Prologue, the Intial Perjury
Prologue. The Initial Perjury
The fire crackles in the hearth, spreading an orange light on the scarce furniture the room displays. The biased flames cast eerie shadows on the walls, for your greatest disappointment. You feel your feet shivering slightly.
Next to the chimney, a comfy chair turns its back on you. A flimsy respiration wobbles in the air, whistling gently.
A carpet sprawls on the ground, covering the tiles with a red fabric showing no pattern. This rug is old, probably antic and is sickly covered with dust. Everything in this place is soiled with a layer of specks. You sneeze.
The time has passed by and no care has been brought into the chamber you are now contemplating.
A bark echoes, instantly followed by a snap. You focus and after a short moment of stress, your heart drops in your chest. The whistling has stopped abruptly and angry growls have taken its spot. You have disturbed somepony’s sleep apparently.
“Oh, keep quiet Winona,” a feminine but authoritative voice calls.
The dog lies low, her brows arching sadly. The silence grows… again.
A sight of awe erupts, joining the spluttering of the fire into the quest to slay the unsettling sullenness. Two hooves start petting Winona’s furry chin. The dog drools slightly. Her tail wobbles back and forth with happiness.
“I’m waiting for an important guest, Winona, and I need some rest before this journey starts, you see. Don’t bother my sleep anymore,” the crooked voice engages. “…or I send you back to Applejack.”
Winona begins whining, folding her ears on her eyes.
“Good dog, I know you want to hear my stories,” the pony satisfies the animal which sticks his tongue out, waiting for another compliment.
You step inside the room… noisily. Your shoes squeal on the parquet floor. Cursing yourself, you grit your teeth, disappointed by your clumsiness. You are definitely not meant to master infiltration, or simply, just being quiet.
The pony chair rotates, creaking on the floor in an awkward squeak. The mare tilts her head. Backlit, you cannot determine her features, but her two eyes seem glowing in the chiaroscuro room. You held back a gag of malaise. These two eyes scrutinise you… like a beacon of light aimed in your precise direction, unveiling your true desires. You feel pierced from side to side by an overwhelming stare.
“You’re finally here,” the voice greets strangely –she turns her face toward Winona –. “You’re an impressive house-dog in the end, Mommy would be so proud.”
The dog barks in response and starts hopping around the leather seat, yapping with contentment.
The pony’s eyes slide back on you. They stare right at your face, keeping a record of your hair and eyes colours. Then they slowly, maniacally, pass over your clothes, your arms, your hands, your… fingers. She smirks.
“I dreamed up of something more… impressive,” She gives you a cutting laugh. “Celestia watches me I won’t fantasize anymore on foreigners.”
With a quick movement of her hoof she invites you to sit down by the fire, but still detached from her position. You sit cross-legged quietly. A long silent takes possession of the ambience, stagnant between the mare and you. She has turned her chair to face the fire directly.
You notice her eyes are not glowing. The glimmer had come from the slim tinted glasses put on her muzzle.
You wince. The fire has just flapped, blowing a dry and burning breath on your legs and laps. You feel your skin and hairs sear a little.
“Well,” The mare cuts into the disturbing atmosphere. “You came to hear my stories, didn’t you?”
You nod timidly. She smiles.
Her teeth are pure white, reflecting the lights of the fire. At her left hoof is dangling a glass of scotch. The ice cubes twinkle inside as she lifts it to her mouth, drinking a quarter of a mouthful.
“You want my stories? I hope you have something in exchange.”
You remember and you rack your pockets loudly. The mare’s ears twitch from the noise. She frowns at you, unsure if you doing it deliberately. But it is finally your turn to smile. Pulling it out, you show her a huge golden coin shining proudly between your thumb and your forefinger, thanks to the gleam of the fire.
She snatches it with greed from your tips, puts it in her mouth and bites the item worth a hundred bits. Your smile grows from ear to ear; you know the metal is still fresh out of the mine. Now you can do business with the teller.
Suddenly, she throws it into the fire, and without an ounce of common sense you would have follow it with your hands…
With despair, you watch the coin slowly melting between the embers, a hole drilled in your heart. You turn your eyes to the mare, full of tears. You are broke now, it was your last coin. How can you pay the storyteller now?
“Nopony and… nobody will ever buy me,” she states angrily. “I don’t trade with a simple-minded who thinks everything has a price.”
Her gaze glares daggers at you and her spooky voice shakes your inner being.
A drop of sweat rolls on your forehead and slides in your left eye. You wince and rub your eyelid.
“Once I’m finished,” she hisses like a snake, her eyes back on the fading flames. “You’ll tell me your story, what you really hide inside your heart, in the folds of your soul.”
She sighs sternly and gives you a last glance, nearly distrustful. Cringed on your feet, you hold your knees tight in your arms and you bite your thumbs.
“But now, it is time for my collection of lines. Focus young creature, I won’t tell them twice. They may be grim; they may be tragic or comic, sad or initiating, disgusting or captivating… but they remain stories.”
She takes a deep breath.
“And as each single creature wandering on this world, they deserve to be listened to… because they are their legacy, my heritage, and your lesson.”
She brandishes her glass of whisky over her muzzle and keeps stirring it for a long, heart-shaking moment.
All of a sudden, she throws the liquor in the fire with a creepy violence. You hold your respiration, fearful, waiting for the splash on the burning logs and the waiving vapours. Will you have some on your legs? Will it burn?
Before even reaching the hearth, the liquid turns into sparkles, floating in the air and blurring your vision. Winona moans with displeasure, hiding her eyes behind her both legs. Scintillations of gold, silver and brass fly in front of your eyes, sink into your garment and meddle in your mind. Sleepiness narrows its claws on your soul and you feel your eyelids fell swiftly.
Your ears catch a last declaration of the mare.
“Dive well, nestling.”
Your body is enshrouded by a thick darkness. You finally close your eyes. The silent is absolute, cradling you toward unknown countries.
First Perjury, A Feast of Liars
First Perjury, A Feast of Liars
“Sometimes a lie is easier to take.”
These words wobbled harshly in Applejack’s mind. Lying was the worst sin. It did not only hurt the others, it was also a direct blow to one’s soul. Everypony knew it, didn’t they?
Self-convincing was an uneasy job for Applejack. She was troubled and queasy, something was weighting on her heart like a drag of lead.
This day, Discord really had his hold on her spirit. She lied, unwillingly though, but she lied! And this nasty experience had drained every bit of strength out of her body. She was desperately tired. Yet, sleep was reticent to numb her mind and conduct her toward happier horizons.
Applejack stared vacantly at the ceiling, biting her tongue with anxiousness.
Stretching under the blanket, hiding her eyes under her pillows, she squeezed her head between her hooves. She, as the Element of Honesty was insanely brewing over the reason of her bitter confusion. She had lied… And she had begged for everypony’s forgiveness, which was definitely all. The case was now closed. Any additional issue was null and void!
So… Why was this bemusing impression remaining, seeded in her mind like ill-weed? This maddening feeling that lying had been an impressive and enriching experience; something that she had been forbidden to enjoy for so long.
She plunged her head under her couch. Punching her temples as she was squeezing apples out, she tried to make these thoughts fade away.
So many moons had passed by since she had made up her ultimate lie. How many years had withered and turned to ashes since? She was twenty-three years old, and the last time she remembered having told one went back when she was still a foal, eighteen years ago.
This day, being a petty liar for an hour had been so exciting… so arousing she wanted to keep going. She was begging to preserve this numbing power within her, the one to hide and modify facts of which she had been the slave for so long.
Yet, it was clearly out of question. She could not… she would not let herself be assaulted by such chaotic wishes once more. Honesty was a true load. She kept repeating she had to be strong and to stand still.
“Yah don’t want to face them,” she whispered, still buried under her feather stuffed pillow.
“Face who big sis’?” Apple Bloom’s voice erupted in the room, startling her sister.
Applejack jumped out of surprise. Applejack quivered, how could her hoofsteps be so silent?
This interrogation was quickly chased by a far more frightening question… how long had she been staring at her?
“Nopony at all,” Applejack lied in a hurry.
A drop of sweat rolled heavily on her forehead, tickling her fur all the way down. Her eyes suddenly widened. She understood what she had just done. She cursed herself for her stupidest overreaction. She bit her bottom lip.
Apple Bloom was struck. She stepped back with shakes in her hooves. Had her sister lied? No, it was as absurd as chocolate-milk rain… which, strangely enough, had happened not long ago under Discord’s short rule over Equestria.
An awkward silence blossomed between the two mares. Apple Bloom was avoiding her big sister’s gaze.
“Apple Bloom,” A gentle voice swiftly flew between her big sister and her. “Could yah go back to sleep? Yah had a rough journey today.”
Apple Bloom gulped back the gag aching in her throat. Applejack’s eyes were horridly widened, bloodshed. She was staring at her with two yellow hawk-eyes, as if she was scanning her. Apple Bloom closed the door when she left. She had broken eye-contact and the courage to give a look at her big sister’s had died in the womb… The withering glare of her sister remained a long period, printed on her retina.
Once she was alone, Applejack released the pressure she had contained in front of Apple Bloom. Deep beneath her chest, down in her heart, the heavy aching cracked. But to her most torturing disappointment, the anxiety never left.
Something heavy slammed on the walls of her room, echoing roughly in her ears. She crooked under her bed linens.
Her hooves shook. The shivers amplified in crescendo. She chewed the tips of her tongue between her teeth. Stress was crawling back under her skin like wild-fire on paper. Her eyes went watery.
“They are coming…” She whispered in a terrified awe.
Heart and soul she wanted to shrink and disappear. She pleaded Celestia to turn invisible and fly away from this room. From this chamber she felt trapped in like a mouse in cat’s paws. She glanced out of from beneath her makeshift couch cover. She focused on the window with narrowed and wet eyes. The wind was blowing outside with an eerie strength. The branch of an apple tree was grating intermittently on the window. Sometimes a violent blow made its tip crash onto the glass frame.
Applejack let out a sigh of relief. She wiped her sudden burst of sweat off her face.
“Hello Applejack.” A fawning voice hissed out of nowhere.
The so-called pony chocked on the terror which brutally rushed her bosom. In fits and starts she looked in every corner of her dark room. Mist formed around Applejack’s muzzle. The temperature dropped violently, blowing away the meek flame of the candle dwelling on her bedside table. The room was empty and dark.
Alone and surrounded by the unknown, Applejack caught sights of a tiny sliver of dark smoke weaving on the wooden floor. With shivers, she buried herself again as the weird shape bounced onto her bed, rising up towards the same level as her eyes.
“Liar,” The voice reminded with an invisible smirk. “That’s the only thing you are.”
“I ain’t a liar, yah stupid black cloud!”
“Oh, really?”
The black mist solidified and split into four creatures known to appear in places of death and shadow. Four sinister looking crows were staring in Applejack’s direction with withering glares. Three of them were wearing a coat of black feathers swimming with dark unsettling vapours. Their piercing and incriminating eyes were casting a light blue gleam. The last crow was… different.
"There were only three of you last time," Applejack hissed, a look of surprise briefly slid on her face.
The last bird was albino. Its pearly white plumage contrasted with its pitted, blood red eyes and his black filthy stooges.
“We had a deal Applejack!” The first crow cackled slowly… regaled by listening at its own pronunciation. “Do you remember what the catch was?”
Yes, she remembered...
It happened eighteen years ago, right in the middle of an everlasting day of summer. The unbearable heat had been beating down mares and stallions in Ponyville, ravaging Equestria’s fauna and flora as well and impeding any attempt to work. The harshness of the season had been historical. Everypony had to lie low, waiting in awe the end of this ordeal.
The Apple Family had greatly suffered from this summer. For it had not been just the dryness they had to contend with… the Apples had to fight daily a threat much more oppressing.
Eating up the seeds, devastating the fields and making the Apple Acres unfit for harvesting; these ugly black creatures had put a damper on the Apple Family's mental and financial situation. A curse had seemingly been casted upon the household; this true one who had founded Ponyville years ago.
Each morning, Granny Smith started her “hunt”.
Waving her rake over her head, holding it with her mouth and a hoof, she chased each of these evil birds resting carelessly on her fields. Even flung away, they kept coming back, cawing and laughing at this pitiful pony who was wasting day after day her strength and breath.
This situation had been worsening. Granny Smith clearly knew she was about to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. But what was really bothering her was Big Macintosh and Applejack… She had to make sure they were going well while their parents were far away overseas, bound to fulfil their duty with distant relatives.
But could she? They will soon starve as the stocks would run empty.
It was during this dreadful period that Granny Smith had started aging rapidly. Each morning she could stare at the wrinkles blooming onto her features, reflected by her mirror. Exhaust could be seen under her eyes as dark rings slowly set up in. She was on her last legs.
…The Crows…
They will manage to kill her someday… her and her grandchildren. And this was clearly not acceptable.
On their own, Big MacIntosh and Applejack could read the fatigue on their granny’s face. But what could they do too? They were knee-high… And the crows numbered in the hundreds if not thousands, all glancing at the barn every day Celestia made.
The two foals had sent their grievances to Canterlot, no answers ever came back. A princess surely had much more important matters to deal with than two foals.
One day, a withered Granny Smith fainted on the tiles of the kitchen. Big Mac tried to wake her up. Getting no response he rushed toward the town, calling out loudly for any help. It was the last time Applejack saw her big brother this agitated, shaken. This might have him immunized to whatever life would throw at him in the future.
Applejack, still too young to understand well the stakes shook her granny with her hooves, poking her cheeks in a vain attempt to get a reflex answer. Tears burst out and dropped heavily on the ground as she heard her grandmother’s breath, rasping and hissing as the air flowed into her lungs.
Tears gave way to anger, anger to rage. Applejack ran out of the barn and headed straight away to the orchards.
“Do you remember?” The ghoslty crow asked, snapping its beak next to Applejack’s eardrum.
Her ear whizzed as the bird’s voice echoed in her head.
“It’s time…” It sniggered with an awful tone. “You’ve run short of your credits…”
The pony stumbled and fell on her side. She could not consider the option as a truth.
“No!” She yielded, an expression of horror petrifying her eyes.
The crows glared at themselves, surprised by this sudden refusal. Their murderous stares fixed Applejack. They began laughing cynically.
“No? But you’ve got no choices in this story. We made a pact, remember? And there is nowhere you can run and hide from the Feast.”
Applejack was standing in the middle of the fields. The overwhelming cawing of the massive swarm of crows reverberated on the trunks of the dying apple trees. Perched on each branch, root and recess of the ground, pecking the last seeds left, they were paying no attention to the young foal. All gathered in this place, they hid the last remains of green leaves still glued to the withered tips of the trees. The trunks were now sporting the crows as a cruel mare would carry a scarf of black feathers.
Applejack’s lips quivered as something crumbled down in her chest. Her sole motivation was the hatred and the rage melting in her heart at the moment. She wanted to explode.
“Why? Why are yah so mean to us?” She cried out.
Her tears dropped on the dried dirt. She sobbed as she got no reaction.
“What do yah want in the end?” She erupted in a second attempt.
The crows still gave no answer to that pathetic, hiccupping creature lying on the ground. That tiny foal who had her hooves folded under her belly.
Yet, one of the birds of ill omen separated from its siblings and flew toward Applejack. The crow landed on her shoulder.
Applejack gasped, utterly afraid. She shivered as her stare crossed the one of the carrion feeder.
“Scared?” It cawed, tilting his head to the right.
The crow had talked! It had talked with a pony’s voice. She screamed, expelling every ounce of air from her lungs.
Applejack jumped out of terror and took shelter under a tree. The carnivorous birds erupted in joyful yet hurtful laughter. Each of these death-looking beings began to gather, making fun of the pitiful form hidden under a dead trunk. She was nothing but a laughing stock… a doormat.
The sniggers, laughs and rictuses were unbearable. Applejack cringed, shrinking under her wooden cover.
Applejack shrieked. A vivid pain had sprout in her left ear. The hopping crow had just pecked it. Shaking from tips to tail, she looked at the black bird with her red watery eyes.
“Afraid?” It laughed again.
“N… No! I ain’t.”
The cawing around the trunk harshly stopped. A heavy silence settled in between the filly and the assembly. Applejack’s ears buzzed from this sudden change of atmosphere.
She risked a glance out of her shelter. The crows had not flown away. They were staying still, silent as tombs, waiting…
“Liar,” The nearest crow whispered.
The murmur gained in momentum, each crow repeating it again and again, gaining in intensity until one common cry havoc was filling the clearing. What her ears let her comprehend ravaged the young pony. She stopped trying to held back her tears and let her deeply buried terror exuded from her body. She sobbed.
“Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar!” The crows kept howling around her.
“Stop! Please… I just want yah to go. Do whatever yah want but go away… please,” she whined in fear and sorrow.
The crow which pecked Applejack’s ear cocked its head to the side.
“You want to trade? Liars don’t trade with the liar,” its voice said with small cries, as if the crow could not take upon long sentences.
“I don’t understand,” Applejack sobbed.
“We make the appointments. Do you want to deal with us?” The crow repeated.
“I guess…” Applejack replied, wiping off her tears. “Would y’all go away?”
“Maybe or not… It depends on you… or not.”
Applejack bloodshot eyes winced bizarrely. Were they playing with her? Absurd weaved unnoticeably in the discussion.
“What do y’all want from me?”
“How old are you?”
She made marks on the ground, trying to count with her basic foal’s knowledge.
“F… five,” Applejack hesitated.
“The liars would grant you five lies to go through over your lifespan. If not used, they remain and we won’t chase you down and bring you to the carnival… but,” – The crows smiled –. “…if you run out of your credits, the Feast of Liars will await your return.”
Applejack’s features liquefied in terror. How could a crow possibly smile?
“What? What feast? I don’t understand,” Applejack muttered with wide opened eyes.
“You don’t have to. Swear to the Feast and we’ll leave your home forever… or at least, until the Liars call you out,” The bird hopped happily. “Or until you liar, summon us up.”
A long silence settled in the clearing. The crow’s last strangely formulated sentence died in the air.
“I… I… swear,” Applejack stuttered.
“Splendid and sumptuous!” the crow crackled.
The laughter came back from the limbo. Each crow opened their wings, giving life to panic in Applejack’s mind, the apple tree looked alive for a mere second. They flew away in a black and monstrous insect-like swarm.
Only one remained, its voice was unsettling, prompt to spread awe.
“Remember Applejack, five credits were given to you until the Feast brings you back. There will be no negotiation,” it paused. “Enjoy your lifespan!”
The crow melted in a black mist and faded in the air.
“How do you know my name?”
“She remembered!” The crows cawed out loud, grinning.
The look on Applejack’s face betrayed her hidden thoughts.
“Yer said five… not four, I haven’t said the fifth!” Applejack raged.
“Shut up Applejack, don’t try to teach the Liars how to lie!” The white crow spat at her accuser.
“But…”
“The feast of Liars awaits your return Applejack. And we do think you’ve already lied too much in one day.”
“I wasn’t me! Ah… I… Ah was forced to lie so many times. I could not control myself! Discord…”
Applejack mumbled a flow of made up excuses.
“So you’re saying that you’ve exceeded your limit, that you’ve spilled your credit? Isn't that what you are saying?”
If crows had been able to, the ones standing in the room would have had their faces distorted with disgusting grins of amusement. In a kind of way, Pinkie would have been absolutely jealous. The talking crow kept playing sadistically with Applejack.
“Haven’t you just said you’ve only said four lies? But that means you lied to us deliberately!”
The smiling liars had tricked the stuttering one. Applejack was bemused, and witnessing her mistake she felt her heart shattered down in her chest.
“Come Applejack,” The crow spoke with a gentle voice, contrasting with the tone he had used until now. “Don’t make the Feast wait.”
The white crow weaved, “You lost, like every liar in the end.”
In the end, it had been great delight to drive this pony insane.
The three black crows transformed into dark smoke and plunged towards Applejack. Lurking on her left hoof and crawling up on her skin, the fume was blackening and cementing Applejack’s fur on its way. The mist started attacking her shoulder with vicious force.
Lying terrorized, motionless and soundless Applejack stopped sobbing… She closed her eyes. To be honest, she had lost, and there was no way to escape the fate in the end.
A war cry broke the grieving scene.
Apple Bloom jumped onto the bed, striking the white crow with a heavy hoof and breaking the mist apart with her tail. Applejack’s leg regained its former colour and corporeality. With bloody eyes, the white bird changed into a thick mist and melted with its stooges.
“Remember Applejack, only one left. It’s… a gift from us. There will be no more, no less. And then, you will have nowhere to go. Nopony to stand between you and us.”
The mist seeped through the cracks of the window and disappeared in the night. The coldness of the room vanished in a second.
Apple Bloom turned over her panicked sister. The bed sheets were wet with sweat and tears. Applejack was stunned, petrified…
“Applejack… Applejack?!”
Her sister snapped out of her stoic position. She mumbled Apple Bloom’s name and hugged her, tearfully, gritting her teeth with pain.
“Applejack, who were they?”
Applejack took a long breath in, still shaking. Her belly was aching with anxiousness.
“Sit on my hind legs…” She hissed with difficulty. “Can yah keep a secret, Pinkie-Pie Promise?”
“Of course I can.” Apple Bloom replied with pride, sticking her hoof into her right eye.
“Well…” Applejack started half-heartedly. “Here is the story of honesty… A dark and cursed path I took a long time ago. Because Honesty can hurt. Because Honesty is absolute. And because Honesty ain’t caring about moral.”
She unfolded the whole plot, black tears rolling down her face.
ϗ Ω ϗ
The whole scene starts slowing down and freezes. Bit by bit it fades away as you find yourself back in front of the fire, still cracking. You’re lying down, a drop of drool slides on your lips. You sit on your laps.
“Aaaah…”, the mare by the fire’s voice whistles in your ears. “The crows, always doing their business with a slight cynicism and nimble hooves.”
You jump in fear. Her voice has seemed disincarnated for a transient moment.
She giggles, “Or nimble-feathers in their case.”
Her laugh is heart-shaking. You cannot tell if she sides with the crows or not. She makes fun of your dangling mouth, of the fear in your eyes.
She takes you hand in her hooves and closes your fingers.
You felt something horrid tickling your skin in the palm of your hand. You open it. A small white feather dwells inside. You look at the storyteller. She has already turned back to the fire, a new drink in her hand.
“Who knows,” she announces solemnly. “The crows can visit whoever they want.”
Her heavy stares set upon you. It grasps your soul like an enchantress looking inside a vision orb. She smiles.
“Have you any kind of remorse for the lies you told? Did you hurt somebody? Somepony? Sort your past and look as far as you can.”
Her smirk changes into laughter… the same laughter that the crows have. Her glasses glow.
“Here comes the next story.”
Your hand tightened on the feather as you watch her throwing again the whisky in the fire, unleashing a rising tide of glowing particles. You feel the same sparkles than earlier penetrate your spirit. Your mind feels dull…
You fall into the blackness.
Second Perjury, Our music will be graphic
The pegasi had gathered clouds over Ponyville. The day was dark and no shafts of sunlight succeeded in piercing the lid suspended over everypony’s head. It would shower down in the afternoon.
Oh Celestia, she knew she hated the rain! Drumming over the slates of her roof, the staccato of the downpour was of no assistance when she wanted to focus. It did nothing but distracting her from performing anything productive. It was the same for the optional extras this dull weather displayed… bolts of lightning, hailstones and other joyful phenomenons.
At least, the mare thought, the heat wave of the past days had vanished. She was now walking outside under the refreshing shadows of the trees bordering the Everfree Forest. For the first time since three days, he was not sweating a river. She thanked Celestia for this blessing. These two weeks-long holidays in Ponyville were of the utmost relief.
The agitation of Canterlot had her beaten down. Here she could procrastinate, careless about tomorrow, deaf to the noise of the city and ponies. She tip toed under the low branches of the Everfree. The discordant creasing the rustling leaves played was a sweet natural melody. She was happy; the grim marbled walls of Canterlot had deprived her from any connection with nature.
The wind blew through her mane, ruffling her fur. A frisson spread under her skin. She smiled.
She was approaching the Pond of the Two Rocks. It was a location she had seen earlier on the map the library pony had gently given to her. What was her name already? Was it Twilight? She shrugged; it was not her business anymore. The pool was isolated from the town. There, she was expecting that nopony would disturb her meditation.
The mellow chirruping of a spring reached her ears. They twitched swiftly.
In a hollow carved between two imposing boulders of granite was jetting a small stream of crystalline water. The pond was not big, but still vast enough to welcome a group of pony. And to the mare’s greater satisfaction, the place was empty of sentient life that could have ruined her session.
She untied her saddlebags. It slid down her stiffs and fell loudly on the shingles that surrounded the tarn. She could see the bottom of the pool, proof that the water was so clean it was a shame to soil such peaceful haven of rest.
She slithered in and shivered as the coldness nibbled her hooves. It was so cold it felt like thousands of needles was picking her flanks. She loved this numbing feeling. She closed her eyes, leaving her body slid under the water.
Only her face was surfacing. The waves she had created splashed softly on her cheeks and ears, making the air popped on her eardrums.
She gave a long and deep breath. She kept the air in her lungs for few seconds and exhaled noisily, casting bubbles on the top of the pool. It reminded her blowing through a straw in a soda, she smirked.
She was alone, peaceful. Hence she could act childishly; nopony was going to reprimand her for her uncouth manners. And it was better that way she convinced herself. She had holidays and she was going to prey on them without any restrain.
She let her spirit fly away. A dreamless catnap cradled her features and hooves. She fell asleep…
Something hurtled down in the pound with a heavy splash. Waves submerged the mare’s face. She snapped out of her sleep and gasped for air. She stood clumsily on her hooves as she hauled herself out of the pond. She coughed the water she had inhaled out of her throat. She cleared it, struggling with her lungs.
Wiping droplets of water off her eyes, she stared at the pool. Her vision was blurred. The pond had turned murky. She could not hold her disgust. She had been sleeping in that?! Her mouth distorted in horror.
Her mind was then numbed by another compelling question. What had fallen in the pond?
The waves licked her forehooves with a disturbing gurgling. Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks, trying to scan the water. She craned her head over it until her face nearly touched the surface. Seeing deeper than an inch was an impossible task to fulfil. Nothing, there was clearly nothing.
A wet grating erupted at her left side. She turned, looked at it… blinked… looked at it a second time to be sure. She shrieked.
A strange creature was floating just under the top of the water; no bubble was running out of its mouth. It was inanimate, drowned. The mare’s eyes widened. She shoveled her fear deep inside and gulped. She put her hooves on the creature’s garments and pulled it out. She dragged it on the beach. The creature was motionless. Two times her size, it was completely shaved and different objects could be found in its pockets.
He was without a doubt a sentient creature. And he was apparently dead, or at least unconscious.
Like her, he had a dark skin. Hers was grey, his was dark brown.
He had a small muzzle, placed over a large mouth where she saw aligned white teeth. His eyes were closed. She refused to risk herself lifting his lids up. The mare’s curiosity was a real craving. She put her hooves on his chest and squeezed it multiple times. Water dripped out of his throat. It made the mare freak out. Was he really dead? He couldn’t, not now, not now with her!
She approached her mouth from his, ready to blow air into his lungs. She was going to do it. Their lips nearly touched.
A small breath tickled her muzzle.
“It’s alive!” she erupted in joy.
Indeed, the creature was alive. The mare smirked for that she had not to kiss him.
His thorax swelled and shrunk continuously. Yet, the animal breathed with difficulty, hissing. She reached his dangling head and moved it in a position that would ease his respiration. Withdrawing her hooves back she felt something thick and slimy stuck on it. She looked with a knot in her stomach. It was blood.
Fear sparked in her heart. She stepped back and fell on her flank.
She stayed prostrate for minutes. She kept staring at a small dash of blood sprawling on the pebbles, awestruck. It was coming from the back of his head.
She gulped. Taking her courage in her hooves, she lifted the creature’s head uneasily. Her feature liquefied. A part of the neck vertebras were seemingly broken. Small holes were visible at the top of his neck, dripping blood. This left a limp impression in the mare’s hooves. She tried to carry him up. The head just fell back hideously in a crack of bones. She winced in pain for the primate.
Unhooking the pink bowtie circling her neck, she clipped it on the poor creature, trying miserably to hold back his dangling skull. She felt nauseous; she could not move him as it would deal him the last blow.
After a moment passed thinking, she made a decision. She dashed in Ponyville’s direction, still wet from her break in the pond. Breaking her speed record, she rushed to the horsepital. She flung the door inward, grabbed the closest careponies and with a stretcher led them to the pool.
Blood had tainted all the ground under the creature’s back. He had not moved an inch, pitifully lying like a disarticulated doll. The ponies accompanying the mare shivered when they lay their eyes on him. They called him a monster.
Their duty was the priority. They put aside their worries and moved the creature on the stretcher. Coming back took longer and the stretcher turned red on the way, blood leaked over its sides.
The creature was quickly transferred in the intensive care department. The mare found herself alone in the waiting room. She sighed. She will need a new Bow Tie. Her hind legs failed her. She collapsed on a chair of the waiting room. She stayed there, despondent for an uncertain period of time. She let her head dangle over the small headrest.
She caught the blood coagulating on her hooves. She hauled herself out of her stupor, closed her eyes and tried to erase this vision from her retina. Her hooves started shaking.
She tried to wipe the blood on a towel disposed on the nearest table. She could hardly calm herself. The blood had stained her fur in some areas where she could not get rid of at the moment.
“Tavia!? What happened?” a voice slashed through the unsettling silence.
Ready to burst in tears, still holding the blood-soaked towel, Octavia turned back and saw Vinyl Scratch. Her roommate had dropped her flashy sunglasses. Her worried eyes were staring at her through her blood red contact lens. Octavia swallowed, she will never get used to these geeky accessories.
Her shivers faded away and she sought reassurance in Vinyl’s hooves. She explained her plight. Correction, she sobbed her plight. She told her everything. Napping, she had left her spirit derive. She missed the creature’s fall. Somehow, Octavia felt responsible for him. She kept thinking she could have save him.
“If I had my eyes opened,” Octavia sobbed. “I would have seen him… helped him before he dived. I would have seen his assailant!”
“Assailant?” Vinyl blabbered.
“He was bleeding from his neck. And there were these… marks,” Octavia hiccupped. “I think he had been attacked.”
Vinyl welcomed this terrifying news with a comprehensive silence. The Everfree Forest was a dangerous place after all. The relevant question was why Octavia went there.
They both looked at the door leading to the surgical unit, they had just heard hoofsteps. The gates opened and a nurse entered in the room. The small plaque she had pinned on her white coat announced she was called Healing Rhyme.
“Your pet is safe Miss…”
“It’s not my pet,” Octavia stammered in horror, willing to stop any misunderstanding. “I was at the Pond of the Two Rocks when it… he fell in. He was bleeding.”
The nurse bit her tongue.
“Yeah… Exactly, we may have a problem about that…” the nurse hesitated, swallowing her saliva.
“What?” Vinyl cut in the conversation.
“Well…” Healing Rhyme said with doubts. She stared outside the window, only to see depressing clouds. “It’s better I show it to you.”
Vinyl and Octavia stared at each other, worried. They followed the nurse to the reanimating unit.
The creature was resting alone on a bed whose linens had just been changed. Far too tall for the dimension of the bed, the nurses had folded the creature’s legs under the sheets. Of course it was not recommended for injured ponies, but the horsepital had no furniture adapted to him. Of course… he could be anything but a pony.
Octavia dried her tears.
Now lit by the ceiling light bulbs, the creature’s features were apparent. He was approximately five feet and seven inches high. He was nearly shaved from tip to tip, except for a thin greyish mane sprouting on the top of its head. He had a dark skin, dark brown to be accurate. It was wrinkled by the time. He was undoubtedly old. His eyes were still closed.
Wrapped in medical outfits, his original garments were folded by his side on a neighbouring table. It was a suit. The coat was as grey as dirt, as was the trousers. A white shirt came as an extra, accompanied by a black tie. There was also a brass necklace where dangled a medallion. Opening it, Vinyl and her friend glanced at a small picture, the photo of a woman for sure. She was smiling.
Octavia and Vinyl put back the medallion on the table, closing it with a quasi-religious respect.
Finally, they peered at the last object found in his clothes. It had a strange rectangular shape, and was hollowed by a series of symmetric holes. Its tips showed minuscule brass rivets and its top and bottom were seemingly made of silver. On it was engraved a simple word.
“Do you think it’s his name?” Octavia arched a brow.
Vinyl shrugged, she titled her head over her friend’s shoulder. She read.
“Hohner…” Vinyl whispered.
Clueless, Vinyl sighed with strength. She blew air on the object. A small twinkling broke the omerta between her and her friend. Octavia dropped it with a gasp of surprise. The two mares looked in each other’s eyes. Vinyl lowered her hooves and took the… thing clumsily, struggling to keep it tight between them.
She raised the object to her lips, inhaled slowly and held the air for a moment. She glanced at her friend, seeking for an approval. Octavia looked at her, perplexed but thrilled. Vinyl blew through the holes of the rectangular tool.
A strange vibrating sound rose. Octavia gratify the object with a genuine smile. It was a music instrument! Vinyl smirked with amusement seeing that after hours of stress, Octavia had finally managed to smile.
Vinyl was also delighted to see something new. Maybe it would be of any interest for her, the true and only one DJ-PON3.
Octavia snatched the object from Vinyl’s hooves. It was her turn to play, and she succeeded in forcing notes out of it. With the first victory she decided to not give in. She fanned a second time through the opening of the instrument, getting a minor chord. A third time, the instrument gave a vibrant and alien scale. A fourth time, she finally obtained an octave. Curious, she tried to produce a far more constructed music through the instrument, improvisation and thrill of discovery as sole guides.
She pouted, unable to find the same sonorities her violin and cello could produce. The instrument was perfect for a traveller. For it was simple enough and she had not expected too much from it. But the fun she experimented with the object was still there.
Looking back at the creature, Octavia asked herself where he came from. She knew she would not get an answer, but it was worth the shot, wasn’t it?
“We have few hopes for him…” A spooky voice snaked behind Octavia’s back.
She jumped in Vinyl’s hooves, startled.
Grinning amusingly, Octavia stepped on the ground after Vinyl had given her a narrowed stare. DJ-PON3 was not entertained. Octavia’s smile died quickly when she lay her eyes on the pony who had scared her. He was a stallion, the surgeon who had dealt with the creature earlier. He was visibly tired.
“His brainstem has been damaged by something I can’t identify…”
Octavia glanced at the bed where the inanimate shape was still breathing slowly, unaware of the goings-on around him. Nurses were setting up brain and heart monitors; they had to keep records of the creature; for a medical purpose of course. Octavia suspected it was also driven by some scientific interest.
“I also sent a letter to Canterlot,” the surgeon added staidly, –She knew it –. “This primate is all brand new for me… Maybe they know something. I also found the traces of unknown psychotropic in his blood.”
Having to watch the lost stares of the two mares in front of him, he sighed deeply. If he had no manners, he would have sunk his hoof in his face and slid it off.
“Believe me. He’ll never wake up from these wounds. He… it is an empty shell right now.”
As the surgeon’s shift was coming to an end, he withdrew in an adjoining room. Octavia and Vinyl looked to the emptiness of space in front of them. Minutes passed before Vinyl raised her voice.
“I gotta go, I have much to do and your small adventure did not ease everything for me.”
“You’re not abandoning me, are you?” Octavia pleaded.
“I have to, Moon Dancer hosts a party tonight. She hired me for the music,” Vinyl replied. Embarrassed, she preferred to change of subject. “Don’t overcommit yourself, you don’t even know him. Go back home. Wait for Canterlot’s help tomorrow.”
Octavia grunted. Feeling betrayed, she moved away from Vinyl with a look of disapproval. She came back at the creature’s bedside and stopped. She drew her hooves toward the silver plated instrument. She was fascinated by the small object.
Vinyl shrugged and left Octavia alone in the room, face to face with the dead-like entity.
Swiftly, Octavia lifted the instrument to her mouth. She tried to play. It was hard to hoofle.
The instrument was clearly not meant to be played by ponies. Studying the creature, Octavia had seen his fingers, similar to dragons’, griffons’ and minotaurs’. These species were more adapted to… handle the object. But she refused to be beat down by something this simple.
For hours she tried to produce a perfect melody, and the night had fallen on Equestria when she finally got something decent out of it.
This day, the horsepital was impressively empty and this was why no nurse came to make her lower the volume of the noisy gadget. Alone, even if the creature was ‘sleeping’ next to her. She went back to her musical meditation.
She had finally performed something kindly interesting. Hours of training had exhausted her and she wanted to sleep. She had not even the conviction to come back home. Slacking around, she went in a neighbouring room. It was empty of life. Octavia took a chair and made it slide on the floor as she came back to the creature’s room. Sitting in, she put the instrument by her side and kept looking at the bed and its occupant with a stalking interest.
In the darkness, the sandmare spread her magic over Octavia and sleep came. She sunk into her dreams without noticing that a small jolt had sparked on the brain monitor.
There was no sun, no moon, no cloud, no shadow, no sky… no ground… nothing.
Everything in that place was absolutely bright. Blank as a white sheet. The silence was deadening. Octavia sighed. No air left her lungs. She gasped with anxiousness, choking instinctively for oxygen. Her new born fear gained in momentum as she also understood she was mute. She struggled, suspended in this blankness, trembling and shaking until minutes passed and that she finally noticed she was not given to breath. Her animal survival reflex was useless here. She did not need to breath. It was… bizarre.
She calmed down, Octavia knew now she was within a dream. She raised her hooves before her eyes. She panicked.
Her harmonious features and contours had been gummed out like a character on an artist’s sketchbook. She was only formed of imperfect traits and sticks likely traced with a bold pencil. She wished she had a mirror, but she imagined herself perfectly well. She should look like a stickmare, or something similar.
Octavia tried to walk. For her greatest amazement… and horror, she was not walking, not at all. Each stepped forward she felt like erased from this blank universe, only to be redrawn further… like on a preliminary sketch of a cartoon. She shivered.
Unable to breath, Unable to talk, she could not express her fear or her emotions. She was mute and naked… Yes, she felt truly naked, here in this white soundless nothingness.
Stunned, she put a hoof in front of the other and slowly began to move forward with no point A from where to go… And no point B for where to trot.
Octavia lost track of time, she was just going forward, step by step with an erratic pace in this impossible universe. Strangely, she found herself unable to tell if this dream was three-dimensional or not. She had been flung somewhere else, where the common rules she was used to were absolutely different. Her mind boggled all along the trail.
A minuscule point popped far in the distance. But in the emptiness surrounding her, it was like an elephant in a room. If Octavia had eyes, they would have swelled to a cartoonish size. She dashed, rushing toward the form. She ran for what seemed to be hours.
She found him…
The creature was here; or at least a badly drawn sketch of him. A round white face deprived of all feature was standing over a long, slender and creepy body only formed of long black sticks. His hands were talon-like, crooked and twisted in an unnatural position. Even in his craned stance, he was still higher than Octavia. And he was wobbling on his skeletal legs.
A monster from under the bed… It was the closest comparison Octavia could do. She trembled and saw that specks of her drawn contours faded in the blankness with her shakes. She tried regaining her composure. If she could, she would have swallowed her saliva. But she was a sketch too…
The creature turned his head in the newcomer’s direction. Something was facing him. Was it a pony? He could not tell. The animal’s face was gummed away, showing only outlines. He witnessed the crackling and withering contours of this mute animal. He raised his hand, trying to appease this communicative conundrum. He looked at his tips. He was hideous with these drawn claws… His shoulders dropped slightly. He tried to speak, nothing… He was powerless.
Octavia wanted to talk, but this simple right had been forbidden to her. She was eager to communicate… but she was trapped. And the creature was right in front of her, at less than a hoof range.
She tried to reach him. Her outlines met the creature’s sketches. They met but did not touch. Octavia passed through him like she would have with vapours. She tried again. Nothing happened.
They were so close, but paradoxically so far away from each other.
Octavia wanted to scream her sorrow, but she was not able to. She could not even cry. Trapped in… Locked in… She curled in front of the creature.
The creature stepped back. His hand was hesitant, trembling. However, an idea sparked in his mind.
Octavia heard a scratch. Being deaf for hours was mind-shattering. For she who was a musician, imagining her life deaf and cut from any kind of music was something she could not stand. She would rather die than being deaf.
This is why this small scratch, like a pencil slithering on a sheet was her deliverance. From her cringed position she raised her head.
With the tip of his finger the creature was drawing something out of the emptiness facing him. Creating lines, curves, lengths, heights and depths he snatched from the blank page an object. It was a parabolic cone which strangely curved pipe was armed with a dozen of keys and minuscule levers. One of its ends was ended by a bended mouthpiece; the other one was a large opening.
Octavia’s brows rose. Was it…
A mouth loomed on the creature’s face. A widened unsettling smile drew on its newly found face, showing impressive aligned teeth. He raised the mouthpiece to his lips.
A smooth and grave tone shattered the silence like a kick in a mirror. Octavia listened to the melody blooming from the instrument. She was bewildered. The music blossomed in the air and imprinted tones from outer Equestria in her eardrums. Octavia was speechless; the music was so slow, so sad. Eerie breed of an organ, an oboe and a clarinet, the tones of the instrument enshrouded her. She wanted to believe that the notes would take shape and carry her away.
And then, something eerie happened.
The music pierced the veil surrounding the strange couple. From the bell of the instrument lower section, minuscule sketch lines flew away like incarnated notes. Stirring in the air, the lines shaped under Octavia’s hooves. Drawings formed, colourless.
A vast meadow of grass sprawled. A peach sprouted behind the musician. Octavia was on her flank, witnessing a music giving birth to some new environment. She forgot about everything and listened.
A wrong chord clacked in the air. Octavia blinked, all the drawings vanished in the tow of the discordance.
She turned back to the creature. The instrument had disappeared from his hands. Akimbo, he was crooker than before. Octavia swore he was crying. Drying invisible tears, he lifted his head and fixed the mare… if only he had eyes.
With his fingers, he drew something out of the air again. He took his creation in his hands and walked to the mare. He delivered her his work.
It was… a violin.
With quivers, Octavia took the bow, held out by the slender creature. Stabilizing the violin under her chin, she put her left hoof on its neck. With the bow, she gave a vibrato.
Colours exploded around her.
Octavia woke up in a violent jerk and bounced out of her chair.
Looking behind she saw Healing Rhyme. Her blurred vision set upon Luna, standing next to the nurse. Octavia’s eyes widened as she gargled with her limp maw, trying to kick some straightness in herself.
Luna’s stare was grieved; she had not slept much this night.
“Hello Octavia!” The princess spoke with her Canterlot voice.
The cellist smiled gently. She had played hundreds of times for Canterlot’s urbane meetings. There, she had come up to know the princess personally.
“How are you Princess?”
“Not very well, We were watching upon the world tonight and something disturbed Us… but We couldn’t find the origin of such perturbation.”
With discomfort, Octavia gave the princess a fake smile. Once the Princess had turned away her interrogating stare, Octavia winced. She tried to remember the strange dream she just had. It was… sketchy and a numbing feeling was stuck in her stomach. She wanted to put her dreams into words, but she was incapable to do so. Sorting out the pain paralyzing her mind was an impossible task.
Healing Rhyme blabbered. The nurse was in front of the brain monitor. She attracted the alicorn’s and the cellist’s attention.
“He is alive!”
Luna raised a brow and got closer to the bed, Octavia in her tow. The creature was inanimate, ghoulish even with his dark skin. Without any monitor, nopony would have been able to discern if he was dead or not. To back her words, Healing Rhyme tapped the screen of the monitor she was looking at. Small signs were jolting on its screen.
Thereafter, she palpated the creature’s cheeks. He was still spineless.
“Why isn’t he moving?” Healing Rhyme said with a shrug. “At least, he is listening.”
Luna grabbed the mare and dragged her and Octavia out. A cloud had passed on her face. A knot was tightened in her stomach. The creature’s state had brought back some harsh memories from a distant past in the alicorn’s mind. Eyelids half closed she sighed with difficulty.
“Because he is locked-In…” She whispered.
Healing Rhyme’s eyes swelled. She glanced back in the room. The “lock-in Syndrom” was a specific case caretaking ponies studied in school. It was too rare to witness it. It was a kind of medical urban legend. The patients were literally locked inside their own body without any possibility to communicate with the ‘outside’, for the rest of their life…
To be trapped until death did his soul and his body part. Thinking about it, Octavia thought it was even worse than death… What if the creature’s nose was tickling?
“Poor little creature, we don’t even know what… who he is, and he is unable to speak,” Healing Rhyme complained. “What an ordeal.”
Luna nodded slowly. Compared to Healing Rhyme, she had seen similar cases during her long span of life. But they always had family to take care of them. This primate was alone… desperately alone. He would pass away rapidly anyway. The ‘locked-in’ patients were always short-lived. Cut off the outside, forced to listen and forbidden to answer their spirit would wither fast. Then they would let themselves die. Carrying on was too difficult to… handle.
Octavia shivered. Dhe could not imagine how terrific it should be to be trapped like this. To be in a dark cage without windows and with only one-sided loopholes. She was not claustrophobic, but she could not imagine it without felling a heavy pull falling down her stomach.
She swallowed; she remembered the dream of the last night. Was it something she had made up or something else? She wondered. Luna, the Princess of the dreamlands, had said nothing. It was intriguing.
The musician tried to convince herself it was just a dream, nothing more, noting less.
Five minutes later, Octavia and Luna were forced to leave as the creature’s state had to be checked. His hygiene was also an important matter.
Octavia went back to her home and passed the whole day studying the primate’s instrument she had stolen. Even more gratifying, Vinyl weren’t there to criticize her about how her manners were only a façade. The DJ pony must have blacked-out during last-night party.
Octavia came back in the horsepital in the middle of the night. She had kept with her the instrument. She also brought her violin, well hidden within its case. In his room, the creature had not moved an inch. He was remarkable of stillness. Like in last night dream, she secured the violin with its chinrest and paced a small suit with the bow. The tone was low-pitched, deafened. The music was filled with sadness.
The vibration in the air reached the sleeping creature. Octavia gave up after fifty minutes of playing… She had no reaction from him.
She was tired. And, as her violin drifted off her hooves, she slumped into the chair she had left the morning before. She sunk again in her dreams, eager to meet again the creature.
His stick shaped silhouette was still here, waiting. At this occasion, he was sat in front of something she knew very well. It was a grand piano, with straight and blackened features. The creature had taken his time drawing it out of nothing. And to his avail, Octavia confessed he did a very good job.
The creature’s head turned and saw the cellist’s outlines traced in the blankness. He smiled. He had also disposed a Cello, leaning against the piano side.
There was no meadow, no tree, nothing… Only he, she and both of their instruments. With her hoof, Octavia mimicked the creature and drew a comfy chair in the air. She settled in and adjusted the cello.
She looked at the sketched primate. His face still distorted like a joker, he nodded.
Octavia slid her bow on the chords. The grave and stern lament of the cello resonated in its belly. The rhythm grew and fastened until Octavia was creating rousing sonority.
The creature head’s wobbled in parallel to the notes. His fingers spanned on the piano keyboard. And he started playing.
It was… majestic. It was not only the music. Octavia was used to incredible pieces of work.
Here, music was giving birth to life itself. His music shaped the world, hers coloured it. Grass, trees, sky, clouds, animals, mountains, caves, ruins… Octavia felt like a goddess. She had no doubt he was felling the same.
She started seeing change on her too. Her poorly drawn features transformed. She felt fur growing on her new dark skin. Her mane sprouted off her head, her pink and white tie made its way to her neck, her cello shone under the sun to which she had given its yellow light. Nibbling her lips, she wiped with her elbow a tear rolling down her eyes.
It was beautiful.
Leaded by the lively pace of the creature, she saw appearing a stage around her. A micro popped as the shape of five red coated females of the creature’s species started singing in front of Octavia. Their lips were only moving, locked in muteness as the lyrics seemed to be held back.
Around the stage appeared rows of seats overwhelmed by a mass of beings of the same kind of the pianist. They applauded silently. Nothing but the carnal mix of their music from two different worlds was given to hear.
She looked at her partner, still behind his instrument. He was stomping the ground with his feet in a fit of joy. His smiling was golden and his features had come back. He was old, wrinkled and was hiding his eyes behind heavy sunglasses. But he was smiling. And this smile was worth a life of maniac researches for happiness. Even broken as he seemed, even blind and even lost in another world, he was smiling…
Octavia burst into tears that dropped on her cello, drumming like downpour. In the background Octavia heard the sound of the instrument the creature played the night before. Overall, Octavia experienced a new kind of music. Her spirit was flooded with questions and ideas. She was crying… She, Octavia, had found a muse.
The beat slowed down abruptly, dissipating the warm it had invigorated in her heart. Forced to follow, Octavia peered at the change around her. The plants withered horribly, yellowing under a dryness that could not affect her. The time seemed to accelerate, seasons passed and the tree in the creature’s back crackled and died quickly.
Night had risen and the moon was going down in the horizon. The piano produced low-pitches notes, located in the bass; grave, classical and flat.
The funky music the creature had created seconds ago was now dead. Octavia felt bluesy. She put aside her bow and using the biggest chord of her cello, she played pizzicato. She pulled the string with her hoof. Sadness was paving the melodic lament. He braked. The music lost in strength until a last note came in a last pitiful whisper. The air stopped vibrating and the atmosphere turned atone.
Silence was sometimes a key part of the music.
The creature’s hesitant hands trembled over the board. He brushed over it, undecided.
He put his thumb and forefinger over the acute notes. He made the piano twinkle in a shrill and drifted his left hand over the low notes. He gave birth to a small melody, amplifying gradually.
Octavia’s eyes widened, she stopped playing again. Over the horizon was growing a light. And the more the rhythm was gaining in momentum, the brighter the light.
A staccato of sounds pierced the silence under the tips of the creature’s hands. It was baroque, powerful. He drummed over the piano and the light erupted over the sharped mountains far away.
Octavia winced, drowned in the light. The brightness was burning her fur. The music grew into an orchestral eruption of sounds.
Grabbing her bow she joined the creature. The rhythm speeded up as they raised the sun over the clouds. The mare and the pianist spread life and joy over the once sleepy fields. Flowers and buds blossomed in hundreds of colours, yellow, white, pink, red, purple, blue… Birds flew in the airs, chirruping with her music.
Aback, Octavia’s warm tears glimmered with the beams of light. She knew she was near the climax of the piece. The staccato had changed into a flow of notes, hard, light, mellow, piercing… eerie.
The spectacle given to her eyes overwhelmed her senses.
“Did you see that?” She cried in joy, hearing for the first time her voice in this plan.
“I don’t see it… I live it!” The creature replied with a genuine laughter.
Octavia missed her next note as she turned back, her eyes glaring with hopes and joy. The creature had a grave voice, powerful and paternal. He raised his hands over his head and thrust his fingers in a final major chord.
A last wave of sounds exploded in the air like a shockwave, filling everything with a last pinch of colour and light.
The vibration amplified and the dream shattered in hundreds of shards, like a broken mirror. Everything sunk into darkness.
Octavia took a deep breath, gasping for air. Her ribcage was crushed under a heavy anxiousness. She coughed and groped around as she slowly regained her senses. The black veil covering her vision faded and she found herself lying poorly on the tiled ground. She was alone in the room, again. Through the curtain she could see small shafts of light. They passed within the holes and opening of the fabric, dispersing various luminous spots on the wall.
Panting, Octavia stood up on her hooves with violent shakes. Queasiness dragged down her happiness. She slowly set up her stare over the creature. His hand was moving. It was slow, minuscule. But… it was still something.
Octavia hauled herself on the bed, rubbing the creature’s cheek with excitement and fear. He should be locked-in like Luna had explained earlier. But right now, the creature was moving his hand, drumming on the bed cover.
Octavia screamed for somepony to come and give her a hoof. Howling like a timberwolf, she squeezed the creature’s thorax by accident. Crying out in stupor, fearing she had hurt him, she tried to sidestep and mixed up her hooves in the linens. She fell over the primate’s knees and ripped off the bed sheets. She hit the floor in a hard bang.
Stunned, she raised her spine and put her hooves by the creature’s side.
The sunbeams showing through the curtains illuminated Octavia’s tears rolling from her left eye. Her lips shivered from the pain, the bemused emotion and the hopes she was feeding for the creature’s miraculous recovery.
Octavia heard hurried hoofsteps coming behind the door. The gate broke in and in the threshold stood Healing Rhyme. Octavia glanced back and saw the nurse’s horribly widened eyes. She was looking behind Octavia’s spine.
Slowly, Octavia turned over with an expressed unease. She was scared.
Fingers gently touched her muzzle and drifted over her skin. Rough and withered, the palm of his hand pressed softly on her face. He was palpating her, seeking for something. The truth struck Octavia. Looking at the creature’s eyes, she only stared at two brown irises veiled by a whitish surface. He was definitely blind.
Even if he could move his arm, the rest of his body was motionless. He had his eyes open, but his face was glued to its current position, away from Octavia’s direction. Somehow, his hand was the extension of its vision, and it continued to probe Octavia’s features. Climbing up to her forehead, passing through Octavia’s smooth mane, the hand drew with its tips a complete tour of her face. It was tickling, and strange.
The creature slid to her chin, feeling the fur on his fingerprints. Octavia swore he was smiling. A twitch plagued a part of the creature’s mouth. He started crying.
“It was a pleasure to hit the road with yah…” The creature hissed slowly through his paralysed maw. “Thanks… I’ve got to hit the road alone now. I won’t come back no more Margie.”
The words died in his gritted teeth and a last breath forced its way out of his lungs.
Octavia slowly derived her stare over his thorax. There was no move anymore. With her hoof, Octavia tried to find a beat in his neck vein. She stared at his washed-out eyes. They were not trembling anymore. They were stuck in their current position, fixing something far over the ceiling encaging the room.
Octavia cringed on her hooves. She broke down in tears. And her cry echoed in the hallway out of the room.
Healing Rhyme moved forward. Standing by Octavia’s side, she grabbed a notebook.
“Time of death, Six-Forty-Seven,” She said, neutral.
”Ah Ah Ah, you should see the look on your face,” the mare by the fire says as the scene freezes again in an eerie picture. “Did you really believe you would be the first one coming here.”
She glances at you from the shadows casted by the red fire in the chimney. Her glasses spark in the darkness for a mere instant.
“Don’t think yourself as a special… guest of this world, would you?” she smirks sarcastically, her voice similar to needles thrust directly at your heart. “You gonna have to find something more compelling to narrate, if you thought the story of how you came here would be your payment.”
You shrink on your trembling feet. Her laughter shakes your inner being so deeply you start feeling nauseous. You lie on the red rug, breathing loudly, exhausted. These dives into memories and stories are so vivid you feel like you are the one living them. It is slowly but inexorably sucking out your energy.
“Well, well, well…” she continues. “Have you learnt something from this story.”
She has a bag next to her. You swear it was not here seconds ago. She leaps inside with her hooves and rummages through it. She gives a cry of victory and looks at you, smiling. You dislike her smile, you hate it so much it makes you want to throw up.
You feel something falling on your laps. You look down, terrified.
Between your knees dwells the harmonica with the same inscription Vinyl read in the vision. There is also a pastel box.
“Creation is not commanded, it births from the nothingness, the muteness… from the blank page.”
Winona barks next to you. You jump. You had forgotten about her. You wipe a drop of sweat off your head.
“Eh, eh, eh… the blank page… Have you ever done something with your own blank page?” she cackled mysteriously.
She stares at you, pierces you with her glowing eyes. You feel sick as you become aware of the same glass in her hooves, with the same liquor.
Another throw in the fire, another spark and another flow of darkness engulfs you. Before you fall unconscious, you can only ask yourself what the purpose of all of this is.
Everything is black once again.
