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// A Trade 
// Story: Dead Silence 
// by Silence 
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The world was unaware of how she had lost her hearing. They were under the impression that it was just by chance, something that can happen randomly to anypony. They did not know of how it had been traded. They did not know of the dream she had been in the night of the "accident". They were clueless when it came to knowing about the woman in her dreams. The pegasus pony who inhabited her every dream and whose voice only she could hear. The only sound that was ever permitted through the gates that her ears had heard so carefully, so willingly locked to any-body else. There was a reason she was deaf, whether it seemed that way or not, there was. She couldn't tell them even if she had wanted to. They pegasus had made her swear that night to not speak to anypony of the deal that she had made, the deal for the eyes of a goddess

The dream was still vivid in her mind. It felt almost as if it were not a dream at all, but rather a very odd meeting in an unfamiliar place with a very familiar stranger. The dream was like any other, it was confusing to start with and made no sense. It sped by quickly as in any other dream she had ever had. Then, suddenly, it stopped. Everything stopped. She could even almost swear that it felt like all life that manifested itself within her and the world had ceased their movement. The dream turned dark and silent. Then, she saw her; the stranger with the eyes of a rainbow and the mane of a goddess. Then, as if it were staged, the darkness in the room began to fill with stars and planets. Silence felt as if she were walking outside of space itself, as if she were outside of time and reality. She had then walked to the only thing that made sense to walk towards, the thing anyone would walk towards, the other pony. She spoke in a soft, gentle voice that soothed her. The pony said," Silence, come here and listen to me speak. Listen to the deal I have to offer you. Come to me and let us talk of things that others have only wished to talk of.". Silence need-ed no other incentive to move. She trotted over to the pony and sat in front of her, staring intently at her as if silently invoking her to speak on. 

"Silence, I come to you within a dream to speak to you of a deal that has occurred for many gen-erations and has been passed through your family line since the creation of ponies. I, with the eyes of a goddess, have a power that others only dream to have. I am the eyes of the universe and can see all that happens. I wish to trade these eyes with you for your hearing, for the goddess who listens to the sounds of the world has become ill and is soon to perish. So what say you to this?" asked the mysterious pony. Silence sat for a minute and pondered the deal. She thoroughly enjoyed hearing and had always loved listening to the birds sing and the wind whistle but if a goddess had lost her ability to hear, then who would answer the prayers and wishes of all the other ponies? She came to a conclusion. 


"Okay, I will trade you my ears for your eyes." spoke Silence. With that, she was yanked back down to earth and awoke in her bed, looking through partially closed eyes at her parents and the doctor talking. She realized that it wasn't just a dream when she noticed that the voices she was so used to hearing had not graced her ears. She was unaware of how long she had been talking to the goddess or what her body had done in that time but whatever had happened, the doctor seemed very calm about it. This calmed Silence, as she realized that she was only in the hospital because she had been sleep to long and not because she was deaf. Nobody knew that she was deaf until later on. Nobody truly knew the reason and merely blamed it on an accidental mal-function in her brain's operating pattern. Nobody had learned of the trade.