//------------------------------// // A Magical Meeting and a Difficult Decision // Story: All in a Day's Work // by psychicscubadiver //------------------------------// All in a Day’s Work Author: psychicscubadiver Editor: Silentcarto Proofreader: Coandco Disclaimer: My Little Pony and all related characters are owned by Hasbro. I am not Hasbro. Chapter 4: A Magical Meeting and a Difficult Decision Wilfred Xavier Manning didn’t know why he was angry. Such a discrepancy between his emotional and rational responses was rather disturbing, especially a reaction as powerful as that which he felt now. He had stormed out of Miss Rarity’s shop without even waiting for Shy to give him his heading for their next destination. He finally slowed as he realized that he had no idea where he was going. “You don’t want to be friends?” Pinkie asked quietly, suddenly appearing at his right. Stress and surprise can wear down even the best of men, and Wilfred was no exception to that rule. He fairly yelped upon realizing that Pinkie had gained such a drop on him. Applejack could be seen hurrying towards them in the distance, but the baker had evidently caught up much more quickly. “Pardon?” he said, knowing he hadn’t caught what she’d said. Pinkie frowned, and there was nothing playful or exaggerated about the gesture. She simply looked like a person on the precipice of losing something they held dear. “Did you run away because you didn’t want to be our friend?” “I… I…” Wilfred stammered. He didn’t know why he had fled. Something within him had demanded it. “Such a circumstance would not be unwelcome. My sudden exodus had nothing to do with your offer.” Jack cleared her throat behind behind, and Wilfred turned to see her scowling. He stared back, confused. She held his eye a moment longer, then shrugged and looked back as the rest of the group closed the gap. “Now, really,” Rarity said, her skirts bunched in her hands as she hurried in a manner quite unlike her earlier grace. “It is the utmost rudeness to rush off without a lady. I couldn’t leave without closing my shop.” “My apologies,” Wilfred said. “I don’t know what came over me.” “That’s okay,” Shy told him, carefully taking his hand in her own. A shiver ran through him at the contact, and he very nearly jerked his hand back on reflex. One look at her gentle expression silenced any protest he might have made. She gently stroked his hand, as though he were a spooked horse in need of calming. “Sometimes I get startled and run away from things that nobody else thinks are scary, too. But when you have friends with you, there isn’t anything to be afraid of.” Except that there was. Wilfred felt the tugging temptation to leave them and continue running. To return to his safe, sensible job before they… Before they what? Wilfred Xavier Manning drew himself to his full height. He was a man, by damn. Not some child ready to flee because of an imagined bogeyman. With his usual good sense, he banished the fears and temptation to the back of his mind. He had an errand to finish. Then – and only then – could he return to his proper employment. “Thank you,” Wilfred said. “Now, where is it that we will find the last of your friends?” “You mean we’re finally ready to get moving again?” Dash asked, swooping out of the sky. “Yeah, Princess Egghead lives in the town library.” Princess? Could some member of the Royal Family have been stricken with the condition? It seemed far more likely that Dash was simply showing his usual lack of decorum. Wilfred scowled. Someone should teach the young man the proper respect for Royalty. Still, that would be a discussion for another day. If ever. For now Wilfred was willing to settle for some directions. “And where shall we find the library?” Dash snickered. “Follow me. You can’t miss it.” With that he soared ahead, doing lazy loop-the-loops that looked as though they should have been impossible. Nevertheless, Wilfred had his direction, and he followed the boy. He suddenly realized that at some point in his brief discussion with Dash that Shy had let go of his hand. The absence bothered him for a moment, but then the realization that he was upset over such a trivial thing bothered him even more. There were only a few people on the streets at this point, all of them ignoring him in an almost studious manner. Did they not realize he was from outside their bizarre little community? Or was some quiet fear driving them indoors even as they showed no outward sign of it? Either way, he had little leisure to ponder it. This time the girls kept him engaged in their conversation while Dash swooped and flew ahead. There was an undercurrent of concern evident the attention they paid to him. He replied sparingly but was not so rude as to simply spurn their attempts at discussion. The small talk continued for some few minutes until they stopped in front of a large tree. “We’re here!” Pinkie announced. Wilfred blinked in confusion. He glanced around, then with a sudden shock examined the tree more closely. It was much larger than it had first seemed: not so much in height as in girth. There were a variety of windows scattered amongst the upper branches, and even one small balcony with a telescope aimed at the heavens. A few more windows peered out of the trunk at ground level, but Wilfred’s attention was held by the small, cozy-looking door set flush with the bark of the massive trunk. Supposedly, there were savages and wild men who lived in huts built among the treetops in the distant jungles of the world, but Wilfred had never heard of a house being built into a tree. One had to wonder not only at the impressive size of the bole, but at the skill of the workers who had made it into a library without killing the tree. Assuming, of course, that the thick green foliage was proof of its continued growth. Jack marched up to the door, delivered a pair of swift knocks and opened it. Wilfred frowned, evidencing his disapproval. “You don’t wait for an answer?” Jack snorted. “It’s a public library. The knocks are just to let ‘em know somebody’s here.” “I’ll be down in a minute!” a female voice called from deeper with the library. Conceding the point, Wilfred entered. He breathed in deeply, and the smell of careworn books, old wood, and fresh ink almost overwhelmed his tired senses.. He was in a cozy room lined with shelves upon shelves of thick, heavy tomes. Save for a few decorations, everything seemed to have been carved out of the tree before being rounded, smoothed and polished. His ears caught the faint scritching of a pen at work. He let out his breath as a contented sigh. Tension leaked from him. It was almost like being back at work. “Sorry I kept you waiting,” said the female voice, presumably the librarian. Wilfred turned to face her and found himself working to keep from staring. It was not her beauty or dress, though she was both rather pretty and well attired, that caught his eye. Nor was it her height, though she was taller than everyone else in the room, including himself. She had wings which, even folded, looked wider and more powerful than any he had seen that day. They were a rich royal purple that perfectly matched the large amethyst jutting from her forehead like the horn of the mythical unicorn. Her dress was elegant yet practical, and its deep purple color seemed chosen to match her wings. She radiated power in a way that Wilfred could not begin to explain, and for the first time in his life he had no doubt of the divine right of kings. He quickly fell to one knee, bowing his head and trying desperately to remember the protocol for greeting Royalty. “Good day, Your Highness. I humbly beg that you excuse any imposition I have made upon your time.” “No, no. I-it’s all right, honestly. Just call me Twilight, please,” the Princess replied. Wilfred dared to glance up and saw her red-faced, flustered expression. “I was finishing a letter when you came in.” There was a moment of awkward silence as she waited for something that was evidently not forthcoming. A sliver of ice slid through Wilfred’s digestion. What rule or etiquette had he missed? He merely hoped she would be merciful. “Um, you can stop kneeling now,” the Princess said, still flushed. Wilfred complied hastily with her command, and presented the final invitation to her with a flourish. Dash stifled a chuckle somewhere in the background, but Wilfred did not let that deter him in the slightest. His duty was nearly fulfilled, and he would not disgrace his employer in front of such an important personage. At last certain aspects of this village were beginning to make sense. It was hidden from public knowledge so that the fickle, superstitious public could not cast aspersions against the Royal Family merely because one of their daughters had been stricken with such an unfortunate condition. Miss Rarity likely made her the bulk of her living by filling the Princess’s wardrobe. Even the indifference of the townsfolk made sense; they must be used to people without their condition visiting the Princess. True, there were still certain aspects that remained unknown, but they must have reasons behind them that were just as logical. “Very interesting,” the Princess said after quickly reading through it. “I would be glad to accompany you, Mister…” “Manning. Wilfred Xavier Manning, Your Highness,” he said. She pouted, her expression curious. “That’s quite the name. I don’t think I’ve ever heard one like it.” “Oh,” Pinkie declared, crossing her arms and giving the Princess a mock glare, “so somebody new shows up and suddenly ‘Pinkamena Diane Pie’ is chopped parsnip. I see how it is.” She snuck her nose in the air and ‘harrumphed’ noisily. Wilfred’s breath caught in his throat. Surely no Princess, no matter how humble her circumstances, would endure such gibes from a commoner. Regardless of her cavalier treatment of his own dignity, he did not wish to see any harsh treatment befall Pinkie. He opened his mouth to beg clemency from the Princess on her behalf. The Princess giggled, lifting a hand to cover her mouth. “I think you forgot one. Wasn’t just a little while ago you swore that ‘Responsibility’ was your middle name, too?” “Well, duh. I just didn’t want to drag out the full list or everybody would think I was showing off.” The group laughed at that and Dash ruffled Pinkie’s hair with a devilish smile.   Wilfred was confused. Everything in his mind told him this scene was wrong. Princesses did not mingle and joke with common bakers. People of such strange, conflicting personalities and stations could not form this cohesive whole. They could not create such bonds and comradery as he saw before him. It made no sense. Despite being in a warm room full of happy people, Wilfred suddenly felt very cold and alone. It was precisely the wrong time for the Princess’s amethyst jewel to glow bright magenta and half-a-dozen books to take up orbit around her. Wilfred must have made some noise, for the head of everyone present turned his way, yet whatever it was, he was fully unaware of making it. His widening eyes were fixed upon the impossible sight before him. Once again his mental machinery derailed itself from his carefully maintained tracks of thought and barreled through the neatly manicured lawns and gardens of his psyche, crushing all before it with impunity. His newfound ability to describe the sensation with belabored metaphors did little restore the normal function of his mind, or to stop his jaw from hanging open in a most uncouth manner. “Are you… okay?” the Princess ventured cautiously. Shy was whispering in her ear no doubt explaining his ‘episode’ from earlier in the day. “I-I’m well,” Wilfred lied. Only the pressure of responding to the Princess’s question had snapped him out of his daze. Unfortunately, it seemed a majority of his faculties had not followed. “I am merely surprised by your evident and manifest violation of all natural laws. I am currently attempting to hazard an explanation for it, but my mind does not seem willing to function as it should. My impolite rambling should prove that last statement clearly true, at least.” Everyone in the room regarded him curiously. “It’s just magic,” the Princess said in confusion. “I never thought someone would be surprised by it.” “I guess it is kinda strange the first time you see it, but most folk get used to it when they’re still young,” Jack said. She shrugged. “It don’t seem too weird when you’ve grown up with friends or family that can do it.” “Are you sure you’re okay?” Shy repeated, staring at him worriedly. Magic. Well, that certainly explained a few things. There were several allusions to magic and other forces of the supernatural throughout history. Did not the Bible speak of sorcerers in Egypt? Perhaps, just perhaps, it was not merely superstition. Wilfred’s thundering heart slowed, and he took a deep breath. He prided himself on being a … well, not a  flexible person, but certainly one that was willing to face the world as it is, not as he would prefer it. Magic was real. The Princess was capable of using it and so too, perhaps, were the other people with jewels embedded in their foreheads. He could deal with this. There was no reason to act foolishly. “I’m sorry,” Wilfred said. “Yes, this is my first time seeing… magic. I don’t know anyone in London who can perform such feats. With such abilities at your disposal it is no wonder my employer wishes to speak to such talented women.” He hesitated for half a second then nodded to Dash. “And a similarly gifted young man.”   The effect was galvanic. The group had been calming down at his earlier words. His last pronouncement had exactly the opposite effect. Miss Rarity and the Princess both glanced at Dash, then fell to tittering behind their hands. Jack and Pinkie simply burst out laughing, loudly and without reserve. Shy blushed deeply, her face going beet red, empathic worry shining in her soft eyes. “Young what?!” Dash demanded. His face had gone a fierce, fiery red that put Shy’s expression to shame. Despite that, he darted in close, his face mere inches from Wilfred’s own. Dash’s expression was contorted with fury, but the effect was undermined by the embarrassment he clearly felt. “I’m a girl! And if you aren’t willing to take my word, then I’ll prove it!” “Rainbow Dash!” Miss Rarity gasped. “Acting like that is the last thing that will convince anyone you’re a lady!” There is only so much that a mind can take. Surprise after surprise, revelation after revelation will wear away at a man until he no longer has the strength to fight it. Now that he looked at him – her – Wilfred could see past the thick jacket. Dash’s lithe frame, hairless face and high voice were not signs of youth. Indeed, when had anyone treated her as any younger than the rest of their group? The last straw had fallen and the camel’s back had broken. Confusion, worry, surprise, and every other of the myriad emotions Wilfred was feeling disappeared. He grew calm. Eerily so, even to his own mind. The difference was that he found he didn’t care. He had done his duty. He had found all six of them and delivered the letters. “I apologize,” he told Dash. His voice and expression were empty of anything save cold pragmatism. “It was an honest mistake which I shall not repeat. You have gathered everyone. It is time to leave.” Everyone traded glances, still staring at him. “You sure, Willy? Because you might not be all there right now,” Pinkie stated.   “Pinkie!” the Princess and Jack scolded in one voice. “What? Everybody was thinking it!” “I’m fine. However, we need to leave. I have work to attend to and no time to waste.” The tugging sensation was back, and he no longer sought to fight it. “We’re just worried about you,” Shy said softly, taking his hand again. He firmly took it back from her, and for some reason she flinched away from him. “I appreciate your concern,” Wilfred said in frosty tone. “However, I do not need your pity or your compassion. I need to complete my job and return to my employer.” Wilfred would have expected Shy to draw away after such a dismissal, but instead she stood fast. Pinkie moved to back her up, and Dash laid a hand on the small girl’s shoulders. They studied him a moment more. Pinkie frowned. “I don’t think you’re ready yet. Let us help you first.” The Princess nodded in agreement. “Pinkie is right. With Spike’s help I can research your condition and find an answer with an hour. Two at the max. I’m certain waiting that short time won’t trouble L–” “An hour?” Wilfred said. He did not speak loudly, but his voice cut her off completely. “I cannot afford to waste that much time, nor would I keep my employer waiting that long. I am leaving, and if you wish to honour your invitations, you must keep up.” He did not hesitate but breezed past them. It looked as though both Jack and Dash reached out to stop him, but he felt nothing, so they must have missed. He charged past the small door into the street beyond. But, somehow, it had changed in the past few minutes. The ground beneath him was cobbled in rough stones, and the library he had just exited was gone. Indeed, there was not so much as a trace of that rural village. The street he now stood on looked to have come out of the less civilised parts of London. A pall of darkness lay heavily upon the streets, and a few guttering gas lights had already been lit despite the early hour. The chilly air nipped at him, and the road stood empty. Conspicuously empty, in fact. There were no people to be seen anywhere. Every door and window was shut tight. No children ran at play, no peddlers shouted their wares, no housewifes or tradesmen walked along the narrow street. And in the absence of people, it was eerily quiet. A low sound, the distant pounding of hooves and wheels on cobblestones, broke the silence. Wilfred glanced this way, then that, but saw nothing. The clattering grew louder and louder, setting his head to aching. Wilfred calmly searched for the source of the noise, yet it eluded him. Until at last he saw it: a massive stagecoach drawn by four gigantic horses, each taller at the shoulder than Wilfred himself. They were bearing down on him like a runaway train. He stood in place, unconcerned, despite the tiny, insistent voice screaming inside him, demanding that he move. He needed that dispassion, even as the thunder of their merciless hooves pounded his ears. His detachment was all that protected him from– “Gotcha!” Dash shouted, tackling him to the ground. As she did, the sound of wheels and hooves on cobblestones disappeared. He hit the ground hard, but the landing was not so painful as he would have expected. Indeed, it seemed softer than any cobblestone he had ever trod upon. “Jeez,” Dash said, both tone and body language exasperated. “Now, you wanna tell me what all that running was for?” Wilfred glanced around. There was no sign of the dark coach, and the road beneath him was dirt, not cobblestone. The rest of the girls were rushing out of the library to his side. They were curious and concerned, but ultimately, they were unimportant. Work waited for no man. “For goodness’s sake, why do you keep runnin’ off like that? So what if you figured wrong and thought Dash was a boy? That don’t mean you should act like darned fool!” Jack scolded, as Shy applied a small sticking plaster to one of the minor scrapes he had suffered in Dash’s rescue. “I still must leave,” Wilfred said mechanically, rising to his feet without waiting for Shy to finish her ministrations. “I’m glad everyone has elected to accompany me.” There was some more shouting and confusion as he strode away from them, but he paid it no mind. He grasped the door of the nearest house and yanked it open. Rather than giving him access to some stranger’s home, it revealed his familiar workplace. Wilfred breathed in the heady scent of paper and ink, and the smell relaxed his overworked nerves. His desk was waiting for him, the ledger already open to the latest page, his pen glistening with fresh ink. He glanced at the clock and was pleased to note that it was only four in the afternoon. Still plenty of time to get a little more work done. His chair creaked as he sat down, and he eyed the sums before him. This line was simple, a mere addition and reduction between two accounts indicating a transfer. He quickly and competently performed the calculations, marking the ledger with meticulously legible numbers. He moved onto the next line, and the cold dispassion melted from him as he focused more and more upon his work. The familiarity of routine warmed him better than any coal stove could. He let out a sigh of relief. “Well, this ain’t ‘xactly what I expected.” He glanced up surprised to hear another voice. The Princess and the rest of her friends were standing on the other side of the doorway, still in the strange village. He frowned, and gestured curtly. “Come in, come in. My employer is upstairs. He should be expecting you.” The Princess stepped forward, crossing the threshold, and as she did, the air rippled around her. Wilfred glanced at her in confusion. It was as though he were seeing her through thick glass or light fog, and yet curiously rather different. Her form and shape wavered as though unable to resolve itself, yet she was clearly visible. Wilfred frowned. His eyes must be playing tricks on him; he knew what she looked like. And with that thought, she could be seen as the young woman he had first meet. The same phenomenon occurred to each of the girls in turn, but faded the moment he focused upon them. Even more strange than that were their reactions. The Princess blinked sleepily and shook her head. Pinkie yawned enormously, stretching her arms wide. Jack gave a sudden start and began to examine the room around her as though this was the first time she had seen it. “Wilfred?” Shy asked, a strange confusion in her voice. As though she wasn’t certain it was really him. “Yes?” he answered unable to keep a slight testiness out of his tone. “I mean no offense, but I am trying to work.” “Yeah, but what are you?” Dash shouted, before looking down at herself. “Wait. What are we?!” “I don’t know, but I appreciate our fashions. Even Dash has a suitable look,” Miss Rarity said. “Britons,” Wilfred equally confused by their exclamations of shock and discovery. “Subjects of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.” “Humans,” another voice said. Wilfred turned and saw his employer standing at the base of the handsome staircase. He was smiling again, his blue eyes bright and happy. At least that was well in hand. Wilfred lowered his head ready to return to his work. “If you could spare another moment, Wilfred,” his employer said. Wilfred bit back a sigh and met his eyes again. There was a odd sadness behind their happy front. “Could you make introductions, please?” Wilfred’s face heated. How could he have been so rude? “Of course, sir. These girls are Shy, Jack, Dash, Pinkie, Miss Rarity and Princess Twilight.” He gestured to each in turn. Reactions varied from a curtsies, nods, bows and a causal wave from Dash. “Ladies, this is…” he strained for a moment to recall, “my employer.” He finished lamely. The grandfatherly man’s face fell. “Oh dear. I had hoped…” he began before trailing off. He gave a deep sigh, and Wilfred’s embarrassed flush burned all the hotter. How could he have forgotten the name of his employer? During introductions no less. Desperate to correct this mistake, he searched his memory for the name. Yet, try as he might, nothing came to him. He could not remember anything besides the strange certainty that this was his employer. In fact, he realized, he could not remember being hired on here, or when exactly he had left Mr. Greenfield’s employment. The name of the business eluded Wilfred’s desperately grasping mind. “I am sorry,” his employer stated. “I did not expect this deception to last so long.” The man that resembled his grandfather suddenly faded away as though he had been composed of nothing more substantial than dust and starlight. Where he had stood was a woman of unparalleled beauty. Her skin was whiter than the purest cream, and her hair midnight blue with glimmering points scattered within it like stars in the night sky. Her form was slender and lithe, yet there was unquestionable strength in her bearing, the like of which Wilfred had never seen before. Two giant wings, each covered in feathers blacker than any raven, unfurled from her back, nearly brushing opposite walls. A fluted spear of obsidian rose from her forehead, and her eyes, when she reopened them, were a beautiful shade of turquoise. While Wilfred and the others stood mouths agape, the unearthly woman examined herself. “Is this how you see me, then?” she asked, plucking curiously at her ephemeral dress. “Princess Luna!” Princess Twilight shouted, then she and her friend all dipped into quick curtsies or bows, though the beautiful woman waved off their formalities and bade them to rise. “It is good to see all of you as well. I take it you received my letters?” “Yeah,” Dash said. “So, what is this, a dream or something?” Princess Luna shook her head. “No, on the other side of the door you were dreaming. It is why you accepted such strangeness so readily. This is... somewhere else.” She turned to look at Wilfred, and the girls followed her gaze. He flinched under their combined stares. He quickly reached behind himself, calming as he felt the familiar cover of his ledger. “If you are not my employer, then I suggest you leave. This is a business office and not a gathering place for the curious. I’m certain my true superior will be along any minute, and I have already gotten little enough work done thanks to your errand.” Pinkie made as if to reach out to him but drew back. Shy winced as if he had struck her. Dash merely scowled. “I dunno what’s eating ya, but you can trust us. I don’t recall exactly what happened in the dream, but I know you’re a friend,” Jack said, planting her hands on her hands on her hips. “And sure as shootin’, friends help each other, Wilfred.” “That’s Mr. Manning,” he hissed, beyond caring for manners. “We are not ‘friends’, you were all merely a task given to me by an impostor. I don’t know or care what game you all are playing. I have work to do, and all of you are merely getting in my way!” Dash snorted. “Then why are you still wearing Rarity’s hat?” Angrily, Wilfred tore the offending hat from his head and threw it towards its maker. “There. I believe that should square us. I owe none of you, anything!” Wilfred swept his hand out in a banishing gesture and in the process upset his inkwell, splattering himself with ink. Ladies present or not, he almost began to curse. Then he noticed something leaching the ink away from his clothing, growing like a sponge soaking up water. It was a chain made of jet black material, crossing his chest in the shape of an ‘X’. “Amusing,” he stated dourly. “Another of your tricks? Get this off of me.” The chain continued to grow, link after link outlined in pitch black, trailing down his back, winding down his legs. “We cannot.” Princess Luna said sadly, she and the girls stared at the sight. “None of us made that chain.” Wilfred grunted with effort as he tried fruitlessly to extricate himself. The chain had at this point reached his desk, binding him to it with a scarce three feet of movement. “I am somewhat doubtful. Everything strange and unsettling this day has been all of your doing. If you are not responsible for this, then who is?” “Wilfred,” Shy began gently. “You’ve carried this chain since we first met. It was much longer then, but … um …” “Yes,” Miss Rarity agreed. “If you’ll recall, I even commented on it in my boutique.” The chain now stretched throughout the entire room, binding the floorboards in place, linking roof to rafter, holding the clock hands at four ‘o clock. More links snaked beneath the door, and the houses outside were draped in chains. “Preposterous. I would have noticed such a thing. This sort of burden would hardly be unnoticeable. There would have been some sign of its presence.” “Like a constant tugging to turn back?” Pinkie asked, her bright blue eyes completely guileless. “Regardless!” Wilfred shouted, struggling all the more fiercely and getting nowhere. “That does not tell me from whence it came.” “Look at it more closely,” Princess Luna said quietly. Wilfred did as she said, drawing close to one of the lengths running up the desk. There was … something on the chains, almost like writing, He fished a magnifying glass out of a drawer and looked more closely. It was writing, all of it his. Tiny numbers and letters, all in his penmanship. He stared closer, unable to look away, and noticed something stranger. The chains were not covered in his writing. They were made of it. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of tiny letters and numbers in layer after layer. Days of work compressed into a single link. A link just like the uncounted thousands that covered nearly surface. “I don’t understand,” he said slowly. “I think you do.” His head whipped to the side to meet Princess Twilight’s eyes. There was a strange emotion in her eyes. Not pity or sadness. Nor concern. Compassion, perhaps? “You made all of this to lock something up tight.” The pounding sound echoed in the back Wilfred’s mind, and he shook like a man with the chills. “No,” he whispered, but the denial sounded weak even to his ears. “Please,” Princess Twilight begged. “Let us help you.” The pounding grew louder and louder, and the damned cold was leaching into him. “I don’t … I didn’t…” “Please…” Princess Twilight’s hand reached his cheek and turned his head to meet her eyes. Something within him shattered. “It was winter,” he began slowly, staring into the distance. “A cold winter, not even Christmastime and snow had shrouded the town for weeks already. I was hurrying home…” He had wrapped himself in so many layers, but still the cold seeped through and into his bones. “There was a carriage...” It was going too fast, much too fast for such icy conditions. “I slipped trying to get out of way…” His feet slid out from under him, and spots danced before his eyes when his skull hit the pavement.. “... I just lay there.” Those thundering hooves drew closer and closer, their pounding filling his mind and soul. ”The coachman couldn’t turn the horses aside in time.” The hoof struck him like a cannonball, and he felt something break inside him.  “There was still so much of my life left, so much more work awaiting me…” He felt his blood draining into the snow, and a woman screamed somewhere in the distance. “I couldn’t accept it. I wouldn’t accept it.” Darkness closed in. The room was silent. “I’m dead,” Wilfred said in quiet shock. “I’m sorry,” Princess Luna replied. “I found your spirit here. Chained to the past, shuttered against the worlds, drifting without course.” He blinked as though seeing them for the first time. “A-and you came for me. Are you angels?” “No,” Princess Luna said. “We are spirits here, brought to this realm through the land of dreams, but we have bodies to which we must return. I tried to free you myself these past few nights, but have met with little success. Only by convincing you I was your employer did you even seem to become aware of me. I had hoped that sending you into the land of dreams and letting you interact with the Bearers of Harmony would weaken your bonds, but I fear I was wrong on that score.” Wilfred looked down and saw that the chains still held him, but he no longer struggled against them. “T-that’s all right,” he said. “I thank you for your efforts, but I will be fine. I have never needed help before and I do not need any now. If you will leave, then I can return to my work.” “What?!” Dash yelled. “All that self-discovery and huge revelations and you’re just going to sit back in that stupid chair and act like none of it happened? That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard!” “And what else do I have?” he snapped. He reached out with a hand and laid it gently on the ledger in the middle of the desk. “At least with this I have purpose.” “But–” “Let ‘im go, Dash,” Jack said. “If this’s what he wants, we can’t stop him.” She turned to walk away, but paused at the door. “You’re stronger’n this, whether you realize it or not.” Then she stepped through the door and disappeared. Dash hovered in place for a moment before shooting him a scowl and following her friend. She too was gone. “If you wish me to go I can hardly refuse, but I will leave this hat behind. It is yours, whether you wear it or not,” Miss Rarity said. She walked to the door, giving him a sad glance and a sigh before passing through. Two deceptively strong arms encircled him in a sudden hug and were gone before he could react. Pinkie was sniffling, her big eyes watery with emotion. She drew out a handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. “Maybe you only visited Ponyville in my dreams, but that still counts. I’m throwing you a party when we wake up and naming that cupcake the ‘Wilfred Special’.” She blew her nose again, stepped through the door and was gone. Shy put a gentle hand on his arm. She did not meet his eyes, but he could see her smile. “Thank you for rescuing Angel Bunny and for walking with me. I-I’m glad we met.” She rose and left while Wilfred was speechless. Princess Twilight just waved. “Whatever you choose to do, please don’t forget us.” Then she too was gone. Wilfred hurt. The chains squeezed his chest so tightly he could barely draw breath. With shaking hands, he righted his inkwell and dipped his pen. The next sum was waiting for him. And the one after that. And the one after that. An infinite number of pages, an infinite number of chain links. He knew with time the pain would fade. He would settle into his routine and drift away, his mind consumed by the complex interplay of digit and letter. Just as he had forgotten his own death, he would forget this day. Forget them. Forget Shy’s quiet kindness. Forget Jack’s brash candor. Forget Dash’s unflinching bravery. Forget Pinkie’s love of life. Forget Miss Rarity’s generous heart. Forget Princess Twilight’s humble power. The ink smeared as a tear landed on the page, ruining his latest work. Then another and another, an entire page ruined, and yet Wilfred could not bring himself to care. The chains clenched ever tighter, yet he still did not care. “What did you do to me?” he demanded from the last person left. “I gave you someone to care about,” Princess Luna replied calmly. “Why?” “Because I have been where you are now. I have isolated myself from everyone that could have cared for me, and grown more lonely and bitter with every passing day until I found nothing worth living for except my own foolish desires.” Wilfred laughed mockingly at her in a manner that would have shocked him in another state of mind. “Something to live for? I don’t even have that! If you will recall, I’m dead!” “Death does not limit you. You do,” she told him coldly, her eyes flashing with eldritch power. “Those chains only exist so long as you let them.” “I already tried breaking them, and you saw all the success I had then,” he retorted. “That was before you knew what they were. Now you are aware. Why won’t you confront the truth?” she asked. “Because!” he began angrily before falling silent. “Because,” he tried again, only to stop. “I’m afraid,” he admitted, his voice hushed. “And why are you afraid?” Princess Luna asked. For several minutes Wilfred had no response. She waited patiently, never speaking, yet her unwavering gaze demanded an answer. “This is all I’ve ever known,” Wilfred replied helplessly. Once more he let his hand rest on his ledger. He knew it wasn’t real, but the concept it embodied was. Princess Luna was speechless for a moment. “Dost thou mean to tell us – I mean – are you saying that your greatest fear is neither existential dread nor terror at the possibility of eternal punishment, but an obsession with the loss of your job as a clerk?” “You are quite mistaken! It’s not an obsession,” he told her curtly. Silence once more stretched between them, and realization seemed to dawn in the Princess’s eyes. “It’s not, is it? Why make yourself forget if all you wanted was an eternity of this?” He flinched at her words, his muscles growing tense. “You are so desperate to cling to this not because you love it so dearly, but because it is what you know.” She paused, and laid a hand on top of his. “You fear the unknown. A lifetime of plans and routines and schedules, and yet you were unprepared.” “And it scares me beyond anything I have ever felt before,” Wilfred admitted. “So long as I have this place, so long as I do not remember, I am safe.” Princess Luna laid a chaste kiss upon his forehead and set the hat Rarity made on top of his head. “No one knows what awaits them, but I cannot imagine anything more empty and meaningless than this.” Wilfred flushed. “So I should just shuffle off this mortal coil? I should end my ‘meaningless’ existence?”  The Princess shook her head as she rose to leave.“I cannot tell you the correct path or make your decision for you, but I wanted to give you the chance to make that choice with an open mind, unclouded by fear or lies. Good-bye, Wilfred Xavier Manning. I hope we meet again someday.” The door shut behind her, and Wilfred knew in a way he could not describe that the land of dreams no longer lay beyond it. For a moment he sat there, wondering at the Princess’s original choice in appearances. Although his grandfather had watched him on days when his mother and father were busy working, they had never been close. He had been large, square jawed, with gnarled hands and eyes like a hawk. His grandfather would set him to doing chores or lecture him about the world and how it worked. Or didn’t work, as his rants often claimed. Wilfred had been scared to death of him. Even as an adult he had begged off attending his grandfather’s funeral, citing some ‘urgent’ business. How did one preside over the death of a childhood fear? Yet that was one of the few nights Wilfred had ever drank to excess. There had been something fundamentally wrong about the absence of his grandfather, as though a mountain had disappeared from the countryside. Wilfred shook his head and picked up his pen. Introspection was a game for philosophers and the rich. A working man knew the value of his own work, and did not shy from it. Wilfred nodded to himself; he had always been proud of his work ethic, proud of doing a job well for the job’s own sake. Just like his grandfather had taught him. His hand froze halfway to his ledger. He let it rest on the desk and looked around the room. Chains wound tight around everything, holding this world secure against the ravages of time. Nothing had ever changed. Nothing would ever change. He could spend an eternity in his familiar little world. Alone. His hands shook, and Wilfred breathed deeply to calm himself. He had always been alone in one way or another. Different from others, isolated by choice. But if there was a chance, even a slim one, to find someone else… to meet his grandfather… his parents… those girls… Was it worth facing the unknown? Taking that risk? He turned to look at his ledger. The page was perfectly dry, as though no liquid save ink had ever touched it. The sums were in perfect array, awaiting his hand. One calculation would follow another, and he would forget this turmoil and indecision. He would forget his fears and lock this office up so tight that no intruder could ever disturb his peace again. It would be so easy. But as his hard, flinty, loving grandfather had once told him, just because something is easy doesn’t make it right. The chains crumbled to dust. So did the ledger, the ink, the walls, the floor, and all of the empty London outside. Wilfred smiled and set down his pen, ready to meet the unknown. Perhaps Heaven’s files were in need of auditing. One could certainly hope so.