//------------------------------// // 20: Sorrowful faces // Story: To Die Twice // by Quite Quiet //------------------------------// Two brightly coloured blue ears twitched to the sound of bird chirping nearby. Together with the sound the twitching slowly roused the sleeping pony from its sleep. Blinking furiously as it laid there in the grass a single word was the only thing that came to mind when all the sounds and sights was taken in. “What? Bolting upright a moment later the blue pony took in its surroundings. Standing in a small clearing, brightly glowing sun overhead a warm summer morning. Bird’s calling out to each other in the trees accompanied the wind and a stream in their combined chorus. For the lone pony in the clearing nothing of this mattered at the moment. “But I died! Don’t tell me this is happening again. Wait…” The pony who had been Trixie before paused in her subconscious debate for a while, noting several things wrong with herself. Things didn’t feel exactly the same as last time. Legs felt just a little bit off, movements didn’t feel right and everything had a sudden feeling of off to them. Stretching every part of her body she can think of she shudders when a sudden crack runs through her spine, fixing a sore spot she didn’t know she had. Relaxing slightly in delight an unfamiliar strain on her shoulders becomes more noticeable than before. Twisting her head around in search for the wrongness she freezes mid-turn. Resting on her shoulders is a pair of very much not-unicorn pair of wings, feathers and all attached just as they should be. She watches as they twitch under her gaze before settling in nicely along her body again. “Wings, well that explains it. I’m a pegasus. Does that mean I know how to fly? I don’t think so, feels like I’m young again. Still don’t feel exactly right.” Noticing for the first time the sound of a stream coming to her ears she decides in an instant to take the opportunity to check her own appearance. She knew of the blue coat, surprisingly similar to Trixie’s and she thought she saw a strand of dark blue mane but it was so short she couldn’t be sure. It was also the best moment to find out why everything felt a little off. The stream was little more than a string running through the forest, but it had enough calm spots she could look at herself in. Stepping up to the closest such spot she focused her eyes on the reflection. A second passed and then a definitively not-female voice called out through the forest. “You can’t be serious!” The Ponyville weather team had made an impeccable performance this morning. Clouds could be found scattered all across the sky, as the weather schedule called for. Every so often a pegasus would move a few clouds to shift where the sun shone and not. A completely banal task any pegasus could do in their sleep. Even so there was a single cloud overlooking the Ponyville Lake that had sat there for the past four hours. Ever since before the sunrise and now three hours later the same could still sat unmoved in place. The reason for the unmoving could sat perched on top of it. A bloodshot Soarin’ had been fending off any pegasi attempting to move the cloud until they had given up two hours ago, telling him to move it a little by himself in an hour. In a better mood he would have mused over the fact none of them seemed to recognize him without his suit, but at the moment he couldn’t care less. Yesterday he had moved the cloud here from outside town and settled down in a restless sleep, nightmares clouding his sleep until he gave up on it and just sat there. Tears had run dry a long time ago and the only thing left was fierce determination to finish what he started. I can’t back down now –she would hate me for it. I know I would have. So he sat there, waiting for the purple unicorn that had almost twenty five years earlier started this entire mess. The day carefully mapped out in two lives so it wouldn’t be forgotten. He didn’t have time to quadruple check the date, but he made sure the week before he set out to meet Trixie. Blinking his tired eyes as rarely as possible in case he missed something he counted the details in his head. “So she comes from that direction, finds the rock by the shore. Tries to levitate it but fails, get some rope and falls in. Simple enough, just stop her before she bind herself to the stone.” The thought process got interrupted seconds later when an important section of that story failed to show up. Flapping his wings to move his resting place around the lake he franticly searched the entire area. Panic started to well up in his mind, threatening to consume him. “There’s no rock here. Why isn’t the rock here, I thought I checked this before.” He almost leapt off the cloud to search closer to the ground when somepony cleared their throat behind him, making him turn around to face his visitor. Flapping her wings in front of him was none other than his friend, superior, captain and most importantly at all comforting shoulder Spitfire. Her orange wings easily making her hoover steadily at his height, bobbing up and down with each stroke. Brushing a strand of her mane out of her eyes she gave Soarin’ a grin full of embarrassment. The moment she saw the downcast expression on his face she soon showed more concern than anything. “Hey, Soarin’. How are you? You look like crap.” Teasing him was part of her deal, she had known him long enough to know which things cheered him up and not. Joking and teasing did that most of the time. True to her expectations, Soarin’ snorted holding back a snicker since she knew those words were truer than ever. “I feel like it too. Friend of mine died yesterday, we were pretty close.” Close is an understatement, but she can’t learn that. As the words registered in Spitfire’s mind the concerned expression shifted slightly into one more focused on comforting her friend. “Sucks to hear that. I guess you two were pretty close if this is how you look a day later?” “Like siblings, I watched her grow up.” Spitfire nodded. “But you know what? No don’t answer that, if you knew you wouldn’t sit here and sulk like this. You should remember her? from all the fun times you had, not the sad moments.” She ended up poking him in the chest twice before she was done speaking. “Life moves on chump, you can’t live in the past. Remember her but don’t dwell on it.” Wiping his snout with a foreleg to clean it from the last traces of snot he replied. “I guess you’re right. It helped a bit I guess.” Thinking a little he added. “Why are you here anyway? I thought I wasn’t going back for another two days.” The female regained her embarrassed that she had initially and awkwardly laughed a forced laugh. “About that… You told me about that important date that was soon right, how I should remind you if you forgot?” Soarin’ knew that date, it was today. You didn’t take so many drug induced trips into the past and then got it wrong. She couldn’t know about those trips, but just in case he lost himself in the training again he had asked her to remind him of something the day before. It would mean he still had time. He rubbed his head in confusion. “Of course. That date was today, I remembered it.” Most surprisingly Spits just sighed even harder than she had done before, all while shaking her head. “That date you wanted to remind you of was yesterday Soarin’. I’m sorry I forgot, okay? You weren’t there and I just kinda missed it when you didn’t remind me.” In that moment the world around Soarin’ crashed down completely. He had missed the date. She was supposed to come to the lake yesterday, not today. But yesterday he hadn’t been here, he was busy with Trixie at the Cloudsdale lake. He couldn’t have been in two places at once. He had failed, she had died again. Thirty five years of waiting for this moment and the one time it mattered he failed. He was shaken out of his out of control thoughts by Spitfire who again held that expression of concern he had seen so much of today. “Hey, Soarin’ you there? I know I promised to tell you, and you know I’m sorry right?” Sounding so worried that she had upset him he decided to assure her that she hadn’t at all. “Spits, don’t worry about it. You didn’t mean anything by it, and I’m sure it’ll work out anyway.” I hope, he added mentally. He wasn’t at all convinced it would work out, but what was the point in worrying her about it. Yesterday was the last day he knew what would happen after all, so the future was just as hidden for him now. Figuring there was one easy solution to find out if she survived or not he needed to leave Spitfire alone for a little while. “Hey Spits I just need to check something then I can come back with you. No, don’t worry about it I got nothing left to do now.” Dismissing her concerns he needed his break she eventually agreed to him coming back with her, as soon as he was done that is. Dropping off the cloud he left Spitfire alone looking after him as he soared out across the landscape towards Ponyville and a very specific library in the distance. The library came closer and closer by the second, but as he entered the town proper he decided walking would attract less attention. And attention was the last thing he needed at the moment, place right around a heart attack. He guessed it wouldn’t matter since none of the pegasi had known him, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Coming to stand right outside the tree library raised a whole lot of insecurities that had previously been hidden. Not knowing what would happen was unnerving after all this time. Sure he hadn’t known in detail but he had known who was alive or not. This would be first for him. Fidgeting in place for an entire minute he found some resolve, he wanted to know. Pushing down the last of his fears he put a hoof on the door in front of him and knocked two times before letting it fall back to the ground. Not more than a minute after the first knock had sounded through the tree house in front of him he could head the sound of hooves nearing the door. The doorknob lit up in a lavender magic aura before the door swung open. Standing on the other side of the wooden door was the same lavender unicorn he had waited for earlier that day by the lake, alive no less. Currently she was looking at him with a curious gaze, saying something. Realizing his mistake he instant turned his attention to her words. “… is Twilight Sparkle. How can I help you?” Unable to form a coherent reply after seeing the very much alive Twilight that he moments ago thought had died the most that came out of his mouth was: “Uhhh…” before he immediately turned around and bolted from the door as fast as his wings could carry him. Settling down on the cloud ground right in front of his house for the first time in days Soarin’ took note of the overflowing mail that laid spread across the ground. Sighing he took up a bunch at random only to confirm it was all fans who had mailed him. Dropping the letters he had picked up he moved around the large pile of papers spread on the ground to get his sack, as always. Wading through the last few letters he came upon the door of his home, the one he used when he wasn’t out and preforming somewhere. The door looked just like any other, a regular cloud slightly shaped as a door without any lock. It was pointless anyway, pegasi could just enter through the windows so why bother locking his door? Not that anypony had ever entered his home. Pushing the door open the first thing he noticed he had just been proven wrong. Somepony had entered his home while he was away. Sure they had only stepped four steps through the door and placed a letter in his hallway, but it still counted. Picking up the offending letter he instantly noted the lack of address and sender, the curiosity got the better of him. Only one kind of letter he had received before didn’t have a sender address added. Ripping up the letter he found only a single sentence printed in ornate looking letters. Soarin’ The price has been paid. Remember to forget at the end. ~L