All things considering, it wasn’t too bad of a day. The weather was pleasant enough, he found an unopen tin can of peaches – his favorite – and with one house, he hit the jackpot. A collection of Beethooven that he was sure he hadn’t recorded yet. One of which was a string quartet that he hadn’t heard in years but remembered liking decently enough.
Best of all, he was able to do all this before noon. Perhaps while there was still enough time, he could pop by the library to see if he could find anything different. Or maybe check to see if anything was growing in the garden in the park – a few fresh veggies would be lovely to have for lunch or dinner.
His thoughts paused as he saw his reflection in a broken, dusty window. In it, he noticed how long his mane was getting. While he kept the ponytail, his mane was still a tangled mess. Squinting his red, cat-like eyes, he hummed in thought, “Maybe I should have my mane cut a little. And find a good comb while I’m at it.”
In his reflection, he stared at the wrinkles under his eyes, the sagging face that sat on top of his unusual body. His condition (as his parents called it) influenced his body by the time he reached his teen years. His legs were quite tall, even for adult stallions. His chest was much larger than normal, ponies thought he stored some big lungs. And his ashy white coat only added to how pale he was. Inverno could remember how ponies back then had gawked and stared at him wondering what was wrong with him.
“Then again…” Inverno said to himself looking down at his hooves. After a sniff, he grimaced, “Hopefully I could find some soap. And enough water to heat up so I could have a proper bath.”
From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw movement in the reflection. Turning his head around, he searched up and down the street. He was no stranger to seeing animals on the street now and then but… from what he saw, it seemed a little too big to be one. “Hello?” He called out. As expected, there was no reply. He glanced between the street and the reflection. “I had to imagine that, right?” he asked himself. “Because for a second there it looked…”
He shook his head. Surely couldn’t be.
But before he could shake it off as being a figure of his imagination, there was an unmistakable sound of something falling over. Something heavy. And the sound was coming from across the street from what used to be Doughnut Joe’s. This time he saw a shadow moving about from behind the dusty, cracked windows.
It can’t be…
“Hello?” Inverno called out. “Is someone there?”
Cautiously, he approached the crumbling doors of the doughnut shop. The closer he got; the more noise was heard of something ravaging around. Before entering, he took his saddlebag off his back to hold. It was heavy enough to possibly knock someone over. For all he knew, it could be a wild animal like a wild cat or a cockatrice that had stumbled in.
Pushing the double doors with a free hoof, Inverno peeked inside to see there was something in the old shop. Or rather, someone.
“Hey isn’t this place cool or… wait, who are you?”
Inverno dropped his saddlebag.
“No, I know who you are! You’re a brand-new friend!”
Inverno squinted. Rubbed his eyes. But the unicorn was still there. It was hard to see, but this was pony-shaped, purple, with a springy curly mane, a horn from her forehead, an energetic wave of a hoof, and a voice that was unmistakably famine.
“Hi new friend! Did you get lost too? I didn’t think there was anypony around since everything is so old and falling apart and – hey! Do you think these doughnuts are still good or maybe these hundred or so year-old doughnuts are like fancy kind of doughnuts?”
It was a pony.
“You think these should be eaten though?” The unicorn asked, banging one of the rock-hard doughnuts on the counter. “These might be tough on your teeth, but what if you need to soak these first or-”
Inverno poked her side.
Yep.
She was real.
So, he poked again.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re real?”
“Well of course I am, silly! Though I don’t think your name is Silly, you’re more of a… Scraggly. I’m Izzy. What’s your name?”
Inverno didn’t respond right away, taking a long moment to process what was happening.
“Do you… have a name?” Izzy tilted her head, “Because otherwise, I can always go with Scraggly.”
“I-Inverno.”
“Huh?”
“Inverno. My name is Inverno and… Oh Gods…”
“Hey, are you okay there? You’re tearing up all of a sudd- Hey!”
“You’re real!” Inverno cried, tears running down his face. His hooves constrict Izzy like a snake. “You’re actually real!”
“Mister, you’re crushing me!” Izzy’s limbs flung about. “Getting hard… to breathe!” Letting go, Izzy took a moment to breathe while the stranger tried to wipe the tears from his eyes. “Hey, are you okay?”
“I’m so happy!” Inverno answered, “I thought… Gods, I thought I was the only one left.”
“What are you talking about? Because you’re starting to sound like a crazy pony.”
“Forgive me,” wiping more tears he said, “it’s just… I can’t believe that you’re here. It’s been so long since I’ve seen anypony. For a while, I thought… I was the only one left.”
“In Canterlot?”
“The whole world.” Inverno sniffed, “There hasn’t been anyone that came back to Canterlot that I thought…”
Squinting, he saw her blink, “Wait… how long have you been here?” She asked.
“I’ve no idea. After a while, I didn’t bother to count.” Inverno blinked, “Wait… what was that you said earlier?”
“Huh?”
“I… Well, I’m not sure what you said exactly, but it sounded like you were expecting someone else?”
“Oh? Oh yeah! Me and my friends were looking for this place.”
Grabbing her by the shoulders, Inverno looked her in the eye, “Friends? As in plural? More than one?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded. “Although they kinda got too far away from me. But hey, if I could find this place, I think they can too.”
“This is incredible… Where did you all come from?”
“Some of us are from Maretime Bay.”
“Where?”
“You know, the town full of Earth Ponies by the ocean.” Inverno blinked. “Wow, you really been living under a rock, have ya? But that’s okay, I think most of us have been living under our own rocks for a while too. I didn’t know there was a Maretime Bay either where I met Sunny and Hitch, or Zephyr Heights where we met Pipp and Zipp. But I come from Bridlewood where we just got our magic back. Well, that’s not quite true because we all just got back our magic and, okay why are you looking at me like that.”
Inverno blinked, “Sorry this… this is a lot to process all at once.” He said, rubbing the sides of his head. “I have so many questions that I don’t know where to start.”
“Well, I have a question for you – no, two of them. First, what’s your favorite color? Mine’s periwinkle.”
“What?”
“Do you have a favorite color?”
“Young lady, I’m not sure that that has anything to do with-”
“And second, do you wanna meet my friends? I was lost, but maybe we could find them since I ran into you.”
“I would love to if it’s alright with you.” She nodded, “But how did you enter the city? I know there are ways but which one?”
“There’s a huge pair of doors down that way that’s overgrown with plants. I can show you where it is.”
Now outside, Inverno followed Izzy through the desolate streets. Every so often, Inverno had to remind himself that this bubbly unicorn next to him was indeed real, despite how much a part of him wanted to deny this fact.
“So, what are you doing out here for?” Izzy asked. “I mean no offense to you, but this place is rather…”
“Gloomy?”
“I was gonna go with apocalyptic, but yeah! Don’t mean to pry or anything it’s just a little weird that you would live in a ghost city.”
“You could say that I stayed for a few reasons.”
“Oh yeah?” Izzy craned her neck around, “Like what?”
“Sentimental for one. I have good memories here. It’s where I call home. That and when everything… fell apart, I honestly didn’t know what was happening out there. Everypony and everycreature fled elsewhere, not knowing where. And I didn’t want to flee. Because I thought eventually, someone would come back.”
“But what exactly do you do?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Like what do in your free time?”
“Oh. I’m a Music Catcher.”
“Music Catcher? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.”
“That’s because, in a way, I invented the job. Partly to keep me occupied, and partly to make it so that I can preserve what music there was as possible.”
“Do you write it down or…?”
“What I do is I go through these houses,” he pointed with a hoof, “to see if there’s any sheet music. Sometimes they’re in pieces and I had to figure out how they go. From there I record them on records.”
“Records?”
Inverno paused, “Do… do you not know what a Record is?”
“I think it’s something my grandparents had, but I didn’t know anyone was still making them.”
“Well, I’m one of them. I would love to show you how it’s done. It’s been a while since I had an audience.”
“I guess so. Can you sing?”
Inverno smirked, “I can. I used to be a professional in my day.”
“Ooh! Were you famous?”
“I like to think so, but I’m not quite sure. Back then I used to be on the stage. Sometimes I would singing in an Opera. Other times I could conduct an orchestra. And now and then I would play as a soloist before a crowd. I would compose a little, but mostly I performed other works. My, I had a busy life back then.” After a beat, he added, “Oh I’m sorry, I don’t mean to ramble.”
“You’re not that bad.”
“And what about you? What do you normally do?”
“I make art out of whatever I can get my hooves on.”
“So, you’re an artist?”
Izzy blew strawberries, “I don’t know, artist sounds so… formal. Nah, I use all sorts of stuff to make things like jewelry or decorate my home. Whatever that you pick up from the ground that makes you go ‘Wow! That’s neat to have that as a table or a bookshelf, or stir pasta with!’ I can be anything from glass bottles, a string, a weird-looking rock, just whatever gets my imagination going.”
After pondering this, Inverno remarked, “I can relate to that.”
“How’s that?”
“You use whatever you can find to make art, and I search the city from top to bottom to weave music back together again. Any scrap I came across is important.”
“That makes sense. To me, there’s no such thing as a useless thing to be tossed out and be forgotten.”
Inverno nodded, “I do something similar. Because I don’t think what we had should ever be forgotten.”
Before Izzy could say something else, their ears perked as they heard voices calling out her name. Inverno instantly knew where it was coming from. From the towering, crumbling walls stood the Grand Gate. Twin doors that held back the overgrowth and vegetation of the forest now had an opening – something Inverno hadn’t seen in a long, long time. Izzy called back at them while Inverno stepped over an ancient banner that had fallen years ago – Welcome to Canterlot.
Out from that crack, a few more new ponies stepped out. Two Pegasi, and two Earth Ponies. He saw how they entered through with awe on their faces, the discovery of a long-lost ancient civilization.
Then, they noticed Inverno.
“I’ve made a new friend,” Izzy told them. “This is… sorry, what was your name again.”
Giving a bow, the old unicorn introduced himself, “Hello. My name is Inverno, the... last resident in the city. Welcome to Canterlot.”