Wittgenstein's Seamstress

by Blank_Slate

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rarity, Alternate Universe, Sad
Length: 14725

Rarity is convinced that she is the only pony left in Equestria.

This is a pastiche/style parody of David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress, but with ponies. Or one pony (Rarity, to be exact). The plot will be basically the same: Rarity seems to be the only pony left in Equestria.

I'm writing it for NaNoWriMo Pony edition, and I hope to write 50,000 words (though I really don't know if I'll be able to.)

Published 2014-11-02 18:20:03 UTC
Last updated 2014-11-12 11:35:43 UTC

Day 1

In the beginning, sometimes I left beautifully-arranged messages in the street.

I used the finest paint I could find, and though I didn't know too much about house paint I tried to prime and mix it as best I could. If only I had listened as Hayseed Turnip Truck rambled on about paints, then maybe I could have perfected my messages.

Somepony is living in Canterlot Castle, certain of the messages would say. Or in the Crystal Empire Library.

Naturally, they could only say that when I was in Canterlot, or in the Crystal Empire. Somepony is living in Sugarcube Corner, they would say when I was in Ponyville, written in a fetching violet or marigold.

A pony must not forget about color or taste at such times.

Nopony came, of course. Eventually I stopped leaving the messages.

To Pinkie swear, perhaps I only left a few messages altogether.

I don’t know how long it is since I wrote those messages. If I had to guess, I would say at least one hundred moons, but after a time I stopped counting.

I regret that. Stopping counting, I mean. What would Twilight say? “In an emergency this dire, what hope do you have if you are unorganized?”

I’m sorry, Twilight. After a while I resumed counting moons. It has been at least twenty moons since then.

Of course, I was quite out of my mind for a while there. I hope I can be forgiven for my lapse in record-keeping.

And by counting moons I mean that I have been estimating based on a clock I keep wound. The time in terms of astronomical events has been stopped ever since this dreadful business began.

It is always early morning now. Or perhaps late afternoon. Dawn or dusk. Not quite twilight. I don’t know. Celestia and Luna have left along with everypony else, as far as I can tell.

And by left, I mean that they have disappeared, rather than abandoned me, I think.

I hope nopony’s abandoned me. That would be quite rude of them.

I do not know how long I spent out of my mind.

Perhaps I spent that time mad, like the poor ponies in the Equestria Insane Asylum, Screwball and the barking one. I mean formerly in.

Or perhaps I have simply forgotten the events that happened when I was out of my mind.

In either case, there is no doubt that I was mad. As when I traveled all through Saddle Arabia and visited Medineigh.

And for some reason wished to visit the river that runs through that city at the point where it runs through the bazaar.

I have forgotten the name of the river, which was actually a horrid muddy stream. And, to my later disgust, I had splashed around in it and muddied my hooves.

In many ways my visit was disappointing. The city was small, and let’s not forget about the itinerant madness. For the amount of time I took to travel there, it was a let-down.

Still, one could see the Saddle Arabian mountains from the city. Occasionally I would be satisfied, is what I’m saying.

And there was a lovely collection of afghans that I found in somepony’s abandoned stall.

Afghans meaning blankets, obviously, and not dogs.

And also a large bundle of yarn, which I've since used.

Soon after that time, I believe I lived in the Crystal Empire. In such a cold place I burnt library books (forgive me, Twilight), any wood that I could tear from houses, and even artifacts for warmth. Only occasionally did I chop down trees.

Which, by the way, is an ordeal. I wonder if Applejack would have laughed at my pathetic attempts to saw through a tree, or whether Spike would have helped me to light it. I’m almost sure he would’ve, had he been around.

I’m no lumberjack, let me tell you. How is it that one is supposed to cut through a tree trunk? In any case I think that the trees of the Crystal Empire, toughened as they are by the colder climate, are much harder than the trees I’m used to in Ponyville. I’m sure my friends would’ve been quite amused to see me red-faced and with scratches all over, desperately flailing around the base with an ancient hoof-saw.

The crystal ponies hadn’t quite acclimatized to the modern era, I think, and the craftsponies of that era seemed reluctant to give up on their ways of old. There are no cranes and modern construction sites there, but I noticed a scattering of hard-hats. Perhaps they were adapting, a little at a time.

Not like in Ponyville, where even now there is a (much dilapidated) building site with scaffolding like I am used to.

Ever since that half-built house collapsed and Pinkie Pie saved the builders in my Mysterious Mare Do Well disguise, construction has been much more cautious and regulated.

Of course, I mean it was more cautious and regulated.

Am I an old pony now? Or middle age?

There is one mirror in Sweet Apple Acres, where I live now. Perhaps it says I am middle-age.

I know that I started to dye my mane a while ago. I know that my skin is starting to wrinkle. My hooves say middle age. It has come to show on the backs of my hooves.

Conversely, my ability to sense gems hasn’t dulled.

In fact, if anything it has grown sharper and more aware as time goes on. However, occasionally I will not be able to sense anything, and will spend weeks lost in a gem-hidden haze.

Not now, though. Now I can sense the diamonds in Granny Smith’s jewelry case downstairs. I never saw her wear them, but now I can feel them almost to the point of distraction.

Maybe I am only an early-middle aged mare. I am certain that once I attempted to keep count of my age, but I do not even remember when it was I lost track of this accounting.

I left those messages in huge block letters at places that everypony coming would see them, like outside the saloon in Appleloosa.

Not that that particular message worked well—the arid climate and driving sand from the desert soon faded it to nothing. In any case, I didn’t stay very long in that town.

When I lived in the Crystal Palace I had a fire there perpetually.

I built it in the entrance hall, rather than the rotunda.

As a matter of fact I made a high tin chimney above it so that smoke could drift up through the high windows. Although occasionally rain would seep through, I didn’t mind.

With no pegasi to monitor and direct the weather, clouds often build up into horrible storms.

Eventually rain came in through windows, which broke because of the extreme weather.

I thought I could possibly control the clouds, but I could do it only when I had Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark. Now that I am me, I cannot, except for very small and close to the ground clouds. Not enough to avert storms.

Windows still break. Several are broken here, in this farmhouse.

I do not mind the rain, however.

Upstairs, I can see all across the orchard, the dam, and parts of Ponyville.

Downstairs, the overgrowth continually creeps across the windows and obstructs the view.

Soon I will have to cut them all down again.

When in Ponyville I used to live in Carousal Boutique, until I burned it to the ground. I am still not sure how that happened, though perhaps I had been cooking. I may have taken a moment to use the little fillies’ room, outside I may add, and when I turned back everything was ablaze.

After all those times telling Sweetie Belle to be careful I was the one who burned down my house by cooking.

And it was all made of wood, so even though I tried to put it out I couldn’t. All I could do was sit and watch as it burned all night. Or what I assumed was night, but could have been morning, or midnight, or anything.

It burned for a while, I mean, and after I saw that my attempts to douse the blaze had failed I sat down to watch it.

I still notice my house as I walk through town.

Well, obviously I notice the remains of my house, rather than my house.

One is still prone to assuming a boutique exists even if there is not much left of it.

Sweet Apple Acres has survived remarkably well, in my opinion.

Apart from the broken windows, general dilapidation (very slight), and the overgrown weeds.

I am no gardener.

When I decided to spruce the place up a bit, I found Big Mac’s shed, took out his trowel, and went about trying to remove the weeds around the perimeter of the house.

Which of course took a great period of time. So much so that by the time I had finished the circle around the house there were weeds again at the start point.

Now I only endeavor to clear the windows of creeping vines, so that I can see out.

Apart from that I found a number of beautiful drapes which I have placed around the homestead. I always thought it could use a little touch like that. The drapes are muted purple and gold, which suits the room I think.

And I have decided to restore the tapestries in the Castle of the Two Sisters, so I have them bunched up in Applebloom’s room.

Day 2

Well, I have one tapestry in the sitting room by the armchair, too. That’s the one I’m working on now.

I’ve been stitching the frayed parts up with thread I liberated from the warehouse I used to order supplies from.

Perhaps I should keep a record of the places I’ve been to. Starting with Carousal Boutique, before Canterlot Castle. And then all my travels.

Although I have probably lost track of many of the places by now.

I remember sitting outside Appleloosa and watching the San Palomino desert as a blizzard deposited snow onto the sand, which must surely be rare.

Even now that the weather is somewhat chaotic I think it rarely snows in those places. Of course, as I said, I stayed for only a short time in that area of Equestria.

I slept there in the clock tower. I mean in the Appleloosan town center’s clock tower, not in the desert.

Not that there was a clock tower in the desert.

Though now that I remember it I left the clock tower and slept in the blacksmith’s workshop because the bell would occasionally sound.

Not that it ever woke me from sleep.

It upset me because it reminded me of Pinkie Pie and her fondness for dinging bells and deafening noise.

Once that same moon (more or less) I was almost hit by a cart filled with flowerpots with nopony commandeering it, which came rolling down a hill near the Appleloosan apple orchards.

There was an explanation for the cart coming down the hill with nopony attached.

The explanation being the hill, obviously.

After I jumped out of the way, I watched the cart careen down the rest of the hill. It came to a stop a little while down the road.

That event reminded me of the steep hill back in Ponyville. How many times had the homeowners association lobbied Mayor Mare to put up a retaining wall at the bottom of that hill, which would've prevented a number of near-catastrophic runaway cart and foal carriage accidents?

The answer being too many.

Still there is no barrier there.

A few moons ago I went and found some balls of varying types and sizes in the Ponyville Schoolhouse’s equipment shed, which I rolled off that steep hill.

They were all deflated, so I had to pump them up first.

This was, of course, irritating work, but I didn't mind it then.

In Canterlot I lived in Canterlot Castle not because of the opulence but because I could see Ponyville from many of the windows.

Living alone, one craves a view of her home and her friends’ former homes.

I have always admired the opulence as well.

Particularly I enjoyed looking at the stained-glass windows that depict some of the pivotal moments in Equestrian history.

I wondered then how I could stain glass windows. I tried to find a book in the library about the process, but I think I forgot about it, because I do not remember ever having stained any windows of my own.

Nonetheless I have always admired the artisans who made those windows.

Once, one of the artisans had come to Ponyville to interview the six of us who had defeated Discord.

He wanted to know some details of the confrontation so that he could later craft the battle on a window.

Obviously, it was not the battle itself that the artisan intended to make. What he intended to make was a representation of the battle.

One’s language is frequently imprecise, I have found.

At the Crystal Palace, I removed the crystal heart from its enclave so that I could sleep near it.

I am quite certain I intended to travel to Vanhoover around that time also, since there are a number of beautiful rivers there that I wished to see. But for some reason, at the Unicorn Range, I went back in the other direction.

Then again, perhaps I had actually gone as far as Smokey Mountain.

Well, often I surprised myself in those days with the things I did. Once, from the top of the Canterlot Castle stairs I dropped hundreds of tennis balls I had found in a court side store, so that they bounced every which way to the bottom.

Soon after I tried the same experiment with diamonds, letting them tumble down and glimmer in the sunlight.

Diamonds I found in the vaults of Canterlot Bank.

Watching how the balls struck different parts of the white stone and changing direction, or guessing how far down the diamonds would get (they don’t really bounce, I found, and I started to toss them off the parapets instead.)

Meanwhile I have just used the little fillies’ room, outside onto an apple tree I might add, where it is peaceful and serene.

And afterwards I went to the river and collected water for the day, noting the busted-up beaver dam’s remains on both riverbanks.

There are no animals anymore, either, as far as I can tell.

There is no birdsong. Nor is there barking, squawking, or any other animal noise.

Once I went to check all the hibernation holes near Fluttershy’s cottage.

Can it be called Fluttershy’s cottage anymore? Or is it the former Fluttershy’s cottage, or Fluttershy’s former cottage?

In any case, I went to see if there were any animals hibernating.

All the holes were empty.

Around the holes hung bells on ropes, which frequently rang. We had not gotten around to clearing away the wake-up bells from the last winter wrap up. Of course, some of the bells had fallen as the rope had dropped.

Anyway, there were no hibernating animals in any of the holes there.

For some reason I decided to fill in some of the smaller holes with dirt, which took me not very much time at all.

I decided not to fill in the bigger holes, though, for the bears.

And I stopped filling in the holes after I came to my senses. Even though I was filling in empty holes, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was really covering the graves of those poor animals.

Well, as I said, I was not of sound mind then.

The water from the river is about one hundred hoofs from the house.

I also have the Ponyville dam, though I rarely use that except when I am in town properly.

I could take water from the rivers in Canterlot and the Crystal Empire when I was there.

In the beginning I only drank bottled water that I could find.

Then I decided to boil stream water.

Eventually I discovered that I could drink from the streams without having to boil the water.

That was around the time that I became an expert fire-setter. I do not remember when I found I could drink the water I found in those cities, but I know it was around the same time as my fire-expertise solidified.

Now I have a fire going in the kitchen here all the time.

Also, Applejack’s kitchen has a large antique pot that is perfect for cooking stews and soups over the fire.

I have grown quite fond of that pot.

I wonder if Applejack ever wanted to get rid of it and install a modern stove cooktop.

No, I think she probably would’ve embraced the old ways.

If anything, from what I remember, Applebloom would be the one to protest such an old method of cooking.

Then again, perhaps she could see the utility of such a thing when it came to making zap apple jam.

Which, by the way, I tried very unsuccessfully to make several moons ago.

Even though there are no longer any timberwolves howling, the zap apple trees still occasionally bloom.

Fortunately for me, Granny Smith had written down the methods for making zap apple jam.

I tried to follow the instructions as best I could, but the jam still didn’t turn out any good.

Of course, there were several steps that were very difficult for me to do.

For example, I couldn’t find any bees to talk to, so I had to settle for prepackaged honey.

Also, I almost missed the final sign because I had forgotten to wind my clock, so I could only pick a few baskets of apples.

In the end it tasted horrible, I thought.

I have seen the zap apples bloom a few more times since then, but I haven’t attempted to harvest them and make jam again, though I have picked some zap apples and eaten them.

I have made cider since then though, which turned out surprisingly well.

It was easy enough to find the cider press, and through it was uncomfortable to levitate the apples into the machine while trotting on the belt, I manage to make several barrels every now and then.

Of course, it tastes nothing like the Apple family’s cider, but I think it tastes lovely anyway.

At least, I think it tastes different from Apple family cider. Though now that I try to remember the taste I find I cannot.

Now that the once-cultivated apple orchards are overgrown, there are apple trees everywhere, and the orchard is almost impenetrable.

Also, there are a variety of berries, fruits and vegetables (apples, carrots, celery stalks, colorful flowers, too) that have grown on the fields.

Beyond the window I can see the wilderness, but even though it is overgrown it looks inviting, rather than foreboding. Nothing like the Everfree forest.

It seems like a day in which there should be ponies singing, to complement the babbling stream. Unfortunately I cannot harmonize, and anyway I only remember flashes of the songs we used to sing.

‘Laughter and singing will see us through.’

I think that is a fragment of a Hearth’s Warming Eve carol.

Day 3

I rarely sing, these days.

Once, many moons ago, I read a Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant script in Canterlot Castle Library. I read it out loud, and sang the carols myself. And then, once I had finished a page I would tear it from its binding and drop it into my fire.

I finished a few hundred-year-old songbooks in this way, also.

At the time I spent most of my days exploring that library, especially the magic section.

The Starswirl wing was a favorite of mine, because there were always a number of ancient scrolls that were ornately written and had illustrations in the margins.

In particular I read about Starswirl’s attempts to master transforming magic. He went into great detail about the intricacies of, say, changing one’s age with spells.

Of course, I couldn’t perform many of the spells I found there, even though for a time I dedicated myself to learning them.

Nonetheless I enjoyed reading about the magical feats that were performed, like how Starswirl and a group of other warlock discovered the portal to that place that Twilight went to, the place with the humans.

At least, I believe that they were called humans.

Twilight referred to them as such, though the term is written nowhere in these scrolls.

Actually, the scrolls which detail the portal are only interested in its external qualities, and do not mention anypony ever going through it, except when Starswirl banished three sirens there.

Unless, of course, I have not found the scrolls which do detail that place.

I wonder why Celestia herself would be so ignorant of such a place. I remember that even she knew nothing about it before Twilight went through.

Perhaps the ponies who tried to explore it never returned. The scrolls do describe the other world as a ‘harsh, unforgiving, barren place,’ and extremely dangerous for all ponies.

Of course, I ignored those warnings and went through the portal to see if there were any living creatures there.

Looking for anypony, anywhere at all. Any human, also, I suppose I should say.

Standing on my hindlegs became second nature to me. I remember Twilight telling us that she had trouble with walking, but I found I was as graceful as always.

Driving was another matter, however.

The extreme speeds of those cars frightened me very much at first. Eventually I learned to control them, but I still often ran off the road.

I found the other Rarity’s house one day.

By day I really mean day, by the way—the sun rises and sets and the seasons seemed to change on their own.

Anyway, I found Rarity’s house by looking it up in the Canterlot High student directory. Inside the house I found a number of dresses, finished and unfinished, that I thought were just darling.

Of course, because she was a fledgling fashionista, the dresses lacked technical proficiency. This was no pony with her own store, that’s for sure. Some of the stitching was clumsy, too. Clearly machine-stitched instead of hand-stitched.

Nonetheless, the designs showed serious talent. I was particularly impressed by a robot-looking jumpsuit ensemble.

When I came back to Equestria I tried to take some of those dresses with me, but when they went through the portal they metamorphosed into pony dresses. Though I still like them, I feel some of the appeal has been lost.

As a matter of fact I stayed in that world a long time.

Of course, one still prefers her own homeland and her own body.

Hereabouts everything is dusty and pollen is everywhere.

I used to wear clothing but generally now I wear nothing.

I keep a great amount of clothing stashed all over town, just in case I do want to wear something. I have my gala dress and the others’ gala dresses, for example, in a cupboard upstairs. I also have a number of simple dresses and hats.

But I rarely wear anything. Instead I either make clothes or destroy them in the fire.

Except when I travelled up north, of course, where it is still all frozen.

Similarly, when I went to the human world I wore clothes in the winter, washing them in local streams and hanging them up on strangers’ lines.

Now if I have to wash clothes I use the Apple family’s washtub. I hang the clothes to dry on the line I kept from my boutique.

Thinking about it, in the beginning I ransacked Sugarcube Corner for cakes and candy.

At first I felt so guilty taking them that I left bits on the counter. That was when I was still unsure whether everypony would come back or not.

I still am unsure, of course, but it seems more unlikely now.

The sweets quickly became stale and unappetizing. It was then that I started to live off cans of soup and long-life foodstuffs. I became better as time went on with gathering food from the environment, until I found that I could survive eating only from what grows.

Generally I do not cultivate crops, either, although I keep a small patch of rhubarb because I like to mix it with apples as a treat.

Apples, by the way, fall and rot in the overgrown orchards. It is a pleasant smell which wafts all throughout the homestead. I can smell it from here.

In the human world sometimes I slept outside. I missed the darkness and chilly night.

On the farm I sleep in the cellar. I’ve boarded up the windows on the outside and fixed blankets over the inside of the windowpanes so that it is pitch-black down there, and even a little cool.

There were many bottles of fruit punch down there, but I drank them all over time. Except for the punch that had spoiled.

Fortunately the spiced punch was all okay.

I left the human world around the time winter began.

Not because it was too cold for me (my human body didn’t have much hair, but I wore sweaters and long pants to keep warm.)

Rather I had wanted to return to Equestria.

On a billboard in Manehattan there is a painting of Sapphire Shores singing in the city’s amphitheater, as part of an advertising campaign for a concert.

I suspect I have said that poorly.

Meaning that Sapphire Shores is not singing in the amphitheater, but on a stage on the painting.

Actually, she is singing nowhere, as far as I know. Here is the imprecision of our language.

I know a great deal about her outfits, having designed several of them myself.

I know a great deal about fashion, just as I suppose she must surely have known a great deal about music.

It was an ordeal then to find enough gems for her costumes. Now, of course, I find gems all the time.

In fact, once I took a cart full of gems and set off to the west, dropping gems and stamping them into the ground to mark my path when I entered an area I didn’t know.

I stayed away from the dark forests whenever possible.

Conversely, now that I am in Ponyville I often visit the Everfree Forest and its castle.

Of course, there is no danger of falling prey to a timberwolf now.

The tree of harmony remains alive, I think, but it looks changed from when things were normal.

Of course, when I say normal I mean normal for the time, rather than for now.

I once tried to find that magical pool that Pinkie Pie used to clone herself that one time.

Pinkie mentioned that her grandmother had taught her a rhyme that would show its reciter the way to the pool.

Twilight had refrained from writing it down, to the best of my knowledge. The six of us agreed that the pool should stay hidden.

We made Pinkie Pie Pinkie swear to never go there or reveal the rhyme again, if I remember correctly.

The way she stuck her hoof in her eye that time seemed to me to very solemn, as if she had to stop seeing a good friend.

Ultimately I never found the pool.

Perhaps that is for the best.

When I was back in Appleloosa, I could not rid myself of the habit of turning over my shoes before I put them on, in case there was an icky scorpion in them.

This was when I wore shoes while travelling, which I sometimes did and sometimes didn’t.

Old habits die hard, I suppose. Until my boutique burned down I locked the front door every time I went out.

When I lived in my penthouse in Manehattan I found a magical projector and some film reels, which I watched over and over. I enjoyed the films, but eventually I went back to reading, and since then I have not bothered to watch any more.

Plus, the projector in Ponyville’s movie theater is broken.

Here, at least, there is always the sound of wind rustling the trees.

And, right at this moment, a pennant from the Equestria Games that I planted outside the front door, which is flapping into the doorway in the wind.

Sometimes I see an apple falling from a branch, and watch as it hits the ground.

In the evening I wind my clock to ensure that I am still on time.

Not that I am following a schedule. I realize now how important it is to keep track of time.

So much so that I went and found a number of other timepieces.

In Manehattan I had many more watches, but on leaving that city I tossed them all in East River.

This was some time before I rolled the tennis balls down Canterlot Castle’s stairs, by the way.

I am positive that it was also before I saw Opalescence, which was likewise in Manehattan.

When I say I saw Opalescence I mean that I believed I saw her, naturally.

Day 4

Where I believed I saw Opalescence was in Manehattan, in the Bridleway theater district.

I was in front of the theater that had been playing Hinny of the Hills, in fact.

I thought I had seen her out of the corner of my eye down an alleyway beside the theater, quite a distance away.

And so I went off and found canned cat food in a local store, along with a squeaky mouse toy I took from a pet store.

All the rest of the week I opened cans of food down those back streets, and squeaked the toy as loud as I could.

As many cans as there must have been changelings during the attack on Canterlot, practically.

Though of course the cans seemed already to be not quite full, meaning that I couldn’t really tell if Opal had eaten any of the food. Nonetheless I checked them all every day.

Perhaps it was quite mad of me to believe that my cat had somehow come to Manehattan, and that she would run and hide from me.

Even so, I would squeak the toy and call her.

Here, Opal, I would call.

Doubtless all those cans are still there now. Rains may have washed all the food away, though.

Doubtless I had imagined Opalescence.

Doubtless there was no owl either.

It is the owl which brought me into the Everfree Forest.

Flying through the tree branches, little more than a speck in the distance.

I will be truthful. When I was in Manehattan I was undeniably mad. And so I thought I saw Opal.

Here, when I thought I saw the owl, I was not mad. So I knew I had not seen the owl.

Still, I prefer to believe that I had seen it.

By the way, Hinny of the Hills was one of the songbooks which I burned in my fire in Canterlot after singing through it.

I never knew how old that play is—the songbook was practically an antique. It was on Bridleway when Granny Smith was a young mare.

I have just gone to take in the washing.

I am extra careful about quickly bringing the clothes in after they have dried.

Nonetheless, I forget about them sometimes and they fade. I have many faded dresses now.

Was it really some other pony I was looking for, when I did all that looking, or was it that I couldn’t abide being alone? I hate being all alone.

I wonder why I never tried to make cider from zap apples.

Once, I had a dream of being a famous designer.

Generally, I was never lonely because of my best friends.

Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Twilight, Fluttershy. And of course Spikey-wikey.

In the human world one time I drove a car into a lake, near a magnificent sprawling park, which was of course also overgrown with weeds.

Instead of watching the road I had been watching the water, doubtless.

The car began to fill with water. Interestingly, I was not frightened in the least then. Maybe it was because I had not been significantly injured.

Afterwards, however, the experience frightened me rather a lot.

Now and again other places burn down. Not because of action on my part, but as a natural occurrence.

For example, the Ponyville bowling alley.

I did not see it burn down, but I noticed its charred remains and the ash-covered bowling balls.

At least Twilight’s Palace won’t burn down, being made of crystal.

At least, I think it won’t burn down. Then again, magic is tricky like that. Maybe rainbow crystal does burn. Perhaps one day it’ll burst in flames like Philomena, Celestia’s phoenix.

I hope not. After all, that is the new library in Ponyville. It would be difficult to go to Canterlot and cart books back.

Of course, I have a number of books in the next room.

Apart from the Apple family’s books on agriculture and cooking, I have added Understanding Medieval Equestria, Modern Spell Casting, and The Life of Starswirl the Bearded (that one is in two volumes), among many others.

I have also kept all of our letters to Celestia, which I keep in an Equestrian Mail sack.

Frankly that room is as messy as the dried-up pigsty out back. I tend to use the floor as one big shelf, rather than stacking the books neatly. Forgive, me, Twilight. I can see her shocked expression now.

At the Ponyville marketplace I saw somepony at a window, lurking.

There was nopony at the window, which was a window in Davenports, the quill and sofa ponies.

Somepony had placed a shiny sign in the window, and I had seen my reflection in it.

Still, I nearly jumped out of my socks (tartan in green and white, rather fetching) to think that there was another pony. After all that looking.

I broke into the store and took down the sign. Well, I needed quills anyway, and this time they were actually in stock.

A similar thing happened in Manehattan, which has a great number of reflective surfaces.

Though as a matter of fact where I saw my reflection could have been in the human world.

In any case, it was in the window of a store.

When I returned home I had taken all the quills and snapped them, except for one quill which I tried to draw with, sketching dress designs into a notebook.

The designs grew increasingly abstract, though, and eventually I put the notebooks in Big Mac’s desk draw, and I haven’t endeavored to get it out again.

I am not using the quill to write this.

Instead, I write on a binary typewriter, just like A. K. Yearling.

I wonder if she was working on a new novel when this awful business began.

I suppose if I ever go back to the north-west I’ll drop in on her house and steal any manuscripts I find.

Not that I particularly enjoyed those Daring Do books. Nonetheless I would still be interested in reading a new adventure.

To be honest, I did enjoy those novels. I brought the set back from Canterlot when I returned.

Maybe I too am an egghead, as Rainbow Dash would say. Why did I say a moment ago that I was not a fan? Come to think of it, I’m not sure.

When I broke into the Canterlot bookstore I was first struck by the sheer number of books I didn’t recognize, which was a little sad.

But I found a section on fashion and artwork, and the Daring Do books.

I brought those back to the palace, and more specifically my suite, to read them.

Those adventure serials were a welcome break from ancient manuscripts.

This afternoon I put on a frock and went out to the hills, where I sat for a long time.

Doing nothing in particular, just mesmerized by the forest rippling in the breeze.

It was the first time in at least two moons that I’ve worn a dress.

I found my typewriter in Ponyville City Hall. I had picked it up off the desk of Mayor Mare’s assistant.

The frozen north stretches away as far as the eye can see from outside the Crystal Empire. In a way it looks like a plain canvas or a sheet of sketching paper that I could draw on.

Of course, that is a silly thought.

When I returned to Sweet Apple Acres I took the dress off and placed it carefully back in Applejack’s wardrobe.

True to form, Applejack’s wardrobe was almost empty when I looked through it.

Just some hats, boots, and her gala dress. All of which were dirty, I might add.

In the beginning I was hesitant to snoop through my friend’s possessions. At first I stayed out of the bedrooms, keeping the doors shut.

However, my curiosity was insatiable after a time, and I pored over everybody’s possessions.

Granny Smith’s possessions were particularly interesting, containing a number of maps of Ponyville from settler pony times, along with various other curiosities.

Was I wallowing, when I went up in the hills?

Is that why I wore a dress? Because I have always thought it essential to wallow with style?

Of course, it would not do to wallow without style.

Not that I have been particularly stylish recently.

The last stylish thing I have come into possession of was an antique chess set that I took from the bedroom of ‘Fishy’ Bob, the former Equestrian chess champion who had retired in Ponyville. I remember him playing chess in the park almost every morning.

I played him once, actually, as white. He checkmated me smoothly and without losing any pieces.

When I found the set I noticed one pawn had disappeared, permanently lost.

While I had been researching magic in the Canterlot Archives, I also tried to find some way of enhancing my magical ability.

I thought that if that travelling trickster Trixie had made herself more powerful than Twilight with the help of some amulet then surely there were other ways to enhance my powers.

Of course, I realized that the magical-enhancement items generally turned the user evil, as in the time Spike gave me a spell book from the abandoned castle library.

And so I stopped looking.

In any case I never found anyplace that had magic-enhancement charms.

The only thing that came close was a brand of energy drink in the food mart of Canterlot University, which boasted the ability to ‘give your magic a kick for those end-term exams.’

Judging by the emetic effect of the one I drank, they had already expired.

Day 5

Lately I have taken to reading our letters to Celestia over and over.

Although, I cannot really read them for too long or else I get teary-eyed.

I also found the diary in which we wrote about our friendship experiences after we stopped sending letters to the Princess. I have it near me now as I stitch up a tapestry.

Well, obviously I was not stitching as I wrote that sentence.

Tapestry repair is a difficult, time-consuming process, I have found.

The one I am working on has Luna emblazoned on it. This one is moth-eaten, full of holes.

Or perhaps it is Nightmare Moon.

The color scheme is certainly very dark, and the shape of the mare’s body is elongated and strange, like Nightmare Moon’s was.

But on the other hoof, this pony has no armor, which seemed to be Nightmare Moon’s preference.

Even though she was my mortal enemy at the time, I thought her armor was simply fabulous, in an evil sort of way.

I learned to sew on my own. My mother had never been interested in such things, though she certainly encouraged me in my passion for fashion.

Though now that I think about it, she always did keep her mane done up in an immaculate beehive, which although I considered it gauche proved that she cared about her appearance, if in an outdated way.

Not that I mean to speak ill of my mother. I just mean that it wasn’t the style for me.

As I recall, for my cute-ceañera she gave me tickets to the Manehattan Fashion Week, which we went to together.

Of course, she had family still in Manehattan, so we visited them while we were there, but every moment I could I would spend at the Fashion Week events.

There was only so much relative cheek-pinching I could endure.

My parents were originally from Manehattan. They had come to Ponyville just after I was born, because by that time my father was a successful sports equipment salespony, and they had wanted to settle down in a quieter place.

The sporting goods store he started in Ponyville was similarly successful. I suppose business acumen must run in the family.

Though Dad was a little disappointed that he could only rarely see his home teams playing.

When I had started my own business, my mother warned me about the difficulty of it.

Were you moving to Manehattan? This was one of the first questions my mother then asked me.

I replied that I would stay in Ponyville and she chided me.

Oh you young filly, my mother said.

Nopony in Ponyville will care about fancy duds. Most of the ponies here are naked and seem happy that way.

I suppose I proved her wrong.

In any case, I had orders from all over Equestria once Sapphire Shores began wearing my outfits. Not that I had been doing poorly before that. But after her tour I sent away bundles of upscale fashion every day via the Equestrian Mail Service.

I used to watch those ponies flying away to all corners of Equestria with my merchandise.

I used to wave hello at one wall-eyed mare in particular who often took the packages from the post office, and she would wave back.

Though I was never close enough to speak to her, I feel we had a good rapport.

And by never close enough I mean in terms of physical location, as well as emotionally.

Celestia kept our friendship letters locked in a chest, deep in her wing of Canterlot Castle.

Carrying the letters down the staircase in that tower caused me to fall and nearly break my fetlock.

By the time I had slept and reawaken, it had swelled to twice its normal size and was very sore.

I had been holding the letters magically in front of my face, which means I had no way of seeing where I was going.

So of course for a long period of time I had to limp around the castle, which has so many stairs that I was practically trapped on the floor I was staying on.

Fortunately the swelling subsided with time.

Now and again the fetlock still pains me.

Generally this happens when it is about to rain.

It was around the time I found the letters that I also read though The Canterlot Tales, which I had read snippets of in school for assessment.

This was before I went to finishing school, obviously.

The copy I read was written on parchment and kept behind glass. Of course, I smashed the case open so that I could read the original print.

There was no alarm as I smashed the glass, but nonetheless I flinched as the glass shattered beneath my rock.

When I first started a car in the human world I was scared half to death by loud music blaring out of the car’s speakers.

I should have known better, considering that we ponies also have portable speakers and music players.

Nonetheless the pounding, bass-heavy music took me completely by surprise.

One minute I was fiddling with a key, and the next I had thumped my head on the car’s roof.

Actually, one learns to hope that music comes out of the cars one tries to drive, because it means that the car will normally start. The music-less cars almost never did.

‘Such dragyn that hath burnen mee.’

That is a line from one of the stories in The Canterlot Tales, I am sure, though I do not remember the other half of the rhyming couplet.

I believe the story is about a young romantic, lothario-type pony who wishes to seduce an old craftspony’s wife.

He is burned on the derriere at the climax of the tale, which is why the line talks about a ‘dragyn.’

The three sirens Starswirl the bearded banished, by the way, resurfaced once Sunset Shimmer brought Equestrian magic into that world.

I only mention that because among the letters I found letters from Sunset Shimmer, both before and after she had been Celestia’s student. It seems that she resumed sending Celestia letters from the human world.

And the letters jogged my memory.

How funny the mind is.

Many other parts of my memory have deteriorated. For instance, I cannot recall off hoof whether it was King Somber or Sombra we defeated.

I say we, but I think that Spike was the hero on that day, bringing the crystal heart back to its rightful place.

And Shining Armor and Cadence, for helping him while Twilight was trapped.

Nonetheless I was amazed just how powerful Twilight had become.

Later she showed us the gravity spell she had used to climb the Crystal Palace spiral staircase, which made us all stand on the ceiling of Golden Oaks Library.

Before we came down, Pinkie Pie pulled a tea set and some cakes out of thin air, and we spent some time inverted and laughing.

To us it was a magnificent experience, but I think Spike was annoyed because he had to clean the ceiling after we left.

I can picture him muttering and swinging a broom from the top of a ladder, though I was not around to see him do so.

Then again, perhaps Twilight had helped him out. In fact, I’m sure she would have.

I considered inflating Twilight’s hot air balloon and travelling to Cloudsdale.

But when I found the balloon I noticed the canvas had burst at several points along the seams.

I did not think it wise to try to repair that one.

Perhaps someday I’ll find another balloon.

Despite the dire circumstances, one must not put oneself at more risk than necessary.

I had only briefly considered walking further north than the Crystal Empire, or wandering deep into forests I didn’t know.

I can walk on clouds, by the way.

Meaning after the time I had fallen from the sky and Rainbow Dash had saved me, Twilight used the cloud walker spell on me, too.

All six of us could visit Cloudsdale as we liked. Spike also had the spell cast on him, so he could come with us.

In the Canterlot gardens, bird feeders hung from string and there were empty nests everywhere.

There was no trace of the fracas that Fluttershy had caused when we went to the Grand Galloping Gala.

Near the garden is the courtyard with all the statues.

Discord’s statue is noticeably absent, although its pedestal remains.

One has to wonder why they didn’t find a replacement statue.

Or even why Celestia had not simply asked Discord to snap a statue into place there.

Perhaps she had, but he had produced increasingly chaotic statues.

All around the courtyard were the diamonds I threw from the parapets.

I took our diary into the cellar and I read it before I go to sleep.

I use my horn to light up the room, normally, though I also use candles sometimes.

Occasionally I will mix mud packs and facial treatments for myself, which I affix before sleeping.

I once spent a few days carting beauty products from Canterlot to Ponyville: creams, lotions, mascara, all kinds of things.

Some had dried in their packaging, but most of them were fine, actually.

Once I tried to treat myself to a day at the spa.

I heated water for the bath and mixed some fresh mud.

I even found a frilly dressing robe in somepony’s locker.

Nonetheless the spa seemed enormous and abandoned, exactly as it was.

The whole day upset me more than anything, and I haven’t used the spa again.

Now I bathe in the river when I go to fetch water.

Day 6

One time Discord had come into my store.

He had been accompanying Fluttershy on some of her errands.

I think she had wanted me to make her a saddlebag that could accommodate some of her animals, bunnies and mice mostly, when she went to town.

Or perhaps she wanted a light dress she could wear to parties in the summer.

Although you wouldn’t know it looking at her, that pony had a keen eye for fashion. Actually, I am sure that time she had asked for a dress.

In any case, Discord used his magic to wreak havoc.

Discord being Discord, that sort of thing tended to happen.

First he made the all the shelved dresses dance around, and then he made them pick us up in their armless sleeves and whirl us around the floor of the boutique.

All set to a jaunty waltz number, which blared out from some summoned speakers.

Eventually Fluttershy calmed him down, but not before I had some very stern words with him.

At least, I think I had stern words with him.

But it is difficult to speak stern words when one is being dipped and twirled by an overcoat.

Honestly, I think I enjoyed the experience to some degree.

That was the day that I sold Cheerilee some custom rainbow-print leggings and hoof-warmers.

I only remember that because I remember that she cowered in the store when Discord entered.

And then her leggings had caused her to frantically tap dance, as if she had caught the cutie pox.

Of course, other ponies were still very frightened of Discord.

Even though they knew that he had been reformed. A similar thing happened with Princess Luna, I believe.

As for example on her first Nightmare Night, on which apparently ponies had all cowered, shivering, when she arrived in Ponyville.

I was in Manehattan, though, and so I cannot confirm that that is what happened.

Anyway, Cheerilee had come to me because she wanted to go and relive her glory days.

In her youth she had been a wild party pony.

I remember that she would go out to nightclubs and dances every weekend.

She would often ask me accompany her. By then I had become obsessed with fashion, though, and so rarely went out with her.

Nonetheless when I did the experience was fun.

We would meet the party crowd—Pinkie, Berry Punch, and others—and dance through the night.

I suppose by buying the leggings Cheerilee hoped she could recapture some of that old wild spirit.

She had settled down by the time she became the Ponyville schoolteacher, I think, but the desire to party was always there in some part of her.

I should mention that my crop of rhubarb is looking sickly.

I have very little idea how to cultivate crops.

Right now they are under the shadow of an awning I constructed.

I have to take care to give them water every day, though admittedly I often forget.

Well, in any case I’ll pick some of them now, just to be on the safe side, and make a pie.

And by pie I mean just apple and rhubarb stewed together.

Which is not a pie but really just a pile of mush, naturally.

In any case, it tastes good, and I do not have the patience to cultivate flour for the crust.

Of course, once upon a time I tried to use flour I found in the local store, but it was expired and didn't taste quite right, which was disappointing.

Discord ordered a suit from me, that day.

Of course, I was very suspicious of this, but despite that I tried to remain civil, and asked him about the style he would like.

He snapped his fingers and said like this or this or this, while different suits materialized onto his body.

It struck me as odd that he would commission a suit when he could just snap one into existence, but then again he was the oddest creature I knew.

I don’t know, of course, but perhaps he bought it because Fluttershy had bought a dress, and he wanted to follow suit.

Sometimes I would see him meekly following Fluttershy around town, holding bags or herding ducklings with her.

Other times, though, he would be a flurry of chaos all around Fluttershy, metamorphosing a dozen times before I could blink.

The suit I made him was half tweed and half pinstripe, with numerous patches in various colors and styles.

I also made him a giant top hat with a feather glued to it, and gave it to him gratis, which I think he enjoyed.

I have written that inaccurately.

Meaning he enjoyed the hat, not the fact that it was free.

Measuring him for size was an interesting process.

As I wrapped the tape measure around his waist his tail tickled my nose until I sneezed.

When I measured his inseam, he made his leg stretch and curl around the boutique.

Nonetheless he wanted the suit.

He paid me in full when he picked the suit up, which I was also unnecessarily suspicious about.

Maybe I still doubted how much he had changed, to be honest. But he was no trouble.

I should mention that he was wearing the medallion that had been Twilight’s key to the rainbow power box.

How strange to see one of our greatest foes accessorizing with a crucial part of Equestrian defense.

Come to think of it, it would’ve had to have been a replica.

After all, the keys along with the box grew into Twilight’s castle.

Oh how the mind forgets.

Of course, he was not wearing that medallion, but another one, with a picture on it of himself giving a thumbs-up next to Twilight.

I remember it now.

Outside again for the little filly’s room, I noticed the tree where Applejack had grown her giant prizewinning apple.

And of course I am aware outside cannot be a room, and that what I have said is nonsensical.

Nonetheless I prefer to use the euphemism. A lady must keep her sense of class, even if there is nopony around to witness her lady-like mien.

Anyway, that tree has not grown any more giant fruit.

I wonder what exactly Applejack did to make the fruit so big.

At first, I thought that the apple had been magically enhanced.

Maybe a growth potion or maybe a spell.

However, after Applejack assured us that it was all home-grown and there was no magical assistance, I had to believe she was telling the truth.

After all, she was the element of honesty.

And if anypony could grow an apple taller than a pony, Applejack could.

Once Pinkie Pie had tricked me by painting a bit on the floor of my boutique.

She had made it look so real that I tried to levitate it, obviously to no effect.

Opalescence, however, walked past the bit without so much as a glance.

Which does not imply that Opalescence was more intelligent than me.

Even though I was a little exasperated, I must admit I had a good laugh after Pinkie revealed her trickery, and washed the bit off the floor with water.

If she hadn’t cleaned up after every prank, Ponyville would be full of stories about Pinkie Pie pranking ponies.

In Ponyville today I noticed that a chimney had fallen off somepony’s house.

It had collapsed across the road that I was trying to traverse with my cart.

I had to reverse the cart and go down a side street.

Down that alley somepony had left a travelling puppet show cart which I believe I had decorated once.

If I remember correctly the patron was something of a difficult customer.

I was amazed to see his cart here, so close to home, when its owner had told me he would travel all over Equestria with his show.

Although of course it was nothing more than coincidence.

Inside his cart were flyers which advertized a showing here in Ponyville.

There were no bits on the floor of my boutique, just like there was no owl in the apple orchard and no Opalescence in Manehattan.

Except insofar as the events reminded me of them.

The pennant flapping at the doorway once made me think that there was some winged animal there—possibly a bat.

Even though, of course, I was the one who put the pennant there.

Only when I went to investigate had I realized my mistake.

Right now the pennant is not flapping.

Nor am I thinking of a bat any longer.

Then again I must’ve been thinking about one while I was typing that sentence, even though the sentence says the opposite.

Surely if I am writing a sentence about how I am not thinking about a bat I must be thinking about the bat I say I am not thinking about.

I should stop this train of thought.

For the life of me I cannot remember where I found that pennant.

Was it a souvenir from the Equestria Games that I had bought, or did I find it in the Crystal Empire much later, after this dreadful business began?

Once, in Fancy Pants's penthouse in Canterlot, I signed a mirror.

I wrote my name in mauve lipstick.

What I was signing was a picture of myself.

Of course, if anypony else came to see the mirror it would be a picture of them that I had signed.

Though in fact the name I wrote was actually Pinkie Pie.

Whenever I go to a grocery store I look at the bread rolls, crusted up and rock hard, and think, if only.

I have been craving carrot hotdogs for some time now.

Day 7

As I said, there is one mirror in this farmhouse.

What that mirror reflects is an image of myself, naturally.

When I awoke this morning I decided to comb my mane, which I hadn’t done for a little while.

All this talk about keeping up appearances and yet my mane is messy.

The mirror also reflects an image of my mother now and again.

As I combed my mane, in fact.

For a tiny instant—perhaps the time it would take Filly Second to run a mile in those comic books Spike loved—I had seen my mother looking back at me.

I assume as I age this will continue to occur.

Hopefully I will not wish to comb my mane into a beehive.

But quite suddenly I no longer feel like typing any more.

I have not been typing, for a few hours.

All I decided to do, eventually, was go to Ponyville and get water from the dam, instead of the stream.

After that I wandered through the town for a while.

I used some zap apple jam jars to carry the water in.

I had left them loaded in my cart while I trotted around Ponyville, and when I returned to Sweet Apple Acres I noted with dismay that I had forgotten the cart at the dam.

I will have to go back to Ponyville to get my water.

Not that I mind, particularly.

I just realized that I have technically dressed two villains: Discord in his suit and Queen Chrysalis in the wedding gown intended for Princess Cadence.

I previously said that Nightmare Moon was the best dressed enemy, but I think my wedding dress was better.

Ergo, Chrysalis was the best dressed villain we faced.

I hope it is not too egotistical to prefer my own creations over others.

After all, one has to have confidence in one’s own abilities.

Although I remember that occasionally my pride would be misplaced.

Once I had declared an awful-looking dragon disguise as one of my better creations, and it was simply not.

After the royal wedding I had another spike in business, similar to when Sapphire Shores wore my outfits on her tour.

Mainly I received orders for wedding dresses, which kept me very busy.

And once again mailponies flew every which way bearing bundles from the hub that was the Ponyville post office.

Many moons ago I travelled to the Changeling Empire.

However, I did not stay long.

This was due to the overwhelming sense that I was being watched there.

This feeling grew as time went on, and I had gotten very little sleep there as a result.

Which in turn fueled my paranoia.

I considered that the changelings could transform into inanimate objects, and the idea scared me.

After all, how was I to know whether they could or couldn’t change into objects?

In fact, I still don’t know.

Perhaps I am typing this using a changeling typewriter on changeling paper. Perhaps when I finish writing this the text will shimmer and a changeling will appear, transforming my words into flesh.

Though I consider this so unlikely that its chance of being true is basically zero.

When I was in the Changeling Empire I knew that those fears were unlikely, too.

Nonetheless I became unnerved, and came back to Equestria soon after I crossed the border.

That was a difficult journey, considering that I stayed for such a short amount of time.

The ardors of adventure soon begin to wear on one.

Even if one has only been to a fraction of the places in Equestria.

When I was in the Changeling Empire I noticed that apart from the bug and slime motif that most of the buildings had, everything looked normal.

For example, in the town I had been in there was a post office, or what looked like it.

Surely there were some changelings who didn’t want to fight when the battle for Canterlot occurred.

Perhaps there was a fashionable changeling who sold dresses there.

Surely some changelings wanted nothing more than to post their letters as per normal.

Although, come to think of it, if they survived by feeding on love then perhaps they were all loveless and vile creatures.

I hope not. That would be a wretched existence.

I was very fortunate to love and be loved, I think.

I just smiled as I thought of what Spike would say if he heard me saying that.

Probably he would ask me when I had become so sappy.

Then again, he always seemed to bite his tongue when I was around—doubtless because of his crush.

Yes, I certainly knew that he had a thing for me.

So perhaps instead of deriding my sappiness he would just smile and agree.

I wonder if he really minded how I had gotten him to help me.

After all, I did use him as a pin cushion once, even though I doubtless had actual pin cushions at hoof.

Though, come to think about it, it was Spike’s idea to do that, after he had been bragging about his scales.

Can’t feel a thing, he had said, as he pushed the pins into his little body.

I was somewhat disturbed by this at first, but he seemed so happy that I couldn’t help but smile.

Big Mac’s bedroom upstairs has become dank and mildrew-infested.

This has occurred after rain blew in through the window that I had forgotten to shut.

As I said, it sporadically rains, and I had been asleep.

When I awoke, I noticed that the fetlock I had injured was throbbing, but by then the rains had ended.

I have left the window open to air out the room, but the damage had been done, unfortunately.

My copy of Daring Do and the Griffon’s Goblet, which I had left near the windowsill, had been drenched, and was soggy.

When I went to pick the novel up, some of the pages slopped out onto the floor.

Basically it was unreadable.

I was very upset by the way the words all ran together and became nothing.

It reminded me of Twilight complaining after some parasprites had eaten the words off the pages of her books.

She had held one up to me, waving the blank sheets, and asked how she could possibly read the text now.

Some of those books had been rare, and the information could have been lost forever.

This was after she had sent a letter to Celestia warning her about the parasprites in Phillydelphia.

I believe Celestia was on her way there because of a similar disaster.

Of course, I was also brooding because of all the damage the parasprites had caused to my shop.

Sometimes in the beginning when I left messages I wrote using a nonsense language of my own creation.

Of course, they could not be read by other ponies, which was supposedly their purpose.

As I have said, I was not quite in a healthy state of mind then.

I also once took the time to etch my message into the pavement outside Donut Joe’s shop with a chisel.

I think I didn’t write that one in my own, untranslatable language, though I can’t be sure, not having the message here.

Some time ago when I was wandering through the Everfree I accidentally stumbled into a patch of poison joke.

A few hours later my mane and pelt had become shaggy and tangled.

This made movement difficult, especially through the dense forest where I would have to go.

I mean I would have to go to Zecora’s hut to find the cure.

Of course, I had to then brew the cure from a recipe found in her book—Super Naturals, it is called.

I am no potion brewer, but I made the cure satisfactorily.

The bath I had then, in contrast to the spa bath, was lovely.

I could feel the tangles shrinking and dissolving in the warm water.

Stumbling into poison joke had been a distressing experience, but sitting in the bath almost made it a good one.

I’ve learned to cling to such gems.

Of course, these events can only be so comforting.

In Big Mac’s room I have noticed guides to several of the local wildlife preserves and forests. As well as one to the birds of southern Equestria.

Although it seems obvious to me now, I never considered before that he would be interested in bird watching.

It seems strange that I didn’t know that, considering we were both in a quartet, the Ponytones, together.

Still, he was a very quiet sort.

Maybe even more quiet than Fluttershy, though he was much more comfortable around other ponies.

I also found detailed maps of the bayous near Ponyville.

I think that he often delivered apples to those swamps.

There are some sections on the maps that are completely excised with black felt-tip.

And others that say Do Not Go, with doodles of pony skulls.

He was a fine baritone.

My cart has been showing signs of wear.

One of the wheels will break soon, I think.

Of course, I can repair wheels with my magic, generally.

As in the time I repaired a taxicab’s wheel in Manehattan.

There is a jack in the cart, in any event.

Then again I suspect I took it out the last time I had gone to town.

I have just walked out to the cart.

Actually, the jack was there. After that I went to the river and refilled a jar with water.

The water in the river is always cool.

In the Changeling Empire I had occasionally heard rustling wings.

I think that is the partly the reason why I was so unnerved by that place.

Now, of course, there is the flapping pennant, but that is not an unnerving sound.

And I can take it down if it becomes unnerving, anyway.

Day 8

The path from Sweet Apple Acres to Ponyville has become overgrown, but there are the ruts that my cart’s wheels have run over etched in the grass still.

The road demarcates into two directions that I normally travel to.

The first goes to the center of town.

The second goes to the dam, which is on the outskirts of Ponyville.

Although I am completely forgetting the third path.

That third path leads to the house I have been dismantling.

Perhaps I have not mentioned I am dismantling somepony’s house.

Of course, it is difficult.

I have chipped nails and scratched myself numerous times.

Nonetheless it is a necessary thing.

I do not make it a major project, though.

Instead, whenever I am in Ponyville I destroy a little more of it.

If I am in no mood for it, then I just take out something light, like a curtain or a single floorboard.

However, when I am in the mood I go a little wild, spending hours and hours tearing, snapping, and otherwise destroying the place.

Of course, I do not burn it down, though I easily could. That would defeat the purpose.

The house belonged to Bon Bon, I think.

Though there are a lot of pictures of Lyra placed on the mantle and in the bedroom.

Nonetheless I feel confident calling it Bon Bon’s house.

I sometimes use the wood I pull from the floors or the patio as kindling for my fire at Sweet Apple Acres.

That fire being different from the ones I lit elsewhere, obviously.

I mean that this fire I only use for cooking, and extinguish it after I finish a meal.

And by fire I mean many different fires, instead of one continuous fire, like that fire in the Crystal Empire I kept burning all the time.

Well, sometimes it would go out if I slept too long.

But I generally could control it.

Actually, there was an enormous pile of firewood at the farm that somepony had chopped, which I still haven’t exhausted yet.

Although one time I burned Bon Bon’s armoire, which I regretted.

After all, one likes to be giving, and I have taken so much these past moons.

I have not removed Bon Bon’s doors, at least.

In fact, whenever I go to that house I make sure to shut them as I leave.

In Manehattan, back at the beginning, I now remember that I used to pour bottled water into the toilet’s tank so that it would still flush.

I have just written toilet, even though I said that I would use euphemisms like little filly's room.

I suppose old habits tend to stick. For some period I continued to make dresses for the orders I had, dropping them off at the deserted post office at the same time every day.

Or at least I think it was the same time.

Of course, nopony came to collect them, and after a while I stopped sending the dresses.

And sometimes I would toss furniture from the windows of skyscrapers.

In the Ponyville post office I think there are still many bundles of clothing, which I have not bothered to take back.

At times I bend the definition of destruction, and tidy up around Bon Bon’s house instead.

Once I stumbled around in a dark room until I found what I was looking for.

That there was a broom, so I picked it up and swept a while.

Eventually I took that broom and brought it back here.

After all, the broom that the Apples have is in serious need of a rebristling.

Or was, rather, the broom they had. It was one of the first things I burned.

Another thing I burned was a timberwolf marionette that Applejack had.

I remember that she had wanted to keep it after we had used it to try and trick Spike once.

That was when he believed he owed Applejack a life debt.

Or perhaps he really did owe Applejack a life debt, and later when he saved her he really did settle the score.

After all, I have no idea what a dragon code entails, and he was so adamant that he was correct.

I also have no idea whether Spike’s dragon code was based on existing dragon codes he had managed to find, or whether he had made it up.

Which isn’t to say that I considered Spike’s dragon code to be illegitimate, or without merit.

In fact, I felt nothing but joy when Spike continued to act according to that code.

Before, I knew that he struggled with being the only dragon for quite some distance.

I remember after we fitted him in his page’s costume for a Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant that he tugged at it and for a second I thought his cute little eyes had become sad.

That uniform, of course, had been custom-made.

All the other page uniforms in Equestria being made for ponies, I mean.

Come to think of it, Spike was the first dragon ever to take part in a Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant.

And probably the first dragon to celebrate the holiday.

To be honest I think it is really Lyra’s house I am dismantling.

I said it was Bon Bon’s house before because I had looked through the closet and had found a dress I remember making for her.

But she was good friends with Lyra, and they were the same size, too, so it is not so far-fetched to think that they shared clothes.

At least, I think they were the same size when I had measured them together.

But of course ponies tend to gain and lose weight, especially around cider season and the holidays.

I Pinkie swear that one season Applejack’s pies caused me to grow a bloated belly that I hadn’t exercised away until several moons later.

This was at a winter wrap up afterparty, I think.

Or it could have been at an Apple family reunion, considering that I distinctly remember Applejack’s uncle and some cousins being there.

Apple Strudle, I think the uncle was named.

I do not remember the names of the cousins, but I am sure I could recognize their faces if I saw them.

I have just looked through some of Granny Smith’s photo albums.

The cousins’ names had been Babs Seed, Apple Rose, and Apple Cobbler.

At least, those are the ones I remember.

There had been more.

I had talked to those three while nibbling at pie in as ladylike a manner as I could in that cutlery-less place.

Still, I managed to eat a great amount.

Apple Strudel was a strange stallion.

He wore the costume that some of the ponies up north wear at festivals all the time.

I think I have said that poorly.

Meaning that he wore that costume all the time, not that the ponies up north wear them all the time.

Once again I am reminded of the inexact nature of our language.

Come to think of it, Photo Finish was originally from the same place.

Though she never wore those traditional outfits, at least not where there were other ponies around.

To be honest, I have forgotten the exact place of the city that she is from. Was it north of Trottingham, or south?

Later I might read through the Atlas of Equestria that the Apple family had.

Pony accents are so varied, even though Equestria is actually not that large a country.

In Manehattan once I was startled to see my fabric in a high-end fashion store.

All the clothes there had been designed by Suri Polomare, and it had not been my fabric but instead inspired by my fabric.

In a manner of speaking.

Of course, on closer inspection I could see that she had bungled the fabric-making process, leaving it shimmery, but very clingy and quite showy.

For a while I used her dresses as rags, but I realized that I was being quite petty, and much of the thrill was lost after that.

I remember liking Suri’s scarf despite all the animosity between us.

The mare had some talent, I think.

Perhaps that’s the real reason I stopped using her dresses as rags.

I couldn’t bear destroying such things, even though they were perhaps not as good as my own work.

Probably she considered my work inferior to hers.

In any case, I preferred Coco Pommel’s necktie and collar number.

I liked how simple her designs were, and how she often wore flowers in her hair or lapels.

In the beginning, I broke into Ponyville’s own Malt and Sweet Shoppe.

This was before the shakes all went bad, along with most of the candy.

Incidentally, Sweetie Belle had often gone to that same store with her friends.

In fact, she had been such a frequent visitor that she had a rewards card which was stamped many times.

I believe that card, along with many of Sweetie Belle’s possessions, had burned when Carousel Boutique burned down.

Maybe in the beginning I was just looking for Sweetie Belle, checking all her regular haunts.

I have never enjoyed shakes, to tell the truth.

On the other hoof, occasionally I have enjoyed hayburgers.

Though not as much as Twilight Sparkle, who wolfs burgers down in a most uncouth manner.

In fact, I remember one time, not long after Twilight had become an alicorn princess, I chided her in the newly-opened Ponyville fast food restaurant.

Surely you could eat in a manner that better befits your new position, I told her.

And less like Rainbow Dash.

When I say I occasionally enjoyed hayburgers, I really do mean only very occasionally.

Generally I preferred to eat something lighter, and more delicate.

Daffodil sandwiches were a particular favorite.

Nowadays daffodil patches grow all over Ponyville.

And come to think about it, I cannot remember the last time I ate one.

Day 9

Now that I think about it, I am not sure whether the house I’m dismantling belonged to Lyra or Bon Bon.

Not that it particularly matters, anyway.

Lately I have been using an anemometer I found at Twilight’s castle to measure the wind speed.

I think this particular instrument was used by Twilight to measure the flying speeds of certain pegasi.

Of course, it can be used to measure wind speed, too.

Twilight had mentioned once that she measured the flying speeds of many pegasi before they used a hurricane to send water from the Ponyville reservoir to Cloudsdale.

I forgot to mention that Ponyville has a reservoir as well as the dam.

However, I never take water from it.

The reservoir, that is.

There are also numerous wells around Ponyville I have never drawn from.

Though I did look into one, and found it dried up.

In the human world I sometime slept in cars.

This was in addition to sometimes sleeping on an air mattress outside, which I think I have already said.

I missed the feel of night time.

But sometimes it was a little spooky, which is why I slept in cars.

I cannot remember how many times I was woken by the sun when I slept in cars.

Frequently I would sit in cars as the sun set, drawing a design or reading.

Of course, I would also just watch the sun.

And wonder about how it moved without magic to control it.

I wonder if we ponies lived in a too easily controlled world.

Those humans seemed to have no one controlling the seasons and the astronomical events, and they seemed fine.

On the other hoof, in the records section of the Canterlot High library, I read of many instances of devastating storms.

Recently, while trotting around the farm, I stumbled on the clubhouse that Sweetie Belle and her friends had often met.

It surprised me, due to the fact that I had forgotten that it was there.

As it turns out, the clubhouse is close to the river.

Almost every one of the scrolls I had read in Canterlot I had read out loud, come to think of it.

For some reason, a part of the Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant I always liked was Smart Cookie pretending to be unburdened so that Chancellor Puddinghead would give her the map.

Though of course by then the map would be all but ruined, with two holes cut from the center by Chancellor Puddinghead so that she could wear it.

Yes, wear it. Chancellor Puddinghead has always been written as a spectacular bumbler, I think.

Part of me wonders whether that characterization was fair.

Surely no ruler would be as foolish as to destroy an essential map even as she used it to guide her people to a new land.

I read somewhere that Equestria historians agree that the incident was not a literal event, but rather symbolic of the real Chancellor’s lack of foresight generally and in specific the lack of cartographers on that expedition.

The clubhouse that Sweetie Belle and her friends had frequented, by the way, had become dilapidated.

Part of the roof has fallen in, exposing the room inside to the elements.

Not that there was much in the clubhouse, after all.

Just a few chairs, and some posters of Rainbow Dash.

I think that the pegasi foal—her name was Scootaloo, I am sure—was quite the Rainbow Dash fan.

There were also some Rainbow Dash-inspired caps in a pile in a corner.

I found Scootaloo’s scooter outside, buried in the grass.

In fact, I walked right into it when I had approached the clubhouse, and kicked my hoof right into it.

Now the scooter is all rusted over.

I tried to ride it, but it would only move very spasmodically, and listed hopelessly to the left.

I returned it to the grass outside the clubhouse.

Yesterday I brought wildflowers into the farmhouse, and so now I can breathe them all over the house.

I also dressed myself, for reasons I am not sure of.

Something simple: a little magenta number and a nice chapeau.

This particular dress had been somewhat faded in the sun.

Nonetheless there was still a little life in its hues.

One winter in the human world I left out some clothing, which became frozen after an unexpected snowfall.

I could stand the pants upright in the snow.

In a way they were like statues, or snow sculptures.

I am still wearing the magenta dress, which I kept on while sleeping.

When I am reacquainted with a dress in such an intimate way I begin to notice its flaws.

For example, I do not like the pleats.

This dress would do better without.

Also, the hemline is a little too long.

In the depths of my madness I had tried to lower the sun.

Naturally, it stayed put.

I couldn’t even feel it through my horn.

I struggled and struggled until I felt dizzy, and passed out.

This was when I was in Canterlot.

After I read in the Canterlot Archives that before Celestia and Luna, a group of powerful warlocks had raised and lowered the sun and moon every day.

Perhaps I thought that if I tried my hardest I could move it a little bit at a time, until it finally came down.

The plans of mice and mares, as the old saying goes.

I don't know for sure, but I don’t think I moved the sun even a tiny bit.

On the other hoof, maybe it moved such a minuscule amount that I hadn’t even noticed it.

In any case, I think I will never have enough magical strength to move it properly, even if I tried every single day.

Somepony once said that the world is all that is the case.

Supposedly that pony had not known about the human world, or otherwise they might have said ‘the worlds’ or even ‘everything.’

Occasionally a page from a newspaper will blow past me as I walk through town.

Some pages from ThePonyville Express, or even sometimes Equestria Daily, the Canterlot newspaper.

Most of the pages are faded or torn.

But then again, some of them aren’t.

Occasionally I will catch snippets of some breaking news from long ago.

Once there was a page from The Foal Free Press, the school newspaper that my sister worked on for a brief stint.

That one was not completely faded, though it had yellowed and torn.

It was the article about Mayor Mare dyeing her hair.

I had kept copies of all of my sister’s columns, but lost them when my boutique burned down, of course.

I kept them even though I had been mad at Sweetie Belle for publishing those embarrassing things about me.

Naturally, I should have also been upset that ‘Gabby Gums’ wrote mean things about other ponies, but somehow I did not think of it.

I learned the same lesson as Sweetie Belle that day.

Nonetheless, I could never resist a little juicy gossip.

In a sense, Sweetie Belle’s lesson reined my desires back into check.

One must not forget that gossip is said about real ponies.

Well, actually, quite possibly the gossip column I read about Mayor Mare was no longer about a real pony.

I view that as a distinct possibility.

In fact, nowadays I view it as the only possibility.

Scootaloo stopped writing for the Foal Free Press soon after that incident, though I never found out why.

Hadn’t you enjoyed it, being one of the questions I asked her.

She had, but now it was time for the next thing.

Those three would go to the ends of Equestria for their cutie marks.

Naturally, I mean in a figurative sense.

Though now that I think about it, they had once climbed one of the mountains near Ponyville as part of their cutie mark finding activities.

I have just been out to the river.

Nor am I any longer depressed, incidentally. That is, if I was even depressed at all to begin with.

I think I had just been out of sorts. When I imagine my friends and family I tend to do that.

I used to discuss cutie marks with Sweetie Belle.

She was obsessed with the subject.

Of course, our stories were quite different.

I had been so sure of my talent and my desire to be a fashionista.

And Sweetie Belle had never been sure about her talents, I think.

It makes me a little upset to think about.

But then again, she had a burgeoning talent for magic that she practiced with Twilight.

And she was also a fantastic singer.

In time she would have received her cutie mark, I am sure of it.

I wonder if Discord left any changes on the stained glass windows he altered in Canterlot Castle.

He did have to restore the depiction of himself holding a sandwich, with Tirek, I heard.

Which he was disappointed about. He alledgedly argued with Celestia that the window should stay that way.

Presumably he was persuaded to change it back, because when I was in Canterlot I didn’t see it.

When I was at the river I decided to take all the washing in.

While I was out of sorts I had kept putting clothes out to dry, and then had not brought them back in.

In fact, one of my woolen sweaters has shrunk.

So many clothes that I had started putting them on bushes to dry.

Those clothes were covered with twigs and leaves, though, which took a while to pick out.

And when I had finished, I galloped full-pelt and jumped into the river, which was delightfully cool.

Even though I was still wearing my magenta dress.

As I write this sentence the water is still running off my mane and down my snout.