Remembrance

She sat alone at the far end of the bar, not drinking, just staring into space. She was well-built for a unicorn, but she hunched in on herself like she was trying to look smaller, and her grayscale coat blended into the dim lighting. Pretty and awkward--my usual type.

“Out of bits?” I asked. “I’ll buy you a drink if you want. You look like you need it.”

Cautiously, she turned to look at me. Her brilliant green eyes were the only point of color in her pale gray face. “Um, I guess I’d like another drink,” she said. “Hard cider? If you don’t mind--I know it’s kind of expensive this time of year . . .”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “I’m doing pretty well for cash right now. Bartender, two hard ciders!”

I sat down close to her, but not too close. No need to be pushy. “My name’s Petite Mort,” I told her. “I’m sort of a jack of all trades--repairs, farm work, anything that needs doing.”

She silently quirked an eyebrow as she looked at my dress, long and white with no signs of stains.

“What, a mare can’t dress up fancy sometimes?” I asked. “To be honest, I’ve got one of the embarrassing cutie marks, and ponies make a lot of assumptions when they see it. I wear this anytime I’m not wearing my overalls, just to keep anypony from getting the wrong impression. But I don’t mean to drone on about me. What’s your name?”

“I’m Peaceful Rest,” she said. She tapped her flank, and I noticed a faint outline against her fur, rounded on top and squared on the bottom. “I’m, well, I’m a gravedigger.”

“I’ve done that a few times,” I mentioned. “It’s backbreaking work, making a hole that’s deep enough. I guess it’s easier for you unicorns--holding a shovel with your mind has to be easier than holding it in your mouth.”

As if on cue, our drinks arrived. I took a sip of mine, but then I noticed she wasn’t drinking. She just stared at her glass, looking awkward.

“Ooh, I walked into that one,” I said. “I’m sorry if it’s a sensitive subject. I didn’t mean to embarrass you or anything.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s just another part of me being weird.”

“Hey, if you’re weird, I’m weird, too,” I told her. I tapped my bare forehead. “No magic for me, either, unless you count making plants grow.”

She sighed. “Everypony says I’ll get my magic someday. My uncle had an ice cutie mark, and his magic was always weak until he moved up north where it snows. I’m not sure what I would do to get magic for gravedigging, though.”

She grasped her glass with both hooves, like an earth pony, then leaned forward and took dainty little sips from it. I hadn’t seen anything so adorable since the time I watched a griffin egg hatch.

Apples are just apples to me, to be honest, but if somepony cute likes something, I make sure to like it as well. I took a longer drink, trying to look like I enjoyed it--not putting on a show or anything, nothing that obvious, just pretending I cared what it tasted like.

“I can’t say I’ve heard of a gravedigging cutie mark before,” I admitted. “If you don’t mind my asking, why graves?”

“Seriously, you’re going to think I’m weird,” she said. “Everypony does.”

“Trust me, it can’t be as bad as my cutie mark,” I told her. “If you really don’t want to get into it, I’ll drop it, but I promise I won’t judge you or anything.”

“Well, I used to be really into history,” she said. “Not all that grand stuff about queens and generals, but normal ponies living normal lives. But after a thousand years, or two thousand years, there’s not a lot left that tells you about those ponies. For the most part, it’s like they were never there at all.

“Graves are the big exception,” she continued. “If you’re famous, you get a big mausoleum, but if you’re just a normal pony, you still get a stone gravestone. A thousand years later, that stone will remember you, even if nothing else does. So I give ponies the best graves I can, and someday, I’ll have my own grave to remember me, too. Peaceful Rest, 983 NE to whenever I die.”

“That’s . . .” Seriously creepy, I thought. “Pretty cool,” I said. “Though I guess it sucks if you’re out in Appleloosa, and you just get a wooden grave marker.”

“That’s why I like granite,” she said. “Some towns use sandstone, or Celestia forbid, shale. Nopony’s going to be able to read that a hundred years from now.”

This led into a spirited discussion of the practice of gravedigging around Equestria, with occasional stops for her to drink a little more. As much as all that stuff about “remembering the dead” wigged me out, I liked the way her eyes lit up when she talked. Besides, it got her distracted enough to keep her from noticing that I’d stopped drinking.

After about half an hour, she gestured at my flank. “That’s enough about me. What’s your mark?”

“Like I said, it’s kind of embarrassing . . .” I said cautiously.

“It’s embarrassing having a tombstone on your butt, too,” she said. “We can be the awkward cutie marks club.”

“Well, I got it while I was with a stallion,” I explained. “I mean, with a stallion. It was loud, and messy, and perfect, and when we finished, there it was on my flank.”

She reddened slightly under her fur. “Oh. I didn’t know there was a cutie mark for . . . that.”

“Yeah, I didn’t, either,” I said. “I love doing it, but it really sucks when everypony thinks I want to do it with them. I mean, I have standards.” I eyed the bartender, who was listening in on us with an eager expression on his face. “Some ponies just aren’t my type.”

I waited silently for a few seconds, and the bartender made himself busy at the other end of the bar.

“Anyway, that’s why I had to leave my hometown,” I said. “Now I travel all over Equestria. I do whatever jobs need to be done, and sometimes, with somepony who’s really cute, I do a little something on the side. It gives me a lot of great memories, and if there’s something I don’t want to remember, I never have to think about it once I leave town.”

“It sounds lonely,” Rest said quietly.

“I guess so,” I said, “but it can be fun, too. I always love the way pegasi look at me when they feel what I can do to their wings.” I winked at her. “I used to do the same thing to unicorns’ horns, but then I met one with a cutie mark of a campfire. I still have a little spot on my back where the fur doesn’t grow right.”

“Ouch,” she said. She looked into my eyes for a few seconds, like she was trying to figure out what to say. “Um . . . what about earth ponies?”

“They’re my second favorite, after pegasi,” I told her. “Loads of stamina, so they can do it forever. It can be kind of a problem with the mares--they just keep going and going, and I wind up exhausted.”

Rest got even redder at that, but she didn’t look away. Either she was kinkier than she looked, or the cider had done its work. I didn’t really care which.

“Am I bothering you?” I asked, knowing full well I wasn’t. “I can quit talking about it if it bugs you.”

“No, it’s interesting,” she said. “I don’t really think much about those sorts of things.”

“Well, I can’t get too detailed in a public place,” I said, “but there are a few stories I can tell, if you’d like . . .”

I had to edit a lot, but I gave her enough to hook her and reel her in. I toned it down whenever she got too red, and threw in a juicy detail or two when I wanted to get her attention. Before long, I could make her feel whatever I wanted.

When I finished, it was almost closing time. “It’s been really fun talking to you,” I said, “but I’ll be going back to my wagon for the night. It’s on the hill outside town.”

“Can we talk again tomorrow?” she asked.

“I’ll be leaving town in the morning,” I said. “I probably won’t come back this way, so I guess this is our last meeting. Unless . . .”

“What?”

“Never mind,” I said, faking awkwardness. “I don’t even know if you like mares.”

“Um, I’ve never really thought about that,” she said. “I like you, though. You’re nice, and you’re funny, and you listened when I talked about gravestones. If you’re . . . well, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then yes.”

“You want me to take you back to my wagon,” I asked, “and you want us to have some messy, noisy fun?”

“Yes,” she said in a voice hardly louder than a mouse’s squeak.

“Well, follow me,” I told her. “We’ve got a long, long night ahead of us.”

I won’t claim it was easy to overpower her. All that digging had made her pretty strong for a unicorn. But I’d had a lot of practice with that sort of thing, and it wasn’t long before she found herself tied down on my table.

“The nice thing about this wagon,” I told her, “is that it’s almost completely soundproof. Don’t bother trying to scream. Not yet, anyway.”

Her eyes frantically darted around the room as she strained against her bonds. The dim light of a single lamp hinted at sharp blades and dark stains. “Why . . .” she gasped.

“Because you’re a freak,” I told her, “a beautiful, wonderful freak. Because you’re awkward, and you like graves, and nopony cares enough about you to pay for your drinks. The funny thing about freaks is that nopony gives a dry horseapple when they go missing.” I smiled thinly. “They might search for you for a day or two, but they’ll give up quickly if they can’t find a body. They’ll just think you left town. They won’t even try to track me down.”

“You . . . you were nice to me . . .”

“And you were gullible. You’re never getting a tombstone, freak. I’m the only one who’ll ever remember you. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ve got all night, after all.”

I set my dress aside--no sense in staining it--and I showed her my flank.

Ponies make a lot of assumptions about a mare with a knife for a cutie mark. All of them are right.