The Steadfast Sky : Travelling Alone V
The Grey Potter
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/11495/The-Steadfast-Sky
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The back of my head throbbed. Not that there was anything wrong with that… it was probably necessary for Redheart to hit it so hard. But I wondered if they would give me some ice for the bruise, or anything to treat it at all. It had been a rather hard blow… I think I cried, at one point. Did that mean I also had a concussion? Hm.

The purple stone streaked in front of my eyes, leaving a double trail of color across my eyes.

Oh well. Probably a good reason to leave it alone.

“Now, miss Helios,” Healer Redheart said, standing firmly in front of me.

I blankly turned her way. “Hm? Yes?”

“I am going to leave, and I am going to lock the door behind me.”

“Oh my,” I said lightly, in the faintest echo of shock. “Why would you do something like that?”

“Miss Helios,” Redheart asserted, “Your body is still working it’s hardest to fight off this infection. And while you’re not contagious, left to your own devices you have clearly become a danger to yourself, and others.”

I hung my head, heart fluttering in distant shame, “I’m sorry…”

I felt the twitching tremor in my little heart again. It urged me to apologize even more. I suppose that would be proper… But, I am sick, aren’t I? It can’t be helped.

Redheart then said, “I’m asking you remain in bed and try to rest until this passes. “

“Hm…” My head drifted a little to the left, ear nicked by the spinning rock. I could barely see through all the leftover streaks on my eyes. I tried to blink them away but… oh. Wasn’t I supposed to be thinking of something?

Half aware of the question, I mumbled, “I suppose that is for the best…”

My eyes followed the spinning gem as it slowed in front of my eyes. My stomach lurched violently. A feeling rose inside me, pushing against the numbness in my brain. Not Snippy, not Princess, not Martyr… oh, who are you?

“But then…” I mumbled, her waver rising in my voice. “I’ll be all alone, just with my own thoughts…”

“We’ll still be minding you, Helios, we’re not abandoning you here,” Redheart said, more annoyed than sympathetic. “And we can bring you a few books, if you need them.”

“Hm…” Books? Was there a book I liked? I’m not sure. I simply said, “That would be lovely, I think.”

Redheart nodded. The gem slowed even further…

And feelings began to roil within me.

“H-healer Redheart…” I stammered.

“I will return shortly,” she said, “Please. Rest, Miss Helios.”

“How can I? How can I rest?!” Snippy growled. “With all these idiots in my head?!”

The door snapped shut and locked, firmly ignoring me! Me, the noble Princess…!

“Well, now we’ve done it,” Snippy groaned. “We’ve gone and gotten ourselves locked in a tiny room because of our indecisiveness. Great job everybody. Really. I expected no better.” I slowly clapped my hooves, rolling my eyes.

“Indecisive? Really?” Princess huffed, “Every action we did was rather decisive, don’t you think? You see, I very firmly decided to clean, as did Martyr.”

Martyr mutely nodded, “Of course.”

“And then!” Princess proclaimed over my crossed forelegs, “You very decisively decided to leave, in such a great huff as well!”

“We’re indecisive because we can’t decide who can be in charge!” Snippy shouted. “So we keep tottering back and forth and back and forth because oooo, it’d be so unfair to actually make a friggin decision!”

Meekly, Baker picked at the blankets. “When did this become a decision about leadership?”

“Well it is one now! And I’m the leader!” Snippy slapped my chest with my hoof. “End of story!”

“You can’t just declare yourself the head! I mean,” Princess chuckled with pride. “I’m the one who’s noble by birthright…”
Martyr made my head sink, mumbling, “It would be most fair to put this to a vote.”

“You know, I don’t think these wooden walls are soundproofed.” Baker said lightly. “Wasn’t such a problem before. But now that these conversations have begun to be said aloud, I suppose everyone will hear me yelling at myself.”

“Oh.” Martyr gasped, covering my mouth in shock. You’re right, these are words better thought. I wouldn’t want to disturb anyone…

“Well I like it!” Snippy shouted. “I like the feeling my voice booming in my ears and throat. I like being able to gesture with actual limbs!”

To make a point of it, Snippy began waving and circling my shoulders. Her motions were so fast and violent, it began to make my bruise pound furiously.

Always attentive, Princess scoffed, “What, you adore the feeling of destroying your own voice? Oh, my poor vocal chords…” She tapped my throat. “They shall become so swollen from this chatter…”

Which is why it’s better to set our discussions here, please… Martyr thought.

“Oh goodness no, dearest.” Princess giggled, flicking my foreankles. “I’m just saying that we need to be a little bit more gentle when we speak aloud.”

I sighed heavily and tugged my forelegs out of Princess’ gesture. I tried to tuck myself under the covers, tugging awkwardly at the cloth with my ankles. Maybe Healer Redheart was right. Maybe I should just lie here and try to sleep off this infection of the mind. I closed my eyes…

And Snippy snapped them right back open, glaring at my hooves.

“Oh,” Snippy hissed. “You think you can just sleep us off? Do you really?”

“No, no, that doesn’t make any sense at all,” Princess huffed. “How does one sleep off themselves? Can one really sleep away your own thoughts and opinions?”

“I’m not convinced anymore that all of you are me,” I mumbled. “You’re just delusions of this infection.”

“Awwww… Oh, poor Baker, don’t you think like that.” Awkwardly, Princess wriggled and shifted under the covers, attempting to hug herself. “We’re all driving each other up a wall, aren’t we? This must be so incredibly stressful on me.”

Snippy snorted, “Uh. No duh.”

“But,” Martyr thought quietly, “To assume that we are simply random creations of an infection, with no point, purpose, or reason to exist…”

“Yes, yes!” Princess exclaimed, “We exist because you wanted to self-reflect, and so, we noble parts of you—!”

“Uhg! You’re right! I created all of you!” Snippy buried her head in the pillow. “Now I just hate myself even more! I can’t even run away from this problem! It’s going to follow me forever isn’t it?! That’s it! Sleep! Bedtime!”

Princess huffed, lifting her head just an inch. “Now really…”

And Snippy slammed my head back down again. “No talking! As your leader, I’m the only one allowed to talk!”

Oh right. I’m sorry about that.

“But we never decided who was the primary—“

“BED!”

“But it’s only midafternoon…”

“GOODNIGHT!”

I buried my head into the pillow and growled into it. Or maybe screamed. Or eventually sobbed. Deep inside of me, the part broiling with nausea, I still believed that maybe I could sleep this off. It’s an infection. That’s all this is. That’s all I should treat it as. Eventually it’ll fade away, I’ll go back to being entirely me…

But which me?

The me that I once was, of course.

Oh boy. I definitely look forward to having learned absolutely nothing about myself.

Baker muttered, “But who am I?”

“All of us,” Snippy growled. “All hateful parts of us.”

Princess grinned sympathetically. “Denying it is only going to hurt you more, sweetie.”

“But the last person that I want to be is me,” Baker grumbled.

But. Oh. Martyr mentally simpered. Even her gestures were done mentally, image of her clear in my mind. I mean, entertain the thought, if you like. But really, is denying myself what’s truly causing me stress and infection?

It was just so easy to separate and parse out my parts. They didn’t have anything to do with me anymore. They were parodies of me. A snooty noble. An assertive idealist. An obnoxious brat.

And my last creation, Snippy thought clearly, The most dangerous self-parody. A poor, lost little girl who didn’t know why this was happening to her.

“Don’t,” Baker hissed, “Call me a self-parody.”

If I am a parody of you. And if Princess is a parody. And If Martyr is a parody. Then you don’t have any more claim to the ‘real’ me than any single part. My own hoof jabbed into my chest, and I could feel the tight glare on myself.

“This is not something that’s happening to me.” I said aloud, “I, alone, am doing this to myself.”

Finally, it was silent. Nobody was bickering, not even mentally. I mean, that was it. The finality of it. And for a moment, no part of me had anything to say to that.

“…hello…!”

I open my gummy eyes. When had I fallen asleep? Why did I feel so tired, so cold? It was dark, but not quite dark as pure night. I raised my head an inch, and strained, half aware to hear…

“Luna…?”

I could have sworn… I must have heard my sister. All of my being struggled and strained to hear again, listen for her. That had to be her…

But, distantly, I also heard other ponies talking in another room. Maybe what I heard was an echo from that, warped into something I actually wanted to hear…

I sighed and closed my eyes again. Thinking about Luna. Thinking about myself. Thinking about a way to see myself through this darkness…

I tried to think, to remember an old place. An old memory, following the mental sound of my sister’s voice. In my half-awake logic, I dreamed that maybe, among all these voices in my head, she might be in here as well.

A memory in a dream. I don’t usually have them. Or, I suppose I should say, I remember things in dreams. And sometimes I replay events in dreams. But they’re never accurate, nor do they line up with reality.

But what most defines a dreamed memory is that overwhelming, gut wrenching feeling. As if I was living that horrible moment all over again. Or as if I was encountering the moment for the very first time.

My old room, from when I was a young foal in Canterbury. It existed in a glorious state, one that could only exist in my imagination. My floor was littered with books and toys, gems and little rocks sat on shelves. My four-poster bed was lined with a pink gauzy lace, I could see every clear-cut stitch in the fat and fluffy quilt, and on the bedstand table stood a little lamp…

Oh, I had forgotten that little lamp. It burned oil from a white well, little pictures of black flowers curling along its sides. The top was held aloft by burnt wires, a plate glass lampshade of ornate, white smoked panels.

I reached up to the bedstand table and touched the lantern’s shade lightly with my ankle, feeling the glass’ heat as the flame burned warm, its orange light seeping across my entire room.

I looked back into the crisply shaded space, to the room bent slightly away from me, in subtle diamond shape, where the light fails to reach the corners. Out the window, the city was black as pitch, towers and walls rising like wax candles, bubbling and dripping thickly as they melted from some unseen, evil flame. Again, the image was so vivid and sharp. How rarely it is that I have such clear dreams…

“Is this really a dream?” I asked aloud. “Or have I dropped directly into a thought?”

The fact that I even dared ask that question made the room waver, blurring slightly as my conscious mind questioned it. An intense worry struck me. If I wake up now…

“…so please, answer me…”

“Luna!” I cried. And in a moment more I rushed out the door, house twisting subtly in front of me.

I pounded sideways down an overlarge set of wooden stairs, flank bouncing off the bannister as if I was drawn to it. Somehow, down in the foyer, I was still able to see my sister, standing in the open entrance and staring into the inky streets like a curious little foal.

“Luna no!”

I felt a small tug on my forelegs as I grabbed my sister around the middle. The door slammed shut. I stumbled, light as a feather, and a mass tangling my legs. I bounced off at the entrance of a dark, practically shapeless study.

And I whipped around to hug my little baby sister, still so small and foolish, still able to be tucked neatly between my forelegs.

She mumbled something without words and giggled in her delicate little voice. I nodded like I understood.

“Now, now, Luna.” My own voice gained a slight lilt, a gentle lecture. “Going outside is very dangerous, you know! That was very silly of you to open the door.”

She mumbled wordlessly. I nodded to the top of her head.

“Yes, yes, Luna. Oh goodness, have you eaten yet? I’ve brought home something special for us tonight!”

In front of me, I took a brown paper bag from my mouth and set it gently on the floorboards. The top of Luna’s mane turned to the bag silently.

“We have oats… and an apple, that’s for you! And I think a cranberry orange muffin?” I peered into the bag, tiny objects sitting at the bottom, dwarfed by the gigantic sides of the container. “Ah, there doesn’t seem to be a muffin… But here. It’s all for you, Luna.”

I poured out the pile of oats and white apple slices. Her mane dipped down to look, body so small and frail when compared to the size of her head and hooves.

Oh Luna. Oh poor, poor Luna. Your sister’s doing her best for you.

“Luna, you’re so precious to me.”

Distantly, my sister giggled.

“I’m sorry this was all I could get. Tomorrow, I’ll see if I can get a cherry turnover. Maybe a carrot, or some peas in little pods, or some steamed rice porridge… Strange, how rarely we have some porridge…”

I slowly turned around to the open archway to the kitchen. The doorway pressed in on me, but just like the study, there was no light that could permeate the cloak of darkness over the shelves and ovens…

I felt a cold chill. For real this time. Something was shifting in the kitchen. I heard the clicking of dishes as they were sifted through by something massive and tall, head long and snakelike…

“Why don’t we sleep in the entrance hall, Luna? It’ll be fun. Like a slumber party! A party… where you sleep. That sounds like fun.”

“Hummmmm.”

I turned back. Luna now stood, taller than me, my same age, tugging at a lock of her long mane with her shimmering aura.

“This is how you wanna see me, big sis?”

“Luna! What happened to you?!”

“Oh. I dunno?” She grinned at me, mane falling over her tilted expression. “I grew up?”

“I…I see…”

“So, big sis… Oh, that’s really an exaggeration, isn’t it?” Her hoof poked through the pile of oats and apples. “You didn’t throw me absolutely everything.”

I sniffed, indignant. “Yes I did.”

“You ate didn’t you?” Luna snorted, flicked apples bouncing and rolling past me, into the shadows. “You still ate oats and apples, and snuck pastries when you could!”

“I didn’t sneak pastries,” I huffed, folding my forelegs. “I unashamedly begged for them! For you!”

“And you,” Luna shot back. Her eyes locked on mine, partially hidden by her thick mane. “You ate just as well as I did!”

“Well, I poured my entire savings into keeping you in school!” I loudly retorted, “But you were so glad the moment I stopped sending you! How ungrateful can you be?!”

“Well, hello Snippy!” My sister cried, grinning, “I thought you were supposed to be the Martyr! Why are you yelling at me?!”

“I am NOT Snippy!” I howled, “I lived for you, Luna! I gave you sweat and blood and tears, and you just run around like it’s no big deal! I’m not even your sister anymore! Now, all I am is your friend!”

Then, overwhelmed by an empty feeling of rage and sorrow, I pushed my face into my hooves and wept elegantly. The Martyr who had sacrificed herself, through and through.

The candle buildings outside were melting faster now, black wax seeping and crawling up through our open front door. The kitchen, the sitting room, both were lost to the inky void. I could hear the crack of glass lightly shattering, and knew without seeing the wax oozing through the windows. Among the shadows, I could see more of the hulking shapes, circling, constructed of that same black wax.

Luna looked back at the encroaching city, invading from all sides. She fiddled with her mane calmly, clearly not understanding the danger. Silly, foolish girl.

“You’d be dead without me,” I hissed.

“So bitter,” Luna drawled, still tugging at her mane. “Who knew, Martyr had fangs. Well, I guess that was why you acknowledged her as a flaw, huh? Deep down, you know this isn’t healthy. It’s almost like…” Luna voice began droning on, sounding less and less like her. “My goodness, it’s like a switch. Oh, there’s a way to help? Well, I must help, or it will be the end of me. Because, if I don’t, I’m a bad person, and a worse sister.”

Goop soaking around Luna’s feet, she continued to stand firm, looking down at this poor, pitiful part of me.

“Is that why it’s so hard to accept that your sister’s grown up? Is it really that hard to accept that, at some point, there’s nothing you can do to help?

“Should I,” Luna continued, “Just call you ‘Pride?’”

I looked up from my hooves, still able to clearly feel the salt crusted on my face, the pinch around my eyes. The only thing that existed now was me, and version of Luna, so strong and tall, fully grown and with a noble moon on her flank.

What did she say it meant, again? Decisiveness and intelligence?

Oh, I should have paid more attention to her. That time was so long ago…

“I used to be so strong, Luna,” I mumbled. “What happened to that? Why can’t I just be strong like that? Why can’t I just fix everything?”

“Because it’s impossible?”

“Not for a god—“

“You’re not one yet.”

“Compassion’s not a cruel thing…”

“Then I guess you should work on dividing compassion from self-satisfaction.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, staring at my hooves. “Yes. Perhaps I should. But, Luna…”

Luna was quiet, the only thing in my dream, thinking to herself, a serious look on her face.

“Was I… Am I a bad sister?”

She looked up to me, and in my own voice, she told me, “That’s something you’ll probably have to ask the real Luna.”

“I…” the dream faded and blurred, hospital room appearing before me as I slowly woke. I turned over, blue hair fading amongst my pink. My heart was thumping painfully, and my stomach rolled with nausea. But right now, I was just so tired. I just wanted sleep.

And…

“I suppose I’ll have to apologize to her…”

My eyes close once more, and in the dreary glow, I remember a ballroom.

Again, remembering in a dream. Never specific. Never quite perfect. The light was so bright here, brighter with the reflection of the marble on every surface, on every pony’s coat. The white and gold mixed in a glittering blur, shapeless. The golden air breathed like a pure broth, papering the throat like a dry wine. Ponies were all around me, surrounding me, but I could barely hear a word for the oppressive silence.

My stride is confident in its elegance. I can feel each limb, hear every muscle creak as they bend and place themselves perfectly. I am a ballerina. The ballroom my stage, and the golden white blurs my audience, rapt in attention. I danced with every delicate limb to a group of still marble subjects. They stood still, frozen and smiling in my presence, eyes lost in the haze of gold and white.

I looked at each dazzled pony, bowing and spinning for them. It is the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen. I’m sure they’re clapping. In the back of my mind, I assume they are. Yet, the dream itself remains silent.

“Hello! Welcome to my presence, my subjects!”

That’s what I’m going to say? Such self-centered words. But yet, they keep on smiling, mouths constructed of fleshy pink soapstone.

“I know you all think of me as precious!” Princess cried, spinning through the miasma of wine to the next set of ponylike statues. “Oh yes, I understand quite clearly I am a thing to be desired. No need to feel ashamed of it!”
I couldn’t take it. Of all the parts of myself, I felt like I hated this part of me the most. I was no longer a Princess. I just stood beside her, scornful and frowning.

“I do not talk like that,” I said.

“Oh?” I danced in front of me, the statue of myself shamefully naked, cutiemark swirling as if the flames themselves were alive. “But certainly you feel like that.”

“No,” I reply to myself. “This is precisely why I left Canterlot. This is not a feeling I wish to harbor.”

“Fine. Then stop. Right now!” I danced away from my statue, bowing before my silently clapping crowd. “Stop letting this feel so glorious!”

What a silly me. I knew exactly what would stop this fantasy from being the wonderful thing it pretended to be. I looked down, and a letter smoldered at my feet. I can’t read the words, the ink blurry and indistinct, parchment stealing the white and gold from the air. But I knew clear enough what the letter told me.

Maybe you were too young for him.

I breathed a deep sigh. Hot tears, or maybe sweat, splattered and soaked the ink.

“I’m not too young to play adult games,” I said, “I am a fully grown mare. I am.”

“It’s not a game,” I retorted. “And I don’t want this.”

“Well, I do, and I’m a part of you, so…” Princess grinned, mane flicking around her shoulders “It’s not that easy to throw away a fairytale reality, is it? Especially since you know that you are the true Princess…”

I turned to myself, in the darkness of my Canterlot room. Even in a glance, I kept turning my head too far, and the world began tilting and swaying with vertigo.

“You will return to Canterlot someday,” the braided-maned Princess bragged from the bed. “You will have to confront both Apple and Blueblood. You can’t run from them.”

“I’ve already gotten away,” I retort.

“Certainly. For now.”

Things grow darker. And they grow colder. I assume they grow colder. With how hot and feverish I’m feeling, the cold seems almost like an afterthought. A ticked checkmark in the back of my brain. I can see now, the blue eyes glittering in the shadows, the perfectly coifed and golden mane…

I recoiled, shivered, dreading going further into the dream or memory, as if it would get awful at any moment.

“Go on, Celestia,” I told myself, voice drawling drunkenly. “What would you say to him?”

“What is the point of this?!” I cried, trying to look away. But the dream, myself, wouldn’t let me see anything but him. “Really?! What is the point of you?!”

“I thought you wanted to understand yourself,” Princess huffed.

“I don’t understand this point!” I shouted at myself. “I don’t understand my need for fawning and mind games and flaunting myself like some kind of exotic pet! I don’t want that! I don’t!”

“And yet again, welcome back Snippy,” Princess said with a little bow. “You just keep popping up, don’t you?”

I frowned, pulling at my bangs, trying to see their color. “No, I’m not...”

“But anyway, you know you don’t want to give up decorum forever.”

Princess smiled and waved to the dark, blackened blanket beside her. It wobbled as I tried to look at it, and for a moment, didn’t seem solid. “Come back to this poor, wretched part of your soul, and remember why you wanted it in the first place…”

I closed my eyes, shivering from the not-cold. Trying to push the dream towards… something. Somewhere where I might be happy... Somewhere light, in some mindset where I might accept myself a little better.

“If I didn’t have this nobility and decorum…”

I opened my eyes, and sat behind a desk. It was a false desk, in a falsely constructed place, with false light and false books and papers. A place that never would exist outside my head, and it showed. Nothing was vivid or distinct, not even the color of the room. Was it the marble of Canterlot? Burnished wood, like Apple’s palace? The black stone of Canterbury? It was none, yet all three, muddled in the details.

I presented to myself, here, suppose I was to write a letter. How would it start?

The pen darted before me, and I wrote with muddy ink and indistinct paper, words that only existed in my head.

“To whom it may concern”

No, no, how about we make up a dignitary. For the experiment.

“Dearest Judge Smenbedeple,”

“It pains me to tell you this, but your…” I paused. “lovely wife, the Lady Diabble, has…” the pen brushed by my nose, tickling it lightly. “Has full control over your seat on the Noble Council of Elders. This decision was not made lightly, and due to your excellent term of service under my wing, I will be reassigning you to…”

“Hm.” It had to be somewhere nice. He had been quite the excellent judge, and really only had to step down because his years were getting to him…

I stared out the window, into the blanket of white and blue clouds.

“I’m being polite to a false man whom I’ve never met and literally made up right at this very moment. It’s automatic, isn’t it?”
No one responded, not even myself. I looked down at the letter. I should probably finish it, but…

I willed the rest of the letter to be as respectful and knowledgeable as I could muster. Words streamed down the page, appearing in even, fancy rows. I signed it, a signature so attentive and gorgeous…

Was I trying to impress the old man? Did I have some ulterior motive for this? Why would I? I simply didn’t want things to come off as sloppy or half-done. Even false dismissals are deserving of some level of respect…

Then, I set it aside, another question being asked by my door.

I looked out into the hall. It was black, shifting and melting, cold and dark and full of thoughts I didn’t dare prod. But with a glance, I came upon the first question. Blue eyes with a body of rolling sludge, the horrible form of the man I thought I loved.

What would I say to him?

I slapped him and laughed and no, no, no, that’s not proper. The dream reset. I cleared my throat.

“Blueblood, as your Princess, I am deeply disappointed in your sense of decorum. Such a brutish move… and on your Princess, of all people! You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Blueblood’s shadow mumbled something that was definitely a weak and frail argument.

“It is with little regret that I officially terminate any relationship with you. You will not become the Chancellor of Canterlot, and I will immediately open up the position for one more suited to the role. Perhaps I will allow you to apply… But with such a black mark on your record, you will have to do much better to prove your abilities to me.”

“Well then. Good day.”

And with that, head held high, I strode away, already thinking of potential candidates, trying to think of merits, other than bank accounts.

I sighed into the shadows.

“You know? I do want this dignity and poise,” I admitted to myself. “That nobility is simply expressing the best of myself. Polite. Respectful. And giving every subject an air of gravitas…”

“Yet it leads to the absolute worst of myself. Eventually, I’ll have to deal with the nobility. I can’t run forever…”

I flipped over and rolled in my bed, finding a colder spot on the pillows, relieving a numbness in my legs.

“Oh, how in the world am I supposed to handle this?”

I was at the Shrine of Loyalty, simple and quick as that. The light was pale, washing out the black stone and washing out the words on the books. The air was shallow, and smelled dry. I occasionally gasped for air, dust motes spinning and sapping the air of moisture.

I felt… enraged. Tearing through books with muted squeals. Hearing them thump as they hit the ground. I was studying mad. Why did this place make me broil with such horrible lies? The books are lies. The future is lies, and the past lied to get here. With a broad sweep of my leg, every book tumbled off the shelves, spinning and spilling guts of paper and blood of ink. My hooves grow wet from stains.

I stepped out the door, and walked into more gray-stained corridors. Yes, I was angry. Here, I was Snippy. Green haired, insides boiling, face burning so the world blurs from pain and tears…

Of course, that anger stemmed from one specific place. My ears ring and ring. There’s something I desperately do not want to see.

But that want of avoidance leads me right to it. A bleached courtyard. Corners gone and faded. Splashed of cloaks thrown in, standing there on the edge of memory.

And a blood-matted mass of fur squatting in front of me, big, lamp-lighted eyes turned up to stare at me.

Snippy didn’t even stop to talk. She walked right up to the lump and kicked it.

“How could you?! How could you?! I hate you I hate you!”

But how could he what?

“It’s just how could he!”

My hoof planted on the fur’s middle, and I felt bones and organs stopping my foot. My eyes turned to the dark archways, to a splattered cloak.

“How could he kill…?”

“How could he lie?!” Snippy barked, “He’s such a liar! He’s always lying and teasing and tormenting me!”

But what does teasing have to do with this. This is an issue in and of itself…

“Uhg, I don’t care! Just look at him!”

I looked down at the mass under my foot. It no longer looked shapeless, yet, something seemed missing. He was faded and warped, I couldn’t look at him directly. I simply had the impression that he was there. There, with his dimly glowing eyes spinning and reflecting in the darkness.

What am I even supposed to be seeing?! Fuh! Stupid…!

“How horrible he is! Uhg! I can’t stand him!”

How could you say something like that, Snippy…?

“Because it’s true. Because we’d be better off… we’d be better off…”

Snippy starts to mumble, words becoming more like feelings than sentences. The world grows darker and darker as she rambles about this time and that time. And how violent he clearly was. And once…

He fell out of a tree once, and I dragged him myself to a doctor.

I hate him.

“Celestia… why?”

I speak, staring into Discord’s eyes. It’s dark, and it’s all I can see. But I feel like I’m lying on grass. That there’s a tree beside me. If I squint, I can see the outlines. Around the scene, hanging in the air of my mind, a word drifts.

Tia.

“It was a cute nickname,” Discord, or maybe just I, said.

“It was pathetic,” I retort. “It didn’t suit me at all. I hated it.”

“No you didn’t shut up.”

Discord snickered. I can hear it, crisp and clear, the sound of his younger squeaking voice. Another roil of rage boils through me.

“It’s like discomfort always flips over to hate,” Discord mocked. “Hate hate hate. Stop hating. Stop it.”

“But I hate it! I hate it!”

“Hate… what now? Huh?”

“You! Stupid!”

Hate…

You know what I hate the most…? When he just rolls in… smiling… tall and grinning. He says something snappy, does something clever, runs from my grasp with a grin and a snicker…

What I hate most is…

“He’s smarter than me.”

Tears swirl the world into a soup of colors, the wetness on my cheeks the only reality.

“I wanted an equal. Someone to talk clever things with. But he’s smarter than me. He’s more clever. He pulls tricks, and he laughs and has fun while he does it.”

“He laughs while he makes me a fool…”

I sob loudly, lost in the dream, echoing through my pillow. I’m in bed, in reality. Of course I never left it.

“I’m not an idiot!” I bawl. “He’s just a jerk!”

“But it’s not right,” Discord sighed, his voice nowhere near his own timbre. “It’s not right to harbor hatred like that. Envy…”

“I do not envy you! Him… I mean…” I sniffled, wiping my face, knee knocking into his bony shoulder. “I don’t want to be him. I want to be someone with decorum. I want to be a noble, mature mare. But with a single trick, Discord can take all of that away from me. He’s not only made me a fool, but also stolen my pride. My nobility…”

Discord sighed, voice light, like it used to be.

“I think you know what the root of this problem is now.”

I nodded slowly, “Yes, I think so.”

I hugged my pillow, dim morning groggily appearing behind me. There was a gentle patter of rain behind me, and I could feel the cold radiating off the glass. My mane was tangled around my head, soaked in cold sweat, tears, and a sticky drool.

“I need to talk to both of you,” I mumbled to myself, “I hope I see both of you soon…”

I nodded to myself, watching my soaked hairs clump, strange colors mixing in the dim light. I could hardly tell what color my hair was at all.

“When, Celestia?" I closed my eyes, asking myself, asking whatever was left of me. "When did I start reacting to everything with such harsh thoughts...?”

Always. Since forever. Stop thinking dumb questions, idiot.