30/11
I want to write something about missing you. But this is a journal. This isn't you. So what's the point?

Vanhoover is freezing. Winter starts north and works its way down across Equestria - and what a start we’re seeing this year. Even here indoors, I’m wrapped up in my parka out of necessity. The sunlight streaming in through the high windows is purely decorative, drained of all warmth. I’m afraid I am headed to even colder reaches from here…

I am seated on a wooden bench in a transit terminal, next to an old stallion whose sleep is so still and consummate that he may in fact be dead. I rather hope not. It’s just past 9 o’clock; our train arrived about an hour ago. Most of us had to be woken up by a sharp toot of its ghastly horn. Forgive my penmanship if it’s sloppier than usual - Soul Searcher and I overdid things the night before, staying up late to watch the moonlit view of the Unicorn Range passing by. Her idea, not mine. The darkness left a lot to the imagination, but apparently that was the point… A little past midnight, we caught a glimpse of motion on a distant plateau, a swift and violent movement. SS insisted that it was a crazed mountain mare doing reconnaissance, following the train and waiting for her opportune moment to strike in the night. I rather think it was a wildcat of some sort, but didn’t want to spoil her fun.

We had a little breakfast at the station café. We were both quite tired and didn't talk much, but it was a companionable silence when it came. Good coffee there. I should stop by on the way back. SS seemed to be taking her homecoming in stride. At one point, I asked her if she thought that there could exist the perfect city for her, some place wherein she would voluntarily stay put, out of love. She shrugged and said it might happen eventually, when her wanderlustful youth has fled and newer, stronger needs set in. Or that it might happen if she found somepony attractive enough to fill her days some other way, then raised her eyebrows at me. That mare certainly knows the strangest ways to flirt. I wish her the best of luck.

She said I should come find her on my return, and offered me a couch to sleep on should I want to stay and see a bit more of Vanhoover. In all honesty, I hadn’t planned that far ahead. I have half a mind to take her up on it. I have half a mind to go there right now rather than catch this coach. I have half a mind to just turn back around, board the next train to Canterlot at whatever exorbitant last-minute cost they charge and forget this whole pathetic self-imposed

I honestly think, if the coach had arrived but a minute later, I might not have been around to board it. It is all I can do to keep myself occupied writing these very words, putting more distance between myself and the terminal, making it more unfeasible to jump through the rear window and dash on back, tail between legs. Come on, Rarity. You've come this far. Would she want you to

It was to be a long ride, and a flurry of caffeine and worry was keeping her from sleeping through it. There would be this dull transit for many hours, stopping at Freezing Breeze Bay and Gran Chivalo before terminating at Lonely Prairie, then a short ferry ride to the end of the line. She had stocked up on supplies at the train station, purchasing an assortment of overpriced snacks for the coach ride, a new pencil (just in case), and a novel from the best-sellers display, as cheap in price as in quality.

Looking up from her journal, pencil hovering close to her muzzle, Rarity surveyed her travelling companions. It was an eight-seater coach, the main body enclosed by a caravan covering, with two muscular stallions visible through the front window, heaving the passengers through Vanhoover laneways. In the first row was the old stallion, still cadaverous in sleep, and an empty seat; behind him was a middle-aged couple, passive-aggressively staring out their respective windows; then a bored-looking stallion who smelled faintly of fish; and Rarity herself up the back and on the left, across the aisle from a pile of fluffy winter clothes that may or may not have housed a pony somewhere within their deep crevasses. It would be difficult to tell, she thought, without a flashlight and appropriate spelunking equipment.

She was surprised by how successfully she had tuned out Vanhoover. There was no singing in its white winter streets, no time for its majesty or novelty. She’d gone straight from the trains to the coaches and waited with barely a thought to seeing more of the city itself. It wasn’t intentional, but Rarity was gripped by a surge of guilt, and she pushed her head up close to the window to take in as much of her foreign surroundings as she could before they were all left behind. The coach was travelling over a long bridge, extending out from the city centre over the harbour, reaching for the wooded shores opposite. The bright sunlight made the waterside buildings look monolithic, dramatically framing each against the others, and it danced atop the gentle waves of the harbour that girt the city’s heart. Her eyes scanned the scene, top to bottom, east to west, and she found her gaze drawn to a small wooden café on the water's edge - but it slipped away, and the coach at last reached land again, and a large hoof-painted sign thanked her for visiting Vanhoover, the Best of the Northwest.

You know, there’s a very good chance this trip might all be for naught. The last letter was nearly a year old; it’s possible that he moved elsewhere in the interim. Perhaps he even passed on. Oh, stop. It doesn’t do any good to dwell on such pessimistic thoughts. Besides, there’s no going back now. It would require some kind of mutiny to turn this coach around, and I’m certain whose side the other passengers would take.

Just thought, for the briefest of moments - what if he doesn’t care? He does, he has to, he sent those letters, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. He deserves to know.

The book was bottom-of-the-barrel crime fiction, 300-odd pages of trope-ridden tripe; precisely what she needed. It was compelling in that peculiar way that inane things are, requiring so little effort to continue that it becomes hard to stop reading. The characters were just barely likeable, the mystery just barely complex enough to keep her occupied.

There was the rustle of paper as the travellers turned the pages of their distractions; there was the gentle rumble of the wheels, and the sounds of birds and the quiet wind filtered through the thick tarp and window flaps.

"Whoever it is that leaves, all shredded and limbless…"

"Yours and yours alone, my love."

She had been dimly aware of the snow. About an hour out of Vanhoover it became just noticeable, sprinkled throughout the trees, nestled in clumps on leaves and branches. Over time, the green and brown in her periphery had been swallowed up by the pale white; now, as she occasioned to glance at the view outside, she was afforded nothing but snow, coating the bank of a steep hill that obstructed the rest of the world. A cloudy sky peeked shyly over the top, giving her the impression of a ruffled curtain of white that stretched all the way up from the ground to the sky. She found the consistency of its drabness almost impressive, in a way—

And then the curtain was pulled back, and the spectacle began as the hill dipped to reveal the rolling sea before her. There were two metres of leeway, a drop of about the same height, and then brilliant violent water, clamouring for the top of the hill, jumping and reaching and missing and falling back down and retreating all the way to a murky, infinitely distant horizon before trying again. The coach was traversing the base of a massive horseshoe-shaped bay, wooded land curving away behind them, the snowy path forging on ahead. Way out on the dark surface of the water, small boats sailed along lazy parabolas that arced back to the tip of the peninsula, their first destination, Freezing Breeze Bay.

It was picturesque, one of those rare moments where the natural world assembles a moving work of art before one’s eyes. Her gaze followed the slow crawl of the vessels, and she grasped the enormity of the seascape, and all at once she was hit like lightning by just how small she was, how little chance she stood against it. It sent a shiver right through her, a strange mix of grandeur, passion and perspective. Rarity glanced hopefully at her companions, expecting them to be just as enraptured by the view: on her side of the aisle, the old stallion remained still as the grave, and the passive-aggressive mare had her muzzle buried in a magazine, occasionally casting furtive sideways glances at her partner, who was doing exactly the same. The odorous stallion bore a look of purposeful solitude, and the winter clothes across from her were intently attempting to organise some manuscripts with their clumsy over-wrapped hooves. What reverence she felt was born, and shortly withered, solely in her heart.

More hills soon rose up to obstruct her view, and she was left alone again with her thoughts.

It’s funny how it all keeps going. The world is no less big or beautiful when I'm not there to see it. The seasons never slow for my benefit. As the sun rises, so too does it set - the tide ebbs and flows - every day, all across Equestria, ponies wake up, eat their breakfast and go to work, completely unaware of me, my problems and predilections. They fall asleep and dream of something else entirely. It all just keeps on going, undeterred, without me.

I still see the Apples from time to time, around town. Granny Smith, Big Mac, little Apple Bloom; it feels like they should have just… disappeared, now that my connection to them is gone. Exeunt all. It’s a very queer thing to tear the context away from a pony like that. As Soul Searcher was saying, we construct ourselves as a relation to others, but so too do we distance others as mere relations to ourselves. Without… her as the buffer between us, Granny is nothing to me, not even a grandmother - nothing but her pure self. A living, thinking, feeling being. I see her more clearly now than ever before. It frightens me. Last time I saw her approaching in the street, I ducked into a café and hid until she was gone. As plainly as I see Granny now, I see the gaping hole that she left.

And who am I, now? How do I appear to those who see me, friends or strangers? What did she take away from me when she left?

A philosophical conundrum: I am many Is. Each connection in my life, every passing moment, is another perspective of myself. It’s hard to say just how many there are - but the sister Sweetie Belle knows is surely a different pony to the mare now living in Soul Searcher’s memory. Perhaps not noticeably so from the outside… But there are all kinds of microscopic differences between those two selves. Changes in dialect, mood, mannerisms; how I interact with my surroundings, and how my surroundings affect me; how much I am tempered by familial love, versus how much I am compelled by… well, she was a most interesting mare… So, eventually, the question arises: which one of them is more truly Rarity? If such a concept is even coherent. I would hazard that the existence of those separate selves is proof enough that there is no One True Rarity. Rarity is unstable - kaleidoscopic. This present author is no more or less myself than yesterday’s - we are different, but we are equally different, and so we are equal.

This is… a mildly upsetting conclusion, I will admit. There should be something at the centre, propping it all up. Physicality? A white unicorn with a fabulous purple coiffure: ah, but we desire more than that. We want to believe we are something more, something that can exist beyond the simple boredom of our bodies. Really, we’re little more than each moment as it passes - the thoughts in our head, memories, actions. Mile markers that make up a journey. Still frames that, in quick enough succession, blur together to form a moving picture, an identity.

Pah!, is this the royal we? Perhaps you are projecting your own uncertainties on to the rest of ponykind. I don’t know. Lately I’ve felt more like moments - like I’m merely whatever task I’m performing, whichever place I perform it in. Like things are too slow to give the illusion of movement.

If there really were a One True Rarity, I suppose she would best be observed when completely isolated - perhaps while on a coach in the middle of nowhere with nopony to talk to.

Through sheer force of will, she distracted herself with another few chapters of The Silent Saddle, until a sharp jerk of the carriage and a grumbled finally from two seats ahead heralded their arrival at Freezing Breeze Bay.

Despite the name and the portentous weather, it was surprisingly bearable outside the coach, and the ocean-borne wind was chilly but tame. Calm before the storm, Rarity suspected. The fishy stallion had vanished instantly, and as the embittered couple wandered off into the cobbled streets, they resumed whatever argument had been put on hold in the coach's polite company. Over their cries of "completely out of context" and "just like your mother," Rarity was dimly aware of the drivers telling the remaining passengers to be back at the coach in thirty minutes, Or Else.

Yet more time to kill. She returned to the relative warmth of the coach to fish her boots out from her suitcase, then emerged once more into the avenue, purposeless. They had parked downtown, and a handful of ponies passed her by in either direction. Pondering the scandalous source of the couple’s bickering, she gravitated westwards on autopilot, past low buildings and tacky markets, towards the shoreline. By the gateway to the stone beach that bounded the inlet, there stood a lonely refreshment cart from which she bought an overpriced and underwhelming hot cocoa, mostly out of habit. Something pulled her towards the water, closer still. The stones beneath her hooves were small and smooth and dark, merging like a gradient into the slow grey waves.

It was a strange and beautiful phenomenon that even on such a dreary day, the mere sight of the ocean could do such wonders for her mood. That grand perspective she'd felt on the coach hummed in the back of her mind, an after-image. A calm descended over her, and she shut her eyes and savoured the smell of salt in the air, the breeze against her cheeks, the soft pulse of the tide, and the warmth of the cocoa filling her belly.

"Darling…! Are you honestly telling me you’ve never see—"

"I ain’t never seen th’ gods-damn ocean, no! I mean, I seen pictures, sure, but… not properly. Not ’til now -" a mischievous grin - "so if you wouldn’t mind shuttin’ yer jaw for a minute so's I can let this life-changin’ moment sink in…"

"Shutting my— Oh, you will come to regret those words, dearest." It’s a chore to force venom into the word, feigned as it may be.

"Lookin’ forward to it, sweetcheeks."

She spent her remaining time looking at garish souvenirs in the markets, trying to trick herself into being interested in them.

A brief disclaimer: earlier, I ridiculed my over-attention to detail vis-à-vis a certain snack cart's movements; but I feel the hypocrisy of repeating this mistake is justifiable in light of how ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING these sugarsnaps are. By all the stars in the sky! Their repulsion is… beyond words. No, hang on, I've thought of a few. This is the most putrid, festering, lousy excuse for a delicacy I've seen since the notorious 'baked bads' incident. I ought to sue the Vanhooverite that sold them to me for assault. He claimed they are organic, by which I can now infer he meant that they are pure dirt and excrement.

I must say that I am beginning to understand the appeal of diary-keeping. It passes the time, for one thing; but there is a catharsis to these inconsequentialities. If I didn't have this private space in which to vent my snack-based disappointment, that negativity (short-lived though it may be) would simmer inside me and follow me around for the day, and make the world even more bitter. And with positivity - it only multiplies when you share it, and here it's like I can share it with my future self.

Oh please, what positives It's nice to enjoy the little things, isn't it? I remember one miserable morning, asking Pinkie how she was always so chipper… She said she just never forgets the little things. Could it really be so simple? Hot cocoa. My book - the good one I left behind, not this… thing… The wonder of the ocean. The manifold shape of the snowflake. Cute mares on trains.

A neat list of pleasant distractions. A bandage over a broken horn. Isn’t everything? There’s something waiting in the silence. There’s a fear that we all acknowledge, we write whole books on it, we philosophise about it from the comfort of the fireside - but even the philosophising is a distraction. We don’t feel it unless we’re still, absolutely still. Why am I writing, if not to distract myself from this mind-numbing trip? Why am I on this mind-numbing trip, if not to distract myself from my mind?

I was only peripherally aware of the snowfall until now. Fairly light, which makes it all the more appreciable. Light snow is graceful, ornamental. Heavy snow is slush, slow going, more time spent in this damnable interlude.

The pencil halted abruptly. What had she been about to say? She'd begun writing instinctually. At the back of her mind, the sentiment echoed dimly. I don't think I'm okay.

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means— It means you've been blockin' me out lately. No, don't give me that look, we both know it's the truth. An' I won't pretend like it don't hurt me, 'cause it does, Rares, it hurts hard, but…" Her gaze faltered for the briefest of moments. "But I respect yer privacy. An' you shouldn't feel guilty for wantin' it."

"It's not about pri—"

"I'd be a plum fool not to know what it's about. I know what you wanna say as much as you know what I wanna say. But if you can't say it to me, maybe…" She nudged the book across the table. "You can say it to this."

She kept her eyes glued to the landscape for a while, seeking out another moment of profundity; but the coastline was cloaked once again by snow-laden trees, and she returned to her book with an implacable sense of disappointment.

There came a point where she knew she would have to break soon, and she wondered how much longer she could prolong it for. The animate pile of clothing across the aisle from her had spent the last half-hour giggling to itself, with gradually increasing intensity and frequency. It was barely noticeable at first beneath the rumble of the coach and the low moan of the wind; now Rarity found herself reading the same sentences over and over as she waited for each outburst to cut through the winter's calm. She inhaled, coiled.

The shuffling of paper; then a bright heehee! that sent a chill down her spine. She took a moment to appreciate the dead calm of the elder stallion up the front, then sighed, and turned to face the annoyance.

The clothes turned towards her - looking straight-on she could make out, beneath a hood that had obscured all sign of life, a flat jet-black fringe that obscured all facial features. It was an obvious and poorly-done dye job, with traces of amber roots visible in various places. Rarity wondered how the pony could even make out words on a page through its impractical length. A faint echo from within that identified the pony as a stallion - "Heh. Hello."

From within the deepest and darkest reserves of her heart, Rarity mustered a fake grin and all the passive-aggression she could spare. "I'm dreadfully sorry, dear, I don't mean to interrupt whatever it is you're doing over there, but—"

"Letters," the hair blurted out. Rarity blinked. "Haha, I'm uh. I'm reading letters. That's what… yeah." He gestured meekly with his hooves, still clutching the papers. His voice was young and thin, with a constant note of surprise that irritated Rarity to no end.

"From my— boyfriend," he continued, apparently not hearing her. He seemed to savour the last word, accentuating the attack, drawing it out just a little longer than natural. He giggled again. "I'm going to, oh my gosh, I’m going to meet him, we're so close to his— I'm sorry, it's just… Love, you know?"

There was an expectant pause. This was not going to plan. Was she supposed to say something? Rarity did not want to say something. Rarity did not want to say a word to this thing, though she could think of several words she’d like to scream at it. She cleared her throat. He kept on - "I don't know if you've uh, I mean are you, do you have a special somepony? It's so hard to describe, it's so…" His hooves made a wide arcing motion. "Just like. Everything is… wow. Wow times a million. Infinity wow. Do you know what I mean?" He cocked his head slightly, as if concerned.

Exhausted, Rarity's simper dropped. In a moment of grim prescience, she realised that she was not even supposed to reply. This boy was filled to the brim with something that needed to get out, and no matter what she said, nor how little interest she displayed in his babbling, he was going to keep on talking at her until he'd said all he wanted to say to the universe. Who knew how long that would take? At best, perhaps she could speed the process along.

Her assailant nodded vigorously. "Honestly, now it's super weird to think, like, how was I happy before I met him? I thought I was, I mean things were pretty good, I wasn’t, like, sad or anything, but… But this is happiness. Like, this whole other level. So whatever I felt beforehand, what was that? Everything's different now, it's all the same but just better, everything is just…"

"It's so hard to describe, isn't it? Haha, or is that just me? I'm not a poet or anything." He looked down bashfully, and Rarity thanked all conceivable deities that he wasn't a poet or anything.

That dreadful giggle again. "He likes to send me, um. Stuff about us." no no no no no no no no

The stallion thrust one of his many papers towards her, scattering several others in the process. "D'you wanna see?" Something glistened deep beneath his fringe.

A small, strangled noise escaped Rarity's lips. The trap was set. There was no foreseeable way out of this. She gingerly took the poem from him as if it were a bomb, and her eyes scanned the sheet with a terror she hoped wasn't noticeable.

"It's good," he assured her, "like, critically. The um, imagery and metaphor and stuff— I won't bore you, but trust me, he's really good." Rarity could feel his expectant gaze on her as she read.

"Right? I still can't believe he found a rhyme for orange…!" He sighed rapturously. "Don't you just love it?"

"No, nooo, I love it, I absolutely love it, I do. Heheh."

"For gods’ sakes! If you're going to lie to my face, could you at least do it without giggling?" Hot, angry tears welled up behind her eyes.

"Rares! C'mon now, it's— I'm jus' not… You know I don't know a damn thing about fashion." Rarity's glare was unrelenting. "I'm sure it's a masterpiece. And I love that y' thought of me, I do, I really really do."

"But?"

"But how the heck am I s'posed to buck trees in high heels?" she laughed.

"… you know, it's uh, heh, it's true love. Plain and simple. Some ponies don't believe me, but you believe me, right?"

Why was this happening? Why here, why now? Why had the gods put this abominable creature on this coach with her?

It felt deliberate - like the whole conversation, the entire coach ride leading up this moment, was a shrewdly calculated attack on her psyche. Why was he doing this to her?

"I wonder if, maybe he'll write some while we're together? I can be his, hehe, his muse…"

Was this divine retribution? That must be it. She wondered what it was specifically, which mistake in her life had warranted this karmic torture.

"… this is my first time going this far north, actually. It's kind of a funny story…"

Sweetie Belle’s cuteceañera? No, worse than that. That night with Fancy Pants? I knew I could never make it right. Or the weekend I was in Hoofington and I missed—?

"… while he was in Seaddle for umm, a month? Although it felt like, you know how time just flies by…"

Maybe it wasn't any one thing. Maybe I'm just a bad pony. I had it too easy for too long and now it's all coming back around.

"… and I was, you know, it was hard, but then he said why don't I write you…"

That's it. It's a lump sum. This boy, and the sugarsnaps, and the cold and the book and the phantom pain. It's all accumulated.

"… pen-pals is such a romantic notion, don't you think? 'A dying artform,' he called it…"

I wasn't good enough to her. And only now am I trying to make up for it. And the universe is telling me it's too little too late.

This is the mistake. I knew it. I should have stayed in Canterlot, stayed in the Boutique. Stayed away.

"Go home, Rarity." Softly, like doctors with bad news. "Just for tonight."

"No way in hell," she growled.

"Please," Twilight whispered. "You need rest. The girls and I will be here if any—"

"Don't you say another word, Twilight Sparkle." She hardly recognised her voice, strained and distant. "Don't you finish that sentence. I won't— I wasn't there for her once, and look what happened. I won't be absent again. I can't."

And this, this thing! This deluded little excrement, yammering away! Salt in the gaping wound!

"— but I guess you just gotta, uh, trust in love, right?" There was a sheepish grin plastered on his face, fringe brushed away to one side, and there was something in it, a flickering thing that she recognised and knew that she hated—

And there it was. That's enough now, she thought. It was all she could think. Enough.

"Well," she said wryly, voice cracking ever so slightly, "I'm very happy for you two. And I hope you enjoy it while it lasts."

"You know… young love, it's, how to put it… It's a wonderful, if fleeting, part of life." She smiled magnanimously.

The lovestruck pony stared at her, eyebrows furrowed in either puzzlement or indignation, she couldn't tell. "This isn't fleeting. This is true love."

He gave a short, exasperated sigh. "You sound just like— This is the real deal! The, the sonnets of Shakesmare, the operas of, of—" He came up empty. "Love!"

"Oh, yes. Of a kind. But…" She leaned towards him, her gaze steeled - "Would you take it from a wise old mare like myself that there are forces and feelings in this life that your young little mind simply cannot comprehend when you're, oh, sixteen?" ("Seventeen," he protested weakly, but she continued unabated - ) "That the reason you feel so special and on top of the world and weally twuly in wuv is that you've seen and done so staggeringly little that your whole world is the size of a grapefruit - a convenient, easy-to-digest size, something small enough to be conquered with the barest of efforts. And so you get cocky. You think you've figured it all out! And you have to explain to everypony else all these magical sensations that you and only you have felt! You mistake your own ignorance for intensity, you think your love is the purest, truest love known to ponykind because you don't know a thing about compromise or pragmatics or betrayal or—" She paused for breath, refocusing. "And then you and your boyfriend will grow up, and your little grapefruits will slowly get bigger and push against each other and push you away from each other, and you'll disappear somewhere over his horizon - " she traced a hoof lazily through the air, into the imagined distance - "and your purest, truest love will be lost for good. Maybe he'll remember you, sometimes, when he's drunk enough to dive through his embarrassing adolescence and think about all the mistakes he made. Probably not. But you, you'll carry that weight, you'll drag it around like a mutt on a leash into every new relationship and think this one will be the one, this time will be so much better, everything will be perfect from here on out, and it won't be, because nothing is perfect, nothing is pure, nothing is true, least of all love."

Silence rolled through like thunder. The boy had retreated so far into his parka that Rarity could barely see the expression on his face, but his wide eyes glistened in the muted light. She drew in a long breath for effect, smiled again, and calmly finished - "So, as I said. Enjoy every second." And after a moment of unwavering eye contact, she turned back to face her window.

A minute later she heard the familiar rustle of paper again, but no laughter accompanying it.

It didn't feel like a victory. She was waiting for the satisfaction to kick in. Karma had been bested; but the road rolled on unperturbed, the snow kept falling, and the heaviness in her heart remained, immutable. Perhaps, she considered, he was not a divine force after all. Perhaps he was just a kid, on a coach, in love for the first time.

The more she replayed her words in her head, the more she began to despise them. She turned back to the boy, opening her mouth; but she couldn't assemble the appropriate apology.

I hope this isn't the One True Rarity. I hope this Rarity disappears into the white wilds and is never seen again. He must be wondering who this horrible mare is, why the gods would put her on this coach with him, why she would do this to him…

I don't even know if I believe what I said. Isn't that funny? It's just… hard to know, when I feel like this. It's hard to believe anything.

I remember the exact moment that I gave up on true love. I remember every single moment with you when I thought I'd go back on that decision. I remember you saying, "the grandest of oaks don't just spring out of the ground fully formed, they need patience and a helping hand." I said "why does everything come back to agriculture with you," and you gave me this absolutely withering glare, but your lips twitched with a smile and I realised at once how profoundly in love I was, and how much I'd come to depend on that smile. I think if you're in love, really in love, then you'll always feel seventeen. There's nothing else in the world but you and your special somepony.

Are we still on the road? Are we even still in the north? In Equestria? In this plane of existence...? Still snowing outside. I'm beginning to feel it setting into my bones - the cold, the distance, impossible. How is there so much sky? Was there always so much of it? It is oversized, a caricature!, it looks ill-fitting and unflattering like a cartoonish ball gown, and how it goes on and on and on… A spiteful surplus of cirrus and silence.

Gran Chivalo was not quite a ghost town, for it had never lived in the first place. The self-proclaimed Jewel of the North, it had been architected single-hoofedly by a misguided Eastern millionaire, who had mistaken his vast trust fund for economic know-how. He poured his fortunes into building a first-class resort town nestled in the snow-laden valley below the Malachite Mountains, filled it up with hospitality workers and their families, gave it a flashy-sounding Griffon name for good measure, then sat back and waited for the tourists to flow in. He had forgotten two key factors to the resort’s success: firstly, the infrastructure to actually transport tourists to and from the town; and secondly, the fact that the breathtaking Foal Mountains supplied everypony with all the winter resorts they could need. An initial trickle of trade came in from curious Vanhoovians, but it evaporated quickly. The townsfolk were resilient, though - resilient and well-supplied, and after their mayor had fled into the coat-folds of his disappointed parents, they maintained something of a life for themselves in this place that was far too big for them.

Rarity had half-expected the townsfolk to be waiting to welcome them on arrival, congratulating whatever brave or mad souls had made it so far north - but there was nothing to greet them save for a biting wind and an overwhelming sense of disproportion. She’d been glued to the window with increasing disbelief as they rolled through the wide, empty streets, lined with bizarrely symmetrical inns and storefronts framed by gaslight against the darkening skies. The carriage pulled up in front of the town hall - vaulted ceiling atop gorgeous stonework - and she stifled a laugh with her hoof. “It seems we missed the peak-hour rush,” she slighted, turning to find herself alone in the carriage. With a perfunctory hm, she exited.

Her body shivered as the Northern air hit her afresh, carrying the smell of cold and a distant woodfire. The boy was wandering slowly away from the coach, as if dazed. "Present Perfect?" he called out into the silence. Rarity saw a mare watching them from a second-storey window. "Pres—" His footing gave out where a gaslamp's warmth had melted the snow beneath it, and he tumbled face-first into the slush with a weak yelp.

"My dear!" she cried out, moving towards him, "are you…?" But she stopped in her tracks. His eyes looked up at her from the ground, wide as saucers, locked on to hers. She was paralysed by the stare, and its screaming accusation.

Then - the sound of muted hoofsteps from around a distant corner, and both sets of ears perked at a cry of "Evergreen!" They turned in unison to see a tall figure galloping into the foreground, a puke-green sweater barreling towards them at a breakneck pace. "I'm so insurmountably sorry," it called out, "I meant to be here waiting for you, my mother made me d—"

Whatever sad excuse was forming on his lips was buffeted out of him as Evergreen had leapt, with improbable speed, from the ground straight into a flying tackle, bringing Present Perfect crashing down with his embrace. Their lips were upon each other in a heartbeat, reunion consummated with an impressively deep kiss. Rarity's gaze lingered for a moment, bewildered, on the inexperienced lovers, and she wondered if maybe that kiss wouldn't have meant as much, nor tasted quite as sweet, if not for her—

(From behind her, she heard a gasp, and Present Perfect's concerned voice - "what in heaven's name are you wearing?")

As she passed him, one of the workhorses stuck out a hoof to stop her. "You're heading on to the Prairie?"

He grunted. "I'm gonna have to check the roads, see if it's still navigable. Snow hasn't been that bad, but we'll see. So. Back here in thirty minutes, like last time."

"Still na— I'm sorry?" She grappled with the words; but he was off already, down the deserted street.

I might be stuck here, it occurred at last. The roads might be too hazardous, too thick with snow. I might be stuck here in this, this… Rarity's eyes darted around, panic rising. "Noooo. No I will not. It's fine. It'll all be fine." Then - "Talking to yourself out loud is not a strong indication of fine, Rarity."

There was a tavern a short walk up the boulevard, drawing her in with the promise of a roaring fire visible through the front window. It was done up with an elegant log cabin aesthetic, dark wooden furniture with plush red cushions, walls lined with blurry snapshots of the wilderness. She had expected an evening crowd, but as she hung her parka on the coat rack she became acutely aware that the place was completely devoid of patrons - and, it seemed, staff as well. "Hello?" she called into the empty room, warming herself by the fire.

"Won’t be a moment!" a motherly voice chimed from out of nowhere, audibly unhurried; and shortly after, a middle-aged mare sauntered through a door behind the bar. "What'll it— oh! Well, you're a new face," she smiled.

"Yes, just passing through. Weather permitting," Rarity added dourly as she took a seat at the bar.

"On to the Prairie, eh? Not many folks venture that far this time of year…" She paused expectantly, but at Rarity's downcast gaze and inaudible reply, she quickly moved on. "And what can I get for you today, Miss…?"

"Rarity. One of whatever's on tap, please, and..." her eyes scanned a menu - "a basket of hay fries to go with it."

"Oh, I'm sorry, sweetie, the kitchen isn't open just yet," the mare apologised with a sympathetic frown, reaching for a clean mug, "but we do have a particularly palatable Oakwoods on tap this month."

"About half three." She swept a coaster along the counter and placed the full mug precisely on it, a sweet, spicy aroma wafting up from its amber contents.

Half three? Rarity glanced out at the gloomy gaslit street. "Are you quite sure?" she asked slowly. "I do beg your pardon, but it looks considerably later."

The bartender followed her gaze. "Mmhmm, that's winter for you. The sun has a lot of trouble making it this far north 'round this time of year. Heck," she leaned thoughtfully on her hoof, "by now, I think it would've set completely up at Lonely Prairie. If it even rose at all!," she chuckled to herself.

Rhetorical or not, the question was so pressing now, so insistently repeated by her dazed psyche, that it couldn't help escape her lips. "What," Rarity stared at the mare, "is this place?"

The stare held for a pregnant second, woodfire crackling quietly away behind them, until Rarity collapsed, resting her head in her hooves and shaking it slowly. "I'm sorry. It's been one of those days."

"Oh, honey," the bartender soothed. "It's a fair ways to travel, you must be exhausted. Tell you what…" The mare disappeared under the counter for a moment, chestnut mane bobbing around like a shark fin, until she resurfaced with a jar of almonds. "It's not much, but help yourself to some mixed nuts. Get some energy in you."

The bartender chuckled again in her whimsical way. "Ran out of the rest last week. All the almonds you can handle, but not a macadamia for miles!"

It's the abyss, Rarity conjectured, this is the abyss, you stare into it and you break. This place breaks ponies.

"Well, Miss Rarity, I suppose I'll leave you to it. I've got some veggies out back that need re-basting for tonight." She drifted back towards the door she'd entered through. "Have a—"

"Hang on," Rarity sat up, "Miss, you couldn't stay a little longer? I'd, um," she glanced around at her surroundings, "love to hear more about this, this delightful establishment of yours." In truth, she couldn't care less about the tritely decorated bar, but…

The mare clicked her tongue. "Shame… Hey now, maybe I'll see you again on your way back down?" She winked at her patron, opening the door. "Have a safe trip, Miss Rarity."

Rarity could feel the silence creeping up on her, and she floundered, "but, but Miss! How much do I owe you?"

"Five bits - just leave it on the counter, dear," she called behind her, then the door swung shut, and the silence sprung out of hiding and was upon her.

It was like all the pressure had been sucked out of the room; she half-expected the glass window to blow out and take her with it. Rarity was acutely aware in that moment of how empty it was in the bar - in the street - the whole city - the whole Northwest. There had always been a background hum, there had been ponies and places, things to do and say and wish for, always something to focus on to keep the silence at bay. She'd been running from city to city inventing new ways to keep it out— But the hum had washed away with the closing of the back door. There were no ponies nor places; only the spaces between, this quiet, momentous, crushing…

It was the sort of feeling, she thought, that made you want to scream but drained you of the energy to, so all that comes out is a pathetic, inarticulate moan. Darkness flashed before her eyes, the remembered darkness of damp pillows clenched over her face - she was no stranger to the silence. Memories lived here. This was a place devoid of the present, where the past and future rush in to equilibrate its absence, snap shut around you like a trapper's snare. The past: well. The past was always with her, the guilt, biting at her heels. That was nothing new. The future: it unfurled with a languorous smirk, revealing itself. You will always feel like this. The snowed-out road ahead stretched on for weeks and months and years, no scenery to distinguish any part from another, the miles marked only by sleepless nights and empty taverns. A future wasted outrunning a past.

And she would run, because it was all she felt she could do. There may be no redemption at the end of the road - the road may never end at all - but she knew what lay at its beginnings, and she could not bear to turn around.

Is it the place that breaks them? Or is this just where all the broken ponies end up? Something guides them here: the quiet, the cold, an old man's letters…

She downed the rest of her cider - she didn't even like cider, why did she order this? - shovelled a miserable hoof-full of almonds into her mouth, threw her bits on the counter, and left.

The setting sun was afforded no elegance, occluded by matte grey skies, and the wind pierced straight through her parka. Her eyes burned with cold. Somewhere across town, a dog barked, pitifully. It seemed one of the workhorses had clocked out for the day; the remaining driver had wrapped a long maroon scarf about himself, and was lighting a lantern that hung above the front of the cart. He gave her a taciturn nod as she hurried inside the coach. Even its shelter provided little relief to her freezing bones. She shivered as she took her seat, unzipping her suitcase and levitating her paisley-print scarf out.

As she unfolded it, something metallic dropped from within it to the floor of the coach, and even before it hit the ground she knew what it was and her heart stopped for a horrified moment. Her whole body froze. She knew, but she would not look down, could not acknowledge it, not yet, never again, not for as long as possible.

It slid around her neck, cool to the touch, and she suppressed a giggle.

Quizzical brows - "What?"

"I'm just so happy. I thought you were supposed to cry at times like these, but— I just want to laugh."

That glorious smile, it shone in the autumn sunlight, the darkening trees danced ever so gently around them. "Think y'could make it through yer vows first?"

The pendant floated in front of her muzzle. Despite its lustre, her eyes found it hard to focus on its golden, apple-shaped surface. They stared past it into nothing,

"you want me to stop? Really?" She didn't stop.

"I'm just sayinnnn' it keeps brushin' against me and it's oh fuck it's so cold an' all I mean is can't you ohhh at least take it off when you…"

"Short answer -" she came up and kissed her like a freight train, holding her down, and the pendant dangled from her neck and lazily tickled her lover's. An orange hoof reached for it, under the pretense of a tender caress - but a canny white hoof stopped it in place. "I don't ever want to take it off. I want you with me, always."

The coach was empty, she realised. Even the dead pony from the front row was nowhere to be found. It was just her, and the silence, and the workhorse shivering in his scarf as he shouldered the reigns and muttered quietly to himself.

It’s too much. It’s the smallest, stupidest thing, and I was doing so well before no you were not I mean relatively I was maybe— could've held out just that little bit longer— feels like my guts have all fallen out. I keep remembering everything, all at once, bursts of it like fireworks. How is there so great a power in so small a thing? I can feel it burning through my pocket, feel its absence around my throat, hear it jangle with each bump in the road, I can still see it so vividly in my mind that it may as well be painted over my eyes.

I’m writing this down because she told me writing would help when she gave this to me. She said to put quill to paper and let your mind just fall out onto the waiting pages. Let it all out. Then you can come back to it later, and bring a new perspective to old thoughts. Did she envision this, I wonder? Did she foresee how completely she’d destroy my heart, and think something as simple as this stupid fucking book would help me get it back into working order?

Am I angry now? I don’t know what this feeling is, but it consumes me, and it is hideous.

Oh gods. Where am I? Where the hell am I?? I’m on a long snowy road through the middle of an endless white emptiness, being dragged inch by inexorable inch towards the very thing I'm trying to leave behind. As far away as I could ever be from it all, I can still feel the choke of these tethers. I need to keep writing to keep myself from screaming. I miss home. I miss everypony. I miss Mama and Papa, and Sweetie Belle, oh stars I could cry just writing her name. How long has it been since I’ve been back to our house? When did we last eat dinner as a family? Why can’t I remember?? And I miss Twilight and Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy and

and here I am taking solace in you this diary again. I never expected to get so much use out of it. Any use, really. I remember I said, I can handle this just fine, thank you for the vote of confidence. And now I want to pour my bloody beaten heart out to you but this isn’t you THIS ISN’T HER

I’d say I miss you like crazy and I wish you were here and I'm sorry I ever met you and I’m so sorry for everything and

Godspit! I can’t even write your name. I can barely think it. Looking back through these pages, all these vague notions, distractions, interruptions, half-hearted sentiments, a masked reflection—

Is that awful? Am I an awful pony? Is this what everypony else does? I don’t know. I don’t know a single damned thing, except I know it hurts when I remember you and I know I don’t want it to hurt any more. I’ve been avoiding you, this, for so long. Keeping busy. Moving on. I’ve… I’ve been moving so much. I’ve been afraid of what would happen if I stood still long enough, and now look. And I knew I’d end up here, of course I knew. That sparkling little truth has always been in the back of my mind, and I’ve spent all this time building up as many walls around it as I could just to delay the inevitable. What staggering clarity! What absolute immaturity!

This has to stop. I’ll tell him, somehow, I'll tell him everything, and then I can come home, and be done with you.

What a sorry sight you must be, Rarity. Hunched over your journal one minute, staring in mute despair at a tiny piece of jewellery the next, then back again... I wonder if the driver has noticed and is too polite to say anything

And when she glanced up to check, she could see the pattern of distant lights through the boundless dark ahead. They were arriving at Lonely Prairie.

Sundowner Season

by Cherax

A Hole in the Shape of You