons of gold. She stared at it and found herself bedazzled. Another flash of memory, less physical, more the sense of companionship, togetherness. Family, and even closer, Me.
She felt many things looking at the heart but they all came together into that one word. That sense of self. She looked behind herself reflexively and found the same mark on her flank. It’s cute, she thought, then frowned because she felt frustrated for some reason.
She observed the other inlaid mark, the stylized golden sun. More warm feelings of love and family, but also awe and doubt. Looking back to the blue heart she found those feelings remained. The strength of these clashing emotions struck her with another moment of vertigo and she turned her head from them quickly.
After a few moments to steady her breathing and reorient herself she was feeling much better. In fact, she was feeling better than she ever had her whole life! Well, as much of her life as she could remember, which was pretty much just today, and so far, today really sucked.
The focus on her breathing brought the issue of her own foul smell back to her. Her nose wrinkled in disgust, had to do something about that. The idea of a shower was really appealing right now. A long, hot shower, like seven hours long. Or seven days.
Basically until Auntie came and bodily forced her out of her shower.
Her legs gave out beneath her as the migraine came back in full force with a side of vertigo to wash it down with. After a few moments to get over the pain, something she was starting to get unhappily proficient at, she realized she had walked halfway to one of the doors flanking the fireplace without even realizing it. It wasn’t like she had just been distracted, she didn’t remember walking or moving whatsoever.
She remembered thinking about, ‘Auntie,’ though she had no idea who that was, and then she had been falling onto her knees halfway across the room.
She remained on the floor and clenched her eyes closed, afraid to open them and find herself in someplace she didn’t remember moving to. A sob escaped her as panic overwhelmed her, What is wrong with me!? Who am I!? WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER!?
Her eyes opened and her reflection in the bathroom mirror flinched backwards in shock. She landed on her rump and found the solid stone of the bathroom floor stung a lot more than the plush carpet in her bedroom. Her vision was interrupted like she blinked but she didn’t feel her eyelids move. Immediately afterwards she was greeted with a giant purple eye, she screamed and scrambled away from the mirror, falling onto her rear again in the process. It stung as much as the last time.
Frustrated and terrified she slapped herself across the muzzle with all the strength she could muster. As it turned out, that was quite a lot. There was a clack like a woodblock hitting a wall and her vision went white.
She moaned pitifully and gingerly rubbed at her muzzle, Ow, why the buck did I do that? Because I don’t know what else to do! I need to- I need to- Calm down- and shower-
The hot water hit her and she yelped in surprise. Her aching muscles seemed to melt under the steaming hot water and her yelp faded into a contented moan. What the fuck is going on? She sighed and then there was shampoo in her eye, she didn't remember putting shampoo in her hair. Hissing in pain, she instinctively brought around a wing to rub at her soap infested eye. Unfortunately, her wing brushed against the bruising muzzle she’d given herself and lifted a very painful howl of agony from her.
“AH! WHAT. THE. FUCK. IS. GOING. ON!?” Gritting her teeth in pain and frustration and eyes clenched shut against the water and soap, she stomped the floor of the shower with her forehooves in time with every word. Cracks appeared after the second word and on the last word a blinding flash of light emanated from the impact, temporarily blinding her.
When she regained her vision, she was sitting amidst the rubble that had formerly comprised her bathtub and shower. A few trickles of water ran down the wall from the twisted, slightly melted corpse of the shower head. The pink shower curtain which had bore the same image as the mark on her flank was now black and shriveled to a third its previous length and shedding ash from its smoking bottom edge. The entire floor of the tub was rough and burnt and large, branching cracks ran from it up the walls and out onto the floor of the rest of the bathroom.
Shocked and almost resigned to her intermittent losses of consciousness, she stepped over the remainder of the tub and stared at herself in the large, gold-framed vanity mirror which had miraculously escaped damage from her tub-splosion. She was kind of a mess.
Her mane, coat, and wings were dripping wet and covered in dust from the damaged walls. A large chunk of rubble was embedded in her tail and weighed it down uncomfortably. Her legs trembled with each labored step, and blue light danced around her forehooves, singeing the ground where she stepped with a nearly imperceptible hiss. She was panting and small rivers of tears ran silently from her bloodshot eyes, a few of which ran down her muzzle and stung the large, discolored bruise which covered most of it. To top it all off, a half melted bar of soap was impaled a third of the way down her horn which shot off tiny blue sparks in random directions.
She observed herself for several long minutes, taking in every detail. She calmed her breathing while hoping for some spark of recognition in her reflection. “I am…” She sighed and rubbed at her eyes, careful to avoid her sore muzzle. She was pleased to discover she was in the same place when she was done. What a distressing thing to find happily surprising.
She searched the mirror’s eyes for something, “I am…” But found nothing.
I am…
“I am…”
She shivered and suddenly felt very cold, like she was being submerged in an ice bath, “I am…!”
I am… Her head pounded with a flash of a migraine like ice breaking.
“I…” She shuddered, freezing, “...a..m…”
I. Am. Cadance. She felt warmth like the embrace of the morning Sun.
She meant to scream as she melted.
Author's Note
Hiya everypony!
This is a story I've been excited to start working on for a long time, and I hope you guys will really enjoy it. I wasn't quite certain where to make the cutoff for the first chapter, and I finally settled on this. I'm not entirely happy with it, but sometimes you just have to draw the proverbial line in the text document.
Now on to the exciting news, this story will be updating every Thursday! Deadlines, yay!
Plus, Twi-Light will be updating tomorrow. I mean it. I'm staring at the finished™ chapter right here. And it will be updating every Friday.
Any of you guys who enjoyed The G-Word will, hopefully, be pleased to hear that a sequel/similar type story in the same universe with the same characters, will be coming out this Saturday, and updating every Saturday!
And, I even have a surprise new story coming out Sunday! Exciting times, I know.
This chapter/author's note brought to you by "Robert DeLong - Long Way Down"
Want to keep up to date on what I'm writing? Boom! Twitter (I was informed cool kids have one of these.)
Have more money than sense and want to bankroll a Hobo or buy a commission? Patreon, boys and girls!
As always, please leave any questions, comments, concerns, criticisms, or neo-revolutionary slogans down below! <3
