Don't you dare call this a tragedy
Here he is, an unsung hero of Canterlot. As always he disdains the acclaim with a small smile. “It is those others,” he says, “those brave ones that chased down the monster Discord and sealed him away. They ended all that badness. All I’ve got is the comfy couch,” he insists.
Or he would, if any gave such value to his work. They don’t. Neither does he, to be honest. He doesn’t want acclaim, he’s too soft spoken for the spotlight. No. He just wants to help ponies.
And he does. A lot of the ponies of Canterlot would be surprised that, well, a lot of theother ponies had at some time or other, found peace of mind on the inviting cushions of Solace’s couch.
Because the story hadn’t ended when the houses stopped floating through the sky and ponies could trust the world to stay upright again. Everything was the same now, but what about the things they had seen beyond explanation? The things they had done? The things they had been?
Those things didn’t just go away because the cause of them had. And so, sometimes with anger and sometimes with tears - or both - but always with a caring colt ready to listen, the victims of Discord’s mania were able to come to terms with what had happened. Through Solace they found acceptance. Through acceptance they each found that they could finally expunge the poison and pain of the experience from their minds.
Working through the aftermath, Solace did good things for the world. Not because he was bold and took charge, but precisely because he wasn’t. He could listen as truly and compassionately to the fifth visitor of the day as the first - though the heaviest days of work were behind him now. Now he had more days in a week than visitors to fill them and the peacefulness that fell upon him was a strange new thing, like a thick blanket of dew upon grass on a beautiful morning.
And the weather was beautiful. The breeze twirled through manes and flower beds alike, and the songbirds regretted only that they could not sing and fly at the same time. Bees buzzed and buds blossomed.
It was a day out of poetry. Solace walked, a directionless wandering through the hours as the sun warmed his back.
No, that wasn’t quite true. Canterlot was a bustling small city and Solace always preferred the quaint and the quiet, but through half forgotten archways and down old cobbled roads there was plenty to be found by anypony who trusted to their hooves to find it.
And his had. The royal gardens of Canterlot. Few ponies realized how truly expansive they were beyond the well tended grounds near the castle. Just beyond the trimmed labyrinthe there was a copse of mature ash and hazel trees, under which Solace had found hours of contentment resting to the sounds of a babbling brook.
Next time, he told himself as his hooves lead him another way. The last time he had thought that too. And the time before, but his course was set is if a he was adrift in a current. It drew him here.
‘Here’ was the more finely groomed corner of the gardens, where the grass was so finely clipped and the weeds so attentively plucked that the ground was a nice, but monotonous, blanket of green.
He passed one sculpture, then another. Whoever had carved these stones had the skill of a master in them. A pegasus that must weigh five hundred pounds was poised on the edge of flight. A truly earthen pony was so lost in her music that Solace felt remorse that the sculpture would never truly play. The experience, as always, was humbling. Any second he felt the wind might roll through the strands of one stone mare’s hair, or another might blink and shake the dust from her shoulders - yet they never did.
Almost never did. One had, once, and Solace stood now at the podium of him. A bronze cast placard had been set at the draconequus’ feet, but the elements had already crept into the edge of its shine with a dull corrosion.
Here stands a replica of Discord: Spirit of Chaos
A monster from the past.
A memory he shall remain.
Whatever passion had graced the sculpting of the statues had turned violent in the fake Discord’s creation. Where any other would warrant a gentle touch, here the hammer and chisel had hacked away at stone. The draconequus stood with no great poise; only a slight hunch to his shoulders, as if unsure as to whether he should feel threatening...or threatened.
It seemed no more than a minute had gone by when a punch to his shoulder snapped Solace from his reverie. He wasn’t even surprised - it was the familiar opening act in a script well rehearsed. An off-white pegasus stallion with pale yellow hair sauntered companionably to his side.
“Hey Sol,” the pegasus said. ‘What’s up?”
“Hello, Zeefur. Please don’t do that,” the earth pony said, smiling faintly. The pegasus beside Solace rocked gently on his hooves. Zeefur was always fidgeting in one way or another, as if his small body struggled to contain the full sized force of personality within it. His cutie mark was a bursting balloon and indeed, there was always the slight impression he might explode in a shower of confetti and noisy kazoos. If any of his tall tales were to be believed, the only way he’d manage to be accepted into the royal guards had been to smuggle a partial paralysis potion into the, as he called it: ‘stand up straight and do squat an for an hour exam.’
“Oh yeah? You could hit me back, you know.”
“You know I won’t.”
“Even if I hit you again?” the pegasus teased.
“Even if you hit me again.” Solace said it with a tiredness to his voice, though a smile snuck out around the edges of his words.
Zeefur waggled his eyebrows and egged him on, but didn’t follow through in his mock threat. He never did, and never had. He switched to rolling his shoulders, as if preparing to run.
“I don’t think I will ever understand you, Sol. Never hitting back, that can’t be natural.”
“And hitting first is?”
Zeefur shifted seamlessly into a shrug. As his shoulders settled, his wings started flicking at their tips.
“Meh.” For a pony who could spin a yarn around Canterlot and back again, he could be very succinct at times.
The conversation fell to silence as the false Discord dominated the view once more. Song birds sang and the wind rustled nearby leaves, but somehow none of it seemed to encroach on the little bubble of Solace’s thoughts.
“You’ve been hanging around the statue a lot lately.” Zeefur’s voice, for once, was decidedly neutral. His tail swished the air.
“They’re quite the works of art.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“I-”
“Don’t lie to me. I’m a royal guard.” Zeefur stretched his neck this way and that. “Equestria’s elite for the defence of the people and the crown, yeah? Means my job is to spend hours everyday standing around doing nothing. And for some reason I always seem to get all the quietest areas...”
“Like here.” There was no need for it to be a question.
Zeefur nodded. “Like here. I’ve seen you just staring up at Left Overs.” He threw a hoof and nasty look at the scarred statue.
“It’s important to try to understand what happened. For my...patients.” Solace tripped over the word. It wasn’t one he was fond of. Saying that word felt like he was dropping a curtain between him and them. He wished he knew a better one.
“What happened, happened. It ended. He ended.” Zeefur shook out his mane. “I mean...damn. He’s an ugly sucker. I’d put in a complaint to get out of here and try for a more exciting post, but I can’t even do that. I’d never get a good post if they thought I was a wimp. Just looking at him makes me want to puke.”
“I’m here, you know, if you want to talk about it.” Solace regretted the words, but he couldn’t help himself. He tried to keep his friends spared from his work, but Solace’s parents had named him very aptly indeed.
Zeefur shot him a look and stretched his wings out. “No. I’d complain if I thought I might get somewhere from it, but I know better. He doesn’t bother me. I’m fine.” There was a note of finality to the pegasus’ words.
Solace would have apologized, except he knew it’d only agitate the pegasus further. During the brief and terrible escape of Discord, Zeefur had been afflicted. Solace hadn’t.
Afflicted. It was the politically correct term, which meant only the very conscientious like Solace used it naturally without reminding themselves to. The much more common expression was Discorded.
In a lot of ways it was the better description for the job. It could be spat with the appropriate venom. The word was a reminder and an accusation rolled up into one. There was no rhyme or reason to the circumstances of his victims. Bodies and minds and perceptions, all of it had swirled insanely like the colours of oil in water at the spirit’s touch. Discord did this to you. It’s not your fault.
It was the kind of thing a lot of the ponies Solace listened to needed to hear.
But not Zeefur. Sometimes he laughed it off, sometimes he got surly, but always the pegasus dismissed Solace’s tentative attempts to help. From a certain point of view the pegasus hadn’t been afflicted badly - his legs had become wings and his wings had become legs. His mind had been his own and a few hours of awkwardly shuffling through the dirt everything was back to normal. As such, maybe he hadn’t been all that bothered by the experience.
Solace disagreed with it on a level so fundamental to his being that it went beyond his ability with words to express. It was wrong. He didn’t think it was right to say you weren’t hurt because others had been hurt more. Trauma wasn’t some kind of test where only the top scorers deserved help.
Another big problem Solace had with that point of view was that it was presently held by a pegasus named Zeefur. Not for the first time, Solace was torn. He had to respect the wishes of his friend, but it was his duty to soothe where he could. It felt like trying to juggle things that were drifting further and further apart. It was not nice.
The pegasus started shifting his weight to and fro on his hind legs. “Look. I’m off duty early enough this evening. How about we have a guys night? Drinking, gaming... drinking some more. You can be my wingman.” The pegasus smirked with satisfaction in his terrible joke. “Wait. No. We are going to cut loose tonight, because I know you well enough that if I accidentally give you a way out, you’ll squirm through it.”
Solace opened his mouth to speak, but the pegasus had already leaped into the air and was rocketing away.
“No squirming!” he called back over his shoulder.
Solace shut his mouth. Well, the pegasus did have a point. He had been trying to decline politely. For a second he dreaded the prospect, but with a second to think he warmed to the idea.
He stared the fake Discord in the eye - no, this wasn’t over. But tonight might be a welcome reprieve.
Hours passed, but until Zeefur showed up Solace waited idly. As a pony who always kept up on tidiness and orderliness, Solace found himself with entirely no idea of what to do. For the third time that hour he checked over himself in the standing mirror of his warmly lit bathroom. He was, in a way he supposed was good and healthy, anxious. He hadn’t gone out in years. He hoped he looked alright for the part.
Solace was, he well knew, so mediocre in appearance that on a scale of one to ten of averageness he’d get a five.
His coat was beige, his hair and tail were brown. In a world with colours from auburn to umber, he was the definitive beige and brown. He was on friendly terms with them both. They were his and they gave him no trouble, provided he groomed regularly, something he well adhered to.
In stature he stood just a smidgen shorter than the average earth pony - at one point he’d checked - and his face tended ever so slightly towards being sunken with jutting cheekbones. His body had the leanness of one who took little exercise and even less food.
His cutie mark, as it had always been, was a ship in a bottle. As cutie marks went it was surprisingly well detailed; on close inspection it even had tiny lines of rigging. Even so it didn’t particularly stand out, being brown wood and some sails on a translucent shape on a background of brown and all.
Once upon a time he’d made real ships in bottles as a hobby. Again, it wasn’t something he’d done in years. Decades, even. If any of his creations had survived, they might have been bona fide antiques by now.
Why do you put a ship in a bottle?
Lately that was all he could think about. He owed it to Zeefur to put it out of mind for the time being and be a good friend. Solace held no illusions that he’d be... what was it they said now: ‘cramping his style?’ and that the pegasus was going out of his way to do this.
“Hey. Hey. Sol. Hey. Sol. Hey!” Zeefur’s voice had to batter its way over the chatter of the crowded bar, though a stiff jab to the shoulder did the real trick. He listed to one side in his seat seemingly unawares, except the lean opened up a chance to let his wing hang just so as the mares brushed by it. For a pony, Zeefur could be a bit of a dog.
Solace resurfaced from his thoughts with a blink of startlement. “Oh. What is it?”
“Damnit pony, you’re moonier than Luna’s plot! I’m getting two more drinks. And two for you, too. No buts...oh hello, well...maybe hers...”
Solace stared at his drink, caught between a frown and a smile.
Zeefur returned soon enough. Between the two of them there was something like a conversation, except the talking only went one way.
Zeefur scowled when the third funny story got only a half hearted laugh. At least the earth pony was drinking at a reasonable pace, but wasn’t showing the proper symptoms yet.
“Get your drink, come on.” The pegasus all but dragged him to a quieter corner, less well lit than the main tables.
There was one table here, at which two identical blue earth mares sat. They eyed the newcomers critically.
Zeefur said, “Hello, ladies. Meet my friend, he needs a good time.” It was a good thing Solace hadn’t been walking and drinking. Somepony would have gotten a heavy spray of drink in their face.
“Solace, meet Card Shark and Loan Shark.
“Oh, I think we’ll be friends,” one of the sisters said.
“Yep, absolutely chummy, I think,” said the other. They gave each other a knowing smile.
Zeefur took a seat at the table and whispered to Solace. “Tell me you know how to play poker.”
“I do.” Not that he’d played it in years...or decades. With a strangely positive resignation, Solace let his friend cajole him into taking a seat. It was a good thing he had a few bits to lose.
The hands were dealt. Zeefur chatted and gestured prominently, and played the game like it was an expensive indulgence he never expected to win. The mares egged him on, but never really took their attention away from the steady piles of bits drifting towards them.
Solace already knew that the pegasus didn’t have the deepest pockets, and left to his own devices wouldn’t even have that much. His resignation to the situation twisted and knotted into a mixture of worry and aggravation.
The twins weren’t even hustling Zeefur blind. He knew what they were doing and was letting it happen. So Solace did what he could.
He stopped playing games. He started playing poker.
The cards themselves were superficial. Good hands, bad hands, it was speculative at best. The real game was in the eyes of the players.
The earth pony found his determination shaded with anger. It scared him a little. He hadn’t been passionate about much since...well, that was neither here nor there.
The Shark twins might have be named such, but in society they were more like oral flora; their only purpose was to be there to take up space so that something worse couldn’t.
They were knowledgeable of the game and knew how to keep a straight face. They were well experienced at reading the faces of the drunk and reckless. Solace was used to coaxing open the hearts of ponies who didn’t even always realize they were hurt.
There was no real contest. He played them like an instrument, a quiet, subtle instrument, but no less fully for his discretion.
Reading people was like learning a language. Once it was known there was no convenient off switch. If Zeefur knew half as much as Solace guessed he knew of the pegasus, he could very well break off their friendship. It could be painful, looking at the casual passerby in the street and catching hints of all those little things they would certainly have never told a stranger.
Solace kept his focus to the game, and inexorably the bits drifted towards the pegasus as several more hands played out. Individually there seemed to be no pattern to them, but ever so slightly Solace shifted the numbers back with interest to Zeefur, who was very delighted. Solace had been so attentive to the game he hadn’t even noticed the stiff winged little mare hanging over his friend’s shoulder. Zeefur and her eyes kept meeting up and they grinned constantly.
“Well, ladies, Sol, it’s been fun. Me and...uh, Windyloo are gonna take the winnings and and find ourselves in a deep meaningful conversation somewhere nice and quiet, hows that sound?”
They giggled and couldn’t keep their wings off of one another. Solace caught the infectious grin, much to his own surprise. Must be the alcohol.
Zeefur swung a foreleg over the brown pony’s shoulder. “Sol! Buddy boy, it’s been fun, yeah? Good to get you out for once. You might be the head shrinker guy, but I know ya needed this...” The pegasus fell silent for a second and his expression darkened. “Well.” he began again, but somewhere in the intervening seconds he seemed to have sobered up by an hour and two coffees. “Well, I’m glad for you.”
Solace put on a smile he didn’t feel. “I feel the same. Thank you.”
“Take care of yourself, Sol. I’m going to have enough of a hangover tomorrow without finding you in a guard cell because you couldn’t hold your drink.” The pegasus smirked and drifted away with the little mare hanging off his side, nuzzling one another’s necks.
Solace watched them go, caught between happiness and sadness, and waited a minute. Just long enough for them to be lost in one another’s starry eyes, where he could slip by and go home.
The night had been nice. That was all he wanted of it. He was just around the corner of the building when familiar voices called to him.
“Wait up.”
“Pardon me. I’m leaving now.” He made to go, but one of the twins made a point of stepping in front of him from a shadow. They must have gone around the other way to catch him out, and no other pony was in sight at this late hour.
“We want to have a little talk first.” They circled him like their namesakes, and Solace growled under his breath.
“About what? You already played me for my bits.”
“No. You played us for your bits. Zeefur sure as chaos didn’t win that himself, we play him every week. He’s reliable and he loses reliably. You’re new, so give us a chance to explain how it works.”
“Let me by,” he growled, but again his way was barred.
The mares ignored him. “See, it works like this. We’re like, a service to the community. We provide entertainment, you provide bits. We don’t like it when somepony shifts them around like that. Didn’t you think we’d notice?”
He met the nearest mare in the eye and stood fast. “There’s nothing more to talk about. Let my by.”
The Shark behind Solace jabbed him in the flank. “Yeah? And what are you going to do? Make us.”
Solace remembered the taste of the dirt of the schoolyard. It was a familiar taste. It wasn’t that he had ever been smaller and weaker than normal, and even then it wouldn’t have mattered. The school foals hadn’t been mean or nasty in any way, and even when his teeth wobbled and his eyes were blackened because of them he had known this. He had been, in fact, the only foal the school had ever had troubles with, because he was the only one involved in physical bullying. He was always the victim.
Word had gotten around the school that he didn’t hit back. Not ever. With a curiosity that had absolutely no malice, only innocence, the other children tested it. Even the shy little filly he had had a crush on had stood by and watched with dread in equal measure to fascination as a tentative blow would smack off his jaw.
Solace’s parents and teachers had become frustrated with him for the continuing attacks; it was just that consistent that they inadvertently shifted the blame to him. At the edge of his patience, his father had explained to him that if Solace would just stand his ground and make it clear that he would defend himself, he’d never need to.
All his life Solace could see the sense to that, even if he never could find it in himself to agree with it. He could no more raise a hoof in violence than he cut make himself jump from a high ledge, and that same sense of revulsion and self destruction permeated through both ideas.
So it was that on his first night out in Canterlot since...well, he met the taste of dirt like an old friend anyway. The sting of irony that put the edge of a smile to his face even as a hoof snuck into his ribs was in what read from these two. They’d never intended to beat him. Even now they went through the motions, not entirely sure why they did so. There was something about being entirely non-violent that seemed to bring out the worst in others, as if some scale somewhere had to be balanced.
“And, uh, think twice before you sit at our table again, you hear?” One of the Sharks said nervously as they looked about, then ran off.
It hurt to cough but he couldn’t help it, some dust had worked its way into his mouth. Solace clambered up on shaky hooves and looked himself over. In the dark he couldn’t see much, but he didn’t seem to be bleeding or broken. He had a long enough walk home ahead of it, and it ached. It always ached.
Solace found himself by a streetlamp and checked himself over again. No, certainly nothing a few packs of frozen peas wouldn’t soothe, but there was one graze, flushed with dirt from when he’d fallen over his cutie mark. By this lighting and a bit of imagination, it looked almost as if the grit was a mesh of cracks along the bottle’s side.
Why do you put a ship in a bottle?
All the way home the words haunted him. They followed him up the steps and into the bathroom and the bedroom and cozied up next to him in the bed. Even his dreams would be no escape. Luckily he had none. Not anymore.
Not that it stopped the memory from hanging over him in that shadowy consciousness between sleeping and waking. Discord’s chaos, spilling into the world unchecked. Solace had wandered through it all in a daze. He hadn’t even been afraid, just confused. But fear had found plenty of opportunity to catch up when a claw hoisted Solace up into the air.
“Isn’t it magnificent?” a joyous voice rang out.
Solace had found his voice, somehow. “Why are you doing this?”
“The question is, ‘why not?’ I’m tearing down the walls: boredom, consistency, predictability, and repetition. Isn’t life so much better free of such confines?”
Solace stifled shivers of fear and panic, he couldn’t lose his words now. “You’re making everypony suffer.”
Discord laughed. “Do they look like they’re suffering?” The face of Discord, staring at Solace, into Solace. It was one of the things Solace would never forget for as long as he lived. The spirit’s eyes glowed as he drew them closer, close into Solace’s face. He could taste Discord’s breath, it tasted like flannel. “Oh, I see. They’re not, not really, but you are. Isn’t it tragic.”
Solace inhaled sharply and struggled vainly against Discord’s grip. “Don’t you dare use that word.”
Discord pouted. “I can see how much it eats you up inside. Oh, my little pony, I can set you free. Your little Peace Lily would want that for you.”
Solace screamed as if his skin had been torn away. “No! You have no idea what she would want. Go away!” Solace broke down in tears and wracked sobbing.
Discord ran a tender paw under the sobbing pony’s chin, lifting his head to the spirit’s gaze. “I’m not a cruel spirit, you know.”
“You’re a monster,” the pony whimpered. The draconequus shrugged.
“Tell me,” he said, “What could your cutie mark possibly mean? A ship in a bottle. That sounds like something I would do, not a pony. Why?”
Tears blurred Solace’s vision and his heart fluttered painfully in his chest. “It’s supposed to mean safety,” he cried. “It means there’s somewhere safe to go when the world is too big and too much,” Solace whimpered as tears streamed down his face.
“Oh, the cruel irony of it all. The fire didn’t care for your ‘safety,’ did it? But I do.”
Solace went limp. The will to live went away, and he waited for whatever oblivion the spirit had in store for him.
Discord regarded the weeping pony for a minute, and to Solace’s surprise, set him down on the ground. “No. There’s no fun to play in your agony. When you’re ready for my boon, you’ll find me.” The spirit cocked his ear to the wind, as if a distant voice called him. “In the meantime, find me an answer to this: Why do you put a ship in a bottle?”
Solace woke up more exhausted than when he’d gone to sleep. He slid from bed in a stupor, hardly caring for his bruises and hurts, and passed the kitchen by with no thought or want of breakfast. He left without a second thought and went to the only place he could. The sun prickled off his matted coat, and his flank itched. The graze over his cutie mark rankled with scabs that looked angry and black.
Solace found himself at the familiar statue before he had really considered it. The echoes of Discord’s words still bounced across his mind, but he felt strangely empty.
“Sol,” A familiar voice said.
“Zeefur?” and there he was, between Solace and the statue. The pegasus frowned and held a hoof to his head.
“Damnit, Sol.” The pegasus shook his head sadly and winced. “Damnit,” he repeated for good measure. “What happened to you?”
“Fell down the stairs.”
The pegasus groaned, there was no believing it. “Sol, come with me to the castle.”
Solace didn’t take his eyes from the worn statue. “I’d rather not, thank you.”
The pegasus flared his wings. “No, you’re not getting it. That wasn’t a request.”
Solace blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Yesterday I was speaking to you as a friend. Now I’m speaking to you as a royal guard. You are coming to the castle to see Princess Celestia.”
Solace took a step back. Zeefur matched it with a step forwards.“What? Why?”
Zeefur groaned. “I told you, damnit Sol, I told you to stay off mooning after Discord. We’ve got orders to escort anyone who acts that way to the castle to be looked over. I tried to get you off this.”
Solace had only seen Celestia once in his life. There’d been a small, ornate box with nothing much inside to be lowered into the ground under a bright summer sky. He never wanted to see Celestia again. “I don’t want to go.”
“I don’t want to bring you in.”
“Then don’t.”
The wings of Zeefur fell limp by his side. “Please don’t make me choose between my duty and my friend,” the pegasus said quietly, “because I would chose duty. And would hate myself for it.”
Solace knew that somewhere he felt the sting of betrayal, but he was numb to it just now. But he could read Zeefur easily enough.
“You would, wouldn’t you?” Solace said as he took another step away.
The guard lowered his gaze to the ground. “If I had to.”
Solace thought to run, then wondered what the point of it would be. The pegasus had all but said his choice was made and he was stronger and faster, and they both knew Solace would never fight back. He lowered his head submissively.
The guard put a soft wing over Solace’s shoulder. “You’re making the right choice.”
Solace didn’t reply to that. He didn’t feel like he’d been given a choice at all. The pegasus stood protectively beside him and glared nastily at the statue.
“What did he do to you?” Zeefur asked.
Solace took his time before answering. The sun seemed too bright for a day he felt so chilled on. “He left my body and mind exactly as he found them.” Solace could hear the bitterness in his own voice. “Zeefur, tell me, why do we put ships in bottles?”
The pegasus stopped mid stride. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Solace pondered his hasty dismissal as they walked.
Soon enough the gates of the castle loomed over the pair. It was impressive architecture, inspired in its design; well cared for and brightly lit. It felt like a gallows.
Some subtle signal passed between Zeefur and the other guards and they were passed through without questioning.
Solace didn’t know what he expected. Somewhere he imagined the grand doors being flung back and bold accusations made, all eyes turning to him. It wasn’t to be. Zeefur navigated the backways and servants’ corridors and stuffed him into a lesser guestroom. It was cozy and furbished, but for all that it might as well have been a cell.
Zeefur looked to Solace with a face battling between sorrow and stern. “Stay here until somepony comes for you. Please. It’s for your own good. Whatever Discord did to you, Celestia will fix it.”
“He didn’t do anything to me!” Solace shouted, but the guard only shook his head sadly.
“Just stay here.”
Solace wanted to spit some curse, but he couldn’t bring himself to. There was no point. Zeefur had betrayed him, but he was still Solace’s friend. The door closed to leave Solace to his lonesome and his flank itched, but he didn’t have the energy to care. He laid in the neat little bed in the corner of the room and slept, dreaming of summer sunshine and scorching flames.
Eyelids did nothing to stop the light, it was so white and so bright. Yet there was no pain, no burning. His body stood calmly as the light pierced through Solace’s being, soft and all encompassing as music. A voice of much the same qualities drifted to the earth pony.
“Don’t fight this, Solace.”
Somewhere far beyond the shining light and this waking dream, Solace thought of sniggering. He never fought, never could, even as the light violated the privacy of his soul.
Time lost all meaning, but even then it had to continue. The luminescence faded, and Solace felt as if he sank back into his own mind. He felt exhaustion beyond his mere body. The face of Celestia looked down upon him, her perfect form cast with a slight frown. Beyond what she wished to convey of her feelings, Solace could read nothing.
“Solace...” she began.
“Please, no. Just please.”
“Leave us,” she ordered, and guards he hadn’t even known were there left. Solace felt a wave of shame that others had witnessed something so vulnerable...so invasive.
“I find no trace of Discord’s magic in you. But I don’t need magic to see you are suffering. What did he do to you? I understand it hurts-”
For a moment Solace could almost comprehend violence, a fury with something so wrong that the only possible proof of justice in the universe would be to trample it unto ash and dust. “No, princess, I don’t think you do. You will never grow old. Neither will Peace Lily.” Her name was the ripping open of old wounds. “Discord did nothing to me. He held me in his claw, and did nothing. The world fell into chaos all around me, and he did nothing.”
Solace met Celestia’s gaze, but there was no defiance, no challenge in his eyes. Only weariness. “Please. Just let me go home.”
“I should have seen that the one who tended to the hearts of others so faithfully kept so much anguish in his own. I will not leave you to be alone with such misery.”
“Then do something to end it!” Solace shouted as he fell to his knees. “But it never ends, does it?” he wept, knowing it was no real question.
Celestia hesitated before answering. “No,” she said through a weary sigh.
“Please, let me go,” he whimpered.
Genuine pain flashed across Celestia’s features. “I...cannot. You are distraught. It would not be right to leave you alone.”
The red and bleary eyes of Solace were underlined by a harsh sneer. “I know the word. Please don’t pretend this isn’t what you said. That this isn’t a suicide watch.”
Celestia said no more. She watched over the pony in silence until the worst of his grief passed. With quiet words he didn’t care to notice, guards escorted him back to the room he’d first seen. In a stupor he watched as unicorn magic snipped the cords from the curtains, stripped the bed, and took away all manner of things; small things, sharp things, corded things. Without a word they were gone
Suicide. When the soil had yet to settle on the little grave of Peace Lily - buried next to her mother - Solace had stood on the seaside cliffs, every fibre of his being begging him to take the last little step.
Solace had already buried his wife, Water Lily. Her time had come and it had hurt, it still did, but they had known. There’d been time to say all the things that needed to be said, and time to just be together for all the things that didn’t. She had closed her eyes one last time and Solace had been able to tell himself everything he needed to hear; that she had made her peace and that in their daughter he’d always have a piece of her.
Solace remembered taking his daughter to the dentist one day. She’d been afraid, but he had soothed her fear. The dentist had said, as the kind ones are wont to do, that she’d never seen such a beautiful smile, and the filly had beamed with pride as the dentist scrubbed and polished, and took impressions.
Peace Lily was only identified by those dental records.
Solace stood on the precipice under another beautiful summer day. One small step. Just one little step, and he’d be with her again. Ocean waves crashed into the crags below him.
He’d closed his eyes tight and his heart had thundered in his chest. His breathing had run ragged. Just one tiny step. Every fibre of his being struggled desperately against the compulsion to survive, to do no harm and step down. But there was nothing left for Solace, nothing to go on for. “Please,” he had whimpered into the wind. It swirled all around him, full of whispers.
And a voice. “I love this view!” Too many emotions surged through Solace as he whirled about.
A wall eyed pegasus smiled at him, entirely oblivious to his pain. She shifted a mailbag slung around her neck into a more comfortable position. His mouth hung open and words failed him.
“But you should be careful, because you’re not a pegasus. You don’t want to fall off!” The gray mare gave him another wide smile before leaping into the air. “I need to finish delivering the mail so I can go home to my little muffin. It was nice meeting you, mister!”
Sometime after she had gone and the winds had quieted, Solace laughed.
It was laughter without mirth or warmth, from a person on the very literal ledge. If laughter was the best medicine, Solace had gone and swallowed everything in the medicine cabinet. It tore through his body and he collapsed, trembling and weeping and laughing.
He hadn’t been able to do it then. Now, with everything stripped from the room and guards standing surreptitiously beyond the doors, Solace felt empty and numb. But it was a brittle emptiness, like thin ice over a lake of monsters. Any second something hideous and evil might smash up through it and drag him into screaming darkness. He could almost welcome it, but until that came again he could think clearly, with the clinical directness of a scalpel.
Solace couldn’t kill himself. Even if the room hadn’t been stripped, even if guards didn’t all but stare over his shoulder at his every move, he couldn’t do it. He never could, he never would. What would his daughter, his beautiful little daughter think of her father then? Or Water Lily of her husband?
For them, he had to be good. He had gone on for as long as he could, being as good as he could. He could be nothing else, but one way or another Solace needed an ending.
Why do you put a ship in a bottle?
Solace rose from the bed with slow, methodical movements, but there was a quality of utter purpose to them, as if steel chains binding him would snap before hindering his motion one bit.
He stepped through the door and when the guard on duty inevitably challenged his progress, Solace kept going.
“You’re not allowed to leave.” the armored pony said sternly. Solace ignored the deep chested colt. He could see the uncertainty in the guard’s face, but felt little sympathy for it.
“Stop, now!” the guard shouted and stepped across the earth pony’s way.
Solace didn’t slow at all from his walk. “Move or knock me out cold, because either way I won’t stop until I’ve spoken to Celestia. I am doing what I have to do, you do whatever you need to.”
The guard looked around frantically, hoping somepony higher up the chain of command would come to his rescue. In that moment of hesitation Solace slipped by. Already distressed, the big stallion panicked and lunged, barking a shrill order to halt.
He’d probably just meant to grab Solace and restrain him, but the beige earth pony had always been slightly built. The guard fumbled his grasp and Solace toppled, and there was a solid crack as he impacted with the floor.
The guard gasped with shock, than rushed to help the earth pony up. At his touch Solace winced away and climbed up his shaking legs. He whirled about on the guard, and for all the tears freely streaming down his face, it fixed in a hard grimace. Blood trickled from one corner of his mouth.
“Just let me go!” he screamed.
Solace managed four steps; slow, painful, limping strides before more guards rounded the corridor. In the lead was a familiar white traitor, and between them they drove Solace into the floor without hesitation, but by that point he was already weeping.
He didn’t put up a fight, and had all the hurts to show for it.
The blood on his chin was dry and cracked when Solace in the audience chamber for the second time, and the bruises were just starting to come through.
Alone with the princess, she looked down upon him with a look of shock and revulsion for his state. For his part, Solace barely noted the pain. Only when her expression turned to sympathy did the embers of anger get stirred up in his chest.
“Grant me an audience with Discord,” Solace said flatly.
Celestia closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “I cannot. If there is any other way I can help you through your pain, I will do it, but I cannot grant that. There must be another way.”
As she opened her eyes, she found the gaze of Solace peering into her. “You stood by as my little girl was lowered into the ground. Your help has taken away my freedom, my friend, and has seen me attacked. You looked into my heart,” he accused venomously. “If you care at all like you say you do, give me this. It’s the only way you can help me.”
“Please, Solace...no sane pony would want to see Discord. Give up on this.”
“Don’t play these games with me,” Solace said evenly, his voice reverberating across the walls. “You know as well as I do that I am lucid. Give me any test of sanity and I will pass it. I helped write half of them, I am sure you know.”
Though soft, Celestia’s voice echoed back with regal command. “How can you expect me to risk loosing the single most dangerous being known upon you?”
“How can you expect me to continue living in such pain?” Solace snapped back. “This will kill me,” he said gravely. “I cannot bear it anymore.”
“Solace,” Celestia implored, “Discord is petrified, there is nothing to find from him now.”
“Then give me audience with a lifeless stone! You have already invaded the most secret corners of my heart, you know I couldn’t release something like him on the world, even if I wanted to!” Solace fell to his knees. “Please...”
If Solace had been watching for them, he would have seen tears brimming at the corners of his princess’ eyes. “There is truly no other way I can help you?”
“None,” Solace whimpered.
It was as if the world darkened when Celestia lowered her head. “Than, despite my better judgement, you will have your audience. May you find your peace,” she said solemnly, as if it were an epitaph.
Solace opened his mouth to speak, but before the words could come out an all encompassing flash of sunlight enclosed him and there was only the sensation of bubbles popping.
The light faded. Solace wasn’t in the chamber anymore. Its spaciousness had been replaced with a claustrophobic enclosure of solid stone walls. No door or window made for any break to it and Solace was entirely trapped inside the evil looking stone, lit only by some indiscernible ambience. Of the floor, ceiling, and walls, the single most evil looking piece of stone stood dead centre to the room.
Discord. He stood in shock and disbelief, his stretched body contorted as if cringing away from his own existence. Even in the gloom it was clear to see that no replica did the draconequus justice.
Solace felt sick to his stomach. Justice? Being turned to stone was justice, as regarded the spirit of chaos.
So why had Solace so desperately needed to seek him out? Hadn’t one painful encounter been enough? Discord had no place in this world...but then, neither did Solace. Not anymore.
The little pony winced as he drew breath, but stood to his full height. “Discord,” he called to the petrified creature. The stone failed to crumble, eldritch voices failed to speak up. The statue remained as lifeless as its replica.
“Discord! I’m here!” Solace shouted. His voice came back to him, twisted and blunted by the confining space. It mocked his misery, and the stone was cold as ever.
Solace’s breathing quickened as panic set in, even as some small part of him noticed that confined as he was, the air was limited.
“No, no!” Solace collapsed to the floor. This had been his last, twisted purpose, and one he didn’t even understand. “You said to find you. Here I am!”
Why had he ever trusted a lying, cruel trickster? If Discord was aware of the world at all, he was only laughing.
Solace fought for breath, wondering if the air was already beginning to thin. There was no possible way out for him, but as his breathing steadied he took grim comfort in that truth. The pony let himself lay down at Discord’s feet and waited for the cold stone to embrace him, just as Peace Lily had been interred. Solace closed his eyes, feeling only the pain, the cold, and the sting of tears.
“I’ll be with you soon,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you that there is no reason to life. There is no justice or fairness in it. I’ll tell you how much I love you, how much I’ve always loved you, that I never stopped loving you. I’ll tell you that I’ve looked forward to this so much, for so long, and that you were my only consolation, that I die just like you did: alone and in pain. I’ll be with you soon,” he whispered again.
Solace rested and waited for sweet oblivion to take him.
You realize that this room has enough air for a few hours or so, yes?
Solace’s eyes snapped wide open.
Though I like that bit about no justice or fairness. I did say to answer my question, after all. I suppose you got close enough with the ‘no reason’ part.
The words weren’t using air vibrations and ears - they just were.
Yes. Why do you put a ship in a bottle? No reason. None at all. Kind of makes your existence pointless, doesn’t it?
“Discord?” Solace whimpered. The statue hadn’t changed in the slightest, but the disembodied voice pierced straight into his mind.
Of course. And you’ve come, just as I said you would.
A thought drifted to the forefront. “Celestia said there was none of your magic in me.”
Well well well. You of all ponies, defending her? She’s hardly as perfect and infallible as everypony is oh so eager to believe. Eats her up inside, and I should know. It’s tragic, really.
Thoughts of Zeefur took centre stage. “You...you made me come here? Zeefur was right? They were all right?”
Would you really care if I had? For whatever it’s worth to you, I didn’t need to. Now that you’re here, are you ready to recieve my boon?
Solace gazed up at the monster. “Are you going take my life?” he asked, fear and hope running together in his tentative voice.
What? No, of course not! You ponies and your crazy ideas. I’m going to give you your life, not take it.
“I...I don’t understand.”
Too bad. There’s a reason ghosts are supposed to be made up and intangible, but you’ve managed to go and get yourself crushed under one anyway. Are you ready to live?
“What, this doesn’t-”
Are you ready to live?
“Yes!” Solace screamed frantically.
Good. And on the impact of that word, lightening and chaos stabbed into the pony from all directions. Solace screamed and screamed, and still the eldritch energies wove themselves through him, flesh and bone.
As they faded, Solace watched in horror as his cutie mark grew outwards from his flank, around which his body flowed like wet clay. He could feel the shape of it being drawn from his body and looked away.
With the sound of tinkling glass touching off the floor, Solace vomited. Sweating and trembling, he turned in terror to see it. His cutie mark, made real, made physical. A real ship in a real bottle, even with the tiny little lines of rigging if one looked closely enough.
Solace turned wild eyes to his flank and the gaping hole therein, but there was no pain. No injury, no flesh, even. Just a slow swirling motion as his clay-like body filled the gap in. Solace panted raggedly.
There is your ship in a bottle. Your ball and chain. Destroy that, and you will have what you want. What you need. There will be no going back, but you will never want to. You’ll be free.
Everything had moved so quickly. “I’ll be free?” Solace asked dumbly.
Free of the past, yes.
“I don’t want to forget,” the pony said wanly.
You won’t. It just won’t suffocate you any longer.
“She wouldn’t want me to forget. She’d want me to be good,” Solace continued, his shocked mind stuck to the one gear.
The voice of Discord rang through Solace with laughter. Your daughter was a child. Don’t bind and gag her memory with the self-imposed ideals of an adult. She would never have cared for those. She certainly doesn’t now. The only thing she would have wanted for you is to be happy, and you’ve managed a great job of doing that so far.
Solace only looked up to the statue and blinked slowly. “Happy,” he intoned, as if it were a terrifying and mysterious thing.
Yes. Now, destroy your bindings. Let’s be done with this ship and bottle business.
The earth pony looked to the object carved from his own being. It had rolled to one side, but no crack marred its surface, and the little ship inside was entirely unharmed.
Destroy it.
Solace limped to it. It was no bigger than any normal ones, and though exquisite, its look gave nothing away as to its sickening origins. He could crush it with one firm stomp, glass, wood, tiny lines of rigging and all.
Except he couldn’t. The binds that stayed his hoof from violence were as implaccable as ever, and Solace struggled in futility against them like he had only once before, on a long passed summer day on a cliffside.
Something broke, but it wasn’t the item. It was Solace, and he slumped and sat on his haunches, feeling the all too familiar sting of tears.
Destroy it, or you will consign yourself to misery without end.
“I can’t. Not even for you...especially not for you.”
Is that so?
“Yes.”
Then you can lay down again and wait to die.
Though the tears still flowed, Solace did not weep and his voice was steady and soft. “No. I have a different idea.”
Oh? Tell me.
Solace told him.
Discord’s disembodied laughter was rich and jovial. I knew there was something I saw in you. Fair enough, you have earned my boon. Live, and be happy.
The lightening and energy ripped into Solace once more, but it was bright and joyous as it rang through him.
It was a beautiful summer morning with a sky ablaze with hues of pink and orange. It was the kind poets would write about, if they ever got up this early. In a lonely, peaceful plot of land a small figure stood amidst a field of stones.
He’d been here for sometime, but felt no impatience or need to leave. A white pegasus landed nearby and trotted slowly to his side, doing his best to avoid the tombstones he passed by. Zeefur kept his distance, and was unnaturally still.
“Solace?” he asked softly, mindful of the resting dead. “Celestia sensed chaos magic. It’s coming from you, isn’t it? There’ll be other guards, and soon.”
The brown earth pony didn’t avert his gaze from the grave of Peace Lily. “It sank right through the soil. The ship and bottle, I mean. I thought it might do that. I took it and everything of Solace in it and laid him to rest, so that they wouldn’t be alone anymore. Solace is with his daughter now. She can rest forever in her father’s hooves. I don’t know if it means anything to do that, but it felt right. Just call me Soul. Like you used to, I suppose. That’s all I am now. No more. No less. I was lost, and now I’m found.”
Zeefur stood quiet for a while, and Soul made no move to intrude upon or read his thoughts.
“Are you a monster?” Zeefur whispered fearfully.
Soul shrugged. “I don’t think I am. I’m not exactly Solace anymore. I’m not really a pony anymore either.” He lifted a hoof, and it dribbled and flowed like clay before pulling back into shape. “I suppose I can take any number of punches now,” Soul chuckled. “Still can’t throw a single one though.”
Zeefur forced a nervous chuckle. “Never met a monster before that literally could not act monstrous.”
Soul laughed, and the sound was gentle and soothing, but quieted suddenly. “Solace died at peace with himself. He’d want you to know that. At long last, he found his Peace.” For a second, Soul smiled. “Tell your princess that. I think she’d like to know.”
Zeefur dropped his head low. “I am so sorry. About everything.”
Soul kept smiling his small smile as walked to the pegasus’s side. “It’s alright. What happened, happened. It was you who told me that. It’s a lesson I’ve taken to heart lately. I don’t let the past hurt me anymore.”
Zeefur looked no better for the reassurance. “They’ll want to take you in again. They’ll never let you leave, for what you are now.”
“They can’t stop me or hold me. Not anymore.”
“Even if they hit you?”
“Even if they hit me.”
They stood together for a few moments more as the sun ascended.
“What about Discord?”
“He’s not going anywhere soon.”
“Aren’t you going to try to free him, try to bring chaos to the world?” There was no accusation to the guard’s tone, just regret.
Soul looked up to the sky. “No. I don’t want to. And I couldn’t even if I did, knowing what it might mean. I don’t think he’s evil, exactly. Just different. So different that the only way ponies can accept him is as evil. I don’t know why he did for me what he did. Maybe there is some compassion in him. Maybe he just wanted to prove to Celestia that he has a place in this world too. I don’t know, but I do know I belong to his kingdom now, just as you belong to the Equestrian thrones.” Soul turned and looked the pegasus in the eye. “He told me I’d never regret this change. He was right. I feel...free. Like I could fly.”
“Can you? Fly, that is?”
“I haven’t tried yet. Maybe.”
Zeefur looked to the castle in the distance. “You might want to figure that out quickly, I didn’t have much of a lead on them. You should leave before they see you. I could lose my job over it if they see us together.”
“Yes,” Soul said sadly. “It’s time I moved on.”
“Where will you go?”
“Somewhere. Everywhere.” Soul smiled a sad smile. “I always promised Peace Lily I’d go see the ocean with her, like I used to with her mother. I’d like to do that, very much.” Soul touched a hoof to the pegasus’ shoulder gently. “Take care, Zeefur. Goodbye.”
The earth pony didn’t move, he simply seemed to disperse like dust in the wind and faded until the pegasus was left alone with his thoughts once more. When the other guards showed up, he had nothing to tell them, and was quieter than any of them had ever seen him before.
