Three Homes, Same Move

by Josh Crapo

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Sad
Length: 2459

Wind Rider, Record Back, and Twilight have particular places on their minds that they remember visiting. Each one's results could leave even the toughest of ponies in tears.

Wind Rider's son had moved to Ponyville with the two best friends he has. There may've been a reason his son moved from Los Pegasus, but the house previously occupied starts to worry him. Exploring the house, what he finds brings him back to his midlife overall.

Record Back hasn't proudly performed comedy ever since the end of May. She remembers visiting her ever so young and little filly that now lives in Ponyville when the parents separated into Cloudsdale and Baltimare. What she finds in that house she knew too well is just the smell of that young filly and a very different stallion from her ex-husband.

Twilight Sparkle starts to think back to when she was in Marechias, particularly, a house she visited. With Spike fondly remembering said house, Spike guides Twilight to the place she couldn't get out of her head. The result becomes heartbreaking.

Rated T to avoid lockout from From Home To Equestria and Should Equestria Be Home. Also rated T because of how depressing this particular fiction could get.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2016-03-15 22:59:05 UTC

An Otherworldly Home

Hey... there's been a saying that "the back of your mind sheds the most tears".  I stood up not believing in it, thinking I haven't forgotten anything.  I'm not much of a nostalgia pony, but I'm not against the idea either.  Every day, I stood up with pride, knowing that my life was still fine even without being a Wonderbolt.  Stripped of my status, Fleet Foot flew me to my home in Sire Lorenzo.  My first thought?  Who needs the Wonderbolts?  I've got an already impressive income to pay the bills.  I'm fast, not greedy.  I may've been dirty, but did it have to do with money?  Tartarus no!  Plus, m'son's got a special income of his own after ten years of The Advanced Flight Academy in Los Pegasus.  I just hope it wasn't hurt when those travel bans started up.

Today, I lay on the couch, listening to A Single Demographic.  Their newest album's been out for weeks now.  Since I listened to their songs back before the sonic rainboom, I've had Hanuka Matata in my life.  Spending my ten, fifteen minutes of alone time giving my son some space to himself has been well worth it.  It's been a long morning of nothing much happening.  Get some breakfast, check the mail, read the paper.  It's nothing exciting.  Just listening to A Single Demographic is like a religion in and of itself.  I know my son's listened to some songs.  In his teens, he'd walk in and ask to use the vinyl player to listen to A Single Demographic.  I always approve of it because I love that group too.  Of course there are other groups he'd listen to.

The Drymon 15 was another group he listened to.  It isn't nearly as old as A Single Demographic, but it's still enjoyable regardless.  Then came the day he started AFA.  I was proud of him, and I still am.  But I haven't seen him in five and a half months.  I knew he went missing, so I stopped doing something.  I just don't know what.  I haven't had the slightest idea of where he's been all this time, but I suppose it's for the better I don't find out.  Now, I don't want to sound redundant but being home alone now has become a chore.  Without the days I go traveling Equestria, I'm now stuck with a boring life with many bits in my wallet and not knowing what to do with it.

Unlike what I heard from Ponyville about the Riches, I don't berate those who're more unfortunate than me.  I'm no better than anypony else.  In retrospect, I'd say Rarity outdid herself proving me guilty of that fake letter I sent Spitfire.  The thing I'll be doing now is moving on with my life and learning from my dirty tactics to make sure I don't do it again.  I know I've done wrong in the past, but hey.  It didn't affect the road ahead for Rainbow Dash, even after she lost her trust on me.  Personally, I would've been out of the Wonderbolts by now anyways.  Life can't always end in a bang now can it?

Coming to a particular song, "Sonly Glow", I start thinking of my son once again.  ...I've made it this far, launched their lives, touched their hearts.  But I'll wait for you to come...  Oh...  I haven't visited my son since the end of May.  And now, it's spicing November!  Almost the fourth Thursday of the month!  I have no idea whether of not he still lives in Los Pegasus.  But I have to travel to that house.

If this house didn't put me to tears, I don't know what would.

The first thing that happens is that when I get to that house, all that remains is a shocking resemblance to a house in this world I dreamt of months ago, especially on the inside.  When I enter, I'm greeted to a slight scent, but nothing unexpected from my son.  As I head to my left, greeted to the two bedrooms, I can see that everything is left as if my son trotted out minutes before I came here.  In the bathroom, mostly everything's the same, save for an empty toilet that was open when I came in.

The part that starts to get me is when I come near the kitchen.  Dear Celestia, I thought I was going to barf from such a strong odor.  When I open the fridge the odor gets five times worse.  Looking in the fridge, I see two warm, grey, milk jugs as well as very dark orange juice.  It almost looks like soda.  I also see what appear to be heavily spoiled apples and veggies.  It is proof positive that he hasn't been here in a while.  But just to be sure, I take a look at the expiration date on one of the milk jugs.

August 25th, 2015.

Three months?  He's been gone for three months?  This place has been officially abandoned.  I'm amazed this place hasn't been touched for this long.  If not for the fridge or maybe the toilet, I would've thought my son left this place just before I came.  Most places around this area are usually vandalized to tartarus.  This place isn't.  Plus, if this place has been abandoned, ponies normally place graffiti on here.  Once again, that's absent.  This place is frozen in time.  Not one bit of decay has hit this house.  I never thought "it could happen" over at Los Pegasus, but it did.

I heard there was a race that my son went to around that time.  I only wonder if it had something to do with the Wonderbolts.  If it did, I'd have the same reaction as if it didn't.

Going back to Sire Lorenzo, my head was a mess of tears and questions.  So much so, I couldn't tell them apart.

Memories of a Small Filly

I sit on my cloud bed.  No pun I've made had seemed to cheer me up the past few months.  My last show was an absolute train wreck, though the crowd enjoyed my act.  And that was in August.  I did recognize a filly in the audience in particular; I didn't know who though.  She was right next to three oddballs in crowd.

I haven't been as active as I was back in the spring.  I guess in addition to my divorce with Height Sun, Tail Flight going missing was just to add to my struggles.  I had no idea where she went, but she miraculously and mysteriously came back to Equestria by word of Princess Twilight.  Then two days prior, all my previously scheduled shows were cancelled.  I didn't have any new shows for awhile, but I didn't care.  I was happy my little Tail Flight was back.

I came back to her house at the beginning of August, only to see she was sleeping, and that I couldn't seem to get her up no matter how much I tried.  Again, I was still happy she was back in Equestria.

Then, I hear a rumor that she wasn't with Height Sun anymore, who was always working out of Baltimare for some reason since I never saw him whenever I visited Tail Flight earlier in the year.  I was extremely skeptical about how she would leave her father, so at the beginning of September, I got a fine look to see if the rumors were true.  She wasn't home, so I assumed she was hanging with the ponies she knew prior to her disappearance.  The house was in perfect condition, up to the point of the scents being exactly the same, except that it seemed a new stallion had come to her house.  Maybe it was a friend of Height Sun's.

October, it was exactly the same as September.  Again, I was still skeptical of the rumors.  I started to get a little frustrated that everything was exactly the same as it was a month prior.  This time, I thought Tail Flight was playing tricks on me.  Never, twice in a row has she been absent from her house whenever I visited.  I might as well have waited until Height Sun got here, but I knew him.  He'd be gone for days leaving Tail Flight home alone.  Maybe Tail Flight's figured out a way to get by that by hanging out with her old friends.

On Nightmare Night, I got records for the Flight family at Cloudsdale Town Hall.  That got nowhere, so I went back to Baltimare and went for the records of the same family name at their town hall.  The only thing I got was that Tail Flight moved into Ponyville with two other ponies named Wind Rust and Wiretap.  Or so I thought.  It said that Height Sun was going to be on vacation from work between Third Off Day and the Grand Galloping Gala.

On Third Off Day, I flew over to Ponyville to find the final piece of the stone.  I knew the rumors weren't that off by then for about eleven days, so I went to Princess Twilight's castle and asked if she could show me where Tail Flight lives now.  She approved and led the way.  At the time of my arrival, it was almost noon, so school shouldn't have been out quite yet for Tail Flight.

When the door to the house opened, out sprayed an all too familiar scent.  It wasn't of these two supposed ponies that Tail Flight lived with or Tail Flight or even that new stallion I could've sworn I first smelled when I first saw Tail Flight out of the house back in September.  It was somepony I had divorced with so long ago.

When I first saw these two ponies I've only heard of since Nightmare Night, the earth pony looked somewhat like Height Sun minus the lack of wings and the black mane.  I didn't notice anything about the rust colored pegasus.  But when I came in, there he was, Sun Height.  It sounded like Tail Flight was starting to get uneasy with him.  I've always known why that might've been the case since the time I divorced with him.  Sometimes, I got confused about how to feel about that.  I'd feel happy she's starting to get her independence but then sad that she's not getting the love she needs.

The next few days, I couldn't get into Baltimare because there was a travel ban that was in effect because of a snow storm.  But then, things over there got even worse.  A Bla-Bla Ruffian member busted my wing when I tried to get in again.  I had to wait about a week to let it heal.  Finally, I was able to get back in when everything died down there.  The snow melted and the Bla-Bla Ruffians calmed down and moved on to another town.  Now was a good chance to check that same house I visited back in the beginning of October.

Looking at the outside of the house, it looked like it dodged everything going on over here.  That travel ban must've been VERY helpful for that house to slow its inevitable decay.  I was even surprised that none of the Bla-Bla Ruffians came anywhere near this from the looks of it.  There was no litter, no vandalism, no graffiti.  The whole house looked like it could stand tall and proud for the next twenty years without any problem.  There wasn't any holes in the foundation, no chipping paint, not a single window or door boarded up.  Not even any of them were crowbarred.  The roof didn't have a single hole in it.

When I tried to open the door, it was locked.  However, I thought back to see that the window to Tail Flight's room was open both times that I visited  near the beginning of the autumn.  I opened my eyes again looking at that same window.  It was left exactly the way it was when I last left.  I flew into the window to enter the house.

Inside, I was welcomed by the very same silence from the last two times, Tail Flight's messy room, and a lack of heat.  Tail Flight's scent was still there after about three months of absence.  And the stranger stallion's scent was still there as well.  Walking around the bedroom, I feel as if I'm going to come across my past self.  My only thought?  Why would everypony not mess with this even after Height Sun started his vacation visiting his only daughter?  Why didn't the Bla-Bla Ruffians trash the place?  Yeah, it would've been sad for that to happen, but it was even sadder to see this place frozen in time, especially when it was a house owned by your blood.

I felt like I couldn't explore more of the house already, like I'd seen enough history as it was, history that was never seen by the pony eye.  However, I knew that if explorers wanted to see this place for themselves, I might as well have unlocked the door for those who would've had the desire to explore this place.  It put me to tears with Tail Flight's room alone.  I couldn't imagine how much sadder things could get with the rest of the house.

Everything was left the way it was around the rest of the house.  Nearly all the rooms were clean with the exception of Tail Flight's room.  The last pony in this house was Height Sun, but he hasn't been here since the morning of Third Off Day at the latest.  Now, he's off with Tail Flight, who is less than pleased to see him, leaving this house to decay without him.  Checking the walls of the place, once again, no graffiti.

Looking at Height Sun's room, it was completely empty, no bed, not a single drawer in the room, nor was there a single hanger in the room.  It was too strange for me to take in.  He went through the trouble of taking everything he had with him, but couldn't be bothered to mess with Tail Flight's room?  Coming back to Tail Flight's room, I see the mess I paid no mind to.  The room had been left untouched for months by now, and the room was still organized as if Tail Flight just left for the afternoon.  It was too much to handle.  I crawled onto my poor Tail Flight's bed and started weeping.

I had to get away from the house.  My weeping just kept getting stronger the more I looked at my daughter's bedroom and how it's been treated.  It was just like Tail Flight herself.  I went out the door and flew as high as I could away from the house, onto the cloud I sit on right now.

I start to think to myself.  Tail Flight's room was treated just like how Tail Flight was treated herself, and yet, Tail Flight just before going missing wasn't phased by how she was treated, just like how Tail Flight's room was exactly the way it has been over the last three times I have been there.

Now, I zoom out of my cloud, ready to intervene instead of pushing my body in a circle waiting for Celestia to do something.  But, now that I think about it, Tail Flight seems to be much happier with that earth pony and that pegasus in Ponyville.  They seem to set a good example on parenting.  The only thing left to do now is notify Princess Twilight about what happened.