Bedbound (And Beyond)

Chapters

We're bedbound - we aim for the sun
We're bedbound - collecting the stars
Bed down, descending down to zero
The luminous moon will take us high over ground
Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken
In the solar glance, in the desert sand
We’ve got a lust for freedom
So stand up and be counted
We are indestructible
Every link is allied to our mighty cause
Always watch your back
On this enchanting day
Whatever they say they know we’ll stay
The heathens’ all around us
A chain unbreakable
Power together
Hidden deep
The Sun
Enchanting
Forever
Down
Up
United
That is
Power
Whatever
Stand
Deep inside
Everlasting freedom
Rise above
Moon take
Bedbound

We're bedbound - we aim for the sun

Never in my life had I felt quite so fucked up.

I didn’t even have the common decency to remember what had happened, either. Neither a distant nor dim memory of a night out gone too heavy. No recollection of anything dangerous I might have been doing. I had nothing.

Groping back through my memories I came up with even more nothing. I was vaguely aware of who I was, but only in a general sense. I knew I existed, but beyond that not a whimper. Even a name was elusive.

I probably should have been more worried about that, but it was difficult to care about such comparatively small details when everything you did or were hurt.

Breathing was uncomfortable, air rasping every way into the body it could find. Swallowing hurt, my throat being parched. Wiggling my toes made me convinced that each and every one of them was recently shattered and only now healing or, at best, all individually stubbed. Likewise, flexing my fingers produced much the same painful effect, only in my hands. So I stopped doing it.

Looking around was particularly painful, as whatever bed I had been put into - while comfortable, I’ll admit - was directly facing a window and through this window was shining the sun. Being put into a bed at all was nice, yes, but gazing directly into the screaming face of the sun itself was not quite as nice. There was not even a net curtain to shield me. It was blinding.

Pleasantly warm, but blinding.

Couldn’t even raise a hand to shield my eyes as my arms didn’t seem to want to go through the effort and instead hung limp and weak by my sides. When I really, really tried to move my arms they flopped away from me and hurt. So at least that was consistent.

The light continued to be blinding. My eyelids could only do so much, and the piercing sunshine was making the pounding that filled my head - which seemed to have already been exacerbated by all the thinking I’d tried to do - worse.

I had to turn my head away instead, and keep my eyes closed. My neck protested in very strong terms, but needs must.

Propped up, I sat like this for a while. The room was very quiet.

Who had propped me up? I did not know. It seemed extremely unlikely given my barely-holding-together state that I’d done it myself. Presumably whoever had put me in the nice comfy bed had been kind enough to do it for me. I would thank them, I thought. I had the feeling it was the polite thing to do.

“Oh! You’re awake!”

A voice. A very definitely female voice, though not one I recognised. Or maybe I did and I just couldn’t remember. Could have gone either way.

A nice voice, certainly.

I cracked an eye to see if I might spot who it was but the blinding light made this impossible. I got the merest, briefest hint of someone moving by the foot of the bed and heard footfalls muffled by thick carpet, but that was it. None of this told me anything.

Not that I could have done much about it even if it had.

“That’s me. Awake,” I said. I sounded hoarse and three words was enough to set me coughing, coughing enough to send delightful stabs of pain tinkling up and down my ribs. I screwed my eyes shut and clutched at the sheets - such soft sheets! Almost a shame to clutch them so - and was so distracted coughing I barely even noticed the straw being proffered to my lips.

It could have been anything, but, really, at a time like that I felt like taking my chances. And so I drank. Cool, refreshing water. I must have drained whatever it was as I was quickly sucking down nothing but air and the straw withdrew.

My chest throbbed and my sides ached and my fingers were a veritable cheeseboard of pain following my rash decision to clench them, but the water had still been a godsend. I sighed happily and settled back. The little things were always appreciated.

“Better?” I heard the voice of my unknown guest ask.

Feeling it best not to try and speak for a little while given what had just happened I nodded and hummed instead.

“Good,” she said.

I don’t know a lot about voices, I’m not an expert. But even in my sorry state I knew that I rather liked this one. It was pleasant and oddly soothing. I kind of hoped she would keep talking so I might keep listening, but she seemed content to be quiet after this.

Again I tried to take a peek and again was stymied by the sun. Hissing, I turned my head away once more. My eyes were watering now, after-images refusing to fade away.

“I’m sorry, is it too bright?” She asked. I nodded.

“Just a tad,” I about managed to croak. No coughs came this time, much to my relief.

My guest giggled. Somehow, the sound entered my ears and seemed to bypass my brain entirely, much preferring to instead travel up and down the length of my spine. I tingled. Tingling was much, much better than aching and throbbing.

Generally speaking…

There was the sound of fabric shifting as curtains were drawn and I could see the light level dropping, hopefully to somewhere more comfortable. I had another little peek, and this time wasn’t immediately forced to close my eyes again.

The after-images did make picking out the details hard though. A great, white blob was sat right in the middle of my vision, leaving me able to sort of half-peek at what was around it, and even then not in enough detail to get a proper impression.

What I could see looked opulent, expensive. How I knew this was unclear, but I did. Rich carpet, fancy sideboards, shiny looking artistic bollocks to sit on the top of the sideboards. All very luxurious. The bed, were I able to get a proper look, would probably be fancy too. Just a guess.

“Better?” She asked. I could see her moving, sort of, but with the mere edges of what I was left to work with I couldn’t make out much more than the fact she was there, and I knew that anyway. I nodded and hummed again, swallowing. My throat hurt less.

“I couldn’t-” I started to say, but I only got that far before the coughing came again. Not as bad this time, but enough to stop me in my tracks. At least I got more water out of it, which was something, especially since what I’d been meaning to ask was for more water anyway.

I slurped it down and decided that from here on out I’d stick to single words, at most.

My mysterious, lovely-sounding caretaker - possibly captor? Remained to be seen - came padding around the side of the bed. I’d given up trying to see what she looked like. My eyes were blurrier now after the coughing and, really, the experience of hearing her speak while I just lay back with my eyes closed was nice enough to justify itself.

“I’m going to ask you some yes or no questions, okay? Nothing serious, don’t worry, I just want to try and learn a little bit more about you. Just nod if it’s yes, okay?” She asked.

I nodded.

I had the hang of this already.

“You have the hang of this already,” she said. I could practically hear the smile on that one.

Nailed it.

“Okay: Do you know where you are?”

Pretty easy question. I didn’t have the foggiest idea where I was. I shook my head.

“Do you know how you got here?”

Easy again! If I didn’t know where I was how was I meant to know how I’d got there? Another shake.

“Alright. Do you know who I am?”

I must just have been really good at yes or not questions because these were all so easy. She could have been anyone. More head shaking. I was bursting with confidence.

“Do you know who you are?”

Ah.

Now that was harder. I had to think about that one.

I had to be someone, surely? And isn’t knowing who you are a pretty basic thing? Doesn’t everyone know who they are? So why didn’t I? I knew I was a man, that much was certain. And a man has a name, doesn’t he? So what was mine?

Nothing. I had nothing.

I shook my head, but this time I didn’t feel so happy with myself about it.

“That’s okay. You were in such a state when I found that you that you’re lucky to be alive at all. I’m sure it’ll come back once you’re feeling better.”

I wasn’t sure about this but I trusted her implicitly. If she said so, I’d believe it.

“Can you open your eyes for me?” She asked.

My initial answer would have been ‘no’, but she’d asked me so damn nicely I just that I didn’t really have a choice. I peeked and saw blurry nothingness. There was a blobby outline there that might have been her, but could have been something else. I could also see something sort of rippling. Curtain, maybe? Couldn’t feel a breeze. Weird.

And why would it be so close? Real weird.

“Little bit more, I know you can do it,” she said.

And hell, if she said so what was there to stop me?

I opened my eyes properly and blinked. Still watery and still blurry, but clearing up the more I blinked. Without the sunlight and with that afterimage all-but gone I could see properly! Could see the luxurious room! The alarmingly big bed!

The thing sat next to me, smiling at me.

Thing.

White face. Fur Fuzzy. Lightly fuzzy. Big, big eyes. Big billowy sparkly rainbow hair. Colours unclear. Long face. Muzzle? Four legs. Four legs?

There was a problem here. What was it?

Oh yes, that was it.

“You are not human,” I said, flatly. Rationally speaking I could see this was the case, and it seemed obvious. Irrationally, a bit in my brain started screaming at me, but didn’t tell me why it was doing it. The effect was enough to keep me frozen though.

The screaming in my head just gave me the general impression that things that were not human should not be talking. Least of all horses. Which is what this was. I knew that now. It came back to me.

“You are a horse,” I said, equally flatly. I then clapped eyes onto the long, long horn jutting from this particular horse’s head and another fact floated into my awareness. “A unicorn.”

Then I saw wings.

“You’re a peg - pega - fuck, pegasus?”

That took me a bit of effort to actually bring forth.

Throughout all of this it - she? - just kept smiling pleasantly at me, apparently content to let me blunder through whatever I could remember. I was out though.

Horse, unicorn and pegasus were all I got from looking at her. What any of them really meant to me wasn’t as obvious. They sat there in my brain and there were a few details about them that presented themselves proudly to me, but I didn’t know what to do with any of it.

Horses shouldn’t talk. That was a fact. I knew that. But she must have done. Unless someone was hiding behind her. That seemed like a lot of work for someone to go through. Unlikely? Possible though.

She was still smiling. It a nice smile - I knew this, too - but somehow that just made the screaming in my head worse the more I looked at it, so I looked away. Something about how horses should not be able to smile. I looked at my lap instead, as it seemed a safe enough place to keep my eyes.

“I feel uncomfortable and I do not know why,” I said apologetically. There was a flicker and a ruffling as she shifted in position, but I couldn’t see her do it.

“Is it my fault?” She asked, plainly concerned.

It was odd. If I kept her out of view and made it so that all I heard was her voice, the screaming lessened. I felt legitimately soothed if I kept things that way. This seemed unfair on her somehow. Not her fault she was a horse. Or three types of horse-like thing all at once.

“No, no it’s probably mine. Somehow,” I said, looking at my hands. They looked bruised. I appeared to be missing a fingernail. Ouch.

“Are you a human?” She asked.

“Sorry what?”

“You said I wasn’t one. Were you expecting one? Is that what you are?”

A good question. A quick mental check. Yes, yes, pretty sure a human was what I was. I was looking down at my hands, after all. If I were a horse - and, hey, if a talking horse is sat next to me maybe being a horse is normal - I wouldn’t have hands. Conclusion: human. Probably.

“Uh, yes. I’m fairly certain.”

At this point, all the talking I’d been doing caught up with me and my throat dried once more. I could feel the coughing building up somewhere South of my chest and fought to hold it back, but to no avail.

I coughed with such force I managed to shift the covers off of myself, and when I sensed - felt more than saw - my bedside-buddy moving in to do something about this I panicked. Some hellish combination of the irrational, screaming terror in my head, the coughing and my earnest desire to do things for myself all conspired to somehow see me launching out of the bed and landing on the floor.

This hurt. This hurt so much I lost about a second or two, and by the time everything stopped being white I was in the air and I could hear something twinkling.

“You have to be careful,” she said, striking a good balance between concerned and scolding as I was lowered back into bed and the covers replaced. How that had happened I did not know, as my eyes had watered up again and I could see nothing.

I turned to her. For some reason it was easier looking at her when she was an indistinct shape. Made it easier to forget that she was, you know, not a human. Which was bad. I was pretty sure that was bad. Pretty sure I should have known the reasons why.

“I’m not in a good way, am I?” I asked, holding very still.

“No,” she said. “You were very close to death when we found you, and for a while we weren’t even sure you’d wake up at all. We’re very glad that you did, though.”

The royal ‘we’? Or were there more horses lurking nearby? Biding their time?

I considered what she’d said to me. About having been near death.

“Shouldn’t I be in a…”

I felt around for the word. I knew I knew it. I could feel it in my head. It was so close. I could see everything about it, knew exactly what it was I was going for. Gritting my teeth I made a final mental leap and then it popped up, unbidden.

It was like coming up for air. Bliss.

“Hospital! That’s the one. Hospital. Shouldn't I be in a hospital? Assuming you, uh, have them? Being a...horse...and all…?”

Did horses have hospitals? Something told me no, but that same something also told me that they shouldn't be talking, either, so maybe these ones worked by different rules to whatever that something was familiar with.

Best to assume nothing, for now.

She giggled again and again my spine responded more than my brain did. In fact, this giggle seemed to reach other parts of my body, and those tingled too. This seemed like a good thing, but not the sort of thing I should tell her was happening. I had an idea she might take it the wrong way.

If nothing else, the giggling made me feel much about about being at death’s door. If she could giggle about it then surely it couldn’t be all that bad.

Right?

“You’re in no condition to be moved right now, I’m afraid. I had doctors come to you. You are stable though, so don’t worry. Just delicate. It was felt best that you remain here.”

I’m not a doctor, so if a doctor had considered the situation acceptable then far be it from me to go poking holes. I had a nice bed, I was sound.

“Well I’m not complaining,” I said, luxuriating under the covers. Then I froze. “This isn’t your bed, is it?”

Yet more giggling. I was rapidly coming to be very fond of that noise.

“No, it isn’t. I can have you moved there if you feel up to it?”

No idea what to make of that.

“Here is good. I just, uh, just wouldn’t like to think of you giving up your bed for me, is all.”

“Very sweet of you.”

“S’just polite…”

My vision was clearing up by that point, so I found myself looking again into that face. Smiling face. I twigged at last that the rippling I’d seen was, in fact, her sparkly rainbow hair. Though on a horse isn’t that called something else?

Whatever it was called the thing was voluminous. And so sparkly! I found myself staring. So much so she clearly noticed, turning her head a little so I got a better look. This made me blush, and so I turned away, even if my neck protested from having to move.

That horrible, incoherent, wordless, squirming terror that was gnawing at my skull and dribbling down to my guts was clearing up the more my thoughts started getting back into line. I was starting to understand a little more why having a big, smiling, talking horse with rainbow hair standing next to my bed was cause for concern.

“Uh,” I said, unsure of how to broach the subject. “I am, ah, confused. And concerned.”

“Is it anything I can help you with?” She asked.

“Uh, no. Well, maybe. You see, horses shouldn’t...talk...but you are. And this - this is a source of some confusion. To me. I don’t know if I’m in the wrong place or if I’ve been...wrong thoughts. I am confused.”

The look on her face was far too polite and thoughtful given the nonsense I’d just spouted.

“Well I can help you a little bit with that. I am not a horse. I am an alicorn,” she said.

This did not help me in the least.

“Uh…”

“What does talk, that you know of?”

This I thought about. The answer was immediate and obvious in my mind so I had to double-check to make sure I wasn’t missing something.

“...just humans.”

In broad terms. I felt it best not to get into questions of sign language and mimicry among anything non-human because, really, who had the time?

She seemed slightly taken aback by this revelation.

“In your world, it is only the humans who can talk? Nothing else at all? What species do you share your world with?”

“Lots, I wouldn’t know where to sta- wait, back up. My world?”

There is a tendency to assume that, in a weird situation, it’s everything else that is at fault and out of place. It’s that irritating little habit to always put yourself at the centre of everything. Up until this point, I’d assumed that I was fine, and that my horse - alicorn, rather, whatever that meant - friend, the bed, the fancy-pants room and everything else was what was being weird.

Everything else needed to explain itself to me. I was fine, you see? I had the right to be here.

But on her saying that, I felt a shiver of doubt. I didn’t like it one bit.

She seemed to notice this, as her smile softened and she looked, again, concerned. This time vering on deeply concerned.

“What is the name of your world?”

“Earth. I guess?”

To my immediate alarm the bed slid forward across the floor and tilted upwards. As this took me towards the window I felt I had good reason to be alarmed.

“It’s alright,” she said, trotting alongside as the bed moved. “I’ve got you.”

This was reassuring, but not wholly reassuring enough for me to feel totally comfortable about being in a bed that was lifting off the floor for no obvious reason. That, and the odd glowy field suddenly surrounding me was a bit worrying, too.

But then I looked out the window. At which point I stopped worrying. Stopped thinking much of anything, in fact.

“This is Equestria,” I heard a voice say, though it sounded like it was coming from a long way off.

I then fainted.

We're bedbound - collecting the stars

When I was cogent again, I was alone.

I was still in the fancy room though. Took me a couple seconds to properly run through what that meant and when I’d got it I felt pretty unhappy.

Not that I was going to pretend to have a clue what any of it meant. But I didn’t really need to know the details. I just needed to know that something very strange had apparently happened to me with no obvious explanation as to why. What was I meant to do about it?

Unclear.

Though at that moment I couldn't do anything at all anyway, being bed-bound and feeble, so the point was pretty moot. I tried to get out of bed, mainly just to see if I could, but I got nowhere and very nearly ended up falling out onto the floor again, so I packed it in.

I ended up just waiting, glaring into space. Would have twiddle my thumbs but they were too stiff to twiddle.

At least the sun wasn’t in my eyes anymore.

The bed had been moved back to where it had been before all the floating and tipping and while there was a handy-dandy jug of water on the table to the side I couldn’t reach far enough or steadily enough to do anything about it so, when I wasn’t glaring into space, I was glaring at the water, willing it to jump up into my mouth.

The water stubbornly refused to do this, and I continued to be thirsty.

After what felt like hours I heard the door open and flinched. There came the sound of hard clattering on tile, quickly then muffled by whatever carpet was laid down. Then my big, rainbow-haired friend was back again.

“You fainted,” she said.

“You noticed that?” I asked. Then I felt mean. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. How do you feel?”

“Better. I couldn’t - could you pass me the jug, please?”

I held a hand out - which pleased me greatly, as my arms seemed to be starting to respond to me now - but rather than passing me the jug proper the horse-lady just poured out a glass and handed me that instead.

This she did without touching anything. That long, long horn of hers glowed a bit and then some of those strange glowy fields appeared about the jug and the cup as they moved around but that was that.

I was not going to ask about that. I was going to ignore it and pretend it never happened. If she wanted to have a way of doing things without having to smash things to bits with her hooves that was her lookout. I wasn’t getting involved.

I had my water, I was happy.

“Thank you,” I said, sipping.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

And then we were both quiet. Once my glass was empty I held it in both hands, rotating it slowly, considering, staring into the bottom of it.

Before too long I was forced to ask the question that had been burning away inside my mind:

“Did you - is this place really called Equestria?”

“Yes.”

Damn. Thought I’d imagined that part.

“And you’re a hor- Alicor- fuck it, you’re a horse, damnit. A magic flying pointy horse but still a horse. And the place is called Equestria?”

“Yes.”

“Is that the name of the whole place, or just the fancy city I saw outside?”

“The whole place. The city is called Canterlot.”

I stopped rotating the glass and looked up. Her eyes were huge.

“...I’m sorry could you run that by me again?” I asked.

Looking at her, I got the distinct impression she was doing her best not to laugh at me.

“Canterlot.”

“Like Camelot? But with horses?”

“I’ve never heard of Camelot but if that helps you then yes.”

Chewed that one over for a second, then:

“Can I faint again? Please?”

She actually did laugh at that one, albeit lightly, hoof held up to her face all dainty-like. She had gold stuff on her hoof, I saw, to compliment the rest of the swag she was dripping in. Certainly the most fabulous rainbow horse I’d ever seen in my life.

Not that I’d ever seen many, obviously, but still.

“I could have you sedated but I think it might hinder your recovery. The sooner you’re up and feeling better the sooner we might find out more of how you came to be here.”

This did sound like an inviting prospect, and the way she said it made it sound actively tantalising. Though that might just have been her voice. Really was starting to like her voice quite a bit.

Which reminded me of something.

“You know, I don’t think I caught your name at any point during all this,” I said.

“Celestia.”

Given I’d been braced for another horse-based pun this was actually quite refreshing.

“Oh,” I said.

“Oh?” She asked, eyebrow raised.

“Not bad oh. Sorry. That’s quite nice, actually.”

Another giggle on her part. If I was growing to like her voice I was growing to love those.

“Thank you. My parents thought so too.”

“Well that’s always helpful.”

Further quiet. I strained to try and put the glass back on the table but had so much trouble that Celestia took pity and did it for me with more of he glowing magical stuff.

“Thanks,” I said.

That got me thinking though, this casual telekinesis. She’d lifted the bed before, too, I was fairly certain. So not only a talking horse but a talking horse that had magical control of mind over matter.

This made more nervous than I was comfortable admitting, even to myself.

“So magic, huh?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“Not something we have back home. That just normal around here?”

On reflection this was a bit of a silly question to be asking a talking horse, but too late. She took it with good grace, smiling politely at what was likely a very embarrassing thing for her to have heard.

“Quite normal. And when you say it’s not something you have, do you mean at all?” She asked.

“Yep, not a whisper. Much to the disappointment of many, I’m sure. No, we’re a materialist bunch where I’m from. Well, mainly. You’ll find people who’ll argue at length about the particulars but mainly things are pretty straightforward. Earth goes around the sun and all that.”

Celestia cocked an eyebrow.

“Is that so?”

The way she said this stopped me before I could say anything else. Couldn’t quite put my finger on why, though.

“I feel like I’m missing something here,” I siad.

“Oh no, nothing. I’m just interested.”

“You’re a magic hor- alicorn - and you’re the one interested in me?”

I’d caught myself that time and she seemed to appreciate it, which made me feel pretty good, though she did tilt her head at me a little once I’d finished speaking.

“You’re an alien,” she said. “Forgive me for being interested in a visitor from a world entirely unlike my own.”

I hadn’t thought about it from that way.

“Well when you put it like that…”

Radiating low-key triumph, Celestia sat herself down by my bedside and then, to my surprise, laid her head on the bed itself. It was about the right level to let her do this and still keep eye-contact with me and converse comfortably, though why she’d do it I had no idea.

Her face touched my leg through the covers.

And I flinched.

I hadn’t meant to. It had been unconscious. But it had been obvious enough that she’d noticed and paused, looking up at me.

“I don’t have to get so close, if you’d prefer?”

“No, no it’s fine. Sorry. Don’t know what that was. Just, ah, happened. Sorry.”

What unconscious nonsense was this? Here was Celestia - and I did actually rather like that name - being wonderfully pleasant company and then there was me, flinching when she got a little close!

So what if she wasn’t human? That was no reason to recoil. Think brain, think, don’t let these reflexes make you look bad!

To my horror she started pulling away, smile gone.

“No no! Really! It’s fine! Ignore me! Just a, uh, you know, injury thing. Yeah, you touched a sore sport. It’s fine. Stay there. Really.”

She was wavering, uncertain, eyeing me.

“Please?” I added.

That seemed to clinch it, and she settled back. This time I did not flinch. This was good.

As a rule I’m not a huge fan of proximity. If people want to be near me I’d rather they did it for as little time as possible. If they could do it without touching me that was better. But I did not want to insult the hospitality I had been - and was still being - shown. If this was how Celestia operated then I could tolerate it. The least I could do for her.

And, really, it wasn’t that bad.

“What else can you tell me?” She asked.

“About what? Earth?”

She nodded as best she could with her head where it was.

“Uh...I’m not sure where to start,” I said, suddenly acutely aware of what an odd situation I found myself in, trying to pick a topic to do with my home planet to a quadrupedal, magical, winged, talking thing that looked like a horse but was maybe not really a horse.

And which was also looking after me, a human, after I apparently arrived out of nowhere heavily injured. Couldn't forget that part.

Running through what my situation actually was I thought I must be in some kind of shock to be so easily able to roll with it all.

Celestia, for her part, looked unconcerned and made some sweeping gesture with one of her wings. The way she was able to move them was alarming. Not very much like any kind of wing I was familiar with. She could probably pick a lock with the damn thing if she wanted.

“Tell me something mundane.”

“Mundane, huh?”

I scratched my head and cast around for something that fitted the bill. The consistency of what I had in my head was patchy at best, but my options were still pretty overwhelming. Most of my life had been mundane, or at least so much of it that even severe memory loss left me with lots to choose from.

So for the sake of simplicity I told her about the last full day of mine that I could clearly remember, which just-so happened to have been a Monday. Not sure if that added anything, but it felt like it did.

There was absolutely nothing interesting about the day in question. I wasn’t even sure how long ago it was, it was just the last day I could remember in detail. A perfectly, painfully ordinary Monday. Drizzling, grey. The commute to work. Someone drove through a puddle and got me - that was unusual and dickish, but hardly fantastic. Just a little spice to the story.

She’d been quite indignant on my behalf, which I’d appreciated.

And so it went from there. Even with my touch-and-go recollection I knew that this was a painfully dull day. All through it though Celestia listened with rapt attention, seemingly becoming more engrossed with every trivial detail I brought up. She leant in closer, scooching around on the floor and laying her head properly alongside my leg, eyes peering up. Her horn was now worryingly close, but felt it rude to comment on this.

Never have I ever had anyone listen to me so earnestly or for long so. I wasn’t sure what to do. Normally a few sentences into me talking about my day I can see eyes start to glaze over. Celestia looked like she was having the time of her life, which was quite motivating at least.

And, where she’d ended up, I was also having to fight the serious urge to scratch her behind the ears. I had no idea where the thought had come from, but I’d just noticed that they flickered every so often while she listened and then there it was, this urge. Probably not a good thing to do, I imagined.

In the end I just focussed on the point of her horn to keep from looking at them. This seemed to work.

Eventually I just ran out of things to say.

“-and then I, uh, went to bed. And that was about it. Sorry if I was rambling there. Not very interesting, I know.”

Now that I was out of full flow I felt a little sheepish about having spoken for so long and about so little to something so evidently more interesting than myself. Celestia didn’t appear to mind though

“I wanted to hear about a normal day and that was what you told me about. Thank you.”

Never had I heard those two words delivered with such sincere warmth. I even got a shiver up my spine and it seemed to settle right between my shoulder blades. Shifting was uncomfortable, but I had no choice.

“Uh, think nothing of it,” I said, at which point my stomach felt the need to interject and growled more loudly than I had ever heard it do in my life. To my knowledge, at least.

“Oh my,” Celestia said, taken aback. “Hungry?”

“Apparently?” I said. It was the first I’d heard about it, but now that my insides had decided that it was so it really was so. The stabbing, gnawing kind of hunger - out of nowhere! Accursed body, why you got to do me like this?

Celestia was smiling. This was radiant.

“I can help you with that. Now, I don’t want to make assumptions but when you were examined it was suggested that your species might eat meat?”

Presumably there were signs for that sort of thing? Incisors, I guess?

“Among other things,” I said, in lieu of being able to think of anything else to say.

“Ah, so you do eat other things? That is good. I’ve had some meat ordered in, you see, though it has yet to arrive. What little stock was on hoof had spoilt, unfortunately. Mostly kept around for visitors and we have not had any in a while. Not a lot of call for it normally.”

“You don’t eat meat?” I asked.

“I’m a horse, am I not?” She asked me, giving a very fancy wings-spread kind of a bow. I had a feeling this was for mocking effect, and judging by the look on her face I was right, too.

“Hey! In my defence you’re doing a good few non-horse-like things. I don’t know how things work here…” I grumbled. Though in retrospect, I probably could have made an educated guess. “I’m an invalid, stop bullying me,” I added in further grumblings.

For this I got a pat on the head from one of her wings and another giggle. So maybe things weren’t all that bad.

“Yes you are, poor thing. Delirious, too,” she said.

I’d have folded my arms grumpily at this point, had I been able to.

“Hah.”

“I’ll have some soup fixed for you, if you’d like?”

My stomach growled again, somehow managing to sound approving. Who knew it had such agency?

“I think that sounds about my level right now. Thank you. You don’t need to do all this for me, you know,” I said.

She fixed me with those big eyes and said:

“But I want to.”

Again, the sincerity was palpable. I could have reached out grabbed great handfuls of it, had I been able to raise my arms more than a few inches off the bed without them shaking.

“...however you get your kicks, Celestia,” I said.

Beaming, big swishy tail flicking, she turned and trotted happily out of the room, closing the door behind her.

I’m not the kind of man who would willingly allow himself to be taken care of. I am the kind of man who will frustrate everyone around me by pressing forward even as a wheezing, sneezing, aching mess, shrugging off all attempts by anyone to offer me support, succor or sympathy.

So why, exactly, was I so happy about the idea of being brought soup in bed by a horse?

I put it down to being excessively injured. Not being able to move was a very good excuse, in my book. How was I to do anything in such a state? And the throbbing in my head - which had been present but lulled throughout my whole conversation with Celestia - was making itself known again, further keeping me in place.

So really, exactly, it wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t help it. I had no choice.

I had to let myself be taken care of.

But it was by Celestia. So it wasn’t all bad. Because she was pretty damn nice. For a magical talking horse. For something that spoke and laughed like a woman while also having a horn that was a good - what? - two? Three foot long? And wings? And was a horse?

I frowned as my mind wandered back onto that. It was these two bits of me grinding painfully against one another. On the one side I had my rational self which rather liked having my injuries seen to, being placed in a comfortable bed and also having someone to talk to who sounded nice when they talked back.

On the other side was some baseline, visceral part of me that was warning me of imminent danger. Why? Because of strangeness! The unusual! Things that were as they should not be! The part of me that kept looking around for other exits and asking whether Celestia had locked the door behind her on the way out.

Not that I could have managed to get there anyway, in my state.

That gave me another pause for thought. How fucked up was I, again?

My arms were a write-off, this I knew. Resting on top of the covers I could just about stretch them out, but any attempt to raise them higher than the level of my legs, say, was a struggle. I tried, I really did, but they just wouldn’t do it. So that was something.

Legs though, legs were promising. They hurt, but they at least seemed to do what I told them. I could work with that. Lift one, hold it, then lift the other and hold that too. Agony, sure, but I was doing it. Positive!

I could work with that. If the legs worked I could make it to the door, give it a nudge. Just to check, obviously. Wasn’t going anywhere. Just proving that paranoid, fearful part of me that everything was above-board. That was all.

And getting up and about was good, right?

With all that decided I girded my loins, gritted my teeth and in one fell swoop swung my legs out of bed and promptly stacked it, falling flat on my face - which crunched - and getting tangled in the sheets.

My nose was probably broken, that I could figure out. The pain was a clue, as the blood now soaking the expensive looking rug on which my bed was sat.

“Ow,” I said, trying to push myself up. I failed. I tried to roll over. Failed that, too. Tried to wriggle forward a little and got basically nowhere. I was stuck, face-down, on the floor, in pain, making a mess.

I would have sworn, but that felt like it would have taken too much energy and concentration at that moment. Besides, my head hurt too much, so I just rested my head on the floor and went limp instead.

“Well this sucks,” I said into the rug, which I felt sure must have agreed with me.

When you’re helpless on the floor, I discovered, time passes very slowly. It’s a lot like any occasion where you have nothing to do but sit and think only you’re not sitting you’re lying on the floor with every inch of your body aching and your face hurting. So it’s worse, on the whole.

Worse, before too long I could feel the rising need to pee. If the rug hadn’t liked me before then it sure wouldn’t like me very soon.

“I wonder if Celestia will still be friendly if she comes back to find me lying in a puddle of my own piss?” I pondered aloud. That sort of thing could really change your opinion of someone, I’d found. Personally speaking. Could never really look at them the same way again.

Though a lot of it is contextual, I supposed.

Bed down, descending down to zero

Author's Note

Okay, the chapter naming convention is kind of breaking down but I started this so I'll finish it.

Bed down, descending down to zero

In all likelihood people have probably been in worse situations than being trapped on the floor, rendered helpless by injury with a mounting need to use the facilities, waiting for their magical horse friend to come back with soup and hoping they did it before bladder failure.

But I was not one of those people. I was the guy on the floor. So I had to worry about that.

“I only have myself to blame,” I said, but this did not help me.

Trying to rise again I failed - again - and sighed.

In lieu of anything else to do - and also as a way of distracting myself - I decided to try and remember some more. This seemed a sensible idea for someone in my circumstances. What is a man but the sum of his experiences, after all, and if I could not remember any of those then who was I really? Etcetera, etcetera.

That, and when Celestia got back and got angry at me for having been a tit and fallen out of bed I could distract her with more anecdotes. There were no downsides.

And so, staring at the fancy rug, I thought deeply.

But got nowhere.

This was frustrating in a way I had not expected. Bits and pieces that should in theory have been easily there were just not. And it wasn’t even like I was experiencing voids where memories should have been, not that nagging feeling that something was just beyond my reach. It was more like there had never been anything there to start with. Which was plainly wrong.

I had a name, damnit. Somewhere.

Even when I thought back to the perfectly mundane Monday I’d told Celestia about all I found were holes and missing pieces that I’d previously glossed over without even noticing that I’d done it. Where had I commuted to, and where from? No idea. What was my job, exactly? Not a clue. What year had the Monday in question even been in? Not the foggiest.

This lack of detail and my brain’s apparent indifference to started to make me angry, which inexplicably made me try to think harder. How does one think harder? I did not know, but I tried anyway, and it just made what had been a mild throbbing in the back of my head into a much more pronounced pounding right in the front.

On the plus side I was very distracted. So much so I didn’t even hear Celestia come back in.

“Soup!” She called out, followed by a pause. “Where did you go?”

“You got a real nice rug here, you know,” I said.

Another pause, and the sound of something being set down followed by the noise of hooves - a noise which was rapidly becoming quite normal to me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw more gold expensive looking stuff. Gold horseshoes? Excessive.

“ Are you okay? What are you doing down there?” She asked, practically gasping it out. More of that glowing magical nonsense enfolded me and I found myself gently hoiked up off the floor and thence dangling in mid-air.

“Just having a look around,” I said. Technically not a complete lie.

“Are you okay?” She repeated, looking me over, as though she might be able to see if I wasn’t. Maybe she could?

“I’m fine. No worse than I was, at least.”

Which is to say I felt like shit, but that was normal for me.

“Your nose!” She gasped.

Oh yeah, I’d broken that. It still hurt, but in a dull way now, and I think it might have stopped bleeding. Maybe?

“It’s nothing, really,” I said.

“It’s broken!” She countered. She wasn’t wrong.

This was the point where I expected the telling off for having been so dumb. That didn’t happen. Instead, I was tucked into bed again, propped up and even nuzzled - to my shock.

There came again that magical glow, centered entirely around my nose this time. I heard a crunch but felt nothing, and out of nowhere Celestia somehow had a wodge of something pressed against my face to catch fresh blood. Nice of her. This she held in place for a little while, the magic still tinkling here and there.

You can fix things with magic? Fancy that! I must be pretty messed up to still feel as bad as I did!

“There you go,” Celestia said, stepping back and smiling.

All of this was lovely, obviously, but it had done nothing to diminish my desperate need to use the facilities

Things were reaching a head. Decisions had to be made. I did not want to have to tell a magical horse that I needed a slash. But I didn’t want to pee on her hooves, either.

Out of the two of those, the former seemed a little childish. So I bit the bullet.

“Celestia,” I said.

“Yes?” She said, sweetly. Far too sweetly for what was to follow.

t“You couldn’t...point me in the direction of a bathroom, could you?”

Celestia blinked.

“Oh,” she said, getting it. “Oh, oh I see.”

Boy was my face red.

As a man - no, scratch that, as a grown-ass adult - one of the things you might often find yourself taking for granted is the freedom and independence that comes from knowing that, anytime you might feel the need, you can just go to the toilet on your own. Having this taken away and being confronted with the fact that someone was going to have to help you piss was unpleasant.

Somehow, her being a magical horse made it worse. She didn’t even have hands!

Oh God, please let my arms recover before I had to do anything more than pee...

“There is an attached bathroom. Here, let me just get you up.”

I was untucked and lifted up again, carried across the room and through a smaller door - one I hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to, being as how it had been constantly out of my sight until just then, in a back corner.

Through this door was, indeed, a bathroom. And quite a sizable one at that, and also fancy. It had tiles and everything. I was with some ceremony placed onto the toilet

It was then that I got a proper appreciation of what clothing I’d been put in while I’d been out of it. Some weird, flappy, two-piece tabard-slash/tablecloth thing. It had a hole in the middle through my head went and tied at the sides. It did not look like something they used a lot, but rather something that had been put together in a hurry just for me. Unsurprising, once I thought about it. Why would a horse need one?

Maybe it really was a tablecloth?

Not that any of that mattered. It got pulled out of the way in time and Celestia was already turning by the time I’d been settled, for which I was profoundly grateful.

“I’ll give you some privacy,” she said, exiting.

As I sat, I realised how weird it was that the toilet should look so much like what I expected a toilet should look like. Maybe a little closer to the floor than I might have been used to, but other than that basically identical. It even had a normal handle. Weird. Probably best not to think about it too much.

What happened next was uneventful and routine, though I was profoundly grateful again, albeit for different reasons.

“All done?” Came Celestia’s voice through the door. I gritted my teeth. She meant well, but it was still grating. I’m a man, damnit! Grr! Tough! Don’t need people checking up on when I’ve drained the snake and so on and so forth.

We all have our crosses to bear.

“All done,” I said, defeated. “I’ll just-”

“No! Don’t get up. Wait, I’m coming in.”

And so she did, though she kept her eyes down. I was lifted up once more and the toilet was flushed for me. The less said about any of this the better.

“Didn’t want you falling over again,” she said while I hung in the air like an idiot.

“No rugs in here. Probably wise,” I said.

Now was about the time I should wash my hands, surely? Force of habit.

Before I could ask about that though Celestia looked up at me

“While we’re in here…” She said with some delicacy, casting her eyes over my shoulder. I craned my neck - something I regretted immediately and would not be trying again anytime soon - and saw a giant depression in the floor. I also saw pipes and taps. It was a bath. A very, very big bath, yes, but a bath all the same.

Took me a second or two to put it all together in my head, at which point I said:

“No. I flatly refuse.”

Pulling me close and leaning in, Celestia made a very big show of sniffing me. There was no dignity in this, but far more than in what she was suggesting.

“You smell ripe,” she said, pulling back.

She wasn’t wrong, but I was hardly going to concede that.

My stomach - again, demonstrating uncanny timing - growled again, loudly.

“That soup’ll be getting cold,” I pointed out.

She gave me the single sternest look I’d ever got in my life. Or at least as far as I was aware. Certainly, I could hardly imagine ever getting stared down quite as hard I as found myself being after that. It was like being staked out in the desert. I couldn’t even look her in the face before too long.

“Fine,” she said, breaking the horrible tension and giving me the room to look at her again. “But after you are having a bath.”

“On my own?” I ventured.

Some of the sternness returned.

“No.”

“Ugh.”

Worth a shot.

Also, as an aside: how was it fair that I couldn’t remember my name but I could remember idioms? Staked out in the desert? I knew what a desert was! Argh! Memory loss! It’s just so arbitrary!

Not that any of that mattered. I got my hands washed for me - humiliating - and was hovered back out of the bathroom and back into bed - also humiliating, though nowhere near as bad as being spoon-fed soup.

“I want to make it clear that the instant I can raise my arms I’ll be doing this for myself in future,” I said between slurps.

“Noted.”

Being watched while eating was disconcerting, though unavoidable if the one watching you was also the one feeding you. To try and break up the growing awkwardness of the arrangement - though, judging by the smile on her face I was the only one feeling it - I decided to talk between spoonfuls.

“So, what do you do when not looking after mysterious aliens? Magic hor- uh, Alicorns do have jobs, presumably?”

Another giggle. Man I loved that sound.

“Yes, we do have jobs here,” she said.

“And yours is…?”

She hesitated. Only for a split second, but it was definitely there. I decided not to call attention to it. Rude. Especially given as I had the creeping impression I was already an imposition. Best leave it.

“I work at the palace,” she said, all sign of her hesitation having vanished. Had I blinked I would have missed it and besides, I was caught off-guard by what she’d said.

“Palace?” I asked, then looking around and asking in rather more hushed tones: “This is a palace?”

“Yes,” she whispered, leaning in mock-conspiratorially, lifting a wing to shield us from imagined eavesdroppers. I appreciated this for the hamminess it represented.

Well, that would explain the fanciness I was surrounded by. Would also go some way to explaining the shiny things Celestia herself was wearing. Presumably palace employees were required to also look fancy.

“I’m - uh - you’re not going to get in trouble for having me here, are you?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine,” she said, and from most that wouldn’t have been enough but from her it was almost completely enough, leaving only a stubborn sliver of worry. Optimal results in anyone’s book.

More soup followed. I had been so hungry that I hadn’t actually been paying particular to what kind of soup it was, but it turned out to just be some vegetable soup. Exciting stuff.

“Thank you. Again,” I said, once it was done with. I could still have probably eaten anything else anyone could have put in front of me, but my gut was no longer stabbing me, so it was a plus. Celestia’s smile was radiant.

“Better?” She asked.

“Much.”

“Good. You know what happens now, don’t you?”

Foolishly, I had hoped the thrill-ride of feeding me soup might have made her forget about the bath. The look on her face told me it hadn’t.

“Ugh. Again.”

I was getting used to being picked up with magic by now, which was a bit weird once I thought about it. Not much I could do though. I remained held there even as Celestia started the taps running, filling the big ol’ bath alarmingly quickly and also filling the little bathroom with steam.

With the taps turned off things were very quiet, barring the occasional drip.

“Can the tablecloth stay on?” I asked.

That got a proper laugh! Not even a giggle!

“No it can’t, sorry. Don’t worry, I’ll keep my eyes up.”

“Somehow you saying that makes it so much worse. Let’s get this over with.”

I was resigned to my fate. The fate of being seen naked by the nice magical horse lady with the pleasant voice who was for some reason making it her mission to look after me.

Someone could probably make some argument about nakedness reflecting vulnerability and a reluctance to be seen without clothes perhaps being an outward sign of some inward lack of self-esteem or...something.

Mostly I just didn’t like not wearing clothes around people. Call me idiosyncratic.

But these were extenuating circumstances. The table-cloth was duly lifted over my head and folded itself away beside the bathtub while I was lowered onto the lip, legs dipping in.

“Too hot?” She asked.

It was, actually, but I sure wasn’t telling her that.

“Perfect,” I said. I’d look like a lobster soon but hell, in for a penny.

I heard clanking and clinking and saw Celestia’s various shiny accessories joining the tablecloth. Confused for a moment I thought and reached the chilling conclusion that she was planning on actually coming into the bath with me - presumably to help clean me off.

She had magic! She could have just stood next to the bath! Are you a lunatic, woman?

“Just roll me forward into the water and leave me, I’ll manage. I can float,” I said, hurriedly but trying not to sound too rushed or panicked with it.

“You’ll drown,” she said, the tiara thing she’d had on finally settling on top of all the other bits and pieces.

“Only probably.”

“Oh you.”

And so I was lowered into that near-scalding water and Celestia followed in behind me.

One day I’d probably look back on all this and laugh. At least I hoped so. More immediately I was just glad she was behind me and I was facing away. My more embarrassing parts - though submerged at that moment - were on the front.

I decided to close my eyes and just float through whatever was going to happen, let it all pass in a haze of far too hot water and steam. Last thing I saw was a sponge being levitated. Never thought that’d be something I’d see before closing my eyes.

“Alright…” I heard Celestia say, accompanied by what I assumed were the sounds of a sponge being soaked. I stayed still, lacking much other option, and just sat there as a sponge was magically moved about my person. The experience was unique, to say the least.

“There,” Celestia said, making me jump as she was apparently far closer than I’d thought she was. “Better already.”

This gave me goosebumps. Not because of what she’d said, but because she’d said mere inches from my ear. Why this was necessary I had no idea, but my shivering was unavoidable.

“Gyah,” I said. She giggled, which just made it worse. She did not back up.

I coughed and did my best to keep the shivering to a minimum. Perhaps such closeness was part of her sponge-bathing style? I did not know. Frankly, I didn’t really want to think about it too much.

So I asked:

“Do you do this for every mysterious injured creature that rocks up here?”

“No, just you. You’re special,” she said, lightly, joking, further water rolling down me as the sponging continued.

“FIrst person to tell me that,” I joked right back.

The sponge stopped moving. I felt her pulling back, away from me.

“Hey, you alright?” I asked, trying and failing to turn, my neck far too stiff for anything like that. I was left sitting staring forward, stewing in further silence from behind.

“That can’t be true,” she said, eventually. It probably hadn’t been that long at all, but it had sure felt like a long time to me.

“What can’t be?” I asked.

“That no-pony’s said you’re special.”

Honestly, this hadn’t been the direction I’d seen this going in. I swallowed.

“Well, someone might have said it once, but not for a while.”

“Oh you poor baby!” She cried and - sponge discarded - I found myself being hugged. Wings were involved, and her delicacy was such that she managed to avoid all of my sore spots. Magical. It was very soft and very wet and not at all what I had expected to find myself in.

So to speak.

In all honesty I could have just been wrong about the special thing. There remained gaps in my memory you could have driven a lorry through. The possibility existed that someone had told me I was special every day of my life and I’d just somehow completely forgotten it.

Something told me this was unlikely, however. Just a feeling.

And none of which altered the fact that she was hugging me whilst I was nude.

“Uh, Celestia, as nice as this is I am naked.”

I honestly heard her sniffle.

“How can no-pony have ever told you that you’re special?”

This, I felt, was likely a cultural thing. It had to be. Presumably you could have found a human being who might have had a similarly distraught reaction but you would have had to have searched pretty hard to find them. Most of them time - quite rightly - the proper, correct response to this would have been a ‘And?’.

Or so I felt at least, in my bones somewhere.

Though, that said, I also felt that her unalloyed sympathy and big, warm hug were also spectacularly pleasant. I’m man enough to admit this. Though also man enough to know that naked hugs are best curtailed before everyone involved gets embarrassed.

Also - as the formerly-screaming and now just taciturn parts of my brain were keen to point out - I was being hugged by a talking horse. The delivery of this was enough to let me know that those parts of my brain felt this was inherently negative.

So I felt it was time to wrap things up.

“I’m a big boy, I can survive not being told I’m special,” I said. “And I do remain naked, Celestia.”

Somehow it did the trick that time and she disengaged, coughing quietly.

“Sorry,” she said, grabbing up the sponge from where it had floated and resuming without another word.

On numerous levels this was one of the odder experiences of my life. As far as I was aware.

From then on the conversation was sparse and limited mainly to her asking me - softly - if this or that was okay to do and warning me if water was about to go in my eyes, things like that. She even got the blood off my face. I was damn-near ready to fall asleep right there it was so relaxing.

Though I thought I could hear something from outside, too. That same clip-clopping that Celestia made when not on the fancy rug. And a voice? Hard to make out, though it did seem to be getting closer.

“-you in here? Hello? Princess Celes-”

There was a flash and a bang and all at once Celestia wasn’t behind me anymore. This wouldn’t have been so bad had her sudden - and I mean really sudden, bordering on the instantaneous - absence hadn’t created a sizable void in the water.

It had though, and this void filled in, and the act of it filling in pulled me backwards. Me being pulled backwards unbalanced me, and me being unbalanced saw me underwater.

Remarkable how quickly things like aching limbs and stiff necks become lesser issues when drowning presents itself.

Fortunately for me the big bath sloped, and while Celestia had been sort of suspending me towards the deeper end I was able to inelegantly flop and thrash my way up to the shallows, bashing just about every part of me as was possible to bash along the way but ending up with my head above water.

I then slumped against the edge, exhausted and in considerable pain. From what I could see I might also have been bleeding again, though more from scrapes than anything else.

“So relaxing, baths,” I gasped for no-one’s benefit but my own.

Celestia could teleport. I added this to the list of things I knew about her. It wasn’t a long list.

Why did she even need wings?

“Sorry about that, I had to - oh! Oh no! What happened? Oh this is my fault!”

That was all the warning I had when Celestia came back.

A whirlwind flurry of magical nonsense followed where I was turn this and that way and my various scuffs were examined and - apparently - healed. This did wonders for my headache, which is to say made it much worse. By the time I was set down on the lip of the rapidly-draining bath and wrapped in a towel I was wincing and doing my very best not to lose my lunch.

“I heard ‘princess’,” I said, seeking distraction, anything. “Was someone looking for a princess?”

“They were lost,” Celestia said quickly. So quickly I hadn’t even had time to close my mouth after speaking.

“Huh. Probably looking for one or something, right? Is there a princess around here somewhere?”

She had said the place was a palace, I just hadn’t thought about it that much. Royals may well have been in residence.

Royal horses! What a thought.

“Oh, there’s one around. One or two.”

Two! Didn’t expect that.

“She - uh, they - they nice?” I asked. Given that they were technically Celestia’s bosses - I assumed - their temperament was of some interest to me. Celestia thought about this, head tilting one way then the other.

“They have their moments,” she said. Then asking: “Are you alright?”

“Hmm, me?”

“Yes. I’m so, so sorry I left like that I just - something came up.”

I imagined that Celestia was probably still on the clock, so this was fine by me. Not like I’d died or anything. If I had, then I might have been a bit cross. As things stood, eh, these things happen. We all teleport away suddenly and without warning, leaving our injured charges to thrash around in the water on their own.

Right?

“It’s fine. And - hey - I’m clean now, at least.”

This got her smiling again, which relieved me greatly. I smiled too. Then I yawned. Being an invalid was tiring work.

“That you are. And now I think we should get you dry and put you back to bed. Unless there’s anything else you’d like to do in here?” She asked.

Nothing good could have come from remaining in the bathroom in my condition.

“Dear God no,” I said.

And I got another giggle out of her. Marvellous. I should keep a tally.

The luminous moon will take us high over ground

Author's Note

It's been quiet week and this is a short bit.

The luminous moon will take us high over ground

I was in California, obviously, the bus having taken the tunnel only moments before. The weather was sunny here, the terrain rocky.

The bus pulled into a layby and the side of it opened as it had been designed to - flipping-up gullwing style. The seats of the bus were, obviously, arranged as they might be in a stadium and faced sideway. This way myself and the others on the bus - strangers - were able to get a better view.

An ex-girlfriend of mine was also present, though I didn’t have any strong feelings about this.

Walking to the edge of the cliff - for I was off the bus now and the bus was next to a cliff, but I knew that already - I looked down at the ocean. And what a fine ocean it was, so far below.

Turning back to cross the road and return to the bus I found my path blocked by a winged, horned horse with a big billowy head of hair. Or a mane. Yes. Horses had manes. Remembered that now.

“Hello Celestia. You got small and differently coloured. Good for you,” I said. Celestia was meant to be white and maybe a little shorter than me (horn excluded), but if she wanted to shrink and be a deep midnight blue that was her prerogative.

“We - I - am not Celestia,” said Celestia. Or not-Celestia. Certainly, she didn’t sound the same.

“Oh, terribly sorry. You looked very much alike is all,” I said. Then in a moment of freezing panic clarified: “Not because you’re both horses or anything just I saw a lot of resemblance. It’s the hair. I mean mane.”

Nice save.

This horse which somehow had stars in her mane turned her towards me.

“I am Luna, Celestia’s sister,” she said.

“Ah, family resemblance then. I wasn’t that wrong! Hello. I’m, uh, actually I’m not sure about that, still. But welcome to Earth all the same! We’re in California!”

I knew this for a fact. So much so I waved my arms around.

Luna fixed me with a look that chilled me despite the sunshine. I think I preferred her sister, given the choice.

“We are not on Earth, wherever that may be. You are dreaming.”

“Huh. That so?”

I looked around. The bus was gone, but that was normal. Everything looked pretty normal to me. Still California. Still sunny. Still Earth, plainly. That I did not believe her must have been obvious as she asked:

“How did you get here?”

Easy question, easy answer.

“Took a bus. Through the tunnel.”

“Why?”

“Uh…”

I hadn’t actually thought of that. And now that I did, I realised there was no why. None of it made sense. I had no idea where the tunnel had come from, or even where it had come out. The tunnel was just how I’d got here. And here was California, which I somehow knew without actually ever being told or it even being hinted at.

My head hurt.

“Ow, fuck,” I said. “Okay maybe you have a point. Is this what lucid dreaming is? Why would anyone do this, it sucks.”

Luna walked past me and looked out across the sea, which - when I did the same - looked smaller now. I could see where it ended and it was far nearer than the horizon. My dream had a bloody sky box. That was just cheap.

“Typically, it becomes more enjoyable once you exercise some control over the dream. It is, after all, constructed from you,” she said, not looking at me.

I considered this. I’d accepted that this was a dream pretty quickly, I realised, but then again once she’d mentioned it I’d just sort of known that it was. Dreams were jacked, man.

“So I can just make stuff?” I asked.

“If you have sufficient control and will, yes.”

How does one exercise willpower to exert influence on the dream world around them, anyway? Is there a muscle you flex? Is that muscle your brain?

I thought about the best donut that could possibly exist. I thought about it super-hard.

A donut appeared in my hand. This was delightful.

“Sweet, okay now I see the appeal,” I said, eating the dream-donut and enjoying all of the immediate benefits one got from eating an actual donut.

I heard the clearing of a throat. Luna was staring at me. The remains of the donut promptly puffed to nothingness.

“Ah, sorry. Miles away. Did I dream you up as well? Or is that rude to ask?”

“You did not. I am real. I have entered your dream because I wanted to ask you some questions.”

“That sounds serious. Do you do this a lot?”

Again, I was being very accepting but somehow I just knew she wasn’t stringing me along. If I stopped to think about this the pain in my head came back, so I quickly found that it was best to just roll with it.

“No. When I enter a dream it is typically to counter a nightmare or assist in introspection, often at the same time. This is...a personal matter. Of a sort.”

“Oh. Okay then.”

What did assisting in introspection mean, exactly? I’d ask later, if the opportunity arose.

Luna circled around away from the edge of the cliff to face me. Did I feel nervous with my back to a cliff, even in a dream? No. Heights were never a big thing for me. That, and the drop had shortened considerably from when I’d last looked over it, and it was now about two foot. Figure that one out.

“My sister has been distracted these last days, performing her duties with a perfunctory attitude that is most unlike her. She has also been quite secretive about how she spends her time alone. Some of her subjects are starting to talk.”

I didn’t know what to say to this, so said nothing. Apparently this was the right decision.

“What do you know of my sister?” Luna asked.

“Celestia? Uh, not a whole lot.”

This was true.

“What is she to you?” Luna pressed, now starting to circle me as I stood feeling tense.

“Friendly? She’s very nice. Looking after me. The awake-me, I mean. I’m in a bad way and can’t be moved.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Well, yeah. I haven’t seen anyone else but her. The doctor checked me out while I was still unconscious. Or in a mini-coma or whatever happened to me.”

Details hadn’t been especially forthcoming about what state I’d been in on arrival or what had happened between then and me waking up in that bed, but what would I have done with them anyway? I assumed they were bad, and I was still alive, so who cared? Not me, that’s who.

Luna considered this quietly, pausing before turning about tail and circling me the other way. I fidgeted, because at least in my dream my body didn’t ache so much that I couldn’t fidget.

“What are you?”

Ah, these questions again.

“Human,” I said.

“You are not from Equestria?”

Ugh, that name. Still not over that. Even in my dreams.

“Nope.”

“You are from ‘Earth’?” She asked, speaking the word as though she found it as offensive as I found Equestria.

“Yep.”

“How did you get here?”

“No idea. Memory loss.”

“Your name?”

“Can’t remember that either.”

Celestia’s questioning hadn’t felt quite so much like being mugged. That, and she hadn’t been inside my head to do it. This seemed a more polite way of doing things to me, but that’s me. Perhaps this sort of thing was normal here?

My lack of useful information seemed to be starting to frustrate Luna, given that she stomped a hoof and frowned even more than she had been to start with.

“Sorry,” I said, uselessly. This was ignored.

“You say she has been looking after you?”

“Yeah. Was there when I woke up. Brought me soup, that sort of thing.”

Best leave out the bath, I thought. Not as if telling her about it would add much anyway. It’d just raise more questions, and not any ones I wanted to answer. Or even think about.

Not that Luna was paying attention to me at that moment. Rather, she seemed to be talking to herself and unhappily at that. I only notice when she was about halfway though.

“-and for this she neglects her subjects? Such trifling diversions cannot-”

I felt obliged to interrupt. Partly because I wanted to, mostly because what I’d heard her say jogged something in my head.

“Wait, you said ‘subjects’. You said that before, too,” I said. She had, I just hadn’t noticed or really thought much about it. Either way. Luna looked a little irritated to have been pulled back into a conversation, but not so irritated she ignored me.

“Yes,” she said.

“Why would she have subjects?”

Luna’s look was one of pity, and not the pleasant kind. The condescending kind.

“What is it you think my sister is? Or does?” She asked.

“She told me she works at the palace. Or a palace. There may be more one than but she just works in one, I don’t know.”

Luna looked more irritated, though not so much at time this time, I felt.

“Did she now…” She said, glaring and then just trailing off into silence. I cleared my throat.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah she did,” I said.

“She didn’t happen to say what she did at the palace, I take it?”

“Just said she worked there.”

Luna muttered something too quietly for me to hear and shook her head, something which in no-way affected the rippling of her mane. This was odd to watch.

“She and I are to have words. I shall leave you to finish your dream.”

“Oh, okay, cool. Hey, before you go I had a question,” I said.

But Luna wasn’t there anymore. There had been no obvious state of her leaving or being about to leave. It was actually kind of hard thinking of her having been there in the first place.

“Huh. Dreams, eh? That was weird,” I said.

“Yeah,” said my friend, who was there.

I shook my head and looked back out to see again. The sea was cold now, the cliff gone and the weather grey, because we were in Hastings. It was Christmas. There were donuts. Maybe that’s where I’d got mine from? Unclear.

“Wonder what this one meant…”

Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken