Author's Note

The audio reading for this entry can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugBkFWaepHw

Entries 17, 18, and 19

Entry 17

I’m back on the train. Starfall has given me a ride to freedom, wherever that is. The conductor doesn’t intend to give any favor to me beyond permitting me to ride, even though I paid the fare, so I don’t know whether I slept for a day or for several in the basement. It is daylight now, and I anxiously await Starfall to rendezvous with me here.

I had been dreaming of doughnuts and rye bread before I awoke to the sound of a shouting female voice and a few loud thumps overhead. I climbed out of the box and proceeded to the door but warily backed away. It was some diversion, I thought, to get me to walk into their trap. However, Starfall’s grunting off the pain from being launched into the kitchen cabinet assured me that there was a struggle I had to join.

I ran out and found Steiner approaching Starfall. I called out, “You’re going down, fiend!”

Starfall cast a beam at him before I had time to charge ahead, but he sidled out of the way.

“Don’t look into their eyes, Zeta!”

Starfall pushed herself from the cabinet. As she did so, Steiner made to push her back against it. She grabbed his forelegs, though, and they were suddenly in a deadlock. She was looking in his eyes but had conjured a magical lens which apparently neutralized his gaze.

I drew my rapier. “I’ll take care of Jackson.” I ran into the lounge and found his cinders. Hunters’ familiarity with other hunters’ weaknesses had apparently worked in her favor this time.

Starfall was nearly out of breath. “You can’t. Dead.”

“I’ll just slay Steiner, then.”

“No, you mustn’t.”

“Oh, right! We can arrest him and find our cure!”

“Not that. I’ll deal with Steiner. You must leave; I’ll teleport you to the train. Tell Princess Luna that the nightmare has not begun until the head hits the hay.”

Before I could question her command and cryptic message, I found myself on a train headed back to Manehattan. It’ll be nightfall by the time I arrive. I’ll stop by the bank to pick up the money I’ll need for the fare to Canterlot.

I am trying not to fear the worst, but, now that I’ve written the events down, it is clear that Starfall had no intention of emerging from the mansion. Why save me, though? By now she must have brought herself to hate me. Perhaps that’s just it. All this to spite me.

Vindictive or not, she gave me a final wish to fulfill, and I kind of want to speak with Luna myself.

___

My face was too familiar to the train ticket clerk. I had conceived that my exile was self-imposed, but I am physically barred from entering Canterlot on account of the debacle I caused. They probably want me dead as soon as they want Chrysalis’s head, but they can’t get me for an accident.

I have decided to keep myself at St. Periwinkle’s place.

I made a large withdrawal from my bank account and trotted from there to St. Periwinkle’s. Unlike in the mountains through which we in the train rode, snow was scheduled to fall here, and it’s terribly frigid outside. Even with my coat and scarf on, I was shivering.

As I passed through this low down district of Manehattan, I spied a dirty filly walking all on her lonesome into the middle of the street. One became a witness to this from time to time during wintertime in this place; it was the death march that young, abandoned foals embarked on as despair finally seeped into their instincts. They would not otherwise dare to emerge from the shadows that had borne them so far into their lives.

I took a string from my coat and tethered my diary to my back as I offered her my coat. I dumped about fifty bits from the heaping pile contained in my purse into the pockets and told her earnestly, “Friends, though absent, are still present.”

She just ran off with my donation, but I knew my way was short yet, so I didn’t mind her not thanking me.

I found St. Periwinkle outside his hotel, knocking down sinister icicles with a rod. They were all high enough to be deadly, but they didn’t exist on the top three floors’ sills. It used to be that the heat couldn’t reach just the top floor. His business, I assumed rightly, had gone back to the tank after I left.

I called to him, but he refrained from appearing to acknowledge my voice, as was his peculiar way, “I’m here on behalf of the mayor of Manehattan. The city has issued an ordinance to have this building repurposed, and it offers you this as remuneration for your compliance and restitution for your inconvenience.”

The place really should have been condemned before I even arrived here the first time, so even he had to have seen this coming. He turned to me, protruded his lips, and nodded in understanding but resumed his task without missing any more beats. Once he had knocked down all the icicles, he turned to me.

“Glad ‘e waited, sonny.”

I handed him the bag of coin.

“’Tleast ‘e don’ hafta deal with no tenant ‘e be displacin’.” He began to walk away to somewhere, but he turned back to me and said, “Deed’s behind the an’ient cider barrel in th’ back.”

I rushed inside and closed the door. It smelled worse in there, but at least it w

WAS WARM – RIGHT

I recognize your hoofscratch. I know you could’ve been watching me write, Starfall, but I had no idea writing in it worked both ways.

SUCH IS THE PLAGUE OF THE IGNORANT

Let’s be civil. Are you one of us or not?

A BETTER QUESTION IS – WHEN WILL YOU BE ONE OF US

You know such a question only begs denial.

IMPUDENT RENEGADE DO YOU NOT SEE THAT IT IS FITTING THAT OUR CREATOR JOIN US

I see it only fitting that I should cleanse the souls I have inadvertently

KEEP YOUR ETHICS WHILE YOU CAN THEN YOUR MIND’S STRUGGLE IS EQUALLY APPETIZING

I will, seeing as your clues to my whereabouts are mute – and scarce.

PREDATORS HAVE AN AXIOM – THE PREY’S BODY WILL ALWAYS BETRAY ITS MIND – YOUR SCENT TRAIL IS AS CLEAR TO ME AS THIN POND ICE

Follow it, and I shall drown you.

THIS HORSE SHALL SIMPLY DRINK FROM IT

Entry 18

I can’t believe there’s no good parchment for me to write on. I guess it really doesn’t matter if Starfall finds that I’ve been continuing my entries from the back of this book, anyway, so long as I’m careful not to say where she can specifically find me. St. Periwinkle is a stingy stallion! He doesn’t even have a calendar. The clock says it’s a quarter to eleven in the evening, but I don’t trust it.

I do trust, however, that Starfall is neither sufficiently stealthy nor sufficiently crafty to find me tonight. I do not doubt her capacity to find me, though. I guess I must stand and fight with my back to the wall. Our confrontation may happen tomorrow night or a week from now, but it looms. I must slay her.

Perhaps then Princess Luna will forgive me. Or perhaps not. Perhaps my redemption can only come from an ultimate victory. Perhaps she leaves me to my likely death because she wants no more trouble from me.

Am I just a pest? Can she only forgive me once I can hurt her no longer?

In this bug-ridden room there is a dingy full-length mirror. St. Periwinkle must’ve been fairly vain. I look at it and see my Cutie Mark and the symbols of my destiny. I guess I bumped my cheek pretty bad; it’s a hideous purple.

The road can’t end while I still have purpose. I will find a way. Starfall obviously can’t be persuaded to receive the cure formulae, but maybe someday some likeminded pony with the ability to restrain one of the beasts will aid me.

First things go first, though. I must sleep. Then, our hunt for each other will commence.

Entry 19

I returned to the bank today and bought myself another coat even though it’s not quite as cold outside. It’s been overcast most of today, although in the distance there appears to be a thunderstorm. It’s a little strange to have one in the winter, but it must be one of those anomalies, and I guess the distance can be attributed to the fact that nopony wants to be responsible for knocking out the grid here in Manehattan.

I’ve retreated to the top floor of the building in order to evade the bugs. I went ahead and took the deed St. Periwinkle pledged to me, not that it’ll be of much use. Also of little use is locking the doors and windows to this place, but I’ve done so all the same.

I’m going to sing for the two hours or so left until it is nighttime. I shall wait for her to find me on the roof. I’m placing this journal just outside the door to prevent myself from concentrating on anything else for now. I just want to sing it out. I’ll sing battle songs and maybe a Tonus Solemnis for our impending fight. I will not sing a dirge. I would be a failure to sing my own dirge and, in the case that I succeed in slaying her, all the more reprehensible to have sung one for an enemy.

___

I’m really glad it hasn’t rained on this journal. It was rather stupid of me to keep it out here with clouds overhead. The weather ponies could not be faulted for making it rain, but it hasn’t yet, so I’m thankful.

I had really hoped that Princess Luna might make an ultimate attempt to make contact as I slept last night and into the day, but that was a hollow, not to mention shallow, hope. I can’t help but wonder where her attention is focused right now. Maybe it’s the dual duel against the Changelings and the Vamponies. Maybe she’s reading or conducting some other mundane task.

There’s ruin in my name, and I wish I’d never stepped on the train to the mansion, but I know my besmirched journey mustn’t end here on this roof.

I know it must be the deadly dread in my stomach nauseating me, and standing among the dense accumulated snow augments my vertigo because I feel like I’m on a swaying cloud. I brave to stand up and check around the surrounding rooftops. Nothing. I look around in the sky. The lightning and rumbling thunder have ceased.

I put the book down to start pacing. I’d like to keep the chill off me if I can. At least day mitigates the cold. I really hope that filly is quite all right. She and the three copies of this book are my only certain positive legacies. Well, maybe that filly still has no chance, but I’d like to think I did something right.

Sure, The Solution may appear as a footnote in the history books that teach of the Inquisition’s achievements, but my failure will be the main paragraph on the page. Long from now, a history teacher will cover this paragraph, and sufficient time will have passed for him to get away with a facetious comment on it that overshadows my intent yet imbeds itself much more fully in the students’ minds. So typical will be my case if I cannot amend.

I see very faintly a figure frenetically flitting among the magenta clouds in the distance. Starfall hasn’t likely spotted me yet, but she’s on her way. Jackson is lurking about somewhere. It’s show time: time to break a leg.