Wittgenstein's Seamstress

by Blank_Slate


Day 3

I rarely sing, these days.
Once, many moons ago, I read a Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant script in Canterlot Castle Library. I read it out loud, and sang the carols myself. And then, once I had finished a page I would tear it from its binding and drop it into my fire.
I finished a few hundred-year-old songbooks in this way, also.
At the time I spent most of my days exploring that library, especially the magic section.
The Starswirl wing was a favorite of mine, because there were always a number of ancient scrolls that were ornately written and had illustrations in the margins.
In particular I read about Starswirl’s attempts to master transforming magic. He went into great detail about the intricacies of, say, changing one’s age with spells.
Of course, I couldn’t perform many of the spells I found there, even though for a time I dedicated myself to learning them.
Nonetheless I enjoyed reading about the magical feats that were performed, like how Starswirl and a group of other warlock discovered the portal to that place that Twilight went to, the place with the humans.
At least, I believe that they were called humans.
Twilight referred to them as such, though the term is written nowhere in these scrolls.
Actually, the scrolls which detail the portal are only interested in its external qualities, and do not mention anypony ever going through it, except when Starswirl banished three sirens there.
Unless, of course, I have not found the scrolls which do detail that place.
I wonder why Celestia herself would be so ignorant of such a place. I remember that even she knew nothing about it before Twilight went through.
Perhaps the ponies who tried to explore it never returned. The scrolls do describe the other world as a ‘harsh, unforgiving, barren place,’ and extremely dangerous for all ponies.
Of course, I ignored those warnings and went through the portal to see if there were any living creatures there.
Looking for anypony, anywhere at all. Any human, also, I suppose I should say.
Standing on my hindlegs became second nature to me. I remember Twilight telling us that she had trouble with walking, but I found I was as graceful as always.
Driving was another matter, however.
The extreme speeds of those cars frightened me very much at first. Eventually I learned to control them, but I still often ran off the road.
I found the other Rarity’s house one day.
By day I really mean day, by the way—the sun rises and sets and the seasons seemed to change on their own.
Anyway, I found Rarity’s house by looking it up in the Canterlot High student directory. Inside the house I found a number of dresses, finished and unfinished, that I thought were just darling.
Of course, because she was a fledgling fashionista, the dresses lacked technical proficiency. This was no pony with her own store, that’s for sure. Some of the stitching was clumsy, too. Clearly machine-stitched instead of hand-stitched.
Nonetheless, the designs showed serious talent. I was particularly impressed by a robot-looking jumpsuit ensemble.
When I came back to Equestria I tried to take some of those dresses with me, but when they went through the portal they metamorphosed into pony dresses. Though I still like them, I feel some of the appeal has been lost.
As a matter of fact I stayed in that world a long time.
Of course, one still prefers her own homeland and her own body.
Hereabouts everything is dusty and pollen is everywhere.
I used to wear clothing but generally now I wear nothing.
I keep a great amount of clothing stashed all over town, just in case I do want to wear something. I have my gala dress and the others’ gala dresses, for example, in a cupboard upstairs. I also have a number of simple dresses and hats.
But I rarely wear anything. Instead I either make clothes or destroy them in the fire.
Except when I travelled up north, of course, where it is still all frozen.
Similarly, when I went to the human world I wore clothes in the winter, washing them in local streams and hanging them up on strangers’ lines.
Now if I have to wash clothes I use the Apple family’s washtub. I hang the clothes to dry on the line I kept from my boutique.
Thinking about it, in the beginning I ransacked Sugarcube Corner for cakes and candy.
At first I felt so guilty taking them that I left bits on the counter. That was when I was still unsure whether everypony would come back or not.
I still am unsure, of course, but it seems more unlikely now.
The sweets quickly became stale and unappetizing. It was then that I started to live off cans of soup and long-life foodstuffs. I became better as time went on with gathering food from the environment, until I found that I could survive eating only from what grows.
Generally I do not cultivate crops, either, although I keep a small patch of rhubarb because I like to mix it with apples as a treat.
Apples, by the way, fall and rot in the overgrown orchards. It is a pleasant smell which wafts all throughout the homestead. I can smell it from here.
In the human world sometimes I slept outside. I missed the darkness and chilly night.
On the farm I sleep in the cellar. I’ve boarded up the windows on the outside and fixed blankets over the inside of the windowpanes so that it is pitch-black down there, and even a little cool.
There were many bottles of fruit punch down there, but I drank them all over time. Except for the punch that had spoiled.
Fortunately the spiced punch was all okay.
I left the human world around the time winter began.
Not because it was too cold for me (my human body didn’t have much hair, but I wore sweaters and long pants to keep warm.)
Rather I had wanted to return to Equestria.
On a billboard in Manehattan there is a painting of Sapphire Shores singing in the city’s amphitheater, as part of an advertising campaign for a concert.
I suspect I have said that poorly.
Meaning that Sapphire Shores is not singing in the amphitheater, but on a stage on the painting.
Actually, she is singing nowhere, as far as I know. Here is the imprecision of our language.
I know a great deal about her outfits, having designed several of them myself.
I know a great deal about fashion, just as I suppose she must surely have known a great deal about music.
It was an ordeal then to find enough gems for her costumes. Now, of course, I find gems all the time.
In fact, once I took a cart full of gems and set off to the west, dropping gems and stamping them into the ground to mark my path when I entered an area I didn’t know.
I stayed away from the dark forests whenever possible.
Conversely, now that I am in Ponyville I often visit the Everfree Forest and its castle.
Of course, there is no danger of falling prey to a timberwolf now.
The tree of harmony remains alive, I think, but it looks changed from when things were normal.
Of course, when I say normal I mean normal for the time, rather than for now.
I once tried to find that magical pool that Pinkie Pie used to clone herself that one time.
Pinkie mentioned that her grandmother had taught her a rhyme that would show its reciter the way to the pool.
Twilight had refrained from writing it down, to the best of my knowledge. The six of us agreed that the pool should stay hidden.
We made Pinkie Pie Pinkie swear to never go there or reveal the rhyme again, if I remember correctly.
The way she stuck her hoof in her eye that time seemed to me to very solemn, as if she had to stop seeing a good friend.
Ultimately I never found the pool.
Perhaps that is for the best.
When I was back in Appleloosa, I could not rid myself of the habit of turning over my shoes before I put them on, in case there was an icky scorpion in them.
This was when I wore shoes while travelling, which I sometimes did and sometimes didn’t.
Old habits die hard, I suppose. Until my boutique burned down I locked the front door every time I went out.
When I lived in my penthouse in Manehattan I found a magical projector and some film reels, which I watched over and over. I enjoyed the films, but eventually I went back to reading, and since then I have not bothered to watch any more.
Plus, the projector in Ponyville’s movie theater is broken.
Here, at least, there is always the sound of wind rustling the trees.
And, right at this moment, a pennant from the Equestria Games that I planted outside the front door, which is flapping into the doorway in the wind.
Sometimes I see an apple falling from a branch, and watch as it hits the ground.
In the evening I wind my clock to ensure that I am still on time.
Not that I am following a schedule. I realize now how important it is to keep track of time.
So much so that I went and found a number of other timepieces.
In Manehattan I had many more watches, but on leaving that city I tossed them all in East River.
This was some time before I rolled the tennis balls down Canterlot Castle’s stairs, by the way.
I am positive that it was also before I saw Opalescence, which was likewise in Manehattan.
When I say I saw Opalescence I mean that I believed I saw her, naturally.