Nobody's Memories
Chapter 12 - "All as plan- Damnit!"
So, upon closer examination, actually guiding a horse was hard when you had no prior experience. Sure, I had tried to ride the brown, dusty, not remotely noteworthy stallion of unknown breed earlier. I had even proved it to be a horse born and raised to pull carts, showing it mine and having it guide me more than I guided it in harnessing it the wagon once it had realized what my confused, fumbled attempts at getting it to do so were. Getting it into the corridors of Darkness? A bit of mental scaring the time I brought it into the caverns, and then some shaking once I had it take the carriage out and onto the road. Nothing too big. I could train it to ignore it, I'm sure. If it's mane suddenly turned silver and its eyes gold, however, I was killing it quick and painlessly. If it turned into an heartless, however, I was hoping that I could both figure out how to control it and that it was horse-shaped.
Or that maybe, just maybe, it produced a Horse Nobody instead of a vaguely rideable blob. Experiments for another day, I supposed. Foremost amongst them why the horde of cat's that tended to follow me didn't seem to be affected...
Later date, Solstice. Later date.
Back to my point, though. I had no experience, yes, but steering a horse? Harder than one might expect. Sure, I got the basics ,or so I hoped. Hold it straight, tug this way to make it go that way, and vice versa. Make this-
kR-cRACK!
-Motion to make it go faster, yep... Tug back to make him rear down... there we are, slowed to a reasonable pace. Just above a canter. Times like this made me wish I had ever thought to ask a friend who had been far, far too into horses about them. She'd even owned one. But y'know, hindsight is 50/50. Now I could just kick back, stretch my feet out onto this little railboard that the driver's feet is usually meant to go between, and relax. First, though, I need to check that everything is in order. Let's see... hood is down? Yep. My hair is free, free to do absolutely nothing in the wind! The cat? Sitting amongst a pile of neatly organized junk I planned on selling. Now, let's see, what else do I need to help with the illusion... My Glasses? I'd seen glasses in the Witcher, weird and probably accurate to the time period things that proved my own pair were far too well-made for this world. They would need to go, and sure, my vision would take a massive dive-
Where are my glasses?
...
Did I... really take almost two weeks to realize I didn't have or need my glasses? I... I had even taken note of the fact I could see further than humanly possible! Multiple times! Was I- oh god trees.
Yanking the reins back in a panic, getting shoved and jostled out of my seat because of my poor choices in how to sit, I tried to stop the horse, who had casually been about to trot his way right off the road and the ledge 5 way from the turn we needed to take to arrive to the city, and to his own imminent death. All because I had been sitting in the driver's seat, blinking in shocked revelation.
...Now reassessing my Horses Intelligence...
...Now reassessing my intelligence yet again...
Ok, let's assess the situation. The horse is ...nope, apparently the horse is too fat for me to see. Let's take a moment to quickly lean to the side here and get a better view, let's see... one, two, almost three but not quite steps away from his and the cart's doom. Yay. Alright, now how stupid was the horse?
Clod
...stupid enough to take another step forward. Well then, I clearly needed a new horse. Alright, let's see. How do I fix his problem? The horse couldn't turn around without sending the cart toppling off the ledge and into the tiny valley below, nor could it back up. I certainly could get out of my seat and pull the cart back, but beyond that, I saw no imminent solution. I could take my time with it too, provid-
Clop!
Of course the horse takes another step forward. Does it have no goddamned self-preservation instincts? Why the hell had it run from the Caravan I had found it near in the first place? It's just staring off into the distance now, and I can physically see the ledge crumbling now, ready to break under the weight of the horse's hooves. Well then, I have come up with a name for my horse. From this moment on, Horse, I christen thee Dumb Fuck.
Enjoy your name, for it is well earned. Now to stop you from - seriously, is he taking another step forward? Not having that. Clenching the mental strings within my mind, I force myself to accelerate; and it is important for me to note that it all that my time dilation is. I certainly had the tendency to refer to everything else as slowing, as though that were what my power was doing; slowing everything around me. Yet as my own mind was quick to remind me whenever I used my power, that wasn't the case.
For example, when unfastening Dumb Fuck from the wagon, the many ropes and other various things I had no idea what to call that secured him tight were not being returned to a normal movespeed; they were being sped up to be equal to me. When picking up Dumb Fuck by grasping the middle of his chest and over my shoulder, he didn't suddenly stop being affected by some world-wide time-slowing affect; he was simply accelerated to exist at the same speed as me. Not only that, but his kicking was really, really annoying. And now that I've placed him down, removing my hands from him, he's almost instantly slowed down to exist at the same insanely slow comparative rate of thought.
Attention driven away from Dumb Fuck, I turn to the wagon. While it had been moving slowly 'downhill' and off the cliff a few moments earlier, its movement was now nearly nonexistent; I could probably sprint to Oxenfurt's gates and back and it wouldn't have fallen off yet. Regardless of that fact, I locked my hands onto the underside of the cart's behind, effortlessly pulling the cart back and swinging it around to properly face the road as though it were a shopping cart.
Walking back around to DF, whose name was now abbreviated for my personal dignity in the presence of others and not for the horses, I grab the harness, and once more win the struggle to get him hooked into the harness. Honestly, this entire escapade felt as thought it was taking months to finish, with entire too many overexaggerated noises for my tastes. More evidence of my personal time being slown down, or DF being a pain in the ass? Probably both. Honestly, just kidnapping a random wild horse and strapping him onto the wagon might make things go faster. I could just slit DF's throat and be done with it all, if it weren't for...
...for...
...no, I had no good reason not to do that. Why the hell hadn't I? When had I put this knife to DF's throat?
-0-0-0-
"Wow, that was easier than expected." I said, kicking DF's corpse into a trench. The Wild Horse had already proven to be a much easier companion. And I had, at most, lost something like a minute to my schedule. Everything was going .planned. Nope, nothing could go wrong here.
-0-0-0-
Horses are dicks
How do I know?
Horse One, dubbed Dumb Fuck, less intelligent than a Lemming.
Horse Two, dubbed Actual Lemming, ran off a cliff.
Horse Three, The Rock. Ran into the path of a falling rock.
Horse Four, Wolf Chow. Guess. Just Guess.
Horse Five, DoOA. He died of Old Age without warning.
Horses 6 through 19, randomly attacked me.
Horses 20 - ?, I don't even know anymore.
Final Horse, cooperating and beaten slightly bloody.
Conclusion, Horses hate Nobodies. Also I caused the local extinction of Wild Horses.
Second Conclusion, I've recently gained excellent targets for practicing being sad and/or angry at. Coming along nicely.
Third Conclusion, everything is definitely still going as planned. By some definition of planned.
Fourth Conclusion, Denial isn't exclusively dependent upon emotion.
-0-0-0-
"Where're yer papers?" Asked the Guard who had finished his investigation of my wagon. His accent was gruff and voice gruff, and I'll be honest, I had almost forgotten what other humans sounded like. It appeared that even when I couldn't be made to feel lonely, I was still a Social Creature at hear- at mind. He sounded a bit congested as well, and peering down his mouth, that was one slimy gullet. His fellow guards were looking healthier but no less tired, having just stepped off the back of my wagon. One or two paid only a cursory glance at my horse before glancing away.
Now then, what had that one guard said? Sounded important.
"What?"
"I said, Whr're yer papers?" I didn't even know what his accent was but it was atrocious…
"…Papers?" I said, leaning down to my feat and acting like I was looking for these 'Papers'. Papers, papers, papers… oh, right, THOSE papers. That you needed to get into the city, and that I didn't remember how to get in game. Was it from that one guy in the fort? That dude by the river? Maybe I shouldn't be interfering with the Canon game, I'm sure there were other ways to get papers…
In the mean time… "…I don't have any?"
The Guard looked at me with a very rude expression and cracked his knuckles
-0-0-0-
First Conversation as a Nobody
Would embarrass me if I had emotions
Quickly devolved from me asking where and how to do this and that and taking notes in my journal to him shouting
And then to threats of seizing my property and of a violent removal
I mean, he's still doing it!
Seriously, what is with him!
"I SAID, GET OFF THE BLOODY BRIDGE YOU LUNATIC!" The guard shouted again, moving to shove my journal away from me as I wrote. I snapped it shut and put it back in my cloak before his grubby mits could get "THEY'RE THREE WAGONS BEHIND YA! i TRUIED BEIN' CIVIL AN' NOW I'M DONE!" I mean, seriously, dude is just mispronouncing words now. " WE'RE GIVEN YA TO THE COUNT O' 10! an' NO, ya CANNOT just steal papers after murdering someone!"
"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, I'm moving! I'M SORRY I HAVE NO FILTER!" I call back. Just one last thing... I clench down, hard, on that part of my head that controls time. I push as hard as I can, to the point where it was about to break like it had last time. I then hop off the cart, observing a world so still I can't see anything moving, and explore the entire city, completely ignoring everyone's privacy as I search for a private place large enough to hold my cart. Finding a dozen different locations, I eventually return to the spot I deem best, and nod in approval, before returning to my cart and assuming the same position I had been in before. Now all I had to do was return time to its normal state, get away from the guards, and open up a gate to the spot, and I was in. I release the mounting pressure all at once, and...
"▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇!"
...well, I'm blind and deaf now. Sight is comparable to if I had stared into the sun for my entire life and somehow hadn't burn out my retinas, ears ringing like I had stood next to a nuke and my ears somehow hadn't destroyed themselves from the noise...oh, and my body feels like its on fire as well! This can't end well. But everything was still going as - OH who was I Bloody kidding everything had fallen of the rails so far the train landed on the moon. And I believe I'm loosing consciousness? The... Black in my eyes... is growing... Yes, I think... I'm tired...