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// Oneshot 
// Story: I still remember you 
// by Elyn 
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I still remember you, dark and daunting, but with a little spark in your eyes. 
Maybe that is why I saw you in the first place. It was dark, except for those neon lights that made everypony the same color, depending on the mood swings of the light. That could be it too, the light, not the mood swings, altough you had those occasionally too. When you saw me, I know you recognized me, after all, everyone at high school knew eachother. It was just that we never spoke a single word until then, but you smiled and I did too. A little awkward maybe, but we were young and careless. 

I can't believe it has been more then thousand years, the only thing I remember is the water, an endless ocean where I would sometimes float and sometimes almost drown. If you were with me you would say that a thousand years are a little long for swimming and I would smile. Just like all those times where we would sit under a tree talking softly to eachother about what we never said to anyone before. Not to those ponies who thought they knew what we thought just because something happend to us what also happend to a few others, not to our classmates and absolutely not to the world. They were our little secret, hidden safe in ourselves where nopony could steal them. We would talk about the ponies at school, but mostly about your coat color. It was unusual grey and you were unusual tall. That's what you always said. At a moment like that, where it seemed the only bad thing in the world were the leaves from the tree that got stuck in our manes, I promised you that it didn't matter, and that there was no force in the universe that could end our feelings for eachother.

I manage to smile a little. It has been so long scince I've done that. The last time was at the picknick with you when you made us brunch. I smiled again. The thoughts of you seem to have that effect on me. During the last time I've never thought of you, afraid to think about the red cape and purple mist you hid yourself behind. I didn't think of those either, but I seem to have forgotten how much thinking about you made me smile. I could only imagine what being with the real you would do. 
And that's the worst part, that I am the one who broke our promise because at one weak moment I didn't see you, I only saw the cape and the purple mist.

It was cold when I opened the window that night, the wind almost hurt and the snow didn't make it much better, but I opened the window anyway. You lifted yourself with your magic and flew inside the room. I closed the window while you tred to get all the snow out of you mane. It was the perfect evening, scince no one would miss us. They all had family to visit during hearths warming eve. I remember you told me you started a study of ancient magic. Would've you listened to me if I said then that that magic was no good, that it would make you break from the inside to let a monster out? Probably not, you were always stubborn and I was only happy for you at that moment. You saw the book on my pillow. I always slept better if I read something first. Maybe because I could think of a world where everypony lived happily ever after, where other ponies at school didn't look at you like you were crazy and where there were no houses that disappeared in flames, including the ponies who lived in it.

What happend then, is somehing I could never forget. How could I forget? The feeling of you so close to me, the warmth of your body against mine, how you stroked the fur on my chest and how I pressed my lips against yours. You whispered in my ear you loved me and I blushed. There was no one that ever said that. My parents maybe, but they were gone before my first memories. And I loved you too. I didn't say it then even tough I probably should have. We touched eachother gently, not wanting to hurt what we've spoken about under the tree. The scars and the burn marks were our secret. I could only look at you, mostly at your eyes, and feel like we were dreaming.

The window you came trough is still there. When the crystal empire came back, I decided to live in another house, not able to live there where we made our memories. Where you still laid next to me the morning after and you decided you could make us brunch. Most ponies would sleep in, so we had that morning all to ourselves. 
After that things got worse. At some moments your eyes would turn empty and stare into nothing. You proceeded with your magic study and sometimes you could get angry about nothing. Once you hit a pony on her head. She was the one always joking about others and I dreamed abut doing the same sometimes too, so I could understand, but I was always too afraid to do such thing and you were too. I didn't understand where you found the courage to do so. Later you got angry with many, many more ponies. You fought, hurt and even scarred others. You never gor angry with me, whenever we were togetherI could see the little spark in your eyes I saw too at the school dance. 

It was a tuesday when you went to the crystal palace. I didn't see you the two days before that either, which was a little strange, but something I've learned to accept. Just like I accepted that others would move out of the way when you wanted to go somewhere and that everypony was afraid to start your anger. I also knew they were talking about us. The girl that you hit on her head saw a little of my burn marks and thought it was a scar, just like the one she had on her hoof. That time when you hit her head wasn't the last time you fought her, when she kept talking mean about you it was that permanent scar on her hoof that made her stop. Well, until she saw me. After that I heard excited whispering. We were in our last year I kept saying to myself. Soon, we never had to see her again. You disagreed and decided to go to her. I never saw her again at school. When I was waiting a thousand years I wondered a lot of times why I didn't find that suspicious. I guess now I just didn't want to know. Your action didn't help. The other continued their whispering even more excited until one of them, a somewhat clumsy guy that never really fit in their group pushed me against a wall and saw all the burn marks crossing my belly and hooves. I never told you, but you must've noticed they whispered even more excited about us.

That tuesday I was sitting under our tree when some crystal guards came running towards me. I didn't get at all why they would run this way. It was very quiet and they were probably needed somewhere else. Then I saw they were chased by a mist. They got so close that they could almost touch me when the mist grabbed their tails and pulled them back. I was too astonished to react, but I followed the mist back to the city center where screaming ponies ran around only to be caught by the mist too. Before I knew it I stood next to them in line, waiting for the iron shackles. I didn't understand until I saw you on the balcony. No, it wasn't you, it was the red cape with the purple mist. I saw the coat of the others lose their crystal shine. You never had one because you weren't born here. You told me the story only once because it hurt too much too repeat. You only said your scars were the proof of your moms insanity and I didn't ask about it ever again. When we were all lined up, we moved to the caves underneath where some other shackled ponies built iron doors with bars. 

I lost count of the days, they were all so alike. Sometimes the shackled others got somepony out of their cell to have them work. Not me, probably because I didn't look very strong. The pony in the cell next to me complained that the shackled ones were just trying to get in favor with you. I didn't speak until then, but I said they probably dodn't have a choice either. The next day, he was taken away too. The silence was even worse, with no one right of me and only the outside wall on the left. One day a young mare got thrown into the cell right of me. She immediately started shouting. Between her screams I heard that she hid in a secret chamber in her house but still got caught.

It was dark too, so dark that I didn't even notice you sneaking around disguised as a black mist. During a night, I could tell it was night scince I found a little hole only big enough for a needle in the wall of my cell, your mist went trough the bars of the young mares cell. Over time, I came to admire her. Days passed and still she had the courage to resist the "guards" that brought food and she even tried to pick the lock of her door. That was the first time I saw her scared. She slowly walked back until she bumped against the wall while you came closer and closer. Somehow I shouted that you should leave her alone and your enpty eyes stared at me. For a moment I was afraid, but after the dullness of the past time it felt like there was nothing left to lose. You transformed back into a mist and moved to my cell. You slowly walked to me, just like you did to her, but I wasn't afraid of you. When our muzzles almost touched eachother you pushed me so hard I fell back on the hard bed, bumping my head on the side. You bended over to touch my mane. 
At that moment I noticed you were really big, before that I never cared about your height, but at that moment I could understand why others would think of you as scary. You pressed my body against yours and forced your hooves onto the marks that I only showed you so far. I was paralyzed and held my hooves in front of my chest and neck. When you left, both the young mare next to me and I cried.

It is almost ironic how I broke our promise, and not you. You were another pony when you wore that cape, your loving heart got surrounded by a mist of darkness and I didn't see that. I saw you as the one with the cape and I hated you for it. We had something special and sometimes we could feel eachothers pain. When the goddesses of light and dark came to banish you, I felt your scream in my heart, and so I hope you can forgive me for how much I cursed you back then.
I hoped I never saw you again. But you came again the next night, and the night after that. The second time I was just as terrified, not able to move. The third and fourth time I could only cry, but all the times after that I didn't show you my fear, I only tried to look you in the eyes to see if that little spark was still there. But every time, you looked away.

It took a thousand years floating around in nothing to get my mind back on the ground and some more to get thinking about you again. And I love you, still. Not the you with the cape, but the real you, the one that made me brunch, the one that trusted me enough to tell his story, the one I sat under a tree with and even the one that would fight the pony speaking badly about me. The one with the little spark in his eyes that got trapped inside an endless darkness. 

I know you. I love you.
I want to know, and I hope you can answer me someday:
Are you still in there?