The Hollow Kingdom of Big Macintosh

Chapters

Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
Exhibit D
Exhibit E
Exhibit F
Exhibit G
Exhibit H
Exhibit I
Exhibit J
Exhibit K
Exhibit L
Exhibit M
Exhibit N
Exhibit O
Exhibit P
Exhibit Q
Exhibit R
Exhibit S
Exhibit T
Exhibit U
Exhibit V
Exhibit W
Exhibit X
Exhibit Y
Exhibit Z
Intermission

Exhibit A

Shoehorn is always a welcome guest at the Apple house. He doesn't eat their food, but Big Macintosh often finds him in the bathroom due to his negligence to lock the door. It is almost as if it is Shoehorn's house and Big Mac is intruding. He doesn't exactly remember when he met Shoehorn, but he remembers playing with him right before his mother gave birth to Applejack. They were playing in the orchard or behind the barn when his father appeared covered in the kind of sweat that accumulates on a stallion's forehead in dire situations.

"My parents will never give me a sibling." Even back then, Shoehorn was insightful. He still is. The only thing that has changed is how big he is and how little he minds when Big Macintosh finds him during a private moment. It is his home, on some level.

The meetings are getting farther between nowadays. If Shoehorn is finally settling down somewhere, it isn't in Ponyville. Each story he brings back is different, like the scars on a veteran. His brain is marred with stories. Big Macintosh always asks where he's been.

"I made shoes for a King," he once said. "Not for the King, but for the stallion he loved behind the Queen's back." Shoehorn made shoes, both metal and otherwise for a living at times. His father before him also made shoes, but his mother was just a home keeper, although Shoehorn did not like saying "just" a home keeper. The thought of being responsible for little iterations of himself both frightens and excites him, but he is more effected by fear than excitement. It could be part of the reason he hasn't settled down yet.

"Who was he?"

"The King? He rules over a Kingdom far in the west. They've recognized a monarch for thousands of years and he can trace his lineage to the very first King. He married the Queen to continue the bloodline, but he's actually a homosexual. The entire Kingdom knows about this. It isn't against the law for him to openly have another lover, but he keeps it a secret anyway, for the Queen's sake he says. He loves her but doesn't realize it I think."

"I meant his lover."

"Oh."

Often, Shoehorn would not reveal his whereabouts, even asking Big Macintosh where the farmpony has been himself. The answer never changed for Big Macintosh. He was at the farm. He had been at the farm and it appeared he will be at the farm for the rest of his natural life. He can imagine himself somewhere else, but that doesn't mean anything. Sometimes, though, he has stories about what has happened to him.

"I drank a love potion."

"Today?" Shoehorn asks, reaching for something to wipe his ass with.

"No, on Hearts and Hooves Day," Big Macintosh clarified. He watched Shoehorn clean himself, like painting in reverse. When he finished, canvas was clean and more appealing to look at, on some level.

"That seems like the day to do it."

"I was tricked," Big Macintosh explained.

"Yeah, that happens sometimes," Shoehorn said. He just stands next to the toilet without flushing. "A mare once tricked me into drinking this stuff that made me really horny. I ended up bucking her sister, or friend or somepony. I'm not sure why she did it because I never saw her after that. I think it may have been an accident. Actually, I did see her after that. I was in Vanhoover doing a job."

"What kind of job?"

"Construction. We were building houses: charity work."

Big Macintosh has never seen Shoehorn flush. There are times he'll just stare at the lever as if in a trance and when Big Mac calls out to him he whips his head around as if they are back in school and the teacher has called his name right as he stopped paying attention. They never did pay much attention in school. Cheerilee once asked him if he had trouble focusing.

"Eeyup," he'd said. Everything was a little blurry. A week later his parents died and Shoehorn didn't come to the funeral when it was held.

"I didn't know your parents," he said many years later. "There was that one time your dad showed up when your sister was born."

"Applejack?"

"Yeah."

"Where were you when Applebloom was born?"

"I can't remember," Shoehorn said. He turned to the toilet and just stared at the lever for a while.

"Still can't remember?" Big Macintosh asked after a while. Shoehorn turned back to look at him slowly.

"Huh?"

"Where you were."

"Nopony can remember everywhere they've been," he confessed. "Unless they haven't been anywhere." Big Mac wondered if he was talking about him.

That brings us to the present, where Big Macintosh has once again walked in on the honorary fifth member of their household. Shoehorn doesn't look up or acknowledge Big Mac in any way, shape, or form. He just stares at the tiles on the floor, drawing faces in the discolorations with his mind. There is a particular dark splotch that looks like a mare's face, marred only by the grit where two tiles meet.

"Where've you been?" Big Mac asks.

"Nowhere," Shoehorn claims. He gets up from where he's sitting and moves past Big Macintosh into the hallway. Big Macintosh follows him right to the front door, where Shoehorn finally turns and looks at him. "You don't need new shoes, do you?"

"No, why?"

"Gotta eat," Shoehorn explains. He leaves the farm without a word. Big Macintosh doesn't watch him, but he closes the door and returns to the bathroom. He will think about Shoehorn while he's gone, but he won't miss him too bad or be lonely without him. Shoehorn is not his friendliest, or even most real, hallucination.

Exhibit B

The elderly stallion with the black umbrella could be his very first hallucination. It stands to reason that he is simply the hallucination Big Macintosh noticed first, as in he noticed the stallion could not be perceived by anypony else. Even today, the unaged, yet ancient stallion can be seen from where Big Macintosh sits behind the apple stand. He's never approached this particular hallucination, meaning he doesn't know anything about him beyond that fact that he is only real in Big Macintosh's mind.

The stallion with the black umbrella just stand and waits on street corners, peering down at a pocket watch at regular intervals while looking increasingly worried. Big Macintosh believes the purpose behind this is to get him to approach the stallion. It's a clever ploy, one of the best his mind uses really, but the only one he's never fallen for. Looking back at how fantastic some of his other hallucinations have been, he's surprised he didn't give into the old pony.

On the other hoof, it was that same, surreal simplicity that drove him to ask his friends about it back in grade school.

"I don't see anypony," Cheerilee told him. Big Macintosh turned to look back out the window. The old gentlecolt was still there, clearly visible.

"Oh, he left." Big Macintosh lied that day because that was easier. Defending what he saw would require too much talking. It was odd to jump straight to the conclusion that the man was an illusion that only Big Macintosh could see, but he turned out to be right in the end. He wondered, from that point on, who was real and who wasn't. There was no written rule that his hallucinations applied only to ponies either.

"Why do you stare at ponies like that?" Shoehorn asked him once. Big Macintosh quickly fell into the habit of silently regarding ponies and using one-word answers unless he was absolutely sure what he was talking to. He could talk to his hallucinations, but for some reason talking to them while they walked that line between reality and fantasy bothered him. It was silly, but it never led him astray.

"Nothin'."

He didn't over think his ability to hallucinate at that ripe, young age. He did not grow paranoid that everything was just one big illusion and he was just insecure enough not to tell anypony about it. He was partially afraid of losing his hallucinations, back then. He feared many of the wonderful things in life weren't real. He might miss those things too much.

He did, however, fear being crazy. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure what crazy was. He did not feel crazy, despite his hallucinations. He thought maybe he was the thief holding the knife to crazy's throat: crazy was not his crime, but he was still something else. He still had some sort of stigma.

"Tell me a secret," Rarity asked him. They were in the same class, but hardly ever spoke with one another. A lanky, young Big Macintosh wondered if the filly was just a hallucination. She had one of those kindergarten crushes on him, the kind that fizzles out when it becomes boring. He did not know this about her, though, which lead him to believe she was real.

"I see ghosts."

"Ghosts?"

"Yeah." Big Macintosh did not consider the phantoms he saw ghosts. He did not believe that one day these ponies died and showed up in his mind or that they some how became unacquainted with their own bodies to freely wander his mindscape as mere thought forms. He considered his hallucinations a part of a separate reality and even sentient. "You probably think I'm crazy."

"I don't think you're crazy." Looking back, it was impossible to tell if she didn't think that because she thought Mac was lying or because she legitimately believed the colt could see ghosts. "As long as they're really there."

They were real to Big Macintosh, and they still are. Nothing has changed for him. If he were to lash out at one of his apparitions, they would be hurt. If the sky fell down on the apple stand, taking the rest of Ponyville with it, the stallion with the black umbrella would die too. He could, by some miracle, survive. That too is a possibility.

"Excuse me."

Big Macintosh looks down at the pony in front of the stall.

"I need apples."

"Eeyup." The pony puts down her bits on the counter.

"Hurry up." Big Macintosh stares at her for a second longer. He turns around to load up a sack with apples. He counts them, one by one, until the little, cloth sack has significant weight to it. He turns back to to counter and is not surprised to find it empty. Big Macintosh returns to his silent vigil over the stand, but not before he adds the sack of apples to the growing pile.

Rarity's crush for him ended the day after he revealed his only secret to her. He thought that, perhaps, his mind invented the whole event, but that was only at first. All through those younger days, he always caught her regarding him a little longer whenever their eyes should accidentally meet. Her expression was a blank page, waiting to be filled by an expecting author with a loaded pen. She was the filly who could see the colt who sees ghosts see ghosts.

Exhibit C

Applejack tells Big Macintosh to do this favor for her.

"Rarity needs somepony your size to help her or somethin'. She didn't tell me too much; just said you'd be perfect for it. You don't mind helpin' her, do you?"

"Nnope." He left the farm and walked down towards town. It wasn't a big deal to do this favor for Rarity. There was a time the two were closer before she became friends with Applejack. It wasn't uncommon for him to help out Applejack's friends anyway, seeing as he was the only stallion any of them associated with.

He could help out. If Rarity had asked for his help specifically, he could provide it.

Carousel Boutique is appropriately located on the other side of Ponyville. At least, it seems appropriate to Big Macintosh. He imagined ponies who wanted to visit the boutique wouldn't be interested in seeing the farm, and visa-versa. He could make this assumptions safely, seeing as he was part of the stereotype who would adhere to this notion.

He sees something flying around in the air as he's walking. It is both too far away and moves in such a surreal manner that he cannot identify it. All he knows that it is falling. He is sure of that much. There is something falling from the sky.

He turns his eyes back to the road. On the edge of town, he spots Suave. The stallion's mane is slicked back with so much grease it is a wonder he doesn't burst into flames in the heat. He sits and stares at the sky, no doubt waiting for Big Macintosh.

"Hey, there's my favorite farmer!" Suave runs him down before he gets to the gate, throwing a hoof around the big stallion. "I had a feeling you'd be coming this way today."

"So I see."

"Yeah, it's crazy right?" Suave enjoys pointed jokes. He holds a strong belief that all humor is pain. "Do you need to know your horoscope?"

"Does anypony ever need to know their horoscope?" The pair walk into the town proper. Ponyville is alive like an electric beehive.

"Of course, your horoscope is important," Suave claims. "Before Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon, her horoscope told her any big plans were bound to backfire, but she didn't listen. The stars warned her, Big Macintosh. The stars warned her that she would be trapped on the moon. They tried to help her, but I'm surprised that even after she ignored them they helped her break free of her prison. I'll bet she looks closely at her horoscope now." A pony shouldered past Big Macintosh and Suave, forcing the latter pony to jump all the way out of the way.

"I'm walking here!" Suave yelled, but the trotting pony paid them no mind. "The nerve of some ponies..."

"Eeyup."

"Doesn't he know that Virgos are supposed to take it slow today? Their patience will be rewarded." Suave's confidence on this matter used to surprise Big Macintosh, but he'd learned to trust the stallion's infallible knowledge of the stars.

Thinking about the stars, Big Macintosh turns his eyes skyward again. The thing is still falling. He wonders if it is some weary pegasus or the shattered edge of a cloud. What ever it is, it is a big one.

"You wanna hear your horoscope?"

"Why the big deal with horoscopes?" Big Macintosh once asked Suave as they slowly got drunk by the creek. "It isn't you, Suave."

"It's me now," he said. "Maybe if I'd listened to my horoscopes, things would be different."

"Like, how?"

"I dunno, just different." He killed another flagon of cider. Big Macintosh tried to help him refill it from the cider barrel, but he missed completely and let the alcohol soak the ground below the spigot. Big Macintosh watched as the cider disappeared into the darkened ground and then beyond this dimension. It slid right through time and fell into the neck of a klein bottle to be poured into the mouth of tesseracts. Time hiccuped as it got drunk too.

"C'mon, buddy. Fill 'er up." Suave wiggled his still empty flagon at Big Macintosh. "They won't let me drink, not cider."

"Should've listened to your horoscope." Big Macintosh could make pointed jokes too. Even if it hurt Suave, he appreciated the gesture. With his speech greased up more than his hair, Suave confesses it probably would not have helped anyway.

"Alright, let's hear it," Big Macintosh says. Carousel Boutique grows closer and closer, and soon there won't be any more time to talk with Suave. He clears his throat, ready to recite what he learned in today's paper by heart.

"Libra: stay away from Capricorns; they will offer you happiness that you will gain all too easily."

"Capricorns?"

"Yeah." Capricorns were represented by that goat with a fish's tail. Big Macintosh never understood how anypony ever saw something like that in the stars, and he knew a thing or two about seeing things. "Do you need to know all the Capricorns in town?"

"No, but is Rarity a Capricorn?" Big Macintosh asks.

"No. She's Aquarius: don't turn down any financial opportunities you believe could be lucrative."

"I'll relay that to her." Big Macintosh isn't sure if he is lying or not. He realizes he has no reason or motive to tell her this. He just might be making a joke.

"Yeah, make sure you do," Suave says. "Horoscopes are important, you see. I might've just saved your entire day. It's a good thing I read my own horoscope."

"What'd it say?" Big Macintosh stops in front of Carousel Boutique. Suave does not stop, but he turns and continues down the road towards the edge of town.

"Pisces: everypony appreciates your advice. Make sure to give some today."

Before Big Macintosh walked into the boutique, he looks up at the sky again. Whatever is falling looks alive.

Exhibit D

Big Macintosh stands still as rigor mortis. Rarity drapes black polyester over his shoulters. He is not comfortable because he is out of his element and polyester feels itchy, especially over his neck where his heavy, harness normally hangs.

"You look a lot thinner without it on," Rarity remarked when he'd taken it off. "I keep forgetting that."

"Is it a problem?"

"No, darling, not at all." There is no shortage of small talk between the two, but Rarity's concentration demands silence. She is an artist, and artists must focus on their work. Big Macintosh simply works, a technique that suits him. For the moment, he must focus at the task at hoof as well. Being here with an old friend brings back memories. His idle mind drifts into reminiscence.

"Do you still see the ghosts?" Rarity and Big Macintosh were almost adults when she finally brought up the subject of ghosts again.

"I don't see ghosts."

"That's too bad," she said. "I wanted to know what one looked like."

"Ghosts are made up of geometric shapes. They have candle flames for eyes and when they speak it's just frozen vapors falling out of their mouths. That is why it gets cold when they're around." Rarity did not say anything, but she just nodded at him. He understood it was his cue to go on. "They can't sleep and they won't leave their old homes because they believe they are locked inside. They remain there as angry prisoners until the living vacate the house or they come to sympathize with their captors, sublimating into ectoplasmic steam as they finally move on. I don't think they ever realize they are dead or that they have died or that there is some difference between what they are and what everypony else is."

"Wow."

"Eeyup."

"I've never heard you speak so much all at once." Big Macintosh found himself labeled as 'interesting'. The previously strange mare talked to him more and more often, each time become more brazen with her questions. They were all designed to dredge his most profound thoughts from the murky chasms of his mind.

"How does time go by? Why is the sensation of sight so seamless? When a pony dies in their sleep, do they feel it? What is it like on the inside of a star? Is it possible we all sense the world differently, like in ways another pony wouldn't be able to comprehend, but since we are all existing in the same world we are able to communicate perfectly through it as a medium? Does any of this make sense to you?"

The answers were long and got longer. He'd never thought about these conundrums, but since she presented them he suddenly found insight. He never realized how intelligent he was, or rather he never realized he was so capable of intelligence. If not intelligence, he had creativity. Even if the answers weren't true, at least he had answers. Rarity liked them.

The first time they had sex, they did it on his bed. White and red mingled on the sheets. He tried to say something profound, like how it was just like how they'd mingled, red and white. Rarity pointed out that not only were the fluids not only technically and actually them mingling, but fluids from two ponies coming together was far too literal of an analogy for sex.

"Too literal?" Big Macintosh hadn't followed. His post-coitus mindset and heavy panting still tried to process the problem.

"Yes, and I don't like it," Rarity said. She was just as winded, so she took a few deep breaths through her nose to slow down her breathing. "I don't like objectifying sex. I don't want it to be an exchange of fluids, even if it is."

"Well then, you can decide what it is," Big Macintosh said. "You can define sex. You can decide who has sex and why."

"Sex is something we do together because we want to share intimacy with somepony we care for." They continued to do that until they had only the energy to sleep left. That definition never changed, so neither did sex. He penetrated her, she swallowed him, and they achieved what they wanted. They never just exchanged fluids.

They never defined much else. There were no more questions and therefore no more creative insights. Big Macintosh realized he'd stare at the ground when they walked in the orchard while she stared right ahead. They only ever looked at each other from over her shoulder. He could pretend he didn't mean to do wrong and that she meant the same, but he didn't know what she was thinking. He didn't know anything until it all dropped off the edge of the world like a boatload of sorely disappointed explorers.

"Who?" Applejack just stared blankly at Macintosh as he inquired where Rarity was. "I didn't even know you had a special somepony."

"I don't," he told himself. Nothing ever happened and he'd been at the farm this whole time. He'd forgotten he could even hallucinate at all.

"Lean up; you're slouching a little."

Macintosh does what Rarity told him. He stands up tall while she wraps a gold cord around his neck.

"What's this for?" he asks.

"I got an offer from a store in Canterlot to do a line of suits. It'll be a lot of work, but I think I stand to make some money off of it." An image of Aquarius pouring water onto the earth to mingle with the dirt drifts through Big Macintosh's mind.

"Eeyup."

Exhibit E

Macintosh Apple looks decked out for death. He thinks this because the only times he saw his father and mother dressed up was at their funerals, so that meant he'd seen his mother dressed up once and his father dressed up twice. He remembers asking Granny Smith how mother got dressed up like that if she was dead. He thought, for a year or so until his father died in the orchard wearing his overalls, ponies simply dressed up to die.

Even if the sentiments of fashion are not apparent to him, Big Macintosh thinks it much more practical to dress up in general than to dress up after you're dead. Clothes can keep you warm, keep you safe, or even just make you appear more important. They are so simple, yet so effective.

"It's late." Big Macintosh looks out the window and sees that, in fact, Rarity is right. The sun is setting under Celestia's power, although Big Macintosh often wonders if putting it down is even necessary. He thinks once the sun is sitting directly overhead it should just slide the rest of the way down the horizon like a drop of slick rain rolling around an apple. The true nature of how any heavenly body moved is beyond him. He is glad it is left to the Princesses in Canterlot.

"Eeyup."

"Well, I won't keep you forever." Big Macintosh wonders if she really understands the implications of that. "Would you be okay with coming back around the same time tomorrow?"

"Eeyup."

"The same time everyday this week?"

"Eeyup."

"Alright, I'll hold you to it," she says, levitating her supplies away and off of her living mannequin. She uses her magic to help Big Macintosh out of the suit he's wearing. While it's pulled over his head, she says something else.

"Pardon?"

"Don't forget," she says.

"Forget what?"

Rarity continues breaking down, but she doesn't take her eyes off of Big Macintosh. She is caught between the possibility of the stallion joking and the possibility that he has already voided his promise of seven seconds ago.

"Please don't forget," she says. The statement covers both bases and says everything she needs it to. "I mean it."

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh says, returning his harness to its traditional spot around his neck. "I'll see you tomorrow, then." Rarity says her good-bye as he leaves. He is out on the street again. The first thing he does is check the sky. Whatever was falling fell, all the way. It is somewhere on the green earth now.

He wonders where it could possibly be. Driven by his curiosity, he walks in the direction he saw it falling. He walks, unsure of his destination or success. His destination turns out to be town square's fountain, and he finds more than success.

Capricorn is in the fountain. Not the stars, but the creature. The goat creature sits and watches the ponies walk by, her green tail splashing the water behind her. Big Macintosh approaches her. He finds out that he was wrong, that what he is seeing is not a creature he's never seen before. It is just a mare wearing goat horns with her tail split at the end to look like a fish's. As he approaches her, she turns and notices him. Her tail splashes idly.

"Hey."

"Howdy." The pair stare at one another. "What's your name?"

"Hippocampy."

"I'm Macintosh Apple." They stare at each other a while longer. "I saw you fall from the sky." Hippocampy stares wide-eyed at him.

"I wasn't aware anypony saw that," she says. Big Macintosh stares through her and at his memory of her falling through the air.

"Are you a star?" he asks. Hippocampy tilts her head. "You know because you fell from the sky. I was just asking if you fell out of heaven."

"Oh."

"Are you Capricorn?" Macintosh asks. Hippocampy blinks a few times, but she keeps her gaze fixed on him.

"Yes," she says.

"Oh." They go back to staring. "I'm supposed to stay away from Capricorns."

"Oh?"

"My horoscope says so." Big Macintosh looks up at the mouth of the fountain. Three stone ponies stand there, two of them spitting water from their mouths while a third lets water flow out from an urn in her hooves. The water from the latter pony crashes down right next to where Hippocampy fell to earth.

"What did your horoscope say?" she asks.

"The horoscope for Libra was that we should stay away from Capricorns because the happiness they offer we'll get to easily or something like that."

"Oh." Hippocampy sits and processes Big Macintosh's face for a moment. "What does Capricorn's horoscope say?"

"Dunno."

"Big Macintosh!"

The pony being called looks over his shoulder. Applejack is in the square, waving widely at him. Big Macintosh waves back. He turns again to Hippocampy, who is staring back up at the sky where she came from.

"That's my sister," he tells her. Her eyes flicker over him for just a fraction of a second. She nods and continues to look up at the sky. Big Macintosh turns back to greet his sister, trotting over to meet her halfway. She looks concerned, somewhat. It isn't uncommon. She practically runs sweet apple acres and has to be the voice of reason among her friends more often than not. Big Macintosh can't really sympathize with the latter sentiment.

"Did you get done with Rarity?" she asks.

"Eeyup, for today."

"You goin' back tomorrow?"

"She asked me to," he tells her. "She told me not to forget, so I reckon I shouldn't."

"Good call, considering it's Rarity." Both Rarity and Applejack seem to harbor some sort of resentment for each other, even if they are friends. Even Big Macintosh can see this. He does not know why, but it not his place to know why. He is better off assuming that cosmic forces and long-dead social castes demand the two be bitter enemies, even if only from the core of their beings. "What're you doin' here, then?"

"I was just-" Big Macintosh turns back to the fountain. There is no pony sitting in the shallows. There isn't even a pony looking like they are thinking about sitting in the shallows and getting a little wet during their stroll home. It stands to reason, for Big Macintosh, that nopony ever set hoof in the fountain. "I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"Astrology," he admits freely. To say one was thinking about astrology carries no heavy implications of talking to the stars of Capricorn in the town's fountain, but at some level it must if one can say the former and also mean the latter. This is the sort of misdirection Big Macintosh employs to keep his conscious clean.

"That seems a bit above you," Applejack says, meaning it as a joke. "What about specifically?"

"Horoscopes."

"I didn't know you were into horoscopes."

Big Macintosh could fill a book with all the things his sister didn't know about him. He wasn't sure if there would be a chapter in that book about horoscopes. They did appear to hold precedence today at the very least.

"Just a lil'." The two of them leave the town square behind. It's back towards home for them.

"Do you even know what your sign is?"

Big Macintosh tells her he is a Libra and at the same time remembers his sister is a Capricorn.

"I think I'm a Leo," Applejack says to herself. Big Macintosh cannot remember if she is wrong or if Applebloom is a Capricorn. Even though he can clearly recall the date of her birth due to its overwhelming significance in his life, he hasn't the slightest clue where the stars were that day. He remembers where he was, but that's about it.

Exhibit F

When night comes ponies lay inside their beds. Some sleep, but others do not. Big Macintosh is part of those who cannot sleep, but not because of some bout with insomnia or some frantic worry that keeps him from resting. It is just one of those nights where sleep can't find him. Sleep has forgotten the road or walked too slowly to take in the night or perhaps he has met some old friend and the two are so estranged they find it hard to find any words to share with one another but they try anyway because that's just what being a decent pony is all about.

Big Macintosh waits for sleep. He wants it, for sure, because he needs it. He is a hard worker and hard workers need their shuteye. He must rise with the sun and he will have every advantage if he can sleep along with it in the night. He can't afford to spend his night staring at the ceiling.

Looking towards the window changes things. There is a pony on the outside looking in. The suit-wearing stallion is just standing there looking in at Big Macintosh through his sunglasses, but this room is on the second floor. Coast Tucoast does that sometimes. It is not the main thing he does, but it is certainly an activity he partakes in on a regular basis.

He was doing it the first time Big Macintosh saw him. During the day, Cheerilee had not shown up for school.

"Weird, she's here everyday," Shoehorn said. "You think she's sick?"

"Eeyup." Big Macintosh was sure of that. If he had any worldly possessions, he would have bet any of them on that fact. It wasn't until Coast showed up that night.

"She's been taken," he said. "The aliens beamed her up into their ship."

"Why did they do that?"

"They are doing experiments, no doubt. Social experiments usually. Sometimes they do more invasive surgery."

"What do we do?" Big Macintosh asked. He did not know how to fight against aliens or trick them. He didn't even know what they looked like or how they might react to his plans to rescue his friend.

"Their spaceship has to be around her somewhere. I will check around the town, so you check the orchard," Coast said. Big Macintosh did as he was told. He spent all night looking around the orchard. He did not stop searching until after the sun had risen and Coast found him again. "They do not come out in the daylight. We will have to look for them tomorrow night."

Big Macintosh was far too young to be staying up all night. His body protested against going to school, but his half-lucid mind forced it forward. Everypony took notice, even Cheerilee.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" she asked him.

"Nnope. I was up all night looking for you."

"I was at home last night. I didn't come to school yesterday because I was sick," she said. It seemed so obvious to Big Macintosh. He wondered where he even got the notion that it could've been aliens or why he had bothered believing Coast.

"She's not the real Cheerilee; it's an alien in disguise," Coast told him. He was so certain about it that Big Macintosh could clearly see in his mind the image of a strange creature stepping into a Cheerilee costume and stepping off its ship into a shaft of light. The search was on again. Big Macintosh had started sleeping in the afternoon only to be awoken by Coast, so he was ready for another rough night. He wasn't prepared for another unsuccessful night.

"The aliens are good at hiding," Big Macintosh told Coast when dawn came. Coast just nodded and then over his shoulder. "What should I do about the fake Cheerilee?"

"You have to be careful around the fake Cheerilee," Coast told him. "It is possible she knows you know she isn't the genuine article. She's got your life in her hooves. You must go on exactly as if nothing were wrong or she will end you."

Big Macintosh eluded death by acting normal for the rest of the week. He never found an alien spaceship and Coast never found it either. He began doubting the reality of Coast's claims, or rather he began doubting their validity.

"Who are you exactly?" Macintosh asked one evening when Coast appeared at his window.

"Just a stallion who knows the truth," he said. "All I want to do is expose the truth. The truth is always hidden."

"Always?"

"The surface is never the truth." Coast turned away from the window and Macintosh to look up at the stars. He took of his sunglasses to he could see. "The truth is always one step deeper and one shade darker. I'm not even sure we can ever actually get to it." It was right then that Macintosh noticed that Coast was standing on the air. He got up on the windowsill and looked down at the plain air holding Coast, an earth pony, off the ground.

"How are you doing that?"

"This?" Coast glances down at his levitating hooves as if he knew along all along there was something odd about them. "Like I said, the truth is one step down and one shade darker."

Big Macintosh did not go searching for aliens that night and the following night Coast did not show up at his window. It was certainly not his last encounter with the strange pony, but then came the day or moment when the ghosts and aliens Coast wanted to chase became childish. He did not entertain Coast's crackpot theories, and when it became apparent that Coast himself was not real he stopped entertaining him all together.

Now he is back at Big Macintosh's window, sunglasses and all. He cannot sleep anyway, so he rises from bed and goes to the open window.

"You don't believe I exist," Coast says, reminding Big Macintosh of what he already knows. "You saw an alien with your own eyes, but you don't believe I exist."

"Aliens existing and you existing are two very different things," he says.

"What if I was an alien?"

"That isn't relevant." Big Macintosh reaches out for the shutters.

"You're supposed to stay away from Capricorns."

"It's my choice if I want to avoid them or not," Big Macintosh says. "All my horoscope said is they offer happiness or something."

"But before it said that it warned you explicitly to stay away from them."

"I don't understand why." Big Macintosh found talking with Coast appropriately like talking to himself.

"Maybe you're not supposed to be happy."

Big Macintosh closes the window and returns to bed.

Exhibit G

Chores melt into another early afternoon at Carousel Boutique for Big Macintosh. His routine is practiced, solid, and assuring. Doing the same thing day after day keeps him grounded in reality, and it keeps his hallucinations lofty. His mind never conjures up anything mundane, or if it does he has yet to realize it. One way or another, he maintains his outward appearance of normalcy.

Once again, Rarity is too focused on what she's doing to strike up a conversation. Big Macintosh doesn't mind. There isn't any need to ask her questions about what's she's been up to since their school days. Although he's fallen out of touch with many of his old schoolmates, he is aware of Rarity's exploits through his sister. Inversely, he is aware of Applebloom's exploits through Cheerilee, the only other pony from school he hasn't become estranged to in the past years.

"So, how's the farm?" Rarity asks, shocking Big Macintosh out of his cloud of peaceful reminiscence. He lands less than gracefully in a pile of prefabricated answers and truths inadvertently retained.

"Fine."

"How's Granny Smith?" Rarity doesn't ask about Applejack or Applebloom, knowing full well how they are.

"Fine."

"Everything is just fine then?" Rarity asks, almost playfully. Big Macintosh knows he is not doing a good job of making conversation, but it never has been one of his strong points. Maybe when he was younger, but he discarded that skill for some much more practical social practices such as brevity, courtesy, and tact. "That's just fine then." Rarity is much better at making conversation, even from the veritable social chaos of Big Macintosh he can feel a universe of topics exploding with just a little prod.

"Eeyup, just business as usual."

"Not much changes with you, does it?" she asks, but she knows the answer. Nothing with Big Macintosh changes, not outwardly at least. There isn't much internal change to speak of either. A desire to change stirs within him merely at the suggestion of change.

"Eeyup."

"We're not little fillies and colts in school anymore," Rarity says. "Have you given any thought to starting your own farm with your own family?"

"Nnope." He hadn't. He scarcely thought much about the topic of romance or getting away from Ponyville. That would be too dangerous for him. The best he can do in the way of romance is paranoia over that state of his affection's existence and the best he can do in getting away is just fantasizing about what lies beyond the borders of Ponyville.

He went to Manehattan, but only once. His family was visiting his Aunt and Uncle Orange, but the trip did not go over with Big Macintosh. The city was so dynamic and new that it possibly tripped some switch in Big Macintosh's mind that caused a frenzied panic of vivid hallucinations.

He nearly suffocated in his imagined flooding of Manehattan, but before it even got that bad he did not suspect that the water in the streets could be a problem. The first day he stepped across puddles and watched ponies pull carts through the shallow pools in the city streets. The third day, the smell of fresh rain on the pavement disappeared under a foot of water, but what really kept ponies off the streets was the heavy rain of the day. He had to swim to his bed that night. By day five Big Macintosh refused to leave the upper floor of his Aunt and Uncle's apartment. He was afraid of the rising tide, but his parents and relatives weren't even phased by it. He just thought it was normal for this city. He watched the carriage boats float by.

"That's a shame really," Rarity says. "I don't remember you having a special somepony at any point in school either. Just not something that interests you?"

"Nn-... well, I find it interesting, I guess," he replies. A tiny galaxy in this avenue of thought had developed. The first lifeforms on its planets got together and drew up plans for primordial ooze.

"So you really didn't have anypony back in school?" she asks. Big Macintosh looks down at her, only briefly before he reminds himself of his reality.

"Nnope."

"Oh. I didn't have anypony serious back in school either. I don't think it's because I'm too picky, but I think it's because there wasn't anypony around I wanted to pick. I tried some ponies on for size, but that's never a good idea. Ponies are not articles of clothing." Rarity's hooves move slowly, but her speech is animated. "It's a bad analogy, but if there isn't anything that appeals to you in the store you should look somewhere else. That's why I've always wanted to go to Canterlot. I think ponies there might be similar to me."

"Is that something that's important to you?" he asks. Rarity looks up at him for a second, confused. "Similarities, I mean."

"Yes, very important. I think it isn't wise to look for somepony who is completely different from you; you'll both be heading in different directions or wanting to head in different directions."

"Makes sense." Big Macintosh considers two trains running parallel to one another. At some crossing one train turns into the other and all the passengers die in the resulting crash. The trains had different and conflicting destinations. "I don't think I could be with somepony who would try to take me off the farm."

"Right, and I wouldn't want somepony who wouldn't let me design." Rarity says this without looking back up at Big Macintosh. While he was thinking, she started working in a fervor again. She has needles in her mouth and there are several different swatches of cloth levitated over hear head. Big Macintosh feels a strip of silk tighten around his neck.

They finish ahead of schedule, but the work passes by in silence. It ends and Rarity carefully extricates Big Macintosh from the newly constructed ensemble.

"You'll be back tomorrow?"

"Eeyup."

Exhibit H

There is no mystery involved in why Big Macintosh returned to the fountain after leaving the Boutique. He recalled the mare he met in his mind yesterday, the one that fell from the sky. Hippocampy is her name. It is not protocol or habitual for him to attempt to recreate his hallucination, but it is something he indulges in time to time. Besides, conversations with his hallucinations are often meaningful and introspective. Some ponies talk to themselves, but Big Macintosh doesn't have to.

There is no mare in the fountain. There aren't many ponies around the fountain either. The town is quiet, as it often likes to be. Ponyville does not have the facility to create large, bustling crowds in the late hours of the afternoon. If one is needed, the whole town must gather. If the whole town has to gather, there is then a need for such a crowd.

The town lives just as simply as the ponies in it. The population lives off the earth and the town sits on the earth as opposed to cobbled roads or high clouds. There exists the constant reminder of the olden ways, or the right way as some older ponies would have it. Equestria was built up on the back of Earth ponies, and no town this side of the Everfree demonstrates this better than Ponyville.

Big Macintosh didn't come to the fountain to ponder the origins of the town. He came for a specific reason, but it now appears impossible to fulfill that desire. He stands around and appreciates the fountain a little longer, just to give himself an excuse for coming to this place.

He trotted towards home, but not directly towards it. He didn't need to hurry, which is a painfully lame excuse. He could admit he is a bit tired or that he still clings to his hopes of seeing his hallucination if he deviates from his path. No, he is just lollygagging for the sake of it.

Of course, it would be this detour that brings the strange mare into his presence again.

Hippocampy has forgone the horns today, but her tail is still tied up like a fish's. She is not hooves deep in the fountain, but idling next to a fence overlooking Carrot Top's fields. She does not look occupied in the least or even slightly entertained by her own thoughts. She is bored, plain and simple.

"Hey."

Hearing Big Macintosh causes a shift in her demeanor. She becomes alert, turning her head and body towards the stallion. Her eyes grow wide and fix on his eyes. She doesn't make a move or a sound beyond that. There is still a lot of distance between the two as they stare at each other. It feels a lot like the day before for Big Macintosh.

"Have we met?" she asks.

"Yeah, once," he replies to the best of his knowledge. He can't account for any overwhelmingly underwhelming encounters they could've had in the past or even the cosmic possibility of past iterations of themselves meeting. Perhaps he had lured her daughter into a life if piracy and her soul never forgave him for leaving her baby's bleached bones on the raided shores of some distant country. Maybe they were the same person, but that can't be true because one of them isn't real.

"Oh. I don't remember you."

"We met yesterday," he reminds her. She shrugs, telling him that time is of little consequence when it comes to remembering somepony. Whether he met her yesterday, today, and tomorrow the mind will retain the memory or it won't. There are no promises or expiration dates printed on a memory. "I'm Big Macintosh."

"Oh." The two resume staring at each other. Big Macintosh finds her peculiar, even for a hallucination. "I don't know you."

"Well, you just don't remember me. I don't know if you can say you don't know me," he replies. Hippocampy's eyes drift to the side. She is thinking about it, taking her time and his time to come up with an answer.

"I never thought about it like that," she says, her tone of voice appropriate for somepony who has just realized something for the first time. She is almost too happy with what she has discovered, but she is happy. Big Macintosh can tell just by the look on her face. It isn't a bad look. "I should remember you."

"That would be hospitable, I suppose," he says. "What can I do to be more memorable?"

"You can touch me."

"Pardon?"

"Do you know about critical touches?" she asks. He shakes his head. "Good."

"Good?"

"I get to explain it to you," she says, clearing her throat afterwards. Her smile remains, rimmed with a feeling of authority. "In order to be a functioning, stable pony, you need at least seven critical touches a day. If nopony touches you on a daily basis, this will foster feelings of loneliness and isolation. You need to know there are ponies out there who can show affection to you.

"You also need it in order to interact with ponies naturally and empathize more readily. Those who are not touched or resistant to touch have trouble relating to others and forming relationships. They tend to draw further and further from other ponies. Getting your daily quota of touches ensures you'll live a healthy life, even if you have to miss it for months at a time before it really starts effecting you. You know?"

"Sounds reasonable." Big Macintosh inadvertently went tried to find seven times he'd touched a pony today: Applebloom and Granny Smith hugged him this morning. Applejack gave him a pat on the back during work. He shook hooves with Filthy Rich, Caramel, and Berry Punch after doing business with them. He'd done good today.

"Touch is also strongly linked to memory, so if you want to be remembered you should give me a full quota," Hippocampy told him.

"So... I gotta hug you seven times?" he asked, but Hippocampy shook her head.

"No, we'll do seven different touches. Remember, this is a learning experience."

Big Macintosh had not noticed this was a learning experience. It did, however, strike him that she is right. He is learning about touch and she is learning who he is. His own role in this lesson strikes him as passive.

"We'll start with a hoofshake." Hippocampy approaches Big Macintosh and extends a hoof. He reaches out and meets it, giving it a firm shake. She is not as strong as he is, and her hoof is a lot smaller. This is normal.

"Next is a touch on the shoulder," she says. Big Macintosh complies, reaching over and placing a hoof on her white shoulder. He recognizes this touch as a reassuring sort of thing. She reaches up with a hoof and touches his forelocks, accepting the gesture.

"Next is touching my mane."

Big Macintosh had not considered this being a possibility. He was okay with touching her hoof and shoulder, but her mane is more intimate. He can't riddle out why it feels that way. Despite the feeling, he reaches out and touches her mane, cautiously at first. Slowly, he allows himself to run his hoof down its length, genuinely feeling the silk of her long hair. She leans her head into it, burying his hoof even further into her tresses.

"Now, hugging." Big Macintosh does not initiate this time. She had her forelegs around his shoulders and her neck against her neck before he realizes what's going on. He puts a foreleg around her and pulls her in a bit tighter. Now his face is in the mane he was just stroking. She smells like soap, liberally applied and often used. She is clean, so to speak.

"Nuzzling." She breaks the hug, but stays close, tracing the way up to his face with her nose. By now, he has picked up on the escalating nature of the touches, but he forges ahead anyway. He returns the gesture in kind, leaning down until they are nuzzling against each other's cheeks. Their noses pause when they brush past each other on their way to the opposite cheeck, allowing the ponies to linger in each other's eyes for a brief moment.

"And a kiss."

Big Macintosh doesn't register what she said, he only paused dumbly while she leaned up and gave him a quick peck on the lips. Compared to what they'd just been doing, the kiss was barely anything. It still was a kiss though, which thoroughly shocked Big Macintosh.

"And that's all of them!"

"That was just six." He is surprised he kept count, and perhaps even more surprised that he has gone out of his way to point out that he is short one touch that was promised. "You said there were seven."

"The seventh one is sex."

"Oh." He remembers Hippocampy is a hallucination. He is getting red in the face in front of empty air, even if he perceives the mare smiling up at him with her eyes. He'd forgotten, and forgotten very willingly. "What do we do for number seven then?"

Hippocampy doesn't warn him before she embraces his lips again, but this time it isn't a peck. She pressed hard, hard enough to coax him into pressing back. Pressing past lips and teeth, their tongues found each other and mingled saliva between the two ponies. The exchange through, tongues parted, teeth went down, and lips closed. The performance ended, and they were left to stare at each other again.

"Well, I'll see you around."

Big Macintosh returned home. He did some final chores. He ate dinner with his family. He retired to bed feeling tired. Throughout these routine and pedestrian activities, his mind ran circles in its wheel, his campus of thought squeaking with each revolution. He had not entertained such thoughts for a long time, or perhaps it was more appropriate to label them as desires. Actually, just one desire.

Frantic in his mind, he falls asleep in his bed. He dreams she comes to him so they can have that seventh touch. He fits into her like a puzzle key with all the thrill and pleasure of unraveling a complex mystery. Their lovemaking stretches on and on and they become covered in each other's sweat instead of their own because they have blended together so completely.

Each thrust feels like climax and every sensation of touch from every hair becomes raw arousal. Their bodies evolve into sexual organs, erogenous zones from the base of their spines to the forefront of their brains. They both orgasm with unnatural violence on the exact same point in the axis of time.

He wakes up. The dream floats away like a low-hanging haze, every intimate detail gone before there is a chance for him to grasp them. He does, however, recall that she was wearing the horns and they did have sex.

In the end, he was touching himself, but that doesn't count.

Exhibit I

Suave is in town today. Big Macintosh finds him staring up at the bulletin board outside Town Hall. He approaches Suave, who notices him and says nothing. He wants him to look at the bulletin board and see what he sees. Big Macintosh sees it almost immediately. His eyes drifted to a weather advisory for a rainstorm in three days before he found the petition scrawled in hasty mouthwriting.

"Well, ain't that something."

"Yeah, it's something of a something," Suave says. "Means Ponyville has a problem, I guess. It's the small town feel that makes ponies this way."

"Crazy?"

"Well, yes and no," Suave replies. "I think crazy happens in correct proportion wherever you are, but it's hard to hide your crazy when there aren't many ponies. Ponies get worried, get crazy about it. Stuff like this happens."

There is a petition to give Ponyville General Hospital a general psychiatric ward. The pony with barely illegible scrawling appears to be under the impression that the hospital is currently over-encumbered with mentally unstable ponies. He or she expresses an urgent need to renovate the existing programs that handle these ponies and assign a dedicated team of doctors to look after them.

Currently, the hospital treats the mentally ill just like the physically ill. There are mentally ill inpatients, outpatients, new patients, old patients, and terminal patients. Beyond what ails them, they are no different. If they can be treated, they will be treated. If they can be cured, they will be cured. If their health is good enough, they go home. They aren't special, just different.

"Do you think it's true?" Big Macintosh asks his friend. Suave grunts and spits on the ground.

"Hard to say, man. It's hard to say." Suave tries his best to say it. "I don't know if the hospital is overrun with crazies, but I'm certain if they wanted to fill an entire medical wing they could do it. The misdiagnosed, unnecessarily diagnosed, and the undiagnosed combined would foot the bill."

"What constitutes a pony as 'crazy'?" Big Macintosh asks. He already knows the answer. Not just his answer, but he knows Suave's too. The question is more along the lines of "what does the hospital think constitutes a crazy pony?"

"A pony with a bad brain."

"A bad brain?"

"Yeah, a deviant brain. There's no one thing that can make a brain deviant. It just doesn't work right, not right enough. All brains work differently, but deviant brains work too differently. They can't or don't do something, or they do something. That's a bad brain. It's something like that."

Big Macintosh can only imagine hallways filled with dark, white rooms. The orderlies are huge and the patients look like prisoners. Straitjackets and cups full of pills abound. Everypony gets half an hour with a psychiatrist a day. If in that half hour they prove their brain has reformed and agreed to reform, they can go home until they smash a plate against the wall or wildly lament the death of a pony long, long gone much too loudly.

"I don't think I like this," Big Macintosh says.

"Nopony likes it," Suave reminds him. "It's one of those ugly truth things you don't hear ponies talking about. We sweep it under the rug and hope it resolves itself, but not because we're irresponsible. Ignoring the problem and living decently is actually a solution."

"You got today's horoscopes?"

"Always," Suave says. "Libra: if you're looking to make friends and impress ponies, punctuality is the key to your success. Now is not the time to be unpredictable. Keep your appointments and keep your promises. "

"I reckon I always do."

"If it's in your horoscope, it's especially important." Suave has never been wrong about this, to his knowledge. Big Macintosh believes it is simply because they give such elementary advice. They are no more mystical than an instruction manual and can't see any farther into the future than a weather advisory.

"Well, I'd better be going then. I'll be late to see Rarity."

"Aquarius?"

"I don't know, you're the expert," Big Macintosh says. Suave stares up at him for a moment, his eyes darting to the left on every downbeat. Big Macintosh can hear the gears whirring in his head. He is doing more than trying to remember Rarity's sign. He is standing on the stoop of saying something with one hoof lifted to knock. He sweats, wonders if he can actually do it.

Suave has got something disruptive to say. It is a jolt of static to flicker the lights or a strong breeze through the belfry. If he speaks it, it is possible to stay the hand of fate. It is two minutes late to a train station and two ponies talking over the radio. Big Macintosh can know this without hearing him say it, but he can never unveil it on his own. He can be wary, be careful, be paranoid, or even indifferent, but he can't do anything beyond being.

"Yeah, take care." What he wanted to say, he does not say. Perhaps it had to do with his horoscope. Perhaps it had something to do with somepony else's horoscope. Whatever it was, he takes it with him as he heads on down the road and Big Macintosh doesn't let it bother him as he goes up the road.

Exhibit J

Certainty.

Big Macintosh never doubts the existence of a pony he has been introduced to by another pony. There are no shared hallucinations. There are no grand illusions. There are just real ponies, as real as Big Macintosh himself. This fact is a solid, certain constant for him. He doesn't question it; he doesn't doubt it.

Some hallucinations cannot be accounted for in this manner, like the days halcyon giants came to caress the mountains with their fingers or all those times he had to walk home through steamy snow on a summer's night. Those that can, inevitably will be. No ghost can escape this fate. Reality holds some sort of precedence over it.

Shoehorn was a constant companion for Big Macintosh during his school days. They did most everything together and got along famously. They were both quiet and reserved, making them a good match for one another. On the surface, there was nothing unusual about their friendship; there was nothing unusual beyond the fact that Shoehorn was merely a figment of Big Macintosh's imagination.

Big Macintosh, of course, did not question the existence of his friend. By all measurable standards, Big Macintosh had nothing to even begin to wonder about Shoehorn's existence. Even when he discovered his ability to inadvertently acknowledge parts of his imagination as reality, he never riddled out that Shoehorn was an illusion. It took him a while.

Shoehorn was not Big Macintosh's only friend. Cheerilee, the diligent filly who was seated next to him in class, was also his good friend. They talked, did work together, and even played together at recess occasionally. As far as Big Macintosh could tell, there was no difference between her and Shoehorn.

"Do you ever wish you had more friends?" Cheerilee asked him once.

"I figure I have enough friends."

Cheerilee scrunched up her face, a habit that was sure to give her wrinkles when she became an old mare. She took a sip of her juice box.

"Like who?"

"Well, you for one," Big Macintosh answered. "Shoehorn too."

"Who?" The way Cheerilee perked up her ears and leaned slightly closer lacked an air of confusion that startled Big Macintosh. He hadn't stuttered, mumbled, said the wrong name, or tripped over his words that would merit Cheerilee mishearing him. She'd heard the name, but she didn't recognize it. She had to know Shoehorn; his presence was not that invisible.

He didn't speak up in class, or even really pay attention most days. He didn't talk to anypony besides Big Macintosh and he always came and left school on his own. Big Macintosh realized he'd never heard a single pony talk to Shoehorn, talk about Shoehorn, or even acknowledge him in some form. He'd known these things all along, but he chose to ignore them.

The explanation was simple: Shoehorn is not real. His presence is not invisible, he simply has no presence. He leaves no measurable traces on the world around him. Only Big Macintosh can see and interact with him. Shoehorn is a hallucination, an extension of Big Macintosh in some sense.

"Shoehorn, he's my imaginary friend."

"Oh." Cheerilee took another sip of her juice box. "Imaginary friends don't count, silly."

Imaginary friend was a good fit. Shoehorn was a friend, but Big Macintosh just imagined him into the world. Even if his existence was far more vivid than the standard imaginary friend, the classification fit.

Cheerilee helped Big Macintosh make new friends. She introduced him to most everypony in their class. She introduced him to real ponies and they became real friends. He would not hesitate to admit that real friends are much better friends.

Friendship was an odd thing. Having one friend wasn't good enough, but after he had two friends he realized that's not good enough either. His friends had friends, so he became their friend too and increased his circle of companions. The way he was friends with one pony was different from the way that pony was friends with their other friends, but that was okay. Friendship was, in the most appropriate of terms, magical.

Big Macintosh never pointed out to Shoehorn that he was not real, but to this day he doesn't know why. It might have been because he didn't want hurt his friend by saying that. It might have been because he was afraid of what Shoehorn's reaction might be. It might have been because he never found a good point in a conversation to bring it up. It could've easily slipped his mind as well.

Life went on no matter how many friends Big Macintosh made or how estranged Shoehorn became. Big Macintosh scrutinized the ponies he knew a little closer, to see if he could find any more imposters. He was only a child, though, so chasing after the phantoms of his imagination bored him. If he was older, it could have driven him crazy. Instead, he decided to just let bygones be bygones and let his hallucinations alone. As he grew older, he discovered they had a way of simply revealing themselves in time.

Today, Big Macintosh realizes something new.

"Come on in, Big Macintosh. We'll get started once I take care of this customer."

He blinks, staring at the pony on the opposite side of the counter from Rarity. She smiles back at him.

"Hey."

"... Hey."

"You two know each other?" Rarity asks.

"Yes, we do," she responds. More words are spoken between the two mares, but Big Macintosh misses them. He is coming to grips with something. He knew the ponies he though were real can actually be hallucinations.

"Have a nice day." Rarity waves her customer off. She makes her way out the door, and she is gone with a swish of her tail, still tied up like a fish tail.

Uncertainty.

Exhibit K

Hippocampy is the sort of pony who will often appear when most needed. Everypony knows at least one. Rarity claimed she appeared at the boutique earlier because she needed a dress, needed it for an important even or something. She needs it, but hallucinations need nothing. Hallucinations are not spoken about by other ponies.

When he leaves the boutique, Big Macintosh makes a beeline for the fountain, thinking he'd find Hippocampy there. He does not find her upon arriving at the nearly deserted center of town, but she did find him. She finds him right before he decides to leave.

"Hey there."

"What are you?"

Hippocampy is a sharp mare, at least sharp enough to know Big Macintosh's question is not a philosophical one. She discards any postulations the existence of her life or all life in general, despite the fact that her the very existence of her life is exactly what is on trail here.

"Excuse me?" she asks. "That's one heck of a way to say hello."

Big Macintosh apologizes, but he doesn't retract his question. He hangs it back over her head and glares down at her just as accusingly as possible. His query, while justified, goes unanswered. He could not see, until it was too late, that he did not have the high ground in this conversation.

"I'm a pony, obviously, you of all ponies should know that," Hippocampy says. "Why? What did you think I was?"

"Nothing."

"Oh?" Hippocampy pauses briefly and blinks a few times. Big Macintosh doesn't know it, but he has said too much. With one word, he has revealed everything. There are no secrets to withhold. "You thought I was nothing?"

"That wasn't what I meant," he says, trying to clarify. Misunderstanding is giving way to the truth in some strange twist, and Big Macintosh feels it coming. He backpedals furiously. "I didn't think you were nothing. That would be ridiculous."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." Big Macintosh is not very good at riding bicycles.

"So why?"

"What?"

"No, why," she says once more. "Why would it be ridiculous for me to be nothing?"

"Are you saying you are nothing?" he asks, but Hippocampy gives him a look that tells him to answer the question no matter how confusing it may be. "Because everypony has to be something."

"Like what?"

"Like a pony," Big Macintosh tells her.

"Or what else?" she asks. "If the only options are pony and nothing, nothing being an impossibility, there shouldn't be any reason for you to trot up to me in the middle of the afternoon and ask me 'what are you?'" She has a point. Big Macintosh can only back into the corner to avoid being stabbed, but he's still trapped.

"There isn't anything else." He is lying, of course.

"So you were just being rude?"

"... Yeah." Big Macintosh is surpised when she starts giggling.

"That's probably more ridiculous than whatever you're trying to cover up."

"Well... you don't really know me," he says back.

"I won't get to know you any better if you keep lying."

Struggling feels useless. She has a counter for every retort and a retort for every counter. Big Macintosh has never been in such a compromising position, but then again he's never had a predicament like this. He isn't even sure if she is hallucinated or real.

"Let's try a different question," she says. "What makes you think I'm anything other than a pony?" Hippocampy opens herself up for scrutiny. She is open, vulnerable for attack, but Big Macintosh hesitates. He knows there are traps laid out for him.

"The first time I met you, you were sitting in the fountain." He indicates he scene of the crime directly to his left. "You were wearing goat horns."

"Sounds like something I'd do," she replies, baffling Big Macintosh. "I don't remember running into you around here."

"You mentioned that the second time we met."

"Yes, I do remember that thanks to your help," she says. Big Macintosh blushes and looks away, not because they kissed and got intimate but rather because he had a wet dream about this mare. He had conveniently forgotten all about that for a few minutes. "You seemed interesting, so I wanted to remember you."

There it is again: interesting. He had, in the past, hallucinated a pony who called him interesting as well.

"You can't be real."

"Oh?"

"You fell from the sky; I saw it and you confirmed it." This mare must be a figment of his imagination. Mares do not fall from the sky, not earth pony mares at least. Nopony falls from such a spectacular height and lives.

"I did?" she asks, to which Big Macintosh nods. "How so?"

"I told you I saw you fall and you said you didn't think anypony saw you fall. How do you explain that?"

"Well, if I hadn't done it I would be surprised anypony saw me do it for sure," she tells him. "Do you often see ponies who aren't real fall from the sky?" If there is a million bit question, that's it. Big Macintosh isn't sure how to respond. Lack of response qualifies as a "Eeyup."

She knows now, for sure. Even if it makes no sense for a stallion to see things that aren't there, it only makes sense for Big Macintosh to see things that aren't there. It would explain his outburst, Hippocampy falling, and his nervous behavior. Even if she is wrong, she can fully uncover the truth by pressing on.

"Does anypony else know?" This is her way of letting him know she officially knows.

"... Nope." For whatever reason, she kisses him right after he says this. The kiss is not tame, but a rough, invading kiss that forces Big Macintosh to take action in returning it. He is aware that they are in public, in plain view of everypony around the square. Even if there are only a few of them, he feels their wide eyed stares for the duration of the fierce embrace.

"Same place, same time tomorrow," she tells him after their tongues unravel. He doesn't know if his incentive is promise or blackmail; however, he remembers his horoscope. That will be reason enough.

Exhibit L

"You seem stiffer than usual." The time for exactly one day to have passed is almost now. "Also, there are bags under your eyes? Did you sleep well, darling?"

"... I didn't sleep at all." Last night was far more harrowing than usual.

"Why, that's absolutely terrible!" Rarity starts removing her work from Big Macintosh, and she insists he take the day off before he can protest. "You're a grown stallion and you just can't function without sleep."

"Sorry about this, Miss Rarity," he says, but not without a yawn. "I'll just head on back then."

"Not in your condition, you won't." Rarity stops him before he can exit, which confuses him. He can't very well sleep at Carousel Boutique. If he sleeps on the catwalk, that would be uncomfortable. If he sleeps on her couch, her customers would give him odd looks for snoring so loud. If he sleeps in Rarity's bed, that would be risque. "You can lay down on the couch in the drawing room."

"Oh." He had not considered that, but then again he wasn't terribly familiar with the concept of having a drawing room. Although they are not traditionally used for drawing, he was right in assuming Rarity used it for that purpose.

"And just call me 'Rarity', alright?"

Rarity takes him into the back room, which would probably be more aptly named a study rather than a drawing room. Things are not often studied in this room, but the pony who came up with the names for rooms didn't know a damn thing, probably. As promised, there is a couch big enough for him to recline on. He needed no prompting to sprawl himself out on the velvet cushions, which were an incredible contrast from his wool blankets back home. He wants to say they feel nostalgic, but he knows that isn't the right word.

"Do you mind if I ask what kept you up?"

"I had a crazy nightmare and couldn't get back to sleep after that," he tells her.

"About what?"

He tells her.

He tells her how something had made a noise outside his window. It was not an impressive noise or even a peculiar one, but he awoke and then he heard it immediately afterwards. That was unsettling enough.

His brain quickly remembered that the sound was just a cartwheel squeaking down the road in front of his house. He was compelled to go out and see it for himself, this cart he had heard. He went outside and saw it, a pony in a black hood hauling an empty cart behind himself. Big Macintosh followed this pony. He tailgated the pony. He walked right beside him.

"Are you lost?" he asked.

"I could ask that of you," the hooded pony said in a raspy voice, not turning to acknowledge the pony beside him. He kept his head forward, and his face under a cowl. The fringes of his clothes looked like moths or rats had been eating away at it, while the train of his robe was riddled with holes and caked with mud. His cart, empty as it was. struggled to turn its wheels through the accumulated rust.

"So you're not lost?"

"No, I know exactly where I'm going." The hooded pony marched on. His steps were light, silent even. He was like a heavy smoke rolling over the ground, without a fire to light it. "You're the one who is lost."

"I'm not lost," Big Macintosh told the pony, even though he feels uncertain about his answer. He could not pinpoint where his uncertainty is coming from. A thundercloud rumbled overhead, heavy with rain and crying out for relief. It's only answer was the breeze, calling the dying clouds together into their final fold. "Anyway, what're you doing all the way out here in the middle of the night?"

"Just doing my job," the pony said. Big Macintosh didn't know of any job that would require somepony to drag around an empty cart in the middle of the night, so he asked what the pony does for a living. "I take them."

"You take them?" There was another rumble of thunder.

"I take away the pillars of sanity," he said. The breeze tugged at the cloak. "First pillar is reality, obviously. It wears out without much effort, so easily in fact that most sane ponies don't have it anyway. A lack of a firm grasp on reality isn't harmful, just annoying to those around you. You can't see what's really up.

"The second is empathy. Sometimes ponies just disassociate themselves with the rest of the world, refuse to get invested; that's when this pillar crumbles. Ponies with empathy can't bring themselves to do anything terrible, and they seek empathy in return. Helps folks get along, but when it's gone... I think you can imagine what might happen.

"The third pillar is guilt. Sure, if you have no empathy you might do something bad, but you may still fear consequence. Consequence is so frightening that it sometimes restores the second pillar, believe me. It scares the hooves right out of their shoes. A pony without a guilty conscious becomes like a hunger that knows no fill.

"The last pillar is faith. It sounds odd, but just hear me out. When I say faith, I mean putting your trust in a power that far exceeds you. That's faith, and it's the one crazy thing sane ponies do. We don't place the fate of the world on our backs and pull, we trust that the science and magic keeping the world up will remain. We don't scrambled to raise the sun or moon, or make the tide draw in and out, or force the hands of time. It sounds crazy, but it works. That's just something we do to function. We trust, in the big things and the little things.

"And your faith save you if you ever meet an entirely faithless pony. There is no place for trust inside them; they often do not trust themselves. If they have no sense of reality, no empathy, and no guilt, they're insane. They never say what they mean, but they are in the business of meaning what they say. If you run, they chase. If you hide, they wait. If you fight, they fight. They have nothing but their own inconsequential, biological existence and it doesn't mean anything to them. Yours means just as little.

"Now I don't make ponies crazy, no sir. I just clean up what they've done themselves. I load the debris into my cart and add it to the growing mountain of sin and ignorance in Tartarus. In fact, I was just on my way there now." The wind was blowing from behind the pair, egging them on while another thunderhead growled.

"You're heading towards Tartarus?" Big Macintosh asked. His eyes darted to the empty cart rumbling along the path. There wasn't another soul around in the moonless, darkening street. "But, your cart is empty."

"You're right," the hooded pony said. "I came to claim the fallen pillars, but I found them so broken they were nothing but dust. I can't put dust on the mountain."

"But you're going back anyway?" Big Macintosh asks. A bolt of lighting touches down somewhere, shaking the air with its lingering touch. The hooded pony starts laughing an empty, wheezing laugh. He comes to a halt, causing Big Macintosh to stop right next to him.

"No, I just thought I'd bring you to where you belong."

Big Macintosh turns to the road ahead of him.

Ponyville General Hospital

The hooded pony vanished into the rain, but his laughter roared with the wind. Big Macintosh froze in front of the sign, illuminated by the occasional crack of lighting. His hooves scrambled across the damp path as he tried to put the building behind him. No matter how fast he ran, the wind tried to pull him back, the rain tried to push him back, and that laughter taunted his attempt to escape. The harder he ran, the more he felt himself sucked in. The more he fought it, the truer it became.

"That sounds horrid," Rarity says. "I doubt I'd be able to sleep after a nightmare like that."

Big Macintosh stares at her and blinks, for a second.

"... Right... a nightmare..."

Exhibit M

"You're late."

Indeed he is, but Big Macintosh is much more than late. He is frayed wires and a stomach buzzing with unwanted, but not unmerited, activity. He is half an hour of a peaceful nap and spurred onwards by at least one pony wishing him well. He is treading deep water and a taut wire. He is the liar revealed, but he is late. Right now, Hippocampy acknowledges only this.

"I knew you'd come."

Big Macintosh doesn't say anything. There are a few things he could say, such as "What do you want from me?" or "Why did you call me out here?" He could go with "Are you going to tell anypony my secret?" and follow it up with "This isn't some kind of threat, is it?" "Where do we go from here? Do you think you can manipulate me? Is this some kind of game to you? Where do you get off? Does this get you off, like some sort of power trip? Am I just the corner of a table to you? What's the endgame here?"

He doesn't ask any of these questions, though. He doesn't give himself a voice or a say in the matter. He is, first and foremost, afraid. His secret exposed terrifies him, so he waits like a guilty stallion for the jury to deliberate. He waits for his judge to hand down her sentence.

"Let's take a walk."

It feels like a march to the scaffold, or maybe it doesn't. He imagines when he marches to the scaffold, he knows where he is marching. Perhaps he is more like a soldier, marching to the next skirmish. When, where, and why it will happen, he doesn't know. He can't know. He does, however, have a sense that it is the lat skirmish he will see. This is not good news.

He gets so nervous he doesn't watch where he is going. He follows Hippocampy dumbly, keeping an eye on her fin-like tail. He went on just walking with her until he was tired of it. He got tired of waiting for something to happen. He decided it was time to say something.

"Where are we going?" he asks. "I mean, where is this going?" Hippocampy stops and turns around. They are on the perimeter of Ponyville, out near the clock tower. There isn't another soul around.

"I get it if you don't trust me," Hippocampy says. "But I want to help you, really."

"Help me?" Big Macintosh lets the words rattle around in his brain a bit. "I don't need any help. I'm perfectly fine."

"Oh?"

"Eeyup. What makes you think I need your help?" he asks.

"Because I was able to figure you out." Hippocampy didn't take time to think about it, she just says it. She is ready.

"You're the first. I messed up, it won't happen again."

"How can you be so sure?" she asks. "Did you ever once consider that maybe you are getting worse? Did you ever think you might be slipping? Did you ever question your own grip on reality."

"... No."

"Of course you didn't." Hippocampy's face is so straight when she talks, Big Macintosh isn't sure what is going through her head at all. He feels uncomfortable, exposed even. "I mean, why would you? For someone who has such a distorted grip on what is real and what is not real, can you even know full reality? Why would you question it? It's odd that you ever questioned it, really. You guessed about your ability to hallucinate, and then you got lucky. Is it really anything more than that?

"You see, there does not exist anypony who can continuously be lucky. Even the best guesser makes mistakes, even if statistically there is a possibility that a pony could guess everything right for their entire life. If that is the case, they are usually not truly guessing; they decide with purpose. I assume you decided there was something different about you for some reason, right? What was that reason?"

"I could see a pony somepony else couldn't see," he says, admitting it freely. It isn't like she doesn't know his biggest secret already, a point he cannot seem to stop being anxious about.

"That's a solid assumption. You found more evidence as time went on, but just learned to live with it, right?" She is right, and Big Macintosh acknowledges this with a nod of his head. She smiles, for the first time today. Her smile is so innocent. "Well, your days of guessing are over. I'll be your reality check. You can outsource your confirmations to me, alright?"

"Why would you do that?" There are too many unanswered questions for Big Macintosh. He can't fathom why this mare, who he has known for an exceedingly short period of time, wants to be his medium for reality. He doesn't see what she gets out of it, and she must want something out of it. There is charity, but this is not charity.

"Maybe because you fascinate me." Her answer is the kind Big Macintosh was expecting. "But, I really do think you need help."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." She gets closer to him, until they are right next to each other. She hugs him out of the blue, pressing her nose into his mane. She breathes deeply. "I get that you don't want anypony else to know; that would be a hassle. They would judge you for it. They might think you're some kind of freak or crazy pony, but I can tell you're not; you're too normal to be crazy."

"... You really don't think I'm crazy," he asks. He hangs on her confirmation.

"No crazier than me," she says, pulling him in closer. He returns the hug, pressing his cheek to her neck. Her mane smells soapy and clean, just like the first time. They linger a bit longer, warming each other in their embrace.

Big Macintosh thinks, and even hopes, that this marks the beginning of a new age of comfort.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the end of Act I.
There will now be an indefinite intermission before the beginning of Act II.

Exhibit N

Ladies and Gentlemen, the One-Second Theatre is proud to present
Act II of The Hollow Kingdom of Big Macintosh

Exhibit N

Big Macintosh walks into his house grinning a floodlight. Applejack is nearly blinded by his appearance. He looks so happy it is as if he is almost begging for somepony to question him. He is advertising his happiness as if to say he has discovered some secret and he is willing to tell you what it is, but you have to act now. He can only be like this for a limited time offer and supplies are running out. Happiness is just flying off the shelves.

"Have a nice day?" Applejack asks, even if it seems silly. If Big Macintosh had anything other than a nice day, he would have meandered in the door like any other day of the week, month, year.

"Eeyup," he replies with an uncharacteristic chuckle that denotes that he is keeping some amusing secret. Applejack would like to be happy for her brother, but recent events cause her to be more concerned. She smiles, but only because the situation merits it. She stops smiling, refusing to let the situation slide.

"What made it so nice?" She will not let him slip away with just an "eeyup" or "nnope."

Big Macintosh has to think about this. If he had to sum up what made today great, he would say it is because he found a pony who cares enough about him to help him keep his secret. This pony is also has cute little hips and a habit of kissing him in public, two aspects about her he enjoys. She's more than just a playground or a player, she's a comrade.

Never did they say they were special someponies to one another, but given time Big Macintosh could only see things ending up that way. They may very well end up being married one day in the future. At the moment, she's just a very good friend he would really like to bed. To say anything more would be presumptuous of him.

"I made a friend," he says.

Applejack furrows her brow and cocks her head to the side. She hesitates replying, busy adjusting to such a rare situation.

"... You did?"

"Eeyup, why?" he asks. "I can make friends, right?"

"Well, yeah... but..."

"But?"

"Now don't give me that," Applejack says, approaching him and poking him in the chest with a hoof. "You ain't exactly a social butterfly." Applejack stops as a thought hits her. It amuses her so much she starts laughing. Big Macintosh was already a bit insulted at his sister's disbelief that he could make a friend, but now she appears to be flat out mocking him for it.

"What is it?"

"It's just-" She can barely speak between her bursts of laughter. Her speech is high pitched, like an excited filly. "It's so rare you make a friend that I guess it would be a reason to be real happy."

There is a certain grating quality to being called antisocial. You know the claims are based in reality and you may even acknowledge them as true, but it as if the world has paved the way for constant ridicule. If he lingered by himself, he lingers by himself. If he lingers by himself, he will linger by himself. Despite this, common opinion seems to be the reclusive are not in a hole but a cave. You can walk out of a cave. If they haven't walked out of the cave, they either aren't trying hard enough, refusing to come out, or hopelessly lost within the darkness that there is no coming back for them.

He gets tired of it because it is constantly implied that there is something wrong with him. Perhaps there is, but that doesn't mean it causes him to be alone. That doesn't mean all the lonely ponies are fatally flawed. It doesn't mean the quiet, reclusive types are some sort of undesirable breed. A pony is not born lonesome so that his parents take a look at him and then at one another and then back to their child to make confused faces and say, "is this the best we can do? A lonely child?" From then on, when they go out in public the lonely child is made to stand on the other side of the market away from his parents, alone. This is his only birthright.

To say a pony is lonely is to say he has no friends, and a lonely pony can not deny this by rattling off their acquaintances any more than a sick pony can prove he is not at death's door by shakily getting to his hooves. This leads Big Macintosh to believe loneliness is a qualifiable and not a quantifiable trait, but that's the real kicker: he has never felt lonely. Feeling lonely is a power held only by ponies who don't seem lonely.

"So, who is this new friend of yours?" Applejack asks once the power of language becomes easy again. "Anypony I know?"

"Nnope," he says. He is certain of this and has reason to be certain of this.

"How did you meet her?"

"We just met." The circumstances of meeting Hippocampy were exceedingly odd by anypony's standards.

"Well, how exciting." There is still something in Applejack's tone that Big Macintosh feels is belittling his story. "So you two hit it off? Got something in common?"

Big Macintosh thought about that for a moment. He didn't know much about Hippocampy, aside from her being perceptive, amorous, and pushy. There are many things he still needs to ask her about, one of them being the reason why she was standing in the fountain wearing goat horns. Big Macintosh is patient. He can discover the answers one by one.

"Are you both loners?"

Big Macintosh looks past his sister and out the kitchen window while he mulls over his answer.

"Eeyup," he replies. "Whatever makes you happy."

Exhibit O

"You seem awfully chipper today," Rarity says with a smile. "Did something good happen?"

Big Macintosh did not immediately answer, a forgivable offense for anypony who knew the reasoning. After his sister had laughed off the reason he had the world on a string, he had a certain hesitance about revealing it to anypony else. He trusted Rarity, so he did answer. He didn't want to offend her by not trusting her.

"I made a friend."

"Well that's nice," Rarity says. She continues with her work in the following silence.

Big Macintosh did not expect such an underwhelming outcome. A part of him felt disappointed, but the stronger part of him knew this was better than being laughed at. Still, he wishes that there was a little more to it. He realizes making friend isn't such a big deal, not at his age.

"So, who is it?" Rarity asks all of a sudden. Big Macintosh realizes she has been casting her eyes up at him with an inquiring look, as if he was expected to reveal the pony's identity by default. He wondered if this is what he hoped for.

"Well, you know that mare that was here a few days ago?" he asks, but his question is met with a puzzled look from Rarity.

"There are lots of mares around here everyday, darling," she says. "You might need to be more specific."

Big Macintosh coughs. He has made a novice mistake. If Applejack knew about this, she would have more ammo to go off on him again. He is not particularly fond of that thought, so he resolves to fix his mistake.

"Hippocampy, earth pony who was here when I showed up," he says, taking care to be more exact this time. "You said she needed a dress for something."

"Yes, I remember Hippocampy," Rarity replied. "You mentioned you knew her. You've only just become friends?"

"Yeah, we bumped into each other and hit it off," Big Macintosh says, not lying for the most part. "She's... odd."

"Well, she seemed normal enough talking to me," Rarity tells him. "Then again, I don't know her as well as you do." She laughs, but Big Macintosh knows she doesn't realize how true that is. Even with everything he knows about her, he hardly knows her. He doesn't know where she comes from, what her plans for the future are, or even where she lives around Ponyville. The main thing he knows about her is that she is willing to help him keep his secret; that deserves all the trust Big Macintosh can give her.

"She's odd, but she's a good pony. She's trustworthy, if nothing else," he says. He believes that if he trusts her, getting to know her will follow naturally. If the things she says and does are genuine, he can learn her by simply being with her. He enjoys being with her, even if partially for selfish reasons. Of course, he won't be telling anypony about those things for the time being. "What did you say she needed the dress for?"

"That's her business," Rarity says with a sly smile. "She's your friend; just ask her. I bet she'll be glad to tell you all about it."

"Fair enough."

It would be that simple. He could ask her all about it today. There are no secrets between them, save for the ones they had yet to reveal. One by one, they will fall open on the ground. It will be simple; Big Macintosh tells himself this.

Rarity continues working in the comfortable silence. Big Macintosh is just now remembering that he has been coming here for a reason. He had almost forgotten that Rarity is working on a special order for stallions' clothes. He counts the days he's been coming and wonders just how long it will take. It isn't that he minds terribly, but he'd rather not be coming to Rarity's every day for the rest of his life if he can help it.

"So how's the order coming along?" he asks.

"Hmm?" Rarity doesn't look up at him, but just keeps working away. Whatever she has Big Macintosh wearing today is a little tight around the collar.

"How is this project coming along?"

"Just fine." She doesn't miss a beat. Big Macintosh can tell she is focused now, so there is no breaking her out of it until their time comes to a close. He waits patiently, letting her fuss over and fiddle with every facet of the ensemble on his body. She's gotten very familiar with his shape and size.

She doesn't snap out of her work until happening to cast an idle gaze up at the clock. She is holding Macintosh a few minutes longer than normal, but she doesn't stop. She works slower, keeping one eye on the clock.

She gives herself just five more minutes with him. She adds a stitch here and a strand of silk here. She checks the slack around the collar and decides she should loosen it. She takes notes, makes cuts, makes adjustments, changes things. Five minutes passed five minutes ago when she allows herself to look at the clock.

Another five minutes wouldn't hurt anything, but she can only take so much time before the power is taken out of her hooves. Time running out is only a matter of time now. She can't stitch him to the floor.

"Pardon me." Big Macintosh finally speaks up once they are half an hour over. "It's getting late."

"Oh, terribly sorry," she says. "I didn't notice the time. I didn't mean to keep you." She lied to him again.

"No problem. I'm in no particular hurry." Big Macintosh trusts Rarity.

She helps him out of the clothes and lets him go. He collects his yoke and slips it back onto his broad shoulders, becoming whole once more. He never looks quite right in the costumes Rarity makes on him, but his form pulls itself back together as he walks out the door. Before he does, she calls out to him so that she might be at ease.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Eeyup."

His assurance does less than it did at the outset, and one day this alone will not be enough.

Exhibit P

Big Macintosh finds Hippocampy waiting for him by the fountain.

"Hey."

"Hey you."

They both smile widely. For the first time today, Big Macintosh feels at ease talking to somepony. He feels safe. He knows there is no need to hide anything now. She sidles up to him and they start walking. Neither have a destination in mind, but all Big Macintosh wants is to walk side by side with a pretty mare. There is no sin in that.

"How was your day?" she asks him, almost suggestively.

"Same old, same old," Big Macintosh says, giving her a smile. "It's better now."

"Well, aren't we brazen?" She is being suggestive for sure now, but Big Macintosh blushes. He isn't used to being forward in any situation. Flirting and being flirted back to is a bizarre sensation for him. "So, is there anything you'd like to do this afternoon?"

"Spending time with you sounds good," Big Macintosh says again, almost kicking himself over his confident air. On the other hoof, if Hippocampy wasn't being so receptive of it he would have already stopped. Each time she bats an eye, he feels compelled to address her sexuality. That's far more bizarre.

"A nice, hallucination free afternoon?" Hippocampy jokes. "How's that going for you, anyway?"

Big Macintosh thinks about it. Recently, he hasn't seen anything unusual. There was that one incident in the rainstorm, but he gladly pushes that to the back of his mind and plays it off as a by product of the storm itself. If he has been hallucinating otherwise, he failed to notice it. Nothing exceedingly strange has happened. It wasn't like incredibly strange things happened all the time in the past, but he would at least hear noises nopony else would react to or notice a pony who wasn't really there. He has been so hung up on Hippocampy recently, perhaps he hasn't had time to hallucinate.

"It's been very mild," he tells her. Hippocampy smiles and gives him a little nuzzle on his neck.

"Then I'm doing a good job," she says, echoing Big Macintosh's own thoughts. "You don't have mild spells that often then?"

He thinks way back. There was a time when he hardly ever saw anything out of the ordinary. He didn't hear noises. He didn't see shapes. He didn't worry about a thing. At the time, he effectively forgot he could hallucinate. He joined the ranks of other, normal, happy ponies. He was only slightly off-center, a little skewed, a little strange, interesting. It was the sanest he'd ever felt, when he was with her.

"No, I've never been this mild," he says because he had been hallucinating every day and every night back then. This is the first time he's ever been so grounded in reality. He's never seen so clearly in his entire life. He knew this for sure now.

"Well, I know exactly where we should go," Hippocampy says, but this time it isn't suggestive at all. Big Macintosh is only a little disappointed. This doesn't keep him from following her. They walk wherever they are going side by side, like two close friends should when going anywhere. As fortune would have it, they don't arrive without an interruption.

"Hey!" Suave flags them, or rather Big Macintosh down. "Hey!"

"Hey there, Suave." Big Macintosh would rather just spend time alone with Hippocampy, but he does not want to be rude to his friend. Suave approaches the pair, obviously not appropriately reading the situation. His opening line reflects this.

"Who's the broad?"

"Suave, this is Hippocampy." Big Macintosh gestures to the mare beside him. "Hippocampy, this is Suave." He gestures to the stallion before them. The two strangers extend hooves and shake.

"It's nice to meet you," Hippocampy says with a smile.

"You look kind of familiar," Suave says without so much as a salutation. "I never forget a face..."

"I forget faces all the time," Hippocampy admits. "I'm pretty sure we've never met, though."

"What's your sign?" Suave asks right out of left field. Hippocampy gives Big Macintosh a quizzical look, who can only shrug and roll his eyes in response.

"Capricorn."

"Ah, you two are pretty compatible then," Suave says, nodding his head in approval. He looks up at Big Macintosh. "Libra: Keep your friends close in the coming days. You will need a shoulder to lean on."

"I think I'm covered," Big Macintosh says, winking at Hippocampy and further embarrassing himself in front of Suave.

"Right," Suave says before turning to Hippocampy. "Capricorn: It's a good time for taking risks. You might not get what you want, but you will benefit."

"I don't put too much stock in horoscopes," Hippocampy tells Suave. His face contorts into an expression that tells of how deep she just cut him. Big Macintosh stifles his laughter. "Thanks anyway."

Suave takes a deep breath in. He lets in out slowly. He smiles.

"You're welcome." Without another word, he turns and walks away. The pair is left to shrug at one another before continuing on their way. They continue down the road until the road ends. They walk down the path leading to Whitetail Woods. Before long, they are in Whitetail Woods, basking in the long afternoon shadows. A ways down the path, Hippocampy leads Big Macintosh off the path. These woods are safe, so the pair walks onward without fear. There is, however, a growing excitement in the air.

When they arrive at their destination, the adrenaline is pumping rather quickly through Big Macintosh's veins. Here in this secluded, grassy clearing he could feel what was about to happen. Hippocampy stands in the center, gazing at him with imploring eyes. It is written all over her body what she wants. Big Macintosh slowly walks over to her, prepared to give it to her.

They embrace each other roughly, unafraid of bearing all here in isolation. Big Macintosh forces her down roughly with his strength, but she doesn't fight. She lets him overpower her, submitting her lips and neck to his lips. Both parties feel their arousal growing quickly, their more sensitive parts already rubbing against each other in this stance. Even with their tongues intertwined, their longing makes the distance feel massive. There is only way to bridge it. Hippocampy rolls onto her stomach and lifts her hindquarters. Big Macintosh drapes himself over her, littering the nape of her neck with kisses and smelling the soap smell of her mane he has become accustomed to. The pair prepares themselves to cross the final threshold.

A twig snaps.

Big Macintosh's head shoots up, looking for the source. Hippocampy turns her own head and looks at him, but already he was remembering where he was. There isn't a soul around; there can't be. He looks down at her again, noticing the apprehension on her face.

"I thought I heard something, but it's nothing," he told her, leaning in to reinstate the previous amorous activities.

"I heard it too."

Big Macintosh stops and lifts his head again. He is sure a twig snapping was no reason for alarm, or that's at least what he tells himself in order to get back to the imminent sex; however, that would be irresponsible of him. The pair scan the woods before them, but there is nothing there but shadows.

"I can go check it out if you want," he says, looking down at her. He notices her head suddenly jerk to the left, shocking him into looking left as well. He thinks he maybe sees a shadow moving. "Is somepony watching us?" Big Macintosh moves to dismount, but his hoof is stopped by Hippocampy's. She is looking back up at him, but she has those imploring eyes again. The adrenaline returns.

He inserts himself and begins fucking her. A shadow continuously moves from tree to tree, but he keeps ramming his flesh into Hippocampy and making her gasp and moan with sweet breaths. The stranger's eyes penetrate him like he has penetrated her, and this too serves to increase his arousal. From Hippocampy's sweet exclamations, he can tell she is enjoying it too. It is a sick cycle that continuously builds and builds. Hippocampy screams, her body tensing around Big Macintosh and caressing him so violently he is forced to release himself inside her.

"Please... more..."

At her request, he continues to screw her as if he has forgotten how to do anything else. Something has come over him. Never has he felt so viral, so powerful. He is the king of Equestria, and there is a witness in the woods who can testify. He is dominate, drinking deep from the font of carnal pleasure. Hippocampy's firm ass is all there is to see. The wet noises with each thrust of his penis and Hippocampy's cries of pleasure are the only sounds to be heard. The sweet sweat on Hippocampy's neck is the only thing to smell. The nectar from Hippocampy's panting mouth is the only thing to taste. Hippocampy in her entirety is all there is to feel.

When energy can no longer facilitate sensation, both ponies collapse in the still lengthening shadows. Big Macintosh feels the watching eyes recede into the forest, but nothing else. Once they are gone, there is only the afterglow of the things the pair did and their still sweaty embrace.

It takes some time for them to gather the energy to journey back, and it takes even longer to make the journey itself. When they are back in Ponyville, the shadows have morphed into night. They still walk side by side through the empty streets.

Before they reach the fountain, Big Macintosh stops. Hippocampy stops only after noticing he has too.

"There's that stallion with the umbrella," Big Macintosh says, mostly to himself. Hippocampy turns to follow his eyes. "You can't see him; he's not real."

He looks down at Hippocampy, who he is surprised to find is staring up at him with a fond smile.

"If you know that, then don't worry about it," she says. She stands close to him, pressing her body against his. "Focus on what is real."

The pair part ways, despite Big Macintosh's insistence to see her all the way home. He walks the rest of the way home, arriving just as his family is settling down for the night. Applejack doesn't question where he has been, convinced whatever he has been doing was boring. Big Macintosh is partly tempted to tell her of what he's been up to, just to stir things up. He wisely holds his tongue.

Applejack leaves him with some left over dinner in the kitchen. He eats in silence, allowing himself to slip into a pleasant daze and reminisce about the afternoon he had. He made it with Hippocampy. He made it with Hippocampy in the woods. He made it with Hippocampy in the woods while a stranger watched.

He feels eyes on him again. He glances over his shoulder and out the window. For a moment, he thinks he sees the reflection of two bright eyes staring at him.

He focuses on what is real; he focuses on her. He doesn't let it bother him. He finishes eating and finally retires into bed. He closes his eyes and relaxes thinking all about the amazing mare he'd come to feel so affectionate towards. He dreams about how exciting their time from now on will be. He drifts to sleep peacefully, even if he still felt somepony watching him.

Exhibit Q

Quiet.

Big Macintosh notices that Ponyville has been awfully quiet this past week. It bothers him a little, but only a little. There is only one pony he cares to see. She makes him happy, and that is enough. She keeps him grounded, and that is more than enough. If he spends his free time with her, he is spending it wisely. This is enough.

It's still pretty quiet.

"Are you alright?"

"Huh?" Big Macintosh is at Rarity's. His coming and going from there has become automatic now; he barely realized he was even there. Rarity has noticed this too.

"For the last few days you've been awfully quiet, even for you," Rarity says.

"I don't have much to say," he tells her. He isn't sure if it's a general statement or directed at Rarity. Under the surface, he is itching to be free of this responsibility. He could be elsewhere spending his time wisely. He could have that much more time to spend wisely.

It gets real quiet after that.

Big Macintosh just sinks back into himself, allowing time to pass by while he stands by unaware. He can't come alive until she comes around, so he must wait. He thinks that he might be dependent on her now, but he also thinks this may be natural.

"Yes, we're alone," she had said, so many times. He was unsure at first, but the noise of the ponies faded and then he stopped seeing their faces. They were just gone. That's when it got quiet. "That's just how it is. Trust me."

Trust her he did. That's all he wanted all along: somepony he could trust with his secret. At least, he thinks he should have wanted that all along. If he didn't want it, he wants to have wanted it. He has it now, so what he wanted before doesn't matter now.

He concludes that he is, beyond a doubt, happy the way he is.

"So I guess tomorrow will be our last time."

"Really?" Big Macintosh realizes Rarity had been talking, but he doesn't let on that he hadn't been listening. He is just happy to hear he won't have to come here anymore. It's not a slight against Rarity, but there is sompony he'd rather be with. There is somepony he'd be happier with.

"So don't forget to come tomorrow, alright?"

"Eeyup." With that, he gets out of his current attire with Rarity's help and leaves. She sees him off, but he isn't paying her much mind. When the door closes behind him, she disappears from his awareness altogether. He forgets, for a moment, why he is here at Carousel Boutique and not with Hippocampy. She is probably waiting for him near the town center. These days, it feels like they are the only two ponies who ever go there.

"Don't you want to know where they've gone?"

Big Macintosh turns his head. He is surprised to see Coast Tucoast standing on the ground right outside Carousel Boutique. Macintosh knows what he is seeing is not real, but he does not understand why Coast would show up at this moment.

"Don't kid yourself," Coast says. "You've noticed that everypony has suddenly disappeared. I'm here to help you find them."

Big Macintosh doesn't say anything. He turns forward and heads towards the center of town. Through the corner of his eye, he can see Coast watching him go. Soon, Macintosh can't see him at all. He focuses straight ahead, but his eyes dart to the side when he sees Coast walk around the corner. Big Macintosh walks past him, continuing to ignore the apparition.

Coast stands around every curve. Coast is hiding in every alleyway. Coast is not real, but Big Macintosh cannot cast his image away.

"Don't try and run from me," Coast says, trotting up from behind Big Macintosh. Coast's hooves soundlessly keep pace with Macintosh's. "I'm here to help you. If we don't do something, whatever is doing this will get you too."

Big Macintosh refuses to talk to him, refuses to acknowledge the hallucination's presence. The phantom persists, but Macintosh knows better. He has come so far since he met Hippocampy; he's not going to fall into this trap now. He won't talk to somepony who isn't there, and right now Big Macintosh doesn't see anypony around. For the one pony he can see, he pretends he is not around.

"You can act like you don't see me. You can act like nothing is wrong. You can act like everything is fine," Coast says, his tone sounding something like genuine concern. Big Macintosh finds this so jarring he turns to look, but Coast has at last disappeared. His voice still hangs in the air. "If that's what makes you happy, fine... but don't say I didn't warn you."

Big Macintosh stops and catches is breath. He hadn't noticed it, but he had strayed from the path towards the middle of town as if he was trying to lose Coast. Coast isn't real, but even as he tells himself this a sense of worry hits him. There is an eerie, unfamiliarity about his location. He sees he has wandered into a slightly wooded area just outside the town. Ponyville is still in sight, so he tells himself all he must do walk towards it to get his life back on track. He can shed his unease and be happy.

He feels eyes watching him from the forest. He turns and looks, but only sees a retreating silhouette. He knows this sensation. This is the pony who has been watching him. He knows this somehow; his intuition tells him so. Forgetting about returning home, Big Macintosh runs deeper into the woods after what he has seen. He continues to run, even as the woods seem to warp into shapes he has never seen.

Exhibit R

Big Macintosh is lost, plain and simple. The trail has gone cold, but Big Macintosh figures that there might have been no trail in the first place. He may have imagined seeing the silhouettes darting through the trees. He saw Coast earlier, so it stands to reason he might be vulnerable to his hallucinations right now.

He turns himself around, embarrassed that he let his mind get the best of him. He'd been doing so well since Hippocampy showed up, but now he had to run off and get himself lost. He would have to tell her about this, so they might sort it out. It was just part of sharing his secret, their secret. He would get through this and return to getting better.

"I sincerely doubt that."

The hooded pony stands before Big Macintosh in the shade of the forest. The old, ancient pony from his night wandering has appeared once more. His heartbeat picks up, but he instantly scolds himself. What he is seeing is not real. He tells himself this, but it doesn't do any good.

"You've got a real knack for getting lost."

"Eeyup, this time I really am lost," Big Macintosh says, but he isn't sure why he is talking to this phantom. Regardless, he continues. "I know my way home, so you can go on your way."

"You only think you know the way home," the hallucination says to him. "But you're wrong. If you turn back now, the path won't be easy."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying that if you want to go home, you must continue down this path," he replies, indicating with his worn hoof to the path Big Macintosh had failed to noticed he'd been treading; although, he could simply be imagining it. "You've chosen to live down this way. You should come and follow me."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Big Macintosh tells him, promptly turn around and heading back to where he knew home would be, but violent wind suddenly whips up and blows into his face. He shields his eyes with a hoof, but when he puts it down he sees the old pony before him once again.

"Don't do this to yourself."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Big Macintosh says, walking forward to pass the old pony. The hallucination makes no move to stop him as he walks by, but he rasps out one last thing.

"Once you see the road you are about to take, you'll return here."

Macintosh can do nothing beyond walk forward. Nighttime is falling and Luna is raising the silver moon up into the dome of the sky. Tonight it is the only light he can travel by. He doesn't know how it got so late or how he managed to get so lost. He thought he knew all the wooded areas around Ponyville, but this place was strange. He had never come here before, of that he was certain.

He couldn't allow himself to be curious about these woods. He kept going, checking his direction every so often by looking up at the stars. He was uncertain, after a while, about which way he should be going. He though he had left east out of Ponyville, but perhaps his wanderings had taken him in a more southerly direction. Maybe he'd gone too far north at this point and needed to double back. What if he had actually gone west?

Big Macintosh was getting tired. The landscape itself began to look rather dogged too. The limbs of the trees drooped and sank. The leaves on the bushes shriveled in the growing heat. There was a scent like rotten eggs about the air. The dirt underneath his hooves cracked and crumbled, deprived of even one drop of water. Images wavered in the hot air and low hanging smoke. Everything shuddered. Everything shivered.

Black outlines peeked out from behind the trees at Big Macintosh. They seemed frightened at first, but the apparitions soon became bold. They wore fiery smiles across their faces as they ran across the path, leaving black, sooty clouds in their wake. Macintosh heard them murmuring and giggling, but he could not understand them. He strained his ears, but he couldn't decipher the sounds.

They stared, laughed, and then darted back into the shadows. Big Macintosh tried to pay them no mind, but they were persistent. He couldn't turn around or stop; it was much too hot now. The only way was forward. The only way out of this strange place was to keep heading forward.

Macintosh is a one pony parade. The shadows have gathered on the sides of the path to watch him pass. They whisper loudly, but he still cannot make out what they are saying. He is sure, however, that they are talking about him. They are whispering about him. They are laughing about him, but he doesn't see what's so funny.

He picks up the pace, but for every shadow he manages to leave in the dust two more appear on the path ahead of him. They circle him and whisper taunts to one another. They are whispering so loud, like white noise. There are no words, just a cold, stinging sensation in Big Macintosh's ears. His ears fill with laughter while his nose fills with sulphur.

Big Macintosh gallops. He goes as fast as his hooves can take him, but there isn't a path any longer. The shadows have swarmed about him. Their eyes, their smiles and their cackling inhabit the net of darkness cast around him. He runs over the shadows as they slink over him, suffocating him in smoke and stench. Their fingers reach into his ears and their whispers are written on his brain.

"There is something wrong here."

"There is something not quite right."

That is when they laugh. They know what is wrong and it is humorous to them. They've got a secret they're keeping from Big Macintosh, or perhaps they know the secret Big Macintosh is keeping from them. The secret he won't even tell himself. He knows why he is being haunted, but he steels his mind against it. He doesn't give in. He fights it. He closes his eyes, plunging himself into real darkness; he reminds himself that he is simply hallucinating.

When he opens his eyes, he is standing on the road to his home. Somehow, he found his way back. Somehow, he managed to escape the greatest attack on his mind yet. What was almost a major setback was instead the stage for Big Macintosh's greatest victory. He returned home with his sanity, his perspective, Hippocampy in his heart, and his happiness.

He crawls into bed and nothing can touch his satisfied slumber. The accomplishment and pride he feels makes the bed feel as soft as a royal featherbed. His sheets feel warmer and the moonlight is simply soothing. His hallucinations could not conquer him. He didn't give in at the very end. Big Macintosh can be happy at last. All that is left is to return to the forest and continue down the path.

"..."

No, that wasn't right.

Exhibit S

There is something off about Big Macintosh this morning. As long as he has been awake, he has barely said a word. To some, this wouldn't seem out of the ordinary, but Applejack can sense something is amiss. One could argue, however, she has been looking for something amiss in her brother for a while now. She is still not certain if she is searching for some justification or damnation, but she is looking. She has the eyes that can see when something is wrong.

"Something on your mind," she asked. Her brother gave an apple tree heavy with ripe fruit a swift kick. It's bounty showered down into eager barrels around the trunk. He looks up at the bare tree silently.

"Nope." It's a lie.

"That's a lie." Nothing gets past Applejack. "So why are you being so quiet?"

"It's my business." It's a fair claim. There isn't any reason Big Macintosh should bear all for his sister. He doesn't have to tell her that the path he wandered onto him is still calling him. He isn't going to tell her that he keeps feeling something or somepony watching him over his shoulder. He bottles it up inside. These are his burdens.

"Ugh, why are ponies so impossible?" Applejack said, ready to admit defeat. Nowadays, nopony was forthcoming. She knew; she had experience. "You're acting just like Rainbow Dash. She's goes around acting so gloomy and stand-offish these days, but she won't talk about it. She can't keep acting like everything is okay."

"Everything is okay!" The exclamation comes unbidden from Big Macintosh's mouth. He stares catatonic at the tree in front of him. He wants to push out some further comment to defend himself, but his throat is burning. His mouth will not form another syllable. His own body refuses to lie again.

Applejack can see it happening, but she can't even act surprised.

"When you're ready to stop pretending, I'll be more than happy to listen to you," she says, taking up a load of apples before heading back to the barn. Big Macintosh stays in the orchard. He is a bushel and a few pecks away from being done with chores, but he doesn't finish. He leaves, or more specifically he returns.

As if he had walked the path many a time, Big Macintosh finds his way back to those unfamiliar woods. With the path under his feet, he wanders further and further into the trees. His paranoia and anxiety fade a bit. The scenery and atmosphere of this quiet, sylvan landscape take him in. It is not unlike White Tail Woods, but the trees here look older and stretch higher. As the air cools around him, he wonders how he'd never seen this place before.

An odd sound reaches his ears: leaves crunching under his hooves. It isn't time for the leaves to fall from their branches, but the floor of this forest appears to be littered with them. He gazes upwards at the treetops, but he finds the boughs bare are gnarled. The branches twist and bend back towards the ground, as if they decided the sun was poison from which they must escape. Big Macintosh keeps walking, the forest growing cooler as more and more skeletal limbs blot out the sun.

Soon, Big Macintosh has to crane his neck to look up the massive, dried trunks of the bare trees. Not only were there no leaves on the branches, but all the bark has also been stripped from the trees. Giant holes in these husks revealed that each tree is really just a massive log. It is one of the strangest things Big Macintosh has seen, and he wonders if he is hallucinating.

He reaches the place where the trail stops. There is nothing here that isn't along the path; he sees more hollow trees refusing the sun with their numerous, fruitless limbs. The forest floor is bare except for the coarse, gritty dirt of the path and the dusty soil of the forest floor. As a farmer, he can tell this land is infertile and barren. Taking it all in, he can't help but feel sorry for what he sees.

Out from behind the trunk of a tree, the final piece of the scenery steps into view: a silhouette. This is the same shadow that has been watching him, Big Macintosh is sure of this. He is surprised to see, however, that all there is to this pony is shade. It has two bright white eyes that look like they have been scribbled on with a lit match upon its pitch face. When it moves its lips to speak, all he can see is poorly drawn shapes scrambling to form some sort of image reminiscent of an open mouth. Its voice does not betray its odd appearance.

"Welcome home."

"I've never been here before," Big Macintosh tells the shade.

"You have lived here most of your life," the shade says in response. He says this without any sort of conviction, as if there is no need to assert his certainty. Big Macintosh still cannot believe him because he does not understand. Even if he is hallucinating, it is all very strange to him.

"What is this place?"

Big Macintosh watches the shade smile, which is not unlike his speaking. The answer falls out of the shade's mouth with genuine tenderness, like a mother speaking the name of her foal for the first time. It is a tone so sweet it sickens Macintosh. All it takes is three words to plant a seed of anxiety:

"The Hollow Kingdom."

Exhibit T

The town was always quite noisy and busy. The castle town nestled in the trees looked quaint to any outsider, but it was no different from any of the other bustling cities in Equestria. There was, even then, ways to argue that it was the busiest. It's ponies were focused on their work. Fillies and colts took their schooling very seriously. All the noise came from them rushing from place to place and working day until night, but hardly a word passed between them.

The citizens did not smile often, but they would not have said they were unhappy. In fact, they were very happy. They knew only their life of hard work and fair reward, and that was enough. Yes, it was indeed enough.

One day, a red dot appeared in the sky. It didn't look like dirt or bark suspended in the air, but ponies could tell it was there. Nopony really said anything. One might say "What a curious thing to be in the sky" to which somepony would respond "Yes, for certain." On that first day, nopony paid it any mind.

Everyday, the dot got bigger. By the time one week had passed, the dot would cast a notable shadow throughout the day. Ponies may have looked up and puzzled over it, but they just kept on going about their business. They did not attempt to riddle out what the dot was, but instead they allowed it to simply become a part of the scenery.

After two weeks, the dot had become a mass that eclipsed the entire town, but nopony even gave it a second look. Nopony can say what was going through their minds. Perhaps they had forgotten about it completely. Perhaps they were convinced it was nothing to be concerned about. It is most likely, however, that they did not want to worry about it. If they worried, they would have to act. Acting could be a burden.

Whatever was keeping them unaware did not falter, even as the mass began to descend upon the town a little more every day. It spared the trees, but the tops of tall buildings were crushed and tumbled into the streets. Ponies simply picked up the broken pieces, swept them away, and continued on with their day, but they hadn't actually seen the sun in a month. They lit fires and torches so they could see, but they didn't pay any heed. Whether or not they had consciously done so, they had resigned to their fate.

The red mass flattened the town and it's citizens. When the other towns learned what had happened to the little kingdom in the forest, they were flabbergasted. It seemed ridiculous that everypony would simply allow themselves to be flattened. If it hadn't actually happened, the idea would be kind of funny. Who could watch the sky fall and not say a word? Who could stand by idly while calamity unfolds? Who would deny destruction even beyond the final moment?

I know, however, that those are the wrong questions. The one that haunts me is this: How could anyone convince themselves everything was fine?

"Why are you telling me this?" Macintosh asks at the end of the shade's speech. The figure frowns, perhaps put off by his guest's ungrateful attitude.

"I was hoping that you could answer my question," the shade said. It clears it's throat, or at least made a sound like it was. "If you know there is something amiss, why live in denial?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Big Macintosh says, with a grunt. His eyes dart to the side. When they rest on the shade, it is smiling again. He preferred the frown.

"Ponyville looks a lot like my lovely Kingdom nowadays, doesn't it?"

"How could you know that?" Big Macintosh asks, but then it dawns on him: this pony has been watching him. He's been watching for a while now. He must know something about the town's emptiness.

"The world you imagined was so vivid and alive, but now it's so dead," the shade said to him in a sort of coddling tone. "Why would you give into the illusion of emptiness? Why would you imagine that you're all alone again?"

"You're not making any sense." Big Macintosh can feel something crumbling. He looks about at the hollow trees, heavy with the weight of their own branches blotting out the sun. If there is nothing inside to support them, they will fall to the ground. If there is no truth holding something up, it will fall into the abyss. "I'm not alone; I have her."

"But she has you convinced you're alone."

Hippocampy promised to keep the secret. Hippocampy said nopony else could understand or help him. Hippocampy assured him nopony was around to see. Hippocampy consumed his mind. Hippocampy consumed his body. Hippocampy had spread like fire into every corner of his mind, but Big Macintosh had purposely denied himself water. Somehow, he had convinced himself he wanted to burn. He was happy to burn.

"Hippocampy would do that to me, would she?" he asks himself. "We're happy together."

"But something is wrong."

"What's wrong with being happy?" Big Macintosh yells, roaring into the dead forest. "Can't I just having something nice for once? Something that's special? Something that's mine? Something I haven't imagined? For once I'm genuinely happy, but everything keeps telling me it can't be this way. Can't I be happy? Why can't I just be happy?"

"The problem hangs over your head," the shade answers.

Big Macintosh still has no idea where Hippocampy lives. He hasn't told his sisters or his grandmother about his marefriend. He hasn't seen ponies for days on end, but Hippocampy has been there to assure him nopony is there. Even acknowledging these things, Big Macintosh knows he is dancing around the problem. He decides to speak it aloud, just to try on it. He decides to put it into words so he knows how it feels.

"Something isn't right."

The shade seems to smile wider.

"I can't put a hoof on it, but something about all this isn't right," Big Macintosh says to himself. It hurts to acknowledge, but now he stands at the ledge. He must jump now, no matter the cost. "I need to know the truth."

"Do you need to know the truth more than you need to be happy?"

Big Macintosh pauses. This is not a question he had asked himself. He considers it, but it's such a strange thought. He can't simply say "eeyup" or "nope" to this. He must answer with another question.

"Can't I have both? The truth and happiness?"

"Maybe," the shade answers. "But it's risky. Do you have something worth the risk?"

"Eeyup. The thing I've been fighting to protect this whole time," Big Macintosh says, casting his gaze down at the forest's soil. "I'd liked to keep my sanity."

If they citizens of the town had acknowledged the mass, the disaster could have been avoided. The town could be evacuated and everypony could stay elsewhere until the mess was sorted out. It would be hard to live away from their homes and livelihoods. It would be hard to rebuild their town. It would be hard, very hard. What calamity is not hard on a pony? Why pretend any calamity is easy?

Yes, they would have seen hardship, but what sense was there in clinging to the shreds of the easy, familiar way for a short while? Now they cannot rebuild. Now they will never walk the easy road again.

That is why this is The Hollow Kingdom. It is built upon a false notion that won nothing: that we can be happy by simply denying the ugly truth. Nopony pities the Hollow Kingdom; its is a fate that could have been avoided. There is no pity for fools, no matter how crazy they act. It takes only an ounce of sanity to see the writing on the wall, writing that clearly reads "trouble is coming."

Big Macintosh leaves the Hollow Kingdom, cantering at a brisk pace back towards Ponyville. His mind is swimming with questions and his gut is churning with uneasiness. He's afraid of what truth he'll uncover, but there is one thing he knows for sure now: nopony with a compromised sense of reality could hope to piece together was is real and what is fake. In an ironic twist of fate, his insistence on being able to sort it out on his own kept him from going mad. He didn't crumble before the maze of true lies and false truths, but he foolishly tried to get through it.

Even if his mind is still at large, he needs to sort some things out. Change is in the wind, he can feel it. He could stop and live in ignorant bliss again, but that would be irresponsible. If only for the want of being responsible, he sticks to his choice.

Big Macintosh is torn from his serious thoughts when he sees a mare coming down the path towards him. It doesn't strike him as odd at first, but then he realizes this mare is headed towards the Hollow Kingdom. He has trouble fathoming that. Despite how groundbreaking the whole experience was, Big Macintosh is certain he imagined the whole thing. When the two get close, they stop before each other.

The grey and black maned mare looks like she has seen better days. Her eyes are bloodshot and sunken while her bow tie hangs looks around her neck. Her mane is a mess and she has several bare patches of fur along her legs. Big Macintosh isn't sure what to make of her.

"Are you okay?" he asks out of courtesy. The mare folds her ears back as if his voice was too loud for her, a clear indication that she is not alright. Even so, Big Macintosh doesn't know what to make of her. He hated to admit it, but her disheveled appearance was making him antsy; he didn't want to linger around her.

"I'm just lost, that's it," she says so fast she stumbles over her simple words. "I thought I saw... somepony."

"Who?"

"I don't now just... somepony, I guess. You haven't..." She stops, but Big Macintosh can tell she wants to say more. Whatever it was, she abandons it. "Of course you haven't. I'm sorry for bothering you. I need to go." Big Macintosh doesn't say anything more, not eager to pursue this mare's troubles. He has problems of his own, big ones at that.

She does go, and Big Macintosh doesn't stop her. He turns to watch her go down the path, but is shocked to see nothing at his back. The path is gone and so is that mare. When he turns forward, he can clearly see Ponyville just beyond the treeline. He cannot explain this, but a voice carried on the wind causes every hair on his body to stand on end.

"You've turned your back for good on the Hollow Kingdom. There is no going back."

Big Macintosh breaks into a full gallop towards town. Whether or not he is able to have auditory hallucinations, disembodied voices frighten him. Even in the midst of his terror, part of him laughs at how normal he is.

Exhibit U

It's already late afternoon. Big Macintosh spent more time in the forest than he anticipated. The path back towards Ponyville is deserted except for him. Nopony lives out this far. The only thing down this road besides the forest is Ponyville General Hospital. The only ponies who live there are generally not the kind that walk about on their own. There are some exceptions, one of which Big Macintosh spots coming up the road towards him. The two of them meet right in front of the hospital. It's been a while since Big Macintosh has acknowledged this pony's existence.

"Fancy meeting you here," Suave says. "Have you been out of town? I haven't seen you around."

"I was around. I've been caught up in some odd business recently; it kept me busy," Big Macintosh replies. A gentle breeze passes between the two while Suave nods, agreeing unconditionally. "You heading back?" Macintosh asks, gesturing to the hospital.

"Yeah, it's almost curfew. They'll sick the dogs on me if I say out again." Suave grunts and heaves a sigh. "But it won't be long now. Once the docs say I can run free, you're treating me to a drink."

"Isn't drinking what got you in trouble in the first place?" Big Macintosh reminded him.

"I would have been committed with or without drinking," Suave says, admitting what they both know is true. "I can control myself now, but it doesn't mean squat to me if I can't control myself while I'm drunk."

"That doesn't sound likely."

"A fella can dream, can't he?" Suave laughs with such a light air that Big Macintosh can't help but chuckle a bit too. They laugh for a bit, but it calms down quickly. A somber expression crosses Suave's face. "Pisces: it's time to turn over a new leaf. Change is coming, so get on board or get run over."

It was Suave's horoscope before he beat the tar out of some punk while in a drunken stupor. When they tried him for assault, the lawyers shifted the blame from alcohol to insanity, an insanity confirmed by no more than two court appointed psychiatrists. Suave hadn't always been stable, but one short trail slapped him into a world of hospitals and daily treatments.

"I'd never read a horoscope before that day," Suave says to himself. "The universe knows what's up, buddy. I'm going to get back to life as normal, it's already written. Pisces: you're coming to the end of a trial, but it is not the end that is important so much as the journey."

"You think it'll be okay?" Big Macintosh asks. It's only after asking that he realizes he has a selfish reason for wanting to know. He knows what's to come, and he needs to confirm something. His resolve frightens him.

"I gotta believe it'll be okay," Suave tells him. "But it's really up to me if it turns out okay, not the universe. Some stuff is like that, you know? All the stars, sun, and the moon could change the course of our decisions."

There isn't anything more to it than that. Big Macintosh has to do what must be done. There is no higher power to leave it up to. It is officially on him to go forward with the knowledge he has, with the knowledge he's had for a while now. He knew this, but it feels strange to think it. He is looking up at the load his must bare.

A tail whaps him in the face.

"Earth to big red," Suave says to him. "Don't tune out like that; it's rude."

Big Macintosh got a good whiff of Suave's tail. Unlike his mane, it isn't greased up. Aside from the musty scent of stallion, there is a hint of soap. There is a familiar, soapy scent.

"Do you bathe at the hospital?"

"Huh?" Suave grunts out, offended by the question. "Of course I do. I'm one of the only ponies who does bathe in the place."

"Does everypony use the same shampoo?" Big Macintosh asks, to which Suave snorts and rolls his eyes.

"Yeah. It's some sort of sanitary-hyper-allergic-whatever stuff... something like that, I don't really know," Suave says, notably peeved with the hospital's choice of hair-care product. "I gotta lather up like five times to get my mane clean. I tried to get them to let me use my own stuff, but they won't allow it. Something about harmful chemicals or something, but I know the truth: they get the stuff on special order, so they're losing money on it if nopony is using it."

"But everypony uses it?"

"From the burn ward to the delousing tent and everywhere in between," Suave tells him. "Anypony who stays there overnight and gives a damn about hygiene uses it."

"Thanks."

"Yeah, sure." Suave turns and heads up towards the hospital. "Well, you take care of yourself big guy. You look awfully tired, so get yourself to bed. Libra: if you're honest with yourself others will in turn be honest with you."

Big Macintosh hopes, even if it is only this once, his horoscope will turn out to be correct. He gallops back towards town as fast as he can, but before he reaches the town proper he has to stop again. Standing where the path to the hospital meets the main road is a sight for sore eyes. There, just as silent and mysterious as the day he first saw him, stands the elderly stallion with the black umbrella. Seeing as it may be his last chance, Big Macintosh takes a deep breath before approaching the ancient pony.

"Excuse me, but can I help you?" Big Macintosh asks the old stallion, startling him and causing him to turn. He wears the same worried expression that he did all those years ago. He hasn't changed at all, not one bit.

"No, no... I'm just waiting for somepony," he answers.

"Who?"

"My granddaughter." The old stallion casts his eyes to the ground.

"Pardon me for asking, but is she staying at the hospital?" Big Macintosh watches the old stallion turn back up to him with a start.

"Y-yes actually."

There is a pregnant pause before Big Macintosh can ask his next question.

"Is her name Hippocampy?"

Exhibit V

"As a child, Hippocampy struggled with anterograde amnesia. The poor thing experienced a deal of trauma resulting in the loss of her parents, my daughter and her husband. After that, she didn't remember time passing her by. She hardly slept, so every day was the day after her parents died. It was enough heartbreak for me to lose her parents, but worrying over the poor thing's condition nearly put me in an early grave too.

"Back then, doctors couldn't do much for ponies with problems like her's. Magi-medical practice evolved, thank Celestia. Hippocampy was able to live a normal life, like any other mare. The doctors said everything was fine and Hippocampy seemed happy, but I was still afraid. She's was all the family I had left, so I protected her the best I could. She's adventurous and free-spirited, so I had plenty to worry about. She just couldn't do as she was told, but I loved her regardless. I just kept telling myself that she'd have to grow up eventually."

"Did she?" Big Macintosh asks, keeping pace with the elderly pony as they walk towards the center of town. He keeps quiet, deathly curious.

"It's hard to say," Grandpa replies. "She certainly grew into a fine young mare. She met a stallion, fell in love, and they got married faster than this old codger thought was appropriate. He's a good stallion, so I regret giving him such a hard time back then."

"Hippocampy is married?" Big Macintosh's tone betrays his inner panic. He swallows his nerves and waits for an answer, but Grandpa's face grows dour.

"Yes... she wouldn't have mentioned that to anyone she'd met recently," he says. "When two ponies get married, it's natural for them to start up a family of their own. A few months after she tied the knot, it looked like I was going to be a great-grandfather. It was fantastic news for me, bittersweet too. I couldn't help but think back to when my daughter became pregnant with Hippocampy. Naturally, I was nervous. Yes... I was nervous...

"There was nothing unusual about the first trimester. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the second trimester. The third trimester passed without incident. It wasn't until late one night that things went south. I wasn't there when it happened, so sometimes I don't believe it's real myself. I still wonder how it's even fair that somepony could go through so much pain in what isn't even half a lifetime.

"It was a stillbirth. The doctors didn't... don't know why or how. The shock was too much for Hippocampy, and she passed out. When she woke up, she didn't remember it. She didn't remember being pregnant. She didn't remember getting married, falling in love, meeting a stallion, or growing up. I remember; I've got a good memory for somepony as old as I am. I remember when she came to, when she looked me in the eyes and asked 'where's mom and dad?'"

Big Macintosh can't formulate a response. He could say he is sorry, but he isn't sure what he's apologizing for. He didn't want to say anything to hurt this old pony anymore. He can try empathizing, having lost both of his parents at a young age himself. He chooses, perhaps unconsciously, to just let Grandpa continue talking; just speaking about it seems therapeutic for him.

"I don't blame her for forgetting." He continues his story after a shaky sigh. "The doctors have tried helping her remember through medicine, but they say the drugs don't work where there is no will. Her husband and I tell her stories from her past, but she treats them like fiction. She doesn't believe it. All she accepts is that is has been a very long time and she's an adult now. Her personality is the same, exactly the same, but she's views her own life like a stranger's.

"We're getting her out of the hospital," Grandpa tells Big Macintosh, a hint of anger creeping into his voice. "We're going to do everything we can to bring her back to reality again. We are planning on holding the wedding exactly like we did before. We're hoping to trigger something inside her, and for all the convincing it took I hope it works. Aside from our ages, everything will be the same. I even got the dressmaker down at the boutique to work on her wedding dress so it'll sparkle just like the day she walked down the aisle the first time."

"Sounds like you've got quiet the trial ahead," Big Macintosh says to him. It's all he can think to say.

They stop at the entrance to the town square. Sitting next to the fountain is Hippocampy, staring idly up at the pegasi gathering gray clouds. She turns her head and sees the pair of stallions staring at her. She looks shocked at first, but the shock fades into just another blank stare. Without having to hear a single word, Big Macintosh knows it's over. She walks towards them, her face the very picture of composure.

"I see you two have met," she says.

"Yes, Mr. Macintosh was very helpful in finding where you've been running off to these days," Grandpa tells her. He holds out the umbrella, putting it over his granddaughter. "Now come along, it's past your curfew."

"Give me a second Grandpa." Hippocampy turns and looked up at Big Macintosh. "I'd like to have a word with Mr. Macintosh first."

The old stallion nods, but insisted on relinquishing the umbrella to Hippocampy before he would let the two young ponies alone. The air is heavy and silent between them. It feels like an eternity before Hippocampy finally speaks up.

"How much did he tell you?"

"Everything."

"How much did you tell him?"

"Nothing," he says to her. "He's had it hard enough."

"He'll get through it," Hippocampy says with a cold chuckle. "Not coming to the wedding, then?"

"I wouldn't want to mess with the accuracy. Your grandpa has worked hard to make everything just so," Big Macintosh tells her, but Hippocampy knows this. Hippocampy knows how hard the elderly stallion has been working. "You should try and remember, for his sake. For your husband's sake."

"Right. It's no skin off my bones if I refuse to remember everything, but Celestia forbid I inconvenience other ponies." The conversation gets cold and silent again in the stillness of Hippocampy's comment. Big Macintosh is startled that somepony could say something like that. He knows how he wants to respond. He knows what he has to say to sever his relationship with her. He knows the right thing to say.

"Eeyup, that's the idea." It isn't right to simply pretend something isn't wrong. He sees a difficult path for Hippocampy if she wants to return to the life she once knew, but she has at least two ponies who are willing to walk beside her the whole way. Even so, Big Macintosh could have spat out Hippocampy's response before she did.

"I thought you were on my side." Of course, she has missed the point. "Good-bye."

It isn't Big Macintosh's place to set her on the right path. All he can do now is watch her go up the path to the hospital, a path he can only hope is that right path. It's out of his hooves. He has his own, separate problems. Perhaps it's a weak excuse, but it's hard to put another's house in order when yours is in disarray.

A light drizzle kicks up before Hippocampy and her Grandpa get too far away to see. Big Macintosh can't be sure, but he swears he sees Hippocampy force the umbrella back on her Grandpa. If it is what he sees, he is not surprised. He is sure she is not a bad pony, just a mixed up one. He must believe this. He must believe that he is not a bad pony, just a mixed up one.

Separated from Hippocampy, Big Macintosh stands out in the rain to wonder. He wonders if he harmed or helped Hippocampy's chances of remembering. He finds it hard to believe that anypony could just up and forget such a large part of their life. Just to be forgotten like that, he thinks that would be painful. One day a pony is your closest confidant and companion, but the next moment you're just a face in the crowd to them. He doesn't want to know that pain, and he certainly does not want to cause that pain.

He turns around.

Rarity is standing behind him, rain streaked and fixed with a harsh gaze. Everypony else has gone inside to avoid the rain, but Rarity is going out of her way and getting drenched so she can just stare at Big Macintosh. For his part, Big Macintosh remembers that he failed to show up at Carousel Boutique for their last day. He wants to apologize, but his gut makes him hesitate. Rarity would not get so mad over the missed appointment; there is something else she's angry about. Big Macintosh wonders what it could be, but Rarity answers before he gets a chance to even ask.

"You forgot."

Exhibit W

"Wait, Rarity, can we talk about this?"

"There is nothing to discuss. I don't want to hear or see you ever again!" she shouts at him over the steadily increasing rainfall. Through the puddles she stomps her way back towards her house, but Big Macintosh his hot on her tail despite her constant stream of complaints. "Just go back to your little farm and spend time with your stupid apples!"

"Hey, now don't go calling apples stupid." A member of the Apple family would normally go berserk over that kind of blasphemy, but Big Macintosh sensed that there was something more important than the good name of apples at stake here. To think there was something that was more important than the time honored Apple tradition of apples surprised him. More surprising still is that the thing in question, or rather pony in question, is Rarity. Macintosh considered her a friend, but there is no reason to consider her as anything more. That is, there shouldn't be a reason, but he can think of one. He can think of one, crazy reason. "This is about more than just missing our appointment today, isn't it?"

"Why do you care?" Rarity yells at him, still not giving him the courtesy of looking back at him. She also doesn't say anything further, leaving him in the figurative cold instead of just the actual cold.

"If I hurt you somehow, I want to make things right!" He isn't sure what he's talking about, but he is certain he'll make any promise right about now to get her to stop and face him. He doesn't get this, so he continues making promises. Something has to get through to her. "Whatever is, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... forget. I'll make it up to you. I'll do anything, anything at all! I mean it!"

Rarity stops with a start. Big Macintosh stops too. They are only a few feet from Carousel Boutique's front door. The rain is coming down hard, but neither pony pays it any mind. The rain is appropriate, so neither pony can complain. They can only continue forward.

Rarity turns and faces Big Macintosh. Behind all the rain, it is impossible to tell if she has been crying at all. She is composed because she is serious. She has always been like this, but Big Macintosh reminds himself that he has little basis for such a claim. At least, he should have little basis.

"You're hiding something," Rarity tells him, much to his surprise. She can read the signs, signs Big Macintosh didn't even know he had put up. She'd done the math, and something didn't add up. There is this "x" she must solve for, this variable that changes the meaning of the outcome. "There is something you're not telling me, Applejack, or anypony else for that matter. Am I right?"

A silence cannot hang in the rain, but it tries its best. Something about the rain makes Big Macintosh speak faster or perhaps decide faster. He can tell her. He can bear all. He has to start somewhere, so where he stands is as good as a place as any. He clears his throat, his way of subjugating himself for arrest. One he speaks, if he is heard, there will be no turning back.

"Yeah, you're right."

Big Macintosh realizes his greatest fear is that he is hallucinating right at this very moment. He can't know if Rarity is really standing before him, and this scares him. He would rather confess to being crazy right here and now than pour himself out to a rain soaked porch. This is different than before. This is turning over a new leaf, and Big Macintosh doesn't see that as a crime. The time let the world impress a stigma upon him has come.

"Tell me your secret," Rarity asks him. He must believe, after seeing her day after day, that he can tell the real from the fake. He has faith that shames even the most devout believers, but faith amounts to nothing in the wake of a well hidden, well cultivated lie. Never before had Big Macintosh tried to make the pony before him disappear, but at the same time he had never hoped the image before him would not fade away.

"I see things that aren't there."

"Things that aren't there?"

"Yeah." This is the simplest way he can put it. Perhaps there is some essence of "being there" within his hallucinations, but this is not the issue of the hour. The technicalities of his condition are not being put on trail, but the thing as a whole. Big Macintosh himself is the object up for debate. His hallucinations are, as he has come to realize, a part of him. "You probably think I'm crazy."

"Of course I think you're crazy!" Rarity shouts at him. Big Macintosh isn't sure what he expected her reaction to be, but he's a bit insulted that his confession didn't appear to shake her. She was still yelling at him as if he'd told her he had an odd looking wart on his butt. "If you really think those things are there!"

"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't," Big Macintosh tells her, trying to get her to understand a little more. "I tried and I tried to sort out reality from illusion, but it's been a battle I've been destined to lose. I don't know what I should believe anymore. I can't even really be sure that you're here."

Rarity slaps him across the face.

"Is that real enough for you?"

Big Macintosh could argue, but he lets the issue drop. He knows better than that. Besides, Rarity is uninterested in pursuing it either.

"Tell me something else!"

"Anything or something specific?" Big Macintosh asks, his smart-aleckness earning him another slap.

"Did you ever believe," Rarity starts to ask, but she pauses. There is fear behind her fury, but that is the nature of fury. Without fury, she could never finish her question. "Did you ever believe we were in love?"

"... Yeah."

"Why did you stop believing?" Her question sounds more pleading this time. Big Macintosh does not know what to make of it, but he has a hunch. He has a frightening inkling of an idea.

"We seemed distant and then I realize nopony else acknowledged our being together," he told her. "When I noticed that, it all just slipped away from me. It wasn't real, so I didn't let it have any real effect on me."

He gets slapped again.

"But it was real!"

There is a chance this is not real either. Big Macintosh knows he could be hallucinating again. Thinking like this will drive him truly crazy, but he can't help it now. He opened the door, and now the rain is getting in. He is not sure where to go from here, what to believe from now on.

"Even if you say that-"

"How can I prove it to you?" she yells at him, rain streaking down her face. He does not answer, but she doesn't care. She embraces him roughly, squeezing him around his next and burying her face where his harness meets his chest. She is trembling while she holds him, fear sapping her strength right out from under her. "Do you know what it was like for me?"

"Nnope..."

"I knew we were growing distant, sinking into a predictable rut we might not get out of. Do you remember what I told you the day before you left?" Rarity asks him, and it comes to him. He remembers it as clear as day. "I wanted you to come by the shop in the morning. I was going to ask you to go on a trip with me, to see Canterlot and Manehattan. I thought we just needed to get away for a bit. I told you it was very important and not to forget, but you never showed up. I took it as a sign that we were over, and sure enough you didn't even seem to notice me in public.

"I never really accepted it," she tells him, finding the strength to hold him tighter. "I thought it had to be some sort of cosmic fluke. I thought that one day you would walk in through the front door of the boutique and ask me what I wanted to talk about. It got so bad that I asked your sister about you, about us. She claimed it never happened either, but I guess we never told her. Even so, I got the perfect excuse to have you over day after day. I hoped something would happen to bring you back to me. I didn't care if we had to start over, I just wanted things to make sense again. If you ask me, I'm the crazy one."

Big Macintosh lets himself believe, for a moment, that what he is hearing is true. If he never imagined Rarity, he never kissed a hallucination. If he never imagined Rarity, he never made love to a phantom. If he never imagined Rarity, he never fell in love with just a shade. If these things are true, he has a way to reclaim his reality. He can set the world in order. Most importantly, he can make things right.

"If I choose to believe in you," he says to her, putting his hooves on her shoulders and moving Rarity so he could look into her eyes. "Do you promise not to be a lie?"

"I've always been here, and I'm not going anywhere," she tells him. That is all the needs to say. That is all he needs to hear. For now, there does not need to be anymore standing about in the rain. They seal their pact with a rain soaked kiss.

For two lovers who spent so much time apart, a kiss is enough to elevate the mood. As they continued to remember the sensation of each other's lips, their lust spiked. Without breaking from one another, the managed to stumble into the boutique and shut the door behind them. They tracked rain and mud onto the floor, but neither noticed; however, neither party wanted to soil perfectly good bedsheets with all the precipitation in their coats.

Big Macintosh took her in the doorway. He didn't do it to make things right or sort out the real from the fake, he did it because he wanted to be intimate with a pony he cared dearly for. He let his old feelings gather about him as he forced himself as far as he could into her. She had waited in tense anticipation of this moment everyday since he left, and its arrival was such euphoria she couldn't help but orgasm while Big Macintosh began to tread her familiar hallways.

They continued on in this manner for the rest of the day. After the first round, Rarity offered him her shower to get the rain off. After making love in said shower, they tried their best not to fuck while drying each other off. After failing that, they tried to have dinner, but that too was interrupted by the perceived need to penetrate and be penetrated. They finally just retired up into Rarity's room where the lovers could do as they pleased for as long as they wanted without any sense of guilt.

All good things must come to an end, and end it did. Now they sleep soundly wrapped around one another. Their sleep is dreamless for they dreamed while awake. They must awake from that dream when morning light enters in, but for now they can enjoy simple bliss. It would be easy to end the story here and simply say they lived happily ever after, but there is still more to tell.

It would be irresponsible to stop now, and so the story continues.

Exhibit X

Morning comes. Celestia never fails, somehow.

The reunited pair of lovers are already awake, just staring at each others' soft smile. Big Macintosh runs a hoof up and down Rarity's mane. She doesn't protest, considering how disheveled it already is. The same thought drifts through both their minds, but they wonder for different reasons.

"This is real, right?" Rarity asks, vocalizing what they both would like to know for certain. Let there be no more guessing, no more wondering, no more checking to see if the ground is still under their hooves. If doubt could just be removed with pliers and placed in a shoebox, that's just what they would do, but it doesn't work that way.

"It must be," Big Macintosh replies. "I couldn't bear it if it wasn't."

They lay about in silence a while longer. It's not for lack of knowing what comes next, but what comes next is complicated. It won't be easy, quick, or painless. There isn't even a guarantee of their effort breaking even in the end. There are ways around it, but both parties have had enough of dancing around the issue. There is an easy way out, but it's the hard way out. There is only one way out. There is only one road that might serve as an exit.

"So, how long have you seen things?" Rarity asks her next question. Big Macintosh already knows what she is leading into, but he follows along. He will grant her this courtesy.

"Probably since I could see," he answers. "From the time I was able to look at the world and decide for myself which shapes and blotches of colors were pieces of a part of a whole. Sometimes when I try and put the puzzle together, there are extra pieces. They fit without being forced, so I just thought that was how things were put together. The illusion is just as easy to believe as the reality; they aren't that different. Both please me. Both frighten me. Both make sense to me, but they won't make sense to the rest of the world. I guess there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with being misunderstood, but life is easier when everything is cohesive.

"But this isn't about anypony else, really. Nopony is master of their illusions, but I don't have to be a slave to mine. At least, I don't think I have to be. This is about putting my life in order. I don't want to wonder if what I see is real or fake, not on such a grand scale. It's a struggle, and I'm tired. I never thought I'd lose, but I'm admitting defeat. I can't conquer my illusions."

"Not on your own." Rarity takes his head between her hooves and brings him close. He can clearly see his own eyes reflected in hers. "You need help, and you need real help. You know what you have to do."

Rarity is aware of what she is asking him to do. Big Macintosh knew he'd have to, one way or another. It might mean being away from the farm for a while. It might mean being unable to go home altogether. It might mean being sent to a bigger city. It might mean he won't get to see Rarity, not for a while. It might mean a lot of things, but it does mean one thing: he will get a shot at subduing his deviant brain.

He must go to the hospital and reveal his sickness to the whole world.

"I think I ought to tell my family first," Big Macintosh says, knowing that deep down he is finding an excuse to delay. Rarity knows this, but she allows it. After waiting to be reunited for so long, this is not what she wanted to happen immediately following. It needs to happen, and that's enough justification for her to let it happen. It would be cruel to deny him the real help he needs. It would be far too cruel to look at the infection, smile, and tell him he's healthy as a giant.

"Take the day to get ready," Rarity tells him, giving him sound instruction. "And no matter what happens, I'll be there every step of the way if I'm allowed to. I won't let them lock you up and cage you like an animal."

"I don't think ponies do that anymore." He kisses her on the forehead under her horn. "But if they do, I would appreciate your help."

Big Macintosh doesn't allow any thoughts of turning back. He banishes them with the harshest words he can come up with. He eats breakfast with Rarity, and then she sees him off. Just because he has made a big decision doesn't mean the world stops turning. She has things to do, and so does he.

"I'll come by on my way to the hospital tomorrow morning."

"Don't forget." She gets up on the tips of her hooves and kisses him one more time.

"Not this time." He turns and heads home, resisting the temptation to hide in Rarity's house for the rest of his life. He could be happy that way, but that wouldn't be right. Ignorance a healthy happiness does not make.

Although, sometimes ignorance is easier. Applejack makes it abundantly clear how angry she is when he tells her, Applebloom, and Granny Smith. She is angry, but she's scared, perhaps even more than Applebloom. He spends the rest of the day telling them how everything will turn out just fine and attempting to explain how he became and item with Rarity. It's difficult, but when night falls the Apple household proves it will stand through this adversity.

Big Macintosh tucks Applebloom in, puts a blanket over Granny Smith where she dozes in her rocking chair, and says goodnight to his oldest sister. He enters his bed exhausted from having to explain himself and comfort his family, but he is satisfied. It is the satisfaction of having done exactly what is right and having no regrets. It is the kind of satisfaction that is commonly believed to provide instant, deep sleep. Nopony can touch his sleep.

At least, nopony should have been able to touch it.

"So, that's it then?" It's Shoehorn. Big Macintosh doesn't know what he's doing standing in the middle of his room; it isn't the bathroom. He doesn't appear to be doing any business, so he doesn't mind too much. "I kind of hoped we could go on coexisting."

"This is an unneeded burden," Big Macintosh says to his hallucination. "I have other things to worry about other than 'is this real' or 'is that fake.' I can't go on like this."

"Yeah, I thought you might say that." Shoehorn's image fades away, something he could do only because he is a hallucination. His disembodied voice still speaks. "You think there is a limit to how real we can be, but you're wrong. Your mind can provide everything you'd ever need and more."

From the corner of his room, two more hallucinations walk in through the darkness. He clearly recognizes the images: Cheerliee and Rainbow Dash. He is certain he hasn't been imagining their existence, so he's confused about why they would appear. Between Shoehorn's words and the looks imposed upon the false ponies' faces, he figures it out.

"So, is this your final stand?" Big Macintosh asks the disembodied voice.

"This is your final stand," the voice tells him. "This is you trying to convince yourself that you could live with your illusions."

"But I don't even get it," Big Macintosh complains. "Why Cheerilee and Rainbow Dash? Wouldn't Rarity make more sense?"

"You harbor some attraction for Cheerilee, you know this to be true. There exists a part of you that relishes the thought of seeing her submit herself to you, and the same could be said for Rainbow Dash. Out of your sister's friends, she's the only other mare you ever romantically, or rather lustfully, considered." The voice goes silent for a moment. "But you didn't choose Rarity because you can have the real one."

"Doesn't that prove that there isn't any point in this?" Big Macintosh asks. "I prefer reality to illusion. Illusion can't feed me, my family, or anypony I love. Illusions won't pay the bills, watch the weather, or reliably tell me when I'm right and wrong. Besides, it doesn't matter how real they can be. If worth is measured in how real something is, reality has illusion beat. So why go through the trouble?"

Big Macintosh waits for Shoehorn's voice. He half expects never to hear again, but the two mares are still eying him hungrily from across his bed.

"Well, maybe part of you wants to have a threesome with Rainbow Dash and Cheerilee. Ever thought of that?"

Big Macintosh finds it is he who is speechless now.

"I guess I do... but I don't want that."

"You don't want what?" Shoehorn's voice asks him.

"I don't want to want that."

"Wanting not to want it doesn't change anything," the voice says, scolding him with a bitter tone. "Don't think you're high and mighty; you're no more a saint than the next pony, harboring such thoughts."

"But I've got to try and be better," Big Macintosh says back to the voice. He lays back on his pillow and closes his eyes. There is nothing to see or hear. There is nothing keeping him from sleep, not really. "That's what will make me better."

Big Macintosh waits quietly in the darkness. He does not open his eyes to see if the mares are still there. He does not call out to Shoehorn to ask if he is still watching. He honestly tries to sleep. He doesn't want to continue on with his hallucinations, but one last remark passes unbidden through the air.

"We are here until you get rid of us. It's not over until it's over."

After that, the night passes by quietly. No sound, real or imagined, stirs Big Macintosh from his sleep.

Exhibit Y

This is purgatory. Rarity reminds him once or twice that it's just the hospital waiting room, but that isn't how it feels. The white walls and fluorescent lighting make it look like a waiting room, but that just isn't how it feels. It isn't a hallucination, just perception.

Neither Big Macintosh or Rarity knew what the protocol was for declaring yourself mentally unstable, so Big Macintosh just ended up asking to see his doctor as if he'd come in for persistent headaches or constant fatigue or even a board he'd accidentally nailed to his leg. Coming out and admitting what was up still wasn't sitting right with him. Rarity and his family were one thing, but his doctor was another. It isn't that he doesn't trust his doctor, but he just doesn't know him all that well.

All the waiting wasn't helping Big Macintosh be any less nervous. He wouldn't dream of turning back now, but he can tell the experience is going to be a strained one. It helps that Rarity is here with him, sitting quietly and calmly beside him. At the very least, he can feed off the confidence she's giving off. She's doing more to help than she probably realizes, and at least one pony is helping calm his nerves.

"What's taking so long?" Applejack had insisted on coming along. Big Macintosh had several concerns about her coming, concerns he divulged to his sister, concerns his sister said he wouldn't have to worry about, and concerns she had done nothing to dispel since their arrival. Sure enough, Big Macintosh was subjected to watch his sister pace back and forth with her brow knitted tight as they waited.

"Just be patient," Rarity tells her in an even voice, doing her utmost to play Applejack's antithesis.

"I've been patient!" Applejack shouts in a half-whisper, having been reminded several times by Rarity, Big Macintosh, the receptionist, and several others in the waiting room to keep her voice down throughout her visit. "I just want this whole deal to be over with, you know?"

"Yes." Rarity and Big Macintosh answered in unison. After being told so many times, it was almost insulting for Applejack to think they forgot already. The pair could forgive her for that, but they just wished she would stop acting like the only one who is troubled by it.

"First there is all this sneaking around Big Mac's back with that project thing or whatever, then you two are together again I guess, and now Big Macintosh might be crazy." Applejack is not shy about speaking her mind, that much is certain.

Big Macintosh had already riddled out that Rarity's project, which was honestly something she needed to work on, was part of a plot for her to figure out why he up and left her in the past. She had an excuse to have him around on a regular basis, so she had hoped to jog his memory. In the end, the direct approach was far more effective. Considering how it all ended, Big Macintosh didn't mind being duped like that.

"Macintosh is not crazy... he's just troubled," Rarity says, correcting Applejack. She didn't like using the word crazy any more than Big Macintosh, but both parties struggled to find the right way to put it. It is ironic that they don't ignore the fact that here is a problem, but they hesitate to address the gravity of it right out loud. Applejack is not that way.

"Crazy, troubled, broken, whatever it is I just want to get on with it." Applejack wasn't alone on this, but she was the most vocal about it. "I need some fresh air. Come get me when the doctor comes."

Rarity and Big Macintosh exchange a look as Applejack sees herself out of the lobby. The pressure is getting to her, whether or not they feel it's justified. It would be insensitive to keep treating her like a nuisance.

"I'll go talk to her." Rarity gets up and starts after Applejack. "Come get us when the doctor comes, if you can."

He watches her leave, which leaves him alone in the waiting room. He was afraid this might happen in the end, even if he really wasn't truly alone. They would be back before the doctor came, or they would at least be waiting for him when he came out. Then again, he might not come out. He might not leave the hospital today or even tomorrow. It is all a mystery.

"So, you really did come?"

Big Macintosh turns his head. A pony has sat down next to him, but more specifically Hippocampy has sat down next to him. He first wonders what she is doing at the hospital, but then he remembers. This is exactly where she should be. Under different circumstances, this is where they would have met.

"Eeyup."

"I don't think you know what you're getting yourself into," she says to him. "They won't treat you like an intelligent pony after you tell them what's wrong. You're not just sick, you're sick for good. The doctors will try all sorts of treatments, give you all kinds of medicine. You might not feel sick now, but once you're taking medicine you really will. Once you're in front of a psychiatrist or neurologist answering all kinds of questions and taking all sorts of tests, you'll really feel crazy. They'll peer at you from over their clipboards like a judge might regard a show dog. If there is a way to help you, they will help you, but it will come at a cost.

"But you'll never be normal, not that you've ever been normal. Paranoia will follow you even outside this hospital. You're going to constantly look over your shoulder. You're going to question whether it is all really over yet. If you think you're going to gain some peace of mind from all of this, you're wrong. You're sick and you're wrong. You're sick and wrong, I suppose. A sickness of the mind is a much harder ordeal than a sickness of the body, at least in my experience. I might not have the same problem you have, but I've seen ponies like you around here all the time. I speak from experience. I know what you're getting into."

Big Macintosh listens to all she has to say in silence. At the end of it all, there is only one thing he has to say.

"You're just trying to scare me."

"You're right." Hippocampy admits her motivation without hesitation. "But I guess you're already scared. If you weren't, then you really would be crazy. Crazy in a different sense, at least."

"Everypony is a little crazy," Big Macintosh replies. "I think it's just part of being sane."

"That's an odd thing to say."

Hippocampy might be right, but Big Macintosh does not think what he means is strange. Deep down, everypony entertains something they know is a lie, something they know another wouldn't accept. Ponies allow the wool to get pulled over their eyes, if it suits them. Sometimes they allow themselves to be frightened against their better judgement; it isn't always about comfort. At the same time, some ponies don't have better judgement. Some don't stand a chance against the illusions. Hippocampy is no exception.

"Why did you pursue me like you did?" Big Macintosh asks. He has to wait a moment before Hippocamy speaks up. Even she herself isn't exactly sure. There was a reason, but it was subconscious. It doesn't take too much thinking to riddle it out.

"It's no fun being told who you are," she replies. "It's not like having expectations pushed onto you by your teacher. It is already established who and what you are. Everypony knows what role you play and who they are relative to you. They know what they think of you, how they feel about you. They know, but you don't. You have other ideas, but those aren't allowed. It's not up to you.

"When I ran into you for the first time, you claimed we met like a lot of ponies who didn't know what happened tend to do, but you didn't push an identity on me. You said you met me the day before, but I didn't remember that at all. For once I was convinced I was right, and for once you didn't insist I was wrong. You just accepted that I didn't remember. Nopony ever accepted that I didn't remember, that I don't seem to know anymore.

"I just wanted to be with somepony who wasn't going to force me to be the Hippocampy they remembered. That's all I wanted at first, but then I found out about your hallucinations. For once, I had to power to mold someone else's reality. I could be on the giving end, not the receiving end. I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway. I just wanted to be in control."

"Are you sorry about it?" he asks her. Hippocampy gets up and stares at a distant point on the wall. Big Macintosh gets the impression that what she is about to say is something she has practiced saying. This is her big moment on stage, and she desperately does not want to mess up her line this morning.

"Nopony ever apologized to me." When she disappears out of the lobby, it is the last time Big Macintosh ever sees her. He doesn't seek her out or ask where she might have gone. He doesn't even question whether or not she was entirely real. He just remembers her. That's all he does.

"Mr. Macintosh Apple? The doctor will see you now."

There is much he still needs to do.

Exhibit Z

"Have a nice day," Big Macintosh waves off another satisfied customer, smiling the best he can. It isn't that he doesn't enjoy working the apple stand, but it wears on a pony to be nice over and over again. Sometimes he feels the urge to make some sort of secret, derisive gesture at a customer. He isn't sure what it would achieve, but the idea is so tempting for some odd reason. He has wondered about it ever since he was a little colt.

With any luck, he won't have many more customers today before Applejack takes over. A good round of apple bucking sounds really good to him at the moment. It sure beats grinning awkwardly as ponies try to decide exactly how many apples they want to buy.

"Busy day?" Visitors are another story, especially when the visitor is Rarity.

"Busy enough. Is it obvious?"

"You do look a little strained," she tells him, poking him between the eyes with a hoof. "How are you feeling today?"

"Normal." He spits out the word with all the contempt he can muster, an art he has mastered over the past month. He notices Rarity rolling her eyes and giggling to herself again, quite the different reaction from the vicious scolding she would dole out for the first week or two. She finds his reaction rather silly now, even if Big Macintosh is perfectly serious.

"Amazing what just a little medicine every morning will do for you."

"I still don't buy it," Big Macintosh replies with an added grunt. "Now that I'm not hallucinating, I've never been so convinced I'm hallucinating. It's just too easy. I can't help but think something isn't right."

"Maybe you should ask the doctor if he has pills for paranoia." Rarity giggles again, amused to no end with ribbing her special somepony about his mental condition. The fact that Big Macintosh just furrows his brow and shuts up is a sure sign of love on his part. "You'll get used to it, I promise."

"I was just expecting a little more struggle, you know?" Big Macintosh says. "I walked in there ready for a yearlong treatment of some kind, but instead the doctor fills out one little sheet, gives me a prescription, and tells me to 'come back if anything else bothers me.'" This time, Rarity puts a comforting hoof around Big Macintosh. There is no poking fun at him for not considering himself lucky or fortunate. She isn't here to pour salt on his wounds, but she is aware he does need reassuring of that from time to time. Even if she finds his wounds silly, she will nurse them.

"You're doing well, darling," she reminds him. "And you'll keep on doing well. You don't have to worry anymore; that's what the medicine is for. Just let the magic and the medicine work." At this, Big Macintosh has to sigh in defeat. It isn't like he doesn't know he's being paranoid, he's just uncertain. It's like going on a decade long journey to the dragon's den only to find the dragon is old, weak and ready to yield to his aggressors.

"It's just anticlimactic."

"Well, you'll just have to get your excitement from elsewhere, won't you?" she says with a grin. She lifts herself up and gives him a good kiss on the lips, to remind him that she's there. He kisses her back and embraces her, to remind himself she's there.

"Rarity and Macintosh sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

The pair break away from each other and blush, remembering that they are still in public. A few ponies within earshot are giggling too, encouraged from the prankster lounging in a cloud above the apple stand. The two lovers only need to look up in order to see Rainbow Dash making kissy face down at them.

"Rainbow Dash!" Rarity yells up at her friend, but the pegasus just laughs and darts off. Rarity can only fume in her wake. "I swear, I wouldn't mind if she went back to being all gloom and doom like she was a month ago."

"I keep hearing about Rainbow Dash being in some sort of trouble," Big Macintosh says. "What's that all about?"

Rarity sighs and leans back into Big Macintosh's chest. Everything that happened before Big Macintosh went to the hospital is a big, messy blur for her. It seemed like everypony was having some sort of crisis.

"Something about the Wonderbolts," Rarity says, not too sure on the details herself. She had her own mess to worry about. There is, however, one thing she remembers explicitly. "She went back to normal rather suddenly. Kept going on about something called a 'Hollow Kingdom.' None of us have any idea what she's talking about."

Big Macintosh gets quiet, more quiet than usual. He doesn't over think what he's just heard. He knows what it means. If he was honest with himself, he had suspected it all along. Even if he can't hallucinate, Equestria is filled with strange and wondrous things.

"Well, being normal is a good thing." It is the first time in a while he managed to say normal without hating both syllables. He just hugs Rarity closer and stroked her shoulder. "As long as it isn't too normal."

"Nothing is ever completely normal around here," Rarity says with an exhausted sigh, but she's right.

"It's normal for things not to be normal." As soon as the words leave Big Macintosh's mouth, he knows the response he's going to get.

"That's silly." And it really is.

End Exhibition

Author's Note

This is the end of The Hollow Kingdom of Big Macintosh. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. For those of you who particularly enjoyed this, the greatest thing you can give is your recommendation to anyone else you think would enjoy this. Your readership alone is enough of a treat, so I thank you once more.

Intermission

"No... that doesn't sound quite right."

"How so?" Rarity asks, taking a dainty sip of tea. Applejack is not drinking tea; it is not her beverage. Still, Rarity insisted on talking over something. A full teacup sits before her, but she has yet to touch it.

"Well, I know he didn't sleep, but I didn't think it was a nightmare," Applejack says, explaining why she doubts Rarity's tale of Big Macintosh's strange nightmare. She does not, however, believe Rarity is lying.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to say more than that." Rarity encourages her friend to continue. Big Macintosh has deceived her for some reason, it would seem. She is not angry, but she would like to know why; this time, she wants an explanation.

"I think he was out in that storm last night, for some reason," Applejack tells her. "His sheets were all wet and there was a nice path of rainwater leading from the front door to his room. I'd say that's evidence enough."

"Curious." Rarity doesn't know what else she can say. The answer to her questions, any of them, aren't apparent from Applejack's story. She will have to sort out what it could all mean by herself.

"I'm still not sure I like all this," Applejack says, changing the subject. "I mean, going behind my brother's back and all that."

Rarity pauses to take a sip of tea from her cup. She won't say it, but she doesn't like going behind his back anymore than Applejack does. If she admits it, Applejack will have leverage to bring this all to an end. Rarity will be left with no choice but to take the problem on directly. She couldn't do that.

"Can't you just ask him?" Applejack persists still.

"You ask that, but let me ask you something." Rarity sets her teacup back onto the table. "Why do I have to ask him?"

Applejack doesn't have a response. She averts her eyes, trying not to acknowledge some of the darker realities of the situation she finds herself in. Rarity does, in all honesty, have the right to know what it is she wants to know. Applejack would not deny her friend this.

"This is all too weird."

"Agreed." Rarity raises her teacup to her lips and takes a sip. "You trust your brother, right?"

"Of course!" Applejack says immediately and with strong certainty that is becoming of the Element of Honesty. "I trust him!" She says it herself, to emphasize her unwavering love for her brother. Rarity smiles at her friend's response, but she stares distantly into her slowly emptying teacup. Applejack wonders if she even heard what she had just said, but her concerns disappear when Rarity finally speaks.

"I trust him too."

Ladies and gentlemen, Act II will begin shortly.
Please return to the auditorium in a calm, nonthreatening fashion.