Convention Story 05

The last thing you hear before drifting off to sleep is the door to the room snapping open with a sudden impact, and Alex rushing to your side. He grabs you and shakes you, but really, if the wings erupting from your body weren’t going to keep you awake, what chance did this silly filly have? You chuckle softly before slipping into oblivion.

Everything is dark, soothing, and comforting. A world bleeds into your perception like an old film reel burning in reverse. Experiences and perceptions are stuffed into your brain, playing simultaneously before your proverbial eyes. It is all almost too much for you to handle. A feeling of nausea and panic lingers throughout the dream, but is pales in comparison to what actually matters. The feeling of homecoming is now complete.

You open your eyes, the vibrant colors do not phase you. Climbing out of bed takes a bit of effort, it’s just so comfy! As you settle down onto two legs you feel an odd disparity, the timeline ends.

You are back in bed, you open your eyes. The colors do not seem outlandish, they are just right. You climb out of bed without issue and land on all fours, stretching length wise. You issue a soft sigh and head for the door to your home and step outside. There no ground to step on, and you tumble down through the air, you flap your wings in earnest but have a hard time learning how to fly on the spot. Almost as soon as the notion of learning how to fly enters your mind, the timeline stops and a new one enters your perception. This time you fly, why wouldn’t this come naturally to you? You are a Pegasus after all.

This continues at a dizzying pace until you have lived long enough to know you have a job as weather pony, and know how to do it. In the span of this fevered sleep it’s like you lived another life, and it is only with great effort that you flail your way out of the soporific state of mind and force yourself conscious after all of the reels come to an end.

You climb your way up onto all fours as naturally as if you had always been on such. Before you can go anywhere, Alex’s hands snap forth from your peripheral and wrap around you, bringing you into a hug.

“Oh my god Cheryl, I just… I just…” He stammers repeatedly, and it looks like he had been crying. You can’t help but smile at him warmly and rest your head on his shoulder.

“Hey, what are you crying for? Everything is alright… right?” Even as you say these words you are uncertain, like testing the water in a tub to see if it is too hot. After you finish the sentence with ‘right’ a sense of finality fills you, things ‘are’ right for once. Your eyes close and your head tilts up as a smile of pride and contentment crosses your features.

“The hell do you mean everything is fine? You’re a pony!” He seems almost hysterical. You would think he’d be happy. Doesn’t he like ponies? He runs a hand through your mane. “At this rate, we really could just call you cherry…” He snickers a bit to himself, a hysterical laugh in the back of his throat. “My little Cherry Blossom…”

A crack of lightning resounds through your brain. Wait… WHAT?! NO. THIS CANNOT HAPPEN, IT WONT HAPPEN, I’M NOT… You leap out of Alex’s arms and the full gravity of what has happened hits you. You sit and stare at your front hooves, your mouth goes slack and your eyes dart to the wings on your back, which flap in an experimental manner. “I… woah… what happened to me?”

“Oh, good, are you finally with us?” Alex stands up and takes a step toward you, you shrink back instinctively.

“I’m not Cherry Blossom, that isn’t me!” You lower your head, resting a hoof on your chin as you think desperately for something, anything to hold on to. “It’s Whisper Wind! That’s it!” You slam a hoof on the ground and stand your ground against Alex

“Cheryl… Listen to me… Do you remember anything at all?” Alex takes a cautious step back to avoid driving you into panic.

“I’m fine! I remember everything just fine!” You bite your lip and think hard. Childhood, adolescence, getting your first job, everything, it’s all there. You look down at your hooves and imagine in their place a pair of discolored hands that even in their early 20s were beginning to show signs of aging. You remember looking into mirrors like this and realizing, this is you, and it is forever, then you are dead and gone. You cast a glance at the wings that so easily fill you with pride, and they flare out instinctively. You hate to admit it, but the only thing that fills you with dread is your past, now.
“I remember… so many nightmares where everything was wrong…” You feel sadness and misery in equal portions rise up in your stomach as you become more honest with Alex than you have been in your entire life.

“You wanna know what’s disgusting? That was just me when I woke up! I used to have these dreams… Wonderful dreams where I could fly, where I was free from everything, I was fine!” your wings flap hard enough to rustle nearby papers, as if to drive home your point. “I never imagined this would happen… Who could want or expect something like this? It doesn’t make any sense! But I… I just can’t hate it…” You hang your head in shame.

You don’t notice him come closer until he gently grabs your face with a hand and tilts your gaze up and into his eyes. “Is that what happened last night?”

You manage only a halfhearted nod, difficult to pull off with his grip on you. Your eyes start to water. How did this even happen? All you can think about is the kid who offed himself, his eyes going wide with shock as he experienced his own death. It’s disgusting, all of this over a children’s show… And yet you can’t help but think of him as a kind of saint for setting you free like this. You shake your head furiously and snap out of Alex’s grip, did you ‘really’ just think that? Was that thought really yours?

Alex wraps his arms around you before you can pull further away and pulls you into a hug. A warmth rises in your chest that you can’t remember ever having felt before, not like this. You rest a hoof on his shoulder and let the tears fall silently.

“So what happens now?” Alex says. “How am I supposed to smuggle a Pegasus out of a high tier hotel?”

You puzzle this out in your head for a moment. “I’m pretty small now… you could go to a store and get one of those large rolling suitcases and maybe stuff me inside? As long as we’re out fast it shouldn’t be a problem, just leave it unzipped a little so I can breathe,”

Alex reaches out and ruffles your wild pink mane. You note with some happiness that it is more tomboyish than some of the more ‘elegant’ ponies from that show. You smile and blush a bit.

“Everything is going to be okay, I promise. First we’ll get you out of here, and then we’ll figure out a way to fix this,” Your smile evaporates when he says that last part, it feels like someone stabbed your heart with an icicle, he doesn’t see, he’s already heading out the door, scratching his arm absent mindedly. The door shuts with a soft thud, the lock clicking shut behind him.

This is… good, right?