“You believe in ghosts?”
I stared at Aegis and cocked my head. “…And just where did that come from?”
Aegis pointed. “We’re passing a graveyard.”
We’d been done in the bar for a while and were wandering aimlessly through Luna Pier, talking about nothing. I guess we’d somehow found our way to the edge of town and were now, well, passing a graveyard.
I turned to look at the graveyard. It wasn’t that big. As far as graveyards went, it wasn’t that creepy, not even in the gathering gloom as the sun approached the mountains. As far as I could tell, the only thing making Aegis bring up ghosts was the fact that it was a graveyard.
I must’ve zoned out thinking, because Aegis nudged me and asked, “Well?”
“I… I don’t know,” I muttered. “I haven’t seen any with my own eyes, but at the same time, no one knows what’s beyond death, right? So maybe there’s something there, and I…” I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Kinda on-the-fence, aren’t you?”
“Well…” I waved my hooves around. “It’s, I don’t know enough one way or the other. I haven’t seen any, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And other ponies have claimed to see them, but they could be wrong for whatever reason. Why not be on the fence when getting off is a massive leap of faith either way?”
“Hmm. Okay, yeah, I’ll take that. At least you have a reason for being indecisive. I’ve met some ponies who didn’t pick a side just because they couldn’t be bothered to.”
“Well, I used to be indecisive. But now I’m not so sure.”
Aegis chuckled softly, then glanced at the cemetery. “Wanna go in?”
“Into the cemetery? Why?”
“Why not?”
“Because…” I tried to find a reason, but they were all weak. Essentially variations on “I don’t wanna.” It wasn’t the greatest place to be in, but it was hardly the worst either. “Fine. Let’s go in.”
As far as I could tell, there wasn’t anypony else in the cemetery. Just rows upon rows of tombstones, broken up by the occasional mausoleum. A lot of them had flowers or other gifts laid on the graves. It was surprisingly peaceful, especially at this time. The breeze was crisp and cool, and the yard itself rolled over several small hills. The only sounds were the wing, birdsong, and our own hoofsteps.
We silently walked down a path for a minute, just looking around. Eventually, I asked Aegis, “How afraid are you of dying?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Exactly that. How afraid are you of dying?”
He glanced at me and cocked a grin. “What makes you think I’m afraid of dying at all?”
“I never said that. If you’re not afraid of dying, then that’d be a zero on a scale of one to ten.”
“Oh.” He turned back to the path. “After my time in the Guard, not very. It’s still there, but it’s mostly gone. I guess more than death itself, I’m afraid I’ll go before I get my affairs in order. I’d be okay, relatively speaking, with a terminal disease that let me get everything organized, but I’d hate to die in a fire or something.”
“That’s awfully pragmatic.”
Aegis shrugged. “I learned it in the Guard. When you’re being trained to kill ponies, the fact that we’re all going to die someday becomes just a fact, and not a big, looming shadow of ominousness.”
“Oh.”
“So how afraid are you of dying?”
“Kinda like you, to be honest. It’s, yeah, I’m going to die someday, and I don’t like it, but I’ve accepted that.” I lightly kicked at a rock on the path. “Really, I’m more worried about how I’ll die. My worst fear isn’t heights or anything like that. It’s dying of either suffocation or dehydration.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ve heard that when you’re getting dehydrated, it feels like… like your lungs are burning.” I cringed. “Like, take regular thirst and turn it up to eleven. I mean, just… ugh.”
Aegis cringed, too. “Wow. Yeah, that’s, that’s not a very good way to die.”
“And suffocation because I’ve actually felt it myself. I was… eleven or twelve, I think. It was during dinner, and I was eating too fast, and something went down my throat wrong, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe. I kept trying and trying, but I just couldn’t get any air.” I snorted. “You know how, in the theatre, characters sometimes say ‘I can’t breathe’ to one another?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never been able to take those seriously. If you can say that, you can breathe, if only a little. I couldn’t say anything because I literally couldn’t get the air out. I was just sitting at the table, trying to gasp, and no one else noticed anything for several moments.”
“Yeesh. Scary. What happened?”
“I got lucky. Mom noticed me acting funny and asked what was wrong. I pointed at my throat and the next thing I knew, I was out my chair and she was slapping me on the back. The blockage quickly got cleared out and we all lived happily ever after.”
“Good.”
“Yeah. Probably the closest I’ve ever come to dying, and now I know that however I die, I don’t want to die that way. The feeling was terrible.”
“I can imagine.”
“So what about you? How close have you ever come to dying?”
Aegis grinned nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. “Heh heh… Um, well…”
I waited for him to continue, but he kept stammering and hemming and hawing. “This isn’t too personal, is it?” I asked hesitantly. I figured he’d say if it was too personal, but I just wanted to check.
“Heh, um, no,” he mumbled. “It’s, um, uh, just that…”
It hit me. I blinked and looked at him in disbelief. “Are you seriously saying that you’ve never been that close to death?”
He grinned again. “Heh. Um, not really, no.”
“You’re not saying that, or-”
“The other one.”
My jaw dropped. “You’ve never had a brush with death? Never been in a situation where you thought you were gonna die?”
“No.”
“You… Seriously? I mean, come on! You were a royal guard! It’s your job to risk your life!”
“Yeah, well,” he mumbled, “it’s peaceful now, and I, and I never really got into any dangerous situations. The worst was Tirek, and he didn’t try to kill you, he just-”
“Still!” I said. “That’s… that’s ridiculous! I had a moment where I was nine and I thought I was going to die! Are you telling me my nine-year-old self gets into more danger than the Royal Guard?”
“Really? What happened?”
It was like the world stopped. I hadn’t meant to say that. That was personal, and not something I liked to talk about. I’d been young and stupid and impulsive. I’d hurt my parents, and they didn’t hold against me, but I’d never forget how they felt when it was all said and done.
Still. After tonight, I’d never see him again.
Aegis saw the look on my face and flinched. “Um, l-look, sorry, if, if yo-”
“No,” I said, waving a hoof, “it’s, you’re fine. Just, just give me a second.” I took a few deep breaths.
“Okay,” Aegis said quietly. “You take, just take all the time you need.”
Eventually, I said, “Okay, like I said, I was nine. It was near the end of summer, so, y’know, school’s coming up. And just a few days before the first day, I was at a friend’s house in town, and I saw this flier for a carnival. The one we were at, actually. And I wanted to go, I wanted to go real bad, but my parents said no, we just didn’t have the time. So one day, I… I went there myself.”
“On your own? Didn’t you say you lived like an hour from here? While you were nine?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I really wanted to go, and I was just smart enough to read a map, and… Well, yeah, I was determined. So I went, taking some of my own money with me, and spent most of the day there. I had a lot of fun, not really thinking about my parents, and then…” I swallowed. “Then I had to leave as night started to fall, and I didn’t know the way back home.”
“Didn’t you say yo-”
“I got rid of the map once I got to the carnival. I, I didn’t think I’d need it.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed. “And I started following a road, thinking it’d take me home, but I kept walking and walking, and I didn’t find anything, and I didn’t recognize any of the land. I was terrified, and I, well, I really thought I was going to die. Probably an overreaction in hindsight, but…” I shrugged and tried to chuckle. It didn’t quite sound genuine. “…little filly alone in the dark in an unfamiliar place. Your mind goes places.”
“Wow,” Aegis said quietly. “Yeah, I can imagine. So what happened? Were you out all night?”
I shook my head. “There were these guard out on night patrol, and they found me crying at some crossroads. They took me back to their barracks and tried to find out where I lived. I was too young to remember my address, but I could remember Mom’s and Dad’s names, so that worked out. Got me back home, and…” I folded my ears back, flicked my tail, and looked away. “…and I saw Mom’s and Dad’s reactions.” My voice had dropped a few notches in volume.
“I thought I was scared, but that was nothing compared to the state they were in. I thought they hadn’t taken me to the carnival because they didn’t love me, but seeing them like that, worried for my safety… I mean, can you imagine? All of a sudden, your kid goes missing for a day, and night falls, and she’s still not found, and…” I sniffed a little. “After seeing them like that, I felt… geez, worse than I’ve felt since.”
“Dang.”
“Yeah.” I waved a hoof. “Anyway, you probably don’t want to hear what happened next, and even if you do, you can probably imagine it. It’s all the usual teary-eyed stuff where we make up. They were more worried at me than angry, even though… yeah, they were pretty angry. But they forgave me, I learned my lesson, and everything went fine after that, so no harm.”
“Good,” Aegis said, nodding. “Good. Yeah, um, I guess nine-year-old you has gotten into more danger than me, technically speaking.”
“Wuss,” I said with a little grin.
“Hey!”
“Look, you took a job meant to be dangerous, and I got into more danger by going to a carnival. When I was nine. What else do you call that?”
“Just because I wasn’t in danger doesn’t mean I’m a wuss! It means I never got in danger!”
“Oh, all right, fine.”
Aegis harrumphed, then glanced at the mountains, where the sun was about to vanish behind them. “You know, it’s a shame we’re on the east coast, and not the west coast. We could watch the sun set over the ocean.”
I laughed. “Oh, come on. Everyone watches the sun set. I’ve got a better idea.”