Approx. Thursday, 5th Week of Summer

I’ve lost track of time. No surprise there, I suppose. I’ve only been living among these ponies for a little bit, less than a week I think, but I can already tell they have little concept of time. There’s no night or day. I’d bet there’s no winter, summer, spring, or fall. I wonder what it’s like, living with no notion of things changing. And dying the same way.

Forgive me, Starswirl, not only for waxing philosophical, but also doing a terrible job of it. I’m a bit shaken right now. The details will come later. I like to keep my experiences in some kind of chronological order, though I often fail at it. Let’s just say that the timing of our arrival was a bit unfortunate.

Despite my saying, in the last letter, that I was too excited to sleep, eventually exhaustion and the boredom of laying around in this cabin for a few hours caught up to me. I awoke when two Spiral ponies entered, carrying a basket of the red fruit. While one stared directly at my still-sleepy eyes, the other set the basket down, picked up a fruit, and rolled it over to me. The other then grabbed a different fruit and ate it. I smiled. They’re willing to shelter me, provide me with food, and give effort into communicating. Introducing them to the rest of the world, and vice-versa, might be easier than I thought.

They left after their little performance, not waiting to see if I understood. I only took the tiniest bite of the fruit. Whether or not it’s safe for them, it’s still strange to me. I’ve come way too far to be taken out by fruit. Since then, though, I’ve been eating them pretty regularly. The bright red skin is very tough, but the pale white interior is mushy, sort of like a slightly grittier banana. The fruit’s fairly sour as well, though it becomes sweeter after the initial bite. They, unfortunately, aren’t very filling, despite their size. It usually takes two or three to feel satisfied. I feel sorry for the Spiral ponies, since this mildly unappetizing crop seems to be their only source of food.

Frederick’s been having a much worse time than I have. He’s been cooped up in the cabin ever since we got here. The little guy’s recently started eating again. I don’t think the fruits agreed with him, and he refused to eat any for long time. He’s lost quite a bit of weight. Fortunately, I think he can handle them in small pieces, and he’s looked a lot better ever since I started feeding them to him in tiny chunks. Still, he’s not been well. If he gets any worse, I’m afraid we’ll have to cut this visit short.

Shortly after eating, my boredom grew to frustration and I decided to risk seeing if leaving the cabin would anger my hosts. I threw open the grass curtain, but not a single Spiral pony looked at me. They were all too focused on farming. I soon spotted the village leader. Even he was busy, digging small holes and planting seeds. I walked over to him and stood outside the field. Eventually, I crept in, grabbed some seeds, and mimicked the leader’s motions. He looked over at me, but quickly went back to farming. I continued copying what he was doing, and soon we planted the whole field. Looking over our work, I could see sprouts already starting to grow. One of the other Spiral ponies working on our field suddenly took her bag of seeds, dropped them off outside the field, and walked to a hut. I was the only one who seemed to notice.

As we moved on to the next little garden, another Spiral pony came out to join us. She picked up the same bag and started planting them. The whole time I was out there I saw Spiral ponies leaving and entering their huts. I’m assuming they lack a true sleep cycle, just as they lack a day/night cycle. Instead, they rest only when they’re too tired to work. They’re almost always working. And all of them work. Adults plow, plant seeds, and harvest fruit. The youngest foals carry seeds and fetch tools. As do the elderly. One of the ponies who worked alongside me recently was very visibly pregnant. Everyone works. I’ve started working, too. It’s been almost too exhausting to write.

You’d think that a plant that grows so quickly would more than feed this tiny village. But, sadly, they die just as quick and they sprout up. It couldn’t have been two days after I helped plant that first field that I was digging up all the dead crops. The fruit decays quickly, too. I swear a basket I harvested started rotting before I filled it. It’s such a cyclical plant; they’re planted, they grow a single fruit, the stalk dies, the ripe fruits are eaten and the rotten ones are used as fertilizer. The whole process takes less than a three days. I guess that’s why the Spiral ponies are always working. They have to keep these plants alive to keep themselves alive. So they spend their whole lives struggling to live. It doesn’t seem like a happy existence.

I’ve been stuck on this sentence for a while now. I guess I’ll just have to say it. I saw somepony die today. It was one of the elderly ponies. He looked old, and frail. Far skinnier than the others, but just as pale. His eyes didn’t glow as bright. I’d seen him working on a field across from me. I thought “that pony looks too old and too sick to be working as hard as he is, it’s a shame this culture seems to expect that of him.”

I wish I’d said something. They wouldn’t understand me. But I wish I’d said it.
I’d been harvesting fruit when the scream came. High-pitched, like their speech, but without any semblance of musicality. The fruit fell out of my mouth as I turned around, looking for a source. The old Spiral pony was lying in the dirt, with his hooves digging into the ground and his head raised high. His cries kept getting cut short by his heavy gasps for air. His front hooves dragged him along, moving him closer and closer the the pool at the center. His heart was giving out. I think.

I rushed to save him. “But what would? A healing spell? Do I know any? How do I do them again? He needs water, sleep, air, rest, me. He needs me. I need to do some thing. What?” These thoughts rushed into and out of my brain just as fast as the wind and little beads of ambient magic flew into and out of my face. I wasn’t fast enough, though. I arrived just in time to see him collapse. His eyes completely stopped glowing.

I panicked. Can’t remember what I thought. I looked away from the body. A sudden realization hit me. I was the only one who tried to help.

There, in the center of town, I could see all around me. And all I saw were Spiral ponies, packing up their farming equipment and heading to their homes. Going inside! That was their response! Didn’t do anything to help, just packed up their equipment and headed home. Like this poor stallion’s death was nothing more than a whistle, blown to signal the end of their prolonged work day.

“Hey!” I couldn’t stop myself. “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to do something? Aren’t you going to help him?”

A few Spiral ponies passed me on their way home. They wouldn’t look me in the eye. They were just going to leave this old pony to rot.

It wasn’t long until I spotted the leader. His head was hung low, but I stuck my face underneath it, locking eyes with him.

“This pony just died. Don’t you have a responsibility? Don’t you care about him? Don’t you care about anything?”

I shoved him. Didn’t mean to, it just happened. I shuffled back.

“Sorry.”

He centered himself, brushed me aside, and walked to his hut. Nowhere to go, I returned to the body. I bent down and got real close to his head, and poked his chest with the tip of my hoof. No response. Of course not.

When I stood back up, a Spiral pony was staring at me. It was an old mare. I’d seen her working on the same field as the old stallion. She was the only one who stopped. Behind her, others walked right on by. She never looked at the body, only at me. It felt like an eternity, standing there. Her blank expression directed at me. My many futile attempts at reading it. Eventually, she too carried on home.

Soon, they all left. Reason soon came flooding back to me. I’d made a complete ass of myself. This is a small town, with a culture completely separate from ours. They must have a procedure, a ritual, or something. Some sign of respect for this old stallion’s life of work. But I don’t know, maybe they don’t value respect, maybe they don’t value compassion. Maybe they don’t value basic fundamental levels of sympathy for other living creatures. No, that’s harsh. And rude.

They stopped working. Work is the only thing I know they value. Maybe their brief respite is their funeral rites.

I shouldn’t have done anything. I should have stood there and watched, but if I just wanted to distance myself then I wouldn’t be here, living this event. But I’ve never really prepared myself for things like this. I did a terrible job of handling this whole thing. I’m not sorry for trying to help, for asking for some acknowledgement from them that they valued this pony’s life. My values are just as important as theirs. But this should have been a more private event. My actions may have undone any good I’d accomplished toward diplomacy. I’m a rash pony by nature, unapologetically so. But I may have made things a lot harder for myself.

Stranded out there, alone with the old stallion’s body, I still struggled to find the right course of action. I considered calling for help again, bursting into the other ponies’ home and forcing them to do something, or just trying to bury the pony myself. Finally, I did nothing. It hurt, physically and mentally, to leave. I couldn’t look away, no matter how hard I tried, as I forced myself back into my cabin. But my leaving was proper, in this society. I think. I hope. Can’t let this discovery be for nothing.

That whole thing happened only moments ago. I thought writing would calm me down, but I’m still shaking. There’s been rumblings outside, various Spiral ponies leaving their homes, headed to the center of town. I’m going to stay here a bit longer, trying not to make the situation worse.

When I set out from Equestria, I said I wanted to go experience. Today, experience found me. I’d never seen anypony die before. It’s horrifying and tragic and gut churning and awful and I never ever want it to happen again. I wish I’d never seen it.

I’m going to try to sleep. I’ll fail.

Author's Note

I was getting sick of publishing it in parts, so here's the rest.