Zephyr Breeze, This Was Your Life...
Zephyr Breeze opened his eyes, which caught him off guard. Until now, he’d assumed there was no more seeing to be done.
His patting hooves checked himself over. Still lying down on his back, still with his wings splayed out, and still with his bun in place and with the scratch of stubble under his chin. At least the pain had gone from his stomach. The headache had vanished too. When he took a breath, however, nothing passed down his nose or throat. Yet he felt neither panic nor the urge to struggle for air. His insides seemed to have been cleaned out.
Pure darkness surrounded him. Wondering if he was in a hospital, he glanced about, but the darkness was absolute. Now he thought about it, he couldn’t feel anything pressing against his back, but maybe that was… some anaesthetic? Maybe it was also making him blind; he’d never bothered to find out how it worked. He rolled forwards into an upright sitting position. Strange. No feeling anywhere. He floated, and yet his body acted like solid floor supported him.
At least there didn’t seem to be a tunnel. In his current frame of mind, he didn’t feel like going into the light at the end. There’d probably be a test of some sort.
Wowser, he thought, somebody respects my need for personal space.
“Hey, guys!” he yelled out, and his voice echoed in the darkness. “Whoa. Just how big is this place? It’s like the Manehattan Mane Museum in here.”
No one replied. Bits of his mind started to murmur uneasily, but they were going up against years of finely trained selective deafness, and he wasn’t about to give it up now.
“Look,” he said cheerfully, “I’m happy you all understand my needs. It’s not easy to get the big z’s in my hectic schedule. But you don’t have to worry about me no more. I’m all better now. And can I just say you med boys and girls have done a fine job on the surgery?”
His words echoed back at him. Deep inside his chest, he cringed at how staged they sounded. The bits of his mind began shaking him, but he waved them aside and looked around. Now that I think about it, aren’t hospitals supposed to be better lit than this? They don’t believe in all that “dark room therapy” stuff, do they?
“Come on, guys,” he whined. “I’m as fit as a horse. Really. All this dramatic pause stuff is sweet and all, but I can see right through it. You don’t have to mope around when the star player’s back in the buckball game.”
Beyond the dying whispers of his own voice, the silence wore on. His mind wasn’t alone now; his own heartbeat was starting to hit harder. He could feel the heat running through him.
“Guys?” He looked around.
The echoes of hooves dripped through the silence.
Zephyr was not noted for his lightning reflexes, but at this new sound he went from resting to standing, limbs taut and wings poised to flap, fast enough to shock even himself. A few seconds passed while his straining eyes and ears caught up with his mind.
“Who’s there?” he said, his voice slipping into a warble. Hastily, he summoned every name he knew. “Fluttershy? Mom? Dad? Um. A-Anyone?”
The hooves continued to echo, never getting louder or quieter and yet always close by. No matter where he threw his panicky gaze, though, only darkness surrounded him.
“Come on, g-guys,” he said. “Th-This isn’t funny anym-more. Hello?”
Why can’t I see anyone? When the steps finally died away, he found his legs shaking, and forced them to stiffen again. What is this? Some kind of fever dream? Oh man, and I thought eating that rotten hay back in college was a bad idea…
“No,” said a level voice. “This is no dream. This is most certainly the genuine article.”
Zephyr spun around with a yelp.
Standing barely a leap away, the white mask peered coolly back at him. No – he blinked away the fright and peered closer – that was a face. Around it, the darkness took on a rounded shape. A cloak billowed against the endless void, its creases catching some mysterious light. There was a suggestion of a hood around the face, fastened under the chin by a sapphire broach. Even through his layers of panic, a smaller Zephyr in his mind whistled at the sparkle.
Yet the sheer whiteness of the face captured his attention. Two dark blue eyes stared at him from under lazy eyelids, as ice daggers half-sheathed in snowy scabbards. One unicorn horn rose like a crown from the pale forehead. Eyelashes, nostrils, and thin mouth added the final accents to her pallid countenance.
Wait a minute… Zephyr squinted at her. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
The delicate muzzle wrinkled. “We have had the displeasure of meeting before, yes. Apologies for being late, but it is the style these days for a more gothic posthumous reception. The dramatic pause does leave quite an impression. Oh, which reminds me.”
“Wait, don’t tell me. I have a killer memory.” Zephyr tapped his chin. “You’re from Mane Therapy Training?”
From under the cloak, a white hoof slid out and wrapped around something. With a twist of the pastern, light gleamed over the figure’s head.
Zephyr fell silent. A scythe blade commands a lot of attention.
“Oh,” he said.
“Beautiful work, isn’t it?” cooed the figure. “I would have preferred something a little less rustic, but who am I to question the value of tradition? And that silverwork is simply exquisite. Classical Era smithy work from the earth pony side of the Celestial Grace artistic movement. I didn’t have the heart to say no. Besides, I make it work anywhere.”
Her other hoof slid out and flicked at the purple curl of her mane, and in that moment the uncertainty fell from Zephyr’s eyes. He gaped at her.
“Rarity!?”
She lowered herself in a bobbing curtsey. “But of course.”
“You’re the… I mean, you of all ponies…?”
Rarity gave him a small smile. “Always the last one you’d expect, isn’t it? A lady is full of surprises, n’est ce pas? Who says the afterlife can’t have a little class?”
Zephyr opened his mouth to argue, but a more urgent weight pressed down on him. Now that it was out in the open, the sheer pressure shattered layers of his thoughts, his delusions, his every instinctive shield and the walls of his mental fortress. Uncomfortably cold, he gritted his teeth against the chattering trying to commandeer them.
“W-Wait a moment…” he said as the chattering broke through. “Y-You mean I’m… really…?”
Rarity lowered her head once, and the scythe shifted along her shoulder briefly. “Yes. I’m afraid so.”
No. That can’t be right. If I’m supposed to be… well, not there anymore, then who’s this standing right here? Why am I in this place? I’m pretty sure my afterlife is supposed to involve the great cloud city in the sky. Weren’t there pegasi in white robes, or something? And where’s my grapes? My lounge chair? No, this must be some kind of mad mix-up.
“But didn’t anyone check on me?” he said, pushing his bravado forwards. “I mean, come on. I’m the Big Breeze. Sure I was a little sick, but Flutter Butter wouldn’t leave me hanging. And I know Mom and Dad just adore having me around.”
Her cool stare was worse than any spoken reply. Soon, the void emptied his words of substance until even their echoes were no more than a fading memory. Zephyr gulped.
“Th-They did come for me?” he said. “R-Right?”
“Hm. How do I put this delicately?” Rarity closed her eyes and raised her head a little higher. “You developed a consumptive illness that, after a few weeks of denial and debt, left you stuck in a cardboard box – which, by the way, was a pretty tacky affair by cardboard box standards; you didn’t even fold the edges right – you lived far away from home without sending them so much as a letter telling them where –”
“It was on my to-do list!” Zephyr tried a smile which barely made it across his lips, and gave up trying to reach the rest of his face. “I just wanted to wait until I got somewhere a bit more upmarket. That wouldn’t have taken that long.”
She held up her hoof until his ears fainted onto his skull.
“Thank you,” she said. “As I was saying, you had neither wit nor inclination to make an appointment with a doctor, much less to visit your own family, and then you decided to save up on paper for when you miraculously healed yourself through ‘meditative’ sleep. I’d say in those circumstances, the chances of them finding you and saving you were not particularly impressive.”
Zephyr glanced about at the surrounding darkness. Arguments rallied forth in his mind, but the darkness simply sucked them away. He wished he’d died with some protective clothing on. That darkness was staring at him.
“Um…” he said.
Rarity shook her head at him, brow melting with sadness. “Aw, poor Fluttershy. Oh, why did you have to be so careless, Mister Breeze? She’s going to be so inconsolable, the poor soul.”
“Look.” Zephyr pounced on the new opening. “You’re one of her friends. Can’t you send her a message? Tell her the Big Z’s OK? Looks down fondly on his big sister, and all that jazz?”
“It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid. And excuse me, but you are most certainly not OK.”
“What?” Suddenly, the darkness leaned in closer; his pegasus wings felt the inrush as currents shifted around him.
“Besides the obvious predicament i.e. your being – shall we say – vitally challenged, which in my experience fits no one’s ideal of ‘being OK’, there is the small matter of what happens next.”
That settles it. This is officially a nightmare. I knew all that ‘meditative sleep’ nonsense was just a bunch of hooey. Wake up, Zeph! The real world cries out for your sweet relief!
He bit his leg, and then yelped at the pain stabbing into him. Here, it was sharper, purer, more real. Every inch of the bitten skin screamed at the reality.
“Come on, you beautiful dummy.” Zephyr slapped himself around the face, but the pain exploded and hit him over and over until he yelped. “Make the world happy. Wakey-wakey!”
Rarity giggled into her hoof. “‘Wakey-wakey’?”
“I don’t get it!” He winced at another blast of pain. “Why aren’t I waking up?”
“Come now, let’s have no more of this silliness.” The scythe shifted, catching a glint of light from nowhere. At once, Zephyr stared at it and froze. “One must approach death with some degree of dignity and calm.”
“But I can’t die now!” he wailed. “I’m too talented! You can’t take me away now! I haven’t even made my first sculpture yet!”
The void hung still.
“It… it was going to be a self-portrait…”
The void absorbed the words, stretching them to an infinite expanse which disintegrated even in his mind. His lips trembled.
“I… I had big plans… and, and all kinds of dreams…”
With barely a movement on her pure forehead, Rarity’s cool gaze sharpened into a cool scowl. He couldn’t avoid the sheer chill of that gaze, or the way it slid neatly through the last remnants of his bluster to something small and wriggly within.
A memory poured through the pinprick hole. At first, he saw only drops and trickles: his cloud-bottomed living room, surrounded by a mountain of toys; a pair of red glasses – Mom – and a smiling wisp of a moustache – Dad – speaking softly to him from several hands above the carpet; the open skies, the shadows of foals gliding past, and the terrifying rows of flags, waiting for him. The rest of the cloud rings and cloud tracks and cloud platforms pooled together until he saw Flight Camp, and felt his own knees knocking together.
“Hm.” Rarity cocked her head, twisting the knife of her scowl in his head. “Mister Breeze, I believe you are not being entirely honest with me. Are you?”
The way she thrust the words out brought forth the face of his old coach. Instantly, he blinked away the phantasm.
Rarity sighed. “Nothing else?”
The pool spread out. Shouts rippled across it as he faced his lanky big sister, she red in the face, he waving his forelimbs as though fashioning a shroud out of thin air. Her cloud sculpture disintegrated at his hooves.
I didn’t mean it, he thought without thinking. It was just an accident. It’s not like she never had an accident at Flight Camp. And there were clouds everywhere. I don’t know why she’d get so upset.
The rising pond washed his excuses away. Zephyr gritted his teeth.
“Cut it out!” he snapped. “Quit messing with my head! That stuff’s private!”
The images coalesced into movement; he remembered pacing up and down, the dining room swivelling about him while his parents picked up his school report. He remembered their nervous smiles. Their cooing voices, their patting hooves on his shoulders. Even his big sister leaned across the table, face squeezed with embarrassment.
“Look,” he said. “This is all very touching and everything, but can I move to the next bit now?”
“That’s up to you, Mister Breeze,” said Rarity.
“What do you mean, it’s up to me? I didn’t ask for this!”
“You have, as we say, put your hoof on the fine print. You didn’t ask for this, because you never thought about the questions. Did you never wonder what happened in, shall we say, the après-vie?”
“The what?”
“The afterlife.”
“Of course I wondered. Who doesn’t wonder? And I am the philosophical free spirit. I can’t keep track of every insight that comes my way.”
“But,” said Rarity with patience twanging on each syllable, “you never came to any conclusions?”
“Well… not in so many words.”
The pond grew into a lake. Now the life story swam before him, filled with the first few days of every club he’d bothered to turn up for. The writing club littered with half-finished chapters. The drama club scripts buried under piles of dusty guidebooks with titles like “Dancing for the Tenderfoot” and “Modelling for Dummies”. The cobwebs on the paintbox and empty canvas.
“O calamity!” Rarity struck her forehead, making the scythe jolt against her cloak’s shoulder. “You mean you have no ideas whatsoever? You are a… tabula rasa?”
“No!” yelled Zephyr before he could clamp his lips shut. More quietly, he said, “I mean… n… no. I mean, yes. I mean, I was gonna get around to it, but life was so young, and I had so many commitments, and… and… uh…”
He hung his head. Even he was starting to ache at his own lies.
Rarity coughed delicately, as though worried of sounding too rough on the throat. “Mister Breeze,” she said in businesslike tones, “you really are a one. The problem with you is as obvious as a treacle stain on a silk scarf. My dear, you’ve spent so long pretending you had a life that you still have trouble seeing that it’s not there. In the most literal sense now, I might add.”
Now that his head was down, he was having no trouble seeing how clean his hooves were. Not a speck of mud or a patch of blue frostbite to be seen. Flexing his wings, he smiled at the flow and slide of the feathers, free of bent quills and without the slightest rough eddy pushing against the fibres. He patted his mane, and the bun bounced with nary a dead hair or a slip of grease. No twigs clung to his elegant tail either.
“Hey,” he said, a chuckle entering his voice, “this whole death thing isn’t so bad on the old chassis, is it? And I feel like I’ve got a whole new class of passenger too. I should have gotten a ticket out of dirtville years ago.”
Zephyr Breeze made the mistake of looking up. At once, he ducked his head down. No strobe light in any discotheque – at least, none from the few discotheques where the bouncers had only caught up with him once he’d slipped inside – could have blinded him, but that stare was a blast of the sun.
“It’s not permanent, is it?” he said in a small voice.
“Strange as this may sound coming from my mouth,” came the curt voice, “outward beauty is not your highest concern at this point. At least, it most certainly should not be!”
He was starting to wonder what would happen to his body, still curled up in his cardboard box, probably half-buried under the snow, in the middle of an alleyway leading to a street where ponies strolled either way in some indifferent schedule. Despite himself, no horror leapt into his mind. Here, it would be like worrying about the litter in the streets.
Poison simmered in his stomach. Like I care. I wasn’t particularly attached to it anyway.
To his alarm, Rarity stamped towards him hard enough to slam. The marble lid of a sarcophagus could never have boomed as loudly in the open space.
“For pity’s sake, you overgrown colt!” she snapped. “Do you ever think about anyone but yourself? You, you, you.”
“Well, what else am I gonna think about!?” he shrieked through sheer nerves. “I’m dead! It’s kind of a big deal for me! It’s not like they give you dress rehearsals until you’ve nailed the not-breathing techniques!”
“Please, Mister Breeze. I’m not going to wait until my ethereal hair wilts before you have your epiphany.” More calmly, she continued, “Think carefully, now. Was there anything that meant so much to you?”
“Um… you mean like hair gel?”
“What do you think?”
Zephyr Breeze’s gaze darted to the infinite void. Sweat prickled his scalp. The vacuum around him pulled at his heart, and the ache made him push back, but he could tell he was losing his mental grip on it. Even death hadn’t killed his old habits of thought.
“I think…” He swallowed. “I think I… could’ve done one or two things differently.”
“Hm. A promising start. Care to elaborate on that?”
Fear rushed forwards inside his chest, trying to buck and punch the darkness away, but he might as well have been a fly swatting at tar. His legs bent and unbent, his neck turned his head anywhere it could, but still the darkness was there.
“Well…” he warbled. “I guess the family… I mean… Mom and Dad… and Fluttershy…”
He gave up. The darkness tore his mind into pieces, scattering them across the expanses of forever. He could only stare helplessly at her, utterly bereft of words or thoughts.
Rarity’s horn glowed with a sapphire hue. At once, the full length of the handle stood out before the answering glow, and the scythe drifted across the space to hover between them. She gave it a few experimental twirls. Silver crescents and circles blazed briefly.
“Judgement Day it is,” she said with a sigh. She smiled at him, but her eyelids melted with pity. “Mister Breeze, I like to think of myself as a psychopomp with style and good taste. You would remember me as a dressmaker, but here I work with a completely different fabric. The nip-and-tuck of childhood naivety, the creases and folds of a troubled adulthood, the tatters and frayed ends of old age. A connoisseur soon learns to see the beauty in even the most impoverished and unfinished of weavings. And naturally, lives intertwine and combine into ensembles and wardrobes, most like threads between pieces.”
Zephyr followed the twirl of the blade. Frantically, he tried to force his legs back, but they’d locked into place. There wasn’t even the urge to gallop away. Everything was gone. He could see what was hurtling towards him.
“Alas, the craft is stitched together blindly. Death is the dark backing a mirror needs if we are to see anything. And, if I may be forward, a depressing number of ponies tend not to notice the basic errors until they have a finished item.”
He opened his mouth to speak. He slammed his teeth together instead.
“Well, Mister Breeze.” If she’d had glasses, she’d have peered over them. As it was, she merely inclined her muzzle downwards while pinning him with the cool scowl. “The finishing bell has rung for you. There’s no more stitching to be done. Shall we watch the fashion show? The judges have yet to announce their verdict on your handiwork.”
And finally, caught on the tide of relief, he sagged where he stood. His lanky neck fell so far down that he had to peer up at her rising eyebrow like a colt before his teacher.
“All right,” he groaned. “I’m coming clean. I never achieved a thing in my life. I didn’t have fun pretending I was the business. I didn’t please anybody or help anybody, not even myself. I’m a waste of space. There. I said it. You caught me. Say whatever you like. I ain’t denying a thing.”
After a while, he raised his head into what he hoped was a more dignified position. “Look, if you’re gonna cut me down, then just do it. I told you; I’m coming clean.”
She twirled the scythe again. A silver crescent flickered into life.
“You know what I really hated?” he continued; anything to fill the silence. “Mom and Dad were always so nice about it. Fluttershy spent half her time trying to lift me up every time I knocked myself down. I mean, if I were them, I wouldn’t have caved in to that stupid act. I’d have thrown little me out of the house like garbage. I was worse than a bloodsucking sky leech; at least leeches don’t pretend they’re anything but nasty little parasites.”
Another twirl. Another crescent flickered.
“I’m gonna get reincarnated as a leech, aren’t I?”
Rarity drew the scythe back, and then lowered the blade until it pointed away from them both. Her horn’s magical glow cut out. She nodded as though coming to some private decision.
“I won’t deny your metaphorical needlework was nonexistent. You wasted some surprisingly promising fabric, and you could have at least thrown together a simple tunic out of your parts.”
She waved her hoof. The lake rose up in his mind as though a black mist had shifted.
“So what now?” he said.
“Now, I want you to give your own life a more thorough critique.”
“What’s there to add? It sucked. It shouldn’t have existed. End of story.”
“Not at all. A good critique looks at what works, not just at what doesn’t work. It’s more constructive and considerate that way. Essential work for any budding connoisseur.”
Zephyr’s mind rippled, shattering the few images that he’d been reflecting upon. “You’ve totally lost me.”
“I told you, Mister Breeze. Life is a work of artistry. When you’re living it, you don’t think about its beauty. You’re too busy stitching your days together. But when you’ve finished, you have to step back and look for the beauty, and then you’ll know what worked and what didn’t work.”
“But I’m dead anyway, aren’t I?”
The ripples settled. He peered into the waters, where the lake swelled from horizon to horizon and clouds shimmered along its surface. The sea peered back.
“Why don’t we take a look?” she said.
“What? What do you mean?”
Below their hooves, the icy slopes of a gigantic building zoomed into focus. All around the whorls and bulges of the pegasine temple, the skies were bright blue, yet a dome of the darkest thunderclouds hovered over the lot. Rain pattered on the white platform supporting the whole structure.
Zephyr snorted. “What is that? I don’t remember that. This has nothing to do with me.”
“No. This never happened during your lifetime.”
“That’s what I said! So?”
“So. This is what happened afterwards.” When he opened his mouth, she snapped, “Mister Breeze! Politely zip it for more than ten seconds, and watch and learn!”
“All right. All right. Zipping it.”
As he watched, however, Zephyr’s eyes widened. He knew that temple now. He’d seen that temple so many times, and yet he’d never really looked at it until this moment. Eyes, no longer fogged up with the petty worries of living, now absorbed every subtle shade of blue on the whiteness, every sleek shine on the raindrops, and the sheer swollen weight of the columns at the vast portal entrance.
It didn’t help that he’d never bothered turning up for any funerals. Too busy, he’d said.
Bits of him hung his head in shame, but he cast about for anything else to focus on.
“Hey,” he said in a small voice. “That’s the Hurricane Cloud Temple, isn’t it?”
Rarity hummed in affirmation. Glancing at her, he swore her eyes were, for a moment, two black holes capturing every detail. Certainly, she was staring even more intently than he was, leaning forwards and cooing at the architectural flourishes.
The image blurred. He realized as the whiteness expanded that they were zooming in, and then he was looking past rows of pews and the ice carpet of the aisle to the pulpit up ahead.
Misgivings crept into his chest. “But if they’ve got the rainclouds out like that, then…”
Gently, Rarity shushed him. Soon, he was in no doubt; the few ponies sitting in the carved pews were all wearing black dresses or black tunics, the traditional garb for the occasion. At once, his gaze darted past the pulpit to what for a second he took as two altars. Then he focused on the nearest one, and saw that it was a pale coffin.
“Oh,” he said.
“You see who’s at the Pansy Pulpit?” murmured Rarity.
Zephyr watched as the mare placed a silver coin delicately onto the coffin while the stallion mumbled his way through a speech. At least, his lips were mumbling, but no sound came out.
“Mom and Dad…” Zephyr’s heart hardened. He rounded on her. “Why can’t we hear anything?”
“Strictly speaking, you no longer have any senses.” Rarity twirled the scythe into a silver circle again. “This vision is a little gift from me to you, since I am your gracious host here. Allow me to add a little sound, however.”
Zephyr turned back, but his father had finished the speech, and now both parents reached up and wiped their own eyes. Then their sobs spiked through his mind, echoing along the vast temple. He almost flinched; he actually raised a foreleg as though to flee.
Down below him, another mare stepped out from the pews, and his bleeding mind leaped for cover. It was a principle he’d lived by: if he started feeling uncomfortable, find something to blame.
“What!?” he shrieked. “That’s all the turnout I get at my own funeral!? I mean, I was no saint, but give the dead their dues!”
“Zephyr,” Rarity said warningly.
“There aren’t even a dozen ponies in the whole place, and that’s including the priest!”
“Hush,” whispered Rarity. “Your sister is about to speak.”
Wait a moment. My sister? Zephyr bit his lip.
As the vision zoomed in, he could make out more and more details of the pony on the pulpit. The flowing pinkness of her mane, the huddled way she placed her forehooves onto the surface, the ever-present slant of her eyes as though she never spent a moment not worrying about something.
He chewed and then breathed out. “Why are we watching this?”
“I want you to learn. But hush now.”
Yet Fluttershy seemed in no hurry to speak. Zephyr pawed at what felt like the invisible ground. The puffiness around her red-rimmed eyes was unmistakeable.
For Pete’s sakes, Zeph. Why didn’t you at least go see a doctor? You always did that stupid kind of thing when you were a kid. Pretending you didn’t have flu or toothache or pegasus pox or whatever you’d managed to catch. She always insisted. She even took me to the sick nurse herself a dozen times.
Finally, Fluttershy rose up with the deep breath, and parted her lips. Zephyr craned his mobile ears forwards.
“This isn’t going to be like most speeches,” she began, her voice as breathy and soft as he remembered. “We’ve always been taught that we shouldn’t disrespect the dead, and should only talk about their good sides.”
Zephyr’s insides collapsed.
“And I do see the value of that kindness,” said Fluttershy while everything between his ears shattered. “But I think it would show even more respect for the pony if we remembered them as they really were, warts and all. Honesty isn’t easy, but it’s the least our loved ones deserve. And it’s not as if I’ve got nothing good to say about… about my… my brother.”
He ignored the sniff. No emotion existed inside his head, and he had no idea which one would be first when they came back. Once Fluttershy wiped her muzzle, she continued, her voice strangely firm.
“My friends taught me that lying might feel easy in the moment, and it might actually do a little good. But in the end, if Zephyr Breeze is watching up there, and if we really want to show him that we love him, then we’ll say we love him not because he had no flaws. We love him in spite of his flaws.”
The boiling rage rose up first. Instinctively, Zephyr gritted his teeth against the complaints.
“What’s she talking about!?” he hissed. “Seriously? At a funeral? At my own funeral, she’s going to tell everybody what a loser I am?”
“Was,” corrected Rarity. “And you really should watch and learn, Mister Breeze. This is a valuable lesson for you.”
“Like it matters,” he muttered. “Being dead.”
“I…” Fluttershy lowered her head, not looking up at the pews anymore, “love him… and I know as well as anyone that he had flaws. When he was just a little colt, he always used to make up stories about what he’d done. I remember once he asked me to help him fly up and get some snacks, and he broke Mom’s favourite cookie jar trying to get at the treats, and when she found him with the rainbow cookies all over the kitchen floor, he said he was about to clean it up and that I did it. I only found out later that those treats were for my friend’s birthday party.”
“She’s seriously telling that one?” Zephyr hit his cheek with a hoof. “That was just kid’s stuff! I grew out of it.”
“Ahem,” coughed Rarity.
Yeah, right. I didn’t grow out of it, he thought at once. I just got better at kidding myself too.
Fluttershy started rubbing her hooves together. Out of sight, members of the audience muttered, their voices echoing slightly in the chamber.
“I didn’t speak up at the time,” she continued. “In a way, I encouraged him. I did the same thing at Flight Camp. We were only a year or so apart, but the few times we did get to see each other, he always talked about how he’d ‘aced’ his tests. When we flew back home and swapped reports, he then told me the teachers had it out for him. He wanted to swap our reports because ‘they better matched each other’s true skill level’. I didn’t have the heart to say no. Mom and Dad saw the scratched-out names underneath, and anyway my report wasn’t much better than his.”
“Puh,” spat Zephyr. He glanced around at the darkness above the sea, and felt his own cheeks smouldering.
“I wanted to think he got better when he grew up, but in the end he failed Flight Camp around the same time my friend Rainbow Dash did. It was always clear from the reports he brought home that he wasn’t doing very well, but he always denied it. He said all the great pegasi throughout history had flunked their tests and exams and learning and things, and they still went on to do great things. I didn’t tell him that lots more great pegasi had worked hard to earn their place in the history books. I wish now that I had been a little braver, less scared for him. But I thought he’d change once he became a stallion.”
“Oh yeah, right.” Zephyr ignored Rarity’s groan and glared at Fluttershy’s furious blinking. “Like that was ever gonna happen. Don’t kid yourself, Big Sis.”
Yet he couldn’t help but sigh with relief when she opened her mouth again. Probably because I’m such a narcissist I even want to hear my own funeral dragged out.
To his surprise, Fluttershy was shaking, but her worried slope now tightened into an axe of a frown. “Sometimes, I wish he’d just bucked up his ideas, though. When he went looking for a job, he could’ve searched a little more widely. There was the big wide world of Equestria just below the clouds, and I knew lots of friends who could help him. But he didn’t even leave home. He broke Dad’s favourite picture trying to redecorate, he chipped Dad’s ice model of the Cloudiseum, he always did exactly the opposite of whatever you told him to do. Sometimes, I wished I could have just stopped and, and… screamed.”
Zephyr looked at Rarity, but her face was as expressionless as a skull. Even her eyes had no shine. The great blade hanging over her loomed, and he winced and leaned away from it.
It wouldn’t have worked if you had screamed, he thought.
Fluttershy twitched from one pose to another – forelegs resting on the surface, hooves digging into her forehead, head turning left to right as though searching for hard enough words – and when she spoke, it was like a breeze trying to be a hurricane.
“And he used to visit me in my cottage,” she said, “to ‘check up on his favourite Big Sis’, but really he was just there to help himself to whatever I had in my cupboards. He once took away Angel’s best salad surprise, and Angel and I had worked really hard to find the rare olive oils we liked so much.”
I couldn’t help it, Zephyr thought, and the last vestiges of boiling rage simmered and evaporated away. That’s the sort of lowly good-for-nothing I was.
When he looked up, he saw Rarity staring sidelong at him. Diamonds cut into his face. Quickly, he pretended to be studying the way Fluttershy flicked her hair back, and he could almost smell the sweat and tears radiating off of her face. She sniffed again.
“Yet, in spite of all that – and as Rainbow Dash could tell you,” she said.
Ah, I thought I saw a rainbow in the audience. She’s probably just there because Fluttershy dragged her into it.
“– he always thought so highly of himself, always wooing her with flowers and chocolates and pretending she was playing hard to get.”
Zephyr wondered if Rainbow Dash was turning as red as he was, but at least the picture did not change. He wasn’t entirely sure he could trust himself. Old hopes and fantasies might come rushing back, and he no longer had any time for them.
“Are you comfortable, Mister Breeze?” said Rarity.
“Yeah… Well, no. Not really.”
“Learning anything yet?”
He stared at the firm glare of his sister, and sighed. “Yeah: I was worse than I thought. I didn’t even really stop and think how others might see me. All I cared about was shifting the blame and not looking like the total fraud I was.”
“Now you truly, deeply regret your mistakes? Don’t you?”
As though the word was being dragged out of him, he mumbled, “YYYeah. And I’m not acting this time for pity. I really… really do.”
Wow, that was convincing, Zeph, he thought angrily. Try a little more wobble on the lip, you faking jerk.
“Zephyr, you still don’t fully trust yourself.” Rarity waved a hoof, and the picture of Fluttershy froze in the act of closing her eyes. It wasn’t, he reflected, a flattering picture to stop on.
“Of course I don’t,” he said with a shrug, refusing to look at her. “I’ve spent all my life pretending I was the bee’s knees. I can’t even tell when I’m not acting anymore. This could just be a cunning ploy for pity. Why would you trust anything I say?”
“Because here, lies do not survive.” Rarity snorted, but in an attempt to make it genteel she let it out as though it were a short, sharp sneeze. “I wouldn’t stand for those things in my lovely little otherworld. As if it mattered. The void sees everything. There are no more souls for you to fool here. What you will find is the beauty in the truth.”
“Yeah, right.” His neck ached with the effort of not looking at her. “I love my sister and everything, but even when she’s honestly chewing me out, she’s still holding back. I was a walking insult to everyone I met.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rarity wave her hoof again. Fluttershy closed her eyes. After a while, he realized she wasn’t being paused again, but was deliberately steeling herself.
What now? he thought.
When she opened her eyes, they glistened under the white shine of the temple walls. “I’ve already told you. In spite of his flaws, and whatever else he was, he was my brother, and I really do love him. No, better than that; I love him because of his flaws.”
Zephyr gave a disbelieving snort, and yet his ears stiffened and strained downwards for more.
“I love him because of his real, everyday, personal flaws. That’s what he has in common with all of us, with all of ponydom. I knew he was worried, and scared, and confused, and frustrated. We all are, sooner or later. But every one of us has worth just by being here, living our precious lives. Yes, even if they don’t always work out for the best, and even if we do a lot to make them worse than they need to be. So if nothing else, and even if he were the worst of the worst that ever existed, I still see that spark of worth inside him, even if he never saw it in himself.”
Zephyr clenched his jaw. His mind had stopped dead, but eventually one thought echoed through. What? What does she mean? What’s she talking about? What worth?
“I know a lot of you are wondering,” said Fluttershy, and she paused to scrunch her lips and swallow, her face trembling, “why I would have stayed by his side for so long anyway. Why would I have done anything to help him, if he was bringing it upon himself? But that’s not how I think, and that’s not what my friends…”
Her gaze flickered to a random spot, and Zephyr guessed she’d just seen someone in the audience.
“That’s not what they’ve taught me to think. I helped him fly through the ring even when he insisted he didn’t need to, or told me he couldn’t, or said he didn’t feel like it, because even though he was bad at it, he was my friend too. I stood by his side as far as I could, until the end and even beyond. I will still stand by him now.”
To his surprise, he heard Rarity snuffle, and then wipe her nose wetly with the scythe handle. He half-wished he had a handkerchief to offer, or at least didn’t wonder if going over to comfort her would be unseemly. He hated standing there, unable to do a thing.
“And it’s true.” Fluttershy ran a hoof over her face, and she stopped trembling. One more deep breath braced her before she continued, “He never amounted to anything. But I believe he could’ve done it if he’d only tried. My friend Rainbow Dash used to think she’d never pull off the sonic rainboom once she’d grown up, but she did it. In the right place, and at the right time, with all of us cheering her on, she did it. Zephyr…”
Both she and Zephyr gulped at the same time. Sis, he thought desperately, you don’t have to say this. Please.
“Zephyr had a lot of talent and he was a lot smarter than he gave himself credit for. He could’ve become an expert at mane styling, and before you think that’s too lowly, I say that anypony who, in a small way, makes the world a prettier or nicer place has earned the right to some respect.”
Finally, something cracked inside him. He found his lip wobbling, and knew instantly that this was no act. Panic swept over him. He no longer wanted to stare at anything but the endless void above him. If only he could block out his ears.
“Whether he lived his dreams… or not,” Fluttershy said, and now he could hear her fighting to keep control of her own voice, “he at least never… never stopped loving life itself… That’s the least I wanted him to do… He didn’t suffer even when he was annoying other ponies – and at least I didn’t let him take it too far, not for long – and he was always so laid-back, playing guitar one day… taking Rainbow’s rejections with good grace… keeping his own spirits up…”
You don’t know, he thought, trying to hold his flooding heart at bay. That’s not me at all. I never enjoyed life.
But the lies vanished under the crashing waves, and it was all he could do not to sink to his knees. Without a second’s hesitation, he met Fluttershy’s gaze, and found her eyes too were overwhelmed and shining.
“We… We always wanted to… to give him a fair chance…” Her words strained to remain together, but something had caught in her throat, and she was bracing her forelegs against the surface of the pulpit. “And it would-would’ve been nice to… to… get something back… but… but…”
Zephyr felt the snap ram through his entire body. He stamped both hooves, trying to break through the unseen shield between them.
“Sis, wait!” he yelled. “I’m right here! I can hear everything! You don’t have to say that! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean – I never would’ve – come on, let me through! Let me through! I gotta talk some sense into her!”
Too much went through her face. The sobs ripped through him, no matter how many times he pounded against the floor, and she buried her face, shoulders shaking. Mom and Dad were at her side, patting her and trying to ease her down.
“I get it now!” he said. “I screwed up! I’ve seen enough! Let me back in! I can’t go out like that! Just give me another chance! I’ll make good on it this time! I’m coming, Fluttershy! I’ll make you prouder than you’ve ever been! I swear! No! Hold it! No, no, no, don’t go away!”
Fluttershy’s streaked face looked up just as the image swirled. For a second, he swore she looked right at him.
Rarity tapped the waters with the handle of her scythe, and Fluttershy’s face rippled and vanished. Darkness faded into the world once more.
“I hope that will be sufficient,” she said apologetically. With more diamond in her voice, she continued, “Well, I believe that should do the trick. Now do you see your worth?”
Zephyr Breeze stared past her. Even the void seemed to be nothing compared to that stare. Some other world stared back at him, one even a supernatural dressmaker couldn’t appreciate. His own mind barely understood what he was seeing, or even really saw it.
Rarity flicked her mane back with a hoof. “Aheh,” she said, and then coughed. “Mister Breeze?”
Now his lip trembled. The words didn’t want to come up his throat, but he knew they were going to. All he could choose was how composed he’d be when they broke through.
Gently, she reached forwards and placed a hoof on his shoulder. Chill tapped him like the tips of many knives left out on a winter’s midnight, but he relaxed at its touch. He seemed strangely welcome to it. The trembling around his lips faded away.
He didn’t dare glance down at her. Instead, he stared onwards, and sniffed.
“I… never thought about it…” he managed to say.
“Isn’t it a joy?” she cooed. “To see with new eyes. One of the pleasures of the art of life, is it not?”
“And… it was there the whole time? Right under my nose? And I never knew?”
“But you do now.” She patted him, and the smile bloomed through her voice. “That’s a fine thing, is it not?”
Pain clenched his face. When he finally made eye contact, he saw her flinch and draw her hoof away. Too many words fought to control his mouth.
“I… wasted all that!?” he squeaked.
“In this life, I’m afraid so.” Easing her hoof forwards, she placed the chilling touch of death upon his shoulder again. “You see it now, don’t you?”
“I can’t see anything else!” Spinning round, he collapsed onto his knees at her hooves. “Look, you gotta let me get back in there! Isn’t there anything I can do? Anything? I can’t just stand here, knowing all that! There has to be something!”
“Er…” She tried to raise her hoof out of his grip. After a while, she gave up and merely patted his forelegs with the other one.
“I’ll try harder, I’ll make life easier for Mom and Dad, I’ll finish something – anything, I don’t care what – if I can just go back! Turn back the clock, or reincarnate me so I can… I don’t know, tell them I’m back and I’ll help them out. No! Make me live it again! They won’t notice! I can do it this time! I can do it!”
Rarity cast her grimace about the void. “I-I can see you’re quite new to this, and this has all been a bit of a shock for you –”
Groaning, Zephyr Breeze let go and slumped on the imaginary floor. His insides squeezed tighter. They were trying to crush themselves out of existence. Every burn ran through him.
“Oh, what’s the point?” he groaned into his cannons. “There’s going to be a ‘but’, isn’t there?”
The silence said everything.
He felt the puffiness burning around his eyes. Whatever he looked at seemed to swim slightly. Wincing, he forced himself back onto his hooves.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” he said, all life gone from his monotone. “Nothing left for the Big Z.”
Rarity’s hood slid back from her head, and the curled mane rose up to its proper height, no longer weighed down, but elegantly spiralling down to her chin. A small smile peeked out from her muzzle. Somewhere within the hollow of his insides, a spark of surprise lit up.
“I believe you have learned a valuable skill, Zephyr Breeze,” she said. “But let it be known; making a promise here, at this timeless time, in this placeless place, is not like making such a promise in the land of the living. There are no obligations you can back out of, no loopholes for you to slip through. What is promised here is as solid as a fact. Do you understand?”
Zephyr Breeze nodded. “Not even a bit.”
She cut off her brief growl. “I mean… Do you see now what was hidden in plain sight?”
He opened his mouth for another wisecrack, but at her glare he replaced it with a shrug. “I… think so?”
Rarity sighed and rolled her eyes. “All right. Time to rephrase that. Do you, Zephyr Breeze, see worth in yourself?”
“Um…” he said. “I see potential, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. That potential is your inspiration. Do you feel that inspiration? That yearning to turn dreams into reality?”
He glanced at the void. “I wish I’d done more with it, yes. In fact, I feel like I could do it right now.”
“What do you want, Zephyr Breeze? Don’t look at me for answers. I asked what you want, not what you think I want.”
“I want…” His mind seemed to come flooding back. Now that he thought about it, the answer was there all along, lurking just out of sight. “I want… Look, I don’t know what I want. I didn’t even know about this” – he gestured to where the sea had been – “until just now. But if there’s some kind of… of worth left inside me, then, well, I… I don’t want to waste it.”
“What do you want, Zephyr Breeze?”
“Well, I want to make something of it.”
“And?”
He set his jaw until his cheekbones jutted. “I want to get it out there, right there, where everyone can see it.”
“And? There’s more to it than that, Zephyr Breeze! What! Do! You! Want!?”
“I wanna prove Fluttershy was right!” he yelled. “OK!? Right here, right now, I promise – honest-to-whoever’s-in-charge-of-this-nuthouse promise – I’m gonna bring that worth to life! You want inspiration? I’ll show you inspiration! I’m gonna overflow with so much inspiration, it’ll be coming out of my ears! Because if my sister sees it, then it’s there! I know it’s there! And I will personally not rest until I’ve proven it to everybody!”
Inside his chest, the flames of life swept up, sparking visions among the dancing lights. He could feel the darkness around him shrinking back. When he stretched up, he stretched a thousand hands tall. Future lives rose up inside him as shapes in the hail of embers: Zephyr Breeze, the sculptor; Zephyr Breeze, the enlightened one; Zephyr Breeze, the stallion his Mom and Dad would hug and tearfully call their son.
Rarity nodded her head graciously. “My dear Zephyr,” she said, “you have found your gem.”
With a wave of her hoof, the world before them shimmered. Her scythe glowed. She slashed.
Zephyr raised a leg to flee, but then refocused once the circle cut through the darkness. As she lowered the scythe, a shining window loomed over them, swelling and undulating like liquid mercury. Silver slid along the crests of its endless waves. Then it settled; looking down, he could see the spires and puffs of a cloud city. Blue skies reached over the green land beneath it, but both were merely a vast ocean against the stratus shores.
“Behold!” She reared up and threw both front legs wide. “The Mirror of Life!”
Frowning, he turned to her. “Wait. That’s Cloudsdale, isn’t it?”
“A Cloudsdale.” Back on all fours, she winked up at him. “This is your second chance, Mister Breeze. Beyond the Mirror of Life is another Equestria. If you step through the mirror, you will be reborn as Zephyr Breeze. You will live with the same family, you will have the same start to life, you will still be you. The life will be spun again. And this time, you’ll wield it with a little more mastery.”
Zephyr frowned at the cloud spires zooming in. “So I’ll remember what happened here?”
“Not consciously. But your soul will remember deep down. It’s a much more fundamental memory, or so I understand. I daresay the wiser muse within will manifest itself. In due time.”
“But…” Fluttershy’s face briefly swam in his mind. His ears drooped. “What about…? What about…?”
He didn’t dare say it, but neither did he protest when she wiped the corner of his eye.
“Once she’s lived her life out in the old Equestria,” she said, lowering her hoof, “then she’ll be reborn here too. Your mother and father will join you as well. I did say you’ll live with the same family, and I mean exactly what I say.”
“But that can’t work, can it? They’re still alive. I’ll be starting life here while they’re still alive there.”
“Excuse me, good sir. Do I tell you how to style a mane? There’s some space-time fabric thingummyjig that I can’t be bothered to explain right now. Just don’t you worry your bun-topped head about it. You’ll see them again. And they will still love you like they’ve always done.”
Zephyr peered into the mirror. Now the Cloudsdale before him seemed much too bright, much too blinding. There has to be a catch.
“And what if I try it,” he said, “and I still fail?”
Rarity smirked. “I am a connoisseur. My judgement is never in error. However, should you feel you could have done better… we will meet again. You can have as many tries as you like. That’s the joy of being an artist.”
He didn’t dare let his heart leap up, but it gave a good go. No. There’s still a catch. “Er… will I remember all this, when – if I die and come back here?”
“You don’t remember the last time we met, and I can tell you that you’ve come a long way since then.” In an undertone, she added, “Though that wasn’t hard.”
Finally, Zephyr sighed away his doubts. The universe wasn’t so much giving him a hint as beating him over the head with the answer sheets. Besides, the rest of him was fighting to leap forwards, to throw his past away, to see their faces again. Mom, smiling down at him; Dad, telling him he would never stop loving his son; Fluttershy, putting her spindly hooves under his belly and helping him up while singing into his ear.
One last thought struck him. He rubbed his stubble.
“Who,” he said, “exactly are you, anyway? I swear I’ve seen you in my previous life, but no way were you packing this much punch.”
Throwing her mane back, Rarity raised the scythe. “Let’s just say I’m the one running the fashion show. I like to peek through the curtains every now and again. Just… do me a favour.”
“Uh… sure. Fire away.”
Her horn glowed brighter. “Try not to annoy me too much, will you?”
For the first time in a long while, Zephyr Breeze relaxed. It was his turn to wink now. “No promises, Miss R. I’m a free spirit. The Big Z has his own style.”
With a sigh, she raised the scythe a little higher. “Ah me. Twas worth a try.”
The blade swung. Silver flashed around him. He fell into the endless void, his thoughts trailing away behind him and vanishing into the bright light.
Just in time, he flipped around. Rarity beamed at him and lowered the scythe, the darkness slowly eclipsed by the edges of the mirror.
“Oh my,” he heard her whisper and saw her eyes sparkle, even over the miles yawning between them. “The most beautiful thing in the world is indeed the world itself!”
The last he remembered was Rarity’s horn glowing until the sapphire aura overwhelmed the light. Then silence. Darkness. The cold. Yet still breathing deep down, the promise was an ember against the void.
A moment later, Zephyr Breeze took his first breath of life. One more time.
