The Hollow Kingdom of Big Macintosh

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.