Nothing Can Shine

Chapters

There is no halo, only the hunger
Dare to die alive
The world is full of poets, we don't need any more

There is no halo, only the hunger

It was too enclosed, the walls were constricting her, Rarity couldn’t remain in any building. She was progressing, like a snail trailing the pond bottom for a decade only to finally outgrow the shell. The porcelain shell she’d carefully nurtured all these years, shielded in monotony, manifesting herself all wrong. The useless shell she’d discarded and torched, thrusting herself naked and alive into the world. And certainly she was more aware than ever, yet not as bright as she’d been, mind and senses always feeling dimmed and worn. Yet still no relief to her ill fit body. What could she do to improve her existence, to remedy where she’d gone awry, to even make it worthwhile? Rambling through the constructs, up and down roads at steady or variating pace, that’s what she excelled at. Her time tested skill if memory was still reliable. Yet it reeked of routine, the old ways were out of the question, she needed something fit for a mollusk. A suitable habitat for a mollusk, there was an idea.

In the distance Rarity recognized within her vision a reserve of trees, and as she closed in a sign handily declared it Ponyville Park. Having previously avoided all to do with nature, she almost found herself eager expose herself to such stimuli, to blaspheming creation, possibly trampling flower gardens and pissing in the bushes.

But her enthusiasm was cut down in its infancy as winding up the path she quickly found it was a tangle of activity and children. The foals playing their stupid games in the grass, laughing off-pitch and pretending to be junebugs. Families out picnicking and convening, all the while unaware they despised each other. She could feel her mood slipping fast, the equilibrium she’d been carefully maintaining. This whole environment was warm and ill fit, it had been a poor choice, nature running meticulously wild. Even the clouds overhead were muddling any attempt at clarity, pretending at various shapes and polygons they had no business being. She shielded her eyes and thought to turn back.

No, too late to reverse course, she was progressing. Had to go forward. Rarity claimed an empty bench and shut her eyes entirely, sanctuary from the rest of the environment. A minor refuge that separated her from the other ponies, that would allow her to cultivate solitude and get on admirably. And despite being cumbersome and undoubtedly carrying the stains of innumerable unwashed hooves, she dwelt on wood, not the same ground their filthy feet treaded. Not really any difference at all actually. What was there to do here anyway? Sitting on a bench blind and deaf wasn’t progression, she needed to make use of her consciousness while she had it. What could she do on a bench? What could she accomplish that wasn’t a mere distraction? Erect and alert on the bench, where would that get her. There was always the off chance she’d be struck with a stray universal truth if she squatted here long enough, but the grotesque youth was clouding any sense or relief she might have attained. Even with closed eyes, she could still hear the giggles and screams, could still smell the roses. It all only brought to mind her decay.

Maybe drown herself in the pond like a snail. Quench her last thirst and get over with the whole sorry affair, finally of use, corpse home to the pond scum. Dead and at rest as the algae flourished in her skull and the minnows nibbled on her bloated flesh. She always knew it was her destiny to be fish food. No, that was awful. She couldn’t consign herself to fate, she had too much to live for.

Too much to live against, like the stallion who was now positioning itself on her island. Seeing her take notice, he dressed himself in amiability and conducive gestures. “Hello. The sun is shining with the joy of a thousand smiles and it sure is beautiful, isn’t it?”

Rarity sought solace in a sneer. “It’s hell, those rose bushes smell like sulfur and so do you. Go away.”

“Those are the most commendable bushes I have been witness to.”

Trying to rub his optimism off onto her. “You’ll be witness to nothing when you die unhappy and in company. Leave me be,” she repeated.

It’s face only grew hopeful and replied, “There it is! People are a pleasure, my company will undoubtedly raise your spirits.”

“I have no spirit. Piss off.”

“Ah, I’m sorry to hear that. Something you’d like to share?”

Still! This was her burden to bear alone, and she wouldn’t let some go-lucky stallion steal it from her, not if she could help it. “No, I’ll share nothing, you mongrel. Take your troubles and babbling and shit back to the pit you came from,” she spat, sliding away on the bench.

But it pursued with damnable grin. “Calm yourself, friend,” a hoof extended toward her. “I’m just trying to extend some compassion on this nice day.”

Compassion? She snorted. It’d never believed in her nor she it. Only yet another illusion professed by that swindling universe, laughing as the ants tried to scurry on all the while. And in her own way, she’d done similar with the mare she’d ended. She’d been laughing at that time, it’d been worthless. Existence did strike the acquainted mare as a worthless endeavor, why not further the notion? Not her this time, but the rest. The ones with the presumption to live with smiles on their faces. She wanted to stamp them all out, be the pristine heel that ground them in their place.

“No one’s ever lost forever, when they die they’re caught inside your heart.”

Of all the fucking stupidity! “Isn’t that special,” she growled. “Though I doubt you’ll be finding enough space, with your thick head. But,” Rarity produced a knife she’d forgotten about. “you’ve had enough time to dig your grave. Now it is time to lie in it.”

Finally the cheery air dissolved. “What? Good god!” The stallion shielded his face but remained fixed to the spot. “Please, I can’t die, I’m a consumer! I need to smell the roses! ”

Rarity allowed a grin to her face as he continued to plead on his haunches before her. With a jab she pierced his quivering gut and cut vertically along the abdomen, let him pour his heart out just as he’d wanted. She watched him stagger off the bench, fumble at his spilling organs and collapse with dying gurgles.

Rarity watched the blood drain and pool together and began to feel her own, throbbing under skin, pulsing through veins. She threw herself off the bench and sat in the mess, continuing to mutilate the pony. Prodded the cavities, disrupted the flow. She spread out his entrails and revelled in them, praised them for their honesty. But it was disgusting, and though it was a corpse she could not help taking notice of persisting cries despite. Rarity wandered away in solitude.

She attempted to keep course straight but always seemed to stray off in one direction or another. Not only the occasional veer where none intended, no, curves dominated her path, wouldn’t take their leave for a moment. So she traveled great distances in ellipses and spirals of differing dimensions and proportions, sometimes for hours and sometimes for what seemed days, always finding herself recurring at the park. And when not ambling, she explored its recesses and otherwise remained a nuisance with vandalism, no flower left unsniffed nor unstomped. Tearing up the grass. One of her preferred activities was climbing trees and hiding nestled in their branches, staring swords at those busy at pretend below her. Some full days had been passed tormenting families and hurling slanders until they packed up for home. On several occasions she’d nodded off to sleep in her tree only to fall out.

Now there was a note. From the meek yellow pegasus with the butterflies, couldn’t recall when she’d last regarded that one, inviting her to visit if lonely.

Loneliness. Yes she'd often previously heard mention of that term and the explanation had been entirely foreign to her, having gotten on fine all this time herself. Rarity didn't believe it for a moment and would not go so far as to call it a concept. Some things were so simple as to not need a name, certainly such an intrinsic facet of existence as the solitude of an individual. And the opposing notion it implied, that there could be a genuine companionship or meaningful connection to something else similarly thrown into this mess, it was thoroughly absurd. A freakish desire at any rate.

Rarity let herself in the cottage. Threw hate at the walls until the mare quickly revealed herself. All yellow, she appeared in the room nervous but throwing on a benign look nonetheless. Hair astray in all the right places. Tentatively she put forth, “Um, did you come for my company? We can have a good time as friends.”

“Aren’t you just a radiant cunt,” she shot back, tossing the crumpled note at her. “Tell me what’s the meaning of this. Carrying out your invasions with paper now, summoning me like one of your mangy pests?”

“No, just it, it’s not good to be alone so I thought—”

“That word again! Haven’t had your fill yet, haven’t shoved enough of your treachery into my skull?”

“But I haven’t.”

She’d always promised some glow about her, the deceiving wretch. There was no halo, only tricks of the light. “And all the ponies dreamed they’d be your friend,” Rarity jeered, advancing forward. “I’ll admit you had me when I was still naive, jabbering incessantly into my ears. All the time you wasted with your fucking butterflies!”

“...D-did you want to talk about it?”

Trying to lock her away with falsities and empty promises. “Even now peddling companionship? I tore down the earth pony, you thought I’d be still too compliant for you?!” Rarity thrust a hoof.

At that the snake retreated to the wall, attempting to blend with the clutter. “Oh, I, I can make tea, you like tea! I can make tea and we’ll make sense of everything else at the table.”

“I do not have time for tea!” she screeched.

The pony before her cried in response, face flared in fear. Deceit drowned with feebleness, a disgusting combination all round. If it wasn’t a lie, that only made it all the more repulsive.

She eyed shears on a side table. Seizing them, Rarity lunged at the mare and plunged them in its eye socket. It screamed. Pinning it down, she pushed them in deeper, twisting the blades. Crimson poured out the orifice as the pony writhed frantically but Rarity gritted her teeth and held tight, until it gave final gurgle.

She stared down at her bloodsoaked hooves, and went to wash them in the sink.

Rarity took a loaf of bread to stuff her throat with and as she set on the path back to town, a tiny squirrel caught her eye, lingering at the edge of the grass. She drew closer. It still didn’t seem afraid of her, so Rarity pulled off a corner of the loaf and held it outstretched in offering. The rodent eyed her warily. But it soon skittered up to her, carefully taking the gift. Its nose twitched as it inspected the bread, deemed it satisfactory, and began gnawing.

She sat back and observed. It seemed to hold an appreciative expression, eyes a happy shade. Almost as if a lower animal could comprehend good will. But how much could a squirrel comprehend? Could it understand benevolence? Friendship? Were they really that different from ponies?

Rarity crushed its skull in case.

Memories were made. And when not, Rarity radiated ill will, constantly scorning the amity that nevertheless imprinted her. Even the nights she spent under the open sky, glaring at the cosmos and searching for stars, weren’t free from extrinsic influence. Other creatures burdening her. So she’d torched the forest and instead dwelt around various side streets, committing petty theft and kicking the impaired or otherwise enfeebled. Usually brought a smile to the face. And when not rampaging, she directed her steps away from others, avoided them as she achieved orbits around the outskirts of Ponyville. She forgot how long she’d been at it. One of her back hooves had began the process of going numb, often provoking more halts than was proper.

Having gone a good distance since the last pause, Rarity settled against a building but did not sit. Too upright for that, she had an insatiable hunger in her soul, an intense flame building and building and waiting to consume it all up to the heavens. She’d go to the deli and order sandwiches if she could stomach the thought of eating. Useless organ it turned out, never able to hold any down. Rivalling the mind at regurgitation, and that was only on the inner front. Dealing with the jabberings and moans of the public, there the mare knew was the true test.

Ponies trotted disgustingly up and down the road, in and out buildings, circulating like the world’s stupidest blood vessel. A hemoglobin male in particular moved close to her, suit atrocious and mane a hideously combed mess. Rank amateur at best, conceptions clearly tinted by cholesterol, trying to carve his polygon into a shape able to possibly fit in society. Just like the rest carving off themselves, limbs and protrusions, so they can all push and crowd in together. Enough to at least make Rarity consider herself better off than them, aware of the ugly mite she was. Here, they told themselves in idiotic tones, was a place they belonged. They’d like to think this place was shaped exact for them. Fit right in here with their plastic houses with their neighbors selfsame with their town founded on nonconflict. Unsuited to any else, without being squashed in with the other cattle to hold them in place they’d fall right down. No legs of their own left. Shuddering and convulsing on snatched shoulders, telling themselves it was best, confusing the body heat for affection. Veritable humanists then. They had made this place, and in turn it would make them. Would spit out little worms just the same, brought up to pretend and play at benevolence. To bestow for themselves the right of existence, to declare themselves the radiant ones and continue the cycle anew.

All the while she held the lines in the witching hour, withered and spoiled from the elements, a fragment of what she’d once been, a shriveled vegetable left in the garden. No, she was the only non-vegetable, ever stumbling blindly in the dark as it. All too aware of every stub and scrape and fading breath. It was getting to her again, she needed to kill something.

Rarity knocked on the nearest door.

A stallion and a mare appeared on the other side as it opened.

“Do you own a child?”

They squinted, thinking to squeeze out sense. One gave a short nod.

Rarity swallowed her disgust and proceeded with communication. “Where is it? I want to interact with it.”

They stood stupid and astounded. The mare cautiously opened her mouth. “Our foal sleeps upstairs, in his crib.” The male remained silent beside her, a bundle of passivity, mind full of excrement.

Sun was too bright and she could feel her lungs again. Rarity took up the reigns, roughly pushing past them up the stairs, and the two listlessly followed behind in awe.

Without further guidance, she simply peered into the first open door and there was the mentioned crib, and inside her aim. The sleeping mite, crammed with vitality and budding life, bright ignorant future ahead of it just waiting to unfold. She’d been a foal once. Rarity did not care to remember. Yet was that not also the time she’d been at her peak, faculties at their most functional? These days some insufferable great divide always inhibited her senses, sticking her with a rotting corpse. Even now the foal didn’t look right from this distance, vision seeming to have been once better than this. But she would not dwell.

Rarity stepped into the room. One of them finally worked up nerve to ask. “What are you doing here?”

She scowled but didn’t bother to answer. What a useless question, hell if she knew why she’d been stuck on this rock. Her voice was firm, “Give it to me.”

At that the pair flinched away in bewilderment. So predictable, she could see the thoughts turning in their skulls. Hesitant of failing their self-given role as parents, yet no spine of their own to pass on. Considered themselves enlightened yet even more in the dark than she was. The rare occasion they considered the child as an existent would only bring irritation anyway. Here she sat rotting and everyelse might as well been a potato.

“Pass the lump to me,” she repeated.

It was enough to work away the last of their strength and the female pulled out her child and warily passing it to Rarity.

It was still slumbering, bundled in blanket and respiring steadily despite the untowardly noise. A dirty mahogany coat with the start of a yellow mane. Mouth fit for a worm. Horrible mix, she scoffed, yet more justification she was doing it a favor, if any was needed. She never needed any.

Firmly gripping the foal, she sat on her haunch and held ready a pillow from the crib. Any being forced a taste of life knew it was best stomped out by hoof.

It roused as she pressed pillow to face.

Breath blocked, it began to panic and flail stubby limbs. She imagined deer eyes jolted in panic. The thought only made her push harder, disgust only fueled her pleasure. It transitioned into death screeches and she got excited, breaking into grin. Savored the seconds as she painfully pressed cotton into the malformed little face.

Finally the cries ended and the infant ceased motion, giving Rarity a good indication her moment was over. Went as well as she’d expected, another memory to the chest. She knew it’d be an event when that rotted crate would need to be dragged out and pried open.

Rotating back toward the crib, she saw the pair cowering in the doorway.

“Still here? Your attentive parenting surprises me,” Rarity remarked, dropping the carcass back in cradle.

“You—you killed our child!” the female blandly stated.

She did not care to know what they’d expected to happen when she smothered it. Time was ticking and they were of no aid. She wanted to excise their dullness from existence.

Rarity seized the mare and bashed her head in against a ledge. The other fled downstairs but she was ready and caught him before he reached the door, clumsy mammal he turned out. Took the time to fetch a nice knife from the kitchen and strummed his neck for all the music it was worth.

It was pleasant, but not much as the foal had been. And her glow faded soon after, discomforts resurfacing, sensations of her anatomy returning. Her back hoof ached. Right back where she’d started. What progress had she made at all?

Rarity felt adrift. Dropping stallion to the floor, she wandered around the room. Same pictures just like her walls had held, same knick knacks and doorways, even a similar shade of lavender paint, hardly any difference of significance from her own home. She adjusted a crooked vase. Didn’t know why, she hated these objects just as much as her own, if not more. They were pretentious and their accumulation was ridiculous.

Walking was ridiculous. Her vision swam and Rarity retreated to the firm upholstery of the room’s couch. She caught herself in a mirror, frayed hair no longer curled or provided any sort of maintenance, haggard face still so fervid and searching for meaning. If anything she’d only regressed, further eroded with nothing to show for it. Couldn’t remember anything greater than the limitations of her biology, thrown into this world on backwards legs. How had she ever managed to stand in these conditions? Rarity clung further to the seat but the estranged items existed unimpeded. They were out of place. But no, this was their place, right where these things fit in the most. Even the body leaking blood before her wasn’t a touch out of place, right at home with the indifferent.

She tried to head off these thoughts, avoid the objects and focus her gaze on a corner instead. A dim little angle collecting dust bunnies and negligence. A meager spider stirring, silently crawling down the wall toward its web. One leg in front of the other, eyes gleaming blankly at its prey. Simple, never questioning its absurd existence, only pursuing the hunger. Not a thought devoted toward anything more, while she sat here wishing for halos. Indifferent in its own way. This was its world.

Rarity didn’t belong here. Retreat to her house, the place where she could belong. But there was no place for the living. Nowhere to hide in this foreign universe, nothing that belonged to her, nor familiar.

She’d already done this. Sitting on the ass staring at walls, once more at stagnation. She was going to decompose like the corpse she was. But was not that what she wanted? Sure as hell didn’t want to be here, had never asked for this, to be alive and breathing with lungs pumping and inhaling air. Surely her hatred of life and existence extended to hers as well. And that was the root. Must get on the move again before the rigor mortis set in. What was her reason for getting on with it, how had she lived up to now? Rarity had forgotten, was forgetting something, it sat in the skull just out of reach and she could feel it. Fucking spider stealing her foundation. And what was the point if she was losing herself anyway, no one to entrust it with, no one she could use to keep her reason safe with. It wouldn’t let her deteriorate in peace, and she hated it.

She had nothing but hatred. The anger that drove her to kill, unrest that drove her to action. This damnable vitality that forced her into the muck of it. She didn’t have time for anything more. There was nothing more. It was better than rotting empty-hooved. She’d have to force her niche and take what she could, mar as many as she could. Go forth and she’d do just fine, Rarity thought as she left the house, and Ponyville.

Her dreams contained ogres, proud and tall, thick green gnarled limbs that carried mighty bludgeons. An army of them enough to blot out pastures. They set forth through the lands, across vast seas and mountains, conquering empires and erecting monuments in their name, holding grand feasts, uniting the corners of the world under their emblem. And she trailed after them tirelessly, burning everything they’d touched. Leaving nothing to show of their work. All their efforts in smoke. Nonetheless, the ogres persisted and refused to acknowledge her.

Rarity felt inspired to spend waking days bashing in heads. To suit the mood of the time, she. For a time she let nature to its devices and spread pain into cities and corralled the roaches. She spent a season erecting a tower of corpses to reach the heavens, then knocked it down like a child’s blocks. Endless disease blighted the land and repetition was her livelihood across new frontiers.

Dare to die alive

It had gotten on for a while, she’d lost count. It was so longer amusing.

What else had she expected?

Gray sky expanded overhead, blurring into the ocean horizon. She sat on a pier. Same as she’d done time and time ago. Lighthouse ruins a distance away, ashen brick in disrepair, testifying to their former prime. It seemed that had been her doing once, or if not her, somehow a product of her influence. She did have a tendency to attribute results to herself, not much else left, if it was to be done at all. Tried to prevent activity but it always marched forward.

Her solitude was innumerable, but so that she could not see how far back it trailed or if it trailed a considerable distance at all. Somewhere along the way she’d misplaced her reference points, only a few persisting fixtures remained in her to extrapolate from, to assume there were gaps that had once been filled. Blank walls. Babbling corpses. A spool and needle. The yellow pegasus with butterflies. That one recurred often within her, tried to hold a faint glow. The sky above was dimmed with clouds, as if to rain. The general state these days. Rarity didn’t care much to turn back time, but previous periods must have been better than this, at one point at least. Now all she knew was mounds of gore.

The sea flowed before her, drab waves in their incessant recurrence. Carried all away in the cleansing tide. Should she be washed away, endeavors erased and once more a blank slate? Get a better start? On principle, Rarity was inclined against. She had chosen her muck and would lie in it—not like the alternative held better. But the elements conspired to give her little choice regardless. Her memory was far less than the not-much it had used to be. Bits of her constantly crumbling away, locked out of reach in that space not her.

Who had she been? Who was she, considered as a whole? Rarity would never get the chance to view her full product, the total accumulation of her design. Never be hers to see. Yet another complication to the matter and even if Rarity chose to change her mind, she wouldn’t know where to begin. Didn’t even know what path she’d gone down, let alone if it was the proper.

Perhaps an outside source could shine some light. Again, the butterfly pegasus resurfaced. In her youth, they’d spent a significant portion in each other’s company, she could recall that much. Dragging through meadow or mud, specifics out of question, something resembling a connection had developed between them, as much as a drowning animal could make sense the jabberings of another. But she knew there had been fond moments. The idea was stark in her skull, that yellow pony with its meek nature and insufferable shyness had helped her achieve ease on several occasions. She couldn’t conceive how. The notion was at odds with any acceptable concept of the universe as Rarity knew it. Must have been when she was a yolk. Still forming, even more unawares than now.

However she was not yet at end, unsure how greatful to be, and might possibly act on it. Yes, she was compelled to admit it was too far gone to make a full recovery with her withered form. But perhaps it was still possible to smooth out some creases, or more likely make contrasting indentations in the fragments she still held. It would mean forgoing her solitude but she might locate the butterfly pegasus and make her to provide whatever sustenance she had before. Combat her decline. Matters would not return to the state they’d been before, Rarity remained unsure if she even wanted that, but they might be able to at least reproduce an effectful imitation.

They would sit in fine chairs and chat as companions might, pegasus might be able to put her near ease and tell pleasing stories of their exploits as larvae. Bring a shadow of youth to the matter and convey a working template of the unicorn. Evenings would pass with all sorts of discussions and distraction designed to put out of mind existence. They’d bask in the glow. At this stage sincerity might be out of question, but she’d contribute her best efforts toward companionship and progression.

That was too far for the mere possibility. Rarity found herself looking to the horizon, she could not resign. All of her efforts up to now had been to rid herself of her humanity, the miserable muck it was. Before her was the lighthouse that had once stood tall and defiant against the elements, now in a heap after meeting the only fate available. The coast pattered off unobstructed in the distance. The sky was too encompassing. Wherever she tried to hold plays at companionship, its empty endlessness would hang over her. All too wretched to put out of mind.

The good vibes were gone, buildings and sustained civilization fell from view. Foliage grew formidable and stained autumn. Rarity was unconcerned and continued ambling around as she did, ever on the forward. Found herself in countryside and stumbled through fields, living on beats and burning the occasional tree or pony too big for its roots. Of course she also took advantage of the resources that presented themselves.

Her recent endeavor had been coming upon a farmhouse and killing the inhabitants who’d cheerfully greeted her, as consistent. Rummaged through their items and taken a summer coat. Now she was steadily working her way through their pumpkin patch, course straight as able, taking care to squash each in her path. Orange mess trailed her. Her mark on the world, Rarity laughed.

Her hoove crushed through one, surging pain through her joints. The pain had claimed her for a while now, but did little to deter Rarity. Nothing really but to endure it. She was long used to surface agitations, but as her skin shriveled, she’d began to feel aches in her constricted bones. Joints felt out of order, motion in the back right had become such that the mare had to compensate with increased limp. Hard pressed to find any spot of comfort throughout her anatomy.

Squashed another pumpkin. It almost seemed they knew her. But that was foolish, she spat, they could never know her. The light had gotten too harsh, she couldn’t look up for very long before forced to return to the sod, eyes stinging with tears. It only made her endeavor all the harder. Rarity didn’t know what the sun was playing at and why it insisted on hiding the pumpkins, but it would be hers. She had already made that clear to whatever of the heavens there existed. Whatever thing had set up this game did not play fair, certainly she had to marvel at the ingenuity all the while she cursed, kicking a pumpkin.

Here, she’d come upon the end of the patch. Undertaking to raise her view, Rarity looked across what she could see of the expanse. Looked to be the last field in sight. She didn’t see any trees ahead either, having left them behind in favor of the pumpkin fields some time ago. The unicorn had to muse whether it was worth going back to ruin the remains or plow forward into the nowheres and see where that got her. But this all depended on her course persisting straight in one direction and there had never been any guarantees there, if need be proof only look at how far and long it had taken for her to get here with her stutters and strays. It didn’t help that Rarity was forced to penetrate the matter entirely in the dark either. Certainly, if she’d been supplied these spatial coordinates within any reasonable degree of accuracy, she might have arrived on point much sooner and spared all the superfluities.

Might as well discard the farmland as well and see what else sprang itself up around her, something always did, no matter how far trod or destroyed she never seemed able to leave everyelse behind. Put your best hoof forward Rarity had always believed, she was hosed there, life of course never worth it. But stride resumed. The orange was sickening her anyhow.

There was still the possibility she hadn’t yet gone far enough. Perhaps the edge was still before her, off in the foreseeable distance, and all the mare had to do was continue and she’d finally reach the void empty of all else. Then there’d be nothing left to perturb, only her in stasis, at last able to cultivate her isolation. But Rarity put that out of mind. Such hopes were out of place this late in the game, and it was not necessary either. No matter what she found herself facing, she would get on with it.

Rarity continued over hills and flats, continued staggering in her direction, continued stomping until the time she’d sat down and never gotten back up. Then these others had flocked to her like geese after a discarded slice of rye, but even then she relinquished nothing. They propped her up in a fluorescent room filled with sterile clutter.

For some duration, they had subscribed her to a routine or at least what she assumed was, leading her in a wheeled chair on various comings and goings to certain rooms at what seemed regular intervals. But there were no clocks for her determine time or if there were they were well hidden, which Rarity considered a waste of effort because any information she might’ve gleaned likely wouldn’t mean much to the mare despite, her notions all a jumble.

And the rooms themselves had been reduced to a fog as well, each appearing remarkably similar to the others, the main difference to tell them apart being the odd picture on a wall or chair out of place. Often was the case they took measurements or made her drink various liquids, kept the stomach cramped with all manner of sustenance. For your health, the horde insisted, whatever that was meant to mean. You might consider kindness, one of them had once told her. She’d only snarled at the time. Bah, she had no obligation to them, no need to go along with their charades. Spared no indignation yet on the whole Rarity reacted little, usually too ill to offer significant protest and preferring as little communication as able. And when she worked up the strength in a limb to strike at one, all it got her was restrainment as they proceeded ahead anyhow.

So they incessantly poked and prodded, carried and dragged, instructed and bitched, until they did so no longer. She could not remember when it had stopped, when she had received her last taste of foul medicine, last view of cramped corridors. Too difficult to tell day from night with all the other light meddling with her perceptions, she doubted they could either despite the claims. Perhaps they had gotten bored of it. She could imagine one of them turning to another and resigning themselves, Well I’ve had my fill, there doesn’t seem a worthwhile thing in this sorry endeavor. Yes, head hanging defeat, the pony would depart from their ranks and stumble on home to stare at ceiling fixtures, wondering how it all could have unfolded like this, clutching the temple in despair. And maybe he’d get sick of that too and come trudging back to her full of questions, asking how she’d managed. But Rarity would only glare up in defiance, wondering why he thought her to hold any answers. Not from her vantage, not from the spot she was fixed now.

The spot Rarity was now. Confined to a tidy cot in the room with a single window across from her, lighting still too bright despite a narrowing cone of sight. Several ponies still consistently intruding on her. Even now one kept complacent watch over her while another fumbled with something off to the side. Motion had grown increasingly difficult recently and sitting up was out of reach, her only capability being rolling to either side when she tired of gazing out the window. A recurring cough claimed the lungs and her mouth was constantly dry. Foreleg hurt like hell as always, hindlegs numb. Decay taking its course. None of the irritants would come out with it, but Rarity knew she was at an end.

Although her voice had been going, or perhaps because, she’d been more vocal recently. Now she was reprimanding them at every turn, getting satisfaction where she could from her cot. “Keep your carnalities and limbs to yourself,” she growled to the pony trying to once again shove substance down her gullet. They kept insisting, wouldn’t leave her be. She’d said that already.

With a grunt, Rarity swatted at him with her good leg but was of course ineffective. It was a knock that prompted the pony to scurry out of view. Another intrusion no doubt. She tried to look but couldn’t sit up, body as ever inept and defiant to will. Tortured wheezes shook her frame, putting an end to her struggles. “Get on with it,” she resorted to rasping.

A young mare materialized within her view, nervously hiding behind mane just like another pony she’d seen. So utterly innocent. She stared in contempt, wondering why they’d allowed youth in here. Likely their way of spiting her.

The mare gained the courage to speak, “Um, I’m a pastor... here for your last rites.”

Rarity regretted they’d known to keep away sharp entities. “More babbling about benevolence? Peddle your garbage somewhere else.” No more fate and no more mysteries. If there was one thing she’d have said, it was that she hated life in all forms it presented itself.

“But don’t you want to believe you matter? To confess and achieve eternal peace before you finish?” it continued. Looking so fucking radiant with eternity in her eyes, dressed in a coat of naivety. Something about butterflies.

It didn’t matter, was too late for all that now. Her mouth suddenly felt sore. “No,” was all Rarity coughed from the mattress. Her aches were her achievements. There wasn’t peace. She’d moved past that, hadn’t she? Another bout of wheezing dominated her.

The mare emitted another question, but Rarity paid no mind and turned to the wall in mundane pain. She stared at it and saw nothing but plain white paint. It looked just as any other. This moment was just like any other, end no different from beginning, hardly a middle to speak of. Where had it gone? She knew there had been one. Times when she’d wanted to do things and times when she’d known nothing could be done, but she’d persisted. She had progressed. Gone forth and blazed her candle at both ends in spite of. And there was no wick left to burn.

“Get out,” she forced from her throat. “I am going to die alone and bitter.”

They knew. Finally the voices shut up and she heard their steps as they withdrew from the room.

Abandoned her to the solitude she’d never left. That was the important part. She didn’t need the particulars, did she? As long as she knew. That she’d made answers. Hadn’t she progressed? Rarity searched the wall for anything significant, anything remarkable to show difference. Nothing to be found but aged paint. She’d never gone anywhere.

Now her last breath was approaching. Rarity closed her eyes in anticipation. She gave some final thought to her existence and what she’d made of it. She had managed, nothing gained. No alternative.

No regret.

Thought exited her skull.

The world is full of poets, we don't need any more

A thought collided into her skull.

There had once been reasons for jumping out of bed with a smile on the face, and she’d long forgotten those reasons. It was escaping her. The activities and objects Rarity had once held interest in, taken pleasure from, only distant figures in her mind drawing farther and farther away. Getting dimmer. A whole dominion going on and away and light fading from the window while she sat in drudgery in a dim room.

At drudgery again, in a dim room again. Hunched over the work table, spools of thread piled around, rotating the fabric, adding yet another stitch. Yet another dress. Trying to ignore it as she again poked herself with the needle. Always another order to fulfill, more work for the unicorn to consign herself to. Her method of keeping surrounded by walls, of forgetting the time. Finishing another seam, adding a frill. It was what she knew, it had become her purpose for living. Keeping some pony dressed in frivolous patterns was her justification for existence, her excuse and when the world came knocking at door demanding what right she had to take up space, to add yet more of her blight to the land, Rarity could stop it right there and say, Well, I’ve got to make dresses for the ponies. Got to keep them in nice stitches.

Yet it was splintering her continuing the work, forming some design she’d lost interest in and quelling the unrest. Rarity pushed it away, raised her head to the mess of colors before her. Her workroom, her supplies, her outputs, life all crammed to one space for the sake of convenience. For the sake of denial. How long at this, how much time spent in this manner? It seemed to her that she’d lost track. The years blended to a mess of color behind her, prime long past. Nothing significant to latch onto in the murk of routine and repetition, no past, no future.

Nothing but the present, and it cracked painfully into focus. Rarity was a fraction of herself. Her hooves ached. Mouth was sore. The chair seat scraped her rear uncomfortably, the air was too stuffy, her lamp was the wrong shade. The floor was covered in scraps and tools. All impeding her. Not even the interior was spared, and she could feel her blood pulsing, heart beating irrhythmically, her intestines constricting and processing. She could feel it all, none right, sickness without comfort. She’d questioned too much.

Her work sat on the table before her. Where would another dress get her?

She couldn’t do this, couldn’t live. Rarity shoved away from the worktable, but didn’t know what next. Never knew what next, wasn’t that the real reason why she’d thrown herself into meaningless stitching? She didn’t like ponies. Her skull pounded and she was all too conscious of her breathing, the little compressions her lungs were making. Tongue tasted existence. Enough to make her stagger to the wall and throw herself down. There was no justification for this, hell of sensation and meaningless.

It demanded too much. The items would go neglected, she’d pay heed to nothing. Drown her thoughts in nothing. And yet, the wall was a thing that existed. Rarity tried not to believe it and stared dutifully. She’d rather be content staring at chipped and dull paint, go back to wiling away the hours at times in poetic defiance, for what that was worth. But oh how was this any better? Deadeningly boring, in a bad way, no significant difference from the sewing. Not enough that existence opposed the mare, her own volition was conspiring against her. This wall knew no such troubles, it had no lungs to speak of. She gazed at a certain flaking piece and it gnawed at her. This wasn’t the first, there had been other times she’d tried to get on like this if the many recollections of paint were to be trusted. This segment certainly seemed familiar and beyond that, she could recall quite an array of different walls. All sorts of hues and textures, different designs almost enough to be reminiscent of the pulsing disease of ponies. What a blight that was, only worsening her frustration.

Maybe another portion would fare better, would stall her thought. Attention shifted to the neighboring wall, same color but worn with holes and nails still embedded from the photos and sailboats she’d torn down. Discarded memories. No, this one was a bad choice, not the picture wall, it held the most thoughts of the awful lot.

She tried the remaining third, tiny specks and other irregularities on this wall, still cleaner than the others. But cat scratchings marked the corner. The cat, where was the cat? What had she ever done with that thing, she’d been on the whole precise with its feeding, where would it have gone to give up that? Foolish creature it was setting about to go places. Why had she never gone places? She didn’t even go upstairs anymore. Always stuck here pacing the same rut with stooped posture as if weighed down by the concerns and desires of ponies she had no obligation to, that she’d learned to hate, wallowing in a gutter.

No desire of getting up either, not to face the clutter of the room. Needed to take her mind somewhere else. Rarity kept her gaze straight ahead, fixating on the portion of wall before her. She wouldn’t do it, couldn’t. Motion was beyond her now, her vessel parked and anchor set, no casting off today, nor ever, go tell the crew it was time to find other work. Their blame for taking up such an ill-advised occupation to begin with, and now they’d go hungry. That’s all trying to join the land of the living got you. Damn the body, she didn’t need nutrition nor exercise, she would lie here still and pristine.

Inert. Not a limb moved, eyes fixed to the wall, Rarity didn’t know how long she spent like this. All she knew was that sometimes it was dark and sometimes it was light, sometimes her eyes were closed and sometimes they were open. Body felt covered in aches and longed for activity, but she kept herself occupied. Tried to imagine nothing. Next best thing imagining piles of ashes. Colossal mounds choking the sky clustered together row after row, gray all that remained in an empty landscape. Stretching as far as conceivable as long as conceivable. Once weary of that image, she imagined the ash in different shades so that some piles were lighter until white and some were darker until black and others yet in states in between. When that avenue exhausted, she reversed the alterations so that those previously lighter became darker and those previously darker became lighter and so on. And when she had her fill yet too of that, she would simply invent a new exercise for her mounds of ash, to ensnare thought. It was better than the alternative, and despite her cravings Rarity felt she could have gone so on until end.

And she would have, but operations were cut short and she forced to rouse when the other ponies came over an evening. The ones she associated with, whose forms and anatomy were ingrained in her mind, taking up precious space. Rarity tried to shoo off with contempt and slurs, but the devils merely overlooked all wrongs she did them. They wouldn’t let alone and caused her to sit around the kitchen table, munching and sipping, rambling words in an order that professed recent events and times spent together. Trying to make her know things again.

Staring at the wood grain was Rarity’s defense, tracing its pattern with her sight, best efforts going toward avoiding sight of the food in their gaping mouths. Like yapping pastel teapots surrounding her and pouring out their shrill steam and inanities into her ears. One of them, she didn’t remember which or hadn’t listened to start with, had brought over some homemade concoction meant to be a noodle dish as might be found in a family restaurant. Forced that too down her gullet. They’d made agreeable noises and expressed pleasure, they told her she’d used to love these things, but Rarity couldn’t see how they expected her to believe it. All the while chewing and dribbling food on her, exposing their carnalities, no difference to separate them from a common farm animal.

The jittery pink one would hardly sit still, constantly moving closer and raising volume to conquer out the other howls, a mishap considering her articulation was the worst of the bunch. Her words were the harshest in their deception and their delivery left all to be desired as she gorged her fleshy form. She’d take a bite of food, chew and speak, or take a bite of food, then speak and chew, or worst yet speak, chew and then snatch a bite, with speech such as:

“Life is a precious gift that is best enjoyed by crowding into rooms crammed with ponies who are certainly each and every one happy and worthy of life themselves. This is the best way to meet other people and claim them as friends so you can while away the only hours you have moving your body to silly rhythms. With balloons. There is undoubtedly nothing more righteous in the universe.”

or: “I’m so glad to have friends that I might connect to and genuinely communicate with on a meaningful level. Yes, I have hundreds of companions and know and share a bond with every single one in a way that matters. People are of value.”

Rarity saw right through the rhetoric for the ridiculous claims they were, and tuning it out would have been small matter were it not the constantly prodding, elbowing, and generally familiar contact. As if it were trying to pass some communicable disease on to her, she had no doubt, that was right up its alley. Assuming it hadn’t already tainted the food with its peppermint breath. Rarity shoved her away but the pink hellspawn only bounced right back, great big smile infecting the face. Laughed in a show of goodwill.

It was all about presentation, presentation, she wanted to present them her fat sore ass. See them try to spin good out of that. Yes, it would be a mistake to leave out the other elements, the fucking virtues they were.

So proud of their dribble. “I’ve conquered the sky because I’m the best that ever lived and there is no limit to what a pony can achieve.”

“I love little bunnies and they love me.” Ever proclaiming to be dipped in gentility and naivety.

“Well, hard work with family is good for the body and soul.” And that one, always prattling on about mundanities such as honesty and integrity, as if they were anything righteous about this whole business. Rarity doubted even a laborer could be so deaf and dumb, most of all one flavored in soil. It must have been to mock her.

Yes, here they sat, this whole little charade designed to mislead her and instill such faulty traits, and misleading past, so then they could set her to work on crippled legs and laugh as she fell. Diverted from their own interdislike by vomiting onto her. And time was slipping as they made their posts around her and staked their mental claims. Worse than paint. It was draining her, all the vitality she’d never wanted, being stolen right out from under her. And she’d wasted her time like this most of all, Rarity believed that much.

Complicit in the whole affair, watching herself rot from the side.

They only continued in this pattern, one adding remark, then the other, the occasional pat on the back, near giving the appearance of functionality. Those gaping orifices flapping away at her obscenely as they closed in, smothering with shibboleths and inane spittle, as if they’d been bred just for the job. Stuffing their cavities with food, spewing it onto her with their words. Chatterbox shoving and poking her.

"—circling higher and higher and higher, almost near touched the sun! I sure got my feathers burned, but I'm stronger than the flames."

“You'll never know what it feels like to shine,” said the unicorn, always proclaiming to hold answers.

And Rarity didn’t, probably never would if it was possible, but too much time was gone. It didn’t matter. This could not be returned to, she couldn’t keep still any longer. That dream had burst, now, now she existed. And the hellspawn was jabbing her again. She would not left that damned serpent life slither from her hooves again. It would not escape. She’d seize it and strangle the vigor right out, strangle it right out the magenta trachea!

Rarity squeezed, putting all her strength into crushing it like so many hopes.