“You just left him there? Alone?”
“Not alone, he was with his parents.”
“I can’t wrap my head around it. He manipulated himself too? Gave himself a fake marefriend, just to kill her?”
“That’s all sorts of creepy.”
“Give him some slack. None of us can imagine growing up so alone.”
“I can… it wasn’t quite as bad for me growing up, but we both snapped under the strain. If I had that kind of magic at my disposal… I don’t want to think about the damage I could have done.”
I yawned and stretched my wings, looking out my window in the morning light. Briefly, I considered my schedule for today, for the first time in a while I had some free time. It’s been two weeks since we returned from the distant reaches of Equestria, and I only finally yesterday got caught up on all the work I had to set aside. Life in Ponyville returned to normal quickly enough, the castle was repaired, and everypony went back to their old routines.
Two weeks since the encounter with the thief, Despair. Again I sent a message to the other Princesses, warning them of what Despair said. Fortunately, there had been no more sign of the charcoal colored pony with the scarred face. Hopefully, the loss of the Amulet had convinced him to give up whatever scheme he was planning. On a whim I cast Sable’s tracking spell, the little arrow spun wildly. The amulet remained hidden. Relieved, I headed away to find breakfast.
Two weeks since we reunited Sable Stardust with his family. No sign of him either. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. On one hoof it meant he hadn’t run back here to get away from his past, on the other, it meant I didn’t know if he was still with them. With all my duties I hadn’t had much time to think about him.
Without even thinking I knocked on the door in front of me to ask if the one within would join me for breakfast before realizing that it was Sable’s room, and he was not there to answer. The door swung open on smooth hinges, the room inside was still dark as Sable usually left his shutters closed so he could sleep in. Somewhat disappointingly there was very little of his personality on display in here. He never bothered to decorate it to suit his tastes. Pretty much the only items he put in here were the silver mask, now sitting lonely on a shelf, and the pages of sketches he was working on. The last time I came in here all I did was leave the pile of gears and sheets from the project he was working on in the library on the dresser.
With a sigh, I started to close the door when something reflected from atop the nightstand. Curious, I checked it out. It was a corner of a scroll, torn from the page and framed. I had to bring it into the light to see it properly, and it was revealed to be the sketch he made of me the day at the lake. The image must have meant more to him than I thought, he hadn’t bothered to preserve anything else he made, and I carefully placed it back where I found it. Presumably, he would want this back when he returned. If he returned.
A shadow blocked the square of light from the door. I looked back to see Spike standing there.
“Yeah, I miss him too. But don’t you think the melancholy is a bit much? It hasn’t been all that long.”
“I didn’t realize how much I got used to him being around.” Once back out in the hall, I closed the door firmly.
“You can tone it down a few notches.” I laughed, heading towards breakfast.
“So what did you talk to him about?” After our meal, I brought up the topic again.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. Seriously, what did you two talk about?”
“Guy stuff mostly.”
“Guy stuff? Like what girls you’re interested in or how much you can lift?”
“Nah.” He waved a dismissive claw. “Comics and games, mostly. I invited him to O&O night a few times. But I think he found us a little intimidating.”
“You?” I had to repress a giggle.
“Hey, I can be intimidating!” I shot him a knowing look out the corner of my eye. “Well OK, maybe mostly Discord.”
“I suppose that's fair. Did he join?”
“He seemed interested, and I loaned him the books. But then… Despair came after the Amulet before the next session.”
“Yeah…”
“Did he really have to pick such a depressing name? Wouldn’t something a bit more dramatic have been better, like ‘Shadow Thief,’ or ‘Rage Tempest’ or something like that?”
“Despair is plenty dramatic enough.”
“Oh, or ‘Scarflank!’ Totally should have gone with Scarflank.” I rolled my eyes.
“So that was it, just game stuff?”
“He kept to himself for the most part. Trying to get him to talk was like pulling teeth sometimes.”
“Hmm, Fluttershy and I never had quite that much trouble.”
“Yeah, but you’re… well, you. Getting ponies to open up is sort of your thing.” Spike glanced up at the clock. “Come on; we’ve got stuff to do.”
The rest of the morning I spent signing papers and writing letters. I had an idea for a grand festival I wanted to run past the other princesses, and it was going to take a while to organize. After that, I met with Mayor Mare before lunch with Starlight Glimmer and Trixie. The conversation was polite, but not particularly pleasant; I never really got along with Trixie. When the meal was over I headed out for a walk to clear my mind and de-stress, Spike ran off to the comic shop to see if the new power-ponies issue was out.
Now alone, I wandered, letting my hooves take me where they wanted. First through the park, and then out to the lake. For a moment I considered taking a break here, but wanderlust called, and I continued to roam aimlessly. Or perhaps not so aimlessly, as I soon found myself standing where Sable’s hovel once stood. The willow he transformed still stood tall beside the pond.
I brushed the veil of leaves aside to enter. The sunlight glowed through to the white underside of the leaves, illuminating the interior with a calming light. The flowers within, a hundred colors and varieties, grew with petals wide open and soak up the almost holy light. Carefully I stepped over them, listening to the wind through the branches and the birdsong in the air. For a long moment, I breathed in the atmosphere and settled down at the very base of the willow to rest.
I blinked, finding myself in a field of ash, flowers dry and crispy beneath my hooves. Looking around I saw nothing but dust in the air; the sun couldn’t be seen, only a pale twilit glow illuminated the ashen land. Something laughed, cruel. I spun and turned, looking for the origin of the sound, I seemed to be alone.
“Get it now?” The sinister voice spoke from right behind me, and I whirled to find a dark figure standing there, something whipped around it like a cloak. It cracked a horrid smile, a white arc on a face charred ebon black; it didn’t seem to have eyes. “What I did?” The voice was familiar.
“Who are you?” The creature didn’t respond immediately. It was faintly equine, wretchedly thin and wasted, with a mane and tail like smoke. A horn on its head seemed to made from a pair of spiraling jagged metal spikes.
“You think you know me?” It took one halting step towards me and collapsed into dust, disappearing into the ash below my hooves. I backed away from where it was standing. “You have no idea, do you?” I spun, the creature standing again before me.
“What are you?” The thing was as still as stone.
“Think, Princess. You can save me.” I tried to respond, to ask ‘from what?’ But I had no mouth.
“Or maybe you cannot.” A second voice, or perhaps the same one. A second creature, identical to the first, stood now beside its twin. The hot wind blew, throwing dust into my eyes. “No matter what you see, you will remain blind.” As one, both creatures reached up and tore off their faces. Black flakes peeled away, revealing a visage I knew. “See me.”
I blinked, awoken by a scratching noise like quill on paper and the drums in my ears. I was still under the willow’s veil, surrounded by Sable’s flowers. A few deep breaths later and the drums ceased, my pulse returning to normal. The ash field and the thin black creatures were only a passing dream.
Something moved by the edge of the willow leaves, I caught sight of the tip of a tail disappearing out of view. It was black, with a streak of neon blue.
“Wait!” I rose from my seat, leaping over the flowers in my haste. This place was very relaxing, and part of my mind was already planning to put in stepping stones and a proper seat at the base of the tree. I burst out of the veil of leaves and looked around. There he was, standing calmly not far away and facing towards me, a saddlebag over his black coat. Sable Stardust bowed, flaring his glass wings low to the sides.
“You called?”
“Sable! Welcome back!” I nearly landed on him in my excitement. “When did you get here?” He took a step back, so we weren’t nose to nose.
“I only just arrived. I was going to drop by the castle soon to see if you were there.” He smiled, almost. “Looks like I didn’t have to. I didn’t expect to find you here.”
“I was just relaxing.” I gestured back to the willow. “Your tree is quite calming.”
“If it pleases you, then it was worth the effort.” Now he turned towards the castle and started off.
“You seem better.” I trotted up beside him; his stride was somewhat longer than it used to be. A sign of confidence?
“Ha, that wouldn’t be hard to believe. I was pretty miserable when you left.”
“How did it go with your parents?”
“Have you ever been embarrassed by your parents bringing out baby pictures?”
“Yeah.”
“Basically, two weeks of that.” I laughed, he clearly meant it as a joke. “But that isn’t my home anymore. I couldn’t stay. There’s too much…” He faded away, unwilling to say the rest. “And don’t worry, I promised them I would keep in touch.” That was good to hear. “What about you? Have you been keeping busy?”
“There was so much work to catch up on, but I managed. Did you get anything back?”
“A bit. Mostly of my early childhood. Which… I guess I’m glad to have back.”
“You guess? Anything wrong?” It took several moments for him to respond, I could tell he was thinking about it.
“The little foal I was, I can’t see that becoming me.” He slowed, looking down at his hooves. “He was so… hopeful.”
“No pony is the same as they were as a foal. Everypony changes.”
“I know. But still, the little Stardust knew nothing, saw only endless possibility ahead of him. It feels a little incongruous to me.” I looked him over again, considering how I thought of him.
“I think he grew up, not as openly outgoing, a bit more cynical, but still hopeful. You haven’t given up just yet.”
“There she is.” He smiled faintly, but his eyes said something else entirely. If I was reading him right, he thought that perhaps he had given up, probably because of that moment when he tried to run. He was silent for a while as we headed back to town.
“Sable?” An ear slanted towards me. “Why did you run?” He stumbled and stopped walking.
“Already? I shouldn’t be surprised.” He sighed, looking up into the sky. “I ran because I was afraid of what I’d done. Because I was a monster.”
“No, you weren’t. Scared, sure. But no monster.”
“Yes I was, you can’t explain it away as simple fear. Look at what I did.” He pointed south, towards his hometown. “I mangled the minds of the entire town, my own parents.” He was almost breathless. “How could anypony not hate me for it? It would have been well deserved.”
“What you did to them was wrong, that's true.” I placed a hoof on his shoulder; he refused to meet me eye to eye. “But you paid for that mistake too. You thought you lost so much. Just because the night of the storm didn’t… physically happen doesn’t mean the trauma wasn’t real.” I had almost said it did not ‘actually’ happen, but that would have been a lie.
“It’s easier to be forgiven by others… than to forgive yourself.” He turned away and continued towards the castle, a bit slower than before. “Enough. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” His tone made it clear he would say no more on this, even if pressed. He remained resolutely silent even when we reached the castle.
“Spike missed you.” He laughed, despite himself, as we climbed the stairs to the upper floors. “I think his offer to join the guys at game night still stands.”
“Maybe I will. As long as Discord doesn’t turn me into a cactus or something.”
“I don’t think he’ll do that.” Now it was my turn to laugh. “But… I can’t promise he won’t do anything to mess with you. He’s not exactly predictable.”
“Or subtle.” He opened the door to his room, entering into the darkness. “Actually, I have something to show you.”
“Oh?” From within his saddlebag, he withdrew a simple box about the size of a large plate and passed it to me. Inside was a strange circular object, made of concentric rings and glass spheres. “What is it?” I flipped the object over in front of myself several times. The central circle was surrounded by a transparent glass sphere and painted with a simple map of Equestria. Beneath the central globe, a brass base had several switches on it.
“I was working on it when Despair attacked.” The two outer rings each had a glass sphere embedded within, one soft white and the other yellow. Only now did I recognize it.
“It’s an orrery!” A mechanical model of the planets and celestial objects. This one only had the world, the sun, and the moon. Other more complex versions sometimes include the rest of the planets and have proper relative motions of each. “You made this yourself?” He took it from her, setting it on the floor in the middle of the room.
“Mostly.” With a press of a small switch on the base, the sun and moon began to orbit the central sphere. Then he shut the door, plunging the room into nearly pitch blackness. “Wait, it gets better.” I heard another click, and two sources of light gently illuminated the room. The solar and lunar objects on his orrery began to shine, giving off as much light as a candle as they slowly spun around the model world.
“Oh, very nice.”
“And I’m not done.” He pressed the third switch, and the central sphere flickered once. Tiny specks of light were projected out into the room, and the orrery levitated until it sat at head height off the floor. Small illusory clouds emitted from the model, and a tiny comet traveled past my nose to pass through a faint aurora hanging over the Equestria sphere. I blinked and stared at the starscape that surrounded me. In wonder, I spun, taking it all in, spying familiar shapes in the stars.
“Those are accurate constellations!”
“I made the model, and my father helped me get the stars just right. I left my old notes here, so I had to start over from scratch.”
“It's wonderful; I’m impressed.” The comet swung around the sun, and as it passed before Sable’s face it illuminated his soft smile, his eyes were closed.
“I’m glad you like it, because I made it for you.” He let the orrery spin for a few more seconds before opening one of the windows, the natural bright sunlight overwhelmed the limits of the illusion, and it dissipated.
“Really? Why?”
“To thank you. You let me stay here, in your own home, even after I attacked Starlight and Spike. I felt I needed to do something nice for you in return. It may not be much, but there it is.”
“Oh, thank you.” With a smile, I accepted the gift. After he returned the orrery to me, he started to unpack his saddlebag. First to come out was a glass bottle with a small ship inside, which his father must have given him, the nameplate of this one was the ‘Stargazer.’ The ship was set on the shelf next to the silver mask. For a moment he paused, I could see him eying the mask. “So what are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know. I guess I should send it back to Pinewood.” He lifted it down from the shelf, turning it over in front of him. “Or destroy it.”
“Why would you do that?”
“The emotions I feel when I see it now are all fake. Sereina wasn’t real.”
“Even though it hurt, you kept the mask anyways.” Neon blue eyes fixed on me. “You could have destroyed it or thrown it away at any point during those years you didn’t know the truth. I think you should keep it, as a reminder.”
“That I re-wrote my own memory? Or of a pony who never existed in the first place?”
“Of a time in your life that helped define who you are now.” I took the mask from him and set it back on the shelf next to the ship-in-a-bottle. “It was important to you then, I think it still is now, and that alone is reason enough.” Silence lingered for a moment as he stared at the mask, obviously considering my words. Then he shook his head and turned away, taking a folded blanket from his bag and placing it on the bed. Even from across the room I saw the depiction of Sable and his parents on the blanket. Clearly, it was his mother’s work. “Just think about it. I’ll see you later.”
I waved to him and turned to leave, and something crinkled under my hoof. I glanced down; I’d stepped on a scroll. It wasn’t there earlier; it must have fallen out of Sable’s pack when he got the orrery out. I lifted it from the floor, intending to return it to Sable when it unrolled to reveal another sketch. The pony in the image was almost cat-like, drawn in profile, sitting peacefully surrounded by simple flowers. It wasn’t finished, the mane and tail were missing. It was quite undeniably another drawing of me, when I was napping in the willow.
“Sable, how long were you there before I woke up?” At this, he glanced back, and when he saw what I was holding he snatched it from me so quickly it nearly tore. He tried to whistle innocently, pretending to be interested in the ceiling, as he shoved the scroll under his saddlebag. “You don’t need to be embarrassed.” I laughed happily. “If sketching helps, then go for it.” Now I turned away to leave and called back once more over my shoulder. “Although you might want to ask permission next time.”
“There’s his romantic side again.”
“You still didn’t see it?”
“See what?”
“Come on Twilight; you aren’t this oblivious.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Sable, he-”
“No, Fluttershy, don’t tell her! I want to see her face when she figures it out.”
“…What?”