//------------------------------// // 5 The Undying Truth // Story: When the Stars are Right // by Broken Phalanx //------------------------------// Time passes uneventfully for the broken-faced Apostrophe; a given, considering the bars buried deep within the crystal cordon the perimeter of the room. Slices of light cut their way through the dimmer corners, revealing unsightly dust bunnies migrating across the checkerboard pattern of illumination and shadow; Twilight had thought vertical bars alone insufficient for proper containment. This room, more so than any other, is the domain of the silent; even libraries possess gentle murmurings at their busiest of times, while here the only noise is the regretful dirge of unconscious respiration. And in the silence Apostrophe strains his hobbled senses and, for the first time in what the locals called a ‘month’, truly listens. At first, there is little more than a familiar twinging, the singing of spheres as they illuminate the cosmos; more follows, less familiar yet equally beautiful, from the percussive breathing of the earth beneath to the violin shrieks of communication from one organism to another. The world is an orchestral score of communication distilled into its purest unintelligible form, and the familiarity of dissonent tones and sounds is enough for Apostrophe to momentarily relax, to think, not as an inhabitant of this dirtball cradle-grave, but as the nameless being that dwells amongst the stars. And, faintly, Apostrophe can hear the future. Strange electricity, echos of wordless thoughts given mass and power, crash against steel and crystal; icicles form on the ceiling, colorful with memories of universes too fragile to be sustained: the walls groan, yet hold, albeit barely, even as impossible hues flood the vacuous air in shapes that agonize the mortal mind to construe, much less behold. Something lingers on the horizon of perception, always watching yet never acting. Apostrophe knows the Truth; in no form has it been ‘gold,’ the meaning of such a word unfortunately poisoned for terrestrials by the mineral. And at such a thought the shackles are equipped once more, the universe growing silent. The fact is that the room is a prison; it traps the world behind myriad bars. After all, why else would the lock be located on the interior of the door, for easy manipulation by the room’s inhabitant? The echoing songs of the stars finally fade, only to be replaced by breathing. No. Two breathings. Two heartbeats. Two… beings? “Verily,” Apostrophe begins, “Are you alright, little fuzzy thing?” “How long have you been here?” the only other free-being (pony?) asks, the rushing of winds around the squeaky voice revealing the speaker to revel in her (or a very unfortunate ‘his’) own excitability. “Verily, by the score of ye’ kith, six mo-” “Why do you talk like that?” “Why-?” Why, indeed. The language of locals is a thing that falters before the inimitable mind of the Nameless; Apostrophe the Avatar is akin to a lump of coal brought before a star, the fuel incinerated into atoms when brought before it. When Apostrophe was unnamed, it was mere forgetfulness. Named, it is a sort of death. “It is the only way I know how,” Apostrophe finally replies. “How did you get here?” “I came in through the front door.” Apostrophe listens intently for a moment; the lock is unmoved, the hinges untouched, the bars still stolid and certain against any intrusion. Such an entrance is surely impossible, excluding sorcery or applied science. Or applied clowning “Verily?” Apostrophe says, because nothing more can be. “Yuhp-er-oonie! Are you the stallion Twilight is keeping locked in her castle?” “No.” “No? But you’re in here, silly-billy!” “I am neither stallion nor mare. I am no more imprisoned by Sparkle than the mountains may bow to the winds. And you imply any being can own anything more than its own essence; that is not the case. Verily, the statement is false on all fronts.” “Okie-dokie-loki! Are you the being in the castle that Twilight lives in?” “Verily.” “Gotcha!” the other entity (surely a pony, and surely just as much a prisoner as every other inhabitant alive on this planet) said, the bubbliness in her voice as infectious as some sort of embarrassing disease. “Have you had a party yet?” “I fail to see what a coalition could provide me that I am unable to take for my own,” Apostrophe replies, only to add, almost immediately, “Admittedly, however, such a brigade may prove interesting, should actions pan out similarly to how Spike the Dragon’s ‘theatre of the mind’ events transpire-” “I don’t think anypony wants their weekly ‘Bandits and Barristers’ games to be public knowledge, silly-billy,” the pony is quick to interject. “Verily? Given that the squeals they occasionally produce upon particular rolls are comparable to your kind’s joyous discovery of matrimony or conception, I would have thought otherwise.” “Okie-dokie, maybe you’re in here for a reason.” ‘Verily, perhaps the world is out there for a reason.” “Still, one itsie-bitsie cake shouldn’t matter…” “Bother ye’self not. Countless others have visited your kith in this village prior to me, with nary a succulent and sugary affair in sight.” “What? Nuh-uh! I have a checklist, see?” There is a fluttering noise akin to autumn leaves: ‘confetti’, supplies a memory snatched from the mind of a local. “No.” “Okie-dokie, but if you opened your eyes, you would!” “Perhaps. Nevertheless, others have visited your lands, and likewise gone thusly unrewarded.” “Nuh-uh!” “All things exist in all states and all locations, little pony.” “Nuh-uh! If they did, I would be here-” there is an elastic stretching noise that seems to grow in intensity with every passing moment “-and there and there and back home with Gummy and-” and like the snapping of a rubber band the noise ceases “-and I could hardly talk with just you ‘cause I’d also be planning a prank-war with-” And then she pauses to breathe, mercifully. Apostrophe interjects, “And yet they do. Allow me to show you.” *** Once more, peaceful silence. It only lasts a few hours, however, before a clatter of hooves sprints down the hallway to Apostrophe’s make-shift prison, a concentration of high-potency magic handily tears metal apart like so much paper-mache, and the sound of growling and gnashing molars fills the room. “Ye’ dentist shall have a field day if you don’t cease,” Apostrophe finally says, conversationally; it was a familiar sort of grinding tooth noise, the sort Apostrophe had heard much of whilst engaging in whimsy with the purple Alicorn. “Or, verily, ye’ shall continue destroying biological calcium deposits with nary a thought to the contrary. It bothers me not.” The creaking continues, accompanied by trumpeting huffs; all slightly higher pitched than normal, likely a byproduct of the ever warmer days. Sparkle is taking her time to reply; this will surely be an interesting observation, as are all insights that take her more than thirty seconds to assemble. “Why is Pinkie excavating a mountain for, and I quote, ‘baking purposes’?” Sparkle says, in that careful ‘I-shall-pretend-I-am-unfazed-by-this’ tone she adopts when she attempts to wear the mein of a leader. Her voice cracks a moment later, however, rendering her next few words a squeaky mess. “And why does she have diagrams explaining quantum superpositioning?” “I know not,” Apostrophe replies, and Twilight sighs in relief, only to give a small choked-gurgle when Apostrophe adds, “Verily, I dictated the burning of those documents to be the wisest decision.” “Why?!” “The documents had served their purpose.” “No, I mean, why did you tell Pinkie anything about quantum?!” “Given her propensity to appear in the strangest places, such as, for example, this cell, I would think her already quite aware of this issue, albeit subconsciously.” “Really? That’s your defense? Because as of three hours ago, she has been trying to host a party for every entity that could have, at some point, had an atom present in Ponyville!” A few attoseconds pass in quiet calculation before Apostrophe quietly murmurs, “Ah.” Twilight sighs, recomposing herself before saying, “At least you get the gravity of the situation.” “Verily. The mass alone of necessary supplies borders on that of a small moon.” “Yes, that’s… probably true, but I’m more referring to the fact she’s never going to stop partying at this rate! I did mention there is now a crevasse the depth and width of a mountain, right?! She’s turning it into an oven!” “Nothing lasts forever, Sparkle. All things end. Even you. Even I. Even endings-” “Oh, really? You don’t say? That’s great, because you’re helping me end this little friendship problem in the bud; I’m going to bring Pinkie Pie here, and you’re going to apologize for making up nonsense, and everything is going to be alright again, got it?” “Why?” “Why? Are you serious?!” “Yes, why am I to lie? Is not education, to put it as you have, a ‘grand pursuit, wherein the reality of the cosmos shall be within hoof’s reach’? So why are you instructing me to lie now?” It is baffling; in one moment there is nothing but an unconquerable thirst for knowledge, to know more, more, more! In the next, all of reality can be cast aside for another, centuries of advances tossed into the entropic flames of time’s ever-forward march simply because something altogether pathetic needed to be sheltered, protected. It is hardly a fair question, Apostrophe knows, to ask another how one can justify an equation that is ultimately subtractive, particularly when Apostrophe itself has yet to solve it as well. And yet, it demands an answer. “Because she’s my friend, she’s hurting, and because a little white lie will help her, at least for a bit,” Twilight replies, as if it’s the most obvious observation in the world. “Yes, the stars are all going to go dim; yes, everyone will eventually die; and, yes, everything is going to turn into atomic soup. So what? Here and now, we’re alive.” For a tiny moment, as fleeting as the beat of a hummingbird’s heart, Apostrophe beholds the true ‘gold’. “Verily, ye’ are mad,” Apostrophe declares. And, a moment later, drowned out by the buzzing of Twilight’s arcane energies, “I hope it is contagious.” *** “Not once when I was a filly did I think I would be talking a pony down from a bowl of cake-batter.” “Verily? But your kind so easily take such rare objects for granite-” “Granted. Take for granted.” “Truly? The orange one states the metamorphic rock.” “Yes, well, Applejack has a lot of sayings that are a little mangled.” “Verily. And yet despite their composite flaws you adore them.” “The girls? Of course I care about them, they’re my friends!” “Even when they take a chicken coop hostage-?” “Okay, admittedly, this wasn’t Pinkie at her best, but, hey. That’s what friendship is.” “Friendship is talking another down from robbery and fowl-rustling?” “If you’re going to be pedantic about it, then yes, that can be a form of expressing friendship. But mostly it means we look out for one another when we’re in a more vulnerable state; I mean, it’s not right to just leave somepony when things get a little rough, right?” “Verily, I would not know.” “Oh?” “I don’t possess friends.”