//------------------------------//
// Leitmotif 
// Story: The Last Dreams of Pony Island 
// by horizon 
//------------------------------//

Leitmotif

I must leave on the next boat, I think.

The first casualty of the Battle of Myinnkyun was my music,
torn from my bow and launched like an arrow,
and a fiddler's days are numbered
when his songs are no longer his own.

Two nights before she vanished,
in the common-house near the docks:
"Play!" cried Peridot, old eyes scowling,
calling a slow ballad of love long lost;
But the fire of the bottle was in Shooting Star,
and he levitated me two bits,
calling a march to stir the blood.

Peridot stayed my bow, declaring
that she would not see her taxes spent
on such an affront to melody,
so Hotspur trotted next to the guard
and hoofed me civilian bits for a march.

"I see how it is,"
Peridot told the nocturnes,
"the freaks stick together,"
and silence descended
as she paid me triple
to make the march 
Iter Solis Invictus.

I must leave on the next boat, I think,
or be the musician who played 
the song nopony wanted,
the musician whose fiddle
was in demand
to make the others suffer.

Shooting Star and Peridot
glared
at 
each 
other
for
the
length
of 
the 
tune.

Thank the stars for Potluck,
who next called Morag's Reel,
and for Littlemoth, stepping up to dance,
drawing the gazes of the room
like a lightning-bug upon a darkened stage,
golden eyes hiding among
flaring fans of leather wings
and the streaming arc of her mane,
until Dawn Patrol fluttered to her flame
and revelry retook the battleground,
pony and Nocturne whirling together.

I could not leave on the boat
the morning after Peridot vanished.
There was none.

Neither will there be music, I think, 
until I fiddle the shanty
to fill the sails
with Myinnkyun at my back.