There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

by CJOfLandsUnknown

First published 3rd of June, 2013

A story of, frankly, not much. The life of a guard isn't much to look at, but a life from a cynical mind is a life none the less.

Upon the discovery of a recently deceased close relative's final work, Rusted Dawn, a relatively innocuous Pony, relives his family history from the eyes of his Uncle, Rusted Moon. The tale of, well, not much, is accounted for here. The cynical words on the page, reliving his time as a guard, and proceeding life, up until his inevitable death. And frankly, that's about it.

Forward: Don't Look Back Into The Sun

On being asked to write a forward for the first publishing of my uncles’ book, I must stress this much. This is not a happy story. Not many stories in life end up being happy. This story doesn’t have a happy ending, beginning or middle. It is a story of futility and waste. So before you think of picking up this book, remember these words with shrewd regard. This is not a story for happy ponies. This is a story for real ponies. For ponies that feel sadness as much as joy, feel hate as much love and feel crushing disappointment as much as uplifting success. Now that’s over with, I should tell you the tale of how I came upon this diamond in the rough. I remember it as clearly as I do the sun rising this very morning, or the moon cresting the clouds above my home the night before.

Standing atop the mound of dirt that stood just high enough to call itself a hill, I overlooked a small lake and a dilapidated house. Who am I? Just a pony. A pony dressed in black tie, standing atop a hill, overlooking a lake and a house. The house, once belonging to my uncle or as my father called him, brother. He had been laid to rest not three hours earlier. We had never spoken, him and I. I was entering my twenty-fourth year on this earthly plot of land, and yet, I had never spoken with a member of my close family. My father spoke of him well during my youth. He spun tales of a raconteur, a brilliant wordsmith and a broken mind. I was the first to arrive at the place where my uncles will was to be read. I stood for a while, allowing the cool summer wind to run through my mane. I thought, in one of my moments of narcissism, that I would have looked rather fascinating from a far off onlooker, as a lonely pony, standing alone, whilst overlooking a lake and a house did conjure up romanticized imagery. But that moment passed, and I made my way down a rocky pathway towards the house. The pathway was short, but well worn. I wondered, had my uncle made his way up to the same point I had looked out from? The answer would soon be revealed to me, as would so many other things about my reclusive uncle. I sauntered, not really caring for what lay beyond me inside that ruin. He, from my first thoughts and impressions of the pony, wasn’t the most responsible of sorts. The state of the house wasn’t helping cast doubt on my assertions. Peeling paint on the walls, a few broken windows, and, as I made my way up to the door, a broken door handle. This pony seemingly had no care for his domicile. I entered the home without any form of interruption, not even by doors. They just swung open for me in the wind, seemingly inviting me in at my own ease. It was nice.

Walking through the old home turned house, it was obvious to me that the ruin of the outside pervaded the inside as well. The wallpaper peeling, lights going un-replaced for what could have been decades, let alone years. Making my way up the stairs with upturning carpets, I found myself drawn to one room in particular. This one room was clearly where my uncle spent most of his time. The only room with a working door handle, the only room with fresh wall paper, the only room where the light bulb above my head actually shone. This room contained few things. A bed, clearly made each day with a disturbing regularity that I can see shining through in not only my uncle, but my father, myself and even my foals. The occasional unwashed glass, clearly there from some form of midnight foray out into the small town near the lake. How did I know this? The labels on the glasses were from the same little restaurant in the town. I had visited the place myself, and was very tempted to pinch a glass, but the thinly veiled sense of society watching me stopped me. This veil was clearly gone for my uncle, at least up to the point where stealing glasses didn’t become a problem. And, finally, there was a stack of neatly bound pages besides a cracked old typewriter. It was odd, considering, as a foal and as an early fully matured pony, I had never seen a typewriter. I didn’t know what to call it back then, so I just let it be, concentrating on the stacks of paper beside it. I untied the top bundle, and began to read.

From the pen of Rusted Dawn.

Intro: The King Fisher Blues. Part One

So, this is it. I have decided to write a book. I really have hit my lowest low. The bottom of the barrel. The end. Well, at least I can’t get any lower. On reflection upon my life as a whole, I can say a few things. Not many nice things, but a few thing none the less. This world, or what I have experienced of this world, is not as nice as the ponies they show you in the photos, in the films or in the TV shows would have you believe. Yes, it may be brightly colored, but that’s not different from splashing a coat of paint on a cracking wall. The wall is still cracked. Life still isn’t nice. Or at least my life wasn’t. A mural, no matter how beautiful and perfect, wouldn’t have helped my life be any more so. It may have made it look nicer, but that was no change I cared for. My life is an example of what your average pony experiences. Joy, hate, elation, disappointment, confusion and malaise, all these were, and shall be experienced by me and you, the reader, alike
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But enough of that, we shall get on to that in good time. This tale is not to discuss sad stories of the death of kings; but the life of one who has defended princesses, or what they thought to be important. My work was never glamorous, nor shall anyone who followed consider it so. But it was work none the less, important work at that. No one can shy away from the fact that it was thusly an important job. I must explain one true fact about the patchwork story I am about to weave. We do not start where one naturally should. The beginning of my life isn’t as eventful as other parts I experienced throughout my time. Neither, truly, were my years as a foal, or a colt. It was when I was full, when I was, by all biological nature, complete that my story began to unfold in truth. When I was complete, ironically, I had never felt less so. Never had I felt so empty, it was a strange feeling. My adult years were, if not memorable, then at least more passable then the other sections of my life.

But remember, as I shall oft repeat myself throughout this novel, we were guarding something that the princesses cared for deeply. Why? I had, and still have, no idea why they cared so much for it, but it was apparently important to not only them, but the whole of Equestria. The Light That Never Goes Out. It was a simple name, but not an official name. I never learnt the official name. At the orientation meeting where I met my colleagues soon to turn close friends, I was too busy cracking wise and making little in jokes with my brother, Rusted Sun. A brother and a friend he was to me. So, I never caught the name. But remember, good reader, that there is one true fact, one thing that pervaded my life; from the day I entered it, to the inevitable day that I exit it. There is A Light That Never Goes Out.

Chapter One: Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.

I sighed. I was doing that a lot in those days. Even that had started to become boring. Bored. Bored. Bored. I felt bored, tired as well. Not a good combination. The fact that the flame, sitting atop a stone plinth, surrounded by magic enchantments and guards, was hypnotically swaying back and forth was not helping the tiredness issue. I was being lulled into slumber by simple fire. I don’t think anypony can claim that. I sat down on one of the stone steps leading up to the flame, placing my helmet down beside me and preceded to bury my head in my hooves. “What was wrong?” I asked myself. Was I sick? Was I in a rut? Was I dying of unknown boredom and tiredness related illnesses? Many questions were asked, but none were really answered. I just sat there for while, not really doing anything. Someone else would guard it whilst I sat in contemplation. I kicked back, lying up the steps.

No one seemed to mind that I wasn’t doing my job. I felt like shutting my eyes and letting slumber take me, but I decided against it. As much as I silently decried this job, it was all I knew. Cutie Marks have a tendency to dictate your future. They certainly did with me and my brother. Brought into the world together, working together, but ironically on different shifts. He guarded day. I guarded night. The irony of it all was occasionally quite tasty. We were nicked named The Princes as kids, after the royal Princesses. The irony of us working for them was complete lost on most, but not on us. We constantly reminded each other that we were just like them, but less important. Also, we were colts. That was probably the biggest difference.

A twisted face appeared above me stirring me from my thoughts. The flipped perspective didn’t help the grizzled old mare. She wasn’t the most attractive on her best days. But then again, you didn’t have to be attractive to be a guard. You needed to be good, and that she was. Shining Shield was her name, we called her Cracked. “You know, you’re not paid to lie about” the old twisted mare lashed down at me. “I’m not really paid at all, I’m a state servant. We really should be paid more then 6 bits an hour on the importance of our jobs” I retorted back, doing anything to get under her skin. It was a game, and we both knew it. Neither of us was going to back down. “Come on Rusty, get up and get guarding. We’ve only got a few more minutes before the change over, and then you can go back to the quarters and snooze”. It was almost like everything she said was like a barb attempting to get under my skin and pull out the veins. Even calling me Rusty, I hated her for it. Well, I didn’t hate her, I couldn’t hate her. We had known one another too long for hate; it had become mutual dislike, with a certain air of respect.

There were five of us. There was me, of course. Named Rusted Moon after… well, I have no idea why my parents called me that. I suppose it goes well with Rusted Sun, my aforementioned sibling. I’m your protagonist, so you better get used to me. I’m not leaving anytime soon. There was Shining Shield as well. Battle Hardened grizzled, cynical. The perfect guard. She never complained, and she never asked questions. I sometimes wondered how she did it. Then there were the two Pegasus’s. Fight and Flight. Brother and sister. Simple names, but they were simple kids. Both tried out to be Wonder bolts. Neither of them succeeded. Apparently, Fight, the brother, got far enough to be tested by the mighty Soarin’. I can only assume it ended badly, as he turned up here on his first day with a bandage around his left wing and was babbling about “Pie” and “going faster”. His sister got here before him; she was a nice enough kid, if not a bit naive. I told her that if she counted the number of Pegasus’s and how many of them wanted to be Wonder Bolts, she would have a similar number, and she just laughed it off. And then there was the unicorn. Tea Leaf was her name. She never seemed suited for this line of work, yet she soldiered on all the same. In truth, she was the most important Pony of us all. She kept the magical enchantments up, made sure the flame stayed alight. Frankly, she was probably too good for this job. Every single enchantment, every increment and incantation she wove on the light always worker perfectly. She’d never go though. Poor girl was too insecure about herself. Never believes what she did was right, or even close to the perfection that she wove.

I managed to pull myself up from the stone slabs of the staircase for a few seconds before I realized that there was no point left. The day shift had arrived. They always looked so fresh, so awake. It sickened me. But still, I knew that there would eventually be the satisfaction of me walking in fresh faced and refreshed and seeing my brother walk out a tired mess. We passed each other on the way out. I didn’t speak. He did. “Still going strong I see. I’m glad to see you didn’t mess it up for me”. That had become “hello” to us. Neither of us spoke in normal sentence anymore. We had resorted to subterfuge and lies to get around the fact that neither of us likes other people hearing us speak to one another. I trudged past him, not saying a word, choosing instead to look up at the Pegasus’s floating above my head. Flight was lost in her own world. She did that from time to time, never really concentrating on her work, or whatever she was doing really. I just assumed that she was being constantly pulled between two different universes. Our own and somewhere unknown never truly being in one, but never being in neither, that would have been fantastic. If I ever brought up the idea, she’d look at me with confused expression, not really understanding a word I was saying. I was fine with that however, as I never really knew what I was talking about half the time. She looked down on me, and away from the empty space that seemed to constantly inhabit the area in front of her eyes. This was a strange occurrence.

“What’s up, Moon Boy!” She squeaked in her strangely high pitched voice. This name I didn’t mind as much as Rusty. It wasn’t said with any undertones, no mutual dislike. She was genuine. The only reason she was so genuine was because she was naive, but I didn’t mind this. It was nice to have a change of pace.

“Just wondering weather or not all Peagusi furniture has wings” I stated, bluntly. A collective “What” came from my four compatriots? When no one was talking to each other, a conversation between two of us could easily become a conversation between the five of us. It could be quite irritating when you were trying to talk about important and personal stuff. “If Earth Ponies and Unicorns can’t walk on clouds, how do you get stuff to stay on the cloud? Logically, all furniture must have tiny wings” I said with a cold indifference. It’s not like I didn’t know the answer, I just wanted to break this cold air of silence and odd tension that always permeated the air when the swap took place

“Well, we don’t really have furniture; we sleep on clouds, so it’s not really needed!” Flight responded, once again with that squeaky voice. I don’t think she had gotten the fact that I didn’t really want an answer. She was stupid like that. Loveable, but stupid.

“Why do you ask such stupid questions” enquired the old Earth Pony following us at a distance. It’s not like she didn’t want to be seen with us, she just couldn’t keep up anymore. We were walking at a swift pace, all of hungry for breakfast, with her lagging behind. “I don’t ask stupid questions” I responded in kind, cold and uncaring as she was to me. We continued to walk on in a silence. My eyes continued to watch the flight path of the peagusi above me. I had always wondered why a pair of peagusi could be born to an earth pony and a unicorn. It just didn’t make sense, but some questions were best left unanswered. Who was I to question life’s basic building blocks? I lowered my head as we headed towards the canteen.

The canteen always felt grimy. The stone walls were not inviting. The food smelt awful. It wasn’t a nice place to be. The fact that we were always the only ones left in there didn’t help the uninviting feeling. All the day shifts were at work, and all the night shifts were in bed already. We were the latest change over for some unknown reason. We picked up our food and strolled over to one of the smaller tables, the one we had designated our own. Tea Leaf, after much begging and pleading, had carved a symbol and message onto the table with her magic. The symbol, a moon blazoned with fire, and the message “There is A Light That Never Goes Out”. It was rather apt, we all thought. I mean the cleaners wanted to rip our heads off, but we convinced them to leave it and not just magic the statement away. As we slapped down the trays, a thought popped into my head. What if it went out? It had been a thought that had occasionally bounded off the inside of my brain from time to time, but I had never thought about it in detail. I choose to continue this trend, instead turning to the food in front of me. It was just a few apples and a poorly constructed omelet. Another thing I hated about this job, the food was awful. But, we soldiered on, and we all tucked in, well, three of us did. The Peagusi and I chomped down on the meal in front of us. Tea Leaf was, as usual, precisely organizing herself before she began to eat, whereas Shining Shield wasn’t doing anything. She was just watching the three of us chomp down our breakfast. She said nothing. We said nothing. We all just sat there, eating or watching.

I finally looked up, after flicking the final piece of soggy omelet into my mouth to look at Shinning Shield. She looked tired, more so then usual. She normally could conceal it behind the grizzled looks, but it showed today. Maybe tonight was a rough shift for her. But that didn’t make sense, it wasn’t anymore rough as any other shift we’ve had together. I thought no more of it, as a wave of tiredness suddenly smacked me across the head. My vision went woozy, and my head suddenly gained around 30 pounds of mass. I needed sleep. I stood up, and carried by tray over to the sinks, not planning on washing it. I was followed by Shining Shield, who had yet to say a word in the canteen. We walked out, side by side, neither saying a word, walking to the dormitories. They were split into rooms of five; we all slept in the same room. I kicked back onto my bed, spreading my hooves towards the ceiling before allowing them to fall back down, before curling up into the same position as every other day, and finally allowing slumber to take me.

This process would repeat itself time after time, day after day, week after week, month after month. It was the losing days I waited for, as much as the winning ones. Any form of change was welcome to me back then, good or bad. They came and went; change was a transitive thing after all. It was on that one in particular, however, as the one day I didn’t take some form of pleasure from change. It was on that same wander, that same amble between breakfast and bed we had made thousands of times in silence that she spoke to me. She said a few words, but these words would hit me, and hit me hard.

“I’m being promoted. They’re moving me up to guarding The Elements of Harmony”

And so, my life was set on a path that can never be changed. And yet, there is still a light that never goes out.

Chapter 2: Fiesta

I was slightly shocked, I won’t deny that. She had kinda dropped this one on me. You know, just tell the person you’ve been working with for around five years that your leaving at breakfast. It seemed oddly rude. I expected more from her, maybe something involving fireworks. But I realised that was never her style. Dignified and proper to the end, it seemed. I didn’t really know what to say at this point. It’s not like I’d really expected this day to ever come around. She seemed to be the kind who’d never leave her job, the “be here until she left us on a more permanent basis” kind of pony. I finally found some words after we had walked back to the room, although they didn’t really mean much when jumbled together. I felt like a foal left alone for the first time. I didn’t know what to do, or what to say, so I let my base instinct pull me though. Cynicism.

“Really? You? Elements of Harmony? Seems they’ll recruit anyone these days”. I responded to the news that I was gonna losing one of only Ponies I actually cared about with the same sarcastic vitriol as normal.

There was no response. She just stared at me. Did she really expect anything different? Did she expect some form of grand change over a period of a few seconds? She was far too expectant of me if that was the case. That stare wasn’t moving on however. She continued to look. I didn’t know how to react. Was I in the wrong? No, this was how we worked. It’s not like this was such a massive change. Was it? Did this really change so much? I didn’t really know, and I never really would. She just stared.

After what felt like an eternity, she stopped, looking down at the ground. She didn’t look up for a while, which gave me time to mull over everything she had told me, and her reaction. I didn’t really know what was going to happen. I was somewhat adverse to the time they had changed the design of my helmet. Imagine how I felt about this. Even the smallest changes and now one of the only ponies I had a slightest inkling of respect for was walking out on me. But, something I hadn’t considered at the time, it wasn’t like she had much of a choice in the matter. Its how things worked around here. You moved up in the ranks, until you were guarding “them”. We couldn’t say no, it just happened. But her reaction was what confused me most. I didn’t understand it. The steely coldness in that stare wasn’t usual. Even when we glared at one another in true anger and contempt, it was a fiery passion that burned in her eyes. When she thought she was right, she would go in full hilt, no half measures with her. But that stare. It was almost dead. It was almost like she couldn’t care anymore, even if she wanted to. She seemed to have given up the ghost as it were.

We stood there for a good long while, neither of us saying a word. The only interruption was the constant whirring of the ceiling fan above our heads, which provided greatly to the cold distance that was suddenly growing between us. I continued mulling all these thoughts over and over and over again in my head, exploring every possible permutation of events, every possible change that could occur, everything ran through my head like wild animals, each thought nibbling at the others, trying to reach the forefront of my crowded mind.

“Where the heck have you two been?!” A familiar cracked voice called to the pair of us from the door. We both looked up, not realising who was speaking and how long we had been standing there. It was Rusted Sun. He looked strangely tired for someone who had just started his shift, or so I thought. “We’ve been waiting for you guys. You’re late!”

“Oh go on, pull the other one. I’ve got four, so you can lie three times. What you doing off shift for anyways?” I questioned him, actually curious for once. He looked back at me with a confused and almost gleeful expression of knowing, or contempt of my unknowing. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyways; you’re not working tonight”. I was still slightly confused, what in Equestria was he talking about?

“What” I retorted to my brother, who still standing in the doorway. He moved cooley towards the pair of us, his eyes locked on mine with that same look of gleeful knowing. He placed his hoof on my front right hand shoulder, and stated in a sarcastically mocking tone “Your shift started over 20 minutes ago, we’ve all been looking for you, and I thought you might be in here after hearing what happened at breakfast”. Strangely, he was right. I looked up at the clock on the wall, and realised that to be the truth. Looking around, I made a grab for my helmet and was about to pace it out the door before the hoof on my shoulder pressed against me slightly harder.

“You did hear me right?” He stated with a warm heat in his voice. It was an odd change to his familiar cold demeanour. We were both icy to one another on the rare occasion we were in the same room. This was odd. “You’re not working today”
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This confused me even more. Why not? Was today such a massively different day? Was it a holiday? Had I been fired for not getting to my shift on time? I secretly hoped for the latter of all these options. Being fired would have made things so much simpler, or at least I thought it would. But no, this was not to be, not today at least. “Why am I not working today, pray tell dear brother?” I asked the yellow maned pony.

“You seemed down after breakfast, and a friend of mine is throwing a little siesta” he continued to explain to me, but I still wasn’t really listening. I occasionally glanced over at Shinning Shield, who continued to fawn at the ground. I had never seen her like this. Had I really hit that much of a nerve? Was she as sad as I was? Did she really want to leave us, or leave just me, on my own? I thought I should try to make it up to her. In some small way. In anyway.

“…and yeah, you’re my plus one! So we’re going out as brothers in arms it seems”. Rusted Sun had finally finished his spiel. I looked up at him, his hoof still on my shoulder, and proceeded to ask him to let some alone time with his brother go. “Rusted Sun, we’re both kinda down. Can you maybe take Shinning Shield, she needs this more than I do” I lied to him quickly. He looked up with an almost disappointed expression, which quickly snapped into a quirky smile, as he proceeded to pat my on the back. “It’s alright man, I see the problem. I don’t think I need an excuse to drink at all, and besides, someone needs to cover you on your shift. Both of you go, I’ll hold the fort”. He was being strangely reasonable, but then again, one of us had to be. He was the reasonable one, I was the idiot, or at least that’s how we were according to popular opinion. I laid down my helmet, and looked over to Shinning Shield. She had finally stopped fawning at the ground, and looked up at me with the same steely gaze she normally used. It was strange, but I had almost missed it. Those perfect blue eyes piercing into my dirty brown ones. I smiled. It felt like an eternity since I had done that as well.

“What time does said gathering commence” I pondered aloud, not really asking Rusted Sun, more asking the room. “Well, in around forty five minutes, the address is around twenty away from here, so I’d set off soon” Rusted Sun responded to my question with a sense of true ambivalence to the answer. I thought, and still do think, that he planned for me and her to go without him. It was the kind of thing he’d do, something so unbelievable contrite and forced that it would make writers of filly books blush and tell him to slow down a little.

“Well, you guys have fun! I’m off to pull some strings” Rusted Sun stated with a turn, as he started to leave the room. I quickly matched his pace and soon outstripped it, turning to face him in the hallway outside the room. “You’re a contrite idiot, you know that?” I spoke with vitriol and love for my brother. I hated the boy sometimes. Boy? It shows you how I felt about him when I named him as my younger despite the fact we were brought into the world simultaneously. If it wasn’t for mane colours, you wouldn’t be able to tell us apart. His head twisted slightly as he looked up at me with a mock look of shock and hurt. He had picked that look up from me. I’d picked it up from dad, who used it on mum all the time, whenever she tried to guilt trip him. Our dad didn’t like that much, so just played with her until she backed down. “I don’t know what you mean, dear brother. If anything, I’m offended by your insinuations to my motives be false”. We picked up our vocabulary from Dad as well. He was somewhat of a scholar in his younger days. He spoke to us in grand sentences, and we’d spend days pouring over dictionaries in order to translate the familiar foreign language of his speech. It’s a shame that neither of us had followed in his footsteps. We could have easily, or I thought I could have. My brother seemingly lacked the knowledge; I lacked the drive and commitment. That seems big headed of me, but it’s not. I’m pretty amazing.

“You have strings to pull? I didn’t even know you had strings in the first place” I was still trying to figure out how; A, he was able to get off shift, and B, how he was able to get me and Shinning Shield off as well. “Yeah, I do have strings, and if you would be so kind, I have to go and pull them”. His response was somewhat sharp and strangely curt. I had come to expect that of him, but the seemingly warm tone of his voice up to this point had caught me off edge. The sudden change, it didn’t suit him. Snapping back and forth between emotions, feelings, thoughts and tones was a trait that solely belonged to me. I felt like he was stealing a key part of my personality, of my being, and I didn’t like it. He turned, and left me standing in the corridor. I was alone again, and for the first time, I didn’t like it. The walls of dullest grey surrounding me were seemingly closing in on me. I went to my happy place, back to Dad’s study. The room that smelt of old parchment, with the spikey quills that I would pick up and accidently prick myself on. As a filly, as a colt, and even now, I disliked pain. At this point I had yet to meet a pony who did. But when I pricked myself, she’d come to me. Not mum, she wasn’t around much, and even if she was, it wasn’t mum I wanted to come to me. I preferred her anyway. She wasn’t much older than us, but she had height. Our father’s assistant, a rapier wit and a quick mind. She always smelt like the study, and freshly cut grass. I don’t know why the second scent was on her, but I didn’t care. I still love that smell. I stayed there for a while, enjoying the moments past, but then I remembered. Had I youth and cause I would not stay. Not here at least. No more.

A sudden smack on the back of my head was what roused me from my nostalgic waking slumber. I don’t remember sitting down against the wall, but that’s where I found myself, slumped against it, my head between my legs. I looked up to see whose hoof had struck my dreaming mind with such a lack of ferocity. It was Shinning Shield. Had I really expected anyone else? I would have been either ignored or insulted by anyone else, but not her. She looked, for someone who never normally looked good, surprisingly so-so. She looked down at me, and finally spoke, and, once again, I found myself missing her voice. “Come on, let’s go” These words may not have meant much to her, but to me, they were forgiving eagles, swooping down on me and pulling me up from this mire of not knowing what I had done wrong.

The walk to the address didn’t take as long as Rusted Sun said it would. It’s probably because we didn’t really talk to one another on the way there. We just walked together, both bound in a web of awkward silence and cool night air. It was that night air that I missed so much whilst guarding The Light That Never Goes Out. The heat from the flame provided a warm glow within all of us, but it couldn’t replace the pure natural cool of the night. I missed it so. I knew she did too. We were much alike, although neither of us would admit it. The walk, whilst silent, is still one of the most memorable moments of my time in Canterlot. Nothing more encapsulated my feelings towards that place then my feelings towards the night air. There was something missing from any other moment of my time there. This one had it all, even that cool night breeze.

We finally reached our destination, a few minutes late. I must have been on the floor for a while, I had lost track of time swimming in memories. Reaching the door of the siesta, I was the one to knock. Neither of us had any idea if we knew anyone there. I don’t think either of us cared. I know I didn’t, I’m still not sure about her. Her feelings on the entire thing remain an enigma. She came with me, so I suppose she wanted something from that night, but what, that continues to remain a mystery. The door opened, but no one greeted us, the pony that had done so turning her back on us to walk back into the party. We walked through the cramped and crowded house, greeting ponies I couldn’t remember, some claiming to have met me at other events, some saying they had seen me at work, none of them producing as much as a word from me. I just shook hooves, with the occasional hoof-bump to those who were thusly inclined. I made my way through the dance floor, past the DJ and into the kitchen. Before I could wonder how rich the pony that organised this was, due to the fact that they had managed to pick up a passable DJ, I noticed something on one of the kitchen counters.

Canapés! I love canapés. It had become somewhat of a running joke amongst the night shift. Any official visit of the Princess, any gathering of the guards at one of the poorly put together castle parties, any display of the flame to any location in Ponyville, I was the first one to find, and consume each and every canapé I could. Many unknowing outside viewer had compared me to Soarin’ of the Wonderbolts. I was nothing like that meat-headed, any food consuming idiot in spandex. I made sure to thank every server, and made it my mission to thank the chef, if I could find them. And besides, I ate only the small things, the ones with cream cheese and lemon and freshly cracked black pepper; oh those ones were the best.

After a long period of pretending to dance, consuming canapés and drinking cider, the good kind that makes you walk funny after a while, I found myself outside. I stumbled a little, and made my way to a small decked area, surrounded by trellises entwined with vines. There were a set of chairs on the deck, but I chose to sit on the edge, eventually lying face down, my hooves hanging of the edge, allowing them to fiddle with the grass below them. I don’t remember how long I stayed there, just playing with the grass, but I do remember something, it was the smell of old parchment, and freshly cut grass. It came suddenly, and I thought nothing of it. At least, for a few seconds, my cynical narcissistic pessimistic ways took a hold of me fully. There was no point in looking up; she wasn’t standing there, was she? I finally looked up, and remained disappointed. There was no one there. Not even a whisper of someone standing, watching me at my most vulnerable. Had someone been there, I might have opened up to them, no matter who they were. I stayed there a little while longer, basking in the cool night air, and the crisp light from Luna’s pet. After a while, I decided to make my way back to the house. Maybe, just maybe, I could drink these feelings away, and they’d leave me through other means.

I wonder how the air tastes when you’re really free…

The morning after. Oh god, the morning after. That bad taste in your mouth, the lack of memories, and the fact that the sun decides to be fifteen thousand percent brighter when you wake up, all of these facts make the morning after the worst thing ever. I tried, I truly tried to open my eyes, but they wouldn’t. Even if I managed to crack them open a little bit, the darkness would claim me once again, and I’d black out. This sleep was dreamless. There was just black nothingness, and the ever-changing smell of wherever I was. When I finally opened my eyes for a longer period of time then fifteen seconds, I saw I was in a place I did not recognize. The walls were a bare plain white, and I couldn’t tell who had brought me here. The door, the one that stood directly in front of me, suddenly swung open, and a pony stood in the frame, leaning against it, looking me up and down. Was it Shinning Shield? No. The colours were wrong. Her mane the colour of body and her body the colour of mane, everything was in opposites. Either this was my mind messing with me on a grand scale, or this wasn’t Shinning Shield. She hadn’t spoken, but she had moved, unseeingly sliding towards the other door in the room, before opening it and entering. She came back out with a pill bottle, throwing it on the bed I occupied, and leaving swiftly, not saying a word. To say I was confused would have been a slight understatement. I just picked up the bottle to check what the contents was, before cracking it open and sliding two pills down my throat. I realised too late I had no water to wash the bitter pills down with, so I pelted it into through the door she had brought the pills from towards a gratefully waiting sink, chugging down as much water from the life giving tap as I could.

Looking up for the first time, I noticed something around my muzzle. Stubble? I can’t grow a beard, believe me, I had tried on many occasions. But there was noticeable grime about me. There was a reason Mum told me to shave, and this was it. It looked terrible. Searching around the room, I found a packet of disposables, and proceeded to shear the face fuzz off. I did well for someone who had no need to shave much. Not one cut, I was impressed with myself. I made for the door, before something caught my eye. I looked back at myself in the mirror. I looked tired. I always looked tired. I should have slept more back then, but I didn’t think much of sleep in those days. Sleep when you’re dead, as they say.

It wasn’t hard to find my way back to the castle. It towered over everything in Canterlot, you just had to look up and you knew where you were in relation to it. I took the long way back. Wondering through the streets of Canterlot during the day was another thing I never got to do much anymore. It was nice, much better then sleeping during the day. I passed ponies selling overpriced trinkets to tourists; the temptation to pick one up would have been greater had I not seen the quality of the trinkets themselves back in my old days guarding these streets at night. Those days weren’t my favourite memories of the time I had spent in Canterlot. Too much petty work, I got bored. But, then again, was my transfer up to guarding the flame any more exciting. No, not really. But at this point, I didn’t care much. Work was work, was it not?

I continued to wonder through the back alleys and streets of Canterlot, making the occasional detour into old jaunts about the city. I remember one specifically. I used to frequent a little doughnut shop; nothing massive, no big company owned stuff for my country belly. I was used to the best back home, and I enjoyed retaining the little things, such as the doughnuts and the canapés. I swung in to the little old pace. I sauntered up to the counter with an air of cockiness that has long since surpassed me. I had lost the air, and found it hard to breathe without it. I rapped one of my hooves on the counter, expectant of familiar and friendly service. What I received was something quite different. Cold indifference to be exact. The server, who was much younger then I had imagined, came to counter with the same slow wander as I had exhibited upon entering the shop. I looked the colt up and down. He wasn’t the original, the one who served me a doughnut and a cup of coffee with a smile and a story. Maybe I was getting old. I decided, after much derision and diversion, to ask the young’un about it.

“What happened to…?” It took me a while, but I realized that I had never picked up his name. I’d been coming in and out of here with regular pomp for around two years, and yet, I had never picked up my servers name. It wasn’t like we’d never talked, we would get lost in one another’s words. He was a true raconteur, a master of the art. He complimented me as one true wordsmith to another, and I enjoyed his company for it. But how could I’ve not caught his name. Not once, in the proverbial tennis match of beautiful words and well-crafted stories, did he ever mention his name. I stood there for a while, my eyes nearly rolling back into my skull as I continued to search every corner and crevice of my cracking mind to try and remember a simple name. I never truly remembered it. Fortunately, he responded to my question before I had truly asked it.

“He Died”. It was short, it was blunt, and it was a powerful pair of words. Questions suddenly burst up and through the widening cracks in my head. Had he really died? Had I been off the beat for that long? The most haunting question, in remembrance, was one not of my times or his, but one of how he had gone. Had he gone peacefully? I had to look at myself long and hard after that question had been dredged up. Wandering out of the shop with a doughnut and a cup of coffee pressed into my hooves, I sat. I sat for a good while, just looking down at the ground, no longer hungry or thirsty. I stayed for a while.

And yet, there is still A Light That Never Goes Out.