Wild dreamed strange dreams. He was walking along a familiar street yet there was a mountain range looming ahead, Canterlot visible on it, surrounded by a shield. He knew the shield, and the shivers down his spine reminded him of what it was, yet his mind couldn't quite remember the full significance. He was walking on two legs, clothed and with boots on. Then he was on four legs, nude and barefoot - except he didn't have feet, he had hooves. All of it felt right, yet neither felt correct. Someone called Alex - from school, maybe? - came up to him and greeted him, and he shook their hand with his own before continuing on. Who was Alex? He didn't remember.

He had a sword - his sword, his saber - in his hand, and now he could find the changelings far better, but they had swords too. They were unskilled - he struck them easily, and they faded into smoke and blew away in the wind from the speed of his strikes. No one could stop him, no one would. He was a whirlwind of violence and he laughed, rejoicing in it.

He jumped and he flew, out of control, spinning and spinning in the air, flying over his city - then a forest - then a mountain - and he bounced off the pink shield, falling into a lake. The water engulfed him, and it was dark. The depths were murky, yet he could see his blood flowing out of his chest, bright red despite the gloom.

Wild sat up, emerging from the water in a rush, and now he was in a meadow. A couple bees buzzed by, quickly disappearing from view. A bird was chirping a merry song from a tree with rustling leaves. He sighed in content and laid down, looking up at the sky, which was slightly cloudy. The clouds were shapeless, swirling like a storm yet snow-white and bright.

He closed his eyes, and then he opened them, his gaze met by a white ceiling.

He blinked. This was real, he knew. The odd and disjointed dreams were already fading from his memory, their vagueness and blur replaced by the sharp clarity of true reality. He blinked again. He could feel the warmth of his own body, the feeling inside his limbs - something he didn't feel when he dreamed. He could hear his own calm breath. His ear twitched at some distant sound, and he blinked again. His mind felt sluggish as if still asleep despite his clear understanding of being awake. It was an odd feeling, but he couldn't do anything about it.

He looked to the night stand, spotted a glass and a pitcher or water - the latter refilled since he had last drank from it. With stiff movements, he got up from the bed, and his magic sprung forth to help him pour the water into the glass, then bring the glass to his lips so that he could drink. It was a nice, simple sequence of actions that wasn't difficult to complete.

Feeling the call of nature, Wild stumbled his way to the bathroom. The mirror showed him that he was, once again, messy, although the dark circles around his eyes lessened somewhat. Perhaps he would feel fine soon. Perhaps he would be better. Although, he wasn't certain he wanted his dreams to be as confusing as they were even as he struggled to recall them now. He relieved himself, then took a shower to help himself wake up. The steady rush of water was nice to listen to and feel on his skin. He knew he had fur, but it was still an odd sensation when it flattened as it got wet, clinging to his skin like hair on his head but everywhere at once. He shook that thought off, then used a towel to dry himself off. He brushed his mane, fur, and tail - and wasn't it odd doing that, as if he wanted to impress anyone. He hadn't considered taking care of himself much ever since... a time he didn't want to remember. He was also perfectly aware that he didn't look good as a human. At least now he was no longer heavily balding, and, if he was to be honest with himself, he quite liked looking good. Not that he really knew what 'looking good' meant when it came to ponies. No one ever told him he was ugly, so he had to assume he was decent enough.

Why did he care about it, anyway? How odd.

He shook his head, getting rid of those strange thoughts and tangents. What did it matter to him? He forced any sort of attraction to anyone else out of himself since long ago. It was simply... better this way.

He knew he was lying to himself despite how fuzzy his mind was. He had been lying to himself for a long time. He also knew he refused to think about it. It was easier to simply ignore it and pretend there wasn't a problem. It would go away eventually, like a dream. Or so he hoped, at least.

He returned to the room and sat on his bed. He had a feeling he wouldn't be alone for much longer, and he was proven right soon.

A knock came on his door, then it opened slightly. Princess Luna peeked in. He thought she looked even more tired than before.

"Hello, Wild," she said, "May I come in?"

He heard the words, but it took him a few seconds to process them. What she said to him was a greeting - that was simple enough. Then a question, and he put the words together in his mind. It was slow, it felt sluggish, but he had to make do with what he had. Wasn't that just the story of his entire life? In the end, he simply nodded.

A part of him wondered how much more he needed to wait until he could think straight again. He knew what was happening to him right now wasn't right. But knowing it and being able to do something about it were two entirely different things, he knew that very well.

"Will it be fine if I ask you some questions to make sure everything is alright?" Luna asked. It was a longer sentence, more complex, but it didn't take Wild that long to decipher its meaning. He hated how slow he was right now, although even this feeling was distant. He nodded again.

"What is your name?"

Wild. He knew that well enough, and so he signed it.

"Could you repeat it to me vocally?"

What was that word she said? He dug in his mind and didn't find the meaning.

"Can you repeat your answer to me using your voice?"

That was much more understandable.

He knew there was something wrong with speaking. He wanted to speak, but he didn't know if he should. His brain didn't offer a solution aside from a vague feeling of unease. He would rather be silent... but perhaps it didn't hurt to speak. She had heard him before, after all. Even at this, there was a pang of... something. However, he decided to ignore it.

"Wild," he said, and the feeling of unease lessened somehow. His voice was not right, it was... he just knew it wasn't right. But it felt good to speak, somehow.

"Very good," Luna smiled at him, and it made him feel odd. What had he done to be smiled at like this? "Can you tell me the names of things around this room?"

He nodded, his eyes traveling over everything in the room. It was easy enough.

"Bed," he croaked, then cleared his throat. His tongue didn't quite make the words sound right. But he felt like he was close. And it felt good to speak. He should've done more of it, "Small table," he gestured at the night stand, "Water... big cup thing," he described the pitcher, finding out he didn't remember the word for it, "Cup," he tapped the glass, then stopped, the fuzz in his mind feeling stronger for a moment. Through it, he asked, "Do I need to name any more?"

"Thank you, that should be fine," Luna shook her head, an odd look on her face that Wild didn't notice, "Now, can you count from one to five and then backwards?"

Wild nodded again, then spoke, "One, two, three, four, five," that was simple enough, he knew numbers since he was a little kid, "Five, four, three, two, one."

"You're doing good," Luna assured him, "Can you tell me what I asked of you first?"

"Name," he tapped his own chest. Luna's eyebrows rose, but he didn't notice it either.

"Good, and one last thing," she pulled out a piece of paper and a black crayon, "Please, draw a clock, put in all the numbers in the clock, and set the time to ten after nine."

Wild nodded, took the crayon, put the piece of paper on the nightstand, and started drawing. His circle wasn't quite a circle, but then he wasn't exactly an artist. He had drawn some things as a kid, sketched and doodled as a teenager, but he had never really been inclined towards making paintings or music or anything else art-related. At least he wasn't asked to draw a pony, he was sure his attempt would be pitiful at best. The numbers were easy - from one to twelve, clockwise, more or less all in their right spots. He marked the center dot, and from it the short hour hand pointing at a bit past nine, and a longer minute hand pointing at ten. It was a bit of an odd request, sure, but it wasn't difficult. Though, he wondered, why was the short hand the hour hand and why was the long hand the minute hand? At least he didn't have to draw the second hand, which was a bit shorter than the long hand and also about half as thick.

"Alright. How do you feel, Wild?"

Wild furrowed his brows in thought. He didn't really know how to describe the fuzziness in his mind that stood in such a stark contrast to his surroundings, certainly not in the new language. His memories were lazily swimming around him, and he couldn't quite focus on them even though he knew their contents. He remembered his last talk with Luna, remembered what she told him about the changelings, and... he had the same mind stuff that he did. He also drank that potions which made the terrible headache go away, but now he couldn't quite think right. However, he remembered the pain - his current state of awareness and consciousness was far more preferable than having it clear yet very painful. And didn't Luna say it would help him recover faster?

"My... head," he said. It was hard to find words and speak them. He wished he had at least tried to speak before even if the first words... well, there was nothing he could do about that confession. It felt distant anyway, "It is... odd."

"This is the side effect of the potion you took, I have told you about it," Luna nodded, and Wild nodded to that. After all, it was true that she did, even if recalling it took more effort than it should have, "Your mind is unfocused. It is harder to think, right?"

Wild nodded. It was. Luna was making quite a lot of sense today. But then she had never really not made sense if he remembered it all right.

"In time, you will recover," Luna assured him, "Now, would you like to eat?"

Wild's stomach grumbled, and now he could actively feel the hunger. When was the last time he ate? Definitely before he was put in the... cocoon. It would be too soon if he saw a cocoon ever again. But he did want to eat, so he nodded to Luna.

"Anything in particular that you would like?"

He thought for a moment, then shrugged. Truthfully, he could go for anything, and he had yet to find anything ponies made that he didn't like. Daisy sandwiches and spiced hay were odd, true, but they were enjoyable. Hay was also not yellow like he expected but green, and it didn't look like dried grass at all. From what he knew, hay in general was free, and almost every establishment had it at least as a snack. He remembered hearing or reading about it, in any case. Maybe one day he would visit a restaurant. When was the last time he had done it, anyway? Probably years ago, when his parents took him with them sometimes.

Luna departed his hospital room, and he was left to wait. He licked his lips, imagining the food - he was just so hungry right now, he wondered how he hadn't it before. Ponies really knew how to cook, especially since they could eat a lot more plants than humans could digest, and Wild found it very enjoyable to discover whatever it was that they cooked up this time. They certainly liked to add flowers to various dishes. It was sometimes odd, and one time a bee landed on one and he had to wait for it to fly away before eating, but it was fine otherwise.

It wasn't long before Luna came back, a tray of food floating in behind her. Wild licked his lips again - the food smelled absolutely delicious. Once he had the tray, he dug in with gusto.

"Wild, I did consider allowing you to eat with the others, but now that I know you have certain mind-related powers, it won't be a good idea," Luna said. Wild tilted his head and looked at her, showing that he was listening, "There are very few who are trained to restrain their outward thoughts, and it would do you no good if you were assaulted by a mass of various thoughts all at once."

It was, by far, the most complex thing Luna told him today, and it took him a while to process as he chewed on the food. Eventually, Wild nodded in understanding. He would rather avoid stifling his own recovery. While this state of mind wasn't bad - it was quite nice, actually - he knew it wasn't who he was, he knew he wasn't thinking like he should. Perhaps it would be more alarming if he could just grasp the feeling of being alarmed. But, for now, nearly all of it escaped him like water between the fingers.

It was difficult to think, it was difficult to feel, and so he was looking forward to being himself again. Even if it meant he wouldn't speak again. However, now he was dead-set on continuing speaking because it just felt so good to do that. His voice might be... different, but it was still his voice. A memory jumped at him - he was at home then, crying after a stressful day at school. He was perhaps eight. He was made fun of by people his age he couldn't remember, he fought them, got in trouble, and then he just couldn't explain himself. To the teachers, it didn't matter that he was insulted. It only mattered that he fought them because of it. He didn't know it at the time, but he was going non-verbal from the stress, and he simply couldn't speak until he was out of the school and back home.

"Don't let the world silence you," his mother had told him, he remembered. It was encouraging, which, for the longest time, prevented him from shutting down completely.

It had been a long time since then. The world changed, his understanding of the world changed, and he changed.

And this new world... it was good. He hadn't felt so good in ages - aside from the Changeling Invasion. According to Luna, it was over, and the aftermath was already being dealt with. He found himself trusting her to... protect him. Protect others, too.

He wondered if he thought this way only because of his mind being a mess.

"I'll leave you to eating," Luna said, "I won't be far if you need me."

Wild nodded and continued eating. It was truly delicious.

***

It was nighttime when Luna returned to her office. She didn't bother turning the light on, using her horn to provide illumination instead. It wasn't like she ever had problems seeing things well at night in the first place. She sat down behind her desk and pulled out a file on Wild. She had two files on him - the first contained everything relevant to his health: physical, mental, and social. It held no reference to her thoughts on his origin or anything related to it. In it, she wrote down a simple statement after writing down the date and time.

Cognition test passed with minor obstacles. Needs more time before rejoining everyone else.

The first file was returned to the general folder she kept on everyone. Naturally, it wasn't publicly accessible just like all the other medical information. However, it wouldn't take much for someone to get it if they really wanted to.

The second file on Wild was hidden from all others but herself, stored in a magically-created folder she always carried with her. No one except her even knew of its existence, not even her sister.

Luna conjured the file seemingly out of thin air. Silently, with her horn glowing, she unlocked the file with a password only she knew and no one could possibly hope to guess. Such precautions were perhaps unnecessary, but it didn't hurt to be thorough when it came to this.

She opened the file and added Wild's drawing of a clock to it. Then she grabbed a pen and started writing.

Wild spoke an unknown language without noticing it. His projected thoughts provided direct translation.

The clock has unknown numbers on it but his thoughts provided the meaning.

Neither the language spoken nor numbers shown appear in our world throughout known history.

Luna knew what to write next, but it still made her nervous. She had her strong suspicions, true, but...

She put the pen to paper once more to write her conclusion.

This is direct and undeniable proof of his origin being from another world.

Author's Note

Wild will continue to barely function as a person for quite some time until his mind fully recovers. Obviously the medication he takes contributes to his mind being a mess too. Without it, it would take far longer for him to heal, and he would experience terrible near-constant headaches in the meanwhile. they'd be about as painful as your skin being slowly peeled off. Extremely unpleasant, to put it lightly.

There is a positive thing to his mind being fuzzy, however - the anxiety that prevents him from speaking is oftentimes not there or too weak to shut him up completely. He will remain quiet, but at least his desire to speak is stronger than his own brain trying to make him silent.

He would, of course, need a lot of therapy and some medication to retain his ability to speak.

And now Luna knows Wild is from a different world. His mind slipped and he didn't notice himself speaking English or drawing non-Equestrian numbers. It is as much of a direct confirmation of her very strong suspicions as there can be without Wild outright confirming it directly. Specifically, he used English when he said "Do I need to name any more?" and when he counted from one to five and back. Before and after, he spoke Equestrian.