The old stallion’s last breath billowed out like a puff of fog. Only then did he blink and look at us.
“You must choose,” my old friend said, her black cloak shimmering in the shadowed room. I never stood on tradition much; she’d always said the cloaks, gray fur, and frightful implements we carried served as a badge of office, but I’d never seen the purpose. The scythes, yes, I suppose—nothing else would quite do the job, but the cloaks? No need to intimidate, but the point was moot, as nobody ever seemed intimidated. I’d find it unnerving, but then ponies continually surprised me. I rather liked them.
He directed a questioning glance at her. “Choose?”
“Her or me.” Always so laconic.
But when he searched the empty air next to her, the verdict became clear. Most ponies chose her—chose her because they couldn’t even see me. The decision made, Lethe swung her blade at him, an edge made only of scintillating starlight, fastened to a rough-hewn haft of ironwood. He made no move to avoid it as it struck him in the chest. Again, these ponies surprise me. They instinctively knew that we meant to help them; they must find us comforting in some way, but I will never understand.
If only they fathomed their choice, however. Lethe, who sends them to the afterlife with no memory of their lives, or me, Mnemosyne, who sends them through, enlightened. But it takes a degree of enlightenment to have that option at all.
His soul now separated, the stallion looked at his body, his home, his property, with no glimmer of recognition. He simply floated away with a dull smile, as most do.
Lethe caught me staring after him as he left. Too inquisitive for her own good—but wasn’t that my failing, too? She would ask. She had such a passion for her work, but so mechanical, always about the letter of the law and its function, never its form or… the beauty of it all around her.
“Why do you let them fill your thoughts?” she said, so direct. If only she’d step back and see the wonder of it, but her dedication—I loved her for it, I really did, like a sister—kept her blinded.
She could never know what I’d done. I tried to tell her once, needed to, but…
She wouldn’t take my shrug for an answer. It had sufficed before, but not now. Did she know? My spine all ice—did she—?
Her hoof jabbed forward, searched out my ribs, pressed lower before I could step to deflect it. And with a swift motion, she tore my cloak off, her accusing eyes stabbing at me, but… something more. Tears… Tears behind the fire!
When had she realized? Her scythe, poised to strike my swollen abdomen—“You… joined with one of them?”
I couldn’t answer.
“Better to remove it now before anyone else discovers!”
She slashed, but I blocked with my own scythe and drove her back to the wall. “I love him,” I said.
“You cannot.”
“But I do!” No explanations, only truth.
Lethe gritted her teeth. “The pantheon will not allow it.”
“If you must, then strike me with your blade, too, and remove all memory of these accursed feelings!” Her weapon faltered, and I slowly pinned her behind its handle. “I love him,” I said in a harsh whisper, “almost as much as I love you.” My own fierce tears joined hers on the floor; her always-unflinching gaze had broken.
“Who knows what effect it would have on an immortal!” A statement of fact, but one that for the first time lacked the full force of her conviction.
“I know.” I hugged her to me, pulling the Blade of Lethe into my chest. No other way out. “You’re my best friend.” I needed her to know, before I forgot.
“One eye on the living, one on the dead,” I’ve always thought since I was a filly, but I never understood why. Something that just sticks in my mind.
Maybe because I sometimes see things that aren’t there. Like that mare with a strange glowing pole and a black cloak. But when I blink, she’s gone. She always looks so sad.
“Hello, Derpy!” Miss Cheerilee says as Dinky rushes out of the schoolhouse past her. I wave back, and I hug my daughter to me. I love her so much! She never fails to surprise me. None of these ponies do.
I love living here in Ponyville!