@Cerebrate19
After a few moments of attempting to stand again, Horace springs up suddenly, then bizarrely hobbles away as fast as he can from the changelings, the entire time having not said a word since awakening.
@Background Pony #D3EB
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The stranger would find a wayward equestrian in rags; when approached, Horace brandishes out a pistol, pointing it sometimes at the stranger, but just as well waving it in the air and swinging it around himself, as if suddenly forgetting he’s holding it while gesticulating to a debate heard only in his head.
Eventually, he continues in his odd staggering gait headed toward, and soon reaching in the far distance, what would appear to be a levitating battleship anchored near to the ground. Below it, Cephei directs technicians in the process of mounting a large electromagnetic ring to beneath the vessel…
Cephei, confronting Horace as he’s found trying to pull the attention of fleet commandos present:
“…What happened to you? Why’re your clothes all tattered?”
Horace:
Motions to his by now missing prosthetic lost while wandering. “Alright, so it’s not there anymore, what?”
Cephei: “Uhm… sir, we were about to set off to begin the survey, but do you need something we can assist you with?”
Horace: “Aw, this one with all the legs still says he can help me, you love him… The leg’s gone-it’s gone! If you wanna go find it, you can go back out there and look for it! But first you’ll turn this ship around to raze away that eyesore,”
Gesturing wildly back toward the verdant valley he’d come from. “-and then I’m gone from this!”
Cephei: “Sir, whatever it is, I think you’ve undergone much recently. We just want you to rest.”
Horace: “I don’t need rest, I need that place gone!”
By now, he’s drawn his only pistol out again. As commandos present close in and detain their former-commander, it becomes immediately apparent that the gun isn’t even loaded after he pulls its trigger while struggling. Horace is then carried away after sedated by a CHCl 3-soaked cloth, then confined in an officer’s quarters for now made vacant for him to remain alone in.
Back outside below the vessel, Cephei paces in perplexity, wondering at what point during Horace’s travels could something have happened to him. Eventually though, he encounters the trailing ghostling stranger that had tried to conversate with Horace back in the Colterado headwaters valley.