Salvation | Rebirth

Wild let out a silent sigh of relief upon seeing the Canterlot Central Railway Station coming into view. He knew it would still be some time before the train back to Ponyville would depart, but that was simply a matter of sitting and waiting. He was certainly looking forward to getting back home, the sooner the better. Powder Nose was sitting in the shade, reading some sort of a novel, although he quickly spotted both Wild and Artful.

“Back already?” he asked with some amount of confusion.

“We’re a bit tired,” Artful said, and Wild was grateful, as he didn’t think he was up to speaking any more today himself, “It’s just all... a lot.”

“Oh yeah, I can imagine,” Powder Nose smiled, “Alright then, I guess you’ll be resting around here somewhere?”

“Yeah,” Artful nodded, already guiding Wild to one of the distant unoccupied benches.

“Alright, I’ll see you when it’s time to depart, then,” Powder Nose nodded and went back to his book.

Wild had certainly found the city of Canterlot to be too... exciting. The quietness of the Entrance Park made him relax minutely, and he settled down with Artful on a bench partially hidden behind a sprawling bush. It was more private, and thus safer, in some way. The noise of many different minds was now far away, and he let out another sigh of relief, this one louder and longer. Finally, he was outside the range - or, more accurately, others were outside his range - and that meant he could let not just his body but his mind rest.

Of course, ‘excitement’ was not the right word to describe exactly what he had experienced that day in Canterlot. However, searching for the right word, or a combination of them, wasn’t something he wished to do. What he wanted was, truthfully, outside of his reach, but he could, in the meanwhile, try to put everything a bit outside his mind and, simply put, recharge, gather his strength anew. Without a single doubt, he would need it in the days to come, for good or for ill.

He hoped it would be at least an entire week if not a month before something similarly troublesome arose again. He knew it would be too much to hope for nothing of that sort to happen ever again - after all, the world around him was not under his control, certainly would never be, and it would be for the best if he rolled with the punches instead of standing there as if the hits coming his way would simply veer off course once they get close enough. He would take the good things that had happened to him, but he would also need to take the bad as well.

Fortunately for him, his situation was far from the worst one. His mind drifted to the changeling he had rescued. He wondered if he would meet them again, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he would. Quite possibly, they would be at the Royal Orphanage in the foreseeable future, considering that they did look quite young, certainly young enough to be put there by the princesses if they so wished. However, there was also a chance Wild would never see them again - perhaps there were other changelings out and about that were not hostile to Equestria and willing to take one of their own in. Though, if such a group did exist, it failed to explain why Jade was all by their lonesome at the Royal Orphanage.

Either way, he had done the best he could, and that would have to be enough. He was certainly not at all ready to, for example, take the said changeling under his roof, feed them, teach them, guide them, and so on and so forth. He, a parent? It would be a joke, and he didn’t want to know whether it would be a comedic or a cruel one. Besides, he was in no way old enough to take care of a child of any age. Why was he even thinking about it all?

Wild had come to realize that the changeling, in some way, resembled him at his lowest. Not that the connection was at all difficult to make, it was clear as day. Wild, when despair hit him the hardest, wished someone helped him, rescued him, and a million other things besides. When his stomach rumbled painfully with hunger, he wished someone would feed him. When he shivered out there trying to sleep in a private enough spot, he wished someone would invite him into their house and let him sleep on a comfortable bed.

All of those pleas had gone unheard, however, and so he had to make do with what he had at the time.

Everything about it all, however, was now in the past.

Even if he had to die, he had finally received the help he needed, and he could genuinely declare that his life, while quite imperfect, was not that bad, and that he was willing to look forward to the future. And while he knew what it was like to be helped, how it felt to have someone to rely on, he was certain that anyone relying on him for their needs would quickly be disappointed. He knew he would fumble with the simplest things, grow angry and frustrated when something inevitably went wrong, and, well... So, it all came to what he could have possibly offered when he rescued that changeling, and the answer was nothing... Nothing beyond what he had already done, between finding that changeling and leaving them in the care of Princess Celestia. He had to accept that and move on, and that was what he was trying to do.

He had many hypothetical scenarios he could think up about the said changeling and himself, but none of those scenarios were real or could even be real, and so he discarded them as best he could, shaking those thoughts away and out of his mind.

His ear twitched as he felt another mind come within his range. His range, as far as he was able to estimate, was a couple hundred meters, no larger than half a kilometer. He sincerely hoped it would not grow any larger, for it was already quite a pain. While returning from the more populated parts of Canterlot, Wild had to focus almost his entire attention on keeping the thoughts of others out of his head, which meant letting Artful take the lead and do his best to make their way through Canterlot via the least populated routes. Therein had lain the issue - Canterlot was densely populated closer to the center, close to the palace, and close to the edges. And, of course, population density sharply dropped around mansions of various nobles, but it wasn’t like Artful and Wild could make their way through private, fenced-off land. Instead, the two had to navigate the streets, with Artful doing his best to pick whichever direction made Wild’s pinched expression just a tiny bit more relaxed. This ended up with them snaking around the areas between the center and the edge, with some detours taken here and there. Wild held his headache at bay, feeling like someone tried to squeeze his mind right out of his head. At a few points, he felt nauseous enough that he believed he would throw up or collapse or both, but, thankfully, nothing like that had happened.

Even at a distance from the worst of the crowds, the buzzing noise of so many minds at once was... uncomfortable, to say the least. Manageable, but barely tolerable. Wild made a mental note that cities were, until he figured out how to deal with his ability, off-limits for him. Denser cities would probably kill him outright if not worse. He would definitely bring it up with Luna as soon as possible - he did want to visit various places around Equestria, and it wouldn’t do to avoid the big cities. Alternatively, perhaps, he could forget about densely-populated places entirely and spend the rest of his mind-boggling-long life in some middle-of-nowhere cabin. However, he felt he would grow mad if he went that route, and he doubted Artful would accept living that way. Even then, living somewhere peaceful certainly held some appeal for him.

The mind that he had detected was approaching, and it felt familiar. He figured out that there were some... indecent thoughts, and plenty of some sort of warm, pleasant feeling. Once he took note of that, he immediately focused on keeping those thoughts out, even if it made his head ache dully. At least, within a few hours, the sun would set down and he would, by that point, be home and sleeping. Or, at least, that was the plan. If he had to, he would sleep in the forest if that meant a chance to rest his mind. Perhaps he needed to learn something about camping and hiking. Going on a long hike with no one around him... that certainly sounded appealing right there and then. To see the sunset when out in the wild...

Technically, the sun did not set by itself, of course - it was moved manually. However, even now, Wild still often thought of the sun as moving on its own. Well, not moving, but merely being the center of the star system, the star around which the planet he was on was rotating. However, that was not true anymore, was it? As baffling as it was, but the sun moved, and not just by its own but by someone else’s magical power. This entire thing was probably the most outrageous fact about the world he had found himself in.

Unicorns, pegasi, those were a classic element of a fantasy setting, pretty much ever-present in fiction. Magic was in the same category. Talking animals, that was not at all uncommon either. Any of those he would even find believable back on Earth, and many people did believe in those things, in the past and in the present. However, someone moving the sun, that flaming ball of who even knew what - or, at least, Wild didn’t know exactly what it was made of - was somewhat out there. Well, he did half-remember some stories about a crocodile swallowing the sun or something similar, but that had always been somewhat laughable. For as long as he could remember, he knew that there existed the Solar System, that the Solar System was inside a big thing called a galaxy, and that Earth was a planet while the Sun was a star. He had never thought that anyone ever did anything to any of the planets or stars - they were just there, having existed for billions of years and would likely exist at least for a couple more billion in one form or another. Plenty of people, of course, believed in God, who was said to have created it all and, in some way, also controlled everything, but no one in Wild’s family was religious, at least not since his great-grandparents or possibly great-great-grandparents. Wild had never even been to church himself, and neither had he ever prayed - truly prayed like Christians or Muslims or other religious people would expect it of him in regards to whichever god they believed in.

He had yet to see the princesses raise and lower the sun and the moon, but he didn’t doubt that they could easily do that. Both of them were powerful, and both of them have lived for a long, long time, so there was simply no reason for him to think that they couldn’t do that. It was a recorded fact, accepted for over a thousand years, and it appeared every question of ‘do they actually do that?’ was answered with ‘yes, they do’. Of course, there was an older record saying that the unicorns did that before the princesses came around, but unicorns nowadays either couldn’t do that at all - which might have something to do with whatever Discord had done back when he was in power - or they simply didn’t need to do it because Celestia and Luna did it for them.

Finally, the pony associated with the mind he felt approaching came into view - Swingblade. He was grinning widely, and he carried a bulging bag of... something. There was a bottle, colored black, with a white label, and... even with what little of it Wild could see peeking out of the bag, he believed he was seeing a symbol for ‘sex’. Was it... lube?

Wild was somewhat dismayed when Swingblade noticed him and Artful and approached them.

“Hi guys!” he greeted once he was close enough, “Guess what?” before either could say anything, he continued, “I had sex!” his grin widened then.

“Um, congratulations,” Artful offered, and Wild only nodded mechanically. Though, a part of him was glad Swingblade had a good time and had a good first experience. Nevertheless, Wild would like to return to musing about things far larger than himself. This thought, however, made him move to other ‘large’ things. Wild deadpanned at himself - a penis joke, really? He hadn’t made those since... forever.

He blamed Swingblade for this.

“With a mare and a stallion at once!” the said pegasus admitted, then blushed, “And, uh, yeah, it was great. A bit intense, not gonna lie, but, like... really great.”

Artful and Wild both nodded, though Wild himself had no commentary to offer. After all, he was more than content with one partner and couldn’t see himself having sex with anyone else. If Artful proposed the idea of a threesome, he would not want it, and it would likely strain their relationship. Wild could admit that he didn’t want Artful to have an eye for anyone but himself. However, he was not willing to say it out loud to anyone else, and he certainly didn’t want to seem possessive, although he, intellectually, knew there was nothing possessive about wanting his partner to have eyes only for him.

“You guys should totally have sex!” Swingblade then said, breaking his line of thought entirely.

Artful blushed. Wild blinked. He was not going to comment on that statement.

“A-anyway, I was over at the, you know, Adult Fun District,” Swingblade continued, “That’s where, you know, I did it. They really know how to make a stallion happy, lemme tell you that,” he subconsciously shifted his rear legs, “And they even gave me a care package! With uh, some... fun stuff. Even the Kama Sutra!”

Wild had no idea what that last thing was, but judging by how deeply Artful blushed, it was very much related to sex. Wild, once again, offered no words in response.

“So yeah, life is great, fuck everyday!” Swingblade nearly yelled at the end, then blushed hard, “And I’m just gonna... be around. Yeah. See you, guys!”

He finally departed, and Wild let out a sigh of relief. This kind of energy stopped bothering him too much, but it was still more than he wanted. However, he had a question.

“What is Ka-ma Sut-ra?” he asked Artful, enunciating the words carefully.

“Oh, it’s a, uh, guide to a healthy sex life,” Artful explained, “It was written a long time ago and still updated from time to time. It also has... sex positions,” he then paused for a while, seemingly gathering up his courage, “Maybe we can... try some of that?”

Wild blinked at him, then blushed, then slowly nodded. He was not averse to the idea, although he didn’t want to think of that, not publicly. Getting a boner when he was outside, with no privacy to think of, was not on his agenda, and he would much rather avoid the embarrassment. He knew, he had already learned that ponies, more often than not, didn’t care about such things because everyone was nude ninety-nine percent of the time, and it could even be treated as a compliment, but it was a part of Equestrian culture that Wild hoped not to interact with much if he could help it.

And while he didn’t want any sexual thoughts to distract him right that moment, he was in the mood for a bit of kissing.

And so he did.

He would not tell Swingblade that his words led to this.