• Published 6th Oct 2012
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The Last Human: A Tale of the Pre-Classical Era - PatchworkPoltergeist



“It's a rare man who is taken for what he truly is.”

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The Old World, The New World and The Stargazer's Ape

They came to Conemara in the late afternoon, as the sun prepared to duck behind the hills. At the city gates, daily shipments rolled in beside them in clattering, rattling wagons. Occasionally, reedy messengers blew past them in colorful blurs, clipping street corners and leaping over shoppers, spurred by the promise of a handsome reward. The human saw the rushing ponies, wondering if he and the unicorn should walk faster to avoid becoming trampled. It soon became clear, however, that in Conemara the fleet-footed were an anomaly.

It was a healthy hamlet, just a smidge too big to be a town and a pinch short of being a true city, contentedly curled in the soft hills wealthy in life and lush grasses none dared walk upon. The dirt paths and cobblestone walkways were wide and welcoming and bursting at the seams. Clusters of little ponies gathered hungrily around little brick shops where sweet smells wafted from sills and chimneys, and moseyed on cobblestones with their carts and cattle and gossip clogging the arteries of the street. Wayfarers bumped into one another with mumbled apologies and dipped hats, while the citizens tightly squeezed past each other with easy smiles.

The human edged closer to Star Swirl to make room for a stallion and his train of Jersey cows. Fidgeting, he hooked a finger under the unicorn’s cape and gasped it like a silken tether. He recalled how the little group of unicorns around the thorn cage unnerved him with their numbers and he almost laughed to himself; that was a paltry handful compared to the massive herd he navigated now. Conemara sort of reminded him of the city he left behind, but of course it wasn’t. It was a warped reflection of the human’s city; it was shorter, it was fatter, its bones were made of wood instead of iron, topped by thatched roofs and shining tiles. The windows were clear and unbroken, the signposts freshly painted, the walls unmarred by the scrawling graffiti of dead wordsmiths. It was alive and it lived so well it could afford to be slow, soft, and easy.

A city is not supposed to be this way, he thought.

The human knew cities. He knew them better than he knew the scars on his skin. He knew his city where he never got lost, where his fellow citizens were bony coyotes hiding under truck cabins, cats lurking in rafters, and pigeons roosting atop darkened street lights. Where the wind blew through what used to be walls, where the only voice was his echo in the tunnels.

A city is not supposed to be this. But even as the human thought this, a deeper, quieter part in him whispered You know better. This is what a true city looks like. A city’s heart beats with a million footsteps, speaks with ten million voices telling stories in their storeys. And you know that.

Plump, stout Conemara with its lush grasses and skipping milkmares had every right to call itself a city, much more than the human’s dead city did. A place of ponies built by ponies, for ponies, and no other. In the overlapping conversations and clip-clop hooves on cobblestone it told him what he already knew. This world did not know him, it did not belong to him anymore.

The human gripped Star Swirl’s cape a little tighter. The unicorn glanced back at him with concerned eyes. “You might want to give your rein some slack and let out that breath you’re holding.” In the rumbling streets, it was a strain to hear him. “It’s a bit tight here, but nopony’s looking at you, there’s no need to worry.”

He was right, of course. At a brisk pace, they moved along faster than most of the little ponies placidly ambling around them. None were in any sort of rush, they had all the time in the world to joke and gossip and complain as they pulled their livelihoods with them in baskets and little carts. A few ponies resting on long benches brought their heads up to watch them pass, but their eyes were usually focused on Star Swirl.

It was then the human noticed that almost all that went by them were earth ponies. All excepting a trio of unicorns who stood off by themselves. The earth ponies gave them a wide berth as the unicorns whispered amongst themselves, studying a bit of parchment held magically in midair. It was almost as if there were an invisible rope between them and the rest of Conemara. When a mare holding a basket of herbs stepped into the invisible barrier to speak to them, the unicorns all gave her a sort of side-eyed scowl and did not answer. The mare dropped her eyes and shuffled away.

As the traveling pair passed them the human felt Star Swirl’s muscles tense. For a short moment, they all looked at each other before Star Swirl averted his eyes and pretended to ignore the whispers fluttering amongst the trio.

“Do you know them?” the human asked.

“Not exactly. They know of me, though.” Star Swirl cleared his throat and searched the area for a change of subject. “I believe we’ve come out of the shopping district by now. Look, the crowds are thinning.”

The human and the unicorn came to a place in town where the stout buildings had more elbow room, the pastures spread out as if each barn and bungalow wore sprawling capes of grass. There had been plenty of inns in the shopping district but Star Swirl had ignored them entirely, for they were deemed either too crowded or expensive. The residential district did not seem any better. They passed five inns, two hostels, three bed-and-breakfasts, and a boarding house but none of them suitable to sleep in. Some required a tall expense Star Swirl could not afford, while others had no vacancies (though the human could have sworn there had been empty rooms).

The lamplighters were out balancing upon step-stools with their candles when the travelers came to a split-level brick house painted in merry pinks and whites. A shiny brass gate ran across the perimeter, tall enough to keep the riffraff out when the gate was closed, but not tall enough to seem unwelcoming. If not for Star Swirl’s insistence they open the gate and walk in like civilized creatures, the human could have hopped the fence easily.

The unicorn frowned at the front lawn, enormous compared to the other yards and most other houses had no lawn in front at all. He sulked at the front door’s fresh coat of paint and gleaming doorknob. He scowled at the lacy mountain of pillows stacked upon the foyer’s couch as if a lace pillow slaughtered his mother.

“So what is the matter with this one?” asked the human.

Star Swirl’s nose twitched at the smell of roses and freshly baked bread. “Nothing is wrong with it. It’s lovely. I couldn’t imagine a nicer hotel, so there is no way I can afford it. But no harm in trying, I suppose.” He rang the cowbell hanging by the front desk, waited a few moments in silence, then rang twice more.

On the third ring, a mare waddled in from the back room dressed in a high-collared jacket adorned with a little broach in the shape of a pie in the lapel, dragging along a scroll of parchment. Her coat shone with health; it was the color of overripe raspberries and overpowered the subtler hues around her. Fluffy buttermilk curls spilled over her shoulders and bounced with each step.

“Here, what’s all this din and dither this hour of the night? Pecan Pie, that had better not be you again, I already told you, you have to pay your fine befor—Oh!” Upon seeing a unicorn up front she blinked in surprise and took a moment to readjust herself. “Oh, good evening! So sorry, I almost mistook you for somepony else, we usually don’t get, er, your sort of company at this hour. What’s the trouble, sir?”

Star Swirl seemed equally surprised, though his voice was too weary to show it. “Oh, dear. I knew something about this house was too good to be true. Pray pardon, Miss Mayor. Lickety Split the… fifth, is it?”

“Sixth,” she said. Her eyes darted between the pink beard and the starry mark on Star Swirl’s flank barely exposed through a fold of silk. The mare gave a little jolt as if pricked by a pin. Her voice climbed an octave, a rigid smile overtook her face. “And it’s no trouble at all, I assure you!”

“I—or, we—were just looking for an affordable place to spend the night. I’d no idea this was your house, by the size of it I presumed… well, never mind it, we’ll just be on our way.”

“NONsense! Why, you look just about ready to collapse, dear. Must have been a long way for a young fellow, I expect, but there’s no need for worry. You can set your bones down here in our house.”

“But I wouldn’t want to troub—”

“No trouble at all, lad! Why, our fair little city has always welcomed guests from beyond the Earth Pony Nation. The only thing more famous than Conemara’s hospitality is the grass. Have you tried the grass? Lovely this time of year, it is. And you know what they say: ‘No burgh, nor hamlet, nor stone riviera may surpass the cordial of sweet Conemara’.”

The human moved in for a closer look. He had to lean over to see all of her, she was scarcely taller than the counter she stood behind, but her towering influence seemed to make up for it. Mayor Lickety Split beamed up at them with a short, rounded face that reminded him more of a tiny hippo than a pony. The human marveled at her size; how her ribs were safely insulated and cushioned behind rolls of flesh, how he couldn’t see her cheekbones at all.

Had there ever been a night she went to bed hungry? She or any other pony in this plump city? The thought brought pangs of either jealousy or hunger, he couldn’t tell which. Star Swirl was right about Conemara’s wealth if they all kept so well-fed and warm in the winter. He looked at the mayor’s brittle smile with a touch of confusion. So then why did she look like a rabbit in a snare right now? What was there left to fear amongst all this comfort?

Star Swirl looked about the room and shrugged with a little sigh. If there was a warm bed in it for him, he wasn’t about to argue. “Truly, it isn’t necessary, but if you insist…”

Lickety Split VI nodded, satisfied. “All settled snuggly, then. Though of course there is the matter of—”

“Payment,” finished a new voice. None of them had noticed the honey-colored mare until she had spoken, though the human had no idea how he could have missed her. She was the average size for a pony but gaunt for a Conemaran, and the lacy blue bonnet upon her head did nothing to soften her appearance. A head taller than the mayor and leagues harder, she stared at Star Swirl like he’d stolen something. “There is still the matter of payment, little stargazer. I hope you have coin this time.”

The mayor let out a high-pitched, near hysteric giggle, “Oh! Um, this is Honey Glaze, she helps me some with the baking and the… the um, things in…matters. Sugar, say hello to our guest from out of town.”

The honey mare leaned across the counter to whisper something in the mayor’s ear. Lickety Split looked at her, then at the mildly confused Star Swirl. “Oh. So you mean he’s not…?”

“Nothing of the sort. He was here two years before, don’t you recall? He told Sorbet’s fortune and juggled cherries badly.”

Mayor Lickety Split VI heaved a sigh of relief, all of her slumped like a collapsed soufflé. “Ahhh, I see it now. You’re the bearded fellow from the carnival, with all the long-toothed nasties. Heh, didn’t recognize you without the wagons and star charts.” The grin returned, this time with the loose warmth of a natural smile. “What happened, son? You run away from the circus to join a home? Your boss finally decide to retire?”

Star Swirl rubbed a hoof behind his neck. “Something like that. This doesn’t change anything, does it? The Showmaster left me plenty of bits to live on, I was always prepared to pay for our beds.”

“Glad to hear it. But who else are you with?”

The unicorn offered a hooffull of bits, gesturing to the human, just coming short of touching him. “My yeti,” he explained. “I never like to be apart from him too long, he’s a touch ill, as you can see. We’re headed to see a specialist up north. I promise he won’t make a mess of the room.”

Lickety Split nosed through the coins. “This will do for a night, I suppose. It’s less than it ought to be for bed and food, but since I like you, it’ll do. But no animals indoors. ‘Specially not sick ones.” She nodded to the window where a beagle stared intently at them through the shutter slats. “Even Pete sleeps outdoors, and I love him like kin. Your bald yeti is welcome to sleep in the yard, so long’s he don’t bother Maybelle.”

Before Star Swirl could argue further the mayor yawned and made for the back room. “I’m to bed, Honey can see to settling you in. Try not to keep her too long.”

Star Swirl scrunched his nose. “Is the barn really the best you can do?”

“It’s either sleeping in the stalls with Maybelle or in the yard with Pete.” Honey Glaze was hardly minding the unicorn. She brushed a brown forelock from her eyes and peered up at the human, humming like a beehive. “Just what is that old cob doing to his acts nowadays? Shearing them like sheep instead of sharpening canines?”

In a syrupy voice one normally reserves for toddlers or wiggling kittens she cooed, “Well hey there, little fellow. How are we today? You’re a sweetie, I’ll bet.”

The human sighed, disappointed but not very surprised. He offered a small wave hello.

Honey Glaze smiled at that and took a step closer. Her smile shrank an inch and she leaned in to examine his hand, adjusting the little round glasses on her nose. “Sir stargazer.” Her voice hardened faster than neglected gingerbread. “If he is a yeti, then why is his fur so dark?”

“Oh, well, it’s not wintertime, miss,” Star Swirl happily explained. “No use for thick white fur without snow to hide in, so he switches the hue of his hair just like a hare.”

“Skin does not change color with the seasons.”

The unicorn buckled his shoulders in a weary slump and sighed as if this were the sixtieth time he had explained all of this. “The yeti has dark skin underneath its fur so that it may absorb more sunlight to keep warm. Not unlike arctic bears.”

Honey Glaze’s eyes narrowed into blue slits. “Polar bears are black underneath, not brown. And this fellow here is not even the dark sable of pumpernickel; color looks closer to a gingersnap if you ask me. Not much to absorb the sun. And why do the paw pads look a different color and why are they so thin?”

Star Swirl flicked an anxious ear and desperately looked to the human for help, but all he received was a shrug. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence as the cover story melted around him, he gave an obstinate little snort and huffed, “Oh, what would a baker know of yetis, anyway?”

The honey mare dusted a bit of flour off her shoulder. “Well, it’s an interesting thing about Conemara. Many of us work food, but there are other things that need doing too. My dearest Split is the Mayor, for instance. As for me...” She pleasantly smiled at Star Swirl with all of her teeth. “I’m the city veterinarian.”

“…oh.”

“I can also tell you that yetis have longer claws, bigger broader noses, and feet the length of palm leaves, not to mention they are far too tall to fit into a split level house.” She brought down her hoof as a knight brings down his sword. “This,” said Honey Glaze “Is not a yeti. This is obviously a young sasquatch. And an ill-kept one at that.”

“Oh? Oh! Well, you don’t say? Hmm.”

“Some zookeeper, doesn’t even know what animals he has. Can’t say as I’m surprised, he looks nothing like he ought.” The mare gently prodded the human’s knee cap. “Here, when was the last time you fed the poor thing? He’s almost as thin as your manticore. Wouldn’t be surprised if the fur just fell out from malnutrition, I wouldn’t. I suppose you were trying to pass him off as a… a wood elf or somesuch.”

Star Swirl sighed, tired, defeated, and in want of a bed. “You caught me, miss. Yes, a thin one he is, but I’ve no precedence on what the owner does or wants. The carnival’s not retired, I’ve actually stolen away with the final act in tow. He is in my care by ill gain but not for ill purpose. I couldn’t bear to leave him where he was, and I can’t let him go either, miss. Been raised tame.”

Honey Glaze yielded at the stargazer’s surrender and her sweet smile was back again. “There, now. Doesn’t it feel better to be truthful?”

“Oh, it’s a weight off my shoulders, let me tell you.”


Star Swirl may have disapproved of the human sleeping in barns, but the human certainly did not. The wide openness of closed space relaxed his muscles, the clogged arteries of Conemara streets with its constant chatter seemed miles away. An aged building of long width and tall rafters, he welcomed it like an old friend. It was still a place owned by ponies, but the evidence of it was sparse enough for him to forget that uncomfortable detail.

The barn was dimly lit by three fireflies listlessly hovering near the rafters and the place had the soft, comforting scent of hay and old hickory wood. The human smelled something else too, something sweet and fresh and comforting that put him in the mind of new leaves in a drizzle. He followed the scent to the only occupied stall, where a Jersey cow—Maybelle, presumably—had her dark nose in a pile of grass. She brought her head up and stared at him with more aptitude than he expected from a cow. It looked almost…grouchy. The grass in her manger was a vibrant green even in dim light. Curious, the human took some and rubbed the thin, wispy blades between his fingers. It felt closer to featherdown or the fur of baby rabbits than grass.

“Uh. Excuse you.”

The human nearly jumped out of his skin. Apparently, it wasn’t just ponies that talked.

“I don’t think anyone said you could root your weird little paws through my dinner,” the cow groused. “This is expensive, you know. We work too hard growing this grass for it to be poked at by a… whatever you are.”

“I’m a man,” said the man.

“Never heard of you.” Maybelle sniffed and turned her back on him to eat in peace. The human shrugged and went on exploring the barn with the decision to sleep in a stall far from the cow’s.

A wooden tub of water sat at the far end of the barn, presumably for bathing. It was a strange arrangement for bathing, as the bottom was lined with what looked like oats (was this a bath or a breakfast?) and the water was warm. He gave himself a short wash, paying special attention to the thorn scrapes on his back and to his hair, grimy from sweat, dust, and other symptoms of travel. The water had a pleasant effect on his spirits, the sting of homesickness ebbed into the dull ache of nostalgia.

It was then the human noticed something hanging above the barn door. A pair of horseshoes linked together over a knothole and some cobwebs. It was the first time he had ever seen iron that bent to serve ponies. A small reminder of who actually owned this barn and the world outside of it.

He brushed a hand through his freshly washed hair, turned his eyes to the shadows in the rafters, and sighed. There was something he had to do.


Star Swirl arrived later that night carrying a wicker basket, a lantern, and a downy pillow. He seemed surprised to find the human curled in the corner of the stall in a bed of straw, perfectly content and wrapped in his cloak. "I came to see if I could make you more comfortable, but I see you've done that yourself."

"I told you I'd be alright. It's a very nice barn. Clean, empty, and quiet, I couldn't ask for more than that. But thank you anyway." The human fluffed the pillow, put it behind his head, and patted the empty hay next to him. "It sort of reminds me of where I used to live. Sort of."

Star Swirl entered carefully, tiptoeing around the outstretched leather cloak as if it were made of faulty wires glazed with kerosene and he carried a torch. His hooves did a strange hopscotch dance on the hay until he found a suitable place in the straw to sit. Unicorns were certainly picky about their living conditions. "I thought humans from the city hated things like barns and only liked tall, tight spaces. Is that not why you always sleep in the trees?"

"I sleep in trees because the last time I fell asleep on the ground I awoke in a cage of thorns. This is the first barn I've ever been in, but I'm used to small rooms in larger buildings. Sort of like the mall I grew up in."

"Oh," said Star Swirl. He set down the basket and lantern between them. "What is a mall?"

"A hollow building with lots and lots of rooms inside. Some rooms are the size of this stall but other rooms are twice the width of this barn. I don't know for certain what a mall was used for. I believe it was supposed to be one big shop with lots of little ones inside of it, kind of like a beehive. But I never knew for sure. Some of the bigger shops still had things inside of them."

"What sorts of things?"

"Nothing too special, mostly old signs with a bunch of random numbers written on them, many mentioned something called a 'Sale'. The place we lived in used to be a toy store, it still had lots of dolls. They were painted white, stood tall as me, and they all looked off into the distance in the strangest poses. Many of them didn't have faces, some didn't have heads at all. Others were missing their arms and legs, I even saw one that was just a torso." The human rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I don't think it was a very good toy store."

“It was a good, safe place to live, especially in winter. In the middle of the mall was a big open area with dried-up fountains and one big window in the ceiling. When the leaves changed color, we brought part of the garden indoors where they’d be safe from the frost, though the vegetables grown inside never got very big. Still, it was good to have a food source in winter so we didn’t need to go out hunting all the time. One winter we figured how to make the lights and heat come on after poking at wires in the walls in the just right way. The vegetables grew well that year too, we hardly had to go outside at all! It was just like an indoor summer, except sometimes I had to scrape snow off the roof.”

"We?" Star Swirl looked up from his cake and licked a dollop of green frosting from his nose. "I thought you said you were alone in your human city and the inside weather doesn’t work anymore."

"Not always. I lived in that mall with my mother for about twelve or fourteen summers."

"I didn't know you had a mother."

The human smiled at him. "I don't know what your songs have been telling you Star Swirl, but humans don't just crawl full-grown from the mud. I take care of the city the best I can, but my mother knew more of our city than I ever did, more than I ever will.” The man pulled himself up to sit, chin resting peacefully on his knee, and he closed his eyes as if listening to distant music. “Before she got the chance to teach me more of what she knew, she got a thick cough that wouldn't go away and was gone before springtime."

Star Swirl's ears drooped and he buried his nose in the food basket, as if he would find the proper way to respond next to the milkshakes. He'd never been very good at this sort of thing. "I'm sorry," he said to the basket.

"It happens, don't worry about it." There was an underscore of laughter in his voice, amused at some secret joke. "I just wish she'd at least waited until the ground was soft and easy to dig in, but she always did want me to learn things the hard way. If I didn't know better, I'd say she did it on purpose so I'd finally know how to dig up frozen ground, because when the snow fell I always found a way to get out of it."

The human peered over Star Swirl's head into the basket and sniffed at the warm sweetness inside. "Is the rest of that for me?"

"Hmm? Oh! Yes, it is. Please do try and eat most of it, I don't want the lady of the house to scold me anymore about how underfed you are."

The human paused to feel at his poking ribs before digging into the basket. It was lined full of all sorts of soft things covered in glazes, frostings, and creams, along with a side bowl of fruit and nuts. He poked at a spongy yellow foodstuff that was covered with something brown and glossy. It looked like wet mud, yet was dry and sort of sticky. With so many new, strange things to eat, it was hard to know where to start. This cache could last him at least a week back at home.

"I expect you would have liked my ma, Star Swirl." It was difficult to make out words in the crunching static of pecans and cashews in his mouth. "She knew so much about our city. Not only how to fix what was broken and how to mend wires, but how it all really used to work in the Old World days of her mother's mother. 'There are power lines in our bloodlines', as she put it. I don't know much about electricity—that's what the Old World lived on, electricity—but I know wires ran behind plaster and under asphalt as nerves run under skin. They carried information and light with them, though you never saw them do it, you only saw how it manifested. Back then all the buildings lit up and had indoor summers, and it was never dark even in the middle of the night."

Star Swirl peered at the window and wondered what such a sky would look like. If it simply looked like daytime or if the human's city had any moon or stars. "Is—was?—your city bigger than Conemara?"

"At least twice the size, I'm sure. I know that it at least takes twice the time to walk my concrete city than this thatched one. And my city's actually one of the smaller ones." The human put aside the empty bowl and thought carefully for a moment. "I can show you, if you like."

"Of course! I've heard so much of the elder structures of iron but never seen one up close. It would be an enlightening visit if you'd have me, and there would be so much to—"

"No, I mean here. Now.” The human rooted around his pack and pulled out a book of long width and thin pages. The glossy cover was firm but pliable. It flopped in his hand like a dead eel.

Star Swirl stretched his neck as the man opened it and edged closer, either ignorant or uncaring of his hooves upon the leather cloak. “Oh!” He called out so loud the cow glared daggers at him, but he paid her no mind. “On my word, it’s like a scroll, but with many pages instead of just one. But the make of the paper is shiny, thinner than ours, and yet seems stronger, harder to tear. I’d no notion humans kept archives of their own—oh, listen to my prattle. All other manner of creatures keep their histories one way or another, why not humans? Printed in fine, even lines with nary a smudge. I envy your typesetters.”

When he looked closer the unicorn’s firework smile dimmed a little. “Hm. I don’t know how to read your language.” But he instantly brightened again. “No matter. I can learn it later, I’m sure. I figured out dragon symbols, this doesn’t appear much harder. What is this one about? Is it also about malls and livewires?”

The human lifted up a smaller book with a harder cover from his other side as if he had spun knowledge from straw. A sprig of honeysuckle peeked out of the pages. “This one is about a poor man who becomes a rich man and throws big parties in an egg to win the love of a rich girl who likes fancy shirts."

"A classic tale," Star Swirl mused, though the addition of parties inside eggs was new to him. "I suppose they live happily ever after?"

The human snapped up one of the littler cakes in two bites. "Actually, the girl kills someone with his yellow car, then he takes the blame for it. So then the man dies and the girl goes back to her old husband and forgets the whole thing ever happened."

"...And that is the end of the story?"

"That's the end."

“I see.” The unicorn decided human stories were quite bizarre indeed. “Have you any more of these? And what is a car and what manner of weapon is it?”

“These are the only books I brought with me, but at home, I have at least a couple thousand.”

Star Swirl’s eyes became very wide.

“I lived in a library,” the human preened. “When I left, I had been through a third of all the books stored there. I could have read more than that, but I wasn’t sure what to do when I finished all of them, so I went slowly. As for cars...”

The human moved back to the first book and flipped through pages of flickering black and white until there was a shock of color.

The illustration began in grey skies and led the eye down into angular grey, white, and rooftops, and then down, down until it exploded with color. Little green signs on the walkways, orange signs, black signs, grey signs upon buildings. A shiny coat of buttercup yellow. An umbrella splayed out in all the rainbow’s colors. Silver puddles. Red bricks. Dangling yellow boxes with red and green circles.

The dark road was slicked with rain and a long line of metal carriages traveled upon it. Every one of them candy wrapper bright in their shells of reds, blues, violets, golds, silvers, blacks, whites, pinks, oranges. Many had the round shapes of beetles, but others were squat, boxy, and tall. Star Swirl’s favorite was the white one that stretched out like a cat in the sun, the windows dark and mysterious. These, the human explained, were cars and they were more preferred for riding than murder weapons.

Star Swirl stared, afraid to blink, lest the text evaporate like dew or summer love. “Tis like a wood print.” He said it in a voice fit for temples, small and flushed with wonder. “A wood print, or... or a tapestry. Yet it is all so detailed and clear, as if plucked straight from the world and on a page. Ah, right you are! There ARE humans in the metal things if I look a bit harder.”

In fact, there were many more humans than the ones in cars. They came in all manner of sizes and shapes and they were everywhere. The little pony had not noticed them at first, distracted as he was by the colorful cars, but the more he looked the more of them he saw. They walked along the paths, in pairs or in groups—would you call it a pack or a herd?—or went along by themselves. They slept upon human-sized benches, they ate their meaty lunches under trees, they peered out tiny windows of buildings that scraped the clouds, they carried bulging bags, they were pulled along by small fuzzy dogs on leashes. Their hides came in various shades of peachy beiges and earthy browns, but wore every manner of color, pattern, style, and design. From a distance, they were not unlike flocks of extravagant birds.

Star Swirl often looked at the same spots two, three, five times and always found something he never noticed before. An untranslatable word upon a duck-billed hat. A little box full of light. An argument between friends. A lovers’ rendezvous under an awning.

The human sipped at his drink, which had the same pinkish color of Lickety Split’s coat and topped with a fluffy, cloud-like substance and a cherry. He curled his toes and grinned like a yearling in springtime. “This is amazing.”

“Yes,” breathed the unicorn. “Yes, it is.”

“No, not the picture. I mean this! This thing I’m drinking, it’s... it’s sweet, but it’s also tart and smooth! What is it? It’s amazing!”

“That? ‘Tis only an ice cream milkshake. Raspberry, strawberry, some sort of berry.”

Maybelle gave a look flat as an unpracticed choirgirl. “‘Only ice cream’, he says. Got some nerve.” She sniffed at the human. “And it is from Conemara. Of course it is amazing. I made it. You’re welcome.” And she went back to her cud chewing without another word.

“Um. In any case, if that picture looks real that’s because it is. Sort of. A captured image at a certain point of time, just as it was seen. When you have a picture like that it’s called something else, I forget what. Involves graphs. This one is from Nineteen Hundred Eighty Eight.”

“I have absolutely no idea what that means, but I will take your word for it. Were all of your cities like this?”

“Many, but not all of them. This book only mentions the big famous ones. Here’s how they look at night.”

Star Swirl bent down for a better look, his beard ran across the skyline like a pink paintbrush. “It’s full of stars. Lights everywhere. When did any of you sleep?”

The human shrugged. “When they wanted to, I suppose. A few books I read didn’t seem to favor the idea of a city. They said such a big place with people jammed up against each other made everyone meaner, somehow. I don’t really understand that, but then again, I wasn’t there.” He tapped a little cluster of high rises in the distance. “Some of these buildings are business or hotels, but this part here? That is where humans lived. Lots of little dwellings in one big dwelling that was part of a collection of dwellings. Neighbors lived on top of you, below you, across from you, and on both sides. So even when it seemed like you were alone, you were never really alone.” The thought made him smile despite his loathing of crowds.

“How far away is your Old World’s Nineteen Hundred Eighty Eight?" Star Swirl asked. "Eons or is it closer?”

“Closer than an eon. The mother of my mother’s mother saw it as a child, I hear.” He slurped up the last bits of milkshake with a satisfied hum.

“So many of you. And far marvelous still, so many in but this single city. Numbers of other cities still, all with just as many if not more...” He trailed off, staring below the pages, under the straw, beneath the stone and soil, and straight into days long gone. Then his dark eyes looked at the human. “It is not my place to ask, but...”

“Yes?”

“Where did they all go?”

The human was quiet then. He folded his legs under him and looked up at the stable’s little window filled with night.

Star Swirl flicked an apologetic ear. “As I said, it is not my place to ask. You need not answer if you prefer.”

“No. It’s not that. Can you dim the lantern a little?”

Star Swirl opened part of the lantern just a little. A quartet of fireflies lit freely into the night, drifting up and out of the window like dying embers. The human watched them go, then looked up to watch his twitching shadow lick the curves of the ceiling. In the light, it was unwise to speak of the dead. Ghosts slept in the daytime, hiding from all things loud or shining. Nobody, not even the dead, liked being talked about behind their backs. They liked to sit in the contours of shadows to listen and remember how they once were. The human could grant them that small kindness at least.

The story opened as it always did. “Forgive my errors and misgivings. I only know what I have been told.” He nodded to the darkness and whoever listened inside it. Then he looked back at the lamplight. “This is how I heard it: there was an accident and then there was a war. I don’t know what sort of accident it was. Perhaps it was some misunderstanding that got out of hand or someone crossed the wrong wires. For all I know it wasn’t an accident at all and some human in the past played a joke only he found funny. Anyhow, that was the reason for the fire flowers.”

“What is a fire flower?” Star Swirl's ears swiveled and twitched excitedly. “Is it like a firework? Or literally a flower that is on fire?”

The human looked at him as if he’d forgotten the unicorn was there. This was the first time he had told this story to anyone that could talk back. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “I guess it’s a little bit like fireworks. But a fire flower burns so much brighter and it is big enough to devour cities whole.” He raised his hands against the lantern light, spreading out his hands to craft a quivering silhouette upon the wall in the shape of a blossom. “From a distance that’s how they appear blooming against the sky. If there is another name for them I don’t know it.”

The man wriggled his fingers to make the shadowed petals wave as if caught in a light wind. “Those caught in the light of the flowers died so suddenly they didn’t even have time to take their shadows with them. The shadows are still there, etched upon on concrete. When my mother was small, she and my grandmother found a town rich with cans cached in shelters. The find was an amazing stroke of luck, but shadows ran across the walls of that town, frozen in mid-sprint so they left the place as they found it. It’s bad to live in a place like that.”

The human waited for Star Swirl to ask another question or give comment, but for once he was quiet.

“That isn’t what happened to most of those in the Old World. Only a handful were caught in the light of the flowers, and added with the war itself, it only took the population of a large city or two. It was a short war and from what I hear it was not as bad as it could have been, whatever that means. What hurt us more was the illness. In those days, humans could go from one end of the Old World to the other in a matter of hours. They did not know it, but their sickness traveled with them.”

Star Swirl looked down at the picture of twinkling city lights. “And then came home where they all lived packed together and could spread faster.”

“It didn’t help our social skills either. That’s the version I know but there are other rumors of why we are so few. Several small civil wars, tsunamis, a volcano, the wrath of vengeful gods, sterility, a roc of white. All of them are possible but there are two I don’t believe: one says the dead climbed out of their graves to eat the living and the other says that some humans boarded starships to sail beyond the moon, leaving the rest of us behind. One is too silly to believe, the other is too awful.”

“Which one is which?”

The human shivered under an invisible wind. “I can’t decide. But even after all of that, there were plenty of humans to go around. A generation ago, my family traveled with nomads until my grandparents broke away from them to find a permanent place to live. When I was a boy we sent out messenger pigeons to others living far away to learn what was happening in the world. I still remember the protocol for raider attacks. I know how to properly greet new people to the city and how to tell if I can trust them. Last I heard our numbers dwindled but there was still a fair number of us. That was until this spring when I heard there were none of us.”

The human cracked the bones in his neck, took a cruller from the basket, and waited for a downpour of questions he had no answer for. The downpour never came. Star Swirl was quiet as an iron city. He had not been shocked into silence, for nothing the human said seemed to surprise him. He'd become fascinated or horror-struck perhaps, but never surprised. Instead, he let the scope of what he’d learned settle in his stomach. The unicorn’s eyes flashed bright, busy tearing down the edifice of what he knew, yet even busier rebuilding it on the cornerstone of the human’s story—a stronger, better foundation.

Eulogies are not really meant for the dead. There is nothing the dead can get from them, only the assurance they were remembered. Eulogies are for closure and to share and appreciate what was no longer there with the one left behind. The human didn’t know what the unicorn was doing with what had been told to him, but something was being done. That was enough.

There was still something else to be answered, however. “What about yours, Star Swirl?”

The pony jumped, half expecting a ruler to smack across his hooves for daydreaming again. “Hm? What about my what now?”

“What about your kind? The Old World had a lot of things, but not magic. Not the kind I have seen. There were ponies, but none that talked. Any unicorns the books mentioned were nothing like you at all. I hardly know anything of you or why you are all suddenly here moving clouds and making milkshakes.”

“Interesting, we know plenty about you. You’re in all sorts of tapestries and scrolls and things, and not all of them take place in Dream Valley, either.” Star Swirl’s crescent smile glistened. “Our old worlds lived next door to each other, in a way. In the Whistler Records and in all the songs you were but a rainbow away. Some scholars argue the rainbow is symbolic, but anypony with an ounce of sense knows better and anyway those scholars don’t accept any version of history that doesn’t end with unicorns solving everything.”

“What do unicorns in particular have to do with it?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Star Swirl laughed. “Only the Pegasi tribe saw your Old World for themselves, for it was wide and strange and very far away. The only way a pony could get there was by strong wings and even stronger hearts. No other way to travel and you absolutely had to have both.”

“A strong heart is always useful to have,” said the human. “It keeps you moving when others would have laid down to rest.”

“‘Where hast thou wandered?

Hither and yonder

And fairest heart t’was my guide.’” Star Swirl nodded to himself happily as he recited. “I don’t believe a human ever came to us without the help of a pegasus.”

“But why come to our world at all?”

“We needed you. Or at least we did the first time—maybe the other times as well—this was the earliest time anypony could remember. Perhaps they were some of the first ponies that ever were, or the first who had a story interesting enough to pass down. They were also the first ponies to know darkness, this I know for certain, and the Lord of Midnight Castle was the darkest thing we had ever seen. In fact, he was the darkest thing we would ever see, for nothing so awful has been seen since that day, though plenty tried to best his legacy.”

“I still don’t see why they would seek out a human,” said the human. “Couldn’t they have used a dragon or a griffon? You still had those, right?”

All of Star Swirl’s muscles tensed and he leaned in close. The light in his eyes shook with the wild delight of the freshly minted idea, in putting something in the world that had never been there before. Star Swirl’s front hooves gently pattered out a rhythm. He seemed ready to snatch up his idea and literally run with it.

“That’s just the thing! She wasn’t sought out! The first pegasus that crossed the rainbow knew not where she was going or whom she was seeking but when her eyes fell upon the human with the long yellow mane she knew. She just knew. And she was right. See, this is exactly it! This is exactly what I have been trying to explain to everypony: the Rainbow never takes you where you want to go, but where you need to be. See, that rainbow bridging the world was different; not hoof-crafted from water and air and light, it was... well, it was different! ”

The human let Star Swirl have a minute to himself, for there seemed to be too much happening within him at once to sort out. Then he asked, “Did other humans come to you, or was it the one with yellow hair every time?”

“Can I get there by Rainbow’s Light?” the unicorn recited. “Yes, there and back again.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It is.” Star Swirl suppressed the urge to swing into more reeling ballads and his quiet revolution of revelations. “Where was... Right! Other humans. Yes, the yellow-haired one— a ‘Megan’ I believe is the exact term—came across the rainbow many times after, sometimes with another human in tow, having fanciful adventures and what have you. There is a fascinating account of a device they held that caught voices from the air and played them back. What interests me are the other stories of humans.”

The unicorn could hold himself back no longer and began to pace back and forth in the stall, his hooves keeping time with his words. The look Maybelle gave the both of them could have frozen a phoenix but Star Swirl paid her no mind. “None of those stories mention rainbows or those humans even being foreign, though they came from outside the Valley. It is a little hard to sort those histories out. Like the one of the trio of human sorceresses—before you ask, no, I’ve no idea how a human managed sorcery—and smothered all of Dream Valley in a vile, toxic ooze for no other reason than they found merriment in the sorrow of ponies. There is another of humans spiriting away newborn foals with iron chains, and yet another of a little human who tried to murder a dragonling in cold blood. These are what ponies remember in the dark of night and keep them from straying into the woods. I do not know if the humans in those stories are from your Old World or not.”

The human caught a pink unicorn tail before he could run away with another tangent. “Yes, but—sit down before that cow kicks your head in—how does this tie into why or how you ponies are here?”

“I’m on the road to it, no need to run ahead of the cart.” Star Swirl waved an unshorn fetlock at him and sat, taking back his tail in a flouncy swish. “The records become misty after the account of the foals in chains. The assumption is that it was shortly after this time the three tribes grew apart.”

“And?”

“And Wind Whistler, North Star, and Paradise were all Pegasi and took their writings with them. Aside from those three, the only other true scholar was Lady Galaxy, who did her very best to take account of events but there were so many big things happening in the world and only so much one mare could do. Many other ponies did not think to write down their histories. Her Grace Lady Fizzy was known to roll her eyes at Galaxy’s ‘flighty hobbies’. For a very long time information traveled by word of mouth alone, the advent of scroll keeping is still fairly new to us. So, to answer your original question, I—that is to say we, as a species—don’t... know. For certain.”

The human scowled at him.

“Well, what I mean is I don’t know for certain. For generations it was assumed humans as a species lived sparse and scattered in a far part of the world, assuming you existed at all. By tales of rainbow travel, the only reasonable explanation was that you had taken root in our world at some point to build your iron towers and craft your iron chains.” Star Swirl sat back on his heels and stroked his beard. “But after hearing what you’ve said to me this night, I think...” He glanced at the human’s book, then looked quickly away. “I think... t’was not you who came to our world. I think we came to yours.”

Star Swirl’s tiny laugh trembled in the dark. “You are the living antithesis of magic; your world in turn must be the same. Or at least used to be. The clouds and land do as we ask them, they are no less magic than we, you know, though they never acted as such in the Valley days.” He made the trembling laugh again. “And they say humans shift landscapes!”

The human rubbed his temples with a sigh. It was really too late at night for this. “And you came here because?”

“Well...I’ve a guess. Mind, ‘tis only a theory, but you seem eager to take what you can get. If the rainbow bridges gaps between words and brings you where you need to go and if it only works when a heart aches enough, then somepony must have truly wanted to come here. That or one from your Old World wanted to come to ours instead. It sounds as if you’d have plenty reason to seek our help out. It could have been a reversal of our first meeting and I know for certain the Megan went back to her home, which must have been here. The Rainbow bridge no longer exists, it could have snapped under the strain of everypony coming over at once. Or perhaps it did not break, but bent to bring both worlds together. Two planes, one sitting atop the other one until both became one and the same, not unlike a pair of small soap bubbles becoming one large one.”

“Ah,” said the human who couldn’t think of a better response. “That makes…sense, I suppose.” Always with the magic bubbles, these unicorns.

“That would explain the expanse of magic in an unmagical world. Ponies can do a number of things, but I doubt even we could reform an entire world without realizing it. Yes. Yes, I much prefer that to the other idea and besides if there were some grand migration somepony would have mentioned it somewhere, lack of writings or... or, um… or...”

The unicorn stamped in frustration as his words unraveled and rolled away from him. He blinked, looking about the barn as if seeing it for the first time. He looked at the basket he had struggled to balance, at the glow that came from the lantern and not from his horn, and then he looked at the human towering above him. The light in Star Swirl’s eyes had burnt itself out and left him in a dark place. “Or I’m moonstruck and in far o’er my own hollow horned head.” Star Swirl sank into the hay under the pressure of things ugly and unseen. “I’m sorry. You deserve a greater unicorn to help you.”

The human watched him, unsure where this sudden wave of misery had come from, and wished he knew how to make the fireflies come back into the lantern. In times like these, it was useful to say something supportive. “Well, magic is creepy and weird anyway and it makes me feel all anxious inside. Does that help?”

“It does not.” Star Swirl rolled out of the hay, chewed some, then swallowed it. “But it was kind of you to try.” His ears pricked suddenly and he wildly looked around. “Wait a moment, do you hear something?”

“No?”

“Exactly. No jingles.” The soothsayer looked down at the clasp of his cape where a lonely string tapered off and frayed just like his theories. His bell twinkled in the straw a few inches away. “Marvelous. Now I have to find somepony with a sewing mark, presuming one even lives in a dessert tow—what are you doing?”

The man squinted over an awkward fistful of cape. “Stop moving around so much.” In the other hand, he held a shining needle and a bit of white thread. Before the unicorn had time to finish asking what the human was doing the bell was halfway sewn back in place. “Thread doesn’t really match,” he murmured to himself. “It will have to do for now. Maybe someone else can cover it up with a patch or something. Little moons and stars, something cute like that, I don’t know.”

Star Swirl shook out an experimental jingle. “Not as loud as it used to be...”

“Good.” Satisfied, the human snuggled back down under the deer cloak and fluffed his pillow. “What’s so important about a bell anyway?”

“Oh, just for a...um...a spell. That I cast.”

“But I thought you said—”

The unicorn held up a hoof. “A spell. The only one I have ever managed and I have only ever done it once.”

“And it was?”

Star Swirl hunched his shoulders and fussed at his little pink beard. “Well, I... um. I traveled through time. Several decades from now.” He flinched at the last word, bracing himself for laughter or worse, a condescending smile. When he heard nothing, he cautioned a look.

The human did not smile at him, only blinked in confusion. “Time travel is a... bad thing to do?”

“Well no, not exactly, but the morality of this spell’s far and away from anypony’s proper judgment when one takes into account the novelty and— wait. You actually believe me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” The human shrugged as he cozied himself into a sleeping position. “It sounds bizarre but what doesn’t out here? I’ve never heard of such a thing but I have never heard of manufactured rainstorms either. Did you see anything interesting in the future?”

“Lots of snow. More snow than a winter ought to have. No...no, come to think of it, it was not winter it was spring. Or should have been.” He yawned, a consequence of his habit for late nights and the human’s early mornings. It had also been over a day since he last slept. “And I saw some ponies traveling away from the castle where I stood. Oh, and something was howling or moaning or something. The wind, probably.”

The soothsayer shook more hay from his mane. “I think we are both too tired to dwell on it. I will see you in the sunlight.” He gathered up the lantern and quietly shut the stable door. “By the by, do you think there was something to that ramble from before? The bubbles and rainbows and such?”

“I suppose I do,” yawned a voice in the dark. “You seemed so sure of it.”

If Star Swirl had anything to say to that the human did not hear, for he was already half asleep.