Talking is Fun

"Isn't it beautiful, Mr Star Swirl?"

"I still don't get why we're here, Mist Mane. You said you had found something of value and I still don't see it."

"Perhaps you should look closer, Mr Star Swirl."

"This is going to be a metaphor, isn't it?"

"No, it is quite more literal than you may think."

"Alright, fine. What is it then?"

"Look... what do you see?"

"... I see trees."

"Trees, Mr Star Swirl?"

"Yes."

"Describe them."

"It is a metaphore!"

"Do humour me, Mr Star Swirl."

"Fine again... brown. The tree is brown."

"And the leaves?"

"Orange, with a few deciding to be red."

"And what do you see in that, Mr Star Swirl?"

"That they are as good as dead. After this year's running-of-the-leaves they will all fall to the ground and become soil for the plants before having their graves covered in snow."

"You sadden me, Mr Star Swirl."

"Don't get in an emotional rut, Ms Mane. It is only a necessity for more life to take its place."

"..."

"... this is a metaphore, isn't it?"

"No, it is not, Mr Star Swirl."

"Then wherefore you bring me to a place of death while I mourn my granddaughter's? You're trying to make me let her go, are you? You think the only way to address the problem is to find beauty in it so you can feel more happy about it when, truly, deluding yourself on such nonsense is only all the worse for you. A better way to face sorrow is to not turn it around into a happy ending but cold, scientific fact.

"We all die in the end, Ms Mane. And when we do our bodies serve as soil for the earth below us to support the new life that comes."

"Mr Star Swirl--"

"Or in this case the vultures that fancied a feast out of her. While she was alive."

"Mr Star Swirl--"

"I could hear her screaming, Mist Mane. I could see the desperation in her eyes. And I, the old coot who still couldn't figure out a simple lock-spell, was paralysed to her pain."

"..."

"I could have saved her, but I suppose I decided to not put in time and effort into that one spell. I focused my studies on time and space, but not the world around me. I wasted ages trying to figure out the secret of immortality only to have failed to save a mortal one."

"..."

"Tis only natural that this would happen, Ms Mane. For when a pony prioritises their selves they fail to notice another. My granddaughter was but a nuisance to me and I watched her die for it. She didn't... excuse me... she didn't deserve that. She was innocent. Her blood was punishment for me, and I was a fool not to avoid this. It had to be done. For my own sake. For me to learn to... to..."

"Look at the trees again, Mr Star Swirl."

"STOP IT WITH THE METAPHORES, MIST MANE! I HAVE ALREADY LEARNED MY LESSON, AND NOW I WISH TO MOURN IN PEACE!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"... the trees are beautiful..."