In Equestria

by ARandomLonelyDude

Chapter 33: Two friends talk in the rain

Brush's morning had gone pretty good so far. She had come back from Canterlot yesterday night, woken up well rested today at sunsrise, had a filling breakfast, and then checked her mail to find a cheque for a portrait she had made and sold some time back. As much as she disliked making portraits of nobility and the such, she had to admit the money she would get was good.

However, today was sunday and she wouldn't be doing any work today. Instead, she would go out and just relax and maybe meet her friends. Well, friends wouldn't be accurate since she had only one friend, and now that she remembered her, she realised that Anya must have been questioning where she had gone for the past few days since she also had only one friend.

'I should probably go over and see what she's doing' Brush thought as she put down the book she had been reading and went to go brush her mane.

---

My morning had gone pretty good so far. I had woken up at three in the morning from a nightmare I didn't remember fully, and then had a breakfast consisting of two toasts and a can of energy drink. It might sound bad at first but then, you see, the nightmare I had had given me some ideas of what I could do today. More on that in a bit.

I had gone down to the basement where the crucible was making more squelching noises than it normally does, meaning that I should feed it. For that, I levitated the paste maker over and made it open its mouth so that I could empty the contents of the paste maker into the crucible's mouth, like some bird feeding its kid digested slop.

Once I was done feeding the crucible, it went back to making its usual noises, and I got to work. First order of business, I had to find a bug, preferably recently dead and also a spider. Why? Well, the crucible could make creatures for me but it was limited in what it could make. To put it simply, the crucible could make anything so long as it had the genetic material of said thing, or if its owner, I, knew how to make it make the thing using what genetic material it already had. Unfortunately, it currently had pony and chicken stuff only, and I didn't know how to make spider legs out of that, meaning I had to go and fuse a spider into it.

Finding a spider would be simple enough; I could go to my attic, or my backyard if I didn't have any luck in the attic. However, the next step would be hard since it involved me having to use my magic on the crucible to sort all the genetic stuff and that was hard with how much stuff there was. Making the organic bandages alone had taken me a couple of hours and they were rather simple compared to what I wanted to make.

So, what did I want to make? Well, from my nightmare, I had remembered among other things, that there was a spider servant thing and I felt that would be something I could make right now. It wouldn't be simple since it would have to be able to do simple tasks only when I asked it to and do them intelligently as well, and so far, I know basically nothing about those two, but I'll figure it out as I did it, just like with the organic bandages.

So, first things first. I needed a spider. I left the basement (leaving the lights on in there since the crucible didn't seem to like the dark all that much, I think) and made my way upstairs to the hall where the bookshelf was. On the ceiling in front of it was the entrance to the attic. I pulled it open, making a ladder come down, and went up. In the attic, it was dark and somewhat dusty but no so much so that I couldn't handle it. I turned on the one light that was in there and started looking around in the corners for a spider.

A few minutes of searching later, I had found nothing, not even a web, which sucked. I left the attic and went downstairs to the backyard. Outside, it was blue and cool since the sun was going to start rising in like, one hour I think. I looked around the garden in whatever spots I could think of a spider hiding in, and I found one eventually. It was a tiny brown thing with long legs, hiding in some grass. I crushed it with my magic, killing it, and picked it up and rushed down to my basement.

I dropped the dead spider into the crucible's middle and gave it the command to start fusing the spider. It would take some time though until that was done, meaning I had to wait, which was alright. I left the basement as the crucible started doing its thing, and went to the living room to lie down on the couch and rest for a few minutes. Laying down on the couch was pretty great, especially since I still felt tired. I closed my eyes for a little bit...

I woke up to knocking. I looked around and saw that I was curled up on the couch after falling asleep it. My vision was blurry despite having my glasses on but I could tell that it was a lot more brighter outside. How long had I 'closed my eyes for a bit' for?

The knocking came again and I got off the couch and walked over to the door, trying not to stumble or yawn as I did. I opened it and saw Brush was standing outside. In classic Brush fashion, she hugged me in greeting, and I hugged her back, a lot more awake now.

"Good morning sleepy head," she said to me, not suppressing a giggle. I thought about what must have given away the fact I had just woken up and realised that it was probably my hair, mane, and tail.

"Hey hey my little kitten," I replied, giving her a nickname that made her giggle more. "What're you doing here?"

She pulled away from the hug and answered, "Just dropped by to visit and see if you want to hang out."

"Hmmm," I thought. I didn't have anything going o- no, wait, I had the crucible thing going on. "Come in and just wait for a minute, I'll be back in a moment."

She came in and went to the living room, while I headed downstairs to check on the crucible. The crucible was making a lot of organic noises meaning that it was still doing its thing. I figured that I could go hang out with Brush.

I went back up and to the living room. "Yeah, we can go hang out. you have an idea of where we'll go?"

Brush didn't answer immediately though, and was instead looking at something on the table. I walked over and saw that it was the picture I had drawn that one sunday. Hadn't I put it in the basement? Or did I bring it up here accidentally?

"I didn't know you could draw that well," Brush complimented me as she looked at the thing.

"There's a lot of mistakes in that," I said as I sat down next to her.

"I think it's nice regardless," she replied as she looked over at me. "So, are you going to go out like that? I mean, you do look extra fluffy with your hair like that."

I looked at her confused before looking myself over and realising that I look like I had just come out the dryer. "Man, this will take time to fix."

"Y'know, I could help you with that, if you want," Brush offered, making me look up at her. I wanted to ask her about how she was alright with that but decided not to since I think I would actually need help. Do ponies trim their fur? Actually, forget that question, with how much more hair, and subsequently place to fuck me up I had, I'm pretty sure going to a barber will get me a cut that'll actually make me cry.

"So, Brush brushing my hair?" I said instead figuring that she wasn't serious. "Sounds aight."

"Heh, that's funny."

I went and brought the one hairbrush I owned with me just in case she was serious. "I have only one hairbrush."

"So, do you want me to do it or not?"

"I don't know; I've never had someone else brush my hair."

When I finished saying that sentence, Brush looked at me as if I had commited a serious social faux-pas, which made me a bit nervous.

"No one? Not even your mother?"

"No."

She looked at me with pity in her eyes when I have her that answer. "Did she not care for you?"

That question brought back bad memories, both pony and human, and they made me frown and answer, "No."

She was going to ask me another question, probably something about my past, but I was faster than her ay changed the topic, "So, you said you were gonna brush my hair."

Brush seemed to understand that I didn't want to talk about that stuff and didn't push it. "Uh yeah, just come over here and sit down."

I did as she said, taking a seat next to her and giving her the hairbrush, all while trying to get into a better mood, because after all, it had been around six years since I had met my family in both human and pony worlds and I can't just let their memory ruin a day after all that time.

Behind me, Brush started brushing my mane. I tensed up a bit but then relaxed immediately as she ran the hairbrush through my hair. Normally, when I would brush my hair, I'd just try to get it over with as quickly as I could, while Brush was going slow and nice.

"Feels great, right?" She asked after a minute or so, to which I nodded, my troubles mostly forgotten now. "I wonder if..."

I tried looking back at her to see what she was wondering but stopped when I felt an absolutely divine feeling. I didn't recognise it at first but found that I was being scratched behind my left ear. I leaned back into Brush as she kept scratching that spot behind my ear.

"Huh, you really like that," she said as she stopped, making me whine a bit. I was going to ask her to keep going but stopped, realising how embarrassing that would be. I think I blushed a little as well but Brush didn't comment on that and returned to doing my hair while I secretly wished that she would scratch that spot again.

"So, what did you go to check?" Brush asked, making me freeze for a second. I could just be straightforward and tell her that I am in fact a biomancer and that I was checking up on my equipment, but the memory of Rainbow calling me a freak and Rarity running away came back to me and put a question in my head. What if Brush doesn't like it as well?

I could lie, or deflect the question since I didn't want to lose the one friend I had, but it wouldn't do me any good to lie because I've learned over the years that it's better to just tell the truth and be done with it. I carefully considered what I would say, and finally answered, "Do you know about biomancy?"

"I don't believe I've heard about that. What is it?" she said with no negative reaction, yet.

"Basically, it's using magic to make creatures that do things," I answered giving the explanation I knew. "I had went to check on the stuff I use for that."

Now, I just hoped that she would leave it at that.

"Sounds interesting, do you think I could see?"

"..." I remained silent, thinking how exactly I'd answer that question without looking like I'm being weird.

"If that's alright with you?" Brush added at my silence.

"Look, if you want to see it, I will let you, but not right now. However, when you do get to see it, I'll warn you now, it will not look pretty at all. In fact, it will look unnerving and somewhat disgusting at best. Do you understand?" I said as seriously as I could.

"Y- yes."

"Okay, good," I said, really hoping that she won't become hostile to me when she sees that stuff. She resumed brushing my hair and soon enough, we were again having a great time.

---

After Brush was done, I had offered to make something to eat. Brush had accepted, and I had put some rice and daal to cook in pressure cookers. It would take about an hour for it to cook though, and during that time, Brush asked me, "So, can I see the magic stuff?"

We were in the living room, a cup of chai with each of us, and I almost dropped mine when she asked that. Thankfully, the only thing that happened was my heart rate increasing and me becoming nervous. I had told her that I'd let her see it but now I was wishing I had not.

"Umm, okay," I said, trying not to sound nervous. I put down my cup on the table and got off the couch. "This way."

Brush put down her cup as well and got off the couch. "Hey, are you feeling alright?"

"Nope," I replied with fake cheer. "Let's go."

Brush was probably gonna say something about my nervousness but I was already walking down the hall to the basement door. She followed me, the floor creaking at each step she took. I opened the door and held it open for her. "Down here."

She looked at me questioningly but didn't say anything and went down the stairs. I steeled myself for any averse reaction and went down a few seconds after her.

Downstairs, Brush was looking at the 'equipment' with wide eyes. The crucible making all its squelching noises did not help at all.

"Here it is," I said, trying to sound happy, as if the stuff was normal to have.

"Ummm," Brush said, glancing at me, probably questioning her choice of friends. She then opened her mouth to speak and I braced myself for the expression of disgust.

"This looks a lot less... intense than what I though."

I was thrown off by her complaint about the stuff not being as intense as she thought. "What?" I asked, hoping that I heard it right.

"Yeah, I thought it would look more icky, especially with how you described it earlier."

"You- you aren't disgusted? Or scared?"

"Not really. It all just looks weird."

I was relieved to hear that. All the tension in my mind was gone and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"What's the problem?" Brush asked, taking her attention off of the biomancy stuff and directing it to me.

"Nothing, I just... I just had some fears," I answered.

"You thought I would be scared if I saw this?" she continued, putting her paw on my shoulder.

"I thought you would react a lot more... negatively."

"Why? Did someone say something about this?"

"Mhm, showed it to some people a week back. One of them ran off immediately while another called me a freak and has been calling me an evil witch ever since," I explained, my head lowering as I remembered all the times Rainbow had seen me and called me a witch. As much as I wished that I could ignore other people's words, I couldn't, and all the times in the past week Rainbow had pointed at me and called me some name were weighing down on me.

"What?! That's horrible!"

Brush pulled me into a hug seeing that I wasn't in a great mood and said, "You aren't evil, Anya. You're probably the nicest pony I've met."

I didn't know whether I should correct her on that since I knew that I wasn't a nice person, or if I should just keep quiet.

I ended up staying quiet and appreciated my friend and how much she cares about me. She pulled away from the hug eventually and asked, "So, what exactly do these things do?"

My mood became better at her changing the subject, and I answered, "So, the big tub thing is the crucible and it grows whatever I make it to. That worm thing next to it is the paste maker. It makes nutrient paste for the crucible since it can't eat normal food."

"They... eat?"

"Yeah, they're living things and they need to eat to survive, just not as much as we need to."

"Are they doing anything right now?"

"The crucible is absorbing a spider so that it can make creatures with the characteristics of a spider. It isn't done y-", the whistle of a pressure cooker came from upstairs, "-yet, and I can't use it till then. Why don't we let it do its thing and go and eat?"

"Okay," she said, taking one last look at the fleshy stuff before following me upstairs. "You said that you can grow creatures with those things. Have you made anything?"

"One thing so far. I call it the organic bandage."

"How does that work?"

We walked into the kitchen, where I started making the tadka for the daal. "Basically, there this creature that has a very good regenerative ability. You cut off a piece of it, which it doesn't mind, and put that piece on some particularly deep cut or something similar to heal it VERY quickly. The creature's piece will react to the blood on the wound and start repairing it, dissolving the creature in the process to get material quickly and generating a lot of heat, which I think kills any potential infections but I'm not sure about that."

"That sounds complex. How did you manage to make it do that?"

"Got lucky."

"Lucky?"

"Yep, no real skill or anything; just pure luck."

"It can't be just pure luck; you probably have some degree from Canterlot Magical University and just don't mention it."

"My only qualifications are that I passed high-school."

Brush was stumped upon learning that 'fun fact' about me. I finished the tadka and put it into the pressure cooker with the daal, making sure to cover the top with the lid so that I don't get boiling oil onto me. Once it had stopped making sizzling noises I removed the lid and stirred the daal around to evenly mix the tadka.

"You only passed high-school? And didn't go to college? How did you do it?"

I figured that she believed that college was important to keeping a successful life and to her credit, she was right; college was important to living a successful life, but, it wasn't the only way of doing so.

"Barely," I answered, not really wanting to elaborate on the past six years of my life in both the pony and the human world, not right now at least.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked. I think I might just tell her, but not right now.

"I'll tell your after food," I said, opening a cupboard and pulling out two large bowls. I opened a drawer and took out two spoons and put one in each bowl. I put a generous serving of rice and daal in each and levitated it over to the kitchen table and put them at opposite seats.

Brush took a seat at the table and I took the other. She looked down at the bowl and shook her head a bit before saying, "So, what is this dish called?"

"Chawal daal," I answered as I started mixing the rice and daal. Brush followed my example and when she was done mixing, she ate a spoonful.

"This is a bit salty for my taste, but it is pretty good," she complimented. It also started eating, the familiar taste of chawal daal back in my mouth. We ate in silence for a while.

A low rumble from outside interrupted us. I looked at the window and saw that the sky was gray outside, and asked, "They planned rain for today?"

"I don't think so."

No sooner, the first drops of rain hit the kitchen window, and in a minute, it was raining. Brush commented, "Do you happen to have an umbrella?"

"No."

"Oh."

"Don't worry about it though; rain should probably be over in an hour or two."

We continued eating in silence, only the sound of the worsening rain to accompany us. I finished first and got up to get two glasses of water.

"I think that if we ever have lunch or anything like that, you should host it because your cooking is great," Brush said from behind me after finishing her own bowl.

"Thanks," I said, passing her a glass of wate- There was a loud bang from somewhere close by and the lights went out. Had I turned on the lights? I don't remember doing that but it might have been muscle memory.

Whatever, what matters is that all the lights had gone out after that lightning strike, and with how dark the sky was, it was pretty dark in my house. The sudden change in brightness was not something I could adapt to immediately, and so, I cast a horn light spel- no, wait, I can make balls of magical light appear. I cast the magic light spell, which provided light in all directions instead of just one directional like the horn light.

In the pale green light, I saw that Brush was standing there with her fur standing on its end and a glass on the floor. Fortunately, the glass was a metal one so I didn't have to deal with broken glass on the floor in the little light I had.

"What in tartarus was that?" Brush asked, pretty spooked by the lightning strike.

"Lightning. It cut the power, I think," I said as I tried the light switches. "Don't think that was planned. Anyway, you can head on over to the living room while I get this water cleaned up. Do you need a light?"

"No, I can see fine in the dark," she said as she stepped past me and went to the living room, reminding me that she had cat eyes and therefore, better night vision. I went to the laundry room where I kept my mop and brought it over to the kitchen. I picke dpu the glass and put it in the sink and then mopped the water. Once that was done, I went to join Brush in the living room.

There, she was sitting on the couch looking out the window at the worsening rain. "Is it me or did it just get a lot colder?"

I paused for a bit, and indeed, it was a bit colder. "Yeah, it's colder."

There was a thump at the backdoor, startling both of us. Immediately followed by the thump was another lightning strike, probably just as close as the last one, and that startled us a lot more. Still, I kept calm and went over to the backdoor to check what had collided with it. I pulled back the curtain and saw THE moth on the deck. The rain wasn't all that strong yet, and so, when I opened the door and brought the bug inside, there wasn't much water on the floor to be cleaned. What I did have though was a slightly wet bug.

I brought it over to the couch and put it next to Brush while I went to go get the mop. "Moth's here."

"It's the same moth?"

"Same one."

I brought the mop and cleaned the floor in front of the backdoor while Brush watched the moth. Once I was done with the mopping, I put it back in the laundry room and returned to the living room.

I sat down next to Brush, who held the moth in her hooves, and we were quiet for a moment with only the sound of rain on glass accompanying us.

"So..." Brush began, hesitating a bit before continuing,"You said that you were going to tell me about..."

"Yeah, that," I replied, bring reminded that I was going to tell her about why I only have a high-school diploma. My mood worsened upon remembering the day I graduated and what happened when I returned home.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Brush added, probably after seeing my expression.

"I'm just thinking how I'll say this," I said, trying to structure my story in a way that didn't make it seem as bad as it was since I don't want Brush to be worried or feel sad about me. I finally said after thinking long enough and not finding any way to make it not as bad, "So, about six years back, I graduated from high-school. Okay?"

"Mhm."

"Then, later that day I got kicked out."

"What?"

"I was kicked out by my family since I was legally an adult and they could do that. Because of that, I didn't go for any higher education."

The memory still hurt after all these years but it stung even more right now since I had two different memories of it. When I was a human, it was quick and bad but for the pony memories, it was worse. In my old world, I was male when it happened and so, I had less to worry about, but the pony me had been turned female at the age of sixteen, and getting kicked out at eighteen was a lot harder on her for obvious reasons.

Brush looked horrified at that information. "Why did they do that?"

"It's called being a fucking disappointment and I can assure you that they were naturally skilled at it," I answered, my voice very bitter and clashing with the 'joke' I made.

"You had somewhere to go, right?"

I looked down at my hooves with a frown, remembering those first few days of wandering the streets when I still hadn't come to terms with my situation fully and foolishly tried getting help. The only sound as I remembered was that of the rain and that of my silence, and that silence gave Brush her answer.

"I- I'm sorry about asking that," she said, looking guilty about making me remember.

"There's no need to be sorry."

We sat in silence for a minute, only the sound of rain there for us. Brush looked sad and deep in thought, prompting me to ask her, "What are you thinking?"

"How I've complained about my life almost all the times we've met when you've gone through so much worse," she said as she looked down at her paws looking downcast.

"Hmm, Brush, answer this question for me," I said, feeling bad that I made her struggles seem like nothing and subsequently making her feel like crap. Brush looked up, letting me contiune, "Imagine this: there are two people. One has all their limbs broken and the other has no limbs. Does seeing the guy with no limbs fix the other guy's limbs?"

"No, it doesn't."

"Then tell me why knowing that I had it worse make your problems go away."

Brush opened her mouth to say something in response but she came up with nothing and just looked sad instead. I just hoped that she understood that me having bigger problems didn't make her problems go away.

"But you don't have to care much about that since it's in the past and I'm alright now. I've got a home, a decent job, and a friend," I continued to try and cheer her and myself up. I don't think it worked all that well, but it did work a bit.

We were once again sitting in silence, at least until Brush spoke up again. "It's still unfair that it happened to you."

"True but life is unfair by design. The best anyone can do to fight that is help each other out."

We resumed sitting in silence but after some time, she asked, "Did you ever go back to your family?"

"Nope."

"Did they ever come to you?" she asked hesitantly after my one worded answer.

"No, and I hope they don't."

"But what if they want to be forgiven?"

"I don't care. They caused me too many problem and the only thing they will be is ignored," I answered sounding as sure as I could so that Brush wouldn't ask more on that. I didn't want to think about them at all and honestly, sometimes I wish I could forget them entirely, but that could not be done and all I could do was just distract myself to not be tormented by my memories. However, there wasn't much to distract myself with now, and the fact that I was talking about those memories directly was not great. Glimpses of memories, both pony and human, came and went as I once again looked down at my hooves, wondering if I could ever find a way to fix things.

Brush, seeing my downcast mood, put the moth on the table and pulled me into a hug. We stayed like that for a bit, which was nice, but the silence felt weird.

"It wasn't always bad though, wanna hear about some of the few times things were interesting?" I asked her, hoping that would be a good way to change the mood.

Brush nodded, and I started, "So, let's see... so, there was this one time at a restaurant I worked at..."

Author's Note:

16S jL

Art time :3
Source:https://www.deviantart.com/arandomlonelydude/art/Anya-with-Crucible-1052039740

SOME VIEWERS MAY FIND THE IMAGE DISTURBING

Among us

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i hope u guys liked it. if u did please comment about what you liked; i love the engagement

also, updates might slow next week

Comments

[Hollowed Specter]

It squishes if you touch it

[ARandomLonelyDude]

11908357
elaborate

[Hollowed Specter]

11908360
The flesh cauldron I bet if you press it, it will squish in a disgustingly fleshy way

[ARandomLonelyDude]

11908364
when i try to pet the flesh cauldron but it makes a squishy sound and scrunches away (i'm literally weeping)

[Skrepka]

Thanks for the chapter!