…
A-ah, what a pleasure… I, throwing head back and shutting eyes, collapsed blissfully into a small swimming pool in almost human pose, putting fore legs onto the edge and resting my back against it. The hot water enveloped the thoroughly wrinkled body with pleasure, relaxing the tense muscles, as after a good comprehensive training, at the same time, however, reliably washing out of the body all the received tone and leaving in its place a slight drowsiness and bliss. Opening eyes, I dashed away the sticky mane from the forehead on my face and tried to make myself comfortable to not press down wings. Completely by accident, my gaze swept across my own belly in the perfectly clear water, causing to frustratingly sniff and hasten to remove gaze from the lower — or back? — part of the stomach aside. Why this glorified cover doesn’t work on the owner? Maybe I don’t have a desire to see it as well… I still have curiosity and interest in it, but… I’ve had enough, seeing it in the mirror. Feelings from it… It’s hard to portray it with words. If we try to look from the maximum technicality, then… Well, I’m not a spec, I won’t draw analogies, but… Organ completely differs from the human one, even though not so radically as I thought earlier. It resembles a noose by its form, and the locals mask it under it: “noose”, something like human “pussy”. Now “Put one’s head in the noose” sounds different, ay? Heh…The outer part of the mentioned organ was dark, like the fur, the inner one… I didn’t work out the courage to go further. My wings unfolded and froze even without going there, barely reacting at attempts to do something with them. About the rest, if we put technicality aside… I don’t fucking know! My head is still trying to figure this shit out, I don’t understand how to treat it. From one side — it’s not fatally, humans — and not just humans — live somehow with it? And it was fine, I think many of them even liked it… “This is how penis: it’s good when you have it!” “What do you mean by “have”? For example, I’m a girl. And let’s say, that a penis just occurs sometimes. Generally, yeah, that’s good.” I chuckled nervously, remembering this frankly vulgar quote. What am I supposed to do, when a question: “Your sex?” can cause a long stupor and shy: “I don’t know…” in answer?! Really, who am I? If I see a mare in the mirror — am I suppose to behave like a mare? Famous “relax and embrace it”… Or in another way — resist it with full force? Or… Do these thoughts even have fucking meaning, honestly? I’ve already changed, I’m not the same person when I first woke up in Equestria, and it’s only been… It hasn’t even been a month yet! Damn it… How long did it take to feel magic through the horn as a usual thing, to feel a floating spoon during a dinner as a boring normality? What about the armor? What about the body’s thoughts about damned Big Mac and equalogist?… Even this rugged memory made different me… Who lacks something important, some solid basis. Feelings for the unknown, associations, that lead nowhere, and ideals, based on the unknown — this is what I have left… New reality just has to fill the blanks and… Putting my hand to my heart: I won’t give myself more than fifteen years until complete and ultimate transformation into a pony-mare. In reality, I guess, it would be a way shorter… Of course you can resist your own body, but for how long?… No matter how I’m scared of this changed and no matter how I try to buy time, sooner or latter I’ll be just morally exhausted to live on “two fronts”, in a manner of speaking. Mind tires of fighting… But the body doesn’t care. Body doesn’t fight anything — it just functions as prescribed by the nature: casually produces estrogens — or what mares have? — usually grades males in the field of its vision in terms of being able to continue the family… This is like fighting fucking water. For my life — you cannot swim against the stream endlessly. Stronger will get tired later, softy — sooner, but the river… Yeah… Damn it… Fuck this thing!… Stop your fucking break down! Just have to accept sexual identity as non-existing, the corresponding organs as a boring and an unremarkable standard, learn to treat all this with proper indifference. I looked down at my belly mechanically and sighed. Thought lost its persuasion very sharply. What a fucking situation I’m in……
“Well, have you met Bulk, dear?” Rarity greeted me with a wave of a hoof when I left the spa and came up under the sunshade of a cocktail bar, situated to the opposite where we had agreed to wait for each other after the procedures. “And how do you find this prominent stallion, m?” Unicorn played with her brows. “As a not bad spec.” I didn’t accept the joking tone. I don’t want to joke on this topic — and I don’t want to touch it at all. “Do you think as well, that he… M-m… Got a little bit carried away by the musculature? Muscular stallions are beauty, but you have to know when enough is enough, right? And His Serenity Prince Blueblood knows when it’s enough…” Mare rolled her eyes dreamily. “By the way, have you met him in the castle, Nightmare? Is he really so beautiful and well-built as on the photo?” “Haven’t.” I cut it off grimly. “And do me a favor: discuss stallions with someone else, yeah?” “O-o, you prefer to be naughty with mares, Nightmare?” Rarity smiled from ear to ear with some foretaste. “I prefer to be naughty with sharp iron, which goes perfectly into those, who like to get on my nerves with such questions!” I couldn’t hold it. “So many of nosy ones, damn you… First Applejack, now you…” “Sorry…” Swallowing nervously, unicorn drooped in a hurry.” Please, do not threat. It’s…” She falter shyly, looking clearly frightened at the same time. Goddam. “Start to think already, blockhead…” I swore at myself in thought. “I must be sorry, not you.” I stood up, got round the table, at which we settled down, hugged the mare with a bit of my wing. “Just… Well… Close relationship is… Is a sore point for me. And… Sorry, Rarity.” “Sometimes I forget who I’m talking to.” Sighing quietly, she shook her head. “I remember, when a single phrase thrown out would make my mane stand up in fright…” “Forget?” I chuckled with some irritation, that even I did not fully understand. “Do you know much about me to forget something?” Unicorn didn’t answer. I… Am I being too hard?… “Waitress!” I demanded into the space. After a brief pause, a pegasus in uniform ran up to the table, hesitantly crumpling and walking nervously at a distance from me and Rar’s table before, clearly not daring to approach herself. Now she has no choice and the winged one, losing courage desperately, came closer nonetheless. “Big chocolate cocktail. Rarity?” “Thanks, but…” “And a standard milk one.” “F-fine, miss!” Waitress ran to the bar. “Stop.” I nailed her to the floor with a singe word, casting a gaze at clearly upset Rarity. “Ice cream. With cream and chocolate crumbs, three… Four scoops. That’s all.” “Fine, miss!” Pegasus repeated and hastened to execute the order. “Again, sorry. I think… Well, I didn’t want to scare you.” I apologized to the unicorn awkwardly again, settling down on my place opposite to her. Damn, I always was a master of saying apologizes, yeah… “It’s nothing.” Rarity smiled faintly and, looking at me, hastened to look away. The only one who, besides Pinkie, hasn’t been doing so just ten minutes ago. “Rarity. Look in my eyes.” “Nightmare, I…” Designer hesitated. She didn’t raise her eyes. The mood, already not a shining one, went down to the bottom like a falling plane. The worst of it — I barely know what to do now. Rar just started to see me as someone better than “The evil Mare in the Moon”, but just one phrase, that was understood by her as a threat — a highly real threat — and everything went into a dumpster. Damned horses with their damned pacifism! There wouldn’t be a thousand originals among all the seven fucking billion people who would take it seriously! So seriously! And during the same time, her criticism, like she knew me thoroughly, was an unexpected and unpleasant blow to me… A heavy uncomfortable silence fell around the table, and when it was cut off by a shy voice of the waitress, I was almost happy about it. “Y-your order…” Pegasus muttered shyly, carrying a tray with the order on her back and, with help of wings, surprisingly skillfully put everything onto the table. “Thanks.” I nodded gloomily. “Do you have alcohol here?” “N-no.” She shook her head in a hurry. “Sad. Give me the bill, then.” “H-here.” Sweeping a gaze over the paper, I handed the marked number of money over to the mare wordlessly, which hastened to go away after that. Catching the high glass and, getting rid of the straw, I took a sip. A thick, cold liquid with a bright chocolate flavor melted inside, not lifting my mood even for an inch. I love cocktails, but now I drink them without any pleasure — even the pleasant taste did not help at all. Rarity picked at the ice cream reluctantly. “Think, that Tia spared my life for nothing?” I asked into the space. “What?! Of course I don’t!” Unicorn almost jumped. “Her Highness…” “But I sometimes think, that she did it for nothing.” I interrupted the interlocutor, fixing unfocused eyes at my glass. “Bu-ut…” Rarity lost courage. “Sometimes I get the feeling that this world… is not for the ones like me. It doesn’t want to accept the ones like me.” “I think you’re wrong, Nightmare.” Unicorn answered after a minute and a scoop of the ice cream. “I think, that it is you, who doesn’t want to accept the world, not the other way around. I understand — many things have changed, it’s uneasy, but…” “Explain yourself.” Tia, as I remember, told me something similar… But then it was about me, having a hard time believing in the reality of the world at all. I was believing, though… But, it’s like I didn’t want to or… I don’t know. I knew I’ve got here, but didn’t want to accept it, I guess. And now I accepted it, didn’t I?… Yeah, most probably… Of course it was clear, that there’s no way back, but… A-a… Well, I live here further — and that’s all. Because of no choice. But what meant Rar? “It’s like you push others away intentionally, for example.” “What do you mean?” I didn’t get it. “They run away from me by their will, putting the tail between the legs. Knowing my created reputation here — it’s not a surprise. And you perfectly remember our first trip to the spa and how you were persuading Aloe to go out from under the table.” I chuckled. “And also I remember you, standing near and grinning evilly from ear to ear instead of acting and helping poor Aloe!” Rarity casted a harsh gaze. “I apologized.” “Because I told you to! Answer honestly, dear: would you apologized yourself?” “You see, I don’t make choices for the others — should they be afraid of or not. Everyone has a head on his shoulders. Mature ponies can choose for themselves — to go under a table or invite me to a spa. So no, I wouldn’t.” “So, according to that logic, it’s not your fault that you scared me ten minutes ago, because you threatened me, it’s my fault because I was scared?” Interlocutor gazed at me for the first time during the conversation. Prickly and critical gaze. “What answer would satisfy you?” I looked gloomily in answer. “I wasn’t going to scare you, demonstrating my… My dislike to the topic. I’m surprised, that you took it to heart, I didn’t want it.” “Surprised?!” Rarity started to gasp from indignation. “I asked a question — you said, that you beat those, who ask such questions! Thereafter!… Maybe, I really know you badly.” Mare interrupted herself and looked at the glass with cocktail darkly: ice cream is no more already. “There’s no one, who knows me well…” I dropped sadly. Everyone who did come to my… To my funerals for sure. There. I, sighing, looked around. It seems, that our conversation on a bit elevated tones wasn’t short of attention… “Nothing to do?!” I asked surrounding idlers grimly. Everything came into a motion, ponies hastened to feign being busy. “Abyss forbid, I’ll hear gossips about that…” I promised loudly into the scape. Moving shifted into high gears. Rarity casted a condemned gaze at me and, shaking head displeasedly, got back to the cocktail. I followed suit: there’s still a few small sips in my glass… “Thanks for the food and drinks, Nightmare.” After a couple of minutes, Rarity thanked me, impeccably polite, but noticeably chilly, as she set her empty glass aside. “I hope this ice cream wasn’t a lot worse than from Cloudsdale?” I smiled with my lips only. Whether I am right or not, but Rarity’s disappointment was… Unpleasant. A stupid feeling in my chest says, that it’s me, who is not right, but why should I? “Everything is great, thanks.” Mare smiled like for a protocol, causing me to cringe in thought. “Okay.” I nodded. “So… Is our agreement still valid? Or would you either choose to sulk more, even though I apologized?” I didn’t hold myself. “I’m not sulking!” She answered in a lady’s offended tone. “Agreement… Is valid. I’m not going to go back on my word. Let’s go?” “Let’s go.” I raised from the table and moved towards the exit. “Nightmare, sorry, but didn’t you forget something?” Rarity’s question caught up me. I gazed at the table, at my bags. Everything is on its place. I paid the bill… “No.” Rar, looking at me again, shook her head judgmentally and, putting a few coins onto the table, hastened to join.…
“A break?” I shut my eyes. Horn tingles, neck hurts a bit… “Yeah.” “Okay. You can take something to read over there if you want to, or, for example, get down to the store to look something you may be interested in. I have to get back to my order.” Rarity hastened to focus at the marked dress-pattern. I, warming up neck cautiously, left the workshop wordlessly and entered house owner’s bedroom, which was opposite to find something “to read”. Rar was still sulking and was not ashamed to show it, keeping a deliberately cool demeanor, but she still practiced telekinesis with me, as we had agreed. Practiced, in my amateur opinion, not bad, even though without glowing enthusiasm. I just couldn’t understand why her treatment hurts me so well… It wasn’t on purpose, I apologized, Rar didn’t take her word back and started to teach me… The logic goes: the question is over, but the demonstrative Rarity’s sulking at something unknown should have meant for me nothing if this unicorn does what she promised to, but… It should have meant nothing, but it means something. It’s unpleasant to feel her grievance. Something is gnawing… I took a thoughtful look behind my back. I can’t understand what’s going on with her, but I will have to in any case, but later. The signs are clear — it’s better for you to go away and be under the radar for the next half an hour… Fine. I came up to a small bookshelf, looked at the backs. “The Love in the Hight castle”, of course — a local classic of an adventure loving melodrama after all, “Kiss through half the world” — all three volumes, “Love and stars”, “The Prince’s Chosen”, “Wings of lust” — five volumes, “Pony for me”, “A wing and a heart”… I remember my rather big surprise, when I saw Twilight reading it. Then, however, the unicorn, scarlet as a Soviet flag, hiding the book behind her back, explained confusedly that it was only to get acquainted with the material, to know what the readers want, and she herself, of course, is not interested in anything like that, she is a serious mare, a scientist and it’s not allowed here because of her rank… The only things I had to do were smiling, nodding and trying to not burst into laughter. However, she was right about something: the books of this genre in her library were, I think, probably the most popular — more than once I heard the unicorn’s sad refusal in giving them out because all three or five copies had already been dispersed among those who wanted to read them. After that, as a rule, she offered to take something similar, which, if there were several visitors, often led to a discussion of the plot… So I, to my own surprise, had an approximate idea of what the book was about even by just reading the title. Looking at the backs again, I chuckled, meeting a something known title: this one was read by me. “Ponies and love”, and against its name, it wasn’t a regular melodrama, but real stories of relationships. Written in the style of a collection of interviews by a team of co-authors, it was read by me for a better understanding of pony society and exposed that society to me from a slightly different angle than I was used to. And from this angle it seemed like a freaking brothel! Relationships here, yeah… We-e-ell… I sighed. I may not remember my parents anymore, but I can remember the feeling and relationships in the family. Such relationships, that I’ve been respecting as an ideal all my life. And the locals with their approach to the matter cause… Bewilderment. Herds, same-sex marriages, cross-species marriages from griffons to dragons… Generally, local morals are even wider, than in the Netherlands, for example. Here, in the book, a stallion’s story: pregnant wife comes to him with another mare and says, that she found a lover for him, for his entertainment… “And don’t worry, I slept with her a few times, she’s not bad in bed…” But it’s okay, not the greatest example. The greatest one is another stallion’s story: wife comes, says, that she found a lover. A beautiful pony, and his wife too… Here’s the address, come to them as well, spend a night, get acquainted. If you like it — we can create a combined herd… And… What the fuck?… Crazy horses… And the strangest of this is the fact, that such news from wifes and husbands are not treated as something bad! Only hushing it up causes questions, but if a husband said to his wife honestly, that he’s found a lover… Well, if the wife says something against it — you must, of course, tone it down, but if she doesn’t — no problem at all. It’s some absurdity. An the most interesting fact is that during such free relationships ponies somehow managed to wash their dirty linen at home and keep outer pastoral and modesty… Nah, every was more adequate back home… “And the gender was more familiar.” I remembered the today’s rest at the swimming pool with a gloomy sigh. Damn it… Okay, fine. What else is here?……
The next thing, that Rarity suggested to practice, when she called me to continue, was fine manual skills. If you can say so about the telekinesis… M, fine manipulation skills, yeah. Initially, the unicorn tried, despite my desperate resistance, to do a dictation, but, after looking at the result and taking honourless casualties — two quills — she thought it was too early for that. She squinted, though, with suspicion — did I do it on purpose. I didn’t. I tried hardly, and I said it to her. I don’t know if she believed it or not. In general, as a result, I got a pencil and an offer to draw something, preferably with small details. The usual chains and volumetric pluses from school were written quite confidently, even in spite of the absence of the usual “checkered” layout on the sheet — it was much easier with a pencil, and I got used to it much better than to a quill. When I had finished drawing another geometric abstraction, I pushed the scribbled sheet aside and picked up a fresh one. What to draw?… I wanted to try to depict something more substantial, more simple things come out without much difficulty… I raised my gaze and, looking for inspiration, looked around the room. Opposite to me, narrowing eyes behind glasses, biting tongue and working with a few pencils at once, Rarity was working tensely. There were cabinets with boxes of buttons, clasps, and other accessories, racks with rolls of fabric, a sewing machine, a mannequin — a ponyquin in the local vocabulary — something like a drawing board, but with with sketches and concepts pinned to it on buttons, a clock was ticking… I looked at the dial thoughtfully. How long have I been here? Not about Rarity’s place, but generally… Three-ish weeks, I guess?… After two or so relatives will come to the funerals, it’s been 40 days when I… When I died. Died there. And the fact, that I’m here, alive and almost healthy — and no one of them will ever know about it… Unfair! It’s okay for me: I lived with sins and died ridiculously, but why they must suffer? However, life is used to be an unrighteous piece of shit, let’s face it… Just remember in which body I live now… I sighed, lowering my eyes to where the pencil was rustling on the paper, obeying my horn and almost automatically drawing the outlines of the pony’s head on the paper with precise, professional movements. If fate had forced me earlier, on the Moon, when Nightmare was… Alive — maybe, I would have been able to help her? We would have had to share this body, but… This is where I would have been and nothing you can do with it. When there’s no one to rescue, the only thing that remains is to avenge for the unknown poor mare, which, likely gave a second life to me exactly by her death as a rational personality… Muffled sob aside of me caused me to shiver and got me back into reality. Rarity stood near and looked at something at the table, tears were running down the unicorn’s cheeks. I followed her gaze and shivered again: from the sheet, on which I was drawing someone mechanically while in thought, stared… Nightmare. Not me. The one, which is on the Moon forever…. Stared with desperation and dread in her wide-opened eyes, her mouth opened in a voiceless scream and… Skin, that flows down her face like liquid wax, under which white bones of the skull could be seen. “Six hundred years of loneliness. All-embracing and absolute. And Nightmare understood, that her personality was disintegrating, felt, sensed that disintegration!” My own old thought came up to the surface in memory… Felt. But couldn’t do anything with it, no matter how she tried… Forcing my gaze to look away from the scary picture, I, swallowing lump in my throat with force, turned the sheet upside down swiftly, but it stuck in memory and continued to be before my eyes. They were all well remembered, drawings from the Moon. This is a third on this topic… Nightmare loved to draw. It diverted her at least for a bit… I shook my head with force, biting a cheek at the same time to get rid of the obsession. I almost “dove”… It’s was a mistake to behavior in such manner with Nightmare, blue ass scumbag. I won’t forget this, you bastard, you hear me?! “N-nightmare…” Rarity panted, lifting tearful eyes at me. “I was screaming, begging her to return until I lost my voice.” I said, fixing a thoughtful gaze at the upside-down drawing. “One small problem: there wasn’t a sound that could be heard on this damned Moon.” Looking at the end of the pencil for a few seconds in some obsession, I, shaking head, stood sharply, dropping it onto the table and, exiting the room, went down to the first room, trying to get rid of the feeling, that I can’t get enough air. As I walked to the unoccupied — as a show-case — window and froze in front of it, looking into nothing, I suddenly realized, that I was holding something with my telekinesis. The picture was seen in the grab, no idea when I brought it with me. Somber, repellent… And at the same time, you cannot force your gaze to look away… Shivering, I folded the sheet double hastily and, freezing for a few seconds with a thought to rip it, put it into the bag anyway. You feared to remember things, that Nightmare had been creating on the Moon? Here it is, in your bag. With all the emotions, that were put into it. A piece of the Moon here, in Equestria. Hard time running away from the past, yeah? Because you cannot run away from yourself… I chuckled nervously.