//------------------------------//
// There's A Voice Emerging 
// Story: TCB: The Sound Of Walking Away 
// by Madrigal Baroque 
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The holoviewer flickered away from the shining vision of an impossibly beautiful creature speaking of a hope of life after the utter destruction of the Earth. An offer of sanctuary, of peace,  Jacob Mizrahi sat on the sofa between his wife and daughter, staring as they did at the shocked faces of the newscasters who stumbled through their commentary, trying to find the right buzzwords to make sense of what had just happened.

"Dear God," his wife breathed, her voice cracked and shaky. "This can't be happening. It's insane." She sat forward, shaking her head in denial. "It's some kind of…of joke, that's all. One of those hypothetical scenarios like they showed a few years back. The one that made everyone think an asteroid was going to hit. People panicked in the streets before the network issued that disclaimer about it being a work of fiction." She laughed, a hard brittle cackle. "We just tuned in after the announcement that it's fictional, that's all. They'll come on any time now, stating it was just a…just a holoshow." She choked on what she knew were lies, breaking down into tears.

Jacob reached out to comfort her, but Ruth tore herself from his grasp and stood up. "I'm going to bed," she announced, angrily wiping tears from her eyes. "If you want to sit there and watch any more of this nonsense, that's up to you. Leave me out of it."

"Ruthie…" But Jacob's call did not stop her. Helplessly she watched her disappear into the bedroom. He heard the lock click behind her and sighed. The sofa would be his bed tonight. Ruth didn't want a witness to her breakdown.  To her, tears were weakness, and Ruth would never let herself be seen as weak, even by the man she'd married.

"Papa…?"

Jacob met his daughter's gaze, her wise and earnest dark eyes somewhat troubled, but unafraid. "What is it, punkin?"

"Mama's wrong." Nona's round pale face showed concern, but no uncertainty at all. "This isn't a joke or a holoseries. Those people in the studio, they're scared."

Carefully Jacob laid a hand on Nona's. Her fingers were cold. "Your mom's scared, too." He glanced at the closed door, the barrier Ruth had imposed between herself and a reality she utterly rejected. So who's the one living in her own little world, Ruthie?

"I'm not scared," Nona declared with conviction. "The world we live in, the way it is, is more frightening than anything in Equestria could be."

"That's true," Jacob agreed. Emboldened, he put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. 

She didn't respond, but she didn't pull away, either. That in itself was a response–simple acceptance. "Good. Let's be not scared together."

"You've got a deal."

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