Maybe sleeping forever is the only way not to suffer
"Check back often" says Apple jack with a smile to a customer who just bought a hot cider
The cider business always makes an extra profit in the winter. The snow along with the icy breeze makes the ponies look for easily digestible food that quickly warms up the body.
Autumn smiles "I think it's been a while since we've sold this much." She rubbed her chin "Huh. Could it be a new type of virus that makes us hungrier???"
"Ah don't thank so, sugar cube" says AJ with an understandable smile
Something catches Autumn Blaze's attention.
On a bench beside a fountain sat a bipedal creature, holding a bag of bread in its left hand and a sandwich in its right hand. She mentally kicks herself for not noticing the creature there earlier.
The man was equitomorphic, he had "white" skin, pinkish in color, almost beige. His black hair fell to the side but it was messy, he wore a green jacket that was open to show a plaid shirt, he wore brown cotton pants and leather shoes.
it is impossible for any creature of equestria to see man using so many... 'mantles' to 'cover' himself. The creature was decidedly and literally dressed from head to toe. Definitely a unique figure. Ponies only wore clothes for special events and even then clothing is strictly linked to personality.
Autumn Blaze caught her breath with an 'ah' at a thought she had. She puts her paw on her forehead
Apple looks at its beloved and asks "What's wrong?" She walks over and also puts her paw on Blaze's forehead "Do yawl havuh fever?"
His beloved's temperature was natural, as usual, neither hot nor cold.
Stable.
"What`s?" ask her again
Autumn turns her head slowly to look at Apple jack
golden eyes directed into green eyes
"AJ, what if..." he turns his gaze to the seated bipedal creature "what if that dude is the one spreading the cider hunger virus?"
AJ follows autumn's gaze and recognizes the creature.
"The human?" Asks the country pony rhetorically
"It is!" She waves in his direction "I mean, what's the point of crossing your legs and arms to stare beyond???"
"Ah know Brannan iz...has sum issues but sayin' he's uh rat spreads disease izza liddel...as twillight would say...xenophobic"
That was one of the facts that AJ loved Autumn, she didn't hide her thoughts
She is honest.
And AJ is the element of honesty.
~
the sky was clear
It was dark with only a few streetlights showing that the snow was falling so softly. Even at night, some couples wearing scarves were walking in and out of stores laughing, some were just walking with each other, not far away it was possible to hear someone advertising Cider .
The man lets himself be mentally groped trying to identify what his body temperature was now. The breeze in an exoratic stream contributed to his having to rub with his thumb to warm his nose and ear.
"Usual weather," Brannam says to himself.
He turns his head to the side and looks over his shoulder, he wants to see what's behind the seat. Brannam is surprised that he didn't notice that there was a fountain that was lit but turned off just behind the bench.
"Warm up! Warm up with the hottest cider in the region!"
Brannam isn't sure why but it has a sense of nostalgia, a relatively older fountain, frozen by ice, the occasional light here and there to illuminate the building. Its main source was to spout water but it is indefinitely with the spouts turned off. it is now a Useless object. Unused.
Metaphor?
The man gets up from the bench and takes a few steps until he is on the parapet of the fountain. He proceeds to look at the now frozen fountain water.
Brannam for some reason is mesmerized by that water, yes, water, frozen water. Vaporized water that comes out of the lungs, Water that falls from the sky, Water that is present but invisible in the body.
It seemed that everything was out of focus, it was possible to hear some muffled but completely ignoreable sounds.
Water... Water that maintains everything and everyone, societies originate and mold themselves to liquid but it remains completely immutable
The origin of all things was in the water element: when dense, it would transform into liquid; when heated, it would turn into vapor which, upon cooling, would return to a liquid state, thus ensuring the continuity of the cycle.
On the home planet, the earth, 70% is covered with water and the human body is made up of 60% water, just a few days without water we die
What starts this movement and what keeps it going? How could a single element, water, change into something else?
The man walks back to the bench but something catches his eye.
A crow was pecking at his evening snack
Brannam places his left leg a little further forward and his right leg further back to make them parallel. He crouches down to be at bird level, he places his left elbow on his left knee. The left hand is suspected just below the jaw and the right hand is laid open on the right knee. He has a frown
He wasn't angry but interested in the animal. He was fascinated.
The animal managed to pick up a crumb from the sandwich but dropped it when it lifted its head.
"Cider! We sell hot cider!"
The crow has to survive
have to nourish
The creature must have spent the day with its group and temporarily separated to eat its meal on top of the bench.
The crow makes a small leap into position and captures a crumb of the sandwich with a precise peck, lifts its head and opens its beak so that the crumb passes straight down its throat.
It was fascinating. This would be the only encounter Brannam and the hungry raven would ever have in their lives.
Brannan was so caught up in his thoughts that he almost fell when the crow spreads its wings.
The animal takes flight and quickly camouflages itself with the dark sky.
The man mentally follows the trajectory of the crow
probably went to drink water
~
"Hay looks so happy sayin' thus crow, hay didn't evun care thet thuh crow stole his lunch" says Apple jack with his usual honesty
Autumn seems to have lost some of the glow she always had "How lonely this man is that even a thief crow brightens his day" says the isolated ex pony
Brannan breaks out of his crouch and stands. He looks directly at the cider sellers; Autumn is on the left side and AJ is on the right side of a boiler with a roaring fire underneath. The boiler was suspended in the air by its handles on ropes tied to two pegs on each side, next to Apple jack were some wooden cups.
The man approaches
“Goodnight Applejack, Autumn,” Brannam greeted. “I would like some hot cider, please.”
Applejack takes off her hat and places it on her chest "Forgive may Mr Brannam but thuh cider has gone colde, if'd lahk tuh wait until logs arrive I'd bay glad tuh oblige"
Brannam didn't mind drinking the cold cider, but for some reason the idea of killing the bacteria, wiping out the microbes, decimating the worms sounded... appetizing.
Brannam looks at AJ "it's really good to boil" he looks at Autumn raising an eyebrow in a more ironic tone "Maybe I'll get a discount for Distilled Cider"
Autumn thought for a second. "Hmm, Oh! You mean about the virus cidra hunger ? Good idea!"
Brannam notices that Autumn makes a lot of statements without thinking, just letting the words flow out of her mouth, without any conscience, let alone a view of the consequences of what she says.
stupid talkative kirin
Brannam does a wave of her hand to get AJ's attention "Are you resellers?"
"Way are thuh producers " says the pony puffing out her chest in pride "We hav sum distributors in other cities " Brannam runs the palm of her hand over one of her ears to warm them up "even in canterlot" finishes the pony
The man moves the zipper of the jacket and after connecting one to the other, lifts it up to chest height, leaving the upper part of the chest and neck exposed
Apparently cider producers haven't realized that the world turns
"It's a shame," Brannam said.
"What?"
"The price of progress." Brannam starts to look at the city and both ponies do too "With advances — and there are always advances, make no mistake, every day, there will be no more spaces like this. In about twenty years they will classify it as barbaric. A disastrous by-product of the old influence. Which then, happily, will be a thing of the past. Integration, they'll say. Integration will be the watchword. Welcome to the bosom of our community. Let's comfort you. Let's rebuild it. lo. We are a new society, and there is no place for exclusion."
"Is yawl tellin' may there won't bay no more craft cider?
"That's the question, Apple jack. What do you lose when you sweep the floor? Crumbs that would otherwise attract ants. But what about the earring she lost? It ended up in the trash too?" he said, rubbing his nose to warm him up "But do we give up our past to secure the future?"
Let go of the past to secure the future
puzzling
Brannam noticed a variation in the noise behind them, felt a slight numbing sensation. That was why he hated talking, it made him sick.
"How about we leave this life talk aside and talk about ourselves, what do you think?" autumn question
AJ and Brannam nod
"Starting with me, ask any questions" says the man
"Mr Brannam" Autumn's speech catches the attention of both AJ and the man "I don't mean to be rude but how did you stop here?" she looks away and says in a welcoming tone "Did you also live in isolation?"
"I killed myself." Aj and Autumn walked away a little
"My God."
"Okay," Brannam said.
"No, no." Autumn raised her hand to chest. "Yeah... I think I've been told that before. I don't know how I could forget. A few years ago, wasn't it?" Brannam nodded. "My God, Brannam. I feel like an idiot. I'm sorry.
But it seemed to him that this story was like a scar. The kind of mystery that had to be cleared up right away, in order to move forward, otherwise it would always hang between them. As. Where. Why.
Brannam had killed himself two years ago, but he lived again at night, in his dreams. And sometimes, at dawn, Brannam would spend minutes on end thinking he was in the kitchen or drinking coffee on the balcony of the flat in Buttonwood. It was a cruel delusion set up by his mind, of course, but Brannam had long since come to terms with the logic of that event—after all, waking was like being born. We emerge without history. Then, between a blink of an eye and a yawn, he reorganizes the past, arranging the fragments in chronological order, gathering strength to face the present
The cruelest thing, though, was the way in which all sorts of nonsense, apparently unrelated to the drama, had the ability to stir up memories of her traumas, which embedded themselves in her brain like lit matches. Brannam couldn't foresee what it would be—a saltshaker, a stranger's walk in a crowded street, a Coke bottle, a lipstick stain on a mirror, a small pillow.
But, of all the elements capable of triggering the process, nothing was less logical, in terms of association, or more poignant in its effects, than water: gushing from the tap, falling from the sky, puddled on the sidewalks or, as now, extending up in snow for miles and miles, in every direction.
Apple jack again takes off his hat but says nothing
Brannam felt dehydrated, and a little tired from the last few minutes of their conversation; as much as he had learned to bear the burden of memory, every now and then he weakened a little. He felt pain in the left side of his head, just behind his eye, as if the eye was pressed with the handle of a spoon. It was still too soon to tell whether this was the mere effect of dehydration, the onset of a common headache, or whether it was the first sign of something worse - the migraines that had plagued him since adolescence, often so severe that they took away his energy. one-eye vision temporarily, turning the light into a hail of hot nails. Thank God the pain had paralyzed him only once, for a day and a half. Migraines, at least his, never came during periods of high pressure or overwork, only after things had calmed down, after the grenades had stopped falling, after the attack had stopped. And it was then in the training camps, in the barracks or, from the end of the war, in hotel rooms by the side of the highways, or while driving on highways through the interior of the country, that they attacked most painfully. The trick to avoiding them, he had well discovered, was to stay busy and stay focused. They didn't hit him as long as he kept moving.
“Right here mom!” a foal says in the distance. He trotted over to Applejack and gave her a quick hug before undoing a knot and bundles of firewood falling to the ground.
Mom? Apple Jack is this boy's mother?
"Fuji greets our newest cider drinker, Mr Brannam"
"Of distilled cider" mocks Autumn
The foal approaches the man's legs and looks up to see his face "Good evening Mr Brannam" he extends a hoof to greet "Nice to meet you"
Brannam greets the colt "What's your name, cow-boy?" he says after noticing the red tissue on his neck
"Fuji" he says placing his paw on the floor
"Is your first name Fuji?"
"Yes," said Fuji.
"Then I'll call him Bull," Brannam said, "because that sounds better to me than Fuji."
"I think it's a matter of luck."
"Like this?"
"We don't choose our first and last names," said Fuji "So it's nice when someone likes at least one of them."
"Who chose yours?" asked Brannam
"My parents."
"Fuji, will you help me stir the cider?" autumn question
"Yes mom"
Mom?
Brannam now looks closely at the cow boy who is going to help his... mother?
He mentally put together the information gathered so far: he was apple jack's son, he helped his mother sell cider, his name was fuji and he has green scales in some areas of his body....
... Scales on ponies?
The man begins to look closely at the foal, on his face there are scales, Brannam's gaze passes a little and he notices that he also has green scales on his back he looks further down until he notices that the foal has a long tail
Ponies don't have long tails
The gaze rises from the tail and finds Autumn Blaze
Autumn is Mother, Autumn is kirin
Apple jack is Mae, AJ is pony
The son is a hybrid of pony and kirin
Brannam lets out an audible exhale as he rubs his hands together to warm himself up "Hot work?" says Brannam metaphorically as he sees Autumn pushing the firewood under the boiler
"Nothing in this life comes easy, mr Brannam" says fuji now back to the front of the man
The foal frowns with sudden doubt
The colt gets the flea behind his ear, he's used to seeing the men come here in the region, even before dawn, but he never understood what he was doing. The man didn't say much, he just sat around and looked around. Fuji has his own theory of what Brannam works at, he comes here to catch some special light.
Fuji doesn't know much about capturing light but he knows that you can watch what's out there.
"What's your occupation?"
It felt like 'what do you do with your life?'
"Honorable retirement," Brannam muttered. "Why am I never honored?"
The foal tilts its head and raises its eyebrow "You don't look very old"
"Hay means he's uh battle veteran, fuji" says Apple jack approaching the colt
Fuji's pupil starts to dilate and seems to glow, he starts to take a few steps to the side and to the other
He says almost jumping on top of Brannam "You mean you're a soldier??"
"Former Sergeant"
"Nobody will believe it!" says the colt looking in the direction beyond some houses.
"That's a nice compliment, cowboy"
It simply shoots in the direction it was looking.
"Be careful" says Aj
The creature doesn't even look back
Autumn approaches with a floating cup, the kirin's horn glowing the same color as the aura surrounding the cup "Forgive our son Mr Brannam, he can be difficult at times" she says turning the handle of the cup for the man to take
Brannam looks at the liquid in the wooden cup handed to him.
Biologically, liquid is the same as water.
Cider equals liquid
Water equals liquid
So citron is equal to water
He gives the glass a little shake to see the liquid make small waves...
...It's definitely a liquid...
"Isn't the cider looking good?" question AJ
"A lot of water"
"Sorry" says autumn and AJ raises an eyebrow
"I said there's a lot of water"
"We don't use water to make the cider" says Aj "If you drank it you would understand"
For some reason receiving this """order""" from a pony offended the veteran
The man is a former sergeant and ex-combatant, must be more than 10 years older.
Apple jack is just a pony who fantasizes about being poor.
Brannam has always had a problem with authority, he's a guy who thought ponies weren't "man" enough to give him orders. The veteran thought he was more powerful than them.
AJ didn't make threats or draw a sword, but it was enough for the Veteran to classify her as a threat.
It was made to kill people. To hurt you.
Brannam places the glass against his chest has a stare in AJ's eyes "Degenerate bitch" says in a venomous voice
Autumn who was in the boiler turns her face towards the man as if she wanted to be sure what she concealed.
When AJ was about to open her mouth she is interrupted "NO!" He raises his index finger up "I don't want to hear it!"
Some passers-by paralyze with the loud and energetic voice.
People want to see blood
And I'm here to spill
How does this idiot want me to taste the taste of cider without water when water has no taste?
Brannam turns her face to see that autumn is approaching
Another sex pervert...
"So that's it? You're going to team up and use the power of same-sex marriage against me?"
"Brannam calms down"
he approaches the face and speaks spitting in Autumn "NEVER!"
"you better not talk about my fami like t-ARCK" AJ lets out a grunt when she feels something boiling liquid on her face, she instinctively squeezes her eyes shut which causes her to stagger blindly and fall face down in the snow
The kirin, seeing that Brannam threw her glass of cider in AJ's face, leans on her hind legs and places her front paws on the man's chest, trying to push him away.
Even before Autumn tried to contain the man's fury, Brannam had already decided to "correct" her.
Brannam waited for her to stand on two folders as that deprived her of better mobility.
He waited for her to open her mouth to utter something.
Brannam places his left elbow against the pony's neck, he quickly brings his free arm towards Autumn's face smacking her mouth with a clenched fist causing her to fall on her ass to the ground.
Incredible
The talkative pony didn't even let out a moan with the punch, he was sure he must have at least ripped her gums by the characteristic sound.
She has her head down, paralyzed. She looks mesmerized by the lint of blood that falls from her mouth onto the floor.
A few ponies in the crowd appear to be shouting something that for some reason isn't very clear to Brannam.
"Someone needs to do something, somepone have to stop it.
"Call the guards..." Brannam disconnects after that. It's not that what those ponies said wasn't important or anything or irrelevant, but he had a lot of noise going on in your own head.
Brannam snapped out of the reality he was in, he managed to ignore them as the noise and physical presence of the ponies disappeared.
But for some reason now your attention is completely focused on the blinker across the street. it's hypnotic attention, attention so focused it makes him dizzy. Even from many meters away he has the feeling of the lights hitting his face, a loud hiss suddenly appears inside his head.
He seems to look at it for an eternity without even blinking, it seems that all the functions of the brain are interacting to observe that light that turned on and off in different colors, the red color seems to hurt when it appeared, the green one gave a feeling of weakness and the blue of dizziness.
Why is there blood in the snow?
It doesn't matter, blood is liquid, snow is water and water is liquid.
And people are always drinking fluids to quench their thirst, but it always comes back. It means that we are eternally always drinking and yet we are eternally always thirsty.
Soon blood in the snow means
bloody water
The door opened and Cryst carried a tripod, using the utmost care.
Confiscating the Twilight literature, Cryst secured the tripod and set up the only source of lighting other than the open curtains and blinds.
Twilight rolled her tongue, wet her lips and practiced clear speech.
“Our country needs guidance... our country needs guidance...” she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “Our country needs it. Need. Our country, ccc-country, country, country, country. C, c means country, G for orientation. Country, needs, orientation.”
Shedding light on the problems. Oh, sure, this will attract our support!
"Twilight, sit up straight for me for a second."
"so?"
"Perfect."
Cryst snorted once the cover was removed and examined the figure seated at the focal center.
The thought behind the day's motivation?
Equestria, obviously.
The spokesperson for the next commercial was Twilight herself, she had to act as the face today-she did everything else anyway.
Last-minute spokesperson, actually, because the chosen star backed out at the last minute. And that was at the last minute: Cryst alone had to operate the equipment, and they had to bring the announcement forward by a few days. The segment would be shown on the broadcast and, if accepted, could be shown on even a national station.
The development would be done with the use of Cryst secondary office in Canterlot for this development. Twilight loved the idea, but in the execution she became paranoid about touching anything, failing her on-camera debut, or even sitting down and messing up a chair she never belonged in. But she couldn't take the last person's example and backtrack too. Abandoning a concept foreign to its built-in psychology.
“How does my hair look in the light?”
“Tidy, clean, as it always looks. Now, please return to position, please." Cryst smiled by way of example. "Put on your game face."
She tamed the last stray hair and arranged it to pin straight. "Now?"
"Now."
Distinct shutters indicated show time.
“Hello and good morning to you. My name is Twilight, and I'm…I'm…” She stared unblinkingly, and eyes stinging, she made up for it with several unnatural blinks. "A ham. Let's try that again.
"Catch you and...roll!"
“Hello and good morning to you.” More silent stares. "Damn. Sorry."
"Act naturally. You know what I would do, I suggest you forget to remember the lines and look at me. Look and talk to me as if we were off duty, face to face.
“One on one, one on one. So, yesterday's conversation would be suitable, in, in a—"
“Yesterday's conversation, great, yes. Yep, stick with it if it helps!
She nodded, cleared the congestion, and crossed her paws on the table. She chose to find charisma and self-confidence in the chair. OK. I'm capable. I am capable.
"Good morning everyone" Again look silent, it seems that the housekeeper's closeted nervousness makes her have amnesia
"Listen, let's take a picture for the poster and tomorrow we'll do the recording"
"This way?"
"That's right, just smile wider"
Cryst cleaned the lens. With a finer adjustment, it centered the figure on stronger quality and closer digital scrutiny.
"3...2...1"
The strong light coming from the camera makes the man close his eyes tightly as he sways and makes a quick grimace, he has to mentally consent not to drop the sign he is holding..
He doesn't know where his old clothes are but finds it interesting that his white shirt matches this room, the white board behind brannam with black stripes indicating height was one of the only non-white things in here
Brannam found it amusing that upon entering the prison the guards took his fingerprints. He had always thought that the "guards" and other "forces" functioned more like a castle defense.
The most these ponies could do as a criminal was tickling torture, so why build jails?
"to the right"
The man turns in profile to the camera
Again a strong flash, Brannam tried to be strong but it was useless, he again squints his eyes and the same expression
Watch and punish...
disgusting stuff
Author's Note
I was here looking through some of my old stories and I saw that I had made this one, I had almost 3500 sentences ready. I know I'm not a good writer but even so I decided to modify it because I found the idea of taking "the eyes of honesty" off and temporarily killing the tool that Autumn blaze uses most to justify Apple Jack's ideas and I find it significant that Brannam has a "Please arrest me" personality.
I also know that the story is kind of... how can I put it...Specific?
A veteran inside an alternate reality of Equestria being arrested☹
Brannam had to have some Trauma that would justify his dysfunctional behavior at the same time that he hates and has a negative view of the society in which he is inserted, I particularly think that the post-war time in Vietnam represents this character well
Plus I enjoy reading comments and Reviews are appreciated
