//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Life After Death // Story: The Second Life of Moztrot // by CrackedInkWell //------------------------------// This is not the book about the life I lived between 756 to 791. It is not about the struggle to keep myself and family financially secure; nor the reasons I wrote my operas, symphonies, concertos, sonatas, and choral pieces. For that is not the story I want to tell. Everything about my life -- from private letters to first hoof accounts -- has been exposed by historians and teachers of music. Myths have been spun about my life, and countless concerts, recitals, and festivals have performed every piece that I have ever written. That is not what I want to write. Rather, this story is about my second life, after all of that. So, I suppose the best way to tell it, is to begin from the earliest memory I have of this new world. I woke up on a bed that wasn’t my own. I lay on a bed that propped my upper half up. My clothes were replaced by a blue, paper gown that was covered with white sheets and a blue blanket. A turquoise curtain surrounded the bed, and above was a light that never flickered. My left foreleg had a needle in it, connected by a tube to a clear bag with what I assumed was water in it. My ears heard a steady tempo beep like a note of a clarinet. I felt around my face and discovered a mask with a tube connecting it, but it made my throat quite dry. So much so that I had a coughing fit as I was pulling it off me. “Oh Celestia, he’s awake!” I heard a voice say while all around me, I heard the movement of hoofsteps like actors behind a closed curtain. Then suddenly, a mare in a white uniform and a pink mane pulled apart the curtain. “Sir, are you okay?” Of course, I wasn’t. After I begged for water and she retrieved some in a paper cup, a stallion in a white coat with spectacles stepped in. “Hello sir,” he said. “My name is Doctor Red Cross. I’m sure that you have a lot of questions.” “That I do,” I told him as I downed the thimble of water. “Where am I?” “Canterlot Medical Hospital,” he answered as he took out a clipboard. “You were admitted for emergency surgery for kidney failure and influenza. To which I am happy to report that the surgery has been a success, but you will definitely need to stay here at the hospital overnight.” “Surgery?” I looked down at myself, pulling the covers over to the side and pulling up the paper gown to reveal a scar with black stitching. “What did you do to me?” I demanded. He held out a hoof. “Mr. Moztrot, calm down. You shouldn’t move too much. We’ve replaced your failing kidney with a donated, healthy one. For the time being, we will be keeping an eye on you until you fully recover.” “But… But sir, I can’t afford to pay you-” I stopped, “How did you know my name?” Both ponies glanced at one another. “W-Well, you don’t have to worry about that, it’s already being taken care of,” he said as he flipped through his papers. “In fact, Celestia herself is paying your medical bill, but there is something that we need to clarify for you now that you’re awake.” He stuck his head and gestured for another pony to come in. The curtain was drawn a little bit aside to show a stallion that I had never seen before. He was orange and had a blue cloak like the night sky. His hooves and muzzle were white while his dark orange mane and beard were rather unkempt. Like the doctor, he had spectacles. “This is Sunburst, he is the one who brought you here.” I tilted my head, “He brought me here? I never have seen this pony in my life.” “Technically,” the stallion called Sunburst rubbed the back of his head. “You’re correct on that account. And uh…” I saw his ears folded backward as his face gave a rather guilty expression. “Mr. Moztrot, I’m so, so, so, so sorry for what I did.” “Did wh- owe!” At that moment I tried to sit up but instantly I felt a pain in my abdomen. “Please, don’t strain yourself,” the doctor put a hoof to gently lay me back. “What in Tartarus is going on?!” I demanded. “Who are you ponies? Why am I here? Where’s my wife?” Three ponies looked at one another until the mare pointed at the stallion in the cloak, “You tell him.” Again, I demanded an answer, and the one called Starburst cleared his throat, “Before I say anything, I want to ask a very important question: What’s the last thing you remember?” Now I was more confused than ever before, “What does that have got to do with anything?” “Quite a lot,” he pulled on the collar of his starry cloak. “I promise that I won’t ask any more questions if you could answer that one.” I sighed, “I was home when my wife had just returned with the children. And I was very sick… I had aches, pains, and my thoughts became sluggish as if time was slowing down for me. The last thing I recalled, I was in my bed with the manuscripts strewn about the blanket… And…” A thought came to me. I had many dark thoughts in the past, but this one horrified me. Terrorized me so much that I couldn’t bear to finish that sentence, the doctor put a comforting hoof on my shoulder as I looked up in fear. “Am I dead?” “Uh… Yes and no,” Sunburst continued. “Yes for the fact that on December the fifth, 791, history says that you died. At the same time, however, the answer is also ‘no’ obviously because, well… again, it’s my fault.” My jaw was gaping, “I don’t understand.” He rubbed his hooves over his eyes, “I guess there’s no other way of sugar coating this: I’m responsible for taking you out of your own timeline. As of right now, today is August 13th, 1007. In other words, I have taken you two-hundred-and-sixteen years into the future.” Admittingly, I lay there in complete silence for a good solid minute while the other three ponies waited to see my reaction. Well, I did what any sensible pony would do: I laughed in my usual hyena-like giggle. “This is a fantastic joke!” I declared. “The best one yet! So, who is the mastermind of all of this? Salieri? Schikaneighder? Oh! Is this Princess Celestia’s doing? I know she’s quite the trickster but I can never imagine her pulling off such a prank as this.” However, I had to pause when nopony else was laughing along with me. “Why are you all looking at me like that? You’ve all made a fool out of me and the joke is over… This is a joke, right?” “No Mr. Moztrot,” Doctor Red Cross told me. “If anything, we wouldn’t believe it ourselves if it weren’t for the fact that members of the Royal family witnessed you come through.” “I was only trying to demonstrate a very complex spell,” Sunburst explained. “One in which was to fetch something that was lost in the past. I tried to bring back some trinkets like some pottery or keys that nopony could find… but when you came through… Celestia knew who you were and how sickly you looked that we had to get you to a doctor immediately.” Another long pause, this time it was mine to speak up, “None of you are suggesting that this claim is… is real?” Sunburst nodded. “But, even if it were true, you can get me back home, could you? I have a wife and two small colts that are depending on me.” The bearded unicorn’s ears folded backward. “I… I can’t. The spell I cast was already complex enough to take you out of the past and into our present, and doing the opposite requires knowledge and mathematical precision that doesn’t exist. What’s more, even if I could, Celestia herself wouldn’t allow it as to prevent a paradox in time. Mr. Moztrot, I’m sorry. I’m really, really, really sorry.” Even still, I couldn’t believe it. Why would I after all? I have some fantastic tales before but this one goes above and beyond the nonsense that I like. “I will tell you this,” I said. “If you could so much as get Princess Celestia off her throne and plop her right here in this room, I will take you more seriously. Until then,” I turned to the doctor. “Could you send a letter to my wife Constanze? Have it say where I am and that I’m fine. Oh! And in the meantime, could I get some paper and something to write with?”