A Lifeline Back to the Surface
I feel my eyes start to open themselves before immediately slamming shut again.
Ow, fuck! Who the hell put that light there?
I slowly raise my hoof up to my head and this time try to open my eyes. I groan as I sit up in the...oh I’m in a bed I guess. When did I...oh no. No, no, no, no, no.
That couldn’t have happened, could it?
“Blister, you’re finally awake.” I hear a soft voice from the other side of the room. I lower my hoof and squint a little. Tall, blindingly white, slouched over a desk, flowing rainbow mane that defies the laws of physics, yeah that’s Celesta alright. But I notice something else as my vision focuses, some look in her eye.
Pity, I think. She’s looking at me with pity.
“I ass-” I take a moment to clear my throat. “I assume my memories of what happened weren’t a dream?” I say as best I can. Celestia’s sigh is all I need to hear.
“Unfortunately, yes.” She tries to continue talking, but I interrupt her.
“Are you all okay? After what I did?” I ask in a low voice. The silence in this room is deafening and sticking to it only feels right. Celestia smiles softly.
“Yes, Blister, we are all alright. And I hope you realize that wasn’t your fault.” For some reason, I feel myself get angry at that. Uncontrollably so.
“Not my fault? Not my fault?” I repeat, raising my voice. Looks like the silence has been thrown out the window. “I was the reason you were in the line of fire. I was the one who lost control!” I take a moment to look around. I now find myself standing on the bed staring with fury into Celestia. I take a moment to think.
What have I become?
I look down at my hooves.
“I’m sorry,” I sputter out in a low voice. “I don’t know where that came from.”
I hear Celestia sigh before a chair squeaks across the ground and hoofsteps make their way towards me. I feel a magical aura encompassing me. It has a certain caring aura to it that immediately allows my shoulders to slump down.
I feel a weight on the bed next to me before I'm pulled across the bed and down into the open arms of Celestia. She quietly speaks up as to not ruin the newfound silence that has encompassed the room once more.
“We will talk about this later, but you clearly need help.”
I sigh and try to snuggle myself closer into her chest.
“I know you may not want to go to therapy,” she continues. “But we believe it will be best for everypony.”
Ha, there’s that politician speak again.
“By “we” I assume you’ve talked this over with the others?” I ask.
“We have, and there’s one other measure we’d like to implement, but that can wait for our meeting.”
“Oh whoop-dee-do my favorite,” I say in the driest voice I can. Celestia giggles and I smile.
“At least you still have your sense of humor.” She comments idly. I chuckle.
“Hah, yeah. It’d take a lot more than that to get me to stop making my shitty jokes.”
This is humiliating. The meeting hasn’t even started yet and I’m already being belittled.
“What are you doing, Auntie Luna?” Cadance asks as she walks to the other side of the crystal table to face us. When her eyes land on me, she snorts and fails to hold back her laughter.
“Why, dear Cadance, we are simply cuddling our teddy bear. Surely you understand.” Luna says while squeezing me even harder. Her hooves are wrapped around my entire body so I can’t even hide my face. I join Cadance in her laughter.
“Hey there, Candy,” I sputter out in between laughs. “I’m charging 20 an hour, get in line.” Cadance just laughs harder.
“Luna, you’ve had plenty of time with the talking stuffed animal. I think it’s my turn.” Celestia speaks up from the far end of the table.
Oh no, here we go.
“But dear sister,” Luna replies, smirking. “We agreed that I would get to use the teddy bear today. Surely you would honor our agreement, no?” I can feel Luna tighten her grip on me.
“But dear sister,” Celestia starts. I would say that she’s smiling, but that would imply an innocence that simply is not there.
“Surely you understand the importance of sharing, don’t you? It’d be a real shame not to set a good example in front of our niece, no?” As Celestia finished speaking, I feel a new magical aura wrap itself around me.
I look up to see Luna narrow her eyes at a still smiling Celestia. Another magical aura has now wrapped itself around me.
Cool, really cool.
I now feel a strong force, steadily increasing in strength, pulling me towards Celestia. I can also feel an equal amount of force pulling me in the opposite direction.
Hooh boy this is getting interesting.
I look up to see Luna narrowing her eyes. I then look towards the end of the table to see Celestia still holding her smile.
Everypony is silent for what feels like an eternity.
“Hello, everypony!” Comes a bubbly voice from the other end of the room.
“Ah, dear Twilight.” I hear Celestia say as both magical auras suddenly leave me. Her smile looks a helluva lot more genuine now.
Crazy how that works, huh?
“Good, now we can start,” Luna says and a weight comes crashing down on it all.
Turning my head to the right, I can now see Twilight walking over to the table. After scanning the table, when her gaze lands on me she lowers her shoulders and her chin.
Behind her, I see Shining Armor standing there. I follow his gaze across the table to Cadance. She nods and he nods back before turning to walk out the door.
“You say that like we’re discussing war plans or something,” I say as I turn my gaze up and Luna unwraps her hooves from around me. I don’t move.
“No,” Cadance starts in a tone that makes me want to shrink even further into Luna’s chest fluff. “But this is still important, and we expect you to treat it as such.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I mutter as Twilight lets a crystal chair squeak out from the table and sits down in between Celestia and Cadance.
For a split second, maybe two, all four of their gazes are fixated on me. Can’t resist. TOO FUNNY. I smile and Celestia narrows her eyes.
“POV: you-”
Before I am able to finish my sick and awesome joke, a dark blue hoof makes it its mission to stop me from breathing. Furthermore, before I am able to laugh at my joke, Twilight’s expression stops me in my tracks.
“Blister, please take this seriously.” Celestia pleads with me. Oh wow, that’s new. Luna’s hoof lowers itself from my mouth and my lips curl downwards slightly.
“Sorry, I’m done.” Ah, fuck. Great job, dipshit. Now they’re-
“Now, Blister.” Celestia’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. “I have already mentioned to you the possibility of going to therapy. And while we do believe that will be best for you, we also have another proposition for you.”
Suddenly, I feel the weight in the room lift and be replaced with...something. I can’t quite put my hoof on it, but I have a feeling it has something to do with the playful look in Celestia’s eye. Now it’s my turn to narrow my eyes. Celestia turns to look directly above me and nods.
“Blister, as you know, for whatever reasons the mere presence of the four ponies currently in this room other than you is what allows you to hold back the darkness inside of you. And while the tests we ran on you while you were unconscious were inconclusive as to the nature of your condition…”
Wait…
“...we believe your unique condition provides us with an interesting opportunity.”
Ignoring what I heard earlier, I smirk. God, they just can’t help themselves from beating around the bush, can they? Ah, whatever. They’re clearly having fun with this.
“Our proposition is simple.” Cadance continues, causing me to turn my head to face her. “In an effort to keep an eye on you we think it’d be a good idea for you to spend a month with each of us.”
I lower my head. Wait, what? How would that work…? Twilight’s giggles pull my head back up to look at her.
“We’ve already sorted out the logistics. Obviously, you don’t have to agree to this, but we think it’d be fun and beneficial for you to get out and see the rest of Equestria.” I nod and Twilight sits up straighter and puffs her chest out a little. Luna wraps her hooves around me again.
“For the first month, you’d stay in Canterlot Castle just like always but with the exception that you’d be following around Celestia or Luna all day and it’d be your choice of who.” I nod along with what Twilight is saying. Help with paperwork, spend their free time with me, etc. Then I’d take the train to Ponyville to repeat the same thing at Twilight’s castle. And then rinse repeat at the Crystal Empire. The more and more Twilight talks through this plan, the more confident I feel in my realization.
When Twilight finally finished her explanation, I spoke up.
“So, in summary, you just want to spend more time with me?”
I can see Twilight looking away with her ears folded back and Celestia smiling and nodding. I smirk.
“You could’ve just asked,” I say, shrugging as best I can. Luna tightens her grip around me as I hear Cadance sigh.
“And you’ve ruined the mood again.” She says, deadpanning. I just laugh.
“That is my sole purpose in life. Happy to provide, Candy.”
“Anyway,” I hear Twilight speak up from down the table. “What do you think?” Huh, what do I think? I should probably figure that out. Yeah, good idea.
“What a fucking question. What do I think?” I say, bringing a hoof to my chin and lowering my head.
I’m not really doing anything else. Of course, we all know by now that there isn’t a chance for me to go back home anymore...I haven’t been able to spend much time with them, what with all their other duties. I sorta miss them. And I really don’t want to fall to whatever the fuck is wrong with me again. I can’t, for all their sakes.
‘We believe it’ll be best for everypony’ Celestia’s words echoed in my head. Well, that was pretty easy. I smile.
“Well, I can’t pass up an opportunity to annoy all four of you to my heart’s content.” My answer was met with various different levels of happiness and excitement. Love to see it.
“Then I believe we are done here,” Celestia says while rising from her chair. “It is high time we depart for Canterlot, wouldn’t you agree, sister?”
Luna unwraps her hooves.
