Silver returned to find none of his friends present. With a bit of a pout, but more of an angry stomping, he made his way to bed and flopped down, waiting impatiently for someone to return.
Fast Change was the first through the door. Though... he was a unicorn with brown and green colors, Silver spotted his cutie mark, which hadn't changed. Silver raised a hoof, "Hey Fast, already back to changing?"
"It's in the name" said Fast defensively. He nudged the door shut, then became her birth form before the red unicorn trotted over to Silver, "Since you seem to like it so much, here you go."
Silver reached out and gently ran a hoof over a cheek, "I like you well enough. You. Not your body. Speaking of you, tell me more about you. What'd you do before you got here? What do you want to do afterwards?"
Fast hopped up and flopped beside him, "There's not much to know... I was born out west, came here to study magic." She tilted her head, "It costs my parents a small fortune, but I'm going to pay them back."
Silver raised an ear, "Why'd it cost so much?"
Fast pulled her head back a little, "It's not obvious? They had to pay for me to live here, in Canterlot, long enough to earn my way in here. Private tests are hard to do, and the college doesn't send testers out past Canterlot, so that's about the only way you get in if you're not from here." She nudged Silver with a hoof, "Your turn."
Silver smiled gently, "Your parents sound like nice people, er, ponies. They obviously care about you."
Fast frowned, "I said, your turn. Tell me where you're from."
Silver held up his hooves in what he hoped was a placating fashion, "Not trying to avoid it, just saying. If I told you where I'm from, you'd cuff me over the ears and call me a liar."
Fast rolled over and moved a hoof over Silver's head, "I can do it now if you prefer? I'm being honest with you." She glanced around, "It's your turn. Be honest, or are you just trying to butter me up?"
Silver heard a bit of fearful guard there and took a slow breath, "Alright. I'm not from here." He swirled a hoof on the bed, "By here, I mean here, here. Equestria here." She hiked a brow, but said nothing. Silver continued, "My world is nothing but a fantasy, here, and this world is a fantasy, there. I ran away from a lot of problems, and now I'm dealing with a new set."
Fast rolled her shoulders, "So, is it better? Your old problems, or your new ones?"
Silver frowned at the thought a moment before he replied, "Some of each? You don't get to live without problems, wherever you are, I guess." He sank, head resting on his hooves, "Celine... You know her, right?"
Fast shook her head, "Come on now. We're roommates, how would I not know her? How'd you bag such a mare anyway?"
Silver smiled gently, "I don't deserve her, but she practically was pushed into my lap. Thinking of life without her..."
Fast put a hoof on his nose, "Why would you live without her? Is she sick? Is she moving away? If you two got in a fight, you better crawl with your belly on the ground and offer up your balls on a sandwich before you let her go."
Silver winced, but laughed, "If begging and pleading would do it, I'd be at her hooves right now. You could say she's sick, kinda. What's going to... ugh. I don't know exactly, but it's after the Equestria Games... and that's barely next week, right?"
Fast nodded, "Sure, I think? I don't pay much attention to it. They don't take kindly to enhancement unicorns showing up there, barring as emergency medics. What's that have to do with anything at all?"
Silver started to withdraw, going quiet and sullen. Fast leaned over and kissed him. It was a peck, but deepened quickly. She rolled him over and held him in her talented smooch until all he could feel and smell was her. She drew back with a light smile, "Did that work?"
Silver was flushed vivid through his brown cheeks as he gave a slow nod, "Do you... like me?"
Fast snorted softly, "Maybe a little... You looked so sad. Tell me. Did she find some other alicorn to hitch with?"
Silver frowned, "No, nothing like that... She's going to die. She's going to die and go away and never come back, because that's just how death works." He brought down a hoof on the bed in impotent fury, "She's going to die and leave me alone. All I'll have is her memories, and they'll never do what she did." Fresh tears began to fall down his snout as he punched the mattress, wailing at the bed as if it could be beaten into surrendering his Celine back to him. "I don't want to lose her. I don't want to live without her."
Fast rolled her ears back, "You're not... going to hurt yourself, are you? There are bett--"
"No!" barked out Silver, sitting up on his haunches, "No... Even if... it goes down like that, and my heart is ripped from my chest, I will stagger forwards. I made a promise, to myself, a long time ago. I'll only die when my life is ripped away from me. I'll never call the game early."
Fast gave a thin smile, "That's good, I think? Have you... thought about that kind of thing a lot?"
Silver sank back to his belly, "Sometimes, but I made a promise. I'm not going anywhere, but that doesn't mean I'll be happy. I can't even imagine being happy again if she goes away."
Fast settled a hoof on his head, rubbing it gently, "So... you do roleplaying games huh? When'd you start that?"
Silver flopped slowly onto his side, facing Fast, "When I was just a kid."
"You were a goat?" asked Fast dubiously.
"Er, foal," corrected Silver, "I learned about it from someone who didn't even show it to me that well, but the books were fascinating, and the idea of making stories worked well with me. I showed it to my friends, not knowing any of the rules." He fidgeted, pawing the bed with his hooves, "For a while, I was the storyteller of my neighborhood. I ran for a dozen children, uh, foals, weaving them through stories that I just kinda made up as I went."
Fast shook her head slowly, "Huh... surprised you didn't do more with that, you know, and less magic."
Silver smiled gently, "I did, where I came from. I was writing just before I came here."
Fast hopped down from the bed suddenly, stepping over to her side of the room and returning with a writing set floating over her head in her magic, "So why not now? Writing is obviously an important thing to you." She set down the quill and paper and inkwell before gesturing with a hoof, "Go on. Write. Write about how you're feeling, or about Celine if you like? Just write."
Silver slowly sat up, looking at the writing supplies, then to Fast. A gentle quirk of a smile played on his muzzle. "You can be really sweet, you know."
Fast shivered softly, then blinked. "Oh, uh..." She frowned then, and turned to walk away.
Silver blinked at the reaction, "What? Did I say something wrong? Fast Change!" He hopped over the writing tools and landed poorly, ending up on his face, "Ow." He snorted a giggle at his pain as he quickly scrambled back to his hooves, "Fast, what's wrong?"
Fast did not look at him, instead retreating to her bed, but Silver was not ready to give up. He was at the bed's side, "Fast? Come on. If I said something stupid, just call me dumb, don't turn away."
Fast shook her head quickly, "No... you didn't say anything wrong... I just..."
She trailed off and began to shut down as Silver had done himself so many times. Silver clambered onto the bed and threw caution to the wind. If Fast could do it, so could he! He pressed in and kissed her. It was a clumsy kiss, if well-intended. Fast burst into giggles and shoved him away, "Damn son, you are awful at that."
Silver nodded a little, "I... usually am kissed, not doing the kissing. So... what's wrong?"
Fast glanced around a moment before pointing at Silver, "I felt love, but I wasn't in a sexy body, or even trying to be sexy. I... this sounds stupid, but I was just trying to make you smile."
Silver tilted his head, "And you did. I felt... touched. I felt like you were being a really great friend." He sat up on his haunches and spread his hooves wide, "I felt like I was getting close."
Fast advanced, taking up the offered space and snuggling in against Silver, "You're a doofus."
Silver nestled with her, "I'm in great company."
Silver returned to his own bed, setting the writing implements aside. Fatigue was too great to really try writing. He prayed Celine, or even Night Watch, would be there in the morning.
When sleep came for him, it was not a gentle visitation.
He sat in an uncomfortable folding chair. There were only a few other ponies there, though there were many chairs. A priest, he assumed from the severe white and black clothes, droned softly but he couldn't make out the words. They weren't important. This was a funeral, and he couldn't remember whose it was.
As dreams do, he knew he had to stand up. He slowly approached the closed coffin. Following an urge that made sense in the world of dreams, he put a hoof against the coffin and threw it open. There was nothing inside. No corpse, no serene vision of death. The emptiness made his heart tighten as fear clutched at him. The priest, who had been a vague impression until then, wheeled on him, leaning in to shout in angry tones, "She was nothing! She has returned to nothing! At least a real person would become dust, but she was less than that. Do you feel sorry for her?" The priest's face, before hazily unimportant, was then brought into stark detail. It was his father, sneering with disdain bordering on contempt. Silver was paralyzed, tears running painfully in greasy gobs as his father circled him. "Do you feel pain for her, this figment? Maybe you deserve to die too!"
He was kicked, though he never saw his father move, and fell back into the coffin. His father leaned in over him, "It's what you deserve." The lid slammed down, and all was dark. For a time, it was silent save the sound of his sniffles and tears, but soon he heard something hitting the coffin. Soft thumps? They were burying him, right in her grave.
He awoke screaming in the darkness, with a pain he had never felt before stabbing at his chest.