Chapter 6: Jesse
"Hey, Composition," Jesse started with a smile as soon as she saw the gray Earth pony. "It's been a little while, hasn't it?"
"Hey, Sparky," Renown Composition smiled and waved, offering a brief hug before pulling back again. "I'm sorry it's been so long since I saw you guys. I… didn't think it'd take weeks to get my thoughts organized. I was just telling everypony else about what happened. I didn't mean to leave you guys hanging."
"It's fine," he said, his stallion waving a hoof of dismissal. "We've all been there. We're just glad to see you again, you know?"
"Thanks. I just hope it didn't come off like I was ignoring you guys. I'm really sorry if it did."
"Yeah, well, you should be," Agile Trace said with a little smile. "It was only about four days, but we definitely did think you were ignoring us, and now we'll never forgive you." She stuck her tongue out at the end of it, and Jesse rolled his eyes. Eliza was acting the same as usual. He still didn't get how Composition liked her.
To his surprise, and the surprise of everypony around him, the gray mare actually started to tear up. Composition scrunched her nose and turned away, a little sniffle escaping her. Eliza had apparently, for the first time, gone a step too far with her humor.
"Um, that– that was a joke," Agile said quickly. "We know you weren't ignoring us, obviously. Um, I'm sorry."
"Well it didn't seem very funny, honestly," the mare sniffed, wiping her eyes with her hooves as she gathered herself. Agile Trace cringed back a bit and flattened her ears, and Composition continued, "I don't mean to be such a mess though. I know you didn't mean it like that. It's fine."
"Sorry," the pegasus said again, a little bit quieter this time as she kept her wings close to her.
There was a moment of silence that started to brew, but Jesse broke it up before it could go on for too long. "So, uh, what have you been up to lately, Composition? Anything new? Outside of being a pony and technically getting a new liver, I mean."
She smiled again, but it wasn't as big as it was before. "Things have been good. I've just been clearing my head and stuff, you know? I guess you could call it a vacation in some ways. I don't know how good of a job I've been doing, but I've been trying my best. Writing and meeting new ponies and trying new things and stuff. Basically, I've just been trying to figure out how the heck to live in Equestria. I think it's been getting easier by the day, and I kind of like it here more and more as time goes on. Seriously."
"Yeah?" Agile started again, more carefully this time. "That's a bit of a change from when we last saw you. Are you still angry at the Evil Empress then?"
"I don't think so. I mean, spending time thinking it over, I kind of understand it now. It's still messed up that I was coerced, but I understand it now. I think."
"This is how it starts," Spell Master jumped in. "You go from hating Celestia to being okay with being a pony. Next thing you know, you're gonna be telling us all to jump in after you so we can become satisfied."
"Are you saying I'd just change my position on a whim?" Composition asked, almost accusingly. It stopped Spell Master in his tracks, just as it did Agile Trace before, and brought back the awkward silence. This time, nopony broke it for a long minute.
"Sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know what's going on with me," Renown Composition quickly apologized, flattening her ears as she spoke. "I shouldn't be snapping at you guys. I don't know what's gotten into me."
"Uhhh, are you okay though?" Bright Sky asked, unsure. "It's fine if you're not. We'll all leave you alone if you need. We don't wanna pester you if you're in a bad mood or something."
"I'm fine. It's fine. Sorry. Why don't we, uh, move past it?"
Move past it they did, and the snapping the gray earth pony did was forgotten about a while later. Composition seemed more like herself after that, although everyone was slightly more cautious about poking her. Especially Agile Trace, who largely toned down the usual teasing humor she did with Composition. It was an unusual sight for Jesse to see, but not bothersome in any way. He avoided thinking the unkind things in his head surrounding it.
The group walked around the town while Composition talked about her time away, which seemed to involve trying her best to make friends with the ponies that Celestia created, as well as see distant parts of Equestria. She said it had been a few months, and talked about the sights she'd seen and ponies she met and things she wrote about and drew. Tales of things like snorkeling she did and bonfires she'd gone to and a new fantasy story idea and how went on a couple of dates with a stallion she kind of liked sprang from her mouth. It was something Jesse was interested in hearing about, certainly, although he tried not to be too disappointed that he hadn't gone with her, among other things. He also tried not to be annoyed when Eliza poorly hid her own disappointment.
"Well, like we were saying," Jesse started again, "it's nice to have you back, and we should sit down and do something together. I don't know when, but something."
"Well, whenever you ponies all upload, I have a whole bunch of ideas for what we could do," Composition smiled. "Like, with everything I've done so far, there's a bunch of things we can do as a group. Places to see, food to try– it's all great."
He watched Agile Trace take a breath, almost certainly ready to make a joke, but she stopped herself. Composition's snapping had definitely gotten to her, because after another second of silence, she finally spoke. "We mean something right now. Unless you're trying to– well, I mean, something like that isn't happening anytime soon."
"Oh, yeah, for right now, I'm cool with whatever," she said. "We can just sit in my house and talk for today. I really wanna hear what you ponies have been up to."
"That sounds good to me," Soft Step said. "I can stay up for a couple of more hours." Both Bright Sky and Spell Master nodded in agreement.
"We're still going bowling though eventually, right?" Jesse asked. "I know you said you already did that with Agile and Spell Master and Bright Sky, but I still haven't gotten to do it with you, and I was the one who asked."
"Huh? When did you– Oh, yeah! Of course," she smiled kindly, turning her head and pushing her eyes into his. "And Soft Step has to come bowling with us, too, since she hasn't been yet, either."
"And then we can do a big group thing together after that," Bright Sky said. "Like heading down to the beach? It'd be kind of hard for you to swim as a pony though."
"It was hard to do when I wasn't a pony," the mare laughed. "But I'm sure I could figure it out. That would be fun."
"Or eating out, since you can taste the food now and we can't," Soft Step suggested. "Or actually, you could be at a restaurant with us in the game, and we eat at a restaurant in real life. That would be fun."
"Yeah, or something like a picnic?" Jesse offered.
"A restaurant would be cool, Soft," Composition said. "There's some good food in this town. Believe me, I tried it."
"There's amusement parks in Canterlot, I heard," Agile said. "What about eating dinner and then doing something like that?"
Through a list of ideas the group went, each pony seemingly trying to one up each other, to the point of absurdity. Jesse couldn't help feeling a little bit ignored, but he didn't think much of it, knowing it was probably not intentional.
"We can go digging for dinosaur bones, and try to recreate their DNA into Jurassic Park in real life," Composition laughed. "And then Celestia forces you all to upload and–"
"Hey, sorry guys, I have to go," Jesse interrupted. "My parents wanna talk to me about something."
"See ya, Sparky," Composition waved in quick goodbye. "Anyway, we could…"
Jesse clicked his screen off and sighed. That brush off hurt a little bit, but he was probably just being overly sensitive.
Need to find a chance to talk to her when she's alone. Then I should actually be able to ask her straight up. He didn't think she meant including everyone when she said she wanted something casual.
But he couldn't think about it long because his father called him down the stairs to talk. He had no idea what it could possibly be about though. He hadn't talked to his parents about anything serious in years, except maybe about still shutting off the wifi after midnight like he was nine years old. He didn't know what to expect.
He, of course, should have expected it to be about the only thing anyone in the world talked about these days. His father was wearing a stern, but concerned look on his face, and his mother copied his father's expression. He had an idea of what they were going to say next.
"You know, we're concerned about you, son," his mother started. "We know you like that game, Equestria Online, but the two of us want you to be careful. All of these people in the news going to those Experience Centers– we don't want you doing something like that and..."
"Okay?" he asked back, confused. "I'm not going to upload. I have no plans to upload." Granted, Sheila now being in Equestria made his desire to emigrate extremely high, but he truly had no plans to upload, simply because of the two people sitting across from him.
"We know you don't right now," his father now started, "but we heard that the AI in that game, Celestia, is good at convincing people to join that- that… suicide cult, for lack of a better term. We don't want to see you end up doing that."
"Well like I said, I don't have any plans to do that ever, unless I'm about to die. Or, like, it looks like it's getting too dangerous in the real world or they're about to close uploading forever." They both opened their mouths to try and refute him, but he continued, "Also, I'm twenty one. I'm not a little kid. I know what I'm doing. Speaking of which, can you not shut off the wifi at eleven o'clock?"
"We know, son," his mother started again. "We just want you to be safe, and think about how much time you're spending on that PonyPad of yours. We can't imagine what it would be like if you left us."
"There's no way for you to know that Equestria is a real place you can go to anyway," his father added. "Not unless you do it, and that's just too risky. You know that."
"I do know that. Which is why, again, I'm not gonna upload. What the heck brought all of this on, anyway?"
"Well, we heard you talking about what happened to Sheila a few days ago. We just want to make sure you're being safe. We weren't trying to eavesdrop, but we just don't want you jumping in there after her just because you like her."
His face went red. He wasn't making it that obvious, was he? Obvious enough that his parents could tell? "Well I am being safe," Jesse assured the two. "I'm not gonna upload. I don't want to upload." Two truths and a lie, it was, but sixty six percent was still passing. He held back the thought of going in there simply to ask Sheila if they could spend some time alone together right now..
They both sighed, and his mother finished, "Okay, honey. Just make sure you're being safe. Don't let that game make you promises it can't keep? We care about you."
"Don't let Celestia put in your head that ponies are people either," his father said. "I read something that proved all those people who thought they were uploading were just killing themselves and making a copy. They're not your real friends. They're clones."
That sounded like the kind of hypothetical Eliza might put forward when she was feeling really down about herself, a point she argued with him and their friends over in times when she was feeling especially bad about everything. That wasn't a point he wanted to argue right now though.
"Whatever, Dad. I said I'm not gonna upload already. What more do you wanna hear?"
"We just want to make sure you're safe is all. You're spending more and more time on that thing every day it seems like, while the world gets worse and worse. We don't wanna see what's happening to everyone else happen to you."
Well, over the last few days, he'd hardly been playing at all, since Composition wasn't around until then, but he didn't bring that up. He only finished with a simple, "I will be."
I wouldn't try to emigrate without you guys anyway, he thought silently. It would suck too much if you both died and I couldn't change that.
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