Author's Notes:

As a man who makes arcs now - an ArcMen - I decree all of this waffling to be part of the "This wasn't a great day" arc, because he's not having a great day.

Also merry Christmas and all that.

Celestia’s lip are warm and soft a little fuzzy and they stay pressed to mine for what feels like a really, really long time.

Eventually she opens her eyes.

Again, time just seems to stretch. The breath from her nostrils is warm on my face. I can’t quite work out what she smells like. Seconds crawl.

Then the kiss breaks and she reels back. She doesn’t look too happy.

“That was, uh, hello to you too, Celestia,” I said.

Her face is going red and she can’t look me in the eye anymore.

“John! I’m sorry! I didn’t - I didn’t mean to-”

What? Really? Going with that one? You do that and tell me you didn’t mean to?

Even I’m not that dense, Celestia. Give me a smidgen of credit at least.

“Hey, it’s fine, there’s only so many ways I can read that, it’s fi-” I say. Or start to say, at least.

I didn’t get to finish.

“I was aiming for your cheek! You moved!” She said, cutting across me, sounding strained.

Was that true? Did it matter?!

Well, yes. Intent counted for a lot. I knew this. Coolly and soberly and rationally I knew this.

Irrationally I kind of felt like running around in a circle, but that wouldn’t be helpful, so cold and rational it was. Clamp down on that right now. Being reserved is important!

“Ah, well, you know, accidents happen,” I said.

As ridiculous as it was, giving her the benefit of the doubt was very, very easy. That probably said more about me than anything else to be honest, though.

Celestia fumbled for my hand, seeming to forget it was still holding my stick and so knocking it out of my grip as she took my hand in both of her hooves, pulling it towards her as he forced herself to look in my face again. Not in the eye, though. Just the face.

“John, really, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just - it was meant to be a peck. Friendly! Because we’re friends! I wanted to show that I care! About you!”

“I know you care, Celestia.”

This much was obvious. I could practically feel it coming off of her in waves, however that worked. I just knew it. A little something in the way she spoke to me, looked at me. It was nice - very nice, in fact. Part of the reason why I just kind of maybe want to be around her so much.

Quite what that had to do with a kiss is anyone’s guess.

And how did I feel about that again, exactly?

Her wing unwraps from around me and folds back against her. She’s gone back to not even looking at me and she’s let go of my hand. She even seems to be rocking a little, sliding out from my arm.

“Oh no, oh no I’ve ruined it. I’ve ruined it!”

Well it was nice not to be the one freaking out for a change. Although I say ‘nice’, this wasn’t really that nice at all. In fact it was verging on the horrible.

Today was rubbish - my brain was magically fractured, my memories are locked away and trying to get at them could kill me, getting home seems remote to impossible, the sun-moving celestial deity magical horse princess lady who saved my life kissed me in the wrong place by accident and now looks to be on the verge of tears.

Oh! Celestia! I get it now.

No, focus!

“Hey, hold on there nothing’s ruined, you just - well - well you missed, like you said. It’s okay, really,” I said.

I had no real idea what was happening or what the problem actually was - beyond random kisses, which I’ll admit was very weird but certainly not the worst thing to have ever happened to anyone - but assuring her that all was well seemed like a good first step to me.

Celestia apparently did not think so. Or just didn’t hear me.

“No, no! I went too fast! I should have waited!”

What in God’s name was she blathering about?

Hadn’t we been having a good time? What had I done wrong?

“Hey, come on,” I say, going for ‘soothing’ and moving to hug her. Hugs are good, right? Ponies like that sort of thing, this at least I’ve learnt.

She reacts like I’m coming at her with a sodding knife.

“No! No John it’s not fair.”

What kind of open-ended statement is that?!

“What-”

There came and went a blinding flash and I was left alone in my room, blinking away the afterimages and lurching from the sudden absence of who I’d been leaning against for the last however many minutes.

Teleportation. I’d forgotten about that.

“Well, shit.”

You know, kudos to me for being responsible in one way or another for driving off three magical horse princesses. That’s a feather in your cap, motherfucker. There was you thinking being led off for a private chat was going to end badly and now here you were, the last man standing. Well, sitting. Winner by default.

I had no idea what had just happened.

Well, I did, it was pretty obvious I’d been there when what had happened had happened and I’d been there for the buildup, too. There were just lots of little things that confused me. I mean, I’d seen her leaning in, and part of me had known what that usually meant, but this was different! It wasn’t meant to have happened! We were just having a cuddle and a chat! Ponies like cuddles! And I like chatting with Celestia!

Makes me happy.

But why’d she done that? The kiss, I mean. Cheek or not that was still a cut above, right? Wanted me to know she cared? I already knew that! Was I missing something? Obviously I am, but what!

Well I guess there could be one obvious thing that that’d be fucking crazy. So it can’t be that. Probably some Equestrian thing, right? They are a touchy feely lot.

But then why freak out? Oh I’m so confused. And then she vanished! She didn’t even go through the door! That has to be a bad sign! RIght?

Come on! Help a guy out!

Also, please stop thinking about the kiss. Stop trying to remember whether it was enjoyable or not. It was just a weird mistake and it won’t be happening again, so it doesn’t matter. I don’t care how good she smelled from that close. Shut up. Stop it.

Was my old life less confusing than this? Probably. Lucky bastard.

Leaning down I picked up the stick from where I’d dropped it.

The door to my room was ajar, I saw. Celestia sure hadn’t gone out that way. Was this relevant? Probably not, but it was something for to focus on that wasn’t what had just happened, so I got up to investigate.

There wasn’t anyone outside. What was outside was a cupcake. Just sitting there on the floor. Like it had been abandoned.

Well, obviously. Cupcakes don’t tend to go around on their own, so plainly someone abandoned it there.

What an odd thing to do.Unless cupcakes did just wander freely here. Maybe that was a thing? Pinkie would know about that.

No! Focus! Think about what just happened! It was important. You were involved, couldn’t just ignore it and hope it figured itself out. Needed to have an opinion on it, at least. So think about it.

Looking around, the room felt smaller. Oppressive, even. It somehow felt more cramped now with all three of them having left me than it did when they were all there talking to me. Perhaps it was their absence I was feeling pressing in on me.

And where the hell was Twilight anyway? She’d know what to do! And she said she’d get a snack, too!

No sign of her though. And I didn’t much feel like going off and looking.

I needed air. I needed to be somewhere else.

From the sound of things the party was still going on. I avoided it, slunk my way out of the castle, only getting lost once in the attempt which by all accounts was pretty damn impressive. And then I was outside and then I was off.

Not looking back and only barely looking where I was going I headed in what I knew to be the way to the lake me and Twilight had gone to. Ah! Back when my own life had been simple! John’s life, that is. The only life I have access to for proper reference material.

If anyone noticed me hobbling off they didn’t make a deal out of it, and once I was out of Ponyville proper I felt it safe to look up again. I was alone, and this was good.

There was a couple of trees by the lake and I sat beneath one of them, grunting as I levered myself down, leg stiff. Once down I shuffled so my back was to the trunk, laid the stick by my side, laced my fingers in my lap and stared straight ahead.

Think. Like a regular person! Focus on how recent events have made you feel.

Felt a little like I was being pulled in a couple different directions at once.

Heh, pulled apart by horses. Appropriate.

I laughed aloud. Perhaps a touch more manically than I might have intended, but it just slipped out that way.

A man who can laugh, if only at himself, is never really miserable.

Important to remember that at times like now. Because I felt pretty fucking miserable, but I could laugh at myself, so I obviously couldn’t be miserable. I had to be something else. So it was fine. I was fine. I was totally fine.

Ah, fuck it. I am miserable. Celestia’s miserable, too. I could see that. Fuck knows what had been going in her head but clearly it hadn’t worked out the way she’d hoped, so she was miserable and me not really grasping why was a big factor in my own misery. Luna was off somewhere miserably sorting through her books and fixing them up.

Twilight was probably miserable too, wherever she’d ended up and for some no-doubt mystifying reason. Just a guess but it seemed a pretty fucking solid one to me. The whole world seemed pretty miserable right at that moment so why not?

The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don’t think they sing, they just screech in pain.

Still, you’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?

Ha. Ha ha. Ha.

I think I wanted to cry. Everything was too complicated and I had no experience to call upon that I might use to be able to break up the rushing torrent of things to think about. A little bit much.

Nothing was coming though. I sat there and stared into space and thought about what an overwhelming, crushing day I’d had but nothing came. Empty inside again. Always feeling like I’d arrived seconds after what I was looking for had just gone.

I don’t know what people want from me, really. I’m stuck here, now. A void that just-so happens to be walking around and talking to people. What do they expect me to do? Should I learn the accordion? Become the village sandwich maker?

If I could fucking remember some fucking detail about my life - my actual life! My old life! The one I’d been fucking living! The one that would have shaped an actual individual! - then maybe I could have come up with something! Could have had some precedent! A little experience to work off of!

But no! Nothing! Fucking nothing!

Just a heap of highly questionable, anomalous feelings about a horse goddess which are probably enormously unhealthy but are also at the same time supremely tempting to indulge in and a life stretching ahead of me wherein which I can do whatever I like without the weight of the past to hold me back.

Option paralysis is real and it is killing me.

Especially because I don’t know if I enjoy doing anything. What do I feel like right now? Right this second?

I feel like shit, first, but I knew that. I meant what do I feel like doing. What would I enjoy?

What do I enjoy?

I don’t know! I don’t fucking know!

Oh God no, another moment. I can feel it coming on.

I hate this. I really fucking hate this. Rationally, I’m golden. I can line up everything, I can take the sum-total of what’s happened to me and where I am and what’s available and I can line it all up and objectively evaluate it and come to a reasoned, logical conclusion.

And that conclusion is something like “I’ve got nothing.”

And I hate it because I can do this but I still feel like screaming and I don’t know why. I can’t work out why. I can’t fucking line that up and evaluate it. It’s just there in my head, this thing. I don’t understand it but I can feel it wanting to steer me, pull me off-course.

Which would matter more if I had a course, obviously, but I still dislike being tossed hither and thither by passions which are beyond my control.

Well, all passions are beyond our control by definition, really, but-

No! Stop fucking meandering! Think! Fucking think! Think about what happened, think about how it affects you and those around you, think about what you can do about it! Think about what you want to do about it!

In fact, that’s a good sidebar to this whole thing: What do you want to do?! At all?!

I stood up. I wasn’t sure why. I seemed to be breathing rather hard. That’d be the looming threat of another Moment. I looked down and saw how much the shake in my hand was getting to be and I felt a little bile rise in my throat and I fell back against the tree.

Settle down, settle down, sit down.

I sat down again. I close my eyes. I took some nice, deep, slow breaths.

You’re on your own, son. They’ll help you - everyone here will help you, you know that, they’re nice, they’re all so nice - but you’re on your own. You are on your own, you, emphasis on you.

No-one’s getting inside your head but you. No-one’s sorting that place out but you. Help is good but if the help is all you’ve got then it’s not help, it’s someone else deciding for you, someone else behind the wheel and picking out the decorations, and then what are you?

Well, then you’d be what you are now. Which is nothing. A void, remember? With bits and pieces of shit just tossed in for flavour. Whatever was left to you from what happened in your head on the way here. This cardboard cutout from parts unknown.

God that’s irritating.

If I was a depressed listless bastard but had come by it honestly then at least I’d feel less annoyed about it. I’d have had a life that would have brought me to that point. I’d have reasons I could think about. As it stands I’m listless because I’ve got nothing, not even good reasons.

Although I suppose good reasons are subjective. As with all things...

I’m a windsock! That’s what I fucking am! Empty and flapping in the breeze!

Need grounding. A little solidity. Gnothi seauton.

That’s got to be the problem here. Well, one of them. I have a lot of problems, here! But that’s the basis. Before you go off solving things - and especially solving whatever it is that’s making Celestia miserable - you need to know what you are and what you’re about, eh? Makes sense, eh?

God what a prick I sound. But pricks often have points.

Hah! Oh! I’m laughing again! Look at me go!

But fuck me who cares about me. Me right now, at least. I wasn’t anything. I was a gap where a person should be, and that gap needed filling in first. Once that had happened? Hey, world’s my oyster. But not before! Fill in first!

And I could do that. I was going to fucking do that.

John has to be someone, damnit, and I’m going to work out what he is!

Then you can kiss Celestia back next time!

Wait, no, no. Well maybe. No! Just - you’re doing it wrong!

Fuck it, I’m going for a swim.