Psychedelica – Pastel Ponies
A pony story by Joseph Raszagal
As inspired by stuff best kept away from children
Chapter Two – Strange Second Chances

While the roaring winds had finally managed to die down, my eyes continued to spin wildly for several more minutes. Up was suddenly down, down became up, left was right, and right was left behind.

Long story short, I vomited.

“Keith Moon, eat your heart out,” I muttered as I went to wipe the puke from my chin.

Rather than my hand, a clumsy hoof smeared the chunks and bile further into my fuzzy beard.

Wait, beard?

I was certain I'd shaved my chin smooth earlier in the morni~

WAIT, HOOF?!

The second adrenaline rush in under 10 minutes hit my system like a bolt of lightning and had me standing up and alert in microseconds.

Fuzzy chin?

Not one, but four hooves?

Tail?

Last time I checked, and I'd like to think I would notice, I didn't have any of that.

“I'm supposed to be an old pro when it comes to drugs,” I monologued, aware of the fact that there were others in my company but a little too preoccupied at the moment to care. “I don't trip this hard. I'm a 26-year-old man. I haven't tripped this hard since I was in high school.”

Backing up steadily with each word, I soon bumped rump-first into something much larger than myself. Turning around slowly, my eyes met the magenta pair that had appeared before me from out of the darkness back in my room.

“While I'm not completely familiar with all of the colloquialisms, I do believe 'tripping' indicates hallucinations, yes?” asked the white horse as she wrapped her wings around me again.

A golden aura surrounded her horn and, all of a sudden, my fears just seemed to evaporate. Without any such effort on my part, my pulse slowed back down to a more reasonable rate and the rigid tension in my shoulders uncoiled.

With eyes as wide as saucers, I shook my head free of the remaining cobwebs and questioned, “H-how did you~

“Magic,” the winged-unicorn said with a wink.

Magic. Of course.

Well, she's a talking horse with a horn and a pair of wings, so why not magic too?

“Princess Celestia, was it?” I asked once I had collected my frazzled nerves.

There was more than a little apprehension in my voice.

“Yes?” she replied, her tone soft and maternal.

Screwing my eyes shut, I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat and said, “Can you give me a moment? Just... just a moment, alright? I need to think.”

“Of course,” she answered, her wings returning to her sides as she took several steps away and gave me some space.

Okay then, here we go. I said I was an old pro when it comes to drugs and, dammit, I most certainly am.

Taking in several deep and relaxing breaths, the taste of natural salt tickled my tongue after I licked my lips. Shifting my full weight between my new... forelegs, left to right and then right to left, I felt the pressure on my transformed ankles come and go with each shift. My ears, also changed, scanned the room around me like twin satellite dishes and picked up the gentle sounds of three others breathing.

“Psst, what's he doing?”

“Hush, Cadance. He is deep in meditation, sharpening his focus to better separate fact from fantasy.”

“Oh... well. That's... neat?”

“Shush.”

Grimacing in irritation, I quickly subdued the urge to smack the one called Cadance and continued with my self-examination.

A few more deep breaths brought to my attention several fragrances rolled into one. Freshly cut grass and clipped hedges, along with the smell of immanent rain, filled my nostrils brim. Spring was, quite literally, in the air.

“Hearing, touch, smell, taste, and sight,” I sighed, having a difficult time believing the words even as they left my mouth. “All five are accounted for. I'm... not hallucinating.”

“How are you feeling?” asked Celestia, clear concern in her voice.

Turning around to face her, I took in the curious sight of three pastel ponies as they sat patiently and awaited my response. The largest was Princess Celestia, whom I had already met. Sitting on either side of her, however, were two new faces. One was colored with the deep blues of a midnight sky, glimmering motes of light blinking and twinkling in her flowing mane. The other, pink and purple like a living piece of candy, sat with quite a lot less poise and patience than her peers.

“Confused,” I eventually uttered. “Very, profoundly confused.”

Narrowing my eyes, I quickly searched my dazed brain for something concrete to hold on to, something to function as a foundation for the rest of the conversation before I stumbled all over my words again.

“Your plight came to me in a vision while I was meditating over a cup of tea in my contemplation tower.”

In the end, my argumentative nature won.

“You've been... watching me?” I asked, my tone incredulous.

Looking downcast, Celestia flapped her wings in frustration and said, “I was hoping you might recover on your own, but clearly, if what we just interrupted was in any way evidence, things have only worsened.”

“You think?” I snorted, the two words practically leaking retained sarcasm.

Prepared to make myself look like an even bigger jerk, several colorful remarks already on the tip of my tongue, the loud slamming of a pair of doors echoed through the room and interrupted my frustrated thought process.

“I'm sorry, Your Highnesses, we couldn't stop her!” shouted what I suspected to be a guard.

“She put Silver Shield through a wall!” exclaimed another.

"I'm... okay..." sputtered a dazed third voice.

With a bubblegum-like pop, a purple pony around only half the size of the other three appeared in a festive flash of sparks.

“Twilight, I thought I told you to wait in the throne roo~

But Celestia trailed off as the small equine she was addressing stepped forward and faced me, eye to eye.

She looked like she had seen better days.

“You're... you're the one, aren't you? You are... you're the one I saw in the tower.”

Backing away again, perhaps a reflexive response of mine or something, I looked away and stammered, “Y-you saw me?”

“We both did,” clarified Celestia as she beckoned the smaller pony over to her with a hoof. “I was enjoying a cup of jasmine tea in my contemplation tower, showing my student here how I send and receive letters using draconic magic, when it happened. For a second no longer than the span of a single heartbeat, we saw through space and time and felt your pain.”

Left completely dumbfounded, my mouth hanging open and everything, I just sat there and let that explanation sink in.

Stars and stones, did I have a guardian angel or something?

“Tearing asunder the fabric of reality was no easy task,” spoke the midnight blue pony, her tone somewhat harsher than her peer's but no less compassionate.

“No kidding, I thought my horn was going to explode!” added the pink one with a giggle.

Scuffing at the floor with one hoof, Celestia's lavender student, Twilight, shook her head and questioned meekly, “Why?”

Why...

A great question that I really didn't feel like delving into.

As I struggled to come up with a half-decent excuse for attempting to kill myself, something that even a practiced lawyer would have trouble pulling off, Twilight piped up again, a sudden strength and energy behind her words as she pleaded, “I know it must have taken all of your courage to finally do what you just tried to do, but living is so much more courageous!”

Taken aback by the emotional outburst, I gritted my teeth and thought back on all of the bullshit I had put up with before deciding on taking the plunge with a noose around my neck.

Sure, suicide's sad, but it was my worthless life that I was throwing away. It was still my decision, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?!

“That's a lovely philosophy, really it is, but I don't even know you, lady!”

“And I don't know the first thing about you either, but do you know what? A long time ago, when I was a little filly fresh out of magic kindergarten, my teacher taught me to protect life whenever I found it in danger. Not for the sake of renown, wealth, or faith, but simply for the sake of life itself.”

Frowning in aggravation, I rolled my eyes and prepared a snarky rebuttal, but fell silent when she trotted over and sat down beside me.

Her eyes were wet.

Letting out a breath that I'd been holding in for a while, I hesitantly lifted a hoof and wiped a tear away as it slid down her cheek.

She'd said it herself, she had no idea who I really was… and yet here she was crying over me anyway.

Fuck.

“Look, it'll be alright,” I assured her as best I could, still more than a little uncertain myself. “It's touching that you care this much without having ever really known me or spoken with me before, it really is, but this is what I want. Life's... hard. Really hard. I tried and tried and tried for a good five years after high school, really gave it my all, but nothing ever worked. None of the colleges wanted me and, with the economy floundering between recession and depression, no one wanted to hire me either. I slept my way around the tri-state, tried to fill the void growing inside me with easy sex, but that didn't work. My social awkwardness sent most of the guys and gals running for the hills and all of the drugs and alcohol scared away all the others. I... just don't have anything left to live for. That apartment was all I really had left, and shit, that wasn't going to last very much longer either. I've been past due on my rent for months; getting kicked out into the streets became less a question of if and more a question of when. I dunno, I just figured that ending everything early would spare me some cold Decembers. I'd rather die dangling from a rope in my room than shivering under a pile of newspapers on a park bench somewhere.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the part reserved for taking stock of the current situation, I noted my sudden tiredness and lack of energy.

Oh, right. The adrenaline rushes.

“Twilight, I'd love to keep consoling you and apologizing for being such a selfish bastard, but there's some unconsciousness with my name on it,” I slurred just before slumping forward and doing what heroin typically makes you do.

Drool.

To be continued in Chapter Three – Kicking and Screaming in the Throes of Withdrawal...