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Bedbound (And Beyond)

by Cackling Moron

Chapter 20: Forever

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“John.”

Who the fuck is John?

“John, wake up.”

Yeah John, wake up so I don’t have to be collateral damage to whatever it is you’re doing. And who’s shaking me?

“Come on John, you can’t stay on the sofa all day. It’s breakfast now.”

John was on the sofa too? When he’d come in?

Oh yeah. No, I get it now.

Groggy, I opened my eyes. Things were blurry but I could immediately see Twilight stood over me, hind legs either side of my ribs as she shook me by the shoulders. Guess the wings helped with balance on that one.

My brain caught up. Yes. I’d been here on the sofa. Twilight had come in, fallen on me, fallen asleep. I must have nodded off again too. And now here we were, me blinking up at her, her lopsidedly smiling down at me.

Weird, I’d kind of expected her to be more high-strung about the whole thing, but she looked pretty chill. Well that’s nice. I like chill.

“Just resting my eyes,” I yawned, stretching. The stretch was enough to upset Twilight’s footing - hoofing? - and she had to leap back into the air flapping.

“Sure you were. Like I was ‘resting my eyes’ next to you. Come on.”

Next to? Guess she rolled off in the night. Probably for the best.

I blinked some more and the room came into better focus, as did Twilight. Something caught my eye.

Some ink had transferred from my fingers and onto her ear. Must have been from when I was messing around with that quill and when I, uh, messed around with her ear.

I decided not to point it out. She’d find out sooner or later.

“What were you drawing before I came in?” She asked, snapping me back to the moment. Again, this took me a second to figure out, then I just grinned.

“Anatomical diagrams. And a robot, I think.”

She looked back at the paper, turning her head to the side and frowning.

“I see,” she said, plainly not seeing. Drawing had never been my strong suit. This I was fairly confident about. That, and she probably didn’t know what a robot was. Why would she? Twilight then looked back to me, smiling again. “Breakfast?”

This was a capital idea. I approved.

Breakfast today was a lighter affair. Turns out there was a slightly smaller dining room that even had an attached kitchen and so me, Twilight and Spike ended up in there and looking after our own meals. Who’d designed this place?

I ate oats. I am a fan of oats. Maybe the ponies really were rubbing off on me!

Probably not though. Oats are just great.

“So what are you doing today, Spike?” Twilight asked, picking away at her food. Spike sighed, as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

“Yesterday I organised my graphic novels according to alphabetical order - of the author, obviously - but thinking about it that’s not the best, too much scope for confusion. So I’m going to go through them by genre instead. And sub-genre. Should take all day,” he said.

I could not tell if he was bullshitting or not but Twilight seemed to accept it readily enough, turning to me.

“And what about you, John?” She asked.

“Me?”

Think, think. Don’t just say you’re sitting around with your thumb up your arse.

Oh! There is something!

“Rarity,” I said. “I’m going to pop in and see her. See how she’s getting on with the stuff she wanted to make for me. Enjoy this view while you can because later on today you may well be seeing a man with trousers.”

And underpants. But they didn’t need to know that part.

“Ooh,” said Twilight, playing along. For this I was grateful. Spike just looked at me like I was a crazy person.

“The clothes thing is weird. Sometimes, sure, but every day? That’s weird,” he said.

“I’m a weird guy,” I said, shrugging.

No-one leapt in to dispute this. Thanks for having my back, guys. Twilight even smirked at me!

“Well, I’m done,” Spike said, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm and leaping down from the table, carrying his crockery. “Better get started, got a lot to do.”

On his way out of the room he paused, peering up at Twilight before gesturing to his head then to hers with an itty bitty claw.

“Twilight, you got ink on your ear,” he said, carrying on on his way without a backwards glance. Twilight’s ears flickered and she tried - and failed - to look up at them.

“I do? How?” She asked, utterly baffled, turning this way and that and achieving no greater success.

As engaging as this was to watch, it was my cue to leave.

“I better be going too,” I said, sidling out of my seat and hurrying to take away my bowl rinsing it out in the sink of that dinky little attached kitchen and then beating a hasty retreat.

Twilight was a smart girl - trying to look at her own ears withstanding. I wasn’t going to stick around for her to figure it out.

Did have a quick shower before I left. Seemed like a good idea to me.

Pony showers were, uh, not made with my proportions in mind, but needs must. You’d have thought the guest wing would have had greater accommodations for unusual sizes, given that ponies apparently shared the planet with a host of other mythical junk, but no.

Needs must, as I say. Crouch down and scrub, motherfucker, and don’t break a hip when your leg gives out!

Thankfully I didn’t fall over in the shower and got clean and dried without incident, heading out into another day of glorious Equestrian sunshine to go and see a lady about some pants. And other things.

Rarity was in fine form - glasses on, hard at work. Very happy to see me, too. Did some weird stepping-up-on-her-legs-to-peck-me-on-the-cheeks greeting she’d demonstrated an immense keenness for. I tolerated this, because why not? Still weird though.

“You’ve arrived just in time, darling!” She said.

Well, I always knew I had to be good at something. Though really, anyone can be good at timing. It’s not hard if you don’t count the times you fail.

“Only because when I popped over yesterday the place was closed up. Try enough and it’ll look like you succeed! Even I can do it!”

See, that kind of thing would probably have earned me a rebuke from Twilight or Celestia, but good old Rarity didn’t even notice. Something quite relaxing in that, I found.

“Oh yes, sorry about yesterday. Something came up, as it so often does!” She said, flouncing, hair flicking.

“Anything interesting? Twilight said something about a monster?”

“Frightful business, I shan’t bore you with it - not when there are far more important things!” She said, trotting off and out of sight to grab what she’d been working on, leaving me unsatisfied.

Guess I was never learning about that monster, huh? Ah well.

The fruits of Rarity’s labours were, by my estimation, glorious. This might just have been because I’d spent the last week and a bit variously naked or draped in form-smothering cloth, but a vaguely human-shaped set of trousers, pants and a shirt was wonderful.

Sure they didn’t fit exactly but for someone working for an entirely new species in bare days - in between actual work! - they were amazing! And roomy!

“I was wrong before, Rarity, this is the best day of my life,” I said, turning in front of the mirror to get the full experience. That the new clothes were actually quite subdued and minimal on the gems also helped, because you can’t be fabulous every day.

“You’re just saying that,” Rarity said. She was fishing. She knew it, I knew it, but this was the game.

“Okay, I am,” I said, waiting just long enough for the words to register before delivering the coup de grace: “It’ll only be the best once people see me in this.”

“Oh you!” She said, flapping a hoof at me.

“No, you!” I said, flapping a hand at her.

Where did this side of me come from?

My lack of shoes remained an issue. How it hadn’t really stuck out to me so far was anyone’s guess, but finally having proper trousers and a proper shirt of the button-up variety kind of made the sight of my nude feet peeking out all the more obvious. Well, all things in time. Maybe Twilight knows a cobbler?

At least no-one in Equestria has been laying gravel down. And I hadn’t seen anyone dropping Lego around. Yet.

I left Rarity’s feeling and looking fine, carrying the robe under my arm and no longer walking but now strutting. Maybe a little much, but how often does one get such a good excuse to indulge in a strut? I milked it!

Returning to the castle I dumped the robe in my guest room and then went off in search of Twilight, to show off how good I looked. This took longer than I might have thought and it eventually turned out she was in her own room, which I now knew the location of. A knock on the door and a short wait and I was in.

She was in there, sat on the bed, who could say why?

I entered like the towering colossus I am, setting the cane-stick thing by the door. I’d initially forgotten it at Rarity’s when I’d left there and had had to double back to get it. It was worse than having an umbrella.

“Check me out. Check out this fly motherfucker,” I said, spreading my arms. Yeah I was chuffed. Back in clothes, son!

Twilight looked appropriately impressed.

“Very nice,” she said.

“I know, right? Rarity really came through for me. Such a nice lady! You’re all such nice ladies!”

This was true.

Something about Twilight looked a little off. She had a bit of a stare going on, just gazing into space.

“You look a little shaken up,” I said. It took a second to sink in and when it did she shook her head, blinking furiously and blushingly lightly.

“I looked at the book Luna lent you,” she said.

Ooh, tantalising.

“Oh?”


“Yes. The cover says it’s the first volume of the translated tales of Biskuti ya Bahari, a very famous and very old example of classic Equestrian literature. Very, very old. Carved on tablets old.”

That was pretty old.

“Sounds fancy,” I said.

“It would be. But, uh, that’s just what the cover says. It’s not the first volume.”

“Oh?”

“It’s the sixth volume. Someone switched the covers, it looks like.”

I’ve heard of worse things happening. Certainly didn’t explain the thousand-yard stare she had going.

“Does that sort of thing usually shake you up?”

“The sixth volume is a nine-thousand page epic erotic poem dedicated to a fortnight-length session of lovemaking between two gods.”

I blinked.

“Wow. That’s, uh,” I searched for a word to sum that up. I came up empty. “Wow,” I said again. That would have to be a hell of a lot of tablets. Suddenly the book didn’t seem so bad to be lugging around.

Twilight apparently couldn’t think of any good words either, as she went quiet. I filled the void:

“Do you - do you think she meant to give me that?”

Seemed a pretty important question to me. Twilight gave an emphatic shake of her head.

“I sincerely doubt it. I think Luna must have thought she was giving you the first volume, which is a wonderful piece of literature, if a touch antiquated. How the sixth ended up inside is anyone’s guess.”

A pause. I had some ideas, but it wasn’t what I was concentrating on right that moment.

“Nine thousand pages?” I repeated, aghast and a little awed.

Surely they’d run out of words! The world only had so many synonyms and adjectives!

“They had less to do in those days,” Twilight said, by way of explanation. I didn’t buy it.

“Except fuck,” I said and grinned as I watched her ears flick. She’d got the ink off, I noticed. Phew. Dodged some kind of bullet there, probably.

“Well, uh, maybe?” She said, shifting on the bed.

“You think they’d get sore after the first week...” I said, stroking my chin.

“Okay! Alright! Well that happened.”

Twilight was blushing so much I could probably feel the heat coming off her face if I’d held my hands up. This made it all worthwhile. I went a little further:

“Is it, you know, a tasteful epic erotic poem?”

“It’s very detailed,” Twilight said, in the voice of someone who’s seen some shit.

“Do you want a hug?” I asked, spreading my arms again, expecting a ‘no’ or just a look. Instead I got a nod and she spread her forelegs. Well, can’t back down now.

I had to sort of kneel by the side of her bed to get on the right level, and this wasn’t much fun with my leg deciding that now was the time to start acting up. But I got through it. Getting down is easy anyway, and getting up was a problem for not-right-now.

This was more of a proper hug of the kind I was used to. Not the weird waist-height ones the ponies sometimes threw my way. Or the falling asleep on me kind, which was more like dozy cuddling. This was closer to the proper, better hugs of people of similar height. Like me and Celestia. You know? Good hugs.

And Twilight was so little! I didn’t want to seem like I was enjoying the whole thing too much because she might take that as being a bit weird, there was just something so lovely on a base level about it all. Soft and warm and little and lovely. That was her alright.

“Feel better?” I asked, to maintain at least a facade of this all being in good fun. She said nothing but nodded, face pressing into me. Guess that answers that?

And as this went on I wondered about the book. Well, not really ‘wondered’ so much as grinned to myself as I thought about it.

Whoever could have swapped the book out? Who’d have the access? What sort of white-furred, be-winged lunatic would go to the effort of doing such a thing? What celestial fiend could possibly think it was as funny as I did? What wheelchair-flinging, sneaking-up-on-you-just-to-see-you-jump maniac would even consider it?

Who indeed.

The hug broke more-or-less mutually and I fell back onto my haunches, considering how best to get around to standing up again. Twilight still had some lingering blush going on, clearly from the discussion about the saucy book.

“Say Twilight, you know Celestia, right?” I said, gritting my teeth as I squeezed my calf.

“Yes?”

“What can you, uh, tell me about her?”

This didn’t seem to have been what she expected but this was Twilight, after all, and if it was about telling someone something she was down for it.

“Well, what do you want to know?”

“Oh I don’t know, anything really. Just want to know a little more about her is all.”

Please don’t ask why please don’t ask why.

Luckily for me, Twilight seemed so enthused by the prospect of answering a question that she entirely skipped over the ‘why’ of why she’d been asked in the first place. This was good, as I didn’t even really have an answer. Just a kind of urge to know more.

Would I like to know more? Yes, yes I would.

Twilight rubbed her chin with her hoof a moment or two before throwing both hooves up in the air.

“I don’t really know where to start!”

“The beginning?” I ventured with cavalier flippancy.

This she did not notice, settling in instead into her information-delivery mode.

What I got was more of a history and politics lesson than the keen personal insights I’d kind of been hoping for, but anything was welcome. Always good to learn more, after all. I listened intently, managing to stand up before too long and just pacing the room to keep from getting too stiff.

Was it weird, being in Twilight’s room?

Nah, we’re buddies. She’d say something otherwise.

“...and there’s raising the sun, of course,” Twilight said. This stood out to amidst the various other tidbits I’d been absorbing because, well, it was about moving the fucking sun.

“She moves the sun?” I asked and Twilight stumbled, her flow disrupted.

“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that - interdependent relationship, magical symbiosis and all sorts of things I’ve never even gone into! - but in simple terms yes,” she said.

I stepped over to the window and looked out. The world appeared not to be ending and indeed the sun was there, making its way across the sky. Just like all the other days I’d been here. Celestia did that? How? Magic? It was always magic!

“So this planet doesn’t go around the sun on its own?”

Twilight looked baffled.

“No?”

Sure, why not? Don’t get hung on the details or you’ll never get anywhere in life. Magical horses, a princess who moves the sun, another who can climb inside your dreams - just roll with it. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and all that.

And besides, I can always ask Celestia about it when I see her.

“Right. Cool. Whatever. Continue,” I said.

She did so. A smattering of land reform. What a day court was. Galas. I seemed to be getting a more general barrage of information now, set against broader outlines of her reign. Reigning for a thousand years, a thousand years of peace and prosperity, a thousand-

Wait. Wait wait wait.

“Hey whoa, hang on, back up - did you say a thousand years?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“A thousand years. A whole thousand? More or less?”

“Yes?”

“And she’s been in charge the whole time? Moving the sun? Running the place?”

“Yes?”

“She - Celestia is over a thousand years old?”

“...yes?”

Back in the old days, when you were really pushing your beige-cased desktop to do something really complicated, you’d be able to hear that hard drive click and clacking up a storm. Pretty sure my brain was sounding like that right at that moment. If Twilight had pressed one of those ears up to the side of my head that’s what she would have heard.

Thousand years old? Celestia was over a thousand years old? That can’t be right. That’s got to be a joke. She doesn’t look a day over, uh…

I can’t actually tell how old ponies are by looking. Fuck, how old is Twilight just from looking? I know she told me, but looking? She could be anywhere from ‘not born yet’ to ‘dead’ I wouldn’t have a fucking clue. So what does that make Celestia?

Over a thousand years old, apparently?

No, no it’s fine. That’s cool. It’s magical horse land. That sort of thing is probably normal. There’s probably ancient horses coming out of every orifice. So it’s fine. I was saved and nurtured by a thousand year old magical horse and she’s lovely and we’ve become quite good friends quite quickly and-

No, sorry, I can’t bear that out. A thousand years! I’m barely a mayfly! A blink! Oh God she’s on a whole other level. This isn’t finding out someone is in their sixties when you thought they were late forties - this is completely fucking different!

What was she even doing with me? Why did she bother?! I must have been so boring! She must have just been putting up with me! Oh God! The things she must have seen! What have I seen? I can’t even remember what I’ve seen!

Oh God!

And she can move the sun!

Forget that she can move the sun! That’s fine! Moving the sun is something! That’s just something she does! She can also lift you with her brain so why not? She could be your age and move the sun, it’d be fine!

But it’s not that! This is a yawning personal divide! This is huge, yes? No? I don’t know!

How can she be a thousand years old? She’s so sharp! So funny! She didn’t act like it! Was this a joke? What has she done? She must have done so much! How much more than what I’ve done has she done? I don’t even know what I’ve done! And now I’m going in circles! What am I? What could possibly have kept her around me? Was she just humouring me?

Oh God!

“Uh, are you okay? You’re breathing a little unevenly there,” Twilight said, looking at me in alarm.

“Fine, fine, totally fine. Just need a sit down, that’s all. Just need-”

I found something to sit on just in time for my legs to give up the ghost and I collapsed heavily. Twilight’s bed creaked. Not made for the likes of me, I think, at least not so suddenly.

Come on man, calm down. It’s not that big of a deal.

Okay, well, it is. It’s kind of a huge deal. Someone hanging around with someone else who’s half their age is kind of unusual. Someone hanging around with someone who’s, oh, a fortieth of their age? If not more? That’s a cut above. The gulf in experience is unbridgeable, surely? Right?

And why do you care so much anyway? Age is just a number, right? Well, yeah, but after a certain point it also becomes kind of a huge gap demonstrating that someone has a base level of experience that is entirely different to yours. The past is another country, they say, so wouldn’t this make her from another planet? On top of the other dimension she’s already from?!

Or something. I don’t fucking know. What am I even saying? I’m getting a little lightheaded.

A thousand years! I’d be dead how many times over?

But no, no, it doesn’t matter. Why would it matter? Celestia’s lovely. She’s so lovely! She was real nice to me. And she smells nice. And she’s warm. And soft. Why would it matter?

It matters, jackass, because even though you know you’re meant to be thinking about her less you’re not and you’re just a twinkle in a gnat’s eye to her now, apparently, which puts her in a different league and you out of consideration. According to yourself.

Consideration for what?

Anything! Anything at all! Would you want to hang around with someone half your age? No! What common ground would you have? You wouldn’t meet halfway on sweet FA! It’d be like talking to someone in a different language!

Me and Celestia seemed to get on pretty well, as I recall. We had fun, I thought.

Because she was probably putting you on! Don’t you get it! She was probably being nice! Because she’s nice, yeah? And you were nearly dead. Weird creature not from round here, nearly dead, play nice with it, keep it happy.

But she didn’t have to do that. She has people for that. She didn’t have to do that at all...

“Are you really sure you’re okay?” Twilight said, close enough to make me flinch. She’d scooched across the bed until she was right by my side and was now looking exceedingly worried, a hoof on my leg.

Felt kind of squidgy. Celestia wore horseshoes. Kind of weird I only now noticed.

I took a deep breath. Thankfully, Twilight’s interruption seemed to have taken the wind out of my aggravating internal discussion. I could still feel it there though, ready to come surging back. The skin on my skull prickled.

I didn’t want to keep thinking like that. If I thought anymore my brain was going to eat itself. And besides, the longer that had all been going on the less sense I’d been making, even to myself. Most of what had just happened in my head was bollocks and was absolutely useless. All I’d done was make myself tense and miserable.

Just roll with it. You’ve rolled with everything else, why not this?

It’s a problem for future-John anyway. Fuck that guy.

“I’m fine,” I said, patting Twilight on the hoof. “Just having one of my moments. All better now. Thousand years, eh? Next you’ll probably tell me Luna’s two thousand years old or something.”

Make jokes! Jokes make it all okay!

“No, she’s younger. Not by much, but still. She also got banished to the moon for a thousand years so it kind of throws it off a bit,” she said.

I’m out of jokes. I don’t think I can top that. The moon? To the moon? Do I want to know more about that?

Well, yes. Just not right now. Now I need air.

“...can we go for a walk?”

The answer was yes. We went to a lake a little outside of town. Was very picturesque and tranquil, even so comparatively early in the day. Twilight asked me what was wrong and I insisted that I was fine and it was nothing.

Rainbow then appeared and buzzed us, which was less tranquil, but a pleasant enough distraction from whatever turmoil was happening inside my skull.

Author's Notes:

I have issues with immortal, old characters getting overly cosy with mortal, younger characters and have done my best to articulate some of this here.

I will now cheerfully ignore these issues because I can do whatever the fuck I want and I want a man to get cosy with an immortal horse lady. So this is just a blip, put here because drama and because it would be weird to me for him to just go "Eh, whevs". He does that enough already!

Cake? I have it, it is eaten and yet I have it still.

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