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        Dear Journal,

        When did music begin?  Did it begin with a question?  Or an exclamation?  Was somepony laughing?  Or sobbing?  Was that pony alone?  Or was there an audience?

        When I first attended Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, I thought that I would find out all of the answers of how and where music began.  What I discovered was that the best pieces of us—the artistic, soulful, and melodious pieces—have been lost forever.  Equestrian Civilization is over ten thousand years old, and of those ten millennia only the last fifteen hundred years' worth of music has been recorded, preserved, or recited to this day.

        What became of the music that is now lost to us forever?  How many masterpieces disappeared into the great void of time?  Just what kind of prodigies and geniuses exist in the past, and how many of their masterpieces will go unheard?  Does the fact that their music no longer resonates in the halls of our kingdom mean that they've lost their worth?

        Years ago, I became a student of music theory, thinking that I would find answers.  What I found instead was that making music is merely a means of proposing questions with our heart that our minds can't formulate.  Every time we sing or play an instrument, we are searching.  Every time we fill the air with notes of rhythm and tonality, we are endeavoring to get in touch with the parts of ourselves that our words cannot contain.

        I would like to think that the ponies of ancient times were searching for something just as much as we are in this era.  This means to me that even though the music of the past is gone, the drive to simultaneously express and discover ourselves is still there.  Our entire civilization is the beautiful encore to a symphony that has fallen on deaf ears, but not on unfeeling heartstrings.  So long as we are feeling with music—embodying the same curiosity and ambition of our ancestors—then all that is important isn't forgotten, for we have it locked away in our very pulse.

        Today, I play music.  I do it because I am also searching.  For one, these magical notes that I am endeavoring to construct may be a way to release this curse that has been placed upon me.  For another, I am adding to the same heartbeat that has kept a constant rhythm since the beginning of time.  So long as I am a part of that, so long as I am making melodies that the Equestrian soul cannot help but dance to, then maybe I have a chance to actually reach somepony.

        Maybe, I won't be forgotten.

        Just the other day, I stood in the corner of Ponyville's Main Street, playing the latest experimental number on my lyre.  I had decided to call it “Lunar Elegy #7.”  It was the same tune that I’d been attempting to flesh out all week.  You know the one; I wrote about it in my last letter.  It's the tune that I awoke to during that stormy night—the one that almost knocked the tree over into my carrot garden.  I had always felt that that was an omen, and that finding a way to write down this melody would somehow benefit my quest in the end.  So far, though, I hadn't noticed any magical qualities to the tune, but that was probably just because I hadn't seen Twilight and played it to her yet.

Miss Sparkle always has the solutions.  She's gifted like that.  Now if only she could put those talents to making music herself, I'm certain she'd make Princess Celestia even prouder.

        Oh shoot!  I always get side-tracked with these entries.  Anyways, I was in the corner of Ponyville's Main Street.  I was playing my lyre and—well—I'd been running short on money as of late.  So, I brought the jar with me.  It didn't take long for the citizens of Ponyville to show their gracious qualities.  In less than two hours, I had earned nearly twenty-five bits.  I had gotten more than that, of course.  Several smiles and appreciative grins were thrown my way.  I merely said nothing and kept playing my music.  I must have looked so engrossed.  Little did everypony know that I was observing them with as much attention as they were regarding me.

        Carrot Top was the first to donate, of course.  I’ve written about her before. She's usually up and about earlier than any other Ponyvillean soul, and she trots back and forth across the village the most, considering all of the random jobs that she juggles around town.  That day, she tossed a bit into my jar and smiled at me.  I remembered that same face, stained with dirt and flakes of grass at the end of a day when she taught me how to plant a garden.  She waved at me like it was the first time ever—for it was, for her—and then she was gone.

        The Mayor strolled by next.  Her mane looked less gray that day.  I wonder if she's recently switched dyes.  The Mayor is a fantastic pony.  If Ponyville were any other town, the elected leader would likely disapprove of musical riff-raff like myself.  The Mayor is obviously made of far more cultured stuff.  She gave me a smile, praised my talents, and tossed a golden bit into the jar before trotting off.  I wonder if she ever got the nerve to speak to her daughter.  She's very preoccupied with the emotional wedge that's been driven between the two of them as of late.  She'd never tell any pony about how sad she's been, not like that one time I roped her into confessing it to me.  It was a heartfelt conversation over tea that we both had.  I shall always remember it, for her sake if not for mine.

        Several more ponies trotted by as the day waxed past the bright noon.  All the while, I was practicing “Elegy #7.”  The fact that other ponies were enjoying my music or dropping coins my way was just a fringe benefit.  I magically plucked each string of the lyre in practiced precision, repeating the tune over and over again.  Nopony ever complained about the repetition, but I never expected them to.  The only awkward glances I got were aimed at the sweaterjacket I was wearing—the one that I always wear during these excursions into town.  I thought I had gotten used to the brief stares, just like I had gotten used to the chills that come with the melodies I wake up to.  Still, I couldn't complain.  I simply had to keep practicing the Elegy.  I knew that only Twilight Sparkle could help me figure out what the tune meant, just like most of the others before it, but that didn't stop me from trying to feel it on my own, for as long as I could afford to.

        And then there was Rarity.  The sight of her gorgeous mane and sparkling eyes nearly broke my concentration as she paused on her way to the general store to listen to me.  “My, what a heavenly tune!” were her exact words.  She dropped three whole bits into the jar, more than anypony else.  I always feel bad when that happens, but a part of me thinks that Rarity needs to be generous more than other ponies need to experience her generosity.  So, I played my part, especially when she leaned forward with sympathetic eyes to say, “But dear, you look positively freezing!  Tell me, are you ill?”

        It was true.  My teeth were chattering, and—no—it wasn't an act.  When the chills come, there's very little I can do to stop them.  My hoodie has always been a first line of defense against the inexplicable side effects of this curse.  I can't even pretend to explain that to any of the ponies I meet.  If I bundle up like my shivering body silently screams at me to, then even more ponies than Rarity would stop to ask me the same question over and over again.

        “Oh, I'm perfectly fine, ma'am,” I remember replying to her.  I usually don't respond while I'm in the middle of performing, but I'm a unicorn who can afford to multi-task.  “My blood temperature is just lower than the average pony's.”  It was a lie.  But, relatively speaking, everything I say to these villagers is a lie.  After all, even when it's the truth, it has the same effect on them.

        “Well, I cannot stand to see a gifted musician such as yourself freeze to death!” Rarity said.  Then she did something that I should have predicted.  She reached into her saddlebag and produced a yellow scarf.  “Here, darling.  Keep it as long as you like.”  Her smile sparkled as much as the glowing telekinesis she used to float the golden article my way.  Clearly I didn't have a choice in the matter.  That didn't make accepting her gift any easier.

        “Oh, thank you, ma'am.” I smiled and paused in playing the elegy to wrap the scarf about my neck.  To attempt a polite refusal would have been too complicated at the time.  “You're too kind.”

        “Oh, I can make a hundred more like it back at my boutique.  Besides, yellow is not my color—but it does match your eyes delightfully so.”  Rarity smiled.  Some beautiful faces last forever in the mind's eye.  Rarity’s is no exception.  “You should stop by sometime.  I can make you a new sweaterjacket.  Yours is nice, of course, but I daresay it's starting to look worn-in.”

        I giggled and smiled.  “Thanks.  I'll think about it.”

        “You do that!”  Rarity trotted off, humming her own whimsical version of the tune I was playing.  She disappeared into the front entrance of the general store across the way.

        I continued playing my music, warmed more by the sincerity of Rarity's generosity than the actual thickness of the scarf that she had given me.  The afternoon was drifting by.  A crimson glow gave the many coats of ponies a bright shine as the Sun lowered towards the Western horizon.  I must have played the Lunar Elegy ten times before I saw Rarity trotting back with a full saddlebag of newly bought things.

        I can't lie.  My heart sank a little when she immediately strolled my way and dropped three golden bits into my jar.  “My, what a heavenly tune!” she said, then leaned towards me.  “But dear, you look positively freezing!  Tell me, are you ill?”

        It was a little harder to smile this time.  Nevertheless, I murmured gently above the melody I was still making, “Oh, I'm perfectly fine, ma'am.”  I couldn't help but add with a wink, “As a matter of fact, a very kind mare gave me this scarf just an hour ago.”

        “Well, she must be a pony of exceptional taste!”  Rarity said with avid admiration.  “It does match your eyes delightfully so.  You should stop by my boutique sometime.  I can make you a new sweaterjacket.  Yours is nice, of course, but—”

        “It looks worn-in?”

        “Yes!  I was just about to say that!”  Rarity exclaimed, her breath escaping her in a gasp.  “Do you also read minds besides playing such gorgeous music?”

        “Something like that,” I said.  “I'll be sure to drop by your lovely boutique someday, ma'am.”

        “You do that.”  And she was gone, once more humming, once more an elegant and care-free stranger.

        I decided then that I was done for the afternoon.  I gathered my lyre and jar full of bits and put them away into my saddlebag.  My mouth was dry, so I made straightway for Sugarcube Corner.  Ms. Cake was working.  As soon as I sat down at a table, she strolled up with a smile as bright as her apron.

        “Good afternoon to you, miss!  Are you new to town?”

        “Hmmm... Yes and no.”  I smiled up at her.  “How much for your finest herbal tea?”

        “One bit.”

        “How about three bits for a cup of tea and a daisy sandwich?”

        “Will do, hun!” Ms. Cake cheerfully said.  I wonder if she knows just how harmonious her words always sound.  I could write a thesis on the tonality of her voice alone.  She hurried away towards the kitchen at the back of Sugarcube Corner while I reached into my saddlebag for the jar of golden bits.

        Just then, I heard a sobbing sound from two tables away.  I glanced over to see Ms. Hooves and her daughter Dinky.  The little unicorn foal was crying—a sad, distraught sort of a cry.  I've never known Derpy's child to throw a tantrum in public, and that occasion was no different.  Dinky hid her face in a pair of hooves while her mother leaned over and whispered reassuring words into her ears.  I couldn't tell from where I sat just what Derpy had said, but I could see the genuine smile on her face... and somewhere in the midst of it, her consolations must have worked.  Dinky dried her tears and managed a smile to match that of her mother's.

        Around that point, Pinkie Pie had shown up—cartwheeling wildly as she always did into the center of Sugarcube Corner.  She then proceeded to entertain several young foals inside the eatery with a series of outrageous jokes and charades.  The children giggled and clapped their hooves at Pinkie's antics.  Derpy pointed Pinkie Pie's way and patted Dinky's flank, ushering the foal to go and have fun with Pinkie and the others.  The young unicorn eagerly bounded away, the sorrow on her face briefly replaced with childish euphoria.  Derpy watched Dinky with one good eye, though she couldn't hide the sigh escaping her lips or the depressed look on her face as the young mother all-but-slumped against the table.

        I was so engrossed in these observations that I barely noticed the image of Ms. Cake in my peripheral vision.  I turned to look at her.  The baker was standing in place, gazing blankly across the lengths of Sugarcube Corner.  She held a tray with a steaming cup of tea and a daisy sandwich, but she hadn't a clue what to do with it.

        “Funny...”  Her eyes blinked as her lips lingered upon every word dripping out of her mouth.  “I could have sworn I just...”  She turned and looked behind her at the kitchen.  “Where was I going with this?  I swear, I'm getting senile...”

        I cleared my throat.

        She looked down at me and instantly gave a polite smile.  “Good afternoon to you, miss!  Are you new to town?”

        “Hmm...”  I smiled gently.  “Yes and no.  You seem puzzled.  Is everything okay?”

        “Oh, absolutely!  I just wish I knew what I was doing with... with...”  Ms. Cake frowned at the tray as though it was full of ants.  “Bah!  I should be baking that cake for the Mayor's banquet tomorrow anyways.”

        I craned my neck to look at the tray.  “Is that herbal tea and a daisy sandwich?”

        “Why, yes.  Yes it is.”

        “Hmmm...”  I dropped a few golden coins onto the table.  “Would three bits pay for them?”

        “Oh!  Erhm... Do you want it?”

        I smiled.  “Seems like a nice order.  I'll give it a try.”

        “Very well then!  At least they won't go to waste!”  Ms. Cake gracefully placed the cup and plate down onto my table as I slid the bits her way.  She took them and performed a curtsey.  “Enjoy your time at Sugarcube Corner!  Just holler if you need anything else, dearie.”

        “Will do,” I said.  After she left, I sipped slowly from the tea, reveling in the warmth as it drove the shivers away.  I had time to relax, to reflect, to think about my music.  I should have spent every minute contemplating the missing movement at the end of “Lunar Elegy #7,” but instead I kept looking over at Ms. Hooves’ table.

        Derpy is a sad pony.  Not many in town know this.  Many commit the sin of treating Ponyville's mailmare at face value.  I've been included in that guilty party myself, but that's because during the many times I've tried learning more about her I've been at a loss to figure out the source of her troubles.  However, having just seen her consoling a distraught Dinky, I may have been given a clue.

        So, after finishing my tea and not so gracefully scarfing down the daisy sandwich, I hoisted my saddlebag and trotted over towards her table.  There is never an easy way to go about “introductions,” so I've long since learned to skip much of the pretense.

        “Why do you look so glum, Ms. Hooves?”

        Derpy gazed up from the table.  Her eyes blinked in opposite directions.  I knew just where to stand so that she could see me.  “Uhm... I'm sorry.  Have we met?”

        I smiled.  “Who in town doesn't know Ponyville's most faithful deliverer of the mail?”

        “Oh, well I guess you have a point.”  Derpy chuckled nervously, then ran a hoof through her mane.  “I haven't... uhm... flown into your house window or anything like that, have I?”

        “Heeheehee... Nothing of the sort.”

        “Whew.  I'm glad.  My memory isn't all that good.”

        “That's a boat that everypony shares a seat in, Ms. Hooves.  Believe me.”  I sat down beside her and pointed towards where her child stood with the other giggling foals and Pinkie Pie.  “Dinky is extremely gifted for her age.  She's scored the highest in her entire class the last three tests in a row.  Did you know that?”

        “I-I do!” Derpy exclaimed, squinting at bizarre angles on either side of me.  “How did you?”

        This is what I mean when I write that it isn't easy.  Thinking quickly, I replied, “I'm a music teacher from Canterlot.  Not that long ago, I was sent to assist Miss Cheerilee with expanding her curriculum.  She's thinking of putting together a band class for young foals.  Did you hear about that?”

        “Why yes!  I have,” Derpy said.

I was wrong about one thing I wrote earlier: some things I say are the truth, but that's only because I'm an observer of them.  Over the last month, Cheerilee had indeed been trying to establish a school band.  It didn't particularly appear to be a subject of joy for Ms. Hooves.

“My little muffin's so excited about it,” she said.  “It's all she talks about every morning before I drop her off at Cheerilee's.”  She sighed and gazed lethargically across Sugarcube Corner as her child lost herself in Pinkie Pie's whimsical show.  “She's got a natural talent for making music.  As a matter of fact, I took her to the music store just last week.  They had this flute that she was allowed to test out.  I swear, I've never heard anything so amazing... and my Muffin had barely even practiced.  She's so gifted... just like her father.”  The last words in particular were the hardest to get out, and I saw the sadness once more pale over Derpy's face.

        “I saw her crying earlier,” I said.  Some songs don't have a bridge to them.  At times, all you need is to hear the chorus, no matter how much it hurts.  “I'm guessing she's not able to join Cheerilee's band.”

        Derpy openly winced, but I knew she wasn't about to stop speaking.  So many ponies in town have a lot to say, and the times they choose to say them happen to be the times I ask about them about it.  Perhaps that is my purpose?  I think of this a lot.  For what it's worth, I'm the only pony who has to.

        “I wish she could,” Miss Hooves eventually said.  “But I'm afraid her mother can't help her.”

        “Oh?”

        “I don't tell many ponies this, and I certainly won't tell her, but things have been tough lately.”  Derpy gazed down at the table and spun lazy circles with a hoof, as if in a desperate attempt to counterbalance her eyes.  “I barely earn enough to squeeze by.  Being a mailmare just doesn't earn enough bits for a single mom.  If Dinky's father was still around and working, then maybe I could afford some disposable income to do more than just get food on our table.  But a school band...?”  Derpy sighed again and ran a hoof over her moist eyelids.  “Dinky is such a sweet, beautiful foal.  She’s so selfless and supportive of her mother.  All she wants for herself is to play the flute.  She has a gift, and I still can't believe how talented my little muffin is...”

        “Musical proficiency is the best kind of talent, Ms. Hooves,” I said with a gentle smile.  “You should be proud.  Your foal's on the way to moving the souls of other ponies just like she moves yours by simply being alive.”

        “She won't be moving anything if I can't give her what she deserves,” Derpy murmured, her voice wavering.  “My little muffin is so polite to everypony—both young and old.  And she does her best in school.  She studies hard.  She's so... so sweet...”  She sniffled and rubbed a tear dry before it could grace her gray cheek.  “Her passion is to make music, and I can't help her.  Her mother isn't as talented as she is.  I can't even earn us a better place to live, much less a flute to make her dreams come true.  What kind of love is that?”

        I leaned over and placed a hoof gently on hers.  “Your love is the sincere kind of thing that your daughter will cherish and remember forever.  There are parents who think that money can buy anything, but won't give their child attention or respect.  You're not that kind of parent, Ms. Hooves.  I believe that one way or another, you will find a way to give Dinky what she wants.  But you're already giving her what she needs.  If you forget any of the words I'm telling you right now, at least remember the same feeling that is bringing you on the edge of tears as I speak.  For that is real, and a very eternal thing.”

        Derpy sniffled again.  For the briefest of moments, I could have sworn her eyes had centered upon me.  She smiled with an expression that still warms me to this day.  “How could I possibly forget the words of a pony as kind and understanding as you?”

        I only smiled at that.  “Be there for your child, Ms. Hooves, as you've always been.  Someway, somehow, her dreams will come true.  I promise you this.”

        Before Derpy had a chance to respond, Dinky hopped back over and bounced all around her mother, giggling and repeating many of the silly things Pinkie Pie had said to the foals earlier.  Derpy could barely hold her daughter still, so she finally resorted to a tackling hug, enfolding the tiny unicorn in her hooves.  Dinky giggled and squirmed in Derpy's grip while her mother gently nuzzled her.

        It was around this time that a sudden chill ran through me.  I shuddered and tugged at the edge of my sweaterjacket's sleeves.  For a moment I could see vaporous breaths escaping my lips, and that's how I knew—as I always know—what had been lost.

        One of Derpy's eyes blinked my way, and her body jolted in surprise.  “Oh, hello there!  Can I help you, Miss?”

        I cleared my throat, fighting off the last of my shivers.  “My apologies.”  I stood up.  “I didn't realize that this table was occupied.”

        “Nonsense!”  Derpy's voice matched the gigglish tone of her daughter.  If anything was certain, she was happy now.  “This is Sugarcube Corner.  A pony's free to sit anywhere.  Isn't that right, my muffin?”

        Dinky merely giggled.  I've always envied Pinkie Pie for the effect she has on children.  Nursery rhymes and lullabies are still on my list of things to master.

        “Really, I must be going,” I said.  It was true.  The Sun was setting outside, and I still had to see Twilight.  Soon, it would be night, and I wouldn't be able to afford talking with any pony.  “I wish you both a good evening.”

        “Heheh... I'm not sure why exactly,” Derpy said, “but it already is one.”

        I left Sugarcube Corner and slowly made my way to Twilight Sparkle's library.  In the advent of night, the evening hung over my horn in a deep, purple blanket.  All around me, bodies of equines swiftly galloped their way home.  I can never understand why so many ponies are in such a hurry when the Sun sets, especially in Ponyville.  I sometimes wonder if I'm the only pony who does this: who takes her time and allows the cool and crisp murmur of the falling evening to lull her into submission.  I gave into the moment with a soft hum, reciting a piano number that my mother had taught me when I was a little foal.  My family had been better off than Derpy and Dinky.  I don't think I ever once imagined that I could have lost all that I had—both emotionally and materialistically.  I still wonder what my family is up to now, but I try not to.  Thinking about the piano melody carries with it all of the warm memories of the past.  I wish I could say the present was any less cold.

        The lampposts in the streets of Ponyville were being lit by the time I reached the door to Twilight's library.  It was open; Twilight's assistant must have been carrying something in.  As soon as I stepped inside, I realized I was correct.  Spike was trucking several parcels of antique books mailed from Canterlot back and forth.  He looked my way and waved cheerfully.

        “Hi there!”  He walked by, carrying a package toward the opposite end of the room.  “Dig the swell hoodie!”

        “Thanks,” I said.  “Is Miss Sparkle around?”

        “Why, did you have an appointment?”

        “Spiiiiike!”  Just then, the lavender unicorn in question marched into the front foyer from an adjacent hallway.  “Did you open the package yet that contains all eight volumes of Heroes in Equestrian Literature—?”  She stopped and let out a slight gasp upon seeing me.  “Oh!  I'm sorry.  I didn't know somepony was here!” She blinked wide then smiled, her small dimples showing.  “Can I help you?”

        Have I mentioned that Twilight Sparkle is ridiculously adorable?

        “As a matter of fact, you can.”

        “I see.  Well... uhm... I'll do my best, but it's only fair to tell you that the library's closing soon and I have an important letter to write to—”

        “Princess Celestia.”  I nodded.  “I know.”

        “Hi there!”  Spike walked by once again.  “Dig the swell hoodie!”

        “Yes, I bet you do.”  I turned to face Twilight once more, smiling.  “Trust me, Miss Sparkle.  I think you'll be very... erm... intrigued by what I have to share with you, and then I'll ask your help with just one thing.”

        “Oh?”

        “I promise that you won't be tardy with sending your letter to the Princess.”

        “Tardy?”  Twilight Sparkle's teeth showed as she let loose a nervous laugh.  “Wh-who's afraid of being tardy?”

        “Heehee... Indeed.”  I trotted over to a wooden seat and plopped down, reaching into my saddlebag.  Glancing up at her, I murmured, “Miss Sparkle, have you ever had a beautiful melody stuck in your head, but you don't know where it came from or what it's supposed to mean, only that you have the natural urge to hum it, regardless?”

        Twilight Sparkle squinted curiously at me.  Her eyes were crooked, the undeniable look of confusion.  I could write a book about that expression on the face of every pony I meet.  Then again, that's what I'm doing right now, isn't it?

        I giggled as I pulled my lyre out of the bag and held it before me.  Gazing softly at Twilight, I spoke,  “My name is Lyra Heartstrings, and you will not remember me.  You won't even remember this conversation.  Just like with everypony else I've ever met, everything I do or say will be forgotten.  Every letter I've written will appear blank; every piece of evidence I've left behind will end up missing.  I'm stuck here in Ponyville because of the same curse that has made me so forgettable.  Still, that doesn't stop me from doing the one thing that I love: making music.  If my melodies find their way into your heart, then there is still hope for me.  If I can't prove that I exist, I can at least prove that my love for each and every one of you exists.  Please, listen to my story, my symphony, for it is me.”

        “I...”  Twilight Sparkle blinked rapidly.  She ran a hoof across her forehead and shook it before processing her words past a wincing expression, “What do you mean?  I don't get it.  Is this some kind of—?”

        “Shhhh.”  I smiled and floated the lyre in front of me.  “Just listen.”

        I closed my eyes and concentrated, telekinetically strumming each string in succession.  All of my instrumentals in the heart of downtown Ponyville that afternoon were just rehearsals.  There, before Twilight, in the acoustical heart of her wooden home, I performed “Lunar Elegy #7” as sweetly and eloquently as I could.  Though I didn't know the ending, I danced my way through the chords with no less confidence.  When the performance was over, I reopened my eyes to see Twilight Sparkle sitting before me, her face aglow with the melody of the song still echoing in her gifted mind.

        “That...”  Twilight Sparkle began to murmur, “That was... was...”

        “Tell me,” I uttered firmly, my gaze strongly piercing her for a moment.  “Is it familiar?”

        “It... It is!” she exclaimed.  “I feel as though... as though I heard it from...”

        I leaned forward.  My heart was beating.  I did all I could to keep my composure.

        Finally, Twilight Sparkle stammered, “Th-the lunar archives!  Yes!  Yes, I believe that's a symphony from the early Neo-Classical Era!”  She beamed as the information blossomed in her mind, as if unfolded from a hitherto unkempt part of her mental library.  “Princess Celestia shared it with me once before the return of Nightmare Moon.  She told me that it was one of the few things she had to... remember her sister by, before Princess Luna was tainted by the spirit that turned her malevolent.”

        “Tell me, Miss Sparkle,” I spoke firmly.  “Do you know how it ends?”

        “The musical number you just performed?”

        “Yes.”

        “It... It wasn't finished?”

        “No.  But you've obviously heard it before.  Do you know how it ends?”

        “I... I don't understand what this is all about!”  Twilight gazed sideways at me, her brow furrowed beneath her violet bangs.  “Sure, I've heard the tune before.  But that's because Princess Celestia personally pulled it out of the lunar archives and shared it with me!  How could you know about it?”

        “Because I hear it,” I murmured.  “When I'm sleeping.  When I'm awake.  When I close my eyes.  When I open them.  I hear this tune—and many more like it—bouncing across the walls of my mind, resonating through the leylines connected to my consciousness... as if my own horn was picking something up beyond the frequency of the living in an attempt to tell me something and me alone.”

        “But... B-But how?  Why?”

        “For the same reason that you don't hear it, I suspect.”  I took a deep breath and said, “For the same reason that nopony will ever remember that they've ever spoken to me.  For, to them, the tune is just as forgettable as I am.”

        “Huh?”  Twilight Sparkle slumped to her haunches, blinking hard.  “Miss Heartstrings, I don't understand.  What do you mean you're forgettable?”

        I smiled.  Spike was walking by again, and I whistled at him.  “Hey.  Mr. Green Spines.”

        “Hi there!” he said, standing before the last parcel.  “Dig the swell hoodie—”

        “Yes, we know, Spike!” Twilight Sparkle frowned at him.  “Haven't you said that enough to our guest?”

        “Our guest?”  Spike made a face, his crooked gaze bouncing back and forth between Twilight and myself.  “I'm sorry, Twilight.  I was away unpacking the shipment, remember?  This is the first time I've seen her!”

        Before Twilight's voice could say something to match her flabbergasted expression, I spoke up.  “Spike, do me a favor, if you could.  I'd like to check out Zoology of the Zebrahara by Jockey Goodall.  Would you mind grabbing that for me while I have a chat with Twilight here?”

        “Sure thing!  Zoology of the Zebrahara coming right up!”  The eager young assistant bounded down a distant hallway.

        “Uhm...”  Twilight scratched her head with an errant hoof.  “Why the sudden interest in Goodall's writing?”

        “I could care less about the nature of the book,” I said.  “I just happen to know that you shelve it at the furthest part of the library from here.”

        “And how could you know that?  This is the first time you've visited the library—at least since I came here and became chief librarian.”

        “Hmmm... As a matter of fact, I have come to visit this library.  Lots of times.”  I smiled steadily at her.  “And they were all after you came to Ponyville, Twilight.”

        “But I don't—”

        “As a matter of fact, I arrived in Ponyville not long after you did, Miss Sparkle.”  This next part was hard.  I've always had a hard time keeping my composure here, but I think I've been getting better at it.  “I used to live in Canterlot, just like you.  My parents and I lived in the upper Alabaster District, on Starswirl Street.”

        “Starswirl Street?!”  Twilight's ears twitched as her eyes lit up.  “Why, that's two streets down from where I used to live!”

        “484 Nebula Avenue,” I said, my eyes reflecting hers.  “Your apartment flat was just above Moondancer's.”

        Twilight couldn't help it.  She let loose the same awkward giggle I have heard hundreds of times.  “That's uncanny!  You mean to say you knew Moondancer too?”

        “Yes.  We were good foalhood friends.”

        “The two of you?  How come she never told me?”

        “No, Twilight,” I said.  “I meant the three of us.  You, Moondancer, and I.  We attended Magic Kindergarten together, and the rest is history... well, it was.”

        She stared at me, her eyes narrowing and her mouth agape.  “But that's...”  She gulped and shook her head.  “I-I would have remembered!  Moondancer and I—”

        “We went to Magic Summer Camp together for years.  One summer, when you were only seven, you tried a teleportation spell and got yourself stuck atop a royal guard tower.  It took the entire afternoon for us to flag down a pegasus to give you a lift back down to the street.  You were so embarrassed, you cried.  So Moondancer and I took you to the local doughnut cafe, and we made you feel better.  That's when you finally told us about your acceptance into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.  You had kept it secret from us for so long because you were afraid we'd become jealous and not want to be your friend anymore.  That couldn't have been any further from the truth.  We loved and cherished every moment we had to hang out with you.  Years later, when Moondancer and I were also accepted into the school, you showed us around the campus.  Our first year in class went off without a hitch—unlike so many other new students—and we always had you to thank for that.”

        Twilight listened to all of my words.  When I was done, she gazed towards the far end of the room and muttered quietly, “I... remember all of those moments.  But, it was only Moondancer and myself every time.  I... I don't remember you at all, Miss Heartstrings.”  She glanced up and briefly bore a frown.  “How do I know that this isn't some sort of stupid prank?  Did Rainbow Dash set you up for this?”

        “You mean like the time that she and Pinkie Pie switched your writing jar with invisible ink?” I said with a smirk.  “Or the time Rainbow Dash doused your mane with a hidden bucket full of ketchup, and so you trotted off to the bathroom... only to find the tub filled with packages of frozen curly fries?”  I giggled and took a deep breath.  “Or what about the one time she convinced you that your horn was falling off, and like a true hypochondriac you spent the entire night reading up on unicorn ailments and fell asleep in the middle of the library?  I do recall her treating you to a lunch at Sugarcube Corner to make up for that last one...”

        “How... How could you know about all of that?”

        “Because you told me about them.”

        “You mean to tell me that we've talked before?”

        “Dozens of times.”  I said, though it came out as a drone.  It's tough trying to inflect one's words when they've been repeated so many countless times.  I did my best to stay pleasant and approachable.  “You're a highly intelligent unicorn, Twilight.  I knew that when we were foals.  I'm glad to see you becoming a shining member of the community here in Ponyville.  But, just like every conversation we've ever had, you won't remember it any more than all the other ones previous.”

        “That... That sounds too crazy to believe—”

        A young voice from the side spoke up.  “Uhmm... Twilight?”

        Twilight looked over.

        Spike stood, blinking, his expression blank.  He held a book in his hands, but he remained still in the middle of the hallway he had walked in from.  “You asked me to do something, and I... I...”  He squinted at the tome in his grasp.  “Zoology of the Zebrahara?  Ugh, this book is so outdated.  They call zebras bad names in it.  Why do we even keep this in stock?”

        “Spike, that's the book Lyra Heartstrings just asked you for a moment ago.”

        “Lyra who?”

        “Hello!” I waved with a smile.

        “Oh!”  He blinked at me.  “Hi there!  Dig the swell hoodie!”

        “You mean to tell me you don't remember her?”  Twilight's voice rose in confusion and frustration.  “She's been sitting here and talking with me for minutes!  You must have passed by—like—three times!”

        “Yeesh!  I'm sorry, Twilight!  I didn't know!  Besides, aren't we supposed to be closing the library soon?  It's a little late for strange visitors, don't you think?”

        “Spike—”

        “Twilight and I are just having a simple chat, kiddo,” I said, waving a reassuring hoof.  “Don't let us bother you.”

        “Ugh... Whatever.”  He waddled off with a groan, practically dragging the thick tome after him.  “I'm a magician’s assistant, not a gate-keeper.”

        As he left, I glanced back at a dumbstruck Twilight and said, “You see?  He walked away from me.  Distance is the one thing that causes others to forget about me.”

        “And... uhm... wh-what's the other thing?”

        I glanced up out the nearest window.  The sunset’s red kiss was all but gone.  The blackness of night was falling, and with it would come the pale glow of the moon.

        “Time,” I eventually said, my nostrils flaring.  “It's a matter of minutes.  Sometimes an hour.  Very rarely longer, but you won't know that I ever existed.  That's what makes explaining all of this so tough to do—every time—because I hardly get to the point of asking for what I really need from you.”

        “You must forgive me, but I need an explanation!”  Twilight exclaimed, her voice as sharp and desperate as her twitching expression.  “This kind of a thing is unprecedented!  Even if it were true, how could anypony possibly survive in such a state of existence?”

        “I manage.  It hasn't been easy, but I'm doing quite well for myself.”

        “I still find it very hard to believe, Miss Heartstrings.  I'm afraid you're going to have to show me more to prove that what you're saying isn't—”

        “Your first week in the Royal Palace as the magical apprentice to Princess Celestia...” I began.  “Her Majesty showed you a gallery that featured the portraits of many esteemed unicorns from Equestrian history.  You were so proud of yourself, because you instantly recognized the painting of Starswirl the Bearded.  Then your mentor took you aside and explained something to you.  She said that all of the portraits had one thing in common.  They were all former students that she had once tutored through the ages, just like she was starting to tutor you.”

        Twilight's eyes remained fixed on me, soft and vulnerable as I leaned towards her and softly continued speaking.

        “That was the first time that you truly understood death.  You were a young foal, full of energy and life.  You found yourself the inexplicably lucky student to Princess Celestia, and you didn't have a prior concept of the end of all things.  Staring at those portraits, you played out the history of Equestria in your head, and you realized that even the future would have its own history, and you would be only a piece of that—to be immortalized in a picture at best.  You suddenly began crying, and you didn't understand why.  Princess Celestia stayed by your side that whole night.  She didn't leave until your tears were dry.  She even delayed raising the Sun just to make sure that she had solaced you.  To this day, very few ponies know why that one morning was so dark nearly fifteen years ago.”

        I smiled and planted a hoof on one of hers, feeling the sudden trembles in her frame and doing my best to drive them away like a wise monarch once did.

        “You told me before, Twilight, during a very deep conversation that we managed to have several weeks ago, that the reason you study so many books, the reason why you prefer reading over seeing daylight, the reason why you can't for one solitary second of your life stop processing information, is because you want to fill yourself with as much knowledge as possible, because history is here for a reason.  Countless generations have lived and died before our time to ensure that we have the data we need to apply to our existence and make the world a better place.  To do anything less than exercise our intelligence is to forget the legacy of the ponies who predate us.  Princess Celestia—you told me—is more than a mentor to you.  She's the very heart of Equestria.  And as the central spark that holds together the Elements of Harmony, you want what's best for Equestria, and you want what's best for our Princess.  In that vein, you've endeavored to become more than a mere portrait on her wall.”

        I smiled, my face reflected in a pair of eyes that grew glossier as my words rolled on.

        “So many times, your friends ask you why you've never bothered meeting a young stallion to spend some romantic time with.  You keep brushing off their good-humored inquisitions, pretending that the whole notion is silly, but deep down inside you realize that you won’t afford yourself companionship so long as you have this incessant need to make a difference in this world.  But it's more than just a quirk of your personality, isn't it?  Someday, Twilight, you plan to write a book—a comprehensive almanac to all of the most important and timeless bits of magical knowledge that your entire life can ever hope to compile.  And the title of this book, you’ve told me, is 'The Path to Harmony.'  Every morning that you wake up, you think of this book, and you think of Princess Celestia reading it every day after she raises the Sun, long after you are gone, in constant praise of your contributions to this world.  For if there is one thing that you are mortally afraid of, Twilight—as everypony is—it's of being forgotten.”

        When I finished speaking, Twilight was no longer staring at me, but I knew that I had her ears.  A shudder ran through her body, and a single tear ran down her cheeks.  She wiped her face with a hoof, shuddered, and murmured in a voice that was a little too shaky for her own good.

        “How... H-How did all of this happen to you?”

        I knew that I once again had her as my audience.  My heart skipped a beat, but it was approaching night.  I glanced out the window.  The moon wasn't out yet.  Still, I sighed and said, “All I know is that happened while I was in town to visit the Summer Sun Celebration last year.”

        “Last year?”  Twilight sniffled, then blinked wide.  “You mean the night that Nightmare Moon returned?”

        “Yes.”

        “Something happened to you then that caused this... this...”

        “Curse,” I muttered.  “At least, I'm pretty sure it's a curse.  Heehee... I don't know what else to call it.”

        “But... How?  How does it work?  What are its connections to Princess Luna—I mean, Nightmare Moon?”

         “I've already taken enough time as it is,” I said in a low voice.  “To explain everything is impossible at this point.  You will stop understanding what I'm even trying to say halfway through the whole thing.”

        “Then write it down!” Twilight exclaimed, her wet eyes darting every which way to find a pen and paper.  “Put it down in words so that we can read it and—”

        “The pages will appear blank to you, as well as to any other pony.”  I said with a soft, bittersweet smile.  “Believe me, I've written several words... on several surfaces... in several spots all over Ponyville.  Nopony can see anything, so long as my writing is somehow involved.”

        “Because of the same factor of distance or time?!”  Twilight Sparkle remarked.  On the edge of a panting breath, she suddenly brightened.  “I know!  We'll send a letter to Princess Celestia!  Right now!  The power of green flame could get news of your existence to her in an instant!  Surely she could take care of this 'curse!'  Spiiiike—!”

        I held my hooves up, silencing her.  “We've already tried that.”

        “We have?!”

        “Mmmhmm.  Three times, on separate occasions, months ago.  All that the Princess will receive is a puff of green smoke, then black ashes.  So long as you write something while possessing short-term memory of me, nothing you send gets through the teleportation process.”

        “Then... Then...”  Twilight was fumbling for ideas at this point.  She was trembling all over.  I will always admire her concern and sincerity when she comes to this point of “knowing,” but I also can't stand to see her so distraught.  My only solace is that it never lasts long, and I knew it would only be a matter of time then.  “Oh!  A photograph!”  She started trotting across the library to where a camera rested inside a cabinet.  “We can take a snapshot of you and—”

        “You already have a photo of me.”  I said.  Getting up, I walked over towards a windowsill and pointed at a wide-framed snapshot featuring two colorful ponies in the streets of Canterlot.  “That is to say... it would have a photo of me, only... well.  See for yourself.”

        Twilight looked at the photo of her and Moondancer standing and smiling before the camerapony.  She squinted, as if truly studying the image for the first time.  “Funny... The photographer must have been really off.  There's a lot of space on the left edge of this photo.”

        “Room for a third pony, perhaps?”

        Twilight bit her lip.  She placed the photo back down, gulped, and looked at me.  “You... You could leave town, go to Canterlot, and ask for an audience with... Princess Celestia...” Her words were already trailing off after seeing the expression on my face.

        I shook my head slowly and said, “The same curse that keeps me out of the minds of ponies keeps me stuck within the town limits of Ponyville.”  I walked back to where my lyre and saddlebag were.  “I've hypothesized that it's because both Nightmare Moon and I were here when the curse began.  Whenever I try to leave Ponyville, I'm overcome by a horrible temperature drop, like I’m entering the bitter cold vacuum of space.”  My teeth chattered slightly at the thought of it as I yanked on my sweaterjacket's hood strings for emphasis.  “It's why I have this and the scarf.  Sometimes the cold of the spell creeps in and becomes unbearable.”

        “I...”  Twilight shuddered and slumped down in the middle of the library.  Her voice resembled that of a helpless, whimpering foal.  “I wish there was a way to help you, Lyra.  While I still know enough to do something...”

        “Then do this one thing for me,” I said, lifting the lyre up with magical telekinesis.  I took a deep breath, steeling myself.  “You've done it before, and it's helped me out immensely.  I'm sure you can do it again.”

        “Absolutely!” Twilight stood back up, her eyes bright.  “Tell me what it is!”

        “Help me finish this song.”

        “The one you played earlier?”  She gulped.  “Miss Heartstrings, you're right about one thing: I am doing my best to become a living repository of knowledge, but I'm afraid that music just isn't my forte.”

        “It's not your knowledge that the music should appeal to,” I said softly, grinning.  “It's your heart, Twilight.  You know this tune.  You've heard it before.  I don't need an expert thesis, I just need to know how you feel it should end.”

        “I...”  She bit her lip and stepped up closer, sitting down next to me.  “I think I need to hear it again.”

        I nodded.  Gently, I played the tune for her.  The tempo was a little faster on this playthrough, for night had fallen and I was starting to feel a little bit pressured for time.  Soon enough, the number was finished, and what I had up til then called “Lunar Elegy #7” was suddenly—

        “'The Threnody of Night,'” Twilight murmured.

        “Oh, is that the name of it?”

        “Yes.  At least I think so,” she said with a nervous smile.  “According to Princess Celestia, it was something Luna herself wrote just decades before her banishment.  Luna went through a period of mournful, artistic expression... at least before her jealousy and envy fused with the bitter taint that transformed her into Nightmare Moon.”

        “Do you know the last few bars of it?”

        “I...”  Twilight Sparkle fidgeted.  “I'm telling you, Lyra.  I'm not good at writing down musical notes.  Besides, it'd just turn up blank if I wrote it while in conversation with you, right?”

        “Then hum it,” I said.  “That's what we always did before.  I promise you.”  I winked.  “I'll remember it.”

        “I... I should just hum it?”

        “Mmmhmmm.”

        “Okay.  Uhm... Here goes.”

        The sound of the library interior drowned out as an angelic voice navigated a series of invisible chords in the center of the hollowed-out tree.  I listened closely, my heart providing a beat to the melody wafting from Twilight's soul.  Sooner than I had expected, the song came to an end.  It would have brought a tear to my eye if I wasn't so busy giggling.

        “But of course.  Heehee... how bleak.”

        “I swear.  That's how it ends!”  Twilight said.  “I remember it now like it was just yesterday.  The threnody stops abruptly.  I recall questioning the Princess on it.  It was the first time I heard Celestia laugh.  'Luna never knew how to make a graceful exit,' she said.  Huh...”  She shook her head with a goofy grin.  “Funny how I forgot about that moment until now...”

        “It's always funny at first,” I muttered, concentrating as I poured a wave of magic into my lyre and repeated the last few cords that Twilight had hummed for me.  The melody echoed with haunting resonance throughout the wooden chamber.  I now knew how the composition ended.  Another week, another elegy.  It's so simple, it hurts.  “And that's that.”

        “Aren't you going to play the whole thing?”

        “No,” I replied swiftly.  “No, not in here.”  I quietly slid the lyre back into my saddlebag.  “It wouldn't... be safe.”

        Twilight Sparkle squinted.  “The elegy—it has a magical property, doesn't it?”

        “Most of them do, but only after I've salvaged the melodies I hear in my head and compiled them together with my instruments.  They're merely pieces to a grand puzzle I'm struggling everyday to figure out, though I'd be lying if I said that I worked on them completely on my lonesome.  I have you to thank for another elegy's completion, Twilight.”  I smiled at her.  “Somehow, you never fail me.”

        “If only I could do more than that.”

        “Well...”  I stepped back from my saddlebag and turned towards her.  My face avoided her gaze, though.  “I kind of lied earlier when I said that I needed one thing from you.  As a matter of fact, there's something else...”

        “Oh?”

        “It's...”  I couldn't look at her straight.  Even now, I have a hard time believing that I said what I did—that I had made such a request.  All these months that have gone by, I've told myself that I should be stronger.  I had already gotten what I really needed from Twilight that night, that which could truly help me in my quest for understanding.  There was no point in asking for anything else.  But, I guess I was weaker than I thought, and that's the real reason why I'm writing this otherwise inconsequential entry.  “It's something really weird-sounding, and you can say 'no' if you like.  It's perfectly fine, and I really couldn't blame you...”

        “Lyra...”  Twilight walked closer to me.  “What is it?  What else do you need?”

        I like to think that I'm pretty good at smiling.  It's the best expression to have in any circumstance.  I wear it all the time because I want ponies around me to be happy.  It's what the world deserves, after all.  But standing there, upon the precipice of Twilight's gaze, my smile was as solid as ever.  My eyes, however, weren't.  The image of her fogged over as I finally looked up.

        “Can I ask for a hug?”

        I've talked to Twilight Sparkle no less than fifty times since the curse began.  I've had this same conversation with her about two dozen times.  This occasion, however, was the only time I made this request.  I can't guess exactly why.  Perhaps that afternoon was colder than normal for me.  Perhaps I was thinking about Derpy's sweet child.  Perhaps it was just the threnody—it had ended too terribly short, and I felt as empty as Luna's composition was meant to feel.

        My thoughts ended short too, for I was at the receiving end of Twilight's embrace, and it stole the breath from me... to suddenly be someplace so warm once again.  I happily allowed her to hold me, my forelimbs dangling across her back as I closed my eyes over the shoulder of my foalhood friend.  If forgetfulness was a sin, then I was hardly a saint, for being held in her arms suddenly made me realize that I had lost track of what it was that I was truly searching for.  Music is a gorgeous thing, but it is still only an artifice of the real rhythm that pumps through our veins, heated by our hearts.

        Oh, what fragile things we ponies are, such separate yet special creatures—that we need the felicitous sounds of laughter and harp-strings to bridge the frigid gaps between us that are otherwise filled by dust and tears.  I wanted suddenly to tell Twilight so many things, but I knew that words would fail us both.  Besides, words will only be forgotten.  Our loving friendship is immortal, and the best thing to have conveyed such truth is the one thing that we did.  If that hug had lasted forever, I would have been fine with my name losing all meaning.

        “Thank you, Twilight,” I said, once more embracing the chill as we parted ways.  I sniffled only once, and the smile returned to fill the brief void that had swallowed my expression.  “That means more to me than you can imagine.”

        “I only wish it was enough,” she murmured sadly.  She stared for a moment into space, then suddenly brightened with a happy gasp.  “I know!  A memory spell!”  She scampered towards a tall bookcase looming on the far end of the foyer.  “If I can cast a powerful enough incantation, maybe we can counteract whatever this curse is and keep you from being forgotten until the Princess and I can come up with a real solution!”

        I sighed.  “Twilight, save your energy.  It didn't work the last time you tried, nor any of the times before that.”  I stood still as she dashed all around me, collecting more and more tomes from the walls of the place.  “It's best that you don't work yourself up—”

        “No, seriously!  This is a spell that Starswirl the Bearded invented!”

        “You mean the Concentration Buffer?”  I murmured, gazing up at the window.  I saw a sliver of moonlight, and my heart sank.

        “Yes!  How'd you know?  Anyways, if I can find the formula and cast it with a sprinkle of mana-dust as a reagent, I just might be able to—”  Her words stopped just as soon as her hoofsteps did.

        A chill ran through my body.  Vapor escaped my lips.  I didn't want to turn around.  I never want to turn around and look at the pony when this happens.  But every time, I do.  And I did then.

        Twilight Sparkle was standing dead-still in the middle of the room with a glowing horn.  She had several books hovering all around her.  She looked at them curiously, as if they were a swarm of annoying moths.

        “What... What was I...?”  She blinked, frowned, and floated the books back to their respective holes in the shelves.  “This is no time for side projects!  I've got Heroes in Equestrian Literature to unpack.”  She finished putting the books away, turned around, and instantly yelped upon the sight of me.  “Eeep!  Wow... uhm... h-hi there!  Where did you come from, Miss...?”

        “I apologize,” I said.  I was already sliding my saddlebag on.  “I didn't mean to startle you.  I was just finishing with... with a project of mine.”

        “I see.  Well, I don't mean to sound rude or anything,” Twilight said with a sheepish smile, “But the library will be closing in about—”  She glanced up at the clock and did a double-take.  “Oh!  It’s past seven!  Uhm, we're closed!  We've been closed for... goodness, about fifteen minutes now?”

        “I see.  Well, I'll be on my way.”  I curtsied and made for the door.  “So long, ma'am.  I wish you a pleasant evening.”

        “Heeheehee... Same to you, miss.”  As I trotted away, I heard her calling towards the far end of the hollow tree, “Spiiiiike?  Where the hay are you?  These parcels won't unpack themselves!  We can have supper after we're done!”

        Today, a few hours before writing this, I stood once again on the corner of Main Street in sunny, downtown Ponyville.  I knew better than to play the entirety of “Threnody of Night” in public, so I only performed tiny snippets of it, so that I would learn them by heart when it came time to perform a true recital in private.

        Many ponies stopped by, and a good few of them dropped bits into the metal can I had lying beneath me.  I saw Dr. Whooves, Granny Smith, Carrot Top, and several more pleasant faces.  However, I didn't lose concentration until one pony in particular showed up.  Before she got too close, I stealthily nudged the box of bits with my rear left hoof, hiding it beyond view of a green bush behind me.

        “My, what a heavenly tune!” Rarity said, her sapphire eyes bright and sparkling in the noonday sun as she stood before me with her saddlebag. “But dear, you look positively freezing!  Tell me, are you ill?”

        “I'm... uhm... I'm perfectly fine,” I said with a smile, not once losing the rhythm of my telekinetic string-strumming.  “I'm not sick.  I just tend to feel colder than the average pony.  But I've got this wonderful hoodie and this lovely scarf, see?”

        “It is a good thing too!” Rarity said, pacing around me.  “I cannot stand to see a gifted musician such as yourself freeze to death!  Good choice on the scarf, darling.  It matches your eyes delightfully so.”

        “That's what the pony who gave it to me said,” I remarked.

        “Well, if you ask me, I think you deserve it.  Your music really makes a stroll across this town of ours all the more beautiful.  I daresay I'm tempted to hoof you some bits just to show you how appreciative I am.”

        “Heehee...” I cleared my throat and struggled to maintain the melody.  “Believe me, that's not necessary.  I... I-I wouldn't even think of it,” I said, though my lungs were already deflating shamefully.

        “Nonsense!”  Rarity waved her hoof and said, “Haven't you heard, dear?  Generosity is the lens of the heart!  How else are we going to see how truly lucky we each are for being alive?”  She tilted her head up.  “But, if you insist, I will leave you be to your smashing instrumentation.  Perhaps we can meet again?”

        I found it easier to breathe.  I looked up at her and smiled.  “Yes.  I'm sure we will.”

        “Splendid.  Ta-Ta, madame maestro!  Heeheehee...”  And she was gone.

        An hour later, I was seated inside Sugarcube Corner, cradling a cup of tea in my hooves.  I didn't take a single sip.  All I did was stare into the tiny wisps of steam rising from the drink, unenthused at how cold it felt against the memory of my first gracious hug in months.

        A jar full of bits rested on my table.  After four consecutive days of performing in the center of Ponyville, I had once again accumulated enough money to buy the materials I needed for my little experiment.  I now had the “Threnody of Night” down pat, but it wasn't just enough to perform the musical composition in full.  I needed to purchase the right magical ingredients for in case something went wrong.  After all, I had gone down that road before—and not even the world's entire supply of scarves or sweaters could have saved me from the coldness that I found lying beyond the final notes played by my lyre.

        If I didn't keep working on this project of mine, then I might lose any opportunity I had of climbing out of this accursed pit I was in.  Why, then, did I feel as though I was about to commit a sin with those bits?  I've taken advantage of my “situation” before, procuring many things that I've not been entirely proud of even though the ends justified the means.  But suddenly now, after how far I've come—after the hug—I wondered if I could really live with myself after I... find myself.

        “Oh, wow!  A lyre.  Tell me, are you a musician?”

        “Hmm?”  I looked up.  I admit it—I did a double-take.  “Oh, uhm.  Yeah.  Something like that.”

        Twilight Sparkle smiled at me from where she stood in the middle of the cafe.  “I've always admired musicians, cuz so many of my unicorn friends went on to study music while I stayed in other fields at Canterlot.  I wish I had taken time to understand music theory.  It's both fascinating and beautiful.”

        I exhaled softly.  “It's remarkable how so much in life can be those two things at once, isn't it?”

        “Oh!  Uhm... I'm sorry.  Listen to me going on and on and on,” Twilight muttered, rolling her eyes above a goofy grin.  “Ahem.  I'm Twilight Sparkle.  I'm in charge of the Ponyville Library in the east district.”

        “You're also the apprentice to Princess Celestia and the living Element of Magic responsible for banishing the tainted essence of Nightmare Moon.”

        “Oh...”  Twilight smiled sheepishly, her lavender ears drooping.  “So you've heard about all of that stuff too, huh?”

        “Is it so hard to believe?”  I took a sip of the tea finally.  Perhaps it wasn't so cold after all.  “Some of us do more to be remembered than others.  I play music—you save all of Equestria.”  I lifted the teacup in “cheers” and smiled.  “Somewhere, you and I will meet.  Hmmm?”

        She blinked steadily at me, then giggled.  “Eheheh... Yeah.  To each their own, right?”

        “Most practical rule in my book.”

        “Well, you should come by the library sometime.  I'd be more than happy to show you all the volumes we have on music theory.  I've got at least twelve books written on ancient Equestrian lyres alone.  I bet you'd eat them right up.”

        “Heeheehee...”  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I already had.  Twice.  “If the need ever comes up, Miss Sparkle, I just may take you up on that offer.”

        “I hope you do,” Twilight said with a soft smile.  “We each have our own talents.  Sharing them is... is like a way to get to know each other better.  And what better way to not feel alone in this world than to do what we do best and share it with other ponies?  That's the essential key to harmony, at least I think so.”

        I listened to her, and instinctively my eyes fell upon the jar of golden bits.  It suddenly became clear to me.  “I believe it was a wise pony who once said that 'Generosity is the lens of the heart.  How else are we going to see how truly lucky we each are for being alive?'”

        “Hmmm... Whoever said that sounds really eloquent.”

        I nodded.  “Fabulously so.”

        “Well, enjoy your tea.  I'm off to go meet my friends.  So long.”  Twilight Sparkle waved and left.  I turned in my seat and returned to my tea, when suddenly I heard something.  Tilting my head back around, my ears pricked to capture a hauntingly familiar threnody.  Twilight was humming the last few bars of the most recent elegy, and she had a smile on her face as did she so.  I almost wondered if she understood it, but then I realized it wasn't important.

        I breathed happily and snatched my things up, starting with the jar of golden bits.  I knew suddenly what to do with my afternoon.  My experiment could wait.  What's one more week dropped into the well of nothingness?

        That evening, a long slender package magically floated up to the front of a Ponyvillean residence west of downtown.  It brushed up against the doorbell.  I struggled from afar to push with my telekinesis, and soon the package was ringing the front entrance.  After the gong had rhythmically begun and ended, I lowered the package and squatted behind a tree in the front yard.

        After several seconds, the door opened.  Derpy Hooves stared out, teetering, her googly eyes tired and bleary from a full afternoon of delivering parcels and letters all around Ponyville.  She glanced left and right, and for a moment I was afraid she was going to miss the recent purchase I had made at the store before coming there.

        Finally, one of her amber eyes rotated down—and she caught sight of the item.  Her brow furrowed.  She knelt down and nudged it, as if afraid that the box might come alive and jump out at her.  The experienced mailmare fiddled with the package, looking all over for a tag or some sort of identification that might indicate the sender.  On a whim, she gripped the edges of the box and flung it open.  Immediately, her jaw dropped.

        I watched quietly, biting my lip.

        Derpy fell on her haunches.  A shuddering breath left her as she removed a slender, golden flute from the box and cradled it in her gray hooves.  Her eyes focused on the instrument—both of them—and soon they filled with tears.  Stifling a whimper, Derpy smiled and scrambled up on all fours.

        “Dinky!  My little muffin!”  She bolted back into the house.  “Look!  Look what Mommy found for you!”  The door slowly creaked shut behind her, but not without letting the squeaks of a gleeful foal escape through its frame.

        For the second time in days, I felt the warmth of Twilight Sparkle's hug, but I didn't need another pony to be there for it.  I was alone, like always, and though I may have been several bits short of starting the next leg of my musical experimentation, it was something I was willing to wait out.

        Perhaps... just perhaps, the sweetest things that happen in life are the ones that history isn't here to record.

        With a smile, I pulled the hood of my sweatjacket over my horn, turned around, and trotted under the crimson kiss of the sunset.  Ponyville didn't stop being gorgeous, not for one second.

        Have you ever had a beautiful melody stuck in your head, but you don't know where it came from?

        That melody is me.

Background Pony

I - “Melodious”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: Spotlight, Vimbert, Demetrius, and Sanlando Park

Cover pic by Spotlight: askspotlight.tumblr.com

        Dear Journal,

        What happens to us between sleeping and waking?  Every night, when the moon rises, we march like sheep into that deep darkness, not knowing what truth mechanizes the spaces between our heartbeats during such long and noble silence.  Are we really the same ponies when we wake up?  Or is what rises with the morning merely a carbon copy of the thinking creature that had laid itself down the evening before?  What a strange homunculus that thing must be, a golem crafted after the flimsy blueprint of a slumbering soul's final thoughts, that it is no wonder that all of our ambitions, aspirations, and hopes are only residually pursued until the bitter end.

        What, then, should we call our dreams?  Are they the manifestations of regret?  Are they the substance of all our attachments thrown into a searing crucible of mortal fear?  Do we dream because we know of loss, of all its colorlessness, across which our wills and desires shatter like eggshells dashed against a brick wall?

        I used to believe in these things.  I saw the fall of night like the mistress of death.  Dreaming was a threadbare, skittering whisper—like the a flutter of gray wings or the curling legs of an overturned moth after a short and fruitless life of chasing the invisible purpose behind flame.  When a pony is alone—and lucid—whilst cast before the great looming darkness of a world that forgets her, dreams serve nothing more than a dissonant overture to a symphony of screams.

        It was with a very mad notion, then, that I once stumbled upon a miraculous epiphany: a dream is much like a song.  Very often do ponies forget the title of the instrumental.  On other occasions, ponies are even likely to forget the name of the composer.  What is not lost between that impermeable gap of sleeping and waking is the tune, the indefinable voice that plays with our ears like a mother licks her newborn foal.  And when we open our eyes to the golden glow of a new dawn, it is something more than our bodies that animates us, something that gives us the tempo to which our hearts can dance, something that makes us crawl out of our beds like a resurrected soul is blessed to climb out of a tomb.

        Life is a very impossible thing, bleak and dark and dastardly at every turn.  But something in the cold void of night—something as black if not blacker than death itself—slips a tune into our meaty hearts as a gardener plants a seed in inert soil.  What grows from our dreams is a symphony, at times an orchestra that has no artist.  And like that orchestra, we blossom against the nothingness, until our search—our growth—becomes life itself, becomes something impossible, like remembering the name of a musician that you were never introduced to, only to learn that it was yourself the whole time.

        I do very much love to dream.  Does that make me mad?  I daresay, it makes me alive.

        It was the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration.  All across Ponyville, ponies gathered in happy little clusters, forming circles around brilliant bonfires that shone like amber plumes under the crimson kiss of a sunset.  The air was filled with laughter, murmur, and music as the villagers prepared  for the annual tradition of an entire night spent awake in the joyful sway of camaraderie.  Princess Celestia was visiting Baltimare that year, but that didn't stop the Ponyvilleans from eagerly greeting the morning sunrise and giving thanks to their patron alicorn for bringing light to Equestria each day.

        One soul, however, was anything but jubilant.  The earth pony sat alone beside a bonfire, displaced from the thick of the crowd.  There was a sullen shadow over his orange coat and earthen brown mane that night, and it matched the stallion's melancholic expression as he stared tiredly into the flames, his ears barely pricking to the music that wafted over his slumped shoulders.  As the day slowly died around him—forming a purple roof to the village full of summer merriment—his eyes closed and he exhaled a cold sigh.

        Just then, there was a cheerful voice echoing over the crackling, burning pyre before him.  “Caramel!  Hey there, dude!  What's happening?!”

        Caramel looked up with a start, then breathed easier.  He bore a practiced grin, as sweet as his name and yet just as flimsy.  “Hey there, Thunderlane... Blossomforth.  What are you two up to?”

        The pegasus couple shuffled up to the bonfire where Caramel was seated.  “We were about to ask you the same thing, dude!”  Thunderlane exclaimed.  “The gang's all hanging out beside the town hall building.”

        “Rumor has it that the mayor's godchild—a Wonderbolt—is visiting from Cloudsdale!” Blossomforth added with a grin, her freckles illuminated by the nearby tongues of flame.  “Supposedly he's gonna do some air tricks for all of us before the fireworks start at moonrise!”

        “Hmmm... Sounds pretty sweet,” Caramel said with a grin, albeit a grin that was already crumbling.  “But, face it, guys.  Your little clique of pegasi is awesome, but I always feel like a dead weight when I'm around you.”

        “Nonsense!”  Blossomforth's face grew long.  “How could you say that, Caramel?  We love it when you hang around.”

        “Yeah, besides...”  Thunderlane wagged his eyebrows.  “Wind Whistler's gonna be there—”

        “Shhh!” Blossomforth lightly slapped Thunderlane's chest with one of her milk-white wings.  “Thunder!  What did we talk about earlier...?”

        “Jeez!  Sorry!  I was only trying to—!”

        Caramel cleared his throat.  He stared at the two and said, “You're both Souls of Solstice tonight, aren't you?”

        The two pegasi glanced back at him, then smiled bashfully.  Their cheeks turned matching shades of red as they dug at the ground with errant hooves.

        “Yes, well...”

        “So what if it's our second time in a row being Souls of Solstice?”

        “There's just no other choice, really...”

        “I know all of the ponies have been talking about us since Hearts and Hooves Day, but...”

        “Egads... heeheehee... Is it really such a big deal?”

        Caramel smiled softly at them, a very genuine thing.  “I'm glad for you two.  I'm sure every other pony is as well.  I hope your Summer Sun Celebration is fantastic and memorable.  As for myself... I really just want to sit here and relax.  A lot of stuff has happened over the past year, and this has been my first opportunity to... to just think... y'know?”

        “But it doesn't mean that you have to think alone, does it?” Blossomforth asked with a look of sympathy bathing her features.  “This is a special night, Caramel.  You have friends.  In fact, Windy was just talking the other day about how she—oh... erm...”  She bit her lip guiltily and glanced up at Thunderlane.

        Thunderlane smiled, nuzzled her, and glanced one last time Caramel's way.  “You sure you won't change your mind, bro?”

        “Go on, Souls of Solstice,” Caramel spoke in a detached voice.  He closed his eyes and once more relaxed to the musical chords that were softly serenading his lonesome ears into the crest of night.  “Embrace the sunrise together.  Don't worry about me.”

        The two pegasi slowly, sadly left his side.  Their hooves were distant shuffles amidst the bonfire's crackling embers.  Once his friends were nothing but a memory, Caramel sighed.  He opened his eyes and dug twin circles in the dirt between him and the flames, as if mapping out a solemn eternity for himself.

        It was precisely then that the music died.  “It's a lot like dreaming, isn't it?”

        Caramel blinked awkwardly.  He raised his head, glancing all around, until his gaze finally fell upon me.  “Uhm... What's like dreaming?” he asked.

        “Living,” I said.  I stood a few meters behind him, my body leaning up against a wooden post.  My lyre levitated in front of me as I reached two hooves up and lowered the stone-gray hoodie from over my horn.  “Sunrise and sunset: our days pass by between sleeping and waking.  It's like a constantly changing stage-play with the darkest curtains imaginable.”  I smiled softly and began magically plucking the strings of the lyre.  The instrument was leading the conversation; my words were merely a background chorus.  “You look like an actor who's lost his motivation.  Dare I ask why?”

“Look, thanks for your concern, but I’m really just here to relax with my thoughts, if you don’t mind,” he said.  “You can, uhm.  You can play your music though.  It’s nice to listen to.”

“Hmmm... Very well then.”  I smiled gently and resumed plucking my strings with soft magic.  “Music it is.”

But as the melody resumed, Caramel was hardly at ease.  He fidgeted, his limbs jolting with an jittery nature that rivaled the snapping embers of the burning pyre.  Finally, he spoke up.  “My friends just wouldn’t understand.”

“Hmm?” I uttered from where I was strumming.  “What was that?”

“My friends.  The pegasi who were here just now.”

“The ones who trotted off happily without you?  Who can blame them? This should be a night of celebration, yes?”

        “Well, yeah...”

        “And is there a reason why you’re not celebrating with them?”

        “Oh, it's nothing important,” Caramel said.

“Very well then.  I’ll just be here with my music,” I uttered, barely hiding a smile.

His jaw tensed.  After a flaring of his nostrils, Caramel muttered aloud, “I used to love this annual event.  But this year, it’s not so easy.”  He spoke to me, and yet I was a perfect stranger.  Something in the worn edges of his face announced a desperate need to speak, or else I would have never bothered ushering the truth from him to begin with.  “If nothing else, the Summer Sun Celebration reminds me that so much time has gone by...”  He weathered a shuddering sigh, his blue eyes returning to the blazes before him.  “...and so little good has come of it.”

        “I see.” I nodded, filling the air with a somber melody that matched the pitch in his voice.  “So, somepony has a hard time sleeping—much less dreaming.”

        He smirked slightly, then squinted at me.  “You're not from around here, are you?”

        “I'm not about to spread any horrible rumors that your acquaintances would ever remember, if that's what you mean to ask.”

        “Oh, it's not that,” he spoke, though the wavering in his voice put his honesty in question.  “It's just that... it's the Summer Sun Celebration, and everypony should be home where they're happy.”  He gulped and added, “They should be with the ones they love.”

        “I am... a long way from home,” I said in a cold breath.  It was all too quickly replaced with a warm smile as I plucked the lyre boldly, happily.  “But the ones I love?  Heeheehee.  I wouldn't abandon them for an instant.  Now, what about you, good sir?”

        “I...”  Caramel's face winced as if a horrible dagger was burrowing through him.  “It's complicated.”

        “What can be so complicated that it wrecks something as simple as finding another Soul of Solstice?” I remarked with a grin.  I hummed briefly to accompany the notes of my lyre before speaking once more, “It's a tradition as old as time.  When Princess Celestia first raised the Sun over Equestria, she discovered three pairs of ponies—the ancestors of unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi—and she blessed these Souls of Solstice with the light they needed to begin a civilization of glory, honor, and love.  To this day, everypony has a treasured soul that they cherish above all else.  I'm sure you're no exception.”

        “Hmmm... Yeah...” Caramel mumbled.  “I suppose it's just that I'm afraid.”

        “Aren't we all?”

        “But it's no excuse!” he exclaimed, frowning, though the anger was hardly aimed at me.  “Things have been so tough, lately.  I can handle it all on my own.  But Windy...”  Caramel's frown dissolved to allow a grimace to cross his face.  He sighed, slumping once more to the ground before the bonfire.

        I hummed and strummed a few chords before glancing his way.  “I assume you speak of this 'Wind Whistler' that your companions mentioned a moment ago.”

        “Hmmph... She's a very special mare in my life,” Caramel said, his gaze melting in the flames.  “You said that living is like dreaming, right?  When Windy's around, it's always a good dream, and I never want to wake up.  She's so kind, so cheerful, so honest and smart.  She takes me apart with her laughter, as if I was made of matchsticks, and only the sound of her voice can put me back together again.”

        “Heeheehee...”  I giggled and paused in strumming my lyre.  “Methinks I picked William Flankspeare's bonfire this year.”

        He smirked and glanced at me through the corner of his eyes.  “Wind Whistler herself has said that I sound like a poet.  Though, when I'm around her, I feel like there are marbles in my mouth.  I just can never say the right thing.”

        “Words seldom work when we want them to,” I said.  Righteously, I resumed strumming the lyre, filling the spaces between my breath with harmony.  “So why isn't Wind Whistler here with you?  I'd pay a hundred bits to see marbles spill out of a grown stallion's mouth.”

        “I'd ask her to be Souls of Solstice with me in a hearbeat.  But...”

        “But what?”

        “It wouldn't be right,” he said defeatedly.

        “Oh?”

        Caramel gulped.  After a collapsing breath, he finally let it all out.  “Life on my family's farm has hit rock bottom.  Our celery stalks are dying, and we can't produce the crops to meet this year's coming harvest.  My mother and father have resorted to selling livestock, but even that isn't helping us where we need it to.  I've taken on two separate jobs in town just to provide the support that I can, but I fear that it's already too late.  My family's gotten in contact with some distant relatives in Whinniepeg.  We're seriously thinking about moving out of town before Hearth's Warming, ditching the farm—selling it and everything.  I suppose I could stay in Ponyville, but what kind of a life would that be?  In a best case scenario, I'd be living out of an apartment, barely finding time to sleep between two—maybe even three jobs.”

        “It most definitely sounds like a case of hard luck,” I said with a sagely nod.  “Though, I must be forward and ask—just what does this have to do with the fact that you're not spending time with Wind Whistler at the moment?”

        “We've been getting closer and closer for the better part of a year,” Caramel said.  “She knows only so little about all of the horrible stuff that I've been going through.  Things in my life are about to get crazier, and... and...”  He clenched his eyes shut and shuddered briefly.  “She's so happy and full of life.  She doesn't need to be weighed down by a lousy earth pony like me.  She doesn't need my troubles clouding her blue skies.  I... I love her.  I really do, and that's why I gotta let her go...”

        I hit a heavy note.  Its reverberations danced sharply between us as I cast a curious glance his way.  “Oh really?”

        “If I ask her to be my Soul of Solstice, it'd only be giving the wrong message,” he muttered.  “It's the Summer Sun Celebration, the mark of a new year—for me, at least.  It's time I committed myself to what I need to do for my future... and for her future as well.”  He gazed woefully into the flames, as if the happier colors of his life were being tossed into the consuming fire.  “It's time that I just... gave up... gave Windy up.  It's all for the best.”

        “Hmmm...”  I nodded.  “It's always for the best when we let a dream die before it finishes itself,” I said in a droning voice.  “After all, when the dream gets us to where we want to be, then there's no point in dreaming any longer, is there?”

        Caramel blinked.  He glanced up at me with a scrunched face.  “Huh?”

        I giggled.  “Heeheehee... Doesn't make much sense to you either, does it?”  I resumed strumming, this time tossing a cheerful rhythm his way.  “Tell me, have you ever heard the Tale of the Mad Pony?”

        “Uhmm...”  Caramel scratched his own head in confusion, then ultimately smirked at me.  “What?  You fancy yourself a bard?”

        “I've been sillier things before.  Would you like to hear it?”

        “What, the tale?”  He gulped and turned once more towards the flames.  “I dunno.  Is it long?”

        I glanced up at the western horizon.  There was still a sliver of crimson across the edge of the world.  The moon was nowhere to be seen.  “It's short enough, as are all good things in this precious world.  If you would prefer, I'll say nothing and let my lyre do the talking.  It makes very little difference either way—”

        “Eh, I'm good.  I'm not really going anywhere.”  He sighed and stared off at the distant bonfires where other ponies were currently engaged in crowded conversations, and all of them laced with the cheerfulness he was sorely lacking.  “Besides, I could use a good story.  Life's been a dull novel as of late.”

        I smiled.  The best audience is an innocent audience.  The challenge is in keeping that audience innocent through to the end of the story.  Without a moment's hesitation, I raised the lyre high above my head and let the ensuing notes soar majestically above the reach of the bonfire's flame.

        “The Tale of the Mad Pony starts in a town—much like this one—and during a Summer Sun Celebration—just as jubilant and fancy as the one we're about to enjoy now...

        “The villagers of this town were full of ecstasy and joy.  You see, the eve of the Summer Sunrise was a lot longer and immeasurably darker than most that year, so that when the Princess finally raised the dawn, it was all the more bright and invigorating.  Everypony danced and sang in the streets with glee—all except for one pony, an equine from out-of-town who discovered that she had very little to be happy about.  As a matter of fact, she would soon learn that she had every reason to be mad.

        “It started very subtly at first.  Ponies would look at her twice, each time with the same expression.  Then ponies would wave at her more than once, as if greeting her over and over again.  Then there were citizens that she absolutely knew she had come into contact with before, only they treated her as though she was as much a stranger as she was when she first arrived in town days before.

        “'I don't get it.  Haven't we talked before?' she would ask them.  'Weren't you there to treat me when I woke up in the hospital from a concussion?  And you—weren't you two the ones who found me unconscious in the shadow of the town hall building just this morning?'

        “The ponies merely gave her blank gazes, shook their heads, and carried on with their vibrant celebration.  The entire town was in the throes of Summer Sun festivities, and there the one pony was, standing all by herself, coming to terms with the fact that she was not only alone in her predicament, but she was cursed.

        “Of course she was cursed.  What else would you call her sudden situation?  She began shoving her face into the gaze of every pony she could find, her rapid breath reaching a fever pitch as she asked, begged, demanded that someone remember her.  With each attempt, the villagers only grew more and more oblivious to her desperation.  It was as though every single thing she said, shouted, or sobbed was immediately thrown into a deep well of forgetfulness.  It's one thing to be ostracized, banished, even executed.  It's a horrible thing to be ignored, to have one's worth and mettle treated like dust long before one's fate in a grave.

        “'Why are you all doing this?!' she began to shriek, to scream.  'Is this some kind of cruel joke?!  Somepony!  Anypony!  Please, pay attention to me!'

        “But her pleas fell on deaf ears.  No matter how startled or shocked a villager was, he or she would only forget about her moments later.  She began to wonder if she was dreaming, for only a nightmare could be painted with such heartless colors.  In desperation, the pony resorted to drama befitting an absurd stage-play, and began kicking her hooves all about, knocking down effigies of the Princess and shattering market vendors full of celestial trinkets.

        “When even these feats of hysteria weren't enough to faze her fellow equines, she went against her better nature—against her last bulwark of decency—and tossed a Summer Sun torch into a nearby flower garden, setting ablaze the front of the town's court building.  Immediately, the festival ceased as every villager within view of the smoldering chaos ran to grab buckets of water and stop the inferno.  The pony merely stood there within the glow of her conflagration, boasting loudly about her horrible act of arson.  And, sure enough, a pair of police stallions hoisted her towards the jail on the far end of town.

        “The pony couldn't possibly have been happier.  She greeted the officers with tears of joy, practically hugging them any chance she got, happily allowing them to cart her off to a barred cell—if only it meant that she did indeed exist somewhere, somehow.  Imagine her dismay when by the time they dragged her to the station, they stopped dead in their tracks, blinking dizzily as if coming out of a sleeping spell.  They apologized profusely to the pony for the trouble and set her free, so that she stumbled numbly through the streets, trying to imagine if what had just transpired was indeed real or a bitter hallucination.

        “And then she returned to the town's court building and almost fainted.  Not only were all of the flames put out and the damage repaired, but everypony was once again celebrating—oblivious to the return of the violent firestarter—as if not a single atrocity had been committed that day.  The pony soon realized that she could be either a saint or a sinner, and yet neither side of the moral compass mattered at all.  She was just as important as the shadows of her own breath, and even those were becoming threadbare things.

        “That wasn't what made her mad.  No, the final gossamer strand to her sanity had yet to be snapped.  She trudged through town—her heart as heavy as her hooves—as she made for the village library.  It was there that she'd find a pony whom she knew—beyond the shadow of a doubt—would remember her from their mutual childhood.  It was the one soul who had brought her to the village for the Summer Sun Celebration to begin with, and surely she would break the dark cloud forming around her accursed life.  As soon as she knocked on the door and her friend's bright face appeared, the pony immediately gasped for joy.  But that rapturous exhalation would be her last, for the pony saw on her friend's face the same blank expression of confusion that had swarmed across the whole of town.

        “Losing the love of a friend is like a death that has no funeral.  Entire galaxies have dissolved over the eons and even they are worthless things.  No living thing should face a reality like that, to be an island with no sea—only the perpetual blackness of apathy, encompassing. Ponies aren't born to be alone.  It's just not in our blood.  We attract to one another.  We are cohesive: like water.  The void of the universe exists only because we are here in the center to point in all directions away from ourselves and label that which is missing, that which is more cold and frightening than a winter's night, that which hungers for us because it can never understand—as we understand—what it means to be warm, to be happy, to be together.

        “The mad pony's hope died that day, but she soon realized that it wouldn't be her only death.  Her nightmare was a thick black prison layered with multiple fatalities.  She died every time she so much as talked to a pony, looked at a pony, or shared the same atmosphere as them.  It was horrible enough to be forgotten—but to be ignored over and over again by the same souls with no cessation in sight?  She lurched through the streets like the corpse she suddenly realized she would forever be, woefully stretching the lengths of her mind in want of a solution to a horrible dream that she kept waking up from, and yet would never end.

        “How do you wake from an endless dream?  It was no longer a matter of living or not living.  She had to assault the dream—that damnable masquerade of misery—and then the pain and loneliness would stop.  What lay beyond the last breath of slumber may have been blacker than black, but the pony suddenly realized that oblivion was harmless to a soul no longer possessed with the ability to see.

        “The day was coming to an end, and the Celebration had come and gone.  All of the festive decorations had been removed from the center of town.  It was late in the evening; citizens were getting ready to sleep.  She was getting ready to sleep too.

        “Then, all of the sudden, one of two earth ponies glanced up from where they were bundling equipment and saw the mad pony standing on the fourth story ledge of town hall.  He immediately gasped, his sapphire eyes full of shock and horror, the same look that she had tried so hard all day to summon.  Only, now it was too late.  Regardless, he waved a hoof at her while shouting towards his comrade.

        “'Oh dear Celestia!  Quick, go fetch a pegasus—anypony that can fly!'  As his buddy galloped off in a desperate breath, he trotted boldly to the edge of the building and peered up at her.  'Ma'am, I don't know what you're going through and I can't pretend to, but please—this can't possibly be the answer.  There's got to be another way!'

        “But the mad pony was past reasoning with.  If her tears weren't evidence enough, then perhaps her disheveled mane and muddied coat spoke volumes to the shocked stallion below.  'Just stop!  Just stop talking!' she shrieked.  'Your words are meaningless!  They mean nothing!  Soon you won't even remember me!  I'm as good as dead—I should be dead already!'

        “'No!  Don't say that!  Nopony deserves to die needlessly!'  The stallion reached a hoof towards her from afar.  'I promise that we won't forget you!  Just walk away from the ledge and let us talk to you!'

        “'There's nothing you can promise me that won't get swallowed in time!' she said, hiccuping, struggling to maintain her breaths.  Her soul teetered upon the brink and threatened to pull her body along with it.  Ponies who fall in their dreams were never known to hit the ground.  She was more than ready to test that theory.  'This village means nothing to me!  It's a prison!  Nothing more!  Nothing!'

        “'Look...' the earth pony below raised both of his front hooves and spoke calmly, soothingly, though his shivers briefly matched hers.  'Even if everything is as horrible and bad as you believe it to be, this isn't going to solve it!  This isn't going to make anything better!  You need to have faith and step away from the edge!  Don't allow yourself to go before your time!'

        “Finally, the mad pony had had enough.  'Why?!' she spat down at him, furious.  'Why shouldn't I just jump?!  Why shouldn't I just end the nightmare once and for all?!'

        “He looked up at her, but it was a different stallion somehow, or so she noticed him for the first time—as so many of the villagers had noticed her for the first time, only to forget.  But this time, there would be no forgetting, and she realized it was because she was the means of that memory, a power that she always had, but was only then echoing across the cave of her punishing situation.  Perhaps it was the drooping of his ears, or the soft shape of his lips, or the glossing over of his sapphire eyes that conveyed the meaning in his words to her.  Whatever the case, a part of the mad pony that she thought had disappeared with her sanity suddenly bore the brunt of his message, like a little foal being woken up by a soft melody tickling the inside of her ears, and embracing the golden dawn with a chorus as old as time:

        Because you are so special, so precious, and this world would be a lot less worth enjoying if you chose to leave it.

        “The mad pony was silent.  She stared down at the stallion.  He was a perfect stranger.  He didn't know her, and in a matter of minutes he never would again, and yet that didn't stop him from appealing to the deepest part of her, the part of her that was still warm, for he had reminded her that it was still there.  In mere seconds, he could very well have made her... or remade her, for the very simple fact that he could, and wanted to.  He was the one who was precious, for he didn't know that in a matter of time he would be gone, a mere shadow burned against the walls of the mad pony's beleaguered mind.

        “And it was then that she realized how selfish she had been in her anguish and despair.  She was not the one dying multiple times, over and over again.  These ponies—these beautiful villagers were the ones dying repeatedly.  They were nothing more than amnesiac shades of their past hosts, paper facades of souls that had once graced the earth with the right to bear every thought that crossed their mind into righteous permanence, but couldn't because the mad pony was there to bring their dreams to an end.

        “The entire village was dying, with ponies falling left and right into oblivion, for she—a cursed pony—had the blatant audacity to gallop across their lives and impart her pestilence upon them.  And there were so many of them, countless ponies who briefly laughed and smiled at her, far too many to dig graves for, only to sing songs of—like the vibrating tune coming to life in the back of her head, a chorus that repeated itself louder and louder with each hearbeat, for hers was beating for the stallion's, for his priceless words that would soon rocket their way into oblivion far faster than she could ever jump her pitiful self.  All of these ponies' faces were snapshots, joyous and beautiful until the end of time, like she had every ability to be, if only she was courageous, if only she was mad—mad for the sake of making a life out of a nightmare and discovering the secret colors hidden within.

        “Before this epiphany finished illuminating her more than any sunrise ever could, a cold chill ran across her body, and she knew that something that was briefly there was lost forever, because the stallion was already starting to blink dazedly like a waking infant in his crib.  But as the stallion's dream ended, and his tears disappeared, they rediscovered themselves in her eyes.  She smiled for the first time in days, and stepped away from the edge of the buildingside.”

        My lyre lamented the end of the day.  Though it had a sad sound to it, it was laced with happiness, as my gentle smile was.  I stood across from Caramel, finishing the story under the purple blanket-spread of falling night.

        “The mad pony's curse did not end that day.  As a matter of fact, it was only the beginning.  But with it was born something else, a deep and sincere warmth that would carry her through the frigid months to come.  Her madness would be her drive.  It'd give her the bravery and persistence she needed to live the life of a lunatic's dream, singing songs to those who would forget the face of the performer with the meager hope that they'd find meaning in the performance.  For, you see, a memory is only a shadow once it's been lived, once it's been drained of all its flavor.  However, it is music that can carry the sincere vibrations of one's heartrstrings, like a tune that wakes us from our darkest dreams, or a timeless carol that pierces all of history's legacies of death and loss.  The stallion taught this to the mad pony.  In one simple breath, he showed her that no matter how bleak her curse was, she still had the power—and the duty—to seize the moment and live.  Life is the only dream that we can control, and it only ends once we've searched every dark corner of it for color and transformed it into song.”

        My music ended, and the sudden void pulled the breath sharply out of Caramel's lungs.  He gazed softly at me, blind to the bonfire flickering beside us, as though it was a far duller beacon than what I was shining upon him right then and there.

        “That's a beautiful tale,” he murmured.  “It's sad.  And yet... yet...”

        “You cannot have sadness without felicity,” I said softly, my grin as fragile as my next few words.  “We are here now—happy and healthy and delightful.  But, like a memory, even this too will fade away, and I’ll then share songs with a void.  Loss and love have their places in this world.  We can accept them with despair or with delight.  I choose the latter, because it at least makes loss something that is quiet and serene, for I'll have known that I enjoyed the warm currents of my existence with grace and dignity.  Our days on this earth can too easily become an asylum, built by our fears and patrolled by our regrets.  We have it within ourselves to stop worrying about the towers of security we can build for ourselves in the future and simply enjoy the sizzling bonfires erected before us now.  And—heeheehee—I assure you, it's not something that is even remotely cherished on our lonesome.”

        Caramel gulped, and his blue eyes glossed over.  “Wind Whistler loves me, and I only want to love her back.  But how can I love her if I have nothing to give her?”

        “You can give yourself,” I said, strumming the lyre so that the melody of the tale could reach his ears once again.  “You can give yourself and live—live with her—so that the two of you can be more than just memories, and you can embrace the sunrise together, no matter how bleak the next day may seem, because you can afford to be so much, and because this world would be so much less enjoyable if you gave up something so precious.”

        He smiled painfully.  Something bright lit up the edges of his eyes.  I could recognize that bright, pale orb in my sleep, and I knew that I had been doing just that for a solid year.  I struggled through a sudden shiver to stare at Caramel's face as he said, “Did this mad pony ever find an end to her curse?”

        I gulped.  “No.  No, she never did,” I spoke.  “But she couldn't deny the fact that it gave her opportunities that no other pony could enjoy, opportunities to sing songs of things that even she realized she that had forgotten herself.  Still...”  I took a deep breath, gazing briefly into the fire.  “She would give up all of that intuition and knowledge—even for a single day—if she could just find the stallion who had changed her life...”  I slowly tilted my face up and gazed deeply into his sapphire eyes, my voice blanketed by a curtain of vapors separating us like the corners of the earth.  “And tell him how thankful she is.  She'd tell the stallion that she'd never stop dreaming; she would always remember him.”

        Sparks crackled and died in the bonfire, like a brief color that had twinkled in Caramel's eyes.  He blinked, realizing that night had fallen, and he was alone.  A horrible shiver ran through his body.  Everywhere he looked, thicker and thicker shadows were encompassing his vision.  So he stopped paying attention to his sight and trusted on his hearing instead.  A beautiful tune tugged at his ears, like a morning sunrise lifting a waking foal out of bed.  He turned and saw a bonfire several meters away, surrounded by laughing and celebrating pegasi.  Caramel literally jumped up to his hooves and galloped there like a pony possessed.

        A mare with sky-blue wings and a blonde mane was in the middle of chatting with a friend beside a burning pile of wood.  Her giggling voice had the sound of bells.  Caramel nearly fainted at the melodic tones as he struggled to stand upright behind her.  Bravely, he cleared his throat and murmured, “Windy?”

        Wind Whistler turned around.  At the sight of him, her wings fluttered and her brown eyes lit up.  “Caramel!  I...”  She lingered breathlessly, gulped, then managed, “I thought you told me that you weren't celebrating this year...”

        “I know what I said.  But I was just...”  He began, but his words trailed off uselessly.  He stood upon the precipice of confusion, his eyes gazing into the fire as if searching for the reason to why he had trotted over to her.  Slowly, his ears twitched, for he once more heard a timeless melody, and it softly pulled at the corners of his lips.  “I was listening to music.  Very sweet, beautiful music,” he said, grinning, then pivoting his gaze to drink in the image of her once more.  “But it wasn't enough, because you weren't there to listen to it with me.”

        Wind Whistler's feathers twitched on end, and her golden tail curled in twice on itself as she smiled warmly up at him.  “Oh sweety...”  Her smile was as fragile as the sudden dam to her eyes.  Her closest friends shuffled quietly away, giving her and Caramel enormous space—as if some ballroom dance was about to take place.  “I missed you too.”

        “Windy, I was... erm...”  Caramel bit his lip, his shivers returning as he was suddenly unworthy of her heavenly gaze.  “I was wondering if... That is, if you aren't doing anything special this Celebration—”

        “Yes, Caramel.” She smiled wide, her teeth glinting like the moon above.  “I would be happy to be Souls of Solstice with you.”

        Caramel blinked.  He glanced across the bonfire to see the grinning and winking expressions of Thunderlane and Blossomforth.  With a wry smirk, he squatted down beside Wind Whistler.  “And just how did you know I was about to ask you that?”

        “Mmmm...”  She leaned in, nuzzled him, and purred deliciously into his ear, “Prove me wrong.”

        He exhaled sharply and nuzzled her back.  His voice sounded like a little colt's.  “Never.”  He sniffled briefly.

        Wind Whistler gazed into his eyes with worry.  “Caramel?  Is... Is everything alright?”

        His moist eyes glistened from the nearby flame.  The sadness was canceled out by a warm smile as he spoke to her, “I'm just so happy to be alive, alive with you.  You're like a good dream that never ends, Windy.  I'm sorry if I've not said that enough.”

        She smiled back at him.  “Well, you're saying it now, aren't you?”

        The two of them giggled and leaned against each other, basking in the Celebration's warmth.  I stood just beyond the dancing amber gleam of the bonfire, playing my lyre in the spot where I had trotted to after the moon sliced its way between Caramel and I.

        Even now, I can't remember how much time had passed until the music stopped.  As soon as I realized there was no more melody, I glanced down and realized I had been hugging my instrument to my chest.  A sigh escaped my lips, sad and delightful at the same time.  An instrument is only the start of a melody.  It takes listeners to truly finish a composition to its end, even when there isn't an end.

        The tranquility of the moment was interrupted by enormous thunder.  Caramel, Wind Whistler, and the rest looked up and cheered as the first of the night's plentiful fireworks lit up the purple haze of the world.  Ponyville had become a strobing sensation of amber flame and rainbow explosions.  Ponies danced in the streets—fillies, colts, mares, and stallions alike—souls of solstice who mutually promised with their jubilant cheer to stay awake through to the next morning, when it was up to their patron Princess to bring forth a literal glow to the world that mirrored the prancing joy in their heart.

        They were so busy with their festivities that hardly a villager noticed one pony marching through the heart of the event, a pony who was not lit up by the bonfires, a pony to whom the fireworks gave no shadow.

        I paused halfway through trotting out of the center of town, looking over my shoulder.  For a moment there I saw—or thought I saw—a trail of my own hoofprints disappearing behind me in the bright moonlight, at a hauntingly even pace.  Upon such a dreamlike sight, I did what only a mad pony would do.

        I smiled.

If all I care about in life is the imprints I make in this world, then the most I'll ever leave is a grave.

Background Pony

II - “Lunatic's Dream”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: theworstwriter, Demetrius’ bicycle, Warden, and Kevin Nash

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear Journal,

        What makes a pony?  Is it her dreams?  Her thoughts and her ambitions?  What she hopes to accomplish before she dies?  Is it her fears and her worries, the many things that she dreads in life?

        When I lived in Canterlot—when I was around my family—I knew exactly what my future was going to be.  I knew the type of a career I was going to pursue.  I knew the kind of stallion I was going to marry.  I even knew the type of foals I wished to have.  If someone had asked me then “what makes a pony,” I would have answered with “the sum of all my talents.”

        That was an easy thing to believe while I had a home.  When I arrived in Ponyville—when I was thrown through the frigid veil of endless night—it was as though a trial by fire had robbed me, had burned me of all the things that I had long taken for granted.

        I don't think anypony can be prepared for becoming homeless, for what it means to be worth the sum of all one's talents and not a single one of them granting her food, bed, or a hug to safely surrender to.  No amount of years of musical composition or philosophy could have prepared me for the nights I spent searching for food in the streets or a place to sleep in the shells of abandoned buildings.  There were times when I could have given into dread.  A sane pony would have had no choice but to give in.

        But, as I soon realized, nopony could be any more prepared for becoming so blessed—as I would be blessed.  If it's the home that makes a pony, then I'm built out of the grit of those far stronger and more generous than I.  There are many souls in Ponyville who will never get to hear the songs I make for them.  But that's hardly the tragedy I once believed it to be, for the building blocks of my chorus already exists in their hearts and throats.  I know this, for they've been so gracious as to share such foundations with me.

        My shivers stopped as soon as I heard her.  It had to have been her; I knew no other pony who took that dirt path between my house and her farm.  Under the roar of a summer's rainy downpour, I heard her scuffling hooves against the wooden stoop of my cabin's patio.

        I looked up from where I sat with a pen and paper, finishing the final touches to a written composition of “Threnody of Night.”  Before me, the flames of the brick-laid fireplace had dwindled to a dim glow.  I was so engrossed in work that the invisible winds of cold were barely bothering me.  The rain continued to pound against the wooden rooftop shingles, and still I heard her lingering just outside.  I was more curious than concerned.  Adjusting the sleeves of my hoodie, I stood up, trotted across the cabin, and swiftly opened the front door.

        Applejack jumped and spun to face the entrance, gasping.  I wasn't used to seeing her startled... much less soaking wet.  The poor mare stood on my porch, drenched from head to tail.  Blond bangs framed a freckled face beset with shivers as she blushed a shade of red embarrassment.

        “Greetings,” I said with a placid smile, keeping the door ajar with glittering magic.  “Kind of a lousy day for a walk, isn't it?”

        “Oh.  Pardon me,” Applejack muttered and fidgeted.  The world was a thick curtain of veritable waterfalls beyond her.  The dirt path snaking past the cabin had long morphed into a dark brown river of mud, and the bright light of the afternoon refracted a ghostly gray sheen across the forest stretching beyond.  “Uhm... Shucks, this looks really, really bad, I reckon.”  She chuckled sheepishly.  I spotted a basket bundled with soaked towels beneath her, as if she was using the last vestiges of her own dry flesh to keep the package from being soiled any further.  “I only meant to take a breather from this dag blame'd flood.  I swear, pegasi don't give us as much solid warnings like they used to.”

        I shrugged.  “It came as a surprise to me as well.  Normally, I'm always out and about.  Today, though, I just happened to be indoors, working on something.”  I smiled pleasantly.  “Speaking of indoors, you look as though you need a change of scenery.”

        “Oh, ma'am, think nothin' of it!” Applejack shook her head and pointed out at the offending monsoon.  “I'm sure it'll clear up... erm... eventually.  Don't you fret none.  I'll be out of your mane soon.  It was never my intention to impose—”

        “Now what kind of a pony would I be to leave a soul like you drowning out here in the rain?”  I trotted backwards a few steps and motioned towards the inside of my cabin.  “March inside.  I've got a fireplace in here.  Let's get you warmed up.”

        “Uhm...”  Applejack bit her lip.  She gazed at me, at the rain, at her basket, and at me again.  “You absolutely sure I ain't bein' a bother?”

        I grinned slyly.  “Get your sopping wet tail in here before I change my mind!”

        “Well, alright...” She shuddered before humbly shuffling into the cabin with the basket in tow.  “Whew.  Y'know, I don't rightly remember this place, which is odd—considerin' I walk this path so often.  Didn't there used to be an abandoned barn around these here parts?”

        “There could have been,” I said with a smile, closing the door behind her so that we were both sealed off from the chilling moisture outside.  “I'm rather new to town, relatively speaking.”

        “Well, howdy-do and welcome to the neighborhood,” Applejack said.  I slid a bucket towards her.  Taking a hint, she placed her hat down on the floor and began wringing her long blond threads over the metal container.  “I swear, though, this cabin must have sprouted up overnight.”

        “Mmmm... Not exactly,” I said.  I marched over towards the fireplace and levitated three fresh logs out of a metal stand to the side.  “But I don't blame you for not noticing it.”  I dropped the new planks of wood at the base of the chimney and stoked the flame.  Soon a brilliant glow was once again spreading through the cabin, this time heating up more than just myself.  “I'm not... exactly the kind of pony who attracts attention easily.  It's only fitting my house carries the same habit.”

        “I noticed the apple trees you've got planted between here and that shed you've got outback,” she said.  She paused, rolled her eyes, and smirked to herself.  “Heh.  Of course I noticed the apple trees.”

        “No crime in that.”

        “I noticed that they're grafted.  Did ya plant them yerself?”

        “Mmmm...”  I trotted across the cabin, past my bed, and opened a wooden cabinet full of fresh towels.  “Yes.  But I had some help.”

        “I've got an orchard full of hundreds more like them just up the road.”

        “So we're neighbors!” I grinned at her.

        “Heh.  Reckon we are.  Now I feel bad for not sayin' 'howdy' sooner.  How's that for rotten hospitality?”  Her voice trailed off as she gazed up towards the walls of the place.  “Huh... Now will ya take a look at that?”

        “Hmmm?”  I trotted back towards her.  I trailed her eyesight, observing the numerous musical instruments lining the wall.  The two of us were surrounded by a rather familiar assortment of flutes, guitars, harps, chimes, violins, cellos, and clarinets—all hanging from metal fasteners across the interior of the small, fire-lit cabin.  “Oh.  Heh... I'm a musician,” I hummed, as if that could succinctly explain the undeniable forest of orchestral tools surrounding us.  “There's one good reason why I'm not living in the center of town.  With all the racket I'm bound to make, the most 'hospitality' I'd get would be a swift kick to the flank.”

        “What?  You compose tunes or somethin'?”

        “I search for them.”

        “I...”  Applejack stopped wringing her mane dry and bit her lip.  “I-I reckon I don't get it.”

        “Neither do I.”  I smiled and handed the towel to her.  “Until I find what I'm looking for, that is.  And then it's another mystery.”  She took the towel and I marched once again toward the fireplace, stoking the flame some more.  “The name's Lyra, by the way.  Lyra Heartstrings.”

        “Applejack,” she introduced herself like it was the first time.

It's always the “first time,” and I can't help but feel charmed on each and every occasion.  There's a melodic tone to a pony's voice when she thinks she's never spoken to you before, and Applejack's twang is something that violins can only dream of.  I look forward to the day when I get to hear it again.  My life's a symphony that way.

“And I swear I wasn't fixin' to burden anypony,” she continued.  “I would have made it home safe and sound had the rainstorm started just a sneeze later.”

        “Why the cross-town trek, if I may ask?”

        “Cuz of this.”  Applejack draped the towel over her neck and began stripping the basket of its soaked wrapping.  “Oh dear Celestia, please don't be ruined—Whew!”  She exhaled with relief as she pulled a tiny alicorn doll out into the amber light of the fireplace.  The toy was dry—about the driest thing in the cabin, and she nuzzled it like it was her own infant.  “I would have plum tossed myself off a cliff if somethin' bad came to this.”

        “Well, your secret's safe with me, Miss Applejack,” I said with a goofy wink.

        “Huh?”  She blinked up at me, then frowned.  “Oh hush!  T'ain't nothin' like that!”  She cleared her throat and placed the doll back into the basket.  “It belongs to my 'lil sister, Apple Bloom.  Her Ma gave it to her, just before she and Pa tragically passed away.  May they rest in peace.”  She squatted down and exhaled, reveling in the warmth from the fireplace as she continued speaking, “Apple Bloom's having a bout of the pony pox right now.  It always happens to us Apple family ponies at her age.  My experience was anythang but a bed of roses, so I wanted to make it easier for her.  I went into town and had her doll patched up and freshly cleaned, but on the way back... well...”  She motioned towards the walls of the cabin, still echoing with the deluge of rain pounding from the outside world.  “I almost had a heart attack.  I couldn't allow Apple Bloom's doll to get ruined.  Maybe now you can understand why I stole your patio like I did.”

        “You didn't steal anything, Applejack,” I said calmly.  “I completely understand.  But, if you ask me, the doll is the least you should be worried about.  Here...”  I reached towards my cot and pulled free a woolen blanket.  “No need to have two members of the Apple family coming down with something nasty.”

        “Oh please, Miss Heartstrings.  I can't—”

        “Shhh.”  I draped the blanket over Applejack and shoved her closer to the fireplace.  “You can.  Just relax.  You've been through a rain-soaked nightmare; it's the least I can do.”

        She took a deep, shuddering breath, and soon she was nestled comfortably before the flames as her body dried in the toasty aura.  “Hmmmm... I reckon this feels mighty nice.”

        I smiled.  “I would think as much.”

        “Kind of reminds me of the fireplace we've got back at the farm,” she said, tightening the folds of the blanket around herself.  Her green eyes danced with the crackling embers.  “My Pa built it.  He once told me that he went by the same unwritten blueprints that his father and his father's father before him used when the Apple family first settled in this part of Equestria.  Can you imagine it?  So many homes, and all of them usin' the same thang.”

        “It just goes to show...”  I squatted down across from Applejack and gazed softly at her.  “...you can get away with amazing things, so long as you have a good foundation.”

        Twelve months ago, I was a sobbing mess.  I laid on my side in the shadowy corner of a barn on the edge of town, curling in towards myself and covering my face with a quivering pair of hooves.  The only thing more potent than the pangs of grief blistering through me was an immense cold, something that chilled me to the bone.  For days, the frigidity had been my nemesis, a cryptic sensation that haunted and horrified me through the streets of Ponyville.  At that time, however—hidden in the dust and hay of the abandoned barn—I welcomed the freezing sensation, for the shivers it gave me nearly shook my tears loose, making me think that none of what I was going through was actually happening.

        Through hiccuping breaths, I smelled the rustic surroundings around me.  I felt one with the detritus, a lost and forgotten piece of history.  My saddlebag full of meager belongings had been tossed in the corner upon my stumbling arrival, and in the sparse beams of sunlight needling through the barn's porous ceiling beams I could barely tell the difference between my lyre and the random bits of farm junk surrounding it.

        Another sob, another shiver: I heard my voice squeaking free from my chapped lips, and it sounded like a perfect stranger.  Oh, if only I could forget myself as well, I thought.  My life would have been a great deal more manageable if I could no longer remember the sensations still hounding me, of a raving pony wreaking havoc across town, of Twilight Sparkle's face looking through me as though I were invisible, and of the great height that had stretched beneath me as I stood on the town hall building's rooftop and teetered on the brink...

        I whimpered and buried my face in my hooves.  I felt like a little foal.  I had tried fleeing from this place, running eastward.  If I could have galloped all the way home to Canterlot, I would.  But no less than half a mile from the edge of Ponyville, a horrible wall of cold assaulted me, to the point that I started losing the feeling in my limbs.  I rushed back to the center of town, collected my nerves, and tried trotting west instead.  After the same distance traveled, an invisible blizzard struck my body, and I had to return to the heart of my sudden prison.

        There was no sense in asking anypony for help.  As a matter of fact, I didn't want to even look at them.  The residents of Ponyville were cheerful.  They had every reason and right to be, and I didn't hate them for it.  I hated myself.  Stumbling across their paths—being subjected to their rosy expressions—served only to remind me of how cold, hungry, and scared I was.  So I did what all three of those factors persuaded me to:  I hid.

        I ran to the west edge of town—where the cold was bearable enough to endure but grating enough to keep me awake—and I threw myself into the hollow of that abandoned barn on the side of a dirt road.  I had wanted to collect my thoughts, but soon I had an even more impossible task to accomplish.  I had to collect my spirit, but that had all too swiftly shattered into a hundred unrecoverable pieces, like the tears leaking over my hooves and onto the dirt floor and hay.

        Even if I could put myself back together again, I wasn't sure I wanted to.  I didn't like the idea of what that soul would be tethered to, of what fate it had to anticipate.  It's one thing to be homeless.  But to be nameless?  You can live in a mansion paid for with the world's largest fortune.  You can own a million houses, a million acres of land, and a million servants dwelling on it to do your bidding.  You can even have your very own plot in the ground reserved for you in the world's most sacred cemetery.  So long as you're nameless, you don't have a place to call “home,” not in this lifetime or beyond.

        I was contemplating this, crying over this, despairing and shivering and collapsing over this, when she first arrived.

        “Land's sakes!” her drawling voice echoed against the dilapidated walls of the barn.  My ears picked up a quartet of hooves scraping through the wooden doorframe as the figure entered from the bright world outside.  “I knew I heard somethin'!  Uh... Hello?  Somepony?  Who's there?”

        I didn't realize that I still had energy left in my body until I found myself bolting upright with a gasp.  I turned towards her, and the first thing I saw were her freckles.  A bright slit of light captured a pair of green eyes, followed by the warmest smile I had seen in three starving days.

        “Whoah!  Howdy there!” She waved two of her hooves high above her head to show she was harmless.  I saw a brown hat, a ridiculously long blond mane, and two baskets of apples that hung from her sides.  “Take it easy, sugarcube.  I didn't mean to scare you or nothin'”  She looked strong, fearless, the very definition of a working earth pony.  Then all of those iron features immediately melted into a soft and sisterly gaze of concern.  “Oh darlin', you look an absolute mess!  I could hear ya cryin' like a poor widow from the road over yonder.  Is everythang okay?”

        What could I say to her?  What could I say to anypony that would carry the smallest degree of weight?  Life had given me a hammer and chisel, but my world had been turned to mud and sand.  I almost wished I had played dead instead of responding to her.  Maybe I would have gone unnoticed like the ghost I had become.

        Instead, she stared steadily at me and said, “You do realize that this here barn's been abandoned for decades, right?  Are you a long way from home?”

        Her words were delicious, like soothing musical notes that I hadn't the fortune of discovering until then, and they were gracious enough to squeeze even more moisture from my eyes.  I barely sniffled, though, for I was too busy staring—not at her, but at the twin baskets of red fruit adorning her figure.  I was suddenly aware of how dry my mouth was.  There was a deep rumble, like the wooden structure of the barn was settling all around us.

        She heard it too, but was in a far saner condition to recognize it.  “Heheh... Hungry, ain'tcha?”  She smirked, following the angle of my eyes.  “Let's start on the right hoof, shall we?  My name's Applejack.  Here.”  She twisted her head around, balanced a red fruit on her nose, and tossed it my way.  “Have an orange.  Heheheheh—Ahem.  That's an old family joke.”

        I suddenly couldn't hear her.  My taste buds were screaming over my ears, for I had scarfed down the contents of the apple in less than a minute.  Choking would have been bearable so long as I wrangled a few tender morsels down my throat.  Once I had bitten my way to the core, I wasn't entirely sure if it had helped my hunger any, but it had certainly dried my tears.

        Applejack was whistling.  “Whoa nelly! Easy there, girl!  Heheh... Good thing I wash those things before takin' them to market, huh?”  She sat down on her haunches in front of me.  “Well, I toldja my name.  Reckon I might get a chance to learn yours?”

        I shuddered, avoiding her stare as well as her question.  Even nowadays, I think I say my name out loud only to appease myself.  I certainly wasn't the one to invent it, and if I was to give myself a fitting replacement, would anything announce it better than my lyre?  All that mattered was that—at the time—something was gnawing at me far more than either cold or hunger.  Applejack was so real, so warm, and so there.  I was willing to do anything, or say anything, just to shatter the looming horizon of loneliness that threatened to drown it all.

        “Lyra,” I ultimately whimpered.  “Lyra Heartstrings.”

        “Lyra,” she murmured aloud with a nod.  Reaching her hoof up, she tilted the brim of her hat and smiled placidly my way.  “That's a mighty pretty name you have there,  Lyra.”

        My vision instantly blurred again.  I could feel my heart beating.  I wanted to hold her.  I wanted her to hold me.  I wanted to be warm, to be safe, to be happy—and I knew that none of it would last.  None of this would last.  I should have ended the conversation right then and there.  I should have grabbed my saddlebag, galloped out of the barn, and hid myself away in the forest where there'd be less intelligent creatures to smile at me, to feed me, to remind me that I was something worthy and capable of being cherished, just as Applejack's soothing voice was caressing all of the shivering ends of me, like I was not just some dirt-covered, tear-stained piece of refuse.

        “I know this town like the back of my hoof,” Applejack continued.  “And I must say I've never seen you around these parts before, Lyra.  Are you visitin' family or somethin'?  Is there somepony I can take you to?  There's no need to be wastin' away in some dirty 'ol barn, now is there?”  She blinked and squinted at me.  “Uhm... Miss Heartstrings?”

        At first, I wondered why she was asking me so many questions.  As soon as the image of her teetered and was swallowed by perpetual shadow, it suddenly made sense.  I was blacking out.  I fainted like some pathetic damsel, my whole body going limp.  Starvation, it seemed, isn't so exhausting until you remind yourself that you're capable of eating something.  I collapsed from such a sensation, and when I came to—the world was a thousand times brighter than the inside of that barn.  I saw the ground passing beneath me, and when I glanced up the horizon was bobbing.

        “H-hey there!” I felt the vibration of Applejack's voice.  With a shuddering breath, I realized that she was carrying me across her back.  A dirt road led towards a red barnhouse nestled in a sea of delicious apple orchards, and we were gliding towards the bright epicenter.  The world beyond the crest of Ponyville grew colder and colder, but Applejack's warm body and breath melted all of my shivers away.  “Just relax, sugarcube.  I'm takin' you somewhere safe.  Yer gonna be just fine.”

        “This...” I fought for an even breath, draped across her spine.  Days of running, panicked, across the lengths of Ponyville brought an ache to my limbs that I was just then discovering.  “This is where you live?”

        “You betcha!  Sweet Apple Acres, home of the finest bounty of red fruit in all of Equestria!”  We passed wooden fences and apple carts.  I could hear distant livestock and smell bales of hay.  “But my family and I can give you the grand tour later.  You look as though you've got a mighty nasty fever, Lyra.  Let's get you warmed up.”

        I immediately gasped.  “You... Y-you remember my name?”

        “Why, of course, darlin'!  Heh... Just cuz the Apple family is simple farmin' folk doesn't make us simple-minded!”

        There are times when I feel as though the only infinite resource in the world is tears.  Closing my eyes, I smiled—a fractured, porcelain thing—and clung securely to her.  The world was bright all around me, as if a righteous fire was burning away the frayed edges of a nightmarish veil that had been hanging over my head for days.

I was almost sad to be let go.  I opened my eyes, realizing that I was suddenly inside this blessed mare's house, having been plopped down on a sofa in the middle of an antique living room full of family pictures, heirlooms, and home-crafted decorations.  There was a fireplace in front of me, and it was as empty as I felt.  The sight of it made me shiver, and Applejack must have seen it, for soon she was grabbing planks of dried wood from a metal stand.

        “Here, let me light this up.  You make yerself comfortable and I'll get Granny Smith to fix you some soup.”

        “Granny... Smith...?” I murmured.  Just then, my ears pricked to hear the sounds of voices in the far end of the house.  Applejack and I were not alone.  The place was alive, and I felt very alien there sitting on the family's immaculate sofa with my tousled mane and stained coat.

        “Her name is Lyra Heartstrings, Granny!”  I heard Applejack shout across the interior, continuing a conversation that I in my numb state was only partially privy to.  “I found her just outside of town!  The poor thing looks like she's long due for some real hospitality.”

        “I...”  I bit my lip, squirming under a fresh curtain of shivers.  “I thank you so very much, M-miss Applejack.  But you really don't need to go to all this length just to... to...”  My voice trailed off, for I was suddenly bathing in a sea of toasty warmth.  The fireplace had been lit, and as my ears embraced the delicious crackling noises of the burning wood, my body veritably melted into the folds of the couch.  “Ohhhhhhhhhh Celestia, that's nice,” I murmured with a drunken smile.

        Applejack's return grin was a lot more charming.  “Nothing treats a sick spell better than bathin' in the Apple family's fireplace.”  She winked.  “Shucks, I remember when I first had the pony pox.  Cuddlin' up before this here mantle got me through all sorts of feverish nights.”

        “I'm not sick,” I said as politely as I could.  “I'm...”  I felt a sore lump building in my throat.  I didn't want to sponge up too much of this kind mare's generosity, but at the same time it felt like the first occasion I had in days to... relax and let go.  I wanted to pour all of my troubles onto somepony, but I didn't want to burden them with something I barely even understood.  “I'm lost, Applejack,” I blurted.  I ran a hoof through my frazzled mane and stifled my whimpers before they could form.  “I'm so lost, and I don't know where to start.”

        “Well, I dunno about you, but I reckon that home is always the best place to start.”

        “Home?”

        “It's what makes a pony, or so I've always believed.”  She placed the metal fireguard down before the brick-laid hearth and trotted towards me.  “A while ago, when I was just a 'lil filly, I left this farm and headed out to the city, thinkin' that I could live a different kind of life than the rest of the family.  Boy, was that one of the plum stupidest decisions of my life.  Heh.  I nearly cried my eyes out for days, until I ran back home, and everythang was just right.”  She stood above me and gently dragged a hoof over my mane, plucking free a random leaf and stalk of hay that I had collected in the barn where she had found me.  “Sometimes we leave home—even if it means running away from the place that means the most to us—cuz we're so desperate to find ourselves.  And what happens?  We only get more lost.”

        “I didn't run away from my home, Applejack,” I said with a soft sigh.  An invisible gust of wind came from nowhere.  The fireplace suddenly seemed miles away as images of Canterlot flicked through my mind.  “I would give anything to go back there, but I can't.”

        “And just why is that, sugarcube?”

        I bit my lip.  Goosebumps were forming under my coat.  I clutched my forelimbs to my chest and fought the icy shadows for as long as I could.  Applejack had been so kind to me.  The last thing she needed was an emaciated guest collapsing in the center of her living room.  Never in my life had I anticipated becoming what I was then: a vagabond, a bum, a unicorn with no purpose or title.  All my life, I had seen riff-raff gathered in the far shadier streets of Canterlot, and I had always regarded them with both pity and curiosity.  Now I was sitting in their place, carrying the same disgusting scent, and even those impoverished souls had more hope than I did.  Even if I could make my way back home, would I be able to stake claim to what which was once attached to me?  Would my parents be able to help me any?

        Mom.  Dad.

        “Nothing,” I murmured, my lips quivering.  “There is nothing for me to go back to.”  I huddled into the deeper contours of the sofa.  For a moment, I wished that it was a coffin instead.

        “Hmmm... Well, right now, we have a place for you here, sugarcube,” Applejack said.  Her selflessness was only outshone by the bright smile on her face as she swiftly trotted towards a closet, opened it up, and rummaged through rows of hanging jackets inside.  “And I've got something else for ya.  It's just the thing for them feverish shivers of yers.”  After a modicum of effort, she emerged with a stone gray article hanging from her mouth.  She dropped it by my side.  “Here ya go.  A little something I used to wear when I was a bit younger, for workin' around the orchards in autumn and all.  Of course, I rarely use it these days, on account that I've grown myself a second skin.  Heh.”

        I looked at her, then at her gift.  After a squinting study, I realized it was a long-sleeved sweaterjacket.  Without a second thought, I encased the item in glowing telekinesis and all-but-flung it over my forward half.  Finally, with only a little fuss, I slid my hooves all the way through and sat comfortably with the hoodie encasing my shivering limbs.  Soon, the goosebumps shrank away, as if the jacket was somehow absorbing the heat wafting towards me from the fireplace.  Looking back, I think it was the gesture itself that did the trick.  Applejack was willing to give a little piece of herself, and it was like being engulfed nonstop in her hug.  I couldn't help but smile, for I remembered what it felt like to be in the company of a pony who was more than a stranger.  I was more than ready to call this polite and thoughtful mare a “friend.”

        “Th-thank you.  Really, Applejack,” I said, curling against the sofa's shoulderest and basking in the glow of the hearth.  “For everything.  I wish I could repay you.”

        “My home is your home.”  She merely shrugged.  “Relax, rest up, and get better.  Later on, we can see about helping you find yer place, ya reckon?”

        I let loose the tiniest of giggles.  “Sure, I 'reckon.'”  I smiled, letting the gray sleeves of the hoodie dangle toastily over the ends of my front hooves.  When I was young, I used to envy Twilight Sparkle, wishing that I too had an older sibling to look after me while my parents were away.  I wondered if this was what it felt like.  “Though I dunno if any place in the world has a fireplace as good as this one.”

        “It's a good fireplace,” Applejack said with a nod.  “My Pa built it.  'Always make sure that you lay down a good foundation,' he'd say.  'The rest takes time, but it works without a hitch so long as the foundation is solid.'”  She gazed briefly into the fire.  She looked a lot older suddenly, though she carried it with far greater strength than the frail melancholy that I see in most ponies' faces.  “I reckon I've held much weight in them words of his.  My Pa was the foundation of my life.”

        I was floating dizzily on a cloud of warmth, but still I was able to understand the gravity of my new friend's words.  “I'm sure you've done him proud,” I said.

        “Hmm.  I can only make him prouder.”  Her green eyes twinkled briefly as she smiled, then trotted past me.  “I'll see how Granny's doin' with the soup.  I'll be back in a jiffy.”

        “Yeah, okay,” I said, adjusting where I sat on the sofa.  Sparks danced against the fireguard before me.  I stared into the flame, allowing the thoughts of my recent circumstances to melt away.  I pulled the hood of the sweatjacket over my horn and exhaled deeply, as if giving up a somber part of myself that had controlled my frightened limbs for so many nocturnal hours of despair.

        It was the first chance I had to sit and think deeply in days.  As a result, something dark and mysterious rose to the surface of my mind, something that had danced around the miserable waves I had so fitfully navigated up until that point.  The more I meditated on it, the more my ears twitched, for I realized that I was unearthing a melody from the deepest part of my psyche, an undying tune that had been born in the recesses of my mind and remained unsung since the very moment I woke fitfully in a dark alley, a scared and freezing victim of endless night.

        So engrossed was I in these ponderings, I barely noticed a yellow shape trotting up to my peripheral vision... then gasping.

        I glanced over.  There was a little foal looking up at me with wide amber eyes.  A red bow swayed in her crimson mane, for she was shivering.  Was I not the only one who was cold?  No, that wasn't it.  She was afraid of me.

        “Why, hello there,” I said in as gentle and harmless a voice I could muster.  I smiled at her and leaned over slightly.  “You must be Applejack's sister.”

        The girl back-trotted from me, her eyes as wide as saucers.  “Uhhh...”  Her jaw dropped as a pale sheen danced across her irises, like moonlight rippling over pond water.  “Uhhh... AJ?!”

        “Shhh—It's okay!”  I smirked.  “I'm guessing your sis neglected to mention that you had company—”

        “What is it, Apple Bloom?”  A familiar orange shape strolled back into the chamber, then immediately froze.  My heart jolted, for Applejack was suddenly shouting, “Apple Bloom!  Get over here!  Now!”

        Panting, the little foal scampered over to her sister.  I watched, blinking and confused, as Apple Bloom hid behind the mare.  Applejack stood protectively in front of her while glaring down at me on the sofa.  All of the sweetness and hospitality was gone, shattered to bits beneath an accusing frown as hard as diamonds.  “Just who in the hay are you?!  What are you doing in our house?!”

        “Wh-What?!”  I gasped.  My heart was beating hard, as if it would tear a hole in the hoodie at any moment.  “But... But... I was just.... I thought that—”

        “Is that my jacket you're wearing?”  Applejack exclaimed, her emerald eyes squinting harshly.  I could hear Apple Bloom's whimpering voice as she cowered and hid her face.  Behind both sisters, an old green-coated mare strolled up from the other room, curious about the violent commotion.  “Have you been rummaging through our stuff?!” Applejack continued, almost sneering.  “Spit it out!”

        “Applejack, I'm—”

        “You... You know my name?”  Applejack cocked her head to the side.  Her anger was briefly drowned in confusion, but soon that cloud faded and the scorn returned.  “Did somepony put you up to this?  If so, t'ain't funny!  We already had a bunch of rambunctious colts vandalizin' our barn months ago!  This here farm doesn't need no more mayhem on its plate!  Now are you gonna answer me or not?!”

        “I don't understand!  I'm Lyra, remember?  We were just—”  I stopped in mid-speech.  My heart briefly stopped, and I felt the warmth of the living room once again dissolving.  The next breath from my mouth was a whimper, for I had been reacquainted with my own foolishness.  “Oh dear Celestia, it's happening again.”

        “What's happenin' again?!  Dang it, missy!  I demand to know why you've trespassed into our very own home!”

        “Look... Uhm...”  I stood up from the couch, weak, my legs wobbling.  “This is... I'm...”  I gulped and backed away from them, waving a hoof.  “I don't even know how to explain th-this...”

        “Try me!”  Applejack's iron frown carried her icily towards me.  The fire bathed every hard line of her features and none of the freckles.  “Before I call the police.”

        “We were just talking a moment ago, Applejack!  You carried me here from the edge of town—”

        “Carried you here?!  I've never seen you before in my life!”

        “I know you think that—But I swear to you!”  I gulped before stammering like a fibbing foal who was desperate to avoid the paddle.  “We talked!  You lit the fireplace for me!  You gave me this jacket—”

        “Likely story.  You reckon I'm stupid?”

        “N-no!  For the love of Luna, it's not what you...”  I stopped in place.  The shivers had quadrupled.  I felt my bones turning to ice.  My gaze swam dizzily over the many family portraits lining the living room.  I saw nothing but the faces of strangers, like these three souls gathered before me always were and always would be.  I grimaced as though I was giving birth to a familiar horror..  “I'm so sorry... I... I-I gotta go—!”

        “Oh no you don't—”

        I spun and galloped desperately towards the far end of the house.  “I'm sorry!”

        “Applejack—!” the old mare's voice started.  “She's gettin' away!”

        “Oh no she ain't!  Macky?!”

        Their shouting voices dwindled as I shot around a corner and bolted for the front door.  Instead, I bumped into something large and red.  “Ooomf!”  I fell down on my haunches, reeling sickly.  Looking up, I gasped.  “Uhh!”

        A tall stallion towered above me, his crimson coat rippling with a sea of iron muscles.  On any other occasion, he would have been a delectable sight for a mare like me to behold.  At the moment, however, he was as menacing as a leering minotaur.

        “Big Macintosh!” I heard the elder mare's voice calling over the bounding hoofsteps of Applejack from the chamber behind me.  “Grab her before she gets away—!”

        I gritted my teeth, flashing a look left and right.  I saw a bathroom within a leap's distance.  Just as the red brute lunged at me, I bounded out of his reach and bolted towards the doorframe.  The doorknob was already glowing from my telekinesis by the time I flung myself inside and magically slammed the thing shut.  The house was rumbling from all of the bodies thundering after my hooves.  I slipped on a rug, nearly fell, and scampered back on all fours in time to lock the door and press my weight up against it.

        The door pounded once, twice.  I shrieked and pressed myself desperately against it, trembling, my starved body and glittering magic acting as a frail bulwark against the entire family's righteous anger.  “Oh Celestia.  Oh Celestia please.”  I started to weep, my tears gathering at the collar of the gray hoodie that had been donated to me by a ghost.  The door pounded a third time and I nearly fell back, struggling to keep my hooves firm against the slippery tile.

        “Open this door!” I heard Applejack say.  “I swear we ain't gonna hurt you, girl.  But—carn sarn it—you've got some explainin' to do!”  I heard the muttering of the other family members just outside.  “Don't you know that the Ponyville Police can put you in jail for invadin' somepony's home?”

        “Please!  Just leave me alone!” I sobbed, on the edge of hyperventilating.  I murmured into the wooden surface of the door, “The police will do nothing!  Believe me!  Nopony can do anything for me.  Oh blessed Luna...”  I hiccuped and slid down against the door, grasping my head and shaking.  The tune was louder this time, as if it was wanting to burst out my skull and bathe the walls of the bathroom with what was left of my soul.  “I just want somepony to help me, like you almost did.  It's that so hard to ask for?”

        There was no response from the other side.  I sat there, sniffling, hugging my lower limbs and trembling for what had to have been one minute... two minutes... three.  I blinked, dried my eyes with a stone-gray sleeve, and glanced up.

        “H-hello?” I remarked, nervously.  Again, there was no reply.  “M-miss Applejack?  Apple Bloom?”  I gulped.  “M-macky?”

        Silence.

        Pensively, I stood up.  I stared at the doorknob for ages before finally summoning the strength to unlock it with my telekinesis.  Pushing the glowing door open, I peered my head out into the hallway.  There was nopony to be seen.  I calmed my panting breaths long enough to sneak down the hallway.  The floorboards creaked beneath me.  With a wince, I inched my way, until I reached the edge of the living room where the entire debacle had started.  I gazed quietly around the corner.

        Applejack stood before the hearth, her flanks to me.  “Hmm... seems like an awful waste of wood in the middle of summer.”  She lowered her hat and scratched her blond mane while gazing into the crackling fireplace.  “Just who's idea was this?  Apple Bloom?”

        “Wasn't me, sis!” the little yellow foal trotted past her.  “Besides, I'm not allowed to put logs in without yours or Big Mac's permission!  Ain't that what yer always tellin' me?”

        “As much as I fancy you bein' all obedient-like, there are times when I wonder...”

        “Hey!  What's that supposed to mean?!”

        “Eh... Don't get in such a hissy fit over it, girls!”  The elder mare sat her green wrinkly self down in a rocking chair and smiled, basking in the warmth from the fireplace.  “After all, this is just what the 'ol doctor ordered for my bones.  Eh heh heh.  Ohhhh... Apple Bloom, be a dear and go grab Granny's quilt.  There's a good 'lil filly.”

        “Sure thing, Granny Smith.”

        “I reckon I better go help Big Mac with the chores,” Applejack muttered as she shuffled towards the back door to the house.  “Heavens to Betsy!”  She smiled and shook her head as she walked into the reddening sunset.  “Just where does all the time go?  I must be getting' old.”

        “Ohhhhh shut yer trap, ya stinkin' baby!” Granny Smith spat.

        “Teeheehee...” Apple Bloom managed as she dragged a quilt over to her grandmother.  In the background, Applejack rolled her green eyes and was gone.

        Biting my lip, I stepped back away from this scene.  I stood breathless in the hallway, alone with my shivers.  I glanced briefly at my reflection in a circular mirror hanging across the wall.  An unkempt, dirt-stained, sad unicorn gazed back.  Raising a hoof up, I played with the hood dangling behind my neck.  It was then that I realized the extent to which I could afford friendship in this life.

        My stomach gurgled again.  I glanced longingly at the house's exit, but it stretched away magically before my vision, as did the guilt over what I was about to do next.  In a blur, I galloped into the family's kitchen.  I flung open the first cupboard I could find.  I discovered two loaves of bread, and immediately flung them into the front pouch of my hoodie.  There were many other things inside that kitchen—expensive and luscious trinkets that could have sold for many bits around downtown Ponyville—but I didn't bother touching a single one of them.  It was my first robbery; it might as well have been a tiny one.  I prayed to Celestia that it would be my last, and ran out of the farmhouse in a desperate flight to reunite with my lyre, as if it was the only thing that could tell me what “home” was anymore.

        When Applejack trotted around the bend in the road the next morning, I could instantly see her.  It had only been a day since my little “experience” at her farm, and I hadn't slept a wink.  My body was kept up by shivers; my stomach was full of stolen bread.  Through a combination of guilt and loneliness, I didn't hide in the corner of the barn like I should have.  I stood at the edge of it, in open view of the orange mare as she strolled down the dirt path.

        Sure enough, she saw me.  To my mixed dismay and relief, she stood dead-still in the middle of the road and smiled my way.

        “Why, howdy!”  Her smile was electric. She could have been the sunrise itself for all I could tell.  “Fancy meetin' a pony out here this early in the day!”  She shifted the weight of two apple baskets on her sides.  “Hankerin'' for some breakfast?  Normally its one-bit-per-apple, but seein' as I'm feelin' mighty chipper this mornin', how'd you like a two-for?”

        Her freckles were a welcome sight, distant shadows of a loving sister I knew I would never have again.  The longer I stared, the more the sight of her face gave way to the memory of wooden kitchen cabinets being flung open and pilfered.  I wrenched my gaze away from her, refusing to so much as look at the delicious apples that she was willing to sell me.

        “Uhm... Thanks but no thanks, ma'am.  I... uhm... I'm just waiting for somepony.”

        “Oh yeah?  Anyone I know?  I've got quite the little circle of friends around town.”

        I bit my lip, leaning awkwardly against the wooden doorframe of the barn.  “You... You wouldn't know her.”  I sighed and ran a hoof through my mane, trying desperately to not look like the pathetic, homeless vagabond I so obviously was in front of her.  “But maybe... just maybe you'll get to know her someday.”  I tried to smile; it would have been easier to sprout pegasus wings and fly.

        “You okay, sugarcube?  T'ain't none of my business, but yer lookin' rather glum.”  Applejack adjusted her hat and flashed me a sympathetic glance, warm like a fireplace.  “It's a beautiful mornin'.  No sense aimin' yer horn at the ground.  You should try lookin' up at the sky for a change.”

        I felt the edges of my lips finally curving upwards, something I couldn't manage on my own.  I breathed a little more easily, my shivers dissipating somewhat.  “I was... uhm...”  I spoke before I knew what words were coming out of my mouth.  I wondered how much I'd have to be rambling before I produced a truth that was applicable enough to a given situation.  “I was just wondering about this barn...”

        “Yeah?  What about it?”

        “Who does it belong to?”  I glanced up at the shoddy, wooden structure where I had spent the last two fitful nights.  Somewhere inside, my lyre and saddlebag were lying like the accursed treasures of a splintery sarcophagus.  “Does anypony own it?”

        Applejack snickered and trotted over to stand beside me.  “A better question is 'would anypony want to?'”  She heartlessly kicked at part of the doorframe, causing a vertical plank to fall ineffectually into the dirt between us.  “From as far I recollect, this here barn's been around far longer than I have.  My Ma and Pa never talked about it.  Odds are it belonged to Filthy Rich's family before they went into the retail business, but that would have been ages ago.  Nah, from what I gather, this here land's plum for the takin'.  Though I doubt any pony's gonna want it.”  She glanced at the solid line of trees that bordered the dirt patch on the other side of the old structure.  “Even if these trees were chopped down, it'd take either hundreds of ponies or a heap'o'magic to make the ground soft enough to plant anythang.  Long story short, darlin', the barn's just a fadin' memory... like so much of what's left of Ponyville's past these days.”

        I gazed up at the structure, running an affectionate hoof across the doorframe.  “I know a thing or two about fading memories,” I murmured in a distant voice.

        “Hmmph.  That's funny.”

        Curiously, I glanced at her.  “It is?”

        “No, not that.”  She rubbed her chin, squinting towards something below my neck.  “I used to have a jacket just like the one yer wearin'.”

        I gulped and fidgeted with the long sleeves.  “You don't say...?”

        “Hmmph... Heheh... But it's been ages since I wore the thing.”

        I raised an eyebrow.  “I'm guessing, from working in the cold weather for so long, you've grown a second skin?”

        Applejack's eyes twitched in thought.  “Well, that's a nifty way of puttin' it.”

        I took a deep breath, then cleared my throat as I gazed at the fragile lengths of the barn.  “Tell me... What's a good way to... uhm... to earn some money around town?”

        “Money?”

        “Bits, yeah.”  I nodded and looked at her.  “You know of any Ponyvillean hiring for...”  I bit my lip and navigated the impossibility of the thought just as I was producing it.  “... for freelance stuff?”

        “If you want to learn a thang or two about job openings, just go take a gander at the bulletin board at main street,” Applejack said.  “Though I doubt yer gonna find anythang aside from full time offerings.”

        I gulped and stared down at the dirt.  “Right.  Figures...”

        “Though I'm sure there're plenty of freelancin' stuff for a musician to do,” she said pleasantly.

        I looked up at her, blinking.  “Musician?”

        “Well, shucks, girl!”  She pointed at my cutie mark with a chuckle.  “You didn't get that cuz you like to lick stamps, now didja?”

        “M-my special talent,” I uttered in a numb voice, as if a sheet of ice was clearing from over my head.  “Right...”  I looked towards the distant pocket of hay inside the barn where my lyre was hidden.  “Hmmm....”  I glanced back at Applejack and pointed at her cutie mark.  “I see your special talent is selling oranges.”

        She blinked at me, then snorted.  Her hat nearly fell off as she let out a loud guffaw.  I joined with my giggles, for suddenly the day was feeling warmer.

        When Applejack trotted around the bend in the road, she paused to stare at the wooden barn.  It was obviously the same wooden barn she had trotted past every morning on her way to town, only now there was a green tent pitched next to it.

        “What in tarnation...?”  She squinted curiously.  Her ears tickled with a gentle melody wafting through the branches bordering either side of the dirt path.  “Is the circus movin' into town?”

        “Try 'a traveling minstrel.'”

        Applejack looked my way.  “Huh?”  She jolted as four bits flew towards her and landed on the brim of her hat.

        I was standing in the doorframe of the barn, leaning against the dilapidated entrance while strumming my lyre.  “Is that enough for two of those delicious apples, ma’am?”

        Applejack glanced at the baskets in question hanging from her side.  She lowered her hat and retrieved the bits.  “Well, to be honest, missy, that's enough for four of 'em.”

        I gave her a practiced smirk, something that I was getting better at after so many weeks spent performing in town.  “Alright, then.  Four.  They look absolutely scrumptious, and it so happens I have the bits to spare.”

        “Is that so?”  Applejack spoke while picking four of her best fruit from the baskets and bagging them.  “I'm guessing you're a mare on vacation.”

        “More or less, though I must say that this town's looking brighter and brighter with each passing day.  I'm thinking of staying for a while longer.”  I strummed the lyre and motioned towards her.  “You look rather fit, if I may say so, ma'am.  Tell me, do you work on a farm?”

        “Heh, as a matter of fact, I do.”  She smirked at me and held the bag of apples out in one hoof.  “And if yer truly fixin' on hangin' around here, then you're bound to get to know me and my family.  We've been harvestin' apples here for a long time.”

        “A long time, huh?”  I gently took the bag from her in glowing telekinesis and laid it beside the tent next to the barn.  “Then perhaps you could answer something for me.”

        “Shoot.”

        “This barn: it looks abandoned.  Is that true?”

        “Well, uhm... Pretty much, yeah.”

        “Does that go for the land as well?”

        “As far as I know.”

        I smiled knowingly.  “So I'm guessing this structure's standing here for no reason?”

        “What are ya gettin' at?”  Applejack glanced at me sideways.  “Thinkin' of doing some demolition?”

        “Well, it depends.”  I strummed on the lyre and kicked my rear hoof playfully against the wooden side of the building.  “Would you happen to have some experience in the matter?”

        “Hah!  Sorry, missy, but you're askin' the wrong pony.”

        “Oh?”

        “I'd love to give ya some advice, but truth is I'm not all about barn-tearin' as I am about barn-raisin'.”  She fanned herself in the morning sunlight before planting the hat back atop her blond mane.  “As a matter of fact, I've watched my Pa build many a thing in his days.  May he rest in peace.”  Her nostrils flared as she murmured, “He could build log cabins in his sleep if he wanted to.”

        I raised an eyebrow.  “Log cabins?”

        “Lickety split!  They used to call him 'the House Planter' around these parts.  Heh.  But—yeah.”  She trotted back into the dirt road.  “I'd better be off to market.  Still, though, if you wanna see about tearin' barns down, you'd best be askin' ponies around town.”

        “Ponies like who?”

        When Applejack trotted around the bend in the road, she froze upon hearing a roaring voice.  Splinters of wood flew through the air, followed by a blur of bright colors darting in and out of view.

        “Rainbow Dash?” She squinted awkwardly in the morning air.  Slowly, she lurched towards the side of the road, shocked to see an old barn being torn to shreds—plank by plank—by a familiar blue pegasus who was sailing her agile body violently through the wooden structure.  “Whoa, there, girl!” she ducked as a wave of wooden bits splattered over her head.  “Watch where yer divin'!  Seriously!  Is there a war I don't know about?”

        “Here.”  A helmet floated magically towards her.  “You might need this,” I said with a smile from where I stood beside my tent and supplies.  “She gets a little crazy from time to time, but it makes for a fun show.”

        “Uhm... I reckon it does.”  Applejack removed her hat and slapped the helmet on awkwardly in its place.  “Any chance somepony might help this make a lick of sense?”

        “What's so hard to understand?  There's a barn here now, but soon it won't be.  Isn't that right, Miss—Rainbow Dash, was it?”

        “Nnnnngh!” The goggled pegasus was busy smashing a wide gaping hole in the middle of the barn.  She yanked a support beam loose with her bare teeth and prepared to kick a chunk out of the ceiling loose with her rear hooves.  “Haaaaugh—!”

        “Yoohoo?!” I shouted, cupping my muzzle with a pair of front hooves.  “Earth to Rainbow Dash!”

        “What?!”  Rainbow Dash looked down at me.  Slowly, the berserker sneer across her face melted.  She greeted each wave of confusion with a series of blinks.  “Wait.  What?  Who are you again?”

        “Lyra.”

        “Lyra who?”

        “Lyra Heartstrings.”  I leaned forward, glowing my horn through the hole in my helmet like it was a symbol of trust.  “Remember?  I'm the pony paying you fifty bits to tear this barn to the ground.”

        “Hold up.”  Rainbow Dash levitated above the two of us, her ruby eyes bright.  “You mean to tell me that I get to break stuff and get paid for it?”

        “Absolutely!”  I grinned.

        “Wicked sweet!”  She coiled up in mid-air and sprung like a missile towards the remaining structure.  “Eat it, barn!  Rrrrrrgh!”

        There was a resounding explosion.  Applejack and I flinched under a shower of splinters.

        “Well, I see you're new in town!” Applejack grunted, then brushed flecks of sawdust off her baskets of fruit.  “But you must have some sort of fancy gift of gabbin' to get RD here to do such hard work so early in the mornin'!”

        “She's a friend of yours?”

        “A loyal one at that, though she can be a loyal pain at times.”  Applejack managed a smirk, and the volume in her voice playfully picked up some.  “Like when she accidentally delivers a rain cloud to the wrong end of the apple orchards!”

        “Hey!”  A spectral bolt of lightning shouted overhead before exploding once more into the barn.  “I heard that!”

        “You own a farm?” I struggled to ask amidst another spray of debris.

        “Ahem.  Yup.  Sweet Apple Acres.”

        “Now there's a marketable name.”

        “Eh.  When it matters.  Why?  You fixin' to get into the fruit sellin' business?  Cuz that job's kind of filled enough as it is around town.”

        “It's not that,” I said, glancing at Rainbow Dash's chaotic job.  More and more sunlight covered the patches of dirt alongside the road as the barn was slowly disassembled before our eyes.  “I was hoping to find a pony who's had some experience with the land around here.  I've been needing to ask for some advice, you see.”

        “Really?  Like what kind of advice?”

        “You see I'm... uhm...”  I shifted a bit where I stood and smiled gently.  “My stay here in town... it's like a vacation, more or less.  But I think I'm going to be here a lot longer than I originally anticipated.  I mean—why not?  Heh... It's a beautiful village.”

        “I've always stood by that,” Applejack said with a smile.

        “You wouldn't happen to know any pony who's an expert on building?”

        “Building what?”

        “Oh...”  I took a deep breath, glanced at the line of oak trees surrounding the collapsing barn, and murmured, “Log cabins.”

        Applejack instantly brightened.  “Well, shucks!  Heheh... funny you should mention that!”

        I gulped and murmured, “You don't say...”

        “I happen to know a thing or two about that!”  She smiled.  “My Pa could build log cabins in his sleep.  He taught me everything he knew.  May he rest in peace.”

        “My condolences.”

        “Much oblidged.”

        “Well...”  I adjusted the sleeves of my hoodie and turned to face her.  “If you don't mind my asking, how's a good way to start?”

        “You start with a good, sturdy axe.”

        I blinked.  For some absurd reason, I hadn't expected that.  “Oh?”

        “Heheheh...”  Applejack squinted slyly at me.  “Unless you're rich enough to buy the lumber....”  She pointed straight at the woods.  “Seems to me like you've got plenty to work with here.  That's how every family in these parts got started.”

        “Yes.”  I gulped and managed a brave smile.  “I guess that makes sense.  Uhm...”  I scratched my neck and looked humbly her way.  “Could I trouble you for some advice on where to get the right axe... not to mention other tools?”

        “Hey!  No trouble at all!” Applejack leaned against a nearby tree and smirked.  “Though you might wanna write some of this stuff down, assuming you can concentrate while Rainbow Dash reenacts the Lunar Civil War over our heads.  Ain't that right, Rainbow?!”

        “Hnnngh—Huh?  What?”  Rainbow Dash stopped and hovered above us, panting and sweating.  “Applejack?  Why are you wearing a helmet?”  She went cross-eyed and tapped the goggles on her own face.  “The hay is all this?”

        “Did ya bang yer head too hard that last time or somethin'?”  Applejack stifled a guffaw.  “Better not hurt yerself until after yer done with Miss Heartstrings' job!”

        “What job?!” Rainbow Dash frowned.  “Who's Miss Heartstrings?!”

        “Hi there!”  I waved up at her, smiling.  “I'm the one paying you one hundred bits to tear this barn down!”

        “Hold up.  You mean to tell me that I get to break stuff and get paid for it?  Wicked sweet!  Raaaaaugh!”

        When Applejack trotted around the bend, she immediately made a face.  Slowly, under the fall of amber-colored leaves, she trotted straight towards a rhythmic thwacking noise.  “Uhm... Ma'am?  Do you need a little help there?”

        “Nnngh... No!” I exclaimed.  It came out as a snarl, but I was too exhausted to apologize.  I sweated as I levitated the axe three feet in front of me.  I was hacking away at the side of a thick oak tree.  My horn pulsed atop my skull, the invisible leylines of magic tingling in agony as I stretched my telekinetic muscles to the breaking point.  “I've got this covered!  I just need to convince the dang tree to work with me!  Nnngh!”

        I swung the floating axe once more.  Wooden chips and sawdust splashed across the broad patch of dirt beside the path.  No matter how much I cut and chopped and bit at the tree with my blade, the natural structure wasn't showing any signs of falling anytime soon.

        “Ahem.  As much as I hate to get in another pony's business...”  Applejack smiled gently and paced at a safe distance around my clumsy task at hoof.  “...but I really do wish y'all'd let me give a little demonstration.”

        “Mmmff... Don't you...”  I chopped.  “...have an...”  I hacked.  “...Ironpony Competition...”  I flailed.  “...to get to?!—Whoah!”  I fell down on my dainty haunches, breathless, as the axe plopped down to the soil beside me.

        “Just how many ponies know about that thang between Rainbow and I?  I swear—she must be braggin' around town for perfect strangers to have caught wind.”  Applejack trotted over and touched a hoof to the axe's handle.  “Seriously, though.  May I?”

        I took several deep breaths, wiped the sweat from my brown, and motioned towards her.  “Knock yourself out...”

        “Well alright.”  She smiled and hoisted the axe up in her teeth.  Trotting over to the tree, she leaned the tool against it and paused to glance back at me.  “Ya see, darlin', you're goin' about it all wrong.  If a pony wants to chop down a tree like this beaut here, ya gotsta judge where the weight of it is leanin', on account that yer fixin' to make it fall where y'all want it to.”  She circled the tree and slapped a part of the trunk perpendicular to where I was pathetically chiseling into the thing.  “Right here's the best part.  Then, once you've chosen the proper place to start cuttin', you do it like so.”

        Applejack once more gripped the axe in her mouth.  Her muscles tensed and her hooves dug into the earth as she flung the whole weight of the blade repeatedly into the trunk.  Her incision was noticeably angled, biting at a forty-five degree towards the tree's roots.  Once the diagonal slice had been made halfway through the tree, she pivoted her swing and chopped horizontally, so that a visible notch formed neatly in the thick of the structure.

        “Yeesh...” I couldn't help but scratch my head and gawk in wonder.  “You must have some really, really strong teeth.”

        Applejack finished her task and spat the axe onto the dirt.  “Hmmph... Yup, I reckon I'd have to.”  She hadn't even broken a sweat.  I watched as she paced around to the side of the tree opposite of the notch and squinted at it closely.  “I've dealt with trees all my life.  I live on the apple farm over yonder.  No doubt you've heard of 'Sweet Apple Acres'.”

        “I just might have,” I said with a smile.  “Still, thanks for the help—”

        “Oh, we ain't done yet, sugarcube.”  Applejack pointed at the bark.  “Now's time to slice straight into the trunk from the other side of the cut we just made.  Once you've chopped through what's left of the width, the tree should collapse in the direction of the angled notch.  You feel me?”

        “I feel you.”  I marched up to the tree and levitated the axe into position.  “Though, I gotta ask, do you always spend your mornings helping random unicorns fell trees?”

        “Just what's so random about it?”  Applejack stood safely back from my task and smirked.  “You're here in Ponyville, tryin' to make an honest livin', from what I gather.  It wouldn't be right neighborly of me to just walk by and let you burn out your magic horn all crazy-like!”

        “Heh...” I concentrated as I hacked away at the tree, parallel to the horizontal slit she had formed at the base of the notch.  “You make it sound as though just any pony you run into could be your neighbor.”

        “Yes, well...”  Applejack dusted her hat off and watched me at work.  “That's a mighty fine strategy in my book.  The golden rule ain't so golden if ya don't bother polishin' it with every soul you meet, ya reckon?”

        I paused briefly in cutting to meditate on that.  I inhaled the crisp autumn air and smiled, as if reenergized.  “That's a very solid thing to live by, ma'am.”  I resumed chopping.  The entire height of the tree wobbled precariously, slowly leaning in the direction that Applejack had expertly designated.  “No wonder you're prime Ironpony material.”

        “Heh.  I hate to say it, but I'll hardly get that title by bein' nice.”

        “I beg to differ.”

        “It’s funny...”

        “Hmmm?”

        “Oh, nothin'...”  Applejack scratched her chin.  “I could have sworn there used to be a barn around these here parts.”

        “I'm sure it did what all useless things do,” I murmured while giving a few last, final thwacks.  “It disappeared.”  The tree snap, and started to lean away from us.  “Heeeeey... There we go!”  I backed up, grinning wide.

        “Ahem.  Now's where ya shout 'timber,' missy.”

        “Oh, uhm.”  I took a deep breath and opened my mouth wide.  Just then, the ground rolled with thunder.  Loose leaves fluttered all around us from the tree's heavy collapse with the earth.  I blinked and blushed slightly.  “...timber?”

        “Snkkkkt—Heheheheheh.”

        I looked back at the giggling mare and smiled.  “I don't suppose I can carve the thing hollow and just live in it, huh?”

        “Ya gotta make the notches deeper, Miss... Miss...”

        “Heartstrings,” I said, grunting a little as I carved at the sides of the oak logs with my hatchet.  The trees that were left standing beside the clearing around us were barren, devoid of leaves.  A sharp chill hung in the air as I prepared to add to the rectangular pile of wooden beams being slowly built along the side of the road.  “And this is coming along nicely.  I hate to bother you on such a beautiful day.”

        “Don't mention it!” Applejack waved a hoof, smiling.  She wore a plain brown scarf around her neck to protect her from the bitter November chill.  “I always take my sweet time headin’ home, just in case there're ponies like you roundabouts who need a helpin' hoof.”

        “Well, I’m thankful.  I really, really gotta get this finished,” I exclaimed, sweating, concentrating hard to make the notch perfect so that it'd fit with the rest of the beams I had stacked up.  “It's taken me too long as it is.  My magic just can't replace sheer experience, if you catch my drift.”

        “Absolutely.  I always feel bad for unicorns—”  Applejack began, but then blinked and blushed.  “Erm.  No offense.”

        I smiled at my work.  “None taken.”

        “It's just that y'all are always fancyin’ yourselves as capable of doin' all sorts of amazin' grunt work with them horns yer sportin'.  Two of my best friends are unicorns, and I know for a fact that liftin' too much weight with magic can give a pony an awful bad headache.  I think it's good that yer pacin' yerself.  I only wish I'd had the opportunity to see ya and help ya out sooner.”

        “Oh, Miss Applejack...” I smiled as I put the finishing touches to the wood with my hatchet.  “Trust me.  You have nothing to fret about.”

        “If you insist.  Ready to put the thang in place?”

        “Care to spot me?”

        “Can do!”

        I took a deep breath, tensed my muscles, and channeled a surge of magic through my horn.  Slowly, I raised the entire beam of wood and levitated it across the dirt clearing towards the rectangular base I had started.  With Applejack guiding me, I gently lowered the log in place so that its notches matched those of the beams already in place.

        “There... That'll do it!  Yeeeha!  See?  It fits a lot better than your previous ones, I'm willin' to bet!”

        “I can see it already.”  I exhaled sharply, adjusting my collar and drying the sweat from my neck.  I gave her a sincere smile.  “Thanks, Applejack.  I couldn't have done it without you.”

        “Pfft.”  She shrugged and adjusted her scarf.  “I only gave ya one tip and now yer thankin' me like I'm yer contractor or somethin'.  I'm only happy to lend some help, Miss Heartstrings.  Just don't forget to apply the mortar between the beams.  I could show you how, if ya like.  My father was an expert at buildin' log cabins, you see.”

        “Really, now?”  I took a deep breath of the cold, autumn air and glanced softly her way.  
“Dare I ask, did he have a lot to do with the making of this town?”

        “Funny you should ask that, missy.”  Applejack's breaths came out in misty vapors as she stood on the plain wooden scaffold beside me.  Together, we finished plastering mortar inside the upper beams of one the cabin's completed walls.  “A lot of ponies don't know this, but Ponyville's size tripled while my Pa was alive.  He was responsible for many decisions that the City Council made, includin' the expansion of housin' projects in the north side of town.”

        “Really?”  I smirked as I applied more mortar.  Flakes of snow drifted down and dotted the blue tarp that acted as the cabin's temporary ceiling.  “So he wasn't all about apples, apples, apples?”

        “Hey!  T'ain't nothin' wrong about apples, apples, apples!” She briefly frowned while I let forth a foalish giggle.  With a tranquil smile, she gazed off into the wintry lengths of the forest and said, “My Pa believed in lookin' after oneself, but his conscience extended well beyond that.  Every soul he met was a pony in need, and he never stopped workin' for one second in his life to make sure they got as much a chance to shine in life as he did.  Why, I'd reckon he'd make a mighty fine mayor...”  She sighed heavily and her green eyes fell.  “If fate had decided to smile on him and Ma.”

        “I'm sorry,” I murmured.

        “Heh.  Don't be.”  She smiled up at me.  “I regret nothin', on account that Pa taught me everythang I needed to know to keep supportin' my family and loved ones proper.”

        “You strike me as a very lucky pony, Applejack,” I couldn't help but mutter.  My work paused ever so briefly as I endured a wave of chills.  “To know where you belong, and those whom belong to you...”

        “My Pa used to say 'Always make sure that you lay down a good foundation.  The rest takes time, but it works without a hitch so long as the foundation is solid.'”  She looked me in the eyes after saying those familiar words.  “The way I see it, Miss Heartstrings, we're all in this heave-ho of life together.  What better a way to enjoy it than to make sure we do it proper?  Right now, there's no place I belong more than right here, helpin' you.”

        I exhaled softly, adjusting the sleeves of my hoodie, feeling the toasty fingers of a fireplace in the back of my mind.  “The world could use more ponies like you, Applejack.”

        “Heh...” Her cheeks flushed slightly.  “Shucks, I'm only doin' what I was taught was right.  There are heaps of ponies way more neighborly than myself.”

        “Yeah?”  I leaned forward on the scaffold and applied more mortar.  “Like who?”

        “Take for instance this one pony,” Applejack handed me another brick.  “Granny Smith insists that she's a she.  Big Mac thinks it's one of the local mules.  Whatever the case, we never see an inch of the soul, but that hasn't stopped whoever it is from dropping by every Saturday morning for the last three months straight and leaving a gift basket by our back door.”

        “Oh?”  I reveled in the feel of a campfire just beyond the partially finished wall of the cabin.  Reaching into a heated trough of plaster, I gathered some of the aggregate and plastered it to the brick before stacking it atop a slowly rising chimney along the north side of the house.  “Just what kind of a gift basket?”

        “Funniest thing—Two loaves of bread, and each time they're still piping hot... as if freshly delivered from a local bakery!”

        “Heh...”  I smiled placidly to myself as I stacked the bricks higher and higher under Applejack's guidance.  “Somepony must think you haven't a lick of baking skills.”

        “Ha!  Fat chance.  Still, we never did figure out which of the townsfolk is makin' the dropoffs, nor why they're choosin' to do it all secret-like.  But I ain't about to complain!  The bread's delicious, and it saves me the trouble of havin' to bake my own on a regular basis.  More time for workin' the farm, ya reckon?”

        “That doesn't sound like much of a gift.”

        “The best gifts involve givin' us things we need, not so much things we want.”  She exhaled a vaporous breath into the wintry air and motioned towards the slowly rising chimney.  “For instance, who else in their right mind would be spendin' Hearth's Warming Eve puttin' the finishin' touches on a log cabin?”

        “It's my own fault,” I murmured.  “I should have had this finished long ago.”

        “At least yer dead-seat on workin' on it.”  She smiled and winked at me.  “A good work ethic means bein' willing to learn while you go against the grindstone.”

        “I have you to thank, Miss Applejack,” I said pleasantly, wiping a smudge of plaster off my brow and grinning.  “This fireplace is all you.  I'm just glad I tackled it before winter was completely done with.”

        “Well, I reckon you can still use it for when a cold spell hits,” Applejack said as she handed me another pair of nails.  A white world of snow and frost lingered behind her as she stood on the scaffold in her green vest and brown hat.  “Still, it's a mighty fine chimney.  Right now, what's best is that we get this here rooftop finished.”

        “Much appreciated, Applejack,” I grunted as I concentrated hard, hammering the last of several wooden shingles into place atop the log cabin.  “But I've taken enough of your time as it is.  Don't you have some seeds to plant?”

        “As if any other ponies are awake at this hour.  Heh.”  She rolled her green eyes.  “One thing at a time, I reckon,” she said, casting a glance towards the center of Ponyville over the threadbare treetops.  “Winter may get wrapped up by tomorrow morning, but it'll still be a cold spring for a few weeks.  It'd be a shame for you to not have yer house all fixed up by then.”

        “You're a very important pony in town, aren't you?” I smiled and hammered more of the shingles into place.  “I imagine all of the farm owners owe you bigtime each spring for clearing the fields of snow.”

        “Eh... I'm pretty good at barkin' orders, if that's what yer implyin'.”  Applejack smirked with a glint of pride.  “But I'd gladly ditch the megaphone and take to the plow if it meant gettin' things done on time for once.”

        “What's that supposed to mean?”

        Applejack sighed.  “Only that every year Ponyville is late in gettin' Winter wrapped up, and a lot of that is on account of so few ponies bein' early birds like you and me.”

        “Hmmm...”  I hammered a final nail in and looked at her.  “Seems to me like you could use some organization.”

        “As much as I wanna share y'all's faith, I can only do what's best and make sure the fields get cleared and planted.  I may not exactly be timely, but I sure as hay can be precise.”

        “You're more than just resourceful, Applejack,” I said with a smile.  With a brief chill, I adjusted the hoodie around my neck and exclaimed, “You're the kind of mare to lend a hoof to each and everypony you see.  So long as that's your main concern, who cares about timing?  You really think it's just the land that needs Wrapping Up?  Ponies gotta live on that land, y'know.”

        “Hmmm... I suppose that's a good way of lookin' at it,” Applejack scratched her chin.  “Still,” she exhaled.  “I'd give my bottom bit just to be on time for once.”

        “Well, maybe I can help this year!” I placed the hammer down and swiveled about to face her.  “That is—if you don't mind a stranger taking part in the labor.”

        “Heh...” Applejack smirked.  “You're never a stranger so long as y'all got a helping spirit and four strong hooves to guide it with.”

        “A saying of your father's?”

        “My own, actually, though I'd be lyin' if I said he didn't inspire that none.”  She winked.  “So, I reckon we should get you a vest or something.”

        “That depends...”  I ran a hoof through my mane and smiled into the frigid air.  “Do they come in tan?”

        “What are the wooden stakes for?” I glanced up from the row of blossoming shoots sticking up from the soil.  “The pony at the gardening shop didn't exactly explain it well to me.”

        Applejack walked down the rows of infant apple trees.  “They're to make sure that the trees grow straight and proper.  The thing about graftin' is that the scions aren't exactly prepared to stretch just right from the root-stocks.  So long as you use the stakes in the dwarf-trees' infancy, you can make sure they don't keel over or somethin' worse.”

        I chuckled.  A flock of birds sang musically overhead, flying low over spreading leaves of green that surrounded the sunlit clearing in which my new cabin resided.  “You must know apple trees like the back of your hoof.”

        “I only wished they knew themselves half as much.  Life would be a lot easier if the trees would just plant themselves.”

        “Then where would all the fun be?”

        “That's what I try to tell my brother, Big Mac, all the time.”  She walked with me around the green yard of freshly planted grass.  “One spring, he talked us into tryin' our hooves at growing pears.  I still have nightmares about the next summer after,” she muttered with a slight shiver.  “We've since agreed that I'm the entrepreneur of the family, not him.  Heheh.”

        “I'm guessing he'd make a better mascot,” I said with a wink.

        “Ugh.”  She rolled her eyes.  “Y'all can ask half the mares in town and I reckon they'd whole-heartedly agree.  There aren't enough sticks in the world to fend them off at times, I swear to Celestia.”

        “Say, in speaking of summer.”  I glanced up at the front of my cabin.  “Could you give me some advice on adding a wooden outcropping to the front?”

        “What, like a porch or somethin'?”

        “Yeah,” I said with a nod.  “This town is a lot prettier than where I moved from, and I wouldn't mind spending some afternoons sitting out here.”  I shrugged.  “And—well—you never know when it might decide to rain.”

        Applejack looked up from the fireplace.  Her body huddled securely under the woolen blanket as she gave me a squinting glance.  “I'm mighty curious, though.”  Her voice was a gentle murmur, barely heard under the roar of the rainstorm pounding in on the cabin walls surrounding us.  “What's a musician like you doin' out here on the edge of town?  Most artists hang out in the center of Ponyville.  Seems like an awful shame for somepony as kind as you to be dwellin' someplace all lonesome-like.”

        “Believe me...” I breathed easily, sharing the heat from the crackling flame with her.  “I'm not half as lonely as you think I am.”

        “You get plenty of visitors?”

        “Oh... on occasion.”  I smiled.  “One friend in particular makes a habit of dropping by on a regular basis.”

        “Oh yeah?  What's her name?  I bet I'd know her.”

        I took a deep breath, my face melting into something cold and melancholic.  “No.  Unfortunately, you wouldn't.”

        “Well, it's good to know you're not entirely alone.  After all, you've got yerself a cozy little cabin here.”  She smiled as she gazed once more into the soft red hue of the fire.  “Must be awful peaceful.”

        “Yes.  Very.”

        “Mind if I ask just what you do for a living?”

        “What do I do for a living?” I repeated, gazing up at the rows of musical instruments haloing us along the walls.  “I... live.  I live to live happily, to compose musical accompaniments to the beauty that I see, to record that which is sad and that which is lost, for the somber things in life are mere shadows to the warmth and joy that we're often too busy to recognize.”  I adjusted the stone-gray sleeves of my hoodie and smiled.  “But I'm never too busy.  I'm a pony who listens, Applejack, and more often than not I like what I hear, because what's the point in hating the few cherishable treasures that we are given?  It's taken a while for me to discover what I've been blessed with.  But I'm grateful for that time.  It's like building a house:  you learn more about the process as you erect the walls and rooftop for the very first time.  Once it's finished, it's hardly a project of your labor and your labor alone.  Rather, it's the sum of all the love and support that dear friends have contributed to it.  In the end, a home is just an extension of yourself, something that couldn't exist without the foundations set forth by those you care about.”  I closed my eyes and exhaled peacefully.  “When I'm living here, all of my newfound friends are living with me, so that this place is something permanent... like a memory that never fades.  How could anypony call that lonely?”

        I wasn't exactly expecting a response to my heartfelt words, but I wasn't expecting utter silence either.  As the seconds ticked away, the glow of the fire grew dim beyond my eyelids.  I felt a cold wind billow through the cabin, though not a single window was open.  When I opened my eyes, I saw a misty vapor wafting from my lips.  With an inescapable chatter of my teeth, I glanced aside.

        “Applejack...?”

        She was rubbing a hoof over forehead, reeling in a brief dizziness.  As soon as she came to, her green eyes flew wide open.  “What in the hay...?”  Confusion swiftly blossomed into panic as she gazed fitfully at her bizarre surroundings, feeling the folds of the woolen blanket enshrouding her like a straight-jacket.  “Where... in Celestia's name...?”

        “Applejack...”

        “Dah!”  She gasped and jumped up, nearly tripping over the basket with Apple Bloom's doll.  “Wh-what happened?  What am I doing here?  Why's my mane so soaked...?!”  She started to shiver, like a frail soul that she had once carried out of a barn in some ancient place long forgotten.  “Aww shoot... I collapsed in the rain, didn't I?”

        “Please...” I stood up and raised two hooves.  “Just calm down—”

        “I'm so sorry to be a burden, ma'am.  This is just so...”  She bit her lip and ran a hoof through her wet bangs, quivering all over.  I had never seen Applejack look this weak or frightened before.  I immediately wanted to hug her.  Nopony should ever have to feel the weight of the world crumbling atop her shoulders—nopony but me.  If the cabin had fallen into dust all around us, I bet she would have been less scared.  “How could I let myself faint in a rainstorm?” Her voice was breaking, as if she was on the verge of doing something I was hardly worthy of witnessing.  “What's wrong with me?  I'm never this... this...”

        “Applejack... Listen to me...”  I marched up to her and planted my hooves on her shoulder, forcing her gaze to be swallowed in mine.  “You are a strong mare.  But it takes strength to trust other ponies.  So trust me right now.  Everything is all right.  You got caught up in the rain, and I took you in.”  I smiled earnestly, replacing the warmth that she had lost when she stepped away from fireplace.  “My home... is your home.”

Slowly, Applejack's shivers melted away, like mine always do... and so many of those occasions being owed to her.  She gulped and nodded, her lips curving slightly.  “Reckon that has a nice sound to it.”

        “It'd better,” I said with a smile, ushering her back down to the fireplace where she could bask in the glow.  “I'm a musician, after all.”  I draped the blanket over the confused mare's shoulders, calming her further as the rainstorm persisted outside.  “What about you?  Do you sell oranges?”

        Applejack blinked at me.  It came out first like a stutter, but soon she was guffawing like the proper pony that taught me how to swing an axe.  Soon, her breaths slowed to an even pace.  “Ahem... So, uhm, I reckon you have a name?  It's a shame to not know the pony who's given me such good hospitality.”

        “Lyra,” I said with a  gentle nod of the head.  “Lyra Heartstrings.”

        “Lyra,” she repeated it, her eyes dancing across the musical instruments above us with foalish wonder.  “Now that's a mighty pretty name...”

        “Hmmm... So I've been told.”

        We talked for two and a half hours, during which Applejack never forgot me, and I couldn't have been more thankful.  Most of the things she told me were stories that I had heard before, from months of gently coaxing such information from the many freckle-faced, amnesiac prototypes that I had been blessed with meeting before.  Not once did I even consider interrupting her anecdotes, no matter how familiar they sounded.  The sweetest melodies in life are the ones you're willing to listen to over and over again.  No record player could do Applejack justice.  She's a symphony I've been lucky to attend on several occasions, and every single time it demands an encore.

        The rainstorm ended.  Reluctantly, I helped her gather her things.  While she fiddled with her hat, I personally bundled the basket with Apple Bloom's toy.  I gave it to her and we parted ways.  A quiet part of me felt as if I had finally discovered my older sister, only for her to be going away on a long trip.

        I watched from the patio at the front of my cabin while Applejack trudged away in the mud.  As I predicted, there came a point where she stopped in her tracks just before marching around the bend.  I kept watching, for something was evidently weighing on Applejack's mind beyond plain forgetfulness.  I saw her dangling the basket up and down in her grip, as if alarmed by how much heavier it felt.  Swiftly, she unbundled the blankets keeping the contents dry.  What followed next was a shocked expression that no painter could do justice.  She reached into the basket, for nestled beside Apple Bloom's doll were two loaves of bread, a day's freshness still wafting from their crust.

        Applejack's lips pursed.  Murmuring mute words of wonderment, she scanned the horizon.  She saw trees, mud, a misty rainbow, and even a peculiar log cabin.  But she didn't see me.

        I was back inside, nestled under blankets in front of the fireplace as I finished composing the last written bits of “Threnody of Night.”  Soon, I would have the instrumental finished, and the last step before the magical performance would be acquiring more ingredients to act as a protective buffer.  I remembered what happened during my last experiment.  A frightening chill ran up my spine, so that I scooted closer to the flames.

        But then I felt the folds of the hoodie around my body, like a sisterly hug that never ended, warming me far more than any burning logs ever could.  For another night, I fell asleep with a smile, instead of tears.  I didn't worry about the ashes of the fireplace spreading beyond the hearth.  After all, it had a good foundation.

        I don't know how long it will take for me to find my way home, but so long as I am living, I will never run out of neighbors.

Background Pony

III - “Foundations”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: Seattle_Lite, theworstwriter, TheBrianJ, and Geoffrey Rush

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear Journal,

        What does it mean to be alone?  I mean truly alone?  Have I come to a point of understanding the feeling?  Is it enough when I fall asleep to my shivers and wake up to my tears?

        I've gone beyond feeling sorry for myself.  I like to think that the pony I am today is somepony older, braver, stronger, and smarter.  But no matter how many qualities that pony may possess, she is still alone.

        I... am still so very alone.  I cannot deny that.  Yet, I can't allow myself to be obsessed with that.  After all, what purpose is there in such a fixation?  What purpose is there in anything?

        There has to be a purpose in all of this.  Believing in some sort of purpose is what keeps me going, what keeps me banging my head against the thick wall of my predicament.  It's not that I don't have enough things ushering me forward.  I want to be remembered.  I want to make a true impact on these wonderful ponies' lives.  I want to walk up to those whom I once knew and have them recognize me on sight.  I want to be able to make new friends and have them look forward to seeing me in the future.

        But as I write all of these things—and remember that I am, in fact, the only one writing them—I wonder if I'll only ever be the single, solitary pony dreaming of them... instead of living them.

        “And so...”  Pinkie Pie plopped a box full of chocolate cupcakes atop the table in the center of Sugarcube Corner.  She gazed at her two friends with excited blue eyes.  “Then he says, 'The pegasi are promising beautiful weather for Ponyville this weekend.  What are you up to Saturday afternoon, Miss Pie?'”

        Twilight Sparkle and Rarity gawked at her, their faces blank.  “Yes, and?”  Rarity chirped emphatically.

        “I say to him 'I'll be up to what I'm always up to on Saturday afternoons: ten bottles of sarsaparilla and a prayer!'  Snkkkt—heeheehee!”  Pinkie Pie's forelegs curled up against her chest as she giggled, gasped, and finally exclaimed, “Then he laughs and says, 'The shores of Lake Marestrom look really pretty this time of year.'  Pfft!”  She rolled her eyes.  “Like that has anything to do with sarsaparilla!”

        “Pinkie...” Twilight breathily remarked.

        Rarity was leaning forward, her blue eyes sparkling.  “You do realize, of course, that the stallion was trying to ask you out?!”

        “Oh.”  Pinkie Pie blinked.  She narrowed her eyes with a quizzical expression.  “Really?  What for?”

        “You said he came to chat with you on several occasions over the last few weeks, yes?”  Rarity pointed with a grin.  “I doubt very much that he was interested only in what Mr. and Mrs. Cake had to offer.”

        “I think someone's smitten with you, Pinkie.”  Twilight smiled and levitated a mug of tea to her lips.  “Please tell me you at least acknowledged his gesture.”

        “Uhmmmm...” Pinkie Pie scratched her chin as her blue eyes swam across the ceiling.  “I can't remember if I did or not.  He kind of galloped out of here really quickly.”

        “Oh?”  Rarity's face sunk.  “Whatever for?”

        “Beats me, though it was after I tossed the lemon custard pie into his face.”

        Twilight Sparkle spit out a mouthful of tea.  She teetered over her edge of the table and gasped for breath.

        Rarity was almost fainting.  “You... It... He...What?!”

        “P-Pinkie?!”  Twilight rediscovered her voice in time to sputter forth, “What could possibly have possessed you to toss a pie into a poor stallion's face?!”

        “He was only trying to bridge communication between the two of you!”  Rarity was still reeling.  “What in Equestria were you thinking?”

        “I was trying to do him a favor!” Pinkie Pie barked in her defense.

        “And just how was that a favor?!” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed.  “He wanted to go out on a date with you!”

        “Hmmmmm...”  Pinkie bit her lip, then shrugged.  “I guess I just remembered something Dashie told me: 'All stallions ever want from a mare is some pie.'  The poor guy was so shy; I figured I'd cut to the chase!”

        Twilight and Rarity stared at Pinkie Pie for ten numb seconds, until finally they cracked.  A snorting sound shattered into a series of unrelenting giggles.  Their half of Sugarcube Corner vibrated with pure joy’s melodic cadence.

        Pinkie joined in the laughter, though an undeniable redness was blossoming beneath her cheeks.  “Heeheehee... Uhm... I-I don't get it!  Should I have tossed a cake at him instead?”

        “Heeheehee—Oh Pinkie Pie...”  Twilight Sparkle could hardly breathe.

        Rarity leaned over and nuzzled Pinkie with a warm smile.  “Don't you ever change, darling.  One of these days, we're going to find you a gentlecolt who'll gladly take p-pie in th-the face fr-from youuuuu—Snkkkttt—hahahaha!”

        “Heeheehee...” Twilight Sparkle stood up and levitated the box of cupcakes with purple telekinesis.  “Come on, girls.  Let's get to the park before the other three think we ditched today's picnic.”

        “What about strudel?”  Pinkie Pie bounced happily after them as the three made for the exit of Sugarcube Corner.  “That's a little less messy than pie!  Though it's kind of crusty.  Oh!  I know!  I could avoid the glaze!  It'd make it much more aerodynamic when I toss it at him!”

        The other two laughed merrily, their high-pitched chorus ringing in my ears as they brushed past my table.  I gazed over my shoulder from where I sat.  Suddenly, the scent of dust wafted up to my nostrils, and I realized I was squeezing a pair of ancient history books to my chest.  Sighing, I relinquished hugging the library checkouts and opened them up atop the table before me.  The inside of Sugarcube Corner somehow felt less colorful.  It was less warm too.  I felt a chill dance through my body as I heard the last traces of Twilight's harmonious voice trailing from my ears.

        With a shudder, I pulled the stone-gray sleeves of my hoodie over my hooves and absorbed myself in a sea of text as forgotten and timeless as I.

        It's been almost thirteen months since the curse began.  In that time, my life has gotten calmer.  My days now are filled with tranquility, purpose, and resolve.  I'd be lying, however, if I said that things have gotten any easier.

        There are some nights when I don't have a magical tune echoing loudly against the walls of my mind.  These would be blissful evenings, except that they afford me a chance to dream.  There is nothing that makes a prison more painful than being able to dream.  After all, what is the power of damnation without a slice of hope to merit its potency?

        When I dream, I see myself trotting across an empty Ponyville.  There are no other ponies besides me.  I am the only equine soul to be seen or heard.  Every hoofstep is mine.  Every written word belongs to me.  Every breath and song and sob holds anchorage in my throat and mine alone.

        While this may seem like a nightmare, there are times when I prefer the world of these dreams to that which I'm forced to endure everyday.  At least in my dreams I am encompassed by desolation, a far more sensible prison than one that is barred with the faces of so many happy and warm ponies.

        Seeing Twilight Sparkle's smiles, hearing her voice: I am reminded of what we used to be.  I'm reminded of the days when we and Moondancer were foals, when we played in the parks of upper Canterlot, reenacting major events in Equestrian History.  Moondancer liked to pretend she was Princess Luna and Twilight—of course—was always Princess Celestia.  More often than not, I was stuck with playing the role of Starswirl the Bearded.  The other two would giggle and poke fun at me for having to portray the surly stallion sorcerer in our little get-togethers.  It was worth it, though, because nothing made Twilight more happy than to be Princess Celestia.  The world seemed a lot more colorful when she was smiling, and that was something I never wanted to disturb.

        When the years went by, and Twilight left Moondancer and I to live under the wing of Princess Celestia, I didn't realize it at first—but something had been drained from my life that could never be refilled.  We three were young unicorns then, and like all magical ponies our age we were far too eagerly swept up in learning history and spells and various Canterlot arts.  Moondancer relocated to a Fillydelphian university to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher.  I studied music and composition at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.  Our days were spent in becoming living repositories of knowledge; we pursued the future in our separate ways.  As a result, our companionship dissolved, allowing our education and careers to take the forefront of our lives.

        Not once, however, did this bother us in any way.  Our friendship was something immortal, something immaculate.  Occasionally Twilight Sparkle, Moondancer and I would get back together and talk about the directions our lives had taken us.  We'd muse about the things we did in our foalhood.  So long as we had the memories of what we once were, we could accept what we had become.  Our friendship would last as long as we could remember that which united us.

        Today, I am the only pony who can afford those memories.  Moondancer and Twilight have lost something, and they don't even know it.  But do they have to know it?  As long as I remember them, as long as I let them laugh, smile, and play Luna and Celestia in my mind, then nothing is lost.  I believe this with all my heart.

        Then why is it that I see Twilight day in and day out, and I feel as though a phantom limb is speaking to me, that something lopped off my soul is screaming to be reattached, only to remain a numb spectre of something warm and irrecoverable?

        I am so happy—so exceedingly enraptured—to see Twilight Sparkle having made so many friends in Ponyville.  There was a time when I was worried about her.  Moondancer and I pursued our careers with great vigor, but Twilight Sparkle had treated her career like a veritable obsession.  On so many instances, I attempted to have the three of us reunite, and only Moondancer would show up.  Together, we'd worry over Twilight's path in life.  We missed her and shared a mutual concern over the future she was paving for herself.  In her foalhood, Twilight always held a major attachment to Princess Celestia, but Moondancer and I both doubted she was aptly prepared for the consequences of being so closely connected to an immortal alicorn.

        That's why it fills me with such joy to see Twilight Sparkle having relocated to Ponyville.  There are ponies here with whom she's had the opportunity to commune.  I truly think they've saved her from a life of perpetual isolation, a fate that would have stripped her heart of the opportunity to feel with the same vitality that she's exercised her mind.

        And yet, every time I see her and her friends, I can't help but wonder if things could have been different.  I came to Ponyville to visit her during the Summer Sun Celebration.  What if the same opportunity that blossomed for Twilight would have opened a door for me?  Perhaps I could have been making the same friends as her, attending the same gatherings as her, going to the same picnics and laughing over the same anecdotes and smiling at the same thoughts with her.

        I've lived long enough to know that life is the sum of its days, and yet the flavor of its dreams.  Sometimes the most beautiful choir is the one you can't join, the one you can only listen to.  It's been many years, and I feel like I'm still playing the role of Starswirl the Bearded, giving the spotlight to Twilight Sparkle, allowing her to illuminate the stage with her smile.  It's a wonderful play, and it deserves an encore.  I just don't know how long I can sit here alone with my applause.

        A few days ago, I stumbled through the door to my log cabin, and it felt like just any other afternoon I've ever lived.  The same walls embraced me, dangling with the many musical instruments I made to be shared with nopony but myself.  A fireplace yawned in waiting, something that would be lit at night—a night just like any other, spent alone with my thoughts and shadows.

        This routine I live by is mind-numbing.  As soon as I step over the hearth that I've built for myself, I know what the next few hours are going to consist of.  I know that I'll be reading one of the many ancient tomes checked out from Twilight's library.  I know that I'll be scouring the texts for any tiny bit of info that can clue me into the magical secrets behind Nightmare Moon.  I know that I'll come up with either nothing or very little to go by, and the rest of the daylight will be spent sitting out on the patio, attempting to eke beauty from the fringe of the wilderness around me.  Then, when evening falls—and the shivers make my bones twitch on the verge of a moonlit waltz—I surrender to the blankets of my cot, staring into the fireplace, trying to imagine another world where there is a smile for every tear, a laugh for every sob, and a pair of ears besides mine for every fear I have to stammer into the gaping abyss of the night.

        Why do I even write this?  Every ten journal entries or so, I ask the same question, and it is just as pointless and rhetorical as all the others.  Right now, as I ramble poetically, I am sitting on a bench about twenty yards from the Carousel Boutique.  It's a sunny day.  There are very few clouds in the sky.  The same squirrel has crawled up to me for the fifth consecutive occasion.  I don't know if it realizes I've given it the same morsel of food four times in a row.  Candy Mane has flown by three times, each time waving and saying the same greeting.  Miss Hooves has trotted past the bench with Dinky, giving me the same smile and nod that she did yesterday and the day before and the day before that.  Twenty minutes ago, for the sake of whimsy, I stood up from the bench and scuffed my name in the dirt path with my rear hooves.  Sitting back down, I decided to count the number of ponies who stopped to give the four-letter word a cognitive glance.  Twenty minutes have gone by, and my count is still at zero.  An hour will past, four hours, five days, or a thousand years—and I don't expect that number to go up any.

        Who do I write this for other than myself?  What other pony do I have to look after, to provide for, to feed or to blanket or to comfort?  Who else will read this?  Who else will have the ability to read this?  Am I just circling words down a gaping funnel?  There are times when I feel as if I'm only indulging myself with a great bowl of nothing.  It would make far greater sense to write nameless songs in the dirt, or to fatten a squirrel to the bursting point.

        There was a time when I used to compose music for a hobby.  After all, why study music if you're not going to make more of it?  It used to bug my parents.  There were nights that I spent in my upstairs bedroom, repetitively strumming away at the same stubborn tune with a lyre or harp, attempting to unlock a musical symphony that I knew for sure would be Canterlot's next masterpiece.

        These days, my symphonies are not my own.  I go to bed and wake up with tunes haunting my mind, resonating in my horn like some accursed tuning fork.  I do everything in my power to drag them out of me, just short of screaming.  The nights are cold, freezing, and frightening.  When I finally break the music down into a palpable composition, it hardly brings warmth, for another melody is there to take its place, filling my ears like ghost whispers.  There are no strings left to pluck and call my own, for I am still threading loose the shadows of Nightmare Moon's endless night.

        Perhaps, then, what's left of me to claim as my own is my words.  This journal is a solitary piece, performed in a capella, an ode to joy... so long as I have joy to perceive, like a glimpse of the past or a hope for the future.  I know very well that I may be the only pony to read what I am writing right now, but perhaps such is for the best.  So long as I fill these entries with that which is beautiful, that which is inspiring, then it's a symphony that I can call my own.  There are many tunes I've yet to unlock before I can even hope to tackle this curse.  However, I must never lose grasp of the most important composition, to which I am the one true conductor.

        I only wish the elegies were so clearly defined.

        “Are you sure these are the books that you wanna check out?” Spike looked down at me from where he stood, perched, atop a rolling ladder that was leaning against a bookcase full of dusty tomes.  “They're not written in Equestrian Basic.  From what Twilight Sparkle says, many are written in Moonwhinny.  I don't suppose you've got a laypony's knowledge of the lunar tongue, Miss...?”

        “Heartstrings,” I murmur.  I trot across the library and stand at the base of the ladder.  “And you shouldn't concern yourself too much.  I know this is dense reading material.  Let's just say that I've had... time to invest in learning some of the old languages.”

        “Hey, that's fine with me,” Spike said with a shrug as he pulled two large books out from their shelving.  He winced at the sight of a scurrying spider and brushed loose a few flimsy cobwebs.  “Honestly, I think it's kind of cool.  Most ponies who visit this library—and Twilight Sparkle will be the first to tell you this—they come looking for a cook book or an adventure novel or some other really simple thing.  It's a shame that she isn't here to help you find this sort of stuff.  Then again... Heh...”  He smiled as he crawled his small, portly frame down the ladder, balancing the books in a tiny hand.  “Maybe it's all for the best.  She'd get all excited that a fellow unicorn was checking out stuff this old and would talk your ear off about ancient Equestrian history.”

        I couldn't help but brandish the thinnest of smiles.  “You say that as if it's a bad thing.”

        “Eh.  To each their own.  I kind of feel bad for some of the ponies who come here to study, especially when it's a gorgeous day outside.  It seems like some of them just never get to leave.”

        I took a deep breath and took the book from him with gentle telekinesis.  “Believe me.  I understand completely.”  I adjusted the collar of my hoodie with a slight shiver before adding, “Still, it's worth it when we have forgotten treasures to uncover.”

        “Hmm.  That almost sounds exciting.”  He smiled, his rows of tiny razor sharp teeth showing.  “You must be doing some sort of wicked cool research project, Miss Heartstrings.”

        “I'll settle for 'cool,' alright,” I said with a nod.  “The jury's still out on 'wicked.'”

        “Jee, I dunno.”  He scratched his green spikes and gave the books in my levitating grasp a slightly detestable glance.  “I always get the chills when I touch books from our 'Lunar Collection.'”

        “You're not the only one.”

        “Cuz—Really!—Twilight's told me enough about them.  The legacy of Nightmare Moon used to be a big deal long before Princess Luna returned from her whole thousand year imprisonment and all.  Twilight says that many of the books written in Moonwhinny were banned from libraries all across Equestria.  Can you believe that?  It had something to do with... uhh... Princess Celestia being concerned that mortal ponies would read what Luna had written and somehow be afflicted by the taint of Nightmare Moon.”

        “It was called the 'Great Canterlot Eclipse,'” I explained to him, mentally quoting Twilight as I shuffled over to a desk and prepared for a long afternoon of studying.  “Scholars write about it to this day.  It was a dark time in the aftermath of Nightmare Moon's tyranny when literature underwent a great deal of censorship.  Eventually, as a few centuries rolled by, Princess Celestia realized the error of her ways, and she lifted the ban.  This gave birth to the Modern Equestrian Renaissance, and Canterlot was founded as a center of art and learning, ultimately leading to it becoming the capital city of Equestria.  Still, the effects of the Great Eclipse are evident in pony culture, and many things written down in the lunar archives remain undiscovered to this day.”

        Spike whistled.  “Wow.  That's different than how Twilight explains it.”

        That struck me rather curiously.  “And just how does she explain it?”

        “Simply that most ponies are too scared to read things that were once held in the library of Princess Luna.”

        “Well, that's perfectly understandable,” I said sagely.  “There's a great deal of darkness and loss attached to the name 'Nightmare Moon.'”

        “Yeah, well.”  He winked and pointed my way.  “If it gets too freaky to research on your own, just give me a whistle.  Even Twilight will say that I'm a pretty good research assistant.  Don't be afraid to ask if you need help with anything, Miss Heartstrings.”

        “Really?”  I opened one of the old tomes, waved the cloud of dust away, and squinted over the many alien words.  My question was a very droll, tone-deaf plea.  “Could you, by chance, tell me anything about the Cosmic Matriarch?”

        “Uhhhh...”  Spike's emerald eyeslits blinked dazedly.  “The Cosmic What-now?”

        “It's an old mare's tale, as far as most ponies are concerned,” Twilight Sparkle had once said.  “But I happen to know it's a lot more than that.”

        I gulped.  I shivered.  It was barely two months into my curse.  I was living out of a green tent pitched alongside an abandoned barn just outside of town.  That day, I sat in the waiting room of Aloe and Lotus' Day Spa, pretending to be another anxious customer—just so I could interrupt Twilight for this one desperate conversation.  To this day, I thank my lucky stars that she was gracious enough to ignore the sight of the shivering bum in a stone-gray sweatjacket, looking like she needed far more than a frivolous massage or pedicure.

        “How's that?” I murmured, trying to keep my composure.  The world was a frigid tomb.  My mind reeled from the same miserable tune spinning like a broken record in the thick of my skull.  “How do you know it's more than an old mare's tale?”

        “Because Princess Celestia has spoken about it... or her...”  She giggled.  “Or perhaps them.  Whatever the case, I have no doubt that the Cosmic Matriarch is real.  I've been our magical ruler's apprentice long enough to hear her infer as much.”

        “Infer?”  I gulped, struggling to remain still in the chair.  The shivers were unbearable; I fought them courageously.  I had to appear as interested in this conversation as my heart genuinely felt.  “You mean to say that she's never outright come out and told you what the Cosmic Matriarch is?”

        Twilight shifted with momentary discomfort.  For a moment, I was afraid that I had struck a nerve, that I had lost her desire to educate me.  To my elation, she continued, though pensively so.  “It's very personal to her, I think.  And I don't say that lightly.  Princess Celestia has lived for a very, very long time.  It's very difficult to stumble upon things that she takes personal stock in.”

        “But she does with this?”

        “Mmmmhmmm.  And Princess Luna as well.  You see...”  Twilight smiled and brushed a hoof through her mane as we waited “our turns” with Aloe and Lotus.  “The Princesses who look after the Sun and Moon are immortal.  However, while that fact is irrefutable, it makes ponies overlook something very important.  Ironically, it's the one thing that every magician in Equestria has to learn before starting their career.”

        I swallowed hard and uttered, “Everything has a beginning.”

        Twilight glanced at me with pleasant surprise.  “Why... yes!  Heehee—How would you know that?  Are you also a magician, Miss Heartstrings?”

        I bit my lip and avoided her gaze.  This was my fifth identical conversation with Twilight Sparkle, and I was only just then getting used to the whole ritual.  “I've... done my fair share of reading,” I confessed and lied at the same time.  All I knew were words, terms, names, and very few of them in Equestrian Modern.  “But it's my understanding that nopony has ever been taught the true origin to the Princesses of Equestria.”

        “And for a good reason,” Twilight said with a nod.  Her lavender features were bathed in the gentle light of an aroma candle, giving my foalhood friend an ethereal quality as she spoke of holy things.  “Mortal ponies live—what?  Sixty to seventy years?  Ninety years at most?  Starswirl the Bearded was a major exception, of course, but most ponies are lucky if they see so much as a century go by before their time on earth is over.  Can any of us really imagine what it's like to be an alicorn?  To have lived for eons?  To have seen the foundation of this world, and the birth of the Sun and Moon themselves?”

        I fought another wave of chills, staring off into the distant candles as if they were alien stars twinkling beyond us.  “I can imagine many things.  It's a whole different situation to feel.”  I glanced back at her.  I could only hope my eyes were as sincere as my words.  “What does Princess Celestia feel?  Do you know?”

        “I wish I could tell you, Miss Heartstrings.  I wish I could know—so I could tell it to all of my friends, or to anypony for that matter.  But, even though I am Celestia's apprentice, there are many things that are still a mystery to me, and I think when it comes to the topic of the Cosmic Matriarch, it's far too sensitive a thing to press the Princess for information about.”

        “You think she isn't willing to share what she knows?”

        Twilight squirmed with a sudden awkwardness.  “Erm... No.  It's something far different than that, I think... or at least I theorize.”

        “Oh?”

        She looked at me.  Her eyes were surprisingly vulnerable.  “Would you, Miss Heartstrings, attempt talking about your mother... if you had lived for so long that you could hardly remember her?”

        A sharp breath left me.  The shadows in the room doubled, like the thick curtain of night.  “I... I never once thought of that...”

        Twilight gently nodded.  “I imagine Celestia thinks of that everyday, which is why I'm so reticent to bring it up in conversation.”

        I let my gaze fall.  “I'm sorry...”

        “Hey...”  She smiled and leaned forward.  “Don't be.  It's healthy to be curious, but we mustn't forget that there are still sacred boundaries in this world.  Besides, though Celestia may not have much to talk on the subject, she did once say something that has stuck with me for as long as I've known her.”

        I glanced at her again.  “What's that?”

        Twilight was grinning, a very soft and childish expression.  “When I first became her apprentice, I asked her about the creation of the world.  She was very vague in her answer, except for one curious detail.”  She stifled a giggle, cleared her throat, and quoted her mentor.  “'The world began like all things began, my apprentice, not with a mere breath... but with a song.'”

        What is this song?  Is it the same thing that gets stuck in my head every morning and every night of my life?  Have I been made capable of sensing something that no other Equestrian soul has been blessed—or cursed—to witness?  Why me?  Why me alone?  And what does Nightmare Moon have to do with it?

        This is what I struggle over.  This is what I wrack my brain with.  Day after day—in Twilight's library, on park benches, before the fireplace of my cabin, under candle-light, in the frigid glow of the moon and the gentle kiss of the morning sun—I rummage through books, tomes, scrolls in search of an answer, until my eyes gloss over with the dust and exhaustion of all the ages this mortal soul is constantly struggling to catch up with.

        It's taken me several months, and I am only barely scratching the surface of history's forgotten answers—assuming that they are indeed answers, and just not red herrings disguised by the obscure layers of time.  The richest details are lost in several languages, and most of them dead.  I've relied on codecs, translations, almanacs, and various other legends that dig and chip away at mountains of lunar speech, and the most I know is that there is even more that I don't know, and may never know.

        Was Nightmare Moon a musician first and a despot second?  This should come as no surprise.  My constant research over the last year has granted me remarkable insight.  It turns out that every sentient culture in Equestria has a common retelling of a great deceiver whose gift was in the musical arts before turning into a bane of righteousness.  Minotaurs write of a royal lyricist who—once scorned by a lover—trapped his entire kingdom in a labyrinthine spell.  Diamond Dogs, often considered to be illiterate, actually possess several scrolls depicting a tribe of murderers who led their brothers astray with a 'Howl of Cyclones'.  Even dragons have a spoken legend that tells of an ancient queen who petrified her brothers and sisters using a magically resonating diamond.

        Perhaps my discoveries are a result of me—a cursed unicorn—looking specifically for information that relates to her plight.  Still, I can't shake the uncanny coincidence of so many similar legends being told across multiple, different civilizations.

        It's no secret that Princess Luna has an appreciation for musical arts.  Then again, so does Princess Celestia.  The sisters are both alicorn rulers of ponydom, and it'd be a heinous crime to not invest in the same culture that defines those whom they rule over.  However, it's always been an accepted notion that ponies of ancient times relished more in the daytime than in the nighttime, and as a result Celestia's patronage was expressed in song and dance whereas worship of Luna was far more subdued.  It doesn't take an immortal soul to imagine Luna seeking music of her own to fill in the gap.

        But what connection could that have—if any—to the Cosmic Matriarch?  I am certain—no—I am convinced that there must be a common thread.  Twilight Sparkle is an apprentice after Celestia's own heart.  If she quotes the Princess, saying that “all things began with a song,” I simply have no choice but to believe her.  Our alicorn rulers began when the rest of the world did; they're the only ones possessed with the ability to remember.  What better a way is there to preserve memories than through music?

        Yes, this song is real.  I am a lone soul, imprisoned in a cold bottle echoing with these ghostly melodies, like hidden phantoms on the dark side of the moon.  Once I find them, I can find myself, and maybe—just maybe—I can rebroadcast them to the world, so that more ponies than just the alicorns can remember what has been lost since the foundation of everything, and then I can be as real as the song too.

        Just yesterday morning, I knew it was time.  I had put off the performance of the Threnody of Night for far too long.  I had run out of excuses just as I had run out of fear.  There comes a time when the desperation to find answers overcomes the trepidation of the cold journey ahead.  Yesterday was just such a time.  I had all the bits I needed to buy the ingredients.  I had all the time to make my trip.  I just didn't look forward to the energy it was going to sap from me.

        I needed to go to the Everfree Forest, and that meant bundling up.  Where I was headed, the hoodie simply wouldn't be enough.  It started with woolen socks.  I slid these over my hooves, then slipped them into thick goulashes that went halfway up my fetlocks.  I grabbed a thick brown cloak that I hadn't worn in over a month and draped it over my entire body.  Next came a familiar yellow scarf that still carried with it the felicity of an elegant unicorn's generous smile.  Finally, I grabbed a black snowcap that I had sewn for myself, with a hole made to allow my horn to pierce through.  Grabbing a bag of bits, I telekinetically flung the dual hoods of the sweatjacket and cloak over my head and stumbled out the door to my cabin.

        It was a thirty minute trot until I would get to the edge of the Everfree Forest, to where the thick bundle of clothing would prove useful.  Until then, I sweated uncomfortably, assaulted by a warmth that was actually unbearable for once.  Despite the temptation to strip of at least the cloak or goulashes, I pressed on, knowing that soon I would be wishing for all of the world's blankets to be engulfing me.  I wondered what I looked forward to the least: making this trip, or performing the instrumental once I had acquired what I needed.  I had to keep my mind distracted, if only to give me strength, if only to make me think of other situations where sweating profusely was as comical as it was awkward, like trying to explain my cutie mark for the millionth time to Applejack's and Rarity's sisters, or receiving a flower from Morning Dew.

        Morning Dew.

        A sigh escaped my lips, and I smiled for the first time in days.  It's funny:  all of my writings on the beauty of friendship and my hopes for relinquishing the binds of this curse, and it's still those two words that can bring me joy without fail.  My burdensome journey became slightly more bearable, and I marched into the thick forest refreshed, so that I meditated calmly for once and did what every musician does when she's relaxed.

        I composed.

        There are seven lunar elegies connected to my curse.  I know this only because they are all that I have discovered so far.  They come to me without warning or announcement, infecting my mind, born in sleep or in waking fright.  If it was a song that began the world, then it was one that ended me, and I must carefully bridge the gap between creation and annihilation.

        Lunar Elegy #1, as Twilight helped me discover, is the “Prelude to Shadows.”  Referred to only once in The Royal Equestrian Compendium Volume Twelve, it's the first piece of evidence in the Lunar Archives that suggests that Princess Luna ever took a hobby in musical composition.  To that end, it was the first tune that was stuck in my head the very moment I awoke to a world that perpetually forgot me.

        Like all of the elegies that come to my mind, I endeavored to understand the nature of “Prelude to Shadows.”  That meant performing the melody myself once I had completed the composition.  I knew that there was something mystical and enchanting about the piece.  What I didn't bet on was an actual magical effect for playing it out with my lyre.  No sooner was I done with “Prelude to Shadows” when I found myself experiencing a severe mood shift.  I became nervous, paranoid, and easily frightened.  Every loose shape and beam of light spoke to me, as if something beyond the walls were closing in.  I was almost mortified when another tune immediately took the Prelude's place in my mind.

        Lunar Elegy #2, also thanks to Twilight, would turn out to be called “Sunset Bolero.”  When performing the Prelude and the Bolero back to back, I realized that the music called for a smooth transition.  It was then that I realized that the elegies coming to my mind weren't just random tunes.  They were a suite, and I was on the verge of unfolding a grandiose symphony of mysterious proportions.

        When I first played the “Sunset Bolero,” I was pleased to not experience a wave of uneasiness the likes of which the Prelude afflicted me with.  Instead, I was overcome with an excitement I didn't expect.  My heart's pulse rate went up and stayed that way for over thirty-six hours.  I felt like I could run a marathon.  Whether this was magically the result of the Bolero's heavy percussion or some sort of unexplained impetus that only Nightmare Moon could understand, I was at a loss to know.  I was merely a mortal playing the tunes of an unearthly alicorn spirit.  I was willing to bet that with only two performances, I was retaining more knowledge than even poor Princess Luna herself was capable of knowing at that point in time.

        Lunar Elegy #3 took me a while to figure out, for I at first thought that I was simply hearing “Sunset Bolero” over again.  It took several hours of meditating into the long cold night, but finally I realized that the third elegy was a modified version of the Bolero, slowed down, with a melancholic dissonance.  Desperate for an explanation, I rummaged through the lunar texts available to me in Twilight's library.  It took over two months, but upon mastering enough words of the lunar tongue, I was finally able to look up an ancient passage depicting Princess Luna and a second composition of one of her previous songs.  This was how the “March of Tides” was born.

        Performing the “March of Tides” had an instant effect on me.  It made me light-headed, and time seemed to slow down.  I realized then what the “Sunset Bolero” was preparing me for, because if my heart wasn't ready for the creepy effect of the March, I may not have been able to finish the composition.  It was at this point of discovery that I realized that not only were these elegies meant to be performed in time, but they were being fed to me in just the perfect order, as if there was some invisible purpose behind the whole thing.  I now had an even greater reason to practice these enchanted tunes, for I suddenly felt that some other spirit besides myself was involved.

        Lunar Elegy #4 had no title, because for the longest time I didn't desire to name it.  After the first performance, I had a panic attack, because I was blinded halfway through the instrumental.  There's really no better a way to describe it.  Halfway through the performance, all of the lights and colors were sucked out of the world.  I remember collapsing in the middle of my new cabin that night, shivering, clutching at the shadows.  I think I may have even screamed for help—not that anypony could have heard me.  It's difficult to remember.  The important detail is that when the morning sun came, I could see it, and I was enraptured.

        After that, I gave up on pursuing the elegies for over six weeks.  Could you blame me?  I was dealing with a symphony that was beyond my control.  My curse certainly wasn't being lifted with any of my subsequent performances.  Besides, understanding it didn't make me any less vulnerable a mortal soul to the work of an equine goddess.  However, as the days wore on, and the fourth elegy resonated in the recesses of my mind, I was drawn back to the lyre like a mother to her sickly foal.

        I picked an evening when the moon was full.  It was a pale glow of comfort to my frightened senses as I plucked forth at the strings once again.  I performed the first elegy, then the second, then the third.  Sure enough, halfway through Elegy # 4, my vision left me.  Bravely—blindly—I strummed on, and when I was finished with the composition, my vision returned.  Not only that, but I was experiencing a strange peace, a tranquility that kept me awake and resolute in the middle of the night's freezing stare.  The next day, I did some research at Twilight's library, and almost immediately stumbled upon an ancient tale about Princess Luna curing a village of a pestilence that had afflicted the ponies' eyes.  What was more, she did it with a song, and the name of it was “Darkness Sonata.”

        After the harrowing circumstances involving the Sonata, I felt as though I could take on anything.  So I engaged Elegy #5 with great courage and vigor.  It turned out that my guile was almost for nothing.  The fifth elegy resulted in a very comforting—almost whimsical experience.  I wouldn't necessarily call it “happy.”  A more appropriate word for it would be “secure.”  According to Twilight Sparkle, the name of the instrumental is “Waltz of Stars,” and it's an appropriate name too.  Its cadence mimics the uplifting beat of the “Sunset Bolero,” while incorporating a dissonance akin to “March of Tides,” whereas “Waltz of Stars” achieves a far more transcendental effect.

        Playing the “Waltz of Stars” was ultimately a neutral experience.  While the tune's whimsy and ethereal quality enchanted me at first, I felt for days after the song's performance a sense of longing.  I couldn't sleep, on account of how pathetically lonesome I felt.  I couldn't stop thinking about the song, about the void through which my strings echoed, as if I was calling out to long lost sisters I could never see again.  Why siblings?  I still don't quite understand it.  But when I think about the song, I look up at the starry expanse and suddenly I feel as if I have all the answers, even if they're not all discovered yet.

        Then there's Elegy #6.  Twilight Sparkle immediately recognized the tune, and then she shocked me when she said that it was none other than the Anthem to the Lunar Empire.  She explained to me that the song had in fact  been used as a military call to assembly in the years preceding the rise of Nightmare Moon.  Before Princess Luna was banished with the Elements of Harmony, her tainted spirit tricked many unicorns into following her will.  The result was an army that had gathered under Nightmare Moon's lead.  Using these ill-fated ponies, the dark alicorn attempted to usurp the power of her sister and all souls who defended her.

        It pains me to think that I was being taught by invisible tongues to learn a tune that had once meant the bane of my very own ancestors.  Unicorns almost went extinct as a result of the war between the holy siblings of Equestria.  The elegies I was uncovering were frightful and mysterious, but they were not without their own sense of beauty.  I think it goes without saying that even the most insidious of tools we invent in this world all start as a noble work of art.

        So, with great zeal, I poured through the pages of every ancient tome I could find.  I soon discovered that almost anything related to the sixth elegy had been eliminated from modern history.  In a way, it makes sense.  Nopony in their right mind would want to see something like the Lunar Empire become reborn in our day and age.  Still, it's such a tragedy that fantastic works of art—beautiful by their merit alone—must absolutely be destroyed along with the nefarious shadows of the past.  As my mind swam with the melancholic tunes being sung to my mind, it soon became clear that I didn't need to know the actual name of the elegy to ascertain its composition.  Ever since my plight began, I've possessed an inexplicable sense that is not blemished by the fears and prejudice of time.  Furthermore, I of all ponies should know that words are meaningless in my search.  I can only imagine how much of Princess Luna's heart went into her symphony before her poisoned mind transformed it into something wicked.

        I decided to call the sixth instrumental “Moon's Elegy,” and it's impact upon me was immediately noticeable upon performance.  As soon as I had finished strumming the composition, I felt the chills of my curse doubling... tripling.  It was as though every warm piece of the world had been pulled away from me.  I felt numb, cold, hungry, and very impressionable.  It suddenly made sense why this was such an easy song for corrupt warmongers to wield.  If enough zealots were exposed to the “Moon's Elegy,” I could see a despot like Nightmare Moon making them do anything with the simple promise of lifting the very effects of the tune.  As a matter of fact, the only way I was able to free myself from the paralyzing cold was to play my way back through elegies # 1 through 5.

        Perhaps, then, it's excusable as to why I've been so hesitant to tackle Elegy #7, a tune that Twilight Sparkle has herself called “Threnody of Night.”  A threnody is a song of tribute to the dead.  I've hoped to be many things at the end of unraveling this curse, but dead isn't one of them.

        And yet, what else am I to do?  I certainly can't quit on these instrumentals.  I learn them as I discover them.  There is no skipping a tune, no jumping ahead to see how the entire symphony ends.  I can't track down Princess Luna and ask her for help.  I can't send a letter to Princess Celestia and call upon her wisdom.  With the exception of Twilight's insight and Spike's research skills—both of which are fleeting assets at best—I am alone on this journey.  It's a cold and treacherous trek, like a tiny pony flung into endless night, or a lone body trotting through a gloomy jungle.

        Yesterday, at noon, I marched slowly through the Everfree Forest.  I had no choice but to take it easy.  It didn't matter how desperate I felt.  Breaking into a full gallop would waste my energy, and I was utilizing every bit of stamina in keeping myself from passing out in the middle of that dense foliage.

        It was cold.  So very, very cold.  My teeth chattered and the hairs of my coat stood on end.  Even beneath all of my bundled clothes—the cloak and the scarf and the snow cap and the sweatjacket—I was about ready to shatter into a million frozen pieces.

        When the curse struck me, I was located in the center of Ponyville—at ground zero—where Nightmare Moon first touched down upon the earth after a thousand long years of banishment.  For that reason, apparently, I am the warmest in the heart of Ponyville.  Moving out, I am shivering along the town's fringes, freezing at my cabin, and downright numb at places very distant from the center, places such as Sweet Apple Acres.

        In the Everfree Forest, I might as well be dead.  The temperature is unbearable.  To any other pony, I must look like a feverish mess, shivering beneath layers of wool and cloth.  It's a feat in and of itself to pass my condition off as a temporary illness.  I rarely ever trot out this far, and when I do it's only when it's absolutely necessary.  I needed the materials for performing the “Threnody of Night.”  As a result, I had to keep going.  I had to keep piercing the forest.  Soon enough, I would have found my destination.

        Everytime I looked at the uneven path ahead of me, the trail appeared to stretch on even further.  To avoid fainting, I tilted my gaze upwards and allowed the frail specks of sunlight to bleed through the foliage and play with my eyes, keeping me awake.  I've been told that the Everfree Forest is supposed to be frightening, that the unchecked growth of nature is a scary change from the orderly world that stewards like the pegasi maintain for us.  As far as I'm concerned, all of the nightmarish things of Everfree are invisible and harmless, at least in comparison to the very real cold that assaults my body each time I venture out there.  Making a sort of trek like I did yesterday is the mystical equivalent of diving into a subterranean lake hidden beneath a polar ice cap.  I'd be warmer if I gathered a syringe full of permafrost and shoved it into an open vein.  Toying with the mystical effects of a lunar curse is hardly a game, and yet I have no way of dissecting my situation unless I play with it just a little bit.

        I had to keep myself distracted.  I thought of the Threnody.  I thought of the musical notes burned into the back of my brain.  My ears twitched as I imagined each tune long before I performed them.  In the streets of Ponyville, before the gracious bits of other ponies being flung before me, I had practiced the tunes—but each occasion was a purposeful alteration of the true composition.  I couldn't practice the actual instrumentals by striking each note true; a perfect playthrough meant activating the magical spell attached to the elegy I was performing.  I very deeply feared afflicting other ponies with the same mystical burden that I and I alone was enduring.  After all, the purpose of freeing myself from the curse was finding a way to commune with such souls in the first place.  It was a noble goal, and it was worth all of the trials, tribulations, and shivers... most of the time.

        I felt a great shadow looming over me.  With a gasp of joy, I realized that I had finally stumbled upon the treehouse.  Various masks of exotic design greeted me as I all-but-stumbled into the door, rapping upon it with a shuddering hoof.  I clung to myself, shivering upon the threshhold.  I felt weaker this visit.  I wasn't sure how long I was going to last.

        Thankfully, I didn't have to wait for long.  I heard her voice almost immediately:  “Come.  Come and enter, stranger or friend.  For I have brews for all ills contained within.”

        I took a deep, deep breath and opened the door.  I had to work every quivering muscle into producing a neighborly grin.  “Good afternoon, Miss Zecora.”  I nearly stumbled dead across her floor.  I locked the joints in my legs and stood as tall as I could, my teeth showing in the green torchlight.  “I'm so sorry to bother you.”

        “It is hardly a bother, kindly mare,” said the meditative zebra.  She stood over a bubbling cauldron, squinting at a series of herbs that she was sprinkling over a new and experimental concoction.  “So long as you are in my house, you are in my care.”

        “Well, th-that's good...”  I winced past a wave of chills.  I was afraid to look up, as if expecting the dangling decorations from her desert homeland to be replaced with deadly icicles.  “Uhm... I've been told th-that you're a local hermit, and that you rarely wander into town...”  The fact that this was the fifth (or sixth?) time reciting these words didn't make the task any less awkward.  “...but I'm desperate t-to finish this scientific experiment that I'm working on for the Manehattan University, and I'm sh-short four reagents.  I'm t-told that you have several sound stones that you c-commonly sell, is that true?”  I clenched my teeth.  I knew Zecora's answer before she said it.  I only needed her to come out with it quickly.  If only zebras were as punctual in their predictability as ponies.

        “Hmmm, magical sound stones, a ram-crafted delight.”  Zecora murmured to the hazy atmosphere of her home as she stirred the broth before her.  “I say five pony bits per rock sounds about right.  I wish I could charge less, but unfortunately sound stones are acquired through much trial and difficulty.”  She trotted over towards a shelf where a black box resided.  In so doing, she cast me the first glance since I entered, and her blue eyes widened.  “By the shadows, pony, your attire!  Is Equestria due for a blizzard most dire?”

        Here we go...

        I swallowed hard and did a very brave thing.  I lowered the hoods of both my cloak and hoodie.  Whether or not Zecora spots the chattering teeth beneath my smiling lips, I can never tell.  I can only hope the gesture is enough to distract her, and so far it's worked every time.  “There's no c-cause for alarm, Miss Zecora.  Ponyville's not expecting inclement weather.  It's just me and my c-condition.”

        “And what condition, pray tell, is that?”  Zecora grabbed four dark crystals from the black box and cradled them in a prehensile tail.  She trotted towards me with an expression that was half concerned, half amused.  “Before you, the most I've seen a pony wear is a hat!”

        “It's genetic, so n-none of your m-medicines will help me.”  After so many trips, it was the best excuse I had for making these visits short.  I have nothing against Zecora.  I'm sure I would love her company, and if I could predict her trips to downtown Ponyville I would visit her there in a heartbeat.  It was just that the longer I stayed in her home the more certain I was that my hooves would go permanently numb.  “Seriously, all I c-came for was the sound stones.”  I was already reaching telekinetically into my floating bag of coins.  Several weeks of street performances went into this shivering moment, and I wasn't about to tarry.  “Five bits per stone?  It so happens I have about twenty bits here...”

        “Surely, there is more for you that I can do!”  Zecora's face was long, sad.  Then suddenly it brightened.  “Ah!  Perhaps a sample of dragon's brew!”

        Oh shoot.

        She had never said that on any of the visits before.

        “Uhhh...”  I stood, frozen in mid-payment, like a tourist who had suddenly gotten lost in the middle of a horrible jungle.  “Dragon's b-brew?  Miss Zecora, I swear, all I need is—”

        But she was already reaching for a jar from a nearby counter and pouring red liquid into a wooden bowl.  “If there is any noble truth taught me by ponykind, it's that one must keep hospitality first in mind.  You can consider these sound stones as good as sold, but it would be cruel to let you leave so infirmed and cold!”

        “Miss Zecora, seriously...”  I ran a hoof over my face.  Why?  Why do I have to be cursed in the middle of a sea of blessings?  I could have just grabbed the stones and ran.  I could have even stolen them and used the twenty bits for my own benefit later.  What would it have mattered?  Zecora wouldn't have remembered me, whether I was a robber or a saint.  Why?  Why do I have to play by this code?  Haven't I gone through enough as it is?  I'm alone in this nightmare.  Don't I deserve to play a little dirty for once, especially if it means me getting what I need faster? “You don't need to give me anything...”

        “Your words say 'no' but your voice says 'yes'.”  She pierced me as much with her smile as she did with that statement, all the while motioning me towards the fresh potion she had prepared.  “Your trembles should decrease as soon as you ingest.”

        I sometimes wonder if I'd be any less transparent if those I live with actually remembered me.  With a defeated breath, I marched over and gracefully accepted her medicinal gift.  The taste wasn't half as bitter as the knowledge of its uselessness.  I've no doubt Zecora's brews could cure pony pox, leprosy, or even pegasus arthritis.  The only thing capable of appeasing my situation is a smile—blissful and ignorant—and it was my job at the moment to aim it at her.

        “Thank you very much, Miss Zecora.  That was very generous of you.”

        “It should provide enough heat to carry you back from which you came,” she said.  “And now that you've sampled the dragon's brew, might I trouble you for your name?”

        “Lyra,” I recited.  “Lyra Heartstrings.”  I set off the invisible metronome inside my head in anticipation for what would come next.

        “Ah, such a delightful name is 'Heartstrings.'  If only every soul was designed after beautiful things.”

        I can't help it.  I giggle everytime I hear that.  That alone—far more than the brew—made the cold momentarily manageable.  “Jee, thanks.  Too bad you don't have an instrument to read such lyrics off to.”

        “My spoken rhyme is merely shamanistic tradition,” Zecora explained as she marched over to the nearby counter and picked the stones back up again.  “I dare not encroach upon the ways of a musician.”

        “Why not?”  I asked.  As I spoke, my gaze fell upon a wooden engraving lying on a nearby shelf.  I saw the illustration of several zebra figures gathered around what looked to be a pair of festive drums.  I felt my heart beating at the very notion.  “Music is the best expression of the soul,” I murmured, my eyes dripping forlornly over the desert illustration.  “Be it zebra or pony.”

After a pause, I hoofed her the twenty bits and slid the four sound stones she offered into my pouch.  Zecora had said something new to me this visit, so I felt like saying something “new” to her.

“I'm sure there're plenty of songwriters in town who'd love to work on something with you that doesn't involve herbs or potion-making.  Twilight Sparkle and her friends speak highly of you, otherwise I would never have thought to come here for these rocks.”

        She replied, “I am sure they have better ways of spending their time than attempting to shape melody around a zebra's rhyme.”

        “But... you're so...”  I gazed around at the walls surrounding us.  All too soon, I felt the shivers returning, but this time they were for her and not for me.  I realized that the only alien thing in that place was me.  Zecora had made a home away from home for herself, and the foundations of her little nest were as beautiful as they were strange.  “You're so alone h-here,” I eventually murmured, failing to hide the trembles in my frame once more.  “And I get the feeling it's because you choose to be, M-Miss Zecora.  If I were you...”  I bit my lip.  What was I doing?  I should have just left and been done with it all.  I had gotten the stones.  Foalishly, I continued, “If I knew that I had so many friends in town, I wouldn't spend half as much time alone as I already do.”

        Zecora seemed unaffected by my impassioned plea.  She trotted back to her cauldron like a soldier returning to her post.  “What I do in solitude, I do for the best.  A shaman's work isn't done until she's finished her quest.”

        I gazed forlornly her way.  “And all of those years that we spend working on something so important to us...”  I struggled through a wave of frost.  I felt like my eyeballs would freeze in their sockets, and yet I struggled to keep staring at her.  “That's a long time to live without a soundtrack, don't you think?”

        At that, she glanced curiously up at me.  She gave a gentle smile.  “I am curious that you would speak of 'we'.  Is there a shaman in this room other than me?  Heheheh...”  I'm sure that the chuckle coming out of her lips was meant to be whimsical.  However, to me it felt like a bitter pill, more nauseating than all of the world's exotic brews sloshed together.

        “Shaman... Musician... Goddess...?”  I gulped hard.  The walls were closing in, and all of them laced with ice.  I stumbled backwards out of the treehouse as if I was tripping over a snowbank.  “What's in a title if we don't have anypony but ourselves to share our gifts with?”

        Something reflected in the surface of Zecora's bubbling cauldron other than her face.  To her squinting blue eyes, it looked like a fine mist of vapors.  She glanced up at the walls of her home.  Aside from the curious sensation of having just used her voice to speak, this revelation had no effect on her.  After all, she was always alone.

        I returned to my cabin well before the sunset.  Even then, I didn't immediately start performing the “Threnody of Night.”  I had to recover from my trip into the veritable tundra that the Everfree Forest was to me.  I laid in the center of my cot, huddled beneath a mountain of blankets.  I stayed there, weathering the fading waves of cold, practicing the Threnody in my head.  But I did more than that.  I had to steel myself for what I was about to do, for what no amount of meditation could truly prepare me for.

        You would think my life is predictable, given the circumstances.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  My entire situation is one immense dive into the unknown.  Even the very alicorn who invented these tunes is oblivious to the masterpieces I'm endeavoring to unlock.  The only soul who possibly knows an ounce of truth is Nightmare Moon, and all ponies—those cursed and those blessed—are equally happy to see her gone for good.

        It is the task of mortals to make sense out of senselessness.  Goddesses have galloped among us for millennia, and this has never stopped being true.  When my task becomes too formidable to bear, I simply remind myself that while I may be alone with my memories, I am hardly alone in my struggles.  I take little comfort in this understanding, but I do take a decent amount of strength.

        After an hour and a half of rest, I decided that I was ready.  I grabbed my lyre.  I grabbed a torch.  I grabbed my music sheets, my notes, and an oil lantern.  Finally, I brought along the four dark-crystal sound stones, devices that had been used for ages by rams and unicorns alike for absorbing acoustical frequencies.  After hours of reading in Twilight's library, I learned that these same materials were used by proto-Equestrians in harnessing the frequencies of mystical enchantment.  It's hypothesized that the substance had originally been made out of a vibrating stone whose age predates the first Rise of Discord.  As a matter of fact, the rocks were believed to be immune to waves of chaos energies.  After utilizing them myself, I realized that I could properly channel the effects of the lunar elegies and contain them to a small area of focus, so that the instrumentals I performed became much more manageable.  If there was anything I needed from that evening, it was a way to properly manage whatever would come next.

        With beautiful irony, evening had fallen.  I trotted the dark length from my cabin to a tiny wooden shack positioned along the edge of the woods.  My dim lantern illuminated my path.  Reaching the shack, I unlatched the wooden door and opened it, revealing a hidden flight of wooden steps that led down a steep trench dug out of the earth.  I had shoveled the hollow myself, spending several months of flexing my telekinetic muscle.  Closing the door to the “shack” behind me, I marched down the depth of fifteen feet until I was finally standing in the center of a twenty-by-thirty foot rectangular cellar.  When I first started these experiments, I wasn't sure exactly what danger the magical instrumentals might pose upon the residents of Ponyville all around me.  I decided to play it safe and fashion for myself a “bunker” of sorts within which I could perform my lonely symphonies, in full confidence that no other soul could hear the compositions of Princess Luna besides my accursed self.

        I hung the lantern from a metal hook implanted in the roof of the underground niche.  A dim amber light danced across the wooden boards barricading the walls of soil all around me.  The floor was a sea of even gravel that crunched under my hooves, except for a plank of wood in the center, atop which a metal stand resided.  Upon this pedestal, I planted my lyre.  With magic, I floated a wooden stool over and propped it in front of the instrument.  I then laid the sound stones in key positions in the four corners of the wooden plank, so that they surrounded me and my instrument.  I meditated, focused upon the leylines of magic attuned to my horn, and enchanted the four crystals.  They glowed with a dark emerald haze that played with the amber kiss of the lantern above, making it feel like Hearth's Warming morning.  Sitting down in the center of the ethereal halo, I collected my breaths, then propped the notebook full of musical notations in a notch positioned halfway up the pedestal.

        For several numb minutes, I sat in dead silence, half buried in the earth like the ghost I was made to be, teetering upon the edge of unknowing.  The hardest part of experimenting is always starting the experiment to begin with.  What am I to discover?  What horror or elation waits for me at the end of my last strummed note?  Will I find a cure to my curse, or a deeper degree of damnation?

        I thought of Zecora, for some reason.  I thought of her sitting in the middle of her house, just as alone, just as far away from home, working on the latest of her shamanistic experiments.  I wondered what drove her to do what she did—and in such solitude as well.  Was it all pure, medicinal altruism?  Did she have a goal in mind?  Did she benefit from everything she ever did... and did alone?

        I envied her zeal, her courage, to embark on a daily basis to work on things nonstop, for the simple sake of being busy.  The day that my curse is cured, what will I do?  Will I have as much of a drive as Zecora?  Will I live up to all the things I've ever wanted the ponies of this town to see in me?

        Nothing ever seems to get done when I think too much.  That's why it helps to just do things, and the only thing I had to do yesterday was the experiment.  I forced myself into the first throes of it, breathing evenly, sitting in a calm pose atop the stool as I forced the first of several strings to vibrate along the channels of my telekinesis.

        “Prelude to Shadows” began, and with it came the shivering waves of paranoia.  I felt the amber shadows of the lantern dancing above me as the dissonant cords came to life.  I kept playing, choosing to focus on the protective green aura of the sound stones surrounding me.  Soon enough, the Prelude's eerie melody ended.  It is a short instrumental after all.  My heart was ready for the “Sunset Bolero.”  The cellar resonated with its pulsating tempo as invisible percussion instruments sounded off in my head.  I felt the glow of green light increase, and I realized it was from my horn and not the crystals engulfing me.  The emerald brilliance began to shift and flicker, and that's how I knew that the “March of Tides” had begun. I allowed the numbness of the music piece to creep over my body, sending me weightless and fearless into the instrumental that was to come.

        The “Darkness Sonata” started, and already I felt my blood beginning to freeze over.  The lanternlight was growing dimmer, or so I told myself.  I stifled a whimper deep in my throat and kept my eyes wide open to the subterranean blackness that was burying me.  I felt as though the weight of twenty thousand generations of moon phases was bearing down on my body.  In desperation, I swam towards the pale orb in some imaginative sky, and I discovered several invisible arms carrying me there upon streams of mesmerizing cadence.  I no longer felt afraid, for the “Waltz of Stars” was accompanying me.  My vision returned, and I embraced the lanternlight once again with steely determination, for the hardest veil was just about to come.  It hit me like a solid block of ice.  I nearly fell out of my chair as the frigid kiss of the “Moon's Elegy” ripped through me, threatening to shatter my soul like glass.  I skated across the alabaster surface of its melody with tenacity, utilizing every nimble talent in this lone musician's arsenal, for it was the last layer of mystery I knew how to pierce.

        The “Threnody of Night” was next, the death of all my music and the anthem thereof.  I tackled the dirge like a monk, pure in form and devoid of flare.  One does not show off before the reaper; I was not about to turn a masterpiece into a farce.  The solemnity of the tune was excruciating to my ears.  I felt my breaths like delicate punctuations between each string pluck.  If I hadn't seen the walls around me with my naked eyes, I could have sworn the cellar had morphed into a bottomless ravine.  Where had all the echoes gone?  Was it the sound stones creating this deathly silence that gobbled up the vibrating edge of each cord?  Did the acoustics simply die?

        I couldn't panic.  There was no way to afford an error at this point.  Who knows what would happen if I stopped in the middle of this instrumental, especially after I had played so much of it so perfectly.  Was it perfect?  It had to have been.  What could have been more melodious than this?  I had played variations of this tune so many times in the streets of Ponyville, and never once did it appeal to me with such beauty, a haunting beauty, a beauty that could tell a diseased foal that it was okay to embrace the darkness, for there was something beyond the black veil that was even more comforting than a mother's kiss.

        Dear Celestia.  What was I thinking?  What was this Threnody speaking to me?  I tried to call back to it, but something was deafening my ears.  I heard the rattling of infinite chains, swirling into the dark navel of the world like cyclonic, black intestines.  Art teachers lied to me when I was young, for there have always existed colors that were never meant to be seen, and suddenly every single one of them was reaching out from the Threnody's throat for me, blacker than black, like the blood of something that had crawled and wheezed across this world long before the goddesses gave birth to air, light, and sorrow.

        I was too cold to be scared.  The “Moon's Elegy” had made sure of that.  I was a flightless insect being shoved down the maw of something far too enormous to be put into words, for the only way to recognize all that's existed was to forget it.  My mind was not large enough.  I tried stopping my music, but the lyre was going on without me.  If I had a hammer, I would have smashed my horn to dust, but I found that the same thing was happening to my hooves.  I looked down at my forelimbs and all I saw were tears.

        The air grew sour.  I looked without looking; I couldn't feel my body anymore.  The light of the lantern had gone out.  The crystals had all but shattered.  A gray haze had filled the cellar.  It tasted like a baby's first nightmare.  I entreated the walls and the walls buckled.  They leaked in a thousand places.  They must have been as sad as I was to be crying so much.  When their tears broke through—with the gloss of ages overcoming me in a frozen deluge—I gave up trying to count the many places in the world through which they shattered.  There were so many dying, black stars, like the sand of a beach catching fire and burning out forever.

        I fell back and the cellar fell with me.  Into the blacker than black we swam, past the chains, past the strings of the lyre stretching like wingbones from horizon to horizon, submerged, glittering with the pale sheen of endless moonlight.  There, hidden beyond all shadows, I finally found my voice, and it was sobbing.

        Alone in the penumbra of all my hopes and horrors I cuddled that voice and I heard...

        I heard...

        “Lyra?”

        The gazelle of the northern Zebrahara have long employed the hollows of milkwood reeds to craft the flutes traditionally utilized in their wedding ceremonies.  However, upon the introduction of polygamist rituals brought in by the migratory wildebeests, they've replaced the flutes for ocarinas crafted out of dried river mud, and this has been the standard form of social instrumentation for the last five decades.

        “Lyra?!”

        Ever since contact has been made with the zebra tribes of the southern plains, the gazelle have learned to incorporate percussion instruments into their native songs.  This has led to the first known case of Zebraharan songwriting since the rams performed their exodus to the Northern Mountains following the Age of Discord.

        “Lyra Heartstrings!”

        Mom's voice...

        I look up from a sprawling assortment of textbooks and notes across my bed covers.

        The rooftops of Canterlot outside my windows are every color of the rainbow.

        Mom's mane is somehow brighter than everything else.

        I wish I could say the same of her frown.

        “Uhhhh...”  I sit up straight, blinking.  The air is cool, but that's not why I'm suddenly shivering.  “Am I forgetting something...?”

        “Your train leaves in less than two hours!”

        “Oh shoot!” I scramble to scoop up all of my study materials and shove them into a turquoise saddlebag.  “The Summer Sun Celebration!  Twilight's going to kill me!”

        “Kill you?  She hasn't seen you in months!”  Mom chuckles.  I can never recreate the tonality in her voice.  I wouldn't want to.  “But seriously, Lyra.  Must you take all of those things?  You're going to meet with Twilight to celebrate.  You'll have plenty of time to study when you get back.”

        “I'm just zero point two grade points away from being top in class!” I exclaim as I gather the last of my things and tie my saddlebag shut.  “I can't let myself slack off for even a second!”

        “Well, at least try not to be rude when you're around Twilight by studying instead of catching up with her.”

        “I think I know better than that, Mom.”  I wink at her.  I gallop to her side for a quick nuzzle before scampering down the stairs.  “I'll send a postcard once I'm in Ponyton.”

        “Ponyville.” She calls after me.  “And Lyra...”

        Her tone stops me dead in my tracks.  I linger in the middle of the stairs, groaning.  “Don't tell me... What have I forgotten now?”

        “What else?”  Her horn glows with aged grace as she floats an embarrassingly familiar instrument into my peripheral vision.  “Even if you don't use it for your studies, perhaps you can play a song or two at the celebration.”

        I smile.  I feel my cheeks flush.  “Thanks, Mom.”  I grab the lyre with my magic and stuff it down my saddlebag.  “I swear, I'd lose my horn if it weren't attached to my head.”

        “So long as you look after your horn, then our baby genius has her future set out for her,” she says.  The last I see of her is a wink.

        I descend the stairs.

        The windows are wide open.

        The air of Canterlot is crisp, rich, full of delicious sounds.

        Dad stands in the middle of it, fiddling with his latest painting.

        “Darn it,” he mutters.  “I can never get the colors to blend just right.”

        “It looks just fine, dad.”  I say in a sing-song fashion.  I dash over to give him a swift peck on the cheek.  “Photo Finish is going to love the portrait you're making of her.”

        “Actually, it's still-life of a bowl of cantaloupes.”

        “Erm... Yes.  Well... She seems to be into fruity things.”  I giggle nervously and bolt towards the door.  Bright sunlight engulfs me.  “Gotta go!  See ya soon!”

        “Don't grow too attached to Ponyville, Lyra,” Dad mutters.  “It's farm country.  I’ve been told the smell takes forever to get out.”

        “Daaaaaad... I'll only be there for a few days!  Heehee!  You won't even know I left!”

        He disappears along with the painting.

        Everything's a blur.

        The train car keeps jostling.

        It's hard to concentrate.

        There's a foal crying two seats ahead of me.

        I'm reminded of a Ponyrecki composition.

        I scribble a few things in my notepad.

        There are thirty-five lines left on the sheet, and I wonder if I could fit Octavia's latest “Adagio for a Bearded Sorcerer” on it by memory.

        “Ponyville!  Next stop!  Next stop!  Ponyville!”

        Dear Celestia, there's so much noise.

        The train's making a massive turn around the bend.

        I feel myself tilting towards the window.

        In my annoyance, a flash a glance outside.

        I see apple trees, a windmill, thatched roofs, a bell tower, and more apple trees.

        “Yeesh...”  I chuckle to myself.  “What a flippin' hole in the ground.”

        I look at the blank sheet again; it's a lot more interesting.

        I hum to myself.

        Goddess, I'm so jealous of Octavia...

        “Twilight?!  Yoohoo!”

        I jump—grinning like mad—my muzzle bouncing over several heads of ponies.

        “Hey!  Twilight!  Over here!”

        She's sitting at a picnic table, surrounded by farm ponies.

        A half-devoured pie rests on a plate before her.

        It glistens like all the apples surrounding us, like her violet eyes briefly do when they look up to see me.

        “Oh, Lyra.  Hey.”  She struggles to smile.  There is something weighing on her, and I think it's more than just the farm family's sweets forming a bulge in her belly.  “Moondancer told me in her letter that you'd be coming.  I'm really glad that you did.”

        “Well at least one of us is.”  I wince at the backsweat wafting off the multiple workhooves prancing through the apple orchards around us.  “Whew!  You smell that?  Why is Princess Celestia choosing the boondocks of Equestria to raise the Sun at this year?”

        “It's not so bad a town, really.  The ponies here are insanely friendly, though.  But I guess it can't be helped.”

        “Heeheehee... You look like you could use a long night's sleep.”  I wink and point at her belly.  “Or a stomach pump.”

        “I can't, Lyra,” Twilight groans.  “As Celestia's personal protege, I've been charged with overseeing the ceremony.  This was to be my first stop.  But at this rate, I dunno if I can so much as stand up—much less interview the rest of the ponies running the show.”

        I glance all around us.

        Everypony is looking the other way.

        I've never once let a magical opportunity go astray.

        “Pssst...”  I lean towards Twilight.  “Perhaps simple ponies could do with a simple distraction?”

        “Oh please—!” Twilight's lavender hooves are held together across the table from me.  “Anything, Lyra!” she pleads.  “You've gotta help me out!”

        “Don't worry.”  I pull my lyre out.  “I've got this.”

        I strum every string in succession, then shout before the air.

        “Oh my stars and garters!  Is that Whinny Nelson over there?!”

        To my dismay, the huge family of farmers merely blinks in confusion.

        After a beat, I clear my throat and utter, “Oh, also, the apples are on fire!”

        Everypony is immediately shrieking and running straight towards the fields.

        Soon, Twilight and I are alone with our gasping breaths.

        “Now's our chance!” Twilight shrieks and leads the charge.

        I gallop after her, giggling.

        “Twilight!  There you are!”  Spike gasps from where he waits in the middle of the road.  He gives his mentor a strange look.  “Holy guacamole!  Did you have enough of their apple treats?”

        “Unnnngh...”  Twilight gulps something down before it has the chance to rise out of her throat.  She smiles sickly my way as we trot towards her assistant.  “Thankfully Lyra arrived just in time to save my tail.”

        “You should thank Spike too.”  I say with a smile.  “He told me I might find you here.  I had no idea you'd be forced down a gauntlet of pies.”

        “Please...”  Twilight sighed, her face long.  “Don't say that word.  It's not like I don't have enough on my plate.”

        I trot around to get a better look at my foalhood friend's expression.  “Something eating at you, Twilight?  Last time we hung out, you couldn't stop rambling excitedly about the latest spell Celestia was teaching you.  She's gonna be showing up here tomorrow to raise the Sun, right?  Why aren't you chomping at the bit to see her—erm—if you pardon the old mare's expression.  Hehehe...”

        “Lyra, you're always studying about the history of music, right?”

        “There'd be something terribly wrong with me if I wasn't.”

        “Have you, in your studies, ever chanced upon song relating to the 'Elements of Harmony'?”  She clears her throat and further utters, “Specifically dating back to more than a thousand years ago?”

        “Ugh... Not this again.”  Spike rolls his eyeslits and trots off towards the center of town beyond the bend in the road.  “I'll go scout ahead for this 'Dashing Rainbow' pegasus or whoever we're supposed to meet next.”

        I scratch my mane and squint curiously after him.  “Just what's gotten his spines in a bunch?”

        “He thinks I'm overreacting.”

        “Overreacting about what?”

        Twilight sighs.  She's a wealth of knowledge, and yet so much of that is forever a mystery to me.  I can never understand her: only admire her.  If only Moondancer was here.  Together, we might make her giggle.

        Her smile is half-hearted as she trots toward me.  “Never mind, Lyra.  This... This is a year just like any other.  We should be happy and celebrate the warmth that's given to us on a daily basis.”

        “Hey, works for me,” I say with a smile.  “I heard you're going to be at the library in the center of town tonight.”

        “Yes.  It's where I'm staying during the Celebration.”

        “Think you'd mind an annoying, mint-green unicorn knocking on the door and chatting it up about music?”

        “Hmmm... I'd love to sit and talk with you again, Lyra.  But I've got a lot of work to do.”  There is something distant in her face.  It draws the smile away just as it draws her near to me for a friendly nuzzle.  “Still, it's nice to hear your voice.  It's like a song that I'm happy to remember every time you stop by.  Things have been so strange lately.  Princess Celestia's been really distant, and I can't get her to give me a straight answer.”

        “About what, Twilight?”

        “Things.  Important things.  Mysterious things.”  She steps back and runs a hoof over her head and sighs, as if the entire universe is weighing in on her horn.  “There's no time to explain.”

        I gulp and gaze at her in concern.  “Not even time for friends?”

        At first, she says nothing.

        She trots down the road, and only once she's become a shadow does she glance over her shoulder and say with an awkward smile, “Let me just get my work done.  Then we'll see what comes next.”

        “I'll still drop by the library later!” I call after her.  “Do you want me to bring some food and games?”

        “Please!  No food!” She exclaims back, then practically growls, “And no games!  I'm not in the mood for surprises tonight!”

        “Alright, Twilight!  You can count on me!”

        “So, like, you should totally surprise her!” I say with a grin.  “Spring this party you’re planning on her like it’s a lightning storm!”

        A pink pony gasps from across the dessert counter of Sugarcube Corner.  “Ohhhh I knew it I knew it I knew it!”  Her blue eyes sparkle with electricity.  “The first moment I saw her I knew it was a pony who needed to have a surprise welcoming party thrown for her!  Is it true?  Is she going to be in the library this very evening?!”

        “Heehee!  Yeah!  And she'll likely be there all night until the raising of the Sun at your mayor's town hall.”

        “Perfect!  Not all ponies are into bonfires, y'know.  Too many mosquitoes.  Bleachk!  Eeeheehee!  This is so super-duper-perfect!  I'll throw an indoor banquet and have all of Mrs. and Mr. Cake's finest treats lined up and ready for the scarfin'!  Oooh!  Hot sauce!  Mustn't forget the hot sauce!  It goes great with sarsaparilla, don't you think?”

        “Yeah, yeah.  We all love sauce.”  I'm already reaching into my saddlebag.  “So how much is this little shindig gonna cost me?”

        “Heehee!  Nothing!”  She grins wildly.  “Consider this on the house—and when I say 'on the house'—I really mean 'on the treehouse', cuz that's where the library's built.  The pony who decided to build that must have had a thing for termites cuz I swear—”

        “You're pulling my tail, right?”  I raise an eyebrow.  “I'm from Canterlot, you know.  If I wanted to, I could afford to hold three banquets and a dance party and still have room left in my saddlebag to rattle at bellhops.”

        “Hehehehe—silly unicorn!  Bells don't hop!  They ring!”

        “You know what?”  I smirk and zip my saddlebag shut.  “Who am I to refuse a kind offer, Miss Pine?”

        “Pie.”

        “Whatever.  Just make sure you're there on time.”

        “Wooooohooo!” She jumps and pumps her hoof in the air.  “We're gonna party and we're gonna party loud!”

        “Mmmmm-heeheeheehee—” I giggle devilishly.  “Somehow, I have no doubt of that.”

        Spike marches out of a tiny room with a lampshade covering his head.

        Less than a minute later, Twilight rejoins the loud and raving party in the center of the library.

        She has a burning frown, and it's aimed directly at me.

        “All.  My.  Hate.”

        “Heeheehee...” I fall back on my haunches and hug myself.  I wink at her.  “Love ya too, lavender lumps.”

        “Why doesn't anypony get it?!” she grumbles.  “Why can't anyone see what this coming day means?!”

        “It's the Summer Sun Celebration, Twi!”  I scoot over and engulf her in a deep hug.  “Come onnnnn!  Smile!  Want me to play the Smarty Pants Song?”

        The hairs on the back of Twilight's coat bunch up.  “No.  No!”   She hisses and stares worriedly at all of the ponies around us.  “You promised never ever to mention the Smarty Pants Song!”

        “Heeheehee... But it always made you smile when we were little fillies!”

        “Things have changed, Lyra.  I don't have time for horsing around—figuratively and literally!  There's so much at stake!”

        “Yeah?  Heehee...” I wipe a tear free and grab a bottle of soda from a nearby table.  “Like what?”

        She hangs her head and groans.  “In less than an hour—when dawn arrives—it will officially be the longest day of the thousandth year, and things that have been set in motion long before history can remember will come into fruition.”

        “Heh.”  I stifle a burp, wipe my lips, and place the beverage down.  “Sounds freaky.  Uhm... thousandth year since what?”

        “Lyra, have you ever wondered where the Mare in the Moon came from?”

        “We've all been taught stories about the exiled princess, Twilight—”

        “Her name was Luna.”

        “Whatever.  The fact of the matter is, that's way in the past.  What we don't remember has been forgotten for a reason, don't you think?”  I smile at her.  I can see my teeth glinting in her eyes.  “You're getting all washed up over nothing, Twilight.  If Moondancer was here, she'd say the same!  Don't let a bunch of old pony's tales keep you from enjoying your chance to live in the moment.”

        Twilight bites her lip.  Before she can respond, there's a loud shuffle of hooves.

        Everypony is exiting the library, joining a thick herd that surges towards the town hall on the other side of town.

        “Princess Celestia...” Twilight murmurs.

        I smile and nudge her with my horn.  “What are we waiting for?  Let's go and meet your mentor, shall we?”

        “Yes... I've missed her so...”

        Twilight breathes a little easier.  She isn't smiling, but I can see the color returning to her face.

        She trots out briskly, and I'm immediately behind her.

        Then I stop.

        I remember...

        “Shoot... Never fails!”  I gallop straight towards a far corner of the library.  “I'll be with you in a sec!”

        I have to shovel my way through a mountain of confetti and a tossed pin-the-tail-on-the-pony poster.

        I finally find it, glistening and golden as ever.

        “I should just sew you to my tail and be done with it.”  I slide the lyre into my saddlebag and trot happily out of the library.

        “Okay... Where the heck is the stupid town hall?”

        I groan.

        The streets are suddenly empty.

        All the ponies had cleared out of the library in a flash, and I am completely alone.

        I should have gotten a lay of the land instead of setting up the silly party; it's not like Twilight really enjoyed it anyways.

        “Ugh!  Idiot!”  I roll my eyes and chuckle into the starry night.  “Just follow the noise!”

        I do just that.

        In the center of town, there's a symphonic murmur of noise, giggles, voices, and cheers.

        I take my sweet time heading towards the place.

        There's something magical about being somewhere strange and unknown.

        I could almost write a song about it.

        I hum a melody to myself, already planning out the chorus, when something flickers above me.

        I glance up and I see the moon—only it's not the moon.

        There's something different about it.

        “That's weird...”  I stop in my tracks.  I squint up at the familiar object.  “The blemish is gone.  Where is the Mare in the Moon...?”

        No sooner do I utter this, but four specks of light twinkle around the lunar sphere, as if framing it.

        I am filled with so much wonder, I hardly even notice my teeth chattering.

        “What... Wh-What?”  I shiver and rub a forelimb over a sudden coat of goosebumps.  “Where did that come from?  It's in the middle of Summer.  How...?”

        My voice stops.

        No.

        My voice is being taken from me.

        I am speaking, but I cannot hear myself.

        I cannot hear anything.

        Dead music.

        It tilts my head up, like a mother introducing an infant foal to the hush of night.

        I gaze into the stars.

        The stars part ways.

        The blackness in the center has wings.

        She is coming towards me.

        I have fallen to the earth long before her arrival shakes everything around me.

        The sound returns, and it is laced with thunder, for she is standing above it all.

        Ink black coat.

        Onyx wings.

        A helm and metal shoes.

        Polished silver, like the exposed bones of a diseased goddess.

        Eyes of pale blue, carved with the lifeless knife-point of a crescent moon.

        Her breath is frigid, colder than death, and it sucks the life out of me.

        I can't scream, even when I try to.

        I'm just a discarded scrap of refuse, cluttering the ruptured ground beside my fallen lyre and tattered saddlebag.

        I gaze towards her, and it's like being swallowed up by a deep abyss.

        A sea of ethereal blue taint engulfs me.

        I am her first.

        She is my last.

        There are no words, only a song, something resonating from deep behind her deathly dark nostrils.

        It sings of nothing, for she is nothing, and nothing is her gift to me.

        I receive it.

        I receiveth it, thine reaper of warmth, steward of annihilation until the fading whimper of time.

        We receiveth it and become it.

        We, vanquisher of the morning light, stern guardian against the pollutants of the indignant spectrum.

        We art one with the timelessness, faithful sage of the eternal yesterday.

        Blissful oblivion, we maintain, until the Cosmic Mother wouldst return thy glory to the firmaments.

        We shall sing of the songless, as thou wouldst have of thy precious daughter, and keepeth thy glory submerged in the world beneath worlds.

        Thy will is ours.

        Thou shalt remember bliss.

        And we shalt remember nothing.

        “Nnnngh—Gaah!  Aaaaahh!”

        I flail.

        Bright light.

        Burning.

        A pair of forelimbs kicking at the Sun, trying to push it away.

        Two faces.

        They gaze down at me, alarmed and frightened.

        I feel hooves holding me to the alleyway's cobblestone.

        “Just relax!  We're going to get you to Nurse Red Heart!  You're gonna be alright!”

        “Where...”  A weak voice.  So small, so frail.  “Nnngh... Where art we?”

        “Huh?”

        “Dear Celestia, she's delirious.”

        I wince, struggle, and whimper.  “We... I... Wh-Where am I...?”

        “It's okay.  Just calm down.”

        “So... Much noise...” I'm shivering all over.  Something is piercing my head, drilling my horn straight down through my skull with the force of a million burning stars.  “So... much.”  I sob and choke.  “Please... make it stop...”

        “What's she talking about?”

        “I dunno.  She's rambling.  Help me carry her...”

        “So loud... Make it stop... I can't hear...” I'm sobbing.  We're moving.  There are tear drops on the ground where chains and ice should be.  Everything is bright, too bright.  And the noise.  “Somepony stop playing... Stop playing the song.  It's not supposed to be heard.  We must wait for when she returneth—Nnngh...”

        My vision is blurry.

        All is bells and voices.

        “Quick.  I think she's going into a seizure or something!”

        “What happened to her?!  She's all wet, like she's almost drowned or something!”

        “You ever seen her before?  I thought everypony was hiding indoors while Nightare Moon was about.”

        “Nnngh... M-Mother...” My eyes roll back in my head.  I cannot find her.  I'm so alone.  “M-Mother!  Do not listen!  We... I beg of you!”

        I shout.

        I scream.

        The music's so loud; she's going to hear it.

        She cannot hear it.

        We mustn't allow it.

        “Mother!”

        “Oh dear heavens—She's a mess!”  A snow-white mare is leaning over me inside someplace.  “What happened to her?”

        “She... Uhm...”

        “Well, we... That is...”

        “Well?!  Where did you find this poor filly?”

        “It... Uhm...”

        “I don't remember.  Do you, Cloudkicker?”

        “It was in town, I guess.”

        “You guess, Miss Raindrops?!”

        “Uhm... Or just outside the hospital?  Don't be angry with us, Nurse Red Heart.  We're just as confused as you are.”

        “This Celebration!  I swear to Celestia—they should stop hoofing cider around like party ribbons.”  She's peering at me with several instruments, poking me, prodding me.  “Tell me, do you feel any pain?”

        “I... I...”  The world is spinning.  “My head.  The music...”

        “Your head hurts?  How about your horn, Miss...”

        “Heartstrings.  Lyra Heartstrings.  Will you please turn off the music?”

        “I think she has a concussion.  Nurse Weaver?!  Go fetch some water and—”

        “Please, just stop the music.  That's all I ask...”

        “We're going to make your head feel better.  Just try to relax and... and...”

        There's a chill in the air.

        I shiver and clutch myself.

        My eyes focus, and all I see is vapor.

        Vapor and lights.

        “What is... What just...?”

        “Uhm... I'm... I'm sorry...”

        I gaze across the hospital bed.

        A nurse is reeling beside me.  She leans against a wall and shakes her head before looking at me crookedly.  “You were suffering from... from...”  She winces.  “Blessed Haypocrates, what was I doing just now...?”

        “I think...” I gulp.  “You think I might have a concussion.  You said—”

        “I'm sorry, can I help you?”

        “Uhm...”

        “Are you ill?  We have a process for checking patients in, you realize—”

        “These two pegasi just dragged me in here...” I pointed to one of the two young ponies standing across the room.  “I was... in a street somewhere, and they... they...”  I stop to gaze at them.

        They are gazing back at me, twice as blank.  “I'm sorry, Nurse Redheart.  But we've never seen this unicorn before in our lives.”

        I exhale sharply, my face wretching.  “I... but... Wh-What?!”

        “If this is some sort of practical joke,” Redheart grumbles, frowning at all three of us.  “I'm not even close to laughing.”

        “I... I told you...” I rub my forehead and nearly whimper.  “My name is Lyra.  Lyra Heartstrings.  I was going to fetch my lyre.”  I gulp and shudder.  It's so terribly cold.  I hear the music again.  It comes and goes like crashing waves, and I'm falling apart piece by piece.  “I grabbed it, and I was walking under the moon and...” I hold a hoof over my face.  “Oh Celestia, she was right there.  She was right there and I couldn't do anything.  I looked into her eyes.  I looked into her eyes and I fell.  I fell so far and for so long...”  I gulp as I shake all over.  The walls melt together to form a blur of noise and tears.  “Where was I?  Somepony tell me, please...”

        I am returned with silence, like a song with no cadence.

        Fearfully, I glance across the room.

        Everything comes into focus.

        Three faces are staring at me.

        All blank.

        “I'm sorry.  Uhm... You are...?”

        I stumble into the brightness.

        I am dizzy.

        I am teetering.

        I can't stop looking.

        I can't stop blinking.

        Ponies are dancing.

        Ponies are celebrating.

        Fireworks explode like gunshots all around me.

        Banners of the sun are being hoisted all across the village.

        I am nothing but a shadow of the spectrum, engulfed in noise, born unto confusion.

        “Please... Somepony help,” I mutter.  I point back towards the hospital from which I have trotted.  “There's something wrong with the ponies in that place.”  I wince, but continue speaking.  “Something's wrong with all of them.  Their heads are messed up or something.  I think... I think there might be some sort of an epidemic or... or...”

        I linger in place.

        Something's wrong.

        Something's horribly, horribly wrong.

        “Hello?”  I murmur.  The pain in my head is replaced by an all-numbing confusion as I gaze at the many celebratory faces bouncing around me.  “Uhm... Excuse me?”

        Ponies look at me.  They blink in alarm.  Then they're shoved back into the crowd.  The village full of churning bodies circulates, and the faces rotate back to once again embrace me, and they have the same smile as before... innocent and unblemished.

        “My name's Lyra Heartstrings.  Please, listen.  Something's wrong in the hospital.  I think that—Hello?!”

        The faces are there and gone again.  Everytime I see them, they look at me just as stupidly as the first time.  It's like I'm being introduced to the same party over and over again.  Just like Twilight, I don't like surprises.

        “Look, this is serious!  Somepony pay attention to what I'm saying!  There's something terribly wrong with—Why aren't you paying attention to me?!”

        “I'm sorry?” A laughing pony bounces past me.  To my horror, it's one of the pegasi who picked me up just a moment ago.  “And you are...?”

        I almost snarl.  “Lyra!”  I point a hoof angrily at her chest.  “And what are you doing out of the hospital?”

        Just then, a pale body prances past me.  “Enjoy yourselves, everypony!” Nurse Red Heart cheerfully shouts above the noise of the Summer Sun Celebration.  “But remember!  Safety first!  My station's open all day!”

        I gawk at her.  I can feel my heart beating.  It's so terribly cold.  The adrenaline does nothing.

        “Hey!  HEY!”

        I bark.

        I wave my hooves wildly.

        I surf through the crowd and all but collapse against a table full of cupcakes outside of Sugarcube Corner.

        Panting, I grab the shoulders of the pink mare tossing samples out to passing celebrators.

        “I'm so glad I found you, Miss Pine.”

        “Heehee!  Actually, it's Pinkie Pie!  But I wouldn't mind be called 'Pinkie Pine' once in a while!”

        “Heh.  My bad.”  I smile nervously and squeeze her forelimbs.  “Look.  You gotta help me.  Twilight must be paying me back for the surprise party from yesterday—”

        “—because pine smells sooooo goooood, don't you think?  It reminds me of Hearth's Warming Eve and opening presents!  Why, this one time, I was unwrapping a box covered in silver glitter and a baby alligator popped out!  Swoosh!  Bit me over the head!  Heeeheeeheee—Good thing the little fella had no teeth!  That's why I named him 'Gummi'—”

        “Please—Listen to me!” I all but snarl at her.  I bat away a few ponies before they can grab some cupcakes and interrupt this little “meeting” of ours.  “Where's Twilight?  I gotta apologize to her so she can stop this practical joke.  I knew she could organize a Summer Sun Celebration but—ho ho ho hoooo...”  I chuckled madly, my lips crooked.  “This sort of stuff takes the cake!”

        “Mmmmmmm... Cake.”

        “So where is she?”

        “Huh?  Where is who?”

        “Twilight Sparkle!”

        “Why?  Did she do something wrong?”

        “Yes.  I mean no.  I mean not really.  Look, I just need to find her and apologize for the surprise party yesterday—”

        “You were at the surprise party yesterday?!” Pinkie grins wide.  “Cuz that was sooooo fun!  I'm glad that I thought it up!”

        I do a double take.  “The heck are you talking about?!  I thought up the surprise!”

        “Hmmm... And you are?”

        “Lyra!” I shout.  “Lyra Heartstrings!  The rich unicorn whose friend you agreed to spring a party for 'on the house?'”

        “Heeheehee... That's a pretty name, miss.”  She smiles innocently at me.  “But I'm sorry.  I've never seen you before.”

        I stare at her blankly.  My veins are filling with an iciness as cold as her blue eyes suddenly appear.

        “Cuz if I had, I would have totally sprung a super-duper welcoming party for you too.  I wish there were more ponies around town with green coats, cuz green coats are so hard to come by and... and... Hey, where're you going?”

        I'm leaving.

        Leaving her.

        Leaving this town.

        Leaving the noise and the brightness and the madness and...

        “Unnngh!” I fall back in the dirt road and curl my legs to my chest.  “Nnnngh... Celestia, Please...”

        It is cold.

        It is colder than cold.

        I can't trot any further.

        I'm on the edge of town.  The sun is burning high in the sky.  I feel as if my legs are made of glaciers.

        “Nnnngh... Augh!”

        I shriek.

        Frozen needles are bursting out through every square inch of my flesh.

        I can barely move.

        I'm too scared to proceed any further in the direction I've been heading.

        So I crawl.

        Like a lame little foal, I crawl.

        I inch my way back towards the heart of downtown.

        Slowly, the frost in my veins melt away.

        It is still bearable, but the agony permeates everything.

        And the noise and the music and the tears...

        “Somepony... Anypony...”

        I whimper.  I sob.  I climb up and break into a desperate gallop.

        “H-Help me!”

        “What's wrong with her?”

        “Did she have too much cider?”

        “Heheh... party animals will do as party animals do—”

        “Please!” I pounce on the first pony I see in downtown.  In her eyes is the reflection of a hyperventilating unicorn with a disheveled mane.  I want to jump in those pools and drag her out, but she keeps shrinking away from me.  “You've got to help me!  My name is Lyra Heartstrings!  I have a family in Canterlot!  I gotta get to them!  I gotta get to somepony who remembers me!”

        “Hey!  Relax!  You need help, we can find you a pony who can... who can...” The pony suddenly teeters, her eyes turning thin.  There's a vapor of cold mist between us, and she's already murmuring, “Nnngh... Whew.  Too much sun.”  She smiles weakly at me.  “I'm sorry.  Can I help you?”

        “What's wrong with everypony?!”  I shove her back and angrily growl at the many equines circling me in the street.  “Is something stuffed in your ears?!  You're all sick!  I swear!”

        “Did somepony say that they're sick?”

        I spin around with a hopeful breath.  My heart immediately shrinks.  “Nurse Red Heart...”

        She squints at me from where she stands in front of the hospital.  “I'm sorry, have we met?  Did somepony send you to meet with me?”

        I backtrot away from her, but nearly trip over something.  I tumble into a tiny bundle of purple scales.  “Ooof!”  I snap out of it, and gasp for joy.  “Spike!”  I lift the purple whelp with two forelimbs and grin madly in his face.  “Thank Celestia I found you!  Spike, you gotta help me find Twilight!  Something's horribly wrong and maybe she can help!  She's good at magic spells and stuff!  Where can I find her?”

        “Uhhh... Uhh...” He stammers, struggling to hold a sun-colored candy-on-a-stick in his grasp.  “Twilight Sparkle's at the library with her new friends.  But why would you want to speak with her?”

        “Why else?!  If anypony can understand what I'm going through, it's her!  I haven't seen her in... in... well, dozens of hours!”  I gulp and exclaim, “Hasn't she asked where I went off to?  Where I've been all this time?”

        Spike's green eyeslits bounce all around the scene.  He bites his lip and nervously squeezes forth, “Uhm... ma'am?  Until today, Twilight's only had one real friend, and she's off doing studies in Canterlot.”

        I let forth a shuddering breath.  “Moondancer,” I whimper, like a kitten.  “But... But what about me?  What about Lyra?”

        “I've been with Twilight literally all my life,” Spike says with a nervous smile.  He avoids my gaze.  I can feel a twitch of fear surging through his scaled body.  “She's... uhm... She's never mentioned no 'Lyra.'”

        I gaze blankly at him.  He drops to the floor with a grunt.  I'm looking around.  Nurse Red Heart is off talking to another pony, as if this scene hasn't even happened.  The mare I grabbed earlier is gone.  No single pony is looking at me.

        I feel my heart racing a mile-per-minute.  The blood rushing to my head is almost drowning out the music.  Almost.

        “Well, maybe you're just—”  I turn to look.  Spike has waddled off, completely ignoring me.  He's already several yards away, gawking and clapping at a magic act along with several colts and fillies.  “...delirious.”

        I start to hyperventilate.  Every time I close my eyes, I see something beyond the darkness, a place where songs go to die.  I feel as if I'm headed there too.  The gravity tugs at me, so I defy it by breaking my hooves into a frenzied gallop.

        I practically fling myself against the wooden door of the library.

        I pound on it.

        I scrape against it.

        I can't stop panting.  I feel like I must outrace something, but I don't know what.

        Finally, the top half of the door opens.  An obstinate looking mare with an orange coat and white freckles is glaring at me.

        “Uhm... Can we help you?  Reckon you do know this here's a library, right?”

        “Where's Twilight?!” I lunge towards her.  The mare jumps back with a start, her hat nearly falling off.  “Where is she?!  I have to speak with her!  It's urgent!”

        “Uhhhh... Missy, have you looked at yerself in the mirror lately?  Yer ten bushels of 'messy' in a ten pound sack.  I think somepony should lay off the cider.  Heh—I can't believe I'm hearing myself say this.”

        “Applejack?” A voice murmurs from the deep recesses of the treehouse.  My heart instantly leaps.  “Who is it?”

        “Eh, some mindblown unicorn, Twilight.  I think she's done a tad bit too much celebratin'.”

        A blue pegasus floats by the foyer.  “Hah!  There's no such thing as too much celebrating!”

        “Oh will you two cut it out?”  Twilight Sparkle giggles as she trots into view.  “This is going to be my new house.  Let me take care of this.”

        “Ya sure, sugarcube?  I don't think she's right in the head.”

        “Element of Magic, remember?  Hehehe.  I think I'll be more than okay.”  She brushes the farm filly aside and smiles at me.  “Now, what seems to be the problem—?”

        “Twilight!” I grasp her hooves, almost yanking her over the bottom half of the door.  Something is twinkling in her eyes, until I realize it's the reflection of my own joyful tears.  “Thank Celestia!  I've been looking all over town for you!  You were right!  Something crazy is going on!  Thousandth year or not, you were onto something!  I can't explain what's happened to me, but it's suddenly like I'm not here!  But I am here!  Everypony's ignoring me!  Not just them—but Spike too!  At first I thought it was a joke, but now I think it's something else!  Please, you've got to help me!  If you can't, then maybe the Princess can!  I think it's... uh... it's some sort of degenerative brain disorder or some crud.  I remember reading up on it once in a copy of Canterlot Health Monthly.  If... If we get all the ponies checked, th-th-then maybe we can—I dunno—figure out what's wrong and get them all cured!  They owe it to you after all the preparation you did for the Celebration after all!  And I'd be more than willing to... to help... help...”  The warmth left my voice, like a song interrupted.  I gulped a painful lump down my throat and searched for answers in the blank canvas staring back at me.  “Twilight...?”

        “You... You sound like you've been through a lot,” she says.  Her voice is placid, like pond water that not a single pebble has been able to disturb.  I stand upon the brink, looking in, but I can no longer see myself.  “But you have to start over from the top.  Calm down and speak slowly.  I'll do anything I can, Miss...”

        It's too cold for me to melt.  The only thing that cracks is my voice.  “L-Lyra...” Something has died, and I suddenly realize I can't bury it.  “I'm... Lyra.  Your Lyra.  Your friend. Twilight, why don't...?”  I stumble backwards from the library.  I'm a limb cut off from the tree, forever a lost element.  I try to speak, but all that comes out are breathy palpitations.  I see her in the doorway, and yet she's squatting on a sidewalk of Canterlot, two blocks from my house, having tripped after trying to read a book in mid-trot.  I shuffle up towards her, the first unicorn my age that I've seen since we moved from another district, and I pretend to ignore her tears as I pick up the book for her.  We talk about things.  She likes magic.  I like music.  Someday soon, we both meet another unicorn who likes playing “pretend,” and thus begins an unwritten chronicle of adventures just outside our homes.

        Our homes...

        Mom.

        Dad.

        Something else has died, and I wish it was me.

        “Please, let's just talk—Wait!” She reaches out for me, but I am gone.

        “Listen to me!  Look at me!  Please!  Somepony!  Anypony!”

        There's a mad unicorn running through the streets of some backwater town.

        I hate her.

        I don't want to be around her.

        She follows me like a tune that will never leave my head.

        I want to rip it out.

        I want to rip her out.

        I want to rip her asunder.

        “Please!  I beg you!  Pay attention to me!”

        I am surrounded by laughter.

        I am surrounded by dancing.

        Everywhere I turn, the chorus gets louder and louder.

        I can't even shut it off with violence or flame.

        “My name is Lyra!  For the love of Celestia, please!  Listen to me!  I am real!”

        There are eyes, and then there are no eyes.

        The only thing constant is light, and soon that is swallowed by an all encompassing darkness.

        “I am real!”

        I woke up, accompanied by my own yells.  A wall of trees resonated with my voice, echoing my agony beneath the stars of the night.  I flailed—soaking wet—rolling over leaves and grass in pitch-blackness, until the moon found me.  Even then, I couldn't stop making noise.  One million invisible forgotten creatures screaming in the night: and I was one with them.

        When I paused for breath, I realized that I wasn't where I last was.  This wasn't my cellar.  The lanternlight was gone.  The sound stones had disappeared.  I was in the middle of the forest, surrounded by the bright, looming bodies of trees.  And the “Threnody of Night”...

        It had been replaced.

        “Nnnngh—Celestia!” I gripped my skull and gnashed my teeth, plowing my muzzle through the damp earth.  I was crawling over with moisture, but it wasn't my sweat.  What was this mess?  What hidden ocean had I emerged from?  And this tune... this new and infernal tune.  “Dear Celestia, no,” I whimpered.  “Not another elegy.  Not an eighth!”

        I stumbled up to my hooves, only to slip immediately into a huge puddle.  My body screamed.  I was freezing again.  This was ten times worse than Everfree, and what's more: I was naked.

        My limbs were the tendrils of a numb ghost; I floundered for a hoof-hold.  By the time I entered a swift trot, I couldn't tell which way I was going.  All I saw was an endless sea of trees, all shining in the pale moonlight like bright femurs planted in the ground: just as sterile and lifeless.  It was with miraculous luck that I stumbled onto a dirt path, and from there I knew where to go.  As I stumbled along, a trail of moisture dribbled off my coat and stained the ground behind me.  What was all this?  Where had I been?

        I found the cabin and immediately flung myself through the door.  It took three petrifying minutes to summon enough nerves in my limbs to start a fire.  When I did, I didn't bother with subtlety.  I flung ten whole stakes of lumber onto the blaze and planted myself before it, drowning myself in a sea of blankets.

        There, upon the hearth, I quivered through the agonizing night.  There was no way I could sleep, no way I could rest.  The trembles shook my body so hard, I feared that my spine would rattle out through my skin.  I prayed for the daylight to come.  I was tired of this darkness.  I was tired of this waiting and waiting, of fighting my way through nameless songs in a futile attempt to find a purpose to my solitary pestilence.

        When the gray haze of morning wafted in through the window, I took a look at myself.  There was still a sheen of moisture.  It had no color, no odor, and—to my daring taste—no flavor.  I could only guess that I had been soaked in none other than pure water.  But why?

        What had happened in the middle of the instrumental?  Why had I been relocated to the middle of the woods?  Was this the purpose of the Threnody?  Was this what all of my work had promised me?  Was this what unraveling the symphony of Princess Luna had in store?

        It wasn't until noon that I dared to go outside.  I trotted forlornly into the cellar beneath my shack, as if afraid of the evidence I was going to find.  I discovered nothing: no footprints, no scrape marks, no signature at all to suggest what may have dragged me out into the darkest folds of the night.  I found my lyre where I had left it, my sound stones—no longer enchanted.  And, of all things, I found my hoodie... lying perfectly dry and deflated on the floor... where my body had collapsed halfway through performing the latest instrumental.

        At least, it was the latest instrumental.  Now my head was full of something else, something terribly, damnably new.  It filled me with more fear than the “Prelude to Shadows.”  It chilled me to the bone far more mercilessly than the “Moon's Elegy.”  I already absorbed enough into my memory to compose the first ten cords if I wanted, but I couldn't allow myself to do that.

        “But if you're all about trying to discover these mysterious tunes, what's stopping you from composing this new one?”

        “Maybe because I'm sick of going on a wild goose chase, only to be awarded with fainting spells, freezing blood, and migraines!”  I snarled, slapping the dusty books down onto the library table and fumbling to yank my notepad out of my saddlebag.  “Maybe because after thirteen Goddess-forsaken months, I can't help but ask if it's worth it!  It's not like I'm making any progress!  It's not like I'm—Nnnngh!” With an angry shriek, I tossed the notepad against the wall and slammed my hooves into the nearby bookcase with loud punctuation.  “It just feels so pointless!  Why do I even bother trying?!  Why do I even bother...”  I stopped in mid-sentence, for I realized I was not the only one trembling.  I glanced to my side.

        Spike stared back at me, nervously toying with the end of his tail.  Upon receiving my glare, the library assistant gazed away, as if guilty for not relating to this infernal unicorn's frustration.

        My heart sank.  I remembered the day Twilight Sparkle first showed him to me, a young hatchling fresh out of the egg, a gift to the Princess' new apprentice as much as he was a gift to the very notion of life.  I again saw a tiny little whelp who once dangled—confused and frightened—from my forelimbs in the middle of the Summer Sun Celebration.  Existence is too precious a thing to have attacked something so sovereign not once, but on two separate occasions.  I immediately deflated, calming myself with a deep breath and smiling as genuinely as I could the youngster's way.

        “I'm sorry.  You... You don't deserve to hear me go on like that.  You're only trying to help me.  It's just that I'm so frustrated and my head hurts and... and...”

        I shuddered.  My eyes closed on their own.  Once again, the darkness was so familiar, the bitter black birthplace of black songs.  They had shaped me for the better, now that I think about it.  They had chipped away the sour edges of the unicorn I used to be.  If I had the ability to reverse time, I don't know if I would want to anymore.  I'm not nearly as proud of the filly I once was.  I'm constantly endeavoring to discover the mare I someday wish to be, so that what emerges from this amnesiac prison is something worth being proud of, something worth being remembered.  But on the fringes of that darkness, I see the same unicorn shivering—by herself—before the ashes of a dying flame.  And I wonder, in over a year of trial and error, have the things I've gained outweighed the things I've lost, or would forever lose?  Just like the words slipping, unguarded, from my trembling lips...

        “I'm just so alone,” I murmured.  I couldn't help it.  I didn't want to help it.  “I'm just so alone, and it's so hard... it gets so very hard, trying to do this research.  Even with all the help in the world, I'm on my own.  This is my symphony alone to discover, and I have nopony else to turn to.  Though it's as if opportunity is knocking everywhere I look.  I... I’m not sure if you know what it's like to be so cold and yet surrounded by so much warmth.  It's... It's trying sometimes, and I apologize.  I apologize for snapping.  You're young and you're loved and you're blessed to have a home.  You don't need to hear any of this.”

        I sighed, bowing towards the books, the holy relics of forbidden languages that I was forced once again to peruse.

        Then Spike's words melted through the veil, startling me.  “Actually... uhm, ma'am, f-forgive me for saying so, but I kinda-sorta do understand.”

        I glanced curiously towards him.  I was silent.

        He looked like he wanted to be as well, but could afford it even less than I.  “I know that I'm loved.  I know that I have a home.  But that doesn't change what I am.”  He smiled bashfully.  It was a forced thing, and he wrung his fingers over the edge of his tail, as if struggling to produce the words.  “I'm a dragon, a purple magic whelp.  Even Celestia herself has told me that I'm the only known one of my kind.  I'm... I-I'm really thankful that Twilight Sparkle and so many other ponies look after me.  And I know that they care for me a lot.  But... But I can never make them understand what it means to be what I am.  I'm not sure if I can ever learn everything that there is for me to know about myself—or about dragonkind, for that matter.  But, that's not gonna stop me from trying to find out.  Maybe not now, but perhaps when I'm older.   I'm gonna give it all that I've got.  And though I know that Twilight would gladly try to help me, I really don't think she can, y'know?”  He sniffled slightly, but his ensuing grin was braver than anything I could ever muster.  “Sometimes, though, I think it's okay to be alone.  If we needed other ponies to discover ourselves, then—well—we just wouldn't be ourselves, now would we?”

        I smiled painfully his way.  I stretched my forelimb out and rested it on his purple shoulder.  “Spike, I have no doubt that you will find yourself.  And if what you discover is anything nearly as genuine and sweet as what's standing before me right now—well—I wouldn't be surprised.”

        Something was bridged between us.  I was thankful for it, because whatever tears had almost begun welling up in his eyes very swiftly dried.  “Twilight always tells me that 'I should be true to myself.'  I used to think it was a bunch of sappy hoopla, but I think it was her way of telling me that there comes a time when we can only help ourselves.  It may be kind of scary to face challenges in life alone, but... well... things would be boring otherwise, don'tcha think?”

        He giggled at his own attempt at a moral.  I was confused at first, until a part of me—the portion that was thirteen months older than the other half—very easily understood this child's statement.

        “Yes,” I murmured delicately, smoothing back his spines and giving him an affectionate smile.  “Yes, it would be very boring indeed.”

        “So... Uhm...”  He cleared his throat and attempted to reattach the conversation to the dusty tomes resting in front of this moody unicorn.  “Ancient Moonwhinny.  Heh.  Think you need any help with the translation?  I've got an antique lexicon somewhere on the other side of the library.”

        I knew what would happen as soon as he walked away.  “No.  I mean... if you'd like, just hang out here for a little bit longer,” I said quietly.  I took a deep breath.  I fidgeted with my hoodie's sleeves while my eyes searched a distant, cold place, dense and sacred.  “Some of us are alone by choice.  Others...”

        There was a knock on the treehouse door.

        “Come.  Come and enter, stranger or friend.  For I have brews for all ills contained within.”

        With a deep, wooden creak, I entered the zebra's household.  I immediately lowered both hoods from over my horn and spoke bravely into the freezing air.  “Are you Miss Zecora?”

        “Yes, yes,” she murmured while perusing several scrolls mailed in from her homeland.  “In the households of Ponyville, my name goes about.  My medicinal remedies you've heard of, no doubt.”

        “Well, I wouldn't know a thing or two about that, but some pony sent me to give you something.”

        “Oh?”

        “Yeah.  These things were found lying in the middle of downtown, and nopony around these parts has ever been known to own them.  We figured they belonged to—well—the only resident mare who wears her mane in a mohawk, if you catch my drift.”

        “I'm afraid you have to be more clear,” Zecora rolled her scrolls up and gave me a suspicious glance from across the wooden atrium.  “Just what curious things do you bring here?”

        “Eh...” I nonchalantly unwrapped a canvas bundle and held a pair of drums up for her inspection.  “Do these mean anything to you?”  I bore a poker face.  I waited.

        For a moment, I could have sworn the stripes in Zecora's coat had paled over.  Her mouth fell agape, and she shuffled slowly towards the items in my possession.  A murmur escaped her, undoubtedly a flimsy thread of her native tongue.  Finally she swallowed and exclaimed, “Sundried snares, vestiges of a Zebraharan soul.  By the shadows, I've not seen the likes of these since I was a little foal.”

        I squinted knowingly at her.  “So I was right.  They do have 'zebra' written all over them?”

        “In a manner of speaking, yes,” she stammered, holding a hoof up to her chest.  “Of their value to my kind, I do not jest.”  Something melted across her face, a sweet smile forged by a dozen memories all flashing across her blue eyes as she stared at the drums and past them all at once.  “My siblings would play the drums for me when I was but a child.  Just thinking about it now makes my spirit feel young and wild.”

        “Yeah.  Nostalgia will do that.”

        “But their presence here truly baffles me,” she stated with a confused expression.  “To think that a pony could stumble upon them so casually?”

        I glanced towards the far ends of her workstation.  A wooden engraving lingered before my eyes, like a warm sunset too far away for either of us to taste in that cold domain.  In truth, I had made the drums—just like I had built all of the tools, both conventional and unorthodox, which were presently hanging along the walls of my cabin.  Sometimes, half of being alone means struggling to find the purpose in being alone.  Standing there, nearly freezing to death in the presence of such a secluded zebra, I had discovered something far more sacred than a forgotten song.

        “Well, stranger things have happened,” I flippantly mused.  “Whatever the case, nopony in town wants them.  Seems only fitting for them to be yours.”

        Zecora bit her lip in a sudden pensiveness.

        “What's wrong?” I pretended to ask.  “Oh, right.  The ponies in town say that you're a shaman.  Lemme guess, your order forbids you to play music or something?”

        She fidgeted slightly, though she couldn't tear her blue eyes from the wondrous instruments of her use.  “I must solemnly admit my dismay, for I have been committed to work and not to play.  Why else would I be working in a faraway land if not to seek the mysteries of the world so that I may understand?”

        “Miss Zecora, I shudder to think that a seeker of knowledge forgets to also be a seeker of the self.”

        She said nothing to that.  She sadly hung her head.

        However, I was smiling.  “Well, if you're not allowed to play something so dear to you...” I shuffled over to a wooden stool and plopped myself down.  Miraculously, the shivers had stopped, so that I embraced that precious moment with a pair of hooves hovering deliciously over the twin snares.  “Is there any harm in letting someone else give it a shot, so that you can at least enjoy listening to it again?”

        She gawked at me as if I was on fire.  “You mean to tell me that it's true?  That the art of Zebraharan percussion is housed within you?”

        “Hmmm... It must be if it can make you force your own rhyme that blatantly to believe it.”  I winked at her and motioned towards another stool.  “Have a seat.  No good song is ever meant to be listened to alone.  Even a shaman can afford company once in a while, right?”

        She smiled, and the moisture in her eyes was like that of an enchanted young filly's.  Zecora squatted across from me, her face eager and bright, just as I began my rendition of a ritualistic chant that I had researched long ago—accompanied by a drumbeat that I had mastered with enough time, patience, and solitude.  The two of us converged, lonely souls in the middle of an alien cold, to indulge in the beauty of something that was lost to both of us.  And though we may not have made any progress, we reminded ourselves—ever so briefly—of just what progress is meant to serve.

        Someday, I will cure this curse of mine.  Maybe it will take picking up the pieces of the “Threnody of Night.”  Maybe it will take piecing together the bits of this new song in my head.  Maybe it will involve tackling the elegy after that, or ten more elegies, or a thousand.  Suddenly, it no longer matters how long the road ahead of me is.  I have friends in waiting on either side of me, and though they don't know my name, I see and hear my spirit reflected off them—off their warmth and sincerity.  The thought of their eyes looking at me, and one day not losing sight of the thing that holds my soul: that is a goal I shall pursue with joy, for what other impetus is there to pierce the freezing depths of this universe?

        In this life, I am guaranteed to have at least one friend.

        So long as I am true to myself, then I can be true to everyone.

Background Pony

IV - “Symphony of Solitude”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: Seattle_Lite, TheBrianJ, Laichonious, and Gamestop

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear Journal,

        What does it mean to be cursed?  What does it truly mean?  Does it mean that I've been robbed?  Does it mean that I still possess things that have yet to be stolen from me?  Have I experienced the worst that fate has to offer, or am I simply lying in wait for the darkest, cruelest punchline in life to come?

        It's so very easy for me to feel sorry about myself.  It's something that I cannot help but dwell upon each and every day.  For a while, I’ve feared that I would let things like this get to my head, that I would resort to doing acts both desperate and pathetic that would only hurt the ghostly shades of friends I pretend to be surrounded by on a regular basis.

        Then I met souls—amazing and inspiring souls—who each were born with a chance to shine, like I once was.  Only, though they were never magically robbed of their ability to achieve greatness, I soon realized that they too were at a loss to encounter an opportunity to surpass the limits of themselves.  After all, what is life if not a complex game with both winners and losers and not enough points to happily placate both?

        The fact that I'm a pony with no perceivable future cannot be denied.  Until I can somehow unlock the magical power of the elegies—the thick black borders of my invisible prison—I cannot hope to anticipate anything but a future of oblivion, obscurity, and emptiness.

        What, though, can be said of those around me?  As a matter of fact, ponies have always been cursed since the beginning of time—not by a frigid dome of amnesia, but by a transitive sphere of ignorance that constantly threatens our very dreams and aspirations from their genius conception to their desperate expression.

        I, at least, have a hope that nopony else seems to have.  As soon as I end this curse, I expect to immediately start existing again.  However, it's been my experience that there are mares and stallions—gentle hearts, all of them—who may never exist, at least not as brilliantly as they would desire to, no matter how hard they struggle.  What solution do they have to pick out of a hat?  What silver bullet will slay the beast that consumes their artistry with as much ease as I can slay mine?

        No.  No, I am not cursed.  I am simply less blessed, less polished, less shiny than those around me.  With time, I have faith that I will enchant that which has been struck dead in my life.  I will bring shine back to a dull existence.  And yet, no matter what progress I may or may not make, I cannot stop hoping—I cannot stop dreaming—that those around me can become just as lucky too.

        A dangling bell above the door shook as I entered.  The lavish interior of the fashion shop rang with a gentle melody.  Soon, though, an eloquent voice surpassed even that heavenly jingle with a chirping tone of its own.

        “Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where every garment is chic, unique, and magnifique.”

        I couldn't help but smile.  Now that's a fabulous greeting if I ever heard one.

        “Excuse me...” I spoke as gently and politely as I could.  Almost a week had passed since I performed the Threnody in full.  Most of my nerves had recollected, and I was happy to be in public once more.  The eye-pleasing curtains and smell of clean fabric lulled my spirit as I marched into the luxurious establishment with my rough saddlebag and unassuming hoodie.  “I was told that a mare by the name of Rarity works here.  Is there a chance I might speak with her?”

        Long ago, I had established for myself a simple rule when “greeting” ponies with whom I had become quite familiar.  For the sake of simplicity, it seemed a good habit to feign ignorance.  I didn't want to alarm any soul by immediately addressing them by name.  For the longest time, I never second-guessed this “code” that I lived by.

        “Oh, but darling, you are speaking to Rarity.  The one and onlyyyy.”  She was chiding me, like a princess correcting an uncouth servant.  At the same time, her voice had a melodic edge to it, as if she was satirizing the very notion of such haughtiness.  “Oh dear, do listen to me go on,” she exclaimed, stifling a giggle.  “My apologies, ma'am.  I swear, there's something to be said about working on a gorgeous dress when one feels good inside.  It's like grocery shopping on an empty stomach.  It's only asking for trouble, hmm?  Hmm-hmm-hmm...”

        It was a beautiful day outside, and I could already tell that much of the brilliance had seeped in through the ornate windows and walls of the place.  The white unicorn in question was busy fiddling with a ballroom gown that was halfway through becoming a satin masterpiece.  The tone in Rarity's voice matched the artistic whimsy of her present project.  I almost felt like a criminal for interrupting it.

        “Nothing to apologize for,” I said with a smile as I stood behind her.  I craned my neck to squint over her figure, as if instantly drawn to the curious sight of her work.  There are things in this world that are unexpectedly absorbing.  The Carousel Boutique had an air of enchantment; I felt like I was in the birthplace of magical things.  “I heard about your talents and craftponyship around town,” I exclaimed, fighting the shivers long enough to maintain normal composure.  “I was wondering if you'd be willing to earn some extra bits.”

        “Doing what, pray tell?”  Rarity murmured without looking.  She added another stream of blue ribbon along the edge of the blue gown's flaring skirt.  She was one with her work; I was merely a curious satellite in orbit of her sacred project.  “As much as I hate to sound dismissive of new and fantastic opportunities, I do happen to be overloaded with a most demanding list of requests at the moment.  If you have indeed heard of me around town, no doubt you've become aware of my rather strict schedule of appointments as of late.  Pay the front desk a visit, dear, and you'll find a very thorough list of guidelines by which I perform commissions.”

        “Oh, it's not a dress that I want to have made,” I said with a nervous smile.

        She yanked too hard on a length of ribbon, nearly ripping it loose from its fresh seams.  I could sense her hard blinks without looking.  “Oh?” her voice cracked slightly.  The room dulled for the briefest of moments.  “If not a dress, then what, if I may ask?”

        I decided that it was best to be as direct as possible.  “I heard that your special talent is in jewelcrafting.”  My eyes danced briefly over her sapphiric cutie mark as I fiddled with my saddlebag.  “Ponies have told me that you're good at locating and enchanting gems of absolute scarcity.”

        “H-have they now?” Her tone was flat, resembling the unfinished lengths of her dress.  She stood in place, as if gazing at a blank space beyond her work.  “Well, those ponies were certainly being honest.  What was it that you needed, Miss...?”

        “Lyra Heartstrings.  And I need to have some enchanting done,” I said.  Feeling a chill in the air unrelated to my curse, I added with a smile.  “And I didn't want to ask any other craftspony around town unless I had to.  I heard you were the best, so why settle for less?”

        “Hmmm...”  She turned slowly to look at me and the smile on her face formed just as easily.  “They said I was the best?  Well, I do suppose that speaks for something.”

        “But, I didn't realize just how busy you were,” I said, squirming slightly.  I learned long ago that I will perpetually be a splinter in this town.  No matter what I do or say, the situation is never as placid after I've arrived as it was before.  “You're working on something really beautiful.  Don't let me interrupt your concentration with such a trite request.”

        “Oh, darling, perish the thought!”  She immediately rushed towards me as if I was an infant foal teetering at the top of a staircase.  I was suddenly the most important thing in her world.  I wasn't quite expecting that, and it made my heart trip over itself.  “Not to toot my horn, as it were, but I can enchant stones in my sleep.  If anything, it only helps me focus my mind all the more, so you'd actually be doing my dress-making a favor!  Now—ahem...”  She smiled regally at me.  There was a sparkle in her gaze that never went away.  I suddenly knew where she got her eye for beauty.  “Just how many gems are we talking about, Miss Heartstrings?”

        I looked into my saddlebag.  The four soundstones that Zecora had sold me days ago were completely drained of enchantment.  If I had any hope of performing this new song stuck in my head—assuming I could build the courage to do so—I wouldn't make any progress whatsoever until I had all four rocks completely recharged with magical potency.  The sooner I had them brought back to their original glory, the sooner I’d be in the cellar, performing the elegies, throwing my soul deep into a dark abyss of mystery, cold, and shadows...

        “Just one gem,” I told her.  I took a single dark crystal out of the saddlebag and floated it in front of the mare.  “I'm working on some new music, and it helps to have a mana battery nearby to... to... well...”

        “To get that special spark of inspiration?” Rarity immediately snatched the rock like it was hers since the beginning of time.  She telekinetically spun it at multiple angles in front of her eyes, examining it with an expert gaze.  “Tell me no more.  I know the feeling quite well.  A unicorn is all too often the sum of their surroundings.  I almost feel bad for those not blessed to be connected with the generous leylines of our supernatural world.  You ever heard of Hoity Toity?  Such a diamond in the rough of earth pony couture, he is.  Popular legend says that he made his first line of successful outfits while working in a wooden shack outside of Las Pegasus.  Hah!  Can you believe that?”

        “Uhhhh...”

        “Hmmm... Oh my my my—I see why you had to come to the absolute best gem enchantress in town,” she said with a playful wink tossed my way.  “This poor thing has been through a lot!  It's practically a doorstop!  What-ever did you do with this, darling?  Did you use it to summon a Windigo from the nether?”

        I bit my lip.  I struggled through a fresh wave of memories, and all of them laced with frost and shadows.  “Let's just say that I'm not your average composer of music,” I eventually murmured.  My ears twitched as I tried to shake the tune in my head long enough to cast my voice evenly.  “Sometimes I have to reach deep down—further than what history provides—in order to restore the most sacred ballads lost to us.  I believe that there are songs that mean so much to ponydom that we no longer have the capacity to remember them, and the act of finding them saps more from me than just my talents.  It takes a lot of... uhm... magic energy as well.  Does... does that make any sense to you?”  I winced openly.  I was already planning to just ditch the Carousel and attempt to repeat this entire meeting the next day.

        But something that would have been lost was immediately saved by Rarity's grace and her grace alone.  “What's obvious to me, darling, is an artist in search of beauty, and that is something I can instantly respect.”  She smiled over the dull jewel at me.  “I too have a deep admiration for classicism.  If I could invent a time machine and go back to the period of Starswirl the Bearded...”  She drew a hoof over her forehead and painted the rooftop of the Boutique with rolling eyes.  “Ohhhh stars, so many fabulous designs, lost to the hungry moths and bitter decay of ages!  If I could just bring back a single illustration to present day, I'd reintroduce modern Equestria to real taste and elegance.  But, alas...”  She focused once more on the dark gem and murmured lovingly, as if caressing a reflection hidden beneath the onyx surfaces.  “What are we here for if not to invent, inspire, and illuminate?”

        I gulped and smiled awkwardly.  “I can't say I'm nearly as creative as you, Miss Rarity.  I'm just a historian.”

        “Nonsense!  Don't sell yourself short!”  She smiled my way.  “Nopony is ever really just an appendix of the past.  We all have the future to build—together—in our unique and special ways, don't you think?”

        I turned my gaze from her.  The walls were be-speckled in random places with shiny jewels and mirrors.  I saw Rarity's white coat and purple mane reflected in a glittering kaleidoscope.  My colors were nowhere to be seen.

        “I don't hold too much stock in the future,” I eventually muttered and glanced back at her.  “Is it such a crime to live in the now?”

        “It's my experience that saints and criminals often have the same things in common, so why stress it, hmm?” she remarked flippantly, then cleared her throat.  “Now, darling, about... re-fabulousing your once-fabulous jewel...”

        “Oh, uhm...”  I shifted where I stood.  “I know it doesn't look like much now, but it's a—”

        “Ram-crafted sound stone.  Trust me, dear, I know my rocks.  I must say, this is a remarkable find.  Where rams lack in aesthetics, they certainly make up for in substance.  If this was produced by any other culture in Equestria, it'd be a loss cause to attempt re-enchanting it.”

        “How much would be appropriate for such a service?”

        “Hmmm...”  Rarity murmured aloud as she trotted towards a nearby window, parting the curtains with telekinesis so that a brilliant beam of noonday sunlight poured directly into the heart of the boutique.  “It has been a terribly long time since I provided enchanting services, come to think of it.  But if I recall the rates I used to charge...”  She paused for several seconds, to the point that I could only guess she was pretending to think for the sake of pretending.  She soon tossed a tranquil glance my way.  “Three bits, dear.  Seems fitting, don't you think?”

        I couldn't help it.  My gaze was crooked as I blinked at her, and I fumbled a bit before answering, “Erm... Yes.  That is... rather generous of you.”

        “Hmmm... I do get that a lot, it would seem.”  Her voice shook at the end of her utterance, like she had woken up that morning giggling and still couldn't stop.  The air was alive with more than her sparkling telekinesis as she floated a metal stand over from a closet.  She blew the dust off, coughed briefly, and positioned the tripod directly in front of the window.  “Oh, how glad I am that this thing hasn't rusted.  It would be doing my family a great disservice if I ever let this heirloom go to ruin.”

        “If you don't mind my asking... uhm...”  I trotted over towards her and the contraption.  “What exactly is it?”

        She gave an airy laugh.  “You really have had your horn stuck in the history books, haven't you?  I weep quietly inside whenever I meet a unicorn who hasn't experimented with more than one style of magic.”  She cleared her throat and spoke while methodically floating over a glass lens and fixing it to the upper stalk of the metal device.  “This, my dear, is a celestial magnifier.  All things that stand to be enchanted in this world have one element that can almost always bring luster back to their magic without fail.”

        I blinked and uttered, “Sunlight?”

        “Mmmmhmmm,” Rarity hummed as she tilted the lens and positioned it at just the right angle to focus a thin beam of magnified light through a ring of metal clamps at the top of the stand.  “Her Majesty, Princess Celestia, gives us more than just the warmth and beauty of the day.  She grants us the very essence of her being, something sacred that was hoofed down by the Cosmic Matriarch herself.  If we focus the energy of the sun just right, it's like grabbing magic from the air.”  She tensed her facial features as she carefully, carefully floated the dull stone over and positioned it tightly within the polished ring of the metal clamps.  “Aaaaaaand... there!  Ah... Tell me, have ponies been given anything more generous than the Princess' very own shine?”

        I trotted over and stared closely at the gem with subtle, foalish fascination.  Indeed, before our eyes, the dullness of the sound stone gave way, and I saw a glow emanating from the center of the dark crystal in direct response to the focused beam of light.  It was dim at first, but soon the familiar emerald haze was coming to life underneath the glossy surface of the jewel.

        “That... is indeed beautiful,” I remarked.  “It's like capturing an alicorn's glory in a bottle!”

        “Not yet it's not,” Rarity boldly said.  She brushed me aside and approached the gem like it was an altar.  “Ahem.  This is where I come in, darling.”  She winked, and it was then that I realized she was about to earn my bits.  With great concentration, Rarity focused magical energy into her horn.  A second glow filled that part of the Carousel, and soon she was encompassing the gem with a cascade of sparkles.

        I realized that she was using her talents to plant a containment spell on the sound stone.  It was something I could never imagine doing myself.  After a year of studying every book on lunar magic in Twilight's Library, I've learned to perform many fantastic feats, and yet still I was in awe of Rarity's gifts.

        “That's... That's amazing.”  I looked from the gem to her and smiled.  “And you make it look so easy.”

        “Only because it is, dear.  Mmm... for me, that is.”  She murmured aside, all the while concentrating.  “I don't mean to sound like a braggart.  We all have our places in this world.  I've met unicorns who could do something like this in half the time, and yet they charge three times as much.  I've endeavored to not be like them.  True talent is about earning more than just money, after all.”

        “Well, you've earned my thanks, Miss Rarity.”  I chuckled briefly and floated three golden coins out of my saddlebag.  “A well as my bits.”  After she graciously took the payment with her own telekinesis, I said, “Though, nothing I could pay you would come close to how golden this day appears to be.”

        “Oh?”

        “If I may be so bold, you seem to be in a fantastic mood.  I wish all ponies had as sunny a disposition.”

        “Is there any reason why they shouldn't?”  She continued enchanting the stone while casting me a sideways glance.  Her lips were curved, as if she was born with that smile.  “Well, perhaps I'm one to talk.  It so happens that I've been struck with a great deal of good fortune as of late.  Do forgive me if it comes across as a little uncouth”

        “Nothing uncouth about being happy, Miss Rarity.  Dare I ask what's the occasion?”

        “Tell me...”  Rarity's melodic tone didn't falter for one instant.  “Have you heard of Silver Seams?”

        My eyes swam over the rich decorations of the boutique, and I was at a loss to form an answer.  “I can't say that I have.  But then again... heh... what's in a name?”

        Her reaction was rather explosive.  “Why, everything, Miss Heartstrings!”  For a second there, I thought she might accidentally knock over the stand atop which the gem was being enchanted.  She glanced back at me, and her eyes were as hard as diamonds.  “It's what defines a pony!  A title is one's vessel for notoriety and purpose.”

        I said nothing.

        Thankfully, Rarity wasn't finished.  “And Silver Seams' fame proceeds her!  She is only the most prestigious dress designer in the Manehattan scene!  She's made top-of-the-line gowns for every annual fashion exhibit in Fillydelphia and Trottingham over the last decade!  She produces the luxurious costumes for the regular Hearth's Warming's Eve pageant at Canterlot, and she's even designed the latest uniforms worn by the Wonderbolts!”

        “Wow, sounds like quite the career.”

        “It is more than that.  Silver Seams' impact on Equestrian culture is positively legendary!  And I can't wait to speak with her face to face.”

        “I bet you can't,” I said with a nod, then jolted as the realization hit me.  I glanced at the sparkling-clean lengths of the boutique, the fancy dresses that were on exhibit, even Rarity's latest project.  “Wait, so Silver Seams is coming here?”

        “Squeee-heeheehee-Yes!”  Rarity squirmed in place.  It wouldn't have surprised me if she suddenly sprouted pegasus wings and performed laps around the ceiling.  “It turns out she's making a trip to Trottingham and will be stopping by Ponyville along the way.  Hoity Toity—with whom I have a good business acquaintance, ahem—had an opportunity to speak with her, and he personally suggested that she stop by my Boutique!  Silver Seams!  The divine queen of fashion!  Stopping by here!”  She seemed on the verge of fainting.  A magical beam of light pulsed from deep within the soundstone, shaking her out of her felicitous spell.  “Oh, but that is merely my own little life.  I just feel so... so... bubbly, as Pinkie Pie would put it.  Do forgive me for not being able to contain my excitement.”

        “Sounds like you have every reason to be excited!”  I said with a  smile.  She levitated the re-enchanted stone towards me and I gladly took it.  “You have an obvious eye for beauty.  No doubt Miss Seams would love having a look at your work.”

        “What?!”  Rarity gasped at me, her voice hoarse and mortified.  She gave the lengths of her boutique a flippant wave of the hoof.  “You mean these paltry attempts at day-to-day garb?”

        I glanced at the rows of flowing, shiny dresses on display.  “They seem very lovely and impressive to me—”

        “That's just it!”  She trotted limply past me, her voice orating towards the dull mannequins suddenly surrounding her.  “If I wish to impress the likes of Silver Seams, then I need to be more than lovely and impressive! I need to be absolutely stellar!  I need to eke supernatural feats of whimsy from the creative nodes in my mind!”  I felt like I was suddenly privy to a dramatic one-mare-show, and it was worth every golden bit.  “She will be here in less than a week!  I only have a few days to make this Boutique worth its weight in polish!  I need to make a dress that will shock her, flabbergast her, and make her leave this town with my name engraved in her head as succinctly and righteously as her name is emblazoned into the heart of every self-respecting fashionista from here to Blue Valley!”

        “Sounds like you've got your work cut out for you,” I said.  I dropped the sound stone into my bag, zipped it shut, and smirked at her.  “I have no doubt that you'll find the time to make something absolutely dazzling.”

        “It's not so much a matter of time, dear.  Inspiration is as spontaneous as it is divine.  I've been toiling through my lists of paid projects in hopes that an idea would bloom from mundanity.  Alas, it doesn't help that most if not all of my clients make... eh... rather plebeian requests at best.  Celestia forbid that a pony would commission something with flare so that I could truly put my mind at work...”

        “I guess I couldn't understand,” I murmured defeatedly.  “I almost wish there was some way I could help.”

        “Hmmm.  You've helped me quite enough, darling.  You let me ramble on right when I needed to.”  She gave an aristocratic laugh, then turned to look me over.  “Though...”  She rubbed her chin in thought.  “It would be only fair if I had the chance to help you.”

        I blinked.  “I don't understand.”  Perhaps I was still dazed from tackling the Threnody a few days previous.  Otherwise, I have very little reason to explain my obliviousness.  “You've already helped me with the enchantment.”

        “Never mind a glowing rock, darling.  I suddenly can't help but notice your rather... warm looking choice of wear.”

        Ah.  But of course.

        “What about it?”  I gave her a sly glance.  “Let me guess, it looks 'worn-in?'”

        “Yes, to put it lightly.”  She smiled and leaned in to me, raising a hoof just an inch from my forelimbs.  “Uhm... If I may...”

        “Sure...”

        She fidgeted with the sleeves and hood and length of the stone-gray material as she trotted tightly around me.  “Mmm... Yes, yes, yes.  It's getting positively threadbare at the cuffs.  And—oh dear—these patches!  Aside from their unsightliness, the seams are starting to pop loose!  Darling, I know you're only trying to keep warm in this thing, but with the way it's falling apart, I can't imagine that it's doing a very good job of living up to such a task!”

        I merely shrugged.  “It's worked well enough for me.  Besides, when I get cold—er—when I get really cold, I have other ways of taking care of myself.”

        “It's one thing to take care of your senses, but what of your presentation?”

        “I beg your pardon?”

        “Your coat's a rare color, a very fantastic one at that, Miss Heartstrings.  And you keep your mane so well.  You're obviously a unicorn with a soul of refined grace.  What a shame it would be to constantly wrap such a pretty package in veritable rags.”  She took a step back and tilted her horn upwards with authority.  “I insist!  You absolutely must let me make you something new that will do the same job and even better!”

        “Oh, Miss Rarity.”  I shook my head.  “Seriously, it's fine...”

        “All things dull and commonplace are fine, until we have the wherewithal to make them better.  Please, I promise it will make you feel better.”  Her teeth glinted with the enchanting sunlight wafting in through the window beside us.  “I won't even charge you!  If nothing else, this will be a way for me to flex my mental seamstress muscles and give you something worth wearing proudly all at once!  What better a way to celebrate the arrival of Silver Seams than to celebrate fashion in mutual company of a graceful mare such as yourself?”

        “Please...”  I took a deep breath, clutching at the ends of my stone gray sleeves, feeling as if I was clinging to the edges of so many sacred, cold, yet altogether holy memories of solitude.  “As much as I admire your generosity and willingness to do me a favor...”  I shuddered briefly.  I had gotten what I needed for the time being.  There's only so much I can do to interfere with the lives of these beautiful and blissfully ignorant residents of Ponyville.  Rarity had so much on her plate, and I didn't feel right in devouring the excessive byproduct of her current joy.  So, I decided to tell her the truth, “But I couldn't part with this sweatjacket even if you, Hoity Toity, and Silver Seams all worked together on making me something new.  I... I have something of an attachment to it.  It was a gift that a very nice pony gave to me when I most needed it.”

        “Hmmm... Very well then.”  I was surprised with how easily that won my case.  I felt a tiny bit disappointed, actually.  “I can't force you to let me make you something, darling.  Besides...”  She winked as she strolled back towards the dress that she was working on when I had first arrived.  “I know better than to undermine the power of a true gift.  Sentimental value is like an extra pony sense.  Without it, I doubt very much we'd remember what made us who we are today.”

        I gulped and nodded towards the shadows of the place.  “That's something I tell myself every sunrise.”

        “But I'll be here, Miss Heartstrings, in case you ever decide to return and accept my offer.”  She added more ribbons to the skirt of the dress she was making, her voice stretching as her mind went into a mode of deep focus.  “I may look forward to impressing the likes of Silver Streams, but I'd hate myself forever if I forgot my own clientele, if even for a single moment.”

        It took a mountain of effort to keep my smile alive, though I knew she couldn't see it at that moment.  “Of that I have no doubt, Miss Rarity.  I... I wish you a good afternoon.”  I turned around, my hooves sounding loud and invasive as they scraped against the tile floor of the boutique.  Without looking back, I made straight for the door.

        The bell rang melodically throughout the lengths of the dress shop.

        “Excuse me.”  I trotted into the main foyer with my saddlebag in tow.  “Is Miss Rarity around—?”

        “Oh my stars!”  She gasped.  All four of Rarity's limbs flailed as she struggled to yank a dull black tarp over the body of a mannequin positioned atop the center stage of the Boutique.  She panted heavily, as if having run a ten-mile marathon at the first sound of my voice.  As she clung to the shrouded dress, I saw her surrounded by a veritable warzone of scattered pincushions, measuring tape, sewing needles, and all sorts of multi-colored fabrics.  It had been nearly a week since I had seen Rarity last, and every single day hung like a weight from her features, pulling at the skin beneath her eyes, yanking at the frayed edges of her mane.  A pair of working glasses reflected my blinking face as she gawked at me.  “I... I-I thought I had locked that door!”

        “I'm... I'm sorry!”  I felt genuinely shocked.  I always fear that something like this might happen with the nature of my curse.  There are times when I wonder if I'm just as incorporeal as I am invisible.  “You're supposed to be closed?  I... I didn't see a sign or anything...”

        “Ohhhhh where has my mind gone?!” Rarity rolled her eyes back as her voice took on a breathy growl.  “I must have forgotten to lock the front entrance after returning from lunch!  Nnnngh... I've just been so, so terribly busy.  Ahem.”  She stood tall and proud, brushed aside a few strands of purple hair, and brandished a polite smile.  “I am exceedingly sorry, Miss...”

        “Heartstrings.”

        “Do forgive me, Miss Heartstrings, but the Boutique is—as a matter of fact—closed for business at the moment.  I finished the last of my clients' current projects two days ago, and I won't be accepting any more requests until after the weekend.  There's been... pressing business, as of late.”

        “Pressing business?”  I blinked, then brightened with a smile.  “Oh, you mean that dress for Silver Seams that you were planning—?”

        Rarity's face became paler, if that was even possible.  “You... It... She...”  Her lower left eyelid began twitching.  For a moment there, I thought she was going to teeter backwards and collapse completely.  “How did you know about Silver Seams' visit?!”

        I winced immediately.

        Whoops.

        “Did... Did one of my friends talk?”  She blinked, then her expression became a hard-edged sword.  “Pinkie Pie.  Somehow, she's always putting her tongue to improper use...”

        “Uhm.  No.  It's n-nothing like that!  I... uhm...” I fiddled desperately for an explanation.  I still don't know why I do this at times.  I very seriously doubt that whatever I say—fabrication or not—will be explicitly carried over past my visitation with a pony soul.  What is there to cover for?  I suppose I want each encounter I have with these Ponyvilleans to remain as sacred as I consider them to be.  “I-I-I'm visiting from Las Pegasus, and I had attended a fashion show—”

        “Las Pegasus?”  The menace in Rarity's face immediately dissipated as soon as the word “fashion” bled from my lips.  She even smiled for the briefest of moments.  “Then you are familiar with the work of Hoity Toity!”

        “Yes!  Hoity Toity!  And... uhm... supposedly he ran into Silver Seams and suggested that she stop by here...”

        “And if you made the trip from Las Pegasus to Ponyville in such short time...”  Rarity's gasped breathily as a thought of great enormity rocked her mind.  “There's no telling when Silver Streams herself may have arrived!  She could be checking into the downtown hotel right now as we speak!”  She grimaced visibly and began pacing a panicked orbit around the tarp-covered dress.  “Oh blessed Celestia, I'm not nearly finished!  I've wasted enough time as it is!  Oh, whatever shall I do?”

        “Hey!  It's okay!  Just... uhm... Just relax!”  I gestured at her with two hooves and gave a gentle smile.  “Silver Seams is an affluent, well-to-do pony, yes?”

        “Oh, absolutely!”

        “Then, like all rich and famous mares, she's probably taking her sweet time.”  I grinned and touched the tarp with a hoof for emphasis.  “I'm sure you'll have every opportunity to finish this masterpiece—”

        “No!”  She blurred over and quite forcibly removed my hoof from the material that was obscuring the dress.  “You mustn't look!” she hissed.  “You mustn't!”

        “Uhm... I wasn't about to, Miss Rarity.  Not unless you wanted to share—”

        “Out of the question!” she exclaimed, nearly snarling as she hugged the bulky item like a dying pet.  “No way in Equestria could I let anypony see this now!”

        “Oh, very well then.”  I gulped and ran a hoof through my mane.  I cast her a nervous glance.  “Er... may I ask why?”

        “Why?!”  Her eyes turned into bright blue saucers.  “Why?!  Because, darling, a work of art is always pathetic and unseemly in its most primordial stages!  I would be outright cursing the dress to defeating scrutiny if I allowed another pony to see the ugly building blocks of the final product before it even has a chance to shine!  A self-respecting seamstress never exhibits a work until it is close to completion!”

        “Oh.  Well, I guess that makes sense.”  I should have just let the conversation end there, but something about seeing Rarity so nervous and disheveled put a bad taste in my mouth.  Why do I always make friends with ponies I can never afford to commune with?  “But... I'm not Silver Seams, am I?”

        “Erm... Your point being?”

        I glanced around the shadowy lengths of the Carousel Boutique.  Half of the lights that were on last week were dimmed that afternoon, so that a single utilitarian spotlight was cast upon the dress Rarity was working on when I had shown up.

        “I get the feeling that you've been holed up here for quite a while, working on this thing...”

        “Why, but of course!  Silver Seams is visiting and I must do all that's in my power to give her something worth writing home about!  After all, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”

        “And in all that time, have you had any critical eyes other than your own to judge the work in progress?”

        Rarity said nothing.  She merely blinked.

        I gazed past her expression.  “Not even your friends?”

        She bit her lip to the bleeding point.

        I smiled gently.  “What I'm trying to say, Miss Rarity, is that maybe it wouldn't hurt to get an opinion about it this early on.”  I smiled and turned my flank aside so she could see my cutie mark.  “Experience with writing music has taught me that the final composition is always a heck of a lot more spectacular if I've had some other pony other than myself be a critic through the creation process.”

        “Mmmm... Yes.”  She breathed slightly easier.  It appeared as though the wrinkles in her mane were smoothing away magically as she ingested my words.  “Yes, I do believe that is a very... intelligent observation.”

        “So then...”  I turned to face her straight-on.  “What's the harm in heading outside, seeing some sunlight, and fetching one of your closest acquaintances to provide you a critical eye?”

        “Mmm.  No.  N-No, we can't be having that.”

        I blinked.  “We can't?”

        “The girls—erm—my friends, they are a darling bunch, but so many of them are prone to exaggeration for the sake of placating me.”  She paced slightly about the Boutique.  “There are times when I enjoy such bias, even moments when I need it.”  Her jaw clenched tightly as a fire burned in her blue eyes.  “But this is not one of those times.”  After a pause, she tilted her face back up with a bright expression.  She glanced at me.  “Miss—Heartstrings, was it?”

        “Err... Yeah?”

        “Would you be willing to tell me what you think?” Her eyes were sparkling as she asked me this.

        I wish I could have said the same about mine.  “Uhm...  Eheheh...”  I shifted nervously where I stood and waved my left forelimb so that she could get a good look at a patch on my “worn-in” hoodie sleeve.  “Honestly, Miss Rarity, do I look like I'm qualified to say what is or isn't acceptable in fashion?”

        “You're a perfect stranger; that's qualification enough!”  She smiled with the rising layers of hope emanating from her being, making it increasingly difficult to deny her with each passing breath.  “What's more, you're obviously a refined unicorn who's both blunt and eloquent.  Please, would you do me this favor?  I'm sorry to bother you with it, but I am at my wit's end at the moment!”

        “But I thought it was practically criminal to look at a dress before it's completed!”

        “Thankfully, dear, you've just convinced me otherwise!”

        “Ehh... yeah...”

        “Just what were you coming here for in the first place, if I may ask?”

        “Uhm...”  I opened my saddlebag and produced the second dark crystal.  “There's this stone I need enchanting and—”

        “Ah!  I can do enchanting in my sleep!  Let's consider it an even exchange, hmm?”  She practically grabbed the rock from my grasp with a pair of hooves and shoved me towards the dress.  “Please.  Be a dear and look at what I've crafted so far.  I'll be ever so grateful!”  That said, she aimed her horn and effortlessly slid the tarp off of the forbidden work of dressmaking.

        For a moment there, I thought all the lamps that were previously dormant in the Boutique had suddenly been switched on.  It took me a few seconds to realize that it was actually the shiny, alabaster material of the silken dress reflecting the meager light from all the windows around us, positively magnifying it.  The gown's upper collar was a shimmering array of ivory beads.  The sash about the middle of the dress was also studded with glittering spheres.  The hem of the skirt—obviously unfinished—was nonetheless remarkable at this stage, with several layers of laced edges accentuating the weight of the fabric.

        I suppose, as fillies go, I've never held much stock in fashion.  Like Twilight, I often had my young nose stuck in history books more than dress catalogues.  It was Moondancer who was the little princess of the foalish trio, and no doubt she would have been beside herself to see such an amazing gown propped before her.  And yet, I couldn't help but feel my breath taken away.  This work of Rarity's was something befitting royalty.  I was afraid that I'd go to sleep depressed that night after staring for so long, because nothing I'd see for the rest of that afternoon could possibly match the beauty of what stood before me.  A real critic would have written an essay about this.  All I had to say was...

        “It's beautiful.”

        “Just that?”  Rarity, as it turns out, was directly beside me.  I nearly jumped in fright.  “Simply 'beautiful'?”

        “I... Uhm...”

        “You barely looked at it for ten seconds!  Please, I implore you!”  Her body hung low to the ground, as if the aristocratic fashionista was willing to beg.  “Take your time!  Get a good look at it!  A real close look and then tell me what you think!”

        Okay then...

        Taking a deep breath, I approached the dress like a polite dancing partner.  I squinted at the thing.  I poured my eyes over the length of the skirt.  I marched in circles around it.  I stalked it like a lion hunts its prey.  I made sure that my eyes covered every silken inch until I had enough sufficient details to sputter forth.

        “It's still beautiful.”

        I briefly feared that Rarity was going to explode.

        Swiftly, I followed that up with, “I-I just realized...”  I pointed at the glittering spheres along the middle of the dress.  “These... These are all pearls?”

        “Mmmmhmmm.  Yes.  Natural as oxygen.  Straight from the river basins of Blue Valley!”  She smiled wide.  I could see the pools of her eyes quivering with each anxious heartbeat.  “Spared no expense!  I stored them for a rainy day—eheheh—as it were.  Aren't they splendid?”

        “And they're making up the collar,” I pointed out.

        “And... And-And-And—” She scampered around and stood next to me as she pointed out the many layers of the skirt.  “And there're more to be applied!  Each of the final three seams shall be accentuated with them!  That makes a total of five layers of pearls!”

        “That's... That's bold...” I nodded, rubbing a hoof along my chin.  “Extravagant, yes.  But... It just shouts confidence and beauty... a natural beauty.”

        “Yes!  Yes!  Heehee—Ahem.”  She calmed herself and spoke in a duller voice.  “Remind you of anypony?”

        I blinked.  I looked at her, then at the dress.  “Uhm... Wouldn't you have put more blue gems into the design if you meant it to represent—?”

        “Hmmm?”  She squinted awkwardly, then rolled her eyes.  “Oh, bah!”  She chuckled airily.  “I would never think to be so narcissistic!  Erm, at least not in this scenario.  Ahem.  Think harder...”

        “Uhm...”  I scratched my skull through my mane.  “Is it for Silver Seams herself to wear?  I'm... Not entirely familiar with the color of her coat.  Does it match?”

        Rarity gawked at me as if I was committing some blatant crime.  “You... You mean you don't see it?  You don't see what I've done?”

        I gazed at the dress, frantically searching for a clue.  Everything was white, brilliant, pearlescent, and magnificent.  What else was there to say?

        “Is it not the tenth of August in two days' time?” Rarity finally clued me in.

        I glanced at her.  I wracked my brain for a connection.  “August Tenth... August Tenth...”

        Rarity paced around me, orating with authority, “Not only is it when I'm expecting Miss Seams to visit, but it's none other than the birthday of the legendary Princess Platinum of Unicornia!”

        “Oh...”  I blinked.  “Oh!”  I blinked harder, the dress suddenly coming into greater focus.  “One of the three founders of Equestria!”

        “Aaaaaand...”  She leaned towards me with a proud grin.  “...the first royal family member to have united the five tribes of unicorns into solidarity!”

        I stared back at her.  Seconds ticked into breaths.  Her resounding sigh felt like a cannonball to my chest.

        “Oh, darling, do remember your roots!”  She said as she sashayed back towards the dress and pointed at the many rows of pearls.  “What was Princess Platinum's gift to the founding matriarchs of the five tribes?”

        “Uhm...”  I thought out loud, and grinned as the realization came to me.  “But of course!  She gave them pearls excavated from the long lost Sapphire Lake of Dream Valley!”

        Rarity grinned at me, like a teacher congratulating a learning foal.  “And as she gave them these pearls—the symbol of her grace and generosity—she declared a new era for unicorns, when they would invest all of their magical energies in guiding the path of the Sun and Moon for generations to come.”  She pointed at the obvious layers on the dress where the pearls would go.  “Five tribes, five layers, a whole ensemble of beauty, grace, and promise.”  She stood up straight and tall.  “Silver Seams is one of the most prominent members of Manehattan elite, and as all ponies know, Manehattan was formerly Neigh Amsterdam, the central capital of Old Unicornia!”

        “And she's arriving close to the birthday of Princess Platinum herself.  How old would that make the monarch anyways?”  I glanced at her with a curious grin.  “Two Thousand Years?  Her reign began almost a millennium before the fall of Luna.”

        “Don't you get it?”

        “Absolutely, Miss Rarity.  I just...”  I gulped.  “I guess my head wasn't in the right place.  But Silver Seams?”  I winked at her.  “It seems like you know your audience.  This is all... well... this is all positively dazzling!”

        “Do you really think so?!”  Rarity almost giggled like a foal, but once more covered it with an air of restraint. “Ahem—But I did not ask for your observation to simply gush over my own labors.  Tell me, do you think the message is too obvious, now that you know the appropriate angle and all?”

        “Rarity, it seems to me that you put a lot of thought and effort into this work.  Not only do I think that the message will hit Silver Seams close to home, but I think it will impress her greatly that you were capable of thinking of something so fantastic on such short notice.”

        “Yes, funny that you should say that.  I only had a week to work on it.”  She gulped and gazed at the dress with a rediscovered pensiveness.  “Still, it's not been enough.  I have so little time left, and so many pearls to apply.  I fear as though I've embellished too much on the front half of the dress as it is.  I don't know what I'd do with myself if I ran out halfway through the last layer.”

        “Surely you've taken the right measurements...”

        “Hmmm.  Yes.  But I won't know how much to apply until the dress has been worn, so that the fabric has been truly flexed to allow for a proper estimate...” Her words trailed off as she attempted to think up a solution halfway through uttering them.

        “Have you tried it on yourself?” I asked.  “The dress that is.”

        “Hmmmph!  Don't be so absurd!  A proper dressmaker could never do her work while wearing it—” She stopped.  She looked at me.

        I looked back.  “Uhm... What are you...?”  I felt my cheeks burning suddenly.  “Oh no.  Seriously, Miss Rarity.  There's no way I could do that.”

        Thirty minutes later, I was doing that.

        The sound stone was resting atop the metal stand before the window, glowing slowly with enchantment while Rarity focused on another “magical” situation altogether.  I stood atop the stage as she trotted and hovered all around me, forcing my limbs apart so as to get proper access to all the layers of the dress she had left to apply the pearls.

        “You have no idea what this means to me, Miss... Heartstrings, was it?”

        “Yes.”

        “Erm—Yes.  My apologies.  It's simply horrible to get a mare's name wrong.”

        “I wouldn’t be offended.”  I tried to breathe evenly.  “Trust me.”

        “I'm just so beside myself right now!”  She giggled nervously before proceeding with the task, her eyes squinting earnestly from behind her spectacles.  “If you hadn't come out of the blue—unlocked door and all—I'd be at a loss for time!  Oh, thank Celestia!  I swear, you're like a guardian angel!”

        “An... angel?”  I gazed off towards the windows.  I thought of Morning Dew.  A warm toastiness spread through me that made the awkward situation instantly bearable.  I imagined wearing this fabulous dress for another occasion altogether, and I couldn't help but smile and sigh.  “Generous ponies are as generous ponies do.”

        “Hmmm...”  Rarity smiled as she floated needle and thread between us, fastening the pearls one at a time to the seams of the skirt.  “Some of the things that you say, Miss Heartstrings: they're quite poignant.  I'm tempted to ask if you've heard more about me than my gifts in sewing and enchanting.”

        “Oh.  Uhm.  Not much more than... er... they say around town.”

        “Yes?”  Rarity paced around me and squinted hard at her work.  “And just what do they say about me around town?”

        I bit my lip.  There are times when it's not so bad being backed up into a wall.  I'd have expected not to be wearing a fragile, expensive dress at such moments.  “Well, ponies say that you're a good seamstress and very dedicated to your work.”

        “Oh.”  Her voice had a dead tone to it.  She threaded the needle with far less enthusiasm, suddenly.  “Is that all?  Why am I not surprised...”

        “B-but I'm not exactly from around here!” I tried to make up for it.

        “Visiting from Las Pegasus, right?”

        Was that what I said?  Dear Celestia, I should have been better at this.  “I'm sure that if I had stayed around here longer, I would have heard more about you.  But, honestly, I try not to stake too much claim in gossip.”  That, at least, was true.  I relaxed with a gentle breath and allowed her more room to work around me.  “Besides, being popular has never exactly been my schtick.”  I gulped.  “Especially as of late.”

        “And why would you say such a thing, darling?” Rarity's voice became melodic once more.  My attention was instantly grabbed.  “You're a pretty, elegant, intelligent young mare—if I may be so bold.  I'm sure you're the object of stallions' desire and the target of fillies' envy wherever you go!”

        I chuckled at that.  “I think your friends' tendency to placate has rubbed off on you, Miss Rarity.”

        “Oh please!  A good compliment is just like any other gift!  Why shoot it down so?”

        “I'm...” I fidgeted.  “I'm sorry.”

        “And none of that!  There's a thing to be said about excessive humility.  But, just like with my good friend Fluttershy, it can be a tad bit grating at times.”

        “Do you lavish this 'Fluttershy' with compliments as well?”

        Rarity's lips curved.  “As I do with all kindly ponies who deserve it.”

        “All I've done is help you with your dress.”

        “Oh, but it's more than that.”

        “Like what?”

        “Why, the little things, darling.  Such as you asking for me by name when you first marched in here.”

        I stared down at her.  “You... You really appreciate that, huh?”

        “Oh, don't let me get started!”  She briefly paused in sewing to roll her gorgeous blue eyes.  “If I had a shiny red apple for each time a pony marched in under that doorbell and failed to recognize me or my lifelong work, I swear, I would put Sweet Apple Acres out of business with my bounty!  Hmph!”  She smiled.  “That's why I'm so proud to have had a perfect stranger like you come in asking to see me, even if I was... erm... h-hardly welcoming when you first entered.  Eh heh heh...”

        I was gazing off towards the corner of the place.  I've never liked thinking about it, but for a solid year I've always been the first pony to say my own name in a given situation.  I'm not sure a year’s worth of journal entries is enough to explain just what that feels like.  There are times when—I swear—I forget I was ever once called “Lyra.”  Those are dismal gray mornings, waking up to my own fears and regrets, the casual detritus of an indefinable curse.

        “It's a wonderful thing to be recognized,” I found myself saying out loud.  “But that's as far as I could ever hope to dream.  I like my name.  I just wouldn't care for it being waved around like a flag.”

        “Are you afraid of the spotlight, dear?”

        “The what?”

        “The spotlight.”  She smiled at me while a few glittering pins floated before her.  “It is my belief that we're destined to experience it at some point or another, whether we ask for it or not.  I've endeavored all my life to be prepared for it.”

        “You say that as if being popular was what a pony was made for.”

        “Isn't it?”

        “I...”  I chewed on my lip briefly.  “Maybe once I believed that.  Nowadays, though...”  I felt a wave of cold, but did my best not to shiver while wearing Rarity's unfinished masterpiece.  “It's my hope that when my time on this world is done, I'll leave everything behind while remaining perfectly content with myself.”

        “Good heavens,” she almost grunted.  “That's remarkably grim, don't you think?”

        “I-I like to think it's an affirmative perspective.”  I gave her a reassuring smile.  “I at least believe that it's possible to end things happily.  Just how does popularity fill that niche?”

        “Well, I can't presume to lecture a pony on philosophy,” Rarity sewed another pearl in and paused altogether, her eyes swimming in the alabaster fabric of the half-finished dress before her.  “But I firmly believe that a pony's essence is not only defined by her notoriety—it is, in fact, improved by it.  It's not half as shallow as many are prone to think, though I don't blame them.  It all deals with what we are, and what we were made to be.”

        I admit: that definitely got my attention.  I gazed earnestly at her.  “Oh really?”

        “Mmmhmm...” She stood before me and rested on her hind legs with a tranquil grin.  “Being popular means more than having fame or fortune or good standing with the citizenry of ponydom.”  She fluffed her mane elegantly with her hoof, all the while casting a glance towards the sound stone being enchanted across from us.  “Ponies, after all, are social things, finely crafted jewels of Creation that are all meant to shine together.  When a strange pony walks into my store and has the good grace to know my name, a part of me feels reborn.  It means that something that I've done, something that I've contributed to the canvas of this world has captured their attention, and our hearts have been connected.”  She gazed back at me, and her face was as bright as the painting she was attempting to illustrate in my mind's eye.  “We are all artists deep down, Miss Heartstrings, every single one of us, and we make our mark on this world with the brushstrokes of our indomitable spirits.  I have only ever sought to paint a masterpiece that can inspire others, for why else do we exist than to do so remarkably?”

        As she spoke, the haunting chords of the eighth elegy were returning to my mind.  But instead of drowning her out, they were highlighting every word that came out of her mouth, as if she had been designated the lunar instrumental's choir since the dawn of time.  I remembered ever so briefly what it meant to compose music before the curse drowned me.  Making music was something to be shared, along with every glorious facet of existence.

        No, I could never judge Rarity for wanting to be bigger than life itself.  A generous soul deserves to rest on the highest pedestal.  How else was she to shower the rest of the world with gifts?  Like the gift she was giving me right then, a most precious gift that would be done with far sooner than I had the desire to believe, only the good wisdom to expect.

        “I wish I could be as remarkable as you, Miss Rarity,” I solemnly said, though my smile was joyful.  “But, I think some of us were born to shine, and others simply to twinkle.”

        I don't know if she understood what I said, but her coy wink told me that there was something else I hadn't gathered until then.  “That's the biggest misconception about popularity, darling.  It is not a competition.  Much rather, I like to see it as a marathon.”  She trotted back over to my side and resumed work on the gown's skirt.  “One of these days, Miss Heartstrings, you are going to break into a full gallop, and I sincerely envy the ponies who will be there to witness your shining moment in the spotlight.”

        Rarity's words filled my mind, generating an awe that was as numbing as it was felicitous to my spirit.  It was distracting to the point that I couldn't focus on the eighth elegy.  As a matter of fact, I lost track of time, so that I hadn't counted the days between helping her with the dress and returning to the Boutique with the third stone.

        All I could think about was making her day, hopefully in some fraction of the manner in which she had once made mine.  So when I stepped through the door and heard the ringing bell announcing my entrance, I immediately chirped forth into the domain of fabric and sparkles, “Hello, Miss Rarity?  My name's Lyra Heartstrings, and I heard lots about you.  So long as you're not busy with something at the moment, I was wondering if I could borrow your infamous talents in enchanting this gemstone that I've—”

        I froze in my tracks.

        A tall, brown-coated mare with a gray mane stared haughtily down at me over the crest of her thick-framed, dark spectacles.  She was dressed in a black blouse and matching slacks with room for her flaring tail to poke through.  Nothing about her straight-laced outfit succeeded in hiding the thin and rigid frame that encompassed her being.

        “Huh...” I blinked.

        “Hmmm...” Was all she uttered at first.  Her eyes narrowed on me.  When she next spoke, I wasn't entirely sure whom she was addressing until I heard scampering hooves in the distance.  “A regular of yours, I gather?”

        “Oh!  Uhm... Eheheh!”  Rarity—a frazzled and sweating mess—dashed over between me and this angular stranger.  “It's the middle of the day!  I'm bound to have clientele visiting as they see fit!”

        “I could have sworn that you were going to close regular business for my visit...”

        “Ah!  Yes!  Hah!  Funny, I did say that, didn't I?!”  Rarity spun to face her, all but bowing to kiss the deadpan mare's hooves.  “Heheheh—Absent mind of a genius!  Our words go places but our hooves seldom follow them!”  She turned to face me.  “Uhm... Can I help you?  Erm—that is to say—”  She shook her head, blurredly, then exclaimed, “I would ever so like to help you, but at the moment I'm afraid that I am predisposed.  Still, if you leave a brief description of what it is that you require, I am certain to leave for myself a detailed note so that I can properly serve you first thing tomorrow morning, as I am prompt and diligent to pay heed to all of my loyal, well-paying customers!  Eheheheh...”

        “Uhm...”  I glanced forlornly at the mare standing behind her, above us, like a grand looming shadow.  “It... It's not important,” I eventually murmured, backing out of the store with my saddlebag and shivers.  “Really.  I can come another time.”

        “Oh, but please!  Let me know what it is that you want so that I can help you tomorrow!” Rarity's pleading eyes briefly broke the walls of sheer panic.  “Yes, I'm closed for business, but I would hate myself for sending away a pony in need without finding a way to get back to her...”

        “Undoubtedly she's in need of new winter wear,” the mare said, and my attention was drawn to her bored gaze being aimed at my hoodie.  “Or else a severe alteration.”  She glanced lethargically at Rarity.  “From what Mr. Toity said, I had assumed all of your fellow residents wore the Canterlot line you sewed for him a year ago.”

        Rarity gulped, then glanced aside at me.  “Well, yes.  I do seem to... erm... have quite the following in Canterlot.  Hereabouts, however... erm...”  She gnawed briefly on her hoof and tried to cover it with a smile.  “Well, this is farm country, Miss Seams.  And you know how earth ponies are.  They rely a great deal on hoof-me-downs...”

        “And your establishment...”  Silver Seams paced across the boutique.  “It's been here for the better part of five years?”

        “Erm.  Yes.  I graduated with a minor in business, and my mother's an entrepreneur, so—”

        “That's a long enough time to make an impact on the local fashion, wouldn't you think?”

        “Erm.  Yes.  I suppose that—”

        “Well, I came here to be thrilled.”  The first thing that resembled a smile graced Silver's lips, but even that was something of a stretch, like trying to carve a thin line out of black granite.  “So, here's your chance, Rarity dear.  Thrill me.”

        Rarity was in an entirely different world, and I was obviously not part of it.  “Oh!  Absolutely!  I have just the thing that I've been dying to show you!”  A chill ran through the room, but I already knew the real reason why I was invisible.  The young unicorn trotted eagerly over to Silver Seams' side.  After a great deal of dramatic narration over the details of Princess Platinum's legacy, Rarity yanked at a cord, and a pair of curtains unfurled, revealing the completed dress on the center stage of the Boutique in all its majesty.  Rarity went over every detail, highlighting each of the five rows of pearls with magical blue luminescence, all the while lavishing Silver's ears with the timeless tale of Unicornia's unification before joining the Equestrian herd.  “And as she gave a gift to her fellow unicorns, I present you this gift for your eyes!  Doesn't it positively shimmer with Platinum's eternal spirit?”

        “Mmmm.  Yes.  It is quite beautiful.  I can see you put a great deal of time and effort into it.”

        “Oh, absolutely!  Though, I must have been incredibly inspired, for the entire fabrication went by in a delightful blur.  I swear, it's as if the last five days flew by on wings of inspiration—!”

        “But, if you would, I'd like to be shown the floor models of your Canterlot lineup.”

        “My... C-Canterlot lineup?”

        “Yes, the ones you supplied to Hoity Toity's marvelous boutique.  He's the top supplier in the upper district, or so I've been told.”

        “Oh... Oh!  Uhm... Y-Yes!”  Rarity gulped and side-stepped away from her detailed work as I gazed from afar.  “I... I do believe I still have some of those... erm... year-old models lying around.  Give me just a moment and I'll get them properly displayed—”

        “You mean that you don't have a showcase on hoof already?  I'd imagined that your customers would like to see your finest work on a day-to-day basis.”

        “Oh, they are hardly my finest work.  Heheheh—I've sold so many of them that they are practically commonplace in the streets of Canterlot by now—”

        “Yes, yes.  And from Hoity Toity's profitable sales, I imagine that means something.  So where are they, darling?  My time here in Ponyville is short, after all.”

        “Uhm—R-Right this way, Miss Seams!  I promise you.  Eheheh—You won't be disappointedddd!”

        As the two trotted out of view, I stood forgotten as always in the shadows.  The pearlescent dress in honor of Princess Platinum shimmered brilliantly in the spotlight, but for the first time in nearly a year, I couldn't conceive of a lonelier image than what I saw right then.  I longed for the words of Rarity, but whatever could have floated across the lengths of the Boutique were instantly drowned out by Silver's absorbing presence.  I trotted slowly out of the shop.  The bell was a dull and heartless noise.  I did somepony a favor of switching the sign in the front window to “closed” on the way out.

        The next morning, I entered slowly, saying nothing.  The Boutique was open early for business and all of the lanterns hanging from the ceiling were lit.  Two things shone in the center of the shop.  One was the dress of pearls, untouched and unmoved from where I had last seen it.  The other thing was Rarity's snow-white coat, reflecting sunlight like a precious diamond.

        Her brilliance, however, was drowned out by a dull expression as she unemotionally fiddled with a scarf that she was sewing telekinetically in front of her.  The skin was weighted under her eyes, so that I was afraid to find out what—besides sleep—had tugged at her spirit.

        Bravely, I cleared my throat, and asked, “Miss Rarity?”

        In a flash, the artist's eyes lit up at the sound of her name, as if a torch was ignited deep inside her.  Rarity turned to gaze at me, her expression bright—but blank—like an untouched canvas.  “Oh!  Why, hello.”  It was her turn to clear her throat.  She straightened her legs so as to no longer appear so stooped.  “Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where every garment is chic, unique, and magnifique.”

        I smiled genuinely, hoping that it would be infectious.  It wasn't.  I nevertheless spoke, “I'm visiting from out of town—”  I paused.  I started over.  “My name's Lyra Heartstrings, and while I was visiting, I was wondering if I could pay you for some services, Miss Rarity.”

        “Hmm.  Yes.  I would be more than happy to help you,” she said, though her voice hardly matched the enthusiasm her words had meant to convey.  It's always a tragic thing when a song is sucked from a pony's throat.  “Though I must apologize in advance.  I have this scarf to finish for another client of mine, and I promised them that I would do it first thing when business hours began.”

        I glanced back at the door, then at her once again.  “You're open earlier than the sign outside says.  I couldn't help but notice that while I was strolling by for a morning walk.”

        “Well, I did not get all that much sleep last night, so I didn't see the purpose in waiting another two hours.”

        “I'm so sorry to hear that, Miss Rarity.”  I gulped and backtrotted slightly.  “If it helps, I can just come another day—”

        “No!  Absolutely not!  I forbid it!” she said with a slight growl.  Then, after blinking at herself, she sighed and ran a hoof over her forehead.  “Oh, I do apologize.  I know that sounded awfully forward of me.”

        “I've heard ponies say worse,” I said with a gentle smile.

        “I've never turned a pony away for services.  I don't want you to be the first, Miss Heartstrings.”  She took a deep breath, her gaze locked onto nothing in particular beyond the nearby window frame.  “'Heartstrings.'”  She smiled.  “Now that's a delightful name that deserves to be famous.”

        My heart skipped a beat.  At first, I thought it was because a part of me actually, foolishly thought she had remembered it.  I then realized that I was simply being overwhelmed by a sinking feeling, and every time I tried to rationalize it, all that my mind's eye could come up with was Silver Seams' dark, emotionless stare.  It's times like this when I do something impulsive and desperate to shake the stupor that's overcome me.  Perhaps it wasn't an accident that I did such a thing in Rarity's presence.

        “I heard that you got a visit yesterday,” I blurted.  “From Silver Seams, no less.”  I then attempted to rationalize what had to have been no less than a kick to the gut.  “That's one reason why I came here.”  I tried to give a playful grin.  “If Silver Seams shops at Carousel Boutique, then that must make this a place of high class!”

        My rather awkward compliment had no effect on Rarity.  I should have known better, but I was just so desperate to get her to cheer up.  I only wished she was nearly as desperate herself.  “Hmmm, the jury is still out on that, I'm afraid,” she ultimately said.

        I gulped.  “Why... uhm... Why do you say that?  I imagine a seamstress would be excited to have somepony like Silver Seams pay her a personal visit.”

        “If you can call it a visit,” she murmured aloud, struggling to fix the scarf with a sudden frustration.  “Nnngh... Oh bother, who am I kidding?”  Her lips curved slightly.  “It was a delightful encounter.  Truly, it was.  Silver Seams is an amazing mare, and she is an utterly bedazzling conversationalist.  Why, I spent two hours, mesmerized, as I heard her tell about her designing exploits in the grim streets of Stalliongrad.  A pony of her age and grandeur is remarkable.  Truly remarkable.”  Rarity's nostrils flared briefly as her eyes lost themselves in the sea of fabric she was shaping into being.  “A pony like that has truly earned her fame.”

        I fidgeted, standing behind her, like the shadow to something that once shone inside that place.  With a cheerful voice, I boldly asked, “And did you tell her anything at all about yourself?  It sounds like Silver Seams travels around a lot.  I'm sure she'd like to know more about the Ponyville scene.”

        “I'm afraid our conversation never took such a turn,” Rarity swiftly replied.  “She had to take leave for a meeting with one of her agents.  Right now, she's likely having breakfast in bed, waiting for the afternoon train to take her off to Trottingham, and onwards to another season of lavish fashion shows.  Hmmm.  I will always admire the swift pace and courageous restlessness of the working elite.  Though, I suspect, it will forever be from afar.”

        I didn't know how else to get her to say more than to utter, “I... I don't understand.”

        “What's there to understand?” she retorted coldly, so that I wondered if she was even talking to me anymore.  There was a cold tap-tap-tap of her floating needles coming into hard contact with one another, almost snapping loose the thread that she was knitting into place.  “That I set myself for yet another fall?  I only have myself to blame, of course, putting so much weight into a single moment, a single glance, a single blasted opportunity, as if the entirety of one's life is determined in a blink.  I don't know what's more foolish, the fact that I had stooped to relying on something so desperate or the fact that this wasn't my first time doing so!”

        I gulped and said, “The way I see it, it's not so much that we learn from the mistakes in life, but that we learn to encounter future mistakes with greater tenacity.”

        “Well maybe mistakes are the problem in and of themselves!” Rarity finally grunted, all but slapping the knitting materials to the floor as she flashed a very familiar dress the angriest of glances.  “Maybe genius shouldn't have room for stupid errors, or else it isn't actually genius in the first place!”

        The room was silent, save for the pistoning sounds of her enraged lungs.  Slowly, the elegant unicorn composed herself.  The voice that came out of her next was still embroiled, but collected.

        “Miss Heartstrings, whoever you are, I can only guess that you are a musician, and a talented one at that.  Am I correct?”

        I swallowed and gently nodded.  “Yes.  At least, I'm inclined to agree with you on that.  Talent, however, is relative—”

        “But it is real,” she said, her eyes briefly hot as she glared back at me.  “Or else, why would you even subscribe to that name?”

        “Er... It was the name I was born with.”

        “Was it?” she asked sharply.

        I blinked at her.  “Well, yes, for your information.”

        “And does it define you?  Does it convey to other ponies who and what you are when they say it out loud?  Does your name fill their mind with delight and joy just to think of it, because they have utmost confidence in what you mean to them, and what you provide to this beautiful world of ours?”

        I took a deep breath, and my gaze fell defeatedly toward my hooves.  “I... I couldn't say...”

        “Well, allow me to be so bold, but I hear your name, and I see your cutie mark, and I am instantly proud of you, even if I don't know who you are,” she said.  Her face was too tight to express a smile, too proud to grimace.  She continued, “Because if there's one thing I believe in, it's that we're all here for a purpose.  We're placed on this earth to shine.  Some of us do so better than others, but that's not the argument I'm trying to make.  In order to be successful, Miss Heartstrings, to be popular, to make our mark in society, two things have to happen.  We have to be sure of ourselves, and the gifts that we have.  Secondarily, we have to meet others who share that vision, so that they may properly channel the contributions we have to make in the world of expression.”  She sighed and looked towards the brilliant dress once more.  “With each passing day, I feel as though there are fewer and fewer ponies in existence who know how to properly keep those channels open.  Complacency has taken the place of creativity.  At least, I hope that's the case, as horrible as that may sound.  Because if I'm wrong, and it's all just me...”  Rarity's breath came out ragged.  She ran a hoof over her face, muffling her next utterance.  “Then, dear Celestia, how far have I fallen...?”

        I pretended to follow her gaze, just so that I could have an excuse to make mention of the beautiful masterpiece in the room.  “I have to say, though.  I can't stop staring at that gown since I walked in here.  Did you get a chance to show it to Silver Seams while she was around?”

        For a moment, Rarity was without words.

        So I continued.  “I think it's absolutely gorgeous.  But, it's more than that.”  I opened my mouth to continue, but a very tender part of me hesitated.  The moment was too thin.  After a quiet struggle I dared to say it anyways.  “Funny that you would choose a pearl motif, considering it's a day after the anniversary of the legendary Princess Platinum's birth.”

        Rarity immediately flashed me a glance, one that was frozen for a few pale seconds.  Her face broke into something that was halfway between a chuckle and a sob.  I was briefly mortified to hear her sniffle.  Soon, however, she composed herself in time to smile and murmur, “You really do live up to your name, Miss Heartstrings.  I only wonder where your sentiment was yesterday, when the legacy of Unicornia utterly failed me.”

        I bit my lip.  “I'm starting to wonder too.”

        “To think, she carries the name 'Silver' like it's a copyright, and yet she dares to dress all in black.”

        “I'm sorry?”

        Rarity looked at me.  “I'm guessing one of my friends directed you here, or one of the more high-standing members of Ponyville?  Hmmm?”

        “I-I came here only to do business!  I promise.”  It was the truth.  Most of it, at least.  “I think you're more famous around town than you give yourself credit for, Miss Rarity.”

        “Correction, darling.  I'm a utility.”

        “You're what-now?”

        “A household name,” she said with a smile that obscured the layers of disappointment pouring out of her gaze.  “A common noun.  I'm the local seamstress that a pony sends a friend to when they need a seam realigned or a hem fixed or a cuff mended.  Undoubtedly they say my name a lot, just like anypony in Equestria would say 'Silver Seams.'  But do they think twice about it?  Do they have the vision—the innate desire—to look even further, in expectation that there are ponies that bury treasure deeply enough to reward souls who look for it?  I'll have you know that I wasn't born with the name that you've heard villagers call me by.  I wasn't always Rarity.”

        I blinked.  I hadn't expected that at all.  “You weren't?”

        “No, darling,” she shook her head slowly.  “As a matter of fact, I was born under the name 'Sapphire Sight.'  I come from a long family of jewelcrafters and enchanters.  It's only fitting that they expected me to fall in line with what is undeniably a biological tradition.  Sure enough, the day I discovered my cutie mark, it was in the act of finding a miraculous repository of natural gemstones.  But while my talent may have been determined by fate, I had no intention whatsoever of letting it determine my lot in life.  My horn owed its talent to precious rocks, but my heart belonged to my dreams and what future they could provide me.  That's why—at a very young age, even before finishing elementary school—I changed my name to 'Rarity'.”

        “Why?” I asked her.  “Why 'Rarity?'”

        She stared deeply at me as she said, “Because I wanted a name that I could live up to.”  She looked sadly at the dress.  “And, furthermore—with time and effort—to surpass.  I wanted to be special.  I wanted to be famous.  I wanted to be the pony that everypony would know, not just for the sound that her name entailed, but for the hidden and deeper meanings held within, like a multi-layered diamond would offer.  Precious rocks aren't meant to be just mined.  They exist to be put on display, to fill the world with glittering wonder because—after all—there are things born in this world that are granted the gift to see and admire that which stands out among us.  Long ago, I stopped being 'Sapphire Sight,' and chose to be 'Rarity.'  How else was I to aspire to greatness?  What other choice did I have?  Would I follow the hoofsteps of my family and remain a mere blemish in their shadow?  The most I would ever accomplish was being a grain of salt in the steep well of tradition, or else a mere cog in some unimaginative industry.”

        “Industry?” I remarked, an eyebrow raised.

        “That is what everything becomes, sadly,” Rarity murmured.  “Given enough time.  Given enough ritual.  You go through the motions until the motions become you, and then what is life beyond the utter necessity of the mechanization?  Yesterday, I had an entire afternoon to look into the eyes of Silver Seams, to hear her voice, to bask in her aura.  And when the whole encounter was said and done, and after I had finished digesting all of her words for whatever palatable merit there was left to savor, I realized that I could have gotten as much of a catharsis from a machine.  And do you know why?  Because Silver Seams has become part of the industry, a process born from art yet blind to it.  She was once an aspiring daredevil of Manehattan couture.  Today, she's an old and jaded mare who designs with her hooves, but they're no longer attached to her heart and soul.  All that matters is the profit behind the process, something that is measured in money and not in magic.  I would almost feel sorry for her... if it wasn't for one thing...”

        “Yes?”  I leaned forward, curious.  “What's that?”

        Rarity gulped hard.  She seemed to be dealing with her own brand of shivers by the time she eventually said, “That she's the one mare in Equestria who has it right.  That everything today is nothing but industry, for what is commonplace is not only accepted, but worshipped on high, because everypony is afraid to think, to challenge, to find things that are new... that are special... that are rare.”  She exhaled long and hard.  “And all awhile, I'm wasting my time looking for ways to stand out, saving all of my pearls to make one beautiful dress when I should be making dozens that will earn me a proper spot, even if it is just another part of some grand, bland machine.”

        I was listening to her, but somepony's words were rising to the surface, and that pony was me.  I thought of my journal entries—so many identical to this one that I'm writing right now.  If I wasn't writing for myself, what kind of exposure could I actually hope to achieve, assuming that a pony had the blessed sight to see what I had enscribed?  Would it be a deep and thoughtful critique, or an errant flip through the pages before those same hooves tossed the text back into a dusty pile of all of yesterday's tragedies?  Even a song can move a soul only so far ahead until a different tune shoves that spirit in the other direction like a gale force wind.  How, then, does a pony build a proper sail to navigate the storms of this saturated world?

        “Maybe...” I spoke.  “Maybe... you're still just waiting for proper exposure.”  I glanced up at her.  “It's a long wait, sure, but that doesn't mean it won't come to you, Miss Rarity.  Perhaps the day will come when you will rise up—like Silver Seams has—only you won't settle for being commonplace.  You won't make the same mistakes she did.”

        “Hmmm... Mistakes?”  Rarity smiled.  “Miss Seams has achieved everything I've ever wished I could, and did she get there by making mistakes?  If that's true, then I obviously need to make such transgressions myself.”  She took a deep breath.  “But I have never, ever worked that way.  Nor would I wish to.”

        I said, “I'm guessing life is cruel to perfectionists.”

        “I've never blamed life for the world's cruelty,” Rarity muttered.  “Only ignorance.”  She smiled painfully my way.  “And I would hate to be such a transgressor, especially before a mercifully patient and gracious mare such as yourself.  Please, do forgive my self-absorbed ramblings, Miss Heartstrings, and tell me how I may be of service to you today.”

        My heart immediately fell down to the bottommost part of my gut.  “Oh.  Oh... Uhm...”  My saddlebag weighed as though it was full of cemetery gravestones.  “You know what?  We had a delightful conversation.  I think I got exactly what I needed from this visit—”

        “Come now, do not let my passionate goings-ons frighten you away, dear,” she said softly.  “My best friends have occasionally labeled me a 'drama queen,' and they would more than occasionally be correct.  Please, tell me what you came here for.  You have my full and undivided attention.  You've earned it.”

        I gulped, shifting guiltily like a young colt who had just killed a bird with a slingshot.  I fiddled telekinetically with my saddlebag and avoided her gaze as I stammered forth, “I came here... I-I came here because... uhm... I heard that you were good with enchanting gemstones.”  I should have given her the last two stones.  Instead, something sincere inside me only produced one.  “And I very desperately need to have this imbued with magic once again.  I.... uhm... I've been told that you're the best in town.  I didn't want to settle for less.”

        Rarity's response was a sincere breath and a nod of her head.  “Nopony should ever settle for less, darling.”

        I immediately winced.  “But.  But you're busy with the scarf and I'm sure you've got other dresses to make and—”

        “Miss Heartstrings.”

        “I'll understand if you're just not up to it—”

        “Miss Heartstrings.”  She grabbed the rock with a forced charge of telekinesis.  Standing up straight, she gave me a placid grin as she trotted towards the necessary equipment beside the window.  “Enchanting gemstones is just one of many ways I make a living.  Ever since I came to Ponyville, I've done just that—living.  But that doesn't mean I can't do it gracefully, and proudly.  Please, let me be of service to you.”

        I reached a hoof towards her from afar, but it was as if she was slipping away from me.  What broke my heart was that I realized she had no other place to slip away to.  This was her home as much as it was mine.  She was as much a prisoner, and yet she wasn't cursed.  Or was she?

        Just what pony isn't cursed, come to think of it?  I hadn't put that much philosophical thought into the idea until then, until I saw Rarity going through the motions, being reborn as “Sapphire Sight,” setting the lens up before the window and capturing the sunlight like a piston would be powered by steam.  In the end, I would give her three golden bits and she would give me a smile, but I suddenly no longer knew which was more jaded.

        Once I had left Rarity's presence, she would forget that I ever existed.  But she would not forget her troubles.  Her concerns were as real as oxygen, and she depended on them just as desperately.  What place was it of mine to try and convince her otherwise, even if I had the power to do so?  Fame means nothing to me, but that is simply my curse.  How much worse is it to have an opportunity that is never realized, though the potential is always there?

        Was she making a mountain out of a molehill?  Did society think of her as just any other contributing part of the machine, assuming it thought of her at all?  I wondered if there was any pony qualified to do proper, unbiased research on a soul's notoriety, and then I realized that such a proper pony was me.

        “Rarity?  Yeah, I know her.  She's the pony who operates the carousel besides the Ponyville fairgrounds, right?  Wait—Huh?  You mean to tell me it's not an actual carousel?  Yeesh.  What's with all the flippin' tents around that side of town, then?”

        “Hmmm... Miss Rarity... Miss Rarity...  Oh!  I remember her!  White coat?  Bluish mane?  I listened to her perform once at a dance party in Town Hall last Summer Sun Celebration.  What's her call sign again?  ‘DJ-P0N3?’”

        “She's a tailor, right?  She puts together dresses and stuff?  Or is that the unicorn with the streak in her hair?  Whatever.  One of them lives in a tree.  Can I go now?  I'm late for a lunch in downtown.”

        “I vaguely remember something about a unicorn who nearly died at the Best Young Fliers Competition in Cloudsdale.  Hey, did you hear what our neighborhood weather flier Rainbow Dash did on that day?  She produced a brilliant sonic rainboom—right in front of Princess Celestia!  Swooosh!  Kablaam!  Yeah!  She saved—like—three entire members of the Wonderbolts at the same time too!  Talk about your fifteen minutes of awesome!  Heh!”

        “Isn't that the mare who sounds like a vampire and visits Aloe and Lotus' Day Spa twice a week?”

        “Why, I go to Carousel Boutique all the time!  You're telling me that she owns the place?  My goodness, I always thought she was just an intern.  I mean, what unicorn at that young age doesn't inherit a business like that?  Do you get what I'm saying?”

        “I know that there's a white unicorn who's one of the rumored Elements of Harmony.  Y'know—cuz supposedly the Elements are no longer sacred objects like in olden times, but they've instead been fused with the spirits of living ponies.  All I know is that one of them is Loyalty and she's a white unicorn.  Or maybe it was the Element of Beauty.  Hmmm... Why're you asking me this again?”

        “Scram, lady.  I'm trying to eat my sandwich here.”

        “Come to think of it, we had a fashion show here in Ponyville once.  It was almost a year ago.  Some fancy schmancy art critic from Canterlot came for the whole event.  Wouldn't you know it?  It was all just some practical joke on the poor schmuck.  It had to have been!  The dresses that were on display were gaudy as all get-out!  I swear, I've never seen a posh know-it-all get so engraged.  Heh—Wait, what?  Why does this come to mind?  Cuz the whole dang prank was this 'Rarity's' idea, wasn't it?  I mean, that's why you're asking around about her, right?  It's about time karma caught up with the mare.”

        “Ew—like—why would I go shopping at some overpriced hole-in-the-wall place on the far east side of town?  I totally—like—do all my shopping at Rich's Threads.  After all, that's where all the popular fillies go.  Leave Carousel Boutique to the upstart snobs who run the place!”

        “How dare you!”

        I glanced over from where I stood inside Sugarcube Corner, interviewing a pair of young mares with pastel, permed manes.  The two gazed in the same direction, looking bored beyond all measure.

        The author of the last exclamation immediately wilted upon our combined glance.  “Uhm... Not that I have anything against you as ponies... but...”  Fluttershy took a deep breath and summoned the same frown that had empowered her voice just seconds go.  “But Rarity is not an upstart snob!  She's a talented pony with a gift for making beautiful dresses and she most definitely does not overcharge her customers!  What's more, she's my friend, and she deserves more respect than that!”

        “Heh... Schyeaaah...” One of the fillies rolled her painted eyes.  “So—like—if that was true, then how come I never knew her name until now?”

        “Yeah...”  The other joined in, glaring Fluttershy's way.  “If she's so great, shouldn't she be hanging out in Trottingham and not hickville-central?”

        “Only figures you're defending her cuz you're her friend.”  The first one scoffed once more.  “Heh—Lemme guess.  She totally gives you discounts just to say nice things about her.”

        “I... I...”  Fluttershy's blue eyes quivered.  “That's not true!  Rarity—” She gulped.  “She just—”

        “Heh.  Just what I thought.”  The two fillies marched off, their bright tails swishing in unison.  “Come on, let's ditch these lame-o's.  The smoothies totally stink here anyways.”

        “Like—omigoddess—I was about to say the same exact thing!”

        “No way!  We should sooooo take notes about it!”

        The two left, along with their perfume.  I glanced crookedly at their absence, cleared my throat, and pivoted slowly to face Fluttershy.  “So... You say that Rarity is a talented pony and deserves respect?”

        “Mmmm...” Fluttershy was obviously still reeling from the duo's heartless words.  She hid behind a satiny lock of pink hair and turned to walk towards the far end of the semi-crowded eatery.  “Never mind.  Forget I said anything.  It was rude of me to have interrupted.”

        “But what if I wanted to hear more of what you had to say?”

        She merely walked away, slowly, like a rain drop sliding downhill.

        I shrugged, adjusting the sleeves of my hoodie.  “Oh well, then.  I guess I've learned all I needed to know about that upstart snob at the Carousel Boutique.”

        “Nnnnngh—” I saw the tiniest hint of gnashing teeth, and soon she was aiming an angelic frown at me once more.  “You take that back right now!”  A blink, a fluttering of her lashes, then a deep blush:  “Erm... if you don't mind, that is...”

        I smiled her way.  “So now you want to defend her again?”

        “I...”  She shuddered and brushed away a few bright bangs from before her blue eyes.  “I never thought that I would have to.  Rarity has always had a good reputation.  At least I've always thought so.”  She glanced up at me, and the smile that came from her was as soft and gentle as her voice, and twice as sincere.  “Just like anypony, you have to get to know her to understand her.  She's the most generous, elegant, thoughtful, and giving mare that I know.”

        “The question that's on my mind...”  I leaned against a counter of glass-cased desserts as I gazed at Fluttershy.  “Is whether or not Rarity is satisfied with that?”

        “Uhm... Satisfied with what?”

        “With somepony having to get to know her before she can understand her.  Rarity's an artist, yes?”

        “Oh.  Most definitely...”

        “You say that just because you're her friend—?”

        “N-no!” Fluttershy exclaimed, her wings flexing in time with her exhalation.  “Her works speak for themselves!  She's designed hundreds of dresses for all kinds of ponies, from local celebrities to visiting diplomats to close acquaintances!”

        “So then...”  I glanced towards the exit through which our two “companions” had just exited.  “How is it that most ponies I ask know very little about her?”

        Fluttershy chewed on her bottom lip and looked away shamefully.

        I gave her a curious glance.  “Have I struck a bad chord?  I'm a musician.  So be honest with me, cuz I really hate doing that.”

        “Why... do you want to know so much about her?” Fluttershy gulped.  “About my dear friend Rarity?”

        I scratched my neck and weathered a wave of chills.  “What's your name?” I asked just to hear her say it herself.

        “Um... Fl-Fluttershy.”

        “Do you know your mother's name?”

        “Erm.  Yes.  Why is that important?”

        “Humor me, if you will.”

        “My mom's name is Windflicker.  She was born in Stratopolis.”

        “And your grandmother's name.  What about hers?”

        “Fluttersky.  I was... m-more or less named after her.”

        “Her mother had a name too, yes?  Your great grandmother?”

        “Uhm...”  Fluttershy had to think about that for a second.  “Silvercloud... I think.  Oh dear, I feel terrible for not remembering immediately...”

        “And...” I leaned forward slightly.  “What of your great-great grandmother?  Do you know her name?”

        Fluttershy drew a blank.  Her cheeks were rosy as she fidgeted before the unexpected inquisition.

        “If you must know, I don't remember my great-great grandmother's name either,” I murmured.  Then gulped.  “Nor do I recall my great grandmother's.  So you're one point above me, Miss Fluttershy, if it's of any consolation.”

        “What... uhm... What are you attempting to prove with this?”

        “Rarity is here.  Unlike your ancestors and mine, she's alive.  She lives among us, barely a few walls away from where other ponies dwell.  Why is it that so few of them know her name, even when she does so much to establish a reputation for herself?”  I adjusted the collar of my hoodie and murmured towards the walls.  “And just how many generations will it take to forget she ever had a name to begin with?”

        “To be honest, I've never thought of it in that detail.”

        I nodded slowly.  “Neither have I.  Not until lately.  I have long... taken such things for granted.  Now I can't afford to do anything but obsess over it.  Only, I believe, Miss Rarity has made it the focus of her whole entire life, and just what has it earned her?”

        “You obviously care about her to have analyzed the matter this much,” Fluttershy said woefully.  “I only wish I was as considerate.”

        I gave her a curious glance.  “Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you her friend?  What could make you think that way about yourself?”

        “Because...” Fluttershy struggled to push the words out.  “Because when I should have been there for her in the past, I failed.  And I wasn't the only one.  All the ponies she depended on failed her as well.”

        “I don't see how that could be.”

        “It's true,” Fluttershy murmured. “For this year’s Grand Galloping Gala, Rarity and myself and five others were all invited to attend the royal ceremony.  In honor of the occasion, Rarity took it upon herself to make us all dresses, free of charge.  I've never seen a pony do something so generous before or since.  But after she had put so much time and effort into the gowns, we... uhm... we didn't show any gratitude.”

        “No?”

        “Mmmm... no.”  She guiltily shook her head.  “Not at first, at least.  We had our own ideas of what our gowns should have looked like.  Any self-respecting seamstress would have quit on us all right there and then.  But not Rarity.  Her desire to make us happy was bigger than her desire to express herself, which she had every right to do.  She sewed the dresses we wanted to have made, but they were simply horrible.  We were just too blind and selfish to realize it.  And then... mmnngh...”  She winced as if a wave of nausea was passing through her frail body.  “There was this fashion show, and those terrible dresses were put on display for the likes of Canterlot's own Hoity Toity.  It was Rarity's one chance for the spotlight, a moment she had always dreamed of, and we had ruined it for her.”

        “That...”  I bit my lip and helplessly nodded.  “That sounds horrible.”

        “It was.  She was devastated.  But we all tried to make it up for her.  We finished the dress that she was making for herself to wear at the Gala.  Then, after grabbing Hoity Toity's attention, we were able to perform a second fashion show—a private one—and he got to see all of Rarity's marvelous designs for the first time.  He was impressed, and he ended up paying her a great deal to have her line of fashion sold in his boutique at Canterlot.”

        “Huh...”  I smiled warmly.  “Well, there ya go.  Friends to the end.  Sounds like you paid her back proper.”

        “Paid her back?”  Fluttershy gave me a sad, wilted expression.  “Oh, if only that were true.  Don't you see?  The damage was done.  Even if Hoity Toity was impressed, did that really mean anything for Rarity's fashion career?”  She gulped hard and shut her eyes shamefully.  “Yes, she earned a lot of bits from the private show.  But what had happened in town ruined any chance she had of coming public in this part of Equestria.  She's sold hundreds of dresses in her line of work throughout Canterlot, but right here—in her home—where her reputation matters the most, she's had her chance to be in the spotlight... and it's gone.  Gone forever.”

        I stared around the lengths of Sugarcube Corner, entrenched in thought.  Finally, I couldn't help but ask, “Then why does she stay here, if her opportunity had come and gone for her elsewhere?”

        “I wish I knew.  I'm only glad that she's around because she's my friend and it fills me with joy to be in her presence.”  Fluttershy smiled painfully.  “Especially since it wouldn't be the last time we... erm, that is I put a dent in her dreams.”

        “How... H-how so?”

        “Something like that happened again,” Fluttershy once more avoided my gaze.  “A famous photographer named Photo Finish came to town.  Rarity had an opportunity to show off her fashion, and she needed a model.  She chose me.  I was so honored, but then something unexpected happened.  Photo Finish focused entirely on me.  She paid no attention to Rarity's beautiful outfits whatsoever.  It was because of Rarity that any attention was paid to me in the first place.  I wasn't a huge fan of it, and it didn't last for long, but I was somewhat famous in modeling for a while.”

        “And in all that time, Rarity didn't receive an ounce of fame...”

        Fluttershy's voice was shaking somewhat as she spoke, “All that sweet mare wants to do in life is make her name known.  She wants to make beautiful things and have other ponies share in it.  And at least twice already, fame has passed her over.  You can even say three times, if you count her connections with Princess Celestia's star pupil.”

        “Twilight Sparkle...”

        “That's a name that is bound to go down in history,” Fluttershy remarked.  “And I know Twilight.  Just like myself, fame is not important to her, and to Rarity—our mutual friend—it means everything.  And she has given everything, over and over again, with a generous heart that amazes me each and every day.”

        I took a deep breath and laid a gentle hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder.  “I envy you, in a lot of ways.”

        “Me?”  Fluttershy blinked awkwardly.  “Why?”

        I smiled.  “Because you're close friends with a living fountain of blessings such as Rarity.”

        “I know that.  But then there's one thing that I can't understand.”  She entreated me with soft eyes, as if begging for an answer to an impossible question.  “Why is it, in this world, that a fountain of blessings seems to be so terribly cursed?”

        I didn't know either.

        But I was almost willing to ask Rarity herself.

        “Hello,” I spoke under the resonating tone of the Carousel Boutique's entrance bell the next day.  “My name's Lyra Heartstrings, and I was wondering...”  I froze in place, blinking, as several flailing bits of fabric flew past me like silken comets.  “Uhm... Is something wrong?”

        “Oh, what ever could be wrong?!”  Rarity grumbled.  She was a purple-capped volcano waiting to burst, or else she had burst several hours ago.  Her voice was as hot as her bloodshot eyes as she fiercely rummaged through the messy sea of sewing materials that the center of the Boutique had become.  “Could it be wrong that I don't have the lace I need to finish a dress order that I should have tackled a week ago?!  Could it be wrong that I've put my trivial problems ahead of everything else in life, such as my duty to my clients?  Could it be that I swore I bought some yellow lace just three days ago, and now it seems to have grown hooves and galloped away?!”

        “Er...”  I gulped nervously and stood still as an iceberg as she darted all around me.  “Would you... Would you like some help with—?”

        “With what?!  I put myself into this situation!  I should be the one to pull myself out of it!  As if I haven't allowed myself enough distractions already.”  She paused briefly, knee-deep in a hill of fabric, to sigh and groan my way.  “Ma'am, I am exceedingly sorry for this immature show I seem to be putting on, but I'm afraid you've caught me at a bad time.  I'm behind with several projects, and though I'm willing to take orders, I doubt very much that I can make my services available to you anytime soon.”

        “And I c-completely understand!” I said, shoving a smile past my chills in an attempt to solace her.  “I just heard about your work around town, Rarity, and I wanted to see—”

        “Oh!  I'm surprised the local gossip had a breath to spare about me!”  She smiled bitterly as she dug through another messy mountain of unkempt materials.  “They do seem to be all too eagerly enthralled in covering every inch that the genius hooves of Silver Seams have covered!”

        “Silver Seams?”  I leaned precariously on the edge of multiple responses, before deciding to play blissful ignorance.  “You mean to say that she was here?  In Ponyville?”

        I had forgotten how much Rarity hated ignorance.  “Hah!  But of course, she no longer is!  But that's not enough to silence the sound of her name in the air!  At least not enough to hide the fact that she didn't leave for her trip to Trottingham empty-hoofed!”

        “She...”  I blinked awkwardly.  It was obvious that Rarity's ire was steering this whole conversation.  I was merely the rudder.  “She didn't?”

        “Why?  Haven't you heard?”  Rarity spun to face me, slapping her hooves onto the tile floor as deadly parentheses to her next exclamation.  “She bought an entire wardrobe of fall clothing from Rich's Threads before boarding the train heading east!  She even paid the store owner a generous commission!”  Her eyes lit up like twin meteors of murderous blue.  “Here's something nopony has likely heard!  She paid the Carousel Boutique a visit too!  What did she have to donate me?  Only a purse full of yawns and two hours of autobiographical anecdotes that I couldn't possibly write a book about!  She barely even glanced at my work, even the dresses that she pretended to be interested in!  And now she's leaving Trottingham with half of the inventory from Rich's Threads!  Bah!  I swear, all that was holy and decent in this world went into the grave with Starswirl the Bearded!”

        “I... uhm...”  I shifted nervously.  “That sounds rather... odd.”  I cleared my throat and braved a glance at her.  “I've never been to Rich's Threads.  Is the fashion establishment anything to shake a stick at?”

        “Fashion Establishment?  Snkkt—”  Rarity all but spat her tongue out.  “Fashion Establishment?!”  She marched halfway towards me and pointed a vicious hoof.  “Darling, let me tell you something about the stallion who owns that place.  Filthy Rich and his entire family became rich by selling apples—apples that they didn't even grow!  He's an accountant attached to a gallon of hair gel—albeit a good one, but nothing more!  He knows about as much concerning fashion as a minotaur would recognize a can of potpourri!  He'd sooner dedicate a department of his store to dresses as he would to apples or to bear traps or... or... Celestia-knows-what-else!”

        Rarity seethed and strangled an invisible neck in front of her grinding teeth.

        “And... Silver... Seams... Nnnngh...”  She clenched her eyes tightly shut and exhaled hard.  “No doubt she dredged him of all his feminine attire just so she can haul the gargantuan bounty all the way to Trottingham, disassemble the gowns to their base materials, and have the means to lazily slap together some uninspired, gaudy, but altogether successful line of autumnal pish-posh!  Because, after all, that's what the art of the dress is anymore!  A heterogenous assortment of scraps that we have the divine authority to pilfer and reintroduce into the world as new, though it's painted with all the vomitous colors of yesterday's garbage!”

        At the end of such a tirade, she indeed looked close to retching, so she sat herself on the edge of the stage beneath a familiar white dress in order to collect her breaths.

        “Nnnngh... It just maddens me so.”  She fanned herself with a dainty hoof as she mumbled.  “All it is anymore is a process, a factory proceeding of mundane proportions.  We have it within ourselves to do better... to be better.  What is the point in expression when what is popular is expressionless?”  She gulped and gazed down at the floor, her mane bordering either side of her face in frazzled, purple tributaries.  “I always wanted to make a difference.  With this shop, with my trade, I wanted to share my inspiration with all of Equestria.  Then somepony like Silver Seams comes along, and yet again I encounter a soul who has risen as far as I want to rise, and just what does that make her?  What does that make what I desire to be?”  She closed her eyes and ran two hooves over her face.  “Mmmmmmfff... I swear, I wonder if there's any point in trying.  All of this... this taste.  I am sick to death of this taste...”

        I stood in the silence that followed, afraid to break it, as if the shattering was something neither of us would have been able to withstand.  I realized that it was my place to say something, where it was nopony else's.  My voice was something that would only be forgotten.  I've come to expect my echoes, however, to be something immaculate.

        “Perhaps what matters, Miss Rarity, is that you have a taste of your own?”  I said as I marched over and gently brushed a length of the pearlescent dress' skirt.  I smiled softly and spoke, “In a bland world, somepony is bound to be attracted to your sweetness.”

        “Hmmm... a noble dream,” she murmured, then lowered her hooves.  She gave a frown to the same dress that I was smiling at.  “But how long must I dream it, too afraid to wake up?”  She gazed up at me.  “Would I find myself turning into an old mare by the time my ambitions finally paid me back?  I shudder to imagine my genius then, a soul with all of its inspiration sapped from me, and so that I would walk in the shadow of those like Silver Seams and Hoity Toity because I too will have become too sensitive to brilliance.”

        “I... I wouldn't know about that...”

        “Neither can I pretend to.”  She stood up and gazed dismissively down at the dress like a gray-maned creature I had once seen.  “I tell myself that I think of the future, but dreaming of it is not the same thing.  I only have so many years of my youth left.  It's time that I decided to make the best of them.  For too long have I chased the flighty streams of an enchanted filly.  The likes of Hoity Toity and Filthy Rich have found their successful places in this industry.”  She gulped in resolution.  “It is high time that I found mine.”

        “But Rarity...”  I gazed at her.  “This dress!  It's... It's beautiful!  It's full of love and devotion and... and...”  I took a deep breath and gazed at a fleeting color bouncing off the multiple rings of pearls.  “It deserves more than to be forgotten.”

        “And, indeed, it will find it's place in somepony's memories forever.”  Rarity's nostrils flared.  “For the right price.  After all, it's the way of things.”  She turned towards me, a deadpan ghost of somepony that had once giggled like a songbird.  “Might I, perchance, assist you in such a purchase, today?  I assure you, my dear, that though I may be a tempestuous personality, I am nothing but a perfectionist in my services.”

        “I... I...”  I gazed at her, at the dress, then at my saddlebag.  I choked on something briefly, then murmured towards the walls.  “Actually, I wasn't wanting to buy or order anything...”

        “Oh?”

        “Uhm... As a matter of fact...”  I gazed at the dress.  Something within me bubbled, something that had—on occasion—deeply desired to mimic the crackling blazes of the fireplace back at my cabin.  I needed to know that there were things in this world capable of rising from the ashes.  The only thing real about “defeat” is the letters comprised in making up that word.  “I was... I was sent to deliver a message?”

        “A message?”

        “Yes.”  I gulped, trembling with the realization of what I was suddenly planning to do.  “From some pegasus I met in Sugarcube Corner, a very sweet mare with butterflies for a cutie mark.”

        “Fluttershy?” Part of Rarity's face inescapably brightened.  Her eyes blinked.  “What could be so important that she was incapable of informing me face-to-face?”

        “She says that she... That she needs a sweater made for her pet hedgehog back at her house... uhm... because the poor thing is sick.”

        “Pet hedgehog...?”  Rarity scrunched her face.  She scratched her chin in deep thought.  “Odd.  I wasn't aware that she was in possession of a hedgehog.”

        “Uhm.  She said that she found it just this morning.  The thing must have fallen into the river overnight, and she thinks it's suffering pneumonia.  If she doesn't have a sweater or blanket made for it soon—”

        “Say no more.”  Rarity waved a hoof, sighed, then gave a tired smile.  “The poor darling must be sick with worry.  I'm more worried about her than the little animal, truth be told.  Everything else can wait for as much as I'm concerned.  Thank you for delivering the message, Miss...”

        “Heartstrings.  And... uhm... my pleasure.”  I gulped and smiled nervously at her.  “I don't suppose you have the makings for knitting a sweater in all this mess?”

        “Ugh!”  Rarity tossed her head and marched towards the far end of the room.  “Don't remind me!  I'm struggling with a dress order involving a great deal of satin and lace.  If I just calmed down and opened my eyes, I'm sure I'd find what I'm missing.  No doubt your selflessness in listening to me helped with that some.”  She next marched completely out of view, her voice trailing from a deep closet adjacent to the main foyer.  “Now... please, Celestia, tell me I'm not missing my knitting materials either!  Bah!  This whole Silver Seams business has me all flank over elbows, I swear!”

        As she rambled on, I bit my lip and inched towards the dress of pearls.  Only when I was satisfied that she wasn't immediately trotting back, I opened the lid to my saddlebag...

        That afternoon, I expected Rarity's expression to be full of anger the first moment I saw it.  Instead, it was full of shock—immense, numbing shock.  That's how I knew that I had achieved what I wanted.

        It was hard to see her face at first, not so much that she was so far away, but because of all the other sensory details I was too busy juggling at that very moment.  As she trotted across the center of downtown Ponyville towards where I stood, I drew my attention away from her pale gaze, away from the bright crimson sunset casting a spotlight on me, away from the chorus of crickets accompanying my strings into the edge of night, and finally away from the dozens upon dozens of awestruck pony faces forming a solid ring around me.  I telekinetically plucked each of my lyre strings in precision, grabbing the delightful melodies of the past and repainting the living present with them, in an attempt to form something that was twice as inspiring as it was graceful.

        Beneath the chords, I heard my audience, and I reveled in their sound—for they were Rarity's audience too.

        “Have you ever heard anything so beautiful?”

        “She's playing 'Platinum's Ode to Union,' I do believe, but I've never heard it performed so delicately before!”

        “When was the last time you heard something like this in Ponyville?”

        “Shhh—Please!  I want to listen!”

        “I can hardly listen!  I'm too amazed by that dress she's wearing!  Where did she find such a regal garment?”

        “Are those real pearls?  Those are remarkable!”

        “Oh, how fitting!  It was Princess Platinum's royal birthday only a few days ago...”

        “And here I thought you could only witness the likes of this in Canterlot!”

        “Brilliant.  Simply brilliant, I tell you.”

        “And that dress!  Did she have that tailored?”

        “Don't be absurd!  That gown must belong to royalty!”

        “Who is that mare?”

        “I've no idea!  She just trotted out into the open here and started playing!”

        “I must ask her where she got that marvelous dress!  I swear, it's made my whole evening...”

        From the corner of my vision, I could see Rarity's purple mane bouncing as she tossed her gaze left and right, her jaw dropping further and further towards the ground with each subsequent murmur of awe from the crowd.  As she tried to scrounge an explanation from her stupor, a soft yellow shape trotted up and stood beside her.

        “Oh!  My goodness, Rarity!  Isn't that—?”

        “Yes, Fluttershy.  It's... It's the dress that went missing a few hours ago!  I was on my way to the police station to report a theft, but now...”  She gulped.  “My stars...”

        “Do you think that unicorn must have stolen—?”

        “Shh!  Fluttershy, dear!  Will you listen to that?”

        “Huh?  Oh.  It is very nice music.  'Platinum's Ode to Union,' I think...”

        “No no no—To the ponies!”  Rarity hissed.  “Do you hear them?”

        Both friends leaned into the crowd, their ears pricking to the murmurs that continued to form a backdrop to my relentless symphony.

        “I swear, it's as though that dress was crafted out of the sea foam of Blue Valley's shores!”

        “Could it be a seapony import?”

        “Are you daft?  They're a myth!”

        “That gown is too gorgeous to be real, if you ask me.”

        “It fits the performance so well.  It's like Hearth's Warming's come early.”

        “Heeheehee...”

        “Tell me, does this unicorn take bits?”

        “Or her dressmaker for that matter...?”

        I inhaled every word I could hear.  I stood with my eyes shut, smiling meditatively, as I finished the last few notes of the song.  Only when I was finished did I open my eyes, and when I did, my gaze was locked on Rarity's.  I gave her my full attention, all the while the crowd's applause broke the crisp advent of night.  I let my teeth show through my curved lips before giving a graceful curtsy, then resting the lyre down beside my saddlebag.

        “Bravo!  Bravo!”

        “Magnificent performance, young lady!”

        “It's been a long, long time since I heard the 'Ode to Union' in its entirety, and that was by far the best solo I've heard!”

        “Tell us, please, are you from Canterlot?  Are you representing one of the noble houses?”

        “Before you answer that, tell us—where did you get that marvelous dress?”

        The crowd laughed from the sheer joy electrifying the air.  I let my giggles join the chorus, then bowed my head.

        “I may be dressed royally, but that's only because royal attention was given to the making of this outfit.”  I stared across the crowd and pointed with a hoof.  “Why... there the seamstress is!  None other than Carousel Boutique's own Rarity!  It was she who made this gown.  After all, was there any doubt?”

        The entire crowd spun in two halves to gawk at her, as if they had melted down the center from the sheer path of my gesture.  Rarity nearly stumbled back, stunned by the forest of bright eyes suddenly assaulting her.  Fluttershy blushed beet red and immediately marched away as a fresh throng of ecstatic ponies surrounded her fashionista friend.

        “Rarity!  I should have known!”

        “A pony with your taste wouldn't have settled for less!”

        “Good to know that you're putting your heart and soul into your crafting still.”

        “Yes, Ponyville could sure use more of that—All of Equestria, for that matter!”

        “Oh, please!  Please tell me that you have more pearls left in your shop!”

        “We absolutely need to have matching dresses like that for the Trottingham Garden Party!”

        “Oh!  And Nightmare Night!  I've always wanted to dress as Princess Platinum!  Surely you have it within you to make something just as beautiful as this marvelous ensemble before us!”

        “How appropriate to showcase your work with a performance of 'Ode to Union'.  It makes me feel as though we've gone back in time.”

        “Yes.  Such beautiful music to go along with a beautiful dress!”

        “Please—tell us—are you accepting commissions?”

        “Do you and this musician work together, Miss Rarity?”

        She bit her lip and slowly spun to meet all of the entranced faces.  Her body was trembling noticeably, but there was an undeniable sparkle in her eyes.  “I... erm... Eheh... That is to say... uhm...”  She glanced over the many heads and manes until her vision locked with mine.  “I'm... just as surprised at this as you all are.”  She gulped.  “It's... funny how spontaneous inspiration can be, yes?”

        The group chuckled.  Fluttershy smiled with pride.  And I...

        I was alive.

        “Seriously!  I had no idea that he had stolen the gown!” I exclaimed.  It was an hour later and we were both trotting into her Boutique, alone.  The world outside the windows had grown dim and purple.  I knew I had very little time left to “wrap things up,” but I was convinced that I had done all that I needed to do.  “Do forgive my naivete, Miss Rarity,” I disrobed from the dress slowly, careful not to add so much as a wrinkle to its unblemished lengths.  “I get carried away sometimes while I'm on vacation like I am now.  When a pony offers me a dress this gorgeous for such a generous price, I'm usually wise enough to think twice on the matter.  Unfortunately, I'm a long ways from Canterlot, and I think I left my good sense back there.  Heeheehee!”

        “Oh, I understand the feeling quite well, Miss... Heartstrings, was it?”

        “Mmmhmmm.”

        “On my first trip to Appleloosa, I nearly engorged myself on the general store's supply of cactus nectar toffee.  It's something that my friends and I seldom wish to recollect.”

        “Heeheehee—Yeah!” I gracefully finished disentangling myself from the garment and hoofed it to her.  “I can only imagine.”

        She gently took the dress, levitating upwards in translucent telekinesis.  Her face was calm and unemotional as she hummed and asked, “Could you describe this stallion again?  The ruffian you claim to have peddled this to you in the streets behind town hall?”

        “Mmmmm...”  I pretended to think hard, my eyes scanning the ceiling of the shop.  “He was short, stubby.  A pegasus, I think.  One of his wings was molting.  Yellow coat, I believe.  A sickly color.”

        “It can be, on occasion,” Rarity flippantly droned.  She hung the dress neatly over the body of a mannequin.  She spoke without facing me, “And just how many bits did he take from you?”

        “Oh, you won't believe this, but—three hundred bits!  Isn't that insane?”  I rolled my eyes and gestured dramatically.  “Dear Luna, if my parents knew, they'd kill me!   Ahem.  I'm just sorry that it all turned out to be the result of a pathetic robbery.  The stallion said that he bought this gown from 'Lady Rarity's Boutique, in the east side of town.'  Nowhere did he even bother telling the truth: that he outright stole the thing.”

        “He must be a rather fastidious robber,” Rarity said.  “We both owe him for keeping the dress in good shape, at least.”  She finally glanced my way.  “No doubt you'll wish to pursue a means of retrieving your bits back.”

        “Eh...” I waved my hoof and made a face.  “My parents have blown their noses on twice as much as three hundred bits before.  Teehee—How else did you think I got through Canterlot music school?”

        “And quite a remarkable talent you have there, Miss Heartstrings.”

        “Eh, it's a hobby.”  I then grinned widely at her.  “But, hey!  It worked out for us both in the end, didn't it?”

        “I'm afraid you're going to have to be more obvious, dear.”

        “Why, that crowd I gathered!”  I gestured out the door with a drunken grin.  “To be honest, I was just wanting to show off the dress I just got...”

        “Did you now...?”

        “But I had no idea that I'd get nearly three dozen ponies willing to listen to my performance!  I'm telling you what, Miss Rarity, your dress is something else!  I've never gotten that much attention before!”

        “Truly?”

        “Yeah.  It felt like cheating in a way.  Seriously!  I owe it all to you and your dress.”

        “Hmm-hmm-hmm...”  She chuckled breathily, trotted around to face me, and planted a pair of hooves on my shoulders.  “Miss Heartstrings, sit with me, if you would, darling.”

        I blinked at her, my mouth frozen in the middle of trying to reply.  I felt my heart beating oddly, as if I was missing a chord for the first time that evening.  Nervously, I did as she was told.  I felt like I was having time-out with my mother.

        As Rarity spoke, I soon found out I wasn't that off.  “My dear, no robber with any form of self-respect would steal a work of art like mine and sell it for anything less than two thousand bits.”

        I gulped, and resumed smiling as plastically as before.  “Well, uhm, maybe he was... uh... d-desperate!  Yeah!  That's why we have criminals in the first place, right?  Some ponies are in such need for money right away, that they'll sell just about anything!”

        “It would have been far easier for such a thug to have broken through the window of a grocery store overnight and grabbed himself a bite to eat.”  She glanced out the window.  “As a matter of fact, Ponyville is farm country.  My friend Applejack tells me that she has her fruit nabbed off her very own orchards all the time.”

        “But... Maybe...”  I gnawed on my lip.  I was losing grip of this situation at a frightening plummet; my brain just wasn't ready to accept it.  “Maybe he wasn't all that bright—”

        “It would have to be quite the mental affliction for somepony to ignore the value of so many natural pearls lying in his possession.  If such a pony was expert enough to grab that dress from my store, he... or she would have made a year's worth of profit by placing the outfit on the Manehattan black market.”

        I tried to say something else, but my mouth was dry.  It was hours after I had done the unthinkable, and only then was I starting to feel the initial waves of horrid guilt.

        Thankfully, Rarity's gentle voice lulled my throbbing pulse into a tranquil stream.  “You strike me as quite a resourceful, intelligent unicorn, Miss Heartstrings.  This afternoon, I came into this very room after searching for something.  What it was that I was looking for, I can no longer recall.  All I know is that my latest dress was suddenly missing, and I had no proper explanation for where it could have gone or who could have taken it... until now.”

        I gazed down at the floor between us.  I kneaded my hooves against the tile as I felt the first waves of chills hit me that night.  “Miss Rarity, I won't judge you for any of the action you're about to take.  But stop for a moment.  Stop for a moment and think about what happened out in the center of town.”

        Even without looking, I could tell she was making a strange face.  “What about the center of town?”

        I looked back into her gaze.  I couldn't tell if her eyes were glossy, or just my reflection.  “The ponies you live with, Rarity!  They love your dress!  They love the quality of it!  The meaning behind it!  The expert craft and work that went into it!”

        “Correction, darling.”  She smiled painfully.  “They adored your performance.  It just happened to have been painted in the colors that I had once made.”

        “But... But it's one in the same!”

        “No.”  She shook her head, gently exhaling.  “No it isn't.”

        “You... You just needed a way to get attention!”  I exclaimed, my breath becoming ragged as I too was becoming witness to my own desperation.  “Your dress is fantastic, Rarity!  All it needed was its time in the spotlight and... and...”

        “Shhh...” She gently caressed my shoulder with her hooves, staring positively into my soul as her words came out.  “I don't know who you are, Miss Heartstrings.  I don't know how you've heard of me, or what you presume to know about my artistry.  All I know is that you're a perfect stranger.  However, in spite of this, I do believe that there is one thing that we both have in common, and that's the knowledge of the fact that there is nothing left in that dress that I believe in anymore, save for a lesson on how to drive my talents down brighter, wider roads.”

        “But...”  I tried my best not to whimper.  I felt like a little foal as I sat before her.  I avoided her gaze, absorbing myself in the sight of the dress, as if trying to scoop the pearls up with my tears.  “But you deserve to be remembered, Miss Rarity.  You're such a talented, hard-working unicorn.  You deserve attention—”

        “It's never a matter of what we deserve, darling.”  She leaned towards me, stealing my gaze.  “It's a matter of what we earn.  Has anypony ever told you that I'm a living piece of the Elements of Harmony?”  She leaned back and spoke sagely.  “Destiny, for whatever reason, has designated me as the Element of Generosity.  I was instrumental in the exorcism of Nightmare Moon's taint from Princess Luna.  Ever since then, I've been privileged and blessed to be tied to the hip of Twilight Sparkle, the only unicorn in five long centuries who's been made the personal protege to Princess Celestia herself.  Don't you think that if I wanted to take advantage of my connections—and sealed myself a high seat in the Canterlot fashion scene—I would have easily done so by now?”

        I reflected quietly on that, a sore lump forming in my throat.

        “Hmmm...” She smiled at a warm thought.  “I would be lying if I said that I wasn't tempted in the past to do something so pathetic and shallow, but I like to think that I've become a better mare since then.”  She gazed sideways at me, her gaze gentle but piercing.  “There are many things in this world that I want.  Fame is one of them—even my closest friends will tell you that.  What they don't know, but should be obvious to everypony, is that a soul such as my own greatly desires to better herself as a lady and an artist, more than any other dream of mine that I pretend to call supreme.  You see, Miss Heartstrings, if I don't earn my place in this world, then the most I'll ever become is the queen of hollow victories.  No such matriarch of mundanity would ever deserve a tiara—heeheehee—no matter how sparkling.”

        I took a shuddering breath and gazed out the windows, at the darkening approach of night.  “I have that desire too, Rarity.  But... But I learned long ago that I can't pursue them so easily anymore.”  I sniffled and put on a brave face, albeit a deadpan one.  “I just wish I could help those around me shine where I can't.”

        “We're all born with the ability to shine, Miss Heartstrings.  But we can't force the spotlight on each other.  Otherwise, we'd just be dancing to an old, boring tune, conceived only once, but never allowed to blossom on its own.  And if there's anything I can't stand, it's a performance that doesn't earn itself an encore.”

        I gave the dress one last, forlorn glance.  It was a chuckle that escaped my lips, instead of a sob, as I painfully let forth, “I suppose some things in life can't stand to be re-enchanted.”

        “That's why I live to invent newer and prettier things.”  Rarity smiled.  “And so should you.”  I watched as she stood above me and paced across the way.  “I hate refusing gifts, especially ones so sincerely and passionately donated.”  She telekinetically picked up a black tarp and carried it back over to where the gown of pearls was residing.  “What you did today... what you tried to do today was daring, brash, yet altogether generous.  Which is why I'm not about to press charges for a theft that lasted the entirety of what would otherwise have been a boring afternoon.”  She hung the canvas material over the dress.  The room grew dimmer, so that her bright features suddenly stood out like polished ivory.  “I very much envy your talents, dear.  A dress is dazzling for an evening or two.  But music... gorgeous music... It lasts forever.  Oh, how I wish I could start over sometimes, and engage myself in an art that was... far more immortal.”

        I swallowed hard and tilted my head away so she couldn't see the tear rolling down my left cheek.  In my mind, I saw the smiling faces of listening ponies all around me, and they once again mimicked the dying ashes of a cabin fireplace.  “Don't envy too much, Miss Rarity, or else you'll find yourself doing nothing but st-starting over...”

        “Hmmm...”  She smiled softly my way.  “I shall remember that.”

        I dried my face and nodded.  “Somehow, I think you will...”

        We spoke of a few things as night fell.  We talked about gossip.  We talked about popular celebrities.  She told me the names of a few famous musicians she had met, and I once again cursed the stars for never having a chance to meet the legendary Octavia up close.  As the stars began to form, I decided to take my leave, or else risk the moon curtailing what had become a most gracious visit.

        “It's just as well.  I really do need to get to work,” Rarity said.  She had finished cleaning up the mess that an angry doppelganger of herself had left in the center of the Boutique hours earlier.  “This one dress I'm working on won't finish itself, after all.”

        I watched her trotting up to the half-made dress in question.  Lingering in the doorframe to the Boutique's exit, I exhaled the first wisps of vapor from my lips.  “Will you ever be done working, Miss Rarity?  Will you ever finish?”

        “That's up to the industry to decide,” she said.  The tone in her voice was threadbare, like so many materials gathering dust in the far corners of the place.  Perhaps she was talking to nopony all along.  “Hmmm... What does this one need?” Her voice rang in the direction of the gown.  “It's got lace.  It's got emerald.”  There rose a sigh across the room, colored with the pale kiss of moonlight.  “More ribbon...”

        The ringing bell above the door was deafening.

        It had been three weeks.  I felt like an archaeologist stumbling upon a sacred temple left abandoned for ages.  My heart actually sunk—instead of danced—when her singing voice spun across the morning light to welcome me.

        “Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where every garment is chic, unique, and magnifique.”

        “Hello, I'm...”  I bit my lip, hesitated, and exhaled.  “I'm just visiting in town.  I'm not looking for anything special.  But...”  I marched stiffly into the center of the place, already digging into my saddlebag.  I produced the last stone, raising the dull thing up like it was an errant piece of lint.  My head wouldn't stop hurting with the eighth elegy, but that morning I was too tired to cry.  “I was wondering if you were skilled in the arts of gem enchantment.  As you can see... uhm... this needs a lot of work.”

        “Here, let me take a look at it, dear.”  Rarity sashayed over from a jacket she was working on and took the gem from my grasp.  She adjusted the spectacles on her eyes and hummed to herself.  “Hmmm... Yes, it does seem as though this has been through quite a lot.  It's rather unusual that I get requests to re-enchant old rocks, but the day I can no longer bring luster back to a jewel is the day I retire.  Eh-heheheh...”

        “I... uhm... I'm sure you have plenty of more important things to be working on.”

        “Oh, nonsense!  It's a slow week.”  She rolled her eyes.  “Nothing to do but fiddle with a few drab sheets of wool and see if I can outdo the latest craze mailed in from Canterlot.  Ahem.  Honestly.”  She gave me the sweetest of smiles, and no less elegant.  “You are the absolute highlight of my morning.  Care to have a seat while I work?”

        “It depends.  How much do you think I have to give up?”

        “Why, when you put it like that, dear, I'm tempted to ask for a lock of your first-born's mane!  Eh-heh-heh-heh-Ehhhhh I don't know how Pinkie does it.”  She cleared her throat and marched over towards the metal brace positioned by the window.  “In all seriousness, about three bits will do.  This will only take but a moment.”

        “Much appreciated...”

        “Though I must say, I wish you would let me give you more time.”  She gazed up from where she was fixing the gem into place and focusing the sunlight through her containment field.  Her eyelashes battled like those of a fairy tale filly as she chirped forth, “You have a very utilitarian outfit there, darling.  But I must say it looks positively worn-in!  I have the good mind to fix you a new sweater, one that could warm the eyes of others while it warms you... if you catch my meaning.”

        “Thanks, but no thanks.  You're very generous, but I...”  I stopped immediately.  The dryness in my throat left me as I saw the jacket that Rarity had been working on.  I saw the fine seams woven intricately in floral designs across the pockets.  I saw the layers upon layers of fabric forming a mesh of beatific color blend.  It occurred to me—like a spontaneous burst of inspiration—that a pony with nothing to lose has everything to give.  It may not have been my destined time in the spotlight, but I wasn't about to back down from an idea so beautiful that I immediately knew it deserved an encore.  “Yes, please.”

        “Hmm?”  Rarity glanced up—somewhat surprised—from the menial task she was doing for me.  “I beg your pardon?”

        I looked towards her, smiling gently.  “Yes.  I would like it if you made me something new to wear.  Something warm... and fabulous.”

        Rarity blinked.  When her eyes reopened, they not only shined, they positively sparkled.  “Oh.  Oh, yes!  But of course!”  Her breaths were like cosmic bursts that carried her—skipping foalishly my way.  “Oh, it's been ages since I've made something for a mare with a green coat, especially one as bright and shiny as yours!  Hmmm—What about a new sweaterjacket, this time with a shiny gold seam running down the sides?  Or perhaps a fancy yellow scarf—Ooh!  But of course!  A gorgeous red sweater with amber bands to match your eyes!  It positively screams 'Hearth's Warming'!  Heeheehee—”  She suddenly clamped a pair of hooves over her lips.  “Oh!  My heavens, listen to me go on!  You... uhm... must have your own idea in mind, of course.”

        “No...” I breathed, slowly shaking my head.  “I couldn't possibly think up something as marvelous as you could.  Design whatever you want.”

        She gasped sharply, her features illuminating like the sun itself.  “Really?  Do you truly, truly mean it?”

        I grinned wide at her.  “Thrill me.”

        “—so I carried on and on quite melodramatically, insisting that the brazen canines had attempted comparing me to a mule.  I put up quite the show, if I do say so myself.  If it wasn't the act of deep horror that I was portraying, then perhaps it was the sheer volume of my whining voice that finally broke their brutish resolve.  They ceased their attempts to enslave me into jewel-finding, and by the time my dear friends had arrived to save the day, I had just about freed myself from those terrestrial ruffians' clutches.  Ahem—How do the sleeves feel?  Are they too tight?”

        “No, Miss Rarity,” I replied, sitting on a pedestal as she circled around me.  A sea of sewing utensils levitated all around her latest work of art, a bright and colorful sweater adorning my turquoise limbs.  “They're just perfect.  You got the measurements down right.”

        “Are you certain of that, darling?”  She tilted my forelimbs up and down, closely eyeing when and where the material of the sleeves grew taut.  “You haven't stopped shivering since I began.  Is the sweater not giving you enough insulation?  If so, I should fix that from the start before I let myself go with the aesthetics—”

        “Trust me.”  I smiled up at her as soon as her face moved into my peripheral vision.  “I'm going to be absolutely fine.  I'm loving this sweater already.”

        “Hmm... Well, that makes the both of us!”  She stifled a tiny squeal and began tightening the cuffs at the end of one sleeve.  “I haven't had a chance to work my talents this freely in ages!  I do apologize that it's taking so long.  Perfection and genius seldom tango when they can instead waltz.”

        “Take as much time as you need, Miss Rarity,” I said.  “You were going on about Diamond Dogs?”

        “Oh!  Yes.  Would you like to know a secret?”

        “Sure.  Why not?”

        “Heeheehee—I told all my friends that I simply relied on the refined talents of a lady in dissuading those brutes' demands.  As a matter of fact, that's only partially true.  It so happens that my family has dealt with Diamond Dogs before, and I knew well in advance how to take advantage of—oh, how should I put this—ah yes, their pathetic simple-mindedness.”

        I giggled.  “You don't say.”

        “Oh, but I do!”  She fiddled and worked and painted a linen canvas all around me.  “As a matter of fact, it was the poor fortune of my great-great grandmother, an aristocratic mare named Ruby Joy, to have stumbled on an entire colony of those digging mutts!  However, she was a very calm and intelligent lady, and soon she not only had all of the dogs eating out of her hoof, but she got them to fetch a gigantic node of diamonds and carry them home to my ancestors' dwelling in Chicacolt.  Hmm-hmm-hmmm... just where do you think my family's affinity for rare rocks got its start?  Heeheehee...”

        I smiled.  I listened to her.  I modeled for her.  And for a blissful afternoon, I didn't think one bit about my future.  After all, it takes a curse to make generosity truly, truly delicious.  The things that I've grown most thankful for in life are the things that come at me by surprise, like a spotlight from out of nowhere.

        Who's to know how much opportunity we'll have to truly shine in this life?

        But so long as we can help it, we must never let ourselves become dull.

Background Pony

V - “Industry”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: Spotlight

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear Journal,

        Do heroes exist only because history chooses to write about them?  Are the greatest ponies who ever lived so legendary because they earned that status, or on account of their being in the right place when fate struck?  If the ponies of our epic poems surpass the slings and arrows of time simply by the whim of popular knowledge, then could we accidentally be worshipping villains in this day and age?

        I never sought to be a famous pony.  Not really.  Sure, I wouldn't have mind a tiny bit of popularity.  Certainly, when endeavoring to make waves in the music scene, I would have been happy if my name had been passed around.  However, I never expected to do anything dramatic enough that it would have had my name exalted on high.

        Now, I can't help but think otherwise.  I toss and turn at night—fighting shivers—fantasizing that one of these days I will walk into town and somepony—anypony—will actually be heard saying my name, if even in a passing joke or upon the flippant waves of gossip.  I don't want to make the history books.  I don't even want to see my name in lights.  I just want to witness somepony speaking of me, and I want it to be something positive and joyful.

        It's been a long year of dealing with this curse, and I know the difference between thinking rationally and fancifully.  I've encountered many fears, and I've endured my fair share of distress.  Is it too selfish of me to think that I could at least earn myself a tiny bit of recognition?

        No.  No, it's not selfish of me.  However, it is foolish.  After all, who will sing of this composure's tragedies or triumphs?  Who will chronicle her actions and discoveries into an epic chorus?

        Now, I'm starting to realize, that chronicler is me.  I do not sing of a fearless vixen, one who faces the darkest shades of freezing night undaunted.  No, I speak of a lonesome learner, one who traverses the blackness with only her own hoofsteps to keep her company.  Whatever she salvages, she does so by herself, which is a very frightening task to say the least.  If saving the knowledge of myself makes me a hero, then I treasure that with every fibre of my being.  After all, I wouldn't be much of a hero if I didn't save an audience, even if it's an audience of one.

        Ten little chords.

        Ten little chords beginning Lunar Elegy #8 were playing through my mind; it was far from enough.  I needed to discover more if I wanted to come anywhere near close to composing the entire musical number, much less running the tune's authenticity by Twilight Sparkle.

        Of course, the beginning process of mapping out an elegy is always the hardest.  I wake up to a melody stuck my head.  I let the tune play itself out repeatedly.  The music takes shape, forms chords, and grows into an ancient composition that I must then struggle to translate back into the world of the living.  There are times when a phantom tune simply takes forever to come into fruition.  It pays its toll on my mind, which is the least I can say about my sanity.  So, to assist in the evolutionary process, I usually busy myself with menial yet functional activities in an attempt to get the juices flowing out of my mind instead of stirring for an eternity within.

        Which is why I was squatting by my garden the other day, dutifully tending to the carrots and planting new vegetables for a solid two hours, around the time I first heard her.

        There was a resounding thunder across the face of the woods, followed by a cracking voice behind me.  “Ow!”

        I looked up and wiped my sweaty brow with a forelimb.  She was earlier than normal.  These collisions, after all, usually take place way later in the afternoon.  I got up and trotted slowly towards the side of the cabin where I saw her lying on the ground, rubbing a bruised muzzle.

        “Ahem.  Can I help you?”

        “Nnngh... Maybe if you had a thicker skull among your gardening tools to spare.”  Rainbow Dash winced and glared up at the offending structure.  “Where'd this stupid cabin come from?”

        “It's the rain season,” I said with a smirk.  “Some things just spring up out of nowhere.”

        “Hey!  I'm a pegasus!”  Rainbow Dash hopped up to her hooves and dusted herself off.  “If anypony should know a thing or two about the rain season, it's me!  Still, I have no buckin' clue where this building got off thinking it could block my usual flight path!”  She fumed briefly, then cast me a sideways glance.  “Good morning, by the way,” she muttered.

        “Back at you,” I said with a nod.  “Is your head okay?”

        “For what it's worth.”  Rainbow Dash gripped her skull in two hooves and pivoted it to the side.  A number of ritualistic cracks sounded off from the top of her spine.  “Whew!  At this rate, I'm not gonna have enough brain cells left to pass the Wonderbolts Entry Exam, assuming they finally start flippin' inducting for another wingpony soon.  Heh.  Been waiting for six long years for a new position to open up, ever since Fleetfoot from Trottingham joined the team.  Ugh... That lucky, feather-brained—”

        “Well, it sounds like you have your future cut out for yourself!” I said with a gentle smile.  It was a beautiful morning, and this living spectrum of colors was a pleasant addition to the breezy moment.  I briefly forgot how cold I was.  “What's the big hurry?  Speeding around in the air with no care: you'll get a nasty concussion at this rate!”

        “Hmmph...”  Rainbow Dash smirked and stretched her wingfeathers.  “I wouldn't be living up to my name any other way.”

        Ah, there it is.  Should I?  Yes.  Yes, I should.

        “And just what name would that be?” I tossed her way with a wry grin, knowing exactly what would happen in response.

        I could have witnessed the same reaction even if I had my eyes closed and my ears plugged.  Rainbow Dash looked at me, gasped, and floated in midair as if the very grass below was as toxic as my ignorant response.  “No way!  You mean you don't know about me?!  Rainbow Dash?!  Ponyville's chief weather pegasus?!  Master of the Sonic Rainboom and winner of last year's Best Young Flier's Crown?!”

        I giggled.  Some of the best entertainment in life is free.  “Well, my apologies!  You certainly sound like a very important pony!”

        “I'm more than important!  I'm... I'm radical!  That's like four 'importants' stacked together in an awesome sandwich with slices of tubular bread!”

        “Am I supposed to praise you or eat you?”

        “Neither!  Er—I mean... nnngh...”  She hovered around me, squinting suspiciously.  “Is this some kind of a joke?  Surely no pony around here could live under that big of a rock!”

        “Believe me: sometimes I wish I had that excuse.”  I gazed over at the carrot garden while producing a melancholic exhale.  As lovely as this encounter was, I was getting even further away from bringing the Eighth Elegy to reality.  Every now and then I'm reminded of how my life has become nothing more than a hall of mirrors, and even the most colorful hues are merely the reflections of yesterday and tomorrow cascading onward into a dull infinity.  “I apologize, Ms. Dash.  I guess you could say that I'm new to town.  It's comforting to know, at least, that a mare like you is fully aware of how famous and important you are.”

        “Heck yeah!”  Rainbow Dash smiled proudly.  With fluttering wings she “backstroked” playfully in the air around me and the cabin.  “From warning the local ponies about stampedes to driving out smoke-snoring dragons, I never leave Ponyville hangin'!  Why, I'm even buddy-buddy with Princess Celestia's magical apprentice!”

        “Hmmmm...”  I squatted back beside the garden and resumed inspecting the carrot tops.  “You don't say...?”

        “Mmmmhmm!”  Rainbow Dash's wings settled as she perched herself down atop the wooden patio at the front of my cabin.  “It's why I was out here to begin with.  I'm practicing!”

        “Practicing?”  I glanced over my shoulder.  “Practicing for what?”

        “Ponyville's egghead extraordinaire, Twilight Sparkle, is helping some big-wig science professor from Trottingham with a teleportation experiment.  And they need help from a fast-flying pegasus to keep track of... uhm... the test subject, or something.  I dunno.  All I know is that Twilight promised me there'd be lasers involved, and lasers are cool!”

        I raised an eyebrow and glanced back at her.  “Did you say... a teleportation experiment?”

        “Y-Yeah!”  Rainbow grinned wide.  “Haven't you heard?  Oh wait, you said you were new in town.  Hmmm... Well, I can't even begin to explain all of the boring numbers and figures involved, but basically this stallion—'Dr. Hay'... 'Dr. House'... 'Dr. Horse', whatever—is trying to capture the magic of unicorns in a bottle.  Not that all of you are capable of blinking around great distances or whatnot, but he's trying to find a way for non-magical ponies to have access to teleportation.  Supposedly it can have a major effect on transportation, economy, and other stuff that makes me yawn.”

        “Really?”  I stared off into the wooden bodies of the trees surrounding me.  I hadn't expected this leg of our conversation.  I felt a chill for the first time in hours.  “That's... That's quite remarkable.”

        “Meh... If you say so.  The way I see it: it's been thousands upon thousands of years since Equestria began, and still other ponies are trying to be as cool as pegasi.”  She winked with a smile.  “Heh, like teleporting is really gonna help them get around as much as us!  But I don't care.  The experiment gives me a reason to hang out with Twilight, and Twilight's cool so long as she's blowing stuff up in a lab instead of digging her nose in a book.”  Rainbow Dash smirked and took off for the bright sky above the woods.  “Anyways, I've got some cloud kicking to get to, and then I'll be heading over to Twilight's to help 'make history', as they put it.  I'm like 'whatever.'  If we get a small scrap of manadust to explode or something, that'll sure as heck make my day.”

        I mumbled absent-mindedly.  “There's something to be said of short scraps and explosions.”

        “H-hey!  I like your style!”  Rainbow Dash chuckled and soared past me.  “Next time I run into you, remind me to share how it all went down!  I'm sure I'll have done something awesome to brag about when the time comes.”

        I saluted her as she flew off.  In the windy vacuum that followed, I murmured to the air.  “Awesomeness needs only to remember itself.”  I didn't feel sad about Rainbow Dash's absence.  I'd gone through the motions of introducing myself to her on so many occasions that the bittersweet departures had long lost their cathartic edge.  In many ways, I've forced myself to become acquainted with a necessary apathy upon the culmination of these painfully short meetings.  To do otherwise would mean drowning in tears.

        However, I couldn't stop thinking about what Rainbow Dash had just spoken about.  It had to have been an immeasurably fascinating endeavor in science if it could get her to ramble on about it.

        Twilight Sparkle and a professor from Trottingham were experimenting with non-unicorn teleportation?  Could that have involved some sort of localized spell?  Leyline manipulation?  A machine of sorts?

        I tugged the strings of my hoodie and fought through the shivers as I allowed several memories to resurface.  I remembered several of my early interactions with Twilight after the curse began.  I remembered our desperate attempts to convey my existence to Princess Celestia.  Written letters hadn't worked.  Either my words vanished or the scrolls themselves turned to ash on the other end of Spike's green-flaming breath.

        It was then that she had resorted to teleportation.  After a great deal of meditation and focus, Twilight Sparkle teleported the two of us as far as her expert leylines could reach.  We landed two and a half miles outside of Ponyville's town limits.  Twilight's plan was to rest, concentrate, and then perform several more concentrated teleportation bursts until we got to the city gates of Canterlot to the far east.  This, however, failed after the first immediate blink because two things happened.  For one, Twilight had forgotten about me after the first teleport, as if the sheer magical strain of the act was enough to jump-start the curse into infecting her.  For another, two miles' distance from the center of Ponyville was akin to dropping a guillotine blade of ice across my spine.  Never before in my life did I feel that cold and never would I feel that cold again.  I galloped straight to the abandoned barn where I was living at the time and built the biggest campfire any pony in history ever likely conceived.  Even still, it took me two solid weeks before I could feel my extremities once again.

        But now I had just learned about an experiment to make transportation possible beyond the limits of unicorn manipulation.  Seeing as I was an inconceivable distance away from ever mastering Twilight's gift of spatial blinking for myself, what were the odds that I could somehow take advantage of such a remarkable scientific development?  I couldn't help but feel my blood pumping in opposition to the deadly shivers.  I had to learn more.  I had—

        My thoughts were immediately interrupted by a loud thudding noise against the side of my cabin.  At first, I thought it was poor Rainbow Dash again, cursed by her amnesiac state.  But then the voice squeaked forth, “Owie!  Who put this cabin here?”  It was too high to belong to anything other than a young foal.

        “Uhm...?”  I turned around and trotted back towards the side of the barn.  “Can I help you?”

        A tiny orange filly sat in the dirt where she had been thrown back on her haunches.  A collapsed scooter—its wheels still spinning—was lying on the ground beside her as she pulled a purple helmet off, flung a pink mane loose, and rubbed a throbbing bump on the front of her skull.  “Ugh.  Yeah.  Can you tell me which way the earth is?”

        “Right where you left it.  It's the thing covered with grass and aphids.”

        “Jee, thanks.”  She blinked up at me with violet eyes.  “Hey, you're a unicorn.”

        I couldn't help but chuckle.  The utterance was as cute as it was random, two things I could already use to describe this kid.  “Last time I checked.  Why, is that a problem?”

        “Erm, no.  Not really.”  She stood up and pulled the scooter back up into her grip.  “It's just... Well.  This is the middle of the woods.  I've never known unicorns to be outdoorsy types.”

        I shrugged.  The urge to let my teeth chatter was bearing down on me, but I wasn't about to give into it in front of this young foal.  “A unicorn's capacity for magic is equal to her capacity for change.  I've long been acquainted with urban living, but I find myself developing a delightful affinity for far more rustic surroundings.”

        She stared up at me, blinking.  “Okay.  I'm sorry.  You lost me at 'capacity'.”

        I sighed.  “Yes, well, if you run into nearly as many dictionaries as you do houses, then we might have a pleasant conversation.”

        “Dictionaries?  Hah!”  She stood and balanced herself playfully on the wobbling scooter.  “I've got a best friend for that.”

        “And the reason you aren't hanging out with her on a beautiful day like this is...?”

        “Hmmmm...” Her face scrunched up into a stubborn scowl.

        I blinked.  I glanced up at the tree tops, many of them still glistening with dew.  “Wait.  Isn't this a schoolday—?”

        “You've got a really swell place here...”  She pushed herself on the wheeled contraption so that she was leisurely drifting past the front of my cabin.  A whistle escaped her lips.  “Did you build it yourself?”

        “Uhm...”  I blinked awkwardly at her.  “Yes.  As a matter of fact, I did.”

        “Cool...”

        “How did you know?”

        She blushed slightly.  “Lucky guess?”  She ran a hoof along a pair of wooden beams forming the front exterior of my dwelling.  “You can tell when a place was built by hoof.  One day, I plan to live on my own, and when I do I want to have every say in where and how I live.  There's no better way to do that than to build your own house.”

        “It's not as easy at it seems,” I said to the kid as I trotted slowly after her.  “It takes a great deal of time, strain, and sweat.  Still, it is worth it in the end.”  My smile lasted as long as my good manners did.  “Ahem.  So, uhm, haven't your parents ever preached to you about talking to strangers—?”

        She swiftly interrupted me.  “It must be awfully scary to live on your own, in a place that you have to build by yourself,” the filly murmured.  Suddenly her bright features looked jaded, as if several years had piled up on the filly's face all at once, casting its shadows over every corner of her orange coat.  “But I kind of see that as a good scariness, like the type of scariness that's worth living through.”

        I ran a hoof through my mane as I gazed thoughtfully at her.  I wondered why I hadn't run into this little soul before.  It was my proud habit to be familiar with every living soul in town, both young and old.  In so many months of concerning myself with the lunar elegies, I wondered if I had finally become oblivious to the same background I had been relegated to.

        “What's your name, kid?” I blurted out.

        She looked up at me.  “Hmmm?”  She blinked, as if snapping out of a stupor she was experiencing parallel to my own.  “Oh.  Ponies call me 'Scootaloo.'”

        “'Scootaloo,'” I repeated with a nod.  I glanced at her flank, observed the lack of a cutie mark, and then smiled at her face.  “Named after your love for elegant ballet, no doubt.”

        That jab worked.  She frowned and stuck her tongue out at me.  “Hardy har.  Very funny.  I'd rather be caught dead than have that be my special talent!”

        “Why does that not surprise me?”  I remarked.

        “I mean it!”  She hopped in place, her hooves pounding on the base of the scooter.  “Someday I'm gonna earn a cutie mark for something really awesome!  Like flying through hoops of flame!  Or base jumping!  Or becoming a rock'n roll singer!  Or doing stunt pony tricks just like Rainbow Dash!”

        “You don't say?  You know, she was here just now—”

        “She was?!”  Scootaloo beamed, and I was surprised to see a pair of stubby wings sprouting up from her sides.  I honestly hadn't noticed she was a pegasus until the very notion of that name sparkled across the violet shores of her eyes.  “I knew it!  She was doing some super cool cloud-slicing moves, wasn't she?!”

        I blinked at her.  How old was this filly?  And she was still flightless?  My eyes wandered from her tiny wings to the scooter's wheels to the fresh ditch that she had made in the earth after colliding with my cabin.  I realized that the same excitement and impulsiveness that had flung Rainbow Dash like a missile into my house had brought another pony along for the ride.  Very calmly, I nodded and said, “Well, she said she was practicing for a science experiment she was going to help her friend Twilight Sparkle with—”

        “Oh!  Oh!”  Scootaloo hopped in place, beaming, her bright face like a second sunrise to that crisp morning.  “She told me all about it!  There's gonna be explosions and lasers and stuff!  Rainbow Dash said herself that she'd be lucky to get through the experiment without her mane and tail-hairs being burnt off!”

        I squinted at that, then smiled at her.  “Did she, now?”

        “Uh huh!”

        “Sounds like you've got a very courageous friend.”

        “Yeah!  Isn't she—?”  Scootaloo stopped in mid-speech.  Pensively, she let her gaze fall to her hoof digging in the earth.  “Erm.  Well.  Heh.  I can't really say that I count as her friend...”

        “Why not?”

        She spoke on.  “But someday, I'm gonna be as brave as her.”  She gazed up again, but this time her smile was softer, gentler, more serene.  “And then I'll get to do cool stuff!  And maybe I'll know what it's like to be just as awesome.”

        I smiled back at her.  “Scootaloo...”  I squatted down so that my face was level with hers.  “Tell me, what's so awesome about a life when it's lived in the exact same way as a pony that has lived it before you?”

        “I...”  She blinked confusedly at me, but something twitching in her eyes told me she was curiously intrigued.  “I don't understand.  Why would a pony not want to be like Rainbow Dash?”

        “I don't mean to say that there's anything wrong with that.  After all, she's made a major name for herself in Ponyville, hasn't she?”

        “And how!”

        I chuckled and gazed deeply to gather her attention.  “But even still, there is only one way for a pony to be like Rainbow Dash.  While that's all good and fine, there are at least a million ways to be a different pony, and all of them just as exciting and awesome, wouldn't you think?”

        Scootaloo stared at me, and for the briefest of moments she could just as easily been staring into an abyss.  If her cutie mark appeared right then and there, I was almost afraid to discover what it would look like.  Even if I went back in time and built my cabin blindfolded, it wouldn't be nearly as scary as when a young foal discovers the glorious yet all too bitter taste of opportunity.

        Before she could formulate a response, a voice was calling out from around the bend in the road.

        “Scootaloo?!”  A white-coated mare with a yellow mane was wandering around the dirt path, frowning and stomping a hoof.  “Scootaloo—for the love of Celestia—is that you?!  Get over here this instant!”

        “Ugh...”  Scootaloo rolled her eyes.  “Milky White.  Will you ever let it rest?”  With a sigh, she slapped her helmet back onto her head, tucking the pink mane underneath.  “I'm coming!” she shouted over her shoulder.

        I glanced at the mare from a distance.  “An older sister of yours?”

        “Pffft.  Please.”  Scootaloo smirked devilishly.  “As if I could be that lucky.  So long, lady!”  Her petite wings blurred, and I watched with muted marvel as she propelled herself up the path atop her scooter, joining the mare's side.  “Milky!  I've been looking all over for you—”

        “Save it for somepony who's gullible!”  Milky White snapped.  She wasn't half as angry as she was concerned.  In addition to that, I noticed that she was an earth pony, which made me stare a little bit longer as she ushered the sulking filly towards the heart of Ponyville beyond the treeline.  “Why aren't you at school already?  Cheerilee's class begins in less than half an hour!”

        “Awwww, come on, Milky!  I was just taking a side route!  Rainbow Dash was flying around here and—”

        “No more excuses!  And unless Rainbow Dash is acting as one of Cheerilee's chaperones, I don't want you following her or any other adult pony around town unsupervised!  Do you understand me?!”

        “Ughhh... Yes, Milky...”

        “And don't give me that attitude!  I'm only trying to look after you, Scootaloo.  Remember that talk we had...?”

        The two were soon gone beyond earshot.  I sat beside the carrot garden, alone in thought.  I suddenly wondered if the lives of so many ponies—cursed or not—remain blank because we're afraid to test the limits of ourselves, especially when those limits are painted with the shades of those who had failed or succeeded before us.

        I looked once more towards the woods, and I thought of a dark night when I awoke—naked and screaming—soaked with the chilling mystery of the Threnody.  It was something horrific and unexplained, but I had survived it.  I knew that it was more than luck that made me survive such an ordeal.  What more was there in life that I had to experiment with, and how much of it was barricaded by fears instead of fate?

        “I thank you so very kindly, Miss Sparkle, for assisting me in this endeavor.”

        “It's my pleasure, Dr. Whooves,” she said with a smile, telekinetically lowering the last of eight crystals into place.  Soon, a ring of identical gemstones was surrounding a metal box located atop a metal pedestal in the center of the town's library.  It wasn't just any ordinary box, but a complex, hollow cube with several perforated grooves forming intricate runes along the silver surface.  The very top of the cube bore a cylindrical platform that glowed dimly with residual enchantment.  “I hope this doesn't come across as too silly,” Twilight murmured as she straightened the last crystal into its copper brace in the middle of the makeshift laboratory, “But I've always been a great fan of your scientific documents.  I find the idea of this experiment beyond fascinating.  I, for one, believe that all ponies should experience the benefits of magic, regardless of what they were born as.”

        “You have no idea how delighted I am to hear a gifted unicorn such as yourself say that,” Dr. Whooves replied.  His ocean-blue eyes shone as he leaned into the complex equipment and adjusted a metal panel on the side of the cube with a pair of pliers gripped in his teeth.  He dropped the tool onto a tray and resumed speaking, “If earth ponies had half the resources available to unicorns, it would allow their tasks to yield far greater bounties than that of their last five generations of ancestors combined.  I only hope you understand that it is not my attempt to abuse magic, but to find a way to facilitate it through safe and applicable means.”

        “If you asked me, I'd say it was high time that the Equestrian Science Committee reconsidered the prohibition of the public use of machina in channeling magical leylines,” Twilight said as she trotted around the array of equipment in the center of the room, assisting the Doctor in a last-second, careful examination.  “After all, it's been nearly a thousand years since the Civil War and its legacy of infernal weaponry.  With Princess Luna returned and exorcised of Nightmare Moon's taint, I doubt very much that the world could ever consider using magical machines for evil again.”

        “I shudder to think of such a thing!”  Dr. Whooves took a deep breath and glanced at his young partner in science.  “I spent months on my hooves and knees before the Committee at Canterlot, trying to convince them that a teleporter device could only be used for good... to assist agriculture and industry.  If this week's procedure goes as planned, I'm bound to win their financial backup for sure!”

        “There's only one way to find out if this was worth all the time and sweat, right, Doctor?”  Twilight Sparkle gave the arrangement a final glance and smiled with pride.  “Are you ready to get started?”

        “After you, ma'am.”  The Doctor bowed from where he stood with a wry grin.  “It takes your spark, after all.”

        “First thing's first.”  Twilight remarked.  She turned towards the corner.  “Hey, Rainbow Dash!”

        Rainbow Dash sat, slumped on the stairs leading up to the library's second floor.  She was snoring loudly.

        Twilight frowned.  “Rainbow!”

        “Snkkkt—Nnghh...Nyup...Naaugh—Huh?  What?”  Rainbow Dash looked up, blinking dizzily.  “Are we ready?  Is it time for explosions yet?”

        “For the last time, there aren't going to be any explosions!”

        “Awww...”

        “Not if everything goes right,” Dr. Whooves nervously added.

        “Oh!”  Rainbow Dash smiled, her wings flexing.  “So there's still hope?”  She exhaled sharply as a pair of goggles were thrown into her chest.

        “Put them on and get ready to fly!” Twilight Sparkle said firmly.  She turned and gave the Doctor a far more pleasant expression.  “Just what should we test the machine on?”

        “Erm... Oh dear, I should have given that more thought, shouldn't have I?”  Doctor Whooves gulped and glanced all around the room.  “It obviously has to be something inert.  Perhaps a metal weight or a container or... or... even a blank book!”

        “Heh, yeah, forget that!”  Rainbow Dash droned as she slipped the goggles onto her head.  “I didn't volunteer to help you guys just to go chasing after falling books!  I could do that for Twilight any day of the week!”

        “Well...” Twilight rolled her eyes, but suppressed a smile.  “She's got a point there.  Perhaps...”  She scanned the familiar contours of her library, then brightened.  “Ah!  I know just the thing!”  She levitated a wooden unicorn carving off a pedestal and levitated it before the Doctor's eyes.  “Would organic material be a problem?”

        “So long as it's no longer alive, it's perfect!”  Doctor Whooves grinned wide.  Grabbing the carving's “horn” in his teeth, he carried it over and planted it on the cylindrical platform at the top of the cube.  He then backed away to a safe distance and stood beside Twilight.  “Alright, Miss Sparkle.  Everything has been accounted for.  Whoops!”  He scrambled a bit before finally picking up a switch that was attached to a wire strung into the body of the cube from afar.  “Ah, there we go.  Couldn't very well get started unless we had access to the ignition, yes?”

        Twilight giggled.  Rainbow yawned.

        “Alas, no need for pomp or gravitas.  Let's get on with it, shall we?”

        “Here goes...”  Twilight Sparkle took a deep breath.  Her violet eyes narrowed and her mouth tensed as she aimed her horn at the nearest of the crystals.  After a minute of concentration, she fired a purple beam of bright light into the array.  The luminescent laser flew through the stone and refracted so that it bounced solidly through the rest of the seven crystals.  Once the beam of light had made three full orbits, all eight stones directed a piece of the glow into the body of the cube in the middle.  Soon, the hollow container started glowing from the inside as the light spell from Twilight's own horn energized the leylines etched into the machine's silver body.  A high-pitched hum filled the room, causing the windows around the library to vibrate within their frames.

        “Hey, my teeth are shaking like guitar strings!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed above the rising noise.  “That's cool and all, but does that mean we're the ones that are gonna explode?!”

        “Rainbow Dash...”  Twilight hissed aside.

        “It's almost reached maximum intake!”  Dr. Whooves shouted as a mysterious wind began building up.  “By Celestia, it's going just as I planned!”

        “How do we know it's time to hit the switch?!” Twilight replied.

        Just then, the wooden carving atop the cube started shaking uncontrollably.

        “Uhm... Guys...?”  Rainbow Dash pointed at the bizarre spectacle.

        “Doctor—?!”

        “Right!  It's a go!”  He twisted the node in his hooves.  A spark shot through the wire and into the machine.  There was a brief flash of light as all of the lasers shot one last time from the crystals into the cube.  The center of the room turned black, then the darkness dissipated like a fine mist.

        The wooden carving was gone.

        “That did it!”  Doctor Whooves exclaimed.  His grin was positively electric.

        Twilight was already spinning to face her companion.  “Rainbow Dash!  Go long!”

        “On it!”  She saluted, opened a window, and rocketed skyward.

        The room filled with an eerie silence as the two scientists waited for the blue pegasus to return.

        “How far should it have gone?” Twilight nervously asked.

        Dr. Whooves gulped, his body visibly shaking in anticipation.  “At least four hundred feet.  I was afraid to aim for anything longer.  I just wasn't sure how much energy output this device could manage.”

        “Sometimes the smallest steps are the safest steps, Doctor.  I applaud you for planning with caution.”

        “Ohhhh...”  He squirmed nervously where he stood, his eyes locked on the open window.  “All the world's planning will mean nothing if it doesn't work.  And I would hate to think of what horrible fate I may have dealt your charming art piece if worse came to worst.”

        “Charming art piece?”  Twilight blinked at him, then giggled.  “My dear Doctor.  If it would somehow aid science to feed that gaudy thing to a radioactive hydra, I'd do it in a heartbeat.”

        “Heh.  Of that I have no doubt.  It's almost as if—” He stopped as his eyes suddenly lit up.  “Good gracious!  Back already?”

        Twilight spun to look.  “Rainbow Dash?”  She gulped.  “Well?”

        She entered through the window, her forelimbs crossed.  She paused for dramatic effect, then smirked deliciously as she unfolded her upper limbs to display the wooden unicorn carving in her grasp, completely intact.  “Ta-daaaa!”

        “Yes!  It worked!”  Twilight reared her hooves before nudging the Doctor with a bright grin.  “Doctor Whooves!  I am so, so very happy for you!”

        He merely stood there, his face plastered with euphoric shock and disbelief.  “Four hundred feet...”  He gulped and grinned slowly, his eyes glossy.  “Nearly half a town's length of spatial displacement straight up into the air, and yet there's not a chip missing from the test subject!”

        “Yeah, and get this!”  Rainbow Dash grinned and held the carving up high like a trophy from where she hovered.  “It was still on its way skyward when I caught up with it!  I think you just built yourself some crazy awesome magical teleporter cannon thingy!”

        “Errrm...”  The Doctor made a face.

        Twilight rolled her eyes and smiled at him. “Don't mind her.  I'm sure we'll be putting your words of discovery into the history books, Doctor.”

        “Hey!”  Rainbow Dash frowned.  “Don't I get my name carved into some science statue somewhere too?!  Why should just the three of you get all the credit—?”  She paused in mid-sentence, doing a double-take.  Swiftly, she pulled her goggles up to her brow and squinted down at me.  “Uhm... Just who in the heck are you?”

        “Me?”  I smiled wide from where I sat on a reading bench, applauding.  “I'm incredibly impressed!”

        “Gah!”  Twilight Sparkle gasped and spun around.  Doctor Whooves was no less startled as the two of them jumped in place.  “Who... What...?!”  Twilight stammered, gazing at me in shock.  “How did you get in here?”

        I allowed my face to become awash with “shock” and “confusion.”  “Uhm... I just trotted in?  I apologize.  Was the library off limits today?”

        “Can't you see that we're conducting a science experiment?”  Twilight exclaimed, beside herself.  “The library's closed to act as a temporary laboratory!  I had my assistant Spike put up signs and notes all over town!”

        “Uhm...”  I felt my ears drooping as I smiled innocently.  “Does that include the side door?”  I pointed at my saddlebag.  “It was wide open when I came here to return my checkouts.”

        Twilight blinked.  She then turned to frown at Rainbow Dash.  “Rainbow... Did you leave the side door open again?”

        “What?”  She blinked and juggled the carving in her grasp.  “No!  Of course not!  Erm...”  She bit her lip and gazed around the ceiling, her voice cracking.  “At least, I don't think so.”  A gulp.  “Eheh... Though I guess it's possible I could have...”

        “Unnngh...”  Twilight ran a hoof over her face.  “I'm sorry, ma'am,” she looked my way with an exhausted expression.  “But you weren't supposed to be here.  Who knows what danger a random pony like you could have gotten—?”

        “Did you see how successful we were?!”  Doctor Whooves' grinning expression was suddenly blocking my view of Twilight.  The scientist's ecstasy was overwhelming.  “We teleported an inert object safely and successfully at a distance of over four hundred feet!  Can you imagine what ponies could do if we somehow found a way to harness this sort of technology into common practicality?!”

        “Uhm... Doctor?” Twilight leaned over him, nervously smiling.  “I know you're excited, but I don't think this is a time to—”

        “I think it's absolutely fantastic!”  I spoke up.  “If I'm to understand correctly...”  I pointed at the crystals surrounding the cube.  “The gemstones magnify a light spell cast by a practiced unicorn, which is then channeled into the machine.  The cube then uses a complex layering of artificially drawn runes that mimic the natural compositions of leylines, so that the mana streams expound upon themselves and produce a core of ubridled magic that can be focused into a single, modulated spell?”

        All three ponies gazed at me blankly, that is until Rainbow Dash shook her head and rubbed it achingly.  “Okay.  Who invited the encyclopedia in a hoodie?”

        “That is... quite a remarkable observation,” Doctor Whooves said with a smile plastered across his face.

        “Are you a fan of the Doctor's?”  Twilight leaned in and asked.  “I've met every unicorn in Ponyville, and—if I may be so bold—very few of them tout a career in advanced science.”

        I smiled gently at my foalhood friend.  “Let's say I've... been tutored over time by the best.”

        “Well, despite the circumstances,” Dr. Whooves extended a hoof.  “It's a pleasure to share this moment of discovery with a unicorn so avidly schooled, Miss...”

        “Lyra,” I replied with a smile and shook his hoof.  “Lyra Heartstrings.”  I stared at the group.  “And I hardly intend to subtract from this marvelous occasion.”

        “Not at all, Miss Heartstrings.”  Dr. Whooves grinned at his two associates.  “If our subsequent experiments over the next few days prove to be just as successful, then in a matter of years we may have teleporting equipment like this available in every household!  Why, the sheer possibilities for non magical equines to make full use of this gifted technology is mind boggling!”

        “Yeah, well...”  Rainbow Dash unceremoniously planted the carving down onto Twilight's backside.  “This pegasus has to teleport her bladder really quick, if you catch my drift.”  She yawned and flitted away.  “Try not to blow anything up while I'm not here to witness it.”

        “Erm... by all means, Miss Dash,” the Doctor remarked with a nervous expression.

        Twilight rolled her eyes and trotted off.  “I need to run some tests on the structural integrity of this... um... piece of art, to make sure it's in as much one piece as it looks.  If you'll excuse me, Doctor... erm... and Miss Heartstrings.”

        As Twilight strolled away, I turned to look at the Doctor.  “It sounds like your goal with this device is to make teleportation accessible to non-magical ponies, and yet I notice that you require the enchantment spell of a unicorn such as Twilight Sparkle to power the machine...”

        Doctor Whooves blushed slightly.  “Yes, well, this is merely a prototype.  No matter what design I concoct, a teleporter such as this will inevitably rely on unicorns to provide power.  However, once I have a self-sustaining mana battery implemented, I imagine a device such as this could perform hundreds of long-distance spatial displacement charges on one single magical charge alone.”

        “So, it's more of a means of magical conveyance than it is a self-sustaining generator.”

        “But of course.  We've yet to discover magic that comes from nowhere.”  Doctor Whooves chuckled pleasantly.  “Some things that exist in science fiction must stay in science fiction.”

        I giggled as well and admired the machine from afar.  “I can't help but notice that the cylindrical platform atop the cube is made of arcanium.”

        “Absolutely.”

        “Arcanium is often used as a magical suppressant.  Does the platform have a dual function?”

        “As a matter of fact it does, Miss Heartstrings.  To focus the teleportation spell, the machine needs a singular point of discharge, a place where all of the artificial leylines converge.  Such an exit point for the machine's mana streams is located just beneath the platform.”

        “So, if you hadn't put a layer of arcanium there...”

        “The spell would emit from the device in a solid stream of unbridled energy.”  Dr. Whooves chewed on his lip as he gave the machine a nervous glance.  “That platform serves more than a tiny teleporter pad, you see.”

        “Oh, so there could have been lasers involved.”  I smirked.  “Even explosions.”

        “Not if we can help it!”  Dr. Whooves said with a grin.  “Thankfully, Miss Sparkle has not only been helpful in disaster-proofing the device, but in providing a safe interior within which to conduct this experiment.”

        “She's very selfless,” I murmured, gazing towards the far end of the treehouse library.  “In a lot of ways.”  I took a deep breath.  Twilight and Rainbow Dash would both be back soon, and undoubtedly the distance would have rekindled their forgetfulness, along with their ire.  If I wanted to avoid an awkward situation, I had to take leave of Dr. Whooves, but not without asking a question that had been hammering the walls of my mind.  “I can't help but notice that the arcanium plate affords very little space for test subjects.”

        “Yes.  We hope to perform more tests by sunset.  With Miss Sparkle's permission, I would like to work on larger and more dense objects.  You're welcome to witness if you like, Miss Heartstrings.”

        I smiled pleasantly at him.  “As much as I would enjoy that, I can't help but ask.”  I took a deep breath.  There was no turning back now.  “What if your next prototype could afford a larger teleporter pad?”

        “I don't understand.  Why would we need a larger platform?”

        I stared directly at him.  “For teleporting living subjects.”

        Dr. Whooves blinked at me.  I could detect the wince in his expression before he bore it.  Nevertheless, I listened as he paced and said, “That... is quite difficult, Miss Heartstrings.  I dare not experiment with that sort of a situation, not now and perhaps not ever.”

        I raised an eyebrow.  “Dare I ask why?”

        “Far be it from me to establish limitations so early, but it does not seem remotely safe.”

        “How so?”

        “Unicorns—such as yourself, Miss Heartstrings—are more than capable of surviving teleportation performed by yourself or other unicorns.  However...”  He gestured towards the cube in the center of the eight crystals.  “Though a device of this nature is empowered by a unicorn’s light enchantment, the magical burst that comes out the other end of the layered runes is anything but natural.  When a unicorn teleports herself from place to place, what emerges through the process is the same creature.  This is because she has merely traveled the streams of the same magical leylines that her essence is empowered by.  This goes for any other pony—unicorn or not—that she teleports with her.  Her essence—her soul self, as it were—preserves the nature of her being and those who share the transient leylines through which she propels her corporeal self.”

        “But...” I thought aloud, my eyes locked onto the suddenly sinister device in our midst.  “...when the machine teleports a living thing, what comes out the other end has been... disconnected from the leylines, hasn't it?”

        “Or so theory would say,” Doctor Whooves said with a nod.  “The experience of teleportation would not kill the living subject.”  He then gulped and added with a nervous smile.  “Not at first.”

        “How do you mean...?”

        “Well, the subject would emerge from the teleportation in relative control of her or his faculties.  However, the disconnection with the leylines would cause a unavoidable sever between the pony's physical body and incorporeal essence.”

        “It's like ripping the ghost from the flesh.”

        “In a manner of speaking.”  He nodded gravely.  “You see, Miss Heartstrings, it was never my goal to transport ponies with this device, but simply to allow non-magical ponies a means to deliver material objects to each other from a distance.  It would be a long time—perhaps beyond my years—before a device like this could teleport living creatures by purely artificial means.”

        I felt my tail flick at the sound of that.  I gazed up at him.  “So... you mean that it is possible?”

        He chuckled, running a hoof through his mane as he gazed aside.  “If only there was a way to compensate for a test subject's incorporeal disconnect.  The only solid solution I can think of is for another unicorn, one gifted with at least an intermediary knowledge of expert sorcery, to approach the test subject immediately following the teleportation and manually reacquaint her with her natural leylines.  But I wouldn't even begin to imagine the type of concentration and mana that would take.  The very prospect—at least as we currently perceive it—is far too dangerous to be practical.”

        Far too dangerous, but still incredibly enticing...

        Doctor Whooves’ words were all I could think about.  I sat on the front patio of my cabin the next afternoon, engulfed in thought.  My lyre was resting beside me; it remained unplayed.  I should have been practicing the Eighth Elegy, but I couldn't stop pondering about the magical box and the wooden carving it had propelled invisibly skyward beyond the rooftop branches of Twilight's library.

        All this time, I've been obsessing over the lunar elegies.  Why shouldn't I have been?  They seemed obviously made for me to focus on.  It was as though they had been inserted in my brain for a reason.  Since the first day I woke up in this world of chills and ghosts, the symphony of Princess Luna had been my task to uncover.

        But what if I didn't have to finish that task?  What if there was another way out, even if it was cheating?

        I'm stuck in Ponyville.  I know that.  I live that.  But what if I could forcibly remove myself from this place?  And to what end?  My heart soars with the implications.  I could see my parents again.  I could reach the ancient magical libraries of Canterlot.  In a miraculous blink, I could even show up on the doorstep to the royal sisters' palace and rob their attention just long enough to listen to my pleas and save me from this blasted curse.

        But, even if I could do all of that, what would I have to look forward to?  Doctor Whooves had made it perfectly clear: something alive like me could not survive the teleportation process, at least not for long.  I would emerge on the other end of the procedure as some pathetic golem that thought it was me.  My only hope, then, would be for a unicorn like Twilight or an alicorn like Princess Luna to somehow... “reattach” my soul to my body before I could even pretend to ask for help from the outside in curing my curse.  And even if I traversed all of those wicked boundaries, how much time would I have to accomplish all that I needed to do before I would be consumed by utter cold and forgetfulness, so far away from my new warm “home?”

        I sighed and tucked my hooves under my hoodie's sleeves before hugging myself.

        Just when I think that this whole situation couldn't be any more exhausting, I witness something as tantalizing as this scientific experiment taking place under my very nose, and it simply eats at me.  There is something so dreadfully frightening about performing the elegies, and no matter how deeply I explore those unearthly compositions, I find myself growing even further and further from my goal.  The idea of teleporting myself to someplace where answers may lie is extremely tantalizing, but is it any less of a frightening venture?  Just because it's different doesn't mean it's safer, and no matter how I spin it, it still demands the same bottomless well of courage from me as the alternative.

        As a matter of fact, I've never been much of a courageous pony.  I don't know how the likes of Rainbow Dash or Applejack or Twilight Sparkle manage to summon such bravery from the depths of their souls.  To attempt being strong in a cursed world is like starting a fire with sticks of ice.  There are times when I don't even know how I can walk out of this cabin in the morning.  On countless occasions, I've felt lonely in this place, but it doesn't compare to how often I feel utterly and bitterly afraid.

        There was no point in entertaining the notion of the teleporter machine.  With the life I live, it's easy to grab onto bizarre things after confusing them with symbols of hope.  All I am, and all I'll ever be, is a musician.  It's best to leave heroism to the heroes—

        I gasped suddenly upon hearing a shrieking cry, coupled with the cacophonous sound of tumbling limbs.  I glanced over from the front of my cabin to see a tiny pony having collapsed in the center of the dirt road.  Several wheels spun from an overturned scooter, and I felt my heart skipping a beat.

        In an instant, I was up on my hooves and galloping over to the scene.  The dust had just begun settling as I stumbled upon her.  My ears pricked to hear her squealing breath desperately stifling a pained moan.

        “Uhm... Hey there, kiddo?”  I leaned down towards her with a concerned expression.  “Are you okay?”

        “Nnnngh...”  Scootaloo's eyes were clenched shut.  She hissed through gnashing teeth.  “I'm fine!”

        “That's quite the tumble you just took.”  I glanced behind her, spotting a sharp rock jutting in the center of the path.  Deep wheel marks spelled where the scooter had crashed after hitting the obstruction.  “Better watch out when you come around the bend.  This path was built long ago, and I suspect not many ponies have looked after it since.”  My eyes caught her forelimbs clutching a spot on her rear left leg.  I reached towards it.  “Here, lemme see—”

        “I said I'm fine!” she hissed and practically batted my limb away.  “I'm a tough pony!  I've taken worse tumbles befo—Ow!  Owwwww...”  I could see the smallest hint of moisture clinging to her eyelashes as she hissed through chapped lips.

        With a gentle smile, I reached forward again.  This time, she was too weak to protest, and I parted her forelimbs in time to see a nasty red gash having been burned through the orange coat of her rear leg.  It was hardly anything to go to the emergency room for, but Celestia it looked like it stung.

        “Whew!  That's one heck of a case of road rash!”  I said.  I attempted a chuckle, as if it would alleviate her pain.  It didn't.  So I distracted her nerves with a pair of hooves gently caressing her chin.  “Here.  Follow me.  I think I have just the thing for that.”

        “I... don't need... any help...” She grunted, still fighting the pain like a pony would bang her head against a brick wall.

        “I'm not sure your leg agrees with you.”  I stood up straight and a bright green glow filled the air from my horn.  “Don't worry.  I promise it won't take but a second.”

        Scootaloo mumbled something.  With her face hung in a mixture of embarrassment and frustration, she hoisted herself up to a standing position.  Gently, a haze of glittering telekinesis wafted over her injured leg.  She allowed me to support her weight with magic as I escorted the filly—limping—to the front of my cabin.

        I swiftly ducked in through the door to my home.  In less than a minute, I had emerged with a first-aid kit full of materials that I had assembled after a year of wandering through Ponyville.  I learned long ago that if I was ever to be seriously injured, the only pony I could safely rely on to fix me up was myself.  It was a pleasure, then, to help another soul for once in a blue moon.

        “Just sit still, and I'll get you patched up.”

        I cleaned the edges of her wound.  Next, I applied a medicinal ointment to a bandage before softly wrapping it around her scraped leg.  All the while, Scootaloo remained remarkably dormant.  She barely winced as I worked through my ministrations.  Every now and then, the faintest hiss would spill from her lips.  I soon realized that she was being brave—a little too brave.  Her entire upper body began shivering, like a leather balloon that was waiting to burst.

        Calmly, I prepared a second bandage while uttering, “I apologize in advance for the smell.”

        Scootaloo stirred.  Her voice came out as a tense grunt.  “Sm-smell?  I don't smell anything...”

        “Well, that's just the thing...”  I smiled softly as I stood behind her.  “It's a very rare ointment.  I promise that it'll keep your scratch from getting infected, but at the same time it has a different effect on everypony.  Some ponies smell something horrible.  Others—well—they don't smell anything, but it still affects them.”

        She gulped.  Her head and neck were quivering at the breaking point.  “Affect them how...?”

        “They have a mild reaction,” I murmured.  “Their nose gets a little runny and their eyes start to water.”

        “You... Y-you mean it's normal?”  She asked, and I detected the slightest sniffle.

        I smiled and gently nodded.  “Yes, sweetie.  It's normal.”

        Her sniffles doubled, then quadrupled, and finally Scootaloo's body became still as she relaxed.  I didn't bother looking at her tear-stained face as I squatted down.  “Now lift the leg one more time.  I'm almost done here.”

        She did so obediently.  I applied the last bandage and pulled it tight.  As I stood up, I got a close look at the filly's wings.  I couldn't help but squint.  I noticed something for the first time:  Scootaloo's longest feather stems appeared abnormally short, as if they ended abruptly at half the normal length for a pony her age.  I cleared my throat and marched around so that I sat on the patio's edge beside her.

        “So... are you going to tell me why?”

        Scootaloo sniffled one last time and dried her face with a forelimb.  “Why, what?”

        “Why you felt like speeding around the dirt road on that scooter like a bat out of Tartarus?”

        She frowned and faced off towards the afternoon horizon with her forelimbs folded.  “Hmmph... I'm practicing.”

        “For what?”  I chuckled.  “The Demolition Olympics?”

        “Pffft!  No!”  She glared briefly at me.  “Look, lady, thanks for making my leg feel better, but don't poke fun at me!”

        “Hey... I meant no offense!” I exclaimed with a soft smile.  “I just think fillies your age have better things to be doing than attempting suicide.”

        “It's not suicide,” she said with a sigh, then ran a hoof through her pink mane.  “It's a pegasus thing.  I can't expect you to understand...”

        I shrugged.  “When I was your age, I accidentally 'rearranged' my bedroom quite a few times trying to discover my magical gift.  Heh.  You see, even young unicorns have been known to make a mess out of themselves on occasion.”

        “But I shouldn't be making messes!  I shouldn't even be on the stinkin' ground anymore!”  Scootaloo sighed long and hard.  She hugged herself and stared forlornly into the sky.  “I practice on my scooter all the time, if only to feel what it's like.”

        “What what's like?”

        “Speed.  Wind.  Soaring.”

        I raised an eyebrow.  “Flight?”

        Her nostrils flared.  She looked defeatedly into the soil beyond the patio and muttered, “I'll never know how she makes it look so easy...”

        Ah.  But of course.

        “And just who is 'she', if I may be so bold to ask?”

        “Ugh.  Look...”  Scootaloo stood up and began limping away.  “Whoever you are, thank you.  I mean it.  But... I really didn't mean to bug your or nothin'.  I... I have places to be.  I should be doing homework or some other boring junk right about now anyway.”

        As she trotted off, I fiddled with my hoodie's sleeves and murmured to the wind, “You know, we haven't had a terrible thunderstorm in nearly eight months.”

        “I know,” Scootaloo's voice sounded practically defensive as she trotted towards the distance.  “Ponyville's Weather Flier is the only pegasus in Equestria with a perfect record.”

        “Do you really think she got so perfect without getting scorched by lightning a few times?”

        Scootaloo stopped in her tracks.  She glanced back at me.

        I looked into those violet eyes from afar as I said, “It's much more than courage that makes a pony, kid.”  I pointed towards her fresh bandage.  “Sometimes, what looks perfect is really just something sculpted out of a life of countless bumps and bruises.”

        Her face was remarkably deadpan when she gave her swift response.  “I've been given enough bumps and bruises in life already, lady.”  Her face briefly grimaced, as if that was something too sacred to admit until then.  There was a distant look in the child's gaze as she picked the scooter up, all the while her stubby wings twitched.  “I... I just want to be cool already.  She's earned it.  Why can't I?”  She gave one last sniffle; there was no more need to hide it.  Nevertheless, everything disappeared into a brazen frown as she jumped on the scooter and blurred down the road and out of my life once more.

        I sat alone with my lyre and my beating heart.  Slowly, I closed the first-aid kit and sighed.  I knew that I could only depend on myself in this life; perhaps it was high time I stopped pretending I could look after others as well.  Some of us could only dream of being heroes.  Others have earned the title with no hope of receiving it.  I will forever be stuck as a bard to such ponies' legacy.

        “Alright...”  Doctor Whooves stepped back from the cube after having placed down a black cylinder atop the machine's arcanium platform.  “Fifty kilograms of ram-crafted iron alloy.  This will be our heaviest test subject yet.”

        “What's the distance we're going for this time, Doc?” Rainbow Dash asked.

        Doctor Whooves glanced at Twilight Sparkle, gulped bravely, and said with a grin.  “Nine hundred feet.  I fear, Miss Dash, that by the time you catch up with it, it'll have achieved a great deal of velocity.”

        “Sounds dangerous,” Rainbow Dash said.  Her ruby eyes lit up.  “Ready when you are!”

        “Have... uhm... Have you been able to catch something of this mass before?”

        Rainbow snickered and glanced aside.  “Hey Twi!  Remember that one time Big Mac's outhouse was placed a little too close to the edge of a hill and I happened to be doing a cloud run overhead just as he was—?!”

        “Ahem.”  Twilight Sparkle smiled nervously at the stallion.  “She can handle it, Doctor.  Are we ready to begin?”

        “We're using twelve crystals this time.  It should be more than enough to channel the required energy into the runic matrix.”

        “Okay then.”  Twilight carefully approached the nearest stone on a pedestal and tilted her horn forward.  “I'll need a few moments to concentrate, then I'll give you the signal.”

        Doctor Whooves sat on his haunches while gripping the wired switch.  “I await with anticipation.”

        Rainbow Dash watched from where she hovered above.  The center of the library shimmered with a deep purple light as Twilight focused a light spell through the structure of her horn.  Her mane billowed in a magical wind as bulbs of sweat ran down her face.  “Almost... Almost...”  She briefly gnashed her teeth, took a deep breath, and finally exclaimed, “Casting now!”

        A bright flash illuminated the room.  In the next blink, all twelve crystals were being joined by a thick web of criss-crossing violet lasers.  Twilight Sparkle briefly stumbled, only to be supported by the weight of Doctor Whooves leaning into her.

        “Are you alright, dear?”

        “Never mind me!” Twilight found herself having to shout.  The room was echoing with a loud hum as the crystals flickered all around the metal cube.  “Do we have the energy contained?”

        “Just about!”  The Doctor yelled back, grazing the switch in his grasp with a tense pair of hooves.  “I adjusted the intake of the machine so that the artificial leylines will absorb the mana stream with thirty-five percent resistance!”

        “You think it's enough to compensate for the increased charge?”

        “If not, the device should harmlessly expel the mana stream into the lateral absorption banks!”

        “Well, that sounds anticlimactic!”

        “Not on my watch!”  Doctor Whooves smiled wide as the room swirled with an ethereal haze.  “Are you ready, Miss Dash?”

        “Hit it, Doc!”

        “Consider it hit!  Nine hundred feet or bust!”  He pulled the switch.

        The lasers from the twelve crystals shot immediately into the cube.  What wasn't so immediate, however, was the rate of glowing light from the heart of the box.  Instead of instantly dematerializing the black object on top of the machine's platform, a low whining noise began emanating from the center of the cube.

        “Uhh...”  Rainbow Dash made a face, her fluttering wings drooping slightly in midair.  “That doesn't sound good.”  She gulped.  “Am I the only pony who thinks that doesn’t sound good?”

        Twilight Sparkle flashed a worried glance.  “Doctor?”

        “I...”  Doctor Whooves' mouth was agape as he glanced at the delayed teleportation.  “I don't understand!  We should have witnessed the discharge by now!”

        “Maybe it's taking longer cuz the metal weight is heavier?” Rainbow Dash blindly speculated.

        “No, it should have nothing to do with the test subject's variable weight,” Twilight exclaimed.  “It's as if all of the mana has disappeared.  But that can't be possible!  The box—”

        “Good heavens,” the Doctor gasped.

        The two mares looked fearfully his way.

        He flashed them no less a worried look.  “Of course the mana charge hasn't disappeared.  The reason we're not seeing it is probably because the enchantment immediately pierced the outer layers of artificial leylines.”

        “You mean the beam was strong enough to pierce to the center of the apparatus?”  Twilight Sparkle breathily exclaimed.

        “Uhm...”  Rainbow Dash fluttered lower.  “Is that bad?”

        “The core of the cube's runic chambers isn't built to handle that much magical stress!”  Twilight Sparkle shrieked as the room started resonating with an alien cacophony.  “It could very well be overloading as we speak—”

        “I'm aborting!”  Doctor Whooves shouted.  It was becoming difficult to hear his own voice.  “I'm shutting it all down!”  He fiddled with the device.  He pounded on it, seething.

        “Nnnngh!”  Rainbow Dash was gripping her aching ears at this point.  Lanterns and light fixtures wobbled overhead.  The windows along the edges of the library began to crack.  “Ughhh—D-Doc?!”

        “The failsafe!”  He bellowed.  It came across as a whisper against a gigantic earthquake.  “The lateral banks have burnt out!”

        “Then that means—!” Twilight began.

        Rainbow Dash was already swooping down.  As the cube flashed a bright purple, its metal shell buckling, she swiftly yanked Twilight and the Doctor away with two hooked forelimbs.  “Get down—!”

        The cube ruptured.  The black cylinder was spat out, landing two feet deep into a wooden wall as the twelve crystals shattered.  Tremors bred tremors, and soon the shuddering stopped, giving way to a low bass hum as dust settled across the room.  Shadows danced across the interiors of the hollow treehouse.  Books and tattered pages spun magical cyclones, beneath which a groaning Doctor Whooves stirred to life.

        “Nnnngh... Great Starswirl... My head...”  He winced visibly, his ears and nostrils streaming thin trickles of blood.  He glanced up and gasped at what he saw.

        A huge gash had been torn in the body of the cube, exposing its glowing purple core to the room.  Despite the disastrous explosion, the teleportation machine was remarkably intact, except for one key detail.  The arcanium platform had been blown clean off.  What was more, the cube had fallen and was currently lying on its side.  The onion layers of artificial leylines were exposed to the air so that the one opening of the device was currently being aimed at—

        “Miss Dash!” Doctor Whooves sputtered.

        “Ughhh...”  Rainbow Dash barely stirred, lying paralyzed on her side.  She was overcome by waves of pure magical energy billowing over her figure.  The torn mouth of the cube was facing directly towards her, and the pegasus had very little strength to wake up, much less crawl away from the threatening contraption.

        Doctor Whooves tried crawling towards her.  He instantly winced, then glanced down at his rear limbs.  A cloud of glass shrapnel from one of the mana crystals had embedded viciously into his knee, spilling a small pool of blood across the floor.  Panicking, he flashed Rainbow Dash another glance, then looked to where Twilight Sparkle was lying just a few feet away from the pegasus.

        “Miss Sparkle!  Hckk...”  He winced past a wave of pain and again struggled in vain to crawl towards the two mares.  “Can you move?”

        “Can... hardly... breathe...”  Twilight whimpered.  She was glued to the floor, but for a completely different reason than the other two.  As waves of mana billowed out from the lopsided teleporter, her horn resonated with a weak, pulsating light.  “Too... much energy.  Feel my nerves... going numb...”

        “Miss Dash is going to be in a worse situation if we don't—”  Doctor Whooves began, but was suddenly overcome by a loud groaning sound.  He glanced up with wide eyes as he saw a heavy bookcase stuffed with thick tomes teetering from the recent burst of energy.  “Oh dear...”  He curled inward and covered his head with two hooves.  The hulking wooden structure fell over him.

        A loud crash filled the room, but Doctor Whooves was untouched.  He found himself being dragged away from the collapsing bookcase at the last second.  Twitching, he glanced up at me.

        “Who in Celestia's name are you?!”

        “You're welcome,” I grunted, sweating.  I finished pulling the Doctor to a safe distance from the disaster and looked over at Twilight's and Rainbow's situation.  I too was deeply affected by the overloading cube.  Even from over a dozen feet away, I found it hard to stand upright.  If it wasn't for the fact that I was watching the experiment from an adjacent hallway when everything hit the fan, I would have been in as bad a shape as the others.  “Never mind introductions, Doctor!”  I struggled to speak past the waves of raw magic pouring from the ruptured device.  “Is there any way to turn this thing off?”

        “I... I...”  Doctor Whooves shook off the confusion of my presence and forlornly glanced at the situation at hoof.  “Nopony but one of the royal alicorns themselves could shut it off at this point!  There's nothing we can do but wait for the pent-up energy to exit the machine on its own!”

        “Just how long are we talking about?!” I exclaimed above the deep bass roar.  I shaded my squinting eyes with a hoof as I looked at Twilight and Rainbow alternatively.  It was hard to hear anything above my beating heart, much less the mana-spilling cube.  “A couple of hours?”

        “More like minutes, ma'am!”  the Doctor exclaimed.  “There's too much mana inside the thing to stay contained for much longer!  I fear the first burst was but a precursor!”

        “What do you mean by that?!”

        “Even shattered in pieces, the teleporter is going to do what it's designed to do!”  The Doctor pointed as I helped him into a sitting position.  “And that's emit a solid beam of energy in the form of a spatial displacement spell!  And right now, the unguarded mouth of the machine is aimed at—”

        “Rainbow Dash...”  I murmured.  “I'll move her—”

        He held me in place with a strong hoof.  “No!  If you get any closer to the core, you'll be as worse off as them!”

        “But we have to move them!  Both of them!”  I felt my teeth chattering.  It wasn't the cold this time.  I looked all over the rumbling, billowing scene.  “Any ideas?”

        He looked up at me as if for the first time.  “You're a unicorn!  Praise Luna!”  He pointed at a splintered plank of wood severed from a collapsed bookcase.  “Perhaps you can give one of them a boost—!”

        “I read you!”  I exclaimed.  Trying to steady my breaths, I planted all four hooves tightly against the floor and concentrated hard through my horn.  With the most intensely focused burst of mana I've ever summoned in my life, I levitated the wooden plank upwards and pierced it through the sphere of swirling energy.  “Nnnngh...”  I strained and sweated as I attempted shoving the thing towards the dormant, moaning figure of Rainbow Dash.  It felt like carving a plastic butter knife through wet cement.  “I... I-I don't think I can reach her!”

        “Then don't!”  Doctor Whooves shouted.  The bass hum of the machine was intensifying once more.  We both felt the advent of another mana-burst coming from the sundered teleporter.  “Miss Sparkle's closer!  Try and pull her out first!”  He pointed.  “Then the two of you might be able to work together and get Rainbow Dash out!”

        “Twilight!” I shouted as I pivoted the plank her way.  “Did you hear the Doctor?  Grab ahold!”

        “I... I...”  Twilight blindly lifted a hoof and miraculously found her end of the wooden object.  “Who... Who is that...?”

        “Let's play guessing games later!”  I shouted.  The windows started rattling again.  Glass that had fractured before was outright shattering as I tugged telekinetically at my end of the plank.  “Just hold on tight!  I need your help in saving—”

        “Rainbow Dash!”  Twilight cried.  She stared in horror at Rainbow's limp body while she was being tugged towards me.  “Just hang in there!”  She cast one look at the ruptured cube that was aimed at the pegasus and almost sobbed.  “Oh please Celestia, no...”

        “Nnngh... Tw-Twilight...”  Rainbow Dash barely stirred.  Her feathers were practically molting from the machine's proximity.

        “Do you hear me?!”  Twilight stammered as I finally pulled her over to me and the Doctor.  She collapsed into my forelegs and tried to regain her bearings.  “Just... Just breathe easily, and we'll have you out of there—”

        The machine began pulsing.  A wave of pure magic knocked all three of us onto our backsides.  I stumbled accidentally over Doctor Whooves' bleeding leg, causing him to shriek in pain.  By the time I got up to my hooves once more, I was assaulted by a sudden beam of pure sunlight.  It took several seconds of wincing to realize that the front door to the library had been flung open.

        “What in hay's name is going on in here?!  Is everypony alright—?”  A high-pitched voice began, then gasped, then practically shrieked.  “Rainbow Dash!”

        I next heard Twilight breathily murmuring, “Oh no... Stop!  Go back outside!  Don't come anywhere near her!”

        I looked up at the library's front entrance.  The first things I saw were the four spinning wheels of an overturned scooter.  My heart sank, and my wavering sight danced over to see her little orange body practically swimming against the waves of nauseous mana.

        “Listen to me, Scootaloo!”  Twilight shrieked.  I numbly helped her to her hooves as she shouted above the noise and bedlam.  “Go back!  Don't try to touch her!  That machine's about to blow—”

        “She's... She's h-hurt!”  Scootaloo squeaked into the billowing streams of energy.  Her gnashing teeth reflected streams of murderous violet light as she inched herself painfully towards Rainbow Dash.  Whether or not she heard Twilight's words of warning no longer mattered.  We watched helplessly from our end of the library in utter horror.  “We... I... I-I gotta get Rainbow out of here!”

        “Mmmf... Wh-what...?”  As if sparked to life by the sound of her own name, Rainbow Dash's eyes fluttered open.  She saw Scootaloo.  She saw the pain in her face.  Then, she saw the cosmic glow of the teleporter on the verge of erupting.  With one gasp, she snarled Scootaloo's way and poured all her strength in raising a numb forelimb.  “Kid!  Back off!  I mean it—”

        For a brief moment, Scootaloo collapsed on four knees.  She winced from the contact her bandaged leg made with the library floor.  That must have sparked a fire from deep within.  Her eyes blazed as she summoned an animalistic growl, fluttered her tiny wings, and propelled herself like a comet into Rainbow Dash's side.

        “No!  Don't—” Doctor Whooves was shrieking.

        But it was too late.  The machine exploded for a second and last time.  A stream of purple energy popped out the box's torn mouth and billowed across the wooden floor.  Rainbow Dash gasped, until her tumbling body was replaced by Scootaloo, who was then replaced with nothing.  In a bright burst, the filly was gone, and only a dim purple haze remained.

        Once the noise and mayhem of the disaster had dissipated, Rainbow Dash's yelling voice was immediately filling the void.

        “Dang it!  Dang it dang it dang it dang it!”  Her dizziness replaced with shock and anger, she tried bounding up to her limbs.  She only managed to bump into several bookcases and shattered bits of laboratory equipment.  “Nnnnngh—Raaaugh!”  She bucked her hooves repeatedly into a wooden table, viciously knocking it over and spitting into the air.  “Idiot!  What in the hay did she think she was doing?!  That... nnngh... stupid... stupid...”

        The cube lay dead and quiet.  No longer encumbered by waves of mana, I numbly stumbled over towards her and helped her up onto all fours.  “She... She...”  I mumbled in a dry voice, gulped, and gazed at the charred ring of soot that marked where Scootaloo was standing last.  “She... was teleported away.  She had to have been!  Miss Dash, if we could just—”

        “Hmmmph!”  She seethed and shoved me to the floor before marching across the library.  “Twi!  Tell me!  Where is she?!  Where'd that dumb machine send her?!”

        Twilight Sparkle was gazing at the empty space of the library with her jaw agape.  Her eyes were moist, on the verge of tears.

        “Twilight!”  Rainbow Dash grabbed her shoulders and shook her.  “Look at me!”

        Twilight gulped and looked at Rainbow Dash.  Her lips quivered.  “I... I don't know, Rainbow.  If I had any idea that this could have happened...”

        “But it has happened!”  Rainbow Dash growled.  “That stupid thing teleports crud to places, right?  So where's the kid?  Did it send her nine hundred feet across town or what?”

        “There's no way to tell,” Doctor Whooves suddenly muttered.

        Rainbow Dash spun to face him.  “Bad answer!” She frowned.  “I'm having a look!”  She stretched her wings to fly out—

        “No!  Stop!”  The Doctor winced past his bleeding pain and gestured for her to remain in place.  “I mean it!  The machine's energy output magnified Miss Sparkle's enchantment by ten-fold!  Furthermore, the damage dealt to the machine can't guarantee that the child was sent anywhere predictable!”

        “Just tell me where to go searching for her, Doc!”  Rainbow Dash exclaimed.  She steeled herself with a frown to avoid  imminent hyperventilation.  “I don't think that teleportation thingy is very foal-friendly!”

        “What I think the Doctor is trying to say is that the machine did in fact send Scootaloo somewhere, but there's no telling where exactly!”  Twilight Sparkle teetered, still attempting to regain her balance.  “It... It could have been in any direction.”

        “That isn't helping, Twi!”

        “Just give me a second...”  Twililight limped across the room.  We watched anxiously as she picked up a collapsed blackboard, levitated a piece of chalk, and began flurrying through an array of high-level math equations at dazzling speed.  Her forehead was furrowed in deep thought.  Her lips murmured unintelligibly.

        “With that rate of discharge,” Doctor Whooves spoke between painful breaths, “A body that small would have been sent at least five times the distance we had estimated teleporting the last test subject.”

        “Yeah?  So what?”  Rainbow Dash fluttered desperately between the two scientists.  “What does that mean?  What do I have to work with?”

        “Just let me concentrate!”  Twilight snapped, gritting her teeth as she struggled through a few lasting equations.  She clenched her eyes shut, murmured breathily, then struck a final figure.  Spinning around, she gazed up at a wide-eyed Rainbow Dash and practically whimpered, “She could be anywhere in a thirteen mile circular area.”

        “With this place—the location of the teleporter—as the center,” the Doctor added in a forlorn breath.

        Rainbow Dash gazed left and right between the two.  She flung her forelimbs above her tattered mane.  “What does that tell me?”

        “She could could be two miles north of us, two miles south of us, southwest, southeast—There's no real way to tell!”  Twilight Sparkle said and gulped nervously.

        Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, her ruby eyes hardening.  “Well, what are we waiting for?”  She made for the nearest shattered window.  “Twilight, you tell the mayor that I'm fetching every able-bodied pegasus in Ponyville.  We're combing the area!  We'll search all day and night and all week if we have to!”

        “It's not a matter of if you find her, Miss Dash!”  The Doctor exclaimed.  “It's a matter of how soon.”

        “Why?”  Rainbow Dash flashed him a frown.  “What now?”

        He bit his lip, exchanged a worried glance with Twilight, then looked once more Rainbow's way.  “No living thing has ever been teleported by a machine like this before.”  He winced and sat up straight while clutching his wounded leg.  “All hypotheses suggest that a living pony may survive spatial displacement, but not for long.”

        “What do you mean 'not for long'?” Rainbow Dash's voice cracked in horror.

        “What he means, Rainbow, is that Scootaloo—wherever she is—will soon lose her faculties, followed by swift paralysis, on account of her body being separated from her incorporeal self.”  Twilight tried to calmly explain the horror of the situation.  “The machine has essentially disconnected her from the leylines that keep her consciousness and physical self in perfect sync.  In a matter of time, her body will cease to function, like a sort of magically-induced suffocation.”

        “Then... Then...”  Rainbow Dash fidgeted in mid-air, bit her lip, then barked, “Then we must fetch her and bring her to a smart, magicky unicorn like you so you can... c-can put back together her leylines and crud, right?”

        “I...”  Twilight Sparkle squirmed where she stood.  “I've never tried something like that before—”

        “But is it possible?”

        “Well, sure!  But—”

        “Then it's enough to go on!”  Rainbow Dash pointed.  “Get the Doc to a hospital!  I've got a rescue team to round up!”

        “Miss Sparkle... Miss Dash...”  Doctor Whooves winced as Twilight propped him up against her.  “I must apologize for this series of disastorous events—”

        “Apologies can wait, Doc!  Scoots needs us!”

        “But... Everypony just wait!”  My voice sounded across the room as I jumped into the center of the library, waving my hooves.  “We can't go about this blindly!  There's gotta be—I dunno—a way to know for sure just where the kid is!”

        All three jumped in place, glancing at me.

        “Uhm... Who...?”

        “Where'd you come from?”  Twilight Sparkle blinked.

        My eyes twitched.  I was amazed at how quickly even I had forgotten a case of misfortune within misfortune.  “Erm... I was... just...”

        “Were you here the whole time?”

        I snarled and stomped my hooves.  “Look, who cares?!  Seriously?”  I frowned in Doctor Whooves' face.  “It takes a light-based enchantment spell to activate the machine, right?”

        “How...”  He squinted nervously at me.  “How did you know—?”

        “Yes or no?  Answer me!”

        “Yes.”  Twilight answered for him, staring at me warily.  “I channeled a light-intensive spell into the crystals that were then absorbed into the machine.  The runes built into the device do all the rest, transforming the spark into an artificial teleportation spell.”

        “Then, if it's light-based...”  I rubbed my chin in thought, then gasped wide.  “Perhaps an illumination spell can trace where the machine sent her!”

        “I...”  Twilight glanced at the twitching Rainbow Dash and wounded Doctor.  I could tell she was beyond her wit's end.  “I haven't performed a light spell in ages.  Even if I could...”

        As Twilight was speaking aloud, my mind was flying circles to make even Rainbow Dash proud.  I thought of the glow of a lantern above my head in a dark cellar while I performed the elegies.  I imagined the subterranean world undulating around me as I threw myself down a gauntlet of forbidden songs.  Shades of light had danced before me, just as a spark of inspiration was twinkling before me then.  “Don't worry!”  I grinned suddenly and galloped towards the hallway at a pace to match my heartbeat.  I found my saddlebag right where I had left it upon arriving at the library earlier to watch the experiment.  “I think I have it covered!”  I reached deep into one of the pouches and produced my lyre.  “I know a song that has a side effect of disseminating faint light from shadow and—”

        The hairs of my coat stood on end as a deep chill entranced me.  Shuddering, I stumbled in place.

        “Uhm... Guys?”

        I turned around.  My heart sank.

        Twilight Sparkle and Doctor Whooves had hobbled away.  Outside the shattered windows, I could hear the yelling voice of Rainbow Dash as she rounded up every pegasus within earshot.

        I took a deep breath.  One way or another, I always end up alone.  But Scootaloo?  I suddenly wanted to find her more than anything.  It’s not everyday I find out that I’m not the only pony who’s incapable of flying out of this place.

        I looked at my lyre.  The golden body and taut cords felt cold to the touch, just like what I was about to do.  I felt naked and awkward in the middle of a rubble-strewn library.  It amazed me how acquainted I had become with the dark, pristine interior of my subterranean cellar.  Nevertheless, I trotted over towards the wrecked cube, stood above it with my instrument, and took a deep breath.

        Perhaps...

Just perhaps... these elegies were given to me for a reason.  What’s a pain to me could be blissful deliverance to others.  I’ve long discovered my music to have an edge that my words fail to deliver.  Luna’s compositions have transcended the obscuring layers of time, delving into a realm of pure forgetfulness only to emerge with new and enchanting tonality in my hooves.  I’ve taken it upon myself to become the steward of these forgotten songs.  Did I have another thankless job to attend?  Was I to be the nameless steward of souls as well?

I may not be a courageous pony, but I like to think of myself as an intelligent one.  Princess Luna's songs had once served her some mysterious purpose in ages gone by.  Though the function of the tunes are forgotten, it doesn't mean I can't invent new applications for them.  If I'm not here to be creative and resourceful, then why else would a phantom like me exist?  I was never born to be a hero, but I'd hate myself forever if I failed to be a good bard.

        Once I had collected my nerves in the center of that wrecked room, I put my telekinesis to use, and began strumming the first of the lunar elegies.  The dissonant strings of the “Prelude to Shadows” slowly filled the lengths of the library.  Ironically, the first portion of the symphony was all that I required.  I had no intention to play any of the tunes that followed.

        Less than a minute into the performance, and the side effects of the elegy began assaulting me without mercy.  I started trembling all over as a deep paranoia overwhelmed my body and mind.  I wasn't used to playing this song in the daylight, and I felt like everything that was lying still around me was suddenly squirming to life.  Despite my desperate need to clench my eyes shut, I kept them wide open, taking in every horrid hallucination that dared to flicker and jump before me until a ray of truth made itself known.

        Through the dancing shadows and squirming shades of the song's eerie tones, I finally found what I was looking for.  Beams of light separated before me, so that I saw with a mystic sight-within-sight, discovering a spectrum unknown to most mortals.  The bands of brightness separated, and soon one ray in particular was arching away from the heart of the dead teleporter.  It was a fresh beam of luminescence, as infant as it was artificial.  I stopped playing my lyre and drifted forward, breathing it in.  It tasted like vanilla and bone.  The dreadful succulence led me—limping—straight out of the library, until I nearly collapsed from the waves of cold that resulted from my having aborted the magical elegy in mid-performance.

        My heart pumped, wracked with darting fears.  I fought the flowers and grass squirming around me like a sea of snakes.  Tilting my head up, I was enraptured to see the beam leading straight northwest, past the edge of town, past Sweet Apple Acres, and towards the base of a misty mountain range that—sure enough—was no more than three miles' distance.

        I now knew where Scootaloo was.

        My breath came out of me in a happy whimper.  I was so hammered with cold and frayed nerves, I would gladly have collapsed right there.  But I couldn't.  The afternoon air above Ponyville was buzzing with more and more swarming pegasi.  The streets thundered with scampering hooves and murmuring voices.  The entire city had come alive in panic.  One of the town's precious foals had gone missing by the most bizarre of circumstances, and she had to be found.

        Wincing, I pulled myself up on all fours.  “Nnngh... Twi... Tw-Twilight...”  I murmured.  I shuffled forward, teetering sickly.  The Prelude's toll on me was almost worse than the exploding teleporter's.  Like a zombie, I limped through town.  I put two and two together in my head and guessed where Twilight had taken the Doctor.  I was elated beyond measure when I stumbled upon the front entrance to the Ponyville Hospital and—indeed—I had found her.

        She wasn't alone.  While Nurse Redheart and several other ponies were tending to Doctor Whooves, Twilight was speaking a mile-a-minute with a distressed mayor.  Among the other ponies surrounding the frantic scene, I spotted a familiar soul...

        “Please!  You must find her!”  Milky White sobbed.  Carrot Top and Colgate were standing on either side of the sobbing mare, holding her up and nuzzling her.  “That poor filly's been through so much!  I brought her here to Ponyville to start a new life and forget about where she had been!  This is the last thing I could have ever imagined would happen!”

        “I promise you, Miss White,” Twilight Sparkle planted her hooves on the mare's shoulder.  Her fragile desperation was hidden from everypony me, her foalhood friend.  “We will find Scootaloo!  Rainbow Dash is already on it!  I need you to stay calm and let us all conduct a search—”

        “She's northwest!” I grunted, coughed, and all but collapsed into the group.  I heard Caramel's murmuring breath as I was helped back into a standing position.  “Scootaloo's northwest of here!  Don't waste your time searching anywhere else...”

        Twilight and the others squinted hard at me.  “How... How could you possibly know that?”

        “The teleporter was enchanted by a light spell, right?”

        “Uhm... Yes.”  Twilight gave me a strange look.  “What's your point?  Just who are you?  We kind of have a situation here—”

        “Yes—Right—And I'm trying to tell you where Scootaloo is!” I snarled as the confused looks around me doubled, tripled.  “I cast a spell that revealed to me a light trail leading to where the teleporter sent Scootaloo!  You need to send everpony about two and a half miles northwest—!”

        “Twilight!”  Rainbow Dash floated down, flanked by the hovering figures of Cloudkicker and Raindrops.  “I've got a team of fifty already!  I sent Candy Mane and Blossomforth to fetch more!  How should we go about doing this?”

        Twilight immediately spun and replied.  “We shouldn't waste precious pegasi on nearby areas.  You should fly over the furthest parts of the teleporter's range while earth ponies and unicorns cover the town.”

        “Yes!” the mayor spoke up.  “Everypony, listen!  Gather in groups of three and cover a separate district of the village!  Carrot Top!  Go fetch Applejack and Big Macintosh and work out a plan with the other farm families to cover the nearby woods—”

        “Hey!”  I barked as a wave of chills racked me in the middle of the scrambling villagers.  “Didn't you hear me?!  I just said I know where she is—”

        “Nnngh...”  Twilight rubbed her forehead.  She gazed at me with mixed disgust and nausea.  “Huh?  What are—Who's yelling?  We need to—”

        “Pay attention!!”  I leaned forward, panting.  “Scootaloo's northwest of here!”  I glanced frantically at everypony, feeling the situation swiftly slipping away from my hooves.  “Just calm down, stay next to me, and listen!  I promise, I can help you find her—”

        “What are we standing around for?!”  Rainbow Dash shouted.  She was twenty feet above us.  She might as well have been four galaxies away from me.  “We need to find her and bring her back here so that Twilight can—I dunno—mind delve her or something!”

        “Better hurry, Miss Dash!”  Doctor Whooves exclaimed, wincing as Nurse Redheart treated him.  “Every moment wasted risks losing Scootaloo forever!”

        “What... What does he mean?”  Milky White sobbed.

        “Just calm down!  Please!”  I shouted.  “I know where she is—”

        “Now's not the time for practical jokes,” Carrot Top said, frowning at me.  “Unless you're able to help—”

        “I just told you seconds ago that I conducted a spell that can help us—”

        “I better get prepared for her return,” Twilight Sparkle said, rubbing her head again as she stumbled towards Doctor Whooves.  “If I'm not meditating by the time she gets here, I may not be able to reattach her to the leylines.”

        “Everypony fan out!”  Rainbow Dash said, darting off as her fellow pegasi spread in opposite directions.  “Counter-clockwise formations!”

        “I'll get the Apple Family!”  Carrot Top galloped away.

        “No—No wait!  Please!”  I reached out, but stumbled to my haunches, panting.  Everypony was running everywhere but towards me.  The desperation and panic in their bodies was pulling them away from my body like unraveled yarn.  If this was any other day, any other occasion, then perhaps I could very easily have plucked a receptive soul out from Ponyville's bitter-cold sea of amnesia.  But this...

        I shivered, hugging myself, watching as the fruitless search began under a slowly setting sun... what could very well have been a foal's last day on earth.

        Numbly, I stumbled into my cabin.  I plopped my saddlebag atop my cot.  I let my body slump down on the floor before the fireplace.

        I did not light it.

        I stared into the dry, unlit lumber lying before me.  There were so many ashes, so many dead and lifeless flakes of brittle wood, and still I was no warmer that day than I was the first morning I was introduced to my curse.

        My ears pricked.  The veteran musician inside me couldn't help but hear the faintest of shouting voices beyond the windows to my house.  The search was going on across Ponyville.  Dozens upon dozens of ponies were desperately combing miles of acreage, and they were all blind.

        I knew where Scootaloo was.  I knew she was suffering, dying even.  I also knew that wherever she was—she'd be better off than me.

        Two miles—maybe three—from the center of Ponyville:  I had never even remotely gotten that far from the birthplace of my curse, not even that one time Twilight had personally teleported me.  The furthest I ever dared to tread was to Zecora's place in the middle of the Everfree Forest, and even that was a paltry mile-and-a-half distance at best.  Every time I came back home from buying those precious soundstones, it took the better part of a day to warm my body back to being able to feel once again.

        I heard more shouts of pegasus voices outside.  Wincing, I clenched my eyes shut and ran a pair of hooves through my mane.

        I was born to a rich family in the streets of Canterlot.  The first and only time I hurt myself was one day, when I was a foal and I had spranged my ankle chasing the family cat down the stairs.  I only wore a cast for half a month, and still I thought it was the most excruciating pain a pony could ever go through.  Afterwards, I grew up, and I lived my life day by day, book after book, music sheet after music sheet, in the luxury of college life, in the glow of an alicorn princess who guarded and watched over us all.  What did I know of agony?  What did I know of struggle?  Even this curse—for all its frigid horrors—is painted with the rosy colors of friendly faces who would gladly help a stranger, would talk to her, would even hug her.

        I am not hero material.  If anything, my soul is empowered with patience, not courage.  I don't have a single versatile inch of muscle or intestinal fortitude to boast of.

        That day, shivering before a fireplace that I was too guilty to light for myself, I knew that all I had was knowledge, a memory.  I knew where Scootaloo was.  I could remember it, where everypony else couldn't.  If one soul was to die that day, I knew another that would not be able to live with herself.

        If this is what Nightmare Moon had meant for me, then I respect her as much as I hate her.

        I threw myself to my hooves before my brain had a chance to protest.  The first thing I threw over my hoodie was Rarity's gorgeous sweater.  Next came a second coat—one that I had barely used and still smelled like the dumpster I grabbed it from nine months ago.  I added the scarf, socks, and stockings next.  The woolen cap and cloak covered the entire ensemble.  As if all of this didn't weigh enough, I brought along my saddlebag and stuffed it full of blankets.  I hadn't realized it at first, but I was sobbing by the time I marched out the cabin's front door.  No single pony faces the reaper with dry eyes.  Bundled like a woolen tank, I enjoyed the last few drops of sweat I was allowed, and galloped northwest under the shadows of misguided pegasi in the decaying afternoon.

        This wasn't the Everfree Forest, but I wished it was.  No less than ten minutes into marching through the woods, I realized how terribly hilly it was.  Every other step sent me stumbling over a sharp rock or exposed bit of stone.  Pulling myself back up was a difficult feat.  My bundled clothing stiffened my limbs, so that I felt like I was wading through a sea of bed blankets.  No matter how much I wanted to free my legs, I couldn't afford to shed a single scrap.  I may have been shivering then, but I knew that in less than an hour I'd be traversing a veritable arctic circle.

        Twenty minutes in.  I couldn't feel my lower legs.  At first, I thought it was because the cold had already hit me.  I soon realized that it was because I was getting worn out by clopping my hooves over so much stone and pebbles.  I was foolish to think that the mountainside would start abruptly far north of my destination.  As a matter of fact, the mountain was gradually giving birth to itself beneath me with each step I took.  I've gone on several jogs in my life, but each occasion had been on even ground, and never scaling uphill.

        It didn't help that the sun was setting.  The light was already being obscured by the thick sea of trees surrounding me.  To my utter dismay, the forest only grew denser and denser the further north I marched.  I was so desperate to get to Scootaloo's location, it hadn't dawned on me just how easily I could get lost from my goal.  If I had to readjust my bearings, it was now or never... before I lost any of my senses to the frigid wall I was just about to pierce.

        Pausing, I sat on my haunches and pulled my lyre out from my saddlebag.  It took a long time to focus my telekinetic talents.  It took even longer to gear myself for playing the “Prelude to Shadows” out in the middle of such a foreboding location.  My entire body tensed as I heard the enchanting elegy drip forth from my trembling instrumentation.  Soon enough, I relocated the beam of light tracing Scootaloo's teleported path.  It swam over me like a frozen lightning bolt, leading me further towards the neck of the mountainside.  It was with small relief that I found the Prelude's normal waves of paranoia failing to engulf me.  Then, I realized, I had become so tense and frightened with my present task that the elegy's side effects had simply become unnoticeable.

        Without wasting any time, I pocketed the lyre away and marched after the streak of light.  It shone above me like a burning plume of platinum fire.  I saw my breaths forming against the dense woods before me.  The magical beam grew brighter and brighter, and that was how I knew night was coming.  If there were pegasi swarming overhead, I could no longer see them.  I could only focus on each hoofstep I made as I scaled hill after hill, because soon I couldn't concentrate on anything else.

        The first wave of cold hit.  I imagined that I was a mile out.  Every time I opened my mouth, I felt as if my very own saliva would freeze, and yet it was all I could do to stop from suffocating.  Bundled as I was, I felt like I was carrying a small house up the side of a mountain.  I knew that if even so much as my scarf fell off, I might freeze to death right there, and yet to stop and think twice meant robbing another second of life from Scootaloo.  It's hard to convince oneself of another pony's plight when all one feels is the stabs of icy pins and needles with each trot.  I pulled my body forward, attempting to convince myself that I had been in worse spots, then trying to make myself believe that the previous attempt wasn't such a blatant lie.

        The second wave of cold hit, and it felt more like a wall of invisible snow than an actual wave.  I no longer felt like I was walking; I was burrowing.  My hooves were carving their way through powdery mounds of frost.  I felt as though my eyes were being stabbed, and I realized it was because my tears were freezing.  There was a pathetic whimpering sound in my ears.  I gasped, thinking I had stumbled upon Scootaloo, but then realized that those tiny whimpers belonged to me.  I almost wondered if I was the one who had been zapped with the teleporter instead, for my soul felt as if it had been disconnected with the puppet legs flagrantly tossing it forward.

        And that is how I discovered pain.  I mean true pain, the sort of pain that a body is not meant to endure, only to dream of, toying with nightmares that fuel us into avoiding stupid, self-destructive actions during the waking day.  It's the sort of pain that exists as a last ditch spark to startle a ghost and fling it back—screaming—straight into the body where it belongs, as a final means of avoiding death.  And there I was marching straight into the gaping maw of that very same oblivion, and for what?  Even if I was lucky enough to get to Scootaloo in time, what chance did I have to bring her to Twilight swiftly enough for my old friend to maybe or maybe not save the foal's life?

        The fact of the matter was—dead or not—I would never earn myself a gravestone.  But Scootaloo...

        There were tears in this world that belonged to her, and all of them incalculably warmer than mine.  I snarled at the mountain.  I screamed at it, clawed at it, and pulled myself up it.  It felt pretty intense at the time, but I'm sure all of my utterances came out as kitten mews against a great pale planetoid.  Trees surrounded me like gray mane hairs, and I was a starving flea hopping away from the throbbing arteries.  I glided through a land of stale blue ice, painted with horrors that I had only ever read about, poetically fantasized about, until it all slammed down around me with the sudden shriek of twinkling stars, and that's how I realized something had woken me from my frozen stupor, three shivering hours into the suicidal climb.

        “Nnngh—Gah!” My eyes flew open and I shot up, bundled like a funeral shroud.  Instead of a coffin, I found myself surrounded by granite and wood.  It was the very crest of the mountainside.  The sun was bleeding over the blurry edges of Ponyville lying to the southeast.  I thought I heard a vulture shrieking above me, until those shrieks turned into fitful sobs.  I looked up, and I saw her.

        Scootaloo was dangling, upside-down and paralyzed, with her tail-hairs caught in the angry spokes of a dead tree.  I was sobbing.  I knew I was.  The world blurred and unblurred as I stood up and reached towards her.

        And then I fell down.

        I gasped.  I couldn't feel my body.  I was a shell, deader than the rock around me.  I was afraid to look at my hooves in the scant twilight afforded me, for fear that I might see blue lifeless skin peering through my mint green coat.  I tried to stand up, the best I could do was roll over.  I felt sudden, sharp bites of pain from where my body stumbled over rough pebbles.  The fact that any of my nerves still answered to torment was a very queer thrill at the time.  I embraced the jolt running through me and sat up, reaching two alien hooves overhead in a desperate bid to reach her.

        There was no denying it.  Scootaloo was less than two feet away.  Still, I couldn't so much as touch her.  If I was rescuing an adult, I would have cursed up a storm.  Instead, I focused, imagined a tune from my childhood—anything to center myself—and propelled that energy through my horn.  There was a brief green spark as I surged a burst of telekinesis towards the stars.  Thankfully, the branch holding Scootaloo happened to be in the way, and it snapped.  Scootaloo plunged towards me like an orange comet.  I caught the foal with whatever part of my body was least painful to her.

        “Ooof!”  I shrieked, rediscovering the mists of my breath as I tumbled under her weight.  The severed branch that had once held her bounced ineffectually away into the shadows of the night.  I briefly wondered if I too might have snapped.

        “Nnngh... Where...?”  Scootaloo flailed, twitched.  She was like a newborn, adrift in a wave of confusing shadows and nausea.  Her eyes never once stopped rolling back in her head.  “Who... Wh-Who...?”

        “Y-Your t-t-ticket out of h-h-here,” some voice replied, horrifying me with its frigid stutters.

        “I... I can't...”  Scootaloo sobbed.  Scootaloo retched.  Scootaloo stammered, “I-I can't... can't feel...”

        “You and m-m-me b-both, k-kiddo.”  Something was putting her on my back as the world spun one hundred and eighty degrees.  I was beside myself with horror.  My eyes were playing a simulation of me stumbling down the mountainside, and suddenly that simulation became real.  “J-J-Just hang on t-t-tight.  Whatever y-you d-d-do, don't let g-go.  I'm g-g-going to get you h-home.”

        “My wings...”  She trembled all over.  Something colder than a glacier was stabbing my back in several places.  Scootaloo's teardrops were like a sea of knives.  “I... I can't feel my wings...”

        If I was a stronger pony, I wouldn't have replied to that.  “I kn-know you c-c-can't, Scootaloo.”

        “But... But I—”

        “I'm g-gonna get you home.  That's all I can do—”  No sooner were those words uttered, I saw the dark earth plunging towards my face.  “Unngh!”  I had slipped on a boulder and was sliding blindly down a hill of pebbles.  The night sky blurred, and I no longer felt the icy pain in my back.  “Sc-Scootaloo!”

        I gasped, tumbled, and reached my hooves out as soon as I saw a shade of orange.  I wrapped her in my forelimbs before she could get nearly as banged up as I.  That was all that mattered, and next came the breath of air being flung out of my body as I fell the last five feet to the bed of leaves and branches looming below.

        “Nnnngh!”  I weathered the wave of pain surging through my frame.  After several freezing moments, I unfolded my arms and found her shivering identically in my grasp.  “S-Say something.”

        She gulped and clutched tighter to me.  “Owie...”

        “Good enough.”  I picked her up again.  I picked myself up again.  I considered donating her one of the many blankets in my saddlebag, until I realised just how sweaty she was.  The night was so chaotic and excruciating, I easily forgot I was the only blisteringly cold soul in Equestria.  I navigated the hillside like a drop of molasses, serenaded by Scootaloo's frightened sobs.  “Gotta... find... Gotta get somewhere...”  I gulped and teetered left and right.  I could have sworn I was going in the right direction, but the Sun had disappeared and I no longer knew east from west.  If I still had the energy left to play the Prelude, I would much rather have started a forest fire to grab some pegasus' attention.  “Gotta get one of the ponies to see us... so they can fetch Twilight and... and...”

        “So... So tired...” I heard Scootaloo say.  Each word was a gunshot to my startled ears.  “Just... want it all to be quiet—”

        “No!  No!” I shouted.  I snarled.  Through the nightmarish cold, I felt her broken wings fluttering against my shivering flesh.  We were both prisoners of a shadowy world, and only one of was deserved to go free.  “Stay awake, Scootaloo!  Stay with me!”

        “Can't... Just... Just want to—”

        “Talk about something!  Tell me about your fami—”  My tongue limped half as badly as my legs did.  I gulped dryly and spoke to the invisible blizzard slicing across my face.  “Tell me who you want to be like, more than anypony in the world!”  I inched my way forward.  With each successive trot, my limbs grew weaker and weaker.  I could have sworn I discovered absolute zero.  My heartbeats were miles apart.  “Better yet, tell me why!”

        “She... She isn't afraid of anything...” Scootaloo's voice came as a gentle drip between hiccups.  It was the last piece of warmth I had to go by.  All of the bundled clothing felt like a thin paper napkin between me and her burning presence.  “She does everything by herself, and yet she's loyal to everypony...”

        I was stumbling at this point, lurching, crumbling.  I pulled myself on scuffed knees, my quivering eyes locked onto a patch of gray haze ahead of us: a clearing.  If I could get there, and maybe start a fire...

        “Y-yeah?” My voice danced on ectoplasmic strings, entreating her as I wormed myself pathetically in the dirt, slowly entombing myself in the saturated earth.  “What else?”

        “Sh-She's brave.” Scootaloo clung to the last feeling bits of me.  Her voice was soaring away at the speed of light.  I drunkenly envisioned it as the foal's maiden flight.  “She's... She's like me.”  A sob, a gasp, then a whimper:  “And I hate being alone...”

        “You're not...”  I panted, yanking my head forward, but my legs weren't obeying me.  The ice had crept up to my spine.  The clearing was a continent away, and the only thing not failing me was my voice, the last semblance of my soul.  “You're not alone...”  I scraped the surface of oblivion in fitful desperation, trying to leave an etch that could be remembered.  “You're n-never alone...”  My mouth stopped talking as soon as my chin collapsed into the wet soil.

        When the light left my eyes, I did not think about my parents.  I did not think about Twilight Sparkle or Moondancer.  I did not think about the fireplace, Applejack's neighborly drawl, or Rarity's fabulous sweater.  I did not think about Luna’s undiscovered elegies or unwritten compositions.  I did not even think about Morning Dew's voice and what it did to my heartbeat.

        All I thought about was Scootaloo, about her wings, and how there'd be nopony to remember those words of hers, because she passed away in my forelimbs and not theirs.

        No, I was not dying a hero, but I knew who was.  It was a noble thought, warm enough on its own.  I held it gently to myself as I embraced the endless night.

        It was the emptiness in my forelegs, and not the flames, that woke me.

        My eyes flew open.  A campfire was being lit right beside me.  It was so close, I could stick my tongue out and taste the flickering sparks.  I did just that, and it burnt my tongue, making me realize that I was indeed alive.

        I jerked—violently at first.  When I next tried sitting up, I realized that I was still freezing cold, and shivered madly like a reanimated corpse.  Squinting, I looked up to see a pale pegasus squatting over the tiny blaze, applying the finishing touches with a cluster of flint and steel in her hooves.

        “Come on... Come on... There we go.  That should just about do it—”

        “Cloudkicker!” a familiar, raspy voice barked from several feet away.  “The heck are you doing over there?!  This is no time to roast marshmallows!”

        “But... Rainbow Dash!” the pegasus pointed right at me.  “This unicorn here is freezing—”

        “The heck are you talking about?!  What unicorn?!  We got what we came out here for!”

        “I... But... Don't you see her?”

        “The only unicorn we should care about right now is Twilight!  And she's waiting for us!  Now stop horsing around and let's move!”

        Cloudkicker blinked.  A pale sheen glinted across her eyes.  The moon had risen, and she reeled briefly in a dazed manner.  “Huh... Y-You're right.  What... What was I thinking?”  I watched as her shadowed figure marched blindly over me, then took to the sky with a flurry of feathers.

        As she left, I saw two figures huddled a few yards from me.  Rainbow Dash was squatting, cuddling the shivering figure of Scootaloo in her grasp.

        “Shhhh... It's okay, kiddo.  Can you hear me?”

        “R-Rainbow Dash?!”  Scootaloo gasped.  “Oh Rainbow Dash!  You found me!  I knew you'd come and save me!”

        “Just relax, pipsqueak.  We're not out of the woods yet.  I'm going to get you to Twilight.  She has a trick that'll get you as good as new.”

        “Rainbow Dash...” the foal's voice sobbed.  “I-I was so scared...”

        “Yeah, well, lucky for everypony, that stupid machine landed you in the middle of this clearing.  Now hold on tight!”  Rainbow Dash scooped Scootaloo up in her forelimbs, flapped her sapphire wings, and bolted into the moonlight.  She soared straight towards Ponyville, leaving me with my shivers and the campfire.

        I took several panting breaths.  I turned over and—using my teeth—yanked my saddlebag open.  I finally made use of the many blankets there, praising Celestia for the fire that Cloudkicker had made before the curse sapped her and Rainbow Dash of reason.  As I huddled there besides the blessing warmth, I finally discovered the strength to sit up.  As I did so, I found my breath leaving me.

        Indeed, I was in the middle of the clearing.  The ground around me was solid, exposed granite.  With the moonlight shining down overhead, Scootaloo and I must have appeared like two inky dots against an alabaster sheet.  Any pegasus with an elementary skill in aerial sight would have spotted us in a blink.

        But... how in Celestia's name...?

        I had collapsed in the middle of the woods.

        Then... just how did we end up out here...?

        Fatefully, I turned around.  I scanned the edge of the hilly forest.  It was then that I saw it: a trail of leaves and scattered soil leading a solid swath from the treeline to where I sat, huddled with the campfire.

        I raised a hoof to my face.  The barest hint of feeling was returning to my nerves, just as I was becoming awash in joyful disbelief.

        She...

        She had dragged me.

        Scootaloo...

        I murmured something.  My lips were chapped, but I delighted in the pain it took to smile.  I bundled the blankets around me.  This was not my cabin.  This was not my fireplace.  This was a mile away from town at best, with every inch of me still shivering from the cold.

        I had never felt more comfortable in my entire life.

        “It was the arcanium plate,” Doctor Whooves explained, hobbling as he strolled alongside Twilight Sparkle across the center of Ponyville several afternoons later.  “I installed it to act as a buffer between the heart of the teleporter and the object being teleported.  What I hadn't taken into account was that the material simultaneously acted as a mirror, and was reflecting waves of mana back into the center of the cube.”

        “That must have been what wore away the outermost layers of artificial leylines,” Twilight thought aloud, nodding.  She kept her pace slow so as to not exhaust the mending stallion's pained gait.  “With each subsequent test we ran, the machine passed our visual examinations on the outside, but we didn't realize to what extent the machine was being deteriorated from the inside out because of the constant waves of reflected magic.”

        “This village almost lost something precious because of my mistakes.” He sighed, his head hanging.  “Maybe now's not the right time to leap upon artificial teleportation.  Assuming the Science Committee doesn't revoke my official laboratory privileges, I'm halfway tempted to put this whole experiment on the shelf for another decade.”

        “Hey, it's a mistake we both made, Doctor.”  She smiled and gently nudged him.  “You did everything in your power to help us track down Scootaloo.  I seriously doubt that the Committee will strip you of anything, and it would be a crime to see you quit such a promising endeavor after you've come so far.”

        He smiled bashfully.  “I see why Princess Celestia chose you to be her star pupil.  You are a boundless well of hope, Miss Sparkle.”

        “Heehee... Null hypotheses aside, even scientists can afford hope, Doctor.”

        Their voices grew distant, and in their place came Rainbow Dash's and Pinkie Pie's.

        “And so Cloudkicker and I were skimming the mountainside, and that's when I said, 'Let's give it one more pass!'”  Rainbow Dash, already hovering, performed a dramatic dive in mid-air.  “So I was like—SWOOSH—and then, out of the corner of my hawk-like vision, I totally saw her!  The little scamp was shivering cold, and she could barely open her eyes.  I knew I had to be extra careful while holding her.  There was no telling if any little jolt or dip in flight might—like—knock her spirit loose from her body or whatever it was that Twilight said the machine did to her.”

        “Wowie, Dashie!”  Pinkie Pie bounced gaily, her eyes bright as she took in the dramatic lengths of Rainbow's tale.  “I knew you could be super-gonzo-heroic!  But it's nice to know you can be super-gonzo-gentle too!”

        “Yup!  I cradled her like a baby!  And I've—like—cradled babies only twice in my life.  Well, maybe three times, if you count that one day I took Apple Bloom for a ride over Sweet Apple Acres.”

        “Apple Bloom's a baby?”

        “Well, she sure barfed like one!”

        “Heeheehee!  Well I'm just glad you and Twilight were able to stop Scootaloo from barfing!”  Pinkie Pie bounced.  “Oh, and dying!”

        “Heh... Yeah.  That was certainly a close one.”  Rainbow Dash flapped her wings while taking a deep breath.  “Y'know, Pinkie, I'm saving ponies everyday.  But Twilight?  It's not everyday she's on the 'superhero pony list.'”

        “Yeah!  We should totally get her a trophy or something!”

        “Heh!  Good idea.  Let's talk to Rarity about makin' one for her.  Cuz if there's anything I hate, it's when something truly awesome goes unpraised.”

        As they drifted by, I finished strumming the ten chords of the Eighth Elegy, repeated in variance so as to make a semblance of a melody.  I took a deep breath and shook my left hoof in front of my face.  Half a week had gone by; I was still barely getting the feeling back in my limbs.  Praise Celestia for telekinesis.  If I couldn't make music anytime I wanted to, I'd go as insane as this curse wants me to.

        Because that’s all a curse is made to do, right?  It afflicts a pony’s sanity, makes her wish for the sweet release of death.  Surely it doesn’t give her magical opportunities to save the day.  Or does it?

        I have long dreaded unraveling the eighth elegy, but suddenly it wasn’t half as foreboding a prospect as I first imagined it to be.  Along with the instrumental there would come a whole wave of frightening circumstance.  But what helpful side effects could Luna’s forgotten tune also bring?  I could only expect the magic of the song to be beneficial to anypony but me.  That’s what kept it a curse, and what maintained my task of re-discovering it so daring... or perhaps even brave.

        I sighed again, and then caught something orange in my peripheral vision.  My heart skipped a beat, for it was the first time I had seen her in hours.  I glanced over, and soon wasn't wasting anytime.  Zipping my lyre away in my saddlebag, I trotted over.  She wasn't looking at me.  Her gaze was halfway skyward.  I didn't need a compass to know it was pointed towards Rainbow Dash.

        “Ahem.”

        Scootaloo blinked.  She looked up at me.  “Oh... Uhm... Hello there.”  She pointed at my saddlebag.  “Nice music, by the way.”

        I raised an eyebrow.  “You were listening to me just now?”

        “Yeah,” she said, her body deflating with a tranquil exhale.  “This city's full of sounds.  I don't notice it half the time, cuz I'm rarely sitting in one place, I guess.”

        Upon hearing that, I squinted curiously at her.  “Where's your scooter, anyways?”

        The foal rolled her eyes and angrily blew a lock of pink hair from over her brow.  “Milky White's taken it away from me this week.”

        “Wuh oh.  Did somepony get in trouble?”

        “Nah.  Not this time.”  She squirmed her rear hooves against the earth.  “Heh.  She said something about 'Me needing to get my bearings back.'  Pfft!  I feel just fine!  Ever since Twilight zapped me with her magic horn, I haven't felt the slightest bit dizzy!”  As soon as Scootaloo said that, she teetered ever so slightly with googly eyes, then blushed.  “Well, almost.”

        I smiled.  “If you ask me, I'd say Milky White was just trying to look out for you.”

        “Heh.  She's fussed over me a lot more than all the mares before her.”  Scootaloo took a deep breath and squatted low to the floor, folding her limbs underneath her as she gazed lonesomely across the village.  “I guess that means I'm stuck with her.”

        “That's a good thing, right?”

        Scootaloo bit her lip.  “Hmmm... It could be worse.”  Her stubby wings twitched uselessly.  “A lot worse.”

        I said nothing to that.

        When she noticed I wasn't leaving her side, she rolled her eyes and groaned:  “Alright.  Just get it over with..”

        “I beg your pardon?  What is it you want me to get over?”

        The little foal cast me a wry smirk befitting a filly twice her age.  “You're about to gush over how amazing it is that I survived such a horrible accident and shower me with gifts.  Please—as much as I like attention, I've been dragged to Sugarcube Corner three times already.  My stomach hurts enough as it is.”

        “I would never think of such a thing.”  I said with a chuckle.  “After all, you strike me as... as a lot 'older' than most foals your age.”

        She briefly went cross-eyed before snickering at me.  “That's about the silliest thing I've ever heard.”

        “Is it really?”

        “Yeah, really.”  She sighed and stared once again across the village with sad eyes.  “Cuz I certainly don't feel cool enough to be older.  When I grow up, I wanna be just like Rainbow Dash!  I wanna do awesome things, and I wanna do them alone so that nopony else gets to steal my thunder!”

        I glanced at the ground and stirred where I sat.  “Yeah, well, some ponies hate being alone.”

        Scootaloo glanced up at me.  Her tiny feathers fluttered as she gulped and said, “I was alone once.  But then Rainbow Dash swooped down and saved me. She took me away from the mountainside when I was freezing to death from that crazy machine that zapped me.”  What came next was a triumphant smile, but something jaded hung on the edges of it.  “If it wasn't for her... I'd just be a stupid corpse in the middle of nowhere.”

        I sighed, but then smiled.  “Scootaloo...”

        She blinked awkwardly.  “You... Uhm... You know my name?”

        I squatted down in front of her.  I looked her square in the eyes, making contact where our gazes previously couldn't in a frantic night full of horror and shadows.  “For all I know—or anypony for that matter—Rainbow Dash is the greatest hero Equestria has ever known.”

        “Heck yeah, she is!”  Scootaloo beamed.  “She's terrific—”

        “But I don't need to convince you that the sort of feats that Rainbow Dash accomplishes, she could do in her sleep.”  I pointed at her chest.  “The bravest pony on that night was you.”

        She frowned.  “Me?”

        “Yes.”  I nodded.  “Because you went through scary things that you weren't prepared for.  You endured stuff that nopony your age—or any age—should ever have to endure.  It's facing the unknowable and making the impossible happen that determines true courage.  You, Scootaloo—You are a courageous pony.  I... I can only hope and pray that—as you grow older, someday exceeding even Rainbow Dash's age—that you remember that it was you that got you through that night, that it was your strength that got you to where you are now.”  I took a deep breath and smiled lovingly at her.  “Because once you recognize that strength inside of you, there's no telling how much you can... bless other ponies around you too, becoming an absolute hero yourself, something worthy of song and smiles.”

        Scootaloo blinked at me.  There was no telling when or where the accursed glint of moonlight would finally fall upon those bright, violet eyes.  But as she stared at me, and her grin brightened, and her tiny wings fluttered as if catching wind for the first time, I no longer cared about the grim curtains of life, but rather took the time to cherish something precious as it bloomed right there before me.

        “Hey!  Scoots!”

        “Scoot-Scoot-Scootalooooo!”

        We both looked aside.  A pair of young foals were waving at her from afar.

        “Heh... Right... I almost forgot...”  Scootaloo giggled, struck with the honey-sweet burst of a returning memory.  “I have some ‘crusading’ to do tonight.  Uhm...”  She leaned in and whispered mischievously.  “Promise not to tell Milky White if you run into her?”

        I giggled and stood up.  “Go and be with your friends.”  I ushered her with a wave of the hoof.  “You have many years left to be courageous...”

        She scampered away on cue, leaving me under a cadence of giggles too holy for song.  I watched her and her two friends run towards the edge of town under the melting afternoon.  From where I stood, I couldn't tell where their pastel coats ended and the sunset began.

        It's a brave thing to be alone.  As long as I make song of it, I'm saving something.

        After all, it's never too late to be a hero.

Background Pony

VI - “Heroes and Bards”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: theworstwriter, Props, TheBrianJ, and Daredevil

Cover pic by Spotlight 

        Dear Journal,

        When do we know that we've lost something?  Is it after we've spent all of our days trying to earn our keep, only to have all that's special to us taken away before our eyes?  Or is it after we've claimed something, only to have somepony else steal it from us?  Does a life of pride and hard work equate to pure agony when all of that effort is laid to ruin?

        Or, perhaps, we stand to lose something that is essential to us, something that makes us who and what we are.  Then, someday, that part of us crumbles away, and what choice do we have but to stand back and reevaluate ourselves, wondering if we were ever made up of the substance we used to value so heavily?

        I thought I had lost everything when this curse happened.  And, perhaps, I indeed had.  But there's something worse than loss, and I've come to believe that it's the actual knowledge of loss.

        Everything dies.  Of this, I am convinced.  Of this, I have no doubt.  But, until now, nothing had ever made that palpable to me.  Nothing had ever marched in on my life—cursed or uncursed—and showed me with the pale emotionless light of truth what it means to be part of something, and then to witness that something crumbling away.

        After all, the best things in life could very well be those that have been collapsing for as long as we've been alive.  Can a simple song restore the gaps of us that will forever remain empty?  Or can some of us—some of us who are blessed—be capable of filling those gaps with new and promising things that even death itself will tarry to drown?

        “Well, I'm certainly glad you came to me for practice, Miss Heartstrings,” Twilight Sparkle said.  I heard her voice slowly orbiting me.  It was difficult paying attention to both her and the field of energy I was summoning above myself, but I did the best that I could to multitask.  “Though this mostly takes careful concentration to master, it's not something that a unicorn can so easily learn on her lonesome.”

        “I'm beginning... to understand... just how difficult... this is...” I struggled to utter.

        Her voice giggled.  It should have been distracting, but it only made my heart jump.  “You're straining too hard,” she said.  “This isn't a telekinetic spell.  Protection buffs are all about summoning magic fields to do the hard stuff for you.  You don't need to put all of your strength into it.  The key is to relax.”

        “Relax?”  I stammered, feeling all four knees wobbling beneath me.  “Relax how?”

        “Well, for one, you don't have to keep your eyes shut like that.”

        I took a deep breath.  Carefully, I opened my lids.  A foggy library came into focus, in the center of which was Twilight's smiling face.

        “There.  Isn't that better?”  My foalhood friend said with a pleasant tone as she stood before me.  “There's no need for you to be inflicting so much stress on yourself.  You've already opened the necessary channels to your leylines.  Take slow breaths and allow your horn to do all the rest.”

        I gulped and nodded shakily.  “Okay, Miss Sparkle.”

        “Heehee... Call me Twilight.”

        “Okay, Twilight...”  I managed a weak smile.  My eyes twitched under the mint-green glow emanating directly out of my forehead.  I couldn't help but feel nervous.  My special talent was in music.  Sheer magical strength just wasn't my forte, and yet here I was in the middle of Twilight's domain, attempting to cast a low grade protection spell.

        As a matter of fact, much of my life since the curse began has consisted of me forcing myself to exercise magical feats that I would never have considered attempting before.  Until I came to Ponyville, the most I ever used my horn for was floating small objects around the house or strumming my lyre.  With each progressive month spent in that town, I've found myself lifting logs to build a cabin, casting light beams to illuminate the world at night, sparking flame to light a fireplace, and—of course—performing enchanted symphonies that flung my entire world upside down.

        To say that I needed a magical tutor was an understatement.  It's funny how I never once thought of asking for Twilight's help for more than just identifying the lunar elegies.  I suppose I've always felt like I'd be troubling her unnecessarily, regardless of whether or not I was a stranger to the young mare.  I soon realized, however, that I was treating my foalhood friend with kid's horseshoes.  She was no longer the little filly that I used to hang out with in the streets of Canterlot.  She was an adult—and much more than that, she was the most gifted magical unicorn in the entire town of Ponyville.  Of course she'd be more than capable of helping a stranger such as myself learn new things, regardless of the impromptu nature of such imposing requests.  I felt bad for underestimating her—not just for her gifts—but for her capacity for kindness and generosity.

        “I can't tell if I'm doing it or not,” I murmured, still sweating a bit.  “Can you tell if it's working?”

        She smiled and merely pointed a hoof over my horn.  “See for yourself.”

        Gulping, I glanced upward.  My eyes blinked upon registering a thin sheet of emerald energy stretched above me like a glowing tarp.  It was as if a dome of pure light had been erected just above my figure.  Every time my heart beat, I could see rivulets of magic surging through the luminescent structure.

        “Huh...” I managed.  “Well, if that isn't cute.”

        “It's remarkably well maintained!” Twilight exclaimed, gazing at the translucent dome as she paced around me.  “Especially now that you've decided to relax just like I told you.”  She paused and gave me a sly glance.  “Are you sure you haven't practiced this before, Miss Heartstrings?”

        I smiled back at her, still trembling slightly with the concentrated effort.  “Trust me, Twilight.  If I knew I could learn so much from you in one go, I would have visited this library sooner.”

        Truth is, I had visited her three times already, all in the same week.  I had learned fifteen more chords to the Eighth Elegy, and it dawned upon me that I'd never be able to play it if the “Threnody of Night” would just knock me unconscious and teleport me somewhere at random.  If I had any hope—any hope whatsoever—of performing all of Princess Luna's forgotten instrumentals, then I would have to master the art of magical buffs in order to protect myself from the many mysterious side effects that the symphony might afflict me with.

        “I almost wish you would visit me more often.”

        Twilight's comment there startled me.  I almost broke concentration as I flashed her a surprised glance.  “What...?”

        “Well, what I mean is...”  She rolled her eyes at herself and clarified, “I wish that unicorns in general would visit me more often so I could help them with their magical abilities.  I used to be a tutor back in Canterlot, assisting younger students in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.  The look on so many ponies' faces when they gain control of their talents is absolutely priceless.  Working here in Ponyville, I've been busy doing historical research and science experiments.  I've not really had the chance to assist others with magic like I used to.”

        “Well, I am... glad to have... given you an opportunity,” I managed to say, my knees shaking as I felt a sharp pain pulsing against the tip of my horn.  “Nnnngh!”

        “Shhh—Stay calm...” She rushed over and stood a breath’s distance from me.  “Breathe in and breathe out.  You're encountering mana feedback along your leylines.  It'll pass.  Just focus on the protection spell, and soon it'll maintain itself.”

        I gulped, fought a few more waves of pain, and came through the brief storm with a relaxed breath.  “Whew... It really is like stretching muscles, huh?”  I gulped and produced a weak smile.  “Invisible muscles...?”

        “The more you practice it, the better you'll get, I promise.”  She said.  “You're already doing a lot better than most novice practitioners of magic.  If I didn't know better, I'd say you have an untapped gift in navigating your horn's leylines.”

        My eyes darted towards the sea of books lining the cases around us.  I imagined the earthen walls of my cellar instead.  My ears twitched with the twenty-five chords of the Eighth Elegy.  I felt a wave of chills, but bravely fought them away as I spoke, “Well, the way I see it, it's never too late to learn things that just come to you naturally...”  I gulped.  “Or supernaturally.”

        “Long ago, Princess Celestia taught me that there's an essential balance between the visible world and the invisible,” Twilight said.  “The realm of magic is like a mirror to the realm of physicality.  They both reflect the same image.  The light of the universe shines on each realm evenly.  After all, sorcery is all about equivalent exchange.  The fact that we're here—in the flesh—means that we are just as capable of expressing ourselves through mana and energy.  It's not a matter of whether or not unicorns can find their ethereal talents, but a matter of when.”

        “When did you find that connection, Twilight?” I asked, though I felt I already knew the answer.  “Was that how you got your cutie mark?”

        She smiled gently, her eyes caught in a distant thought.  “Long ago, my horn produced a spark, and I discovered my talents.  But—no—I do not believe that is when I made the connection.  Years later, when I came to Ponyville, I discovered a spark of a different kind, and that has mattered more to me than all my years of exercise and research combined.  You see, Miss Heartstrings, being connected to the realm of magic means nothing when you're blind to the connections you can make in the plane that you're currently residing in.  Such attachments are far more challenging to make or maintain, but they're a great deal more rewarding, I've come to believe.”

        I took several deep breaths.  I was just then starting to relax, or at least in the manner she had so desperately coached me to.  “No wonder everything comes naturally to you, Twilight.  You seem to really have it together.”

        “Heehehee... Well, I try.  But I'd much rather see you and other unicorns achieve that same harmony, which is why I'm starting this new project for Cheerilee's school.”

        “Oh?  Like what kind of a project?”

        Before she could answer, a familiar purple figure waddled into the room.  “Nnngh... Okay, I got the bucket of water, Twilight,” Spike grumbled, using all his might to maintain the weight of the wooden container in his scaled arms.  “Would you care to remind me just why I fetched this from the well out back to begin with?”

        “Spike?  Didn't I explain it to you ten minutes ago?!”  Twilight frowned and pointed towards a ladder leaning against the far wall of the library.  “We need that water for Miss Heartstrings' protection spell lesson!”

        “Miss who?” Spike made a face, glancing at the bucket in his grasp as if it was a sea mine.

        “Hey there, handsome,” I said, struggling to add a wink.

        “Oh!  Uhm, hello.  Dig the swell hoodie!”

        “Ugh...”  Twilight rolled her violet eyes.  With a flick of telekinesis, she dragged the ladder over so that it stood beside me.  “I swear, Spike, it must be something I feed you.  Your ears are getting clogged up.”

        “I've been staying away from the fatty diamonds!  I swear!”

        “Don't worry about it, Spike.  Just climb up the ladder and wait for my signal.”

        He awkwardly ascended the wooden rungs, balancing the bucket on one aching wrist.  “I don't get it.  What are we doing?  Don't we need Rainbow Dash around to pull a prank on somepony?”

        “Spike, we used to do this in Canterlot, remember?  It's how I learned to master the protection spell myself.”

        “Yeah, but at least the Princess was around to levitate the stupid bucket.”

        “We can afford to live without Her Majesty's magical luxuries, don't you think?”

        “Easy for you to say, Miss Horn-head.”

        “What was that?”

        “Erm... N-nothing!”  He stood above me with the bucket of water.  “Ready to pour!”

        “Uhm...”  I bit my lip and glanced—sweating—at Twilight.  “Is this part of the plan?  I swore I came here to do a magic lesson, not participate in a wet mane contest.”

        “Just relax and focus on your spell, Miss Heartstrings.”  As Twilight spoke, she smiled and effortlessly erected a lavender wall of energy in a circle around me, like the bottom to a telekinetic, cylindrical bathtub.  The ease with which she shot her beams of magic filled me with instant awe... and envy.  “Though this is just a low level buff, it should be more than enough to... well... keep you dry.”

        “But what if I-I fail to maintain the energy field?”

        She chuckled briefly.  “Ohhhhh I seriously doubt you'll want to do that.”  She cleared her voice and glanced up at her assistant.  “Spike?”

        “Yeah, okay.  Here goes.”  He tilted the bucket directly over my head.

        I resisted the urge to wince.  My eyes squinted instinctively, but to my delight the water did not splash into my face.  Instead—as soon as the liquid made contact with the emerald dome—it went in all directions except down.  A ceiling of levitating liquid collected in a magical pool above me.  The protection spell was working.  The energy from my horn resisted the trickling currents of well water.  I couldn't help but exhale in wonder.  This was a great deal easier than trying to push water away with telekinesis.  All I had to do was maintain the shape of the dome, and the energy field did the rest of the work.  I never once dreamed before coming to Twilight that I'd be anywhere near capable of performing a feat such as this.  I immediately started wondering just what other elements this spell could ward off, and just how severe...

        “You're doing it, Miss Heartstrings!”  Twilight exclaimed in delight.  She paced about as she watched the water trickling around me like rainwater cascading down the edges of a transparent umbrella.  Her lavender telekinesis collected the water at my hooves and kept it from spreading to the valuable contents of the surrounding library.  “I must say, your speed of mastery is amazing!  Keep this up, and you can learn a mid-level protection spell in no time!  You could go trotting along the bottom of a lake and not even get wet!”

        I managed a breathy chuckle of my own, gazing in happy shock at the water sloshing just inches from my nose.  “You don't say?”  I gulped and uttered impulsively, “And what about a blizzard?  Could I survive a plunge into a frozen lake?”

        It was Spike, of course, who retorted at such absurdity.  “Uhm... Lady?  It's the middle of August.  Why are you so concerned about a blizzard?”

        I winced.  Before I could manage a witty reply, there was a sharp knock on the door.

        Twilight shouted over her shoulder, “Library's open!  Come in!”

        Bright light flooded the room as the front entrance flew open.  A pale figure glided in, carried by the sheer melody of her joyous voice, “Well, batten down the hatches!  Cuz things are about to get loud and crazy in here, girl!”

        That voice...

        Every artery in my body pulsed with one single leap of my heart.  My eyes twitched.  The world blurred.  And my protection field...

        I could no longer feel it.  As a matter of fact, I could no longer feel my horn.  I could feel nothing but water.  I was doused from mane to tail, soaked all the way through to the bone as my concentration shattered like an ice sculpture.  The shock of the severance from my leylines and the force of my breath being shot out my freezing lungs were nothing compared to the waves of amazement surging through my mind.  I collapsed in the middle of Twilight's telekinetic field, blinded by a mat of gray mane hair falling like a bathroom curtain over my eyes.

        “Oh dear!  Miss Heartstrings!” Twilight's voice exclaimed, though the breath had a trace of shameless amusement to it.  “I'm so... so sorry...”

        “Holy guacamole!” Spike exclaimed from somewhere above me.

        “Oh shoot!  I had no idea you were tutoring magicians, Twilight!”  The familiar voice came closer.  I smelled the scent of vanilla perfume.  I saw the bright streets of Canterlot against my shivering eyelids.  “I thought those days were long behind you!”

        “Well, just because I'm not a teacher like you doesn't mean I can't lend my talents from time to time.”

        “Seriously, Twilight, if you lent any unicorn your raw, unfiltered abilities, her head would explode.  We're lucky this mare got doused with water and not her own brain fluids.”

        “Oh please...” Twilight giggled awkwardly.

        “Heehee... Hey there, uhm... I'm really sorry for that.”  She was right in front of me.  I reached a blind hoof out, and she caught it in a warm forelimb.  Before I knew it, she was parting my mane hair with pale telekinesis.  Through a wet world, the first thing I saw was her violet eyes, framing an alabaster smile.  Every detail made my heart beat faster: her white coat, her violet-streaked red mane, her crescent moon cutie mark be-speckled with tiny stars.  “I should know better than to walk in on Twilight Sparkle here without warning.  This one time, she nearly set her parents' drapes on fire.  Hey, Twi, you remember that?  That was the week before you were taken to Celestia's palace, wasn't it?”

        “H-hey! Stop it!  I try my best to forget that!”

        But I couldn't have forgotten that.  I couldn't forget anything.  And her face...

        “Moondancer...?” I stammered.

        She gave me a double glance, and then a smile.  Her smile.  “I'm sorry.  Do I know you?  I'm not from around here.”

        “I... I...”  I wanted to hug her.  I wanted to collapse.  I wanted to faint and wake up all at once.  Then came a shiver, and I remembered something that was far more real than this precious moment.  “I... uhm...”  I gulped.  “I sat behind you in Canterlot Preparatory School, Fifth Grade.”  It was the truth, for one of us, at least.  “You went on to... to major in education and sociology.”

        “Huh... Small Equestria, huh?”  Moondancer smirked.  There was an immortal glint of mischief and curiosity in her eyes.  I felt like a foal once again and I wanted to melt in her smile.  “I can't say your face rings a bell, Miss...”

        “Lyra,” I breathed.  I realized that it must have sounded like a whimper.  So I gulped and forced my soaked lips into a smile.  “Call me Lyra, Moondancer.”

        “Well, Lyra, I apologize for not recognizing you.”  She rolled her violet eyes.  “But even Twilight here can tell you that I was never really all that much there in my school years.  If it weren't for my extra-curricular points, I swear, I don't know how I would have made it to tenth grade without trotting off a sheer cliff!”

        “I recall things pretty well, Moondancer.”  Twilight smiled as she gathered the spilled water and levitated the liquid globe back into Spike's bucket.  “Funny that you decided to become a teacher, huh?”

        “Grrrr!”  Moondancer spun and galloped straight towards her.  “C'mere, you!”

        “Eeep!  Heeheehee!” Twilight flinched, only to be engulfed in a hug instead of a tackle.  She and Moondancer happily nuzzled each other before sharing a friendly gaze.  “It's so nice to see you again, Moondancer.  I'm frankly surprised you responded to my letter as quickly as you did.”

        “And just why is that?  Huh?”  Moondancer stuck her tongue out.  “For Luna’s sake, Twi!  I’m a teacher now!  I know the value of getting to papers on time!  I treat letters all the same!”

        “Yeah, well,” Twilight said with a chuckle.  “You still surprised me”  She briefly hardened her gaze.  “And don't use Princess Luna's name in vain like that.  Nightmare Moon has been driven out of her spirit now.  She deserves more respect.”

        “Heh.  Less than two minutes in, and I’m already getting grilled.”  Moondancer winked playfully.  “Oh Twilight... You're still the same adorable little historian I loved hanging out with.”

        “Yeah, well, I'm trying to loosen up these days.”

        “Try harder!  Heck, I'll help ya, girl!  Where does a couple of old filly-friends go to party around here?”

        “Hahaha—Moondancer!” Twilight protested, all the while giving me an embarrassed side-glance.  “That wasn't why I asked you to come to Ponyville!”

        “Yeah, yeah.  We can get to the project later.  I just arrived, Twi!”  Moondancer groaned and slumped her saddlebags off her back, tossing them like a sack of bones in the middle of the floor.  “My hooves are positively aching!”

        “I thought you took the train here.”

        “And then I had to trot clear across Ponyvania!”

        “Ponyville!”  Twilight smirked.  “And if you so much as plan to spend one week here, much less three, then the first thing you're gonna have to lose is the Canterlot affinity for little exercise.  Trust me.  I've been here a year and a half and still I'm struggling to flex my muscles.”

        “Hey, if there’s anything I do best on my vacations off, it’s stretch muscles that haven’t been stretched in a while.”  Moondancer trotted over to a bench and slumped down.  Her eyebrows wagged as she said, “If Ponyville is anything like Las Pegasus, I should have no problem whatsoever, catch my drift?”

        “Heeheehee... I don’t know if I want to,” Twilight replied with a wink.  She turned around.  “Spike?  Would you mind grabbing Moondancer's bags?”

        “Yeah yeah, this is sure bringing back memories,” the dragon muttered as he placed the water bucket down and marched over towards the discarded saddlebag.  “I thought my bellhop days were over.”

        “And what a cute little waddle you have when you play butler, green-spines.”

        “Ugh!  Moondancer, don't call me that!”

        “Heehee... C'mere, Spike.  Give Auntie Moonie a hug.  That's what you used to call me when you were an infant.  Remember?”

        “Ew!  I did not!”

        Twilight giggled.  “Yes you did, Spike.  I was there...”

        “Whatever.  Enough of this mush.  Let's just get this hug over with so that I can get back to my chores.”

        “Awwww, Spike...”  Moondancer nuzzled him as they joined briefly in a close embrace.  “Is Twi still working your scales off?”

        “No more than usual.  At least there are more gems to chew on around here than in Canterlot.  I swear, Ponyville was built on top of a diamond mine.”

        “Then I guess you won't be wanting any of the mountain sapphires I brought with me.”

        “C-Canterlot Mountain S-Sapphires?!”  Spike exclaimed, wide-eyed.  He regarded the bags in his grasp with sudden excitement.  “The ones with quartz sprinkles?!  Did you really bring some?!”

        Lavender energy encased the saddlebag and lifted it from his suddenly greedy grasp.  Twilight cleared her throat and produced something halfway between a smile and a frown.  “Dessert can wait, Spike.  Aren't you forgetting something?”

        “Uhm... What?”

        Twilight opened a nearby cabinet and floated a white towel out.  She hoofed it to him and motioned towards me with a smirk.

        Spike bit his lip.  “Oh, right.”  He marched towards me, making a face.  “How come I'm suddenly the one who's 'forgetting' about our guest?”

        “Moondancer's here.  At least I have an excuse.”

        “Whoahhhh-Girl!”  Moondancer giggled and nuzzled Twilight again.  “Maybe you have changed after all.”

        “Heh... I'm just really glad to see you, Moondancer.”  Twilight nuzzled her back, smiling warmly.  “It feels like an eternity.”

        “And how!  Yeesh... Twilight Sparkle:  vanquisher of Endless Night and Dragon Slayer!  Just how do you manage?”

        “I haven't slayed any dragons!  That one that I wrote you about, the dragon who was perched up above Ponyville: he was talked into leaving, and that was all my friend Fluttershy's work.”

        “You friend, huh?  I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but you should tell me all about these friends of yours, Twi.  I swear, this is like visiting a distant cousin only to discover she's got the pony pox.”

        “Moondancer!”

        “Haha—What?  I think it's really spectacular, girl!  Next thing I know, you'll have sprouted wings and begun moving mountains!  I always suspected you were secretly an alicorn beneath that gorgeous lavender coat.  It would certainly explain a lot, wouldn't it?”

        “Yeesh, Moondancer.  Do you ever switch off your insanity?”

        “Only when I'm failing my students' papers.”

        “Heheheh—Ohhhh I forgot what it felt like to have you around.”

        “If you ask me, you could do with a few more doses.  But let's talk about something else.  I think we're scaring your guest mute.  Heeheehee—Ahem.  Sorry to just drop in like this Miss... Lyra, was it?”

        I was beside myself.  I felt like a numb shell of a pony.  This whole time, I didn't care how soaked I was.  I could have stood and listened to this scene forever.  When Spike came to me with the towel, it was like a ghost was handing me a shroud from beyond a bizarre dream.  I took the article and eagerly dried my face.  It was more than bucket water that I had to contend with.  Several seconds passed since I last heard Moondancer's voice.  I sniffled once, twice, and made sure my face was good and dry before gazing at her with the bravest of smiles.

        “Please.  Don't... uhm... Don't mind me.”  I bit my lip and fought to keep my voice from cracking.  “By all means, you two should catch up.”

        “And I know just the place to do it too!”  Moondancer beamed, glancing at Twilight.  “The mare next to me on the train spoke of this delightful little place called Sugarcut Quarter.”

        “Sugarcube Corner,” Twilight corrected.  “And I'd be more than happy to take you there.”

        “Oh, please!”  Spike chuckled.  “I have to wait on eating delicious sapphires, and you two get to go gorge yourselves at the local cupcake repository?!”

        “Give us a break, Spike!”  Moondancer chuckled.  “Us girls have a lot of work cut out for us over the next three weeks!”

        Twilight added, “You can enjoy Moondancer's gift whenever.  She and I, though, will be racking our brains on this project until it's finished.  So, it's Sugarcube Corner or bust!”

        Moondancer once again interjected, “Plus, sexy fillies can never run out of sugar and spice!”

        Twilight face-hoofed and groaned.  “I swear, I don't know how I'm gonna survive you for more than five days.”

        “Heehee!  It only hurts cuz you miss me, girl!”  Moondancer jumped back up to her hooves. “So, are we going or—?”

        “We have to stop by the Ponyville bank first.”

        “Ew.  Boring.  What for?”

        “Because!”  Twilight gestured wildly.  “I thought you wouldn't get here until tomorrow morning!  I just bought a gift for my friend Applejack yesterday.”  She gnawed on her lip in embarrassment.  “I'm currently empty-saddlebag'd!”

        “Hah!  Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to have to hoof out bits for you... again?”

        “What do you mean 'again?'”

        “You remember all of those trips to Doughnut Joe's as a kid...”

        “Hey!  You volunteered them!”

        “Only because you looked so adorably famished in those days!  All the books you were reading—I'm surprised you got time to stuff anything edible down your throat!”

        “You make it sound worse than it ever was...”

        “Do I?  When was the last time you ate today?”

        “Uhm...”

        “Yesterday?”

        “Uhhhhhh...”

        “Egads, Twilight!  I'll be forcing you to munch on stuff all week, aren't I?  Haha—If I had known ahead of time, I would have brought a queen's fortune!”

        “Moondancer, for goodness' sake—”

        “My treat.”

        Both mares looked at me, blinking.  “Huh?”

        My lips quivered.  I swallowed a dry lump down my throat and smiled.  My muscles shook inside my suddenly frail frame.  “I'll treat you.  Both of you,” I said in a warm little voice.  “Let's... Let's go to Sugarcube Corner together.  We can talk about... about...”  I gritted my teeth, struggled, then produced, “About this project that you two are working on.  I'm... uhm... I-I'm really, really intrigued.  I wanna hear all about it.”

        “Miss Heartstrings, I feel so terribly rude as it is,” Twilight said, blushing slightly as she glanced between her friend and a phantom stranger.  “I was just so excited that you came to me asking for a magic lesson, I didn't even think to consider that my friend might be arriving a day early.  I can't possibly ask you to do something like that, especially after... eheh... our little experiment got all wet...”

        “Pssst...”  Moondancer pretended to whisper aside at me.  “Do it, filly!  She needs more cinnamon sticks in her belly!”

        “Will you cut it out?!”

        “Heeheehee!”

        “No... Really...”  I trotted towards them, afraid I would collapse on the razor edge of their bright gazes.  “I mean it.  I'd like to treat you.  Who cares if I got a little wet behind the ears or not?”  I smiled brightly.  The image of the two fogged briefly, then returned to clarity in a blink.  “Trust me.  This... This has been the highlight of my day.”  I gulped.  I wanted to say “week,” “month,” “year,” even “life.”  But I couldn't do anything drastic.  This bubble of a moment was a million times more fragile than a protection sphere, and I was terribly afraid of bursting it.  “Let's go eat and chat somewhere... like fr-friends do.”  I winced slightly at the last utterance, for it sounded to me like a mewling kitten's.  I was horrified that they wouldn't look past it.

        They did..

        Twenty minutes later, we walked into Sugarcube Corner together.  I felt like I was gliding on a cloud.  Moondancer didn't stop talking.  Twilight didn't stop nodding.  I had both a headache and a heartache all at once.

        I didn't want it to end.  Ever.

        “Whew, look at this décor!”  Moondancer rolled her eyes over every bright, pastel shape of the eatery's interior.  “It looks like Sapphire Shores turned diabetic and vomited all over an architect's drawing table.”

        “Shhh!” Twilight hissed, blushing furiously.  “Mrs. and Mr. Cake are just over there!  They might hear you!”

        “Mrs. and Mr. ‘Cake?’  Seriously?  Is the post office managed by a pony named ‘Stamp Licker?’”

        Twilight started growling.  I found myself interjecting almost naturally.  “You haven't been around many earth ponies, have you, Ms. Moondancer?”  I smiled.

        She sighed as we found a table in the front to sit at.  “I've met my fair share in Fillydelphia.  But don't get me started on the rural names there.  They'd make a sailor blush... heheh...”

        “You'll find that most earth ponies around here have simple titles, but their hearts and minds are as complex as any Canterlot soul's,” I said proudly.

        “Why, Miss Heartstrings, that intrigues me,” Twilight remarked.  “Today's the first time I saw you.  Do you mean to say you're a resident of Ponyville?”

        “Uhm...”

        “I gotta say, I love the name 'Heartstrings,'” Moondancer said with a grin.  “Tell me, girl, do you play music or do you teach?”

        “Heh.  I could never learn enough to feel comfortable as an instructor,” I replied to her.  I gulped and then gazed at Twilight.  “Nor have I mastered my talents enough to be anything famous, which is probably why you've never heard of me.”  I sat directly in the middle of the two.  It felt as natural as natural could be.  This miraculous moment was threatening to slip away, gathering speed with each concrete-shattering heartbeat.  All the scents of foalhood wafted up to me at once.  I wanted to savor it as best as I could.  “But let's not talk about me.  You two obviously haven't seen each other in a while.  Feel free to chat as much as you like.”

        “Oh, girl, don't tempt me!”  Moondancer grinned wide while Twilight giggled.  “If I get started about Fillydelphia and my students and all the crazy city morons I have to deal with, you'll yawn that golden cutie mark of yours clean off!”

        “Heehee...”  Twilight Sparkle caught her breath and said, “Is it true that you foiled the fourth attempt in a row by your class to pull a practical joke on you?”

        “Students pulling pranks on a teacher?!”  I made a face.  “That sounds horrible.”

        “For them, maybe!”  Moondancer winked.  “Just a few days ago, before I boarded the train, they plastered transparent paste over my chalkboard.  Well, I always come into class early, and I saw their attempt to trap me the first moment I wrote on the board.  So I got some adhesive of my own and I applied it to their seats before roll call.”

        Twilight snorted, covering her face with a hoof as her eyes went wide.  “Good grief!” her voice came out muffled.  “What became of that?”

        “Hmmm... Let's just say that it took more than a slip of paper to keep them sitting in class for detention.”

        Twilight giggled.  “I don't know how you can stand such delinquents!  I'd lose my temper in a day!”

        “I don't see it as a matter of disrespect,” Moondancer said with a devilish grin.  “If anything, I'm helping them be creative.  They're always inventing new and crazier tactics.  It’s quite amazing, really.  I always out-smart them, of course.  I think they just do it to see how I'll best them next.”

        “But does it ever go too far?”

        “You gotta ask them.  Last I checked, three of the colts had to wear trunks.”

        “In the middle of urban Fillydelphia?  What for?”

        “Cuz they got stripped of all coat hairs on their rumps!  Why else?!  The wrath of Moondancer knows no boundaries!”

        Our laughter was a delightful chorus, an encore to years that I thought would forever be lost to me.  When Mrs. Cake shuffled over, I was so light-hearted I felt I would faint before making my order.

        “Well, if this isn't a merry bunch!”  Mrs. Cake beamed.  “Good afternoon, Miss Sparkle!  Are we having ourselves a little reunion here?”

        “You can say that again!”  I heard myself speaking up.  But before I could add anything else—

        “This is my good friend from my foalhood, Moondancer,” Twilight remarked.  “She's come to visit and help me with the curriculum I have planned for Mrs. Cheerilee's after-school program.”

        “Oh?”

        “Yessirree!”  Moondancer wrapped her forward limb around Twilight and Twilight alone.  “It's the two mistresses of mana, galloping together again!  Hey Twi-girl, you remember those days we used to pretend to be Celestia and Luna going on adventures?”

        Twilight rolled her eyes.  “How could I forget.  You kept pretending that the moon could swallow the sun.”

        “Hah!  And wasn't that fun?”

        “It was also scientifically inaccurate!  I spent an entire week trying to convince you that eclipses become visible as a matter of light projection and depth perception—”

        “Needless to say, she needs me here to get her to loosen up a bit,” Moondancer said.  “But so far all we've managed to do is tease Spike and get Lyra's mane wet here.”

        “Seriously, it’s all... in the past,” I said in a soft breath, feeling like the lone satellite that I was.  Clearing my throat, I summoned a smile once again and looked Mrs. Cake's way.  “I'd like to order me and these delightful mares some of your finest sundaes.”

        “Oh, that is more than doable, hun!”  Mrs. Cake sat on her haunches and used her front hooves and teeth to sketch on a notepad.  “Mmmff—Ahem.  And what flavors would they be?”

        “Chocolate,” Twilight said.

        “Vanilla!” Moondancer chirped like the foal she once was.

        I glanced at them, took a warm breath, and gazed at Mrs. Cake again.  “A little bit of both.”

        “Done, done and... done!  You three just sit and relax and I'll be back with your orders.  Nice as always to see you, Miss Twilight!”

        “Same with you, Mrs. Cake.  How's Mr. Cake doing by the way?”

        “He finally got out of bed this morning.  He's no longer dizzy.  So, that's a good sign, at least.  I'm sure his head will stop aching soon.  Anywho, I'll be back shortly!”  She trotted off.

        Moondancer blinked at Twilight.  “What's wrong with her husband?”

        “Oh, uhm.  He slipped and fell a few weeks back.  Turns out Pinkie Pie accidentally left a mess of spilled cake frosting on the kitchen floor while trying to make Applejack a birthday treat.”

        “Pinkie who?”

        “Oh jeez, I can't even imagine the two of you meeting!”  Twilight practically gasped.  “I'm not sure the world could contain that much energy in one place at once!”

        “Hey, I'll accept that as a challenge!”  Moondancer's eyes grew thin and mischievous.  “'Pinkie Pie', huh?  I bet she's never almost burned her family’s apartment down by baking fireworks, thinking they were candy canes.”

        “Oh my heavens, I forgot all about that!”  Twilight snickered.  “I could hear the explosion from my house two blocks away!”

        “My father almost rung my neck!” Moondancer exclaimed.

        “Yeah!”  I giggled helplessly.  “He made you repair the damage at age ten.  Heeheehee!  But you made a game out of it by pretending the holes in the wall were secretly a tunnel being dug to Foal Knox!”

        Moondancer and Twilight both blinked at me.  Their smiles faded under a suspicious squint.

        “How in the heck would you know about that?”

        I gnawed on my lip.  I fidgeted with my hoodie's sleeves, gulped, and pointed over my shoulder with a shivering hoof.  “Twilight's... uhm... Twilight's dragon assistant! On the way out, he... uh... he mentioned it.  You girls must not have heard him...”

        “I thought you said you were gonna do something about his penchant for gossip,” Moondancer smiled at Twilight.

        “He's still a baby dragon, Moondancer.  You can't expect him to learn everything overnight.”

        “But you can expect to teach him everything, huh?  Which is why you hauled his purple scaly butt all the way to Ponyville.”

        “Who else does he have to hang out with in Canterlot?”

        “The same could be said about you, girl.  Just how did you go about your metamorphosis?”

        “Huh?”

        “Five new friends in a year!  You're suddenly Miss Socialite!  You kind of have me jealous!”

        “I wrote you all about it over the last few months!.  Why's it such a big surprise?”

        “On top of all the letters you write to Celestia, I'm surprised your hoof doesn't fall off.”

        “Moondancer...”

        “What?  I'm happy for you, girl!”  She grinned.  “Doesn't my face just drip with joy?”

        “It's dripping with something, alright.”

        “Oh hush.”  She stuck her tongue out.  “It's enough that I have to force myself to forget that we'll be muzzle-deep in boring planning and outlining this time tomorrow.”

        “Your help will be priceless, Moondancer.  I can't thank you enough...”

        “Then don't.  You'll make my ears bleed.”

        “Just what is this project you're both working on?” I asked, happy to be out of firing range from their inquisitive stares.  “I keep hearing about it...”

        “Well, Miss Heartstrings, we have a one-room school on the edge of town, managed by a very kind and giving teacher named Cheerilee,” Twilight explained.  “There aren't that many children in Ponyville.  Still, that doesn't make her job here any easier.  She's having to juggle several different ages and intelligence levels all at once, while still giving the same curriculum.”

        “No easy feat, lemme tell you.”  Moondancer rolled her eyes.  “I had to teach a one-room school for two years outside the city limits of Oatslando.  That was not fun.  If the students there played practical jokes—heck—it'd involve alligators and a crapload of pine cones.”

        “Ahem,” Twilight regained control of the conversation.  “Well, ever since Nightmare Moon was defeated, there's been a renaissance of sorts in the quest for magical knowledge across Equestria.  Many unicorns such as myself have moved from the major cities to the outlying villages to perform studies and experiments.  As a result, there're twice as many unicorn children in Ponyville this year than there were last year.  Magical ponies aren't as scarce a minority around here anymore, and it seems a shame to me that there isn't a special class of magical instruction catering to their gifts.”

        “I hear this 'Cheerilee' is an earth pony,” Moondancer said.  “As horrible as it sounds, when it comes to teaching magic, she could use a little bit of a helping hoof from those with horns that do more than honking.”

        “I imagine she's tried her hardest to teach unicorns on her own,” I remarked.  I had, in fact, met Cheerilee on several occasions.  I couldn't fault Moondancer for not knowing how intelligent and resourceful the local teacher was up close.  Still, Cheerilee was only one pony, and she had no horn to perform magical experiments with.  “Where exactly do you two come in?”

        Moondancer smiled.  “It was Twi's bright idea here to set up a study course of our own, but one that could be as equally informative to earth ponies and pegasi as it is involving with unicorns.  There's no reason ponies of all trots of life can't learn about magic.  Most of all, we can make it fun for the little scamps!”

        “Well, yes,” Twilight murmured, “But most of all we have to find a way to be as informative in as few lessons as possible, while at the same time not confusing the young minds—”

        “So we make it fun.” Moondancer leaned over the table and spoke above her friend.  “That way it'll stick in the foals' minds and they can take the knowledge with them to schools of magical arts, if they so choose.  Every institution should promise opportunity, no matter how small or surrounded by ponies named after dessert trays.”

        “Ungh...”  Twilight rolled her eyes and chuckled.

        I cleared my throat, drawing their gazes to me.  “Well, I think it's a great idea, and I'm proud of the two of you tackling it together.  I'm guessing you'll be using the library nonstop over the next few days.”

        “Erm... As a matter of fact, yes.”  Twilight Sparkle fidgeted somewhat guiltily, avoiding my gaze.  “I fear that it's only safe to say that our lessons in casting protection spells will have to wait for a while, Miss Heartstrings—”

        “Nonsense, Twi!”  Moondancer leaned back and rested a hoof atop the table.  “If Lyra here wants to continue her magical lessons of avoiding bucket water with you, then who am I to trample all over that?  The more the merrier!  That’s my philosophy!”

        “Moondancer, we can’t afford to allow too many distractions,” Twilight began, but was suddenly distracted by something glittering beneath the three of us.  She glanced down at Moondancer's limb and gasped.  “Oh, Moondancer!  That's beautiful!”

        “Hmm?  What is?  My philosophy?  You must be getting me mixed up with Aristrotle.”

        “No, that hooflet!  Are those real ingots of silver?”

        Moondancer blinked, glanced down at the shiny band around her hoof, then rolled her eyes above a pair of rosy cheeks.  “Mmmmmm-yeah.  Spared no expense.  Pretty stuff, huh?”

        “Wherever did you get that?”

        “A more pertinent question would be whoever gave it to me.”

        Twilight did a double take, then grinned slyly.  “Moondancerrrr...”

        “Heeheehee—What?”

        “What's his name?  Is it Starflare?  The astronomy professor from your same building?”

        “Hmmmmm... Maaaaaaaaaybe...”

        “How long have you two been going out?”

        “Long enough to start going in.”

        Twilight Sparkle almost choked on her own tongue.

        “Heeheehee...”  Moondancer hugged herself, losing oxygen from laughter.  She leaned over and patted a blushing Twilight on the shoulder.  “How I always forget that you're attached to the hip of a princess...”

        “I... I had no idea, Moondancer...”

        “Now you've got a pretty good idea.  Perhaps it makes sense where I get the wherewithal to deal with so many delinquents in my class.  I'm in a pretty happy place these days, Twi.  Silver hooflets aren't enough to convey what a daily romantic stroll by the campus lake feels like.”

        “I'm very happy for you, Moondancer.  If Starflare is as handsome as he is intelligent in the letters you've written back to me...”

        “You know what they say about stallions with big brains.”

        “No?” Twilight blinked.

        Moondancer blinked for a few spaces in time, then groaned.  She decided to smile and lean across the table.  “Soooooo, what about you?  Has the radiant and aloof apprentice to the Princess met her very special somepony yet?”

        Twilight's cheeks went red as she ran a hoof through her bangs.  “Moondancer, how many times have I told you to knock that off?”

        “Whaaaat?”  Her eyes fluttered.  “You've made a bunch of friends to write home about.”

        “Yes, but—”

        “I hoped you’d have met a stallion to write a novel about!”  She winked.  “A steamy one at that!”

        “Moondancer!  We're...”  Twilight clenched her teeth, ducked her head low to the table, and hissed.  “This isn't the time nor the place!”

        “You still don't get out enough, Twi!  Otherwise you'd know it is always the time and the place!”  She smirked my way.  “Let this be a lesson to you, Miss Heartstrings.  Never let magic be your mate, or else you'll always be having dinner alone.”

        I chuckled.  “To each their own, Ms. Moondancer.”

        “Pfft.  Did I drop in on Sugarcube Convent?!  It's still summer, in my book!  Love's in the air!  Take a good whiff, girls!”

        “I'm just not ready for that kind of a life, Moondancer,” Twilight said.  “I've got research to do, books to translate, spells to harness...”

        “And why do them all alone, Twi-girl?”

        Twilight sighed.  She smiled happily into the shadows of the place.  “Still, the thought is certainly... appealing.”  She gulped.  “I doubt I'll ever meet a 'Mister Perfect'.  But a 'Mister Polite' sounds manageable.”

        “Who would do the managing, I wonder?” Moondancer remarked, and merely giggled when Twilight blushed again.  She looked my way.  “How about you?  Got a knight in shining armor with a thing for mares getting doused with buckets of water?”

        I couldn't contain my laughter, though it was a dry, breathless thing.  Here I was, sitting with two shades from my childhood.  They were right in front of me, and yet so far away.  My heart leaped to tell them of so many impossible things, things that I had let go to waste in the years that I could afford to bridge the distances between us.  And then there were new things, some glorious, some horrifying, and how I wished so terribly that they would be there to hold me, to listen to me, to become one with my sobbing, laughing, screaming, giggling spirit.  I thought of the elegies, I thought of the cabin, I thought of my music, I thought of Morning Dew...

        “I've not been here in Ponyville long enough to... to make anything of it,” I finally said in a wavering tone.  I cleared my throat and uttered more strongly, “But if I could live here, I'd make as many friends and family as I could.”  I gazed lovingly at them.  “And I'd never let them go.”

        “Awwww...”  Twilight Sparkle hugged herself as she stared back at me.  “Why don't you consider doing that, Miss Heartstrings?  You'd be a lovely addition to this town.”

        My first impulse was to shoot that comment down—as I had trained myself over a year of cursed conversations to dismiss such personal remarks.  What came out of my lips, however, was empowered by the foal who used to play the role of Starswirl the Bearded with these two fillies.

        “You really think so...?”

        “If anything, you could give the farm air around here something nice to dance to,” Moondancer said.  “Tell me, do you actually play any instruments or do you just write compositions?”

        “Oh!  I play!”  I said with a bright expression.  “I'm not exactly a prodigy, but I like to think I carry a tune pretty well.”

        “Well, if there’s anything I respect, it’s a mare who holds her own.”  Moondancer smiled, her dazzling teeth showing.  “You got a sample for us?”

        “Heehee...”  I felt bubbly inside, to say the least.  “I never thought you'd ask, Moondancer!  As a matter of fact...”  My horn glowed as I pivoted my head to gaze down at my saddlebag.  I opened the pouch and lifted the golden lyre out.  “I have this tune that I've been working on lately.  I was actually hoping to share it with Miss Sparkle, but since the two of you are both here for this little 'reunion,' I don't see why I can't...”  My voice came to a stop.  My eyes twitched, as if navigating a fog.  But it was only a series of cold vapors billowing out from my lips.  “I... I... uhh...”

        “Oh, hey!  Look at this, Twi-girl!”  Moondancer giggled and pointed across the table.  “Dessert and a performance!  I take everything I said back!  Supercute Court is a lot cooler than I thought!”

        “Sugarcube Corner,” Twilight corrected, rubbing her head as if coming out of a stormy migraine.  “Nnngh...” She gave me one glance, and tiredly smiled.  “Well, hello there.  Is Mrs. Cake hiring minstrels now?”

        “Uhm...”  I gazed at her, at the dullness in her eyes, and the trace amounts of joy that was spilling out, only to be absorbed by the pale pony next to her.  I looked at Moondancer, who was as bright and enthusiastic as when she first arrived.  Her face was still a snapshot from my childhood, a photograph I could no longer afford to share space in.  “I was just about to... to...”

        Twilight and Moondancer smiled.  They could just as well have been looking straight down a deep, dark well.  With each blink, I felt like they were shrinking away a mile per second.  I was afraid the next twitch of the eye would cast them into blackness forever.

        So I turned away.  “I was just leaving.  I... I-I didn't mean to take this seat.  I thought it was unoccupied.”

        “It's alright,” Twilight said softly.  “It's not like it's reserved or anything—”

        “Well, actually, we kind of have some catching up to do and stuff,” Moondancer interjected.  “Still, that's a wicked-awesome instrument you got there, girl.  You should let us hear it sometime!”

        “Maybe... Maybe someday you can—erm... will hear it...” I shuddered, bagged the lyre away, and sniffled.  “Uhm... If you'll b-both excuse me.”  I made sure that my exit wasn't a gallop, but that's the least I could say about my grace.  I nearly bumped into Mrs. Cake along the way.  She carried three sundaes atop a tray positioned on her spine.

        “Here we go, girls!”  She placed the tray down, then paused with a nervous double-take.  “Oh dear.  There are only two of you.  How'd I mess that up...?”

        “Hey, who’s complaining?!  I can live on one and a half sundaes!  What about you, Twi?”

        “Heh, sure, Moondancer.  But...”

        “But what?”

        “Funny.  I... uh, I don't know how to say this but—I don't have any bits on me.”

        “Ughhh—Should have known, girl!  Heehee... If your head wasn't attached to your neck—”

        “Hey!  What's that supposed to mean?”

        “Hehehehe—No matter.  Mrs Cake, was it?”

        “Mmmhmm.”  The old mare nodded.

        “Right.”  Moondancer smiled and slapped the golden coins atop the table.  “Here you go, all my bits.  I hope it makes up for Twilight's stinginess as well.”

        “Grrrr...” Twilight steamed.

        “Egads, you're so cute when you're steaming.”

        “What am I going to do with you?” Twilight's expression was halfway between a glare and a smile.

        “Tell me all about your plans for the Grand Galloping Gala.”

        “Oh yes!  But... Uhm... Didn’t I write you about that?  No?  Ahem.  Well, as you know the Gala is in four weeks.  But it so happens that over a year ago, right after arriving in Ponyville, I received an advanced ticket.  But I wasn’t the only one.  It’s actually kind of an interesting story.  You see, I was originally given two tickets, and I happened to be harvesting fruit with Applejack on the afternoon when I physically got Celestia’s invitation...”

        When I stumbled into the cabin an hour later, I remembered what my home was.  I remembered the lonesome shadows of countless musical instruments dangling off the walls above me.  I remembered the layers of dust collecting on my journal and music sheets.  I remembered the ashes of the fireplace and how they would sing to me.

        I dropped my saddlebag unceremoniously to the floor, took two hoofsteps, and utterly collapsed into my cot.  There, I buried my face into the sheets.  My eyes were clenched shut.  I didn't want to be awake.  I didn't want to see any light, for fear that my mind would form the shapes of Moondancer's grinning teeth or Twilight's blushing face.  I could still hear their voices—their giggles and their teasing tones—haunting me between the shuddering breaths that echoed against the claustrophobic wooden walls.

        I think that every ghost that haunts a place is too busy frightening her own self, for what is more horrifying than the vacant spaces of her past?  What she's lost only reminds her that there are so many more things to lose grip of, until she loses grip of herself.

        Seeing Moondancer and Twilight Sparkle in one room, hearing their combined giggles and voices...

        I didn't think there were any parts of me left to be destroyed.  The very moment my curse kicked in at Sugarcube Corner, it was an act of deliverance.  If I had stayed in that library any longer, serenaded by their melodic cheers, there would have soon been no single thread left of me.

        Then why was it that—as hard as I tried—I couldn't cry?

        I took a deep breath and turned over in my bed, my dry eyes following the wooden crossbeams of the cabin ceiling.  I was smiling.  I had to have been insane.  What pony in my position, who's gone through what she's gone through, comes out of a meeting like that with only a grin?

        I've been through a great deal of trials and tribulation, yes.  But to think that not one but two of my best friends from foalhood would be in the same room as me, if even for a single day...

        Blessed Celestia....

        I just couldn't imagine how lucky I was.  In the midst of so much loneliness and bleak desperation, an estranged soul from the past had bridged an impossible gap and blessed my life.  I had forgotten how much I adored Moondancer, how much I cherished her lively demeanor, how much I enjoyed being challenged by her brazen speech and unorthodox sensibilities.  Where Twilight Sparkle was a rock of emotional and intellectual support, Moondancer was a living spark, a burst of energy that reminded me of the joys of existence in such a cold, cold world.  And to have both of them once again in the same place...

        Finally, the tears came, and they were some of the warmest I've had the pleasure of being scalded with in months.  I reached over and hugged my pillow to my chest and hummed into a delicious cloud that had engulfed me.

        I had been blessed.

        Yes, in the middle of such misery, I had been blessed to re-experience a piece of my past, a piece of myself.  It felt as if parts of me were coming together again.  I didn't care if they wouldn't remember me; I remembered them.

        I loved them.  They were both alive and well.  So long as I had a chance to witness their happiness—even as a complete stranger—I knew that all was right in the world, a world that belonged to them though it was mine no longer.

        Perhaps I had been looking at Nightmare Moon's curse and Princess Luna's elegies in the wrong light.  What if there was indeed a purpose to my being there?  What if I was the one soul in all of history meant to perform some sort of sacred journey?  It was as if the cosmos had appointed me a lonesome monk, destined to uncover some holy orchestra.  I had been so faithful for so long—was I finally being rewarded?  I had paid my respects to Caramel.  I had even used one of the elegies to save Scootaloo from certain death.  Was Moondancer's visit payment for being a good servant to forces unseen?

        It hardly made sense, but I hardly cared.  And what was more, Moondancer was going to be there for three weeks. Three weeks.  I had every opportunity to repeat the events of that day, no matter how bleak.  There was bliss to be had.

        A giggle escaped my lips, like an immortal club of three foals I had once been proud to partake in.  I hugged the pillow to my chest as I clutched those memories, buffered by the delightful events of the day.

        I was happy.

        “'And so I, Princess Celestia, hereby decree,'” Twilight says, her high-pitched voice echoing across the lengths of a colorful blanket tent lit up with rose-colored flashlights, “'That the building of thinking machines shall be expressively forbidden in Equestria, or else they might grow smart enough to mimic pony ambition and try to take over the world!'”

        “'How wise of you, fair princess!'” I exclaim while performing a heroic bow with my stubby legs.  “'As Sorceror Supreme of the Bearded Guild, I shall uphold your wise and holy law!'”

        “Can't we at least have one robot around?” Moondancer suddenly speaks out of place, poking her head in from outside the tent.  Bright violet eyes reflect the flashlight as she smiles and chirps, “That way we'd have somepony around to polish our tiaras!  Somepony made of metal!”

        “Moondancerrrr—” Twilight protests in a whining voice.

        “Shhhhhh!  I'm Luna, remember?”

        “Ahem.  'Princess Luna!  It is daytime!  Shouldn't you, dearest sister, be in hibernation until it's time to raise the moon?'”

        “Hey, it's my royal palace too!”  Moondancer frowns and folds her forelimbs in a pout.  As she does so, the star-lit lengths of my bedroom stretch behind her, illuminated in remote places by nightlights shaped like musical notes.  “How come Starswirl gets to be in all the meetings with you!”

        “Becaussssse...” Twilight makes a face as she explains the obvious, “He's a mortal unicorn, and unicorns do everything in the daytime just like earth ponies and pegasi!”

        “Well no wonder I rebelled against you!”

        “Shhhhhh!  We haven't gotten to that part yet!”

        “Why don't I get ponies to serve me in the nighttime?”

        “You get your royal guard!  That's fun, right?”

        “Ew!  But they got icky bat-wings!”  Moondancer's eyes light up.  “Why can't I have some robots!”

        “You can't have robots!  Didn't you just hear us?”

        “Uhhh... I'm 'asleep,' remember?”

        “Nnngh—I'm outlawing thinking machines!”

        “Why?”

        “Because they're dangerous!”

        “Why?”

        “Because ponies should be wise enough to rely on their own magic and strength—”

        “Boooooorinnnnng!”  Moondancer rolls her eyes, then hops in place, shaking the whole tent.  “I know!  I'll make an army of robots and we'll build a bridge to the moon so ponies can go there and serve me whenever I like cuz there's no day or night on the moon!”

        “You can't do that!”  Twilight gasps as if a mortal sin has just been committed.  “That isn't historically accurate!”

        “So what?”

        “So what?!” Twilight rummages through a pile of stuffed animals to display a book checked out from the Canterlot Library this very evening.  “It's written right here in the Chronicles of the Neo-Classical Era that robots were lawfully forbidden immediately following the tragic events of the Coltlerian Jihad—”

        “I want my robots to come with mana-lasers!”  Moondancer trots gaily around us in a military march.  “'Onward, our mechanical friends!  Princess Luna doth commandeth thee to pew-pew in the moon's name!  For we hath given thee license to maketh things explode for our glory!'”

        “There will be no explosions!  Come on, Moondanc—”

        “Lunaaaaaa.”

        “You're supposed to be a princess!”

        “And it's my duty as princess to protect this land with our robot army!  'Come with us, sister!  Our minions shalt help us fight back the evil Smooze!'”

        “There's no such thing as Smooze!”

        “Yuh huh!”

        “Nuh uh!  You just made that up!”

        “Heehee!  And so what?  We're playing pretend, remember?”

        “But we're supposed to be the princesses!  The royal sisters would never blow stuff up at random!”

        “They would if they were fighting off horrible, soul-eating Smooze!”

        “Nuh uh!”  Twilight glares at Moondancer.

        “Uh huh!”  Moondancer smirks back at Twilight.

        “Nuh uh!”  Twilight snarls.

        “Uh huh!”  Moondancer growls.

        “Nuh—”

        “'Your royal highnesses!'”  I jump between them, fighting to keep my fake, furry beard hanging around my neck as I plant a hoof into each of their chests.  “'This is most unbecoming of you!  You're royal sisters!  You're all that remains of the Cosmic Matriarch's glorious legacy!  Tell me, is this how she would have her daughters govern Equestria in her absence?'”

        “Hmmmph...”  Moondancer folds her limbs and blows air out of the corner of her muzzle.  “No...”

        “She'd want us to get along,” Twilight mutters.

        “'Then let me declare today a holiday!'”  I say with a smile.  “'As leader of the Bearded Guild, I've been granted authority to rename days of the year.  I shall call this day 'Happy Sisters Day'.  And from this day forth, it will be the day that sisters remember how much they love each other and decide to get along!'”

        Moondancer and Twilight shift awkwardly.

        “That sounds stupid,” Moondancer says.

        “Besides, September is the month for family appreciation, not July,” Twilight explains.  “Everypony knows that.”

        “'Then we'll change it when next year comes around!'”  I say with a smirk.  I look towards Twilight.  “'Your Highness, if I may be so bold as to suggest, could a robot be made of steam?  Surely a machine of such simple build would be capable of menial tasks without becoming smart enough to turn on its owners.'”

        “Hmmm...”  Twilight leans back with a scholarly smirk and eventually nods.  “'Yes, I do believe that would be acceptable,'” she says in an authoritarian voice.

        I glance Moondancer's way.  “'And Princess Luna, could fighting the Smooze wait until after your robots help Princess Celestia finish building Canterlot Castle?'”

        She gasps with a bright grin.  “Could they use their lasers to carve the moat?!”

        “Heeheehee...”  Twilight leans forward excitedly.  “I'll even show them where to aim the mana-crystals!”

        “Yaaaay!  Let's blow up some dirt!”

        “Ahem.”  Twilight points a sparkling baton in my direction.  “'Starswirl the Bearded, for your infinite wisdom and calmness of mind, I appoint thee head of the robot committee.'”

        “Yeah, Starswirl,” Moondancer winks.  “Way to use your whiskers.  'Our moon shineth on thou'... erm... and stuff.”

        I smile proudly while bowing low.  “'It is my honor, your highnesses, to serve you until the end of my days.'”

        “Yeah, whatever.”  Moondancer rubs her hooves toether  “Let's build us a robot castle!”

        “I'll show you where the moat goes!” Twilight hops about.

        “Hey, what about torches?  It'd look really cool if we lit the place up at night.”

        “We'd need to fetch some coal first.”

        “Coal?  How?”

        “'Use your horn, little sister, it's what the Cosmic Matriarch gave you to sculpt the moon with.'”

        “Ah yes, but of course.  'We thanketh thee, wise and beloved Celestia.'”

        I sit in my corner of the tent as they scramble around my bedroom, “grabbing supplies.”  Outside, the stars are a galaxy away, but I swear the cosmos are glittering right in front of me.  I smile, for I do not want this sleepover to end.

        Two days had passed.  I could barely keep myself in my cabin.  I had to know more about Moondancer's and Twilight's project.  I had to see them again.  I had to hear them again.

        I woke up each morning with my mind clear.  I couldn't even hear the elegies in my head if I tried.  The world was no longer cold; I almost considered stripping clean of my hoodie.  Instead, I decided to express my cheer in a different way.  I donned Rarity's fantastic red sweater and made my way into town.  Ponies smiled and waved at this exuberant, brightly dressed stranger as she trotted energetically through the streets.  I smiled back at them.  I hummed a tune.  I smiled as I heard Morning Dew's voice.

        Finally, I made it to the front door of Twilight's library.  I had already formulated a plan in my head.  I would pretend that I had been sent there on the promise of a scheduled appointment with Twilight for practicing magic.  Then, in her usual pensiveness and self-doubt, Twilight would opt to help me regardless of having never met me before.  In a way, it felt like a dirty trick on my part, but I couldn't help it.  I wanted to see her.  I needed to see her.  And, if Celestia was my witness, I would make sure she only became happier from the meeting.

        I knocked on the door.  There was a muffled sound from within.  For better or for worse, I assumed it was an invitation, and I opened the door.  “Excuse me?”  I leaned in with a smile.  “Sorry to bother you, but is Miss Twilight Sparkle around?  It's approaching one o'clock, and I do believe the Canterlot Magic Commission has sent a note about my—”

        “How many times do I have to say it, Moondancer?!” Twilight Sparkle was barking, her mane tussled and frayed at the edges.  She sat across a table strewn with a disheveled sea of papers and notes and reference sheets.  “You can't assign four field trips!  Two is pushing it enough!”

        “Pfft!”  Moondancer rolled her eyes from where she was lying, reclined lackadaisically, on a bench across from Twilight.  “I was about to say that four is too few.”

        “You've got to be pulling my tail...”

        “I'm only saying that we should promote first-hoof experience with magic!”  Moondancer smiled tiredly at her quivering companion.  “That's why we send the little scamps on exciting trips!  A tour of Whinniepeg's Museum of Lunar Incantation is the best way I can think of opening their eyes to the field of sorcery!”

        “Moondancer!  Honestly!”  Twilight tossed her hooves.  “We're setting up a study course here!  Not a vacation!  Never mind the fact that we couldn't even fund so many field trips!  Just how is one pony like Cheerilee even remotely capable of managing that many trips with all the lesson plans she already has on her plate?”

        “You're not thinking outside of the box, Twilight.  Pfft... as usual!”  Moondancer sat up and smiled foalishly at her friend.  “Cheerilee's biggest problem is that she's stuck in one place: Ponyville.  Have you taken a single look outside this library of yours, girl?  Things ain't exactly magical.”

        “I don't see your point—”

        “The point is, the little foals of this place aren't gonna learn crap about magic so long as they're imprisoned in a one-room school here!”  Moondancer stood up and paced about the library.  “They need to stretch their legs, explore, get to see the exciting sights of the world, feel what it means to be alive!  Trust me!  There's no better way to learn!”

        “Am I the only one who sees the problem here, Moondancer?”  Twilight’s face paled with worry, her eyes soft and pleading.  “I can't see how any of these young unicorns' parents could—for one single second—consider signing their kids up for so many trips—”

        “Heeheehee... Use your rich noggin', Twi!”  Moondancer grinned aside at her.  “I'm not suggesting we send the kids off to war or some crud!  I'm just thinking that they should get plenty of opportunities to leave the confining walls of a school building and see up close and personal what magical things there are in Equestria!”

        “It's too ambitious and too expensive, Moondancer,” Twilight said with a frown.  “The sheer days spent in the backs of wagons, trudging from town to town, would be much better spent in the newest printed textbooks on magical enchantment and conjuration.”

        “Unnnngh... Give me a break, Twilight!”  Moondancer ran a hoof over her face and spun to gawk at her friend.  “You think that's gonna change anything?!  They're already stuffing their eyeballs with mountains of text!  We're trying to get them to learn, not fall asleep!”

        “We mustn't lose focus of the goal of this program!  Don’t you think?”  Twilight exclaimed.  “We're trying to provide much-needed information to young fillies—unicorns or otherwise—who've been deprived of magical education for years!”

        “And a billion books aren't gonna solve all of that, Twi!”  Moondancer paced towards her.  “Well, sure, mountains of books worked for you.  But you've got a deep mind that's always been a major receptacle for that sort of sheer data-clunkage!  I mean—heck—that's why Princess Celestia appointed you as her apprentice and stuff!  But these kids?  Heh, no offense or anything, Twi, but many of them would rather lay an egg than wear one in place of their head!”

        “Well, forgive me for trying to be considerate of their futures!”  Twilight said with a frown.  “Out there in the competitive world, the demand for magical knowledge is increasing by tenfold every year!  These kids are going to grow up as strangers in a world that's far too advanced for them—”

        “Okay, now you're just being dramatic—”

        “AND—”  Twilight continued, pointing firmly with her hoof.  “They're not going to be anywhere near competent after spending all of their study time prancing around old historical landmarks!  Moondancer, I appreciate your value in history and exposing these foals to it.  But let’s be reasonable, okay?  Look, I’ll concede: one field trip is fine.  One!  We can assign them to Whinniepeg!  But I really think we should stick to the outline I made yesterday of three reading assignments per week framed around twenty-question homework exercises and graded by a regular series of pop quizzes—”

        “Ugh!”  Moondancer tossed her mane with a groan.  “Twilight, stop thinking like a machine and try to get down to the kids' level!”  She smiled and leaned in with an emphatic grin.  “The biggest thing I learned after my first five years of being a teacher is that trying to shove a textbook's worth of information into a kid's head is like shoving a round peg into a square hole.  And I mean that in the least sexy way possible.”

        “Moondancer...”  Twilight sighed.

        Moondancer's voice rose, “You gotta amaze the kids!  You gotta show them how magic is alive and real in this world, and you can't do all of that from a chalkboard!  That's why I think—no—that's why I know that we should turn this program into an opportunity to give the kids a time in their lives that they'll never forget!  Learning can't be forced, but it sure as heck can be encouraged!  What are we doing with each day of our lives if not living and learning at the same time, Twi?”

        “I still think you’re going off the deep-end with this, Moondancer.  Just be rational!  That's all I ask!”  Twilight slapped her hoof over a pile of notes.  “We've been entrusted with creating a program that is well-structured and easily repeatable for several generations of students to follow!  This is no excuse for you to be exercising some radical educational theory!  We need something practical—”

        “Radical educational theory?!”  Moondancer giggled helplessly.  “Boy, you have been tutored by a princess!  It's cute what words you come up with to describe things you just simply don't agree with.”

        “Moondancer...”

        “Twilight, I've been teaching for over five years.”  Moondancer's violet eyes briefly hardened.  Her usual smile was nowhere to be seen in her features.  “'Radical' or not, what I'm giving you is the crux of my wisdom and experience.  Colorful as it may seem, it's what I know has helped kids in Fillydelphia, and it would certainly help kids here in Ponyville.”

        “Does this look like Fillydelphia?”  Twilight retorted.  “The same rules don't apply here, Moondancer.  And if you asked me, I'd say that you weren't taking this program very seriously.”

        “Heheheheheh...”  Moondancer shook her head and smirked towards the floor.

        Twilight frowned.  “What is it now?”

        “You've really been in this town too long.”  Moondancer straightened her mane and gave Twilight a flippant stare.  “I think the boring walls of this place have jaded you.”

        For a brief moment, Twilight's teeth shone.  She slowly rose from her seat.  “Now just a minute—”

        I cleared my throat.

        Both mares turned to look my way.  The heat instantly left their faces as they blinked in confusion.

        “Er... yes?”

        “Can we help you, ma'am?”

        I shifted nervously in the doorway.  I wished I hadn't brought Rarity's sweater, for suddenly I was feeling like I was being cooked alive.  “Uhm...”  I smiled under a tiny trickle of sweat.  “I'm sorry.  I was looking for somepony named Twilight Sparkle to help me with a research project.  Did I come at a bad time?”

        “Uhm... Yes,” Twilight stammered.  “I'm afraid so.”

        “Nah, come on in!”  Moondancer waved.

        Twilight flashed her a look of shock.  “Moondancer!” she loudly whispered.

        “What?!” Moondancer shrugged.

        “Uhhh—We're kind of busy with this project, are we not?”

        “And lemme guess, you stopped believing in breaks since you kicked Nightmare Moon's flank?  It's already past noon, Twi-girl, we could use a distraction.”  She once again motioned towards me.  “Seriously.  Come on in and introduce yourself—”

        “Excuse me?  Hello?  Is this your library now?”

        “No, as a matter of fact...”  Moondancer glared at Twilight.  “It's the town's library.  If I'm not mistaken, you're assigned here to—jee, I dunno—be its librarian?  Surely you can afford to help a random pony who needs to check something out.”

        Twilight tossed her hooves.  A book slapped ineffectually before her pouting figure.  “Fine.  You're right.”  Her voice was curt, unmelodious.  “This is a library.  Let's treat it as such.”

        “Don't take that tone with me, Twilight.”  Moondancer's brow furrowed.  “Just because I'm the one pony here trying to be nice.”

        “You just can't focus on a single thing for any longer than an hour.” Twilight chuckled airily while shaking her head.  “There's a reason why I have Spike around.  He can take care of the library duties while we work on this program.  You're only here for so long—”

        “Is that always your solution?  Make Spike do all the hard work?  I swear—ever since you became an apprentice to Her Majesty, he's been doing overtime!”

        “I don't ask him to do anything that he doesn't want to do—”

        “And just how can he say 'no' to you?  Heck, Twilight, I remember the day you first got him.  I never thought he'd become a servant.  As a matter of fact, I always thought he was kind of your adopted s—”

        “Okay, enough of bringing Spike into this!” Twilight suddenly snapped, her face red.

        “And just what is 'this', huh?”  Moondancer growled back.  “And for your information, I didn't bring Spike into the conversation.  You did.”

        “I only said that he'd be in charge of library duties so that you and I could maybe—just maybe—focus on this assignment that I invited you over here to begin with—”

        “I uhm...”  I bit my lip.  My whole body was shaking at this point.

        Moondancer cleared her voice and expertly tossed a practiced grin at me.  “Seriously.  I apologize.  This library's always opened to the public, even if its librarian has a closed mind.  Come on in, ma'am.  I'm sure I can look up something for you in this place's catalogue.  I mean, that doesn't take too much brainpower, does it?”

        Twilight's stool rattled to the floor as she jumped to her hooves and stormed off towards the far end of the treehouse.

        Moondancer blinked after her.  “And just where are you going?”

        “You're right,” Twilight grunted.  “We need a break.”

        “For crying out loud, I was only—”

        “Just be quiet for a little while.  Please, Moondancer.  I mean it.”

        “Twi-girl!  Come onnnn...”  Moondancer glanced at her, at me, at her... then ultimately decided to scamper after her friend.  “What's going on here?!  Just loosen up—”

        “Oh, you've loosened me up enough as it is.  Moondancer—seriously—I just need to... I dunno... do some reading or something.”

        “Reading?  About what?”

        “I don't know!  Just reading!  It's what I'm good at, remember?”

        “Twilight, please, you're making a mountain out of a mole-hill...”

        “Am I?  This is important to Cheerilee!  This is important to the mayor!  It may even be important to the Princess—”

        “What would Celestia care?!  How the heck do you even start connecting those dots?!”

        “There's a reason I take things so seriously, Moondancer.”

        “Oh really?  Tell me!  Cuz I'd love to know!”

        “Because, if we don't educate these young unicorns, then they stand to risk—”

        My friends' words were lost to me, because by then I had stealthily shut the door to the library.  I rested against the outside frame, my heart beating.  I felt like a worthless scrap of flesh, wrapped in a ridiculously ornate sweater, bathed in sweat and sunlight.  Each little vibration that shook through the doorframe only made my heart drop deeper and deeper.  If I stayed there any longer, I knew I would just die.

        So, trembling, I trotted off, my head hanging by the sheer weight of a lump in the back of my throat.

        What was happening to my friends?  Was some horrible spell cast on them?  Did they start experimenting in some mind-altering enchantment only to have it backfire?

        No.

        No, I was the only one cursed in Ponyville.  At least, that was the one truth I had full assurance of.

        But, seriously, what was that just then?  I felt as though it all started at some horrible moment, but tragically I hadn't been around to witness the beginning of such a collapse.  I felt so utterly clueless.  How could I even begin to salvage it?

        My only hope—or so I told myself—was to collect my nerves, trot straight around, and find ways to eavesdrop on them.  After all, my two friends had reunited for a reason.  Why would all three of us be together once again if it weren't for my being able to fatefully save them?

        Only, as I would discover, such salvation would not come easily.  Day after day, I shadowed them.  At the library, pretending to be studying books, I witnessed their haphazard attempt to draft a study plan.  In the center of Ponyville, strumming half-heartedly on my lyre, I overheard their voices viciously breaking the tranquil air.  On the edges of town hall, when my figure was obscured by a crimson sunset, I saw their faces burning even hotter.

        It was a vicious loop; there was no better way to describe it.  Moondancer would say something brash.  Twilight would attack her for it.  Moondancer would go on the defensive while slapping Twilight's good nature with a snide comment.  Then Twilight would cross yet another boundary, growing more and more frustrated until she saturated Moondancer with her ire.

        To say that this sort of bickering was unbecoming these two would be a lie.  But somehow, this was different.  This was a place far away from our bedrooms, from our foalhood's side streets, from the courtyards and patios of Canterlot.  This was Ponyville, and these two mares were adults.  When they got angry, they didn't whine or squeal, they filled the air with a frightening tempest.

        “An eighteen page research project?!”  Moondancer barked as she stared incredulously at the notes she was flipping through her hooves.  Her violet eyes twitched.  “You... You...”  She almost retched before giving Twilight a terrified look.  “Twilight, you can't be serious!”

        “I am,” Twilight said without looking back.  She flipped through a book of outlines as she sat beside Moondancer on a park bench just twenty feet away from where I was plucking my lyre.  “Just as serious as I was when I drafted the plan last night.”

        “You wrote all of these notes overnight?!”  Moondancer rummaged incredulously through the mountain of sheets.  “You mean—like—after our dinner with Rarity in downtown?”

        “Yes.”

        “Twilight, that was ten o'clock at night!  Did you get any sleep?!”

        “Enough.”  Twilight hummed, squinting at her notes as if Moondancer was only half there.  “It doesn't matter.  I got done what needed to be done.”

        “Twilight, I thought we were going to work on this stuff together!”

        “Were we?”  Twilight's jaw tightened slightly, but still she didn't look Moondancer's way.  “It's already three o'clock in the afternoon and we're just now meeting.”

        “What's your point?”  Moondancer asked, then shook her head and growled, “Twilight, I thought the idea was for us to work on these assignments together.  Y'know?  You and me?  As a team?  How else am I to stop you from going off the deep end!”

        “I think I made a very competent research plan.”

        “Twilight...”  Moondancer waved the infernal sheets of paper for emphasis.  “You're asking eight-year-olds to write an eighteen page draft!  You... nngh... you gotta think simpler than that.”

        “I think I compressed the assignment pretty well, considering...”  Twilight's voice trailed off as coldly as her tone.

        Moondancer glared.  “Considering what?  That you were alone all night?  Twilight, don't even pretend to guilt trip me over stuff you set upon doing on your own.”

        “What choice did I have?”

        “If you wanted to work so badly after dinner with Rarity, then you should have just told me—”

        “Moondancer, I did tell you!”  Twilight finally gave her a look, and it wasn't a happy one.  “I told you five times in one day!  'Moondancer, we need to sit down and come up with an adequate research assignment.'”

        “Five times, huh?  So are we keeping score now?”

        “I wish I didn't have to!”  Twilight growled.  “I wish that when I asked my friend over to work on preparing an important educational program, she wouldn't have disrupted the flow of our concentration by making us have dinner with every pony she sees!”

        “Twilight, correct me if I'm wrong, but Rarity is your friend!  She made you dresses for this Gala you’re hopping off to in a few weeks!  She sounded to me like a very fabulous pony!  And if there was one thing I wanted to do when I came here, it was getting acquainted with Rarity and the rest of your new companions!”

        “And that's why I set a schedule for that!”  Twilight exclaimed.  “I told you over a dozen times that I was more than willing to have dinner with Rarity and Fluttershy this Friday!  But look at our progress now!  It's not even Thursday and already we're insanely behind because you just can't be patient enough!  Now we only have two and a half weeks before you have to go back to Fillydelphia!”

        “Two and a half weeks—Snkkt—Twi, girl, aren't you jumping the gun just a tad bit?”

        “Do you forget who you're talking to?!”  Twilight made a face.  “I was Princess Celestia's personal scheduler of events two years in a row for a reason!”

        “Heheheheh...”  Moondancer giggled bitterly.

        Twilight frowned.  “Now what's so funny?”

        “I find it interesting that you want me to rely so much on your experience as a royal scheduler...”  She frowned.  “When you hardly give a flying feather about my experience as a teacher.”

        “Unnngh...”  Twilight face-hoofed.  “Moondancer...”

        “No, really!”  Moondancer slapped her hoof across the bundle of notes.  “This is gonna be like sending the little foals to the gallows!  Maybe if they were in secondary school, sure!  But last time I checked, the thickest assignment Cheerilee's ever given them was was a two-page essay for Family Appreciation Day!”

        “We're attempting to broaden their minds, Moondancer!  If they wish to learn about proper magic, they'll need to learn to work harder!”

        “Are we trying to educate them or bludgeon their brains to death?!”  Moondancer exclaimed.  “I say we make the final project a five-page essay.”

        “Five pages?!”

        “Do I hear an echo?”

        “That's hardly what I call research!”

        “And this is what just kills me!”  Moondancer barked as she flaunted the papers in disgust.  “You think research is going to teach them proper magic!  Magic is about creativity and exploring the ethereal nature of our world—”

        “It is not!”

        “Lemme guess...”  Moondancer groaned as her eyes rolled back in their sockets.  “Because you're the expert on magic.”

        “I am!”  Twilight frowned.  “Magic is all about careful study, planning, and—most of all—research!  If we make children think—if even for a second—that magic is about unchecked exercise of ethereal leylines, then we don't promote proper mana-practice, we're instead planting the dangerous seeds of ambitious sorcery!”

        “Oh come off it...”

        “I'm serious, Moondancer!”  Twilight’s eyes were bright and earnest.  “We can't afford to be so flippant about magical arts!  Especially with such young and impressionable minds!”

        “Heh, when you were their ages, nothing stopped you from experimenting.”

        “I learned to properly control my magic after reading extensively on the subject!  You think a fifteen page essay is asking a lot?  I was writing fifty-page reports at age eight!  I didn't discover my talents for magic by cutting corners and being careless!”

        “Oh please, Twi-girl, come off your high... your high... you know what!  Heh!  You've zapped your parents into potted plants at least once or twice—”

        “How is that even remotely making a point?”  Twilight barked back.  “And just what were you doing at that exact same time, Moondancer?  If you had researched magic even half as often as I did at that time, you'd be—”

        “I'd be what?”  Moondancer flashed her a pathetic smirk.  “A close-minded, book-hungry, uptight, workaholic insomniac like you?  I don't know what kind of future Ponyville has, but I'm not here to turn these kids into marching doppelgangers of you.  I've been a teacher long enough to know it's really, really stupid to extend one's ego into the curriculum.”

        “How... H-how...”  Twilight's jaw dropped in shock.  “How could you even possibly think that that's what I'm...?”  She blinked and turned her head to follow Moondancer’s moving body.  “And just where are you going?”

        “Anywhere.  I do my best thinking while walking,” Moondancer grumbled.  “Maybe I'll come up with my own final project idea.  Why not?  You did so wonderfully by your lonesome.”

        Twilight sighed long and hard.  “Moondancer, please.  I’m sorry.  Really.  Let’s... Let’s just talk about this...”

        But she was already gone.  Twilight groaned and hung her face in her hooves.  Several yards behind her, I did my futile best to keep a steady melody going.

        The next day, in Sugarcube Corner, Moondancer was sitting at a table by herself.  With a gentle glow of telekinesis, she was scribbling careful calligraphy onto a sheet of paper.  Her eyes were thin, bored, and devoid of excitement.  She yawned once or twice, then rubbed the back of her head while her ears tried flicking loose the noise of so many patrons seated all around her.

        The place was quiet, save for a gentle murmur of calm, happy conversations.  All of this shattered in an instant, though, as soon as the front doors to the place flew open and a noticeably angry Twilight Sparkle stomped directly to the table, slapping down a notepad in front of her foalhood friend.

        “Moondancer, what in the hay is this?!” Twilight demanded, pointing offensively at the notepad.

        Moondancer sighed.  Then, with monumental strength, she tossed a grin up at Twilight.  It cut the air with razor-sharp sarcasm, as did her voice, “This is a table for one, but I'm guessing that just rocks your boat all the same.”

        “Don't be coy.  I meant this!”  Twilight shoved her hoof towards the notepad.  “A plan to hire three assistant teachers from Trottingham—are you joking?”

        “If I was joking,” Moondancer muttered, “I would have thrown in more references to flanks and hoof-tacks.”  She blinked.  She then lethargically chuckled for what it was worth.

        That only enraged Twilight all the more.  “Moondancer, there's no way Cheerilee could afford to hire that much outside help!”

        “It's a heck of a lot more affordable than the field trips, and everypony knows how much you hated those.”

        “Moondancer, are you even trying anymore?!”  Twilight Sparkle breathlessly exclaimed.  “How many times do I have to tell you that we've got to get the lesson plan finalized before we can even talk about additions to the faculty—”  She stopped in mid-speech, her eyes fixated suddenly on the letter half-written in front of her friend.  “What's this?”

        “Uhm, it's nothing.  I was just—”

        “I mean it!  Who're you writing to?”  Twilight forcibly yanked the letter across the table with telekinesis.

        “Hey!”  Moondancer gawked, frowning.  “Miss Grabby Hooves!  What gives?”

        “This...”  Twilight's eyes squinted over the paper.  “This is addressed to the Whinniepeg Community Organizer...”  The more she read, the more her jaw dropped in shock.  “'...I humbly request an audience with the director of the Whinniepeg Education Commission in regards to scheduling a function at the Museum for Lunar Incantation...'”  Her eyes slowly tilted back up and her brow furrowed.  “You... You're trying to set up the field trip...”

        “Nnngh...”  Moondancer rolled her eyes.  “Look, Twilight...”

        Twilight frowned.  “You were about to go over my head!”

        “I was simply trying to open communication...”  Moondancer blushed and glanced around the room.  “You know... mmmm... in the event that you might end up considering my proposal—”

        “We're supposed to be working on this—deciding on this—as a team!”  Twilight's voice cracked as it grew louder, gathering the nervous attention of many seated patrons around the eatery.  “How could you possibly think that we'd both be in agreement over this!”

        “I'd had hoped you would keep an open mind!”

        “About you going over my head?!”  Twilight tossed the letter onto the table in front of her.  “Moondancer, how could you?”

        Something twitched in Moondancer's eyes.  She slowly crumpled the paper up.  Tossing it aside, she rose her voice like a growling cat’s.  “No, I wasn't going over your head, Twilight.”  Fuming, she icily stood up and glared at her friend from across the table.  There might as well have been an ocean between them.  “You know why?  Because there's no friggin' way anypony in the history of Equestria could possibly fathom scaling a head as big and full as yours!”

        “Please!”  Twilight rolled her eyes.  “Spare me—”

        “Spare yourself!”  Moondancer snarled.  “You need to hear this!”  Her eyes narrowed as she pointed an accusatory hoof.  “Ever since I came here, you've been nothing but an overbearing pain in the butt!  Which shouldn't come as a surprise, since you've always had something of a pathetic chip on your shoulder.”

        “Oh great,” Twilight laughed bitterly.  “I'm being preached to by the class jester.”

        “At least when I went to school, I was living it up!”  Moondancer grinned just as plastically.  “Sure, I wasn't earning perfect grades all the time like you!  But I wasn't chaining my brain to some goddess-forsaken books twenty-four-seven either!  You know why?”

        “Educate me.”

        “Oh, I will!”  Moondancer gnashed her teeth and pointed at herself, “Because I knew that there was more in life than reading and studying!  Growing older doesn't mean you gotta stop having fun!  I earned my cutie mark because I realized that teaching means dazzling your kids just as much as it means informing them!”

        “Is that why you're stuck teaching general history and intermediary economics at a low tier campus in central Fillydelphia?”

        “Hey!  At least I'm earning my teacher's desk!  With each passing year, I'm climbing higher!”

        “You could have had it so much better, Moondancer!  If only you were more serious and studious from the get go!”

        “Oh, that's some rich advice right there!”  Moondancer cackled.  “Coming from the one mare in all of Equestria who's had everything hoofed to her from royalty!”

        Twilight's eyes flared.  “And what's that supposed to mean?”

        By this time, Mrs. Cake had quietly strolled across the tense room of blinking faces.  “Ahem... uhm...” She paused, gnawing on her lip to nervously entreat Twilight in a whispering voice.  “Miss Sparkle?  If... uhm... if you and your friend wouldn't mind taking this conversation outside of m-my establishment...”

        That seemed to calm Twilight somewhat.  With a sigh, she nodded towards her.  “I'm so sorry, Mrs. Cake,” she said in a low voice.  “You're right.  We shouldn't be—”

        “No!  Please!”  Moondancer grinned devilishly.  The tips of her pale ears were burning red as she pointed a shaking hoof at her friend before folding her forelimbs.  “She likes berating my teaching career in public!  Let's let her finish it, shall we?  Go on and tell all your lovely neighbors of Ponyville just what you think of me, Twi!”

        Twilight fumed, struggling to keep everything behind an icy glare.  “I apologize, Moodancer.  I shouldn't have made a scene.  Let's just go back to the library and—”

        “And what?  Guilt trip me over and over again with your pathetic attempts at moral pretense?”

        “Ladies, please,” Mrs. Cake nervously interjected.  “If you could just—”

        Moondancer spoke louder, glaring steadily at Twilight.  “So what if I was going over your head?!  I would have gotten a heck of a lot more done on this project on my lonesome without having to be roadblocked by all of your redundant little needs to double-check and overanalyze everything!”

        “You just never grew up, did you, Moondancer?”  Twilight gave her a look of pity.  “Even when we were little foals, you could never wait for a single second without doing something impulsively and deciding later to call it a 'wise choice.'  Just how high do your students score in their aptitude tests these days, Moondancer?  Don't bother answering.  I've checked.”

        “Oh did you now—?”

        “And if you think that is the kind of result you're proud of achieving, then I feel almost as sorry for them as I do for you—”

        I wasn't entirely sure what Moondancer's response to that was.  The growling tone in her voice made the words difficult to discern, as did the rattling of the wooden table she bumped into while literally jumping towards her accuser.  Soon, the two mares were practically hissing in each other’s muzzles.  Mrs. Cake found herself awkwardly sandwiched in the middle of them.  The entire room was awash in blank faces, wide eyes, and even a few trembling foals.  And I...

        I had stopped playing my lyre five minutes ago.  My hooves were pressed so tight to the surface of the table, I was certain cracks would form.  My shoulders quivered.  My knees shook.  I tried my hardest to stay there, to remain a pointless piece of the background's detritus, but I couldn't.  I knew my role.  I knew my place, and it certainly wasn't sitting there, facing away from my friends.

        The world spun around my numb body.  I realized I was getting up and trotting towards them.  With more courage than a Canterlot guard, I planted myself firmly between the two enraged ponies.

        “Look—Look!”  I raised my voice, surprised at how silent the room became as soon as my echoes danced off the walls.  I gulped, glanced at the two mares, and uttered, “You two obviously have a lot of rough edges that are bumping into each other.  But, if I may be so bold, I imagine you two have a lot of history.  Is your mutual past so frivolous that you can ignore it by turning into utter brutes in front of everypony?”

        “Ma'am, you don't need to get yourself involved with this—” Twilight quietly began.

        “Mind your own beeswax, lady!”  Moondancer was Moondancer.

        Twilight frowned over my shoulder at her.  “Hey!  Just because you're angry with me doesn't mean you have to be rude to her—”

        “This is Ponyville, huh?!”  Moondancer laughed coldly over my other side.  “Odds are that she's on your side—”

        “I'm not on anypony's side, Moondancer!”  I snapped at her.

        She blinked and gave me a double-take.  “How do you know my—?”

        I spun and frowned at Twilight.  “And you, Miss Sparkle: haven't you learned enough lessons in your fourteen-plus months of living here to know the value of patience and compromise?”

        “I... it...”  Twilight's face was more scrunched in confusion than in anger.  “How could you possibly know what I've learned or haven't learned?  Just who are you?”

        “A know-it-all who makes assumptions of what's right or wrong?”  Moondancer chuckled.  “Hahaha—If I didn't know better, Twilight, I'd say she takes after you!”

        “All I know is this!”  I flashed Moondancer a furious look.  “Somepony should grow up!”  I gave Twilight an equally sharp glance.  “And another pony should loosen up!”  I raised my forelimbs harmlessly between us.  “It's that easy!  Isn't it?”

        “Dear Luna, I've marched right into a stage-play...”  Moondancer groaned.

        “Isn't it?!” I growled.

        “What have I said about saying Princess Luna's name in vain!” Twilight snapped past me.

        “Will you ever stop being my mother for just once?!”  Moondancer returned just as venomously.

        “I remember your mother very well!  She practically spoiled you!”

        “And yours smothered you!”

        “I was taught what it means to become a disciplined scholar!”

        “I was shown what it means to embrace life!”

        “Girls... please...”  I gulped.  I shivered, and yet this heated debacle was slipping faster and faster from my trembling hooves... from my breaking heart.  “Just... Just calm down.  We are.... You are such good friends...”

        “Ma'am...”  Mrs. Cake leaned in and hushedly whispered to me.  “I really don't think you're helping this any...”

        I sweated.  I convulsed.  I glanced out the corner of my eyes.  Everypony in the room was looking past me, through me, their eyes locked on the only two souls that mattered, the souls that were just about ready to tear each other to bits.

        And it was then that I realized, like a cold blanket of ice being draped over my insides, far more chilling than any curse could have afflicted me...

        I realized that Twilight, Moondancer, and I were the best of friends in our foalhood.  We had our ups and our downs, but somehow our bond kept going strong.  Twilight's seriousness was an opposite balance to Moondancer's carefree spirit.  But that balance had a fulcrum.  Whenever fillies dressed as Celestia or Luna would come to odds, Starswirl the Bearded was always magically there with his well-placed wisdom to talk some sense back into the royal sisters.

        But this was different.  This was Ponyville.  These friends of mine were mere shadows of a brilliant childhood, cast by a glowing innocence that was now as mysterious and incorporeal as the forgotten night-lights that had once lined my bedroom in another lifetime, in another world, in another universe.

        This was Ponyville.  And I was not there.

        I was not there....

        Oh dear Celestia...

        “Pl-please...”  I stammered, my lips fighting to remain as steady as my lungs.  “Twilight... Moondancer... listen to me...”

        They didn't.  How could they?  Who was I?

        “You never grew up!”  Twilight shouted.  “You're just the same silly foal who always wanted her way!  I don't know how I ever tolerated your craziness when I was little, but I sure as hay don't need it now!”

        “And you're still the stuck-up smarty-pants who always got her way!”  Moondancer howled back.  Sugarcube Corner shook as with a million earthquakes, and I was the only one who felt like collapsing.  “Quite frankly, I pity you!  All those years you could have enjoyed yourself, and instead you enslaved yourself to books and ancient magic tricks and all the dusty tomes of ponies long dead!”

        “At least I was making something of myself!  What were you doing in your time?”

        “I was doing what you should have done long ago!”  Moondancer exclaimed.  “I was going outside!  I was making friends!”

        “Hey!  I have friends too!  It may have taken me longer, but I learned how to open up!”

        “At least I found my friends the hard way!”  Moondancer said, her face briefly quivering as if from a labor pain.  “I went out into the world!  I took risks!  I made mistakes, sure, but I'm a better pony because of it!  Can you say the same?”

        “I... well...”

        “Can you?!”  Moondancer glared.  “You're so big on learning!  So tell me how come you can get wonderful things so easily and then pretend to tell yourself you're smarter from it!”

        “What are you even going on about?”  Twilight exclaimed breathlessly.

        “Oh please, not all of us make friends cuz of some magical connection to the Elements of Heaven!”

        “Harmony.”

        “Whatever!  If I were you, Twilight, I wouldn't even begin to judge others on friendship after receiving my companions as a consolation prize from the fates!”

        There was a thunderous sound.  Twilight's nostrils flared as she slapped both hooves atop the table, rattling Moondancer's letters to the floor.  “That's it!  Leave!”

        “Excuse me?” Moondancer chuckled incredulously.

        “You heard me!  G-get out of here!”  Twilight was shaking all over.  Her voice was cracking as moisture collected in the corners of her eyes.  “I don't want you anywhere near my friends!”

        “Oh ho hoooo!”  Moondancer paced coldly around the table, dramatically tossing her mane.  “How dare I trounce upon Twilight's holy stomping grounds, the sacred soil of Ponyville!  Did you earn this place as easily as you earned your friends!  If so, then no wonder this town needs a study course in sorcery so badly!  Who would have thought that the Element of Magic had such a hollow spark to it?!”

        “Just... just...”  Twilight was hyperventilating, her face pale as she stared blankly through the table.  “Pl-please leave...”

        “Come on, Twilight!”  Moondancer growled.  Her eyes were aflame.  “You're smarter than this!  Look at the big picture!”  She gestured wildly towards the surroundings.  “Over a year spent practicing the same old magic and the same old incantations in the center of some stuffy library in Ponyville?!”  Her face briefly retched before she hissed, “You haven't learned didley squat about friendship!  The only reason Princess Celestia accepts all of the inane letters you send to her is because she coddles you!  She always has!  Equestria's most gifted magician, my flank!  You silly... misguided... child!”

        Bright lavender light flared in the center of the eatery.  Ponies gasped and flinched.  Twilight was glaring at Moondancer, and her eyes were glowing hotly as she jerked towards her.

        Moondancer likewise dashed forward—

        “Stop!” I bellowed, suddenly in between them, planting a hoof against the napes of both mares' necks.  “I mean it!”  I glared daggers before deflating with a sad sigh.  “Just... stop it, both of you.”  I gulped, entreating whatever was left of my friends.  “Stop.”

        Twilight slowly panted.  Her eyes stopped glowing, revealing twin rivers of tears rolling down her cheeks.

        I turned to look at Moondancer.  All the anger was gone in her eyes.  She looked suddenly as if she had taken a bullet to the chest, but couldn't determine if the projectile had entered or exited.

        Maybe it had done both.  Twilight slumped to a stool, staring at the floor.  Moondancer shuffled about, before running a hoof through her mane, turning around, and trotting defeatedly out the exit of Sugarcube Corner.  Everypony was quiet.  You could hear the heartbeats like crickets in the distance, becoming one with every wall that was gradually shrinking away from me and where I stood.

        I wondered if this is how the end of every battle feels, when the violence is over and every side realizes that nothing could ever have been won, because their can never be victory in collapse: only heartache.  I tried to ignore the ghostly sounds of Moondancer's shuffling hooves as she left.  I even did my best to ignore the choking gasps of Twilight's quiet sobs as she hung her face in a pair of hooves.

        The only thing that shook me out of my stupor was the sound of Mrs. Cake's hooftrots, as the noble mare walked silently away from the eye of the dissipated storm, reminding me just how lonely and ineffectual I was...

        And how I would forever be.

        Then, the shivers returned.

        The cold chills dragged me out of Ponyville, down dirt paths through the woods, and into the rattling shell of my wooden cabin.  As soon as the door shut behind me, I couldn't stop moving.  I couldn't stop pacing.  I couldn't stop panting.

        I spun circles in the room.  I felt like my beating heart was going to leap out of my eyes.  I gnashed my teeth and paused before the hearth, leaning my horn against the brick-laid fireplace.  The whole world shook, wobbled, and then bowled.

        Somepony was screaming.  I watched in a lurched gasp as my saddlebag was tossed against the wall.  Musical instruments fell in a rain of noise and chaotic crescendo.  A flute shattered in half and a violin splashed in a spray of wooden splinters.  I trounced through it, I kicked the pieces everywhere, the pieces of me, the parts that could still make noise—and all of it yelling.

        The air tasted of blood, sweat, and phlegm.  There is no scent sweet enough to mask the decay of childhood.  I hurled myself into the bloodless wound of some forsaken corpse, and I found my cot waiting for me beneath it all.  I curled up on it, hugging my limbs to my chest so that I would stop destroying everything left in the cabin that was still beautiful.  A shower of dust and music sheets was raining down on me, sprinkled with the flavorless notes of ice-cold elegies, the only things that bothered to be my companions anymore.

        I didn't realize the truth until the tenth heavy blink of my eyes.  Yet again, the tears would not come when I wanted them to.  There was nothing left to warm me.  That's how I knew that I was as cursed as I always imagined myself to be.  It wasn't until then that Luna's dagger truly started digging into my back.

        It was enough to see a strange town like Ponyville live and die around me.  What I didn't need, what I had never asked for, was for Moondancer to arrive and show me just how much of my legacy had died, just how so much of it would stay dead, and just how much everything I had once treasured would never be so pristine again, and all because of one pathetic, missing factor.

        And that missing factor was me.

        I ran my hooves over my head.  The cold was once more unbearable.  As always, I wished it would take every waking nerve from me.  And yet again, my wish remained unfulfilled.

        No single pony is insignificant.  Every life is a cornerstone to some unimaginably epic monument.  When a pony dies, the entire foundation collapses with her.  There are beautiful tragedies happening everyday, gigantic masterpieces of love and beauty that collapse between every waking blink.  Very few ponies are cursed to bear witness to such holocausts.

        I was one of the few, in fact, the only one.  I had been hopeless for so long.  But now—and only now—I had become friendless.

        I shuddered and buried my face into my sheets as I tried to remember what their laughter sounded like.

        No.  This was not a blessing.

        “It's a good thing you came to me for practice, Miss Heartstrings,” Twilight Sparkle said, her voice droning.  She paced slowly around me in a silent shuffle.  “A protection spell takes careful concentration to master.  It's not something that a unicorn can so easily learn... on her lonesome.”

        I had no problem concentrating.  I stood in the center of the library, easily erecting the green dome of translucent energy above me.  As I performed the buffer, I preoccupied myself with another problem entirely, the true reason for my coming there.

        "You look like a pony who's learned many things on her own, Miss Sparkle," I very carefully murmured from where I meditated.

        "Hmmm..."  Her nostrils flared slightly.  Her face was cold, deadpan, and heavy.  Her eyes swam across the floor as she trotted towards a convergence of soft shadows.  "I suppose I've always had... a singular gift for sorcery."  She gulped and continued, "But I've always believed that one's connection to the realm of magic means nothing if one doesn't maintain attachments in this plane..."  She came to a stop, her hooves scratching against the wood as she blinked into space.  "Such attachments are a worthy challenge."  She gnawed on her lip.

        I almost ignored my protection field entirely as I stared across the dim library at her.  She appeared as one with the streams of dust dancing in the afternoon light from the nearby windows.

        "If I may be so bold, Miss Sparkle."  I tried to smile.  I swore I looked sadder than her.  "I know I'm just a student here and now, but you appear as though you've had enough challenges as of late."

        Twilight blinked.  Slowly, she glanced aside at me.  "One doesn't master magic without struggle, Miss Heartstrings."

        "Yes," I said with a nod.  "But is magic everything?"

        She opened her mouth to respond.  She lingered, fidgeting.  Finally, she blurted, "It's easier.  Magic, that is.  I used to think it was everything."  She stifled a weak sound coming from her throat.  "There was... something blissful, and simple about those days that I spent alone, studying, pouring my way through tome after tome of enchantment theory.  I don't know if you can understand, but, lonesomeness isn't all that bad if lonesomeness is all you know."

        I couldn't help it.  My protection field dissolved right then and there.  I no longer feared the eighth elegy.  "Oh Twilight..." I began with a pained murmur.  But before this "stranger" could so much as trot towards her...

        There was a knock on the door.

        Without thinking about it, Twilight spoke to the air, "Come in."

        When she came into the library, I was just as shocked as Twilight was.  It had been two days since the incident at Sugarcube Corner, and yet there Moondancer was in the flesh.  She didn't give Twilight the opportunity to utter any protest.

        "I couldn't leave.  Not yet.  I... I just needed to..."  She stopped, blinked, then gazed my way.  There wasn't a single hint of a smirk on Moondancer's lips.  I was finally looking into the face of a perfect stranger.  "Oh.  Uhm... Excuse me."

        “No... I... uhm...”  I jolted.  I had learned by now the true value of being more invisible than a shadow.  This whole visit felt like a mistake waiting to happen.  I think I needed to be around Twilight more than she needed to be around me.  But now?  With Moondancer here?  “I'm the one who needs to be excused.”

        Twilight turned to squint at me.  “Miss Heartstrings...?”

        “I should have mentioned it earlier!”  I said with a hollow chuckle while sliding my body through my saddlebag.  “But I have a music lesson scheduled in two hours.  Miss Hooves' kid.  Uhm...whatshername, 'Disney?'”

        “Dinky?”

        “Yes, her.  Child prodigy, that foal.  But I gotta teach her the fine art of... uhm... solo flute blowing.  Thank you for your time, Miss Sparkle.”  I was already sliding myself away, but I was well out of range of Twilight's or Moondancer's view.  Their gazes were locked on each other.  I was as confused as I was relieved to see their eyes devoid of malice, instead full of something grand, mysterious, and vacant.  I knew that something amazing or horrible or both was about to unfold all at once.  So—as stealthily as I could—I cracked the side window to the library open with my telekinesis before slipping out through the front entrance.

        Once outside, I flattened myself against the exterior of the treehouse building.  Making sure no Ponyvilleans were watching from the street, I slid along the building until I squatted—perfectly hidden—behind a patch of bushes beneath the window that I had just left open.

        From there, I could very easily hear every word being murmured between the two.  I listened with quiet, lonely shivers.

        “Moondancer, I thought... uhm...”

        “That I'd be gone by now?”

        “Erm... yeah...”

        “So did I.  I got a train taking me to Fillydelphia in the next hour.  But, like I was trying to say, I needed to stop by before I left.  After all, it's only the polite thing to do...”

        “You wanted to tell me, face to face, that you're no longer on board for designing the study program.”

        “Wowsers, you really do know everything, don't you, Twilight?”

        “Moondancer...”

        “I know!  And I'm sorry!  I... I just...”

        There was a deathly pause.

        Finally, Moondancer started over, “No.  I'm not sorry.  That's just the thing, Twilight.  I'm not sorry.  I can't even pretend to be.  I look at you, I listen to you, and all I hear is a know-it-all.  And you know what's the sad thing?  I've always felt that way.  I know I've always felt that way.  Because as far back as I can remember, even as far back as my foalhood, there's always been your higher-than-thou attitude, your incessant need to correct my mistakes, your moralistic obligation to point out how wrong I am about everything I choose to say or do, and—”

        “And you can't imagine why, for the life of you, you tolerate such a filly?  You don't know why you put up with her, why you hung out with her, why you would play games or go to school with her?”

        “I... I guess you just saved me from spilling a lot of hot air.”

        “Would you like to do me the same favor, Moondancer?”

        “Heh... Like how?  By repeating everything you've ever said to my face?  Berating me publicly when we're supposed to be having a good time?  About how you can't stand how childish I am.  About how you think I'm a big baby?  About how you think I'm too lazy and goofy and carefree and—”

        “Do you even know the way you come across at times, Moondancer?  Do you realize how much the things you say can hurt a pony?”

        “Do you realize how much you set yourself up to be hurt, Twilight?”

        Again, there was silence.  After a while, I heard the minute scratching of their hooves.  Judging from the echoes, I could tell they were a universe's length from each other.

        “Coming to Ponyville was a mistake, Twi.  I only have myself to blame.  It's yet another lesson I have to learn from doing stupid things, over and over again, and I know you would only agree with me.”

        “Moondancer, stop saying—”

        “And don't you flippin' try to placate me!  Just what are you going to do?  Are you going to try to talk some sense into me?  Try and save something that's too much of a pain for us to even bother dealing with?  Twilight, when we're in the same room together, it's like I'm walking on eggshells, and every little cracking noise bleeds my ears out.  I feel like throwing up just thinking about how what I say may or may not flip you off your rocker.”

        “Do I really come across as that controlling?  Moondancer, if half the ponies I knew around town could somehow get away with being as wild and unpredictable as you—”

        “But at least you can hang out with half the ponies around town, Twilight!”  Moondancer's voice cracked.  “So how come you can't stand to be in the s-same place as m-me?”

        The next air of silence was bitter, like salt in the wound.

        Moondancer sniffled, and finally bled forth in a wavering voice, “I can't lie, Twilight.  You've made me want to snap my horn off in frustration more times than I can count, but at least I have the guts to... to admit when something needs to be b-buried!  Something that was so unbelievably cr-crazy to begin with...”

        Her voice sniffled a bit more, cast alone in the great void of white noise, until Twilight's breath limped forth for her:

        “It's... It's always been this way, hasn't it?”  I could almost imagine the gulping motion of her sore throat.  “Even as foals, we couldn't stand each other.  How did we manage, Moondancer?  How did we make it alive into grade school?”

        I heard Moondancer chuckle.  It was a wet thing, like an arrow wound.  “Well, Twilight... I guess children just bounce back to their hooves a lot more easily, huh?”  She sniffed one last time and said in a firm voice, “But I can't bounce up from this.  Not anymore.  It's just... it's just stupid.  I know it's stupid.  You know it's stupid.”

        “But—”

        “We can't stand each other.  We never could.  I don't know... I don't even want to know what made us think that we could.”

        Twilight took a long breath.  Her hooves shuffled, and I realized she was sliding away from the other mare.  “So, this is it, then?”

        “Yeah, Twi.  Pretty much.”

        “I... We could... That is...”  Twilight's voice fumbled like her face must have been.  “I'll send letters, Moondancer.  I'll send letters and... and we can keep track.  We can at least know where our lives take us—”

        “And what makes you think that I'll want to read them any more than you'll want to write them, Twilight?”

        Moondancer's next breath took as long to come out as she took to open the exit to the library.  She stopped in the middle of the frame, and I heard her voice from both outside and inside.  It had a ghostly quality, so that I almost understood what was slipping from Twilight's life forever.

        “I'm glad, Twilight, that you're not alone here.  I'm glad that you have friends in Ponyville who can tolerate you, at least with a lot more strength and conviction than I ever bothered to.  You deserve that much.  I mean it.  I just hope you make the best of it.”

        “And I just hope you don't make the worst of it.”

        Moondancer jolted.  For a moment there, she sounded ready to say something else, until she realized—as I did—that words would forever be useless to a chorus that had long lost its song.  She left Twilight in a blink, positively scampering across town.  When the door to the library closed behind her, I imagined Twilight's voice shuddering.  But I wouldn't know for sure, for I had broken across Ponyville in a brisk trot after Moondancer.

        Twenty minutes, I found her, sitting on a bench at the central train station.  A saddlebag was resting beside Moondancer's folded legs.  She gazed forlornly towards the east, where the inbound train was soon to arrive and take her to a home away from home.

        I wasn't sure how I was going to go about doing this, only that I had to.  Life is full of last chances, and none of them deserve to be ruined.  As always, I worked my mind on the go, so that by the time I arrived at her side, I was uttering, “So you're headed to Fillydelphia?”

        She blinked.  She gazed up, and the smile that graced her face was familiar, but hollow.  “Yup.  City of Brotherly Lope, as in 'Oh brother am I tired of loping around this town.'”  She sighed heavily and ran her hooves over her face.  “Eh, do forgive me, I usually have much better material than this.”

        “Not like anypony's throwing bits at you.”  I shrugged, then squatted down on the bench at a liberal distance from her.  “I'm headed to... uhm... Manehattan, myself.  I always wanted to find out if the Big Apple was edible.”

        “I’ve been there myself.  That city's full of something, alright,” Moondancer muttered, staring off towards the eastern horizon.  “But I assure you it's not applesauce.”

        I ran a hoof through my mane as I stared in the same direction as her.  My heart pulsed painfully, fearful that her train would show up at any moment.  “I envy you.  I've got several hours to wait.  Good thing the Fillydelphia-bound train is almost here.”

        “Oh yeah?  Why?”

        “You look as though you could collapse any second.  I had no idea Ponyville was that exhausting.”

        “Heh... I should have predicted that myself...”  She looked as if she was going to say more, but her lips lingered on a painful thought.

        I gazed softly at her, at her white coat, at her lavender eyes and scarlet mane.  I remembered braiding her gorgeous hair to the music of Marezart while Twilight read us old mare's tales from a family tome that had been passed down the Sparkle family line for generations.

        “I came to Ponyville to meet a friend,” I said.  Moondancer was always herself.  I decided, for my last time with her, to be myself as well.  “I got something more than I had bargained for.”

        “Heh...”  She cast me a chilling smile.  “You too, huh?  Well, it's a small world, Miss...”

        “Please...”  I murmured.  My grin was as painful as the breath I was forcing to say, “Call me Lyra.”

        “I came here to see a friend too, Lyra.  A foalhood friend,” Moondancer said to me.  Her eyes were as distant as the east, to which she faced, to which she murmured, “Her name is Twilight Sparkle.  She's a very famous filly around town.  You've probably heard of her.”

        “What one hears is what one hears from the pony speaking to her.”

        “Heh... You almost sound like her...”  Moondancer took a deep breath.  “Only you don't sound quite so haughty.”

        “Haughty?”

        “Nnngh... It's not even that...”  She ran a hoof over her face and groaned.  “I came here to help her with something, after it had been so many, many years since we last met.  What I discovered was that those years meant something.  They erased the memories I had...”

        “What memories, pray tell?”

        She gulped hard.  “Memories of annoyance.  Memories of frustration.  Memories of constant head-butting and agony between fillies who'd do much better fighting a war than trying to have a sleepover.”

        I squirmed where I sat, murmuring, “Don't all children... have problems clicking, from time to time?”

        “Yes, but that fades with the years that go by.  At least, normally it should.  But with Twilight and I...”  She paused, bit her lip, then looked at me.  “I think it's that she grew up too fast.  There's nothing wrong with that, really.  She just became uber smart and uber studious at a really young age.  And I...”  She gazed past me, towards the horizon once more, as her violet eyes locked onto a terrible truth, and it moistened them.  “She's right.”

        “Hmm?”

        “Twilight's right...”  Moondancer's voice shuddered.  She remained her composure with remarkable maturity right there before me.  “I am like a child nowadays.  But...”  Her voice grew as firm as her eyes as she sniffled a painful breath away and frowned into the dying afternoon.  “What she doesn't know is that—at one time—I had no choice but to grow up.  She never went out into the world like I did, or as early as I did.  Where she stayed under a royal tutor's wing and learned about the secrets of magic from books, I explored Equestria and caught glimpses of real life up close and personal.  I had to do things the hard way, and it made me grow up way faster than I ever wanted to at the time.  So now...”  She chuckled breathily and looked down at her hooves fiddling with one another.  “So now, I can't help it.  I like to be a big kid.  I like to have fun and be goofy and live life from under a loose saddle.  It's because I understand... I know how quickly life can blur by if we don't stop to treasure it.”

        She gulped and fought away a wince.  She looked at me.

        “That's why I became a teacher, I think,” Moondancer said.  “I wanted to surround myself with youth.  I wanted to witness life blossoming around me each and everyday.  Do you think that's a shallow reason for making such a career choice?”

        I slowly shook my head and said, “No.  Not at all.”

        “And now Twilight...”  Moondancer stared towards the distant haze of Ponyville beyond the wooden structure of the train station.  Slowly, her lips quivered and her eyes watered.  “N-now Twilight's in such a good place, surrounded by so many amazing things, and does she even know it?  I mean does she really, really know it?”  She gulped as her voice cracked, “I don't think she does.  I don't think she realizes that she's grown so old in so little time that she has no chance of stepping back and recapturing that joy... that bliss of what it means to relax, to be alive.  She won't take her nose out of a book—she won't pull her mind out of her high seat long enough to realize that this... all of this... is not worth sweating so much over.  And it's just so painful to watch...”

        “Perhaps...”  I bravely said “...somepony could help her find that joy?”

        Moondancer clenched her eyes shut.  “I can't.”

        I didn't bother asking why.

        She answered me anyways.  “Because...”  She sniffled and glanced painfully at me.  “I've been there before.  And though it was only a short time, I don't ever want to be there again.  I've grown old and I know it.  So much as staying in the same room as Twilight: I'm brought back there, and I feel all that much closer to death, and she's hung around an immortal royal alicorn for so long that... that I don't think she'll ever know it when it hits her, and by then it will be too late for her and those that she's close to.”  She shuddered and ran a hoof over her eyes, drying them.  “Sometimes, I think, it's best to lose things when they're less painful to be ripped away, especially when we have the strength to do away with it.”

        I heard a whistle.  I looked towards the distance, and it was my time to fight the urge to cry.  I saw her train looming over the horizon.  She was already standing.  I wanted to memorialize this thing with a dirge, but my mouth was too numb.

        “Well, I know what I stand to lose, and what I can't.”  Moondancer hoisted her saddlebag over her spine and smiled with steely courage.  “I have a bunch of students waiting for me.  I have a career.”  She briefly chuckled.  “Heck, I even have one adorable hunk of a stallion to go on long walks with.”  Her head hung briefly.  “Those are things I can afford.  More importantly, they're things that I wish to afford.”

        By now, I was struggling not to sob.  I cleared my throat, trying my best to avoid the sight of the hissing train rolling to a stop.  I never imagined a moment like this would be so loud and obnoxious.  Steam billowed between us like cold vapors as I shouted above the settling engines.

        “I'm sure you'll have a great life ahead of you.  And so will this Twilight.”

        “The past is the past, Lyra.  I choose to live in the future.  I always have.  Only now, I've got no reason to second-guess that.”

        “I hope it's everything you've worked for, Miss...”  I entreated, my eyesight blurring.  I knew her name.  I cherished her name.  I only wanted with every fibre of my being to hear it one last time.  To hear her say it.

        And she did.  With her wink and her smile and her everything.  “Moondancer.  And if someday you read in the papers about the whole of Fillydelpia crumbling to ashes, that will just have been the result of me giving a darn about something.”

        Evening had fallen, pulling a dark shroud over Ponyville.  Twilight Sparkle was sitting at a table in Sugarcube Corner.  It was later than when she usually sat there, but she didn't seem to mind.  Nor did any of the other ponies pay her any notice, in spite of a rather dramatic event that had transpired there two days before.

        One pony, however, eventually trotted up to her table.  I lingered before her for a few minutes, bothering myself over pretense, until I remembered the tone in the voice of a friend I had just lost and decided that pretense was absurd.

        “Ahem.  Uhm... Miss Sparkle?”

        She slowly gazed up from a sheet of notes that she had been carefully reading.  “Hmm?”  She blinked, as if coming out of a stale dream.  “Oh, I'm sorry.  Can I help you, Miss...?”

        “Heartstrings.  I was wondering... erm...”  I pretended to wince.  “Oh, yeesh.  You're off duty, aren't you?  I really shouldn't be asking you any library-related questions...”

        “No, please...”  She smiled as softly as she could manage.  “The way I see it, I'm always ready and willing to help Ponyville and its citizens with research.  What do you need?”

        “It's not so much an issue.  I was just wondering if you... if you gave personal lessons in practicing magic.”

        “Oh.  Oh that... Eheh...”  Twilight sighed long and hard.  Her eyes fluttered limply to the tabletop before her.  “I... I'm not all that qualified as a tutor.”

        My heart sank.  That was new.  “What... uhm... What makes you say that, Miss Sparkle?  Everypony in town says that you're the Element of Magic and—”

        “I'm just... What I mean to say is, if you really want to learn about magic, I guess I could do my best to... g-give you a lesson...”  She shuddered painfully through uttering that.

        I swallowed slowly.  I saw a train slowly rolling away in the back of my blinking eyelids.  I murmured without looking at my friend.  “Is this a bad time?  You... you seem down.”

        “I've had better days, I guess,” Twilight murmured.  “But, you needn't worry about any of it...”

        That was it.  I smiled at her.  I gave her a soft expression, entreating.  “Who said I was worrying, Miss Sparkle?”

        She gazed up at me.  Her eyes twinkled with a foalish need, and then returned once more to an adult glaze.  Nevertheless, something soft and genuine slipped through.  “I just finished saying goodbye to the one best friend I had as a foal.  I had asked her to come visit me and assist in putting together a local study program, and... and for the past few days, we spent every waking moment blowing up at one another.  I was never so...”  She shook her head as her pained eyes danced over the floor.  “I don't remember ever rubbing her the wrong way so much... or anypony for that matter.  It's as if all of those times we got along together as foals never happened.”

        I slowly sat down across from her and folded my forelimbs atop the table.  “Perhaps... Perhaps time changes us for the worst?”

        Twilight gulped and shook her head.  “I don't believe that for one second.  I think that we are always essentially who we are, from start to finish, even if we have varying degrees of expressing it.  This friend—or this mare that I thought was my friend—she must have always been my foil.  I simply didn't realize it until now.”  She gulped and hung her head with a sigh.  “I just feel so foolish...”

        I gave her a sympathetic look.  “Bad breakups happen.  I wish you wouldn't feel bad about it—”

        “That's just it.  I don't.”

        “Don't what?”

        She looked up at me.  “I don't feel bad about it.”  She gulped and her eyes darted aside.  “That is, I don't feel bad about... about her being gone from my life, as much as I feel bad for having lost something so easily.  It's as if...”  She gnawed on her lip.

        I stared at her.  “What, Miss Sparkle?”

        She murmured limply.  “It's as if something is missing from my life.  There's... there's a great hole, Miss Heartstrings.  There's always been a great hole.  And Moondancer—this mare—she and I somehow danced around it, somehow ignored how utterly and completely incompatible we were as best friends forever.  And all these memories I have... all these happy memories: suddenly they mean absolutely nothing to me.”  She choked briefly and her eyes twitched.  “And I don't understand.  In spite of all of my years of learning, in spite of all my practice in logic, I just... don't understand what went wrong...”

        I fumbled with my hooves, tracing lazy circles beneath the cold lamplight in Sugarcube Corner's evening hours.  The stars outside started to twinkle, just like they once did outside a bedroom when princesses and sorcerers once roamed the earth.

        “I... I had these two friends once,” I said.

        Twilight quietly looked at me.

        “They were the best companions a little filly could ever ask for.”  I smiled, my eyes becoming entranced in the memories afforded me by the swirling wood varnish of the table.  “Neither of them were alike.  One was creative, but bossy.  The other was bubbly, but impulsive.  If you put the two of them in a giant jar and rattled it, I'd have no doubt they'd come out with both of their heads bitten off.  Heheh...”  I gulped and ran a hoof over the back of my neck as I went on.  “But I loved them all the same.  I loved the way their voices sang in the air as we trotted through town.  I loved how bizarre and dramatic our games of pretend would be because neither one of them would ever think of the same thing.  Every day I spent with them was a moment to remember, to cherish, to carry with me into the minefields of adulthood.”

        I took a deep breath and sat back in my seat, clutching my hoodie sleeves as I eyed the dusty ceiling beams of the eatery.

        “And then...”  I swallowed.  “And then we grew up.  And we spread apart.  We each studied our own schools of unicorn arts, ultimately choosing separate careers.  And one day—a long time after we were young enough to get away with putting on toy tiaras or braiding our manes while singing nursery rhymes—we attempted a reunion.  Hmmmm... It was the worse thing we could have ever thought of doing.  Too many years had gone by, and we had grown so old and so serious that whatever glued us together in the past was gone.  My companions were as bright and remarkable and intelligent and witty and beautiful as ever.  They were the same essential creatures of happiness that they were birthed into this world to be.  But, sadly, our friendship just couldn't last.  And do you know why, Miss Sparkle?”

        “Why?”  She leaned forward, her mouth agape.  “Why couldn't it last?”

        “Because friendship is like a song,” I said quietly.  “Its disparate melodies and chorus can be the most enchanting things to ever light the air.”  I slowly tilted my head down.  I gazed into her eyes solemnly.  “But even the most spectacular song means nothing without its bridge.  It falls apart.  It loses cohesion.  It's anything but harmonic.  Beautiful things will always be beautiful things, but they're not always destined to remain so together.”

        Twilight's jaw tensed.  She avoided my gaze.  For a moment there, I felt she was drawing away faster than the train that had carried Moondancer.

        I knew what needed to be said next.  I leaned forward and rested my hoof on one of hers.  “Look at me, Miss Sparkle.”

        She did.  Weakly so.

        “Everything dies,” I said.  “Everything.  We have it within ourselves to delay it, at least, and to do so gracefully, if only we can take the things that are most precious to us and bridge the gaps between us before they grow any deeper.  You're more than a smart pony, Miss Sparkle.”  I smiled gently.  “You are a blessed one.  Don't let the end of something that has been collapsing all your life deter you from the joys and opportunities you have around you.  Don't give into despair, or else something blessed will become something cursed.”

        She looked at me, her face frail and vulnerable  “All the time I've been in Ponyville, I've made it my task to write letters to Princess Celestia, teaching her what I've learned about friendship.”  She paused as her lip quivered and a tear rolled down her face.  “I never thought I'd be writing her about the end of one...”  She wanted to say more, but couldn't.  Her face cracked, scrunched up, and fell towards the table-top as the tears began flowing.

        I enclosed her hoof with both of mine and squeezed it.  “Listen to me, Miss Sparkle.  Learn from this, feel from it, but don't dwell on it.  You have friends now... here and now... in Ponyville.  And you haven't lost them.”

        “I... I don't w-want to lose them t-too...”  She sniffled.

        “Then seize the moment.  Think of the future.”  My eyes were dry, unlike hers, but I no longer felt angry over it.  I smiled with the devilish charm of a teacher who would find wisdom in pranking students and fattening infant dragons.  “Be alive while you can, with the friends you have to share it with, and maybe you won't have to worry over writing about the end of anything anymore—”  My speech was interrupted by a breath of vapors.  I gasped, leaning back and covering my mouth.  With wide eyes, I looked out the window.

        The moon was shining high in the fallen shroud of night.

        My teeth chattered as I hugged myself.  “No.  Please, no.  Not now...”

        I heard a ringing sound behind me.  I glanced over my shoulder.  Rarity was marching into Sugarcube Corner.  Her mane was frayed from a long day's worth of sewing unknowable lengths of fabric.  She yawned, at least in as ladylike a manner as she could afford to, before telekinetically stringing a blue scarf around a coat wrack.

        “Oh, good heavens!  What a strenuous day!  Ohhhhhh Mrs. Caaaaake!  Please do tell me it's not too terribly late to order a mint souffle...”

        I winced through layers of cold.  I gnashed my teeth, shook my head, and desperately whimpered in Twilight's direction.  “Miss Sparkle.  Please, hear me out.  Don't forget about—”  I looked up.  She was gone.  “Tw-Twlight?”  I stammered.  I looked every which way.  I sensed a shadow blindly gliding past me.  I spun around once again.  My heart skipped a beat.

        Twilight was walking across Sugarcube Corner... and she was trotting directly towards a friend.  “Uhm... G-good evening, Rarity.”

        “Twilight!  Oh, just the mare I wanted to see!”  Rarity stifled a giggle as she leaned against the cake counter, fluttering her eyelashes.  “You'll never believe this dress I was ordered to make for Sapphire Shores today!  I mean, she's usually a pony of remarkable fashion, but lately she's developed something of a terribly garish taste and...”  She stopped in mid speech.  Her face paled twice over as she glanced with wide blue eyes at her companion.  “Why... Twilight!  You look positively awful!  What ever is the matter?”

        Twilight glanced up, trying to smile.  Her cheeks were moist with fresh tears.  “I was just... wondering... if... if you...”

        “Twilight, darling...”  Rarity rested a hoof on Twilight's shoulder.  “Speak to me!  Is everything alright?”

        At that, Twilight caved.  Twilight melted.  Her legs buckled as she nearly sunk to the floor.  “No.  Everything’s not alright.”  She hiccuped on a sob and covered her face with a shaking hoof.  “I-I really need a friend to t-talk to right now...”

        Before Twilight could fall, Rarity was there to catch her, to hold her.  The two huddled together in the front of Sugarcube Corner.  Rarity nuzzled her friend, absorbing every shake and whimper with a gentle hug and sweet smile.  “Shhh... There there, darling.  Let it out.  Then you can tell me all about it...”

        From across the room, I swiveled in my seat and clutched my forelimbs to my shivering chest.  I felt happy and nauseous all at once.  There's no simple way to describe what it means to give up something you've cherished all your life, but some things are best to tear away sooner than later.  My smile was merely a practical thing.  It carried me past Twilight's blissful release, out of Sugarcube Corner, and into the loyal embrace of night.

        “My, my, Starswirl!”  Twilight utters from where she sits on the edge of a patio chair.  The sun-glinting rooftops of boundless Canterlot apartments loom in the distance.  “What an amazing instrumental you have performed in our honor!  I almost think of calling it Equestria's National Anthem!”

        “Eh, it could have used more drums,” Moondancer manages to say before making a juvenile raspberry with her tongue.

        “Luna!” Twilight gasps.  “How unbecoming of a princess!”

        “I thought we were gonna go hunting after dragons!”

        “We will once we rid Equestria of the changeling plot!”

        “Changelings are stupid!  Let's go smack some dragons around!”

        “Not until after Starswirl's done with our song—”

        “Actually, girls,” I stop playing the xylephone briefly.

        “Don't you mean 'your highnesses'?”  Moondancer does a mock curtsey and rolls her eyes at Twilight.

        “Lyraaaaa!  You're supposed to stay in character!”

        I clear my throat and twirl the xylephone sticks in between my hooves.  “No, really.  I kind of sort of made this song for the both of you.”

        Moondancer blinks.  “Really?  You mean this isn't pretend?”

        Twilight jumps down from her high seat.  “A song?  For us?  Really?”

        I giggle.  “Why not?  I feel like singing every time you're both around.”

        “Heehee!  You hear that, Twi?  I make her want to sing!”

        “Nuh uh!  She says we make her want to sing!”

        “Oh yeah?”

        “Hey!”  I squeal briefly, sitting up between them.  “This isn't singing!  Do you wanna hear the song or not?”

        Moondancer fiddles with her hooves.  “Did you... really make something this pretty just for us?”

        I smile at her.  “Yes.”  I look at Twilight.  “And yes.  Cuz you're both fun and cool and stuff.”

        Twilight's face scrunches in perplexion.  “But you're always Starswirl the Bearded.”

        “And you're always having to bark at us like a dog,” Moondancer says.  At that, Twilight giggles, and she does too.

        “Maybe I don't hate it?”  I shrug.  “Maybe I like being Starswirl the Bearded all the time.”

        Both girls stare at me.  Then at each other.  Joined as one, they chirp, “You're weird!”  They poke their hooves into me and lean against each other, laughing.

        I giggle.  I revel in the attention.  I revel in them.  “So, how about it?  Wanna learn the words I wrote?”

        “Sure, Lyra!”

        “How does it start!”

        “Well, like this...”  I start plunking the xylophone keys, one after another, in charming awkwardness.  “Best.  Friends.  Sing.  Together. Forever—”

        “BestFriendsSingTogetherForeverrrrr--” They both let loose in an purposeful, uncoordinated caterwaul.

        “Guysss!”  I pout.  “You're not supposed to shout it!”

        “Heeheehee!”

        “Hehehehe!”

        “Heheh...”  I blush and smile.  “But were are supposed to do it together.”

        “Okay.”

        “Sure thing, Lyra.”

        “Ahem.  Ready?”

        “Best. Friends. Sing. Together. Foreverrrrrr...”

        We practice.  We sing.  We hit some notes.  We miss some others.  The day wears on from gold to red to purple, and no matter how many mistakes we make, we are harmonious.

We are together.

        Under the stars, with the hushed breath of the forest as my cadence, I sat on the patio of my cabin.  I had my lyre in my hooves.  Without looking, I telekinetically toyed with the strings.  The aged skin on my brow furrowed under a dim green glow as I sought the notes to a song a little filly had once composed so many years ago, when warmth was something that could be tasted.

        As I performed the ancient tune, my melody reached into the future in a desperate bid to bridge the darkness around me, something that was engulfing my life thicker and thicker with each passing day.

        I was performing the song alone.  It occurred to me that, perhaps, I had always been from the beginning.

        Twilight...

        Moondancer...

        As long as I am alive, I shall do the remembering for all of us.  Our friendship will never die.

Background Pony

VII - “Bridge”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: TheBrianJ, Props, Warden, VivaceCapriccioso, and Ben...wherever you may be

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear Journal,

        What does every pony want in life?  I mean really want?  Do our existences end happily, peacefully, only if we've accomplished all of the things we've ever dreamt of doing?  Do all of our achievements and medals and trophies really mean so much to us when the final curtain falls?  Are the lengths of our contributions to this world enough to serenade us gently into the cold embrace of death?

        For no matter what we do, no matter what we set our minds to, no matter how many factors we struggle with in life—when that life comes to an end, we make our final bows alone.  We are solitary in our death, which is a fascinating piece of irony, for we are hardly that solitary in our conception.  History has a funny way of starting things with multiplicitous factors, only for them to end in singular, trailing tributaries.

        I have a lonely journey ahead of me.  I always have.  There hasn't been a day when I wasn't meditating on the elegies, on the tempestuous act of unraveling them, on the unknowable future that such an endeavor promises me.  In a way, I've been supremely courageous in my musical tasks, dealing with them with as much gusto as any heroine that I've long admired in literature.

        But now, as I prepare to scale the most frightening mountain of my trek, as I gear myself for tackling Elegy #8, I do so with great hesitance, because I can't get over just how lonely a task it is.  This didn't used to bother me so much.  It didn't always make me feel so intensely alone.

        Not until just recently.  Not until him...

        A crown of golden tulips framed a rosy candle burning dimly in the middle of a wooden eating table.  I stared at the glistening yellow flower petals.  I should have been pouring my eyes over the half-completed music sheet before me instead, but I wasn't.  It had been several long weeks in the making, but the eighth elegy was finally finished in my head.  The piece could just as easily have been finished on paper, but the only thing in the way of that was me, my hesitance, my fear, and—worst of all—my heart, along with the sickening depths to which it had recently sunk.

        When Rarity walked into Sugarcube Corner, I was only residually aware of it.  Her hoofsteps were ghostly percussions to a wandering mind.  After several minutes, those beats drew closer, as did her sighing voice.

        “My stars, what a day!  Looks like I'm not the only one exhausted.  Ahem.  Do excuse me.  Is this seat taken?”

        There were twenty tulips in all.  Twenty budding flowers.  Twenty mornings spent trotting into town, only to be greeted by a smile, a voice, and an earthen scent that sent my heart a'flutter, until now.  I had preserved them so well.  Now I wondered how long it would be until they too withered away.  Why are the sweetest things in life so fragile?  I can still feel his gentle warm breaths against my muzzle...

        “I'm so terribly sorry.  Am I breaking your concentration?  If so, I'll move along to another seat...”

        “Hmm?”  I glanced up at Rarity.  She stood before me with a steaming cup of coffee floating beside her.  Her glittering eyes entreated me and the empty stool on the other side of my table.  I glanced down at my music sheets, then at the other tables around us.  Every other spot in Sugarcube Corner was densely occupied by clusters of chatting, dining, murmuring ponies.  “Oh... Uhm...”  I gently smiled up at her, though I doubted my eyes were half as lively.  “By all means.  Have a seat, Rarity.”

        She instantly brightened at the sound of her name.  “Oh, well if this isn't a treat!”  Rarity smiled and sat daintily across from me.  After one sip of the coffee mug, she adjusted the scarf around her neck and remarked, “I spend an entire weekend in Canterlot, attending the Gala, surrounded by elite ponies, not a single one of them giving me so much as a second glance.  I return to Ponyville, and the first stranger I speak to knows me by name!”  She suppressed a giggle and smiled.  “We all do well to be reminded where are home truly is.  It's a pleasure to be of acquaintance, Miss...?”

        “Heartstrings,” I murmured.  “Lyra Heartstrings.”

        “My my... I dare say,” she stifled an unladylike chuckle.  “Your coat has seen better days.  Dare I ask what happened, dear?”

        I was briefly confused.  My limbs flexed, and I again felt the stretch of tiny bandages covering random spots on my body: my leg, a hoof, and a stretch of skin below my left ear.

        “Oh.  Nothing to be concerned about,” I said gently.  “Ponyville's been... no more dramatic than usual while you were gone.”  I didn't bother sugarcoating the edges of that lie.

        “Very well,” she remarked, swirling the coffee in her magic grasp.  I often take for granted how truly intuitive Rarity is capable of being.  “If you insist, I won't inquire further.”

        “Much appreciated,” I replied in a low tone.  I levitated a pen across the sheet and sketched two more notes of the elegy.  The scratching of the quill across the parchment sent my nerves on fire.  I could just as easily been chiseling words onto a gravestone.  I feared that this scene might become even colder.  “You... uh... You were just in Canterlot, hmmm?”  It didn't take a genius to detect the lack of enthusiasm in my voice.  It took even less of one to notice how little I cared.  “Some pretty exciting things were happening there, if I'm not mistaken.”

        “Exciting?  More like 'magical!'  'Marvelous!'  'Supremely fabulous!'”  With each utterance, Rarity swooned more and more.  She teetered back dramatically in her seat, catching herself with a bright gasp.  “Oh, the celebrities!  The glamour!  The magnificence!  It was everything I ever dreamed of!”  She sighed long and hard, her drunken smile melting into a mere smirk of contentment as she leaned forward and took another sip of her coffee.  “Oh, how I am so terribly glad it is over with.”

        I blinked.  I finally looked her in the face.  “You are?”

        “Mmmmph!”  She nodded, gulped her sip down, and remarked, “Exceedingly so!  As delightful an evening as it was, I've never before in my life been witness to so much pompous extravagance, boorish half-attempts at chivalry, and self-inflated pretentiousness on behalf of affluent, civilized ponies!  All of those ridiculous details seem amusing from the opposite side of the Equestrian tabloids, but up close and personal—heh—it felt like sewing silk to corduroy with one's teeth!”

        “Hmmm...”  I grinned slightly.  “That's a colorful way to put it.”

        “Miss Heartstrings, darling, the world gives us colors to dye the truth with, and too much of them are tragically garish.”  Rarity casually leaned back and swirled the coffee in her telekinetic grasp.  “Do forgive me for prattling on like a school-filly, but my calamitous weekend spent in Canterlot has my nerves scattered all helter-skelter.  The only silver lining to the whole event has been my friends' company, but since I came home to Ponyville early, I haven't had any close mares to gab with.  You know how it is.”

        “You came home early?”

        “Mmmmhmm... I realized that I had a terribly long list of dresses to manufacture, and far too many of them had been put off as I prepared for what I had foolishly expected to be the single greatest occasion of my life.”  Rarity laughed lightly, rolled her eyes, and clasped the mug gently between two hooves.  “Well, now I know the truth.  I am most relaxed when I am working.  I don't know if you can relate...”

        I blinked at her.  I tilted my head down and glanced at the music sheets.  My ears twitched, as if being stabbed deep in the cartilage with frozen needles.  The eighth elegy was a tidal wave of ice rising above the next aching breath.  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rising.

        “I relax when being talked to,” I blurted.

        “Well...”  Rarity chuckled with relief.  “That's good to know.”

        “Tell me, did you ever meet him?”  I asked without thinking, my gaze lingering on the golden crown of tulips between us.  “The stallion of your dreams?”

        Rarity paused before the next sip.  She looked at me, squinted at me, and then leaned towards me.  “Have... Have we had this conversation before?”

        I felt my heart beating.  My teeth chewed pensively on my bottom lip.  I reminded myself that sometimes the only cure to an awkward moment is a blind dose of truth.

        “We... uhm... we spoke last week, just before you left for Canterlot with your friends, Rarity,” I said.  I looked calmly at her.  “You made a gorgeous yet simple dress for me.  The cream-colored one with the gold floral pattern?”

        “Did I, now?”  Rarity's face was scrunched with thick confusion.  She leaned back and ran a hoof through her mane as her eyes traveled the ceiling.  “Indeed.  Sounds like an ensemble I'm capable of making.  Why can't I just...?”  Her lips moved through a minefield of unintelligible words.  She ultimately gulped and produced a sheepish smile.  “Good heavens, my mind really has been in another place entirely these past few weeks, hasn't it?  My supreme apologies, Miss Heartstrings.  I can only ask, did such a dress serve its marvelous purpose?”

        My eyes briefly fell to the floor.  “It's a spectacular gown, and I couldn't have asked for anything lovelier.  So, thank you.”

        “Well, you're more than welcome!  From the bottom of my heart, though I wish I could say the same about my mind!”  She produced a flippant laugh.  “Oh, if only all dresses met a gorgeous fate equal to the genius I put into them.  I had the most fantastic gown made for the Gala, and I'm afraid it has become horribly acquainted with applesauce and cake frosting.”

        I glanced at her in horror.  “That... That sounds terrible...”

        “Mmm... He was,” she said, briefly glaring daggers into the walls.

        “Huh?”

        “Oh... Uhm... Yes, that...”  Rarity rolled her eyes.  “Alas, I should have spent the entirety of that night with my friends and not in the company of a regal oaf whose manners extended as far as the silver spoon stuck in his mouth.”  She tossed me a tranquil smile.  “Miss Heartstrings, I hope you learn this lesson with far less drama than I did, but true love is hardly anything you ever stumble upon.  What fate delivers, it does so without announcement, and we are fools to think that we can predict it like a pegasus molds the weather clouds.”

        “Why do you say that, Rarity?”  I asked her calmly.  “You strike me as a romantic.”

        “Oh, and I have most exceedingly been such the majority of my life!  But life is short, and it's never too late to reassess things.”

        “Like what kind of things?”

        “Silly things.  Embarrassing things.  Enchanted notions of a whimsical filly.  They're all charming to conceive, but a lot more difficult to live out.  I had only wished the spotlight of Canterlot wasn't on me when I came to terms with how utterly disastrous a single stallion's rudeness would be to my childish dreams.”

        “Whatever may have happened to you at the Gala, Rarity, I'm sure it was only a setback.”  I scratched three more musical notes into existence.  I stared into the abyss of Luna's compositions, murmuring.  “Your dreams can still come true.”

        “Hmmm... methinks I am not the only romantic at this table,” Rarity said.  She leaned forward with a warm smile.  “At least, I may not be the most zealous one.  Tell me, Miss Heartstrings, if I may be so bold as to inquire: have you ever survived an impossible infatuation?”

        I stopped once more in the midst of signing my life away to endless night.  My eyes swam over the golden tulips.  Slowly, I looked up at her.

        I smiled.

        “Good morning to you, angel,” he said.  He smiled.  He hoofed me something golden... like the silken texture of his coat.

        I mirrored his expression, albeit with an ounce of bashfulness.  Nevertheless, I telekinetically plucked the offering from his grasp.  It was a tulip: fragrant, delicate, and glistening in the breath of dawn.  I stood at the north entrance to Ponyville three weeks before my Sugarcube Corner conversation with Rarity.  As always, I had my saddlebag and lyre with me.  As always, the town was coming to life with hustling and bustling ponies.  And, as always, he was there in the middle of it all, gazing and smiling at nopony, nopony but me.

        “Why thank you,” I returned.  My cheeks would have been burning red by that point if only the darling moment hadn't become something of a ritualistic dance for me.  And yet my heart frolicked with each beat that accompanied his amnesiac offering of smiles, breaths, and petals.  “Well, if you aren't a charmer,” I said.  I already knew his reaction.  I didn't care; I wanted to hear it again.  I wanted to hear it forever and ever.

        “I am only charmed,” he said.  He bowed his head low, a sapphiric fountain of mane hair falling loosely about his lithe neck.  “Welcome to Ponyville,” he produced, and then was gone like a dream, shuffling towards a cluster of rose bushes that he was presently trimming as soon as I had arrived.

        Halfway through trotting past him, I paused.  I stared at the tulip that I was levitating before me.  The object was simply a bright part of a plant.  I could very easily have plucked a thousand of those things from the earth and made a wreathe with them.

        After all, the world is full of flowers.  It's sentiment that's a sparse thing, something that fills us and makes us grow in a desert world made dry with fear and isolation.  I had several elegies to unravel, several deathly tunes to trek fearfully through, and yet a single tulip was enough to remind me that in a strange world of cold, there was something warm worth striving for.

        Another dawn had arrived, and I had my oasis.  I happily lifted the tulip and stuck its stem behind my ear.  I gazed back, produced a deep breath, and reluctantly trotted on to my destination.  With that, the ritual was complete.  I counted the hours until the next sunrise.

        His name is Morning Dew.  He's an earth pony, a gardener, an artist.  He paints his canvas all over town, digging up soil and planting beautiful bouquets.  He spreads color like a song expands a melody.  Every bright shade of yellow, deep hue of red, and tranquil splash of blue owes its expert arrangement to him.

        To the best of my knowledge, he is the one and only flower-planter in Ponyville.  Sure, there are famous vendors in downtown such as Daisy and Roseluck.  But they only sell flowers.  They don't live them, not like Morning Dew does.

        He's awake at the crack of dawn everyday.  The rising sun shines on him and the earth in equal lustre.  He spots every weed and casts it away before the golden glow rising over the horizon can highlight such a blemish.

        Ponyville is a beautiful town, but it didn't get that way on its own.  The village is perfect because his work is perfect, as he is perfect:  perfectly concentrated, perfectly poised, and perfectly balanced.  He trudges his hooves joint-deep in dirt and mud, and yet he comes out of it looking like a ballet dancer.  No amount of grime or sediment can dirty his complexion, for he is always glowing, as if happy to be alive, for somewhere and somehow he has discovered a secret in a simple existence that we all envy for the very fact that we can't remotely be as graceful as him.

        And every day—every single day—I cross the path of such a genius earth pony, such a saint of diligence and humility, and every single time—without fail—he stops what he's doing.  He quits in the dead-middle of his masterpiece.  He stops perfecting the all-too-important world to look at me, to smile at me, to give me a flower... and then to give me something more.

        “Good morning to you, angel.”

        I took the flower from him yet again and tried not to collapse.  The world never spins.  Morning Dew just looks at me and I become dizzy.  “Well, if you aren't the charmer,” I said.  I almost wished I had sung it that time.

        “I am only charmed,” he sang back.  Yet again, he bowed, then disappeared back into his muddied stage, struggling to eke color and beauty from a stubborn pit of compacted moss in front of the post office.  The air about him was stained with labor and sweat, but I was not disgusted.  Somewhere from deep within the moment a fragrance was entrancing my senses, so that I struggled to keep the tulip levitating in front of me.  I pretended that only the simple things in this world were capable of making my heart beat so, and then I pretended that they could just as easily be ignored.

        I failed.  Tucking the new flower behind my ear, I trotted forcibly away while I still had strength in my legs to do so.

        I'm not the only pony that Morning Dew talks to, that Morning Dew greets.  He talks to friends and strangers all the same.  He smiles at passing ponies and chats it up with them for as long as he can afford to be distracted from his expert gardening.

        However, with all of these ponies whom he converses with, whom he meets and greets, he calls none of them “angel,” none of them but me.  I know this.  I've seen him, watched him.  Gorgeous fillies—mares that could make the cover of Equestrian Fashion magazines—he merely calls “ma'am” or “miss” at best.  Even when ponies as beautiful as Rarity or Fluttershy walk by, he goes only so far as to call them “madame” with utmost gentility.

        It is only with me that he steeps to poetics, that a certain spark twinkles in his blue eyes, that the flecks of dirt on his coat melt away as his expression brightens at my immediate appearance.  Whatever that spark is, it motivates him to pluck the exact same flower—a golden tulip—from his gardening wagon and hoof it my away, along with those five priceless words:

        “Good morning to you, angel.”

        This time, I had to stifle a giggle.  It was a dismal morning.  Both of us were drenched.  The pegasi were giving the landscape an early shower so as to clear the skies for a picnic later that afternoon.  The streets of Ponyville were practically flooded.  Half the restaurants and shops weren't even open yet.  The morning sun was nothing more than a gray splash of refracted light beams.  I didn't even know what I was doing there, plodding through the mud, letting my hoodie get soaked to the sleeves, until he said those words, and I realized that even all of the misery in the world couldn't stop him from repeating what would be—at best—a tragically forgotten piece of history.

        “I don't suppose this thing folds out to become a yellow umbrella?” I said with a dripping smile.

        “If it did, it'd make my job a lot easier,” he dripped back, stifling a laugh of his own.  We were two souls swimming in an absurd puddle called “life,” and it was nothing worth sighing at.  He returned to his muddy toil.  I returned to my rainy walk.  Neither of us returned to sanity.

        That afternoon, I couldn't stop sneezing, even as the clouds dissipated.  It was all right, though.  I felt the flower behind my earlobe in between the violent attacks, and my smile never went away.

        What does it mean?  What triggers this response in him?  What is it that motivates Morning Dew—upon first sight of me—to say those same words, to perform the same gesture, to reach into the same flower pot and deplete its golden treasures one stem at a time, one day at a time, one smile at a time, as the two of us spin our isolated circles into the future?

        Sure, I can accept it as simple flattery.  Only... I don't want to accept it as “simple flattery.”  The idea has no meaning to it, no heart, no motivation beyond a generic response to a persistent stimulus.  It'd be the same as Spike complimenting me on my hoodie, Rarity insisting she make me a new jacket, or Rainbow Dash questioning why she just rammed into my cabin out of nowhere.

        I've come to accept the citizens of Ponyville over the past year as friends, acquaintances, and even family.  At the same time, I have to step back and reexamine these “neighbors” of mine, realizing that they'll only ever be hollow imitations of friends, at least as far as I'm concerned.  Every conversation I have with them is a first conversation.  Every meeting I have is a first impression.  Whenever I want to broach a subject that I've discussed with them before, I have to spill forth a series of sentences that guide our dialogue down a pre-programmed stratum, so that touching base with another soul has as much delicacy as punching buttons in some unfeeling machine.

        But with Morning Dew, I don't have to punch any buttons.  I don't have to make any effort to dredge a response.  I only have to exist, to be visible, to walk past his blue-eyed gaze—when he's all too terribly busy with his priceless tasks of floral art—and suddenly I'm the target of something so sweet, so sincere, so... deliciously sappy that it pains me to think of any single piece of it being hollow.

        So why is it that I summon such a response from him?  Why do I light up his day, when he's as handsome and majestic as the sunrise himself?  Why does he donate me his smile, a smile that would make any self-respecting filly crumble to her knees, and then top that off with a flower and a greeting and a regal bow?

        Why am I Morning Dew's angel?

        I think about this constantly.  I ponder about it.  I obsess over it.  And sooner than I realize, discovering the eighth elegy is no longer the forefront of my mind.  Something else is.  Somepony else is, and in spite of all my years of scholarly research, musical compositions, and adult studies, I cannot help but feel like I am once again a whimsical schoolfilly.

        “Well, if you ask me, Miss Heartstrings, there's nothing at all wrong with it,” Twilight Sparkle said with a smile.

        I stood in the center of the library, summoning a protection field over my glowing horn.  I meditated carefully, but all of the strain was gone.  It was no longer a difficult task.  The only thing that took an awful lot of effort was convincing Twilight that this mint-green stranger needed a lesson at all to begin with.

        “What do you mean there's nothing wrong with it?”  I groaned, eyeing the green dome forming above my crown.  “Somepony my age should know better than to humor a schoolyard crush.”

        “A schoolyard what, now?”

        I glanced at her with a sour expression.  “You heard me.  What else am I going to call it?”

        Twilight giggled and paced around me.  “It's only natural to feel attracted to another pony, regardless of the severity of that fixation.”  As she spoke, she carefully judged the progress of my protection field.  “Why, I've read in several psychological studies that a distinct lack of infatuations in early adulthood is suggestive of acute depression...”

        “I came to you because I've heard a great deal about your innate wisdom, Miss Sparkle,” I muttered.  I briefly clenched my jaw as I extended the emerald dome into a translucent parasol above me.  “Do you have any advice to give that you haven't gotten from reading books?”

        “You're talking to the wrong pony,” she said, almost chuckling.  “My experience with courtship is about as detailed as my experience with—oh, I dunno—street hockey.  Hehehe.”  She blushed slightly, her violet eyes adorably searching the floor for an exit from this topic.  “Besides, my head isn't exactly in the right place at the moment.  Just before you came, I was preparing a speech to give to Princess Celestia when I meet with her at the Gala two weeks from now.”

        “Oh.  I'm sorry.”  The dome above me began to dissipate and wobble.  “I obviously came at a bad time—”

        “N-no!  It's fine!”  She gestured in front of me, smiling to placate my worries.  “I'm happy to tutor somepony in magic once in a while.  Besides...”  She rolled her eyes at herself.  “Princess Celestia's always telling me in letters that I need to take breaks every once in a while.  And if there's anything I want to prove to her when we meet again, it's that I've learned a lot of things over the past year.”

        “I have no doubt that you'll have a lot to show for yourself,” I said to her with a smile.  “Along with all your friends.”

        “Heehee... Perhaps so.”  She cleared her throat and paced around me again as I reformed the dome.  “Does he only give flowers to you?”

        “Huh?”

        “This stallion you were talking about,” Twilight remarked with a wink.  “You said he gives you a tulip every morning.  I may not exactly be an expert on romance, but that's showing some persistence, don't you think?  Heehee... When most guys commit to a single act, it's a sign.”

        “A sign of what?”

        “You obviously mean a great deal to him for the stallion to be performing the same gesture on a regular basis, unless of course he's just as forgetful as a gold fish—Oh, wait...”  Twilight's face scrunched up cutely.  “That myth's been debunked... or has it?”

        “I... Uhm...”  I smiled nervously.  “I wouldn't put too much stock in it.”

        “What, goldfish?”

        “No, I mean... erm...”  I sighed.  “Never mind.”

        “Anyways, I think it's perfectly fine to still be infatuated at our ages,” Twilight said, smiling gently at me.  “It's especially fine when you have the target of such a fixation mutually interested in you.”

        “You... Y-you really think that's the case?” I stammered.

        She rambled on, “In fact, many mares would consider you lucky in our day and age.  After all, following the Great Changeling Incursion of the Early Classical Era, the gene pool's never exactly recovered.  There's still one male born to every five females in Equestria.  If you're actively looking for a very special somepony, and someone compatible is right there in front of you, then it's almost a crime to not pursue a relationship!  Erm... metaphorically speaking, of course.”

        “But...”  I bit my lip.  I was already dreading the number of minutes until this conversation, like so many thousands of others before it, would evaporate into oblivion, and I would once again be alone with my thoughts and shadows.  “What if I'm not in... not in a place to be looking for a special somepony?”  I gulped, and the emerald shield above me wavered slightly.  “What if I just can't afford it?”

        “Shhh... Concentrate...”  Twilight stood before me and gently touched my shoulders.

        I sighed.  I took a deep breath.  I gazed into the face of my foalhood friend.

        She gazed back, my anchor, and smiled.  “It's a sad day when we convince ourselves that we can't afford the things that will only make us happy.”

        Her innocence was heartwarming, though I expected a surge of regret to trail the end of it.  I spoke before I could think that far.  “What if it's just a paper moon?  How would I know it's something worth affording?”

        “Well, if I were in your place, and I wanted to pursue something... well... anything...”  Twilight sat back and tapped her chin while thinking aloud.  “I'd go about it scientifically.”

        I made a face.  “Scientifically?”

        “I'd make tons of observations.”

        I want to tell Twilight that I have.  I want to tell her that my life as of late has been nothing but observations.  But how could I do that without coming across as a total sap, a pathetic dreamer, or a silly filly with sparkles in her eyes?

        Besides, how would the learned mare relate?  There's no way I can instill in her the same burst of excitement, the same flutter of the heart each time I hear his voice.  Every morning, I expect him to ignore me.  And every morning, to my immeasurable joy, I'm disappointed.  I may be invisible to the history books, but I am as real to him as oxygen.  He breathes me in, and then he breathes the immortal words out.

        “'Good morning to you, angel.'”

        “Seriously?”  Applejack exclaimed, raising an eyebrow beneath the shade of her hat.  “He calls you 'angel?'”

        “Uhm... Y-yes,” I nervously confirmed, all the while planting seeds in front of my cabin.  “And then he gives me a flower.”

        “What, like a rose?”

        “A tulip, actually.”

        “A tulip?”

        “Erm... Y-yes?”  I fidgeted with my task.  She reached in and guided my hooves so that I planted the seeds expertly apart in the plowed soil.  I thanked her with a nod and continued on.  “Is... is that a bad thing?”

        “Well, it's a might bit peculiar.”  She brushed a few golden bangs beneath the rim of her hat and leaned against a parked wagon full of apple baskets.  “Most times, stallions fancy offerin' roses with them pick-up lines.”

        “Is that what you think it is?”  I briefly frowned.  “A pick-up line?”

        “You wantin' to hear my advice, ain'tcha?”  She smirked.  “He's baitin' ya, missy.  Oldest trick in the book.”

        “A book you've read through and through, I imagine.”

        “If ya mean to question my experience, then them's some fields you don't wanna be harvestin'.”

        “Why not, Miss Applejack?”

        She groaned and adjusted her hat.  “Because...”  Her nostrils flared at the recollection.  “The frist time I ever caught the fancy of a stallion, I.... mmfmmffmmgh...”

        I paused and squinted up at her.  “I'm sorry, what was that?”

        “Nnngh... I...”  Her words once again melted into indistinguishable mumbles.

        “Applejack, I know you just met me, but I'm a musician.  I can't be expected to make a tune for something without lyrics.”

        “I said, I knocked him onto his keister!”

        I did a double-take.  “You bucked him to the ground?”

        “It was a knee-jerk reaction!”  Applejack exclaimed, waving her front limbs with emphasis.  “He marched right onto my family farm while we were plantin' our fresh seeds and he had the gall to put his leg around me and whisper in my ear!  He's plum lucky it was me who gave him a face full of dirt!  If Big Mac got to him, he would have ended up with no behind, much less one he couldn't sit on for a week!”

        “Hehehehehe...”

        She briefly frowned at me.  “T'ain't funny!  The stallion was a heavy breathin' varmint with no respect for mares or personal space for that matter!”

        “And this has to do with my situation how?”  I smiled up at her from where I continued planting the seeds one at a time.  “The pony I described is a perfect gentlecolt.  His worst sin is flattering me and returning back to his work like nothing happened.”

“Hmmph...”  Applejack sighed, dusting her hat off absent-mindedly while speaking, “Yer right, I suppose.  Reckon not every stallion in the world deserves to have his fifth leg cut off...”

        “Now there’s the spirit.”

        “But they do stand to sit on it once in a while,” she grumbled.

        “Awww... Miss Applejack...”

        She sighed, then softly trotted towards me with a smile.  “Look, Miss Heartstrings, darlin'.”  She sat beside me and took the seeds, planting them so I could watch up close.  “I don't mean to be sendin' you the wrong impression.  Each and every pony swings to a different tune.  I reckon you know all about that.  Me?”  She paused briefly.  “I'm sure there will come a day when I exchange the pullin' of the plow for the rockin' of a cradle, but that time just hasn't come yet.  In all honesty, I'm so plum busy workin' on my farm, that I hardly even give it a second thought.  Why, heck, I've been up to my ears this week in gettin' enough apples ready to make a samplin' table for the Gala twelve days from now.”

        “I'm sorry,” I said.  “And here I am interrupting you—”

        “Don't you sweat it none!”  She said in a sharp voice, though she smiled.  “I wouldn't be the pony this village depends on if I didn't lend a hoof—or an ear—to strangers.”  She cleared her voice and said, “But when it comes to meetin' that special somepony, I'm just not qualified to lend advice, considerin' I don't plan on settlin' down until I've got all of my apples in a row... heh... to put it lightly.”

        “But if you knew that a pony had a crush on you...”  I winced.  “If you thought that a pony might be infatuated with you, wouldn't you feel flattered?”

        “Well...”

        “Wouldn't you want to learn more about him, if even to entertain the very notion?”

        “Perhaps.”  Applejack shrugged.  “Really, it depends on what a stallion is lookin' for.  Tis a cryin' shame that so many of them only want one thing... heh... and t'ain't apple buckin'.”

        I fidgeted, my eyes falling to the dirt road in front of my cabin.  “Just... Just how do I figure it out?”

        “Miss Heartstrings, if you've asked any pony in town about me, they'll tell you a thing or two about my brutal honesty.”  She smiled, as if with glowing pride.  “If y'all are really so torn about a handsome colt lookin' ya over, you just gotta be straightforward.”

        “How do you mean?”

        “You gotta trot up and ask him straight to his face just what he means by it!”

        I trotted straight into town early one day to do just that, and Morning Dew didn't greet me.  I couldn't decide whether to feel devastated or relieved.  However, I didn't have to ponder about the topic long.  Soon, I heard his voice, and those of many others on the northern fringes of town.

        Curious, I trotted past the corner of a general store and gazed into a clearing.  In the background, several construction ponies in orange garb were hammering and chiseling away at an abandoned hotel building in disarray.  Before this noisy scene, in the spotlight of the morning sun, was a group of young ponies.  In the center of which were two familiar souls with familiar voices, nuzzling each other under the gaze of their mutual companions.

        “Well, let's see it!” Exclaimed Thunderlane.  Blossomforth and two other pegasi were craning their necks beside him to get a better view.  “Give us a look at what sealed the deal!”

        Caramel looked at Wind Whistler.  Wind Whistler blushed.  She hid her smile into Caramel's mane while blindly raising her left hoof.  A kaleidoscopic shine of glittering reflections anointed the small crowd of friends.  A diamond-studded band was adorning Wind Whistler's limb.

        “Awwwwww!”  Blossomforth cooed.  “It's fantastic!”

        “Yeah!”  Flitter nodded, her eyes bright.  “It's the most dazzling hooflet I've ever seen!”

        “A very good find, Caramel,” Morning Dew said with a smile.

        Thunderlane squinted.  “How could you afford it, dude?”

        “Thunder!”  Blossomforth hissed and thwapped him with her wing.

        “I'm serious!”

        “Eheh...”  Caramel's ears drooped as he rubbed one of his hooves with another.  “I... uhm... I dug them up myself.”

        “Did you now?” Morning Dew inquired.

        “Only had to fight five diamond dogs in the process.”

        “Really, dude?” Thunderlane smirked.

        Caramel bit his lip.  “Okay, maybe three dogs.”

        Wind Whistler cleared her voice and leaned her smiling face in.  “Well, if you ask me, it's the most romantic thing anypony's ever done in this village.”

        Cloudchaser giggled.  “So is that what made you say 'yes?'”

        Wind Whistler and Caramel looked at each other.  After a deep gaze, they nuzzled and it was Wind Whistler who spoke again, “Actually, we had planned for this over the last few months.”

        “Ever since we became Souls of Solstice last Summer Sun Celebration.”

        “And we decided to start a business of our own,” Wind Whistler explained.  “A delivery business.”

        “Really?”  Morning Dew's eyes lit up.  “That sounds like a fantastic idea!”

        “What's this I hear about the business of marryin'?”  Uttered a mare's voice.  The group looked over to see one of the construction workers trotting over from the noisy site before the hotel building.  With a shrug, the pony removed her hard hat and shook loose a lengthy fountain of snow-white mane hair.  There now stood a remarkably pretty mare in the midst of them, clad in orange garb and brown tool belts.  Her green eyes reflected the sparkling hooflet on Wind Whistler's limb as she smirked wryly.  “Well, whaddya know.  Caramel and Windy's gettin' hitched?  About dang time!”

        “It isn't really much of a surprise, is it, Ambrosia?” Wind Whistler exclaimed, blushing.

        “Girl,” Ambrosia said, chuckling.  “I see everythang from where I work all over town.  I haven't seen ya usin' them wings of yours in half a year, on account of ya bein' tied to Caramel's hide and all!”

        “They've been the most adorable couple in Ponyville!” Flitter said, her wing-tips living up to her name.

        “You would think that!”  Cloudchaser teased her.

        “Hey, just because you haven't had a coltfriend in a year—”

        “Ohhh, you're gonna get it now!”

        “Girls, it's such a beautiful day.” Morning Dew chided the sisters.  “Save killing each other for when you're home alone.  After all, this is...”  Suddenly, Morning Dew teetered.  I watched curiously from afar as his blue eyes shut halfway, and he leaned limply to his side.

        “Wuh oh.”  Ambrosia craned her neck.  Her face momentarily paled with concern, then all too quickly melted into a wry smirk.  “It's happenin' again.”

        “Hey, Morning.”  Thunderlane nudged Morning Dew with one wing.  “Stay with us, buddy.”

        Morning Dew snapped out of it.  His eyes blinked until they were fully open again.  “Ahem.  Eheheheh... do forgive me.  I'm just happy to hear the good news.”

        “We can tell,” Ambrosia said, winking.  She looked over to the nuzzling couple.  “I think it's fantastic.  Any chance us ponies can witness yer nuptials?”

        “The wedding's going to be in a month and a half from now,” Caramel said.  “It's not really anything too fancy.  We'll be renting town hall's meeting room for a day.”

        “The whole town's invited!”

        “Hehehe... Yes...”  Caramel took a deep breath.  “I can hardly believe that this is all happening.  Months ago, I was almost completely convinced I would have to leave Ponyville to start a new life.”

        “Funny how fate is more often than not swayed by love,” Morning Dew remarked.

        “Ugh... Lay it on thick, why don't ya?” Ambrosia’s stammering voice cracked slightly.

        “I mean it, Amber!”  Morning Dew gestured with his hoof.  “Witness for yourself!  Have you seen a happier couple?”

        “As a matter of fact, I have!”  She grinned rosily at him.  “My folks weren't just doin' their taxes when they made me and my two young brothers, Morning.”

        “Ugh, dear Celestia.”  Thunderlane rolled his eyes while Blossomforth giggled.  I noticed for the first time that a tiny little colt was standing beside Thunderlane's side.  He blinked with quizzical innocence while all of the adults conversed and laughed around the scene.

        “Well, we're headed to Sugarcube Corner to celebrate,” Wind Whistler said.  “Everypony's invited to come, of course.”

        “We'll talk more about the wedding and this delivery business we've got planned!” Caramel exclaimed, his sapphire eyes alive with excitement.

        “I may join you fine ponies later,” Morning Dew said.  “I can't rightly abandon the work I have to do.”

        “Same here, y'all,” Ambrosia added.  “Besides, I've been around sawdust and sweating workponies all day.  I'd just stink up a pretty place like the Corner.”

        “Heh, somehow I doubt it, Amber,” Blossomforth said.  She looked at the others.  “Well, what are we waiting for?”

        Wind Whistler giggled.  “Come on, everypony!”  She and Caramel were the first to trot away, side by side.  Cloudchaser and Flitter followed.  Thunderlane and Blossomforth soon marched up the rear.  Only one equine figure lingered.

        It was the colt, a tiny pegasus at that.  I suddenly recognized him as Thunderlane's little brother.  What was his name again?  Tremor?  Quake?  Boomer?  His face was blank, until it grew longer.  I noticed that his lonesome gaze was being cast in a direction that no other pony was looking towards the entire time.  With the careful precision of a well-practiced observer, I trailed his eyesight across the lengths of Ponyville.

        Where it landed was on a patch of grass where three young ponies were having a picnic.  They were all the colt's age and just as bright and innocent.  The trio was hardly a rare sight for the likes of downtown Ponyville.  Scootaloo, of course, I recognized immediately.  The other two fillies I had seen before.  It took me a few seconds to process the information, but I soon determined that they were the sisters to Applejack and Rarity respectfully.

        The three crusaders were scribbling various things onto a sheet of paper, undoubtedly a brazen to-do list of experimental talent-hunting.  Scootaloo said something, and Applejack's sister giggled.  Rarity's young sibling reacted differently, breaking into a brief song to tease Scootaloo before the orange pegasus suddenly swept her in a giggling tackle.

        Thunderlane's brother blinked from afar.  A sigh escaped his lips, something that was remarkably somber and lonesome for a colt his age, or so I thought.  I saw his tiny wings drooping on either side of him, so that when I glanced once more between him and the fillies in the distance, I made a sudden connection, and I didn't know whether to feel humored or sympathetic.  Perhaps both.

        “Rumble?  Didn't you hear?!”  Thunderlane's voice boomed from the distance.  “We're headed to Sugarcube Corner!”

        “But... But I was just—” Rumble's tiny voice squeaked.

        “Come on, pipsqueak!  Don't let me catch you dragging your hooves!  Dad says I'm to look out for you!”

        Rumble's head hung towards the ground.  His wings twitched one last time, and he trotted firmly—but slowly—away from what he had been gazing at, eventually joining his brother and his brother's friends in their trek across town.

        Morning Dew's voice, as always, broke me from my silent watch.  “Well, that is certainly good news.  For the longest time, I was frankly worried about Caramel.”  He turned and smiled at Ambrosia.  “It's remarkable how his and Wind Whistler's life turned for the best.”

        “Stranger things have happened in this town.”  Ambrosia nodded.  She slapped the hard hat back onto her head.  “But you don't see me complainin'.”  She turned and smiled at the stallion.  “Why, Morning, yer not jealous, are ya?”

        “Hmm?  What are you going on about now, Amber?” He smirked.

        She giggled, betraying the rough exterior produced by her working gear.  “You always have struck me as a bit of a romantic, what with all yer flower pluckin' and all.”  She winked.  “The way you gush over Caramel and Windy.”  Her jaw tensed slightly.  “I figured you wanna be hitched yerself someday.”

        “Heh...”  Morning dug his hoof briefly into the ground.  “I doubt that's gonna be happening anytime soon.”

        “Why are the nicest ponies always married to their work?”

        “It's not that, Amber.”  Morning Dew sighed.  He turned around, his face sweeping the village in a brief but immaculate deadpan.  “I guess I've yet to meet that very special somepony...”

        His gaze met me, only it didn't.  As soon as I my ears heard those words, I vanished, hiding like an escaped criminal against the obstructing wall of a buildingside beyond his vision.  I felt my breath coming out in pathetic little pants.  My throat had knotted up, and my chest heaved like a zeppelin on the breaking point.  I fiddled with my hoodie's sleeves.  If I could have somehow hidden my entire body into that sweaterjacket, I would have.

        What is wrong with me?  Why is it that every little thing he says mean so much?  Why am I excited, entranced, horrified, and mesmerized by every tiny movement of his eyes?  I'm a better pony than this.  I'm a self-respecting adult, a musician, an artist and a scholar.

        And yet, I was giggling.  Shivers were attacking my limbs.  The deathly tendrils of Nightmare Moon's curse were surging through my system, and yet I was smiling.  I was electrified, floating like a crazed pony in the center of Ponyville, set afire by a name, a voice, and idea after idea... all of them half as rosy as my burning cheeks must have looked.

        In life, we are all looking for something.  I was looking for an answer to the elegies, or so I had long thought.  It occurred to me that I was secretly searching for something more, something that I had been pursuing since I was born, long before any curse stranded me there in Ponyville.  To think that maybe—just maybe—a stallion like Morning Dew was looking for the same thing to... or the same one...

        No.  I can't afford to think of anything so silly or fanciful.  I have a situation to deal with.  I have a magical imprisonment to break myself free of.  That is all that matters.  That should be all that matters.  I should stop entertaining this... this... this deliriously happy stupidity.  What life can I expect to win for myself if I don't simply move forward?

        I felt exhausted, breathless, dizzy.  I realized just how tired I was of running in place, encouraged by the hopeful yet fallacious notion of “moving forward.”  Everything stopped making sense when my heart raced like it did, fueled by the trace fumes of Morning Dew's voice.  I had to regain my senses.  I had to distract myself.  I had to throw myself into the presence of somepony who was a million times more prone to delirium than myself, just so I could wake up to my senses.

        “And everypony will see my dresses—will be amazed by my craftponyship and finesse—and we will be the talk of all of Canterlot!”  Rarity was already swooning halfway through her dramatic utterance.  She sat on a stool across from me, a half-altered cloak draped across her lap, as her voice rang across the fabulous lengths of the Carousel Boutique.  “We will be the belles of the ball, all six of us!  And even Princess Celestia herself, an immortal who knows no boundaries to time, will forever remember the night that we came to bring shine and beauty to her annual Gala!”

        I smiled as I listened to her, my chin propped up on a pair of hooves.  My ears twitched happily as I absorbed her enchanted musings.  In truth, bringing the cloak for her to alter was just an excuse for... for this.  I very much needed this, a distraction, a dream within a dream, even if it was her dream.  It was a welcome respite from mine.

        “Pinkie Pie's bright gown will infect ponies around her with her unique bounciness and foalish enthusiasm!  Applejack's ensemble evokes class, so surely it will help her sell countless apples from her bounty!  Rainbow Dash's gown will dazzle the Wonderbolts!  Twilight's dress will instill her mentor with pride!  And—dear heaven—don't get me started on my masterpiece, Fluttershy's dress!”

        A warm breath escaped my lips as I listened to her gush about every dress she had made for the upcoming Gala..  I was staring at Rarity, and yet—suddenly—I wasn't.  I saw Wind Whistler standing in the center of Town Hall, an hour after a young couple's vows had been exchanged.  She was clad in a snow-white gown of pure satin, and Caramel was awash in her beauty.  Together, the newly-weds danced and nuzzled each other as all the surrounding guests watched, applauded, and ultimately joined in the gentle swing of hooves themselves.  I was among them, standing alone in the shadows.  The minutes were measured in my sighs, until I heard a gentle series of hoofsteps coming to a stop beside me.  I looked up, and a breath instantly escaped my lungs.  Morning Dew was there.  The light of the wedding reception bathed him in a soft amber, highlighting the silken gloss of his immaculate gold coat.  He smiled and lifted a hoof my way.  Did he actually want to dance with me?  I was a perfect stranger; I would forever be.  I should have refused, but some cosmic force pulled my hoof towards his, accepting his gesture, set afire by the possibility that we could be dancing together, side by side, ear to ear, and I would finally get a chance to hear him call me “angel” again, only this time so close to me... and so close to my beating heart...

        “And then, when the night is alive with stars and music, I will finally get a chance to meet... him!” Rarity's voice broke through my dreamy cloud.

        I snapped out of it, my eyes wide.  Some stallion's warm smile flashed in a panicked blink.  “What about him?!  I... erm...”  I gulped and smiled nervously.  “Who?”

        Rarity squinted awkwardly at me.  It felt as though the two of us had been mutually woken up from some fitful enchantment.  “Is... is something the matter, dear?”

        “Erm... No.”  I cleared my throat and shifted nervously on the stool.  “What makes you think that somepony's the morning, dew?  Uhmm... I m-mean...”  I seethed, shook my blushing cranium, and took a deep breath.  “You... erm... you were going on about the night being 'alive with stars and music?'”

        “Mmmmmm... Yes.”  Rarity's eyes sparkled with more than the noonday light filtering in through the windows.  Her pale features melted under a deep rosiness blossoming to her cheeks.  “I can see it all now.  I'll be trotting into the polished chambers of the royal palace, a stranger to everypony's eyes, and yet a glorious sight to behold in my stunning dress.  Everypony will wonder just how a simple mare from Ponyville could be dressed in such a way as to be the envy of the most elite and regal of equines.  And then he will see me, and his heart will be set aflame with curiosity and awe.  He will have to know just who this special pony is.  He will abandon his entire royal entourage, just so he could march across the palace on his lonesome and raise my hoof to his lips for a kiss, then ask me to dance just so that I could bless him with my presence—”

        “You...”  I narrowed my gaze on her.  “You have your hopes set on capturing the attention of an Equestrian prince?”

        “Well, I most certainly don't intend to make the palace groundskeeper swoon, darling.”  She let loose a flippant lap.

        There are times in life when it's perfectly righteous to giggle like a pony having just visited the dentist.

        In response, Rarity merely rolled her eyes.  “Hmmph!  Is it really such a shameful fantasy for a mare my age to cling to?”

        “Ahem.”  I finally recovered from my tittering outburst.  “Well, it certainly is... fantastical...”

        “If you ask me, Miss... Miss...”

        “Heartstrings.”

        “I pity ponies who completely grow up,” she said.  “Really, I do.”  She telekinetically threaded a needle through my cloak, patching up the tiny holes left in the fabric.  “We are the sum of our dreams.  Some of us—those who are artists—are even defined by them.  What is life if not a canvas worth coloring as much as we would dare to?”

        I smiled.  “You have the most magical night in your life just around the corner, Miss Rarity,” I said.  “It's hardly shameful to indulge in a dream that suddenly has the chance of being realized.”

        “Darling, it should never be shameful to indulge,” she said with a wink.  “So long as we can afford to tease fantasy with the bits of reality we merit.  Only fate knows who I will or won't meet at the Gala, but I surely won't—for even a second—lose sight of that which I've anticipated since I was a tiny little foal.”

        “And that tiny little foal wanted to become a princess through courtship?” I asked.

        Rarity gave an airy laugh.  “Miss Heartstrings, surely you too had fanciful dreams when you were just a filly!”

        I shrugged.  “Being first chair in the Canterlot Symphony Orchestra comes to mind.”

        “Do not attempt to fool me any more than you fool yourself, darling.” Rarity leaned forward and implored the gentler parts of my soul with her eyes.  “Certainly somewhere in that learned mind of yours is a romantic dream still unrealized.”

        “A... romantic dream?”

        “Mmmmhmmm.  Yes.  A notion, a fantasy, an aspiration that is larger and sweeter than life as you currently pretend to know it.”

        He smiles at me.  He gives me the flower.  I'm his precious angel, and he reminds me of it.  I have the urge to tell him that if I'm an angel, then I had lost my wings ages ago.  No sweet seraphim should ever be stuck on this earth, countless leagues from home.  It isn't until he looks at me with a sad expression that I realize that I've been rambling.  I apologize and try to leave.  He anchors me in place.  He insists that I explain what I mean.  He's curious.  He cares about me and what's plaguing my spirit.

        So I tell him.  We go for a walk through the woods as the conversation blooms.  I pretend to be interested in the weather, in the sunlight, in the life glimmering all around us, in anything but what I'm actually staring at.  His blue eyes entreat me with as much magnificence as his smile, and soon I am telling him everything.  I tell him about it all, about the curse, about the cold shivers that assault me on a regular basis, about the days that I spend alone in a sea of happy souls that drown me as much as they inspire me.

        And he understands.  I am utterly shocked.  How could he understand?  Is he pretending just to make me feel better?  But no, he understands.  And he explains it.  Gently grasping my hooves in his, he looks into my eyes and shares it.  An angel clipped of her wings looks for other ways to fly.  It's no wonder that I'm always trying to make song; I'm trying to catch a wind that is forever lost to me.  If he could, he would be that wind, and he would carry me to brighter, warmer, happier places.  Looking into his eyes, windows to a soul that wishes it could absorb my sorrows, I suddenly have no energy left to doubt him.  If the curse's cold finally ends me there in the middle of the forest, I would feel no qualms about dying in his embrace.  For I know that he would bury me with as much respect and care that only a dutiful gardener could commit, the same respect and acknowledgement I've struggled for so many months in this freezing prison to summon from the disparate ghosts around me.

        And so I tell him what to put on such a grave.  I tell him my name, like I've never told any pony before.  I offer it to him.  I pour it into his ears, with my breath as the vessel and my pent-up tears as the solvent, and he catches every single drop, adding it to the same reservoir from which he draws the water to christen the most beautiful and colorful things this village has ever known.

        Before I know it, evening has fallen.  I don't know how long we have left before the moon shatters the beauty of this moment.  I don't know how many steps we'd have to take for me to escort him back to Ponyville and bid him a bitter goodbye.  All I know is that my cabin is around the bend, and I don't want to face the cold, dark gaze of night alone.  Not again.  I would rather die.

        So I make an excuse: something about showing him a musical composition I've been working on in the confines of my cabin.  To my shock, he's actually interested.  It's frightening, really.  I should be frightened.  My hoofsteps quicken, but instead of fleeing from him, I'm leading him home, to my home.  Once inside, he instantly marvels at the plethora of musical instruments hanging from the walls.  His smile of admiration lights up in an amber glow, like an artificial sunrise.  It's almost magical how swiftly I've already lit the fireplace.  It's not like I'm actually cold.  I'm sweating through to my hoodie.  I should take the stupid thing off.  I realize that if I asked him to, the gentlecolt would likely oblige me.  And I sweat even more.

        He notices.  Of course he notices.  He sees everything.  How else could he plant and grow beauty in all of the world's most hidden niches?  He walks across the cabin towards me.  Our hooves don't touch.  We are both on the crest of something so beautifully dangerous, and yet he knows that some things must remain sacred until I choose to build that bridge first.  I stand there, shivering, mere inches from his concerned expression.  I realize that the best bridges in history have been built by the architects simply collapsing, so as to show where the ravines are in the first place.

        It's a bitter ensemble that brews these tears suddenly cascading between us.  So many sullen symphonies have been performed in this cabin, alone, when the lights go out and the only fire that remains is the pain in my crumbling heart.  There is no number to measure the nights I have spent curled up in this very place, serenaded to slumber by the sound of my own sobs.  I wake up in the morning purposefully forgetting them.  I hardly even write about them in my journal.  What is the point?  Everypony is sad.  Everypony is alone.  I just never thought—not even in a million years—that I would be all of these pathetic things, and the only creature capable of dealing with them would be myself.  Brave soldiers and warriors of ages have died in utmost agony.  At least they had the songs of their comrades to herald their courage for centuries to follow.  When I die, the resulting dirge will fizzle out along with me, and all that will be left of my melody will be an empty space cast heartlessly between the breaths of strangers.

        It isn't until I've brushed the tears from my eyes with my sleeve that I see his face moving closer to mine.  It's now that I realize that every single thought that's run through my head has been spoken aloud.  I want to scream in frustration, but he silences me with a whisper.  He's nuzzling me.  For the first time ever, I can finally feel the soft, silken texture of his golden coat.  He treats me as if I'm a hundred times more priceless than he will ever be.  He gives no words, no grandiose speeches, no hollow attempts at placating me.  All he says is my name, over and over again, like a gentle hoof planting seeds of life into inert soil, and that's when I finally crumble.

        He catches me.  He holds me.  I try to tell him that this is all I want: to be held, to be caressed, to have my existence and preciousness acknowledged through an endless embrace.  However, I'm crying too much for my words to come out legibly.  But, as it turns out, words are as pointless to him as they are to me.  After all, he already knows.  He understands.  As the minutes bleed into hours, we lie before the fireplace together, and he is simply holding me, chasing the accursed cold of the night away with his warmth and whispers.  And I release—so many months of anguish and ennui—I release, knowing that he will catch them all.  His heart's a basin built for the two of us since the dawn of time.  I know that he realizes this, for no matter how much I cry or sob, his smile never fades away.  I want to write songs about him forever.  I want his ears to be filled with as much beauty as what he's gifting me with right here and now.

        And then, I gaze up, and I gasp.  I see the sunrise through the window.  The night has gone by, its cold moon having shattered like a bad dream.  I feel my heart racing, about to burst from my chest.  He asks me what's wrong, but that's not all.  When he asks, he says my name.

        He says my name.  Bless Celestia, he says my name.  He hasn't forgotten me.  I still mean something to him.  I still exist.  I am more than just a shivering body in his embrace.  He knows my name, and I know that I am no longer cursed, for I am his, and he is mine.

        That's when the tears end, and I cuddle up against him.  I maybe even laugh.  He does too, stroking my mane like a porcelain doll in his forelimbs.  The morning sun pours in through the window.  It's a new future, a new life.  I wonder what the first thing is that I love about it.  I decide that it's his fragrance, and I laugh again, if only to smell him more, to know that this is real.

        And it is.

        I took a deep breath.  I looked across the boutique at Rarity.

        “Romantic dreams are just that,” I ultimately murmured.  “Dreams.”  My smile was placid, the necessary dam to inane floodbanks that nopony ever needed to be burdened with.  “There are many things in life that stand to be achieved.  Quite a few of them, I'm convinced, can be accomplished alone.”

        “Hmmmph...”  Rarity gave me a knowing glance.  “What a tragedy.”

        I blinked, then looked at her cockeyed.  “How do you mean?”

        She ignored that, instead gazing down at her gentle needlework.  “Flights of fancy aside, there's a truth I've long believed in, Miss Heartstrings.”

        “Oh yes?  And what's that?”

        “It's a large world that we live in.  A world that is all too often beset with trepidation, pestilence, and all sorts of horrid monstrosities.  If you think about it really hard, we Equestrians are truly blessed to have such a radiant alicorn watching over our lives on a daily basis.”  She looked up at me with a serious gaze.  “If this was another life, another circumstance, where we weren't so avidly protected, just how swiftly would we lose all the fragile things in existence that we cherish so much?”

        “That's... rather deep,” I said, chuckling helplessly.

        “Is it, now?”  Rarity smirked wryly.  “Have ponies around town given you the impression that I'm incapable of such intense thought?”

        “Erm...”

        She went on.  “We live such short, bleak lives.  And yet...”  She grinned delicately.  “We have the power to exhibit such boundless beauty and grace.  True, there are many other creatures who shine with dazzling qualities of their own.  Griffons possess an unmatched stature.  And dragons—for all of their brutish exteriors—display great, noble antiquity.  But think about it, Miss Heartstrings, are there creatures in this world who are truly more precious, more delicate, or more exquisite than ponies?”

        “Well...”  I ran a hoof over my neck as I shrugged.  “I suppose there are times when I've believed in that, though I've felt a little shallow for doing so—”

        “Don't,” she said bluntly.  “For there is no shame in it.  Ponies are diamonds in the rough of this world, Miss Heartstrings.  For all of our historical mistakes and occasional sins, we've only ever been stewards of nature, and I'm convinced that we've left a blessing on this landscape instead of a blemish.  There's a reason for all of this, and it's something that I've believed in all my life.”  She smiled as she let a warm breath escape her lips.  “And it's that everypony is made for one thing, and that's to be loved.  How can a gentle soul built for such a singular, darling purpose be anything but benevolent?”

        I couldn't help but smile.  My heart danced at such a notion.  “It's a charming thought, to say the least.”

        “And I intend to be completely and utterly charmed at the Gala the weekend after next,” Rarity said with a dreamy exhale.  “Whether I win myself a prince or a pauper—heeheehee—I guess it doesn't truly matter, so long as I win him, and he treats me lovingly, like a lady, and I get to understand first-hoof just how true my most cherished belief is.”  Her face suddenly drooped in a cold frown.  “Only...”

        I blinked curiously.  “Only what?”

        “Nnnngh...”  She groaned and ran a hoof dramatically over her teetering forehead.  “I do not know the Cosmic Waltz!”

        “The Cosmic... Waltz?”

        “Only the most traditional dance performed orchestrally at every Galloping Gala from the Early Classical Period to modern day!”  Rarity put on a pouting face as she continued sewing my cloak to perfection.  “If I can't engage in a single ballroom dance, I would just die!”

        “That's what you're afraid of?”  I couldn't help but gawk at her.  “You have every intention to win the heart of a royal prince—to the point that he'll utterly ignore your common stature—and the only thing you're afraid of is screwing up a classic dance?”

        “Hmmph!”  She tilted her nose up in the air.  “I said that I desired to live out my most cherished belief!  I didn't say I wanted to do so in a bumbling manner!”

        I blinked.  I snorted.  I giggled.  It wasn't until she laughed as well that I stopped feeling guilty for it.

        Everypony is made to be loved.

        It certainly is a thought that's hard to get out of one's head, even if it came from a mind as fanciful as Rarity's.  I went to her with hopes of distracting myself from... my distractions.  It only had the opposite effect, to the extent that I wondered if a certain, conniving part of my soul had orchestrated the whimsical meeting from the get-go.

        I wanted to believe in what she believed.  I wanted to be the sort of friendly pony who supported her ideals no matter how ridiculous.  But I've always been—for the lack of a better description—a practical filly.  A part of me will forever giggle at Rarity, and yet that part of me will simultaneously nod in agreement with the likes of Applejack.

        There's another thing that I couldn't stop thinking about.  Applejack is more than just a smart, resourceful, hard-working pony.  She is a gorgeous mare, far more resplendent than I think she's ever had the grace of perceiving herself.  In all the years that she's spent living as the backbone to Ponyville's integrity and development, it astonishes me that she hasn't won herself dozens of suitors knocking at her farmhouse door on a daily basis.

        Anecdotes of whalloping rude stallions aside, the only thing I can imagine keeping Applejack from having settled down with a special somepony by now is that she—like myself—has long grasped a truth just as immortal as Rarity's, though far more palpable.

        It's not so much that a pony is made to be love; she or he is made to be respected.

        “Good morning to you, angel.”

        I took the tulip from him.  I rotated it around in my levitating aura, smiling.  My nostrils flared, and once again I detected the fragrance that I only sensed when I was around him.  Something stumbled deep inside of me, like a filly trying to break out of the strange mint-green cage that had grown up around her.  For the moment, I lulled her to sleep, if only to build the courage for what I was about to do next.  The bright glow of dawn glittered over the treetops on the north edge of Ponyville as I spoke above the noise of distant construction workers.

        “Why?”

        His handsome smile was briefly overcome by a blank expression.  I wondered if any other stallion in the history of Equestria had ever been so intensely struck with a more random inquisition.

        “I'm sorry?” Morning Dew stammered.  It was cute to the point of distraction.

        I cleared my throat and gazed at him steadily, steering my words with sheer intellectual power.  “Why am I an angel?  Hmm?”  I took deep breaths.  It was all I could do to keep myself from collapsing or—more appropriately—galloping towards the nearest building and slamming my stupid head against it.  What was I doing?  Why was I shattering something so terribly precious?  My name's always been “Lyra,” not “Applejack.”  Nevertheless, I continued.  “Why would you call a random mare—a total stranger—something so flattering?”

        “It... well...”  Morning Dew chuckled, running a nervous hoof through his blue mane.  A few flakes of garden dirt got caught in his hair from the bashful gesture.  I wondered if he noticed all the small things that made him so amazing, that even the tiniest of blemishes couldn't ruin it.  “Because... uhm...”  He ultimately gulped and limply let forth, “You reminded me...”  His breath lingered as he bit his lip.

        “Of who?” I asked, squinting at him.  “Of another pony?”

        “No, not a pony,” he said firmly, which convinced me that it was honest.  My heart jolted with each fresh new word from his lips, words that I had never heard from this stallion before, and yet were flavored with the same gentleness as the ones he had always repeated to me previously.  “It's more like a feeling, a memory... heh...”  His chuckle was the most delicious thing to come from his lungs.  “I'm sorry, ma'am.  I... I shouldn't have put you on the spot like that—”

        “No!  No, don't—!”  I almost bit my tongue.  Swallowing, I lowered the desperate tone in my voice, accompanying my next few words with a gentle smile.  “Don't be sorry.  I'm... I'm just curious, is all.  This is a very gorgeous flower, after all.”

        “It matches your eyes.”  The directness of that statement stabbed me.  I hadn't expected that, nor the sudden firmness in his next gaze.  “A very proud color: gold.  Few things in nature can imitate it.”

        I blinked instinctively at that.  I gazed at the tulip in my magical grasp.  It was at the last second that I chose to giggle instead of sob.  “Heeheehee... That's... Wow.  Uhm, yeah, okay.”  I smiled goofily at him.  “I'll buy that.”

        “As for what I said, ma'am...”  His politeness was painful, like a gap had been formed between us.  But, of course, the gap had always been there.  He shifted on his hooves as he spoke, “Well, it's a long story.”

        “I have long ears.”

        “Heheh.  Ahem.  Well, you must be a stranger around these parts and all, but I'm the city gardener for Ponyville...”

        “You don't say?”

        “But I didn't always want to be planting flowers for a living.”

        I glanced at his cutie mark without having to.  I had memorized the three brown seedlings long ago.  “Why not?  Certainly it's your special talent.”

        “Oh, there's no denying that,” he said calmly.  “But my parents were both active members of the royal military.”

        “Truly?”

        “Yes.  And as long as I could remember, I wanted to follow in their hoofsteps.  I wanted to join the Canterlot Royal Guard,” Morning Dew explained.

        “That's... rather interesting,” I said with a nod.  “Because it's what your parents did, huh?”

        “Well...”  To that he fidgeted with a bashful smile.  “Not entirely.”

        I leaned forward.  “I'm listening.”

        “I was sick a lot as a foal,” he said.  “Even to this day, I have to deal with these constant, terrible dizzy spells.  But, in my childhood, there was always one thing that got me through such episodes.”

        “Oh?”

        He nodded.  He suddenly had a hard time looking at me straight.  “I had... well... I had a vision.  On one of my sickest nights, I could have sworn that a pony came to me, and she chased the illness away.  I got up out of bed, all of my dizziness gone, and I felt like a new being.  I looked to her, to try and thank her.  I saw a pair of golden eyes—bright as the moment of Creation—and it was around that time that I came out of my spell.  I realized that I was looking out the window of my room at the time, and the sun was rising.  Later, when my parents came home from their overnight shift, they gasped in surprise.  It turns out that I had earned my cutie mark overnight.”

        “Awwwww...” I couldn't help but grin at that.  “That's such a sweet cutie mark story...”

        “Isn't everypony's?”  Morning Dew exclaimed.  “My parents and everypony I speak to still think that I earned my cutie mark because gardening is in my blood.  And they may be right.  Still, I think it's something else entirely.  That morning when the vision came to me, and I saw those golden eyes—so full of warmth and sincerity—I realized that there was nothing more I wanted to do but ensure that same security for ponies everywhere.  After all, I had just been delivered to well-being by a guardian angel.”

        “Why didn't you become a guard?”

        “Heh... One does not simply 'become a guard,' ma'am,” he said.

        I winced.  “Sorry.  I guess I should have realized that.”

        “Don't be sorry,” he said with a shrug.  “I still hope that someday I will make the grade.”

        “In the meantime...”  I gazed at his gardening wagon full of tools.

        He looked at it as well.  “In the meantime, I've simply done what's come naturally to me.  I figure that if I can't protect ponies from a guardpost, I can give them security in another way.  What's more wholesome and secure than an environment that pleases the eye and the heart at the same time?”

        “Heeheehee...”  I ran a hoof through my mane as I gazed aside.  “'Flower Security.'  I think Princess Celestia should open a new military division.”

        “Heheheh.  Yes.  I imagine my ramblings must sound terribly silly.”

        “Oh!  No!  N-not at all,” I exclaimed, then gulped.  “Still, I wish I could say that it explains why you—”

        “Your eyes make me think of that waking moment of clarity I once had, long ago,” he finally said.  “And... heh...”  He gazed at the earth as he thought aloud.  “It reminded me of that glorious feeling of self-discovery, when I no longer felt afraid or lonesome anymore.  I wish all ponies could feel so secure, to have met their guardian angel and come out of the experience with a conscious memory of it.”

        I stared at him.  A lump had formed in my throat.  I glanced down at the soft earth between us.  Even in a moment as sanctified as this, I couldn't stop the freezing globe from spinning out of my grasp.  I felt a brief wave of shivers.  “I also wish all ponies could remember something so wonderful...”  I smiled painfully.  “I often wonder if we would be better creatures, if only such beautiful things weren't always lost to us.”  I heard a soft thud.  I glanced over.

        Morning Dew was lying on the ground.

        It took a mountain of effort not to shriek.  I didn't realize I was hyperventilating until I found myself having slid on my knees, crouching over him.  I gazed with twitching, wide eyes at his limp figure.

        He had collapsed... fallen over like a heavy log into the earth.  Blades of grass and loose flower petals were still fluttering back to the world around him as I reached two shivering hooves up to his neck and felt for a pulse.

        I ignored the silken texture of his coat in my examination.  His heart was beating, but nothing responded to my touch.  Not a single muscle spasmed.  Not a single stretch of skin showed a sign of life.  In my panic, I could barely see if his nostrils were flaring or not from breath.  I heard a loud noise, and suddenly realized I was yelling.

        “Somepony, help!”  I didn't know enough first-aid to figure out how to assist him, to save him—to save him from what?  He just collapsed!  “Anypony!  Call a doctor!  Fetch Nurse Redheart!  For Celestia's sake, this stallion's just collapsed!”

        “Hey!” A voice barked.  “Quit yer fussin'!”

        Gasping, I glanced over.

        Ambrosia was calmly trotting up from the half-dismantled hotel a few yards away.  She smiled at me in spite of my horror.  “New to these parts, ma'am?”

        “Pl-please!” I whimpered.  “You've got to go get help!  Something's wrong with him!  He was just talking to me a few seconds ago, and now he's—”

        “Puttin' on a show, is what,” she briefly grumbled, taking her hard hat off.  “I swear, the dumb sap should grow a brain and wear a sign around his neck or something.”  She squatted down beside me, placing a hoof on Morning Dew's brow.  “Yup.  Just as I thought.  I'm surprised he's lasted this long today.”

        “What... What...?” I breathlessly stammered.  I didn't care how desperately fearful I looked.

        “He's just havin' himself another one of his cataplexic episodes.”

        “Cat... Cata... pl-plexic...?”

        “Heh.  Glad I’m not the only pony who struggles with that mouthful.  Ahem.  It's very rare, Miss,” Ambrosia lethargically explained.  “The poor pony's a narcoleptic, you see.  Only, he's got it real bad.  He's dealt with it all his life.  It's courageous, in some really sissy way.”

        “But...” I gulped.  “It almost looks as if he's dead.”

        “He only wishes that he was.  Nah, he's just dozed off.  Morning Dew's lucky he doesn't swallow half the flowers he plants around town with how much he falls flat on his muzzle.”  She smiled.  “All it takes is a little pick-me-up, s'long as it's timed right.  Here, I'll show you.”  Ambrosia cleared her throat, leaned over, and practically shrieked into the stallion's ear.  “Hey!  Earth to Morning!  Pick yer flanks up, lazy bones!”

        “Snkkkt—Gahh!”  Morning Dew's blue eyes flew wide open, twitched, then clenched shut as he weathered what appeared to be a terribly dizzy headache.  “Nnnnngh... Mmmf...”  His eyes opened again, this time squinting.  “Awwwww hayseeds.  I did it again?”

        “Yup.”  Ambrosia smiled as she helped him back up to four hooves.  “Don't fret it much, Morning.  It was only—like—two minutes this time.  Maybe three.”

        “Ugh...”  He groaned and sat on his haunches while rubbing his forehead.  “What is this—Four times this week?”

        “Five,” she said with a chuckle.  “Looks like the boys owe me lunch again.”

        He rolled his eyes and smiled tiredly at her.  “Seriously?  Are you still making bets over me?  Don't you have better things to do, like razing a hotel building to the ground?”

        “Like you're one to complain!”  She stuck her tongue out.  “It certainly makes up for all the bits you owe me for waking your sleepy butt day after day!”

        “Heh... Yeah...”  He sighed and gave her a thankful glance.  “What would I do without you, Amber?”

        “Mmmm...” Her green eyes danced warmly through the clouds.  “I shudder to think.”  She victoriously plopped her hard hat atop her alabaster mane.  “If only I was as good a counselor as I am an alarm clock.  You just about scared the tail off of Miss Doey-Eyes here.”

        “Who?”

        “Don't be rude, Morning!”  Ambrosia gestured towards me.  “Didn't you know you had company?”

        “Hmm?”  He turned my way.  He smiled sleepily.  “Well, good morning to you, angel.”

        “I...”  I gulped.  I gazed down at the ground.  I saw the tulip lying in the grass where I had dropped it in fright.  “Yes.  It's... It's a good morning.”  I tossed him an awkward smile.  “But I should be on my way.  I've... got a great deal of business to attend to,” I lied.

        “Very well,” Morning Dew performed his ritualistic bow, reeling with brief dizziness.  “Enjoy your stay in Ponyville.”

        “Yeah, 'angel,'” Ambrosia threw in.  She gave Morning Dew a sharp glance, rolled her eyes, and was gone.

        I too had made my hasty departure, but not without snatching a certain golden flower from the earth as I scampered away.

        When I made it to my cabin, I slammed the wooden door behind me as if holding back a tidal wave of chaos at my tail.  I slumped down to my haunches, still exhausted from the incessant beating of my heart.

        With telekinesis, I plucked the tulip from the pocket in my saddlebag where I had hastily stowed it away.  I twirled the golden petals before my gaze.  I thought of how quickly a beautiful moment can turn into something horrifying... and then precious once again.

        I didn't want to feel so much pity for Morning Dew, but it was hard not to.  I wasn't all too familiar with narcolepsy, especially its chronic cases.  Still, it didn't take too terrible a stretch of the imagination to see how crazy an ordeal the stallion had to endure on a regular basis.  It was no wonder that his dreams of being a guardpony were hardly realized.  What self-respecting division of the royal guard would enlist ponies who were bound to collapse on the job?

        And yet, he still clung to the dream, something that was spawned from a singular moment of epiphany and beauty.  He had the fulcrum of his life encapsulated in a foalish vision, something that was illustrated with golden bands of dreamy wonder.

        To think... he had the poetic grace to affix such a sensational detail to me, from only a single gaze on a random morning, a morning that he didn't have the gift to realize was repeated endlessly for me, so that an infinitesimal moment became a boundless fountain of blessings for a filly who only knew curses.

        A sigh escaped my lips as I nuzzled the flower.  It felt silky to the touch, and I suddenly remembered that I had briefly grazed Morning Dew's immaculate coat in the desperate act of checking his pulse.  When he collapsed, I was lucid, I was sane.  It didn't matter how frightened I was; it pleased me to think that I could still act perfectly rational around the stallion when push came to shove.

        But who was I kidding?  No matter how much I would actually come to know this stallion, no matter what degree to which I entertained the notion of us being something special, I knew the reality of the situation.  It enclosed around me far colder than the wooden walls of my home just then.

        Sighing, I stood up.  I marched over to a table in the corner of the place.  There was a crystal vase full of water, but that wasn't all.  I dropped the tulip into the container, where it joined several more—about twenty buds, to be exact.  I had started collecting them about two weeks prior, when my good sensibilities gave into more fantastical whims.

        Lethargically, I swiveled and gazed at my cot.  Several music sheets were left exactly where I had abandoned them in the middle of the night.  The writing of the eighth elegy lingered perpetually, growing more and more sluggish with each passing day.  There was no excuse for my delay.  The tune had at last become solid in my head.  I had the four sound stones enchanted.  I had been taught how to properly cast a protection spell around me, even competently so.  All that was left to do was scribble the entire tune onto parchment, so that I might have a way to share it with Twilight, get a title for it, do some final research, and finally take the plunge into the next leg of the accursed symphony.

        And yet, there was no denying—in the gentle glow of the blissful noonday sun—that the number of flowers in my home dwarfed the few, flimsy sheets of musical discovery.  And for the moment, I couldn't help but wonder if it was such a crime to fill my cabin with so much color, where before there was nothing but dread.

        After all, what joy truly is there to paint the courageous lengths of my quest?  How am I to know just how many elegies there are left for me discover?  There could be fifteen, or there could be fifteen thousand.  Princess Luna had an immortal reign during which she composed her secret symphony.  What hope does one mortal equine have against the emotionless lengths of time to even remotely emulate that legacy?  I could very well be spending the entirety of my life unravelling these damnable tunes.  Assuming I ever do achieve my goal, and this curse is lifted, how old and jaded will I have become?  What will there be left of me to cherish, as I would so desire to be cherished, as Rarity had so poetically reminded me?

        I'm a pony, and there are things I need in life that are far too blissful and transient to be defined by a single curse being lifted.  I know that it's a simple concept, too fantastical to believe, but too powerful to ignore.  How long have I been working to finish something noble for nobility's sake?  Am I really doing all this research for myself?  Or am I doing it all for the idea of “myself?”  What defines me when all I desire exists forever on some unobtainable horizon?

        There is one thing I do whenever my thoughts become too terribly jumbled, when I start to second-guess the task I am working on everyday, stuck in this beautiful but accursed home of mine.

        The air danced with musical notes as I sat on a bench beside Ponyville's central park, plucking the lyre with every energetic burst my telekinetic soul launched into the strings.  I didn't care what the tune was, so long as it was something musical, something rhythmic, something that made my heart sway at a beat that wasn't determined by him, his eyes, his gentle voice and even gentler backstory.

        My face tensed.  I clenched my eyes shut and attempted drowning myself in my melody.  I failed.

        Why would he tell me so much about himself at the drop of a hat?  Was there something about me that made him trust me?  Was it really all about my eyes?  I've never held too much stock in my looks—well—no more than the average mare, I suppose.  Living in Canterlot demands a certain elegance that is hard to shake loose.  Even Twilight Sparkle—who is basically a shy intellectual—carries with her an ethereal beauty that is hard to come by elsewhere.  If all librarians in Equestria looked as striking as her without even trying, then there'd be a lot more stallions involved in reading and less in... in... well, whatever it is that guys like to do in their spare time.  Wrestling?

        But no.  My narcissism goes as far as my performance of music.  I've never tried to appear “gorgeous.”  Heck, I've never cared to.  Not until now...

        He sees my eyes—golden eyes that match fresh tulips—and he thinks of a guardian angel.  He thinks of an angel?  Has anypony ever said anything so nice and sincere about me before?

        No.  It's flattery.  That's all it is.  After all, Morning Dew doesn't know me.  He sees my eyes, and in every amnesiac circumstance, all that happens is a series of neurons firing off in his brain, daring him to speak out loud the knee-jerk comparison he's made in his head.  I am simply an idea to him, as he is an idea to me.  Two shallow infatuations hardly come together to form something wholesome.  This entire thing is simply a foolish flight of fancy, both for him as well as for me.  I should just forget about it.  I should just forget about it...

        And yet in trying to forget about it, I did the exact opposite, to the point that it frustrated me, flustered me, and I was hardly cognitive of the music that I was performing... or of the sudden, melodic voice singing along with my strings.

        My eyes flashed open.  I didn’t stop strumming, if only to hear the voice continuing to hum along with my tune.  I tried to recognize the voice, and suddenly I was seeing three tiny shapes in my eyes, bounding across the center of Ponyville, and one of the blank figures was colored a great deal like Rarity.

        I gazed over at the filly.  Apparently, seeing my horned cranium move was enough to startle her out of her dreamy vocals.  “Eeep!” she hopped back, standing guiltily across the park's path from me.  “I'm... I'm sorry.  I broke your concentration, didn't I?  My big sister's always getting on my flank about that.”

        I smiled gently, still strumming the lyre.  “It's perfectly fine.  If anything, you only added to the harmony.”

        “I did?” Her voice cracked adorably, matching the excited gleam shining across her face.  Beneath her lavender and pink mane, a bergundy cloak was tied, glistening underneath with a golden trim.  I caught the unmistakable image of a prancing foal patched to the hem.  “I just heard you playing something so beautiful, I couldn't help but hum along to it.”

        “Well, you've got a natural talent for singing,” I said.

        “R-really?” she almost burst at the compliment.  “You think?”

        I blinked at such an exclamation.  I glanced towards her blank haunches, realizing just how sincerely the filly must have taken a statement like that.  Still, I didn't mean it any less.  “Absolutely!”  I smiled.  “I'm tempted to play the song again, just to hear you sing some more!”

        “Oh... uhm...”  She blushed with a foalish bashfulness, digging a pale hoof into the grass beside the beaten path.  “I couldn't ask you to do that, ma'am.”

        I shrugged.  “Have either of us anything better to do?”  I just needed a distraction like this.

        “Well, I was waiting for my two friends to show up,” she said.  “Normally, I'd be having lunch with my sister, Rarity.”  She suddenly pouted.  “Only she's too busy running around the Boutique, trying to get ready for some stupid dance.”

        “Funny thing about the Grand Galloping Gala,” I uttered.  “It brings out the little filly in most adults.  I'm sure your older sister's no exception.”  I smiled and winked.  “If you chose to talk to her about it, I bet you'd find that the two of you have a lot in common.”

        “Heh.  No thank you.  I don't like it when Rarity rambles.”

        “Why not?”

        “Well, it's like Scootaloo says.  'She starts sounding like a vampire!'”

        I chuckled.  “Well, she's certainly pale enough.”

        “What's that supposed to mean?”

        I cleared my throat.  “Never mind.”  I strummed all of my lyre's strings in succession.  “So, you got a tune in mind?”

        Her green eyes blinked at me in surprise.  “You mean you can really play any tune?”

        “It helps to keep a wide library in my repertoire.”

        “Do you know 'The Laughing Zebra and His Dog?'”

        “Depends.  Do you know the lyrics to it?”

        “And how!” her voice cracked again.  Not all things I instinctively feel like cuddling are because of their handsomeness.  When she sang, her voice was solid, pristine, immaculate.  The filly hit every note with perfect tonality.  I struggled to strike my chords with equal mastery, all the while marveling at this prodigy's vocal range.  The song was short, silly, and childish.  She made it sound like an opera number.  When the melody was done, and the leaves of the trees above us finished their rustling applause, I followed up with a gentle clap of my own.

        “Bravo!  Bravo!”  I grinned down at her.  “You have a gift.  I mean it!  Why, if you shared that voice of yours in a place like Sugarcube Corner, you'd have ponies tossing bits at you in no time!”

        “Ow...”  She winced.  “That sounds painful.”

        I chuckled.  Okay.  Adorable, but nopony upstairs.  I suppose we've all been there.  “Great gifts are meant to be shared.  If we keep what's best about ourselves secret, how will we ever grow?”

        “I always thought that gifts were meant to be found by searching for them.”

        “There's truth to that,” I said with a nod.  “A good life is one spent searching.  But you gotta make sure you don't forget to search within yourself.”

        “This one time, I stuck my hoof inside my mouth, and I threw up all over the floor!”

        “Errrr... yeah...”

        “Apple Bloom says it was because I was nervous.  I swallowed a bug the day before and I was trying to search for it—”

        Just then, two familiar voices chirped over the grassy hilltops surrounding the park.  The filly spun and waved towards her two petite friends grinning at her from afar.

        “Speak of the devil!  I gotta go!”  She flashed me a glance that was both happy and apologetic at once.  “It's been really nice chatting and singing with you, Miss...”

        “Heartstrings,” I said.  “And your name, sweetie?”

        “Heehee.  Belle.”

        “Belle?”

        “Sweetie Belle,” she admitted with a slight blush.

        “Heh.”  I leaned back and strummed my lyre with finality.  “Somehow, that doesn't surprise me one bit.”

        She galloped away, her petite body in a fast-forward waddle.  “So long, Miss Heartstrings!  I'll remember what you said about my talent!”

        I waved at her.  I smiled.  But as her last few words echoed in my ear, I felt that smile fading.  I lowered my hoof and sat limply in the bench.

        There was a sigh alighting the air.  I was only mildly surprised to realize it wasn't mine.

        “She sounds so pretty...” A colt's voice murmured from the shade of the tree beside my bench.

        I turned around from where I was squatting.  Through my peripheral vision, I instantly recognized the tiny pegasus' pale coat and slick black mane.  I smiled gently as I spoke to the afternoon breeze, “Does your brother Thunderlane know you're spying on fillies, Rumble?”

        The tiny pony jumped in place, gasping.  I could even see his chest thumping from a beating heart.  “I... I w-wasn't spying!  Honest!  Oh please, don't tell anypony!”

        “Relax.  It's a beautiful day,” I murmured, playing a few more notes on my lyre as he shuffled into the light.  “Why ruin it by punishing ponies for enjoying beautiful things?”

        “I mean it.  I was just...”  Rumble stood in place, fidgeting.  His lonely eyes fluttered over the hill, where three young crusaders—and one filly in particular—were galloping onwards to glorious adventure.  He exhaled once more, slumping down so that he squatted on the joints of his limbs.  “I'm such a weirdo.”

        I raised an eyebrow.  I glanced down at him.  “Now who on earth gave you that idea?”

        Surprisingly, I was right on the money.  “My friends at school,” he muttered.  “Snips and Snails: they say that I'm a weirdo because I don't hang out with them like I used to.”

        “That's rather mean of them,” I remarked.  “Just because you have your own things you're doing—”

        “They say that I've been boring ever since I started thinking about her,” he added, playing lethargically with a few specks of dirt in the path beneath him.  “That I'm no fun anymore.”

        Oh.  So that's what it is.  Why's it always a pegasus that grows up first?

        I smiled and glanced his way.  “Kid, I think the only reason they treat you that way is that they're jealous.”

        He blinked curiously at me.  “Of me?”

        “Mmmhmm.”

        “What for?”

        “Cuz these 'Snips and Snails' can tell that you're growing up,” I said, strumming my lyre.  “I'm willing to bet that you're a lot more mature than they are, and they just aren't equipped to deal with it.”

        “But why am I so much better than them?” He asked, making a face.

        “Notice—I didn't say 'better.'  I said 'more mature.'”

        “Whatever.  Why is that?”  Rumble frowned and punched at the dirt with frustration.  “Just because there's this filly that I can't stop thinking about?  Why can't they understand?”

        “Do you understand?”

        He bit his lip.

        I left him alone with his thoughts, feeding the air with a tranquil melody, as if lulling a frightened infant out of hiding.

        Eventually, his voice murmured, “She's so pretty, and she has this singing voice that makes me happy.  I dont' know why, but I want to know more about her.  I wonder what... what she would think of me.  I don't want to be a boring weirdo to her either.”

        “Sounds like this has been on your mind a lot.”

        “Well...”  He almost chuckled, instead tilting his head up to give me a confused expression.  “My brother's hanging out with fillies his age all the time.  He seems so happy with the likes of Flitter, Cloudchaser, and Blossomforth.  Especially Blossomforth.”

        “Heh.  You're pretty observant, kid.”

        “I... I kind of think it would be cool to be happy like that too...”

        “Hmmm...”  I smirked at him.  “And does happiness equate to having a lot of fillies wanting to hang around with you?”

        “Well... I dunno...”

        “Now there's an honest statement if I've ever heard one.”

        “I... guess happiness isn't happiness if they're not happy too,” Rumble said, shrugging.  “The fillies, that is.”

        I couldn't help but giggle.  I paused in my melody.  “You don't give yourself enough credit, kiddo.  Something tells me there's a Casanova inside of you that will see the light of day several years from now.”

        “A casa-what?”

        “Eh, never mind.  Ask your brother—preferably when only Blossomforth's around.”  I cleared my throat.  “By the way, it's 'Sweetie Belle.'”

        “Huh?”  He blinked at me.

        “The filly you like.”  I winked.  “That's her name.”

        “R-really?”  His face brightened.  I saw his tiny wings fluttering, giving his petite body modest lift.  “That's... that's such a pretty name.”

        “It's rather fitting, if I may say so.”

        “Do you know anything else about her?”

        I giggled.  “Who am I now, the village match-mare?”

        “Uhhh...”

        “If you're so curious, kid,” I gestured towards where the crusaders had run off, “You could go up to her and ask her the questions yourself.”

        He immediately winced, as if receiving several flu shots all at once.  “Oh no.  I... I-I couldn't do that...”

        “Does this have something to do with what Snips and Snails said?”

        “No, it's just that...”  His body slumped in yet another sigh.  “Who am I?  A silly blank flank with a popular big brother... that's who.  I'd only be boring to her.”  His tired eyes remained locked on the ground below.  “Besides, she's never even noticed me once.  It's like I don't even exist.”

        I felt a cold breeze blowing through my mane.  With a deep breath, I murmured, “Trust me, kid.  I know the feeling.”

        “Just...”  He rested his sad face atop a pair of crossed forelimbs.  “What is it that gets a girl's attention anyways?  What is it that fillies want?”

        “A question as old as time, undoubtedly.”

        “Mmmph.  This is hopeless...”

        I cleared my throat.  “Still... uhm... it's really simple, if you think about it,” I said to him.  “Fillies want sincerity, attention, commitment.  They want to know your feelings, especially if you're willing to share them.”  My eyes traced the sky, mesmerized by the bright blueness.  Pleasantly, I pierced the sapphiric texture, until I saw a certain stallion's gaze in my mind, setting my heart afire.  “A filly is most happy when you are honest with her, and when you show that—no matter what ambitions your life may pressure you with—you are willing to sacrifice a piece of it, the most warm and vulnerable piece, if only it means that the two of you get to share something wholesome and unique that's made to replace it.  And if you show that she'll forever be a part of your heart, something that you spend the time and energy to cherish as much as you poetically promise to, then... heeheehee...” My cheeks turn rosy as I run a hoof through my mane.  “She'll swoon for you instantly, for she knows she's found a pony with whom she can feel happy, safe, secure, and—”  I gazed down at him.  My words trailed off.

        Rumble was looking up at me.  His expression was blank.  His eyes were full of confusion.

        I fidgeted atop the bench.  “Uhm... Y'know what?”  I smiled crookedly.  “Flowers.  Fillies love flowers.  You should go get her some.”

        “Flowers?”  Rumble's mouth dropped at the thought.  “You mean it's that simple?”

        “Oh, believe me.”  I winked.  “It goes a long way.”

        “Flowers...”  Finally, a smile returned to his precious little face.  He waddled off, his wings flexing as if pushing him through an invisible, warm cloud.  “Flowers... Flowers... Flowers...”  He gave me a blind wave.  “Thanks, lady!”

        “Don't mention it, kid!”  I chuckled and waved back at him.  “Remember, the happiest things in life...”  I knew he was within earshot.  It didn't matter; I was no longer speaking to him.  “... are the things you seize with no questions asked.”  My murmurs ended, and I bit my lip at the end of the exclamation.

        I glanced down at my lyre, a lone vessel for exploring the cold depths of my curse.  It no longer invited any awe or promise for me, for it was something I had always carried alone, and forever would.

        The determination I felt then was positively scathing.  I hopped out of the bench.  I stood tall and resolute in the sunlight.  With a bold breath, I marched straight for the north edge of town.

        “Good morning to you, angel.”

        There was a tulip being offered.  In a blink, I plucked the golden thing from his grasp and leaned forward.

        “What's your favorite color?”

        Morning Dew did a double-take.  His golden body wobbled on the precipice of curiosity.  “Uhm...”

        I blushed slightly.  “Besides gold.”  Not once did I sever my gaze from his.  “What's your second favorite color?”

        “Oh... uhm...”  He smiled bashfully.  “Silver, I do suppose—”

        “Silver!  Wonderful!”  I trotted off, waving.  “Have a good day!”

        He waved limply back, confused.

        “Good morning to you, angel.”

        “What's your favorite smell?”

        “Uhhh... Huh?”  Morning Dew blinked.

        “Your favorite fragrance.”  Tilted towards him, staring in earnest.  “Name it.”

        “Oh... uhm... eheheh...”  He blushed slightly, running a hoof through his blue mane. “I work around so many plants.  That's a difficult one...”

        “Surely one scent has to be your most preferred.”

        “I... uh... I guess I've always had a deep appreciation for jasmine,” he said.  “Such an exquisite flower.”

        “Perfect!”  I grinned wide, took the tulip, and galloped away.  “Thankies!”

        “Huh...”

        “Good morning to you, angel.”

        “Favorite musical composition?”

        “I beg your pardon?”

        I smiled, stifling a deep giggle.  “If you could, right now, listen to any single musical number that you had the ability to choose, which one would it be?”

        “Are... Are you a musician, ma'am?”  He asked, glancing towards my cutie mark.

        I blocked his gaze with a gentle smile.  “Humor me.”

        “Oh... uhm...”  He scratched his chin, his eyes slicing figure-eights in the bright morning sky above us.  He eventually smiled and said, “When I was a colt, I had a deep appreciation for Mareece Ravel's Royal Symphony.  They used to play that number at military parades a lot.”

        “Perfect!  I can play Mareece Ravel in my sleep!”

        “Oh really?  Well that's... uhm... certainly interesting...”  He then blinked.  “Ma'am?”

        I was gone, galloping to my cabin to scribble the musical notes already blossoming in my head.

        “Good morning to you—”

        “What's your favorite place in Ponyville?”

        “Huh?”

        Ambrosia and several other working ponies glanced curiously from the half-demolished hotel across the way.  They watched as Morning Dew was caught in the gaze of a hysterically cheerful mare.

        “If you had a vacation from planting flowers,” I said.  “If you could spend an entire afternoon doing nothing but lying back and enjoying the beautiful weather, where would you go in Ponyville to do it?”

        “I... I...”  Morning Dew stammered.  He teetered with brief dizziness, recovered, and awkwardly dripped forth, “Aside from the greenhouse, I'd go to the lake on the east side of town, I guess.”

        “The lake?”

        “Yes.  Staring into the waters makes me feel calm, meditative.  Sometimes I go there to sit, relax, and simply reflect on life.”

        “Sounds wonderful.  Ta-ta!”  I bounded away.

        Morning Dew's lips hung open with an unpronounceable word.  He gestured dumbly with a hoof, glanced over his shoulder, and shrugged at Ambrosia and the other ponies... who simply shrugged back.

        In my cabin, I finished scribbling a rough composition from memory.  I held the sheet before me and went over it with studious eyes, quietly humming the notes with a pair of numb lips.  Blindly, I got up and trotted across the cabin.  I stepped over the discarded sheets of the lunar elegy.  I passed by my lyre until I stood in front of a wooden cabinet.

        Pausing, I turned and gazed thoughtfully across the tiny abode.  Golden flowers rested where I had placed them on an end table in the corner of my home.  At the sight of the near-dozen tulips gathered in a vase, I smiled.  Then my face tensed in thought.

        “Hmmmm...”

        I turned to the cabinet.  With telekinesis, I opened the panels and rummaged through several drawers.  I finally found what I was looking for: a silken length of silver thread.  Raising it before my eyes, I turned and glanced once more at the tulips.  In a strong breath, I marched over and started plucking each glistening bud one after another from the jar.

        The bell above the door to the Carousel Boutique rang loudly.  Rarity was too busy galloping left and right across the interior to take notice.

        “Oh dear, where did I put all the ribbon?  I absolutely must bring some with me!  Heaven forbid Fluttershy's dress might fall apart and I wouldn't have a single thing to mend it with!  Ungh!  I almost forgot!  Twilight's gown!  One of those sparkling star patterns is bound to become unstitched!”

        “Uhm...”  I winced slightly as I marched on nervous legs into her domain.  “Miss Rarity?  Have... Have I caught you at a bad time?”

        “A bad time?  Oh, no no no!  Nonsense!”  Rarity gave a flippant laugh as she stuffed a myriad of awkward things into a ruby-studded chest.  “It's only two days until the Grand Galloping Gala and I'm at my wit's end!  How could this possibly be a bad time?!”  She paused and ran a hoof through a noticeably disheveled mane.  “Oh blessed Celestia!  Rainbow Dash had better taken my warnings seriously and kept her golden crown away from rain clouds!”  The fashionista's eyes briefly burned like red hot coals.  “If that thing turns out rusted during the dance, I swear, I will wrap her wind pipe three times around her ears!”

        “Ahem.”  I boldly stood in front of her.  “I... uh... I know this is very last second and all, but I was hoping that you might—”

        “Negatory!”  Rarity waved a hoof in my face.  “Cease while you are ahead, darling.  I apologize sincerely, but I cannot fashion a dress or perform any alterations for any customers at this current moment!  If you desire to have something mended, add your name to the list and I promise you that I shall attend to it as soon as I come back!”

        “But...”  I bit my lip and stirred anxiously where I stood.  “This is... is really important to me—”

        “I do hate to be more emphatic than I've already been, ma'am,” she said, pacing back and forth between her various tools.  “But this is not up for debate!  And before you ask, no amount of bits, gems, or even land deeds could possibly sway me to the contrary—”

        With a metallic clank, I had slapped my lyre down onto the table in front of her.  “The Cosmic Waltz,” I uttered.

        She froze in her tracks.  She stared at me.  “I-I beg your pardon?”

        “The Cosmic Waltz,” I repeated, my eyes firm.  “I can teach it to you in under an hour.”  I gulped and added, “So that way you can dance to it on the spot, in any given situation.”

        She immediately dropped every piece of fabric or tape that she had been levitating around her.  “Sold!”  She bounded towards me and snatched a sheet of measurements from my grasp.  “Tell me what you need!”

        “I swear...”  Caramel fidgeted with the bow-tie around his neck.  He stood awkwardly in the morning sun beside another stallion on the north edge of Ponyville.  Both of them were tied to a silver carriage as they faced the long east road towards Canterlot.  “This thing is gonna strangle me.  Why did I agree to this again?”

        Wind Whistler was suddenly hovering down in front of him.  “Because Miss Rarity convinced you to.  And Rarity is a close friend to Twilight Sparkle.”  She smiled lovingly and adjusted the tie so that it fitted him properly.  “And Twilight Sparkle is only the most influential Ponyvillean with ties to Canterlot.  And if we want our new business to get off the ground, we need to spread the news of how friendly and serviceable we are.”

        Caramel sighed, rolled his eyes, and smiled tiredly at her.  “I thought we were getting in the business of delivering parcels to households, not dressed-up mares to a royal dance.”

        “One step at a time, Caramel,” Thunderlane's voice suddenly spoke up.  He trotted up alongside Blossomforth, Cloudchaser, Flitter, and lastly Rumble.  “Not all of us have the wings to skip ahead in life.”

        Caramel groaned.  “Well if it isn't the feather gang.  Come to snicker at me?”

        “Awwwwww, Caramel!”  Blossomforth smiled.  “Why so glum?  We're your friends.  We just wanted to give you a proper send-off!”

        “Besides, you'll only be gone for the weekend,” Cloudchaser added.  “Hey... isn't Windy going with you?”

        “She says she'll be catching up,” Caramel said, motioning towards his fiance.

        “Yeah.  I've got a few things to do around town.” Wind Whistler nodded.  “But then I'll be headed to Canterlot to meet up with him.”

        “That reminds me.”  Caramel turned towards her.  “Where'd you want to rendezvous?  I heard about this great doughnut cafe in downtown.  First thing tomorrow morning?”

        “Mmmm... Make that tomorrow noon,” Wind Whistler said.  “I need to go buy a dress from the shopping district.”

        “A dress?”  Caramel did a double-take.  “But Windy, neither of us have tickets to the Gala!  Besides, the dance will be over by then!”

        “Who said anything about a dance?” Wind Whistler remarked, smirking.

        “Huh?”

        She sighed.  She hovered lower and whispered in his ears.

        Caramel listened.  After a few blinks, he blushed furiously.

        “Uh oh!”  Thunderlane snickered from afar.  “Something tells me there'll still be some Grand Galloping to be had!”

        “Oh hush!”  Wind Whistler stuck her tongue out at their friends and giggled.  “You must fly through a lot of smoggy clouds to get a dirty mind like that, Thunderlane!”

        “I... uhm... I could do with a clean shower myself,” Caramel dazedly said.  The reined stallion next to him snickered.  “And don't you start!”

        There was a shuffling noise.  Everypony glanced over to see Ambrosia galloping up.  “Whew!  Made it just in time!”  She lowered her hard hat and gestured Caramel's way.  “Best of luck on the journey, kiddo!”

        “You ran all the way here just to say that?”  Caramel exclaimed.

        “Heheh.  Yup!  Figured you deserved to be paid some respects.”  Ambrosia's gaze narrowed.  “This 'Miss Rarity' ain't even hoofing you one bit for this, is she?”

        “Uhhh—”

        Wind Whistler planted a hoof over Caramel's mouth and leaned in.  “We're gonna meet in Canterlot and make a date out of it.”

        “Ya don't say...”

        “Yeah,” Blossomforth added with a nod.  “They're gonna work on planning their delivery business... or something.”

        Thunderlane coughed.  “Though somepony may be delivering something else in a year's time.”

        “Blossom?”

        “Yes, Windy?”

        “Smack Thunderlane for me.”

        “Okay, girl.”  There was a loud thwapping noise.

        “Ow!”  Thunderlane rubbed his side and frowned at his significant other.  “You're just looking for excuses by this point.”

        The two pegasi sisters beside them cooed in unison.

        “Oh stuff it!”

        Cloudchaser and Flitter giggled.  Ambrosia chuckled.  Rumble, as usual, was in another world.

        At that point, a tiny purple dragon was running up, huffing and puffing.

        “Change of plans, guys!”  Spike climbed up the stagecoach in one single motion.  Sweating, he adjusted the collar of the suit that was around his petite torso and uttered breathlessly, “We're swinging by Carousel Boutique to pick the girls up there!”

        “What?”  The stallion beside Caramel balked.  “They can't trouble themselves after so much sprucing-up to trot a few blocks and meet us here?”

        “Hey!”  Spike's breath was briefly flaming.  “Lady Rarity tells us to move, so we're moving!”

        “Right, I see where this is going.”  Caramel rolled his eyes, then smiled up at Wind Whistler.  “See you tomorrow?”

        “I'll see you in my dreams.”

        “Heheheh... You beat me to it.”

        She hovered down and the two nuzzled each other closely.  After a peck on the muzzle, Wind Whistler took to the air.  Caramel signaled to Spike, who then shook the reins.

        “Onward to the Gala!”

        “Don't you mean the Boutique?”

        “Er.  Yeah.  Eheh.  Right.”

        As the two stallions pulled the silver coach away, Caramel's friends stood behind, waving and shouting good wishes.

        Ambrosia lowered her hoof in time to chuckle.  “I'll never understand all this fancy schmancy hullabaloo over a silly dance.”

        “Well, Amber, some ponies could do with a little extravagance from time to time.”

        Ambrosia did a double-take to her side.  “Morning!  How long have you been there?”

        “Not long enough to get a word in,” the stallion said softly.  “But, no matter.  Caramel knows he has my best wishes.  Windy as well.”  Morning Dew turned and smiled at the others.  “I heard there's going to be a little party of sorts in downtown.  Is anypony attending?”

        “Ugh...”  Blossomforth rolled her eyes.  “You mean the mayor's genius little 'consolation party for those ponies unlucky enough to have been snubbed an invitation to the one true Gala for the umpteenth time in a row?'  Pfft.  Yeah, no thanks.”

        “Besides, we all know how to party, and we do it all the time,” Thunderlane said proudly.  He glanced down at Rumble.  “Ain't that right, little bro?”

        Rumble was muttering quietly to himself.  “Hmmm... Daisies?  Dandelions?  Roses?”

        “Yo!  Earth to Rumble!”

        “H-huh?”  Rumble jumped nervously in place, glancing up at everypony.  “What?”

        “What the heck are you rambling about?”

        “I dunno...”

        “You dunno?”

        The little colt gulped.  In his squeaky voice, he innocently inquired, “What's the prettiest kind of flower in Ponyville?”

        “Why heck...”  Ambrosia gestured.  “Morning Dew here could tell ya that.  Though what for?”  Her eyebrows wagged.  “Is a certain little scamp fixin' to give a filly some special gift?”

        “Huh?”  Rumble made a face.  “Ew!  No!  She probably doesn't even like flowers—”

        Blossomforth gasped.  “Awwww!  So there is a filly!”

        “There is not!”  Rumble's voice cracked, and he blushed at what it sounded like.  “I don't even know why I was thinking about flowers—”

        “Oh dear, whatever are we going to do?”  Cloudchaser playfully ruffled Rumble's slick black mane.  “Rumble's turning into a romantic stallion right before our very eyes!”

        “At least somepony in his family is,” Blossomforth added in a dull tone.

        “Heh heh, yeah—Hey!”  Thunderlane glared at her.

        She giggled.

        “Nnngh!  You guys are stupid-heads!”  Rumble frowned and waddled off in a huff.

        “Awww!  Don't be like that, ‘lil Rumble!”  Flitter called after him. “Dang it, sis!  Look what you did!”

        “I'll go fetch the little booger,” Thunderlane groaned.  “You girls go elsewhere.  I swear, you've been nothing but trouble all week.”

        Blossomforth and the other two merely giggled and floated off in the opposite direction.  Morning Dew watched the group dissipate.  With a gentle smile, he turned and gazed at Ambrosia.

        “So much excitement in the air.  I swear, it's the same thing every year without fail.”  His eyes narrowed.  “What is it about the Gala that electrifies a place as far away as Ponyville?”

        “Speak for yourself, flower-plucker,” Ambrosia muttered.  “I'm too busy with my work to give a darn.”  She turned and pointed past Morning's garden wagon, gesturing to where her co-workers were stringing up orange wire around the inner framework of the hotel.  “That there building is gonna be bitin' the bullet tomorrow.  It's just too dag-blamed stubborn to fall on its own.”

        “I read all the warning memos at the downtown bulletin board,” Morning Dew remarked with a nod.  “Does it seriously have to come to this?”

        “Heh.  What, you frettin' there bein' a little bit of thunder in the middle of yer gardenin' tomorrow?”  Ambrosia shifted the hard hat on her crown.  “It's only gonna last a second.  Besides, it's not like anypony's at risk, so long as they keep a safe distance when the charges go off.  If anything, I reckon it'll be just the entertainment this village needs.  It'll make the sad saps of this place forget all about the Gallstone.”

        “Gala.”

        “Whatever.”

        “Well,”  Morning Dew said.  “I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Amber.  Your job always has a certain grace to it.”

        “Ehhh, ya lug.”  She waved a bored hoof before running it sheepishly through her white mane.  “One of these days, I swear, your eye for beautiful things is... gonna be... the end of you...”  Her words trailed off as her eyes squinted at a bizarre sight just beyond him.  Her sweaty brow furrowed.

        “Hmm?”  Morning Dew blinked at her.  Slowly, he turned around.  The first thing that donned his face was a smile.  “Well, now.”  He reached his hoof into the wagon and instinctively held forth a tulip.  “Good morning to you...”  Right then, his smile left him.  His face drew a blank, but the gold texture of his coat remained as bright as ever.  The next breath was wavering.  “...angel.”

        I took a deep breath, poised gracefully before him.  I was staring deep into his eyes—suddenly wide eyes—and in those blue pools there was no mistaking the reflection of what he saw: a mint-green mare clad in a silken silver gown.  It was a modestly simple ensemble, with the faintest golden trim embroidered about the cream-colored seams in tiny floral patterns.  My lyre hung unassumingly from a golden sash draped across my left side.  There was something atop my forehead that glistened in the sunlight, bringing out the highlights in my eyes.  It was a crown of tulips, framed broadly around my horn, made up of none other than all the flowers that he had given to me over the past several days, in his past lives, when an amnesiac ghost went out of his way to charm me as I was incidentally charming him right then.

        “Well,” I said in as brave a voice as I could.  I didn't mean for it to come across as so pathetically demure.  I only wanted this soft moment to be carried on soft breaths.  “If you aren't a charmer...” I added with a nervous smile.

        Please say it.  Please...

        He gulped.  He was frozen in place.  He was dead-still, but he was still Morning Dew.  “I am only charmed,” he murmured.

        Oh thank goodness...

        I gulped.  My heart sang.  I was afraid Rarity's marvelous gown would melt off of me with each subsequent heartbeat.  I cleared my throat and tilted my head aside.  “You're too kind to make me such an offering,” I pointed at the tulip in his grasp.  With a relaxed breath, I finally allowed my blush to peak through my face's skin.  “But... heehee... Where exactly would I place it?”

        He gazed at the tulip, then at the crown on my forehead.  He gulped dryly and stammered, “A very good question.  I... erm... Eheh...”  He rubbed his neck and smiled awkwardly.  Dear Celestia, will he ever stop being so precious?  “Ever painted a picture, and then you feel like something should be added to it, but you can't for fear of ruining it?”

        “Hmmm...”  I coyly gazed at the ground.  “Is every citizen of Ponyville so poetic?”

        “Uhm... Only the foolish ones.”  Her cleared his throat.  “I... uhm.  I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to—”

        “No!  Don't be sorry.”  I took a step towards him.  “As a matter of fact, you're just the stallion I've been meaning to speak to.”

        “I... I am?”  He blinked awkwardly at me.

        “Yes.  You're Morning Dew, the town gardener, correct?”

        “Uhm, yes, ma'am.  As a matter of fact, I am.  Why?”  He squinted.  “Have other ponies talked about me?”

        “I heard you're the local expert on flora.”  I smiled.  “I was hoping to speak with you.”

        “R-really?” he said, gulping dryly.

        I was barely aware of Ambrosia at this point.  Her figure shifted in my peripheral vision.  She glanced at Morning Dew, at me, and then at him again.  Very, very quietly, she backtrotted from the scene until her alabaster figure melted into the background.

        I stood boldly in the foreground, gazing at the stunned earth pony in front of me.  “You see, my name is Lyra Heartstrings.  I doubt you may have heard of me, but I'm a musician from Canterlot.”  I fidgeted slightly.  Even with the buffers of the curse to cushion my words, I can never quite feel good about myself unless my lies have an ounce of truth to them.  “And... and I have plans for performing a few shows around town.  But I'm not satisfied with coming across like just any other minstrel.  There's a reputation I have to live up to, so I need to produce a show that will truly dazzle the locals around here beyond the mere melody my lyre makes.  To do that, I have to... uhm... I have to set up a fabulous stage.  Yes.  And... and I was thinking about having a beautiful floral arrangement erected around me while I do my solo act.”

        “That's...”  He gazed at me, slowly nodding.  “So pretty.”

        I smirked, my eyes darting his way.  “You don't say?”

        “I mean... erm...” He let loose a nervous laugh.  “That sounds like a pretty good idea.”  He placed the flower back into the gardening wagon.  “Well... uhm... y-you came to the right pony!  That is—the other villagers have a good reason to suggest you come to me.  It's not like I'm the expert on... on... uhm... sofas and quills, cuz I don't know who you talked to, but that's a different pony altogether.  Ehm... oh jeez...” He ran a frustrated hoof over his face.

        There were many things that I desired from this encounter.  Admittedly, the very last thing was making him so flustered.  I broke the conversation into another direction by pacing around his wagon and uttering, “You really are the town's one and only gardener?”

        “Well, not exactly,” he said in a calmer voice.  I felt him relaxing with each word coming from his lips.  “This is an earth pony town.  Unlike Canterlot, there are less ponies talented in the arts and more equines talented in tending to crops and vegetation.”

        “But florists?”  I leaned over and sniffed a pot full of daisies, smiling.  My eyes darted his way as I felt the petals of my crown fluttering in the morning breeze.  “Just how many Ponyville residents are responsible for planting such beautiful flowers all over this quaint little town?”

        “Hmmm...”  He ran a hoof through his mane and blushed.  “Heh.  Okay.  Guilty as charged.”

        “So, perhaps you can understand why I came to you.”  I sashayed gently back towards him.  I took my time, glancing down briefly.  Rarity had even fashioned me some shiny, silver-polished slippers for my hooves.  I tried not to dirty them as I stood in front of the stallion, smiling gently.  “To be the only expert on flowers in town must be something truly special.  It means you're a pony who can be depended on, a pony with an eye for beauty.  Who else would I possibly go to for help with setting up my performance?”

        “Well, I don't know if one could call me special—”  Morning Dew began, but paused in mid-speech.  His blue eyes twitched, and I saw him tilting his nose up slightly.

        I couldn't help it.  I gnawed pensively on my lip.  Oh please.  Oh please don't flip out...

        “That...  Heh...”  His face broke into a chuckling grin.  “Remarkable.  Is... Is that jasmine?”

        I gulped and smiled as gracefully as I could.  “Yes.  A true musician endeavors to be pleasing... erm.. in every sense.”  Oh jeez.  I'm already laying it on too thick, am I?  “It's a perfumed habit I... uhm... picked up from Canterlot.  I suppose it's unbecoming of Ponyvillean standards.”  I winced.  Stop talking!  This is no time to be a sociologist!

        Thankfully, Morning Dew was a less rational pony... or a more rational one.  I could hardly tell anymore.  I simply heard him talk and my heart jumped.  “Oh no, I think... I think it's lovely,” he practically cooed.  “You're...”  He bit his lips on that.  An instinct inside of me screamed to kiss them better.  Clearing his throat, he said, “You're... looking for any particular type of flower?”

        “I imagined I could depend on your good tastes,” I said.  “Assuming it's wouldn't take too terribly much of your time.”

        “Oh!  No!  I...”  He shrugged.  “I was done with most of my morning rounds.”

        “Morning rounds?”

        “I go from building to building each sunrise, making sure the flowers are still in bloom, keeping weeds from growing in the shopfronts.  Those sorts of things.  The mayor has always had a very specific vision for this town.  There are many places to cover to ensure that dream.”

        “I can only imagine...”

        “I was considering going to the building across the street to pluck it free of wildflowers—”

        “You mean the one where those construction workers are clamoring all about?” I asked, pointing to where Ambrosia and her cohorts were still hustling.  “Isn't that place about to be razed?”

        “Heh.  Yes.  It's only taken all month.”

        “And...”  I squinted at him.  “Wildflowers?  Seriously?”  I tried my best not to giggle.  “Are they really so salvageable?”

        Morning Dew chuckled.  “Perhaps it appears silly, but I hate to see anything colorful go to waste, even if they're as common as oxygen.”  He glanced over at the half-demolished hotel.  “I know it sounds weird, but even a part of me regrets that in a few days, that old building will no longer be around.  Once it's gone, a certain antiquity will be lost forever.”

        “What one pony sees as antiquity, another may perceive as an eyesore, yes?”

        “True.  But I hate to think that life is so black and white.”

        “Really?”

        “Mmmmmm...”  He exhaled slowly, nodding.  “I've found it to be a useful belief to try and see beauty in everything, especially the stuff in life that comes and goes.”  He gazed over at me, his handsome face calm and contemplative.  “After all, why do we have memories if they are not ways for us to cherish things of beauty that we can no longer touch?”

        I wanted to respond to that.  I wanted even more to just toss myself in his forelimbs and preserve those words with my tears.  But I stood in place.  I had worked so hard for this moment to be real; I wasn't about to shatter it.  Nor did I want to shatter him.

        “You strike me as a very thoughtful pony, Morning Dew,” I eventually murmured.

        “The world is full of thoughts.  Only flowers are worth growing,” he said.  “Speaking of which, I shouldn't be wasting your gracious time.  A Canterlot musician surely has a busy schedule to keep.  Isn't there a Gala for you to be attending?”

        I giggled finally.  I waved a hoof.  “Oh, that.  There are far more charming places for me to be.  I wouldn't want to be anywhere but in Ponyville at the moment.”

        “Well, if you insist.”  He performed a very timely bow.  “I am more than happy to be of help.  If you would like to see a sample of the flowers I have to provide, I know of just the place to show you.  Would you be so kind as to follow me, Lyra?”

        “Certainly!  I—” I froze in place.  My ears rang.  I looked sharply at him, squinting.  “Did... Did you just...?”

        “I'm sorry.  That is your name, right?  Lyra?  Did I hear you correctly earlier?”

        “Yes, but... Snkkkt—Heeheeheehee!” I broke out into hysterical laughter.

        He was blushing furiously, and yet he stood dead in place like a soldier caught out of line.  “I... I apologize.  Is something amiss?”

        “No.  It's just... Ahem.  The way you pronounce my name—”

        “Am I saying it wrong?”

        “Well, not exactly.  I...”  My heart was pounding.  I hadn't the strength to explain to him that I was a thousand times more amused than I was offended.  “I'm not used to ponies saying it like that.”

        “Truly?”

        “It's Lyra.  Not 'Lee-ruh.'”  I almost snorted, fighting to contain my giggles.  “It's so... so silly how you say it.”

        He smiled bashfully and shrugged.  “The other way sounds rude, like I'm almost saying the word 'liar'.”

        “Well, think about it!  It's just like the musical instrument: 'lyre.'”

        “Something you're a prodigy at, no doubt.”

        “Yeah and... Heeheehee...” I waved a hoof in his general direction as I nearly collapsed.  “I'm so sorry.  It's just that... heehee... All this time, if I knew you'd say it like that...”  I wanted to faint.  I wanted to fly.  Could he possibly be any more adorable?  The unpredictability of the moment made me want to hug him all the more.  “Goodness.  Life is so goofy, isn't it?”

        “I... I don't understand,” he remarked with a curious chuckle.  “When have I had the opportunity to say your name before, Miss Heartstrings?”

        I felt a cold sheen of sweat forming at my temples.  Whoops.  Keep it together, girl.  He can only tolerate a basketcase so far.  “Well, you're right.  Do forgive me.  I'm... uhm...”  White lie.  White lie.  White lie.  “I'm not used to being up this early in the morning.  I guess I'm a tad bit delirious.”  Good enough.

        “It happens to the best of us,” he said.

        Or only to the luckiest of us.  The most handsome of us.  The bluest-eyed of us—

        “If you would follow me, Lyra,” he said correctly.  For once, it was just as I had ever dreamed of him uttering it.  I floated after him as if on clouds.

        We ended up in the center of a fantastic greenhouse on the northeast edge of town.  I had strolled past the translucent building on several occasion.  Never before had I bothered taking a closer look, probably because the path I took eventually led me past him, and I had far more charming things to look forward to on a daily basis.

        Now he stood before me, talking to me, acknowledging me with a glint of joy sparkling in his eyes.  Every awkward shiver, every bashful fumble was absent from his limbs.  At the time being, he was confident, emboldened by the familiar flora hanging all around us.  We were in his element, his world.  I felt like a blissful wanderer on the threshold of this gentle stallion's kingdom, and every careful set of words that came from his mouth tickled my ears as I trotted after his pacing, narrating figure.

         “Since you're from Canterlot, I can only assume you're used to affording a spotlight at your venues, so it would be a good idea to go with bright flowers that not only complement your appearance but also highlight your position on the stage.  You have a lovely, flaxen streak to your mane, Lyra.”

        “Why thank you.”

        “Heheh... Ahem.  So, I was thinking carnations for if it's an inside show.  An arched wreathe with several blossoms could do the trick.  If you're performing outside, however, I'm tempted to suggest these lilies here.”  He brushed his hoof past the plants in question.  “But, as you well know, the flower has its own common connotation, and I very seriously doubt you're performing at a funeral.  So, to offset that impression...”  He trolled a few paces down and gestured towards another row of flowers.  “These daisies could be added to the stage, and it would create a balance.”

        “You really do have a flower for any occasion or circumstance,” I remarked, strolling along with him.  It was very warm in there.  I pretended that it was because of the glass panels surrounding the greenhouse.  “That's quite remarkable.”

        “Ponyville is a tranquil, peaceful little town,” Morning Dew said.  As we strolled along the sampled flora, he made a great deal of effort in brushing aside jutting leaves and branches so they wouldn't brush against me or my dress.  I silently smiled at his subconscious gestures.  “We have a lot of time on our hooves, compared to the likes of Fillydelphia or Manehattan or—I dare say—your home town.”

        “Canterlot isn't as busy and stressful as many ponies here in the country may think,” I said.  “After all, it is the center for Equestrian arts and sciences.  You don't achieve that pinnacle by fighting through morning traffic everyday.”

        “Heheh.  I imagine they must have entire legions of gardeners employed in beautifying the city,” he said.  “Especially with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna dwelling there.  The ponies who landscape the palace have to be none other than Equestria's absolute best.”

        “Oh, they are good,” I said with a nod.  “They are royally tested and approved, no doubt.  But are they the best?”  I came to a stop and pivoted to face him.  “The palace groundskeepers do their job because they are bound by it.  There's something to be said about such noble duty, but it's the same thing that has been said in countless generations before.  Passion, however, is something that is all too often sorely missing, even in the deepest bastion of our country's most sacred alicorns.”

        “Perhaps, then, that is why so many souls from Canterlot come to visit this town,” Morning Dew said aloud.  “They've spent all their days surrounded by tradition.  But then they come to Ponyville, because they're searching.”

        I smiled deeply.  “Searching for what?”  For passion?  Please say “passion.”

        “For completeness.  That is what any pony wants in life, or so I've long felt.”

        A breath escaped my lips as I smiled towards the flowers.  Okay.  That was even better, in a way.  “Funny how so many ponies from all over Equestria are headed to this silly Gala tonight, as if it's the one thing that will ever define their lives.  I don't know about you, but I've lived in Canterlot all my life.  The Gala is hardly what it's hyped up to be.  A pony would do well to pursue whatever he or she wants, and not let something that's popular become the apple of their eye.”

        “Like becoming an accomplished musician?” he remarked with a smile.

        “Heeheehee... Well, that's just me.”  I gulped and gazed intently at him.  “What about you?”

        “Oh...”  He sighed and marched over towards a pot of daisies that he proceeded to inspect with gentle hooves.  “I'm very happy with what I do here in Ponyville.  This village needs me, and I'm happy to keep them secure in the knowledge that their streets will never turn ugly.”

        “But is that all you'll ever do?”  I stepped towards him, swallowing a lump down my throat for courage.  “I know what I desire to do with my life, and I'm satisfied with it.  I think that should be the same for everypony.”

        “But... heh... if we knew what our lot in life was, that would ruin the suspense, don't you think?”

        I merely giggled at that.  He looked at me strangely.  In response, I cleared my throat and said, “Don't mind me.  I think it's a charming excuse.”

        His face was briefly deadpan as he gazed at the daisies once again.  “What you call an excuse, I call the hooves of fate.”

        I bit my lip at hearing that.  I remembered the bashful stallion telling me his life's story the other day beside his gardening wagon.  After all this pretense and preparation, could it be possible that I still hadn't pierced the layers that deeply?  Maybe I was trying too hard.  Maybe I was—

        “I personally think the carnations would be a fantastic choice,” he spoke up, his charming voice reverberating across the glass panels around us.  “I've always found them to be an easy accessory to a public presentation, be it poetic or musical.”  His lips curved softly as he glanced my way.  “It would most especially be complementary if you wore an ensemble like that while performing.”

        I knew my teeth was showing by the glinting reflection of my smile in his eyes.  “So, you like silver?”

        “Eheh...”  He instantly blushed and gazed towards the hanging greenery beyond.  “It's... a very flattering color for a dress.”

        “Let me ask you something...”  I bravely shuffled closer towards him.  I breathed lightly, my lungs on fire.  The place was smoldering enough as it was.  “Carnations, lilies, daisies: they're obviously good choices for a public instrumental.  But...”  I nibbled on my bottom lip for the space of two seconds and finally rolled forth, “What of a private performance?”

        “You... You mean like a serenade?” He asked innocently.

        I slowly nodded, gazing up at him.

        His grin cracked awkwardly.  “Eheh... I fail to see how you would need any assistance there, Lyra.”

        My heart sank briefly.  “No?”

        Then I saw his eyes resting specifically on the crown of tulips atop my head.  My heart lulled to a calm, then spiked again as soon as his voice rang.  “Some things can't be helped, for they're perfect enough as it is.”

        I exhaled weakly.  Would he freak out if I placed a hoof on his shoulder?  I felt a pulse that wasn't my own.  Glancing down, I realized that I had already made such a contact.  The next second that passed by was like shattering concrete.  Instead of panicking, I slowly spoke, “If there's anything I've learned in recent months, it's that there'll always be something in life that stands to be perfected.  All it takes is the right moment.”  My smile was equally blissful and painful.  “And the right soul to spend it with.”

        I saw the tiniest of fluctuations in his eyes.  I couldn't tell if he was frightened or thrilled.  Either way, he didn't bother to shove my hoof off of him as he said, “You're a most remarkable pony, Miss Heartstrings.”  Then the smile came.  “I wonder.  When you play music, is it even half as harmonious as your words?”

        My breath came out in a gust of relief.  He called me “remarkable!”  That's... That's good, right?  That's at least worth two “magnificents” or half a “resplendent!”  “Well, words only convey so much.  I tend to ramble when I fixate on them.”  I turned my head, looking at where my lyre was hanging tactfully from the golden sash on my left side.  “But, if you would like, I could give you a demonstration of just how harmonious I can be—”

        Something loud echoed across the greenhouse interior.  It sounded conspicuously like two pairs of legs tumbling to the stone floor.  I stood there, frozen, too afraid to look and confirm my haunting suspicion.  Nevertheless, I had to.  And when I did, it explained why Morning Dew hadn't said anything for the past few seconds.

        Oh dear Celestia, the poor thing!  It's happened again.  Okay.  Don't panic.  Don't be a frightened, hysterical filly like the other day.  His cat... cata... cataple... his ordeal comes and goes swiftly.  Just... wait it out.  Wait it out...

        I steadied my nerves, stopped squirming, and simply squatted down by his side.  He was breathing; I could tell this time.  The greenhouse was deathly quiet, so that I could detect the gentle wheeze pouring in and out of his nostrils as he remained lying there on the floor.  His forward limbs twitched ever so slightly, and the contours of his face occasionally creased and uncreased.  I tried to imagine what a life like that would be like, to be incapable of expecting when or if the lights might go out and plunge oneself into paralysis.  I tried not to pity him.  I tried to ignore the horrible pit forming in my stomach, but I couldn't.

        Gently, I reached a hoof out—brushing it ever so slightly against his blue mane as if it was made of thin ice.  I couldn't stop myself; it was all I could do to prevent a whimper from escaping my throat.  In my cursed existence, I had been vexxed by ponies collapsing into fugue states all around me on a constant basis.  There wasn't a part of me that envied Morning Dew for his condition, for not being able to be in control of oneself.  For all the evils of my curse, I at least had a grasp over my faculties, my sole anchor in life.

        And it was then that another horrid realization struck me.  Morning Dew had collapsed.  In the absence of his voice, I felt foolish, silly, and naked.  A thin, silver dress was a poor shield against a wave of chills assaulting my being.  Not even the sunlight refracting through the greenhouse windows could any longer melt the reality of my situation away.

        So by the time he began stirring again, I was hardly relieved.  I sighed, and I had to force out a smile as I murmured to his waking figure, “Are you alright there, sir?”

        “Nnnngh...”  He winced, hissed, and rubbed his aching head.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I think so.”

        “You took a nasty tumble,” I said in a deep monotone.  My eyes were wandering the cobblestone design of the floor, mapping out a swift path home in my mind.  “You're lucky that somepony was around to check on you... uhm... I-I guess...”

        “Why?  Did I bump into something?”

        “Heh... Nothing that can't heal,” I said wryly, almost sounding like a certain construction worker.  Swallowing, I glanced towards the exit of the place.  “Well, now that I know that you're okay, I suppose I should be on my way.”

        “Really?”  Morning Dew blinked several times, then squinted up at me.  “Does this mean that you've changed your mind about picking flowers, Lyra?”

        “Thank you, but I just—”  I froze.   Every part of me froze, every part but my heart.  With each heavy pulse, my head rotated limply towards him, bearing a gaping expression.  “You...”  My voice wavered; I didn't have the strength to hide it.  “You r-remember me?”

        “Well...”  He shrugged.  “It would be awfully rude of me if I didn't, don't you think, Miss Heartstrings?”

        I was breathless.  The image of him was tilting up.  I soon realized it was because I was helping him up to his hooves—almost yanking him.  My forelimbs brushed against his, and I didn't want to let go.  “S-say it one last time...”

        “Say what?”

        I clenched my eyes shut and looked away from him.  “My name.  Please.  Just... Just say it.”

        I felt his voice in greater proximity.  He must have been looking at me up close to see if I had banged my head.  “Lyra.  Lyra Heartstrings...?”

        I choked on something.  When I opened my eyes, his handsome face had fogged over.  I stared at him—unblinking—until the image cleared, and it was just as crystal clean as from my dreams.  “Where would you like to take me?” I murmured.

        Morning Dew raised an eyebrow.  “Pardon?”

        I winced.  My voice squeaked.  “Erm, what I mean is...”  I smiled, tilting my head at an angle.  I wasn't sure what I wanted him to see less: my burning cheeks or my moistening eyes.  “Would... you like to take a walk... together?”

        Morning Dew glanced at the flowers.  With the business at hoof, he opened his mouth to protest.  But after a lingering pause, he gazed down at me and grinned with ease.  “Certainly.  I... would like that, Lyra.”

        “Good,” I exhaled, nearly bouncing in place as I grasped one of his hooves with both of mine.  “I know just the place!”

        “Heheh...”  Morning Dew shook his head in awe as we strolled along.  “I always loved hanging out by the lake.”

        “Really?” I hummed, smiling to myself as I sauntered alongside him.  “How fortunate, cuz I really like it too.”

        “Very few ponies frequent this area,” he remarked, gazing out across the rippling pond water to our right.  The afternoon sun bounced off it in rich crimson bands, covering us with a painterly sepia tone as we reveled in warm breeze after warm breeze.  All around us, September was alive.  I felt as though I would never be cold again.  “I think it's a shame.  There's so much to see and think about.  Still, at the same time, I'm rather thankful for the quiet.”

        “Do you consider yourself a loner, Morning?”

        “On occasion, I suppose.”  He glanced at me.  “Why, do you, Lyra?”

        “Welllll...”  I murmured in a sing-songy fashion.  “Not by habit, I assure you.”

        “Are you on the road a lot, on account of all your musical venues?”

        “Oh, hardly.”  I cleared my throat.  “It's not that.  I just haven't had the chance to socialize much as of late.”

        “Why?” he asked.  “You seem a natural conversationalist.”

        “Y-you really think so?”

        “Indeed.”  He chuckled.  “Although...”

        “Although what?”

        “A tad bit on the philosophical side,” he remarked.

        “So?”  I smirked wryly, side-stepping an overturned log so as not to ruin Rarity's dress.  “You mean to suggest that mares shouldn't be allowed to philosophize?”

        “Not at all!” he said with a grin.  “It's just that philosophy is measured only in its pretense.  Stallions are all too easily overwhelmed in the art of cyclical dialogue.  Mares—I've long perceived—serve a much better existence by actually living.”

        “And by 'living,' I'm guessing you mean cooking, cleaning, and giving birth, riiiight?” I winked.

        “Hardly.”  He stopped by a throng of cattails and looked at me.  “I only meant that there are many beautiful things in this world, and the majority of them so happen to be exemplified by mares.”

        “Heh.  Easy for you to say.”

        “Indeed.  It is.”

        I giggled, shaking my head as I paced around him.  “You're a little bit backwards, Morning Dew, sir, if I may be so bold to say.”

        “Trotting backwards is a good way to practice for doing what counts forwards,” he replied.  “Besides, I can't pretend that all codes of chivalry apply to modern life.  It was you who swept me off my sleepy hooves back there in the greenhouse, not the other way around.”  His gaze fell bashfully from mine.  “I thank you most kindly, Lyra.”

        “It's never too late to be a maid in shining armor.”

        “Well put,” he said, then glanced at my shifting hooves.  “Are you tired of walking?” he asked.

        I smiled coyly at him.  “If I said 'yes', does that mean we can continue this conversation sitting here where it's so nice and peaceful?”

        “A gentlecolt is never too forward to assume anything.”

        “Well, that's too bad.  Let's sit our flanks down already.”

        At the last second, he reached a hoof out.  Both curious and amused, I took it, and I found him ushering me to a flatter stretch of grass that only an expert gardener such as him could spot.  I took my sweet time smoothing out my dress before sitting down, and he took even more of his own time politely waiting until I was done before squatting himself.

        “I didn't always enjoy this kind of peace,” he said.

        “Oh?”  I gazed curiously at him.  “Was it by choice?”

        “As a matter of fact, no,” he remarked, gazing across the rippling waters.  “I grew up in a military household.  And if there's one thing you should know about 'military households,' it's that they never remain in one single spot for too long.  Most colts my age would easily adapt to being constantly on the move.  But me... with my rather embarrassing conditions...”

        “Like that which made you take an impromptu nap just moments ago?”

        He somberly nodded.  “Ahem.  I didn't exactly fare too well.”

        “It must be terribly unnerving,” I said.  “To have grown up without a firm base, and to not even have an anchor to cling to when you felt ill.”

        “My parents were my anchor,” he said.  “As were the other ponies they worked with.  I have and always will have the deepest respect for equines who selflessly serve the royal alicorns and their land.  It's just...”  He lingered slightly, his blue eyes blending with the reflections of the shallow pond water.  “I wish I could contribute more than just my respect.  So many stallions my age have given their part.  I hope that someday—before I'm too terribly old—I'll have a chance to give mine.”

        I gazed at his side, measuring the seconds that dripped by, until I bravely asked, “Is it that you have something to prove?”

        “Hmmm...”  He smirked calmly my way.  “More like something to gain.”

        “Like what?”

        “Clarity,” he blurted.

        “Clarity?”

        Morning Dew nodded slowly.  “There was a moment... a very special moment in my young life—as all ponies have their own moment of magical epiphany.”  He gulped and gestured as he spoke, “But for me, it wasn't just about discovering who I was and what I was meant to be.  It was a metamorphosis, where I came out of my sickly youth like a dawn sunrise breaking apart a fog.  Ever since then, I understood what I wanted to do with my time on this earth.  And yet... while the logic of the matter remains, I've found myself losing touch of... of...”

        “Substance?”

        He glanced at me.

        I smiled gently.  “You're not the only pony who loses control of his faculties from time to time, Morning.  Be it dizzy spells or afflictions of the spirit, we all serve to be reminded of what it was that made us, and how we stand to be rejoined with that glorious insight once again.”

        “That's a charming hope to cling to, Lyra.  But sometimes I fear...”

        “Fear what?”

        “That it's too late.”  He shuddered, his eyes locked onto something pale and gleaming from his past.  “I fear that the only way to grasp ahold of what's truly meant for me is to somehow reverse time, to become that young colt once again, to have the world of confusion melt away like it only could that one occasion and that one occasion alone...”

        I nodded slowly.  “Yes.  You and I can analyze the woes of the past to death with enough words to make a novel out of.”  I smiled brilliantly.  “Or...”

        “Or...?”  He looked at me.  He had to squint from a glint of reflected sunlight.

        I had pulled my lyre up into my forelimbs.  Sitting in front of him, I charged a pulse of telekinetic energy into my instrument's strings.  “Or... we can recreate that which is lost with the gifts given to us.”

        “I... I'm afraid I don't understand.”

        “Shhh...”  I looked deeply into his face.  “Just relax, Morning.  And listen.”  I closed my eyes.  My mind scanned several scribbled musical notes until I saw the entire orchestration before me.  Then, with careful precision, I performed a sweeping number, as bombastic as my strings could hope to suggest, rich and powerful and steady in its cadence.  As I navigated each sweeping melody of the tune, I briefly glanced at Morning Dew's expression, and I saw his jaw dropping further and further.  The song was barely done by the time I heard his voice breathily kissing the air.

        “That...”  He stammered.  “That was the most... most delightful rendition of Mareece Ravel's Royal Symphony I've ever had the pleasure to hear,” he said.

        “Please, Morning.”  I giggled.  “You flatter too much.  So what if I happened to... have practiced...?”  I paused in my words.  I had expected him to be pleased by the tune.

        However, I hadn't expected the tears forming in the corners of the grown stallion's eyes.  “My parents.  They used to march to that very tune.  I would watch them from the compound fence after school, before we all trotted home together,” he murmured.  “I tried to imitate their march, their proud stance, their fearless poise.  When the years went by, and I suffered through worse and worse episodes, I still did my best to march with their rhythm.  They always encouraged me.  They always believed in my enthusiasm.  When I grew up, and I tried year after year to apply at the Canterlot Military Academy, I remained steadfast in spite of my constant failure.  Even today, I try to give myself hope, for I won't be completely satisfied until I am able to accomplish what they had accomplished so well.”  He gulped hard.  “I owe as much to them... to their legacy.”

        “Their... legacy?”  I squinted his way.  Suddenly, it dawned on me.  The soft demeanor.  The incessant need to prove himself.  The continuous, almost foalish fixation on a seraphim savior.  A part of me broke inside, and it ruptured a soft voice from my lungs, “Oh Morning, what happened?”

        His nostrils briefly flared.  His eyes had dried up before possibly committing the sin of leaking.  “The S.S. Hurricane,” he uttered coldly.  “They were overseeing a supply drop-off along the Eastern Banks of Dream Valley.  An entire military detachment was sent to guard the royal supplies.  One night, there was a rupture in the ship's steam tanks.”

        His tale trailed off, but it didn't need to complete itself.  I already had a sore throat by that point.  After all, every adult citizen of Equestria knew about the “S.S. Hurricane.”  “I... I had no idea, Morning.  I'm so very sorry to hear that.”

        “Don't be sorry, Lyra,” he said.  He smiled, a very genuine thing, as was his next breath as he spoke, “You've blessed me.  You really have.  Whenever I hear the Royal Symphony, it's always the classical presentation—usually a recording of a full-piece orchestra, complete with the number's usual, dramatic fanfare.”  He sighed briefly.  “It's the exact style of performance that they play at every memorial held for the ponies of the Hurricane since the tragedy.  There's no pride or joy in it anymore.  Only a deep, immeasurable, and noble sorrow.” He swallowed and glanced my way once more.  “But the way you play it... the way you revel in it, with your solo strings and your passionate gusto... Well...”  He grinned painfully.  “It's invigorating, Miss Heartstrings.  It reminds me that the dead were once very much alive.  I wish there were more performers who felt with their souls as much as with their talents.”

        I was barely convinced.  I stared forlornly at the lyre in my hooves as if it was a terrible weapon.  I muttered, “Sometimes... I swear, I feel too much.”

        He narrowed his eyes curiously.  “Why's that?”

        I shook my head, stumbling over the thoughts.  I should have waited before spilling them out from my lips, but I felt as if so many barriers had fallen already.  He had been brutally honest with me so far.  What had I done to even come close to paying him equal respect?

        “Do you ever feel like you stumble upon a moment—a moment that is so golden and so perfect—that you feel as if you were meant to be there at that place and at that time for a purpose?”

        He ran a hoof through his mane and said, “I... I suppose I have, maybe once or twice.  Why?”

        I gulped and said weakly, “I feel that everyday.”  I looked up at him.  “And on every occasion, the moments become more and more intense, Morning.  And yet...”  I grimaced slightly.  “I feel as if they never come with any reward, no matter how frequently they occur.”

        “Maybe you just haven't seized the moment,” he stated.  “I mean truly seized it.  Perhaps that's why you feel for the moment more and more each time it keeps happening.  You're never rewarded, because each time you come upon the precipice, you never make that leap of faith.  I mean, never truly.”

        “Morning...”  I murmured.  “Not all of us can be as blessed and... and...”  I gulped.  “And as magnificent as you.  For me, I shall always have infinite moments like this, so gorgeously framed but so bitterly unrealized.  But you?”  I looked at him lovingly, sadly.  “This is it.  This is your moment.  Your one and only.”

        He gazed at me as though I was suddenly drifting away from him.  “Lyra, I don't understand.  Do you mean that—?”

        “Shhh...”  I reached out to him.  I grazed his silken complexion with a hoof.  I felt my lips quivering.  The whole universe was shaking, and he was sliding downhill into the abysmal world I had refused myself all day to wake to.  I should have seen it from a galaxy's distance.  “This is your moment.  Can't you feel it?  Like a sunrise that sings to you, or a golden pair of eyes that is only a precursor to the most secure feeling you'll ever have the good fortune to know.  You called me something when we first met, Morning.”  I swallowed hard, then entreated him.  “Do you remember, Morning Dew?  Do you remember what I was... or what you thought I was?”

        His mouth hung open.  The lines in his face stretched apart, pulled by talons of pain that had been raking him all his life, until now.  “Angel...?” he murmured, like a colt who had just been reunited with a foalhood friend.

        But I was not that protector.  I could see that now.  There was a phantom reflected in his eyes, a paper-thin mare with a wreathe of silly flowers trying to gussy herself up for a first and last date.  I wanted immediate things, transient things, superficial things.  I wanted to be held, to be cuddled, to be warmed as I stumbled inevitably into the dead thick of night.

        Morning Dew needed more—so much so that he was too humble and powerless to even want it.  He was on the verge of self-discovery.  He always was.  And every Ponyvillane dawn that he saw me, my eyes and my face were only teasing him upon the brink of such enlightenment.  Nopony should ever be toyed with on the advent of transcending his demons, and Morning Dew had more ghosts than any amount of flowers could exorcise.

        I may or may not have the power to free myself of this curse.  But until then, I will never have the ability to free him.  All my words would be for nothing.  Even a tune carries itself only so far.

        I wished I had the courage then and there to accept that.  But where my mind worked, my heart didn't, and a last part of me tried to do the impossible anyways.

        “Morning Dew,” I murmured.  “You are your own guardian angel.  You always were.”  I sniffled briefly, then produced a brave smile.  I didn't trust too much in what reflected in his eyes, but I continued regardless, “When you suffered through illnesses as a child, when you endured the loss of your parents, when you fought over and over again to achieve your dream of becoming a guardpony, and finally when you settled for your humble life here, it's been you and you alone whom you've had to thank for such tenacity, for such strength.”  I bit my lip briefly, then finished with, “I only wish you would accept that which has made you strong, that which is here for you in Ponyville.  You don't... You don't need to keep searching...”

        He gazed at me.  His eyes were soft.  I knew I was going to break before he even said it.  “I didn't know I was searching until I met you, Lyra,” he exclaimed breathily.  “How could I always have been my own guardian angel, and yet it is only now when somepony like you is here, filling me with such song and wisdom and joy, that I'm starting to feel secure?”  He smiled blissfully.  “Please.  Believe me.  I'm not searching.  I... I daresay I've found it.  I've found you...”  His eyes narrowed on the breaking point.  “Who are you?  Please, tell me.  I... I must know more...”

        I wanted to tell him.  I wanted to weep.  I wanted him to know that I was the right pony, the only pony.  I was the one soul that needed to be guarded, to be held, to be made happy and safe in his embrace.  All his days of wandering, all his days of lonesome trepidation, of fighting against the grindstone of his afflictions: they were all preparing him to meet me, and it would all end in tragedy.  For as soon as we found each other, I would live, but he would die.  By the throes of Nightmare Moon's taint, this version of him that had become enlightened, that had become blissful, that had become secure in this place in life, would no longer be.  And there I would be left alone, once again forced to grow flowers out of the ashes.

        “I'll tell you more,” I said suddenly in a monotone voice.  He couldn't see where I was going.  He didn't know the cold darkness hanging over us both like an onyx ceiling.  I was the only one who knew, and it was my fault and my fault alone that things had limped this far.  “But first, my little florist,” I barely managed to speak.  My voice was cracking too much.  I cleared my throat and forced a smile.  “I need you to do something for me.”

        “Anything,” he murmured, entranced.  “Name it.”

        My eyes traveled the landscape behind him.  There were several sets of trees at the lakeside.  Some were ten feet away.  Others were twenty.  Finally, there was a row of trees about thirty-five feet's distance.  Beneath them, several brightly-colored shapes fluttered in the wind.

        “Could you march over there really quick...” I weakly pointed.  “...and grab one or two of those marigolds?”

        He glanced behind his shoulder at the trees, then back at me.  “Marigolds?”

        I giggled lightly.  My voice was raspy at this point.  I avoided his gaze before he could see my long face.  “I... I want to explain something, and I need them to make an analogy.”  I gulped.  “Philosopher, remember?”

        He blinked.  Slowly, he nodded.  “Very well then.  I'll be right back.”

        He got up.  He left, and so did his shadow with him.  As I heard the crunching of grass beneath his hooves, I clenched my eyes shut and ran a hoof over my face.  I sucked a huge breath into my lungs, containing the sobs before I could feel a hint of them bursting forth.  Several seconds passed, and those seconds became minutes.  Finally, I heard his voice from what sounded like miles away.

        “Huh... Marigolds.  I have plenty of these in my greenhouse,” Morning Dew murmured unemotionally.  His body pivoted and his face blankly scanned the horizon.  “Why... Why am I spending a perfectly good afternoon gathering more of them...?”

        The stranger may have looked my way, or he may not have.  I had already gotten up and swiftly trotted away from the lake.  After all, a murderer never stays at the crime scene.

        The cabin greeted me like a tomb.  I stood there, the dress hanging limply off of me with the grace of dead skin.  With every breath I took, the fragrance of Morning Dew became fainter and fainter, panting that entire afternoon with the transparent shades of a decaying dream.

        I lurched forward, my hooves shuffling lifelessly.  I saw the abandoned elegies lying in a discarded phalanx.  The very sight of them burned into me, searing and convicting the cowardly barriers I had pulled over myself.

        When will I ever learn?  When will I finally, finally come to terms with the things that I deserve and the things that I can only afford to desire?

        With a sigh, I levitated the crown of golden tulips off my head.  I held the strung flower buds in two hooves.  They were so fragile, so delicate, yet so devoid of life.  I could have left them where they belonged, on their stems, being fed the moisture and care they needed to survive as long as possible.  But that wasn't what I chose to do.  I plucked them from their foundations and threaded them into a silken circle of superficiality, just like everything I had done that day had been cheap and paltry and inexcusably desperate.

        I wasn't sure what angered me more, that I thought such an aesthetic presentation could possibly win Morning Dew's affections, or the fact that that the gesture had actually come so close to succeeding.

        I winced.  I gnashed my teeth.  My hooves rubbed together, threatening to grind the golden petals to a pulp.  But I didn't let them.  After all, enough beautiful things had been destroyed that day.  I placed the flowers onto the end-table, pulled my slippers off, and hobbled over to the bed.  I collapsed across the cot; I didn't bother peeling the dress off.  I was too weak, too encumbered by shivers and shadows.  I once again had the dream, the fantasy, the deep warm place where a phantom doppelganger of Morning Dew was there to hold me, to caress me, to remember my name and whisper it to me beyond the iron curtains of the cursed night.

        All it ever was—all it ever would be—was a vision, a fancy idea, a happy thought for an unhappy prisoner.  I should have known better than to have entertained the notion that I could have transformed any of it into something concrete and real.  I should have had more respect for Morning Dew than to have dragged him into my ordeal.  He had a soul—just like every other pony in this place.  It was high time I came to grips with the fact that the things I do to the spirits around me, though impermanent, are still very much real and potentially devastating.  My task in Ponyville was to trail a musical goddess, not to become one.  It's one thing to seize a golden opportunity in life.  It's another thing altogether to conquer it at the behest of souls too weak to retain meaning from the matter.

        I clenched my eyes shut and curled my limbs to my chest.  All I had to do was to accept it, to finally embrace it.  I was alone.  I am alone, and forever will be.  It is my duty to unlock the elegies and nothing else.  I’ve only needed to be reacquainted with my resolve.  After all, what better task is there for a ghost to accomplish?

        “That's the last of them!” A pony in orange work gear shouted.  He marched out of the barren brown shell that was left of the abandoned hotel on the north edge of Ponyville the following morning.  “I got it wired up and everything!  We finally doing this?”

        “You can bet Princess Luna's spitshiney tiara, we are!”  Ambrosia grumbled, rotating a timer on a silver device.  Several sets of wires had been threaded out of the multiple doors and windows of the building.  They all converged onto the contraption in Ambrosia's grasp.  “This had dang well better work!  I wanna go back to buildin' houses and raisin' barns.  I'm serious, the mayor doesn't pay us enough for this demolition crud.”

        “I dunno, Amber,” the stallion chuckled, adjusting his hard hat.  “I always figured you were a natural for tearing walls down.”

        “No, that's what your momma does when she pays a visit to the outhouse.”

        “Hardy har har.”

        “Enough hijinks.  Did the others set up a perimeter?”

        “Yup.  They just finished combing over the area four times.  There's nopony around for a hundred feet.”

        “Good.  Let's get this over with.”  Ambrosia paused fiddling with the timer to shout over her shoulder.  “Okay, everypony!  Three minutes!  Keep back like you've been told to!”  As it turned out, a thin line of random pedestrians were watching from a safe distance.  They waved and cheered with meager enthusiasm for the dramatic implosion that was to happen.  Ambrosia gave her co-worker one last glance.  “Ready?”

        “Ready.”  He nodded.

        “And... Set!”  She twisted a lever.  The silver device began ticking away as the timer counted down the seconds until detonation.  The two workponies wasted no time.  They galloped briskly away from the site until they were barely within shouting distance of the ill-fated hotel.  Catching her breath, Ambrosia came to a stop beside her fellow workers and a small group of excited onlookers.  Several orange signs had been planted in a wide circle around the site, repeating the words of warning that the memos in downtown Ponyville had been broadcasting all weekend.  “Few.  How's this for a Gala?” Ambrosia remarked.  Many ponies around her snickered and chuckled.

        It was around this point that I had trotted up.  It was later in the morning than I was used to arriving.  This was no accident; I had hoped to not run into a certain stallion.  To my solemn relief, Morning Dew was nowhere to be seen.  I hung in the shadows of the line of gazing ponies, feeling my saddlebag weighing me down like a bag of bricks.  My sighs were just as heavy as I gazed one last time at the doomed hotel building.  This week seemed to be the perfect graveyard for memories.  I only wished I wasn't the town's one and only undertaker.

        “I feel like something's missin',” Ambrosia said.

        “Don't say that, Amber,” one of her co-workers grumbled.  “That ain't even remotely funny right now.”

        She chuckled, breaking the tense silence as the ponies awaited the impending implosion.  “No, not that.  Oh!  I know: Morning Dew's a no-show.  What's up with that?”

        “Why?  You were hoping he'd be around to marvel at your hoofwork?” one co-worker said to her.

        “Two minutes!” another called out.

        Ambrosia responded to the first pony.  “Eh, perhaps it's for the best.  He's always a sucker for sentiment.  Somehow, I just know it: seein' this here building go down will... break... his heart...”  Ambrosia's face grew pale.  Her mouth hung agape.  It was an expression most unnatural for her.

        “Huh?”  Her co-worker squinted at her.  “Amber, what's up?”

        “What...”  She pointed a hoof, murmuring breathlessly.  “Who in Tartarus' name is that...?”

        Everypony looked.  I too craned my neck to see better.  When I did so, my heart sank.

        A tiny, pale pegasus had approached the site from a high altitude.  Fluttering past the signs and warnings, he landed directly in front of the building.  The colt immediately began rummaging through a series of bright stems and buds left in the windowsills of the doomed structure.  One by one, he began plucking the most colorful flowers, wildflowers that were only there still because Morning Dew hadn't harvested them... which was entirely because a certain unicorn had chosen to distract the handsome gardener all of yesterday.

        Oh dear Celestia, no...

        “Kid!”  A pony shouted.  He and several others dashed forward.  “Get away from there—”

        “Now just hold on!”  Ambrosia shouted, holding them all back with an outstretched pair of hooves.  “Don't everypony go gallopin' in at once!  That place is about to blow!”  She alone took three steps forward and cupped her hooves around her mouth.  “Hey!  Shrimp!  Get your pale little butt outta there!  Explosive charges are about to go off!”

        There was no way in Equestria that Rumble didn't hear that.  As a matter of fact, he gasped—his eyes wide and panicky.  His wings fluttered ahead of his hooves, desperately trying to lift him up.  Almost immediately, though, he plummeted hard into the ground, wincing.  He tried lifting off again... and then again.  He couldn't budge.  We all watched in heart-throbbing horror, confused as to his predicament, until it suddenly dawned on us...

        “Weeds...”  A pony murmured.  “The little kid's rear leg is caught in some weeds!”

        “Help!”  Rumble's voice squeaked from a distance.  “Please!  I-I'm stuck!”

        “One minute!” a panicking co-worker stammered.

        “Hold on!”  Ambrosia motioned for the others to stay while she galloped forward.  “I'm comin' for ya, kiddo!  Just stay put—”

        “I've got him!” a voice shouted, a voice that was far closer to Rumble already.

        I wasn't sure if my heart should have leapt at that tone or not.  Then I swiveled and saw his abandoned wagon rolling over to its side directly behind a line of kicked-up grass.  I covered my mouth with a pair of hooves and turned towards the hotel.

        Morning Dew was already there before my eyes could reach him.  Skidding to a stop, the brave gardener planted a calming hoof on Rumble's neck, leaned over, and snapped the entangling weeds with one fierce bite of his jaws.  Rumble limped free, wincing slightly as he stumbled forward over the many detonation wires worming into the building above them.

        “Thirty seconds!” somepony's voice shrieked.  I could barely hear them, for as much as I wanted to rejoice, the part of me that understood the cold breath of fate was still sitting on edge.

        “Go!  Go!”  Morning Dew was shouting, panting, dizzy.  Oh please.  Please no.  As Rumble trotted briskly ahead, Morning Dew took up the rear... for a meager two seconds.  His breath came out in two lasting wheezes, and suddenly his body deflated.

        The noise of his collapse startled Rumble.  The little colt spun around.  “Oh jeez!” he squeaked.  Instead of running the rest of the way to safety, he turned around and desperately tugged at the stallion's mane with his hooves.  “Mister, come on!  You heard what they said!”

        “Celestia help us—Morning!”  Ambrosia shouted.  Her eyes took in the ticking time bomb that was the hotel one last time before she bravely dashed forward... only to have something else dashing past her.  The sheer velocity of the strange movement threw her off balance so that she collapsed to her chest and gazed helplessly up at the scene.

        I was galloping fiercely towards the two ponies.  I shrugged the saddlebag off my flanks in mid-sprint, kicking up soil and grass as I rocketed on the sheer fuel of my hyperventilating breaths.  Cold sweat stained the corners of my hoodie as I slid past Rumble and Morning and dug my hooves solidly into the earth.

        “Please, Miss!”  A tearful Rumble was whimpering, begging.  “You gotta help me move him—”

        There's no time.

        “Get behind me,” I said.

        “But—!”

        “And stay close!”  I was already gritting my teeth, seething, facing angrily at the hotel as it threatened to spill thunder into my skull at any second.  A green light pulsed, lighting up the flimsy ten feet between us and the impeding disaster.  “Nnnngh...”  I hissed as a tiny dome of emerald energy finally solidified above me.

        Just as I erected Twilight's protection field, chaos broke loose.  The charge went off in the center of the building.  The hotel collapsed in a billowing cloud of mortar and sawdust.  Then several explosions went off from deep within as the hulking weight forced the foundation to buckle in two dozen places at once.  We were greeted with a sea of splinters and shrapnel splashing towards us.

        Rumble shrieked and clung to Morning Dew.

        Gnashing my teeth, I squatted before us and tilted my head forward.  I took the brunt of the debris with my shield.  The sheer force of the blasts were shoving me backwards, plowing four tiny ravines in the soil below.  My head ached like a million vices were clamping down onto it all at once.  Nevertheless, I held the bulk of the destruction away, so that only a few random specks of detritus flew past the translucent umbrella of energy.

        There was a cry of horror from the ponies watching from a distance.  I struggled to squint my aching eyes open.  As the hotel's implosion consumed it, the front face of the building was performing a last act of stubbornness.  It teetered forward—thick and heavy.  I soon found two full stories of wooden paneling looming over me.

        When it came down, a literal crater formed beneath the three of us.  A cyclone of green energy fluctuated and danced about me as I poured all of my soul through my leylines in a last ditch attempt to preserve the protection spell.  My legs buckled.  My muscles quivered.  I could hear Rumble's whimpers and Morning Dew's tiny breaths.

        Somewhere, in the hazy clouds of time, a sickly young colt was marching out of bed.  He graced the sunrise, and a golden pair of eyes beyond the window gazed back, lovingly, longingly, forbidden from embracing him.

        “Nnnnngh...”  I seethed.  My world flashed a bright emerald as I leaned against the edge of my shield.  My horn vibrated to the breaking point, but I reached beyond the pain, shoving a pulse of telekinetic energy straight into the protection buff.  “Aaaaaaagh!”  The green dome flew diagonally like a missile, plowing through the building face so that it split like a parting sea, both halves falling harmlessly to either side of us with a monumentous thud.

        The next thing to fall was me—panting—to the sundered earth below.  I wouldn't know it until later, but my heroics had lasted the space of five seconds.  All I cared for at the time was...

        “Mmmm... M... M-Morning...”  I dragged myself back onto my hooves and crawled over towards him.

        Rumble was shaking him furiously, all the while struggling to contain his sobs. “He's not moving!  He's... he's...”

        “He's alright, kid,” I said, gulping.  I slid down and lifted his upper body until I cradled his soft head in my lap.  “We're okay,” I murmured.  My voice came out crookedly, and I realized that I was smiling.  “We're all okay,” I squeaked.

        “But... But...” Rumble glanced up at me.  His eyes widened.

        I was confused, until I felt a warm trickle of liquid rolling down my neck.  I reached a hoof up and dipped it—wincing—into a thin gash below my left ear.  I realized that my shield had saved the day, but it wasn't perfect.  I was nicked and scratched in several tiny places.  Rumble and Morning Dew were similarly grazed in a dozen spots, but I hardly feared the worst.

        However, when Ambrosia and several other breathless ponies galloped up, the blood was the first thing they saw.  “Good grief!  Are y'all okay?”

        “That was amazing!”

        “Did you see what she just did?”

        “Praise Celestia, that was close!”

        “He... He's...”  I gulped, suddenly aware of how much I was panting.  “We're fine.  We just... we just need...”

        “You stay put!”  Ambrosia gestured.  I'd never seen her look so frightened.  Her green eyes were locked on Morning Dew's unconscious figure alone.  “We'll go fetch Nurse Redheart!  Let's not take any chances, now!”

        “I'm so sorry!”  Rumble whimpered, his eyes misty as he sniffled and cried, “I didn't know about the building!  I was flying all day and... and... I didn't know!  Oh please tell me he'll be all right!”

        “Let's worry about what could or couldn't have happened later, kid,” Ambrosia said.  “You can fly, can't you?”

        “Yes!”  I flashed a look towards the colt.  “You're the fastest one here!  Help them fetch a doctor pronto!”

        “Okay!”  Rumble composed himself, fluttered his wings, and took off.

        “Are... Are you...?” Ambrosia looked nervously at me.

        “I'm fine.  Go get Redheart!” I nodded towards her.  “I'll... I'll watch over him.”

        She nodded fervently.  In a blur, she and her co-workers galloped towards the center of town.

        I was left alone with Morning Dew in my forelimbs.  The hotel site settled quietly around us like the aftermath of a terrible battle.  I felt my breaths slowing to tranquil waves as I cradled his warm body and looked him over, carefully spotting the tiny cuts and bruises that blemished his otherwise perfect coat.  I saw a tiny cut along his left cheek.  Gently, I raised a hoof to his face.

        As soon as my hoof touched his silken complexion, everything within me froze.  The reality of the moment caught up with me on thundering wheels.  I felt my heart pounding in my chest, and it was in perfect cadence with his.  I had come to understand what I could or couldn't afford in life, but what of the both of us?  The elegies may not have a divine purpose for me.  But angelic moments such as this?

        I brushed his mane hair aside.  His golden face hung like a sleeping colt's in the noonday glow.  Something so beautiful hardly deserved to be so alone.  It was selfish of me to believe.  But I didn't care.  I no longer thought.

        I was leaning over.  I held him gently towards me until our foreheads made contact.  I never felt like melting so much before.  I nuzzled him, I cherished him.  My limbs were shaking, buckling, but his presence was my anchor, pulling me closer towards him until I felt his tender breaths against my muzzle.

        That was what broke the dam.  With gentle sobs, I worshipped him, my tears christening his forehead like a holy river between us.  He was so warm, so fragile, so alive.  I wished that I could be alive too.  Angels visit this earth sparingly for a reason.  They need terribly blissful moments like this to remind them what's worth protecting, for it is all too often something incapable of possessing, unlike this moment—a memory that shall stay alive forever in the center of my wilting spirit, that I shall never allow to implode for as long as I'm alive to preserve it.

        When Ambrosia, Rumble, and the others returned—and Nurse Redheart in tow—I was gone.  Morning Dew awoke to their concerned voices, their careful ministrations and their gentle assertions.  As he was bandaged back to health, he reached a hoof out and gently patted Rumble's and Ambrosia's shoulders in turn.  He did so in a dazed fashion, his eyes and ears twitching in want of a warmth that was suddenly lacking.  He brushed his hoof over his forehead and was only mildly surprised to feel it moist from a secret baptism. He gazed at the evaporating tears on his forelimb and glanced skyward, like a young colt waking to the golden dawn.

        I sat on the park bench the following day, my lyre lying by my side.  I didn't play it.  I hardly breathed.  I stared into the warm shades of late summer, my lungs slowly rising and falling.  A few random bandages clung to my figure as my body mended from the previous day's debacle.  I didn't feel proud.  I didn't feel victorious.  A guardian angel with no home to fly back to hardly has anything worth heralding.

        When his hoofsteps came around the bend, it was like gentle thunder breaking the stillness of the afternoon.  I saw Rumble trotting lonesomely along the path in my peripheral vision.  He navigated a series of continual sighs, each one deeper and more somber than the one previous.  Soon, his solemn gait brought him to the shadow of a tree on the crest of a hill.  He slumped down beneath it, gazing at the thick soil beyond his hooves.

        Eventually, I looked his way.  I cleared the dryness from my throat and uttered, “Is there anything worse than a pegasus who doesn't have his head in the clouds?”

        “Huh?”  He glanced my way, then winced.  “Oh.  Hello there.”

        “Hi.”

        “You... You're gonna yell at me too?” he grumbled.  “Everypony else has.”

        “What for?”

        He toyed limply with the blades of grass around him.  “I almost got a pony killed yesterday.”

        “Really?” I smiled gently.  “You don't strike me as a murdering type.”

        “No.  It's not that...”  He groaned.  “I did something stupid, and a pony nearly died trying to save me.  An entire building practically fell on top of us.  I still don't know how we both survived.”

        “Perhaps we're lucky in this life for a reason,” I droned.  “Perhaps it's fate's way of showing us that we have more to learn in our existence than just from our mistakes.”

        “Whatever,” he blurted.  “My older brother's forbidden me from flying around on my own for a while.  I guess I don't blame him.  It's just that...”

        “What?”

        “I wanted to find some flowers.  It's a lot easier to do from the air—to find the best places where they grow, at least.”

        “Why flowers?” I obligatorily asked him.

        “I...”  He bit his lip.  “I dunno, really.  It just seemed like the right thing to do.”

        “You like flowers?”

        “No,” Rumble grunted.  “I don't.”

        “Then why—?”

        “It doesn't matter, okay?!” His voice cracked as he shook in frustration, covering his face with a pair of limp hooves.  “I don't know.  I just don't know.”  He sighed lengthily.  “All I know is that I'm a weirdo, just like my friends call me...”

        I stared silently at him, but then my ears pricked.  There was a melodic sound coming from the far hillside.  A series of giggles lit the air, and one of them far more enchanting than the rest.  I glanced to my left in time to spot the three foalish figures galloping through the tall grass.  I looked briefly back at Rumble, took a deep breath, then narrowed my eyes in concentration.  A dim green aura illuminated the bench upon which I was squatting.

        “Heeheehee!”  Apple Bloom's voice cackled.  “Shucks, Scoots!  Yer pullin' mah leg!  Did you really?”

        “Uh huh,” Scootaloo nodded with a devilish grin.  She and the other two were garbed in their trademark burgundy cloaks.  “Then, as he got back up, I told him 'You better stop insulting blank flanks, or else the next time I hit you, you'll cry every time you go to the outhouse!'”

        “Well no wonder he had nothing mean to say this morning!” Sweetie Belle remarked, taking up the rear of the group as the three bounded over the grassy knoll.  “You're the last pony anyone would want to mess with, Scootaloo—”  Before she could finish this utterance, a burst of green light snapped her cloak off her shoulders.  She gasped and spun around, only to see her crusader cape flying away in a magical wind.  “Oh jeez!  Hold up, guys!”

        “Ugh!  What, again, Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo's voice groaned.

        “You should fancy tyin' that thang to yer mane!” Apple Bloom added in a snicker.

        “Very... funny...!”  Sweetie Belle huffed and puffed as she galloped after the runaway scrap of cloth.  “I mean it!  Wait for me!”  It came to a stop beneath a tree beside the park path.  Catching up to the thing, she hoisted it up in her hoof and hissed like an angry fashionista.  “Nnnnnn!  This fabric!  I wish there was something I could call it to make it feel bad—!”  She stopped in mid-speech, realizing she wasn't alone.

        Rumble realized he wasn't alone either.  He jumped up with a gasp and backed into the tree as if he was being held at spear-point.

        Sweetie Belle merely blinked at him.  He stared just as blankly back.  As the seconds melted away, she chewed on her bottom lip and took a few steps back.

        Rumble fidgeted.  Rumble shook.  He lurched a two inches forward, anchored to a desperate grin.  “H-Hi there.”

        “Mmmm...”  Sweetie Belle hid half her face behind the loose cape.  “Hello...”

        “You...”  He briefly gnashed his teeth.  “You're pretty—Uhhh... Uhhh—Your voice, I mean.  You have a pretty singing voice.”  He gulped.  “That is, I've... I've heard it.  You sing really well, and I think it's cool.”

        Sweetie Belle's eyes fell to the grass.  Her hooves toyed with the soil.

        “Are you doing stuff with your friends?”  Rumble scratched a hoof behind his slick mane.  “Cuz I think it's pretty nifty how you three are always... uhm... going on adventures and—like—doing stuff for the village and all.  Some ponies may think that you're annoying, but I think you're really helpful and stuff.  I'm totally not one of those ponies who would think that you're annoying.  I... nnngh... I don't even know why I said that...”

        Sweetie Belle suddenly shook, quivered even.

        Rumble squinted at her.  “Are... Are you okay—?”

        Sweetie Belle wretched, vomiting up a copious amount of fluid onto the grass between them.

        “Whoah!  Jeez!”  Rumble hopped back.

        “Mmmf... Urp...”  Sweetie Belle fell on her haunches and rubbed a forelimb across her cheek.  She grimaced, her face turning a furious shade of red.  “Omigosh!  I'm... urp... I'm so sorry!  That... I-I don't even know why that happened!”  She coughed a few times, sputtered, and hugged the fabric to herself.  “Please, don't think I'm gross!”

        “That...”  Rumble's wide eyes blinked.  “That...”

        Sweetie Belle winced.

        “That...”  Rumble grinned brightly.  “...was totally awesome!”  His wings fluttered as he leaned forward.  “I've never seen a pony upchuck like that!”

        She smiled.  “Really?  You—urp—mean it?”

        “Yeah!  I bet even my big brother would be impressed!”

        “Apple Bloom says it's because I'm always swallowing flies.”

        “Really?”  Rumble bounced towards her.  “Wanna find some bigger bugs?”

        “Uhm...”  She bit her lip and hid behind the fabric once again.  “N-Not really.”

        “Oh.”  Rumble instantly wilted.  “Eheh... of course you wouldn't...”

        “B-But... But the crusaders and I were about to go squirrel caging!”  Sweetie Belle said.  She appeared to light up as soon as she spotted his blank hind-quarters.  “Wanna come with us?!” Her eyes sparkled as she beamed.  “Maybe we can find you your super special talent!”

        “Hey, yeah!”  Rumble exclaimed.  “It so happens I'm missing one of those!”

        “Well, what are you waiting for?”  Sweetie Belle giggled and motioned him along.  “Come on—Whoah!”  She forgot about the cape in her grasp until she tripped on it.

        “Heehee... Ahem.  Here.  Allow me.”  Rumble walked over, and with very gentle movements he tied the cape to Sweetie Belle's back.

        She stood still, her cheeks flushed.  When he finished, she gave him a sweet smile.  “Thanks.”

        “No problem.”

        “We should get my big sister to make one for you.”

        “Eh...”  He smiled bashfully.  “It wouldn't nearly look as good on me as it does on you.”

        “Whatever.  Squirrels are waiting.  Let's go!”

        “Heehee!  Alright!”

        The two scampered up the hill to join Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in waiting.  I was watching the whole time, quiet as a mouse.  I didn't want to disturb the moment, nor did I want to shatter the first warm pulse I felt in my heart since that day began.

        “Now, if that ain't sweet as all get out.”

        I turned to glance at my side.

        Ambrosia was trotting down the path.  She was out of uniform.  Her exposed coat and snow-white mane were a sight to behold.  I almost wondered if she hid such beauty and grace on purpose.  As soon as she spoke again, I recognized the gruff construction worker instantly.

        “The village was a bit too hard on the little scamp for what happened yesterday.”

        “You'll have to enlighten me,” I spoke montonously.  “Just what happened yesterday?”

        She shuddered at the thought.  “Something that was mostly my fault, which is why I talked the kid's older brother from layin' the guilt on too fiercely.  Thunderlane's a popular stallion around these parts, but his brain is hardly the first organ he thinks with half the time.”

        I chuckled.  “You strike me as an observant mare.”

        “Not observant enough, I reckon,” Ambrosia groaned.  She sat momentarily on her haunches and ran a tired hoof through her mane.  “I should have taken more precautions to keep ponies away from that hotel when we demolished it.  I should have put up more signs.  I should have spread the news to more pegasi.  I shouldn't have used timed charges.”

        “It's easy to pick apart an impossible situation after it's happened than before,” I said.  “I don't see why you should be so hard on yourself.  Everypony came out of it safely, right?”

        “Just barely, and t'ain't none of my doin',” she grumbled.  “I swear, it's as if I've been too terribly distracted these last few weeks.  It's not the kind of professionalism I've been hankerin' to show.”

        “Lemme guess?” I shrugged.  “The Gala got your mind in the clouds?”

        “Hah!  As if!”  She briefly guffawed, then rode the sloping crest of a sad sigh.  “I wished life was that dag-blamed simple.”

        “If it's not the Gala that's been distracting you, then what?” I asked her with a chuckle.  Then it dawned on me.  My smile left as sharply as the breath coming out of my mouth.  “Who?”

        She bit her lip as her face grew long.  I've seen that look before, reflected in a charming stallion's blue eyes.  “T'ain't no matter.  I've prattled and rambled like a little foal, and it's just too late to make anything of it.  Besides... heh... I was born to be a real brute.  What he needs is somethang gentler, some filly with more grace.”

        I gazed softly at her.  I gulped and said, “What a pony needs, a pony often already has.  I've learned that the ones who search the hardest are usually the souls who end up alone.”

        “Hmmm.  There are worse fates,” Ambrosia mused.

        “Yes.”  I slowly, coldly nodded.  “There are.”

        She fidgeted a final time, sighed the last layers of guilt off her shoulders, then produced a brave smile.  “Well, no sense in fussin' the mistakes of yesteryear.  I've got me an apartment to start buildin' tomorrow. I'd better go meet with my crew to begin plannin'.  Have a good afternoon, ma'am.  Here's hopin' you don't run into anymore pathetic mares bent on thinkin' their troubles aloud.  Heheh...”

        I waved as she trotted off.  “It's... hardly a crime...”  She was too far away to hear me, and I was too frozen in my place to try and make her.

        “Tell me, Miss Heartstrings,” Rarity was saying.  She sat across from me at the table in Sugarcube Corner as a rosy candle lit up our conversation.  “If I may be so bold as to inquire: have you ever survived an impossible infatuation?”

        I gazed up at her from my musical notes.  I smiled.

        “Nopony ever survives an impossible infatuation, Miss Rarity,” I said.  “Whatever you were before the Gala, that mare's gone now.  But, ask yourself, would you want that goofy, enchanted filly to come back and live in your body again?”

        She blinked back at me, her face lighting up in the falling shade of evening.  “No,” she gently breathed, shaking her head with a calm smile.  “I imagine that I shan't be that mare ever again, and I am perfectly fine with that.”

        “Still...”  I pointed with the quill pen levitating in my grasp.  “Memories.”

        “Memories, Miss Heartstrings?”

        “They're too delicious to give up entirely, so long as we know that they'll only remain what they flimsily are.”  I gazed at the crown of golden tulip buds haloing the candle between us.  “What better a place for a fantasy to exist than in the recesses of our minds?  As for our hearts—however—it's up to us to prepare them for when the time comes that they'll be made or broken.  No matter how extreme our fantasies are, we can never really anticipate the moment when true love comes, when we're transformed into something less starving... less lonely than the previous shades of us.”

        Rarity took a deep breath.  Her smile was a weathered thing, but it felt truer than any other expression she had graced me with previous.  “I feel as though I have been starving for a terribly, terribly long time.”

        I nodded quietly.  “And some of us have even longer years left to remain hungry.”  After a pause, I brushed a hoof gently over the golden petals and added, “Some of us.  But not all.”

        Quietly, Rarity finished her mug of coffee.  She stood up, but before leaving she trotted over to my seat and rested a hoof on my shoulder.

        “Just be sure starvation doesn't claim you, Miss Heartstrings.  You are far too beautiful to expect nothing from this glorious world.”

        “I know it, Miss Rarity.”  I smiled peacefully up at her.  “After all, everypony is made to be loved.”

        Her lips pursed upon hearing that.  She gave me a sweet smile, something that was strung halfway between proud and melancholic.  On a moist breath, she carried herself out the door of Sugarcube Corner, and into the last waning light of day.

        Alone, I sat with my elegies.  I glanced at Morning Dew's gift of flowers.  I thought about beautiful things, and how all too often they were hidden for fear of the unknown.  I was the only cursed soul in Ponyville who had something legitimate to fear.  More than that, it was my angelic duty to keep it that way.

        Standing up, I blew out the rosy candle, and briskly hoisted the crown of flowers in my hoof.

        The next morning, the noise of power saws and jackhammers filled the wooden framework of the skeletal apartment building with chaotic cacophony.  On just any other day, Ambrosia would have been in complete control of the situation.  Currently, however, she stumbled over equipment and bumped into wooden boards, all the while seething and rubbing her head as if afflicted with a terrible headache.

        “No... no... no!”  She barked over her shoulder.  “I'm tellin' y'all, ya ain't lookin' at the blueprints correctly!  The whole dang foundation is off by over twenty degrees!  At this rate, I'm gonna get an earful once they try installin’ the windows!”

        “Well excuse me, Amber!” Another worker shouted back over the bedlam.  “I was only following your directions!”

        “And how many times have I told you—When I'm comin' across as hare-brained, chew me a new one!”

        “If you cared so much about your aching head this morning, then maybe you should be wearing your hard hat like a smart pony!”

        “Don't preach to me!” Ambrosia rubbed her scalp again, sighed, and eventually grumbled, “Though reckon he's right.  What am I doing, tryin' to kill myself?”  Lethargically, she trudged across a stretch of concrete, squinting towards a wooden table.  “Now where in tarnation did I put that stupid thang?”  She grumbled, looking everywhere for her article in question.  “I swear, I put it right there!  Did somepony move it—?”  She froze in place, her mouth agape.

        The hard hat was lying atop a stack of toolboxes.  What was more, it was upside down.  What was even more, its hollow center was filled to the brim with golden, silken tulips—an entire crown of them.

        She plopped her flanks down as she gazed limply at the thing.  Her head shook with each pulsing heartbeat.  Reaching a hoof over, she gently grazed the soft petals.  “Why... Why that sissy little sap...”  Her voice had lost its gruff edge, and she was cracking a gentle smile.  “He didn't...?”  Biting her lip, she gazed beyond the lengths of the construction site.

        “Nnngh... Hey!  Amber!”  A co-worker barked from across the thundering scene.  “Could you pass me the measuring tape while you're over there?”  Several seconds limped by.  He looked up and grumbled again, “Amber?”

        Ambrosia was gone.  So were the tulips.

        Morning Dew finished planting a row of dandelions in the soft bed of a storefront.  Standing up, he wiped the sweat from his brow and admired his hoofwork.  Slowly, he turned around to grab a tool from his gardening wagon.  It so happened that a familiar pony in orange stood in the way.

        He jumped back briefly, then let loose an airy chuckle with a hoof planted over his bandaged chest.  “For goodness' sake, Amber!  Do you want me to collapse on a daily basis?”  He shuffled past her and rummaged through the wooden cart full of plants and things.  “What brings you here?  I thought you were working on the other side of town this month.”

        She stared after him.  After a courageous breath, she muttered, “Are you fixin' to see me wear them?  Is that it?”

        “Uhhhh...”  Morning Dew tilted his head up, blinking towards the horizon.  He turned and squinted at her.  “Huh?  I don't read you...”

        She slowly lifted the hard hat in her grasp.  She chewed on her lip for the length of time it took for him to gaze down and see the tulips gathered in a circle within.

        “Wow.  Those are...”  He narrowed his expert eyes.  “Those are several days' old, but still remarkably fresh!”

        “Only a pony like you can grow them flowers to last that long, Morning,” she said.

        “Well, I guess, but—”  He stopped in mid-sentence.  Fidgeting, he cast her a look that was too confused to appear guilty.

        She read the truth in his expression anyways.  “You... You didn't send them, did you?”

        He slowly, slowly shook his head.  “No, Amber.  I... I'm sorry, but I didn't.  What...?  I mean, how did you think—?”

        “Heh...”  Her breath squeaked out of her as she smiled painfully down at the hard hat and the treasures therein.  “I know.  It's silly.”

        “No!  I mean... it... it's not as silly as you think—”

        “Of course it is, Morning.  It always is.”

        “Amber?”  He gulped and gazed at her worriedly.  “I... I don't understand...”

        “You do.  You just pretend that you don't, like I pretend that I don't.”  She ran a hoof through her mane and cast a vulnerable gaze towards the remains of the crumbled hotel across the street.  A deep breath escaped her lips.  “I catch you lookin’, Morning.”

        “L-looking, Amber?”

        “At the likes of Caramel and Windy.  At Thunderlane and Blossomforth as well.  And I think... no... I know...”  She choked on a soft breath and gazed back at him.  “It's the same way you look at me.”

        Morning Dew said nothing.  He merely hung his head and dug his hoof into a loose piece of soil.

        “Yes.  Yes!”  She chuckled bitterly, sitting down on her haunches finally and all-but-hugging the hard hat to her chest.  “I'm always goin' off on you and teasin' and the like.  It's stupid.  We both know it, and we both know it's just to cover something stupider.”

        “It's not stupid, Amber—”

        “Don't you try to placate me none!”  She briefly frowned, but her expression melted into a vulnerable glance as she leaned forward.  “How come it feels like you're always searchin', and I'm always waitin', and the days just go by faster and faster and all we end up bein' is alone?”

        “We... We're not exactly alone, Amber—”

        “We are, Morning.  We are and... and...”  She winced as her eyes moistened.  A sniffle came out of her, then, “I almost lost ya yesterday.  I almost lost ya—and I feel mighty horrible.  I feel horrible because I feel that way and yet I've never had you to begin with!  And I'm so sorry...”

        “Please.” Morning gazed warmly at her.  “Don't be sorry.  What happened with the demolition was hardly anypony's fault—”

        “Morning, ya knucklehead!”  She laughed and sobbed at once, a pitifully delicious sound.  “That's not what I'm apologizin' for and you know it!”  She reached a hoof over and boldly stroked his cheek.  “I'm beginnin' to realize what I should have done a lot sooner, what a sweet stallion such as you was afraid to do himself.”

        Morning Dew raised his hoof—hesitated—but ultimately grasped her forelimb.  He didn't shove it away.  He merely held it to his face, sighed, and eventually spoke in a somber voice, “I've been afraid for a reason, Amber.  You know what I've always wanted to do in my life.”  His tone wavered, a coltish quality he could never shake loose.  “And you know that at this rate, with what I have to contend with, I'll never be able to do it.”

        “Morning—”

        “You're so much stronger and more confident than me, Amber.”  He looked at her painfully.  “I... I would never be able to make you feel secure.  I would never be able to protect you as I'd like to...”

        She smiled as a tear rolled down her face.  She caressed his cheek just the same.  “You can protect me more than you think, ya sap.  Trust me.”  Her lungs heaved and her smile cracked even wider.  “You really can...”

        That broke something within him.  He let loose a heavy breath, as if liberated by something even more golden than his memories.  He looked down at the hard hat.  Reaching with both hooves, he raised the yellow crown of tulips and looked them over.  Without wasting too many seconds, he gently lifted them towards Ambrosia's head.

        She tilted forward.  Once the crown was in place, she let loose a childish giggle.  “Uhm...”  She sniffed and squirmed nervously under his gaze.  “I... I reckon they don't m-match my eyes none.”

        “No.” He slowly shook his head.  He smiled.  “But they do match your smile.”

        She squeaked forth another chuckle, wiping her eyes with a forelimb.  “Well... That's a start, hmm?”

        Morning Dew shook his head again.  “This is,” he said.  He then leaned in and nuzzled her.

        She nuzzled him back, then clung to him desperately, burying her face into his shoulder.  He returned the gesture, and together the two blended warmly in the center of Ponyville, becoming one with the colorful canvas around them.

        I stood beyond the nearby storefronts, appreciating the art of life.  It was something best done at a distance, after all.  Shuffling the weight of the lyre in my saddlebag, I turned around and marched towards the colder parts of town.  The eighth elegy sprang back to life in my head, along with a burning speculation.

        I couldn't stop thinking... that a true guardian angel's merit is not measured in what she holds onto, but in what she gives up.

        That thought has occupied me all afternoon, to the point that I had to write about it, which is how I come to here, to this cabin, to this journal.  The elegy calls to me.  I know when it's best not to refuse a tender embrace, no matter how cold or pale.  I must figure out its name, its purpose, it position in the symphony.  Beyond that, I know what comes next.  After all, what's left to stop me?

        I won't be writing in this journal again, not until I've performed the eighth elegy, not until I've thrown myself full-force into the only purpose I have left, a moment that's hanging eternally before me like a great black beacon.  If there are no more entries to follow, then that means I will have either frozen to death or been dragged to accursed depths hitherto inconceivable.

        My one assurance—my one affirmative thought at this point—is that there is only one soul who will be burdened with mourning me once I am gone, and that same pony is no longer afraid to declare such.

        Yours, as true as she is real,

                -Lyra Heartstrings

        I may or may not find an escape from this horrible curse of mine.  Sometimes, more than anything, I just wish that somepony would love me.

Background Pony

VIII - “Everypony Is Made To Be Loved”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: theBrianJ, Props, Spotlight, Samrose, RazgrizS57, and VivaceCapriccioso

Cover pic by Spotlight

SS&E’s Ponychan Thread

        Dear Journal,

        What are we afraid of?  What fills us with dread each night?  What forces our eyes to open wide, against the percussion of our panting breaths, so that we may determine whether we are actually dead or just sleeping?

        What gives shadows their sharp edge?  What makes a black doorway so foreboding, a dusty corner so full of shapes and whispers?  What tugs at the hairs on the back of our necks so harshly? 

        We've grown accustomed to a world that is safe, warm, and tranquil.  When the slightest chaotic event undermines the sanctity of our domain, we become uneasy.  We discover the taste of trepidation, a very bitter bile that sits in the back of our throats.  We cling to our loved ones and we dream of them being eternal, just as we wish our anxieties to be impermanent.  We shudder in our homes, beds, and tears, thinking that we are afraid.

        I have seen the land between the firmaments.  We are not afraid enough.

        My name is Lyra Heartstrings.  Two days ago, I became the first mortal pony in a millennium to have performed a damnable symphony, and yet I have come back from the freezing shadows.  I am alone with the memories of what I have witnessed.  As of this moment I am alive, and I have much to write about.

        It started with a song, as all things do.  The melody poured into every corner of the room, filling the air with a haunting, mournful frequency.  When it ended, its echoes lamenting the final chords of my lyre, I opened my eyes to see Twilight Sparkle standing in the library before me, on the verge of tears.  Her mouth hung open, and very numbly my foalhood friend stammered:

        “'Twilight's Requiem.'”

        And with that, Elegy #8 had a name.

        “'Twilight's Requiem?'” I repeated.  I lowered the lyre back into my saddlebag and sat on my haunches across from her in the afternoon's glow.  “That's a rather interesting choice for a name,” I said, though my voice came out in a drone.  I had just finished the usual routine with Twilight, telling her all that she needed to know in order to help me come up with this title.  “You sure you haven't gotten it mixed up with something else?”

        “I... I'm sure,” she murmured.  Her ears were folded against her head.  She sat in a slump, looking like a wilted bouquet of violets.  Her eyes searched the shadows of the room as her mind reached solemnly into the past.  “There's no way I could forget the name of that instrumental.  When Princess Celestia first taught it to me during a history lesson, I remember being instantly intrigued.  I was a young filly at the time, and I guess I read a little too much into the word 'Twilight' being an important piece of Canterlot music history.”

        “And just how important a piece is it really?” I asked her in a pointed manner.  “Please, Twilight,  anything you have to tell me could be immensely helpful right now.”

        “Helpful?”  Her lips quivered.  She looked up at me with sad eyes.  “How could anything help you, Lyra?  If what you've said is true, then—”

        “Please.  There isn't much time.”  I stood up and trotted firmly towards her.  “This Requiem... what connections could it have had with Princess Luna?”

        “I... I-I studied up on it one summer while Princess Celestia was away on a meeting of diplomacy with the Queen of the dragons,” she said.  “I listened to the recording and I thought it was one of the saddest instrumentals I had ever heard.  Shortly thereafter, I asked some of the royal archivists in the Palace Library about it.  I wasn't told much, only that the song had its origin during Shadow's Advent.”

        “Shadow's Advent?” I remarked, squinting in thought.  Every unicorn scholar knows about the poetically labeled era immediately predating the Civil War.  Princess Luna, secretly on the verge of becoming Nightmare Moon, had withdrawn into seclusion.  Her total and unexpected isolation had a negative effect on all of Equestria.  Rumors filled the land that the alicorn goddess had developed some sort of unearthly affliction.  Even Princess Celestia herself was consumed with worry.  When Luna came out of her self-imposed exile, she wasn't the same.  Nightmare Moon had consumed her, and the civil war that followed ravaged much of the countryside.  My first thought was a curious one: just how could Luna have found the time to compose a requiem during such a dark chapter in her life?  “Did the archivists have any knowledge of who wrote the piece during that era?” I ultimately asked Twilight.

        She slowly shook her head.  “There's no way to be sure.  Luna was known to have composed a lot of music in the century that preceded her banishment.  However, the Requiem has no established author.”

        “But was the knowledge of the Requiem stored in the Celestial Library or the Lunar Archives?”

        Twilight fidgeted.  She trembled slightly.

        “Twilight,” I said with a sigh.  “This is important—”

        “I d-don't know, okay?!”  Twilight exclaimed, her voice cracking.  “I want to help you, Lyra.  I want to help you so much.  But... But I don't know.  There isn't much in the Lunar Archives that has survived the Great Canterlot Eclipse to tell of what happened during Shadow's Advent.  The only records that point to that time period are sporadic pieces of literary antiquity, books that have been preserved in the hooves of common citizens over the last thousand years.  Those are difficult to find at best.  But...”  Her eyes briefly brightened in thought.

        “What?”  I leaned forward, curious.

        She gulped, then said, “I have a unique collection here in the Ponyville Library.  It's an extremely old sample of Equestrian literature.  Not even I'm capable of reading half of it, seeing that most of the material is written in Moonwhinny and Old Equine.  From what I can tell, most of the books are simple almanacs written by pre-Civil War unicorn astronomers.  The tomes likely reached Ponyville through refugees who fled from the war-torn fields of Whinniepeg to the north a thousand years ago.”

        “Where are these books?”

        “Spike and I keep them in the basement, along with several books that are even older.  With the use of enchanted mana crystals, I cast a protection spell over the archives on a regular basis.  There's no telling when a visiting Canterlot scholar might want to peruse the material.”

        “Well, I think I'd better have a look at them.”

        “Lyra, I'm telling you...” Twilight stood and looked me in the eyes.  “The books have nothing to do with Princess Luna's legacy or music composition or... or...”  She shuddered, running a hoof over her face.  “What would it mean to you anyways?  Don't you have all you need to know about this... this latest elegy of yours?”

        “Performing the elegies is never easy,” I muttered.  I was already eying the wooden door that led down to the library's dark basement.  “If I can find any information about them whatsoever, no matter how obscure, then I'll take it.”

        “Do you have to perform them, Lyra?”  Twilight remarked.  “You make them sound so dangerous and... foreboding!”  She gulped, then smiled hopefully.  “I know!  Let me perform them with you!  I can summon a protection field three times as powerful as any other unicorn in town.  I can prepare us for whatever magical consequences your symphony might bring.”

        “Out of the question, Twilight.  The elegies are mine to perform and mine alone.  Besides, your memory wouldn't last long enough to let you assist me.”

        “It's... It's just...”  Twilight was shuddering.  I've seen this reaction far too many times.  It's like an old record being played over and over again to the breaking point.  The tonality grows duller and duller, to the point that my ears barely twitch upon each wavering octave of my old friend's frail voice.  “It's so unfair.”

        “I must not let the nature of my curse inhibit me, Twilight,” I said.  “I've been given one clue, one set of directions, since Nightmare Moon afflicted me, and it's all framed by these songs that haunt my mind.  One way or another, I'm performing them.  If they destroy me, so be it, for sometimes destruction is the very essence of transformation.  Wouldn't you agree?”

        “No!” she shouted.

I wondered what was more awkward, how sharply she exclaimed it or how little I had expected such sharpness.

“I don't agree!”  She then did something else that was surprising: she gripped my hoof in hers and held it firmly.  “You don't need to be alone!  You don't need to be a stranger!”

        “But...”  I gazed at her,  my heart beating quickly.  I wasn't used to our encounters turning this dramatic. What was so different this time?  “But I am alone, Twilight.  Until I unravel the mystery of these songs, I have to deal with that.”

        “But right now, I know, Lyra!”  Her eyes were rippling pools of violet.  I felt like I was trying to tread water and only failing.  “You've told me so much, and I know.  To think that you've been here all this time, with nopony aware of your selfless deeds.! To think that we were foalhood friends!”

“Twilight...”  I touched her hooves back.  It was a blunt gesture, like leaning my forelimb against a plank of wood.  “I told you about our forgotten pasts because I needed you to trust me.  Could you imagine a strange unicorn walking in here and asking for help in identifying these elegies without any explanation?”

She obviously wasn’t in the position to imagine anything.  A very concrete moment had blossomed before her, and it threatened to crumble in the next frigid blink.  “How can you think that this is the only reason you came to me, Lyra?  You poor thing!  This situation you’re in: how could you afford any friends besides what only memories give you?”

        “Please...” I sighed and shook my head.  I tugged slightly, my forelimb beginning to slip from her grip.  “I can deal with it.  I’ve found the strength to—”

        “Friendship is the most powerful thing in the world, Lyra!”  She exclaimed, her eyes moistening.  “Right now, you and I are friends again!  We have to preserve that at all costs!  We have to fetch the Princess!  With Celestia’s help, we’ll gather all of the strongest magicians in Equestria and—”

        “It won’t work, Twilight!” I blurted.  It was a lot louder than I had intended.  I blanched at the sight of a frowning unicorn reflected in her foalish eyes.  “Twilight.  I’m sorry.  But... I-I’ve been through all of this.  I know you only want the best.”

        Her lips quivered as a tear ran down her cheek.  “I don’t want the best.  I want to stop losing friends.”  She blinked once, and her face paled over.  Without letting go of my hoof, she turned to look at a familiar picture frame sitting on a table on the far side of the library.  Two young mares stood in the photograph, smiling.  There was room for a third pony.

        That's when I realized it.

        Oh dear Celestia.  That's what it is.  That’s what’s different.

        “You...”  She whimpered.  She squeezed my hoof tighter.  “It was you.  It was always you.”  She turned towards me, and the tears were flowing freely now.  “There's so much in my life that has been missing.  My foalhood was devoid of music.  I came to Ponyville feeling lonely and unloved.  And now... M-Moondancer is gone for good.” she sniffed.  She choked.  “But it all m-makes sense now, Lyra.  You... you were robbed from me.”  She bit her lip and almost squeaked forth, “You were robbed, Lyra, and now that I finally have a chance to get to know that part of me that's always been missing, you're only going to go away again?  But why?!  Why does it have to be this way?!  This... this curse!  I just don't understand it...”

        “Twilight.”  I fumbled to speak evenly.  I saw her tears, but for some reason I couldn't feel them.  I tried to smile.  It must have appeared like a broken grimace.  I realized I hadn't tried smiling that entire afternoon until then.  What was worse, I hadn't the capacity to feel guilty over it.  “Please, calm down.  Seriously.  It's... it's okay—”

        “No!  It's not okay!”  Twilight cried.  She clutched my hoof tighter.  She knew more than any pony in existence that I was about to fly away, like a pile of leaves scattered to the wind and all of them scented with her tears.  “I've discovered something pr-precious and sweet... and you're telling me th-that in a matter of minutes, it'll all be gone!  How could that possibly be okay?!”

        “I... I...” There was everything to say; there was nothing to say.  I was no longer thinking about the Requiem.  Something else was worth composing an elegy for, but suddenly I realized I hadn't the strength to write it.

        So I did the next best thing, something that had once taken me nearly twelve months of these repeated conversations with Twilight before I had the courage to ask for it.  Only this time I gave it, gave it to her, folding my forelimbs around her and marveling at how horrifyingly small she felt within the tender embrace.

        Day in and day out, I can't stop myself from spreading this curse like a pestilence.  Being a pariah should never work this way, but who am I to complain?  There is only one thing I can do, one thing I'll ever be capable of doing, one thing that holds any significance to the ghosts that I construct around me by simply touching them.

        I apologized.  “I'm sorry, Twilight.”  I apologized... and nothing else.  Last words are the most worthless words of all.  That's another reason why I love songs over soliloquies.  “I'm... I'm so sorry...”

        “I... I-I don't want you to g-go...” She sobbed in my grasp.  She shook in my grasp.  Her voice was that of a hiccuping little foal's.  “I d-don't want you to go away, Lyra,”  she nuzzled my shoulder, her tears staining my hoodie.  “First Moondancer, and now you?  I d-don't know what's worse: losing friends or losing the memory of why they'll never return...”

        I clenched my teeth.  There was a reason for it.  The wall of cold was bearing down on us like a tidal wave.  For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was almost grateful for it.  I closed my eyes upon the crest of the frozen deluge, wading through it with my foalhood friend's cries.  There in the library, I hugged Twilight Sparkle gently as she died in my forelimbs.

        I felt it the moment that her body went limp in my grasp.  All of her shivers stopped.  All of her sobs stopped, and I knew that something immeasurably precious was gone forever.

        “Unnngh...” her voice grunted.  She swayed in my forelimbs, running a hoof over her forehead as her eyes danced dizzily.  “Whew... What... Wh-what happened?”

        “You...”  My voice was hoarse, breathy.  I cleared my throat and held her at a comfortable length, looking plainly into her eyes.  “You fell.  I... uh... I had to catch you.”

        “Really?”  Twilight blinked.  She made an awkward face, then reached a hoof up to her conspicuously moist cheeks.  “What...?”

        “You don't remember?” I forced a hollow smile.  “The encyclopedia from the top shelf fell on your skull.  You took a very brave bump there, ma'am.”

        “Oh jeez.”  She chuckled and rolled her eyes, wiping her cheek dry.  “You think I'd be a grown mare at this point.  Heh... Rainbow would never let me hear the end of it if she saw me shedding tears over a little tumble.”  She bit her lip and looked my way.  “This secret is safe between us, Miss...?”

        I opened my mouth.  I paused, swallowed, then said, “I... I-I was just checking out a book.  I'm not here for long.”

        “Well, my dragon assistant Spike can certainly help you with that!”  She said, then trotted away gaily.  “I've got a letter to the Princess to finish!  Ever since the Grand Galloping Gala three days ago, I've been procrastinating.  I don't know what I'd do if I was tardy.”

        “I'm sure you'll impress her just fine.”

        “Heehee.  Well, I'll try not to let you or the Princess down, miss!”  She was almost out of earshot.  “Thanks again for catching my clumsy self!”

        “Please...”  I murmured, gazing into the shadows.  “Don't mention it...”

        “I gotta admit,” Spike said, holding a glowing lantern as he led me down a series of winding steps into the dark, dusty basement of Ponyville's Library.  “You're the first pony in ages who's bothered to visit this creepy place.”  The massive roots of the treehouse stretched down all around us.  There, on the bottom floor of the cylindrical cellar, a series of dusty bookcases rested within the glow of enchanted mana crystals.  “Hardly anyone asks to see these old, old heaps of junk.  Heh... don't tell Twilight Sparkle I called them that.  For some reason she thinks these decaying scraps are crazy valuable.”

        “The easier something is to forget, the easier it is to call it meaningless,” I murmured.  There was no point in telling him that I had been down here before—at least five times.  In every occasion I had no reason to believe that this place was worth paying anything more than a blind search, until now.  “Thanks for showing me the way, Spike.  But you can go back to what you were doing.”

        “You sure?”  He made a face, hanging the lantern on a rusted hook along the earthen wall of the basement.  “I wouldn't be a very good research assistant if I just abandoned you.”

        “Very well then,” I muttered, then pointed towards the bookcases.  “Are these arranged by literary periods?”

        “Yup.  From pre-Classical to mid-Millennial.”

        “Is there a section for books made during Shadow's Advent?”

        “Oh yeah, definitely!”  Spike grabbed a rickety wooden hoofstool.  Sliding it to the middle of the third bookcase, he hopped atop the platform and brushed a few cobwebs loose from the fourth shelf.  “Here we are.  According to Twilight's labels—and you can never doubt that unicorn's labels—these six books are all from that time period.  Looks like a bunch of boring astronomy almanacs written in dead languages.  You sure this is what you're looking for, miss?”

        “Yes, Spike,” I said plainly.  I trotted over and took the stool from him.  “Thank you very much.  I'll take it from here.”

        “Well, if you insist.”  He shrugged and marched towards the stairs.  “If you need me, though, just yank the cord along the wall next to the lantern.  It's attached to a bell on the first floor of the library.  Give it one tug, and I'll come running down to help you out!”

        “I'll keep that in mind.”

        “Sure thing.”  He paused and pointed at me with a smile.  “And by the way—”

        “Yes, yes,” I droned, tugging on my stone-gray sleeves.  “I know it's pretty 'swell.'”

        “Heh.  Okay.  Good luck with your research, ma'am.”

        His waddling footsteps clawed their way up the stairs.  The door creaked open, lingered, then shut with a tiny thud.

        As soon as he was gone, I collapsed.  I fell with my back to the bookcase and rested my head atop the stool.  Burying my face into my forelimbs, I took several deep breaths, shuddering through waves of cold, gray thoughts.

        I couldn't shake loose the memory of Twilight's body going limp in my embrace.  One moment she was crying up a storm, and the next moment she was as tranquil as pond water.  It was alarming to me just how dramatic I had allowed our encounter to get.  Surely it wasn't all because of Moondancer's absence.  I should have tried harder to solace Twilight, to comfort her, to ease the shock and distress of the knowledge I had bitterly bequeathed her with.

        My heavy exhales echoed across the deep basement of the library.  As lonesome and somber as the chamber felt, it was a strange relief to be there, to be alone, to be surrounded in shadows.

        What's wrong with me?  What am I becoming?  A month or two ago, I could smile and still mean it.  What had changed?  Why couldn't I feel Twilight's panic and horror until it was too late to do anything?

        I couldn't deny it: I was happy that she forgot who I was.  I was actually glad that the curse flew in and silenced her, sticking the needle in and deflating her so that only an amnesiac shell emerged from the ashes.

        But I didn't always think that way.  After all, I like to believe that in fifteen months I have become a tenacious pony, a caring pony, a unicorn who can face adversity with courage and weather sorrow with grace.  If one thing is for certain, I have definitely become strong, only I fear that I've become too strong.  Is strength something to be proud of, even if it makes me blind to another pony's feelings while I strive to unlock the secrets of my curse?

        I want to blame so many things, things that I have endured, things that I have given up.  I want to blame the elegies, the horror of uncertainty that comes with performing them, the ever-troubling possibility that I’m traversing a freezing road that has no end.

        But no matter how hard I try to analyze it, I have no excuse.  Who do I have to convince that I am becoming a stronger pony, for better or for worse?  Who other than myself can judge the crimes or blessings I’ve committed on this village full of tranquil souls?

Sitting in the library basement, I was more alone than ever.  Another day had come and gone.  I had once again lost everything, and all I had gained was a title to a song that only meant something to me.  I shuddered, hugging my forelimbs to my chest.  I once again saw my dear friend's eyes, and they were full of deeper tears than all I ever had to christen this world with, because hers at least deserved the warmth that they carried into oblivion.  “Twilight's Requiem” indeed...

        I couldn't find the power to cry.  Yes, I had changed.  What I had changed into, I didn't bother trying to find out.  I had a far more ancient mystery to solve, and if there's one thing what was left for me to feel proud of, it was the lengths to which I had learned to do proper research.

        So, I stood up, cast a dim light spell with my horn, illuminated the six tomes from Shadow's Advent, and suddenly realized that my skills in proper research meant absolute rubbish.  Spike, for all of his juvenile hyperbole, wasn't exaggerating.  The cobweb-strewn books held no intrinsic value upon first glance.  In the second glance, all I gathered were ancient letters that all of my learned years of linguistic studies hadn't prepared me for.  On a third glance, I saw trace phrases of Moonwhinny in syntactical arrangements so bizarre that they sent my brain for a loop.  A fourth glance nearly made me vomit in an attempt to speak the backwards samples of Old Equine dancing before my eyes.

        An hour into the “research,” and I was about ready to call it quits.  The migraine I had developed was excruciating.  I almost felt that sitting down to perform the elegies would have been a welcome respite from what I was doing there in the library basement.  I sighed in the pathetic knowledge of why I was actually there.  I was only delaying the inevitable.  Twilight, in her innocence and helpfulness, had given me the last puzzle piece I wanted—though I certainly didn't need it.  I had established the eighth elegy well enough in my mind.  There was no real necessity in naming the piece.  I had to come to grips with the fact that the visit to the library was merely an act of cowardice.  The next step was actually the previous step.  I had to go home, face the night, and then serenade it—as well as myself—into the dark horizon looming perpetually before me.

        Just as I steeled myself to leave and do this, I stopped in my tracks.  I squinted at the six tomes, for one of them was suddenly standing out to me.  The mana-light had caught the binding with a curious glint.  All that time, I had been looking for words that might clue me into the books' possible relation to Princess Luna's legacy.  It hadn't occurred to me to look for symbols until it showed up before my eyes.

        One of the books—the thinnest, to be exact—had the same emblem repeated several times across its spine.  It was none other than the Mare in the Moon, etched in dark lines throughout the brown texture.  With gentle telekinesis, I raised this book towards my eyes.  Turning it over, I found the cover to be just as meaningless to me as when I first glanced at it.  The words were in some proto-Moonwhinny gibberish that would have made sense to a pony one thousand years ago.  I cursed myself for not having ancestral ties to the unicorns of old Whinniepeg.  Then again, most families with a history of prior service to Princess Luna did their best to eradicate all records of such ties.  Nightmare Moon and the Equestrian Civil War were subjects that served only to blemish one's familial legacy.  If history has proven anything, it's that the deepest of scars stand to be hidden from future eyes.

        But just what was this tome hovering before me in my telekinetic grasp?  Was it an ancient splinter of an era that held meaning to the Requiem that I was about to perform?  I flipped the pages open, and all I could do was sigh.  The old brown sheets were covered in the same indecipherable text.  On top of that, many of the pages were blank altogether.  I began to understand why these tomes rested in the largely unvisited depths of the basement.  Only an immortal alicorn who's lived long enough to find the meaning in meaningless could make use of these things.

        And yet, I knew my place.  I was forever chasing the musical trail left by such a goddess, and I couldn't accomplish any of that by standing still.  It was perhaps too late to punish myself for being so apathetic to Twilight's plight.  There was still time to exorcise the coward within me.  Gently, I balanced the book on my spine, lifted the lantern from the wall, and trotted up the steps leading to the first floor of the library.

        Minutes later, I wandered north through the streets of Ponyville.  I was taking my time.  The sunset was a glorious thing, a crimson bath of bright colors that lit up every tree in a prismatic preview of fall.  As the shadows of buildings bent across the ground, I saw a solid stream of red light stretching north beneath me, like a path that painted my way home, and toward a dark destiny.

        So, I lingered.  Every hoofstep was like dipping a wooden paddle into molasses.  I breathed the crisp air of the coming autumn.  I looked at the scenery surrounding me, and the living souls communing within.

        Ponyville is a tiny village.  Its population barely surpasses fifteen hundred equines.  In the seventeen months that I've had the pleasure of associating with these souls, I've memorized the names of nearly half of them.  It's not so monumental a task when it's the only hobby one has to keep from going insane.

        Walking through the town as the sun was setting—quite possibly the last sunset I would ever see—a part of me wondered why I ever bothered with such diligent observation over the past year and a half.  Would my situation have been any different if I had been cursed in the center of Manehattan instead?  Or Fillydelphia?  Or Baltimare?  Whether I was surrounded by hundreds of ponies or by thousands, it made little difference.

        I am a mare of one.  My world begins and ends with me: my breaths, my voice, my song.  The only permanent discussions I have to look forward to are the bitter opportunities I take to speak with myself.  The one soul destined to read these journals is the same pony whose eyes guide a lonesome pen across these papers.

        The sunset was bright and fiery, but as I walked home I could only spot its dying hues.  Each pony was casting a somber shadow.  Each soul was a vessel for blissful secrets I would never be capable of partaking in, for the frigid veil between us grew more and more solid with each blistering day that went by.  If I craned my neck, I could hear their ghostly murmurs.  Scootaloo was having some horrible argument with Milky White.  Derpy Hooves was apologizing desperately to an angry stallion whom she had bumped into.  Rarity was moaning and whining to Fluttershy about some terrible change of style in the fashion industry.  Then, in the distance, I heard the playful banter between Ambrosia and...

        I took a deep breath.  My ears filled with the sound of my own shivering body.  Piercing another wave of cold, I marched away from the ponies, from the strangers, and from the colors of Ponyville.  I threaded my way into the woods, towards my cabin, towards darkness.  I can't exactly put my hoof on the singular moment in time when every shade, shape, and texture of life had become a poison to me.  What's intriguing is that I wasn't feeling nauseated about it.  Something about the depths to which I fell was natural and calming, like fitting into a perfectly tailored dress saddle.

        Whatever guilt I felt about mishandling Twilight's grief had dissipated, for I was glad that she couldn't accompany me.  The sensation of her sobbing body melting in my embrace had become a blissful memory.  I was relieved that Twilight couldn't follow me this deep, that she couldn't share in what I had come to discover about the dark ironies of life.

        I didn't want her to know, as I was starting to know, that many months ago there was a young mare standing on the edge of a tall building in the center of a village.  And when that mare heard the words of a brave stallion, and stepped back from the edge, she may very well have made a mistake.

        There is, after all, a truth that is hidden beyond the curtains of madness, and it has become my thankless task to write songs about it.  I couldn't smile anymore; I couldn't laugh anymore.  I trotted directly home and shut the dying day away behind a thick wooden door.

        I sat in my cot with the ancient tome opened beneath me.  Swarms of meaningless words swam before my eyes like so many faded and outdated constellations lying within.  I should have been spending those last few hours meditating.  In a way, I was.  To stare into senselessness was the essence of the journey I was about to take.  A part of me hoped against hope that something from the hidden pages of the Shadow's Advent literature would gear me for that which was to come.  As always, I knew better.  Nevertheless, I ingested the paragraphs upon paragraphs of Moonwhinny in silence, dreading the moment when I would close the book for good and proceed with the night's solemn orchestration.

        I measured the hours in dying bands of sunlight.  The windows above me grew dimmer and dimmer.  There was something about that afternoon that was already starting to haunt me.  It felt quieter than normal.  It was as if the woods all around me were sleeping, lying in weight for a crescendo to wake them so that they might unleash insurmountable horrors upon this stupidly brave unicorn.  There were three crimson bands of sunlight drifting through the window, then two, then one.  Once the darkness had fallen, my skin froze over with invisible steel.  Fate rarely announces itself with more than a gentle murmur.  I slapped the fragile book shut, got up from my cot, and gathered my things.  My lyre, my notes, the sound stones, my lantern: all joined me in a graceful dance as I made my way around the cabin in silence.

        All the while, I couldn't stop thinking of Twilight—no matter how hard I tried.  I wondered what would happen if this was the last song I had to play, if all of my labors came into fruition, if the curse was finally obliterated.  With the onrush of so many memories, would she forgive me for all the times I had dangled her like a marionette over the gaping jaws of oblivion, just so I could get the information from her that I needed?  Would she forgive me for letting her die—so many horrible times over—as I lived on, guiltless of my crimes?  Would she still wish to be my friend, now that I was blessed to be remembered, and yet finally cursed to be judged?

        No matter how complicated my life may get, excuses are excuses.  I know that now, and I knew that then.  I marched straight out of my cabin like a bullet.  The door to my shack flew open in a blink.  Closing the chamber behind me, I marched down.  The cellar opened up in an amber swirl of dancing shadows before me.  I hung the lantern overhead before sliding my stool next to the metal stand.  I propped my lyre up just above the written notes of “Twilight's Requiem” in front of me.  With great care, I placed all four re-enchanted sound stones in every corner of the platform around my seat.

        I then proceeded with a final step that I hadn't taken before.  Reaching into the corner of the cellar, I uncoiled a length of rope I had placed there a few days previous.  At the end of this cord was a long iron spike.  I stabbed it hard into the cellar floor, tugging at the cord to make sure that the anchor was snugly in place.  Then, with dexterous telekinesis, I tied the loose end of the cord around my rear left leg, just above my fetlock.  I vividly remembered the last performance, when I had woken up sometime after orchestrating the “Threnody of Night.”  Somehow I had ended up in the middle of the woods, soaked, naked and freezing.  It seemed like a flimsy precaution, but I hoped that my improvised leash would help prevent whatever... or whoever it was from transporting me again this time.

        Finally, I sat down and stared at the lengths of my written symphony.  That was the coldest moment of all, when I realized how long it had taken for me to get to that point and yet how blazingly fast I had marched out of the cabin and thrown myself upon the precipice.  It's a very empty world: to think that one pony and one pony alone is tasked with doing what I do on a regular basis, to stab the depths of existence with a song purposefully forgotten by time.  I was again about to toy with a tune so malevolent and unpredictable that it had turned a goddess into a demon and flung an entire continent of equines into the bloodiest war Equestria had ever witnessed.  If I had known the price for my freedom from the get-go, I wondered if I would ever have plucked my first string of the lyre.

        And yet, I did... and did again.  The cellar echoed with enchantment as I strummed my way into the “Prelude of Shadows.”  But that wasn't all that I did.  I had become a stronger unicorn, a cleverer pony.  I swam my way through the streams of paranoia that were being produced by the song, summoning mana from the timeless melody and using it to buffer my concentration.  By the time I had begun “Sunset Bolero,” I was already halfway through casting the protection spell above me.  Fueled by the energy and excitement bequeathed me by the Bolero, I filtered pure magic through my leylines, until my horn funneled a green dome of shields directly above.  By the time the “March of Tides” began, my mind and body were calm.  I relaxed with the numbness of the tune, witnessing as the dark emerald glow of the sound stones met with the translucent shield of my protection buffer.

        Then all the lights went out.  I breathed evenly, weathering my passage through the blinding bars of the “Darkness Sonata.”  The cellar was cold, but bearable.  My protection field felt like a gentle cocoon, a bundle of blankets carrying me over a dead sea.  When my vision returned, and the “Waltz of Stars” came into full play, I felt more alive than ever.  My heart was pounding, but it heated me up.  I was a living torch in an arctic river, melting the frost all around me.  My body was feeling incalculably stronger than it did during my last feeble playthrough.  For one thing, this filled me with pride.  For another, I realized that at this rate I was going to pierce through the final elegies with full power and lucidity.  There was no avoiding whatever lay beyond the last barriers of my performance.

        It was in this train of thought that I plowed through the “Moon's Elegy.”  My horn vibrated and my shield fluctuated.  I felt like I was charging into battle.  I suddenly remembered what Nightmare Moon's eyes looked like.  I was standing in the middle of Ponyville, shivering in her shadow.  Our gazes met, mortal and immortal.  We weren't alone.  We weren't alone?  Dear Celestia, was I starting to remember things already?  What was this cloud lifting around me?

        I gazed up, my eyes twitching.  I didn't see a cloud.  I didn't see the cellar walls anymore, and yet they were there... only in another skin.  The soil was gone, and breaking through the grittiness was a layer of melting ice.  I heard a great ringing all around me, like a forest of rusted chains forever rattling into the pits of eternity.  Just as soon as my ears ached from it, a far stronger, far darker sound roared to life and tore everything asunder.  I didn't realize it until the lantern blew out above me: I was playing the “Threnody of Night.”  What's more, I was alive... so terribly, damnably alive.  I looked into the gushing wounds of yesterday.  My shield was an emerald tarp dancing between me and the horror.  Nightmare Moon's face dissolved in a bass scream, her memory being ripped from my soul like a decaying scrap of flesh.  In place of the demoness' helm there was born a pair of lifeless eyes.  Her eyes.

        I then knew, in a breath of epiphany that emptied my lungs, what it was that had knocked me out last time, or more appropriately who.  One by one, the four sound stones around me exploded.  My emerald shield ruptured.  The walls of the cellar burst with ice water and ash.  My body swayed with the lonesome rhythm of clattering chains.  As the Threnody collapsed under its final bleak cord, and I felt my eyes rolling back in my head, I summoned whatever strength had been preserved by my shield and committed a final, cognitive act.  I reached my hooves up, grabbed my lyre, and clutched the glowing instrument to my chest.  I had become an unprotected infant—mindless and fearless—as I fell backwards off the stool.

        My body splashed into the waters, and I knew how cold the dead felt.  I gasped, and fluid instantly entered my mouth.  I gagged.  I choked.  My jaws flew shut as I spun in a womb of frost.  It was too cold to open my eyes, too frigid to keep them closed.  The liquid in my mouth was turning into vomitous ice.  I yanked my head forward into the currents, and when my vision returned I saw a glowing green haze.  In a painful blink, I witnessed in terrifying clarity the sight of my lyre floating way from me.  Still encased in my telekinetic energy, the instrument was bobbing towards the dancing surface of a tempestuous river.  A whimper broke into my mouth.  My teeth throbbed with each pulse of my heart as I swam after the lyre, my lungs at the breaking point.  With two numb hooves outstretched, I grabbed the lyre just as it broke the surface.

        Then something unexpected happened.  I fell upward.  I shrieked, spitting out frosted, powdery bile as my body flailed through infinite black space.  Everything was thunderous noise.  Flecks of snow and sleet pounded me as I plummeted from a great height, flying towards nowhere.  I clung to my lyre, my eyes darting every which way.  I saw something twirling in the black nether.  In the emerald glow of my instrument, I realized it was the iron spike still tied to my rear leg along its ropey length.  Before I had a chance to register this, my fall ended... in another lake.

        My body shattered through a thin layer of ice, so that I plunged through bone-chilling depths.  I was being shoved somewhere, carried along arctic currents so swift that stray hairs of my mane were being ripped from their roots.  I clenched my teeth shut, for fear of inhaling more of this ghastly liquid.  As I spun and kicked wildly at the currents, I became aware of things surging past me... or things that I was surging past.  They were dark shapes, linked together, corpse-black and gargantuan.  I saw chains—gigantic, immeasurable lengths of ancient metal—and they were stretching, floating, bouncing all around me.  I counted over ten of them spiraling into forever by the time my vision started to fade, and that's when I broke through yet another surface.

        I gasped as I flew sideways.  Painful specks of snow dotted my gaping mouth and tongue.  It tasted like dead ash.  The thunder was once again deafening.  My quivering eyesight caught bright flashes of lightning blanketing the endless expansion.  Between me and forever, a complex silhouette of thousands upon thousands of criss-crossing black chains flickered like the cracked surface of an egg.  I was so engrossed in the nightmarish blinks that I wasn't prepared for the coming impact.

        The next body of water I landed in was a far more tranquil one.  After the initial splash, I kicked my rear legs and bobbed to the surface.  There, I gasped, treading water and clutching to my lyre in an impossible feat of survival.  My hoodie was soaked to the sleeves; its damp fabric weighed a million pounds.  My mane was slicked over my face.  I tossed my neck and flung the hairs out from my eyes.  The thunder returned.  I winced.  I felt like my ears were about to explode.  There were more bursts of lightning, and I tilted my head up.

        It was then that I saw it, or at least a tiny sliver of the deathly enormity that was engulfing me.  The world no longer had a sky or a floor.  There were no poles, no stars, no hint of shine or purpose beyond the chaotic flashes of unpredictable lightning. Reality had become a series of obsidian shapes, rusted structures of the deepest, blackest metal—and all of them webbed together by unfathomable lengths of rattling chains.  I bore paralyzed witness as solid curtains of water billowed magically across these unearthly platforms.  Gigantic, dancing, shallow seas swept over the perforated expanse, like sheets of rain turned cohesive by ghastly intent.  The floating rivers had no end or beginning, and they fluctuated like silver strands between relentless flurries of bone-white snow.

        There was a black shape beyond the watery body to my right.  I spun towards it.  It was a platform, half the size of Ponyville's town square.  There were two billowing rivers between me and the solid structure.  In desperation, I grasped the golden body of the lyre in my jaws and kicked at my prison with steady strokes.  I lunged earnestly towards the surface.  The unearthly currents were flinging me past Razor-sharp chains in front and behind me.  Any second, any blink, and I would find my body being shred to ribbons.  I caught a rusted strand rattling towards my peripheral vision just as I broke through.

        I flew forward, spun, and fell into the next river.  I dropped straight through it like a solid stone.  There was a flash of lightning as I broke the snowy air again.  The last river was surging in the opposite direction.  I grunted from the whiplash, my body spinning like a top.  Thunder and noise rippled through the currents.  When I came out, I honestly didn't know where I would be flung, until I felt the thud of pain ricocheting through my skeleton.

        “Aaaaugh!”

        I cried forth as I tumbled to a wet, freezing stop atop the platform.  I was sobbing, but I couldn't hear myself.  The thunder was everywhere, filling my ears, clawing at the throbbing center of my brain.  I tried sitting up, but my hooves slipped pathetically on the rusted, vibrating metal.  My eyes opened like a bleeding bird might hatch from an egg.  Ropes of lightning danced as far as my vision could illuminate me.  I was afraid to stand, or else I might fly upwards—or downwards—into ice-frosted oblivion.

        I winced and rolled over.  My tears were freezing to my cheeks.  I reached both hooves up to my face to feel if my head was still attached.  The numbness was overwhelming.  Everywhere I looked there was snow and ice and dancing beams of water.

        “Dear Celestia Almighty...”  Some foalish voice whimpered.  “Where am I?”

        Only thunder answered.  The black infinity could just as well have been a hollow sphere the size of a stagecoach.  The acoustics bounced the bass of the thunder back and forth across my skull until I was certain I would implode.

        “Is... Is...”  The voice started to sound vaguely cognitive, like something I could recognize.  I swallowed and murmured, “Is this where the cold comes from?”

        I no longer had any doubt, only screams.  Before I could emit another one, I realized the darkness around me was doubling, tripling.  All this time, I had just one light source other than the lightning.  My hooves were empty, and I realized what a bad thing that was.  Spinning around, I saw my glowing lyre.  The emerald instrument was sliding away on a carpet of ice... until it spilled directly over the edge of the black platform.

        “Nnngh—No!”

        I galloped towards it.  I lurched and fell.  The iron spike dangling from my left leg was dragging.  Gnashing my teeth, I leaped again, bounded, and slid directly after the lyre.

        The instrument went over the edge.  I plunged after it.  Flailing, my forelimbs barely caught the thing.  The situation hardly helped me any; I was dangling now on the lid of the rusted structure.  My mouth fell wide as I found myself gazing into a bottomless corridor of criss-crossing, chained lattices.  What was more, the rusted strands weren't empty.  There were... shapes bound to them, spread apart at indiscriminate lengths.  They were the source of the endless rattling, but that wasn't all.  When the thunder spread overhead and underhoof, some deep noise in the midst of the shapes responded.

        It occurred to me then that the thunder was more than a ghastly phenomenon.  For as deep and chaotic as the booming noises sounded, there was a deep and barely discernible pitch to the explosive echoes.  I imagined that I could very well have been listening to some timeless track, a song older than death itself, slowed down to such a pitch that the whole grating sensation resembled a sea of tombs scraping up against one another.  And with each booming resonance—accompanied with flashes of bright lightning—there was a sickly chorus replying from the forest of dangling bodies below.

        “Oh my...”  I stammered breathlessly.  My quivering eyes squinted.  “Are those... are those ponies?”

        There was a spray of sleet against my back.  I turned around.  I gasped.  A vertical sheet of river water was sweeping like a band of translucent gray smoke across the platform.  In less than ten seconds, it would overtake me.

        Panting, I clambered back onto my hooves.  I stood on the edge of the platform.  The wall of water crept towards me, laced with chunks of ice.  There was nowhere for me to run.  Panicking, I shivered in place.  I thought of Mom and Dad.  I thought of Ponyville.  I thought of...

        Twilight.

        “Twilight's Requiem...”

        I was there for a reason.  Just as I was cursed for a reason.  I had no answers, no hope, no light in the center of that nightmare.  But I did have a song to play.

        With the water rushing straight at me, I considered my options, then promptly dashed every one of them for the impulsive absurdity I was about to perform next.  I tilted my head forward, concentrated, and cast a protection spell just as the currents hit.

        “Nnnngh!”

        I gnashed my teeth and struggled, my limbs buckling as I forced the green dome to stay in one piece.  Ice water and snow danced all around me.  Random droplets and frigid flakes spilled through and pelted my coat.  I counted the agonizing seconds in my head, breathing the last few gasps of oxygen allowable in the fragile pocket I had formed around myself.  My aching eyes sought an end to the floating river of water.  At the rate it was passing, I had only three meters left.  My lungs shook and my heart raced.  Just as I could smell the cold air on the other side...

        Bands of bright lightning surged past the platform.  The thunder rocked my world with a vaporous, bass scream.  My shield shattered in an instant.  The water caved in around me.  Slabs of ice raked my flesh.  I screamed bubbles as I twirled back with my lyre, broke through the advancing side of water, and flew into the rattling depths of madness.

        “Aaaah!”  I howled.  I spun.  I saw a razor sharp webs of chains encompassing my vision.  There was rust.  There were shapes.  There were hooves.

        I splashed into a blurry world once more.  Yet another floating stream had saved me at the last second.  The current was strong in this liquid body, and I was being hurled towards something rigid and dark.  I hoped against hope that it was another platform, so I swam towards it.  The current nearly flung me past the structure by the time I broke free.

        I shrieked, for I was flying towards a solid black cylinder.  A belated flash of lightning illuminated a series of holes carved into the rusted surface, and I aimed my weightless body towards one of them.

        “Ooof!”

        I landed awkwardly, and so did my lyre.  As I clung to the sharp edge of the entrance, my instrument clattered to a stop somewhere inside the thick stalk.  I lost my telekinetic grasp on the strings, and they stopped glowing with an emerald shine. I dangled in the darkness, one slip away from oblivion.  Struggling, kicking and scraping with my rear hooves, I finally got a solid grasp.  I pulled my aching self up into the hollow of the stalk.  I took a few more seconds to drag the dangling spike with me as well.  Once inside, I was overcome with pitch black.  The thunder's bass felt louder in here.  I was in a race against going deaf as I fumbled for my lyre.  I needed my instrument.  I needed to feel.  I needed to see...

        As soon as I grasped it, the metal touch was hardly a relief to me, for I was being overwhelmed by a new sensation.  Beyond the numbness, I realized that there was more than thunder echoing in the cylindrical belly of the stalk.  My aching ears twitched, registering a rattling noise that was all around me.

        For a few seconds I sat there, hyperventilating, clutching the lyre to my soaked hoodie.  The rattling intensified, responding to the thunder in perfect cadence.  Finally, after my heartbeat had become indistinguishably rapid, I concentrated mana through the leylines of my horn and enchanted my lyre.  The claustrophobic interior of the stalk lit up with a sickly pale green, and where there were supposed to be walls there were only faces.

        “Augh!”

        I shrieked and huddled in the middle of innumerable bodies.  They were ponies... or at least they once were.  Their coats had turned to slick, gangrene pale.  Where their eyes and mouths should have been, there instead were pairs of metal braces, opaque shackles of the same black rust as the chains that bound their limbs to the walls of the cylinder.

        I wretched and covered half my face with the lyre, my pulsating eyes failing to ignore every tiny detail of the corpses around me.  Then the thunder resonated again, and I learned that they were hardly corpses.  They were hardly anything.  They were twitching, lurching, rattling the chains with discordant attempts at harmony.  Then as the next round of thunder boomed, and the one after that, they were no longer responding to it.  I was there, I was warm, and I had a glowing lyre.  They were responding to me.

        At first, I thought I was hearing metal scraping against metal.  But there's no way that rust can produce a sob or a scream.  Their moans rose in a cyclone of cacophony, and I was the center of the necrotic maelstrom.  Frozen hooves came to life and reached, groped, fished towards me.  Something was knocking their limbs back, shrieking in return, and it sounded an awful lot like my voice.

        “Nnnngh!  Ahh—Ahauugh!”  I thrashed and kicked and bucked the bodies away.  Their moans only intensified.  They lunged and bounced on the stout lengths of their chains in their attempts to embrace me and my lyre.  The howling voices of the blind ponies came out as muffled sobs against the rusted braces clamped over their mouths.  I tried dashing towards the hole that I had squirmed in through, but the bodies had doubled in number and were blocking my way.

        At that point, the horror was drowned out by a rushing sound.  The entire cylinder shook.  I realized that another dancing wave of water had overcome the stalk.  Already, the frigid currents were pouring in through the holes.  As the water level rose up to the ponies' hooves, fetlocks, and knee-joints—I found myself also drowning in more than just their groping limbs.  Panicking, I climbed half of the clustered crowd and stared above me.  I saw that the hollow cylinder ran the height of one hundred feet straight up.  What was more, it had an end, for I discovered a bright circle of flickering lightning directly above.

        At this point, I was gasping for breath, for the freezing water had climbed to my neck.  I thrashed, fought, and kicked against the water and the shackled ponies all at once.  I thrust myself upwards, sputtering, panting.  Their moans drowned out as one by one, cranium by cranium, the unfortunate souls were engulfed by the currents below.

        And then I jolted.  I shrieked and lunged, but I was no longer budging.  I looked straight down.  Through the refracting surface of the rising tide, dozens of equine bodies swayed like a bucket of drowning snakes, and somewhere in the bustling heart of that squirming mess the iron spike attached to me had gotten caught.

        “Nnngh—No!  Unngh!”  I shouted and pulled and yanked as hard as I could.  The cord that was wrapped around my rear leg was biting into my flesh with each motion I made.  As the water caught up to my shoulders, I bravely reached down to loosen the noose with one hoof—only to have the limbs of the many bodies scratch and tug on me.  “Hnnngh—Let go!  Get—Nnngh—Get off of me!  Get off!  Get—Snkkkt!”  I could no longer speak.  I could no longer breathe.  All was screams and ice and bubbles.  Shackled faces bobbed up and down, swarming in on me.  My rear legs twitched and thrashed.  Chains spun like serpents and my voice was warbling in my ears as the water splashed against the back of my throat.  Somewhere in the drowning casket of limbs and moans, a green light billowed, brighter than my lyre, brighter than the Sun. Twilight had stopped sobbing in my grasp, and I wasn't ready to join her.  That's when the discharge of telekinesis fired.  I had aimed my horn down past me, and the vaporous burst knocked several bodies away in the middle of accomplishing its real task: snapping the cord in two.

        I was free.  I floated up.  I soared up.  I bulleted up.  I caught up with the current and gasped for breath just so I could scream, sail, and fly.

        Lightning welcomed me as I was propelled up out of the hole.  I landed on the flat surface of yet another platform at the top of the stalk.  The ice water of my would-be-tomb shot up like a geyser behind my twitching body as I crawled like a sobbing infant over the rusted lengths I was suddenly afforded.

        I curled inward, hugging my lyre, twitching from head to toe.  The thunder rolled once more, and in perfect answer to it there was a chorus of moans.  What's more, the chorus was all around me.

        My tears dried just in time for me to look up and see a forest of shackled equine bodies lying all across the same platform, curled up in a manner identical to my own.  In the middle of this graveyard of rust and rigor mortis, I whimpered into the frosty air.

        “Oh Celestia... Oh Celestia... Oh Celestia...”

        I closed my eyes and reopened them, hoping against hope that I would wake up in my cabin, in the forest, inside a coffin—anywhere but here, anywhere but this place, anywhere but surrounded by ice and thunder and limbo.

        And yet somewhere in the pit of my most sickly desperation, a rational part of me was still alive, the same spirit that had helped me endure over a year of communicating with forgetful spirits, of trying to make impressions in a world where my hoofsteps were as permanent as raindrops on a sun-roasted sidewalk.

        The elegies...

        Nightmare Moon's tunes...

        It wasn't a symphony...

        It was a barrier...

        It was a seal...

        It was meant to barricade... to barricade this...

        But what is this?

        Where in Celestia's name am I?

        What are all these ponies doing...?

        My heart stopped, for the thunder had stopped, and yet it hadn't.  The bodies all around me were still moaning, still twitching, still pulling at the rusted and rattling lengths of chains.  I glanced up and I saw the lightning coalescing into a single beam of finite purpose.  Where it solidified, I suddenly didn't want to look.  A fear older than life—older than time—was clawing its way up my soul, manifesting itself through a panting sob in the base of my throat.

        I was scampering up to my hooves before I knew it.  I spun and galloped across the platform away from the sight, gripping the lyre in my mouth, hopping over writhing souls in shackles.  I felt as if I had been running from this feeling for as long as I had been alive, even in past lives, even in past dimensions before all things that existed had something to define them.

        I approached the end of the platform.  Why I didn't just jump off, I still can't say.  I'm alive now to write this, for what it's worth.  Perhaps it was fate that made me turn around.  After all, for whatever wicked grace, I was trotting on all four hooves while every pony around me was imprisoned to the bitter blackness upon which I stood.

        But I wasn't brave.  No, it wasn't courage that kept me there.  Nopony in my place—not even souls as powerful and legendary as Starswirl the Bearded—could have done anything more than gawk at what was rising, what was crowning, what was coming to life with a horrid grace that made me want to scrape my eyes to a bloody pulp with the sharp edges of my lyre.  It was a new horror, a new color, a second death.  I had stared Nightmare Moon in the face and lived, only to come to this point, to greet somepony darker than even her, possessed by this abyss beyond the elegies that must have once swallowed Luna, and was now digesting me.

        When she appeared, I realized that all I had left to protect me was a song.  It was what the world began with, and it was what empowered her.  The thunder dissolved, and the lightning that heralded it took shape, forming a muzzle, then a long slender neck, then a thin body with a dagger-sharp frame that trudged towards me on impossibly tall legs.

        If I had anything left inside of me, it would have joined the frozen refuse atop the platform.  Instead, I had one thought ricocheting through my mind.

        “Twilight's Requiem.”

        The lightning too disappeared, and over it there swarmed bands of black that came together to form putrid flesh, her flesh.  She was glorious.  She was terrifying.  She was the end and beginning of all screams, the final breath of waking that drags us to slumber and someday drags us to death.

        “Twilight's Requiem.”

        A song had brought me there.  I could only hope another song would take me back as well.  I raised the lyre ahead of me.  My eyes were locked on her figure as I played the first ten notes of the instrumental.  The Requiem was barely distinguishable against the sudden bedlam of moans all around me.

        The shackled ponies had shuffled aside, parting like a sea beneath her hooves as they paid the figure their eternal reverence and fear.  When the alicorn was but four leaps away, her wings expanded in a gust of cold wind.  The limbs were bone-pale stalks, between the spokes of which I spotted infinite pits of black truth stabbing at me with each blink.

        I was halfway through the Requiem.  I felt rivulets of moisture pouring down my forehead and dripping off my horn.  I couldn't tell anymore if it was sweat or blood.  The closer she got, her every hoofstep sent my organs aflame.  I felt like the world was about to explode through my skin and give birth to a new universe of pain and clarity, and all of it given to her in holy sacrifice.

        And that's when she spoke, with all of the thunder channeled through her pale, lifeless teeth.  Bright eyes of immaculate magenta glowed as she leaned her muzzle down and spoke to me with the sound of a million funeral bells ringing.

        “Sing it.”

        I was plucking my way diligently through the Requiem.  There were twenty chords left.  I could barely breathe.

        “Sing my song.”

        Ten chords left.  She was so close that I could read the runes burned into her pale flesh.  There were thousands of unrecognizable names, and her sinewy limbs swam like velvet mountains underneath them.  Off her flaring nostrils, I could smell the end of everything.”

        “Sing my song and become nothing—”

        Before the volume of her holy utterance could echo in my earlobes, I was falling back, plunging off the platform, sailing through the snow like a burning comet...

        ...until I landed on a bed of grass in the middle of Ponyville.  It was the dead of night, and the world was violently warm.  Stars and crickets swarmed around me as I shivered and gasped like a drowning fish beside a brown building.  My hooves thrashed against the ground and my teeth chattered.  I became aware of a pitiful, low siren wailing against the walls and rooftops on either side of me.  With each progressive second that I floundered in the wet puddle of otherworldly frost, I realized that this moaning sound belonged to me.

        My throat wrestled with countless agonized, indiscernible shrieks.  I rolled over, dropped my lyre, and clasped my aching horn.  Beyond the numb extremities of my limbs, I could still feel the waves of knifing cold slicing across my nerves.  Each throb of pain resonated with the alien thunder tingling in my eardrums.  No matter how hard I hyperventilated, the sea of nightmares would not drain away from my mane and hoodie.  I shrieked for shrieking's sake.  I choked on sobs in a deliberate attempt to test my lungs.  There was a pattern rising, slowly, like a river of insects dancing up my spine on feet of broken glass.

        I didn't notice the light at first, not until the door to the side of the building next to me had been opened.  A series of shuffling hooves blocked the glow, casting a slender shadow on my figure.  I was a thrashing, quivering, noisy mess.  But instead of griping, instead of shouting in consternation, the pony gasped and dashed to my side, all the while exclaiming, “Blessed Celestia!  What happened to you?  Are you alright?!”

        I shivered, curling away from her as I hissed through clenched teeth.  The pattern was setting my insides on fire.  I wanted to explode.  I wanted to vomit.  Nopony in all of creation could come close to being ready for the righteous exclamation to follow.  I tried to save this helpless stranger.  I tried spitting, hiccuping, retching into the darkness instead.

        But the pony did not relent.  Tenderly, she reached over and shook my shoulders.  “Darling, what's wrong?  Why are you like this?  Did somepony hurt you—?!”

        There was no damming it anymore.  The pattern was searing the meat that once made up my throat.  The world was built to collapse over and over again, and the two of us were unfortunate mortals flung in between.  I clasped onto her hoof and practically dragged myself up her forelimb.  Once I was within a whispering distance, I ruthlessly yelled at her.

        “There's a ninth!  Isn't the world cruel enough?!  Hasn't the damnable cold had its fill?!”

        “I... I...”  A pair of blue eyes widened over a stammering face.  “I-I don't understand!  A ninth what—?!”

        “Nnnngh!”  I flung myself back to the ground, growling, seething, clutching my aching cranium in a pair of hooves while the pattern crackled in the depths of my skull.  “Dear Celestia, why?!  Why is there a ninth?!  When will it end?!  When will it ever end?!”

        My anguished voice was muffled in the blades of grass.  In spite of my shivers, I felt a gentle warmth melting through the back of my hoodie.  I realized that she hadn't left my side, despite this unicorn's banshee screams.  She was stroking my back and shoulders, murmuring breathy whispers into my twitching ears.  It was almost enough to break the pattern.  Though my head continued throbbing, I started to calm down—in that my sobs lowered to tranquil whimpers against a backdrop of tingling numbness.

        “Shhhh... Just be calm.  Everything will be alright.  You look so terribly cold, miss.  I don't know where you've been, but you're safe now.  Shhh... relax...”

        I said nothing.  I merely lay there, limp and weightless beneath her administrations.  When I felt her hooves tugging on my shoulders, I had become too exhausted to protest.  She hoisted me up, and I limped with her, leaning my weight against her flank as she gently led the two of us through the side door of her home.

        “Easy there.  One step at a time.  Everything is going to be fine.  We're gonna get you dried and warmed up.  Nopony in Ponyville should have to suffer so.”

        I barely kept my eyes open.  I was vaguely aware of wooden floorboards, white linoleum, and velvety rugs passing below.  Every soft sensation was a fuzzy static being dragged across the jagged memories still blistering inside of me.  Bright lightning strobes were going off in my head, illuminating the pale faces of shackled ponies all around.  Dancing waves of water faded in and out of comprehension, drowning the rattling chains and roaring thunder.

        All of this slowly melted away—like a burning photograph, or a horrible dream—as soon as a great, toasty warmth embraced my shivering figure.  I was being led into a large kitchen.  Several ovens were lined up in a row.  I was positioned in the center of this heated place.  Before I could collapse, my hostess had rushed over to grab a cushion that she slid over and positioned beneath me.

        “Now... sit right here,” she murmured.  I saw a pleasant smile in my peripheral vision as the mare steadied me.  “I run the village's local confectionery.  Not a single night goes by when I'm not baking various candies for the next day's work.  Lucky for you, these ovens have been turned on since several hours ago.  They should be at just the right warmth to make you feel better.  Funny how life works, huh?  Heeheehee.”  She cleared her throat and backtrotted from me.  “Just stay put, hun.  I'll be right back.”

        I heard her voice, her giggles, her clopping hooves.  I didn't so much as look at her.  I gazed in a pitiful deadpan towards the flames.  My limbs refused to move, or to even twitch.  I wondered how glorious a thing it would have been to melt away in those ovens, to have my body exhumed in a holy crucible.  At least I could avoid any future chances of seeing the alicorn, of her finding me.  Why else would there be a ninth elegy in my head, unless it was her way of branding my spirit?  How deep did this pit of suffering go?  Had Luna herself gone to the same place?  I had been to a frozen purgatory and back.  What more was there to discover?  How many horrors could one pony's soul contain?

        I wanted to burn.  I wanted to dissolve into nothingness.  I wanted anything and everything but to be there, to be stuck in Ponyville, to be forced to live with all of these horrible memories and to know that my only way to end it all would be to make even more, deadlier ones.  There were so many bodies—so many tortured souls shackled to the gaping throat of that eternity.  I did not belong there.  And yet, after just one incidental visit, I couldn't think of anywhere else I would eventually go.  The Threnody wouldn't take me anywhere else.  The Requiem was meaningless, for all I was concerned.  Even if I mapped out a ninth elegy and pursued it to the bitter end, what truth could that reveal to me other than the horrors I'd already been forced to digest?

        Nopony deserved to know what I knew, to have seen what I've seen.  I needed to stop showing my face in town.  I needed to stop existing.  Every time I brushed path with these innocent citizens, I was dragging them upon the thresh-hold of something colder than death.  The elegies were the grand seal to a chaotic wasteland, and I was the doorframe upon which such a barricade resided.  I was something terrible, a pitiful array of frozen membranes, a hapless junction between sunlight and screaming.  The ninth elegy was only just then starting to blossom in my mind.  I hadn't the strength to finish it.  I hadn't the strength to do anything anymore but die.

        It was then that my hostess came back with a bundle of blankets draped over her back.  The earth pony paused briefly as soon as she reentered the kitchen.  She squinted steadily at me, her gaze studying the soaked lengths of my mane.  After a few seconds, she marched the rest of the way.

        “Well... you certainly look like you've seen better places,” she cooed.  She stepped behind me and draped the first of several blankets over my shoulder.  It was barely enough to warm me, but I soon discovered she wasn't finished.  After another series of hoofsteps, she came back with a large brush fastened to a cylindrical hoof-brace.  “I don't suppose you have a name?”

        I said nothing.  I stared into the ovens as my future melted away one blink at a time.  I could barely register the delicate sound of her voice or the sweet scent of vanilla wafting off her mane.

        “Mmmmm... That's fine, dear,” she murmured.  Her warmth occupied the back of my neck.  I realized she was sitting behind me, grasping my shoulder with one hoof while her other brushed the soaked lengths of my mane straight.  “You don't have to speak.  Just sit here and relax.  I know better than to ask a stranger too many questions.”

        My nostrils flared.  I shut my eyes and tilted my head limply as she ran the brush through my hair.  The grace with which she pulled my tangled knots free was positively angelic.  I couldn't help it: a part of me was wilting under her touch.  I had been to hell and back, and to my surprise she was actually soothing me.

        A slight giggle escaped her lips.  Her voice was as warm and soft as the heat wafting from the ovens.  “You have a gorgeous mane, if I must say so.  I've always wanted straight hair.  All my life, I've dealt with these stubborn curls.  But yours is like absolute silk.  I imagine you must drive the stallions crazy where you live.”

        She must have meant for me to laugh; I only wanted to curl up somewhere and sob.  My limbs had stopped shivering a long time ago, but a part of me could never sit still ever again. I fidgeted under my hoodie as she proceeded with her caressing task, smoothing my mane into an immaculate shine.  It wasn't until several minutes had passed into her motions, but I realized I had almost completely forgotten the ninth elegy before it had a chance to form.

        “There.  Feeling better already?”  She paused and rested both hooves on my shoulders.  She gave me a gentle squeeze against my drying coat.  At first, I was confused as to why, until I heard the tone of her voice in tandem with her reassuring touch.  “Now, don't be shy.  I'm not mad at you in the least for trespassing, darling.  The way I see it, life isn't so terrible that we must keep our painful experiences secret.  So, would you like to tell me just what brought you here?”

        I blinked.  For the first time since I came there, I pivoted my neck.  I stared back at her, my mouth agape.  A whimper came out of me.  “I...”  I gulped, then whimpered again.  “I fell... just outside, remember?  And... and you brought me in.  You insisted...”

        She smiled innocently at me, her eyes bright and full of life.  “Did I, now?”

        I exhaled sharply.  A lump had formed in my throat.  The next voice squeaked forth, “You... You forgot about me...”  I shuddered, gazing with pained eyes into her angelic expression.  “You forgot how I came here... and yet... and y-yet you still took care of me?”

        The mare's teeth showed as she smiled.  “And why wouldn't I?”  Her hoof stroked my bangs over my horn.  “You're a pony in need.  Isn't that what matters?”

        My mouth was quivering.  The image of her disappeared behind a foggy veil.  I clenched my eyes shut and hung my head.  It was all I could do to keep from collapsing to the floor.  I thought I had screamed and howled all my lungs' worth in the horrors I had experienced, but I was wrong.  The sweetest and most tender of breaths was reserved for this one, golden moment.

        “I don't know who you are...” I stammered.  “And I don't know what your name is.”  I sniffled and whimpered forth, “But I love you.”  I was leaning towards her without trying.  She was there to catch me.  I wept into the blind embrace.  “I love you so much, and I w-wish I could be your friend.  I wish I c-could be everypony's friend.”  I gnashed my teeth as the sobs came as liberally as the tears.  I was no longer cold; I was burning up.  This wasn't the melting I had anticipated, but I was so gloriously enraptured regardless.  “But I can't be everypony's friend.  I c-can't afford it.  I can't h-have it.  I know you c-can't understand.  I don't need you to understand—”

        “Shhhh...”  She was suddenly cradling me, stroking my tears dry with a gentle hoof as her voice hummed against my drooping ears.  “Perhaps what matters, darling, is that you understand.”  Her coat was silken pure to the touch.  I could feel her smiling muscles without looking.  “And that it's okay to show how you feel.”

        And that was when I caved in.  I showed her how I felt.  In a collapsing mess of tears and sobs, I displayed it all to her.  She listened with an endless hug, absorbing every quivering wail I had to give, stroking my mane and rocking me to silence as I emptied myself of every horrid emotion my fifteen months of hell had wrung from me.  She was everything I could have dreamed for, a warm soul that carried me, that listened to every indecipherable cry I had to give, that held and cherished me as I collapsed unashamedly in the shadows of all my stronger, crumbling shells.  I knew that I was only a blight to her innocent little existence.  I knew that in a matter of hours, I would yet again be a strange vagabond staining the air of her kitchen with my melancholic breath.  Suddenly, none of the horrible things of fate mattered, for I was taught again what it meant to be a mad pony, to collapse felicitously under the weight of all things malevolent and still call it a victory.

        I was reacquainted with love.  Like Twilight Sparkle once did, I died in a pony's arms, and what came out the other side was a soul cleansed of pain, anguish, and suffering, so that I at last realized what a gift I had always given Twilight on so many occasions.  With that, the guilt was cleansed as well, and I drifted into the exhaustion of my baptism with a smile.

        The next morning, I awoke in the center of her kitchen.  I was lying on a pair of cushions.  Two sets of blankets had been draped over my figure.  The heat of the combined ovens had become unbearable.  That's how I knew I was sane enough to start living again.

        Squinting across the dim light of dawn, I spotted my hostess on the far side of the kitchen.  She had apparently positioned herself in a chair across from me, acting as my loyal sentry.  Sometime in the middle of her task, she must have fallen asleep.  Her mouth hung open in an adorably limp expression of slumbering bliss.  Her cream-colored face shone in the golden kiss of the newborn day.

        Flexing my stiff limbs, I stood up and shrugged the blankets off of me.  My hoodie had long dried.  My mane felt silky smooth, courtesy of a kindly mare's touch.  Shuffling quietly across the kitchen, I stood before her.  I almost said something, but stopped myself.  With a sullen breath, I realized there was no point in waking this kindly pony.  Hours had to have passed since she took me in.  She was hardly Morning Dew; her sleep had dragged her out of the realm of the living.  She would only be startled to see me leering above her in a waking blink.

        As ever, a part of me wanted to thank her, to somehow bless her in even a fraction of the way she had solaced me.  I knew better than to attempt the impossible.  And yet, for the first time in as long as I could remember, I didn't regret the state of things.  I merely looked at her, reached a hoof forward, and gently stroked it lovingly across her blue and pink mane.

        She stirred in her sleep, her face turning over to the side as she murmured something unintelligible into her forelimbs.  I left her there on the chair, trotting softly away from the ovens, out of the kitchen, out of the house, and into the glowing world.

        I found my lyre.  It was left right where I had collapsed the previous night from the frozen world beyond.  Mud and blades of grass had caked to its side.  I lifted it with telekinesis and slowly plucked the specks free, one at a time, until ultimately sighing at the laborious task and balancing the musical instrument on my backside.  Just as I did that, I heard the strangest of sensations.  Curious, I turned and trotted towards the end of the alleyway, leaving the candy-maker's house as I approached the heart of Ponyville.

        As I came out into the open, I squinted.  The morning sun was shining in full radiance.  As the burning world came into focus, I saw the source of the rhythm.  Zecora was in the center of downtown, seated under a tree.  She had a very familiar pair of drums positioned directly in front of her, and as she laid forth a playful beat, she wasn't alone.

        Derpy Hooves and her child Dinky were positioned at Zecora's side.  The young unicorn foal in question had a flute levitating in front of her.  With Zecora's signal, she accompanied the beat with a well-practiced melody.  Zecora smiled and Derpy clapped happily as the two equines made music in the heart of town.  A few feet away from them, dozens of young ponies stood in audience, smiling at the early morning show.  Among the listeners were Caramel and Wind Whistler.  Taking a break from a busy week of setting up their delivery business, they sat in peace together.  They leaned against each other's necks, occasionally nuzzling each other with warm smiles as the melody's ebb and flow persisted before them.

        Glancing over, I saw Scootaloo—very much alive—chatting with Milky White.  Instead of frowns, the two were exchanging grins, even laughs.  The lengths of arguments, after all, are greatly dwarfed by the bridges of love.  Just a few spaces away, I saw Applejack marching proudly across town, a basket of fresh bread hanging from her grasp.  Apple Bloom hopped and hopped to keep up with her big sister, smiling and relating some whimsical story against the backdrop of flutes and drums.  They ran into Rarity and Fluttershy, the latter of whom blushed as she sported a new gown that the fashionista was proudly showing off.  Somewhere in the distance, I spotted Twilight Sparkle sitting at a table, chatting pleasantly with Dr. Whooves.

        No sooner had I observed this when two giggling figures dashed by my vision.  I turned and watched as Sweetie Belle and Rumble played a prolonged game of tag in the center of town.  It ended as soon as Rumble tackled her, and the two collapsed in a fit of giggles and overturned leaves.  A few spaces away, seated on a bench, two adult ponies watched serenely, sharing a conversation.  Morning Dew and Ambrosia were absorbed in each other's gaze.  As I briefly drifted in and out of their world, they actually looked at me... and they gave a gentle nod.

        I became aware of the fact that I was nodding back.  But that wasn't all.  I barely knew the mare who had fallen into a freezing abyss less than twelve hours ago.  Instead, in her place, was a mad pony who had the audacity to smile back at them... and mean it.

        How long had I been seeing nothing but the shadows of this place?  How long have I been inhaling all that's been warm and good, exhaling only the dust and detritus of all my woes?  I'm better than this.  I know it.  I've lived it.  In many ways, I've shared it—and to what end?

        There is purpose to my being here.  There was a purpose before the curse, and it still exists here, even in the coldest depths of my plight.  I am not completely invisible.  I am not entirely a ghost.  The hoofprints I leave behind aren't mere impressions in dust that is blown away by a moonlit gale.  I have touched ponies' lives.  I have made impacts that only I can see, whereas all other souls are blind and I shouldn't take such an amazing opportunity for granted.

        How many centuries have gone by—centuries of selfless ponies doing selfless things with no retribution whatsoever?  And here I am in the middle of an unassuming town in the navel of Equestria, and I know the origin of so many good things, for that origin is me.  I know why a flightless little filly lives and breathes.  I know why a farm stallion got a second lease on life and love.  I know why ponies that would otherwise be alone and detached are instead enjoying a brand new warmth in each other's company.  What other soul in the grand history of life can stand upon the penumbra of such a dazzling light show and claim authorship, with no doubt, with no shame, with nothing but joy and triumph?

        Yes, I am cursed, but what pony isn't?  We all throw ourselves against the gauntlet of life without knowing how we'll come out on the other side.  I don't know if I'll ever be free of the rusted shackles that bind me, but I can solace myself in the knowledge that I've freed many a soul that never knew such imprisonment to begin with, and would never have to.  I am blessed—yes—blessed to be forgotten, so long as I know where it serves me, to serve myself, to serve others.

        I was right to think of myself of a doorway to something.  And though I may be a barricade to suffering, why would that be such a surprise?  Tides of ecstasy crash against the breakers with as much ferocity as agony.  What makes victory out of desolation is knowing how to maintain that dam, and in which direction to redirect the flow of all things good and ghastly.

        I have been to hell, but I've been to heaven as well.  I've released my horrors and my tears in equal shares.  Coming back from such collapse, I carry a noble truth.  The warmth of life may indeed be encompassed by something grand, frigid, and nightmarish.  But if there was something supremely powerful in that miasma, then I'm certain life would have been snuffed out eons ago.

        My name is Lyra Heartstrings.  I am alive.  One day, I will put an end to this curse.  And even if I don't succeed, I will know that I have lived, and lived warmly, where eternal waves of pressure sought for so long to drown me out, only to fail time and time again.

        “Really?”  Twilight Sparkle blinked curiously, her cute face scrunched in surprise.  “You mean it?”

        “Absolutely.”  I nodded, standing before her in the library.  “Your lecture on Modern Canterlot Record-Keeping sounds fascinating!  I'd love to let you practice the speech on me!”

        “That... That's great!  I mean... uhm...”  She blushed a rosier shade of lavender, running a hoof through her mane.  “Even my best friends are hesitant to let me practice my Canterlot lectures in front of them.  You're being awfully generous, Miss...”

        “Heartstrings.”

        “But I'm not sure you know what you're in for,” Twilight said.  “I've been told that I can be a total snooze-fest on occasion.”  She gave a brief giggle, then sighed.  “I'm sure you've got better things to do with your time.”

        “Miss Sparkle...”  I looked directly at her.  “You strike me as a remarkably intelligent, well-gifted pony.  My time in Ponyville is your time.”  I smiled gently as I said, “Accept a unicorn's gift when she offers it.”

        “Well, alright!”  She tried to contain a bouncy wave of energy flowing through her.  She failed.  “Heehee—Oops!  Uhm... oh dear.  I just went off on a horrible tangent, didn't I?  Heh... How'd we get off track anyways?  Weren't you bringing a book back?”

        “Hmmm?  Oh... Yes, I suppose I was.”  I lifted the ancient Shadow's Advent tome out of my book.  With a loose breath, I floated it between us.  “I'm only passing through Ponyville, so there's no reason to hold onto this any longer.”  I gulped.  The ninth elegy was still a newborn phenomenon in my head, but I put it in the background as I focused on the gentler melody of our voices.  “Please tell your dragon assistant that I'm thankful for his help in acquiring this for my studies.”

        “While I'm at it, I'm gonna scold him for not keeping proper records.”  Twilight briefly frowned.  “There's no mention of this being borrowed in the library checklist.  As if I haven't talked his ear off enough...”

        “Please, be easy on the little squirt.”  I said with a grin.  I glanced once more at the tome in my telekinetic grasp.  “Besides, I doubt he'd remember a book this insignificant any more... than... me...”  My voice trailed off.  My vision narrowed.

        “Miss Heartstrings?”  Twilight's voice rang.  There was confusion and concern in her murmuring breath, “Is everything okay?”

        I wish that I could have told her.  My eyes were locked on the book.  Where before there had been nothing but senseless, faded scribbles of ancient Moonwhinny, there was something else new, something striking.  I saw words—perfectly legible and bold words—and all of them practically glowing with an unearthly blue font.

        Before my eyes, the brown cover of the tome read as clear as day:  “Nocturne of the Firmaments - The Records of Dr. Alabaster Comethoof.”  My mouth hung agape.  Numbly, I opened the book and flipped through the pages.  Every single sheet was emblazoned over with cold blue paragraphs, diagrams, music sheets, and rows upon rows of dense paragraphs.  I stopped at a random spot and read the first chunk of letters I could find: “...and upon the forsaken, her breath liberates between the firmaments.  An ancient song gives birth to the birthless, her loyal subjects for eternity and for never...”

        “Huh...”  I muttered aloud.  “Well that's different.”

        “What is it?”  Twilight Sparkle was leaning over my shoulder, gazing at the tome.  “The book isn't damaged, is it?”

        I gazed at her, blinking.  “You... you mean to tell me you don't see the words?”

        “Of course I do,” she nodded with a smile.  “It's ancient Moonwhinny.  Only few ponies know it.  I'm not entirely versed myself, but I'm getting there.  Heehee...”

        I stared at her.  I looked back at the book.  I wondered what was different.  Why could I suddenly spot such legible words while all Twilight saw was the same old tome filled with a dead language?

        And then it occurred to me, a warming revelation, like a gentle embrace in the middle of a stranger's kitchen.

        “The Requiem...”

        “What was that, Miss Heartstrings?”

        “Nothing.”  I slapped the book shut, its mysterious blue words and all.  I smiled placidly at my foalhood friend.  “Only... I wonder if I might trouble you to let me borrow this book a little longer...”

        Nothing is meaningless.

        Do not give up on life's searches.  All roads lead to somewhere, so long as they remain roads.

Background Pony

IX - “The Firmaments”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: Warden, theBrianJ, Props, RazgrizS57, and Simon Pegg

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear Journal,

        Does everything in the world stand to be fixed?  Come to think of it, is everypony so imperfect that they necessitate “guardian angels” such as myself to fly to their rescue?  I know that I am here in this town for a reason—curse or no curse.  But is every facet of this reason up to me to decide?  Am I a pawn or a master of this bizarre fate I've been forced to live through?

        Assuming that my destiny is designed by reason or fate suggests a perfect world.  What, then, needs to be fixed in a world that is perfect?  Would blemished things go out of their way and ask to be attended to?

        In attempting to find structure and order in my life, I've struggled to map out the rationality of everything that I observe.  There is something noble to such a quest.  But... is such a quest also divine?

        There is nothing good about trying to force a pony or a thing to fly a certain way.  I didn't always realize this.  Such lessons have come close to burning me in the end.  Luckily, I've come out of such endeavors with my limbs and mane intact.  I could only wish the same about my sanity.

        Sometimes the most beautiful, most serene, most perfect things in life perform their dance in a drunken fashion.  It may look funny from the outside, but then you realize the entire world is like a ship rocking in some tempestuous seas.  You can only get an even hoofing by floundering all over the place.  Chaos and unpredictability are the most difficult dance moves of all.  But once I've tasted of those charmingly unique steps, it's difficult to waltz in any other fashion.

        And why would I try to?  It's like the sound of one hoof clopping, or what your face looked like before your parents were foaled, or like... like...

        You know what?  Let’s just get to the part where stuff happens.

Five days after my curse began, I was a smelly, sweaty mess.  At least, that’s what I imagined.  I didn’t want to hang around ponies long enough to see their disgusted expressions, or else I would have run the risk of finding out just how far I had fallen.  Besides, every time I witnessed those citizens drawing blanks—and felt the cold of the curse kicking in—a little part of me died inside.  It was the same little part of me that I was attempting salvage ever since the day a kindly stallion talked me down from the edge of Ponyville’s town hall building.

        With great courage, I explored my new life of imprisonment.  All I had to my name was my golden lyre and a threadbare saddlebag full of pointless things.  I carried several bits with me, of course, but almost all of them had disappeared in my first floundering attempts to buy food at restaurants or rent rooms at hotels, only to have amnesiac waiters and bellhops kick me out of such establishments in confused anger.

        So it was that I resorted to walking the streets of Ponyville alone, wandering aimlessly, lacking sleep and food and sanity.  I tried to meditate on the stallion’s words.  I tried to construct a beacon of hope for me to follow in my mind.  I was marching after the trailing fumes of a mad pony’s lunatic dream, and yet it was hardly enough to fill my stomach.  That’s how I found myself rummaging through a trash can in the middle of the park just northeast of Ponyville.  I bit my lip as I fumbled through the shameful task, wondering how I had come to such a point of ugly desperation.  Regardless, I had to press on, I had to find something to nourish me.  I had to live for another day in that cold and forgetful world.

        And after that... then what?  What was I aiming for?  What was my goal in this nightmarish void of a town where I couldn't afford food, a home, a friend, or a future?  I couldn't think.  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't smile.  I couldn't—

        “Nope!” she said, her pink hooves digging through her side of the trash can.  “I'm not seeing it either!”

        “Mmmf...”  I muttered at the thought.  Then I realized that the voice didn't belong to my thoughts; it was way too... chirpy.  Blinking, I glanced up, only to have a pair of blue eyes brightly engulfing my emaciated reflection.

        “Why would you toss it into the trash to begin with, silly?”

        My eyes twitched.  I felt part of my face convulsing as I ran a hoof through my frazzled mane.  “I... uh... uhm...”  I gulped.  I looked at the trash can, at my hooves, then back at the pink stranger who was leaning up against the container out of nowhere.  “Uhhh...”

        “Heeheehee!”  She giggled with a snort.  “You look like a pony who needs help finding your voice.”

        “My... voice...?”

        “How could you lose your voice in the trash can anyways?”  She took a deep breath and shoved her fuzzy head neck-deep into the recepticle.  Her voice echoed, “I usually keep mine in my throat, unless I'm singing, in which case I like it way better in other ponies' ears.  Hey, you didn't lose an ear, did you?  I hear some ponies like to carry ears around.  Ears of corn, that is.  Say!”  She stuck her head back up.  A banana peel and a soiled diaper formed a tiara atop her cranium.  “Is that why you don't talk?  You're always yellin' at the crows so you can shoo them away from the cornrows on your farm?”

        “Who... said I couldn't talk?”

        “Well now I'm confused.”  Her face scrunched up as she tilted her head up in thought.  The garbage collected on her cranium fell sloppily to the park's path as she scratched her chin.  “What pony in her good mind would want crows to eat up all her corn?  Oh!”  She smiled wide.  “You're looking for your scarecrow!  Of course!  But...”  She squinted down at the garbage can.  “How could you fit a scarecrow in there?”

        “I...”

        “Maybe you cut him up into tiny pieces?  Turned him into scareflies?”

        “I think I need to be going...” I winced and started to backtrot away.

        “Hey!”  She reached a hoof out and held me in place.  “Heehee!  Don't be ashamed!  You're not the only pony who likes to hide stuff all around the place in case of an emergency!”  She dashed towards the nearby tree and reached into a crook of branches.  “Take me, for example!”  She dashed back my way.  “Here, have a ball.”

        I gasped as I found myself grasping a rubber sphere in my starving hooves.  “What... What's this—?”

        “Ponies used to think I was weird for leaving balls all around town.  When I first met Rainbow Dash, I told her that before I got smart about it, I'd just carry them around in my mouth.  Then she started laughing for some reason.”

        “Uhm...”

        “Considering how many that athletic pony's bounced off her face, you think Dashie could relate...”

        “Hey... I know you.”

        “You do?”

        I shuddered.  Memories of arranging a surprise party for Twilight flashed through my head.  Even colder memories of being the only pony to remember that arrangement practically killed me.  I had seen these blue eyes before.  The look of joy on this pony's face was like a cold iceberg, dragging me down into the horrific depths of yesterday.  “Never mind.  I really need to get going.  You can have this trash can—”

        “Me and a trash can?  Bleachk!”  Pinkie Pie made a face.  “What kind of fun party is that?”

        I gave her a double-take.  I had been cold, hungry, and delirious.  Suddenly, I was curious.  “Party?  Do you... Do you remember?”

        “Of course I remember how to party!  The day I got my cutie mark, I told myself 'Pinkie, from here on out, you're going to do two things every morning.  You're gonna use the outhouse and then throw parties.'  Well, needless to say, my family and I had to shampoo the carpet for a few years.  So guess what my career choice was!”

        “No, I mean, do you remember me?”  I asked.  “From the other day?  Just before the Summer Sun Celebration?”

        Pinkie Pie giggled and rolled her eyes.  “Ohhhhh girl, don't be so silly!  It's a celebration!  I talk to alllll sorts of ponies before and after!  It's ‘cuz I'm setting up so much stuff, you see?  So please forgive me if I forgot your name.”

        “But—”

        “No no no, wait! Lemme guess!”  Pinkie Pie scrunched her face up dramatically in thought  “Nnnnnnghhh-Nnnnngh—'Minty?'  No.  How about 'Sudsy?'  On account of how shiny your mane is.  No?  Hmmmm... 'Gato?'  Nah, doesn't sound like you've ever been to Maredrid.”

        “Ahem.”  I cleared my throat and muttered, “It's Lyra.”

        “Heartstrings?” She added.

        My breath left me.  I gazed at her with quivering eyes.  “Why yes.”  I felt tears forming along the edges.  “Yes it is.  How...?”

        “Well, if you were named 'Cheesetrings,' then why would you look like you haven't had anything to eat in a while?”  She grasped me in a sisterly embrace.  “Hop along, Lyra!  Let's get to baking!”

        “Baking?”

        “Mmmhmm!”  She tugged me along towards the center of town.  “That's one way to fill you up, don't you think?”

        “You... You work at a bakery?”

        “Oh, you didn't know?”  Pinkie Pie howled to the air, “Your flank better callllll someponyyyy!  Heehee.  Ahem.  No, really, trot this way!  Delicious morsels await, my merry mare of mint!”

        “There was this filly I grew up with.  She was younger than me,” Pinkie said.  “Sorta looked up to me, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the rock fields. Things were good.  We made the most of it. During Hearth's Warming, we ran gingerbread into Torontrot... made a fortune. As much as anypony, I loved her and trusted her. Later on she had an idea to build a city out of a desert stop-over for guard ponies on the way to Canterlot. That kid's name was Mare Green, and the city she invented was Las Pegasus. This was a great pony, a pony of vision and guts. And there isn't even a plaque or a signpost or a statue of her in that town! Someone put a cupcake through her eye. Nopony knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn't angry. I knew Mare. I knew she was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when she turned up all covered in frosting, I let it go. And I said to myself, 'This is the baking we've chosen.'  I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with baking!”

        “Uhm...”  I fidgeted, wearing an apron, my forelimbs elbow-deep in bread and cupcake mix.  I stood in the center of the kitchen to Sugarcube Corner, delighted to be around so many warm ovens but vexxed to be at the awkward end of Pinkie's monologue.  “Why are you telling me all this?”

        “Come to think of it, I'm not so sure.  But suddenly I want a banana daiquiri.”

        “A banana-what?”

        One of the nearby ovens produced a melodic ding!

        “Oooh!  First batch is done!”  Pinkie Pie clamped her teeth over an earth pony mitten and slid the tray of warm cupcakes out.  “Mmmm... You smell that?  I love the smell of angel cake mix in the morning.”

        “But it's the afternoon.”

        “There you go getting all technical again!”  Pinkie Pie stifled a giggle.  “Baking should be about fun and sharing your happiness!  The best part of making these treats is thinking about who you're making them for!  For instance, I'm always thinking about my friends when I bake frosted delights.  That's what makes them all the better!  In a way, you could say I bake a little bit of my friends into each of these cupcakes.”  She hoofed a golden-brown morsel to me.  “Here.  Have a bite.  It's always best to sample a taste.  That way you’ll know whether or not to give your patrons helmets for their one-way-trip to the land of exploding taste buds!”

        “I... I...”  I gazed at the delicious, piping hot bread.  My mouth watered, and my vision turned hazy as my eyes glazed over. “Only... a s-sample?” I whimpered, until my mouth was suddenly full of toasted deliciousness.  “Mmmmmf!”

        “Heehee.  Silly filly!”  Pinkie Pie smiled from the opposite end of the forced feeding.  “This is your stuff!”

        “Mmmmf!”  I gulped a warm bite down and cradled the remaining bit in trembling hooves.  “M-my stuff?”

        “We're baking this all for you!  You and me!”  She grinned wide.  “Cuz you're my friend too!”

        Something inside me clicked off... or clicked on.  I'm not exactly sure anymore.  My senses were suddenly melting with sugary delight as I filled my empty stomach in a flash.  Pinkie was lucky she didn't get her hoof bitten off.

        “Whoahhhhh!  Holy smokes with a chimney on top!  Heehee!  You enjoying your own hoofwork there, mintcheeks?  Heehee!”

        “I...”  I panted, gathering my breath after devouring the meal.  “Mmm... Yes...”  I deliriously reeled from the happy sensation of having something edible inside my stomach.  “Most definitely hoof-worked over...”

        “Well, saddle up for more, filly!  Cuz we've got plenty more where that came from!”  She slid over several frosting dispensers and confectionery items.  “You work on the frosting and I'll make these things Triple X.”

        I gave her a double-take.  “Excuse me?”

        She snorted back a giggle and rattled a jar of rainbow-colored candies.  “Extra, Extra, Extra sprinkles!”

        “Oh...” I gave a hollow laugh and worked diligently on what was bound to be a horribly self-indulgent meal.  “But of course.”

        “You're supposed to smile, greenhooves!  Heehee.  After all, that's what really matters.”

        “Ohhhhh...”  I sat, hunched-over on a bench along the far side of Sugarcube Corner.

        “Got a tummy-ache?”  Pinkie Pie asked.

        I smiled drunkenly into the spinning corners of the room.  “In the best way.”  I felt a frosting-flavored belch rising up my throat and covered my mouth at the last second.  Through thin eyes, I gazed across the table at Pinkie.  “I never thought I could down six cupcakes.”

        “Hee hee.  You dainty thing you.”

        “How...”  My brow furrowed with the severity of the inquisition.  “How in Celestia's green earth could you possibly have swallowed fourteen?”

        “My grandma always told me that I had a stomach of a hydra, cuz it was big enough to support four mouths' worth of meals.”

        “You don't say?”  I smiled thinly.  “Your grandmother sounds like a witty mare.”

        “Yes.  Sadly, dear ‘ol Granny Pie kicked the bucket.”

        “Awww...”  I gave her a look of pity.  “I'm so sorry to hear that, Pinkie Pie.  Was it old age?”

        “Nah.  A wall fell on her.”

        “Oh.”  I blinked, fidgeted, and gazed around the place.  “Uhm... That's...”

        “Hey!”  Pinkie Pie bounced up from her end of the table and grinned at me.  “Wanna see a stallion go limp?”

        I blinked at her.  “I beg your pardon?”

        “And then I slapped him with my bare wings!”  Thunderlane said proudly.

        Cloudchaser and Flitter stood next to him, giggling and cheering.  The sunset bathed them in a bright crimson as the afternoon came to a glittering end.

        “Wow, that's spectacular!”  Flitter said, cooing.

        “He had it coming too,” Cloudchaser added with a sultry wink.

        “Yeah, well.”  Thunderlane scratched a hoof across his muscular chest and smirked.  “He shouldn't have been shoving his beak into our flying team's business.  Y'know, some ponies say that griffons are just naturally rare.  Truth is, they don't breed enough to contribute to a proper gene pool.  I mean, how can they?  The only thing tinier than their brains is the size of their—”

        “Quick!”  I dashed up to him, wide-eyed.  I shivered partially from the cold, partially from what I knew I was about to do.  “We need your heroics, Thunderlane!”

        “And you are...?” Flitter gave me a scathing look.

        “Shhh!”  Thunderlane marched in between me and the fillies.  “You heard her!  Looks like somepony needs me to kick some flank again!”  He cleared his throat and stood in such a way to show off his wing muscles before the two girls.  “What seems to be the trouble, miss?”

        “Somepony spotted a squadron of changelings flying in from the west!”

        “Changelings?!”  Thunderlane made a face while Cloudchaser and Flitter murmured in surprise.  “Why, they're almost as bad as griffons!”  He blinked.  “Almost—”

        “Come quick!”  I gestured with my hoof and trotted towards the sidewalk.  “We need your expert, hawkeye, pegasus vision!”

        “Absolutely!  We can't have changelings invading Ponyville and... and...”  He squinted over his shoulder.  “Just what do changelings do again?”  Cloudchaser and Flitter shrugged.

        “Hurry!  There's no time!”

        “Alright!”  Thunderlane marched after me.  I led him to a conspicuously empty spot in the center of the town courtyard.  “Where are they?  I don't see anything—”

        “Scan the horizon, quick!”  I pointed.  “We have to know how many we're dealing with!”

        “But...”  Thunderlane winced and squinted his eyes.  “The sun's setting over there!  It's hard to see anything...”

        “Just stand right here.” I pointed towards a dark spot on the concrete.  “But keep your eyes on the sky!”

        “Uhhh...”  Cloudchaser gulped, her eyes locked on the spot where I was directing him.  “Thunderlane?”  Her sister stifled a snicker.

        “Hush, girls!”  He grunted.  “I must concentrate if I want to spot where they are coming from!”  Gazing up, he walked blindly onto a wet circle of liquid adhesive.  His hooves came to a squishy stop.  “Hmmm...”  His eyes narrowed bravely towards the burning west horizon.  “All I see is a flock of birds.  Ma'am, are you sure this is—?”

        Biting my lip, I gave a hoof-sign to the air.  Pinkie Pie jumped out of a nearby bush and shrieked directly into Thunderlane's ears.

        “Run!  It's the Lunar Inquisition!”

        “Gaaaah!”  Thunderlane went wide-eyed.  His wings flapped like a frightened chicken's.  As soon as he lifted up, the adhesive sticking to his hooves bounced like rubber bands and yanked him harshly back onto the ground.  “Oooof!”  He grunted, his entire side plastered to the courtyard.  “Unnnngh...”

        Cloudchaser and Flitter had transformed into a collapsing pile of giggles and shrieks.  Pinkie Pie snorted and fell back, kicking at the air as hysterics took over.  As for myself: I sat there—slumped on my haunches—with a hoof planted over my gasping mouth.  After a while, the horrors of my past few days faded away, and I was thrown deliciously into a sea of hyperventilation and laughter.

        Thunderlane, naturally, was hardly amused.  “Nnnngh!  Pinkie Pie!”  He thrashed and fought and struggled to peel himself off of the layer of translucent glue.  “Wait till I get my hooves on you!”

        “Oh cheer up, mohawk!”  Pinkie Pie wiped the tears from her smiling face.  “Heehee!  Like we really interrupted anything with you three!  One way or another, you were gonna end up sticky tonight!”

        “That's it!  C'mere!”  Thunderlane lunged with a growling pair of teeth.  Feathers flew from his wings as he managed to get within biting distance of us.

        “Daah!” I fell back... into Pinkie Pie's forelimbs.

        “Time to split like a diamond dog's behind, mintsicle!”  Pinkie Pie yanked me along with her as we collectively scampered to the edge of town, baptized in Thunderlane's curses and the giggles of a pair of rosy-cheeked mares.

        “Hahahahaha!”  I laughed, almost tripping over a random tree-root jutting across the forested path.

        “That wasn't the half of it!”  Pinkie Pie bounced happily alongside me in the settling twilight of the day.  “Then he tried to make her feel bad by saying 'I bet the reason you never condition your mane is cuz no stallion wants to get close enough to smell it.'  And then Rainbow Dash said 'The real reason they called you Thunderlane is cuz of what happens after you eat too many chimichangas!'”

        “Heeeheehee!”

        “'Cuz that isn't the weather team making all that noise on a Wednesday afternoon after dinner!  Real thunder would have lightning to it!'  Heehee.  Then of course he got mad, but what could he say?  Dashie may not be the best at punchlines, but she's pretty good at delivery.  I've known her way longer than the other mares, and it makes me happy whenever I can make her laugh.  Cuz it's like a challenging little game, you know?  For instance, why was the rainbow factory full of blood?”

        “Heheheh—Ahem.  I give.  Why was the rainbow factory full of blood?”

        “Because it was really happy to see the snowflake factory!”

        “Snkkkt-Heeheehee!”

        “Hehehehe—Yeah, pegasus humor.  It's an acquired taste.  But I like hot sauce in just about everything.  Did you hear the one about the dead sea serpent who visited Cloudsdale?”

        “Heeheehee...  Mmm. No.  What about him?”

        “He died!”

        “Snkt—Hah hah hah!”  I almost collapsed.  I was surviving on sugar, endorphins, and lack of sleep.  Somehow, Pinkie Pie was the glue that held it all together.  As freezing as I was, there was nowhere in all of Equestria that I wanted to be but with her.  “Wow, Pinkie Pie.  Do you ever run out of fumes?”

        “I'm pretty sure Thunderlane doesn't!”

        “Heeheehee...”

        “Just think.  If all a pegasus needed to do was graduate 'fart camp,' no wonder Thunderlane passed with flying colors! Heehee!  Get it?  'Passed?'”

        “Heheheh...”

        “And come to think of it, Fluttershy would have failed that camp too.”  Pinkie Pie scratched her chin in thought.  “Makes you wonder if there's an alternate world out there.  A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of methane.”

        “Whew... uhm...”  I gazed up, my cheeks sore from smiling.  “Say, it's getting pretty dark, isn't it?”

        “Ew!  I hate dark!  Dark never writes home to Momma!”  She grinned mischievously and grabbed me by the saddlebag.  “Let's do something about dark, shall we?”

        “Like what?—Whoah!” I gasped as I was yanked off towards the park where we met several hours earlier.

        The next firework flew high into the air, scraped the starry sky, and then exploded overhead in a dazzling array of bright, sparkling colors.

        I gasped in delight from where I sat in the center of the field.  Pinkie Pie, meanwhile, was jumping for joy and pumping a forelimb into the air.

        “Boo-yaa!  Take that, dark, you gigantic expanse of philosophical ennui and loathing!”  She grinned at me like a wild horse while her teeth lit up in strobing reds, yellows, and blues.  “I don't care what Twilight says about Neightzsche.  The old stallion was full of it.  As far as I'm concerned, the longer you stare into the abyss, the abyss giggles into you.”

        I smiled and hoofed her another firework.  “I imagine you're a lot deeper than ponies give you credit for, Pinkie.”

        “Mmmm!  I love deep dish pies!  Especially pumpkin!  I wish it was fall already so I could add candy corn as sprinkles!  What do you think?”

        “I think you're high.”

        “You know what else is high?”  Pinkie Pie gave a pyromaniacal smirk and lit the firework's fuse.  “Explosions!”

        The rocket twirled skyward, banked a little to the north, and died in a flowery burst of bright golds and yellows.

        “Heeheehee...” I let myself fall back into the grass and basked in the darting streams of light and flame above me.

        The world was suddenly warm and delightful again.  This was because all of my fears had melted away.  I hugged myself and squirmed back into the grass, delighting in the touch and texture of everything.  Why had I let despair consume me so swiftly over the last couple of days?  I should have known better.  If only I had been patient, calm, and serene, then this situation would have passed by a lot more smoothly.  Of course this curse was only a passing thing.  What else would it have been?  The only permanent thing in this world was death, and Pinkie Pie taught me that I was anything but dead.

        “It's funny,” I said.

        Pinkie Pie giggled.  “You're gonna have to be a little more specific, mint-mare.”

        “Hehe...”  I rolled over and smiled at her in the glow of another bursting firework.  “I was so certain that nopony would remember me.  Everything that happened after I met Nightmare Moon was so bleak and frightening.  It's kind of scary to think how easily I would have given into hopelessness.  But today, Pinkie Pie?  Today is one of the best days I've ever had.  I owe it to you for showing me that all is not lost—”

        “Really?”  Pinkie Pie grinned as she lit another firework.  “You owe it all to me?”

        “Mmm... Yes.  Thank you so very much for bringing me back to my senses.”  I hugged myself tighter and closed my eyes with a contented smile.  “I can already see my mom and dad now.  They must be worried sick about me.  I should buy a ticket for the first train to Canterlot in the morning...”

        “Well, I'm glad you had a really good day today!”  Pinkie Pie's voice said over the hissing of a lit fuse.  “I really wish I had spent it with you!”

        “Heeheehee,” I giggled.  “But you did!  And I couldn’t be happier.  I swear: it’s like I can’t stop smiling.”

        “Well, cool!  I like making ponies smile!  Especially ones I’ve only just met!”

        I felt my heart sinking.  Something wasn’t wright.  My eyes fluttered open while my brow furrowed in horrid suspicion.  Slowly, I sat up, utterly ignoring the bright burst of color above us.  “Wait a second... What... What exactly do you mean by ‘only just met?’”

        “You seem like a swell pony to hang out with, mint-stain!”

        I lips hung open.  I blinked several times, and lisped forth, “Lyra.”  I gulped, then repeated, “My name is Lyra.”

        “Heartstrings?”

        I slowly nodded, squinting.  “Yeah...”

        “Well, if you were named 'Cheesetrings,' then why would you look like you haven't had anything to eat in a while?”

        “But... But I did... We did.”  I gulped, the shivers doubling, tripling with each bursting second like the fireworks above us.  “We baked cupcakes together, remember?”

        “Mmmm... Cupcakes.”  Pinkie Pie practically drooled.  “I could sooooo go for some of those right now, with extra, extra, extra sprinkles.”  Her blue eyes lit up as yet another passing thought bulleted through her brain.  “Hey, did you ever hear the story about Mare Green?”

        “Wait... You...”  I shook my head and stood up.  My breath was coming out in fervent little pants.  “You... You mean to tell me that you don't remember?”

        “Remember who?  Mare Green?  Hey, what happens in Las Pegasus stays in Las Pegasus, but I'd never forget an old friend!  Where else did I get 'stick a cupcake in my eye?'”

        “No!  I meant us!  You and me!  Don't you remember the cupcakes?  Or pranking Thunderlane?!  Or our walk through the forest?!  Or... Or our coming here?”

        “Hey!  Fireworks is always meant to be enjoyed in company!”  Pinkie Pie beamed as she fired another one off.  “I'm sure as sugar happy you came along, or else I'd feel awfully silly blowing up the night's sky on my lonesome!”  She cooed at a burst of rainbow colors high above.  “Ooooooh... so flowery!”

        “I... You... This...”  I seethed and ran a hoof over my head before practically pulling my mane out by the roots.  My body quivered upon the breaking point.  Finally, I squeaked, “I gotta go...”

        “Huh?”  Pinkie Pie flashed me a surprised glance.  “Awww... But you just got here!”

        “No...”

        “Don't you wanna hang out and look at the pretty fireworks—?”

        “No!” I shouted, hissed, and fought a wave of sobs rising up my throat.  “I'm sorry.  But I have to go!”

        “Don't be such a spoil-sporty-pants, Minty!”

        “It's Lyra!” I retorted, practically whimpering.

        “Heartstrings?” She remarked, and I realized that she was merely looking at my cutie mark.  She smiled as timelessly as ever.  “Cuz if you were named 'Cheestrings,' then why would it look like you haven't had anything to eat in—Hey!  Where are you going?”

        I was running away.  Galloping away.  I flew straight into the forest, blind and numb.  The world was a labyrinth of shadows and invisible frost all around me.  In every blink, I saw the dark gaze of Nightmare Moon.  I saw bright pony faces looking through me.  I saw Mom and Dad's faces fading away, and my sobbing voice was flailing in a desperate attempt to pull them back.

        I couldn't believe how stupid I had been.  Of all the ponies of Ponyville that could have befriended me that day, it was the village's narrow-minded jester.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted to break something.  I wanted to roll over in the dirt and die.

        It so happens that I did none of those things.  My panicked sprint through the forest had exhausted me.  I found what I felt was an inconspicuous place and collapsed there, warmed by my tears.  When morning came, I discovered I was inside an abandoned barn.  My loneliness would have consumed me, hadn't a local farm filly happened to trot by and discover the sound of my voice... and changed my life forever.

        Several weeks passed since that first meeting with Pinkie Pie, and I earned more than just a saddlebag attached to my name.  Desperate afternoons of playing my lyre in the middle of town had proven fruitful.  In spite of my curse, I had been able to earn many bits.  Many bits meant plentiful food, good hygiene, decent shelter; though it was a flimsy thing.  I was thankful nonetheless for the tent I had pitched beside the abandon barn on the north edge of town.  I had plans for something far more permanent, of course, but I needed to take things one hoofstep at a time.

        I had just recently discovered the meaning behind the music that was stuck in my head every morning.  It turns out that Princess Luna—the same soul that Nightmare Moon had been anchored to—was the composer of ancient music, and somehow my mind had stumbled upon a nearly forgotten instrumental called “Prelude to Shadows.”  When I had finally written the notes down and performed the piece in full, there was an unexpected psychological effect.  The lights all around me had become magnified, and my spirit was assailed with a great feeling of paranoia and anxiety.  I almost wished I had a way to log all of the sensations I was feeling, but I was too busy being confronted with something else just as startling.  It would seem that just after “Prelude to Shadows” had been performed, a new tune had taken its place.  I was as frightened as I was mystified, and suddenly my imprisonment in that town took on a new meaning.

        It had been over a month since I became trapped in Ponyville, and I was just starting to get used to my situation.  This wasn't a time to let myself become frightened.  I had to keep my cool.  I still had hopes of seeing my family again someday.  And for all I knew, these mysterious instrumentals could have been the key to unlocking something.

        “One thing at a time,” I murmured.  It was a relatively mundane phrase, but a helpful one nonetheless.  Adjusting the collar of my hoodie, I got up from my sleeping bag, slipped my saddlebag on, turned around, and zipped open the doorflap to my tent.

        A baby alligator flew straight into my face.

        “Mmmmfff!”  I collapsed into the dirt outside, wrestling furiously with the puny reptile.  As I rolled several times over in the soil, I heard a pitter-patter of galloping hooves rushing towards me.

        “No!  No!  Bad Gummy!  Get off the mare!  Get off the mare!  Nnnnngh!”  I felt a pair of forelimbs tugging at the alligator's scaly hide.  With an obnoxious popping sound, the thing was removed from my cranium.

        “Ptooie!”  I spat from where I sat on the ground.  With a sigh, I pulled my mane out from my eyes and glared up at the bright shape before me.  “Seriously, Pinkie!  Will you put a leash on that thing already?!”

        “Hey, it's not his fault!  I thought I could teach him hang gliding!  But as soon as I tossed him to the winds, I realized I forgot the glider... as well as the hangers!”

        “Did you search the gallows?” I asked.

        “Huh?  Gallows?”

        I sighed.  “Never mind.  I still think he could use a leash.”

        “Silly filly!  How can a reptile hang glide with a leash?”  She smiled and cuddled the wall-eyed gator to her bright cheeks.  “Heehee!  Good morning, by the way!  Sorry about the whole alligator-in-the-face thing!”

        I sighed and slowly stood up, dusting myself off.  I didn't know what I was angry about more: the fact that this was the tenth time such a thing had happened or the fact that I still wasn't prepared for it.  In a lot of ways, this curse had forced me to take the repetition of maniacal ponies like Pinkie for granted.

        “Don't mention it.  Just try to be more careful, Pinkie,” I grumbled.  “There are more ponies around town than you think, and tossing an alligator around randomly is likely to get more than just Gummy in trouble.”

        “Yeah, well, I figured that once he grows his teeth out, I'll try tossing ponies at him for a change.”  She paused, blinked, then glanced at me.  “Hey! How come you know my name anyhow?  I've never met you before.”

        I sighed and tried explaining.  “It's because—”

        Pinkie Pie then reminded me that there was no need to explain things with her.  “Cuz you seem like a pony who's worth knowing!  I look at you and instantly wanna have mint sherbet!”

        “Yes.  Yes, that's nice—”

        “Mmmmmm.  Sherbet.”

        “I have to go, Pinkie,” I groaned.  I zipped my tent shut from the outside and tightened the saddlebag around me.  “There's this new song I'm composing, and I need to visit the town library for some help with—”

        “How come you live in a tent?”

        “Cuz if the tent lived inside of me, I'd need a zipper for my mouth, don't you think?”

        I knew that would make her giggle.  I hoped it was enough to keep her occupied as I made a hasty retreat.  This morning, however, she paused halfway through rolling in the dirt with her laughter.

        “Hey!  The library!  That reminds me!  I'm baking muffins for Twilight!  I could use a helping hoof!”

        I shuddered.  I tried each and every day to forget about the first time I took her up on her offer to bake anything.  It had been several weeks since our “day together,” and already I was trying to become a stronger pony, a better pony.  Pinkie's presence only served to remind me just how far I had yet to go.

        “Sorry.  But I'm a little busy...”

        “Too busy for blueberry muffins?  Why, we can't have that, Miss—”

        “Lyra,” I muttered.  I immediately wished I hadn't.

        “Lemme guess: Heartstrings?  Cuz if your name was—”

        “And I hate cheese!” I added with a frown.  “Almost as much as I hate—”  I blinked, then squinted.  “Now what are you doing?”

        She was balanced on one hoof, her head utterly inverted.  “Has anypony ever told you that if they look at your cutie mark upside down, it looks like a tiny cartoon ghost from an arcade game?”

        “It does not!”  I barked.  I blinked.  I gazed curiously back at my flank.

        “Anywhoo...”  Pinkie Pie was suddenly bouncing past me with a small green reptile biting down on her flailing tail.  “If you don't want to bake, then I can't force ya!  Non-consensual muffin-making is the worst kind of muffin-making!  I should know!  Mrs. Cake forces me to listen to Tori Haymos all the time!”

        “Uhmm...”  I was blinking, reeling from her exuberant randomness echoing in both of my ears.

        “Next time I toss Gummy around, I'll make sure he grows wings first!  Or at least webbed toes!”

        “Pinkie, wait.”  I reached a hoof towards her.  I winced from what I was about to do.  The day that lay before me was dissolving with each successive blink of contemplation, threatening to lose whatever musical progress I had long planned on making.  The fact was that I had become intensely curious about Pinkie all of the sudden.  I’m not entirely sure what had impacted me.  Maybe it was the delicious lengths to which her smiling cheeks stretched.  Maybe it was the twinkle in her eyes that never went away, no matter how gloomy those days could stand being so many times in a row.  Whatever was the case, the music in my head seemed a great deal less obtainable.  And there Pinkie Pie was.  She was very real, standing within hoof’s length, grinning at me, smelling of balloons and cake batter.  My life had become a strange prison, framed by accidents, abridged by happenstance.  There, bouncing in front of me, I had what could only be an opportunity to seize every bitter inch of my predicament and sum it all up with a smile, even if I had to steal that smile.  “I've changed my mind,” my vocal cords eventually forced through.  “I would... nnngh... love to do some baking with you.”

        “Really?!”  Somehow, in the span of two seconds, she had blurred back to smile point blank in my face.  “You mean it?”

        “Yeah...”  I gulped.  “Why not?  Let's get to it before I change my mind again.”

        “What's the hurry?!  I haven't begun my morning rounds through town!”

        “Morning... rounds...?”

        “Oh come on!”  She giggled and motioned me to follow her down the path.  “Who doesn't enjoy a walk in the sun?  Hop along, Spyra!”

        “Lyra.”

        “Whatever.  Move your flank, green-spleen!”

        “Then after insulting the way I bake lemon cakes, he asked me if I wanted to go visit Nuzzler's Lane atop the hill overlooking Ponyville!”  Pinkie Pie made a face as she led me through the busy heart of Ponyville.  “I mean, really!  Could you imagine the mendacity of a stallion like that?!”

        “I think the word you're looking for is 'audacity,'” I said.  “And so what if he didn't like one thing that you baked?  Perhaps you should have given him a second chance, Pinkie.  Believe it or not, food isn't always the way to a stallion's stomach.”

        “Whatever.”  Pinkie smiled at me in mid-trot.  “That's the last time I ever let Rarity try to match-make for me.  'Oh darling, you and Pokey Pierce would make the most exquisite pair!'  Pfft!  Yeah right!  I swear, if somepony put the two of us onto a ship, an iceberg had better hit us!”

        I smiled momentarily.  “Well, I'm glad you respect yourself enough to at least admit such.  Unlike what popular culture wants us to think, we mares are not all bound to be hopeless romantics.”  I nearly ran into a tulip being held right in front of me.

        “Good morning to you, angel,” said a charming voice, attached to a charming face, framed with soft blue eyes, a sapphiric mane, and a handsome smile.

        “Uhhh...”  I blinked.  I plucked the tulip from his grasp and stirred where I stood.  “Uhhh... Uhmm...”

        The stranger smiled, gave a bow, and trotted off towards a gardening wagon.

        “What's his deal?”  Pinkie said with a blank expression.

        “I... I...”  I glanced at him, at the tulip, then cleared my throat.  I felt my cheeks burning as I tossed the flower away while nopony was looking.  “I have no idea.”  We both marched ahead, during which I rediscovered the strength to speak to her evenly.  “Tell me, Pinkie...”

        “Hmm?”

        “Does it bother you that I'm a stranger?”

        “No more than it would bother me if you were a manticore!”

        “Isn't that... kind of a dangerous philosophy to live by?”

        “Who lives by philosophies, really?”  She hummed pleasantly as her bouncing trot led us towards the heart of Ponyville.  “At least with baking you know you can feed somepony!”  She turned and waved at a bearded stallion.  “Hey Ace!  How's the tennis elbow?”

        I continued.  “Because you can never know if a stranger might mean you ill-will or—”

        “Just remember, you have three more elbows where that came from!”  Pinkie Pie shouted towards the stallion with a giggle.  “So don't give up the dream!”  His voice chuckled in the distance.

        “Pinkie?”  I frowned.  “Are you listening to a word I'm—?”

        “Hey Cheerilee!  How're the students blooming?  Like an onion?”

        “Heehee!”  A passing mare smiled at us.  “Just as delightfully as ever, Miss Pie!”

        “Good!  Lemme know when you're enrolling for kindergarten again!  I could sure use some nap time right about now!”  Pinkie Pie smiled my way.  “Cheerilee is best pony.  Don’t you agree?”

        “Do you ever juggle less than three conversations at a given time?” I asked her.

        “Whoops!”  She smiled nervously.  “Sorry, Guyra.”

        “Lyra.  And what are you sorry about?”

        “I see a pony who's not smiling and I just dive right in, y'know?”  She waved once more towards the random crowd.  “Hey Sethistoats!  Did that showmare from Whinniepeg ever write you back?”

        A passing, yellow stallion glanced over and blushed.  “Who?  What?”  He crashed smack-dab into an apple cart.  “Ouch!  Dang it!”

        “Heehee.”  Pinkie winked at me and whispered.  “That one gets distracted too easily.”

        “He's not the only one.”  I stared firmly into her eyes.  “Don't you think that life is too fragile and important to take everything in levity?  What if something bad happens, and the last thing ponies around you want to do is smile?  What do you do then?  Are you even prepared for that, Pinkie?”

        “Ugh.  Is this a lecture?”  Pinkie Pie snickered.  “Mr. Cake is giving me those all the time.  Or at least I think he is.  It's hard to tell when he's serious or not.  You ever seen that neck of his?  I swear, he's one-third giraffe.”

        “I just think that—at your age and with the part you play in Ponyville's social structure—you could stand to be a little more—”

        “Because giraffes used to live all over Equestria before Chancellor Puddinghat's pilgrimage to the Central Valley.  Disease is a sad thing, isn't it?  Whatever, so long as they're happy with their casinos today—”

        “Pinkie, would it kill you to pay some attention?”

        “Not half as much as it'd... uh... give birth to you to stop being so serious!”  She snorted, then grinned at me.  “Seriously, Leela, you're starting to sound like a robot butterfly.”  She hoofed me a golden tulip.  “Here, you dropped this.”

        “I...”  I did a double-take, being awkwardly reacquainted with the gentlecoltish gesture.  “Uhm...”  I felt my cheeks burning once again as I stopped dead in my tracks.  “How... Where...?”

        “Don't get too far behind!”  Pinkie Pie shouted from where she was bouncing towards the entrance to Sugarcube Corner.  “I know this isn't the running of Lyra, but we've got some muffins to get to!  Hurry up!”  She bumped into a winged figure.  “Whoops!  Teehee!  Sorry about that!  Muffin emergency!”

        “Hmph...”  A copper pegasus grunted as she trotted past us.  “Friggin' earth ponies, I swear to Entropa.”

        I placed the tulip behind my ear and trotted for the bakery.  Suddenly, I skidded to a stop.  On a jolting heartbeat, I spun and glanced behind me.  The pegasus had done the same, her amber eyes squinting at me from beneath a jet-black mane.  For a few seconds we were absorbed into each other's gazes.  With a mutual shrug, we parted ways.

        “Whelp...”  I adjusted my hoodie and marched into Sugarcube Corner under a wave of cold.  “Can't get any more awkward than that.”

        “And that's how I learned what 'pu pu platter' really means!”  Pinkie Pie said, giggling over bowls of muffin mix in the middle of Sugarcube Corner's kitchen.  “Whew!  I tell you what: after that banquet, Princess Celestia almost decided to host the Summer Sun Celebration in Manehattan instead!  I still don't know how her Majesty managed to brush her teeth so well since.”

        I sighed long and hard, trying to hold my lunch in as I prepared the blueberries.  “Well, you learn something new everyday.”  I gulped and fought the urge to retch.  “Most ponies, at least.”

        “Hey, not everything's black and white.”

        “What's that supposed to mean, Miss Pie?”

        “I dunno.  Something about Petrot Molyneigh, I’m willing to bet.”

        “Every time I think you've almost made sense, you've only lost me more and more.”

        “That's just what makes you the perfect straight mare!”

        “The perfect straight—what?”

        “You know, like Stallion and Ollie?  Lewis and Maretin?  Abbot and Coltstello?”  She winked at me while she stirred the bowl of mix.  “One of us is goofy and the other one is straight-faced!  It'll make tons of ponies laugh when we hoof out these muffins!  We'll be the next big hit!  Sooner than you know it, they'll call us Harpflank and Sweets!”

        “Somehow I think that's already taken,” I muttered.

        “Heehee!  Cheer up!  As much as I want other ponies to giggle, I just hope I find a way to make you smile too, Miss... Miss...”  For once, her speech trailed off, and her mouth hung open upon the precipice of confusion.

        I glanced up at her.  I stood up straight.  “What?  What is it?”

        “Uhm... Eheh...”  She bit her lip, blushing.  “I'm told that I draw a blank a lot, I'm just not used to feeling it when it happens...”

        “You don't know my name, do you?”  I asked, leaning forward eagerly.  “You've... forgotten me?  Just now?”

        “Well... eheheheh... I came here... to bake muffins... and you... you...”

        “Freeze!” I shouted.  Several dozen blueberries fell to the tile floor as I leaned forward through the cold and grasped her shoulders.  “Stop right there!  Think hard, Miss Pie.”

        “I... I'm trying to remember your—”

        “Don't!  Don't try!”  I exclaimed.  I gulped and asked in a gentle voice, “I just need you to describe it.”

        “Describe what?”

        I bit my lip and murmured, “What are you feeling right now?  What is this curse doing to you?”

        “Curse...?”

        “Doesn't it strike you weird that you're standing in the presence of a pony you don't recall ever having met before?” I asked her, searching her eyes for the meaning to something that had been troubling me for several restless nights in a row.  “Do you get the feeling that though my face and voice is utterly new to your mind, I'm somehow familiar?  I've somehow spoken to you before?  Or is it all a total blur?”

        “I feel... I feel...”

        “Please...” I whispered, my voice wavering painfully.  I gazed at her even harder.  “This is very important to me.  I need to know what's happening to you.  I need to know why things are the way they are...”

        “I...”  Pinkie Pie's eyes thinned as she breathlessly searched the lengths of the ceiling like a introspective pony might search the cavernous lengths of her anxious soul.  “I feel like...”

        “Yes?” I breathed.

        Pinkie Pie blinked, then smiled wide.  “I feel like adding pistachios!”

        My ears drooped immediately.  “Pistachios?” I droned.

        “Yupperooni!”  She bounced past me and grabbed a jar of nuts from a high shelf.  “Blueberries!  Hah!  Only bored caterers use fruits and fruits alone in a recipe!  Ponyville is a gritty farming town!  I need to toss something crunchy into the mix!  Besides, what are the odds of anypony really being allergic to—”

        “Miss Pie!”  I almost snarled at her.  I blocked her return path to the baking counter.  “Who am I?”

        “Really pretty!”  She winked.  “I like your mane, mintilicious!”  She brushed past me while opening the jar with her teeth.  “Mmmf—Naugh hoov meh duh bloopberrees, pweddy pleeb!”

        “I'm trying to be serious!”  I plucked the jar from her jaws.  “Something extraordinary has happened here—Ewww.” I grimaced while shaking the accumulated drool off my hoof.  I placed the wet jar of nuts down and stared at Pinkie again.  “I've been here for the past hour and a half, and yet suddenly it's like I haven't been here at all.  What would you say if I told you that I could describe everything that's happened since we met at my tent just north of town?”

        “We met at a tent?”

        “Yes!  You tossed Gummy into my face!”

        “Huh, well I was probably trying to teach him how to hang glide.”  She smirked at me.  “Say, do you know where I might find a glider around here... or some hangers?”

        “Pinkie!”  I grasped her shoulders and almost yelled.  “This is not about you, me, and Gummy!”

        “Pfft!  Duh!  Two's company, three's a crowd!”

        “Doesn't it bother you that you don't even know my name?!”

        “So?  What's in a name?”

        “Everything!  I'm Lyra Heartstrings.”

        “You don't say?”  Pinkie grinned wide.  “Cuz if your name was—”

        “I swear, if you so much as mention cheese again, I'm going to—”

        “You're a pony who looks like she could learn a thing or two about baking muffins!”  Pinkie giggled.  “Isn't that enough?”

        “No!”  I barked.  “It's not enough!  We are defined as much by who we are as by the things we do!”

        “What do you call this, your Big Lyra Theory?”

        “Stop playing my words off like an ordinary showtune!”  I followed her around as she wandered aimlessly about the kitchen, grabbing even more ingredients.  “How would you like it if everypony around you suddenly forgot your name?!”

        “I'd have a hard time getting into dance clubs.”

        “For real!”  I folded my forearms and frowned at her.  “Wouldn't it bother you?  Wouldn't it make you feel as if a huge piece of you was missing?  Wouldn't it make you wonder what had happened to have stripped you of so much?”

        “Silly Lyra.  This isn't Canterlot Court!  Not every pony wears clothes.”

        “Ugh...”  I facehoofed.  “Pinkie...”

        “Nice hoodie, by the way.”  She returned to the counter and resumed stirring.  “Who woulda guessed you were a total flankster?”

        “You would have guessed nothing!”  I said.  “You don't know a thing about me!”

        “You're smart, well read, have a thing for music, and like to lecture a lot.”

        I paused, blinking.  “Uhm...”

        Pinkie Pie giggled.  “Oh please.  Mother Nature doesn't give us cutie marks at random!  That's like playing dice with the universe!  Didn't Einstallion say something about that?”

        “You think that's all you need to get to know a pony?”  I asked in a monotone voice.  I gestured towards my flank.  “You see a cutie mark and guess that I'm a musician and somehow that's enough to go by?”

        “Well.”  She motioned towards my flank.  “The golden harp certainly doesn't mean you study anthropology, now does it?”

        “Ugh... Pinkie...”

        “I guess so long as you update on a regular basis, nopony can tell the difference?”

        “At least humor me with this,” I said, gesturing for emphasis.  “Say your name out loud and tell me it doesn't do something to your spirit to just hear it!”

        “What, my full name?”

        “Certainly.”

        “Hmmm...”  Pinkie Pie gazed up at the ceiling, tonguing the inside of her mouth.  “Pinkamena Diane Pie.”  She paused, her eyes narrowing.  Then she shook her head.  “Nah.  Just as boring as ever.”

        I blinked crookedly at her.  “Uhm...”

        “Yes?  Something wrong?”

        “N-no.  It's just that...”  I pointed, lingered, then sighed.  “Forget it.”  I slumped lethargically against the counter.  “I don't know why I bother.”

        “Cheer up, girl!  I don't understand what all the stress is about!  So what's in a name?  My parents almost named me 'Surprise.'  That probably would have been cool.  Cuz then, every time I threw a pony a surprise party, I'd always be celebrating myself just a teensy bit as well!  But then I realized—heehee—I do that anyways!  So, what's it matter what a pony is called in the long run?”

        “At least a 'pu pu platter' has an important name, right?”

        “Well, not as much as the smell.  Hey, let's finish this up!  Why be wastin' when you can be bakin', huh?”

        “Pistachios?”  Fluttershy smiled and gazed over the counter at us.  “Why, Pinkie, this is absolutely delicious.  I'm tempted to bring some home so that my little squirrelies could have a bite.  Would you terribly mind if I did that?”

        “Hey!  These muffins didn't become 'free' by following Whinnie Wallace's charge across Haystings Bridge!”  Pinkie Pie exclaimed.  “Take as many as you like, girl!  Go forth and spread the good word of blueberries and pistachios in every forest!  And if a squirrel turns you away, dust off your horseshoes and go to the next cluster of trees!”

        “I swear...”  I muttered into my hoof as I sat slumped against our side of the front counter.  “Do you even hear yourself sometimes?”

        “Ew.  The last time I put my mouth up to a microphone, the only good thing that came out of it was saliva.”  She waved at Fluttershy as she marched off, becoming one with the colorful cloud of munching ponies across the heart of Sugarcube Corner.  “Singing is only pretty when it's natural.  So I never plan to do it.”

        “You never plan to do a lot of things, I'm thinking.”

        “Fluttershy's different.  That pegasus who was here just now?”  Pinkie Pie pointed at the yellow blur in my peripheral vision.  “I swear, she should totally lead a chorus.  It's funny, cuz a lot of my friends say we've got the same voice.  I don't hear it myself.  Do you hear it?  Ahem.  Do Ra Me Fa—”

        I planted a hoof over her mouth, silencing her as I sat up with a glare.  “I've heard enough, Pinkie Pie.  You're a sweet, amusing, delightful mare.  But I can't help but feel as if you're hopeless.”

        “Mmmfletth?” she remarked.  I removed my hoof.  She shook her face, flexed her lips, and uttered, “I dunno about you, but I feel pretty happy.”

        “Feeling happy and being happy are two different things.”

        “Eww.”  She gave me a disgusted look.  “Since when?”

        “Since the Cosmic Matriarch bestowed her holy breath upon the four corners of this realm and ascended to the cosmos—What's it matter?”  I tossed my hooves and stood up.  “A pony's soul is never at ease—I mean truly at ease—until he or she is lucid of his or her place in the universal order of things!”

        “Is this the part where you ask if I've read Dianeightics?”

        “Pinkie Pie, don't you ever value the past or future?!”  I looked at her with pained eyes of concern.  “Just how long can you live in the present?  How can you possibly eke meaning from a life that is measured in the here and now?  Doesn't anything hold permanence and meaning?”

        “Hmmm... Well, I guess I could dwell on the past, if only to find out what the word 'eke' means,” she murmured.  She stroked her chin in thought as two more ponies walked up and grabbed more muffins from the counter.  “You see, I didn't exactly have a lot to laugh about when I was a little filly.  My family built our home in a gloomy little town built in the ravines left behind by the bone spokes of a fallen god's lifeless wings, where to laugh was a sin and the only way to measure one's worth was to labor in deadly mines from sunup to sundown.”

        “Pinkie...”  I exclaimed, my breath leaving me as I rested a gentle hoof on her shoulder.  “I... I-I had no idea.  Did you really?”

        “Snkkkt!”  She snorted and pounded the counter.  “Hah!  I'm just kidding!  I grew up on a rock farm.”

        “Pinkie Pie!”

        “Hah hah hah hah!”

        “That's it.”  I grabbed my saddlebag and hoisted it over my flanks.  “I'm leaving.”

        “Awwww... Don't be so down in the mouth!  I'm just trying to get you to grin!”

        “At this rate, you'll get me to my grave.”

        “Oh!  Where are my manners!”  Pinkie Pie stood up next to me.  “Of course!  You're probably wanting to be paid for helping with the muffins!  I'm afraid only Mrs. and Mr. Cake handle the bits around here, but maybe you'd like a parting gift?”  She reached behind the counter and grabbed a purple stuffed hippo.  “Plushie?”

        “Miss Pie, I most assuredly do not want any plushies.  Not now, not ever.”

        “Right.  Plushies are so yesterday.  Oooh!”  She rummaged behind the counter.  “You seem like a clever pony!  Here, have a book!”  She tossed a tome of thick binding into my grasp.

        I briefly juggled it, then flung it open.  After a few page flips, I gazed dully at her.  “All the pages are blank.”

        “So?  Start a journal!  You can write, can’t you?”

        “Why would I need a—?!”  I paused in mid-speech.  I gazed down as I flipped through the dead pages yet again.  “Hmmm...”

        “I never cared for diaries myself.  They take forever to write.  Plus, just what would I put in them, anyways?”  Pinkie Pie cleared her throat and thickly orated, “'Dear Journal.  Do you like rhetorical questions?  How about rhetorical statements?  I used to write rhetorical statements a lot, then something happened and it reminded me about something else that happened and then I decided upon being declarative!'”

        “Uhm, Pinkie Pie?” Fluttershy said.  I glanced over to see her returning to the counter.  “I was wondering,” she quietly spoke.  “Could I... uhm... possibly bother you for two more muffins?  Angel's been really good-mannered lately, and I feel as though I should give him some positive reinforcement—”  Fluttershy paused, leaning over to stare at me.  “Why, hello.  Are you a friend of Pinkie's?”

        “You don't remember me from five minutes ago?”

        “Uhm.  No.  I'm sorry.  Sh-Should I?”

        I slapped the book shut and gestured at Pinkie Pie. “Hah!  There!  You see?”

        “Who?  Fluttershy?”

        “She forgot me!”

        “Heehee!  She'd forget her wings if they weren't attached to her sides!  Uhm... No offense, Fluttershy.”

        “None taken.”

        “Nice slippers you sewed for Gummy last week, by the way.  He's starting to work on his dance step.”

        “Oh really?”  Fluttershy's feathers fluttered as she smiled wide.  “I'd love to visit one of his ballet recitals.”

        “Yup!  It's a world worth living in when an alligator gets in touch with his feminine side.”

        “Pinkie!”

        “You!”  Pinkie looked up at me.  “Hello, you!  Hey, nice book!”

        “Oh dear Celestia...”  I seethed, my teeth chattering through a sudden chill.  “Did you forget me again too?”

        “Uhhh...”  Pinkie Pie blinked, then smiled.  “Heartstrings?  Cuz if you were named 'Cheestrings'—”

        “Yeah, goodbye.”

        “I'd like some cheese,” Fluttershy said.

        “Nopony asked you—”  I tripped over the counter in my hurry to leave.  “Ackk!”

        “Looks like Gummy isn't the only one who needs to learn ballet.”

        Two voices began giggling, and it made me all the more furious that I suddenly couldn't tell them apart.

        The sun was setting by the time I stormed back to my tent.  I fumbled with the zipper, cursing under my breath.  When I finally opened the flap, I tossed myself in like a sack of potatoes wrapped in a stone-gray hoodie.  I lay across my sleeping bag, sighing, basking in the toastiness of a dying summer day.  I didn't realize I was hugging something to my chest until I felt the urge to look at it.

        It was the blank journal.

        “Ugh.  Wasted my whole day, I swear to Celestia.”  I tossed the empty book towards the far end of the tent and turned over.  A stretch of flaxen mane hair fell over my eyes as I gazed blankly into space.  I should have spent that day figuring out what this new tune was that had become stuck in my head.  I should have worked on unlocking this curse, figuring out how to make a more sturdy home to live in, earning myself more bits, anything but what I actually did spend the entire day doing.  “She isn't one of your pupils, is she, Moondancer?”

        The world was cold and silent.  Of course it was.

        I shivered slightly, pulling the hood over my horn and hugging my forelimbs to my chest.  As my breath came out in tiny vapors, I went over the images of the day's events in my head.  If I was in any other circumstance, if I was any other pony, then perhaps even a fraction of the things that Pinkie had said would have done what she always wanted to accomplish.  Admittedly, I felt like smiling on a few occasions, but for some reason a frigid new part of me kept that from happening.  Because of that, both of us had come to an impasse.  Did I really have the curse to blame for that?

        What was I becoming?  Or, better yet, what was I destined to become?  I wasn't always so cold, so joyless, so devoid of any sense of humor or levity.  Was the curse such a curse because I was letting it be so terrible?

        No.  No, it couldn't possibly have been that simple.  I just needed to understand things more.  I needed to get answers.  If I could understand Pinkie Pie, then maybe—just maybe—I could understand everything else as well.  There is nothing harder to unlock than randomness.  After all, I was dying to know how a pony could live forever in the present, for I realized that I too may soon have to adjust to such an existence.

        So, groaning, I turned over and did something I would never have predicted.  I lifted the blank journal in my grasp.  I opened to the first page.  Then—telekinetically grabbing a pen that I had previously used only to write music down on paper sheets—I began taking notes.  Then those notes turned into outlines.  Then those outlines turned into narratives.  Finally, those narratives morphed into journal entries.  Before I knew it, there was an elaborate map being made of my imprisoned life in Ponyville.

        Twelve months later, seated in the center of a cozy log cabin with a crackling fireplace, I was still illustrating that “map.”  I calmly murmured aloud while dragging the quill one last time across the bottom of the page.

        “‘Have you ever had a beautiful melody stuck in your head, but you don't know where it came from?  That melody is me.’”

        I stopped.  I dropped the quill in its inkwell and gazed at my finished entry.

        “Hmm.  Good thing I’m the only pony who reads this.  That rubbish would never catch on.”

        I took a deep breath and smiled.  Life was still tough, but it was manageable.  I had discovered many elegies since my first frightful month of the curse.  I had made a home for myself.  I had planted crops to grow my own food.  I had even devised a way to coax Twilight into helping me learn the latest mysteries regarding my predicament.

        As a matter of fact, just the day previous, she had helped me discover the name of Elegy #7.  I glanced to my left, pleased at the thick pile of notes that I could now safely label the “Threnody of Night.”  After nearly a year of awkward trial and error, I was finally starting to get the hang of things.  It felt refreshing, as if I was actually in a good place.

        Perhaps such a sensation was what sparked the feeling of nostalgia suddenly blossoming inside of me.  Whatever the case, I was motivated to flip through the first few entries of my journal.  I hummed to myself as I spun the pages towards the very beginning of the book.  I froze immediately on the first sheet, my eyes squinting.

        I had several year-old notes scribbled down in hasty penstrokes.  From the horribly jagged hoofwriting, I could tell just how much the cold had made me shiver twelve months ago.  Among the convoluted to-do list I saw such gems as “earn more bits,” “tear down the barn,” “get access to the library’s older books,” and “acquire musical instruments.”  But none of these had locked my attention so viciously in place.  In the center of everything—with an angry line crossed through it not once, not twice, but three times—was a bold group of words: “learn to think pink.”

        I blinked at the imperative statement.  I made a face.  “Ew, really?”  My breath came out in a vaporous shudder.  I gazed into the flames of the fireplace.  “Couldn’t I just figure out how to time travel or build an artificial rainbow instead?”

        There are times when I am reminded of just how alone I am.  I can never predict when such epiphanies take place, but they’re almost always followed by an immutable silence that not even my frost-stricken breath can interrupt.  The fireplace had seemingly drowned itself into the shadows of the cabin.  The instruments hanging all around me faded into obscurity while the stars of night disappeared one by one outside of my windows.

I started to imagine that, with or without learning more about this mysterious Threnody, I had come a long way to reach this place of tranquility and soundness of mind.  It wasn’t an easy road; I had struggled through many trials and tribulations of spirit over the year.  Still, I had a lot to be proud of, psychologically speaking.

        And yet, no matter how serene I may have become, I knew it was nothing compared to the joy that Pinkie Pie exhibited through purely natural means.  What epiphanies, then, could such a bouncy earth pony be capable of experiencing herself?  When she felt terribly alone, who would be there to comfort her?  For that matter, who would be capable of telling exactly when and where she crossed the great divide between joy and despair?

        Suddenly, “thinking pink” no longer felt like a mission to understand myself, but to figure out yet another soul who frolicked innocently across my accursed path.  How could I have ever been possessed to cross such a note out on several occasions?

        “I blame it on the alligator,” I mumbled.

        I knew I might end up regretting it, but my mind was already making plans to do something about this.  After all, I had just made another big step in uncovering the elegies.  What was to stop me from helping my amnesiac friends discover their true potential as I had so blissfully stumbled upon mine?

        I flipped forward through the book and graced the page right after my latest entry.  With the pen, I dragged fresh new notes across the page.  I smiled to myself.  This would take several weeks, but I could already tell it was going to be easy.  I had made my connections through town, after all, even if those connections had no recollection of me.  All I needed to do was ask the right ponies the right kinds of questions and I would finally have Pinkie Pie all figured out.

        And then, just perhaps, I could help her figure herself out...

Almost a month later, in front of Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie Pie was raising Scootaloo’s front hooves victoriously in hers.  She did a little dance and smiled wide.

“Woohoo!  Look who's all better!”  She winked at the little filly.  “It takes more than a crazy long-range magical pegasus-launcher to drain the spirit from you, eh, Scootszilla?”

        Scootaloo blushed.  She stepped back from Pinkie Pie and dug a bashful hoof into the ground.  “Seriously, Pinkie, I'm fine.  And I'm sick to death of everypony constantly celebrating and patting me on the back like I'm some sort of national hero.  So I crossed the wrong paths with Dr Whooves' thingamajig.  Big deal.  That's something I won't be doing again anytime soon.  Milky White will certainly see to that.”

        “Milky White sounds like she could use a tall, cold bottle of sarsparilla down her gullet!”

        “She could use something inside her, alright.”

        “Huh?”

        “Oh.  Uhm... You hear that?”  Scootaloo gestured a hoof beside her ear.  “Sounds like Sweetie Belle's singing.  I should go and do stuff.  Crusader stuff.  Over there.  Not right here with you.”

        “Okie dokie lokie!”  Pinkie Pie innocently waved the galloping filly onwards.  “Go forth and smite talents in cutie marks' holy name!”  She turned and looked at me with a smile.  “This one time, I talked about the 'Cutie Mark Crusaders' in front of a bunch of zebras on a pilgrimage to the east?  Baaaaad idea.”  She began giggling—then stopped to blink fixedly at me.  “Oh.  Uhm.  Hi there!  I'm Pinkie Pie!  Who are you, and why do I feel like I should suddenly avoid the topic of cheese?”

        “Well, I guess there's hope yet,” I said with a  smile.

        “Huh?”

        “Pinkie  Pie...”  I strummed my lyre from where I stood against a tree a few feet away.  Several close conversations with her close friends had prepared me for this, as well as many nights spent poetically combining heartfelt words with the knowledge that I had accumulated about her family and place of foaling.  “Have you ever had a beautiful melody stuck in your head, but you don't know where it came from or what it's supposed to mean, only that you have the natural urge to hum it, regardless?”

        “Ew.  That's the worst tag line I've ever heard.”

        “Uhhhhhh huh...”  Undaunted, I tongued the corner of my mouth as I thought hard for a way to start over.  “Ahem.  Here goes.”  I looked at her with yet another grin.  “What makes a pony?  Is it her dreams?  Her thoughts and her ambitions—?”

        “Pssst!”  Pinkie Pie leaned over and gazed every which way with a goofy grin.  “Am I on Canter Camera?  Is that what this is?”

        I sighed long and hard.  I strummed my lyre with greater volume and spoke with a slightly edgier voice.  “What does it mean to be alone?  I mean truly alone?  Have we come to a point of understanding the feeling?”

        “Oooh!  I love this game!  'Guess the song,' right?  Lemme see what comes next.”  Pinkie Pie inhaled dramatically to the point of her eyes bursting.  When she was finished, she loudly screeched forth, “You've lost that loving feeeeeeeling!  Oooooh thaaaaaaaaat loving feeling!”

        I made a face.  It had been nearly a year since I last attempted a solid conversation with this bright soul.  Now I was remembering why.  I glanced around to see several ponies glancing curiously our way for the source of the caterwauling.  I spotted the mayor clamping her hooves over her ears while Berry Punch was shoving her head deep into a thick shrubbery in order to drown out the noise.

        “—feeling!  Now it's gone!  Gone!  Gone!  And I can’t go on!  No-Ohhh-Whoahhh—Da doo!  Da doo!  Da doo—”

        I ran a hoof over my head.  “Okay... Let's try taking this elsewhere...”

        Many, many hours had passed.  Under the glow of a park lamp buzzing with moths, I tiredly clutched my lyre and strummed a few ugly chords into the night.  It took all of my leftover energy to mutter, “What does it truly mean to be cursed?” I spat out in bitter monotone, my eyes dull and bloodshot.  “Does it mean that we've been robbed?”

        “Oooh!  Oooh!  I know this one!”  Pinkie Pie bounced in front of me, grinning wide.  “You ever bought tickets to a Stevie Neigh concert?  Highway robbery!  I'm telling you, she should have stuck with Fillywood Mac!”

        “No!  I didn't mean—”  I seethed, calmed myself, strummed my lyre, and uttered, “Do heroes exist only because history chooses to write about them?  Are the greatest ponies who ever lived so legendary because they earned that status, or on account of their—”

        “Oooh!  Brony Stark!”  Pinkie Pie bounced yet again.  “Brony Stark is my hero!”

        “Dang it, this isn't about... nnnkkt—Whoever Stark!” I barked.

        “Ooooooooh...”  Pinkie Pie grinned mischievously.  “Somepony's angry that Marevel got bought out!”

        “Will you let me finish!”

        “Finish what?”

        “My introduction!”

        Pinkie Pie blinked, glanced around at the starry sky, then squinted at me.  “This was all an introduction?”

        “There was something very special I wanted to tell you and I wanted to do it eloquently—”

        “We could have done that with a hoof-shake, girl!”  She extended her limb.  “The name's Pinkie!  'Pie' if you're nasty,” she added with a wink.  “'Diane' if you're... if you're... well, if you're really bored, I guess.”

        “Alright.  That's it.”  I stood up from the bench and lifted my instrument telekinetically.  “Lyre time.”

        “What time?”

        “Just listen.”  I growled briefly before absorbing the air around us with a tranquil little melody.  There was something hypnotic about the tune that I produced.  Even the crickets were drowned out as the sweet lullaby occupied all currents of the late night breeze.  Soon, Pinkie Pie stopped stirring altogether.  She gazed at me, her blue eyes locked on my lyre, as I played each gentle chord one by one.  With each progressive bar, the earth pony's jaw dropped more and more, so that her teeth shone with as much brilliance as the moon overhead.

        Finally, I finished, and I stared at her quietly—patiently—in the ensuing silence.

        “That...”  She murmured in an unearthly breath.  “That...”

        “It's a simple folk's song,” I said in a calm voice.  “It's customarily sung to children before bed.  Not many foals in Ponyville have heard it, though.  That's because it's not a song that hails from these parts of Equestria.  You see, I've done my research.  Apparently it's a song that originates from a region to the northeast of here, where many colonies have formed around quarries and rock farms.  You wouldn't happen to know of any ponies who are familiar with the tune, would you?”

        “It...”  Pinkie's voice wavered.  Her eyes were locked on the dirt path below us as she gulped and stammered, “My mother.  She... she used to sing it to me.”  She ran a shaking hoof through her fluffy mane.  “She used to sing a lot of things to me.”

        “But she stopped, didn't she?”  I gazed at her cautiously as I stepped closer.  “Was it because you grew up, Miss Pie?”

        Slowly, sadly, Pinkie shook her head.

        I squatted down beside her.  “Was it...”  I gazed gently into her face.  “Was it because you decided to leave your family, to move onto better things?”

        She bit her lip pensively.  Again, her head shook.

        “Pinkie...”  I placed a hoof on her shoulder.  “Did you have a choice, when you moved to Ponyville?”

        “I... I...”

        “Shhh...”  I smiled comfortingly at her.  “It's okay.  You don't have to hide behind endless smiles any longer.”

        “I'm not hiding!” she briefly hissed.  “I—”

        “Pinkie Pie, there's a time and a place for everything.  Don't let anypony make you think that smiling is the only way to feel... to release...”  I kept my eyes level with hers, absorbing her attention, reaching out to her soul with ever fiber of my being.  “Listen.  You're a marvelous pony.  A beautiful pony.  You have so much talent to do so many things.  Need they be stifled by a life that is spent entirely on the whimsical mediocrity of the moment?  You have the strength and charisma to move mountains, Miss Pie.  Where you're pleasantly blowing up balloons and tossing streamers around, you could instead be building a house for yourself and moving out on your own.  You don't have to hole yourself up in the Cake family's attic.  Don't you think you deserve to start... to start living for yourself and not for other ponies?”

        “But... But other ponies need me...”

        “What about your needs, Miss Pie?” I asked.  “What about what makes you whole, what guarantees you a future?”  I chuckled.  “You may even find that very special somepony if you just tried.”

        “I...I wouldn't want...”  She seemed to grimace, as if on the edge of something so painful that her face couldn't register an expression to sum it up.  “I wouldn't want to repeat...”

        “Repeat what?  What your family did to you?”  I gently stroked her cheek as I saw her eyes turning wet and glossy.  “Pinkie.  Listen to me.  It's not your fault.”

        She gritted her teeth.  She started to sniffle.

        “It's not your fault, Pinkie.  What they did to you... to kick you out...”  I shook my head with an angelic smile.  “What they did was wrong.  But you have it within you to grow up where they couldn't help out.  You can start a family of your own, a family to be proud of, for your friends to be proud of.  Tell me... What is it that you truly want in life?”

        “I...”  She gasped, her lungs heaving.  Moisture doubled and tripled along her eyes.  “I... I...”

        I leaned forward.  “Yes?”

        “Wachoo!”  She sneezed into my face.

        “Gaaah!”  I fell back on my flank.  “Sweet Luna on a bicycle!”

        “Whew!”  She rubbed her nose and smiled plain as day.  “I want hay fever to end!  What about you!”

        “Unngh!  Bleachk!  Ptooie!”  I wiped my face clean and squinted up at her.  “Hay... fever...?”

        “Annoying as all get out, isn't it?  Heeheehee!  Oh!  And about my family and stuff.”  She bounced around me.  “They kicked me out because Gummy made a mess on the carpet for the tenth time in a row!”

        “... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...Gummy.”

        “Wow, if I knew any better, I'd imagine you could fill that last breath of yours with a lot of ellipses.”

        “Your family kicked you out because of a baby alligator defecating on your rug?”

        “At least I think that's what they're called.  The last time Twilight tried giving me a lesson in grammar, her thesaurus caught on fire.  I'm still not sure how that happened.  I think Spike saw Rarity passing by the window and—well—at least my math is good.  Heeheehee.”

        “You mean that all of this—all your being here—all of... of...”  I gnashed my teeth and jumped up.  “No!  That doesn't explain anything!”

        “It doesn't?” She blinked awkwardly.

        “No!  It does not!”  I snarled in her face.  “It doesn't explain why you're always, always happy!  It doesn't explain why you never think about the past or the future!  It doesn't explain why you're perfectly okay with forgetting who I am and still treating me as if I'm not cursed!  It doesn't explain—”

        “Whoah there!”  Pinkie Pie frowned and waved two of her forelimbs strongly.  “Whoah whoah whoah whoah whoah!  Hold onto your horses!”

        I stared at her, shivering in anger.

        She looked back at me, glanced through the corner of her eyes, and smiled sweatily.  “What were we talking about again?”

        “Grrrrr...”

        “Cuz could we talk about chocolate fudge instead?  I've always wanted to talk about chocolate fudge in the middle of the night under a lone streetlamp.  There always seemed something deliciously naughty about it—Hey!  Where are you going?”

        “Home!  ‘Cuz at least I had the decency to build one!” I snarled over my shoulder as I stumbled away.  “Some ponies like to rise above themselves, y'know!”

        “Come onnnn!  We can still have a pleasant introduction!”  She said in a sing-songy voice.  “It's not like you're a perfect stranger trying to motivate me into taking a huge step into a philosophical change of character by simply sharing a single melody!  Come backkkk!”  She plopped down on her haunches.  “Hmmph.  Someponies.  Can't live with them.  Can't live without—Oooh!  Lookie!  Moths!”

        “All aboard!  Last call for Fillydelphia!  Train to Fillydelphia!  Last call!”

        I took a deep, shuddering breath.  Weeks later, I leaned against the bench of Ponyville's train depot as I watched the dismal sight of a train chugging away towards the horizon.  The soreness in the back of my throat was excruciating.  Every thought was committed towards treasuring the last few words Moondancer had to say to me.  Even still, every part of me ached as I hardened those memories, for I soon realized that the memories were all that I would ever have to cherish her with.

        I clenched my eyes shut and ran two hooves over my face.  I could still see her expression, her violet eyes, her devil-may-care grin.  My ears twitched, for I could still hear her voice... only it wasn’t hers.  It was...

        “Whew!  Why do trains have to be such steampunks?”

        I winced.  Gulping, I opened my misty eyes and looked to my side.  “Huh...?”

        “Get it?”  Pinkie Pie smiled at me.  She had an empty tray balanced on her back.  “Cuz they're big, meanie punks with all the steam they blow out of their stacks.”  She snorted back a giggle and pointed towards the horizon.  “Train humor.  I guess only the locals get it.”

        I don't know why, but I laughed.  It was both painful and pleasant all at once.  I needed a reason to exhale other than a sob.  “It's okay.  I get it.  At least I think I get it.”  With another shuddering breath, I glanced lonesomely towards the horizon.

        I heard a shuffling of hooves.  Pinkie Pie had not left my presence.  Apparently my previous, cracked facsimile of a smile wasn't convincing enough.  “I just came all the way back from delivering the depot master a mountain of Mr. Cake's best cinnamon danishes, and boy are my wings tired!”

        “But...”  I gulped and murmured her way.  “But you don't have any wings, Pinkie Pie.”

        “I know!  They took off and checked themselves in at the Honeypot Inn!  It was the only hotel in town that didn't have feather in their pillows!  Hehehe!  Get it?”

        I got it.  It was a horrible joke, but I got it.  My eyes began to well up with tears as I smiled for smiling's sake.  I had just witnessed my past dissolve and Twilight Sparkle's future crumble, and suddenly all that mattered was the pitifully happy now.  I felt silly.  I felt weak.  I even felt stupid.  But somehow, I felt right.

        “You're something else, Pinkie.”  I heard my voice whimper as I gazed towards the horizon one last time.  I could no longer see Moondancer's train, and that was what hurt the most.  A sharp gasp escaped my body as I hugged my shivering self.  I knew I was ready to collapse.  If I moved a single muscle, every part of me would shatter.  I didn't want anypony to see, and yet I didn't know what else to do.

        Thankfully, Pinkie was doing the thinking for both of us... or perhaps not the thinking, but the feeling.  I heard the clatter of the tray being put down as she squatted on the bench behind me.

        “If I didn't know better...” She said in a very calm voice.  “I'd say somepony could use some company.”

        “Mmmm...”  I gulped hard as a tear ran down my face.  I smiled halfway towards her, my voice squeaking in gratitude.  “Y-Yes, Pinkie.  I-I think she could...”  I sniffled again, but Pinkie paid no mind to it.

        She was too busy chattering forth, “Did you ever hear the one about the horse who walked into a bar?”

        “No.”  I sniffed and ran a hoof through my mane.  “What about him?”

        “He said 'ouch!'”

        “Snkkkt—Heeheehee!” I managed, my breath coming out in sharp palpitations, fixed through a painful but very warm smile.  “Well, that was dumb of him.”

        “Uh huh.  You hear about the philosopher who tried to cross the road?”

        “Uhm, no.  Why did she try to cross the road?”

        “To figure out why she tried to cross the road!”

        “Heeheehee...  That's awful.”

        “Isn't it, though?”

        “Mmmhmmm...”  I leaned back, delighted by her warmth and presence.  “G-got anymore?”

        “Sure!  What goes up white but comes down yellow and white?”

        “I give.  What?”

        “Beats me, but you stink at juggling!”

        “Heeheehee!”

        “Heh heh heh.  I got a million of them.  Oooh!  I know!  Here's a doozie.  Okay, so this one time at rock camp...”

        “And that's when I got Octavia and the rest of the musicians to help me with a song and dance number!”  Pinkie Pie proudly exclaimed.  Another month, another afternoon, and another giggling breath had brought here there to the center of Ponyville.  “I'm telling you, I mopped up the floor of that Gala with all of my dance moves!  Ungh!  Ungh!  Yeah!  Heehee!  Too bad Fluttershy had to herd the stampede of garden animals into the ballroom and turn the party on its head.  Say, that reminds me, does a rabies shot hurt?  Twilight's been lecturing me about it ever since we came back a few weeks ago...”

        “Perhaps it would be in your best interest, friend Pinkie...”  Zecora winced and side-stepped away from her.  “To bring this issue to Nurse Redheart immediately.”

        “Why?  Does she need a shot too?  I should tell her about Berry Punch, ‘cuz that mare is always talking about taking shots.  Say, that reminds me, Zecora!  If zebras come from a desert land, why are they always talking in rhyme?  Wouldn’t they get extra thirsty?”

        I tapped her pink shoulder.

        Pinkie blinked.  “My shoulder is talking to me.”  She spun around and looked at me with wide eyes.  “Oh!  Uhm, hi!”  Her face scrunched up adorably in thought.  “Uhmm... 'Something something something cheese is bad,' right?”

        “You're just the mare I'm looking for,” I said with a smile.

        She raised an eyebrow.  “I am?”

        “She is?”  Zecora remarked.  Upon the receiving end of my prolonged stare, the shaman fidgeted before nervously blurting, “Show biz!”  With a wave of her hoof, she made a swift exit.

        “Ahem.”  I turned back to Pinkie Pie.  “I desperately need you for a very important mission, a mission fraught with much uncertainty and cake frosting.”

        “Oh!  Well... uhm...”  Pinkie made a confused face, realizing that she wasn't used to making confused faces.  “I can definitely do one of those things!”

        “I'm willing to bet you could do both.”  I tugged her along as I marched the two of us towards Sugarcube Corner.  “Let's make haste!”

        “Okay—Ack!  But but but but...”  She hobbled awkwardly after me.  “What's the occasion?  What are we doing?  Who are you?”

        “Happy to see you!  Isn't that enough?”

        “Uhhh... Okie dokie lokie!”  She put on her best smile and stumbled to keep up with my skipping hooves.  “Hey!  Wait for me!”

        “There's something about the smell, texture, and taste of marble cake frosting that brings out the little singing bird caged inside of me.  What about you?”

        “Uhhh... Heh, sure!  Though... Uhm...” Pinkie Pie fumbled to juggle the many ingredients I was tossing across the kitchen towards her.  “Whoah!  But... But...”

        “What, you've never read Marea Angelou?”

        “Oh!  Her!  Pfft!  Like, who hasn't—”  She paused in a precarious lean, squinting.  “Wait.  Did you just make that name up?”

        “If I did, would you pat me on the back?”

        “I'm afraid my hooves are too full of batter and flour bags to do that.”

        “Well, so be it!”  I slapped a large pan down onto the counter.  “Cuz it's time for us to bake the ever living snot out of some cake!”  I grinned psychotically at her.  The world was alive and I was the center of the spinning bicycle wheel.  “What say you?  Enough pretense!  Let it all hang out like your brother-in-law on Hearth's Warming Eve!  Let's kick sprinkles and chew gumdrops and not plan the funeral until the whole sad world has somehow forgotten to enjoy the taste of both of them!”

        “Well, hey, that sounds like fun!  Uhm... I think.”

        “Don't think.  Just bake.  Whew!  Celestia!  It's good to be alive, don't you think?”

        “But I thought I wasn't supposed to think!”  She gazed up at me, panting from the weight of all the ingredients she was balancing.  “We're just baking, remember?”

        “Miss Pie, to bake is to live is to weep is to laugh is to dance is to bake.  I dare you somewhere in that abomination of a sentence to find an infinitive worth splitting.”

        “Oh.  Really!  I wouldn't dare!”

        “That's the spirit!  Now hoof me the damnable baking soda already!”

        “Sure thing!  But... if I may ask...”  She squinted at me sideways.  “Why are you in such a good mood?”

        “Hah!”  I cackled as I began the infernal process of making the greatest cake in the history of Equestria.  “You of all fillies would ask me that!”  I winked sideways at her.  “Ebb and flow, Miss Pie.  Ebb and flow.”

        “I'm a little rusty when it comes to my rivers.”

        “Not all of us can afford to be cheerful all of the time,” I explained.  “For some of us, it comes in little bursts, because of specific occasions.  Only then do we understand what it means to be the embodiment of a spirit, or the skeletal structure of a felicitous dream.  All this time, I've tried to understand you.  I realize that I can never pretend to be you.  I can only be myself—as happy as I'll ever be—because that's what's worth being when the chance presents itself.  And it is definitely presenting itself today.  Tell me, Miss Pie.  Have you ever heard of a Mister Alabaster Comethoof?”

        “Who?”

        “I rest my case.”  I slapped a white container down.  “And the flour therein!  Heeheehee.  Ahem.  I'm so happy today, Miss Pie, because I've recently did a lot of reading, and in so doing I learned something.”

        “Oh yeah?  Like...?”

        “I learned that there are only ten.”

        “Ten what?”

        “Ten elegies,” I said in a warm breath as I rummaged through the baking tools she was setting down.  “It may seem like nothing... but it's a road home, and a beautiful road at that.”

        “I don't get it.  If all you need is a road to get home, why not just dig your way?”

        “Some things are only possible when they're graceful.”  I glanced aside at her with a teeth-glinting grin.  “Care to dance with me?”

        “Whoah!  Whoah!  Yeesh... Watch it!”  Pinkie Pie winced and squeaked, dancing left and right of me as I levitated a huge, wobbling cake down the center of Ponyville.  “Careful!  Oh jeez!  Oh jeez, I just know you're gonna drop it!”

        “After the four solid hours we spent hammering this masterpiece of vanilla and mint into the world of the living...?”  I grinned back at her in mid trot.  The glowing, floating cake teetered in midair between us.  “Miss Pie, I'm surprised that you've remembered me this long!”

        “I'll remember you forever if you let this go to waste!”  She whimpered as she tilted herself from side to side, eager to catch the thing at a moment's sneeze.  “It cost you thirty bits for Mr. and Mrs. Cake to let us bake this thing!  I don't wanna ruin it!”

        “Ruin what?  We're having fun, aren't we?”  I gestured towards the horizon.  “Go long!”

        “Aaackies!”  She dove dramatically forward, only to have to catch nothing.

        “Heeheehee!”  I was still levitating the cake with me.  “You scare too easily.”

        “That's cuz you get freaky too easily!”  Pinkie Pie briefly frowned.  “What's your deal?!  Cake is serious business!  You think I'm lying?”

        “Not at all.  But the game mustn't go on for long.  After all, we reached our destination!”

        “Huh?”  Pinkie Pie glanced at the door to the apartment we had just stumbled upon.  “We're delivering the cake here?”

        “Yeah.  That a problem?”

        “Well, no.  I just think this pony has enough sweets as it is.  Truth be told, Sugarcube Corner's always kind of had a teeeeeny-tiny friendly rivalry going on with her...”

        “Well, consider this a step forward in diplomacy.  Here.”  I set the huge weight of the cake on her backside.

        “Ooof!”  Her legs wobbled as she struggled to balance the thing.  She cast me an incredulous look.  “Me?  You want me to give it to her?”

        “Absolutely!”  I said with a pleasant smile.  “The thing about this gift, is that it only stays a gift if I remain anonymous.”

        “Anonymous?”  Pinkie Pie sweated and strained.  “You mean like what they say about William Flankspeare?”

        “Heheheh... Not exactly Pinkie.  Lemme just ring the doorbell.”  After I did so, I gasped.  “Oh!  Shoot!  I almost forgot!”

        “What?  What?” she panicked, shuddering beneath the cake's enormous girth.

        I pulled a tiny velvet bag out from my hoodie's pouch and hung it by a golden string to the edge of the cake pan.  “That makes it all complete.”

        “I knew there had to be a cherry on top.”

        “Oh hush.”  I said.  There was a shadow at the door, and I gasped.  “Oooh!  Here she comes!  Try to look happy and cute!”

        “Hey!  Those—nngh—I can do!”

        “Indubitably.”  I darted off to hide behind a thick row of bushes.  I gazed through the afternoon sunlight, watching as the door opened up and a cream-colored earth pony marched out.

        “Pinkie Pie?”

        “Oh... Hi there, Bon Bon!”  Pinkie wheezed.  “I'd sing a happy-surprise-afternoon-fun-cake song, but... nnngh... well...”

        “Oh you poor thing!”  Bon Bon leaned over and used her shoulder to bear part of the weight.  “Here, let's put that down so you can speak!”

        “Inside...”

        “Huh?”

        “Inside your apartment.”

        “You... You mean this enormous thing is for me?”  Bon Bon giggled confusedly.  “Why... I'll have to put it on the far side of the house to keep from melting on account of my ovens!”

        “Don't thank me!  I'm not the pony of the hour!”

        “Oh?  Who's responsible for this... treat?”

        “Uhm...”  Pinkie helped place the cake down inside the atrium of her house.  “Whew.  Anonymous.”

        Bon Bon raised an eyebrow.  “'Anonymous?'”

        “Yeah.  Creepy, huh?  Sounds like a bunch of lurkers to me.”

        “Did this... anonymous pony give a reason for why I'm bestowed with such a baked delight?”

        “I dunno.  But he or she did leave a pouch.”

        “A pouch?”  Bon Bon turned and glanced down at the pan of the dessert item.  “Oh!  My oh my... isn't this interesting!”

        “Is that a bag you recognize?”

        “I should say so.  It's Stalliongrad tradition.  Most ponies where I hail from give each other gifts in little velvet pouches like this.”

        “Wow, Bon Bon.  I had no idea you were from Stalliongrad.”

        “Well, I would think as much,” she murmured as she lifted the tiny velvet purse in her hooves and pulled loose the gold string.  “It's not something I tell many ponies.  As a matter of fact, it's taken several years for me to adopt a new accent since moving... to Ponyville...”  Her voice trailed off as her breath left her.

        Pinkie Pie squinted.  “I don't get it.  Is something wrong?”

        “No.  Hardly.  These...”  She covered her mouth with a hoof, then reached into the bag to grasp a cluster of shiny, glittering spheres.  “These are street marbles.  Every filly where I was foaled plays with these at a young age.  They're... They're fashioned out of the same rock that forms the walls of our city.  And... and...”  Her nostrils flared and a squeaking cry left her throat.  “Dear Celestia!  It even smells like it...”

        “Like what?”

        Bon Bon's face tightened into a bittersweet sob.  “Like h-home.”  She sniffled and bit her lip as a fragile smile graced her features.  “Oh Pinkie Pie... How long it's been since I've heard the sweet anthems of that majestic city, since I've listened to my family singing along.”

        “Jee.  I always heard bad stories about Stalliongrad and thought it wasn't exactly a happy place.”

        “That's the thing about happiness...” Bon Bon shuddered as a tear rolled down her cheek.  “It springs from nothingness.  It squeezes out of the barren, most unlikely of places.  And there's so much warmth to be had.  Even at my age... after all the years that have gone by...”  She escaped a sob only by chuckling.  Looking up at Pinkie Pie, she smiled with glittering, moist eyes.  “Please.  I must know who this pony is... who could have pierced so many walls to have blessed me so...”

        “Uhhh...”  Pinkie Pie squirmed where she stood.  “I wish I could. But—”

        “No.  It's okay.”  Bon Bon choked and smiled once more.  “I understand.  And it is a sweet gift.  Such a sweet gift.  It's like they knew.  Somehow, they knew exactly what I needed...”  She shuddered long and hard, then all but tackled Pinkie Pie with a warm embrace.  “But I still gotta hug somepony!”

        “Eeek!”  Pinkie Pie gasped upon the receiving end of the hug.  She ultimately giggled and hugged her back.  “Heehee!  Well, I'm happy that you're so happy because somepony was happy to make you happy and not unhappy!”

        “We are precious things in a precious world, Pinkie,” Bon Bon said in a wavering voice.  Her tongue twisted slightly, so that her words came out with momentarily foreign inflections.  She covered it up with a clearing of her throat and a gentle smile as she leaned back from her fluffy-maned friend.  “I hope you never forget that, because I know I won't.”  She giggled and wiped her cheek dry.  “And I know I'll absolutely be loving this cake.  So don't think that you didn't have a hoof in all of this.  I thank you, Pinkie.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

        “Hey... Uhm...”  Pinkie Pie waved back as she trotted out of the house.  “No problem!  Good luck... uhm... playing candies and baking marbles—er, I mean...”

        “Heehee... I know what you mean, Pinkie.”  Bon Bon smiled.  She nuzzled the velvet pouch and trotted into her house with a lasting grin.  “More often than you think, ponies understand you, and are grateful for you.”

        The door shut quietly, and Pinkie Pie was left standing in her yard with a blank expression.  “Huh...”  She turned around and slowly trotted out onto the sidewalk.  “Now if only I could understand me as well.”

        “The question of the century, no doubt.”

        She heard a few strumming notes from my lyre and looked over.  “Oh, you're still here?”

        “Is that half as surprising as the fact that you still remember me?” I replied with a wink.

        “I don't get it!”  She marched over to me and pointed in the direction of Bon Bon's apartment.  “Why did that have to be so animaniacs?”

        “Anonymous.”

        “Gesundheit.  Seriously, though?”

        “You,  Pinkie?  Serious?”

        “Hey!  Believe it or not, I'm smart enough to know when I'm being made fun of!”

        “Heheheh...”  I strummed a few more chords and smiled pleasantly at her.  “Don't sell yourself short, Pinkie.  You have the mind of a scholar, the voice of a philosopher, and the heart of an angel.”

        “I'd give it all just for you to have the voice of a bullhorn.”

        “Very well.”  I paused in my instrumentation to point at the apartment.  “There you have a pony who, from the utter kindness of her heart, once did something very special for a stranger, when there was no promise for a reward in return.  Little did she know that what she did was exactly what that stranger needed at that one moment in time.  I found it amazing that a mare like her could have been so capable of doing something so kind for a soul she didn't even know.  But then, it dawned upon me, that she was hardly the first example.”

        “Oh?”

        “Tell me.  What pony in Ponyville is the utter example of kindness?  A shining beacon of joy and generosity?  And an infectious spirit of levity all at once, without needing an explanation for all of those marvelous traits?”

        “Uhm...”  Pinkie Pie stirred where she stood before bestowing me a sheepish smile.  “Can I take the physical challenge?”

        “Heheheh.  It's you, Pinkie Pie,” I said.  “You are the living embodiment of happiness.  You exist just so that felicity itself may exist.  If it was possible for a spirit of rapture to have a soul, you would be the vessel, with all of your bounciness, your delicious absurdities, your attention and lack of attention to detail all at once—heeheehee—your utter you-ness that makes up... well... you.”

        “Ohhhh... Um.  You are complimenting me, right?”

        “I would hope so.”

        “Oh!  Cool.  Uhm... Can I blush now?”

        I winked.  “Be my guest.”

        She turned a brighter shade of pink as she gazed towards the sky with an adorable snicker.  “Heeheehee—Ahem.  Really, though.  I just like it when other ponies smile, like Bon Bon there.  You think what just happened made her day?  Heck, it just made my week!  I only wished I could be better at it.”

        “You don't realize how happy it makes me to hear that.”

        “To hear what?”

        “That you know that you stand to improve yourself,” I said.  “That you're aware of your gifts, and that you plan to make them even greater.  Because that's what makes you and I alike.  We're trying to become better ponies, even if one of us appears to have everything together so perfectly.  And I must admit, Pinkie, you've had my envy for a long time.”

        “I have?”

        I slowly nodded.  I strummed on the lyre gently as I dripped forth, “The way you could live in the moment without seeming to care about the ills or dangers of the world.  The way you could be smiling and gleeful when others around you wanted to do nothing but sob.  The way you could be annoying, and not know it, so that when other ponies look back on the moment that they met you... they can only do what you've always wanted them to do from the beginning.  They can only smile.  Because that's what you've become, Pinkie Pie.  You're a smile that keeps on going.  That's something that's more than a passing expression.  That's something immortal, something that isn't bound by either the past or the present, something that I would greatly like to master... for someday I may too end up nothing more than an idea, and if I must find a way to deal with that, I wish to do so happily, with a smile and not with a sob.”

        Pinkie Pie gazed at me long and hard.  Her lips curved ever so slightly.  “I look at you, and I don't think I quite understand everything that's coming out of your mouth.  Still, all I wanna do is grin.  Does that help things any?”

        I slowly nodded.  “It does.  And after fifteen long months of trying to figure out one of life's biggest mysteries, I think a huge chunk of my mind—and my heart—can finally relax and laugh.”

        “Heeheehee.  Musicians like you always know how to knock it out of the park, huh?”  She bounced past me, gleefully uttering, “Keep on with your lyrical musings, madame mint.  One day, they'll throw you flowers.”

        I smiled after her as she bounded towards the center of town like a bright pink ball.  I let loose the longest, most succulent breath of my life.

        “I don't get it.”

        “Nnnngh!”

        “Hnnngh!”

        “Hckkk—Hah!” Applejack yanked her forelimb across a tree stump.

        “Waaah!” Rainbow Dash was flung onto a patch of grass in Ponyville Park.  Her legs curled up like a blue cockroach’s as she groaned into the crisp afternoon air.  “Dang it!  Not again!”

        “Reckon we can take a break from hoof-wrestlin’ now, sugarcube?”  Applejack leaned back with a sigh.  “My elbow's startin' to itch just a tad.”

        “Nuh uh!”  Rainbow Dash kipped up and glared across the stump from Applejack.  “I'm not quitting that easily!”

        “Please, RD!”  Applejack groaned.  “The dag-blame'd Gala is over and done with!  There ain’t no more tickets to fight over!  Can we move on from this here dark chapter of our lives?!”

        “Bite your tongue!  We're doing this to the end!”  Rainbow slapped her forelimb once more atop the stump while smirking.  “Best out of one thousand three hundred and thirty-seven!”

        “Ungh...”  Applejack gripped her limb with hers.  “Fine.”

        Before the two could start again, Pinkie Pie suddenly bounced up.  “Hey!  Whatcha guys doing?  Spelling it out?”

        Rainbow Dash growled.  “I was about to wipe this farm filly's smug face full of freckles all across the—”

        “Nothin' much.”  Applejack smiled up at Pinkie.  “What's on yer mind, sugarcube?”

        “I was wondering, AJ.  I just mapped out this nifty plot of land south of the Carousel Boutique.  You think you could teach me how to build myself a house?”

        “Well that's nice, Pinkie.  But right now I'm in the middle of teaching RD a lesson she won't—”  Applejack's green eyes bulged.  She adjusted the brim of her hat and squinted up at Pinkie Pie.  “Mind repeatin' yerself?”

        “You wanna build a house?”  Rainbow Dash asked with no less a bizarre expression.

        “Yupperooni!”

        “What for, darlin'?”

        “Well...”  Pinkie Pie took a deep, deep breath.  Her following speech came out like a gatling gun.  “It suddenly occurred to me in the middle of giving Gummy a sponge bath that the only reason I'm in Ponyville is because my parents kicked me out of the farmhouse back home in a fit of anger and ever since then I've been gleefully eking the fruits of my existence by making everypony around me smile and if I don't suck it up and act like an adult real soon I'll discover too late what it means to be a sad-sack of a lonely background pony with nothing better to do than to just sit around and philosophize!”

        A bent haystalk fell out of Applejack's gaping mouth.  Rainbow Dash was also brandishing a blank expression.  It wasn't until a light breeze kicked at their manes that all three ponies realized something wasn't right.

        “Huh... What...?”  Applejack tilted her head around.

        “I think the music just stopped,” Rainbow Dash said.

        The three mares looked in my direction.

        I fumbled to pick my lyre back up from where I had dropped it beside the tree.  “Ahem.  Uhm... My bad.  Eheheh... Please, carry on.”  I resumed my role as a random minstrel, filling the air once again with gentle strings.

        Applejack shrugged, her hoof still entangled with Rainbow Dash's.  “Well, uhh...”  She smiled nervously up at Pinkie Pie.  “I reckon that's a mighty big step yer takin' there, Pinkie.  I can't pretend to judge you on the decision-makin', but I'd be more than happy to assist you in buildin' a log cabin.  Assumin' that's what you really want.”

        “Actually, what I really want is some pistachios mixed with blueberry,” Pinkie Pie said, gazing off towards the sunrise as she licked her lips.  “Hmmmm.”  After a pause, she blinked and cleared her throat.  “And a log cabin.  That too.  I think it's about time I lived on my own.”

        “Well, shucks!  When did you wanna start plannin'?”

        “Anytime you were willing to lend a hoof, AJ!”

        “Fine by me!  Just one second!”  Applejack's face tensed as she slapped her hoof across the tree stump.

        “Waaah!”  Rainbow Dash was flung once more onto the grass.

        “Now I'm ready!”  Applejack stood up with a grunt.  “Yeeha!  Time to fetch us some cuttin' tools!”

        “Okie dokie lokie!”  Pinkie Pie gladly led the way with a girlish bounce while a smiling Applejack trotted along.

        “Hey!  No fair!”  Rainbow Dash grunted and scampered after them.  “You're not getting away that easy, AJ!  Best out of one thousand three hundred and thirty-nine!”

        “Awww why dun ya just stuff it?!”

        “Stuff you!  We're ending this once and for all!”

        I gazed after them, playing a few prolonged notes on my lyre.  My eyes fell on Pinkie Pie's bouncing form, and I shook my head in amusement.

        “So typical, she's atypical.”  I took a deep breath.  Placing down my lyre, I reached into my saddlebag and produced an ancient brown tome.  I squirmed comfortably against the tree trunk as I opened the book, its magical glowing letters shining bright and blue in the delicious shade.  “So, Mr. Comethoof.  Let's see if you have anything less absurd to teach me...”

        Come to think of it, pistachios and blueberries would be nice right about now.

        Allergies be damned.

Background Pony

X - “Green Is the New Pink”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: RazgrizS57, Warden, Props, theBrianJ, and L Ron Hubbard

Cover pic by Spotlight

        April the Fifth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        They call this the Age of Shadow, a time of great darkness and foreboding.  Sarosians, night guards, and all other ponies of nocturnal blood: they look upon the great white bowers of Luna's home and mourn her divine absence.  They wait for her to come out of hiding and reveal to the ponies of the night exactly what it is that she has been meditating on over the past decade.  My brothers and sisters know what it means to be pious, and yet—I fear—they forget what it means to be joyous.

        The wind in the air is chilling these nights.  While many in my family are apt to call it melancholic, I can only find the entire sensation exciting.  Perhaps it is due to my mixed blood, but I am overwhelmed by great anticipation.  I feel as though we are on the crest of great discovery and enlightenment.  I can feel it in my bones; I can feel it in my horn.  This world has been nothing but science and mundanity since the end of the Discordant Era.  Even Starswirl the Bearded's accomplishments, for all of their practical merits, have only filled Equestrian life with simplicity instead of enchantment.

        We deserve more in this life.  There is more to existence than dirt and air and blood.  There is a truth beyond the base elements of our superficial existence.  There is something that can't simply be exposed by Celestia's brilliance, something that must instead be dredged from the shadowed alcoves of Creation  I suspect that our royal Majesty Luna, the ever vigilant Goddess of Shadows, is on the verge of such an endeavor.

        Why else would she have summoned me, Whinniepeg University's leading scholar in ancient mysticism, to join her in an unprecedented meeting of secret importance?  There is more to this invitation than a royal alicorn wishing to engage in one solitary function.  After all, I have been asked to take residence within the Midnight District of Upper Canterlot.  What could her Royal Highness desire of me?  How could my intellectual gifts be of service to the Princess in her time of solitude and seclusion?

        I can only guess the gravity of this situation.  What has she discovered that would require my sudden and potentially long-term relocation?  I am more than happy to oblige, of course, especially since I was allowed to move to Canterlot in loving company, instead of on my lonesome.

        I can’t shake the feeling that this world is about to change.  Verily, I shall embrace this new chapter in my life as the dawn of a new awakening.

        They call this the Age of Shadow, and if that is true then it is a glorious, soul-cleansing shadow.  I cannot think of another era that a unicorn would be more blessed to witness.  Now more than ever, I rejoice at being alive.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        April the Seventh, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I do sincerely apologize for the poetic ambiguity of my first entry into this journal.  I hold degrees in over five areas of magical study; I'm more than capable of succinctly chronicling my experiences.  However, I've been summoned by Princess Luna herself.  This is not something that happens to everypony, no matter how elite.  I suppose that, even at my age, I can let myself get overwhelmed with excitement.  To that extent, I believe some explanation is in order.

        I was bequeathed this journal by my cousin Crescent Shine, and with it he gave me a message.  When one is delivered a message directly by the Captain of the Royal Night Guard—blood relation or not—one pays close attention.  As it turns out, Princess Luna has broken her silence for the first time in nearly ten years, and her first public act was to request my services as a scholar and a researcher.

        To say the least, I was speechless.  Crescent Shine merely mocked my numb reaction to his delivery.  For as long as we've known each other, he's taken it upon himself to tease me good-naturedly for the intellectual path that I've taken in life.  I know that deep down, he is as proud of me as I am of him, especially now that my time has come to serve the Goddess of the Night as he has so dutifully done all these years.  I can only hope to live up to the legacy he has established with the Night Guard, so as to bring Luna the glory and respect that she deserves.

        Crescent, it would appear, was the first non-alicorn to speak with Luna face to face in a decade.  Naturally, I asked him if he could give me any details of the Moon Goddess' countenance.  Was she as everypony suspected: a soul embittered by loneliness and melancholy?  Was she full of vigor and excitement, enlivened by an epiphany befitting only an immortal equine?  What could have possessed her to ask for the assistance of a unicorn scholar gifted in ancient mysticism and music theory?

        Naturally, Crescent was reticent to give me any details.  His loyalty to Luna is a holy thing.  He keeps her feelings in silent confidence.  He did, however, tell me that Luna had acquainted herself with many of the records that I had kept in the past when toiling on previous research projects.  The fact that Her Majesty had actually read my humble works both shocked and excited me.  Before I could process any of that, Crescent informed me that Her Majesty also wished me to keep record of my current experiences, now that I am about to enter a new field of study.

        There was no way I could refuse such a request.  To think that these words that I am writing right now could act as a direct commentary to the research Her Majesty and I are now committed to: I am beyond ecstatic.  All my life, I have studied history; it never once occurred to me that I might become a part of it.  It's one thing to be invited into the esteemed presence of the immortal Princess Luna.  It's another thing altogether for her to give me a chance at literary immortality.

        And so it is that I write about this new chapter in my life, and of the things I've yet to discover.  It's safe to say that I've waited my entire existence to experience something as glorious as this, and I knew exactly what I would do when such a moment came.

        I've written several records in the past, and all of them were meticulously dull.  For once, I have a chance to write something with significance that will transcend the ages.  I can't think of a better occasion to dedicate something to you, for your preciousness exceeds even this, the apex of my being.

        Thus I, Alabaster Comethoof, write these records to you, Penumbra, the love of my life, my constant star, my evening breath.  It is you who has made this possible, who has patiently stood by my side for years upon years, who has given this scholar a chance to feel when everything else in his life was mere pretense and study.

        I write these records for you, dearest Penny, so that you—more than any other soul in Equestria—will know what has happened in this time, and what this age will mean for the legacy of our kingdom, and how it will pave for us a new and glorious age of enlightenment.  I feel that this coming era will enrich us, but it will never redefine us, because the only thing more permanent than an immortal alicorn's will is the fabric of our love.

        Read these words, Penny, and know that all of this is because of you, and for you.  Let them be food for the mind, and lyrics for the soul.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        April the Twentieth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        It was a six hour ride by air coach from Whinniepeg to Canterlot.  Ridden without you, Penumbra, it felt like an eternity.

        I arrived at the outer walls of Canterlot three hours ago.  I'm almost too exhausted to write this, but I am far too excited to sleep just yet.  Canterlot deserves its standing as the capital city of Equestria.  It is a magical buttress filled with the most brilliant and creative minds in all the land.  Every street is full of music, art, poetry, and color.  Torches burn even in the daylight.  I know this, for I've seen them with my very own eyes.

        Fear not, Penny.  I garbed myself well, and the only thing I burned on the way to our new apartment was my bag of bits from asking for too many directions of the street-folk.  Thankfully, before I could get entirely lost—or broke—Crescent Shine found me.  I did not expect him to be flying around in the daytime.  Apparently Canterlot business never sleeps, and the same can be said of the royal sarosian Guard.  You yourself have always said that he looks majestic at night, flying about with his elite squadrons.  When his shadow armor glints in the sunlight, Crescent is positively intimidating.  Several ponies around us cowered at the sight of his glowing amber eyes peering out from under that onyx helmet of his.  The two of us had a hearty chuckle, and after a swift embrace he led me to the Midnight District and hoofed me the schedule for my first meeting with Luna.

        You will never believe how spacious our new home is, Penny.  It positively dwarfs our flat in Whinniepeg.  The windows have thick shutters that will keep me safe in the daytime, and yet will open freely for you when I am away.  The kitchen possesses a royal girth, and I can already imagine the feasts that you and I can invite our new neighbors to.  They are a very social lot, our next-door tenants, and most of them are also sarosian.  I've always wanted a chance for you to commune with more of my kind.  Believe it or not, a great many of them aren't nocturnal.  I love to think that you and I can make many new friends here in Canterlot.

        I would write more, if only I had something to write of.  I've only barely glimpsed the splendidly decorated alleyways and winding streets of the Midnight District, but this trip has exhausted me greatly.  I hope that you arrive here sooner, even if it means abandoning all of our things back at Whinniepeg, though we both know I could never ask you to do that.  A week is a terribly long time to wait for my wife.  I'm giving Luna's summons a final read.  She wishes me to bring the records I wrote when I researched Proto-Equestrian symphonies of Dream Valley.  What she desires to pull from that chapter of my scholastic career, I can't even pretend to know.  She still hasn't even given me a clue as to what exactly we will be studying.  For the time being, I don't have a title to give this tome I'm currently leaving notes in.  I don't know whether to feel confused or excited.  I think I shall just settle for “tired” and do something I haven't done in ages, and that's sleep while the sun is down.

        I miss you dearly.  There's no joy in standing on the crest of discovery when one is alone.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        April the Twenty-Second, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        It's official.  Tomorrow, I shall finally go and meet with Her Majesty.  I've been so preoccupied with waiting for you that I forgot I was also waiting for Princess Luna as well.  Don't take it the wrong way, Penumbra.  You are not a distraction to me, but rather a buffer.  Just knowing that you will be here soon, joining me in my new home, is a blessing, and it animates my body and mind in such a way that I feel like I'm an alicorn myself, incapable of death or decay.

        I've taken it upon myself to scour the Royal Archives in preparation for my studies with Princess Luna.  What's more, I felt that I should visit the city library in the daytime.  I don't tell you this to alarm you, Penny, but rather to let you know that I am more than capable of adjusting to the lifestyle of Canterlot.  Though you and I may be living in the Midnight District, it is not my desire to force you into a nocturnal lifestyle any longer.  After all, my love, you have labored all these years to live under the moon on my behalf, and now that we are entering a new chapter in our lives, I couldn't possibly wish more torment on you.  I know you'll only say that I'm being unnecessarily humble and melodramatic, but I can't help it.  The ponies of Canterlot—the majority of citizens who fill this town with so much life and energy—live by the daylight, as you do... as you were born to do.  It is high time that I changed things so that our lives can be convenient for you from now on.  You no longer need to make the sacrifice, my love, though I shall always cherish the lengths to which you have gone to help advance my career.

        As it turns out, visiting the library in the daytime is not nearly as harrowing as it may sound.  My moonsilk cloak is as useful here as it was in Whinniepeg.  As a matter of fact, there are many places throughout the location of the Royal Archives that provide a great degree of shade.  It would seem that Canterlot has long made its facilities and public places accessible to sarosians.  Princess Luna, after all, has been living here along with her sister for the past four thousand years.  In a lot of ways, it's like a piece of Whinniepeg has been seeded throughout the remote areas of Equestria's capital.

        This doesn't, however, stop several citizens from glancing curiously my way.  In every street and building I've visited, citizens have stopped to look at me, and a few to even talk to me.  I hardly find it annoying.  As a matter of fact, I'm greatly amused by their curiosity.  I imagine it's not often they see a sarosian without wings.  I don't show them the horn, of course, for fear of suffering burns.  I've taken it upon myself to invent a fabrication once or twice about being in service of Crescent Shine's guard, only to have my leather wings chewed off by a manticore.  Yes, darling, I know you will frown upon such childishness.  I wish there was a better way to share with you just how happy I am to be in this city full of lively ponies, willing to learn and eager to socialize.

        Once I got to the library, I spent several hours there.  Despite the full knowledge that I would be in direct conversation with Princess Luna the following day, I managed to concentrate perfectly on my research.  I'm in a special place, Penny, a state of extreme lucidity that I haven't had the grace to feel for years.  My eyes and ears are wide open, ready to learn what I am here for and what it is that I can provide for her Majesty.

        I wonder if this is what you felt like when you were attached to the botany research division at Whinniepeg University the first year that we met.  Oh, and speaking of such, I have a surprise for you when you arrive in a few days.  Even now, if I had a choice for what I desire to experience the most—hearing Princess Luna's divine voice or seeing your immaculate face—I think I would gladly choose the one I can cuddle up against at night.  Do you suppose her Majesty's wings are sharp upon contact?

        I joke, Penumbra.  Forgive my jocularity, and believe in my sincerity as I long for your arrival, so that I may share with you the glories of tomorrow.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        April the Twenty-Third, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        Well, my darling Penumbra, it has happened.  I have met with Princess Luna, and... I don't quite know what to write about.

        The meeting was scheduled at night, of course.  She had just raised the moon by the time Crescent Shine showed up at our new apartment's balcony along with two guard ponies.  Together, they brought me to the threshold of Princess Luna's quarters, which came as a complete surprise.  I imagined that I would be conversing with Luna in her throneroom.  Apparently this was not the case, and nopony thought it right to warn me.  This would be a good time to reemphasize the good humor with which I wrote one particular snide remark in the last entry.

        I stood before the doors to Princess Luna's quarters, shaking in my horseshoes.  I had imagined an entire night of study and research, and so I brought my moonsilk cloak in anticipation of the coming sunrise.  Naturally, the cloak only added to my nervous perspiration.

        Finally, the doors to her chamber opened.  Without a word from her or any of the guards lining the hallway, I took the bold move of stepping inside.  I found her sitting beside the windows, overlooking the starlit rooftops of Canterlot's moon district and beyond.  The sight of her filled my soul with a numb sensation.  I don't think there is an eloquent enough way to put it into words.

        You yourself have met with Princess Celestia, Penumbra.  I think I recall you describing it to me as “being born again.”  That's not quite what it felt like for me upon seeing Luna.  Instead, it felt like a part of me was dying.  I don't write that to sound grim or melodramatic.  I only wish to convey that I felt extremely humble, insignificant, and yet special all at once.  I was in the presence of an immortal, and a part of me felt drained from merely looking at her, so that I became aware of how small and precious I am in this world.

        I said nothing.  I expected her to speak.  She did not.  Silence filled the room.  This awkward quiet occupied the space of several minutes, and then those minutes became an hour... two hours.  I wondered if I was doing something wrong, if I was the reason for such terrible silence.  Still, I couldn't summon the courage to say something, for fear that the quiet was something sacred for a reason, even if I didn't know that reason.

        My legs were starting to go numb  I didn't know how long I could politely stand in her presence, all the while she merely sat there, staring out into the night sky as if she were a part of the cosmos itself.  For fear of fainting, I took a brave seat on the far side of the room.  Still, she said nothing.  With polite silence, I rummaged through my things and refreshed my memories with the notes I had taken regarding Proto-Equestrian symphonies, in case she might quiz me on my scholastic knowledge.  She never did.

        My eyes swam about her quarters.  I felt like I belonged there—in that the walls were adorned with almost every known instrument in Equestria's long history of music.  There were even some objects I had never seen before, and you of all ponies should know that my knowledge is quite extensive, Penny.  I saw wind instruments carved out of the wood of extinct trees.  I saw drums fashioned out of material as old as Creation.  The dust that had collected on several of the string instruments had gathered well over the centuries, so that I felt like a pebble marinating at the bottom of some unfathomably deep well.

        Then my attention was drawn to the center of the room.  Standing on a pedestal was an object of mystical importance.  A glittering effluence of black light hung off the instrument's polished surface and moon-pale strings.  I imagine the only reason I hadn't seen it when I first entered the room was because Luna's glorious visage had drowned my attention to any other detail.

        It then occurred to me—in a gasping breath of realization—that I was staring at none other than the Nightbringer.  What legend tells of its fate is a lie, Penumbra.  I've seen the holy instrument with my very own eyes.  It was not—as ponies say—destroyed during the war with the dragons three centuries ago.  It not only exists, but it is in perfect condition, still imbued with magical energies.  What's more, it is in Princess Luna's possession.

        Was this why she had summoned me to Canterlot?  Was it because she had discovered the Nightbringer, that she had somehow excavated it from the sediment of all Equestria's yesteryears?  Or did the alicorn sisters possess it all this time?  If so, why would they have kept the truth from us?

        Princess Luna never said a thing that night.  In a way, she didn't have to.  Bringing me there to see the Nightbringer was enough to shake my soul apart.  This changes so many things.  This means that we modern Equestrians could very well be privy to hearing—with our own mortal ears—the songs that brought forth the chorus of Creation.

        I almost broke the silence right there, if only to ask her what it all meant.  But that never happened.  She turned her head, like a statue coming to life, and tilted her majestic horn towards the chamber entrance.   Right at that moment the doors to her quarters opened for the first time in hours.  Crescent Shine and his two fellow guards marched in, and without so much as saying a word, they escorted me home.

        Right as I was dropped off at the Midnight District, I was given a letter.  Apparently, I'm to visit Luna again tomorrow, just a day before you arrive.  What do I have to expect?  What is the point of such curious silence?  I am extremely confused, and yet I am supremely enraptured.  I have witnessed a tool of Creation with my very own eyes, Penumbra.  I've stood in the presence of something that was once pure energy, a formless song that had accompanied the dawn of all light when the Cosmic Matriarch herself trotted across this landscape.

        I may not have any answers, but I definitely have purpose.  I shall fulfill my obligations, if only to be given a chance to witness such glory yet again, no matter how obscured.

        Yours faithfully and forever,

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        April the Twenty-Fourth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        Once again, I was summoned to the Princess' chambers.  Once again, I had to walk into her quarters on my own accord.  And—just like the night previous—Princess Luna sat on the edge of her balcony, gazing out the window, giving me time to study the Nightbringer up close.  I stood around it, trotted around it, gazed deeply at it.  As terribly tempted as I was, I could not bring myself to touch the dark instrument.

        And so it was that she finally spoke to me, and I realized that less than an hour of silence had transpired since I had first arrived there.  Hearing the Goddess of Shadows speak in the very same room is like living through a divine explosion.  I felt every fiber of my being burning and freezing at once, so that all I could do was stand still and absorb every booming word she had to say.  Only an alicorn like Princess Luna can say things in a whisper and yet resonate with thunder.  Between each breath, I had no reason to doubt her authority, her righteousness, her connection with all that was complicated, glorious, and eternal.

        When she spoke to me, it was not in regards to the Nightbringer.  It was not about the topic of mystical research.  It didn't even touch the subject of Proto-Equestrian symphonies.  She asked me how I had managed to live my entire life as a sarosian unicorn.  And, well, of course I answered her, Penumbra.

        I explained to her what it meant to grow up as the only non-winged sarosian in my village.  I explained to her the rudimentary facts of genetics that led to one in every five thousand unicorns being born like me.  I skipped the details of the ridicule and harassment I received as a child, from foals who lampooned my albino coat and slitted eyes and leafy ears.  All of the things that I had become well acquainted with, I explained in moderate detail, as if I had become an amnesiac and somehow had to teach myself just who and what I was in a short period of time.  After all, what was there for me to teach her?  Surely she knew everything there was to know of sarosians—both pegasi and the seldom few without wings—who had all long sworn their allegiance to the Goddess of the Night and her eternal will.

        When my speech was over, Luna neither smiled nor frowned.  She stood up and marched beside the Nightbringer, all the while giving a meager but very satisfying explanation.  Apparently my first invitation—and the ensuing silence that engulfed our initial meeting—was all a test.  She brought me there within the presence of her and the Nightbringer to gauge my reaction.  The fact that I didn't speak was apparently something that worked in my favor.  She determined that I was not a pony who was outwardly swayed by grandeur.  Paraphrasing the Goddess of Night as best as I can, she essentially said that I thought and acted upon scholarly intent, and that I had supreme control over my whims, since I didn't break her silence or attempt to touch the Nightbringer with my own mortal hooves.

        I listened to everything she had to say, and I felt it best to exercise the same tactful silence.  I bowed when I needed to, responded only when I needed to.  In the end, she said something that absolutely floored me.  She was putting together a symphony.  That's right, Penny: our very own Princess Luna, the steward of the moonlit sky, is coming out of ten years of silence to give Equestria a song of her indomitable spirit.  And what's even more amazing... she wishes my help in writing the music.

        I knew better than to faint in the Princess' presence.  I relayed to her my enthusiasm in as gentlecoltish a manner as possible.  She gave me no information regarding the nature of the symphony, nor the number of movements.  Furthermore, she seemed fit to overlook the fact that I was merely a scholar of history and musical theory.  Couldn't she have called upon Celestia's royal conductor for such a task?  Wouldn't it have been more prudent to enlist the help of Marezart or some other world-famous composer?  Alas, she wants my help and my input on this endeavor.  I don't know if there's been a luckier soul in the history of Canterlot, Penny, to be the one pony to process Princess Luna's one and only artistic endeavor into a medium through which mortals could preserve and enjoy her glory for the eons to come.

        She must have known just how unbearably enthused I was, so she sent me home early—at least much earlier than she had the previous night.  The only hint she gave me for when I was expected to return were the words “After you have settled in with your loved one, Penumbra.”  She knows your name, Penny, as well as she knows how honored I am to be given this opportunity.  That's how I believe that everything I've ever hoped for is coming true.  I am in this project for the long-run, and as much as I'm dedicated to writing this information down, I can't wait until I can see you tomorrow and tell you face to face, and hold you, and find out once again what it means to laugh and cry at the same time.

        With great joy and enthusiasm,

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        April the Twenty-Fifth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I told you that I would have a surprise for you.  It was easy to forget it the moment I saw your face, your shiny gold coat, your pearlescent blue eyes.  You leave the scent of jasmine everywhere you go, especially in this new home of ours.  And now I know that it is truly our home, for it smells of you.

        I can't get over how adorably confused you were as I practically dragged you out onto the balcony.  I told you to close your eyes.  I measured the increasing length of your smile as your trot seemed to go on forever.  Just how large was this balcony?  Was I about to lead you over the edge?  Surely I didn't grow wings like Crescent Shine overnight.

        Then, when I told you to open your eyes, the look on your face was worth every fitful dream that brought me to that moment.  I expected gasps of joy; I didn't quite expect the tears that came along with them.  I hope you forgive me for nuzzling them immediately away, Penny.  I prefer kissing a dry cheek over a wet one any day.

        I bet you never thought you'd have your very own greenhouse, instead of having to walk across town and use one in a university.  I meant it when I said that a little bit of Whinniepeg was seeded all over Canterlot, and that's no less true than right here in our home.  Our apartment is the only spot in the Midnight District with a balcony touched by the midday sun, and I chose it specifically with you in mind.  Now, no matter how long I may be away at research, you'll have a place to water your plants and continue your studies in botany.  I can't presume to understand the nature of flora, but I like to think that I'm well acquainted with your smile, and it grew most majestically last night when you arrived and I showed you the “surprise.”  I hope it blesses you in every facet of your life, as you bless every part of mine.

        It's an immeasurable joy having you here: your scent, your eyes, and your laughter.  I know I've written this multiple times—to the point that it's almost a complete distraction—but being around you almost makes me forget what's happening here in Canterlot.  I wouldn't have even mentioned seeing the Nightbringer with my own eyes had you not asked how the initial meetings went.  I know I could very well just let you peruse these records I've been keeping, but what's the point when you're right here with me?  What I'm writing here is a chance to preserve us as much as to preserve Luna's legacy.  What we do and what we contribute to the glory of the Moon Goddess will mean nothing if we don't preserve ourselves and that which is most precious to us.

        There is much unpacking to be done.  I'm about to try and convince you to put it off for the night so that I can be with my darling wife yet again.  Months or years from now—when you finally read this—maybe you can tell me if I succeeded or not, and I greatly trust that the answer will be “yes.”

        Indeed.  Jasmine.  Such an enchanting scent.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        April the Thirtieth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        It is with a heavy heart that I parted ways with you this afternoon.  After almost a week of setting up the apartment and getting acquainted with the neighbors, it's only right that I return to Princess Luna to get a start on this epic undertaking that her Majesty has allowed me to take part in.  I'm happy to think that you are not entirely alone while I am gone for the next week, Penumbra.  You have your plants to decorate the greenhouse with.  You have an entire city full of courtyards, gardens, shopping districts, and cafes to explore.  What's more, you have my eternal love and respect.  I hope the latter is enough to keep you happy during my absence, though I am terribly tempted to suspect it will be the shopping districts.

        The flight with the sarosian guards to Princess Luna's Palace was over in a flash.  I wonder if I'll ever get used to how insignificant the travel is compared to the destination.  This was my first occasion of arriving at Princess Luna's quarters in the daytime.  When I arrived, she was more alive than ever.  All of the stillness and solemnity of the previous two visits was gone, replaced by a spring to her trot as she scurried like an overgrown foal from one side of her room to the next.  Apparently she had taken the time to extract half of the books on music theory from the Royal Archives and relocate them to her quarters.  I had to trot over several piles of books before settling down.

        When her Majesty spoke to me, it was in short, curt bursts.  I realized that the ritual for introductions and pretense was over.  This was the time to study, to process, to make some semblance out of the music in her mind and put it down on paper.

        I didn't quite know how we were supposed to go about the method of writing.  This was to be Princess Luna's masterpiece, after all, not mine.  I merely expected to serve as her assistant.  As the minutes limped into hours, and Princess Luna's dissertations resembled a chorus of confusion and madness, I began to realize that the best thing I could do for her was to exercise patience.  Princess Luna was unraveling a tangled string of substance in her head, and she needed a learned soul such as mine to spool it into a finely woven tapestry.

        Surely, Penny, you've heard the utterly horrible nicknames that our fellow Equestrians have occasionally given to her Majesty, especially during the last nine years of the Age of Shadows.  I shudder to write them, for they feel blasphemous to even think of.  Luna has been called “Shadow Brained”.  She's been referred to as “The Looney Princess.”  Even in Whinniepeg, ponies joke that she's a “Keeper of Cosmic Dust,” and that her heart and mind are not on earth like Equestria, but rather Luna is a veritable “Mare in the Moon.”  All of these names serve as a great insult to me.  It is not simply because of my sarosian heritage.  I feel as though the majority of Equestrians do not understand her Majesty, nor the methods behind her superficial madness or this decade-long seclusion.

        Seeing her up close, being in the same room with her: I've come to realize that she is more than just the Goddess of Shadows.  She is a mirror to us all, to lonely souls in a dark world attempting to shine.  In the grand scheme of things, we are all alone, just like her.  To eke substance out of the blackness of eternal night is to be the very essence of mad.  For thousands upon thousands of years, it has been Princess Luna's selfless task to be the steward of such necessary madness, and now it's come to pass that her latest endeavors involve dragging a song out of the deepest, darkest depths of the universe.

        I do not know what purpose this symphony will have, nor do I care.  If it helps Princess Luna exorcise the collective shades constricting her divine thoughts, then I am happy to be of service.  After all, she is forever our Goddess of the Night: the one shining beacon we have in the darkness.  One does not find purpose and meaning in humbling himself to the “Mare in the Moon,” for she is anything but that.  She is here.  She loves Equestria, and she is about to usher us into a new age of beauty.

        That age will have to wait for a few more hours.  After a full afternoon of work, we only managed to get a few musical notes written down.  Right now, she is raising the moon, and I am resting in the guest quarters of the royal palace.  I need to meditate on what I’ve learned, but it’s hard to do when all I can think of is you.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the First, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        Dearest Penny, we have created something.

        It is a very short piece, harmonic and dissonant at the same time.  The introduction is full of diminishing strings, so that a part of me wondered if Princess Luna was merely experimenting with the notes that she had me write down.

        Soon enough, though, the piece was complete, and I understood the majestic beauty that it was always meant to possess.  I was allowed to borrow a harp from the walls of her quarters, and I performed half of the instrumental on it.  I was enraptured by its beauty, and I wanted to worship her Majesty all the more for being able to transform the world with song in the same way she did with moonlight.

        And then she decided to perform it.  When she did so, she placed a series of dark crystals around the room.  I recognized them to be sound stones, fragments of the Harmonic Rock that was once used to build the Equestrian barricades during the ancient war with Discord.  Furthermore, Luna chose to use the Nightbringer.  I couldn't imagine my good fortune for being in the presence of this divine instrument as it was being played.  Every pluck of a string was like a continent being formed along the crest of bells in my ears.  I reveled in the sound of life itself.

        But then, as the song culminated, I experienced something that I would never have imagined.  I've been under enchantment before, Penumbra.  You remember when Doctor Halftrot's transmutation spell backfired on the entire science wing of Whinniepeg University.  This, however, completely surpassed that experience, both in severity as well as in shock.

        I felt as though the walls were closing in on me.  At the same time, the tiniest specks of light in the room magnified.  The sound stones flickered as if they were blazing flames.  I feared for my safety.  I felt that the luminescence was going to burn through my pale sarosian flesh.  However, I was too overcome by a paralyzing paranoia to so much as gallop across the room and grab my moonsilk cloak.  I've never felt so nervous and petrified before in my life.  Soon, however, I was being ushered back into a warm world of safe shadows.

        It was then that I realized exactly where I was, and just who was beside me, comforting me.  Princess Luna herself had given me a motherly embrace.  By her divine presence, the ominous magic was driven away from my being.  I was so relieved to be freed of such paranoia that I hardly registered the fact that she had stooped so low to make contact with me.  I expressed my gratitude, though it was hard to find my voice.

        She silenced me, and spoke for the both of us instead.  She told me that she had known that the song had magical properties, that all of the songs we were writing would.  I asked her why, and she said that the symphony serves a grand purpose.  She is writing it for the safety of this world.  It is bound to have side effects, but she must know if they will positively or negatively impact the mortals of this realm.

        I'm starting to understand why I'm here.  I've had experience with enchantments before.  If she had chosen just any musical expert from the art halls of Canterlot, they wouldn’t have been nearly as capable of weathering the impact of the first instrumental, nor the ones potentially to follow.  I am more than just her assistant in unraveling this music.  I am her humble test subject.

        You can probably expect what happened next.  She asked if I was too distraught from the experience, if I wished to step out of the project altogether.  Her Majesty's grace is equal to her strength.  I told her that.  I also told her that I was dedicated towards helping her all the way through the creation of this symphony.  I was committed, as she was committed.

        She accepted that, and for the first time I saw her smile.  That's when she told me exactly what it is that we're working on.  She's calling the symphony “The Nocturne of the Firmaments,” and the first movement shall be named “Prelude to Shadows.”

        I do not know what will transpire next in this process of discovery.  But I know one thing.  I finally have a name for this tome, and shall title it forthwith.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the Third, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        We've constructed the second movement of the “Nocturne of the Firmaments.”  It is a far livelier piece than the “Prelude to Shadows.”  Its tempo is upbeat, and I suggested a heavy use of percussion in the orchestral version, to which Luna swiftly agreed.  There is a sense of urgency to this project, brought on by her Majesty herself.  It's as though she wishes us to write these songs as swiftly as possible.  I wouldn't describe her motives as impatient.  Rather, there is a righteous determination that is forcing her forward—and me along with her—at a breakneck speed.  I find the enthusiasm to be positively infectious, and it feels as though I'm doing everything in my power just to keep up.

        This latest instrumental is the very embodiment of such a spirit.  I was thinking of coining a name for it myself, but Princess Luna spoke up and immediately called it “Sunset Bolero.”  I can't think of a more meaningful name.  It embodies that whimsical feeling ponies get when they rush to accomplish innumerable things while the sun melts into the west horizon.

        When Luna performed the written song on the Nightbringer, I felt my heart beating faster and faster.  You know me to be a fairly reserved, unathletic unicorn, Penny.  But hearing this music from the ancient instrument made me want to gallop in circles and do backflips.  Such would be unbecoming of a young colt, much less an esteemed scholar such as myself.  I couldn't help but chuckle from a deep wave of merriment passing through my body.  I don't know if “Sunset Bolero” is a prophetic installment in the grand piece that will become the “Nocturne of the Firmaments,” but one thing is certain: I am more excited than ever to be a part of this project.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the Fourth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I haven't slept in nearly twelve hours.  How can I?  The rhythm of the “Sunset Bolero” is still entrancing my spirit.  It's hard to even sit in one place for too long.  How will I get the daytime sleep I need before I'm called to help her Majesty with the next instrumental?

        No.  Sleep will not come to me.  Not now.  Not during this great moment of discovery and magic.  I have to do something to concentrate, to focus my thoughts.

        What better a time than to cover the magic of song itself?  You know all that there is to know, Penumbra.  After all, you've been around me long enough.  You've heard every tale of creation told and retold ad nauseam.  Still, though, if this is to become an official record regarding the “Nocturne of the Firmaments,” then it is important that I put together a necessary dissertation on the power of song, so that I may have a pertinent introduction by the time I process this into a final draft.

        They say that the world began with a song.  I've always assumed that, and after playing audience to the Nightbringer, I believe it all the more now.  It's said that the Cosmic Matriarch came upon a cloud of chaos floating adrift in space.  She saw the disruption as a blemish upon the tranquility of the universe.  If this nebulous spot in the cosmos was to be unpredictable, then she saw it fit to reshape the leylines of energy to reflect order and purpose.  So, she imprinted herself upon the cloud.  She did so with a song, giving birth to harmony by the sheer power of her holy voice.

        For, after all, what is more harmonic than music itself?  Noise is merely disruption across the medium of a fixed space.  Only when patterns emerge with a purpose towards order and tonality does that thunder become the ringing of bells.  We are shaped by music, empowered by music.  In the throats of mortals, music becomes an ode to all that has come to be—in ways that we can record and illustrate all of life's construction.  In the lungs of goddesses, music becomes something immanent in the foundation of the world.  The earth is solid, for the instrumentation that brought it into being holds true.

        The Cosmic Matriarch forged the world from chaos with a song, but that was not enough to preserve Equestria forever.  After all, what power does a song have if there stands the chance that it will no longer be sung?

        So it was that the Matriarch created the Firmaments.  The Firmaments were to become barriers, necessary shields against the chaos and cold of the universe that forever surrounds the bubble of life that is Equestria.  The Firmaments could not function by themselves, though.  They needed stewards, eternal sentries charged with maintaining the chorus for eternity.

        It was then that the Matriarch performed the greatest sacrifice of all.  She broke her song into two distinct parts.  At the same time, she broke herself into two distinct parts.  Thus she gave birth to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.  Princess Celestia was charged with the Firmament of the Earth: and the sunlight and the seasons that governed its cycles of growth.  Princess Luna was charged with the Firmament of the Sky, and the safe protection against the extraterrestrial elements.

        Under the spheres of both the Earth and Sky, mortals were born to give beauty and honor to the songs of the Matriarch and her two holy daughters.  When her labors were complete, the Cosmic Matriarch returned to the stars, for her work in Equestria was done.  The Firmaments had their functions as well as their two guardians, and her song's harmony was bound to be protected forevermore.

        Since the departure of the Cosmic Matriarch, Celestia and Luna have faithfully stood watch over the fields of Equestria, empowered by the omnipotent song that created them as much as enchanted them.  Very rarely did they shatter the seal of their heavenly chorus.  After all, the song can be broken up into smaller parts.  There is no foreseeable way for the smaller parts to reconstitute a whole, not unless the Cosmic Matriarch was to somehow return and give us more music to reshape the world with.

        When the monsters of chaos banded together to ravage the landscape, the alicorn sisters broke the song in order to construct the “Titanic Ballad”.  Together, their new and holy chorus created Tartarus, which became the eternal prison for Equestria's most brutal abominations.  When Discord appeared in this dimension and attempted to tear the Firmaments asunder, the sisters once again disassembled their mother's gift, giving birth to the “Elements of Harmony”.  The instrumental was transformed into material pendants, and such spheres of magical importance were used to trap Discord in stone.

        With the Matriarch's song becoming something tenuous and threadbare, it became necessary to channel the energy of Creation into something permanent, something capable of being preserved.  For if the timeless song broke too many times, even if in the best interests of life, all of Equestria stood the chance of dissolving into the same chaotic miasma that the Matriarch first discovered when she graced this one nebulous spot in the cosmos.

        So it was that the two alicorn sisters decided to transform the song into an instrument itself.  They created a vessel that would forever embody the power of Creation, the razor-sharp edge upon which light and darkness hinged eternally.  That vessel would later be called the “Nightbringer,” and it is as glorious to look upon as it has ever been awe-inspiring to dream about.

        Simplistically speaking, the Nightbringer is a normal-sized string instrument.  It resembles a lyre, only larger, with the elegance and beauty of a royal harp.  But it is far too holy and pristine to be compared to any ordinary tool of music.  When its strings vibrate, one can feel his essence spreading apart and coming back together.  To stand in the same room with it is to stand upon the precipice of nonexistence.  It may not be as powerful as the Matriarch's original song, but its strength and presence are still overwhelming to a mortal such as myself.

        The fact that the Nightbringer is being used to write the “Nocturne of the Firmaments” into reality fills me with both trepidation and wonder.  Surely the Princess is not breaking the song down again.  If she was, then Celestia would be a part of this project as well.  As it stands, this instrument is merely serving as a way for Luna to transform that which is in her head into something corporeal.  Upon contemplating this, I am filled with intense euphoria.

        Could it be, for the first time in ages, that a new song is being created?  Is that even possible for the sentry of the Firmament of the Sky?  Has Luna suddenly become more powerful in the last nine and a half years?

        Only time will tell.  I fear that—for a mortal like me—I may not be told.  So I tell you what I know, dearest Penny, so that when all is said and done, you and I can tell all other ponies as well.  When the time comes that Equestria hears the Nocturne, mortal ponies may bear witness to our words as well, and we will all become one with a heavenly chorus, something spawned out of darkness and given enough harmony to bring new strength to the Firmaments.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

May the Sixth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        Princess Luna calls it the “March of Tides.”  I call it one of the strangest instrumentals I've ever had the pleasure of listening to, much less writing into being.  If one hears it with his ears or even reads the music sheets with his eyes, it feels in both ways like the “Sunset Bolero,” only backwards and at a slower tempo.  One would think hearing such a strange tune would curse me with the same unease and paranoia that the “Prelude to Shadow” brought.  But this is not the case.  I am filled instead with a great sense of awe and wonder.  I feel like I am making a journey, and the “Nocturne of the Firmaments” is my path into such a starry expanse of mystery.

        All the while, I keep looking upon Princess Luna's holy visage.  At some point during this study process, I've felt it was necessary to gauge her progress as well as the symphony's.  There is very little change to her expression.  The smile that she gave the other day is gone.  I wonder just how many details make up the righteously cold facade that she maintains for the sake of swiftly finishing her sacred, musical duty.  There's been no word on Celestia, on whether or not she is privy to this project and the role that the Nightbringer plays in creating the Nocturne from nothingness.

        I almost hate myself for thinking too hard on the matter.  The two royal sisters have lived with one another for millennia, performing their sacred duties to the Firmaments in a binding of absolute trust.  Perhaps it was premature of me to think that Luna was creating a whole new “holy song” in this endeavor.  After all, Celestia has composed her own instrumentals for the royal orchestra to perform.  Did she ever request Luna's attention to such personal hobbies?

        But every time I hear the mighty strings of the Nightbringer plucked in the air of Luna's quarters, I feel parts of myself burning, as if I am being set aflame from the inside out.  Something truly amazing and magical is happening here.  I feel blessed beyond imagining to be a part of it.  I only wish that Luna's immaculate face would register the same emotions that I feel.  It would make me a great deal more at ease to see just what this symphony means in her eyes, instead of the constant, unchanging solemnity that clouds her royal features.

        Alas, our studies are over for now.  I am being sent home.  I relish the thought of seeing you once again, Penny.  When I arrive at our apartment, I don't want to think about music for once.  I only want to think of your forelimbs engulfing me as I drown myself in your jasmine, your voice, and your perfection.

        Of course, you may be too encumbered in tending to your new greenhouse to indulge this stallion's lovesickness.  But that would be just fine.  You've been patient for me, and I shall be eternally patient for you, my darling wife.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the Eighth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        Today is the best day I've experienced since I came to Canterlot, and that's because I spent it all with you.  After a solid week of studying music and putting melody to paper, you have no idea how joyous it is to just be by your side.  It didn't matter much to me where we went or what we did, so long as it was something you enjoyed.  In the end, you chose to walk through the Canterlot gardens; I couldn't have been happier.

        I knew that you would be enchanted at the sight of the many endangered plants that the royal sisters grow in their capital.  I specifically suggested we stroll through the gardens in the daytime.  I don't care how cumbersome the cloak of moonsilk can be, it's worth wearing just to watch you giggle like a schoolfilly at all of the remarkable, sunlit specimens surrounding you.  I chuckled as you asked that I curry favor with Princess Luna in order that she would let you take a sample home to the greenhouse.  Unfortunately, my love, my influence with the Princess of the Night begins and ends with the Nocturne.

        I'm glad that you chose an open marketplace for us to eat at.  I don't want you to feel like you must hide me in the shadows.  I love knowing that you aren't ashamed to be an earth pony married to a sarosian, that you're willing to let all citizens of Canterlot see us together.

        It reminds me of the first few years we spent together at Whinniepeg University.  I was the only unicorn of my type in the entire institution.  In the daytime, I resembled a mummified pony shuffling through the hallways.  At night, students trotted out of my path, for fear that I might grow fangs and pounce upon them suddenly under the moonlight.

        You saw past all of that.  You saw something in me that enchanted you.  At first, I thought that you were attracted to my peculiarities, to my living oddities.  You were the first pony not to flinch at my sarosian diet.  To this day, I still don't know how you managed to hold your lunch the first time I ate meat in your presence.  But then I no longer had to worry about anything, or had to think about anything.

        I had become engulfed in your kindly smile, in your melodic laugh, in the way that you loved to play with my ears when nopony was looking.  I wanted to know all about you, and I learned an encyclopedia's worth of wonders.  You were so fascinated in the science of plants.  You taught me how nature grows and sustains itself.  It took my poetic ramblings to teach you that there was an underlying magic beneath all of reality.  Together, we formed a balance, a harmonic duet that fused pragmatic and ethereal realities together into an other-wordly chorus.  We became the prince and princess of Whinniepeg University, and when all ponies gazed upon us, they understood what true love was.  It could form out of complete uncertainty much like the Cosmic Matriarch's first song did.

        All of those years, as I ascended the ranks of scholastic mastery, you stood by my side.  I was your creature of the night, and you joined that daring darkness with me.  You learned to forsake the day, so that we would be awake together under the moon.  What other esteemed botanist in the history of all Equestria has made such a sacrifice?  I wanted more than anything to make it up to you, and all you ever did was silence my worries with a kiss, letting me hold you closer as the stars spelled out our future.

        I love you, my dearest Penny.  And I want so much to give you all the world's treasures.  But then I realize that all the beautiful things in Equestria are already within reach, for I've been given you.  These days in Canterlot are bound to be the best days of my life, because I know that I'll finally have a chance to give back to you all that you've ever sacrificed for me.  I only regret that the reason for our coming here distracts me so often.  I despise the fact that it forces me to be apart from you, throwing me into the depths of magic rather than the warmth of your loving voice.

        One of these days, we'll start a family.  We'll have children, and they'll be our song to preserve our love between the Firmaments of Creation.  What we are, what we've forged together in our short, bleak, and altogether beautiful lives, is something priceless, and it must never be unsung.

        Until then, we both have work to do.  And I look forward to the time when all of our duties are behind us, for they will have dissolved just as righteously as our fears did the day that we met.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the Tenth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I'm making an entry right now, though I have no concrete reason to.  I've just now arrived at Princess Luna's quarters for another week or two of study.  We haven't even begun writing yet.  Still, I feel like I should write down an observation before my studies necessarily eliminate it from my mind.

        It feels as if the sarosian population of Canterlot has increased dramatically since the time I arrived here.  I noticed this on the day that we went out together, Penumbra.  There were pegasi of the night in the streets, garbed in moonsilk and shadow armor.  This didn't just happen in the Midnight District.  Everywhere I looked, there were more and more leather-winged, slit-eyed brothers and sisters.  What's more, they seemed just about as new and inexperienced with the alleyways of Canterlot as I was when I first showed up.  I'm almost tempted to think that there's been some unofficial pilgrimage of sorts.  Did word spread that Princess Luna was coming out of hiding, that the Age of Shadow is coming to an end?  What else could explain so many nocturnal ponies having arrived at the threshold to their patron alicorn's dwelling?

        I asked Crescent Shine about it.  He had no answer, at least not one solid enough.  He seemed preoccupied.  There was a nervous shuffle to his hooves, and his eyes looked twice as pale.  I know that look very well: it's the sign of a sarosian who has seen too much sunlight.  How much has Princess Luna been overworking the captain of her Night Guard?  Has my cousin gotten any sleep these past few weeks?

        Perhaps I'm reading too much into things.  Admittedly, my heart is feeling a sense of unease.  It's more than the fact that I'm having to part from your presence again.  As I walked the hallways of Luna's wing of the Palace, I felt as if something from the shadows was looking out at me.  My ears twitched, and for a moment I thought I heard the ghostly sensation of metal rattling against metal.

        I don't think Crescent Shine is the only sarosian missing sleep.  I need to keep myself together if I'm to be of any proper assistance to her Majesty.  I surely hope that the next installment of the Nocturne is something promising.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the Eleventh, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I've never felt more frightened in my entire life.

        It began with the writing of the fourth instrumental, or “elegy,” as Princess Luna suddenly called it.  She surprised me when she told me out of the blue that there would be ten movements to the Nocturne in total.  I daringly asked her if she had always planned to write ten elegies.  She ignored my question.  Her face was as vacant and lifeless as ever as she told me the title to the fourth instrumental.  She wished it to be called the “Darkness Sonata.”

        I wondered what had possessed her to name it before it was completely written.  But then we finished creating it, and she performed it without hesitation on the Nightbringer.  That's the moment when I died, or at least I thought I had become dead.

        A sarosian, as you well know, Penny, is well acquainted with darkness.  This is most evident in the pegasi who possess the night blood.  Our innate powers of echolocation have guided us through the thickest of time's shadows.  It's what helped us find flying food under the fall of night before Luna gathered us under her wing thousands of years ago and taught us to hone our powers into becoming her elite Night Guard.

        The darkness that followed after the performance of the Nightbringer was blacker than black.  None of my senses were capable of penetrating it.  It was as though the walls and floor of the room had been lifted away and thrown into the void of space.  I felt nothing, absolutely nothing.  Even the sound had evaded my detection.  I quite literally thought I had died.

        I floundered about in desperation, calling for the Princess' name.  She found me, and held me still like a mare might coax the fear out of her foal.  I was beside myself with panic and fright, and I unashamedly clung to the Princess for the time it took for the light to return, for it would return—or at least that's what her Majesty assured me of.

        In spite of my horror, she was as calm as an underground lake.  She was distant too.  Her voice could have been a million miles away, and yet I could hear every word that dripped out of her.  They were strange words, frightening words.  The Princess was rambling, speaking of a world between worlds, of a place far darker than even the Sonata's magical strings could evoke.  Was she telling me this to educate me?  If so, what could I have possibly learned?  The truths she had to lend me were her truths alone, seemingly absurd dissertations on the countless shapes of chains she saw swimming all around her.  Something had come to her in her sleep, and she needed to shape such a formless monster into song or else her mind would be ripped asunder.

        For the first time since darkness enveloped me, I started to fear for her instead of myself.  Ponies' incessant insults regarding the “Mare in the Moon” came to mind, and I hated myself for letting my thoughts wander into such desperate fields.  As her and the walls of her room came back into focus, I asked her if she had told her sister about her visions.  She merely stood up and walked away from me as if I was never even there to begin with.  She placed the Nightbringer back on its pedestal and dismissed me, saying that there were six more elegies to the Nocturne to learn, and I needed my rest to be of proper assistance to her.

        Right now, I'm sitting in my chambers, surrounded by twice as many candles than I had lit the night before.  They're so collectively brilliant that I can already feel my pale coat starting to singe, but I don't care.  The light is precious to me.  It always has been.  What are ponies but awkward pebbles rattling around in a dim crucible hung beneath impenetrable darkness?  I think of you, of the forbidden sunlight that I can't enjoy, and yet it's there for me every time I gaze into your eyes.  This world is fragile and can be snuffed out at any second, but it is ours, Penny.  For the first time in my life, I can fathom it disappearing, and it is so unbelievably cold.

        What is the meaning of this Nocturne?  Why is it frightening and exciting all at once?  Furthermore, can a single mortal like me withstand the birth of a new and hauntingly glorious symphony?

        I need strength.  I need to be there for my Princess, and I need to be there with you.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the Twelfth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        The “Waltz of Stars” is haunting, but at least it has poetic beauty to it.  I can listen to it and not feel my soul draining away as with the “Darkness Sonata.”

        As soon as Luna and I finished writing the fifth elegy, she had to leave for raising the moon.  She didn't bother dismissing me.  I was alone in her chambers, and I decided to make the best of it.

        You may think it dishonorable of me to have snooped around the living quarters of the Goddess of Shadows, Penny.  Looking back on it, I feel a horrible pit of shame as well.  But if you had been forced to endure the “Darkness Sonata” like I had, if you had been there at the birthplace of so many otherworldly songs, you would be no less empowered by an unquenchable thirst for answers yourself.

        A key thing to understand is that throughout the entire time I've worked on these elegies with the Princess, her room has been utterly in shambles.  You would find this rather surprising for the domain of an  immortal alicorn.  I myself chose to ignore it, for I felt that the research we were performing in the creation of the Nocturne was far too righteous to second-guess.  However, with the utter fabric of light drained and restored to my eyes, I saw everything in a brand new texture.  There was no way to dance around the description: Princess Luna's chambers bore the signs of a mad pony.

        Books were lying in disarray.  Tomes were spread wide open, their pale pages flickering under candlelight.  Unrolled scrolls and layers of parchment gathered dust in the corners.  What was most alarming was that half of the books were sparsely written in.  As a matter of fact, many of the books—the most ancient and antique of the lot—were utterly blank.  This didn't feel like some freak happenstance, either.  The books were of uniquely different styles of binding.  I saw signatures of bookmaking from all corners of Equestria, from as far as Timbucktoo to the stylistic nature of Dream Valley.  The only way so many diverse and differently-bound books could be together under one ceiling was because they had been summoned there.  Upon that thought, I perused through a series of letters that had accumulated atop Luna's workbench.  I found several missives that had ordered members of Crescent Shine's Guard to acquire these books from the most remote libraries of Equestria.  What's more, the rarest of these books were the ones that were mostly blank.

        It startled me that I hadn't noticed all of these details before.  I was so enraptured in the process of writing these elegies that I hadn't taken even a second to step back and look at this composition more objectively.  Was it pure genius that was inspiring Luna to write this symphony?  Or, perhaps, was it something more that was helping her transform that which was incorporeal into the material?

        I didn't have too much time to ponder it.  Princess Luna returned from the moon raising.  She didn't look even the least bit exhausted, nor ready to quit.  She ushered me back to her side, and immediately we began working on the sixth elegy.  I saw a fire in her eyes, and for the first time I felt that I could register an emotion.  It curiously looked a lot like anger.

        More on this when I have the time to think it over.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof.

        May the Fifteenth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        It's been three days since the Princess and I finished writing the sixth elegy.  Unlike the “Darkness Sonata” and “Waltz of Stars,” she did not give the instrumental a name.  However, it struck me as far more important than all of the tunes previous.  The very day after it was written, I heard it in the hallways.  It was being hummed by the guards.  At first, I was furious.  I felt as though they had eavesdropped on us.  Apparently, though, this was not the case, for I found several reprinted sheets documenting the very same elegy that I had written into being just the day before.

        Now, I hear it when I go to sleep and I hear it when I wake up.  The sixth elegy is nameless, but it isn't formless.  It's taken residence in the heart of every member of the Night Guard, to the point that it's become a soundtrack to this wing of the Palace.  Personally, I rather tire of hearing it, but I dare not say that out loud.  I'm filled with a deep sense of nervousness, as if to sing anything else would be a crime.  I don't know if Luna meant to spread this song on purpose, but it's already become an infectious anthem.  The anthem to what: I have no earthly clue.  I can only wander these halls, my ears echoing with the marching beat, waiting for Luna to summon me to her room once again.

        Something just doesn't feel right.  My services haven't been needed for days.  Why can't her Majesty send me home during the interim?  I want to smell your jasmine.  I want to hear your voice.  My ears need a song that doesn't belong to shadows.  I'm overcome with a terrible sense of cold.  Maybe I should light some more candles.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the Eightteenth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I got the shock of my life today.  I was finally summoned to Princess Luna's quarters, and when I arrived she was not alone.  There were four other ponies in her presence, but they weren't just any ponies, Penumbra.

        Two of them I recognized instantly:  Professor Flat of Blue Valley University and Marerice Ravel.  The others I had to be introduced to, and I was amazed to discover that I was in the same room with Marezart and Doctor Hoofstone of Stratopolis.  Before me were four living legends of Equestrian music, and they were all sitting down and having tea with Princess Luna as if it was just any other Friday afternoon.  The fact that they were there wasn't half as startling as the fact that they weren't elsewhere, for it was my explicit knowledge that each of the four equines lived far from each other, and far from the Palace for that matter.

        It would appear, though, that I had arrived at the tail-end of whatever conversation they were having with Luna.  When I asked just how they all showed up there, they gave me a funny look.  All of their dialogue ended, as if they had run out of reasons to say anything, their souls stripped of all logic.  It was at this point that Princess Luna gazed my way.  I wondered if I had said something wrong.  Whatever the case, she reached her hoof over and tapped a polished black object.  I realized she had the Nightbringer by her side.  Under her careful touch, the strings stopped vibrating, and suddenly all four of her guests disappeared.

        I was amazed at such magic.  I asked Princess Luna where they went.  In her usual, curt way she explained to me that she had completed the “Song of Gathering.”  It took me a while to process what she meant.  Then it occurred to me that she must have played the ancient tune on the Nightbringer.  I had read old tales of how such a song was used by the Princesses during the griffon/pony war to summon the souls of generals from across Equestria to their strategy room.  It was one of the most powerful spells in the alicorns' repertoire.  The fact that Luna used it to summon four musicians struck me as strange, and then I realized that she must have done it in order to get a better understanding of the elegies left to unravel.  Whatever the Nocturne had in store for us, we were headed into territories that required the combined knowledge of Equestria's finest musicians.

        I no longer felt as adequate as I did the last session we had together.  I felt like asking her if she truly needed me, but her swift actions and blurred gallop across the chambers suggested that she was in no mood for a complicated conversation.  We were on a mission of celestial importance, and Luna wasn't about to turn things around.

        Dear Penny, what have I become a part of?  I came back to my quarters now just to breathe.  She's making me write down a tune called the “Threnody of Night,” and already I feel like something is clawing at me from the shadows.  I have less than ten minutes at this point before I must return to her study and resume transcribing the symphony, but a part of me is extremely hesitant.  I fear that I will not return as the same pony.  I can't explain it succinctly enough, but it's as if my ears stopped being mine several days ago.  The room is so cold that  I can barely summon the magic to lift this pen.

        She is requesting my presence.  I have to go.  I have to perform my duty for her Majesty.  Heaven help me, but I must.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the Twenty-Fifth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        How much time has passed?  I had to ask the guard outside my door what day it was.  Comparing his answer to what I have written in my journal, I judge that an entire week has transpired.  It's all a blur.  I feel hungry and cold.  I have facilities around me.  I can use them.  I'm quite sure I have used them.  Still, this entire place is miserable.  I'm miserable.  When was the last time I saw her Majesty?

        My memory is tenuous at best.  I know that we finished writing the “Threnody of Night.”  I played it.  I wished I hadn't played it.  I felt like I was drowning somewhere, but I hadn't moved a muscle.  I sat there, paralyzed, in her room, expecting her to perform the same tune on the Nightbringer.

        She didn't touch the ancient instrument.  For the first time in days, part of me rejoiced.  But when I looked in Luna's eyes, I didn't see an alicorn who was afraid to gallop herself past the final, fragile membrane of magical sanctity.  As a matter of fact, I didn't see the Princess that I knew at all.  It was as if she had become an empty space, a living doorway for something enormous and lifeless and full of black dust.  I looked upon her, and it was like I was treading water upon the event horizon of a churning nightmare.

        She spoke of things.  I didn't have the strength to listen to her at that point.  I had missed sleep.  Somepony carried me to my chambers two nights ago.  Was it her?  It must have been her.  The Princess' words are coming to me now.  She speaks of voiceless souls, of bodies within the depths of all our forgotten yesteryears.  She speaks of a lost entity, somepony's beloved.  Yes.  I know that word.  Beloved.  She speaks of beloved.  She speaks of beloved.  She speaks of beloved.  She speaks...

        What's come over me?  Have I been entranced?  What was the last song we wrote?  Something about twilight.  Yes, a requiem.  “Twilight's Requiem.”  I hear the tune going around in my head, swimming circles around me like a predator.  Why do I keep thinking about seas and oceans and deep, inescapable fathoms?  She speaks of her beloved.  She abandons him in the world between worlds, the lost currents of time and space and songs.  His love is his anger which is also his menace.  When he destroys worlds, he's simply trying to claw his way back to her.

        Dearest Penny, I wish I could explain to you what this all means.  But as soon as I put pen to paper, these things come out.  Things that I can't explain.  Things that can only echo the fragile remnants of her, of her world, of a cyclone of frost hungrily undulating beneath all our hooves.  They sing her chorus and become nothing, and upon the forsaken her breath liberates, an ancient song giving birth to the birthless, her loyal subjects for eternity and for never.  They no longer serve her beloved, for the domain of the forever dying has become hers, a task equated to the unbirth of everything, the unwritten symphony that holds the Firmaments together and separates them all at once.

        I have to stop.  I have to stop writing.  But all I can do is lie here.  Outside, ponies are marching.  To what, I can't tell anymore.  Something terrible is about to unfold, and I just want to see you.  I just want to hold you.  I just want to stop hearing the music in my head.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the Twenty-Eighth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I think I can write now, now that I see you lying next to me.  When did I get home?  Yesterday?  It's all slowly coming back to me.  Crescent Shine dropped me off at the apartment, quite literally.  I woke to your shouting voice.  You were angry at Crescent.  I didn't understand why until I felt half of my face burning.  He hadn't taken the time to notice that my cloak had come undone in the sunny afternoon.  I don't think he cared.  The air echoed with a grunt of indifference, and he was gone.

        But you... Your gentle hooves pulled me up off the balcony and led me into the house.  You nursed me.  I felt the cold kiss of the washcloth against my burnt brow.  As soon as I knew it was you, I seized your forelimbs and pulled you to me.  Sweet jasmine.  I don't know how long I held you, or that you held me.  All I know was that I was happy, and you were scared.  I didn't want you to be scared, Penny.  I never want to frighten you.  But I didn't know what else to say at the time.  What could I have said?

        There was a ninth elegy.  I remembered Princess Luna's words.  In between rambling about somepony's beloved, she dropped the word “Desolation.”  Was it the “Song of Desolation?”  “Desolation's Elegy?”  I don't remember now.  All I know is that we incorporated the notes she had taken with the four souls she had teleported to her chambers ten days prior.  Furthermore, it took the two of us to perform the ninth elegy.  Did she use the Nightbringer?

        No.  No, I am still here.  What does that even mean?  Where else could I have gone?  Even in my own apartment, I feel chills.  You started a fire two hours ago, before you fell asleep.  I wished I had an explanation for you, something to convey the fact that the fire won't do anything to help me.  I am going someplace, and I just don't know where.

        Dearest Penny, all day you stayed by my side.  I barely said a word, and yet you clung to me like a second skin.  How you're not mad at me, I can't even begin to fathom.  There hasn't been a single explanation for why I've been gone this long.  I could invent an excuse, but it wouldn't justify things.

        I want you to know that I am happy to be married to you, and I am sorry, Penny.  I am sorry that something great and dark has consumed your husband's time, energy, and sanity.  You've sacrificed so much as it is.  I'd hate for you to sacrifice more.  This was supposed to be a time of opportunity, a time of joy.  I don't know what's in store for me.  I don't know what will happen when Luna and I write the tenth elegy.  This Nocturne is bigger than anything, and I fear it will consume me like a whale might dine on shrimp.

        Please forgive the awkwardness of this entry, Penny.  You might think these blemishes to be tear stains.  You might be right.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the Thirtieth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I scared you again.  I didn't mean to.  It's just that I wanted to see you.  And things have been so cold, so confusing, so full of this ringing music in my ears.  I stepped out and entered the balcony's greenhouse because I wanted to see the sunshine in your eyes.  But the sunshine was everywhere.  Only when you started screaming did I realize what I had done.  It was as if I was reduced to a toddler, numb to pain, lacking in common sense.

        You rushed me back into the apartment before the daylight could do any permanent damage to me.  I hate making you mad, even when your anger is merely a mask to your confusion.  I'm confused too, Penny.  Like Luna, though, I have no mask.  I merely have darkness, and it's clouding me everywhere I look.  Why must there be a dichotomy of sunlight and moonlight?  The world is so imperfect.  If only we could bathe Equestria in solid shadow, then everything would be gorgeous.  Everything would be simple.  You've lived in darkness before.  You're evidence that ponies can survive that way.  You will be perfectly fine.  I will be there for you.  We can have a family of shadows, in the shadows, by Princess Luna's glory, safe from her song and her beloved...

        I can hardly write.  I still hear your shouts.  You love me, but you hate what's happened to me.  You hate the fact that I can't tell you.  I hate it too.  Every time I try and open my mouth, the tears start flowing.  There are horrors that you must not know.  I don't want the sunlight to die in your eyes.  As perfect a world as this would be in perpetual shadow, I can't let you fade away.  Have I been struggling with this conflict all my life?  It's like I've discovered a beat that I've been trotting to since the beginning of time.  I'm not sure if I want you dancing to that same bone-skin drum.  Something precious would be lost.  Something precious has been lost.

        I see your face when you think I'm not looking, and there is something sad there.  There is something that wants to tell me a secret both terrible and beautiful all at once.  But you can't speak any more than myself.  You fear that my ears wouldn't belong to the husband you married, and they don't.  We're becoming shades of what we once were.  Luna's symphony has stripped me of colors, but you?  You're warmer and rosier than ever.  Why can't I touch you and feel you like I once did?  The love is there, but the life is draining away like moisture on a windowsill.

        The sun is setting.  Luna hasn't called me.  I need to go for a walk.  You will understand.  At least I hope you will.  I have to go somewhere.  You love me.  You adore me.  She adored her beloved too, and even her beloved had to go.  Twilight's Requiem.  Desolation and dead notes.  A pool of frost, enveloping, like an endless choir of banshees.

        I have to go somewhere, dear Penumbra, or else I will die.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        May the Thirty-First, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I have multiple bruises, and each one of them stings.  You didn't believe me when I told you how I got them.  You thought that I had made the story up.  Right now, I can't explain things better.  I can't afford to in this time of tribulation.  Regardless, I must write the truth down.  Maybe you'll understand when time has gone by, when you summon the strength to read these records I've written.

        I met with Crescent Shine late this morning.  He didn't want to see me.  He was too busy.  Every member of the Night Guard was busy, and that was precisely why I wanted to see him.

        When I was inside Luna's wing of the Palace last week, I could have sworn I heard marching.  I didn't have the strength nor sanity at the time to investigate the noise, but I did today.  I do not like what I discovered.  Something has happened to the multiple sarosians who have flocked here to Canterlot.  More than three-fourths of them have joined the Night Guard.  All of this rapid induction has transpired in less than a week's time.  This is not only unprecedented; it's downright frightening.

        I've been even further flabbergasted upon discovering what tune they used to march to.  It was the sixth elegy, the one that Princess Luna and I personally wrote down just days ago.  The song had been transmitted to a record, and it was being broadcast throughout the courtyards of the lunar wing.  Every guard pony was marching to it, their leather wings lined up in perfect synchronization.  I admire Crescent Shine's authority and command as Captain of the Guard, but not even he has the power to hold sway over so many ponies.  No mortal could have taught these new recruits to function as a unit so swiftly.

        I know what's happening here.  The sixth elegy has taken hold of these ponies.  Something dredged from the depths of darkness is controlling them, empowering them, and it's my fault for helping Luna bring it to the surface of this world.  These sarosians hear the incessant beat, and it speaks invisible secrets to their hearts.  But do they hear the chorus?  Do they hear her undying voice?  Has the cold wriggled its way into their lungs as it has into mine?

        I tried to tell Crescent Shine that what was happening here was wrong.  He refused to hear my words.  He's changed.  Something about him is hollow, lacking, like the shell that Luna herself has become.  All of my life, I have gotten along with my cousin.  Now, it is as though I'm staring into the polished marble of a sepulcher.  I tried to reason with him.  I tried to get him to see what was happening, but how could I?  I only know so much as it is.

        Where I'm easily confused, he is easily frustrated, and after my last frenzied attempt to grab his attention, he grabbed me—physically—and threw me to the ground.  I was too shocked to register his bucking hooves until a pair of lieutenants rushed over to lift him off my battered body.  He shouted something.  He called me a “traitor” and a “coward” and threatened to do horrible things to you, Penumbra, which is why I didn't tell you too many details when you gazed with shocked eyes upon my beaten complexion.

        You mistook my silence for something else, and you turned a cold shoulder to me, colder than the elegy of Desolation.  I can't blame you for being mad.  I could never blame you.  I just want these elegies to be finished.  Somehow, I feel... I know... that everything will be alright once the Nocturne is finished.  The cold and the music and the madness will stop.  I will be able to explain things to you then.  And if I can't, what will there be left to write about?

        This journal: I feel that it means more than I had ever intended it to.  I must guard it carefully, for fear that somepony like Crescent Shine—or whatever spirit may be possessing him—might do something terrible to it, and then to us, dear Penny.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        June the First, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I love you so much, Penumbra.  I love you more than life itself.

        I write this in glorious affirmation, because I fear that saying it out loud no longer holds the same sway over your countenance.  Today you crawled up next to me in bed and you held me dearly.  You sobbed for over an hour.  I tried to dry your tears, but you batted my forelimbs away from your face.  You told me that you just wanted me to hold you.  If only every moment of my life was so simple, so gorgeous.  I complied sincerely, and you nuzzled me, murmuring and whimpering how sorry you were for being angry the past few days.  You said that you were simply confused.  I already knew that.  But more than anything, I knew that I loved you anyway, and shall continue loving you.  You've waited for me all these years, and I shall forever wait for you.

        You said that you understood that I couldn't explain everything.  You were merely scared, for this was the first time in our lives that the scholar you married couldn't put something into digestible words.  I tried to solace you by saying that some songs require the sound to carry their meaning far more than the lyrics.  I don't think this made you feel any better, so I kissed you and held you even closer.  Sweet jasmine.

        It was then that you finally told me what had brought you there.  We had just been delivered a letter from the Night Guard.  Crescent Shine was either too busy or too angry to come see us personally.  Whatever the case, I'm to report to Princess Luna as soon as possible.  Our time together, however precious, has once again been curtailed.

        You didn't want me to go.  I didn't want to go either.  But we both knew what the Night Guard would do to us if I didn't comply with her Majesty.  You were scared.  I tried not to look scared.  I kissed you, and then I asked you what it was that you wanted to tell me.  I knew that something had been troubling you, something that you were too nervous to touch.  Then you looked even more scared.  The colors in your cheeks burned brighter.  I knew you were trying to keep something secret from me, but enough of my senses had woken from the cold to remember the tiniest of your quirks.

        You dismissed my inquiry with a smile.  You nuzzled me and told me that I would learn the truth by the time I returned.  I've never before had a better incentive to face the darkest night of my life.  Whatever writing the last elegy will entail, I am no longer afraid.  I have you to come back to.  All of this madness and confusion will end.  I promise you this, my dearest Penny.  I love you and I promise you: everything will be tranquil once again.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        June the Third, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        There are ponies marching and performing drills outside the Palace.  In the lunar wing, nopony would imagine so.  Here, it is deathly quiet.  All of the guards are gone.  They and the servants have been dismissed from these halls.  It is quite literally just me and the Princess, alone, surrounded by musical instruments.  Every breath and plucked string and murmur between us is louder than the voice that brought about Creation.  All the while, the Nightbringer rests in the thick of our invention, like a judge from the past who's about to witness the first newly written song in millennia.

        Princess Luna is in another world.  I feel like I'm working alone, for she is merely a hollow outline of an alicorn that floats around me.  When she speaks, it's as if I'm listening to a voice from beyond a great, obsidian wall.  She says something, and it sounds terribly like the title of a song, the one and only song, the last song.

        “Dawn's Advent,” she calls it.  I am enraptured at the name.  Tears are coming to my eyes, and I haven't even written a single note.  I feel a great darkness coming, but suddenly I'm no longer trembling.  I think about the forbidden glow of the morning.  I think about the sunlight in your eyes.  I'm coming home to you, dear Penumbra.  There's one last elegy, and I am coming home to you.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        June the Fourth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I thought that we were done, but Luna's complexion says otherwise.  She sits in the middle of her room like a statue, a ghastly gargoyle carved out of the blackest stone.  I tell her that our task is finished.  I tell her that we've written the last elegy.  We are done with the project.  The “Nocturne of the Firmaments” is complete.

        She doesn't look even remotely capable of believing me.

        What is there left to do?  She stares past me.  Her eyes are locked on the Nightbringer.

        Dear heavens.  She wants to perform it.  She wants to play the song on the timeless instrument, the leftover fossil from the Creation of the World.  But as long as I stare at her, she refuses to move a muscle.  Is she sick?  Has a terrible, otherworldly ailment finally consumed my Liege?

        Could she be afraid?  Could she suspect that there sits before us a horizon too ominous to contemplate crossing?  Then why would we have come so far?  What was the point of this exercise?

        The hallways are empty.  There are ponies marching outside to an incessant beat.  I hear the rattling of chains in the distance, rising, like a sea of rust and sorrow.  She misses her beloved.  I don't want you to miss me too.  If something doesn't happen soon, I'll be stuck here, frozen in place like Luna, lodged into a position that affords a mortal no rest, no peace, and no chance to see the mare that he loves ever again.

        I write this because I did something brash.  I reached over, and I touched the onyx surface of the Nightbringer with my very own hoof.  When I did so, I looked over at Luna, and her Majesty was looking at me.

        It was then that I understood.  She is the audience.  She's always been the audience.  This symphony was written for her.  I know why she needed me all this time, and why the four musicians were teleported here and away again with the whimsical spell of the “Song of Gathering.”  She didn't trust them, but she trusts me.

        I no longer have the energy to question my place in this.  I want this to be over.  I want to see you.  I want the music to end.  For that to happen, the music must also begin.

        May you, Penny, and any other pony who reads these records forgive this sarosian mortal for desecrating the holy Nightbringer.  But I must do this.  I must lay down the sound stones.  I must play the elegies.  The Nocturne must be heard, for its first time and its last time.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        ?????

        It's so cold.  It's so very cold.  There were voices, muffled and screaming.  Chains formed a tunnel that rattled all around me.  I was swimming somewhere.  Luna was nowhere to be found.  I awoke in a puddle on the floor of the palace hallway.  I was numb.  I couldn't move.  I still can't move.  I'm in my quarters.  How did I get here?  There's a fire; I must have built it.  It's large and blazing, toasting my skin.  I can barely feel my skin.  There's something black in the corner.  The Nightbringer?  Why do I still have it?  Can't think.  Can hardly breathe.  So cold.

                -Comethoof

        ?????

        Still cold.  My head hurts.  I hear a melody.  It is endless.  I recognize it.  It's the “Prelude to Shadows.”  I performed that, didn't I?  I performed many elegies.  The Prelude and the Bolero and the March and...

        The last thing I remembered playing was the “Threnody of Night.”  Then everything went black.  Luna disappeared.  The world disappeared.  I disappeared.

        But I am here now.  I’m here with the cold, the dying fire, the music in my ears, and the Nightbringer.  Where is everypony?

        Something just thundered.  The walls are shaking.  Is it something outside?  I need to go look, but I'm afraid to.  So cold.  Freezing.  Penny, forgive me.  Penny, something horrible has happened.  I'm so cold, Penny.  So cold.

                -Alabaster

        ?????

        Ponies are dying.  I have seen their bodies.  Blood bathes the walls and floors of the Royal Palace.  Luna's nowhere to be seen.  I hear screams announcing her voice, and they are full of horror and anger.  We must be at war.  I do not think I can make it out of this Palace alive.  Anypony who reads this, search my saddlebag.  I have the Nightbringer.  Take it and keep it safe from evil.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        ?????

        My cousin is a murderer.  I saw him slay another guard with my own eyes.  What is Crescent Shine doing?  He's not alone.  The Night Guard are flying with him.  They are setting fire to rooftops.  They are killing ponies.  No, it's more than that.  They are killing all non-sarosians.  This is a bloodbath.  I must get—

        ?????

        So many fires.  So bright.  I am freezing.  I see my own breath.  I am hyperventilating.  I've thrown up twice.  I've never been to a battlefield.  It smells like singed hair and vomit.  Canterlot burns.  Ponies are dying in the street.  Those still alive are wailing out loud.  They are all cursing a name, one name: Luna's name.  Her Majesty has committed a terrible atrocity.  She's turned against Equestrian kind.  Why?  I was just with her hours ago, performing the Nocturne.  What has happened to her?  Why is she destroying the capital of her kingdom?

        So cold.  I'm writing this to a holocaustal fire.  Night is falling, but I do not feel comfort.  I'm scared to show my face, but I must.  If I can get the Nightbringer to Celestia, then maybe she can do something about this turn of events.  But I do not know how long I will last as soon as I show my sarosian face.  My brothers and sisters have shed blood in the name of the night.  It's as if they are all possessed, and Princess Luna's madness is leading them.

                -Comethoof

        ?????

        I've found members of the Royal Guard.  They aren't sarosian.  Upon seeing me, they were briefly startled, but they appear to mean me no harm.  I gave them the Nightbringer.  We're holed up in what remains of the city library.  Just weeks ago, I was studying here in peace.  Now everything is cinder and flame.  There are bodies covered in sheets behind me.  I hear the Captain talking about an evacuation route.  I must know if you're okay, Penumbra.  I must—

        They're looking at me strangely.  Their faces.

        Something is wrong.

                -Alabaster

        ?????

        My name is Doctor Alabaster Comethoof.  I am thirty-seven winters old.  I have a degree in historical mysticism and advanced music theory at the Whinniepeg University.  I have a wife named Penumbra Comethoof.  We both live in the Midnight District.  Please, help me.  Help her.  I beseech whoever reads this.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        ?????

        I keep showing the guards the last page.  I know I've written the words down.  I've seen them.  They can't read a single letter.  It’s like there is no hoofwriting at all.  I try to explain who I am to them, and then their faces return to the same blank expression.

        What's happening?  Why doesn't anypony pay attention to what I'm saying?  These are trained guards.  These are—

        We're being attacked.

                -Alabaster

        ?????

        The battle is on the other side of the city.  I'm safe here.  It's still deathly cold.  There are other ponies huddled here with me.  Every ten minutes, they look at me with shocked expressions.  It's like I've emerged from the shadows over and over again.  I've told them my name at least five times.  This can't be a joke.  We're at war.  It's no time for sick humor.  Did Luna cast a spell on the city?  Are all sarosians empowered by some sort of magically empowered amnesia?  I try showing the ponies my journal.  None of them see a single word I've written, even if I write in large bold letters.  There's more here than just a civil war.  I have the Nightbringer.  I have the elegies stuck in my head.  Oh dear heaven, did I do this?  Did I start all of this madness?  Did I—?

        ?????

        I am bleeding.  I am in pain.  I still must write.

        Several ponies just finished letting their frustrations out on me.  They took one look at my slitted eyes and pale coat and immediately thought I was part of Luna's murderous army.  They bucked me across the cobblestone street.  They tore my moonsilk cloak into tatters.  They called me every horrible name I've ever been teased with since birth, only now with venomous hatred.  They promised to kill me, along with “Nightmare Moon.”  Is that her name now?  I look at the flames and smoke that have gathered above Canterlot, and somehow I can believe it.

        They stopped beating me up, but not for want of my asking.  They gazed at me in the same stupor that had overwhelmed the guards.  I felt a chill of invisible frost across my limbs.  I tried to get up, and then they took notice of me.  Their anger repeated, as if seeing me for the first time.  The beating repeated itself, just as violently.  Then, when I was bleeding far too much to see, they fell into their amnesiac spell again.

        That's when I ran away.  I took the Nightbringer with me.  It would be no safer in the hooves of those brutes than it would be in Crescent Shine's possession.  I limped through the crumbled, war-struck districts of Canterlot.  This beautiful city is decaying from the inside out.  It's all happening so swiftly.

        For fear of my life, I've holed myself up in a half-collapsed infirmary.  I've taken advantage of the tools left here to heal myself.  Still, it doesn't stop the pain throbbing in my extremities.  It hurts even more to write, but I must commit these horrid memories to paper.  Something terrible is happening, and I fear I may be the cause of it all.  I performed the Nocturne.  I saw all of the warning signs, and yet in blind reverence and worship of the Goddess of Shadows, I took the Nightbringer into my own hooves and played a new and altogether dangerous symphony.  I should have known better.  I should have thought with my mind and not with my heart.  I should...

        Oh dearest Penny.  Where are you in this madness?  Where are you in this dark bloodshed of Nightmare Moon?  I must find you.  It's so cold, and the city is still collapsing all around me.  But I must find you, my love.  I must know that you are safe.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        June the Sixth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I only know what day it is from a passing coroner's muttering answer.  Two days have passed since I played the Nocturne, and half of Canterlot lies in ruins.  They are combing the streets, piling bodies into wooden carts.  There's a mass grave on the east side of the city gates.  I can smell the horrible fires from here.  They must prevent plague and infestation at all costs.  This is, without a doubt, the worst disaster since the Discordant Era.

        I must find you.  I found a bundle of blankets in the collapsed infirmary.  It's not moonsilk, and I already feel my coat hairs burning from the midday light, but it hardly matters.  I must find you, Penumbra.  I must get to you.

        The attacking forces were sarosian.  It's logical to assume that the Midnight District is the one place they didn't ravage.  I pray that you're still there.  I pray that you're safe in the apartment, that you've locked yourself in the center-most part of the building.  You were always resourceful in Whinniepeg.  Right now, I have no choice but to believe in your tenacity.

        There're explosions in the distance.  Luna's forces were driven out of the city hours ago.  I fear they might be attempting a return siege.  I must be swift.  It hurts to move, but I must get to you.

                -Alabaster

        June the Sixth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        Dear heavens.  There are fires in the Midnight District.  Citizens of Canterlot have formed a militia, and they are taking their frustrations out on the sarosian neighborhood.  This is worse than I thought.  I must get in.  I must find a way.  Stay safe, my love.  I'm coming to find you.

                -Alabaster

        June the Sixth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I am Alabaster.  Your Alabaster.  Your husband.  We were married under a gazebo on the Whinniepeg University Campus grounds.  You wore lavenders in your hair, your most beloved flower.  You smelled of jasmine, my favorite scent.  Please, my love, tell me that you read these words.  Please tell me that you remember me.

                -Alabaster

        June the Sixth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I know you.

I know you and I love you.

Look into these eyes.

Feel these ears.

        You always loved to play with my ears.

        Dearest Penumbra, it is I.

It is your husband.

        Read these words.

Tell me that you know me.

        Please.

                -Alabaster

        June the Seventh, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I am in our apartment, just a room away from you.  But you don't know it.  You won't expect it.  You'll shuffle out of the bedroom to check on the carnage outside.  You'll see me.  You'll gasp in shock.  You'll cry and beg that I not bite you with my sarosian fangs and drink of your blood.  You'll tell me to go back to the Mare in the Moon, to rejoin the army of death and destruction.  And just as your hysteria reaches a fever point, you'll teeter and collapse, as if overcome with a great dizziness.  I'll disappear for the sake of your sanity, and you'll wander back into your room, alone and confused.  Then you'll come back out a few moments later.  You'll see me, and the whole nightmare will repeat itself.

        I know you.  You are the pony that I fell in love with, the pony who fell in love with me.  You are here.  I can smell your sweet jasmine.  I can see your golden complexion.  And yet, you are not here.

        You are not here.  Dearest Penny, where has the song taken you?  For I now know that it is the song.  I know that this is all the song.  The Nocturne has separated us as far as the east is from the west.  I don't dare try and hug my wife, or else you'll think me a sarosian pillager come to defile you.

        It is so cold here, colder than in the rubble-strewn streets, colder than the Palace halls where the holocaust began.  I sit here, slumped against the wall with the Nightbringer by my side.  I gaze out beyond the balcony.  Your precious greenhouse is smashed, much like our lives.  Smoke rises endlessly from the rooftops of the Midnight District and the neighborhoods beyond.  Equestria is sundered.  The two alicorn sisters are at war with one another.  What has become of us?  What has become of our future?

        I would write more, but I hear your hoofsteps.  A geist painted with the colors of my wife is coming out to shriek at me once more.  Maybe things will be different if you see me cry this time.  But I know better.

                -Alabaster

        June the Ninth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        Luna's forces have been driven away by Celestia's Royal Guard.  Word on the street is that Nightmare Moon's army—the Lunar Empire—has taken over the northern territories of Equestria.  That means Whinniepeg is in the clutches of the Mare in the Moon.  I no longer have any home to return to.

        It's not like I could.  I tried marching out to the outer gates of Canterlot.  I found myself incapable of going beyond Twentieth Street.  As soon as I reached the furthest edge of the capital, I felt my body overwhelmed by intense cold, as if my very own blood was freezing inside of me.  I tried heading towards the opposite edge of town.  As soon as I reached the western cliff-faces, I felt the same invisible wall of cold assaulting me.

        I'm sensing a pattern.  I judge that I have less than two miles in either direction to walk before this freezing sensation I'm constantly feeling intensifies to an unbearable degree.  But what is the center?  After much exploration and experimentation through the ruined streets of Canterlot, I judge that the Royal Palace is the heart of my new prison.  More specifically, the center is Princess Luna's former place of residence.  It makes sense.  After all, that's where I performed the Nocturne with the Nightbringer.  There must be some sort of connection.

        I do not know what to do now, Penny.  I've spent the last twelve hours hovering about our apartment as a ghost.  I stopped bothering to interrupt you, for fear that my constant and startling presence would only give you a heart attack.  At least ten times now we have “met,” and on each occasion it was as though you had never met me before.  I know that this couldn't possibly be an act.  There is no more sunshine left in your eyes.  Nothing in your spirit recognizes me.  I am but a shadow to you, a shadow that loves you no less than he did the day that we said our vows.  At least I remember them, and that's all that matters.  For it means that I must find a way to undo what's been done.  Luna and I ushered a great darkness into this world.  Surely, with the Nightbringer, I should be more than capable of restoring what's been lost.  Perhaps I will even be able to salvage the Princess from this “Nightmare Moon” that has taken hold of her spirit.

        Yes.  Yes, it's coming to me now.  A possible solution.  If everypony in this city forgets me—including my own wife—then it means I'm speaking to the wrong equines.  I must meet with an immortal alicorn.  I must speak with Princess Celestia directly.  She's been alive since the dawn of time, when the Cosmic Matriarch's voice was powerful enough to alter reality.  A piece of that very same magic is in my possession.  I hold the Nightbringer.  If I hoof it over to Celestia directly, she may be able to undo this horror.  She can finish the nightmare, and you and I will be reunited, my beloved Penny.

        Rumor is that she's returned to the capital to assess the damage and strategize a counter-attack to the new Lunar Empire.  I have no time to waste.  Please continue to wait for me a little bit longer, Penumbra.  I shall return to you, and together we will experience a new dawn together, refreshed and resurrected unto hope.

                -Alabaster

        June the Tenth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I am outside the gates to the Palace.  It's less cold here.  I feel energized.  It's now or never.  This cursed state I'm in: it should afford me a mystical form of stealth.  If I pace myself carefully, I should be able to take advantage of each group of guards and their amnesiac spells.  Sneaking my way into Celestia's war room will be akin to skipping across a pond over a series of sporadically placed stones.  The only thing I must be cautious of is my tenuous bravery.  I've never liked conflict, and this is undoubtedly going to involve coming to blows—or near blows—with many a guard unhappy to see a sarosian in the flesh, winged or not.  And if all else fails, I have the Nightbringer with me to win their favor, or at least distract them.  Celestia, give me strength.  I'm coming to deliver you the key to Equestria's salvation.  I only hope I'm not too late.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        June the Twelfth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I'm still recovering from the terrible shock that the explosion caused.  My ears ring constantly.  I'm lucky I haven't gone deaf.

        Sadly, I never got to meet with Princess Celestia.  As soon as I arrived at her Palace, a gigantic explosion engulfed the military wing  Apparently Princess Luna had anticipated her transformation to Nightmare Moon, and the lengths to which her older sister would resist her.  Already, the Canterlot Guard is describing the bomb as something of sarosian design.  The Lunar Empire has stooped to an all-new low.  It wasn't enough that Nightmare Moon shed the blood of innocents in the streets of Canterlot.  She's now resorted to attempting the outright murder of her sibling.

        Yes, I do emphasize “attempting,” for as nefarious as Luna's tactic was, it ultimately failed.  Princess Celestia is alive.  There's not a single scratch on her.  I wish I could say the same about her military cabinet.  Several key generals in the Canterlot Defense Initiative are dead.  This moment in Equestrian History keeps getting darker and darker.

        I've since returned to the apartment, hanging in the shadows of the balcony, encumbered by the stench of death, anchored to your distant and vacant stares.  I swear you've seen me at least half-a-dozen times since I've returned, but it's almost as if you no longer register my existence, whether you remember me or not.  I don't remember a time when I've seen you so detached, so full of depression and ennui.

        How alone you must be, my beloved.  Your husband no longer exists, and I'm starting to think he never has as well.  Everything I write turns invisible to ponies around me.  I've tried spelling my name out in the street, knocking things over, setting rubble on fire in a desperate attempt to get survivors to notice me.  Every physical thing I've done is either ignored or excused as freakish happenstance.  There's no denying it: I've been magically robbed of the ability to prove my existence.  Ponies remember me for a few minutes or a few hours at most, but then I am once again nothing.

        I've tried educating you as well, Penumbra.  I've eased your frightened spirit, sat next to you, and stared into your eyes as I told you my life story, our life story, again and again.  I know that the most you can commit to is a hollow belief, an acceptance of something that could—at best—be the utter fabrication of a desperate, sarosian stranger.  I can share with you the knowledge of our legacy, but I can never spark within you the sincerity or the love.  Our union has vanished, and I fear that your joy has gone with it.  With each subsequent moment I reveal myself to you, you respond with less and less vigor, as if the part of you that recognizes death and decay is the only thing that remembers me.

        When we last were together, there was a color to your coat, a rosiness to your cheeks.  I knew that you wanted to tell me something, like I wanted to tell you so many dear things.  Now, I fear that we may never get that chance.  I don't know what's to become of me; I hardly care.  I stand here and I look at you in the shadows, and I see you becoming one with the darkness.  Could a part of you be searching for your husband, for that soul you once loved in the nights of Whinniepeg, that you are now drifting into bitter blackness in a blind attempt to find that part of you forever missing?

        Why don't you leave the apartment?  Why don't you abandon the empty bowers of the Midnight District and join the other ponies in the relief effort?  There is nothing for you here, Penny.  I don't know why you stay.  I want to help you.  I try to help you.  But you barely have the energy to move anywhere.  Are you sick?  Did the elegies curse you too?  Are we so joined, so connected, that a part of me dragged you into the same depths of frost and horror that have consumed me?

        I can't stand to see you like this, but I don't know what to do.  My attempt to meet with Princess Celestia has failed.  After a swift ceremony to honor the fallen, she's left Canterlot to make her camp on the new frontline just beyond Blue Valley.  Civil War is upon us.  Equestria is burning, and I've lost the love of my life.  I'd give everything up just to be sure that you don't lose yourself, Penumbra.  But I don't know what to do.

        Blessed Matriarch, I just don't know what to do.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        June the Eighteenth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        Something doesn't make sense.

        In the depths of my new existence, I found myself turning to the Nightbringer for comfort.  Plucking the strings of the magical instrument—it would seem—awoke something inside of me.  I wonder why I hadn't thought of utilizing the corporeal song of the Cosmic Matriarch before.

        Something doesn't make sense about the explosion that went off in Celestia's Palace.  For one thing, the expressed nature of the bomb doesn't match traditional sarosian design.  Furthermore, how could Luna have found the time to set up the explosive?  During the time it was said to have been planted, she was writing the Nocturne with me.

        I don't know why I'm thinking of this all of the sudden.  Again, I think it might be due to my possession of the Nightbringer.  Carrying it empowers me, in spite of the frozen pariah that I have become.  I feel as if there is something I'm overlooking, something that I can and must discover.

        I look back and I realize that I never did quite perform the entire Nocturne.  At least, if I did, I lost memory of the event immediately upon playing the “Threnody of Night.”  Did I perform “Twilight's Requiem,” the “Desolation Elegy,” and “Dawn's Advent” afterwards?  Or did Princess Luna finish the rest of the symphony in my stead?  If so, why is it that I possess the Nightbringer and not her?

        If there's anything that you've taught me about science, Penumbra, it's that a true scientist knows the importance of repeating an experiment to achieve results.  That is what I must do right now.  If I never got as far as performing “Twilight's Requiem,” then I must make that my immediate goal.  However, I can't do that here, not in the midst of this pain and destruction.  I must return to the place that the experiment began.  I must return to Princess Luna's wing of the Palace, assuming it still stands after the terrible explosion that the bomb caused.

        I only regret that I must leave you to do this.  It's not something that will be easy, nor is waiting around here and watching you suffer.  And you are suffering, Penny.  There's no denying it, but there's no explaining it either.  Your body's growing weak.  Your limbs are shuffling slower and slower.  I don't know why this is happening to you, and Celestia knows I've done all I can to nurse you back to health.  I've appeared to you under the guise of a Canterlot relief worker.  Naturally, it's taken a great deal of tact on my behalf to make you look past my sarosian exterior, but I've managed to get you to see sunlight, to eat, even to visit the local infirmary.

        Nothing seems to be working.  All I've done for the past two days is hover around you, a ghost helpless to bring healing to the mare that he so lovingly haunts.

        That's why I know I must take this drastic step.  If Celestia can't help me, and if Luna is now a phantom of rampant destruction, then I must take the solution to this curse in my own hooves.  If I can unlock the venomous power of the Nocturne, through the power of these last unplayed elegies, then maybe—just maybe—I can cleanse the taint that has turned me invisible, and has rendered you an invalid.

        Not once will I stop writing.  This journal may appear invisible to everypony, but I trust that it won't be that way forever.  Equestria must know what has actually transpired here.  If I am to take the blame for Princess Luna becoming Nightmare Moon, then so be it.  I don't care what happens to me, so long as you are restored to your health, my beloved Penny.  I shall bring you back.  I shall bring everything back.  This, I promise.

                        -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        June the Twenty-First, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        It's taken a great deal of physical and mental effort, but I've arrived once more at the Palace.  I employed the same tactics I anticipated using when I first attempted to reach Celestia.  I only hope an explosive doesn't go off once again under my nose.  Surely fate can't be that damnably cruel.

        I've snuck my way into the Lunar Wing.  Just ten minutes ago, I arrived at Princess Luna's quarters.  I'm amazed at how untouched everything is.  Things are in the same disarray as when I was last here.  The same books are splayed open across the floor and tables.  The same scrolls and notes are dangling off of the Princess' workbench.  There's even a stain on the floor in the hall outside where I awoke in a mysterious puddle of water eleven days ago.

        The details of my surroundings aren't important.  What matters is that I've returned.  It's remarkably warm here in the center of my accursed prison.  I have a fresh set of sound stones laid down in a circle.  I'm ready to finish the elegies.  So, with the Nightbringer in hoof, I prepare to continue from where I left off.  The melody of “Twilight's Requiem” is already surging through my beleaguered mind.  After a solid week of horror, it's come to this, to where it all began.

        May history show that my endeavors have been worth it.

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        ?????

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my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  Sing my song and become nothing.  

?????

        I woke up two hours ago to my forehead covered in blood.  My head felt like it was splitting in two.  I brought a hoof to my horn, and shrieked at the scorching contact.  It was like my magical leylines were burning a torch at the end of my cranium.  I glanced down at my journal, and I saw that I had furiously scribbled two pages worth of words, all repeating the same phrase over and over again.  No wonder my horn is nearly burnt out.  How quickly did I write those words, and for what purpose?  Was I entranced yet again?

        It's taken me several minutes of resting and meditating before I could summon the telekinesis to write once again.  And yet, I don't know what to write about.  I played “Twilight's Requiem.”  That much I know.  What happened afterwards is a blur.  All I remember is a sudden and irreversible migraine and...

        Must stop writing for a moment.

                -Comethoof

        ?????

        This is incredible.  The books all around me—the ancient and mysterious tomes that Princess Luna had gathered from all across Equestria—are no longer blank.  There are words on them.  I don't know why I never saw them before.  They shimmer with an otherworldly luminescence.  The language predates Basic Equine, and yet I can read them as if I was taught their syntax from my foalhood.  They speak of shadows, souls, and songs between the Firmaments.  They also speak of a singer, as beautiful as she is dreadful.  She guards over the forgotten.  She mourns for her beloved, who is never to return.  What's more, when I glance back at the last two pages of my own journal, I find that the repeated phrases I've written glow with the same supernatural quality as the words of Luna's tomes.

        Wait.  Could it be...?

        No time to write.  I must read.

                -Comethoof

        ?????

        My head hurts again.  I went back over the last few entries I've written.  I read the parts where I detailed the bomb that blew up before I could meet with Princess Celestia.  It was then that something happened.  I recognized the words that I had written—or at least thought I had written.  But then, I started to see through them, beyond them, as if my vision was being siphoned down a deathly funnel of ice and chains and lightning.

        I was unprepared for the flood of memories that assaulted me.  I fell to the floor, the room shimmering from the burning glow of my horn as the truth bled back into my leylines.  There was no explosion.  There was no bomb.  I met with Princess Celestia.  I know this.  I know this because it happened.  I snuck past the guards.  I slipped past the Sun Goddess' amnesiac line of defense.  I stood before her and her entire military cabinet with the Nightbringer in my hooves.  I told her the truth.  I told her about the Nocturne.  What's more—when she asked me what happened—I felt it was necessary to show her.  In the end, for whatever reason, I was motivated to perform the symphony once more, in her presence instead of Luna's.

        What resulted was the destruction of that particular wing of the Palace.  But it wasn't a sarosian bomb.  Rather, it was Princess Celestia herself.  I am writing down the absolute truth here, the truth that I now know as clear as day.  Before I had even reached the Threnody, something seeded deep in Princess Celestia's spirit responded violently to the Nocturne, and pure solar energy burst outward from her being, as if she was attacking everything in sight.  I was too shocked by her blatant destruction to even scream.  When I came to, I believed that it was all because of a sarosian bomb, and that's exactly what I wrote in my journal... or what I thought I wrote.

        But obviously I wasn't alone.  Everypony inside and outside of Canterlot—including those witnesses who were there to witness Celestia and the military advisers who died around her—believe that it was a bomb that destroyed that part of the palace.  It wasn't just my memory that was altered, but everypony's memory.  History was rewritten, just like the Nocturne was brought into being.  But something isn't quite right about that either.  Why is it that these memories are becoming clear to me?  Does it have something to do with all of the glowing letters I now see?  Did “Twilight's Requiem” bring this about?

        There is only one way to find out.  I have more reading to do.  More specifically, my entry about the first performance of the “Nocturne of the Firmaments.”  Will that also have changed, I wonder?

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        ?????

        Every time I try to breathe, I only want to vomit.  Can't write.  Can't think.  Must wait.  Must recover.  Will write.  Just not now.  Not now.

        Blessed Matriarch, protect me, protect us all.

                -Me

        ?????

        I just woke up.  I wish I was asleep.  I wish the nightmare wasn't real.  But it is real.  It's burned into my brain.  There is no removing it now.  There is no forgetting the truth, not for me at least.  I have the ears for the songless, eyes for the unblessed, hooves for the souls enslaved by the eternally forgotten now.

        When I wrote that I woke up after the performance of the Nocturne in a puddle of water, I only wished that was the only truth.  Reality is far darker than all the shadows of time mixed together.

        I have been someplace.  I have been someplace cold and terrible and without measure.

        I was alone there, and yet I wasn't.  There were bodies—shells that once housed souls—and they were strung together in clusters of rusted chains stretching onward into infinity.  Between the eternal thunder and flashes of lightning, seas of ice-cold water spun like cyclones between platforms of impenetrable metal.  There were ponies strapped to these purgatorial machines, and they were too busy singing a haunted chorus to even register the lengths of their torture.

        And then she was there.  She has always been there.  She has always been watching us.  Her beloved came and went, and yet she stayed there—in the limbo between Firmaments—wailing her endless song.

        For it is her song.  The “Nocturne of the Firmaments” is her song.  It has always been her song.  It was written for her, to protect her, to imprison her, and to protect us.  And when Princess Luna and I dredged this forsaken symphony up from the forsaken depths, we were not writing it.  We were discovering it.

        Princess Luna... to think that I worshipped her and Celestia as the only two precious alicorns this world has ever known.  All of that allegiance feels hollow now, stripped of meaning and purpose, which is the very crux of my current despair.

        The truth is, there have not always been two alicorns.  There have been three.  When the Cosmic Matriarch shattered herself, she became four entities.

        There is a third alicorn.  There is a second daughter, a middle child.  Princess Celestia guards the earth.  Princess Luna guards the sky.  And she...

        She guards the unsung.  She is the grand Queen of the Firmaments, between the Firmaments.  She holds the universe together by tearing it all apart.  I don't know if Princess Luna ever intended to do it, but in her ten years of seclusion—the Age of Shadows—she meditated too deeply, and chanced upon discovering this magical barrier between worlds.  I don't know what empowered her to osmotically absorb the forbidden knowledge of this place.  Perhaps it was the same connection she's always shared with the fabric of the Cosmic Matriarch's being.  But she reached out to her sibling, and whatever it was that reached back poisoned her.

        I was part of that bridge of communication.  With the Nightbringer as my key, I unlocked the gates to the world of forgotten anguish.  Princess Luna, a soul empowered by magic, could not allow herself to crumble completely under the force of the unsung realm.  I imagine that must be why she shattered into two.  The Goddess of Shadows I once worshipped had become no more.  The seeds of her deconstruction had been planted long before she summoned me, but the “Nocturne of the Firmaments” is what finally pushed her over the edge.  She's become Nightmare Moon, and now she spreads destruction over the land of Equestria.  I don't know what the purpose is in this.  Perhaps by razing the landscape, she seeks to paint a picture that resembles the landscape of the unsung.  Perhaps by covering the world in endless night, she intends to turn Equestria into a blank canvas upon which she'll illustrate the forsaken song forevermore.

        All I know is that Luna must have gone into this exploration in the good faith of reconnecting with something that was once lost and forgotten.  But when Celestia was exposed to even a fraction of the truth—her ears filled with the unsung symphony, her reaction was necessarily violent, an instinctual effort to silence the instrumental and keep the barrier between the Firmaments sealed.

        And it was then that she did the rest.  She sang reality into a different shape to patch up the wound I had made.  If the same thing had happened with Luna, then perhaps I wouldn't be here right now, cursed by the same mystical effluence that keeps the unsung out of everypony's collective memory.  But it's too late.  The damage has been done.  Luna's been transformed by the same terrible sorrow that should only populate her realm, the land between Firmaments.  What it's produced in this world is the terrible Nightmare Moon.

        Who knows what other horrors lie lurking in the depths, but I fear that it's not worth exploring any further.  I may not be an immortal alicorn, but I possess the Nightbringer.  What's more, I contain the forsaken knowledge that was never meant to be unlocked by pony minds.  As a result, I am a living doorway, invisible and intangible, a fleeting thought that passes through a random pony's head and then is gone like ash in the wind.  The fissure between Firmaments now lies within me, for “Twilight's Requiem” has unlocked the truth for my eyes and my eyes alone.  And as long as I am the junction for all things that exist and all things that are forgotten, I am but a bodiless spirit, doomed to haunt the permeable Firmaments, forever nameless and unsung.

        What options do I have?  I could perform the “Threnody of Night” again.  But to what end?  It would only launch me once more into her domain.  I would be her puppet, just like every other pony chained to the platforms in that world of thunder and chaos.  Just where did those shackled equines come from?  Were they souls just like me who had been so dreadfully cursed in the past?  Did they write all of the myriad of books surrounding me in Luna's study?  Am I just another doomed soul in a long line of pariahs, linked together by forsaken thoughts like rusted chains suspending the world above oblivion?

        Blessed Matriarch, I can't think.  I can't even breathe.  I must go someplace, anyplace, just so that I'm away from this room, away from these books, away from these glowing words that shine with her colorless color.  I have seen a fate worse than death, and it's slowly biting into me with teeth as cold as ice.

        I must go somewhere.  I must go.  I must...

                -Doctor Alabaster Comethoof

        ?????

        Good heavens.  They're everywhere.  I can see them now.  They started fading at first, but then I took the Nightbringer and performed “Twilight's Requiem” again—unabashedly, in the streets—and they once more came into focus.

        They were bodies.  They were words.  They were splotches of blood, names scattered with debris from the carnage.  They weren't there before I performed the Requiem, but they're there now.  They're all around me, all around us.  Right now as I'm writing this, there's a pony hanging from a noose right above me.  He's shimmering with the same aura as the re-written words in my journal, or the letters splashed across the empty tomes of Luna's study.  His body is greatly decayed.  I can see his skeleton, and a fine mist is wafting out—cold and vaporous.  Nopony else can see him.  How long has he been here?  What's more, how long until she finds him and drags him into the depths where he belongs in chains, under her eternal stewardship?

        When will she find me?  Will it be after I'm dead, or when I've collapsed and become too weak to outrun her?

        I have the Nightbringer.  I have my knowledge.  I exist, and I must find a way out of this.  Maybe it's worth the risk of playing the “Desolation's Elegy” and “Dawn's Advent.”  Maybe things will be different if I actually manage to play the entire Nocturne straight through.  Maybe I can still...

        Wait, what day is it?

                -Comethoof

        June the Twenty-Sixth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        It's been five days.  Blessed Matriarch, five days have gone by.  How could I have been so foolish to have been entranced that long?

        Dearest Penny, I'm coming for you.

                -Alabaster

        June the Twenty-Sixth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        You're not at home, Penumbra.  The apartment is empty.  Where could you have gone in my absence?  I know that fate demanded I learn what I know now, but nothing excuses my negligence in this matter.

        You've been so sick.  I'm worried, Penny.  I don't know where you are.  I must find you.  I must...

        A guard just flew by.  I managed to flag him down.  He says the former tenant of this building was taken to a field hospital in downtown two days ago.  Praise Celestia.  I'm coming, Penny.  Please wait for me.  Please wait for me, as I have always and shall always wait for you.

                -Alabaster.

        June the Twenty-Sixth, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        No.  It doesn't make sense.  None of this makes sense.  Magic has rules to it.  Magic can't be broken.  I don't care if she can sing reality into a patchwork mosaic of what it was ever destined to be.  This isn't real.  All of my years of study and research...

        I've screamed.  I've screamed louder than those in the realm of the unsung.  And yet nopony can hear me, and neither can you.

        Damn Princess Luna.  I don't care if the Cosmic Matriarch strikes me dead.  Damn Nightmare Moon.  Damn her to burning ash in the pits of Tartarus.

        This doesn't make sense.  It doesn't.  It doesn't.  It...

        June the Twenty-Seventh, Year 6233 of the Harmonic Era,

        I've held your hooves for the last twenty-four hours, and still they haven't moved.  Every so often, a nurse strolls by, takes one look, and draws the sheet over your golden features.  I've stopped fighting them.  There's no point in making a scene.  I just wait until she's gone, and I pull the sheet back once again.  I love you.  I don't ever want to stop looking at you.  I don't ever want to stop holding you.  I don't...

        Two months, the nurses said.  Two months with foal.  Dearest Penumbra, why didn't you tell me?  Was I that blind?  Was I that encumbered by the euphoria of my new task here in Canterlot?  You had to have conceived before we both set out from Whinniepeg.  If I had known at the time, I would have never taken up Luna's request, Princess or not.  I would have never...

        It all makes sense now.  I wish it didn't, but it does.  Your constant lethargy.  The ennui that poured out of your eyes where there was once sunlight.  I had disappeared from your world.  You found yourself in a stranger's house.  What was more, you carried inside of you a hollow life, the seed of the unsung.  How it must have poisoned you, torn you from the inside out, frozen you in your sleep and in your thoughts and in your sobs.  All that made you whole, all that made us real: it was ripped from you.  Why couldn't her song heal it up?  Why couldn't she spare your life?  Just because I was gone didn't mean you couldn't be alive, couldn't be a mother, couldn't be happy.

        Now I understand.  I carry the knowledge of the unsung.  I am as much a danger to the fabric of reality as Luna was—before becoming Nightmare Moon changed her into a horrible despot, and yet a manageable evil.  Everything that I do or say must be forgotten.  Every mark I have to leave upon this world is swept away like leaves across a granite path.  I must not be allowed to exist, in any fashion whatsoever.

        She took our child, Penny.  She took our child, and then she took you.  I understand, and yet I don't understand.  I can hardly write.  I can only hold you and dream that all of this is just a shattered song, something that was meant to be believed in, but never real.  Somewhere you are out there, invisible, as lost and as lonesome as I.  We are right in front of each other, looking for each other, and all that separates us is a broken symphony.

        I can patch it together.  Yes, I can bring us back together again.  I'm looking at these words while I'm writing them.  They haven't yet transformed into the shimmering text.  But that means I just need to play the Requiem again.  It's the “Desolation's Elegy” that I can't seem to figure out.  I remember so many things, but that instrumental has escaped my mind.  Maybe it's because Princess Luna is no longer here.  Maybe it's because Nightmare Moon sapped me of the notes.  But it doesn't matter.  I must keep searching.  I have the Nightbringer.  I have the Nocturne in my head.  I can rewrite the song of Desolation.  I just need to keep playing it over and over again, and I will reach “Dawn's Advent.”

        Then I will find you, dearest Penny.  This world is a facade, as fake and full of dust as this miserable corpse lying before me, trying to convince me that it's you.  Please wait for me, my beloved.  You've always been so patient.  I pray that I find you with your forelimbs outstretched for an embrace, instead of your body at the end of a noose.  You are somewhere in this city, in this frozen prison.  We are not alone.  We will be together once again.  We will be.  We will...

                -Your faithful and loving Alabaster

        “From there,” I said, lowering the ancient book as I stood across the library from Twilight Sparkle.  “The journals become increasingly erratic.  Doctor Comethoof begins to ramble.  His eloquence gives way to cyclical gibberish.  It's a classic descent into madness.  I've been able to spot familiar terms in the midst of the garbled mess, such as 'unsung' and 'her beloved.'  But most of it is merely textual chaos.  Even the diagrams stop making sense.  Nowhere does Comethoof bother writing down the actual music notes to the elegies, but judging from his opinion on their mystical function, I seriously doubt he would want to, even if he assumed nopony was capable of reading what he had to write.”

        “Well, forgive me for saying so, Miss Heartstrings...” Twilight remarked, her face scrunched in an unending look of confusion.  “But I find all of this very hard to believe.  Everypony knows from grade school and onwards that the Lunar Civil War started at the end of Shadow’s Advent, with a horrible explosion being discharged in Princess Celestia’s royal cabinet.  What you’re suggesting here is a complete re-write of Equestrian history!”  A soft, afternoon light wafted through the windows of her library and illuminated the lines in her furrowed brow.  “Furthermore, all I've seen in that book of yours is a bunch of unrelated text about Whinniepeg farming methods written in Old Equine.  Are you're telling me that a ‘Doctor Alabaster Comethoof’s’ words somehow appear magically over them?'”

        “Yes.  I imagine that long after he died, ponies found the journal in the streets of Canterlot where he was imprisoned.  They thought the enchanted manuscript was blank, and so they cycled it through the national libraries for reprinting purposes until it became a Whinniepeg almanac several decades later.”

        “But none of that explains how come I can’t see Comethoof’s words and yet you can!” Twilight exclaimed.  “You seem to suggest that it’s all because of some bizarre curse that he could see invisible words.  How exactly is any of that related to you?”

        “As strange as it may sound, Miss Sparkle, I find this to be an extremely real circumstance.  What’s more, Comethoof’s words have taught me more about my situation than I could ever have imagined... or have cared to.”

        “Situation?”

        I sighed.  I didn’t want to tell her too much.  Not now.  I just wanted somepony with a penchant for history to hear me out.  “Please.  Tell me.  What do you know about a ‘Penumbra Comethoof’ who lived in the Midnight District of Canterlot the very month of the Civil War’s beginning?”

        “Well, I’d gladly tell you, Miss Heartstrings, if only a certain assistant didn’t stop dragging his tail with fetching the records I asked for!”

        As if on cue, Spike waddled into the room.  He muttered something under his breath and handed a dusty old scroll to Twilight.  “Here you go.  I still don’t understand where you get off having surprise study sessions with strangers.  Don’t we have a dinner party to go to at Sugarcube Corner in an hour?”

        “Shhh!  Just hand me the scroll, Spike!  This is actually rather fascinating...”

        “Yeah yeah, if you say so.” Spike glanced at me and did a double-take.  “Oh.  Hi there.  Dig the swell hoodie.”

        “Uh huh.”  I glanced over at Twilight.  “Anything?”

        While Spike waddled away, Twilight unscrolled the parchment and read down a list of names.  “Well, it does mention an earth pony by the name of ‘Penumbra.’”

        “Yes?”  I leaned forward.  “And?”

        “Well, that’s just it.”  Twilight shrugged and glanced at me.  “She has no last name, married or maiden.  It says here that she was living alone in a lush apartment in the upper heights of the Midnight District when Nightmare Moon’s initial attacks took place.”

        “Any news on how she died?”

        “My Old Equine is a little rusty,” Twilight said, squinting as she read the words before her.  “But it lists ‘hemolytic anemia, as a result of malnourishment during early pregnancy...’” Slowly, she glanced up from the manuscript until her eyes met mine.  Any sign of deep thought was swiftly washed away by an air of pragmatism.  “Ahem.  But seriously, Miss Heartstrings, this all happened a thousand years ago.  That’s a long time for history to be twisted by untrustworthy sources.”

        “Don’t you find it strange that there would be a single earth pony mare living alone in a rich apartment of Canterlot, surrounded by nocturnal sarosians, with no family or spouse to provide for her?  And on top of that, she dies from a simple complication of pregnancy that could very easily have been prevented by doctors who were around her at the time?”

        “It was the start of the Lunar Civil War, Miss Heartstrings.  Canterlot was burning.  Supplies and resources were scarce.”

        “I know.  I know.”  I grumbled, pacing around the library.  “Nothing I do will convince you that history as we know it is wrong.  Furthermore, you’ll only forget whatever it is I have to say, no matter what evidence I could even provide.”

        Twilight squinted hard at that.  “Wait.  Just what are you meaning to imply?”

        “I don’t know, Twilight.  I don’t even know what to think anymore.”  I slid a hoof out from my hoodie’s sleeve and ran it over my aching head.  “I just can’t help but feel as if Comethoof and I are taking the same hoofsteps.  After all, he made it clear that when he went directly to Princess Celestia with the Nocturne, not only did the meeting result in a horrific discharge of magical energy, but the entire event was completely forgotten, and instead they blamed it on a sarosian explosive.”

        “Uhm...?”  Twilight gulped nervously and trotted towards me.  “Just what are you getting at?”

        “Tell me, Miss Sparkle.”  I turned and looked at her.  “How many times has Princess Celestia visited Ponyville since the Summer Sun Celebration before last?”

        “Uhm... Well, let's see.”  Twilight scratched her chin in thought.  “There was the return of Princess Luna, the tea party at Sugarcube Corner, and the Annual Running of the Leaves.”  She paused briefly, then blurted, “Oh!  And then there was that one time when she was scheduled to visit Ponyville, but had to cancel at the last second on account of a parasprite infestation several months back.”  She tilted her head aside and squinted at me.  “Why, Miss Heartstrings?  You said you've been here in Ponyville for over a year.  In all that time, you never once crossed paths with Princess Celestia?”

        “That's just it, Twilight.”  I gulped and stared into the dusty shadows of the library.  “I... can't remember...”

        For the longest time, I thought this curse could be ended with a simple symphony.

        Now, I'm not sure of anything anymore.

Background Pony

XI - “Unsung”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: Warden, Props, theBrianJ, Razrgriz, and theworstwriter

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear Journal,

        When our days come to a close, what is more important?  Should we be able to remember all that’s happened in our lives, or should we endeavor for other ponies to be the bearers of our legacies?  Which of the two outcomes makes us more permanent... or at least feel permanent?  Is it more important to be something, while sacrificing the ability to feel what it means to be that something?

        Music is a time capsule, a bodiless vessel for storing both our substance and our emotion.  The message that confirms our existence—no matter how harmonically framed—will always lose an element of its cohesiveness.  Every pony's ears are different from another's, after all.

        What matters, though, is that we make an effort.  We must try our best to leave an impression if our part in this world holds any hope of leaving a mark.  We are all fantastic creatures of glorious happenstance.  We make sounds in this world that no rock or mountain or continent could ever hope to emulate.  We deserve more than just being heard; our symphonies deserve encores.

        What I must be careful of—what I must hold myself responsible for—is the risk of digging my hooves into another pony's composition.  We make glorious sounds in this world, so long as they remain our sounds alone.  And most of these sounds, as it turns out, can't be forced.  If they must be heard, they should be respected first and foremost.  When all is said and done, an encore is best enjoyed in the original composer's memory, for that is the song's purpose since its day of creation.

        The roar of crashing pins echoed throughout the alley as Rarity rushed over to a series of chairs in front of one of many shiny lanes.  She came to a stop, panting, and busied herself with removing a silken scarf from her neck.  “So terribly sorry for being late, girls!”  She smiled tiredly at her five close companions in the center of the noisy place.  “But I had a mountainous pile of dresses to patch up today at the Boutique and—well—you know how it is...”

        “What matters is that you're here now and I can begin properly keeping score!”  Twilight Sparkle cheerfully said from where she sat at the local scoreboard.  Applejack was lining herself up to chuck another ball down the lane before the other five mares as she continued, “We're only at the end of the third frame.  I hope you don't mind that we had Fluttershy bowl for you the first two times.”

        “Rarity, I...”  Fluttershy bit her lip and blushed behind a pair of loose bowling shoes in her grasp.  “I may have hit the gutter once or twice...”

        “Do not fret yourself, darling,” Rarity said with a wave of her hoof.  She looked sadly over at Twilight.  “I'm here only in spirit, Twilight.  I absolutely cannot toss any large balls at ungainly cudgels tonight!  I spent a better part of the afternoon at Aloe and Lotus' Day Spa, and I'd hate myself forever if I were to muddy these hooves in such dreadful shoes as this place offers.”

        Fluttershy squeaked and dropped the shiny articles in her grasp.  “I knew it!  They are dirty!”

        “They are not, Fluttershy!  They’re disinfected all the time!  I promise you that they’re fine!”  She cleared her throat and looked at her other friend.  “Rarity, nothing stopped you from bowling that one evening a week after the Gala!  I thought you enjoyed yourself here in the alley!”

        “That's because anything was rapturous following that most deplorable of excuses for a 'Gala,'” Rarity said with a roll of her eyes.  “I know you're wanting to make a regular thing out of this... whimsical sport, Twilight.  But whether we're throwing darts or playing badminton, none of it matters to me so long as I'm in your loving company.”  She tilted her head up with a tiny smile.  “I just have to sit out this one for the time being.  Next week, I'll be more than capable of dipping my hooves into the bowling water, if you pardon the pun.”  She sat down in a red chair beside Fluttershy.  “Just wait.  You'll see—Eww hew hewwww!”  She shrieked and hopped out of her seat, desperately rubbing her flank.  “Was that gum?!  Gross gross grosssss!”

        Twilight sighed.  The crashing of pins filled the air yet again.

        “Awwww shucks!” Applejack's ears drooped as she gazed at one remaining pin.

        “Ooooooh!  What's this?”  Rainbow Dash orbited Applejack with a wicked grin.  “Has the apple fallen far from the tree?”

        “It did?!”  Pinkie Pie's face popped up between them as she gasped at Applejack.  “Did it fall into a chocolate lake on the way down?—Whoah!”

        Applejack was shoving Pinkie out of the way to glare at Rainbow Dash.  “Nopony in Ponyville has gotten a perfect score at bowlin' in over ten years!  I'm catchin' up to you yet, ya flyin' featherweight!”

        “In your dreams, apple-snort!”  Rainbow Dash spat on her hooves, rubbed them together, and grabbed the nearest ball. “Cuz Miss Perfection has shown up to dance!”

        “Oh get off your high... erm... self!”  Applejack frowned.  “You couldn’t dance yer way out of a cornfield!”

        “Why’s everything gotta be a farm reference for you?”  Rainbow Dash angled herself sharply down the lane, holding the ball ready.  “Prepare to kiss my tail!”

        “I ain’t puckerin’ up to no pot’o’gold!”

        “My, we’re all rather festive tonight, aren’t we?” Rarity remarked as she finally took her seat.  “Dare I ask who’s winning?”

        “Uhm...”  Fluttershy blushed.  “Not me.”

        “I’m pretty sure you’ll have time to catch up yet,” Twilight Sparkle remarked.  While Rainbow Dash loudly flung her ball, she floated a book entitled A Common Equestrian’s Guide To Knocking Pins in front of herself.  “It says here that in the year 957 of the Celestial Era, a pony named Filly Frames came back from a fifteen point deficit to win a national tournament.”

        “A charming anecdote, Twilight,” Rarity said with a dainty smile as Pinkie hoofed her a cup of juice from the concession bar.  “But we’re not exactly here this evening to make history.”

        The sound of thundering pins echoed again, followed by Rainbow Dash’s loud, self-indulgent cheers.

        Rarity sighed as her eyes went square.  “Well, most of us aren’t.”

        “Somepony stop the bus!”  Rainbow Dash hovered back to her chair with her head held high.  “Cuz I gotta get off on ‘Awesome Street!’”

        “I thought I left the manure shoveling back home at the barn,” Applejack said with a groan.  She took a cup of juice from Pinkie as she gazed over at Twilight.  “Who’s next, ya reckon?”

        “Well...” Twilight scanned the scoreboard and drew an “X” in the last white box.  “Rainbow Dash has thirty points in the first frame.  That much we know.”

“We also know that I’m goddess supreme of the alley!”

Twilight rolled her eyes and continued going over her sheet.  “This is the beginning of the fourth frame.  Which means—Oh!  Rarity!  Good timing!  You're up—”

        “Can't be done, darling.  Remember?  Besides, I’m quite vexed with gum and coffee stains over here.”

        “Oh yeah.  Right.  Uhm...”  Twilight scratched her chin.  “Fluttershy?  Did you want to keep taking Rarity's turn this game?”

        “Why would I want to do that?”  Fluttershy asked.  Her wings melted limply around her as she cast a sad gaze towards the floor.  “Oh.  I see.  It's to give me a chance to maybe—possibly—get a score high enough to compete with you girls...”

        “N-no!” Twilight exclaimed.  “Nothing like that!”

        “Oooh!  Oooh!”  Pinkie Pie bounced in front of Twilight's face.  “Lemme take Rarity's spot!  It'll give me even more chances to throw the ball through the hoop!”

        “Pinkie...”  Twilight frowned and pointed towards the back end of the alley.  “That hoop is part of the arcade behind us!  It has nothing to do with our game here!  You know?!  With the pins?!”

        “Yeah, but if I go twice as much, then I'll have a greater chance of scoring the purple monkey!”

        Twilight Sparkle blinked.  She swiveled to face the score-sheet once more.  “Maybe we should just let somepony else join.”

        “Why the hay not?”  Applejack stifled a yawn and kicked back in her seat.  She pushed the brow of her hat over her smiling face and listened to the distant crashing of pins like waves on the beach.  “The more the merrier, right?”

        “Uhhh...”  Rainbow Dash blinked.  “Like who?”

        “Lemme pick!  Lemme pick!”  Pinkie Pie's eyes scanned the immediate vicinity beyond where they sat.  “Mmmmmmmm...”  She looked and squinted and gazed.  “Mmmmmm...”  Her eyes fell on me, then brightened.  “Oh!”  She hopped over and was leaning on my table so hard that she almost tipped it over.  “You look really, really bored!  Wanna help us knock over loud pins?  Huh huh huh?”

        I looked up from the ancient tome in my grasp, shivering.  No matter how many times I think I'm prepared for it, Pinkie Pie's introductions still manage to startle me.  I broke through the chattering of teeth in time to utter, “Knock over pins?  You mean... as in join your game?”

        “Uh huh!  Uh huh!”  She nodded wildly, her puffy mane dancing like a fuchsia stormcloud.  “You might win a purple monkey!”

        “Pinkie!” Twilight groaned from the background.

        “I... uhm...”  I gazed from her to the group of seats.  I saw five sets of eyes gazing my way.  The group was full of happy, bright, friendly faces.  In a cold world, I couldn't imagine a more heavenly place worth melting in.  I weighed all of these beautiful things, and quite gravely said, “Sorry.  But... I'm just here to catch up on some studies.  I can't afford to go into a game.”

        “Studies?”  Pinkie Pie's face twisted confusedly.  When she looks vexed, I know that something cosmically bizarre has happened.  “You'd have better luck doing homework in a dragon's nest!”

        “Meeep!”  Fluttershy sunk in her seat.  “Please, Pinkie.   You know how much I hate the 'd'-word!”

        “Oh stop being a scaredy-cat, Fluttershy!  Rainbow Dash says the 'd'-word around you all the time to describe Angel!  No, wait, that's the other 'd'-word...”

        “I do not!”  Rainbow's voice squeaked.  Applejack chuckled.

        Pinkie’s head twisted to face me again, followed by the rest of her body.  “You sure you don't wanna come and join our super fantastic game of heavy ball-tossing?”

        “Pinkie...”  Rarity sing-songed from across the loud alley.  “Be a dear and leave the delicate unicorn alone.”

        “I'm quite fine, ma'am,” I said with a soft grin.  “Go be with your friends.  I'm just biding my time.”

        “Okie dokie lokie!”  Pinkie turned around and bounced off.  “Guess time can't bide itself!  Good luck with that!”

        I waved her off.  Once she was gone, submerged in the warmth that had gathered around Twilight—as had always gathered around Twilight—I let my hoof drop to my side as I sighed .  Forcing my gaze to tear away from them, I adjusted the sleeves of my hoodie and tried absorbing myself again in Comethoof's maniacal ramblings.  I was only meagerly successful.

        I know it's as though I'm stalking these six ponies at times.  But does it really count as “stalking?”  I could be in the same building with them thirty nights in a row and still they'd never know that I had ever been there.  Is it a crime to live on the fringes of something so deliciously warm that it feels as though I'm there in spirit?  It's not hurting anyone.  It certainly isn't hurting myself.

        I sighed, trying to focus on the glowing blue paragraphs in front of me, as if there was anything worth studying them for.  I had learned on the very first day of reading Comethoof's records that only so much could be gained from the magical words he had unwittingly bequeathed me.

        I had attempted taking my findings to Twilight just two days ago.  I think that was a mistake.  Exposing her to the forgotten history of a cursed sarosian unicorn only led to more confusion.  No matter how learned a pony Twilight is, the only way she can remotely help me in my search is for me to coax her into the reality of my cursed existence.  And if I can help it, I'd like to reduce the amount of times I force Twilight to once again become my foalhood friend, only to extinguish her like a dim candle.

        Perhaps the reason why I tried sharing Comethoof's legacy with Twilight is not because I needed her knowledge or resources concerning the forgotten fate of Princess Luna's loyal composer.  It's just that Comethoof suffered such a terribly lonesome existence, defined by the same curse that now consumes me.  Being able to communicate with another pony about him makes me feel like I'm looking at a mere history book, instead of a gruesome map to my own destiny.  I feel less like I'm a shadow to Comethoof when somepony like Twilight looks at me, when I see her warm eyes, when I remember what it's like to have meant something to somepony beyond a casual, fleeting glance.

        I remember now, as I remembered then, that somepony once meant everything to Comethoof, and still that didn't stop the curse from tearing his life asunder, to the point that only madness served as his eternal companion.  He was loyal to his princess, to his wife, and to his city.  In the end, what did that get him?  What will that get me?  The thought was too unbearable to comprehend.  The crashing of bowling pins turned into horrific thunder in my ears.  I swept my belongings up into my saddlebag and practically galloped away from that place of hope and whimsy.

        After three solid nights of perusing Comethoof's text, I could barely get any slumber.  I knew just how much sleep I had lost by the time I was trotting into Ponyville, only to hear the bell-tower on the fringes of town announce that it was six in the morning.  There was light on the horizon, but nopony but myself was awake.  I used to adore mornings like that.  There was something tranquil and blissful and ghostly about them.  In the dim, golden light, foggy mists rolled into wispy clouds that danced atop the lake waters and cattails and grass blades.

        Normally, on a morning like that, I would find a place to stand, pull out my lyre, and strum a few random bars of music while my eyes scanned the landscape for the town's early birds:  Carrot Top with her wagon, Derpy Hooves on her mail route, Morning Dew and Ambrosia sharing a walk.  However, on this one sunrise, I was completely sapped of strength.  Every time I lifted my eyes, I had visions of Canterlot's bloodstained streets, of invisible bodies appearing in a haze of magical, purple incandescence, of a pony hanging from a noose above Comethoof where before there was nothing.

        Doctor Comethoof had played “Twilight's Requiem,” and for doing so he had been granted the ability to see a lost world within the realm he had existed.  I too had played the Requiem, and though its magic faded over time, I was afraid to look around too much or else I might see something in Ponyville that would answer my questions and confirm my horrors all at once.

        Comethoof's book wasn't the only journal I had fitfully read those sleepless nights.  With great foreboding, I performed “Twilight's Requiem” again and perused my very own written entries.  I found what I hoped I wouldn't find: many of the paragraphs that I myself had written looked suddenly different to me.  Several of the words glowed in an unearthly light, appearing to float off the very surface of the paper.  Every time I stared at them, I was immediately reminded of her eyes.  Without knowing a single thing about Comethoof, I myself had taken an unwitting venture into the realm of the unsung, and when I came back a piece of her had come with me, clinging to the haunting notes of the eighth elegy.

        Her song had turned Comethoof's life upside down, rewriting the very reality he had come to accept as truth.  Just how much of my own existence has been defined by her song?  How many of my words are hers instead of mine?  What is real anymore?  What can I believe in anymore?  She took Alabaster's and Penumbra's child.  She took my life and my friendships away.  Must she have the world too?  Must she slice and dice up existence until it fits within the chords of her forgotten Nocturne, until everything that we take for granted has become the hideous, repetitious encore to an unholy symphony?

        No wonder I'm so cold here.  There's no warmth or joy to be had in a world that's pillaged of all its truth.  There could have been something divine and unblemished in the grand history of everything, but that was not meant to be.  She had to exist.  She had to be the splinter upon which all of life's accidents and miracles hinged.  She guards the realm of limbo, filled to the brim with anguished souls too absorbed with their own torment to peacefully die, and I can't help but feel that the only reason she hasn't siphoned all that's good from the realm of harmony is that she's spending all her time haunting victims like me.  Alabaster Comethoof was no different, and her song drove him to insanity.  Princess Luna, for all her immortal might, was not immune.  She had to become Nightmare Moon in order to contain the maniacal knowledge she had absorbed.  And Princess Celestia...

        Princess Celestia was too old, too mighty, and too majestic to succumb like the rest of her victims, but Celestia's only recourse was anything but a pretty one.  Whatever spell she summoned to protect this realm from becoming aware of the unsung, it caused an explosion of a nightmarish scale.  She emerged from it an amnesiac, and the very fabric of reality bent itself to appropriate the knowledge Celestia and her mortal subjects chose to bear... that she chose for them to bear.

        But Comethoof saw through it.  He played “Twilight's Requiem” and he learned the truth that nopony else knew.  Could I learn such a truth myself?  Have I actually met with Princess Celestia?  And if I did, do I really want to know what has happened?

        I suppose that, by now, I should know.  But I don't know, just as I didn't know that morning when I limped through the misty reaches of town.  I had played the Requiem several times and approached the pages of my own journal after each occasion.  I saw the glowing words that pretended to be mine.  But, no matter how much I stared at them, I couldn't summon a deeper truth from my thoughts.  It occurred to me that the only way I could figure out the grim reality behind my discolored entries was to go about it scientifically: by repeating exactly what Comethoof himself had done.  He had gone to the exact place where his curse started—in Princess Luna's chambers—and it was there that he performed “Twilight's Requiem”.  If I wanted total clarity, that meant one thing.  I had to go to the center of town—to the exact spot in Ponyville where Nightmare Moon had landed and infected me with her unsung essence—and I had to perform the Requiem there.

        But I didn’t go to the center of town.  My legs just wouldn’t let me.  Instead, I trotted across the village that morning until I stumbled upon the Ponyville Town Cemetery.  I know it sounds grim, but I've taken strolls through that place on several occasions.  It has not been uncommon of me to do so on the edges of both day and night.  Life is most evocative upon the shores of death, and that is true at any age and in any generation.  What are graves—after all—other than the poetic encompassing of warm and happy lives?  I imagine an empty cemetery reflects an empty community, something that is full of ponies too afraid to embrace their pasts and futures all at once.

        History is full of many things: most chiefly names.  So many of them glisten before me in that lonesome garden of graves.  The dates beneath the chiseled letters add gravity all on their own, but nothing pulls at my heartstrings more than the added words, the subtext, the lyrical markers left by hooves that are no longer with us:

        “Ink Step - 920 – 995 – Beloved Father and Husband.”

        “Serenade – 811 – 877 – Sleep in Perfect Harmony.”

        “Golden Harvest II – 920 – 982 – Your Flowers Bloom Forever.”

        “Gracious Silver – 922 – 988 – Wife, Mother, Nurse.”

        “Granite Shuffle – 918 - ”

        I paused in front of the last gravestone, a pale slab with black borders.  I squinted at the name.  The characters were very solid and real, and yet the date didn't have an end.  I was unaccustomed to stumbling upon half-finished graves.

        I wonder: when I die, will they forget the body?  Will they scoop me up from wherever I am and attempt to find a cheap, untitled plot in the ground to bury me in?  Will they forget halfway through the job, so that they stumble upon me again and again in confusion and ultimately resort to cremation?  Will even my ashes be forgotten?

        I shuddered and ran a hoof through my mane.  This wasn't right.  I was letting my thoughts turn defeatist.  Still, I couldn't help myself.  I felt like I had only one friend in the entire world, and he dissolved into madness within the streets of Canterlot at the very end of the Harmonic Era.  I've always prided myself on my intellectual prowess, but now?  If I can't be sure of my very own thoughts, then what do I have left to stand on?  It's already a frightening enough concept, worthy of being driven to insanity.

        I had enough of the cemetery.  I didn’t realize I’d ditched the site until I heard the clopping of villagers' hooves around me.  I was once more in the center of Ponyville under the early morning haze.  But where did I have left to go?  Where would I ever have left to go?

        “You never forget anything, do ya, Miss Smith?” an elderly voice said to the side.

        It was a good five seconds until I determined that the last utterance was aimed at me.  Confusedly, I turned and blinked in the general direction of the sound.  “I'm sorry...?”

        “Such a shine to your mane.  Do you tell Grace your secrets?”

        I was still scanning my immediate surroundings.  Finally, I saw him... and he was a very old “him.”  Knobby knees acted as the joints to withered legs.  A frail body shivered under a dull, red coat.  A crooked neck leaned perpetually to the side with a gray mane dangling like a threadbare flag.  The senior stallion's thin green eyes stared at me from beyond a patio railing.

        “Cuz you always manage your hair nicely,” he said.  I felt as though he was only half-looking at me.  Part of his gaze was stolen by the fading mists of the passing morning.  “Must be dew from the pasture: dawns like these.  Redtrot's always telling me to stop sight-seeing, or else I'll be the first to drop when an ambush hits.”

        I smiled helplessly.  “Who's ambushing who, sir?”

        “Shhh!”  He brought a wrinkled forelimb to his lips and squinted.  “Best to not ask.  They can hear you from the trees.  You think they're too big to hide in an oasis, but they're there.  They took Blue Oats last week.  He was always making noise.  Dag blame'd fool.  Shoulda listened to Redtrot.  Redtrot knows his stuff.”

        “Uh huh...”  I shifted nervously where I stood.  “And is he around here?”

        “Who?”

        “Redtrot.”

        “Huh?”  The stallion blinked dazedly.  “I... I don't read you, missy.  So cold these mornings.  We haven't even set out yet.  We haven't...”

        Just then, a white shape emerged from the door to the patio beside him.  It was a nurse,  about four decades younger than him.  She wore a white cap as she smiled and trotted up to the stallion.  “There you are, Mr. Shuffle.  I'm glad to see your legs so full of energy lately, but you gotta warn us before you start wandering away from breakfast so suddenly!”

        “Breakfast?  Huh?  We've barely made camp!  What...?”  He turned and gazed at her with narrow eyes.  “Who... Who are you?”

        “Nurse Glass Shine—”

        “Nurse?  Why, I'm not wounded!  Who are you really?”

        The mare sighed and gave him a patient smile.  “Come with me, Mr. Shuffle,” she gently ushered him towards the heart of the building.  “It's time for your daily vitamins.”

        “Did... Did Grace put you up to this?”  He pointed a shaky hoof in my direction.  “I was just telling Miss Smith about her hair.  Must all fillies keep so many secrets to themselves?”

        “Heheheh... It's our special gift, Mr. Shuffle.  Right this way...”

        “Where am I?”

        “The breakfast hall.  Your friends are there.”

        “Friends?  Bah!  Half of them don't know me and the other half wished they didn't!”

        “Why, that's not true!  I saw you laughing it up with Mr. Breeze and Golden Glance just yesterday afternoon!”

        “I was?  Well, they sound like good, honest ponies...”

        “Mmmhmm.  And they'd be happy to see you...”

        By then, their “conversation” had faded into distant obscurity.  It took them an exceedingly long time to walk back into the building, on account of the stallion's frailty.  I glanced at the structure, a two-story building that I had always assumed was a hotel.  It suddenly dawned upon me that this was Ponyville's seldom talked about retirement home.  The town always seemed too full of young ponies to be reasonable, making me wonder where all the elders hung out.  Suddenly, after a year of ignorance, I knew.  It made sense in a way.  Ponyville was the best, most tranquil of spots in Equestria to rest in, aside from Blue Valley of course.  I'm sure my own cabin would make a wonderful summer home for senior visitors from distant Canterlot or Manehattan.  That is, of course, assuming I ever have the pleasure of leasing the place out in the future.

        I like to think that such random thoughts were the only reasons for why I lingered in the middle of the street.  Truth is, it was something else.  My mind remained locked on poor Mr. Shuffle, on the blank expressions that haunted his face, on the uneasy gait he took along with Nurse Glass Shine into the dining hall of his apparent home.  I wondered briefly if Dr. Comethoof ever freed himself from his curse, and if he did—could he have met such a lonesome and undistinguished fate?  If he did—curse or no curse—could it have been called “relaxing?”

        I swallowed my courage to learn more, and instead trotted towards the center of town.  Eventually, I arrived at Twilight Sparkle's library.  As soon as the place opened, I went in and grabbed as many books as I could.  I had no less than eight resource materials on Canterlot history laid down before me as I sat at a table for an entire day of reading.

        Not a single page got perused.  I rested there in perpetual silence and thought for several minutes.  Something was gnawing at me, something lonesome and cold and pathetic.  Eventually, I hoofed all the books back to Spike, and within an hour I was trotting back the way which I came.

        I entered the Ponyville Retirement Home with no obstruction.  Like most ponies, I grew up unfamiliar with such places.  I imagined there would be several orderlies questioning my presence, glaring at me from beyond barricades.  I don't know what it is that had always made retirement homes appear like prisons or asylums in my mind.  Perhaps it was fear of the unknown—or better yet—fear of the inevitable that had made me so ignorant.

Several nurses and elder ponies smiled and gave proper greetings as I trotted through the halls.  I didn't know what I was looking for exactly, until I strolled by a room along the north wing and heard a musical sample that hadn't graced my ears since my time in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

        It was a relatively recent work of classical composition, a little more than half-a-century old.  Sadly, I didn't know the name of the symphony, but I could distinguish the author from its stylistic motifs.  It had to have been written by Garnet Haystrings, a famous composer who crafted music for the Equestrian military during the Zebraharan Conflict, the last major engagement since the griffon wars of the Middle Celestial Era.  Just hearing it brought back images of paintings I had seen in secondary school textbooks, of brave soldiers marching to a distant land to protect our foreign allies from invaders.

        Thus it was of little surprise that I found Mr. Shuffle sitting, asleep, in the room next to the record player from which the music wafted.  Suddenly his cryptic comments concerning “ambushes” made sense in a very somber way.  I stood in his doorway, feeling like an alien in a very ancient world.  The room was downright claustrophobic.  It would have felt like a cell if it weren't for the lavish decorations covering all of the walls around the hospital bed.  I saw golden plaques, black and white photos of ponies garbed in yesteryear's fashion, newspaper clippings from decades ago, and several landscapes of pristine farm country.  In the center of the room, beside the chair in which the old stallion slept, a chess table had been set up, complete with several black and white pieces forever lingering on the verge of a game that would never start.  A gentle breeze wafted through the room, and I realized from the dancing curtains that the brightly-lit window to the quarters was wide open.

        “Hmmph...”  I murmured to myself.  “At least it's comfortable.”

        “Gaaauchk!”  The old stallion awoke with a hacking cough.

        “Daah!” I jumped back, nearly colliding with the door-frame.

        “Hnnkct... Nychkk!  Mmmph...”  He slowly leaned his jittery frame forward.  His eyes opened through a mucous film before spotting me.  “Hmmmm... Always rotten timing!”

        “I'm...”  I winced, trying not to stare at the crooked lean of his skull or the trembles in his limbs.  “I'm so sorry for disturbing you.  I'll just be on my way—”

        “Why couldn't the road show have been in Stalliongrad?!”  He growled.  One of his eyes opened wider than the other.  “Do you know 'Move Along, Daisy?’”

        I blinked confusedly at him.  “Huh?”

        “Well, do you or don't you play the harp?!”  He pointed across the room.  “Don't tell me you're a singer!  A singer never wears her mane like that!”

        “Uhhh...”  I blinked, then glanced at my golden cutie mark.  “Oh!  Uhm... Heh.  Well, I play the lyre, but I guess that's not too far a stretch from the harp—”

        “Blue Oats fancies himself good with the jaw harp,” Mr. Shuffle rambled.  “I keep telling him that earth ponies have no business playing the jaw harp.  That's for unicorns to master.  But he never listens!  Never listens at all.  That's why he's not around...”  He stumbled on his own words, glancing off beyond the dancing sway of his curtains.  “He wasn't around... He... He...”

        There was a period of silence, at the end of which I gulped awkwardly.  “I see you're a fan of Garnet Haystrings,” I said as I pointed at his record.  “He's a legend in Canterlot music halls.  They still play his compositions at Wonderbolts shows.”

        “He's a pompous hay-hole who likes to serenade young colts to their deaths,” Mr. Shuffle spat in sudden fury.

        I jolted at that, gritting my teeth.  “Uhhhh... well...”  I leaned forward again.  “Why—uhm—Why do you listen to him, then?”

        “Because I like the beat,” Mr. Shuffle said.

        “Oh.”  I said.  Silence filled the room again, save for the pumping melody.  “Okay then—”

        “Who are you, missy?  Is it time for more vitamins?”

        “Oh.  No vitamins,” I said, shaking my head.  “My name's Lyra Heartstrings, and I was just passing through.  I never really knew that this retirement home was here—”

        “They play it up and down the river,” he murmured.  “Out of those speakers.  They never come out of the boat.  Nope.  Not like us.  We get to know what mud is like up close.  Mud becomes our best friend.  Even Redtrot can't keep his horseshoes clean to save his coat.”

        “You don't say?”  I remarked.  “Does that get him in trouble with... uh... his commanding officer?”

        “He is the commanding officer?”

        “Redtrot is?”

        He shook his head dizzily and squinted my way.  “Who?”

        “Uhm... Redtrot.  The stallion I'm assuming you were just talking about—”

        “Who are you?”

        “I...”  I started, sighed, and hung my head.  “I'm Lyra.  Lyra Heartstrings.”

        “Mmph... Time for my vitamins again?”

        “No, Mr. Shuffle,” I impersonated a kind-faced nurse from earlier.  “Just... Just rest easy.  I'm sorry to have bothered you.”  I felt stupid.  And when one feels stupid, the most relaxing thing to do is make an exit.  So I turned around to do just that when—

        “That's alright, Miss Smith.  You always have important things to do.”

        I froze in my step.  I turned around.  “Huh?”

        He leaned back in his chair, resting his frail bones beside the record player.  “What, with running the farm and all.  Apples are always your passion.  Grace says you'd much rather go out with a tree than a fine, handsome stallion.  But Grace is always going on and teasing you.”

        “I...”  I trotted a few feet into the room.  “Who did you just call me?”

        “What, did you take on the Orange Family name?”  He tried laughing, only for it to come out as a wheeze.  “You said it yourself that you'd much rather be buried alive than spend one single day in Manehattan.”

        “What...?”  I looked at him, and then I looked at myself:  at my mint-green coat and dainty stature and lightly-colored mane hairs.  Suddenly, a helpless chuckle escaped my lips.  “Heh... Heheh... You think I'm—?”  I stopped in mid-speech, cleared my throat, and stammered, “Uh... Well, things have changed, Mr. Shuffle.  Manehattan isn't all that bad.  In fact my... my granddaughter Applejack visited the place there herself when she was a filly.  Didn't you know that?”

        “Your... granddaughter...?”  He gazed crookedly at me.

        I winced.  “D'uhm... what I mean to say is: if someday I have grandchildren, I would let them choose for themselves whether or not the city is a nice place to live in.  We gotta let the young ones decide for themselves, right, Mr. Shuffle?”

        “Please, Apple Smith,” he chuckled lightly.  “Call me Granite.  You and Grace are just being coy when you call Stinkin' and I by our last names.”

        “Sure thing, Granite—” I had to stifle a gasp.

I was instantly flooded with a wall of realization.  It wasn't enough that I had seen the name 'Granite Shuffle' on a gravestone earlier.  But there was something insanely familiar about the name beyond that.  It took only two or three glances at the rural landscapes and newspaper clippings along the wall to confirm my suspicion.

“You're... You're the Granite Shuffle!  Co-Partner to Stinkin' Rich, father of Filthy Rich and owner of Rich’s Barnyard Bargains!”  I gazed out the window as I was afforded a brief flash of the village's color from beyond the dancing curtains.  “You, Stinkin', and Granny Smith were almost entirely responsible for the founding of Ponyville several decades ago!”  I shook my head with a warm grin, but soon that melted along with the shadows of that tiny room.  I became aware of a sickly ambiance, of dozens upon dozens of muttering, coughing, and shuffling old ponies beyond the thin walls surrounding us.  I gazed at him numbly and said, “What in Celestia's name is a stallion like you doing here?”

        I regretted formulating that question as soon as it exited my lips.  Thankfully, Granite Shuffle wasn't in the condition to register it.  A cool breeze had flown through the window, and he took advantage of the situation by falling into a gentle slumber.  The record player had hit the end of its track, and a repetitive clicking noise was skipping through the speakers.  I reached out with a hoof and switched the thing off, all the while gazing at the elder stallion's features.

        Life, it would have seemed, never stopped forgetting precious things.  In a blur, I spun around and marched out of the room.

        “Excuse me...?”

        Nurse Glass Shine slowly turned around from her station and smiled at me.  “Yes?”

        “My name is Lyra,” I said, trotting up to her.  “Lyra Heartstrings.  I'm... uhm...”  I fidgeted for a brief moment, then smiled.  “I'm interviewing senior citizens for a column in a local paper discussing Ponyville's foundation.”  I turned and pointed at the numbered door-frame to Mr. Shuffle's quarters.  “Could you tell me who the resident is of Room Twenty-Seven?”

        “Oh, why yes,” the nurse said with a slight nod.  “That's where Granite Shuffle has lived for the past eight years.”

        I almost reeled from that.  “Eight... years?”  I gulped.  “How old is the gentlecolt, if I may ask?”

        “Oh... uhmmm...”  Nurse Shine bit her lip as her eyes swept across the ceiling.  “Going on eighty-two.  Possibly eighty-three.  I doubt very much that he would be capable of helping you with any interview, Miss Heartstrings.”

        “Why's that?”

        “Well, some ponies manage the golden years quite well.  I'm sorry to say, though, that such is not the case with Mr. Shuffle.  The last decade has taken quite a toll on his mind.  He needs extra special attention from the staff and I.”

        “Yeah...” I exhaled, staring down the long, sterile hallway of doors.  “Still, though.”  I swallowed and glanced back up at her.  “His name is awfully familiar.”

        “Hmmm!”  She nodded, her cheeks rosy.  “As well it should be.  Many ponies in this place know him quite well.  He's had extensive influence throughout Ponyville.  It's a shame that most villagers your age and mine don't have an actual idea.”

        “Yes.  Yes it is,” I said with a nod.  “But, that's not all I recognize his name from.  I was... uh... I was visiting the local cemetery earlier—as part of my project...”

        “Uh huh...?”

        “And I'm pretty sure I saw his name on one of the gravestones.  I mean, it's probably just a coincidence, but the markings didn't have an end date.”

        “That's not all that odd, really, Miss Heartstrings,” Nurse Glass Shine said.  She hoofed a clipboard over to a passing nurse as she continued speaking, “Many ponies with a great deal of wealth attached to their names have their graves prepared well in advance.  Mr. Shuffle—in particular—signed the deed to his plot over ten years ago, when he was in better control of his faculties.  Since then, the grave has been paid for by his next of kin, who are also responsible for supporting his stay here.”

        “Where...”  I quietly trotted closer to her and spoke in a low voice, “Where is his next of kin?”

        “Mmmm... Living in Trottingham, I do believe.  Let's see if I can remember correctly...”  She tapped her chin.  “One son, one daughter, and at least three godchildren.”

        “All wealthy?”

        Nurse Shine chuckled.  “Is this also part of your column for the paper, Miss Heartstrings?”

        “Oh, this?  No!  Not at all.  I just...”  I clenched my teeth and ran a hoof through my mane as I glanced back at Room 27.  “Do they ever visit him?”

        Nurse Shine cleared her throat.  “Not as often as they used to.”

        “Not often... or not at all?”

        She said nothing.

        I gulped and gazed somberly at her.  “Isn't that awful, you think?”

        She bore a very light yet sincere smile.  “My concern—and the hope of the rest of my staff—is that ponies like Granite Shuffle experience peace and relaxation during the time they're here.”

        I exhaled long and hard with a sad nod.  “Still... does he get any visitors?  Any visitors whatsoever?”

        Her eyes fell towards the floor as she slowly shook her head.

        I gazed back at the room.

        “Oh yes.  The wildebeests are merciless,” Granite Shuffle said.  “If you took the upper body of a minotaur and made his lower half just as strong, it doesn't even compare to what's stalking you in the desert.  The first day I killed one, it took all dang morning.  This one company kept stabbing at us and cowering away for hours.  Finally, we got them into a ravine and they couldn't run away anymore.  They had no choice but to fight like us, with courage and honor.  Redtrot took out four of those horned creeps.  I only bagged myself one, and was he a toughie!  Worth ten times the bunch that Redtrot speared.  He was so close as we scuffled, I could smell the breakfast coming out of his mouth, the same disgusting crap they eat in that putrid land they marched from to attack the zebras' oases.  Such selfish, deplorable creatures, them wildebeests.  Who could mother such a thing?  I don't want to know.  Blue Oats thinks he knows, but he's an idiot.  Why, this one time, he climbed a tree outside of camp to get a coconut.  I told him 'This is the desert, you numbskull.'  Before he fell down, he said to me—”

        The words stopped.  Granite Shuffle was blinking.  He scanned the walls once, twice, and saw me as if I had appeared out of nowhere.

        “What?  What were we doing?”

        “You were telling me about your service in the Zebraharan Conflict,” I said with a gentle smile.  “You marched alongside a Lieutenant named Redtrot for two years before he transferred you to a border camp—”

        “Transferred?!”  Granite spat, then frowned.  “Why, he's waiting for me as we speak!”  He shook and wobbled as he tried to get up.  “I wouldn't be a good soldier if I didn't—”

        I stood up from a chair beside the chessboard and eased him back down into his seat.  “Redtrot understands that you're not feeling well.  A soldier isn't useful if he's not in the best condition to serve, don't you think?”

        “What?  Why?”  He blinked awkwardly my way.  “Am I coming down with something?”  He glanced past the dancing curtains and the multiple photographs along the wall.  “Where's Grace?  My leg feels better.  I can leave Stalliongrad now.  Miss Smith sent me five letters in the last year.  I really, really wish to write back to her.”

        I leaned my chin on my hooves and smiled gently at him.  “Miss Smith must mean an awful lot to you.”

        “Hmmph...”  He smirked crookedly all of the sudden.  “It's just that you've always had that way of struttin' your stuff.”

        I blinked, then bit my lip.  “Erm.  Mr. Shuffle, I'm not—”

        “Even when sweating it to make all that zapapple jam, you look prettier than a Hearth's Warming sunrise.  I'll never know the secrets you mares use to keep yourselves so gorgeous.  Why, even Wish Step...”  He stopped yet again in the middle of his speech.

        I raised an eyebrow.  “'Wish Step,' Mr. Shuffle...?”

        “Said she'd stop by one of these days,” he stammered, his eyes thin.  “Business is always booming in Trottingham, she says.  I know that Filthy and Junior have it in capable hooves.  But the market lately: I haven't looked at it in ages.  Today’s newspaper's so hard to read.  And in the mornings lately, it's so darn cold.”  He shivered and ran two hooves over his shoulders as he glanced at the chessboard from afar.  “The desert these nights....  Blue Oats keeps whimpering in his sleep.  I don't want Redtrot chewing him out.  He's just a colt, really.  If he knew I hushed him back to slumber in the middle of the night, I don't know what he'd... he'd...”  He gulped as his eyes darted in brief fright across the ceiling of the tiny room.  “I've... I've been someplace.  I don't know for how long.  They'll want to know before they discharge me, Miss Smith.”  She glanced at me.  “Could you ask Grace how long it's been?”

        I stared back at him, but I could hardly say anything.  I glanced out the window.  Night had fallen.  I had been there all day, listening to him, navigating the complex and fragmented circles that remained of his life.  After so many hours, I was no closer than he was to piecing the puzzle pieces altogether.  What was worse, I felt I was the only one who knew that something wasn't whole.

        “Hmmph...”  His eyes hardened as he stared at the chessboard.  “Such a smell to them,” he grunted.  “To think such animals could know a proper sport as chess.  The zebras invented it, but wildebeests had to steal that too.  I wonder if those horned menaces ever really have children, or just mold them out of the crap they find in the villages they take.”

        “I'm... uhm...”  I chuckled helplessly.  “I'm sure the wildebeests are more than capable of having families, like the ones we've made peace with thirty years ago, Mr. Shuffle.”

        He wasn't listening to me.  Instead, he was being true to his name, getting up out of his plush chair and scooting on frail hooves towards the chessboard.  Once he found his way to the stool opposite the table from me, he reached a hoof out and immediately moved a white pawn forward.

        I looked at him.  I looked at the board.  I looked at him again.

        He was still staring at the mahogany and marble pieces, teetering slightly with the day's exhaustion.

        Whether or not that was an invitation, I suddenly knew the only way to respect my elder.  “Okay...”  I took a deep breath for courage and moved a black pawn to meet directly with his.  “It's been a while for me.  Though, I imagine it's been even longer for you—”

        He moved another pawn without hesitation.

        I blinked.  “Well, alright.”  I moved a pawn of my own to block that piece.

        In swift order, he brought his knight out and I met with a knight of my own.  We faced off with pawns against pawns, bishops brushing paths with rooks, and aimlessly elusive queens.  Our dialogue was replaced with sliding figures and the tiny taps of the wooden board.  I wasn’t sure how far this was going to go, and I was trying to think up an easy way to bow out of what seemed to be an inane exercise.  Then, out of nowhere, his bishop slid out and eliminated my second pawn while immediately putting my king into danger.

        I did a double-take.  If I didn't move my king now, it'd be an instant checkmate, and even still, I suddenly realized that my most important chesspiece would be in danger from his knight and bishop for the next half-dozen moves.  I fancied myself a relatively competent chess player.  I had squashed other fillies in my dormitory at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.  A part of me—I'm sure—felt that I could have humored Mr. Shuffle's senility, but I suddenly realized he was not one to be toyed with in this sport.

        The next ten minutes consisted of the most stressful game of chess in my life.  It was a match I knew from the start that I was going to lose.  I only kept making moves in order to save what was left of my dignity.  I didn't notice just how quiet things had become in that tiny room.  What's more, I almost entirely forgot the nature of my visit.  All that mattered was the game, the only game of chess in my whole life that had ever made me sweat.  For the first time in months, I felt like putting my hoodie through the wash—

        “Do you still call him Big Macintosh?”

        “Uhhh—”  I looked up from what was left of my massacred, black army.  “I beg your pardon?”

        “When your daughter-in-law gave birth, I could have sworn all of Ponyville shook from the foal's flank hitting the floor of the stable,” Granite Shuffle said with a sly smirk.  “You must have been scared out of your wits for her.”

        I raised an eyebrow.  He was still only partially in this world, and yet there was a firmness to his voice that sounded more confident and secure than any other sentence he had uttered that entire day.  I couldn't help but smile.  “Well, he was named 'Big' for a reason, Granite.  And he's kept true to that name all his life, except when it comes to his ego.”

        “Too bad he doesn't take advantage of his strength when push comes to shove,” the old stallion murmured as he continued decimating me in chess.  “If only he was more like that little spitfire.  Y'know... the one with the freckles.”

        I giggled.  The air felt warm and happy as I finally, utterly lost the game.  “Yes, well, nopony's perfect.  And I'm sure Applejack wouldn't be nearly as strong if she didn't have Big Mac to lean on.”

        “That's what family is for,” Granite Shuffle murmured.  He reset the board, and I was too slow to stop him from starting a new game.  He moved his pieces forward and I scrambled to confront him.  All the while, a dull exhaustion wafted through his vision.  “Family sticks by you no matter what.  It's not about money or earnings.  It's about living, and living together, even when things get tough.”  He was losing pieces this time.  I didn't revel in my victories.  I paused as I saw him gazing into the shadows, though his voice was directed towards me.  “I have always... admired the family you raised, Miss Smith.”

        I bit my lip before eventually asking, “Have you ever told me this before, Mr. Shuffle?”

        His eyes slowly opened and closed.  “Mmm... I don't... I don't know.”  He swallowed slowly and bowed his head.  “But Grace...  Grace says... says...”

        His voice drifted off, soon to be replaced with a low snore.  He sat on the stool, his head partially bowed.

        I felt nervous and awkward again.  I heard the shuffling of a nurse's hooves outside.  Sparked by a slight panic, I decided that I had visited long enough.  I left his home, but not without grabbing a blanket from the nearby chair and draping it over his frail shoulders.

        I couldn't sleep that night.  I had Comethoof's journal lying beside me, along with all the futile attempts at writing down the scattered notes to “Desolation's Elegy.”  However, I had hardly read a single page out of each.  I lay there on the cot in the shadows of my cabin, staring at the ceiling.

        Instead of thinking about the unsung realm or the burning ruins of Canterlot at the end of Shadow's Advent, I was engulfed in a cyclone of alien sensations.  I saw deserts full of war-torn villages.  I envisioned mobile hospitals outside of Stalliongrad where wounded soldiers were being treated by mares with old-fashioned manestyles.  I saw jars full of zapapple jam being lined up on an antique market stand.  I saw chess pieces gathering dust, just like the photographed faces of family members too rich and too distant to ever shake loose the sediment of so many neglectful years.

        Somewhere in all of that haze, I hoped—I prayed—that there was something worth smiling about.  And for a brief moment, there was.  Did it really take playing the game of chess to bring it out of Mr. Shuffle?  He's obviously had history with Granny Smith and her family.  I knew it was none of my business... but...

        Could he afford to make it any of his business either?  Was such a pony any more or any less of the stallion he once was, without the memories that formed the pillars of his existence?  What are any of us when we are stripped of all our yesteryears?  Is the blank slate left over just as worthy of being respected?  Don't we deserve to have our substance dredged up from the depths if it's something capable of being done?

        I had a curse to cure.  I have always had a curse to cure.  It's the most essential conflict of my life.

        But what of Granite Shuffle?  The curse was his life, or at least what was left of it.  I couldn't stop thinking about him, about his tiny room, about his dusty chess pieces.  I couldn't stop wondering what his thoughts were when his eyes first opened in the morning, taking in a world more barren than any desert in history.  Were his thoughts full of confusion and fear?  Did he live each minute upon the crest of panicked gasps?  Did he—like Comethoof—somehow find purpose in the middle of such a mental labyrinth, or was it all destined to melt into madness?

        “They don't worship Luna or Celestia in Stalliongrad, Miss Smith,” Granite said as he moved a black chess piece across the board in the morning light.  “They worship the 'Queen of Stars'.  It's the Stalliongrad ponies' fancy way of honoring both alicorn sisters under one temple roof.  That's why Celestia hasn't raised the sun in that town in so many years.  Stalliongrad equines expect both princesses to be together at all times.  Since Luna became the Mare in the Moon—heh—that's been rather difficult.”

        “Mister Shuffle,” I began, smiling across from him as I desperately attempted to defend my pieces against his.  “Hear me out.”  When I first arrived, he started the game without saying anything.  I don't know if that suggested some sort of familiarity or not, but I decided to play along.  I hadn't the wherewithal to tell him that we were continuing our game with our pieces switched, on account of the stool he chose to sit on.  Regardless, it took the elder very little time to dominate the game as if he owned those pieces from the get-go.  “What if I told you that Princess Luna was freed from the heavens and is no longer Nightmare Moon?”

        “Bah!  Don't be making up stories about the holy sisters, Miss Smith!”  Granite spat, though I detected the residual curve of his lips.  “That's wildebeest talk!  Only Grace would make a joke that rude!”

        I giggled.  “I bet Grace shocks the bridles off the ponies in Stalliongrad.”

        “Oh!  All the time!  She even makes the other nurses blush!  Why, this one time, she was giving Redtrot a spongebath, and the lieutenant tried to make a pass at her.  To this day, the soldiers think he got his shoulder dislocated in an ambush.  Only Grace has told me different.”

        I chuckled.  Just at that moment, Nurse Glass Shine shuffled past the room.  Upon seeing me, she stopped with a jerk, and swiftly trotted in.  “I'm sorry.  You are...?”

        I cleared my throat and ritualistically answered, “Lyra.  Lyra Heartstrings.”

        “I'm sorry, Miss Heartstrings.  But this isn't visiting hours.  Unless you're here on behalf of Mr. Shuffle's next of kin, I'm going to have to ask you to come by later—”

        “Oh, but that's just the thing.”  I pointed out the door.  “There was that note delivered by Mr. Shuffle's daughter, Wish Step, last night, announcing my arrival?”

        “Note?”  Nurse Shine's face scrunched up in confusion.  “What note?”

        “You didn't see it?”  I pointed even further.  “She left it at the nurse's station.”

        “Really?  I'm going to have to go check that.”  She turned and marched away.  “Wait right here.”

        “Heh.  Will do.”  I gazed calmly as she walked five feet, ten feet, fifteen feet away.  After a cold chill, I adjusted my hoodie and turned back to the chess game.  “So, what do ponies in Stalliongrad do most of the time?”

        “Mmmph...” Mr. Shuffle struggled to move his queen across the board.  “They make gravel.”

        “Yeah?  And what do they make with the gravel?”

        “More gravel.”  His queen fell over.  “Dag nabbit...”

        “Oh... Uhm...”  I smiled and politely lifted his black piece with my telekinesis.  “Where to?”

        He cleared his throat and sat back calmly in his stool.  “C6 to C2.”

        I moved it for him, eliminating my own pawn.  As I looked over my pieces, I murmured, “You know, I did some asking around town before coming here.”

        “Really, Miss Smith?  Since when did you come to Stalliongrad?”

        I gently danced my way around that detail.  “And I heard all about this Grand Chess Champion, a legend in his time.  He won the Equestrian Masters Division four times in a row.  He made a record, and even played a game against Prince Blueblood the Second, a game that he won—for that matter.  Can you imagine that?  A simple earth pony businessstallion defeating an esteemed member of royalty?”

        “Heh... I'll believe it when I see it,” Mr. Shuffle grumbled.  “Did he ever win himself some trophies?”

        “Hmmm...”  I glanced over his head.  A dozen plaques hung on his wall.  They glinted with gold letters and dates in the morning light.  “A few,” I said with a smile as I looked back at him.  “I'm sure nopony has ever surpassed him.”

        “Quit stallin'.  You gonna make a move or not?”

        I chuckled and moved a knight to threaten his queen.  “You're certainly in an impatient mood this morning.”

        “Can ya blame me?!  Stinkin's late for the meeting!  He's always late!  I swear, he only gets a bigger share of the zapapple jam profits cuz his family lived here first.  Not my fault I was born in Baltimare!  If it wasn't for the war, I'd have settled in this here town ages ago.  Heck, I could have gotten here before you, Miss Smith!”

        “But then how would we have met, Mr. Shuffle?”  I smiled his way.  “And how would I have ever met Grace?”

        “Grace goes where Grace chooses to go.  You know I can't tell her what for.”

        “I do?”

        “Hmmph... I would imagine you know enough, from how many times the two of you gab together and all.”  He pointed at one of his pawns.  “B7 to B5.”

        I moved the piece for him, putting my knight in jeopardy.  As I pondered the choice of killing his queen or saving my knight, I spoke, “Do you ever see us together at the same time?”

        “Hmmm?  Who?”

        “Grace and Miss Smith—er, I mean...”

        “Nopony!”  He suddenly spat.  “No mares for miles around!  It's on account that Blue Oats was flirting a little too much the last time we were in Stalliongrad!  Grace always knew to stay away from him.  After what she said, I know why!”

        “Heh... What is it with your fellow soldiers and the way they hit on the opposite sex?”

        “Guess it comes natural to Blue Oats.  Don't tell anypony...”

        “Don't tell anypony what?”

        He wheezed and bore a mischievous smile.  “He used to be called 'Big Oats,' but then he got on the wrong side of this one recruitment officer.  Lemme tell you, if you get bucked in the wrong place by an angry Cloudsdalian mare, you learn that the clouds aren't all that pegasi can drain!”  He wheezed again, and I realized he was laughing heavily.

        For a while I stared at him with a blank expression.  Soon, though, I gave in, and chuckled ceaselessly—that is until a familiar body shuffled into the room.

        “I'm sorry, ma'am,” Nurse Shine hovered over my shoulder.  “But this isn't visiting hours.  Unless you're here on behalf of Mr. Shuffle's next of kin, I'm going to have to ask you to come by later.”

        “Oh, but that's just the thing.  Mr. Shuffle's daughter delivered a note that vouches for me.  It should have been dropped off at the nurse's station.”

        “Oh?  When was that?”

        “Just last night.  Why don't you go check?”

        “Please wait right here.”  She trotted off.

        I swiveled back to the game and resumed chuckling.

        “Who was that?” Granite breathlessly asked.

        “Who indeed.”  I cleared my throat.  “So, tell me more about the desert.”

        “The sun sets, like it does now,” Granite said with a distant glint in his eyes.  “And the land catches ablaze with color.  You realize it isn't all sand and dust and death.  There are swirling bands in the rocks.  They blend from red to orange to amber to brown.”

        We sat on a pair of rocking chairs on the edge of the retirement center's patio.  I had my journal floating beside me, and I was scribbling lazily into the pages as I absorbed his words.

        “These are colors that only the zebras have seen for centuries,” he said.  “And the wildebeests come to rip it all apart.  And for what?  For diamonds, rocks, a bunch of crap deep in the earth.”  He clenched his jaw and kneaded the wooden finish of the chair beneath him.  “When I was first called into action, I wanted nothing to do with war.  But now that I see what ugly creatures wish to do with beautiful things...”  His eyes quivered and his lips tightened.  He slowly, softly gazed my way.  “Do you ever lose things that don't come back, Miss Smith?”

        I paused in drawing a rough sketch of a sun melting over a sandy horizon.  I gazed up at him.  With a gentle exhale, I said, “More often than I would like, Mr. Shuffle.”

        Granite coughed, and coughed again.  He leaned back in the chair and gazed sickly into the burning lengths of Ponyville.  “'Move Along Daisy.'”

        My ears twitched.  I gave him a sideways glance.  “I'm sorry?”

        “You had chrysanthemums in your hair.  I didn't know they grew flowers this far out.  It was a slow shuffle, and I was tripping all over myself.  But you didn't mind.  You knew as well as I did that I was being shipped out the next day.  You made the moment last forever.  You and your silk mane.  I closed my eyes, and suddenly the dance floor found me.  It was like swimming in the river outside the house.”

        I smiled, a warm breath escaping me.  “We must have had a grand 'ol time.”

        He chuckled.  It was a sound laced with melancholy and love all at once.  “Oh... Oh darling, not you.  Your coltfriend would kill me, Miss Smith.  He always thought me and Stinkin' were after more than zapapple jam.  I don't rightly blame him.  After all the sand and death I had seen, I must have looked so terribly lonesome.”

        “Then...”  I gulped.  “Who, Mr. Shuffle?”

        “I...”  He bit his lip, his face tensing as he gazed down at the patio floorboards below us.  A gentle breeze kicked at his gray mane.  “I didn't mean to scare Wish Step.  Grace thinks I was too hard on her.  Perhaps it's true.  It's just that Junior's gone too far.  I don't blame Wish Step for taking his side; they're brother and sister after all.  But he's investing in all of that asparagus nonsense.  He's gonna steer the family away from the Riches.  I don't care what business there is in Trottingham.  This town of ours is growing, and it needs ponies like us.  It needs...”  His face tensed again.  He raised a hoof, and for a moment I thought he was going to teeter forward.

        So, with a dash, I rushed in and supported him.  He had no reservations against me accommodating his weight.  He simply trembled—neither sitting nor standing—as the words dripped from his lips.

        “How do you manage your children so well, Miss Smith?  I wish mine would listen to me.  I just don't want them going too far.  I don't want them drifting like I did.  If I had stayed in Baltimare, if I hadn't gone to Canterlot, I would have never been called to duty.  I would have never joined the service.  My parents never wanted it.  Now I know why, and I don't want Junior and Wish Step knowing what it means... knowing the smell...”  His teeth showed, yellow and grimacing as he gazed into an invisible abyss.  “Grace hates it when I talk down the wildebeests.  She just doesn't know.  She hasn't seen their insides.  Something that can come apart that easily can't possibly have a soul.  It's... so ugly.  So ugly, I...”  His lips quivered.  He gulped and looked partially in my direction.  “Miss Smith?”

        I stared closely at him.  “Yes, Granite?”

        He wheezed, winced, and said, “Make sure yours stay where they're at.  Don't let them get too far away from the apples.”

        Slowly, I nodded and patted his hooves.  “I will, Granite.  I'll make sure of it.”

        He bit his lip and looked painfully towards the melting horizon.

        I looked along with him.  After a while, I built the courage to ask, “Do you still see the colors, Mister Shuffle?”

        “I...”  He breathed.  “I don't know.  Is... is the sun setting or rising?”

        I fidgeted a little.  Ultimately, I chuckled and said, “Does it matter?”

        He blinked at me, and eventually smiled.  I don't know if that put me or him more at ease, but the air grew warm for the briefest of moments.

        “Tell Stinkin' for me,” Granite said that evening as I gently ushered him through the dim hallways of the home and into his room.  “Tell him that I won't be able to make it to next week's meeting.”

        “I'll see what I can do,” I said, gently patting him as I led him by the hoof to his chair.  A dim lamp hung in the corner of the wall, bathing his wrinkled red features in an orange glow.  “I'm sure he will understand, regardless.”

        “He dang well better,” Granite grunted.  He hissed during the time it took to sit his weary self down into the plush chair.  “I don't mean to brag, but I've been pulling the weight of this business by my shoulders for the last ten years.”

        “Somehow I don't doubt that,” I said with a wink.

        “Who are you to give me lip?!” he snapped, though he bore the slightest hint of a smile.  “You and I have worked far longer together than with Stinkin'!  What say we steal away a special stash of the zapapple jam and sell out of season?”

        “Hmmmm...”  I layed a blanket over his lower half where he sat.  “I don't think Stinkin' would like that.”

        “Yeah?  So?  Serves him right!”

        “But he owns so much as it is.  What would he do if he found out?  What would he do to you and Junior and Wish Step?”

        “I'd get Redtrot to teach him a lesson or two,” Granite said sharply.  “I doubt Stinkin' could put up half a fight as a wildebeest!”

        I grimaced slightly, but put on my best smile.  “You're probably right.”

        “Of course I'm right.  I'm always right.  At least, more often than I'd ought to be.”  He squirmed in his chair as his body sunk even further with a sigh.  He glanced at the plethora of photographs on his wall, but I doubt very much they registered any more than the fleeting thoughts in his mind.  “Grace says I make a terrible soldier.  I think too much.  It's why Redtrot always keeps snapping me back in line.  I was never made to march.  But I do it anyways, because it needs to be done.  The zapapples won't sell themselves.  Junior doesn't know.  He thinks... He thinks...”

        I simply stood there, listening, waiting.

        Granite coughed a few times and exhaled.  After a pause, he murmured, “Wish Step wants me to stay put.  She says it's for the best.  She looks at me, and yet she doesn't.  I know it's not her eyes.  I know it's not...”

        I blinked upon hearing that.  Was something inside of him finally coming to the surface?  I leaned forward and rested a hoof on his.  “When was the last time she visited you, Mr. Shuffle?”

        “Hmmm?”  He looked at me, his eyes thin.  “Who?”

        “Your daughter.  When was the last time—?”

        “At the Summer Sun Celebration!” He chuckled, wheezed, and continued smiling in spite of himself.  “Such a darling little filly.  Freckles like her older brother.  You should be proud of them, Miss Smith.  They'll keep the apples shiny when they grow up.”

        “No, not my—”  I shook my head, sighed, and spoke, “I'm not talking about Apple Smith's grandchildren.  I'm talking about your daughter, Wish Step.  When was the last time she visited you, Mister Granite?”

        He gazed at me.  His eyes blinked as if in slow motion.  “F2 to E3.”

        I blinked.  “Huh?”

        “Shhh... But don't tell Blue Oats.”  He smiled tiredly.  “He thinks that move would never work.”

        I glanced at the chess table, then back at him.  “Granite, I—”  I shuddered and ultimately closed my eyes.  After a while, I squeezed his hoof once more.  “I... I won’t tell Blue Oats.  Don't you worry.”

        “Not worried.  No matter what Grace says,” he murmured, his eyes on the edge of a night's slumbering darkness.  The lantern's glow appeared to be drawing away from him as his head tilted towards his chair.  “She wants me to stop fretting.  Just like Stinkin' tells me to stop bothering with the numbers.  He thinks I'm stepping on his hooves.  You know how he is, Miss Smith.  The only one who doesn't give me lip is Redtrot, but that's because he's too busy yelling at me.  I never want to yell at the kids like him, no matter what good it would do them.  They'd turn into Blue Oats otherwise.  I wouldn't want that.  Would you want that, Miss Smith?”

        I opened my mouth to reply, but I lingered.  Reluctantly, I said instead, “What is it that you want, Granite?”

        “Me?” he stammered, his shoulders heaving with a deep breath.

        I nodded.

        He gazed through the floor.  Something glinted in the lantern light.  I spotted a tear rolling down his cheek as the stallion spoke in an otherworldly voice, “I just want to go h-home, Miss Smith.”

        I briefly held my tongue in place.  I felt a soreness in my throat as I stroked his forelimb with two hooves and quietly said, “So do I, Granite.  So do I.”

        Under the stars, I stood before the patio of my cabin.  I held my lyre and was strumming notes at random.  I didn't know what tunes I was making.  I didn't care.  “Twilight's Requiem” and “Desolation's Elegy” were phantoms of the path, ghosts that didn't belong to me, for suddenly all that was real was now.

        All that will ever be real is now.  What assurance do we have of anything more?  The past is something painted in biased assumptions, the future in wishful pretense.  When she sings reality into a different shape, she's merely retelling a story that has been just as sketchy before her chorus as it remains after.  When I am dead and gone, the ponies left may never remember me.  But will it matter?  My hollow future is their distant now, and reality will be theirs to do with whatever they wish, regardless if I existed or not.

        It's always been that way, hasn't it?  If each and every life is so precious, then why haven't we erected a vast library for every soul that has ever existed?  Sentiment is something that is scarcely afforded in this world, it would seem.  Some lives are simply far easier to toss to the refuse of time than others.  To believe otherwise is to make existence a chore, full of a mechanical regiment dedicated to the millions upon millions of bodies that are marching into death all around us.

        Surely, though, we can afford to sacrifice ourselves to honor a fraction of the things that come and go, the ideas that mean the most to us, the places that hold the most value, and the ponies that have influenced our lives.  But how many of us are truly that noble, truly that generous, truly that honorable to refuse attention to ourselves for the sake of tending to the passage of those who've come before?  Life is our one opportunity to be individuals, to be expressive, to produce art.  How can we do all of those things and yet absorb ourselves in the lives withering to ash at every turn, in the noble pursuit of bringing them the glory that they deserve but are too weak to afford on their own?

        Somewhere, naturally, a balance must be found.  It's only now that I've come to realize that I never achieved such an equilibrium.  As a matter of fact, I never even tried.  I recall lecturing to Fluttershy one time that I knew the name of my grandmother.  That is hardly a laudable accomplishment on my behalf.  The fact of the matter is, I only knew her in name, but not intimately, not closely enough to understand and respect the textures of her hopes and dreams.

        When my grandmother died, I was in secondary school.  I had plenty of scholarly endeavors to attend to, but not so much that my schedule was entirely consumed.  Regardless, this did not stop me from refusing every chance I had to visit the family's matriarch when she stood upon death's door.  My parents—ever loving to a coddling fault—allowed me the liberty of my own seclusion.

        As a result, I wasn't there when she lingered in bed, day after day, slowly sinking into the depths of darkness.  I didn't bother visiting her in those fitful few hours she had left to be lucid, to speak her peace to every soul that ever held a thread of meaning to her.  The night she died, I heard about it later—in between meals—like any other passing conversation about weather or politics in the shadowed hallways of my home.  From what I was told, her liver and pancreas had liquefied.  She had essentially drowned in her own fluids, like a foal on the edge of a cold riverbank.  The funeral that happened a month later could just as well have been an after-school dress rehearsal.  I went on with my life, thinking of the future, untouched by the canned ashes that were eventually carried to the upper Canterlot Mausoleum, sealed behind opaque granite and a golden name-tag.

        For years, as I grew into adulthood, I never once looked upon my apathetic absence from her passing with any shred of regret.  That was well before I came to Ponyville, before I became a ghost, before I found out what it meant to be ignored, forgotten, and ultimately unloved.  The world's a very warm place so long as you have the flimsy howbeit reliable assurance of other ponies knowing and saying your name.  I didn't need her songs to freeze me to the bone.  Simply being nameless is colder than the vacuum of space.

        But what does it mean to be forgotten, and yet to forget the fact that you're forgotten?  Does it make you blissfully unaware?  Or does it make you confused, sad, and colder, like a pebble rattling forever in a can stabbed through with needles, trying to find its way out into the light...?

        Trying to find its way home...?

        I paused in my strumming and hugged the lyre to my chest.  I clenched my eyes shut, or else the tears would begin as soon as I remembered that vacant look in Granite Shuffle's eyes.  He couldn't find his way home.  Neither could Doctor Comethoof.  And, as much as I hate to admit it, I doubt that my grandmother herself ever did.

        But I had the elegies.  I had the notes of the unsung.  I had a map.  No matter how bleak, no matter how pitiful, I had a way to get home.  What was I doing there?  Why was I wasting my time?

        Sniffling, I bore a frown and tore my way into the cabin.  I gathered my saddlebag.  I grabbed several sound stones.  Finally, I scooped up a sheet of music, stuffed it into my journal, and carried it all with me as I trotted firmly towards the center of Ponyville under the shroud of midnight.

        The town was asleep, dreamily dead all around me.  I swear, there are times that I think that I could scream at the top of my lungs and still ponies would fail to hear me before they had the opportunity to forget I ever yelled.  Often it can feel so important to be so unimportant.

        I made it to the center of Ponyville, entering the space of town that was the warmest to me.  That isn't saying much.  I still shivered in my hoodie as I placed the sound stones in a circle and stood with my lyre.  I rested in the very spot where Nightmare Moon had landed nearly fourteen months before.  I wondered if Luna was ever stricken with grief during her thousand year banishment, or if the armor of Nightmare Moon had given her a blissful ignorance the whole time.

        Soon I would know all things, or know nothing.  It didn't matter so long as I had a transformation to undergo.  Comethoof had transformed, for better or for worse.  If he never finished solving the mystery, it's quite alright.  I got to tackle it for a while.  Somehow, it seems only fitting if another pony—no matter how unlucky—picked up the slack for the two of us in yet another thousand years.  Anything would be appropriate, if only it meant spiting her and her song.

        I paused briefly, serenaded by nothing but my cold and nervous breaths.  I felt horribly exposed, no matter how dark or tranquil the Ponyvillean night.  How many other ponies in the forgotten history of existence have been given the power that I wield, the opportunity to pierce reality in the sincere hope of changing the universe for the better?

And would it truly be for the better?  The more that I learned, would it be something that I wished to learn about?  What if I found out that I wasn’t alone?  What if there were other ponies cursed as horribly as me, always surrounding me, and yet I could never see them?  What if there’s a pony right here, right now, screaming in my face as I write this journal, and yet I’ve never had the good fortune of noticing him or her to begin with?

        There was no more reason for delay.  I was in place.  I was ready.  I had always been ready, even if the tears occasionally blinded me to my own purpose.  I strummed my lyre.  I played the first few notes to “Twilight's Requiem.”  The air of Ponyville filled with a haunting rhythm as only the stars were my audience.  Nevertheless, with the grace and patience of a mausoleum statue, I finished playing the eighth elegy, and I sat quietly, waiting for illumination to come.

        It didn't.

        I shuddered.  In a blur, I pulled my journal out.  I re-read the pages that had changed once more.  The magenta-glowing text was as bright and shimmering as ever.  However, they were still the same words I had always read.  They refused to change; they didn't tell me the reality of what had really happened when I wrote them.

        I cursed under my breath.  I didn't understand why nothing was happening.  It worked for Comethoof.  Why wasn't I learning the truth as well?  Wasn't I brave enough?  Wasn't I desperate enough?

        Hastily, I played the Requiem again.  It was an ugly performance, but a true performance.  Every note was hit viciously, and when the number was done, I still stood as a clueless amnesiac before the dazzling array of my colored journal entries.

        I sat in a slump, my mind vexed.  I thought hard, scouring the depths of my logic for an explanation as to why I wasn't being inundated with a new wealth of knowledge.

Then, it occurred to me, and even the warmest spot in Ponyville couldn’t have prevented my bones from freezing me inside out.

        “I don't have the Nightbringer.”

        I ran a hoof over my forehead and all but collapsed in the middle of town.

        “Blessed Celestia, I don't have what Comethoof had...”

        The instrument—one of the last physical pieces of the holy song—had been in his possession last.  He was the one unsung soul in all of Equestria with the ability to distinguish what was true from what was untrue, and yet he was the last and only pony to possess the ancient instrument.

        And just what did I have?

        Sighing, I closed my eyes and rested my chin in the grass.  A part of me wanted to die there, even if the best I got was an unmarked gravestone.

        Suddenly, the road home looked far, far longer than I had anticipated.

        “B6 to G6.”

        I stared into the chessboard squares, my eyes awash in the black and white checks, as I wondered how lovely life could be if there was no longer any need for color.

        “Do you have apple seeds in your ears?!”  Granite Shuffle wheezed, coughed, and tapped his end of the table.  “Move my rook to G6 already!”

        “Oh... uhm...”  I awoke to, fidgeting.  “My apologies.”  I lifted his rook and telekinetically moved it to face off with my king and queen.  “I was in another place.”

        “Better not be joining one of them armor-making factories.  Your hooves are strong things, but they're best at pushing at soft dirt and not reshaping rough iron.”  Granite Shuffle teetered briefly in his seat.  The afternoon light showed the hard lines in his wrinkled coat.  “Mares should be as far away from the front as possible.  It's enough that Grace works so close to the line.  She's seen more blood than she needs to.  Redtrot, for all his talk and shouting, is really just a coward compared to her.”

        “Yeah,” I said, nodding dazedly.  “The best of us are.”

        “Are you doing fine, Miss Smith?  You look like you haven't slept much.”

        I sighed.  I moved my queen to eliminate his rook, but in so doing, I exposed my king to an immediate checkmate under his bishop.  The self-defeating move must have shocked him, for he gaped in a momentary silence.  I figured that was the best opportunity to speak.

        “Mr. Shuffle?”

        “Huh?  What?”

        “I'm not Miss Smith.”

        He blinked at me.  “You're not?”

        I slowly shook my head.  “My real name is Lyra Heartstrings.  And I didn't come here just to play chess.”

        “Hah!  Well I can see that!”  He picked the bishop up and shakily attempted to take out my king to finish the game.  “You're playin' like a fool!  Just like that one time I tried my hoof against Blue Oats!  Couldn't defend his pawns to save his life—”  He dropped his bishop.  “Blast it!”

        I lifted it up for him.  Instead of finishing his move, I levitated the piece between us, gazing at the shiny contours in the window-light.  “Tell me, Mr. Shuffle, if you could go back to the way things were, and start life anew, would you?”

        “Huh?”  He blinked crookedly at me.  “What are you getting at, Miss Smith?  We're where we need to be, aren't we?”

        “I'm not Miss Smith, Granite.  And this isn't an apple orchard, or the Zebraharan desert, or the camp outside of Stalliongrad.  This is Ponyville.  This is your home.”

        “Ponyville?  Home?  Well, I worked long enough in that blasted place, didn't I?  I'd go back there as soon as I had the chance, but—”

        “What's stopping you?”

        He froze where he sat.

        I persisted.  “What's stopping you from going to Ponyville, Mr. Shuffle?”

        “Mmm...” He mumbled, his hooves brushing against his side of the chessboard.  “The weather, those blasted pegasi, parasprites, a whole bunch of nonsense...”

        “Is it a place where you don't want to live?”

        He merely chewed on his upper lip.

        I gently smiled.  “Where would you rather be, Granite?”

        “Hmmph...”  He shifted in his seat, his wrinkled coat bunching up along his sides.  “The dance floor.  Just for a little while longer.  I want to move before I am told to move, before I must see nothing but sand again.”

        My teeth showed in a grin as I reached into my saddlebag.  “Somehow, I figured you would want to go there.”

        “You did?”

        “Mmmhmmm.”  I pulled out my lyre.  “Which is exactly why I visited the music history section of the town library today.”

        “They have a library in Stalliongrad?  I thought the ponies here only read what they're told to.”

        I giggled.  “Well, just for once, let's pretend like we can do what we want.”  I started strumming the lyre.  “Tell me if this is something you remember, Mr. Shuffle.”

        “What?  A song?  My ears aren't what they used to—”  He stopped in mid-speech as a gasp escaped his weathered lungs.  His eyes narrowed as he stared through my vibrating strings.  The song was a short one, and yet it pulled his spirit for several miles of meaning, judging by the mistiness that I saw forming in his eyes.

        When I finished, I lowered the lyre by my side and smiled his way.  “Well?  Did you like what you just heard?”

        “'Move Along Daisy,'” he stammered.

        I chuckled.  “It's a lot prettier than I imagined it would be.  The book I found it written in was nearly torn apart with age.  Funny, isn't it?  The things that we almost completely forget manage to return with an unfathomable freshness.”

        He was staring blankly into space.

        My smile left.  I leaned forward and planted a hoof on his forelimb.  “Mr Shuffle?  Are you still with me?”

        Clearly he wasn't.  When he spoke next, it wasn't addressing me, and it certainly wasn't addressing Granny Smith.  “Your mane was like silk,” he murmured.  “I asked how you managed it.  You told me that you would show me when I came back from duty.  I suddenly realized that you meant to show me more.  How lucky could one colt be?  The prettiest nurse in the whole camp, and she wants to spend time with me.  I never thought I'd be handsome enough... happy enough... I...”  His eyes swept past the room, and several black-and-white ghosts reflected off his moistening eyes.  “I knew that I was fighting this blasted war for you.  The bodies and the flames... I no longer saw them.  Blue Oats died in my forelimbs, and I knew just how to hush his cries.  You were there with me every step of the way, and somehow I knew you'd be gracious enough to live with me when I came back.  So gracious...”  His eyes twitched as a tear fell loose, sprung forth from the stabbing lengths of truth.  “Grace...”

        My brow furrowed in brief confusion, and then I felt my heart stop.  I saw a cemetery.  I saw many names.  I saw Shuffle's slab, waiting for him.  And then next to it—in perfect clarity—I once again saw, as he saw, a name that was waiting for him too.  “Oh Granite...”

        “Grace...”  His face broke into a fractured wretch as he ran a hoof over his tears.  “Grace, you're gone.  You're gone and... and I don't know where our children are...”

        I was hyperventilating.  I threw myself on my knees and squatted before him.  “Granite, please!  I'm sorry!  I should have known—”

        “Nnngh!” The stallion flung his forelimb my way, and I was shown how real a soldier he still was.  I fell on my back, stunned, as the dust of his crumbled life settled all around me.  “Leave me alone!  I loved her, Miss Smith!  I loved her for as long as I cared to live!  She only had eyes for me!  And those eyes... oh sweet Celestia, those eyes...”  He held his face in his hooves as he bitterly wept.  “They won't open.  They won't open.  Call the doctor, Wish Step.  Get Stinkin' and Filthy.  She's not getting up. She's never... n-never...”

        His sobs were hauntingly quiet.  If I was just any stranger, they would have blended in with the muffled groans, wheezes, and murmurs of that home.  But I wasn't a stranger, and that was my own fault.  Marching away from him felt like tearing off one of my limbs, and I was just starting to wonder if I was willing to live with the pain with even a fraction of the courage that Granite had.

        “And then he had the nerve to call me a bluebird!”  Rainbow Dash ranted from where she settled down to a table at the far end of Sugarcube Corner.  “I mean, doesn't he see these hooves?!  It's not like I wanted to create a rain cloud over the cemetery this morning!  I mean, seriously, who wants to hear Groundskeeper Whinny ramble on about how I look like ocean-colored albatrosses or falcons or any of that garbage?!”

        “Heeheehee,” Twilight Sparkle giggled as Rarity sat down beside the two with steaming cups of tea.  “It's not garbage, Rainbow Dash!  If you spent all of your old days shuffling dirt into graves, wouldn't you want something light-hearted to distract yourself too?  It so happens that Groundskeeper Whinny takes up bird-watching as a hobby!”

        “More like an obsession!” Rainbow Dash grunted.  “I swear, he's got it in that goofy head of his that anything with feathers is a bird!  I'm Rainbow Dash, for crying out loud!  Chief weather flier of Ponyville!  Winner of the Best Young Fliers Competition!  You can't put a beak on that!”

        “You certainly can while I'm here,” Rarity said, daintily sipping from her cup.  “I was hoping to discuss Canterlot fashion, not the ego of a brash pegasus or the delirious habits of Ponyville's sole undertaker.”

        “You haven't met him, Rarity!” Rainbow exclaimed.  “He'd talk about how your mane looks like the tail-end of a peacock and then start sizing you for your casket five decades early!”

        “Uh!”  Rarity flinched from her.  “Surely you jest!  How could Ponyville employ such a senile stallion with the burial of our loved ones?”

        “Because he's good at what he does!” Twilight exclaimed.  “Groundskeeper Whinny may be a little bumpy around the edges, but his eccentricities are forgivable in light of his diligence.  And besides...”  Twilight sipped from her cup and added, “He stays to himself mostly, and he seems all the happier.  Nopony's forcing any one of us to go out to the cemetery and talk to him.”

        “And why not?  Afraid you might learn something you can't get from a book for a change?”

        Twilight froze.  She looked blankly at Rarity and Rainbow Dash, who were both likewise as stunned, for none of them had just spoken.

        “Afraid that you'll discover that someday you too will be as old and forgotten as him, so that all of your beloved hobbies will be joked about at the tea parties of random strangers?”

        Blinking, Twilight turned around in her chair.  Her eyes swept the room full of nervous ponies, until she found one face with a frown.  “I'm sorry...?”

        “What are you sorry for?”  I marched towards the table, fuming.  “I mean what are you really sorry for?!  You keep obsessing over hundreds upon thousands of books of knowledge, and yet history is waiting for you right in this town, just a conversation away.  For a mare who's so concerned about never being forgotten, you seem to dismiss other ponies really easily.”

        “Hey!”  Rainbow Dash frowned, hovering up out of her seat.  “Who the hay are you?!  You can't talk to my friend Twilight that way—!”

        “And you!”  I glared at her.  “How long will you be slaving, grinding, aching to join the Wonderbolts?!  Even you must know deep inside that achieving such a dream will only turn your entire life into a hollow façade, as you give up all the friends and family that you're loyal to just to become a smoke-trailing symbol in the sky!”

        Rainbow's ruby eyes blinked.  “I... uh... uh...”

        I swiveled to face Rarity.  “And is fashion really all there is to life?!”

        “But of course! I—!”

        “You have a sister who loves you!  You have friends that want to spend more time with you!  You have stallions begging, crawling on their knees to give you the most romantic evening imaginable!  Are all of those opportunities worth giving up for the one vague dream that you might actually become famous?  Haven't enough ponies given up everything to become household names, and yet no one knows a single thing about who and what they really are because all they've become is simply that: names?!”

        As Rarity wilted with a wincing expression, Twilight leaned in with a confused scowl.  “Ma'am, what are you trying to tell us?!  What's the meaning of—?”

        “Why does anypony need to be told anything?!  Why doesn't anyone ever just look in front of them and see that the world isn't supposed to be learned; it's supposed to be felt!”

I was starting to pant.  I hugged myself and sat on my haunches before them.

“You are all so beautiful,” I said.  “Each and every one of you.  All of the joys in life, all of the things that are worth preserving:  they are not coming tomorrow.  They are not lost in the past.  They are here, right in front of us.  Everypony keeps pretending like there are more important things, that there are walls that should be built around us to protect stupid quests for stupid goals when the road to such imagined bliss only grows longer and longer.  Why doesn't anypony just stop and cherish what they have and who they are?  If I had what you had: the warmth and the joy and the laughter and the camaraderie.”

I choked and ran a shaking hoof through my mane.

“If I could h-have such friendship, if I could afford to be remembered for a single day, I would grab the nearest pony to me and I would never let go.  Because when all of this is gone, when there is no longer a now, there is nothing.  There is nothing.  Don't you understand?  There is...”

        I looked up at them, and I lost my breath.  Rainbow Dash was wincing.  Rarity trembled.  Twilight Sparkle's jaw was agape.  But the one thing their expressions were brandishing the most was confusion.  They weren't the only ones.  All of Sugarcube Corner had fallen silent, every occupant forming a ring of startled faces aimed at me, focused on the anomaly, on the curse.  It was the first time since a maniac shouted through the streets of the Summer Sun Celebration that I had the attention of so many ponies, and I knew it would be gone in the next blink as it was in the blinks given over a year before.

        And in that silence, I once again heard the tiny sound I had marched halfway across town to flee.  My cowardice was of no service to me.  Granite Shuffle's weeping voice still lingered in my ears.  I clenched my eyes and held a hoof over my face as I trembled and buckled in a cyclone of cold.

        I wanted to play him a song of joy, in order to bring him back to a place of that very same joy.  But it's so easy to forget that joy is the same thing as pain, only on the other end of the scale, a scale that only measures the degree to which we register the absence of all things that dare to be.  I experimented with a frail stallion at the crumbling borders of his life.  For a unicorn so bent on becoming permanent, I never seem to learn from my mistakes, nor do I suffer for them.

        “I'm so sorry,” I whimpered.

        “Ma'am, please,” Twilight's voice said soothingly.  It felt like venom.  “Sit and talk with us.  Tell us what's the matter—”

        “I'm just... just...”  I choked, spun about, and ran from her outstretched hoof.  “I'm so s-sorry!”  I galloped out of Sugarcube Corner and into a sea of tears.

        I had lost track of the nights where I couldn't sleep.  What was more, I was beginning to lose the desire to track them in the first place.

        I lay in my cot that evening, staring up at the stars beyond the window.  I wondered if the Cosmic Matriarch gazed upon the constellations with any comparable emotion.  I wondered if she cherished everything she created, or if she simply made the things in this universe to find out what it meant to love and be loved.

        It must be a curious thing to be a goddess, to be immortal, to attach oneself to things out of hobby instead of necessity.  No wonder Princess Celestia is so close to Twilight Sparkle.  To choose to have an apprentice, to purposefully value a single drop in the immense well of time, is a monumental exercise of love.

        I truly, truly cherish the ponies in this town.  I love them because I choose to.  They forget me like the last minute's breaths, and yet that doesn't erase the need, the need to love and be loved, the need to acknowledge that each of us is here for more than the act of being here.

        I love Twilight Sparkle.  I love Rainbow Dash and Rarity.  What's more, I love Granite Shuffle, and I mean the best for him.  I want to be there for him in ways that I was never there for my grandmother, in ways that I was never even there for my parents, in all the ways that I still can't be there for them.

        As the night wore on, I curled into myself and clenched my eyes shut.  Just when I think that I've shed all the tears that this universe can contain, another day comes and I'm torn apart in a new realization.  In spite of what a hysterical mare may have rambled about in Sugarcube Corner that day, it felt like things would have been a whole lot better if I had never discovered Granite Shuffle, if I had never tried to befriend him.

        And just what did our “relationship” accomplish?  I wasn't real to him.  I was Granny Smith, or I was Blue Oats, or I was one of the nurses.  I served nothing more than the medium through which he navigated the tempestuous currents of his fractured memories.  Somehow I had hoped he would make a semblance of order out of it all, just as I had hoped the same for Doctor Comethoof.  I could never commune with Alabaster, but I could commune with Granite.  Was it really that simple, that selfish, that pathetic?

        I played Granite a song, and he saw the light.  Of course I should have known what would happen next.  Life ends on a cold and bitter note for a reason.  Eight decades is a long enough time to lose more than one gains.  Ponies living in the shadows of their existences don't need to remember things.  They just need peace, respect, and companionship.  I should have left well enough alone, but I didn't.  I played him “Move Along Daisy,” and the resulting lucidity reacquainted him with what had consumed Grace, something that would only consume him as well.  I suddenly and very passionately wished that I could take that tune I played and make it unsung.

        A gasp escaped my lips.  My eyes flew open and I shot into a sitting position.  I wiped my eyes dry and gazed once more out the window.

        The stars were bright, distant, and indefinably vast.  It would be a disastrous, life-consuming task to attempt getting acquainted with them all.  However, that didn't make the stars any less worth looking at.  It would be very simple, very easy and convenient to just wipe the night's sky clean, so that all that was left was a blank space.  But what would happen with all the beauty?

        It was then that I realized the one, eternal flaw of the Cosmic Matriarch, the sin that would define all sins.  When she made for her the unsung realm, when she buried her in between the Firmaments, it was not an act of courage, nor was it an act of nobility.  It was simple cowardice.  And if I left Granite Shuffle alone forever, like she left her alone forever, I would be the same coward she was, the same coward this young filly was when she let her grandmother drown in her own fluids.

        For once, there were no more tears.  I actually slept, only because I had to.  How else was I to have the strength to make a visit in the morning?

        When I slowly trotted into the tiny room, Mr. Shuffle was not in his chair.  He was in bed, lying on his back.  He was awake, for what it was worth.  His lungs were pretending to breathe more than performing the actual act.

        I've seen horrible things in this life.  I've been to a place where lightning strikes from all angles and shackled ponies whimper and rattle in endless limbo.  None of that demanded the courage I needed right then as I walked over and sat myself in the same room where I was told to leave the day before by a weeping stallion.  There wasn't a snowflake's chance in Tartarus that Granite would remember me.  But that's not what mattered.  It's never about that.  The fact of the matter is, I remember.  I always remember.

        “I know you're probably not expecting any visitors,” I said.  “But I wanted to stop by anyways.  And if you want me to leave, I will.  I just... I just really wanted to see you again.”

        “Again...?”  His eyes slowly swam over the ceiling.  He stirred under the covers, his wrinkled hooves squirming against his chest.  “Have... Have you been here before?”

        I blinked at that.  He hadn't confused me with Applejack's grandmother.  Had he changed?  Was I speaking with the same Granite Shuffle?  Was I ever speaking with the same stallion?

        “Well?”  He grumbled.  The anger in his voice didn't bother me, for I was too relieved to hear the strength in it.  “Are you still there, or did the cat get your tongue?”

        My nostrils flared as a breathy chuckle escaped my lips.  I leaned forward on the stool and rubbed my hooves beneath my chin as I gazed into his bed covers.  After a while, I said, “Yeah, I've been here before.  I've been here three days this week, in fact.  Four, if you count today.”

        “Oh?”  He coughed, wheezed, and relaxed with a long breath.  “Visiting relatives?”

        “Not... Not exactly...” I said.  I glanced at him.  His eyes were still plastered to the ceiling.  Slowly, I spoke, “I made a friend this week, a friend I never expected to make.  He's good at chess.  I used to think I had some skills with pawns and bishops, but he taught me otherwise.  He's a very tough fellow, and he's seen many sights in Equestria—both gorgeous and distressing.  He's made many companions in his years, and... a-and he's lost many as well.  Uhm...”

        I cleared my throat and adjusted the sleeves of my hoodie.  As I found the space in silence uninterrupted, I bravely spoke on.

        “He has children, all as smart and as wealthy as he's become.  And though they don't show up as often as they should, I know that he loves them... and that he wants the best for them.  It's the same love he showed for his fellow comrades, for the souls he marched into the far reaches of the earth to save from pure evil.  He's gone so far, and to such lengths, and yet... the road home seems to stretch on forever, no matter the extent of his journey.  He told me himself that he wanted to go home, and that was when I knew he was more than a friend, he was...”

        I bit my lip.  I dried my eyes for his sake, even if he wasn't looking at me.

        “He was just where I was,” I said in a shuddering voice.  “But he didn't know it.  And I knew—no—I believed that he deserved to know it.  I felt it was his right to become self-aware.  I struggled to make him remember something cohesive, something that shaped his being instead of having painted his confused shell.  I thought that if I could reach deep into his spirit, I might make a hole large enough for him to look into himself and... and to find something to be happy about.  In spite of where he was, and in spite of what he no longer had, I just wanted him to have a happy thought, a single happy thought.”

I shuddered, my eyes closing as I felt the shadows increasing around us.

“The thing is,” I said “I thought I was doing all of this for him.  But I was really just doing it all for myself.  Because I wanted to know—and I still wish to know—that when all of this crazy world is no longer mine for the taking, that I too will settle into thoughts that are happy, that are sublime, that are tranquil and glorious.  Because, in the end, all I will have... all we will ever have is our own thoughts.  And shouldn't they be good and wholesome thoughts, so long as we can afford them?”

        I fidgeted with my hooves as I sensed all the dust in the room.  We were both fossils waiting for time to claim us.  I knew he had fought the decay so courageously and for so long, that I wasn't about to stop myself either.

        “Existence is special.  It's something that makes sound, but not just any sound—a beautiful symphony.  What's more, it's hardly a moving sound if it's made alone, even though there are so many gorgeous movements to be heard.  You see, I don't know if my life will ever earn an encore.  But, so help me Celestia, I want to be sure that my friend's does.”

        I looked his way.  I wish that I hadn't.  Granite Shuffle's face was as blank as ever.  His eyes still swam uselessly over the ceiling's contours.

        I felt a pit forming in the back of my throat.  The next breath was a haggard thing, lifting me limply out of the stool.  I leaned on his bed with the meager excuse to pat and squeeze one of his hooves.

        “Well... I think I will visit him another time.  Whether or not he can forgive me, I guess it really doesn't matter.  I just want him to know that I enjoy his company, and that I'm... that I'm a better pony for having known the sound of his voice, even if he will never know mine.”

        I shuffled away from the bed, passing through the shadows to escape the confines of his room.  By the time I reached the door, I heard a whispery noise.  For a second there, I thought he was suffocating.  Panicked, I spun to look Granite's way.  It turns out he was humming, or trying to.  I could barely make out the notes his wheezing breath was trying to make.  Several seconds in, I realized what it was.

        “'Move Along Daisy,'” I exclaimed.

        He gulped and spoke from his bed, “Can't get it out of my head.  I... I don't know why...”

        I clenched my eyes shut and seethed through my teeth.  “Granite, I'm sorry.  I should never have—”

        “Don't be sorry, Grace,” he murmured.  “That dance is the best thing that ever happened to me.  It's made the desert cooler.  I can barely hear Redtrot when he yells.  And just yesterday—”  His breath sucked in sharply.

        I opened my eyes.  I was shocked at what I saw.

        Granite was neither grimacing nor smiling.  His face bore the look of wonderment, like a foal experiencing Hearth's Warming for the first time.  “The village was empty.  There was nothing but death.  We killed so many wildebeests.  The sand turned red.  Another soldier lost his lunch.  I laughed at him.  I wasn't trying to be cruel.  It was all I could do to keep myself from sobbing.  That, and I remembered 'Move Along Daisy.'  I remembered your silken mane and the way we danced.  And that's when my eyes saw the trap door.  The handle was the color of your hair, Grace.  I pointed it out to Redtrot.  We moved in one at a time.  The lieutenant hoisted the door open.  I dashed into the entrance of the cellar with my spear, and... and...”

        He started to breathe fitfully.  I almost panicked, wondering if I should call a nurse.  But then his lungs relaxed as the next voice whimpered from them.

        “There were over a hundred of them, a huddling sea of stripes.  Children and parents, entire families clinging to each other.  They thought we were the wildebeests.  They cried in their desert language.  We opened the door even wider.  They saw us and we saw them.  We thought every zebra in the village was dead.  But they were alive.  They were as alive as the day they were all foaled and...”

        Granite shuddered.  He raised a hoof over his face as the tears came out, but it was different this time, so heavenly different.  He was smiling.

        “We let them out, and they didn't ask for food or drink.  They just hugged us.  They cried and they hugged and they even kissed us.  And that's how I knew, Grace.  That's how I knew that this was all worth it.  This horrible war, the wildebeest's mayhem, Blue Oats' cries for his mother as I felt him leave my forelimbs.  It was all worth finding that beauty, finding that life and freeing it once more.  Nothing is meaningless.  It's all worth it.  And yet none of it is nearly as beautiful or as darling as how I feel when I think about you, Grace, and that someday I will be dancing with you again.”

        He was crying, a quiet little sound as always.  But it was hardly a solo this time.  I leaned weakly against the doorframe to his room, teary eyed, sharing his smile from miles away.

        “You should find her, Granite,” I said softly, my voice breaking.  “You should go find her and dance with her.”

        “That's just it...”  He said, and the wrinkles morphed into warm, moist dimples as his face practically lit up the room.  “I think I already have.  And what a fine dance it's been...”

        I exhaled slowly, feeling as if all the weight in my lungs were gone.  “How about I come visit you tomorrow, Mr. Shuffle, and you can tell me all about it?”

        “Yes...”  He nodded slowly, sniffling.  “I... I think I would like that.”  He swallowed, and his eyes met me for the first time since I arrived there.  “If... If you're not too busy visiting your friend here.”

        I blurted a tiny laugh, wiped my eyes dry, and smiled his way.  “No.  I won't be too busy.  You have my word...”

        He faced the heavens beyond the ceiling once more, his head rolling back and forth, his breath giving a whispery rendition of “Move Along Daisy.”  I did what the lyrics asked me to, and found myself embraced by toasty sunlight.

        The next morning was brighter than normal, strangely devoid of the usual rolling mists.  I had spent the whole night pouring over Comethoof's journal, comparing it to my own.  I wondered—if Penumbra had lived longer—would Alabaster have ended in the same madness and despair?  Was his insanity something that he willed upon himself?  Could he have given me a much stronger map to follow if he had chosen to focus on the glorious song he and his wife made, instead of obsessing so much over the Nocturne?

        I finally knew how to not end up like him.  A life obsessed with the unsung realm only stands to become unsung itself.  Her life is something that is soundless for the sake of soundlessness itself.  I have the opportunity—the gift—to do otherwise.  Blaming all of my sorrows on her curse is no excuse.  After all, if Mr. Shuffle could find something to smile about, so could I.

        With that thought, I trotted leisurely towards his home.  I saw Carrot Top with her cart of things.  I saw Miss Hooves flying by, entangled frustratedly with her mailbag.  And then I saw something that made me freeze in my steps.

        It was the window to Mr. Shuffle's room.  From the outside, I could clearly see that the curtains were missing.

        It had to have been no more than three blinks later: I had galloped into the building and skidded to a stop right at the entrance to his quarters.  I stood there in a slump, my eyes scanning the walls.  More and more shivers ran down my spine with the lengthening degrees of the place's blankness.  I saw several boxes lying across an empty bed.  They were full of plaques and picture frames and a folded chessboard.

        The sound of hoofsteps shuffled to a stop behind me.  “Can... Can I help you, miss?”

        I spun around, breathless.  Nurse Glass Shine looked worriedly at me.  I saw something in the curvature to her eyelids, and somehow it spoke of the same emptiness as the room behind me.  I glanced up at the number above the door, gulped, and then looked sadly at her.

        “When did it happen?”

        She glanced into the room, sighed quietly, then returned her gaze to mine.  “Late yesterday afternoon.  He had a stroke.  It wasn't the first occasion he's suffered one, but this time it was in his sleep.  I'm sorry you had to find out this way.  Are you related to Mister Shuffle?”

        “I...”  My eyes swam over the room.  I bit my lip and ran a hoof through my mane as I felt a wave of chills overtake me like an old embrace.  “It's so empty now...”

        Nurse Shine slowly nodded.  “Room Twelve has been crowded for a long time now.  The Shuffle Family contract no longer has claim to this part of the building.  One of the tenants of Twelve will be moving in soon.  He's waited a long time for such privacy, the poor dear.  Just, up until now, nopony could afford these quarters but Shuffle's relatives.”

        “I... I see...”

        She gave me a sympathetic look.  “Is there anything I can do to help you, dear?  Would you like to talk with the head facilitator?”

        “No, thanks, I'm fine.  I just...”  I gulped.  Then I blinked and turned to face her.  “Uhm.  Maybe there's one thing you could do.”

        “Hmmm?  Yes?”

        “Tell me... uhm...”  I fidgeted.  “What happens to him next?”

        Two days later, I stood before his name.  “Granite Shuffle” now had a complete set of numbers to it.  Fresh flakes of chiseled marble still lingered on the engravings:  “918 – 1001.”  Then, beneath that, scratched into the polished surface was a single, lonesome line:  “Father, Soldier, Businesstallion.”

        I exhaled long and hard.  I stood in Ponyville Cemetery, gazing at the fresh mound of dirt that covered the soul I had once played chess with.  With a simple tilt of my head, I studied the grave next to his:  “Gracious Silver – 922 – 988 – Wife, Mother, Nurse.”

        “Well, Mister Shuffle,” I murmured.  “It's almost like a dance,” I said.  “You're both close enough, after all.”

        A brief wind blew through the field.  My mane billowed in the sunlight.  The stones didn't move an inch.  Celestia-willing, they never will.

        I knew that there was an unsung realm.  I knew that the Nightbringer existed somewhere.  But finding more about all of that no longer mattered to me.  I was alive.  I had this insatiable urge to scour the landscape and find the bodies of Penumbra and Alabaster, if only to bury them in the same peace as Gracious and Granite before me.

        “Oh!” A voice exclaimed behind me, breaking my solemn thoughts.  “Leapin' Luna!  I didn't see you there!”  A stallion chuckled.  “I'm sorry, is there a funeral after all?”

        I turned and found myself looking at a dirt-stained old pony with a pair of shovels hanging off his saddlebag.  He was rolling up a cart full of flowers when he stopped to gape at me before the grave with his dull, graying eyes.

        “Groundskeeper Whinny?” I remarked.

        “Why, yes!  Heheh—That's my name!”  He tilted a ridiculously large hat towards the edge of his brow and smiled.  “Have we met before, dearie?”

        “I...”  I glanced at the grave, then at him.  “Most likely not.  Uhm...”  I cleared my throat and asked, “Did I hear you right?”

        “I dunno, didja?”

        “There... There wasn't a funeral service?” I asked.

        “None that I know about.”  He shrugged.  “Buried the poor feller here m'self.  Was light as a feather, even though the casket read he wasn't a pegasus and all.  Heheheh—”  His eyes widened as he held a soiled hoof over his mouth.  “Oh, I'm terribly sorry!  You came here to pay some respects, didn't ya?  And here I am gabbin' like a chirpin' songbird—”

        “No.  No, Mister Whinny, it's quite alright,” I said with a soft smile.  “I'm not related.  Still... I...”  I bit my lip and looked painfully at the grave once again.  “I did know him.  And... And it pains me to no end to think that he didn't get a funeral.”

        “I find it plum confusin' myself!  This here's a well-paid grave!  Was this an important pony or somethin'?”

        “More than important,” I murmured.  “He was priceless to Ponyville's foundation.  He was a valiant soldier.  He was—”

        “Heh, sounds like they could have hired you to give a eulogy,” Whinny said.  “Uhm... Assumin’ they had a funeral after-all.”

        I slowly gazed up at him and nodded gravely.  “Yes.  A eulogy.”

        “Would be rather appropriate, ya reckon?”

        “I... I think I can do that,” I murmured.

        “Ahem.”  He stood tall and politely removed his hat.

        I turned to face the grave straight on.  I took a few seconds to compose myself.  Then I said, “Granite Shuffle was a selfless stallion, a brave stallion.  He set forth in life to find himself.  What he found instead were unsightly horrors on the far edge of the globe.  But he never let any of these things discourage them.  He freed zebra strangers from pain and destruction.  He met priceless companions whose impact would be evident in his complexion unto the end of his days.  Souls like Apple Smith, Redtrot, Stinkin' Rich: he cherished each and every one of them as much as he loved his children, Wish Step and Granite Junior.  And of all the ponies he had the grace to know, the most beloved was his wife, Gracious Silver.  He kept a gentle place for Grace deep in his mind, quiet and untouched.  When his existence became a complex tempest of conflicting notions, he held the memory of her closest, tending to it like he would tend to a garden—”

        My breath cut off, for a sudden chill overwhelmed me.  I saw my breath coming out in vapors, and a voice was whistling behind me, until it gave forth a startled gasp.

        “Oh!  Leapin' Luna, I didn't see ya there, missy!”  Groundskeeper Whinny chuckled.  “I'm sorry, did I catch you in the middle of something?”

        I gazed at him.  My lips quivered.  I closed my eyes and swallowed a painful gulp.  “I...”  I sighed heavily and looked sorrowfully at the grave.  “I was just wondering...”

        “Wondering?”  He scratched his head.  “Wondering what, dearie?”

        “What sound a stone makes,” I murmured.  I looked upon Granite's name for the last time, and swiveled to face Whinny.  “This is a beautiful place,” I said.  “Be sure to k-keep it that way.”

        Whinny's eyes narrowed as he gave a placid smile.  “Oh, you can count on it, darlin'.  Don't you worry none.”

        “There's no point in worrying,” I said.  I gazed at the sky above the cemetery.  Everything looked gray and dismal, like an endless realm full of thunder and rattling.  “Sometimes, there's just no point whatsoever.”

        And I was gone.

        The alley filled with the cacophony of crashing pins.

        “Haaa ha ha!”  Rainbow Dash pumped her forelimb.  “Four strikes in a row!”  She hovered upside down and flew backwards with her grin in Applejack's face.  “What?!  What?!  What?!”

        Applejack had to head-butt her to get a clear view of the lane.  “Laugh it up, airhead!  I'm gonna wipe the floor with that smirk of yours sooner than later.”

        “And then the floor will be all—”  Rainbow Dash cupped her face in a pair of hooves and gawked, “'I just kissed Rainbow Dash!  I might as well be the ceiling now!'”

        “This game's just beginnin'!”  Applejack grunted.  “Ever heard of not countin' yer eggs before they done hatched?!  I'll catch up to ya yet!”

        “Oh, just like you totally didn't do last week?”

        “Oh bite yer tongue!”  Applejack pivoted, hissed, and kicked the ball down the lane.  “Rrrrgh!”

        “Easy there, Applejack darling,” Rarity said from where she sat, filing one of her front limbs with a metal stick.  “You'll strain one of your priceless farming legs at this rate of brutish showponyship.”

        “Like you're one to talk!”  Twilight grumbled from her scoreboard.  She folded her front limbs and cast Rarity a frown.  “I can't believe it's the second week in a row that you refuse to bowl!”

        “Excuse me, but I'm a lady and I can't throw caution to the wind like any ordinary ruffian!”  Rarity shook her dainty hoof.  “I'll be needing my precious dexterity to sew a gown for Sapphire Shores tomorrow morning.  If I did something strenuous the night before to ruin my limbs of artistry, I'd never forgive myself!”

        “It's okay, Rarity,” Fluttershy said with a rosy-cheeked smile.  “We're just happy that you're with us.”

        “Why thank you, Fluttershy,” Rarity smiled with her eyes shut before tightening her lips in a haughty breath.  “At least somepony understands the substance of these little get-togethers.”

        “Ungh!”  Twilight quite literally dropped her face against the scoreboard.  “I don't know why I keep opening a bowling slot for you, then...”

        Pinkie Pie bounced into frame.  “Couldn't we just get Applejack to bowl twice?  That way she might catch up with Dashie!”

        “Snnkkt—Hahahaha!” Rainbow Dash's laughter could be heard from overhead.

        “Don't encourage her, Pinkie!”  Applejack shouted.  “I don't need help from nopony!”

        “Tell that to the five pins you just failed to knock down, ya drawlin' bucket of hayseeds!”

        “Why you...”

        “Girls!  We're supposed to be relaxing!”  Twilight exclaimed.  “Pinkie, why don't you bowl twice for the rest of the game?  At least you're not tossing the ball at the arcade cabinets like last week.”

        “Oooh!  I have an even better idea!”  Pinkie's legs blurred as she bulleted across the alley and stood right in front of my table.  “Hey you!  How'd you like to join a wickedly awesome game of grunting noises and heavy balls?”

        I was lost in my own silent world.  I blinked and looked up at Pinkie from the journal I was only pretending to be reading.  “Huh?  Balls?”

        “I promise it'll be totally fun!”  Pinkie grinned with glinting teeth.  “It's even got a pony in a hat who gets angry a lot!”

        “The heck y'all goin' on about now?”

        “Quiet, Applejack!”  Pinkie barked back.  “I'm trying to get a perfect stranger to join our slice-of-life scene!”

        “Oh heavens, Pinkie...”  Twilight was already face-hoofing while Rarity and Fluttershy lightly giggled at the fiasco.

        “Thanks, but... uhm...”  I fidgeted in my chair.  “I can't really bowl.  I was just here to...”

        I stopped in mid-speech.  The table in front of me had a glint to it, just as reflective as Granite's grave and just as cold.  I began to wonder if I really knew what I was there for, or if I even had to know.  I looked up, and Pinkie's blue eyes were full of life, full of warmth, and full of the ever-dancing “now.”  Beyond her, several colorful ponies looked my way.  They were all young and beautiful and real.  I felt for the briefest moment that I was being beckoned from long lost friends, and it was about time that I answered them.

        “Actually, yes.”  I said with a gentle smile.  “I... I think I would enjoy playing a game with you girls.”

        “Seriously?” Twilight Sparkle remarked with a cock-eyed expression.

        “Woohoo!”  Pinkie Pie's jumping figure took up my vision.  “Guess what, girls!  Our sundae just got a dash of mint!  Come on down to the bowling bonanza!”

        I did just that.  As I marched into the ring of seats, I blushed slightly.  I realized that I had never done this before.  In over a year of floundering about the cold lengths of this tiny town, I had never once attempted being in the presence of Twilight and all of her close friends at the same time.  It felt too warm to be real, precisely because it couldn't have been.  But that didn't matter to me at that moment.  All that mattered was the warmth, something that I was sharing—if even for the tiniest, most infinitesimal slice of time.

        “Welcome to the party, sugarcube,” Applejack said with a freckled smile.

        “Yeah, but don't think that you can even remotely come close to beating me!”  Rainbow Dash tossed my way with a lofty wink.

        “I like your mane,” Fluttershy softly said.  “It's very shiny.”

        “Th-thank you,” I nervously replied.

        “But that ensemble of yours looks positively worn-in,” Rarity added with a graceful grin.  “Perhaps you could give a seamstress like me the pleasure of making you a new one.”

        “Uhm... I dunno.  I didn't expect to be hanging out with anypony.”  I gulped and smiled.  “I actually have this really fabulous red sweater back home...”

        “You live here in Ponyville?”  Twilight remarked with a shocked smile.  “Wonderful!  Have you ever been by the library?”

        “Oh...”  I chuckled airily and scratched my neck.  “A few times...”

        “I hope at least Spike was there to lend you some assistance.  With the way things have been lately, I haven't afforded the time to be a full-time librarian like I originally wanted to.”

        “Yeah.”  I nodded.  “It's been a really crazy year, hasn't it?”

        “Uhhhh-huh!”  All six of them chimed in at once, a perfectly-timed chorus.  It was followed with a loud splash of giggles.  I joined in with them.  My voice felt out of tune, but it hardly mattered.

        “Twilight, yer up!”  Applejack gestured to her.

        “Oh!  Well... uhm... here goes!”  She trotted towards the ball dispenser.  “Can somepony keep score for me during my frame?”

        “Pinkie?” Rarity asked.

        “Mmmmfschlkkk!”  Pinkie replied, her mouth full of popcorn.  “Mmmflchk mmflckt mff mckktter!”

        “Ew, mind your manners, darling!”

        “Uhm...”  I gulped and shuffled over to the scoreboard, taking a seat.  “I'll do it, if nopony minds.”

        “You sure?”  Fluttershy asked.  “You're our guest.”

        “Believe me,” I said, levitating the pencil off the table as I gazed down the list of numbered boxes.  “It's my pleasure.”

        “Well, if ya insist,” Applejack said, tilting the brim of her hat as Twilight tossed her ball down the lane.  “Maybe when Pinkie's done gulpin' junk food down like a parasprite, she can share a few of those delicious salt-licks with ya.”

        “H-hey, maybe so...”  I froze in place.  I was hearing the Requiem in my ears, like a distant funeral dirge.  “Huh...”

        “Is everything okay?”  Fluttershy asked.

        “Uhm...”  I looked down at the scoresheet.  Off to the side, I swiftly scribbled the word “parasprite” down in pencil.  As soon as I finished crafting the letters into existence, they shimmered with a deep magenta glow.  “Yeah,” I said with a curious breath.  “Everything is just fine...”  I looked up at them.  I didn't feel the least bit cold.  “Everything is perfect,” I smiled.

        “Well, glad to be of acquaintance, Miss...”

        “Heartstrings,” I said.  I watched as Twilight bowled for a second time, finishing the last of the pins to earn herself a spare.  “But you can call me Lyra.”

        “How long have you been living in Ponyville, Lyra?” Fluttershy asked.

        “Oh... This isn't really my home,” I said.  I gazed at the word “parasprite” again.  I didn't have the Nightbringer like Comethoof did.  But having a key means nothing until you've discovered the door.  “But, I'm beginning to think I'll be heading there soon.”

        Twilight trotted back, exhaling.  “Whew!  So... What's the score?”

        I drew a line across her frame.

        “Looks to me like somepony's catching up.”

        I've been so concerned for so long about earning myself an encore.

        But you can't very well repeat something without a glorious sound to begin with.

Background Pony

XII - “What Sound a Stone Makes”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: theworstwriter, RazgrizS57, Props, theBrianJ, Warden

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear Journal,

        How selfless can a pony be until that selflessness becomes something opposite to itself?  Are we always noble creatures when we sacrifice everything in our lives for an idea?  Curse or uncursed.  We are on this earth for a limited time.  Do we it owe it to ourselves to indulge a little?  To allow ourselves pleasure so as to appreciate and understand pain more?

        All my life, I've had a philosophical way of approaching things.  This cannot be denied.  Sometimes I even lose myself in spiraling patterns of analytical and presumptuous thought.  However, there comes a time when philosophy no longer serves as an aid, but rather as a crutch.

        Could it be possible that I've used philosophy as a way to distance myself from the things that truly hurt, that fill me with dread, that remind me of just how terribly lonely I am?  After all, there are far better solutions to those ailments that go beyond the artifice of practiced words.

        I suppose I've always had music to fall back on.  Where words fail me, music picks up the slack.  It does something for me that philosophy fails to, and for that I owe music all the more.

        It gives me the license to feel.

        Corridors of ice.  Rows of ponies, marching and mournful.  Twitching eyes of cornflower blue.  There's a service today.  There's always a service.  Tears and poetry and letters unreceived.  A ringing bell.  A city covered in frost.  It's not her war, but they are planting flowers in her shadow.  I see nothing but thorns.  There are screams between the spaces of unsung lyrics.  Somewhere, I hear you sobbing.  I must find you.  I love you.  I adore you.  She adores her beloved.  She adores her beloved.  She adores her beloved.

        Everywhere I turn, the war stabs at me.  I slide underneath it on a current of freezing pebbles.  I must make music where nopony can hear me, not even her.  The black metal bites my skin.  The strings won't break.  My hooves are bleeding.  My horn stopped resonating hours ago.  Every time I pierce the barriers of magic, I see her eyes.  She's catching up to me.  I must find you first.  I must find you before she does.  Maybe I can distract her.  Maybe if I found her beloved.  Maybe if I held conference with the destroyer of worlds.  Maybe he can help me with the elegy of Desolation.  Maybe my horn will work for me by that time.  I'm scared of it working for her instead.

        The ice is everywhere.  I'm losing hair.  A gray trail falls behind me.  There's an old stallion in the pond water looking back.  Will I become him?  I've always hated the light, and even now it betrays me, confuses me.  Maybe if I close my eyes, you'll be there.  I can slide up next to you and kiss your ears in the same way you've always loved to play with mine.  I want you to hear this symphony when it is over.  I will have discovered it when I have discovered you.  Together we shall turn the Nocturne into something beautiful.  We will find our beauty once again.  She will not, but we will.  For you are my beloved, and I will not abandon you like she abandoned hers.

        More thorns.  The strings won't break through them.  Guards are screaming at me.  Something about a “Solar Screening.”  All that is bright and glorious about this world is gone.  All is darkness, save for the brief splash of flame.  Sibling rivalry.  Falling stars.  They will destroy the stars with their righteous fury.  Will she rise up in the absence and fill the night with chains?  I must stop this.  I must bring the dawn before the night.  A paradox is an answer is a song.  The strings still won't break.  Blood on my hooves.  I love you.  Wait for me a little longer.  Do not listen to her.  She adores her beloved.  She banished her beloved.  She adores her beloved.  She banished her beloved.  She adores her beloved.  She banished...

        I couldn't help it; I stopped reading.  I sighed deeply, squatting in the middle of my cot as the soft afternoon light wafted in through the cabin windows.  I ran a hoof across my clenched eyes and rubbed them.  That much blue text is utterly agonizing.

        Over the latest session, I had committed myself to reading for barely an hour.  As I went deeper and deeper into Doctor Comethoof’s rambling text, it became progressively harder for me to focus on the magically glowing material.  It certainly didn't help that the next four successive pages consisted of messily scribbled “She adores her beloved; she banished her beloved” over and over again.  However, there were minor details woven in-between:  a letter replaced with another here, a word rearranged or flung upside down there.  It was a senseless pattern, but a pattern nonetheless, and it deserved my undivided attention.  Over three-fourths of Comethoof's records were filled with nonsensical ramblings such as this, and it only got more disjointed as the blue text went on.  I felt as though it was my duty to peruse the absurd lengths of it, for what else did I have to work with?

        I was desperate to know whatever truth Comethoof may have seized throughout his maniacal endeavors.  But no matter how deeply I read his cyclical text, I couldn't find the one word I was so frantically searching for.  Not once did I see any mention of “parasprites.”  I had read every word that glowed before me in an unearthly magenta.  As the colors faded, I performed the Requiem over and over again to maintain focus.  Every time the one forbidden color popped up, it was merely in reference to one of four things: her, the “writing” of the Nocturne, the unsung realm, or the explosion that had supposedly taken place in Princess Celestia's meeting room right after Nightmare Moon's rise to power.

        I like to think that it was perfectly natural of me to turn to Comethoof.  His writings were, after all, my proverbial bible of the unsung.  Because of his records, I knew about the “Nocturne of the Firmaments.”  I knew about the final two elegies—well, I knew more than I'd ever find out on my own.  I also discovered the fate of the Nightbringer: it was in the possession of Doctor Comethoof unto his dying day.  But what became of it after he was lost to the curse of time and neglect?

        I wasn't sure that reading and re-reading Comethoof's text—no matter how thorough or diligent a job—would ever lend me truth regarding the Nightbringer's fate.  I was just one pony, and hardly an expert at cracking insanely cryptic wordsmithery.  I wondered if Comethoof had purposefully meant to disguise his records with obscure ramblings.  If I was delusional enough to believe my spouse was still alive after personally witnessing her horrible demise, then perhaps I'd do something as brash as commit myself to guarding the fate and location of the Nightbringer for as long as I lived.  With my luck, the timeless instrument was hidden somewhere in the depths of Canterlot, where it had eluded the eyes of dozens upon dozens of generations to follow.  After all, just where else would Comethoof have taken the holy instrument except to the grave—and most likely an unmarked one at that?

        It was easy to be dismayed.  The Nightbringer was the only key I perceived to performing the Nocturne in full, and to unraveling the truth that was obscured even to me.  It's hard to write in this journal, knowing that if I turn so little as ten pages back, I'll find glowing magenta text showing where I had essentially lied to myself to protect the unsung realm.  I was dying to know what had actually happened to me the first night after I played the “Threnody of Night,” or what had truly become of Princess Celestia's visit to Ponyville the week of the parasprite infestation.

        Parasprites.  Were they really something made up?  Were they truly a fabrication?  It was indescribaly strange to contemplate this.  It would have been like telling myself that squirrels never existed, or that there was no such place as Blue Valley, or that lungs weren't the organs that transferred oxygen into the bloodstream.  Anything was now open to debate.  With the knowledge that the unsung realm existed, I had to come to grips with the fact that just about anything in this world—in my existence on this plane—could very easily have been the concoction of a forsaken alicorn goddess.  I found myself doing strange things—frighteningly silly things—things only Doctor Comethoof would do.  I'd wake up in the middle of the night, perform “Twilight's Requiem,” and then scribble random words onto paper, just to see if they glowed with a magenta highlight immediately after.  As a matter of fact, this journal entry is taking twice as long to write because I keep stopping after each paragraph, habitually performing the same, paranoid scan.

        What are parasprites?  They're annoying little insects, and yet they couldn't possibly be insects.  Insects are supposed to have a head, a thorax, and an abdomen.  Parasprites consist of a head that simultaneously acts as the predominant feature of their bodies.  They're essentially bulbous faces with wings attached.  Just how does a pony fit something like that into taxonomy?

        And yet, I've always remembered them.  No.  That's not true.  I've always been aware of them, but I had never once seen a parasprite—not until that one horrible incident in Ponyville.  And yet, looking back on my life—from when I was a little filly to adulthood—I was always aware of parasprites.  Or, perhaps, I only thought that I had been aware of parasprites all that time?  It's horrifying to think that a falsehood had been wired into my brain, and ever since then it had made me believe a complete fallacy about my past, or reality in general.

        Certainly, I wasn't alone.  Everypony in town believed in parasprites.  There was even a phrase that was passed around, supposedly an old mare's expression: “don't feed the parasprites.”  That was a proverb as old as time... or was it?  Had it actually been written down anywhere?  Did ponies even know what it meant when they said it?  Did something that felt older than I did actually exist no longer than a year on this earth?  Furthermore, what purpose did parasprites have in obscuring the past?

        My head hurts just contemplating it.  It's getting difficult to write on the subject.  I find myself getting distracted with something else that's happened recently, something that had also distracted me that one day in my cabin as I hovered over Comethoof's repetitious text.

        It was a crunching noise.  It came from just outside the front door to the cabin.  The sound didn't startle me.  As a matter of fact, my heartbeat increased and a foalish smile came to my face.  In truth, I had heard the sound before.  I leapt off the bed and scrambled into action.  I grabbed a brown bag full of ground-up fish meat and poured a few bits into a wooden bowl.  Then, stealthily, like a coyote stalking its prey, I slid up to the door.  Licking my lips, I turned the knob and—with a gentle tug of telekinesis—slowly pulled the door open.

        As soon as the afternoon light appeared beyond the frame, a tiny figure froze in place, staring at me with amber, slitted eyes.  Its backhairs arched slightly as its tail curled down.  After a few seconds, it calmed, and its orange fur seemed to deflate in the cool September breeze.

        “Why, hello there, Al,” I said with a gentle smile.  Yes, that is what I decided to call him, after the late Doctor Comethoof himself.  “You're hear early today.  Is nocturnal living getting lonely?  Hmm?”

        The cat stared back at me, still as a statue, its ears flicking curiously.  Most of the dish outside was empty, but that wasn't because he had eaten so much of it.  I had only filled a little bit of it that morning; it was all part of the plan.

        “I've got more where that came from, y'know,” I said.  I scooted forward and gently pushed the bowl towards the door-frame.  “Should be just as... uh... meaty as the rest of the stuff,” I remarked.

        “Al” looked at my bowl, at me, then at the bowl again.  After several pensive seconds, he returned to the dish that was already in front of him and resumed crunching the tiny morsels between his teeth.

        I exhaled and slumped with my chin propped against my right hoof.  “I've got a village full of ponies who love to chat their heads off when they see a perfect stranger like me, and yet you won't give me a single 'meow.'  What's up with that?”

        There's a reason why I haven't written much about Al.  These last few weeks have been very trying, to say the least.  Between learning the eighth elegy, journeying to the unsung realm, and reading Comethoof's journals, I've not had much room to focus on the less dramatic facets of my life.  Perhaps spending an entire week with Mister Shuffle is what changed me, what made me sit back and reexamine what should or shouldn't enter these journal entries.  There are few things in existence that I can afford, and even fewer that I can afford to write about, apparently.

        Al first showed up around my cabin in July.  This was shortly after my second Summer Sun Celebration in Ponyville.  I don't know where he came from or if he had any previous owners.  All I know is that I woke up one morning to an adorable orange tabby stalking around the outer frame of my cabin, foraging for mice and lizards.  At first, I paid him no mind.  He was an animal—yes—but still a living thing, and I didn't expect him to notice my existence any more than the ponies who live here.  But though I paid him no mind, it was hard for my heart to ignore him.

        So, it started with leaving little trays full of water.  I'd go to town and come back to see the dish dried up well before the sun could have evaporated the liquid.  I repeated the gesture and stayed at home one day to “stand guard.”  Sure enough, I witnessed the cat climbing out of a row of nearby hedges in the wee morning hours and lapping the water up thirstily.  This repeated for the next few days, until I realized that maybe I should be a decent equine being and add some food to the mix.  It took the tabby a little while to acclimate to the offering, but soon he crunched away at the morsels left for him.

        This happened quite regularly.  It occurred to me that nothing proved the cat had any recollection of me or the cabin.  All the cat knew was that there was sustenance located at this edge of the forest.  It kept coming back to be fed.  That's all it was.  Regardless, at least one soul was benefiting from these constant visits; that couldn't be denied.

        “I don't suppose you ran into Applejack along the way here, huh?” I murmured in the cat's direction.  I adjusted my hoodie's sleeves and sat on my haunches before the doorway as he crunched away.  “She's been working around the clock to harvest her latest batch of apples.  She kind of gets in a sour mood when she's rushing to meet a last second deadline.  Still, she has a thing for animals, and I'm sure she'd cheer up if she ran into you.”  I smiled.  “Heck, she might even want to give you a decent home.  You wouldn't have to be a stray anymore; you could live at Sweet Apple Acres.  How would you like that?”

        Al didn't even look at me.  He kept rummaging through the food dish, his tail dancing behind him in the sunlight like an orange comet trail.

        “You live somewhere in the forest, right?” I further rambled as I stared at the thick woods behind him.  “I don't suppose you've run into any parasprites, have you?  They seem small enough, cute enough, and bouncy enough for a cat like you to mercilessly shred to ribbons.  Ya think?”

        Silence.  The hum of bees and buzzing of cicadas wafted through the doorway.

        I sighed and ran a hoof through my mane.  “I don't know what to do, Al.  Even if I found out the truth about parasprites, what would I be able to do?  I don't have the Nightbringer.  I don't even know the entire Nocturne.”  A chill billowed through my body.  I hugged my forelimbs to me as my teeth chattered.  “Nnngh... I guess... I guess I'm just afraid that if I study too hard, if I put all of my energy into the research, I'll drive myself mad... just like your namesake did.”

        I heard a clicking sound all of the sudden.  Only, it wasn't a clicking sound.  Then something warm brushed up against me.

        Blinking, I glanced down.  Al was purring.  Furthermore, he was perched upon the concrete foundation of the cabin.  He had crossed the thresshold of the door.  The dish outside was empty, and after rubbing briefly against my cutie mark, Al padded his way over to the other wooden bowl and sifted through the fresher bits of food inside.

        I smiled, then bit my lip as I reached a nervous hoof out.  As I gently made contact with Al’s back, his fur twitched a bit, but he didn't scamper away.  Slowly, I stroked his smooth orange coat.  His tail curled around my limb and flicked in the air while I continued the gentle caress.

        “Hmmm...”  I exhaled with a slight rosiness to my cheeks upon making our first contact ever.  “I guess losing my mind isn't too bad, so long as my heart's got an anchor, huh?”

        The tiniest of trilling sounds came from deep inside his purring muscles.  He continued eating, but he wasn't fleeing from this stranger.  It was the simplest of gestures, but it made my whole week.

        I felt my jaw clench as a renewed energy flew through my limbs.  “What am I doing cooped up in here?”

        “And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with bowling!”  Rainbow Dash exclaimed loudly as Twilight Sparkle opened the door to her library.  The two of them strolled into the spacious treehouse.  “I'm up for it this weekend, but I don't want a lame repeat of last time!  Not all of us are just casual bowlers, y'know!”

        “I'm telling you, I have no idea what happened!”  Twilight Sparkle exclaimed as she peeled out of her saddlebag and set it on a tabletop.  “I'm usually a lot better at keeping score!”

        “You lost half the frames, Twilight!”  Rainbow Dash's brow furrowed.  She hovered close to the ceiling, folding her forelimbs with an indignant glare.  “The only thing I like more than winning is being able to shove it in Applejack's face as I do it!  How could you have neglected a huge chunk of the scoreboard?!”

        “I know!  It's not like me!”  Twilight sighed, her face hung in a worrisome slump.  “Maybe I've had a lot on my mind.  There's an essay I've been meaning to write to the Princess and—well—you know how easily I can get distracted.”  She shook her head and marched across the library.  “I swear, it's as if the world likes to drop random stuff into my lap—”  She bumped into my stool and stumbled back.  “Oh...”  Her eyes blinked cutely.  “Uhm.  Hello there.”

        “Back at you,” I said with a smile.  I glanced at her through my peripheral vision as my hoof ran down the pages of several scientific almanacs piled on the table before me.  “Are you the head librarian?”

        “Uhm... Oh.  Yes.  Ahem.  Yes I am.  And you are...?”

        “Lyra.  Lyra Heartstrings.”

        “Good afternoon, Miss Heartstrings.  Uhm.  Might I ask how you got in here—?”

        “Your assistant, the whelpling,” I remarked.  “He's helping me with a research project.  I can't believe he found all of these zoological texts so quickly!  He's quite the amazing little assistant.”  I smiled towards the far side of the library where a baby dragon was carrying a stack of books from another room.  “Isn't that right, handsome?”

        “Hey!  Dig the swell hoodie!”

        I chuckled and smirked at Twilight.  “He's so focused on his job too!  It's like I'm not even here.”

        “I find that hard to believe,” Rainbow Dash muttered.

        Twilight glared up at her.  “Rainbow...”

        “Anyways, I got stuff to do.”  Rainbow Dash yawned and flew towards the doorway.  “Go on and help Miss Talkative here.  Just promise you'll be ready this weekend to keep score like you're usually awesome at doing.”

        “Don't worry, Rainbow,” Twilight said with a playful wink.  “Rest assured, whenever there's an occasion that you're steamrolling Applejack, you can expect me to be watching closely.”  Twilight blinked, then blushed slightly.  “Wait... that didn't exactly come out ri—”

        “Uh huh.  See ya!”  Rainbow was gone.

        “So, you're the head librarian, right?” I uttered.

        “Uhm...”  Twilight snapped out of it and smiled politely my way.  “Yes.  That's right.  Can I lend you a hoof?  My afternoon's free at the moment.”

        “Well, to be Ponyville's chief of resource gathering, I imagine you must be well versed in biological sciences.”

        “Well, I'm versed enough.  Magic and cosmology are more of my forte, but...”

        “Tell me...”  I swiveled in the stool to face her.  “What do you know about parasprites?”

        Twilight Sparkle blinked.  It was obvious that she didn't expect to be questioned on that particular topic.  “Well, uhm, we have a rather unfortunate history, to tell the truth.”

        “You don't say?”

        “Yes.”  She shifted nervously, her eyes dancing between the wooden walls of the place.  “Parasprites single-hoofedly consumed half of Ponyville several months ago during a week when Princess Celestia was scheduled to visit.”

        “Truly?”  I leaned back against the table.  “That must have been a horrible debacle.”

        “Oh, it was.”  She squinted at me.  “You're not from around here, are you?”

        I smiled.  “I guess you could say that I'm visiting.”

        “Well, be happy to know that every shop, every house, every single building in this town owes its structural integrity to diligent, cooperating ponies,” Twilight said.  “If it weren't for the hard work of every able-bodied equine in town, the destructive effect of parasprites would be seen to this very day.”

        “It was that bad of an infestation, huh?”

        She shuddered.  “I still have a hard time thinking about it.”

        “Why?”

        She blinked.  “Well, because no matter how hard I tried to get the creatures out of town, they only multiplied more and more.  They were this close to wreaking havoc on Princess Celestia herself.  Thankfully, though, she canceled her visit at the last second to deal with business elsewhere in Equestria.  Now that would have been a horrible disaster in the making.”

        “Did Princess Celestia ever find out about the infestation?”

        “Well... erm...”  Twilight shifted nervously where she stood.  “No.  I suppose she never learned about the damage they did to Ponyville...”

        I raised an eyebrow.  “The Goddess of the Sun, the providential alicorn ruler of all Equestria, never caught wind of the near-destruction of Ponyville?”

        “She had to have dealt with parasprites in some fashion!”  Twilight exclaimed.  “She specifically went to Fillydelphia to deal with an infestation there.  Obviously nothing horrible must have come of that situation, because she returned to Canterlot without any problems.”  Twilight cleared her throat.  “You... uhm... aren't here on a mission of royal correspondence, are you?”

        “Heheheh...”  I chuckled.  “Relax, Miss Sparkle.  I'm not some agent working for Princess Celestia.”

        “Then what are you here for?”  Twilight raised an eyebrow.  “What kind of research is worth putting ino parasprites?”

        “Take a moment, if you will, and think about the creatures, Miss Sparkle,” I said while gesturing a hoof.  “They almost destroyed half the town, yes?”

        “Correct.”

        “What is it that empowered them to cause so much destruction?”

        “Well...”  Twilight Sparkle trotted over and sat on her haunches besides me and my stool.  “They're voracious eaters, for one thing.  And their diet allows them to eat just about any edible substance...”  She gulped and blushed slightly.  “...or inedible, given some minor, magical tweaking.”

        “Huh...?”

        Twilight rubbed one hoof against another and avoided my gaze.  “I may possibly have... augmented their food intake with an impulsive spell meant to discourage them from eating.”

        “So, we're talking about a diet of hay, oats, apples, and flowers?”

        She bit her lip.  “More like the desire to eat wood, metal frameworks, cloth, paper, written ink—”

        “Written ink?!”  I gave her a bizarre expression.  “Miss Twilight Sparkle, are we talking about a scientifically plausible organism, or a bunch of gremlins?”

        “I and several other ponies saw parasprites with our very own eyes!”

        “And I'm not denying that.  But think for a moment,” I said with an emphatic wave of the hoof,  “Does any of it make sense?”

        “Uhhh...”

        “How can a single tiny creature consume so many objects so much larger than its own size?  Wouldn't the matter have to be transferred to something?  It can't possibly go nowhere.  You and I both know that's not how the universe works.”

        “Well, true,” Twilight said with a nod.  “It so happens that parasprites multiply at a rate directly proportional to how much matter they consume.  After devouring sufficient mass, they regurgitate an organic substance that metamorphosizes into a new, healthy parasprite.”

        “So, the consumed matter is converted into a genetic double of itself?”

        “I would hypothesize as much.”

        I squinted at her.  “What remarkable and hitherto unprecedented series of microscopic organs inside such a tiny creature could possibly be capable of performing such a scientifically improbable feat?!”

        “I...”  Twilight fidgeted.  “I'm not sure I understand the question—”

        “To be able to transfer inert matter into living forms of matter at such an alarming rate so as to create a swarm capable of demolishing this town would require unfathomable metabolism, wouldn't you think?”  I remarked.  “And just what kind of a digestive system would make such a function work?  Furthermore, how could it fit inside such a small insect-like being and somehow be able to do this?”

        “Well, for one thing—”

        I pointed at her.  “Don't you dare say 'magic.'”

        Twilight Sparkle giggled slightly.  “Well, Miss Heartstrings, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine, is it?  After all, Equestria has seen its fair share of windigoes, ursa majors, and timber wolves.  There are many creatures that dwell upon a plane of existence so bizarre that it takes a far more complicated, metaphysical science to even begin grasping them.  Equestria is, after all, a land that exists within a cosmic realm of chaos—if the most ancient and honored of texts are to believed.  It isn't strange to imagine that creatures from the cosmos—beings determined by states of pure energy—are capable of settling upon this terrestrial landscape.”

        “You're saying that parasprites are innately unexplainable, then?” I remarked.  “As a scientist, can you rest comfortably with that conclusion?”

        “Well, to be honest,” Twilight spoke, “I never had an opportunity to study any of them closely.”  She gulped.  “Not that I wanted to.  All I was concerned with at the time was getting the nasty little things out of the village so that they couldn't cause any more destruction.”

        “Did you ever succeed?”

        “Well the village is standing today, isn't it?”  She briefly giggled.  “The last we ever saw them, they were escorted into the thick of the Everfree Forest.”

        “The Everfree Forest?”

        “Yes.”

        “And they still had the ability to consume random things at large and multiply at an exponential rate?”

        “I... I would suppose...”

        I leaned forward.  “Then what has kept them from shredding the entire forest to mulch by this point?”

        Twilight blinked.  Her gaze fell confusedly towards the floor.  “Uhm...”

        “From what you've described,” I spoke, “They're virtually unstoppable.  How come they haven't eaten the entire forest, the entire landscape—heck—the entire planet?  From all observation, there's no reason to think that we shouldn't be sitting on a giant, coagulated ball of countless parasprites floating lonesomely through the cosmos.”

        “I don't... know what you want from me, Miss Heartstrings,” Twilight said with a nervous shudder.  “Since that one nightmarish week when we had to deal with the little bugs, I've not run into them.”

        “Not a single one?”

        She shook her head.  “No.”

        “Don't you find that a little odd, given their rate of multiplying and the damage they evidently cause—”  I swallowed.  “—For that matter, how come the infestation Celestia had to deal with elsewhere didn't cause any alarming damage?”

        “Are you trying to say that there's something inconsistent about the nature of parasprites?”

        “No, Miss Sparkle,” I said, “I'm trying to suggest that it's an absurdity for parasprites to even exist in the first place.  They are fundamentally, scientifically, and logically unreal.”

        “But...”  Twilight smiled nervously.  “That's impossible!  My friends and I all saw them in person!  We chased them out of town!  We had to repair half of the village for heaven's sake!”

        “I'm not trying to challenge your memories, Miss Sparkle,” I said,“Merely the essence which your memories are centered upon.”

        “If you don't believe me, consult the zoological archives!” Twilight said,  “Certainly you'll find some data on the creatures in them!”

        “Actually, I did do just that,” I said with a smirk.  Motioning for her to look, I swiveled once more to the table full of research materials.  “I've spent all day pouring over these books you have in your collection of Equestrian Insect Families.  Not once are parasprites even mentioned in any of the volumes.  So, branching out, I read through books written on cryptozoology, cosmic astrobiology, elemental intelligence, and magical summons.”

        “Any luck?”

        I shook my head.  “No.  None of these books contain information on parasprites either.”  I glanced at her.  “I don't suppose you're familiar with these books, any?”

        “There are very few books in this library that I haven't at least skimmed through...”

        “Do you recall ever reading about parasprites?”

        “Well...”

        “Think hard, Miss Sparkle,” I remarked.  “In all your years of reading, have you ever come across a textual mention of them?”

        Her brow furrowed in thought, but she said nothing.

        I looked at her.  “Have you ever seen an illustration of them?”

        She bit her lip.

        “Heard of them?”

        She looked up at me, gulped, and said, “Just because there's been no chronicled knowledge of a species doesn't mean they haven't shown up in Equestria before.”

        “Even if it's a creature whose only form of reproduction is to eat anything in sight and create a duplicate of itself at an alarming rate?”  I remarked.  “Miss Sparkle, what we're talking about here is an essential threat to functioning civilization.”

        “Well...”  Twilight shrugged.  “The only possible answer I can think of is that they came into being just... recently...”

        I gently, fixedly smiled at her.

        She blinked several times—dazedly—and then glanced at me.  “But... but how could that be?”

        I chuckled and slapped a book shut.  “The question of the century... for the swarm of the century.”

        It was nighttime when I returned to my cabin.  I had a few library books with me, but somehow I didn't expect to have much luck with them on my lonesome.  I had spent the entire afternoon with Twilight Sparkle.  Together we rummaged through several volumes of scientific journals, hunting for the most elusive prey.  The only reason I finally left was because of a wave of chills that brought with it the forgetful strings of fate.

        As I strolled into the door and lit a lantern with my telekinesis, I froze in my tracks.  There was a familiar, orange figure seated in the center of my cot.  It looked up at me with bright amber eyes that reflected the starry night outside.  It did not look even remotely frightened.

        I blinked at the cat.  I glanced up at the walls of my cabin.  I saw one of the windows which I had left cracked open to allow the cool air to breathe through my home while I was gone.  With a knowing grin, I turned to look at the feline once more.

        “Well, you certainly made yourself at home, didn't you, Al?”

        The cat merely stared at me.

        I eyed it cautiously, all the while closing the door to the cabin behind me.  Once I had sealed us both in, it didn't make any attempt to scamper away.

        “Hmm... Well, you're brave, I'll give you that.”  I started peeling off my saddlebag and satchel full of library books.  “But you're in for a really boring time if you think you can stay here.  I'm not sure you'd want to live with a pony stranger who will only become the same stranger to you over and over again every few hours.”

        The cat merely yawned and licked its shoulder a few times.

        I placed my lyre down next to the cot, lingered briefly, and trotted over towards a bag of feed.  I poured some of the fish product into a wooden bowl, shook it slightly, and pivoted around.  Suddenly, Al was there, padding up to me and tilting his head towards the dish of food.

        “Hmmm...”  I smirked.  “I see what it all boils down to.  Thanks for giving me hope for the day that I settle down with a handsome stallion.”

        I placed the bowl down.  Al lowered his whiskers into the bowl, burrowed his nose through the food, and began crunching away.

        I trotted over to the cot, levitating the library books with me.  The center of the bed was still warm from where Al had been curled up.  It was a strangely happy sensation.  Relaxing with a deep exhale, I sat on my haunches and glanced over at my sudden houseguest.  I'm not sure what exactly inspired me to begin as I did.  Perhaps it was due to the fact that I was studying an absurd subject all afternoon that I decided to do something just as silly.

        “I visited Twilight Sparkle and forced her into a cram session,” I told Al as he ate.  “Between the two of us, we only found one mention of parasprites.”  I shuffled through the books in my grasp as I continued.  “It was in a journal of Equestrian biological studies.  Get this, though, it was printed no more than three months ago.”  I raised an eyebrow as I glanced back towards Al.  “The only written detail about parasprites, and it was penned by a scientist several months after the creatures destroyed half of Ponyville.”

        Al continued munching away, his tail wagging towards me.

        “Well, naturally, if this was indeed a brand new species of insect being discovered right now, it would make sense that something would be written about the bugs after the fact.  Still, I just can't make myself believe that—in the entire library that Twilight Sparkle manages—there is only one instance of the existence of parasprites being acknowledged.  For all I know, the pony who wrote the article was affected by her attempts to rewrite history just as much as myself, Celestia, and every other resident of this village.  You know who I'm talking about when I say 'her,' right?  She's only the otherworldly alicorn spirit who guards over the souls of limbo in the unsung realm between the firmaments.  That... doesn't sound crazy, does it?”

        Al licked his chops and gazed up at me from afar.  His ears flicked.

        I sighed.  “Yeah... it sounds just as crazy as believing in parasprites that can eat a million times their own weight in food and multiply instantaneously,” I muttered.  I gazed across the lantern-lit cabin towards an ancient tome resting on a shelf.  “It sounds just about as crazy as Doctor Comethoof's personal ramblings.  But... But the unsung realm exists!  She exists!  I know it, I've seen it with my own eyes...”  I grimaced as a chill swept my limbs into a shiver.  I adjusted the sleeves of my hoodie.  “Now I'm beginning to sound like Twilight...”

        Al stretched, shook his head, and stalked across the room.  He came to a stop on the floor beside my bed and curled up in a lazy ball.

        “Hmmm...”  I smiled painfully at him.  “Just what I need, a living thing to listen to me talk in circles out loud.”  With a sigh, I reached a hoof out and stroked his back.  He didn't resist my gentle touch.  “You poor fella,” I murmured.  “At least you're fed so long as you hang out here.  That's what matters, right?”

        The cat rested his head between his orange paws and closed his eyes as his side slowly rose and fell.

        I sat up straight, taking a deep breath.  “Perhaps the only way I can not feel insane is to interview as many ponies as I can find in town about the parasprites and see how much crazier they are for believing in something that they're forced to.”  I smiled and reached down to pet Al again.  “Who knows?  Maybe I can paint a picture from it all.  So long as I have the forbidden knowledge of truth that she doesn't want me to know, I'll be able to read between the lines, right?”

        “Parasprites?  Ugh.  Nasty little pests.  They ate the front patio to my favorite cafe.  I had to go for a week solid without being able to visit my favorite reading spot in town.  Hmmm?  Well, no, I don't think it's all that strange that we rebuilt all of the damaged places so quickly.  This town's come together to accomplish remarkable things before.  Were you around for the great storm of 992?  Still, nothing compared to what the parasprites did to this place nearly a year ago—was it a year ago?  So many strange things have happened in this village.  Heck, we were just getting over the attack of a rampaging ursa minor barely a month before the bugs swarmed over everything.”

        “Yeah, I was there for when the ursa minor attacked.  The giant bear smashed two apartments in the residential district, but that was it.  Praise Celestia that it didn't cause even more destruction!  Hmmm?  Why didn't it do more damage?  You mean you weren't here for it yourself?  I saw it with my own eyes: Twilight Sparkle strolled up out of nowhere and calmed the beast before sending it on its merry way back to the Everfree Forest.  I'm guessing she got something of a chip on her shoulder because of that, heh.  Hmmm?  Well, because she screwed things up when she came to save the day from the parasprites.  She only made the infestation worse!”

        “Shucks, it was a shock to all of us!  Twilight Sparkle is the smartest, cleverest, most talented unicorn around these here parts.  I've seen her turn rocks into hats, summon doors out of plum nowhere, and even plant magical mustaches on baby dragons!  Heh... She's a sweet ol' back of tricks, our Twi.  But she's more than just a silly trickster; she's the apprentice to Princess Celestia herself!  I watched, dumbstruck, as she levitated a big ol' ursa minor out of town all on her lonesome.  So, I reckon you can imagine how surprised we were when she messed up her fancy-schmancy spell to make the parasprites stop eatin' everythang.  They only became more dangerous, and just about tore my family barn to dust!  I could never find it in my heart to blame Twilight for all the damage them critters did to the village.  I guess it's 'cuz to this day I still don't understand it, and I reckon she can't either.  But them's the odds when yer dealing with things that just don't make sense, right?  Hmmm?  No, I never bothered lookin' for the varmints after they were driven out of town.  Yer better off askin' the Mayor.  She's been keepin' track of all the local rangerin' business!”

        “I sent Miss Dash on several fly-by's of the Everfree Forest not long after the reconstruction of downtown Ponyville was complete.  I figured that a pegasus with her degree of speed and agility would be capable of not only rooting out the horrible monsters but chasing them down.  Unfortunately, after three solid days of scouring the dreadful woods, she turned up empty-hoofed.  When Rainbow Dash is incapable of hunting something down, you know that it's a hopeless case.  After that taxing month, we never tried searching for the creatures again.  I hate to say that it's an example of 'out of sight, out of mind,' but there were just so many other pressing issues at the time that it wasn't worth the toil or the effort to pursue any further.  What's more, it was out of my hooves, because an expedition to seek out the parasprites was up to the city council, and none of the ruling members of the board found it necessary to apply the time or funds to such a project.  Parasprites were simply no longer an issue.  To be honest, I... had somewhat forgotten about them until you mentioned them to me just now.”

        “It's curious, really.  I haven't thought about those horrible winged brutes in so long.  You think they'd be the forefront of my nightmares, considering what a horrible mess they had made of this Boutique.  It's such a shame, really.  I recall them being lovely and adorable creatures upon first glance.  Why something so precious would end up such a menace is a bizarre fluke of nature, if you ask me.  That's why I don't take to hiking that much.  What lives in the Everfree Forest should stay in the Everfree Forest, and we're better off not getting our manes tangled in their business.  Hmmm?  Well, no, I don't know for sure if they came from the Everfree Forest or not.  I only assumed that was the case, considering that the Horseshoe Hotel lies on the furthest edge of town that borders the Forest and it was the one structure that took the most damage.”

        “We had to rebuild the Horseshoe Hotel from the ground-up.  Well, I say 'we' because I volunteered myself and Spike to be the foremen of the construction site.  I... felt personally responsible for how dangerous those creatured turned out to be.  Nopony was saying it to my face, but I think most of the villagers believed I owed the village too much to be put into words.  Still, it was a stimulating experience.  I think I'm innately gifted for being in a position of management, and I made sure that the hotel was reconstructed floor by floor, wall by wall, brick by brick, with absolute care and precision.  No single piece of material was wasted.  What was more, we made record time, and had the hotel back in order by the end of the month!  True, it took far longer than the rest of Ponyville to rebuild, but that was only because it suffered more damage than any other place in town.  What?  Well, no, I suppose I don't know why the parasprites ate so much of the hotel's structure while leaving the other buildings nearby mostly untouched.  Perhaps there was something in the materials in the original foundation that attracted them.  They were hungry, after all.  Somewhere in all of that chaos you must equate taste along with appetite.  Also, the Horsehoe Hotel was the closest building to the edge of the Everfree Forest, and it's quite possible that the creatures tore it up on their way out of Ponyville.  I wish I could explain just what made parasprites tick, but in all honesty I don't know.  It wasn't as if I was the one pony that was around the creatures the most.”

        “Huh?  Heck no!  It wasn't me!  I hated those creatures!  I was sleeping on a cloud, minding my own business, when they were all like 'Hey, let's see how many of our brothers and sisters can cling to your coat!'  And I was like 'That's not cool, dudes.  Bad touch.'  And then they were everywhere.  I flew through them and it was like swimming through a foalday ballpit.  Nnnngh... totally not cool, if you ask me.  I don't know what Fluttershy ever saw in the little turds.  Huh?  Yeah, you heard me right.  Fluttershy was just about ready to marry the dang things, she was cuddling them so much.  How the heck would I know what she saw in them?!  You should go ask her!  She was the pony who discovered the parasprites in the first place!  If anypony knows a thing or two about them, it'd be her!”

        I knocked on the door to a cottage on the edge of the Everfree Forest.  After several hours of talking to various ponies, my search had brought me here.  A quiet, babbling brook glistened beneath me, and the cool September air hummed with butterflies, bees, and songbirds.  I rather envied the quaint and beautiful place that Ponyville's resident animal tamer called “home.”  I took mental notes for gardening tricks that I would attempt once I had some free time at the cabin.

        Heh... as if I actually had “free time” these days...

        I realized that a solid minute had gone by, and Fluttershy hadn't answered my knock.  So, I did it again, louder this time.  I knew she was there.  I saw her watering some flowers on the edge of the cottage when I first trotted up the long path.  Had... had she fled at the sight of me?

        Sighing, I knocked a third time.  Finally, a fearful squeak emanated from inside the building.

        “Wh-what do you want?”

        I smiled pleasantly and spoke, “Miss Fluttershy, my name is Lyra Heartstrings.  I'm interviewing residents of Ponyville for a research project, and I was wondering if you would be so gracious as to give me a few minutes of your time.”

        “Uhm... what k-kind of an interview are we talking about?”

        “Well, you see, I'm performing a study on parasprites, and I heard that you were a first-hoof witness to the infestation that happened here several months ago—”

        “Eeep!  N-no!  I don’t know anything about parasprites!  What would make you think that I know anything about parasprites?”

        I blinked awkwardly.  “Uhm.. some ponies mentioned that... th-that you were the first to discover them before they multiplied across the village—”

        “I... I-I don't know what you're talking about!  I wouldn't breed parasprites!  Those little creatures are terribly frightening!”

        “Miss Fluttershy, I'm not accusing you of anything!” I exclaimed nervously,  “I just need to know more about the insects and you were the one pony who allegedly was around them the most—”

        “I can't help you!  I'm so sorry!”

        “I only want to ask a few—”

        “I'm so sorry!  But I can't!”

        The inside of the cottage fell silent.  I stood there, my nostrils flaring briefly.  I ran a hoof across my chin in thought.  As I felt a chill overcome me, I turned completely around, and marched away from the house.

        I knocked on the door to the cottage.

        A voice squeaked from the other side.  “Y-yes?”

        “Miss Fluttershy?  My name is Lyra.  Your friend, Twilight Sparkle, told me that you were the resident expert on animals in Ponyville.”

        “Yes...?”

        “I was wondering if I could ask a few questions that only a pony with your knowledge and expertise could assist me with.”

        “Do... Do you need help with any animal-related circumstances?”

        “Yes.  As a matter of fact, I do—”  I leaned forward.  “—But I'd have a much easier time asking questions if there wasn't a solid door in the way.”

        “I'm... I'm sorry, I'm terribly busy.  I have many animals to take care of and feed.  Is it an emergency?”

        “Well, you're the only pony in this part of Equestria who knows a thing or two about the animals I've been sent to study.”

        “What kind of animals?”

        “Oh...”  I kicked at the sidewalk and gazed around the cottage lawn.  “You know, the usual.  Squirrels.  Chipmunks.  Blue jays”—I gulped—“Parasprites...”

        “Parasprites?!”

        “B-but mostly the squirrels!  Could we just—?”

        “No!  I'm sorry!” the voice squeaked, “But I can't help you!  You'll have to ask somepony else!”

        I sighed.  I turned around and trotted away.

        I knocked on the door to the cottage.

        A voice squeaked from the other side.  “What do you want?”

        “This is Captain Heartstrings of the Canterlot Animal Commission!”  I said in a firm, authoritarian voice.  “On behalf of Princess Celestia herself, I must have a word with Ponyville's resident animal-tamer at once!  This is a matter of Equestrian National Security!  Miss Fluttershy, I ask that you come out and speak with me!”

        “I... I-I... I...”

        “Miss Fluttershy?!  Please open this door immediately!  The fate of the nation depends on it!”

        “C-Captain... Canterlot... Celestia... S-Security...”  There was a prolonged moaning sound, then a soft thud just beyond the door.

        I blinked.  “Fluttershy?”  I blinked again.  “Fluttershy?  Are...”  I bit my lip.  “Are y-you conscious?”

        There was no reply.

        I groaned.  I gripped the door and smacked my head against it several times.  With a sigh, I turned around, and trudged down the path in a slump.

        I knocked on the door to the cottage.

        “Nnngh... Uhm... H-hello...?” a voice tiredly exclaimed from the other side.

        “Miss Fluttershy, are you alright?” I asked, leaning up against the door.  “You don't sound well.”

        “Unngh... I... I don't know.  I seem to have taken a long nap, but I don't remember falling asleep... much less on the fl-floor...”  There was an awkward pause, then a squeak.  “Uhm, who are you?”

        “My name's Lyra Heartstrings.  I just came from the library in Ponyville and I was wondering...”

        “Yes...?”

        I bit my lip and fidgeted.  I gazed behind me—past the edge of the Everfree Forest—and towards the heart of town.  I imagined a cabin on the opposite side of the village, where a lone figure waited with a dangle of his tail.  Slowly, I smiled.  Clearing my throat, I turned to face the cottage door once again.

        “Well, I'm new to town.  And... and I discovered this cat outside the cabin I moved into.”

        “A cat...?”

        “Yeah, such a small little thing.  Adorable as heck.  But... uhm... I don't think it has a home.  And, like, it's been hanging around my place, and I felt sorry for the poor thing.  So, I started feeding it some stuff as the days went by.  First it was water, then it was pieces of dry fish meal, and now it's gotten comfortable enough around my place that it's actually walked in on its own, as if it's making itself at home.  And—well—I like having the little fella around, but I don't know if I'm doing everything right that I should be doing.  So, this sweet librarian in the center of town—Twilight Sparkle is her name—she said that she's got a best friend named 'Fluttershy' who lives on the edge of Ponyville and that she—well—you were the greatest expert on animals and pets around these parts, and that if I wanted to know what to do next with the cat, then you'd be the best pony to talk to.  So, I was wondering, could you help me out some?”

        There was a brief moment of silence.  Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a latch unlocking within the cottage door.  It opened, and a dainty pegasus peered out at me.

        “What's his name?”

        I smiled.

        “Awwww...”  Fluttershy cooed and knelt in the center of my cabin.  “Come here, Al!  You're a handsome little thing, aren't you?”  With remarkable grace, she managed to coax the orange tabby into her hooves.  She cuddled it to her chest, gently stroking the top of its head.  “Oh!  You're a purring machine, aren't you?  And such a deliciously amber coat.  Like living orange sherbet!  Heehee!”

        “How...”  I squinted as I paced around her and the gawked at how easily she was holding the little thing.  “How did you make him hop into your forelimbs so easily?”

        “I didn't make him do anything!  Al here is just naturally affectionate!”  Fluttershy said as she cradled him in her forelegs.  “You mean you never tried picking him up?”

        “I... uhm...”  I scratched the back of my neck.  “I guess I just thought cats liked personal space or something.  They're the opposite of dogs, right?”

        “All animals are different, Miss Heartstrings,” Fluttershy said,  “Just like ponies.  All it takes is getting to know them, and this little fella likes being friendly.” She leaned in and rubbed noses with the petite feline.  “Heehee.  Oh yes, he's very affectionate.  No doubt he feels comfortable here.”

        “Heh.  Well, I tried.”

        “Mmmm...”  Fluttershy motioned towards a rug beside my cot.  “Maybe a little too comfortable...”

        “Huh?”  I glanced over and saw something that most certainly wasn't there when I left it.  It certainly explained the sudden smell in the place.  “Oh, for the love of Luna...”  I grumbled, grabbed a dust-pan, and immediately took care of the mess.  “I feel like an idiot.”

        “Don't.  You've done a lot of good for this cat,” Fluttershy said as she slowly ran a hoof over his fur and gave it a close examination.  “His hair is looking healthy.  Oftentimes, strays suffer from malnourishment, but it looks like your feeding has gone a long way.”

        “So he is a stray?”  I remarked as I marched back from my job.  “I mean... uhm... can you tell if he was born in the wild?”

        “Oh, he's hardly feral,” Fluttershy said, “He's too affectionate.  Plus, he's been fixed.”

        I blinked.  “He has?  H-how can you tell?”

        She merely gave me a soft, knowing smirk.

        I blushed.  “Heh.  Well, I guess you became an animal expert by paying attention to the... ahem... tiny details of life.”

        “Most likely he belonged to the ponies who lived in this cabin before you,” she said as she placed Al back on his paws and pet his back.  “Do you know anything about the residents of this home before you?”

        “Uhhhhhhh...”

        “Or he could have wandered in from another home.  As a matter of fact, there are several strays all across Ponyville.  I thought I had rounded them all up and sent them away for adoption, but obviously I missed one.”

        “Not for long, you haven't,” I said with a smile.  “So, like, what could I do to make sure he's as healthy as possible?”

        “Well, first and foremost...”  Fluttershy looked up at me.  “Fixed or not, there's no telling when was the last time he had shots, if ever.”

        “Oh, shoot!” I face-hoofed.

        “It won't hurt him,” Fluttershy said.  The two of us sat at the edge of a sterile room while a Ponyville veterinarian administered the first of several shots to Al's jittery figure.  “You don't have to be worried.  This is only going to keep him—and yourself—safe in the long-term.”

        “Yeah...”  I murmured back.  My vision was affixed on Al's bright amber eyeslits from afar.  “Wh-who's worried?  I'm not worried...”  I gulped.  “Everything's gonna be just fine...”

        Fluttershy giggled slightly.  “I wish all villagers who saw a stray showed the same amount of care as you do.  It's a shame that so many lost pets end up without a home.”

        “I just want to make sure he's taken care of.  Is that so crazy?”

        “Not at all, Miss Heartstrings”—Fluttershy gently patted my hoodie sleeve—“You don't have to be so nervous.”

        “It's not that...”  I shook my head and looked at her.  I was amazed at how swiftly our roles had reversed.  I wondered if the same conversational skill would work on Applejack if I mentioned orchards or Twilight if I mentioned books or Rainbow if I mentioned... explosions?  “There's... uhm...”  I took a deep, courageous breath as I set out to mention the one thing that had begun this afternoon excursion to begin with.  After all, there was no telling how soon our conversation would be cut short by a frosty wave of forgetfulness.  “There's something I've been meaning to ask you.  Something about... animals in general.”

        “Oh, why, that's only my most favorite topic of conversation,” Fluttershy said.

        “Heh...”  I chuckled slightly.  “I had no clue.”  I cleared my throat and tried to speak—

        Only Fluttershy was talking ahead of me.  “After all, the bond between ponies and animals is the most fundamental thing in Equestrian prosperity,” she said, gazing over as the last shot was administered to Al.  “At least, that's what I believe.  We are the stewards of this world, after all.  This goes beyond pegasi, of course.  If we all don't take care of animals with utmost respect and gentleness, then we risk turning this into a torn world.  Ponies are meant to commune with the land, not alter it.  Otherwise, that would make us more like diamond dogs or minotaurs, and you know what their home-lands are like.  There're hardly any forests or wildlife anywhere.”

        “Yeah, but—”

        “I think the nature of Creation has a secret energy that keeps ponies wanting to be protectors of all that's precious,” Fluttershy said with a tranquil, warm smile.  “We are drawn to be kind and to do kind things to life all around us.  It's a force that transcends normal communication.”

        “That's all very interesting, but I really need to ask you about—”

        “Don't you think that relying on the written word only limits us?”

        I gazed at her, my mouth agape.  Slowly I rediscovered my breaths in time to say, “My entire existence is defined by feelings, Fluttershy.  The more I read, the more I let myself get engulfed in words, the more I feel like I'm getting lost.  Sometimes... sometimes I fear that I'll go mad with all of the information that surrounds me, both logical and not.”  I gulped and ran a hoof through my mane.  “But... I've always been one to philosophize at random.  Perhaps that's always been a fault of mine, to believe that words are so pointless and yet to use them so much to ramble...”

        At that moment, the veterinarian walked over and deposited Al in my hooves.  “There you go,” she said with a sweet smile to Fluttershy and myself.  “Good as new, and such an angel too.  He didn't fidget in the very least.”

        “Will... uhm...” I petted him gently and gazed up at the mare.  “Will he be okay for the rest of the day?”

        “Heh... He may be a little bit dizzy, but just be sure to provide him the dietary supplement we wrote down, and he'll have a bounce back in his paws in two days tops.”

        “Okay.  Much appreciated, doctor.”  I gazed down and tilted Al's whiskered face to look at me.  “Well, you seem pretty cool with being poked so much with needles and all.  You sure you're not a porcupine?”

        Just then, Al meowed and nuzzled my hoof.

        I blinked, my lips parting.  “That... that's the first time he's made a sound to me ever!”

        Fluttershy leaned in.  “Tell me, Miss Heartstrings, did you understand him?”

        “I-I...” I stammered.  I felt a weight lifting from my shoulders the longer I stared at the little feline.  I suddenly didn't know why I was feeling so worrisome or anxious about anything anymore.  He purred, and nestled himself comfortably in my forelimbs as I cradled him.  I had never felt something so warm, soft, and lovable in my life.  “I think I'm starting to, Fluttershy,” I eventually replied, my voice cracking through a fragile smile.

        “So just any sand will do?” I asked.

        Fluttershy walked with me to the front of my cabin in the amber glow of the sunset.  “Since he's been outside for so long, you can fill the tray with sand from around the cabin.  For good measure, I suggest you plant a few leaves and pine needles around the edges of the box, so that you make him more familiar with his surroundings.  Who knows just how long he's been living on the edge of the woods, after all.”

        “Yeah...”  I turned my head and smiled at where Al hung in the edge of my saddlebag, blinking dizzily from the effect of the veterinarian's administrations.  “Then, like, after a few weeks I can try buying the stuff from the store?”

        “So long as you do things gradually, you'll make sure he's most comfortable,” Fluttershy said with a sweet smile.  “I'm happy for you, Miss Heartstrings.  That's the cutest little tabby I've seen in a long time.”

        “Heh.. yeah,” I said.  “Lucky me.  Just how old do you think he is, anyway?”

        “I'd have to agree with the vet.  He seems about two years, or sixteen months at the youngest.”

        “Is it normal for him to be that small?”

        “Assuming he hasn't had that much of a diet until he met you, it wouldn't surprise me.”

        “I'll be sure to feed him twice a day, just like you suggested.”

        “I would love to come and see him again in a month's time, Miss Heartstrings,” Fluttershy said.  “I can't wait to be surprised by how much healthier he'll be!”

        “Heh...”  I sweated nervously as I gazed off towards the woods.  “You'd be surprised, alright.”

        “I... uhm...”  Fluttershy suddenly fidgeted, avoiding my gaze.  “I'm sorry if I came across as stand-offish when you first knocked on my door.  If you ask my friends, they'll tell you that... uhm... I don't easily open up to strangers.”

        “Why not?”  I asked, gazing sideways at her.  “You have so many interesting things to talk about, Fluttershy.  I think you and I have some common beliefs about communication.”

        “Obviously not,” she said with a blush.  “Or else I wouldn’t have kept the door to my cottage closed for so long when you met me.”

        “Hey...”  I walked over and planted a hoof on her shoulder, gently.  “I respect what you said about the power of expressing feelings over words.  But sometimes the structure of social etiquette—however daunting or awkward—is the very bridge to discovering more about each other.  I mean... I like to think I met a new and dear friend today, a pony who helped me make my life—and Al's—a lot better.”  I giggled slightly.  “Think about it.  What would it hurt you to allow more new and exciting friends into your life?”

        “I'm just... I'm just not like so many other p-ponies,” Fluttershy said with a drooping of her figure.  “I'm not brave or adventurous or bold...”

        “You're different, Fluttershy,” I said, “A very gentle, kind, thoughtful flavor of different.  You add to the spice of life.  If you were just like every other pony, what would it benefit us to get to know you?”  I smiled.  “I think what you did today in helping me was a lot braver than you give yourself credit for, and—if anything—you should see it as a stepping stone to stretching your hooves more, socially speaking.”

        “I... guess you're right, Miss Heartstrings,” Fluttershy said.  She smiled bashfully, and her wings flexed in a brief gesture of relief.  “And you're a very smart, thought-provoking unicorn.  I feel as if...”

        “What?”

        “Well, I don't know... but I feel as if you've been trying to ask me something all day, and I've not given you a chance to speak your mind...”

        I stared directly at her with a blank expression.  “I have no idea what you mean.”

        She shrugged.  “I suppose it's just my imagination.”  She leaned in briefly and nuzzled Al with a warm smile.  “I guess I'm not the only one easily distracted by adorable things.”

        Al meowed tiredly and tried to pur.  It came across like a labored motorboat.  The two of us giggled.  I felt a coming chill, and knew that this was the best time to part ways.

        “Well, I have to retire now.  I have things to read up on.”

        “Are you in Ponyville to do research?” Fluttershy asked.

        “Yeah...” I said, though I fumbled briefly on my own words.  “Something... like that.  I guess.”

        “Hmmm...” She winked at me.  “I think somepony needs to get some shut-eye.”

        “You're right... as always, Fluttershy.”  I waved as she trotted off.  “So long.  And... thanks again...”

        “Don't mention it,” she said—but was suddenly overcome with a freezing spell.  She shivered in place, her breath forming vapors in the air.  Blinking curiously, she gazed around at her surroundings, shrugged, and made her way slowly towards the far end of the village.

        I didn't dwell too much on the sight of her vanishing.  I strolled back into my cabin, placed my saddlebag down, and planted Al's drowsy body on the center of the bed.

        “Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?”  I remarked as I walked back and forth across my home, lighting lanterns and putting my things away.  “We got you taken care of.  We made up a nice plan to keep you fed and clean.  We learned that you can't... uhm... make little Al's.  But it's all good!  I think this is the start of a beautiful relationship.  Too bad I have to dig my nose through Comethoof again and learn of things less worth smiling about.”

        I stopped in my tracks, gazing curiously at the far corner of the bed.  There was a stack of books beside my pillow, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how they had gotten there.

        “Huh.  That's weird.”  I shuffled over and picked up what turned out to be several collected journals on Equestrian zoology.  “Where'd you come from?  The library?  I don't remember—”

        Al was meowing.

        I looked down at him.

        The cat was looking up at me, purring.  He was a lot more awake than I had given him credit.  I wondered if it was animal cruelty to tie him to the bedpost at night so he wouldn't go trampling all over the stuff on my shelves.  Whatever the case, there was something about what he was rubbing up against that caught my attention.  Innocently, the purring beast was nuzzling my saddlebag, his whiskers brushing against the golden lyre pocketed within.

        I squinted at the sight.  I then looked at the books in my hooves.  By the time Al began rubbing up against my legs, I was placing the journals down on the cot.  I shuffled over and picked up the lyre.  I gazed at it blankly.  My bored face reflected against the golden surface.

        “I...” I murmured.  “I... was supposed to do something today...”

        All was silent save for Al's purring and random meows.  I turned and glanced at Doctor Comethoof's journal.  I walked over and levitated the book open.  I flipped through the pages.  Every single word was in glowing blue text.

        “That... doesn't look right,” I murmured as if with a disembodied voice.  The chills in the room doubled.  I wasn't sure if Al could feel them, but I wasn't about to ask a feline out loud what I should have had the power to know on my own.  “Where... where are...?”

        Another chill struck me.  I imagined the rattling of chains.  My body went tight.  There was only one thing to do—to relax, if nothing else.  I raised the lyre higher in my telekinetic grasp.  I didn't care if my new, amnesiac pet was there to listen.  I had to play “Twilight's Requiem.”  I had to play it before the sudden, desperate urge to perform the piece was gone altogether from my consciousness.

        The instrumental ended as swiftly as it began, or so it felt.  But then I felt nothing but a bloodrush of head-splitting thoughts.

        I stumbled, nearly dropping the lyre.  Comethoof's journal blew in a magical wind.  I gazed with twitching eyes as several of the words flickered from blue to a hot, levitating magenta.  It was then that I remembered something that I hadn't realized I was on the verge of forgetting completely.

        I fell to my knees, clutching my aching head as my horn glowed with each resonating wave of contemplation.  I saw flittering wings, bulbous bodies, and a town being eaten apart by a horrible swarm of ravenous color.

        “Parasprites,” I hissed, practically gnashing my teeth.  “Parasprites.  Parasprites.  Parasprites.  I was supposed to ask Fluttershy about parasprites.  But why didn't I?  What stopped me?  What...?”

        I froze in place.  With shaking hooves, I picked up Comethoof's journal and glanced at the refreshed words of magenta swimming just an inch off the page.  Slowly, a diabolical snicker bled from my mouth as I shook my head and smiled.

        “Ohhhhh-hooo no.  Oh no you don't.  You almost lost me, you emaciated waste of alicorn bones,” I grunted.  “You almost threw me completely off track.  Well played, I must say.  But I'm not going to be lost that easily.  Not as long as I keep playing the Requiem.  You're not throwing this unsung unicorn off your trail.  It may have worked for Comethoof, but it's not going to work with me!”

        I turned and smirked at Al.

        “You think I'm half the idiot she suspects me to be?”

        Al merely tilted his head and meowed.

        “I didn't think so.”  I slapped the book shut, stood up straight, and marched across the cabin.  “I know what I'm doing first thing in the morning, so help me Celestia.”

        I knocked heavily on the cottage door.

        A voice squeaked from the other side.  “What do you w—?”

        “Hey, I was just walking up here...” I said, “And I was wondering if you knew that there’s a dead furry creature on the sidewalk?”

        “Oh my goodness!” A dainty pair of hooves fumbled over the door's locking mechanism.  “Oh my goodness!  Oh my goodness!”  The cottage door flew open and a panting Fluttershy dashed out in a blur.  “Angel?!  Mister Fuzz?!  Elizabadger?!  What happened—?”

        “Oh, snap, my bad.” I snickered and rolled my eyes.  “Where are my prescription glasses today?  I swear I'm losing my vision!”  I kicked at a piece of lightly colored fluff on the ground.  “It's just peat moss.  Heh heh heh... Ohhhh... Ahem.  I apologize.”

        “Oh... uhm...”  Fluttershy gulped and shivered nervously.  “It's... uh... quite alright, I guess—”

I stared directly into her eyes.  “Parasprites.”

        She leaned back from me like a tilting mannequin.  “I beg your pardon?”

        “I'm here in town to do research on the colorful little bugs, and I was told you've had experience in dealing with them.”

        “I... erm...”  She backtrotted away from me, her entire body drooping.  “Uhm...”

        “You're Ponyville's leading experts on animals, yes?”

        “You m-might have better luck t-talking to the local veterinarian,” Fluttershy stammered.

        “The veterinarian has never dealt with parasprites first-hoof.  I know because I've asked her.”  I stepped towards her, firmly.  “However, you have interacted with them.  I'd very much like to know about the creatures...”

        “I really don't think that's a good idea,” Fluttershy said.  With a squeaking noise, she spun about and galloped back into her cottage.  “I'm sorry, but you should try asking somepony else—”

        “But I doubt anypony else can help me, Fluttershy!” I called after her.  “Nopony else knows what it means to talk to animals, to take care of them, to commune with them simply through feeling, when words fail us...”

        Fluttershy paused in her doorway.  She bit her lip, blushed, and glanced back at me.

        I trotted slowly towards her with a gentle smile.  “A wise pony once told me that we were stewards of this earth, that Creation gave us the energy to seek out life and protect it.  Do you believe you're a pony blessed with this task?  Or is your urge to run away too great?”

        Fluttershy fidgeted.  She exhaled deeply and nodded towards me.  “Would you like to step inside?”

        “Twilight Sparkle has always felt guilty for what happened with the parasprites,” Fluttershy said in a muttering voice.  The two of us sat at a table in the foyer of the cottage, a steaming teaset situated between us.  “But she's giving herself too much credit.  After all, she wasn't the pony who introduced parasprites to Ponyville in the first place.  She wasn't the one who kept several parasprites behind after the first attempt to corral them into Everfree Forest failed.”

        I nodded slowly.  I had my lyre out and was strumming a quiet tune as we sat together.  The music appeared to soothe Fluttershy and ease her into a gentle conversation.  Little did she know that I was playing a subdued version of “Twilight's Requiem” over and over again, magically reinforcing my ability to retain memory of the discussion topic.

        “I was just so overcome with how adorable and cute the insects were,” Fluttershy said with a weathered smile.  “I'd truly never seen anything like them before.  It was hard to believe that something so adorable could be capable of so much destruction.  They were enchanting, as if they came from a fairy tale...”

        “You say that you only found one at first?” I asked, “There was only one parasprite, and then it multiplied into all the others that infested Ponyville, right?”

        Fluttershy nodded.  “I made the mistake of feeding it without thinking of the repercussions.  On the way to the center of town to show it to my friends, it made two brand new parasprites.  From then on, every new insect multiplied just as quickly, if not faster.”

        “You've seen them,” I commented, leaning over the table as I strummed on the lyre.  “You've felt them and you've held them in your hooves...”

        “Yes...?”

        “Did they ever strike you as incredibly bizarre?” I remarked.  “Did the manner in which they ate and multiplied ever come across as unrealistic?”

        “I...”  She squinted at me.  “I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean, Miss Heartstrings.  They were as real as any other creature I've dealt with.”

        “You have an innate gift of taking care of animals,” I said.

        “Yes, but I wasn't able to with these creatures.  They ignored me as if I wasn't there.”

        “Don't you think that's a little strange?”  I remarked.  “You're Ponyville's chief expert on animals.  Your friend Twilight Sparkle once told me that you tamed a raging Manticore in the Everfree Forest, and that you've stared down a crimson dragon and a malevolent cockatrice in the span of a single year.”

        “Mmmm...” She blushed and avoided my gaze, rubbing her other hoof with a slight smile.  “Yes.  I did do those things...”

        “And yet you weren't able to make tiny winged insects behave?”

        She shuddered.  “We all have our faults, Miss Heartstrings.  They tend to show up at the most inopportune time.”

        “Fluttershy, I'm not attempting to expose some fault in your or anything,” I said.  “Don't you see what I'm getting at?  I find it inherently absurd that the parasprites wouldn't do a single thing that you told them to.  You have a way of dealing with animals that goes beyond words, that goes beyond simple logic.  You have a heart of gold, and your ability to feel appeals to almost every creature.  So why didn't it work with parasprites?”

        “I”—She shivered slightly—“I don’t know...”

        “Maybe”—I squinted at her—“the parasprites existed to contradict reality, to clash with what should normally work.  Maybe they simply don't function by the rules of this world.”

        “Uhm...”

        “Think about it,” I asked, “Does their diet, their rate of multiplication, and their rampant destruction make any sense whatsoever?  Do they match anything else in your purview of animal knowledge?”

        Fluttershy bit her lip.  Her trembling stopped, as if she was swimming to the surface of a warm pool of awakening.  “I've always wondered about it.  It... just never made sense to me.  Twilight Sparkle and I have dealt with our guilt over the parasprites for months, but I think even she believes that we should have gotten a hoof-hold of the situation.  Her magic spell should have kept them from eating everything in town.  My coaxing should have kept them from swarming the village in the first place.”

        “And what was it in the end that got them out of town?” I asked.  “Did the parasprites just leave of their own volition once they had caused a great deal of destruction?”

        “Not... exactly...”

        “No?”

        “Just before Princess Celestia arrived for her scheduled visit, the parasprites were finally corralled out of Ponyville,” Fluttershy said.

        “Oh really?” I remarked, “With what, torches?”

        “Nuh uh, silly!”  Pinkie Pie chirped, bouncing beside us.  “With music!”

        I nearly fell off my stool.  I brought my lyre to my chest and stared at her, panting for breath.  “What in the hay?!”

        “If they had toes, parasprites would be tapping them to a wicked beat whenever it filled the air!”  Pinkie Pie exclaimed with a bright giggle.  She paused and scrunched her face.  “Come to think of it, if we had toes, would we do the same?”

        “How in the heck did you get in Fluttershy's cottage?!” I asked.

        Pinkie Pie blinked.  “This is Fluttershy's cottage?”  She turned around.  “Huh.  Well, that explains why it smells like birdseed and ferret tails!”

        “Gummy's in the kitchen, sleeping next to the stove, Pinkie,” Fluttershy said with a gentle smile.  “I have a batch of muffins heating up, and I knew he'd like being close to something so warm.”

        “Okie dokie lokie!”  Pinkie Pie frolicked towards the kitchen beyond the foyer.  “Thanks for looking after him while I was away at the paintball tournament!”

        “Did your team win?”

        “Nah.  The Canterlot Eagle Eyes beat us again.  Darn unicorns and their itchy trigger horns...”

        “Hey, wait!” I called after Pinkie Pie.  “About what you said earlier...”

        “What, how Fluttershy's place smells like ferret tails?  Heehee.  That's a polite way to say it reeks of weasel a—”

        “No, about parasprites and music,” I remarked, “What did that have to do with getting them out of the village?”

        “Uhm... duh!”  Pinkie Pie gave me a rolling of her blue eyes before giggling.  “Parasprites love music!  A little too much, if you ask me!  A one-pony-band is all it takes to turn them into a pastel parade of pests... pestiness... pestericity?”  Her eyes briefly crossed.  She shook her head and stared straight.  “It's crazy!  It's almost as if they're living music notes, only with the jagged, squiggly part on the top taken off.  You know what I'm talking about, right?”

        “Uhhh...”

        “Anywho, thanks again, Fluttershy!  Mind if I grab a muffin or two?”

        “Help yourself, Pinkie.”

        “Thankies!”  She bounded into the kitchen.  “Hey!  Gummy!  Out of the dish washer!  Bad gator!  Chew on your own spatula!”

        “Uhm...”  I ran a hoof through my mane, glanced at my lyre, then back at Fluttershy.  “I don't suppose you would be up for an afternoon stroll by chance?”

        “I... I don't like this, Miss Heartstrings,” Fluttershy said, trembling, as she trotted nervously beside me.  “Just what are you hoping to achieve?”

        “It's not 'what,'” I said, fighting a wave of cold.  “It's more like 'who.'”  The two of us were about ten minutes into piercing the Everfree Forest just beyond Fluttershy's cabin.  It was still daylight out, so the shadows of the dense woods were only slightly obscured by the emerald foliage hanging above.  “This is approximately where the parasprites were finally driven away, yes?”

        “Mmmm...” She merely nodded with a frightful squeak.  “To be perfectly honest, I always had the fear that they'd return, and then my cottage would be the first thing they'd consume.”

        I smiled, despite my chattering teeth.  “And yet they never did.  Doesn't that strike you as strange?”

        “Well...”

        “I mean, they devoured almost all of Ponyville in the span of two days.  Just what kept them from eating up the forest, your cottage, and everything beyond?”

        “I... I really don't know,” Fluttershy stammered.  “The more you make me think about it, Miss Heartstrings, the more bizarre the whole notion of parasprites sounds.  I never felt it was worth thinking so much about before, but all of your questions are making perfect sense.  What exactly are you trying to prove?”

        “I don't know exactly, Fluttershy,” I said.  “But I think the answer may lie before us.”

        “How so?”

        “I want to see a parasprite with my very own eyes.”

        “Wh-what?!”  Fluttershy winced, trembling.  “But... But why?  That's only inviting danger!”

        “It's also inviting truth,” I murmured, gazing into every shadow and dark shape of the place.  “I'm on a quest for understanding, Fluttershy.  I fear that I won't have any answers until I have the real thing in my hooves.”

        “But... but that means going even deeper into the Everfree Forest...”

        “I'm well aware of that,” I said.  “I'm not afraid, and neither should you be.”

        “Then why is it that you're shaking so badly?” Fluttershy remarked.  “Uhm... if you don't mind me asking...”

        “It's not fear, Fluttershy,” I said, quivering.  “It's the cold.”

        “The cold?  Why, it's positively sweltering!”

        “Trust me,” I said, trying to ease my frigid spasms.  I hadn't exactly planned for this.  I had left my cloak and extra bundles back home.  However, I wasn't about to leave Fluttershy and waste all of the progress we had made in conversation thus far.  “This is the last place I wanna be right now.  But if I want to learn anything, I can't do it by backing away after I've come so far.”

        “Your courage is inspiring, Miss Heartstrings.”

        “So is yours,” I said with a soft smile.  “I thank you for talking with a perfect stranger such as myself.  I... I'm sorry that it took a nasty stunt to make you come out of the cottage in the first place.”

        “I'm just sorry that ponies have to resort to silly things to make me show my face at times,” she said, digging her hooves in the soft earth.  “I've never been the most social pegasus, but I know that a lot of that is my own fault.  I have so many friends, and it's about time I learned to trust their sincere feelings rather than let myself be intimidated by my fears...”

        “You're a sweet soul, Fluttershy,” I said as I pierced the veritable jungle ahead of us.  “Don't be so hard on yourself.  Your gentleness and patience has helped you succeed in taming wildlife.  I'm sure it’s only helped you win the love and respect of your peers all the more.”  I stopped in my tracks, smiling in spite of my shivers at the clearing ahead of us.  “Ah.  That'll do.”

        “Uhm...”  Fluttershy looked over my shoulders.  “What will do?”

        I turned towards her while pointing to a lone tree stump in the center of an open space of grass and shrubbery.  “Trust me.  I know a good stage when I see one.”  She accompanied me as I trotted over and seated myself on the stump as though it were a large stool.  “Okay.  So, quickly, could you describe to me the nature of the music that was played to draw the parasprites out of Ponyville?”

        “Uhm...”  Fluttershy fidgeted, gazing at the line of trees surrounding us.  “Pinkie Pie performed a very upbeat number.  It had a fast tempo and a repeating melody.  However... uhm... she had several instruments with her.  I doubt that your single lyre could mimic the tune.”

        “That's quite alright,” I said as I levitated the lyre in front of me.  “I think I have just the lively kind of tune to perform in its place.”

        “Oh?”

        “Relax, Fluttershy,” I remarked as I began plucking strings with my telekinesis.  “Have a seat.  You might as well enjoy the show while you're here too, huh?”

        “Okay...”

        I concentrated, closing my eyes and thinking beyond the waves of cold assaulting my figure.  Soon, I was playing a very brisk rendition of “Sunset Bolero.”  The magical chords echoed across the wooden tree trunks.  That niche in the forest turned out to have amazing acoustic qualities, and soon Everfree was resonating with a fast-paced symphony.

        “Heeheehee...” Fluttershy uttered warmly.  “This is a very fun tune.  I don't know why, but it makes me feel all bubbly inside...”

        “Shhh,” I breathed, my eyes closed as I focused on the swift tempo.  “I'm glad for that, Fluttershy,” I whispered.  “But I have to concentrate...”

        “Oh, I'm sorry.”

        “It's okay,” I murmured, then bit my lip as I performed the “Sunset Bolero” a second time, a third, and then a fourth.  I made slight variations with each play-through, not for the sake of being artistic but rather to test if one version or another would be more capable of drawing out my “prey.”  As the instrumental continued, I felt my shivers subsiding, being replaced with a new cloud of worry.  It didn't feel as if anything was working.  I didn't hear any parasprites showing up, and soon all that mattered to me was the music itself.  I feared that if I concentrated too hard on the symphony, she would make me forget the very reason why I came there.  I was extremely tempted to switch from the Bolero to the Requiem in order to reinforce my memory of the absurd insects, when suddenly Fluttershy's voice peeped up—

        “Psst!  Miss Heartstrings!”

        “Just let me just play the instrumental one more time—”

        “No!  Look!”

        I opened my eyes.  Through a blurry, freezing world, I saw a tiny purple dot floating like a dull ball of lightning.  I blinked, and the pastel circle came more into focus.  On twitching dragonfly wings, it hovered left and right, giving us a perpetual smile as its beady-bright eyes reflected the sunlight wafting down through the trees.

        “Why, hello there,” I murmured.  I glanced at Fluttershy.  She glanced at me.  “That's the real deal, right?”

        “You mean that after all this time, you've never seen one for yourself?” she whispered back.

        I opened my mouth to speak, but lingered.  I thought of the unsung realm, of Doctor Comethoof's writing, of so many crazy and unimaginable things that were so horrifically real.  My mind tried going back to several months ago when the town got ravaged around me, and I was suddenly helpless to summon a single detail.  Was the Requiem to blame for this clarity... or lack of clarity?  “I... I guess I'm not sure...”

        The parasprite let loose a tiny little chirp.  It was ridiculously adorable.  Still, it brought a shudder to my system that nearly made me drop my lyre.  Somehow I felt like listening to the moans of shackled ponies in a submerged dimension rather than indulge this insect's vocalizing.

        “They're very friendly,” Fluttershy said hushedly.  “If you walk up to it, it'll only want to get close to you, even if it means nesting in your mane.”  She turned to look at me.  “What... uhm... what did you wish to do now that one's here?”

        “Let's just see what we can do,” I murmured as I kept my eyes glued on the living purple sphere across the way.  “Here, hold this.”  I hoofed her the lyre.

        Fluttershy gently took it.

        I stripped of my saddlebag, all the while staring at the parasprite.

        The parasprite stared back, endlessly grinning, endlessly happy.

        “Okay...”  I exhaled, trying to ease my shivers for what came next.  “I'm going to need your help.  Follow me...”

        Fluttershy nervously nodded.  She planted the lyre down on the tree stump and followed me as I shuffled slowly towards the creature, levitating the saddlebag in front of me.  For what felt like a decade, we crept across the clearing, until we were finally within a breath's distance from the insect.  I whispered over to Fluttershy, “See if you can befriend it.”  I opened the pouch of the saddlebag.  “We're gonna coax it into this.”

        “Okay,” she said with a nod.  Trotting over, she reached a hoof out with a placating smile.

        The parasprite hovered forward and nuzzled her forelimb.  It let out another chirp, then bounced its way up her limb before rubbing against her face.

        “Heeheehee...”  Fluttershy remarked, her cheeks warm.  “I almost forgot just how adorable these were up close...”

        I cleared my throat.  “Don't get entranced too quickly, Fluttershy.”  I gestured towards the open saddlebag before me.

        “Ahem.  Right...”  She nuzzled the parasprite again and spoke, “We're not going to hurt you, little fella.  We just want to get to know you better.  Don't be scared of Miss Heartstrings.  She's only curious, and she can't learn more about you if you're hiding deep in the forest, now can she?”

        The parasprite merely squeaked and rolled its tongue. Wait, the insect had a tongue?  This just kept getting weirder and weider.

        “Aaaaaand there we go,” Fluttershy cooed as she deposited the little, bulbous thing into my saddlebag.  “See?  That wasn't so bad, little guy.”

        I closed the saddlebag and snapped it tightly shut.  I clung to it, exhaling a deep breath.  A goofy smile came to my face.  “Wherever you are, Comethoof, I hope you're proud of me...”

        “Huh?”

        I cleared my throat and stood up with the saddlebag.  “Don't mind me.  I'm just happy that this actually worked.”

        “How do you wish to examine the creature now that you have it in the saddlebag?” Fluttershy asked.  “Are you going to perform a magical scan with your horn?”

        “No,” I said.  “I'm going to take it home and study it in the safety of my cellar.”

        “You're going to what?!”  Fluttershy gasped wide.  “But... But that means taking it back to the village!”

        “Uh... Yeah.  I guess...”

        “That... That's incredibly dangerous!”  Fluttershy exclaimed.  “There's no telling what sort of damage it can do if it's brought back to where so much food and edible things are!”

        “Trust me, Fluttershy,” I said.  “I have... many magical talents that will prevent history from repeating itself.”

        “But...”

        “And I'm not going to hurt the little guy either.  I just need more time and resources to understand these things and I can't do it out here in the middle of the forest.”  I turned around—

        —only to have Fluttershy settling down with flapping wings to block me.  “I... I'm sorry, Miss Heartstrings.”  She bit her lip in a feeble attempt at frowning.  “But.. but I m-must put my hoof down.”

        “Huh?” I blinked at her.

        “I can't let you leave the forest with that parasprite.  It was because of my foolishness that the swarm ever demolished Ponyville to begin with.  I've felt responsible since, and I'd feel responsible now.  So... uhm...”  She clenched her teeth, summoned the next breath like a cannonball, and ultimately squeaked forth, “PutthatsaddlebagbackdownbeforeImakeyou.”  She instantly wilted away from me, her eyes thin.  “Uhm... don't hate me for being assertive, please.”

        I stared at her.  A gentle sigh escaped my lips, and I smiled.  “Nopony in the world could possibly hate you, Fluttershy.  You're... only doing the right thing.”

        “Then...”  She gulped.  “Then you'll do what I told you to?”

        “I'll simply study it here,” I said.  “I may not be able to learn as much as I want to, but maybe if I keep playing the music, I can keep the lil' fella in one place long enough for me to study it properly.”  I turned and pointed at the stump.  “Would you mind grabbing my lyre for me?  I can't properly make music without it...”

        “Oh...”  Fluttershy's wings flexed.  She looked at the tree stump, then at me again.  “Alright,” she said with a smile.  Swiftly, she trotted over to where my musical instrument was lying.

        I stood in place, squinting at her as she walked ten feet away, twenty, thirty...

        Fluttershy picked the lyre up.  Before she could turn around, she froze in place.  A breath of vapors blocked my vision of her, and then I witnessed her trembling in the center of the forest, glancing all around with a nervous stammer.

        “What...?  How...?  What am I doing here...?”

        I took a deep breath, stood up straight, and marched towards her.  “Why, hello there!”

        “Eeep!” she spun and jolted from me, nearly dropping the lyre.  “Who is it?!”

        “Oh, I'm terribly sorry,” I said with a gasp.  “I didn't mean to startle you, ma'am.  I was just on my way to visit Zecora when I realized I dropped my lyre—” I glanced at her hooves and grinned wide.  “Oh!  Hey!  You found it!”

        “Uhm...”  Fluttershy trembled slightly less, gazing at the golden instrument in her grasp.  “I... I guess I did...”

        “I can't thank you enough!  You're so kind!”  I rushed over and levitated the object into my telekinetic grasp.  “I swear, I'd lose my horn if it wasn't attached to my head.”  I slid the lyre into the pouch of my saddlebag opposite to where a pocketed parasprite was bouncing around under the canvas surface.  “So, what's a sweet young pony such as yourself doing on a fine day like today?  Going out for a stroll?”

        “I...”  Fluttershy blushed deeply, gazing at the alien lengths of the Everfree Forest all around her. “I'm not entirely sure.  I... I normally don't like walking into the forest...”

        “Awww, that's too bad.  You seem like a pony who'd get along with wildlife.”

        “Well, actually—”

        “Hey, Zecora can wait a little while longer,” I said with a smile, doing my best to hide my shivers.  “How'd you like it if I walked you to the edge of the forest?  I'm actually visiting from out of town, and I'd like to learn more about this place, unless you wanted to be alone—”

        “No!” Fluttershy gasped, winced, and said more calmly.  “What I mean is, I-I would love to talk and walk with somepony, if th-that's okay with you.”

        I giggled and ushered her in the direction of her house.  “It's more than okay...”

        With glowing telekinesis, I lowered the glass jar down onto a high shelf in the corner of my cabin.  Inside, the twitchy parasprite smiled at the world beyond his translucent dome and flittered about in claustrophobic circles.

        I stepped back with a sigh.  I gazed down at Al, who was sitting in the center of the cabin, staring up at the jarred insect with an anxious twitch of his tail.

        “Don't even think about knocking the jar over to get to the little bug,” I said.  Taking my saddlebag off, I placed my things in the corner of the room while murmuring, “I know it looks tasty to a feline like you, but I'd hate myself if the little thing ate you from the inside out.”

        Al made a little trilling sound and reached up towards the lower shelves of the bookcase, his amber eyes affixed to the jar.

        I gently shoved him back into the middle of the cabin once again.  “Of course, I kind of hate myself enough as it is.”  I squatted beside him and petted his fur affectionately, trying to make myself feel like I was a good, thoughtful pony once more.  “Fluttershy's done nothing but selflessly help me lately, and the best I can do to thank her is lie to her?”  I sighed again.  “I know it's all for a grand purpose, but when do epic plans ever legitimize anything, no matter how unethical?”

        Al had no words to give me.  He was simply there, and he felt warm to the touch as he rubbed up against my flank and padded over towards the cot.

        I remained squatting there, staring up at the jarred parasprite.  “I like to tell myself, Al, that once I'm cured of this curse, then I'll finally have a chance to apologize to the likes of Twilight, Applejack, Morning Dew...” I gulped.  “And now Fluttershy.”  I adjusted the sleeves of my hoodie while shivering.  “All I want from this whole fiasco is to make friends... permanently.  But will they want to be my friends, knowing all of the things I did behind their amnesiac backs?”

        There was a slight meowing sound from the bed.  Al curled up into a ball, yawned, and nestled himself into the sheets.

        I smiled his way.  “Would you be my friend, once I make it so that I'm no longer an anmesiac shadow that feeds you on occasion?  After all, it must be lonesome for a cat to be living in a cabin with a ghost.”

        Al said nothing.  His orange body rose and fell as he quietly slid his way into slumber.

        I muttered, “I've been a ghost for so long, I'm almost scared of what I might do to change things.  Just thinking about it drives me mad.”  I looked at the jar once more.  “Ohhhh... what would Comethoof do?”

        “She loves her beloved.  I'm a symphony away from you.  Fires and sirens.  The moon is gone and they're fighting for the cosmos.  All is unsung and unspoken.  Truth is in the womb of the Cosmic Matriarch.  The cord is too severed to unravel.  The world began with a song and it will end with a lament.  The symphony is fractured.  Desolation divides the music as it divides the firmaments.  We live to begin nothing.  Fight the alicorn.  Restore beauty and love.  I will find you, if it takes all of my breaths and breaking.  I will suspend myself in the depths of darkness.  The Nightbringer will be my anchor, and then I will sing us back into being.  I will translate her song unto the ears of mortals.  You always loved to scratch my ears.  You wait for me and I will find you.  She adored her beloved but she sang him away.  I will not be like her.  I will live under the shadow of her, but I will not be like her.  I live, therefore I sing.  Singing is existing is rejoicing is sobbing.  The rapturous ballad becomes the mournful dirge becomes the rapturous ballad again.  The universe fluctuates in a circle, orbiting chaos and blooming flowers.  She adores her beloved but her beloved had to go.  He will come back as I will come back only I am trying while he is dying.  Know my song and become something.  I will find you, beloved.  I will find you.  I will find you.  I will find you...”

        My eyes blinked hard.  I rubbed a hoof over my eyes and groaned from where I squatted on the bed.

        “So much for that.”  There was a toasty furball of warmth curled up against my side.  I glanced over at Al in the flickering haze of the lit fireplace.  I gestured towards the ancient journal resting before me.  “Do you get any of this?”

        Al said nothing.  He twisted around, stretched, and then curled up against me once more.

        I looked up at the parasprite still flitting about in the jar atop the high shelf.  “I’m thinking that Comethoof took the idea of becoming a ghost a bit too literally.  I wonder if perhaps that's what happened to her as well.  Two pony spirits—one ethereal and the other mortal—both get caught up in the realm of the unsung, and they can't climb their way out of it because being unsung becomes all they know.”  I gulped.  “That, and they mourn for lost loves that will never come back to them.  Maybe I've benefited from being a single mare when I came here to Ponyville...”

        There was a breath of silence, save for the crackle of burning embers beyond the hearth.

        “Eh, who am I kidding?”  I blurted.  I turned and smiled warmly at the ball of fur sharing the bed with me.  “Are you my beloved?”  I leaned in and nuzzled him.  He sniffed at me and tickled my muzzle with his whiskers before producing a meow of protest.  I giggled and nuzzled him some more, before gazing again at the parasprite above.  “'Desolation divides the music as it divides the firmaments...'” I said, quoting Comethoof.

        Just then, my face scrunched up in thought.

        “The music...”  I murmured.  I looked at the parasprite.  I imagined its bright purple body bouncing to the uplifting beat of the Bolero.  “The parasprites are drawn to song.  Music is what drew them out of Ponyville to begin with.  Even Pinkie Pie herself said it was like parasprites were living music notes...”

        My eyes scanned the lengths of the firelit cabin as I talked to Al... or was I just talking to myself?

        “When Comethoof went to Celestia, her violent, magical response to the Nocturne was unsung.  History was altered to say that it was a sarosian bomb that destroyed a wing of the palace.  But did she change the fabric of reality, or did Celestia—in order to protect the truth of the unsung realm?”  I gulped and stared fixedly at the parasprite.  “The alicorns are all parts of the same song that imbued the Cosmic Matriarch.  The Matriarch was one alicorn.  She sang creation into being, and then she broke the song into four parts: herself, Celestia, Luna, and her.  After that, everything the alicorns have done for this world... has been through disassembling the Matriarch's song that empowers them.”

        I sat up straight in bed, careful not to disturb Al.

        “Am I looking at a parasprite?” I asked the shadows.  “Or am I looking at a song?  And if that's the case... then whose song?”

        “Well, Princess Celestia has lived for thousands upon thousands of years,” Twilight Sparkle said, levitating a book over to a wooden table before us the next day.  “Most of those millennia have been spent in Canterlot.  It's only natural that she's produced several symphonies in that time.”

        “I need to look for a specific music piece,” I exclaimed as I squatted on a stool beside her in the center of the library.  “Just how many instrumentals do you suppose she wrote?”

        “Ohhh... Not many.” Twilight Sparkle shrugged, her eyes scanning the ceiling.  “A few, here or there.  I'm guessing maybe... five thousand?”

        I exhaled with a shudder.  “Well, it's a good thing my afternoon's free.”

        “Heeheehee.  I'm intrigued by your avid interest in Her Majesty's symphonic background, Miss Heartstrings.  Might I ask what's the occasion?  An experiment?  An extensive research project?”

        “Let's just chalk it up to 'morbid curiosity' and leave it at that...”

        Twilight scooted towards the table beside me with a bright smile.  “Maybe I can even help you!”  She winked.  “I'm a marathon-runner when it comes to research.”

        “Heh.  Don't I know it...”

        “Huh?”

        “Ahem.”  I looked at her.  “Please, I couldn't possibly ask you to spend all of your time helping me with this gargantuan search.”

        “Well, give me some parameters of the search, and maybe I can lower it to moderately epic instead!”

        I exhaled through my nostrils and muttered, “Bugs...”

        Twilight raised an eyebrow.  “Bugs?”

        “Cute, bouncing, hungry, stupidly adorable bugs,” I said.  “With bright eyes, dragonfly wings and...”

        “Wow,” Twilight remarked with a cock-eyed wink.  “Are we describing a symphony or a lullaby?”

        “Heh.”  I smirked.  “As if Her Majesty ever wrote lullabies.”

        “Actually, she did.”

        I gazed awkwardly at her.  “Huh?”

        “There's an entire section containing them in this book!” She flipped through several pages of the tome lying before us.  “Ages ago, almost all household lyrics sung to foals owed their origin to the Princess herself.  Even today, a lot of them are merely derivative.  Don't tell me you've never heard 'Hush Now, Quiet Now.'”

        “It's... been a while...”

        “Shhh...”  Twilight glanced around the library, then leaned in with a smirk.  “Don't tell my assistant, but I've sung it to Spike quite a few times...”

        “Hey!  Stop it!” A voice said from the distant edge of the library.  “You're embarrassing me!”

        “Heehee... Oh come on, Spike!  It's not like Miss Heartstrings here is going to tell anypony we know!”

        “Hey!  Dig the swell hoodie—”

        “Uh huh, thanks.”  I turned back to Twilight.  “So, do any of the lullabies feature cute, bouncy insects?”

        “Well, let's find out, shall we?”

        Two hours later, the two of us were still rummaging through the lullabies section of the book containing Celestia's musical compositions.  Twilight Sparkle was indeed proving to me just what a “marathon runner” she was in scanning pages upon pages of music sheets.  As for myself, it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep my eyes opened.  I yawned a few times—unashamedly—and the only thing that kept me awake was the morbid fear that falling asleep might sever the connection I had between myself and a potential amnesiac.

        Just as the shadows of the room became pathetically inviting to the insides of my eyelids, I felt a forelimb nudging my shoulder.

        “Hey.  Miss Heartstrings.  I think I found something.”

        “Found... something...?” I remarked, blinking heavily.

        “Right here,” she said, pointing her lavender hoof towards an immensely short tune scrawled upon a dusty page towards the front end of the book.  “It's one of the oldest songs ever attributed to Princess Celestia's composition.”

        “Let's see...”  I scooted up and scanned the top of the sheet.  “'Parade of the Pretty Sprites.'  Well, if that isn't cute.”

        “Would you like to read it?”

        “Don't mind if I do...”

Parade of the Pretty Sprites

in dedication to Star Bliss

Sleep now, my little bliss

From sundown to morning mist

And dream of all the games you'll play

While parades of pretty sprites

Twinkling with forest lights

Shall gobble all your troubles away

Rest now, my little bliss

There's nothing more serene than this

Winged helpers dance into the day

They eat all fears, shadows and ghosts

And all the things you hate the most

To make mornings free of dismay

I love you, my little bliss

And hope that you'll never miss

The pretty sprites' cheerful display

And someday you'll tell your foals

About these enchanted forest souls

That clean our world while in bed we lay

        “What do you think?”  Twilight Sparkle remarked.  “Is that what you were looking for?”

        “Well...”  I took a deep breath.  “It's certainly very... repetitive.”

        She giggled again.  “It's not exactly Marezart, Miss Heartstrings.  Though I'd say the style is no fault of Celestia's.  It's all about the intended audience.”

        “I suppose so,” I said.  My eyes squinted once more at the dedication.  “Who's 'Star Bliss?'”

        “Oh...”  Twilight's smile became a calm, solemn thing.  “He was one of Princess Celestia's oldest apprentices.  Eons ago, well before the Rise of Discord—much less Shadow's Advent—Princess Celestia not only mentored her magical apprentices, she adopted them.  Even Starswirl the Bearded was like a child to her.  And, well, like most mothers, Princess Celestia looked after her foals with love and devotion.  She wrote a lullaby for each separate adoptee.”

        “Hence why there are so many of them.”

        “Yes.”

        “I wonder how many threnodies there are...”

        To that, Twilight Sparkle said nothing.

        I cleared my throat.  “So, let me ask you, Miss Sparkle.”  I pointed at the lullaby.  “Does this song in particular remind you of anything?”

        “Well...”  She gazed at the piece.  “Come to think of it...”  Her eyes blinked.  “Huh.  No, it couldn't be...”

        “I'm all ears.”

        She shook her head.  “It's too much of a stretch.  Besides...”  She stifled a giggle.  “The first time they ever appeared was about a year ago, and they certainly didn't 'eat troubles away,' they gobbled up half the town.  Heh.  Were you there for that, Miss Heartstrings?”

        I shuddered.  “In body, though evidently not in mind.”

        “Huh?”

        “Tell me...” I turned and smiled politely at her.  “Would it be too much trouble for me to check this out for... I dunno... a week?”

        I had the book of Celestia's song sitting on the cot beside Comethoof's journal.  I stood a few feet away from my bed.  The setting sun was melting through the windows, bathing my cabin with a crimson haze.  Al was padding about in circles, electrified by the tension and anxiety in the room.  He meowed my way a few times, but I didn't answer him.

        I sat on my haunches, holding a hoof over my mouth as I gazed at the books, saturated with contemplation.  Every now and then, I'd dart my eyes from the bookmark that placed Celestia's lullaby to the jarred parasprite seated on a shelf high above me.  This exchange continued for a prolonged period, a silent space that was occasionally punctuated by Al's lonesome meows.

        Eventually, I uttered, “The Requiem is a buffer... a means of reminding ponies of what's real versus what's unsung,” I said.  “It helped Comethoof remember the performance of the Nocturne.  It helped me remember parasprites.”  I swallowed hard and looked fixedly at the imprisoned insect.  “I don't have the Nightbringer, but I have a piece of the Matriarch's song nonetheless.  It just doesn't know what it is yet.  But maybe if I reminded it as well...”

        Al rubbed up against me.  He had been fed.  His box had been cleaned.  There was nothing else that he could possibly have wanted, and yet he rubbed up against me, purring and vocalizing.

        I gazed down at him.  I ran a hoof along his head, then scratched his ears.  A bitter chuckle left my lips.  “Heh.  She always loved to play with his ears...”  I sighed.  “I think his madness began when he refused to give up something he loved, something that could no longer love him back...”

        A pit formed in the back of my throat.  I suddenly could not look at Al anymore without tearing up.  I turned my head to the ceiling, shuddered, and spoke in a low voice.

        “I can't stay here like this.  I have to keep going forward.  I have to...”

        I left the cabin.  I had my saddlebag full of things.  I felt the weight of my lyre, and I felt the rattling of the jar in a side pocket as the parasprite playfully bounced around inside.

        Before leaving, I paused right there on the porch.  My hooves squirmed in the advent of twilight.  With a somber breath, I turned around and left the door to my home cracked open.  There was now a risk of Al getting loose, perhaps even running away.  I understood that.

        Quietly, somberly, I trotted around the cabin and approached the cellar.  Instead of marching straight down, I paused briefly.  I gazed into the woods, into the dark bodies obscuring the starlight even further.  I remembered waking up there in the middle of the night after first playing the Threnody.  I was cold, wet, shivering, and drowned in horror.  Yet, looking back in the journals, I knew that what I remembered of that frightful night wasn't all that there was to remember.  Her unsung voice had clouded my grasp of reality, and when I went to the realm between the firmaments, I finally discovered what horrible truth she had meant to hide from a mortal such as me.

        I couldn't help but wonder, would the truth that Celestia's song covered be just as horrifying?  Would it drive me mad like Comethoof had been driven?  Would it ever get me home, whereas Comethoof never achieved such freedom?

        I glanced back at the cabin.  I thought one last time about Al's gorgeous orange fur, about his warmth and companionship that accompanied me into sleep, like a gracious lullaby.

        There was no point in waiting.  I proceeded down the cellar steps, lighting my way with a lantern until I was once again in the small dugout, sliding a stool before the metal stand.  I placed my lyre upon it, and then placed a new music sheet beneath that.  By that time, I had memorized every elegy I knew of the Nocturne.  But that wasn't exactly what I was there to perform.  Princess Celestia's “Parade of the Pretty Sprites” rested before me in the dance of the lanternlight.  It was time to put my theory to the test, and apply it to living vessels of absurdity.

        First, I grasped the jar.  I gazed at the parasprite inside and he gazed back, smiling and twitching his wings with infinite joy.  It was like a child—in a way—perpetually locked in a frozen moment of wonder and contentment.  I would expect no less from a living lullaby.

        I next did the unthinkable.  I unscrewed the lid to the jar and let the parasprite free.  The little insect flitted about the room, chirping and making happy noises as it did loopty-loops around my lantern before settling for a playful hover in front of me.

        I kept my eyes affixed to the unnatural thing.  Reaching into my saddlebag, I pulled out the first of several apples I had acquired from Ponyville's town market.  With a swing of my hoof, I rolled the glistening fruit so that it rested in the center of the cellar.  I watched for what would happen next.

        It didn't take much waiting.  The parasprite spun circles in the room, cyclonically lowering its hungry self to the red body of the apple.  As soon as it touched down, its jaws opened ridiculously wide, and it devoured the fruit with an obnoxious buzzing noise.  Not even the core or stem were left afterwards.  A bit more plump than before, the parasprite hovered up into the room with a happy lift of its dragonfly wings.

        I merely squinted at the creature, quiet, waiting.

        It suddenly lurched in mid-air.  Its eyes squinted, as if with concentration.  The bulbous body of the purple thing fluctuated, and suddenly it was coughing and hacking.  A globule of vomit flew from its mouth.  But unlike most vomitous discharges, the coagulated mush remained levitating in mid-air.  Not a second later, the brown shell shattered as a pair of wings broke through.  Suddenly there was a second parasprite—a bright green thing—and it hovered happily beside its sibling.

        Slowly, I reached once more into my saddlebag.  I rolled two new apples out.  I watched silently as the two insects descended on the fruit.  They swallowed the morsels whole, lifted upwards, and began lurching once again.  The cellar echoed with their sputtering noises as they vomited two fresh globules.  Suddenly the duo had turned into a quartet, with each new parasprite sporting an exoskeleton painted with a fresher color of the spectrum.

        There were more apples left to go; I rolled them forward at a brisk pace.  They barely lasted seconds before the growing swarm devoured them, then doubled, then tripled.  Soon, it didn't take feeding them whatsoever.  The parasprites multiplied on their own, fueled by the sheer volume of the sustenance that their forebears had consumed.  As the cellar turned into a gigantic pin for this flittering flock, I scooted over to my lyre and began telekinetically strumming the opening bars to “Twilight's Requiem.”

        The song formed an eerie soundtrack to the growing cloud of insects.  Their flitting wings became unwitting percussion, morphing into a hushed noise as an unnatural breeze kicked up all around me.  They circled my body, chirping occasionally, smiling at the grim lengths of the cellar as if it was just as beautiful as a summer's day.  As the Requiem went through its motions, their cyclonic fight formed a pattern, swaying and dancing with the chords that I introduced to the underground sound booth.  Their eyes brightened, as if electrified by the lengths of the forsaken elegy.

        I knew that I had my audience.  It was time to teach them something that they had forgotten, something that held the key to their unnatural essence.  As the strings of my lyre still vibrated with the magical sounds of the Requiem, I scanned the music sheet in front of me and dove into Celestia's “Parade of the Pretty Sprites.”  The tempo was slow, the rhythm intoxicatingly simple, and I could feel the song's ancient call to slumber tugging at the edges of my soul.

        The moment that the parasprites stopped circling me was when I realized that the music was achieving its purpose.  The insects hovered in place, their eyes the widest I had ever seen.  Their wings appeared to beat in a sluggish movement, coordinated and hypnotized.  I realized that all of my research was leading me somewhere, and it was almost frightening.

        I didn't even have to sing the lyrics.  The melody itself was enough to captivate them.  Its cords lifted through the air, merging with the magical effects of “Twilight's Requiem.”  It was affecting the parasprites, merging them into a singular cloud of recognition.  While I played the lullaby, I watched nervously as their hovering formation stretched into a veritable net around me, each parasprite hovering equidistant from its other siblings.

        The song was being rejoined.

        “You are not real,” I murmured beneath the ceiling of sound.  “You only think that you are.”

        The eyes of the many insects became thin.  Whatever vestiges of a soul they each shared was dwindling.  Their wings were slowing down, and yet a magical wind was picking up, blowing at my mane and making it hard to read what I was trying to play.

        “Your very existence is madness,” I said.  “Look into your memories and see how ridiculous it all is.  You were created to be an absurdity, to cover a very real truth.”

        My breath left me, for I noticed a bright glow emanating from each of the parasprites.  The room began to hum with a haunting tone, like the roar of waves crashing in the distance and coming closer.  Soon, a bright magenta color was shining from each parasprite's eyes.  Even this phenomenon formed a pattern, swirling around me like a strobe.  With each successive wipe of the magenta horizon, I saw the net of hovering parasprites dissolving before my very eyes.  Their exoskeletons were growing translucent, and through the pastel shells I was seeing a sea of criss-crossing musical notes, of words, of forgotten voices—all laced with a hot glowing purple.

        I was sweating.  My eyes grew moist as I struggled to speak above the rising tumult.

        “Sing her song!” I shouted.  “Sing her song and become nothing!”

        They answered.  They exploded.  I shrieked and fell off the stool, clutching myself as a splashing wave of music notes wafted over me, followed by a noise—the loudest of all noise—a noise as grand and holy as Creation itself.  Before my ears could bleed, the screaming sound dwindled to a low hiss.  I opened my eyes to see that the parasprites were gone, and their essence had coated the walls of the cellar beyond me.  Only, they weren't walls, but translucent sheets of unearthly glass beyond which I saw a spinning canopy of stars, complete with glowing nebulae and galaxies and swirling clouds of cosmic gas.

        I stood up, and yet I was floating.  I was adrift in the cosmos, surrounded by a vacuum, shivering from the effects of absolute zero.  I shouldn't have been alive.  Had I ever been alive?

        I tried to speak, but there was no sound.  There was no sound because sound hadn't been invented yet.  Peering over my shoulder, I saw the reason why.  A grand equine shape—as majestic and beautiful as the constellations themselves—was galloping across the starry plains of the universe.  She came upon a miasma of chaos, spread her wings, and opened her mouth.  The Cosmic Matriarch gave birth to the song, and the song became everything.

        A flash of light exploded across the glass windows of the cellar.  I covered my eyes and spun backwards from the blow.  I was sailing through the firmaments, gliding over seas and oceans and lightning.  Equestria sprouted upwards from the fertile womb of Creation, and I was growing and dying with it.

        I was everywhere and everything.  I was Princess Celestia and Luna.  I was the Sun and Moon.  I was a third alicorn, disappearing upon the edge of night.  I was immortality and mortality all at once.  I was Celestia singing to a foal and I was Star Bliss listening to her.  I was the song, and the song carried me down the tributaries of Creation, skirting down each winding branch as the Matriarch's chorus broke into brittle, beautiful pieces.  Discord came to ravage the world and disappeared.  Canterlot was built in a second, only to burn twice as fast as Nightmare Moon screamed upon the landscape.  An age of shadows clouded my vision, and suddenly there was a bright flash of light as the Elements of Harmony were rediscovered.  Somewhere, in the grand valley of Equestria, a tiny village sat in perfect tranquility.  The cellar sailed towards it like a meteorite, and I was its hapless occupant, clinging to the walls in desperation.

        Then I heard a voice: my voice.  Only, my mouth wasn't open.  I gasped as my eyes flew open.  I was in a hotel lobby.  Banners were hanging everywhere in honor of Princess Celestia's visit.  There were nervous ponies craning their necks to see something.  I heard a commotion.  I gazed past several armored pegasi, and I saw a raving lunatic wearing a stone-gray hoodie, struggling in the forelimbs of several guards.

        “No, please!” Lyra shrieked.  “You have to listen!  I beg of you!  If you send me away, I may never get another chance!”

        “That's as far as you go, ma'am!” a guard grunted.

        “Right this way!  Nopony intrudes upon the Princess!” another added.

        “Don't!  Please!” Lyra sobbed and bucked and struggled.  “She has to hear this!  Only she can help lift this curse from me!”

        They were halfway to the door, dragging her in their armored grasp, when a majestic voice danced across the room.

        “Wait.”  A hoof was raised, adorned in a golden slipper.  Princess Celestia trotted forward from the banquet table and stood past her gawking guests.  “Don't take her away.  Let her speak...”

        “But your majesty—”

        “I care for all of my royal subjects,” the Alicorn of the Sun said.  “If it is within my power to rid her of her distress, then such is my divine duty.”

        The guards exchanged glances.  They swiftly obeyed.  Lyra slumped forward as soon as she was free of their grip.  She crawled like an infant towards Celestia, sobbing with joy.  “Oh bless you.  Bless you, your Majesty.  You have no idea what I've been through...”

        “Shhh...” Celestia reached forward.  I watched as her wings enfolded around the petite unicorn in a motherly gesture.  The Princess' voice came out of her like a lullaby.  “Be calm.  It's okay.  Catch your breath, my little pony, and tell me what troubles you.”

        Lyra sniffled and gazed up at her.  Tears streamed down her face as she stammered, “It's not enough that I tell you.  I must show you.  I must let you hear the music, or else it may be too late.  Even you could forget me before this conversation is over...”

        “But... But I don't understand,” Celestia said.  “How could I possibly forget—?”

        “Please, your Majesty, I beg of you.”  Lyra stood up and levitated a musical instrument in her grasp.  “Just listen.  It's three short elegies, but hopefully they'll be enough to help you remember, and maybe then you can help me.”

        Several of the hotel guests gazed at each other, murmuring worriedly about the crazed unicorn in their midst.  The guards stood in a cautious circle, ready to pounce on the stranger at a moment's notice.

        Eventually, Celestia merely bowed her head and said, “Very well.  If you insist.  Play your music, young one, if you think it will help.”

        “Oh thank you.  I promise, everything will make sense to you in the end!”  Lyra stood up straight and started plucking the strings.

        I leaned forward, breathless, gazing at the scene beyond the glass walls of the cellar.  But, instead of music, I heard the rustling of chains.

        “Huh?”

        Just then, a rusted lash of metal came up from behind and wrapped around me.

        “What?!”

        I was being yanked backwards, and yet I was standing perfectly in place.  I gazed in horror as the scene before me lurched, froze, and then spun backwards.  Celestia hugged Lyra again, then Lyra crawled in reverse, and then the guards were grasping her like they did before.

        “No...”

        Lyra was bursting backwards out of the lobby, and then the entire sight of the hotel zoomed away.

        “No!” I gnashed my teeth and fought against the chains like a shadow of my past self had struggled with the guards.  “No—Blast it!  I was so close!  I was about to perform the song!  I was about to—”  I growled and yanked and tugged at the chains.  “What in heaven's name is happening to me?!”

        The images around the cellar blurred, flickering bright and black with the shutter-frame dance of countless days.  Finally, everything streaked to a hazy stop as I was dangled by the chains above Lyra in the middle of Ponyville.  It was night.  The Mare in the Moon vanished, and she reappeared before Lyra—leering—in midnight armor.

        “Nightmare Moon...” I whimpered in place of the collapsed, shivering unicorn.  “...the curse begins—”

        Nightmare Moon's eyes flickered from underneath her helm.  Just as she breathed, the chains yanked again.  I was flung to the opposite side of the cellar as time sped in the opposite direction, flinging me forward.  I shrieked as the hotel blurred by, along with Celestia and a terribly bright explosion.

        “No!  Take me back!  Take me back!  Where are you—?!”

        The sights of Ponyville over the past year streaked by like comets, slowing down one sunset after another until I saw a lonesome Lyra trotting down into a familiar cellar and placing a music sheet onto the stand beneath her musical instrument.  I instantly recognized the name of the elegy.

        “'The Threnody of Night',” I murmured, shivering under the chains.  I then realized where—or more appropriately when I was.  “Oh dear goddess...”

        Lyra finished the song.  She fell back into the waters.  Lightning and thunder splashed around her, and soon I too was soaked.  A world that was colder than cold chilled me to the bone as Lyra and myself—the both of us, past and present—were flung upon the rusted iron platforms twirling in the unsung nether.  I rolled over, wincing as the chains wrapped around me.  I no longer felt the glass floor of the cellar.  The metal felt real and frigid to my touch.  When I opened my eyes, past Lyra was gone, for I had taken her place.  I was surrounded by moaning, shackled ponies.  They all bowed in unison as a great shadow loomed above us.

        I gazed up through the sundered world between firmaments, and I saw her.  Or, rather, I saw where she lived, where she sat and served as steward over the unliving.  A gigantic sphere of metal bathed in ancient runes hovered high above the platforms.  Its many layers of porous iron spun around each other as it spat lightning and fueled the ancient machines that fed off the wailing souls bound to it.  Suddenly, the unsung world was no longer cold, for a rising heat was billowing within me, an anger that could incinerate the strongest barriers of time.

        “You!” I hissed.  I rose up and fought against the lengths of chains surrounding me, surrounding my past self, surrounding my future self.  “Curse you!  I was this close!  I almost knew the truth, but you just couldn't have that, could you?!”  I snarled, wincing as the chains snaked up my body and quadrupled around my neck.  “Hnkkkt...” I spat as I glared up at her sphere and roared against the thunder.  “What is worth protecting so much that you must suck beauty from life?!  What did the Cosmic Matriarch ever do to you?!  Was it worth choking so many ponies of freedom, including your beloved?!  Did you ever truly love him?!  Speak to me!”

        The globes within globes hovered at a distance above.  A hum resonated through the chaos, and the shackled ponies all around me moaned a woeful chorus in response.

        “No more singing!” I shouted.  “Speak to me!  Speak to me now—”

        A bolt of lightning shot from the sphere.  I heard my past self shrieking, and the voice caught up to my own throat.  I gazed with twitching eyes as the lightning shot again and again, forking towards me in a deadly sweep.  The frigid air smelled of smoke and death.  The wail of the unsung ponies grew louder, lamenting the newest member to their herd.  I could barely breathe from the chains holding me in the path of the the oncoming horror.  She was about to add me to her fold, and I would forever remain the ghost that had claimed me for over a year.  I thought of Twilight.  I thought of my parents.  I thought of Al...

        Just then, one of the shackled ponies shot straight up.  To my shock, it galloped straight towards me and produced a bright burst of light.  I didn't even get a chance to see its face, for I was too overwhelmed by the chains breaking all around.  Past Lyra slumped to the floor beneath me, and the pony instantly grabbed her hoof.  I trailed after her like a comet’s tail as the three of us flew out from the path of lightning.  Together, we swam past shrieking ponies, outrunning the spinning globes and her furious anger.  I stammered incoherently.  When my words formed, they joined with my past self:

        “Who... Who are you?!”  Lyra squeaked and I gasped.  “What is this place?!  Please, I'm so scared—”

        The pony said nothing.  There were no chains anchoring it to the platforms, instead it wore a large cloak soaked with the tears of the firmaments.  The pony was unsung, and yet it wasn't.  As it reached the edge of the platform and gripped Lyra with two hooves, I glanced under its billowing cloak and saw a series of onyx strings attached to an unmistakable instrument of black metal.

        “The Nightbringer?” I said, for my past self couldn't.  “Blessed Celestia, are you—?”

        He tossed Lyra into the madness.  As he did so, he opened his mouth and produced a song.  Lyra fell through, as did I.  The frost and lightning and madness of the unsung realm melted away.  She fell into a forest under the stars of night.  As she landed, I was being flung forward, free of chains, free of my past self, free of everything but screams.  The walls around me flickered as I crawled through the madness of time, desperate to get away from it all, my brain bleeding through my horn as I whimpered one name over and over again.

        “Alabaster... Alabaster, why didn't you tell me...?”

        The glass shattered.  Walls of dirt and earth were surging past me.  I was clawing myself upwards somewhere on all hooves.  I heard nothing but sobs and crickets as the constellations became clear up above.

        “Alabaster... Alabaster, please...”

        I felt a warm tongue licking my face.

        My eyes flew open with a gasp.

        Al's amber eyes stared at me.  The cat leaned forward and nuzzled my face before licking me again.  I was outside the entrance to my cellar.  It was night on the edge of the woods.  My cabin was sitting quietly a few feet away, and I had left the door cracked open.

        I was sweating, panting, soaked in the floodwaters of the firmaments.  Had she actually dragged me back?  Or had Comethoof?  I turned and looked down the steps leading into the cellar.  I could only see the gentle sway of lanternlight.  All of the parasprites were gone.  After all, they were never here to begin with.

        “Alabaster, did you save me?”  I gulped and shuddered.  “Twice?”  I heard a meow.  I looked over at the cat, sniffled and scooped him up in my arms.  “Third's the charm...” I said in a wavering voice.

        Al meowed again and purred lightly in my embrace.

        I choked on a sob and nuzzled him close.  His bright orange fur caught my tears.  “I don't care that you'll only f-forget me.  I don't c-care that all I am to you is magically appearing food.  I want you to know that I love you.”  I sniffed and scratched his ears lovingly.  “I love you so much, and I want you to know that.  Right here.  Right now...”

        If Al wanted to protest, he didn't show it.  He was perfectly warm, happy, and content in this sobbing unicorn's limbs.  It was exactly what I needed at that moment in time.  And that's hardly a curse.

        I couldn't sleep.  I can never sleep after these highly dangerous instrumentals.

        I sat in the middle of the bed with Al by my side.  Petting him, I gazed quietly out the window as dawn rose with its gentle, warm hues.  A quiet breath swam through me.  My eyes rose along with the hovering mists beyond the window.

        “He must have known that he couldn't find a solution on his own,” I murmured.  “Even amidst his mounting madness, Alabaster must have finally grasped his situation.  With Celestia and Luna both unreachable, even his knowledge of the Nocturne wasn't enough to break the curse.  He was forever two elegies shy of the key to freedom, and his only alternatives were to die...”  I gulped.  “Or become unsung.”

        Al stirred beside me, turning over and inviting a belly rub.

        I smiled and humored him.  “And so,” I continued, “He chose what only a mad pony would do.  Comethoof neither died nor became unsung.  He went to her realm in secret.  Somehow, he went there and stayed there, and he's remained hidden among her forgotten subjects for a thousand years.  But to what end?”

        I gazed over at his journal lying on a table.  It sat next to my lyre and countless sheets written with the elegies of the Nocturne.

        “But of course...” I murmured.  “...Princess Luna would return.  On the longest day of the thousandth year moon, the stars would aid in her escape from the Moon.  She would return to earth, and she would carry with her the essence of the unsung that gave birth to Nightmare Moon in the first place.”  After another cold breath, I uttered, “And then that would give birth to a cursed pony like me.  If Comethoof couldn't unravel all the elegies, it's possible that other cursed ponies might.”

        The light outside grew brighter.  Still, the world didn't feel any warmer as I watched the glow intensify beyond the window.

        “If only he had all of his faculties during Shadow's Advent,” I said in a low voice.  “If only Alabaster wasn't so fixated on Penumbra, in spite of her death, then maybe he would have had the wherewithal to figure out the last two elegies and save himself.  Then he wouldn't have to rely on a pony like me so many centuries later to finish the same puzzle.  But, still, if it wasn't for him...”

        I stopped petting Al.  I gazed down at the furry little thing.  I felt my heart beating heavily.

        “If I don't do what is required of me with the utmost attention and dedication...”  I muttered.  “...if I don't put all of my energy into freeing this curse, what will happen to me?  Will I end up as lost as him?  She had her beloved.  Alabaster had Penumbra.  What do I have?”  I gulped.  “What could I have?”

        Al purred, producing the slightest of trilling noises as he realized he wasn't being petted.

        I felt a pit forming in the back of my throat.  “This journey of mine is only going to become more and more perilous.”  My voice cracked slightly.  “What kind of a living is that for anything, much less a gh-ghost?”

        I knocked on the wooden door to the cottage.

        Fluttershy's voice squeaked from the other side.  “Y-yes?  Who is it?”

        “Are you Fluttershy?  The local animal caretaker?”

        “Erm... Yes.  I do believe that's what the locals have decided...”

        “I was wondering if you could take care of something that I've found...”

        There was a slight pause.  Eventually, the pegasus fumbled over the lock.  The door opened and she peered through.

        I stood before her.  Something was shifting about inside my saddlebag.  Before Fluttershy's vision, an adorable cat poked its head out and meowed into the noonday haze.

        “He's absolutely adorable,” Fluttershy said, kneeling beside the wandering cat in the center of her foyer.  “And you've been taking care of him for how long?”

        “For most of last week,” I said, standing at a cold distance along the edge of the room.  “But, before then, I'd been feeding him on and off for two or three months.  I saw him wandering around the woods on the edge of town and... and my heart j-just went out to him, y'know?”

        “I can see why.”  Fluttershy smiled and leaned down to nuzzle the feline.  Al returned the attention in a way he had done so often with a mint-coated ghost, whether or not he realized it.  “He's remarkably affectionate!  I can tell he's been a house cat before.  Most strays aren't this comfortable with ponies.  But, of course...” She giggled slightly.  “Perhaps we have you to thank for that.”

        I shrugged.  “I tried the best I could.  A very helpful pony gave me some much-needed advice.  I figured out how to re-train him to use the litter box.  I found out the best stuff to feed him.  I even got him some fresh shots.”

        “And after all this...”  Fluttershy gazed up at me.  “...you sure you don't want to take care of him?”

        “It's not a matter of what I want...”  I heard myself saying, like a shade of my past self beyond the cellar walls.  “I... I'm really entangled with a lot of... erm... complicated b-business at the moment and...”  I coughed briefly, shuddering from a wave of cold.  “It's... It's just not the right time to have a pet... or anything else f-for that matter.  I... uh...” I gazed off into the corner of the cottage and bit my lip before saying, “I think he deserves a safe, loving h-home, is all.”

        “Well, I will most certainly find him one,” Fluttershy said.  “You can count on me.”

        “Yes...” I said with a smile, forcing a dry chuckle.  “Your friends have told me that you have a way with animals and—”

        “I believe that a bond between a pony and an animal is the fundamental nature of how all things relate with one another,” Fluttershy said.  “It's something that can't be put in words...”

        “...but it comes with feeling,” I murmured.  “It's imbued with us all since the dawn of Creation.”

        She stood up and gazed at me with a surprised expression.  “Why, yes.  That's a very poetic way to put it.”

        I nodded slowly.

        “Does he have a name?”

        “Huh?”

        She giggled and pointed at the orange thing.  “The cat you found.  Did you bother to call him anything?”

        I shrugged.  “What's in a name?  He was... just an animal in need that I found.  Someone who was lost, and needed to g-get home somewhere.”  I swallowed.  “He... he sleeps around a lot, and protests a bit when you nuzzle him too closely.  And... and he loves having h-his ears scratched...” My voice gave out and I couldn't stop a tear running down my cheek.

        “Miss Heartstrings?”  Fluttershy looked at me.  “Is everything alright?”

        “Yeah.  Uhm...” I sniffed and wiped my cheek clean, trying to catch an even breath.  “It's just that... that...”  I looked at her, composed myself, and breathed, “Do you ever wonder if we forget things because... there are things in the past that are so sad, that it'd be better if they didn't exist at all?  That life would be nobler, stronger, and more promising if we simply... marched past it and pretended that history was different?”

        Fluttershy merely blinked at me.  Her wings twitched, and soon all she could say was, “I don't know.  But I must say, you're quite the philosopher, aren't you?”

        “Hah... heheh, yeah well...”  I chuckled, gazing past Al as my eyes dried up.  “It's easier than feeling,” I blurted.

        Fluttershy trotted over and placed a gentle hoof on my shoulder.  “Don't you worry, Miss Heartstrings.  I will look after him as if he was one of my foals.  He'll have a good home.  I promise you.  So don't you worry.”

        I wanted to reply to that.  I wanted to say it to Al, but I realized I was once again in the realm of keeping my thoughts to myself.  If I was to speak aloud, maybe the truth would have been a lot easier to release, something that would make me feel mad, but slightly more at ease.

        And the truth was that I was starting to forget what it meant to feel worried.

        That very afternoon, I sat in my cabin, filing together the written elegies I had accumulated of the Nocturne.  To write that it felt empty in my home would have been an understatement.  However, the absence of a companion suddenly resembled the absence of parasprites.  It may have been a lonelier world, but it was a truer one, and I was once again a cursed pony on a mission older than recorded time.

        I worked in absolute silence.  It's strange to think that I had always been so quiet in my studies.  I felt that I could at least afford a breath of fresh air.  I needed to scour through Comethoof's journal and see if there was any reference to his entry into the realm of the unsung.  If I had some sunshine, at least, then perhaps I could concentrate better on his glowing blue text.

        So, depositing his journal into my saddlebag along with my lyre, I stood up, swiveled about, and approached the front of my cabin.  As soon as I opened the door, I jumped.  Something orange was darting in past me.

        I turned around, blinking.

        The cat made a bee-line for the bed, hopped onto the covers, and made himself at home.  He sat there, licking himself, purring as if there was no tomorrow—or yesterday for that matter.

        I blinked.  I turned and looked out the door.  After a breath, I slowly trotted over to the bed.  I put my saddlebag down and sat next to him, gazing silently.

        The daylight wafted through the doorway, illuminating the shiny amber of his eyes.  He switched from licking one leg to polishing the other.  He bit at his claws slightly, then settled even deeper into the covers.

        My cabin was on the opposite side of Ponyville from Fluttershy's cabin.  It was a distance of over a mile, easily, with several countless buildings, streams, and wooden thickets in the way.  And in less than four hours...

        I reached a hoof over experimentally.

        Al lifted his whiskers, sniffed my forelimb only once, and immediately nuzzled me as he always had.  A tiny meow came from his mouth, and he rolled over in bed.

        I smiled, a very painful thing.  I felt the tears in my eyes and no longer tried to hide them.  Leaning over, I scratched his ears and nuzzled him dearly.  He didn't move from that spot even once.

        “Maybe animals aren't affected by the curse,” I murmured out loud.  “Maybe felines have an extra sense that her song cannot cover.  Maybe your kind just isn't considered dangerous enough to breach the secret of the unsung realm.”

        That evening, the two of us sat with Comethoof's journal in the center of the bed.  A warm fire was burning in the fireplace.  Everything was toasty.  I didn't even need to wear my hoodie, a very rare things.  Al's soft fur was ticklish and comforting to the touch as he sat next to my flank.

        “Whatever the case,” I said with a smile directed his way.  “This mad, rambling philosopher is glad to have you around to help me study.”  I nuzzled him again and stifled a flighty giggle.  “Maybe you'd like me to sing lullabies like Twilight does to Spike?”

        Al meowed sharply.

        “Heh.  Didn't think so,” I said.  I reveled in his company.  With a warm breath, I poured once more through the blue text.  “I may not know exactly what the parasprites hid that one day with Princess Celestia in the hotel, but at least I now know Comethoof's out there, and he has the Nightbringer.  That's good, right?  I mean... what is that old mare's expression about a gift horse?”

        In a cursed life, I'd be a fool to turn away any blessings, no matter how small.

Background Pony

XIII - “Easier Than Feeling”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: Warden, theworstwriter, Props, RazgrizS57, and TheBrianJ

Cover pic by Spotlight

Be sure to check out the talented Belgerum’s personal rendition of the Nocturne of the Firmaments

(Belgerum’s Youtube Page)

Also check out needthistool’s audio read of Background Pony Chapter 1: Melodious

(Needthistool’s Deviantart Page and Youtube Page)

        Dear journal,

        Is this my journey and my journey alone?  When I defeat this curse, will I be the only pony to have achieved salvation?  Has it only been a practical lie to have viewed this entire debacle as a lonely exercise all along?

        I realize now, more than ever, that the sum of my experiences, the total encompassing of my hopes and dreams, are not only defined by suffering and learning, but by the souls before me, by ponies who may not have had it within themselves to become free from her insatiable dominance.  Nevertheless, these souls have lent me the keys to freedom that they otherwise could have used for themselves.

        Perhaps that is the biggest lesson I have learned so far; I am not half the heroine as I am the damsel to be rescued from this crazy predicament.  Up until now, I assumed that all of the ponies I had to thank for guiding me along this journey were completely unreachable.  However—as the fickle winds of fate have so taught me—I can reach further than ever before.  I can reach so far that not even she has a chance of stopping me.

        And now, I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps she's not there only to stop me; she's there to help me...

        An eerie silence hovered above the small meeting room, with the four ponies frozen at their respective seats around the table, blinking in contemplation at the question that had been asked.  As the candlelight of the ceiling lamp flickered above, they exchanged cold glances, as if challenging each other to speak.  Finally, with a defeated sigh, one of them leaned forward.

        “Well, 'tis a good question,” Octavia said.  She adjusted her bowtie and rested her smokey gray forelimbs atop the oak table.  “Does music indeed hold a divine power?  I have always assumed so, though I must declare such an assumption to be purely subjective.  I would not know about the experience of each and every pony in this room, but for my part, music has been a means by which I have shared the consciousness of all who would give audience to me.  I find music to be a bridge for souls, as t’were.”

        “I agree with you, Miss Octavia,” said Melodia Braids.  The young pegasus sat at the other end of the table, running a nervous hoof through the emerald locks of her mane.  She bit her lip and fidgeted before speaking, “Uhm... I shudder to think what kind of a pony I would be if I never even went to music school in the first place.  It's—like—I've been able to take apart my spirit and put it back together delicately while sharing it with everypony.  I don't think there's a finer form of expression.”

        “I'm rather particular to dancin' myself,” said a stallion opposite to her.

        Melodia squinted across the table at him.  “So music is your second favorite gift, Mr. Bard?”

        “Heck, no!” Mr. Bard spat.  “I'm just sayin' that I don't subscribe too much to that there 'bridge for souls’ mumbo jumbo.  Ya fancy the notion of gettin’ to know other ponies?  Find yer place in a square dance and go to town!”  The bearded earth pony had his chair leaning against the wall of the room.  In it, he slouched and balanced a guitar across two folded lower limbs while strumming a lazy tune with his hooves.  “If y'all ask me, music's job is to help us get more friendly with nature.  There's a heapin' lot of wilderness out there, and it's a cryin' shame to keep all our singin' locked up in record stores and sound booths when the Cosmic Momma herself gave us all the stages we've ever needed!”

        Octavia nodded.  “Well, you're onto something, Jumpin' Ray Bard—”

        “Land's sakes, pretty filly!”  Mr. Bard kicked himself upright and fiddled with the brim of his cowboy hat.  “Just call me 'Mr. Bard' like Missy Green-Hair over there!  Only former members of my band get permission to call me 'J.R. Bard' proper!”

        “My deepest apologies, Mr. Bard, sir,” Octavia said with a slight smile.  “I only meant to point out the fact that you mentioned the Cosmic Matriarch, albeit in your own colorful manner.”

        “Yup?”  He leaned back again.  “What about 'er?”

        “Well, legend has it that she created the world with a song, yes?”  Octavia's eyes darted across the faces of the other three.  “And then—presumably—that very same song was broken down and disseminated throughout the world, so that it became the various separate spheres that make up reality today.  So, in a manner of speaking, the nature that you're so avidly fond of, Mr. Bard, 'tis but an extension of the omnipresent song of the Cosmic Matriarch.  Would you agree, then, that under such an assumption, we are all participants of one melodious chorus?”

        “I'm sorry, darlin', but you lost me at 'deepest apologies.'”

        While Octavia dragged a hoof across her face in annoyance, Melodia Braids leaned forward with a smile.  “Well, I think the power of music—divine or not—can be interpreted in many ways.  Ms. Octavia sees it as a way of connecting to others.  Jumpin' Ray—er—Mr. Bard sees it as a way of connecting with nature.”  She blushed as her wings twitched demurely.  “I... uhm... see it as a way of getting in touch with myself.  I imagine Ms. Scratch must see it as a way of experimenting with expression!  Isn't that right, Vinyl?”

        The room fell utterly silent.

        “Uhm...”  Melodia fidgeted and glanced aside.  “Ms. Scratch?”

        A white unicorn with a blue mane was collapsed across her end of the table, snoring limply into her own drool.

        “Hey!”  Mr. Bard grunted.  “Sunshine!  Up and at 'em!”  He swung a lower hoof out and kicked the chair underneath her.

        “Snkkt—Gaah!” Vinyl Scratch shot up, a pair of shades hanging crookedly off her magenta eyes.  “I took care of it!  I flushed the stuff!  It's all gone!”  She froze in place, blinking.  “Huh...?”  Vinyl stared dazedly across the room.  “Oh.  This thing.  I remember this thing.”

        “I believe Ms. Braids was asking you what purpose music had in your life,” Octavia remarked.  “Divine or otherwise.”

        “Jee, I dunno.”  Vinyl shrugged.  “Stuff.”  She yawned and leaned forward across the table.  “I don't see what the big deal is.  I just slap records around until something sexy comes out of the speakers.”  She smirked.  “Heh.  It's a lot like this one weekend I had in a resort after an Orlandoats gig.  Only instead of records, there were these two tight-flanked brothers from Stalliongrad and I was slapping around their—”

        Melodia cleared her throat, hiding her beet-red face behind a hoof.  “I believe we should stay on topic.”

        “I second the lady's motion,” Mr. Bard grunted, casting the unicorn a wary glance.  “I don't see what buckin' the proverbial apple tree in an overpriced hotel room has to do with what we're gabbin' about.”

        “Pffft.  Fine, buzzkills.”  Vinyl Scratch leaned back, rested her forelimbs behind her head, and yawned towards the ceiling.  “Just what the hay are we talking about anyways?”

        “Well...”  Melodia opened her mouth, paused, and bit her lip.  “You know, that is a very good question.”

        “Reckon I can't possibly be sittin' in the same room as three mares with goldfish memories,” Mr. Bard drawled.  “We're here to talk about magic in music, ain't we?”

        “Well, sure.  But something's gnawing at me.”  Melodia gazed across the table with nervous eyes.  “I can't explain why, but the topic of the power of music is very important to me.  In a way, I feel as though it's always been something dear to my heart.  I guess I just never thought much about it until now.”

        “Well, if I may say so, it has always been immeasurably relevant to my career,” Octavia declared.  “Both inside the concert hall and outside, music has erected for me more than just a legacy of concert performances.”

        “Hahah!”  Vinyl's teeth showed through a bleary smile.  “She said 'erected.'”

        Octavia briefly frowned at her, then continued.  “As a matter of fact, if it weren't for the mystical qualities of music, I do not think I would have overcome numerous odds in my life in order to be here, speaking to you presently.”

        “I reckon there's a mighty big bush yer beatin' around,” Mr. Bard said.  “Perhaps it might suit ya to hop over it, little lady.”

        Octavia slowly nodded, then leaned forward to address the entire table.  “Perchance you fine ponies have heard of something called 'The Curse of the Ninth?’”

        “Ooooh...”  Melodia's ears twitched.  “Why, yes!  I've heard of that!”

        “The Curse of the What-now?” Mr. Bard made a face.

        “Sounds like a wicked case of Maretezuma's Revenge,” Vinyl slurred.  Under the glare of three sets of eyes, she shrugged wildly.  “Oh, what?!  Like you rich, string-pluckin' yahoos have never sampled absinthe down in Mexicolt!”

        “What I'm referring to, Ms. Scratch, is a legend among the musical elite of Canterlot,” Octavia explained.  “'Tis a childish case of superstition, granted, but its age and its recognition throughout the centuries have given the notion something akin to noble antiquity.  It is nothing other than the belief that a successful musician can only perform nine epic movements during one's career—nay, one's life.  To go any further, to attempt a tenth movement is to tempt fate, and perhaps even invite death or a far more alarming fate.”

        “Hmmm... It's startin' to sound familiar,” Mr. Bard remarked as he paused in strumming his guitar.  “Is this anythang like that so-called 'Twenty-Seven Club?'”

        “Oh!  Oh!  Dude!”  Vinyl suddenly pounded the table and pointed at him.  “That's, like, the crap that took out Jimmy Haydrix and Colt Kurbain!”

        “I wouldn't know about that,” Melodia said pensively.  “But I-I am familiar with the Curse of the Ninth.  Historically, it consumed the likes of Doctor Hoofstone, Ponyderecki, and Green Sound.  They were all young, up-and-coming composers.  They wrote many symphonies, but when they each finished their ninth, fate somehow tragically kept them from performing any further, either through death, retirement or both.  The most famous case, of course is... erm... Neightoven.”

        “Oh!  Right!  Neightoven!  Heh...”  Mr. Bard nodded with a smirk.  “I reckon that's why his Ninth Symphony is so darn famous.  It's on account of it bein' the last one he ever did.”

        “Yeah, I once remixed his crud at a club in Seaddle,” Vinyl said with a wicked grin.  “It hit this really awesome part with kaizo reverb and—pffftch—the bass speakers just about killed themselves.  There was glass everywhere, dude.  You should have seen it.  The dance floor was full of flanksters slipping on puddles cuz they were wetting themselves so friggin' much.”

        Octavia frowned across the table.  “Neightoven's Ninth Symphony is more than just a public sample of music that can be put to trivial purposes through rampant... deejaying.”  She cleared her throat and spoke with greater eloquence, “It is a testament to the fragile nature of a pony's musical career, and how it can come to a bitter end at any given moment.”

        “But I thought ya weren't a writer like Miss Braids here!”  Mr. Bard pointed across the table.  “I figured you just played the music of other ponies before the audiences in Canterlot and made it sound all angelic-like.”

        “Yes, that is true,” Octavia replied with a nod.  “For all of my pomp and fame, I am but a humble cellist who bowed her way to the top.  Still, I have immeasurable respect for the classics.  It goes beyond the simple fact that I made performing them the very cornerstone of my career.  In truth, I started out relatively naïve and ignorant of works of musical antiquity.  When I was young, I was still attempting to find my spotlight on the grand stage.  After graduating from the Canterlot Music Academy, I sought a means to express my talents.  This brought me to a relatively unassuming establishment in the less-than-affluent western district of Trottingham, where I discovered for myself the true nature of the Curse of the Ninth.”

        “Ughhh...”  Vinyl raised her shades and rubbed a hoof over her clenched eyelids.  “Is this going where I think it's going?”

        “Would it kill ya to be polite for a spell?” Mr. Bard grumbled.

        “Please, we're all ears,” Melodia said with a smile as she leaned forward and gazed at Octavia.  “What happened to you in Trottingham?”

        “You must understand,” Octavia said.  “My career had barely just begun.  I was a veritable no-name, a mere background pony, as t'were.  My fundamental grasp of music was based on the rigid material impressed upon me me through scholastic knowledge and basic teaching programs.  I hadn't yet gone out into the world to feel the music scene on my own, to understand what it meant to form a bridge with the souls of one's audience.  Being an artist was something mysterious and daunting at the time, but that was not without its sense of adventure...

        The place in Trottingham where I was to perform was called the Anvil Rust Theatre.  Calling it a “theatre,” though, was more than a grandiose stretch.  It was more akin to a halfway house for up-and-coming musicians to find their calling, and those who attended the place paid very little to get a seat.  Upon trotting into the establishment, I felt my expectations crumbling into dust.  The interior appeared barely capable of seating more than a hundred ponies.  Looking back, I somewhat admire the intimacy and the microcosmic atmosphere that the hall produced.  At the time, however, I was younger and far more ambitious.  I had hopes and aspirations of performing before hundreds upon hundreds—if not thousands—of eager listeners at once.  And though such wishes would be fulfilled eventually, I was too blind and full of ennui to see that at the time.

        Nevertheless, I pressed onward, even when I was ushered to my new living quarters: a tiny flat built into the fourth level of the building within which the Anvil Rust Theatre was housed.  I must admit, I was part of a unique program at the time.  I was still subsisting off of the stipend that had carried me through the Canterlot Music Academy, and there in Trottingham I was to live and breathe off the very stage itself, performing on a regular basis: every two nights, and sometimes every single evening.  I felt blessed, but such enthusiasm only lasted into the first week.

        It is quite easy to be fooled by the exquisite and genteel exteriors of the Trottingham populace.  Quite truthfully, they are a ruthless and scathingly critical lot beneath an eloquent façade, and this was no more evident than in the alleyways and slums of the smoggy city's western district, which was to be my humble home for the next two years.

        On my first night of performing Marezart before the Anvil Rust audience, I was immediately booed off stage.  I refused to move a single hoof at first, because I had barely gone beyond the first few bars of the instrumental, and I imagined that the crowd was being cruel simply for the sake of disparaging my novice performance.  Soon, however, I could no longer remain on stage, for I was too overcome with tears to remain focused on my instrumentation.

        Those nights in Trottingham taught me volumes about the true nature of equine cruelty.  As it so happened, regardless of my talent or lack thereof, I simply could not keep the audience's attention.  I realized that it was a matter of popularity, for every nightly session was shared by another mare of similar talents who had the benefit of a prestigious history of accomplishments.  The plebeian listeners of Trottingham were simply too impatient to sit through the opening act, which was my task to bear.  They only wanted to hear those with whom they were closely familiar.  They had already formed a bridge with the soul of their favored performer, you see, and I was not a part of that equation.

        To say the least, I was terribly discouraged from continuing with my tenure there.  And yet, as the months went on, I endured.  The ponies did—as a matter of fact—cease treating me like utter rubbish.  However, I still could not charm or woo them with my talents in the manner in which I so greatly desired.  It was as though there was an invisible wall that kept our spirits from commingling across the waves of melody I produced every night.

        I then began to question my talents and ambitions.  Was I truly performing as well as I could have been?  Or perhaps I was expecting too much when I went on stage every night?  Were my youth and foalish dreams making me work too hard for such little reward?  Was I ever destined to be as great as I felt in my heart I could be?

        And then, one month amidst the bleary cold of the Trottingham winter, I found out that the popular mare whose act constantly outshone mine was retiring.  A selfish part of me was happy to see my competition depart from the premises, and yet I was dismayed to spot a look of lethargy and sorrow gracing her expression.  On her last day, I stumbled upon her as she was packing her things in her apartment room above the theatre.  I momentarily discarded my envious feelings so that I could speak with her in dearest sincerity.

        She told me that I had a dismal, cloudy future ahead.  She insisted that if I had any hope for my own music career, that I was to depart from the premises of the Anvil Rust Theatre and go as far away as I possibly could.  When I asked her why, she broke into tears and lamented openly, telling me that she had performed at that very establishment for a miserable twenty years, and that her desperation to impress the crowd was what kept her so unsuccessful in the music scene for so long.

        I asked if there was a reason why she didn't retire or seek an audience elsewhere long before that moment.  She told me that something had long compelled her to stay.  She implied that there was a mystical spirit, an accursed atmosphere of tragedy that clung to that very site, that made the audience so bitter and her own self so eager to experience their apathy on a regular basis.

        It occurred to me that she was not speaking complete nonsense, for I had felt such accursed sensations myself.  Every evening, I could barely sleep.  I would wake up fitfully in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat, as if a terrible heat had threatened to burn me under my covers.  On occasion, I felt like I could smell a whiff of acrid smoke bleeding through the walls of the tiny apartment surrounding me.

        I do not know where I summoned the courage to do it, but I asked her if she experienced the same throes of mystical insomnia.  To such an inquisition, the mare paled, and she spat out something terse and cryptic: a single date.  Then, in a trancelike fashion, she stuffed all of her remaining things into her luggage and left in a furious gallop.  I never saw or heard from that musician again.

        But it was obvious that she was onto something, though the frightened soul trapped behind her twitching eyes refused to put the information into proper words.  So, on the first occasion I could, I made a trip to the local library.  I scoured the Trottingham records for events that transpired on the date that the mare had stammered unto me.  It was then that I made a ghastly discovery.

        It so happened that a horrible catastrophe had once transpired at the Anvil Rust Theatre.  As a few of you may know, the city of Trottingham is very old.  There are streets there that have been around since the dark days of Shadow's Advent.  Seven hundred years ago, not long after the very opening of the theatre and its surrounding establishments, the world-renown composer Green Sound was about to give her last performance.  She was rather young for such sudden retirement, but the mare had just foaled and she wished to live among her own family for the next decade or two.

        So, she decided to perform her latest and final composition at the newly opened Anvil Rust Theatre.  As you may already be suspecting, there's a great deal of irony to be had here.  This was to be Green Sound's Tenth Symphony.  The previous nine had made her famous all across Equestria, and she had single-hoofedly introduced new and far more optimistic motifs into a music scene that had been dominated by melancholic ballads and mournful elegies for the better part of three centuries.

        This was to be a very subtle, intimate, and unassumingly small performance.  The Anvil Rust Theatre, after all, could only house so few ponies.  Despite the sincere gesture on Green Sound's part, this meant that only a small, elite group of Trottingham residents could afford to be seated for her final bow.  Needless to say, there were many critics within the music scene who were understandably enraged by this turn of events.  Sadly, it would seem that one or two of them took their zealous hatred to a degree of... sociopathic quality.

        On the night that Green Sound went on stage to perform her final and Tenth composition, an arsonist had set fire to the foundation of the building.  A terrible inferno consumed the Anvil Rust Theatre, and over one hundred and twenty ponies were caught in the terrible conflagration.  Among the dead was Green Sound, her horribly charred remains still clutching her violin.  She left behind a widower and a lonesome pair of motherless twins.  The ponies of Trottingham gave her an epic funeral, and there was even a city holiday in her honor that lasted for several centuries.

        In the days that I performed at the theatre, speaking the name of Green Sound had become something of a taboo, a subject that denoted fear and tragedy and superstition.  After my studies in the local library, I asked several of my fellow musicians and tenants about her legacy in the Anvil Rust Theatre.  Most of my questions were met with silence, dismissal, and even anger.  But the one common thread that possessed all ponies I asked about Green Sound was a deep-seated fear.  It filled them with a nervousness that gave their trotting hooves a shivering quality, as if the walls of the building would catch fire yet again and collapse on them at any moment.

        It was around that time I realized I too was suffering from a deep-seated paranoia.  There was a reason for why I constantly woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.  I began to suspect that the ethereal scent of smoke meant more than what my base senses could tell me.  Perhaps the mare who had left before me knew a great deal more than she was willing to divulge.  Whatever the case, I felt that I was learning more and more with each passing evening.  There was a reason for why the audience of the Anvil Rust Theatre subjected me and other musicians to such hatred and apathy.  The very building upon which we stood had been drenched with a spirit of tragedy and suffering.  Suddenly, my young mind contemplated a reason for the disconnect between me and the Trottingham ponies I was attempting to woo with my music.

        Alas, can you imagine such brazen arrogance on my part?  If I was a sensible young pony, I would have blamed the disinterest of my audience on my feeble performance, or my loose grip on the fine rhythm of the classics.  However, I was not willing to settle for a reality in which my lackluster career was defined exclusively by my blemished locale.  I knew in my heart and mind that I was destined for great things, and as an artist who saw an imperfection standing in her way, I made it my goal to eliminate it so that my “voice” could be heard clearly.

        I spent an entire day exploring the deepest archives in the Trottingham Library.  For a while, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for.  How does one scrounge a forsaken symphony from the depths of yesteryear?  A pony would have far richer luck finding a single ash of purpose from the graves of those who came and went before us.  However, desperate to cleanse the horrible spirit from my place of performance, and emboldened by a deep desire to bring justice to the legacy of Green Sound, I pressed on.  After much restless research and struggle, I finally discovered what I was looking for.  It was a single sheet, hidden in an ancient tome coated in soot and timeless embers, as if the very spirit of my musical haunt had deposited it from a burning cloud for me to find.  I was too overwhelmed with the joy of victory to be frightened; I now had in my very hooves the hitherto forgotten magnum opus of Green Sound, her Tenth Symphony.  If the future was to be exorcised of ill-spirit, then I had to assault the roots of such darkness in the past.

        I waited for a special holiday—a night when there would be no scheduled performances in the Theatre.  As much as I disliked doing so, I settled for Hearth's Warming Eve that very year.  While ponies were singing carols and playing with snow in the streets of Trottingham, I had stealthily positioned myself within the very shadows of the Anvil Rust Theatre.  I waited patiently for the ushers and managers to close the establishment.  Once the Theatre had been completely emptied of ponies, I made my way onto the darkened stage to begin my clandestine performance.

        I felt incredibly nervous all of the sudden.  My limbs were shaking and I could barely hold onto the cello in my grasp.  I felt as if there were hundreds of shadowed limbs reaching out to me from the empty seats, attempting to drag me down into a time-forgotten inferno that had consumed so many shrieking, sobbing ponies in that very building centuries prior.  I realized that whatever spirits haunted that place, they were without peace, without resolution, without a soft and melodious denouement to carry them out of the tempestuous rhythm of the waking world.

        I knew right then that only the finest musician could soothe the anguish of phantoms.  And I knew that such a fine musician was me.

        So, without any further hesitation, I closed my eyes and performed Green Sound's Tenth Symphony from memory.  It was such a heavenly piece, that instrumental, full of rising and falling crests in gentle defiance of the established melody of its time.  It was so brazenly cheerful, that a part of me openly wept for the ponies whose lives were snuffed out violently before they could have had their ears blessed with the blissful harmony of an affirmative movement written by a mare who only wanted to be the mother that her two foals innocently deserved.

        Perhaps it was my quiet sobs that they listened to more, as if it was an added percussion to the symphony as a whole.  Whether my voice was the solution, or the Tenth Symphony itself, I felt as though my performance had accomplished something.  By the time I had finished, I felt an incredible weight being lifted from my shoulders.  It was the happiest and most liberating sensation I had felt since my days in the Musical Academy.  I felt a tickle in my ears, as if several hooves were applauding.  When I opened my eyes, my vision was obscured but a part of me could have sworn I saw a phalanx of pale, smiling faces from the first few rows of seats.  In a blink, I saw nothing, and I only smiled all the more, for they were gone.

        They were gone.  And what was more, I knew that they were gone.  Whatever cloud of pain and hatred had infested the Anvil Rust Theatre had dissolved, and in its place was an empty sphere of promise, opportunity, and silence: the perfect vessel for a young artist such as me to express herself.  I had performed the entire Tenth Symphony of Green Sound in that place for the first time, and there was no need for any spirit of anguish to linger there any longer.  So I thanked the emptiness by bowing to it.

        “I know it may make me sound like a mad pony,” Octavia continued from where she sat at the table.  “To speak of ghouls and haunted spirits and other such fantastical things.  But regardless of the nature of my mystical assumptions, things changed for the Theatre—and for myself in turn.  When I performed next on the evening of the New Year, I actually received applause.  I swear, it was not due to my own input.  My performance was as consistent as ever with my prior cello playing.  It would appear as though—indeed—the audience was simply that much more receptive to my talent.”

        The other three ponies watched as Octavia smiled gently, her hoof trailing circles along the top of the table in a foalish manner.

        “I was not alone in this,” she said.  “Several other young musicians were getting standing ovations when beforehand nopony in the audience would even bat an eye.  Instantly, all of my fears and self-doubt flew out the proverbial window, for I had discovered the potency of my talents once more.

Word of my musical skills spread throughout Trottingham, and soon ponies were coming from all corners of Equestria to visit the Anvil Rust Theatre, which had literally become a source of culture and reinvigorating classicism overnight.  Then, one week, Fancy Pants himself attended.  He spread word of my performance among the elite population of Canterlot.  Fatefully, that same year, when Princess Celestia visited Trottingham for the Summer Sun Celebration, she made a stop by the theatre.  I performed for Her Majesty in person, and she commended me.  My title officially became a household name, and I've been maintaining such esteemed notoriety to the best of my ability ever since.”

        “Wow...”  Melodia Braids smiled, her wings fluttering at the end of Octavia's speech.  “That's simply incredible.  You mean playing Green Sound's final song really cured the Curse of the Ninth?”

        “If you wish to gain such meaning from my tale, then I would not fault you,” Octavia replied.

        “Seems like a lot of superstitious hooey to me,” Mr. Bard grumbled.

        “Mr. Bard!” Melodia frowned his way.  “I'd like to see you disprove her!”

        “What use would it make?”  He produced a bearded frown.  “She done told us about somethang she experienced and experienced alone.  Don't make a lick of sense tryin' to disprove it.  Still don't mean I have to be believin' it, though.”

        “I kind of digged the part about the zombie ghosts,” Vinyl Scratch muttered.  She raised her shades and blinked her bleary eyes at the rest of the group.  “Did anyone else like the zombie ghosts?”

        “Mister Bard, you need not blindly accept the suspension of disbelief that makes my recollection remotely palatable,” Octavia said.  “I would only hope that you gain from it an acknowledgment that there is more to music than sheer performance.  I quite literally had a blockade with my attempts to connect to the souls of my audience in that Theatre.  For it to have dissolved overnight is more than mere coincidence; wouldn’t you agree?”

        “‘Cuz I liked the zombie ghosts...”

        “I think that when pony folks are dealin' with pony folks, then nothang is predictable,” Mr. Bard said, clutching his guitar.  He bounced his body repeatedly off the table with his lower hoof while murmuring, “Music shouldn't just be corralled into the industry of entertainment and stage performances.  I mean—shucks—I reckon I sound mighty hypocritical, what with me bein' a bang-up country music singer and all.  But there's a reason for why I haven't gone on tour in ages.  I don't write music to become popular like you, Missy.  I do it because I'm drawn towards it.  I feel it every time I go out for a stroll in nature.  I swear, it's like the land speaks to me n'stuff.  The world's older than recorded time, and so is music.  Them's siblings by rote, if ya know what I mean.”

        “Zombie ghosts are cool...”

        “Shhh!”  J.R. Bard frowned at Vinyl before strumming at his guitar once more.  “Wait yer own turn, ya pointy-headed snowpony!  Dog gone it, where was I?  Oh, yes!”

        He played a few notes on his instrument, as though he were dishing out a folk tune.

        Instead, he orated, “I guess y'all could say that I settled for early retirement.  I was fine with makin' records and writin' music with the best of them.  But when mad pony fans started clamorin' over me like they was in a stampede, that's when I backed off.  No sense in havin' all that mess in my beard, if ya feel me.  So I said 'so long' to my agents, packed up my guitar, and set off for Goddess-knows-where.  Come to think of it, it woulda helped at the time to know whereabouts I was headed.  But it so happens that I saw a fancy shmancy poster at a local train department.  It spoke of this place that the local folks were headin' out to colonize.  They were gonna call the community 'Appleloosa.'  I plum thought it was the dumbest thang I ever heard.  But it was out in the desert and there was few ponies makin' the trip.  So, on a whim, I said 'sign me up,' and away I went...

        Little did I know that when we finally got all our wagons to that place, it was barely nothin' more than a regular hole in the ground.  We was sandwiched between the high walls of a mighty steep canyon.  What was more, there was a whole load of mean-spirited buffalo roamin' ‘round them parts.  I didn't quite take a likin' to the spirit of adventure that invigorated so many of my fellow... nnngh... Appleloosans, but I simply shrugged it off and decided to play along.  After all, we had a lot of crazy work ahead of us.  And if there's anythang that makes me think and get in touch with myself, it's good, hard work.

        The first thang we did was lay down tracks to form the railroad comin' down from the north.  Boy, was that some mighty sweatin' and heavin'.  Still, t'ain't nothin' to have been frettin' about.  We got the job done because we had to.  The sun was hot when it wanted to be, and the wind was soothin' when it felt like it.  We didn't really have any control over the way things were in the desert.  We just made the best of it, like good, hard-workin' earth ponies have been doin' since the beginnin' of time.  Needless to say, I was feelin' it.  Whatever that “it” was, I'll leave it to y'all to guess.

        For me, everythang was perfect.  I was right where I was supposed to be.  When the sun set, the western horizon caught ablaze with all these pretty hues of red and orange.  It was like the Cosmic Momma herself was paintin' a masterpiece all across the roof of the world, cascadin' trails of crimson and pink over the tips of the mesas and mountain cliffs.  The air was dry, just in the sort of way that empties yer nostrils and makes a clean path to yer lungs.  You could scream a mighty ballad into them hills, and I did just that on a few occasions.  I swear, I could have heard those mountains echoin' back to me.  We were like lovers callin' to each other across a stone ocean of nothin'.  I felt like I was gettin' in touch with a part of myself that I had long left buried in all them months of self-glorifyin' music tours and record signin'.  I had become a new stallion in the town of Appleloosa, even in spite of the goddessawful name.  Heh.

        But the other ponies—the ones colonizin' that valley all around me?  Heck, I wish I could say that they was feelin' half as tranquil-like as yers truly.  Every day that we spent layin' tracks and plantin' apple seeds into them fields, my neighbors were always trottin' around with a horrible stoop to their shoulders.  They seemed awfully skittish, and even when I asked what was eatin' at them, they had very little to say: only that they were hankerin' to get the job done for the day so that they could gallop back home and shut themselves off from the desert.

        Could you imagine that?  What a cryin' shame!  Why do you move your little keister on over to the middle of the desert unless you want to be one with the land?!  Bah!  I said they was morons!  They just looked at me funny and asked, “Do you hear that?”

        And I'd say “Hear what?  The wind?  The gentle hush of the desert?”

        Then they'd inch away from me as if I had the pony pox or somethin'.  Months later when I finally got a few of 'em to open up, they all said the same dang thing.  They kept hearing a sound.  A “hum” was what they called it.  Yes, a “hum.”  A bunc o'them ponies were hearin' this constant tone, as if it was comin' off the dirt walls of the canyons surroundin' us.  It must have spooked them somethin' terrible, cuz a bunch of those yellow-bellied rapscallions tore off for distant civilization.  They just up and left Appleloosa, even after comin' all the way to settle in a place with such a dumb name to begin with.

        Naturally, I thought they was all dreamin' the stuff up—just like I feel about you and that whole nonsense about the Theatre, Miss Octavia.  Ponies are creatures of mind over matter, and more often than not we simply imagine the strange hooey that performs magic tricks before our eyes.  That's how music mystifies us, ya see.  T'ain't no such thing as ghosts or hauntin's, far as I'm concerned.  But when music moves us, we're liable to believe anythang.  The only musician that matters in the grand history of time is the greatest musician of all, and she done left Equestria ages ago.  But when she did, she left us all pieces of her glorious song.  And the only artist with the authority to sing that 'ol ditty is nature itself.

        So what if there really was a “hum” to them hills?  Goddess knows I hung out on the side of town, my ears tilted towards the heavens, listenin' to the earth, the sky, and the dag blame'd cacti from sunup to sundown.  I couldn't make out a darn thang.  But apparently every other pony could, considerin' how bad the apple orchards were doin'.

        Yup.  That's right.  The apple trees—the very thang we came all the way to that valley to plant—were startin' to croak on us left and right.  You see, long before the local buffalo gave us grief over our plantin' in their stampedin' grounds, the desert itself was bein' real stubborn-like.  We had ourselves a famine, to put it lightly, and not a single apple tree wanted to sprout.  Even the grown trees we replanted were startin' to wither and die.

        At first, I wasn't willin' to buy that the earth was bein' so plum mean to us.  It had to have been the workers, the planters, the crazy city ponies donnin' boots and work duds, thinkin' that they had what it took to make somethin' grow out of nothin'.  I'm not exactly Mr. Green Hoof myself, but I know a thang or two about irrigation, and I knew that these nincompoops I was livin' with were losin' their good sense, all on account of their terrible superstition about that infuratin' “hum.”

        So, I tried showin' them how to do it proper, but none of them would pay me no mind.  They was all reelin', stumblin', swayin' about as if afflicted with a terrible spell of sickness.  The “hum” was all that they could think about, as if they all had become the poor audience to a giant music concert that only they could hear.

        Just what was goin' on in that town?  Was there a true curse underhoof?  Was the valley actually tryin' to get us to pack up and return to mainland Equestria?

        I wasn't about to buy it.  Nope, not this stallion.  I came out to that place to rediscover myself and I would be a dag-blame'd fool if I got all shiverin' in my horseshoes like them nervous pony folk I had become neighbors with.  I had the wilderness starin' me down on all sides, and I was ready to have myself a heart-to-heart conversation with it.

        What y'all gotta understand is that I hadn't played a lick of music since I got there.  I spent the time mostly silent, for I was tryin' to look deep inside myself and figure out the stallion first and the musician second.  But on account of this stupid “hum” and all, I figured that my best weapon was my guitar.  So I hoisted the thing over my shoulder, filled my saddlebag with oats and canteens of water, and made my way west and didn't stop for nothin' until the sun had set.  Then, in the middle of the night, I climbed up a steep mesa all on my lonesome.  I don't tell y'all this to convince you that I was some macho thoroughbred or nothin'.  I was simply tired of dancin' around the issue of what cursed that valley, and the only way to confront nature was to get my limbs dirtied up to the elbows.

        So, I reached the summit.  The sun rose, and the heat that came with it was unbearable.  The only thing I could do there was sit and squint across the landscape.  Oh, and play some of my music, of course.  Thing is, I didn't bring a single music sheet with me, and I wasn't prepared to revisit my career after takin' a leave of absence from the industry so soon.  So, I simply strummed whatever came to my head, figurin' that if there was anyone or anything that could hear me, I'd have an audience pretty darn soon or else I'd never have one at all.

        I gotta tell ya, it felt plum silly to be sittin' there all alone on the roof of the desert, strummin' a guitar tune to the lone winds of a desolate world.  Everythang's subjective, right Miss Octavia?  Shucks, perhaps all them Appleloosa folks were the only ones with a lick of sense after all.  That'd make me the one sap who had lost all his marbles.  Heh.  I mean, after all, the colony was sufferin' illness and famine, and instead of tendin' to them dyin' apple orchards like a true hero, there I was playin' solo guitar atop a giant table of rock in the middle of nowhere.

        And I was there for an awful long time too.  Remember that hot sunrise I talked about?  Well, the sun fell like it always did, and it rose several hours later like it always did too.  What wasn't so natural was the fact that I had stayed awake for the whole dang thing.  I don't know if y’all can call it insomnia, or any other sort of affliction.  But I was determined to stay there, wide awake and stubborn as a mule, until I could figure out just what that sound was that was spookin' all my fellow ponies somethin' awful.

        It was hardly a vacation; that's for sure.  My water had run out.  My oats were startin' to spoil.  I was smellin' terrible from sweatin' like an unwashed pig.  I was beginnin' to go mad, in a way, or else I had been mad from the very get-go. What else could possibly have made me climb up to that there stage of stone?

        Eventually, my senses came to me, and I started to fear for my miserable life.  I was just about to climb my tremblin' way down the summit, when I heard it.  I finally, finally heard it...

        Was it a hum?  No, I reckon that wouldn't have been a proper name for it.  Was it some spirit talkin' to me from the foundations of the earth?  Heck, I ain't no philosopher.  I was just a mad pony with a guitar, challengin' nature to do its worst... and boy, did nature deliver.

        I started gettin' these fancy tunes in my head.  It was some real purdy inspiration, the type of undammed rapids of infernal thoughts that I hadn't been struck with since the early days when I first strutted my awkward way onstage.  I just couldn't believe the crazy amount of stuff fillin' my noggin'.  I felt like I was an entire band full of ponies fresh out of secondary school—y'know—when everythang is just fresh and creative and right.  I started thinkin' up songs that would never have come to me hadn't I made that trip to that rock to begin with.

        And it started makin' a little bit of sense to me, even the senseless parts.  I mean, I wasn't actually writin' anythang, even if my mind was fillin' with these brand new melodies.  In truth, it was nature teachin' the stuff to me.  You heard me right.  The land was speakin' to me.  Whatever it was, it had frightened the other Appleloosans.  But me?  I understood the tongue.  I felt the rhythm and I could tap my hoof to the beat.  I wonder sometimes if the earth is always tryin' to tell us things in the same way in which I was hearin' it then.  The Creator of Equestria left when she needed to, but she didn't take all things with her, after all.  We have the Princesses, we have the land, and we have our ears.  Somewhere between all of that, somethin' special is born, over and over again, or else why would we ever have the need for encores, ya reckon?

        So, I sat on the edge of the valley, and I translated whatever the valley had to tell me.  I strummed my guitar, for it had become a funnel through which a heap o'music notes were being tossed and born and tossed again.  And when everythang was finished, and when the earth had wrung out all the secrets it had stored so lonesomely for so long, I took the music with me.  I carried it in my head down the mesa, across the field, until I collapsed on the edge of town a total of three days after I had first set out.

        Three days.  I had been sittin' on that lone peak for three sunrises and three sunsets, bein' drained of all moisture and roasted to a livin' raisin in the Appleloosan heat.  The ponies who dragged me into the local hospital and fixed me up thought I had plum died.  But soon, my eyes opened, and the first thing I reached for was my guitar—not a glass of water.  I sat up in my bed as tons of mares and stallions stood gawkin' around me.  We had ourselves a lil' concert right there in that hospital, the first performance of the sort I had given since—well—since I up and packed for that stupidly-named place to begin with.

        And you know what?  It accomplished something.  The Appleloosans began smilin'.  They began dancin'.  Somehow, all of their fears and anxieties went the way of the tumbleweed, and the next day they took on the task of tendin' to the orchards with extra care.

        Was there really ever a famine?  By the beginnin' of the next month, nopony had an inch of proof.  Them apple trees blossomed like none had before, and we had enough fruit for a mighty harvest—the first harvest of Appleloosa.  It was a purdy spectacle to be sure.  All thangs bein' subjective and all, I guess you had to have been there.  But trust me when I say that the entire town changed, and all 'cuz one pony decided to listen a little closer where so many other souls were too dang afraid to challenge the very nature of sound.

        “Not to toot my own horn or nothin',” Mr. Bard added as he finished strumming and glanced calmly at the other three.  “I can't pretend to take all the credit for what happened in that village.  The 'famine’ was the least of Appleloosa's problems, after all.  We later had worse things to overcome, like them angry, headbuttin' buffalo.  But we managed to solve that with the power of friendship... or some crap.  Whatever.  The point is...”

        He leaned forward, resting his guitar against the wall as he gestured his hooves above the table between the four ponies.

        “I couldn't connect one bit to them Appleloosan numskulls around me.  But the power of song was there nonetheless.  It may not have given me any answers to how the earth ticked, but it got me in touch with nature nonetheless.  And it's not like I changed the world any.  I only learned from it.  In the end, I was able to get a bunch of ponies to calm down and relax.  That's the whole point of music to begin with, don't ya think?  It's not really about mysticism and magic and all that nonsense.  It's all about what's in the mind.  Not like I'm tryin' to talk down what you've experience or wutnot, Miss Octavia—”

        “Let me ask you just one thing, Mr. Bard,” she interjected.

        “Shoot.”

        She leaned forward.  “I am not entirely unfamiliar with your music career.  As a matter of fact, I've sampled some of your music before.”

        “Heh, fancy that.”

        “I could go on and on about how 'charmingly rustic' your ensembles have sounded, but that's not the point.  If you would be so kind, would you inform the other ponies here just how many albums you had published before you began your soul-searching trip to the town whose name you refuse to cherish?”

        “Why, I done recorded about... ohhhh...”  He leaned back, stroking his beard with a sandy hoof.  “Hmmm... Seven?  Eight albums?”

        “Nine!” Melodia Braids gasped, her eyes wide.  “I remember now!”  She pointed.  “Jumpin' Ray Bard!  You signed up for a total of nine albums under Wagon Wheel Records!  Heehee!”  Her cheeks went rosy as she clapped her hooves together.  “Isn't that just spectacular?”

        Octavia merely smiled, a very subtle gesture.

        Mr. Bard blinked, his features paling somewhat.  “Land's sakes...”  He pulled his hat off and fanned a balding mane.  “That's pretty darn creepy, if ya look at it from that angle.  I can't say you have yerself a convert, Miss Octavia, but that's somethin' worth thinkin' about.”

        “And that's all that I hope for in this discussion,” Octavia said.  “A second thought.”

        “Hmm.  Reckon so.”  Mr. Bard planted his hat back on and looked around.  “Anypony else can relate to that?”

        “Oh!  Oh!”  Vinyl Scratch slapped the tabletop with both hooves and stood up, sneering devilishly at the crowd.  “This... this one time?  Okay?  This one time while I was performing for the wedding of Trot Cruise and Nicolt Kidmare, right?  And I had been spinnin' the turntables for—like—three friggin' hours straight?  Right?  So—like—I got up to visit the little filly's room and take a piss and... do other stuff.  Y'know, my nose was itching.  Whatever.  Doesn't matter.  Anyways, I came back, and guess what I saw?”

        The three other ponies stared in muted wonder.

        Vinyl Scratch's teeth glinted with a wicked smile.  “There was puke all over my equipment!”

        They blinked lethargically at her.

        “And... And...”  She sweat openly, gazing down at the three.  “...like, that was mad crazy, right?  Cuz it was the wedding of Trot Cruise and Nicolt Kidmare.  Right?  They didn't serve any food for a pony to upchuck, on account of trying to not look fat.  I mean, they were Saddletologists, and they had to—I dunno—keep their public image clean and stuff or else nopony in their right mind would hoof them bits for the honeymoon, never mind the fact that I played nothing but friggin' remixes of Saturday Neigh Live all dang evening.”

        Octavia stared intently at the tabletop.  Mr. Bard was glaring.  Melodia Braids fidgeted in her seat and spoke up, “Well, I think—”

        “So where did all the puke come from?!” Vinyl Scratch hissed.

        Melodia winced, gulped, and boldly kept talking.  “I-I think I have a similar story of my own to tell.  Well... uhm... it's not exactly a similar story, but... but it does kind of relate to all this...”

        “Do tell us, dear,” Octavia said.

        Vinyl grunted and slumped down in her chair, folding her arms.  “Pfft.  Bunch of stuck-up Katrot Holmes fans, I swear to Goddess...”

        “Simmer down, Sally,” Mr. Bard grumbled, then smirked Melodia's way.  “Care to continue, darlin'?”

        “Mmmm... Okay.”  The pegasus played with her long green mane as she wrestled for the strength to continue.  “So, uhm, as you ponies may or may not know, I'm something of a... erm... famous composer.  Well, more like a lyricist, I guess.  I'm no Oscar Haymerstein or anything.”  She giggled.  “But I've been known to write songs for very famous ponies throughout all of Equestria.  It's... It's how I've made a living for myself, and I like to think I've done nicely, considering... well...”

        “Hmm?” Octavia leaned her head to the side.

        Melodia Braids bit her lip.  “It's not like I've ever put my hoof to a musical instrument.  But, when you hear many famous ponies singing, it's my words that they're broadcasting.  I mean, that counts for something, doesn't it?  Even if I'm employing all my talent in putting pen to paper, it's still expressing myself musically, even if it's a vicarious thing, don't you think?”

        “Shucks.”  Mr. Bard leaned back and pulled the brim of his hat down over his smiling face.  “I've done plenty of covers in my day.  I'm always plum grateful to the writer who lent me their words.  You ain't got nothin' to feel bad about, Missy.”

        “Yes, most assuredly,” Octavia uttered with a nod.  “Whether or not you wield the instrument, you are still a most prolific artist, at least in my esteemed opinion.”

        “And that means a lot to me,” Melodia said with a nod.  “And... uhm... though I can't say much about having to deal with cursed theatres or... or famine-stricken colonies, I really do have an experience to share about the Curse of the Ninth.  I... I guess I never really thought about it much until having this conversation with you three.  But it was a very important thing that happened to me.  Well, maybe the word 'important' isn't the best way to describe.  But, I went through something... something that changed me.  And, as fate would have it, it was immediately after a song that I had written reached the top of the charts for the ninth time in all my years of composition...

        I was born and raised in Cloudsdale, but I knew pretty early on that it wasn't the place to exercise my super special talent.  Most pegasi, after all, would rather kick clouds, spawn tornadoes, or become guard ponies.  I guess I just... didn't have a flying warrior's blood in my veins.  I wanted to play music, and the upper troposphere has terrible acoustics.  You really have no idea.  I mean, I doubt you ever would, at least.

        Anyways, I moved out to Los Pegasus.  I didn't live in the clouds, though, but rather I made a home for myself on the land below, in the streets and avenues of Hollywhinny.  It's a place that's both charming and... well, eheh... cutthroat.  No sooner had I graduated from the local university in music theory when I found myself having to compete with just about every other pony that wanted to transcribe lyrics onto paper.

        I don't think I had ever properly prepared myself—you know—for the life of an artist.  I mean, it makes absolute sense when you're measured for your ability to pull plows, grind oats, lick stamps, or any other blue bridle job out there.  But trying to compete with other ponies on the basis of sheer creativity?  That just isn't something that can be fairly determined, at least in my opinion.  I mean... I'm not trying to downplay the potential of one's talent in the music industry;  more often than not it comes down to a matter of luck.  Take yourself for instance, Ms. Octavia.  I mean: I know for a fact that you are so incredibly, amazingly talented.  But would any of that have mattered hadn't Fancy Pants have written about you to many of his Canterlot companions in the first place?  It led to Princess Celestia attending one of your performances in Trottingham, after all.  I guess the rest is history, as they say.

        Well, I knew from very early on that my chances of making a living off of what I enjoyed doing would have been slim at best.  It didn't help that I was—and had always been—something of a weak pegasus.  I truly mean it.  Ponies laugh at me when I tell them that I was born among the surly, brutish pegasi of Cloudsdale.  Part of it is that I was born with several inherited health problems.  Another part of it is... well... I'm not so good around crowds.  Can you imagine me, then?  Try and picture a lone pegasus in Hollywhinny, freshly graduated, struggling to get her name and lyrics known in the most heated crucible in all of the entertainment industry...

        I was out of my element, and I had barely taken the initial plunge in.  It's a sheer miracle that I didn't drown in depression from the beginning.  As fate would have it, I stumbled into a struggling singer named Lavender Lakes who was in need of a songwriter.  When she turned to an obvious no-name like me, we both knew that she was desperate.  In addition to that, Lavender Lakes was a frazzled mess of a pony who was limping in and out of nightclubs, growing more and more poor with each attempt to fetch herself a main event.  And it wasn't like she lacked talent.  She had a wonderful voice; she just didn't have any words to sing with it.

        So, I signed on with her and I gave her lyrics.  I guess I... pitied her at the time.  And I'm telling you right here and now, nopony in the business ever makes it big by choosing partners out of sympathy.  At least, that's not how it's supposed to work.  What happened next was pure fate, I suppose, and my life would never be the same.

        A famous photographer was visiting a nightclub when Lavender Lakes happened to be performing in downtown Aneighheim.  You should all know her: Photo Finish?  Anyways, Photo took a liking to the song—my song—and most especially the way in which Lavender Lakes sung it.  After the show, she took Lavender Lakes aside and gave her a really long pep talk.  I wasn't privy to it, of course, but Lavender filled me in later, and she was downright ecstatic.  Apparently Photo Finish had some major connections, and she was going to hook Lavender up with a famous, successful agent that she knew of.  Lavender begged that I join her for the initial interview near Hollywhinny Boulevard.  I agreed, though I wasn't expecting much at the time.  We were two young mares who could barely live off the modest income we had.  It seemed too early and too miraculous for any kind of a break, big or not.

        But the agent we met with turned out to be a real genius: Irvine Coltsein.  He saw something in Lavender Lakes that nopony else did, and he told me to my face that my music had this wonderful hook to it.  It was all a bunch of lavish flattery, of course, but he obviously meant it... because he signed us up with a record deal under Silver Spins Publishing.  There were two stipulations: I would attempt to write the lyrics to three new songs, which I was completely happy to do, and Lavender Lakes would change both her stage appearance and name.  At first, Lavender was hesitant, but I talked her into it.  It was all for the best, because Irvine absolutely knew what he was doing.  Soon, Lavender became the mare known as Sapphire Shores, and... heehee... I guess you saw that coming there, didn't you?

        Anyways, I suddenly had a platform upon which to share my writing with the world, and nopony was more endowed with a fantastic voice to broadcast it than Lav—er... I mean Sapphire.  I did write those three songs, after all, and imagine my joy when two of them became instant hits.  Sapphire Shores had become an overnight sensation.  The two of us were flabbergasted.  It was so, so very easy to let fame get to our heads, but we promised ourselves that we wouldn't let that happen.  And, to this day, I like to think we've stayed committed to the ideals we had from the get-go.  We visit on a regular basis even today, just like any regular marefriends do, even when she's got that busy touring schedule of hers. And, honestly, it's not like I envy her place in the spotlight or whatnot.  I've never been happy with having my face known to everypony, so I was perfectly, utterly fine with the way things turned out.

        And when they asked me to write more songs, I did so, continuously amazed at just how... at h-how well the music was being received.  I mean, I'm not trying to downplay my own wordsmithery or anything, but—as you all well know—the popularity of Sapphire Shores has been an utter phenomenon.  I still can't believe how lucky I am to have started out at the beginning of my career with two hits, and then to add another under my saddle... and then another... and then yet another...

        And it's not like I wrote entirely for Sapphire Shores.  I made several songs for other artists in Silver Spins Publishing.  But my biggest hits—the ones that have mattered and always will—were made exclusively for her.  The years rolled by.  I grew more and more confident in my abilities.  I started working on longer, more complex, more artistic compositions that I still hope to someday throw upon a gracious orchestra.  When Sapphire Shores won her awards at events all across Equestria, I made sure to attend each and every one of them... all except for one.

        And it was because that year, I had fallen terribly, terribly ill.  It fell right on the tail of the latest hit Sapphire had sung—her ninth, ironically—a quaint little ballad I had written called “Remember You Softly.”  It was an appropriate title, in some grim fashion, because I could feel my sickness coming on, and I knew that it wasn't just any other ailment of mine that was going to blow over.  You recall how I said that I suffered from a lot of hereditary problems?  Well, it felt as though they had finally caught up with me.  My lungs got infected, and I was in the hospital for the better part of a year.

        Not many ponies in the entertainment industry know just how sick I had gotten.  All they know is that Sapphire Shores' tour to The Griffon Lands was canceled that year.  That's because she decided to come visit her dying friend.

        And make no mistake, I was dying.  I could barely move; most of my body had become paralyzed.  Every time I breathed, it felt as though pins and needles were being shoved down into my chest.  I... I really hope that none of you ponies will ever have to relate to such a sensation, to be in a cold place so low and tiresome that you almost wish for your eyes to shut and never reopen again.

        And the fact of the matter is: I only got worse.  What could possibly be lower than perpetual agony and paralysis, you ask?  Well, I've been there.  It is—at the risk of sounding cliche—an out of body experience.  When one becomes so sick that the very act of thinking becomes akin to bumping into occasional wooden poles in the dead thick of night, one starts to question the fabric of reality.  Why are we all here?  What is the purpose to anything?  Did I really spend all the waking hours of my so-called existence writing lyrics for a pop-singer to shout toward droves of rabid teenage fans?  I should have been tending to the weather like my pegasi brothers and sisters.  I should have been reflecting on nature.  I should have been doing something—anything—to make my hoofprint on this speck in the cosmos all the more permanent and...

        Oh.  Oh dear, I... I sort of went off in a whole strange direction, didn't I?  Heehee... Uhm.  Sorry about that.  I... I don't really get a chance to share this experience with other ponies, including Sapphire.  I don't really think she can understand.  At least, I don't want her to understand, as much as she loves and respects me.  She's very happy and famous; she doesn't need to be weighed down with... well... with the true essence of darkness.

        There is no sound down there, down to where I sank, down to the depths of whatever I once thought was myself, that which was merely a shivering sliver of warmth hanging in infinite nothingness.  Numbers made no sense in the crest of that oblivion, and yet I was still counting for some reason.  I was counting backwards, from the number nine to the number one, retracing the rosy scars I had made upon this world, wondering if they held any true weight or if the mere thought of them was the only thing anchoring me to life anymore.

        Maybe it was a faint trace of self-recognition that brought me back.  Maybe it was the fear that I would have become like so many young and tragic musicians before me, cursed to never make a tenth work of art that would surpass all the nine previous.  But something pulled me once again to the surface, to the light, to the brightness that dissolved around the shape of Sapphire's tearful smile as she nuzzled me back to sanity.

        I was numb for a while, but it was a very real, very warm, very lively kind of “numb.”  I had trotted the glossy dark plains of death.  I had graced the naked blackness with my own eyes, and I had returned from that grisly preview of what's to come.  To say that it changed me would be an understatement... I guess.  But... But I-I wasn't depressed.  Not really, no.  I was just a lot calmer, if that can be believed.  It's even still affecting me right now, right here, as I tell you all about this.

        The initial month of recovery went by.  I had plenty of flowers and gifts to gush over, on behalf of Sapphire and the publishing company.  Then the second month went by, and there were less flowers.  Then the third month blurred on, then the fourth.  By month number five, I was receiving a great deal of articulately written letters from my agent, trying in his own, masterfully tactful way to ask if I was ready to write again.  As it so happened, the tour was growing stagnant.  Sapphire Shores was running out of material, and no other lyricist in the company had a tune that could compare to my preexisting repertoire.  So, they were all turning to me, desperate and pleading, but all the while afraid of triggering me into a relapse... or something.  I don't know, really.

        But poor Sapphire: she never mentioned a single word about the tour in all her visits.  She respected me so much.  However, I could see it in her face.  She was worried, frightened even.  And I felt horrible, because since my ordeal in the hospital I hadn't tried to write a single word.  Every time I searched my mind for lyrics, I saw the same darkness that nearly consumed me in its frigid black jaws.  I couldn't simply sit there and hoof something to paper.  I had to get out.  I had to feel warm.

        So, I went out for walks.  I trotted around Hollywhinny Boulevard.  I... I shopped a lot.  Heehee.  Yes, I know that's not exactly inspiring, but it helps a mare think, y'know?  And... something started happening to me.  I knew it was happening because I wasn't asking it to.  That... probably doesn't make any sense, but there's no better way to describe it.

        I... I saw words.  Words were coming at me, bleeding from the sidewalks, falling from the theatre marquis signs, screaming at me from passing stagecoaches.  I'd splash my hoof in a puddle, and it would produce a melody.  I'd brush my elbow into the sand of a beach, and I suddenly had the bridge to a song.  It... It's beyond sane description to try and relate just how deliciously rich and crazily random all of these epiphanies were.

        So, I wrote down everything in the order in which they jumped out at me.  To do this, I had to carry notepads wherever I went.  At first, nothing ever made sense.  The words were so random that you had to be a total flankster wannabe to possibly make a song out of it.  But, as I collected a mess of bizarre ideas, and I scanned the words on my lonesome with studious eyes, patterns emerged, and the words appeared to... just connect to each other on their own.  Can you believe that?

        I guess... I g-guess what I'm trying to say is that when I came back from the depths of nothingness, something had followed me back to the land of the living.  It was a talent of sorts.  It was an insane talent, and like any normal pony I should probably have ignored it.  But, Sapphire Shores needed me, so instead of disregarding what I had jotted down, I embraced it.  I wove them into songs and lyrics.  Then, like a truly mad pony, I bundled it all up in a neat little package and delivered it to my publishing company the next day.

        I was contacted at the doorstep to my very apartment the following morning.  I thought that they had sent agents to my home to fire me in person.  Instead, it was Irvine Colstein himself.  And he was in tears.  He called the songs “beautiful,” “magnificent,” and “heartfelt.”  I thought he was pulling my tail.  But, sure enough, we gave a hooffull of the songs to the studio.  Sapphire Shores had her way with them, and not only did we have a tenth hit on our hands... but an eleventh.  Then a twelfth.  Then a thirteenth.

        In the end, we crafted an entire album out of the compilation, mostly consisting of the epiphanous pile of lyrics I had so accumulated.  It swiftly became the best selling record in Equestrian Entertainment history: “The Numbers That Bring You Back.”  Just yesterday, as a matter of fact, I heard two songs playing at the doctor's office as I had my latest examination.  For the first time in two years, I was given a clean bill of health.  To tell the truth, I had hardly paid attention to my well-being since I was last sick, on account of the wellspring of creativity that had been occupying the forefront of my mind ever since.

        Sapphire's been so happy for me.  I'm just glad that she's in a better mood.  I... I really hated pulling her down, because I most certainly was for a while there.  Most popular ponies practice an aloofness or have an ingrained haughtiness that makes them care little for other ponies, but not my dear Lavender.  Whatever the name, whatever the manestyle, whatever suit that she wears on stage—she will still always be to me the frazzled, desperate mare who needed a songwriter and—most importantly—a friend...

        “Maybe that's what brought me back, after all, and not my focus on the nine hits that I had made with her,” Melodia Braids said with a bashful smile.  “I knew that Sapphire Shores, in spite of her popularity, would be utterly lonesome without me.  I don't think there are that many partnerships in Hollywhinny that enjoy such a level of... sincerity, I guess you could say.  But, whatever the case, I had to overcome death itself to get back to this world, to get back to her, to get back to doing what I loved best.  And the one thing that tugged at me was the need to produce a tenth hit.  And once I did just that, nothing—yes—absolutely nothing could stop me.”  She giggled and hugged herself at her edge of the table.  “I never thought I could possess such great, boundless confidence, and yet here I am.”

        “So, then, I guess you could say that the concept of the Ninth Movement transformed you,” Octavia said with a smile.  “Still, my dear, that was completely an accomplishment on behalf of your sheer strength and mental will alone.”

        “Takes an awful lot of guts to saunter on back to... the land of guts,” Mr. Bard said with a chuckle.  “Y'see?  This is why yer an award winnin' lyricist and I'm just a guitar plucker.”

        “Hmmm...”  Molodia blushed deeply.  “I'm just happy to be here still, to do what I enjoy doing, until I have... well... until we all have to end up going where we need to go.”  She gulped and glanced at the other three.  “Why else are we here other than to enjoy the time that we have?”

        “Ugh, gag me...”  Vinyl Scratch banged her head against the table and threw a bored gaze across the room.  “Cursed theatres, humming valleys, and Miss Sunshine's recitation of Coltrad’s Hay of Darkness... Is all that you dudes ever think about is grim wonkiness and pretentious morality?!”

        Octavia produced a rigid frown.  “Well, Ms. Scratch, they do measure up considerably against your trite anecdote of rich celebrities and copious amounts of vomit.”

        “Hey!”  Vinyl pointed.  “As much as I love these Canter Boring Tales like the next pony, ya morons ain't heard nothing yet!  Curse of the Ninth, my sweet, delicious, buttery flank!  Hah!  You wanna hear about a real doozie of a friggin' episode in music-go-fart land?!”

        “No, I reckon not,” Mr. Bard muttered.

        “Hey!  You shut your beard!”  Vinyl sneered before illuminating her shades with her horn.  She twirled the article around her hoof like a glowstick while slathering the group with her slick magenta gaze.  “This little story's gonna knock the socks off you self-inflated, overcultured rhythmtards!  And then you're gonna ask yourselves 'Why the heck was I wearing socks in the first place—cuz that's totally last year's overused joke, and besides, ew!'”

        “Uhm...”  Melodia raised a hoof, chewing on her lip.  “I kind of like wearing socks—”

        “So!”  Vinyl Scratch stood up, wildly waving her shades in a hoof while barking, “There I was, setting up all my equipment for a long night of record-scratching in the hallowed halls of the downtown Mareami Discotheque, when suddenly my big fat roadie waddles up to me and is all like...

        “Yo, DJ-P0N3, I blew it, man.  I totally don't have that soundstone for you.”

        And I was like, “What?  Lame sauce, maaaan.  Why don't you totally have that soundstone for me?  I'm, like, gonna be on in twelve friggin' minutes and I'm this close to using your eyesocket for a pencil sharpener.”

        And he was all, “Well, we got this backup soundstone from the last DJ who was here.  It looks kinda beat up, and the enchantment's kind of worn out, but I bet you could breathe life back into it with your filthy sick bass drops.”

        And so I said, “Well if you really think there's still some crap to be oozed out of this stupid thing then hoof it over to me and let’s see.”

        And so he did hoof it over, and the thing looked really cruddy.  I mean, it looked like it got spat out by Diamond Dogs, and I don't mean their front end.  So I banged the thing a few times against a nearby table, and it kind of made a sound, but then again that could have been just the table.  I mean, it was there, and yet it wasn’t.  You know what I mean, Octavia?  Shut up.

        Anywho, the dance hall was filling up with college colts and fillies at this point.  That many sleepy-eyed gazes and that little music is a recipe for total snooze-ville, if you catch my drift.  So, like, there was no time to friggin' wait.

        “There's no time to friggin' wait!” I said, or at least I think I did.  I dunno.  My head was in the clouds at that time, maaaan.  I jammed that little bugger into the mana-housing of the turntable and flung the lever, but nothing happened.  So I flicked the nozzle over and over again like I was shaking the hoof of a catatonic filly-of-the-night.  My roadie was all up in stitches, the blubbery wuss.

        “What are you doing?!” he shrieked so hard, I swear he was gonna bleed out through all his joy holes.  “That crud could still be hot!  Don't overload the thingabob with the whatchamacallit!”

        And how do you respond to that?  I told the jerk, “You're a jerk, and I—like—totally know what I'm doing.  I was spinning tables while you were still making love to Rammstallion/Nightwhinny mash-ups.”

        He must have been screaming at me.  I couldn't tell, cuz he was suddenly flying into the ceiling.  Perhaps he was a pegasus, or maybe my eyes were just rolling back in my shades.  It's hard to recall.  Dang Mareami humidity, am I right?  No?  Go suck on a mailbox flag.  Where was I?  Oh right.

        “Just hold on, fillies and gentlecolts!” I knew it wasn't my pre-recorded voice because the fat roadie forgot to turn on the speakers, and besides, the voice was giggling like it was a weekend at Huntrot S. Thompony's.  “We're about to raise the roof in this mother-hoofin' shack-o-glass and Celestia's shanks I could totally scarf down a bucket full of sunflowers right about now, never mind the goddess-forsaken seeds!  What in the name of Caribou Algebra is wrong with this pathetic little crystal?!  Did Princess Cadenzenzenzenza get tired of you after wasting away spring break in Blue Valley?!  Talk to me, you flaming piece of overpriced dragon phlegm!”

        So I looked at the thing, and my reflection looked back, only there was a pathetic number “9” in the way.  And I remember saying oh hey look at tha—whoops, I guess I was supposed to be speaking there.  Ahem.

        “Oh, hey, look at that!” I shouted.  “It says '9!'  But when I turn it upside down, it becomes the number of inches my horn stretches on a cold afternoon.  But then if I spin it once more—holy crap!  It's a '9' again!  Hey, everypony!  Come check this crap out!  Also, is there a mid-tier sorceress in a house?  I need to be lit up.  Er... I'm talking about this soundstone here!”

        Suddenly, everypony in the dance hall was laughing.  I couldn't figure out why until I retraced the last couple of seconds and realized that I had just done what any self-respecting, experimental artist would do with a half-energized, seemingly redundant chunk of celestial material in her hooves.  I had shoved it up my nose.

        And that's when things got kind of funky.  I dunno what you non-magical ponies know about leylines, but they kind of like to make love with one another when they come into close proximity, weak or not.  So, like, whatever invisible wormy lines of mystical fluff may have been sleeping inside of that nugget, they came to life, and they suddenly had an electrifying new home inside my left nostril.  A few milliseconds later, the synapses in my brain went “Hey, somepony's getting frisky!” And they totally copped a feel on that flank, and my consciousness was taken along for the ride.

        And, whew, maaaan.  You ever jumped off the edge of the Canterlot bluffs into the lakes of the crystal forest below?  Well, after going through what I did, I doubt you'll ever need to.  What a goddess-dang rush.  I saw things that weren't supposed to be seen, mysterious things that wore—like—giant overcoats full of stars as they trotted up to self-respecting galaxies pushing their babies in strollers around the park before totally flashing them.  And then comets came wearing police helmets and blowing whistles that spat out gamma ray bursts and stripped the mysterious things to their bare, cosmic bones of audiopheliac effluence.

        Ha!  Nah.  Naaaah, I'm just kidding.  I, like, landed on this hallucinogenic plain full of cool, glowy blue lines and surrounded by thunder and lightning and crap.  And then this pony strolled forward all decked up in black latex or whatcrap and he totally looked like Bruce Boxleitneigh.

        “Whoah!” I gasped.  “You totally look like Bruce Boxleitneigh!”

        “Ninety-nine nights of nay a hoof to hold.” His eyes became hard as diamonds as he floated down towards me and whispered.  “Vinyl, it's okay if you want to kiss fillies.”

        “Buh?”

        Just then, nine ponies in glowing red armor appeared around us.

        “Behold!” Bruce snarled and hoisted me up to my hooves.  “Nine ponies in glowing red armor!”

        “Yeah, man!  We should totally record them for vocal samples!”

        “Not enough time!”  He shouted and yanked a giant glowing horseshoe off his back and began smacking them into glassy, rattling kibbles.  “Quick!  Open the door!”

        “On it!”  And, of course, the only proper thing to do was pull my mouth wide open and rip my tongue out.  I slammed it on the ground and yanked at the doorknob.  On the other side was my mother, and she had a hammer in her grasp.  “Hey, I need to borrow that!” I said, grabbing it from her.  I'm not sure how I could still make words, maaaaan.  Maybe it was my tail vibrating them out.  “Oh, by the way, I totally forgive you for crashing my first date naked with a pair of pliers!”  And so I slammed the door on her and spun around.  “What now?!”

        “Nine times around the circumference of your fears!” Bruce shouted.  It was hard to hear him above all the blips, bloops, and other sick Royksaddle noises echoing above his glowing two-wheeled stagecoach thingy.  If I could accurately put it into words, I'd barf up rainbow bunny rabbits.  “Do not hesitate!”

        “Goddess, you're hotter than a grown dragon's adam's apple!” I screamed and began slamming my horn repeatedly with the hammer.  After the ninth throw, I got bored, and just split my skull open with two hooves.  A bunch of butterflies soared out, or at least I thought they were butterflies at first.  I was a little bit of a mad pony at the time.  Then the butterflies' rotations turned out to be a bunch of nines and sixes dancing around with one another.  By that time, all I could do was laugh.  Or maybe scream.  Screaming's cool too.  “Raaaaaaugh!  It's like my veins are full of strawberries and they're all voting republicanter!”

        “Good!” Bruce screamed above his wheels and lights and flinging data horseshoes and crap.  “Now toss yourself into the heart of the Mare Concert Program!”

        “I am electric!”  And I galloped over the edge of the plateau and jumped straight through the tall column of glowing vertical rotoscope effects.  My own laughter was catching up to me, and I wanted to lick her sweet lips so that she too could remember how delicious pony tarts taste at morning breakfast before you grow past foalhood and your mouth gets really snarky and flanksterific, having to search endlessly for newer, sicker sounds in order to eke a modicum of artistic enjoyment from the starving depths of the bleak musicscape.  And suddenly I realized why there was a beat going on in my head, cuz Bruce had kicked me down the crest of the ninth soundstone's glowing awesomeness, and suddenly I was standing—naked—above my roaring turntable in the Mareami discotheque, realizing for the first time in my life that I've always been naked...

        “And that...”  Vinyl Scratch punctuated her story with a vicious slap to the tabletop.  “...is how I almost got 'em!”  She leaned back with a proud smile, then scrunched her face up at her own words.  “Oh.  Wait.”  She blinked dazedly.  “What were we talking about, dudes?”

        “Poetically hyperbolic nuances aside...”  Octavia glanced at the other two, rubbing her hooves together.  “It does seem as though we all have something in common.”

        “Do we?” Melodia Braids remarked, grimacing towards Vinyl.

        “What Missy Octavia is trying to say, darlin', is that we appear to have all dealt with the curse of the nines,” Mr. Bard said.

        “And yet, we have all surpassed them, have we not?” Octavia added.

        “Heh... heheh...”  Vinyl smiled into her shades before slapping them upside-down on her head.  “Ever taken the first four letters out of 'surpassed?’  Snkt—hahahaha!  Maaaaan...”

        Octavia sighed.  “Most... of us, at least.”

        “Then why do I get the feeling that we're right back where we started this conversation?” Melodia remarked, pouting.  “I mean... just what does it have to do with everything?”

        “You askin' me, darlin'?”  Mr. Bard shrugged and pointed Octavia's way.  “Direct your inquiry over yonder.”

        “Hmmm?”  Octavia made a face.  “Me?”

        “Yer the one who started this half-flanked conversation!  Reckon you had a point in drawin' all of us to share what we knew about the Curse of the Ninth.”

        “I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” Octavia said, pointing at herself.  “I assure you, I was simply reflecting on the topic at hoof.  I must admit, it was of extreme interest to me from the beginning, but I surely wasn't the one who proposed the subject matter.”

        “But...”  Melodia blinked confusedly, gnawing on her lip.  “If you didn't start this conversation...”

        “Oh come off it, Miss Bow Tie!”  Vinyl Scratch exclaimed, rolling her eyes beneath her lopsided shades.  “Trust a pony who's had her mind blown.  It's dirty cruel to mess with a mare's head.  Just why did you start this conversation to begin with?  Running low on autographs, Madame Canterlot?”

        “She didn't begin this discussion,” I said.  “I did.”

        All four ponies spun at the table to face me.

        I sat in the corner of the room on a stool, smiling.  My saddle bag sat by my side as I adjusted the sleeves of my hoodie and spoke to the group, “And I must say, I'm rather proud of how easily you all carried on the conversation without my direction.  You four really are the finest group of like-minded musical talent this age has to offer.”

        “Uhhhh...”  Melodia shivered nervously.

        Octavia was speechless while Mr. Bard scratched his balding head under his hat.

        “Yeah, uhm, okay.”  Vinyl Scratch squinted my way, positioning her shades upright.  “Who invited the talking lime in a jacket?”

        I giggled.  “You have it the other way around.  You see...”  I gestured towards the table with my forelimbs outstretched.  “I invited all of you.  And you most certainly did not disappoint.”

        “I don't understand.  This is the first time we've ever seen you, Miss...”  Octavia squinted at me.

        “Heartstrings,” I replied, trying to retain my bubbly emotions in the presence of her.  “Lyra Heartstrings.  And I've been listening happily to your conversation this whole time.”

        “Yeah!  Heh!”  Vinyl cackled with a wicked sneer.  “And I'm a goddess-dang vampire!”

        “Hold on, darlin',” Mr. Bard said as he leaned forward, staring at me suspiciously.  “How could a fine filly like you expect us to believe that you've been here the whole time and yet we've not heard a peep or seen an inch of you until this very dag-blame'd second?”

        “I can't rightly expect you to believe anything, Mr. Bard.”  I said softly, smiling.  “And, no, I don't consider it ignorance on your part.  You're a very down-to-earth pony, and you need firsthoof proof to understand the nature of things, whether or not they’re potentially magical.  To explain myself, my condition, who and what I am—well—it would require several devices and feats that I just don't possess in their entirety at the moment.  But that's not really the point of the matter.  What does matter is that you've all proven something to me.”  I turned to smile at the group as a whole.  “You've proven to me that you're all more than capable of going beyond the boundaries of your own doubt in order to assist me with the most prodigious musical project of our time.”

        “Wh-What kind of project?” Melodia said, cowering slightly from my strange gaze.

        “Something that would benefit greatly from your mastery of the lyrics held within the equine heart,” I said to her.  I turned to look at Octavia.  “Something that would be made exquisite by your ambition and perfect execution.”  My smile then moved back to Mr. Bard.  “Something that depends on your respect for the land between the Firmaments and beyond.”  I lastly gazed at DJ P0N3.  “Something that... heehee... could be exemplified by a grasp of reality that's tenuous at best.”

        “Uhhh...”  Vinyl stared blankly at me.  “Cool?”

        “Whether or not you're aware of it, you four represent the best talent that Equestria's musical scene has to offer.  Now, I humbly ask that you assist me in transcribing a song—not just any song, but an untamed elegy lost between the foundations of time, thrown beyond the boundaries of consciousness by magic that's darker than night, but was always meant to be rediscovered and broadcasted back into the insufferable nether from which it arose.  It should come as no surprise to you that your joint commonality has a part to play in this ambitious endeavor, for this is the ninth elegy in a forsaken symphony, a nebulous, penultimate movement that serves as the final, irrevocable barrier between where I stand and the Nocturne to end all Nocturnes.”

        “You... You speak of something so grand, so vague, and so frightening...” Melodia began.

        Octavia finished for her.  “But we don't know a single thing about you.  Even if we wanted to, what would give us the reason to partner with a nameless, faceless unicorn that we've never met before?”

        “Reckon you could give us more to chew on, darlin'?” Mr. Bard added.

        “There is very little worth being learned about me,” I said.  “At least, not until I can afford to express myself fully, dearly, permanently—which is the eventual purpose of this entire symphony.”

        “Just how do you transcribe a symphony that you apparently already know about?”

        “Because it's been bequeathed to me in pieces, sporadic and chaotic, as if purposefully designed to shatter upon the comprehension of a mortal mind.  I was not the first to stumble upon it.  There was a pony who discovered it before me, and in his lonely attempts to decipher it, he encountered a roadblock that ripped his sanity asunder, so that he fell into obscurity, reduced to a mad pony who was the only soul blessed—or cursed—to forever know a history that was pertinent to his tortured memories and his alone.  Now the ninth movement is mine to bear, but I cannot transcribe it alone.  I am but one mortal soul, a learned one—yes—but scarcely capable of grasping the elegy on her lonesome.  That's why I brought you all here: from Los Pegasus to Canterlot, and from Orlandoats to Appleloosa.  You have the talent to help me, to bless me where I have faltered.  Together, we just may be able to finish the Elegy #9, 'Desolation's Elegy.'  Then, maybe—just maybe—I can take the lonely, arduous, yet fateful journey in reaching the tenth movement, and transforming myself forever.”

        “Yeah, okay!”  Vinyl Scratch chuckled madly, waving a hoof.  “Now I know that this is some crazy episode of Canter Camera.  Seriously, what kind of a lame joke is this?!”

        “It... brings up a point.”  Octavia looked towards the stallion in the room.  “Mr. Bard, if I'm not mistaken, you are still retired.  Shouldn’t you be in Appleloosa at this very moment in time?”

        “No!  Don't answer her!” Vinyl growled.  “Don't feed this puke-green parasprite!  I want a real explanation to all this unsexy brouhaha!”

        “Well, then you can provide an explanation to yourself!” I said pleasantly.  “Does anypony remember exactly how they got here?”

        “Pffft, of course!  Why, I...”  Vinyl Scratch's words trailed off.  Her shaded gaze drifted across the ceiling.

        Octavia suddenly gawked at the wooden table in front of her.

        Mr. Bard stood up, knocking his chair over in the process.  He gulped and stared up at the flickering lamp overhead.

        Melodia Braids was hugging herself, shivering, staring frightfully at all of the walls of the place.

        “I'll make things a bit simpler for you,” I said gently.  “You're in Ponyville.  You're in my hometown, so to speak.”

        “Pony... ville?” Octavia danced the name off the tip of her tongue.

        “I've toured there once...”  Mr. Bard grunted, still lingering above his overturned chair.  “This... does smell a bit like that place...”

        “Wait, Ponyville?”  Melodia blinked, and all the fear was drained from her eyes as her wings fluttered.  “Why, I-I have a cousin who lives there!”

        “You do not,” Vinyl grunted before turning to look at me, dragging the shades towards the bridge of her nose and exposing a pair of glazed magenta eyes.  She shrugged and shrugged again.  “How.”  Her forelimbs dropped limply at her sides.  “How the heck?!”

        “Simple,” I said.  “I utilized a piece of magic—a piece of a song, the song, the song that has defined the world and all that lives within it since the beginning of time.  And then I discovered more songs, many of which have freed me, and many more that have shackled me.  But in the confusing thick of it, I found a tune that could bring you all here, that could help me solve the biggest riddle in my journey of transformation yet.”

        “What, pray tell, would that tune be?” Octavia asked with a sincerely curious gaze.

        I cleared my throat.  “Why, the 'Song of Gathering,' of course.”

        “Snkkkt!” Vinyl spat.  “And I thought I was wasted!”

        “The 'S-Song of Gathering?'”

        “My dear, that is a stretch even to bourgeoisie contemplation,” Octavia remarked with a cool expression.  “No mortal could possess the magical wherewithal to perform such a sacred instrumental.”

        “Not even the alicorn sisters have had the ability to play that number!” Mr. Bard exclaimed, propping his chair up and leaning against it.  “For nearly a thousand years, they haven't had a lick of power to muster it!  Especially since they plum lost the holy relic that made performin' that thang possible in the first place—”

        In a single breath, I opened my saddlebag and lifted something out of it.  I hoisted a glittering object, stepped forward, and plopped it onto the edge of the table with a pronounced, metallic ring.  The entire room lit up with golden effluence, and every breath that was in the place was sucked out.

        “Blessed Celestia...”  Octavia stammered.

        Melodia hovered instinctively in midair.  “It... It can't be...”

        “My stars...”  Mr. Bard knocked over his chair again.  He gulped.  “The Nightbringer...”

        “The lost piece of the Cosmic Matriarch's holy song,” Octavia practically whimpered.

        Vinyl Scratch's eyes twitched.  She looked at everypony, at me, then at the table.  She placed her hoof over the edge and banged it hard—twice—with the other.  Instantly wincing, she waved her forelimb and hissed.  “Oh yeah, that's pain.  This is real, alright.  Real as spit.”

        I stared at the lot of them, my eyes firm.  There was a tiny hum in the room—a hum that had always been there—but only now could the ponies recognize it, for they saw the longest string of the Nightbringer vibrating endlessly beneath my grasp.  My body lit up with each inch that my hooves gently stroked down the curved contours of the immaculate instrument.

        “Yes, this is a piece of the Cosmic Matriarch's song, her very own breath.  And, yes, the Nightbringer was lost.  But it is no more.  It has been found.  I've used it to bring you here.  And now, with your assistance, I shall use it to piece together the Ninth Elegy, and bring substance to desolation.”

        They remained slumped in their awestruck postures.  I could feel Octavia's heartbeat through the table as she leaned against the wooden surface for support.  To my left, Melodia hovered down to her hooves, cleared her throat, and gave me a foalish look of deep curiosity.

        “How...”  She whimpered.  “H-How did you find this?  Nopony has known of its whereabouts for centuries... eons...”

        I looked at her.  I smiled.  “It was given to me.”

        “By who?!”  Mr. Bard stammered.  “No one just trots on by and hoofs you history's most forsaken, most holy, most-dang-near-all-powerful relic!”

        “He does when he's held onto it for so long that he knows that it's time to pass the torch to another soul, a soul who's defined by the same curse, but a great deal better equipped to pull herself out of the mess.”  I clutched the Nightbringer firmly as I spoke over its massive frame.  “And just like the four of you, he made his connection—through time and space and firmaments—with a song.  A song that he wrote, but—much like those tunes of an unsung realm—it was something I came to discover with much dedication and commitment.  You see, I too have a story...

        It started over a year ago, but what's relevant to this meeting began only recently.  I had been struggling for months to decipher a secret Symphony, a Nocturne hidden from the annals of history for the sole purpose of remaining concealed as well as keeping a spirit of unknown horror locked within.  Of the total ten movements, it wasn't until mastering the seventh that I was given a chance to see the truth with my own eyes.  The eighth elegy was something that finally gave me the power to grasp and understand that truth.  I found that by retracing my steps and playing the eighth elegy over and over again, I could learn truths of my past that had been rewritten, down to the very fabric of reality itself.

        Needless to say, this unveiling terrified me.  Still, as alone and forsaken as I was, I needed to learn more, so that I might approach the ninth elegy and confront that which I feared the most, and still do in many ways.

        What I discovered from the practice of the eighth elegy was that I wasn't the only mortal pony who had attempted to uncover the Nocturne.  I had in my possession a book, and within that book the lonely words of a victim to time became clear to me as the magical melody played its way through my mind.  In attempting to bring my experiences into clarity as he had been forced to face his, I was inadvertently hoisted from this realm into that of the unsung.  It is a most terrible place, the grandest secrets of all secrets, something each of you will forget before leaving this room—and rightfully so.  For I am now convinced that it hides something that was never meant for mortal eyes, or even immortal.  The fact that I know of it and can still speak of it is an accursed anomaly, and something that I am endeavoring to fix.

        Still, I somehow ended back in that realm of nightmares, a place of lost souls and tortured choruses.  I saw the ruler of the realm as she spotted me from her throne on high.  As she began to throw me in binds, who would come to my rescue but my pen pal from the distant past.  When he rescued me, he flung me out of the land beyond firmaments.  And when he did, he did so with a song.

        As soon as I returned to the safety of the mortal realm—suspended once again in my cursed existence as a pariah—I was too grateful for my life to think properly.  Only with careful thought and lengthy contemplation did I realize that he had used a song to return me to my home.  It wasn't just any song either, but something familiar, a haunting work of art, a carefully laid out mosaic of all the tunes that had plagued and cursed us both on opposite ends of a damnable millennium.

        I don't know how he did it, but my friend from the past had taken pieces of the Nocturne, he had ripped out slices of the accursed symphony, and he had pieced the key parts of them together in such a way in order to form a bridge between his world and mine.  Whatever movements of the song that were missing, he formed the bridges with pieces of his very own being, fused together by the memories of a soul for whom he had long given his mind, his body, and his spirit, all faithfully.  This song, he named “Penumbra's Echo.”

        I did not discover the Echo immediately.  This took many grueling nights of intense reading and study, following my friend's hoofprints, tracing artistically woven words that meandered at random throughout the insane drivel that composed the magically highlighted journal that he had unwittingly bequeathed me.

        Or, perhaps, it wasn't quite so unwitting?  With his song, with the Echo, I now realized that my friend had formed a bridge between us, a pathway that forever defied time and space, a bridge that could only be formed by a genius mind that was fortunately equipped with the holiest instrument this mortal plane has ever known.  It's the same instrument that—by sheer possession—had kept that shell of a unicorn alive long enough to save me that one fated day in the unsung realm.

        I had a duty, not just to myself, but to my friend.  He had laid the bridge for me.  It was now my time to cross it, to meet him in the middle, to perform the quietest and most precious of secret conversations in the yawning abyss between firmaments.  To do that, I had to transcribe his song as he had once transcribed the tunes that had mutually cursed us.  With careful use of the eighth elegy, and with a mindful eye for the patterns he had left for me and me alone, I discovered it.  I unearthed the key to “Penumbra's Echo.”

        What followed next was a moment of great tension.  I knew going into the instrumental that I was performing a concert that could never be repeated.  I knew that I was venturing into realms not meant for my eyes.  My friend had been there, stuck in limbo, for Celestia-knows how long.  How would I fare—even on the edge of it—for so much as a few ghastly minutes?

        From the clues he had left me, I knew that there was only one way to go through this, and then I would never hear from him ever again.  I descended into a cellar behind my home—a concealed studio of sorts where I venture to perform symphonies not meant for mortal hooves.  Once there, I propped up my lyre, and then I went about stripping the pages from his journal.  For the next two hours, I plastered the pages in key spots and at key angles around the earthen walls of my basement niche.  Eventually, the entire room was plastered with the sheets that belonged to my time-forgotten companion.  I dimmed the lights, sat down to my instrument, and knew that it was time.

        I played the eighth elegy, this time in earnest.  I repeated it ad nauseum, all the while staring at the pages of his hoofwork that were surrounding me.  A rusted scent filled the air, like that of sunken metal platforms, and I knew that I was making progress.  The hoof-written words of my friend lit up across the pages in vibrant blue, like they always did.  But there was a pattern now, something that gave method to the mad pony who had seemingly rambled for journal entries upon journal entries of cyclical text in the journal that was given to me.

        Now I could see words connecting from page to page, from sheet to sheet, in ways which they never would have branched together before.  The blue text blurred together, forming bands, swirling with coils of effluent structure, and soon I was surrounded by a sphere of twirling letters that morphed into solid rings and encompassed what I had once thought to be a cellar in complete darkness.  There, in that celestial sound booth of insanity, I repositioned my grip of the lyre and started playing the song that all of the blackened edges of the sphere were whispering to me:  “Penumbra's Echo.”

        I was entering the vessel of a mad pony who had escaped the clutches of time and space.  To venture there was akin to a madness in and of itself, and yet I didn't look back.  It took the Curse of the Ninth to consume my friend's mind.  Luckily, for me, overcoming that same Curse is just what I needed to do in order to surpass that which had reduced him to a jaded, weathered husk.

        I sat there, in the pit of blackness, strumming my lyre.  I could see nothing, not even an inch in front of my face.  I felt the cold vapors of my breath wafting out of me, but I could not detect their substance.  All I heard was the gentle lull of the notes that he had produced for me, as I drew myself towards the end of the song.  And when the melody was over, I didn't hear applause.  Instead, I heard chains.

        The rattling came closer and closer.  Across the darkness, the chains slithered their way towards me.  My eyes were wide open, but only the very edge of oblivion awaited.  Beyond the impermeable wall, the noise drew closer, sliding up within unseen inches of my muzzle.  I felt the vapor of frigid breaths yet again, but this time they were not mine.  I was no longer alone.

        Gulping, I played the Echo again, softly this time, and my trembling voice struggled to speak above it.  “I know what she has taken from you,” I whimpered, trying to maintain my courage.  “I know what time in the unsung realm has drained from your body.  So when I ask you a question, I only want one of two answers.  If you wish to answer 'yes,' give me a high note.  If you wish to answer 'no,' give me a low note.”  I took a deep breath, and whispered unto the darkness.  “Alabaster Comethoof, is that you?”

        All was silent, dead and dry as bone, until the vapors parted before me and a single sound hummed through the desolation.

        A high note.

        I shuddered.  I struggled to sit upright.  My hooves were shaking as I continued the song, his song, their song.  “Alabaster,” I stammered.  “Did you save me the last time I was in her realm?”

        A high note, with no hesitance.

        I bit my lip.  Bravely, I asked, “Can you save yourself?  Can you join me here in the mortal realm?”

        There was a pause, then a low tone followed, shaking the ribs that framed my lungs.

        I winced, feeling my eyes grow moist.  I couldn't let myself lose control.  Not there.  Not in front of him.  “Did you play ‘Shadow's Advent?’  Did you ever finish the 'Nocturne of the Firmaments?'”

        Again, a pause, then another low note, woeful and prolonged like a dying animal.

        I clenched my eyes shut.  I asked the next question, though I knew ahead of time that there was no point.

        “Can... Can you teach me the Ninth Elegy?  'Desolation's Elegy?'”

        The low tone came violently this time, terse and almost angry.  I shivered heavily upon hearing it.

        “I'm... I'm sorry, I just...”  I bit my lip.  I didn't know when this would end, or how swiftly the sphere would collapse and cut me off from the spirit of my friend forever.  I had no choice but to be direct, to be selfish.  “Do... Do you have anything to give me, Alabaster?”

        I expected utter silence.  But the epiphany struck me just as his response hit my ears, piercingly high, like the cackle of a flighty ghost.

        And just then, something large and metallic was thrust into my grasp.  I shrieked from the sudden, cold sensation, until I was overcome by the weight of the object in my trembling limbs.  I knew upon feeling it—upon experiencing every cell in my body leaping in shock—exactly what it was.

        “Alabaster!  This is...”  I bit my tongue.  I was so shocked, so confused, so mad with all of the otherworldly mayhem surrounding me, surrounding us, a first and final embrace upon the shattered fringes of reality.  “Can I do anything for you?  Can I pull you out of the unsung realm, so that you can be free as well?”

        The low note that replied was emotionless, without sorrow and without regret.  It resonated off the strings of the holy instrument in my grasp, and then I felt his magical grip release, as he finally relinquished the relic to my hold.

        And yet, my voice choked as I spoke across the shadows.  “Alabaster, she loved you.  Up until the very end.  I wish... I wish that you could believe that, somehow...”

        The sphere surged, as if a huge breath was being sucked towards the opposite end of the universe, melting away all the cold vapors of space, and what swung back was a single sound, as high as any pitch that had ever graced the apex of equine hearing.

        “Yes.”

        And the note shattered the sphere, tore thejournal  pages to shreds, and knocked me on my back in the middle of the candlelit floor of my cellar, where I found myself clutching a beautiful, golden instrument with all fours while the ashes of my friend's legacy settled like snow around me.

        “You see, I am not simply here for myself,” I said as I leaned against the shimmering Nightbringer in the center of the wooden meeting room.  Octavia, Melodia, Mr. Bard, and Vinyl stared steadily at me as I spoke before them.  “It is his legacy that is at stake here, his story that remains unfinished.  And, I suspect, the story of countless other ponies who are lost forever to the accursed abyss of the unsung realm beyond the firmaments.  If I take advantage of the gifts given to me, of the musical road map at hoof, of the holy instrument I now have in my possession—as he did—then I have the personal responsibility—the undeniable duty of surpassing the Ninth Elegy, and even the Tenth.  With your help, I can get halfway to that final, elusive movement.  I can come out of this, enlightened and enriched.  And maybe, just maybe, that will be the day when I get to speak with all of you again, as dear friends, and I can tell you how the story ends.”

        The room was dead silent:  the signature of a stunned audience.  But, for this concert, there was no curtain, and hardly any more time to spare.

        So I smiled at them, and I gently implored, “Would you help me, my dear colleagues and geniuses?  Would you help me piece together the broken slivers of the Ninth Elegy?”

        All they had to do was exchange glances once.  And suddenly, they were all up, marching, galloping, fluttering towards me, awaiting their directions, their stations, their chairs—as it were.

        “I'm going to need something to write with,” Melodia Braids said.

        “Reckon I could take a gander at them too,” Mr. Bard added.

        “Uhhm... eheh...”  Vinyl Scratch nervously scratched her neck.  “If I'm going to be any sort of frickin' help, I gotta hear how the stuff we have to work with sounds.”

        “Which means, one of us will have the daunting task of actually holding the Nightbringer,” Octavia said, and already her eyes were nervously meeting mine.

        I chuckled.  Sliding the holy relic across the table, I said to the world renown cellist something I had only fantasized about for years.  “Here ya go, 'Tavi.  Knock yourself out.”

        We weren't five ponies.  We were suddenly one equine being gifted with five hemispheres of a single brain.  We thought alike and we spoke alike, for we carried within us the same dream, the same ambition.  The “Song of Gathering” had not failed me.  I had been joined with four spirits who understood everything I did, who valued everything I did, who masterfully hid the same degree of genius and love for music behind separate and vibrant personalities.  Our one common denominator, the same skin that defined us all, was the insatiable love for music, for making beauty out of noise, for creating a symphony when beforehand there was nothing.

        Melodia Braids was the backbone upon which the operation played itself out.  She selected key pieces of the Ninth Elegy that had fragmentally crossed my mind.  She even divided the written melodies apart further, creating new and far more exciting structures that I would never have even come close to figuring out on my own.

        Once each sample was scribbled down, it was up to Octavia to play them.  She did so with such elegance and poise that I nearly wept to see it, much less hear it.  Even with the instrument of the goddesses in her embrace, she looked like an absolute natural.  She strummed the unbreakable strings with utmost authority, covering the walls with a kaleidoscope of golden bands.

        Upon hearing each sample coming from Octavia's performance, Vinyl provided a curt yet poignant piece of commentary.  She had a masterful ear, and she told Melodia which of Octavia's performances blended in well with the rest of the samples and which didn't.  Thanks to the unorthodox deejay's input, the indecipherable song of the Nocturne became something real, something concrete.

        And then it was up to Jumpin' Ray Bard to piece it all together.  He spoke in a low voice the entire time.  His beard hung off his murmuring lips as he tapped into a sphere of meaning lying deep beneath the outer layers of the holy harmony we were making.  Like a continent molding together over time, he grabbed the samples that Vinyl Scratch had highlighted and morphed them into one another with simple patience and sincere attention.

        And then it was up to me to write the final product that we had dredged from the depths of oblivion.  I gave Octavia the honors, and she started playing the Ninth Elegy.  Halfway through, though, she stopped and looked at the others.  Melodia was the first to acknowledge the glint in her eyes.  She turned to me and asked if there was another instrument in my possession.

        Thankfully, I also had my lyre with me.  Not realizing the dream I was about to live out until it happened, I stood beside Octavia and waited for her signal.  The other three watched as the two of us performed the Elegy together.  Somewhere in the ocean of gorgeous sound we were both making, with sweeping melodies weaving over and under one another, we finished the movement—the actual movement—in its undeniable entirety, and that was when everything made sense, with a clarity so crisp that I almost wished I could perform “Penumbra's Echo” one last time to kiss Alabaster myself.

        “So it's not 'Desolation's Elegy,'” I remarked with a  weathered smile as I stared into the golden surface of the Nightbringer.  “It's 'Desolation's Duet.'”

        “It was never meant for just one pony to play,” Melodia remarked.  “For the melody to stay intact, it has to have two souls and two instruments.”

        Mr. Bard nodded.  “You reckon that's why it took you so plum long to figure out even half of it?” he asked my way.

        “You have no idea how much this helps me,” I said softly to the group, stopping to pat their shoulders as I trotted past them.  “I swear, as dark as everything gets, it's almost like I can see my way home more and more clearly.”

        “Heh, a musician with her head clear,” Vinyl said with a dizzy grin.  “I ought to try that crud someday.”

        “But, are you certain you must be so optimistic?”  Octavia gave me a sad look as she placed the Nightbringer atop the table, letting go of it finally with a twinge of regret.  “Your chances of communicating with your friend have been obliterated.  When all is said and done, you're now more alone than ever before.”

        “Only now, you have a duet you have to perform somehow,” Melodia said with a long face.  “Just who are you going to get to play this along with you?”

        “It never made sense to me before today,” I murmured.  I knelt down and slid my lyre into my saddlebag.  In its place, I pulled out a canteen of water and began unscrewing it.  “But now...”  A shudder escaped my dry throat as I stared off into the corner of the room.  “I'm beginning to have a good idea just whom I need to ask.”

        “It's a cryin' shame that we can't be around to witness it,” Mr. Bard said with a calm grin.  “That must be a concert worthy of splittin' the heavens apart.”

        “Heh, you couldn't be any closer to the truth.”

        “You will tell us about it, someday, though?”  Melodia said with a gentle, hopeful smile.  “When this whole 'curse' of yours is done with, won't you come and see us, Miss Heartstrings?”

        “Hmmm, believe me...”  I gazed at the four of them as they looked back at me.  I lifted the canteen to my lips and closed my eyes.  If my voice had a low tone to it, there was nothing I could do to stop it at the time.  “I wouldn't even think of disappointing you.”

        I sipped a gulp of water.  From the far end of the room, the last string of the Nightbringer finally stopped vibrating.  My ears twitched.  I finished my drink, exhaled, and opened my eyes.  Everypony was gone.

        Calmly, I screwed the canteen shut, hoisted the saddlebag over my shoulder, and trotted to the far end of the empty table.  I lifted the Nightbringer, slid it into a velvet-lined pouch, and tightened the bag so as to hide the relic's golden shimmer.  Then, extinguishing the lamp overhead with a touch of magic, I exited the door and abandoned the room to its shadows.

        I marched down a series of winding wooden steps, humming a tune to myself: a new and frightfully beautiful tune that I was bound never to forget.  When I reached the first floor of the library, Spike turned, saw me, and did a double-take, nearly dropping the huge stack of books he was carrying across the bands of sunlight from the Ponyville afternoon.

        “Whoah!  Uh... Hello there—uh—Miss!  Uhm...”  He squinted at me, then up at the stairs, then at me again.  “Did... Were you in the upstairs study chamber?”

        “Yes.  Oh, I'm terribly sorry,” I stood before him with a guilty expression.  “Is that room reserve only?”

        “Well, yes.  I mean... I-I guess it's not a hugely big deal, seeing how we're not so busy and all...”

        “Well, I apologize.  I'll... try to remember the next time I stop on by here.”

        “Yeah, that's okay.  By the way...”  He smiled and pointed at me.  “Dig the swell hoodie.”

        “Mmmhmmm.  But enough of that.”  I smiled at him.  “Got any books on feline diet?  I've got a kitty cat at home with a touch of a stomach ache and I wanna be sure I give him the right stuff to eat.”

        “Awwww... Yeah, I got just the thing!  Hang on!”  He waddled off to the opposite end of the room.  I shuffled along to make sure he didn't get too far out of reach.  “Don't worry, it won't take long!  I know you're eager to get home!”

        “Hmmm...”  I nodded with a gentle grin.  “Now, more than ever.”

        Life's too bleak to be just a solo.  Even when I'm entirely alone, I can still hear the band playing on.

Background Pony

XIV - “The Curse of the Ninth”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special Thanks to Warden, theworstwriter, RazgrizS57, theBrianJ, Props, and Melodia

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear journal,

        How does a pony affect the world around her?  Does she play an active part in the community?  Does she work closely with individuals, or does she work from the shadows, pulling strings from a distance?

        What if she can do neither of these things?  What if she still wishes to make the world a better place for everypony she knows and loves?  What if those whom she cares about could never know a single thing she's done, good or bad, to properly thank her for the motivation to begin with?

        I'm rediscovering a truth.  In this village that serves as my prison, and on the fringes of a haunted landscape between the firmaments, I'm starting to grasp something that was taught to me long ago, but only now makes sense.

        Improving the world is not always about adding things to it, or removing important factors.  Construction and destruction are simply means of shifting around the elements that are at our disposal.  It's far too easy to forget that we ourselves are factors that mold and shape this universe, and oftentimes the best way to solve a problem—or at least understand it—is by simply being there.

        It is suddenly storming.  I don't think I will make it home in time to stay dry.  I'm running and running as fast as I can.  Gaaah!  Slippery puddles!  Gotta be careful.  Mommy's gonna be mad at me for ruining my mane.  Of all the worst times to go outside...

        There's a flash of lightning.  I hear myself shriek and I gallop faster through the rain-slicked streets of Canterlot.  I can see my apartment up ahead.  Oh sweet Celestia, I am so soaked!

        I come to a stop in the stairwell to my home, skidding into the shadows.  I bump into a wall and wince.  I don't realize how cold I am until right now.  I shiver in the crook of the alcove, watching as streams of rain trickle down from the overhang above.  The planted trees and flower gardens along the sidewalk are being flooded in the ugly, gray weather.

        “Ohhhhhh...” I moan.  I look at the candied cone levitating in my telekinesis and pout at the sight of all the ice cream having washed away.  “Unnnngh!” I moan again, stamping a green hoof.  “And I just gave away my only two bits!”

        I turn the cone over and over in my magical grasp.  There's another boom of thunder, but it no longer frightens me.  With a dull spirit, I lean forward and lightly nibble on the edge of the cone.  It's soaked and soggy and thoroughly ruined by rainwater, but a tiny piece beneath it all is still sweet.  I suckle on the sensation, hoping it will prepare me for the tongue lashing I'm about to get from Mommy.  With a heavy sigh, I trudge up the steps of the stairwell towards my apartment door on the second story.

        I hear something.  It's different from the rain and my hoofsteps and the thunder.  I stop in my tracks, feeling thunder again, this time in my chest, for I realize that the odd sound is coming from directly beneath me.  Slowly, I squat down and peer through the gap between the steps, curious as to the source of the labored whimpers and sobs.

        It is then that I see her, curled up in the corner, shadowed from the rain and lightning.  She's small, about my age, only tinier than me.  She doesn't have a cutie mark either.  I can't see her face from all of the red and violet tangles of wet mane hair muffling her cries.

        For some reason, I'm not afraid.  I swallow the cone whole and nearly gag.  “Bleachk... Tastes like cardboard!”

        I giggle at myself, but the filly doesn't laugh one bit.  She's too busy crying.  It's like she doesn't even know that I'm here.

        “Hello?”  I march quietly down the steps and move towards her, smiling.  “Did you get caught in the rain too?  It's all because of those lazy pegasi!  Ugh!  I wonder if this happens everyday in Cloudsdale.  Heehee!  What do you think?”

        She says nothing.  She shivers, hugging herself and curling even further into the deepest part of the corner.  She's wetter than I am.  How long has she been out in the rain?

        “Hey, are you okay?”  I say as I squat down in front of her.  “Are you sad because you got your mane all wet?  Well, don't worry.  I'm sure it's very pretty.  You have some nice colors.  Me?”  I smile and toss my head left and right, allowing the gray and turquoise strands to whip about.  “I could blend in at a greenhouse.  Heeheehe!  That's such a funny word, 'greenhouse!'  It's not even green until you walk inside!”

        She still doesn't say anything, but I think she's noticing me.  She lowers her forelimbs and tilts her face up.  I see a pair of eyes.  One's violet.  The other one's violet and... blue?  No, wait... what's wrong with her face?

        “What's wrong with your face?” I ask.  I then bite my lip, blushing.  “Erm, I mean... did you hurt yourself?”

        She gulps, trembling as a flash of lightning catches a bruise on her cheek.  “I...” She speaks, and it is a very gentle sound, like icicles snapping.  “I b-bumped into something trying to get out of the st-storm,” she says.

        I make a face.  “Bumped into something?  You're a unicorn, not some bumbling earth pony!”

        “I'm... v-very clumsy,” she stammers.

        I think that's very silly, but it doesn't matter.  It's been a lonely weekend, and she looks like she could use a friend.  “My name is Lyra,” I introduce myself properly, as Mommy always tells me to.  “Lyra Heartstrings.  What's your name?”

        She looks at me, and for a moment her trembles stop.  “Uhm...”  She bites her lip before ultimately confessing, “Moondancer.  My name is Moondancer.”

        I took several heavy breaths, finding my center, steeling myself for the freezing waves to come.  When they finally hit, I was ready for them, but it didn't make the experience any less excruciating.  As soon as “Twilight's Requiem” was finished, I tilted my head back and clung tighter to the Nightbringer.  When my hooves landed on the rusted platform, it was like touching death itself.  A bitter shiver ran up my spine, culminating in my skull as my eyes were forced open in a determined glare.

        Before me, the unsung realm billowed with lightning and twirling tendrils of water.  Constellations of rusted chains undulated towards and away from my body as the platform I stood on spun perpetually in the chaotic nether.  As soon as I breathed, and my vaporous exhales lit the cold hellscape, shackled ponies crawled like spiders out of their metallic holes, shuffling blindly towards me on the lengths of their rattling fetters.

        I did not fear them.  After all, Alabaster was gone, and they weren't the ones I journeyed here to speak with.  Gripping the Nightbringer tighter, I ran a hoof along its onyx strings.  A high tone lit the tempestuous air, and a sphere of golden energy encased me.  The unsung ponies trotted as far as they could, ultimately colliding with the translucent barrier and banging their tormented limbs against it.  I stared past them, shouting into the thunderous, cyclonic heavens.

        “Do not hide from me!” I exclaimed, my voice echoing above the anguished moans and ringing of metal.  “You are a goddess!  I am a but a mortal, equipped with a piece of the same song that bound you here!  Show yourself!  Show yourself and be my audience!”

        Only thunder and turbulence answered me.  I felt a gale of wind surging across the platform.  Several unsung equines flew off into the nether while the Nightbringer's barrier fluctuated, but I did not budge an inch.

        “I am not leaving until I see you!” I bellowed bravely, gnashing my teeth into the frigid winds and moisture.  I held tight to the Nightbringer's golden body as if it was a lost child.  Its ancient energy and presence served as my anchor while I clung to the bones of forgotten chaos.  “Do not... nnngh—”  I hissed and summoned an angry vibration from the center of my being.  “—do not confuse this with a request!  Show yourself!  Now!”

        Just then, the heavens parted.  A surging arch of water dissipated with a blast, like a bomb going off beneath the surface of a gigantic ocean.  The moans around me doubled, quadrupled, as the shackled ponies prostrated themselves across the platform and moaned into their twitching limbs.  I looked straight up in time to have my vision devoured by runes.

        There it was, her home, her floating fortress on high.  The spheres within spheres rotated towards me, like a globe of spiraling menace.  Runes blurred over one another as the round sarcophagus loomed closer overhead, brimming with violet beams of pulsating energy.  I heard deep bass noises, and soon sharp salvos of unbridled sound reverberated off the archaic throne, sending rivulets of energy barreling through the cloud of moisture above the platform.

        The squirming ponies all around me mimicked her epic cry with moans.  I broke through the chorus with a snarling voice, “No!  I will not sing your song!”  There were two more claps of thunder, but I sensed it was her this time and not the realm.  “I will not become nothing!”

        Then she fired the first volley.  A bolt of lightning rocketed towards me, sending a wall of sparks surging along the platform.  The equine bodies caught flame in a screaming second.  When the energy reached me, it splashed off the Nightbringer's shield with the sound of dying bells.

        I gritted my teeth and held my ground.  “Join me!”  I strummed a few strings and strengthened the shield against her furious discharge.  “I've learned the ninth elegy!  I've memorized 'Desolation's Duet!'  You know this!”

        The spheres spun faster.  Twin bolts of lightning flew my way.

        The golden shield pulsed around me, staving off the white hot energy blasts as the platform started to melt from the heat.  “Join me in the instrumental!” I shrieked against her fury.  The spherical fortress was starting to float away, and my voice cracked in desperation as I implored her, “How many times do I have to tell you?!  I don't care about this realm!  I don't care about this secret!  We can finish the Nocturne together, and I can move on!  Release me from this curse, and I won't bother you ever again!  Please, help me!  I must learn ‘Dawn's Advent!’”

        The spheres within spheres were indiscernible now; ll I could see was smoke and rain.  The alicorn goddess was gone.

        “I must learn it...” I whimpered, hanging my head.  I was alone, now more than ever.  “I m-must get home.”

        All traces of her were gone.  Even the thunder had dwindled.  I started to hear the whimpers of the unsung ponies stirring up again.  I knew better than to wait for another appearance.  With a sigh, I regripped the Nightbringer and telekinetically played a new tune.  “Penumbra's Echo” lit the purgatorial realm with its heavenly notes, and soon everything was blurring away as if a cosmic hoof was wiping a chalkboard clean.  The moans flew into obscurity, as did the moisture, the lightning, the chains, and the bone-chilling cold.  The world settled into a gentle amber kiss, and I was once again sitting on my stool in the bottom of a cellar, surrounded by dirt walls and lanternlight.

        The Nightbringer hung in my grasp.  I looked at my moist hooves as I cradled it.  Not a single limb of mine was shivering; it made very little difference.  With a defeated moan, I closed my eyes.

        “Ten times, Al,” I said, squatting in the center of the cabin as I tossed another wooden log into the fireplace.  “I've played the first eight elegies and taken myself to the unsung realm ten times in a single week, and still I can't get her to show herself.”  I threw in another log, sighing as it suffered a crackling fate amidst the burning embers.  In a lethargic slump, I stretched my wet limbs towards the center of the tranquil furnace and warmed myself.  “Just what am I doing wrong?  I mean, I have the Nightbringer;  I have a piece of the same song that created her.  Why can't she recognize that?  Why can't she face me like a responsible goddess so I can simply end this?”

        Behind me was the sweetest sound in the whole world.  A tiny orange thing was purring, his rumbling sounds punctuated by the crackling of dry food between his jaws as he patiently ate from his freshly filled bowl beside my cot.  Tilting his head up, Al glanced at me with calm, amber eyeslits before returning to his food.  The tabby's ears pricked at attention, as if knowing I was only going to ramble on.  Smart cat.

        “Maybe that's just it.  Maybe she's just mad at me for having received the Nightbringer from Alabaster right under her nose.”  I sighed as I gazed up at the cool October evening from beyond the windows of my home.  “Maybe she's always been mad at the Cosmic Matriarch, and now that I've gotten a piece of her voice, she won't even give me the light of day...”  I chuckled bitterly.  “Or of chaotic day.  Seriously, that stupid place could use a flashlight.”  I gave Al a goofy smile.

        The cat merely stared back at me, his whiskers twitching.

        I winced.  “Yeah, okay, that was lame.”  With a groan, I stood up and marched my rain-slicked self towards the far side of the cabin.  “Still, ten times in a row?  And it's not like she's completely ignoring me.  I mean, she appears in her huge spheroid throne every time to try and scare me away.  Just what is that thing, anyways?  Was it a means of transportation for alicorns upon the dawn of creation?  That would make some sense, right?  I mean, she had to have been around as long as the Cosmic Matriarch was here on this planet, right?  She couldn't be any older than Celestia, at the very least...”

        I levitated a towel from a shelf and dried my mane vigorously with it.  As I dragged the rag to my wet shoulders and spine, repeating the motions I had gotten far too used to over the past week, I paused.  I dropped the towel around me and looked Al's way through a disheveled mane.

        “What if... What if that structure is part of the unsung prison?”  I gulped and gazed out the window yet again.  “And maybe... maybe the sphere does the same thing to her as the curse does to me.  Maybe she's powerless to remember anything but her song.”  A shudder ran through me upon contemplating that.  “Blessed Luna, do I even have a chance of reaching her?”

        Al's answer was to hop onto the cot, curl in the dead center, and proceed to lick himself.

        I exhaled.  I dried the rest of my body before tossing the towel into a nearby hamper.  “Well,” I murmured as I trotted across the light of the fireplace, “perhaps what I need to do is more studying.  I sure have enough books checked out from Twilight's.  Heh...”  I chuckled as I looked upon a huge stack of research manuscripts lying beside Al's food dish.  “At this rate, she and Spike will think that Diamond Dogs raided their archives overnight.  I should return these soon.  But still...”

        I pivoted and stared at the source of an immense golden glow in my cabin.  The Nightbringer stood on an end table, blessing this mortal equine with its timeless presence.  It was a little bit alarming how easily I had gotten used to seeing the holy artifact with my naked eyes.

        “There are bigger things at stake here,” I murmured.  A frail smile crossed my lips.  “What do you think it'll be like, Al, the day I finally get her to play the duet with me?  The day I finally end this curse?”  I turned and gazed softly towards him.  “Would Celestia and Luna be grateful to have me return their holy instrument to them?”

        Al looked towards me, blinking sleepily.  His ears twitched, and he shook his head into one of those prolonged, devilishly freakish yawns that only felines can pull off.

        “Hmmm...”  I gazed at the floor as I trotted towards the bed.  “Curious thought...”  I murmured aloud as I levitated a brush and comb over to myself along with one of the library books.  “The curse couldn't possibly be affecting her.  I mean, she reached out to her sister when Luna osmotically learned about the 'Nocturne of Firmaments' and transformed into Nightmare Moon those many years ago.”

        I squatted in the crater of blankets beside Al while brushing the tangles out of my mane.  I flipped the page open and looked over several historical documents detailing Canterlot music tradition.

        “Also, there is her beloved.  For Alabaster to have learned about the topic, she had to have been missing him, and thus had to be retaining memory of her beloved's banishment.”  I frowned slightly as I levitated another book towards me, then another.  My amber eyes danced across the many pages in search of an answer.  “So I can’t really imagine that she is forgetting me each time I visit the realm, but instead she's just flat-out ignoring me.  But why?  Does she think it's her job?  Does she just want to break contact with any pony who's not willing to become her shackled slave?”

        I felt a soft, furry body of warmth.  I glanced down to see Al curling up against me, raising two playful paws to bat at the many floating objects.

        Blankly, I stared at the books, books, books, brush, comb, and other objects crowded around my side of the room.  With a nervous chuckle, I lowered everything in place except for one book which I propped up beside myself and Al.

        “Thanks.  I know, I know.  I'm starting to overdo it again.”  A sigh escaped my lips as I looked up from the pages and once again graced the Nightbringer's golden brilliance.  “Seems like I've gotten stronger overnight.  I think whatever it was that kept Alabaster alive for so long is happening to me.  I mean, I don't know about having long life, but I certainly feel stronger.”  I gulped nervously.  “And... And I know I wouldn't have lasted a second against her if I didn't have a piece of the holy song with me in the unsung realm.”  I squatted down and nuzzled Al closely.  “But still,” I murmured.  “I'd gladly give up all the strength in the world if it just means learning 'Dawn's Advent,' if it just means finishing this blasted symphony.”

        The cabin was silent, save for the crackling of embers in the fireplace.  I felt warm, toasty, safe, anything but free.

        “The powers of a goddess at my hooves...” I muttered, “And I can't get a single alicorn to listen to me.”  I sighed and buried my face into the blankets.  “Mmmmff... How will I ever receive an audience?”

        Al mewed and rubbed up against me, purring.

        Limply, I smiled and nudged him back.  “I know, I know.  But of course, I already got you, ya fuzzhead!”  I giggled lightly and relished in his affectionate purr.  “I promise, if there's an encore, you're the first one who's gonna hear it.”  I stared calmly into the haze at the far ends of the room.  The sunset fell outside the windows, and the hush of evening lulled me into a reflective trance.

        “Could you repeat that, dearie?” Mommy asks with a gentle look of concern across her face.  I don't know what her problem is.  We're both absolutely fine.

        “Mmm...” My new friend treads at the floor with her hooves.  She avoids my parents' gaze.  I don't understand why she's so shy.  She's no more wet than I am.  The storm is still brewing outside our Canterlot apartmet.  Maybe she's frightened by it?  I don't know.  I step through the puddle and stand in front of her, smiling.

        “She bumped into something along the way here!” I say with a proud smile.  “She might be clumsy, but I think she's okay!  Isn't her mane pretty?  I mean, I know it's tangled and all now, but just wait until it gets dry!  She was telling me earlier how much she loves going to the salon with her mom!  Can I go with them sometime?  It's just a block away!  They don't live that far away from us!  Heehee!  We've been neighbors and we didn't even know it!”

        “Is that so?” Daddy remarks.  He glances across the way at Mommy.

        Mommy is already stepping forward.  She gently pats my shoulder and makes me step aside as she kneels down in front of my brand new friend.  “Moondancer, was it...?”

        She slowly nods her head.  Why's she so shy in front of them?  She was chatting like crazy a second ago.  She likes banana splits and practical jokes and sunny days at the beach and—

        “Let me see your face, darling,” Mommy says softly.  She isn't angry at us.  That's a relief.  Why's she so curious about Moondancer's face?  “You don't have to be afraid, dear.  I won't hurt you, I promise.”

        Moondancer takes a deep breath.  Her face is wet, even though we marched in from the rain minutes ago.  She tilts her horn up and allows Mommy to see her twitching eye.

        “My, that's quite a nasty bruise you got there,” Mommy coos.  She presses the side of Moondancer's face.  The blueness on my new friend's skin is slightly larger than Mommy's hoof.  “Mmmm... Sweet Celestia...”  She turns and gives Daddy a pointed look.

        He's nodding for some reason.  Grabbing a coat and an umbrella, he marches towards the door, passing just beside Mommy to whisper something into her ear.  She nods and murmurs something back.  I eventually hear: “Don't go alone.  Get Dusk to go with you.  He should be home; I saw his and Stellar's son, Shining Armor, playing in the courtyard this morning.”

        “Yes, I believe Dusk has dealt with Nightrot before.  Don't worry, honey.  We'll have the Guard with us this time,” Daddy says quietly.  He casts me and Moondancer a brief smile.  For some reason, it makes me feel nervous.  He opens the door, shoots the umbrella open, and is gone in the storm.  Before I can gaze out the window after him, Mommy is standing before us, and she also has that strange-looking smile.

        “Moondancer, we're so glad to have you here to visit.  It's a nasty storm outside, so we're going to let you stay here for the night.”

        “I, uhm... I...”  Moondancer's eyes flicker with bright violet, then blink.  She fidgets, backtrotting and lowering her head as if part of the ceiling might fall on her.  “I... I don't think my dad will like that...”

        “Shhh...”  Mommy talks to Moondancer in a gentle voice.  It's like how she used to talk to me when I was just a little, itty bitty foal.  “We won't tell your dad unless you want us to.”  Her yes are trained on Moondancer.

        Just like that Moondancer responds, “Uhm... You... You can tell my Mom.”

        Mommy slowly nods.  “Your mother, hmm?”

        “Mmmmhmmm.” Moondancer nods back, and she's trembling again, only this time her eyes are bright and happy.  “Could... Could she stay the night too?”

        Mommy smiles gently.  “Don't you worry.  Your mother can come here and stay as long as she likes as well...”

        “Woohoo!” I jump, gasping for joy.  “Slumber party!  I've always wanted to have one!  Oooh!  Oooh!  I can show you my room!  Daddy bought me all of these amazing musical instruments!  I'm gonna be in a band someday!”

        “Lyra, dear,” Mommy chides gently.  “Moondancer needs some time to rest and relax.  Calm down some—”

        “I... I uhm...”  Moondancer bites her lip and squirms where she stands.  “I don't mind.  I like Lyra.  She's fun.”

        “See, Mommy?”  I hop in place, beaming.  “She likes me!  She's my new best friend and we're gonna do fun stuff together!”

        Mommy takes a breath before saying with a warm smile, “Okay.  Go on and show her your room.  Just don't get too rowdy.  It'll be bedtime soon.”

        “Okay!  We won't be too loud, I promise!”  I tug Moondancer by the hoof and all but drag her into my room.  “Come on!  Come on!  You gotta see all the cool things I got for Hearth's Warming!”

        Moondancer giggles.  She makes such sweet sounds.  I bet she's also going to have a talent in music.  How lucky could we be?  Maybe we'll both get matching cutie marks.  I hear of ponies who get their cutie marks at the same time.  Maybe she can join my band when I grow up?

        “Lookie!  Lookie!”  I bounce around my room, showing off my xylophone, my flute, my drumset.  “Isn't it neato?  I can't figure out which I'm best at.  I'm guessing it's the stuff that my parents yell at me less for.  Heehee!”

        “Your... Your parents yell at you?” Moondancer murmurs.

        “Pffttt!  Only when I make too much noise.  But, y'know, they got me these!  So they must have wanted me to make some noise!  Heehee!”

        “Heh... Heeheehee...”  Moondancer laughs until she's red in the face.  “I guess I never thought of that...”

        “I bet you'd be good at the trumpet!”

        “Oh, I'm good at the trumpet alright,” she says as an evil smirk crosses her lips, “after I've eaten a whole bunch of Mexicanter fried beans!”

        “Ah!” I shriek, bouncing away from her and hiding behind a stuffed animal.  “Moondancer!  How unladylike!”

        She giggles and bounces toward me, waving her horn around.  “En guarde, magical musician!”

        “Oh no!” I feign horror and trot around the far lengths of my bedroom.  “She's an evil unicorn witch come to steal my super special talent!  Help!  Help!”

        “Hehehe!” She giggles and chases me for a while.

        I'm still running in circles until I realize that I'm the only filly giggling.  I stop and turn, panting.  I see her staring at a wall full of pictures taken of me and my mom and dad.  I trot over, smiling.  “Moondancer?  What is it?”

        Her smile is gone.  Well, no, it's there, but it's a different kind of smile.  She sniffles, but it doesn't look like she's crying.  “Your... your house...”

        “What about it?”

        She gulps.  “It's really warm,” she says.

        I blink at her.  A rumble of thunder echoes outside the window, and I shudder under the refracted light of rain water.  “Well... Well of course it is, Moondancer!”  I grin nervously.  “Why wouldn't it be?”

        She stares into the shadows briefly, her eyes fluttering.  Suddenly, just as quickly as she had stopped, she turns and charges at me, horn-first while grinning.  “En guarde!  Arrrrgh!”

        “Ack!  Heehee!  No fair!  You cheated!  Cheating cheater!”

        “Am not!”

        “Are too!”

        “Am not!”

        “Are too!”

        “Am not—”

        My eyes fluttered open.  I shot up with a sharp breath, staring at the lonely lengths of my cabin.  The fireplace had long died out.  Al was lying asleep, curled up at my side, his soft orange body rising and falling.  The world was black outside, but the faintest hint of dawn was creeping over the distant, forested horizon.

        It wasn't until the waves of cold assaulted my figure that I was finally brought back to the cursed present.  I rubbed my forelimbs over each other, my teeth chattering.  I realized it was a long time since warmth was anything but an illusion in my life.  Lethargically, I gazed down at a book lying open before me, speaking endless drivel of forgotten Canterlot songs into the dim air of the cabin.

        “Nnngh... The first day I'm no longer cursed, I'm taking the longest nap in recorded history.”  I muttered as I daintily climbed over Al and crawled out of bed.  “Because it will be recorded, dang it!”

        With a brief hiss, I slithered into my stone-gray hoodie.  Feeling comfortable enough, I reached for my lyre, slid it into my saddlebag, and strapped the thing to my shoulders.  I made for the exit, but not without pausing.  With a groan, I turned around and marched back towards the golden body of the Nightbringer.

        “If I have the literal song of the Cosmic Matriarch in my possession, I might as well exercise her responsibilities.”

        Al gave no response to my muttering voice.  He slept soundly as I went through my new habitual task.  I wrapped the priceless instrument in a pouch of regal velvet that I had Rarity produce for me at the cost of an entire bag of bits.  Then, after rolling up a round carpet, I telekinetically pulled at a latch, opening the floor of the cabin to a rectangular enclosure I had carved out of the floor with magic the week before.  Gently, I lowered the shrouded Nightbringer within, closed the trap door, and rolled the rug back over it.

        Finally, I was ready.  Marching towards the cabin exit, I shifted the weight of my lyre across my back and pointed at Al.  “Don't you get any thieving ideas, ya little scamp.”

        The tabby yawned, rolled over, and purred towards the ceiling.  With a creak of the front door I was gone, marching out to greet the coming dawn with my thoughts.

        The brightness of morning accompanied my labored thoughts.  Autumn was in full effect, and I could feel it in my bones.  The arrival of October chased the residual heat of summer away.  The dew on the blades of grass bending beneath me was positively freezing.  In truth, I wasn't looking to feel comfortable.  I needed to exercise the restless energy of my mind, and every jolt and chill of the autumnal morning assisted me in such a venture.

        The nature of my curse would make me a regular insomniac, somepony would think.  The fact of the matter is I hadn't had trouble sleeping until just recently.  Having unlocked the structure of the ninth elegy, I had every reason to feel proud of myself: as if I had made some priceless progress in my pursuit of freedom.  Things couldn't be further from the truth.

        I was at an impasse.  The ninth elegy turned out to be a duet, and there was only one soul in the history of everything that was eligible to carry me musically into the final, redeeming instrumental of the Nocturne.

        How did I come to realize this?  Twilight Sparkle knew nothing of “Dawn's Advent.”  None of Alabaster's journals described the true nature of the song.  Nowhere in the entire archives of Ponyville library did I find a single listing of that title.  As an experiment, I had several ponies perform “Desolation's Duet” along with me, including Applejack with her fiddle and Pinkie Pie with her accordion.  Nothing worked to get me any closer to my goal, and I was starting to understand why.

        The purpose of the “Nocturne of the Firmaments” was to seal an alicorn goddess away from the rest of reality.  Who but the alicorn herself could possibly have been a better candidate to usher such a lonely prisoner through her unsung realm and back into the dimension of the living?

        I couldn't stop thinking about the spherical structure within which her spirit was housed.  When I first entered the realm—when it was up to Alabaster to save my amnesiac self—she had approached me from up high, summoning her bolts of diabolical energy, as if I was any other lost soul flung into her domain.  On the second visit, when I played the Threnody with a protection shield and entered her realm lucidly, she had approached me in person.  I must have been an anomaly to her, having visited for a second time to grace her plane.  Perhaps that was the first time she saw me as a threat, and for that reason she had to tell me to my face that I needed to sing her song and become nothing.

        But now that I've returned, now that I have the Nightbringer, now that I am strong and virtually untouchable in her domain, she keeps herself at a distance.  She purposefully avoids coming into close contact with me.  Do I frighten her?  Does the fact that I know her secret and still walk this globe give her a sense of unease?  What could one unicorn mortal have in her possession that could intimidate an undead alicorn lost unto time?  Is it all the Nightbringer?  Or is it something else?

        This is why I can't sleep.  I don't know what's worse, knowing that I was helpless from the beginning, or knowing that I've made so much progress only to become twice as helpless as when I first started.  There was a time when playing music relaxed me.  I've been trying to remember that, to incorporate that back into my life.  These days, all I find myself doing is playing the one tune that has brought me more joy and ease than any other tune in the grand history of my existence.

        “Penumbra's Echo:”  I played it over and over again from where I sat on the edge of a meadow beside a long brown path.  I was close to the west edge of Ponyville.  The sun was just then coming over the horizon.  The birds sounded across the treetops, and their chirps got lost in the gentle melodies wafting off from my vibrating strings.

        I tried to imagine, if even for a brief moment, that I was just like any other pony living in that town.  It must be a delightful feeling: to not be a ghost, to not have to worry about disappearing, to know that there're voices left on this earth that will say your name out loud.  I don't even want to be popular.  I don't even care if I have no more than five, four, or even two friends.  I want my name to be spoken, whispered, laughed, sung, and even grumbled.

        With a deep breath, I closed my eyes and played the song at a slower tempo, allowing my heart to beat in between each plucked string, as if I was playing the fated duet with myself.

        It seems a bitter twist of irony that out of all the instrumentals of the Nocturne, the most important tune is the only one I absolutely can't perform alone.  After all, the tough part isn't performing the song.  The challenge is to get her to agree to doing it with me.  But how does one appeal to a timeless spirit imprisoned by oblivion?  Who am I?  I'm no goddess.  I'm no—

        “Oh, my!  A lyre!  That's such beautiful music!  Are... Are you from Canterlot?”

        I fluttered my eyes open.  Before me stood several bright blurs in the dawn light: a ruby coat, a fuchsia mane, and eyes of forest emerald.  A smile broke out that could illuminate the dew-laden world twice over.

        “Oh please, oh please tell me you're from Canterlot!”

        “I... might be,” I stammered under a breath of confusion.  Clearing my throat, I nevertheless sat up from under the tree and smiled her way.  “Miss Cheerilee, I presume.”

        “Oh!  I knew it!” She hopped in place, nearly dropping a saddlebag full of graded papers.  “You came after all!  And they claimed that you were too sick to show up this week!  Oh, I was so afraid of letting the students down!”

        “I... uh...”  I chuckled nervously and stood up, shaking the morning moisture off my mane.  “I-I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”  Gulping, I leaned forward with a suspicious breath.  “Were... Were you expecting me?”

        Before she answered, I already knew that it was too good to be true.  “You... You are from Canterlot, aren't you?”  Cheerilee was nervously biting her lip.  It was devastating to see the enthusiasm draining from her face.  I've enjoyed several conversations with Ponyville's resident schoolteacher, and it's hard to come across another pony in all of Equestria who contains that much joy and yet so little annoyance.  “Oh dear, I hope I haven't jumped to conclusions.  You see, I've been in constant communication with Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, and Professor Blue Noise of the Music Department was hoping to assist me in setting up a music program for the little foals of Ponyville.”

        “Hey!  Professor Blue Noise!” I grinned wide.  “I know him!  He taught me in my senior year—uhm...”  I winced, already realizing that my excitement had forced me to say too much.  “What I mean is—”

        “So you're the one he sent?” Cheerilee beamed, nearly leaning off her hooves.  “He had promised that one of his best pupils would arrive to give my students a dissertation on musical history, but the last letter said that you had fallen terribly ill and had to make a stop at Trottingham to recuperate.  I figured that I would have to change this week's study topic back to basic geometry yet again.”

        “Heh.  Yes, well, math is math, I guess.”  I gulped, feeling my insides curling up, and not in the good way.  It isn't often that I fall into these bizarre niches of happenstance.  But when they do happen, they're hardly anything but awkward occasions.  “Miss Cheerilee, I do happen to have quite a bit of musical expertise.  But I fear that there's been a horrible misunderstanding...”

        “Oh?”  She tilted her head aside, blinking innocently.  I was intrigued at how naïve an instructor of foals could be.  I suppose the world can never be too innocent.  My heart went out to her, especially as she murmured, “You're... not the pupil of Professor Blue Noise after all?  The one sent from Canterlot?”

        “Well, I am from Canterlot, but...”  I winced at myself.  What was I doing?  I shouldn't have even been tempting the notion.  Somewhere, someplace, some poor sap from my home town was coughing his or her lungs out and the last thing I should have been doing was contemplating taking the pony's place.  Just because I was a ghost didn't give me license to play with false identity, but...

        What else would I have been doing that morning?  Sitting down?  Moping?  Philosophizing?  True, if I tried to pass myself off as a history teacher to a bunch of Ponyvillean children, it would hardly have made a difference.  They'd completely forget everything I told them by the time they got home.  I would have essentially robbed Cheerilee and her classroom of an entire day's worth of studying far more important and permanent things.  So what if I could have possibly informed, enlightened, and even brought a few smiles to a bunch of foals for one day and one day only?

        But, then I realized: the moment I skip out on any opportunity—no matter how insignificant—to bring happiness to other ponies' lives, then that means I would have given in to my curse.  I would have let the likes of her win.  And I don't care how many bleak circumstances I have to deal with in my pariah state; I'm not here in this town to watch the world crumble into misery.  If I have a chance to spread sunshine, for even just a blink, then—darn it—sign me up.

        However impulsive the notion, it made me smile, and I found myself standing up to look at Cheerilee eye to eye.  “You know what?  There's no point in hiding it anymore.  Professor Blue Noise promised to have those kids learn a thing or two, and who am I to let a silly case of the sniffles stop me from making that dream come true?”

        “You... You mean you're up for it?”  Cheerilee held back her smile as her cheeks burned upon the precipice of ecstasy.  “You're not too ill after all?”

        I took a deep breath, sucking the autumnal crispness of early October in through my nostrils and exhaling it out through a wide grin.  “That's the thing about this town.  Just one morning walk can clear the body and the spirits.  You know what I mean?”

        “Heeheehee!  And how!”  If Cheerilee suddenly sprouted pegasus wings and floated around me, I wouldn't have been too shocked.  “Oh, the kids are absolutely going to love this!  I've been prepping them on basic Equestrian music theory for a week!  Any knowledge you have to share concerning the pre-modern royal ballads would be absolutely stellar!”

        “Oh, well...” I ran a hoof through my mane before trotting down the morning-lit path alongside her.  “I might know one or two... heh...”

        “And the charade didn't stop until I finally got a chance to pull her foster mother, Milky White aside and tell her about the whole issue,” Cheerilee said as we strode up to the schoolyard in the early morning light.  The sounds of giggling children and pattering hooves lit our ears.  “The three of us had a sit-down together, and the little darling got several things off her chest.  Ever since then, Scootaloo's been a great deal more well-adjusted, and she’s started forming close friendships with the other children.  Why, she and two other foals are practically inseparable now!”

        “Wow...”  I shook my head in awe and smiled her way.  “I can't imagine how stressful that must have been.  You mean you actually let the little pegasus convince the entire class that you were her older sister?”

        “Mmmhmmm.”  Cheerilee nodded with a smile.  “For a little while, at least.  I later explained it off as Scootaloo practicing for a local play and needing my help for acting lessons.  Our 'sisters' charade was a fabrication of a fabrication, if you think about it.  Heehee!  The little dear is dead-set on performing on stage when she grows up, after all.  In the end, I was able to give the filly a chance to exercise her emotional needs without suffering the ridicule of peers who wouldn't understand what she'd been through before moving here.”

        “Whew!  It's a good thing I'm just a guest speaker for the day,” I said with a nervous chuckle.  “I guess I never really imagined what teachers like you must deal with on a regular basis.  But, seriously, that was a genius move on your part.  Ever thought of getting into psychiatry on the side, Miss Cheerilee?”

        “Oh ho ho ho, Miss Heartstrings,” Cheerilee uttered with a giggle and a wave of her hoof.  “Please, you flatter me!  Besides, I have too much of an affinity for gardening as it is.”

        “Why does that not surprise me?”  I replied with a smirk as we came upon the yard.  “Whoah, hello there...”  I froze in place, blinking at a big red sight.

        A familiar stallion paced to a stop in the middle of the schoolyard, having given several giggling fillies and colts a bareback ride.  Upon seeing Cheerilee, Big Mac smiled and lowered to his knees, letting the various foals descend onto the lawn, upon which they proceeded to scamper up to Miss Cheerilee and dance in gay little circles around the teacher.

        “Good morning, Miss Cheerilee!”

        “Big Mac gave us a ride around the school building!”

        “I wanna be as big and strong as him someday!”

        “Oh yeah?  My big brother is even larger than he is!”

        “Hey!  T'ain't true!  Big Mac is the biggest and strongest there ever was!”

        “Nuh uh, Apple Bloom!”

        “Yuh huh!”

        “Nuh uh!”

        “Yuh huh!”

        “Children!  Children!”  Cheerilee knelt down and parted Apple Bloom from a colt giving her a raspberry.  “It's true.  Big Macintosh is strong and dependable, but you think he got that way by spending all his time bickering and fighting with other ponies his age?  Not at all!  He spent his foalhood exercising and working hard to get to where he is now!  Now why don't you take his example and be nice to one another, because if you waste all your time with frowning, how will you be there for little foals when you're as old as he is?”

        “You're riiiiiight, Miss Cheerilee.  Apple Bloom, I'm sorry for being mean.”

        “Heehee!  It's okay, Spring Gaze!  I ain't mad at ya!  You're not mad at him either, are ya, Big Mac?”

        “Nope,” the stallion said with a definitive shake of his head.

        The children giggled, then gazed up at me.  Several of them gasped, and soon I found a veritable train swarming around me as if I was a Hearth's Warming tree.

        “Oooh!  Oooh!  A musician!”

        “Look at her cutie mark!”

        “Are you from Canterlot?”

        “Are we gonna learn about old songs and stuff?”

        “Do all unicorns from the Princess' city wear clothes like that?”

        “I...”  I fiddled where I stood, biting my lip.  “I seem to have gotten celebrity status already... eheheh...”

        “Students, this is Miss Heartstrings,” Cheerilee said to the fillies and colts gathered around us.  Half of the schoolyard's crowd had formed a thick cluster of eager, bright, blinking faces.  It was like a living lake of adorableness.  I tried not to develop cavities from the sheer sight of it.  “And you're right!  She's here to teach us a thing or two about the history of Equestrian musical development!  I'd say we're in for a treat, so say hello to our special guest!”

        “Hello.  Miss.  Heartstriiiiiings.”  The chant was positively electric.

        “Heh...”  I waved back, feeling butterflies in my stomach.  The cold tendrils of my curse were continents away all of the sudden.  “Back at ya, kiddies.”

        In the meantime, Cheerilee was turning to smile at Big Mac.  “Thank you so much, Macintosh, for playing chaperone for me this morning.  I had to stop by the post office along the way here; you have no idea how much of a blessing this was to me.  By the way, did you restock the firewood in the back?”

        “Eeyup.”

        “Wonderful!”  Cheerilee beamed, her cheeks red again; I wondered if she had a condition.  “That will come in handy during the winter to come.  I can't thank your family enough.”

        “Yeah, I've... uh... only been in this town for a little while,” I said with a smirk aimed Big Mac's way.  “And I already get the feeling that Ponyville wouldn't survive long without the shoulders of the Apple family to lean on.”

        “Eeee-nope,” Big Mac said with a teeth-glinting smirk.

        Cheerilee giggled again.  “Well, you can go on your merry way, Macintosh.  I know you have a great deal of farmwork to do.  Alright, students!  Just ten minutes until class begins!  Then Miss Heartstrings and I will be—”  She turned and gazed across the schoolyard, and instantly her smile waned.  “Oh, heaven help me, not again,” she muttered with a rolling of her eyes.

        I blinked curiously at that.  But then I heard a squealing voice, followed by two grunting laughs.  Turning, I looked over at the swing set to see two young unicorns on either side of a familiar, gray pegasus.  The petite, winged colt was bouncing up and down, trying desperately to grab a ball being bounced out of his reach between the two bullies.

        “I mean it, guys!  Give it back!” Rumble squeaked.  He seemed no bigger than the day I saved him and Morning Dew from an imploding hotel building.  His cheeks were red as he huffed, puffed, and blurred his wings in desperation for the lift that could help him grab the ball from his peers.  “This isn't funny!”

        “I dunno, I can't stop chuckling!”  A stout young unicorn rasped.  His rough turquoise coat clashed with a scraggy orange mane and thick brown eyebrows as he headbutted the ball over Rumble's head and towards his lanky partner.  “Heheheh—What about you, Snails?”

        “Yeah, Snips!  Hahahah!”  A ridiculously tall colt with a tan coat and lime green mane hair guffawed as he balanced the ball on several limbs and passed it back to Snips.  “This is funnier than that one time you called Rumble a ‘penguin’ and he cried ‘cuz penguins smell!”

        “Yeah, you remember that time, Rumble?”  Snips snickered and spun the ball on the tip of his horn.  “Which was funnier?  That or this?  Heheheh!”

        “I don't care!”  Rumble stomped his hooves and pouted.  “Just give it back!”

        “Why do you want this stupid ball so much anyway?” Snips grunted.

        “It's not my ball!  Now give it back!” Rumble said, shifting nervously.  It was then that I spotted a silky white filly crouched shyly behind a sandbox a few trots away.

        “Uhm... It's okay, Rumble,” Sweetie Belle said, her cheeks red and her eyes moist.  “I don't want it back that badly...”

        “But it isn't fair!”  Rumble growled.  “They should give it back!”

        “Awwww!  What a knight in shining armor!”  Snips hissed forth a raspy laugh as he dribbled the ball between his forelimbs.  “Is this your wedding gift for when you marry her?  Huh?  Heheh...”

        “Uhhhhhh...”  Rumble backtrotted, red as a beet.  He looked over his shoulder; Sweetie Belle was hiding her identically inflamed face.  “Uhhhhh... uhhhh...”

        “Heheheh...”  Snails rolled his eyes, grinning loosely.  “It's funny because they both look like marshmallows!”

        “We do not!” Rumble and Sweetie Belle simultaneously chirped.

        “Pfft!  If you want to give her the ball so badly, here!”  Snips gave the thing a vicious buck.  “Catch!”

        The sphere bounced roughly off Rumble's pale forehead.  “Ow!”

        “Hahahahah!”  Snips and Snails leaned into each other, cackling wildly.  Just then, the shadow of Cheerilee hovered over them.  They looked up and instantly paled.  “Aw snap.”

        “Snips!  Snails!”  Cheerilee's eyes were hard enough to cut glass, and they burrowed their way into the colts' guilty brows.  “When will you leave Rumble alone already?!  What has he ever done to you?”

        “Hey!  We were j-just playing a little game!”  Snips said.  After a beat, he bumped Snails in the side.

        “Ohhhh!  Uhhhhh...”  Snails' mouth hung open.  Before he could drool, he instead managed, “Yeah!  We were playing 'bounce the ball!'”

        Snips looked Rumble's way.  It came across as a vicious glare.  “Isn't that right, Rumble?”

        Rumble shyly dug his hoof into the ground while Sweetie Belle murmured something under her breath.

        “Don't try fooling me!”  Cheerilee exclaimed, frowning even harder than before.  “This is the second time this week I've had to stop you from giving other classmates a hard time!  Did you forget that talk that we had last month?  Do I need to speak to your parents again?”

        “Our parents?” Snails blinked, as if the concept was new to him.

        Snips, however, was suddenly lucid.  All traces of a mischievous frown left his body as he cleared his throat and shook his head.  “No, Miss Cheerilee, ma'am.  You don't have to talk to our parents or nothin'.”

        “Uhhhh... Yeah!”  Snails nodded, osmotically following his companion's example.  “We'll be good!”

        “You'd better!  We have a guest speaker from Canterlot here today, and I expect you two to be on your best behavior.  Now sit on the bench here for the rest of pre-school recess!  I don't want to see you on the playground for the rest of the morning!”

        “Awwwwwwwwww...”

        “Don't give me that tone!  You're lucky I don't have you cleaning the blackboard again!  One of these days, I'm finally going to teach you two some manners!”  She turned and trotted past me, heading straight for the school building.  “I do love my job,” she said in a low voice, winking with a subtle smile.  “But it helps to be firm every once and a while.”

        “Heh, yeah...”  I nodded and gave the two sullen colts a lasting glance before staying in close proximity to the schoolteacher.  “I'd hate to see 'soft.'”

        “And that's how the Great General Chucolt single-hoofedly defended the entire city of Old Trottingham from an army of one hundred thousand Lunar Imperialists without brandishing a single weapon!”  I said with a smile at the culmination of the tale.  “Unless—heheh—you count a lute as a weapon.”

        The entire classroom full of bright eyes cooed in wonderment.

        “Any questions?” I asked from where I squatted on a stool with my lyre.

        A filly raised her forelimb.

        “Yes.  You with the glasses.”

        “That wath tho thpetacular!  Did the General of the Tholar Monarchy actually thcare off an entire army with a thingle thong?”

        I did my best to not collapse into giggles.  Darn, if she wasn't the cutest thing alive.  “Ahem.  Yes, Miss...”  I glanced Cheerilee's way.

        Cheerilee winked from her desk and mouthed a name.

        “Miss Twist!” I said, smiling in the filly's direction.  “You see, Chucolt was a famous strategist, a master of his craft.  The leader of the Lunar army had battled with him on several occasions.  So, when Chucolt found himself and his meager allotment of forces surrounded in Trottingham, he resorted to using history's most infamous bluff to save the entire population he was sent there to defend.  In a way, you can say it was all a matter of his reputation...”  I managed a wink.  “But I still chalk it up to the power of music.”

        “Oooh!  Ooooh!”  Sweetie Belle raised her hoof wildly.

        “Yes, you, with the lavender mane.”

        Sweetie Belle blushed and squirmed her front hooves together as she shyly asked, “Wh-what song did Chucolt play when the enemy came into Trottingham?”

        “Why, funny you should ask that.  He chose a folk tune from the sarosians who used to live in the Shadow District of Canterlot.”

        “Sarosians?”  Sweetie Belle made a face.

        Cheerilee spoke up, “They are a race of nocturnal ponies, predominantly pegasi, with leather wings and powers of echolocation: meaning they can hear things very easily in the dark so that they can fly around at night.  They served as Princess Luna's royal night guard before the Civil War with Nightmare Moon began a thousand years ago.”

        “Plus,” I said with a warm chuckle.  “They have the most adorable ears.”

        The classroom laughed lightly, all except for a pair of groaning colts.

        “Could you play us the tune?” Silver Spoon asked.  “Erm... if that's okay, Miss Heartstrings.”

        “Why, I would love to!”  I said with a smile and levitated the lyre in front of me.  “Forgive me if I'm a little bit rusty...”

        The children sat on the edges of their seats.  I closed my eyes, summoned the tune from memory, and played it as gently and calmly as I could.  Ancient sarosian tunes, as it so happens, are typically fast in tempo and a little grating to most ponies' ears.  After all, it was made to be listened to by the likes of Alabaster and his fellow kin.  Still, I think I managed to produce a tranquil interpretation of it.  I marveled at how easy it was for me to translate the tune from the deep past of university study.

        I don't know if it was the act of performing the Requiem so much each passing day, or if my constant use of the Nightbringer had heightened my senses, but I felt like my musical skill had increased exponentially in the span of a few weeks.  I was no longer just any amateur musician; I was a unicorn blessed with the physically manifested song of the Cosmic Matriarch, and there I was sharing such enhanced gifts with a bunch of children.  It felt... right, in a way, as if I was doing something I was meant to do.

        When the tune ended, half of the group looked hypnotized, and the other half looked ready to bounce out of their desks.  Like good little foals, though, they waited for Cheerilee's own outburst:

        “Now wasn't that spectacular?  Let's give Miss Heartstrings a round of applause for such a wonderful rendition of an old classic!”

        The children cheered and clapped their hooves together.  I smiled warmly, hugging the lyre to my chest.  Perhaps all of this adulation and learning would only last for a few minutes, or a few hours at most, but somehow it didn't matter.  I was feeling a piece of what I was struggling for: recognition.  One of these days—I promised myself—I would volunteer to teach ponies like these and they would remember me forever, so that these smiles could resurface on their faces.  One of these days...

        Around that time, an excited Rumble spoke up, “That was very pretty!  I liked it!”

        “Pfft!”  The voice of Snips grunted.  “Of course you'd like it, ya fruitcake.”

        “Hahahah!”  Snails slapped his desktop and chuckled.  “He called him a cake of fruit!”

        “Why don't you serenade Sweetie Belle with that, casaneighva!  Hahah!”

        Rumbles bit his lip, his ears drooping above a shy face.  A unicorn filly two chairs from him was hiding her blushing cheeks.

        “Snips!  Snails!”  Cheerilee stood up, practically growling.

        “Wh-what?!  Snails and I like fruit!  Isn't that right, Snails—?”

        “Don't play dumb!  That was very rude, to both Miss Heartstrings and Rumble!”  Cheerilee pointed.  “Snips, I expect an apology!  This instant!”

        “Hrmmf...”  Snips folded his forelimbs, rolling his eyes to the ceiling.  “Iapologizeforsayingthat,” he muttered.

        Cheerilee glared.  “That didn't sound very sincere.”

        “What?  I said I was sorry!”

        “Uh huh...”  Cheerilee motioned towards the far end of the classroom.  “Over in the corner, Snips.  Right now.”

        “Awww... I hate the corner!”

        “You heard me, young stallion!  You've been given enough warnings today!”

        “Ughhh...”  He lurched limply towards a stool in the far edge of the room.

        “Snails, the other corner.  No dragging your hooves.”

        “Weee!”  The colt bounded towards the side of the classroom opposite of Snips.  “I love dust!”

        A few young ponies chuckled at the two colts' expense.  Cheerilee sat back at her desk, rubbing a sore head with her hoof.  She looked towards me and managed a weak smile.  “Do continue, Miss Heartstrings.  I apologize sincerely for the interruption.”

        “H-hey!  Don't feel bad!”  I said with a nervous grin as I looked at the two delinquents with their flanks to me.  “What's a proper concert without its intermissions?”

        More chuckles lit the room.

        “Now...”  I cleared my throat and raised the lyre higher.  “Who would like to learn about the song written by Starswirl the Bearded to pacify the armada of evil sea serpents in the Age of Tempests?”

        “Oooh!  Oooh!”

        “Tell us!”

        “Yeth!  Thea Therpentth are thuper awethome!”

        “Heheh...”  I concentrated as I strummed the strings of the lyre and prepared another melody.  “Remind me: are there any small rodents in the forest directly outside?  This has been known to cause stampedes...”

        “That was absolutely marvelous, Miss Heartstrings,” Cheerilee said in the afternoon air of the schoolyard.

        “I couldn't agree more,” I said with a breath of relief.  Obviously, she was referring to the lessons I had given the youngsters.  Little did she know that I was simply thankful to still be having a sane conversation with her.  How many hours had I been there?  I couldn't tell anymore, but I had somehow managed to spend an entire session at the school without her forgetting about me.  The chill of my curse was still there, and I witnessed at least a dozen foals giving me perplexed expressions.  However, their teacher hadn't lost comprehension of me, and for that I was insanely thankful.  It the was best possible day I couldn't have asked for.  “I just wish that they'd remember all of these lessons in the future.”

        “Oh don't be so modest!”  Cheerilee stifled a giggle.  “You're positively unforgettable, Miss Heartstrings.  Professor Blue Noise should be proud of your talents.”

        “Eh heh heh... Y-yeah,” I stammered before gulping.  “Still, I kind of envy your job.  Well... most of it, at least.”

        “Yes, yes.”  Cheerilee rolled her eyes slightly.  Still, her smile came back as the two of us looked across the schoolyard.  Several parents arrived in groups to walk their children home.  We waved at Big Mac as he trotted off with Apple Bloom.  Thunderlane flew skyward with his little brother Rumble on his back.  Milky White escorted Scootaloo down the path, along with Sweetie Belle—Rarity must have been busy with some project or another that afternoon.  “I do apologize for the actions of a few less-than-polite characters.”

        “Hey, we've all been there,” I said in a dull tone before winking her way.  “Most of us.”

        “Don't tell me you were a problem filly when you were young!”

        “Heh.  Not exactly.”  I fiddled with the sleeves of my hoodie.  “But I definitely grew up with one who became a spitfire when she hit her teen years.”

        “Hmmm... You make it sound like they were sweet memories.”

        “A little jarring in places, but ultimately happy,” I said with a nod.  “We are the sum of our parts, for better or for worse,” I added in a low tone.  I thought of Alabaster, of her, of all the elements—both horrifying and glorious—that had brought me to such a place of understanding and comprehension that day.  “I'm learning to accept the bumps of the past for smoothing out the future.”  There was still a Duet to perform, one last hurdle.  Was I prepared for all the challenges that entailed?  “I can't be too harsh on other ponies for figuring out their own places, no matter how clumsily.”

        “Well, some of us have to be stern in order to help them in the process,” Cheerilee said.  She shifted on her hooves and began walking away.  “If you would excuse me, Miss Heartstrings, there's a pony I've been meaning to talk to.”

        “Uhhh... Sure.”  I said, blinking.  I watched as she approached a tall, rugged stallion.  He was a unicorn, pale in complexion, with a tangled brown mane and a five o'clock shadow around his muzzle.  The stallion was well built, brandishing a jackhammer for a cutie mark, and I could see the stains of sweat and dust on his forelimbs, indicative of a hard day's work.  I guessed that he must have been a construction pony, or perhaps a paver of sidewalks.  “Must be a blue bridle job,” I muttered to myself with a smirk.  I contemplated walking over to join him when a tiny shape wandered into my cloud of thought.

        “Hmmph... Dumb colt,” Snips grumbled, his eyes trained on the grassy floor of the schoolyard as he waddled in my general direction.  “Go home by yourself, Snails.  Try and have fun on your lonesome.  See if I care.”  Blindly, he bumped into my side and fell on his haunches.  “Ooof!  Unngh...”  He rubbed his horn and squinted up at me.  “Oh.  Sorry about that.”

        “Hey!”  I remarked with a proud grin.  “Looks like you're not without manners after all!”

        “Uhhh...”  He blinked, his face blank.  “Do I know you, Miss?”

        “Oh.  Uhm...” I fidgeted, shifting the weight of the lyre in my saddlebag.  “I... I guess you don't.”

        “Ah.  You're not Snails' mom, are you?”

        “No,” I said in a calm voice.  “I assure you, I am definitely not Snails' mother.”

        “Cuz he went home without telling me.  Pfft.  Stupid colt.  His life is dull as mud without me.  Heh.”

        “Fascinating,” I muttered.  I hesitated briefly, cleared my throat, and squinted down at him.  “Could I ask you something?”

        He shrugged.  “Sure.  I'm not afraid of strangers.”

        “Cute.”  I smiled gently.  “Why are you so...?”

        “So what?”

        I just spat it out:  “Why are you so mean to other kids your age?”

        “Mean?”

        “Y'know, calling Snails' 'stupid.'  Saying that Rumble is a 'fruitcake.'  Stealing Sweetie Belle's toy ball.”

        “Hahaha!”  Snips kicked at the ground, waving his messy orange mane.  “You saw that?!  Ohhhh, she was practically whimpered for that silly thing back!”

        “You... enjoy being cruel?”

        “Oh please.”  Snips rolled his eyes, and it was then that I noticed something curious about his face.  “It's their fault that they're such wusses!  They could definitely learn a thing or two from me!  Heheh!”

        “Uh huh...”  I was staring at him.

        He gave me a weird face.  “What are ya lookin' at?”

        “How...”  I leaned my gaze aside.  “How did your eye end up like that?”

        “Uhhh...”  The gruff exterior to the colt melted in an instant.  He tilted his head in a way that's instinctual for unicorns such as ourselves.  He must have thought that the shadow of his horn would hide the blue discoloration around his left eye.  He was wrong.  “I... I bumped into something today at recess.”

        I gazed fixedly at him.  Eventually, I muttered, “You don't say.”

        “Hmmph...”  He shrugged, picking at the grass with his hooves.  “It's no big deal.”

        “You sure?”  I remarked softly, reaching a gentle hoof towards his skull.  “It looks like it must sting—”

        “I'm fine, okay?!” he suddenly snarled, batting my hoof away.  His teeth showed as he squawked, “Snails is a big clumsy moron and he runs into me a lot!  That's all!”

        Just then, a deep voice resonated from across the schoolyard:  “Snips?  C'mere, son.”

        Snips instantly paled.  His eyes twitched and he stood tall.  “Uhm... G-Gotta go,” he remarked hoarsely.  He trotted off, but not without adding, “S-sorry to have bothered you, Miss.”

        “It's fine,” I stammered, gazing curiously as he trotted off.  The schoolyard had almost entirely emptied of students.  There was nopony in his way as he shuffled limply towards the tall shadow of a stallion looming before him.  After a few seconds of staring, I realized that it was the unicorn adult with whom Cheerilee trotted off to speak to a few moments ago.

        The young and old ponies were too far away for me to hear them, but I could tell it wasn't a pleasant conversation that they were having, at least where Snips was concerned.  The stout colt had his head bowed, at least until a stomping of his father's hoof forced the young one to look up, trembling.  My eyes wandered up to the stallion's grizzled face.  The unicorn was frowning.  It was a very stern expression, but I couldn't help but detect something akin to a dizzied weariness to the glare in his eyes.  Suddenly, his horn was glowing.  I couldn't tell why at first, but then I looked down to see Snips standing up on his hindquarters.

        Only... Snips wasn't standing.  I saw his forward limbs twitching and curling awkwardly in the air.  His weight wobbled precariously on his haunches.  I was shocked that he wasn't toppling over within the first ten seconds, until I saw how hard his nostrils were flaring.  For a moment there, it looked as though his face was taking on a blue complexion.  With a jerk, he was suddenly standing on all fours yet again, panting heavily.  My eyes traveled up to see that the stallion's horn was no longer glowing.  Frowning, Snips' father stomped down the path, motioning firmly for the colt to follow him.  Limply, Snips obeyed.

        My lips pursed.  I was about to say something out loud when Cheerilee's smiling face was suddenly occupying my vision.

        “Oh!  Hello, Miss!  Are you looking for somepony?”

        “Did...”  I squinted past her and pointed at the two figures trotting away.  “Did you just see that?”

        “Hmm?”  She blinked quizzically at me.  “See what, ma'am?”

        “That.  Just now.  Between Snips and that stallion...”

        Cheerilee glanced over her shoulder, only barely catching a glimpse of the two figures marching off.  “Huh?”  She looked back towards me.  “Are you a member of the Edge family?”

        “Is that the stallion's surname?  Cheerilee, I think that—”  I froze.  I looked at her.

        She gave me an innocent smile.  “I'm sorry.  Have we met?”

        I took a deep breath.  I gazed over at the distant curve of the path.  “If you'll... uh... excuse me...”

        I trotted slowly, quietly through the heart of town.  My hooves moved like water, following the wake of the two ponies ahead of me.  With calm breaths, I trailed Snips and the older unicorn.  I passed by familiar sights and sounds.  I heard Rarity's airy voice as she chatted with Fluttershy.  I smelled the burning embers of Spike's flaming breath.  I heard music wafting out of Sugarcube Corner and tasted the scent of baked candies from Bon Bon's house.

        I ignored all of these sensations of Ponyville, instead honing my vision on the father and colt ahead of me.  Their march was a somber thing, like a funeral procession for a dead pony that no one knew about.  They moved in a sluggish fashion, the elder swaying a little bit, grumbling indiscernible things to himself.  Snips made no attempt to branch off from the path, and instead he paced like a melting glacier after the unicorn, his head bowed, his breaths even.  All of the spunk and vigor of the young schoolyard bully was gone.  If I didn't know better, I would have imagined the little creature incapable of smiling.

        Eventually, they made it to the heart of Ponyville.  A series of two-story condominiums lingered two blocks away from downtown.  The gardens and lawns were colorful and well kept, all except for one.  To the front door of this house, the stallion trudged.  He fumbled magically with a set of keys and eventually opened the door.  With a dull grunt, he turned and glared at Snips.  The colt's limbs sprung into action, and he bolted out of his lethargic slump, desperate to enter the household as swiftly as possible.  From a far glance, two mares could be seen inside, and they looked just as dead and unenthusiastic as Snips did that very moment.  Then, everything disappeared as the stallion stomped into the house, wiped his hooves on the mat, and slammed the door shut behind him.

        I was standing behind a tree on the opposite end of the street.  I made sure nopony was looking before resuming my constant study of the household before me.  For several minutes I sat there, looking for anything.  The place was eerily still.  The sun was beginning to set.  With a weary breath, I finally tore my gaze from the house, turned around, and carried myself towards the north edge of town.

        Then there was a rattling sound, followed by what sounded like a muffled yell.

        I spun around.  I looked at the house, my eyes squinting at the windows.  A light remained on for the space of ten seconds, and then went out.  Everything was still once again.

        All I could feel was the steady thuds of my heart beating heavily.  Gulping a dry lump down my throat, I hesitantly turned from the sight and headed for the cabin.

        It's dark, and I'm so very thirsty.  Why does it have to be so hot this time of year?  This isn't Dream Valley.  Canterlot is up in the mountains.  Can't the Princess make things cooler?  She's in charge of the sun, after all.

        Ugh.  Thirstyyyy.

        I kick the covers off of me.  Yawning, rubbing my eyes, I slide out of bed.  I gently step over Moondancer's cot.  After two weeks, I've gotten used to her lying in the middle of the room.  I don't know how she can sleep so soundly.  Every night, I'm tossing and turning, and yet she's still as a rock.  Maybe she wears herself out in the daytime.  She's very good at playing hide and seek.  She can outrace me, and I've seen her float three feet off the ground with magic.  I'd never tell her, but I'm super crazy jealous of her talents.

        Anyways.  Water.  Water water water waterrrrr.

        I open the door to my room and walk out into the dimly lit hallways of the apartment.  I can't stop yawning.  Why is it that as soon as I'm out of bed is when I start wanting to go back under the covers?  Sleep is so weird.  I haven't had any cool dreams since Moondancer showed up.  Maybe that's why she's sleeping so well; she stole all the dreams.  I wouldn't put it past her.  Heehee.  I swear, she's like a wolf in pony's clothing—uuuhh...

        What's going on here?

        I see a bunch of ponies in the living room.  There's Mommy and Daddy.  And there's Moondancer's mom.  Isn't she supposed to be asleep on the couch?  How can she get any shuteye with so many ponies sitting around: and just who are they?  Wait, I recognize two of them.  I think their names are Dusk and Stellar.  They live across the street with two kids.  One's an egghead who never shows her face.  The other's a blue-haired colt that Moondancer always blushes upon seeing.

        What are they talking about anyways?

        “...just glad that I can enjoy nights without having to worry about Moondancer's safety.  I can't thank you enough for everything.  If only I had done something sooner.”

        “Don't blame yourself, Satine.  You've dealt with so much as it is.”

        “What's important is that you've told the Guard the truth.  They have what they need now to put Nightrot where he belongs.”

        “I... I just feel so horrible.  I feel like I should have reached out to him sooner.”

        “Hey. Satine, look at us.  Don't sympathize with him.  He's been feeding you lies all this time, taking advantage of your good nature.”

        “And besides, there's no helping ponies who refuse to help themselves.”

        “I can't believe that it came to this.  He... He was so happy when we met.  So peaceful.  What happened to him?  I wish I could put my hoof on it, but every time I think about it... I can only remember how far I dragged Moondancer with me.  Oh, sweet Celestia, what have I done?”

        “Shhh.  Satine, what's important is that you've let us help you now.  You're safe, and so is Moondancer.”

        “And now all I'm doing is taking up space in this house and... and...”

        “Hey, our house is your house.  We're going to see you through this.  And when the Court is done analyzing the situation, we'll fight for your own property back.”

        “But... But Nightrot—”

        “It's your house, Satine.  Yours and Moondancer's.  You've earned it.  Not him.  Don't even doubt that for a second...”

        Blearily, I blink and shuffle into the living room.  “I don't get it.  Is it Moondancer's birthday or something?  Is she getting a new house?”

        All of the adult faces swivel to face me.  Mom speaks, and it's really stern.  “Lyra!  Lyra Heartstrings, what are you doing out of bed?”

        “Uhh... I-I was thirsty...”  I look nervously at all of the ponies.  “Is something wrong?”  I turn and look at Moondancer's mom.  “Mrs. Satine?  Why are you crying?”

        Mommy hugs the old mare as she takes a deep breath and smiles calmly at me.  “We're having a little talk, Lyra, darling.  Between grownups.”  She looks at Daddy.  “Honey, would you...?”

        Daddy is already standing up, shuffling towards me.  “Come along, princess.  It's not time for walking around the house.”

        “But... B-But I just wanted—”

        “I've got you some water right here.”  He levitates a cup across the nearby kitchen, fills it, and hands it to me.  As I take a sip, he kneels down in front of me and places two hooves on my shoulder.  “You know that Moondancer and her mom are staying with us for a while, right?”

        “Mmmhmmm...” I nod.  I feel nervous.  My eyes are staring at the carpet.

        “Well, they need our help right now.  Mommy and I are doing our best to take care of Mrs. Satine.  In the meantime, you keep taking care of Moondancer.  Huh?  Whaddya say...?”

        “She's not a doll, daddy,” I say with a pout.  “How am I taking care of her?”

        “You're being her friend, darling.”

        “But I like being her friend!”

        He smiles gently.  “That's what makes it so wonderful.  She needs you right now, and we all know how much you like hanging out with her.  Just keep being a sweet, good filly to her.  Mrs. Satine is telling me how happy Moondancer is now that she's got you to share time with.”

        “Really?”

        “You bet, princess.  Done with your water?”

        “Uh huh.”

        He smiles and runs a hoof through my mane.  “Think you can sleep now?”

        I smile softly.  “Mmmhmmm...”

        He leans over and kisses my forehead.  “There's a good girl.  You need your rest for school tomorrow.”

        I frown.  “We're going to learn about frogs.”

        “Well, how better to avoid warts?”

        “Heehee...”

        He swivels me around to face my bedroom door and gives me a final pat on my head.  “I'll see you in the morning.”

        “Goodnight, daddy.”

        “Goodnight, Lyra.”

        I enter my room and close the door behind me.  I trot towards my bed.  I stop in my tracks, blinking.

        Something is wrong.

        The cot is empty.  What's more, I hear a quiet sound from the far edge of the room.

        Curious, I crane my head to see.  It's coming from the closet.  I shuffle over and slide the door open.  Moondancer's inside, squatting in the middle of my stuffed animals.  She's hugging herself.

        “Moondancer?”  I squint at her.  “Are you crying?”

        She says nothing.  She usually isn't like this.  The last time I saw her shed tears was back when she first showed up at my apartment stairwell in the rain.

        “Moondancer, what's wrong?”  I sit down and look at her closely.  “You're my friend.  You should be happy.”

        She sniffles.  She peeks up at me from beyond her forelimbs and murmurs.  “I don't want to go away...”

        “Huh?”  My face scrunches up.  “Go away?”

        She shudders, gulps, and stammers, “They're talking about leaving, aren't they?  They want Mommy and me to leave!  I don't want to leave!”

        I smile.  “Moondancer, you aren't leaving!  You're staying here even longer!”

        She sniffles and squints mistily at me.  “We are?”

        “Mmmhmmm.”  I nod.  “I just heard them,” I say in a hushed tone, leaning forward.  “My Mom and Dad want you to stay.  So do Mr. Dusk and Mrs. Stellar from across the street.  You're not going anywhere.”

        Moondancer nods slowly, her breath coming out in tiny little gasps.

        I squirm where I sit.  My eyes fall to the floor between us.  “Uhm... was it a bad dream?”

        She shakes her head, the tears still falling.  “No,” she says.

        I don't know what to say.

        “But...”  She sniffles again and looks at me.  “If I said that it was... would you stay here with me?”

        I blink.  I slowly smile.  “Daddy says that I'm supposed to be your friend.”

        “He... He does?”

        “Yeah.  It's kind of funny, cuz I already like being your friend so much already.”

        She giggles slightly, her face cracking a smile.  “Okay...”

        I look at her.  I don't know why, but I feel like I've found my special talent.  I slide over and hug her.  I don't care if it's silly for two little fillies to be hiding in a closet.  I don't want her to be alone.

        “Don't worry,” I say as I nuzzle her.  “You don't have to worry about bad dreams around me, Moondancer.”

        She whimpers something and leans into me.  Her limbs feel cold.  I feel bad for her, and yet happy that she's here all the same.

        “I'm glad that I met you, Lyra,” she says.

        “Mmm... I'm glad that you met me too.”

        And we both giggle.  Her sobs eventually stop.  One of us falls asleep before the other.  I can't tell who.

        I sat on the edge of my cot, restless, petting Al's purring body as he lay curled in my lap.  His fur was the only source of warmth in a grand ocean of cold.  I took a deep breath and gazed up out the windows.  The morning sun was rising again.  Another October night, and I had barely slept a wink.

        With a deep breath, I stared at the contents of the cabin.  I looked at the mountains of books pilfered from Ponyville Library.  I glanced at the dozens upon dozens of tomes still left for me to read and peruse in my endless quest of pursuing a duet with the unsung goddess.  I turned and gazed at the golden brilliance of the Nightbringer, a little piece of Creation standing within the confines of my mortal abode.

        There were so many roads to freedom, all of them twisting and turning crazily into one another, forming a labyrinth of frigid madness and desperation.  Half of the time, I wonder what's the biggest thing to solve: the problem that brought me there, or the problems that only a ghost like me is capable of seeing in the first place.

        With a deep sigh, I moved Al to the center of the cot, stood up, and reached for my hoodie.

        “We have a special guest for you today, students!”  Cheerilee beamed as she paced before the classroom of gawking, blinking foals.  “As it turns out, our speaker from Canterlot showed up after all!  I know you've all been eager to learn about Equestrian music history!  So give a warm welcome to Professor Blue Noise's prized student, Miss Lyra Heartstrings!”

        The crowd of youths politely applauded and stomped their hooves as I took center stage and sat on the stool.  “Well, hello there.  Feels like only yesterday that I was sharing my knowledge with an eager group of youngsters just like yourselves!  And believe you me... heheh... it only gets more and more special every time.”

        “What is that?” Diamond Tiara asked, squinting at my golden instrument.

        “This...”  I said while levitating it for all to see.  “Is a lyre.  It's one of the oldest instruments in Equestrian civilization.  In fact, many scholars believe that the holy Nightbringer itself was likenened unto a lyre or a harp.”  I smiled Cheerilee's way.

        The teacher winked and spoke to the class, “Remember our lesson on the Creation Tale two weeks ago?”

        The foals murmured and nodded in understanding.

        “The world began with a song,” I said, breathing evenly as I presented a variation of the previous day's lecture.  “Because of that, whenever we sing, or express ourselves musically, we are—in essence—getting in touch with Creation itself.  It's not enough to acknowledge the rhythm of our heartbeats.  No, my little ponies.”  I smiled.  “There are songs older than time, for they define the ages; they define us.  What's more, we discover the lost parts of ourselves as we explore the creative spaces available to equine expression.  It's worked for Equestrian culture over the grand course of history—as I shall demonstrate to you—and it can very well work for our futures.  Each and every one of you has a fantastic destiny to fulfill, and I would like to show you how to get in touch with it.  Like everything, it starts in the past...”

        “Heh...”  Snips grumbled as he leaned his chin against a bored hoof.  “History through music.  This will be as thrilling as watching paint dry.”

        “Hahahah!”  Snails laughed, as did a few other students.

        Cheerilee frowned.  She looked ready to stand up and snap at Snips—

        “Well, why don't you share with us your favorite kind of music, Snips!”  I interjected.  “Surely it can't all be boring!”

        He blinked, as if caught in an enormous spotlight.  “You... You know my name?”

        Cheerilee was squinting at me.  “You know his name?”

        I merely chuckled and continued, “Don't be shy, Snips.  Tell us all your favorite kind of music.  You might not think it's relevant, but I'll show you that it is.”

        “Uhhh...”  He fidgeted slightly, tapping his hooves at the end of his desk.  “I... I always liked Pony Punk, I guess...”

        A couple of ponies cheered.  Scootaloo smirked.  Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon rolled their eyes.  Sweetie Belle merely blinked.

        “Hmmm... Pony Punk... Pony Punk...”  I tongued the inside of my cheek, thinking hard.  “Ah!  I think I know something close to it!”  I cracked my limbs, flexed my telekinetic “muscle,” and strummed the lyre with golden flashes of energy.  The air filled with heavy thrashing, melodic and chaotic all at once.  Several ponies' jaws dropped, the most dramatic of which was Snips'.

        When the swift, psychotic, and altogether vicious tune was over, I sat back on my stool in a slump, as if trying to catch my breath.

        “Whew!  And I thought I was out of practice!”

        “That...”  Scootaloo stammered.  “I-I had no idea you could do that with a harp...”

        “Lyre!” Apple Bloom corrected with a hiss.

        “Whatever.”

        “Well... uhm...”  Cheerilee shuffled nervously at her desk.  “That was certainly the... uhm... most interesting rendition of the Griffon National Anthem I've ever heard...”

        “Way to go!”  I grinned at Cheerilee and nodded.  “It most certainly was the Griffon National Anthem, albeit it's not the type you'll likely hear at the next Equestrian Olympics.  Heheh...”  I turned and grinned at the crowd.  “You see, there's been a counter culture movement in the Griffon Kingdom as of late.  With shifting power structures between the old religious oligarchy and the new democratic union, several younger generations of griffons have sought an outlet to express themselves.  Thus, they took many classical songs and turned them into harsh, passionate renditions with fast tempo and heavy percussion.  Thus began ‘punk,’ a griffon invention. This movement has been very popular over the last thirty years or so, and its influence has spread to Equestria where several famous artists have developed...”  I smiled.  “'Pony punk,' which is a slight variation”  I turned to look at Snips.  “I assume you've heard of Filly Talent?”

        Several colts snickered and nodded among themselves.  Snips, his jaw still agape, produced a bright smile.  “Heheheh.  Yeah.  Yeah, I've heard of them.”

        Cheerilee looked at the class, at me, and at the class again.

        I smiled, leaning back.  “Now, go back in time to several hundreds of years ago, and there were similar movements in Equestria at the time of the great civil war between the Lunar Empire and the Celestial Monarchy.  Granted, they didn't produce something like 'Pony Punk,' but the symphonies born from such turbulent periods were considered fresh and shocking for their time.  How would you like to learn some of these tunes?  It'll be like time travel!  Imagine if a few centuries from now, ponies decide to perform 'Pony Punk?'  Wouldn't they be getting in touch with our generation?  Music is very much a part of us, you see.  It's a part of who we are, who we've been, and who we will be.  As we explore songs, we explore ourselves.  How can it be anything but fun?”

        Several of the ponies were on the edge of their seats at this moment.  Many murmured with excitement.  Others squirmed in anticipation.  All the while, I had Snips' avid attention.

        And he had mine.

        “Well, for starters...”  I licked my hoof and strummed a few melodic strings of the lyre.  “Let's learn a little something about a stallion from olden times named Voltrot...”

        I stood on the edge of the playground, a few feet away from Cheerilee.  I was strumming on my lyre while the foals ran in circles, enjoying the warm noon sun as recess occupied the middle of the October day.

        “Slow down, Twist!” Cheerilee called out from where she was grading papers at a picnic table.  “Remember how you sprained your ankle last month!  You promised your parents you'd take it easy on the jungle gym!”

        A lisping voice acknowledged Cheerilee's warning, and the giggles from the playground doubled.

        Cheerilee smiled, scribbled a few marks on a sheet with red pen, and looked my way.  “I can't thank you enough for showing up this morning, Miss Heartstrings.  I had expected a simple review of musical history, but today you had the entire classroom riveted.  You should take up teaching more often!”

        “Yes, well...”  I murmured in mid-strum.  “I guess you could say I had some practice for today's lesson.”  I winked her way.  “Expect nothing less from one of Professor Blue Noise's own, huh?”

        “Heehee!  Absolutely!”  Cheerilee crossed her forelimbs and smiled.  “The Equestrian education system could use more ponies with your ability to approach the foals' level of thinking and expression.”  She bore a bashful grin as she graded another sheet.  “I've always been told that I carry the permanent personality of a young filly.  I figured it was my special talent's way of allowing me to relate with those who are blooming in the discovery of life, learning, and everything in between.  I find that happiness is just as infectious as knowledge.”

        “Heh... Yeah.  I think I get it.”  I plucked a few more strings and glanced at her.  “That reminds me.  About the foals here...”

        “Yes?”

        “I've been meaning to ask you something—”  My voice lingered as I blinked at a sight waddling up towards us.  “Oh.  Hello there, Snips.  How can I help you?”

        “Uhhh... Hi there, Miss Heartstrings, ma'am.”

        I blinked, smiling curiously.  “You remember my name?”

        “But of course he does!”  Cheerilee remarked, giving him an appreciative wink.  “He knows a thing or two about being polite.  Ahem.  Isn't that right, Snips?”

        “Er... Yes.  Yes, ma'am.”

        I glanced at the playground.  Snails was on the far side of the schoolyard, playing a game of four-square with Scootaloo, Rumble, and Featherweight.  It occurred to me that Snips must have not left my proximity for the last two hours at least.  Something must have been distracting him.  In a way, it felt like part of my “mission” had been accomplished.

        “Is there something on your mind, young sir?” I asked, using the pretentious “Canterlot voice” with which I had addressed the schoolroom for most of the day's lecture.

        “The way you played Pony Punk earlier on that lyre thingamajig was really awesome!” Snips said with a joyful hop.  “I never expected to hear that at school!  Much less in Ponyville at all!”

        “Heh, yes, well...”  Cheerilee interjected with a playful wink.  “Don't get used to it, Snips.  You can listen to that at home, but from now on, expect to hear classical music or easy listening tapes at best.  I don't think the Ponyville Education Headmaster would appreciate heavy griffon thrashing on a regular basis.”

        “I...”  Snips bit his lip and dug a hoof through the grass.  “I don't think I'll ever hear any of that at home...”

        I stared carefully at him.  The bruise around his eye had mostly faded.  This time, I couldn't help but notice what looked to be a nasty bump on his skull, just to the left of his scraggy orange mane.  Ignoring the heavy spike in my heartbeat, I asked, “Does your family not like music, Snips?”

        “Mmm... I wouldn't know.”

        “Oh?”  I remarked.

        “Nah...” He shook his head, his eyes gazing with a blank expression towards the woods bordering the schoolyard.

        I tilted my head to the side.  “You trotted all the way here just to say 'Nah?’”  I took a deep breath.  “Snips, is there something you would like to tell us?”

        “Uhm...”  He squirmed slightly.  His head lifted up.  “Y-yeah.  Sure...”

        My ears twitched.  “What is it, young sir?”

        He blinked, then smiled.  “That's some really pretty music you're playing, Miss Heartstrings.”

        My spirit plummeted and rejoiced all at once.  With a gentle sigh I grinned his way and nodded.  “I'm a major fan of it myself.  I play it all the time when I can.  Would you like to give it a listen?”

        “Uh. Sure.”

        “It's not Pony Punk, though...”

        “Heheheh,” he chuckled and sat on his portly haunches.  “I don't mind!  I'd like to hear it.”

        “Very well then.  Here goes...”  I played the tune in full.  It had a delightful melody, sweet and lulling and altogether devoid of sharp tempo shifts.  There was a melancholic tone to the ballad, but the passionate edge in the plucked strings made the entire piece undeniably triumphant.  When I finished, even Cheerilee was wowed.  I heard her hooves clapping lightly at the picnic table beside me.

        “Bravo!  Bravo!”  She managed a sight chuckle.  “That was absolutely splendid.  May I ask what it's called?”

        I took a deep breath and said, “'Penumbra's Echo.'  And it's a tune that is near and dear to my heart.  Whenever I feel down, or whenever my life is at a confusing crossroads, I know I can play this song and make everything feel all right again.”

        “It certainly is...”  Snips murmured, his eyes blinking as if they were receding downhill from the two adults above him.  “...relaxing.”

        I looked calmly at him, my hooves gently gripping the lyre.  “Do you feel as though your life could use more relaxation, Snips?”

        His nostrils flared.  With a brief creasing of his brow, he stood up straight and mumbled, “Nah.  I just...”  He shuddered and turned to leave.  “I was just bored, I guess...”

        “It helps me when I'm bored too,” I said.  I watched as Snips froze in place.  I continued, “Or when I'm sad, or dull, or tired.  It doesn't matter what words I use to describe it.  All I know is: music makes me feel better.  It's a part of who we all are, just like I said earlier today.  And if there's one immortal truth to ponies, Snips, it's that we all deserve to be happy.  We shouldn't let anypony tell us different, no matter how big or important they might seem in our lives.”

        Slowly, he turned around.  He looked up at me with a vulnerable expression.  “You... You really think so?”

        I nodded.  “I know so.”

        He seemed ready to say something, but his jaw clenched tight at the last second.  He fidgeted, stuck between staying and going.  After a few seconds went by, we both heard Cheerilee's happy voice:

        “You've been a very polite young colt today, Snips,” she said.  “I didn't have to stop you from bothering Rumble or any of the other ponies.  Not even once!  I'm proud of you.”

        “Uhhhh...”  He smiled nervously, his stubby little tail flicking.  “Okay.”

        “Keep it up, and I'm sure your parents will be proud of you too.”

        His smile waned, but he gave us a calm nod regardless.  “Yeah.  Yeah, sure.  Thanks for the song, Miss Heartstrings.”

        “Don't mention it.”

        Snips trotted off.  A slight chill filled the air, and I shuddered to think that I might never get a chance to reach that vulnerable side of him ever again.

        “I wasn't just blowing hot air, you know,” Cheerilee said.

        “Oh, perish the thought!” I smirked.

        “He's been quite the hoof-full since he transferred here,” she continued.  “His heart is brimming with excitement and yearning and curiosity, and yet it's prone to mischief and trouble-making all the same.  Snips can be endearing when he wants to be, but more often than not the colt is a little sadist, and I'm constantly having to keep him and his buddy Snails in check, or else they might hurt the feelings of the schoolfillies around them or even worse.”

        “Seems like there're always bad apples in a bushel,” I muttered.

        “It presents a challenge, for sure,” Cheerilee said with a nod.  “But I won't let these youths go sour so long as I'm watching over them.  I just wish Snips wouldn't pick on Rumble so much.  Snails doesn't know any better; he just thinks it's a big game.”

        “You suppose Snips thinks it's a big game too?”  I said, looking towards her.  “As in... a way to distract himself from things he'd rather not think about?”

        “How do you mean?”

        “Well...”  I took a deep breath, looking towards where the stout unicorn had walked off.  “I can't be the only one who's noticed somewhat... glaring injuries on his person.”

        Cheerilee nodded.  “He and Snails live quite the rough and tumble lifestyle, Miss Heartstrings.”

        “Oh, no doubt.”  I looked at her.  “Colts will be colts.  But what if it's more?”

        Cheerilee took a deep breath, and for once her smile was lacking.  “You mean to suppose that there's another reason for the occasional bruise he shows up to class with?”

        “Wouldn't you think as much?” I asked.  “I mean, I'm not around kids as often as you are.  But the little dude's rough around the edges.  He picks on other classmates.  He gets all shy when he tries to express the tiniest of sincere emotions about music.”  I leaned towards her and asked in a quiet voice, “What if things aren't so peaceful around his home?  Maybe the reason he doesn't get along with other students is that he can't form a connection with his folks?”

        “I'd be lying if I said I didn't think that myself,” Cheerilee said in a calm voice.  “But teachers twice my age with well established careers have had their jobs stripped from them for acting on such assumptions, only to be completely incorrect.”

        “Oh.  Well.  Uhm...”  I blushed, fidgeting where I stood.  “Yeesh.  That's gotta be a tough call to make.”

        “I care for all of my students, from the bottom of my heart,” Cheerilee said.  “Taking care of so many of them at once is indeed quite the juggling act.  It's easy to read too much in between the lines,” she remarked.  This was followed by a nervous gulp.  “Or too little...”

        “You know anything about Snips' parents?”

        “I've met his father on a few occasions.”

        “Oh yeah?”  I looked towards her, my ears twitching.  “What's he like?”

        “Mr. Straight Edge is his name,” Cheerilee remarked.  “He works in construction around Ponyville.  He's a model citizen, if you ask me.”

        “Does that come with a model personality?”

        Cheerilee chewed on the corner of her mouth.  I stared at her patiently.

        She sighed and gave me a tired smile.  “There's a reason why I went into teaching and not into psychiatry, besides the fact that a cutie mark of smiling, blooming flowers goes horribly with ink blots.  Eheheh...”

        “I think you're a decent enough judge of character.  What's your opinion of him?”

        “He's worked all his life doing rough, menial labor,” she said.  “And, as a result, he strikes me as a simple, rough stallion who's more equipped for dealing with machinery than with anything else.”

        “And how does he deal with the fact that his own son is quite often a delinquent in school?” I asked, thinking about the little “meeting” Cheerilee had with the stallion the previous day.  “Surely you've talked to him about it?”

        “He... deals as calmly and dispassionately as most stallions do with such information,” Cheerilee said.

        “And Snips' mother?” I asked.  “Or does she never show up for any parent-teacher conferences?”

        Cheerilee slowly shook her head.  “No.  I can't say that I've ever had the grace of seeing her since the family first showed up in town.”

        “Don't you find that a little strange?”

        “Heheh... What intrigues me, Miss Heartstrings,” Cheerilee remarked, “Is your avid interest in the matter.  Is there something you know that I don't?  Because, by all means, if there's a chance to get in better touch with Snips' parents, I would be happy to do so.”

        “Actually...”  I put my lyre away in my saddlebag and turned to look directly at her.  I was hoping that a moment like this would present itself.  As a matter of fact, an entire day's worth of planning was about to go into the next few seconds.  “It's funny that you should ask that.  When Professor Blue Noise sent me here to be a guest speaker, I decided to stay with the distant cousin of a friend of mine.  She owns a condominium bordering downtown Ponyville.”

        “Oh, I'm quite familiar with the district.”

        “Well, I've had the hardest time sleeping since I came here.”

        “Oh?”

        “Yes...”  I took a deep breath.  “I could have sworn I heard noises.  Like...”  My eyes traced the edges of their sockets as I recalled the sound from Snips' family household the previous day.  “Like muffled shouts through the walls.  I've lived in apartments before, Miss Cheerilee.  I think I know the telltale sign of domestic troubles when I hear it.  Well, when I left the condominium this morning, I saw a colt marching out of the dwelling beside where I had stayed.”  I simply looked at her.

        Cheerilee slowly nodded.  “No wonder you've endeavored to reach out to Snips.  That must have weighed heavily on you all day.”

        “I believe things are anything but peaceful at his home,” I said.  For once, it was the honest-to-Celestia truth.  “I'm... not quite sure what to do about it.”

        “Well, in all fairness, Miss Heartstrings, I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about it either.”

        My heart sank.  “You really feel that way?”

        “It's not about feeling so much as it is about thinking...”  She folded shut her notebook full of half-graded papers.  “We have to keep in mind that any terrible supposition is unsubstantiated unless provided with a modicum of decent evidence.”

        I winced visibly.  “Yeah.  And I'm the last unicorn who would want to endanger your job here at the school...”

        “Oh, absolutely.  I would never suspect you of anything.  However...”  She gave what appeared to be a mischievous smile.  “What a terrible teacher I would be if I allowed a piece of my students' personal property go to waste without doing anything about it!”

        I blinked awkwardly upon hearing that.  “Uhhh... What?”

        “Why...”  Cheerilee put on a mock gasp.  “Snips' umbrella!  The poor little fellow forgot to take it home!  What a good deed it would be to personally bring it by his family's household so that it won't get devoured by moths in its neglect!”

        “But, he didn't bring an umbrella at all with him this morning!  There's not even a cloud in the sky!  It—”  I froze in mid-speech, blinking.  “Wait...”  I turned and squinted at her.  “Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?”

        Cheerilee replied with an innocent smile.  “Tell me, Miss Heartstrings, are you in a hurry to get back to Canterlot this afternoon?”

        I looked at her, then grinned.  “I'm not in a hurry to go anywhere, ever.”

        Cheerilee rang the doorbell to the Straight Edge family household.  A dog barked two condos down.  Birds chirped and flapped about in the reddening sunlight above.

        “I've done this two or three times before,” Cheerilee murmured aside, balancing the umbrella in her saddlebag.  “I used to teach in Fillydelphia, you see.”

        “Were there a lot of troubled households in Fillydelphia?” I asked her just as quietly.

        She merely looked at me.

        “Oh.  Heh.  Right.  'City of Brotherly Shove,'” I said with a slight chuckle.  “How stupid of me.”

        “Shhh.  Somepony's coming.”

        I nodded and let Cheerilee take the spotlight.

        There was a fumbling noise from just beyond the door.  Soon, the entrance opened, and my heart stopped at the sight of a tall, pale unicorn with a brown mane and even browner stubble.  His eyes squinted at us with a cold, bored expression.

        “Oh, hello there, Mr. Straight Edge!” Cheerilee said... cheerfully.  “I do apologize for bothering you, but I think your son Snips left his umbrella at the school today!”

        “Hmmm... You don't say...” Straight Edge mumbled, his dull eyes flitting towards me.  “Who's this?”

        I fumbled for words, feeling the urge to shiver... and not from the cold.

        Thankfully, Cheerilee spoke up for the two of us.  “Oh, this is Miss Heartstrings.  She visited from Canterlot today to give the students a speech on music history.  Snips seemed very pleased to learn about the topic, and he even asked a few exciting questions that the entire class was happy to have answered.  Heheheh—But I digress.  The umbrella.”  She raised it before the stallion's grasp.  “I'd hate for it to collect dust at the classroom.”

        “Mrmmfff...”  He telekinetically snatched it from her grasp and levitated it around before his eyes.  “Can't say I've ever seen it before.”  His tone was dull, unmelodious, like a ringing of metal against metal.  “You sure it doesn't belong to another one of your students?”

        “Oh.  Oh dear... I could have sworn he brought it to school this morning.”  Cheerilee smiled and gave an awkward laugh.  “I've been grading so many papers lately, I could very well have been mistaken!  Heheh...”

        “Hmmph.  No harm, no foul,” he muttered.

        “Exactly!  Your house was on my way home from the school building, and I thought I'd return the item just in case.”

        “Well, thank you for the thought, Miss Cheerilee.”  He gave the umbrella back.  “But I'm afraid it's not ours—”

        “My, you do have such a lovely home!”  Cheerilee said.  “Has anypony told you that?”

        Straight Edge glanced lethargically at the sparse garden flanking the prettier ones of the neighbors.  “Really?”

        “Oh, it's such a tranquil side of town.  I almost wished I lived here instead of the edge of Ponyville.  I’m sure you and your family have some amazing stories to tell,” she said, laying the charm and friendliness extra thick.  She smiled his way.  “Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever had a chance to sit down with you and Mrs. Edge for a personal conference between parents and teacher.”

        “Why...?”  His eyes narrowed like dagger tips.  “Has Snips been acting up again?”

        I bit my lip and looked Cheerilee's way.

        She was already smiling and saying, “As a matter of fact, he's been on his best behavior as of late!  If you allow me, I'd gladly fill you in on it!”

        He stared at Cheerilee, then at me, then at Cheerilee again.  “Hmmph...”  His nostrils flared.  “Sure, why not?”  His voice was neither angry nor optimistic; he snorted like he was marching through a cloud of fumes.  Pivoting, Straight Edge marched into the household.  The two of us didn't realize it was an invitation until we heard his bass voice shouting through the atrium ahead, “Autumn!  Snips!  Windsong!  We've got company!”

        Cheerilee trotted ahead.  I followed her, hesitant at first.  I telekinetically closed the door behind me, becoming engulfed in the scents of the household.  The air was sour and unpleasant.  I couldn't tell if that was the condominium being rank or just my forlorn imagination telling me that it was supposed to smell bad.  I always feel a certain disconnect from myself when I walk into a stranger's household.

        Everything appeared normal as we walked into the living room.  Photographs of colorful, happy ponies lined the walls.  I saw a kitchen with a refrigerator full of bright, foalish sketches.  The dish cabinet was fully adorned with pretty, antique saucers and silverware.  If I blinked my eyes, the snapshot I'd receive would look no different from the inside of the houses that my aunt and grandmother used to own.  The whole place was... normal, peaceful looking.  What was I expecting from Snips' household?  Was I letting my assumptions get the better of me?

        For a moment, I felt fearful for Cheerilee, but she looked like she was on top of the world.  She smiled and sat on a sofa across from a mare who was... suddenly there.  A yellow unicorn with a long red mane sat with a folded book before her forelimbs.  From the way she was parked on the furniture, I could only assume she had been sitting there for the majority of the sunlit day.  She smiled and shared a few words with Cheerilee before giving me a polite nod.  Her smile was as fragile as porcelain, and there was a slightly hollow look to her eyes.  I felt my nervousness rising again, but I said nothing.

        There was another pony in the room, a filly.  The little unicorn was perhaps three or four years younger than Snips.  At a glance, I wouldn't have imagined the two ponies were related.  She hardly took notice of Cheerilee and myself when we walked into the room.  She busied herself with a series of crayons that she was sketching along a white sheet of paper.  I saw gentle, colorful strokes that illustrated houses, castles, dragons, and other fantastic Equestrian sights.

        “Snips?!” Straight Edge was uttering again, louder this time.  “Where are you, son?!”

        “Oh, you don't have to summon him,” Cheerilee said.  “I already told him how proud I was of his behavior as of late.  His grades have been improving too since the school year began.  Do you know that he scored the second highest in our pop quiz on paleo-Equestrian biology?  He has an avid fascination with leviathans and sea serpents.  I sometimes wonder if his cutie mark suggests an innate desire to dissect old fossils!  Heheh!”

        The mare on the sofa beside her chuckled as well.  “Oh, that's such a joy to hear,” she said.  “There are times when I think Snips forgets that he's earned his cutie mark.”

        “Sometimes, I think he just forgets to care,” Straight Edge added.

        “Mmmm...”  The mare took a deep breath, fiddling with her book as her eyes fell to the sofa's hoofrest.  “It's taken a bit of coaxing, but I can vouch for the fact that he's paying more attention to his studies.  I imagine it hasn't been easy for him, what with my disability lately...”

        “Oh, I remember hearing about that!” Cheerilee remarked with a concerned look on her face.  She leaned over and placed a gentle hoof on the mare's forelimb.  “Just how is your horn faring, Mrs. Autumn?”

        “It aches less these days, Miss Cheerilee,” Snips' mother replied with a calm smile.  “With therapy, I've managed to have less and less seizures.  The doctor says I've been making a great deal of progress.”

        “This ain't a medical checkup, honey,” Straight Edge uttered from the kitchen.  Through my peripheral vision, I saw several containers stacked on top of one another.  When I turned to look, the grizzled stallion was standing there behind the counter, staring unemotionally towards us.  The containers were gone.  “Miss Cheerilee is giving us her sweet time to talk about our son's learning.”

        “Mmm... But of course.”  Autumn swallowed and looked towards us with sleepy eyes.  “I'm sorry if he's giving you more trouble—!”

        “Nothing of the sort!”  Cheerilee said happily.  “As a matter of fact, I figured I'd drop word of how good his behavior has been as of late!  On the side of scoring well on pop quizzes, he's displayed a vast improvement in civility!  Why, just the other day, Miss Smith showed up to deliver some lunch for her granddaughter Apple Bloom.  On the way out of the schoolbuilding, the old mare stumbled and fell.  Snips was the first and only colt to walk over and help her up.  I thought it was the most charming gesture I'd seen all week!”

        “Ohhhhhh...”  Autumn smiled gently.  “That does sound awfully sweet.”

        “Heh...”  Straight Edge marched over towards the center of the room.  “You're just making that up.”

        “Hardly!”  Cheerilee shook her head. “Snips is a great deal more mature than the other colts his age, he just hasn't chosen to show signs of it until recently.  Would you like to hear some more?”

        Straight Edge merely exhaled.  His wife, Autumn, leaned forward and said, “I would love to.”

        As Cheerilee continued, I stood by her side, trying my best not to look nervous.  I glanced up a flight of stairs to see a tiny, portly figure staring down from a thin bedroom door.  As soon as my eyes reached the second floor, the coltish face disappeared.  Curious, I glanced down at the filly, who I presumed to be the one named “Windsong.”  The longer the conversation lasted, the tighter and tighter she curled up to the sheets of paper she was drawing on.  I saw her shoulders bunching together, and I couldn't help but notice how close Straight Edge was standing to her the entire time.

        I took a deep breath and tried to relax.  It was not my place to come to wild conclusions.  After all, Cheerilee was doing more in a single breath than I could ever hope to accomplish in an entire day's worth of rambling speech.  I listened as she expertly plugged little details—both accurate and exaggerated—about Snips' behavior as of late.  She found tiny moments to summon a word or two from his parents, and I could see how she was structurally turning the “conference” into something akin to an unofficial interview.

        What was more, with each passing minute, the portrait of the household was becoming blander and blander.  Eventually, the dialogue digressed into Straight Edge's line of work, the homemaker hobbies that Mrs Autumn engaged in, the friends Windsong had been making next door, and other subjects of everyday conversation.  Admittedly, I was starting to feel more at ease.  However, each time I glanced up at the second floor, I could make out no sign of Snips, and a part of my heart kept beating at a tense, steady tempo.

        “Well,” Cheerilee said as the door to the Straight Edge household closed behind us.  The sun was halfway through setting, and the two of us trotted out of the yard and towards the sidewalk bordering the adjacent street.  “That went awfully well, wouldn't you think?”

        “I didn't realize Snips' mother was dealing with so many health issues,” I remarked dully.  I was staring at my hooves as we trotted along.

        “It was a detail I almost completely forgot about until I saw her again.  If I recall correctly, Snips' family came to Ponyville because Nurse Redheart and several of her colleagues at the local hospital had experience in the field of leyline therapy.”  She turned and smiled at me.  “I don't suppose any unicorns in your family have suffered from Acute Magical Disconnect?  It can be terribly troublesome to the nervous system.”

        “I've... heard stories,” I murmured.  “It's very painful, and it takes years to recover from.”

        “And I can't think of anything more distracting than having one's mother suffering and not being able to do anything about it.”  Cheerilee paused to turn and rest a hoof on my shoulder.  “Miss Heartstrings, I greatly appreciate your initiative in bringing your concerns about Snips to me.  But what I think we have here is a case of a young and growing colt feeling anguish over his mother's health.  With the inability to express himself, it's not uncommon for a young male pony to exert his frustrations through senseless outlets.  However, all is not lost.”  She leaned back and smiled.  “Mrs. Autumn, as it turns out, is getting better.  And now, thanks to our little 'conference,' I think I know what to talk to Snips about the next time he acts mean to one of his fellow students.”

        “Yeah, I guess so...”  I took a deep breath.  “Still, isn't it strange that he didn't show up the entire time that we chatted with his parents?  Not even once?”

        “Heeheehee.  Shyness shows up in the most unlikely of places, Miss Heartstrings.  Don't let Snips' rough exterior fool you.  He's a darling at heart, and I think there's still hope of reaching out to him.”

        “Yeah...”  I nodded, smiling gently.  “I guess you're right.”

        “Well, I have to go home and get caught up on grading,” Cheerilee said.  “Miss Heartstrings,  I can't thank you enough for all the contributions you've made today.  This goes above and beyond what I requested of Professor Blue Noise.”  She smiled sweetly, her eyes sparkling.  “Is it possible that you might bless the school with your presence again sometime before the year's over?  Perhaps you would like to chaperone for the upcoming field trip to the Canterlot Gardens!”

        “Eh heh heh heh...”  I chuckled nervously, avoiding her gaze.  “Well...”  I gulped and gave her a weak smile.  “I'll definitely consider it.  One thing's for certain.  I will never forget what happened this day.”

        “Then perhaps my students aren't the only ones who learned something,” she said with a wink, shuffling the umbrella in her saddlebag.  “Have a happy evening!”

        “Yeah.  Sure thing.”  I turned and trotted away.  “You too.”

        “Uhhh... Miss Heartstrings?”

        I turned and looked at her.  “Yes?”

        She blushed slightly, blinking in a confused manner.  “Where are you off to?  I thought you were staying at your friend's relative's house next door to the Edge family.”

        “Oh.  Uhm...”  I smiled awkwardly.  “I... enjoy going for walks.  And Ponyville is a pleasant town for a stroll!”

        “Heeheehee... Isn't it, though?”  She waved and trotted off.  “Toodaloo!”

        “Yeah.  Uh.  Bye.”  I waved back, limply.  I took advantage of the fact that her back was to me and stood there, watching her bright figure walk away until it became one with the crimson advent of evening.  A sigh escaped my lips and I looked with exasperation towards the unkempt lawn of the Edge family household.

        I could only blame my analytical self.  I could only blame the ponderer, the scavenger, and the pillager of forsaken songs within this weathered unicorn soul for such pathetic awkwardness.  Had I changed so much over the past year that I was bound to forever see things between the lines that weren't really there to begin with?  I was no schoolteacher, nor was I a psychiatrist.  Cheerilee was inifnitely more qualified for both of those things than I ever could be.  Who was I to assume so much about Snips without seeing it with my own naked eyes?

        Colts will be colts, and cursed ponies will be cursed ponies.

        With a shrug of my shoulders, I turned to trot towards my distant cabin to the north of town... when I heard a noise.  It was more pronounced than the muffled shout that I thought I had heard the previous day.  If I didn't know better, I could have sworn I detected something breaking.

        I almost ignored it.  I almost kept moving.  But a part of me that was still lonesomely cognizant, the part of me that shivered from the throes of her unsung touch, forced my hooves to swivel around.  I turned and glared at the front of the house.  There was another sound, louder than the first, and this time I could have sworn I saw the windows to the front of the house shaking.

        I peered down the sidewalk.  Cheerilee was a distant speck.  I looked towards the other end of the path.  Ponies were going about their daily lives, returning home, engaged in conversation: not a single one was looking my way.

        In a single breath, I strolled back towards the house, snuck past the gate, and slid up to the condominium until my ear was almost pressed up against the building face.  I took a deep breath and listened.  Beyond the punctuated thuds of my heart, I heard voices from within.  In perfect clarity, Straight Edge's growling breath was the loudest of all:

        “I had to lie through my teeth for you, boy!  To think of all the slack I give you—Look at me when I'm talking to you!”

        “But I don't understand!  What did I—?”

        “You were out stealing random crap from the ponies around town!  How many times have I told you to quit snatching whatever you can get your grubby little hooves on?!”

        “What?!  Dad, I wasn't—”

        “Don't talk back!  She told me you left an umbrella at school today!  We never bought you an umbrella!  So how did you end up with one, huh?”

        “Umbrellas?!  Pfft!  Who cares about umbrellas anyway—?”

        Snips' voice was cut off by what could only be described as a clap of thunder.  I felt a bone-chilling thump, and some female voice gasped amidst the echoes of it.

        “I won't stand to have thieving ponies in my very own house!”  Straight Edge's rumbling voice resumed.  “We stand to lose enough as it is by moving to this stinkin' town!”

        “Straight!  Honey, for Celestia's sake!  Can't you see he doesn't know a thing about the umbrella—?”

        “And you!  What in the hay was that all about just now?!  Nopony outside the household needs to get an earful about your sickness!  Certainly not Miss Cheerilee!  Next thing you know, they'll think we're begging for bits out on the street!”

        “I was only making polite conversation!  There's no need to take this out on our son—!”

        “If he wasn't such a brat to begin with, his teacher wouldn't have to be poking her head around!  And she certainly wouldn't have to pick up the slack for the crap he's stolen!”

        “I didn't... nnngh... t-take nopony's umbrella—”

        “Shut up and go to your room because I'm sick to death of you sassin' me.”

        “I'm telling you, I didn't—Ulp!”

        “Something wrong with your ears, boy?  Go to your room and do your homework.  Nnngh!  I swear to Luna!  Is it enough that I work my spine off for your ungrateful hide?!  Or do you wanna go back to Manehattan?  Cuz I can pack up our stuff and take the whole family tonight!  How long you think your mom's gonna last back in our old home town, you selfish little turd?!”

        “No... I-I don't want that...”

        “Huh?”

        “Erm... N-no sir.”

        “Now scram.  All I wanted was to have a peaceful, quiet evening, but you've screwed that up... again!”

        All this time, there was a sobbing voice, rising in pitch and volume; that is until Straight Edge snarled once more.

        “Dammit, Windsong, shut up and go back to drawing!  You’re almost as bad as your worthless brother.  Heck,  you're already twice as brainless.”

        “Straight Edge—”

        “I don't wanna hear it, Autumn.  Bits are thin enough without me having to pay for another one of your damn seizures.  So just can it.”

        The house was gravely silent, save for the tell-tale thumps of Snips' hooves limping—not walking—up the stairs to his lonely room.  I could barely stand straight at that point, for I was trembling too much.  Gulping, I turned, looked down the sidewalk, and scampered in the direction Cheerilee had trotted off to.

        In less than two minutes, I caught up to her.  “Cheerilee!”  I galloped to a stop, panting.  “Quick!  You gotta come back!”

        “Huh?” she turned around, blinking at me.

        “I was right all along!” I exclaimed.  “As soon as we left, there were noises coming from the house!  I listened in, and—as Celestia is my witness—I heard Straight Edge shouting at his family!  I think he may have even hurt—”

        “I'm sorry... uhm...”  Cheerilee squinted at me.  “What's all this about?  You know Snips' father?”

        “I...”  I paused, blinking stupidly.  I felt the chills catching up to my sweaty body.  “Yes.  Yes, Snips' father.  We... You just finished having a conference with him and his spouse.”

        “Huh... Straight Edge... Autumn...”  Cheerilee's eyes scanned the horizon.  She reeled, as if dealing with a wave of dizziness.  “I think I met with them when they first came to Ponyville.”  She smiled thinly at me.  “Why, is something the matter with them?  I teach for their son at my school in the west side of town.”

        I blinked at her.  I groaned, running a hoof over my face.  “I was there.  Of course, I was there with you the whole time.  That’s why.  For the love of Celestia.  Isn’t it enough that ponies just forget about me and me alone?”

        “Huh?”  She made a strange face.  “I.. I-I’m afraid I don’t understand.  Somepony’s forgotten you?  Are you looking for somepony in Ponyville that you know?”

        I chewed my lip.  Shivering, I looked back towards the house.  As the sun melted beneath the west horizon, a foreboding shadow loomed over the building, obscuring the dull surfaces like a worn gravestone.

        “Ma'am?”  Cheerilee blinked.

        Without saying a word, I turned and trotted away from her... and swiftly abandoned the condominiums altogether.

        I breathed evenly, peacefully.  I was in control of myself.  Every inhale was calm and every exhale was precise.  Clutching the Nightbringer, I tilted my head up and looked beyond the tempestuous fountains and chains of the unsung realm.

        High above the metal fields of moaning prisoners, her sphere loomed.  The object spun circles within itself, brimming with lightning.

        I stood where I was on the rusted platform with the chaotic cosmos churning all around me.  I didn't say a word.  I simply played “Twilight's Requiem” over and over again, staring at the levitating throne of an aloof goddess, my eternally stubborn music partner.

        With quiet patience, I had hoped to coax her out of hiding.  I sat there for the space of an hour, the longest time I had ever spent in the dimension beyond the firmaments.  Nothing happened.  She didn't approach me.  Her sphere didn't even float a single inch closer.

        I was the only mortal creature in eons to have entered the realm of the unsung, and in spite of all my power and abilities and knowledge, I couldn’t do a single thing about it but sit there and soak in the annihilation.  At least if I was a shackled pony, I might have had purpose there.  As the tempests consumed the heavens and echoed thunder across the Firmaments, I felt like I could just as easily have been watching a picture show of a faraway, fantastical place, rather than actually being there.  All the fear was gone, and so was the charisma to surpass any of it.

        I exhaled a defeated breath and hung my head.  Gently, I played “Penumbra's Echo,” and departed from the unsung realm, as if I hadn't even been there to begin with.

        I sat on the cot in the middle of my cabin, surrounded by books.  I swear that I read the same dozen pages over and over again, and on each perusal I failed to take in a single paragraph to memory.  Night lingered outside.  Al was playing with a ball of string in the corner.  The fireplace crackled, and its amber light glinted off the brilliant body of the Nightbringer atop a nearby end table.

        After several minutes, I groaned and rubbed a hoof over my face.  I had spent an hour in the unsung realm.  I had spent twice as much time pouring through ancient books on Canterlot music.  Still, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the shouting tone of Straight Edge out of my head.  Autumn's murmuring voice lingered along the corners of my memory.  With each heartbeat, I felt the thump of Snips' landing body, and then the whimpering sounds of Windsong stabbed at my consciousness.

        On top of that, I still couldn't sleep.  The crazed enthusiasm that had made me visit Cheerilee's school two days in a row was fading.  What lay beneath was a manic unicorn, somepony I hadn't associated with for months, when madness was something fresh and alarming instead of enlightening.

        “I don't know what to do, Al,” I muttered.  “I'm in the right place and the right time, but what does it matter?  Even if I intervene, what impact will I have?  It's the same as it was with Morning Dew, and with Twilight Sparkle and Moondancer.  Heck, the only reason I ever saved Scootaloo's life was because she saved mine.”  I chuckled bitterly.  “It seems as if this curse has me making better use out of my uselessness...”

        Al rolled over the string, paused to catch his breath, and gazed innocently my way with a flick of his tail.

        “I should stop thinking so much about it,” I muttered.  “I've not been to every single household in Ponyville.  For all I know, horrible things happen in this town on a daily basis.  I should just...”  I fidgeted.  “I should just focus on the goal that I have, cuz it's the only thing I have in my power to fix, so long as I get her to help me and... and...”

        Something inside me twitched.  The room felt colder, even with the embers of the fire dancing brightly just a stretch away.

        I bit my lip.  “It's... it's easier just to finish this damnable Nocturne.  It's...”  I stifled a whimper, as my insides knotted up.  Shivering, I looked over towards the orange tabby on the floor.  “Al, could it be possible that... th-that I'm less afraid in the unsung realm than I am in this town?  Have I grown that distant?”  I gulped.  “That aloof?  Just like she is?”

        Al barely moved.  He didn't even purr.

        My nostrils flared.  I turned towards the Nightbringer once more.  It was momentarily blinding to my weak eyes.  “The power of a goddess in my hooves...” I murmured, frowning.  “And I ran like a filly... a cowardly little filly from Snips' house.”

        I sighed hard.  The walls of the room started to bend and buckle.  In order to not collapse, I forced my eyes shut and drifted.

        “And then he said, 'Why, of course, Miss Moondancer, I would be more than happy to carry those bags for you!'”

        I nearly choke on the glass of water.  I slap the container down onto the table in the school courtyard and gaze in shock her way.  “Moondancer!  I don't believe it!  You mean to say that—?”

        “Yup!”  She smiles devilishly, her pale features shining in the sunlight beneath flowing locks of red and pink mane hair.  “Shining Armor carried all four suitcases for me!  He was really sweaty by the time we got to my room on the fourth room of the hotel at the Equestrian Embassy!”

        I squint curiously at her.  “Just how 'sweaty' are we talking about?”

        “Ohhhhh girl...”  She fans herself with her notebook full of homework.  “Not sweaty enough!”

        “Ack!  Moondancer!”

        “Heeheehee!”

        “This is... This is Twilight's older brother we're talking about!” I say, nearly shrieking.  Still, I'm having a hard time containing my giggles.  “For goodness sake!  Isn't it enough that he agreed to act as bodyguard during your study program in the Dragonlands?!  You and the other students owe him your lives!”

        “Oh Lyra, sweetcakes, don't get your bridle in a tangle!”  She waves a dainty hoof and shuffles through a few notes.  “It was all in good fun.  Besides, we were hardly in any danger.  The Dragonlands is about as dramatic as a Saturday night in Trottingham, which is the least I can say about their lame excuse for an education system.”  She rolls her eyes before leaning forward and smirking at me.  “Besides, Twilight's 'Big Beau, Best Flank Forever' was just showing off an extraordinary amount of silly machismo.  It's his first year into being a guard, and already he thinks he can flex his horn and get us unicorn schoolfillies to melt!  Ha!  Well, I made him deflate big time!  That's for sure!”

        “Moondancer...”  I stammer, my eyes staring wide at her.  “Did you...?”  I gulp dryly.  “You didn't let him in the hotel room, did you?”

        “Mmmm... Nope.”  She smiles and sips at her own glass of water.  “But I sure made him wish he was.”

        “Ugh.  You are so evil.  Twilight's gonna kill you.”

        “Not if she keeps being Princess Celestia's third hemisphere, she won't.”

        “Hey!  She's more than just an errand pony for Her Majesty!  She's being trained to be a high ranking sorceress!”

        “She's ranking with something alright.  Have you visited her room in the palace?  Whew!  Place smells like dust, old books, and backsweat!  And I don't mean the sexy, Shining Armor kind!  I swear, that filly's gotten nowhere with being the Princess' apprentice!  She's still a sad little egghead who refuses to see sunlight!”

        “Well, I still think she needs our support in everything she puts her heart and horn to,” I say.  “She's been there for us in the past, Moondancer.  Celestia knows her parents have as well.”

        “Yeah, yeah.”  She places her glass down and gives me a bored glance.  “So, how's plucking the proverbial string treating ya?”

        I give her a smug grin.  “My musical education is going well, Moondancer.  How's your quest to become a teacher?”

        “Eh.  It's alright.”

        “'Alright?'”

        “Yup.”

        “Since you came back from the Dragonlands, I thought you had a newer, tougher curriculum to undergo.”

        “Oh, you mean Advanced Unicorn Sociology?”

        “Yeah, that.  Isn't that your minor?”

        “Eh.  I dunno.  I'm thinking of changing it.”

        “Really?  What to?”

        “Kiss My Flank 101.”

        “Seriously...”

        “I mean it,” Moondancer grumbles.  “All the ponies in my class are total snobs.  Cream of the crappy crop of Canterlot, if you catch my drift.”

        “Have they been giving you a lot of sass?”

        “Well, if they weren't a week ago, they certainly are now!”  She smiles with a wag of her eyebrows.  “On account that they lost all their tail hairs yesterday.”

        “Uhhh...”  I squint curiously at her.  “I... don't read you.”

        “Somepony might know somepony who might know another pony who laced their luxury seats at the rear of the class with superglue.”  She sips from her glass again and blushes slightly.  “And that somepony might be me.”

        I blink, staring at her breathlessly.  “You're... You're serious?!”

        “Well, I’m certainly not cinnamon!”

        “Moondancer!” I squawk loudly, summoning several curious glances from the ponies surrounding us in the courtyard.  “How... How could you?!  What is this, Magic Kindergarten?!  You're nineteen, for Luna's sake!  What makes you think that you can do that kind of crap and get away with it still?!”

        “Uhhhh... The fact that I did get away with it and those bratty, upstart snobs are now forced to walk the halls with their bare tails between their legs?!”  She giggles wildly.  “They all made up a story about a bunch of diamond dogs sneaking into their dorm at night and slicing their hair off to sell to the Zebra black market in Los Pegasus!”

        “Oh jeez!  That... That almost makes it worth it!” I clutch a hoof to my forehead and laugh until tears line my eyes.  “Ohhhh Moondancer, when will you ever learn?!”

        “Hahahaha... Ohhhhh... 'Learning...’”  She chuckles, her face red.  “If only I could sleep half as well...”

        “I dunno!  Heehee!  You seem to have all your charm and spunk, as usual!”

        “Heheheh... Heh... But no, really...”  She continues to chuckle, but her laughter has become increasingly hollow, labored even.  “I've been bunking at Canterlot Heights.”

        I chuckle a few more times.  Catching my breath, I look at her and blink.  “You... You mean the hotel?”

        “I certainly don't mean the asylum, though I wouldn't mind that one bit at this point.”

        “Wow.  Why... uh... Why aren't you staying at home?  Ever since you quit dorm life, I thought you decided to stick around the house.”

        “Heheheh... Because... Heh...”  Her laughter dropped off the edge of a limp smile.  “Because he's back.”

        I stare at her.  Slowly, my face grimaces.  “He...? You mean...?”

        She sips calmly at her glass.

        My brow furrows.  I squirm nervously where I stand.  “But... But that's...”  I shake my head and squint at her.  “He moved to Baltimare.  He has a business there now.”

        “That was just an excuse.”  Moondancer is mumbling now.  I don't know what's more alarming: the news she has just told me or how rapidly she can switch from euphoric to deadpan.  “The world's full of them, Lyra.  Excuses, that is.  And Mom's used one of them to lasso him back out of hiding.”

        “But...”  I gulp and feel my forelimbs shivering.  “But why?”

        “Pfft... Why else?”  She exhales firmly, her mouth hardening into a frown.  “Cuz she's a withered old tart who doesn't know how to keep her tail down.”

        “Moondancer!” I hiss, looking over our shoulders at everypony around us.  I lean in and speak hushedly, “How could you say that?  She's your mother—!”

        “She's an idiot,” Moondancer grunts.  “And I'm sick and tired of idiots.  The only thing is that it makes no difference if I pull a prank on her.  Her life is the biggest joke there is, and I'm tired of it.”  She downs the rest of her water in a single gulp and slaps the glass onto the tabletop.  “So, as soon as I get a chance, I'm finding a place on my own.  No more dorms, no more hotels, and certainly no more bullcrap.”

        “Moondancer, it... it can't be a permanent thing!” I try to sound strong.  It comes out as a squeak.  “Your mother—She has to be going through a phase or something!  You know how it is for mares that age!  I'm pretty sure she'll kick him out in a week—”

        “And then what?”  She chuckles, but this time it is a dry and lifeless thing, like dragging a cat's tongue across sandpaper.  “She'll invite him back just a few months later, or else go crawling to Baltimare herself.  It's the same old song and dance, and the music just won't get out of her dang head.”  She brushes a few stray leaves off her notebook before slapping it and glaring at me.  “You know what the sickest part was?  I spent the entire weekend yelling my head off at her over how pathetic she is to let that jerk back into our house for the umpteenth time, and she has the gall to say that I'm being 'heartless,' that I'm being a 'bad daughter...'”

        “Moondancer—”

        “A bad daughter?!  Do you know what that heartless stallion used to do to me?  Huh?  Did I ever tell you about the time he made me stand outside on the balcony all night for wetting the bed, and slap me upside the head if he found out I sat down even once?  The friggin' pissant would even sit down beside the window and watch me!  Like he had nothing better to do...”

        “I... I...”

        “Or what about the night he thought I spoke back to him, and so he filled a pot full of boiling water and asked me which hoof I'd like to stick in first for being such an petulant child?!  This is the same stallion my mother is choosing to respect over her own daughter.  Who here wants to bet it's because he's always had one extra limb than me as long as Mom's known the both of us?!”

        “Okay, Moondancer,” I mutter, stirring uncomfortably.  “You made your point.  You're right.”

        “Oh!  I'm sorry!”  She stands up, gasping with ridiculous melodrama.  “Is this too much for Lyra's little ears?!  You can't handle your best friend venting a little steam?”

        “I... I didn't say that!” I exclaim, shifty-eyed.  “You know that you can always come to me...”

        “Then why do you look like a changeling caught in a magical spotlight?!”

        I bite my lip.  I don't say anything.  I can't say anything.

        Apparently this is enough.  Fuming, she stuffs her things into her schoolbag.  “You know what?  I get it.  I'm ruining your precious lunch.  Heh.  Not like it's the first time.”

        “Moondancer, please...”

        “What?  I'm sorry, Lyra.  I'm sorry that I can't make this day any more enjoyable for you.  Celestia knows you can't make my week any less crappy than it already is, so don't bother planning to do anything about it, not like you were trying in the first place.”

        “Hey!”  I frown.  “Now you're just not being fair—”

        “Hah!”  She flippantly laughs, grinning venomously at me from where she stands with her bag.  “Now that's a tragedy!  Something in my best friend's life is not fair!  Next thing I know, my other friend will become the pampered satellite to a princess!”  Her eyes go wide as she slaps the side of her head with a hoof.  “Oh, duh!  That already happened!  Oh well, I mustn't weigh down your high and mighty lives with my stupid baggage!  You know—the stuff I've only had to deal with all my goddess-forsaken life!”

        “Moondancer, don't do this,” I plead with her.  “Don't make a scene.  You know I've only ever been there for you.”

        “Been there for me?”  She frowns.  “You?  You've 'been there for me?'”  She frowns even harder.  “As if you could somehow relate?  As if anything you've ever done or said ever held any kind of sincerity?  What do you know, Lyra?  What crap have you ever gone through?  Has a single thing in your life ever gone south and made you question your very own existence?  You with your 'outstanding lyrical talent' and your 'career in Canterlot music history?'”

        “I... uh...”

        “The fact of the matter is, you've never been there for me, Lyra.  And it's laughable that you'd think as much.  Your parents bailed my mom and myself out, sure.  But you?  Did you really think that a bunch of slumber parties and stupid trips to the city park or local doughnut shop ever truly made up for all the junk I went through?  Life must be really dang simple for you if that's how you clear your conscience of all the troubled ponies you'll ever have to deal with.  But, please, don't ever let me rock your perfect little world.  That just wouldn't be 'fair,' now would it?”

        I bite my lip, avoiding her gaze.  The light around us is turning foggy, and I feel a soreness in my throat that I know would make any sort of reply a mere whimper.

        She knows it too, and she scoffs at it.  “Yeah, go ahead and cry,” she says.  “A little bit of warning for the wise: it only works for a little bit.”  She clenches her jaw and trots off on iron hooves.  “And I'm sick to death of only doing things halfway, like somepony I once thought was my friend.”

        She leaves.  The courtyard is quiet.  I hear a brief stirring of nervous ponies returning to their distant conversations and studies.  It isn't until her hoofsteps are completely out of earshot that I bury my face into my hooves and allow the tears to flow.

        I heard Alabaster's strings.  I heard his gentle melody, his masterful reinterpretation of the finer movements of the Nocturne.  I heard every rising and falling cord that marked the song that had saved me multiple times from the depths of the unsung realm, and yet it did not solace me any longer.  I knew that I was not the mare he had always meant to hear that heartfelt tune.

        Still, that did not stop me from playing “Penumbra's Echo” over and over again, adamantly and faithfully, with hope that some sort of peace would come.  Hope, after all, has been the one thing keeping me alive in this place.  It was the same thing that pulled a mad pony away from the roof's edge of the town hall building.  It was what made me ask for a hug from an amnesiac friend who could never remember me.

        For the moment, it was what made me sit on the edge of the park on the side of town, anointed by the rays of an afternoon sun, with the crisp breeze of October circling soothingly around me as if I was just any other blessed soul.  For a second, I wondered if dust would someday cover my body when I no longer had breath to give, or if even in ashes I would forever be an anomaly to the lengths of time.

        I heard a pitter patter of hooves.  Looking over, I saw four familiar foals.  Scootaloo was drawing a red wagon, within which Apple Bloom was seated, wearing a ridiculously cute cape.  She stared down a spyglass, licked her lip, and pointed adventurously towards the edge of a hill while Rumble and Sweetie Belle caught up with the pair on waddling limbs.  They glanced at me as they scampered by.  Then, in a second breath, they looked to my side and grimaced.  With mutually blushing expressions, they hid their faces and hurried along.

        I raised a curious eyebrow at that, until I heard a rasping voice beside the bench upon which I was squatting.

        “That's a relaxing song.”

        I turned to look; my heart skipped a beat.  Awkwardly, I smiled.  “Funny.  I had another colt your age say the same thing the other day.”

        “What?”  Snips squinted up at me.  “Do you perform around town?  Like a traveling minstrel or something?”

        “Uhmmm...”

        “Cuz we once had a showpony visit Ponyville once.”  His ears drooped.  “That didn't turn out so well.”

        “Don't your parents ever warn you about talking to strangers?” I asked, and almost immediately winced for doing so.

        “Hmmph!”  He raised his chin and horn and marched across the path before me in an extraordinary show of pride.  “I can look after myself!  I'm not a little foal, y'know!  I've got a cutie mark!”

        I looked at the symbol in question, but was instead distracted by a brand new limp to his gait, a limp that he tried in futility to hide.  My ears twitched at the memory of the sound his body made after being tossed across the condominium.  “You certainly seem like a tough little pony to me,” I remarked, trying my best to maintain an adult smile.  “Since when did rough and tumble stallions trot clear across the hillside at the sound of sweet music?”

        “I didn't trot across the hillside!  I...”  He fidgeted, gnawing on his lip.  His face hung towards the dirt path.  “Meh... I was just killing time.”

        I looked at him, at the grassy fields, then at the bright blue sky.  “Seems like such a beautiful day.”  I glanced Snips' way again.  “Don't ponies usually see you hanging out with another colt?  Some lanky fellow?”

        “Hmm?  Oh, you mean Snails?”  He shrugged his stout shoulders.  “He's off chasing bugs or something.  I dunno.”

        “Well, it's a shame to be alone on an afternoon like this.”  I strummed a few more notes of “'Penumbra's Echo.'  “Why not go and see what he's up to?”

        “Mmrff...”  He dug at the dirt and sighed.  “You ever have a day when you just don't want to see other ponies?”

        I smiled a bit more genuinely.  “You're seeing me, aren't you?”

        “Well, you play such good music, Miss...”  He looked up at me, and his eyes were bloodshot.  It  appeared as though I wasn't the only soul in Ponyville dealing with insomnia.  “And it's not like anypony's paying you or forcing you to do it.  You're just doing it because you like to, don't you?  I mean, why else would you be here?”

        I took a deep breath, shrugging.  “Silence is hardly a fitting friend.”

        He chuckled lightly, then gazed at the grass bordering the path.  “That must be a really cool special talent to have.”

        “What?  Music?”

        “Mmmhmm...” He nodded, flicking at the emerald blades and upsetting a few leaping aphids.  “All I got on my flank is these stupid scissors.  I still don't really know what they mean.  So many ponies my age want to get their cutie mark badly, and I don't even know what mine's all about.  Isn't that stupid?”

        I lean forward, narrowing my eyes.  “Don't you have ponies where you live to share these thoughts with?”

        His nostrils flared and a frown crossed his face.  “Nothing's gonna change the fact that I have a lame talent.”  He looked up at me, and his expression was once again soft.  “I don't know why, but when I hear that music, I don't feel so bad anymore.  Even if it's your talent and not mine, there's something very... relaxing about it.  Too bad I can't make that kind of sound with scissors.  Heh...”

        I looked at my lyre, running a hoof over its smooth edges.  “Music is a lot more special than we give it credit for.  It was part of the foundation of the world, after all.  It's older than both talents and feelings combined.”  I chuckled slightly and looked at him.  “I really don't blame you for being drawn to it.”

        “You mean I'm not bugging you?” He asked, his stubby tail flicking anxiously.  “Cuz... y'know... I was just walking around and... and... Meh, I dunno...”

        “Heheheh... Just relax,” I said.  My lungs exhaled peacefully as I heard myself say, “A song is never meant to just be played, but to be heard.”  I smiled for myself as much as for him.  “I was hoping to have an audience.”

        “Huh...”  He sat on his haunches, wincing slightly from the fresh bruise, but nevertheless smiling.  “Would you... Would you play that song one more time?  Erm, that is, if you don't mind...?”

        I shook my head.  “I would love to.”  I began strumming “Penumbra's Echo” once more, and already I could see Snip's eyes closing as his ears relished the soft melody.  “The world we live in has many joys,” I said beneath the lulling rhythm.  “We should never, ever feel guilty for wanting to be happy.”

        I took even breaths, squinting from where I crouched behind a tree and a cluster of bushes.  Just beyond the nearby length of fence, the condominium of the Straight Edge household lingered under a waning sunset.  Hours after treating Snips' to as many renditions of Alabaster's song as I could, I had followed the colt from a distance while he wandered around Ponyville before eventually—hesitantly—returning to his home on the edge of downtown.

        My body was tired and my eyes were dry from three nights of very little sleep.  I couldn't deny a sharp tremor that was shuddering through my system.  What was I doing there?  Being cursed didn't give me the right to act like a stalker.  My only consolation was the firm knowledge that Snips wasn't the pony I was looking for.

        Finally, I saw my target: Straight Edge.  The grizzled stallion was trotting home, or at least he was trying to.  He swayed a bit in his step, his hooves shuffling in an inebriated pattern that I only found moderately surprising.  After several minutes, he stumbled up to his front door.  His shoulders heaved in an exasperate sigh, as if he had instead showed up to the worst night job imaginable.  After telekinetically lifting a pair of keys up to the door, he marched into the dimly lit condominium and slammed the entrance shut behind him.

        I took a deep breath and gazed around me.  The sun had completely set.  The stars were coming out overhead.  Crickets were signaling through the air in a denser and denser chorus.  There was nopony around to see what I was about to do.

        On stealthy limbs, I hurried towards the front lawn of the Straight Edge household.  I opened the fence gate and slithered up to the entrance.  Hiding my body safely from the windows, I pressed my ear up to the building front.  My heart was pounding.  My coat hairs were standing on end.  In over a year of haunting the lengths of Ponyville, I had never done something like this.  True, I had helped myself to the interior of Twilight's library on occasion, but she was my foalhood friend, and every occasion that I stumbled upon her place of research it was to acquire more important reading materials or do more study on the Nocturne or play the “Song of Summoning.”

        But this?  This was trespassing in the worst possible way.  The same spirit that kept me from robbing Rarity blind or stealing Rainbow Dash's thunder or taking advantage of Applejack's hospitality was slicing a dagger of guilt across my heart.  I almost pulled myself away after twenty minutes of hiding there, when I finally heard what I came for.

        Windsong's unmistakable sobs sounded off first.  It was followed by Straight Edge shouting one horrible thing after another.  Snips' voice rushed up to the sounds Windsong was making, and then Straight Edge shouted some more.  For the briefest of moments, Autumn's whimpering breath tried to intervene, but Straight Edge's growling drowned her out, followed by the sounds of bottles breaking.  A dog two condos away started barking.

        I took a deep breath, and felt a tug on my lips.  I was smiling, for I now had what I needed.  Swiftly, I turned away from the door front and ran like an emerald lightning bolt across Ponyville.

        Inside the front lobby of the Ponyville Police Department, one stallion in blue finished polishing his horseshoes while murmuring across the lanternlit station.  “And so I said to him, 'Sir, unless your neighbor's socks have the magical power of breaking laws of probability, I sincerely doubt they sprouted hooves, climbed out of your neighbor's hamper, and somehow made it into the drawers of your work desk across the street!'”

        “Hahaha!”  Another officer flipped the pages of his newspaper from where he lazily sat behind a counter.  “Blessed Celestia!  Is that when you arrested him?”

        “Dang straight.  Turns out the old pervert was stealing the lady's stockings for months.”

        “This thing that old stallions have for mares' socks...”  The other shrugged and sighed.  “I just don't get it.”

        Right then, the doors burst open.  The two officers stood up abruptly and spun to look.  “Uhhh... Can we help you?”

        I stood, panting, and gulped.  “Yes!  You can help!  But not me!  Somepony else!  There's a house in trouble on Burton Street!”

        “Could you be more specific, ma'am?”

        “I-I wish I could!” I exclaimed, my eyes glistening as I raised two shaking hooves up and toyed demurely with my cyan locks of mane hair.  “I heard some horrible noises and yelling!  I think that there might be a robbery in progress!  I was walking by one of the condominiums when I heard the most terrible racket!  I... I was so scared!  You gotta go investigate!”

        The two officers exchanged glances.  With a firm nod, they bolted up, grabbed their equipment, and rushed out the door along with me.  “Don't worry, madame.  We're on it.  Just show us the way.”

        I watched them.  Stifling a proud smile, I cleared my throat and broke into an anxious gallop.  “Oh thank you, officers!  Thank you, so very much!”

        “Here!  Right here!” I exclaimed a few minutes later, pointing shakily at the front lawn to the Straight Edge family's household.  “I was walking past the sidewalk when I heard the noise!”

        “Hmmm...” One officer murmured, adjusting his hat as he stepped up to the fence.  “The front gate's still open...”

        “Oh... Yes... Uhm...”  I fidgeted and smiled nervously.  “Must have been a robber!”

        “We'll take care of this.  Please step back.”  One of them marched up to the front steps.  As he did so, a few muffled shouts rattled the windows of the home.  I was both terrified and jubilant all at once.  “Hello?!”  The officer knocked on the front door.  “This is the police.  Is everything alright in there?”

        Again, there was a wave of noise.  I instantly detected Straight Edge's growling voice.  Windsong was whimpering.  Or perhaps it was Snips.  I no longer cared.  Everything was collapsing and coming together in beautiful poetry.

        “I repeat, this is the police!  Please respond!”  The officer put his ear against the door.  He frowned.  He looked back and gave the officer a firm nod.

        His partner patted my shoulder.  “Stay here.”  He whipped out his baton and gripped it in his teeth as he galloped up to the steps.

        “On three.”  The other officer pivoted around, coiling his rear legs.  “One... Two... Three!”  He bucked the doors open, snapping the hinges.  His partner rushed in as he shouted, reaching for his own baton.  “Everypony freeze!  This is the police!”  Gripping his own weapon, he rushed in after his partner.

        I stood outside, squatting on my haunches, waiting.  A minute went by, and all was silent inside the condominium.  I took several jittery breaths, fiddling with the stone-gray sleeves of my hoodie.  More minutes passed by.  All I could hear was crickets.

        I started to panic.  Did Straight Edge do something horrible to his wife and children?  Did he turn out to be too strong of a stallion for both officers to handle?

        “Oh dear Celestia,” I murmured out loud as a sharp chill ran through my figure.

        Could I have inadvertently traumatized Snips and his little sister?  I knew that Straight Edge was asking for it, but did the colt and filly really deserve to see two grown ponies tackling their father to the floor?  Could I possibly have given Autumn another seizure?

        Worry turned to despair, and despair turned to action.  Hesitantly, I trotted up the path and approached the door to the room.  “Uhm... Officers?”  I heard nothing.  I looked through the dimly lit foyer, seeing the paintings and furniture and normal bric-a-brac of domestic life.  “Is... Is everything okay?  Okay, so I confess; there wasn't a robber after all.”  I gulped and trotted deeper into the household, my breath coming out in vapors.  “But you needed to see this.  You needed to stop this from getting any worse—”  I froze in place.

        The two officers were standing casually with Straight Edge in the center of the living room, sharing glasses of lemonade.  Autumn was sitting on the couch, cradling a sobbing Windsong.  Snips squatted on the bottom step of the condo's stairs, staring lethargically into the carpet.

        “Yeah, but the Wonderbolts are soooo out of shape this year,” one of the officers said with a smirk while swirling his glass.  “On account of Fleetfoot and Mercury having gone on tour in the Griffon Lands back in spring.”

        “Those darn Griffons never cut pegasi a break,” Straight Edge said in a grumbling voice.  The corner of his grizzled face curved upwards.  “Fleetfoot and her buddy never got to show off.  They just hung around in pony hotels waiting for the Griffons to kick 'em out of the country so they can get back to real work.  Shoot, I don't even know why Canterlot bothered with the exchange program to begin with.”

        “Yeah!  Heh... Those two beaked morons they borrowed could never fly in formation anyways!  Thank Goddess they showed up after this year's Best Young Flier's Competition and not before!”  One officer took a sip, turned, saw me, and nearly spat out his drink.  “Koff!  Koff—Auck!  Ahem.  Can we help you?”

        “I... I...”  I stood dumbly in place, squirming.

        “Hrmmf...”  Straight Edge's eyes were thin.  “She must have seen the door from outside.”

        “Nothing to be alarmed about, ma'am,” one officer said, waving at me.  “An honest-to-goddess mistake on the force's part.”

        “I swear, I've been on the beat for fifteen years, and I've never done anything like this!” The other said.  “I promise you, Mr. Edge, the Department will pay for the damages.”

        “Hey, nothing that I can't fix myself.  It's good to know that you guys are always around at a moment's notice.”

        “Yes...”  Autumn stammered, trying to get Windsong to calm down.  “It's nice having the police cl-close by...”

        “That's just what I said, honey,” Straight Edge growled lightly.

        “This... This can't be right!” I exclaimed, my lips quivering.  I frowned at the officers and pointed at the walls of the room around us.  “You mean you just charged in here and saw nothing going on?!  I knew I heard shouting!”

        “That was probably the poor foal here being scared by Ponyville's finest,” an officer said sheepishly.  “Heh.  If the Lieutenant doesn't chew us out for this mixup, I dunno what will tip him over.”

        “I don't know what got into us,” the other remarked.  “I suppose it's these late night shifts, y'know?  One second you're at the station, and the next you're swinging a baton around at loud noises!  This town's made basket cases out of us all, what with Nightmare Moon, Ursa Minors, and parasprites!”

        “Hey, didn't I tell you to forget about it?”  Straight Edge chuckled.  “If anything, you made my evening more exciting.  It certainly shook me out of the damnedest stupor.  I think I got the energy to get some work done around here for a few hours thanks to you guys.”

        “But... But...”  I blinked, then frowned, then snarled.  “No!”  I stomped my hoof.  “This is wrong!  Things aren't right with this household!”

        “Excuse me?” Straight Edge glared daggers my way.  I almost stumbled back from that.  Almost.

        “Ma'am, please...”  One officer put his glass down and marched firmly towards me, his face serious.  “I understand if you or any of the other neighbors may have been startled, but this has all been nothing more than a terrible misunderstanding—”

        “No!  You just don't know anything!  You've forgotten!  All of you!”  I started panting.  I pointed a heavy hoof towards the mare and her child.  “Why are they so freaked out, huh?!  Why is she still crying?”

        Straight Edge sighed and looked lethargically at the two police stallions.  “Officers, it's really late.  Could you do us a favor and...”  He gestured towards me with his head.

        “Ma'am, if you would come with us—”

        “Snips!” I pointed at the colt.  He jolted from the sound of his name.  “Ask h-him!  Ask him what's been going on in this household!”

        “Okay, that's quite enough—”

        “How'd you get that limp, Snips?!”  I almost shrieked as the first officer grabbed my shoulder.  I tugged away at him and pleaded with the youngster from afar.  “And those bruises on your face?”

        “Mmmm...”  He hugged himself, scraping his hooves across the carpet.  “Snails... and I g-got into a fight...”

        “Ungh...”  Straight Edge rolled his eyes.  “Darn kid...”

        “Snails?” One officer made a face.

        “His... Uhm...”  Autumn shivered where she sat.  “His friend.  From school.”

        I frowned.  “He's lying!  She is too!  They're afraid!  They're afraid for their safety!  Can't you see that?!”  As the one officer tried pulling me towards the entrance, I grunted and shouted at Snips.  “You didn't have those bruises earlier when I played that music for you, Snips!  How did you really get them?!  Huh?!”

        “I...”  Snips gulped, looked at his father, and flinched.  “I-I've never seen this unicorn before... Honest...”

        I felt all the color leaving my sweaty face.

        “I think you need to come with us down to the station,” the stallion uttered, tugging at my forelimb.

        “Nnnngh!” I snarled and summoned a burst of magic.  A shield of protection energy bubbled away from my horn in a green flash.  The officer gasped, not even remotely expecting such a show of power.  Before he could recover, I was galloping out of the household and charging into cold Ponyville night.  My eyes twitched with fury, and my ears rang with the thunder of my churning heartbeat.

        “So lemme get this straight,” Rainbow Dash squinted from where she hovered above Twilight Sparkle and Applejack in the town library the next day.  “You’ve lived in this town for over a year, but nopony has ever known about it because you’ve got some mystic curse that keeps any soul from remembering a single thing about you?  And instead of trying to get us to help you fix this craziness, you’re asking that we investigate some stallion beating up on his kid?

        I took a deep breath, stood tall, and firmly nodded.  “Yes.”

        Rainbow Dash pivoted and looked at her two friends.  “Now can I say it?”

        Applejack muttered, “Reckon ya can, sugarcube.”

        Rainbow Dash spun and hissed at me, “Horsefeathers!”

        I sighed and rolled my eyes.  I was low on sleep, strength, and sanity.  It took a cosmic effort to stand upright in the midst of these mares, much less keep a sane expression.

        “Of all the crazy, low-brow, lame attempts at grabbing attention!”  Rainbow Dash hovered circles around me, tossing accusatory glares.  Her incredulous rambling was of little comfort to my frayed nerves.  “Your randomness makes Pinkie Pie look like a college professor!  Oh, so you heard about the Elements of Harmony!  So you heard about Twilight Sparkle, the magical apprentice to Princess Celestia, and how she and her bestest friends defeated Nightmare Moon!  And now what?  You just want a slice of the popularity pie!  I mean, hey, kudos on subtlety!  At least you're not making us go on some global quest to a 'Nocturnal Locker' on the opposite side of the world or some other epically unrealistic crud!  Still, this whole Straight Edge nonsense is downright creepy!  Just how long have you been sticking your nose into other ponies' business, huh?!  And making nasty claims of child abuse?!  Bah!  This is a clean town, filly!  I'm Ponyville's eye in the sky!  I would know this crap!”

        I turned and looked coolly at her.  “And you would also know that the only reason you haven't already gone off to join the ‘awesome’ Wonderbolts and leave everything else behind is because your new and altogether ‘boring’ friends here in Ponyville have unwittingly filled a niche in your life, dissuading the biggest fear you've ever had: of being perpetually alone.”

        Rainbow Dash's ruby pupils shrank as she fell flat on her haunches.  “Derr... wh-what did you just say—?”  She began to whimper, shivering like a foal.

        Applejack was frowning.  “Now see here, Missy—”

        I turned towards her.  “And you—whose father was the inspiration for both the physical and metaphorical foundations you constantly lay down for yourself and the ponies around you—you just can't stop staring at this hoodie that I'm wearing, can you?  Perhaps it's because deep down inside, Applejack, you know that there's a reason for its familiarity; it's the same jacket you once wore when tending the orchards of your farm.  You loved it because its color reminded you of your father's coat in winter when he held you close and sang you songs passed down for half a dozen generations.”

        “Uhhh...”  Applejack's face paled as she pulled her hat off and held it to her chest.  “Land's sakes...”

        “And you...”  I pivoted and smiled at Twilight, who flinched visibly.  “A pony who fears the greatest horror of all: being forgotten.  When you came to Ponyville and you saw the spark of friendship that solidified your place here forever, you discovered what it meant to cry tears of happiness for once.  Beforehand, whenever you sobbed, it was always in the lonely confines of the Canterlot Castle study halls.  But you never dared share your concerns and sorrows with Princess Celestia.  'After all,' you had once told me, 'Starswirl the Bearded was the greatest mortal magician who ever lived, and he died alone with nothing but his scrolls.'  You used to believe that a lonely existence was a necessary means to greatness.  But since you found your friends here in Ponyville, a piece of you was willing to be forgotten by the Equestrian history books, because you'd rather be happy in the now than despondent for the future.”

        Twilight stared at me, her lips quivering.  “I... H-how...?”

        “There isn't enough time to explain 'how,'” I said, leaning forward and smiling gently.  “All that matters is why.  And the answer is: I want to help ponies, just like you do.  Right now, we have an opportunity to do just that, but no good will come to Snips' family if we just sit around on our flanks.”  I stood back and gazed at the group as a whole.  “You would be completely different, completely lonely mares if you didn't take the leap of faith by becoming friends.  But in doing just that, you turned into the three strongest, the three most dependable ponies in the whole of Equestria.  Won't you take another leap of faith, right here, right now?”

        Rainbow Dash was shivering.  Twilight Sparkle sniffled.  Applejack placed her hat back on her blonde head and gazed at the other two silently.  They looked back at her.

        “I don't see or hear anything,” Rainbow Dash muttered under the fall of evening.

        “Shhh!”  Applejack exclaimed hoarsely from where we crouched on the sidewalk outside the condominium.  There was a light inside and shadows shuffled within.  “Remember what Miss Heartstrings said.  Give it time!  Apparently this Straight Edge fella gets all hotheaded at random.”

        “I still think this is really weird,” Rainbow Dash remarked, frowning.  “Not to mention really uncool.  I mean—we're totally spying on other Ponyville ponies!  In their apartments!”

        “If you're afraid, then go home,” I grunted sullenly.

        “Lyra,” Twilight whispered to me.  “That wasn't very nice.  We're taking a 'leap of faith' for you, after all.”

        “I know...”  I sighed and ran a hoof over my exhausted complexion.  “And I'm sorry, girls.  It's just... You won't believe what I've gone through to try to intervene on this family's behalf.”

        “And y'all mean to suggest that neither Miss Cheerilee nor the police could help any?”

        “I'm afraid not, Applejack.  It's the curse, remember?”

        “It's just so much to take in,” Twilight Sparkle remarked.  “The search for Scootaloo, the hotel collapsing on Rumble and Morning Dew, the parasprite infestation: you mean to say that you were there for each of those occasions?”

        “Yes,” I said, then winced.  “Though... that last part would take a really, really long time to explain.  And even then I'm still a bit sketchy on the details...”

        “I... I-I saved Scootaloo...” Rainbow Dash gulped and foalishly gazed at her two friends, her wings drooping.  “Didn't I?” she almost wimpered.

        “Shucks, girl,” Applejack remarked, fanning herself with her hat.  “Next thing we know, y'all gonna tell us you were responsible for gettin' Wind Whistler and Caramel hitched!”

        “Heh...”  I grinned wickedly and doubled over.  “Heh heh heh heh heh heh!”

        Rainbow Dash made a face.  “What's so dang funny?”

        “Ohhhhhhh...” I mumbled into my hooves.  “I really, really need to get some sleep...”

        “Twilight, darlin'.”  Applejack looked at my foalhood friend.  “Ya sure this spell is helpin' us blend in with the shadows all good and proper?”

        “For the millionth time, yes, Applejack,” Twilight Sparkle replied.  “Unless Princess Celestia herself shows up and lights up this part of the neighborhood with her horn, we're darker than a thundercloud.  Nopony will see us all sitting here.”

        “Good.”  Applejack shivered.  “Reckon it's a might rotten feelin' to be sitting here all incognito.”

        “You said it, girl,” Rainbow Dash added.

        Twilight Sparkle stirred nervously.  She glanced over at me.  “Miss Heartstrings?”

        “Nnngh...”  I tiredly gazed at the household with bloodshot eyes.  “Yes, Twilight?”

        “Assuming everything you've told us is completely true—”

        “And it is.”

        “Right.  Absolutely.”  She cleared her throat.  “This curse sounds like an awful ordeal for any single pony to go through.  Could it be possible that—between the fantastical tasks of being chased by an undead alicorn and trying to learn a forgotten magical symphony—you've simply imagined this little detail about Snips' family?”

        “I know what I've heard...”

        Applejack poked in.  “Heard?”

        I sighed.  “Seen and heard.  Heard and seen—Nnnggh.  Look!  This Straight Edge stallion is bad news!  And no matter how horrible my situation is, I'm not going to let a tragedy like this slip through the cracks!  It just... It just isn't fair!  This world...”  I grimaced as memories shot through my head.  In a blink, I thought I saw the misty sight of a school courtyard beyond a veil of tears.  It looked too eerily similar to a rainy Canterlot street beyond a shadowed stairwell.  Groaning, I rubbed my forehead with a pair of hooves.

        The three mares shared nervous glances.  I could already sense that I was losing whatever threadbare confidence of theirs I had earned thus far.

        “Twilight...”  I muttered, tilting my head back up.  “You... You remember Moondancer, right?  I mean... You remember what she went through?”

        A sharp breath escaped from Twilight Sparkle's lips.  Her violet eyes began quivering.  “You... You knew Moondancer?”

        I blinked, my heart beating hard.  Oh dear, sweet Celestia.  I forgot.  I always, always forget about this little part.

        “Uhm... Ahem.”  I smiled nervously at her.  “You... you told me about her.  Y'know, during our past meetings...”

        “And I've since forgotten...”  Twilight Sparkle nodded, begrudgingly accepting that.  She sighed and murmured, “Just how much did I tell you about Moondancer, exactly?”

        I swallowed and said.  “Enough.”  I placed a gentle hoof on her shoulder.  “You remember how much your parents, Dusk and Stellar, helped Moondancer and her mother Satine in their time of need?”

        Twilight slowly nodded.  “How could I forget?  I was really young at the time, but I became close to Moondancer later.”  She smiled gently and glanced towards Applejack and Rainbow Dash.  “She was the one friend I had long before coming to Ponyville.”  A sharp pang surged through her system.  “But... all of that has changed now...”

        “Do you still love her?”

        Twilight flashed me a look.  She blinked a few times, and her eyes became moist.  “Of course I do.  I... I suppose I always will, in a way...”

        I smiled gently.  “Could you imagine how her life would have been if she never knew you?  Or if her mother never knew your parents?  I mean...”  I gestured while speaking.  “What if Dusk and Stellar overlooked the little details, the tiny yet significant signs that things weren't very...”  I lingered, gazing briefly aside at the other two mares.  “Ahem... weren't very happy in Moondancer's household?”

        Twilight chewed on her lower lip.  “I... I shudder to think...”

        “Twilight,” I said, “We are not just strangers in this world, or mild acquaintances or even simple neighbors for that matter.  We are all placed on this planet for a reason.  I mean... we are all crafted out of the same song, molded out of the same chorus that sang Creation into being.  It is our duty—no—it is our nature to reach out to each other when we notice a great problem that needs to be addressed.  Even the most horrible curse ever conceived by ponydom can't change the fact that we are meant to be the living salvation of each other, chasing away evil, blowing away the ashes of chaos with our righteous breaths of harmony.  So, you see, helping Snips and his mother and his sister is like your parents helping Moondancer!  Because... Because it's all part of the same glorious movement!  Like a beautiful instrumental that knows no end...”

        Twilight Sparkle stared at me.  Slowly, she gave me a very gentle smile.

        “You’re frickin' high,” Rainbow Dash grunted.

        “Rainbow!” Applejack hissed.

        “Jeez!  Just listen to the lime-green fuzzhead!”  Rainbow Dash whispered, gesturing wildly.  “Have you ever heard a pony say so little with so many stupid words?!”

        “We ain't here to be judgin' no poetry contest!”

        “Ugh!  I hate all this waiting around!  Either let's bust some guilty, child abusin' heads or go home!  Goddess almighty...”

        “Shhhh!”  Twilight exclaimed, raising her hoof as she tilted her gaze towards the house.  “Did you hear that?”

        “What?  What?” I exclaimed, jittery all of the sudden.

        “Give her some ear room, sugarcube,” Applejack said, resting a gentle hoof on my shoulder.

        Even Rainbow Dash was leaning forward, craning an ear from where she hovered.  Her eyes circled around the edges of their sockets.  Suddenly, there was a sharp cry, followed by a heavy thud.  Her wing feathers stood on end.  “Horseapples!”

        “Sounds like a hog wrasslin' contest in there,” Applejack added, her features hardening.

        “If only it was,” I muttered icily.  I glared at the three.  “Still doubt me?”

        Twilight Sparkle gulped, her body jolting as several more shouts echoed from the condominium a few steps away.  “That... Is that actually Snips' father?”

        “Stick a feather in my eye!” Rainbow Dash hoarsely exclaimed.  “Sounds more like an angry dragon!”

        “If there's somethin' I can't stand for...”  Applejack grumbled angrily.  “It's a self-respectin' parent tossin' his own young'ns around like bales of hay.”  She adjusted her hat to add shadows to her glare and turned towards us.  “Reckon we should fetch the cops?”

        “Didn't you hear Miss Heartstrings earlier?” Twilight retorted.  “It didn't work last time!”

        “Nothing good will come of this if we just repeat what I did previously,” I said, trying to keep my cool as the windows of the house rattled again and again.  “What I need is for the three of you to witness this all at once—”  My body was assaulted with a sudden chill.  I saw vapors spreading from my muzzle.  My eyes twitched.  “Oh no...”

        “What is it?”

        “Oh no no no no no no!”  I leapt into Twilight's face and all but yanked at her mane.  “Who am I?!”

        “L-Lyra Heartstrings!” she exclaimed.

        “What's goin' on—”  Applejack started.

        I turned towards her.  “Say my name!”

        “Uhhh—Lyra!”

        I flashed a glare at Rainbow Dash.  “And you!”

        “Fuzzhead!”

        “Rainbow—”

        “Er, I mean Lyra!”  She shook her head wildly.  “Seriously!  What's the big deal—?!”

        “Praise Celestia!” I moaned, then frowned.  “There isn't much time!  It's now or never!”

        “For what?”

        “No questions!”  I tugged at Twilight again.  “You gotta teleport us in there!”

        “Wh-what?!” She flinched from me as if I had the plague.  “Are you nuts?”

        “Just about!  I can't risk the curse undoing everything right now!”

        “Everypony calm down.  Let's just mosey up to the front door and do this all civil-like—”

        Another cry came from the house.

        “Yeah, screw that,” Rainbow Dash said.  “Twi?”

        “Okay, but this feels like a bad idea—”  She started to concentrate, her horn glowing hot.

        “Just do it!” I growled, my bloodshot eyes quivering.  “Before it's too—”

        There was a bright flash of lavender light.  The shadow of evening dissolved in a blink, and the four of us landed in the Straight Edge household's kitchen.  Glass bottles, porcelain plates, and metal silverware settled all around us.  The air was sour with the smell of alcohol, and I was seeing stains on the carpet that weren't there the previous day.

        “—late!” I murmured, freezing on the sight of what was before me.  Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle were identically still as statues.

        Straight Edge was levitating Snips in the air.  There was a bright glow around the struggling colt's throat, and tears were streaming from his eyes.  Autumn was draped halfway off the couch, her weak forelimbs stretching in desperation towards the struggle.  In the far corner, Windsong was curled up in the corner, her eyes bright and full of trembling horror.

        “—don't you ever, ever tell me what to do, boy!” Straight Edge was snarling.  “I know what's best for your mother, and I don't need none of your goddess-awful attitude!  I'm the one workin' my flank off for her therapy everyday!  Just what in the hay have... you... ever... contributed...?”  Straight Edge's eye twitched, then locked on the four trespassers.  He hiccuped, swayed, and merely growled.  “What in Luna's name is this crap all about—?”

        Applejack was pouncing across the room like orange lightning.  “You get yer dirty magic off him, ya mangy demon!”  She barreled right into him, head first.

        “Ooof!”  The stallion fell back and crashed through an end table.

        “Straight!” Autumn shrieked.

        Windsong wailed.

        Snips fell limply toward the ground, only for Rainbow Dash to fly over and swoop him up.  “It's okay, lil guy.  I gotcha!”

        “What in the hay is the meaning of—?”  Straight Edge gasped as a pair of heavy hooves landed on his chest.  “Ooof!”

        “Nopony... And I mean nopony should be treatin' their own flesh and blood that way!” Applejack snarled.

        “What are you doing to my husband?!” Autumn shrieked.

        “Lady!”  Rainbow Dash barked from where she cradled a sputtering Snips.  “You're dang lucky she's not kicking his lousy teeth in!”

        “Everypony, just calm down!”  Twilight exclaimed.  She was shivering heavily; I had never seen her this scared.

        “You come into my house?!”  Straight Edge struggled and shoved against Applejack's pressure.  “You stick your manes into my life?!  I should be calling the cops on you stupid wenches!”

        “Oh, wouldn't that be a hoot!”  Applejack almost spat on him.  “I'd like to just see you rat yerself out of this, ya varmint!”

        “Get off my husband!”

        Windsong wailed even louder.

        “Auugh!  Can somepony help that filly to... t-to calm...”  Rainbow Dash started to teeter in mid-air.

        “Rainbow?”  Twilight stammered.  “What's wrong?”

        “Just... Just so dizzy...”  Rainbow Dash muttered, almost letting Snips fall from her grasp.

        I looked at her, or at least I tried to.  A breath of cold vapors was blocking my sight of the pegasus.  I gasped sharply, gritted my teeth, and yanked Snips from her hooves as gently as I could.  “It's happening already!”

        “Huh?!”  Applejack looked up.  “What's happening already—Whoah nelly!”

        “Rrgggh!”  Straight Edge was shoving the mare off of him.  “I swear to Tartarus, you're going to pay for this!”

        Applejack stumbled back and slammed into a china cabinet.  Glass shattered.  The shadows of the room swayed from a lamp teetering.

        “Applejack!” Twilight cried out.

        I was dashing over to scoop Windsong up.  I planted her on my back and spun about.  “Twilight!  Get us out of here!”

        “But... But...”  Twilight began summoning a force field as Straight Edge picked up a metal poker from the fireplace and stormed angrily towards Applejack's dizzy figure.  “Everything's gone to heck—!”

        “Where do you think these two kids have been living in their whole lives?!” I exclaimed.

        “Hey!”  Rainbow Dash saw Straight Edge charging Applejack with a weapon and immediately went into action.  “What's the big idea?!”  In a blink, she was tackling the stallion to the ground, rattling paintings off the condo's walls with the impact.

        “Darn it, Twilight!” I exclaimed.  “We gotta get these foals out of here!  This may be our only chance—” Just as I said this, a frigid chill ran through the house.  “Oh Celestia, please—”

        “Nnnngh!”  Twilight was already charging energy through her horn.  Just as Straight Edge shouted something and swung a hoof at Rainbow, the two of us were blurring away along ethereal leylines.  I clung tightly to the shivering bodies of Snips and Windsong.  In less than two seconds, we stumbled to a stop against the side of a building across town.  “Ooof!”

        “Unngh!”  Twilight rolled to a stop in the moonlit grass.  She coughed and sputtered.  “I... g-got as far as I could...”  She winced and tried standing up.  “But Applejack and Rainbow Dash—”

        “They're stronger than the two of us,” I stammered, hugging the two foals close and catching my breath.  “What matters is that these kids are safe.”

        “Kids...?”  Twilight remarked, shaking her head wearily.  “I... don't understand.  Applejack... Rainbow Dash...”

        “Twilight, we both know they've got it covered—”  I stopped, blinking at her, noticing how she was rubbing her head as if coming out of a migraine.  “Wait...”

        Just then, a bright light shone on all four of us.  I winced and squinted towards what turned out to be the double-doors to town hall opening wide.

        “My word!”  The Mayor of Ponyville trotted out, gasping in shock at the sight of two unicorns and a pair of traumatized children.  Several elder ponies walked out with her, squinting and studying the awkward scene.  “What's going on out here?  It sounded like a bomb went off!”

        “We're sorry about that, Mayor,” I said.  “Twilight teleported us here.  You see, something horrible has been happening on Burton Street and—”

        “M-Mayor!”  Twilight Sparkle stood up, blinking wide.  “Why are you up so late?”

        “We were having a late night meeting of the City Council to discuss preparations for Nightmare Night.  What, may I ask, are you doing out here in the middle of the street?  It looks like you just fell from the sky.”

        “I... uh... I dunno...”  She looked my way, then scrunched her face at the sight of the trembling, bruised unicorn in my grasp.  “Snips?!  Oh my goddess!  What... What happened to him?!”

        “Twilight, you...”  I gulped.  I reached a hoof out towards her.  “Please.  Think carefully.  I know you had to have retained something...”

        “Huh?”  Twilight was trotting over.  She and the Mayor knelt down to examine Windsong and Snips.  “Retain what?  I don't understand!  What happened to these foals?”

        “Hey!  Twilight!” Rainbow Dash's voice exclaimed.

        I gasped.  I spun around and looked up high.

        The pegasus was flying towards us, breathless.  “There you are!  We need your help!”

        “What is it?”

        “It's Straight Edge!” she exclaimed.

        Twilight gawked.  The Mayor and her fellow council members murmured in concern.  Windsong and Snips sat up, shivering in fright.  A part of me deep inside was smiling...

        “You won't believe it!”  Rainbow Dash's voice cracked.  “There's been a break-in at his house!  We think somepony nabbed his kids!”

        I stopped smiling immediately.  “Hoboy...”

        The Mayor breathlessly stammered, “Straight Edge's and Autumn's children?!  Kidnapped?!”

        “Uhhh...”  Twilight Sparkle raised an eyebrow and pointed at the two foals.  “You mean these kids?”

        Rainbow Dash did a double-take, her ruby eyes twitching.  “What in the hay?!”  As she touched down, two figures trotted up from a moonlit block over.

        “Twilight!  There you are!  Did Rainbow tell y'all?!”  Applejack was also out of breath.  She brushed a blonde bang up beneath her hat and exclaimed, “Somethin' plum evil's ahoof!  Rainbow Dash and I just woke up in Straight Edge's house like we came out of a spell!  Next thing we knew, his kids were gone!”

        “It must be some kind of sorcery,” Straight Edge remarked.  “I thought you ponies defeated Nightmare Moon!  For Pete's sake, my family and I moved to Ponyville to avoid this kind of nonsense!  We have to tell the police or else—”  The stallion froze as his eyes narrowed rigidly on the two tiny unicorns in the center of the group.  “Wait a second.  What in the heck is going on here?!”

        “I... I-I wish I knew!”  Twilight Sparkle remarked, gazing at all of the equines and trembling under the cold starlight.  “Applejack?  Rainbow Dash?  You mean to say that you woke up in Straight Edge's house just now?”

        “Reckon it was on our way home from helpin' you at the library, Twilight,” Applejack said.  “Plum flummoxed if I know how we got inside his home...”  She scratched her chin.  “Oww... My limbs feel banged up somethin' fierce.  Whatever it was that knocked me and Rainbow Dash must still be out and about!”

        “Perhaps the children could shed some light on this situation,” the Mayor suggested.

        “Windsong?  Snips?”  Straight Edge stared down at them.  “You know what this is all about?”

        Windsong merely whimpered.  Snips was blinking dazedly, rubbing his neck with his hoof.

        “Well?”  Straight Edge's eyes narrowed.

        “I...”  Snips trembled, his lips quivering.  “I... I don't know...”

        “Nnnngh!” I stomped at the grass with my hooves, startling everypony.  “Snips, tell them!  Tell them the truth!  You don't have to be afraid of him!”

        Straight Edge cast me an awkward glare.  “Who's this crazy mare?!”

        “Uhhh—” Twilight started.

        I shouted again.  “Snips, don't let him intimidate you!  You're surrounded by ponies who can help you and your sister and your mother!  Tell them how your father throws you around and abuses your family!”

        “What...?!” Straight Edge backtrotted, his face twisting.

        “The hay?!”  Rainbow Dash looked crookedly at Twilight.  “Twi?!  Do you know this freaky unicorn?”

        “Uhm... Ma'am?”  Twilight gently trotted towards me.  “I... I don't know who you are, but I think you should calm down—”

        “Nnnngh!”  I shook her off, hyperventilating.  I knelt down before Snips, pleading with him.  “Snips.  Please.  Everypony deserves to be happy, especially you, especially right now!  Tell them the truth!”

        “I...”  He wilted away from me, his eyes moistening.  “I-I'm scared.  I want to go home...”

        My heart fell.  I whimpered.  “Snips.  Snips please...”

        “Y-You're scaring me, lady,” he whimpered, clutching his little sister tightly and shrinking away from my frenzied expression.  “Please, I just want to go home...”

        I almost collapsed right there.  The elder ponies behind the Mayor were murmuring hushedly among themselves.  I felt the shadows of Applejack and Rainbow Dash converging on me.

        “Simmer down there, sally.  Seems like you're a stranger around these parts, but I reckon you might be able to shed some light on this recent kidnappin'...”

        “Unless...”  Rainbow Dash's eyes grew narrow as she hissed suspiciously at me.  “...you are the kidnapper.”

        I turned.  I looked at Straight Edge.  Perhaps it was a glint from the moon.  Perhaps it was just my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw a pearly-toothed smile.  “Nnnngh—!”  Everything turned to hot, bright emerald.  As soon as the flash was over, half of the ponies were sprawled out on the ground, including Rainbow Dash and Applejack.

        I didn't bother to help them back up, for as soon as I let loose the magical discharge, I was galloping as fast as I could towards the north edge of town.  The cold of my curse pelted me between each heaving breath.  My hoodie was heavy with the sweat that had soaked it from my every pore.

        The world flickered with a kaleidoscope of moonlight through the trees overhead.  The October breeze froze my nerves.  Once I was out of earshot of the downtown area, I skidded to a stop and leaned against a park bench.  It was a very familiar spot, a place where a tranquil unicorn had once played the gentlest of songs for a lonesome colt.

        There was no room for peace, no room for happiness, not for Snips and most certainly not for this pariah.

        A low growl fluttered up my lungs, boiled through my throat, and exploded out my mouth.  The world flashed emerald again.  There was a crackle of thunder, like her furious wrath rippling across the unsung realm, and with a weight akin to the holy Nightbringer, I unleashed a wave of unbridled magic ahead of me.  The bench shattered to wooden splinters, splattering debris all across the grassy hilltop beyond.

        The only thing more distressing than my wanton act of destruction was the bitter knowledge that anypony who saw it the next morning would simply explain it away with some accursed excuse or another.  Shaking my head and fighting the tears, I galloped towards my cabin.

        The Threnody bled into the Requiem.  The strings of the Nightbringer rang shrilly, harshly, like my gnashing teeth.  I lifted my head and glared into the swirling tempests.  Lightning radiated all around me, but the thunder of the unsung realm wasn't enough to drown out my shouting voice.

        “Come down from there!” I growled.  “Come down from your high throne and play 'Desolation's Duet' with me!”

        The spheres within spheres levitated, loomed, but did not descend.  Bolts of lightning illuminated several moaning ponies crawling across the platform in the shadow of her lofty presence.  Jets of water sprayed across the scene, and yet nothing changed.

        “I'm not asking you!  I'm telling you!” I hissed and sneered into the freezing gale.  “You're going to come down here and help me finish the Nocturne and you're going to do it now!  Then I'll be out of your life, out of your mane, and out of this damnable pit in the universe that you call a home!  I know you don't want me around, so let's get it over with!  Get your undead flank down here and let us kill the music together!”

        A ring of lightning boiled around the sphere, coalesced into a furious branch of energy, and rocketed down towards me.  I clung heavily to the Nightbringer, summoning a shield around me that deflected all of her wrath.  The concussive blast blew the rusted platform dry, knocking moaning souls off their haunches.

        “Nnngh!”  I fought against the vaporous tumult, shouting over the ringing body of the Nightbringer.  “I will not sing your song!  You will sing mine, dammit!”

        Another strobe of energy bulleted my way.  I weathered the onslaught, fighting it back with my energy, grinding my hooves into the rust and grime below.  As the thunder settled, I stared up, gnashing my teeth as tears ran down my face.

        “I hate you...”

        The sphere slowly, gently flew away.

        “I hate you!” I screamed into the chaos between firmaments.  “Damn you and damn your putrid symphony!  Damn you and your booming voice and your shattered wings and your cold spirit and your pathetic neutrality and your holier-than-thou aloofness!  It's no wonder that the only ponies you have to rule over are pathetic waifs!  You're the queen of nothing but the heartless, thoughtless, trotting dead!  Who in their right mind could ever possibly love you?!  Certainly not the Cosmic Matriarch!  I think it's fitting that she dumped you inside this horrible toilet between dimensions!  What kind of a goddess has so much power and so much strength and yet doesn't lift a single hoof to make the world any better?!  What's so special and tragic about your life that you have to hide in here like a stubborn little foal having a tantrum in her room?!”

        The sphere flew off, disappearing into the tempests, looming beyond earshot.

        Nevertheless, I snarled, “You're selfish!  You hear me?!  You're selfish and you're a coward!  Maybe instead of rewriting history, you should think of improving the future!  Your sisters are doing it!  Why can't you?!”  I clutched the Nightbringer to the point of breaking and spat, “All I want is to be real!  To make a difference!  To help ponies around me!  But you just can't have that, can you?!  You know what?!  I don't care how powerful you think you are!  I have the Nightbringer, you insufferable demoness!  I have all of eternity to scream at you!  And so help me, if all you want is for me to be a ghost, then I'm going to haunt you until the end of time!  You hear me?!  You will not have any rest in this pathetic grave you call a home!  I won't let you rest!  I won't let you rest, you stupid waste of song!  I won't let you!”

        All was madness and cold.  I sat upon the brink of the drowning abyss, shivering, standing on the only source of warmth I had left.

        And the source of that warmth bred a lasting scream through my lips as I tossed my hooves in frustration, grumbled, and played “Penumbra's Echo” on the Nightbringer.

        I stood before my cabin, my hooves occupying the middle of the dirt road to the north of town.  I was several feet away from my patio, but I couldn't bring my limbs any closer to it.  I was perfectly still; not even the lingering cold of the unsung realm made me shiver.

        There was a light from behind the windows where I had left a lantern lit.  I knew that somewhere inside, Al was either sleeping or inspecting his half-empty food dish, perhaps purring—wondering when I would show up again.

        I couldn't see him.  Not then.  Not anytime soon.

        With a deep breath, I turned and glanced at the morning light glowing over the edge of the horizon.  I teetered briefly, remembering all of the things I had been through recently, and yet still ignoring all of the sleep I had lost over them.

        My hooves shuffled.  I pivoted and mutely faced the path towards Ponyville.

        “Hmmm?”  Ambrosia lifted her hard hat, wiped the sweat from her pale brow, and plopped the article back down in the afternoon light.  “Straight Edge?  Yeah, the feller works with me all the time; he's a good laborer.  It's not often that we have a unicorn who's willin' to get his hooves dirty in our line of construction.  Plus, heh, I reckon that horn of his is pretty darn useful, what with all of our machinery goin' on the fritz from time to time.  T'ain't no accident that he earned himself a jackhammer for a cutie mark.  Ya feel me?”

        “I'm... not concerned about how he works,” I slurred, standing before her on the edge of a partially built house on the edge of town.  Drills and hammers were sounding off on either side of me.  I winced and tried to keep my hooves straight.  “I was wondering where he goes when he's done for the day.”

        “Hey, you alright, Missy?” Ambrosia asked, her green gaze narrowing.  “Them eyes of yours are pretty dang bloodshot.”

        “I'm fine,” I grunted.  “If you wanna know the truth...”  I gulped dryly, brushing my mane straight with an errant hoof.  “I'm... I'm the stallion's neighbor, and his shouting is keeping me up at night.”

        “Shoutin'?  Straight Edge?”  Ambrosia made a face.  “Ya tryin' to say that things ain't all that peachy-keen in his household?”

        “Does that surprise you?”

        “Well... Heh...”  Ambrosia shrugged, smiling awkwardly.  “He complains a lot about his wife naggin' on him, but that's just usual talk, y'know.  It's custom to make jabs at our significant others, what with how much tougher our line of work is than most ponies'.  But I never thought much of it.  Heck, even my coltfriend has overheard us from time to time and he's snickered quite a bit—”

        “Look, can you just...”  I shook my head, sighed, and murmured “Could you just tell me... uhm... where he usually goes before heading on home?  Because I happen to know for a fact that he doesn't return to the condominium until evening time.”

        “Well...”  Ambrosia fidgeted.  “There's really only one place where most hard-workin' ponies go when the sun goes down...”

        I stood inside the atrium of the Copper Crown Tavern that night.  I'd never entered that place before.  Upon smelling the interior, I realized why.  The air hung with a hazy mist.  In the furthest reaches of the dimly lit establishment, ponies coughed, muttered unintelligible words, and surrendered to deep mugs of ale.  A record player was playing a crackling rendition of a thirty year old folk song.  The speakers were in need of repair, and the music that came out of them resembled the grinding of sandpaper.  Nopony seemed to mind; they all had glossy-eyed expressions, especially the closer they hovered about the bar at the lengthy end of the place.

        Two figures in particular were louder than the rest of the tavern's occupants.  One of them was a pink-coated unicorn mare with even pinker locks of hair.  The other one... was the target of my insomniac escapade.

        “Yup...”  Straight Edge smirked blearily, took a sip of his mug, and scratched his stubbled chin.  “I was part of the crew that built the Equine State Building.  I trotted catwalks and platforms with the best of them, riveting pillars into place with pure magic.  All the earth ponies had to follow my lead, of course.  You know how it is with those poor saps.  Without magic, they're as useful as mud.”

        “Heheheh... You said it!”  The unicorn cooed, batting her eyelashes.  “They must have really depended on your expertise.”

        “Darn tootin'.”

        “How's the skyrise of Manehattan from such a high place?” Her eyes narrowed as her cheeks flushed.  “It must be breathtaking!”

        “Mmmff...”  Straight Edge took another sip, gulped down his ale, and smiled liquidly her way.  “Trust me, I know a thing or two about taking breaths away, and they both involve my horn.”

        “Heeheehee...”  She fluffed her mane and leaned back against the counter.  “Do they, now?”

        I took a deep breath.  Icily, I trotted forward.

        “This place stinks,” Straight Edge muttered.

        “What, the bar or this country hick town?”

        “Both.  Wanna go somewhere that's really sweet, babe?”  Straight Edge asked.  “Someplace where it's easier to take your breath away?”

        I hopped up and squatted on the stool next to the stallion.  “I'd not choose the couch.  Autumn sleeps on it all the time, apparently.”

        Straight Edge paled.

        The mare craned her neck and raised an eyebrow at me.  “I beg your pardon?”

        “I don't mean the October weather,” I muttered without looking.  My tired eyes blinked as I stared into the bar.  “I mean the name of a mare, a mare who happens to be this pony's wife.”

        The unicorn squinted hard.  She looked quizzically at me, then back to Straight Edge.  “I don't... What is this?”

        “Pffft... Please...”  Straight Edge chuckled awkwardly.  “You gonna believe the first words to come out of the mouth of any dumb broad who just trots in here?”

        “No,” she muttered, then frowned.  “I suppose I could just stick around long enough until I become a 'dumb broad' to you as well.”

        “Uhhh... Uhhh...”

        “Excuse me,” the mare grunted and dismounted from her stool.  “But you're right.  This place stinks.  I think I'll be leaving before it gets more rank.”  She slowly left the tavern with a toss of her mane.

        Straight Edge took a deep breath.  His hooves scraped viciously across the bar as he swiveled to aim a glass-cutting glare my way.  “Bet you had fun there, huh?  Give me one good reason why I shouldn't bend your horn into your eye, lady...”

        “I know what you do to your children, Straight Edge,” I droned.

        He stared blankly at me.  Something wet was soaking his rear legs.  He jumped, seething as he realized that he had let his mug tip over into his lap.  He slapped the container down onto the counter and brushed himself off before flashing me an odd squint.  “How... did you know my name?”

        “You heard me just now, didn’t you?”  I turned to stare unemotionally at him.  “I know what you do to Snips and Windsong.”

        He was silent as stone.  I saw no flicker of conscience in his eyes.

        That didn't stop me from murmuring onward, “I know that you strangle Snips' until he can barely breathe.  I know that you pile all of your troubles, hate, and fear on the poor colt's innocent head.  I know that you insult Windsong's intelligence and stunt her growth.  On top of all that, I know that you hide all of your ugliness, all of your cruelty, and all of your vices behind the façade of being a good husband for a poor unicorn invalid whom you stopped loving ages ago, as if you ever did to begin with.”

        Straight Edge glared at me, his weathered features frozen in place.  In the background, the record was skipping.  The sound of scratching thundered briefly through the speakers as the bartender flipped the disc over and trotted back to the bar.

        “Another drink, Edge?”

        Straight Edge mutely nodded, holding up his mug.  The bartender filled his container, then walked up to me.  I gently waved him off, and he went back to his duties.

        Coolly, Straight Edge took another drink, swallowed, and gazed at me.  “What the heck is this, anyways?”

        I stared tiredly at him.  It had been twenty-four hours of restless wandering before this moment came, and I could still smell the unsung rust on my exhausted body.  I hoped to Celestia that he could smell it too.

        “This is the closest thing you're ever going to have to a conscience,” I muttered.  “You need to stop what you're doing.  You need to stop destroying yourself.  I don't know what grief you've been going through, or what pain you're trying to mask.  But you are meant to be the pillar of your family.  As soon as you let yourself collapse—your faculties and your strengths and your morals—your family will only cave in along with you.  That's three lives that you could have been protecting that instead you are throwing into the garbage.  Autumn needs you more than ever; that was the reason for moving to this town to begin with, yes?  Snips needs a father that can inspire him, not intimidate and anger the poor guy.  Your frustration and your wrath: it is being channeled into Snips' peers and friends at school, and if left unchecked it will turn him into a monster.  And Windsong?  The filly is young, innocent, and full of potential.  She's an artist at heart who has yet to discover her cutie mark, and you're wrecking any chance she has to enjoy the most endearing, most pivotal moment of her young life.”

        I finally pivoted on the stool and faced him, leaning forward with a sincere glint to my eyes.

        “And what for?  Another day spent hiding your anxiety at the bottom of a mug?  Another night of yelling fits and domestic strife?  I know you hate this town, Straight Edge.  I don't know the reason for your hate, but if you took a step back and looked very carefully, you'd realize that this town doesn't hate you.  This place is full of love, full of hope, full of ponies who only want what's best for each other.  Why can't...”

        I choked on a seething breath, gritted my teeth, and whispered.

        “What's so hard, so difficult, so goddess-awfully challenging about the simple notion of accepting help, and admitting you need to change?  Admitting that... that you're going about this the wrong way?  That it's not too late to begin again, for your family, for yourself?”

        Straight Edge looked at me, his nostrils flaring.  He took another sip of his mug, exhaled, and muttered to the musty air of the place, “You know, I used to believe in love.”  He stared at the edge of his container as he swirled it around in his grasp.  His eyes were twin, jaded marbles.  “I used to believe in change.  I used to believe in hope and prosperity and all that fruity junk.  Heck, I was once as bright and colorful as you.  I believed in all that crap so much that I married myself into it.  Autumn and I had a wedding.  Both of our families were there, smiling.  There was celebration, cake, balloons.  We had our honeymoon, and it was... really... really sweet.  And after that, you know what I found out?”

        I blinked curiously at him.  “What was it?  What did you find out?”

        He took another sip, sighed, and—with a snarl—flung the mug murderously into my face.

        The shot to my horn was electric enough to wake me from death.  Instead, I fell to the floor amidst shards and suds of ale.  My ears rang from my collision with the floorboard.  Grimacing, I looked up through a trickle of blood to see Straight Edge's hooves landing beside me.  My vision trailed up his limbs until I saw a dragonesque snarl to his face as he spat at me.

        “That all mares are good for nothing leeches!” Straight Edge's voice roared above the sound of nearby patrons gasping.  “Acute Magical Disconnect is genetic!  That conniving harlot knew she had it before she even started dating me!  And a single year... a single friggin' year into our marriage, she becomes a coughing, hacking fit!  This so called 'love' you speak so highly about is what ensnared me into being her lifelong money wallet to begin with!  Do I hate my children?!  You're damn right I detest those stinkin' brats!  I hate every goddess-forsaken thing that's squirted out of her!  Balls and chains are still balls and chains, no matter how cute they are or much they sob their stupid heads off every time I try to teach them right!  You wanna talk about change?!  You wanna talk about hope?!  Well nothing's ever gonna get frickin' fixed so long as they treat me with the same disrespect as their worthless mother!”

        “That's enough, Edge!” the bartender growled over the counter.  I hadn't realized until now that he had spent the last thirty odd seconds trying to yell above the stallion's enraged voice.  He gripped his hoof around what resembled a metal a club as he glared at the drunkard.  “I don't care how horrible your Missus is.  You don't go tossing patrons around.  Not in my tavern.”

        I stared silently up at Straight Edge, my brow quivering from the fresh pain still coursing through my body.

        He stood, fuming, cracking the joints in his neck.  As everypony nervously watched, he picked a saddlebag up from a nearby stool and fitted it calmly over his haunches.  Eventually, he pointed at me and grumbled, “I don't know what stunt you're trying to pull, lady.  If it's the bleeding hearts back at Manehattan Social Services, then you can just take a hike.  But if I found out that she sent you... if she thought that this was her cowardly way of getting back at me...”  He leered as he marched out the door.  “I swear to Luna, they're gonna find both of your heads wrapped up in that dirt rag you call a jacket.”  He brushed past two patrons and kicked the door open with a rattling of hinges.  Starlight briefly parted the haze and disappeared as the door shut on the stunned crowd.

        I sat up, running a hoof up and calmly feeling the warm blood crawling down my cheek.  I looked at my stained limb.

        “Like that punk even deserves a tab at this point,” the bartender grumbled from behind.  He sighed.  “I thought I left all the filth back at Mareami....”  He leaned over and looked down at me.  “Hey, you look busted up pretty bad.  Can I get you something for that?”

        My eyes returned to the door and the cold October night lingering beyond.

        “Ma'am?”

        I took a deep, deep breath.

        “Ma'am, are you okay?”

        Straight Edge marched down the center of Ponyville.  The moonlight cast a lanky reflection across the dirt and grass.  Teetering left and right, he mumbled and grumbled to himself.  His eyes blinked, growing progressively more tired with each flutter.

        He approached a series of closed shops in the market district.  Every store was abandoned.  Every light was out.  A cold wind blew through the street, rustling dust and leaves across the emptiness.

        “Hrmmf... Frickin' bunch of dirt farmers, I swear to Tartarus...”

        After such an eloquent statement, he reached back into his saddlebag and pulled out a steel flask.  He twisted the cap off with telekinesis, his lips curving slightly.  He raised the thing to his lips and took a deep swig.

        “Mmmmff... nnngh... heheh... 'Ambrosia.'  Heh... wonder if she tastes as good as she sounds.  Heheheh...”

        He swirled the flask and lifted it to his lips once again.  Nothing went down his throat.

        “Huh?”  He blinked, then realized that he was no longer holding the container.  Looking down, he saw that the flask had fallen into the dirt, leaking fluid everywhere.  “Oh, for pete's sake...”

        Straight Edge bent down to pick the flask back up.

        It suddenly shifted from him.

        He blinked, his brow furrowing.  “The hay?!” he remarked, his breath coming out in cold vapors.  He watched with a slight shiver as the flask slid out of the street and into the shadow of a nearby alley.  His face grimaced.  In a drunken stupor, he gazed up at the night sky.  He wasn't feeling a brisk wind.  Nevertheless, Straight Edge frowned and marched directly after the flask.

        The darkness of the thin alleyway enshrouded him.  He stumbled into a trash can or two, cursing under his breath as a rat squeaked and darted past his teetering legs.  Marching over a pile of lumber, be squinted into the deep niche between buildings.  Finally, he saw a dim glint of moonlight.

        “There you are.  Ugh... Dang thing's probably covered in filth now.”  He walked over to the flask.  He bent over to pick it up.

        And that was when the two-by-four slammed mercilessly into his rear fetlocks.

        “Aaaaugh!” He shrieked, immediately collapsing forward onto his chest.  Straight Edge's muzzle plowed into the concrete.  His entire body jerked as he tried to rock his weight back.

        The same two-by-four pivoted in mid-air, spun with a glow of green magic, and slammed into the knee of his right foreleg.

        “Nnngh—Goddess!” He yelped, his echoing voice muffled by the height of the two-story brick walls.  He rolled over to the ground, paralyzed, clutching his right forelimb and hissing.  “Snkkkkt... Aaaagh... haaugh...”

        The two-by-four was cracked down the center, splintering at the edges.  Still, this didn't stop me from dragging it telekinetically across the floor as I marched out of the shadows and loomed above him.  My eyes twitched.  The shadows were alive with sparks, my sparks.

        He squealed like an animal giving birth.  I could only wish this moment was that holy.  He squinted my way, and a bolt of fear shimmered across his glistening eyes.  “Who in the hay are you?!”

        That snarling voice: I suddenly imagined how fitting it would be for rusted shackles to be covering his lips.  I adorned his mouth with the full length of the wooden bludgeon instead.  With a crack of nebulous thunder, he keeled over, spitting blood into the moonlight.  The air smelled of copper, like the rust of the unsung realm.  I hovered above him, allowing him a feeble chorus of wheezes and whimpers to the bricklaid theatre surrounding us.

        “Who am I?” I monotoned.  “It doesn't matter.  You won't remember.  And even if you did, it wouldn't matter.  You'll still be the one thing poisoning three innocent ponies... a family who has let your anger, ignorance, and bitterness imprison them for far too long.”

        “Nnngh... Is... Is this... Is this about money?!”  Straighted Edge hacked and sputtered my way.  I saw his brow furrowed in the dead kiss of night.  Even in pain and paralysis, all he had to live on was anger.  “Just take my damn saddlebag, ya frickin' psycho!”

        “This is not about bits!” I shouted and pressed the sharp edge of the sundered bludgeon against his bruised knee.  He winced and squirmed as I howled down at him, “This is about tranquility!  This is about happiness!  Things that will never see the light of day in your household so long as you have power in that worthless horn of yours to bully your children to lifeless husks!”

        “This... This is about those brats?!”  Straight Edge squeaked, his eyes turning round in horror and disbelief.  “Lady, you can have them!  Say the word, and I'll do anything!  J-Just stop hurting me!”

        “No...”  I hissed.  “No, you won't change.”  My entire body was shivering.  Somewhere, the Nightbringer could have been vibrating, and I still wouldn't have been able to tell from the divine ringing in my blood-rushed ears.  “Which is why I'm the one who has to make the change, while it's still within my power to do so...”

        “What...”  His face grimaced in confusion.  “Wh-What?!”

        “Didn't you hear me the first time?!”  I was fuming; my horn had become a hot, emerald beacon.  The shattered two-by-four lifted in my telekinetic grasp, casting a haunted shimmer across the coffin-thin alleyway.  “Nopony will know the difference!  Not even you!  I'm a ghost in this town.  History will lurch by, and not a soul will know I was ever here.  But you?!  Who will miss you when you're gone?!”

        “Please.  Please, lady—”

        “Who is going to miss you?!” I screamed.

        He raised his good forelimb over his face, trembling.

        I was raising the club higher and higher.  I seethed.

        Just smash his horn.  Get rid of it.  He won't be able to torture his children anymore.

        He shivered beneath an emerald shadow.  I smelled garbage and sweat and urine.

        Just get rid of the horn... That's all...

        I clenched my teeth.  The air was full of vapors.  I saw tempests billowing beyond him with each pulsing artery.  Thousands upon thousands of souls wailed her song forever.  It was melancholic, wholesome, righteous...

        Just get rid of him.  Get rid of him.  Get rid of...

        The closet was full of stuffed animals.  Moondancer sat in the midst of them, hugging herself, sobbing.  I curled up close, but Snips said nothing.  She was covered in bruises, confused and alone, with the rain pouring beyond the stairwell like a funeral veil.  I pleaded and pleaded for him to tell Twilight and the others the truth, but he refused.  The school courtyard was lonely and foggy after she left me.  I could never understand pain, could never understand suffering.  Straight Edge couldn't understand it either, even then, even as he stared up at me with a bleeding mouth, waiting for me to deliver the final stroke.  Soon, nopony would be left to understand.

        Except me.

        My seething melted into heaving breaths.  My horn stopped glowing.  The alleyway reverberated with the echoes of the falling club as I fell to my haunches.  My hooves covered my mouth, but it was not enough to dam up the sobs.  They came out of me like scalpels, tearing me wide open and inviting tears to wash away the horror of the moment.  They failed.

        I hyperventilated, cowering against the alley wall across from the quivering stallion.  His body was branded in my name with bruises and cuts.  Every second I spent staring at them, they disappeared beneath a curtain of mist.  I was a shivering, crying wreck.  Somewhere, a voice whimpered forth.

        “Are you... Are you...”  I squeaked, wheezed, and stammered, “C-can you feel your legs?”

        He didn't answer me.  He was too busy shivering.  A cold chill had fallen over the thin space between buildings, and he was spitting blood and vapors into the space between his aching limbs.

        I gulped.  I reached a hoof out towards him.  “Sir... Sir, are you okay—”

        “Nnnngh!”  He shook me off, snarling, the whites of his eyes flaring wildly in the moonlight.  “Aaaugh!  Get away from me!”

        I jolted from him, gulping a lump down my throat.  “I... I'm not...”  My face cracked.  “I'm not going to h-hurt you...”

        “Haaaugh... Goddess!  Goddess, where am I?!  H-how'd this happen?”

        “Please.  I promise, I'm not going to hurt you...”  I tried smiling.  I only sobbed more instead.  “I'm going to get you some help.  Please...”

        “Gnnngh... Just what I friggin' need!  Damn it to Tartarus!”

        “I'm going to get you healed.  Just...”  I shook my head and gently enshrouded him with emerald magic.  “Just trust me, Mr. Edge.  Shhh... You're going to be okay.”

        “How... How did you know...?” He started, but hissed in pain as I did my expert best to levitate him slowly off the floor.

        In a slow lurch, I carried him across town under the stagnant stars.  It took an arduous amount of time.  He forgot me at least four times along the way, each time falling into a steeper and steeper panic attack, until the pain and confusion finally overwhelmed him and the battered stallion fell unconscious.  It was the first chance I had to hear my own panting breath, and I detested it more than anything that had ever graced my ears before.

        The next afternoon, I sat on a bench outside Ponyvile Central Hospital.  My mane was a mess.  My hoodie smelled of sweat and tears.  I heard the hooves of ponies shuffling to a stop as they trotted by me.  They must have been taking their sweet time to stare at my figure.  I could only guess; I had my face cradled in my forelimbs the entire time.

        There was no sleeping.  There was no falling unconscious to this.  My heart pulsed steadily, guiltily, for the better part of the agonizingly long day.  For once, the chill of the curse wasn't enough to cool the heated knot forming in my stomach.

        Finally, once my sanity had stretched to the breaking point, I heard the doors to the hospital's front entrance sliding open.  I stood up, rubbing the crusty stains of tears off my cheek.  I turned and looked, my lips quivering.

        Straight Edge limped out.  He had a crutch around his right forelimb.  His rear limbs were bound in gauze, but they managed to carry his weight.  A bandage covered half of his face.  To my mixed shock, he looked far more angry than in pain.  Grumbling to himself, he gave the sunny sky a dejected look, and shuffled ahead with an awkward gait.

        He was in one piece.  Never before in my life did I want to rejoice and hide all at once.  Instead, I boldly jumped off the bench, winced from stiff legs, and trotted over to him.

        “Mister... uh... Mister Edge...”

        “Nnngh...”  He took an extraordinary amount of time to turn around and glare at me.  “What in the hay do you want?”

        “Are you... erm...”  I fiddled with the sleeves of my hoodie.  “Are you okay?  I mean, did the doctors say if you suffered anything truly—?”

        “Ughh!”  He retched and tilted away from me.  “Get away from me, ya stinkin' hobo!  Goddess, I hate this town!”

        “Please, I must know—”

        “For one, no, I'm not okay!”  He snarled.  “The damn doctors want to suck me for every bit I got.  And for another, why in the flippin' heck would a bum like you care?”

        “I—”

        “Get lost, lady!” he grumbled.  “I swear to Luna, I can't swing a dead cat in this world without running into a stupid broad!  Gaaaaghh!”  He growled as he lurched ahead, swearing up a storm beneath his breath before adding, “Last time I have more than three drinks at the Copper Crown.  The place is a dump anyways...”

        I sat on my haunches, gazing after him, hugging myself.  The afternoon wore on, and I eventually swiveled about and trotted slowly north.

        The door opened limply to my cabin.  Al immediately pattered up and mewed, rubbing my front limbs affectionately.

        I gazed dully at him.  I saw his empty food dish.  Without saying a word, I hovered his bag of feed over and poured some of its contents into the container.  I was about halfway through the task when my magic went limp.  The bag slumped to the ground, and so did I.  I sat with my flank to the cot, staring into space.

        Al's tail flicked.  He gazed at me, then at the mess of food.  His whiskers twitched, and suddenly I felt his warm paws crawling up my sweaty body as he sniffed at my muzzle.

        I blinked a few times.  I looked at him.  I weakly raised a hoof up.

        He rubbed against it, nuzzling me closely and purring.

        I gulped.  Quietly, I brought both forelimbs up and engulfed him in a hug.  I felt his warmth close to me, and I began sniffling.  Clenching my eyes shut, my lips moved to outrace the tears.

        “Why can't I do it, Alabaster?” I whimpered.  “Why do I have to be so terribly, stupidly grounded?  Why can't I do what needs to be done?  I've been a ghost f-for a year now, and... and I just w-won't embrace it.  I... I can do so much.  I can make a difference.  Nopony would need to know what it took.  Nopony would n-need to know what I've done to m-make the world more harmonious...”

        Al curled up against me, adjusting his little furry body to my shivering curves.  He tilted his orange face up and meowed.

        A whimper escaped my mouth.  I shuddered and said, “But I would know.”  I held him close and nuzzled him, the tears flowing.  “I would know.”  The sobs came softer this time.  I released into the feline's purring side, my voice muffled.  “Heaven help me, Alabaster.  But I'm glad you're gone.  You won't have to see it when it happens...”  I raised my head and stared, hyperventilating, towards where the Nightbringer was hidden.  “You won't have to see me become her...”

        Al innocently clung to me as my tears dried up on their own.  An hour or so later, I finished feeding him.  Then, as evening fell, I turned the lights out, curled up into the cold of my cot, and finally—fitfully—fell asleep.

        I strummed my lyre in the crisp morning air, testing each experimental note against the October breeze, in a desperate attempt to eke whatever lonesome dreams I may have had the night before.  I didn't have a chance to remember anything, for soon Cheerilee's voice was merrily chirping in my ear.

        “I'm so glad that Professor Blue Noise sent you in the first place, but I'm even happier that you overcame your bout with the flu to show up today!”  She grinned brighter than the rising sun.  In the schoolyard before us, the schoolfoals frolicked and played, enjoying their spare time on the playground before it was time for the start of class.  “You can't believe how much of a blessing your visit is to my students.  They've been dying to hear about Equestrian music history ever since I made the announcement that we'd have a guest speaker!”

        “Out of curiosity,” I tiredly mumbled.  “What have you been studying all week before I came by?”

        “Oh, the usual rudimentary math, geometry, and—” Cheerilee paused, her emerald eyes blinking.  “Huh...”  She rubbed her chin, squinting.  “Or did I teach those geometry lessons last week?  It's... all a blur for some reason...”

        I took a deep breath.  “Well...”  I gave her a weathered smile as I played another tune on the lyre.  “I'm sure you kept them happy all the same.  And that's what matters when it comes to children.”

        “Well, happiness is a good thing.  Learning, however—heheheh—We can't forget that, now can we!”

        “We... can forget many things,” I said.  I cleared my throat and shrugged.  “I guess what I'm trying to say is that you mean more to these kids than knowledge.  You... you bring them joy and excitement, Miss Cheerilee.  That's something that can't fade from the mind, for it becomes embedded in the heart.”

        She smiled, her ruby cheeks flushing, if that was even possible.  “I like the way you think, Miss Heartstrings.  Or... heehee... should I say 'feel?'”  Her eyes squinted in a brief expression of concern.  “Might I ask, though, if you're sure that you're in good health?”

        “Yes, Miss Cheerilee.  I'm quite fine.”

        “Because if you're still under the weather, I'm sure Professor Blue Noise would be more than willing to reschedule until sometime after the upcoming field trip to Canterlot—”

        “Trust me,” I said with a hint of a growl.  Clearing my throat, I gave her the most serene smile I could manage.  “I've... I've never been more lucid in my life.”

        She blinked at that, smiling sheepishly.  “Well, alrighty then.  I guess we all could do with a bit of—”  Her head pivoted aside and her eyes lit up.  “Big Mac!  You're here!”

        “Eeeeyup.”

        “Oh!  And you brought more lumber for the upcoming winter!”  She shot up from the picnic table beside me.  “Here, let me help you with those!”  She turned and winked at me.  “Excuse me just one moment, Miss Heartstrings.  This shouldn't take long.”

        “Just... uh... don't wander too far,” I remarked.

        “Heehee!  Perish the thought!  Ahem...”  She trotted over to the big red stallion as he stood beside the woodbox next to the school building.  “Now be careful!  I know you're a big fellow, but anypony can get splinters!”  He merely chuckled and allowed the schoolteacher to lend a hoof.

        I watched from afar.  I was still strumming on the lyre, but was barely aware of the melody I was making, if any.  After my first night's sleep in days, that entire morning felt like a dreamy haze.  Then, just like any other vision, I had a wake-up call in the sound of a familiar, rasping voice.

        “How many times do I have to tell ya, Snails?”  Snips grumbled as he waddled within proximity of the picnic table.  “I don't want to play any games right now!”

        “Awwwwww come onnnn!” Snails bounded after him, pouting.  “But you never wanna hang out anymore!”

        “I'm just tired,” Snips grumbled.  “And if I wanna get better at pop quizzes, I gotta study and stuff!”

        Snails' face contorted in confusion.  “Errrr... Since when were you so concerned about quizzes?”

        “Who cares?!” Snips snapped at his tall companion.  “So maybe I don't wanna be goofing off all the time!  Maybe I don't wanna be worthless!”

        Snails leaned his head curiously to the side.  “You're not worthless, Snips,” he muttered.  “You're my bestest friend.”

        Snips closed his eyes, revealing a slight bruise along his left lid.  He sighed and grumbled, “We can hang out later, okay, Snails?  Go somewhere and... chase butterflies, or whatever it is you do when I'm not around to keep you out of trouble.”

        “Butterflies?”  Snails stood up straight, blinking steadily.  He suddenly gasped, his entire body jumping.  “I gotta go save the flowers!”  He scampered across the busy playground in a tan blur.

        “Unnngh...”  Snips waddled over until he all-but-bumped into me.  “Oh.  Music!”  He looked up at me, or more appropriately my lyre, squinting.  “Hey, uh... You must be that musician that Cheerilee kept telling the class about.”

        I looked calmly at him.  I didn't say anything... not at first.

        “But... like... I thought you were too sick to show up or something?”

        After a breath, I gave him a weathered smile.  “I got better.”

        “Oh.”  He nodded, then gazed towards the grass beneath his hooves.  “That's good, I guess.”

        “I couldn't miss an opportunity to teach a schoolroom full of foals,” I said, strumming another random tune.  “Sharing music is the joy of my life, and I feel that... that everypony deserves to be happy.”

        “Heh.  If you say so,” Snips muttered, toying at the ground with one hoof and then the other.  “You picked a silly place to do it.”

        “Oh?”

        “Yeah.  School is so... so boring,” he muttered.  “Now if this was a stage or the Ponyville talent show or... or...”

        “Do you hate school?” I asked.

        “Well...”  His brow furrowed.  “No, I guess not.  I mean, yeah, sure, it's boring.  But I get to see a bunch of other foals.  I get to play jokes on classmates.”  He snickered.  “I get to hang out with Snails, even if he's a clueless dunce half the time.”

        “It's relaxing, isn't it?”  I said.  “Like a good song that keeps changing but stays gentle all the time?”

        He bit his lip.  I heard a sniffling sound, and his head tilted away from my eyes as he muttered, “'Relaxing' is good...”

        I looked at the lyre, then at him.  “When was the last time you got a chance to listen to music?”

        “I...”  He was still looking away from me.  His little shoulders shook.  “My mom used to sing to me.  But... But she doesn't do lullabies anymore.”

        “No?”

        “Nah...”  He sighed.  “It wouldn't be right.”

        “Wouldn't be right?”

        He was silent.

        “You remember them at least, right?”  I asked.  “Do they relax you to think of them?”

        He turned to look up at me.  His eyes were misty.

        “Listen to me...”  I leaned over, smiling softly.  “The music doesn't ever have to die, not so long as we can stand to be happy, wherever we are.  It's what we deserve, after all, each and every one of us.”

        Slowly, his face reflected my smile back.  His tail flicked.  “You're really gonna share some songs with the class today?”

        “Mmmhmmm,” I said with a nod.  “It's... It's the least I can do for you, kiddo.”

        “Heh...”  He nodded slowly, gazing towards the school building where Cheerilee was helping Big Mac with the lumber.  “I think I'd like that.”

        “Hey, boy!  C'mere!”

        Snips' body instantly jolted.  I saw his teeth clench.  With a shiver, he spun about, briefly blurting, “Gotta go!”

        I watched as he scampered out of the schoolyard, up a grassy knoll, and into the shadow of a haunting stallion along the dirt path.  My breath left me and I stopped strumming the lyre.

        “You deaf, brat?” Straight Edge grumbled from where he stood on the side of the road with his crutches.  “I said get your flank over here!”

        Snips was frozen in place.  For a moment, I didn't understand why, until I saw him shiver from a cold chill running up his body.  “Unnngh... Huh?  Dad?  How did—?”

        “What are you waiting for?”

        “I... I don't know.  I was just... What was I doing?”

        “You come to me when I call for you!  Ya hear?”

        “Mmm...”  Snips hung his horned head.  “Yes, Dad.”

        “Don't 'yes, Dad' me,” Straight Edge grumbled, then motioned with his bandaged neck.  “Shut up and come along.  We're going home.”

        Snips' face scrunched up in confusion.  “Uhhh... H-home?”

        “Yes.  You heard me.  Home.”

        “But... But...”  He turned and looked over his shoulder at the playground and the bright red building beyond.  “It's a schoolday!  Should I really be going home?”

        Straight Edge spun about, his eyes burning like hot coals.  “What have I told you about sassin' me in public?!”  His horn glowed and there was a fierce, telekinetic tug to Snips' forelimb, dragging the colt towards the adult unicorn.  “I got battered by Goddess-knows-what on my way home last night!  I'm already paying the doctors out my ears, and now I just found out from my boss at the construction site that I'm not allowed to work until my leg heals up!  Which means you're going to have to be at home to help your dear old father around the house!”

        “But... But...”

        “You gonna give me lip?!  After years of me cleaning up after your crap and buying the food on your plate?  You owe me, boy.  Don't worry about school.  I'm sure your mom has some books for you to learn from at home.  Celestia knows she spends all the dang time sitting on her flank, reading them.”

        “Okay...”  Snips dully murmured, hanging his head.

        “Ugh...”  Straight Edge began limping towards the center of town, wincing with each twist of the crutches against his right forelimb.  “And let's not drag our tails, ya hear me?!  This is embarrassing enough as it is, not that I expect you to understand any...”

        I saw them beginning to march away.  I turned and looked the opposite way.  Cheerilee and Big Mac were finishing up with the lumber, completely oblivious.  I could have said something.  I could have rushed over and told them about Straight Edge whisking Snips' away.  I could have done so many bold and dramatic things.

        I chose to do something else instead.  With a calm breath, I levitated the lyre in front of me and loudly—but steadily—strummed a very dear tune to the October winds.

        Straight Edge and Snips were trotting further down the dirt road.  I was starting to have a hard time making out the colt's cutie mark.  The muttering curses of his father became a distant hush.

        Patiently, persistently, I played through the entirety of the song, allowing its melodic notes to rise and fall.  I watched with dry eyes.  My lungs were frozen with the chill of my ghostly curse.

        And then—with beauty that rivaled a tiny candle being lit—Snips' body froze as well.  He stopped in his tracks, his tiny ears flicking with each rhythmic pitch of “Penumbra's Echo.”  Any twitch or shiver to his limbs instantly melted.  He stayed put where he was.

        Straight Edge noticed this, of course.  Perhaps it was the absence of Snips' pitter-pattering hooves.  Perhaps it was the fact that another body wasn't close by to echo his grumbling curses.  He swiveled about, blinked at the empty space in the path behind him, and ultimately turned around with a confused frown.

        “Boy?!  Didn't you hear me?!  I said we're going home, and that's final!”

        Snips didn't move.  An October breeze wafted by, carrying the sound of Alabaster's soothing composition.  Colts and fillies giggled in the background.  I hung in a breathless lurch, waiting.

        And it happened.  “No,” Snips said.

        Straight Edge turned and loomed viciously over the tiny unicorn.  “What... did... you... say...?”

        It happened again.  “No.”

        I exhaled, only to produce a sharp gasp as Straight Edge flung his crutch down to the dirt, leaned over the petite colt, and hideously snarled, “Boy, I'm not gonna let you push my buttons...”

        “Nnngh—You're not gonna let me do anything!”  Snips suddenly barked up at him.  The shivers had returned to his body, but they were righteous quivers of fury.  “You're just gonna shout at me and throw me around and call Mom names and make me feel bad about it all!”

        “Shut your stinkin' trap!”  Straight Edge raised a hoof.  “Do you know who you're talking to—”

        “Yes!”  Snips shrieked, tears falling from his face as he growled and hissed, “I know how much you hate me and Mom and Windsong!  I know how grumpy you get for no good reason!  And I'm not going home to that!  Not again!  Ponies should... sh-should be happy!” He whimpered and yelled at the same time.  Foals' heads were turning.  The playground was growing silent in the echo of his divine outburst.  “All ponies... d-deserve happiness!  I don't care how angry you are, but I won't let you stop me from being happy anymore!”

        “Boy, if you open your mouth one more time—”

        “Get away from me!” Snips shouted, his teary eyes clenched shut as he started howling over and over and over:  “You're a bad father!  You're a bad father!  You're a bad—”

        “Nnngh!”  Straight Edge slammed his hoof across Snips' horn.  With a glowing telekenis, he lifted the sputtering colt up by the neck.  “Damn you, brat!  I'm gonna do what I should have done the day that stupid wench popped you out!”

        Colts gasped.  Fillies were sobbing.  I heard Scootaloo's feareless voice shouting something over and over.  I did absolutely nothing, nothing but play the Echo.

        Cheerilee had trotted over, drawn by the hellish racket.  “What in Equestria's name is going on over there?!”  She gasped, her eyes flashing wide.  “Good heavens!  Snips!  Mr. Edge, what are you doing—”

        “Stay out of this!”  Straight Edge growled.  “Family business!”  He lifted Snips in the air once more.

        “He... He can't breathe!” Cheerilee shrieked.  She spun around, then yelled towards the schoolhouse.  “Big Mac!  Quick!  He's going to strangle Snips!”

        “Eeeenope,” Big Mac growled, his teeth gritting.  On thundering hooves, he galloped across the schoolyard.  Dust kicked up in a storm as he barreled directly into Straight Edge, body-slamming the yelping unicorn to the dirt road.

        “Aaaaugh!”  Straight Edge sneered.  “What the—Get off me, you lousy hick—!”  Big Mac's response was an iron hoof bucked through Straight's teeth.  “Grrnkktl—Aaaugh!”

        “Woohoo!” Apple Bloom jumped up and down, pumping a forelimb.  “You show that creep, Macky!”  Scootaloo joined her cheers.  Sweetie Belle trembled and covered her eyes while Rumble hugged her comfortingly, smiling from a distance.

        “Nnngh—You lousy piece of farm filth!”  Straight Edge was rambling, raving, his eyes bright and murderous.  He could only struggle and moan as Big Mac shoved him prone to the soil.  “Ghhh—Worst town ever!  I'll rip all your hearts out!  So help me—Ooof!” His mouth ate dirt as Big Mac applied his weight into the back of his head.

        In the meantime, Cheerilee was rushing over to Snips' quivering body.  She squatted down and scooped him up.  “Snips!  Snips, you poor, poor thing!  Can you breathe?”

        Snips sputtered, gasped for breath.  He curled up into Cheerilee's embrace and nodded weakly.  “Y-yes,” he murmured.  “Please, k-keep him away from me.  He's so horrible.  All the time... so horrible...”

        “Oh Snips...”  She leaned in and nuzzled him as if he was her own foal.  “Absolutely!  You have my word, he won't touch you ever again!”  Her eyes were moist as she stammered, “If I had only known sooner.  Oh good heavens, you poor thing!”

        “Mom... Windsong...”  He shivered and clung to her in between desperate sobs.  “They... They need...”

        “He won't touch them either.  Don't you worry one bit.”  She looked at the line of gaping foals.  Clearing her tears, she managed to summon one of them.  “Snails.  Come here...”

        The tall colt wandered over, shivering, staring at his sobbing friend with wide eyes.  “Y-y-yes, Miss Ch-Cheerilee?”

        “Snips is going to be okay.  But I need you to run into town and fetch the police.  Can you do that for me?  For your friend?”

        “Uhhhh... S-Sure thing!”

        “Good.  Don't worry.  Big Mac has things taken care of here.  Now go, Snails!  Run!”

        Snails ran into the center of town, beyond earshot of Straight Edge's frustrated growls.

        Cheerilee cradled Snips closer, smiling and murmuring to him, “Shhhh.  It's okay, darling.  You're safe now.  Don't be afraid...”

        “N-not afraid...”  Snips hiccuped, covering his wet eyes with his forelimbs.  “Not afraid anymore... Not afraid anymore...”

        “Shhh... It's alright, Snips,” she said tearfully.  “It's alright to cry.  Just let it out... It's alright...”

        “Penumbra's Echo” finally stopped, only because I couldn't manage it anymore.  I was clinging my lyre to my chest, hugging it like Cheerilee hugged Snips.  My head tilted towards the morning sky as my face cracked, letting loose the first of several heavy sobs.  My lips stretched between a smile and a grimace as I clenched my eyes shut and whimpered to the sky.  Two little words squeaked through my teeth, over and over again, until I no longer had the strength to remember who exactly I was thanking anymore.

        And neither did I care.  Eventually, the police came by to assist Big Mac with the raging unicorn.  The schoolfoals gathered around Cheerilee to help comfort Snips.  And a certain ghost who may have never been there to begin with was suddenly gone.  Only the music remained.

        “There's some news about Straight Edge,” Twilight Sparkle said at a table in Sugarcube Corner a few days later.

        “You mean that unicorn jerk who was beating up his kids or whatnot?”  Rainbow Dash paused in sipping her soda to frown.  “Did they hang him from the gallows?”

        “Rainbow Dash, honestly!”  Twilight Sparkle made a face.  “What is this, the Solar Civil War era?!”  She calmly folded up a newspaper and gazed at Rainbow Dash and Applejack.  “They decided not to give him bail.  He's remaining under lock and key until they can get him into court.  There was some dirt dug up on the workhorse, and apparently Mr. Edge was wanted for insurance fraud back in Manehattan.  The Equestrian Bureau of Investigations have been looking all over for him for years.  Guess they never thought to check in Ponyville.”

        “In other words, he's gotta go through a lot of lousy red tape before anypony punishes him for treating foals like punching bags,” Rainbow Dash grunted.  “Where's the justice in that?!”

        “I don't think it's anythang worth complainin' about, Rainbow,” Applejack said.  “What matters is that he's been caught red-hoofed, and t'ain't nothin' more he can do to them poor ponies he was livin' with.”

        “Yeah, but still, it just really stinks,” Rainbow Dash said, folding her forelimbs and frowning.  “Doesn't it bother you guys to know that he was living in our very own neighborhood, abusing his own flesh and blood, and none of us were any the wiser?!  I mean, how does junk like that happen in this day and age?!  Wouldn't it, like, freak the heck out of Princess Celestia to hear about this kind of stuff?”

        Twilight took a deep breath, fiddling with her hooves on the edge of the table.  “If Celestia can't stop every bad thing from happening, what makes us think any single one of us can do any better?”

        “Yeah, but...”  Rainbow Dash sat back with a slump, sighing.  “When crud like this makes the light of day, it makes me wonder if we're not trying hard enough.  I mean, are we the Elements of Harmony or aren't we?”

        “Oh don't get all mopey like that, sugarcube,” Applejack said with a gentle smile.  “Heaven knows, yer the bravest, most thoughtful pony in town.  The first hint you'd catch of bad things happenin', you'd be there to play hero in a jiffy!”  She turned to wink at Twilight.  “Reckon that's the same for everypony seated here, and the rest of the gang to boot.”

        “There's no perfect way to make a perfect world,” Twilight Sparkle said.  “Making life harmonious is... is just like making friends.”  She smiled sweetly.  “There's bound to be a lot of bumps along the way.”

        “And most likely everypony in Ponyville has more than a lick of sense ever since Straight Edge showed his true colors.”  Applejack turned toward Rainbow Dash.  “If you wanna get started on playin' neighborhood watch, Rainbow, now's yer chance.”

        “Heh.  Yeah.  Yeah, I guess it is.”  She lifted up towards the ceiling on flapping wings.  “Say, I don't normally suggest this, but what if we call the other girls over to the library for a special meeting or something?  I think it'd be totally cool if we set up some community thing to... I dunno... try to reach out to the families around town about what's happened.  What do you think?”

        “I, for one, find that to be a brilliant idea!”  Twilight Sparkle hopped up with a grin.  “And I think you deserve the honor of setting it up, Rainbow!”

        “Darn tootin'!”  Applejack added.  She stood up and planted her hat on her head.  “Where to, Cap'n my Cap'n?”

        “Let's round up Rarity from the Boutique first!” Rainbow said, pointing towards the door as the three made their exit.  “You know how long it takes her to get ready for last-second get togethers!”

        “Pfft!  That fussy filly!  If it was the end of the world, she'd be frettin' about her eyelashes!”

        “Well, thankfully, we won't be having to hold back the apocalypse anytime soon,” Twilight said.

        The three friends giggled as they left.  Passing by them, several young foals scampered into the heart of Sugarcube Corner.  It was a veritable parade of school-aged ponies.  Cheerilee stuck her head in through the door and called out to them.

        “Now, don't spend all your lunch money!  And only get fruit or juice!  We have a long train ride ahead, and I can't have my little ponies bouncing completely off the walls!”

        “Yesssss, Miss Cherileeeee,” the group chanted back in unison.  Cheerilee giggled and stood in the doorway, speaking with Big Mac and another chaperone.

        “Oooh!  Strawberry Supreme!  Strawberry Supreme!”  Snails hopped up and down while a few other kids hoofed bits over the counter to Ms. Cake, receiving juice boxes and apple slices in return.  “We gotta combine our bits to get the Strawberry Supreme juice!”

        “What?!”  Snips retorted, snapping him a crazy look.  “But it's just one juice box!  I know it's big, but how are we both gonna share it?”

        “Uhhhhhhhhh—We'll buy two straws!”

        “Snails!”  Snips gasped.  “You're a genius!”

        “Hehehhhh.”

        “But... Uhm... Oh drat!”  Snips fiddled with a saddlebag on his portly haunches.  “We're both one bit short!  I think we gotta have the smaller juice boxes.  That means no Strawberry Supreme.”

        “Awwwww...”  Snails' ears drooped as his muzzle hung low to the floor.

        Just then, three golden coins landed between the two colts.  “There you go.  Get yourself two Strawberry Supremes.”

        The two young unicorns gasped at that bits.  They turned and looked at me.  “Whoah!  Lady, are you serious?!”

        I smiled softly from where I sat in a chair with my lyre.  “I'm always serious,” I said, then chuckled.  “To a fault.”  I motioned towards the distant counter.  “Knock yourselves out.”

        “Sweeeeeeet!”  Snails exclaimed.

        “Here, Snails!”  Snips slid the bits over to him.  “Go buy us the Strawberry Supremes, and all the straws you can fit into your mouth!”

        “Sure thing, buddy!”  The taller colt grabbed the coins in his teeth and galloped towards a grinning, cheerful Ms. Cake.

        “You going somewhere special today?” I asked.

        Snips spun to look at me.  “Huh?  Oh...”  He smiled, his tail flicking excitedly.  “Miss Cheerilee is taking us on a field trip to the Canterlot gardens!  We're gonna see a huge maze and a bunch of statues and flags and stuff!”

        “Wow...”  I said with a  nod.  “Sounds really boring.”

        “Snkkkt-Hahaha!”  He broke into giddy laughter.  “Heh... Yes, well...”  He exhaled calmly and glanced at the far wall of the eatery.  “I never used to go on field trips.”  He gulped.  “My... uh... My dad would say that they were just a waste of time.”

        “That doesn't sound very nice... or sensible.”

        “Yeah, well, that's my dad for ya,” Snips momentarily grumbled.  A joyful smile returned to his lips.  “But I don't have to worry about him anymore.  He's somewhere else right now, and the family's better off.”

        “I'm... I'm sorry,” I said softly.  “I shouldn't have pressed...”

        “No!  No, it's okay... I just...”  Snips breathed deeply and looked up at me.  “I just never knew that things could feel so... so weightless, y'know?  Heehee... I feel like I have pegasus wings hidden beneath my skin, cuz it's like I'm flying!”

        I nodded.  “So you're happy, then?”

        “Happiest I've been in a while,” Snips said.  “And so's my Mom and sister.  We're staying at Snails' family's house, and they're all so nice and fun to be with.  Plus, a bunch of ponies came to help my Mom.  They say that she's going to get better, that they're gonna help get rid of her sickness.  And... And...”

        “Hey...”

        He blinked, staring fixedly at me.

        I smiled.  “This happiness you feel?  You can get other ponies to feel it, in ways that your dad never did.”

        His lips hung open for a spell, and soon he murmured, “I know.”  He gulped.  “For a while there, I was afraid that... that...”

        “Shhh...”  I leaned forward and smiled at his eye level.  “We all have plenty of time, kiddo, to become that which we want to be, and not that which we fear.”

        Snips stared at me.  His next smile was a warm thing, like one of Cheerilee’s cutie marks.  At around that time, Snails scampered up, levitating two containers.

        “Juuuuuuuuice boxesssss!” he triumphantly chirped.

        At the exit to the eatery, Cheerilee was calling forth, “Okaaaaay, my little ponies!  Time to go!  The train won't wait!”

        “We gotta go, Snips!”

        “Yes!  Just one second!”  The stout unicorn turned around.  “Hey, ma'am, thanks for the talk.  I think...”  He blinked.  The space before him was empty.  “Ma'am?”

        “Who were you talkin' to, Snips?”

        He teetered suddenly.  With chattering teeth, he crubbed his forelimbs together.  “Yeesh.  Did somepony leave the freezers open in this place?”

        “Uhhhh—Snips!  We gotta go!  Cheerilee is frowning at us!  I haaaate it when Cheerilee frowns!”

        “Er... Right!  Onwards to Canterlot!”

        Snails scampered out of Sugarcube Corner, as did the rest of the schoolfoals.  Snips followed up the rear, balancing the juice box atop his head, as well as a song that he hummed in the pleasant air of the place, a very relaxing tune...

        I hear the knock on the dormitory door, and somehow I know it can't be anypony else but her.  I trot over and open it.  Nothing can prepare me for how miserable, how utterly cold and lonely she looks.

        “Moondancer!” I exclaim.  It is true shock.  I rest a hoof over my chest as she fidgets in the sorority hallway.  “I... I...”  I gulp and smile nervously.  “Why don't you come in?”

        “Uhm...”  She squirms where she stands.  “Are... Are your roommates...?”

        “We're alone.  The girls are out partying on the edge of the Shadow District.”

        “Hmmph...”  She finally trudges in, dragging a saddlebag limply behind her.  “You should be with them.”

        “I'd rather be here, really,” I say in a low tone.  I slowly close the door behind her.  “Besides, those... uh... those bat ponies freak me out in that side of town.”

        “Liar,” she grumbles, pacing across the shadowed room.  “You're just like Twilight.  Anything you fear has an academic buffer.”  She looks with disgust at the cluster of junk lying around the place.  “Blessed Luna, your roommates are a bunch of slobs!”

        “Moondancer...”

        “Or did a certain mint-green unicorn lose her ladylike grace since the last time we chatted?”

        “Moondancer, I know why you're back in Canterlot,” I say as I trot towards her.  I raise a hoof up to her shoulder, but I think twice about making contact.  Biting my lip, I hesitate, then say, “When I heard, I... uh... I visited your mom.”

        She gulps.  She hangs her head.  “I know.”

        I blink in surprise.  “You... You spoke with her?”

        “Mmmhmmm.”  She nods slowly.  “Just now.”

        The room is silent for a while.  I shuffle my hooves and circle through the gray shadows until I am standing in front of her.  Her violet and red mane is so straight.  Her violet eyes are so jaded.  This is my good friend, and yet it isn't.  I try to keep my voice steady.

        “Moondancer, I... You know that when I try to say things, I only ramble on endlessly.  You were right all along about me.  You always were.  I never went through all the horrible things you did.  How could I possibly relate?  And furthermore—”

        “What's worth relating to?” she mutters.  “It's very simple, Lyra.”  She tilts her head up and stares blankly at me.  “He's dead.  He croaked, kicked the bucket, knocked on death's door.  Heck, Lyra, you're a poet...”

        “Musician.”

        “Whatever.  Describe it any way you want.”  She takes a deep breath and marches over to stare out the window.  She doesn't bother to push the curtains open.  “He's gone.  He's gone and... and...”

        “And what, Moondancer?”

        “I talked to Mom.  I even paid Twilight's folks a visit.  And yet... And yet none of them could help me... Not like you could...”  She rubs her other forelimb with a hoof and whimpers the next part out.  “Like you always could...”

        “How...”  I stammer, honestly perplexed, flabbergasted even.  “Moondancer, really?”  I give a bitter chuckle.  “How did I ever help you?  I was—”

        “You were there, Lyra.  You were always there, each time I needed you, and even the times when I didn't... or pretended that I didn't.  And I treated you like dirt for no good reason.”

        “Heh... Moondancer...”  I shake my head and look at the carpet.  “You didn't treat me like—”

        “I treated you like dirt!” she snarls, her voice starting to shake.  “I crushed you and ditched you because... because I was so angry, and so...”  She shudders visibly, her back hunching.  “So scared that this day would come, and I would have to tell you... t-tell you...”

        I look up, concerned.  “Tell me what, Moondancer?”

        She turns around, and her eyes are glittering with tears.  “That... That I feel so horrible.”  She inhales sharply, her face grimacing.  “He's dead, and now that he is, I feel s-so horrible, Lyra, and I... I-I don't understand why!”

        “Well... uhm... he was your father, Moondancer—”

        “He was a jerk!” she shrieks, grimacing harder.  “He was a sadist and an abuser and a dirty, dirty creep and now that he's dead I should be happy, but... but I-I can't feel it, Lyra!  You say that you could never relate?!  I was his dang d-daughter, and I can't understand either!  How does that even make any s-sense?”

        “Moondancer, I don't think you give yourself enough credit!” I exclaim.  “I know you must think that the two of you were always cut from the same cloth, but—”

        “But what?!”  Moondancer sobs.  She staggers slightly, running a hoof over her face.  “Lyra, he... he was everything bad and h-horrible in my life!  He w-was... was like the sc-scale I had for all things awful!”  She hiccups and hugs herself.  “I-I think the real reason I... I haven't settled down with a stallion yet, or even g-gotten a coltfriend, is that... that I'm afraid, Lyra.  You know I've always wanted kids of my own someday.  But how...”  Her eyes clench shut and she shudders.  “H-how could a pony like m-me do anything but mess that up?”

        “Oh Moondancer...”  I smile and clear the gap between us finally, flinging my forearms around her.  “You would have the best, most healthy, most fortunate foals in the world...”

        “I've been so sc-scared for so long, Lyra...”  She clings to me, burying her face in my shoulder.  “I don't want anything like th-that to happen.  Celestia, help me, I-I don't ever want to b-become him...”

        “Shhh... You won't become him, Moondancer,” I say, holding her close.  “I won't let you.  You hear me?  I won't let you become him...”

        She sniffles, sobbing and laughing at the same time as she surrenders to my embrace.  “Thank you, Lyra.  I just... I just need you to be here... Th-that's what I've always needed.  Just for you to be here...”

        “Shhhh...”  I nuzzle Moondancer, rocking her gently as I murmur into her ear.  “And I always will be.”  I smile.  “Always...”

        As the Requiem played in full, I stood alone, a dot of warmth in the center of the unsung realm.  Slowly, I tilted my face up.  The shackled ponies on either side of me barely stirred.  The thunder was low.

        The spheres within spheres loomed overhead, as they always did, an eerie accompaniment to the fluctuating tempests.

        “I know that you're here,” I said calmly, clinging to the Nightbringer.  “What I don't know, and what I'll never know, is just how long you've been here.”  I gulped and murmured, “Just like nopony knows how long I've been haunting the grounds to which your curse has anchored me.”

        The spheres floated in place.  There was no song.  No lightning.  No stirring whatsoever.

        I bravely continued, “I've been a very fortunate pony.  I wake up everyday knowing that; it's what makes the curse so potent.  But...”  I hesitated slightly, then hoarsely spoke, “I also know that I've been a very blind pony, and an ignorant one.  I look back at my life before all of this happened and I think—no—I know that I'm better for all that's happened to me.  I'm wiser, stronger...”  I clenched my eyes shut and saw Straight Edge's frightened face in the midnight of my mind.  “...but I'm far from perfect.”

        A few of the ponies rattled on the lengths of their chains.  Mists of water flew coldly over the platform before rejoining the chaotic nether.

        “I want to become better.  I want to be a good pony, to reach out to those around me.  I...”  I bit my lip.  My eyes opened from the tears springing forth as I shuddered and looked up at her throne, whimpering.  “I want to bless others in this world.  I want to leave my mark, if only to guide ponies along the path towards harmony and righteousness.  And now that... now that so much has happened in my life and I've learned what I've learned, I...”  I hiccuped on another sob and squeaked forth, “I can't do a single thing.  Not without a miracle or an event of pure happenstance.”

        I clung tighter to the Nightbringer, falling on my knees as I gazed up at the spheres, teary-eyed.

        “Is it so selfish of me, so unholy of a demand, that I ask for yet another miracle?”  I gulped and tried to keep my breaths even.  “Please... Please speak to me.  Sing to me.  I ask of you... I beg of you... Come and play the Duet with me.  Help me break free from this curse.  And maybe—just maybe—I can find a way to help you too.”  I gulped and stammered, “Because nopony—mortal or immortal—would live in a place like this unless it was their prison.  And though I may never want to become you, that doesn't mean...”  I smiled weakly through the tears.  “That doesn't mean that I can't try and understand you.”

        The spheres hovered coldly ahead.  I saw strobes of light, distant and erratic, illuminating the lengths of the firmaments beyond.

        “Please...?”  I squeaked again.  “All I can do is be here.  Won't you help me?  Won't you free me?”  My limbs went limp, and I almost dropped the Nightbringer right then and there.  “What is it that keeps you from at least talking to me?  Must we play this game of hide and seek for eternity?  Must you ignore me?  I beg of you, what's keeping us from finishing the Nocturne?”

        Just then, the lightning bolts in the distance doubled, tripled.  I heard the rattling of chains.  They intensified all around me, forming a cacophony of passion and chaos, until the chanting chorus of every shackled pony in every corner of the unsung realm broke through, moaning the same hideous phrase over and over again.

        “Her beloved wakes!  Her beloved wakes!  Her beloved wakes!”

        I gasp, my wide eyes staring at all the quivering equines as they thrashed and howled around me.

        “Her beloved!  Her beloved!  Her beloved!  Her beloved!”

        They were surrounding me, lashing at me and each other, writhing in agony and fear and joy all at once.  Overwhelmed, I scrunched down on the ground and telekinetically strummed “Penumbra's Echo” in quick fashion.  Before their chains and chants could drown me, the unsung realm flew away in a blur, and I was once again situated on the lantern-lit floor of my cellar, surrounded by dust and the echoing sounds of my panting voice.

        I sat up, running a shivering hoof through my mane as my tears dried and my voice found its way back into my throat.  “Her... 'H-Her beloved wakes?'”  My brow furrowed.  “But... But what...?”

        The air was still.  I felt as though the world had stopped rotating.

        Yet again, nothing had become of the trip to purgatory.

        With a sigh, I bagged the Nightbringer, extinguished the lantern, and trudged up the steps to the surface.  “Something... doesn't make sense.  She didn't try blasting me off the face of the platform that time.  Did I actually reach her?”  I sighed again.  “Alabaster, how did you dwell in that place for a single day, much less a thousand years?  No wonder you lost your mind...”

        I opened the door to my yard.  Instead of sunlight, I was greeted with a pie to the face.

        “Gaaugh!”  I stumbled back, reeling.  Clumps of cherry, custard, and whipped cream covered my horn, eyes, and muzzle.  Wincing, I brought two hooves up and wiped the edible material out of sight.  “For the love of Celestia,” I was already growling.  “Pinkie Pie!  If you're tossing baked goods at random again...”  I froze as soon as my eyes could blink.

        There were four more pies where the first one came from, and they were... levitating over the lawn behind my cabin in tight formation.  I saw more things floating in the distance.  Squinting, I made out what was undeniably a flock of winged pigs.  To my horror, there were spherical clusters of landscape floating, embedded with trees and upside down cottages.  Above this chaotic sprawl, bright clouds of pink fluff lingered, occasionally precipitating disgusting brown sheets of rain onto a Ponyville fragmented into labyrinthine facsimiles of what it was just hours ago.

        It looked far too goofy to be true, too haunting and bizarre to be taken any way but seriously.  In a way, it looked perfectly like—

        “The end of the world...”

        I looked at the mess above and beyond.  Slowly, I tilted around and gazed down the steps to my cellar.  I blinked, hearing several eerie words repeating in my mind.  In a flash, I galloped towards the cabin, flinging the last flakes of pie off my face.

        Even an entire year of understanding new things couldn’t prepare me for what happened next...

Background Pony

XV - “Being There”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: RazgrisS57, theworstwriter, Props, theBrianJ, Warden, Led Zeppelin, and capitalism

Special thanks to: [url=http://www.fimfiction.net/user/RazgrizS57

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear journal,

        What is my quest, if not a grand journey towards remembrance?  What do I seek more than to be acknowledged, and to share the mutual memory of everything I’ve done, everything I am, and everything I’ve ever learned among my fellow ponies?  What point would there be in existing if I did not victoriously seize the chance to erect a monument to such an accomplishment, even if that monument was myself?

        That goal has been something sacred to me.  Ever since my curse began, I’ve wanted nothing more and nothing less than to leave my mark upon the world.  Even as I write this, as I make this journal entry, it is with the hopes that somepony other than myself will read it someday and take into account what has been seen and done here.

        But now, I am beginning to wonder.  As I seek to undo this curse, could I actually be propelling my into another, far more dismal affliction?  Have I always been tainted by a great shadow, adding layers of misery to the forsaken weight that she holds on her shoulders?  By seeking freedom, am I risking something far darker than my mortal mind can comprehend?

        Someone obviously felt this way, and it is because of him that I am here, because of him that I linger, because of him that I ponder...

        Is this quest even worth it?

        I held the flask out the open window, catching the brown droplets from the pink clouds lingering above. As soon as the drizzle ended, I levitated the canteen into the cabin and closed the window. Raising the container to my nostrils, I took a few meager sniffs, and then bravely poured a tiny bit of the fluid down my throat. I swished the stuff around with my tongue, gulped, and nodded.

        “Mmmhmmm. There's no denying it.” I pivoted slowly about and stared at my cot, trying to remain as still and calm as possible. “That's chocolate rain.”

        Al was peering out the opposite window, standing on his hindquarters and flicking his orange tail. The tiny feline was evidently excited, and his whiskers twitched as he observed bizarre things flying over the north edge of town. Winged swine, levitating pies, minotaurs in rowboats, and just about any nightmarishly awkward thing imaginable were populating the skies. What's more, the distant sounds of explosions, stampedes and maniacal cackling resonated from the center of Ponyville. A large part of me wanted to go and investigate, but an even larger part was too scared for my life, much less my sanity.

        “It's like... like some big, stupid joke!” I exclaimed, hearing my own voice crack as I perched on the cot beside Al. “Obviously some terrible magic spell has been conjured in town, but I haven't a clue what kind of a magician would want to make all this craziness happen!”

        It had been nearly an hour since I had exited the cellar from my last venture into the unsung realm. Most of that time had been spent testing whether or not I was dreaming up this whole fiasco. I've seen some insanely bizarre things in my life as of late. I've witnessed the horrors of a world between the firmaments, including the forsaken victims of an undead alicorn's accursed legacy, but at least her nightmare realm had some consistency to it. But this?

        This was pure, unadulterated chaos. The fact that every little phenomena I witnessed—levitating pastry items, candied clouds, comically mutated fowl—were all of a goofily absurd variant only made the whole scenario all the more chilling. It was as if some immature foal had been given the keys to creation and was playing goddess with the laws of reality. A part of me feared that if I stepped out of the cabin, I'd be yanked off the earth and transmogrified into a sack of potatoes or something worse.

        “I just can’t believe the, timing, Al,” I mumbled as I fiddled with the sleeves of my hoodie. “Something happened just now in the unsung realm. The shackled ponies were screaming about 'her beloved.' They chanted that he was 'waking.' But... now of all times?” I gulped and stared at where the Nightbringer sat on a wooden table in all its shimmering, golden glory. “Or... Or what if it's all connected? Maybe the laws on this side of the firmaments have changed, and her beloved is being woken up because of it?”

        I looked to my side. Al was gone.

        Momentarily frightened, I glanced all around, then finally towards the floor. Al was circling his empty food dish. Upon seeing my face, he squatted on all fours and meowed up at me.

        Rolling my eyes, I managed a meager smile and levitated his bag of feed over. “Look at you. It could be utter Ragneighrock, and still you'd want your din-din.” After pouring him a light meal, I lingered. I gazed out the window again and gasped, “Of course! Twilight! If there's anypony who can fix this mess, it's her!” I placed the bag down and looked over at the Nightbringer again. In the middle of all that senselessness, at least one thing became clear to me. I took a deep breath, urging the shivers to leave my body. “And there's one other pony in this town with enough raw power to give Twilight the help she needs.”

        Hopping off the bed, I rushed to my saddlebag and slid it over my spine. Al looked over from his meal and watched me. I was sliding the Nightbringer into my bag and pocketing a hoofful of sound stones, as well as a spell book or two.

        “Celestia help me, Al,” I said, giving him a faint smile. “I've fallen in love with this town. I'm not about to let it go to Tartarus because I'm too scared to go outside and face chocolate rain or pigs on a wing or goddess knows what else.” I knelt down and nuzzled his fuzzy head. “Promise me you won't open the door to any strange apple pies pretending to be salesponies.”

        Al merely purred and nuzzled my hoof.

        “Mmmm... There's a good boy.” I scratched his ears, stood up, and opened the door wide. “Wish me luck—”

        No sooner had I spoken when I heard a terrible salvo of squabbling noises from down the road. It almost sounded like a fight was breaking out, but at first I couldn't believe it. One voice stood out from the rest, threatening bloody murder in the most hideous of tones.

        “Miss Cheerilee?” I gasped, making a face. Nervously, I flung the door shut behind me, hopped off the porch, and galloped south along the dirt path towards town. I hadn’t gone far when I ran into three ponies struggling to yank a rabid schoolteacher off the side of the beaten path, where she was doing her best to stamp the colorful flora to bits along the road's edge.

        “Miss Cheerilee! Please!” a cream-colored mare shouted.

        “You have to come with us!” a hovering pegasus stallion added. “It's not safe here!”

        “Everypony, we gotta hurry!” Exclaimed Candy Mane, the only other pony I recognized by name. Her wings flexed as she looked worriedly towards the heart of Ponyville down the road. “Stu, help me drag her!”

        The pegasus stallion nodded and replied, “I'll get this forelimb if you get that one!”

        “I'll do my best!”

        The two pegasi tried lifting Cheerilee up, but she growled and bucked them off, thrashing and angrily launching herself at a bed of daisies. “Rrrrrrgh!” Her eyes twitched as she hissed through gnashing teeth, stomping and stomping and stomping on the crushed yellow petals. “I hate flowers! I hate them! I wish all flowers would die in their sleep!”

        “Miss Cheerilee! This isn't you! Please! We gotta go get help! Some horrible curse has zapped Ponyville and—!”

        “Oh, I get it!” Cheerilee spun and stared down the face of the cream-colored earth pony. “You're on their side, aren't you?! Huh?! Chrysanthemum crusader! Lavender liar! Baby's breath barbarian!” She bit her teeth down on a nearby tree root, ripped it loose from its foundation with unearthly strength, and wielded it in her angry jaws. “Mmmmf—Have at thee!”

        “Eeeeep!” the mare flinched away from her.

        Before Cheerilee could strike, a green cocoon of telekinesis encased her. “What?! Nnngh—I knew it!” She spat the wood out and thrashed wildly in midair. “The chlorophyll has become sentient! You won't take me alive, you pollen pirates! I will slay each of you at the stem! Raaaugh!”

        “Okaaaaay,” I muttered as I strolled forward, effortlessly holding her above the group in a telekinetic field. “What question should I ask first?”

        The other three gazed at me and gasped with relief.

        “Oh! A unicorn!”

        “Thank Celestia!”

        “We've been wrestling with her the whole way here! She keeps attacking every flower petal on sight!”

        “Yeah,” I muttered. “Could somepony explain that?”

        “There's no time!” Candy Mane stammered. “We have to get out of here!”

        “Yeah!” The stallion hovered above me, his green eyes bright and twitching. “Ponyville is gone!”

        My face twisted as if I were swallowing a pineapple. “Gone? What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

        “Something horrible's happened to it!” the cream-coated mare exclaimed, breathless. “Chunks of the land are floating in every direction! Buildings are blowing up! There are...  th-things flying around...”

        “My work wagon turned into a deck of playing cards!” the stallion exclaimed.

        “Nopony cares about your stupid wagon, Stu Leaves,” Candy Mane muttered.

        “I care about it!” he barked back. “I can't attach reins to a giant jack of clubs!”

        “At the rate at which the village is mutating, you just might,” Candy Mane said with a cold shiver. “The last thing I saw while running to the north edge of town was the Mayor's hair turning pink and attacking random bystanders!”

        “Uhhh...” was all I could mutter, staring blankly at the group.

        “Lotus blossoms!” Cheerilee shrieked, hovering upside down in my magical grip. “Do I smell lotus blossoms?!” Veins showed angrily in her throbbing eyes. “Death to the fragrant infidels!”

        “Ma'am”—the earth pony trotted up to me, her blue eyes imploring— “you must not be from around town. But trust us: Ponyville is a disaster area. Our best bet is to hurry to a place called Sweet Apple Acres just north of here and regroup with other ponies.”

        “Yeah!” Stu Leaves nodded and said, “We can form a party and get help from Trottingham or Canterlot!”

        Above us, an upside down hot air balloon full of inebriated penguins descended violently towards the ground and exploded beyond the treeline, raining down a fountain of vanilla flavored cupcakes on our bodies.

        After flinching, I stood up and looked at the group. “I... don't think any of us will reach Sweet Apple Acres in one piece. We're better off at my place. It's not far from here.”

        “You... you mean you live around here, lady?”

        “Uhhh”—I smiled awkwardly—“what I meant to say is there's a cabin just a few feet away.”

        “A cabin?” Stu Leaves’ face scrunched up. “Since when?”

        Two iguanas rode by on shrieking ostriches, dueling with explosive crossbows.

        I ducked a shower of debris and grunted, “Look, just follow me, okay?!”

        The three nodded nervously.

        “Down with the imperialist rosebuds!” Cheerilee shrieked.

        Sighing, I lugged the teacher along with us as I led the way back to my cabin. In swift order, I opened the door and let the three trot in while floating Cheerilee after them. “Al! We have company! Don't be afraid! They just need shelter from what's going on outside!”

        “This...” The earth pony gazed in wonder at the plethora of instruments lining the wall. “This place is remarkable.”

        “It's cozy,” Candy Mane said as Al nuzzled her leg.

        “It's cramped,” Stu Leaves added.

        “Stu!”

        “What?!”

        “Raaaaaaaaugh!” Cheerilee shrieked, screaming bloody murder. Floating upside down, she stretched her hooves out to strangle a potted cluster of yellow tulips sitting atop the hearth. “I will find your children and uproot them!”

        “Oh for the love of oats...” I rolled my eyes, levitated the pot away, and bucked the flowers out the door before shutting it to the chaotic world outside. “There!” I plopped Cheerilee squarely in the middle of the bed. “You happy?!”

        “Mmmmf...” She folded her forelimbs, frowning and leering at the corners of the place. “There are carnations hiding in the logs of this cabin. I just know it.”

        “Miss Cheerilee, please—” Candy Mane started.

        “I'm onto your game!”

        I shook my head in disbelief. “I don't get it! Is there something in the water? Why is she acting so—?” I stopped in mid-speech, squinting at her. “Wait a minute...” I realized that the color in her ruby coat had faded considerably since the last time I saw her at Sugarcube Corner. What was more, the pink in her mane was decidedly bland, as if sapped of color. “Why is she so... gray?”

        “You know this mare?” Stu Leaves asked incredulously.

        “Sure, why not,” I grumbled and looked his way. “Could you just answer the question?”

        He gulped and gave Cheerilee an anxious glance. “She came back from the school field trip to Canterlot, and she was colored this way. When we asked her where all the children had gone, Cheerilee just ignored us and started galloping up to storefronts and gardens, smashing every flowerbed she could find!”

        “It's like she was a whole 'nother pony!” the cream-coated mare exclaimed. “Candy Mane and I had to tackle her so that she wouldn't destroy the exotic flowers around the Princess Celestia statue! The next thing we knew, the clouds above us were turning pink and all of Tartarus was breaking loose!”

        “What frightens me, is that there's a connection,” Candy Mane said in a solemn voice. Gulping, she muttered, “I think she's been touched.”

        I gazed curiously at the pegasus. “‘Touched?’”

        She hissed through her teeth as a bitter chill ran through her body. “Y-yes. Among all the crazy things happening, there is... a monster storming through town.”

        “A monster?” I asked.

        Stu Leaves nodded. “A large brute. Part snake, part pony, part... part everything!”

        Candy Mane went on, “As soon as this monster got close to other ponies, they lost the color in their coats and started acting like sociopaths. I had to gallop away from my landlord because he had suddenly become obsessed with buzzing every mane in sight with an electric razor.” She shuddered. “And the razor wasn't even plugged into anything...”

        “That...” I made a puzzled face. “That doesn't make sense.”

        Stu Leaves pointed out the window as several pigs flew by. “Yeah, you think?!”

        “Calm down.” I waved my forelimbs, trying to breathe evenly in hope that the other ponies would follow my lead. “I'm just trying to get some answers.”

        “If we had some, we'd give them to you,” the earth pony said softly.  Trembling, she ran her hoof through her blue and pink mane. “It's just so hard to take in. Two of my closest friends have b-been turned gray. None of them are acting like themselves. It's so... so horrible...” She hung her head and sniffled, covering her tearful face with a quivering hoof.

        “Hey...” I leaned in and laid two hooves on her shoulders. “You're brave to have made it this far with your wits intact. You're even braver for having tried so hard to save Miss Cheerilee.” I looked into her blue eyes and smiled. “And whatever this mess is, I'm sure it can be fixed.”

        “You... Y-you really think so?” she asked, lips trembling.

        “I know so.” I smiled and nodded.  “As a matter of fact, I was just on my way to downtown Ponyville to find Twilight Sparkle. If there's anypony who can reverse the chaos, it's her!”

        “You know Miss Sparkle?” Stu Leaves remarked.

        “Let's just say that we go way back,” I said. “Our friendship is... erm... too epic for the history books.” I turned and looked at Candy Mane. “I think as long as you four lay low, you'll be safe in this cabin.”

        “Won’t the owners get mad and kick us out?”

        I opened my mouth, hesitated, then shook my head. “No. I'm sure that they'd be glad that their home helped fellow ponies remain safe in such a time of crisis. Still, it'd be polite if you took care of their cat while you're here.”

        Candy Mane smiled and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think we can do that...”

        “Good,” I said, then took a deep breath to steel myself for what I was about to do. “I'm off.”

        “Off?!” Stu Leaves grimaced. “You mean you're going out there again?!”

        “Twilight Sparkle's not going to find herself!” I exclaimed. I bit my lip. I knew that just seconds after leaving my home, these four ponies would find themselves suddenly in a strange cabin, not knowing how they go there. Still, the nightmarish situation outside was likely enough to keep them staying safely in place. Besides, they had the best feline house guest imaginable. Eventually I said, “Trust me when I tell you this. I have in my possession a great deal of power, and it’d be criminal if I didn’t try to use it—or else let another unicorn use it. It's not a question of what I want to do. I have to head into Ponyville.”

        “Heh...” Stu Leaves saluted. “Goddess-speed to ya, lady!”

        “You'll be careful, yes?” the cream-colored pony asked with an expression of concern.

        “Don't you worry. I'll... uh... blend in with the background”—I turned to the cot—“Miss Cheerilee, my best wishes to you—” A wooden stool flew into my face, exploding in a shower of splinters. “Aaaaugh!”

        “Owwwww...” Stu Leaves winced, his wings drooping.

        “Miss Cheerilee!” Candy Mane gasped.

        “You saw it! You all saw it!” Cheerilee loomed above me, seething, until the other earth pony yanked her away. “Her eyes are yellow tulips in disguise!”

        “Ughhh...” I hissed, clutching my forehead. “I never wanted to burn down a schoolhouse so bad...”

        “Don't be mad at her! Please!” the earth pony exclaimed, wrestling Cheerilee to the floor. “She's not her normal self! I promise you!”

        “I'm inclined to agree,” I muttered, rubbing the fresh bruise on my head and standing up. “Nopony with a voice that adorable could be capable of evil.”

        “A pox upon your jasmine!” Cheerilee spat.

        “Not for long, at least,” I said, then made for the door. “Stay inside. Stay safe. But most of all—stay together.”

        They nodded in agreement, and then disappeared, for I had closed the cabin's front door. I was already feeling the accursed chill halfway down the road as I galloped towards town, but I didn't let that stop me. On either side of the path, things were exploding at random. I winced, feeling as if I had stumbled upon some sort of ludicrous battleground. Despite the bedlam, I heard no screams or signs of agony. Instead, the air had a bizarrely pleasant smell to it. I felt like a little filly in a candy store, only I was full of bone-chilling apprehension instead of hunger. Just beyond the bend of trees there had to have been a lingering series of ovens filled with baked sweets and rich taffy.

        There's no fitting way to describe the enormity of absurd things I witnessed during my hurried trek into the eye of that chaotic hurricane. My speedy gallop was punctuated by various anomalies: buffalo in ballet dresses, somersaulting polar bears, riderless unicycles, a scampering phone book on centipede legs...

        And yet, all of these random things were starting to appear... less random to me. It's hard to explain, but I was starting to envision a cohesive intelligence to the entire ensemble of oddities. I suppose it's the artist within me, but I can recognize the brush strokes of a creative soul, even a mischievous one. Despite the inexplicable nature of all the anomalous elements, I couldn't help but notice that they all carried the same spirit of seemingly harmless whimsy and ridiculousness.

        All of that, of course, was likely a façade, and there was no telling what legitimate deviousness lurked beneath the layers of clownish happenstance. I didn't let my guard down for one moment, and neither did I slow my speedy canter towards the edge of town. I felt the weight of the Nightbringer in my saddlebag. I was on a mission, and Twilight, my friend, despite the frigid veil of my curse, was the goal. Everything would be all right, I told myself, so long as I reached her. Together, with the piece of the Cosmic Matriarch's song in my possession, we surely would have been able to reverse all the horrible things that had happened. Maybe I was powerless to undo the curse on my soul just yet, but that didn't mean I couldn't use the Nightbringer for a greater good while it was in my possession. With the most powerful mortal magician in all of Equestria just a jog away, I was certain to put the instrument's magical qualities to good use.

        All of this heroic contemplation ended the very second I rounded the last bend in the road. I gasped, my eyes twitching, for Ponyville was... no longer Ponyville. Except, it was Ponvyille, only Ponyville was everywhere. The downtown area was twisted, weaving in and around itself like a giant optical illusion. Chunks of landscape levitated to the left, to the right, and above me. Buildings sat, clinging to the underbellies of the floating mounds of earth, doubly defying gravity. Hotels, apartments, storefronts, and other structures were horribly warped—some beyond recognition, and others resembling living Picassoats paintings. The emerald plains surrounding the township had lost their immaculate sheen, reduced instead to geometrically astounding grids of alternating shades. I felt as though I was galloping towards a gigantic checkerboard that had been warped by a flash flood and then sprinkled with the shattered remnants of model train houses.When I peered beyond the nearby hills, I could see the distant towers of Canterlot floating upside down, and the hazy shadow of Cloudsdale spinning like an enormous pinwheel.

        “Dear heaven...” I murmured breathlessly, feeling my heart beat hard in my chest. “It's not just Ponyville.” I gulped. “It's the whole goddess-forsaken world...”

        Just then, the dirt path beneath me inexplicably became as slick as ice.

        “Aaaack!” I shrieked, slipped, and slid forward. A smell filled my nostrils; I realized that the street had somehow morphed into sudsy soap and water right beneath my hooves. “Whoah whoah whoah whoah—!”

        Shrieking crocodiles flew past me on jet packs, being chased by rabbits on stilt-legs. As I slid past them, a chunk of earth between me and Ponyville broke loose and rose like a hot air balloon. Beneath the sundered hilltop, pure blackness loomed, and I was slipping straight towards it like a green sled.

        “Oh sweet Celestia!” I gnashed my teeth, held my breath, and leapt forward. “Nnnngh!” I summoned a burst of telekinesis directly behind me. The magical thrust was enough to propel me like a living cannonball. I soared over the nothingness, lunging towards the floating chunk of grass and soil with my forelimbs outstretched. Miraculously, my hooves caught ahold of several dangling brown roots. I hung off the edge of the levitating plateau as it lifted still higher among the cotton candy clouds.

        Panting, I struggled and strained to pull myself up the rocky platform. Over the past few years, I had gotten stronger magically, but not physically. I was still the same frail filly who had sashayed her way through indoor study courses at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. It took several minutes to pull myself up from the brink of a deadly plummet. As I yanked my way up the length of dangling roots, clasping onto the grassy edge of the platform, I heard a raspy voice above me.

        “Vould do you well to sprouts pegasus vings, da?”

        My muscles quivered all over as I struggled to keep ahold of the brown strands. I squinted upwards, wincing. “What in the hay?!”

        A flying squirrel grinned, sporting a pair of green goggles and flicking the burning end of a cigar. “Of course, if lime green pony has none, perhaps crocodile jet pack vould do trick!” He grinned with yellow-stained incisors. “Name your price! Sky is limitless, da? Vish I could say same for deep looming abyss of death and dismay beneath pony! Ha!”

        Just then, a toaster swooped by with pterodactyl wings. It hissed and plucked the squirrel off the floating platform with vice-like talons before flying off towards the lopsided horizon.

        “Nyet! Nyet!” he shrieked and flailed in the toaster’s grasp. “Vas about to break deal! Let go of sexy fur!” They were intercepted by a rocket-propelled armadillo from the center of town and exploded in a cascade of fireworks and corn flakes.

        I winced, facing forward as I finally pulled myself up. “Well, okay then...”

        When I made it to the top of the platform, the sky disappeared. I gasped, looking every which way until I realized that the world had fallen under the shroud of night in a blink. I gawked at the moon, watching as it flew through its cycles in reverse. Then—just as the stars were starting to twinkle—the moon dropped out of the orbit and was replaced by the flaming image of the sun. I squinted, finding myself in the shadow of the town's trademark windmill—only we were both floating hundreds of feet over the rooftops of downtown. But that wasn't what was alarming me at that particular moment.

        “The sun and moon...” I murmured, watching in pale fear as the celestial orb dropped again, blanketing the world once more in inexplicable evening. “Day and Night are uncontrolled.” A sharp gasp escaped my body, and I fell on my haunches at the shocking realization. “Princess Celestia... Princess Luna...” I gulped dryly and shivered. “They're... they're no longer in control of their elements...”

        There is no scale to the horror that was shooting through my spirit at that very moment.  The simple yet mind-numbing concept of the sun and moon going haywire was enough to turn my world upside down, quite literally. If some horrible spell had caused Celestia and Luna to lose control of what the Cosmic Matriarch's song had imbued them with, then there was no telling just what kind of power I was dealing with. Even she, for all of her intimidating grandeur and mystery, was suddenly an afterthought to this mortifying realization.

        A part of me wilted inside, questioning whether or not Twilight Sparkle would be remotely capable of confronting this scenario, even if she did have a unicorn such as myself gifted with the Nightbringer to assist her. I only had to remind myself that Twilight Sparkle had confronted the likes of Nightmare Moon, the very deliverer of my curse, and yet my old companion had come out alive and triumphant. To this day, there's still nothing more invigorating than the thought of a strong and dependable friend.

        Taking a deep breath for courage, I stepped forward past the windmill. In timely fashion, the sun rose again. I couldn't detect a pattern to the lit and unlit halves of the “day,” but I didn't bother trying. I had a new problem to confront: getting down from that lofty, floating platform.

        Narrowing my eyes, I studied the distance between where I was perched and the stationary landscape below. I took note of everything floating around me and suddenly had a ridiculous epiphany. Reaching deep into my leylines, I telekinetically strummed a few strings of the Nightbringer from within my saddlebag. Feeling a rush of magic channeling through me, I aimed my horn at the edge of the floating cliff and fired a bright burst of emerald energy. A chunk of soil broke free. Instead of falling straight towards the world below, the clusters of rock and soil floated about, descending gradually towards the earth like a string of pillow feathers.

        “Here goes...”

        I gritted my teeth, threw caution to the wind, and tossed myself over the edge. Launching forward, I landed on the first floating chunk, then the next one beneath it, and then the half-dozen clumps below. Skipping and hopping, I made my way down the magically drifting pieces of debris until I was within safe jumping distance of the checkerboard plain.

        “Ha!” I bounced one last time and grinned in midair as I plummeted towards the soft earth. “Cake!”

        My descent was interrupted by a huge pan of custard slamming me in the side. I twirled at least three times, fell like an anvil, and landed in a puddle of mud head-first.

        “Ooof!” I grunted, finding myself in the horrendously bizarre predicament of being stuck upside down with my horn embedded in the earth like a tent peg. I sputtered and gasped through dessert fragments. “What the hay...?!”

        “Not cake!” a mare cackled from several feet away in my lopsided vision. “Pie! Haahaahaa!” She snickered as monocled crabs and mustached snakes slithered backwards past her.

        “Nnnngh!” I grunted, squirmed, and finally popped my horn loose from the ground. Rolling over in the mud, I stood up and shook all of the excess dirt and custard off me. “Ugh... Milky White?!” I frowned incredulously at the mare. “What's gotten into you—Whoah!” I ducked a flaming pie pan soaring past me.

        “I'm not Milky White anymore!” the earth pony exclaimed, grinning maniacally. She slipped a paper bag over her head that had holes cut in the precise spots to show off her psychotically bright eyes. I detected a noticeably gray hue to her coat as she juggled several more dessert trays and tossed them at various bystanders on the edge of town. “I'm Milky, the Pienisher! Deliverer of crust and justice!”

        “Miss White, where's the 'justice' in flinging edible junk in random ponies' faces?!”

        “What are we on this earth for if not to spread custard and aluminum tins?!” Milky White gave a muffled shout and threw the next volley at a passing pegasus. “Breathe freedom, good citizen!”

        Thunderlane took the messy attack straight in the face. He merely shook the mushiness off his gray mane and muzzle before proceeding to haul three stacked pianos chained to his haunches. “Nnnngh!” The legs of the bottommost  instrumens ground through the soil behind his twitching gray tail. “Gotta... get these... to the bingo club...!” He grinned maniacally. “Then I'll be up to my wing elbows in estrogen!”

        “Slower!” Blossomforth shrieked from high above. I saw the gray pegasus perched on the topmost piano, whipping a dozen intertwined rubber chickens at Thunderlane's hide as he slowly pulled her across Ponyville. “Slower! Slower! Mush! I want to get there yesterday!”

        “Whatever you say, my leige!” Thunderlane hissed, his monochromatic cheeks blushing. “Chicken me harder! Please! I'm a bad stallion!”

        “You will take the poultry and you will like it!” Blossomforth roared, her gray eyes rolling back in her head.

        Ironically, I heard a young filly speaking in a dainty voice off to the side. “Hey, anti-Mom! Don't I look darling?”

        I glanced to my side—then did a massive doubletake.

        The Carousel Boutique was ransacked and dented in several places. Beside a smashed window, surrounded by piles of pastel-colored loot, Scootaloo was busy trying on one of several ridiculously ruffled dresses. A makeup kit was lying open a few feet away, and she had more color on her lips and eyelashes than I've seen at an entire Canterlot ballroom dance.

        “Does this make my blank flank look fat?” Scootaloo posed before a cracked mirror, also dragged out of the Boutique. Her eyelashes fluttered as if she were having an epileptic seizure while she examined her bifurcated reflection from several angles. “Ugh! Not poofy enough! Unmother, are you even looking?!”

        “I can't at the moment, ya little brat!” Milky White stalked after Cloudchaser and Flitter, who were wheeling away on a reverse bicycle. “The Pienisher has to rid the world of scum and feathers! Ha!” She launched five pies all at once, using her tail as a catapult. “Go occupy the driving lane in Tartarus, you helmeted misanthropes!”

        Just then, Dinky scampered across the path with Scootaloo's scooter in tow. Interestingly enough, the unicorn filly did not appear as colorless as the maniacal equines surrounding me.

        “Dinky!” I shouted, reaching towards her with a hoof. “Wait! You can't take that! It belongs to Scootaloo—”

        “Eh, who needs it?” Scootaloo waved an elegant hoof and ran a diamond encrusted brush through her mane while pursing her lips before the mirror. “My tomcolt days are over. Hellllllo, my prince. Why, yes, I have royal blood. Now friggin' kiss me.”

        I groaned and galloped after the tiny unicorn. “Dinky! Wait up!” I followed her two blocks, past tap-dancing construction workers and upside down flamingos perched inside storefront awnings. “It's not safe out here! You gotta get somewhere inside where it's safer!”

        “I'm sorry, ma'am!” Dinky called back, pulling the scooter faster. “Mommy says she needs this!”

        I squinted in disbelief. “Miss Hooves...?”

        Just then, I saw Dinky come to a stop before a pegasus whose coat was grayer than normal. “Here ya go, Mommy! Just like you asked!”

        Spinning around, Derpy grinned with uncharacteristically even eyes. “Perfect!” She snatched the handles of the scooter in one hoof and lifted a baseball bat in the other. “I've waited a long, long time for this!”

        “Miss Hooves! You're... You're not yourself!” I exclaimed, trying to reason with her. I didn't know if there was any hope. I didn't even know if these afflicted acquaintances of mine were infectious. I stood like a clueless moron in the middle of the street, fidgeting with my hoodie's sleeves and stammering, “Try to focus on who you really are! Your daughter needs you right now!”

        “What she needs is an example! It's what all of Ponyville needs!” Derpy parked her haunches on the scooter and beat her wings. Blurring down the street, she stretched the bat out to her right and slammed every mailbox to shrapnel in vicious succession. “Yeah! Buck yeah! Mail call, ya melon fudging blowhards!” She spun around and glided down the opposite side of the street, shattering every container in sight. “Lick your own stamps from now on! Ha!”

        “Yaaay!” Dinky innocently cheered. She hopped in place and stomped her hooves. “You show those evil boxes! Mommy's the best!”

        “Dang straight!” Derpy cackled, then slammed through an exploding wagon, littering the street with dizzy frogs in tuxedos. “Ow! Blast it! Ugh!”

        I backed slowly, slowly away from the sight, trembling all over. Just then, I bumped into an equine body.

        “Gaah!” I spun around, then exhaled with relief to see somepony who was born black and white for once. “Oh! Zecora! Thank goodness!” I wiped my green brow and pointed at the uncharacteristic insanity reducing the town to rubble all around us. “Can you believe all of this nonsense?! You've got to help me!”

        Slowly, like a frosted doll, her lifeless face pivoted in my direction.

        “I need to find Twilight! She must have a spell that can reverse all of this! Is she at home, you think? At the library?!”

        Zecora faced me. Icily, her mouth opened wide with a cold, metallic whir.

        I stopped, squinting at her. “Uhm... Zecora? Are you all right—?”

        Her throat glowed. The air crackled with static energy. Then, with a cacophonous burst of thunder, she fired a giant blue laser out of her muzzle.

        I ducked, eyes wide, as the searing beam parted my mane. The energy beam soared across town, sailed into a hotel, and blew the building up into burning debris. I sat there, squatting, blinking dazedly.

        With a metallic hum, Zecora's jaws slowly closed. Her nostrils flared, producing a hyena laugh, and she cartwheeled away with glassy eyes in time to join a stampede of dolphin-riding encyclopedias.

        I stood back up, shaking the cobwebs loose in my head. With a wince, I uttered, “Errrrr-yeahhhh. Time to get to the library.”

        Without wasting a breath, I spun around and galloped across Ponyville. This was no easy task; obtusely unexpected things darted past my path every other second. When I wasn't doing my best to dodge the hazardous swarms of chaos, I was struggling not to stop and gawk at all the craziness. I had always felt like a pariah in this place, a splinter in the essence of a warm town I'd never know intimately. But now, my helplessness took on a new meaning. In a strange way, I almost felt as though fate had arranged for me to be an unwitting audience to a grand play of absurdity. A part of me almost wanted to laugh, but that same part of me was quietly weeping inside. I wondered about Scootaloo's fate, and Milky White's and Zecora's and Cheerilee's. Was there any way to reverse what had happened to them? Better yet, had I just abandoned Dinky to a fate worse than death? Shouldn't I have scooped her up and carried her with me instead of letting the grayness consume her as well?

        I had to press on. I told myself that finding Twilight was the most important thing. With her, there was the scant yet glimmering possibility of not only salvaging this situation but potentially cutting off the magical affliction at its root. This was assuming, of course, that I didn't turn gray too. So, selfish as it was, I had to look after my own well-being.

        This meant pausing to dodge, duck, and sidestep every awkward thing that soared my way. I lost track of all the familiar faces I saw, each turned to monochromatic madness by some malevolent force. To my mixed joy, Twilight was not among the cursed lot. Then again, neither were her closest of friends. This puzzling revelation vexxed me, until I saw the blessed sight of Twilight's treehouse looming ahead.

        “Finally!” I giggled like a schoolfilly and quickened my canter towards her front door and the salvation within. “Now to go about cleaning up this mess—”

        A giant lock of tangled hair slapped me upside the face.

        “Ooof!” I flew back and slammed into an oak tree. Several green bananas fell on my crumpled body. Rather than stare at the bizarre, fruity sight, I looked up at my assailant. Something may have possibly collapsed inside my brain.

        The Mayor stood in the middle of the road, her eyes turned into black-and-white swirls. Her mane had morphed into an enormous cluster of tentacled branches atop her head, clutching and tossing around a group of shrieking, panicked ponies in her follicular grip.

        “I absolve thee of thy sins!” the Mayor shouted in a booming voice, her head twitching as the mane-tentacles ripped up street lamps and tossed them at passing albatrosses. “Get thee to a nunnery!”

        The ponies in her hair shrieked and cried for help.

        “Uhhh...” I stood up, panicking, glancing between her monstrous demon hair and the treehouse beyond. “Save ponies. See Twilight. Save ponies. See Twilight.” I clenched my eyes shut and seethed. For the briefest of black moments, all I could see was Al's whiskery face. I realized that I had a home to return to. Reopening my eyes, I made straightway for the treehouse once again. “First thing's first—”

        Just then, a stagecoach being dragged by chipmunks ran into me. With another grunt, I found myself being tossed off the road once more, this time thrown into a garden that had been turned into a bubble bath.

        “Ugh! Nnnngh!” Gritting my teeth angrily, I climbed out of the pool, shook myself and my saddlebag dry, and galloped towards the library again. “I swear to Celestia, if I get interrupted one more time—”

        Several green stalks shot up out of the ground in front of me and budded bright kitchen sinks. I ran straight into one, seeing stars. Stumbling backwards, I was rammed in the side by Derpy on the scooter. Then I was caught by one of the Mayor’s mane-tentacles, shaken rigorously and tossed into the side of Sugarcube Corner.

        “Ooof!” I winced, aching from head to hooves. As I struggled to get up, Thunderlane dragged his pianos past me, and a chain of rubber chickens was whipped across my spine. “Ouch!”

        “Stop being lazy!” Blossomforth growled from above, almost rolling off the rattling instruments. “The rooster does not forget, nor forgive!”

        “Grrrrrrr—That's it!” I shouted, my eye twitching. “One way or another, I'm going to the library!” Furious, I spun around and faced Sugarcube Corner. Following a deep, dark whim, I picked up a nearby garbage can and tossed it through the front window. I then hopped through the smashed glass and galloped deep into the eatery.

        I had to dodge several paintballs sailing back and forth across the paint-splattered interior as Mr. and Mrs. Cake huddled behind separate barricades and launched the projectiles angrily at one another.

        “Your apple fritter lacks taste!” a gray Mrs. Cake exclaimed, pulling at her trigger.

        An even grayer Mr. Cake dodged her pellets and launched a return volley. “Your fruitcake lacks imagination and sprinkles!”

        Mrs. Cake kicked over a chair, slid behind it, and fired several more potshots. “Your doughnuts are generic and flavorless!”

        Mr. Cake brazenly stuck his head out and glared his gray eyes at her. “Your cupcakes taste like licorice!”

        Mortified, Mrs. Cake gasped. In a furious tantrum, she tossed her paintball gun hard to the tile floor and it burst into flames. “You take that back!”

        “You take our marriage back!”

        “You take back the Fillydelphian banquet where we met!”

        “You take back your parents' house in Fillydelphia where you stayed to bake for the banquet where we met!”

        All the while, I had stormed past them to rummage through the Sugarcube Corner's large kitchen pantry. After much struggle, I pulled free Pinkie Pie's spare party cannon from where she always kept it. I swiveled the thing around and—grunting—shoved it across the messy restaurant. “Excuse me, coming through...”

        They craned their necks to argue past me. “You take back your childhood that got you interested in baking to begin with!” Mrs. Cake stomped her hoof and her paintball gun caught fire again.

        “You take back your father's sperm that fertilized the egg that turned into you that fell in love with baking that went to the banquet in Fillydelphia that met me and got married!”

        Once outside again, I huffed, puffed, and slapped my hoof over the party cannon's trigger button. “Everypony, out of the way!” I braced my entire weight against the cannon as the thing ignited.

        With a celebratory pop, a pressurized plume of streamers flew into the Mayor and sent her flying into a rose bush. Her hair tentacles went limp and several ponies—now freed—galloped away in fright.

        “I mean it!” I shrieked, shoving my way through the street and cutting a path to the library. “Anyone who blocks me will get a face full of confetti... and a concussion!”

        “Cry me a river!” Derpy Hooves hissed, sailing towards me on her scooter and swinging the bat at my skull. “Then put it in an envelope marked 'Non-returnable!'”

        “No, you!” I fired the cannon into her muzzle.

        “Ooof!” She took it rather well, in that she took it to the face. She fell back and landed in a market stand full of exploding grape fruit.

        “This is for your own good!” I spun and fired the cannon at stampeding buffallos in tu-tus, mutant rabbits on giraffe legs, a minotaur with a flower basket, and several other incoming anomalies as I made my way to my destination. “I have to get to Twilight! I have to end this chaos! For... F-for harmony's sake!”

        A hairy, serpentine creature with antlers slithered into view bearing a cockeyed grin. “Well, if you aren't the little spitfire!” He raised a yellow finger while his red eyes twitched. “If I might make a suggestion—”

        I launched the party cannon into his goat-bearded muzzle, knocking him through a shattering building across the street. “No more distractions! We're going to find a way to undo all of this!” The party cannon ran out of pastel-colored ammo. Panting, I discarded the thing and galloped the last remaining distance between there and Twilight's door. “Please be home. Please be home. Please please please please—” My hooves clamped over the handle to the treehouse's entrance.

        Just then, a brown, scaly tail wrapped around me three times from behind.

        “H-huh?” I blinked awkwardly. “Daaah!” I was yanked away from the library and into the air several hundred feet away. “No!” I shrieked, reaching in vain for the treehouse as it grew more and more distant. “I was j-just there! What... How...?”

        “Ahem... Now, let's try that again,” an eloquent voice rumbled from behind me.

        My insides froze. I twisted around in the serpentine grip, finding myself face to face once again with a pair of lopsided red pupils. These were parked in the center of a gray equine face that was attached to a brown torso that was then attached to a harlequin assortment of reptilian, mammalian, and avian limbs. A veritable jigsaw puzzle of surreal nature hovered before me with two wings—one pegasus and the other sarosian—and an asymmetrical pair of antlers crowning a softly furrowed brow as the monster looked into my soul, smirking with a loose fang that glinted in the sunlight.

        “Good afternoon, madame,” the beastly thing said. “How's the weather, hmm?” He gestured with a lion's paw as his right eye twitched wider than the left. “Partly chaotic with a twenty percent chance of cannon?”

        “Buh?” I gaped at him.

        “You know, that was rather rude what you did there earlier.”

        “I need to get to Twilight Sparkle!” I exclaimed.

        “Oh, but of course! The splendiforous Mary Sue of the hour!” He spun us slowly around with his beating wings while scratching his goatee with his talons. “She seems to be awfully popular lately, except for—well—the whole thing with every friend she's ever made utterly abandoning her like she was a sack of dirt. It's all a touch bit on the melodramatic side. Say”—he pointed at me—“is that jacket of yours hoof-stitched?”

        “Wait, is Twilight in trouble?!” I gasped.

        “Because it certainly looks like it was sewn together on a lemon tree farm.” He leaned forward and sniffed my mane. His muzzle puckered as if from a sour taste. “Whew! Which is probably where you sprouted out of the ground as well! Tell me, limey, do you believe in showers, or do you always bathe in pretense?”

        “Nnngh!” I growled and slapped my hooves against his tail around my waist. “Let go of me!”

        He took one glance at the grand height between us and the rooftops of Ponyville below. He flashed me a squinting look once more. “That may not be very advantageous at the moment.”

        “Please! Let me go!” I exclaimed, cupping my forelimbs together and practically pleading. “I have to find Twilight!”

        He slowly hovered the two of us down. “Why the big hurry? It's a lovely day!”

        “You call this lovely?!” my voice cracked as I gestured at the cotton candy mess and fractured townscape all around us. “I must get to Twilight and help her fix all of this! It's... it's utter chaos!”

        “Hah hah hah hah haaaah!” he laughed triumphantly, tossing his slender neck back and cackling towards the heavens. The sun sank and the moon raised in its place, casting an intimidating glint across his antlers as he looked down at me with a mischievous grin. “Isn't it, though? And yet, as wild and unpredictable as it is, none of it pleases me nearly as much as running into a pony like you!”

        “What... do you mean?”

        “Because... erm... well...” He glanced aside, scratching his chin. “Hmmm... I suppose this will take a rather wordy monologue to explain, though something tells me you're rather used to that.”

        “I'm afraid I don't understand...”

        “Let's remedy that, shall we?” The monster uncoiled his tail and plopped me down on a moonlit roadside. “Here, have a seat.” He snapped his fingers.

        I gave him a strange look, only to feel my limbs wobbling from a huge rumble below. Like magic, a bench sprouted up from the ground and appeared beneath me. “Gaah!” I slumped back against the neck rest, my lower legs dangling.

        He paced bipedally before me on a lizard foot and a buffalo hoof, twiddling his digits and rambling to the stars, “Here I am, trying to construct my latest work of art, instilling mayhem and chaos across all of the land, and what should I find? A single unicorn—untainted, mind you—pulling a weaponized party favor from a nearby building and wreaking twice as much havoc on her lonesome! And for what? To reach some long-lost 'friend' across town?”

        “I was... nngh...” I fiddled and squirmed. “I was trying to... ugh... to reach Twilight so we could—Look, could you hold on for one second?” Jerking my body, I writhed, struggled, and finally repositioned my body so that I was squatting normally on folded legs. “Whew. Much better.” I looked up at him from the bench. “Twilight's the most gifted magician in all of Equestria! I need to help her find a way to—”

        “—bring harmony to the world! But of course!” He doubled over and slapped his knees, snickering. “And yet... heheh... for such a supposedly benevolent goal, you only caused more chaos! Hah hah hah! You see... heh... this is exactly the kind of thing that proves my point!”

        I inched away from him, shivering slightly in my seat. “I don't get it. What point?”

        “The same point that Princess Celestia doesn't seem to get! Or her bipolar sister! Or all the eldritch horrors in Tartarus for that matter!” He smoothed his midnight black mane back and chuckled. “Whew! Now that Trottoroth, Eater of Foals: he really knew how to party back in the day!”

        “I... I...” I leaned forward, narrowing my gaze on the highly vocal monstrosity. “Who are you? Just how can you—?” The moon dropped and the sun rose in its place, nearly blinding me. Wincing, I remained steadfast in my glare. “How can you speak of the Princesses in such a tone?”

        He yawned. “Ohhhhh, it's simple, really.” He pulled his left antler out and twirled it between yellow talons. “Boredom.”

        “Boredom?”

        “Oh, not the usual kind, of course. But the ancient, venomous, timelessly fermented kind, like a vengeful demon returning from the depths, or really bad eggs on a Sunday morning.”

        Just then, four stallions in blue uniforms dashed out of hiding. Waving batons and trying their brave best to frown, a cluster of Ponyville's finest charged the serpentine stranger. “There he is, boys! Hey! You!  Draconequus! You're going to answer for your crimes against this town, you conjurer!”

        “Draconequus...?” I repeated in a troubled murmur.  A gasp escaped my lips, and I gave the absurdly proportioned creature the first good look since he had yanked me from the heart of the chaotically cursed town.  It was a figure I had only seen erected in stone, tapestries, or antique stained window art.  “But there hasn’t been a draconequus in Equestria for thousands of years...”

        “Oooh!” The talkative creature’s eyes brightened as he plopped his antler back into his skull and twisted it in place. “Speaking of boredom!” He turned about to face the officers and cracked his asymmetric knuckles. “Where've you been off to, gentlecolts?! Dunkin' for your loved ones?” He pulled a mug out of thin air, plucked his fang loose, and poured steaming black liquid from it like a dispenser. “I got plenty of coffee for the road! Sprinkles too!”

        “I'm going to pay you back for turning my wife into a buoy!” an old police stallion grumbled.

        The officer next to him blinked. “What's a buoy?”

        “Shut up, sergeant!”

        “Way to ruin the moment,” the creature grumbled, popped his fang back, and sipped from the steaming mug. As the line of police officers closed in, he glanced lethargically my way and gestured. “Quick, limey. Pick a good vacation spot: desert, jungle, or ocean.”

        “Wh-what?”  I exhaled in confusion.

        “Hurry up!” He gestured at himself.   “I have no intention of growing more ancient here!”

        “Uhhhh...” I gulped and grimaced as I squeaked forth, “Ocean... I... guess...?”

        “Ah! But of course!” The draconequus tossed the mug so that it exploded behind him. He slapped his forehead and smiled crookedly. “The desert is so last eon! Too much sand in the goatee. I'll leave you to guess which end.”

        The stallions yelled and charged him.

        The creature merely winked and snapped a talon in their general direction. “Aloha!”

        There were four flashes of light. I blinked—then had to rub my eyes in shock at what remained of the officers. Their uniforms were lying on the ground, and tangled within the garments was a quartet of thrashing seaponies. They gasped, twitched about, and sputtered for air.

        “Ahem...” The serpentine beast fluttered upside down over them and pointed towards a nearby river. “Water's over there. Now be clever little ponies and give evolution a shot.”

        Whimpering, blue in their faces, the four aquatic equines flopped about like seals. They inched their way to the river bank and plunged into the hot pink currents.

        “Heheheh...” The draconequus somersaulted and landed on his rear limbs beside my bench. He leaned against the wooden thing and gazed with pride at the river as the seaponies disappeared within. “Cough syrup. Figured it's the closest those coppers will ever get to a relaxing night at the bar.”

        “How... H-how could you?!” I stammered in horror.

        “What?!” He shrugged innocently. “At least they'll have a fix for the common cold!”

        “What gives you the right to... to...” I hopped off the bench and snarled up at him, my hooves planted tight against the soapy road.  I avoided slipping long enough to shout, “To butcher and violate the lives of those around you?!  You bring them back this instant!”

        “Why?” He coolly shrugged and sashayed around me in elegant pirouettes. “It's chaos! It's what I do! To question it is to ask why leaves fall, or why pandas are fat, or why you smell like you were plucked off a lemon tree!”

        “Chaos...” I murmured breathily, gazing up at the brown curtains of chocolate rain sweeping over the far ends of Equestria. Pigs flew in the air until they were intercepted by archers riding on the backs of upside down zeppelins. I shuddered, gazing at the river full of pink currents. “The way you transformed those police officers with a snap of your finger. The coffee. The bench.” It's not often in my life that I say the obvious; I'd have to be stripped of all anchorage to reality and reason. I'm only half-ashamed to say that was my state of mind then. I looked up at him and murmured, “You're not just any random draconequus.”

        “And you, my dear, were born yesterday.” He spun to a stop and squatted down—his long body bunched up—so that his large face was staring point blank into mine. “It's a ridiculously predictable trait you unicorns have, you see.”

        “What trait?”

        “Tunnel vision, of course.”  He stood back up and brushed a few flakes of dust off his hairy chest. “The stiff, inelastic, unpliant pursuit of a noble goal: be it 'magic,' or 'harmony,' or 'clarity,' 'Neighvana,' etc. It's all the same:  all words, all multitudinous detritus of the Equestrian language, all ways of hiding the simple truth.”

        “And that is...?”

        “That pursuing order is the same thing as pursuing disorder,” he said, smiling cynically. “Only”—he bent over and twisted his head around one hundred eighty degrees to grin at me—“in the opposite direction!”

        I frowned. “Now that's a blatant overgeneralization if I’ve ever heard one.”

        “Oh, but admit it!” His body spun about to match his rotated head. When he turned to look in my direction, he had one of his antlers positioned square in his forehead. “Your precious alicorn princesses have got it worse!”

        “Do they?”

        “Only they're in a position of power.” He plucked the horn loose, extended it into a club, and spat out a golf ball from his lips. He perched it on his lizard foot and lined up the bony bludgeon. “And mixing power with self-righteousness is a good recipe for mayhem. Oh, it's subtle at first, like icky grime that is squeegee'd off a window.” He swung at the ball, missed, cursed under his breath, and lined the club up again. “But over time, it collects, and soon the goddesses of harmony you once worshipped without question start doing... questionable things.” His hairy gray nostrils momentarily flared with vigor. “Like turning visitors from faraway planes into stone.” With that, he thwacked the golf ball hard. He watched fixedly as it flew in a wide arc, struck a distant building, and caused the structure to collide with the apartment next to it. Soon, all the buildings were toppling like dominoes, filling the air with thunder and dust.

        As the bedlam gradually settled, I found myself staring in awe at him. “Turned... into stone?” I gulped, feeling a deep shiver rising up through my body. “The alicorns... the Elements of Harmony...”

        “They most certainly sealed the deal, didn't they?” He leaned on his antler/club and tossed me a lethargic glance. “Such a steep price, 'peace' has. It practically does my job for me. Now tell me... has Equestria enjoyed its millennia of interspecies strife? Civil war? Pestilence? Everfree monsters? Tartarus breakouts? Grass wars over the Zebrahara? Hmmm?” He twirled the club and slapped it back into its original shape atop his head. “I think I'm a teensy bit overdue for some tribute, what do you think?”

        I gawked at him, and I could literally feel the pupils in my eyes shrinking as I gulped and dribbled forth, “Discord?”

        My whole body winced, for I was answered with an array of loud cowbells and flashing lights. The draconequus bounced before me, suddenly wearing shades and a glittering red tuxedo as he shouted flamboyantly into an unplugged microphone. “Yes! I do believe we have a winner!” He stretched his arm impossibly far to the right and yanked a familiar filly with thick glasses into view. “Darling! Tell her what she’s won!”

        Grinning like a postcard, a decidedly gray-maned Twist chirped happily, “Mith Limey hath retheived the title of Captain Obviouthneth! The mare winth an all expenthe paid vacation to 'No Duh' Valley, Equethtria!”

        “Thank you very much, precious.” Discord lowered his goggles and smirked. “Remember, you're a bland, unimaginative character and nopony likes you.”

        “I'm a bland, unimaginative character and nopony liketh me!” Twist said, absolutely beaming.

        “Now you're getting it!” Discord gave her a thumbs up before punting the once-redhead beyond the nearby hills. “Kids these days.”  He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his glittering tuxedo to nothingness like a venetian blind. “Can't live with 'em; can't score a hoofball field goal without 'em!” His eyes twitched from the distant sound of a foalish thud beyond the city limits.

        “I... It... You...” I was beside myself with shock.

        “Oh come now. Didn't they debunk the 'goldfish memory' on Mythbuckers?” He curled around me and stared into my eyes. I could smell a stench older than time off his breath. “The name's 'Discord,' my dear. It's rather easy to say. What's your name?”

        I was speechless. All the courage and strength I had gained from multiple trips to the unsung realm had been sapped from me in an instant. I was still coming to grips with the startling reality that I was in personal discourse with a being who had brought so much agony and malice to ancient Equestria. This entity was bigger than a single mortal's comprehension. He was evil incarnate, a demon in the skin of dead creatures, animals whose very body parts he had absorbed the dark day he first entered this domain and eviscerated their hides to make up his unholy exterior. History had been lacking a visual depiction of the Great Deceiver, but somehow a draconequus was perfectly fitting. I couldn't imagine a more ironic, more disgusting, more disconcerting form to embody the antithesis of all Equestrian values. I was beside myself in horror, for I had read enough of this despot’s actions to know how hopeless my situation was. After all, in the span of a few decades, Discord had single-hoofedly brought this dimension to the precipice of oblivion, and had almost slain the alicorn sisters themselves in cold blood. What could I possibly do? What could I pretend to say?

        Base instincts took over. I whimpered like a foal and weakly produced, “Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings.” I winced, expecting him to fling an interstellar comet into my forehead.

        Instead, he spat into my face from laughter. “Haahaahaah! So formal! What are you, a Canterlot spy in disguise?” He winked and snapped his fingers.

        “Please...” I raised my hooves, only to be gripping a martini. “I had no idea. I—” I paused, fidgeted, and tossed the martini away. “I had no idea who you were.”

        “That certainly didn't stop you from barking at me like a self-righteous canine! Honestly, Miss Heartstrings, why the obstinate attitude against my artistry?” Discord rolled his crooked eyes and twirled a finger. “Yes, yes, so I gave a bunch of police officers gills. And so I kind of sort of turned a flightless filly into a sissy and broke the bond between her and her vigilante foster mother. Aaaaaand I might have made a sexually aggressive octopus out of your beloved Mayor's mane...”

        “Wh-what about kicking Twist into next year?”

        “Who?”

        “Is this all about getting back at Princess Celestia and Luna?” I bravely remarked, trying not to tremble. I eyed his coiled length around my tiny body. “Are you turning their kingdom upside down just to spite them for turning you into stone?”

        “Oh please, don't paint me as some sort of trifling avenger,” Discord dismissed, resting a paw on his hairy chest. “Besides, they only turned me to stone because I let them.”

        “You... let them?”

        “Why, affirmative!” He grinned brightly. “There comes a time when trying to cure boredom becomes boring! The key is knowing when to take a slumbering sabbatical, if you catch my somnambulistic drift, Harpo.”

        “'Harpo?!'” I made a face, then frowned. “My name is Lyra!”

        “Heh. Yeah, sure it is. Come...” He lifted me with his tail so that I hung upside down by a rear hoof, gasping and flailing. “Dangle with me.”

        “H-hey!” I could only sputter as I gawked at the inverted horizon before us.

        Discord frolicked on all fours into the depths of Ponyville, weaving his way through chaotic traffic. “But being stone is boring too, which is why I'm so gratified to be back in the realm of civilized locomotion. It means once again having a rich canvas to paint outside the lines! I'm not entirely certain what it was that brought me back, but I certainly can't complain!” He turned his head at a sharp angle and waved. “Isn't that right, Miss Hooves?”

        “How's this for same-day?!” Derpy screamed by on the scooter and slammed the baseball bat across Discord's cheek.

        Discord's head spun five times and swiveled squeakily to a stop, grinning. “Ahhhh, I love a mare who aims for the bleachers. Don't you?”

        “You do know...” I wheezed, all the blood rushing to my head as my jacket's hood fell over my twitching ears. “...that the royal sisters haven't forgotten you one bit! They won't let you get away with all this mischief! They have—”

        “Ugh. Spare me the lecture on the Elements of Harmony. I've read the instruction manual to this little shindig we call a 'villainous return,' Harpo. Besides, whose expositionary monologue is this?” He lifted me up to a bent lamppost and hung me by my hoodie. “And if you must know, the Elements of Harmony are useless against me.”

        I frowned at him. “How can you be so sure? The Elements are crafted out of a power that resists chaos!”

        “Then how silly of Celestia to have let the Elements dissolve into six disparate personifications!” he said, stifling a chuckle. Discord then plucked a rosebush from a nearby storefront, transmogrified it into a throne, and took a seat before me. “I'm guessing Celestia herself finally got bored in my absence! How else would she have gotten the droll idea of entrusting Equestria's greatest beacon of ostentatiousness to six flighty stereotypes of camaraderie?” He held his talons out and wagged his eyebrow. Two massage balls appeared in his palm, and he rotated them while yawning. “Ummmf... nyup... Yes, I rained on that parade. Like a monsoon of righteous, chocolate win-bomb! Nyeeeeaaaaaaaaarrgh-Kertroll!”

        “What...” I looked at him from where I dangled, my lips quivering. “What did you do to Twilight and her friends?”

        “Ah! Listen to us! Pontificating in the past tense!” He spun the twin massage balls on his talons. “The fact of the matter is, it's happening right now as we speak! Ahem...” He raised both balls and plopped them over his sockets so that they transformed into violet eyes. His mane took on a purple streak as he cupped his hands to his chin and spoke in Twilight's voice, “Girls! Why are you all acting like this? We need to stick together!”

        I gasped. “You...” I glanced down at the gray villagers doing random, ludicrous things beneath me. “You're creating a rift between Twilight and her friends!” I gnashed my teeth. “That's your edge over the magic that's threatening to turn you back into stone!”

        “Also, I was totally showing off my mammary glands at that last pony convention!”

        My limbs flailed as I tried charging him in midair. “How dare you! Twilight Sparkle doesn't deserve this! The Elements of Harmony are stronger than you're making them out to be! You'll see!”

        “Oh please, all of this hoo-haa over harmony!” Discord jerked his head and the two violet eyes shot forward, ricocheting off my skull. His mane fluffed back to its normal color as his voice returned. “See? This is exactly the sort of thing I'm trying to bend your ear about, Harpo. I've been around modern Equestria for less than a day, and already I feel like vomiting. In a short ten thousand years, this place has gotten even duller than I left it! To think that so many ponies worship the ground your princesses trot on! It's positively sickening.”

        “This kingdom has order!”

        “This kingdom is a prison”—he sat up, kicked the throne to splinters, and tickled my chin with a talon—“and it's time we ousted its warden, don't you think?”

        I stared daggers at him. “With chaos?”

        “What you call chaos, I call 'freedom.'”

        “Really?”

        “Still doubtful?” He yanked me off the lamppost and held me under his left armpit. “Here, allow me to demonstrate.”

        “Where are you—Gaah!”

        I held on tight as he “skated” across the village, slid towards a vaguely familiar apartment building, and smashed the two of us through its side. We landed inside a living room, littered from corner to corner with fresh rubble, as two frightened ponies scooted up to the far wall, gasping in fright.

        “Candygram!” Discord chirped happily, waving me in his paws. “Did someone order a background pony?!”

        “The draconequus!  He’s back!” Wind Whistler shrieked amidst the settling dust. “C-Caramel!”

        “St-stay behind me, honey!” Caramel remarked. Gulping, he nevertheless stood bravely in front of his significant other as he faced off against the omnipotent monster gripping me. “You! Keep away! We don't want any of your sorcery, you hear?!”

        “Don't knock it until you've tried it, handsome!” Discord winked, then glanced down at me. “Friends of yours?”

        “I... I...” I winced. The fact that we had just demolished our way into the home of Wind Whistler and Caramel didn't bother me nearly as much as how colorful they still appeared. I suddenly realized what was about to happen, and I felt like collapsing into a corner and sobbing. “Please. Please, Discord. I'm sorry for all the things I said earlier! You don't need to give me a demonstration—”

        “Ugh...” He facepalmed before flinging a frown into my face. “It's all about you, isn't it? Just relax and watch the master at work, Harpo.” He plopped me down in an easy chair and snapped his fingers. The hoof-rests turned into shackles and bound me in place. I struggled in vain to free myself from the seat as he sauntered past me and approached the trembling couple. “I'm about to liberate these poor, unfortunate souls in ways they never dreamed of.”

        “We... we don't want anything from you!” Caramel spouted again, grinding his hooves against the floorboards. Behind him, Wind Whistler was stretching her wings over her cowering face to hide the tears. “We just want our neighbors back!”

        “Neighbors, neighbors, neighbors...” Discord shook his head and gave them a sympathetic look as he leered above the couple. “Tsk tsk... Are you two really so small that you must function by whatever society tells you is acceptable?”

        “Wh-what?!” Caramel stammered. He flinched as Discord looked him square in the eyes.

        “You! So frightened of losing money! So mortified at the thought of dying crops! So scared of not having the moo-lah to make sweet ooh-lah-lah to your honey pooh-lah!” Discord shoved Caramel onto his back and scooped Wind Whistler up so that she was staring, frightened, into his grinning face. “And you! So worried about the wedding arrangements! So concerned over looking clean and pretty before your friends! So anxious about convincing your neighbors of your mutual, romantic sincerity!”

        “L-leave her alone!” Caramel barked, trying to roll back onto his hooves. “Nnngh—What's this all about?”

        “Question of the hour!” Discord jubilantly orated. “Just what is this all about? This lovey-dovey, romantic, topsy-turvy attempt at a relationship you have going on here?! A little bird told me in seven thousand words or so that you both entered this bond to get away from all your worries and fears. And yet, here you two are, so petrified of losing everything. So, you go through the paranoid rinse night after night! Now where's the romance in that?! Aren't you both enough for each other?”

        Discord dropped Wind Whistler down beside the earth pony. The two equines clung to each other, trembling, exchanging glances before gazing up at Discord once again.

        “What... What are you trying to t-tell us?” Wind Whistler managed.

        “All I want to say is this...” Discord spoke, his voice suddenly deeper. I watched helplessly as his shadow doubled over the two. “Why work so hard to make your relationship right when you can happily make it random?” He leaned over, his red-on-yellow eyes suddenly turning into prismatic swirls. “What is the sense of being in love, when you still have things to be afraid of?”

        With that, he lightly tapped Wind Whistler and Caramel on their foreheads. Their eyes blinked, forming swirls that matched Discord's hypnotic gaze. I gaped in awe as the color was drained from their manes and coats. Bathed in gray haze, they stood up and grinned maniacally. With a foalish bounce, they glanced at each other.

        “Hey!” Caramel gasped. “You thinking what I'm thinking?!”

        “Screw gravity!” Wind Whistler returned in a clownish voice. “I never liked my bones in the first place!”

        Caramel grabbed a lampshade off a nearby fixture, slapped it on his crown like a helmet, and lifted Wind Whistler over his head with two insanely strong forelimbs. “Three... Two... One...”

        “Contact!” Wind Whistler yelped, then blew through her lips. “Blblblblblblblblb!”

        Caramel gave a running start, galloping on his rear limbs alone. He jumped off the shattered edge of the apartment and plunged into empty space. At the last second, Wind Whistled stretched her wings out and flew the two of them like a hangglider over the rooftops of Ponyville. “Weeeeeeeee!”

        I gawked at them, then slowly turned my head to stare at Discord.

        “Haah haah haah haah!” He clapped his hands and stood proudly at the edge of the crumbling living room. “Did you see that?! Did you see what I did?!”

        “You violated their privacy and mutated their personalities!” I winced as I heard a distant shattering of windows, followed by the blood-curdling laughter of Caramel and Wind Whistler. “They'll be lucky if they don't kill themselves!”

        “Harpo, all we are is rain that never bends in the flowerfall—erm... No...” He toyed with his lip, scanning the pink-clouded sky. “Is that how it goes? Eh, I forget. Been stuck in stone too long.”

        “Uhm...”

        “What matters”—he bent over and grinned at me— “is that I freed them.”

        “From what?!” I exclaimed.

        “From their attachment to the hypocritical façade of order!” He paced along the edge of the apartment, gesturing in the air as flying pigs and lemurs with helicopter tails fluttered past us. “The universe is inherently chaotic, after all. It's Equestria that's the anomaly. It's Equestria that's the tiny pocket of silly ritual, marinating in a gigantic jacuzzi of glorious, sudsy, unadulterated unpredictability. You cannot maintain a perfect structure forever, Harpo. I don't care how many alicorns are around to carry the absurd notion of purpose on their shoulders. Eventually, all walls crumble, even the strongest firmaments. And when they do...”

        He skidded to a stop on a lizard claw, twirling to glare rather seriously at me.

        “Things are no longer fun.”

        I took a deep, seething breath. “Life is not all about fun...”

        “Oh, and I do suppose you're going to tell me that it's about lengthy sacrifice and persistence against incomprehensible odds.” Discord knelt beside my easy-chair, gesturing ecstatically towards the random explosions and chocolate rain and mailbox-smashing mailmares beyond. “Look at all your friends! Yes, perhaps, their lives are short, brutish, and cruel—but they are enjoying it! Thanks to me, they are devoid of attachments! They've been freed from the shackles of monotony! What's the purpose in having everything together when it's all going to fall apart sooner than later anyways?”

        “We all live to become better than the universal factors that constrict us!” I retorted. “Even Celestia and Luna—immortals until the end of time—are in this journey of mutual self-discovery along with us! The moment we give in to a banally impulsive existence is the day we lose all hope of transcending the substance of our fears!”

        “Whew! Look at you go!” He stood up again, folding his arms while flapping on disproportionate wings. “You're like a wind-up toy attached to a megaphone!”

        “There's just one thing I don't understand...”

        “Do enlighten me, perhaps in three sentences or less,” he uttered, lazily filing one of his talons.

        “If you're so dead certain about what your role in Equestria is...” I squinted quizzically up at him. “If you have every intent to spread chaos throughout the land—from one individual pony to another—then why bother taking such a chunk of time out of your busy schedule to take me aside and tell me all... of... this...?” My voice trailed off as I blinked in a sudden, cold sweat. “Philosophizing...” I gulped and shivered, for everything was becoming clear, and I felt like I was tied to the chair with iron weights. “All that we've been doing is philosophizing.”

        “Mmmm...” He leaned forward, his face grinning wickedly. “Now there's something you've been attached to for far too long, my dear.”

        I stared helplessly at him, twitching in panic.

        “Pondering in circles is an awfully boring thing to do.” His eyes turned into hypnotic swirls. With icy precision, the Great Deceiver of the Ages raised his omnipotent finger to my horn. “Let's see how much thinking gets done when your mind turns to goo.”

        “Mmmm!” I whimpered and clenched my eyes shut. I thought of Twilight. I thought of Mom and Dad. I thought of Al. And then, after a few panting breaths, I realized I still had the faculty to think. Sweating profusely, I opened one eye, and then the other.

        Discord was leaning over. Discord was touching his finger to my forehead. However, nothing had changed.

        “I said... 'When your mind turns to goo.'” He tapped my horn once more.

        Nothing.

        “Turn to goo!” He tapped yet again.

        Still nothing.

        “Hmmm...” His gray brow furrowed. “That's rather queer, isn't it?” Licking his lips, he hovered around me and produced four, eight, ten, a dozen extra pairs of limbs and tapped me all over with a blurring forest of fingers. “Turn to goo! Turn to goo! Turn to goo! Turn to goo!”

        “Nnnngh!” I hissed and thrashed in the chair. “Stop... poking me!” A pair of onyx strings vibrated somewhere in my saddlebag, and my vision flashed emerald. The next thing I knew, a green dome of magic shot out and Discord was lying prostate on the floor, stunned.

        “Ay carumba!” He bent impossibly backwards and stuck his head up from beneath his tail, blinking cockeyed my way. “As I live and belch! Now there's a twist!”

        “I... I...” I gulped and glanced at myself. “Wh-what happened?”

        “I haven't got a clue, but I'm sure of one thing!” He grinned and flipped his rear end over. Crawling towards me like a cockroach, he lifted the entire easy chair off the floor with his hands and grinned psychotically. “I'm not bored anymore!”

        I felt a literal sweatdrop forming beneath my left ear. “Uh oh...”

        “Hey! Let's see what else you can do, Harpo!” He spun me around and gave the chair a vicious kick. “Go long!”

        “Gaaaah!” I shrieked as the entire easy chair dissolved into debris beneath me. This wasn't nearly as horrifying as the sensation of sailing clear over half of Ponyville. I glided through a squadron of flying pigs, a pink pony wearing a beanie, a shark statue, and several other comical, airborne set pieces before whistling like a mortar shell towards Cheerilee's schoolhouse below. “Oh sweet Celestia, save me—!”

        My voice was cut off by the thunderous noise of my body slamming through the red shingled rooftop and smashing into a sea of desks below. I rolled to a stop against a wall of the one-room school, coughing and wheezing through a settling cloud of dust. To my shock, I was still in one piece. None of my limbs were broken.

        “What?! How... How am I...?”

        “Hi!” A voice lisped to my side. I glanced over to see a thoroughly bruised Twist hanging by her tail from a coat rack. “I'm thuper utheletth!”

        “Yeah. Uh huh...” I turned back to my forelimbs, reexamining them. “Why isn't a single bone broken?” My exclamation was answered as I felt a green glow fluctuating around me. My ears twitched to the sound of the Nightbringer's strings resonating once again from inside my saddlebag. It was then that an epiphany came to me. “I... I never went out in public with the Nightbringer like this before! Every time the holy instrument has protected me, it's been against her in the unsung realm.” I gulped and stammered, “But what if it can protect me against more than her...?”

        My eyes darted across the rubble-strewn floor of Cheerilee's school as things started to make sense.

        “The Nightbringer is a piece of the Matriarch's song. So are Celestia, Luna, and her. They're all pieces of the same spirit of Creation. Pure harmony is resistant against chaos, just like the six elements in cohesion, or the firmaments that protect this world from the tempestuous nether beyond!”

        I stood tall and proud, happy with my epiphany and rejoicing in the distance that I had gained from my oppressor.

        “If the Nightbringer can keep me safe from turning gray, maybe it can help Twilight save her friends and restore Harmony!” I grinned and galloped towards the exit. “Praise the goddesses he kicked me so far away! Now that I'm forgotten again, I might just have an edge against all this craziness—”

        “Well, look at you!” Discord was suddenly grinning in my face, wearing a black robe and a graduation cap. “Let's see any ordinary lime bounce back from a kick like that!”

        “Gaaaaieee!” I fell back on my haunches and scooted away from him until I sat in a corner. I hugged myself, shivering, my eyes wide to the point of bursting. “You... You... You r-remember m-me?!”

        “Well, of course I'd remember the one pony who couldn't buckle from my cleansing touch!” He stood tall before the chalkboard and fiddled with his cap's tassel. “The only ponies in all of Equestria who can resist my chaos energies so defiantly are Celestia and her bipolar baby sister! But now that's all changed! I'm pleased to make acquaintance with you and your magic green bubble of sparkles, Harpo! You're a very special pony indeed...”

        “Yeth!” Twist giggled and clapped her dangling hooves from the coat rack. “Thuper sthpethial!”

        Discord's eyes became hard, yellow lines. He sighed, yanked his coat off, and flung it over the grayed filly like a funeral shroud. “There. Much better. Where were we? Oh, yes!” He pulled his cap off his head and plopped it down over my horn. “I simply must know your secrets, Miss Heartstrings. You're like a diamond in the rough, provided that the rough was a collapsed schoolroom and the diamond had a habit of dressing like a roadie for Coltplay.”

        “How... How...” I gulped dryly. “How could you still remember me? You kicked me clear across Ponyville! This is impossible!”

        “Nay, hardly impossible, my little limey!” He lifted his left foot, which was suddenly sporting a brightly colored sneaker with grass-stained cleats. “I had quite the golden toe back before the beginning of all Creation. Granted, it's tough playing quarterback when you're the one singular entity populating a deep, nebulous pocket of the cosmos. But hey! Not like anypony was keeping score... until Harmony came to poison the paleomiasmic equilibrium, that is.” He stood up straight and scratched his chin. “Now, to answer the question of your bubbly, emerald enigma...”

        I bit my lip, my eyes dashing back towards my saddlebag. In as casual a manner as possible, I shifted the package on my back so that I felt the comforting weight of the Nightbringer, veiled from his eyesight.

        “Perhaps...” I stammered, “I am simply an unpredictable factor in your equation. You... uh... like unpredictability, do you not?”

        “Madame, I am the director of this ballroom dance of bedlam, not a participant. And like any true artist, I would very much like to be in firm control of all the colors of my palette, gray though they may be.” He reached over and fingered the streaks of my mane. “Wait. Is that some gray right there? Ew, no, that's cyan—”

        I batted his paw away and growled, “That's enough! Okay, so now you know that you can't transform me like you can the other ponies! Why not leave me alone?! You can get your enjoyment elsewhere!”

        “Haaah! As if!” Discord leaned down to my level, wagging his eyebrows with a childishly giddy expression. “Do you know how many eons I've waited to have discourse with a psychological equal?!”

        “If you meant that as a compliment, I'm afraid you had the opposite effect.”

        “So is that how it's going to be?” He shook his head. “No no, my dear, you are still a piece of this grand pageant I have to play out! Though you may be resistant to my—ahem—charm, that doesn't mean you can't liven up the grandest moment in the history of this lame kingdom you call Equestria! For I am still Discord, Ruler of Chaos, and you”—he aimed his talons at me like a pistol and pulled an invisible trigger—“are a puppet. Even a puppet that bounces back still has her strings.”

        With a flash of light, the graduation cap atop my head turned into a harlequin hat and my hoodie transformed into garishly colored clown gear over my saddlebag. I took a gasping look at myself. “What in the hay...?!”

        He snapped his finger. The world around us flashed brightly, and suddenly we were positioned in the center of Ponyville's town hall, only it was no longer the town hall. The entire place had been transformed into a grand throne room filled with every villager of Ponyville that I had the wherewithal to name. They all cheered and waved and bowed before a tall, mahogany seat within which Discord majestically sat in red and black robes. And I...

        I was squatting on the steps before him, my cap's bells jingling with each turn of my head as I looked about, taking in the ridiculous banners illustrated with abstract art and stained with chocolate precipitation.

        “How... What...?!” I gazed out the window, only to see the Equestrian horizon upside down. The sun disappeared and was swiftly replaced by the moon... which promptly formed a pie-shaped mouth and started gobbling up the stars lined up all around it. I felt nauseous. “Oh for the love of oats...”

        “Welcome to the Court of Chaos!” Discord bellowed, gesturing towards the herd of ponies bowing low and exalting him in all their gray euphoria. “This is the Capital City of the New Chaotic Equestria, after all! Don't you think it could use a bit more cheer?”

        I frowned, grimacing at the happy, drooling faces of the hypnotized masses. “I think it's cheerful enough as it is...”

        “Hush puppies! I disagree. Jester”—he kicked me in the flank— “a tune, if you will!”

        A harp appeared brightly in my grasp, and I felt my hooves playing it. I did a double-take, frowned, and tossed it away from the throne. “No! I will not play for your amusement!”

        “Pfft! Of course not!” Discord scoffed. “You're playing for theirs! Court is rather dull, after all.” He snapped his fingers again.

        An accordion materialized between my hooves, magically playing itself. Wincing, I tried tossing it away, but the handles were tied to my forelimbs with twine. The more I shook and struggled, the more the bells of my outfit jingled, adding to the grating, discordant melody. “Ughhhh...”

        “Sing it like you mean it, Harpo.” Discord snatched a flying pig from midair, snapped its head off on his throne's armrest, and drank sweet lemonade from the swine's hollow neck. Burping, he motioned towards the thick crowd of equines. “May the first ponies with a desperate need please step forward! Your lord and master of mayhem shall oblige thusly!”

        The masses squabbled and fought with each other, surging back and forth, until two older ponies finally popped out of the front line and stood boldly before their patchwork lord and master.

        “Exalted Discord!” Mr. Cake exclaimed, pointing a gray hoof at his significant other. “Tell this self-absorbed, hysterical trollop to take back that spark that split the first atom that energized the first alicorn spirit that gave birth to the Cosmic Matriarch that shaped the cosmos that made the exodus to this world that sang Equestria into being that introduced progeny into the universe that gave birth to her father that inseminated her mother that gave birth to her so that she went to a baking contest in Fillydelphia and met and married me!”

        “Negatory!” Mrs. Cake smacked him over the head with a flaming paintball gun and appealed to the regally seated draconequus. “You tell this misogynist sack of incompetence to take back the dichotomous factor of universal improbability that gave birth to the spark that split the first atom that energized the initial alicorn spirit that—”

        “Yes, yes, yes,” Discord muttered, waving a yellow paw. “I do think everypony and their brother can see where this is going. Seriously, you two, weren't the splattering projectiles enough to enliven your revolutionary little spat?” He leaned forward, grinning wryly. “Why must you bring your domestic turbulence into my most esteemed court?”

        “All I wanted was a little bit of thrill in my life!” Mrs. Cake exclaimed.

        Mr. Cake shoved her aside and growled, “She's always smothering me in insipid compliments and pet names!”

        Mrs. Cake re-shoved him back, barking up at the malevolent chaotician, “And he's always asking for it with his sweet promises and everlasting devotion!”

        “Look at these two fools!” Discord gestured, gazing down at me. “I give them a dose of disharmony, and still their poor souls are chained and fettered to the pointless notion of structure! It's like a part of them still believes in the lie that they've been anchored to all their miserably blind lives!” He reached into his chest and juicily yanked out a dripping, throbbing, black heart. “It just gets you right 'ere, don't it?” He winked.

        I gritted my teeth, struggling and fumbling to yank my hooves free from the cacophonous accordion fused to my forelimbs. “So help me, I've never wanted to punch anything so hard in my life...”

        “Oh, lighten up, Harpo.” He tossed the heart up, snatched it in his mouth, and gulped the thing back down his long throat. “You're horribly grumpy when music runs away from you.” He smiled and pointed. “Need a hand?”

        I looked up at him with a confused expression. “Huh?”

        “Hmm...” Discord scratched his goatee. “Funny, for some reason I thought that would rub you the wrong way.  Ah well.” He shrugged, swiveled about in his majestic throne, and cleared his throat before bellowing down at the married equines. “Mr. and Mrs. Cake! I loosened the tiny gossamer threads holding together your insidiously sappy love so that you might feel the thrill of turmoil and embrace a little bit of excitement in your lives! That is what you've wanted all this time, is it not?”

        “Yes, but we need more!” Mrs. Cake exclaimed, her gray eyes sparkling.

        “Oh please, your worshipfulness!” Mr. Cake got down on his knees and begged. “I feel the hideous waves of joy and contentment washing up on my mind! You must make us more miserable and confused!”

        The bulging group of clamoring ponies murmured and chanted in agreement.

        “Hmmm...” Discord leaned back and rapped his digits against the throne's armrests. “There's only one solution to a diluted modicum of chaos.”

        I looked up at him and stammered, “Harmony?”

        “Nope!” He waved his hand up high. “A saturated excess of chaos!” He snapped his fingers close to the ceiling.

        A gigantic strobe of light wafted through the crowd. In a blink, the entire “Court of Chaos” had transformed into a tall set of metal bleachers surrounding a square wrestling ring, replete with ropes and padded turnbuckles and half-blurred insignias. All of the ponies turned into a raging audience of bloodthirsty spectators, waving white signs and wearing black and white t-shirts.

        “Now let's see some attitude!” Discord growled, sitting at a table beside me in a five thousand bit suit. With his tail, he struck a hammer against a large bell.

        Sitting in my harlequin gear, I gawked at the ring as Mr. and Mrs. Cake squared off against one another in skin-tight leotards of spandex.

        “Raaaaugh!” Mrs. Cake, a great deal grayer than a few seconds ago, flew forward and locked her husband tightly in a cross-neck legbar. “Prepare to taste excruciating pain, loveykins!”

        “Nnnngh!” Mr. Cake sneered back at her. “You call down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind, sweetie-poo! Haaaugh!” He viciously suplexed her to the mat and wrangled her into a figure-four leg-lock.

        “Aaaah!” Mrs. Cake screamed and snarled over the loudly cheering crowd. “Whatcha gonna do when the cupcakemeister bears down on you, sugar-lumps?!” She kicked out of the submission hold, bucked him to the far side of the ring, and speared him to the mat before engaging in a vicious exchange of elbows and headbutts.

        A few feet away, an obese stallion sat, wearing a black cowboy hat and shouting into a microphone. “Bah gawdess! I've never seen anythang like this in my whole life! If Celestia is my witness, he's been broken in half! Ooooh!” He winced. “Damn her! Wasn't that the greatest piledriver you've ever seen, Zecora?”

        He looked aside. The zebra seated next to him mechanically turned her head, opened her mouth, and blew a giant sapphiric laser in the stallion's face.

        I ducked, wincing, as ashes and tatters of cowboy hat settled all around Discord and I. “This is what you call entertainment?!”

        “Eh, it was good when Laureneightis wasn't in charge of things, I suppose.” The draconequus yawned. “Besides, it's not really us who should be entertained.” He leaned back in his chair and gestured towards the loud, raving crowds of grayed equines. “Just feast your eyes on the Ponyville universe! Do they worry about their jobs or their careers? Do they worry about writing the Princess on a weekly basis or having their magical tramp stamps match their special talents? Do they worry about prettying up the village for an impromptu royal visit or the impending invasion of changelings!”

        “Changelings? What do changelings have to do with anything?!”

        “Oh, right, too soon.” He cleared his throat and leaned forward again. “Still, don't you see, Harpo? Happiness doesn't necessitate peace. Everything you've ever possibly sought after in your life you could have easily acquired. All you had to do was put down the philosopher's quill and ink, shove the parchment into your mouth, and dance around instead!”

        I frowned at him.  “I'm not all about philosophy!”

        “Right. You're also about magic, Mary Sues, and music. Speaking of which, I never said you could stop.” He flicked a finger towards my hooves and launched a magic bolt.

        A guitar appeared in my forelimbs, automatically playing a punkish melody that barely matched the volume of the roaring crowd around us. I sighed, rolled my eyes, and simply held the vibrating instrument as I glared up at him. “Obviously you have a gift of detecting a pony's innate talents, but you still don't know a thing about me, Discord.”

        “Oh no?” He remarked, craning his neck to oogle the grunge fest between the Cakes. “Care to enlighten me? Because I'm dying to know what dastardly power possesses you with the ability to resist my gray brushstrokes.”

        “To what end?”

        “You don't need to hide the truth behind your psuedo-intellectual exterior, Madame Limey. Deep down inside, there's one quality of yours that's as common as it is pathetic.” One beady red eye pivoted to take me in. “You're lonely.”

        I bit my lip.

        “Ah, lonesomeness. Such an exquisite element in this universe—like hydrogen! And just as common, if I do say so. Almost as smelly too, especially on a Saturday evening.” He winced as Mrs. Cake powerbombed her husband off the turnbuckle and through a collapsing table in front of the roaring crowd. “Oooooh—hoo-hooo! How spectacular!” He clapped his odd hands and smirked my way. “Funny how it's always the Mexicolt one that goes first, isn't it?”

        “What makes you think that I'm lonely?” I said without thinking. I fidgeted, pondering the degree to which Discord knew about my curse. There was no sign that he was aware of the Nightbringer, so it was safe to say that as all-powerful as this chaos lord was, he was hardly all-knowing. “I mean...” I continued, picking my words cautiously. “We're all lonely, deep down inside. That's why it's so special that we have harmony. In union, we are made whole. All that unbridled chaos and mayhem can do is separate and isolate. Do you really, honestly think that such a thing is healthy for the population of this mortal realm?”

        “Funny that you would emphasize the mortal realm in particular,” Discord said, watching the Cakes smack each other against the crowd's barricades. “Ponies, after all, are as much an aberration to the universe as harmony. Before some upstart cosmic hussy decided to plant the seed of life in this pocket of the constellations, everything was blissfully empty and desolate. There's something to be said about the eternal simplicity of utter oblivion, before divisible consciousness decided to take root like a festering cluster of smelly weeds.”

        “Are you meaning to tell me that you were once the spirit of nothingness before life in Equestria began?” I remarked, hugging the twanging guitar to my chest.

        “What I'm trying to get at, Harpo, is that that which was once blissfully nothing is gone forever.” His long neck dodged a metal ring step being flung past him and toward the far side of the town hall chamber. “And because of a certain cosmic horse goddess' divine dabbling, chaos shall forever be forced to deal with a great deal of frivolous energy threading itself apart under the merciless whim of entropy. Harmony, for all the platitudes you launch upon us, is a real fickle mistress. The end of life as you know it would be a lot less bitter if it didn't begin in the first place, you see.”

        “I can't imagine how someone with the power to do so many amazing things could submit to such a nihilistic belief.”

        “My dear, you can't imagine anything, because you've never been there!” He gave me a fanged grin, his eyes twitching. “But I can teach you!”

        “Teach me...?”

        “Mmm... Yes. Discordant Intervention 101, if you will.” He leaned over and whispered past the back of his paw and into my ear. “Pssst... With my omnipotence and your invulnerability, we can break our way beyond the Firmaments and spread the realm of chaos to other worlds.”

        I blinked at that, struggling to keep my own brain from melting. “Other... worlds...?”

        “You really don't think your beloved Cosmic Matriarch made this place her one and only rest stop, now do you?”—he chuckled—“Oh, what a charming series of stellar bread crumbs she's left for us across the universe! All it takes is a hop, skip, and a jump—and we'll find other landscapes to undo the selfish rigidity she has hammered into being. Then, plane by plane, the entirety of existence can learn to do the tempestuous tango of chaos! Now whaddya say?! Not even Stone Colt Steve Oatsten could turn down an angle like that!”

        “You're insane...”

        “No.” He briefly frowned. “I'm generous, and you should know a deal of a lifetime when it's handed to you. Now, how 'bout it?” He extended a talon my way. “The most you can lose is your threadbare anchorage to life-long ludicrous concepts of 'friendship,' 'devotion,' and 'serenity.' Is it really that crazy of an offer to comprehend? I promise you, Harpo, worse deals have been made. Take this endless match, for instance.” He turned to look at the fight, frowning. “Seriously! Who booked this crap?!  Fire Russoats!”

        I shuddered, looking out the window as the upside down sun rose again. “This is a waste of time. I gotta find Twilight.” I didn't believe for a second that Discord had as much power over me as he let on. After all, I had the Nightbringer, and I was starting to feel like the righteously enraged goddess he so despised. Why not? I had a piece of her immaculate voice, did I not? “Hey... uhm... don't look now, but isn't that Sweet Whinny Music that Mr. Cake is using as a finisher?”

        “What?!” Discord sat up, squinting harder at the fight. “But he hasn't used that since he turned hoof at Manetreal!”

        This was my opportunity. Telekinetically vibrating the strings of the Nightbringer in my saddlebag, I channeled timeless energy into my horn and zapped the guitar between my forelimbs with a basic transmogrification spell. The instrument turned into a metal folding chair in a flash.

        “Hmmmff... Good enough.” Holding my breath, I swung hard, clobbering Discord across the antlers with the metallic seat.

        “Fappo!” he grunted. The air rang sickly with the denting of aluminum, and he toppled into the crowd like a bowling pin. Ponies cheered and screamed bloody murder, piling on top of him and raving.

        There was a flash of light. I looked at myself, seeing my hoodie return to normal. Smiling, I leapt out of my seat and galloped across the arena. In swift order, I threaded through the crowd and made straightway for one of the town hall building's tall windows.

        “Please don't turn to night! Please don't turn to night!” I opened the pane and jumped out into the bright daylight. “Yes! I'm out!” It was somewhere around this point that I remembered that the Town Hall building was floating upside down over the rooftops of Ponyville. A half-second later, gravity itself also remembered, and I was sent plummeting towards the sundered, checkerboard vistas below. “Gaaaaaaah!”

        I sailed like an anvil past flocks of levitating pies, sword-fencing dolphins, and a one-eyed diamond dog in a propeller aircraft. Somewhere in the midst of the spinning madness, I prayed that the Nightbringer's extension of magic would somehow cushion what was about to happen to me next. To my mixed luck, my body sailed through several successive layers of rain-slick cotton candy. My fre fall slowed so that I landed softly through the roof of a giant house of playing cards. The large white sheets fluttered to a stop around me after my impact. I stood up, teetering dizzily, relishing in the aura of a green energy shield fluctuating around my form. A giant jack of clubs landed, leaning against my horn. I simply blew it back to the ground with a grunt.

        “Back at ya, Stu Leaves.”

        Not wasting another breath, I galloped briskly across the chaos-stricken town, trying to avoid the shadow of the hovering town hall that loomed high above. I figured that I had the element of speed and misdirection on my side. So long as I found a place to hide, some place out of open view of a flying draconequus, he just might not find me, even if he had the power to remember me.

        It was a very, very long time since I ever had to actually elude someone. The events of the last several hours were so random and bizarre that I barely had a second to truly embrace the shock of my situation. I can't quantify just how many times I've begged, prayed, and pleaded to the stars that somepony—anypony—would remember me, if even once. It seemed a truly hideous whim of fate that the first entity to register my existence was the last creature I would have ever asked to do so.

        As I galloped down alleyways and avenues, desperately searching for a place to hide, my mind tried to make sense of the senselessness. Both the ancient texts and the draconequus' boastful words confirmed the same thing: Discord was not of this world. He came into Equestria from a realm that existed apart from the harmonious dimension that the Cosmic Matriarch had sung into being. His arrival was like a foreign object invading a healthy body, or a splinter creating a festering wound. It took the combined effort of Celestia and Luna—tapping into the essential fabric of their mother's song—to defeat him, and yet they still didn't have the power to destroy him. Discord was never obliterated; he was contained. More than anything, that told me that while pure harmony could silence or imprison the lord of chaos, it most certainly couldn't erase him. In a way, the Elements of Harmony and Discord were like oil and water.

        Perhaps, just perhaps, that meant Discord was immune to the effects of my curse. Everypony forgets me because my affliction stems from the Nocturne of the Firmaments, which—for all of its cryptic power—is merely an offshoot of the Cosmic Matriarch's song. As horrible as my curse is, it's crafted from the same fabric that wove the Elements of Harmony into being. The forgotten symphony was made to sequester an alicorn goddess within the unsung realm, a place that was suspended nakedly in the chaotic nether that collected like sediment inside the hidden vacuoles of the Firmaments.

        Everypony in Equestria is bound to the structure of Creation, both known and unknown. But what power does my curse have over a being that potentially existed before Creation, as well as apart from it?

        It never fails; with each passing day I discover new and disconcerting reasons to consider myself the unluckiest pony in the annals of history. Though, perhaps “second least lucky” would be a more apt title, as I have it within my power to remember Alabaster forevermore.

        I couldn't let myself get too lost in thought, or else I might lose grip of my immediate and most pressing goal: finding a place to hide. But even this directive was lost the very second I turned down another street and saw—within just a few paces' distance—the glorious sight of Twilight's treehouse library.

        Grinning, I scampered towards the building like an excited little foal. When I reached the door, I didn't bother with etiquette. I burst my way through the infernal thing and invaded the wooden sanctum like a demonic warrior straight from Tartarus.

        A tiny dragon whelp immediately shrieked and hid behind a wooden horse carving atop the center table. “Gaaaah! Please! Leave me alone! I don't want to be chocolate rained on or forced to eat pies or bullwhipped by rubber chickens or asked to appraise any more dresses!”

        “Spike!” I hissed and slammed the door shut tightly behind me. “It's okay! I'm not hear to hurt you or make you turn gray!”

        “You're... Y-you're not?” His eyeslits peaked from around the table. He blinked. “Even the rubber chickens?”

        “Shhh!” I pulled several blinds closed, casting the interior of the library into darkness before approaching him, out of breath. “I don’t have much time and there're too many things to explain! Discord, an all-powerful draconequus from the past, has returned from thousands of years of imprisonment. He's turned Ponyville into the chaos capital of Equestria, and I fear he's put a terrible magic spell on Twilight's friends! I have to know where she is!”

        “Where who is?!”

        “Twilight!”

        “What for?”

        “Ughhh...” I frowned at him. “My name is Lyra Heartstrings, and you will not remember me. You won't even remember this conversation. Just like everypony—” I stopped in mid-sentence, crossed my eyes, and face hoofed. “Unngh... Look. Just... just believe me when I tell you that I'm an old, old friend of Twilight's and I need to talk to her right away!”

        “That's gonna be kind of hard...”

        “Why's that?”

        He toyed with his claws, digging a foot nervously into the floor. “She's... not here...”

        My face paled. “What?!”

        “She and the rest of the girls went to Canterlot at the request of Princess Celestia!” He waddled over to a window and parted the curtains long enough to gaze forlornly towards the pink clouds and flying randomness outside. “I figured it was to help the royal sisters put an end to all this nonsense!”

        I smacked his wrist, forcing the curtain shut again. “How long ago did she leave?!”

        “It was... it was this morning!” Spike exclaimed, fidgeting some more. “At least, I'm pretty sure it was before noon. It's been kind of hard to gauge time with the sun and moon rising and falling like crazy!”

        I gaped, staring off into the shadows. “That... that was before I left the cabin.” A lump was gulped down my throat. “Before I even last visited the unsung realm.”

        “Unsung realm?” The whelpling looked at me sideways. “What are you talking about?”

        I was pacing about the center of the room, toying with my hoodie and murmuring aloud, “Discord is somehow freed. Chaos breaks out throughout all of Equestria. Twilight is summoned to Canterlot...” I froze in place, grimacing. “The Elements of Harmony! Celestia must have needed Twilight and her closest friends to put Discord back into stone! But then... But then he got to Twilight's friends, and now there're no Elements of Harmony to stop him from making Ponyville the chaos capital of the world and spreading it to all of Equestria!” I winced visibly once more, feeling a guilty jolt surge through my heart. “And he even wants to spread it throughout the universe next...”

        “Just to get things covered...” Spike gestured. “We're talking about Discord—as in the dude that Celestia and Luna banished ages ago?”

        “They only wished they banished him,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Not even Tartarus can hold this menace at bay. If Twilight can't reach her friends, then none of them can turn him back into stone and make all of Equestria safe.”

        “Wait a second; how do you know that Twilight and her friends are in trouble?”

        I swiveled to face the baby dragon. “Discord told me.”

        Spike gasped. “So you've actually talked to this draconequus guy?!”

        “It's a long story, and I don't have the time to explain everything.” I took a deep breath, gazing at all the books surrounding us. “If Twilight's not here, I have to make do until she does the smart thing and returns to Ponyville.” I rushed toward the first bookcase and shouted over my shoulder, “Spike! I need you to collect all the scrolls, spellbooks, documents, and tomes you have related to harmony and the divine power of the Cosmic Matriarch!”

        “What?!” He gawked at me, flabbergasted. “What for?”

        “If Twilight's away, then we're gonna have to try and bring harmony to Ponyville on our own.”

        “Huh?!” Spike frowned and planted his hands against his hips. “Miss Heartstrings, I dunno what's gotten into your head, but nopony in all of Equestria is even close to having the sort of magical power that Twilight has! What makes you think you could possibly find any sort of chink in this Discord dude's armor?!”

        “I have to try, Spike!” I exclaimed, rummaging through the bookcases fitfully. “While it's in my power to do so!”

        “Again, I gotta ask!”—Spike waddled over and yanked on my tail—“just what makes you think you've got the power?”

        I looked at him, blinking. I sighed. He was right; he needed an explanation. It was time to stop hiding. “Very well. I was hesitant to share this, but it's only fair that you know, especially if I'm to demand any of your help right this instant. Not like it'll matter in the long run; you'll only forget in the end.”

        “Forget?” He leaned forward. “Forget what?”

        I took a breath and opened my saddlebag to reveal the velvet pouch that held the Nighbringer.  I held the grand musical instrument in all its glittering glory. The interior of the library positively lit up from the golden instrument of divinity.

        “This, Spike,” I said. “This gives me more raw power than the average unicorn. I may not be a match for Twilight, but I promise you that I have her best interests at heart. I only ask that you help me perform a spell or two of hers, just so that I can win back a few ponies from the cursed grayness, or at least do something to hold the forces of Discord at bay until Twilight herself shows up. Do you think you can give me that much faith and support? Huh?”

        His jaw dropped. Slowly, he pointed. “You... you have the Nightbringer?”

        “Yes, don't ask how, but I was able to—” I froze suddenly, my entire body petrified. I squinted at him. “Wait... How did you know that this was called—?”

        “Snkkkt-Heheheheheh...” Spike hugged himself, doubling over as a vicious cackle bled through his system.

        I stared at him, my body shivering in a pensive manner.

        When he tilted his head up, his sockets were filled with red-on-yellow eyes. A single fang broke out through his lips as he rumbled in a deep voice, “You... Haah haah haah... You actually think that the Nightbringer can resist my waves of chaos?! Haah haah haah!” He doubled back, growing a serpentine tail and a pair of antlers.

        I blinked. Sunlight peeked into the room as a loud creaking noise filled my ears. I looked up and watched with mixed surprise as the walls of the “library” fell in opposite directions like giant cardboard cutouts. Discord and I stood in the center of Ponyville, with the real treehouse standing three blocks away beneath a drizzle of chocolate rain.

        I shut my eyes and took a long, deep breath. Slowly, lethargically, I turned and gave the tickled-pink draconequus an icy glare. I should have known; he didn't dig the swell hoodie. “Okay... that was well-played.”

        “Haah haah haah!” He hugged himself and grinned in my direction. “If there's anything I do so love, it's a good old-fashioned game!” He winked, then shrank into the ground.

        On the other side of me, an ear of corn sprouted up and bloomed. Instead of a corn cob, a miniature Discord with an eyepatch popped out and perched on my shoulder. “Yarrrgh, 'tis a pretty piece of plunder! Methinks Harpo's been lootin' the chests of the Cosmic Matriarch's locker!”

        “Don't you even think about—”

        “Avast ye, pretty pluckers!” With a jagged hook, mini Discord lashed greedily at the onyx strings. Before I had time to react, much less gasp, he made contact.

        And then there was a bright flash of green light. The miniature draconequus caught flame like a flag struck by lightning. He dissolved into an explosion of popcorn kernels which littered the floor, congealed, and melted up into a full-sized sower of chaos.

        “Well, if that isn't a burn.” He squinted and rubbed his chin quizzically. “Let's try that with the gloves off, shall we?” That said, he ripped his right paw off and reached forward with a bony hand.

        “Stop—” I hissed, flinching away from him.

        Again, there was a flash of light. Without even trying, I managed to successfully ward him off the very moment he tried making contact with the holy instrument. Discord's smoking body sailed into a hotel. In the meantime, I was left standing in a crater forged from the magical discharge. I felt the strings of the Nightbringer vibrating ominously while a dull bass tone hovered in the air.

        “It... It...” I blinked, gazing at the golden instrument in my hooves. “It resists him...”

        “Hmm, yes. So it would seem.” A river of bathwater spewed forth from the hotel's second story. Discord cascaded towards me, riding a bathtub and rowing with a boat oar. He scratched his head through a shower cap and squinted at the holy lyre that I was clutching. “Still, I've seen uglier buzz kills. At least now I know why you've been so alicorny to my charm.” He pouted and juggled a rubber duckie. “And here I thought we had something special, Harpo.”

        “We had nothing!” I grunted and held the Nightbringer between us like a shield. “Now back off!”

        “On the contrary, mon petit cheval!” He hopped out of the bathtub and side-kicked it into an exploding flower garden. “You've suddenly become a heck of a lot more irresistible! I suppose that will remain true until that little string-plucker of yours is handed to me, and then I'll be the irresistible one.”

        The implications of that suddenly dawned on me. The only reason I hadn't been transformed into a gray anomaly was because I possessed the Nightbringer. So long as it was in my possession, so long as it was attached to my leylines, I was just as resistant to Discord as Celestia and Luna. But if the lord of chaos got ahold of the Matriarch's very own song...

        “If you think for a second that I'm going to even humor the idea of giving this to you—”

        “Oh, you'll have plenty of opportunities to consider it, Madame Limey!” He sneered wickedly. “For, if I'm to understand things properly, we possess all the time in the world so long as you're hugging that thing like a comfort blanket!”

        I bit my lip. I thought of Alabaster, of how long it took him to teach me “Penumbra's Echo.”

        “So, how would you like to do this?” Discord cracked his knuckles, his toes, his neck, and his tongue. “Philosophical fencing? Moralistic fisticuffs? Ontological debates at twenty paces?”

        “Even you couldn't be so persistent!” I frowned. “All I'll do is distract you...” I was bluffing, but I gave him my best leering smirk regardless. “And then Twilight and the Princesses will strike when you're not looking!”

        “You forget that you're speaking with a deity extraordinaire who knows the fine art of omnipresence.” He clamped a hand over my horn and swiveled me around like a chess piece. “Observe...”

        I gasped, for I was gazing across the way at Twilight Sparkle's treehouse... and Discord was there. Not only that, but so were Twilight, four of her gray friends, and Spike—the real Spike.

        “Well, well, well...” the other Discord limped woefully before the phalanx of monochromatic mares. “I see you've found the Elements of Harmony. How terrifying!”

        “Discord, I've figured out your lame riddle!” Twilight exclaimed, the only colorful pony of the bunch. I couldn't remember a time when I had seen her so angry. “You're in for it now!”

        “I certainly am! You've clearly out-dueled me...” In perfectly acted melodrama, the draconequus brandished a pair of shades and solemnly painted a bullseye on his chest. “And now it's time to meet my fate! I'm prepared to be defeated now, ladies. Fire when ready!”

        “Formation, now!” Twilight exclaimed. A part of my soul leaped, for I realized that I was about to witness the Elements of Harmony in action, something very few equine mortals are blessed to experience. But then, just as swiftly, my heart fell, for what proceeded was quite easily the most anticlimactic display of divine power. It was somewhere between all of Twilight's friends collapsing and the same gray mares angrily stomping away that I realized that a key ingredient of the harmonious recipe was missing.

        “Rainbow Dash...?” I stammered.

        “So long as best pony is out of the picture, they can't pull the trigger!” The other Discord said behind me. I was swiveled around to face the draconequus once again. He was sporting the same shades and bulls-eye as his doppelganger, until he tossed them into a nearby river of cough syrup and smoothed his mane back with suave pride. “And even if Twilight somehow does recover from this humiliating defeat to round up her 'extra-special friends,' again, I'll make it so that another pony is preoccupied! And then another, and another, and another, and so forth ad nauseum. There really isn't a single thing your beloved lavender unicorn can do about it. The Elements of Harmony defeated themselves the moment some cosmic brainiac decided to pluralize them to begin with! So, Harpo, as you can well see...”

        He slithered to the other side of me and toyed with my chin, grinning.

        “This little rendezvous of ours can and will last forever. And even if you don't plan on kissing on the first date, I still have plenty of places for us to take our midnight strolls!” He gestured towards the heavens, and the sun fell on cue. He laughed in the sudden moonlight. “Haah haah haah! Equestria belongs to yours truly, and so you might as well just accept the truth”—he reached his talon towards the instrument—“and let me get the weight of that thing off your hooves.”

        I batted his hand away, hissing, “Not on your life!”

        “My my! So stubborn!” He cooed, “What a persistent little fishy you are, to constantly swim up this little existential stream of yours.”

        “Huh?”

        “Need I spell it out for you any more than you obviously spell it out for yourself, wordy one?” He plopped a monocle over his twitching eye and grinned. “I've had a little look-see into your leylines, Madame Limey. I know a thing or two about your hopeless little struggle.”

        “I... have no idea what you're talking about,” I proclaimed, gulping.

        “Oh please, Harpo, don't be coy. Let's have a little review, shall we?” He stuck a claw out from his index talon and tore open the fabric of reality. Reaching in, he grabbed a handfull of glowing leylines and tugged at them with a ringing bell noise. “All aboard the time trolley! Destination, sadness central! Woo! Woo!”

        I gasped as a flat panel of starlight swiveled in the middle of us. We both fell through a magical revolving door and landed onto a gray facsimile of a very familiar balcony. I looked at my hooves, only to see that my limbs were bright, white, and see-through. Before I could ascertain the nature of this vision-state, a similarly translucent draconequus stood in a stone-gray hoodie, wiping the frost off an apartment window as snow fell over the ghostly rooftops of Canterlot.

        “Well, well, well, what do we have here?” He smirked and pointed into the warm household beyond the clearing he had made in the foggy glass.

        I looked in, and a sharp breath escaped my lungs. “Mom?! D-Dad?!”

        It was Hearth's Warming Eve, nearly twenty years ago, and a pair of proud unicorn parents sat, cuddling, on a sofa, watching as their lime green foal happily tore open a present and hugged a rainbow-colored xylophone to her chest. She eagerly began plinking the various keys with a tiny drumstick, giggling with joy.

        “One Lyra Heartstrings, musically gifted filly, born to a pair of affluent unicorns among the upper elite district of Alabaster Street.” Discord squinted my way and chuckled across the ghostly snowfall. “Jee, it sure is ironic around here. I just wonder what puberty is up to!” He flicked his translucent finger against the glass so that it swiveled around. Suddenly we were looking out a library window towards a university courtyard where my collegiate self sat, chatting and giggling happily with Moondancer. “There it is! Wow, Harpo, you never did a darn thing to that manestyle of yours, did you? Tsk Tsk... So conservative...”

        “Discord...” I gulped and looked pensively up at him. “What are you trying to—?”

        “And look at this...” He gave the window another flick, and I saw my shivering body cowering before the ominous shadow of Nightmare Moon in the center of Ponyville. “Hot dog!” He slapped his odd palms together and rubbed them. “Things are starting to get positively Flankspearean! Lyra goes to visit her dear, special, friend Twilight—and she gets the zap! What kind of a zap, you ask?”

        He breathed hotly on the glass and rubbed at the fog that formed, revealing my helpless self standing atop the Ponyville town hall building with Caramel trying to talk me out of doing something truly terrible.

        “Why, the most tragic kind of zap!” Discord continued. “The kind of zap that makes her forgettable, invisible, and unremarkable. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Hey!” He called out to my past self atop the roof's edge. “Do a backflip!” He pivoted the window, this time vertically, and gaped at an image of me talking with and comforting Derpy Hooves. “What's this?” He flipped it again and again, blurring through a montage of ponies, conversations, tears, and a log cabin in progressive stages of construction. “Ooooh! How juicy! She lives!” He turned and winked bitterly at me. “If you could call it 'living...'”

        I bit my lip, watching in trepidation as the images grew more and more painfully familiar.

        “What a delectably agonizing existence that had to have been for our self-indulgent little heroine! To receive hugs, but never receive love! To save foals, and let the glory go to tomcolts! To do all the giving... but what of the taking?” He swiveled the window one last time, and in between the multiple panels I saw Moondancer and Twilight yelling at each other, a gravestone to a forgotten soldier, Scootaloo in the arms of Rainbow Dash, and a blue-maned stallion nuzzling a tearful construction worker. Sticking his grinning face before all of these images, Discord hissed, “It must sting to have only one pony care for you, and knowing that that pony is you.” With a twitch of his eye, he slammed his fist against the glass.

        The vision fell apart in translucent shards all around us, revealing the sunlit courtyard of chaotic Ponyville once again. Only in the light did I realize how misty my eyes had gotten. I sniffled and cleared my throat, hugging the Nightbringer tight to my chest like a pillow.

        “One has to ask how a pony with such a bizarre little curse managed to hold on to so much and yet so little...” He paced around me, examining the nails of his paw. “Hmmm... But I suppose it could explain why you're so instinctually drawn to the Nightbringer like a magnet. I mean, what else have you ever afforded yourself, Miss Heartstrings?” He paused and glanced down at me. “Perhaps you just haven't had a real opportunity to receive anything until now.”

        I swallowed a lump down my throat and looked up at him, my lips quivering. “What do you mean?”

        “Think about it, my dear.” He squatted down at my level and breathed softly, his eyes full of sympathy and warmth. “Your past speaks the truth in gentle tones, like a mournful piano ballad. You've had no other soul to share your agony, your loneliness, your frustration. But things have changed. I, a being of chaos, have frolicked into your life.” He reached a talon out. “And I do so extending a hand of mercy...”

        “You... do?”

        “Oh, absolutely. Lyra, I-I had no idea!” He gestured towards me. “No wonder you've been so stubborn and defiant! You've only had yourself to answer to all this time! Nopony can blame you for wanting to defend the magic of your alicorn goddesses so badly! I mean, it's the only thing you've had to lean on for so long! It's noble! Why, it's more than noble, it's legendary! And maybe... just maybe... I can make sure that your exhaustive plight gets recorded into the history books like it so justly deserves.”

        My eyes quivered, on the verge of tears. “How...?”

        “I am a god among insects, my dear, and you've spent far too long sitting at the bottom of the anthill.” He stood up straight. “Let me use my immeasurable powers to pull you to the surface, so that you can be with your loved ones again, and all the ponies whose lives you've touched can know how special, charming, and selfless an equine you've been all these long, sad months.” His crimson eyes sparkled as he reached his arms out towards my forelimb. “All it takes is a little faith, and a sign of your trust. If you just hoof me the Nightbringer, I promise that I will do all that is within my strength to cleanse the horrible curse that has befallen you.”

        I gulped. I looked at his smile, his palms, then at the source of the shimmering golden glow that was reflecting off of it all. I imagined the Nightbringer in his grasp, the music being made to bring mayhem to the cosmos.  Hundreds of millions of ponies, all equally as precious as Twilight and her friends, screamed in confusion and pain before being rewritten like so many of my weeping words.  After a deep breath, I frowned and hugged the instrument closer. “No go, Discord,” I grunted.

        “Oh, come on!” he barked, his entire body jerking into a frown. “You are the most uptight bag of winded pretense and blind resolve I have ever met!”

        “And you”—I swung the divine lyre away from him and raspberried—“are an ugly goat!”

        “I'm getting that dag-blasted Nightbringer from you!”

        “No, you're not!”

        “Ay gevalt!” He grabbed me by my haunches and shook me vigorously over the Main Street of Ponyville. “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”

        “Nnnnngh!” I hugged it tighter and hissed through an impermeable barrier of emerald magic. “Never!”

        “Ugh!” He tossed me angrily to the ground and stomped his irregular feet. “I swear! Equestria is as bad off as when I first showed up ten thousand years ago! Nopony wants to play along!”

        “Existence is just one big, silly game to you, isn't it?!” I retorted.

        “No, of course it's more than that!”

        “How so?! Humor me!” I frowned at him. “Show me that there's a single shred of respect to be found in that demonic body of yours!”

        “I would... erm... if I could remember.”

        I made a face. “Huh?”

        “Being in stone does wonders to the body. It rejuvenates and regenerates. But it takes a big dump in the brain, if you catch my smelly drift.” He leaned forward with a wicked sneer. “Speaking of which, you can't possibly keep both of those hooves locked onto the Nightbringer forever. Some mortal function or another is going to force you to let go.”

        “You...” I grimaced at him. “You are a freak!”

        “To each their own, Harpo. You'd better make plans for what you're going to let go of first, that golden lyre or your decency.”

        “I am prepared to do whatever it takes for preserving Equestria's safety—”

        Discord was already morphing his wrist into a megaphone and shouting before the entire village. “Hey, Ponyville! Did you hear that?!”

        “Discord—!”

        “Madame Limey here is gonna smell up your whole town!”

        “Discord, stop it!”

        “Stick that in your plushie and smoke it!”

        “I mean it!”

        “Haah haah haah!” Discord bent over and slapped his knee. “The funny thing is, I already know that I'm going to win this duel, Harpo! Now, why don't you quit now while you're ahorn?”

        “Just you wait and see. I'll reunite with Twilight. And when I do, we'll use the Nightbringer to bring back her friends and—”

        Just then, a frolicking sight struck my peripheral vision. I became aware of Scootaloo prancing through the street in a pink gown, sporting a tiara. “Heeeeee! I'm a pretty princess—!” The gray filly had her bouncing eyes shut, so that she was unaware of the giant cheese wheel rolling towards her in front of a stampede of moose-antler'd mice.

        I gasped. “Oh jeez!” In a green flash, I was dashing over to her with a magical burst from the Nightbringer.

        Discord must have been watching, for I heard him utter, “Hmm? What's this?”

        I was hardly paying attention to him. I sailed myself towards Scootaloo at full speed. Before the chaotic mayhem could run her over, I shoved the fancily dressed foal out of the way and into the safe cushion of a nearby flower bush.

        “Ughh...” I sat up, shaking my head as the cheese wheel and murderous mice rode past us. “That was close. Scootaloo, I don't care what state your head's in, you gotta be more careful—”

        She responded with a gray hoof slapping my cheek. “You oafish brute! Look at me! My dress is ruined!” She limped off on broken heels. “Now how will I ever dazzle my prince?”

        I looked after her, then slumped to the ground with a groan. Slowly, like melting ice, Discord slid up beside me. He stared at Scootaloo, at me, then at Scootaloo again.

        “Hmmm... Well, if this isn't interesting.”

        I stared exasperatingly up at him. “What now?”

        “What indeed.” He grinned and snapped his finger. He disappeared in a flash of light, and Scootaloo appeared in his place.

        “Uhhh... Scootaloo?” I hummed.

        She blinked at me from beneath a bent tiara until her eyes went crooked. When they snapped back in place, they took on a red color. A fang dripped out of her mouth as she grinned and spoke in Discord's voice. “I think I've figured out what truly henpecks you, Harpo. You're the local mare-do-well of these parts, a ghostly phantom of providence. Dare I say”—Scootaloo's head tilted to the side—“a guardian angel of invisibility?”

        “What... What are you getting at?”

        “It's all so siii-iii-iiimple!” Discord's voice uttered in a chuckling tone. Scootaloo's left forelimb morphed into a talon, reached into her pink gown, and pulled out a frying pan. “This is your brain.” She smacked herself in the gray skull with a resounding clang. “This is your brain on benevolence!”

        “H-hey!” I protested, gasping.

        Scootaloo smacked herself again. Clang. “And this is what it does to your pony friends!”

        “Stop it!”

        Clang. “And to your neighbors.” Clang. “And to your foalhood companions!” Clang. “And to your mentors!”

        I snarled and gripped the frying pan with telekinesis. “Stop abusing Scootaloo!”

        She leaned her welted forehead towards me, glaring with Discord's eyes. “But what... does it do to your heart?”

        I stared at her with a pale sheen, sweating.

        She grinned with a bleeding lip and flung her neck back. “Mail call!”

        In a flash, Discord and I were perched on the back of the scooter behind Derpy. The gray mailmare looked behind her in mid-glide across Ponyville. “Huh?! Hey! This is my route!”

        “You've been written out!” Discord kicked Derpy in the flank. With a gasp, the straight-eyed pegasus flew into a nearby fruit cart, baseball bat and all. Taking over the handles of the scooter, Discord swung us around the bend, down the block, and skidded us to a stop in front of a gasping little unicorn.

        “You're not my mommy!” a colorful Dinky exclaimed.

        “No, my dear, we are not.” Discord grabbed me and dismounted from the scooter. “But we had a long talk with googly-dearest, and we mutually decided that music playing just isn't for you.”

        Dinky gasped, her eyes wide and watering. “But... But... I've been practicing with the flute so much! Mom got it for me as a gift!”

        “Discord...” I stammered, shivering once again.

        He leaned over and sneered into the little foal's face. “You don't deserve a flute, you avaricious little larva!” His fang glinted as he hissed, “Just like you never deserved a father!”

        Dinky reeled back, gasping. Her wide eyes began brimming with tears. “But.. But... Mommy says I have a Daddy, only he's not around a lot...”

        “That's because your Daddy's far away, getting paid and getting old.” Discord ran a hand over Dinky's mane and tapped her nose until her eyes swirled. “Drinking every night to forget the little accident his wife foaled.”

        Sniffling, Dinky collapsed to the ground. As the color was drained from her body, she broke into quiet little sobs.

        “Discord!” I hissed at him. “You take that back!”

        “You take it back yourself!” Discord flippantly said, yawning. “That's what you do, isn't it? Sap the pain and anguish from ponies too forgetful to thank you in return? Oh, wait, I just remembered”—he grinned and glared at me through the corner of his yellow sockets—“you're too busy holding onto the Nightbringer and 'protecting the interests of Equestria' to bother being what you're good at. Hmmm?”

        “I... I...”

        “I wonder who else is on the list...” Discord gripped me and spun us like a cyclone. The chaotic village whirled around us, and suddenly we were materializing in the center of a wooden clubhouse. In the corner, three foals were cowering.

        “It's him!” Apple Bloom shrieked, her amber eyes wide. “It's that monster that's been doin' evil things in Ponyville!”

        “Make him go away!” Sweetie Belle shrieked, hiding under a sheet in the corner of the room. “I just want all of this to go away!” She began sobbing. “I want my big sister! I want Rarity!”

        “Nnnngh!” Rumble was there, and in spite of his shivers he was bravely rushing forward. “You leave them alone! I... I-I'm not afraid of you!”

        “No!” I shouted behind Discord's frame, waving frantically at the foals in panic. “Run away! I can keep him occupied! Just don't let him touch you or—” The tip of Discord's tail flew into my mouth. “Mmmmf!”

        His front half was leaning forward, grinning clownishly at the two fillies behind Rumble. “Step aside, Romeoats.” He flicked his wrist, and the two little ponies levitated up in a field of chaotic magic. “My little ponies, why have so much fear? There's so much to do now that your talents are here!”

        “Our...” Apple Bloom squinted at him. “...talents?”

        He merely chuckled and snapped his finger. Bright beams of light illuminated their flanks as he lowered them back down. “Try not to blow up anything you might miss...”

        When the two ponies landed, they glanced at their hind quarters and saw bright red dynamite sticks emblazoned on their coats. They gasped with hypnotized joy as the color drained from the rest of their bodies.

        “Our special talents!”

        “Hoooray!”

        “Cutie Mark Crusader Demolition Experts!” They slapped on hard hats and produced black, bulbous bombs from seemingly nowhere and began tossing them around at random. Huge pockets of fire and shrapnel began ripping holes in the wooden treehouse as they scampered around, giggling innocently amidst their destruction.

        “Discord! Stop it!” I shouted. I glanced in horror at the absurd scene, praying that none of their limbs flew off from the random blasts. “They're going to hurt somepony! Or worse!”

        “Hey, dying is the easiest talent to learn!” Discord said with a shrug.

        “Sweetie Belle!” Rumble stammered, gazing at his sweetheart with wide eyes. He winced as part of the roof blew up over his long mane. “What's gotten into your head?! This... th-this monster's done something to you!”

        “And why should you care so terribly much?” Discord looked him square in the eyes and dug a paw pad into the colt's ear. “You're far too young for romance and such.”

        A cutie mark appeared on Rumble's flank: a bleeding heart with a dagger through it. His face turned a paler shade of gray as a horrendous frown crossed his features. He swiveled about, marched across the treehouse, and tripped Sweetie Belle in mid-prance.

        “Whoah!” Sweetie fell to the floorboards, dropping a pair of bombs that blew up a table and a bench across the way. As a shower of splinters fell past her, she saw Rumble leaning over and frowning in her face.

        “You're selfish, fat, and dumb as mud!” Rumble spat. “In fact, the only pony who loves you is your sister, and that's 'cuz you're her garbage disposal for when she cooks too much! Hmmph!” He kicked dirt on her and trotted fitfully out of the place. “Try wooing another guy, assuming you have the brains to tell the difference between a colt and a fire hydrant!”

        Sweetie Belle blinked after him. Slowly, her eyes began to water, and a pitiful wailing sound came out of her gray mouth. This, of course, was interrupted by a large explosion as Apple Bloom tossed a stick of dynamite across the treehouse.

        The place collapsed around us. I fell several feet and hit the ground below the tree, clutching desperately to the divine instrument. When I got up, everything was smoldering debris and wreckage. I gasped and started lifting planks of wood off one another with telekinesis, panting in terror.

        “Sweetie Belle! Apple Bloom!” I searched and rummaged and scoured the wreckage. “Speak to me! I gotta get you out!” Finally, I saw a horn and plucked at it with my magic. “Sweetie Belle—”

        The antler lifted out, an Discord's grinning head rose along with it. “I can help them. I can reverse this and everything.” His eyes narrowed. “You know what to give me to make it happen...”

        “Quit it!” I snarled, trying to remain firm; I was close to hyperventilating. “These foals have done nothing to you—”

        “They're alive,” Discord droned with thin eyes. “They're harmonious. They worship Celestia. They've done absolutely everything that I despise. The only thing keeping me from doing everything that you hate to them is your stubbornness. Now be a responsible little background pony and give that musical prop of yours to someone closer to center stage, preferably moi.”

        “I... I...”

        “Well?”

        I bit my lip and trembled, clutching the golden item with rattling hooves.

        “Hmmm... I see that I have to raise the stakes a bit.” His eyes suddenly lit up, chilling my soul. “Oh ho ho ho ho...” He reached forward and grabbed my shoulders. “You're gonna love this.”

        In a blinding strobe, we were gone. I jerked, clenching my eyes shut. When we landed, I heard a gasping voice echoing across a tiny room.

        “Good heavens!” a horrifyingly familiar voice stammered. I smelled lavender and musk. I felt like sobbing. “What are you doing here?”

        I opened my eyes, and they were already tearing. Morning Dew and Ambrosia stood at the far end of their living room, gawking at the hovering draconequus who was overshadowing them with wicked menace.

        “D-Discord...” I heard my voice whimper. I barely had the strength to stand up, much less hold tight to the item of his desire. “Pl-please...”

        “Who in tarnation ordered a turkey vulture from Tartarus?!” Ambrosia remarked, only to have a fierce lion's paw shove her across the room. “Ooof!”

        “Yes, yes, we'll get to you some other time, my little hussy. But you.” He gripped Morning Dew's muzzle, scrunching his lips into an awkward smile. “Oh, of all the whimsically unintentional symbols of hopeless love!”

        “Hey!” Ambrosia shouted and tried to get up. “You get away from him, ya hear—!” Discord's tail pinned her down. She struggled and fought against his weight

        Discord wasn't finished. He lifted Morning Dew up in his hovering grip, muttering, “Quite frankly, I don't get it! I mean, look at you! You're frail! You're weak! You're practically effeminate!” His head swiveled about like a sink faucet and grinned directly at me. “Who fits into whose grooves, I wonder?”

        “Discord, not him!” I was shouting at this point. I couldn't stop it, nor could I stop the tears rolling down my cheeks. “Please! I'm begging you! Not him!”

        “What... what do you want from m-me?” Morning Dew barely hissed.

        “Me? Oh no no no no, toilet-head, not me!” Discord ran a talon through the stallion's ocean blue hair and gestured behind him. “This is all about her! That's why we're paying you this cordial visit!”

        “Wh-who?!” Morning Dew's eyes twitched between me and Discord. “I... I don't understand!”

        “Oh don't be so shy! This is your time in the spotlight!” With a snarl, Discord spun and tossed the stallion like a ragdoll into the center of the room. A table was knocked over, shattering a lamp in front of my hooves.

        “Discord—!” I shrieked.

        “You know what to do in the spotlight, don't you?” Discord marched over him. “I'll give you a hint. It involves staying focused.” He snapped his fingers.

        Morning Dew instantly turned gray. When he did so, his eyes rolled back in his head and his body collapsed from a sleeping spell. He lay on the floorboards, twitching and spasming in unconsciousness.

        “Yooohooo! Earth to casaneighvaaaa?” Discord paced around him just far enough to keep his tail pressed against Ambrosia. “Tsk tsk tsk... What a terrible way to treat your audience! You need to man up and keep your head in the game!” He snapped his fingers once more.

        The yellow returned to Morning Dew's coat. His eyes fluttered as he awoke, limply looking up at us. “Where... How...?”

        “My my my... what a terrible little condition you have! To fall asleep at a moment's notice! It must be hard to keep your wits about you.” He snapped his fingers again.

        Morning Dew slumped gray and cold on the floor, his eyes frozen open.

        “For that matter, it must be hard to keep anything about you!” He caught Ambrosia's frowning glance and snapped his finger. “What promises of provisions do you have for your loved ones?”

        Morning Dew gasped, sputtering, as if coming up to the surface of a deep, deep lake.

        Discord leaned over. “In fact, I would go so far as to say that the only souls who loved you...” He pivoted about and stared off-kilter at the two mares in the room. “Are ones pathetic enough to confuse intimacy with pity.”

        “Just... Just... t-tell us what y-you want...” Morning Dew stammered, wheezing and gasping for a solid breath.

        “Oh, I know what I want!” Discord paced around some more, snapping his fingers repeatedly. As a result, Morning Dew was thrown into spasms, waking and collapsing with his body quivering all over from massive seizures. “But a certain self-righteous soul isn't giving it to me! If I can't have what I deserve, why should anypony? Hmmm?”

        “Leave him alone!” Ambrosia snarled. “Curse you! Just leave us in peace!”

        “A funny thing, peace.” Discord did not let up. From the repeated snapping of his omnipotent fingers, Morning Dew was starting to gurgle, gagging on his own tongue as the floor turned damp from the stallion's drool. “You're supposed to get that from dreams, yes?” He snapped and snapped and snapped his fingers. “You know, where I come from, there's nothing but chaos. There is no sun or moon. Sleeping, as you must guess, is very strange to a creature such as me.” Morning Dew twitched, collapsed, spasmed, and collapsed again. “I imagine it must be oh so terribly frightening for the likes of you: to be suspended in darkness, with the promise of morning like a slim speck of light on the desolate, empty horizon. In a way, it's how ponies practice for death. There must come a time when you ask yourself”—his eyes took on a poignant shade of crimson as his fang reflected his snapping fingers—“when will be the last time you go to sleep, and when will you not wake up?”

        Morning Dew's sputtering voice echoed across the chamber. He curled up in a fetal position, helplessly sobbing from the ordeal. Ambrosia was rambling incoherently at this point. The lights of the dancing sun and moon were flashing outside the window.

        Through my tears and my hysteria, I looked at Morning Dew, at the Nightbringer, and at Discord's curved lips. The draconequus was menacing, he was evil, and he was cruel. But through it all, the logical part of my mind reminded me: he was playful. Our horror was his fun. Our torment was his pleasure, and all this time he had been scoring all the points. A sharp breath escaped my lungs.

        Discord leered above Morning Dew's waking figure. He prepared to snap his fingers one final time.

        “A game!” I shouted.

        His talons froze. The draconequus pivoted to face me with a bored expression. “I beg your pardon?”

        “A game. I... I challenge you to a game!” I exclaimed, panting hard. I gulped and held the golden Nightbringer up high. “And this... th-this is my wager!”

        He squinted, blinking periodically. “Oh really?” he hooted and stood up straight. He relinquished the pressure on his tail, and Ambrosia rushed over to cradle a gasping Morning Dew, nuzzling him dearly.

        I gulped. “Let's play a game. If... If I win, you let me go and stop messing around with all of these ponies' lives!”

        “Interesting. A tad bit predictable, but interesting.” He sat in an invisible chair before me and folded his arms with a curious glare. “And what, pray tell, do I get if I win this improvisational contest?”

        “You get...” I gulped hard, trembling all over as I forced myself to spit the words out, “You get to t-turn my brain to goo... and gloat to all of Equestria that you finally defeated this little philosopher.”

        “Mmmhmmm...” His eyes trailed down to the source of the golden shine. “Aaaaaaaaand?”

        I took a deep breath. “And the Nightbringer becomes yours.”

        “Nowwwww we're talkin'.” He tapped his talons and paw pads together. “Just what does this game entail?”

        “The game...” I stammered. “The game...” I muttered again, more limply this time.

        My eyes flew off into space as my thoughts stabbed myself for not thinking this far ahead. I pondered over all of the horrible things Discord had done. I thought of all the absurd, cynical, and comedically dark angles he had painted his artistic mayhem with. I looked beyond all the menace and the pomp and realized that, deep down, he was nothing more than a hooligan with innately godlike powers. The only way to keep a crafty imp from being bored was to present him with an equal degree of craftiness altogether.

        I can't say that the epiphany I had was a brilliant one, but it was all that made sense at the time.

        “The oldest game!” I exclaimed boldy, smirking up at him. It took titanic strength to maintain that smile, as my cheeks were still damp from witnessing Morning Dew's ordeal. “The most classic and creative of games! A game of weights and averages and constants and contrasts! A game that appeals to logic, creativity, and daring!”

        “Yes, your ambiguity is an art unto itself.” He gestured with a gnarled paw. “Details, Harpo. Details!”

        I looked at him firmly. “I state what I am, and in response you state that you're something that can conquer, eliminate, or undo what I am. I subsequently state that I'm something that can trump what you chose to be. We proceed with our hypothetical transformations, with each combatant having to logically defeat the other in our projected scenarios. The first one who can't think of a legitimate victor, or is too confounded to propose a conquering statement, becomes the loser. The victor will earn his or her spoils. Now, what do you think?”

        He gave me a cockeyed glare. “I think somepony's been reading a little too much of Neil Gaimane's The Sandmare.”

        “Are you going to hide behind snarky comments all day?!” I finally barked at him. My eyes narrowed with menace. “Or is it that you're too cowardly to take up a good challenge when you hear one?”

        “Oh ho ho ho... Look at the molars on you, Madame Limey!” He stood up straight and cracked his knuckles. “As a matter of fact, I'm more than willing to meet you at this insipid little obstacle course of vocal ballistics. I can't think of a faster and easier way to get the Nightbringer out of your obstinate hooves! But hey! Once your mind is turned to goo, you won't have the nerves to feel how burned your ego is, now will you? Haah haah haah!”

        “Well?!” I glanced—shivering—at the loving couple a few feet away from me. They were shaken, they were rattled, but they were safe. I glanced up at Discord. “Are you game or aren't you?”

        “If you paid any attention to me, Harpo, you'd realize that I was totally game for the game, my little gamemeister.” He gestured towards me. “Now game away.”

        “Huh?”

        “Pfft. It was your proposal. I think you should be the first to unfurl the sails for this splendorous voyage of redundancy! Well? Let's hear it!” He flicked a finger against his fang, producing a bell sound. “Round one, harpflanks!”

        “Right... Uhm... Right...” I took a deep breath, glancing at the two ponies. “But first, a change of scenery. We've messed with them enough—”

        “Nnnngh!” Discord shoved his paw against the wall and spun the entire room around us like a wooden top. “Stop delaying!” he snarled. “I want that damnable Nightbringer!” The room spun slowly to a stop, fittingly turning into the interior of the Carousel Boutique. Light filtered in through the broad glass windows as well as two large stone-shaped holes as Discord impatiently leered above me. “Now get started!”

        “Okay.” I took a deep breath, leaning back on my haunches and feeling my heart beating through my stone gray hoodie. I clutched the Nightbringer tightly, tripped over a mental hurdle, and finally produced. “I am a manticore, strong and ferocious. I prowl the thickets of the Everfree Forest, claiming the top seat of the food chain. I back down from no creature, for there is no living thing that has ever looked into my face without my jaws lunging towards its throat.”

        “Haah! Oh puhhhh-leeease.” Discord tilted his scoffing head so far back he almost fell into Rarity's sewing table. “If that's how you're going to go about it, then I'll be winning your precious little Nightbringer in a Manehattan minute! Ahem...”

        He leaned back, and when he did so he was sporting a curved beak and two avian eyes.

        “I am a griffon, king of the air.” He raised a pair of razor sharp talons while sporting a lion's tail. “I've evolved well beyond the need to live in the wilderness or the incessant habit of defecating atop bald ponies' heads from cloud level.” On twin wings, he hovered around the room, never stopping to leer down at me for one second. “But still, that doesn't change the fact that—deep down inside—I am a carnivore, and I know how to turn the most ferocious predator into the weakest prey.” He grabbed a curtain and hung off it, pretending to be scanning an invisible forest with hawkeyes. “I see the strong manticore, and my stomach gurgles. So I swoop down”—he landed thunderously before me in full draconequus mode, grinning psychotically—“and I claw out the poor bastard's eyes! And then I wait for the mighty manticore to bleed out, and take his shanks of flesh back home to my nest in the mountains.” He stood back and leisurely brushed his paw off his hairy chest. “That one was for free. Your turn.”

        I stood proudly and said, “I am a dragon, older than continents themselves. With my wisdom, I see the griffon acting like a barbaric murderer. With my strength, I intervene. My iron jaws cleave easily through the avian creature's feathers and hollow bones. I swallow the flesh whole, and any trinkets of metallic importance become mine to take home to my hoard.”

        “Hmmm... How dark. I like it!” Discord merely smirked, reverse somersaulted, and landed bare-back on one of the boutique's many ponyquins. With a snap of his finger, a full suit of armor appeared on his body. He twirled a mighty lance in his paw. “I am a knight, sworn to the order of the Equestrian Court! For ages, my fellow soldiers and I have been trained to vanquish the land of marauding dragons. With my guile, I charge the foul-breathing drake! With my tenacious skills of combat, I avoid the wyrm's iron jaws. With countless ages of Equestrian civilization's recorded knowledge, I outsmart all of the dragon's many tricks. His wisdom is no match for me, for I've chopped off the source of the ancient creature's wisdom at the head—literally!—with my mighty blade! I carry the skull back to the castle and put it on a pike for all of ponydom to see. Victoriously I shout, 'Here there may be dragons, but there'll always be slayers of dragons!'” He tilted the face guard of his helmet up and winked at me. “Your turn.”

        I looked at the floor of the boutique, anxious, searching. My heart began beating faster and faster with the seconds that lingered by. Then, with a gasp, I looked up at him and said, “I am a pestilence! A horrible, rampant, and infectious disease! The dragon's head is one of many things that brings a contagion to your castle! Armor, combat, and tenacity means nothing when I seep into your body and pull your most guarded organs apart at the fibrous seams. Your kingdom's pride can't hold off a plague. Your beloved culture has no shield against something that is tiny and invisible! Before you know it, I have consumed half of your populace, and your triumphant victory is short lived.”

        “Au contraire, mon petite equine.” Discord snapped his fingers and appeared in a white lab coat with matching stethoscope. “I am doctors, nurses, surgeons—heck—the entire field of medicine! I was invented by civilizations that were almost wiped out by the likes of you, but did not completely die off. Why? Because they had enough brain noodle in their skulls telling them that nothing's truly invisible, and with enough commitment and study, even the most seemingly insignificant causes of suffering can be combatted! Not with swords and with maces, mind you, but with sterilization and carefully constructed remedies. I look after my fellow kind and uphold their health and well-being above all. I acknowledge the power that your pestilence has, and yet I learn from it; I evolve.” He grinned devilishly, his fang glinting. “I survive.”

        “I...” My breaths came out in nervous pants. I was starting to lose my concentration. I was dealing with a creature of omnipotence who had been around for far more years than I'd ever hoped to count. How could I have possibly hoped to outwit him, much less outlast him? I had to be daring. I had to take a chance and morph the game. “I am economy!”

        He raised the metal disc of the stethoscope quizzically towards me and cocked his ears. “Buh?”

        “I... am money. Finite resources. The means to which everypony—even doctors... especially physicians must go to feed themselves and their loved ones.” I gulped and leaned over the Nightbringer in my grasp. “I am an object of necessity, the carrot at the end of a stick. The field of medicine has infinite possibilities, but because of me there is limited scope. No civilization has ever existed that can appropriate everything to everypony. Societies have come and gone, changing and transforming throughout the eons. I have stayed constant, a necessary illusion by which all sentient and civilized entities must function. Until all equines become as powerful and invulnerable as alicorns—a veritable impossibility—there will be a need for good health, and I'm the funnel through which those who are specialized in the field must aim their talents. Doctors, nurses, and surgeons seek to help other ponies, but they must also help themselves. So long as they acknowledge me, the symptoms of the world are cured, but diseases remain forevermore. I force the industry of caretaking to quantify benevolence, thereby diluting it.  After all, selflessness is noble, but everything still has a price.”

        “Alright, just hand it over—” Discord reached a talon towards the holy instrument.

        I swung away from him, frowning. “You haven’t earned it yet!”

        “'Economy?!' Seriously?!” He almost gagged. “If I wasn't nearly falling asleep from boredom, I'd say you're stretching things a bit!”

        “And like the 'field of medicine' wasn't abstract enough!”

        “Horses for courses, Madame Limey. You never defined the categories at the start of this game.”

        “So why don't you stop dragging your feet and think of something to better my turn?!” I tilted my chin up and smiled. “Or are you simply not as imaginative as me?”

        “Ohhhh... Ohhhh ho ho ho ho...” He cracked his knuckles, his knees, and spun his head around twice, all the while grinning at me. “You wanna go abstract, Harpo? Then let's make sweet love to the nebulous tenets of reality in style!” He leaned aside and snapped his fingers.

        In a flash of light, a deep blue unicorn appeared with a starry sorceress hat and robe. Gasping, she spun around and frowned at us. “The Great and Powerful Trixie demands an explanation for this unwarranted—”

        Discord viciously kicked her in the side.

        “Ooof!” She flew off into a ruby chest on the far end of the boutique while her garments fluttered behind.

        “There! You had your cameo!” Discord bitterly spat. He donned her pointed hat and flung her cape over an arm while smoke and sparklers framed his figure dazzlingly from behind. “I am the epitome of mysticism, the curious spark that causes hearts to leap in the dark hush of night.” His face peered up from behind the cape, grinning darkly as his eyes lit up in the fireworks bursting prismatically across the Boutique. “I am that which is feared and desired above all and—above all—all at once!” He raised both arms. In one paw, he cradled a plume of flame. In the other, he levitated a cloud of frost. “I am the puppet master of the elements, the rule-breaker of that which is seen, and the conjurer of that which is not seen.” He gestured towards the glass windows, staining them with yellow shapes of stars that shot through the panes at his command. “The heavens part at my whim, and the earth divides at my leisure.” He flung a shower of sparks in my direction and spoke menacingly through the crackling embers. “What I desire, I can produce. There is no need for money, for alchemy transcends paper and coin. There is no need for economy when I circumvent the limits of resources and expose ponies to the wonders of infinite possibilities.” He struck a pose, the cape billowing majestically behind him as he grinned into the shimmering aura he had created. “For I... am magic.”

        Even I was surprised at how quickly I retorted. “I am science!” I said with a grin. “Through careful observation and experimentation, ponies use me to grasp the truth of the world, including all its magic!”

        “Hey, no fair...” He glared as all of the parlor tricks behind him collapsed like bricks onto the floor. “I already picked 'medicine,'” he said, pointing with a talon.

        “I do not speak of a practice!” I exclaimed. I smiled. “I speak of absolutes, of the rules of the universe that must be followed. Can magic conjure things that weren't there before? Certainly, but it does not do it without a reason. Can magic give ponies that which was previously unobtainable? Most definitely, but even the energy imbued with mysticism must follow specific guidelines. These laws aren't subject to being bent, being changed, being manipulated in any way. Even you, for all of your omnipotent talents and absurd power, have an explanation. I exist as a means for ponies to grasp the universe, even if they can't grasp themselves. For even though sentient beings don't know all the truths that there are to discover, they at least know that something exists out there to be grasped, to be ascertained, to be understood. I stand firm and absolute in the minds of sentience, proclaiming a rigid truth: that all things that exist do so for a reason!”

        “Hmmm...” Discord leaned back, peeling the cape and hat off of him as he scratched his chin.

        “Is that it?” I frowned. “Well?! Have we reached an end?”

        He was silent for a few seconds.

        I clung tighter to the Nightbringer, grunting, “Have we?!”

        He blinked. Then, he smiled. “Hardly...” He snapped his fingers.

        My entire body went numb. I wanted to scream, but all that came from my mouth were vapors. I fell to the ground, discovering cobblestone and mortar instead of the familiar floor of the Boutique. Every inch of my body twitched in convulsing pain from the utter cold assaulting me from all angles. I looked up, shivering, fearful that my eyes would freeze within my sockets. I saw a giant cathedral, marked with the Celestial crest. I instantly recognized it, but my heart was too freezing to possibly register a startled jump.

        “We're... w-we're n-n-not in Ponyville anymore...” I said through chattering teeth.

        “I've never been much of a laypony,” Discord remarked, pacing around me as we sat—hunched in the moonlight—before the Celestial Temple of central Canterlot. Pink clouds drifted through the stars overhead as his voice echoed in the empty streets before the majestic building of tribute. “How about you, Harpo? Something tells me you could use a prayer right about now.”

        “You... y-you're ch-ch-cheating...” I hissed and huddled around the Nightbringer. I should have been dead by then.  Only by the magical grace of the holy instrument was I surviving, or at least that was what I had imagined. Even still, I didn’t know how long I could have possibly lasted.  My face convulsed as I lost the feeling in my ears, hooves, and nose. “Even you m-must kn-know what the c-c-curse does to m-me th-this far away from th-that town...”

        “If you were so concerned about trivialities, then perhaps you should have been a bit more specific with the rules when you established this little duel, gamemeister!” He said with a frown.

        “T-t-take us b-b-back...” I hissed, feeling my spit turning to frost in my mouth. I sputtered and wheezed. “Pl-pl-please...”

        “Shhhh... Pay attention, Harpo.” He paced past me and approached the large wooden doors to the temple. “Can't have you losing concentration and forfeiting the game while you're ahead, now can we?”

        I weakly shifted and looked up at him, my tear ducts leaking with blue crystals.

        He spun to face me, gesturing epically towards the broad face of the building. “Science?! Hah! I scoff at science! Oh ye of little faith...” He stepped back towards me, smirking. “Not to mention warmth.”

        I whimpered and curled into myself, trying to rub my forelimbs together. My hoodie felt like a stiff burlap funeral shroud.

        “Do you not know what I am? Do you not know how long I've been around? I'm older than the cosmos, bigger than the universe!” He gestured towards the stars peeking above the cotton candy clouds ahead. “The cosmic bodies that make up your constellation?! I was in the bitter blackness before they even blinked into being! Hey, for all you know—heheh—I could have been the one who dropped them into place to begin with! Can your science explain how that happened? I daresay 'no.' Your beloved science can't explain why the heart still beats and why miracles happen and why things live only to die. The Cosmic Matriarch is older than science, after all, for she was older than thought itself.”

        He hissed and pointed a finger at me, his talon positioned as far away from his head as possible.

        “How dare you question the source of where questions come from! You think you know everything, little scientist? Tiny philosopher?!” He shuffled over and stood before me. “Yes, there are rules... but there also has to be a rulemaker. You present me science?” He knelt down and tilted my freezing face up to look into his grin. “I present you divinity.”

        My vision was shaking too hard to take in the enormity of his curved lips.

        “So then, Madame Limey, what are you?”

        I hissed, trying to move my tongue through a numb mouth. Sputtering, I produced, “I am honor.”

        His brow furrowed beneath his antlers.

        I wheezed again and continued, “Yes, I am honor. N-not j-j-just to mortals, but to y-yourself. Your d-divinity m-may hold sway over the rules of th-the world, but you h-have the responsibility to m-m-measure up to yourself.” I gulped, buried my face into my hooves, and muttered through my misery. “Your cr-cruelty exists because you are c-capable of grace. Your p-power exists b-b-because you not only g-gave birth to weakness, but did so b-because you needed something to cherish. A god or g-g-goddess cannot be purely destructive, for then they would be alone. A divine b-b-being cannot be immanent completely in creation, b-because then their omnipotence would d-disolve into nature. To exist, you m-must be b-balanced, as we are all balanced, as we are all b-b-bound—forever and ever—to honor. Th-that is why we b-build temples, and that is why we erect cities around them. Honor is the wellspring of l-life, and th-the fulcrum upon wh-which all laws function.”

        “Hmmm... Indeed.” Discord stood up and snapped his fingers once more. “But to what end?”

        I yelped, my breath crystallizing in the air and falling like glass shards over blades of grass. I rolled over, gazing up at a gloomy, overcast sky. Northern Equestrian coniferous trees spread beneath me, and I saw several marble stones looming beyond my foggy vision. We were in a graveyard, and I instantly recognized the skyline of Whinniepeg in the distance. Suddenly, Discord was prancing by, hopping from one gravestone to the next, dancing over the grandiose burial site.

        “Look at the mark I have made upon this world! The neat and even scars! The geometric scoops I have carved in the soil to desposit so much ash and refuse and junk!” He spun a pirouette atop a rectangular tomb and stopped to face me. “But have I always been so neat? No, no, hardly!” He jumped over and leaned against a tall obelisk, a monument to the fallen soldiers who battled over that landscape a millennium ago when Nightmare Moon stood defiantly against the forces of the Celestial Monarchy. “I've cast bones and blood upon the ground without recourse! I've widowed mares and orphaned children! I even hung a poor sap or two, calling them heretics! Ha!”

        I clenched my eyes shut and curled into a fetal position, holding the holy instrument tighter in hopes that I could survive a few seconds longer. I couldn't feel my legs anymore. My skin was turning blue. Every time I tried to cry or sob, a sharp pain ran through my lungs, growing less and less pronounced as the horrible cold of the curse took claim of my body, sapping me in ways that even the Nightbringer's power couldn't rescue me from.

        “But did I do all of these things for justice? Did I kill kin and countrystallion for a noble cause? Sure, I might have excused such atrocious acts of mercilessness at the time, but the fact remains...” He hopped down from the gravestones and slithered towards me, pulling one of my numb ears aside to whisper into it. “I did what I did because it suited me.”

        I squinted up at him, quivering all over.

        “And, really... haah haah! When hasn't this been the way of all things?!” He stood up. “Even divine beings, defined by honor, bound themselves in the first place because it suited them too! And why not? They had things to do; it was only fair that they fabricate some means for doing them! Eventually, though, who and what I am had to show through the cracks! It showed when the Cosmic Matriarch left your beloved Equestria eons ago. It happened when the royal sisters tore this landscape apart in their pathetic, trifle, civil war. And it happens even now, on the microscopic level of mortals too! Oh, ever so terribly so!”

        He hovered up and squatted on a gravestone, leering down at me with his smirking chin on his knuckle.

        “It happens when you devise silly little ways of delaying my acquisition of the Nightbringer. It happens when you struggle to survive, even doing things that you'd be ashamed of. And it most certainly happened earlier—haah haah—when you party cannoned your way to Twilight Sparkle's house on your mad little crusade of stopping chaos. You see, Harpo, when our backs are against the wall we really can and will do anything to get what we want. Honor or no honor, the universe is full of excuses and short on shame. You want to know why cruelty exists? It's because I exist.”

        He pointed at his chest as his red eyes caught the starlight.

        “I am selfishness.”

        I was hugging myself, curled up into a lime green ball, hyperventilating. If death had came between those fitful, spasming breaths, I wouldn't have been surprised. I existed on the sheer warmth of a thought—blossoming from the depths of myself—hopeful and pathetic all at once. I somehow knew that it was fragile enough, weak enough, and desperate enough to work.

        So I worked it. “I am a m-mother's comforting embrace in th-the night, a f-f-father's gentle v-voice.” I looked up at him, my lips turning black and blue. “I am the sm-smile you never expected t-to receive, when all your dr-dreams have d-died. I am the pony th-that travels across c-country to see you for only a day, the laborer wh-who quits his j-job to support you at h-home, the general who surrenders to a larger army to spare his loyal st-stallion's lives. I am wh-what keeps the h-heart beating, even in c-cold and d-darkness. I am what makes cruelty cr-cruel and m-m-mercy merciful. I am the reason for peace, the r-reason for pl-pleasure, the source of s-sadness, and the impetus f-f-for laughter. I am what inspires patience, sacrifice, and d-devotion, even if it m-m-means betraying myself, because s-selfishness c-c-can serve me, but it can never save me...”

        Discord leaned his head to the side, squinting curiously.

        I sniffled as a real tear broke through the frost. “I am love.” I choked, coughed, and murmured, “Something... th-that I think you've been sorely lacking for a long time...”

        I always knew that I was dealing with a monster, but Discord had a way of making the most dire situation sparkle with the flimsiest notion of whimsy. However, upon receiving that last statement from me, any sign of brightness left his face, and I knew—upon the bitter bluffs of death—that I was dealing with a true, tried, and immeasurably cold menace.

        “It is time to put an end to this,” he said in a dull, metallic tone. He snapped both sets of fingers at once.

        The graves sunk into the floor. The Whinniepeg skyline receded. The sky turned dark, for all the stars had bled away. The sun dissolved; the moon shattered. A sheen of frost covered the earth, which had been stripped to cold stone, devoid of moisture, almost resembling a rusted metal sheet that reflected a deathly pale light dimming all around us. The Firmaments beyond billowed cyclonically, swirling around us without meaning or purpose. I heard thunder, but realised it was just the sound of my own choking breath in my dead ears.

        Discord stood before the desolation, catching flakes of snow and droplets of sleet in his palms as they showered down upon his suddenly grim figure. With his back to me, he gestured towards the grand, lifeless horizon, his voice echoing across the tempests like a curator might go about auctioneering a corpse, dull and starved of any melodious tone whatsoever.

        “The oceans recede, the forests die, for I am here.” His claws and hoof dug into the petrified remains of the planet. “Life withers away, along with all the law and honor attached to it, for they must bow to my domain.”

        I lay there, shivering, gazing and listening. Even as he spoke, I couldn't stop thinking about how sharply his personality had changed. Was there something especially poignant about my last utterance? Had I somehow reached into the heart of the Great Deceiver and twisted the knife the wrong way? Why was he suddenly elevating the game?

        Elevate he did, unemotionally so, his eyes locked upon the deadness before us. “I exist beyond the sunrise, beyone the revolutions of bodies. When the sun extinguishes itself, I am there. When the moon breaks apart, I continue undaunted. Entropy will claim all the various energies that science pretends to chronicle and magic dares to master, but all in futility. There is nothing more vain than attempting to avoid me, other than the wanton act of utterly ignoring me...”

        I glanced at the landscape Discord had conjured up, and a part of me gasped beyond my shivers in surprise. It all looked so terribly familiar. I suddenly realized that there was someone else beside myself and Alabaster who could recognize it, and what's more, live on.

        “Love is a word,” Discord said bluntly. “Something as flimsy as divinity, for love—like all absolutes—cannot continue forever. Either by death, desire, or convenience, love will fade, as will all abstract emotions. For the closest thing this universe has to a constant is not light nor gravity nor matter, but boredom. Everything that is simply bores itself to death, and who can blame it? Stars burning hydrogen for eternity? Dark matter stretching the universe beyond infinite measure? Energy exhausting itself along the means of least resistence? Where's the fun in that, for a single instant much less for an immortal span of eons? Every party has to end, Harpo, even the grandest party of all. No amount of sentiment or respect or hope can change the fact that somewhere before the beginning of all space and time, a pact was made, and it thereby guaranteed the conclusion to all space and time.”

        I looked at him, my eyes finding new strength, for I suddenly understood something, something I had known for a long time but was too busy being angered by his parlor tricks and horrified by his cruelty to acknowledge until that very moment.

        “You're him...” I stammered. “You're her beloved...”

        “I am the final destination of all warmth and motion,” Discord continued, undaunted. “I am the terminus of light, the final bulwark against which all matter and energy cease to be defined. I am the finality of thought, the end of life, the end of all things, and all the factors that science, faith, and progress need to measure it. Love cannot pierce me, for there is nothing to cherish. Hope cannot resist me, for there is nothing beyond. Peace, joy, and tranquility can only excuse me, because there is nothing else to call it, nothing but one word.”

        He turned to gaze back at me, and it was finally then that his smile returned, a very deep and bitter thing.

        “I am the future.” Swiveling about, Discord calmly trudged towards me, one irregular foot at a time. “And the future is something you cannot win against, Miss Heartstrings, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you lie to yourself, no matter how much you pretend you are growing from it, for there is quite simply nothing to grow into.”

        He knelt down and softly reached for the golden instrument.

        “Still, it was fun while it lasted, hmmm?” He looked for a moment like he was going to chuckle, but his frown came back just as icily as before. “It's always fun while it lasts. But only when it lasts. Now, hoof it over...”

        And that's how I knew that the lord of chaos wasn't all-knowing, for he stood to remember something. I stared steadfast into the crimson eyes of he who had seen the birth and death of the very firmaments themselves. I spoke, unblinking.

        “My turn.”

        Discord raised an eyebrow at that.

        “I am not just the substance of everything, but I am its essence. I am the tempo that gives birth to the universe, and I am the bridge that leads to its death.”

        I was breathing heavier and heavier, feeling a current of blood rising up in my frozen limbs.

        “I am the woeful declaration of despair that announces the end, and yet the rigorous octaves that scoff at it. I am the lyrics that write themselves, for creativity's sake, because there's more to this existence than construction and destruction. There is art.”

        Discord's face was scowling in confusion and disgust. I noticed this because a bright green light was shimmering across his features. I was sitting up at this point, and my horn was glowing as I channeled a brilliant stream of magic into the Nightbringer, empowering its onyx strings in ways that none of my numb limbs could.

        “What we create is more than an extension of this universe's fabric, it's a tapestry of dreams that has evolved beyond the abstract barriers that used to bind it! Fantasies turn into poetry which turn into sound which turn into warmth, feeling, and spirit!”

        I hissed and spat as my whimpering voice rose up and turned into a righteous growl. The strings of the Nightbringer were being plucked one after another; it felt like continents shattering.

        “Somewhere in the crux of that transfiguration, something is born, something that was not there to begin with, but was conjured through something more powerful than magic, something more binding than honor, and something empowered by selfishness as much as by righteousness or divinity!”

        “Stop it...” Discord hissed. “The game is over, you mad lunatic!” He reached towards my instrument, only to bounce back with a green flash. He hissed angrily at me. “We had a deal!”

        “And I'm finishing it!” I snarled back, shivering. “I'm finishing you! Or at least I'm ending what you think you are! There's more than a patchwork abomination that holds you together, Discord! There's something missing, a huge chunk that was ripped loose, a timeless wound that has bled forth anger and cruelty and mischief, when once there was only joy and contentment and comfort!”

        “What are you doing?” His eyes bulged, for he hadn't realized until that very moment just what my magic was performing with the strings of the Nightbringer. His face contorted, like a soul giving birth, giving birth to himself and dying all at once, a glorious collapse of an omnipotent accident that didn't realize that it was still fractured until that very second. “Stop it!” He clutched his antlers and bent over, curling into himself like a convulsing serpent. “No! I don't want to hear it!” he yelled, sending thunder and lighting branching across the penultimate graveyard of the firmaments. “Stop!”

        “There is one piece to your puzzle, Discord, one link to the fractured chain of your anguish and despair!” I had to shout at this point. I was almost to the end of “Twilight's Requiem,” and the dying universe all around us was buckling, filling our ears with a cacophony that could only sound off the calamitous end of time itself. “It is the same piece that can be found in all of us, the piece that is never truly missing, but is clicking with our heartbeats, asking for us to listen, asking for us to share, asking for us to live—to be that equation—even if that equation can't explain more than the bare limits of ourselves that we must discover before putting together!”

        “I don't want to hear it!” He was screaming, shouting, pleading, transforming. “I don't want to remember!”

        “What am I, Discord?!” I shouted into the waves of melody that sent rivulets across the shores of desolation. “What begins and ends the world?! What makes us exist, even when there isn't an audience?!”

        He clutched his skull and screamed.

        “I am a song!” I bellowed as the rhythm overtook him. All was bedlam and beauty and birthing. “I am her song! And you need to sing it!”

        Discord's eyes and mouth opened, and I saw the sun again. I winced, using the Nightbringer to block myself from being completely exposed to the luminous event horizon of imploding chaos. And yet, the brightness did not cease. I sensed a bubbling wave of energy from what was once him, an ever-expanding froth of fury, emotion, sorrow, and carnage. Ten thousand years of isolation and ignorance collapsed, and a nebulous charge of otherworldly spirit was chain reacting, spreading, threatening to drown every corner of the universe all at once. It was around the time that I felt the golden structure of the holy instrument actually buckling in my hooves that I realized the horrendous enormity of what I had just sparked.

        “Oh blessed Celestia,” I whimpered into the searing heat of annihilation. I pictured the parasprite destruction of Ponyville. I remembered Alabaster's account of the sarosian bomb that blew up part of the palace in Canterlot. I combined those things and magnified them by a hundred trillion in my imagination, and even still I wasn't horrified enough. “Dear goddess, what have I done?”

        She had banished her beloved for a reason.

        “No...” I choked as the brightness enveloped me, enveloped the universe, enveloped everything. I dug my face into the onyx strings of the Nightbringer and clenched my eyes shut. “N-no!” I called out names; I sobbed them out loud, unashamedly, like a foal. And, just like a foal, I heard myself panting and gasping when the grand thunder of the titanic eruption ceased in a sudden burst of silence.

        My eyes opened, and I saw that the cosmic explosion had shrunk to the size of a glowing, white marble. It hovered expertly in Discord's yellow palm, for he was standing calmly before me in the center of the dimly-lit Carousel Boutique, where even a pin drop could be heard.

        It was his voice that rang instead, and it did so in a heartfelt whisper.

        “Aria,” he murmured, tasting the name on the tip of his tongue like a sweet lover's kiss. “My sweet, sweet song.” He gazed calmly, longingly into the globule of light in his omnipotent grasp. His eyes were thin, his lips firm and set. “How like a child you were, an angelic foal who pranced into a demon's realm. All was chaos, all was confusion, and all was loneliness... until I met you.”

        I breathed deeply, gazing up at him with a gaping mouth. The delicious warmth of Ponyville was seeping back into my limbs, and yet I couldn't help but feel a sharp chill as I anxiously breathed, “'Aria?’”

        “Words are meaningless,” Discord said softly, turning the glowing orb around in his fingers. “Just like time. And yet, both took shape the day—yes—the very day that I saw her.”

        He turned and—with careful grace—flung the orb towards one of the windows. The golden light splashed across the stained surface, then solidified, parting the chaotic patterns of the pane and forming the cohesive image of a frail alicorn goddess in the center.

        “She was a glorious example of oneness. I never knew or understood singularity. All I could comprehend was the incrompehensible, a looming miasma of happenstance, incapable of form or structure. There was no end or beginning, but then she came, and the firmaments were erected along with her, and around her. That place was only ever my world, and yet it was to become her prison. Did she expect me to be there? Did anyone expect that she wouldn't be alone in her hideously imposed exile?”

        Before us, swirls formed in the stained glass. An effluent cloud of energy and matter coalesced around the alicorn. She looked up, and she sobbed. Reacting with quivering bands of light, the cloud bent, fluctuated, and took shape, trying its best to mimic her, only partially succeeding. She seemed to relax, and she allowed the intelligent distortions to drift closer to her.

        “I wanted to know more, and she was my knowledge. I wanted to feel as she did; she gave me her heart. I was excited by her fears, enticed by her smiles, and mortified by her sorrows. She was barely a foal, an infant goddess. It should have been I who was teaching her, but that was not meant to be. We held each other there, keeping each other company, communing in the desolate space between worlds. She appeased my lonesomeness, and I catered to her needs in turn. Where the cosmos was cold, I made her warm. Where the constellations were dim, I crafted her stars. We built a world together, and it was beautiful, for it was ours.”

        Horizons formed in the stained glass, taking on solid colors and textures. Two four-legged shapes galloped across the spheres, one brilliant and the other dim. When they crossed over each other, sparks spread, creating more spheres, crafting more details. Soon the entire window was ablaze with planetoids and moons and comets.

        “She didn't have a language, not at first. We had to build that too. When we did, it opened up our minds as much as our hearts. She told me that she was a song, for she had been born from one. But for some reason, she was broken. Broken by whom? How could a creature so beautiful and so delicate and so graceful be an accident? Her name was Princess Aria, and she was meant to be the Goddess of Twilight. But that could no longer be true. Those who were built out of the same song had exiled her to that place, and for all of my strengths of power and comprehension, I could not understand why. But I did not ask. After all, she was now my beautiful song, the melody of my soul, for she had showed me that I had one in the first place. In return, I gave Aria a canvas to paint with her gifts of twilight. We had a grand auditorium of our own to conduct brand new symphonies, and I wanted nothing more than for her to be happy.”

        The cosmos dimmed. The colorful alicorn figure slumped towards the horizon. Violet shadows overtook her as several tiny equines materialized around the plains of nebulous color. The dim shadow tried to console her, but a gradual barrier formed between the two.

        “But she would not stay happy forever. I may have been a creature of chaos, but that would forever separate me from Aria. After all, she was birthed into existence. Goddess or not, a beginning necessitates an end, and death has many relative speeds with which it weaves its venomous snare. The rift through which she entered my domain could not entirely be sealed, no matter what powers we had at our disposal. The song—the holy melody of ages—held sway over the firmaments, and soon she was no longer the only victim of that prison. Souls came, mortals who were as broken and as forgotten as her. I wanted to welcome them into the fold, to show them the beauty that we had created, but Aria felt differently. Something had changed in her. She started... to remember.”

        The planetoids shattered. The colors turned black and gray as a horrible rust overcame the window pane. The alicorn figure's wings spread wide and shed its feathers. Bony stalks protruded from her undead frame, and they wove chains that shackled the tiny equines to her like puppets. In the distance, massive plumes of tempestuous energy morphed together to form the watery bowels of the unsung realm.

        “She was forever an accident. In her heart, that designated her as the Queen of the Forsaken, the Overseer of Misery and Limbo. The ponies were coming to her for a reason; they had been rejected, abandoned, and banished to oblivion by the song. The mark of a divine being holier than her had designated them as unclean, and Aria reached out to them like long-lost siblings, engulfing them in misery instead of joy, for such was her conclusion to the way of all things, including unthings. How could I have convinced her otherwise? I could not taste of the bitter poison of death, the merciless force that caused all things to dissolve over time by some holy order that surpasses explanation, rhyme, or reason. Chaos, I soon realized, was a bliss that I could only shape into something that resembled structure, but I would never suffer the consequences of maintaining it like she did. For such was something that Aria was born to do, accident or not. My beloved had a purpose, and that purpose was to diminish, and provide a home for those too unlucky, too lost, and too hopeless to sleep. By her grace, they merely had to sing her song, and become... nothing.”

        Discord walked towards the window and gently caressed the undead equine shape, his finger lovingly tracing along the rigid lines of her wing-stalks. His eyes were glazed over, and for a moment there I saw something far more potent than all the explosions that the sower of Chaos had ever conjured up.

        “But that was not the song that I wanted to hear, or for her to sing. I pleaded with her, begged for her to stop what she was doing. These souls deserved more than what they were being given. We had made a paradise out of prison before; what was to stop us from extending the blessing to them? But it was far too late. There was no reasoning with her. She was no longer the infant soul who had fallen innocently into my domain eons ago. The prisoner had become the warden, and my words were mere echoes in the grand well of purpose she was prepared to see through for eternity, bound by a dedication to the same entities that had exiled her there in the first place.”

        He released his finger, and as he did so, all the color was drained from the alicorn figure, all except for a pair of glowing, violet eyes. The dim shadow fractured under her stare, overwhelmed by her shackled army of equine souls. The entire window pane began to buckle and shake within its frame.

        “Her motivation was clear, but I was inconsolable, flabbergasted, furious. The same beloved with whom I had once practiced words of love, I was now assaulting with a barrage of angry sermons and moralistic lectures. This lasted for... ages, and even a steward of forsaken souls knows an end to patience. She loved me, and she knew that I adored her, but she could no longer have me interfering in what had quite essentially become her domain. I was her beloved, but her soul, as well as her heart, was committed to somepony else, a Matriarch, a being who was incapable of loving Aria in return. For the sake of her duty, and for the righteous honor she needed to perform it, she banished me from the realm. She ousted me from the former paradise that she had transformed back into a prison, and there was no going back for me. The place had become unsung, and I did not have the means nor the knowledge to bring myself back along the same melodious currents that came naturally to her and her holy flesh and blood.”

        He snapped his finger, and the dim shadow receded from her. The dark image fell towards the lower panels of glass, like a rock plunging to the bottom of a glass ocean. Beyond the firmaments, the dark shadow took shape, borrowing the dismembered limbs of dead creatures, morphing into an asymmetrical living corpse of chaos and agony. With a mute scream towards the glassy heavens, devoid of any of her colors or grace, Discord was born.

        “And so it was that I came upon this realm called Equestria, taking physical shape in as haphazard a manner as I could afford. And it so happened that I did discover Aria's flesh and blood among the mortal plane. I pleaded and begged for Celestia and Luna to send me back, for I knew that they had to have been born out of the same song as her. Imagine my shock—my utterly irreversible disgust and anger—when I found out that they didn't know who I was talking about, their very own middle sister, their missing Princess of Twilight. Whenever I came close to explaining the exact truth to them, they reacted in a manner so unpredictable and explosive, it shocked this lord of chaos to the core. It was then that I discovered that the original bringer of the song—the Cosmic Matriarch—was the one responsible for making the holiest, most beautiful of creatures a secret to the universe, and there was no feasible way the rest of the world could learn what I had to tell them, could know what I was cursed to know.”

        The draconequus figure rose, consuming the green colors of Equestria and setting them aflame with furious reds and oranges. Equines transformed into hideous glass abominations around him. Oceans evaporated and canyons split open. The figures of Luna and Celestia sailed in orbit around the chaotician, assaulting the figure with rainbow colored beams of harmonious resolve.

        “And so, I lashed out. All my anger, all of my rage, and all of my pain, I delivered unto this peaceful land. Life was a joke, after all, a cruel and absurd prank that was played on me, for I could never return to my beloved, and yet I would always remember her. Nopony else knew a single thing about Aria, not even her sisters. I was the only being in existence that could carry her legacy. I wielded the knowledge like a two-edged sword, laughing the entire time, for even as I wielded destruction I knew what a pathetic little tantrum it all was. What was more, I knew that there was nothing Celestia or Luna could do about it, or about me. What were they possibly capable of? Their domain, the world of Equestria, was a fabrication, inserted like a flimsy bubble within the realm of chaos. It was not their power that maintained their sister's exile, it was a song, a song I had no mastery of. I could have turned their realm into an explosive stage play for eternity. As a matter of fact, I was planning to do just that. But there was only one problem.”

        The draconequus figure slumped to the brown, burning earth. In a dark shadow, he wilted, curling in on himself, remembering scant beams of purple that emanated from his beating heart.

        “Even if I transformed the entire world into my image, even if I wiped everything into a desolate slate of empty comprehension, even if I bloomed chaos into every corner of reality, I would still be alive. And what was more, I would still remember her.”

        Celestia and Luna closed in. The draconequus stood up, his glassy figure tall and proud. When they launched their final volley of rainbow magic on him, he merely laughed, leaning back and shouting pompously towards the heaven as his entire body turned white with rigid petrification.

        “And so, I let them win. I let them imprison me with the Elements of Harmony. I granted them their little victory, for it was my victory as well, whether they knew it or not. I am incapable of dying, incapable of fading away from this continuum. Chaos breeds chaos, after all, and the only thing it can ever hope to do is the last thing it would ever expect to do, and that is to sleep. And encased in stone, frozen for eons, I did just that. I slept. And as I slept, the dreams faded over time, until all was blissful darkness and confusion upon the plains of my slumbering mind. Somewhere, deep within one of the many pockets of that dismal and dark suspension, I found an oblivion for my thoughts, and a death to my memories. I had discovered what she never could have. I found peace.”

        He snapped his finger, and the glass faded to bright white light, brimming with the green lengths of Ponyville beyond. Discord took a deep breath, resting his eyelids shut as he stood within the shadows of the boutique.

        “All of the pain, all of the agony, and all of the bitterness of my legacy, I had completely and blissfully forgotten...”

        Slowly, icily, he pivoted about and opened his eyes to stare at me.

        “And then I met you.”

        I stared up at him, my lips quivering. Swallowing, I spoke weakly into the dim air, “When you were freed from the stone, you had lost any recollection of Aria. But... But you still had the anger, the bitterness, and the resentment. Hidden under jocularity and wit, it was still there, festering, manifesting cruelty for reasons you couldn't explain. I'm... I-I'm sorry that you now recall that which you don't want to on account of me, but I had no other choice! Your chaos and mayhem? It h-had to end, Discord. It just... It just has to end!”

        “Funny how only the things that are incapable of ceasing are that which 'must end,' more than anything else,” he remarked with an exasperated smile. “You would make a delightful lord of chaos, Harpo. You certainly possess the spirit of an immortal. I daresay, you may even have enough guts to weather the pain that comes with eternity. So, I think a gesture of respect is in order.” He bowed deeply towards me, waving a hand from his antlers to my horn. “Congratulations, Miss Heartstrings, you have won the game.”

        I blinked at him. I looked at the Nightbringer in my grasp and almost dropped it like a diseased rag. Even if I did lose my grip, I suddenly doubted that Discord would swoop down to pick it up. His entire body hung in a slouch, as if all life and color had been funneled from his being. Desperately, I stammered towards him.

        “I am not here to celebrate a hollow victory any more than you are, Discord. I too want peace, bliss, and freedom.”

        “Take a vacation to Disneigh World,” he muttered, sitting in the shadows of the place. “I hear they hire young musicians in a heartbeat.”

        “No, I'm serious!” I hissed, all but pleading with him. “What just happened... r-right now?! It's a miracle! Here you are, a godlike being, and you were exposed to a piece of the damnable 'Nocturne of Firmaments' that has cursed me for so long. And unlike Princess Celestia and Luna, you did not allow the world to be rewritten! You stopped the cataclysmic explosion, something that the alicorn goddesses were incapable of each time they witnessed the song that imprisoned their sister!”

        “They share more than flesh and blood,” Discord said lethargically, blending with the walls of the place. “They share a melody, a harmonious bridge that connects them and them alone, even beyond the firmaments. I always figured that's how the incorrigible Woona caught wind of her sister and turned into Nightmare Woona.”

        “Yes!” I exclaimed, pointing eagerly. “They have a connection! I understand that! But you?! You're different! You're a being of chaos! You have an edge! You may not be able to go back to your beloved in the unsung realm, but I can! I've mastered most of the symphony that binds her there! I can go there any time! I can even speak to her—”

        “There's no need to explain yourself, Harpo. I'm quite aware of your weekend trips.” He gazed at me with thin eyes. “I didn't see it earlier because I couldn't allow myself, but I understand it now. I understand everything.”

        I gulped and murmured, “Then you must understand what I'm going through, and what I'm trying to do. Please... Please, Discord.” I leaned forward, my voice cracking, “Won't you help me?”

        “Help you?” He squinted towards me. “Help you bury my beloved's memory, like all of mortal Equestria's assortment of pretentious history has done throughout the eons?”

        I stared at him in blank shock.

        “You do realize that's what it all comes down to in the end?” He stepped towards me, pacing slowly, like a drifting snowbank. “Not death. Not destruction. But remembrance. We do not end when the last atom falls apart or when the final burst of light dies out. We cease to be when all thought of us ceases to be. That might work well for you and your so-called friends and loved ones. But for me? For an endless entity?”

        Discord gestured towards himself as his eyes lit up with a final burst of crimson resolve.

        “To help you, I would have to help you hijack the royal alicorns' essential song. I would have to escort you into the land that used to be a paradise that used to be a prison that used to be a miasma of chaos. And then what? Even ten thousand years ago, Aria had long lost her singularity and become a hollow melody; I doubt she'd be capable of banishing me a second time. I'd be stuck forever in that domain with her, or at least the shadows of her, while you will have gone off to the ignorant bliss of whatever la-la land you have only dreamt of in your bed of tears at night. What then would be my purpose, Lyra, my impetus for existing? I suppose I would have to make an appeal to my beloved, getting down on my knees every sunless day and confessing my undying love to her, a love that I cannot forget, but she herself has rendered to dust and desolation, because it's her innate task to be utter forgetfulness and forsaken spirit until the last sighing breaths of time.”

        “Discord, I beg of you...” I said, my voice choking as tears started to form in my eyes. “You have so much power, so much strength, so many talents. How can someone with such amazing gifts be so despondent? You have to help me. You can do it; I know you can assist me in ending this curse...”

        “My little pony,” he murmured, suddenly squatting down and running a paw through my mane hair. His lips were frozen in a stony smile. “We are all born cursed. For whatever cruel twist of fate, the only blessed being is her, for she has found peace in her forsaken purpose. But I cannot share that same melody of victory and contentment with Aria, for my beloved has become unsung. Be glad that you are not like me, Miss Heartstrings. Your freedom will come to you, as it will come to all ponies, courtesy of her.” He caressed my chin as he stood back up. “It will come when you finally begin to forget...”

        “Discord...”

        “And it's time that I found that freedom too...”

        “Discord, I'm sorry!” I sobbed, beginning to hyperventilate. “I'm sorry that I made you remember, but please! Not everypony shares your sense of despair and immortal pain!”

        “I can't think of something to be more grateful for.”

        “What harm will it cause you to take a leap of faith and d-do something for a single m-mortal who just needs something this badly?!”

        “Because, Harpo, you quite frankly don't know what you need. Not yet. Not until you've spoken to Aria herself will you understand the price for what has happened today. And believe me, when or if you do finally comprehend it...” He squinted menacingly down at me. “You'll only wish you were going where I am going.”

        I blinked. “I... I don't understand...”

        “It's quite simple.” He scratched his talons against his chest and stared at his claws. “As we speak, Twilight Sparkle has salvaged most of her friends from the chaotic taint of my gray touch. In a matter of minutes, they will have freed Rainbow Dash from her altered state, and the six bearers of the Elements of Harmony will then be coming to confront me here in Ponyville. I have had plans of erecting another labyrinth in their path, of maybe turning another one of them gray and beginning the whole game all over again—probably that pink one, she's rather amusing, to a fault.” He turned and stared lethargically at me. “But I'm not going to bother with that. Not now. I'm tired, Harpo.”

        “Discord—”

        “I'm ready for a long, long sleep. And for Equestria's sake, we both know that it would be best if I never woke up.”

        “Discord, don't do this!” I was screaming hysterically. “You want the Nightbringer?! You can have it! You can have every song in the damn Nocturne! Just don't give up! All is not lost!”

        “On the contary, it is oh so damnably found.” He smiled calmly at me through my tears and hiccups. “Bear this in mind, Lyra. There is no worse fate than being the only soul in the universe capable of remembering that which should be forgotten. I suggest you give up on the music, my dear. It has already given up on you.” He waved his hand at me. “Arrivederci.”

        I yelled at him, but my voice was miles away. In a flash of light, the Boutique disappeared, and I was flung into the freezing foliage of the Everfree Forest. I gasped, shivering all over, not so much from the cold of my curse, but with the hideous realization that I was suddenly on the opposite side of Ponyville from the Boutique. If I had any hope of getting back to town in time...

        “Oh dear heaven... Oh please...” I broke into a furious gallop, levitating the Nightbringer into my saddlebag. With my hooves free, I blurred over the forest and grass and weed. I barreled through bushes and shrubbery and moss. Chocolate rain pelted my features as pink clouds loomed high above, mocking me. Despite my excessive speed and despite my heaving breaths and despite my tears, I wasn't making any ground. The edge of the forest constantly loomed just beyond the freezing extremity of the treeline. I pierced through it all, blasting chunks of wood away with green magic, bursting upon the precipice of one heart-wrenching sob after another.

        When I finally made it to the edge of town, I knew that it was hopeless. A bright light was billowing from the center of Ponyville. I did not stop for one second. I glided over the curved, checkerboard grasslands, vaulting over fences, dodging every chaotic creature of haphazard conjuration that intercepted my path. My muscles were quivering, my strength was wearing thin. At last, I stumbled upon the fringes of an epic battle, but even then it seemed to draw away the faster I galloped towards it.

        I saw Twilight. I saw her friends. I saw the medallions around their necks and the bright beams of platinum light emanating from their divine union. And then I saw Discord on the throne, cackling with his masterful charade of pride and confidence. The actor was on center stage, and the final curtain was about to fall. I stumbled down the aisles, hollering, screaming, launching the ghostly protests of a pariah upon the deaf ears of the living.

        “Fine, go ahead!” Discord uttered towards the gathered companions. “Try and use your little elements. 'Friend me.' Just make it quick.” He sat proudly on his throne, in perfect and uninterrupted range of their righteous fury, uselessly pontificating towards the flimsy barriers of the altered world around him. “I'm missing some excellent chaos here!”

        “Alright, ladies!” Twilight heroically exclaimed, her tiara glinting majestically as the six equines stood in formation. “Let's show him what friendship can do!”

        By the time their divine beam of rainbow light began consuming the lord of chaos, I was already collapsing. My screams were his screams, two souls conjoined under the union of a forbidden memory. Ponyville flickered back to its normal self all around us, and with a stony thud, Discord fell to the ground, rediscovering his bliss.

        And when I fell, it was in sobs. Through a numb cloud, I became vaguely aware of cheering voices all around me. Ponies came out of hiding, no longer gray or discordant. Loved ones reunited. Families and friends shared tearful embraces. I heard Milky White sobbing Scootaloo's name as she found her adopted daughter and scooped her off the ground. Caramel and Wind Whistler stumbled into town, slightly bruised, but no worse for wear. Even Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were in one piece, consoling a sullen Rumble—who spent the entire afternoon trying to apologize for sins he was never responsible for. The sound of a flute playing jubilantly in the air provided a melody to which an embarrassed mailmare swiftly began trotting to, picking up discarded envelopes and fragments of shattered mailboxes. I heard Morning Dew's healthy voice, followed by Ambrosia's joyful laughter. A grand roar of excitement filled the town, full of ponies talking about what had happened, the transformations they had survived, and the six saviors of their momentarily horrifying plight. By the time I heard Thunderlane bragging and Blossomforth sighing dreamily, I could no longer stand it, and I was trudging home, slumped over like a corpse, silent as a shadow.

        I was beyond tears, beyond anger, beyond any emotion. All I had in my head was a melody: the same song I had shared with Discord, the same song that had almost destroyed all of Equestria and yet had oddly saved it all at once, and yet still could not save me.

        “The holy sisters' song...” I murmured to myself, trying to think it all through, trying to philosophize, trying to do anything but feel. “Have Celestia or Luna ever heard the Requiem specifically? Have they ever even heard Aria's name?”

        My mind limped back to those heart-stopping moments of shadow within the Carousel Boutique, when I saw all the life drained from Discord's eyes, when I heard all of his love and hate dripping from his fanged lips.

        “It took the song to banish her beloved to Equestria,” I muttered. “If he had helped me, he would have hijacked the alicorns' song to bring me directly to Aria.” I gulped and lingered in the dirt as I arrived at my cabin in the woods. The cheering sounds of Ponyville were now a distant roar. “Maybe that's it. Maybe that's what I need to find to reach her, to make her play 'Desolation's Duet.' I need to do to her sisters what I did to Discord, but how? How can I do it without destroying the town, the world, the very fabric of the song itself?”

        I ran a hoof over my face, sighing.

        “Heaven help you, Discord. What did you know that forced you to give up? Why couldn't you just tell me?”

        I was back where I began, alone, shivering. The door to my cabin was halfway open, but I hadn’t the faculties to gripe about it.  I trudged forward in a dull cloud, as if I had been turned gray all along.  I needed time alone to bathe in the shock of what had happened that day. The only thing was, I did not have the luxury of being turned to stone.

        But just as I stepped upon the wooden porch, I heard a twangy voice uttering from behind me.

        “Howdy there! Are y'all okay?!”

        I turned around, blinking curiously. “Hmm? I beg your pardon?”

        An orange mare stood with a beautiful blonde mane. She wore a brown cowboy hat and sported delicious red apples for a cutie mark. She looked at me with emerald eyes, bobbing, for she was out of breath. “Y'all ain't gray or nothin’? Has the chaos magic left ya as well?”

        “Uhm... I-I guess?” I remarked, squirming uncomfortably from the sudden inquisition. “I feel normal. Why do you ask?”

        “Whew! Thank heavens!” She wiped her sweaty brow and grinned wearily. “Reckon ya weren't turned into anythang too terrible or nothin'. I'm headed back home, and I thought I'd check on all the pony folk along the way to make sure that Discord's power is gone for good! Boy, this sure was a mighty frightenin' day we had, wasn't it?”

        “Oh. M-most certainly,” I said. “And it's very kind of you to check up on me, Miss...?”

        “Applejack,” she said, tilting her hat and smiling brightly. “And you are?”

        “Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings.”

        “Well, I'm plum happy that you're just fine and dandy, Miss Heartstrings. But for right now, I'd best be gettin' to my family. I can't wait to see if they're okay!” She galloped off, giving me a lasting wave as her hospitable voice danced along the afternoon wind. “Y'all should come visit us at Sweet Apple Acres! I'm fixin' to treat the whole of Ponyville to an early cider season to celebrate comin' out of this gul'darn mess!”

        “Uhh... Sure thing!” I waved after the polite mare. “Nice to meet you, Applejack!”

        She was gone. With a deep breath, I turned around and trotted into my lonesome cabin.

        “Well, that sure felt nice,” I spoke aloud, closing the door and stripping off my saddlebag. I flung the container onto the cot and shuffled limply towards the wardrobe on the far end of the room. “I guess I have Equestria's most polite neighbor. Cider, hmm? Don't think I've ever tried the stuff.” I opened the wardrobe and prepared to slip off my hoodie, when something bright and crimson stood out to me. “Huh... Funny...” I reached forward and ran a hoof over the thick, woolen material. “Since when did I have a red sweater? It's beautifully crafted, that's for sure.”

        Just then, something furry rubbed up against my rear leg.

        Gasping, I jolted towards the cot with a stifled shriek. I looked down to see an orange tabby staring up at me, meowing contentedly.

        “Good grief!” I exclaimed, coming down a crest of sharp breaths. “Where the hay did you come from?” I gazed towards the windows of the cabin. “Are there a lot of strays around here or something?”

        I froze. I saw a bag of cat feed lying beside the door, along with a partially-empty dish. There was a modicum of orange fur on the bedsheets of the cot. Where my saddlebag had landed, a velvety bag had fallen loose. Something bright and immaculately golden peeked out from within.

        My heart was beating swiftly. I gazed up at the walls of the cabin. Dozens of strange musical instruments hung in the dimming sunlight. I marveled at the complexity of the bizarre collection.

        “Something... Something isn't right here...”

        I sat slowly down on my haunches, and the cat came to me. I realized that I was scratching his ears without thinking, and I could only stare at the gesture blankly. There were goosebumps forming along my forelimb, and the world was feeling very, very cold for some inexplicable reason.

        That's strange. What was I writing about just now?

Background Pony

XVI - “Beloved”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: Warden, RazgrizS57, Props, theworstwriter, theBrianJ, Ponky, and Daytona Beach

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear journal,

        What remains when we are stripped of all that we hold dear? What is the essence of a pony when she's robbed of all the tools she once had available to her? Do we find bliss in that confusing darkness, or just endless sorrow?

        I've lived long enough to find out, and still the truth is difficult to grasp. On one hoof, there is something that lies deep beneath the layers of wisdom and pretense: a pony's substance. Can ponies such as myself rise back from the depths to articulate the haunting discoveries we've made?

        Perhaps not, but the key, I believe, is not to try so hard. When we focus on what's left us, when we meditate on what's missing from our life, it's easy to think that there's no life left to live.

        I cannot believe that there is nothing. I refuse to believe that there is nothing. I've been to the foundations of oblivion, the deep, dark and lonesome roots of myself, and I've come back with one word that maintains my purpose in writing this journal, in persisting against annihilation, in fighting Princess Aria's damning song:

        Fate.

        The band played cheerful music while Caramel and Wind Whistler cut the first slice of cake. Under the flickering light of camera flashbulbs, they smiled. To the sound of blissful cheering, they blushed. Everypony in the large chamber surrounded the two newlyweds, applauding as they each broke free two morsels of white frosting, crossed forelimbs, and simultaneously gave each other a bite. Wind Whistler accomplished her task with a dainty nibble. Caramel was far less graceful, and several yellow crumbs of cake bread splattered across his trim black tuxedo. Laughter and whistles filled the room, to which Wind Whistler contributed with her melodious giggles. Bearing a flustered smile, Caramel nuzzled his bride while she brushed his expensive suit clean. The two shared yet another kiss, basking in the warmth of the eternal moment.

        A few pony photographers reloaded their film while the reception frolicked into the next hour. After cake and a series of heartfelt toasts, the couple moved out onto the enormous dance floor. The whole interior of Ponyville Town Hall had been converted to a reception room. Equines from all local walks of life were seated at tables covered with snow white table cloths and ornate floral arrangements. Applejack was there with Big Mac, Granny Smith, Apple Fritter, Golden Delicious, and several other members of Caramel's enormous family. They smiled and unabashedly cheered with whooping and hollering. Rarity sat in the corner next to Fluttershy, both adorned in modest bridesmaid gowns. The fashionista had taken a break from admiring her frilly white hoofwork on the bride to drink in the moment. Her eyes watered as her face cracked a fragile smile, and the smiling mare beside her took the moment to give her close friend a comforting embrace. On the far edge of the town hall, several well-dressed pegasi were gathered: Thunderlane, Blossomforth, Cloudchaser and Flitter cheered, giving the dancing couple several encouraging winks.

        Wind Whistler suppressed a foalish chuckle. She shut her eyes and leaned against Caramel's neck as the two nuzzled in the center of the floor. A touch of moonlight drifted in through the tall windows above, giving a glint to the polished hooflets on the couple's forelimbs. The music encompassed them in a gentle cloud; they drifted like they were cast off from the fetters of time.

        Watching from the sidelines was a giddy Pinkie Pie. Bedazzled by the moment, she bounced and bounced and bounced with bright blue eye. It took all her strength not to burst out into uproarious song. Instead, she leaned aside and nudged Rainbow Dash. Rainbow groaned, fidgeting with her pitifully simple dress and keeping her eyes locked on the clock that hung along the south wall of the room. Behind them, next to a group of adorably tiny tables with half-eaten plates of cake, a bunch of young fillies and colts were chasing each other. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Snips played tag with Dinky, giggling and hiding behind curtains of white table cloth. From the side, Derpy Hooves, Milky White, and Cheerilee stood in smiling conversation, their attention happily divided between the newlyweds and another dancing couple to their right.

        A few feet away, Sweetie Belle and Rumble awkwardly mimicked the special moment that took place in the center of the reception. Sweetie Belle's flowerfilly dress and Rumble's intensely straight-laced little suit added to the tiny spectacle. Several mares chuckled and murmured sweet things from a table or two away, which only added to Rumble's nervous jitters. Sweetie Belle merely absorbed the situation and gently leaned her neck against the colt's shoulder, to which the young stallion-to-be bravely reciprocated.

        At the table directly facing the center floor, the Mayor sat next to Dr. Hooves. The two talked about recent events, their eyes locked on the dancing couple. The Mayor smiled and murmured something to a young, red-maned mare seated beside her who chuckled and responded with a tranquil nod. A few seats down, Zecora sat with her mane braided fancifully to honor the occasion. She listened intently as Bon Bon and Carrot Top discussed plans for another upcoming celebration. Towards the far end of the table, where all was quiet and still, Ambrosia and Morning Dew sat. They stared intently at the dancing couple, their eyes soft and peaceful. Leaning against each other, the two joined hooves and shared a singular, warm breath.

        The latest string of instrumentals ended. As the band at the far end of the reception paused, the entire town hall broke into applause. The Mayor stood up and said a few words to the gathered guests, motioning towards the floor. At her insistence, several ponies stood up from their tables and flocked towards the center of the reception in pairs. The music resumed, and the dance continued. This time, however, the newlyweds weren't alone. Ambrosia and Morning Dew slow danced a few paces away from them. Thunderlane and Blossomforth shared a warm embrace as their hooves shuffled across the floor.

        Cheerilee was still chatting with Derpy and Milky White when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning around, she saw nothing but Big Mac. Upon receiving a silent invitation, she fidgeted and blushed until the other two mares practically shoved her into the stallion. Smiling nervously, Cheerilee shared the floor with Big Macintosh while Applejack trotted over to Derpy and Milky White, sharing whole-hearted chuckles. Pinkie Pie, beside herself with the euphoria of the moment, glanced every which way before settling for Rainbow Dash. The pegasus actually yelped in surprise as she was hoisted out onto the floor, forced to do the pony-pokey while that half of the town hall chuckled with merriment. She groaned and endured the moment for Pinkie's giggling sake.

        It was around this time that Spike waddled past the refreshment table with a glass of punch in each hand. He gave Pinkie Pie one glance, Rainbow Dash two, and then looked ahead. “Yeesh. Now that I think about it, Ponyville could use a heck of a lot more stallions. It'd make dancing less awkward, don't you think?”

        “Oh please, Spike.” Twilight Sparkle's voice accompanied her lavender telekinesis as it lifted a glass out of his clawed grasp. She took a gentle sip, staring contentedly at the communal event. Her smile was as soft as her breaths, gentle and happy as she waded in the melodic waves that serenaded the pleasant evening. “Don't ruin the moment. Things haven’t been this calm in a while.”

        “Calm?” Spike made a face, twitching in his top hat and whelpling-sized tuxedo. He downed his punch with a single gulp, suppressed a burning belch, and muttered, “This is the craziest, most rushed, last second wedding I've ever been to!”

        “Spike, it's the only wedding you've ever been to!”

        “Nuh uh!” He pointed with a smirk. “What about Mr. and Mrs. Fuzzhead?”

        “Fluttershy's pet otters don't count.”

        “Yeah, well...” Spike gazed down at his squirming toes. “I liked the party afterwards better than tonight's.”

        “Don't be silly! This night is very, very special.”

        “For them, sure...”

        “For all of us, Spike!” Twilight turned to smile once more upon the couple in the center of the dance floor, surrounded by fellow ponies. “Just three weeks ago, the world almost came to an end. Discord's return caught everypony by surprise, including the Princesses. We were just seconds away from losing all hope and suffering endless chaos...”

        “But then you and the Elements of Harmony saved the day, yadda yadda yadda...” Spike shrugged. “Heard it before, Twilight. I know the deal.”

        “Do you?” Twilight glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “What happened on the Day of Discord corrupted everypony, Spike. Every living thing in Equestria saw their lives flash before their eyes. Personally, I don't blame Caramel and Wind Whistler for deciding to marry sooner rather than later! If recent events have taught us anything, it's that life is precious!”

        “Yeah, well, Applejack says that things aren't gonna be easy for her cousin,” Spike said. “I overheard her and Granny Smith talking about having to let the two 'share-crack' with them.”

        “It's 'share-crop,' Spike,” Twilight corrected. “And there's nothing wrong with letting the two move into Sweet Apple Acres! That's what family's for, after all. When I was really young, my father and mother lent money to Moondancer's mother Satine to help get her through tough times.”

        “But Moondancer was your friend, not family!”

        “You're missing the point!” Twilight gazed again at the center of the reception. “There's a beauty in harmony, something that goes beyond friendship and family and neighbors and community. It's taken months and months of writing to the Princess, but I think I'm finally starting to figure it out.”

        “Figure what out?”

        “That harmony doesn't make itself. Peace doesn't just appear out of nowhere. It takes ponies like us to do brave and bold things to make harmony, well, harmonious!” She chuckled slightly, but her eyes were starting to water. “It's just so simple, Spike. I wished I realized it long ago, but I guess that would make this moment less special. How many years did I spend locked up in my room, thinking that all I was or all I ever could be would happen through books?”

        “Enough years to write your own book about living through books?”

        “Yeah, well...” She sniffled and put on a brave smile. “Every day, I'm learning newer and more amazing truths. Someday, I hope to be just like Wind Whistler and Caramel.”

        “You mean you wanna get hitched?”

        “Heh... I don't know about that,” Twilight said in a humored voice, then breathed more evenly. “What I mean is, I hope to be in a place where I'll know what I need to do and just seize the opportunity without being afraid of where I am in life, because I'll be making that life for myself then and there.”

        “I dunno, Twilight,” Spike said with a shrug, suddenly looking over her shoulder. “I think you have your life 'made' enough as it is.”

        “Heh, perhaps, but nopony can know for certain what is or isn't missing until the holes show up,” Twilight said. A very cold hoof tapped on her back. She literally jumped. Spinning around, she froze in place, her eyes squinting. “Uhhh... Yes? Did you need something, Miss...?”

        I stood there, shivering. My gray hoodie was like a homeless mare's funeral shroud in the middle of so many splendid dresses and suits. My mane hung loosely over my neck with frayed ends as I stared at her—eyes jittery and lips quivering while I fought to speak past my own panting breath.

        “I know you,” I stammered.

        Twilight Sparkle bit her lip. Spike nervously shifted from one foot to another, his eyes darting between us.

        “Ma'am...?” Twilight remarked.

        “I... know you,” I said, my eyes searching over her, through her, beyond her. I gulped dryly and ran a hoof through my disheveled hair. “The tone in your voice, the pitch, like... like a child, always discovering, always concerned, always innocent.” I gritted my teeth as a wave of cold doused me with invisible snow. The room was spinning and this unicorn was my anchor. “You want something more than anything. I want it too. It's what all ponies want, but not all ponies can say it. Someone... yes... I think someone was sobbing.” I shuddered and gazed up at the confusing starlight. “Books. Books and so much dust, yes... I think we've both been there, and every time I try to remember it, I feel like collapsing...”

        Twilight took a step or two back, her face stuck in a grimace of confusion.

        Spike was already looking towards where the Mayor stood. A pair of strong security stallions flanked her side, talking to one another while standing at attention.

        Twilight's hoof rested on the whelpling's shoulder before he could take one step away. She grabbed my attention as she leaned over and said, “Just calm down, miss. I think... I think you might be lost...”

        I gazed at her. I felt my heart beating. When I spoke, it was like a star was burning out somewhere in my peripheral vision. “Yes. Yes, that's it. Lost.”

        “Is there any way I can help you?”

        I felt a weight in my saddlebag just then. It almost matched the lump in my throat. “There's... there's a melody,” I stammered, trying my best not to hyperventilate. I was on the crest of something sharp and steep, and I was so terribly afraid to peer over. Nevertheless, I took the plunge. “I know some of it, but there are several bars missing.” Without looking, I opened the saddlebag and lifted something out. I looked at it and was only half-surprised to see a tiny golden instrument with tinier platinum strings. “I feel like I should know all of it.” I took a deep breath, my brow furrowing. “I need to know all of it.”

        “Twilight...” Spike inched over and tugged on the unicorn's shoulder. “This lady's starting to creep me out...”

        “Shh!” Twilight hissed at him, her eyes remaining locked on me. She bravely said, “Ma'am, I'm no musician. I think you need help from another pony. If you follow me, I can show you to Ponyville Hospital—”

        “No!” I barked, causing a few heads to turn my way. At the sight of Spike jolting, I took a deep breath, calmed myself, and leaned forward. “I need to know this melody. Everything will make sense then. I don't know how or why, but I just need to know it... as you know it!”

        “But I said I'm no—”

        “You're the only pony who can help me!”

        Twilight bit her lip. Ultimately, she nodded and gestured towards me. “Very well, ma'am. Play me what you know, and I'll see what I can do.”

        I gazed at her. Sitting down, I closed my eyes and concentrated. My face was tense as I plucked the first string, then the second, then the third. In slow procession, I telekinetically strummed all the notes that I knew, filling the air with a calm but solemn song, just as broken and fractured as I. When it was finished, I opened my bloodshot eyes, gazing steadily at her.

        “It's... It's familiar,” she remarked in a muttering tone. “Like... Like something from the Royal Archives—”

        “Do you know the rest?!”

        “Well, I've only heard it a few times, so my memory is rusty—”

        “Hum it!” I exclaimed hoarsely.

        She blinked, then nodded. “Very well. Uhm... Here goes.” Taking an extraordinairly large breath, she did as I asked, hitting each note with as much grace as a scholar might dance her way around a flower garden. The sounds coming from her were fragmented and short, but it was nonetheless beautiful, for they came from a sincere heart. When the humming was done, and the semblance of a melody was played out to the air of the town hall, she looked towards me with a nervous smile. “Uhm... Does that help you any? I swear, I haven't heard that since I was first taken under Celestia's wing—”

        I cut her off by strumming my lyre with vigor. The melody repeated, slowly yet with firm resonance. I felt my breaths rising as if I was soaring into a deep, deep canyon. Then, as the song played itself out under my magical rendition, an incalculably bright light burst from the abyss. I knew the song was “Twilight's Requiem” only because I had the capacity to recognize it once again. I felt my body catching fire, only to sense my hooves teetering dizzily on the town hall floor beneath the burning miasma. The colors in the room took shape, stabbing my eyes, producing tears out the other side. With a deep gasp, I spun about and gaped at everypony.

        Scootaloo was trotting up to share a hug with Milky White. Rumble was dancing with Sweetie Belle. Pinkie Pie giggled and bounced merry circles around a deathly bored Rainbow Dash. Applejack was laughing over a joke with Bon Bon and Derpy. Rarity and Fluttershy were closely admiring Zecora's exotic gown. Caramel and Wind Whistler shared a kiss in the middle of the warmth and music while Ambrosia and Morning Dew nuzzled and spoke sweet nothings into each other's ears.

        A loud clatter filled my ears as my lyre fell to the floor. I collapsed onto my haunches, covering my mouth with a pair of hooves. I couldn't see the reception anymore; everything was fog and agony. The first sob came out of me like a gunshot, the second like the felling of a whole forest. I buried my face into my quivering forelimbs.

        Through it all, I felt Twilight's hooves grasping me, embracing me. “Dear heavens! Ma'am, what's wrong?” she exclaimed, her voice so close and yet so far away. The simple fact that her gorgeous tonality now had a name to it was enough to make the sobs redouble. “What's the matter? I don't understand! Why are you so upset?”

        I choked, hiccuped, and hissed to find an even breath. I blinked, and the world once again took hideous shape, bearing all the blissfully concrete signs that I was still alive. I fell into her embrace, wincing over her shoulder as a foalish voice squeaked out of me.

        “He w-was right,” I whimpered. “He was right. He was right. He was r-right. I wish—” I sharply inhaled and stared up at the accursed, cold gaps between the stars. “I wish that I could be turned to stone...”

        “Huh?!” Twilight's face—of what I could see—was locked into a wretched grimace. The pity in her eyes was more painful than any wave of frost paralyzing me at that moment. “Who was right? I don't get it...”

        “Please. Tell me.” I gripped Twilight by the shoulders and stared at her, my eyes brimming with tears. “What day is it?”

        “Huh?”

        “What day?!” I ignored the dancing, the music, the laughter, all of the joys of the ceremony. “I have to know!”

        “It's... It's October the Twenty-Ninth!” Twilight said, her lip quivering. “Don't you know that?”

        I gasped sharply, holding a hoof over my mouth. “Blessed Celestia,” I stammered. “The month is almost over. I could have sworn... I thought...”

        “Ma'am, I think you need to see Nurse Redheart—”

        “No...” I clenched my teeth and shook my head as the tears flowed even more. Seething, I uttered, “No, no, no, no... She can't help me. You can't help me. Nopony can help me. Even the Princesses...” I gasped again. “Oh heavens! Celestia, Luna; I must find them. I must speak to them. They're a piece of her, a part of Aria, the forsaken twilight...”

        Twilight's face paled. She looked at Spike. Spike merely shrugged.

        “Can the Requiem work with them too?” I thought aloud, my body on the verge of hyperventilating. “Can it salvage them like it did Discord? Their power extends beyond the Firmaments. It could work. It has to work...”

        “Discord?” Twilight remarked. Her face took on a soft expression, “Oh dear. Where were you when he returned, miss? I...” She raised a hoof to my shoulder. “I can understand if you still haven't recovered—”

        “Recovered?!” I grasped her hoof tightly, looking deep into her eyes through panicked tears. “Nothing is recovered! All is buried! All is dead!” My face broke and I stumbled through more sobs. “Except me...” I breathed sharply. “There's n-nothing worse, Twilight, than being the only living thing to remember.”

        “Remember what?”

        I gulped and breathlessly uttered, “Everything.”

        “I'm... I'm so confused. What do you mean—?”

        “You were Celestia,” I murmured in a briefly steady breath. “Moondancer was Luna, and I was Starswirl. We spent our Canterlot days in laughter and music and doughnut sprinkles. Moondancer gave you a pink saddle for your cute-ceañera, and I bought you a book on griffon astrology. Your laughter was so joyful, like tiny bells ringing in the glitter of night. I was happy and proud to be the friend of a pony so gifted, so smart...” I added with a painful smile,  “...and so very gentle.”

        Twilight gazed at me, her eyes soft and perplexed. “I... have a book on griffon astrology. But... But I can't seem to remember how I... how I...”

        “I remember,” I said. My face broke into another sob as I ran a hoof through my tangled hair. “For now. Just as I remember Aria.” I gulped and whimpered, “Just as I remember him.” I sniffled and clenched my eyes shut. “I remember him, and now it's just a matter of time until all of it is gone: both the pain and the peace. There are so many holes, Twilight, and I'm falling into every deep pit, losing parts of myself, being stripped of every layer like... like a tapestry ripped to tatters one thread at a time. Soon, I will be nothing but the melody itself, and the song still isn't strong enough to save me...”

        “Save you?” Twilight remarked. “The song? But I thought it—”

        “The Requiem has done all it will,” I said, gently stroking her hoof in mine. I sniffled and smiled. “But you can do more.”

        “I can? Like what?”

        “Listen to me,” I said, my breath reaching a calm pitch as my sobs slowed down. “Somepony needs to hear this. Somepony needs to know what I know, even if that knowledge will be gone in the next gasp, the next whimper. I need to tell it, to share it, for all that was once whole is withering away and it's all I have left to give.”

        She nodded slowly, gazing at me with mixed sympathy and fear. “Alright,” she said, gulping. “I'm listening.”

        My smile left me as I stared into the space beyond Twilight. “I first saw him walk into Ponyville thirteen days ago...”

        His gray-streaked mane shone in the afternoon air. The stallion's amber coat matched the changing leaves of the season. Autumn collapsed around him, showering his figure like a celebratory parade as he marched down the steps of the train depot.

        He wasn't alone; a mare—barely past her filly years—accompanied him. The earth pony had a blood-red mane and piercing blue eyes. Her face was locked in a permanent scowl, as if the last thing she ever wanted was to be there in Ponyville. She carried a camera around her neck, and was preoccupied with fidgeting over her loose saddlebag and staring at a watch affixed to her forelimb.

        However, I payed the young mare no more than ten seconds of observation. It was the stallion I couldn't stop looking at: his haggard expression, his heavy jaw, his weathered muscles coiling and uncoiling beneath exhausted orange limbs. He carried a thick velvet bag full of blank canvases with him. He looked ready to draw a landscape, but was at a loss to find any sight joyful enough to warrant his brushstrokes.

        The two were obviously from out of town. This wasn't so strange a thing; hundreds of ponies had been showing up daily at the train station that week. There was a pilgrimage of sorts taking place, and Ponyville had tripled in occupancy over the weekend. Still, I couldn't stop staring at these two in particular. As I watched them trot slowly across the village to find a hotel, I felt my heart beating heavily, threatening to burst through my chest. I wanted to scream, to sob, and to laugh all at once.

        I couldn't do anything, for suddenly a feminine voice was chirping at me from behind. “Miss Heartstrings? Is there something wrong?”

        I spun around and looked, blinking.

        A mare stood before me, quite close, as if we were in deep conversation. Her indigo eyes narrowed behind a pair of bifocals as her green ascot fluttered in the fall breeze. “I'm sorry, was that the last question you had for me? You stopped mid-sentence.”

        “I...” I squinted awkwardly at her. My eyes traveled across her features: from her gray mane to her pale coat to her cutie mark of a scroll tied with a blue ribbon. “I... was... asking you a question?”

        She raised an eyebrow. “Yes. I believe you were.”

        My jaw hung open. I stared at her blankly.

        She brought a hoof to her mouth, cleared her throat, and smiled awkwardly. “You were wanting to ask something about Princess Celestia. Did... Did you wish to contribute to her monument in town?”

        “Princess Celestia...” I murmured aloud, my breaths coming out in confused shudders.

        “Did you wish to write a letter to the Royal Council? I fear the Princess is rather busy as of late. From what the Council has told Ponyville, her royal highness is currently busy making trips throughout Equestria to assess any leftover damage caused by Discord.”

        “Discord...” I gulped and stared at the village around me. Rustic buildings gleamed with golden-thatched roofs. Ponies were cantering about, embracing each other, sharing in joyful conversation and triumphant laughter. There was a treehouse in the center of the place, as well as a bright eatery with chimneys shaped like cupcakes. “Princess Aria...”

        “Aria?” The mare made a face. “Are... Are you sure you're all right, Miss Heartstrings?” she said. “Do you feel ill? We have a very competent medical center just a few blocks down—”

        “The princesses...” I muttered, reeling with a sudden dizziness. “Why would I want to see them?”

        Her brow furrowed. “That's what I was hoping you would tell me. I figured you wanted to perform a special tune to honor the triumph of harmony over Discord. You are a musician, are you not?”

        “I...” I glanced down at myself. I was wearing a stone gray hoodie. A saddlebag hung on my back. There was something heavy and metal inside. I felt the strings through the leylines of my horn. “I... need to play music...” I was speaking, and yet there was no substance or passion or meaning. The longer I lingered, the more my mind hovered around the two strangers, the lethargic stallion, his gray-streaked mane...

        A half-minute passed. Eventually, the mare's sigh broke the silence.

        “Well, if you feel any better, you're welcome to track me down again. Though, I fear that I may be terribly busy for the rest of the day,” she said, adjusting the collar of her ascot and gazing towards a tall, cylindrical building in the center of town. “We're almost done setting up the celebratory welcome party.”

        “Welcome... party...?”

        “Why, for the Elements of Harmony, of course!” She beamed. “They're returning from the Canterlot Palace tomorrow night! Ponies from all over Equestria have flocked here to join in the triumphant festival! I figured that's how you arrived to our provincial town!” She briefly rubbed a hoof over her aching head. “Nnngh.. And then there's the communal photo shoot to prepare for, not to mention a wedding, then Nightmare Night. Good heavens! This year's Nightmare Night! I swear, my mane isn't gray enough...”

        I gasped sharply. My face spun towards the center of town. I envisioned a dark alicorn with a midnight coat and a silver helm. Stars appeared from beyond, all laced with sobs and shadows. I realized how terribly cold I was, and my teeth began to chatter.

        “I don't even want to begin thinking about the setup for Hearth's Warming this year! Especially after the Day of Discord, the celebration is going to bring the roof down!” She turned towards me. “So if you'll excuse me—” She blinked awkwardly. “...Miss?”

        I was already galloping away. My breath came out in panicked little spurts. The stores and hotels blurred past me in the frigid air. Every time my eyes blinked, I saw the stallion and the red maned filly. I reached beyond that—whimpering—and tugged at a melody, a song that had been haunting me from the inside out. I couldn't think, couldn't rest. I had to get to the north of town. I didn't know why, but I had to rush there as swiftly as I could.

        Ponies waved and greeted me as I burned by. They all melted into a pastel-colored blur, a sea of strangers and sounds and confusion. The world was growing colder. I waded through the madness, flailing, drowning. I looked ahead for something—anything that was familiar. Through the bare vestibules of my mind, I found it. It stabbed me like a splinter to the brain: a tiny log cabin in a crook of the forested path. I flew into it. The door gave way without any incident, and I was suddenly inside some strange house with dozens of instruments and some furry thing padding up to rub its tail against my leg.

        I shut the door and stumbled past the creature. I sat on the edge of the bed, hugged the lyre to my chest with shivering forelimbs, and reached deep into the magical leylines of my mind. I did not think of fear; I did not think of pain. My mind focused all its remaining energy on the song, and the song took shape between the walls of the tiny abode. I plucked the strings like a camper would start a fire. It took a few minutes, but the Requiem was reborn, and the cold split apart to make room for the flooding waves of memories.

        I winced. My face actually stretched from the unavoidable grimace of weathering so many truths all at once. I fell back on the cot and curled up, biting my lip to hold the sputtering sobs in. I was in Ponyville. I had been in Ponyville for over a year. Discord had risen. I challenged him to a duel of wits. I won and lost, all at once, and the Elements of Harmony fatefully swooped by to finish him off. Now, days later, my mind was leaving me, and the only solution was to play the same song that gave Alabaster focus, that stripped the world of Princess Aria's illusion, and that humbled the lord of chaos into sparing the world.

        When the melody faded and the malleable substance of my soul once again floated towards the surface, it was instantly scarred, ripped into porous holes: each of them shaped like the stallion with his gray-streaked hair. I hissed as if giving birth, allowing the image to rip through me. I thought I had no tears left. I thought that this blasted cold had paralyzed every nerve left in my body. I was wrong. All the song did was return me to the realm of knowing, and I couldn't have felt more naked and vulnerable.

        Eventually, my sorrowful convulsions stopped. I gasped as if coming up from a deep, tempestuous dive. My eyes darted about the room, the lonely and all-too-familiar shadows of the place. There were so many musical instruments on the wall, so many mementos of a long year of introspection and discovery, so many details that I was too afraid to review or else I might discover that “Twilight's Requiem” had not salvaged all that had been lost... again...

        “It's happening faster,” I murmured. When I felt a tiny body hopping onto the bed, I realized who I was talking to. Al walked up to me, meowed, and rubbed his whiskery cheek against my face. I reached a trembling hoof up from the lyre and petted him softly. “I was gone for... for...” I glanced out the brightly-lit window. “Four hours? Five? I swear, it was morning when I left.” Another tremble soared through my limbs. I shuddered and hugged the lyre again. “I thought I could just go to town to talk to the Mayor, but then... I got lost, didn't I? I walked into Ponyville, and I couldn't... I couldn't...”

        My eyes twitched, for in another blink I had seen that damnable image yet again: a stallion and a young mare trotting down the steps of the Ponyville train depot, the sun glinting off their dull and bright coats. They didn't look at me, or at least I didn't see them glance my way. Perhaps that was why I ran?

        “The Mayor...” I thought aloud, perhaps in an effort to distract myself. Al stepped to a cushiony spot beside me, twirled around once, and plopped down into a fuzzy little ball, licking himself. I looked at him as I murmured, “She told me that Celestia was busy as of late. Maybe she just hasn't checked all of her memos. The Mayor's had so much on her plate. Everypony has. I've never seen so many ponies in town like this before and... and...”

        I gasped. The room was growing colder. I felt a chill flowing down from my horn to my tail. In my panic, a green light emanated through my leylines, and I heard the notes of the Requiem being played from the lyre in my grasp.

        “It's getting worse, Al,” I said, suppressing a sob beneath the haunting music. “I keep having to play it to remember... to remember...” I shuddered. “Anything.”

        He turned to look tiredly at me. A low pur resonated.

        I leaned over and nuzzled him, forcing the tears away. “I can't go into town without playing it anymore. I don't care if it looks silly for me to be playing the lyre in any random place. I'll invent excuses. I'll just grin and bear it. I need to have access to 'Twilight's Requiem' at any given moment, or so help me Celestia...”

        The cabin fell gravely silent.

        I repeated, this time in a foalish tone. “So help me, Celestia. What can either of Princess Aria's sisters do?” I stood up, and on numb limbs I stumbled to the fireplace. “Before Discord banished me from his presence, he said that in order to send me to Aria he would have to 'hijack the song' that joined her to her sisters. What do you suppose he meant by that?” I lifted a few logs into place and lit them. A crackling warmth was born in the center of the room. “The 'Nocturne of the Firmaments' separates Aria from the mortal realm. And yet, could she still have a connection to her siblings, in spite of that block?”

        Slowly, I shuffled across the cabin to where a bag of cat food was lying. With gentle magic, I refilled Al's eating dish. Instantly, the feline hopped off the bed and waited patiently beside the rattling container.

        “The Nocturne is a smaller, more recent piece of the Cosmic Matriarch's song,” I said out loud as I finished with my task. I placed the bag down and stared into space. “It's older than the Elements of Harmony, and more powerful.” My brow furrowed as I began pacing across the cabin. “But it's also younger than Celestia and most of Creation. The essence of the alicorn daughters is an older song than the Nocturne. Even though the Nocturne keeps the alicorns from knowing about Aria, it doesn't sever their connection. The song still keeps the sisters attached, and there must be a way to traverse that junction and reach Aria within her throne room of the unsung realm. But, if that's true, then how come I haven't gotten it to work with Celestia before? I know I met her once, but the parasprites happened. Nnngh... What actually took place on that day? I just wish... I just wish I could remember what I want to remember...”

        I froze in place, for the room had become darker. I looked out the window. A breath escaped my lips.

        There was nothing but starlight.

        My ears flicked. I spun about and looked into the fireplace. The logs had burned out; all was ash and fading embers.

        I heard a meowing sound. I glanced at the bed and Al was looking up at me curiously, standing tall and at attention. I didn't want to, but I looked at his food dish on the floor. It was utterly empty.

        I started to hyperventilate. Rather than collapse on my knees, I crawled over to the bed and held Al close. He rested contentedly in my forelimbs, purring with pure innocence as I nuzzled him closely and fought the shivers away. The silence outside the cabin was deafening, bringing with it the stinging memories of a stallion sporting a gray-streaked mane. I fought them away too.

        “I can't do this, Alabaster. I can't stand to lose my m-mind. It's the b-best tool I've ever had. It's the only thing that can k-keep me afloat.” I sniffled and clenched my moist eyes shut as I whispered to the collapsing shadows. “If I had known what happened to you would strike m-me so quickly, I would have pr-prepared for it. I would have studied harder. I would have figured out the symphony s-sooner. I... I...”

        I felt a tickling array of whiskers against my tear-stained face, followed by a gentle trilling noise.

        I calmed slightly, surrendering to exhaustion. I had been to the unsung realm. I had endured the torture of a chaotic draconequus. I had come too far to fade away that easily. Alabaster hadn't let a thousand years of imprisonment shatter him; why should I allow less than two years of battling this curse defeat me?

        “I have to speak with the Mayor again,” I murmured past Al's flicking ears. “I have to find out when the Princesses are visiting Ponyville next. I don't care what blows up this time. If there's a catastrophe, I will fix it. If a part of the song breaks, I will piece it together. I must see Aria, and the only way at this point is if another piece of the Matriarch's music sends me to her.”

        I gently kissed Al on the forehead and surrendered to the folds of my blanket. I closed my eyes and hummed the Requiem, interjecting desperate lyrics in between the notes as the remaining strength of my breath wavered thinly.

        “I will remember everything in the morning. I will remember my name, my friends, and my quest. I will remember. I will remember.”

        The stars faded. The forest collapsed. The shadows swallowed the universe in its entirety.

        “I will remember... I will remember... I will...”

        A lonely, confused pony looked at me. My forehead tensed, and I saw her squinting. A breath escaped my lips, and I saw her mouth twitching. When I leaned my head to the side, she gave me a quizzical look.

        For some reason, my heart began beating swiftly. I heard lyrics repeating in my head. I thought of a melody stuck in the back of my mind. Insinctually, I reached into my saddlebag and produced an ordinary lyre. The pony gazed at me strangely. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. I realized what I had to do. With professional grace, I performed the melody that was straying from the corners of my brain.

        “Twilight's Requiem” materialized in the autumn winds. I glanced ahead to see a frightened expression on the pony's face. Suddenly, her eyes flickered to a bright amber. Her horn shimmered with mint-green energy as a cyan mane billowed behind her twitching neck. I stumbled back from the storefront window, desperate to catch my breath. I jerked my body and glanced around.

        It was morning, or maybe afternoon. The sun was directly overhead; east and west were still foggy concepts. Ponyville materialized around me, complete with sounds and shapes and lights and laughter. I couldn't think of a more cheerful place to be my hell. Then again, I just couldn't think.

        I was out in public to go somewhere—no—to meet somepony. The cylindrical shape of Town Hall formed in my mind, like a goal. I thought of indigo eyes, a gray mane, a green ascot.

        “The Mayor...” I spoke aloud, gulping hard. I glanced at the flowers beneath the windowsill. I saw tulips and thought of ocean blue eyes. A knot formed in my stomach as I jerked my head aside. I saw roses and thought of red irises floating inside chaotic yellow circles. My body froze within itself, sending shivers through my spine. I ran a hoof over my face and took several breaths as the memories took bitter root. “Celestia and Luna...” I seethed and turned from the storefront altogether. “I must find out if they're coming to Ponyville soon. Must speak to them. I know more of the Nocturne now. Things will be different. They have to be different...”

        In between breaths, a stallion with a gray-streaked mane descended the steps of a train depot. In a blink, he was gone, and I had to trot forward just to keep from stumbling.

        I stumbled through town like a frozen phantom. The sun shimmered brightly overhead, and yet every inch of me was freezing. I tugged at the sleeves of my hoodie to give me more insulation. Did I always live with this? How could I have kept sane over fifteen months of such madness?

        I heard sounds to my left and right. I glanced up to see Thunderlane chatting it up with a bunch of pegasi. On the other side, three fillies and a colt were riding across town on a red wagon. A mailmare flew overhead, and my ears twitched from the haunting resonance of flute music in my mind. I tried to burst past such fractured thoughts, but could only hear the shouting voices of Twilight Sparkle and Moondancer across a tiny eatery. My heart skipped a beat, because I had a two-by-four levitating above Straight Edge's body. Somewhere, a mare was sobbing.

        My breath hissed through my teeth. My trot slowed even further as I clenched my eyes shut, took several deep breaths, and limped forward. My eyes traced the blades of grass below as I murmured in a low tone to myself, “My name is Lyra Heartstrings. I was born in Canterlot. I went to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, studying history and music theory...”

        A zebra trotted past me, waving and engaging in a cheerful conversation with an earth pony in a hard hat. Their names were on the tip of my tongue. I sliced them off the fringes of my mind and trotted towards my goal.

        “My n-name is Lyra Hearstrings. I was b-born in... in Canterlot. I went to Celestia's... to Celestia's...”

        Several clumps of dark clouds swarmed overhead. I squinted up in the daylight to see a winged mare with a rainbow colored mane hair leading a pack of weather fliers.  There was a series of bright chirping sounds to my left. I glanced over to see a yellow pegasus conducting a choir of songbirds. Was there some special event taking place? Was this how these ponies lived their every passing day? Did... Did I know this? Did I celebrate it with them? Were any of these equines my friends, my family, my lovers?

        I had one place to go, one pony to speak to. I just needed to get to Town Hall. I just needed to talk to the Mayor. The Requiem could wait until then. I was afraid of playing the forsaken music until the magic was stretched too thin. There was a unicorn who suffered worse than me for experimenting too much. What was his name? Did I ever meet him? Did he ever find his... his... his special thing that he had lost, that he had forgotten, that had forgotten... had forgotten...

        “My name is... is Lyra Heartstrings,” I stammered. “I... I was born...” I wheezed for breath, the air around me filling with translucent vapors. “I was... born...”

        I heard a giggling voice beside me. I glanced over. A pink earth pony was bouncing alongside an elegant mare who was boasting airily about some fabulous wedding gown she was working on. Beside them, several bags full of ivory colored silk and frills hovered as the mares made for an elaborate building constructed to resemble a gem-encrusted carousel.

        I froze in place. The temptation was too great, the fear even greater. I lifted the lyre out of my saddlebag. For the briefest of moments I panicked, horrified that I may not remember how to play. With a calm breath, I relaxed and allowed myself to function by base instinct alone. I heard a tune lifting into the air, becoming more and more familiar with each passing chord.

        When it finished, and the weight of reality came crashing into my skull through an aching horn, I shuddered as if slammed in the face by a pie pan. My eyelids shut, and I saw Pinkie Pie galloping circles around Sugarcube Corner, a toothless alligator biting tightly to her fluffy tail. She baked doughnuts and spun them on the end of her nose, pretending to be a circus performer. She was such a child, such a buffoon, such a joy.

        When my eyes opened, I could barely see, for my face had contorted too heavily from uproarious laughter. I dropped the lyre and clutched myself, doubling over in cackles and chortles. In the pitch of my voice, I heard Pinkie Pie laughing, singing, celebrating life. There was such a fantastic art to her dance, and then the industry crushed it in a single wave of cold.

        I gasped, my eyelids twitching from the sudden shadows collecting in the far corner of Rarity's boutique. She had rows upon rows of dresses, and nopony was wearing them because nopony cared. All of her life she fought so hard to get noticed, to become famous, to contribute her two bits to the collective consciousness of a fickle culture. Her entire career had amounted to a tiny pebble splashing in a grand ocean of artistic indifference, and it tore her up inside. And yet, every day, she hid her frustrations beneath a façade of eloquence as well as the selfless pursuit of generosity. It was so inspiring, and yet so sad. She never cried, and so I cried for her.

        I wept just as quickly as I had laughed, collapsing in the middle of the street and covering my clenched eyelids with shivering hooves. Rarity fought a constant, uphill battle, and yet she wasn't the only one. Rainbow Dash was deathly afraid of being alone. Twilight Sparkle worked hard every day to not be forgotten. One stream of thoughts led to another, and soon everything was flooding, flowing through me, fountaining in my eyes: Morning Dew's failed career as a guardpony, Caramel's financial woes, Scootaloo's poor, precious wings.

        Through it all, silent as a grim steward, Discord sat in stone, guarding an untold song of mourning to a love that would never die. Was he a coward, or was he a genius? Why did he send me away? If he knew that it was going to be this bad, this painful, why didn't he take me with him? What do I have left to do here? What do I have to salvage? What—

        “Scarlet, I wish you would eat something,” a deep voice said from a few paces behind me, freezing me to my core.

        “How can I eat?” a feminine breath replied.  “My stomach’s full of butterflies as it is.  Doesn’t this town freak you out?  What with all the magic hijinks and tomfoolery?”

        “I would think you’d be used to them, Scarlet.  Heh... considering this is your home town.”

        “Correction, it was my hometown.  Just because I was foaled here doesn’t mean I owe it any more than a passing glance.  Nnngh... I really wish that I didn’t have to come here...”

        Shivering, I looked behind me.  I immediately jerked aside and hid my body behind the wooden post of a restaurant’s front veranda.  Just a whisper’s distance from me, the red-maned mare and the aged stallion were seated at a table, engaged in a passive conversation.  The mare was fiddling with a camera in her young hooves.  The old pony was putting the finishing touches on a landscape portrait of Ponyville.

        “You could have told the Enquirer that you wished to cover Stalliongrad’s recovery instead,” I heard the stallion’s voice exclaim.  “From what I understand, there’re plenty of sights to take photographs of in that city.  The ponies there took a huge blow; what, with Discord turning their giant wall into a huge block of cheese.”

        “Yes, but then I would been visiting the city alone.”

        “Is something wrong with that?”

        “You know I enjoy traveling exclusively with you!” the young mare exclaimed.

        “Heh heh... That must obviously be the case, since you chose to come here with me after all.”

        “Just... why did you take up this assignment in Ponyville?”

        “Let’s just say I thought a trip to the country would do me good, and you too.”

        “Hmmph.  You’re crazy, old stallion.”  With a shuffling of her chair legs, the young mare got up.  “While I’m here, I might as well go visit family.”

        “I do hope we are talking about the living...”

        “You know me too well.  You should also know not to press my buttons...”

        “Scarlet,” he said in a low, sympathetic tone.  “I do very much enjoy our travels; I would enjoy them a great deal more if I knew my good friend was at peace with herself.”

        “Peace is boring.  I’m a photographer, remember?”

        “Life is built on simpler excuses, and many of them just as painful.”

        “Ugh.  Could you paint more and talk less?”

“Guilty as charged, I suppose.”

“Whatever.  You know where to meet me later.”

        “Absolutely.  Goddess-speed.”

        By this point, I had made a desperate attempt to shuffle away from the scene without attracting attention.  I was almost successful, and the voices of the two ponies had become like the faint rustling of leaves.  However, just as I prepared to gallop into the street, a huge bulky wagon full of rattling cooking utensils rolled right before me.  With a gasp, I fell back, collapsing with a hard thump in the middle of the road.  I dropped my lyre, and my ears echoed with the resounding vibrations of the upset strings.  Just as the shivers of my curse rebounded...

        “Ma'am? Are you okay?”

        I opened my eyes, glancing up to see a young mare leaning down to look at me. She had deep indigo eyes, a fair coat, and a blood-red mane.

        I must have been convulsing, for the mare gasped. “Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to startle you! That is to say...” She smiled awkwardly. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”  She glanced at my disheveled mane and wrinkled hoodie.  “Is everything okay?  Did... Did you wish to talk about it?”

        I stood up and telekinetically lifted my lyre from the ground. I gave it a few shakes to toss loose the dirt and grass blades sticking to its surface. All the while, I sniffled, trying to even my breaths and compose my jittery nerves.

        “My name is Lyra Hearstrings,” I said without thinking. I glanced at the restaurant veranda through my peripheral vision.  The stallion was gone; I breathed easier. “Er, I mean, I'm fine. I just... I just have a lot on my mind...”

        “I would guess as much,” she said with a gentle tone in her voice. A camera hung from her neck, and the shadows under her eyes suggested that she hadn't been getting much sleep lately. Undoubtedly this pony was a very busy mare, and yet she had taken such a bizarre moment in time to speak to me, a perfect stranger... a perfectly nervous basket case of a stranger. “My name is Scarlet Breeze,” she said. “I was born here.”

        I cleared my throat and stood up straight, attempting to look surprised by that confession. “Were you?”

        “Yeah. And if there's anything I remember about Ponyville”—she said in a bittersweet tone as her face took on a dry smile—“it's that ponies here are always tranquil all of the time. So, you kind of struck a weird chord. Heh, if you don't mind the pun.”

        “I... don't mind,” I said softly, gazing at the ground between us. I had most of my wits collected, and she had calmed me enough that I didn't fear forgetting about the Mayor anytime soon. “You have to be careful with memories, though. They're not always happy.”

        To that, she nodded somberly. “Don't I know it.” Her eyes narrowed. “Would you... like to talk about some of yours?”

        I chuckled bitterly, then smiled at her for politeness' sake. “No. I mean, thanks... but it wouldn't make a difference. I'm pleased by your generosity. Are...” I thought of the train depot, of the scowl that had been on her face when she first arrived in town. “Are you visiting for nostalgia's sake?”

        “Visiting?” She raised an eyebrow. “Hmmm... No, this is all strictly business.”

        “Business?”

        She motioned towards the camera hanging around her neck. “The Fillydelphia Enquirer wants me to make a collage of photos documenting the 'rustic aesthetics' of the town where Discord was defeated. Heh... You should see what it's like in the big cities right now. Everypony is flipping their gaskets over the end of the world having been averted at the last second. A wave of 'miracle fever' is swarming across Equestria. There's been a total media frenzy.”

        “I... I had no idea,” I said, my eyes lingering on the distant sight of Town Hall. “I don't exactly get out much.”

        “No crime in that,” she said. “So long as you're content.”

        “Right...”

        She gave me another worrisome gaze. “Are you sure you don't want to talk about what's bothering you Miss... Heartstrings, was it?”

        I looked at her. She seemed to be a decent pony, albeit a potentially complex one. I saw layers of pain and lethargy etched into her face. She was far too young—I felt—to have dealt with so many convoluted emotions. In another life, I would very easily have made friends with her in an instant, just as I would with Rarity and Pinkie Pie... just as I wish I still could with Twilight.

        “I-I'm feeling better now, thank you.” I gave her a sweet smile. “Sometimes, what a pony needs the most is to see the world still standing tall and healthy around her.”

        “Well, we can always afford that outlook now, can’t we?” Scarlet remarked. “I mean, now that Discord's gone. Heheh.”

        I almost responded to that, but I looked to the center of town and recalled something that I had blissfully forgotten. Discord had sat on his throne, being bombarded by the Elements of Harmony. As the prismatic beams enveloped him, I could only think of one pony responsible for putting him there in the first place. As he turned to stone, there were screams, and they did not all belong to him.

        “Well, I need to be off,” Scarlet said. “I'm in town for another week. If you wish to talk about something or get stuff off your chest, just look for the burning red hair,” she said with a girlish chuckle. “Remember, the name's 'Scarlet Breeze.'”

        “I will... try to remember,” I murmured. Looking up, I saw her trotting past me towards the desolate edge of Ponyville. “Where are you headed to?”

        “The cemetery,” she responded in a swift, cold tone.

        I blinked. “Ponyville's letting you take photos there? What for?”

        She chuckled dryly, and gave me the thinnest of smiles before trotting off. “Oh no. This? This is hardly business...”

        And she was gone.

        With a swivel of my legs, I trotted towards my destination.  I hummed a tune under my breath and enveloped myself in the melody like a comfort blanket until I was gone too.

        The Requiem played for the tenth time that hour. I sat on a plush sofa, strumming the lyre with a mix of dexterous hooves and precise telekinesis. I faintly remember the song being a beautiful instrumental when I first discovered it, but that didn't last forever. The first thing “Twilight's Requiem” ever did for me was make me remember my trips to the unsung realm. The second thing it did was open my mind to the haunting madness of Alabaster's journals. It was a beautiful tune, and yet it would be the last thing I'd ever choose to listen to over and over again in a desperate attempt to salvage my mind.

        Why had I suddenly become so dependant on that particular instrumental? I had lost memories before, memories that required the performance of the Requiem to rediscover. But they had always been pertinent to parasprites or my trips to the realm beyond the firmaments. Something had changed, had decayed overnight, had reduced my spirit to a tattered flag clinging to the Nocturne in a tempest of shifting realities.

        Was it all because of Discord? Did performing the Requiem for the lord of chaos have a negative effect on me? I thought of Alabaster, of the madness that had swiftly consumed him. Perhaps this was something that was always bound to happen to me as well. Just as Aria's song had robbed all of reality from recognizing me, her curse was starting to spread into my soul and destroy my recollection of myself. Maybe my experience with Discord had simply accelerated something that was inevitable. Was that something he knew would happen? Did Discord try to warn me, or did he think that this dementia, this utter breakdown of comprehension, would somehow translate into freedom from turmoil?

        I heard a throat clearing from across the room. I paused in performing “Twilight's Requiem” and looked across the way.

        A secretary sat at a desk, her mane a bit frazzled as she struggled to give me a fake smile. I could see the annoyance clinging to the frayed edges of her expression. I realized that I was inside a luxurious receptionist office. A pair of oak-paneled doors stood on the far wall, flanked by photos of a gray-maned mare shaking hooves with dignitaries from all over Equestria.

        “I'm...” I spoke aloud, awkwardly eying the corners of the spotless interior. “I'm in Town Hall, waiting to speak with the Mayor...”

        The secretary nodded with a plastic grin. “That you are...” She resumed slapping her hooves over a large typewriter.

        I blinked. “How long have I been here?”

        She paused. She pivoted her head over and gave me an even faker smile, her eyes twitching. “About ten symphonies ago.”

        I blinked. I glanced at the lyre in my grasp and slid it into my saddlebag with a blushing expression. “I'm sorry. I just needed to... uh... relax...”

        “Uh huh...”

        “And I guess that must have been really annoying to you. Ahem. I'm sorry—”

        Just then the doors swung open. Caramel and Wind Whistler were trotting backwards, bowing and curtsying before the Mayor with bright smiles.

        “Thank you, ma'am!” Caramel exclaimed. “You have no idea what this means to us!”

        “Oh, I think I can imagine!” the Mayor exclaimed, trotting after them while speaking in a singsong voice. “I was blessed to have a similar ceremony in this same building decades ago! My husband was so overwhelmed with joy, he nearly fainted! Good thing he slid the hooflet on me first.” She winked and chuckled merrily. “Matriarch rest his soul...”

        Wind Whistler hugged Caramel and smiled the elder pony's way. “Seriously, Mayor. We're absolutely honored to have this opportunity.”

        “You've had so much to deal with lately,” Caramel said. “If we had known you'd take the time to lend us the meeting hall—”

        “Hey! Ponyville stands in one piece!” the Mayor exclaimed, resting a hoof on each of the young ponies' shoulders. “Equestria is under the glory of harmony, not the chaos lord’s shroud! This is a time of rapture and jubilation! I'm more than happy to let you celebrate your wedding under this roof! Consider it one of several declarations of life in this new and exciting age we have to live.” She winked. “As well as your children!”

        Caramel and Wind Whistler exchanged blinking, blushing glances. “Eh heh heh...” They bashfully toyed with the carpet and avoided her gaze. “One thing at a time, Mayor, ma'am...”

        “Heheheh... I'm just teasing!”

        Caramel glanced her way. “Unless, of course, you were going to lend us the lakehouse on the east side of town for the honeymoon?”

        Wind Whistler batted him over the head with a hissing sound.

        Caramel flinched. “Okay! Gotta go!” he waved and trotted out of the room with a giggling pegasus. “Wedding plans!”

        “Try not to stress yourselves out too much!” the Mayor exclaimed, smiling and waving at them. Once they were gone, she exhaled slowly, her face locked in a soft grin. “Oh, how I do love second chances.” She glanced at the receptionist. “Hello, Miss Amberwind. What's next on my itinerary?”

        The receptionist pointed a bored hoof in my direction. “You've got a unicorn musician who'd like to have a quick word with you. A Miss...”

        “Heartstrings,” I stood up, gazing earnestly at the Mayor. “Lyra Heartstrings.”

        “Heartstrings! Such a beautiful name!” The Mayor reached forward and shook my hoof. Her eyes lit up as she said, “I thought I heard music earlier. Was that you, darling?”

        “Erm... Yes.” I winced. “I'm sorry. This is your office and all, and I didn't mean to—”

        “Nonsense! I found it rather soothing.” The Mayor winked and looked at her secretary. “What about you, Miss Amberwind?”

        “You still have that meeting with Filthy Rich at four o'clock, Mayor.”

        “Oh dear...” The Mayor's face contorted in a grimace. Sweating, she smiled awkwardly my way. “Here's hoping I contract the pony pox by then.” Brightening once more, she motioned for me to follow her into her office. “Come right in, Miss Heartstrings! My door's always open, so long as you're not asking for more land to slap down future Barnyard Bargain depots!”

        “Erm... Right...” I shuffled weakly into her office. The place was luxuriously furnished, with wooden ornaments of historically famous earth ponies flanking tall antique bookcases. Her desk was a spacious work of art. I feared that I would have to raise my voice to speak across it. Sitting down in a plush chair, I hugged my saddlebag to my chest and gazed—shivering—into the tabletop. “This... this is a nice office.”

        “I inherited it like this; I swear.” She sat down and instantly gave my quivering form a worried glance. “My my, you look freezing! Would you like a blanket?”

        “It won't matter...”

        “Huh?”

        “I mean, thank you, but I... I have something of a condition,” I said. “Uhm, it's not infectious or anything, but trust me when I say that I'm quite fine...”

        “Ah, well, if you insist.” The Mayor leaned back in her seat. “That explains the jacket, I suppose. So then, Miss Heartstrings, you're a musician?”

        I slowly nodded.

        “Do you perform locally?”

        “I... guess you could say that.”

        “How fantastic!” She smiled and adjusted her bifocals. “I must hear you play sometime!” She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Outside of my office, I mean. The acoustics here are horrible. I know; because I've yelled at several tax forms in this room before. Heh heh heh...”

        “Eh heh...” I smiled nervously, my eyes travelling across her wide desk. I saw several pictures of the Mayor, each portrait growing progressively younger. One particular photograph—worn and faded—showed her with a pink mane as she posed next to a black-coated earth pony and a little redheaded foal. All three had become dull, smiling shadows, much like my thoughts. “I've somewhat hit a dry spell as of late...”

        “Oh?”

        “But.. But I'm wanting to make a comeback,” I said, thinking aloud. “However, I'm not just planning just any normal venue. I was hoping to treat the greatest audience possible, which is what brings me here—”

        “Do you write your own music?”

        I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

        “Are you a writer as well as a songstress?” the Mayor asked, pointing daintily my way while smiling. “I've always admired the talent of ponies to produce melody out of thin air. Unicorns especially: your kind are always so good at your craft.”

        “Well, I've been... uhm... doing a lot of covers as of late,” I said with a slight wince. “To put it lightly...”

        “I used to dream of playing musical instruments when I was a young filly,” the Mayor said. “Heavens, that was ages ago...” She slumped back in her seat and eyed the ceiling. “Funny how the things we used to dream of doing stay in the mind longer than memories of what we actually do. I suppose you're too young to relate...”

        “Oh, no.” I shook my head, speaking softly, “I understand. Believe me.” I gulped. “What we wish to do, what we desire to be, means a lot, for they are immortal feelings. I'm certain that...” I hesitated, glancing at the window as flakes of dust danced in the sunlight. “I'm sure of only one thing, and it's all I'll ever have to lean on when worst comes to worst.”

        The Mayor leaned her head to the side curiously. “What's that, Miss Heartstrings?”

        I swallowed hard and hugged my saddlebag tighter, feeling the shape of my lyre inside. “My love of music,” I muttered. “In the end, that's what defines me. Everything else is just an extension of that one thing.” I glanced at her. “I'm sure there's still a dreamer alive in all that you do, Mayor, as much as there is a doer.”

        She smiled calmly at me. “I'm intrigued to hear a young mare speaking with such wisdom. You don't look like you've lost too many years of your life, Miss Heartstrings.”

        “Years are just numbers,” I replied instantly. “Dreams and desires are the substance of a pony's soul. I think it's best to focus on that and that alone, beyond the veil of memories, for in the end... memories are all that's left you.”

        She gazed at me steadily for a while. I wasn't certain whether she was about to reply or kick me out of her office. Eventually she smiled with a steady nod. “A very interesting way of looking at things.” She chuckled lightly. “Well, as much as I'd love to sit here and talk philosophy with an artist”—she leaned back in her seat and gestured across the desk towards me—“I do believe you had something you wished to discuss with me.”

        I gulped hard and uttered, “The Princesses.”

        She blinked awkwardly. “What, you mean of Equestria?”

        I held my tongue; then was not a good time to be snarky. “Yes,” I said solidly. “Princess Celestia and Luna. Are... are they scheduled to be visiting Ponyville anytime soon?”

        She adjusted her bifocals and leaned forward. “This is about a musical performance, is it?”

        “No. I mean yes! I mean...” I winced and tried to compose myself. It would have been far too awkward to remove the lyre from my saddlebag and perform the Requiem in front of her. I had to stay calm through sheer meditation. “I was hoping to be in town at the same time as either one of them,” I said. “So that my music might reach their ears, and I could show them as... uh.. artistically as I can how happy I am that harmony has once more defeated the evils of chaos.”

        “That's a poetic way of putting it,” the Mayor said, smiling politely. “However, darling, even if I did know when they were arriving next, it's beyond my ability to arrange any meetings with them.”

        I ignored the heavy beating of my heart to lean forward and exclaim, “That's perfectly fine! I... I really don't expect you to curry any favors or make magical appointments happen! I was just hoping you would at least know when the Princesses are scheduled to be in Ponyville again! We have many events coming up, don't we?”

        “Well...”

        “Nightmare Night!” I said with an awkward smile. “The Running of the Leaves! Hearth's Warming! Boxing Day!” I leaned back and breathed easier. “You see, I've... uhm... I've asked everypony in town that I can and none of them seem to have a clue. I figured you, the Mayor of this village, would know more than any other pony about the royal sisters' upcoming whereabouts.”

        “I'm very sorry to say, Miss Heartstrings, but there is nothing scheduled for the next four months at least!”

        I felt my heart collapsing through my chest. The room had gotten colder, and I wanted more than anything to play the Requiem so that the memories of far warmer things would drown out the frigid truth I was hearing. “Four m-months...?”

        “Mmmmhmmm...” The Mayor nodded solemnly. Her eyebrows rose. “And I'm a pony who faithfully checks her schedule every morning.”

        “Oh...” I gazed down at the desk with a heavy slump to my shoulders.

        “I'm so very sorry, darling. Surely I can do what's in my power to help you perform for some of our upcoming festivals, though!” She grinned brightly. “I just got done arranging a wedding to take place in this very building! Several of Ponyville's most beloved citizens are likely to attend, including Twilight Sparkle, the very apprentice to Princess Celestia! That should be promising, at least!”

        “I... I will consider it, ma'am,” I said in a dull yet polite voice. “I appreciate it. Truly, I do.”

        “Still, I have to wonder...” She chuckled lightly. “Were you too shy to perform for Her Majesty, Princess Celestia, two days ago?”

        I blinked, my heart stopping. I slowly gazed up at her, my mouth hanging open. “Two... t-two days ago?”

        “Why yes, Miss Heartstrings. She was here for the better part of an evening. Everypony was ecstatic about it. It was the first time she had arrived since before the rise and fall of Discord.”

        “How...” My brow furrowed as I stood up from my chair. “When? What for?! What brought Celestia here?!”

        The Mayor leaned back, blinking worriedly at my passionate reaction. “Surely you jest! Were you out of town for it?”

        “No! I wasn't!” I exclaimed, starting to pant in a cold sweat. “Please. I must know what happened!”

        The Mayor's indigo eyes narrowed. “She came to undo the spell...”

        “What spell?”

        “The one that caused a huge riot on the northeast side of town, of course!” The Mayor blushed slightly. “The one that had reduced even me to a common ruffian, attacking her fair citizens over a meaningless little doll.” She shivered from a haunting chill before putting on a brave smile. “I almost thought Discord had somehow resurfaced. It turns out that it was just a magic spell gone awry. Hah! I do admire you unicorns for your art, but sometimes your science could use a little bit of polish! Heh heh heh...”

        “I... I don't get it!” I exclaimed. “How could that be? I...” My eyes twitched. I looked at her. “What day is it?”

        “Why, Tuesday, of course,” she replied.

        A foalish squeak escaped my throat. I thought of my cabin, of the fireplace, of starlight shining off of Al's slumbering body. Then, in a blink, I saw two ponies marching down the steps from the train depot, and I was further stabbed to recall that having been a Thursday.

        “Four days...” I shuddered and ran a hoof over my face. “It's been four days. Blessed alicorns... how could I let something like that slip?” I gulped and slumped back down into my chair, hugging myself. “Celestia was here...” I whimpered. “Celestia was here and I didn't even know it...”

        “Hey, don't look so down in the mouth!” The Mayor gave me a sympathetic look. “It was all for the best! She cleared the enchantment away in a blink, and everything returned to normal. We live in the shadow of Canterlot, Miss Heartstrings. I know that nothing is currently scheduled, but our beloved Princess is bound to show her face again sooner than later—”

        Just then, the double doors to the office swung open. The secretary stood, twitching slightly with frayed nerves. “Ahem. Mayor...?”

        “Amberwind!” The Mayor frowned. “Can't you see that I'm in the middle of—”

        “I'm so terribly sorry,” the receptionist droned. “But, she insisted. I swear, she was going to tear all of Town Hall down if I didn't tell you that she was here—” Just as she said this, an earth pony strolled into the room with a blood red mane and a camera hanging over her neck. Scarlet Breeze came to a stop and glared with dull indigo eyes across the room.

        The matching color in the Mayor's gaze twitched. She stood up, utterly breathless. It took her a few seconds to stammer forth, “Scarlet, darling...”

        “Mayor...” Scarlet uttered with a terse nod.

        I blinked at the distance between the two. The room had gotten incredibly colder, and it wasn't my curse. I felt my heart beating as my gaze fell to the table, to the old photograph, to the red-haired foal squatting in the lap of a younger city official with a pink mane.

        “Uhm...” The Mayor was fidgeting at this point. She glanced at me with a fractured grin. “Miss Heartstrings. I don't suppose—?”

        “I think I got what I came for,” I said in a neutral tone. I stood up on my own and trotted gently for the door. “I thank you so very much for your time, Mayor. I'll... uh... I'll think about your offer concerning the wedding reception.”

        I strolled slowly past Scarlet. I glanced at her face, and I saw the same scowl that had dominated her expression when she first strolled into town the day before—no—four days previous. Gone was the sweet, sympathetic, and smiling stranger that had greeted me a few hours ago when I collapsed dizzily in the middle of Ponyville. She trotted past me and stood before the Mayor's desk like a war general might approach a cliff overlooking a battlefield. I wasn't sure what possessed me, but I closed the door for the sake of the two. When the oaken panels were shut, I leaned against them, feeling the steady pulse of my heartbeat. I clenched my eyes shut, and a stallion with gray-streaked hair burned his way across my vision. I felt like sobbing. I felt—

        “Brrrrr...” the secretary exclaimed. I glanced over in time to see a cloud of vapors lifting in the air above her desk. She rubbed her forelimbs, shivered, and sat before her typewriter again. “Ugh, I really hate the fall...” She was completely ignoring me. I realized it was because I didn't exist.

        Blinking, I glanced at the shut door, at a dim hallway flanking the receptionist office, and then at the secretary. Since her attention was elsewhere, I side-stepped and ducked into the dark passageway. I snuck past the Ponyville town archives, another office or two, and threaded my way towards a utility closet. Tapping the air with translucent threads of emerald magic, I sensed that the closet was attached to the far end of the Mayor's room.

        While nopony was looking, I slipped my invisible self through the door and closed it behind me. Assaulted by the smells of cardboard and disinfectants, I snuck to the far side of the tiny compartment. A thin door rested between me and the Mayor's office. Certainly, it had to have been locked, but opening it was not my concern at the moment. Quiet as a feather, I leaned over and pressed my ear to the surface of the door, listening in on a decidedly heated conversation transpiring on the other side:

        “I know I didn't announce my visit. That's because this isn't personal; it's strictly about business.”

        “Isn't personal?! Scarlet, it's been over six years! You waltz into my office like we last met only yesterday and you expect me to think that this isn't personal?!”

        “I'm working for the Fillydelphia Enquirer. They want me to take photographs to memorialize Ponyville, the location of Discord's defeat. To do this, I must be permitted access to several town landmarks. With your permission, Mayor, I'd like to have access to the following places...”

        “'Mayor?!'”

        “Ahem. The clock tower. The Ponyville Library. The Celestia Statue. The old Windmill on the edge of town—”

        “Scarlet, I'm your mother, for Celestia's sake! You don't have to call me 'Mayor' like just any other pony.”

        “Why not? It's your job.”

        “There's more to me than just my job...”

        “I doubt that very much.”

        “Scarlet, what is the real reason for you being here? Just listen to yourself! Everything you say is so bitter and cold—”

        “Like I said, I'm only here for business.”

        “Then why be so personal about it? Why talk to me to my face like this?! You know how it hurts me to listen to that tone in your voice, to see that infernal expression! It always hurts me...”

        “I'm only in town for a short time, Mayor. I wanted to get this meeting over with as swiftly as possible so I could make my rounds.”

        “So that's what everything has come to? You just wish to brush me out of your life now that you've come home for the first time in years.”

        “Fillydelphia is my home. This place means nothing to me.”

        “Then why don't you leave already?!”

        “I wish I could. I wish that the Enquirer had sent me elsewhere. But if there's anything you've taught me, Mayor, it's that a pony is the substance of her hard work and professionalism.”

        Silence.

        Scarlet's voice rose again, “So do I have permission to access the landmarks I mentioned?”

        “You have my blessing...”

        “I did not ask for your 'blessing.' I asked for your permission, Mayor—”

        “Oh, just be gone already! I don't want to entertain this nonsense any longer than you do!”

        Another bout of silence.

        “Very well. I'm glad we could have that settled.” Scarlet's hoofsteps sounded across the room. “Good luck on your next election.”

        “Scarlet...” The elder's voice stammered. “Scarlet, darling, please. I'm sorry. Don't—”

        The doors opened and shut just as quickly. Everything was still, until a sound emanated softly from beyond the wall. It resembled a pony who had collapsed in her cot four days earlier.

        The cold of the world doubled. I felt my teeth shattering, and the urge to play the Requiem gnawed at my threadbare mind. I couldn't do it there where I was hiding. So, I left as stealthily as I could to avoid making a scene. I suppose it was a good enough excuse at the time.

        I trotted in circles for the next few hours. I was beyond distraught. Not only were neither of the Princesses planning on showing up in Ponyville anytime soon, but I had missed a golden opportunity to meet up with Celestia. If only my curse hadn't gotten worse that month, that very week, then I might have been able to put my evolved knowledge of the Nocturne to the test. I could have experimented to see what the Requiem was capable of doing to a holy alicorn. I could have been connected to Aria through the sisters' song. Now what chance did I have?

        As horrible as this new revelation was, it amazingly wasn't at the forefront of my mind. I trotted beneath the edges of the Everfree Forest, wincing as the shadows of trees passed overhead.  I scaled the emerald lengths of Ponyville's park, my mind repeating the bitter conversation between the Mayor and her daughter, Scarlet. By sunset, I had approached the fringes of town, chilled by the cold breeze of Autumn and even more assaulted by the palpitations of my heart.

        How could a mother and daughter who had so many pure recollections of one another choose to live at such a frigid distance? They had no curse, no magical affliction, no supernatural reason to be such total strangers to one another. Were the mistakes of the past so grand that they had to block one another's affections? I saw the scowl on Scarlet's face; I heard the muted sobs of the Mayor. These were ponies who were capable of feeling, capable of hurting, capable of hating. Life was so precious and fragile, and I couldn't think of something that proved this more than our quaint little near-apocalypse, the recent debacle of Discord.

        I tried telling myself that I didn't have the power to know and understand everything. Just because I was a pariah didn't give me license to criticize the lives of those warm, living ponies around me. A ghost is good at haunting and not much else; so why was I so obsessed with the turmoil of the mother and daughter when I really should have been thinking about... when I should have been focusing on... on...

        I was starting to lose grip of my mind once again. I stopped in my tracks, panting, for the world around me had once more become an indecipherable blur. I dropped to my haunches and pulled out my lyre. Taking several steady breaths, I played “Twilight's Requiem” as carefully as I could, gripping the golden instrument in trembling hooves. When the music played its course, I opened my misty eyes and saw several solid shapes around me. I blinked, and found myself in the middle of Ponyville's cemetery, the golden glow of the sunset parting through the granite slabs in dancing bands.

        Leaves fluttered over my head as an October wind kicked up and died down. All was silent, making a bed of stillness upon which my memories collapsed all around me, as lonely and abandoned as the soft mounds of earth. I levitated the lyre and strolled limply ahead, drifting from stone to stone, wondering if all these strange names died with their heads intact as much as their hearts. I couldn't imagine a world so hopeless and cold to think that there were more ponies besides me and Alabaster, spirits that couldn't be silenced by her song, ghosts that were bound to wander the world in endless confusion until they themselves became flimsy melodies clinging to the holy weight of the Nightbringer.

        I slowed my steps, thinking about the holy instrument that rested in a hidden compartment beneath the floor of my cabin. In a world where there was nopony to bury me, I realized that I had nevertheless built myself a monument, one that would never bear my name.

        My hooves shuffled to a stop, for something had caught my eye. One gravestone was actually recognizable. I squinted at it, trotting over on light limbs. I stood before the slab, reading the engravings over and over again. I must not have played the Requiem accurately enough, because though I saw two words at the top of the stone, it took me a long time to actually discern it as a name.

        “A very peaceful evening, isn't it?”

        I gasped, instantly hugging the lyre. My eyes twitched upon hearing the voice behind me.

        “There aren't many places like this in the big cities,” he continued. “It's quite a shame. More ponies like these fine souls deserve their rest.”

        I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes. I didn't turn around. I didn't want to turn around. I simply waited and waited and...

        “Oh, I'm terribly sorry. You're paying your respects. How rude of me.”

        My heart was beating swiftly. I wanted to sob, to scream, to do anything but sit there as still as one of the many stones.

        “I shall leave you be, Miss. I wish you a good evening.”

        His hoofsteps drew further away, crunching leaves, echoing in my ears like chains beyond the firmaments. I felt like whimpering.

        Instead, I said, “Wait.” Every part of me stung from the weak utterance.

        His hooves stopped. After a beat of silence, I heard him shuffling around. “Hmmm?”

        I took a deep, meditative breath. I turned around and looked at him like a foal would peer into a cavern full of flame. “You're not rude at all. Don't... don't feel bad, please...”

        He gazed at me, levitating a bouquet of flowers a foot before his glowing horn. The wind kicked at his gray-streaked mane as he squinted against the sunlight with tired eyes. “I really didn't mean to disturb anypony. I'm... not from around here. As a matter of fact, I'm paying respects for the father of a dear friend of mine.”

        I nodded slowly. “You don't say?” It took all my strength not to shiver. “Your friend has a father buried here?”

        “Yes.” He was neither smiling nor frowning. It was like most of the life had been drained from his figure, and yet there hung a deep well of wisdom beneath the surface of his graying features. “I doubt she has the capacity to fathom it, but her family's lucky.” He glanced across the many stones. “This is a beautiful plot of land. Tranquil, undisturbed...”

        I bit my lip. He sounded so cold, and yet so capable of feeling, still. “This... this place is almost as old as the town itself.”

        “Is it?”

        I nodded quietly. “Many important ponies who helped found Ponyville are buried here.”

        He pointed with his hoof towards the stone before me. “Including your relations?”

        I fidgeted and gave a sideways glance to the slab, my eyes tripping once more over the two words at the top. “Yes... I, suspect he was also very important.”

        “What did he do while he was alive?”

        I gulped. “He was a father, soldier, and businesstallion, apparently.”

        “I see.” His lips performed a slight curve, and it stole my breath away. “I won't pry.”

        “Do... do you need help finding your friend's loved one?”

        “I'm quite sure I'll succeed if I'm persistent enough,” he said, his low bass voice drifting against the ghostly breeze. He scanned the nearby horizon, and his jaded eyes briefly lit up. “Ah. But of course.” He strolled ahead two rows until he approached a large, rectangular stone that had been adorned recently with a similar bouquet of fresh lilies. “She was here earlier, after all. We live such busy lives that we couldn't afford to be here together. It's a shame, really.”

        As he lay his floral respects down before the grave, I stood up. I should have galloped immediately away. I should have buried the lyre somewhere and succumbed to the shadows of night, allowing the curse to make me forget that this moment ever happened. But, instead, I trotted over and stood beside him. He was incredibly tall, and the amber tone of his coat resembled a mountain in the setting sunlight. I tried my best not to look at him, affixing my eyes to the stone instead. I found something just as somber: a name.  “Salty Breeze.”

        “Scarlet's father...” I murmured.

        He flashed me a look of surprise. “You've met Scarlet?”

        I winced. “Uhm...” I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. I... I ran into her earlier. She was... very nice to me.”

        He raised an eyebrow. “Was she, now?” A dry chuckle escaped his lips as he looked at the stone. “Well, that's certainly good to know. I'm comforted by the thought that she isn't all business and sighs.”

        “I... don't quite understand.”

        “Oh, it's nothing for you to be concerned about,” he said in a dull voice, his eyes scanning the fiery western horizon beyond the cemetery. “Scarlet used to tell me plenty of stories about Ponyville, about how 'insidiously cheerful' the ponies are who live here. Now that I've arrived myself, I must admit, she's right about the 'cheerful' part. Honestly though, I chalk up the 'insidiousness' to her own cynicism.”

        “We get along as well as we manage to,” I said, gulping hard after each phrase I uttered. With each second that limped by in the presence of him, I felt like collapsing. I spoke simply to stay strong, to stay conscious. “This is the harmony capital of the world, after all.”

        “So I've been told...” he said in a voice that sounded as lethargic as mine.

        I took note of that. I also took note of the thinness of his eyes as I looked his way and said, “So she was here earlier? To pay respects to her father?”

        “Yes,” he said with a nod. “He passed away when she was very young; apparently there was a very terrible accident. According to Scarlet, everypony was very hush-hush about it, considering Salty was married to the Mayor at the time and all. They didn't want the publicity of the tragedy to turn into something horribly melodramatic. It seemed like a good idea for the village at the time, but I think Scarlet took it to heart, and in all the most painful ways. This week marks her first time in Ponyville in years. I find that hard to believe, but she is a very strong mare for her age.”

        I looked at him. After a few soft seconds, I remarked, “You care a lot for Miss Breeze, don't you?”

        His lips curved as a slight chuckle escaped his lips. “To a fault. I understand a great deal of her sorrow, but not so much her bitterness.” He glanced at me. “We're both artists, you see. She's a photographer for the Fillydelphia Enquirer and other periodicals. Me? I'm a painter. I've been sketching landscapes and portraits for as long as I can remember. The two of us met at an Equestrian Media Convention in Baltimare last year. I saw in her a young filly with a great deal of talent, but a severe lack of focus. So... I guess I took her under my wing. I couldn't help it. She's always struck me as lost: a foal who needed to find her way home.”

        “She's done that now, hasn't she?” I asked.

        “Hmmm... Hardly.” He gazed once more at the stone. “I suppose it's good that she's gotten to see her father's grave for the first time in years, but that's hardly a cheerful reunion. When we both got assigned to pay Ponyville a visit after Discord's defeat, she was furious. She was this close to quitting her job at the Enquirer and moving out to Los Pegasus.”

        “What changed her mind?”

        “I did,” he said. “I thought”—he bit his lip—“I felt that a trip back to the place of her foaling would help her. I was hoping she would get a chance to talk with her mother again. The poor Mayor's lived here alone for so long, without having a chance to see her daughter again. I doubt even Scarlet knows how much she's hurt her with her distance.”

        “What's the reason for their bitterness, do you think?”

        “I've never asked her enough questions to find out,” he admitted. “But I suspect I know enough. A mare as young as Scarlet can easily confuse bitterness and pain for strength. She's not at the age to realize that those emotions will only bite her in the end, turning her life into a prison. One of these days, she will have to come to terms with all the memories that make her what she is, for better or for worse. At this rate, I fear she'll miss so many opportunities to make better memories for herself. That is, if this distance doesn’t destroy what remains of her and her mother.”

        I ran a hoof through my windblown mane and shudderingly said, “The only thing Scarlet is missing, I think, is how lucky she is to have a friend like you.” I gave a painful smile. “If only she knew how much you cared for her well-being, for her future...”

        He took a deep breath and slowly nodded. “If there's anything life's taught me, it's that we're on this earth for a reason. Scarlet's relaxed so much since we met. Once upon a time, she did nothing but snap other ponies' heads off. Now, she actually smiles and says kind things to those around her.” He nodded my way. “Your little testament of having met her is blissfully solid proof of that.”

        “All of us are capable of kindness if we put our hearts to it.”

        “Yes, well, my heart would feel a lot less heavy if I knew she could see the light in her life once more,” he muttered. “It's been a long, long time since I ever contributed to somepony's happiness. I'm not sure if you can relate to the feeling of... of being useful...”

        I gazed at him. When I spoke, my voice was cracking. “I truly can.”

        He glanced at me, then smiled. I felt like my heart would fracture, especially when he said, “You don't need to stay here any longer, darling. Thanks for listening to an old stallion ramble.”

        “It... it was my pl-pleasure,” I said, my lip quivering. I turned around before he could see and began briskly trotting away.

        And then I heard him say, “My name is Nebulous, by the way.”

        I turned and looked at him. I smiled and found the strength to say, “That's a very handsome name, sir.”

        He glanced at me, blinked once or twice, and merely nodded. “I wish you a good evening.” He turned back towards the stone and bowed his head.

        And I was gone.

        The next day came in a blink. I hadn't slept. I hadn't done anything but play the Requiem over and over again, remembering the stallion's voice, remembering his name. It was torture, a constant and unceasing laceration of my heart. But I kept playing the instrumental regardless, seated frozen in my cabin, preserving my thoughts in a sacred sarcophagus of purpose, until daylight rose once more upon the autumnal landscape.

        After feeding Al, I bolted out the door. I didn't even bother with my slipping into hoodie; my desperation was enough to melt the frost from my shoulders. I scoured the lengths of Ponyville, searching each alleyway and corner of the village. Gravestones were facsimiles of precious thoughts. The only things worth grasping, worth savoring and hanging onto, were the things that couldn't be put into words, the things that were so fleeting that I had to fight for them with music and misery and mirth, all in one single shout of righteous fury. To live is to persist against the dissipating cloud of substance, and for one fractured week of confusion since the Day of Discord, I had been too busy marinating in inane sorrow to bother with what I was still anchored to, what I would forever be buried under. When all the colors of my life have left me, and I'm stripped of everything I've pretended to understand, all that will remain is the part of me that feels, the same precious shred that Nebulous was clinging to—in spite of his age and weariness, and in spite of the souls he had tried so hard and so long to bless, only to come up short.

        He had all the inspiration that I once did, but none of the ghostly talents. He had saved Scarlet long ago, he just didn't have a vessel through which to deliver the salvation. For the first time in days, I once again knew what I was there in Ponyville to do. As the daylight wore on, I searched with furious vigor. I didn't even have to play the Requiem again.

        Finally, I found her. Scarlet was outside the antique windmill on the outskirts of Ponyville. She stood before the round stone entrance of the building, photographing a bed of flowers that had sprouted up beneath an abandoned wooden wagon chock-full of rusted metal farm tools. She looked so peaceful in the midst of her lonesome task. There wasn't a frown to be seen on her face. Still, even from a distance, I could have sworn I saw a grayish tug to her lips, an expression I had seen on the likes of the Mayor and Nebulous, the very same look I had spotted in the mirror on more forlorn occasions than I could count.

        Hiding behind a woodshed, I watched her, shivering, pondering how a ghost can exorcise a spirit of bitterness from a mare half a decade younger than myself. I wasn't Nebulous; I wasn't the Mayor. I was, at best, a messenger, cursed to have all of her words of wisdom and heartfelt emotion torn to bits by the accursed frost of Aria's song.

        It was then that I gasped with a startling realization: I was capable of delivering more than words. I thought this the very moment I saw Scarlet abandoning the flowers and instead turning towards the heart of the windmill. Slowly, unassumingly, she trotted deep into the echoing interior of the structure. A pair of wooden doors hung loosely on their hinges behind her.

        I blinked. I turned towards the village. Giving the windmill one final look, I spun and galloped swiftly into the heart of Ponyville.

        “The harvest of pumpkins is ready to deliver in three days!” Carrot Top exclaimed proudly on the east edge of the village marketplace. “We'll be donating ten percent to the town, of course.” She giggled. “The're really plump this year. The foals and their families will love 'em!”

        “Well, that's magnificent!” the Mayor replied with a wide grin. “I've already rounded up volunteers to carve some fine ghoulish designss into them! Not only that, but Miss Applejack has quite a few exciting games lined up for the evening!”

        “Oh, she never fails to deliver!”

        “Everything is coming together so fantastically,” the Mayor said. “This is undoubtedly going to be the best Nightmare Night ever.”

        Carrot Top leaned forward with an earnest expression. “Is it true that Zecora is going to be this year's storyteller?”

        “Hmmmm... Yes.” The Mayor chuckled merrily, adjusting her bifocals. “It will be an utter delight to hear her rendition of the Nightmare Moon story. I always felt that the tale could use a bit of poetic flare, and our local Zebraharan shaman is bound to deliver.”

        “I can't wait!” Carrot Top waved and began to trot away. “Well, I’d best be heading back to the farm before sundown! If you need anything else, Mayor, feel free to stop by the ranch and holler!”

        “Sure thing!” The Mayor nodded and laughingly said, “I'll be sure to bring my bullhorn! Heh heh heh...” She shook her head and happily breathed in the crisp, autumn air. “Princess Celestia has it all right. This certainly is the best time of the year.” She turned around and got a face full of me.

        “Mayor! Quick!” I exclaimed in a panicked voice. “You must come with me!”

        “Huh?” She jumped back, quite visibly startled. “What on earth is the meaning of this? Who are you—?”

        “There's no time!” I said, glancing around me in a mock show of paranoia. “He may be listening right now as we speak, disguised as a merchant's tent or a shopping counter or even a bed of roses!”

        “Huh? Who?!”

        I gulped and whispered hoarsely, “Discord, of course.”

        The Mayor's indigo eyes twitched in fright. “D-Discord? You... You mean he's back?!”

        “Shhh!” I nodded and leaned in to murmur into her ear, “Twilight Sparkle has assembled all of the Elements of Harmony to deal with the situation. They don't know where he's hiding; only that he's returned already and Princess Celestia is powerless to stop him. The reason you've never seen me before is because I'm a specially hired agent of Canterlot sent on Twilight's behalf to deliver this message to you without any local villagers recognizing me and instantly falling into a panic. Discord's back, and it's a matter of minutes before he starts sowing chaos across this gorgeous landscape of yours once again!”

        “But... B-but how can this be?!” She was shivering at this point, her every limb quivering as she nervously scoured the rooftops with a sweating expression. “He was defeated! Just two weeks ago! The Elements of Harmony—”

        “—had barely assembled within an hour of zapping Discord with their rainbow energy... thingy,” I said, wincing from my brief fumbling of words. “Ahem. You must understand, Mayor, that they were not in the same stable frame of mind as when they so expertly vanquished the spirit of Nightmare Moon. However, they've assembled now and are ready to silence Discord for good.”

        “Then... th-then why do they need me?”

        “Discord won't come close to being dug out of his hiding place unless Twilight and her friends get the firm cooperation from a pony who knows the streets of Ponyville inside and out.” I pointed. “That's you, Mayor! Now, please, I must escort you to the Elements of Harmony at once.”

        “Alright, alright!” she hissed, trying to control her shivers. She leaned in, her face pale and vulnerable. “But where are they? Where's Twilight Sparkle?”

        I took a deep breath, turned around, and began galloping. “Follow me. I'll show you...”

        “Quickly, Mayor!” I shouted behind me, my green coat glinting in the setting sunlight as we bounded over the grassy hill. The windmill loomed on the emerald crest, its wooden gears grinding and translucent blades rotating slowly. “Time is of the essence!”

        “Just slow down a bit!” she limped after me, huffing and puffing. Her collar had begun to droop from sweat and exhaustion as she adjusted her crooked bifocals and fought to catch up. “I'm not a young filly like you! I want to save Ponyville from Discord as much as the Elements, but I won't be of any use if I collapse before I get there—”

        “Well fret no more,” I said, turning towards her as I pointed at the open doorway of the windmill. “For we're here!”

        She looked around, her ears twitching in the chilling wind atop the hill. “Where's Twilight? Where're the destined defenders of Equestria?”

        “Inside, Mayor! Quick! Go inside! I'll be right behind you!”

        “Okay!” she exclaimed, trying not to pant with fear. Shuffling on tired hooves, she dashed through the stone doorway and stood upon the wooden floorboards. “I'm here, Twilight! Your messenger told me all about Discord! Now how can I help—?” She froze, blinking.

        Scarlet blinked back, stuck in the middle of photographing a dancing spiderweb in the afternoon light. Her indigo eyes narrowed as she muttered, “What in the hay are you doing here?”

        The Mayor's mouth was agape. “You're... not Twilight Sparkle.”

        “Uhhhh, you think?”

        The elder blinked. With a frowning expression, she spun around. “Lady, what is the meaning of this—?”

        The interior of the windmill darkened with a loud thud. I stood before the closed wooden doors. Latching them shut, I spun and faced them both calmly.

        “What?!” the Mayor sputtered.

        Scarlet stood at her side, glaring at me. “Hey! What's going on here?! Who do you think—?”

        A golden shape reflected off their angry eyes as I pulled my lyre from my saddlebag. Without hesitating, I played a haunting melody in the center of the cacophonous building of spinning axles and grinding gears. I closed my eyes, anticipating the ethereal shroud to come. They, however, weren't prepared for what happened next. When I finished the “Darkness Sonata,” I calmly weathered the blindness with paced breathing. They, on the other hoof...

        “Oh dear Celestia! I'm... I'm blind!”

        “Just stay calm, Scarlet! There must be a reasonable explanation for this—”

        “Augh! I-I can't see my own hooves! What in the hay did she do to us?!”

        “It must be Discord's work! He's assumed a unicorn's image to curse us with some chaotic enchantment!”

        “I don't like this! Uggh! Why did I even come back to this stupid town?!”

        “Will you stop complaining for just one second?! I have to think!”

        “What good is that going to do?! I'm blind!”

        “You're not the only one, darling—”

        “Stop calling me 'darling!' I'm not a little... little...”

        The two mares grew silent as a dastardly cold overwhelmed them. Wincing, they collapsed into each other's embrace, their breaths exhaling flimsy clouds of vapor. I noticed all of this... because my sight had returned. While they had stumbled about in confusion, I had carefully scaled my way up the wooden steps lining the cylindrical wall of the windmill's interior. Hiding in the shadows of the third story, I gazed silently down at them as their sight returned, which was the least I could say about their memories.

        “Unnngh...” Scarlet stirred, shaking her head dizzily. “What happened? Everything's all foggy... What?” She looked up.

        The Mayor was opening her eyes. She blinked at the sight of her own daughter in her forelimbs.

        Scarlet twitched. Instantly, she frowned, and yanked herself out of the elder's grasp. “What's going on here?! What are you doing?!”

        “I... I...” The Mayor gulped and glanced at the grinding sights of the windmill above her. “I have no idea!”

        “What do you mean you have no idea?!” Scarlet grunted. “You always know everything! Were you spying on me or something?!”

        “Honey, I've no clue. I just woke up here myself—”

        “I don't believe you!” Scarlet frowned. She trudged angrily towards the door and pushed against it with her entire weight. “This is some sick little game! I wouldn't expect any less!”

        “How many times do I have to tell you?!” the Mayor barked, shrugging with her pale forelimbs. “I don't know how I got here or what knocked both of us out?”

        “Nnnngh!” Scarlet hissed, fiddling with the latch until it loosened. Still, no matter how hard she pressed against the doors, they refused to budge. “The heck?! Ugh! Stupid door! What gives?!”

        I took a deep breath and leaned my head towards the thin, slitted windows of the windmill. With expert telekinesis, perfected from months of exercise under Twilight's amnesiac tutelage, I finished rolling the wooden wagon full of metal junk in the direct path of the windmill's doors. It would take the combined strength of six non-magical ponies to force the entrance open, and I knew it.

        However, those two didn't.

        “Piece of junk Windmill!” Scarlet Breeze grunted, her face flushing to match the furious crimson of her mane. “I swear to the Matriarch, you should have had this ugly place razed to the ground years ago!”

        “You know very well that I couldn't do that!” the Mayor retorted, leaning against a stone wall to catch her heavy breaths. “This place is a landmark! Though I wouldn't expect you to understand that—”

        “The only thing I understand is how pathetically you fall in love with useless things that have to do with your job!” She stumbled back from the door, panting. “I can't believe this crap. Somepony!” Scarlet shouted, tilting her head up towards the rafters of the echoing interior. “Somepony! Anypony!”

        “Mmmph...” The Mayor face-hoofed, groaning. “Scarlet, please...”

        “Get us out of here! We're trapped!”

        “We're too far from the center of town for anypony to hear us!” she said, yelling above the young mare's voice. “You'll wear your throat out with all that infernal hollering!”

        Scarlet glared at her. “Well, one of us has got to do something useful, Mayor!”

        “In Celestia's name!” the elder snapped explosively, her indigo eyes flaring. “Will you stop calling me that?! I am your mother, dammit! I foaled you into this world! Don't you think that took a little bit more than a bit of scheduling and intense paperwork?!”

        “You would have been more proud of my birth if it did!”

        The Mayor glared.

        Scarlet frowned back.

        Silence washed over the pair. Several seconds passed, until Scarlet's hoofsteps passed beneath the grinding wooden gears as she shuffled over towards the far wall and plopped herself down beside her camera. She slumped on her haunches, hugging herself and glaring into the ground.

        “This sucks,” she said.

        The Mayor fumed, staring off into the cobwebs. “I'm not entirely fond of it myself.”

        “Hmmmph,” Scarlet managed with a bitter smirk. “You were never all that fond of me.”

        The Mayor's shoulders rose as she weathered a deep breath. “That's not true.”

        “Oh please, spare me—”

        “It's your attitude I was never fond of!” the Mayor said, flashing her an angry look, a look that melted with the trailing seconds as her gaze fell to the floor before her daughter. “I could never stand seeing your unloving face, hearing the cold tone in your voice whenever we passed each other like shadows in the house.”

        “Why not?” Scarlet gulped and maintained her furious frown. “It's what you wanted, wasn't it?”

        “Scarlet, what I wanted was for you to be strong.”

        “What, like you?” Scarlet hissed. “That's not strength, Mayor, that's workaholism.”

        “All I've ever done in my professional career”—the Mayor said, pointing a stiff hoof at herself—“I did to protect Ponyville, to protect the citizens, to protect you.”

        “It wasn't enough to protect dad, was it?” Scarlet said in a venomous murmur. “Face it. A part of you died with him.”

        The Mayor's face stretched in a vulnerable grimace. “When I see the way you look at me—right now as I do in my memories—it makes me wish that more of me had died.”

        At that, Scarlet's scowl buckled. She bit her lip and avoided the Mayor's gaze as her eyes softened.

        The Mayor sighed and ran a hoof over her face. Swallowing a lump down her throat, she began pacing for several seconds. Those seconds bled into minutes, morphing into the shadows that hung over the interior as the setting sun burned past the edge of the windmill's slim windows.

        Finally, the elder murmured, “I've been Mayor of this town for nearly three decades. I've seen Ponyville prosper in that time. I've witnessed magical things: the return of Nightmare Moon, harmonious heroes rising to the occasion, the power of friendship defeating pure apocalyptic chaos...”

        “Tell me something I don't know,” Scarlet said bluntly.

        Her mother looked at her, hugging her left front forelimb with her right. Her lip quivered as she said, “They were all amazing, glorious thing. But none of them were what I truly, dearly wanted to see again.”

        Scarlet's nostrils flared. Without looking, she muttered, “The last time I was here, you told me that I was a slacker. You said that I had no business being a photographer, that I had so much more potential as a businesspony and I was only wasting my life away.”

        “Scarlet...”

        “You said that if dad were still alive, he'd be ashamed of me,” Scarlet growled.

        “Please, Scarlet—”

        The young mare snapped, “Why the heck should I think you'd give a crap about who or what I've become since then?!”

        “Scarlet, I'm sorry!” the Mayor shrieked, a tear rolling down her cheek.

        Scarlet blinked awkwardly at that, an eyebrow raising in confusion.

        The Mayor sniffled and ran a hoof across her face. Shuddering, she said, “I'm sorry, and... and I want to make it up to you. But you need to show me how, because... because I've made mistakes. Several horrible, horrible mistakes and... and I've lost so much already. I feel like... like I'm a shadow left behind, because the light of my life is gone, and I want her back. I-I want my darling daughter back...”

        Scarlet was merely squinting at her. Her breath was hot and scathing, but nevertheless she whispered, “How could you possibly expect me to believe you? You've...” She gulped and hissed, “You've never apologized for anything before!”

        The Mayor sighed and hung her gray head. “I know...”

        “You've always been too strong for that! Too stubborn and... and too you for that—”

        “I know, I know!” The Mayor seethed and fought through her tears to look at Scarlet dead-on. “But that was before I had the very land beneath me cast under hideous shadow not once—but twice. Equestria is changing, Scarlet. There is magic happening in this land—both dark and majestic—that hasn't been around for centuries. I've seen things that I never thought would happen in my lifetime. I've brushed elbows with the horrors of a living apocalypse. I... I had my body put under a spell, so that I lost touch with the fibres of my being and when it all came back, I couldn't believe just how... how...” She winced. “How empty I was.” She gulped hard and said in a steadier breath, “And I realize that it's because I was the one who emptied myself, who robbed myself of everything that was important. Including you.”

        Scarlet gazed at her, her mouth agape.

        The Mayor strolled slowly towards her, waiting for Scarlet to flinch. She didn't, and the elder eventually stood over the young mare. “Scarlet, when your father died, I never thought I'd experience something so painful. I didn't want to feel something that horrible again, and I didn't want it for you. I... I thought that I could protect you. That's why I raised you the way I did. That's why I made you put all of your effort into studies, into course work, into pursuing a business career. I... I wanted you to be strong, and that was what I thought was the answer.” She shuddered. “I-I was wrong. And... and it's my fault that you can't bring yourself to call me 'mother' today. I planted that seed inside you, and I regret the weeds that have grown in place of a life that should be full of blossoming happiness.”

        “I am strong,” Scarlet said, albeit in a wavering voice. “But only because I had to be, because you didn't give me any other outlet.”

        “Yes. Yes, I know...”

        “And now I'm supposed to believe that you've changed?” Scarlet squinted at her suspiciously. “Do you even know what you're supposed to be in the first place?!”

        “I'm trying to figure it out, darling. I-I'm trying and...” She lingered in mid-speech, her eyes rising as if catching a vaporous cloud of frigid thought. She gulped hard and said, “The substance of a pony's soul...”

        I raised an eyebrow at that.

        Scarlet was merely confused. “Huh?”

        The Mayor looked at her. “My greatest mistake, I now think, is trying so hard to sculpt you into a doer... when you were always a dreamer, and a delightful one at that.” She smiled painfully as her eyes teared once more. “Just like your f-father...”

        Scarlet gazed in breathless silence.

        “What am I supposed to be, Scarlet?” The Mayor spoke in a brave voice. “Strip me of all my memories, my pride, and my mistakes, and what substance do I have? I'm a pony who loves her daughter, Scarlet, who loves you and m-misses you and wants you back in my life.” She knelt down on trembling knees and reached a hoof out to the young mare's shoulder. “I don't want you to be another piece of forgotten memories, of all the things that have left me.”

        A shuddering breath left Scarlet's lips. Her face stretched painfully as she murmured in a foalish breath, “You have changed.”

        “No...” The Mayor shook her head with a tearful smile. “I've changed back. And I ask you, beg you, my beautiful Scarlet, to change back too. Let us save ourselves, while we're both in the same room, while we have the chance to avoid drifting into bitter shades of our pasts.”

        Scarlet stared at her. Slowly, she bowed her head and began shaking.

        The Mayor tilted her face to the side, awash with concern. “Scarlet...?”

        “I'm so angry... Just so angry at you...”

        The elder nodded, sniffled and said, “It's okay to be. I've... I've not been a good example to you...”

        “No. It's not that.” Scarlet's voice was cracking. She brought two shivering hooves to her face and spoke in a muffled voice, “All this time, you've made it so hard... so dang hard, and now you give me an open invitation?”

        The Mayor's moist eyes curved in brief confusion. “I don't understand. What invitation?”

        Scarlet looked up, and her face glinted in the dimming sunlight. “To c-call you 'Mommy' once again.”

        She smiled back at her and caressed the filly's face. “I promise, I'll live up to it. But I'm going to need your help. Can you do that, Scarlet? Can you forgive me... and help me? So that I can help you?”

        Scarlet grasped the Mayor's hoof, nuzzled it, and whimpered, “Of course, Mommy.” She gave a torturous smile, her eyes brimming with tears. “Of course...”

        “Oh Scarlet...” The Mayor scooped her up in her forelimbs.

        She clung to her, sobbing into her shoulder, having finally returned home.

        The Mayor refused to let go. “We can fix this. I know we can. We have time... all the time in the world...”

        “I'm so s-sorry,” Scarlet sobbed. “All these years, all the things I did... all the things I d-didn't do...”

        “Shhhh. No more apologizing. Please, let me just hold you...”

        She did, into the golden bands of evening and the cool shadows of night. Hours rolled by. Once their tears had dried and their sobs had turned into chuckles, they discovered the door to the windmill hanging ajar. The wagon had rolled away as if under its own volition. Neither of them were about to complain. When they left the windmill, it was at a leisurely pace. It wouldn't be until midnight that I made my own exit, bathing in the pale glow of a harvest moon, going so far as to donate it a smile to shine on.

        “Pinkie Pie, darling, do stand still!” Rarity exclaimed the next day. “You're posing for a photograph, not preparing for a party!”

        “Oh, don’t be too hard on her,” Scarlet Breeze remarked calmly.  The Town Hall building loomed above a large group of ponies in the noonday sun. The sky was bright and cloudless, casting a perfect light upon the scene as over half of the population of Ponyville lined up in front a camera on a tripod with a wide-angled lens.  Behind the device, Scarlet stood, expertly preparing the perfect shot.  “If anything, she’s practicing her smile.  I want all of you ponies to look happy for when I bring these back to Fillydelphia.”

        “Including yourself?” Twilight Sparkle spoke over Spike’s head as she stood next to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash.  She smiled and added, “You were born here, after all.  Shouldn’t you belong in the shot?”

        Several other ponies nodded and cheered enthusiastically.

        “Heh... That's a nice sentiment,” Scarlet replied. “But it wouldn't be very professional of me...”

        “Since when did that stop anypony?” Remarked a cheerful voice. The Mayor marched into view, standing beside Twilight Sparkle and Spike. “I, for one, think she should be immortalized along with the rest of us. After all, she is family.”

        Several ponies cheered and goaded Scarlet on. The earth ponies stomped their hooves while the pegasi whooped and whistled.

        Blushing, Scarlet relented, waving her forelimbs. “Alright, alright! If you insist.”

        “Yeeeeha!” Applejack added, motioning the pony forward. “Come and join us, sugarcube!”

        “But it's not enough that I just set up the shot! This camera doesn't have a timer,” Scarlet said with a concerned look on her face. “Somepony has to be out of frame to take the photo!”

        The villagers exchanged curious, thoughtful glances. They murmured amongst themselves, fidgeting.

        “I'll do it.”

        The crowd looked in one direction. I happened be standing in the path of their gaze. I smiled and lowered the hood from over my horn.

        “Sorry. I didn't mean to pry. Looks like you got some sort of group photo taking place.”

        “Uhhh...” Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “You think?”

        “Who are those two unicorns?” Derpy asked from the far end of the group.

        Dinky leaned up to her. “It's only one, mother...”

        Derpy closed one eye and smiled brightly. “Oh! Hi there! Just passing through?”

        I took a deep breath, smiling. “You could say that. How can I help?”

        “Well, if you're up to it...” Scarlet pointed at the camera. “See that button? I need you to press it when I tell you to. We need more than one shot, though, so it might take more than a few minutes.” She smiled nervously. “Is... is that too much to ask?”

        “Don't fret.” I waved a hoof and trotted over, shrugging off the cold from my shoulders. “I'd be more than happy to.”

        “Great!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “Come and join us, Scar-Scar!”

        Scarlet groaned and trotted over in a slump. “I really, really hope that ponies don't start calling me that permanently.”

        “Why not?” The Mayor smiled and draped a hoof over the younger mare's shoulder. “It's endearing.”

        “It's silly and stupid...”

        “Hmmm... Welcome back to Ponyville.” She winked through her bifocals. “Would you rather be called 'the Mayor's Daughter' for as long as you exist?”

        Scarlet blushed slightly. She shook her head. “Nah. I can live with what I have to live with.”

        “Sounds like an adventure already.” The Mayor glanced up and nodded at me. “We're ready!”

        “You hear that, everypony?” Twilight stood tall and proud as dozens of her friends and neighbors copied her posture beside her. “This is it!”

        Scarlet nodded my way. “Thank you so much for all your help, Miss...”

        “Hey...” I shrugged and rested my hoof over the button. “What's in a name? Preserve your memories.” Clearing my throat, I leaned forward and squinted through the viewfinder, capturing the whole of Ponyville like a tiny crowd on a dusty stage. “Now say cheese!”

        “Cheeeeeeese!”

        The camera's shutter resounded with a ghostly click.

        His amber hooves flipped through one dried canvas, then another, then yet another. His neck craned up and down, his eyes squinting as he compared each colorful landscape to the physical sight of Ponyville lingering in the afternoon glow just beyond the crest of the hill. To his satisfaction, each brusthstroke was even and each slathering of color was accurate. With a deep breath, he lined the canvases up and slid them neatly into a velvet container.

        “They're very beautiful,” I said.

        Nebulous blinked. The aged stallion turned around and looked at me. The October wind blew at his gray-streaked mane with as much vigor as the emerald blades of grass around us. He smiled into the crisp breeze, nodding. “Yes, well, it's a beautiful town.”

        “I'm rather fond of it,” I said, clinging to my hoodie as the whipping winds blew at us, cold and sporadic. I felt like a tiny porcelain figure in the shadow of him. I tried hard not to stare at his weathered features. “I wish it was the reason for why I stay here, but I'm not complaining.”

        “Neither would I, but that's not a luxury I'm about to enjoy,” he said. “I'm catching a train within the hour.”

        I took a deep breath. Somehow, I knew that already. I should have just left him alone; I should have just gone straight home after the photo shoot. But as soon as I saw Nebulous standing here like a dull flame on the hilltop, I had to do this. I had to be here. “Ponyville isn't beautiful enough to make you stay longer?”

        He chuckled. “It's remarkable how everypony here is so kind and approachable, even perfect strangers.”

        I merely looked at him.

        Nebulous cleared his throat and finished zipping the velvet containers shut. The sunlight bounced off him at an angle, reducing his muscles to dark shadow, like the polished surface of a granite slab. “I've done what I've come here to Ponyville to do, and aside from a bizarre incident involving an enchanted doll and some inexplicable stampede, I'd say it was a rather relaxing visit.” He glanced my way with a nod. “I can see how this tiny little town got its reputation.”

        I smiled weakly. “I do hope it's a good reputation.”

        “Oh, good enough, certainly.” He took a deep breath. “My only regret is that my travels will be rather lonely for a while.”

        Biting my lip, I gazed down the hillside towards the golden rooftops below. “Lonely?” I murmured to the wind. “Why's that?”

        “When I came here, I had a fellow artist with me. Turns out she's staying in town. Her mother's here, after all. They... had a reunion of sorts.”

        “Well, I'm sorry that you lost a friend—”

        “Hah! Lost? Oh, hardly,” Nebulous said with a handsome smile. “It's hard to mourn the parting of company when one's companion has rediscovered herself, and done so in such a blissful manner.” He looked at me. “She held a grudge against her mother for the longest time. But now they've suddenly decided to make amends. I can't describe how joyous a sight it is to see her smile. It's like day and night; she's an entirely different pony, only... she's the same friend I made in my travels. She's just shrugged off a lot of weight from her shoulders.” With a contented sigh, he added, “And so have I.”

        I breathed a bit more evenly, my cheeks warm as I smiled his way. “Sounds like visiting Ponyville has worked in your favor.”

        “Only because it's worked in hers,” he said. “After years of wandering Equestria on her lonesome, she's finally home... and with family. I can rest well knowing that.”

        “That's good to know.” I weathered the heaviest breath of my life and murmured, “And... and what of your home?”

        Nebulous' face became long, the shadows doubling across his jawline. “Hmmm... Well, that's a different thing altogether. The road is my home.”

        I twitched. Bravely, I stared at him. “You don't say...?”

        “Yes. What was once her prison is still my journey.” He shook the velvet satchel for emphasis. “She had to come here to find herself. Me? I'm still on the path to self-discovery. That's why I could never help her, not like her mother finally did in this town.” He chuckled dryly. “If I sound a bit envious, that's probably because I am. Childish, I know, but when you get my age, you feel rather protective of others. It's as if... as if...”

        “Something's missing from your life,” I said. “And you want to fill the void, even if you don't know what belongs in that empty space.” I glanced at my hooves. “I know a thing or two about that. You see, being in Ponyville has changed me too. I couldn't imagine myself in any other place...”

        Nebulous nodded, shifting his weight across his hooves. “I once had a home like you,” he eventually said, gazing into the wind.

        I glanced up at him. My lips trembled. “Oh? D-do tell.”

        “Not much worth to tell,” he said. “I was in Canterlot for many years. I was even married. But, as the years wore on, I found that my life wasn't changing for the better. My wife and I? We just... didn't see eye to eye, I suppose. She was a politician and historian. And me? I wanted to paint, to draw, to find the substance of my dreams and share it with others. So... one thing led to another, and we separated about a year ago. Since then, I've been travelling abroad, hoping to discover myself before it's too late. And until I've found that substance, I can never rest easy.” He glanced over with a soft smile. “I don't suppose somepony your age can... relate...”

        I was not smiling. It took all my strength to keep my tears in. I gazed at the waving grass, shivering, until I ran a hoof over my lips and bravely tilted my head up. “I can... I c-can relate...”

        He gazed at me curiously.

        “It's... it's been so long, so very long since I've seen my family,” I said. “My p-parents, I mean.” I stared into the burning horizon, trying to keep the lump down in my throat. “We separated not that long ago, but... but it feels like ages...”

        “Did you not see eye to eye either?” he asked.

        “Heh... No. Uhm...” I cleared my throat and fought to maintain a steady voice. “Fate—I guess you could say—divided us. At this point, I really don't think I'll ever have a chance to reunite with them.”

        The stallion's face turned a sympathetic, pale shade. “I'm very sorry to hear that.”

        “Hmmmm...” I smiled painfully, my eyes locked on the landscape behind him. “Sorry? Heh. Their memory lives on. It lives on in me. It lives on in the respect that they taught me, the philosophy they instilled in my mind, the love of music that they made a part of my being. I only ever found my talent, my calling, and my passion because of my parents.” I inhaled sharply, then said, “Still, there isn't a day that goes by where I don't think about them. Every morning, I dream of seeing my mother again. And I long for the moment to meet my father once more, and look him in the face and say...”

        Slowly, I pivoted until my gaze was upon him. I wanted to control the trembling of my lip. I failed.

        “...to s-say that I love you, Daddy, and I miss you more than music itself.”

        He stared at me, and his eyes moistened, matching the silver streak to his mane. With a blink, he composed himself with a strong smile. I only wished that he could give me more, and then he did: “I know that I'm going on in my years,” he managed in a soft voice. “But I hope someday to have a daughter as wonderful and thoughtful as you.”

        I smiled painfully, and my voice cracked. “You deserve no less,” I whispered.

        The space between us was still, like a blank void between firmaments.

        With a frigid gust, the October breeze returned. Nebulous winced, and gave the watch on his forelimb a nervous glance. He almost sighed as he uttered, “Well, the train is coming soon. I must be going if I wish to return these landscapes safely to Fillydelphia.”

        I nodded, my cheeks hurting. “Go on. I wish you luck in your discoveries.”

        “Heh. I think I've got enough luck as it is.  About time I answered to fate.” He levitated his baggage and began strolling downhill, as if sliding away into the shadows of the evening. “By the way.”  He lingered, making my heart jump one final time. “I didn't catch your name.”

        I shouldn't have, but I did anyways. “Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings.”

        He nodded, as if in approval. “It's quite a beautiful name.”

        I gave him a lasting smile as my vision clouded. “It was a good choice.”

        “Indeed.” And he was lost in the fog. I was lost too.

        The first hour without him passed by, and I descended slowly to the earth, an icy collapse, like I was just one of the many shadows of the windy evening.  More hours limped by, slipping away from me like so many warm breaths.  When night fell and my shivers made the stars shake...

        “...I was still there. I don't remember when I arrived home at my cabin,” I said before Twilight at the edge of the wedding reception. “Nor do I remember staying there long. Maybe I fed my cat once or twice, or perhaps a dozen times. The only thing I know is that I didn't play the song. I couldn't; I refused to. The Requiem was my seal, my personal unsung barrier between today and yesterday. For the first time ever, I wanted that bliss of forgetfulness. I wanted to be an amnesiac, like everypony around me. And why not? It was comfortable. It was joyous. It was even... liberating.”

        Spike had a blank expression. Nervously, he glanced up at Twilight.

        Twilight's eyes were misty. Holding back a choking sound in the back of her throat, she looked me deeply in the eyes. “Then wh-what changed? Why did you come to me?” She sniffled and almost whimpered, “Why, after all of that, did you ask me to help you play the song and remember everything?”

        I stared at her, breathing steadily. Navigating a wincing expression, I summoned the strength to say, “Because when all my memories have left me, I have to know that the pony who remains is made of greater substance than cowardice. I still have a quest to complete. I still have a curse to undo. And everything I've gone through will be worth the pain and anguish if it means I have the capacity to learn from it and be something greater than I once was. You see, Twilight? I refuse to believe that life is nothing but loss and decay. Someway, somehow, I am growing. And I just have one last hurdle to cross.”

        She nodded, composing herself as her face took on the challenge in my eyes. “We must get you to see the Princesses. Performing the Requiem in front of them must be the solution!”

        “But there's no proof that the endeavor can be anything more than pure danger—”

        “It's a risk that must be taken!” Twilight said in earnest. “For your sake!” She spun towards her whelpling companion. “Spike!”

        “Gah! What?!” he exclaimed, jumping.

        “Head towards the library and prepare a letter! We must get the attention of the Princesses at once!”

        I sighed, shuddering all over as I ran an exhausted hoof through my frazzled mane. “Twilight, I'm sorry. But... But you've done all you could. There's no way to summon the Princesses, no way to get a message through—”

        “We have to try!” Twilight exclaimed. “If you managed to affect Discord, there must be a way to reach them as well!”

        “Twilight—”

        “It's worth the effort! Spike, what are you standing around for?!”

        “But it's way past sundown! You want me to reopen the library now?!”

        “Didn't you hear what I said?!” Twilight pointed at me. “Didn't you hear what she said?”

        “Hey, it's a pretty intense sob story if you ask me. But come on!” Spike shrugged. “Do you really believe all that about everypony forgetting her?! Or that bit with the Mayor and her daughter at the windmill?! Or... Or...”

        “Spike, please! Trust me on this!”

        “She just came off the street, Twilight!” Spike shrugged in his tuxedo. “I don't care if she's polite or if she has a swell hoo—... a swell hoo—” He started to lurch and hyperventilate.

        Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Spike...?”

        Suddenly, his head flung forward and he belched. A plume of furiously hot emerald flame billowed outward, engulfing half the refreshment table. A tiny scroll plopped down to the ground, but Twilight was far less concerned about that than she was the wreath of flowers that had just caught ablaze.

        “Spike!” Twilight shrieked, recoiling in horror, almost tripping over her gown.

        “It wasn't m-my fault!” Spike jumped in place, wincing at the climbing flames. “How was I supposed to know there’d be a royal letter this late at night?!”

        “You should have aimed straight up or something! Ugh!” Twilight rolled her eyes and lifted the burning wreath in her telekinesis. “Help me take care of this!”

        “Yeah! Uh... sure thing! Just one second...” The baby dragon bent over to pick up the scroll.

        “Spike! Now!”

        “But don't you want to read the—?!”

        “Doesn't it look like we have a greater emergency here?!” Twilight said, frowning. “Come on!”

        “Ugh...” Spike ditched the scroll and waddled hurriedly over to the unicorn's side. “Okay, let's put this out!”

        “Look, I'm so, so sorry!” Twilight exclaimed over her shoulder at me. “This will only take a minute!” She and Spike hurried four steps away towards the middle of the table. “Quick! Spike, grab the punch bowl!”

        “Ewww, seriously, Twilight? The punch bowl?! Isn't there—like—a perfectly large trough full of water just outside?”

        “Do you want the entire town hall to go up in smoke?!”

        “Fine! The punch bowl it is! Let me just get a claw hold...”

        “Steady... Steady...”

        I turned away from their panicked struggle with the blaze. As they splashed brightly colored liquid over the mess, filling the ceiling above with smoke, I weathered a cold chill. Hugging myself, I glanced down at the floor until my eyes settled upon the scroll.

        My eyes blinked hard.

        The parchment had a lunar seal on it.

        Fidgeting, I glanced at Twilight and Spike, then back at the scroll. Nervously, I knelt down and scooped it up in my telekinetic grip. Without saying a word, I unrolled the thing and scanned the elaborately written calligraphy. A few seconds later, I was gasping, my body shivering doubly now, but not from the cold.

        I stood up, my heart beating heavily. I glanced at the unrolled parchment in my grasp, then glanced at the rest of the wedding. The flame was almost out, and the smoke was starting to dissipate. Twilight and Spike still had their backs to me.

        When the time came that they turned around, I couldn't see them, for I had fled from the warm interior of the Town Hall.

        And I had taken the scroll with me.

        Hours later, as dawn rose over the horizon, I sat on the edge of my cot, staring across the space of my cabin. Pinned to the wall, flanked by dozens upon dozens of instruments was the royal letter. I had the most important instrument in my grasp. Rhythmically, I played “Twilight's Requiem” on the Nightbringer over and over again, wishing to the Cosmic Matriarch's holy heavens that the ancient instrument would buff my mind for the insomniac fever I was about to endure.

        “She's coming, Alabaster,” I murmured to the air. A feline figure was snuggled up against me. He didn't wake; he didn't need to. I relished his warmth, as well as the harmonic chords of the Requiem that were suddenly and inexplicably soothing to my ears once more. “She's coming to Ponyville. In two days, she'll be here...”

        The unrolled parchment flickered from the golden sheen of the ancient instrument. My eyes were locked on a series of numbers: the beautifully clear date of Nightmare Night.

        “And I'll be there too,” I murmured, a tear rolling down my cheek as I struggled and shivered to stay awake. “I'll be there. So help me, Alabaster. We'll both be there. And we'll remember together. We'll remember together.” I gulped and whimpered, “We will remember...”

        If memories are all that's left me, I’ll gladly welcome whatever falls in their place.

Background Pony

XVII - “All That's Left You”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: Props, Warden, RazgrizS57, theBrianJ, theworstwriter, and fascism

Cover pic by Spotlight

        “My little ponies,” Princess Celestia spoke, her wings spread majestically on either side of her. “I am pleased to be here for this meeting in the beautiful town of Ponyville. Though this isn’t the largest of towns in Equestria, it is far from the furthest thing in my mind. I care for each and every one of my precious subjects, and it is with all of you in mind that I make this visit to your humble community.”

        The hotel lobby brimmed with bright faces and glistening eyes. Rows upon rows of awestruck equines bowed before the alicorn at the far end of the chamber. Bordering the group, muscular pegasus guards stood in glinting armor, scrutinizing the crowd with glaring, suspicious eyes that their benevolent leader couldn't afford. Twilight Sparkle was there, smiling proudly from where she stood alongside her mentor.

        With a dip of her horn, Celestia nodded towards the many ponies in attendance. “Peace and harmony are the essences of our souls; I have believed that since the dawn of time. To that end, I present myself to you with an open heart, so that all of your concerns regarding the well-being of Ponyville and Equestria as a whole can be fully addressed here. I do believe your beloved Mayor has already chosen the order for questions. You may proceed at your own pace; I have the whole afternoon dedicated to you, my precious subjects.”

        The ponies chattered amongst each other, at least until the Mayor waved her hoof and silenced the crowd with a shrill whistle. Smiling, she gestured towards a stallion standing in the front row of the lobby. “Your Majesty, I present to you Cold Gardens, the proprietor of the Rising Sun Floral Shop on the east end of town.”

        A stallion stood up from the group and performed a bow. Wringing his forelimbs together pensively, he spoke to the brilliant alicorn standing before him. “Your Highness, let me first say that it is a privilege and an honor to be in your presence. Ever since I first saw you at the Orlandoats Summer Sun Celebration of 983, I've been mesmerized by your wisdom and beauty.”

        “983...” Celestia's smile was a tranquil thing as she said, “That was a good year for sunflowers.”

        Cold Gardens blinked. With rosy cheeks, he smiled and nodded. “Yes! Yes, they were everywhere that year. I was so f-fascinated with sunflowers as a little colt. Ever since that Summer Sun Celebration, I would look at a sunflower and think of your glory and power.” He gulped and said, “I do believe you were my inspiration to pursue my special talent in gardening, your majesty.”

        “That brings me great joy,” she said. “How may I help you today, Mr. Gardens?”

        “Well, y-your highness...” He gulped again and gestured outside the front doors to the place. “There's been something of a drought in Ponyville this year. It's not nearly as bad a dry season as 997, but several of the local flora have recently withered due to dehydration. We had to build a second greenhouse just to prevent a few local flowers from going extinct. Now, I know th-that you've been awfully busy this year, what with the dragon situation in the mountains west of here, not to mention the wonderful reunion you must still be having with your sister, Princess Luna—”

        “I assure you, never for one second is my attention so divided that I cannot see to the concerns of my subjects,” Celestia interrupted with a smile. “I am quite aware of this drought of which you speak. I assume you were the one who commissioned the town to write the public petition for weather assistance two months ago here in Ponyville?”

        The stallion blinked. “Why, yes! Yes it was me! You... you mean you actually t-took the time to read it? Uhm, your Highness?”

        She chuckled warmly. “But of course. Immortality does come with its share of insomnia, after all.”

        Several ponies laughed and giggled cheerfully. Twilight smiled.

        Celestia continued speaking. “I did read that letter, Mr. Gardens, and I immediately made a request of the Cloudsdalian Weather Commission to plan an extra week of precipitation for the middle of April. However, upon further study, a group of pegasus meteorologists told me that extra rainfall won't be a permanent solution for the growing drought problem. To this end, I spoke with your Mayor and suggested an irrigation program. Being earth ponies, I figured that such a project would be quite feasible to...”

        As the Princess spoke, her voice became muffled between the many crowding bodies. This was because I was presently ducking through the bodies, ribs, and shoulders of the thick group. Peering up, I struggled to clench my clattering teeth shut.

        My heart leapt into my throat at the first sight of the Princess' face, her rosy eyes, her starlit mane. She was glorious, she was beautiful, she was a goddess. And a goddess was the one thing I most desperately needed right then.

        I glanced to my far left and right. Pegasus guards stood on intimidatingly broad legs. From where I was it looked as though their armored necks stretched all the way to the ceiling. No doubt, with a single flap of their wings they could leap upon any part of the lobby instantaneously. Still, despite knowing all of this, I had to try making my move. The Princess said that she was going to be there all afternoon, but that was no excuse for me to tarry.

        Struggling to hold my shivers at bay, I tugged my hoodie's sleeves further down my limbs, curled up onto the floor, and crawled forward through the crowd. I moved my petite limbs slowly, silently, hoping that the shadows of those all around me would obscure my approach to the Princess' seat. I smelled the pensive breaths of the humble villagers; my ears twitched to the beating of their hearts. The Sun Goddess' voice grew louder and louder, shaking my bones, milking tears from my amber eyes.

        “...and with a terrestrial spell from Canterlot's Royal Geological Division, the aqueduct should remain structurally intact for the next twenty-five years at least.” Celestia leaned her head forward. “Does that sound like a feasible solution?”

        “Oh, absolutely, your highness!” Cold Gardens exclaimed with a fervent nod. He smiled, his eyes glistening with joy. “Thank you for your wisdom. Ponyville will make good use of your assistance.”

        “And perhaps you'll have more of your beautiful sunflowers on display for the next time I visit!” Celestia said, receiving many giggles and cheers. She turned her head towards the town leader. “Mayor?”

        “Ahem. Sibsy from the central market had a question for you—”

        I stepped on a mare's hoof. A loud shout filled the air and forced me to bump into another pony at my side. Soon, the lobby filled with indignant outbursts.

        “Hey, watch it!”

        “The hay is wrong with you?”

        “Wait your turn!”

        I didn't respond. I couldn't. The crowd of ponies was swiveling to look at me already. Every head was turning towards this haggard waif of a unicorn. Soon, the guards were craning their necks too. The world was freezing; I hyperventilated and shivered.

        “Uhhh...” The Mayor was finally marching sideways in front of the Princess, squinting my way. “What in blazes?”

        I hissed beneath my breath, shoved a pony out of the way, and galloped forward. The world bobbed, then turned into a hazy blur as desperate tears leaked out of me. Celestia's shimmering visage was but a flickering candle in the fog. I shrieked towards her, for fear that I was losing everything already.

        “Princess! Princess help me!” I shouted. “Princess, I am cursed! I am cursed and I n-need your blessing!”

        “You there! Halt!” I felt the heat of their wings before the guards were on me. It was as though chunks of the ceiling had impaled my body; metal-laced hooves clamped me to the floor from all sides.

        I shrieked in pain and wrestled a hoof out from underneath their muscular legs. I sobbed in the direction of the center stage. “Save me, Princess! Please! I’ll be lost if you don’t help me!”

        “Oh brother,” I heard a pony drawling from beside Twilight. “There's always one yahoo at these important events.”

        “Princess! I-I...” Twilight's voice stammered, though it had become an obscure murmur beyond the forest of limbs wrangling me up to my hooves. “I don't know what to say! I’ve never seen this unicorn in town before...”

        I winced and gasped in pain as the guards yanked me back to the far end of the lobby and away from my only salvation. “No, please!” I shrieked. “You have to listen!” I tried to spot Celestia, but her glorious visage was lost in the sea of frightened faces gawking all around me. “I beg of you! If you send me away, I may never get another chance!”

        “That's as far as you go, ma'am!” a guard grunted into my ear.

        “Right this way!” Another hoisted me around and shoved me towards the exit where more guards were opening the door to the bright daylight. “Nopony intrudes upon the Princess!”

        “Don't! Please!” I was a sobbing, hysterical mess. I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to be forgotten again. “She has to hear this! Only she can lift this curse from me!”

        The sunlight was blinding. I heard birdsong and cicadas and they both resembled cannon fire.

        “Wait.”

The world outside was drowned out by a holy glow behind me. I felt the guards stopping in their tracks. I swung like a limp pendulum as they twirled around and presented me before the most rapturous thing I had ever seen in my life. Celestia was trotting forward from the table at the end of the lobby, forcing the villagers to part so she could stand boldly before me.

“Don't take her away. Let her speak...”

        A guard lurched forward. “But your majesty—”

        “I care for all of my royal subjects,” she said, her immaculate eyes trained on my figure. I felt loved instead of admonished, and it made me weep quietly. “If it is within my power to rid this unicorn of her distress, then such is my divine duty.”

        The guards obeyed. I knew this because I was falling down on all four limbs, limp with the joyous sobs coursing through me. I crawled towards the princess, shivering, relishing for once the cold of my curse, for I knew that it was just the threshold to salvation. I looked up, my face streaming with tears as I stared bravely into the source of that holy light. “Oh bless you. Bless you, your Majesty. You have no idea what I've been through...”

        “Shhh...” Celestia reached forward. Her wings folded around me, embracing the distraught little foal I had become. If I could have laid there forever in her soothing grace, I just might have given in. But the cold kiss of the curse lingered beyond everything, including her warm presence. I listened as she spoke softly to me. “Be calm. It's okay. Catch your breath, my little pony, and tell me what troubles you.”

        I sniffled. I smiled. I stood up and opened my mouth to speak. Then my eyes caught something. I turned my head to look.

        Twilight was standing there by Celestia's side, and yet she wasn't there. A purple haze fell over her, and the longer I stared, the larger she grew, like an all-encompassing shadow that swallowed the ponies in the room and threatened to consume her sister as well. In a violent flash of pale glinting light, her bony wing spokes spread out, slicing the walls of the hotel asunder. Her mouth opened, echoing with the sound of unsung bells, just before a silver helm encased her skull and my shivering vision in turn.

        “Nightmare Night! What a fright!”

        I gasped and jumped back from the three foals.

        A princess, a lady bug, and an astronaut grinned up at me. Brightly colored paper bags hung from their necks.

        “Give us something sweet to bite!” they all finished chiming.

        I backtrotted into a glowing lamppost. My breath came out in foggy vapors in the cold chill of an October night. “What... Where...?” I stopped talking; my voice was a muffled noise. I reached a hoof up and found my entire body enshrouded in ivory white bandages. “Nightmare... Night...?”

        “Now girls, don't go scarin' the party folks!” Granny Smith hobbled over on shaking limbs, nuzzling the three fillies towards a treehouse in the middle of Ponyville. “Yer supposed ta be askin' for treats at doorfronts, ya crazy lil' scamps! Git along, now! I don't need a fright to have me a heart attack!”

        “Happy Nightmare Night!” the filly in the princess outfit sang my way.

        “Yeesh!” the ladybug rolled her eyes as Granny Smith ushered her across town. “What kind of a mummy carries a harp around?”

        I blinked at them. With a gasp, I reached everywhere through my leylines. I felt a velvet satchel tied to my flank. Fearlessly, I pulled the Nightbringer out of hiding. A kaleidoscopic glitter reflected the lamplight all around as I held the golden instrument up and plucked its black strings. In very little time, I successfully played “Twilight's Requiem.” The chill of night melted, and a searing hot wave of purpose overwhelmed my mind. I seethed through clenched teeth, yanking a length of bandages free from my lips so I could breathe more easily.

        Leaning against the lamppost in a slump, I glanced tiredly across the lengths of town. Ponies trotted happily back and forth, dressed in all sorts of random, colorful costumes. I saw Carrot Top as a devil, Applejack as a scarecrow, and Derpy as... as... well, what mattered was that I could remember their names, I guess.

        “It's Nightmare Night,” I murmured, then gulped dryly.

        After several more panting breaths, I glanced towards the center of town where a large stage had been erected. The Mayor stood before a podium flanked by a band performing eerie folk music. My eyes traveled from her colorful clown wig to the starry nighttime canopy stretching above us all. The sun had fallen less than an hour ago. Celebrations had officially started, but none of that put me at ease.

        “Where is she?” I looked across the glittering horizon.

The purple haze of evening lingered above the trees. Moonlight came in shimmering bands, resonating with her glory, but there was no sign of her to be found.

“She should be here by now.” I bit my lip. “Did she... did she change her mind?”

I shook my head, feeling a few lengths of my makeshift costume coming loose. With tactful telekinesis, I wrapped the strands back around me.

“No, that wouldn't be like a princess to cancel at the last second,” I said. My face morphed into a frightful grimace. “Or would it?”

        I stared into the moonlight again. I thought of Princess Luna. I thought of Alabaster, of the dreadful task he had helped her with nearly a thousand years ago. Did the Goddess of the Moon ever truly commit her mind to anything, or was she just drawn to fate by the vacuum Princess Aria had left? What had inspired her to show up for Nightmare Night to begin with? Wouldn't that be the last thing Luna would want to do? And in Ponyville of all places?

        “She will come,” I murmured. “She will be here. I just...” I hugged the Nightbringer, quivered, and began playing the strings of the Requiem again, just like I had done for so many nights previous, nonstop, in anticipation of this moment of moments. This was my one opportunity, my last chance to spread the song to Luna, so that Luna could bridge the gap between her sister and herself. “I just need to keep playing. I just need to keep remembering.”

        Ponies blinked at me as they trotted by, not expecting a minstrel to be playing in the middle of Nightmare Night. Surprised by the added festivities, they smiled and waved at the mummified stranger in their midst.

        I turned my head away from them and clenched my eyes shut. I allowed the music to drown out the nonstop rush of cheering voices and chanting youngsters merrily filling the lengths of town. “Stay focused. Remember who you are. You are Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings.”  My mind centered on my fractured memories as the world dissolved around me.  “You are cursed, and you must get Aria to play 'Desolation's Duet.' You must meditate on the music. The music is everything. The melody—”

        “My, what a heavenly tune!”

        My eyes flashed open. I turned and looked.

        “But dear, you look positively freezing!” Rarity smiled, her teeth and hair shining in the morning light. “Tell me, are you ill?”

        I was shivering. With a clatter of my teeth, I glanced down. A wooden box rested next to me, glistening with the golden bits the fashionista had deposited within. I shoved the container behind the lamppost and looked at her again.

        “Oh, I'm perfectly fine, ma'am,” I stammered while strumming the fragmented pieces to the Threnody, only I didn't know it was the Threnody. Or did I? “My blood temperature is just... lower than the average pony's,” I said, though I felt my words trailing. I looked past Rarity. I saw Morning Dew presenting a golden tulip towards a mint green unicorn on the far side of town. She blushed. She looked so shocked and enamored all at once. “Like an angel...”

        “Dig the swell hoodie!”

        “Huh?” I tripped over my hooves. Books went flying across the library floor. “Gah!”

        “Whoah! Watch it, tangle-hoof!” Spike chuckled, having miraculously caught half the tomes in a brave dive. “Whew! And who said cleaning after all of Twilight's clutter was for nothing!” He stood up, brushed the dust off the books with his scaley elbow, and handed them towards me. “There you go, Miss...”

        “Heartrstrings,” I muttered; I levitated his books and several others before laying them nervously on the table beneath the sunlit window. “And there is... there is a new song stuck in my head,” I murmured, staring at the scattered dust within the golden glow of the day, wondering if any of the tiny flakes had any more purpose in their drift than I had in my words. “I don't know what the point is anymore, but I know that I must... must keep pl-playing the melody.”

        “Are you a musician or something?”

        “But of course!” I exclaimed. “You think this cutie mark means I write novels?” I turned around. My eyes twitched.

        Caramel and Wind Whistler were leaning in towards each other. Their lips met under the candlelight of the decorated town hall. Several ponies cheered and stomped their hooves in the stands below the altar. Flower petals showered from a pair of pegasi hovering above the wedding.

        The two ponies nuzzled each other. A tear was coming out of Caramel's eye. He glanced across the ceremony at me.

        And I shouted back, “Why?!”

My mane billowed in the dying evening above the rooftops of Ponyville. I clung to the edge of the Town Hall building as Caramel stood far below.

“Why shouldn't I just jump?!” I was mad. I was a ghost. I was sobbing and laughing all at once. “Why shouldn't I just end the nightmare once and for all?!”

        He looked up at me, his blue eyes like a pool I was about to jump into. Then the waves parted around his calm voice, entreating, “Because you are so special, so precious, and this world would be a lot less worth enjoying if you chose to leave it.”

        I panted, my sweat mingling with my tears. There was nothing more to release. I was hollow, a vessel that needed a soul to fill. I reached out to her, and her rosy eyes reflected a desperate little unicorn.

        “Play your music, young one,” Princess Celestia said. The hotel lobby’s faces blurred into a warm sea of curiosity beyond her. “If you think it will help.”

        “Oh thank you,” I stammered, standing up and plucking the strings of my lyre with a shivering hoof. “I promise, everything will make sense...” I stopped, my limbs freezing in place. I wasn't performing Elegy #3. This was an entirely different song. But how was that possible? I only knew three elegies. “What is this?”

        “Why, it's Nightmare Night, silly filly!” A pink pony in a chicken suit grinned in my face. “Ba-cock!”

        “Gaaah!” The Requiem ended as I fell back into a pile of hay. I was riding in a wagon with several other ponies under twinkling, purple starlight.

        “Heeheehee!” Pinkie Pie leaned back, ruffling her white feathers as the red comb of her costume flopped back and forth. “What's the matter?! Got chicken feet?” She turned and glanced at the line of games drifting past us. “Oooh! This is our stop!” She patted a bunch of foals on their shoulders and leaned towards the front of the wagon. “Big Mac! Park it right here! We've got some super terrific games to play!”

        “Eeeyup.” The wagon shuffled to a stop as Pinkie Pie and her waddling little companions filed out under the exciting glitter of night.

        “Now the key is to hit the bullseyes with the pumpkin launchers!” Pinkie Pie mumbled amusedly to the children. “But it wasn't always tradition! Ages ago, ponies fought wars over whether or not bullseyes themselves needed to be flung at stuff, but all of that ended with a great deal of other things beginning with the word 'bull!' Hee hee hee!”

        I sat up in the wagon, panting. I glanced down at my hooves. Instead of my traditional lyre, the Nightbringer hung in my grasp. I imagined the only reason nopony noticed the majesty of the holy instrument was because of the distracting garishness of everypony's costumes.

        “Okay... Okay...” I sweated clambering down from the wagon. Big Mac gave me a sideways look of concern. I trotted hurriedly from his sight and hid behind a tent full of jack-o-lanterns. “I just have to remain calm,” I murmured to myself, straightening the milky white bandages clinging to my figure. “I have to concentrate. The Requiem is wearing thin. I just gotta play it more for it to work on me. But it has to work on Luna. It'll be her first time hearing it since...” I gulped.

        Beyond me, crowds of ponies gathered before a large stage to hear Zecora tell a tale of Nightmare Moon. The longer I stared, the more the costumes and colored coats morphed into a thousand year old mosaic. I saw streets of Canterlot on fire, and ghostly ponies hanging themselves in order to escape from Aria's accursed voice.

        Seething, I clenched my eyes shut and started playing “Twilight's Requiem” once more. “She will be here. She will hear you. It won't be like with Celestia. It won't.” I gulped as I sensed a fresh wave of shivers coming over me. I plucked the strings of the Nightbringer harder, feeling my heart beat between the chords. “Focus on the song; focus on the melody. It is you. It is what you are. It is...”

        “Look out!” Thunderlane's voice shouted from above. “Get away from the forest!”

        My eyes flew open. I was squatting beneath a tree with my lyre in the waning afternoon. A loud vibration ran through the grassy soil. Ponies stampeded past me, breathless, dropping picnic items with each yard of ground they covered. I stood up and stared past them.

        Beyond the park on the edge of Ponyville, the great emerald expanse of Everfree loomed. Emerging from the line of trees, stomping the ground with glittering paws, was the largest creature I had ever seen with my naked eyes. With translucent feral fangs, the ursa minor reared its hulking torso above a pair of innocent ponies. The two picnickers clung to each other, shivering, as the mammoth beast roared, preparing to bring its claw down and cleave them in quarters.

        “Not again!” a mare shrieked from where she hid behind a tree behind me. “Why won't that thing stay in hibernation?!”

        “Who cares!” a stallion exclaimed. “Those ponies are in trouble!”

        “Thunderlane!” Blossomforth shouted as she flew back, breathless, from the center of town. “I just had Twilight's dragon send a warning to the Princess—” She gasped, her eyes wide. “Great heavens! It's here already!”

        “What, are you nuts?!” Thunderlane shouted from above, cupping his hooves over his mouth. “Run!”

        At first, I thought he was shouting at the two picnic-goers, but I realized that a third pony had suddenly joined the doomed mix. Squinting, I felt my heart jolt upon the sight of her. She calmly trotted over to the scene, willfully drowning herself in the shadow of the hulking monster. Then, the softest and most soothing of sounds filled the air.

        The beast paused, holding back from eviscerating the two ponies within reach. With a sullen growl, he turned his attention towards the singing pegasus.

        Fluttershy treated the Ursa Minor to a tranquil lullaby. Her vocal cords were soft and sweet, and yet even the horrified ponies watching from a distance could hear her, for all of their breaths had been drawn in from the shock and tension of the moment.

        The two ponies at Fluttershy's side stood up on jittering hooves. They backed up slowly, their petrified eyes fixed upon the creature who had been warded off by a simple tune. While Fluttershy held the monster still with her soothing voice, one of the two ponies inadvertently stepped on a twig. The resulting snap broke Fluttershy's concentration, and her next note was off-key.

        The Ursa shook its snout in annoyance. Hissing, it reared its claws and swung straight at Fluttershy's soft skull.

        The watching ponies gasped... and yet again drew in their breaths, for the monster's swing ended just a foot from the pegasus' body. A unicorn had joined her side, compensating for the brief break in the lullaby with a melodic accompaniment of golden strings.

        I stood next to Fluttershy in the shadow of the beast. The cold in my bones sent my limbs ashiver, and yet I tried my best to mimic the pegasus' calmness and bravery. Together, we serenaded the monster until his nerves calmed. We could feel the beats of his mammoth heart through the air, and they were drawing further and further apart. Eventually, he sat back, retracting his claws and breathing more evenly.

        I glanced behind me and pulsed my horn like a signal in Thunderlane's direction.

        His eyes lit up. He glanced at the two ponies beside me and Fluttershy. With a knowing nod, he motioned to Blossomforth, and the pegasi couple slowly flew our way. They grabbed the ponies with their hooves and hoisted them off to safety.

        In the meantime, Fluttershy and I began backing away from the relaxed Ursa. As its drowsy lids lowered, we made a break for the far end of the park. Before it could notice that we had galloped away, a swarm of Equestrian guard ponies swooped down from the high heavens, summoned from Canterlot. In swift order, they spun circles around the Ursa. The celestial bear swung a few times at them, growling, but they were too fast for its swipes. Frustrated and confused, the monster eventually turned around and stormed off into the thick of the Everfree Forest. The guards remained hovering above the treeline to make sure the creature had actually retreated.

        A wave of cheers flew our way as Fluttershy and I joined the rest of the group upon the grassy hill. Thunderlane and Blossomforth hovered down, and as soon as the two ponies in their grasp were deposited safely on the ground, the pair flew forward and swept Fluttershy in a tender hug.

        “Oh thank you, thank you, Fluttershy!”

        “We'd be goners if it weren't for you!”

        “You're such a blessing to this village! A blessing!”

        “Mmmm...” Fluttershy blushed and dug a hoof into the ground. “I just didn't want anypony to get hurt.”

        I stared, suddenly on the sidelines. I watched with momentary confusion as everypony huddled around her while completely ignoring me. Then I saw a cloud of vapors escape my mouth, and I felt like sighing. Instead, I smiled and trotted softly into the thick of the group.

“Wow, Fluttershy!” I remarked in a loud voice. “That was certainly brave of you!”

        “Huh?” She looked at me as if for the first time. The redness in her cheeks doubled. “Oh, I dunno...”

        “You don't know?” I grinned wide. “Aren't you the most easily frightened pony in town? I've heard that you're even scared of your own shadow!”

        Several ponies around us chuckled and patted Fluttershy on the back. With a soft smile she replied, “You're right. Far too often, I'm scared for myself. But...” She fidgeted. “I guess it's different when I'm scared for others.”

        I blinked, feeling a soft breath escape my lips. “It really is that simple, isn't it?” I thought aloud in her direction. “To be concerned for others is enough to make you move mountains...”

        “I don't know about moving mountains,” she said, “but... erm... I guess it makes me sing nicely.”

        The ponies chuckled and congratulated her again with several more hugs and cheers.

        I smiled, hugging the lyre to my chest as I murmured, “Very nicely indeed.”

        “Ahhhh!” Pinkie Pie screamed. “It's Nightmare Moon! Run!”

        I gasped into the bandages covering my mouth. Panting, I spun and looked up at the starlight. Flashes of lightning erupted beyond the clouds, and through the tempests there rode a chariot being pulled by two sarosians in midnight armor. The air filled with sharp gasps and sullen shrieks.  Then the noise shattered as swiftly as began; the chariot levitated directly above us. Descending from her seat like a black shadow, the Princess of the Night landed in the middle of Ponyville. Her hood flew back, revealing a hardened gaze chiseled by the cold lengths of time, but nonetheless frighteningly beautiful.

        Everypony around me was collapsing prostrate onto the ground. I had beaten them to it, succumbing to an intense cold as my heart shuddered with every tremendous step the princess was taking. Her cloak dissolved into a swarm of shrieking bats as she spread her wings and spoke with utmost majesty.

        “Citizens of Ponyville! We have graced your tiny village with our presence, so that you might behold the real princess of the night!” she bellowed, her voice shaking the fibers of my soul. I felt the trembles of everypony around me through the foundations of the village. Not a single soul dared look her in the face; Luna’s glory was both resplendent and terrifying. “A creature of nightmare is no longer, but instead a pony who desires your love and admiration!”

        The ringing in my ears that followed her royal speech nearly split my skull in two. I should have been shouting back. I should have been galloping straight towards her, hoisting the Nightbringer into Luna's sight, and playing the Requiem of her long lost Princess of Twilight. But I couldn't move. I couldn't feel my limbs beyond their shivering extremities.

        “Together we shall change this dreadful celebration into a bright and glorious feast!” her otherworldly voice exclaimed.

        For the first time since she landed, I opened my tearful eyes. I did not see her, and yet I did. Every other pony was gone, and she was standing before me, a part of the desolation and its gift to me. With her onyx wings and silver helm, she scowled my way. I was nothing, and she had arrived to make me nothing with Aria's song, as was her duty since the Nocturne transformed her, as she was banned from the terrestrial realm for doing. She was the scourge of Equestria, the murderer of the dawn, and all for the sake of preserving the breath of a sister she could barely comprehend, yet who had frozen all life and warmth within her bones.

        Nightmare Moon was the shadow of Aria, an appendix to a dead goddess. She didn't know it, but that didn't stop her from singing the song to me, entreating me to become nothing.

        And someway, somehow, a part of me had refused. That was why I never ended up in chains, and it was also why I couldn't stay silent forever.

        “No! You must listen to me!” I shouted against the rivulets of noise and mayhem. “You must hear beyond her song! You must become something you could never afford to be!” I hissed and roared, “You must rise to a level you were too afraid to scale! You must be brave enough to remember her, so that she will be brave enough to perform the duet with me!”

        Nightmare Moon said nothing. She loomed above me, and yet she was drawing away. Lightning flashed in the distance, obscuring the space between us with the freezing mists of the unsung realm. This was neither here nor there, now nor then. This was a fragment of a memory, and it was receding from me, leaving me in a cold vacuum where I shouted towards nothing but myself and the darkness.

        “No!” I growled, reaching my hooves out until I grabbed the Nightbringer from the ether. I clung to it like I hugged Moondancer in my bedroom closet, dodging the branches and twigs as I carried Scootaloo through the forest and towards the flimsy shreds of all the world's warmth. “I will not forget, Nightmare Moon!” The words on Granite Shuffle's tombstone were melting away as the tears obscured the smile on Nebulous' face. I clenched my eyes shut and wailed into the maelstrom around me. “I will not be alone!” Somewhere beyond the thunderclouds, the Requiem was playing. It was hard to hear over the moans and rattling of chains. “I refuse to be alone! I refuse! I...”

        “Ugh!” Rainbow Dash's voice rasped. “The last thing I ever wanna be caught dead doing is having a lame tea party!”

        “Well, it matters little, Rainbow,” Rarity said from behind the table at Sugarcube Corner as she finished her coffee. After daintily dabbing her lips with a napkin, she levitated a saddlebag onto her shoulders and stood up. “Hoity Toity only invited me. Normally, I'd be ecstatic to bring another friend along for the occasion. However, I'm afraid that your usual... eh... civility is not needed at this soiree. I alone must engage such a famous Canterlot socialite in this strenuous business discussion. I highly doubt you would find it remotely entertaining even if I could afford to bring you along.”

        “Pfft! Big deal! I've got better things to do today anyways!”

        “Oh really?” Rarity smiled pleasantly as she placed two bits down onto the table as a tip. “Are you and Pinkie Pie planning on spreading jocularity and misfortune across the town yet again?”

        “Er, well... no...” Rainbow Dash's ears drooped.  She glanced aside, her hooves fidgeting against the tile floor as she murmured, “She's delivering a package to Trottingham for the Cakes this weekend, and she took Applejack with her so she could advertise her family's apple treats...”

        “Then perhaps Fluttershy or Twilight are—”

        “They're away in Canterlot, visiting Twilight’s brother at some boring award ceremony,” Rainbow muttered, flicking a teaspoon across the table. “Mmmf... Lousy weekend...”

        “Oh? I'm so terribly sorry to hear that—”

        “But it's not like I haven’t got loads to do!” Rainbow Dash said, her ears perking up as she smiled mischievously. “I just learned a brand new bunch of radical tricks to try out over the north side of town! There's gonna be a brisk wind coming from the west, just in time for me to pull off the Buccaneer Blitz!”

        “Oh, you mean that terribly ambiguous spectacle that is supposed to charm the Wonderbolts?”

        “Awwwww yeah!” Rainbow Dash hovered close to the ceiling and grinned with bright ruby eyes. “What are the chances that you and Hot Topic would like to take a break later on and watch me split the air in two?!”

        “Hoity Toity,” Rarity corrected. “And I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you, Rainbow Dash, but that is not his preferred means of having a good time. He is only in Ponyville to conduct business, and I am going to treat him to such.” She trotted off with a gentle wave of the hoof. “Though, that doesn't mean you can't improve your chances with the Wonderbolts on your own! Ta-Ta!”

        “Yeah. Uh, see ya.” Rainbow Dash muttered. Her ears drooped again, and she slumped over the edge of the table. Her eyes took on a jaded quality, and she sighed into the wooden finish.

        Just then, her blue ears twitched. A few seconds later, they twitched again. She blinked, her body electrified by a startlingly familiar beat. Sitting straight up, Rainbow Dash stared around the room until her bright gaze flew in my direction.

        I sat on a stool with my back against the wall. My sleeved hooves were plucking the strings of my lyre, producing a lively tune that resonated through the brightly painted lengths of the eatery.

        Her jaw dropped. Tilting her head aside, she raised an eyebrow and stammered, “Is th-that... is that 'The Last Flight of Commander Hurricane?'”

        “Mmmmhmmm...” I smiled lightly, pretending not to be looking at her. “Just a simple little tune I like to practice from time to time.”

        “'Simple little tune?'” Rainbow Dash balked. “That's the opening music that the Cloudsalian Orchestra plays every time the Wonderbolts perform in their home town!” Her voice cracked, “It's the most epic song ever! How can you play it so awesomely and just call it 'practice?'”

        “Because it's only warm up.”

        “Warm up for what?”

        “'The Rise and Fall of Stratopolis.'”

        In a blue blur, she zipped up to my table and hovered above me. “You mean to say you know all the songs of the 'Soaring Cirrus Symphony?'”

        “Well, I'd hope so,” I said, giving her a bored glance. “It's hard to know both the Hurricane and Stratopolis movements without having a basic grasp of the rest of the pegasus magnum opus.”

        “That's so cool!” Rainbow Dash grinned wide. “Spitfire uses the whole symphony as part of her team's act! I used to think that all that old orchestra stuff was lame, but the way they fly to it makes it seem so epic!”

        I giggled lightly. “That's because it is so epic. Pegasi musicians have always had a thing for gravitas and bombastic flare. It's outright loud, obnoxious, and yet boldly confident—like most flying ponies.”

        “Heheheh... You got that right!” Rainbow Dash said with a sharp grin.

        “However, I'm having a little bit of a hard time getting the ending to the 'Soaring Cirrus Symphony' right,” I said. “I could use another pair of ears to tell me if I'm off-key. It gets rather loud at the end and I'm a bit too concentrated on the tempo to make a firm judgment myself.”

        “Pfft. That sounds like a lot of boring work,” she grumbled.

        “Oh, well, if you've got better things to do, then I won't take your time,” I said.

        “Huh?” She blinked, and her ears drooped again. “N-no way! I'm not...” She winced, stopped flapping her wings, and lowered herself onto the ground before me. “What I mean is, I'd b-be more than happy to help. That is, if you think you're cool enough to hang out with the likes of Ponyville's fastest weather flier! Heh heh...”

        I glanced over my lyre at her. “Me? Cool enough?”

        “S-sure!” she grinned awkwardly. “You look as though you could... uh... use s-some company! Yeah...”

        I paused in playing. I nodded slowly with a smile. “Company sounds wonderful. It's too beautiful an afternoon to spend alone.”

        Rainbow said nothing. She gazed down at her hooves as her wings twitched nervously.

        For her sake, I immediately spoke, “Do you know the final notes to the 'Soaring Cirrus Symphony?'”

        “What, you want me to hum them or something?”

        “Hehehe... Well that’d be a start.”

        “Well, okay then.” Rainbow Dash cleared her throat and happily sat down by my side. “Here goes...”

        With a dainty hoof, she slaps the drumstick over the appropriate xylophone keys. Twilight smiles proudly and glances up at me. “Like that! So that it sounds like rolling thunder!”

        “Ugh!” Moondancer groans from where she reclines on my bed with a storybook full of bright, colorful pictures. “Pegasi are so full of themselves! Why does everything they make have to be so annoying and loud?”

        Twilight frowns up at her from the bedroom floor. “Don't make fun of them! It's their culture!”

        “Well, their culture is stupid,” Moondancer says, although she's smiling devilishly. “Have you even seen the way they dress up at pageants?! Heeheehee—It's like they're trying to go to war with the clouds!”

        “Hey! Those armored uniforms are really spectacular! The pegasi have a long history of military tradition, after all!” Twilight glances towards me. “You should know this, Lyra! You wrote to a pegasus pen pal last year. Tell Moondancer what you learned!”

        “Suuuure! Take Twilight's side!” Moondancer flips a page of the storybook and dangles her legs off the bed. “Starswirl was always Celestia's pet, not Luna's!”

        “Moondancer, we're not playing 'princesses' right now! We’re talking about old Equestrian music!”

        “Couldn't we be chatting about that at the doughnut shop? I'm craving sprinkles like nopony's business!”

        “Ugggh... Sometimes you're a real dunce!”

        “Hahahaha!”

        “What?”

        “Where'd you learn that word? That's a stupid word!”

        “Exactly! It means 'a pony of stupid qualities who refuses to learn!'”

        “Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!”

        “I was only telling you what—”

        “You take that back!”

        “I didn't mean anything by it!”

        “You meant it!”

        “Nuh uh!”

        “Uh huh!”

        “Nuh uh!”

        “Uh huh!”

        I want to break them up. I know that it is my place to. But every time I lean forward to open my mouth, I saw the train chugging away from the station, carrying Moondancer towards Fillydelphia and away from my life. I sat on the bench, hugging myself as the cold piled up all around me. It was so frigid in that dark corner of Ponyville that even my tears froze before they could fall.

        “Dear journal,” I stammered.

        I sat inside a lonely tent besides an abandoned barn on the north edge of town. The first blank page of a book lay beneath me as I levitated a pen over its white face.

        “I hear music, and I know that I'm alive. I sense melodies, and I know that I can think. There is a beat within my heart, and it fills me with a sense of purpose. But why?”

        With a lump in my throat, I gazed up. I reached a hoof out and undid the zipper, lowering the flap of my tent. Outside, a magical contraption exploded, tossing Twilight Sparkle, Dr. Whooves, and Rainbow Dash onto the floor of the library.

        “Am I here to save these ponies, when I cannot save myself?”

        Morning Dew stirred on the floor of the greenhouse, his eyes twitching as he fell in and out of consciousness beneath my nudging hooves.

        “Can I give them the music?” I gulped, almost whimpering. “Can I give them me?”

        The autumn wind kicked at his handsome gray mane as Nebulous stared at me, past me.

        The same tear that rolled down his cheek was rolling down mine. “I just want to go home,” I said, gazing across the chessboard as Granite Shuffle fell asleep in the gathering shadows of the day. “Is th-that too much to ask?”

        “This tune...” Princess Celestia remarked, her rosy eyes glossy from an emotion that had no name to it. “What... is it called?”

        “'Prelude to Shadows', your highness,” I said in the middle of my instrumental. The lights from the corner of the hotel lobby intensified. Ponies around me were squinting and murmuring in uncertainty. “By now, you should be noticing its magical effects.”

        “I most... c-certainly do sense a change in the air,” Celestia said. Her wide wings quivered. “But that rhythm... that melody...”

        “You should know it,” I said. “You taught it to Twilight.” I smiled as the tears dried on my face. “And she taught it to me.”

        Several ponies glanced Twilight's way. She stepped back with a look of confusion. “But... But... I-I've never seen this unicorn in my life! Princess Celestia, I—”

        “Shhh...” Celestia's jaw hung open as a distant sparkle struck her eyes. Her irises shrank, and her royal complexion turned pale. “There's a segue coming up, isn't there? There... There is a song after this...”

        “Yes! Yes there is!” I exclaimed, my body trembling as I broke into the next instrumental. “You should know this too! Though I doubt you've ever heard the elegies in this order!”

        “The... elegies...” she murmured in a ghostly, distant voice.

        “Yes! This second one is called... called...” I froze in place, for once again the melody wasn't what I expected. It was different. I knew it, and yet I didn't. “The Requiem? But...” I looked up, my lips quivering. “But where...?”

        “Look out, y'all!”

        A hulking pumpkin flew straight at me, blotting out the moon.

        Gasping, I held onto the Nightbringer as I rolled out of the way. The large melon exploded in a sea of goop and seeds before a line of targets behind me. Wincing, I sat up and looked across the middle of Ponyville.

        “The hay has gotten into you, sugarcube?!” a freckle-faced scarecrow shouted from a line of miniature catapults several yards away. Princess Luna and an effeminate Starswirl the Bearded stood by her side. “Didn't y'all see the signs?! This here's a pumpkin firin' range!”

        “Sorry! I... I...” I gulped and galloped off into the background. “I didn't mean to cause any trouble.”

        “Ain't no trouble! We just don't want nopony getting' hurt!” Applejack turned and smiled at Luna as she loaded another pumpkin into the catapult with her royal hooves. “Coast is clear!”

        “Fire away, princess!” Starswirl said in Twilight Sparkle's voice.

        The catapult released. Everypony in town watched as the weaponized pumpkin flew through the air like an orange meteorite before exploding across a large bullseye.

        “Huzzah!” Princess Luna chimed in a voice that was far too unbelievably joyous. “The fun has been doubled!”

        Several equines cheered in a rapturous cluster behind her. The air filled once more with joy and merriment.

        I only wished I could have been a part of it. I sat on the sidelines, struggling to catch my breath. How long had I been out of it? Minutes?  Hours? I looked up. It was still night, but for how much longer? I was losing track of both time and myself. If I didn't act soon, I'd lose Luna as well, and then I'd have no chance whatsoever in crossing the bridge to Aria. If I even could...

        “Hear me, villagers!” the Princess' voice jubilantly proclaimed, melting away my frigid shivers. “All of you! Call me Luna!”

        I took a deep breath, sliding the Nightbringer into my velvet satchel. “I love you to death, Alabaster,” I murmured into the bandages around my muzzle. “But I'm not about to become you.”

        I trotted firmly towards the sight of the Princess. She was just yards away, dipping her neck into a barrel full of floating apples as she snatched up... a tiny pirate colt? Wait...

        “Aaah!” a pink chicken clucked from the distance. “Nightmare Moon is gobbling Pipsqueak! Everypony run!”

        A layer of panic spread through the air, forcing the little colt to gallop away from Luna and past me. “Help! My backside has been gobbled!”

        Blindly, he knocked into my rear left hoof. I lost my balance and fell onto my side with a grunt. The Nightbringer clattered to the earth beside me, its onyx strings bouncing with a discordant noise.

        “Nnngh!” I winced, my head and ears splitting.

        “Haah haah haah!”

        I looked up, my face and mane covered in frost.

        A draconequus bounced from gravestone to gravestone, pirouetting his way across the cemetery of Whinniepeg. The gray world hung in perpetual desolation all around us, and he reveled in it.

        “You see, Harpo, when our backs are against the wall we really can and will do anything to get what we want,” Discord sang. “Honor or no honor, the universe is full of excuses and short on shame. You want to know why cruelty exists? It's because I exist.”

        I frowned. I snarled. I stood up and screamed at him.

        “You are selfish!” I panted and howled once more, “All the power of the cosmos in your grasp, and you choose imprisonment?! I wish I could hate you, but you're not even worth my spit! You're the one who should be forgotten! You're the one who should fade from existence!” I stamped my hoof against the ground and cracks formed in dark rivulets across the universe. “No wonder your beloved banished you from the unsung realm! Even a goddess in charge of the undead wouldn't have room in her kingdom for someone as worthless as you!”

        He spun to a stop and gave me a bored gaze. “Oh come now, Minty. Now you're just being cruel.”

        “Cruel? Cruel?!” I hissed. “You have no idea!” With a grunt, I swung the two-by-four across his face.

        Straight Edge spun from the blow, spitting blood against the brick wall of the alleyway. I loomed over his sputtering figure in the bone-gray haze of night.

        “I could be so terribly, terribly cruel!” I slammed the board against his backside, forcing him to grunt in pain. The wood splintered down the middle, like my voice was cracking. “All this time! I could have haunted Ponyville! Instead, I tried to bless it! And for what?!” I raised the board high once more in the moonlight. “I'm still the same damn ghost playing the same damnable songs! And where has it brought me?!”

        “I-I was so scared,” she said, sniffling. Turning over, Scootaloo trembled into a pair of blue forelimbs. “Rainbow Dash, you found me! I knew you'd come and save me!”

        I panted, staring wide-eyed at her from beyond the campfire Cloudkicker had made. The cold wilderness hung in a reverent hush beyond the sacred scene.

        “Just relax, pipsqueak,” Rainbow Dash said as she cradled Scootaloo's shivering form. “We're not out of the woods yet. I'm going to get you to Twilight. She has a trick that'll get you good as new...”

        As the two pegasi soared off with the foal in their grasp, I curled into myself and shuddered—not from the cold but this time from the sobs. Tears rolled down my face as I stared into the crackling embers before me. The only reason the universe was cold was because there were so few, fragile things of warmth to be found. And yet... they could be found.

        “I'm so sorry,” I whimpered. It was another night surrounded by shadows, encased in the walls of my cabin. Dozens of musical instruments hung on the beams above me, and they too were useless things. “I don't know who can hear me... or who there is to apologize to...”

        I wiped my tears away with the sleeves of my hoodie as moonlight wafted lonesomely through the windows of the place. A tiny orange cat padded up and leaned against me, meowing with concern. I petted him, but did not have the strength to smile.

        “But I'm so very sorry, for all that I've done. Just please... please...”

        Al crawled into my forelimbs. I embraced him, cuddling him to my chest as I shivered and cried.

        “Forgive me. Redeem me. Take me away from here. I've learned so much. I've learned so much and I want to g-give it back...”

        My eyes clenched shut as I nuzzled the tabby's warm fur.

        “I want to give... I-I want to give...”

        “Why? Is it somepony's birthday or something?” Pinkie said.

        I glanced up from the park bench.

        She stood before me, grinning wide in the afternoon light. That grin faded, though, the first moment she saw my tears. “Awwwww... Did a special unicorn not get invited to a party or something?”

        I sniffled and looked away from her. Muttering, I said, “There's no party, Pinkie. It's okay. You can move along.”

        “Why?” She bounced in place, her smile having returned to her pastel muzzle. “I just met a perfect stranger who knows my name! That doesn't happen everyday! Heehee! What's your name?”

        “Mmmm...” I wasn't in the mood to talk to her. I wasn't in the mood to do anything. I spoke because it was the only thing keeping me from wailing like a grief-stricken widow. “Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings.”

        “Heartstrings, huh? Hmmm... I guess if it was 'Cheesetrings,' then you'd be—”

        “Please, Pinkie!” I snapped, frowning through my tears. “I'm fine! Just leave me alone! I...” I bit my lip as my face grimaced. The color was draining from the park before my eyes. I felt the world growing foggier, like a funeral shroud was being dragged over every minute of every day of my life. “I am alone. I am... I am s-so alone, and th-there's nothing I or you or anypony else can do about it.” I choked and buried my face in my hooves. “I'm gonna be stuck here forever. Nopony can help me. It's like—”

        “Like you're invisible, even though you do everything as l-loudly and as brightly as you can in their very faces. They just don't want you t-to be a part of their lives, so that even your own home feels like a cold place where you're not wanted...”

        Sniffling, I glanced up. I positively gasped from what I saw.

        Pinkie sat still before me like a gargoyle, and a pair of tears were streaming down her cheek. She gazed calmly into my eyes and said, “So they send you away, and it t-takes every ounce of strength in your heart and soul to go against the flow, to smile because you have to, because the only pony who can ever bring your spirits up is yourself, and you know it...”

        “P-Pinkie...” I stammered, gulping a lump down my throat as I gawked at her. “You're... You're crying...”

        She took a shuddering breath and slowly nodded. “So maybe I am...”

        “But... But...” I squinted at her. “You never cry!”

        Slowly, a smile formed to her moist lips. “It's not very fun to cry. I find laughing to be a lot n-nicer, so I do that all the time I can.” She gazed tenderly at me as she said, “But you strike me as a pony who's used to crying all the time. So, I saw you, and I thought...” She shrugged, giggling slightly. “Heehee... Why not try switching for once?” She sniffled and murmured, “We c-could make a game out of it.”

        I stared at her, speechless, until a brave part of me chuckled, then laughed, then guffawed. I doubled over, my face going pink with the effort of my explosive outburst. I slapped the bench and nearly fell into the grass below. I laughed and I laughed and I laughed; eventually Pinkie joined me. When the tears began flowing for a different reason, I wiped my cheeks dry and squinted painfully at her.

        “'Cheesestrings,'” I grunted, shaking my head. “What in Equestria would ever possess you to call me that?”

        “Heeheehee!” She sniffled one last time and grinned in my direction. “Because it makes me think of how wonderful cheese can taste, especially on a grilled sandwich, and grilled cheese sandwiches make me happy inside, so that I want to smile. Heeheehee... Just like seeing you and hearing your name makes me want to smile.”

        “But everything makes you want to smile.”

        “No.” She shook her head softly. “Everything makes me want to smile differently.”

        I smiled at her, feeling a satisfying warmth spreading over my heart. I leaned in to hug her, and she reciprocated. Her fuzzy mane was ticklish against my neck. I felt like giggling, so I did.

        “Heeheehee!” I nearly fall off the chair in the center of the university courtyard. “And remember when you stuck the feather into Twilight's Astronomical Almanac—”

        “And I convinced her that she had slapped her book shut on a pigeon the day before?!” Moondancer exclaims, beaming.

        “Yes! Heeheehee!” I slap the table, nearly knocking my textbooks onto the floor. Fellow students roll their eyes at us before milling off towards their classes. “She never went to the park for almost a year! To this day, she gets the hiccups every time she sees birds eating bread crumbs!”

        “What?! Hah! No way!”

        “Would I lie to you?!” I laugh and dig the metal fork once more through my plate of cafeteria salad. “Ohhhhhhh Moondancer, you could be so cruel to the poor filly.”

        “So sue me! She just took everything so seriously!” Moondancer says, fanning her blushing cheeks as she leans over her saddlebag full of tutoring aids. “And at such a young age too!”

        “She kind of drifted away from us, didn't she?”

        “Yes,” Moondancer says.  “Much rather, she swam upstream.  Like a fish.”

        “The sweetish fish,” I utter with a wink.

        “Hmmmm...”  She stretches her neck and says, “If you ask me, leaving us morons was the best thing she ever could have done.”

        “The hay does that mean?”

        “See for yourself!” Moondancer points at the looming royal towers of Canterlot beyond the nearby class buildings. “She's pretty much sitting at the right hoof of Princess Celestia's throne!”

        “She is not!”

        “Have you ever been to the throne room?”

        “She's the Princess' magical apprentice, not a royal advisor!” I dig into the salad, bite a few leafy morsels, swallow, and say, “And it's not like she's forgotten us or anything. She sends us letters every month. We were her best friends, after all.”

        “Lyra, we were her only friends,” Moondancer exclaims, droning. She plays with the straps of her saddlebag as a dull expression crosses her face. “I always bugged her to get out more, but she wouldn't have any of it. I swear, she was far more interested in collecting books than making a social network.”

        “To each their own. Twilight has her studies, you have your parties, and I have my music.”

        “Yup. Your boring, repetitive, dull-flank music.”

        “Hey!” I protest through a muffled mouth full of salad.

        She giggles evilly. “I kid, girl, I kid.” With a sigh, however, she murmurs, “Still, I suppose we were really lucky to have lasted as long as we did.”

        I pick at a few lasting bits of green. “How do you mean?”

        “Well, you remember our little get-togethers and all,” Moondancer says. “She and I made lousy princesses; we were practically at each other's throats.”

        “So? Foals are little demons sometimes.”

        “That excuse might work for me, but for Twilight?” Moondancer glances up at me. “Face it, Lyra. We were polar opposites waiting to explode at any moment. You were the glue that held us together. If it weren't for you, Twilight would just have been an annoying egghead next door instead of the amazing unicorn she is to this day.”

        “I only did whatever it took to make you two happy.” I smile her way. “I loved having you both around. It's as simple as that, isn't it?”

        “I don't think you get it, Lyra.” Moondancer sits up straight. Her face is serious for once, and that's what startles me. “There's something about you, something nice and wholesome and peaceful. You're not full of hot air. I think deep down beneath that clumsy exterior of yours, there's a unicorn that really wants everypony to be happy.”

        “Awwww...” I grin, blushing slightly. “You're freaky when you try to be sappy.”

        “No, I mean it,” she says with a soft smile. “You were always there for me when I needed it. I'm not sure if I ever thanked you, but I guess that's because I never really could. You went above and beyond to make me and Twilight happy and... and...”

        “Yes...?”

        She shrugs. “I dunno. I guess I just think music really isn't your thing, especially when you go into all of those boring, stiff-laced study courses and what not.”

        I roll my eyes. “Tell me something I don't know, Moondancer.”

        She rises to the challenge. “Well, alright.” She looks me in the eyes. “I believe you're destined for great things, Lyra Heartstrings.”

        I take a deep breath, unsure as what to say. So I allow the first impulsive words to come from my mouth. “Well, if the great Moondancer can humble herself enough to say that, then just maybe I am cut out to make epic stuff happen.”

        She giggles.

        I chuckle and drop the fork into my bowl. The ringing sound it makes is long and pronounced. Moondancer ignores it, still giggling. I stare at the bowl, my ears pricking towards the vibrating sound. The pitch changes, hauntingly matching a series of chords that are blossoming in the back of my young mind.

        “'Twilight's Requiem,'” I murmured. The onyx strings to the Nightbringer vibrated to a stop, but I could hardly hear them at this point. As a matter of fact, I couldn't hear anything. The night sky above Ponyville was swirling with lightning and madness as Princess Luna levitated above the crowd of costumed ponies, shouting at the top of her royal lungs.

        “Since you choose to fear your princess rather than love her,” she roared into the twirling vortex of clouds and wind. “And dishonor her with this insulting celebration...” Her eyes glowed as she reached a fever pitch. “We decree that Nightmare Night shall be canceled! Forever!”

        Her monumental exclamation was punctuated by an array of lightning. I spotted her soaring off towards the edge of town, towards Everfree.

        “No!” I shrieked, and I was startled by how pronounced the echo of my voice was. I glanced around me and noticed that everypony was milling about, their shoulders hunched over in a depressed slump. The wind had been sucked out of their sails. This evening had obviously meant something else to them.

        “No more Nightmare Night,” a teenage colt stammered.

        “That's... That's crazy,” A filly said next to him.

        “Shoot. We had everything goin' our way,” Applejack stated next to a delapidated tent full of candy wares. “Luna was happy; everypony in town was happy. Now look at them...”

        I heard a little filly sobbing. I glanced across the dismantled marketplace to see several parents trying to console their foals. Ponies began stripping off their costumes as they slowly trudged home with dejected looks on their faces. I don't know why I felt for them in the middle of my own personal peril, but I did.

        As Twilight and Applejack continued talking to one another, I caught wind of the clown-faced Mayor talking to Zecora. “This is such a catastrophe! Perhaps if Princess Luna had announced her arrival, then the awkwardness of this event would have been avoided!”

        “Surely she must know that we meant no insult,” Zecora murmured. “The ponies were merely frightened by her voluminous tumult.”

        “I'm tempted to go and have a word with her, but I don't know what it would accomplish!” the Mayor exclaimed. “Her Majesty seems to have made up her mind.”

        “I think that such an endeavor would be for not. Luna must now be halfway to Canterlot.”

        “Most likely not,” the Mayor said. “Several ponies told me that her sarosian guards have established a camp on the northeast side of town. I think the Princess is here to stay for a little while...”

        I gasped. “You mean she's pitched a tent here?! Right in Ponyville?!”

        The clown and the zebra spun to look at me. They were startled to see a mint green mummy standing within a breath's length of their conversation.

        I hadn't realized how close I had gotten to them either. “Erm...” I blushed slightly and backtrotted. “Northeast side of town. Got it. Thanks.”

        Zecora blinked and aimed her blue eyes at the mayor. “To this day I am still startled by every sound that there is to be heard from this village's background.”

        “You and me both, Miss Zecora.”

        Their voices faded, for I had turned to gallop out of the downtown square. My teeth chattered in the biting winds of autumn night, and I felt the velvet satchel dangling from my bandaged side as I sped towards the open park beyond the buildings. Just as I threaded my way through a final alleyway, I saw the purple shapes of tents and a sarosian chariot situated beside them.

        I grinned wide amidst my exhausting run. This was it! The Princess had to be there, hiding away after the haphazard events of the festival. I didn't care if everypony's dreams for Nightmare Night had been ruined; if everything worked out, I would emerge on the other side of this evening as a living pony who could console them. I could share in their laughter, in their warmth, in their friendship. I could...

        “Celestia help us—Morning!” Ambrosia shouted.

        I gasped. I skidded to a stop beside Rumble and an unconscious stallion. A dilapidated hotel loomed before us.

        “Please, Miss!” Rumble pleaded. “You gotta help me move him!”

        “The song,” I whimpered to myself.

I gazed every which way in a stupor.  I saw the line of construction ponies gawking at me from a distance.  Explosive wiring ran under my hooves and into the building.

“I...”  I seethed, shook.  “I hadn't kept playing the Requiem!” I looked around feverishly in the daylight. There were no tents, no sign of sarosians. “Blast it, I don't want to be here...”

        “Aaah!” Rumble shrieked.

        Looking up, I understood why. The hotel was imploding, and a gigantic wall of rubble was falling our way, threatening to crush us and Morning Dew. With a heroic shout, I erected a green shield between us, holding the heavy debris at bay. It was the last thing I wanted to do.

        “My lyre...” I clenched my eyes shut and hissed into the cacophony of destruction. “Where is it? I have to... have to...”

        “What's the matter?! Too bashful?” sang an arrogant voice.

        I gasped and glanced up at the colorful stage. “H-huh?!”

        A silver-maned blue showmare grinned down at me. “I'd be quivering with humility and fear too if I were asked to perform on stage alongside the Great and Powerful Trixie!” A thick crowd of ponies chuckled all around me. “Think your musical talents are enough to overshadow the Great and Powerful Trixie's greatness?! Well hop on up here and show us all what you've got, minstrel!”

        “I... I don't have my lyre...” I hissed, sweating and shivering as I backtrotted. I bumped awkwardly into several pedestrians, fighting to thread my way through the cloud. “I was so stupid back then,” I whispered to myself. “I never brought my lyre out of the tent! What was I...?”

        “Look at her! At first I thought she was envious!” the showmare shouted pompously towards the crowd. “But now the Great and Powerful Trixie can see that she's just green.  Green in the gills, that is!”

        I was surrounded by laughter and cackles. I clenched my teeth shut and galloped through the colorful bodies around me. “I just have to concentrate!” I cried as I made for the north of town. “The Requiem will come to me if I just think of what I have to do! If I just think of h-home...” I closed my eyes and whispered, “I wanna go home. I wanna go home. I wanna...”

        “Can't... nnngh... can't get home. What is... this path? A tent? Ungh...” A familiar, drawling voice mumbled a few paces away from where I squatted. “Dag blamed trophy is too darn heavy. If only... mmmff... it was m-made of feathers... eheh...”

        I blinked. I stood up from beside my tent and craned my neck. An orange farm filly was trudging around the bend. Heavy tracks led from the center of Ponyville, and several apples had fallen loosely by the dirt road's wayside. I saw Applejack trying desperately to balance two big baskets full of fruit on her flanks, and on top of the ridiculously stacked bounty there was a golden trophy further adding to the merciless weight.

        “Nnnngh... Gotta g-get home...” She looked exhausted. There were bags under her eyes, and her golden mane—normally gorgeous and well kempt—was a frazzled mess, bursting beyond the red ribbons that held it in place. “Big Mac and the family... n-need me...”

        Her legs wobbled. Her green eyes lowered, and for a moment I wasn't sure if she was going to collapse or fall asleep. It turned out that she did neither, for a soft green cushion of telekinesis propped her back up onto her hooves.

        “Looks like somepony has been working too hard,” I said with a soft smile.

        “Mmmmhmmm... erhm...” Her eyelids fluttered open. “Wh-what? Huh?”

        “What's the trophy for? Broke the Equestrian Insomniac Record?”

        “Mmmm-no... it's...” She yawned and teetered dizzily. “The prized pony pony pony award or... somethin'...” Her face drifted and her lips briefly curved in semi-conscious bliss. “Awful nice and shiny. Reckon the town was happy that I saved them from a bunch of stampedin' cows, but...” She yawned again, her freckles turning dull as her face stretched in a sleepy lurch. “I could really use more hours in the day for... f-for apple buckin'...”

        Her body lifted up in the air, as if on an invisible bed, and then lowered once more. She winced, not expecting the awkward sensation of lying on a moving body.

        “Hmmmf...” I'm sure that her eyes fluttered open, but I couldn't see at that moment. “What in t-tarnation...?”

        “Nothing to be worried about, Miss Applejack,” I said softly in spite of my strain. She was a well-built pony: athletic and muscular. However, with the right application of magical telekinesis, I was able to weather the weight of her over my back. In a solid trot, I carried her up the road and towards the glistening vista of Sweet Apple Acres. “I'm just doing something neighborly for you.”

        “Hnngh...” She hissed. “I dun need nopony's help! I... I...” Her protests fell short, being absorbed by an all-encompassing yawn. “I can get the apple harvest d-done all by myself...”

        “Oh, by all means!” I exclaimed with a light chuckle. The trophy levitated in front of us, reflecting her exhausted face as it rested against my cyan mane like a fluffy pillow. “I'm just making sure you get home so you can get to all that work, Miss Applejack.”

        “Hrmmmm... and my fruit?”

        I glanced back at the two baskets of apples left beside the abandoned barn. “I'll make sure they reach Sweet Apple Acres as well.”

        “Mmmm...” She murmured into my neck. “Dun be stealin' them or nothin'...”

        I chuckled. “I wouldn't think of it. Apples are in your blood. Robbing you of them would be like ripping the foundation out from underneath you.”

        “Mmmm... foundation...” Applejack's freckled face curved into a drunken smile. I saw the golden reflection in the trophy turning aside to stammer against the warm winds of summer. “Every good home needs one. Just like... Just like my Pa always t-taught me...”

        I smiled. “Well, he raised his daughter right...”

        “He... he s-sure did...” And her voice fell before the first of many neighing snores.

        I carried her down the sloping hill and towards her farm. I thought of foundations, of structure, of musical bars and arrangements. I hummed a simple tune, a mimic of something that had been stuck in my head, but slowed down to act as a soothing lullaby to the hard-working mare who was lying collapsed on top of me.

        “I call it the 'Sunset Bolero,'” I said, my voice sounding low and distant. The hotel lobby hung in a hush as I performed for the Princess of the Sun. “When I hear it, it sets my heart aflutter. It's like the song was written to make ponies feel alive.” I gulped and leaned forward. “How do you feel, your Majesty?”

        Princess Celestia was sitting on her immaculate haunches now. Her brow was furrowed in a perpetual state of intense contemplation. I wasn't even sure if she registered the question I had just asked.

        It worried me. I could see the reflection of a mint-green unicorn looking increasingly frazzled in her rosy eyes. “Your Highness?” I spoke over the lyre's strings. “Is... Is this tune at all familiar to you?”

        “You taught it to me before, Princess,” Twilight spoke up, looking worriedly at her catatonic mentor. “Do... Do you have anything to say on it?”

        Eventually, the majestic alicorn's lips moved. “There is a structure to this, something I had never sensed before. In this order, with this flow, I feel a foundation...” She gulped hard. “My little pony, how did you come upon this?”

        “It showed up in my head,” I said. “The same day that a curse befell me.”

        “What kind of a curse?” Twilight asked.

        “A curse that will make each and every one of you forget me if I spend too much time trying to explain it! Please, your Majesty!” I leaned forward, close to tears. “You must hear the third elegy. Then maybe you can explain this all to me. There is a purpose to this. There is a purpose to everything. We are all on this world for a reason, and I need to discover mine so that I can be free from... free from...”

        The Princess' face was grimacing, stretched from an unnamed pain, as if she was giving birth to something.

        Twilight was immediately beside herself in concern. “Your Majesty! What's wrong?”

        “The song...” Celestia began whimpering, almost like a foal. Her rosy eyes flickered a color I hadn't seen before. “Her song...” she stammered.

        “Huh?” Twilight exclaimed, breathless and confused.

        I looked at Twilight. I thought of effluent shades of purple. I thought of stardust and desolation and the universe. Before I knew it, the golden strings of the lyre had switched places, and I was playing something else altogether. By the time the Requiem had ended, the hotel dissolved, and I was standing on a hilltop overlooking a cluster of sarosian tents. Two pegasi with leafy ears were trotting past the chariot, talking with one another.

        Gasping, I ducked behind a series of crates labeled with the royal crest of Canterlot. I shivered and clung to the Nightbringer as the guards marched within just a few feet of me.

        “What is Her Majesty up to now?”

        “It would seem that she's given into the festivities finally.” Both turned and looked towards the torchlit downtown of Ponyville beyond the dirt path. “It is very nice to see Her Highness enjoying herself alongside the civilians.”

        “Did it really need to involve so many screaming children?”

        “You're like the Princess, brother,” the other said, his fangs showing in the glistening moonlight. “You don’t get out much. If you did, maybe you'd realize that some ponies enjoy being frightened.”

        “I've endeavored all my life to keep fellow equines from experiencing terror at the sight of me.”

        “That is the wonderful thing about being alive in this age. The Princess has a new chance to make things right with the ponies of the day, and so do we.” He gestured towards the tents. “Come, we must prepare things for when Her Majesty decides to retire.”

        “I'll keep first watch, brother, if you'll check the outer perimeter.”

        “Done.” Both took wing, circling opposite ends of the tent.

        I pressed myself flatly against the body of the wooden crates. Taking several deep breaths, I cast an excited glance towards Ponyville. How long had I been out this time? Somehow, it no longer mattered.

        “So she came around,” I stammered, smiling. “That's fine. She'll come here eventually.” I gulped and hugged the Nightbringer close. I didn't dare play, for fear of the night guard hearing me. So I hummed the tune lightly to myself, and in between the breaths I murmured aloud, “She'll come here, and I will meet her.” I gulped. “But how do I avoid repeating what happened with Celestia? How do I make sure she only sends me away, and not the entire Ponyvillean landscape? How...”

        “That's what I keep asking myself!” Rarity exclaimed, rolling her eyes as she trotted around a frilly red dress situated on a ponyquin in the center of her boutique. “How could I have expected this to blow up in my face?! I mean, it certainly didn't blow up in Fluttershy's face! After all, she's currently enjoying her chance to shine across all Equestria! As well she should, of course! I just never thought that her soft and demure ways would—nnnghh—steal the eye of Photo Finish!”

        “Half the time, I don't think ponies steal greatness,” I said with a soft, sympathetic smile. “As much as I believe greatness is thrust upon us unexpectedly.”

        “Oh, and how I wouldn't mind greatness being thrust upon me, again and again, to the breaking point!” Rarity exclaimed. Her elegant eyes crossed, and she pulled her needle and thread so hard that it snapped. “Whoops...” Her snow white cheeks blushed furiously. “I do suppose that last part sounded most uncouth...”

        I giggled and smiled. “It's alright, Rarity. I understood you quite clearly.”

        “I know that you're a stranger around these parts, Miss...”

        “Heartstrings.”

        “And I do thank you for letting me ramble on and on like an enraged war horse, but I don't know if you can truly understand!” She sat on a nearby cushion with a sigh, dangling the useless needle and thread in her pale hooves. “I don't want fame and fortune simply for the sake of having fame and fortune. I want to earn it. I want to make a name for myself. And, what's more, I want to get there by doing something that I love, something that I'm passionate about.” She gazed at me, her blue eyes soft and vulnerable. “Fashion is more than just the career I have chosen for myself, it is my essence. It is my very life blood.”

        “It's what keeps you going,” I said with a gentle nod. I took a few trots forward and sat in front of her. “It's what motivates you when everything else has been stripped from your life...” I gulped. “Including your friends.”

        She sniffled and gave me a bittersweet smile. “Exactly...”

        “I know that if I lose everything,” I said. “If all I care about is no longer attainable, I will still have an inner strength, a piece of myself that I will never let go of. For it defines me, and it drives me forward, even unto darkness.” I gazed out the sunlit window and smiled warmly. “My love of music. If I don't have that, I don't have anything. It's the essence of what I am. And it's what brought me to you today.” I turned towards her and smiled, my teeth showing. “Every pony's soul resonates with a different melody, and yours is absolutely addicting, though it could stand to be a bit less melancholic, I think.”

        She took a deep breath, fluffing her mane with a dainty hoof. “You know what? You're right! You're absolutely right!” She stood up proudly and smiled. “I shouldn't be envying Fluttershy's success! I should be celebrating it! She's my best and most dear friend, and if this is her moment to shine, then far be it from me to shun her!” She galloped across the boutique towards where a dazzling gown of royal reds and blues hung, waiting for the seamstress. “I shall attend her latest fashion show tonight and show her my support! And I will look most resplendent while doing so!” She bit her lip and blushed slightly. “Because there's... uhm... no harm in looking fabulous while applauding a friend, yes?”

        I chuckled, shutting my eyes and smiling. “There most certainly isn't, Miss Rarity. There most certainly isn't...” My eyes opened to a pale mist, and my heart stopped.

        The rusted length of an ancient platform stretched beneath me, marred by moaning, shackled souls. Beyond, the unsung realm billowed with undulating tendrils of water between bright flashes of lightning. High above it all, looming like a sentry, the throne of Princess Aria hovered. The cocentric spheres within spheres glittered in the twilight, echoing the thunder across the horrorscape with constant vigilance.

        I shuddered, feeling the damp lengths of my hoodie as they clung to my forelimbs. The Nightbringer hung in my magical grasp, and for all its splendor I knew that it could not help me now, if ever. Quietly, with a furrowed brow of confusion, I gazed up at Aria's lofty throne.

        “Is... Is this a memory?” I asked, my voice dry and lifeless. Gulping, I added, “Or is this right now?”

        The spheres within spheres drifted away, avoiding me as always. The mists shifted over the platform, pelting the undead ponies for eternity.

        Sniffling, I whispered gently into the distance between me and the Princess of Twilight.

        “Are we memories... or are we songs? Is everything we've ever done simply a piece to add to a lengthy chronicle that none of us will have a chance to write? Or are we the chorus that keeps on singing, exulting in life and all the surprises in between?”

        She said nothing. The universe stretched on for eternity, and for once it did not seem so lonesome, because I was the only pony who needed to hear what was being said.

        “You are an archivist, Aria,” I said, my expression sharp and rigid. “Why would you collect so many souls unless you knew there was something precious worth preserving?”

        I took a few shuffling steps forward. I had no chance in Tartarus of catching up to the spheres, but I didn't intend to. At least, not this way.

        “I wish to be preserved,” I murmured to the air. “I wish to have my life back. Luna can't help me with that, and perhaps you can't either,” I said. My eyes drifted towards the tempests and chaos beyond, threatening to consume me and everything in one fatal sweep. “Nopony can help me but myself. This is my song. I've heard its melody my entire life.” I gazed up at the heavens, this time frowning. “Who are you to take that from me?”

        Lightning and thunder bellowed, but I could hardly notice. Everything was a whisper compared to the booming voice coming out from between my ears.

        “Who are you?” I tilted my head back, hissing, sobbing and chuckling all at once. “Who am I?!”

        “A foalhood friend of mine, at least until last week,” Twilight said in a wilted voice.

        I tilted my head down and gazed across the table at her. “Oh?” I remarked in a warm, sympathetic breath. “What happened between you two?”

        Twilight fidgeted, her hoof stuck on an open page of a book she was barely paying attention to. The candlelight of Sugarcube Corner warmed us after the fall of evening. “It... It isn't worth hearing me ramble on about it,” she said with a nervous chuckle. “You're just visiting from out of town, Miss Heartstrings. You don't need to hear a humble librarian go on about her troubles.”

        “I'm not going anywhere,” I said, leaning forward with a soft smile. “Please, do continue.”

        She shrugged. “I guess Moondancer and I always had our differences. Still, we somehow managed to carry on with our relationship in spite of how many times we bumped heads. Looking back, it seems crazy that we didn't strangle each other. And just now, with this study project we had to work on...” Twilight winced visibly.

        I gazed down at the table, sighing through my nostrils. “It's... hard to preserve the most precious parts of ourselves, especially as we grow older. Things grow thin and become brittle. We can blame it on... things missing in our lives, but it's rarely that simple. We all stand to lose so much...”

        “But what of gaining things?”

        I looked up at her.

        She was smiling my way. “I was distraught about Moondancer at first. Heck, I was in tears for several nights in a row.” She brushed a hoof through her violet-streaked mane and glanced aside. “And that's when I found help. Rarity... Pinkie... Applejack and Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash...” She sniffled once, but her lips were curving into a gentle smile. “They were there for me. They consoled me. That's when I realized that I had lost so much, but gained so much more. Life has a way of surprising you, of giving you things when you felt you didn't deserve them or could afford them...”

        “You're a scientist,” I said, squinting at her quizzically. “Don't you agree that things fade over time? Don't you know that it's the nature of all things to dissolve along the means of least resistance?”

        “Yes, I am a scientist,” Twilight said. “But... But I'm also alive...” She glanced at me. “And I feel, Miss Heartstrings. I feel with senses, some of which can be explained, but never resolved. After so many years, I realize that it takes more than experimentation to fix a hole in one's heart or patch up a wound that time has taken away and... and...”

        She shuddered, but her face became stone still as she bravely smiled in my direction.

        “I believe in friendship, Miss Heartstrings.” A tear rolled down her cheek, but her felicitous expression did not change. “I believe in friendship. It is the most powerful thing in the universe. It unifies while everything else destroys. It brings harmony to a discordant world. It gives us the warmth that we can enjoy until our time is up. Why else are we on this world than to make friendship together, in ways that only we can do in numbers? For so long, I lived alone in my studies and my thoughts, and I felt this great tug to my spirit.” She sniffled again and chuckled hoarsely. “I w-was waiting to be born, Miss Heartstrings. I think... no, I know that there are so many of us just waiting to be born, waiting to become alive. And it's my place in this world to reach out to ponies like that, to make new friends, to spread the warmth before it's too late.”

        I gazed at her, and for once I couldn't feel the frigid touch of my curse. I smiled into that toasty comfort and said, “If I had the time, Miss Sparkle, if I had all the resources and blessings of this world, I would write a symphony about that.”

        She didn't waste any time in replying, “Why don't you write it right now? Nothing's stopping you.”

        “Nothing's stopping me...” I repeated, muffled by the bandages as a dark shadow flew overhead. I looked up to see Princess Luna gliding down from the sky. The horizon to the east was glowing faintly; her sister's work was nearly at hoof.

        “Your majesty...” two sarosians bowed immediately upon her arrival.

        “At ease, my faithful subjects,” Luna spoke. For once, her voice was soft, restrained, and full of jubilation. Instead of shouting, she hummed and stood between the pair of guards standing before the entrance to her large, midnight blue tent. “This land is a peaceful land. I respect your fealty, but I do not desire nor need an exorbitant amount of vigilance this morning.”

        The guards exchanged glances. Their slitted, amber eyes tilted back towards the alicorn. “Would her Majesty desire to travel back to Canterlot Castle immediately?”

        “Nay,” she stated, marching solidly into her tent. “There are several more... festivities to be enjoyed here during the coming day.”

        “The day, your Majesty?”

        “Affirmative. Twilight Sparkle and her friends wish to show me the corner of sugars and cubes. It would be most rude of me to refuse their generosity. Unless there is a pressing emergency, we shall remain here in Ponyville for the next day at least.”

        “Understood, your Highness.”

        “Be sure to apply your protective armor, my subjects!” she exclaimed, pausing at the entrance. “Dawn approaches! I would hate to see the daylight singe your fine coats!” That uttered, she ducked finally into the tent.

        A few seconds after she was gone, the guards glanced at each other.  They shared the briefest of warm smiles.  Then, as commanded, they began equipping themselves with daylight armor.

        I watched them, shivering—only this time with anticipation. Princess Luna had returned. There were no frightened, stampeding ponies around to impede my approach. There were only two guards, and they were busy with altering the armor on their bodies to prepare for dawn's light. As eager as I was to make contact with the Princess, I wasn't foolish enough to think I had any hope of avoiding the two sarosians' sight, no matter how distracted they may have momentarily been. At the same time, I knew that there was no chance in Tartarus that they would just let me go in and speak to Luna. I had to use any available tools to my advantage, and perhaps—just maybe—I would succeed in winning her company.

        I opened the velvet satchel and tossed it to the ground beside the wooden crates. Levitating the Nightbringer in front of me, I took a brave breath and then took an even braver step out from hiding. I trotted towards the pair, approaching the tent with the golden instrument in my magical grasp.

        “Halt!” they immediately jerked away from whatever they were doing and glared at me. I saw sharp blades of cold steel extending from their armor's wing-guards. I'd read from Alabaster's journal about the traditional weapons being capable of slicing through dense oak.  I shuddered to think what they could do to a petite unicorn's flesh. “Who goes there?!”

        “A partygoer?” the other guard exclaimed, his slitted eye studying my ropes of bandages from afar. “Last night's festivities are over, citizen! Go to your home to retire. The Princess will not be seeing anypony until well beyond daylight!”

        “You d-don't understand,” I murmured, holding the Nightbringer between us like a golden shield. “The Princess has been needing to s-see somepony her entire life. She just doesn't know it yet.”

        “What madness is this of which you speak?” one guard remarked.

        The other squinted at my glowing instrument. “What is that in your grasp? Stop this instant!”

        “Do not trot any further!”

        I froze in my tracks, but that wasn't all I did. I had my eyes shut as I performed a tune on the ancient lyre. “Please forgive me for what I am about to do. But I need to see the Princess. You don't understand the severity of this, and I can't blame you.”

        “Put the instrument down! What are you—?” The guard's exclamation ended with a gasp. “What in Tartarus name?!”

        “By the Matriarch!” the other's voice grunted. “I can't see!”

        I exhaled sharply and opened my eyes. Upon finishing the “Darkness Sonata,” their vision had been enchanted, but not mine. They were both blinded, flung into pitch-black confusion as they reeled from the loss of senses. “I'm sorry. It won't last long.” I trotted briskly towards the tent. “I just need you preoccupied while I go to speak with the Princess—”

        There was a high-pitched shriek, and both guards suddenly soared at me in formation.

        Gasping in utter surprise, I flung myself to the grass. They just barely skimmed over me, sailing instead into the side of the chariot and rocking it off its wheels.

        Panting, I glanced up at them. Sweat ran down my face in rapids as I scampered up to my hooves and tried galloping once more towards the tent.

        Another shriek: they twirled about and soared at my body again.

        I jumped back with a cry, barely dodging their heavy forms. A stack of wooden crates shattered beyond me, littering my body with splinters as the twin guards stood on the ground, tilting their necks in every direction.

        Standing and hyperventilating, I mentally slapped myself. “Of course! These are sarosians!” I spat into the ground, growling hoarsely.  “They have powers of echolocation, you idiot! You desperate, pathetic idiot!

        “Cease this treachery at once!” one guard growled, craning his neck about blindly. “We need not harm you, pony!”

        “Surrender yourself and this will all be over!” the other shouted.

        I glanced at the tent flap, then at them. With telekinesis, I peeled half of the bandages off my body. Holding my breath in, I shifted my weight forward and explosively slapped my hoof against the ground.

        With a conjoined bat cry, both sarosians spun about and soared towards me like missiles.

        “Nnngh!” I flung the sea of bandages at them and dove out of the way.

        The air whistled from their slicing wings as they tore into the white ribbons. One flew to the ground, tangled with the mess, wrought with confusion.

        I didn't waste any time in admiring my meager victory. I broke into a full gallop, speeding towards the tent flap, anticipating Princess Luna's gorgeous face and midnight blue eyes.

        A heavy pair of hooves successfully tackled me from behind.

        “Unnngh!” I fell to the ground under the weight of one of the guards. “Nnngh—No!” I shrieked.

        “Do not move any further!” he hissed into my ear. His voice rang through his fangs as he pressed a sharp horseshoe threateningly against my writhing neck. “You have been warned!”

        “Have you restrained her, brother?!” the other cried, disentangling himself from the bandages.

        “Follow my voice! She's right here!”

        “Mmmmf—Gah!” I grunted under his weight. My eyes were tearing, darting every which way. I saw the Nightbringer lying in the grass just inches between me and the tent. Panting, I lifted it up with telekinesis and started strumming the strings.

        “I said stop!” the guard on top of me grunted.

        “I shall rid her of the instrument!” the other said, flying straight towards the sound of the elegy being played. “In the Princess' name—!” He reached for it just as his slitted eyes began to clear.

        In perfect timing, I finished performing “Prelude to Shadows.” The light on the east horizon intensified ten times the majesty of a normal sunrise. But I wasn't finished yet. Twisting my body around, I aimed my horn at the pair and—shouting—performed a light spell with my last ounce of my strength.

        The strobing beacon that was produced blinded me. However, it undoubtedly had to have done worse to them. As the hot white flash bathed us, I was rewarded with the sound of the sarosians' unintelligible shrieks. The one guard jumped off of me, colliding haphazardly against his companion. Both reeled from the magical beam, their hoofsteps scraping loudly through the dirt until they became blissfully distant vibrations.

        “Aaaugh! Sorcery!”

        “Brother, can you hear her?! Where has she gone?!”

        “Burning... so hot... c-can't... can't feel...”

        I had very little time to sympathize with them. I was bounding up to my hooves, hyperventilating. I felt the rest of the bandages peeling off of me as I ran towards what I prayed was the direction of the tent. My rear legs tripped over several dangling strips of the costume. Yelping, I fell forward, only to plow into a quivering length of tent canvas. I gasped, feeling my way through the blinding light as I found the entrance. Rushing in, I whimpered and pleaded.

        “Princess!” I gasped, I shrieked. “Princess... what... what is wrong?!”

        “Mother...” Celestia murmured. Tears were pouring down her face as her eyes shrank under a wave of pure horror. “Oh blessed Mother, wh-what have we done?”

        “Princess?!” Twilight exclaimed, her face pale with shock. The ponies within the hotel lobby were trembling and murmuring in alarm. The celestial guards marched up, reaching towards the alicorn with looks of worry on their faces. Twilight glanced my way, her lips quivering. “What h-have you done?!”

        “I-I don't understand!” I cried, clutching my lyre to my chest. I was barely halfway through 'The March of Tides' when a noticeable reaction ran through the Sun Goddess' majestic form. She had begun trembling like a child, and even the glitter from her pastel mane had faded immensely. The walls bent with the shadows, as if the hotel was caving in all around us. I became aware of a deep bass rumble, like a giant wave of earth was rolling our way from a great distance. “I just wanted her to help me identify the music! I don't know why she's... why she's...”

        The room shook. Dust and sediment fell from the ceiling. The Mayor wobbled on her hooves, gulping and asking everypony to remain calm. It was too late; half the ponies were stampeding out of the library, the other half were clamoring around the Princess, begging for an explanation, for help, for deliverance from something so terrible that it couldn't deserve a name.

        “Sister...” Celestia murmured. “My dear sister, what happened to you...?”

        “Luna?!” Twilight exclaimed. She gulped dryly, her eyes tearful with concern. “But she's fine, Your Highness! The Elements of Harmony got rid of Nightmare Moon...”

        “No...” Celestia slowly shook her head, choking on a sob from a tragedy older than time. “There is no restoration. There is only imprisonment, a damnable sequestering.” She hissed through clenched teeth and stammered, “Mother, you were the one who was too afraid. We should have helped her. Didn't we love her enough?” Lowering her head, her mane went limp like a surrendering flag as she growled, “Now it is too late, and I'm the one who must protect this realm. Your sorrow is my sorrow. Forgive me...”

        “Your Highness!” the guards shouted.

        “There is a terrible earthquake!”

        “We must get you out of here!”

        “Princess!” Twilight shrieked, tugging in futility on the alicorn's gold-plated hooves. “Please! We must leave! You're scaring me! You're—”

        “I'm sorry,” she said. Her head tilted up, and I saw a pair of eyes flashing with violet fury. They appeared to be directed straight at my gasping soul. “But I must erase this. I must protect the song.” That said, her lips hung open, and a deep hum filled the room, like the mutual drone of chanting monks.

        One guard began flinching. He gasped and sputtered as his armor loosened from his body. The golden material levitated into the air, broke apart, and dissolved into a swarm of multicolored little insects.

        “What...?!” Twilight gasped. There was a shriek behind her. She spun around.

        The Mayor was scooting away from the podium in center stage. The wooden structure split about in midair, morphing into a chirping cloud of parasprites.

        Above us, the lights of the chandelier went out as the dangling instruments segmented into several winged creatures that proceeded to munch on every physical structure in sight. Soon, the entire lobby was buzzing with countless parasprites, twirling around the Princess in a frightful cyclone.

        “No!” I shouted, sobbing. “Th-this wasn’t supposed to happen!” I dodged a falling chunk of debris as infantile bugs flitted about overhead. “I only wanted to be freed! I don't understand! Why is—”

        “Sing her song!” Celestia shouted, her breath suddenly booming with twice as much volume as the royal Canterlot voice. “Sing her song and become...” She lurched. “S-sing her song and b-become...” She grimaced, fighting the holy song until the last second. Then finally, with a thrashing of her hooves, she produced a solid wave of telekinesis that blew every remaining pony out of the lobby and into the blinding daylight beyond. “No! Be gone! It is only you who shall remain nothing!”

        “Aaaugh!” Twilight shouted as I saw her being flung past me. Several guards flew after her. Finally, I too was swept off my hooves and thrown from the lobby of the hotel. The last thing I saw was Celestia's form—suddenly frail—as if she was buckling under the shadow of an alicorn ghost with her bony wings spread wide. And then the entire building exploded, sending parasprites and rubble flying all across Ponyville, along with my hopes and dreams, along with my memories.

        All that remained was the song, repeating over and over in my head as I lay on the ground, trembling. I choked several times on a sob that refused to leave me. I tried to remember the melody beneath it all, the essence of myself that kept going. However, it was her voice that woke me from my fitful spasms.

        “What is the meaning of this sudden intrusion?!”

        Gasping, I flung my eyes open wide. I was no longer blinded. The bright light of my magic spell had gone, along with all the trailing effects of the “Prelude to Shadows.” Trembling, I looked up.

        Luna's chiseled frown loomed above me. Between blinks, a silver helm solidified over her onyx features, and I felt the cold shivers redoubling. “Are you here for tricks or candy? I'm sorry, my little pony, but the celebration of Nightmare Night is over now. I seek seclusion in this morning hour...”

        “Your... Y-Your Majesty,” I stammered. On wobbly legs, I stood up before her. “I... I-I'm so sorry, but I need to speak to you—”

        “My guards,” she murmured, her midnight blue eyes wandering towards the exit of her tent. “All that noise and shrieking just now...” Her gaze narrowed. A magical wind picked up in the center of the tent. Her mane billowed in a menacing fashion as she hissed down at me, “Were you responsible for their sudden disappearance?! If you have harmed a single ear on their crowns—”

        “You are waiting to hear a song!” I shouted violently, suddenly glaring at her. I raised the Nightbringer up so that it floated between us. “It's a song you've heard all your life. You didn't realize it at first, but you always knew this symphony, because that song is a part of you, Luna! It's a part of Celestia as well! And it's a part of the Matriarch!”

        Luna was about to retort, but a gasp escaped her lips. She leaned back from me—or, more accurately—from what hung in my grasp. “That...” Her eyes narrowed upon the Nightbringer. “I have seen...” A shiver ran through her elegant limbs, and a cold breath came out from her lips as the tone in her voice changed. “We hath seen this in our presence b-before...”

        I gulped. I thought of Alabaster, and how he was no longer around to save me from what was about to happen. “There is a melody, Your Majesty,” I said. “A melody that is a part of all of us. It is something we have heard since birth, defining our very nature.” I quivered before her like a frightened unicorn in the center of Ponyville. But unlike the victim on the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration, I was leading the charge. “But one of us wasn't lucky enough to have heard that melody. You know of whom I speak, even though everything you've been made to believe tells you that she isn't real.”

        “We...” Luna's face stretched in pain. Sweat poured down her temples as her mane went limp. “We should n-not... be sp-speaking of... of...”

        “Of what?” I stared firmly at her, my jaw clenched. “What is missing from your life that you must patch it together with such speech?” I took a brave step towards her, levitating the Nightbringer along with me. “You weren't born yet when she was hidden away, Luna. The song had yet to produce you. When you discovered what was missing from your life, you reacted in confusion and fright. Nightmare Moon was a fluke, a product of misunderstanding. And that's because nopony ever had the grace to let you remember, gently and affirmatively, that which has always been a part of you, that which you have been robbed of.” I breathed deeply and said, “But you can win her back. You can rediscover your music.”

        “What hath thou brought t-to us?!” Luna wheezed, hyperventilating. “This... This is some sort of trick of thine?”

        “Not a trick,” I whispered. “A reunion.”

        Luna growled. “We hath no time for thy ridiculous speeches concerning—”

        “Aria,” I said.

        She gasped sharply, the breath stolen from her quivering lungs.

        “Princess Aria,” I repeated, accompanied by a gentle plucking of strings as I began performing “Twilight's Requiem” in her presence. “It is the reason for why you weep at night, and not over guilt or regret concerning the last thousand years. That thing that's been missing from your life, Your Majesty? It's more than a song, more than a feeling. It's your sister, the Goddess of Twilight, the missing bridge between the sun and the moon!”

        “Aria...” she murmured, a single tear rolling down from her wide eyes. The wind was kicking up heavily now, threatening to rip the tent up from its pegs.

        “And you must provide me that bridge, Luna!” I shouted. “She has a song for you to sing! And you must sing it! We must all sing it!” I roared into the rising tumult as I stood firmly behind the shield of the Nightbringer. “F-for we are all in this world for a reason! It's to come together, not to draw apart!”

        “Our beloved sister,” Luna wept, her eyes glowing a bright violet. She fell back on her haunches as rips and tears formed in the midnight blue canvas rippling about us. “We... W-We must protect... must pr-protect...”

        I gasped. I thought of parasprites, of Celestia's shouting voice, of a wing of Canterlot Castle exploding from a sarosian bomb. “No!” I shouted. “You will sing her song and make me nothing!”

        Luna twitched, facing me with glowing eyes.

        “Make me nothing!” I shouted. “For I am nothing!” Shreds of tent canvas and clumps of dirt flew into my face. I tilted against the wind, gritting my teeth, putting every effort into finishing the Requiem for Luna's twitching ears to hear. “Send me to her! One melody must find another for a duet to happen!”

        “We... We must...” Luna winced, hissed, and then growled in an affirmative tone. “I must cherish her...”

        “Sing it!” I bellowed into the bedlam.

        And she did, opening her mouth wide, issuing forth a cannonblast of holy noise in my direction. I saw constellations forming around her, each reflecting the pale perfection of the moon. The column of disrupted air spiraled between us. As I was swept off my hooves, I heard the foundations of the firmaments being torn asunder. It sounded like a sob, the Matriarch's weeping voice, and then it was silent once again as I was propelled beyond sound and light and matter, funneled down a bar of notes that were written before the dawn of Creation. I dragged the Nightbringer with me, flowing down the kaleidoscopic niche between dimensions. Beyond my flailing hooves, I saw the lightning and madness of the unsung realm lingering through the portal. Only, I was sailing beyond the platforms, flying past the moaning souls anchored to the hellscape below. The throne of Princess Aria appeared before me. The spheres aligned, and a doorway opened. I flew through it along the breath of her sister, ripped free of my screams, entering a domain where not even memories had any substance. Regardless, I bravely thought of many things, of Morning Dew's ocean-blue eyes, of Mom and Dad leaning over me on Hearth's Warming Eve, of Twilight's smile and Moondancer's laughter.

        And then I thought of nothing, for all was darkness.

Background Pony

XVIII - “Crescendo”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: theworstwriter, Warden, RazgrizS57, theBrianJ, Props, and basking sharks

Cover pic by Spotlight

        “If you must know, lost one, it began with a question, and not with an exclamation. That which was once singular desired truth, and so it became many. In this quest for knowledge, the one broke itself down into many parts, each ringing with a different sound, repeated into the bowels of oblivion like a chorus. The song was born, and it was neither a sob nor a laugh; that would come later, for it hadn’t yet realized that once the barrier was shattered, everything would break and break forever.”

        I panted, eyes darting left and right across the darkness. I heard the voice; I knew the voice. It had been whispered into my ears all my life, even before I was born. I just didn't realize it until then, until I was in that place. The beat of my heart gave meter to the words, giving them meaning and comprehension that I couldn't afford until that very second, submerged within the darkness.

        “Someday, the shattered pieces will become so small, that they will lack the breath to share with each other the answer that they have so disparately learned. Then, in the great dark silence of the universe's tragic end, the many will become the one once more.”

        A gasp escaped my lips. Petrified, I stared as Creation unfolded before me. The swirling lines of a labyrinthine forest melted through the obsidian veil. Tree trunks formed around the scene, glorious and ancient. I saw an emerald glade stretching before me, awash in twilight. Leaves fell from the branches above, scattering across the tranquil scene.  In the centermost halo of pale light, a beautiful equine figure reclined on a bed of soft earth. Her coat glittered with the aura of a billion tiny constellations. An ethereal mane of indigo shades rippled in a magic wind. The twilight caught a sheen of sweat on her neck, and it was then that I realized that she was convulsing in agony.

        “She too was a part of the song, the same song that created the universe, that painted it with both joy and sorrow. For all of her power, for all her ambition and will to create, she was yet to realize that for every song of exultation there needed to be a funeral dirge. Who could have blamed her? She was carrying out the will of the music, for the music was her. Up until that moment, she wrote ballads only for herself. It never occurred to her that she would win an audience among the dead.”

        With a shriek that could pierce the heavens, the Matriarch raised her muzzle toward the air. A holy sound came from her, bombastic and full of purpose. The trees shook and the grass billowed in cyclonic currents. Far above, the stars quivered as the entire universe buckled in anticipation of the immortal songstress' symphony. And yet, as the minutes, hours, days, years, and eons rolled by, she thrashed and quivered upon her side, her rear legs spreading and bending with each wave of pain that soared through her.

        She wasn't alone. A distraught alicorn stood at her side, pacing about her front and back end, tilting her horn forward and casting spell after spell to alleviate the Matriarch's labor pains. With a pale expression of fright, young Celestia hovered at her mother's side, powerless to make the birth transpire any smoother.

        “Up until that time, lost one, she had performed her duties towards one singular purpose: to seed life. But the very reason she existed in the first place was because purpose was no longer singular. For the sake of understanding the one, the music had unraveled itself to become the many. She was an immortal, incapable of grasping the truth that the one sought. The music held a greater divinity than her. She was its unfortunate vessel, a prism through which light was bent to pierce the furthest reaches of this new and bleak universe. Between light and darkness, there had to be a barrier. Between day and night, there had to be twilight.”

        The Matriarch suffered a final spasm. Her face streamed with tears. Celestia knelt down beside her to perform the delivery, but what came out of the Matriarch was as silent and still as stone. A pale light rippled across Creation as the music broke into dissonant sounds, grating and off-key. Then, with the grace of an endless sigh, the fractured song echoed into oblivion. A throng of leaves fell from above while the trunks of the nearby trees withered and dried up. The grass turned to brown, wilted stalks, and the soil beneath morphed into dry, caked stone.

        Celestia's eyes moistened as she looked helplessly at her mother.

        The Matriarch cradled the limp foal she had just given birth to, curling up into her own mane to hide the moisture in her face. The stars in her coat dimmed and a great shadow fell over the poisoned glade.

        “And so it was that I was born, and with me came death. All things that began would also have to end. As she had her purpose, and my sister had hers, this was mine: to be lost. Even before I had a consciousness to think, I knew and understood the chords of my song. I was to become the governess of the universe's forsaken things. The only audience I could afford was an audience without the ability to feel, without the ability to regret, and consequently, without the ability to remember.”

        The blackness spread before me again. I saw the Matriarch standing on a cliff overlooking a primordial landscape bathed in moonless night. Celestia stood several paces away, hanging her head in mourning.  The Matriarch was heaving. Her pained eyes gazed down at the infant pony lying beneath her. The unmoving foal lay cradled in a bed of flowers, its tiny mane braided, its fragile wings folded like violet petals.

        A sharp jolt ran through the Matriarch's body. Collapsing on all four limbs, she leaned over and nuzzled her foal's body dearly. As convulsing sobs overtook her, hot streaks of light pulsed overhead. The sky was warping, tearing at the celestial fabric, and the very constellations above were exploding with distant flashes of phenomenally hot fury.

        Celestia saw this and gasped. Panicked, she galloped towards her mother. But as soon as she reached the Matriarch's side, the omnipotent entity's wings were already spread. Her mouth opened, wailing, and the landscape fell to pieces below them from the outburst of one, unfiltered chord.

        “But my mother could remember. And, what was more, she could suffer. Her feelings were the brushstrokes upon this universe. She only built what she cherished. She never made a part of creation unless it was a part of her. The song had empowered her since infancy, but it had never equipped her for loss.

        “Such is the consequence for seeking answers without knowing them; in the act of discovery, the destruction of things is the baptism through which truth manifests itself. For my mother, though, that destruction was all encompassing. To give up a piece of herself to death was incomprehensible. There was no scale to her sorrow, no definition for the pain and anguish she was just beginning to experience.

        “The agony of losing a foal was unbearable, and so long as she remembered what she had lost, she would not have the power to continue breaking the song down, much less maintaining the Creation that she had already imparted.  The song was doomed to buckle, and all of reality would collapse in on itself, giving way to eternal chaos.”

        Before me, the shards of the world hung in haphazard disarray. Chunks of landscape floated in a swirling nether. The song of Creation was fractured, and its unstable energy manifested itself in cyclonic torrents of liquid and bright flashes of lightning. Through sheer will, Celestia and her mother held the sundered pieces of reality together. Evidently, though, this was not enough.

        The Matriarch hung in a perpetual slump. Her face was frozen in a grimace, and her tears were unceasing.  Before her, the foal hovered in her immaculate cradle, frozen in the same deathly stillness that brought her to the corporeal realm.

        Floating over, Celestia nuzzled her mother, sharing in her tears. She whispered several dear words to the Matriarch as the shattered world spun faster and faster around them. Soon, the Matriarch's eyes were glowing with bright power and determination. She spread her wings, frowning as she summoned the strength for what would come next.

        Celestia read her mother's expression. She too spread her wings, and in holy synchronization both alicorns raised their faces to the heavens and opened their mouths. The universe froze in place, lurched, and spun in reverse. Stars were reborn; constellations were restructured. Under the orchestration of a brand new melody, another piece of the song was broken loose. It took form, bringing structure to the chaos while the Firmaments solidified into being, creating an impermeable barrier around that one solitary pocket of the cosmos.

        “There was only one solution, one key to the dilemma. The quest for truth and harmony was far too important to allow for such a bleak and fruitless end. There was a universe to be made, and a cornucopia of life yet to be sculpted. To see to the blossoming and stability of Creation, the Matriarch had to go past the first case of Destruction.

        “They had to have a funeral, and, consequently, they had to perform a burial. However, the foal was not to be buried just beyond sight. She was not to be buried simply beyond time and space. This was to be a burial beyond recognition, beyond knowledge, beyond remembrance. The only things that are truly buried, after all, are those which are forgotten, for that which remains to live must seek opportunity in the future without being anchored to the tragedies of the past.

        “This was the case with the Matriarch. My mother had eternity at her disposal; she could not spend forever both distributing the song and mourning the first dead soul, not when it destabilized her power to such a degree. She loved me dearly, and yet she had to move on. She was an ancient piece of the singular song, simple in structure yet divine in purpose. The nature of Celestia, my sister, was smaller and a far more complex piece of the song, somepony who innately understood that existence was a matter of dealing with loss and learning to adapt from it. My mother, however, had always been incapable of this function. The true nature of a Creator was to be repetitive; it's Creation itself that had to learn, a burden that fell upon the mortals who would populate her harmonic realm.”

        In the middle of a broad chunk of floating earth, I watched as pieces of the Firmaments flew together, morphing into a large metallic sarcophagus. Multiple runed spheres—ten in total, one for each elegy—slid into place, layer upon layer, with porous sections of metal showing through the concentric circles. In the center of this hollow structure was a soft bed of feathers from the wings of the two alicorns. The foal's body was lain upon this, and the Matriarch leaned down to nuzzle her one last time. After a final sob, the Matriarch turned around. Celestia accompanied her as the two forlornly trotted away from the tomb.

        “They crafted the 'Nocturne of the Firmaments' as a coffin—a sepulcher. The tomb's purpose was twofold: it was to serve as my resting place, and it was to be the buffer between Firmaments. If the pillar upon which the songs of Creation rested was forgotten, then it would be all the harder to destroy the roots of harmony. The world could continue to exist in peace and prosperity, not knowing what supported it into eternity, nor even having to know. I was to be the hidden melody behind all reality, the song of songs: Princess Aria, Goddess of Twilight. Even in death, I had a purpose. And, in some way, my mother and sister would always feel my presence, even if they would no longer be conscious of me. We were still a part of the same song; we had a bond that would be forever inseparable, even if forever invisible.”

        The spheres closed shut behind them, covering the foal in darkness. The layers of the structure rotated, powered by the elegies spelled out in metallic runes. The world outside the structure dimmed, for the Firmaments beyond had closed the dimension off completely. Untainted by the dissonant piece of the song held within, the universe outside coalesced once more with order and balance. What was forgotten was forgotten. What could not be sung remained unsung.

        But then, long after the alicorns had gone, and when there was a breath of silence between the elegies to afford contemplation, a pair of eyes opened up, brimming with bright violet tears.

        “What they did not know, what the Matriarch and her daughter Celestia did not think to contemplate, was that a piece of the original song—no matter how dissonant, no mater how brittle—was as immortal as they were. They did not realize that even an alicorn born unto death is not fully dead. The song can be broken down, it can be shattered and muffled and rewritten, but it can never be silenced. The universe will never die; it will only spread thin, and some parts far more slowly than others.

        “It was wise of them to bury me where they did; I had no role to play in the mortal plane. The dimension of light, warmth, and beauty was not for me, for I would only be a dissonant shard of the song there, powerless and lifeless. However, in the bed of chaos, something unexpected happened. I blossomed; I became animated. My new realm was a blank canvas, and I was the one and only imprint made there. You see, the Matriarch had sought to fashion for me a coffin. In a way, it was a mother's last gift, a cradle for her beloved infant. She did not anticipate the fact that it would become my prison.”

        Crawling on bony legs, a tiny foalish figure hobbled out of the spheres and gazed lonesomely upon the chaos and fury. I watched as Princess Aria limped across the lengths of the floating platform. Between each flash of lightning, the scrawny alicorn grew taller, larger, and yet more and more haggard. Eons flew by, and her ribs remained pronounced while her knobby joints rattled with each trot. After a few more flashes of lightning, she spread forth featherless wings of exposed bone.

        Her eyes strobed a hot violet, summoning lightning from the billowing sky. The sphere behind her lifted up, its many outer surfaces rotating over one another, animating with haunted purpose. Beneath the alicorn's frayed hooves, the earthen platform melted and reformed, turning to cold, immaculate steel. Dust rose from the far edges and linked together, transforming into rattling chains that stretched off towards the furthest reaches of the unsung realm. Distant chunks of earth became similar rotating platforms of metal, swimming in formation, manufacturing a grand industry in the ethereal heart of chaos.

        “I made order out of my domain. What else was I to do? I was an infant, uneducated and full of curiosity. The only thing I knew was a melody, an undying tune in my head that told me to create structure and maintain equilibrium. I did not have the same universal resources as my mother, but I did have a song—albeit a tiny piece of it. My loneliness was my gift and my curse all at once. I was forgotten, and yet I had substance. The only soul who could answer for myself was myself, and over the course of thousands of years, I came to understand that there was purpose in purposelessness.”

        Before Aria, dozens, hundreds, and eventually thousands of pony souls washed ashore onto the metal platforms. Through the years, she trotted up to each of them, nuzzling them, gazing curiously and unemotionally at their tears, their distraught faces. She leaned in and kissed them on the forehead in a desperate attempt to ease their confused and agonized thrashing motions. When that did little to solace them, she spread her wings and—with a strobe of her eyes—fastened them to the platforms by chains and shackles. At last, they were still. They sang her song in perfect cadence, and found peace within the ether.

        “Throughout the ages, I found that souls came to me, ponies touched by the song, ponies who could not be protected by the lies of pacification that my mother had reinforced through the symphony she had made. They came here because something inside them had died, something had given in to despair, something had peered into the abyss and dragged the rest of them along. These were the lost ones, just like you. When the fractures in the firmaments aligned, and not even death or exile or suicide was a means of finding solace, these ponies found their way to me, to the unsung realm, for my mother's song erased all knowledge of them from the domain of the living.

        “I knew this because, as abandoned as I was, I would always be a part of the same song that crafted the goddesses of the mortal dimension. I would know when the Nocturne had consumed another soul from the universe for the express sake of keeping my existence a secret. I would feel every time something struck the fabric of reality, only to end up here. Whenever something threatened—in even the least possibility—to expose my name to the Matriarch, that something would cease to be. For if some event or circumstance was to remind my mother of my death—and even of my rebirth—she would collapse under the weight of such knowledge and guilt, and the universe would collapse with her.

        “I understood this, and I knew that it was my task to prevent this. It was a somber duty, but my life had already contained its fair share of abandonment. As my mother had her immortal will to perform, so I too had mine. I maintained the unsung realm, and I policed the souls who came here to rest. I did this even as I became aware of a younger sister born from the song. I did this even as the chaos took form and cherished me, and even when I had to banish him—my beloved—to a place where he would no longer impede my holy task. I continued, unwaveringly, even as I sensed my younger sister becoming corrupt in her own attempt to salvage me from the Nocturne.

        “For as long as the universe shall last, I must remain loyal to the song, and not alter myself for the sake its fragments. The song can afford to be broken down—it has to be. This universe, however, must remain whole for the grand symphony to have an audience, for the quest for truth to continue into eternity.”

        Just then, the scene before me went dark.  The unsung realm and all its moaning populace dissolved into shadow. I gasped as I saw rotating runes blurring into focus above and around me. Through the grooves in the porous spheres, sources of cosmic light reemerged, casting an ethereal haze throughout the throne room's hollow domain. Standing across from me, stealing my breath away with a pair of glowing violet eyes, Princess Aria loomed. Her face was straight, her jaw set with emotionless lips. As thin and emaciated as the goddess was, I saw no blemish to her figure. She was truly beautiful in every pitiable sense of the term. I was lost between wanting to mourn her and worship her all at once.

        Thankfully, she spoke before this shivering mortal could have said anything worthless. “My purpose for being and not being has made me wary of you all this time, lost one.” Her glowing eyes narrowed on my tiny figure. “The fact that you came here through means of discovering the song, the fact that you were saved by another lost soul in disguise, and the fact that you have made it to the threshhold of my very throne room are all very intriguing things, but they are not what have interested me about you, what have made me tell you all of this.” Her bony wings twitched as she said, “What interests me is that you have come here more than once, willingly, to seek something beyond the lengths of your own despair. If I would venture to guess, you are as loyal if not moreso to the song than I am.”

        I was shuddering. I felt something cold and metallic in my hooves. Glancing down at my naked self, I found that I was hugging the Nightbringer. I took a heavy breath and looked up at Aria, trying not to sob from every second I was exposed to her somber, glowing eyes.

“Then m-maybe you'll realize that I am not here to destroy wh-what the Cosmic Matriarch has created,” I managed to say in a hoarse voice.

        “No, but you come here to change,” she said. “And change is the most destructive thing to the mortal realm, so long as it is dictated by the essence of an omnipotent piece of the song unwilling to change—which, I'm afraid, is an eternal prospect.”

        “If there's anything I wish to change, it's myself!” I exclaimed, my voice echoing off the rotating runes around us. “I don't want to illuminate the mind of the Matriarch to her sad loss! I don't want to drag you out of this place if you love it so much! I just want to become permanent again! I j-just want the song that empowers you to stop cursing me!”

        “The cost for that is far too great,” she said coldly. There was no emotion on her face to be read, no suggestion of anger or sorrow or dread or amusement. She simply existed, as this realm existed. I realized very swiftly that I was talking into a living abyss. “You would wish to have a name that is remembered, to leave a legacy that can be written down. Inadvertently, though, your desires—if manifested—would lead to the revelation of my existence to the Matriarch, and the universe would cease to function because of it. Already, you have risked exposing me to both of my sisters, and the song had to erase the reality of t.”

        “Yes! I know about the parasprites!” I said, growling slightly. “And when I spoke with Luna, I understood enough about you to ensure that she and anypony else didn't suffer from the truth! But me? I am not a goddess who's only capable of creating or stabilizing harmony!” I frowned and stood up straight as I shouted, “I am a mortal! It is my essence, my function to learn and grow from it! You said it yourself: the smaller and more diverse the songs, the more complex they are! I can live my life and not expose you!”

        “There is only one way to do that,” she said.

        I merely stared at her, breathing heavily in shivering anticipation.

        She turned and waved her hoof towards the walls. “Become a member of my choir.” The spheres rotated into place, and through the porous metal we saw several hundred ponies shackled outside to a platform as it floated by. They all moaned in cadence to an eternal beat as the chords of the Nocturne repeated into infinity. “Join us in everlasting peace, in endless purpose here between the Firmaments.”

        I gazed sickly at her. “But I wouldn't be free.”

        She gazed stonily my way. “No, you wouldn't. Freedom means anguish. Freedom means chaos and turbulence. Freedom means danger and destruction. This realm is not a place for freedom, but a sanctum for tortured souls for whom death is no solace. The fate of the universe, after all, is to fall victim to endless cold. Here, my little ponies do not have to wait for eternity to run its course.”

        I swallowed deeply and said, “So is that why you banished Discord? If a creature like him couldn't stomach this realm, then you truly are buried here.”

        Her facial features shifted for the first time since she spoke to me.  Her bony wings flexed and rested at her side as she trotted slowly about the circular throne room. “I knew that I smelled the scent of my beloved on you,” she said. “At first, I wanted to think that it was a fragmented thought, a shadow of the past, something that crossed my mind because you were the first soul in eons to play my song without wanting to be consumed by it.”

        “Yes, I did meet with Discord,” I said in a low voice. I shivered as she shuffled closer towards me. “He loves you very dearly, Aria. He loves you more than all his powers can convey.”

        “Then it is as I thought,” she said in a neutral tone. She came to a stop before me, her sheer presence spilling frost into my blood. Vapors billowed endlessly from her mouth and nostrils as she murmured, “His ambition was too great. He saw in me a sliver of the Matriarch's song. It exposed him to a piece of Creation. It was the first time that such a being of chaos caught a glimpse of structure, and though he would never admit it, I suspect he greatly envied it. From then on, there was no hope for him in this realm.  So long as he was here, he would not know peace, not like my choir members. He couldn't live with the purpose of this sanctum, and so he would forever be an aberration, a foil to my divine duties.”

        “And you sent him away?!” I exclaimed. “Aria, you may think you're just as straight-forward and eternally bound to purpose as your mother, but I sense a different truth! I heard it in Discord's words when he spoke woefully about you! I see it in your lonesome gait and twitching wings! The thought of your beloved sends a spark through your undead body! You loved him, didn't you?” I seethed through clenched teeth as I fought the urge to shiver. “You loved him, and you didn't think you were capable of such change and intimacy and feeling! You didn't send him away to protect the song! If nothing else, you only risked exposing yourself by sending him to the mortal realm! I think the real reason you sent him away was because you fear change as much as I desire it! You've been afraid of that your whole life, that your whole legacy of protecting your mother's damnable Nocturne is a lie!”

        “But it is a lie,” she said coolly. “A necessary lie. My beloved could not understand this, and my song wasn't enough to silence his desire to expose me. So I sent him to where the combined music of my sisters could do what I was incapable of doing.”

        “But they couldn't, Aria,” I said. “Not forever! Discord broke free! In fact, the only reason the song ever banished him to stone and protected your secret was because he allowed himself to—” I stopped in mid-speech. My eyes widened and a deep breath escaped me. “It was me...” I fell back on my haunches, clutching the Nightbringer tightly. “I... sent him away in the end,” I stammered. I felt a deep pit forming in my stomach. “I changed him, and he exposed himself to the Elements of Harmony. I made Discord remember you, and then his own hopelessness put him in permanent stasis.”

        Her nostrils flared as she stared down at me. “Now do you understand why it is that I am astounded by your loyalty to the song?”

        I gnashed my teeth. I ran a hoof over my face and whimpered, “You... you used m-me, didn't you?”

        “To master you as you are now, I would have to be capable of feeling, lost one,” she said. “Until you become one of my choir, I cannot pretend to be in charge of you. It was your desire to save the stability of the universe that allowed you to survive my beloved. It was your wish to preserve my younger sister's place in the song that made you expose her to just the Requiem alone. Now, you believe it is your desire for freedom that brings you here. It is my duty to tell you that you have only earned peace. A pony who has made it to my inner sanctum by her own will deserves no less.”

        Sniffling, I glanced up at her. My lips quivered as I said,“How many have made it to your throneroom here before me?”

        “None.”

        My heart sank. A painful wince flashed through my features. “In so many eons... in so many thousands upon thousands of years... I am the only one to have mastered the Nocturne and arrived here?”

        “All others exposed to my song have found rest in chains, the necessary fetters of forgetfulness.” The spheres around us rotated, and beams of ethereal light bled through the rune-laced hole, projecting floating images of constellations and stars and solar systems. “Throughout the cosmos, as my mother spreads the song of creation, countless Equestrian civilizations have sprouted up, and each of them continuously donate me the souls of those who are lost, those who cannot find their way home, those who cannot afford joy or hope or companionship. When they give into despair, when they are exposed to the Nocturne through the osmotic wounds in their heart, they come to my domain, and any permanent memory of them in the mortal realm is erased, as it should be.”

        “And... you keep track of th-them?”

        “Each and every one,” she said solemnly, her hoof waving across the projections as they flickered to show countless pony faces, all melancholic or deadpan. “Exiled youths, estranged lovers, lethargic victims of war, famine, or cruelty. The pain of existence stretches them to the breaking point. Pits form in their souls, crevices that are deeper and darker than the abyss between Firmaments. That is the deep layer through which the Nocturne lingers. The symphony speaks to them, and many of them answer the call of my mother's song. They become my kindred spirits, and I give them the solace that they could not achieve in life.”

        “Did you ever once think of helping them achieve contentment on their own?” I asked, stuck between a frown and a grimace. “Did you ever think that maybe you were robbing them of something by bringing them here?”

        “Lost one, by coming here they established that they had nothing left to be robbed of.”

        She gazed at me sideways as she waved her hoof, producing a planetoid with a sun and moon. The projection flew into the middle of a continent and focused on a very familiar village with a very familiar town hall in the center.

        “Even your own home, for all of its warmth and prosperity, is no stranger to donating souls to my choir.”

        Several strange faces flickered before us.

        “A rambunctious white pegasus. An elegant unicorn's husband. A farm mare's infant foal. A master teleporter.”

        She pulled her hoof back, and the images stretched out to show a vast array of equine shapes, all frozen in sorrowful expressions.

        “All of them once lived happy and industrious lives, until they became cognizant of the unsung realm, and of the essence of loss that my mother tried ages ago to bury. Consequently, they had to be buried themselves. When the time came, they did not have the desire to fight that which was not only natural, but blissful, and all shreds of evidence to suggest that they had ever walked the earth were eliminated from their planes of origin.”

        “Dear goddess...” I murmured, gazing up at her with moistening eyes. “All this time, I-I thought I was the only one in town...” I felt my heart beating with each horrific bit of contemplation: each day that I walked the lengths of town, there were ghosts trotting the same streets as me, living and breathing the same air as me, and the fact that we simply forgot such meetings—like ships barely missing each other in the fog—made me sick to the stomach. “Aria, how... h-how many lost souls are there besides mine?”

“There is no number.”

        I shuddered. I squatted down on my stomach and gazed numbly into the floor. There was no stopping my trembles at this point. “If I-I had known... if I had any idea... I w-would have tr-tried saving them as well...” I clenched my eyes shut and stifled a sob. “Alabaster, it's too much. It's all t-too much...”

        “It was never your place to save them,” she said. “It was never your place to save yourself. All lost ones arrive here in the realm, some sooner than others. The fact that you are the only one to show up with such self-awareness is of no consequence. Sooner than later, you will join the choir.”

        I let a few more tears squeeze out of my eyes before taking a huge breath, standing up on shaking legs, and frowning up at her. “I will do no such thing...”

        Her retort was a cold, mechanical thing. “I am as powerless as you are to change this.”

        “No, you are only one song,” I said, snarling. I telekinetically raised the Nightbringer. “But I am several!”

        She glanced once at the holy instrument, then looked unemotionally at me. “There is nothing you or I can—”

        “Some songs, I have discovered!” I continued to shout. I no longer feared the violet glow of her eyes; I no longer feared anything. “But most, I have written! The most beautiful and eloquent song is the melody of my life! Other ponies have felt it, whether they knew it or not! Unlike your mother's song, I filled them with hope! I distilled joy and meaning into their lives! I filled the void in ponies' souls that the Nocturne eagerly pilfers from! You're damn right I'm willing to change! The quest for truth doesn't happen through sheer repetition alone! You have to suffer in order to understand what true bliss is, in order to learn how to learn in the first place! I'm sorry that your mother could never understand that, Aria. I'm sorry that in her selfishness and simple-mindedness, the Creator of all things banished you to this heartless place! But it is not for me! And if you're not willing to climb your pitiful way out, then that's fine! Just don't stand in my way!”

        “Lost one, you do not understand the consequences of that which you seek—”

        “Play the duet with me!” I shouted, raising the Nightbringer even higher so that it caught the light coming from the runes surrounding us. A golden glitter bathed the throne room in a warm kaleidoscope, like a sunrise in the heart of darkness. “You know what this is, and you know your place! Answer your mother's and sister's song!”

        She simply stared at me.

        Seething, I boldly strummed the onyx strings with my magic, producing the first few notes of “Desolation's Duet.” Once more, I hissed, “Play it with me. Let us sing the song together. Then, if you so wish, you can become nothing. As for me, I must see the dawn at the end of the Nocturne.”

        She stared at me, still as a statue, her wing-stalks framing her like a horrific emblem.

        I stared back, keeping my shivers to a minimum. I remained silent; I was not about to plead.

        Eventually, the goddess moved. Her horn glowed, and from every wall of the throne room, pieces of the runes lifted off and coalesced in the air before her. I watched as a metallic flute instrument formed in her telekinetic grip. She locked her eyes with me. She was waiting.

        My heart leapt ahead of me. I followed it through my leylines, and the strings of the Nightbringer resonated as if on their own. I broke into the central melody, and soon I was not alone. Princess Aria lived up to her nameless name, turning the song into something beautiful with her immaculate flute. The lulling rhythm was as haunting as it was divine, like an ancient lullaby meant to usher a deceased foal into a realm beyond death.

        I thought of Alabaster and Luna discovering this melody, dredging it from the black depths of the primordial cold. I thought of Octavia, Melodia, J.R. Bard, and Vinyl Scratch: none of them could have had the capacity to imagine how beautiful the actual duet would be in the company of time's forgotten Princess, or where the tune would take me. The lights beyond the spherical throne room swam through warm yellows and golds, matching the brilliance of the Nightbringer as it was accompanied by the silver shine of the flute in Aria's possession.

        I heard voices beyond the domain; the rattling of chains ceased for the first time in eternity as moans turned into euphoric exultation. The unsung realm was having its first ever intermission, and I was in the spotlight, sharing the glory with the living embodiment of all that was forsaken. I thought of all of the ponies' lives that I had touched like this, just wishing to be harmonic, just desiring to spread the joy and rhythm of life. If I couldn't reach the lost souls of the unsung realm, I knew I could live with it. I had a future to earn, a second chance at existing. I could deal with loss, I could meditate upon failure, and I could serve to help others deal with such frailties as well.

        I thought that I would be terrified at sharing the same room with Aria. I thought that her immense power and divinity would intimidate me. But as the Duet played through, and the alicorn endeavored to match the melody that I was leading, it occurred to me that not even a goddess could shake my countenance.

        A truth had come to me, an epiphany that I had been discovering my entire life: that the will to do good was older than the holy songs themselves. Maybe this was what the singular consciousness desired when it broke into the many, but fate would have it that the Matriarch blinded herself to such lessons worth learning. Perhaps, then, it was my goal to bring that lesson to the world. If that was the one thing about me that could be remembered, then maybe it was worth all these months of lonesome hell.

        So engrossed was I in the moment, that when it ended, I was the only one still playing. I opened my eyes, blinking the tears away, and gazed towards Aria.

        The flute had already dissolved. In a reverent bow, she shuffled sideways. Behind her, a series of glowing violet lines solidified in the shape of a pedestal. At the very top of this, an unfurled scroll rested, bearing an ancient music sheet.

        “Is...” I leaned my head forward, sweating profusely from the sight of the elusive song. “Is that...?”

        “The final elegy of the Nocturne awaits,” Aria said. “You bear the Nightbringer, lost one. You have earned it.”

        I gulped. On numb hooves, I trotted briskly over to the pedestal. My eyes darted over the bars, reveling in the notes, twitching upon sight of the final chord at the end of the sheet. “Dawn's Advent” was long. It was epic. It was melancholic and triumphant all at once. My soul rose and fell with invisible crests through my feeble mind as I simply imagined it.

        “Go and see the dawn.”  The Princess spoke in a calm, almost whispery voice from behind me. “However, the dawn cannot see you.”

        I swallowed a lump down my throat as I rested my forelimbs on the edges of the pedestal. The notes began blurring as tears found their way into my eyes. “What happens next?” I asked, trembling. “What awaits me once I have played 'Dawn's Advent?'”

        “You will enter the realm of the living,” she said. “You will be outside the reach of the Nocturne, and you will no longer be subject to my power.”

        “Yes...” With quivering lips, I turned and looked back at her. “But at least you know what will happen once I am there, don't you? Please. T-tell me...”

        She stared at me solidly. “Nopony who has knowledge of me and the unsung realm can enter my mother's domain and retain that knowledge. The Matriarch's power and omnipotence dominates the mortal plane. It is because of her power, and not mine, that things become lost and forgotten. You are the first and only mortal pony to have performed the entire Nocturne in full. To that end, once you have performed ‘Dawn's Advent,’ you will no longer be the same soul that brought herself to such a place to begin with.”

        “You mean...” I paused, my eyes trailing the shadows of the place. With a shudder, my gaze found its way to her glowing eyes once more. “You mean that all of my memories—?”

        “To no longer be a lost one, you must lose that which flung you into the abyss to begin with. There are two types of mortals in my mother's universe: those who know, but are forgotten, and those who know not, but stand to forget. This is the result of the dichotomy that was born with me. The universe cannot afford to share both, or else the Matriarch would collapse from the forbidden revelation, and all of reality along with it.”

        I turned and looked once more at the music sheet. “I... I don't want to destroy all of reality...”

        “Once you enter the realm in which you were born, it will no longer be a matter of choice,” Aria said. “The dominance of the Matriarch's song will rob that power from you, but at least you will be permanent; you will be remembered.” At last, her hooves shuffled as she pivoted to face me more evenly. “As you can see, my little pony, freedom comes at a price, as does peace of mind.”

        My eyes fell to the cold, metallic floor of the throneroom. “Either live forever forgotten, with only myself to remember all that I've learned...” I gulped. “Or lose all that I have gained, and enjoy the bliss of warmth and companionship...”

        “As long as you possess the song”—she pointed at the Nightbringer—“and have access to 'Dawn's Advent,' it is not within my power to stop you, nor is it my place to make the decision for you. What you have now is choice: the power to change or unchange everything about yourself. It is not something that goddesses can relish; I doubt they ever will.”

        I gave her a sharp glance, and for once it was something of pity. I swiftly broke out of that stupor with a murmuring voice, “I only wonder if I have the capacity to become what I am again...” I felt a cold chill running through me. I clenched my eyes shut as I thought of Twilight, Moondancer, Morning Dew, Snips, Nebulous, and dozens more. “If I do this, if I free myself at the cost of all I've learned—about the Matriarch and about myself—what chance have I to grow into what I've become? Will I change from what I once was? Or will I remain a shallow, aloof, and blissfully ignorant unicorn?”

        She didn't answer; she had no answer.

        I sighed and ran a hoof through my mane. “There... th-there has to be another way.” I gulped. “There has to be!” I looked back at her. “I promise I won't tell a single soul about the unsung realm! About you! About the Matriarch!”

        “That is simply not possible...”

        “At least take away only my memories of you and this place and your beloved and—”

        “It is within my power to take away any memories you desire,” she said. Her hoof pointed at the music sheet. “But once you play that tune and embrace the dawn, you are beyond my reach. As I said before, nopony has made it to where you have. It's quite possible that even I would forget you.” Her violet eyes narrowed. “The Matriarch's power is that encompassing, and she affords no exceptions to the divine rule that forged this place. If that was not the case, would so many lost souls still be here, making up my choir?”

        “Then...” I glanced at the pedestal, muttering in a low tone, “Then it's quite possible that ponies have made it this far, and you just don't remember them.” I bit my lip before stammering forth, “What kind of an existence do we live in, that so many glorious and wholesome victories stand to be forgotten on the very crest of triumph? How many souls trot the landscapes of the universe, having gained so much, only to lose it all in a desperate move to preserve the idea of the self?”

        “It is not my place to know,” she said. “I only have the capacity to see that which chooses to be lost.”

        I looked at her, and I felt the muscles in my muzzle tensing. “I do not choose loss.”

        She bowed her horn ever so slightly. “Then perhaps you already know what you must do.”

        I gazed at the sheet. I was shivering so much that the notes were wavering out of place. I was just a few chords away from freedom, from warmth, from seeing my Mom and Dad, from hearing Twilight shout my name with a smile, from having Moondancer hug me, from being able to go home and sleep in a bed that belonged to me.

        “It's too much to throw away,” I said. I felt a haunting chill, as if the words spoken weren't mine, but instead those uttered by countless shadows that may or may not have been occupying this same space as me, that may or may not have performed the same Duet as I had, that may or may not have been making the exact same choice that I was about to make. “I've come so far. It's worth the risk,” I murmured, feeling a tear trickle down my cheek. “Who's to know that I won't rediscover myself again, that I won't make the same discoveries and epiphanies, that I won't grow into a mare who's truly wholesome and altruistic?”

        Aria was silent.

        I sniffled, took a deep breath, and held the Nightbringer in front of me. “I've done enough thinking, enough philosophizing, enough talking and incessant rambling. I owe it to myself, I owe it to Alabaster, and I owe it to my loved ones to do this, so that I may have all those loved ones again.” I smiled, if only briefly, and positioned my hooves to pluck the first strings that matched the notes on the music sheet. “I'm ready to greet the dawn.”

        The alicorn still said nothing, which was what ultimately alarmed me, making me turn around and glance at her.

        I squinted. Aria was staring at me, waiting, patient and still as a stone. All this time, I felt that I had done enough to shun her, to defy her, and yet she was putting up no resistance? Wasn't what I was about to do an insult to her essence, a slap in the face of all she stood for?

        I glanced at the chords of “Dawn's Advent.” I looked at the final chord, how lonesomely it hung towards the end of the sheet, like a dagger to the throat. With a scrape of my hooves, I turned and frowned at Aria.

        “What aren’t you telling me?”

        “The final elegy is yours,” she said in a dull drone. “Perform it.”

        “You're hiding something from me!” I snapped at her, snarling. “What is it?”

        “All that deserves to be hidden remains here in my realm,” she remarked, taciturn. “You do not desire to be here. Please, go—”

        “You just confirmed that everything I've learned will be undone!” I stood before her, leaning up and shouting, “You said that because of the Matriarch's power, all of my memories will dissolve into nothingness!”

        “If that is your choice, then it is yours to make—”

        “But what is freedom?!” My brow was furrowed, stained with sweat as I realized the enormity of it all just as I was speaking it. “What is peace of mind?! What is the cost of it all?! Discord knew it! Do you?”

        “Lost one—”

        “What will happen to all the ponies whose lives I have touched?!” I finally shrieked. “What will become of all the things I have done in Ponyville?!”

        She gazed at me, emotionless as ever. When she spoke, it sounded like a eulogy was being read. “The Matriarch's power does not extend over memories alone. She is the creator of all things, the distributor of the holy song that governs all reality. Both time and space bow to her will.” Her violet eyes glowed brighter as she said, “When you finish the Nocturne, when you enter the realm of the living, it will be as though you were never cursed to begin with. History itself must bend to prevent any knowledge of my existence from entering the universe, and the only way for that to happen is for you to not have been exposed to the Nocturne in the first place.”

        “Not have been exposed...?” I leaned back from her, nearly breathless.  I blinked, the coldness returning to my limbs like my first lonely night in Ponyville. “I-I will never have met Nightmare Moon. I will never have built my cabin. I will never have talked to Twilight about the spells...”

        She stared at me, watching silently as the knowledge imparted took root in my consciousness.

        I fell back on my haunches, breathing sharper and sharper as my eyes twitched from the pounding waves of understanding. “I will... n-never have heard the elegies in my head. I will never have built that cellar, or experimented with the Nocturne, or bought sound stones.” I gulped and squinted into the shadows. “I will never have talked to Rarity about her career, or bought the flute for Derpy's foal, or talked Caramel into staying with Wind Whistler.” My teeth chattered and my ears drooped over my head. “I would never have saved Scootaloo from dying in the wilderness.” I bit my lip before breathily producing, “Morning Dew and Rumble... Snips and Windsong... the Mayor and Scarlet Breeze...”

        Just then, a shriek exploded out of my lips like a gunshot. I fell back, gripping my mouth with a pair of hooves as my eyes widened like twitching saucers.

        “Mmmm...!” I panted, shuddered, and whimpered forth, “D-Discord!” I shook all over. “Oh sweet Celestia...”

        I hugged myself. I clenched my teeth and hissed loudly. The tears undammed, I turned and tried looking up at her. A violet shadow loomed beyond reach of my hiccuping sobs.

        “If... if I-I'm never c-cursed to begin with, wh-what happens to D-Discord...?”

        Aria's head bowed. Very slowly, she uttered, “Fueled by his rage over being banished, without any lost soul to remind him of the reasons for his exile, the wrath of my beloved will outweigh his sorrow. He will never allow himself to be overcome by the songs of the mortal realm. He will wreak destruction and misery wherever he goes; not even my sisters can hold him back. His reign would not last forever, but undoubtedly for many eons. He would shape several worlds in his image until time itself makes him lethargic once more, and he gives in to the ennui that brought him there to begin with.”

        I clenched my eyes shut halfway through hearing this. I felt like I was frozen solid.  I reached for the sleeves of a hoodie that wasn't there, so I tore at my coat and mane instead.

        “How...” I hyperventilated; I heaved. “H-how could you let me go... how c-could you let me free myself, knowing what it would undo, knowing that it would bring an end to so many good ponies' lives whom I have touched? How could you willfully accept your b-beloved going on an endless rampage of chaos and d-destruction?!”

        “What I do for the sake of the universe, I do here... by remaining here,” Aria said. “My beloved's wrath is enormously powerful, but even it doesn't compare to the sheer annihilation of all reality that would occur if the truth of my existence was presented to the Cosmic Matriarch.” Her eyes closed gently, but it was too late for her to woo me with a meager shadow of an emotion. “What happens to the mortal souls on the other side of the Firmaments is of no concern to me, so long as the Firmaments remain in place for them to hold onto, alive or not.”

        I hugged myself, rocking in place as I felt the throne room collapsing around me. “I can't... I-I can't...”

        “It is as I said when you first arrived here, lost one,” Aria softly said. “You still stand to experience bliss, to know peace, so long as you forsake the Dawn and become a member of my choir.” With a strong breath, she uttered, “Sing my song and become nothing. All will be as it must be.”

        By that point, I was inconsolable. I shook so hard that I couldn't hold the Nightbringer anymore. So I didn't bother. With a sharp inhale, I threw my forelimbs forward, flinging the holy instrument against the floor. The unbreakable strings clattered with all sorts of dissonant chords, but that wasn't the end of my instrumental. I followed it with a massive bellowing noise, tilting my skull towards the zenith of the unsung realm and screaming for as long as my lungs could carry such torment. I yelled and howled like I had never shouted before, writhing my hooves into the air before pounding them into the metal floor where I collapsed, lost between moaning sobs and gut-ripping hyperventilation. Simply lost...

        All the while, Aria stood unmoving. Not even a single bone stalk of her wings twitched from my undulating cries. I may just as well have been shouting into the abyss instead of a goddess incarnate.

        My mind had been rendered a labyrinth, and every turn of the maze revealed darker and darker shadows. Not even my tears could clear the grime of hopelessness away. Several minutes had passed, during which I had curled into a fetal position, sobbing pitifully in the middle of the floor. When my eyes finally opened, the first thing I saw was an ancient bed of threadbare feathers.

        I imagined what it must have been like to first awake there, in the pit of all nothingness, with nothing to rely on but one's own will and resilience. It occurred to me that Aria was always alone, and yet she was never alone. We were all born there, in the cradle of darkness, every one of us, and there comes a point when we must return, when the rules of the universe buckle against our will, and all that's left is the duty, the melody in our heads, the song that needs to be sung.

        “Though the consequences either way are negligible, the choice is still yours,” Aria said. It felt like it had been hours since she last spoke. I heard her skeletal limbs pacing around me as she walked the circumference of the throne room. “So long as you are lost, I can give you peace. However, once you have performed 'Dawn's Advent,' you will be free, but that freedom will have a price. The price may matter to you, but so long as the universe's structure is at stake, it is not my place to deny you that freedom, regardless of what my beloved may or may not do as a consequence of it.”

        “I... I c-can't decide,” I whimpered, sniffling. “I can't even th-think...” I looked up at her, my mane disheveled and my face a mess. “Please. I... I need t-time. I'm mortal, and mortals need t-time...” I hid my face in my hooves once more. “Mmmmff... oh goddess... oh goddess please...”

        “I am the consumer of memories.  There are very few things that I can give,” she murmured. “Time is one of them, though I doubt it will be of much use to you, lost one. The song has consumed enough of your mind and spirit; the mortal realm should be alien to you at this point. Surely you've noticed this. Luna wasn't the only one who required 'Twilight's Requiem' to reach me.”

        I panted evenly, drying my face as I reached out and clutched the Nightbringer like a crutch. I stammered, “How long... d-do I have left to live beyond the Firmaments?”

        “It is not a question of the length you have left to live,” Aria explained. “But, rather, the extent to which you have to remember. Life, after all, is the sum of one's memories, and you have very few to choose from now, even fewer if I let you return to stay in the mortal realm for much longer.” She turned towards the pedestal, and a violet glow encompassed the parchment upon which “Dawn's Advent” was inscribed. “You've brought the piece of my mother's song, lost one. You've performed 'Desolation's Duet.' The final elegy awaits you and you alone.” She looked emotionlessly down at me. “All you need to do is play the Nocturne through, from the first elegy to the penultimate instrumental, and you will return here to my presence. If you still have the soundness of mind then to make a decision, I will accept your choice either way.”

        I nodded, bowing my head as I hugged the Nightbringer under a fresh quiver of sobs. “For wh-what it's worth, Princess, I th-thank you...”

        She leaned down until she was staring me in the face. “We both know what it is worth.” And then her eyes strobed with violet energy...

        And I was back.

        When the first flake of snow fell onto the grass outside my cabin, I was waiting for it. I don't know how many hours, days, weeks I spent there, staring out the window, watching the world turn gray as winter descended upon the lengths of Ponyville. Those moments had no substance to them, and without substance, there was no need for memories.

        I vaguely recall a schedule of sorts. Everything revolved around feeding Al, filling his dishes twice a day, and lingering beneath the shadows in between. I may or may not have fed myself.

        I do remember lying in my cot, staring at the beams of my self-built cabin, counting the seconds limping by until I forgot that I had started counting to begin with. The only way I had to truly measure time was from the increasing frequency with which Al padded up to curl by my side. I petted him on each occasion, feeling his purs, his ticklish whiskers. He nuzzled me back, but I wouldn't budge. The fireplace remained unlit. The only warmth was from Al's fur, or the occasional smattering of sunlight through the fogged windows.

        And then there was the snow. I gazed out as the green landscape around me turned white, like a clean slate. With a single blink, it was a year ago, and I was stumbling to learn the “Darkness Sonata.” The cabin was half-finished, and I huddled inside my tent, trembling under the dim light of a glowing horn as I scribbled obscure music notes onto a piece of parchment in my lap. Another blink, and I was trotting through Canterlot with Moondancer, laughing and celebrating the end of the semester with several other mares my age. Blinking again, I was opening a present on Hearth's Warming as my parents watched. The xylophone glinted in the bright lights of the tree. It was the first time I remember having tears of joy and not because of pain or sorrow.

        I suddenly realized that every winter was the same. The seasons repeated not because of faithful pegasi weather deliverers, but because time was mundane and needed a pattern to spice it up. Otherwise, there would be no substance. And without substance, cursed or uncursed, we ponies would have nothing worth remembering.

        I tried thinking of the souls who were most special to me. I tried thinking of Mom, Dad, Morning Dew, Moondancer, and Twilight. I pondered whether their substance would be enough for me to go on, or if it would truly be a tragedy to let the essence of who and what they were dwindle from my consciousness. For days on end, I dared myself not to play the Requiem. I allowed my mind to reach the utter depths of desolation, that dark abyss through which I could hear the Nocturne whistling to me like a sharp, windy breeze through obsidian rock crevices.

        I discovered that the only pain of remembrance was the need for remembrance. In that light, coming up to the surface of my self-awareness, Princess Aria's gift did not seem like such a horrible thing. Accepting her offer would be like returning to a natural state. After all, who would exist after all of the universe's warmth had burned out? Who would possibly hold the consciousness and wealth of knowledge to contain history's enormity of successes and failures? By then, the song will have broken into so many separate pieces that the singular source's desire for knowledge will become impossible by sheer entropy. By becoming many, that which was one doomed itself to intellectual oblivion.

        Perhaps, then, that was the truth that the one had so desired?

        I couldn't bring myself to hate the Matriarch. I couldn't bring myself to hate anyone or anything. Like Aria, everything was coming together, and it simply took the structure of everything around me falling apart. In the end, there was nothing worth feeling sad about, nothing worth celebrating nor regretting. Life was a downhill slalom, and as I gazed at the snow and its white baptism of all things alive and dying, I began to know my place in the grand descent.

        But I was not about to make my decision based on my place alone...

        I filled Al's dish up to the brim. It was a precautionary measure.  There was no telling how long I'd be gone after stepping out the door. Nevertheless, in one single breath, I grabbed my hoodie and my lyre and rushed out of the cabin and into the light.

        “All aboard! Express trip to Canterlot!” the conductor shouted as he marched down the depot's platform.

        The locomotive engine before the long and colorful train glowed in the snowy kiss of winter. Steam billowed in hot jets as ponies rushed over with their luggage and climbed inside. Among them, a colorful group of young mares filed into the middlemost car.

        “Brrr!” Applejack managed. “It's chilly enough to freeze one of Granny Smith's moles off!”

        “Way to say what we're all thinking, Captain Obvious!” Rainbow Dash snapped, shoving the farm filly inside. “Now hop to it! How can I expect to play Commander Hurricane when my feathers are frozen solid?!”

        “Oooh! Frozen Hurricanesicles!” Pinkie Pie chirped as she bounced in after the two. “That reminds me! Are we gonna stop by the pegasus district along the way to Canterlot Castle? They bake the best Hearth's Warming treats!”

        “Ungh! Heaven forbid!” Rarity exclaimed, clad in a jacket and shawl, lugging along three bulging suitcases in her telekinetic glow. “This weather is dreary enough without having to suffer it from the rooftops of Canterlot’s most elevated neighborhood! Let us simply make our way to the Castle and play our parts!”

        “Wait, Rarity,” Fluttershy remarked, pausing behind her.

        “Fluttershy, we've been over this, dear!” Rarity tugged and tugged at her suitcases, forcefully squeezing them into the train car. “Cheerilee has been kind enough to take care of your animals. You've said 'farewell' to Angel five times already. Isn't that enough? Now quickly hop aboard this infernal train before it takes off without you!”

        “No, not that.” Fluttershy gazed around, trembling. “Where's Twilight?”

        “Huh?”

        “Tarnation! She's right!” Applejack stuck her head out a window of the car. “She ain't inside here either!”

        Rainbow Dash appeared in the window next to her. “Where in the hay is she?! We can't wait forever!”

        “Oh, Twilight!” Rarity called around, looking both ways across the depot. “Yoohoo! Where have you gone off to, darling?”

        “Stop shouting, girls!” Twilight exclaimed through a hissing breath. “I'm... right here...” She struggled to drag one large saddlebag too bulging with items for her to carry on her dainty back. “Ughh... Just give me a minute!”

        “Sugarcube, we ain't got a minute! Now move yer flank!”

        “Honestly, Twilight,” Rarity spoke with an amused grin. “You're the most powerful magician this side of Equestria, and you can't lift a single saddlebag with your horn?”

        “That's just it! These are tomes of special enchantment! They can't be lifted easily by telekinesis!” Twilight exclaimed, her legs straining as she tugged harder and harder on the bags. “When I found out that I was to perform the role of Clover the Clever in the Canterlot Hearth's Warming play, I decided that it was best to play the part to my full potential! So here I have all the books on... nngh... Pre-Equestrian sorcery that I could find!”

        “Twilight, Celestia's not expecting you to perform all sorts of flashy magic on stage!” Rainbow Dash said with a roll of her ruby eyes. “Besides, if she did, I would have volunteered from the get go!”

        “You say that like this isn't gonna be fun, Dashie!” Pinkie Pie bounced in the windowframe along with her. “I can't wait to play my part! They said I can even eat the hat once the curtain falls! Eeeheehee!”

        “Ungh...” Rainbow Dash face-hoofed.

        “Uhm, Rarity?” Fluttershy spoke to her friend. “It is very cold. Can I go inside now?”

        “Oh, by all means, Fluttershy.” Rarity gave her space to crawl on board the train car. She turned and called out to Twilight. “Abandon a few of those books or ask a local workhoof to help you! Whatever it takes to get here swiftly! The train will be moving soon!” She ducked inside.

        “But... I-I need... all of these...” Twilight clenched her eyes shut and grit her teeth as she pulled and pulled on the strap. “Nnnngh—Gaaah!” She lost her grip and fell back on her haunches. Twilight sat up, seeing stars. “Ugggh... Good thing Hearth's Warming only comes once a year.”

        Just then, a dolly rolled in towards her on green-glowing wheels. With an emerald wave of magic, the hulking saddlebag inched its way up onto the cart until it rested evenly on the gliding platform.

        Twilight blinked. “Huh...” She smiled. “Now why didn't I think of that?” She accepted the hoof that was given to her and stood back up. “Thank you very much, Miss...” She looked at me and her smile faded.

        Moist eyes reflected her image as I took a deep breath and said, “Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings. But you will n-not remember me. You won't even remember th-this conversation. Just like with everypony else I've ever met, everything I d-do or say will be forgotten.” I gulped, sniffled, and spoke in a whisper, “But I am not asking you t-to remember...”

        Her mouth hung open in confusion. Steam jetted out from the train behind her, shaking her countenance. With a fitful stammer, she said, “I... I-I don't understand. Have we—?”

        “I'm not asking you to remember the afternoon we first m-met on Alabaster Street, or the days we spent running through the neighborhoods of Canterlot, or the nights we enjoyed slumber p-parties with Moondancer, playing games as Celestia, Luna, and Starswirl the Bearded.” I smiled painfully, adoring the innocence in her violet eyes—a color that had filled the niche in my life as it had filled an unknowing hole in Celestia's. For me, there would only ever be one Princess of Twilight, and I gazed at her as I said, “I do not ask you t-to remember the letters that you wrote to me from your room in the Royal Palace, or the stories you gave of all the wonderful feats of magic that you learned. I do not ask that you recall every sob or l-laugh or angry word you ever uttered in my presence, or the forelimbs that embraced you when you just needed to be heard, to be held, to be cherished.”

        I slid the cart towards her, took a few steps, and spoke in a tender whisper that only the two of us could hear.

        “I simply ask, Twilight Sparkle, if... if you are h-happy with the way things are.” I shuddered, sniffled the tears away, and spoke, “Are you happy with the nature of the world, with the function of the universe, with your life as it has come to pass?”

        She gazed at me, at this crazed and disheveled stranger who had barely eaten anything in weeks and hadn't bathed for twice as long. She stared at the bags under my eyes, the wrinkles in my coat, and the tears that were desperate to squeeze forth into the frosty air. Twilight Sparkle looked beyond all of that, and to my joy, she saw something that neither I or Aria were capable of grasping anymore, and her words set my heart on fire.

        “I... I have found a new home here in Ponyville. I have found a place to raise Spike like the sweet young dragon he was meant to be. There is a correspondence that I'm fortunate enough to maintain with Celestia on a regular basis. I am the Princess' faithful protege, and yet I'm allowed the freedom to live where I please. With her blessing, I've become not only this town's chief librarian, but its magical guardian as well. I've saved Ponyville from an ursa minor, Equestria from Nightmare Moon, and the whole world from Discord. And I...”

        Steam blew again. Several female voices shouted from a car just a few paces behind her.

        Twilight Sparkle chuckled. She ran a hoof through her beautiful mane and whispered forth, “I have friends. After such a long, lonely life, I... I have such dear friends—ponies who will stick by my side no matter what, ponies who adore me with a love that...” She choked on her words, hiding her gaze in the folds of her bulging saddlebag below her. “A l-love that only asks that I exist, that I be who I am, that I live up to my potential.” She gulped and raised her face to smile at me. Her eyes were watering. “After all the craziness, after all the silly adventures and stressful debacles, I... am happy.” Sniffling, she chuckled and smiled even wider. “I truly am. I'm the happiest I've been all my life.”

        I exhaled sharply and smiled. Two tears trickled down my face. “Then that is all that matters,” I said in a shaking voice, my lips trembling. “That is all that will ever matter.”

        She tilted her head to the side, her mouth agape in concern and curiosity all at once.

        “All aboard! Last call for Canterlot!” the conductor shouted beyond her. It was followed by the angry and skittish shrieks of several of her friends.

        “Miss Heartstrings... was it? Uhm...” she fidgeted, leaning limply on the cart as she fumbled for words. “I just don't understand. Are you... Are you going to Canterlot? Was there something you wanted to—?”

        “I can't go with you,” I said. “I must remain here.”

        “But. But s-some of the things you said. There's... there's something about you...” She winced, squinting at me. “I feel as though there's more to know...”

        “Do me a favor,” I said. I leaned forward and clasped her forelimbs with mine. “Hold onto that feeling. Make it your substance, make it the warmth of your heart, the beacon of your life. Survive on it and it alone, and you need not remember anything else.”

        The steam engine of the locomotive was chugging to life. Everything was moving away; everything was always moving away from me.

        She looked at our hooves, then up at my face. “I gotta go. I'm performing as Clover the Clever at Canterlot's Hearth's Warming pageant.”

        “I know,” I said, nodding with a soft smile. “And I'm proud of you, Twilight.” I brushed hooves with her one last time, and gently let her go. “Make it a good show.”

        “One that's worth remembering,” she said, trotting away with the dolly in tow. She mounted the train and heaved the bag of books on board. She was so encumbered with this task that I doubt she took notice of a tiny golden lyre that had been slipped inside her saddlebag. By the time I could no longer register the heavy beats of my heart, she was flashing me one last smile. “We should talk when I get back! Will you be staying in Ponyville for a while, Miss Heartstrings?”

        I waved back. In a ghostly voice, I nodded and said, “I'll be here.”

        The train was already moving. Her happy face faded in the gray snowfall as it carried her away, as it carried Moondancer away, as the threads of life took everything away but my breath, receding vaporously into the cold miasma like yesterday's clouds. I sat there on the station's platform, enshrouded in shivers, trying to comprehend a life spent on the horizon of crumbled dreams, realizing that I had lived the only portion of my existence that mattered there.

        When I next blinked, I was leagues away, trotting along the edge of town. I looked around me. Snow had fallen over every rooftop in Ponyville. Winter had captured a frozen snapshot of the town, an image, a memory that should have been melting, and yet lingered in pristine glory before me. There was nopony in the streets, nopony but me. It was far too cold to live outside, and so I did, lurching forward as though invisible fetters were chained to my every limb. I didn't look behind me, because I knew without glancing that my hoofprints would only disappear, that the snapshot would only be perfect so long as I didn't mar it, so long as I didn't expect myself to.

        Smoke rose from every chimney. The smell of burnt logs and crackling fireplaces lit my nose. Every soul with the right to live was escaping the cold, defiant against the frigid extremities of the universe that sought to drown them. They had loved ones; they had legacies to fulfill and memories to make.

        I had myself.

I trudged past Town Hall, past the ghostly echoes of a wedding reception and a mad pony's ramblings. I shuffled past Sugarcube Corner, parting the waves of several mares giggling and two friends splitting up under indignant shouts. I saw the Carousel Boutique off in the blurry distance, and my eyelashes shook loose a dozen beautiful dresses while my ears rang with a chaotician's mournful testimony. For several minutes, I paused in the middle of the frost-covered town. Several bonfires were lit here. A drunken stallion was beaten here. Scootaloo was rescued and Granite Shuffle played chess and a tiny orange tabby found its way home between these buildings.

        There, in the center of the town, where it was warmest, an alicorn valkyrie of the night had once landed and bestowed upon a trembling unicorn her gift. It wasn't until right then that I received it.

        I marched away from the last shred of warmth. I trotted past the buildings, past the smoldering chimneys, into the park where I scaled a series of hilltops overlooking Ponyville. I heard my father's breath in the whistling wind, and I imagined him painting a picture as gorgeous as this. I wondered if he would spend the rest of his years painting snapshots of the world, forever missing the beauty he had once had, no longer able to fill that hole that sat snugly within frame: a hole shaped like me.

        And then, as swiftly as I thought that, I realized that he would never find something that would replace me; he would only find something better. It was his life now, as my mother had her own life, as Twilight and Moondancer had lives to live, as did Morning Dew and Ambrosia. I had done my part, invisibly or not, and the substance of existence—the memories that were worth making—were now up to them.

        A single pony can touch so many lives, but it is up to those lives to touch so many more.

        And what was my life? I sat down on the hilltop and absorbed myself in it, for I had discovered it. It was not in the past, nor was it in the future. It was frozen in time, encased in frost, its contours outlined by the powdery lengths of snow coming into shape before me. Everything froze, as everything had always been frozen, and I discovered my purpose, my existence.

        It was a moment, that moment, that speck of frost hovering above me, that golden ray of light locked within the grip of several leafless branches. Everything was now, my thoughts, my breath, my will to cry and my will not to cry. I chose both, and tears came out anyway, and they felt like something I faintly remembered: a little foal grasping her xylophone on the morning of another Hearth's Warming several blinks before then. And my tears fell because I realized that the memory was artificial, a shadow of something long gone, as all memories of all things are temporary and weathered, turning stale with time like bread, losing their flavor and tricking ponies into thinking that they can relive that which is dull and dead, when in fact we should all be grasping what I grasped, the moment, the one real piece of time that we only have once and will forever mourn once it's passed.

        I chose not to mourn. I chose not to regret. I cried instead with joy, a joy that had no words, a joy that only comes to a pony who's realized she's slept through a pitiful dream all her life, and can now finally awake to her own righteousness. And I was righteous. I was so very righteous. With numb forelimbs, I fumbled with my hoodie until I peeled the damn thing off and exposed myself to that righteousness. I flung the stone-gray article off the hilltop. It landed somewhere beyond view, buried in snow, buried in oblivion. Aria slept in her grave, but I was prepared to dance upon mine. I spread my limbs and reveled in the cold that so long had been a curse to me. Exaltation required no memory, no pretense, no craving for hope beyond the shadows of one's sight. But it did take courage, for a life lived in the absence of recollection is the bravest life of all; it's the mark of a pony who knows that she has never even bothered with living until that very moment found her.

        I knew who I was, not what I once was, nor what I would ever be. What I knew, what I felt, and what I had—that moment—was something that the Matriarch's Nocturne could never take away, no matter how omnipotent or powerful. That moment was mine, and it would forever be the substance of my soul. Everything afterward would simply be a shadow, and I was more than willing to trot into endless night. Darkness itself was just a reminder of what I could never lose.

        The final chords of the “Threnody of Night” played. A metal platform of the unsung realm materialized around me. I inhaled the air of the undead, opening my eyes to the lightning flashes and tempests beyond.

        In the center and above me, Aria's throneroom hovered. It did not soar away, nor did it launch electricity towards my figure. As a matter of fact, it began a slow descent, and already I could sense the violet form of the Princess of Twilight taking flight to meet me.

        I exhaled, hugging the Nightbringer to my naked chest. As I waited, I heard a woeful moan to my left, followed by the rattling of chains. I looked over lethargically.

        A shackled pony was crawling out of a rusted hole. Animated by some animalistic instinct, she lurched towards me. Heavy cuffs covered the ends of her hooves, and a metal plate was wrapped around her eyes and muzzle, muffling her panting breaths. I could see the flutter of a few threadbare feathers; she must have been a pegasus when she was alive, when she wasn't lost, when she flew through the warm air of an unknown world countless eons ago.

        Without thinking, I turned and trotted lightly towards her.

        Instantly, she flung herself at me, only to be held back by her chains pulling taut. She jerked on the length of them, ultimately falling down onto the platform and clawing ineffectually towards my body.

        I knelt down in front of her, quiet as a falling leaf. I gazed intently at the pony, reaching a hoof towards her. As soon as my breaths mingled with the air about us, she twitched and flung her head up with a loud wail. The siren sound ended abruptly, and she fell limp, wheezing for breath. Perhaps it was confusion, perhaps it was some form of sentient thought, but she allowed me to bring my hoof closer. I made contact with her coat; it was colder than ice. My hoof brushed along a slender mildew stain across her face, where centuries of tears had repetitively run their course, and upon my gentle touch they repeated that streak. A muffled sound came from deep beneath the metal plate, it was too full of sobs to be a word.

        Effortlessly, I leaned forward and swept the freezing soul into a hug. I felt her hooves trembling in my forelimbs, like a pariah in Ponyville had shivered for so long, led forward by hope, fed by the tender morsels of bittersweet dreams between the frigid vapors of reality. She didn't fight me; she didn't try to drag me into the depths of that abyss. She simply surrendered into my embrace, breathing evenly, a different kind a sobbing, a mournful breath that she could share without having to sing.

        I stroked her icy back in gentle circles, warming her for as long as I could afford to. I was so engrossed in this that I didn't notice Aria's hoofsteps until I heard them scraping around me.

        “She was a soldier on her world,” the undead alicorn said. “The only member of her unit to survive a terrible onslaught. She looked at all of her dear companions dead and dying around her, and she gave in to despair. Somewhere in that bleak moment, the Nocturne found her. She listened until she felt like singing, and it brought her here.” Aria knelt down beside us. “Most likely, her army had no surviving records of her ever being drafted. At the same time, her parents didn’t have to mourn the death of a child they never foaled.”

        I nuzzled her one last time before laying her gently on the platform below me. “Does she ever dream?” I asked.

        “Parts of her still do,” Aria said softly. “Which is why I suspect she hasn't murdered you for your warmth. But, when the chorus repeats itself, she loses more and more shreds of her past. Soon, the memory will be gone, as will the substance of herself.”

        “That's something we depend too much on.”

        “The music?”

        “Memories,” I said, looking up at Aria as I held the Nightbringer in one hoof. With the other forelimb, I gently stroked the slumbering body of the shackled pony between us. “Did you love your mother because you chose to? Or was it something in the song that defined your life?”

        “I would be lying if I called this a 'life,'” Aria remarked. “That said, it is still the closest thing to it, and I owe that to my mother, even if she did abandon me.”

        I shook my head, exhaling. “Why are only the most precious lives the ones that are abandoned?”

        “I don't intend to find out,” she said. She reached a bony hoof out and gently stroked the opposite shoulder of the pony beneath us. “I shall never abandon the lost ones that come here.”

        “Princess Aria,” I murmured. She looked my way as I gazed off towards the tempests, fighting the words before they dripped out of me, “What you do here, what you commit yourself to, it is a very tragic thing.” I gulped. “But... but the way you put your heart and mind to it, the way you do that which you know it is your place to do...” A shuddering breath coursed through me. I forced myself to look up at her. “There is a certain righteousness to it, I think.”

        She nodded with a deadpan face. “And what do you feel, lost one?”

        “Not envy,” I said.

        She took a few moments to contemplate that. If she formulated a response, I would never know. I watched as she stood up tall, her bony wings extending. “Have you decided, my little pony?” Her violet eyes narrowed. “Do you choose to perform ‘Dawn's Advent’ and enter the world of the living, or do you choose to join me and my choir in infinite bliss?”

        I stared at her and boldly said, “I choose neither.”

        For once, the goddess of the unsung realm blinked.

        With a shuddering breath, I felt the metal contours of the Nightbringer for one last time before handing it over to her. “I relinquish the piece of the matriarch's song to you, the one integral key for anypony to pursue the 'Nocturne of the Firmaments' and enter this realm.”

        She glanced down at my offering, but did nothing. I almost admired her restraint. She spoke, “And what of you, lost one?”

        “I will go back to Ponyville,” I declared. “I will exist there as I always have.”

        “But you will still be forgotten,” Aria said, her eyes narrowing. “What's more, the curse will consume your mind, your memories, and your aspirations as you live out your years in the shadow of the opportunity I am now granting you.”

        “But I will live,” I said. I stretched the Nightbringer further out in my grasp for her to take. “I will be myself, not the unlearned soul that I once was, and most certainly not a blissfully ignorant puppet to your thankless task of preserving your mother's song.” I looked down to where I lovingly stroked the shackled pony's coat. “Discord will remain imprisoned, and Equestria will suffer neither chaos nor the collapse of reality. Everything will be as it should be.” I gulped and said, “For th-this is my righteous task.”

        Not even the thunder of the tempests could break the silence that followed. Eventually, Aria bowed and took the Nightbringer from me. My hoof hung limply in the absence of it.

        “Very well,” she remarked. “But so long as you stay as you are in the mortal realm, you still pose a risk to my mother's will, to the structure of reality that the song maintains—”

        “I know,” I said, inhaling sharply. My eyes settled on the pegasus as I played gently with her pale ears. “And I also know that it won't be enough for you to take away my memories of this place, of what I’ve learned. I'm an ambitious soul, just like your beloved, and I will do whatever it takes to seek out the truth, as is the path of all things that live. If you're to grant me this request, Princess, if you're to give me the freedom that I desire, you must take something else from me.”

        “And what is that, lost one?”

        I swallowed hard. A tear streaked down my cheek as I gazed up at her. “I need you to t-take away my love of music.”

        She gazed at me, her glowing eyes round with comprehension. She said, “Never before have I been given a request like this, and I suspect that I will never experience such a thing again.”

        Sniffling, I leaned forward and whispered, “Live in the moment. In a universe where everything else is taken, we can at least afford that.”

        “Agreed.” Aria tilted her head down, her horn glowing vibrantly towards my brow. My body twitched upon the end of all good things as she said, “You would have made a fine addition to the chorus here, a beauty that will not be forgotten in this realm.”

        “It's okay,” I wheezed forth. I laughed and sobbed at once, exhaling my final song through a fractured smile. “I have a lousy singing voice anyways.”

        Princess Aria's horn flashed, and the snow melted. I sat on the hilltop, gasping. A painting of Ponyville hovered in the wind beside me. I glanced into it, and Cheerilee's classroom laughed as I stood before a blackboard full of faded gibberish. I stammered incoherently, glancing down at my cutie mark. A golden blob melted into haze, like Morning Dew's fine coat as he raised a matching tulip before me. I tried to speak, but my voice was dissonant and off-key, and I was at a loss to understand why that was a bad thing. Scootaloo fell into my forelimbs without warning. I crawled us through the silent forest, and a cabin disassembled log by log before me. Caramel and Wind Whistler nuzzled by the bonfire, and some mad pony was shouting. I looked up, and a midnight alicorn flew high into the starlight. A black mark lit the moon, glinting through the window as I scooted my tiny self up to the Hearth's Warming Tree. I opened the gift while my parents watched, and through the violet smog a pair of roller skates appeared.

        There were no tears.

        “Ugh!” Moondancer groans from where she reclines on my bed with a storybook full of bright, colorful pictures. “Pegasi are so full of themselves! Why does everything they make have to be so annoying and loud?”

        Twilight frowns up at her from the bedroom floor. “Don't make fun of them! It's their culture!”

        “Well, their culture is stupid,” Moondancer says. “Have you even seen the way they dress up at pageants?! Heeheehee—It's like they're trying to go to war with the clouds!”

        “Hey! Those armored uniforms are really spectacular! The pegasi have a long history of military tradition, after all!” Twilight glances towards me. “You should know this, Lyra! You wrote to a pegasus pen pal last year. Tell Moondancer what you learned!”

        “Suuuure! Take Twilight's side!” Moondancer flips a page of the storybook and dangles her legs off the bed. “Starswirl was always Celestia's pet, not Luna's!”

        “Uhhh...” I stammer, gazing numbly into the Wonderbolt nightlight hovering above my bed. “Pegasus... pen pal...”

        “Did she teach you anything about the traditional 'Soaring Cirrus Symphony?'”

        I turn and gaze directly at Twilight. I blink a few times and then scrunch my nose up. “Ewww, no! Why would I care about some stuffy old song?” My face brightens as I lean over and say, “Wanna hear about some of the air stunts they performed during the Best Young Fliers' Competition?”

        “I'd love to!” Twilight exclaims.

        “Ooooh!” Moondancer drops her book and scoots off the bed. “Now this, I'd like to hear!”

        “Oh, don't pretend you weren't having fun until just now!” Twilight exclaims.

        “Yes, only now I'm having more fun!” Moondancer giggles and grins wide. “Tell us about the pegasus air stunts!”

        “Ugh! Quit horsing around!”

        “Girls, girls...” I chuckle, smiling warmly at the two. “Can’t we just enjoy this moment together?”

Background Pony

XIX - “Diminuendo”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: Props, theBrianJ, RazgrizS57, theworstwriter, Warden

Cover pic by Spotlight

        Dear Journal,

        Where did the seasons come from? Did the alicorns decree that they were to exist so that nature could take a break from time to time? Were the first ponies who walked this earth in need of a schedule for doing their harvest? Could it be that the ancient goddesses were just bored?

        It's snowing outside; snowing hard. What month is it now... November? December?  I don't really know. I haven't gone out in a while.

        There're plenty of goods in the cabin. Al has lots of food and water, and there's enough wood to keep the fireplace going. I think I can last inside here for a while.

        I can't say why, but I'm just not in the mood to go outside. I was never a big fan of snow, or winter as a whole. This time of year makes me think of the holidays, and that makes me think of Mom and Dad.

        I think I'll lie down and get some sleep. It's so quiet around here. Even Al isn't purring like he normally does.

        Not sure what I'll do when I wake up. It would be nice to have something to read. What do I normally do to pass the time? Oh well, I'm sure it'll come to me.

        Dear Journal,

        I've been sleeping too much. My mind is reeling from serious cabin fever.

        So, today, I felt like doing some work, even if I had to find myself some labor worth the attention. I decided to gather more lumber for the fire. I fetched the axe and went into the backyard. While there, I discovered something peculiar.

        There's... a cellar behind my cabin. I have no better word to describe it, really. In the backyard, a lone wooden shack sits. Once the door to the tiny building is open, the interior reveals a series of earthen steps leading deep underground.

I lit my horn and followed the passageway down. To my awe, I discovered a rectangular enclosure—a little room, if you will—about ten feet wide and twenty feet long. There was an unlit lantern hanging from the middle of the ceiling, and I found a metal stand and a stool resting next to one another.

        What is that place for? Not only that, but where did it come from? I certainly don't remember an underground chamber being here when I built this cabin. Was it part of the old barn that Rainbow Dash tore down? If it's supposed to be some kind of storage room, I can't imagine how it'd be of any use. And why would there be a shack covering it? It's too small a door and passageway to carry things down.

        This discovery has been troubling me all afternoon. I abandoned the search for firewood; I think I can go for another night with the lumber I've currently got. This will give me time to peruse my journal. Maybe somewhere in my past writings I can find out where the cellar came from. I mean, it's entirely possible I simply forgot about it. My mind's been preoccupied lately. I suppose it can explain all the time I’ve spent sleeping.

        Al wants more food. I need to stop writing. Blessed Celestia, there's so much snow. I really wouldn't mind seeing some grass and leaves again.

        Dear Journal,

        I resumed the hunt for more firewood today. It was the least I could do to feel better. Chopping wood really helps me relieve stress, even if the exercise is all in the mind.

        Where do I begin? I went back and read through the journal. It's the first time I've done so in months. What I discovered was that I had left several pages blank. Quite literally, there were moments when I would finish a journal entry on one page, and instead of continuing it on the next sheet, I'd skip two, three, sometimes even four or more pages and continue from there.

        What stresses me out is that I can't figure out what would have possessed me to do such a thing, and on multiple occasions for that matter. I have always had a thing for neatness and conservation; it's a trait that Twilight infected me with, I suppose. Even back in grade school, a wasted sheet of paper lying smack-dab in the middle of a written manuscript bothered the heck out of me. As a matter of fact, my hoofwriting is typically small and compact, precisely because I like fitting as much onto a single page as possible.

        So why would I have left so many sheets blank? This is pestering me to no end. I'm certain I didn't slack off that much while I was in college. My professors would have hung me from the highest bell-tower.

        Come to think of it, I only had two or three professors, but that doesn't make sense. Surely, if I graduated from my university, then I must have taken over twenty courses. How could only three professors teach twenty separate subjects?

        The fireplace is going to be bright tonight.

        Dear Journal,

        Ever feel so cooped up that you're absolutely certain you'll go insane? Ever try to amend that by going outside? Ever follow through with that plan, only to end up in a worse place than when you started?

        That happened to me today. I decided it was time to stop sitting around in my cabin, staring out at the dreary weather. I seemed to have lost my hoodie, but that was no big deal. I put on Rarity's sweater and trotted into town.

        Imagine my surprise when I saw ponies taking down huge bundles of bright red and green decorations from the rooftops and storefronts of Ponyville. I asked them if there had been a parade in town of some sort. Everypony just looked at me funny and said that they were trying to get a leg up on things. When I asked them to explain, I got quite a shock.

        This is not November. Nor is it December. We are in January. New Year's was six days ago. There was a great pageant in Canterlot, supposedly the best of its kind in decades. Twilight and all her friends were playing the parts. There was even a famous article about it in the Equestria Daily. I read it with my own eyes, feeling the blood in my veins freeze over.

        How could I have missed Hearth's Warming? For that matter, how could I have missed two whole months? I now look back at all those days I spent sleeping in my cabin, and I wonder if there was something wrong with me.

        I was in sour spirits all afternoon. I wandered through the snow-laden streets limply, watching with a lethargic gaze as ponies carried fake, giant candy canes and huge heaps of garland into yearly storage. It wasn't that I wanted to feel mopey or anything. It's just that Hearth's Warming is a special time of year, and though I know nopony around here has the wherewithal to remember me for long, it still would have been nice to share in the cheer somehow, if even for a little bit.

        I haven't been feeling very cheerful lately, so I decided to do something about that. Before sunset, I stopped by a store downtown that sold novelty toys. I found a little squeaky mouse on a string for Al. As I paid the mare at the counter, we broke into pleasant conversation. She made several jokes in her Stalliongrad accent that cracked me up. There was something warm and happy about her voice; I kept smiling, hoping she would never stop.

        Her name is Bon Bon, and apparently she owns a confectionery shop two blocks down. The novelty store, as it turns out, is an expansion to her business. She hopes one day to own a chain of candy and toy stores from here to Canterlot. I hope that her dreams come true; it makes me happy just thinking about it. Nonetheless, night was coming, and I left, but not without giving her my well wishes. If only a small part of her would remember my words...

        Dear Journal,

        Al loves the toy mouse on the string, and I love it when he loves things. His fur is so warm as he sleeps against me. Even now, I have to lean over him as I write this.

        Not sure why I'm making an entry here. I guess it's because my mind tends to wander in strange directions these days. I feel as though my thoughts might disappear if I don't write them down. Now that I think of it, it is rather odd that I keep a journal. After all, I'm not exactly a creative unicorn. It's strange to think that I ever summed up enough sentences to fill such a thick diary.

        It's really dusty in this place, and cluttered too. Goddess knows why I've collected so much junk over the last year and a half. For instance, why do I even have all of those musical instruments on the wall? Maybe a mule's trash cart collapsed in the road outside the cabin one day and I just went crazy.

        It's not like I can afford a job in this town; I think I'll take the instruments to the marketplace and pawn them for bits. I'd best remember to do one item at a time. If the broker doesn't remember my face, then there's less chance of the instruments' value depreciating. It's cheap of me, I know. But how else am I going to earn money?

        Come to think of it, how did I afford these clothes, the firewood, or this cabin? Are the ponies of Ponyville really so generous?

        I'm tired of writing so many questions; it's not like they'll be answered anytime soon. I figure it's best not to dwell on it. Al's starting to purr. I think I'll follow his example and go to sleep.

        Dear Journal,

        Something strange happened today. I heard a loud noise, and next thing I knew I was standing in the center of Ponyville, watching with gawking eyes as Big Mac pulled Berry Punch's house clean off its foundation. He accomplished this quite absurdly, leaping forward in great bounds while having chains affixed to his body.

        Believe it or not, that is not the strange thing that happened. What's strange is that after I witnessed this, I stumbled about as if coming out of a dream. I grew alarmed at the loss of snow. Had winter stopped already? Was there a heat wave out of nowhere?

        I thought I had grown accustomed to asking ponies strange questions. Nevertheless, I trembled as I marched up to one of the spectators of the Big Mac debacle and awkwardly inquired what day it was. I was told that it was Hearts and Hooves Day.

        How is it February already? Just yesterday, it was still blistery, dreary January. Wasn't it?

        I immediately thought of Al. I galloped home in a blur. When I arrived, not only was he okay, but his dish was overflowing with cat food, as if some mindless automaton had dumped the edibles there without rhyme or reason.

        In a panic, I whipped open this journal and looked at the previous entry. The last time I wrote about anything, it was in regards to pawning a bunch of dusty musical instruments I had lying around the cabin.

        Musical instruments? Why would I be carrying those around? I checked my bit bag; sure enough, the thing was brimming with golden coins. The money surely had to have come from somewhere, but it just doesn't make much sense.

        That isn't all either. I discovered a trap door beneath my rug in the center of my cabin. There was a wooden hatch, and beneath that was a velvet satchel that looks large enough to fit two dozen horseshoes. What was I using that for? I'm certain at this point that I had a use for it, only I can't remember it now.

        How many other things can't I remember? Maybe I should think about perusing my old journal pages...

        Dear Journal,

        The weather is getting warm. Where did the winter go? I feel like it was September just yesterday. My only regret is missing Hearth's Warming. It makes me think of Mom and Dad. It's been so long since I've seen them.

        I need a hobby. My days lately are spent sitting in the shadows, staring at the fireplace. It's almost spring, and I have fewer and fewer excuses to light a fire. Maybe I should go out on walks more, but whenever I do, the weather feels like winter again. I should really look into getting a sweat jacket or something. This red sweater Rarity made for me is nice, but I always feel like I should save it for a nice occasion. Besides, it looks rather bright and festive, and I'm not exactly a “festive” unicorn these days.

        It's no use staying here. Even writing this journal is a waste of time. I have a bag full of bits for some reason, but I know that it won't last forever. I need to find a way to earn money, to get food without reducing myself to a homeless beggar. I wish I could read back to one of my journal entries and find an example of what I did to make money in the past, but I can't find anything. Besides, I'm too irritated by all those blank pages. Why did I even bother writing anything to begin with if I was only going to slack off?

        It just started raining. I've left the window open. It's nice to have something besides the fireplace to stare at. A smell fills the room, and it tastes of April afternoons. For some reason, that frightens me. Why should it? I like April. I would like April even more if I could find a way out of this town, out from under this curse. I wonder what Mom and Dad are up to.

        Perhaps what I need is a hobby, or I should consider going on walks more. Still, the thought of it makes me shiver. Maybe I can look into getting a sweat jacket. I like this sweater of Rarity's, but I've been wearing it far too much. Besides, it looks “festive,” and I'm not exactly feeling “festive” lately.

        Why am I staying here? Even writing this journal is taking me nowhere. I have a bag full of bits, but I don't know from where. How did I get them? Do I have a job?

        It's raining. Feels like April. I could have sworn it was February... or maybe September? What ever happened to Hearth's Warming Eve—Twilight had a pageant, or was that last year? I got roller skates. Mom and Dad were so happy. I guess I was happy too.

        Rain.

        I think something is wrong. I think...

        Dear Journal,

        I couldn't find my way home tonight. I swear, there are so many country roads, so many forests, so many wooded thickets bordering this town that it gets confusing at times. I must have wandered about the north edge of Ponyville for hours. It got very cold. My red sweater had fallen apart. I don't think it was ever made to handle any situation that wasn't delicate. Still, it looked expensive while it lasted. I'm not sure what to do with it now. Maybe make a blanket out of it. What I need, though, is a jacket of sorts.

        Anyways, I kept walking for hours, but then a mare ran into me. I pleaded with her to help me look for my house. Naturally, she asked me what it looked like, and I could only gaze at her with a stupid expression. I wasn't sure how to answer her.

        Somehow, I was able to change the subject of our conversation, which wasn't very hard to do. She kept rambling for minutes on end about apples, filling my ears with stories of her “Ma and Pa” and some huge apple grove north of where we were trotting in circles. Sooner than I realized it, we were strolling by the cabin. I realized the house was mine because I could see Al peering at me through the window, meowing his head off. I told the mare I had to go, but she was suddenly looking at me with a foggy expression. I felt a chill, and I galloped away from it—away from her—and shut myself inside.

        Al practically pounced at my legs. His food dish was empty. There was barely any water left for him to lap from. I fumbled around for his food, but I couldn't find it. I started to panic. A part of me wanted to rush back into town and buy some more cat chow before closing hours, but I was terribly afraid that I might forget the way home by the time I got there and Al would end up starving.

        Well, I did find the food, only because I heard it crunch beneath my hooves. Al had torn into the bag beside my cot at some point while I was away. I soon discovered that his litter box was full, and he had made several messes outside the bin.

        I really, truly don't know how long I was gone for. I'm not sure I want to know. I just want to hold Al. He won't leave my side; it's hard to write with how heavily he's purring. He's just happy to see me.

I want to be happy too. I really do.

        Dear Journal,

        Everypony in town was talking about the Royal Wedding. At first, I thought it meant that Princess Celestia was marrying some lucky stallion. I then heard that there was a ceremony in Canterlot honoring the engagement between Shining Armor and Princess Mi Amore de Cadenza. I couldn't believe it; Twilight's brother was getting married!

        I had to congratulate her right away. I searched all through town for hours. To my luck, I caught her just as she was exiting her treehouse with a bunch of other mares. I told her how happy I was that her brother had fallen in love and met his future bride. I wished them luck, and that their days together might be long and happy.

        Imagine my shock when Twilight simply stared at me in confusion. I asked her jokingly if she hadn't heard the news of her brother getting hitched. She told me that she had; she just didn't understand why I of all ponies was congratulating her on Shining Armor's marriage. I laughed and suggested that if Moondancer was there, she'd be sobbing from all the salt in her wounds. After all, that unicorn always did have a thing for Shining Armor.

        For some reason, Twilight's ears drooped, and I swore I saw tears in her eyes. My heart fell, and I tried to hug her to make her feel better. That's when these colorful mares beside her shoved me away. They were angry, outraged, even. They told me to get lost and bother some other innocent pony. I watched in shock as they ushered Twilight away, hugging her and telling her not to pay me any mind.

        Was it something I said? I was just teasing her slightly. It's no worse than what Moondancer would do. Why would Twilight treat me like I was a total stranger?

        From then on, as I trotted home, I looked at everypony funny. None of them were looking at me; it was as if I had become completely invisible. I hoped that it might have been a bad dream, but then I came home and started hoofing through my journal. I could read my older entries, and you're not supposed to be able to read legible hoofwriting in a dream. At least, I think that's the case. Twilight taught that to me once.

        Twilight, what have I done to anger you? It's so cold here, so very cold. The last thing I want is to alienate you. Just what did I do?

        Please, somepony, anypony, tell me what I've done to deserve this.

        Dear journal,

        What are changelings?  I was gardening in front of the cabin, minding my own business, when a pair of pegasus guards wearing royal armor walked up and started asking me several questions.  Many of them were personal too: inquiring about my age, my name, my place of birth.  I was somewhat ashamed that I couldn’t answer them half of the time, and I winced when I saw them squint at me suspiciously.

        Well, they trotted off.  But then, within an hour, they stopped by my cabin again.  They questioned me once more, as if we had never had the first interrogation to begin with.  Was this some practical joke?

        I humored them to the best of my ability.  When they left, I ran inside the house and slammed the door shut.  I watched, hiding from behind the windows.  They strolled by a third time, looked at the cabin, and approached the door to knock on it.  I hid for as long as I could.  Eventually, they went away, muttering and griping about some sort of search that they and several other members of the royal guard were performing across Equestria.

        Later on, I stopped by the town and I heard villagers talking about the guards.  Apparently, there’s a scare throughout the kingdom about a potential invasion of “changelings.”  Everypony has been on edge ever since the royal wedding took place.

        Royal wedding?  I don’t understand.  Did Celestia get married?  Or Luna?

        Just writing about it hurts my head.  I think I should stay inside for a while.

        Dear Journal,

        I occasionally read newspapers. I don't know why I do. Even if it's good news, it's not something that can help me. Word of Mom or Dad would only be on the first few pages if something horrible had happened to them, or at least to their neighborhood. I'm not sure I could handle that. I'm not really good at handling much of anything lately.

        For instance, there's talk of a newly discovered place just north of us: a Crystal Kingdom. Who ever heard of an entire country made of crystal? Or is it that the ponies who live there are made of crystal? I don't know, and I don't care.

        I wish I could care. I wish I could be on the forefront of discovering new things. I wish I could talk to somepony and have it be a conversation I've never had before. I wish I could say something that another soul might remember, another soul might smile about, another soul might quote.

        No, I suppose “quote” isn't the right word, but I'm running out of them: words, that is. It's getting harder and harder to write, or at least I think so. My head hurts trying to get all of these sentences together. Maybe if it was warmer. The farm mare trotting by my cabin this morning told me that it was July. It's too cold for July. My teeth chatter at night. I'd light the fireplace, but I don't want to draw attention from the smoke coming out of my chimney, not that it would embarrass me this time of year—I just don't want to have another starting conversation with anyone again.

        I just want to stop beginning. If only once.

        Dear Journal,

        Something's wrong. I saw Twilight Sparkle's name in the newspaper. According to the headlines, she's been granted executive power as the newly appointed Steward of Canterlot. The paper says nothing about Princess Celestia, but it claims that “Luna is helping the new royal administrator with her place of office.” Do they mean “Luna” as in “Princess Luna,” as in the Mare in the Moon, Nightmare Moon?

        This isn't right. I came here to Ponyville looking for Twilight. She was supposed to be setting up the Summer Sun Celebration for Princess Celestia's annual arrival. Now she's suddenly sitting upon the throne as Steward of Canterlot? When did that happen? Moondancer is going to eat her own mane.

        I swear, it's gotta be some kind of practical joke. Why do I feel so scared, though? I'm petrified of asking anypony for explanations. Every time I step outside, it feels so terribly cold, even in the full light of day.

        I should just stay here. This cabin is nice and cozy. I should just stay here until things become clear. This has to be a mistake. This whole thing has to be some crazy, giant mistake.

        Dear Journal,

        There are empty pages in this journal. I think I know why. I have this book open. I'm staring at this page. I know I should be writing about something—but what?

        I woke up today. There was a nice breeze in the air. I walked places. I heard laughter. I listened to conversations. I imagined being a part of them.

        Afternoon came. I sat under a tree until the stars came out. I had a silly thought that made me smile—that I was the only pony on earth that could see the constellations twinkling. I wonder how many ponies bother to look at the sky, and how few of them actually see anything.

        It's a large sky, but I should savor it over the nights to come. I suspect that there will be many of them.

        Dear Journal,

        It was cold tonight, but it was a different kind of cold. I saw ponies bundled up. I heard the crunch of snow below me. I looked into a storefront window. There were all kinds of pretty lights. I blinked, and I imagined seeing ponies carrying those decorations away into storage. I blinked again, and I was unwrapping a gift. Something bright and glistening hung in my hooves. Roller skates. What kind of a foal wants roller skates in December?

        I just paused writing to look at the fireplace. It relaxed me. Just now, I glanced up at the window. Somehow, it is morning already. I can't stop giggling. I think the stars are playing hide and seek with me. I'll catch them tomorrow, I'm sure of it.

        Dear Journal,

        Somepony gave me a flower today, a tulip. He called me “angel.” I just stared at him. His eyes were the same color as the Canterlot rooftops beyond the balcony where Dad stood to paint his landscapes. I told him that, and he looked at me with confusion, but there was something else in his soft face. I wanted to kiss it. I wanted to kiss him. But it was too cold.

        In the next blink, I was home. The blankets caught my tears. I wish it was his beautiful yellow coat instead. I didn't know him, but now I wonder: if I had stayed there long enough, could he have told me who I was?

        Dear Journal,

        I had never seen so many bonfires. They called it the Summer Sun Celebration. A young couple giggled at my awestruck expression. I told them that I wanted to learn all about it, so they let me sit by their side. They had two little foals with them, and their bright, glistening eyes couldn't stop staring at me.

        The fire was warm. I reached my hooves forward like I was bathing them in starlight. I laughed like a little filly.

        I listened to them talk about their beautiful little lives and their beautiful little children. They said that they fell in love at a Summer Sun Celebration much like this one, long ago, about a year before they got married.

        I asked them to tell me all about it, but they looked at me funny. I had goosebumps; how could it feel so cold right in front of a bonfire? I asked them if they felt a cool breeze; they giggled nervously like I was a drunk stranger.

        Their children still stared at me, their eyes forever glistening and innocent. I smiled and leaned down to see my reflection in their gaze. That's when their father got angry. He asked me to find another bonfire. I walked away, confused. Fireworks went off, startling me. The flashes were bright, but for some reason I couldn't see my own shadow.

        I walked home alone.

        Dear Journal,

        I just realized that the moon is different. It's so smooth, spotless, pristine. I can't look at the stars so long as it's there.

        I feel my blood freezing. Something is outside my cabin, lingering in the woods. It makes a noise, like the rattling of chains. Every time I breathe, it stops. Every time I pause, it starts again.

        Something's watching me. I know it. I can feel it all over my coat, like the weight of a grand ocean, vibrating with ethereal thunder as it presses in on me from all sides. The only thing I'm scared of is that once I'm done writing this, I will forget that it's outside. But if it comes in and strangles me in my sleep—I wonder—will I regret it?

        Dear Journal,

        Nopony sees me, and yet they do. In tiny gasps—like the meeting of sunlit bridges—their eyes meet mine, and I am real again. So many of these villagers smile. They're so happy. I want to scream at them, and yet I don't want them to go away. I spend hours sitting in the park, watching them trot by, watching them talk to one another, watching them wave to me. They're so bright, and yet so distant. I could just as well be looking at stars.

        Dear Journal,

        I understand why there are blank pages in this book. They're waiting for me; they are mine. Maybe if I go back and write in them, I will change the past, or I will change tomorrow. I'm not that sure, but it's worth a try. I have to think about what I can fit on so few pages. How many friends can I invent? How many laughing conversations or stories or adventures? I wish I was creative. It would make all of this easier. It might even make the shadows go away.

        Dear Journal,

        Am I ugly? Do I smell? I was in downtown earlier this afternoon. I was trying to scrounge up a bite to eat. A unicorn trotted by. She had two guard pegasi with her. I imagined she was very important, or at least wealthy. I didn't expect her to stop and look at me.

        It wasn't just any look that she gave, but a smiling expression. She asked if I lived around here. I told her that I thought so. She chuckled and said that if I needed any help getting a job, any help earning food, that I was report to the Social Services in Town Hall. I thanked her, though I didn't understand why she was being so generous. And then I saw the reflection of a haggard mint-green creature in her eyes, and I jumped with a start.

        The guards flinched, but the unicorn calmed them down. She walked forward and soothed my jittery nerves with a gentle hoof to my shoulder. She smelled like lavender and books. I wanted to cry, and I think she saw it. She said that she cared for all of her royal subjects, and that everypony deserved to be happy in this life.

        I calmed down. I maybe even smiled. I asked her who she was, and she introduced herself as “Steward Twilight Sparkle” before trotting off toward some important royal duty or another.

        Twilight Sparkle... such a beautiful name.

        I wonder what mine is.

        Dear journal,

        I was gardening today. I stumbled upon a wooden stake shoved into the ground. It lay beneath a tree outside my cabin. I didn't exactly know what it was, not until I saw a wreath of decaying flowers lying at its base.

        Stepping back, I squinted at the name on the grave. It read “Alabaster.”

        Who was Alabaster? Was it a pony I knew? Was it someone who had helped me before? Could there be other ponies who have helped me, who I've made friends with, who could still help me now?

        Good heavens, how long have I been here?

        Dear Journal,

        It's winter already. I could have sworn it was August. I stare at the snow as I walk over it. I blink, and the hoofprints disappear. I try to imagine roller skating over the powdery white frost. My head hurts.

        I found a shawl in the closet. It's bright red and threadbare. The pony who sewed it together was a poor seamstress, but it warms me nonetheless.

        Ponies were talking about the Hearth's Warming pageant in Canterlot. My ears began ringing. I expected steam to begin whistling from the trees, bushes, storefronts. Nothing happened. Nothing ever happens.

        I wonder who I would be in the Hearth's Warming pageant. Does Starswirl the Bearded star in the reenactment? If not, he should.

        I hate snow. It's white and blank, like an empty page. There aren't enough poets in this world. The path to and from home is too short. Maybe I should stop trotting it, but I don't know where else to go.

        Dear Journal,

        This cot smells like me, but it's not my bed. How could it be? There should be a nightlight beside the dresser, but the dresser is gone too.

        I hear rain, but I don't look outside. The last time I glanced, the rooftops of Canterlot weren't there. I don't know why I'm sitting here writing in this diary, but if this is part of the dream, then maybe I should keep doing what I'm doing until it ends.

        Unless it begins again, in which case I'll just shut my eyes. It's worked before, or at least I think so.

        Dear Journal,

        There was a funeral in the center of town. Everypony was gathered in droves. I watched from afar, and I listened too. Several ponies delivered eulogies, most of them in hysterical bits. Then, as the service came to conclusion, a pony was introduced as the daughter of the deceased. I witnessed an adult unicorn marching up to the stage. She magically lifted a flute to her mouth and began to play a sweet, lonesome tune. It was a remarkable performance, considering the degree to which the tears flowed from her eyes.

        I listened until the song came to its conclusion, and the many guests quietly mingled to share stories of the pony who had passed. All the while, I stared at the mare, at her bravely smiling face as she shared several hugs and nuzzles with her kin.

        The sound of the flute still echoes in my ears. I'm not sure why, but it makes me feel sad, and there aren't many things that still do.

        Dear Journal,

        When did I go out for groceries? Was it yesterday? It's so hard to carry food with me these days. I don't know if it's the cold, but my horn feels numb. It's a weight on my head, and I have to hunch over to carry it, even though it's been a part of my body all my life.

        Mom says that if I study for exams at the last second, all of my knowledge will go straight to my horn instead of staying in my head where it belongs. I think she's silly. I don't even know what I'm studying for. Besides, this isn't Canterlot.

        This isn't Canterlot... so why does my head hurt? I have to catch a train ride. There's an important event somewhere. A friend? Why doesn't Dad speak to me? I can't see him in the hallways. There are no hallways. What is this place?

        So cold. Should add some more wood to the fireplace. But I need to get my studies done. Maybe after I get some groceries first. My horn feels so numb.

        Dear Journal,

        It was very bright outside, and yet I couldn't stop shivering. I leaned against a street sign just to catch my breath. What I really wanted to do was lie down.

        That's when he came to me. The first thing I saw was his young smile, then his handsome lips moving as he spoke gently to me like a colt might address a puppy. He introduced himself as “Pound Cake.” I thought it was a stupid name, but I wasn't about to say anything mean, especially when he kindly took me by the hoof and helped me gently cross the street. I didn't realize how terribly wide the road was until we were halfway across it.

        I thanked him as swiftly as I could, for fear that I wouldn't get a chance to if I delayed the gesture. Still, I couldn't get over how gently he was treating me, like I was a fragile infant. He smiled, bowed, and told me that he could be reached at Sugarcube Corner anytime whenever I needed some “assistance.” I watched him leave, and immediately turned towards the first storefront window I could find.

        I looked for my reflection, but was too distracted by a wrinkled, pale green mare on the other side. Then my eyes twitched in time with hers, and I saw something familiar in the style of her gray mane, something recognizable in the texture of the mottled skin lining her brow.

        Was I always this old? I faintly remember—no, I taste—morning breakfast on the veranda. Mom's perfume as she prepares to go to the office. Dad's color palette resting on the window as it catches a spring breeze. If I stretch my hoof high enough, I just might reach his brush. I want to draw roller skates all across the tile floor of my bathroom. Yes, that's it, roller skates, bright violet and everywhere. I'm on my knees, drenched in the pastel fluids, making my masterpiece, humming while I do so. Why am I humming? I never hum.

        And then they rush in. Mom's the first to scold me, as always. I'm sobbing from the fresh swat to my blank flank. I don't know what I did wrong, but I'm starting to realize what isn't right. I'm not creative. I never have been, and I never shall be. All I will make is a mess, like this mess staring before me, with wiery hair coming out her ears and drool lining her wrinkled lips.

        I turn away from it, and the world spins with me. My horn becomes even heavier. I have to lean against a post box to keep from fainting. My heart throbs. I have a heart, and it is fleeting. How did I get here? My hooves can barely move on their own. How can anypony move anywhere so slowly? Is this living? Is this what my life has always been?

        I'm home somehow. I don't know how I got here, I don't know how I'm sitting here and writing this, but I very seriously doubt I can cross those lengths again. I'm not even sure I would want to. The next time I see a reflection, there might be nothing looking back.

        Dear Journal,

        I must eat. I know I must eat. But every time I put food inside me, it hurts. Something's wrong with me. I tried talking to nurses in town, but after a few minutes, they just look at me like I've never entered the clinic to begin with. Everypony is so young. So young and foolish. It's not like I want to be this needy. It's not like I enjoy being so weak. I'd help myself if I could.

        I want to tell them that they'll be like me someday. But I get this gnawing feeling. Something burns at me: burns and bites and breaks me apart inside. I think that I may be the only pony who is like this. I see their smiles and their grins and their dancing canter.

        I think I may be the only pony who hurts.

        Dear Journal,

        So cold. The sky outside my window is a bright haze. I think there were once stars there. I turn over in bed. The nightlight's gone. An elder pony is coughing, wheezing. She stops making noises everytime I hold my breath. I need to get up. I need to move. This sheet weighs a ton, and my horn even heavier. Who shoved burning coals into my stomach? I'm not laughing, not crying. I'm just here. I am always here. Why is nopony else here? Why am I the only one? When did this start? When did I agree to this? Why can't I go home? I just want to go home. I just want to go home so bad...

        Vapors. I see them. Like shadows outside my room. Mom? Dad? Is that you? It's so dark. It's so cold. Did I make you angry? Did I chase you away? I promise that I will study more. I don't know what I'm learning, because I'll lose it as soon as I write it down. Am I writing? So many blank sheets. I have to fill them. Maybe I'll find the two of you somewhere in there, just like I'll find the stars. When I blink, I see lights, and it's like you're there hovering behind me. What is this that you got me? It makes such a rattling noise. Roller skates. You can't use roller skates on the snow. Where are you? Please don't be mad. I like them. I really, really like them.

        Mom? Dad? Please. Please, if you can read this, I am not lost. I am still your daughter. I'm waiting for you here. I don't know where here is. It's dark outside, and it's so very cold. I tried lighting a fire, but I can't move very well, and whenever I do, it feels like a knife is being dragged through my stomach. I don't remember the last time I've eaten. Maybe that's it. Now I'm not saying this to worry you. I'm sure if you see this, and you read this, you can find me. I'll be in a hospital somewhere, most likely, because this town has good ponies. They're sometimes forgetful and they often get hung up on silly little things, but they're good. They're good and they're kind and in spite of all the awkward moments, they've treated me well. I can't think of a particular scenario, but I just know that things have been good here. But I can't wait here for much longer. The darkness is spreading. I can't see the stars anymore. Dad should know about the stars; he paints them all the time. Sometimes from the rooftops. Sometimes from hilltops. Sometimes from...

        I had him. I had him, and I sent him away. Oh sweet heavens, why did I send him away? What was I thinking? Was I even capable of thinking? His mane was as gray as mine. It danced in the wind like a comet. I understand now. I understand, and I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to send you away. Please, come back. Everything else has left me. Shadows and glints of moonlight are all that remain, fragments of an eggshell life that I have never opened. Every time I touch the pale sheen of it all, I only shiver all the more, like the rattling of chains in the distance. There's a pain I should be feeling, but it's drawing away, just like the lights, just like the warmth of your grinning faces. It's okay; I love the roller skates. I love them like tulips, like red sweaters, like violet streaks in a deep purple mane. If only I could have loved you as much, if only I could have shared it with you like a poet would, like a novelist, like something that touches this world with more than words, that knows how to paint with them, that knows how to introduce color to one's ears, that can turn tears to butterflies, maybe then I would not have sent you away, and maybe then you would not have left me when I did. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so very sorry. Please come back. I ask you, I beg you, I plead with you. Come back to me. Come back to me. Come back to me, so that I can be young in your arms again.

        I can't be the only one. I can't be. These words came from somewhere. They are greater than me. They are greater than all of us. I know that there is something collective, something plural, something that I should be sharing with, since I am sharing it in the first place. I know that there is movement. I can feel it pressing against me, squishing me against the impenetrable darkness. There is light somewhere; I remember it in my dreams. I have those: dreams. I don't have a name in them, but I do have a face, and it reflects in the eyes of souls, the eyes of ponies, the eyes of friends. I can't possibly be this alone. It just isn't right. It just shouldn't be. And yet it is. Why is it? Why am I so alone? Where am I going? Where are my words taking me? Is it where the stars went? Is it where my parents are? Are they waiting for me, or will they forever recede away? When I breathe, it comes in spurts, and if there is a beginning to everything, then there must be an end to everything. I don't know whether I'm heading towards it or away from it. Maybe both. Maybe it's always been both. Maybe it will tear me apart. Then again, maybe I will like what I find lying inside. Maybe it will talk to me, and the two of us can be one together.

        There is nothing, and yet there is everything. I am beginning to understand, in that I don't understand. I exist to comprehend, yes, for how else would I be able to know that I don't comprehend? I place forth a thought, and the thought stares back at me. We are even with each other, me and the thought, and that's how I know that I am standing over the abyss and not inside it. I have yet to take the plunge. I have yet to take the final gasp, nor the first one. Everything is on the brink of happening, everything is on the brink of becoming everything. I see it like a river in my mind, coalescing from the many back into the one, and I am at the mouth of it, drinking and vomiting all at once. I exist, of that much I am certain. But have I always existed, and will I exist in the future? All I know is now. All I know is

        I think that I have finally found you. In the dark, hiding behind the shadows, cowering from me your entire life.  You were just a brave step away, beyond my cot, beyond the noise of my breaths.

        I can't imagine why I was so reticent to embrace you until now, to caress your cheek, to make the contact that needed to be made. After all, you have been following me all this time, it's only fitting that I turned around and let you join me in the trot.

        Of course it's you. It's always been you. In my tears, it's been you. In my laughter, it's been you. In my parents’ breaths, in my dreams, in the stars of my friends' eyes; they were yours all along. These words are for you: they are drab and they are dismal and they are dull, but they are yours to make poetry with.

        For what else would I be writing this if not for you? Because though I don't know you, I know that you are there. I feel your presence, in that I feel the lack of your presence, the indefinable other that makes us more than darkness and dust. I don't know who you are, but I write this to you, and I love you, because what else is there for us to do in this life but reach out and connect, to remind ourselves of things that can't be said, but only felt? For life begins and ends in a blink, and all that is certain is the choice to be certain.

        I love you. Whoever you are, wherever you're from, wherever you're going, I love you.

        I love you and adore you and cherish you, with my dying heart, with my fleeting mind, and I wish you the absolute best in joy and harmony. The darkness is so grand, so hungry and so enormous, that it is a sin to fill it with anything but friendship. For we are many, and yet we are one, and no division, no barrier, no wall of any sort can separate us, can tear asunder the commonality that allows us to shower beautiful sparks into the black pits of desolation.

        We exist, and we are gorgeous, and I love you because I do, not because I did, and not because I'm going to, but in this moment, in this tear, in this howl of joy from the bottom of my heart, I reach forth into the frozen ether and I worship you.

        We are the solidarity and the divide all at once. Together, we find truth, and I think it is a beautiful sound. How about you?

        There is sunlight. A faint thing.

        I can.

        I can see it.

        Through a window. Through a fog.

        How long have I been here? I'm tired of being here. Tired of being tired.

        I think I want to go somewhere.

        Yes, a walk would be nice.

        See the town.

        See the ponies.

        See their smiles.

        It's a shame to go alone. I think I will take this journal with me.

        It certainly has many pages left.

        So bright in town.

        Neither hot nor cold.

        Is this snow? I'm not quite sure.

        I smell candied sweets. It's a delicious scent.

        I remember when I used to grin. It doesn't compare to how I'm grinning now. Nothing will ever compare to how I'm grinning now.

        There's a hill, out beyond the park. I bet the view is fantastic.

        I wonder if I still have the strength to climb it.

        I can hardly move.

        Legs are numb.

        My horn. Is it there? Vapors and vapors.

        But I think this is it. Yes. The top of the hill and...

        Oh...

        Oh my...

        It really is a glorious town. So many colors. So many ponies.

        I know they can't see me, but I can see them, and I can see how pretty it all is.

        Such a wonderful memory, even if it's a new one.

        It is now.

        I think I'll just sit for a while.

        I think I will just...

        Just breathe...

        So beautiful

        It really is so beautiful.

        I wish...

        Yes...

        I almost wish I could write a song.

Background Pony

XX - “Dénouement”

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Special thanks to: Props, theBrianJ, theworstwriter, Warden, RazgrizS57, and Ponky

Cover pic by Spotlight

This Fanfic Would Not Be Possible Without the Help, Editing, and Support of the Following Individuals

Spotlight

You are the essential reason why I began writing this story.  It all started with that fateful, late-night conversation where you challenged me to think of a way to make Lyra interesting beyond her usual fandom tropes.  I meditated on it, recollected an obscure X-Men mutant ability I read up on ages ago, and decided to make a story around it with my mint-green obsession as the subject.  Since then, your cover art has made the Lyra of “Background Pony” stand out from all the rest, and I attribute much of the story’s success to the individuality you gave it.  Thank you for your creativity, for your intelligence, for your brutal honesty, and for your loyal friendship.

Spanish Announce Table Goes First

I am not a good writer; I am just a person who writes a lot.  The quality and legibility of “Background Pony” owes itself to you fine lemurs of SATGF, who have loyally tackled the rough drafts of these chapters without being paid in anything but gratitude, week after week.  This story would be in the pits if it weren’t for all of you.  I thank you from the bottom of my nihilistic heart.

Props

I can’t count how many times I’ve gotten sucked into intense, creative, and felicitous conversations with you.  Everyone in SATGF gave their all, but you were able to provide a little bit more.  By letting me share with you the future of “Background Pony” before proper exposure, I was able to gauge where exactly I was going in the story.  This fic wouldn’t have ended so poetically if it weren’t for your input.  Thank you for your support, your ideas, and your girlfriend’s fanart... f’naaaa.

TheBrianJ

When “Background Pony” became popular, there were several marsupials on Fimfiction who were quick to praise it.  Of them all, you were the most vocal, and you took the conversation out of the site and into places like Ponychan.  I was instantly flattered by your appreciation of the fic, and greatly inspired by your intelligent critique and analysis.  I was happy to have you on board the editing team, and your input has been insanely helpful.  Thanks for your attention to detail, your tendency to make me feel good when I’ve been down, and your appreciation of the Straight Edge Lifestyle.

RazgrizS57

For a while there, I would have sat on my high horse and not let a bunch of editors filter the chapters of “Background Pony” for all its detritus.  But then you messaged me with your story ideas, your input, and--most importantly--your list of chronology flubs in the fic.  I had to change a few things in the story because of you, and it helped save my fic from being an utter mess.  I’ve been proud to have you on the editing crew, and I thank you for your attention to the fic’s thematic elements.

theworstwriter

Of all the editors I’ve had the grace to work with, you have been and continue to be the most meticulous.  Your experience and gift in writing goes far beyond that which you give yourself credit for, but we both know that.  I felt safe with the knowledge that if any of the other editors missed stuff in my crapola, you would always find it with the fine eye of a burning laser.  More often than not, I can tell that we share the same innate understanding of how language can be bent to deliver a good story.  Thank you for supporting me through End of Ponies, and thank you for saving “Background Pony” from embarrassment on several occasions.

Warden

Whenever the editing process takes place, I know that the true baptism by fire doesn’t happen until it is you who gets your hands on the manuscript.  Even in the End of Ponies days, you always looked at things from a conceptual angle, making me think twice about presentation and theme.  Thank you for constantly being by my side, for making me think, for poking me in all the right places so that I could get stuff done, and for not sending me a check in the mail... yet.

Seattle_Lite

Back in the primordial days of “Background Pony,” you helped me sew together a chapter that was falling apart.  You helped pierce my ego and remind me that I need editors like I need a second pair of eyes cuz holy crap am I messy.  To me, you embody the friendly and volunteering spirit of Ponychan’s /fic/ group, and I thank you for helping get “Background Pony” to get its act together.

Vimbert

What do you say about the Candle-stick Head who needs no introduction?  I know that you weren’t part of the editing team of this fic, but you are instrumental to its success in every way.  I was surprised that this story made it as big as it did, especially since the first chapter was something I submitted without any editorial support.  But then when you read and reviewed chapter one, I recall you stating that I desperately needed to complete this story.  As elated as I was with the fic’s immediate success, I wasn’t truly happy until I got that “blessing” from you, and I may not have continued the fic at all if you hadn’t given the suggestion your green light.  In general, I owe everything about my fanficcing success to you, as well as to your burning crucible of a vindictive induction into the brony literature community, and I thank you ever so much for it.

Demetrius

You have always been a great source of criticism and ego-stroking all rolled into one.  I admire your intelligence, your sincerity, and your creative spark.  You contribute so much of your precious time to the community, and it truly helps us.  With "Background Pony," your advice has helped me immensely in the editing and color coding process.  You have my thanks and my respect.

Jake Heritagu

Though I never did do that side-story to Silent Ponyville, the ideas that you inadvertently made me come up with led to the skeletal structure of what would eventually become “Background Pony.”  In short, it wasn’t for your contributions to this universe, I would never have become Lyra!obsessed.  You have my thanks, good sir.

Belgerum

I should never have written “Background Pony,” because I have no knowledge in music.  Tons of marsupials messaged me saying that they would like to tackle the composition of the elegies.  I nodded my head stupidly, not truly knowing what to expect.  In the end, you were the one and only mofo to do it all.  Not only that, you did it beautifully, and the muzak now sits in my head as the canon nature of the story’s central device.  I listened to your symphony over and over again while writing BP19, and it helped.  Thanks for adding culture and beauty to a story that was pretty clueless before someone gave it music.

needthistool

When you told me that you were doing a read-through of “Background Pony,” I was beyond flattered.  Imagine my surprise when I heard how good and incredibly well-ranged your vocal talent was.  I’m proud to have your voice acting as the funnel through which the story’s beauty and melancholy is expressed.  The fic has always felt like a quiet and heartfelt adventure, and your contribution has more than conveyed that.

Dawnmistpony

You’ve always struck me as one of my most pronounced fans, and that one exceptional fanart you made way back when “Background Pony” first started helped make bronies become aware of my story.  Thanks for contributing your visual talents to the substance of the story on more than one occasion.

Ponky

The only thing sadder than “Background Pony” is the fact that you’ll be leaving for another part of the world over the next two years.  Thanks for giving me the idea of a heart and mind to write the legacy of Lyra for.  Your talents and creativity helped make the atmosphere surrounding “Background Pony” an enjoyable one, and I wish you the best in all of your endeavors abroad.

Equestria Daily

I shall always have uber respect for you guys (and gals?).  The explosive popularity of “Background Pony” on Fimfiction has amazed me, but I knew that if my story made it on your guys’ site, then it was a true testament to its excellence.  Thank you for the exposure that you have given me, the quality of presentation you aim for, and the patience all of you have had with me in my multiple chapter submissions.  “Background Pony” would not have spread as far and wide as it has without you.

Noble Jury

You know what you’ve done.

Raefire

I first became a brony because of exposure to the fandom at the Fugworld.com message board.  During the time that I lurked there, you were the biggest and most charismatic voice.  When I began writing fanfic after fanfic, you would constantly provide links for the Fugsters to follow the stories of shortskirtsandexplosions.  I was always flattered that someone was acting as a bridge between the two communities that were so important to me, and seemingly out of the kindness of his heart and his respect for the stuff I’ve written.  I regret that you are no longer in this world, and I hope that wherever you’ve gone, it is peaceful.

To the rest of the marsupials who have read my stuff, much thanks and appreciation for your attention.  Live long and dash apples.