Seashell
X
From the journal of Sunburst, September 11, 1329 YS:
When my section is on the midnight shift, trying to sleep during the day is an interesting, and sometimes challenging, pursuit. Getting rest in the daylight hours was tough at first, but I've gotten more used to falling asleep with the sun in the sky and waking up after it sets. A good set of thick black curtains on my bedroom window also helps a lot with that.
Still, though, no matter how dark I can make it, the psychology of just knowing by the clock it's day and not night makes the experience of sleeping (or trying to) different. I toss and turn more. My brain wants to be awake, so it resists shutting down into a less active state. That may be why the dreams during those daylight hours are more intense and more real feeling than the dreams that come at night. They're not as fanciful or imaginative, but in some ways they're still no less bizarre and the impact is often stronger.
I dreamt yesterday that I was back at the Seawall.
It was everything I remember. It was more. There was more beach, the wall was longer, so long it seemed endless. The fields of scrubland, with sandy soil and short stunted grasses and spiky ground-clinging shrubs, stretched out forever.
It was so empty, so completely empty and alone, under the overcast sky of rolling steel grey clouds.
I was so happy there. I've missed it so much more than I even realized.
This seemed like heaven at first. I flew to the beach and landed, and just walked and enjoyed the feeling of sand under my hooves. I looked back over my shoulder now and then to see the trail of hoofprints stretching away behind myself.
After a while, I reached a rosebush, growing along the wall. They were white roses. I went closer to them to investigate. I felt unsettled and apprehensive. Roses shouldn't be growing here.
Then again, Captain Dash shouldn't have been there, either, yet she was. Actually... Actually, I think it was just Rainbow Dash, not Captain Dash. She wasn't wearing any armor or any of her on-duty equipment. She was completely naked, a state I rarely ever see her in. It made her seem so exposed, down-to-earth and vulnerable. A chain came from in the rose bush, somewhere in the middle of the wickedly thorny snarl of thick stems. It was attached to an iron collar clasped around her neck, which was locked, keeping her leashed here near the white roses. She sat with her back turned to them, trying not to look. Her eyes were closed and she was hanging her head. She looked sadder than any pony I've ever seen.
I walked up to her. "You don't belong here," I said. I couldn't think of anything else.
"Can't get away. I've been trying for years. I just can't." She looked at me, briefly opening her eyes. They had more pain in them than I've ever seen. It hurt me to see her suffer so. I wanted to hug her and tell her it would be alright, and let her cry on my shoulder however long she needed to.
I couldn't. All I could do was watch in silence while she suffered. I felt intensely upset about that.
That was too much to stand and I couldn't stay there, so I had to move on. I started walking again.
Soon I came to another bush, red roses this time. Princess Twilight was there. Like Rainbow Dash, I think she was just Twilight Sparkle now. She wasn't wearing any of her regalia - once again she was totally naked, and once again, an iron collar locked around her neck was attached to a chain. The chain led away from this bush instead of into it, disappearing into the sandy soil a short distance away. It kept her just a little out of reach of those beautiful deep crimson flowers. She stared at them with more longing than I've ever seen.
I was suddenly reminded of Morning Mist, the unicorn I'd been posted here with, when I'd seen her staring off into the ocean, hoping to see something there. Except... Except there was no hope in Twilight's longing, only sorrow.
"Princess..." I approached her hesitantly. She looked at me and I kneeled in front of her.
"No need for that here." She shook her head and turned her stare back to the roses. "No point. I'm the one who doesn't belong here. This place is yours. I should be the one bowing to you instead."
I walked up to the bush. I wanted to pluck one of those roses and bring it to her, so that she could finally have what she wanted so much. The importance of it seemed paramount. I knew suddenly that if I could just get one of these flowers to her, it would break the lock on her neck and she'd be free. Then she could take another one back to Rainbow Dash, and it would break her free, too.
They would be free and they could leave together.
I opened my mouth to bite off one of the stems. I hesitated. The thorns seemed so huge. They were everywhere, more and more dense the longer I looked. I tried to find a spot where I could work around them, but there was nothing. I had visions of those thorns piercing my tongue, scratching me in the face, getting in my coat and ripping at my skin and me getting more and more entangled in them like some kind of hellish living barbed wire.
I panicked and backed up a few steps from the bush.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"It's alright," Twilight said sadly. "It's just something I can't have. That's not your fault."
"I'm sorry!" I said again. I ran away. I ran and ran, down the beach, down the endless sand and scrubland, along that endless wall, but no matter how far I ran I couldn't escape the feeling that Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle were still nearby, out there with me in a place where they don't belong.
I woke up after that.
I cried with tears of frustration and shame because I can't do anything. I can't help them. I'm a coward, and I can't do anything.
For a long time, I laid in my bed wide awake and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Every detail has run through my head a million times. I'm sick of it by now, but it won't leave me.
It nearly ate me alive from the inside out over the midnight shift I had to work. I thought about it for hours, patrolling the palace hallways in the dark. At least I was alone. Trying to pretend everything was fine in front of another pony would have been impossible.
What I realize is that solitude is a wall. When a pony hits that wall, and finds they're on the far side of it, they find one of two things. Some ponies find complete freedom. Some find a cage, made of open space instead of bars.
It's the worst thing in the world, watching the wrong ponies end up here at this wall. Captain Dash and Princess Twilight and myself all have in common that we've given our lives to service. We all volunteered for duty on the wall, each in our own ways - the different ways in which we serve Equestria. But those two are not like me. Those two... I hurt just watching them.
I'm watching their hearts crying for each other, so distant when they're so close every day. That kills me a little bit every time I see more of it. The princess and the captain are going through life alone, while the pony that they love is right here next to them. Princess Twilight lives and works every day in a palace she cares nothing for because all it is to her is empty lonely space. Captain Dash waits forever, haunted by ghosts from her past and serving in silence because she can't have the pony she loves, but she can't leave her, either. They haven't done anything to deserve to suffer, they're just... On the wrong side of a wall.
I want to tell them they don't have to be here. Sometimes I think I'll be driven crazy by it. I want to go to one of them, either one would do, and grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. I want to shout it right in her face - how can you be so blind? Don't you see that you hold the heart of an amazing, smart, beautiful mare in your hooves, and it could be yours if you would just say something? If you would just talk to her and confess it? In fact, scratch that, you wouldn't even have to talk, just gaze into her eyes and kiss her the next time to two of you are alone together. She would kiss you back. As sure as I know anything, I know she would kiss you back.
I want to tell them the painfully obvious, that all it would take is one spark, but somepony has to start it. Somepony has to start it, otherwise that fire that could be the greatest warmth will always just be cold kindling waiting but never coming to life. It will never become what it should.
I don't know how much longer I can take it.
I'll hold out as long as I have to, I suppose.
In a strange way it reminds me how lucky I am. I find joy in being alone and have no suffering to do for myself, leaving me with the luxury of suffering for them instead.
That seems silly and narcissistic, I know, but they're good ponies. They deserve better. After all they've given to Equestria, wouldn't it be more than fair for them to just be able to be happy together?
It frustrates me to no end. Why can't they?
There's nothing more to be said about it for today.