Life In Boxes

by CoffeeBean


Nº 6: SHARDS

A spoonful of honey slowly pushed its way through the pillar of rising steam above a mug of fresh tea. Upon releasing its amber, sugary cargo, the spoon floated back to a little jar of honey, gathered another generous dollop, and brought itself over a second mug, but rather than allowing the honey to drip down into the mug, it plunged to the depths of the vessel and twirled about, spinning the once stagnant tea into a small vortex. Once the honey and tea had melded into one, the spoon raised and returned to the first mug, repeating the same stirring motion. The spoon was set aside, the lid to the honey jar was screwed back in place, and both mugs were brought into a translucent blue aura of magic.

Stepping into the candle-lit living room, Princess Luna placed one mug upon the coffee table before Cirrus, who was sunk into her couch wrapped in her own wings as if they were blankets rather than instruments of flight. Luna lowered to her haunches, her posture relaxing as she brought the brim of the mug to her lips, the warmed porcelain being almost as pleasant of a sensation as the smooth tea that followed. Her front hoof dug at the boards she sat upon, the tip of her blue metal shoe finding the head of a nail which had slightly risen out of flush-ness. She promptly pressed it back into place. Again, the mug met her lips.

“Why slumber upon these uncomfortable planks?” she inquired, post-sip.

“W-What?”

“Our entry led us to thy figure, blanketed by a draped wing and suffering an uneasy slumber. A bed, hath thee; why slumber here upon these hard boards?”

“Oh. I had been trying to read over some mail, and… sorta dozed off,” replied Cirrus with a flat, tired drone to her voice.

The half-dozen candles about the little place gave more than enough light for Luna to make note of the finer details Cirrus’ face held. Heavy circles beneath her bloodshot eyes were quite visible. For a moment, she stared at the mare, waiting for her to either meet her gaze or take a sip of her tea, but nothing of the sort came. Silently, she gave life to her horn, weaving the arcane spells that opened the doors of the mind.

‘She is the intruder. She is the intruder. She will bring harm. She does bring harm. You hurt because of her.’

On and on this quiet, constant voice ranted in the shadows of her mind. It seemed to only stop when Cirrus decided to reply, and if she did reply, it was only to tell the thing to be quiet.

‘She believes you are weak. She thinks her will can be forced. She thinks she understands.’

'Shut up, mind.’

'She is the intruder. You know this to be fact. She brings you harm.”

Luna ceased the spell, blinking a few times as her mind returned to reality.

“Thou art quiet,” observed Luna, taking a drink of her hot tea. Cirrus remained still and silent, second after second of inaction ticking by. “Cirrus, thou art quiet.”

Still, not a single indication she was listening. Curious, Luna relit her horn, the voidous aura returning as the bridge between their minds connected. Her breath caught in her chest as visions and voices filled her senses, the things seen by her mind's eye overlapping with her Luna's own sight. She could see herself standing over Cirrus, her azure eyes glaring down at the mare as she cowered in the same living room they two currently occupied.

'Thy father was right; a disappointment. Thou could not even control thy own mind! How shalt thee control thy life?'

Cirrus looked away, her ears flat with her head. ‘That's not true! I-I can!'

Luna watched herself scoff as she turned for the door. ‘Thou hast proven otherwise. Thou shalt not be seeing us again.’

Cirrus held out a pleading hoof. 'No! Please, wait!'

As the door slammed behind the image of herself, the vision disappeared, and Luna found herself staring into the reality of the dimly lit living room. She cut her spell, looking to Cirrus, who was in the same state she had been for the last while. Standing, Luna moved around the table and took a seat beside the mare upon the couch, the rocking caused by her much larger figure knocking Cirrus back into reality.

“W-Wha?” she mumbled, looking to Luna.

“Thou art quiet.”

“Oh, yeah… I-I’m just… thinking," she replied as she scooted herself away the tiniest bit.

“Art thou truly thinking, or does the tormentor think for thee?”

Cirrus flinched a bit, her face doing its best to hide her anger. “I-I… it’s thinking for me.”

“It tells thee to view us with distrust, aye?”

She nodded, a scowl slowly burning through the façade of neutrality she attempted to maintain.

“And shalt thee heed its words?”

She huffed out a little breath, shaking her head. “No. No, I’m not going to. I’m going to tell it the same thing I’ve been telling it; shut up!”

Luna flinched as Cirrus slammed the side of her hoof down upon her mug of tea, shattering the porcelain vessel with a piercing crack, spraying tea over the table and sending chunks of broken mug in every direction. A moment of silence fell over the little apartment as Cirrus glared at the wide cut just above her shaking hoof as blood thinned by tea dripped down her foreleg, anger burning in her gaze.

“It won’t listen! No matter what I say, or do, it doesn’t listen! I can’t deal with it any longer!”

“Cirrus…” Luna cautioned, watching as she stood, her body seemingly ignorant of the rather jagged slice in her leg that leaked blood onto the old hardwood.

“I can’t deal with living alone… but I can’t stand being around other ponies!” she began to pace before the table, “I can’t stand coming home after work and being alone! I can’t stand waking up to this empty apartment! There’s no sound! No light! I can hardly pay my damned electric bills after that-“ she drove her injured hoof into a piece of porcelain that had landed a ways away from the table, crushing it into finer bits, “absolute broodmare Rose Wing decided she’d leave me behind for ‘her own’ place!”

“Cirrus!”

She finally met Luna's gaze, rage still burning in her eyes as she glared at the Princess.

“Others around thee are a-slumber.”

She let out an angered huff, letting her eyes wander to her shaky, bloodied hooves. For a moment, she stared at the deep red that dripped from both the cut as well as the gashes on her underhoof created by crushing the smaller chunk of glass. Somehow, the pain of rage in her body blurred the feeling that she knew should be radiating from such injuries. She felt something; it was pain, indeed, but somehow, it didn’t hurt.

“And you,” she growled, keeping her eyes down, “you… you are the cause of this. I know; that’s not really true, but in many ways, it is!”

She brought up her bloody hoof, knocking at the side of her head with it.

“All of this wasn’t happening before you came into my life! The constant, never-ending voices that won’t ever stop screaming at me to get you to leave! The voices that aren’t a part of me any longer! You are the one that caused them to separate. But… now, I’m stuck with it. I can’t go back. You’ve forced me to go forward! I know you’ve told me that I can make you leave at any moment… but I know that’s not going to do anything. I’m not an idiot; I see what this thing does. You’ve shown me what it does. It feeds off my pain, doesn’t it?”

Luna remained in surprised silence for a mere second before nodding. “That, it does.”

“Then how do I get rid of my pain?”

Luna blinked, her ear flicking. “Rid of pain, thou shant. It shall always be present. Thou seeketh mitigation. Control.”

“Then… how do I control it? How do I mitigate it?”

“Seek the root. How does one rid of a weed?”

Cirrus nodded. “By pulling it up from the root.”

“Precisely.”

Silence fell over the apartment as Cirrus took a deep breath, trying her best to calm her nerves. Luna watched as she dropped to her haunches, letting out a sigh as she held up her shaky, bloody hoof, staring at it as more of a curiosity rather than an injury.

“Shall we mend that?”

Cirrus nodded. “Yeah… that’d be nice.”





Luna scooted back, giving Cirrus a bit of room to lift her now bandaged hoof up for inspection.

“We advise against doing that again,” commented the Princess with a smile.

Cirrus offered a half-chuckle. “T-Thanks… I’ll… certainly follow your advice.”

Luna’s azure spells placed the rolls of bandages and antiseptic ointments back into their homes within a white, metal first-aid box, the lid following them inward and the latches clicking to re-seal the kit.

“I didn’t know you owned a first-aid kit.”

Levitating it before her own eyes, Luna nodded with a little smile. “Indeed! Quite a useful collection, t’is. Such wonders of medicine within…” she paused a moment, looking away from the box to Cirrus, “have thyself such a kit?”

She shook her head.

“Shan't do,” Luna declared as she placed the closed box before Cirrus, “take ours.”

Cirrus looked at the thing for a second. “I-I don’t need it. You should keep it.”

Luna inched it closer to her uninjured hoof. “We insist. T’is a necessity.”

Placing her bandaged hoof upon the red cross painted upon the shiny, white lid, Cirrus stared at it a moment before looking up to Luna.

“I… thank you. I suppose all I’ve got right now is stick-on band-aids.”

Offering her a smile, Luna stood, “then such a kit should serve thee greatly. On the note of necessity, we do note another thing lacking.”

Before Cirrus could inquire, Luna's magic clicked on the light in the apartment, the single bulb in the center of the living room ceiling casting a far brighter glow than its candle comrades could ever hope. Cirrus looked from the switch to Luna with panic.

“W-What are you doing?!”

“Light, Cirrus,” replied Luna, her pupils quickly narrowing into small slits, “something thou art lacking. Made mention of this, thou hast. A being such as thyself should have such a thing in thy life.”

“But-“

The crackle of a teleportation spell cut off Cirrus’ rebuttal, her eyes now fixing with a little gunny sack floating within Luna’s aura. She watched as the bag was moved before her, dropping to the hardwood besides her new first-aid kit with a distinctive clink.

“A lack of bits. We do know well.”

Cirrus poked the bag with her hoof, listening to the coins within jingle. Curiously, she leaned down and took a corner of it with her teeth, turning it over and giving it a few shakes to let the many 20-bit notations fall to the floor. In shock at the amount, her mouth fell open, the little bag falling with it.

“P-Princess… this is…”

“One thousand bits, indeed. Pay thy dues with it. What remains, thou shalt expend on food stuffs. Should surplus exist, spend it upon what thou wish.”

Cirrus laughed, exasperated, “w-well, I was going to say that this is… incredible, but… a thousand bits!? I-I can pay my rent for this month and next and still have some left over... a-are you sure about this!?”

“Quite sure. T’is from our personal allowance.”

Laughing again and shaking her head, Cirrus continued gazing down at the pile of coins in awe. “I-I genuinely don’t know what to say! T-This… this is more than enough to cover my bills!” she paused, looking at the shards of destroyed porcelain Luna tasked herself with collecting, “I can buy a new mug…”

Luna nodded as she held up the pieces, her magic arranging them into the mug they had once been. Small pillars of pure white light broke from between the cracks of the pieces, and after a matter of seconds they had been fused back into a mostly complete white mug; a small chip from the rim remained missing. In awe, Cirrus watched as the mug was placed before her on the hardwood floor. Silently, Luna sat a short distance from Cirrus and gently placed her shoed hoof atop the vessel.

“The broken are never unable of repair. Shards shall always remain. The mind, we do believe, operates in a similar vein,” she raised that hoof and tapped its tip at Cirrus’ temple, “nothing more than an enigma, puzzle, and conundrum, is that within. No puzzle is without solution.”

Cirrus looked down at the mug, noting the bit that remained missing.

“Every break leaves a scar, though.”

Smiling, Luna raised it with a spell, “so it does.”

“So… after this is all over, after you’ve finally gotten rid of this thing in my head, I’ll be left with scars.”

Luna looked into Cirrus’ eyes for a long moment, her ear flicking as she finally looked away, her gaze now falling upon the window, or rather, what lay beyond.

“Scars. Memories. What thou shalt call them is what they shall be. Thy mind; t’is not broken. Harmed, injured, perhaps, but broken, it is not.”

Cirrus chuckled. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while.”

Luna only offered a small smile in reply, silence permeating for a while as Cirrus returned her eyes to the repaired mug and the gratuitous pile of bits before her.

“I… I’m sorry for earlier. Everything came out at once, a-and… I-I dunno, I was just very upset.”

“Worry not; anger shall well within thee, and too shall it flow. Anger, hatred, fear, and pain shall be entwined with thy emotions; t’is unavoidable. Thou shalt not steer thyself from these feelings; accept that thou shalt feel them and allow them to sift through the mesh of thy mind. Do not stew in thy anger, for it shall consume thee. Release is a practice which thy mind shall benefit from greatly; find manners in which emotion can be exercised. However, do refrain from damaging more of thy dinnerware."

Cirrus blinked a few times. “I should find ways to release my anger?”

“Aye.”

“W-What… what should I do? Like you said, I can’t go breaking a mug every day.”

Luna let out a thoughtful sigh as she got to her hooves. “Such is for thee to discover.”

“What do you do?”

Luna paused. “Meditation.”

Cirrus was silent for a second as she thought on the answer. “I’ve never meditated before…”

Humming, Luna’s azure aura fetched her black silk cloak from the hanger by the door, “shouldst thou make an attempt, do tell what is found,” she replied as her magic secured the cloak around her neck, the hood remaining undrawn.

“Are you leaving?”

“Aye. The night has much left for us. Visitation of a certain place must be made.”

“Oh. I-I guess I’ll talk to you later, Princess.”

Luna looked down at Cirrus, “thy voice holds a sorrowful cadence.”

“I was just hoping you’d stay longer.”

Chuckling, Luna stepped forward to the mare and placed her hoof upon her shoulder, “worry not, young Cirrus, for we shall return in a cycle’s time.”

Cirrus did her best to smile. “Okay. Thank you again, Princess.”

“Please, do speak our name; friends refer not to the other with title.”

That smile became genuine. “Okay, Luna.”