Chapter Text
On a normal day, you would be pleasantly surprised to find yourself dozing off before the arrival of the sun. After the conversation had sluggishly died off, dissolving into distant signs of (dormant) life, whistling air, snores from horse or man you can’t tell, you’d resigned yourself to a long night alone, picking at the remaining box of sushi before you’d given up and tipped it into your sylladex just to call it a day.
Functionally alone, even if there are technically others just a few feet away. Rising sides and twitching ears. Tiny breaths even whistle snuffle against your hair. Minihoof content and full at long last.
But you. You just. Sit there. You don’t dare move. The last time you tried you spotted an ear twitch and the glint of warm eyes that might as well be telling you to dare cross that space without a good rest under your belt.
So you don’t. You just pull your knees up to your chest. Rest your arms on those. If you didn’t have a small hoof beast to think of, you likely would have completed the sulk. But since you do, you just lean your shoulders and back against the stall wall and--
Do what you do best. Think.
Thinking of the bleeding rift in your soul. Nursing that bitterness of a smile not meant for you, and how it merely succeeds in fueling an argument against your existence at all. One you fear you’ll be fighting for the rest of your life, however long that lasts.
Really, the fact that you managed to shave a few hours off of that nonsense, is something you should be delighted about.
But, the fact is, you were always doomed. The fitful, off hours doze shattered the moment the stable door creaked open. The (relatively) chilly, night air, whispering inside the insulated and temperature controlled stable. Leaving goosebumps across as it sweeps across your graying skin.
You don’t move. Not yet. Your eyes hidden behind the shades, no intruder would notice them snap to attention, as long as you don’t let it change anything. You aren’t facing the door, and to get a clear view would require repositioning, but--
The hissed “Dirk???” has you throwing caution to the wind and flash-checking the intruder into the door-frame.
Cold. Clammy. Wet. Soaked fabric brushes up against your arm–too-strong for how puny it currently is–but it means nothing to the muscles pinning the sopping wet body against the wood.
You take in the limp hair, dripping, the smell of the chemically laden water wafting off him in droves, liquid beading on the mirrored glass, light refracted and redirected and turning the whole thing into a sea of color.
A color that points in one direction.
The conclusion is not difficult. How else did you get here?
Red. All red. Reflected in glass. Burning up through paper white skin even as the stable lights attempt to give it an odd yellow tint.
It clicks. Easily.
“You are incorrect, AR.” Glance away from the shaking, shivering hands wrapping around your arm, attempting to pull it free. For all the chill of the water, they almost burn against your skin. Tracing the lines of color from the cool, slick leather to the tips of fingers.
“I can’t breathe, asshole!” Hissed. Almost a wheeze. “It’s Hal.”
“I know.”
You readjust your grip without a further word.
You aren’t on his neck. Just his chest. He’ll be fine.
Curl your clawed fingers into that soaking black tank top--energy pulses and hums beneath your grip, the glitched magenta heart doing nothing to dissuade your hypothesis, and jerk him out the door.
Past all the fanfare, things wind down with a fair amount more ease than is probably appropriate.
As it turns out, things stacked atop things that're stacked over other things like a whacked-up game of Jenga! and with none of the stability primes itself up for the tenderest of collapse.
But apples don't fall far from trees, and neither do chips off rickety old blocks.
And once the dust begins to settle, the foundation can be left to rest, unburdened and in the embrace of the dirt it was poured upon, until the point one decides to rebuild.
Which is all a really prosery way of saying that as soon as things stop being so off the walls and away from the fans for any decently measurable amount of time D crashes harder than a teen's first test drive down Lamp Post Lane.
All according to the plan of the most contrived mastermind of all non-mankind. If a horse could rest smug and satisfied upon a small mound of gently moving flesh, it would be a very special one in particular indeed.
The night from then on sells itself as a calm one. Not too hot, not too cool, even as the fresh air and breeze from the stables' window prevents the perfect regulation of such. The most noise to be had comes from said wind, sleep-caught breaths, or the ebb and flow of a distant surf.
Or the rustles of those still restless.
She looks over at the child every once in a while to see if he's begun to settle down (and to ensure he is still there), but otherwise seems content to remain where she is.
Up until the point things pick up like a trash bag in a ripstream. In hardly no time at all, the calm is replaced with a hushed conflict right at her chamber door.
With a snort, the horse moves to rise to her hooves and resettle matters. As soon as she gets her feet beneath her, however, D begins to shift.
A snore breaks off and turns to a sharp inhale, and she is quick to move her snout closer to his head. To lull him back down through the soft ruffle-tug of strands, until he drifts lower again.
Gentler, she puts her legs beneath her and separates herself from her charge. He stays put this time around. She wastes no more time in stalking over to the door and sticking her nose out to survey whatever damage might have been accrued in her delay.
You don’t hold onto him for long.
Just long enough to drag him a few paces out of the light of the stable door, the lack of light making the fact that this intruder was a %%%%%% nightlight all the more obvious. You almost can’t see anything else in the pre-dawn light. Can’t see any features beyond a silhouette and the almost circuit-like patterns radiating outward from the reflective lenses, knifing down a familiar face.
Hal.
Even if the color wasn’t a dead giveaway, he’d confirmed it himself.
Not ARquius.
Not Dirk.
A face Hal should not have.
“Jesus--robo-fucking-Christ--what the fuck was that for???” The teenager wheezes as you release him, stumbling a step or two, clearly unsteady, to put one glowing hand up against the wall of the stable. “I get it, mistaken identity is a bitch, Dirk clones hate the mere thought of each other, but you don’t need to try and fucking kill me.”
I don’t want to die.
Don’t you?
“Keep your voice down.” Cross your arms. Place yourself between him and the open door. You’d shoved him away from the open window, but voices would likely still drift through the open door.
“Like fuck I will!” The teenager snarls, taking one step forward, “Who the fuck even are you? If you were Dirk then maybe I could chalk this bullshit up to the mysterious revisionist quest Dashie was talking about, but you made it mighty fucking clear I was missing the mark there.”
“Hal Strider, would you modulate your vocal intensity just enough that we do not wake up everyone in a twenty mile radius???” Maybe it comes out frustrated, louder than perhaps you’d like it to, lips pulling away from chipped teeth into the ghost of a scowl, but %%%% it you’re reminded exactly how annoying you could be, “If you’ll take a look at the fu--sky you’ll note it is far from a polite hour to be walking into someone’s home and expecting a warm welcome--”
Sound. Hooves and a horsey snort.
“Oh yeah? And this is your home then? I don’t know, it looks like a fucking stable to me--” You could hear the windup for the interjection to take advantage of your hesitation, just as you can hear it get choked off. You are sure, given the way the lines distort, you’d be looking at a rare, momentary example of slack-jaw on your own face, should you be able to see it clearly. You look away momentarily, over your shoulder to the light filled entryway, and the unamused hoofbeast sticking her head out of the portal and casting you both the most chastising eye a hoofbeast could muster.
%%%%.
Incline your head over your shoulder. “It is not my home. It is hers.”
“That’s fucking Maplehoof.”
The quiet, awe filled statement from Captain Obvious makes you snort. Quietly. Softening your scowl because you likely know exactly what conclusions are being drawn from that revelation.
“Yes.” A sigh. “Yes, yes it is.”
The din in the dimlight is far from the civility she'd prefer to keep around her domain. Voices raised. Lowered. Both, as children take turns to take their parts and give their counters.
Luckily, it doesn't take much more than her presence to work to trod down the worst of the argument.
She casts her gaze out, judgmental, yes, but not as much warranted as it is fair. She takes in the scene and all it has to offer, from off-color and strange cast lights to faces mirroring each other in sneers.
Such sour expressions have no hold with her, however, and she is pleased to watch one such twist melt away upon locking eyes with her.
Less expected, however, is the utterance that follows. She flicks an ear, bowing her head in acknowledgement to a name she has not gone by in what has truly been a lifetime.
A breath blows itself from between lips and she takes another regal step, then two to be able to stick her face between the two.
A turn of the head, from one, to the other, delicate ribbon swaying along to the motion. A questioning huff and a gently demanding scrape of hoof against dirt.
Hal freezes like an antlerbeast in the floodlights as the matronly hoofbeast positions herself between the two of you. He’s barely paying you any attention at this point. Written off, what’s another Dirk clone (as he put it) in the face of what you’re implying. What she’s implying.
“Sorry,” You mumble, pointedly not at him, but at the matron whose repose you interrupted so rudely, doing your best to try and interpret what the demand entails, “This is Hal. Someone I know by reputation, if not by acquaintance. I have no fu--idea what brings him here.”
He shouldn’t be here.
No more than you should be. So shut the %%%% up.
A clawed hand finding its way into your hair and hooking into the strands. You’re not used to the extended length anymore, so you wouldn’t be surprised to find pinpricks of blood getting lost in pale hair thanks to hairline scratches.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve declined to give a name for yourself, not-Dirk.” He huffs, takes a step forward. And then stops. You track him mostly by the light being thrown off by those ridiculous patterns. Face. Shoulders. Hands. Hand being held out, carefully, palm up, in a mirror to your own horse girl moment weeks ago. Then pulled back with a grimace, shoving them into pockets made between this side and arms. “He is correct, of course. The name is Hal, ma’am ‘Hoof, even if I have no fucking clue who he is. Nor do I know why I’m standing here right now and not getting my hide cooked in a pool of poisonous sludge. I definitely did not expect to find Equestria on the other side, even if it’s guarded by a stuffy as fuck splinter.”
A pause. Waiting for you to bite, perhaps. You manage to refrain, of course, even as the heat begins to rise in your face and the hair twists tighter around the knot coiled in your fist. “If she’s here does that mean--”
You can’t see his eyes beyond the glass. Not even a glimmer. But you imagine they are flicking toward the door.
Christ. You can’t do this.
Shove it all back down.
“Yes.” You affirm. Responding. Emotionlessly. Almost robotic. A hiss, and you need to pry your fingers open to release the captive chunk of mane. “He is here as well. Presumably sleeping, since I doubt he would not have spoken up at some of the sh--things already mentioned. This stuffy splinter would prefer if you refrained from addressing that particular concept. Ever. Again.”
To attempt to gauge just how well horses comprehend human languages would be a monumental task. To somehow figure out if they can string a series of sounds together into a cohesive whole, or simply recognize certain words like a domesticated animal does a command.
Alas, the most surefire way would be to ask -- and while majesty knows its only bounds in the form of a finely muscled creature, they seem to lack the inclination to speak their piece.
It may forever remain a question unanswered.
Concrete communication skills aside, the once-more dubbed Maplehoof seems pleased enough with the change in overall tone to the conversation. Even if it may take a false start at first.
She snorts, tail flicking as the light-lined child begins to go along the same vein as before, then changes tracks to approach her instead.
Inclining her head, she goes to sniff at proffered hands.
Only to reel back with a surprised sneeze. Harsh scents tickling and tingling in her nose and causing her to take a reared step back, hooves clomping as they reconnect with the dirt.
It's hardly becoming of her renown, but at least she doesn't shove her snout to the ground to wipe the offending smell away. And she recollects herself rather quickly -- she was just caught off guard, is all.
And then she's back to her full height, looking between the two children and--
Nudging the one she's more familiar with back towards the stables. The one he should not have left at all.
As for the other...
She walks around him. Takes another step away. Turns her head to look at him pointedly and picks up one of her back hooves to put in front of the other when she flicks her head back forward.
You’re a little vindicated by the inadvertent rejection of the newcomer even as you worriedly step forward to check on her. Or to just. Hover. Uselessly. Afraid to actually reach out and touch her, as she endeavors to remove whatever scent offended her.
You don’t blame her. The teenager %%%%%%% reeks even with your puny organic olfactory vents. Given he mentioned something about poison, it’s probably not just the consequences of coming up in the kiddie pool.
Well, intended or not, the rejection does leave Hal stiffening even as he hides the offending hands away. He doesn’t respond to your statements. Not verbally at least. The body language does enough to tell you how uncomfortable he is.
Good.
It’s petty to think that, even as an expected nudge directs you back from whence you came. Given you were warned away from this action earlier in the night, you’re fairly certain a partial reason for her presence initially was to fetch you.
You don’t know his deal. If his situation is anything like yours you--
Christ.
The “Very well.” is directed to the hoofbeast, but instead of following you as you turn back towards the door she steps forward, away. Toward the other teenager standing rigid and alone in the dark.
You lean against the frame. Lips pursed with displeasure. But the implied order from one of such high esteem keeps you from following. A tug on your hair, nipped between tiny teeth, directs you back inside.
You deposit your tiny, nearly forgotten companion on the edge of the water trough, before folding your too small body into the space on the end. Shoulders hunched. Knees to chest.
Back to where you started and feeling a hundred times more sick than you started with, for entirely different reasons.
Clawed fingers dig into magenta fabric. Through them. Puncturing the skin beneath.
You don’t even want to look up at the presumably sleeping pile of D Strider. Because all you see is your precariously salvaged position crashing down around you.
==>
“Stuck up bastard.”
You scowl back at the lit door. Muttering. Hugging your burning hands to your side. The sensation crawls along your skin, nothing like the energy that normally--and still is--humming beneath the layer of epidermis. It--it doesn’t hurt. No more than your ribs do after you got all up close and personal with the door-frame and Mr. Stuffy’s deceptively strong grip--but the green shit is there and you can feel it. And you’ve had this body for long enough to know that it shouldn’t be like that.
You’re torn. You want to figure out the mysterious bastard’s deal. What the fuck had he meant by that--who is in the stable--how is this shit at all possible, after all that nonsense and bullshit you went through, did you actually fucking die?
What would that mean for the Dirk you may or may not hold captive in your own soul? Would he be free, or would even the slimmest chance you had of fixing that shit be dead as a doorknob too?
Somehow, you don’t think The Dark Scowl is going to offer you any life changing advice.
But, instead of following the not-dirk-who-looks-more-like-dirk-than-you-and-you-have-the-dude’s-body, you find yourself being beckoned forward by the shake of a head. Away from the building, and its single, bright window that had called you from the still darkness of the night.
What the hell. When in Equestria…
Dashie would be fucking proud.
Satisfied that the child - the shifting, lightless one - goes along to her will without much coercion, Maplehoof turns all her attention to the burn-light one.
She lets him have his grumbles, the lowered, moody tones that she has heard in so many different situations over the years. They may not always be preferable, but it's probably best to let it run than build up into an ever-thickening and congealing mass.
It'd have to come free at some point. Whether piecemeal or in a flood.
At least this is one grievance she won't have to pry from the roots by the grip of her teeth.
Judging by the smell that has neglected to wipe itself from her nose and she can't seem to shake now that she is aware of its hinted trails, she probably would not enjoy trying.
So instead of taking fabric in her mouth and leading the child by the arm, she walks. Slow and steady and at pace with the previously calm aura of the night. In no rush, and glancing behind her frequently to ensure the child doesn't go wandering off.
Grass crunches softly beneath her hooves, not quite dampened with dew and a breeze, seasoned with the weight of salt, rustles through her mane.
Skirting her way around the house, she meanders past star-sparkled water and large, lack-lustured sliding doors. Ignoring all else in her path, until the yard seems to narrow and gothic iron closes in. Petals and spike-edged leaves and pointed vines weaving their way through metallic gaps just as intricately winding and sharp. Whatever the true pattern of the gate once was has since been lost between the growth of dark-toned greenery.
After another cast look behind her, Maplehoof bows her head to take the latch of the gate between her lips, then lifts it to deftly slide it to the side.
The gate rustles more than it creaks as it swings slowly open, assisted by the nudge of her head. Hinges muffled and cloaked with persistently wound stems.
The view beyond it is at odds with the atmosphere of kittened gargoyles and thorny elegance, but is no less impressive. Sand glimmering and water licking at the beach, showcasing a dancing mimicry of the spotted sky above.
She steps gently, taking small stairs as easily as a ramp and into the sloping curve of sand, until the colors of earthbound stardust and midnight-inked water mingles where surf meets shore.
You’re following a horse.
And okay, maybe you’ve spent the better half of the last month with a sentient pony plush as your roommate, so you shouldn’t really find this strange.
But you’re still following an honest to god horse.
The lit up stable recedes behind you--yes you do give it a glance back. No you don’t see anyone, stuffy or otherwise, standing at the window or the door or whatever and you don’t know how to feel about that--and you gotta admit a guided tour via resident horse whose very image is etched into your databanks--seriously you could reach back and pluck out image after grainy image of your bro with his never changing companion-- is one way to see the sights. From quaint cottage stable to glimpses of chic modern furnishings through darkened glass windows, around the world to a fucking gothic-ass rose garden. It’s like someone couldn’t decide on an overarching flavor to stick with and threw the entire kitchen sink into the pot instead. Didn’t even stir it well enough to combine it.
Not that it isn’t...not that it doesn’t have a knot gagging your throat, when you look at all these things--least of all the horse, those things were long extinct by the time the miles destroyed what was left of the planet--and your common sense, no matter what color it is, is quietly keening that none of this makes sense--
Where is she taking you anyway?
If you lag, she slows to match, casting glances back to ensure your continued attendance. All it takes is for one flash of the soulful eyes beneath the fringe of pale mane to get your dragging feet moving again, even after they’re rooted to boggle at the light cast from your form staining wrought iron and thorns in an outline of bright red.
The gate, deftly manipulated between teeth and lips, drags you kicking and screaming back towards another landscape. The deepest of blues and blacks and glints of white shimmering as the waves tease the distant lights.
“I see how it is.” You manage to find your words, swallowing the lump as best you can without choking. The ocean breeze, no longer blunted by the enclosed walls, smacks some goosebumps up out of skin that likely shouldn’t be so casually turning green and numb between the red energy attempting to burn it away. “I’m getting kicked out. Do I really smell that offensive? Or is there just one Dirk-adjacent allowed in this Wonderland? There’s too many of us. Of course the trials would be fucking full. If that’s even what it was and I wasn’t just swatted off the mortal coil. Thought the whole god-tier bullshit was supposed to stop that.”
Maplehoof calmly watches when her follower reaches their destination at last. Who, after taking in the view, begins to talk.
The words themselves might be lost, but there's something in the inflection that has her letting out a soft snort. She takes a step closer, then looks out over the water once more.
Then, apparently as near as she feels comfortable to be near the permeable burn clinging to the child's skin, she lowers herself down into the sand and angles herself towards the tide.
Water licks at folded joints and she keeps a careful eye on the child, ever the watchful guardian minding a small one at the beach. Patient and mindful.
You let out a frustrated sigh when, of course, the horse doesn’t actually answer you. Aside from a dismissive snort, that is.
Now, that, you’ve heard before.
She isn’t Equidash. For all that your Bro’s own ‘hoof is an icon of legend, she is, clearly, still a horse. And that horse has given up on you and gotten herself comfortable in the sand.
“I mean, what else would this be about?” You just keep going anyway, “Clearly, I landed in the wrong place. All the rest of my baggage seems tied to the fucking ocean, I’m surprised I didn’t end up on the fucking bottom, buried in sand.”
Staying near the shore never works.
A step, and you sink. Dunes shifting. It casts you back. Searching. Foot sinking and tripping and landing flat on your ass.
Your skin crawls, the flow of the energy flaring, tied to your distress? Maybe. Fuck if you know.
Instead of taking to the water to rinse off and splash around as she expects, the child lets out a breath. Not small and relieved or deep and tired, but a heavy mouthful. Aggravation bleeding through clearer than any emphasized syllable.
The cause is lost on her -- perceptive as she may be, a lot of her insight was learned rather than simply innate. Years of experience to draw from, until she could herd her little foal even as stumbled steps and flighty flashes smoothed out into full strides.
She learned his tells. What made him upset, what soothed his worries back over, or what actions would lead to things resolving themselves.
Her best guess was that it had something to do with the miasma of baleful, burning stench that has plagued the child so. But, when faced with a solution, that hasn't seemed to help.
Well. Not yet. He has yet to cleanse his skin.
Perhaps all she must do is wait longer. It is difficult to lead others to water. And, if that fails, she could always lead by example -- even if it would be a shame to soak her pretty bow.
Her tail flicks at the small, prickly pests that reside in the sand, ears perking as she watches the child take that first step. Cool waters beckon invitingly to wash the irritants away.
She watches as the child over-balances and ends up in the water in an action far more roughly and abrupt than expected. A little flare reflecting through the rippling shallows.
Droplets splash up in her face. She shakes her head with a soft whinny.
It must be hard having only two legs. They are always so clumsy
Instead of your soulspace, where you’d fall and fall and keep falling until you hit the deepest trench available, coming face to face with collapsing buildings and broken glass--
You just end up with a splash of salty water getting all up in your face. The sky isn’t swallowed by an endless expanse of red, the wisps of clouds floating across the night sky back lit by a half-covered moon, dipping in and out of the dubious cover they provide.
“Goddamnit.” It comes out as a grumble, to yourself more than anything. You didn’t go far enough to be covered, but the sand beneath you continues to slip, and you find yourself sliding a little deeper, settling into a groove with the water up to your knees.
You get some payback, even if it doesn’t actually do much, by smacking surly’ly at the relentless waves. Watching the patterns on your skin play across the flicking peaks on the incoming energy.
“I don’t know, I don’t feel like shit’s gonna whisk me off to do my quest or whatever.” You glance back up the slope, to the pale horse who continues in her observation. “If I actually need to go diving into the trenches, I refuse.”
The knives burn hot in your hands.
Shit, you don’t even have Dashie or Fefeta here to spot you. You like to think you’ve learned some sort of self restraint after the number of stunts you’ve already pulled.
...at least the feeling in your hands is coming back. Slowly. You pull a hand out of the water and squint down at it, mentally nudging the color correction on your shades to filter out the glow.
Nnnope, still noticeably green beneath that red glow. But. Progress? You can actually feel the tips of your fingers rubbing up against each other, rather than the faint burn bleeding into a prickle of numbness.
Sucking in a breath, you throw yourself forward, trying to let the salt water wash that nasty, crawling sensation away.
It is truly a temperate and peaceful night. Where the air is lively and, while the water is not still, its ever-shifting surface does nothing more than pull itself in its comfortable routine of approach and retreat. Akin to that of a container gently tilted this way and that, such that its contents continue the remembered motion long after the rocking has stopped.
The kind of cautious calmness that only ever seems to come around after a long, hard, and tumultuous day. Wind ghosting itself through distant leaves like the sigh of one sinking into bed after hours upon hours of stress and hard labor.
But one must always be aware that the calm after a storm can just as easily disguise the precursor to another.
And while many, many creatures call the wide, blue oceans that span the planet known as "Earth" home, the sleepy, late-night atmosphere alone cannot account for the lack of fin, scale, nor pincher of such.
The closeness of the shore can only account for so much, especially as the ground beneath drops out below itself, and depths gradually make themselves known.
And, amidst the silt of where shell, pebble, and bone have been ground down and mixed to the point until they are known as one and the same, there lies something...peculiar.
Bright reds clash with bleachy, unnatural whites, nestled down in the aquatic graveyard all oceans' floorings could be considered to be. Pressed down, but barely covered by the current-shifted grains, as if recently placed down and forgotten.
It is fairly large. Inconsistent, jutting edges rough, sharp. Untouched by the erosive power of the scene it finds itself in.
And, perhaps the strangest part of it all, the occasional bubble that finds its way up from the mass to drift up, up, back into the open air.