One of these days

by Goggari

Rating: teen
Tags: Random, Slice of Life, Dark
Length: 2915

A collection of short stories around Equestria

Originally a short story i made for school. New chapters about different characters along the way, depending on how much attention this gets. (I'll probably still keep doing this)
Suggestions for new chapters are welcome, please feel free to submit your own ideas if you would like me to make them.

Read it and rate it, and for that I thank you!

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-02-23 17:44:07 UTC

The mailmare

The words to describe Equestria are hard to find; beautiful, gorgeous, stunning and so on. Any of those words would fit a million times and they still wouldn’t be enough to describe it.

Quick Courier was a simple mare with a simple life and a simple job: to deliver mail across all of Equestria. Her appearance did not matter, nopony cared, and she didn’t care. She wasn’t beautiful nor ugly, neither tall nor short, happy or sad. She was in the background, and she wasn’t remotely important.

A forgotten soul.

She was sitting in the lounge of the post office, waiting for her daily deliveries just like any other boring Monday morning in her life. Except that this day brought her something different, something out of the norm so to speak: a letter with no return address and no hint for who would’ve sent it.

Quick walked into the managers office, “Excuse me, boss? What kind of joke is this?” she asked impatiently.

“It’s not a joke kid.” The manager grunted from behind his desk, ”We got a nice sum of bits for making an exception, the sender wants to stay anonymous.”

She let out a disappointed sigh, “Whatever you say boss…” as she walked out of the office and out to do her deliveries head almost dragging on the floor.

The manager ran hastily out of the post office, “Kid! It’s a top priority letter, get it delivered before the other letters!” he shouted so that Quick could hear him.

He could only faintly hear her cheerful response, “Okey dokey lokey, boss!”

Her flight route was simple: first to Baltimare, and from there to Las Pegasus. Such long trips gave her the time to think about things. Well, usually what she would like to eat after work, but not this time. This time she would’ve gladly missed her dinner just to know more about the letter. It consumed all her thoughts.

After three hours of flying across Equestria, from Cloudsdale to Baltimare, she saw something on a distant mountaintop. It looked like it wanted for her to stop and go see what it was.

As the figure drew closer she realized what it was, “A walrus... can this day get any more weird?” for anypony with any social life this could be normal or at least not so weird, but for a mare who wakes up in the morning, does her job without any care of the world around her and goes to sleep after eating dinner, this was unbelievable.

What was a walrus doing here? No water to be seen in a hundred miles, only grassy hills and mountains. She landed a few feet from the walrus. They stared into the others eyes, the walrus almost drilling into her socially cast out soul.

A very awkward moment for her until the walrus broke it. It lifted its flipper and pointed it to the far distance behind Quick Courier

“Remember” the walrus said in a low grumbling voice, before slowly turning around and moving away from her.

She looked behind her dumbfounded, only to look back and see that the walrus was gone. Where had it gone? There’s no place to hide or to go, they were standing on top of a tall mountain for pony’s sake!

After an hour of flying towards her destination in Baltimare, clearing her thoughts about her absurd day she finally realized what the walrus had meant: she was flying in the wrong direction, towards Las Pegasus!

“One of these days. Horseapples!” she cursed herself. She quickly corrected her facing and started flying towards Baltimare with such speed that even the Wonderbolts would be amazed to see a mailmare flying.

Quick Courier finally reached her destination, a small house on the outskirts of the city, apparently habited by rather angry ponies, considering the amount of curse words that poured out from it.

“Better just put this in the mailbox, I don’t really want to deal with these ponies” she said, putting the letter in its rightful place.

As she turned around, she saw the walrus again.

Quick had had enough; she was tired from her excess flight time and blamed the letter for it.

“You sent this letter didn’t you!?” she fumed

The walrus nodded

“So why didn’t you bring it here yourself?” Quick hissed “Why did you make me come all this way to Baltimare if you could’ve done it yourself!? I swear to Celestia if you don’t give me an answer…”

The walrus kept its cool and appeared to have a small grin on its face “Remember” it said as it pointed the mailbox.

Of course, the sign that told if the mail had arrived was down.

“Fine” she lifted it so that the habitants could notice it “fixed it, now for Celestias sake tell me…”

The walrus was gone.

That was it. She finally had too much of this.

Quick Courier bellowed to the sky,

“BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…” she started flying and wildly tossed her mailbag to the ground.

For she did not know where she was flying, somewhere, just not anywhere near that damned walrus for sure. That thought brought her some peace of mind.

Quick eventually came across a bar in the middle of nowhere: Penpack corp.

She had heard of this place, only rumors though; it’s said to be the last place anypony will ever go to, for ponies with nothing left but their sad memories.

As she walked into the bar she saw lowlifes, terrorists, criminals, hoofs dealers all alike, but something stuck out.

The walrus was sitting in the furthest corner booth of the bar sipping away from its cider mug.

For some reason it was also wearing a hat, a Stetson to be precise, but what would you care about a walrus looking awesome…

“Remember.”  The word was heavier than before.

Quick Courier galloped to grab some form of a shotgun from a hoofs dealer, but as soon as she had aimed the barrel of the gun at the booth, the walrus was gone.

“Oi lassie, yer got’ te pay fer eet!” the hoofs dealer spat at Quick

“Sorry. Did you see that?”

“See wot?”

“Nothing”

She sat down at the counter and ordered the heaviest of drinks the bar had. Quick wanted to forget. Forget about the cursed walrus and what it kept saying. What was she supposed to remember?

She had done nothing wrong!

Why was the walrus tormenting her?

Why does it bother her so much?

These were the questions Quick Courier kept asking herself.

Days passed, weeks even. It was hard to say since there were no clocks or windows, only dim lights and a poster of a known alcoholic Berry Punch that encouraged drinking more, what a lovely bar indeed.

But every now and then she heard the word, sometimes coming from the jukebox, sometimes from next to her and sometimes right behind her. Tormenting Quick to her limits. It felt like she was responsible for the end of the world because she forgot something.

Quick Courier woke up.

Not in her bed like she had hoped, she had hoped for this just to be a bad dream. No, she woke up on top of a grassy hill in who-knows-where. The sun was shining bright, the clouds were moving in the wind and nopony was to be seen anywhere.

“Heh” Quick Courier laughed, “It’s over! It’s finally over! IT WAS ALL A DREAM! Yeah!”

She was jumping up and down and galloping around. She finally could enjoy her life again.

“Remember.”

She turned around facing the walrus that had tormented him for weeks.

Realization struck her, “I see now, you tormented me for all this time just to make me remember to enjoy life, to do something with it! Putting me through all that and look at me now! I’m happy for the first time in a long time! Without you I would still be carrying those mailbags brainlessly doing nothing new with my life… Well, I still haven’t done anything new but it’s not too late to start! Thank you walrus, thank you for showing me this.”

Walrus was silent with a grin on its face.

It reached its flipper under its other, almost like searching for something.

It was a key.

“Remember”

Courier was awestruck; she was confused but took the key from the walrus’ flipper.

It looked familiar… too familiar for a key…

It was her home key.

“Oh”

The Bodyguard

I go by a name, a name called Blink.

It’s not my real name, for I lost it years ago. Not against my will, but by it. You see, when I became the personal bodyguard of Princess Cadance I chose to leave my name behind me, so that nopony from my “past life” would get hurt.

And now, I regret it.

Through all my years of service, I’ve never encountered anything like… this.

So let me clear this up for you: Basic day in the castle, something explodes in the Princess’ room, I check it out, and I get knocked out. By a walrus… by a bucking walrus! I mean come on! A walrus!

Ok, chill out Blink. Chill… nope! Not happening!

Walrus!

Hehe!

…

Oh Celestia, I’m finally losing it. Well then again, I always had the tendency to talk to myself… dammit!

Hello? Mister walrus? Would you like to say something?

Aaand… no answer… so you’re just going to be right there, not moving an inch, staring at me. That’s fine, I can play it like that.

No but seriously, what the hell are you doing?

“Remember” said the walrus.

What? Remember what? What the hay should I remember!? Tell me! NOW!!!

I’m going crazy, now finally you say something and it just makes me snap, just like that. So what is this? Some kind of torture? Interrogation? A test?

…

Oh you have to be kidding m-

“Remember”

REMEMBER WHAT!? TELL ME SOMETHING!!! YOU JUST SIT THERE DOING NOTHING!!! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO!?

Oh, oh, I get it! You’re trying to break me, to make me insane! Well too bad buddy because you’re too late! HA! I’m already nuts, and I’ve been for the past five years!

Okay Blink, calm down. Calm the BUCK down! Breathe in, breathe out… nope, not helping, going insa-nonononono! No you’re not. You are just fine Blink, it’s ok to talk to yourself…

No it’s not

Yes it is brain, stop talking.

You are insane.

No I’m not; not insane; completely sane; no reason to panic. Heh, I’m talking to you again… not good. Not good at all…

Would you like to hear a poem?

No.

Insanity is chained to reality,

Created by your mentality,

Nothing changes,

Nothing moves,

Just you and your little mood,

Of analyzing bigger things,

Of penalizing the smaller personalities,

That surround the true you,

That “you” who does the important choices,

That “you” who is locked away from the little things,

The “you” that’s being held behind,

Near impenetrable minds that it created,

To protect itself,

From the world that holds no lights,

The world parallel to ours,

Existing,

In between the hours of night,

The night comes to us all,

Is passes by like a painting on a wall,

You see it,

Yet you don’t care about it,

You forget it by the next minute,

It creeps behind you,

It corrupts you,

Making you a different person,

Making you hate a bucking Stetson,

For no apparent reason,

It brainwashes you with no treason,

You accept it to your mind,

Welcome it,

Until you open the eyes in your mind,

You see the plague it brought,

You see the curse it implanted in the healthy sanity,

That is now turning to insanity,

From white to black,

From black to void,

Your sanity,

Unsafe in the world that you once called home,

Now flees,

Leaving the unattended insanity free,

Making you finally glee,

But that smile upon your face is no longer,

Brought by the mind of the sane person,

That you once were,

It corrupts you,

It defiles you,

It differents and doesn’t mind “you”,

It defines you…

What?

It’s the walrus

What abou… it’s gone, where did it go!?

It never existed.

It did.

Oh not you too…

You have a problem?

Yes.

Well then, you better start remembering or you’ll defiantly lose it and go crazy beyond help.

What am I supposed to remember? And what does it have to do with the explosion in the room?

Oh, but you have to remember the room, what was inside, what you saw.

You saw nothing! You were knocked out, remember!? The walrus was just an illusion created by him!

Actually, that had nothing to do with me, I came here to help you, to make you sane again.

Ok, both of you shut up! Let me try to remember…

Princess Cadance stood above his old bodyguard, now squirming on the floor giggling madly. “Take him to somepony, quickly!” she shouted to the guards who were dumbstruck by the fact that Cadance’s personal bodyguard fell on the floor in shock as soon as he saw the Princess only slightly bruised.

One of the guards saluted “Yes your highness!” and galloped to get a doctor for the crazed pony.

“What happened to you?” Cadance asked the mad pony who paid no mind to anything around him

As the Royal Guard galloped through the castle in haste, he saw something in the corner of his eye. A walrus maybe? It mattered not, he had to find somepony quickly.

“Remember” a sound echoed through the halls

The Guard stopped, looking around “What was that?”

“Remember”

“Remember”

“Remember”

“Remember”

“Remember”

The sounds echoed, each time differently and with a different voice

“It doesn’t matter Blink, it’s just your imagination, you are not going crazy,” the Guard said to himself before running off to get a doctor

He halted, “What did I just call myself? Oh Ink Stain, you are not fit for this job, too much pressure,” he sighed to himself.

Paranoia or not...

April 24. Saturday

Every night… every night I see the same face. It comes to me the moment I fall asleep and just looks at me. Actually to call it a face would be absurd, it’s more like a presence right in front of my face, always watching. It doesn’t look me in a creepy way, but with a purpose and with years of experience behind those eyes. What eyes? How do I even know it has eyes? Maybe it’s blind. No. But the point is, it comes to me every night and does something. It’s something that happens every day of every week of every month.

Just like my life…

The other ponies don’t see the things I see in my life. The Princesses are watching us constantly, everywhere: in the hospitals, the stores, even in our homes! But no, the snub Canterlot ponies don’t see it, how can’t they see what the Princesses are doing? They raised the number of guards on the streets last week; I used to see only one or two royal guards when I went to the market last week and now at least five patrols and a captain for pete's sake! They keep saying that the raise of guards is for protection from something, but I don’t believe them. Earlier today they walled our city in with a magical force field to “keep unwanted visitors ‘out’” but they’re just keeping us in. Nopony sees it that way…

April 25. Sunday

Lately some of my friends have been acting differently, more distant from me for some reason. They’ve been brainwashed I tell you. Yesterday I saw my best friend while going to the market and he didn’t even recognize me until I told him who I was, and even then he looked a bit scared of me. Even the usual clerk at the cabbage stand was replaced by a walrus, and it kept saying one word “Remember”.

I think they’re after me…

April 26. Monday

I saw the walrus again today, this time it was a taxi driver. It just kept looking at me as I got into the cab, I think it’s trying to spy on me but I’m not going to give it the pleasure of finding out about this diary. Who knows whom it would give it to. Speaking of my diary, when I got to my office at the Royal Equestrian press today, and I was reading through it, my boss came to me without any warning and just took it away from my hooves. Luckily she didn’t realize to look into it because that would probably end up with me losing my job.

Just now I saw the walrus again, down on the street looking at my window.

April 27. Tuesday

I couldn’t sleep last night. I stayed up looking out from my window for the walrus that has been spying on me, and for some reason I remember yesterday better than I would normally. Not a single pony is still suspecting the government of anything; maybe I should do something about it. But discretely, otherwise they would find out and kidnap me and torture me. They would probably put the walrus up to it!

I’m too scared to leave my house and to sleep, but I’m just so tired.

April 30. Wednesday

Someone’s at the door, I know it.

“Remember”