Twilight entered the bar abruptly, the door swinging shut behind her as she spotted Silver sitting at his usual table. "Silver, we need to talk," she said, her voice ringing with a combination of anger and triumph. Her face slowly fell as she looked past her target to the twelve or so other ponies that filled the bar.
Silver coughed in the sudden silence. "Well, maybe we should do that somewhere more... private?" he asked quietly.
Twilight felt the hot sting of embarrassment rise in her cheeks. She nodded slightly, and walked up to the bar. Flurry's head emerged from under the wooden surface, clutching a key. He dropped it on the table and shot Twilight a friendly look.
The red-faced unicorn scooped up the key with her magic and headed towards the stairs. As she passed Silver's table, she heard a mug hit the table, before heavy hoofbeats traced after her.
She walked up to her usual room, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. A few seconds later, she heard the door close, and she spun to face Silver.
"Well you're certainly acting dramatic," he quipped. "What do we need to talk about?"
"I know what happened twenty-nine years ago," Twilight said.
Silver scratched behind his ear with one hoof. "..Okay," he finally said. "Good for you? I was around then, if you want to ask me something."
This was not how Twilight envisioned this conversation going. "Well what did happen?" she hazarded, not sure how to broach the subject now.
"Twenty-nine years ago? Uhhh... Not a lot that I know about. I think Fillydelphia got a new captain of the guard, but that might have been a few years later. Can you be a little more specific?"
"I'm talking about this!" Twilight said, exasperated, as she pulled a copy out of the newspaper clipping she had found. She passed to the Stallion, and he gave her a strange look before reading it.
Silver read the headline, and his face hardened into a sickly frown. He scanned the rest of the article quickly, letting out a long sigh through his nostrils. "Well this doesn't exactly paint me in a glowing light," he muttered darkly.
"You were the favorite to win the annual Battlemagic championship, and you missed the final match," Twilight told him. "Because you were drunk."
Silver rubbed his forehead with a hoof. "Yes, Twilight. I know. I was there."
"And now you're trying to relive your missed opportunity through me!"
"No."
"You could have at least - what?"
Silver sank back on to his haunches, and leaned his back against the door. "Twilight, did you look any farther than that?"
"N-no," Twilight stammered.
"I won the next year. And the one after. And five more, on and off."
Twilight stared blankly.
Silver crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it into a nearby trash can. "Life doesn't work like stories Twilight. Ponies don't just give up the moment they get set back. Well, some do, but I didn't." He watched the bin in silence for a few moments, and then blinked and turned back to Twilight. "You find a healer?" he asked.
"Oh... right, yes," Twilight murmured. She shook her head. "Yes, I did. I brought Zecora."
A look of frustration appeared on Silver's face. "Twilight, I told you not to bring her. You can't use healing magic in the arena."
Twilight opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. Zecora's sing-song voice came through the wood. "Twilight, is this your room? The pegasus told me to assume."
"Come on in Zecora!" Twilight called out, and gave Silver a smug smile.
Silver pushed away from the door, frustrated. "Now we have to send her home," he hissed to Twilight, before he turned to the opening door. "Hello Ms. Zecora, I'm afraid Twilight has-" he stopped, his jaw freezing in an open position once he saw the bottle-laden zebra.
For a brief moment, Twilight worried that there was going to be a problem with Zecora. After all the issues she'd had in Ponyville... Fillydelphia was larger, but Zebra's weren't common anywhere in Equestria that she knew of.
"...you're a zebra," Silver said inanely.
"A zebra indeed, from my head to my feet," Zecora replied. "Now what exactly has Twilight done? I would like to sleep, as is the sun."
Silver opened his mouth and then paused. "...Why are you rhyming?"
Behind him, Twilight gasped.
Zecora raised an eyebrow. "Is this a joke? I am not rhyming. You have a strange sense of comedic timing."
Silver's mouth opened and closed desperately. He looked back at Twilight, but the purple mare just shrugged. "I... I have no response to that," he said finally.
"Well, I am going off to bed. My door is the one painted red," Zecora said, before turning and leaving.
Silver slowly turned to face Twilight. "...Why was she rhyming?" he asked quietly.
The mare let out a sudden burst of laughter. "I don't know! Nopony knows! We've never asked!" She took a moment to compose herself, and then spoke again, seriously. "Is her being a Zebra going to cause any problems?"
"What? No." Silver reconsidered. "Well, maybe. Not from me, but I can't speak for everyone at the arena. I'm fine with Zebras though. I actually spent a year or something in the Zebra lands."
"Really?" Twilight asked. "Why?"
"I got really lost," Silver deadpanned.
Twilight laughed. Silver didn't.
"...Wait, really?"
Silver nodded. "I had a bit too much to drink one night, and woke up on a trading ship. They were going by the Zebra lands, and booted me off as soon as they found out I was on board. Took me ten months to find my way back."
"Silver," Twilight began calmly. "If you're joking you need to tell me. I really can't tell."
"No comment," Silver said quickly, turning to leave. "See you tomorrow!"
"Silver, no, I - Silver!" Twilight yelled after the stallion, but it was too late. She groaned in frustration and pulled the crumpled piece of paper from the garbage. She re-read it angrily, and tossed it back in the garbage. "I have a bone to pick with a certain DJ," she muttered before storming off to bed.
Several blocks away, a pale blue stallion arrived home and made a beeline for his bedroom. He sat on the bed, and a small box was levitated out from under the mattress.
Out of the box came a few slips of paper, all but one of which were put back into the cardboard container. The stallion stared down at the writing on the piece of paper for a few, silent minutes. A copy of the newspaper article Twilight had found, but this one marred with red, angry pen strokes. His teeth gritted for a moment, and a small rip appeared at the top of the paper.
Silver sighed and stopped himself from ripping further. The paper was folded into four squares and put back into the box. “Could have been worse,” he muttered, before pushing the box back under the bed and plucking a framed picture from the bedside table.
A seafoam green unicorn in the picture frame was examined for a moment before it was flipped. The edge of an old instant photo peeked out from the crack in the back covering, and it was this photo that Silver pulled out with his magic. He stared at the picture silently.
“What was it, twenty five years ago?” he said, seemingly to no-one. “No...no, twenty four next May.” Another few minutes passed, the stallion lost in thought. When he finally came back to reality, he tucked the smaller, older and faded picture into the bottom corner of the framed picture. This close together, the similarity between the two mares was un-mistakable.
The picture floated back into its place on the table, along with its new addition. Silver lay down and rolled over on the mattress, facing away from the pictures as he tried to fall asleep.
Silver and Twilight returned from their day of training, Twilight coated in a light sheen of sweat. The stallion spotted a familiar zebra sitting at the bar, and patted the mare on the back.
"Hey, go get cleaned up. Usual time for the match. I'm going to talk to..." Silver rotated his hoof slowly in the zebra’s direction.
"Zecora," Twilight prompted.
"Zecora, thanks. Come down when you're ready," Silver finished.
As the purple unicorn headed for the stairs, Silver went to sit down next to the medic twilight had brought. "Hey, so you use herbs and stuff?"
Zecora looked over at him and nodded silently.
"So, uh... Nasikia afya njema kuwa ya wewe?" Silver asked hopefully.
The zebra recoiled slightly in surprise. "I am fine and full of vigor, but your question does not figure."
"Oh! Wait, no, I meant to ask if you were any good. You know, at healing," He grinned awkwardly. "Sorry, it's been a long time since I spoke Zebra."
Zecora smiled. "I can tell that by your accent; no offense, but it's rather inept."
"Ouch," Silver said, feigning insult. "Honestly though, are you any good?"
"To answer your inquiry, I can heal most injuries."
A drink plopped down in front of Silver, and he pulled it closer with one hoof while leaning towards the zebra. "Prove it," he said.
The zebra blinked once or twice, and a thoughtful look crept over face. "Well in my large collection of jars, I might have something to heal your scars," she suggested, gesturing towards his face.
It was Silver's turn to be surprised. "You could... get rid of my scars?" He turned to look at the mirror behind the bar. "Healing magic doesn't work on stuff that old..."
"I am not bound by the same limitations; I will go brew up some medications." She pushed back from the bar, already calling up the various mixtures in her head.
"No, no." Silver stopped her. "Thanks for the offer, but..." he paused, lining up the words in his throat. "These scars are important, you know? They're me."
Zecora nodded slowly. "Although my stripes have caused me woe, I would never let them go."
Silver chuckled. "Yeah, I guess it's kind of like that. Besides, nobody would recognize me without them."
"Well if that is not a proper test, I do not know what to suggest."
Silver shrugged. "You could heal my scars though?"
Zecora nodded.
"And I know you regrew Twilight's tooth. You fix her leg too?"
Another nod.
Silver lifted his mug in a toast and clunked it against Zecora's. "Then that's good enough for me!" He looked over the top of the zebra's head. "Ah, Twilight. Ready to go?"
"Yup!" Twilight said from the stairs. "Do you know who I'm fighting?"
"Guy called 'Patty'. Never heard of him before though, so you're going in blind." Silver grinned. "Good luck!"
"And facing Dusk Shine, he's here, he's there, where'd he go? The indescribable, undefinable, Patty!" came the usual booming voice of the announcer. Now that she knew what to listen for, Twilight could hear the edge of Vinyl's tones.
The door opposite the purple pony slid open, revealing a pony that Twilight found, contrary to Vinyl's claims, both describable and definable. A young stallion with a light grey coat and a cropped brown mane, thoroughly unremarkable.
Unremarkable, that is, until he vanished in a flash of yellow light.
Twilight blinked in surprise as she leaped into the ring. She'd never met another unicorn that could teleport. She twisted her neck around, trying desperately to find where he'd teleported to, but to no avail. He was nowhere to be found, and for a moment she thought he'd left the arena.
The truth hit her at the same moment as his hooves did. The impact on her side sent her sprawling, and the air shimmered for a moment in the direction she'd been hit from. Patty was invisible.
Twilight rolled onto her feet and let out a blast of force towards the former shimmer. The blow passed through the air without impact, and a hard disk cracked into the opposite side of her head.
The world blinked, and suddenly Twilight was lying on the ground with blood dripping over her left eye.
"3," the announcer yelled, countdown almost complete.
Twilight scrambled to her feet and looked wildly around, but the ring appeared empty.
"And she's up again!" came the booming voice, drawing a wince from Twilight as the sound twinged the inside of her battered skull.
Twilight brought what was left of her concentration to bear on her horn, feeling out with her magic in an attempt to find the other unicorn. Find him she did, as her magical sense found two hooves hurtling towards her face.
The blow sent her to the ground again, and before she could even attempt to move, another blow hit her stomach and winded her. The burning pain in her head and the dull constriction of her lungs mixed in her neck to create an new distinct and deeply unpleasant sensation.
Her mouth felt like it was full of gravel, and she spat onto the ground. She was dully surprised to see at least three whole white teeth hit the ground, along with a number of smaller fragments.
A cold pressure closed on her neck, and a soft voice emitted from the empty air. "Hey, you don't look so good. I don't really want to hit you again, so just forfeit, okay?" the voice said, genuine concern in every syllable.
Twilight gritted what was left of her teeth. She drew magic into her horn in a futile last attempt at resistance, but the power gathered maddeningly slowly.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," the voice said sadly, and a light grey hoof shimmered into visibility a moment before it slammed into Twilight's face and everything went black.
Twilight's eyes opened to a smeared view of colors. She blinked a few times, and each flutter of her eyelids felt like it took five minutes. The laborious effort paid off, and the fuzzy smears coalesced into a dark room along with Zecora and Silver.
"Hey, I think she's awake," Silver said quietly, nodding towards Twilight in her place on the bed. To Twilight, his voice sounded subtly wrong. Flat and distant.
"-" Twilight said, once again her throat refusing to form words. "...m'wake," she managed on the second try, wincing through the pain the effort caused.
"Shhhh," Zecora said, pausing momentarily in her hustling to press a hoof against Twilight's lips and press a bottle into her hooves.
Twilight drank the concoction without hesitation, and found it pleasantly thinner than most of Zecora's creations. In addition to fixing whatever was effecting her hearing (the clinks and bubbles of Zecora's tasks suddenly popping into focus) it also cleared and wet her throat. "What happened?" she whispered through her newly rejuvenated throat.
"You lost," Silver said bluntly. Not-unkindly, but bluntly. "Good time to get a healer, eh?"
"What? No," Twilight pushed downwards on the bed, lifting her body about an inch before collapsing back into the mattress. "No no no. I have to get back out there."
"Back out there?" Blues asked with a chuckle. "Twilight, there is no 'out there'. You're back at the inn, match is over, you lost." He shrugged. "It happens, don't worry about it."
"No, I-" Twilight drank another delivered potion, and paused in the argument while her teeth grew back. When they had, she ran her tongue around them and then started to speak again. "I can't have lost. I can't."
"Well, you did. Woah, hey, where are you going?" Silver said, reaching out to stop Twilight as she began to kick off the sheets.
"I can't. I can't have lost," Twilight repeated, murmuring the sentence like a mantra. Magic began to gather in her horn.
"No no no no no!" Silver said, leaping out to grab Twilight, but fell through empty space as the purple unicorn vanished.
"...Damnit," the stallion swore, and then looked up at the stunned Zecora. "You get everything into her?"
"Everything that I would title, as a potion that is vital."
Silver nodded and stood up from the ground with a small groan. "Alright, I'll go find her," he said, heading for the door.
"Alright, she's been to the arena, but after that the trail runs... cold," Silver said, stepping through the door of the Lopsided Pegasus to see a bar empty but for Flurry and Twilight. The unicorn mare was hunched over the bar, a mug of cider clutched in her hooves. Two more empty mugs sat beside, one on its side with a hint of amber liquid dripping from the lip.
Silver snorted angrily and pulled the mug away with a flow of red energy. "What, you think after a violent defeat is the right time to start drinking?" he asked, sitting down next to her loudly.
"...yesh," Twilight said stubbornly, her speech quiet and slurred.
The scarred pony's mouth closed into a hard line, and he turned on Flurry. "Why would you serve her at a time like this?" he asked.
"That's non-alcoholic," Flurry said, gesturing at the mug. "I've still got a barrel of the Flim-Flam stuff in the back, so I've been giving her that."
Twilight looked up from the bar, a hurt look on her face. "Traitor," she hissed, the slur now absent. "I'm not paying for those."
Flurry shrugged at her, and turned into the back room.
Silver sniffed at the half full mug, took a sip, and then made a sour face. "Blech. What’s the point?" he asked rhetorically, and then looked over at the purple unicorn. "...how ya doing?"
Twilight crossed her forelegs on the bar and buried her face in the purple fur. A low groan drifted out from the hidden face.
"Hey, c'mon," Silver said, and poked at her side with a hoof.
Twilight grunted from the impact on one of her many bruises, and brought up her head to glare at Silver angrily. "What!?"
"Okay, so you lost," Silver said, leaning away from the incensed mare. "You lost bad. So what? It happens. Everypony loses sometimes."
"I don't," Twilight grumbled, resting her chin on her legs again, staring across the bar at the large mirror on the other side. "If I can lose at magic, what's the point of this?" she asked quietly, wiggling her hips against the stool to indicate her cutie mark.
"Ohhhhh." Silver glanced down momentarily at the young mare's flank, and then brought his gaze back up to her face. "I get it now. I see what's happening."
"Tell me then. I'd love to know," Twilight growled back.
Silver shuffled closer to Twilight, and placed a forehoof around her shoulders. "You've never lost before, have you Twilight?"
"Yeah, I-" Twilight glanced at his hanging hoof with a quizzical look, and Silver gingerly removed it from her neck. "Of course I've lost. I lost a race in Ponyville just last year. I was fine."
"Okay, sure, but you've never lost anything you CARED about."
"I tried my best in that race!" Twilight said, sudden heat in her voice.
Silver exhaled heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "No, that's... I mean something you thought you were good at. You've never lost anything about magic." The stallion looked up. "Am I right?"
"W-well... well..." Twilight stammered. "I guess not."
"And now you lost, and you don't know how to deal with it. I've seen it happen before. Course, most ponies don't get as far as you do without losing, but the older the pony is the worse the recoil." Silver took another sip from the mug, and made another face of distaste. "I once saw this colt lose a spelling bee for the first time, and he just shut down. They had to drag him off the stage."
Twilight sniffed. "...did it ever happen to you?"
"Oh, yeah," Silver said casually. "When I was a kid, I was always the fastest runner in my class. Then, one day, I lost a race at a track meet to some kid from across town."
"What'd you do?"
"I started crying, and my mom picked me up and took for ice cream. So I forgot about it," Silver said. He noted the look Twilight was giving him. "I was six, Twilight. We can't all be as special as you."
"But that's the point!" Twilight wailed. "If I can lose, if I'm not the best at magic, then what does my Cutie Mark even mean? What does any of it mean?"
"Ooooookay." Silver drained the last of the mug, and levitated it under the tap Flurry usually filled his mugs from. "I'm going to tell you a little story, Twilight." He glanced at the swinging door that lead to the back, and pulled the lever to fill his mug. "Did I ever tell you about my Cutie Mark?" he asked, tilting the mug to reduce the head before pulling it back in front of him.
"No..." Twilight leaned back, trying to get a look at Silver's flank. "Silver, there... there's nothing there. Just scars."
"Hm? Oh, yeah, I don't really have it anymore."
"What happened?" Twilight asked, finding the twisted mass of flesh where a ponies most distinguishing mark should be oddly disturbing.
"Not important. Not what the story’s about," Silver said, waving away her questions. "Okay, so, I told you that my parents wanted to be a musician. They tried me on every instrument they could think of, chimes, drums, violin, everything. I was bad at some of them, and alright at others, but I didn't have the knack for any in particular."
He took a deep sip from his fresh mug. "So we were going on and on, my parents choosing other instruments, me failing at playing them, over and over. I was the almost the oldest kid in my class without a mark, and I started to worry I'd never find my talent. So one day I'm on my way home from school, and I find this little hurt squirrel. Broken leg or something, I don't know. And it made me so sad to see it lying there, and I just wanted it to get up and run around, and I felt my horn light up, and..." he shrugged. "It did."
"You healed it?" Twilight asked.
"Yup. Thing ran away like there was nothing wrong. Happiest little squirrel in the world. And I was the happiest little colt in the world once I spotted the red cross on my flank." Silver looked down at his mug, and began to play with it thoughtfully, turning it in his hooves. "My parents wanted a musician, but a doctor would do just fine. They started planning out everything for me, where I'd go to school, for how long, where I'd work. I even had a place at the medical division of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns." He took a long drink from his mug, and then stared down into the amber liquid.
"...And?" Twilight prompted.
Silver jerked in surprise and looked up at the purple unicorn. "Huh? Oh, right. I freaked out. Ran away. Ended up here, in Fillydelphia. I was like thirteen, you understand. No idea what I was doing, I just knew I didn't want to go home." Another drink from the mug. "Did a few odd jobs for money, not all of them entirely legal. Long story short, I ended up doing the farthest thing from healing magic that I could find." He grinned. "Battle magic."
"And then what happened?" Twilight asked, interested in the story despite herself.
"Uh... that's pretty much it. I went back and talked to me parents eventually, and we get along fine now, but I've been doing battle magic ever since."
Twilight considered the story. "Silver... what was the point of that story?" she asked carefully.
Silver opened his mouth, and then closed it. "I... don't remember. What were we talking about?"
"My Cutie Mark."
"Oh! Right!" Silver said with a wide smile. "Okay, the point is, your Cutie Mark doesn't define you. I chose not to follow mine, and if you want to be the best at magic, you're going to have to work at it. Sure, you've got a better chance than anypony else, but that doesn't mean you'll always win, and it doesn't mean you don't have to practice."
"So... I lost, and you told me a story with the moral that my Cutie Mark doesn't really mean anything and the only reason I lost is I'm lazy and didn't practice enough," Twilight stated flatly.
"Ahhh... Hm." Silver thought for a second. "It doesn't sound quite so inspiring when you say it like that."
"No," Twilight deadpanned. "But you actually did make me feel a little better somehow, so... good enough, I guess."
"Really?" Silver asked. "Great. Zecora's got some more potions for the bruises, and then you should get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
Twilight stood up from her seat and started towards the stairs, but stopped and turned. "Silver... what happened to your Cutie Mark?"
The blue stallion turned to look at her with his good eye, considering her face carefully. "You're not going to give up on this one, are you?"
Twilight shook her head, and sat back down at the bar.
Silver swallowed and wetted his lips before speaking, a thoughtful look on his face. "I... it was one of my first serious fights. Real asshole by the name of Blaze. He beat me, and then... there weren't as many rules back then. He decided to teach me a lesson." Silver rubbed at the scars, the long healed areas suddenly itching.
A lump rose in Twilight's throat. "...fire?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah Twilight," Silver said, his voice ice cold. "Fire."
"What... where's Blaze now?"
Silver took a long drink from his mug. The sound as it hit the table reverberated around the bar.
"He's dead, Twilight."