Author's Note: Currently going under revisions, most of this may be changed.

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Standing alone in the background, I watched familiar faces gather around a body as its final breath released the contract between soul and vessel. A smile. Was it happier to feel no more suffering, or just to remember the experience of the life it had lived? Whatever it was for the freshly dead, it was torture for those surrounding the body to see the smile on that blood-soaked face. I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the body’s red-and-white mane and tail and its off-white, blood-splattered coat.

I knew that stallion all too well. That body was me.

“What are you waiting for?” A soft, calm voice echoed a question through the silence.

Closing my eyes in sync with those of the resting body, I chose not to answer. A loud, continuous beep signaled the final onset of death. “That,” the machine’s prolonged beep answered for me.

I turned my back to the scene, and my past was left behind. I was severing the ties I’d made with these ponies; I didn’t even care to see their reactions. Sorrow and grief had no purpose for a resting soul.

Trotting away felt like walking through a tunnel, and as you progressed deeper, whatever was left at the entrance, be it light, memories or friends, all met the same fate. Gone for good, but not forgotten.

“So, after these two years, after everything you’ve fought for, you just give up? You had everything you’ve wanted, and you just throw that away?!” The snow white mare yelled at me, her mane of scarlet red sticking out against the vast sea of white before us. “You don’t think I could’ve waited sixty more years to see you?!”

The sounds of my mother’s shouts were replaced with the pitter-patter of tears dropping to the ground. The occasional sniffle passed as her bright yellow eyes gleamed with tears. “I wanted to watch you grow into a stallion, live happily with a wife and kids... and this is how you throw it away? This is what you choose to do with your life?!”

“Throw it away?!” I repeated through gritted teeth. “I gave my life so my friends could do that! I gave my life so my sister, your daughter, could have that chance! And you say I threw it away?” I countered, my voice trailing through the vacant air. “You think I wanted any of this to happen?!”

“Why, though? Why did you choose to do this? Why, why did it have to be my son?!”

“Because ‘your son’ had nothing else to live for! I don’t even know who I am! Those ponies out there, they still have plenty to live for!” I threw my hoof out to the white background. In the direction I was pointing was a window pane, displaying a group of ponies. My teachers. My friends.

“I lost everything before I even had anything to lose! I don’t know who I am or what I was meant for. I have neither a calling nor a special talent thanks to some damned tattoo on my flank that I was born with!” I shouted. But she only smiled, chuckling to herself.

“No, Graze.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “You still don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” I asked, uninterested. Turning back, I watched as the mare rose her brow with a bemused expression. Now I know who I got that from. “Sorry, mom.”

“Right!” my mother chimed, never taking her eyes off me. “We, as ponies, don’t let a cutie mark tell us who we are and what we do.” Her hoof reached out to my face, grabbing my attention. “We decide that ourselves.”

Her face then beamed through the white of this land with a simple smile. “Don’t tell me that after two years, you still don’t know, do you?”

“I... I’m not sure anymore,” I said, backing away from the mare. Even after all that, all my shouting and berating her, she had it in her heart to tolerate and forgive me.

“Graze, I’m your mother. Please, let me help you.”

“Help me do what?”

Closing her eyes, she slowly brought her forehead forward, pressing it softly against mine as I followed in her hoofsteps.

“Remember...”

Equestria University, the largest, finest learning establishment in Equestria. This place was perfect. Actually, when you think about it, it’s not really much of a school for education purposes, but a school about life. When given your room, you’re basically expected to survive on your own, and not only that, but the school sometimes supplies you with a job that suits your special talent... not that there’s much they could do for me, but there you have it!

The campus had gardens for groundskeeping, art and music studios for those of creative nature, a bakery and a cafeteria, as well as, their own delivery system and a nurse’s office. If you asked me, the school could pretty much sustain itself like a freaking village. Whatever your cutie mark was, they’d have a place for it. Of course, hard work equals hard-earned bits.

Studies were basically a secondary objective, if you asked me. That’s why I liked it... a lot.

On the concrete path with lawns of freshly cut grass at each side, I stood in front of the main building with my father. The brick structure was four stories tall with a clock near the peak of the tower, roughly saying twenty minutes past nine. Here I was, ready to close out the summer and start my-

"Junior year! WOOOO!" my rambunctious conscience, Kill shouted. "We are free!"

"How do you, of all ponies, think going BACK to school is a sign of freedom?" And then, there was my more level-headed conscience, Joy.

"Because... shut up. Stuck at home for months on end with Tribal and Aroma - mostly TRIBAL - really gets on my nerves. It’s like cabin fever! Who the hell does that guy think he is, trying to control me?!" Kill exclaimed, aggravated by my father's previous motives.

"I don't know... maybe our father! He’s family, Kill, give him some more respect," Joy scolded his other half with an answer.

"Huh, I never did really like that word, 'respect'."

Blocking out my thoughts -- which is pretty damn hard with those two bickering -- I finally paid my father the attention he deserved; it was going to be a long time before I would see him again. If he was about ten years younger, he could have passed as me to enroll in this school, taking my place. Well, except for the white blot by my snout; I kind of got that from my mom.

“So, you’re finally leaving your old man, huh? I remember my first time in college,” he said, reminiscing on the past. I released a sigh the second those words left his mouth. I'm pretty sure he mustn't have noticed, because he just kept on with his story. “It was the happiest time of my life. College was where I met your mother, in fact!”

Tears began to well in his eyes as he continued on the departed. I wasn’t quite sure if it was about me leaving, or mom... maybe it was a mixture of both. “Look, Dad, Aroma is still at home, and I’m coming be back soon, okay?” I placed my hoof on his shoulder, hoping that in comfort, I reassured him. “And about mom... she wouldn’t want to see you like this, dad... it’s been ten years,” I sighed, staring into his dark black eyes with mine. “You need to let go... for her.”

With an exasperated sigh, the icy-coated stallion exchanged glances with me. I couldn't help but notice his still, red, puffy eyes from the recent tears as he responded. “Yes, Graze... for her.”

“HEY, GRAZE! ARE YOU COMING OR WHAT?!” abruptly shouted a mare’s voice.

Watching from the school's gates and towards its entrance, we saw an olive-coated mare who not too shortly after, stopped waving her hoof once acknowledged. “Well, Vinetion found you," Tribal pointed out, focusing back at me. “I guess this is goodbye for now,” he said, still holding his composure as I suddenly pulled him into a hug

“Only for now.” I said, releasing my father as I had set off to begin my first day of the new, school year. My first day of being, as Kill had so elegantly put it, FREE!

Next Chapter: Chapter One: Dawn of the First Day (of the Rest of My Life) Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 46 Minutes