6. See Who I Am
"I thought of a new name," Eun-sook announced at breakfast one morning.
"Really?" Lilac's ears perked up. "That's wonderful! Tell, tell!"
"When everyone gets here." Eun-sook took a delicate nibble of her red clover and Timothy hay omelet.
"No fair! Tib, come on, you must know!"
"Nope. She hasn't told me." Tib picked up a strawberry and dipped it in the pile of sugar–real sugar–on her plate.
"I saved those for you!" Lilac pouted, only half playing. "I kept them in a bowl of ice water, told Featherfall she couldn't touch them, and resisted temptation all day long and overnight!! Talk about gratitude."
Tib shrugged. "Can't tell you what I don't know, chere amie." She took a bite and surrendered to strawberry bliss.
Lilac snorted at her. Talk about unfair! Eun-sook had been a pony for four whole days, and Tib was her roommate. And her granddaughter. They were tormenting her with all this...this...this this!
After a minute or so, Tib almost regretfully swallowed the well-chewed morsel of delight. "Anyway, Chip and Feather are on their way now. They just walked in."
"Oh, cool!" Lilac turned her head and called out. "Guys, come over here, quick! Tib's grandmare has picked out her Equestrian name!"
Tib wasn't all that good at reading facial expressions on humans, and it wasn't any easier with ponies. Still, the fact that her friends were coming to the table without so much as a passing glance at the meal serving line was all the indication she needed. "Something's wrong." She stood as the pair approached. "What's going on?"
Chocolate Chip Muffin, usually the merriest pony you could meet, looked absolutely crestfallen. His head was at half-mast, his ears drooped, and his gait was plodding. Featherfall Dancer, a delicate pegasus with a coat of pinkish gold and a brilliant white mane and tail, was carrying herself with quiet reserve as always, but her nostrils were flaring with barely contained rage.
"Chip!" Tib went to the little stallion, barely more than a colt really, and put an arm over his withers. "What's the matter?"
"They're protesting again." Chip's voice was full of pity. "It's worse than yesterday. A lot worse…"
"There's more of them this morning." Feather sat beside Lilac. She was close enough now for Tib to see her lower lip quivering. She was as miserable as Chip was, but the flashing of her sky-blue eyes hinted at her anger. "I stopped counting after twenty." She looked over at her companion. "Sit down, Chip. Try not to think about it."
Chip dropped to the cushion next to Feather. "I keep seeing those signs…and hearing what they were shouting. I don't want to think about it....but I keep hearing those awful things. I can't even repeat what they were saying." He pressed his head into Featherfall's neck.
Tib hugged him. "You two sit right here. Imma go get y'all some breakfast and y'all're gonna eat every bite."
"M not hungry," Chip muttered.
"Tough oats, Mister Muffin. Halmeonee, don't you let 'em go nowhere." Without waiting for an answer, Tib went to the line and eventually came back with two loaded trays.
"They're out of omelets, but they's plenty of hay pancakes left. I even snagged some butter and syrup. Now eat." She set the trays in front of the pair, sat back down, took her last two strawberries and placed one on each stack. "There! Now y'all hafta eat 'em. Cain't let good strawberries go to waste."
"You sound more like me every day," Eun-sook told her, not without approval.
"I learnt from the best, me." Tib took to her cushion and kissed the side of her grandmother's muzzle. Eun-sook nuzzled back, but she wasn't sure she liked the look in the girl's eye.
"Now then," Tib said, "we could use some happy news, right? We're all here, Halmeonlee. Spill it. What do we call you from now on?"
"You go right on calling me what I told you to call me," Eun-sook said. "As for the rest of you…" She surveyed the table, where three pairs of eyes looked back with anticipation. Even Chip seemed to have forgotten his sorrow.
"I had to think about it for a long time." Eun-sook took a long, contemplative sip of her apple juice. Reconstituted, true, but still tasty. "At first I thought of taking a Korean name, but since we're all learning Equestrian anyway, English will work just as well."
She paused until Lilac said, "And?"
"Well, it's easy for Earth ponies, isn't it?" She looked pointedly at Lilac and Chip. "Flowers, trees, food, just about anything, really. There are hundreds of possibilities." She turned her gaze to Featherfall, whose quiet anger had given way to frank curiosity. Excellent. "Pegasi usually stay with weather or sky names, or descriptive ones, like Feather here. Somewhat limited, but still rather well-defined. Of course, not every pegasus is going to choose a name like Windwhistle or Cloudbuster, but sometimes it's easier to decide what you want when you know what you don't want, isn't it?"
Another pause, and Featherfall leaned forward. "Go on."
"Now, unicorns…" she shook her head dramatically. She did that often. She liked the way it made her mane shimmer like flames. "Unicorns are tricky. Oh, we use magic more obviously than the rest of you, but that isn't a very good name source. Unless you want a name like Hocus Pocus or Witchiepoo."
Chip actually chuckled at that. Even better. "So what's your new name?"
"As I said, I had to think about it. I didn't really want an obvious magical name, but I wanted something that really expressed who I am. I thought about using the English translation of my given name, but I didn't think 'Silver Virtue' quite suited my coloring. Maybe if I was a gray or white pony, but I'm sort of bluey green, and my mane–"
"COME ONNN!" Lilac was bouncing up and down. She was making the table rattle. "Tell tell tell! I'm going nuts over here!"
"I will," Eun-sook promised, "if you settle down and be quiet."
At once Lilac dropped onto her cushion, tucked her legs under her and rested her chin on the table, looking up at Eun-sook endearingly. Both Chip and Featherfall laughed, and Eun-sook considered her work done.
"My name," she announced, "is Harmony. Harmony because I would like to bring balance using my talent. Harmony because it sounds like what Tib calls me." She smiled at her granddaughter. "and Harmony because I love it when we sing together."
The whole table toasted Harmony's new name with their apple juice. Chip and Feather ate their breakfast with much better appetite. Harmony was pleased…but as the morning crowd dispersed, she got up and quietly followed her granddaughter out of the cafeteria.
***
Tib was looking out the glass of the front door when she heard Harmony speak behind her. "And what do you think you're going to do?"
Tib turned around. She looked calm, if slightly troubled, but completely composed. "Most of them have gone," she said defensively. "There's only a couple left."
"I didn't ask for a head count. I asked after your intentions."
" I'm just going out to talk to them, Halmeonee."
"What good will that do? They're protestors, child. They've already made up their minds. If you walk out there, you could be hurt."
"I'm not in any danger from two church ladies and a kid half my height."
"Still three against one. I don't like those odds."
Tib crouched down to Harmony's eye level. She put an arm around her grandmother's neck. "I have to do something, Halmeonee. If I can change just one person's mind, even just make them think twice…"
"Then I'm going with you. Two against three is better."
"No. You're a pony now, Halmeonee. It'll just antagonize them. Besides, confronting them like that would just upset you like it did the others. You know it would."
Harmony spoke quietly. "It would upset me worse if anything happened to you."
Tib took a deep breath and stood up. "Nothing is going to happen to me. I'm not going out there to fight. I'm just going to talk. I won't be five minutes."
Stubborn girl. Short of grabbing her by the belt and dragging her back, Harmony couldn't stop her. And even if she did that, Tib would just dash out as soon as her back was turned.
"Five minutes." Pony or not, Harmony hadn't lost the ability to sound stern. "Five minutes, then I come out after you."
Tib bent and kissed Harmony's brow just below the horn. "I talk, they don't listen, I come right back in."
As she pushed her way out of the door, Tib said under her breath, "After I run them off."
She'd forgotten how well ponies could hear.
***
Most of the protest signs lay abandoned where their bearers had dropped them. Bits of plastiboard and synthstock panels, scavenged from dump sites and too small or worn out to be useful, had been hand-lettered with touching sentiments like EARTH IS FOR HUMANS and PONIES ARE ZOMBIES.
The three remaining diehards, the ones too fanatical to get bored and leave, still brandished their placards with pride. One was an old lady, easily half again Eun-sook's human age. She held a sign that demanded PONIES GO HOME! The other woman, a dumpy matron wearing a dreadful fake wig, had scrawled something from the Bible on her cracked board, possibly a whole chapter, in tiny print. After struggling to make out male and female created HE them and gave him dominion over the beasts of the E, Tib abandoned her effort to make sense of it.
It was the sole male who was the worst offender. He carried four signs, two in each hand, one atop another in a grotesque parody of outspread butterfly wings. Not that any of these people had ever seen a butterfly.
In his left hand:
EQUIEN
TERORISTS
__________
RAPESTS
OF
EARTH
And in his right:
MONSTERS
ON
HOOFS
__________
FUCK
SELESTEA
Tib could feel her temper threatening to rise. She sat hard on it. As pleasantly as she could, she said, "Good morning! How are you today?"
All three stared at her. The old woman seemed confused. She looked around as if to determine where this gangly beanpole of a girl had come from.
The matron flushed red. "She's one of them! A traitor to her own race! That cesspit hellhole spewed her out to drive us away from our God-sanctioned duty to save our world!"
Tib's neutral smile faltered. This was not an auspicious beginning. "Now, I didn't come out here to make any trouble, folks. Everypo–everybody's feeling kind of unsettled just now. Why don't we just talk about it? Maybe we can–"
"Still your lying tongue, deceiver!" The matron pointed at her imperiously. "Get her, boy! Shut her foul mouth!"
The squat young man holding the FUCK SELESTEA sign looked back at the woman in confusion. Tib could see the family resemblance now. Fireplug was obviously Wig Woman's offspring.
"Well?" The matron scowled. "Go on, Chad! Show her what happens to traitors!"
Fireplug, hereafter known as Chad, didn't seem all that eager to engage. He glanced at the girl who was a good two heads taller than he. She was skinny, but she didn't look weak. "We ain't supposed to be fighting, Ma. It's supposed to be a peaceful demonstration."
"Don't you sass me, young man! We didn't ride here all the way from Kansas in that smelly caravan just to give up the moment the holy war has been engaged! Didn't I spend all night finding people who'd stand with us?"
"They only came because you gave 'em a dollar each, Shirley," the old lady said. She coughed hard, spat a wad of phlegm, and went on. "They quit when they didn't get the breakfast you promised. And now our money's all gone and we can't get home."
"Shut the hell up, Mama! We're not going home till this den of evil is shut down!" Shirley the Wig Woman turned back to her son. "Why are you still standing there? Go make an example of that whore of Babylon!"
"But, Ma…"
"Don't you disrespect me, boy. The Good Book says you are to honor your mother!"
"Maybe you ought to practice what you preach." They all looked at Tib again. They seemed to have forgotten she could speak. Her tone was calm, resolute."Honor thy father and mother, isn't that one of the Commandments?" Apart from her personal mother issues, Tib had been raised in the remnants of a society that honored its dead, revered its elders and cherished the bond between parent and child. Her father would have knocked her head sideways otherwise. "Explain to me how telling the woman who bore you to 'shut the hell up' is obeying the word of your God?"
"Hear the devil reciting Scripture but heed it not!" Shirley spat at her. "Temptress! Blasphemer! Jesus will come down from His Heaven and smite you dead!"
"Really? Okay." Tib stood waiting, glanced up at the brownish sky. Seconds passed. She glanced at an imaginary wristchron. "Maybe he's busy this afternoon..."
Shirley threw her overwritten sign at Tib. It fell short and landed at her feet. Tib could have read the whole thing this close up, but she didn't bother.
Maybe being a smartass hadn't been the best approach. She decided to try once more. "Ma'am, please. I'm sorry I smarted off at you. I know you're upset, but I was hoping we could just talk things over, maybe come to some kind of–"
"Chaderlaomer Habbakuk Phelps!" Shirley shrieked. "You go kick that Satanic bitch's ass in the name of Jesus right now!"
Chad-whatever stood there holding his signs and looking from Tib to his mother, back and forth. He didn't budge an inch.
And with that, Tib was done. This wasn't going at all like she'd planned. It was time to throw in the towel. "Okay. I can see we're not getting anywhere, so I'm going back inside. I'm sorry to've wasted m--your time. Y'all take care now." With a little wave she walked back towards the door.
Something hit the back of her head hard enough to fire off stars across her vision. She stumbled, but managed to stay on her feet.
She turned in time to see Shirley stoop to pick up another fragment of plascrete from the ruined street. "Looks like I'm gonna have to get you two started, as usual. Come on, grab those rocks. We're gonna stone the bitch on the very steps of her gateway to hell!"
Neither the boy nor the old woman moved. They simply stared at Shirley in mute horror.
Tib felt at the back of her head. No blood, but there was a nasty lump coming up back there. She'd been pelted with rocks and dirt clods before, back in her troubled school days, and she discovered she still didn't take to it.
The local kids had been hellraisers, and they tried to force her into their gang of thieves and vandals. When she refused, they made her life hell until she'd learned to fight back. It was one of the reasons she didn't like people much, or she hadn't till she'd come here.
Her father's lessons in dealing with bullies had never been forgotten. Stand you up straight, ma petite. Look 'em right in de eye and don'tchoo even look away. Show 'em you ain't scairt of 'em an' dey prob'ly gon' back down an' slink off like de weasels dey be.
She stood up at her full height and locked eyes with her sole attacker. Shirley froze, her hand half-cocked back. She didn't complete the throw, but she didn't drop the plascrete chunk, and she stared defiantly back. Daring her.
'If'n dey don' run, don'tchoo go for dem, but you be ready if'n dey come after you. Don'tchoo start no mess, petite, but if dey mess wit'choo, you damn sure finish it, you.
Tib's long-fingered hands curled slowly into fists. She hadn't fought in years. Since she was thirteen, actually. But she hadn't forgotten how. This bunch, especially Shirley, was beginning to make her remember why she'd cut herself off from society for so long. And the throbbing in the back of her head was not improving her temperament.
Perhaps now was a good time to demonstrate her lack of social skills.
Before she could decide which one to take on first (no question, really; the boy was a coward, the old lady was frail, Shirley was the only real aggressor–and she was running on religious fervor and bravado, snatching her bald-headed would probably cool her jets), the door opened behind her. "Tib, come inside!" It was Beth. "Come in right now!"
"I'm kind of busy," Tib said over her shoulder. She couldn't run. She wasn't supposed to run. Retreat wasn't an option at this point. Not for Daddy's gator girl. She'd actually tried to walk away, and she'd been attacked from behind. She couldn't back down. She'd given them a chance. Now it was time to--
"Tib," Beth said with urgent desperation, "your name was called. It's time."
Then again…
Some part of her still wanted to fight, to beat in Shirley's ugly face until she learned better than to mess with people who meant her no harm. People like Chip.
She wanted to learn that bitch not to mess with Jean-Luc Thibodeaux's gator girl.
"Tib!" Beth sounded desperate. "Come on, please!"
She could beat all three of them to the ground if she had to. But how would that change their minds? What would it accomplish, except to add more fuel to the fires of hate that would ultimately consume them?
"Delphine!"
Tib didn't turn her back on them again; she didn't dare. The next projectile might miss her and hit Beth.
She kept her eyes locked on Shirley's and moved backwards until she got within reach of the door, then Beth grabbed her arm and dragged her inside, slamming and locking the door behind them just as the chunk of plascrete thudded against it.
***
"...last call for–how do you say her name again? Am I holding this upside down? Del…fine? No, French, that's Del-feen, I think…Renee, okay that's definitely French…Angel…something…wait, is this last part even a real name? I can't even spell this and I'm looking right at it! Wait, what? Is that what she goes by? Great. TIB! Come on down, Tib! You're the next contestant on The Ponification Is Right!"
Beth didn't let go of Tib until they reached the Conversion Room door. She knocked twice and when the door opened she shoved Tib inside.
Tib didn't utter a word of protest. She felt foolish and a little ashamed of herself. She saw Lynn, Dr Pastern, and Harmony waiting for her. They were all looking at her, and none of them looked pleased with her.
"I'm sorry," Tib muttered. "I messed up."
"That's the understatement of the century, but we don't have time to discuss it." Pastern pointed at the table. "Strip and get on the table. We're running behind."
"I swear I just went out to talk to them." Tib unsealed her jumpsuit and began shrugging out of it. "I wanted to try and talk some sense into them. My daddy always said that if you leave ignorance alone, ignorance will think it's okay."
"That's a clever saying," Harmony told her. "You know what my oma always said? You can't fix stupid."
"And you can't fight stupid with stupid, either." Lynn looked more worried than angry, but her tone was sharp. "Going out there was not a smart thing to do." Tib looked stricken, and Lynn did her best to soften the criticism. What was done was done, in any case. "I know you meant well, Tib, but you just can't talk to people like that. They're fanatics. They won't listen. You like old songs, right? I heard one once that went something like Calm and gentle reason here will bring you no relief, for those who bow to reason aren't the ones who give you grief."
Defeated, Tib stepped out of the puddle of her clothes and sat naked on the table. "I won't do it again."
"Damn straight you won't," Pastern told her. "Not after this. Now lie down on your side. It'll make things easier. But drink this first."
Tib took the cup, looking down at the sparkling purple liquid. "I was just trying to make them understand…"
"You can't force people to change their minds, child," said Harmony. "Not when they're too fond of what little mind they have."
"Down the hatch, Tib." Pastern didn't sound so cross anymore, but there was some urgency in her voice. "You'll feel better after you wake up, I promise."
Tib raised the glass and downed all three ounces in two swallows. She made a face. "Theyn't no Grape Nehi…"
Then she fell over.
***
It was a beautiful day, more beautiful than any Tib had ever known. The sky was vast and clear overhead, with a collection of puffy white clouds near the distant horizon. The air smelled fresh and sweet. The fragrance of flowers rode on the cool breeze.
She was sitting on what must have been a dock. She'd never actually been on one because they didn't exist anymore, but she'd seen pictures and holoview copies of old movies, and she could recognize the upright posts driven down into the riverbed and the weathered planks that ran between them. She sat on the edge, her bare feet dangling over the water. And she wasn't alone.
"This is what the Mississippi used to look like," COREy told her. He was sitting right next to her, as human as she was. He looked the way she'd always imagined he would, with curly brownish hair and hazel eyes like hers. He looked like her little brother, even though he was much older than she was. "The water's brown here because it's so muddy, but it's not polluted or anything. It's really shallow and the current kicks up the mud from the river bottom. The river starts way up in Minnesota, a place so narrow you could walk right across it, but during the spring thaw the river rises and runs a lot faster. It pulls silt and soil all the way down from up north and deposits it on the banks near the Gulf. That's why this area was always so fertile and they could grow so many crops here. Of course, it's too wet for some things to thrive, but they did pretty well with cotton and sugarcane."
A craft glided past them on the other side of the river, a huge bladed cylinder chugging at its stern to propel it forward.
"A steamboat!" COREy waved, and the pilot answered with two short blasts on the whistle. COREy grinned at her. "Isn't it great?"
"It's really nice," Tib said. "It was really nice. Why did they have to ruin it?"
"They didn't mean to. For a long time they didn't know what they were doing, and by the time they found out they thought it was too much trouble to fix it, so they just let it go. Let it get worse. Then, when they finally understood how bad things had really gotten, it was too late to fix it." COREy took her hand and gave it a squeeze. His touch was as warm as the sunlight. "But everything's going to be okay. You'll see."
"I hope so "
"I know so." He kissed her cheek. "It's really great to see you, Tib. But right now there's somebody else who wants to talk to you." He stood up, stretching.
Tib jumped to her feet. "COREy, please don't go! Don't leave me again. I miss you so much. Please stay with me."
"I'll always be with you, Tib. I promise." He reached out for her, and she hugged him to her just as hard as she could, never wanting to let him go.
And then her arms were empty.
"No!" Frantically Tib looked around, but COREy was gone. Just...gone. So was the steamboat. So was the river.
She was out standing in a field. Flowers dotted the lush green carpet of grass, and the sky overhead was so blue you could drown in it. The sun was shining, and it was bright, but it didn't hurt to look at it.
She felt a sudden urge to move. To run. It was the most natural thing in the world, running through the grass, under the boundless blue sky. She heard a kind of thunder around her, on either side, before and behind her, and as her vision sharpened she realized she was running with a vast herd of horses. Not horses, ponies. Ponies of every color imaginable, Earth ponies and unicorns and pegasi. And she was keeping pace with them. Somehow she was one of them, part of a vast herd, and they accepted her without question.
Gradually, long before she took notice, the herd fell back and she was running alone again. Then she wasn't running anymore.
She was sitting in front of a table, a pretty little round table in what looked for all the world like a Garden District parlor, complete with beaded lamps and a fireplace with a huge mirror and a mantle crowded with pictures. The pictures were all ponies. There were too many to count.
"Would you like some tea?"
Tib stared at Celestia, who was sitting with her at the table. The princess used her hornfield to pour tea into three cups. Three? Was COREy here with them? She looked, but the third attendant at the tea party was another pony. And not just another pony, but the dark princess of the moon herself, who had so drawn Tib's interest.
Tib tried to hide her disappointment, but she didn't do a very good job. Of course she was honored to be in the presence of the princesses, but there was a hole in her heart that only one presence could fill. And he was nowhere to be seen.
Luna smiled at her with kindness and understanding. She turned to her radiant sister. "'Tis just as I told thee, is it not? There be another presence here, one greatly beloved and trusted. Is it not as I said, then? Surely these also may be saved."
Tib looked around, but she could see no one else. She could hear the princesses talking in soft tones, and she tried not to listen, but she heard her name, her given name (Delphine…) at least once.
"Oh, all right!" Celestia tossed her mane in mild exasperation. "Do what you want. You will anyway."
Tib shrank back a bit. "I'm sorry…did I do something wrong?"
At once Celestia softened. She smiled at Tib, her luminous eyes warm and kind. "Nothing at all, my little pony. You're going to make a fine addition to our herd."
"Indeed." Luna sounded quite pleased with herself. "She hath great affection for what others of her ilk would consider a mere artifice." She looked at Tib and nodded to her. "Well doth this bespeak of thy ability to love. It pleaseth us greatly."
Tib looked at the two astonishingly beautiful entities and tried to smile with as much respect as she could muster. "Thank you…thank you both."
"Thou'rt most welcome." Luna seemed to be enjoying some private joke, though somehow Tib didn't feel it was at her expense.
"Do sample the tea," Celestia urged gently. "I think you'll find it to your liking."
Tib reached for her cup, but she didn't have hands anymore. She had hooves.
She looked up. "Am I…?"
"Thou'rt becoming one of our ponies," Luna explained. "Now drink thy tea."
Tib tried to remember how Lilac managed at the table in the caff. She lowered her head until her lips touched the curved edge. Carefully she grasped the lip of the porcelain cup between her teeth and lifted it off its saucer.The princesses looked on with deep approval.
"She's a fast learner," Celestia observed.
"Indeed, she doth pick things up quickly. Methinks 'twill serve her in good stead." Luna sounded quite proud.
Tib tilted her head back and swallowed easily. The tea was delicious. And she didn't even spill much as she drained the cup. She tried to be careful putting it back on the table, but it slipped from her mouth and clattered off the edge of its saucer and landed on its side. "Oops! Sorry."
Both sisters laughed, but not unkindly. Celestia righted the cup with a flick of her horn."That's quite all right, my little pony. Practice makes perfect. You'll do very well."
Luna was beside Tib then, and kissed her just at the top of her poll. "Let not thy heart be troubled," she whispered. "Thou shalt see thy friend later, within the enfolding bounds of fair Equestria, good pony! We shall see it so!"
***
"She's waking up."
Tib shifted. She felt good. Amazing. She felt as though everything was suddenly all right. Her embarrassment at what happened outside, her sadness over COREy, even feeling clumsy over dropping the teacup…all that was gone. Everything was all right. More than all right.
"Open your eyes, pretty girl, I want to see them."
"Howamee?" No, that wasn't right. Her mouth was bigger somehow. Longer. She tried again. "Hal…meon…ee…?"
"Yes, child. Come on now, open your eyes."
Tib obeyed. There was Harmony, lying right next to her, curled around her. Tib's head was resting on Harmony's side. Colors and scents and sounds were so much clearer, sharper. She took a deep breath and marveled at how good her grandmother smelled, how lovely her coat was. Up close Harmony's coat wasn't just one color, but a soft brindle of shades of green and blue, each individual hair slightly distinct from those around it. It was a distinction her human eyes could never have discerned. Her new eyes widened. "Wow…"
"Such pretty eyes you have." Harmony nuzzled and licked her as though she were a newborn foal–which, in a way, she was. "Green with gold flecks, so pretty."
Tib tried to sit up, but it was hard to coordinate her two pairs of legs. Also, there was a rustling behind her, and a sort of tickling feeling. She looked to see what was causing it, and gasped. "I've got wings!"
"Observant, isn't she?" Lynn said to Dr Pastern.
"Mind like a steel trap." Grinning, Pastern crouched down to eye level with Tib. "Congratulations, kid, you're a pegasus. How do you feel?"
"Fantastic!" Tib giggled for no reason. Except that she did feel fantastic. She marveled at her new body. Her coat was a deep, rich red, and the long tail she swished back and forth was silvery white streaked with black. She tried moving her wings, and laughed outright when one of them hit her in the muzzle. "I feel like I'm drunk," she said. "Only better."
"Post-Conversion euphoria," Pastern explained. "For the first few hours you'll feel really happy, giddy even, and then you'll settle down." She tousled Tib's forelock. "Enjoy it while it lasts."
"I am!" Tib nuzzled Pastern's shoulder. "Thank you so much. This is wonderful."
Lynn knelt beside the doctor and stroked Tib's muzzle. She couldn't help it, and she knew from prior experience that Tib wouldn't mind. "I've thought of the perfect name for you," she said. "Because you love music so much. Your grandmother's name is Harmony, right? Why don't you call yourself Melody?"
Tib cocked her new head, considering. "It's really pretty, and it's a nice idea…but it doesn't feel right, somehow. I don't want to hurt your feelings, Lynn…"
Lynn shook her head. "No worries. It's your name. You should pick something you'd be happy with."
"I do like your idea of a musical theme though…" Tib searched her vocabulary for something that would suit her. She could still see Luna's friendly smile, hear her voice and her beautifully archaic way of speaking. Almost but not quite medieval…
"Madrigal." As soon as she said it, she knew it was right. "My name is Madrigal. Madrigal Baroque."
***
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Nice~it sounded just like her old one!
I could make a long argument against that, especially under their circumstances, but I won't ramble too much in the middle of the tale so I'll say this: "You do not know how to perserve our lives."
Sigh……the people in this world……they're just too cold to care about anything, whether it's fighting against change or trying to change. (I kinda expected more people to protest, an apocalypse is coming and people who stay do not even have any faith?)
Come on, why would they even care about such little money, i don't think the economy could even hold on like this.
"He already came, miss. this is the reckoning and we need some "divine intervention" to reach salvation and get to paradise."
we've learnt this in geography class, it's nice to see such knowledge being introduced to her. (and i like seeing school stuff in stories, they give a nice down-to-earth feeling)
that's why the world's trying hard now!
what a cultured mare, with such an artistic and fascinating name.
fighting for faith is not bad, the key is to never force others to accept.