While Their Name's Still Spoken

by Estee

Rating: teen
Tags: Sad, Silver Spoon, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 6903

They say no pony's truly dead as long as somepony will speak their name. But to speak is to remember... and sometimes, there's something waiting to hear.

There are no ghosts in Equestria.

Those in the shadowlands can be brought back in memory, in stories and songs and laughs shared once again. But they never come into the world of the living, or fail to leave it in the first place.

Everypony knows that sort of thing never happens.

Everypony except one.

(Now with author Patreon, SubscribeStar, and Ko-Fi pages.)

Published 2014-03-01 23:50:03 UTC
Last updated 2014-03-01 23:50:03 UTC

Words Never Said

Nopony's truly dead while their name's still spoken.

I don't know why those words echo within me, for whatever amount of 'me' exists at all. I don't know if somepony told me that once, or if it's something I overheard, or read... did I read? I don't...

Reading was stupid, wasn't it? I feel like that's the right answer. Like it's something I would have said. But I don't know. I think...

...I don't remember reading, really.

(I don't remember...)

...all ghost stories are made up, somepony said. I don't remember who, or when, or why. Just that... ponies say there are no ghosts. There's life and there's the shadowlands. The two never meet, and there's no between stage. Anypony who ever claims to have seen or heard a ghost is getting it wrong, or lying, or just stupid. Probably stupid. Except that the pony who said they were all made up was stupid too, because 'ghost' is the only word I have. For me. For this idea of a self that's just enough to have a 'me' at all. If I'm not a ghost, then... I don't know what I am.

I don't seem to know much of anything.

There are things I tell myself. Things I think, and thoughts are all I have. All I am.

I've tried what I thought were supposed to be the 'ghostly powers', of course. The only ones which work are the ones I don't want to. I can't be seen, heard, felt... anything. I scream at ponies and they never notice. I tell them how stupid they are, how blind for not seeing me, how can they possibly ignore something so beautiful, so perfect right in front of them...

(I was beautiful.)

...and nothing happens.

None of that qualifies as power. A power is something which can force itself against the world. Which would order the world to admit I'm here. Existing outside all the senses isn't a power: it's a sentence.

But those words...

...they echo. They resonate, they almost seem to form what isn't really a body and give it the little substance I can pretend to. And if I know anything at all, it's that if somepony says my name, I'll feel it, and I'll --

(Maybe I'm just telling myself that.)

(Maybe I'm going insane.)

-- I'll know what my name is.

Why is the world so ugly?

I haven't seen the Sun since --

(how long have I been here?)

-- I found myself here. The day sky is always grey trying to become black, the death of light that comes before the heaviest of storms, weighted with shadows which coat the buildings in shades of whisper. I hear thunder in the distance and the sound is wrong, high-pitched, a thin scream rending the air. At night... no Moon shines through, and all the shadows move. Some of them reach for me. They can't see me, nothing can: they just writhe out and try to blindly snatch in hopes of catching something. I don't go too close to the walls at night. Nothing touches me, and maybe nothing ever will -- but if anything could and just hasn't gotten lucky yet...

The buildings... stone cracks and flakes as I watch. Paint peels. Foundations groan and lean another degree towards collapsing. Colors are faded, or offset, or twisted. It's the same for objects. Boundaries are warped, edges bulge or pit. The soil dries to sand and blows through me on the chillest breeze, even during the heart of summer. Everything inanimate on the verge of disintegration, always, but never quite completing the process.

The living...

...they were always ugly.

(Did I just remember that?)

But this ugly?

Coats are thin, or missing patches. Fur drops away and rots into the dust. Wispy manes tangle, hooves crack, teeth on the verge of falling out, and all of it missed by dull eyes. They tend to plants which are so clearly beyond hope and waste their efforts in keeping things alive which should have died long ago, things death would be a mercy for. They eat fruit that's mold wrapped over pus. Everything and everypony dying, all the time dying and they don't notice, they move and talk and laugh as if everything was normal. And that's not even the strangest thing about them. There's the...

(Don't make me look.)

...I can hardly stand to be around them. But I have to be. I have to stay close, and it disgusts me, but I need to be close enough to listen. For my name. They have to talk about me eventually, I know that, because they're all so ugly and I was beautiful. The only thing that was beautiful in the entire world. How can they not talk about me? Everypony should, really. All the time. There's just something keeping them from doing it right now.

And for all the time I've been here.

(How long?)

But they have to start eventually. They can't hold off forever. I'll wait...

(...I've been waiting...)

(...I...)

It's snowing, I think. Something is drifting down from the sky. It smells like burnt fur and singed skin. It's black and lightly pits anything it touches with a faint sizzle of heat and acid.

The deformed fillies and colts outside the dilapidated schoolhouse are laughing about it.

I don't know why I come here. The ponies most likely to talk about me have to be those of my own generation, right? Whatever that generation was. But I think -- I think I was older than this. Old enough that they wouldn't have known me, not unless one of them was --

(did I ever...?)

I try to remember. I try to imagine sometimes and it hurts, like using a muscle which had never moved before. Try to bring back (or create) the feeling of a body next to me. Of the pain they said would come when a little life emerged from mine.

But... nothing.

(Why wouldn't somepony want to be with me?)

Anyway, I'd know if any of these were mine. Because they'd be beautiful.

I watch them play, sickened bodies hurling themselves over unsafe equipment, nothing ever quite shattering. Over in the shadows at the right of the building, two are making a third cry because she's ugly -- well, even uglier than the majority -- or at least that should be the reason if they have any sense. I want to watch it more closely. I want to hear exactly what they're saying, because I need to hear what everypony is saying. But I can't get too close. There are shadows there, deep ones in what's never truly day, and they're not moving. It just feels like they want to. Like they're waiting for me to approach before they try.

It happens a lot, the crying, and it's always two bringing it forth, the same two. They travel in pairs so that one can always provide an alibi for the other.

(It's a refinement, really.)

They switch targets every so often to keep things fresh, but the words never change, not really. Laughing about ugliness. About lack. About incompletion.

They're teasing because the mark hasn't come yet. Because surely it never will arrive on a pony so lacking in anything special, they snicker and point out faults and invent flaws which don't exist because all that matters is that they believe those things are real. The tears make them laugh. And the world is theirs because they have their marks and the longer somepony else doesn't, the more special those marks are, the more chance that there's anything important about them at all which isn't a talent for making other ponies cry and avoiding all the consequences from it.

They're...

...just as ugly as everypony else. Especially since

(Don't make me look.)

my head feels heavy. I reach up to touch it, find out what's causing the sensation of pressing, invisible tons trying to drive my snout into the dust, and I can't. I can never touch myself. I've never seen myself, any part. When I move a hoof, it feels like something happens -- but no contact is made. Muscles don't flex because they don't exist. Eyes made of aether can't blink. I tell myself that I'm trotting, but I drift at ground level like fog waiting for that first touch of Sun to dissipate it, a ray which never breaks through the clouds. I'm a memory which remembers what it was like to move and almost nothing else.

I watch them play. But I can't remember playing, or anypony I might have played with.

I think I might have laughed.

(What was I laughing about?)

My head feels so heavy, and I don't know why. It's getting worse while I watch the youngest pony, too young to have a mark at all, really, cry about that lack because the other two are lying about how it should be there already and that little pony is falling for it, I don't have a head or a skull or anything at all and it all feels as if it's about to cave in and I can't be here any more I can't I can't I can't.

...

...I can't run. I can only remember the idea of what it might have been like to run.

But sometimes that's enough.

There's a really ugly earth pony pulling a cart across the western bridge.

I watch her for a while. I can't help it. Even among the horde of the distorted and worthless, she stands out. That coat... no shade of yellow ever should have been that sickly, and her mane is like urine tainted with blood. And yet she has no idea how ugly she is. She just keeps moving as if she has a right to enter town looking like that, as if she's entitled to exist, and other stupid and less ugly ponies nod to her or wave hooves and more than a few even smile. Some actually come up to her and ask about what she's got in the cart. What kind of contraption she's put together this time and she tells them no, not just yet, still in progress, this is just picking up a few parts on the way out, but first she has to hit the train station and pick up something far more important. That makes a few of them laugh and others get excited, ask about whether there's going to be an extended visit this time, they can set up the benches in the town square if this incoming pony feels like giving her hometown a taste of --

-- the ugly pony's voice is so stupid. And her flank is

(I don't want to.)

probably just as mangy as the rest of her.

She makes stupid small talk with ponies whose clouded eyes must not be letting any sight in if they can stay near her for more than one second, whose ears must have given out in self-defense.

I hate her. Who wouldn't?

But I follow her.

She's like a beacon, a lighthouse of hideousness in a sea of deformity. We move all the way to the train, which rattles and belches and spews forth rancid steam stinking of rust and sweat and the efforts of stupid ponies who would be doing something important if they had any real talents, any marks for something which mattered, something like -- what I did.

(Which was...)

And then a pony who's just as ugly gets off the train, a unicorn mare whose horn is cracked and twisted which is fine because horns were always stupid anyway, only her voice is even worse. It's not the stupid here-and-gone accent this time, it's the tone, screechy and grinding at the same time, pebbles being pulverized in a steel mortar, and everypony here should be tearing their drooping ears completely away from their skulls just to get rid of it. But none of them do, and the two mares nuzzle, which makes me sick to a stomach I don't even have.

They're talking. Nothing important. Nothing about me. Just oh it's been so long, how was the tour, did you get the patent, I saw one of the new models, never mind that, we all played the record at the wedding and it was just like you were there, come on, we'll get back home before anypony shows up, we promised each other the first few hours before you went to your sister, let's just go... And they're laughing and giggling like fillies and it's really pissing me off because ponies that ugly shouldn't be allowed any kind of happy, forget about that much of it. But maybe when you're that ugly, the only hope you have is connecting with somepony just as bad, and --

-- I can't look away. I can't stop listening.

And I follow.

(Why?)

I wonder whose tail will completely fall off first.

We've left town now. I don't like that. Now there's only two ponies around who could potentially talk about me, and all these two are doing is chatting about each other, which would be worthless even if it wasn't such stupid stuff to begin with. It's just things they've done in the last two years, ponies she's met and stuff the other one's built, travels and staying at home, making a business and refining some sort of -- it doesn't matter. They just keep blabbering as they follow the road out. The trees shudder at their passage, drop small branches. Birds molt bloody feathers all over the path.

The unicorn stops dead in the middle of the road. She's looking at something off to the left. Staring.

Oh, the earth pony says, and there's this stupid note of apology in her voice which has no reason to be there. Some stupid words about how she should have warned her.

The unicorn doesn't glance at her. She's still staring at -- whatever it is -- while she talks, and it's just stuff like I saw the letter, but I wasn't ready to see it, I never really thought about -- what it would look like...

The earth pony sighs. Yeah, she says. Nopony cleaned it up. It's just -- sitting there. A shell. Nopony wants to go near it. I guess it'll fall apart on its own one of these days, the rest of the way, as far as it still can. But until that happens...

She stops. She isn't looking towards whatever it is. She's just looking at the road. I don't know why. Whatever's over there, the thing the unicorn won't stop staring at, almost has to be more interesting than anything else on this ugly trail.

(So why haven't I...?)

And then she starts talking again. She has to pass this every time she goes into town. She's learned not to look. She's just -- used to it.

How long? asks the unicorn, in a tone which tells me she probably knows but just wants to hear it said.

A year next week, says the earth pony.

There's this really long pause, which at least means I don't have to put up with their dumb voices for a few seconds.

How is she?

(How is she?)

...did I say...?

...no, that was the unicorn. I'm sure of it. My voice wouldn't have sounded that dumb.

The earth pony stays quiet for a long time. One of her eyelashes drops off, blows away on the foul breeze.

She doesn't talk about it, the earth pony says. She doesn't, so Ah -- I don't. She's not ready. Doesn't even look when we go by. Didn't on the first day after or any day since. When she looks -- we'll talk. Not going to force her. It's just -- not time yet.

That's not healthy, the unicorn insists.

The earth pony closes her dull eyes and says nothing.

And they're both quiet again.

Finally, the unicorn looks away and asks why anypony hasn't cleaned it up yet.

The earth pony shrugs and tells her it's stupid, really. There's this rumor going around that it's -- well, haunted. So no pony will stay on the site.

The unicorn giggles, awkwardly, and says there's no such thing as ghosts.

I know, the earth pony agrees. But nopony wants to go in there... And they go back to trotting down the path.

I wonder what the dumb unicorn was looking at.

(I could look.)

It must be really stupid, because like attracts like. Ugly attracted ugly, right?

(I could look if I wanted to.)

(I could.)

(I...)

I guess this is supposed to be a workshop or something. There's crooked tools all over the place and rusted pieces of warped metal and all sorts of other stuff that only ugly ponies with no real talent would be stuck with using for the rest of their stupid lives. The unicorn manages to fake being fascinated and keeps talking about all the changes since the last time she was here. It's boring stuff. Every conversation is boring when it's not about me and I don't think this one is going to head for the topic I need any time soon or ever. I should leave. The Sun will be lowered soon, if it was ever really up at all, and if I stay any longer, that'll put me on the road under Moon with --

-- the shadows.

I should leave.

(I can't leave.)

It's probably too late already.

Anyway, there's light in here. It's a grey light with no warmth to it, but it keeps the dark corners down.

The unicorn knows it's getting late and smiles, showing off rotted teeth. I should have left already, she says, sounding embarrassed and happy at the same time.

She knows where you are, the earth pony replies. I kind of figured we'd run into overtime here. You can stay for dinner if you want to. And then she promises no dish will explode this time, and they both laugh.

Because you're not cooking, the unicorn giggles. And since this is going to stay a good day, neither will she.

The earth pony laughs some more.

(I hate that laugh.)

Right, the ugly earth pony says --

-- she's uglier than the unicorn, I just decided that --

-- I never cook any more if I can help it. Or if she can stop me. Her dull eyes drift down for a moment, then come back up, and she says something stupid. Really stupid. So stupid that nopony could be bothered to listen to any of it.

(She was talking about)

Okay, fine, just to prove I pay attention no matter what anypony says

(who?)

the words were Funny how we got her mark wrong all those years, isn't it?

There was a little humor in those words. I don't know why. But there was more --

-- sadness?

(Sadness.)

The unicorn looks -- angry?

Because she felt she had to lie, the unicorn says. She started lying the day it appeared and kept it up until the moment you caught her. Because she --

-- spat, forced, snarled --

(She?)

...made her think she had to lie. In order to keep her as a friend.

The last word hits metal, makes it rust all the faster, corrodes and hisses through, acid steaming the air.

(...so heavy...)

The earth pony sighs. I was there, she says. I know everything that happened because I was right next to her when it did. I was just thinking about how sometimes you only see things -- one way. You see the picture in just a single context, so you decide what it's supposed to be a picture of. And because they were always together

(they)

it was supposed to be a picture of wealth and comfort and just plain getting lucky, you know? But then the context changed. And suddenly it was cooking with the finest gourmet ingredients and best equipment in the world before using the greatest sense of taste that ever existed to make sure everything had come out perfectly like it always did. And that's what it was all along. But she was standing in a different frame, the wrong part of the gallery, and -- I couldn't see it. But it was right there the whole time...

The unicorn is still angry. She wants the earth pony to understand why. It's still wrong, she insists, and there's a corona around her horn, sickly green swirling and spiking from rage. We screwed up when we were looking, she says. I know that. I know we did just about everything wrong you could do and still survive it. But I remember how we got there in the end. We stopped hiding from ourselves. And to find yourself that early -- and then hide it, being forced to hide it so you could have one friend, a false friend who couldn't even --

-- the earth pony cuts her off just before the rage turns into a scream.

And that's why I don't ask her to talk about it, the earth pony says. Because it took her hours to stop crying that first night, and I was there for every tear. Because she kept crying almost every day for moons after, when she was in the old clubhouse with us, whenever she tried to say she was sorry over and over because it took almost a year before she let herself really believe anypony had forgiven her. Because there's nights when I see her sitting all quiet and reflective, staring out the window in any direction but that one, and I know she's thinking about her. About what they had, and the lie it was built on. About what it cost. And all I can do is go sit next to her. Press up against her flank and let her know I'm there. Most nights, it's enough.

And the other nights?

(And the other nights?)

The ugliest earth pony in an ugly world closes her eyes again. It makes her even more hideous.

She still cries sometimes, the earth pony says. But less every year. I think maybe one day, she will forgive herself. And I'll be there when it happens.

Forgiveness, the unicorn says, and it's sarcastic. Did you forgive her?

The snarl, the anger, the flare of light around her horn...

Ever?

(Her?)

They're both quiet. The corona smooths out a little, but the green light feeds what few shadows there are, and I retreat into the center of the room. Too close to the earth pony. Almost touching her. That ugly could be contagious. Should be. Nothing should ever stay close to that and hope to stay beautiful.

The earth pony looks at the unicorn. Looks through me.

I don't even say her name, the filthy thing says, and those words have a faint note of surprise. And -- that's not healthy, is it? It might even be the worst thing. For me and for --

-- and then another mare trots in --

(don't look don't look don't look)

-- an earth pony, grey, and oh those eyes, the glasses are stupid and ugly and don't fit her face at all, but the eyes behind them, that purple-pink shining in a way that makes me want to believe there is Sun here, that Sun comes from her...

The sickly yellow earth pony freezes. The unicorn looks panicked. But the newcomer just smiles, laughs to see them both, and the sound of it, the bells, the first sweet sound I've heard --

(don't know don't want to know don't want to look don'tdon'tdon't)

-- right up until the words come out.

My tied-for-best-friend and my mate in the same room, she laughs. Should I worry?

I charge.

I lower my head (if I had one) because the weight, that horrible weight is pressing on it and lowering it just makes things easier for the next stage anyway, I push my hooves (the memory of them) against the ground and gallop at her, I have to hurt, I have to hurt, I hurt so much and it doesn't stop and I go right through her with the pain following me all the way, she doesn't know anything happened, I drop to the ground and twist and writhe and the dust doesn't even notice, the shadows shrink into recesses and shiver at the wail.

But they don't hear any of it.

We've been in here for hours and nothing's exploded, the unicorn laughs with relief. I think we're still officially adults -- and I'm still one who respects the mare who got there first..

The grey earth pony moves in and nuzzles the unicorn, the nuzzle meant for friends. And then she goes to the yellow one and that nuzzle is not for friends, it's something much more and I can't look at their faces, I can't stop looking at them but I don't have to see their expressions, so I look at their flanks because it doesn't feel like there's anywhere else to go --

-- and see what I always see, on every pony everywhere, whenever I forget, whenever I have to look and then force myself to forget until the next time, what I wish I could never see again.

Empty space.

Vacuum.

Blankness.

And I scream.

I -- followed them into the house.

I don't know why.

No -- I do. Because the grey mare is dirty and discolored and just as ugly as everything else (excepting the yellow earth pony, who's just the ugliest thing ever), but her eyes...

I haven't seen anything beautiful in --

-- it's probably just something about the stupid glasses. A false reflection. Everything about that pony is false. I know that.

I know it.

But a false beauty is still more than I've had in

(not mine)

some time.

She cooked. Of course she cooked. They all enjoy the meal, and 'all' is the unicorn, the ugliest pony in the world, and three children. Two fillies, one colt. They stop moving just long enough to eat, and after that, they aren't even still for enough time to double-check the count.

One of the fillies has her eyes.

And now they're talking. She's talking. She wants to know if they're going to make it a full reunion before the unicorn leaves.

Could be, the unicorn says. It depends on how the schedule works out -- not mine, I don't have to leave for two weeks, but you know that one -- even if she gets free time, she could get distracted on the way in with a new stunt. Remember, the last time we were all supposed to get together, we did -- at her hospital bed...

The grey mare giggles and says concussions should never be funny, but it was just so hard not to laugh when she got to pull the same prank three times in a row because a certain pony couldn't remember the setup... They all laugh.

They talk about more stuff. It's pretty much all stupid, so I just concentrate on the grey mare's eyes.

The meal wraps up and the unicorn heads out after the other two refuse to let her anywhere near the dishes, rehearsing her excuses for her sister all the way through the living room. The earth ponies break up one rough-and-tumble between the kids, then go over all the homework. The filly with the grey mare's eyes has to redo her history assignment: she got some centuries wrong.

(Just like her mother.)

They put the kids to bed. And then they sit in the living room together.

They're not nuzzling, at least. Or -- more. They're writing. The hideous one is mouthwriting notes on top of blueprints. The grey... I think it's a draft for a recipe book. At least, I saw a dish name and some ingredients. There wasn't much point in going past that. Who needs the dumb details, anyway?

And I'm stuck with them. Because it's night and the path doesn't have enough lights and there's shadows outside and what I want more than anything else right now is to trot through the door and head out under a Moon I never see to find those shadows and walk straight into them so they can do whatever they want with me and I'll never have to hear another stupid voice or look at an ugly pony or see them and --

-- the grey mare has stopped writing. She's looking out a window. She doesn't seem to be looking at anything in particular. Just -- looking.

The yellow one notices. She stops writing too, trots over.

If they nuzzle, I'm going to wish I could throw up.

We have to talk, the yellow pony says.

I ran into the principal on the way home, the grey one tells her without looking over. Just ignore the note: we don't need to attend the conference any more.

The yellow one blinks, starts to insist she never saw any note -- then sighs, and tells the grey that can wait for morning. This is about right now.

And what's so important about right now? the grey wants to know in a distant way.

Next week, the yellow tells her.

Which is decidedly not now, the grey points out with a distant humor.

The yellow says that it's a year. Next week.

The grey closes her eyes, and all beauty leaves my ugly world.

I was wondering if you'd say something, the grey tells the yellow. I was wondering -- if I would.

The yellow presses against her. I don't charge. It wouldn't do any good.

There was no funeral, the grey says. Would that have changed anything? If there had been?

There was no body, the yellow replies.

You don't need a body for a funeral, the grey quietly answers. Just ponies who want to mourn. And there weren't any. None who would admit it. No marker. No gravesite. Nopony willing to fund either one or stand next to it and say a few words. Did anypony want to be seen there? There was no money to fake it for. No will, no heirs. And -- no friends.

Her eyes are still closed. The algae-shot green leakage at the corners is new.

That's not your fault, the yellow insists. It was never your fault. You just wanted to tell the truth, you wanted to be accepted for who you were and not who she wanted you to be.

She wanted me -- to be her, the grey softly says. One voice wasn't enough. She wanted to hear herself speak as a chorus. And I echoed her, most of the time. She was furious when I said anything she didn't say first. Do you remember when your grandmother came to school? And I applauded? The fight we had after that...

(kicking, snapping, going for the braid)

...it was so easy to be her, the grey continues at a whisper. I didn't have to think for myself. I didn't have to act on my own. I didn't have to be me in any way. You and I -- reflected each other the whole time, you know that? You nearly missed your mark because you insisted on letting other ponies tell you what you might be while you hid from yourself. I got my mark -- and then I hid. But it was a reflection in a silver spoon. Upside-down and backwards.

Ah know, the yellow one tells her. Ah -- I...

...I like it when you sound like yourself, the grey one says. Not like the pony who speaks at the engineering conferences. Like you. I want you to be you. All the time. If somepony else can't understand you, that's their problem.

The yellow giggles. I think it's forced.

(I think I hate you.)

(I know.)

The grey sighs. I want you to be you -- and me to be me, she says. But years ago, I told myself that nearly all of me was her. And then she died. And nopony mourned, not openly. Nopony at all. Not even me. Because the part of me that was her... we all killed it, all of us together. It took years to completely kill it -- and I still always have to watch myself for signs that it's coming back. Every time I get sarcastic, or angry, or hate something -- I want to be sure it's my hate... and not hers.

She taught me how to hate, the yellow quietly says.

No, the grey counters. We both did.

They're quiet for a while. I can't stand their quiet.

(stop touching her)

The grey shifts her snout a little, forces the ugly glasses to move.

I could have gotten a marker, she says. I could have held the funeral. Maybe ponies would have come just to make sure she was dead. I don't think you knew just how bad it was at the end. She always needed somepony to attack and somepony to attack them with. Once I was -- gone -- the first part went out of control. We were all there when she got expelled, but -- I heard about the other schools from her father

(from...?)

because he always wanted me to go back, he begged me to try and said he begged her to listen, but I -- just never wanted to risk it. Then it was down to tutors, she drove them away, and after he died, the servants couldn't stand it any longer, I know some of the merchants in town wouldn't sell to her any more... nopony would get even near the property without money involved, especially not after what happened at that one supposed party, the last party, the one where she...

She's quiet again, but just for two breaths.

And then the grey mare says I never mourned her -- I never asked anypony else to -- because doing so was bringing back that part of my life. I never said goodbye because I hate acknowledging what I used to be. What she could have been -- if I'd been strong enough to go to her...

The yellow pony shakes her head.

It's not that you weren't strong enough to go, the yellow mare says. You knew she wasn't strong enough to follow.

The grey mare calls her a liar, but does so without anger: just sorrow. The yellow gently protests. And they talk to each other until it's time for bed, and I don't follow them up, I won't, I can't see the two of them like that, not like --

-- why am I reacting like this?

They're stupid. Everypony's stupid. And they're ugly because everypony who wasn't me deserves to be

(somepony please tell me I'm beautiful)

and they don't have any marks because nopony else deserves one

(please)

so they're just like everypony else and I don't have any reason to be this angry just because they went upstairs together and the yellow one got her to stop crying and

her eyes

are so beautiful

(please tell me I was beautiful)

It's hard to wait through the night when you never sleep. When you can't even close your eyes, when you don't have eyes that can close at all. Harder when you're awake forever with your own thoughts and all that you are is thought...

But I made it to morning. I even got through their stupid routine of getting the kids off to school, getting them all up on time and fed with gourmet lunches packed.

(I couldn't watch her cook)

And then the hideous yellow thing leaves, and the grey goes out the door and off to work and --

-- I follow her.

Because I can.

She goes down the path. She keeps snout-shifting her glasses because they always tilted a little too far to the left after she looked around and

(she loves that stupid style)

a better pair wouldn't have done it, but it wasn't like she cared about perfectly sensible stuff like that. She probably loses three minutes just on adjusting the dumb things because she stops trotting whenever she does it.

And then she stops moving. When her glasses are perfect.

She's looking off to the right.

(because she's coming from the other direction)

and then she leaves the path.

(I don't want to.)

I keep following.

We move through the light coating of snow for a while. There used to be a road here, but no pony's maintained it. Some of the stones are split

(from heat)

and snow has fallen into the cracks, turned to ice at the deepest levels. It'll take a lot of heat to melt it out before it can be repaired, and Sun never shines. Not that anypony cares to fix it. Nopony has come here in a long time.

(a year next week)

She stops.

There's something a little ahead of her. Something black and broken and flaking and stinking of smoke, something I won't look at. I won't. I can look at her instead. At her eyes --

-- which are closed again.

Stupid grey mare.

And then she starts talking.

This place isn't haunted, she tells the air. Ponies don't come up here because they don't want to remember. You had pretty much everypony hating you by the end, you know. So they make an excuse -- any excuse at all. I had mine, and they have theirs, and -- somepony has to give that excuse up.

She's quiet for a while.

(she always did that when she was thinking)

We're afraid, she finally goes on. We're afraid of calling you back, I think. We don't want to remember the bad times, and -- because we don't want that, we tell ourselves that bad times was all there were. For most ponies, it's even the truth. But not for me. I deny what you gave to me. I killed it. At least -- I want to think I did. I tell myself I only enjoyed it because you made me think I had to in order to stay with you. I tell myself a lot of things. You made me a pretty good liar...

(I)

...and then I stopped lying to you, she says.

(You)

You couldn't take that, she says to the broken place. You did -- what I was always afraid of. And then there was only one place to go -- what turned out to be the right place. And no matter what anypony said to me -- your father begged me, he tried bribes, he went down on all four knees and wept in front of me, he offered me everything there was...

(I)

...I told myself the bad times were all there were, she tells

(me?)

because I had to believe it.

Her eyes are still closed. Not looking at anything. Nothing that exists here and now.

That the bad times were the only reason we stayed together, she says. And you made me such a good liar... even to myself. But that's just it, isn't it? I lied. Not all the jokes were on somepony. Not all the laughter was cruel. We were horrible -- but not all the time. There was more to you than what you put other ponies through, as long as I was there. As long as you had someplace where it was safe to be something else. Somepony safe. But I couldn't lie to you any more, and you couldn't take having been lied to, and then -- you weren't anything else. Ever again.

(the weight on my head)

(it hurts so much)

(I wish I could just drop it)

The wind rustles the powdery flakes. Ash swirls.

I hate myself.

(I hate myself.)

...did she...

...did I...

we both said it.

Together.

And she has more words.

For missing you, she says. For not having tried harder. For all the things you could have been. For the good times, the truly good times that I block out because I buried too much of myself in trying to change. So much of me -- but never you. I never buried you. I never truly mourned, did I? And until I do -- I'll never let you go.

(I'm sorry.)

( I'm sorry... )

"I'm sorry."

Her beautiful eyes snap open. She stares.

Snow blows about her hooves, goes through mine.

She shakes her head.

Just the wind, she says. Just me... wishing for more than wind...

She blinks. Clear tears fall.

I miss you, she says. I miss the good times. I admit to the good times, you stupid bitch. I love the little core of you which came out every now and again, and I'll try to remember that was there, I promise. Maybe I'll even -- tell some of the stories, to keep that memory going. As if the kids really need inspiration for their pranks...

She's smiling.

Goodbye, she says, and follows that word with a name.

And the last thing I feel is the warmth of Sun against my coat.