The figures turned to shadow, and the shadows turned to translucent lines drawn in empty space, filled with a strange crystal mist that dissipated between blinks.
In effect, nothing was ever there. The Cafe was back to normal – or as normal would have it for Scootaloo; it always seemed too perfect during the times when the visions were not around.
And yet, when she watched the images disappear, they lingered in her chest and on her mind. They were the memories made real, and upon having experienced them, she was finally complete.
She opened her mouth as if to speak, but soon realised that there was nothing much to say.
Behind her, The Owner stood, respecting the silence, as her expression dropped from a general acceptance to a lingering frown.
“Is there much to be angry about?” The Owner said, breaking the length of laconism, stepping forward through the tables.
“Huh?” Scootaloo turned around. “Oh. Yeah. Well. No. And who said I was angry?”
“You seem as such.” The stallion stopped before he reached her.
“Well, would you even know?” Scootaloo grumbled.
“I can… guess.”
“Do you even guess, though?” Scootaloo shot back.
The Owner stood still, the only indication of his thoughts a slight movement of his head.
“No,” he said after a while. “I make educated determinations.”
“Yeah.” Scootaloo nodded in triumph, words laced with spite. “Thought so.”
“Is there much to be angry about?” The Owner asked again, pointedly.
This time, it was Scootaloo’s turn to wait before responding.
She looked down, up, to the side, stared at the tables which held a bagful of stories and more.
“I… guess not,” she murmured. “But it’s the end. And endings are sad, aren’t they? Maybe I’m angry at that.”
“Endings can be. But they can also be happy. Are you not happy that now your life is no longer in danger?”
“Yes, of course.” Scootaloo narrowed her eyes, as if the question was an insult to her intelligence. “But it’s not quite the same, is it?”
“I suppose I wouldn’t know.”
“I expected you to say that.”
“And that is why I did.”
“Yeah. It’s The Cafe and all that and…” Scootaloo caught herself. “No wait. No. You said that you exert control over what you chose to say, didn’t you? So doesn’t that mean that you really don’t know?”
The Owner nodded. “Clever girl.”
“Yeah, I got all this down, brother!” Scootaloo smirked, shuffling from side to side in a mock celebratory flaunt. “I got this!”
“Clever girl,” The Owner repeated.
“Yeah.” Scootaloo stood still once more.
Something caught her attention suddenly, and she spun, looking, staring out to the windows, which normally would have been darkened, as if there were a thin layer of film covering each pane of glass.
They were still dark, as they usually were when there was no memory playing, but:
“Birds,” she exclaimed, reaching toward the panes of black glass. “I hear birds.”
“Yes. They are yours.”
“Mine?” Scootaloo turned back again to stare at The Owner.
“Yes. We are done. You have seen all you need to see. Therefore, we are home.”
“Home.”
“We have returned to the place where you left. All you need to do is walk out those doors, and you will be back where you belong.”
“Oh.”
With a flourish, and nothing more than that, The Owner pointed to the exit. Although nothing could be seen through the doors, something told Scootaloo that, indeed, everything was as he said. All she would have to do was open the doors.
And step through.
And everything would be as it was.
She didn’t move.
“Is there a problem?” The Owner asked, lowering his hoof.
“Heh, eh heh,” Scootaloo chuckled, rubbing at the back of her neck. “That’s… ya gotta throw a party, right?”
“A… party?”
“Yeah! I mean, we made it! Right? After this whole thing’s done and over… this is it? Just sorta… ‘there you go, on your way now’? There’s gotta be more, right?”
“No. Not any more than is necessary,” The Owner stated dryly.
“How ‘bout a cake? Or something?” Scootaloo asked, stepping away from the doors. “This place has cake! I’m expecting it!”
“You want cake.”
“Fine. More soda, then,” Scootaloo demanded, snatching the cup off the table where it had always been.
In a single draw, she chugged the entire glass of burning hot ginger beer, letting the firey essence of ginger sear her throat and bring tears to her eyes. She wiped at them with the back of her leg, smearing them across her face. “Now you!”
“Me?” The Owner asked.
“Yeah! Can’t… can’t have a farewell party without everyone joining in!”
“I do not require susten–”
“Just drink it, damn it!” Scootaloo yelled.
The birds continued to tweet just outside the window.
The Owner opened his mouth, apathetic as always. “Is there much to be angry about?”
“Oh, shut up,” Scootaloo grumbled, lowly, against her will, under her breath. She no longer had the will to shout. “I guess you really don’t get it.”
“No. I’m… I apologize. If I have caused disorder. But I am suited for this job, as it seems. Emotions… interfere.”
“This something that Prism of yours said?” Scoot’s eyebrow shot up angrily.
“Yes.”
“Sure sounds like a bunch of nice ponies.” Scootaloo threw herself into a chair, slumping down over her folded forehooves.
The Owner watched.
“Previously,” he said, “I have not had many problems with returning ponies back to their place.”
“Well, everypony’s different, aren’t they?”
“Yes. That is true. So… perhaps.”
“Perhaps?”
“Perhaps you can tell me.”
“Tell you what?” Scootaloo unfurled her legs across the table.
“Tell me why you are angry. Maybe I will understand.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“That ruins the mood!”
“I am not aware of any mood to begin with.”
“Ugh!”
Scootaloo’s forehead hit the table hard. Hard enough for her to feel it and for it to jolt her eyes shut, but not hard enough for her to forget how awkward it had been all this while. All of it was pride, ultimately. In the end, there was no choice but to play by his rules.
“Fine. Let me spell it out for you. I know what’s going to happen when I leave those doors.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“It’s the reason why you’re okay with telling me all this. About your Prism thing, about how it all works. I’m going to forget, aren’t I?”
The Owner tilted his head.
“Yeah. I knew it. The moment I leave, everything gets snatched away as if nothing ever happened. You wouldn’t risk anything, would you? Or maybe it’s the Prism who said that it has to be done. But you’re going to make me forget everything that happened!”
“Yes,” The Owner said. “It is as you described with your capacity for perception. However, is this something to be angry over?”
“Yes!”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to forget, okay? I don’t want to forget this place, or you, or these… crazy things I’ve been through! Is that hard to understand? You keep a whole damn… hotel full of experiences! Surely you understand their importance? And now you’re saying that I’m going to lose all of these new experiences I had simply because… because why?”
“Because… they aren’t really yours. They’re not yours to begin with. They never were. They too, have a home where they belong. They do not belong with you, just as you do not belong here.”
“Then what about being here? Isn’t that my experience?”
“Yes, it is, but it is too dangerous for ponies to keep. It will… ripple. Even if you do not tell another soul. Even if you eventually forget. The fact that it is there will be problematic down the line. We exist to prevent problems from happening. This is the very reason why I have put you through all of this in the first place.”
“But… I value my time here. With you. It’s been… fun.” Scootaloo said sadly, her eyes closing.
“It is an imprint. You do not even know me at all. I am nothing but whomever you want to see, do you forget? I am exactly whom you believe me to be, and nothing more. Your relationship with me is as real as a relationship with an imaginary friend.” The Owner said.
Scootaloo deflated.
She stared at the table, trying to find the patterns in the grain just as she had seen someone else do many meetings ago.
“Is that what you really think of yourself?” she whispered, tracing the lines on the table with her hoof.
“Yes.”
“I won’t leave, then.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I won’t leave. You never said I had to. I’ll stay until I can keep these memories with me without harming the universe. Surely you guys can figure something out.” She sniffed.
“You have to leave.”
“Or else what?”
“In such cases I would be… forced to make you leave.”
Scootaloo perked her head up. “You wouldn’t.”
“I have to. I apologize.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I don’t wish to.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Scootaloo twisted, throwing her back over the table now, staring up into the ceiling as she lay there on her makeshift cradle. The ceiling was crossed with wooden beams, and only now did she notice the lamps that were nested amongst them like owls roosting in the rafters of a barn. It was a magical, mystical thing to her, in its pleasant beauty, and she wondered why she had never seen them before.
It was probably because she never had a reason to look up.
Scootaloo’s eyes tilted upward when she heard the shuffling of a chair, and above her head, The Owner lowered himself into a seat.
He stared straight, over Scootaloo’s body, ahead into the distance.
“There was a pony once, a long time ago,” he started. “Who lived very much in fear and anger and confusion.”
Scootaloo kept quiet, continuing to look at the glows hidden amongst the forest.
“He was otherwise any regular pony. But he saw things. He was able to see shadows.”
Scootaloo held up her hoof, blocking out some of the light, casting a shadow of her own across her eyes.
“One day, someone visited him. They told him that inside of him there was a seed. It was a gift that didn’t belong to him, but it was one that he carried and had to nourish. He was told that there were many like him who carried seeds, but his seed was special. His seed was unique.”
Scootaloo started to fly her hooves through the air like a plane.
“They told him that like all the others who carry seeds, when he died, he would be taken by the seed and be part of a greater plan. They told him that they were informing him of this in order to calm him. They told him that he would forget he had ever been visited, but the calm would continue. They had to calm him for his safety, but he also was not allowed to remember their visit for his safety as well.”
Scootaloo’s hooves stopped moving. They hovered there in mid-air, still, reflecting.
“But this stallion’s seed was special in a particular way. It allowed him to remember their visit. It allowed him to see all things beside. It made him… anxious. It made him worry. It made him think and dream and wish and hope and it made him angry and happy and above all other things, frightened.”
Scootaloo lowered her legs back to the table.
“That stallion then decided to die early.”
The Owner shifted in his seat.
“But he left the world when the world was not ready to let him go, and thusly, all those things that brought him there – the anxiety, the fear, the happiness and anger, were all taken from him. He was incomplete.”
The Owner stood up.
“That stallion later found out that he would have remembered it all, and understood it all, in due time. All he had to do was wait. But unfortunately, that stallion was cursed with knowing what he should not have, and ended up less than he should have been.”
The Owner looked down, meeting Scootaloo’s eyes as she stared up, upside down, from her platform.
“It is just a story,” The Owner said. “And you have a choice to make. The two are unrelated, I am sure.”
Scootaloo swung her legs, sitting up, dragging herself to the edge where she perched on the edge, looking down between her hooves.
She let out a long, drawn sigh.
She shook her head.
“I just don’t want to forget you,” she admitted. “And this. No matter what it is, it’s been fun.”
“And I am both happy and sad that you feel that way.”
“But not really, right?” Scootaloo smiled.
“No. Not as such. But it is regretful. I still understand regret. If it is any consolation, you will no longer regret as soon as you leave. And I will not regret either, as it is my calling to do this.”
“Yeah.” The young mare swung off the table, stepping lightly towards the doors with a sense of trepidation; her gait uneven and her breathing shallow.
She stared at them, the two wooden doors, thick and foreboding, as if hiding a great treasure. They glared back.
“Yeah,” she said again. “I guess I knew this was always going to happen. I just didn’t wanna… you know.”
The Owner lowered his head in a drawn-out nod.
“So, what’s going to happen when I leave?”
“You will go back to the moment you had that headache. The moment that I led you here. But you no longer will want to come in, as this place will not be here. As you know, The Cafe doesn’t exist in reality. You will simply have a strange feeling akin to deja vu, and you will continue on your way. From the perspective of you in the future, everything that had happened was merely a strange fleeting memory on the wind.”
“And that’s that, huh?”
“Yes.”
Scootaloo took in a breath. “That’s that.”
“I’m sorry.”
She placed a hoof on the door. “Any chance I’ll… remember this? When I die, maybe?”
“I do not know. It is possible. But not certain. The chance is very small.”
“Ah well. As long as the chance is there.”
She pushed. The door opened a crack. Sunlight streamed in, exactly as it was on the day she arrived. The smells, sounds and feeling of it was just as she remembered. It was nostalgia for something that happened mere moments ago.
“I don’t want to forget,” she whimpered, her voice cracking. “I don’t want to lose this place.”
“I’m sorry,” came the voice from behind.
The sun hit her fully now as the doors swung completely open, causing her to wince and turn away.
“Hey, do me a favour, okay?” She called out. “P-please.”
“Yes?”
“I won’t remember, but you will. If you ever find out what that first conversation is… the one that started all this? Remember for the both of us, okay?”
“I… I will.”
“Thanks,” Scootaloo said, a tear escaping her eye.
She took in two, three more short breaths. She simply stared out, at the road, not wanting to turn behind. Besides, all she would have seen is what she wanted to.
“Goodbye,” she cried out, jumping through.
~~~
Her hoof lowered from the handle of the door. She was… sad for some reason. Instinctively, she raised a leg up to her face to wipe away an errant tear.
It was strange. She felt sad, but had no reason to be.
In fact, it seemed that her mind had blanked for a moment, because it took that hefty stallion pushing past her from inside to remind her that she was just about to enter The Cafe.
That’s right.
The Cafe. She was just about to go in.
Frowning at her odd mood, she entered the door with a tinkle of a bell, and sauntered into the establishment.
It was as busy as she always knew it to be, with tables strewn about in a nonlinear fashion. The owner of the place had insisted on giving it character, so there were many small things for the alert patron to find, such as how no coasters were used and how lamps were hidden amongst the beams in the ceiling.
All things that Scootaloo knew, of course. She had been here so many times before.
But today… she felt as if this were the very first time she had truly stood in this building, as if every time before was just a phantom playing tricks on her mind.
She waved it away without a second thought. It was a ludicrous, laughable thought. No, she also knew, surely and steadily, that this was one of her regular haunts, and today she had made plans to–
“Hey! Scoots!”
Scootaloo turned, smiling widely. “Hey, Belle!”
Sweetie Belle sauntered up. “Hey, I found it!”
“Yeah, you did! Good job, you.”
“Nice place, too,” she joked with a mock snideness. “I mean, I could’ve probably done better with the interior deco, but…”
“Oh, shut up and take a seat,” Scootaloo grinned, as they made their way to a table by the window.
“No, but really, it’s a nice place. Where’d you find it?” Sweetie asked.
“Dunno. Was just walking back from Uni one day, and I decided to go left instead of right, and I just found this place. I really like it, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s cozy. Can’t believe I never found it before.”
“It’s in a weird location,” Scootaloo shrugged.
“Anyway, how’s things been going?” Belle asked. “It’s been a while since I saw ya.”
“I know. I know. School, right?”
“Tell me about it. School’s nuts. Did you know that Rarity was a guest lecturer at the design fest? I was so scared I was going to run into her, you have no idea!”
“No way!” Scootaloo laughed.
“No, really! I was hiding in the toilet half the time! I knew if she saw me she would drag me out and…”
“Excuse me, miss?” A voice came suddenly from Scootaloo’s left. “You’ve um… have you had enough time? I could take your order now.”
Scootaloo turned suddenly, her expression dropping in shock, although she had no idea what warranted that response. But the sight of Blanche, the regular waiter, brought back that sense of comfort that seemed to have been cast upon her.
“O-oh, ah. Yeah, hey! The usual for me, huh?” Scootaloo said, her smile returning.
“No problem. What about your friend here?” Blanche asked.
“I dunno, what do you guys have?” Sweetie Belle leaned over, smirking at the waiter and giving him a wink. “Something sweet?”
“I… um…” Blanche stuttered, stepping back. “I’ll get you a menu, miss!”
He rushed off, a grin chasing him down at his back.
“Well, he was cute, wasn’t he?” Sweetie said with a laugh.
“Dude. Not cool.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Don’t mess with them, okay? I swear, you’re turning into your sister more and more each day.”
“Whoa! Don’t even go there,” Sweetie declared. “Just let a girl have her fun, why don’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Scootaloo slumped back in her chair, looking around.
As her eyes travelled the length and breadth of the place, she took it all in again for the first time – from the steam coming from the brewing machines to the tables full of chatter and life and fun. It was all there. New experiences being made. New conversations to be had.
“Hey, you okay?” Sweetie asked, peering up into Scootaloo’s face.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry!” Scootaloo recovered, her eyes snapping back. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“Of him?” Sweetie chucked a hoof toward the waiter.
“Well… this place in general. Just… I don’t know. All of a sudden I feel so thankful for having found this place, and I don’t know why.”
“It’s a nice place.” Sweetie shrugged.
“Yeah, it is. It feels like home, you know?” Scootaloo’s head bobbed.
Friends and conversation fueled the fire.
Chairs and tables and a place to belong to.
And coffee that was to come – there was always coffee.
“It feels like home.” Scootaloo reasserted, smiling, as she looked out the window, the birds calling to one another as they took to the skies.
THE END