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// Day 4 
// Story: Wittgenstein's Seamstress 
// by Blank_Slate 
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	Where I believed I saw Opalescence was in Manehattan, in the Bridleway theater district.
I was in front of the theater that had been playing Hinny of the Hills, in fact.
I thought I had seen her out of the corner of my eye down an alleyway beside the theater, quite a distance away.
And so I went off and found canned cat food in a local store, along with a squeaky mouse toy I took from a pet store.
All the rest of the week I opened cans of food down those back streets, and squeaked the toy as loud as I could.
As many cans as there must have been changelings during the attack on Canterlot, practically.
Though of course the cans seemed already to be not quite full, meaning that I couldn’t really tell if Opal had eaten any of the food. Nonetheless I checked them all every day.
Perhaps it was quite mad of me to believe that my cat had somehow come to Manehattan, and that she would run and hide from me.
Even so, I would squeak the toy and call her.
Here, Opal, I would call.
Doubtless all those cans are still there now. Rains may have washed all the food away, though.
Doubtless I had imagined Opalescence.
Doubtless there was no owl either.
It is the owl which brought me into the Everfree Forest.
Flying through the tree branches, little more than a speck in the distance.
I will be truthful. When I was in Manehattan I was undeniably mad. And so I thought I saw Opal.
Here, when I thought I saw the owl, I was not mad. So I knew I had not seen the owl.
Still, I prefer to believe that I had seen it.
By the way, Hinny of the Hills was one of the songbooks which I burned in my fire in Canterlot after singing through it.
I never knew how old that play is—the songbook was practically an antique. It was on Bridleway when Granny Smith was a young mare.
I have just gone to take in the washing.
I am extra careful about quickly bringing the clothes in after they have dried.
Nonetheless, I forget about them sometimes and they fade. I have many faded dresses now.
Was it really some other pony I was looking for, when I did all that looking, or was it that I couldn’t abide being alone? I hate being all alone. 
I wonder why I never tried to make cider from zap apples.
Once, I had a dream of being a famous designer.
Generally, I was never lonely because of my best friends.
Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Twilight, Fluttershy. And of course Spikey-wikey.
In the human world one time I drove a car into a lake, near a magnificent sprawling park, which was of course also overgrown with weeds.
Instead of watching the road I had been watching the water, doubtless.
The car began to fill with water. Interestingly, I was not frightened in the least then. Maybe it was because I had not been significantly injured.
Afterwards, however, the experience frightened me rather a lot.
Now and again other places burn down. Not because of action on my part, but as a natural occurrence.
For example, the Ponyville bowling alley.
I did not see it burn down, but I noticed its charred remains and the ash-covered bowling balls.
At least Twilight’s Palace won’t burn down, being made of crystal.
At least, I think it won’t burn down. Then again, magic is tricky like that. Maybe rainbow crystal does burn. Perhaps one day it’ll burst in flames like Philomena, Celestia’s phoenix.
I hope not. After all, that is the new library in Ponyville. It would be difficult to go to Canterlot and cart books back.
Of course, I have a number of books in the next room. 
Apart from the Apple family’s books on agriculture and cooking, I have added Understanding Medieval Equestria, Modern Spell Casting, and The Life of Starswirl the Bearded (that one is in two volumes), among many others.
I have also kept all of our letters to Celestia, which I keep in an Equestrian Mail sack.
Frankly that room is as messy as the dried-up pigsty out back. I tend to use the floor as one big shelf, rather than stacking the books neatly. Forgive, me, Twilight. I can see her shocked expression now.
At the Ponyville marketplace I saw somepony at a window, lurking.
There was nopony at the window, which was a window in Davenports, the quill and sofa ponies.
Somepony had placed a shiny sign in the window, and I had seen my reflection in it.
Still, I nearly jumped out of my socks (tartan in green and white, rather fetching) to think that there was another pony. After all that looking.
I broke into the store and took down the sign. Well, I needed quills anyway, and this time they were actually in stock.
A similar thing happened in Manehattan, which has a great number of reflective surfaces.
Though as a matter of fact where I saw my reflection could have been in the human world.
In any case, it was in the window of a store.
When I returned home I had taken all the quills and snapped them, except for one quill which I tried to draw with, sketching dress designs into a notebook.
The designs grew increasingly abstract, though, and eventually I put the notebooks in Big Mac’s desk draw, and I haven’t endeavored to get it out again.
I am not using the quill to write this. 
Instead, I write on a binary typewriter, just like A. K. Yearling.
I wonder if she was working on a new novel when this awful business began.
I suppose if I ever go back to the north-west I’ll drop in on her house and steal any manuscripts I find.
Not that I particularly enjoyed those Daring Do books. Nonetheless I would still be interested in reading a new adventure.
To be honest, I did enjoy those novels. I brought the set back from Canterlot when I returned.
Maybe I too am an egghead, as Rainbow Dash would say. Why did I say a moment ago that I was not a fan? Come to think of it, I’m not sure.
When I broke into the Canterlot bookstore I was first struck by the sheer number of books I didn’t recognize, which was a little sad.
But I found a section on fashion and artwork, and the Daring Do books.
I brought those back to the palace, and more specifically my suite, to read them.
Those adventure serials were a welcome break from ancient manuscripts.
This afternoon I put on a frock and went out to the hills, where I sat for a long time.
Doing nothing in particular, just mesmerized by the forest rippling in the breeze.
It was the first time in at least two moons that I’ve worn a dress.
I found my typewriter in Ponyville City Hall. I had picked it up off the desk of Mayor Mare’s assistant.
The frozen north stretches away as far as the eye can see from outside the Crystal Empire. In a way it looks like a plain canvas or a sheet of sketching paper that I could draw on.
Of course, that is a silly thought.
When I returned to Sweet Apple Acres I took the dress off and placed it carefully back in Applejack’s wardrobe.
True to form, Applejack’s wardrobe was almost empty when I looked through it.
Just some hats, boots, and her gala dress. All of which were dirty, I might add.
In the beginning I was hesitant to snoop through my friend’s possessions. At first I stayed out of the bedrooms, keeping the doors shut.
However, my curiosity was insatiable after a time, and I pored over everybody’s possessions.
Granny Smith’s possessions were particularly interesting, containing a number of maps of Ponyville from settler pony times, along with various other curiosities.
Was I wallowing, when I went up in the hills?
Is that why I wore a dress? Because I have always thought it essential to wallow with style?
Of course, it would not do to wallow without style.
Not that I have been particularly stylish recently.
The last stylish thing I have come into possession of was an antique chess set that I took from the bedroom of ‘Fishy’ Bob, the former Equestrian chess champion who had retired in Ponyville. I remember him playing chess in the park almost every morning.
I played him once, actually, as white. He checkmated me smoothly and without losing any pieces.
When I found the set I noticed one pawn had disappeared, permanently lost.
While I had been researching magic in the Canterlot Archives, I also tried to find some way of enhancing my magical ability.
I thought that if that travelling trickster Trixie had made herself more powerful than Twilight with the help of some amulet then surely there were other ways to enhance my powers.
Of course, I realized that the magical-enhancement items generally turned the user evil, as in the time Spike gave me a spell book from the abandoned castle library.
And so I stopped looking.
In any case I never found anyplace that had magic-enhancement charms.
The only thing that came close was a brand of energy drink in the food mart of Canterlot University, which boasted the ability to ‘give your magic a kick for those end-term exams.’
Judging by the emetic effect of the one I drank, they had already expired.