You Do (Not) Belong

by 2dextreem

The Fourth Day: Reflections

All Connor was trying to do was put on some music that felt appropriate to both his mood and his current setting. But as he heard the opening lyrics to Broken Bells' "October" on high volume through his earbuds, he found his selection to be rather frighteningly accurate, given the events of the day before.

As the song on his iPod continued to play, its listener continued in the fashion he had been doing for at least a good half an hour at this point: wandering aimlessly down the streets of Ponyville as steady sheets of rain poured down from above.

This particular fact might have given the average person -- or pony, for that matter -- an understandable reason to want to seek shelter from the storm. But it was thanks to Rarity’s foresight in crafting a set of clothes that caused water to just slide off their surface that Connor didn’t find himself completely soaked through by now. Granted, it did little against the cold, or the fact that his sneakers weren’t similarly enchanted, but the human found that he really didn’t care enough to want to find someplace warm and dry.

After all, where would he go?

Returning to the hospital wasn’t an option, as that was the last place he felt like being. And at the moment there was really no other place in town that he could think of where he could stay.

Well, that’s not really true. There was the Golden Oak, but...

Connor knew for certain he wasn’t welcome there.

Don’t see how that first part applies to any of this, Connor mused as the song played on. But that part about the ditch sure feels familiar.

Connor sighed, watching his breath turn to fog that quickly dissipated, flowing up under his hood and past the growth on his forehead that was responsible for all of this. Even though he had tried listening to music in order to get his mind off of both his unwelcome, horn-shaped addition, and the well of emotions, mostly regret, that he was feeling about his fight with a certain unicorn, it just wasn’t enough.

As for his plan to try and sort out his thoughts on an improvised walkabout through the equine township, that wasn’t going so smoothly, either. Every time he tried asking himself even the simplest of questions: “How?” “Why?” and “What do I do now?” he just ended up right back where he started. And seeing as he was starting with nothing, it was hard to argue that he was going to get anywhere anytime soon.

And so there was really nothing he could do except to keep moving through the empty streets, thankful at least to have a modest degree of privacy, as it seemed the rest of the town had a lot more sense than he did.

As the song ended, and the final note faded away to a background of rain pelting the ground and the houses around him, Connor paused for a moment to reach into his pocket and palm the device. Using his other hand as a shield from the rain, he brought it out and turned on the display, while preventing the iPod from simply cycling to the next song down the list. As Connor started to think about what kind of song he felt like listening to next, he found his eyes drawn to the upper right corner, where the tiny battery indicator told him a sobering fact: surely due in no small part to his idea to play his music at Pinkie’s welcoming party, the small white bar had been shortened to a decent amount below halfway.

“Well, isn’t that just perfect,” Connor said aloud to nobody in particular, not caring to mask the bitterness in his voice at how his outlook of the day had apparently hit a new low.

He clicked a button on the side of the device, shutting off the screen before pocketing it along with his earbuds, as he had decided that from now on, he wouldn’t turn the thing back on unless the situation truly demanded it.

Connor then breathed in deeply through his nose, taking the opportunity to take stock of where he was.

To be honest, every street in Ponyville really did look similar to the next. It was only the occasional building standing out from the others that signified a change in location, and as Connor looked up, it was plain to see that he hadn’t yet been to this particular intersection.

Standing right in the middle of the square was a three-storied building that instantly brought Connor’s thoughts to the tale of Hansel and Gretel, as with peppermint-colored pillars, chocolate-covered roof with white icing trim, and a top that resembled a pink frosted cupcake, the place looked to be almost one hundred percent edible. He assumed it couldn’t really be made out of food, but all the same, the lengths these ponies went to in order to stand out never ceased to amaze him.

So I was wrong. It’s not a candy store made of candy, it’s a bakery made out of gingerbread, Connor thought incredulously as he beheld the sweetshop in all its faux delectable glory.

Bright pinkish-yellow light shone out through the clear windows and into the dreary gloom, and from his position about twenty feet away, Connor could make out the shapes and silhouettes of a number of ponies enjoying themselves inside the confectionery. He found himself wondering what they were up to in there; how much fun they could obviously be having in a place as whimsically decorated as this. But instead of feeling comforted by the thought, it only ended up reminding him of everything currently absent from his life.

These ponies didn’t know how good they had it. Everyone was friends with each other. Everyone lived in an arguably near-perfect society, free of strife and hardship. Everyone was happy.

Everyone had a home to go back to.

...

Connor tore his eyes away from the delectably covered bakery, turning sharply to the left and continuing on his way while directing his gaze straight down at the cobbled streets underneath his feet.

“Who here’s ready for a scrubba-dub-dub in the tub!?” Pinkie Pie asked exuberantly, smiling widely as she prepared to give her favorite filly and colt their daily baths.

As for her audience, they voiced their immediate approval, both the blue-eyed yellow unicorn and her brown-eyed twin pegasus brother babbling incoherently and splashing the water they were immersed in with excitement.

It always made Pinkie feel all warm and fuzzy inside to see the expressions on Pumpkin and Pound Cake's faces when they got to spend time with her, and today both Cup and Carrot Cake were busy enough downstairs in Sugarcube Corner that they required Pinkie’s expert foalsitting for the day. Not that she was complaining, as bath time with the foals was one of her especially favorite times, next to nappy time, snacky time, and “stay-away-from-the-kitchen-when-mommy-and-daddy-were-baking-a-really-really-big-order” time.

She was a teensy bit disappointed that it had to be raining that day, preventing her from maybe taking the twins out for a walk in the park like she would’ve wanted, but at least it wasn’t like she couldn’t still entertain them in the bathroom.

“Who wants to meet Mr. Quackums?” the party pony asked, and in response, Pumpkin and Pound went completely silent while at the same time each raising a foreleg as high into the air as they could manage.

“Okey-dokey! Now, where did I see him last?” Pinkie made a show of scratching her head with a hoof, lips turning up in a consternated fashion until she made an exclamation with openmouthed realization. “Ah! I remember! I think he was right over...”

The mare leaned forwards over the tub, reaching a hoof behind Pound’s ear and suddenly producing the sought-after rubber ducky she had promised. She then held it up in front of the twins and gave it a squeeze, resulting in a squeaky quacking sound that absolutely delighted the months-old ponies.

“Here you go!” Pinkie said, placing Mr. Quackums in the water between brother and sister. “Now, you two play nice while Auntie Pinkie goes to get the soap!”

The pink pony then got up on her hooves and turned on the spot, cantering over to a shelf near the opposite side of the bathroom where she went about digging around for the bubble bath solution. Upon finding what she was looking for, Pinkie suddenly heard a sound that she always hated to hear: that of one or both of the twins’ frustrated grunts as they fought over who got to play with the new toy first, as young siblings are wont to do.

Pinkie turned around to see what was going on, just in time to watch Pound, the stronger of the two, yank the yellow rubber duck from the grip of his sister. The reaction was immediate, as Pumpkin’s face scrunched up, lips trembling, before letting out a pitiful, high-pitched wail.

“Ooooh, please don’t cry, Pumpkin!” Pinkie pleaded with the filly as she rushed back over to the tub to remedy the situation. With a stern look on her normally-pleasant features, Pinkie directed her gaze at Pound, who tried his best to look as innocent as possible as his sister continued crying beside him.

“Now, now, naughty foal! Aren’t I always telling you that you need to play nice with your sister?” she chastised, holding up a hoof and waving it at him. “Be a nice little pony and share Mr. Quackums, understand?”

The diminutive pony looked back and forth between Auntie Pinkie and Pumpkin with his wide brown eyes, eventually settling on his sister and suddenly feeling ashamed about the mean thing he did. Without a second thought, he took the bath toy in his hoof and held it out in front of her, giving it a gentle squeeze.

In response, Pumpkin slowly ceased her crying, and with a few sniffles, looked up at her brother for a second before hesitantly reaching out and grasping the duck, giving it a few squeezes of her own and managing to bring a small smile back to her lips.

“There, now, isn’t that better?” Pinkie commented, smiling warmly as she watched the two foals so quickly reconcile themselves as they often did, so long as she was there to remind them. “Why is it that you two can’t just play nice all the time? I mean, really, is this how you guys are gonna behave when you grow old enough to--”

Pinkie stopped mid-sentence as an all-too-familiar feeling started creeping up her spine.

“Hold on, folks! Pinkie Sense incoming!” She held a hoof up to signify a pause, causing the twins to look up at her curiously as she waited for more information to come through her unorthodox prediction mechanism.

The feeling migrated down her body, towards the base of her tail, and with a tingly, itchy sensation, caused it to swish back and forth across the tiled bathroom floor.

“Hmmm. Swishy-tail... That usually means somepony’s about to-- Wait... Wait a second,” Pinkie interrupted herself, as she became aware that the Sense was not yet finished. Without warning, an unpleasant, buzzing ache started to emanate from the knee of her left foreleg, and the significance of this news caused Pinkie’s expression to drop.

The pink pony sincerely hoped that her random spasms would occur a third time, because this particular combination so far meant something not all too pleasant was occurring nearby. But after a few more seconds of holding out hope, Pinkie sighed, her features falling and her ears drooping as her Pinkie Sense was apparently finished relaying the message.

“Aww... Somepony’s really, really sad right now...” she explained dejectedly to the two inquisitive foals in the bathtub, wishing she knew who exactly was responsible for triggering her predictive quirk -- and where s/he was -- so that she could drop in to administer a direct dose of Pinkie-brand cheer. But, unfortunately, she had a responsibility to the two young ponies in front of her, and couldn’t just leave them on their own simply to fulfill her role as Element of Laughter, no matter how much she wanted to. It was a thought that saddened her.

A sudden rubbery quacking sound filled the air just then, causing Pinkie to look up and see Pumpkin and Pound both holding out Mr. Quackums in her direction, both carrying hesitantly hopeful expressions on their faces. The simple, heartfelt gesture was enough to bring the party pony back out of her temporary funk, smiling once again as she brought her hooves up to rub the manes on the filly and colt’s tiny noggins.

“Thanks, you guys. You’re so sweet,” she said to them, causing the two ponies to mirror her renewed cheer as they all proceeded to continue with the task at hoof.

And yet, as she started to pour out a generous amount of bubble bath into the tub, Pinkie still couldn’t shake the notion that somepony, somewhere out in Ponyville, was seriously in need of a friend. So much so that she found herself wishing she could be in two places at once; something which, even for somepony like her, just wasn’t possible.

At some point in the day, the rain shifted over from a gentle drizzle to something lighter. By the time Connor noticed the change, the rain had already become barely more than mist in the air, even though the sky remained the same shade of gloomy gray.

Looking up and taking a good look at his surroundings for the first time in a while, Connor found himself in some kind of park area, with stretches of open grass cut through with meandering paths and the occasional tree or bench. No ponies were around at the moment, though, just like elsewhere in town.

The path on his right led up to a squat, mauve-painted bridge, situated over a depression in the ground that must have been a small stream, and without much thought, Connor decided to walk in that direction, thinking it was as good as any other. Drawing closer, he could begin to hear the sound of water running beneath the bridge, and while it wasn’t quite “babbling,” it was still a welcome reprieve from the only sounds being his breathing and the wet dirt beneath his shoes.

On a whim, the teenager paused by the bank of the river just next to the crossing, taking a moment to find and pick up a few weathered, flat stones, before placing them in his pocket. He then made his way up the gently sloping wood of the bridge and stopped at the apex, turning to face out towards the river and leaning forward, propping his arms up on the wooden railing. The surface was still slick with moisture from the morning shower, but thanks to the waterproofing qualities of his sleeves, it hardly mattered.

With a sigh, Connor kept his gaze on the horizon as he fished around in his pocket for one of the stones. Then, he looked at it contemplatively for a moment, before tightening his grip, rearing his arm back, and letting fly with a flourish of his wrist. The rock whizzed out over the surface of the river, managing three short skips before finally landing with a modest splash.

He did this again and then once more, with the third attempt succeeding in a grand total of five skips. Then, he stopped, idly fingering the last remaining stone in his pocket, before deciding to stop looking out at the rest of Ponyville and instead turn his gaze downwards, towards the water. While the river beneath him was obviously swelled from the rain and flowing past at a steady clip, the surface was still smooth enough that Connor could easily make out his reflection in the water.

From his position several feet up, and with his hood and hair hanging over the front of his face, he could almost convince himself that there was nothing wrong with him; that everything was normal. Almost, because no matter what he saw with his eyes, what he felt was still ever present. He could still feel the unnatural weight of the horn, slight as it was, pulling his forehead down. How every tilt of his head caused his bangs to brush against the alien protrusion that was now a part of him.

Connor reached up to touch it again from under his hood, feeling the smooth texture and hard toughness of the bone underneath, running over the blunt tip several times with his fingers. Such a small change, such a tiny detail, but as Connor gazed at his reflection in the placid surface of the water, he felt as though he might as well have been looking at a stranger.

The human felt a brisk shiver run down his spine as he looked on, but it had nothing to do with the cold.

Then, after a couple more seconds of silent contemplation, something else reflected in the water grabbed his attention, and he focused on it while simultaneously lowering his arm. Whatever it was, it looked like a puffy, blackish-gray lump, standing out against the gray backdrop of clouds, and if Connor’s sense of depth was accurate, it almost seemed like it was...

Connor turned abruptly and raised his head upwards at a forty-five degree angle, confirming his suspicion that the mysterious form was in fact hovering just a few feet away. He instantly recognized it for what it was: a cloud. Specifically, a black cloud, uniformly lumpy and softly undulating in place.

“You can’t be serious,” Connor muttered incredulously, utterly baffled and more than a little pissed off that, apparently, a black cloud had been following him for who knew how long. Oddly appropriate, given his mood, though he couldn’t help but feel as though the world itself had started mocking him.

I really am living in a goddamn cartoon, he thought bitterly as he regarded the oddball cloud formation with contempt. But then, something caught his eye, down near the base of the object and seemingly poking out the back side of it. It looked like a short tuft of hair.

And yet, hair wasn’t supposed to be composed of green, yellow, orange and red strands all at the same time. Unless that hair in fact belonged to a certain androgynous pegasus mare that Connor had happened to be introduced to the night before.

His eyes narrowed as he remembered hearing that pegasus ponies had the uncanny ability to manipulate condensed water vapor, and everything fell neatly into place. With a dejected sigh, Connor turned back to face the river, and brought his hand to his mouth, loudly clearing his throat to communicate that the jig was up.

After a moment with no obvious reaction from the cloud, he tried it again, more forcefully this time. Still no reaction, and by now it was obvious that the obfuscated pony wasn’t going to take a hint, so Connor sighed again and decided to speak up. “I know you’re there.”

The park was silent except for the sound of the river.

“Stop messing around, Rainbow. I’m not in the mood,” said the human, starting to get annoyed.

This finally managed to induce a reaction, and with a sound like someone punching a soft pillow, Connor watched a shaggy multicolored mane pop out of cover, accompanied by the cyan pony that was attached to it.

“Aww. How’d ya know it was me?” Rainbow Dash asked with a disappointed look on her face. Connor tilted his head and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

“Clouds don’t have tails,” he pointed out blankly, causing the mare to crane her neck around and notice that her tail was indeed showing outside of her hiding place.

“Oh. Heh, I guess not,” Rainbow chuckled in spite of herself, but Connor was not amused.

“What do you want, Rainbow?”

“Nothin’, really.” The pegasus proceeded to extract the rest of her body from the cloud, wings beating silently in the air, before pressing down on it with her hooves and bringing both it and herself down to his level. Then, she landed on top of the cloud, assuming a relaxed posture like she was laying on a bed, with her chin propped up between her hooves. “I was just taking a break from working on the storm, saw you walkin’ around, and decided I’d surprise you.”

“Hmph. So much for that,” Connor grunted, continuing the conversation in spite of his initial hope that Rainbow wasn’t going to stick around for long. Now, though, he was starting to reconsider, given that the talking was so far providing a much-needed distraction from the issues plaguing his thoughts. Connor still wasn’t feeling particularly sociable, but he wasn’t about to turn her away outright, either.

“No kidding,” Rainbow responded, curiously peering over the edge of her improvised seat to look down at the water and try to see what the human was looking at. Unimpressed with the view, she gave a half-shrug and returned her attention to him. “So what are you doing out here all by yourself?”

“...I felt like taking a walk,” he answered after a while.

“Huh. Funny time to take a walk considering, well, you know...” The pegasus followed up by motioning a hoof at the overcast skies.

“I just needed to get out of that hospital,” Connor explained quickly, and his comment caused Rainbow’s ears to perk up with a sudden realization.

“Oh, yeah! Sorry I had to take off when I did, but the weather wasn’t exactly gonna make itself, right? I’m actually surprised they let you out so early.” The mare took a quick breath, cutting the teenager off before he could think about correcting her. “You know, now that you mention it...”

I knew she was going to ask eventually.

“Is it really a... ‘you know what’?”

Connor sighed heavily, folding his hands together as he stared out along the river’s path. “Yeah, it’s a ‘you know what.’”

“Can I see it?”

Connor turned and shot the lounging pegasus a half-irritated, half-confounded look at her sudden question, while Rainbow returned his glare with an honest, wide-eyed curiosity of her own. That, and the hint of an expectant smile on her muzzle, indicated that her request was born from genuine interest, and not from a morbid desire to make light of his predicament, as he had initially assumed.

He held her gaze for a few seconds, watching the corners of her mouth slowly turn upwards in anticipation, before he decided it would be safest to just get it over with. Connor brought his hand up just for a moment to rub the bridge of his nose, before reaching higher, grasping the lip of his hood, and jerking it back in one quick motion before he got any second thoughts.

As soon as he did so, Rainbow leaned in closely, examining the newly revealed, cone-shaped horn that could now plainly be seen poking through his hair.

“Whooooa. It really is a horn,” she commented, awestruck, as Connor just stood there impassively. “That is so cool.”

“No, it’s not cool!” Connor snapped, causing Rainbow to draw away. “It’s the opposite of cool! It sucks!”

“Really? What makes you say that?” the pegasus asked with a puzzled expression. “Doesn’t it mean that you can, you know, do magic or something?”

With a huff, Connor turned away and back towards the river, tucking his arms together around his front. “No. It’s useless,” he admitted. “It’s wrong. It’s unnatural. I want it gone.”

“Whoa. Alright, I get the picture, jeez. Horn equals bad.” Rainbow put up her hooves in a defensive gesture, before she went silent for a moment, bringing a hoof to her chin in a thoughtful manner. “So... how exactly are you gonna get rid of it? Cuz I don’t think wandering around in the rain is helping very much.”

“I don’t know. I just. Don’t. Know.” Connor sighed, using a hand to rub his face as he was reminded of just how lost he really was. “Everything’s just a complete and total mess right now. I don’t know where to start.”

With that, Rainbow laid down flat on her cloud, angling her wings in such a way that they propelled it around and to the side so that she was in front of the human. “Have you tried asking somepony for help?” she asked innocently. “Seems to me that’d be the easiest thing to do.” Then Rainbow suddenly perked with inspiration. “Hey, I know! Why don’t you just ask Twilight? You guys already know each other pretty well, and she’s, like, the smartest pony in Ponyville. I’m sure she’d know what to do.”

Connor visibly winced at the mention of Twilight’s name, having a momentary flashback to a sudden and unexpected reveal, a very unnecessary shouting match, and a door slammed in anger. He got a faraway look in his eyes as Rainbow waited patiently for his response.

“I... don’t think that’s such a good idea at the moment.”

“Why not?”

“Look, it’s just...” Connor sighed, very much not wanting to revisit that moment, much less explain to the blue mare how exactly he spurned Twilight's friendship with a few choice words. “Twilight... doesn’t want to talk to me right now.”

“Oh, really?” Rainbow’s expression became cross, and she looked at him accusingly, just as Connor suspected she might. “What happened?”

Well, she’s gonna find out sooner or later... So I guess I might as well.

Taking a deep breath, and with his chest aching with fresh feelings of remorse, he tried to explain in the least offensive way possible. “When she showed me... this thing... I kinda lost it, big time,” he said, absently rubbing the object sticking out of his forehead. “Things got a little heated and I... I said some things I really shouldn’t have. It got pretty bad.”

Connor bowed his head and breathed out, hoping he was ready to absorb whatever retribution the pegasus had coming to him. But what she said next genuinely surprised him.

“Is that it?” The teenager raised his sight to look at Rainbow, who was wearing a blank face and staring back at him with incredulity as she continued. “You two had an argument? That’s the big deal?”

“You wouldn’t understand; you weren’t there.” Connor shook his head, swallowing a lump in his throat. “Everything I said... that I did... I just wish I could take it all back.”

“Then why don’t you?” the cyan mare questioned matter-of-factly, giving him an amused snort. “I mean, I’m not gonna tell you how to live your life, but it seems to me that you should at least try apologizing before you assume she’s never gonna talk to you again.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Of course it’s that simple!” Rainbow cut him off brusquely, kicking off of her perch in order to hang in the air a foot in front of Connor’s face, folding her forelegs while her wings beat silently to keep her aloft. The amusement was gone, replaced by a certain sternness that implied she was starting to get annoyed.

“Let me just explain something to you, since I know you haven’t been in Ponyville for very long,” Rainbow said, jabbing a hoof in his direction. “Twilight’s been my friend for more than two years now, and in all that time, not once -- not once -- has she ever turned her back on me, or anypony else. Even when we sometimes gave up on each other, she never gave up on us.”

Connor could only listen as she continued to lecture him, stunned by the pony’s forwardness and the way she spoke with conviction.

“Twilight is the one of the kindest, most forgiving ponies I know. She’s not about to stop being friends with you just because of some stupid little fight!”

“But, Rainbow--” Connor started, only to be cut off by a raised hoof.

“No buts!” the mare interrupted, shaking her head, before looking him right in the eyes with her wide, piercing magenta irises. “I changed my mind. I’m gonna tell you exactly what you’re gonna do. You are gonna march yourself over to the library ASAP, knock on the door, and when Twilight opens it, the first words outta your mouth are gonna be ‘I’m sorry.’ Got it?”

“I don’t--”

“Yes, or no, Connor?”

Rainbow’s gaze drilled into him in an effort to nail the point home, leaving him with no doubt that the pegasus pony believed what she was saying right down to her core. Connor closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, letting it out slow and trying his hardest to cast aside his own fear and doubt in favor of trusting Rainbow to know what she was talking about.

After a good long few seconds of her waiting for his answer, Connor’s last barrier of obstinance fell away. “...Yeah. I got it.”

“Good.” Rainbow Dash nodded curtly, holding her expression for a moment more before it softened somewhat. Taking her eyes off of him, she then reached up to rub the back of her neck, giving him a sheepish grin. “Glad to hear it, cuz, uh... my break’s almost up anyways.”

Her sudden change in attitude, while not quite enough to clear away Connor’s funk, nonetheless brought the smallest of smiles to his lips. “Right. Wouldn’t want to keep you from your important job making it cold and wet outside.”

“I know, right!?” Rainbow tossed her hooves in the air exasperatedly, giving a chuckle. “Nopony appreciates the fact that sometimes you need rainy days. It can’t always be sunny all the time.”

Connor’s smile faded, and he looked down and off to the side, recognizing the poignancy of the weathermare’s statement even if she didn’t herself.

“Welp, with that, I’m off!” Rainbow Dash turned and gathered up the bundle of water vapor she had brought with her in her hooves, and her wings started to pump, pushing her and her cargo up towards the sky. “See ya later!”

“Rainbow, wait,” Connor spoke up, catching the mare off guard as she stopped and turned to face him.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“I just... I...” The human let out a puff of air, trying to find the right words to say. “Why are you trying so hard to fix things between me and Twilight? Not to sound offensive, but it’s really none of your business, anyway.”

“Hey, when my friends are in trouble, I make it my business.” The blue pegasus raised a hoof to her chest with pride. “I’m the Element of Loyalty, after all. I can’t just ignore somepony when they could use my help. Besides, that’s just the kind of stuff friends are for, know what I’m saying?”

Connor was about to respond... but something gave him pause. For some reason, Rainbow’s words made him stop and think for a second; something about that sentiment causing a twinge to come unbidden from the area around his chest. He was silent for a long time, reflecting on everything that had happened so far that day. The lengths that these ponies went to in order to hang on to the friendships that were precious to them. How they tried so very hard to do so, and how they expected the same thing from him, nothing more, nothing less.

An expectation he had been only too willing to fall short of.

“Yeah... I think I’m starting to,” he finally said to noone in particular, for when he looked back up at the sky, the colorful pony had disappeared, leaving nothing but heavy grayness stretching as far as the eye could see.

Off in the distance, he could hear a low rumble of thunder, jarring him from his thoughts and reminding him that he still had something he had to do. For what it was worth, the pegasus was right, and he couldn’t hope to solve this dilemma on his own, leaving him no choice but to swallow his pride and face up to the mare he had wronged... again.

Before that, however, Connor found himself leaning out over the edge of the bridge, looking down once more at his image reflected in the river. Once again, without his coat’s hood for protection, the horn was plainly visible, and he stared at it for a while as his opposite stared back.

Connor’s hand went to his jacket pocket, feeling the weight of the last remaining stone he had picked up. He brought it up in front of him, turning it over in his palm and feeling its smooth, flat texture. Then, without a second thought, his grip loosened and the stone slipped from his fingers, plummeting to the water’s surface below with a soft plop and causing a cascade of ripples across it, rendering the image reflected in it as nothing more than a broken jumble of colors.

And when the water finally did settle after this minor disturbance, there was nothing left for it to show, except an empty bridge and the open sky.