“I wonder what it’s like,” Daemeon’s mind swirled pensively as he shuffled along, “not to have seasons.” Wind swept through and further disheveled his now unkempt brown hair. “It must have been nice. I suppose some places would be dreadfully hot, especially around the equator, and dreadfully cold near the poles.” His eyes lifted gently towards the darkening sky, taking in its varying shades of blue as well as the oncoming gray of clouds floating in over the city to cast a pall on the downcasting day. After such a beautiful morning, the gray was a touch disheartening to the man. The day seemed to echo the seasons. The seasons seemed to echo life. While they were ultimately three different things, Daemeon’s mind drew parallels almost as exaggerated as a poet’s. And just as a poet does, he held those parallels close and valued them like a religious man values scripture.

“It was warm this morning,” he thought to himself. “And it will be cold again tonight. The day has been so nice, but it will soon end. It will end as a year ends. It will end as a life ends. Gray. Dark. Cold. That is how things end.

“Maybe not all things end though?” The quiet quiry seemed to slip into his mind as an afterthought. That afterthought might have seemed a normal response to overly pessimistic thoughts in others, but to Daemeon, it was an odd thought indeed. Before he could debate the oddity of the thought however, it continued, “Winter is always followed by spring. Night is always followed by day. Even every generation of human life has been followed by another. And every new generation adds on to the previous to grow and learn and move forward. If days didn’t end, then how would they start anew? If there were no seasons, where would our appreciation for the weather be? If winters weren’t so cold and summers so hot, how would we know to enjoy the seasons that come between when the weather is made all the more pleasant because it is contrasted with the extremes?”

Just then, a chill breeze cut through the walk and caused the many people shuffling with Daemeon to shiver and pull their jackets tighter. He did so in double measure for both his lack of a jacket and the chill of his friend. When he felt her shivering as well, the man knew he couldn’t hold out any longer. The day was getting colder. It was getting grayer. It was getting darker. They would need to find shelter soon and Daemeon feared the only place within their price range where he could afford to show his face was that house of lies and deceit he’d so brazenly taken advantage of many times before. Before they got there however, the man and his mare would need some better protection.

Stepping off the street, the pair entered a rather large clothing retailer known to most as Gap. The suspicious looking man did everything within his power to seem less suspicious. Though he would have very much liked to stay in the warmth of the store, the sigh of relief ushered from his mare almost making him cave, he nonetheless held onto prudence and made his purchase quickly so as to draw as little attention to his cargo as possible.

From there, they had less than a city block to go. It went quickly as Daemeon picked up his pace ever more rapidly. Though the day was far from over, it was darkening both with the overcast and the ending season. As he rounded the last bend to find those two seemingly militant spires towering above him on either side of those heavy bronze doors sculpted with saints standing guard, he lifted his hand to give that fateful sevenfold knock. His hand drew up short however as his ears became attuned to a hallowed sound.

“What’s that I hear?” asked the unicorn who was ignorant to the rituals of men and women.

Daemeon retracted his hand from the door and let his chin drop pensively to his chest. “That, my dear, is music.” Giving that kind of laugh that only escapes as an exhalation of the nose, her man added, “At least, that’s what the conscripted in there like to pass for music.”

Colgate climbed upwards to poke her nose above the zipper of the sweater Daemeon had donned. She was much warmer than she’d previously been, so her words were only marked with curiosity rather than their previous urgency, “Why aren’t we going in?”

“Because,” Daemeon explained with a voice that sounded heavy with something, though Colgate could not say what, “not only would our entering draw the attention of the hundreds of people seated in there, I would never wish to give the fools the misjudgment that I sympathize or have faith in their rituals.”

A touch peeved by his answer, Colgate poked the rounded tip of her horn into the soft flesh beneath Daemeon’s chin and chided, “Can you be any more cryptic and rehearsed? It’s like you’re reciting lines from a dramatic tragedy when you talk like that.”

Her annoyance actually drew a chuckle from her man. Daemeon turned on his heels and stepped back to the three steps that ascended to the doors. His smile was real as he answered, “Don’t tempt me. Don’t you like dramatic stories?”

“Not really,” she returned, sneaking back into the warm hoodie so as not to draw attention of the passersby.

“And just why not?”

Colgate felt Daemeon’s arms creep around her from outside the cloth. Her smile matched his as she explained, “I don’t really like stories, especially dramatic ones. Fictional ones I mean. You see, I love history and such because it’s real. Ponies in the past actually did the marvelous or tragic things they are said to have done. Stories and plays and such, they aren’t real. They were never real. They’re just stories for the sake of entertainment. That kind of thing has just never interested me much I guess.”

The response piqued her man. “Not all history is real my dear. And frankly, not all stories are fictional. I’ve read novels that have revealed to me more accurate truths than certain history texts I’ve seen go out of date. Is the line you draw between what happened and what hasn’t so vivid and firm? Or does it perhaps blur and become gray?”

“What do you mean specifically?”

“I mean, don’t you think fictional stories can be true even when they’re made up?”

Daemeon’s question caused the mare’s brow to furrow furiously in thought. “What?!” she cried in surprise. “How can a made up story be true? That’s like saying it’s the opposite of what it is. How can what’s fake be real?”

“Come on now,” her man retorted. “Don’t tell me you can’t figure out the answer to that one by yourself.” Daemeon changed his voice, noting that his last statement had been said a little condescendingly. “Pardon me, would you like me to explain what I mean?”

“Yes,” she answered. “As long as we’re waiting, you may as well.”

So started the teacher. “What makes up a story, Colgate?”

“What makes up a story?” the mare mused to herself. “A lot of things make up a story I suppose. Do you mean a real one or a fictional one?”

“Both.”

Taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, she collected her thoughts and answered, “Well, there’s characters. I don’t know any story that doesn’t have characters. There’s also something that happens. For a novel, I suppose it’s the conflict. Something goes wrong with the protagonist, and he or she usually has to face overwhelming odds to escape their situation. The format doesn’t usually stray from that.”

“And what about histories? Do they not follow that same format?”

Daemeon could hear the sourness in her voice as she said, “Of course not. They deal with many ponies over many years. You know that. A novel is possessive of a single plot that starts neatly and ends conclusively. History isn’t at all like that. The plot of a history text is much messier. Even if you try to write something regarding a single event, that event is not perpetrated by a single pony. It is caused by that pony and the multitude of other ponies who came before. It’s just like you said about finding fault in somepony else’s harmful actions. You said that you can never really hate somepony rightfully because what they did was influenced by everyone who came before him. Well I say the same thing about pin pointing the start of something in history.

“Take the Tyrant Sombra for example. If I were to write a fictional book about some character like Sombra, that story would focus in on his conflict alone when in reality, the conflict was not his own. He was his own pony, yes, but he was also the product of a culture and a history. His tyranny was the product of the Crystal Empire’s fall from Aristocracy. The imperfection of pony governments and pony nature went into his creation and the devastation of what he helped to cause.”

Having listened patiently, her man spoke, “So you believe a history text is more real because it is written about something that actually happened.”

“Yes.”

“May I ask,” Daemeon pressed carefully, “do you think you could make a single small change to that text and have it retain its value of truth?”

Confused, the mare asked, “What do you mean? What would you change?”

“A name,” he answered simply. “Do you think you could change a name and still have the history be accurate. Say, if Sombra’s name were to be knowingly replaced by Devon, would that make the text any less true? After all, what’s in a name?”

“Not much unless you’re writing a symbolic story.” She mulled over the thought for a moment before saying, “I suppose the history wouldn’t be any less true if you changed one name. After all, the events still retain their truth, assuming they were true to begin with.”

“Do you think I could take the analogy a step further? What if we were to take a history text and change every name in the book. The names of every nation, province, and person would be different from what they were, but the events remained exactly as they were. Would this book be similarly useful or accurate?”

Colgate scoffed, “It would be abominable to think of changing every name in a history. I guess though that despite the glaring inaccuracies, the history would be worth just as much insofar as those events actually happened.”

“What if some of those events were skewed though?” Daemeon’s voice grew quite serious. “This isn’t such a big deal, is it? After all, one cannot possibly know everything that has happened. Numbers can be less than perfect. Specific publications can be misdated. Exactly who did what can be lost to the past. Is your history text worth nothing because it isn’t perfect?”

With careful emphasis, she answered, “It is worth less, but it is not worthless.”

“How is it worth less?”

The mare pinched her lips in thought before explaining, “Because you’ve altered what was real. Even something as insignificant as names can be significant in the long run. I will admit however that there should be less that is changed than if you were to alter specific events.”

“So you’re saying the history can still be used to educate?”

“Yes,” she concluded with conviction.

“Now,” Daemeon continued, “what if we were to alter the events enough so as to make them fictional, but maintain the core of the message earned by understanding those events? What if instead of reading a history book about a war, we read a fictional book about a war that poses as an extended allegory?”

Colgate frowned and answered, “I understand you mean that the events are very similar but not the same. You would sacrifice truth for dramatization. In essence, the novel you are proposing would be a farce. It might be a clever and very accurate one, but it is ultimately a lie ridden story, a fairy tale. No matter how impartial the writers might try to be, they will have bias in its writing. They will have an objective in writing what they do. One end is to entertain and make money. Another might be to garner sympathy. In any case, I don’t care for it. I think I’d much rather read the facts and interpret them for myself.”

“How odd,” her man whispered, stroking her back through the hoodie. “Almost every person I’ve met has been quite the opposite. They love the story and think little of history. They equate the two in value, sometimes making the story a thing more important than the reality.”

“I’m no more a person than I am a horse,” Colgate returned from her comfortable enclosure.

Daemeon laughed. “As though I could forget! Your opinion is good and well thought. Is it a commonly held opinion in Equestria?”

“Very often, yes,” came the surprising answer. “We have novels I suppose much as you do, but they are thin reading meant for entertainment, a way to abandon reality for fun. Many ponies enjoy them rather like chocolate. Certainly, they’re a treat, but they are not the history that we sustain ourselves on.”

“I am impressed.” Their conversation fell silent for a moment in the chill, darkening day. “She has a lot of good points,” Daemeon reflected. “But there is something I don’t quite agree with. She makes fiction sound so trivial, but I know it is far from trivial. It might not be more important than the actual history, but it is at least as important if only for one reason.”

Her man spoke, “There is one word in your description of fiction that I do not believe you used correctly. At least, it is not correct for fiction that is worth reading.”

Genuinely curious, as she had not disagreed with Daemeon without learning something yet, she asked, “And just what word is that?”

Smiling, Daemeon answered seriously, but not with too much intensity, “You said that fiction is written with a bias so as to produce sympathy. While I feel that is a common sentiment worked towards in cheap novels of entertainment, it is not the real goal of what we call Literature. If a book only produces sympathy, then it is a poorly written fiction. The real emotion fiction must cause is empathy.”

Colgate shuffled to her hooves in his lap and stuck her nose up to nuzzle his neck affectionately. He returned the nuzzle as she asked, “What’s the difference?”

“I love her so much.” Giving her a kiss on the cheek, he explained, “Sympathy is a very simple, very base, and very animal emotion. It certainly isn’t the first complex emotion humans developed, but it also wasn’t the last. Somewhere between fear of predators and love of enemies lies our ability to feel sorry for other creatures in distress. This is simple sympathy. We feel sorry for the difficulties of the plights of others. While this might seem like a good emotion, it is little better than pity. I find it very often to be a self righteous and confidence boosting emotion.”

“How can feeling sorry for somepony boost your confidence,” his mare interjected.

“Because,” Daemeon explained in an answer that had clearly been thought through before, “the purpose of sympathy is to make you feel better about yourself. Being sympathetic means that you see someone who is worse off than you are. Feeling sorry for someone else is just a self assurance that you are better than them. Or at least you either consciously or subconsciously feel you are better than them. You may be sad to see a person die, but you are at the same time gladdened that it was they and not you.”

The mare with the blue and white mane, tangled from a lack of brushing or care, ceased her nuzzling and looked up to him with a hint of disappointment and stated, “You make sympathy sound like a very selfish emotion.”

Daemeon did not let his smile fade and explained lightheartedly, “It can be selfish, yes. More often though, it is merely self righteous. But as I said before, it is a very animal emotion only a step above joy or anger. Above sympathy, we have a far more complex and disturbing emotion.”

“Empathy?” she asked with a raised brow.

“Yes,” he continued. “Empathy is what I believe to be the most complex human, and I would presume pony, emotion. It is the difference between feeling sorry for someone and feeling sorry with someone.”

“How do you mean? What’s the difference?”

Surprised, Daemeon asked, “Do you not know the difference?”

Colgate shook her head and answered, “I do. I just want to hear what you believe the difference is.”

“She’s as good at baiting me as I am at baiting her. She just might even be smarter than me. And to think, just yesterday I thought she was stupid.” Giving a squeezing hug, he went on, “Well the difference is this. Sympathy makes people feel better about themselves. Empathy disturbs a person, and makes him or her feel they must act. The best way I can describe it is to use a scenario that might not be very applicable in your Equestria. So please, bear with me.

“Sitting on a busy street is a homeless man without a job. Our government system has allowed for money to stratify in the hands of a few prominent individuals in our society while many at the bottom have found their wealth elusive. So, our man sits on a street where wealthy men frequently walk and holds out an empty cup, hoping one of the many passing by him will have sympathy for him and give him some money. Many do not even regard him, he being in the background of their lives, unimportant in the schemes they have concocted for the stories that are their lives. Others may regard him for a very brief moment, but their eyes will turn away the moment he looks up and regards them hopefully. They will feel some discomfort, but they will continue walking. They feel some sorrow for him, but they are content with just being happy to not be him. Of this small crowd who feels sorrow for him, there may be a select few romantics who feel the gumption to give of their excess. This act can be both selfish and selfless. They give because they are happy not to be him, because they only feel sorry for him.

“But it is not all selfishness and egotism,” Daemeon reassured as he saw his mare’s eyes frown at the story. “Far fewest in number are those wealthy individuals who pass that man and feel that most complex emotion. This man will be unique because he will understand this homeless man’s story better than any of the others who came before.”

“Why would he know it better?” Colgate begged, the story making her somewhat anxious to know more.

“Because,” Daemeon answered emphatically, “this man who is wealthy had once been poor. He will see in this homeless man the very man he once was. He will stop in his tracks and regard him and see what was once only a memory again as a reality.” Her man closed his eyes as he continued, seeming more to be speaking with himself than with her. “He will see this man and feel disturbed. He will feel sorrow. This sorrow however will not create in him the ability to feel better about himself. It will make his pleasures of wealth feel painful. Though he may or may not have earned the wealth that he has, he recognizes that he once sustained himself on far less and can do so again.

“His next actions allow a third party individual to draw the line between sympathy and empathy. It would have been very easy for the wealthy man to turn out his pockets and spare some of his excess wealth, a quality of his life made trivial by the knowledge that a life can be maintained with so much less. What would be twenty dollars to him? A hundred dollars? You may not understand our currency Colgate, but you must understand that giving money would be the easiest thing to do. The wealthy man however, knows that the money will only last so long. I’ll take advantage of an old proverb as you probably have not heard of it. Give a man a fish, and you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for life.

“The wealthy man knows the plight of the poor because he’d been poor once too. He has no desire to make himself feel better than this man because, deep down, he knows that he is no better than this man. So he keeps his hands away from his wallet and bends down before the homeless man, giving him eye contact noone else will. The homeless man gives a sad smile because he knows it will get him the sympathy he’s been living on. Instead of giving the homeless man something as cheap as money however, the wealthy man gives him something far more valuable. He gives him time which cannot be bought back. It is not a donation. It is a trust, a financial bond. He knows how valuable his time is to him because he has seen wealth and poverty enough to know that time’s the primary thing that must be used correctly to ensure happiness and stability.

“He gives the homeless man a brief moment. They exchange a few words and the homeless man eyes his cup hopefully. Rather than giving him money, the wealthy man pulls from his pocket a card with his number and puts it in the man’s cup saying, ‘If you want a job or to improve your life, call me tonight at 7:00.

“The homeless man’s sad smile contorts into a teary eyed and pained expression of hope. It is painful because it is difficult for him to hope. He has hoped many times before only to have those hopes dashed to nothing and see his life dragged down. The wealthy man has invested in him his number. If he is willing to invest that much, then perhaps he will be willing to invest more.

“The wealthy man offers out a firm hand. A cold, clammy, and weak handshake follows. The wealthy man sees the homeless man’s wildly darting eyes, the tracks on his bare arms, the teeth marks on his belt. He was not an idiot. He knew the investment he was offering was not a safe one. He knew that it would be very difficult to employ or find employment for such a man. While he knew it was not safe however, he also knew that it was necessary. He had been in that man’s place. He’d bitten his belt too. He’d once spent his days trying to lose himself in ecstasy between cold fits of reality. Perhaps most importantly of all, he knew that this man needed help just as he’d needed help so many years ago.

“That, Colgate,” he whispered as he opened his moist eyes, “is empathy. That is the most complex and most important emotion. It makes all others seem weak, base, and flawed reference points for making good judgements. It is fueled not by other emotions, but by understanding each other’s emotions. We can only empathize with each other if we understand each other. With empathy comes action, honest action to solve the wrongs of society. Empathy is the cornerstone on which any possible utopia must be built.”

The silence that followed was thick with thought. Colgate’s stomach churned at the story. The very thought of a pony being without a home was upsetting to her enough, but the thought that that same pony should also lack a job, a calling? It disturbed her greatly. Even as it disturbed her, she felt her attention drawn to the fact that she felt disturbed. “Why do I feel so awful?” She felt her own eyes moistening, much as Daemeon’s were. She had to steady her breaths as she struggled to figure out why his story had moved her as much as it did.

Daemeon saw the emotion and confusion in her twisting face and asked, “Are you okay, Colgate?”

“No.”

“Do you know why?”

The question caused her to furrow her brow tightly. It struck her as odd that he should ask if she knew why rather than merely asking why. Feeling very uncertain of her answer even as she said it, she said with some distress, “I don’t know. I think it’s because of your story.”

“Why would my story upset you?” Daemeon asked seriously.

His mare’s frown turned angry as she demanded, “Don’t do that, Daemeon! Don’t drag me by the nose. You’ve made me feel awful, and I don’t know why or how. Your story isn’t even real. I shouldn’t even care, but you’ve somehow tricked me into caring, and I don’t like it. You’re trying to make me feel bad for being sympathetic, aren’t you? You’re trying to make me feel bad about feeling sad for the character.”

Daemeon shook his head gravely. “No.” He reached a hand to the back of her head and pulled her tear streaked face into his chest and stated, “That’s not sympathy you’re feeling.”

The heated mare pushed away from his chest and demanded angrily, “Then just what is it?!”

“It’s empathy, Colgate. You’re not feeling sorrow for the homeless man. You’re feeling sorrow with the homeless man.”

“How can it be empathy? I’ve never even been to this world before. We don’t have homeless or jobless ponies in Equestria. It’s stupid. How could I be feeling feelings with a person who you just made up?”

Giving a sigh, Daemeon answered as one peer who was lucky enough to find the answer before another does, “Because the story is true. I may have made up the characters and events, but they are very close to what has happened before and what will happen again. I may have made up the story, but everything that went into its making came out of my experience as a human living in an imperfect, human world. I took the time to understand both the wealthy man and the homeless man. I listened to their stories for myself. This was very hard for me to do. I discovered both perspectives by living both of their lives, if only for brief spells. In seeing the world through the eyes of other people, I have grown able to empathize with them and understand what drives them, what motivates them, what makes them into the people they are.

“Because I did this, I have learned enough to create a story. It is based out of history, yes, but it is based on so much more. It is based on feelings, desires, and thoughts. It was a little dramatic, but the drama is meant to pull the reader in. A good history is written to be indifferent and factual. Literature is the means by which we feel history. It is how we feel humankind. You aren’t even from this world, yet the reality of my story struck you. You don’t feel bad for the characters, Colgate. You feel with them. You are moved. That somber despair you are feeling right now is the realization that you can have so much while others can have so little. And you know in your heart of hearts that this is not the way a world should be. You are a pony, and I am a human. But we are both intelligent and empathetic. To that end, our understanding of the plights of others draws us to action so we can right those wrongs.”

Colgate looked down and wiped the moisture from her face. Daemeon took advantage of the moment and did the same. His mare was the one to break the silence that followed as she said, “Thank you, Daemeon. I can see now why you love fiction as well as history. I had never thought of stories as being so important or real. I’m a little worried though.”

“About what?” Daemeon queried.

“Well,” she explained, “you were right about how I feel mostly. I guess I do want to do something to help homeless humans now. But what good is that feeling to me? I know it sounds selfish, but what can I possibly do to help with the problem? Even if I lived here in this world, I am only one pony. There are billions of you humans! If homelessness and joblessness are common enough that people become desensitized to it and only unique individuals step up to do something about it, how could I even scratch the surface?”

The question caused her man to frown sadly. A heavy sigh rolled through him, seeming to add invisible weights to his shoulders. He answered slowly, “It is overwhelming. I am very sorry and unhappy to say that I don’t really know the answer. I have spent almost my whole life trying to get people to understand the truth, to make them see that they cannot rely on love, hate, or God for a better world. I’ve worked like a zealot in a sermon to make other people see that we must seek understanding if we are to have better lives. And yet, the longer I strive to make this happen, with all my passion and desire brought to bear, the sum of my accomplishments means almost nothing in the grander scheme. I have not changed the world. I have not made it a better place. Now more than ever, I feel I may have only made it worse.”

“How could you possibly have made it worse?” Colgate scoffed. “From everything that I have seen and heard from you, you care more for others than almost anypony I know. What’s more, you care for them selflessly. Even Pinkie Pie, endlessly giving as she is, does as she does for her own happiness. You didn’t look like you’d ever been happy before when I first met you. What have you done, Daemeon?”

Again, there was that dreaded question. The man had lost count of how many time’s she’d asked him to divulge that final and most important secret he kept from her. His life had been vicious. It had been dark. He had spent the whole of it as a cruel, depressed, lying, greedy, backstabbing animal. Through it all, he’d seen himself as a martyr for a better world. He caused chaos, yes, but he did so so others would learn to accept its reality. He did so to disillusion them, so they might learn and grow and become something so much greater than what they previously were. The importance of his vocation seemed every moment diminished as he feared more and more that his actions had only ever achieved the pain and sadness of others both in the short term and the long term.

He’d thought that time might make the truth easier to tell. Instead however, it made it far more difficult. His self interrogative was quickly breaking down into self loathing. The dreaded fear that he’d lived his entire life with such unhappiness only to achieve nothing might have been enough to cause him to contemplate suicide. No thought could be further from his mind however when his mare was in his arms. She made him more gleeful than he’d ever been while at the same time tearing down the marble facade he’d kept up both for the world and for himself. Behind that facade laid a gray brick man, not nearly so beautiful or perfect as he’d made himself out to be. Colgate had swung thick, metal chains around the person he thought he was and all she needed was one last little pull to see him crumble and reveal who he really was. You know this to be true. This is the last thing Daemeon would wish done. He feared her rejection, her horror. He feared that she would no longer be his little Colgate.

These fears and realities permeated the man as the silence that followed the question was ended. An ambiance of musical chorus exuded from the church, muffled but distinguishable.

“Come, O God of all the Earth;

come to us O righteous One.

Come and bring your love to birth;

in the glory of your Son.”

Colgate ignored the music as it burst into a resounding chorus, instead focusing her gaze intently on her man’s sad and fear filled face. She knew what she was doing. She knew the anguish she was causing him. No pleasure came of it for her. She was terrified of his answer almost as much as he was. Still, she could not tolerate his absence of truth. She wanted to know every aspect of him, not just what was pleasant. If there was any possible way she could help him, she was determined to do it.

Finally, Daemeon whispered softly, barely being heard over the chorus, “I don’t want to tell you yet.”

Though she did not like his answer, she had discovered for him patience she’d never known she had. She did not give him a reassuring smile or pretend that she was perfectly okay with his answer. Instead, she leaned forward to rest the tip of her horn against Daemeon’s forehead and closed her eyes. In a sobering voice she stated, “I hope soon, you will trust me enough to let me see the rest of you.”

Having no answer to her statement, Daemeon hugged her close once more. She rested her chin on his shoulder and smiled contently. She let herself note the music coming from within. It seemed to ever so slightly be crescendoing, building itself to a conclusion. The melody was simple, and she found herself humming along to the tune. Curious, she asked, “Why are they asking God to come to Earth?”

Daemeon sighed, his hopes of her not inquiring about the music coming to an end. Not really in the mood to muster up bitterness, he explained with simplicity, “They want it to come and take them to Heaven.”

The word being lost on her inexperience, she asked, “What’s Heaven?”

Sighing again, Daemeon stood and walked away from the double doors. The recessional song was coming to a close, and he was not looking forward to a stampede of what was likely thousands of people. Strolling past the facade, Daemeon rounded to the gray brick and sat down in the grass, leaning against the wall. Giving a moment’s thought, he answered her question, “Heaven is where people who believe in God believe they will go when they die.”

“Really?” Colgate murmured in surprise. “Where is it?”

Daemeon felt himself cringe at the question. “It isn’t anywhere,” he struggled to answer. “Heaven isn’t a place. It’s an idea. What’s more, it’s an imaginary one.”

“Why would humans go to an imaginary idea when they die? Don’t you bury them? We ponies bury our dead. I had assumed you did the same.”

Pursing his lips, Daemeon explained, “We do bury our dead. That’s not what I’m talking about. They believe their spirits will go to Heaven.”

Becoming even more confused, Colgate pressed, “What are spirits? What is Heaven?”

Instead of trying to answer her questions blindly, her man chose to access her own beliefs. He asked, “What do you ponies believe happens to you when you die?”

Frowning at the question, Colgate answered, “Well, we have a funeral commemorating the pony who died. Ponies don’t die every day in Ponyville so we usually get the whole town to attend and pay their respects. Then they are buried in our orchard of life. The duties these ponies had are redistributed or taken over by their apprentices. The wealth they’ve collected is impartially divided between any remaining relatives based on need and the state.”

It was Daemeon’s turn to be confused. The mass had ended and people were quickly shuffling out of the cathedral. Dismissing their presence, he asked, “What’s an orchard of life?”

Pragmatically, Colgate explained, “It’s the place where ponies are buried. Every village, town, and city has one. When a pony dies, they are buried in an orchard and a cherry tree is planted over his or her body. It is then the duty of remaining relatives or the community at large to take care of the tree and see that it grows to maturity.”

Daemeon quickly became extremely interested. For all her talk about equestrian history, Colgate had never mentioned something akin to a religious ritual before. He begged, “Why do you ponies do that? How did this start?”

Colgate puckered her face thoughtfully before saying, “I really have no idea when it started. It’s just what we’ve been doing for as long as I remember. I suppose there must have been a time when we didn’t do that, but I don’t know when. As to why we plant cherry trees, we use them as markers for past generations. As long as memory serves, the deceased pony will be remembered, and their resting place will be marked. So long as somepony remembers to whom a tree belongs, that tree may never be cut down.”

“That’s very practical,” Daemeon muttered to himself. “I suppose that system uses the body without losing it. You are still used as fertilizer, but you are kept in a very natural environment. Then, I suppose there’s the agricultural gains. You must never have a shortage of cherries in Equestria.”

Colgate shook her head furiously and corrected him, “Oh, no. We don’t eat the cherries.”

“You don’t?” A touch of worry slipped through him as he asked, “Do you not eat them because you feel that would be similar to eating the pony it was planted on?”

Chuckling slightly, the mare eased his ignorance, “No. It’s a nice thought I suppose, but we know better than that. When a pony dies, they decompose and become organic materials completely different from the body they made up. No. We don’t eat the cherries because they are not for us. We leave them to the creatures in Equestria. It was decided long ago, all the way back at the end of the Dark Era, that we ponies have to be aware of our effects on the world around us. You remember, that was the payment for choosing to live well instead of just living. We take more from the world than any other creatures, so we make our best efforts to give more back. The gardens are one way we do that.”

Her explanation sounded surreal to him. It seemed to him that she’d just described every hippie’s dream. It was so picturesque that he struggled to believe such a careful and feasible system of environmental nurturing could be maintained throughout the entirety of a kingdom, let alone a race. The best explanation he could gather for such a system working in her world was that it had fewer people and fewer social mores to begin with. All that being said, it was not the answer he was looking for. “That’s a beautiful system, Colgate, but I was not asking about what you believe happens to the body when a pony dies. I wanted to know what you think happens to the consciousness.”

“The consciousness?”

“Yes!” Daemeon expounded. “You are here right at this moment. You are thinking, feeling, discussing things you’ve never discussed before. You are learning and developing into a pony you never were before and never will be again. Your life has momentum and has had momentum since the moment you could conceive of yourself. I want to know what you believe happens to this momentum when you die. What happens to the thoughts and feelings? What happens to the part of you that can see but can’t be seen?”

Colgate hung her head for a moment at the question. Though she knew her man was trying to be as explicit as possible in his questions, she struggled to understand their relevance. It really was true that some things that were important to him were not of any great importance to her. She answered somewhat simply, “I had pretty well assumed we just stopped being. I guess this momentum you speak of would stop. I would be. Then I wouldn’t be. What is the question? Why would my thoughts do anything but stop? Do you think they do something different?”

Daemeon’s heart skipped a beat. He could not, almost would not believe his ears. Her answer had finally and completely driven home the ultimate fact and given him absolute assurance that Equestria was every bit the utopia his mare had been leading him to believe. He had tried to pick through it. He’d been looking for flaws in her thought and character. Every time she’d mentioned modern Equestria, it had seemed so pleasant and perfect. There may be small flaws here or there, but they were not ones that Daemeon could pull open to reveal a society of deceitfulness. Rather, their very presence accented the fact that the whole was so well put together. It was not until this point that Daemeon found himself truly believing.

Colgate, his little Colgate, lived in a world where they did not believe in God. Because they did not believe in God, they did not fear what comes after death. To them, it was not an undiscovered country. It was the end of a road that did not lead to another. Because of this, because they did not feel their every action under scrutiny of some higher power whether benevolent or malevolent, they did not shower their lives with pretense. There was no holy righteousness. There was no enigmatic scripture. There were no wars about whose god was the real god. All they had were their thoughts, unadulterated by ridiculous dogmas. A pony’s mind was a mind of judicial supremacy. None of them held any naivete that suffering in life would produce happiness in death. They were made unable to ignore their community because their was no noble lie that everything would ultimately work out for everyone. They, perhaps even more so than himself, knew that the best possible life to live was the one of understanding and mutual respect, not because they were told so, but because they grew to know so. This realization fell on Daemeon as though the Eastern Wall itself had tumbled down upon him. In one moment, he understood just how different, how real, and how noble these ponies really were.
When only a brief moment had passed for Daemeon to fathom the answer, he answered with a very glad voice, “No. I believe nothing different. I’m so happy, Colgate.”

Colgate felt herself enveloped and squeezed. She loved his squeezes. They made her feel so safe and warm; she almost felt the world couldn’t touch her. As happy as his joy made her, it could not diffuse the confusion she felt. She asked, “Why does that make you so happy?”

Pleasure and warmth permeating his every thought and faculty, Daemeon answered simply, “It’s just that you are so unique, Colgate. Your words give me strength, your body gives me happiness, and your mind gives me security. I’m just so very happy to hear you speak the truth without any adulteration of falsehood.”

Still not certain what he meant but not wanting to displease him by asking again, she asked instead, “So what are spirits and Heaven?”

With a light heart and voice, he answered, “Nothing at all, Colgate. They’re nothing at all.”

They sat in relative silence for a while as Daemeon watched the last of the laity slip away in their cars or cabs, back to their mundane lives. He had to wait for the opportune moment. He knew that the grand Cathedral would soon be emptied of all but that lonely man who was fool enough to believe not only in God, but Daemeon as well. He wondered how Fr. Allen would react to him coming back after having so obviously ruined two robes just that morning.

As though she were privy to his inner machinations, his mare asked, “When are we going to go in? I’m warm enough, but I can see you’re just a little chilly.”

She was right of course. Daemeon had bought warmer clothes but he hadn’t exactly bundled up. Absently, he was still trying to save money for a new suit coat. After all, he’d not been without it for many years. Now he wished he had spent the extra money for something warmer. The cathedral was going to be cold after all. “Not yet. Fr. Allen doesn’t go on duty for another few minutes. He’s the only one who would let me in.”

“Do you think he’ll let you in?”

“I hope so. I really don’t know. I haven’t pushed him too far yet, but it was pretty close yesterday.”

“I noticed.” Colgate thought back to the night before. It had been tumultuous to say the least. Though she hadn’t seen him, she remembered much of the conversation Fr. Allen had had with Daemeon. They’d spoken about strange things Colgate couldn’t really understand. It bothered her slightly more now than it did then. She felt she knew more about humans now and wished she could speak with Fr. Allen. He seemed so different from Daemeon. He was old and weary, but he was kind. He was kind even to Daemeon. It didn’t seem to her that her man had ever been kind to him, yet he’d welcomed him in from the cold. It seemed hard for her to believe that humans were as callous as Daemeon said when Fr. Allen had shown such unnecessary kindness.

“Maybe he was just doing his job?” she thought absently to herself. “It’s so strange how humans think. Fr. Allen must be doing his super special talent, but Daemeon says the very thing he does is a lie. They can’t both be right.” Rather than entertain her thoughts further, she asked, “Do you want me to continue the story?”

The question caught Daemeon off guard. It pulled him from his thoughts and caused him to smile and say, “I’d like that very much. I’m sorry I sidetracked you with my little story.”

“Don’t be!” she exclaimed. “It was a very good story, and I learned a lot from it. I just hope I can do the same. Where did we leave off anyways?”

Quick to remember what he found to be so interesting, he answered her, “The last thing you mentioned was Twilight Sparkle. You said she was Celestia’s Student and that she was the one to kill Sombra and free the Crystal Empire.”

“Ah, yes.” Recognition rolled through her, and she stated, “Unfortunately, we can’t really pick up from there. I skipped a thousand years of history to explain that Sombra was killed just earlier this year. I haven’t even told you about Nightmare Moon or Princess Cadence or the Gryphon War.”

“Well, start where you must. I don’t mind waiting out here to hear the rest. Fr. Allen isn’t going anywhere.”

Colgate giggled and continued her history, “The two Princess system was set up to ensure the security of Equestria. And it did work insofar as Princesses Luna and Celestia were able to combine their powers to defeat Discord and the Tyrant Sombra. Unfortunately, this unity was not to last.

“The very spell that Sombra had used to take captivity of Luna did something far worse than hinder their efforts. The spell showed Luna a dark and terrible reality, one where ponies felt no love for her and instead only scorned her. While the elder Princess Celestia had taken control of the Earth’s rotation so as to ensure a balanced period of seasons and days, she relinquished control of the moon to her younger sister. This arrangement separated the sisters distinctly into the heralds of the day and of the night with Celestia as the former and Luna the latter.”

“Why would Luna take control of the moon?” Daemeon interrupted. “It doesn’t seem necessary to me.”

Ms. Minuette gave a playful scowl and explained, “When the unicorn race had thrown the Earth off its axis, the moon did not adjust to compensate for the dramatic change. As such, the regular tide intervals much of our aquatic and land creatures had come to rely on was greatly disturbed. Had Starswirl been able to fully correct the tilt, nothing would have needed to change with the moon. Since his solution was not perfect however, Luna was given control of the moon so that she could guide it through its phases and revolutions over the years and produce the consistent tides that keep the world’s ecosystem healthy. Is that good enough for you?”

He chuckled, “It scratches an itch.”

“Good.” She cleared her throat and went on, “The spell that afflicted Princess Luna caused her to believe that the ponies in Equestria did not love, care for, or respect her because she represented darkness to them whereas Celestia represented the day. Luna let this fear fester and brood inside her. While it might have at first been a small fear, she let it grow into a perverted jealousy that caused her to hate her sister and all of ponykind.”

“That sounds a little extreme to me. Why didn’t Celestia do something about her sister’s brooding? Surely she must have noticed.”

Excusing his interruption, Colgate answered, “She may have been suspicious, but she never realized the bitterness that grew in her sister. Most believe, though Celestia has never said so herself, that the older Princess was too enamored with her duties to realize what needed to be done. It was not until Luna was fully consumed with jealousy that Celestia realized the truth. On a very fateful day almost a thousand years ago, Princess Luna took the name of Nightmare Moon and swore to have her revenge on the race she believed had turned their backs on her.

“Princess Luna refused to lower the moon. Her intent was clear. She wished to send the ponies of Equestria into another Dark Era, one she intended to last until all of them were dead and gone. I am very thankful to say that Luna was and is the less powerful of the two sisters. When Princess Luna refused to let darkness end, a fight broke out between the two sisters that destroyed the very castle they ruled from. The fight ended with Princess Celestia turning her dear sister to stone and banishing her for a thousand years to the moon she had been entrusted with. From that moment on, Celestia took control of both the sun and moon and ruled Equestria alone until just a couple years ago when Twilight Sparkle helped Luna to escape the bonds of jealousy and hate.”

With a raised eyebrow, Daemeon interjected, “Again this Twilight Sparkle is mentioned?”

“Yes,” Colgate stated annoyed. “She always seems to be in the center of things unfortunately. I can never not hear about her. We don’t have to worry about her right now though. There are a few things that happened between Luna’s banishment and the present that I think are important to mention.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” she started, “the most important thing to mention was the war between Equestria and the Gryphon Federation.”

“Interesting,” Daemeon mused. “So you ponies have had wars with other nations? Who are these gryphons? What do they come from? You’ve mentioned the Gryphon Federation before, but you’ve never explained anything about it.”

Colgate smiled and said, “The gryphons were and still are a fairly militant race. They were one of the first intelligent races ponykind had to deal with outside of ourselves. When our borders expanded to envelop what we now call the Kingdom of Equestria, our borders met on the western front. Expansion of Equestria as well as the much younger Gryphon Federation came to a standstill, and there were many years of tense facing off. Thankfully, when we entered our Reform Era, our two races entered a peace treaty before our desires for larger kingdoms got the best of us.”

“So what went wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

Recognizing he had jumped the gun, Daemeon backed up and explained, “You said there was a war. Clearly the peace didn’t last. What happened?”

His mare nodded and answered, “It didn’t last. The treaty was made when our two races were too afraid and xenophobic towards each other to understand how very different we were.”

“Why were your races afraid of each other?” he asked with growing curiosity. His eyes scanned around them to make sure they were alone. He didn’t much care for the thought of having a pedestrian drop in while they spoke.

Colgate followed his eyes, turning to regard the city streets around them. On seeing a few people closing in on them along the sidewalk, she pulled her head back into her confines and answered him, “Because they didn’t know each other. You could say it’s a little ridiculous, but their fear just wouldn’t go away. I’m not really sure why. I guess it might be a self perpetuating process. We were afraid of each other because we didn’t understand each other, and we didn’t understand each other because we were afraid of each other.”

Her man chuckled morbidly. “That old ironic paradox. It’s too painfully true right now. So you’re inability to understand each other caused a war? I suppose the gryphons attacked you Equestrians out of fear. You did describe them as militant.”

Resting her ear against his heart, she corrected him, “Actually, it wasn’t fear that caused the war.” Colgate laughed suddenly, startling her man enough to make him jump a bit. When asked why, she explained, “I just know you are going to love why the war was fought. It’ll tickle you pink.”

Daemeon was lost, and his silence told her so.

“You see,” she continued, “the war was fought over different understandings of morality, of what is right and what is wrong. The war was long and aggressive, and it was fought entirely on principle.”

The man had to struggle to give an emphatic sigh. Though his words were intentionally warped to sound sad, he could feel little other than happiness so soon after his mare laughed. “Those are always the longest and most aggressive wars. No matter the principle, whether it be over eating bread and drinking wine, voting or bribery, color or language, these are always the hardest fought wars.” His voice turned genuinely sad as he continued, “They are not won, you see. They are only lost. They do not cause peace. They only perpetuate violence and revenge and indignity.”

“I don’t know about that,” his mare spoke with skepticism evident in her voice. “This war didn’t perpetuate violence. And it was not lost. Rather, it changed ponykind forever in a very positive way.”

It was Daemeon’s turn to be skeptical. “How can war be positive? Scratch that. You won. History always plays to the winner’s ego.”

“What do you mean?”

“You won the war, didn’t you? The winners always write history so they seem to have the correct morality, that theirs was the moral high ground. So pardon me if I’m being a little presumptuous, but it does not surprise me that your race benefited from a war.”

Colgate shook her head vigorously beneath the cloth of the hoodie. “You’ve got it all wrong! Well, most of it anyways. The war was long and violent, but we did not win. Neither of us won. In fact, you could go so far as to say that the gryphons won. The war was a tremendous loss for both sides in the numbers of ponies and gryphons who died, but it did lead to the current period of peace and prosperity Equestria and much of the world’s nations are currently enjoying.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Daemeon interjected, “but please, explain.”

“Gladly!” Colgate took a deep breath, laid down on her back with her four hooves pointed skyward, and began, “The Gryphon War occurred almost 240 years ago and lasted about seven years. It was fought almost entirely on a principle. Knowing as much as I do now about humans and your world, little though it may be, I can tell you that you may not believe the war was justified. It might even seem downright silly. But it caused for Equestrians and gryphons such a schism that we could not come to a mutual understanding diplomatically. It was not over land or wealth. It was a simple matter of husbandry and our disputing views that caused the war.”

“Husbandry?!” Daemeon cried aloud. “You mean like farming and taking care of animals? If it wasn’t over land, then what differing views of husbandry could cause you to go to war?”

Colgate smacked her lips together. Even before she spoke the word, she could feel her mouth salivating. “Flesh.”

“Flesh?”

“And blood I suppose.”

Finding her answer too cryptic even for his tastes, Daemeon asked, “What are you talking about?”

“It’s simple,” the blue mare clarified. “At least, it was simple at the time. The gryphons were carnivores. We were herbivores. This is the reason the war was fought.”

Taken aback by the concise statement, her man asked confusedly, “The gryphons attacked and tried to eat you ponies?”

Though he couldn’t see the horror in her expression, he certainly heard it in her voice. “That’s almost cannibalism! We’re both intelligent species. They would never have thought to eat us. At least, I hope they never did. No. They weren’t even the ones who attacked first. We attacked them!”

“Every time you say something, your story only gets more confusing. Why would herbivores be attacking carnivores? That doesn’t even make any sense.”

Giving an exasperated sigh, his mare returned, “Let me start at the beginning. Do you remember what I told you about the duties adopted by the Earth ponies when the nation of Equestria was first formed?”

Daemeon nodded to himself. “Of course. You said they took charge of farming and, and.” His words faltered. A little perturbed, he had to admit his ignorance, “Wasn’t there something else?”

Chuckling, Colgate answered, “That’s okay. It was a little confusing when I first explained it. They took charge of the four hoofed, distant relatives to ponykind. You will recall that the world was very much changed after the upset. The permanent good weather receded and the world was left to a new system of seasons. Because the world had never dealt with seasons before, creatures similar to ponies died off in droves. Many were threatened with extinction.”

“I remember that now,” he butted in, “but what does that have to do with the Gryphon War?”

“Most things in pony history have a tendency of coming to a head and causing troubles down the road.” Even as she said it, Colgate could not help but wonder at her own insight, “I wonder what big thing will come up next?” She shook the absent thought from her mind and continued, “A policy that was made almost 2000 years before caused the Gryphon War. And that policy was this; all creatures with four hooves must be given the respect of the pony community and kept from extinction. The reason I gave you earlier was that it was mostly done from charity of the heart, but that is not the whole of it. You see, creatures like buffalo, cows, pigs, sheep, and donkeys exist in Equestria because we kept them from extinction. And the reason was this; that their existence should forever remind us of the damage we had done to the world. They were kept as a living symbol of our wrongdoings.”

Daemeon shivered slightly, both from the chilling nature of the policy and the chilling nature surrounding them. The man was certain he looked like a homeless bum the way he huddled against the cathedral with the day growing darker by the minute. That did not matter to him now nor had it ever. The homeless were probably the furthest a person could be in the background. If foul language were tagged along the cathedral wall, there would be outrage. Tag a suffering man to the wall, and he is barely noticed. That is of course unless that person is hung with his arms spread and mouth gaping. Then he is a symbol, and people like symbols. Symbols are comfortingly distant and elusively quixotic. The man who is more than a carved bust is terrifyingly close and painfully real. So you turn your eyes and ignore him. You walk past. After all, his story is no concern of yours. His is not a story of fun or adventure. It’s a story of sadness sung with fear and cloaked in submission.

It thus caused curiosity in Daemeon when his mare spoke of living symbols. “Can a mistake be a symbol of itself?” He hadn’t really asked himself such a vague question before, but he was quick to answer himself, “I suppose the Titanic is a symbol of itself.” He shivered again and asked, “So you domesticated them? Curious. We’ve domesticated all those animals too, including ponies and horses, but we did it for a much more animal reason.” Finishing simply, he stated, “We eat them.”

“I know you do,” Colgate answered, frowning at the feeling of her man shivering, “and we ponies don’t. At least we didn’t. That’s the trouble you see. We were herbivores. We never would have eaten creatures we had displaced in the upset. We embarked on a mission that took us hundreds of years to complete. Some say it still isn’t completed, though that’s a pretty big point of contention in pony society. I feel it’s plenty complete.”

“What mission?”

“Our civilizing mission,” Colgate explained. “It was the second cornerstone of our plan. When we took in the other four hoofed races, we did so with the understanding that they would likely become dependent on us and their existence would be a permanent detriment to ponykind. We of course didn’t want this to become a permanent situation. I should guess you can see the trouble it can cause us to care for animals for no other reason than guilt.”

“How were you able to keep such a system in place,” her man inquired. “I mean, what could possess you ponies to so benevolent without any clear gains to be had?”

Wishing she wasn’t hidden under the hoodie yet not despising the feel of her man’s warm belly pressed against her side, she answered, “The strict, self perpetuating nature of the commune helped it along. Everypony struggled every day for almost a thousand years in a cycle that screamed back to the mistakes we’d made. We could never forget, but we did not want a permanent guardianship. We thus took to civilizing them.” Before her man could ask, she continued, “The idea of civilization was based on the simple fact that ponies had achieved intelligence. In that fact, we reasoned that creatures like us should eventually achieve the same intelligence we had. So we adopted our cousins and took to educating them in our ways.”

“To what point and purpose?” Daemeon begged.

“Isn’t it clear to you?” The obtrusive mare poked a hoof in that warm belly and chided, “We tried to teach them so they could earn intelligence and strike out on their own. Not only would we have seen them through the suffering of the upset and Dark Era, we would have improved their lives beyond simple animal life. We would have taught them to live well.”

“Did it work?”

“Thankfully, yes!” Having read what she knew from history texts, she could only imagine the curiosity of early pony society when unintelligent animals were treated as equals. “At least, it worked for the most part. The buffalo left for a more tribal life than that of ponykind. To this day, they roam the southern plains. Cows and sheep earned intelligence of their own, but it is a little removed from ours. Instead of striking out on their own as the buffalo had, they committed themselves to a semi symbiotic relationship with ponykind. They provide us with wool and dairy products, and we provide them with housing and protection. Even donkeys achieved intelligence very near to what we have. They live among ponykind and even form relationships with ponies.”

Her man listened with rapt attention, completely ignoring the chill. Her words hung inconclusively at the end, causing Daemeon to prompt her, “But?”

“But it did not work with all the races. Most especially, our civilization seemed to have no effect on pigs.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” his mare explained, “they don’t have the capacity. The other races had the capacity for intelligence and were thus able to earn it from our lessons. Pigs however, slid into the predicament we dreaded would happen. They became domesticated and grew completely dependent on ponykind for survival. Every pig in the wild died, leaving only the tame beasts in our keeping. They are under our hoof to this day. They have never developed nor do I believe they ever will develop the capacity to live on their own. They only have desire to live, not to live well. A city of pigs would be inconceivable.”

Daemeon pulled his arms out of the sleeves of his hoodie and into his mare’s confines. Gleefully, he wrapped his bare arms around his mare and pulled her up to his chest. Colgate took the opportunity to poke her head out the neck and kiss her man on his bristly chin before receding once more. Her man’s eyes followed her back into the hole and locked her own crystal blue orbs. In the limited light the day had left, none of it being yellow, Daemeon could only just catch two shining, moist glints in the darkness. Two rows of glittering teeth revealed themselves as he asked, “So what’s so important about the pigs?”

Retracting her smile, she answered, “The pigs served their purpose through the Simple Era and into the Celestia governed Reform Era. When civilization failed them, we kept them as the reminder they were initially meant to be. As the years went on however, ponykind grew beyond weary of taking care of animals that gave nothing back in return. Then, 300 years ago, a message came from the west. It was unexpected, and Princess Celestia had no idea at the time of what the implications of the letter were. How could she? The fear between gryphons and ponies had separated the two species so much that they did not have any frequent political or social discourse. So it was with ignorance to their intentions that Celestia agreed to accept the help of the gryphons when they offered to help lighten the load we struggled with.”

“Lighten the load?”

Colgate nodded. “Mmhmm. The gryphons offered to take care of the pigs. They offered to take the whole of the pig species into their federation and take care of them themselves. Their reasoning was that they were indebted to ponykind for holding the world in balance. They told Celestia that it was from the goodness of their hearts that they did as they did.”

“I hear an asterisk in your voice,” her man said with humour. “I’m guessing their intentions were not so pure.”

“No.” Colgate poked her head out of the hoodie once more, bringing her nose just an inch away from her man’s. Her words ceased as she peered into his dark grey eyes. Where hers sparkled like crystal, his seemed like pools of liquid black under the dark hood and sky. She loved those eyes even as they terrified her. Behind them was hidden a dark past. Before them was a happier present, one she was glad to play a part in. They seemed to look both at her and through her. The mare seriously doubted that she could keep a secret from them. Were she a creature that more frequently wore clothes, she would have felt them torn off under his intensity. As she was already naked in his arms, they stripped her of her body and peered at that which lies underneath.

“Not at all,” she continued, her voice lowered to a whisper. “They took the pigs because they were carnivores. They thought it was a miracle that we had domesticated such a fat and submissive species. The gryphons knew they could give them slop, and the pigs would turn it into flesh and blood.”

“Flesh and blood?” Daemeon murmured, not so much asking a question as parroting something out of the mild interest people often show when their mind is elsewhere. He shift his mare in his arms, cupping one relatively large hand beneath her rump while dragging another up the small of her back to rest between her shoulder blades. The movement caused his mare to close her eyes and moan slightly. The feeling of his strong hands running against the grain of her back gave the mare goosebumps Daemeon swore he could feel himself. The very thought that he could give her so much pleasure with nothing other than a simple touch electrified him and drove him even further away from the importance of the story.

Being very much aware of every sensation her man was giving her, Colgate found it a struggle to continue the story. Her mind was also being torn elsewhere. Still she spoke, her warm breath flowing into Daemeon’s neck as her head slid forward and came to rest against his chin, “Yeah. That’s what caused the war. When we found out they were eating the pigs we had sworn we’d take care of, Celestia and all the other ponies were furious.” She gasped slightly as she felt her man’s hand tighten its grip beneath her. She struggled, “We went to war. It was long and bad and ponies. . .” Her words faltered as she felt herself pulled tight into his chest so her face was pressed into his neck.

Colgate could not tell if it was her own body giving into excessive heat or her man’s chest that suddenly made their tight proximity almost unbearable hot even as the air around them chilled. That being said, her mind wasn’t exactly mulling the question over. It couldn’t think much at all. Factors both internal and external prohibited cognizance. This problem grew tenfold as she felt that squeezing hand lift and slide her tail to the side, causing her to squeal and bury her face in his shoulder. She felt the bloodrush inside as her heart spasmed with crisscrossing emotions that both conflicted her and made her want to scream while at the same time being motivated to silence.

She felt the air of a heavy word whispered into her ear, “Colgate?”

Her speech was so muffled in his grasp that he could barely distinguish one word, “Yes?”

Taking a huge breath that ended with his chest and voice quivering, he whispered, “I love you.”

In a voice that was equally shaky and no less honest, she whispered, “I love you too.”

Daemeon took her words as confirmation. His left hand shifted up her back and into the tangled mess of her gossamer mane blue and white mane. He tightened his grip at the back of her head so her mouth was pressed into into his skin, leaving only her nose access to the chill air. Already this was enough to leave her short of breath as she found herself panting. The panting meant nothing as Daemeon’s right hand slid firmly towards moisture and heat, the undeniable measures of her excitement.

His mare felt herself locked in place. If her man so desired to have his way with her, there was nothing she could do to escape him. In submitting so much of herself to him, she had been brought to the point of no return. It was terrifying, but it did not cause her despair. She felt, no, she knew for certain that she needed only say the word for those probing fingers to stop their advance on that part of herself she’d given to nopony in her twenty five years of infertility. They’d been stopped just earlier that day. The interlude had made her no less afraid. What it had done was cause her to realize that her man already loved her as a lover. Just in showing their feelings, they had become more than just friends. The inhibitions she had argued to him earlier meant nothing. Their goodbye was not going to be less painful because she chose abstinence. To the contrary, she feared it would be even more painful. The thought of leaving Pandora’s Box unopened now seemed a terrible thing to do. She decided then and there that she would rather give into her desires than leave her questions unanswered.