• Published 5th Apr 2012
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Background Pony - shortskirtsandexplosions



"My name's Lyra Heartstrings, but you won't remember anything. Listen to my symphony, for it

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XII - What Sound a Stone Makes

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