The Hollow Kingdom of Big Macintosh

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.