Sunlight
A harsh sunbeam worked its way along up the pillow until it fell directly on my face, forcing me out of my fretful slumber. I grumbled incoherently and rolled from my side onto my back. Shielding my eyes from the light with my forehooves only served to delay the inevitable task of waking up completely.
When I eventually gave up and dropped my hooves from my eyes I realized that my fetlocks were damp with old tears. I must have been crying in my sleep not long before I woke up. The dream that caused it all had not lingered, giving me no clue as to what had been so upsetting.
Rather than dwell on it I pushed the sheets off of my body and rolled myself out of bed. I trotted across the room to the offending window and opened the curtains completely, flooding the room with morning light. Though partially blocked by my window-mounted air conditioning unit the view of the Baltimare cityscape below was one of my favorite things about my apartment.
Now fully awake I trotted off to the attached master bathroom to wash the residue of sleep and tears from my face. The cool water from the tap felt even colder as the AC unit kicked on and sent a burst of cold air across the room. I savored the sensation as I examined my freshly washed face in the mirror.
It was the same face that had greeted me in the mirror every morning of my adult life, but something seemed off about it this morning. I flicked at my nicked ear with my hoof as if I expected it could cure me of the sensation, but it didn’t. With little more thought to it I chalked it up to waking up on the wrong side of the bed and headed out to make breakfast.
Forgoing the option to put one of my vests on I trotted out of the bedroom. I passed down the L-shaped hallway of my corner apartment and headed to the kitchen. As I passed by the living room I heard a small shout and the sound of little hooves hitting the hardwood floor.
“Mister Mossy!”
The little orange colt hopped down off the sofa and galloped across the room to me. The moment my eyes fell on his face everything came rushing back to me. The castle, Nightmare Moon, the lightning; it all flooded back into my mind at once. I fell back onto my haunches even as the foal reached me and wrapped one of my forelegs in a tight hug.
“Bookmark, what are… what are you doing in my apartment?” I patted the colt on the head, relieved to see him but more confused than ever.
“You live here?” The little unicorn released my leg and began taking stock of the area around him. “I just woke up on the couch a few minutes ago but I was too afraid to look around.”
“I used to live here…” I corrected him gently, following as he trotted back into the living room. “But that was a different life and a different time. We can’t really be here.”
“I thought it would be easier for you both this way.”
A voice floated through the hallway from which I had just come. I recognized it, but didn’t believe it until the face of the golden mare appeared around the corner.
“You’ve both been through so much tonight…”
“MOM!”
Before I could get a word in edgewise Bookmark was down the hall and locked around his mother’s foreleg, tears streaming from his eyes. The mare embraced him tightly and gently shushed back his sobs. Her demeanor and the colt’s reaction erased any worry I might have had that this was anything but the real Golden Prose.
I wasn’t sure what it meant that she was here, but I was glad to see her. However I was not one to interrupt the reunion between her and her foal. As unobtrusively as I could I trotted back into the living room and took refuge in my easy chair.
A few minutes later the pair followed suit and took up residence on the dull blue sofa across from me. I merely smiled and nodded a greeting.
“Golden Prose.”
“Please, call me Goldie. I think we’ve gotten to that level of familiarity now.” The mare smiled, settling into the couch next to Bookmark.
“Alright Goldie.” I leaned my head against a foreleg propped on the arm of the chair. “I guess you probably know what I’m going to ask, right?”
The unicorn nodded and tilted her head slightly away from me, casting a few strands of her golden mane across her face. It was a gesture of uncertainty I wouldn’t have expected from her.
“Nightmare Moon… is dead. Defeated.” She tapped her tongue against her teeth, choosing her words deliberately. “The essence of her magic is no longer intertwined with that of the Everfree. It is returned to its source.”
“Princess Luna?”
She nodded and paused to let me absorb. There had been a part of Princess Luna inside Nightmare Moon all along. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but something about it just didn’t sit well. Power had been returned to her with the defeat of her dark half, she’d had a stake in this fight that she hadn’t spoken of to me.
It was a moot point now.
“And what about this, what about all of this?” I waved my hoof out at the living room of the apartment from my past. “We aren’t really here… and I remember what happened at the tower.”
I paused, the words catching in my throat.
“Are we dead?”
The silence hung thick in the air like a cloud around us. Bookmark squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, looking up at his mother with both fear and expectation in his eyes. Golden Prose only looked past the both of us at the far wall.
“Not we. Just you.”
The revelation still sent a chill down my spine despite the fact I’d been expecting it. I knew there was no way I would have survived the grievous injuries I had sustained to destroy Nightmare Moon. It just seemed like such an inglorious end to a story.
“That… that’s good. For a moment there I was afraid I’d completely bucked it up.” I forced a weak smile onto my face.
“No, you didn’t…” Golden Prose spoke softly to me as if she were trying to reassure me like her own foal. “What you said before… about not having a choice? You were right. The story was always going to end this way. It doesn’t make what you did any less courageous, and I thank you for it…”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony.
“I guess none of it was really my doing, but you’re welcome.” I pressed a hoof to the corner of my mouth while I though, marveling for a moment that the gunshot wound on my jaw was no longer present. “That still doesn’t explain where we are or why you two are here, though.”
The unicorn tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Outside the window the Baltimare landscape disappeared, leaving only a bright white light in its place.
“Like I said, I thought this would be the easiest thing for you to wake up to.” After all her evasive looks she seemed to find the strength to meet me eye to eye. “I really have no idea what to call this place, but I think of it as a sort of ‘creative limbo’.”
I got up from my seat and trotted over to look out the window. The seeming vastness of the empty white expanse outside was unnerving.
“They say you die two deaths. One is the death of your physical body, the other is the last time somepony thinks of you.” The mare gestured for me to take a seat beside her on the couch. “A character in a story only truly dies when the author decides never to mention them again. There are a thousand ways a seemingly dead character can return.”
Slowly I moved away from the window and eased myself down on the couch next to her.
“I don’t understand…”
Golden Prose rested a hoof on my shoulder, and then rested her forehead against the hoof.
“Characters brought to life by the Everfree persist beyond the end of their story. Discord is proof of that. Just because Princess Luna’s story about you is now over doesn’t mean another author could not take up that mantle in a new story…”
I frowned but did not resist the unicorn’s touch.
“Are… are you offering to keep me alive in a new story?”
The mare leaned back from me and smiled, nodding.
That was what I wanted, wasn’t it? For my life to be mine again and for all of this to be over.
But is that what I would really be getting?
“No.”
The golden mare and her colt looked at me with confusion and dejection in their eyes. I didn’t expect them to understand.
“It’s a wonderful gift, but no.” It was my turn to be unable to match the mare’s gaze. “I can’t and won’t accept it.”
“But why…” Golden Prose’s voice waivered.
“This is the one time I really do have I choice.” I tried to leave the sofa, only to be pulled back magically.
“Once I found out the truth about my life all I wanted was to be free to make my own decisions again. If you write me back into another story, even if I sit here and dictate to you exactly how I want my life to go, I am still living in bondage. I can never change my mind and nothing I do will ever be a spontaneous choice again. I can’t stand to go back to a life like that.”
Before I could stop her Golden Prose wrapped me in a tight hug. When she finally released me I was surprised to see tears streaming down her face. I refused to believe that she was this upset purely about letting me choose to end my own story.
“I’m sorry.” She said softly. “I of all ponies should have been able to see that… and I guess maybe I did, but there is more to it than that…”
“There always is.” I murmured
Sadly the mare looked away from me and back to her colt.
“Nightmare Moon is gone, but she was only an avatar for a darkness that still persists in the Everfree. It is weak now, but it will find a new face to wear and return someday. I cannot allow that to happen…”
“You’re going to stay here, aren’t you?” I closed my eyes. I knew she was going to nod, but I didn’t want to see it.
“If I stay here I can keep the dark presence in check and prevent anypony else from using the forest again, Mossy. It’s what I was meant to do; I don’t have any choice in the matter either. What I do have is a choice about how I tie up my loose ends.”
She leaned down and kissed Bookmark on the head. The colt had long since fallen asleep pressed against his mother’s side.
“I can’t keep him here with me in this limbo, Mossy. It isn’t fair to him.” The tone of her voice now well reflected the gravity of what she said. “I need someone to look after him; someone I know I can trust. And frankly I can think of only one pony in the world that can do this.”
“Goldie… I can’t, I-“ The mare silenced me with a hoof to my lips.
“Mossy, you gave your life to save us. Whether you were destined to or not, that is just the kind of stallion you are. I know that even with complete control of your own life you will do what is best for him.”
“But that’s just it; if you bring me back I won’t be in control of my life.” The pain of my refusal weighed more heavily on me than ever before. “I want to help you, I really do. But are you going to force me into a scripted life to save him?”
“There is another way…” The unicorn’s horn lit up and a book from my bookcase across the room floated free and planted itself on the coffee table. The Labyrinth of Me. I knew I had never owned that book.
“This is the book of your life as told by the princess…” The mare continued, opening the book with her magic and flicking through it. “As I see it, there is no reason I could not… edit such a work to suit our needs.”
Wordlessly I reached out and touched the book, almost afraid of it.
“I could change the ending for you… I could change anything for you. The accident at Hayseed Swamp could have never happened. Atten Burro could be alive and well. You wouldn’t have to remember any of the suffering you endured.”
Her words were tempting. I could feel my hoof shaking as I touched the spine of the book that contained my life. Of all the things I had been offered this was by far the most appealing. I couldn’t see a downside to it. Once this story ended on a happy note I could be free to live my life again, albeit with a new unintentional addition to my family.
But I knew it was still not for me.
“Again I’m going to have to say no.”
Golden Prose opened her mouth to protest but I stopped her with a hoof on her lips.
“Change the story, but don’t change my memories.” I sighed heavily, almost unable to believe what I was saying. “I want to remember everything. The experiences in life made me the pony I am right now, and for some reason beyond me I am okay with that. I don’t want to be somepony else.”
The mare nodded. “Done.”
“I don’t want anypony else to suffer because of Luna’s story.” My face contorted as I tried to fight back tears. “I don’t care how you bring me to the present day in the story, but I can never have met Atten Burro. He will be alive and well without ever having known me. And no matter what happens in my life you can never intervene. After this you can never write of me again.”
“But why, why would you do that to yourself?”
“Because I know myself, Goldie. I know my own weaknesses.” I rested my face in my hooves. “If you gave me a second chance I don’t know that I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. I can’t let myself have the opportunity. I don’t deserve
it.”
The mare placed her hoof on my shoulder and turned me to face her. I could see the look of pity in her eyes before she leaned and rested her forehead again mine.
“I understand, Moss. “ She whispered. “I know in my heart you are stronger than that now, but I understand. And I will do what you ask if you’ll just watch over my colt…”
“I promise you I will…”
As if on cue there was a knock at the apartment door. It made me jump slightly, but Golden Prose didn’t seem surprised.
“You can come in now, m’lady.” She called out, covering Bookmark’s ears as not to wake him.
Down the hall I heard the door open and close, followed by the sound of slow deliberate hoofsteps. Then from around the corner appeared the alicorn of the night, Princess Luna. Gone was the armor I had last seen her in. She appeared as she did to me the first night when she had found me in the forest.
“Greetings, my little ponies.” She spoke softly as if she had already known there was a sleeping presence in the room.
“Princess.” Golden Prose and I replied in quiet unison.
The alicorn stopped in the center of the room and stooped into a bow before us.
“I am so very proud of the two of you. You both surpassed my every expectation.”
To me the words sounded hollow even though I knew they were not intended to be. Golden Prose’s opinion was unreadable; she only nodded and closed her eyes.
“We have reached an accord, my princess.” She spoke up, her eyes not daring to open. “They are ready for you to take them home.”
“But-“ I tried to interject but the golden mare quickly silenced me.
“I need you to go before he awakens.” Her voice shook as she turned to look at the colt beside her. “I don’t have the strength of will for this goodbye. Take him now and I will see to it that he understands why someday.”
With a gentle magical nudge she bumped me from the sofa and onto my hooves. Before I could protest she placed the sleeping colt on my back, all but assuring my silence lest I wake him.
“Will we see you again?” I whispered as Princess Luna began to usher me towards the door with her wing.
Golden Prose smiled, her eyes glowing with the same unearthly whiteness that radiated outside the windows.
“I can’t say for certain, Mossy. Not even I know how this story ends.”
And then she was gone, along with the entire illusionary apartment around her. The only thing that remained was the door through which Princess Luna had entered.
I looked up at the alicorn expectantly but she only held me closer with her wing. The colt on my back weighed as heavily on my body as the task I had been given weighed on my mind. But as we trotted through the doorway I resolved to accept the comfort the alicorn offered. I leaned my head into her as we passed into the light.