The Voices (In My Head Again)

“Where is that slacker!? He’s three hours late!” Steel Pride shouts as he paces back and forth within the shop growing increasingly annoyed at the tardiness of his new employee. As he continues to pace Twilight trots in.

“Hey Steel Pride, how’s Sketch doing? I came to do a check up on his progress today.” Twilight says with a smile.

“The damn slacker hasn’t shown up yet and he is one hundred and eighty-seven minutes late now!” Steel Pride emphasizes by pointing towards the clock on the wall.

“Weird, he is usually very punctual…” She ponders as an idea pops into her head, “I got it! I can do a locating spell on him, did he leave anything of his here?” Twilight beams with excitement as she wants to try to play hide and seek with her tardy friend.

“Yeah, he left a bottle of liquor over in the break room, he works hard and drinks harder, but after today I don’t think I’m going to suspend his drinking privileges.” He states as he points a forehoof to the adjacent room where the stench of vodka permeates the store.

Twilight happily trots over to the empty bottle and closes her eyes, as she does her horn and the bottle begins to glow and then her eyes open to show glowing orbs.

“T-This can’t be right...it says he’s here.”

“That is impossible, he’s too big to hide anywhere here, try again.”

“It is correct, I just don’t understand where he could be, maybe I could track him more closely.”

“Then get to it, we need to get to work here, no offense princess.”

“None taken Steel Pride.” She says as her horn glows a faint purple as she follows her senses, She walks around her horn glowing brighter then dimmer until she ends up at the forge with the molten metal with a puzzled look on her face.

“Why did you stop here?”

“This can’t be right, it says he’s in there!” She shouts as she points a forehoof towards the forge, and at close inspection, they notice the smell of burning flesh in the air, when a stallion quickly enters the shop.

Mocha Jon enters at that moment, wondering where Sketch was, “Hey, is this the place where Sketch works?” He asks as he notices the inquiry on their faces, “Everything alright? Oh hey, Twilight!” He says, unaware of what was happening.

“W-Well, apparently Sketch is um... “ Twilight looks nervous at the chance that somehow Sketch, who was appointed to her for integration into society, has had an….accident.

“The last time I was him was this morning and he left some of his things at the shop. He was in a hurry to get here so he asked me to try and teleport him here with my horn. I didn’t want to do it but he was so adamant and begging me to do it.”

“Oh no...No-no-no-no.” Twilight says as she begins to panic at what Mocha Jon is saying.

Mocha is clearly worried about what she is saying, but he still doesn’t grasp the situation, considering how Twilight has yet to say what scares her, “Uh… Is there a problem...?”

“Jon, I have some terrible news, Sketch is… You teleported him into there.” She says as she points towards the molten metal, as Twilight says this Steel Pride’s face changes from one of concern from when he and Twilight were looking for Sketch to one of sadness.

Jon naturally does not know how to respond, and initial denial seems to be his reaction at first, “Wait, what?” He said as he rushed over to the pots of metal, “Oh no… Please no… Sketch…? Sk-ketch! Sketch!!!!”

“It seems when you teleported him here you were too close, we should clean this out…” She says looking to Steel Pride who nods and pulls a lever off to the side, the forge begins to drain and the three look on in horror as the charred remains of the human and his clothes, Twilight looks away and audibly gags and Steel Pride just looks down.

“Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!” Mocha screams out loud in a mixture of panic, disgust, and guilt, he feels as if he did the worst thing ever, “Oh, Celestia this is all my fault!”

After this Twilight calls the local guards and informs them of the accident and at this they all look to Mocha in suspicion. They interrogate him for two hours and all he does is cry for the loss of his friend and tells them what happened before the incident, and it all matches up and seems believable so he is let go. The following week the little bit of his body they could scrape from the bottom of the forge is put in a foal sized coffin as that was large enough to hold his remains.

The day of the funeral all of those who knew Sketch, or who were aware of him, attend the funeral, the service is led by Twilight as she and the others all don black dresses, of course, made by Rarity.

“We are here today to mourn the loss of a friend, companion, and the only one of his kind.” Twilight begins, “He was brought into this world accidentally and left the world before his time, leaving many of us saddened by the loss. Though he may not have been here long, he did leave an impact on our lives, he was blunt, to the point, and most of all honest. He was a hard worker and an even better friend, I sadly don’t have much more to say as we didn’t have much time to spend together, but what little time we did spend together I will cherish forever.” With this Twilight wipes the tears from her eyes and steps down from the podium and then the only pony he was close to takes the stand.

Mocha Jon is reluctant to take the podium considering the situation, he would be nervous speaking at any funeral, but this is a funeral he caused, so he naturally does not want to face the crowd. He looks around and shrugs his shoulders, he knows it’s time to face the music. “I never imagined myself speaking at a funeral of anyone close to me… Because I never got close to anyone before, but all that changed when I met Sketch… Sketch was the closest thing I ever had to a best friend, he shared my sense of humor, my blunt sarcasm, and he was someone I could tell my deepest secrets too… I remember that day I discovered what happened to him, all I could do was cry… I know he is in a better place now, but because of me, he never got the chance to see if Equestria would be a better place than his world… I don’t know much about his world, but if there are more people or ponies like Sketch, it’s the world I want to be in…” Mocha says as he steps down crying, making sure not to face anyone there.

From this point on there were only slight glances in his direction, nopony making eye contact for more than a second, afterwards the funeral came to an end as Twilight and her friends carried the coffin to his grave site to be lowered by the family that owns the funeral home, the hole was the size of a foal to match the coffin’s dimensions and with the coffin lowered they begin to bury it and this drew tears from all, especially Twilight who kept thinking to herself “This is my fault! I should have kept a better eye on him if I did this wouldn’t have happened and he would still be alive! I’m a terrible friend, he didn’t deserve this! I-’, she stops mentally berating herself as she notices a large white wing cover her.

“Such a tragedy, if only we were more careful this could have been avoided,” Celestia says as she looks at the fresh grave as Luna walks up next to her.

“Indeed, even with his problems he did try to be a good po-er, human. Luna says in mourning of one of the few that shared her internal struggle.

“It’s all my fault! I was a terrible guardian!” Twilight cries as she begins to break down, the princesses have nothing to say and just hold her as she lets it all out as Mocha just sits near the back.