//------------------------------//
// You Are The Best At Space 
// Story: Sing Like You Can't Be Heard 
// by Desideratium 
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	“So . . . you had no idea what happened?”

Even in writing, Bon Bon’s inflection and syntax were as pristine and organized as they would be in a verbal conversation—somehow, you could almost hear her voice sounding out the words, instead of reading them on a yellow notepad. 

The pen that your friend had used to jot down the question dangled from her lips, swinging like a pendulum as her tongue played with the intruder in her mouth. Her cerulean eyes searched your face, psychoanalyzing your every move—a skill that you had long since learned that she was very good at. You had just finished explaining your sudden newfound condition, and how your morning had gone. Upon finishing, you marvel at the utter strangeness of the sensation—you had just spit out more than a thousand words, and heard none of them. 

“No,” you reply aloud, without hearing yourself. “I woke up with my face in my breakfast, and I couldn’t hear anything. I don’t know how long I was there, or how I even got there in the first place.” 

Bon Bon’s gaze leaves your face for a moment as she lowers her pen to the paper. Her mouthwriting is ornate and looping—quite the contrast to Vinyl’s carefree scribbling. You wait patiently for her to finish, fidgeting unconsciously. The pen tip pauses. Bon Bon reaches out her hoof to swivel the notepad around for you to read:

“And Vinyl Scratch was just .  . . there?” 

“Yeah. Scared the living Celestia out of me.”

Bon Bon laughs silently. Her layered pink and blue mane bounces as her body quakes in mirth. She clamps her teeth around the writing utensil and begins to write again: 

“You were never great with mares, weren’t you?” 

“Hey! I was emotionally compromised! I couldn’t . . . can’t . . . hear, in case you haven’t noticed!” Despite yourself, you smile grudgingly. It’s moments like this that make you glad that Bon Bon is your friend. Sensitive like a mother, but also patronizing like a best friend. 

“Sure, sure. I suppose that you attacked the waitress as well when she tried to take your check.” 

“I didn’t attack her . . . just . . . scared her a bit,” you joke feebly. 

Bon Bon leans back, breathing deeply. The pen is clasped in the corner of her mouth, hanging by the clip. She blinks heavily, then begins to write again. 

“I have to admit, this isn’t the best way of communicating . . .”

“Yeah. I know,” you admit. “I’ll figure something out. But for short term . . .” You look down to see Bon Bon already writing.

“Like what?” she writes.

“I dunno.” You scratch the back of your head with the sharp edge of your hoof. “Telepathy, maybe?” This causes Bon Bon to smile. The pen drops to the paper once again. Silence falls once more—deeper than before, if that was possible. 

“Hate to break it to you, but you’re a pegasus. As far as I can tell, your race hasn’t mastered that particular skill yet.”

“I know. Shame on me, right? For not being born a unicorn.”

Bon Bon’s mouth starts to move, and the air around you vibrates, almost imperceptibly. Sound waves break over you, but their meaning is completely lost in the void of emptiness surrounding you. You stare at the mare helplessly, but also exasperatedly. You hold up a hoof to stop her and mouth out the words, “I can’t hear you” with big, exaggerated lip movements, mocking her. 

Bon Bon stops, stares, then bursts out laughing. Chuckling silently, she picks up her writing utensil once again. She tears off the heavily-inked top sheet to reveal an unmarked canvas below. Two words are scrawled down, the style slightly shaky because of the writer’s giggling lips. 

“Sorry. Forgot.” 

“It’s alright.”

A poignant pause.

“What are you going to do for work now?”

With a sharp jolt, your heart drops to the deepest pit in your stomach, causing your whole body to lurch unpleasantly. You hadn’t thought of that. You can’t very well carry on being a waiter—that job tends to require some use of your ears. Your throat constricts. “I don’t know,” you intone helplessly. The wooden surface of your coffee table suddenly seems irresistible for your eyes. They dart back and forth, mindlessly tracing every minute groove and imperfection, just to give them something else to do—to avoid Bon Bon’s face. You wouldn’t be able to bear the sympathetic simper. 

You feel a gentle prodding on your shoulder. Reluctantly, you look up to meet Bon Bon’s gaze. Surprisingly, her expression is not of sympathy, or even empathy. She beams toothily, with wide, hopeful eyes. She points down at the notepad, where she had written down a new message:

“You could always work with me.” 

Bon Bon works as a candy maker in a small, out of the way shop on the outskirts of Ponyville. The front door lets off a consistent cloud of cinnamon- and cocoa-scented air with a radius of at least a hundred yards, hopelessly intoxicating all passersby. Before, even if you didn’t have a reason to see her, you would always make a point to visit, at least once a day, just for the smell. Despite the inconvenient location, business is good—Bon Bon’s chocolates are worth the walk. 

“Really?” you ask, hopeful, but also wary. “Wouldn’t that hurt your business?” 

Bon Bon is apparently growing tired of crafting elaborate sentences for you; her next response is a two-word question: “How so?”

“Well, I mean . . .” you cough uncomfortably. “I’d need to be paid, Bon Bon.” 

“Yeah. I thought of that. So?” 

“Can you spare the money?” 

“Of course.”

“Are you sure?”

Bon Bon pauses before replying. “Yes.” 

“What would I do?”

“This and that. Make chocolate, and such.” 

On an impulse, you stand. You lean forward and wrap a hoof around Bon Bon’s neck in a hug. She looks frightened at your sudden movement, but relaxes once she realizes that she isn’t being attacked. Daintily, awkwardly, she pats you on the back. 

After a moment, you withdraw. “Sorry,” you say sheepishly. 

In the commotion, the notepad had been knocked to the floor. Bon Bon stares at it disdainfully for a second, and decides against leaning over to pick it up. Instead, she looks you in the eye and smiles condolingly, as if to say, “It’s okay.” 

“Thanks.”

In response, Bon Bon shrugs noncommittally. Don’t worry about it. She reaches down to clamp the notepad in between her teeth. She sets it down gently on the coffee table and picks up the pen. “I should get going. Got to prepare the shop for a new employee.”

Excited, you stand. “Let’s go, then.”

Bon Bon places a hoof on your shoulder and forces you back down. She points at your chest, then at the ground. She stares piercingly, waiting for you to comprehend the makeshift sign language. 

“What?” you inquire. 

“You stay here. Take a day off,” Bon Bon writes. 

“What? No! I’m ready to work!” 

“Take. A. Day. Off.” 

You look up from the notepad to meet Bon Bon’s face. She stares intensely at you, leaving no margin for any counterargument. You swallow. “What are you going to do?” you ask. 

“Make some preparations. You keep yourself occupied for a while, OK?” 

“Fine.”

“Good. See you later.” 

The notepad falls to the table, Bon Bon’s pen resting neatly next to it. The mare’s messages reached down past halfway—you would quickly run out of paper if this was your only method of communication. 

The candy maker exits, shutting the door behind her. You imagine the snap of the latch closing, since imagination is the only way that you can experience sound now. 

Now, to find something to keep you entertained. 





You need somewhere to clear your thoughts. 

Preferably somewhere where any interruptions would be unlikely. Serenity and isolation is your wont, and you have just the place to accommodate both of those desires. Your canvas, on which you can craft whatever reality you put your mind to. 

Unicorns and earth ponies think that they understand peace. Symphonic Keys always used to go into that calming meditative state that always freaked you out—his eyes glowed bright white and everything in the room was blown about in a flurry. He said that it was relaxing, but to you, it always appeared that he came out more stressed than he was when he entered his . . . state. 

Pegasi don’t—can’t—rely on ritualized trances in order to relax. To think. To escape. 

Their territory is the wide open canopy of Celestia’s beautiful sky. An everlasting landscape of open blue space, with no one to share it with besides the birds. Alone with only their thoughts, and the wind whistling through their manes. Nothing has ever been so therapeutic, and simultaneously, exhilarating. The ground walkers aren’t familiar with this kind of absolute freedom—pegasi are governed by higher laws than any monarchy can enforce. 





You lazily drift upward, your wings beating in a steady rhythm, carrying you gradually closer and closer to that celestial body hanging in the sky. Normally, the wind would snap at your ears, making the only sound you hear the deafening cacophony of nature. The sheer force of the world beating down on you relentlessly. However, this part of the experience is now taken from you, completing the absolute serenity of the experience, but also leaving you with a melancholy feeling of emptiness. 

You reach cruising altitude and level out, only flapping occasionally to maintain your height. It doesn’t take much effort to come to a complete halt in midair. Angling your wings to catch an oncoming breeze, you allow it to spin you in a circle. The world quite literally revolves around you—clouds whip across your vision, and the sun twirls overhead. 

The world slows as your rotation peters out. The motion blur fades, and the land below regains its focus. Hills and buildings slide back into place. 

Your lungs heave. The altitude isn’t high enough for the oxygen to be sufficiently depleted as to make breath difficult, but you still find it hard to take in air. Exhilaration shoots adrenaline through your veins, appearing to slow down time and putting your body in overdrive. Several times per second, your heart throbs, vibrating your very being and pulsing blood throughout your system. 

The sky is spread out above you, a pale blue sheet that lasts on forever. 

The sun beats down, warming you to the core and rejuvenating your senses. Your wings begin to flap again, in earnest. They carry you vertically, climbing determinedly higher and higher. Your breath comes in short spurts, matching your wings beat for beat. You gain speed. Wind whips against your face, flattening your ears and mane against your head in a skin-tight helmet. Your eyes begin to water at the speed; tears detach from your face and instantly disappear into the sky. 

Your fur stands on end as the air starts to get colder. It isn’t uncomfortable by any means—pegasi are born with a natural resistance to coldness. It would have to be at least a hundred degrees below zero in order for one to start to feel a bit chilly, and it would have to go another two hundred below that to cause any serious damage. 

Above you, the sky darkens, showing a hint of the blackness of space above the atmosphere. Clenching your teeth, you pour more speed into your ascent. Your wing muscles begin to burn from exertion—your upward propulsion is hindered by the lack of air to gain purchase on, requiring you to redouble your efforts in order to stay in the sky. 

You draw in as much oxygen as possible and store it in a secluded sac in your lungs, a special evolutionary advantage granted only to pegasi. It allows them to conserve air for later, feeding off of their reserves for up to ten minutes at a time. You take another breath, but don’t exhale. Inside, you feel your lungs bulge. 

Ice forms on your extremities. Your wing tips are suddenly weighed down by solidified moisture, and your joints cry out in agony. 

Why am I doing this? you think to yourself. Did deafness give me a death wish?

Atmospheric pressure closes in around you, popping your ears and adding another item to your steadily-growing list of pains. Invisible force encloses you, constricting your chest and forcing your last breath out of your mouth. 

You force yourself upward.

The pain doubles, and, just as quickly, triples. Prismatic points of light whirl across your vision. Your thought processes all but shut down—you’re not sure where you are, who you are, or even if you are. Or why you’re in this situation, but you do know that you need to keep going. Why? Who cares? Who could possibly need a reason at this point?

Consciousness begins to leave you, and whatever intelligence you still hold on to breaks into panic. Your wings snap to your sides, frozen to the bone, but your velocity still carries you up. Sheer agony cries out from across your whole body, and you open your mouth in a silent scream; you’re not sure if any sound even left your mouth, but it felt necessary to release some of that pent-up force.

And suddenly, you feel nothing at all. 

No more pain, no more panic. A little cold and a little breathless, but otherwise okay. Your wings aren’t moving. And yet you’re still floating, bobbing gently along on . . . nothing. Your eyes creak open, gummed together by frozen tears. 

No air. You panic for a moment, opening your mouth desperately to try and draw in that precious oxygen. Just as quickly, your instincts clamp it shut once more, and begin to feed your starving brain the air from your reserves. Once you’ve calmed yourself, you look around.

Impenetrable blackness surrounds you, dotted by countless tiny pinpricks of light. Stars. Space. 

If you had been capable, you would have laughed gleefully. You had heard fairytales since you were a very young colt, about brave pegasus ponies who flew into space and back, returning with fantastic tales of planets and alien ponies. 

You turn in a sluggish circle. No aliens, unfortunately.

A childish grin breaks across your face, despite the lack of extraterrestrials. You’re in space.

And it’s really cold.

You look down. Or, what you perceive to be down, at any rate. Below you is a planet. Wide, green and blue, lasting on forever. Home. Somehow, you needed to get down there. Otherwise, you’ll either suffocate, or freeze to death. Maybe even both. You take a second to contemplate that—would it even be possible to die of both causes simultaneously? 

You angle yourself downwards, pointing your nose at the planet surface. At the same time, your wings crack open the thin layer of ice that had restricted them, and spread out to their full glory. Experimentally, you give them a weak flap. As a result, you pulse forward several yards, and continue to drift aimlessly in that direction. 

The muscles around your wings are still aching, but flying in space is a hell of a lot easier than having to deal with gravity. You begin to fly in earnest, gaining speed quickly, going faster than you would have thought possible. As a streamlined blur, you plunge back down to the planet surface. 

Red fills your vision. The cold is gone—the space surrounding you is now uncomfortably warm. A hot blanket envelops you, hindering your progress, but at the same time, egging you on. You take it gladly, gaining—if possible—more speed. 

And suddenly, you’re falling. 

And you can breathe again. 

Gravity latches on to you and pulls you down relentlessly. The air warms as you grow closer and closer to the ground—tiny civilizations start to appear. Ponyville had to be one of them, so now it’s just a matter of finding home again. You draw your wings close to your sides to maximize your speed of descent, ignoring the g-force tugging at your skin, threatening to tear it off. 

The ground is closer now; you can make out individual buildings and landmarks. 

The good news was that you were actually aimed for Ponyville. The bad news was that you seemed to have no intention of slowing down. 

The buildings grow larger. Closer and closer, until you can discern the individual strands on the thatched roofs. 

Without a second to spare, your wings snap out and lock; catching a vicious updraft that almost rips the appendages off. Instantly, you level out, careening over the Ponyville as a blueish streak. A mixture of tears and spittle flies off of you in all directions, creating a liquid funnel that follows in your wake, and likely dusts the ponies below. 

Just as quickly as you had entered Ponyville, you exit, crossing the town border at roughly four billion miles-per-hour, judging by your internal speedometer. 

In a weak attempt to put on the breaks, you force your aching wings to point outward, catching the air and slowing your progress marginally. The force of the passing air bends them backward most uncomfortably, but you sense that the effort wasn’t in vain.

Because of that action, you don’t break every bone in your body when you hit the tree. 

You spit out a bushel of leaves. Every inch of you is on fire, but it’s a good kind of fire. The fire that one gets after an adrenaline rush, allowing you to ignore the laceration of a botched reentry into atmosphere. Plus the hundreds of tiny twigs that now found purchase in your various fleshy areas, each bringing with it a tiny, stabbing irritation. And to top it off, you’re soaked with your own saliva. 

Despite your afflictions, you’re still grinning from ear to ear. 

You were just in space. Top that, Rainbow Dash. 







An hour later, after you had gone home and showered thoroughly, you found yourself at Bon Bon’s establishment, Royalty Chocolates. The familiar scent of chocolate and happiness incarnate permeated the air, instantly dulling your senses to a stupor; you wonder how Bon Bon could work here and still focus on her job. The mare in question was surprised, and a little annoyed, to see you. It had taken her but a moment to locate a pad and paper. 

“So, what have you been up to?” she writes. 

“Nothing much,” you reply, sliding into a booth. “Just gone to space and back. No biggie.” 

Bon Bon sits down across from you, setting down the pad and lowering her head to resume writing. She grins as she swivels the paper around for you to see. “That’s nice. Funny you should mention that.” 

“Yeah?” 

“About an hour ago, Rainbow Dash just made her maiden voyage into space, just over the Everfree.” 

“What?” You sit up straight, drooping eyes suddenly wide and alert. 

“She made her reentry with a Sonic Rainboom. It was really spectacular . . . you should have seen it. Everypony was there.” 

“What.” 

“Weren’t you wondering where everypony was? I mean, it’s not every day that you see a pony fly out into space. Where have you actually been?” 

You sigh, leaning back and closing your eyes. “Just went out for a walk. Nothing special.” 

Top that, Rainbow Dash.