Mirror: Book I - Mind

Three days had passed since the incident on the road to Saddle Lake, and the boy had taken refuge within his room and the corridors of the Castle of Friendship ever since. He would spend hours in the library searching text after tome, reading one after the other as though he were on a fervent hunt for a lost, ancient word or phrase he felt was balancing on the tip of his tongue. Alas, the word never came, the phrase never found, but the boy persisted anyways.

I must do more. He thought on. I must do better. He thought constantly.

The boy sat at the desk in the library reading away, scribbling away, the candle by his side flickering away until Spike had come to replace it. He smiled gratefully at the dragon, whom gave a stiff nod before scurrying away.

There wasn’t a single hour within any of those days where Twilight had not come to check on his status, carrying with her a tray of refreshments every morning, every afternoon, and every evening. It was her favorite blend that she had been experimenting on, that which the young human was slowly growing accustomed to, just as he was growing more and more used to the young Alicorn’s company. He could tell she was getting better at making tea with every helping.

“Twilight?” David spoke.

“Hm?” She looked up mid-pour.

“What does ‘permeation’ mean?”

The mare blinked and glanced his books before answering. “It’s the process of a substance, such as a liquid or a gas, passing through a solid object. Normally though, we would called it ‘imbuing’ when it comes to casting certain spells.”

“Imbuing?” He wondered.

“The practice of imbuing involves casting spells onto physical objects, such as enchantments.” She explained carefully. “It’s the process of permeation that allows these spells to be imbued into the object in question. That one time I cast a cloudwalking spell on my friends would be a good example.”

“I see.” He prodded his chin, staring down at the book before him.

Twilight lingered for a small moment before smiling. “Are you studying enchantment physics? I have a ton of review notes I kept from magic kindergarten, if you ever wanted to take a look.”

“That’s alright, I was just wondering about that one word.” He pointed it out. “I kept coming across it and misinterpreted it as ‘permanent’ a few times, so it sort of threw me off for a few pages.”

Twilight blinked and subtly shook her head. “Oh, well…alright.” She gathered the tray and rested the cup of tea to his desk. “Let me know if you need anymore help.”

“Mhm.” David nodded quietly.

The young Alicorn delivered a final glance before turning and making her way towards the hall. Just before her hooves crossed the threshold, her ears perked back at the notice of his voice.

“Hey, Twilight?” He said.

She looked back.

“Thanks.” He smiled, a genuine grin, and returned to his work.

The pony acknowledged with an equal gesture, unknowingly forming a bashful blush upon her cheeks before trotting down the hall.

When the sun had taken its fall and the night reigned over, Twilight walked quietly through the darkened halls of the castle. The light of her candle reflected a single, tiny, orange ember multiplied to a thousand little flickers upon the several crystalline surfaces spanning the walls of her corridors. Her little assistant, Spike, had ensured the pony that he would keep sending one candle after the other to the boy, but the little dragon had fallen asleep mere minutes ago, and it was this final task the mare took upon herself before giving the human a gesture goodnight.

She passed the library doors and approached the figure slumped over the desk much too short for his size. He was hunched over, criss-crossed at his legs, one arm beneath his head and the other covering his book as he lulled and slumbered away into his dreams. He mumbled so vividly and so quietly the mare could not hear, and thus her eyes traveled down to his book resting beneath his arm. It was a sketch, a drawing of her, holding a book and delivering a curt grin to the viewer. The boy truly was an artist. Twilight smiled evermore widely than she had before and made to swaddle the boy in a blanket. She levitated him through the halls carefully, entered his room, and rested his tuckered, tired figure to the soft sheets of his bed. His legs curled inward to compensate his stature for the small size, and after making a note to fit him with a king size bed later on, Twilight slowly backed out of the room and clicked the door shut to leave her little human to rest.

It was hardly the crack of dawn before the boy felt a disturbance lingering in the pits of the castle, and it had disturbed his sleep so. He tossed and squirmed about beneath his blankets before finally getting comfortable once more and snuggling his way back into slumber, the warmth of his bed having never been so inviting to him before. Just as he felt the disturbance downstairs lingering away, it barged right through his door and perched to the foot of his bed, loud, boisterous and obnoxious as ever.

“Rise and shine, recruit!” Rainbow Dash bellowed over the top of her lungs. “Today’s the day!” She announced.

David squirmed beneath his blankets once more, peering out from beneath a hole where his eyes shone. “What…what day?”

“Well duh! I said I was going to make it up to you, and this is my way of doing it.”

“By barging into my room unannounced?”

“I’m taking that scrawny hide of yours for a run.” She bit his covers and yanked them away. “C’mon, we’re burm-fing day-fwight!”

“What daylight is there to burn?” Irritated, the boy snatched his covers back and yanked them over his head. “Besides, aren’t you a Wonderbolt? You should be in Cloudsdale doing practice by now.”

“Today’s my off day, which means I could be sleeping in right about now.”

David uncovered his head, eyes peeled and surprised.

“But here I am, feathers and fur. You can always count on me to be there on time, so I better see you outside in five.” Dash prodded his foot with her hoof. “How’s that leg feeling?”

“Better, I guess?”

“Good enough for me.” The pegasus leapt from his bed and hovered in the air. “Outside, five minutes, or I’m setting off a thundercloud next to your window.”

David would have stayed right where he was and sufficed with the thunderous booms next to his window five minutes after anyways, had Rainbow Dash not taken his blanket in her teeth yet again and went speeding down the hallway and down the stairs, out the door to never be seen again. Goddamn pegasus… David grumbled in thought. Doesn’t she know where that thing’s been?

He grumbled onward in unintelligible mumbles as his creaky, old bones rose groggily from his sheets and sought no other choice but to head for his door, braving the harrowing cold of the castle hallway. Already he felt as though his toes might break off and his fingers brittle as icicles, and thus he tucked his arms beneath his pits whilst rubbing up and down. Maybe the cold will help wake me up. He thought on. Or, slowly kill me. Either way works. This was Equestria, and as cute and cuddly as a land it appeared to be behind a television screen, it came with its hells and tortures just as any other world likely would.

So, exiting the castle past an obnoxiously loud set of double doors, the rainbow maned pegasus was nowhere to be found. David hollered a raspy "Dash" coming out as a measly whisper. He looked around, shrugged, and treaded down the ungodly cold set of stairs, pushing his feet into the even colder stretches of grass as he rubbed his palms together and stroked his shoulders. Then, a familiar blanket from his bed fell from above and draped over his form like a last second ghost cosplay. The sound of the pegasus swooping around and landing on the ground in front of him came to his ears just as he pulled the fabric from his face.

“Took ya’ long enough.” Rainbow snuffed.

“It’s fucking freezing…” He whined.

“Quit your babying, dude, it’s not that cold.”

“Says the one with a coat of fur.”

“Fine, point taken, but the cold is ideal weather for exercising.” She trotted in place and fluttered her wings. “It motivates you to keep moving, so you can stay warm.”

“Hey, I got on idea.” The boy proposed. “Why don’t we just go back inside, that way we can stay warm without doing any exercise at all. Damn, I’m a genius.”

“Nice try, buddy, but a lack of exercise actually makes you stupider.” Rainbow flicked his head with a hoof. “And don’t even think about arguing against that, Twilight told me that one.”

“I don’t believe this…” David muttered to himself once more, eyeing the rainbow pegasus with a perplexed glare, until finally he broke out of his shrug and splayed his hands out before the pony. “Rainbow Dash, listen, I appreciate the lengths you’re already going through here but you don’t have to do this for me. Sure you may have fractured my ankle and reopened my wound, but you lifted my heavy ass all the way to the vet.”

“Trust me, dude, you weren’t that heavy.” Dash stared worryingly. “At all.”

“Whatever.” He waved. “My point is I was ready to call it even then, and I’m ready to call it even now. So, if you don’t mind you can take this little meeting as a gesture of our truce…and I’m going to head back inside where any sane person would be staying right now. I know, sane in this world is far-fetched, but you get my point.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Rainbow Dash spun around to the entrance of the castle faster than the human could anticipate. “I know what you’re thinking.” And she descended one step after the other with every statement. “Just one more day. I’ll do it tomorrow, for sure. What’s one more night gonna hurt? I’ll get to it, eventually. Y’know what waiting one more day is gonna get you? NOTHING. Before you know it, one day turns into one week, one week into a month, a month into a year. I dare you to drop everything you’re doing right now to go and do what you know you have to do, because if you can’t, that just means you never had it in you in the first place.”

“I never even wanted to be here in the first place.” David informed.

But the pegasus went on. “I used to be just like you, and then one day it hit me. If I don’t get up right now and do SOMETHING, I’m never going to be a Wonderbolt! I had to cut back my habits, make sacrifices, get up early, and work myself past my limits.”

“Is this supposed to be a pep talk for new recruits or something?” The boy interrupted.

“I’m not going to lie to you anymore, dude. When I saw you on the road groveling like one of Fluttershy’s weasels having sprained an ankle, I knew I had to help you. I knew that if I didn’t help you change something about yourself, you wouldn’t be long for this world. That’s why, we’re going to make that change today.” She chuckled and crossed her hooves. “No need to thank me now, I know you will later anyways.”

“Oh, really?” He snorted.

“Really.” She pushed her muzzle to his nose, sprang back and shot a hoof to the sky. “From this point forward, I’m taking you under my wing. I am now your designated coach, and you are now my personal trainee.”

The boy scoffed. “What’re you gonna do, teach me how to fly?”

It was as if the pegasus had paused mid-air, seemingly hovering without the help of her wings, and in her time of defying physics she squinted so harshly at the boy he could feel pinpricks digging deep past his own eyes and beneath his skull. Without a beat to react, Rainbow Dash swung around the boy’s backside and hoisted him under the arms with both hooves. Pumping tremendous amounts of power into her wings, David watched as the ground beneath his feet began dropping away at alarming speeds. The double doors to the castle were a tiny set of portals at this point, the third and forth floors of the castle were long gone, and all that remained in his midst to cling onto for dear life was the top structure of the building, a great big metallic star that caught the rays of the sun just barely crawling over the horizon’s edge at this very minute. Much like a kitten stuck within a tree, David clawed and struggled to find a grip, his thighs hugging the structure harder than Harry the bear could ever muster one of his bear hugs.

“So?” Dash chuckled again, the high wind blowing her mane about. “Still wanna learn how to fly?”

“Okayokayokayyouwererightdashimsorrypleaseletmedownpleasepleaseplease!”

“What’s that?” The pegasus back paddled mid-air, cupping a hoof to her ear. “I can’t hear you with all that babying in the background!”

“I’m sorry, mom! I’m sorry, dad!” The boy wailed like a 4-year-old. “I never should have gotten into this show!”

“I know you may not have wings like me, but even if you were strong enough you’d be able to get down from there no problem.” Rainbow tried.

“Uncle! Uncle~!”

“Alright, quit your whining!” The pony growled, and snagged the boy under the arms again. “I’ll bring you down, sheesh.”

After a short moment of convincing him to loosen his grip, Dash steadied her descent into a patient flutter and made sure to keep her grip on the wailing and flailing human, finally touching back down to the earth a moment later. David had half the mind to kiss the ground in gratitude, and the other half to stare daggers of eternal, wishful damnation upon the pony before him. Rainbow Dash could only respond with yet another subtle chuckle as she dusted her wings and took off hovering once more.

“What’d I tell ya’? You’re as light as a feather, no wonder you need a workout.” She started. “Now, did you see the two trees at the top of the hill when you were up there?”

“My life flashing before my fucking eyes is what I saw.”

“Awesome, as soon as you’re done pissing yourself meet me up there.” Just as soon as the pegasus took off she turned around for a final holler. “And make it snappy, I wanna see you fly!”

It was at this point that David began to recollect all of his experiences with the ponies of Equestria thus far. The way that some had tolerated him and the way that some had resented him. The way that some had looked after him and the way that some had sought to seize him. The way that some had cherished him…and the way they showed their undying hate, loathe and utter ire and rage for a single, poor member of the human race. However, hate played no factor in this morning’s tribulations, not any longer. Rather, something different began to awaken in the pits of his boyish mind. A drive, a hunt, an urge to take matters into his own hands and show them…

“Weak? Scrawny? Not long for this world?” He snorted, dug his heels into the dirt, and took off like the wind. “I’ll show her!”