Fairlight

To the Edge of Midnight

CHAPTER ONE

Bob

Have you ever wondered just what the point is of, well, not to put too fine a point on it - everything? You know, maybe sat there one cold winters evening by yourself when all around you is quiet and the world slumbers peacefully waiting for the morning, and just wondered how your life had turned out the way it had? I had, and on far too many occasions to be healthy either. Maybe it’s just as well I never found an answer to my question though, I doubt I’d like the answer regardless of what it was, and I don’t know about you but personally I still need to be able to sleep at night. Still, regardless of my philosophical musings, just like everypony else I would get up in the morning, have a wash, get dressed, polish the old hooves, have a quick groom, and get on with the day exactly the same as I did every day, safe in the knowledge I could do absolutely bugger all about it anyway. After all, lifes big mysteries were best left to those who had far more time than I did to spend trying to unravel them.

If you hadn’t realised it already I’m something of a melancholy fellow at heart, and the goddesses know, maybe deep down I secretly like being this way. I remember when I was younger I’d tried speaking to my parents about the darker thoughts I would have from time to time and about how they’d made my heart feel empty and hollow, but in typical parental fashion they would dismiss it out of hoof as being simply due to ‘my age’ or ‘just feeling a little blue’. I’m not sure what my coat colour had to do with it, and being that I was a fairly uniform grey the sentiment was lost on me at the time. Good goddesses, was I naive back then… so much idealism, so much foolishness. My world view seemed to revolve around a plethora of stupid mistakes and the hopeless sense of righteousness and fairness that I had thought made me the ‘better pony’. Still, I suppose it’s just as well I can look back on it now and laugh. Or cringe. No, innocent or not I was no better than anypony. Now, if I’m being genuinely honest with myself, I’m a damned sight worse than many, if not most of the ponies I’ve ever met. At least back then I had more of an understanding of what was right and wrong. As I grew, as things happened to me, I changed, both in body and in mind. And not always for the better either, if such a thing even exists. Regardless, right or wrong meant nothing to my physical body and I grew up into a stallion who, like everypony else, had tried to find my own path in life. A little lacking in the old imagination department I followed the path my father had lain down before me. It was something of a family tradition to join the watch, and truth be told, a hell of a lot easier than conjuring something up for myself. Was I really that lazy when I was that age? Was I so lacking in ambition that I simply followed in my father’s hoofsteps without even contemplating choosing something I wanted to do myself? You know, the answer was there all along. Yes. I was a follower, a pony who like so many before him, just followed the leader – followed the herd. When I was old enough and I got my cutie mark, even that was a non-event. Whereas many of the foals in my year got to enjoy great celebration and fanfare with the appearance of their particular marks, my own was met with emotionless indifference. I don’t know whether it was because of what it was or because my parents simply didn’t find it all that interesting, but the materialisation one morning of the magnifying glass cutie mark on my flank was met with a neutral ‘that’s nice, love’. That’s nice, love… Goddesses forgive me, I’ve said that to my own daughter before now, usually when I wanted to be left alone and she was pestering me or being a bloody nuisance, but… what was I missing? A child who had wanted to spend time with her father, a child who loved me unconditionally, and there I was, far more interested in reading the damned newspaper than paying attention to my own flesh and blood – the little one I had lost before she was even born. And now, now that I was here in the place where time meant nothing, I had no time for her. I closed my eyes and silently hated myself. It wasn’t really like that though, was it? Maybe it was a parenting thing? Bloody hell, maybe it was! Maybe I had become my own father! Oh, goddesses, no… what a bloody nightmare!

I rolled over and blew the loose grass out of my nostrils. There was nothing like a damned good roll in the morning, well away from everypony else of course. The miserable buggers never did anything but moan about ‘improper behaviour’ all the time as it was, coming out with such classic gems as ‘ponies never did that in my day’, or ‘You need to save face’, whatever that meant. Blast it all, I was beginning to wonder if this were really heaven at all. Somepony once told me that their idea of hell was an afterlife with relatives, and bloody hell fire, were they ever right! The eternal herd, the heaven of the equestrian race, was both eternally beautiful and in equal measure eternally boring – if you didn’t have something to occupy you. I did; my family. My beautiful wife, my gorgeous little pegasus daughter, and me – disgustingly happy, and currently lying on a hillside covered in grass with the morning paper stuck to the side of my face like some gigantic shaving accident. At least the damned thing wasn’t stuck to my arse for once. I had a disturbing habit of sitting on things that ended up either breaking or sticking to my behind, much to the amusement of onlookers. I glanced down at my cutie mark and smiled sadly. The old magnifying glass… What a boring and dull thing that was. A nondescript mark for a nondescript pony. The children used to think I was boring too. ‘The cart horse’ they called me, and they were right. Grey with brown eyes and a black mane and tail with the most common and meaningless cutie mark you could have. Still, it could have been worse, couldn’t it?

“You’re doing it again, aren’t you.” A hoof bopped me on the nose. “Stop it.”

“I said, stop it!” The lips pressed a little harder, urging me to respond, but my heart felt unusually heavy this morning.

Meadow raised an eyebrow. “I wish you wouldn’t do this, Fairlight. Do you think I don’t know where you go every morning?”

“It is lately!” Meadow chided, giving me a shove. “How do you think it makes me feel, eh? To wake up in the morning and find my husband missing from our bed? I’m fed with of it, Fairlight, I want it to stop.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head against me. “Please, love, it… it’s horrible waking up without you there. It-”

The grass green unicorn sniffed. “If I didn’t love you so much I wouldn’t care so much.” She pushed me onto my back and rolled over onto me, pinning me down. “But I do.”

I grinned, my heart suddenly leaping in my chest. “Meadow, we can’t… your parents are-”

“Meadow? Fairlight? Where are you?” The familiar voice drifted out across the hillside from the direction of the cottage.

“Bugger, I was just getting in the mood too.” I gave myself a shake and stole a quick kiss from my beautiful mare who gave me a wink.

“It’ll keep,” she whispered. “We’ve got all the time in the world, my love.” Suddenly she clopped me on the rump. “Come on then, plump rump, let’s go and see what disasters await for us back at the ranch.”

“Plump Rump?!” I looked round at my backside in alarm. It seemed just as firm as ever… wasn’t it? Oh, goddesses! Was I getting fat and- “OW!” Meadow suddenly bit me right on the backside and let out a loud nicker.

“Gah! You bloody pest!” I reared and dug my hind hooves into the firm earth as I leaped forward into a gallop after the incorrigible mare.

My darker thoughts forgotten in the bright morning sun and the sheer simplistic joy of a good hard gallop, I was hard pressed to keep up with the frisky mare. Meadow was extraordinarily fast, and although of a slighter build than some mares, she had an incredible turn of speed that matched her skill with magic. To be honest I felt a bit of a dimwit next to her and I was all too aware just how lucky I was to have found such an amazing creature as my wife. Well, not that she’d agree of course, Meadow had always asserted that she had found me, and that as a mare she was the one who would make the decision as to who she would take as a partner. And so here I was, the dopey old cart horse with a life some would have killed for. Hmm, perhaps a poor choice of words considering, but that was a story for another day.

“You’re covered in grass.” The stallion’s accusing eyes never left me for a moment. “Both of you.”

“We were just out for a morning run, dad. You always said a mare need to keep in trim.” Meadow scooped up her excited daughter and mussed her mane. “Anyway, don’t you and mum go out for a canter in the morning at home?”

“We canter, Meadow, not...” Meadow’s father waved his hoof, “whatever you were doing.”

“Oh, come on!” Meadow clucked her tongue. “You’re as old as we are, so don’t give me that!”

The stallion sniffed loudly. “I am still your father, Meadow, and I do not approved of early morning...shenanigans. Especially when you have your daughter here who could come along and find you two… doing that.”

“‘Doing that,’” Meadow sighed. “Sparrow was with you, wasn’t she? Besides, what harm could she come to, dad?”

“She could still be hurt, Meadow,” her father retorted, “eternal herd or not. Anyway, I wasn’t talking about physical injury. If she found you two ‘frolicking’ the trauma could scar her for life.” Apple Pop sniffed and held up his hoof to thwart Meadow’s incoming protest. “And that’s the end of the matter.”

Goddesses above, what a misery! ‘Trauma’, for Celestia’s sake… You know, I’d always respected Meadow’s father, but sometimes he was so stiff he made steel look floppy. I gave myself a shake and looked at him squarely. “Sir? Did you want us for something in particular?”

Meadow gave me a sympathetic glance and the three of us trotted back across the field to the white painted cottage. It was a scene I would never tire of; from the rich yellow of the thatch to the gleaming walls, the brightly painted green door and the neatly trimmed hedge and colourful flowers of the neatly trimmed border, it was a home straight from the top of one of those painted biscuit tins. Ah, the herd – a place where a pony truly had no worries, no concerns, and only an eternity of bloody midering relatives to contend with. I sometimes wondered if Apple Pop had a nagging mother or father in law who drove him up the wall too. It would certainly explain why he felt the need to keep coming round here and being a pain in the rear. You know, the more I think about it the more I wonder if this wasn’t by design, as if the whole ‘relatives arriving unannounced’ thing was some sadistic plot by the royal family to keep their citizens from spending every day dossing around in eternal bliss. It wouldn’t surprise me, in fact I wouldn’t put anything past that bunch of puffed up alicorn toffs. As for poor old Apple Pop, the miserable bugger didn’t seem to be enjoying the afterlife quite as much as you’d expect, and spent most of his days tinkering in his garden, hanging around with other veterans of the watch droning on about ‘the good old days’, or hovering around Meadow and myself like a sour faced lost soul. Perhaps in some ways he was – eternity with the same ponies, the same eternal perfection of everything around you; it was enough to drive anypony completely bonkers. I’d found out very quickly that in the land of sunshine and rainbows boredom was the only real enemy, and this was why the ever thoughtful authorities here, and you can be assured there was a plentiful supply of ponies here who simply lived for that sort of thing, kept you under a sort of ‘soft’ observation. We all had ‘case workers’ too apparently - a pony we could go and speak to about our ‘feelings’ and who could offer advice and guidance on a range of topics that helped new arrivals like myself feel right at home. Or at least, that was the idea. In reality they were a bunch of annoying busybodies who keep sticking their inquisitive muzzles into your business, and between them and Apple Pop I was beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t just volunteer for work in the town for no other reason than to get some much needed peace and quiet.

The smell of home baking hit me full force as we entered the little cottage, together with a brown sugar and butter covered mess of wings and fur I called my daughter.

“OOF! Gah, Sparrow!” Oh marvellous! Now I had the same sticky, yet decidedly delicious sweetness, stuck all over my face and mane.

“Don’t let ‘er… Oh dear!” Meringue clucked her tongue and extracted the buzzing pest from my hair. “Look at the state o’ you, I said to use the spoon didn’t oi?”

“Yes, Nana.” Sparrow gave the cerise mare a sorry look whilst simultaneously waggling her eyebrows at me cheekily. Ooh, that little nuisance! I grinned broadly, garnering a bop on the nose from the kitchen’s head chef.

“An’ you can stop encouraging ‘er too, Fairlight,” Meringue chided. “If you keep this up she’ll grow up to be a roit little madam, she will.”

“Sorry, Merry,” I shrugged. I suddenly snatched Sparrow up who shrieked in mock outrage. “But she’s just so sweet! Aarrrggghhh!” Sparrow struggled helplessly against my sticky attack until the two of us found ourselves looking up into the looming image of the grass green matriarch of the Fairlight family.

“And don’t so cheeky!” Meadow scowled at me. “Mum’s right, Fairlight, she’s picking up these bad habits from you lately.”

“The mixing bowl?” Meadow asked with raised eyebrows. “Or do you think the mixture suddenly evaporated all on its own?”

“Only a bit!” I said helplessly, “Good grief, if it didn’t taste so good I wouldn’t have pinched-”

“Ah-ha! Confession!” Meadow pointed a hoof at me. “You see? And you a former member of the watch too.”

“Descriptive of what?” Meadow asked with an imperious sniff. “Go on then, tell us, we’re all waiting...”

“I...” I closed my eyes and hung my head in defeat. “I’ll go and get a shower.”

“And so you should,” Meadow replied levelly. “And while you’re at it you can-”

This was where Sparrow’s great announcement of the morning broke through the family throng in full force, with all the subtlety and finesse of a battering ram. “BUGGER OFF!”

Meadow immediately flushed as red as a beetroot. Normally it would have been quite cute, if it hadn’t been for the broadside that accompanied it. “SPARROW! Fairlight, for the goddesses’ sake look what you-”

“Be right back!” In a flurry of hooves and the trademark grey fur, I whisked myself and my foul mouthed daughter away down the hallway and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind us to block the pursuing cries of outrage from the indignant mares. Bloody killjoys, what a bunch of miseries!

“You’re in trouble,” Sparrow observed in that knowing tone that only foals can pull off. “Mummy’s angry.”

“She’s angry with both of us, you mean,” I reasoned, turning on the shower. “But I suppose she’s got a point. I shouldn’t say bad words.”

“Yeah, like that one.” Resignedly I plopped the little pegasus into the shower and levitated the sponge over, rubbing some of Sparrow’s soap onto it. Other than smelling of strawberries, it was specially designed for youngsters so that it didn’t sting their eyes. Hey, come to think of it, how come they didn’t do this for adults? Didn’t it matter if our eyes stung? Bloody hell, the amount of times I’ve come out of the shower with my eyes as red as a thestral’s because I’d miscalculated the direction of the sponge or something was beyond count! Predictably, Meadow never seemed to have that sort of trouble when she was in here. To me however, the ways of the equestrian bathroom were many and mysterious. Like most stallions, I got in, did what I had to do, and got out. Now Meadow on the other hoof, now that was her sorted for the next hour at least! Still, she did smell wonderful when she got out. Speaking of whom, I saw one of her scented soaps in the wicker basket - ‘Pomfrey’s Plum Pudding, for the mare on the go.’ Hah! Talk about irony!

“Daddy?” Sparrow had her eyes on the floating sponge. “Why don’t I have magic?”

I smiled gently. “Because you can fly love, and that’s a special kind of magic that unicorns don’t have.”

“I...” Goddesses, she was right. Or at least, she was partly. “I can’t any more, love,” I said wistfully. “Anyway, I’m just a plain old unicorn like mummy now. I suppose I could use magic to float like a bubble, but it’s not like yours. One day you’ll be strong enough to fly high above the clouds and as fast as a comet!”

I closed my eyes. “I… I can’t love.” A sudden chill ran through me, making the corners of my eyes sting for just a moment. “But I promise I’ll come and watch you when you can fly on your own, and I’ll cheer you as you zoom through the sky.” I reached down and tickled her ribs. “ZOOOM!”
Sparrow shrieked in laughter and sneezed as water got in her nose. Oops! “Sorry, love,” I apologised. Thanks the goddess for the ‘No tears’ formula! Specially designed for idiotic fathers apparently. “Come on now, let’s get you cleaned up and then it’s daddy’s turn. Keep your eyes closed while I do your face, okay?”

I don’t know what was up with me lately. I’d been finding myself becoming a lot more, what was the word now, ‘emotional’? Yes, that was probably it. Hell fire, was I coming apart at the seams already? In fairness I had been through the wringer a bit lately, and living with the knowledge that the rest of the Fairlight herd were quite literally a world away, was never all that far from my thoughts. My son, my beautiful son, Lumin, and my beloved mares Tingles and Shadow, were in the world beyond the veil of life and death - the realm of mortals. I’d been there myself once, and it sure wasn’t all it was cracked up to be! In fact the only thing that seemed to get cracked, on a regular basis too, were my bones. I’d lost count of the amount of times the poor old mortal Fairlight had been shot, stabbed, sliced, crushed, and on at least occasion, blown up. That had been the final straw for me, and even my wendigo magic hadn’t been able to repair that mess. All the queens horses and all kings knights, couldn’t put poor old Fairlight to rights. Hey, that rhymed! Hmm, maybe I could start looking into writing poetry? Or foals books maybe...

“Oh!” I came out of my revery in time to notice the white mass of lather that had once been a small grey pegasus. “Sorry love!” I chuckled, and rinsed the soapy creature off. She was such a delicate little thing, so adorably cute, and looked like a miniature of her dad – if you took away the cuteness and just focussed on the colouring of course, but you get the idea. Mind you, the whole pegasus angle was a bit odd, especially as Meadow and I were both unicorns. It wasn’t unheard of though, especially as Meadow had pegasi in her family. As for me, my family had apparently descended from the walking nightmares known as wendigo, or ‘windigo’ if you preferred. Personally I preferred wendigo, the other spelling made it sound as if I had some sort of horrific gastric problem. Considering I was, or rather had been for a very brief period of time, the rather grandly name ‘Lord of the Four Winds’, I was remarkably – not to put to fine a point on it – dead. Over time I’d put a lot of the wendigo business behind me, and I’d almost forgotten what it was like to fly. When I looked in the mirror now I saw the fresh faced unicorn I was when I was in my prime – a twenty something year old newby, fresh out of the watch academy and Ponyville’s newest officer of the law. How things change! Mind you, everypony here looked roughly the same age, more or less. Even so, there was something about a pony, especially one like Apple Pop, that made him seem as old as he had when I’d last seen him alive in the mortal realm. Here he looked, physically at least, the same age as me, and yet he exuded this ‘aged persona’ that made him appear as old as the hills. And in the eternal herd the hills were very, very old indeed.

“Right, out you come.” I reached down to collect my daughter only to be hit in the face by a spray of water and a blur of wet grey fur. In the blink of an eye, the soaking little creature was standing on the drying mat giving herself a shake. How did she…? Sparrow gave her wings a flap and shook off more of the water. Were they getting bigger, or was it just me? Of course she was growing every day, that was obvious, but… I don’t know, maybe I’d missed something along the way. I couldn’t remember her being able to-

“Huh?” I blinked in surprise. “No, love, we need to get you dried off first, okay?”

“Never mind that,” I tutted. “Come on now, let’s get you ready and then you can go and get some cake.” That worked...

Ah, cake, the ancient remedy for everything that has ailed equestrians since the dawn of time. Or the invention of cake, of course. Sometimes I wonder what came first – the pony or the cupcake. I must have been some sort of genetic aberration as I wasn’t as obsessed about the stuff as others clearly were, but at least it kept the little one happy. Now as for town, the enigmatically named ‘Dawn’, the place was positively awash with cake shops, tea shops, ice cream parlours and every other kind of tooth rotting, waistline expanding treat imaginable. I don’t know about Dawn, the place should have been called Diabetes. But of course this was the eternal herd wasn’t it, and here you could stuff yourself until it came out of your ears and never put on even the smallest amount of trouser straining waistline, nor for that matter could you develop cavities in the old choppers either. And on that subject there was a distinct lack of dentists and doctors in Dawn of any description, and of course there was a good reason for that – nothing bad ever happened here. You wanted peace, you got it, you wanted a life eating marzipan coated sponge cakes with enough sugar in them to fell an elephant, you got it. And all the while you were living this confectionery drenched dossers existence, you never grew fat, you never got old and grey, nor would you develop any of the many blights that could curse ponies in the mortal world. Welcome my friends, to pony heaven.

I pulled the comb one last time through Sparrow’s tail and gave her a playful pat on the rump. “Right young lady, you’re all done. Off to mum and-”

“Woohoo!” In a burst of speed, Sparrow leapt into the air and rocketed out of the door in a flurry of grey wings. Dear goddesses, her hooves barely touch the ground! I hurried into the hallway after her but she was already in the kitchen causing yet more mischief. I left the little pest to it, chuckling under my breath as I set about washing myself in a rare moment of peace and quiet. As much as I love my daughter, she could be a touch overwhelming at times. I turned the tap on and settled back as the deliciously warm water cascaded over my head and back, the rich soap helping to take away the sticky mass from my fur and mane which my beloved daughter had rather thoughtfully applied to her father. I smiled, sighing blissfully as the warmth soaked through me. Steam curled up around me, snaking and eddying, like miniature versions of the clouds above the mountains. Now there was something I could remember: the feeling of the chill winds under my wings, the cool of the mountains caressing my face and flank as I soared through the air above the ruins of the fortress. It still pulled at my heart even now, calling to me every so often and reminding me of the way I used to be able to enjoy the simple freedom of flight: unencumbered, unrestrained, but most of all - free. In my mind I could fly as high as the stars and as fast as thought, coming into land on the veranda outside the bath house, perfectly placed so a pony could dive straight into it if he so chose. It was… heaven…

I gave myself a shake, reminding myself that there was a reason I was in the shower, and so concentrated on my back instead of daydreaming. Magic was a wonderful thing for manipulating objects of course, but sometimes I just liked to use my mouth and forehooves. I don’t know if it was the earth pony in me or what, but it felt good to do it like this from time to time. Magic was as natural to unicorns as breathing, but I’ll confess I wasn’t exactly the best at it. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been paying attention in school either. For the most part I had, it was just that I didn’t really seem to have that much of what you might call an ‘inherent interest’ in it, nor really bothered with much past the basics of levitation and, of course, my party piece – creating a small flame to light your cigarette, cigar, or pipe from. Not that I was allowed to do that any more! Well, not ‘officially’ anyway. The herd had few rules, and no smoking was definitely one of them, but you sure didn’t need a police force here when you had ponies with finely attuned noses like Meadow. In truth though, you simply didn’t crave things here, your body instead worked off some sort of internal programming which meant that any mortal ‘wants’ simply no longer existed. After all, why would you smoke if you didn’t want to? Still, the king and queen weren’t so dictatorial as to restrict everything a pony may desire, instead taking the stance that the afterlife was supposed to be a place of happiness and repose rather than an eternity within a confectionery based fascist regime. Unbidden, the image of a thousand pink mares with poofy manes and carrying candy canes marched through my minds eye beneath the banner of Equestria as a white alicorn watched imperiously from a balcony. Forward, comrades! I had to chuckle. The tap squeaked as the water shut off and I climbed out of the shower and onto the mat that was still damp from where I’d washed Sparrow. Thankfully there was an abundance of dry towels and the hair dryer was standing by ready for its next customer too. As always the worst part of a shower was getting out of course, but the warm air blowing through your mane was simply wonderful, so much so I was half expecting the knock on the door when it came.

“Nearly done,” I called back. I turned off the dryer and replaced it on the shelf beside the vase of dried flowers. I could remember Meadow picking flowers just like them back in Ponyville. Back before everything that had…

A quick check in the mirror and I was good to go. On some level I was still surprised just how much I’d changed, or not depending upon how you looked at it. My fur was as grey as it had been when I was delivered into the world by my mother, my eyes just as brown, my mane just as black, and everything that life had inflicted upon me: the scars, the marks and lines of age, had all simply disappeared – replaced by the me I had always seen myself as in my mind’s eye. Only the goddess knows what other ponies had seen when they’d looked upon the battered and worn out creature with the piercing otherworldly blue eyes, the roadmap of scars, and the peculiar cutie mark that looked like a flash of lightning on my rump looking back at them. Some had thought I’d been possessed, whilst others believed that I was a demon from the depths of hell. Perhaps for some of them… I was. I still wondered about that, about those days, but here in the herd mortal world concerns simply no longer mattered, and-

Strewth! Talk about pushy! “Coming now!” I called, and left my steamy sanctuary.

Breakfast was in full swing when I arrived, and when I say full swing, I’m using that term very loosely. Apple Pop’s idea of excitement was a thrilling stroll through the forest or, like today, reading the newspaper and ignoring the butter and crumb coated child who only minutes earlier had been spotlessly clean. Attempting a valiant assault against the impending mess, the cerise coated mare with snow white hair and yellow eyes, waved me to a seat without even looking my way. Ah, Meringue, the long suffering and unflappable mother of my lovely wife...

“Help yourself to tea moi love, an’ there’s some ‘ot oatcakes an’ syrup in the pot. Made ‘em meself oi did.”

The contrast between the misery steeped Apple Pop and the mad as a box of frogs Meringue, had never failed to amuse me. Meadow had inherited her mother’s eyes and her father’s colouring, but everything else? Goddesses, who could say?! Meringue was, for want of another word, completely bonkers. The mare had one of the heaviest west coast accents I’d ever heard, whereas her father had the monotone drawl typical of ponies from Fillydelphia. They were in many ways complete polar opposites, and how the two of them had met was something that had always intrigued me. Unfortunately when I’d made discreet enquiries into this miracle of the modern world, I’d been met with topic changing skills that would have put Star Swirl to shame. Meadow pushed a plate of toast in front of me.

“Mum, I’ll sort her out later. Get yourself some breakfast before it goes cold.”

“You can’t leave her loik this, Meddy,” Meringue observed, “she’ll get bugs stuck to ‘er an’ you knows ‘ow that goes, roit?”

‘Roit’… Celestia’s arse, that dialect! It was hard enough to understand her as it was, but when you were engaged in a conversation with ponies who all sounded totally different from one another your mind felt as if it was turning somersaults. Seemingly immune to such conversational gymnastics, or just simply numb from living with it for so many years, ‘Meddy’ expertly removed the sticky mass of wings and fur from her mother and plonked her down onto the work surface.

Meringue clucked her tongue. “Alroit then. But see’s as she gets a proper clean moind!”

“Yes, Mum.” Meadow gave me a helpless glance and I smiled back with what I hoped conveyed my heartfelt sympathy. Meanwhile Sparrow was struggling against the inevitable wet flannel, somehow managing to stuff more toast into her mouth at the same time. I have to admit, the little thing was certainly determined.

“About...” Meadow paused, and slowly turned her large yellow eyes on me. “About nine… Fairy.”

I cringed. Point taken! I noted the sniff from behind the newspaper. Perhaps disapproving, perhaps bemused – with Apple Pop it was nearly impossible to tell, with or without the newsprint and paper barrier he’d erected between himself and the now daily chaos of the kitchen table. Personally I preferred to breakfast with the family, albeit it was generally a lot quieter than when Pop and Merry were here. For some reason my small grey lunatic of a daughter always acted up whenever they came round. Now secretly I had hoped her full-on assault of winged antics would prove a little too much for Meadow’s folks to handle, and as a result would start to find excuses not to keep coming round all the time, but incredibly they were somehow immune to it all. How, only the gods knew. Actually, now that I come to think about it, what had Meadow been like as a child? I mean, I could handle Sparrow at her worst, but that’s because I’m her father, but still… hmm… I made a mental note to ask Merry about it later. I felt a smile spreading across my face; it never hurt to have a little more in my arsenal when the microscopic terror’s mother tried to get one over on her beloved hubby.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I know when you’re up to something.” Meadow’s whispered words in my ear carried a chill note of warning.

“Mmmm… and I’m the empress of llamalia.” Meadow made a pretence of flicking some crumbs from my foreleg. “I’ll find out you know,” she said breathily. “I always do.”

********************

Our conveyance trundled along the narrow road that ran alongside the forest towards the small town of Haven. It was a gentle climb uphill from our cottage, and I leaned back in the cushioned seats listening to the steady rhythmic clopping of the driver’s hooves on the hardened ground. I’d always found that most innocent of sounds soothing for some reason. To my mind it held a mesmeric quality that made me feel relaxed and at peace with the world whenever I heard it. Clip-Clop-Clip-Clop. Around us the world too was at peace, passing the time away just as it had since the dawn of creation. Birds every colour of the rainbow flew overhead, whilst higher up I could see pegasi skimming across the perfectly blue sky as effortlessly as rain falling from the heavens. Funny, I rarely saw rain now. In this perfect world rain was usually limited to the evenings so that ponies didn’t have their days spoiled by getting wet. As for winter, well… that was something that could make you cold, couldn’t it? Yeah… no snow here. No children making snowponies, no ice to skate on, no need for scarves, socks, nor even woolly hats. In some ways it reminded me of when I worked in the watch house back in Manehattan. The weather there could be absolutely stifling, what with the dust and dryness catching your throat and making you sweat so much that we used to sit in shirt sleeves or nothing at all. Not that that helped much either of course. Still, the old watch house did have windows, and some of them even opened too. But then, that had been the problem hadn’t it? They say no matter where you work ‘there’s always one’, and by the goddess they were soooo right! Our ‘one’ was Key Stroke, a violet coated mare in her thirties who dressed and acted like she was in her nineties. Luna’s arse, all she ever did was moan… and ‘when Key moaned, the office groaned,’ we always used to say. How one mare could hold the whole station to ransom was anyponies guess, but I suspect it was because we all had far more important things to do than concern ourselves about ‘sitting in a draft’. Ah, Keys… it was always too cold for her, wasn’t it? The thermometer could be boiling in its case and she would still whine and complain if somepony had the sheer affront to open one of her precious bloody windows! I swear that mare had ears like an outhouse rat too. Even the slightest movement of a latch, the creak of the sash being opened, and her ears would prick up in an instant. I seem to remember one time when the watch house commander had come downstairs from his office and opened the window, blissfully unaware of our staff member’s concerns regarding the apparently dangerous nature of fresh air. Outranked or not, the poor fellow had been subjected to a barrage from the incensed Key that not only had the window quickly closed, but the watch commander scuttling back to his office with his tail between his legs. Ah, yes, the good old days: sore hooves, half lamed through years of night shifts and eating poorly on the hoof, and then you’re dead. Good bloody job I paid into that retirement fund then wasn’t it! Still, I suppose Tingles and the gang would be benefiting from it – a damned sight more than I was. That was another thing about the herd too - money. You didn’t have to work here, it wasn’t compulsory, but it was… ‘encouraged’. You earned a kind of credit which you could use to buy things in the shops, but since everypony was generally content with their lot it all seemed rather superfluous. My own cynical mind saw it as a way for the royal family to keep their herd of the dearly departed from trying to kill each other out of sheer boredom. Actually, I’m not sure how that would work if you were already dead. Could you even be killed twice? I was dragged from my ruminations by the delicate tones of my wife’s papa…

Honestly? No. When Pop had asked me originally to join his ‘old boy’ network of former watchponies, the last thing I’d wanted was to be reminded of the ‘old me’ and the life that had been snuffed out as quickly as a candle in a downpour. I’d loved my old job, for the most part. Sure there were times I’d wished I’d chosen a different path in life and cursed the watch to the high heavens, but I kept on coming back to the same old truth - I was a watchpony through and through. Cutie marks notwithstanding, I was, for the most part, blissfully happy with my lot in life, and never a day went by where I wasn’t reminded how it was that it was that very same career that had lead me to stand beneath a certain tree on a certain day and met the mare who would one day become my beloved wife, Meadow. She was so beautiful, so full of life and love, that… well, the rest was history now wasn’t it. That career, as much as it had brought me to her, had been the very same reason I’d lost both her and my unborn daughter at a time that should have been filled with joy and hope for our future as a young family. Gods, how I hated thinking of that dark period of my life. I’d spent countless years trying to stop myself from slipping back into the pit of anger and despair that, even now, was never that far away. The counselling sessions had helped I suppose, and I had to admit it was hard to reconcile the brutal murder of the one you love when she was sleeping next to you in bed when you woke up in the morning with the sunlight filtering through the net curtains and her breath tickling your ear. The herd certainly had a way of bucking your mind in a way that had you questioning your own sanity. I also took comfort in the fact that I wasn’t alone in my confused state either. Meadow herself had been through the trauma of being violently assaulted, raped and murdered while pregnant with Sparrow, and by comparison my problems paled into insignificance. ‘Sparky’ my ‘case worker’, for want of a better word, had been keen to point that out to me whenever she got the chance too. You know, I’m sure that in her own bizarre way she genuinely thought she was helping me, but to be constantly told that ‘you might be having problems but remember what happened to Meadow?’ did absolutely nothing to settle my troubled heart. If anything it actually made matters worse, adding a heavy sense of guilt to my already rocky mental state. Still, as difficult as my assimilation into the herd was for me, Meadow was always my focus, and my metaphorical anchor that held the chaos of the rudderless ship in a storm that was the local celebrity, Fairlight. Thank the gods that nonsense had settled down. I barely received a second glance now. It was quite the change from the initial screaming and running away that had accompanied my first appearance in the local town. Who would have thought that Miss Jubilee, the enigmatic owner of the ice cream parlour, would have been the one to achieve something that all these bloody ‘counsellors’ could not: to make me feel… welcome. I never wanted to be a celebrity, and I certainly didn’t want fame nor any of the fancy trappings that went with that either. No, I just wanted to be left alone and to have a nice, everyday, boring life. Gods above, I’d had all the excitement I could handle for more than ten lifetimes, let alone one!

Apple Pop’s voice drifted to me from somewhere far away, far off in the world that was lost in the rhythm of the driver’s hooves. Trit-trot, trit-trot, trit- trot. I yawned; I’d been up all night listening to Pop droning on and on about his bloody garden and that blasted group of stuffy old farts he was so obsessed with. It was enough to send anypony to sleep. Warm sunlight played across my muzzle, bringing with it the gentle scent of apple blossom and lavender.

I could feel the gentle allure of sleep tugging at me, the warmth of my mare beside me, my daughter snuggled into my side. Gods, who gave a toss about boring old… old… farts…

The stallion looked up, a little embarrassed at the question. “Oh, mm, I… I fell off some scaffolding.”

Gods, you had to love this place. The plastic smiles of the counsellors, the cheerful pink and yellow wallpaper and the equally sappy posters that blared out ‘BE HAPPY!’ from every bloody wall. It wasn’t a request apparently.

Oh, gods! When you got ‘Phil’ talking about his past it would likely be the last thing you ever heard before throwing yourself out of the window just to get away from him, never mind the bloody scaffolding!

There was a painfully long pause as Phil stared off into the distance. “It’s hard to remember.”

“I know it’s hard for you, Phil, and you really don’t need to try if you don’t want to, but all your friends are here with you, and we all love you. Don’t we everypony?” The counsellor waved her perfectly manicured hoof at the rest of us encouragingly.

“Yes. We love you, Phil,” the rest of the inmates intoned. Sadly, including myself. Bloody hell it was always the same old mantra every blasted time too: ‘we love you – fill in the name of the messed up pony of your choice’. I for one can assure you that I did not love ‘Phil’. Of course, ‘for the sake of propriety’, as I’d been told, none of us used our real names here. In fact that was one of the very first rules we’d had pounded into us from day one, and Miss Lentil certainly loved her rules all right. Not that it made a great deal of difference considering we all called each other by our real names when we buggered off for a swift half in the local tavern at the end of class of course, and if you ask me, that was the real ‘therapy’ here. But as always there somepony had to spoil your fun, not that there was much to found here, and for me that was in the form of Meadow’s warning for me to be on my best behaviour during these sessions. The cunning creature had even given me the ‘foal eyes’ routine and a plaintive ‘Please Fairlight… for me?’ Gods damn it! She knew I couldn’t say no to that! What was worse though was that her interminably annoying friend ‘Ms Sparks’, or ‘Sparky’ as a I liked to call her much to her annoyance, was a regular visitor to our home. Ostensibly it was to give my wife regular ‘progress reports’ from the counselling service like I was some hormonally challenged wayward school foal! Every time the stripy pain in the hocks came round she’d talk about me like I wasn’t even there, but when I left the room, Meadow would complain that I’d ‘gone off and left her’! Cue attendant argument and feelings of guilt…

“Fairlight, did you have something to say to Phil?” Lentil’s orange eyes burned right into me.

“We love you, Phil!” I exclaimed a little more sarcastically than I meant. Still, it seemed to do the job for the eternally attention seeking Phil.

“I heard… a voice...” The charcoal coated stallion held his muzzle in his forehooves. “I thought it was the voice of the goddess, calling to me from the beyond, and I looked up to the sky, watching the clouds slipping by, and the feeling of… flying.”

Lentil shot me another look and turned her enormous smile back on her painfully willing victim. “Can you remember what the goddess said, Phil?”

“She said...” Phil paused for doubtlessly dramatic effect. “She said...” He took a breath, “You did remember to tie that rope, didn’t you?”

I had to stifle a snigger as the hopeless looking fellow hung his head whilst Miss Lentil put her foreleg round him and stroked his mane. “It’s alright Phil,” she said gently, “you’ve done exceptionally well today. Bringing out the memory of our last moments can be painful for us, but it is that acceptance of what happened that is the first step on the road to acquiring the peace and tranquillity of the soul which the gods want for all of us.”

You had to admire Lentil I suppose, she had to deal with emotionally damaged ponies on a daily basis, and was a mare who you could say without any doubt, was dedicated to her craft. Personally I thought a lot of this huggy, floofy, and sickly sweetness nonsense was a right load of old bollocks.

‘Dave’ was an aquamarine pegasus who always came across to me as the sort of guy you could really get on with, especially after a few wheat beers.

“I can remember flying through the Tallow Forest, just west of Ten-Fall Pines,” he began. “It was quite a cool evening out, and the sky was as clear as glass. There’s nothing like it, flying like that with the stars above you and the wind beneath your wings. We were really gunning it too.” He sighed, casting his eyes to the ceiling as looking to a place far, far away. “We’d been on a recon mission at the time, and we’d just stopped for the night in a clearing when a call came in that the guy we’d been looking for had been sighted nearby.” The dark coated pegasus sighed. “We don’t normally fly at night as a rule.”

Lentil leaned closer, her smile attempting something approaching ‘warming’ but coming across as more of a menacing leer. “What happened, Dave?”

Dave clopped his forehooves together. “I can remember the words of my wingpony...” He sighed loudly. “He said… ‘watch out for that tree!’ and then...” Suddenly the pegasus clopped his forehooves together making everypony jump. “SPLAT!!!”

“Oh…um, I see. That’s… really awful.” Lentil readjusted her mane as she tried to recompose herself. “So, who would like to go next?” Her eyes alighted on me and I could feel my blood go cold under that orange gaze. “Bob, how about you?”

I suppose it was a forlorn hope, but the inquisitive mare pressed on, “Blown up?”

I gritted my teeth, trying not to subject her to the usual Fairlight, or rather ‘Bob’ sarcasm. “There was an explosion and I was standing too close to it,” I explained. “I don’t know what caused it to be honest, but the next thing I knew, I was here, dead as the proverbial.”

Lentil nodded sagely. “Sometimes the mind finds it difficult to reconcile with the soul when there are questions left unanswered,” she said softly. “The conscious mind tries to find those answers, those reasons as to why what happened to us happened the way it did. The reality however is that there are sometimes no answers to be found, no matter how hard we look or how much we may wish to know them. Looking for them can only cause pain where there should only be the joy of life within the ever loving embrace of the gods. The only answer any of us need, the true answer, is within ourselves. Our soul, the light of love and kindness that is our true essence gifted to us by the gods themselves, can never truly die. The mortal body is only a shell for the soul until that inevitable day all of us come home to the herd. It is here that the concerns and troubles of the mortal body can no longer hurt us. It is here where everypony can truly be at ease and feel the warmth of the goddess’s sun and the love she has for us. Even death cannot restrain that most precious of things each of us has which makes us who we are: our soul.”

I was left sitting there in absolute silence, my heart thundering in my chest. Was she right? Had the answer to all of my worries been inside me all along? It sounded like a load of psychobabble on the one hoof, but on the other… maybe she was right. I didn’t know what to say… Perhaps a change of direction was needed?

By the look on her face, Lentil apparently wasn’t used to being asked questions, but to her credit she simply nodded as she gave me an inscrutable smile. “Me?” She chuckled under her breath. “There’s not much to tell really. I was a young mare, not much more than a filly really, and I did what so many girls my age did. I fell in love.” She sighed, her face taking on the now familiar far away look I’d seen so many times before on the other attendees. Lentil was gazing into a time and a place, long, long ago, that only she could see. “It was the time of the great war,” she continued, “the time of what we call now the ‘war of the three tribes’.” Everypony stared at her in amazement. Good gods, just how old was she?! I’d heard the war with Nightmare Moon and the Legion referred to as the ‘Great War’ before, but never the war of the three tribes. By my estimation the conflict she was referring to was somewhere around a thousand years before the war between the sisters, which itself was a millennia ago. That made her what, two thousand years old? And she didn’t look a day over twenty either. Good old herd; forever young, eh? She reached up and idly fiddled with her mane. “He was a soldier with the pegasus royal army,” she said quietly.

“They had a royal family?” Dave asked in surprise. “What about Celestia and Luna?”

“The princesses?” Lentil shrugged. “Just children then I suppose. It was such a long time ago, I can’t really remember.”

“But they fought Sombra and the Crystal Empire didn’t they?” Graham, the light tan unicorn chirped up helpfully. “That was after the war of the three tribes, wasn’t it?”

Our other pegasus attendee, Derek, laughed. “Somepony should have spent more time at school...”

Ivy, the unicorn and sole mare of our mentally scarred band piped up, “Oh, belt up ‘Derek’! If you’re such a clever dick, why don’t you enlighten us with your sage wisdom, eh?”

Derek sniffed loudly, “I’m not a bloody history teacher, go and read a book or something why don’t you.”

The counsellor intervened by the simple expedient of banging her hoof on the arm of her chair. “Please! Everypony, just… let’s just settle down and I’ll finish my tale, yes?” Miss Lentil looked up at the clock. “It’s nearly home time anyway.

“Yeah, put a sock in it, Derek, I want to hear this,” Dave chimed in helpfully. I wisely decided to keep quiet.

“Dave’s right, the war with the Crystal Empire came after the war of the three tribes.” Lentil nodded to the beaming earth pony who shot Derek a smug grin. “Derek will probably know about this of course, but the pegasi and the unicorns did have their own royal family back then. The earth ponies on the other hoof were a little, shall we say ‘looser’ in their hierarchy.”

“Hah!” Derek the black and white patched pegasus barked. “You got that right!”

Lentil held up a hoof, “Yes Derek, we were poor, but we had something the pegasi and unicorns didn’t have, and that was food, as well as the knowledge of the earth and bones of the land necessary to produce it. But that’s besides the point.” She rubbed a foreleg over her muzzle, clearly exasperated with the eclectic mix of misfits in my class who spent more time moaning and bickering than doing anything, gods forbid, practical. “It was around the time when hostilities began to break out,” she explained. “The royal family of the pegasi took exception to one of their own being involved with one of the lowly earth pony ‘dirt grubbers’.” I barely noticed her eyes flicker to Derek, but he noticed it alright. The silly sod turned as red as a beetroot. “They forbade us from seeing each other again, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, my beloved stallion was… punished.”

I blinked and raised a hoof as the afternoon’s dumbest question left my lips. “What did they do to him?”

“Those… They WHAT?!” Derek shot out of his chair, his face a picture of horrified outrage. “Oh, no way! They wouldn’t do that! That’s an act that’s-”

“Banned?” Lentil finished for him. “It is now, but not then.” She got up and took her seat behind her desk. “We take a great deal for granted now,” she said gravely, “and society in the mortal world has come a long way. Seraphim, my stallion… never flew again. He was locked away in the cloud city of the pegasi. And as for me… well, a mare with a foal out of wedlock was a crime that was punishable by banishment or execution.” Silence fell like a lead weight in the room, drawing every eye. “I was sent out into the wilderness of one of the harshest winters Equestria had ever known.”

Lentil nodded sadly. “She was stillborn. She was a beautiful little pegasus too: red, with a mane as pale as the snow where I bore her. I name her Snowfall, and buried her beneath the tree’s of a forest where, to my knowledge, she lies to this very day.”

“Oh, Lentil...” A loud sniff drew our attention to the tearful Ivy. “I’m so sorry...”

“Don’t be,” Lentil smiled. “I have a good life here now, and I’m happily single too.”

Lentil shook her head. “As I said, I was a lot younger back then and besides,” she shrugged, “Seraphim wasn’t the same as I remembered him. And I suppose he felt the same way.”

“Well, duh!” Derek piped up. “Of course he is, unless he decided to ‘take the plunge’ if you know what I mean.”

“Snowfall?” Lentil smiled. “She’s the editor of ‘Tapestry Weekly’ now.”

Hang on… ‘Tapestry Weekly’… that was that magazine Meadow read! Oh, gods, the editorial page! I thought the name sounded familiar, the editor’s photograph was at the bottom with a silly grin on her face and she was, as Lentil said, a bright red mare with pure white hair. Gods above, the herd strikes again! Dead relative? Just hang around long enough and you’ll see them again, whether you wanted to or not. In Lentil’s case everything had worked out well, but… Celestia’s arse, no wonder ponies were so messed up. Instead of saying goodbye to our deceased, it would be better just to say ‘Put the kettle on pet, I’ll be along in a bit’, and the next thing you knew you were sitting down to a plate of fancy cakes, cucumber sandwiches, and a cup of tea with a twenty year old in the prime of life you’d buried not that long ago. This was madness, absolute madness, and here I was right in the middle of it all.

“So you see, everything works out the way the gods wish it in the end,” Lentil summed up for us neatly. “We live, we die, we live again. Just as we were meant to.”

“Seems a bit bloody pointless if you ask me,” Derek said pointedly. “I mean, why bother being ‘mortal’ in the first place if we have to come here anyway?”

Dave nodded to his pegasus compatriot. “Gotta agree with Derek here, Lentil. What is the point? Seems to me we’re going from A to Z to come back to B.”

Lentil bobbed her head towards a painting on the wall of two magnificently radiant alicorns. “There are things in this universe that only the gods can understand, Dave. No matter how hard we search, no matter how much science progresses, we could never even begin to scratch the surface of the mysteries of creation, nor hope to understand the depth of knowledge the gods possess. Perhaps it is better not knowing the answers to such questions, no matter how much we may want to hear them.”

“I’d second that emotion,” I announced, quoting the old song. “And thank you for sharing that with us, Miss Lentil. I think it’s… helped.”

“Thank you, Bob,” Lentil replied, and collected her bag from underneath the desk. “I seldom talk about myself as a rule, but it feels good to do it every now and again.” She glanced up at the clock. “Well, that brings us to four o’clock everypony. Time to pack up for the day. Don’t forget take your things with you and I’ll see you all same time next week.”

The group, highly trained and raring to go, stood and shuffled to the door like surly teenagers. What a bunch! And the best part? I was part of it! Sometimes I felt like giving Meadow a piece of my mind regarding her inflicting this ‘therapy course’ upon her dearly beloved. Gah! Therapy! Well, I suppose that wasn’t entirely fair. Lentil’s story had been interesting, if a little short on detail, but when I’d seen that look of pain in her eyes, that haunted look that even now after two millennia tainted her heart, it really did make you think. Sadly, about things I’d rather not think about too. I’d left Shadow, Tingles, and little Lumin, not to mention all my friends and my little dragonling, back in the mortal world to enjoy an eternity of peace and tranquility with my wife and child. Obviously it wasn’t through choice, being turned into a kebab by a piece of your exploding home has a tendency to promote large portions of death, but still… gods it still hurt. All this ‘feel good about yourself’ and ‘let’s sing songs about friendship everypony!’ did nothing to change reality, nor do much to ease my troubled heart either. Gods bless Lentil, she was trying her best, and as cynical as a I am I suppose there was the possibility she actually really had helped me. Kind of. Oh, who am I kidding?! I just wanted to get away from there, get home and-

“Hey Bob, you grabbing a pint before you get off?” Dave gave me a prod in the shoulder. “Hey, anypony home in there?”

“Huh?” What a mess, I was acting half cut and all I’d had was a cup of that godawful vending machine coffee too. It might have been strong, but it wasn’t that strong! Come to think of it, vending machines were an anachronism here it seemed to me. They were one of the few ‘modern’ contrivances that had actually been allowed into the herd by the tradition loving royal family from the inaccessible confines of their ivory tower. Miserable buggers probably had all mod-cons secreted away in there whilst ensuring the rest of us lived in a near post-medieval state. I gave the aquamarine pegasus a tired look, “Nah, not today mate, I want to get back to the missus and put my hooves up. This mind massaging stuff knocks hell out of me.”

“Thanks for the advice, Derek,” I muttered sarcastically. “But hey, you go and soak yourself in wheat beer all you want buddy.”

“Yeah, just don’t try and fly home afterwards, eh?” Dave added in his cheeky tone. “Don’t want history repeating itself now, do we?”

“Oh, piss off!” Derek snorted. “Do you think this is some sort of death one-up-pony-ship? Give me a break!” He reared on his hind legs and performed a surprisingly accurate impression of our esteemed teacher. “Oh Bob, your death was sooo much more exciting than the others! Oh, come here Bob, take me behind the desk and ravish me senseless you hunk of stallionhood you.”

“You’re a real arse, Derek, do you know that?” Ivy pushed past us to taken down her own hat and coat. “Do you always have to be so obtuse all the time?”

“She means you’re being an arse, Derek,” Dave observed helpfully. “Come on, Bob, let’s go for a pint. I’m sure your other half won’t miss you for a few minutes, right?”

The sputtering Derek flared his wings angrily, but thankfully knew when to keep his oversized opinions, and equally large mouth, shut. Huffing under his breath he trailed after us shooting daggers at the back of Dave’s head. Somewhere along the line, and against my better judgement I might add, I’d fallen into step with the others as they head for the local tavern. Dave was right I suppose, Meadow wouldn’t be expecting me back for a while yet and I’d be perfectly fine having only the one before I headed off home. Besides, she was always going on about me putting myself out there to ‘mix with other ponies’, and this would be an ideal opportunity to do just that. Having said that, I’d been very careful with my drinking ever since that dreadful incident when we’d been newlyweds living in Manehattan. I’d been in the watch at the time, and I’d ‘only’ gone out for ‘a few’ then. The ‘few’ unfortunately turned into ‘lots’, and I came back so mind numbingly inebriated that I’d nearly drowned in my own vomit. In fact the only reason I’d survived that alcohol soaked ordeal was down to the loving ministrations of the long suffering Meadow, who’d cleaned me up and put me to bed despite my self-induced state. Celestia’s rump, I still can’t remember much about that night other than the dread that I’d hurt her, and… I think… I think I had, hadn’t I? Oh goddesses, I had! Hell fire, this was exactly why I didn’t like getting drunk, and had counted my fortunes every day for being lucky enough to have a wife who loved me unconditionally and one whom I knew that a lout like me didn’t deserve. The gods know, she must see something in me that I can’t.

We walked up the stone steps of ‘The Fig Tree’, the strategically placed tavern frequented by both students and lecturers from the local college. As more, what you might call ‘mature students’, and not even proper ‘students’ at that, we fell under the same umbrella which gave us a few perks we wouldn’t normally otherwise receive. In this case it was a free salt lick and bowls of some spicy snack things that I absolutely adored. Now normally I didn’t go in for hot foods, but these were just right. They were a mixture of short, crunchy curry spiced things, together with dried peas and sultanas that I could have eaten by the sack load. Good grief, give me a nose bag, a pint of wheat beer, a seat by the fire, and I’d be the happiest pony alive. Or dead.

We all nodded as Dave trotted over to the bar and Derek slumped in the chair next to me, watching Ivy head for the mares room. “Powder her muzzle...” he groused, folding his forelegs, “Put any more make-up on that snout and she’d be a fire hazard.”

I chuckled. Derek was a pain at times, but there didn’t seem to be any harm in him. I shrugged, “You could try getting along with her you know.” I grinned cheekily. “Maybe she likes you?”

“Oh, come on!” He snorted. “Me and her? Fetlocks and feathers, can you imagine it? It’d be like being back at school again being bloody well lectured all the time. Don’t say this, don’t say that, come this way, go that way, fetch me bloody carry me!”

“She’s not that bad,” I replied, “besides, some ponies like being dominated.”

Derek leaned forward, ignoring the last part of my remark. “Look, I’m not saying I don’t ‘like’ her,” he said quietly, “I do, sort of, it’s just that she’s always so bloody miserable all the time! Pegasi need other pegasi. You know what I mean?”

“No?” I took a sniff of the deliciously spicy mix the landlord had thoughtfully brought over. “Is this some sort of racial superiority thing?”

“I’m not a bloody racist if that’s what you’re implying!” Derek snapped. “It’s… Oh, you wouldn’t understand.”

Phil ghosted over carrying a tray of sandwiches and pulled up a chair, expertly placing the neatly cut snacks in the middle of the table. “I think it’s down to the wings,” he said in his familiar slow tone. “Earth ponies and unicorns don’t know what it’s like to be one with the wind.”

Derek’s eyes were as wide as saucers. Apparently he’d found a kindred spirit. “Yes… YES! Exactly!” He clopped his hoof on the table top. “Exactly, Phil! Good gods, where did you learn stuff like that?”

The charcoal coated stallion stretched his muscular legs and yawned. “Mum’s a pegasus.”

“And your dad’s an earth pony?” Derek asked, motioning towards Phil’s smooth flanks.

I think I must have missed something here, so in typical Fairlight fashion I blundered right on in and my mouth was in gear before my brain had received it’s wake up call after being asleep for the last few hours of class. “But you’re an earth pony.”

“Remarkable powers of observation on display there, Bob,” Derek sniffed, turning back to our colleague. “Luna’s ears, buddy, that must have been hell for you.”

Phil shrugged. “It wasn’t easy.” He took a hoofful of the spicy mix and I felt a twinge of loss as a sizeable portion disappeared into his mouth. “They kept me in Cloudsdale when I was growing up, but earth ponies… well, you know, we don’t exactly ‘stay up there’, if you know what I mean.”

“Stay up there?” I asked, and suddenly realised, “Ah, you can’t walk on clouds, can you.”

Phil shook his head. “You can still walk in most parts of Cloudsdale. We used to have visitors from the surface all the time: traders, tourists, and so on. Problem was, living with pegasi I suppose I sort of saw myself as one.”

Phil shrugged. “Maybe. I always was a bit careless. Mum and Dad could never come to terms with me being an earth pony, and they refused to send to me to school on the surface. So when I left school I decided to try and find my hooves by going into construction. I took a job with ‘Slate’s’ in Fillydelphia. It wasn’t that bad a position to be honest with you, and the money was pretty good too all things considered.” He shook his head sadly. “Ironically it was a contract we had for the new arena in Cloudsdale that did for me.”

“They had a contract in Cloudsdale?!” I asked in amazement. “But Slate’s Construction are mostly earth ponies, aren’t they?”

Phil nodded. “Mostly. They’d brought in pegasi builders as well as their own teams to work on the project. There were supposed to be safety measures in place to ensure the builders were safe: magical barriers, netting, all that sort of thing.”

Derek shook his head. “Slate’s were the ones with the bad reputation for safety standards weren’t they?”

I nodded. I could remember numerous incidents involving workers at Slate’s Construction sites being reported over the years, particularly during my time in the watch when these guys were snapping up contracts country-wide. Their track record however, had not gone unnoticed. In the face of public concerns over the rising number of accidents, the national press had had a field day. ‘Heath and Safety’ ponies had looked into the matter of course, however they had a disturbing tendency to write the ‘accidents’ off as simply down to ‘Equine Error’ rather than any corporate incompetence or lack of safety protocols. The lads in the watch suspected the fact that Slate’s daughter, who just happened to be the minister in charge of ‘Public Safety’, the overseeing governmental department that controlled matters involving Health and Safety, may have had a little something to do with that. Slate’s had been the ones who’d nabbed the contract for the extensions at Manehatten General too. Somewhat ironically, Meadow had often complained to me about all the broken bones she’d had to mend at the hospital whilst the new wing was being added. Most of the injuries, unsurprisingly, had been the very ponies building the place. Personally I don’t think the nursing staff expected to have so many new patients before the extension had even been finished! Still, at least they didn’t have far to travel for treatment. But, as with all things, the truth eventually leaches out one way or another. Too many injuries combined with the press nosing about, had brought the matter to the attention of the palace, and heads began to roll. Metaphorically speaking of course.

“They ended up being fined by the Royal Safety Commission for breaches of health and safety regs,” I said. “Cost them quite a few bits too, if I remember rightly.”

“Not enough to save me from coming down to earth like a sack of bricks,” Phil replied sarcastically. “Something I wouldn’t recommend you tried unless you had wings.”

“Couldn’t somepony have caught you?” Derek snorted. “Where the hell were the safety crews?!”

And of course, ponies being the sociable creatures they are, they’d doubtless all buggered off at the same time too. “Well, at least it was quick, Phil, that’s all I can say,” I pointed out. Yeah, my demise had been anything but, and I’d lingered long enough to see my loved ones horrified expressions as I left on my less than merry way into the afterlife.

“Three wheat beers and one gin and tonic. Ice, no lemon.” Dave plopped the drinks on the table with practised ease. “Huh! I’ve seen more cheer in a grave yard. What are you three looking so miserable about?”

“Nothing,” Phil said taking his drink. “Just about how we ended up here.”

“Oh, please! Can we leave that sort of thing in the classroom guys?” Dave rolled his eyes as he took his seat. “I don’t want to be reminded of that story Lentil told us. Some of us have to sleep at night you know.”

My sentiments exactly! I took the wheat beer and immediately caught the malty aroma and hint of hops. It was delicious.

“Hey, we never found out what happened to Ivy.” Derek’s unwanted observation was timed to perfection.

“What about it?” The unicorn mare in question, freshly ‘powdered’ or whatever it is mares get up to in bathrooms, appeared behind Derek like the spectre of Hearthswarming. “Noticed I exist at last have you?”

Derek swallowed. “Um...” He coughed nervously, “Just… y’know, wondering. Nothing wrong with that is there?”

“Well you can keep wondering, because I’m not saying. So tough,” Ivy huffed.

Dave lay a hoof on her foreleg. “It’s alright, Ivy, we weren’t being nosy, we were just talking about what had happened to each of us. Miss Lentil said that it would help us integrate better if we spoke about it amongst ourselves.”

I nodded my agreement. “Nopony is going to make you say anything you don’t want to. This is supposed to be a voluntary class after all. Besides, we’re meant to be enjoying ourselves aren’t we?” I reached for the bowl of spiced mix only to find to my horror that the last of it had already been snaffled by the now spicy crumb coated Phil. Greedy sod…

Derek muttered something under his breath, and Dave gave him a curious look. “Huh?”

Dave sighed, “I said… I’m sorry, okay? Celestia’s arse, Ivy I’m… yeah...”

She was an interesting creature, rather quiet compared to the rest I suppose, and was, in Derek’s defence, a little prone to being negative in her comments. Mostly towards him for some reason too. Who could say why? Maybe she really didn’t like him, or then again… maybe she did? Ah, the ways of mares was a deeper mystery than any I’d ever fathom. Meadow being one of them. We’d been together now for… I don’t know how long. Time here was strange; days could seem like years, and years days. As I was told by Star Swirl that cranky old wizard, it was best not to think about it too hard. Part of me suspected what he actually meant was that I was mentally incapable of working it out for myself, and perhaps there was some truth in that. Personally I thought he was a manipulative and scheming old sod who used ponies in the afterlife like pawns in a game none of us knew we were playing. Gods, why couldn’t ponies just give us some peace? Hadn’t we been through enough already? There was definitely something going on with him, and it wasn’t just that business with Vela either. I don’t know, I just couldn’t quite put my hoof on it, but I sure as hell didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Since our clandestine ‘meeting’, for want of a better word, with Maroc the last lord of the wendigo tribe thrown into the mix too, I’d been left hanging out to dry until such time as he saw fit to include me in his latest nefarious scheme. Oh sure, bait me with the ‘the end of the world is nigh, and your family is in mortal peril!’ line and then, ‘we shall speak more of this at a later date, Fairlight’. Oh yes, you just couldn’t beat hanging around waiting for ‘something’ to happen. Or not. Anyway, Meadow wasn’t any the wiser and life, or death rather, had gone on much the same way as it had since I’d arrived here. My ears pricked up; apparently the conversation had carried on without me, and I looked up from the forlorn looking empty snack bowl to see four three pairs of eyes looking right at me.

“Oh.” I gave my mane a shake and took a sip of my beer, “Sorry, what were we saying?”

Dave clucked his tongue. “We were wondering why Miss Lentil gave us these odd names?”

“Er, anonymity I suppose,” I said quickly. “She probably thought it was embarrassing to be in her class. Mental health concerns, and all that stuff.”

Derek shook his head. “My point wasn’t ‘why’, it was ‘what’.” He rolled his eyes dramatically. “I mean, who the hell comes up with names like Bob, Dave and Derek? At least Ivy is a normal name.”

“Who knows what she’s seen in her time,” Dave replied. “She’s been around a lot longer than we have.”

“I know!” Ivy chimed in. “Can you believe she’s as old as the war of the three tribes? She’s probably as old as the princesses!”

“Oh yes, the ‘eternal virgin’,” Derek snorted. “I wonder how many of us are here because of that crinkly old baggage.”

“Don’t call her that!” Ivy snapped suddenly. “How dare you! Celestia is a wonderful mare who loves her people unconditionally. You haven’t got a clue what she’s had to sacrifice to keep her land together and all of us safe from her enemies.”

“Yeah? Didn’t keep me very safe now, did it?” Derek retorted. “Got me and bunch of my mates killed hunting for some bloody cosplayer pretending to be a wendigo of all things.”

“I heard about that,” Phil replied, “it was the talk of the construction teams for a while, and we were all wondering whether it was true or not. Some of the boys even thought they’d seen it, but we all knew about that whole ‘alicorn hoax’ business in Manehattan so we didn’t give it much credence really. Didn’t stop the boss bollocking them for wasting time staring at clouds when they should have been working though.”

“What happened with that then?” Dave asked. “The whole ‘fake alicorn’ thing?”

Phil shrugged. “It was a marketing ploy apparently. Something to do with ‘fashions fit for the gods’ or some such rubbish. Local news was full of it for days and the local religious leaders acted as if it was Ragnarok or something.”

Dave chuckled. “The end of the world brought brought about by a stick-on horn, eh? Luna’s lugs, I can remember the leaders of the clergy freaking out over it at the local temple! Hey, did you ever see the photo of him?”

Phil shook his head. “Nah, heard about it though. Wearing sunglasses wasn’t he?”

Dave nodded. “How in Equestria anypony took that seriously was beyond me. For Celestia’s sake, the guy kept reappearing wearing different outfits each time. Somepony must have been wetting themselves laughing over that one!”

“Still not much of a reason to mobilise the army and royal guard to hunt the poor bugger down though was it?” Derek replied.

“They hunted down the fake alicorn?” I asked in surprise. “Bit over the top, don’t you think?”

Derek clucked his tongue. “Not that one you berk, I meant the wendigo fella.” He stretched his wings out and settled back into the chair. “You didn’t hear about it?” I shook my head and played dumb. Derek closed his eyes and groaned. “Goddesses above… Well, I suppose I was going to have to tell you all about it in naughty boy school sooner or later anyway…” He took a sip of his beer. “I was in the royal guard see? Had been for years, too. There I was biding my time until retirement, a fat lump sum and a very nice final salary pension to look forward to at the end of it, and ‘boom!’ it all hits the fan doesn’t it?” Derek sighed as he stared into his now half-empty pint glass. “I was dossing about doing some pointless guard duty at the palace when the sergeant at arms comes along and says, ‘Come on lad, gorra a job f’yer’.” He groaned loudly. “‘Transporting a prisoner’ he said, ‘Easy job and an early knock off’ he said. Huh! Yeah, right...”

As rapt an audience as Derek had, I was surprised to see Ivy’s reaction. She looked scared, her eyes wide and ears drooping as if getting ready to run or hide. She’d barely touched her drink too, and instead kept staring intently at the story telling pegasus as if he had suddenly sprouted two heads or something.

“What, they actually caught the wendigo?!” Phil gasped in surprise. “I thought you said a minute ago they didn’t exist!”

“I said he was a cosplayer,” Derek huffed. “Just some grey coated guy that looked a bit like miladdo here.” He jerked a hoof in my direction, and in the process drew Ivy’s gaze like iron filings to a magnet. Hell fire, they were all bloody well staring at me now!

I laughed it off with a wave of my hoof. “Yeah, all these amazing powers sure come in handy for making ice cubes. Maybe I could hire myself out at Miss Kitty’s Ice Cream Parlour. She’s always complaining about the freezers breaking down.”

“Huh, you wish!” Derek smacked his lips together as another round somehow materialised before us. “Nah, guy we had was half dead, scarred from forelock to muzzle too, with white stripes in his mane and tail and a lightning flash for a cutie mark.” He pointed to mine. “Can’t change those things, buddy.” Derek leaned forward almost conspiratorially. “But you want to know what I remember most about him?” Everypony held their breath. “It was his eyes. Blue as the eyes of the ocean’s depths, as empty as death, and when they fixed upon you, they could strip your soul...”

“Well, he was a unicorn alright, but no wings, no howling winds and blizzards to be seen,” Derek snorted. He took a long pull on his beer and gave a shudder, “Whoever he was he’d pissed her nibs off well and truly, and we were to escort him out to the border for banishment.”

“Banishment...” Ivy whispered under her breath. Goddesses she was beginning to give me shivers with the way she was staring straight ahead, as though looking not at me, but through me.

Derek cocked an eyebrow in her direction but decided to ignore her. “We were on our way to drop him off when this gang of thugs appeared out of nowhere and ambushed us. Bastards were armed to the teeth too, and were packing beam weapons of some kind.” He took a sip of his drink. “Anyway, the carriage was hit during the firefight, taking our ‘cargo’ down with it. Before we knew it the whole thing, pilots and all, pancaked into the ground before smashing into the river.”

“The ones who attacked us?” Derek shrugged. “Buggered if I know. Maybe they were mates of the guy we had, or ones who wanted him dead. Either way, it was a complete cock-up from start to finish.”

“You were the pilot?” I asked helplessly, “I… I didn’t know. Dear gods...”

“Hey, Bob, you know it happened, like, ages ago buddy, yeah?” Derek shook his head at my shocked expression. “Least I didn’t get blown up like you, eh?”

I closed my eyes, the horror of those events replaying through my mind like a runaway train. “I know, but still...” Hell fire, I could still see it: the water, the bubbles and swirling mass of rope and wood acting as a giant washing machine, with me in the middle of it trying to stay alive, desperate to escape and… I’d never given a thought to the pilot, had I? I’d assumed he’d been killed in the sky. It never occurred to me that he might have still been alive or that I could have saved him. But… could I have?

Derek bopped me on the head. “Hey! Don’t go all quiet on us, now. That’s Ivy’s job.”

Ivy for once said nothing. Instead, she just sat and stared at me. Those big slate grey eyes of hers bored into mine, as cold as stone and twice as chilling.

I froze, the pint glass floating halfway to my lips held in the blue glow of magic illuminating my face and reflecting in Ivy’s unusual pale grey eyes. The tension around the table changed in an instant from cheerful camaraderie to a chilling sense of inescapable pressure. “My… my name’s-”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Your name? Duh!” He turned to Ivy and winked, “I win.”

Where in Equestria he’d got that from was anyponies guess, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to correct him. I’d settled pretty well into the herd recently, despite the fact that Ms. Sparks, my ever cheerful ‘case worker’ clearly took delight in reminding me that it was ‘still early days yet’. I guess she was right, after all, every now and again other ponies who’d recognised me from the newspaper articles when I visited the local town would react to me as if I were either a minor celebrity or the instrument of the keeper of the underworld. Being left alone was a tall order in the herd it seemed.

Ivy frowned at me, her eyes narrowing to near pinpricks of intensity. And then, in a heartbeat, the bubble burst. “Corn Bread,” she said softly, and gave a short chuckle. “Hah, what a fool.”

“I thought...” Ivy shrugged and drooped her shoulders in apparent resignation. “I thought you were somepony else, Corn Bread. Sorry about that.” Turning to the grinning pegasus, she raised an eyebrow quizzically. “So how do you know his name then, ‘Derek’?”

The pegasus grinned. “I overheard him speaking to his wife when she dropped him off. Pretty little thing she is too.” He gave me a toothy smile. “Lucky bugger. Anyhow, now that that’s out of the way, the name’s Booster.” He waggled his eyebrows at Ivy, “Although some like to call me, ‘the thruster’.”

Ivy flushed bright red as the pegasus burst out laughing. “You’re sick!” she snapped. “What in Equestria possessed me to join a class with a bunch of perverts?! I knew I should have joined the other intake. At least there were some girls there and not a load of sex crazed imbeciles like-”

“Hey! I’m a married stallion, thank you very much,” I cut in. Good grief, the last thing I wanted was rumours spreading about my being a pervert thanks to a tentative association with ‘Derek’ or ‘Booster’ or whatever his stupid name was.

“Stallions are all the same. All of you,” Ivy snorted loudly as she berated us imperiously. “All you ever think about is mating, and it’s no wonder you’re single, ‘Booster’, if you carry on like that around mares.”

“Nah, I don’t carry on like that around mares, Ivy,” Booster smirked. “It’s just for you, my favourite unicorn class-mate.”

Ivy looked like she was about to spontaneously combust when, thanks be, Dave came to the rescue. “Stone Coaster.”

In response, Dave, or ‘Stone Coaster’ apparently, lifted the corner of his overcoat to reveal a pair of small pale grey disks on his flank. “Mum and dad named me after their favourite movie detective. I think you tell how well that worked out.”

“Stone Coaster?!” Derek tried to cover his mirth with his forehooves, but the effect was only worsened by the fact his wings were standing straight out and quivering helpless. “You were named after that movie detective? The one who walks around with a lollipop in his mouth all the time?” He plucked a toothpick from the condiment set on the table, propping it in the corner of his mouth. “Who loves ya baby?”

I had to admit he really pulled off the deep gravelly voice of the grizzled detective from the silver screen pretty well. Meadow had always loved those films and, if I’m being totally honest, I kinda did too. Thankfully the herd catered for all tastes and the local town was well furnished with everything from bowling alleys, ice cream parlours, to theatres and cinemas. Personally I enjoyed a round of mini golf but Meadow couldn’t stand it and would disappear off to the shops whenever I wanted to play. A shame really, but I suppose it was those little differences that helped make our marriage interesting. Besides, I hated shopping.

“Bow Saw,” Phil said, introducing himself with a shrug. “Clues in the mark as always.” And sure enough, there was a neat depiction of an old fashioned wood saw on his flank.

Unfortunately every eye was now on Ivy who visibly balked at the unwelcome attention. “My name’s… Autumn Shower.” Rather than showing us her cutie mark however, she almost subconsciously tucked her navy blue overcoat over her flank. “It was… it was my great grandmother’s name.”

Dutifully we all nodded and smiled, although I had the distinct impression that our fairest Autumn was far from comfortable, and indeed I was painfully aware of the way she spent the rest of the time with our little group staring at the clock on the wall. The atmosphere was dreadful, not least because I knew that I was indirectly responsible for the death of one these guys, but now because we were all trying to do anything but make eye contact with one another whilst keeping horribly silent. It was definitely time to make my excuses and leave, but still, I couldn’t help but wonder where Derek had got the name ‘Corn Bread’ from, nor why he had been so quick to leap to my defence when Ivy had locked onto me. Curious indeed. I’d have to think on this more later, but for now at least I’d finish my drink and say goodbye. By the looks of things the rest were starting to have the same idea too.

“Well, I think it’s about that time,” Stone Coaster said, stretching his forelegs. “I don’t want my other half smelling drink on me when I get home. Last time I did that she wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of the evening.”

“Nah, her ex boyfriend killed the two of them in a chariot crash after he got himself ratted,” Stone replied. “Showing off like that never ends well.”

Autumn snorted, “Terrifying your girlfriend to impress her?” She shook her head sorrowfully. “I’ll never understand stallions.”

Stone nodded as he collected his overcoat. “I hate to say it, but it’s something of a pegasi trait. We always like to be faster and quicker than the others. Unfortunately Pinto wasn’t a pegasus, and when her dimwit other half lost control of the chariot she had no chance.”

“Don’t mind the cross-species thing, huh?” Booster asked. He avoided the sharp glance from Ivy.

Stone chuckled. “Just because she doesn’t have wings doesn’t mean she doesn’t have value as a pony you know.” He gave me a curious smile. “What about you, Corn Bread?”

Goddess help me, I think I preferred ‘Bob’. “Meadow’s a unicorn too,” I said. “We met under a tree in our home town and things just followed on from there.”

I nodded. “I’ve two. One’s here, and the other’s still in the mortal world.”

“Sucks to be dead, huh?” Booster replied. He passed Autumn’s overcoat to her and leaned over to whisper something in her ear. “You guys go ahead, I’m going to walk Autumn home. She’s looking a bit peaky.”

Whether she was unwell or not, the unicorn mare didn’t resist, only looking up at the clock one more time before, with a lot of smiles, hoof shakes and dreadful jokes, she joined us as we filed out towards the exit. And it was at that exact moment my stomach decided to start rebelling. A disturbing rumbling emanated from deep inside my bowels, one that I hoped the others hadn’t heard. It had been doing that a lot lately too for some reason, although exactly why I had no idea. Maladies were rare in the herd for reasons that were pretty obvious, but whenever I went for a drink of anything even vaguely alcoholic, the Fairlight digestive system went into meltdown and the resultant gas eruptions could clear a room faster than a kicked bucket full of flash bugs. “I’ll see you next week folks,” I said with a smile. “Go on without me. Nature’s calling.” I didn’t stop to wave them all off, I knew what was coming next. Pain, hot and cloying, ripped through my gut with an urgency that had me all but throwing myself into the stallions bathroom. Thank the gods nopony was in there, but that didn’t stop me from sliding on the wet tiles and slamming into the row of porcelain sinks with a heavy thump. Hissing in pain I shoved the stall door open and tried helplessly to reach the door lock, hang up my overcoat, and all the while attempting to aim my posterior into the optimal position for-

I suppose if nothing else, at least the pain was gone. Pretty much in an instant too. I can only thank the gods that nopony was in the stall next to me when the contents of my digestive system had launched their sudden assault on the previously pristine porcelain. The noise, both from the impact with the water and my own gasps and groans was almost deafening, shaking even the mahogany of the stall. I flattened my ears trying to pretend that nopony else could hear me, but if I’m honest they could probably hear me in the next town over. The sense of relief when it was over was palpable to say the least and, thankfully, almost immediate despite my breaking out into a sweat that made my head spin for a few moments. Unfortunately for me, my guts hadn’t quite finished with me yet. Nausea gripped me, sending its warm waves through my body and made the whole experience one that I wouldn’t have wished on my worst enemy. Well… comparatively speaking anyway. Like most ponies I would imagine, I hated being sick. The way your stomach cramps up and the horrendous vertigo which accompanied it was something that I tried to avoid at all costs, but when it started there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to stop it. I’m not sure whether the nausea was caused by the stomach cramping or the smell, but right then all I could do was try to keep myself upright and lean against the cool woodwork, praying to any gods that would listen to make this all end. Come to think of it though, how was this even possible? Pain and misery were supposedly the exclusive domain of the mortal realm. In the herd, ponies didn’t get sick. There was no mystery to it; you were just a spirit weren’t you? Sure you got cold, hot, wet from the rain, or could injure yourself through accidents and so forth, but regardless of what injuries you may acquire you healed up pretty much right away. Even the alcohol here had little to no effect other than making you a little tipsy and stink like an old bar towel so your other half could give you a damned good tongue lashing when you got home. It was a drunkards dream, or a nightmare depending upon your point of view. For me however, it was definitely the latter. Shoving myself against anything I could find that was cold enough to help leach the heat away from my body, the spinning and churning of my guts finally began to subside and I reached up to try and pull the chain on the toilet. It wasn’t as easy as it looked, and took more than a few flushes to swill away the evidence. Hell fire, I was a mess. Sweating, disorientated, and looking like I’d been half drowned with my mane and tail in the kind of state I didn’t even dare think about right then, I collapsed onto the floor gulping the cool air of the stall as my legs quivered like jelly. What the hell was wrong with me? I’d have to see a doctor about this, I couldn’t just pretend there was nothing wrong and… and what if I had something contagious? What if this was some weird wendigo type sickness that I could pass on to Meadow and Sparrow? There was no way in this or any world I would put my loved ones at risk, so I would have to-

A voice from beyond the door echoed in the quiet bathroom, making my ears prick up.

Damn it all… I swallowed, rubbing a foreleg across my soaked muzzle. “Yes… yes, I’m fine, thanks.”

“No… I…” I tried my legs and, mercifully, what little strength I could muster allowed me to at least stand. “My stomach’s a little upset that’s all,” I replied. Slowly, I reached for the lock and flicked it open, swinging the door aside as I found myself looking into the concerned eyes of a short red unicorn stallion with bright green eyes and silvery grey hair. He was wearing a rather old fashioned looking three piece suit with a neat dark blue tie with tiny silver stars on it. Funny how you notice these things. It was probably my mind’s attempt at distracting me for the overwhelming sense of feeling like death warmed up. Figuratively speaking of course.

“You don’t look so well, sir,” the stallion said in a worried voice. “Come on, let me help you up.”

I’ve always been an independent sort of fellow, but right then I was more than happy to accept the stallion’s assistance. And so, with a much welcome shoulder to lean on, he lead me to the wash basin.

“Take a seat sir, and we’ll get you cleaned up spick and span in no time.” The red stallion guided my rear onto a convenient wooden stool. “My name’s Jelly Bean. Pleased to me you, mister…?”

I stared blearily into the mirror at the hideous mess staring back at me. The neat grey coated stallion Meadow had fallen in love with all those years ago was now something that looked like the kind of reeking street drunkard I used to collect on a Friday night when I worked for the Manehattan watch. The fumes that came off some of them could have sent you to your knees, but we’d have to collect their sorry carcase nonetheless. Unfortunately the stink, and occasional splashes of vomit, wouldn’t do your uniform any favours. I can attest to that little issue wholeheartedly. Still, a few hours in the cells, a cup of strong coffee and a lecture, usually did wonders for our wayward brethren. But to think that I looked like one of those dishevelled disasters on four legs was painful to me in more ways than one. I’d nearly lost Meadow through drink once before, not to mention making myself look like a complete arse in the process too. Why she’d stayed with me after that humiliating fiasco spoke volumes about her character; far more than it did for my own. It took several minutes of introspection before I realised what the damp and cooling sensation was on my fur. It was Jelly Bean, using a rough flannel dipped in clean water rubbing me down from muzzle to tail.

“Not the best, sir, but it should suffice until you we can get you home,” he said politely.

“Mmhmm...” I sighed, letting the stallion work his magic. He was damned good too. The water was just the right temperature, the flannel simply perfect. I wasn’t used to being groomed, at least not by somepony other than my family. Having a loved one sorting out your coat, mane, tail and so forth, was something couples did for one another as a matter of course. Well, it was normally. Unfortunately I’d been banned from going anywhere near Meadow or Sparrow’s hair since I’d tried to trim our daughter’s mane to avoid the hours of boredom spent in the local salon. Good grief, I could still hear Meadow’s screams of outrage in my ears even now! How in Equestria was I supposed to cut it straight when the little pest kept squirming every which way when I was using the scissors? Okay, so maybe I’d trimmed a ‘little’ more than she would have liked, but if I hadn’t it would have looked uneven wouldn’t it? And there was absolutely no need whatsoever for insisting that she wear a hat and a dress that covered her tail until it grew back. I mean honestly, talk about melodramatic!

“Huh?” I blinked in surprise at the reflected image of Jelly Bean holding up my tail. “Oh… Um, yeah. It’s not been done for ages.”

“Would sir care for a trim?” the red coated fellow asked. “On the house, of course.”

I must have been in a daze of sorts, my mind befuddled by the sudden evacuation of what felt like my entire intestinal tract. I was light headed, disorientated, but the damp flannel had felt so wonderful, so cooling... Beside me the red stallion rinsed and dried my mane before going to work on my tail. Normally I would have been mortified at the thought of somepony, especially one with scissors of all things, going anywhere near my rear. Even when Meadow trimmed my hair there was always that primordial fear of things sharp that you couldn’t see suddenly cutting into your skin. But Jelly Bean, whoever he was, had managed to accomplish the unenviable task of putting the old Fairlight mind at ease, and in short order he was snipping away at my mane and tail whilst I simply sat and moved as he directed.

The stallion’s reflection nodded, his short silvery-grey mane making him appear to be a lot older than he probably was. “I work here odd days, sir,” he replied pleasantly. The flash of gleaming metal caught my eye as a little more of my tail fell away. “The gentlecolts bathroom here is highly conducive to a more effective grooming experience.” I nodded dumbly as he continued, “I happened to be setting up ready for work to commence tomorrow morning when I noticed sir’s… predicament.”

I nodded. “By the second, J.B.” I took a deep breath, feeling the cool air filling my lungs. “I don’t think I’ll be drinking again though. Ever.”

I shook my head. “Not really. Two, maybe three, tops. I don’t normally drink much at all anyway. Never have really. When I was a teenager I had my first encounter with alcohol and ended up clinging onto the side of the toilet praying for the merry-go-round to let me off.” I let out a bitter laugh. “You’d have thought I’d have learned my lesson by now.”

The red stallion nodded. “It’s never too late to learn something new, sir.” The snipping continued, the rhythmic sound oddly soothing in the cool of the gents bathroom. “I myself took up a new trade after my arrival in the herd.”

“Indeed, sir.” Jelly Bean took out a comb and sprayed my tail with more water. “Long, short, mid-length?”

Goddesses this guy new his work well. My tail trimmed, he moved to my mane, carefully trimming around my ears and keeping the cut ends away from my eyes. “Sir’s coat is a little long. Perhaps a clip while you’re here, sir?”

A few moments later the blue glow of magic enveloped a pair of clippers accompanied by a low buzzing sound and the tingling sensation against my hide. Oh gods, this felt… wonderful! I hadn’t felt so relaxed in an age, and I let the red coated stallion work his own unique brand of magic on me. Fur fell away, as he worked, from my back, my hocks, muzzle and down my hooves. Unbidden, Jelly Bean pulled over a hoof stand and began trimming and filing my hooves. Curiosity got the better of me.

Jelly Bean smiled pleasantly. “I was an architect, sir,” he explained, “I worked on several projects which, I’m proud to say, stand to this very day.”

“Yes, sir. The royal palace, the most magnificent building to grace the land of Equestria.” He sighed. “At least, it was before the war.”

I paused. “Canterlot? But… the war with Nightmare Moon was before the new capital was built wasn’t it?”

Jelly Bean shrugged. “I see you know more of our history than most, sir.” He shook his head, “No, the palace I worked on wasn’t Canterlot.” Jelly Bean stopped and looked at me in the mirror. “It was Elysium.”

“The place where the fallen heroes of old were taken by the alicorn guardians of the spirits...” I closed my eyes, remembering my first days in the golden fields of wheat beneath a warm sun as I held my beloved in my forelegs. A vision of beauty unbound by worldly concerns with only the two of us, and Sparrow of course. You couldn’t go anywhere without that excitable little thing whizzing around grounding you in reality.

“That is the classical definition,” Jelly Bean replied in his soft voice, “I was in actual fact referring to the capital city of the king.”

Suddenly the realisation of what he was telling me ran through my grey matter as quickly as his scissors clipped my hair. I blinked in surprise, “You’re talking about Sombra, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “The king of the Crystal Empire. As I said, sir, that was before the war.”

“War...” I sighed and closed my eyes. “Before even the war with the legion.”

“And now little more than a memory, and a vague one at that.” I had to admit the schooling on Equestria’s past left an awful lot to be desired, even for those who, like me, had actually bothered to pay attention in history class. The aversion to the teaching of history was, I believe anyway, more to do with the equestrian aversion to talking about ponies hacking each other to pieces rather than the now more common practice of arguing points through leafleting campaigns and interpretive bloody dance. Mostly anyway. I felt my heart sink; hiding from reality had been an equestrian pastime which had been surprisingly effective, at least until those bloody portals appeared and some enterprising small time crooks entered the big league by selling ponies for weapons and gems for drugs. Dear gods, what had happened to us? Was peace really just a facade? Perhaps it was merely some transitory illusion to keep the masses quiet before the next wholesale slaughter began. I was beginning to wonder whether ponies had ever been the frightened prey animals we’d always been lead to believe we were descended from, and instead were all borderline psychopaths ready to snap at the drop of a hat, launching into a killing rage of death and blood. And yet… sometimes, in the dead of night when the sky was full of stars and the moonlight was streaming through the window, I would lie there awake, remembering all of those whose lives I had taken. I could barely remember the names now. Maybe it was just as well too. I changed tack, “What was the palace like, J.B?”

“It was… magnificent, sir.” A wistful smile ghosted across the stallion’s face as he gazed off across the bathroom. “Eight stories tall, all built in the very finest rainbow crystal which our farmers grew not five miles away. His majesty had given me free rein to design his home, saying only that he wanted a palace that was ‘Strong, but homely. A place that will awe visitors but be capable of protecting those who shelter within its walls.’ It took all my skill, all the love of my craft and the best labourers and masons the empire had to offer, but when it was finished… Ah, what a sight it was to behold! Towers that reached up into the heavens as though trying to pierce the sky, with bridges that linked the keep to the farthest corners like the spokes of a wheel, all leading to that most magnificent of magical gifts: the heart of the empire.”

“I wish I could have seen it before it was destroyed,” I said dreamily. “Now, all that’s left are a few trinkets and stories fit for love sick fillies.”

“Oh, the empire wasn’t destroyed, sir,” Jelly Bean said in a matter of fact manner. “The princesses locked it away, frozen in time in another dimension where the citizens, and even the king himself, sleep to this very day.”

“Sleep?” I swallowed, feeling a chill run through my heart. “Dear goddess, that sounds like a vision of hell to me. Locked away, neither alive not dead? I think I’d rather be here.” I frowned and looked up at the barber. “I take it you weren’t there when the empire was locked away then?”

“Apparently not, sir.” Jelly Bean smiled that thin smile of his. “I was outside the empire’s limits at the time of the final assault and was mercifully saved.” He shrugged. “And here I am.”

I nodded, letting my shoulders relax once more. I hadn’t even realised how tense I’d been until this wonderful fellow had eased it away. “Well, I for one am glad you are, my friend,” I said. “The herd needs ponies like you. You’re an absolute miracle worker, J.B.”

He laughed, “Ah, if only that were true, sir.” He gave me a nod, taking a step back. “All done.”

“Huh?” I looked down and… my reflection stared back at me… from my hooves! Good goddess!! “How the-?!”

“Just some wax and lacquer sir,” Jelly Bean explained. He held up a smaller mirror behind me. “Enough off?”

“I… My gods, J.B, I’ve never looked so good!” I really hadn’t either. The scarred and worn looking mess I had become in the mortal realm had become little more than a bad memory since coming to the herd. For the most part, here in the afterlife everypony looked like they were in their mid twenties, but this… this was on a different level altogether! As I examined my flank I could see the defined lines of the coat clipping that made me look slimmer, sleeker, and dare I say it, dashing? I felt a grin spreading across my face. “I don’t know what magic you used, but...” I shook my head, “I’m lost for words.”

Jelly Bean raised an eyebrow as he began to sweep up the cut hair from the tiled floor. “No magic, sir, just experience and an eye for detail. I find the work pleasantly therapeutic, and I get to meet a lot of new faces as well.”

“Therapeutic...” I hung my head a moment, the hint of reality pushing in and threatening to overwhelm my good mood, “I think all I’m getting these days is ‘therapy’. Everypony thinks I’m finding it hard to fit in.”

“Ah, you’re taking part in the acclimatisation program?” Jelly Bean nodded knowingly to himself. “A noble and necessary cause, sir. If not necessarily always as effective as one would like it to be.”

He nodded. “A long time ago.” The stallion took a deep breath, placing the bottle of pomade back on the shelf beside him. “My family were within the limits of the heart’s protection when the end of the empire came.” His voice never wavered, allowing not even the barest hint of the pain he must have been feeling inside. “My wife and two sons were trapped when the dimension spell was enabled. I never saw them again.”

“J.B...” I lifted a hoof but quickly put it back down. This fellow had lost his loved ones, and even after countless centuries, he still loved them. At least here I was able to be with my wife and daughter again, yet for him, for this simple barber, he had been denied the loving embrace of his family even in death. Nothing I could say would ever change that terrible reality, nor ease the pain in his heart.

“As I said, sir, it was long time ago.” Jelly Bean gave me a smile, changing the subject with practised ease. “All set for the ladies now, eh, sir?”

I didn’t know what to say, except, “Yes… Thank you, Jelly Bean. Oh! How much do I owe you by the way?”

The barber shook his head. “You don’t have to pay, remember?” Jelly Bean chuckled suddenly. “I merely do this to help my fellow stallions look their best, helping in my own small way to bring out the true gentlecolt that lies within us all. And it is something of a hobby to me as well I suppose, sir.” He raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps sir would find taking up a hobby of his own would help?”

“A hobby?” I frowned in thought. Maybe… maybe he was right? I wasn’t particularly bored, not with a wife and a hyperactive foal who could fly out of my reach faster than I could blink, but… perhaps if I looked into it I could find my niche the way he had? “I’ll give it some thought, J.B.”

I gave myself another quick inspection in the mirror and smirked. I still couldn’t believe the transformation. “Thank you,” I said dumbly. “You’re a miracle worker, Jelly Bean. It’s been a genuine pleasure to meet you.”

“And you, sir,” Jelly Bean smiled back at me. “My card.” He floated a small business card to me. It was brown, with smart gold lettering and the image of a pair of scissors below the words:

Empire Grooming
Quality barbering for the discerning gentlecolt
155b Quartz St, Polmere Spa.

Polmere Spa? I’d never heard of it, but then there wasn’t much I did know of the land of the eternal herd beyond my home, the surrounding hills and fields, and of course the local town, Haven, where I went shopping with Meadow. I suppose there was always the enigmatically named ‘welcome office’ along with the hotel that was barely ever used and… that was about it really. Good gods, was that it? Had I really become so insular and lacking in imagination that all I wanted was to live in as small a bubble of peace and tranquillity as possible? What the hell was I afraid of? I suppose it wasn’t all that surprising really when you considered everything that had happened to me. I’d crossed worlds, passed through the veil of life and death more times than I cared to recall, and travelled to the Wither World where I’d met Shadow. I’d even travelled through portals to the land of the changelings and the world of humans. I had been involved in more adventuring than most ponies would ever dream of, particularly when the average equestrian in the street’s idea of ‘adventure’ was a swift half down the Fig and Ferret followed by a haybacon burger and fries. Wow! Would the excitement never cease?! Anyway, I’d done my stint in the mortal world. I was dead, and that was that. All I wanted was right here, with my wonderful wife, my lovely foal, and some day, Shadow, Tingles and even my cute little Lumin… I closed my eyes and felt a shiver run through me. Something was nagging at the back of my mind, making my head feel like it was being squeezed.

“Don’t forget to call at the doctor’s, sir,” Jelly Bean reminded me. “The herd are rather strict on tackling maladies.”

I sighed, nodding slowly. That bloody guidebook had said something about that hadn’t it? Probably accompanied by a friendly picture of a cartoon pony with his muzzle in a bucket just to emphasise it, or maybe simply for the semi-literate. “Thanks, J.B. See you again.”

I trotted out of the bathroom into the warm air of the lounge bar. Compared to the deliciously cooling air of the bathroom-come-barbershop, the bar was nearly stiflingly hot. Sunlight streamed through the leaded light windows, illuminating dust motes floating through the air that was as still as the grave. Strangely appropriate when you thought about it. Nopony gave me a second glance as I trotted over to coat rack and reached for my overcoat and hat. I paused. You know, why wear it? Why conceal the wonderful work that Jelly Bean had done to the old Fairlight hide? No, to hell with it! I bundled up my belongings and stuffed them into my panniers, draping them over my back and, lifting my hooves up smartly, I trotted out into the refreshing breeze of another beautiful day. The smell of grass was intoxicating. Nearby a pony was mowing the lawn, while beside the tavern several ponies wearing white clothes and hats played lawn bowls. The pleasing ‘clack’ of the black spheres followed by the applause of the few spectators was so idyllic, so calming, I felt like rearing and going for a run. A little sore I may be, but by the gods I felt good. Really good! Right, sod the taxi, I was going to walk home. No… Run. Yes, that was it! A damned good gallop! I nickered and gave a loud snort before turning to the road. A deep breath and-

“Gah!” A pair of yellow eyes stared right back at me. “Bloody hell fire! Meadow?!” I stood back, nearly collapsing onto my haunches in alarm. “Celestia’s buttocks, don’t sneak up on me like that, I nearly soiled myself!”

The green coated mare shook her head in dismay, dismissing my words as my lecturing began. “I was worried sick! When you didn’t come home on time I guessed you’d stopped off to have a chat with your friends, but that was hours ago. Where in Equestria have you…” She paused, her eyes narrowing as she leaned closer. “Have you been to a salon? Your coat…” Meadow gasped in surprise. “I don’t believe it, you’ve been the salon!”

“I haven’t been to the salon!” I protested helplessly. “Give me a break love, I was a bit poorly and the barber helped me out that’s all. He gave me a free clip and cut to help me feel better.”

“Good grief, Fairlight, you know we’re meeting mum and dad at the station tonight,” Meadow continued to lambaste me. “You remember what I said before you left this morning don’t you? ‘Come straight home’, right? We were supposed to be having a quick tea and then...” She froze, her head craning round to stare at my flank, legs, hooves and mane. “Did you say you were poorly?”

“That’s what I was trying to say!” I groaned loudly. “Meadow, I stopped for a quick one with the students and then I was going to come home, honestly. It wasn’t my fault I was sick.”

“I’m not surprised, It’s bloody well roasting out here!” I huffed. “Why do you think I took my coat off?”

The green mare shook her head, “No, I mean you’re running a temperature.” She frowned in concern. “You shouldn’t be able to get sick, love. Not here.” Meadow’s years of medical training kicked in and I was helplessly swept along in her outpouring of determination. “We’re taking the taxi back to Haven. I’m not having you collapsing on me, Fairlight. This isn’t right.”

“Well that’s comforting,” I muttered. “Let’s hope it’s not fatal then.”

Meadow clucked her tongue. “This isn’t funny, Fairlight. You shouldn’t be able to get sick in the herd. It’s probably nothing, but I want you to get checked out just in case.”

“Oh, bloody marvellous! Not only sick in the head, now my flaming bodies falling to bits too,” I snorted noisily. “Welcome to the bloody afterlife.”

“Will you stop swearing!” Meadow gave a nicker and pushed me towards the waiting taxi. “Get that rump in there, mister, and no more arguing.”

“Yes, miss.” I sat down on the bench seat as Meadow climbed up to sit opposite me. Normally she sat next to me, but today for some reason she sat looking right at me. Something, or actually somepony, was conspicuous by her absence. “Where’s Sparrow?”

“Mmm… quite.” Meadow shook her head slowly, shooting me a look that warned me against any negative comments on mumsy and dadsy. “Anyway, never mind that now, we need to find out what’s wrong with you.”

“Think I’m contagious?” I asked, a slight hint of sarcasm tingeing my voice.

Meadow raised an eyebrow to accompany a surprisingly sardonic smile. “It’s possible.” Suddenly she grinned, “but maybe I just wanted to look at you.”

The green mare tossed her pale two tone mane as her bright yellow eyes flashed brightly in a stray shaft of sunlight. “You look… smooth.”

Well, I certainly wouldn’t argue with that point! I grinned cheekily, “Do you like what you see, miss?”

“Mmm… very much so.” Meadow reached across and lifted up my foreleg. “Well, whoever this barber is he certainly knows his craft. He’s shaved even your feathering too, look.” She nodded towards the bottom of my now very smooth foreleg. “And I’ve never seen your hooves looking so neat and polished. What did you say his name was?”

Now, I always tried to keep in trim, a habit from my days in the watch, but I certainly wasn’t the kind of fellow you’d call ‘vain’ by any stretch of the imagination. Hooves filed, clean teeth, clean hair and coat brushed and trimmed, was about my limit. In fact it was probably as much grooming as most stallions bothered with on a daily basis I would guess. Of course there were always exceptions to the rule, such as celebrities, dancers, singers and so on, who made a living partly from their public image. I could remember one chap who’d gone so far as to have stripes shaved into his fur making him look like some kind of bizarre zebra. Another had her name shaved into her side in gothic script. Rather sarcastically I thought it was so she could be readily identified when she was too drunk to find her way home. As an ex-watchstallion, I viewed the societal elite with more than a little disdain. Still, considering Meadow’s close inspection of my new look, smooth, apparently, was the way to go.

“Well he’s not one I’ve heard of before, but then boys don’t normally bother with the spa anyway,” Meadow shrugged. “Saves us having you looking scruffy at least.”

Meadow looked me straight in the eye. “You don’t look after yourself, Fairlight, I keep telling you that. How long was it last time before you got your mane cut? I virtually had to drag you to the barbers!”

I couldn’t argue there. I liked to keep my mane and tail short as a rule. But going to the barbers? Gods how I hated that place! It seemed to run on its own time scale, where a second was dragged out so thin it made minutes feel like hours. And the smell? What the hell was that all about?! How did hair and fur stink like burning carpets? I saw water, shampoo, conditioner, hair driers and so forth, but certainly nothing that would cause the kind of stench that permeated the bowels of the barbershop. Dear Celestia, the aroma hovered in the air sinking into everything, and there was nowhere you could turn to escape it either. Every time the front door opened you could see everypony turning towards it trying to gulp as much fresh air as possible, but it was ultimately hopeless. The hot smell blocked any and all attempts at allowing anything so outrageous as oxygen into the place. Perhaps that was why the staff always had those peculiarly high pitched voices; from years of trying to breath...

“...and I don’t want mum and dad seeing you looking like you have been lately. It’s not healthy for you, Fairlight, and especially since we’re meant to be going out to the theatre soon. The tickets weren’t easy to find you know, not since the royal family are attending and you know how big names attract the crowds. Honestly, I don’t think you...”

The taxi wheels rolled on and on along the track back to our home. A bit like Meadow in that respect. Sometimes she could really just go on… and on, and on, and on. Bloody hell, couldn’t she just belt up for once?

“Mmm…” I hung my head over the side of the taxi, feeling the light breeze playing with my mane and tickling my ears. “OW!” A hoof clipped my hind leg, making me look up suddenly. Meadow’s eyes loomed large in my vision.

“No you’re not!” The green mare glowered at me. She was good at glowers, and this one was one of the best. “I’m getting sick of this, Fairlight! You’re not the stallion I used to know lately. You used to be full of energy and life, but this… the way you’ve been behaving recently.” She closed her eyes. “It’s really starting to wear me down.” Meadow’s shoulders slumped noticeably. Suddenly she looked older somehow. Her mane looked limp and her face lost its familiar vibrancy of life I had come to know and love so much. Was I the cause of this change in her? Despite the beautiful surroundings, our wonderful home and equally wonderful daughter, it was as if there were a hole in our lives, draining the hope and joy we found here. And horribly, I knew… it was me. Ever since I’d died, ever since I’d had to part from Tingles, Shadow, Lumin, and even little Tarragon, it was as though a part of me was missing, left behind in the world of the living, and I was no more than a shade of who I once was. I was a lie, an empty shell of nothingness living in a dream world where only the darkness was my friend. I could hide there, close my eyes and pretend everything was well. Even though I knew it wasn’t. The pit pulled at me, dragging my heart down into despair once more. Against it, fighting back with everything I had, I opened my mouth.

With dreadful certainty I realised I was breaking my wife’s heart, hurting her in a world where there should only be the eternal light of the gods and the peace of everlasting love. I was an aberration here, a shade of life, neither here nor there. Damn that wizard. Damn him!

“Aren’t we going home?” I asked suddenly, noticing the turn off for our cottage passing us by.

Meadow leaned back in her seat and stared up at the sky. “You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you.”

The taxi rumbled on up the hill and the colourful vista of the idyllic town of Haven hove into view. ‘Hove’… I’d always liked that word. It reminded me of flying, of sweeping through the clouds over the frosted peaks of home - down, down over the trees of the Everfree forest, following the winding crystal clear waters of the river to the hamlet where my family, my mortal family, awaited me. Gods how I missed them. Little lumin would be… how old now? I’d seen them only recently and he was just starting to speak. Tingles looked as wonderful as ever, and Tarragon… ah, little Tarragon! What a treasure she was. The tiny forest dragon with her emerald green scales that glinted an oily black in the sunlight would squeak and leap into my forelegs for a cuddle whenever she saw me. Nearly singed my eyebrows off too the little beggar. She would grow too, slowly of course, but one day she’d be strong enough to protect them in my stead. It was only until they could join me here of course, but that was a long way away. As for Shadow… Nopony had seen nor heard from her since I’d been blown to bits by the explosion. All attempts to contact her and reach the fortress, even if she was still there, and that was uncertain in itself, had failed. The protective magic surrounding the ancient home of the wendigo originally put in place by Celestia had been waning for hundreds of years, but for some reason had recently grown in strength according to Tingles. Fearing any risk to my beloved pegasus, I’d told her not to make any more attempts at approaching that place of death. Nothing good had ever happened there, at least not in my lifetime, and there was no way in hell I was going to risk Lumin’s mother. Shadow had run off chasing her namesake: shadows. I was gone, dead, and even if by some quirk of fate Star Swirl was right and there really was a thread that linked my frozen corpse to the eternal herd, then I wanted nothing to do with it. Nothing! Shadow would come to realise that and go home to the village soon enough, of that I had no doubt. She was hurt, grieving, and in many ways she was like an overly emotional teenager at times and could drive me up the wall! But… she was still family, and I loved her. I had to have faith, to cling on to the hope that everything would work out for the best in the end. It was idealistic perhaps, and optimism sure as hell wasn’t one of my strong suits, but if I didn’t have hope, what did I have? If nothing else I suppose, at least there had been no further attacks on my family since my demise, and life went on in Smiling Borders much as it always had. They’d even rebuilt the Wyvern’s Tail. That musty dark old place with its leaking roof, smoky open fires and hulking great minotaur maid, held special memories for me. Well, before some rat had turned it and many of the villagers to matchwood of course. It was probably full of song and happiness now anyway, with the bubbly orange pegasus mare chasing that overly energetic foal of ours through the table legs while songs were sung and music played as the grizzled veterans laughed. I wanted to go… I…

Yeah, right. Meadow thanked the cabbie, and in silence we walked over to probably the least used building in Haven, if not the entire herd. What was worse was that Meadow worked here too, and no doubt everypony here already knew everything about her ‘problematic’ husband before I’d even set hoof inside the damned place. What a treat! My polished hooves clopped up the stone steps as I followed in my wife’s wake. Moments later the floral smell of flowers and herbs hit me with all the subtlety of a flying sledgehammer as the wooden door opened. Somewhere in the back a bell tinkled announcing our arrival. In short order a white coated unicorn mare with a bright blue mane appeared floating a clipboard in front of her. It was probably more for show than anything, as I couldn’t see anything written on it other than the word ‘appointments’. It seemed the doctor’s day was as free today as it always had been. And always would be, most likely.

“Meadow?” The nurse looked at us in surprise. “Is everything alright? You aren’t due in until next week aren’t you?”

Meadow gave her a tight smile. “Hi, Surf. Yeah, mum and dad are visiting this week.” She nodded towards me. “Can you have a look at him for me? He’s been throwing up after having a few drinks.”

‘Darling’… I hung my head, resigned to what they were going to do to me. “Fairlight,” I muttered.

“Fairlight Loam,” Meadow announced helpfully. Gods, how I hated that stupid surname!

“Ah, the other half eh?” Surf scribbled my name onto the appointments chart, noting the time. “Right, let’s get you looked at then. Doctor Cording is feeding his koi carp so he shouldn’t be long.”

Oh joy. Perish the thought that the good doctor would have his fish feeding fun interrupted by something so inconvenient as a bloody patient! I was nudged into a side room and guided towards a table.

“Up you go.” The nurse held out a hoof, and in short order I found myself being tilted back until I was on my side, my head on one of the most uncomfortable pillows I’d ever encountered. A pair of alarmingly pink eyes stared into mine. “Say ‘ah’.”

A wooden stick was placed on my tongue and a light shone in my mouth. “Hmm. No swelling, no redness or white patches.” Surf continued to check me over. “Has this happened before?”

Meadow shook her head. “He’s been having problems with integration since he arrived, but he’s never been sick before.”

“Hmm… Well, it’s not unheard of. Eating food off the floor or ingesting something poisonous could cause this, but the body’s harmony is only ever temporarily upset.” Surf looked round suddenly. “Ah, Doctor.”

Hooves and… something else, clattered into the room. It was hard to see with the light half blinding me, but I managed well enough to see the hooked beak leaning over me below large avian eyes. The name was out of my mouth before I knew it. “Grimble?”

“Grimble?” The doctor chuckled. “Name’s Cording, young fellow. Doctor Elocutious Cording, at your service. Guess you didn’t expect a hippogriff, eh?”

I shook my head. “No, not really.” I particularly liked the ‘young fellow’ reference. Perhaps I’d be getting a lollipop for good behaviour and not having a tantrum?

“There’s a few of us in Dawn,” the doctor said conversationally as he took the clipboard from Surf. “Some elect to go to the griffin realm of course, whilst others stay here. Best of both worlds, eh what?”

I’m sure there was another word for that sort of thing. Still, he seemed friendly enough, and reminded me of a young hippogriff who lived in Smiling Borders. It had been the night we went looking for Lumin, if memory served correctly, what now felt like a lifetime ago. In some respects it was. To my shame however I don’t know what had happened to him after that. Gods forgive me, I didn’t even ask him his name.

“Right then, let’s see if we can’t get you sorted out, eh?” The doctor adjusted a reflector on his forehead that nearly blinded me as it caught the sunlight. I opted for keeping my eyes closed until he’d finished. Meanwhile Meadow and Surf chatted about me as if I were a school foal; something I’d found mares had a rather disturbing tendency to do around males. Maybe it was a mother thing, but whatever it was I wish she wouldn’t keep doing it. Not when I could hear what they were saying anyway!

“They should be helping him, Meadow. This isn’t good for you. Either of you.”

“I know, Surf, but what can I do? Sometimes he’s like the old Fairlight: happy and full of life, but other times it’s like he’s not really here at all. I don’t think he even realises it’s happening either. Sparrow’s noticed it too, and you know how children pick up on moods in the family. I’m worried sick, and I feel so helpless...”

“It’s alright, don’t worry.” Surf hugged Meadow, her voice gentle and full of concern. “It’s going to be tough for a little while, but it’ll be alright in the end. You’ll see.”

Sniffles and the stifled sounds of a mare crying assailed my ears and heart alike. I’d not realised how much I’d changed, nor in what way either. To me, inside, I didn’t feel much different to how I always had, but to Meadow my beloved wife, the husband she had married had indeed changed. I had to do something to fix this, I had to try and regain the true me. But how? If I didn’t know what was wrong, how the hell could I do anything about it? To his credit though, Doctor Cording continued his examination as though he and I were the only two in the room. Whether he was oblivious to the conversation going on only a few feet away from us or simply the consummate professional I couldn’t say, and in any case, the poking and prodding continued unabated. Suddenly everything went quiet, and a peculiar blue glow began to build up around me which I could see even through my closed eyelids. Humming filled my ears, and I stayed absolutely still as my horn started to itch. Magic had always had a peculiar tingling sensation which I was all too aware of, not least because I was a unicorn of course, but ever since I’d merged with the spirit from the Wither World I’d been able to sense details held within that most ethereal of energies that I had been blissfully ignorant of when I was… normal. Now there was a word! I wasn’t sure what the hell ‘normal’ was now, but by all the powers of the gods and goddesses I wished I could turn back time and avoid having anything to do with that damnable spirit, the darkness of the Wither World and… everything. Sometimes I just wanted to close my eyes, go to sleep, and dream. No, not dream. In my dreams I saw those I’d lost, those whose lives I’d taken, and the lives of those who’d given up their own because of me. Suddenly a jolt of power, a sense of something ‘other’, surged through me making me gasp aloud. The magic was tugging at me somehow, wrapping it’s tendrils around my soul, drawing on some part of me that I hadn’t sensed since… since…

“Strange...” Doctor Cording’s voice sounded as though it was coming from a long way away, his tone of voice muffled despite only being inches from me. “The readings don’t appear to be concurrent with anything I’ve ever...”

“Turn it off!” Meadow’s voice cut through the muzziness, full of alarm and-

I wavered in and out of the now, my being lapping against the shores of reality like driftwood on an ebbing tide. It was warm here, comforting, and safe. I was at peace, at ease with myself and the world around me. And it was quiet. So, so quiet. Nothing could hurt me here, no dreams, no memories, only the peace of a spirit that had been through so much, yet now… now was as pure as the mountain sky, as unspoiled as the first snows of winter, and the breeze that brought the chill of the north. Here amidst the mountains, the frosted peaks of the bones of the world that grew upward through the snowy white clouds, I soared. No wings to hold me aloft, no body to hold me to the pull of the earth below, I was free. So free.

Fairlight - To the Edge of Midnight

by Bluespectre

Chapter One - Bob