//------------------------------// // 1 - Only the Lonely // Story: Gilded Lily // by Cosmic Cowboy //------------------------------// Lily smiled sadly as she slowly closed the book she had been reading, as if closing a coffin lid over the face of a dear friend. Though the pressure of welling tears threatened her eyes, there was warmth to her smile. I can’t believe it’s finally over, she thought to herself. That was beautiful. I’m almost crying! Still… I almost feel like I was expecting… more from the ending. She snorted and her smile became one of amusement as she lightly berated herself for being unreasonable with her favorite author. Without any further ceremony, Lily plopped the book down on the end table next to her couch, beside the lamp and her favorite beaten bookmark. She flopped back against the cushions and let her eyes wander around her living room, beaming in the warm afterglow that comes from finishing the last book in a very good series. Hmm, I should really dust that bookshelf. Her eyes caught on the clock suspended on the clouds that made up her walls. “Oh, good!” It’s almost time for the mail! I hope I got some good questions. The deadline’s in two days. In Lily’s experience, the time of Ditzy’s arrival could range anywhere within about an hour and a half of four in the afternoon, but after years of observation, she noticed a pattern that seemed to depend on the day of the month, the weather, whether or not there was something interesting to look at on the way to Lily’s cloud house, and according to the mailmare herself, the previous day’s hours at the local bakery. Today, being the nineteenth of September and mildly cloudy, she could narrow the arrival time to within half an hour. She didn’t really care to investigate the other factors, but she lost nothing from waiting an extra thirty minutes. With no letters to answer, and now out of books to plant her nose in, she wasn’t wanting for free time. She took the opportunity to dust the non-cloud furniture in her living room. Apparently the bakery had closed earlier than usual yesterday, because a familiar erratic, almost frantic clopping sounded from her front doorway just as she was moving to her second shelf. Lily paused suddenly as she landed gently on her living room floor, and gave a sigh as she realized what she was in for and braced herself for it. Just like every other day, though the reaction always seemed to catch her off-guard when Ditzy Doo came to the door. Her pondering on her own distractedness distracted her from what awaited her once again, but when she pulled back the clouds of her door and found those eyes staring (mostly) into her face, it hit her with even more force than before. “Hey, Miss Lily! I’ve got a whole stack of letters here for you!” Ditzy hadn’t bothered to land on the porch, and was still hovering with a slow, heavy beat of her wings as she twisted around and began rummaging through her threadbare satchel for Lily’s mail. Lily felt a familiar, weary frustration build as she watched the mailmare struggle. She recovered from her initial shock and began the process of re-bracing herself to speak with Ditzy. Then he thought occurred to her just how convenient it was that Ditzy always delivered her mail directly to her door instead of just dropping it off in a mailbox like her predecessor did, and a rush of gratitude for the klutzy pegasus made her smile, even though talking with her was always a pain. Of course, Lily didn’t own a mailbox anymore, now that she didn’t have a house on the ground to have one. Stupid parasprites. She was startled once again from her thoughts as Ditzy suddenly hefted an impressively sized mess of envelopes at her face. “Here you go! You sure do get lots of mail, Miss Lily. Your delivery was so heavy today it slowed me down by at least a minute!” Lily was forced to hover as well so she could use both front hooves to carry the massive number of letters she had received. She looked up to the mailmare in confusion. “Ditzy, this is the earliest you’ve come all month. How early did the bakery close last night?” Ditzy had made no move to leave, or seemingly to do anything, as per usual. Her face showed no expression beyond what might be called mild perpetual wonder as she replied: “Oh, Sugarcube Corner was closed all day yesterday.” “Is that why you didn’t show up yesterday?” Lily waited expectantly as she set down her mail on a bench in her entryway, but Ditzy just hovered there blankly. Deciding the strange pegasus must not have heard her question, Lily gave up and tried another train of thought. “Why was the shop closed?” “I don’t know.” Ditzy answered right away this time and assumed a pose of deep thought, leaning back with hind legs crossed and propping a hoof to her chin, a bemused look ousting the usual blank stare. “Mister Cake said something about his wife and Pinkie Pie and a giant Cock-a-roach. I think he was talking about a dream he had.” “A Cock-a-what?” Lily blanched.  “...Do you mean a Cockatrice?” It was clear the moment had passed. Ditzy returned to her neutral, pedantic hovering. “Hey Miss Lily, did you see all the new statues around town yesterday? It’s great the Mayor’s pretty-ing the place up, but I’m glad they’re gone now. They were kinda creepy.” “Oh my gosh! Is everypony okay? Is the Cockatrice gone?” Blank, off-center stare again. Lily’s eyes blazed and her muscles seized in frustration, then she took a moment to collect herself. If Ditzy Doo was delivering mail like nothing was wrong, then there probably wasn’t anything wrong. That new princess in the big treehouse castle across town must have taken care of things. No need to panic. Another semi-awkward pause. “Well, goodbye, Ditzy Doo.” “Bye, Miss Lily!” As always, Ditzy about-faced as if she had been waiting for a dismissal and flapped back over the hill in the direction of town. When she was out of sight, Lily relaxed and turned back inside, pulling the cloudy door closed behind her. After finishing the dusting (and a number of other small chores she suddenly found need for, and then dinner), Lily decided she couldn’t afford to put off her work any longer, and took her mail up to her bedroom, where she sat down with a cup of tea and began to read the first letter: Dear Aurea Lillium,         I guess there’s no way around it so I’ll just say it: I think my husband may have been replaced by a changeling. Lily sighed and rubbed her face, rolling her eyes. This would be a fun evening, she could tell. As she blew out the lamp and got into bed that night, just like every other night before for the past decade or so, Lily found her thoughts dwelling on the problems that dozens of strangers had sent for her to solve. She had followed her own advice that she gave to one of last week’s readers who had asked about insomnia, and made a list out of all the thoughts that were keeping her awake, so she could put her mind at ease and get some sleep. It hadn’t helped. She tossed under her covers and snorted, wondering if her advice was really worth anything, or if it just kept people reading her column. She supposed it didn’t really matter. She hardly ever got letters from the same reader twice, and only a couple of those had ever had anything negative to say about her advice, but positive responses were equally rare. The fact was she didn’t get much feedback at all, so she couldn’t be sure how her readers really felt about her column. For all she knew, ponies who liked the answers they got were the rare ones, and no one else bothered to spread the word about her terrible advice. But that was fine with her, as long as it didn’t threaten her job with the Express. Lily giggled to herself as a funny thought struck her. What if the only ones who read my column are old mares who like to gossip about which one of them sent in which problem? Everypony knows everypony in this town. Heh, it’s probably what I would do if someone else was writing this blasted advice column instead of me. She blinked, wondering. Indulging her curiosity a bit, she sat up in bed and looked across the darkened room toward the desk where the letters sat. Maybe I should check. How many little old mares can there be in Ponyville? Figuring that she probably wasn’t going to fall asleep anytime soon, Lily gave in and tossed the comforter aside, then walked over to the still-considerable stack of letters she hadn’t read yet. She flipped through them, looking at the return addresses. Most were marked with passably witty pen names, but occasionally one would bear a name that was likely real. It was hard to tell, with some of these ponies’ names. She found it funny that these readers casually trusting her with their identities (not that she had reason to betray that trust, of course) were more amusing to her than the ones that were clearly meant to be jokes. Lily scrunched her face in the darkness. Thinking about that was hard this late at night. She wanted to go back to bed, but she was almost through checking the return addresses, and she was too tired to bother doing anything but what she was already doing. She was busy marveling at how only a moment ago she could feel like sleep was miles away and suddenly be so very sleepy now, when she realized she had been staring at one envelope for a full minute. She blinked slowly at the envelope for a moment, wondering what was different about it that had caught her subconscious attention. Nearly-Desperate Mother, 53 Pastern, Whitetail, Canterlot Val… Whitetail? Someone wrote a letter to her from somewhere other than Ponyville? Thoughts of sleep were banished by sudden curiosity, so Lily sat down at her desk, lit a candle, and opened the letter. Dear Aurea Lillium:         My cousin in Ponyville showed me your column, and I would like your advice on a problem of mine. For almost two years now, my son has been the only “blank flank” in his class, and I’m afraid that I’m starting to see signs of major depression in him. He used to spend all of his time obsessing over finding his special talent, but recently his efforts seem half-hearted. I’ve always assured him he was going about it the wrong way and that it would eventually find itself, but his new attitude worries me greatly. I never thought I would say this, but I wish he would go back to his pointless experimenting, just so he would be hopeful and happy again.         I’m not sure what to do. I’ve always held back from helping him directly with his problem, believing and being told that it’s for the best that he makes his own way without interference. It’s been hard sometimes, since I (as well as everypony else who knows him well) think I have a pretty good idea what his talent is going to be. But he counts it out because he feels like he’s already “tried” it, and I’ve never been able to convince him that it takes more than one experience with an activity to know something like that for sure. I think, deep down, he’s known for a long time that his efforts were effectively pointless, but told himself they were helping so he wouldn’t have to face his frustration head-on. But now it looks like that’s worn out. My biggest worry is that this is my fault, that he’s lost hope because he finally heeded my nagging.         I can’t be sure what’s going on with him, being one of the first in my class to find my Cutie Mark, so I don’t know how to help him. What should I do? Should I encourage him to keep trying? Deny or somehow discredit what I said before? Should I just tell him what his talent is, or try to force him into a situation so he finds it? I’m lost. --Nearly-Desperate Mother Lily frowned at the open letter on her desk for a moment, then pulled over her typewriter. She only had one more day to work before her deadline for the week, so she had only replied to the two best letters she had read thus far and saved the rest for tomorrow. This one was the most promising of all so far, and she just knew that she wouldn’t be able to sleep leaving it unanswered. As Lily finally went back to bed after writing her response to “Nearly-Desperate Mother”, to her immense frustration she found that sleep still eluded her. She tried following another piece of insomnia advice she had once given, and ran through what was bothering her in her mind, from top to bottom. She had never gotten a letter quite like this one before. She had felt very qualified to answer this one in particular, what with her own experience with Cutie-Mark hunting. But on further reflection, she realized that the advice she had decided on couldn’t be qualified from her own experience. It never did, now that she thought more about it. From years of writing her column, Lily had learned to detach herself from the problems she worked with. If she tried to answer them honestly, from her own experience and serious judgment, she would be at a loss to even say anything. After all, what special qualifications did middle-aged recluse Lily have to solve these people’s problems? So she had developed a habit of coming up with an answer to a problem from her imagination alone, and she became almost a different mare when she wrote. If she really was “Aurea Lillium” instead of plain old Lily, she wouldn’t have assumed that everypony was safe when Ditzy delivered the news about the Cockatrice; she would have talked Ditzy into giving a more complete answer, then gone into town to make sure everything was alright. And if the mare from Whitetail with the troubled son had come to her door to ask Lily for advice, she would likely not have had an answer for her at all. She had no reason to think there was anything wrong with the answer she had written for the mare, but this problem and her answer in particular still didn’t sit well with her. She chalked it up to being too close to home, and gave up trying to figure it out. Sleep still didn’t come. She hoped that stallion with the insomnia problem was getting better results from her advice than she was.