//------------------------------//
// Farewell, Sable Stardust 
// Story: The Mask of Despair and the Face of Hope 
// by Wings of Black Glass 
//------------------------------//

“I don’t understand.”  Everypony was here now, inside the little cottage in the valley, seated or standing around the living room.  It was a bit crowded with ten ponies and a dragonling crammed in.  “How did you figure out it was you who created the memory curse?”  Sable, broken, sat between his parents, he could barely bring himself to look up at Starlight.
“I realized yesterday.”  His voice was badly cracked and hoarse.  “When we were here.”  He glanced towards his mother and then his father, who each had an arm around him.  “I saw the flash in their eyes, the color of my magic.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I think it was because he wasn’t sure exactly what he had done yet.”  I answered for him, guessing.  The look in his eyes told me I was close enough.  “And because… he didn’t want to face it.”  He flinched but did not deny it.
“I don’t blame you.”  Rarity meant she did not blame him for wanting to avoid the conversation.  Sable appeared to misunderstand.
“You should.”
“But why?”  Softwear brushed a hoof down his mane, she meant it to be comforting, but he shook her off.  “Why did you do this?”
“…I don’t know.”  He hesitated, I’d seen him do this before.  There was more to it than that.
“Yes, you do.”  He tried to shoot a piercing glare at me; he had no strength left to be honestly angry with me.  “It has to do with your cutie-mark.”
“Of course it does.”
“You still haven’t found it, have you?”  Earl Grey hugged his son.  “Even after all these years?”  Sable nodded sadly.  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Why does everypony do that?”  He ripped his head away from his father.  “It's not your fault.”  In Earl Grey’s expression, I could see this conversation had played out a hundred times before.
“Sable, if you know why you did this, you should tell us.”  Sable’s eyes fell to the floor, trying to ignore Applejack’s request.
“When we find Sereina.”
“Who?”  His parents shared a glance; neither one seemed to recognize the name.  Why didn’t they know her?  This didn’t make sense, removing the curse should have restored their memory of her.
“That’s not fair.”  Fluttershy approached.  I blinked, confused at the accusatory tone in her voice.  “You can’t avoid this like that.  You think we’ll never find her, don’t you?”  Something unsaid passed between them, and I could see Sable realize what Fluttershy knew.
“Fluttershy, what do you mean?”  The yellow Pegasus refused to answer Rarity, remaining focused on Sable.  She placed a hoof on his forearm.
“No more secrets.”  He continued to hesitate.  “Or do you want me to say it?”
“Alright, you win.”  He sighed, defeated again, and visibly braced himself.  “We won’t ever find Sereina because she doesn’t exist.”  
“Say what?”  Rainbow Dash’s jaw dropped.  “What are you saying?  Is she dead?”
“She never existed in the first place.  She’s not real.”
“OK, I’m confused.  Can anypony explain?”  Pinkie was not the only one.
“I can try.”  Fluttershy took over.  “I don’t know how the magic part works, but I think I understand the reasoning.”  She didn’t take her eyes off of Sable.  “You didn’t have any friends growing up, so you created one for yourself.  One who would support you, understand you.”  Sable started to shake again; it was clear he never wanted to hear this out loud.  No coat could keep a pony warm against that kind of chill.  Then Fluttershy embraced the purple Unicorn in the black coat.  “I don’t think any less of you for it.”  Even if only for a moment I saw the relief on his face.  If there were enough room, I would be there to help too.  As it was, only Softwear and Earl Grey could provide more warmth for him, taking him from Fluttershy when she let him go.  “I can’t imagine what it must have been like to grow up so lonely.”
“I think I understand now.”  I spoke up.  “But why did you tell me that story…”  I stopped, looking at his parents.  I had to word this carefully.  “Of the night of the rockslide, you said Sereina was there.  Why did you lie to me?”
“I didn’t lie.”
“But…”
“I told you the truth, as I knew it.”  There was only silence; it was still not clear what he meant.  “There was another aspect to the spell I placed on the Alicorn statue.  It was… a masterwork, my greatest accomplishment, and I didn’t even know it.”  He turned his neon blue eyes on me.  “Until you destroyed it.  Until you dismantled the spell, the story I told you was what I knew to be the truth.”  He paused, and everypony gave him the time needed to organize his thoughts.  “I used my own magic on myself. I rewrote my own memory.”  He crumpled like paper, curling into a ball between his parents, the same way he did the night we found out his secret.
“I still don’t get it.”  Spike scratched the side of his head.
“I ran away; I couldn’t face it anymore.”  Tears rolled down his face again; he did not attempt to hide them.  “I thought… I thought everything would be better if I never existed in the first place.”  He cracked again, his breathing shallow.  “So I made that the truth.  I took myself out of the memory of the world, locked away behind the magic in the statue.  I knew I could never come back again, so I made it so I never would.”
“You gave yourself a memory so horrid that you would never willingly come back.”  At last, it made sense, terrible though it was.
“And then locked the memory of the creation of that memory behind the same spell.”  He nodded to Starlight, and the effort seemed to pain him.
“I took the silver mask from the statue with me, in case I ever changed my mind.  It was the key to the lock.  All I would have had to do was to put it on, and I would know the truth, the real truth.  If I returned it to the statue, it would have undone the spell entirely, and everything would go back to the way it should have been.”
“Why do you know this all now?”  It was Applejack’s question.  “I thought your memory was gone?”
“What?!”  Softwear gasped.  We still hadn’t told his parents about the accident yet, that would have to come soon.
“When I dismantled the spell myself, it must have removed the blocks around these memories.”  He nodded again.  “Did you get anything else back?”  He shook his head.  “Only what relates to the enchantment?”  And he nodded affirmatively.
“What do you mean?  He lost his memory?”  Earl Grey once again put his arm around Sable, holding his son close.
“There was an accident.  He was trying to go back in time to…”
“I thought I was saving your lives.  The spell failed, and I lost almost everything.”  The short version, apparently.
“But you’re back home now.  We can help you get it all back.”  Softwear again brushed at his mane.  The day under the willow came back to me.  Did he still want to leave his old past behind?  I could easily read his uncertainty, plain as text on a page.
“No need to make a permanent decision just yet.”  Rarity came to his rescue.  “Your life in Ponyville can wait if you need to spend some time here.”
“The rest of us can’t stay.  We’ve been away too long as it is.”
“I’m afraid Applejack is right.”  I sighed.  “We all have responsibilities we left behind to chase Despair; we need to go home.”  Earl Grey looked at a clock on the wall, very similar to the one Sable tried to make, and frowned.
“Then you had better get going.  We’re out at the end of the line, the last train for today leaves pretty soon.”  My friends and I all looked at each other, we all knew we needed to leave, we just hadn’t expected it to be so soon.  “We’ll walk you to the station.”
We all filtered out of the little cottage in the valley, heading back into town.  Sable was silent the whole way, following at the back of the herd.  Each time I looked back, he seemed more and more downtrodden.  We reached the station only a few minutes before the train was scheduled to depart, it was already loading cargo and passengers on board.  Tickets were purchased, and most of the group took seats in the passenger car.  Fluttershy and I were the two to hang back the longest.
“Don’t worry, Sable.”  The yellow Pegasus patted him on the shoulder.  “We’ll be waiting for you to come back when you’re ready.”  He nodded, sadly, a few tears dripped to the ground.  Then she turned and boarded the train.  He meekly reached for her, but she was gone, whatever he was going to say dead in his throat.
“Ponyville isn’t so far away, in the end.  Take whatever time you need.  Learn who your parents are, learn who you used to be.  Then you can decide what you want to do.  After all, you still have hope.”  I backed onto the passenger car, bowing deeply towards him.  Despite knowing it was not a permanent separation, it still felt final somehow.  “Goodbye, Sable Stardust.”  The door shut between us, and I found a seat.
Out the window I could see Sable and his parents, the couple was giving him just enough space to be polite.  He stood alone on the platform, watching me through the glass.  He waved slowly as the train whistle blew and it pulled away.  Glass wings flashed as Sable jumped into the air, I could still see him hanging above the town even as the trees obscured the village itself.  A bolt of neon blue lightning jumped from the distant Unicorn, leaping up into the clouds above and illuminating the grey sky like an aurora.  A long low boom rolled over the train, deep enough to be felt right into the bones, a heartfelt farewell to his friends.