The loophole in a Shorted Circuit.

***POV Jordan***

The silence that came after my small reveal was really uncomfortable but it was welcomed for me at least. It game me the much needed time for me to recollect myself after reliving such memories. It wasn’t until a few minutes after that Twilight started to ask if I was alright.

“Yes Twilight. I’m alright. She died a few years ago, and I got over it. Mostly,” I answered. I was definitely not over it but it is something that I’d rather deal with on my own. And with this reveal these two were giving the death of my mother more attention than I want them to.

“Are you sure? You still sound a bit distressed,” she said.

Twilight was nagging me a bit because my emotional outburst. She’s really concerned for me but it was a bit unnecessary. All I needed was a bit of Time to be alone, that way I could find or make a spot to pay my respects and get my thoughts straight.

“All I need is a bit of time alone. Please, it’s all I need. After I’m done, I’ll meet back up with you girls at around noon. Okay?” I said while trying to walk out the door.

“At least take somepony with you? Even a guard will do,” pleaded Cadence.

“I’ll see if I can get a hold of Stone Might. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll see you two at lunch,” I answered as I hurried my way out.

I always had trouble around this time. Whenever I remembered that day, I would feel very self conscience about paying my respects to my mother. For I knew that next to nobody would remember her, so I felt like it was my duty in order to keep at least a memory of her alive.

And now that I had next to no stuff with me from home, it would be very hard for me to be able to remember her properly as time would pass. Maybe if I made a proper memorial spot here in Equestria, then I might be able to keep a good memory of her for a long while. But doing so would take time.

My mind was racing as I made my way through the halls, I could hear Twilight and Cadence calling for me, but I paid no attention to them. I would finally have some real private time to sort this a bit more out.

First priority would be finding Stone. Knowing him, he would either be at the barracks or at our room. Second priority would be finding a nice spot to create a small memorial stone or something.

And last but not least, I would be finding some flowers and have a small prayer. Even though I’m not religious or anything, my mother was. So this would be a small service just for her.

As I walked through the different hallways I nearly stumbled into a few maids because I wasn’t really paying attention. A few minutes passed and I found myself in front of our room, next to it as usual was Stone Might. He was trying to nap while standing up. I still don’t really know how he does that.

“Stone? Could I ask a favor of you?” I said as I approached him. He stumbled a bit while he was acting like he didn’t sleep on the job. A useless effort but funny nonetheless.

“Hu, be, Who’s there?” He asked while he was trying to recollect himself. Then his tired eyes landed on me.

“Oh hey my little dude, how is it going?” He asked while yawning.

“Stone, what did you do? You look awful,” I asked him. He was really not looking to good.

“There was a part with the other guards last night. It went pretty wild. But nevermind that, why are you here? I thought you were hanging out with Twilight and Cadence,” Stone said.

A party? Probably a small festivity for the guards who left together with Celestia a few hours ago.

“I’m here to ask you for a favor,” I told him as I walked inside to get my bag with my sampler.

He followed me inside. “Oh, explain.”

“Today is the day my mother died a few years back,” I said to him while I was grabbing the bag. I also tidied up the room while I was busy. It only took about a minute to put back all of Twilight her books in the shelf.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said genuinely saddened by what he heard.

“Don’t worry about it. The reason I came here is that I want to ask you to accompany and maybe help me find or build a small memorial place somewhere,” his eyes widened at what I just said, “Do you know anywhere where I could set something like that up?” I asked him.

“Maybe,” he said, “There is a small unused part in the back of the royal gardens, maybe there? The gardner will be thrilled the know that the unused part will be kept clean again.”

“Who kept it clean before it became unused?” I questioned.

“There are only rumors about that. No statement with any real evidence to back it up. So don’t worry about it. I would be glad to help you with that though. Besides, I could use some ‘fresh air’ after last night,” he explained to me.

“Okay thanks man. You don’t know how much this would mean to me,” I said to him.

And so we started walking towards the royal gardens. I noticed that Stone was walking slower than normal, probably because of the party. Because I was able to follow him without any real problem. Usually I have to walk quite faster than normal due to the ponies having longer legs than mine. So I either lag a bit behind or I get tired way faster than the ponies. This problem is next to nonexistent with Twilight, but gets just ridiculous with Celestia, which is obvious due to the difference in height.

As we were walking through the castle and to the exit in the back to the gardens, I noticed that the castle was pretty empty. Usually you would meet at least two or three staff members in a hall. Now it was a miracle that we ran into two of them with the exception to the guards of course.

As we exited the castle Stone started talking to me again as he was recovering over time. He also started speeding up his walk again which was kind of annoying and uncomfortable for me.

“So,” he started, “What were you doing with Twilight and princess Cadence if you don’t mind me asking.”

“We were in one of the lesser visited towers playing the piano that was there. Cadence told me I could play it. She wanted to see if I was as good as I said I was,” I explained to him as I remembered the feeling of playing such a beautiful instrument.

“Really? You were playing on the royal piano?” He asked quite mystified.

“Yes. Is that a problem,” I asked confused by his reaction.

“No it is not. But that instrument was once a gift to both the pony sisters. Or so it is rumored. In fact there are records of princess Luna playing that instrument a lot before she disappeared,” He told me as we walked into the gardens.

“What happened to her?” I asked with genuine interest.

“Nopony knows. But shortly after her disappearance Equestria got attacked by this evil mare called Nightmare moon. But Celestia beat her with the elements of harmony and banished the Nightmare to the moon. Or so the legend goes,” Stone explained to me as he pointed to the sky by the end of his explanation.

“Strange,” was all I could say as I remembered the legend from the history books about Equestria Twilight and me studied a while back.

As we came to the edge of the maintained part of the garden I could see a small archway filled to the brim with ivys of every shape, size and going in every possible direction. Behind the arch the garden became a bit darker but not much. There would probably be more shade because of the trees that didn’t were maintained. I was right with that assumption.

After we went through the archway we could really see why this part of the garden was left as it is. The only thing that was maintained here was the grass and even then, most patches were cut unevenly. It was almost like only some parts of it was cut while others were left to grow. The trees were almost as wild as they get. No imediat structure. The roots had ripped open what used to resemble a path. Ivys, moss and vines were all over the place. I could see that there are some statues in this place but was unable to see what the statues were because they were so overgrown and covered. You could clearly see that this place was maintained but only at a bare minimum.

“This is what you were talking about I assume?” I asked Stone for clarification. He only nodded.

“We can easily have a look around if you want. This place is only a fraction of the size of the real garden,” Stone informed me.

“Alright, sure. Why not,” I answered while we continued further into the ‘wild’ garden.

As we walked I could see that at most there were five statues in this part of the garden while the actual used garden had a lot more. But the statues here were in a really bad state. One of them had already completely fallen apart. While two other statues were on the brink of it. One that resembled a pony fell down and got nearly completely overgrown. There was no way of actually telling what it was. Even if we would try and uncover what the statue was I think that the vines and moss were the only thing really keeping it together.

But there was this one statue that was only covered in ivys. Besides that it seemed fine, which was fine due to the state everything else was in. I was unable to really tell what the statue really looked like. But you could see that it was more recently maintained than the rest.

Intrigued by this statue I decided to get a closer look. There were a lot of ivy covering and constricting said statue but with some equipment it wouldn’t be a hazard to clean it.

“Stone?” I asked trying to get his attention. He was clearly also entranced by this part of the garden. It was almost like this was painting and telling a much darker side of Equestria’s history.

“Yes?” He answered after examining some pieces of a fallen statue.

“Could you get some gardening tools for us to work with?” I asked,, “Maybe we can tidy this place back up again.”

“Sure thing. I’m going to get some drinks as well, cause I have a feeling that we might be here for a little while.”

I watched as he left the area. I expected Stone to be gone for a maximum of fifteen minutes, but after waiting twentyfive minutes I was getting impatient. I went back to the statue that peeked my interest. But I was still unable to see what it exactly was due to the overgrowth. Tired of waiting, I just started to pull down the ivy and the vines by hand. It was a difficult task at first. But as soon as I freed the top of the statue from the overgrowth I was able to just pull down all of the plants in one go. Now that I could see the statue completely I could see how large this thing really was. It was a statue of three ponies. Two smaller ones to the sides and a very large one in the middle hugging both of them close.

My guess was that the middle one, which I could identify as female, was the mother hugging both her daughters close with her wings. The smaller pony daughter on the right was only slightly larger than the one on the left, but neither of them had any distinguishable features, no cutie marks or names anywhere on the statue.

I walked around the statue to observe more details and saw that the big pony in the middle had a cutie mark. An inkwell with a feather in it. Peculiar but I didn’t recognise it.

The two smaller ponies didn’t have a cutie mark but I did spot some wings while I was walking around the statue. The statue seemed in prime condition even though it was overgrown, it seemed like someone or somepony has been taking somewhat care of this throughout the years. When I came back to the side I saw that all three of them had horns, making all three of them alicorns.

As I finished my examination of the statue I found myself straight in front of the mother who was staring straight at my position. The stare of the statue seemed almost captivating me. The way her eyes held this comforting affection and this warm smile. It all seemed very familiar, too familiar almost and yet alien at the same time.

While both daughters had pretty similar characteristics, the mother was pretty unique. Her hairstyle was similar to Twilight only a bit more wild. It seemed familiar, familiar enough that I could safely say that the color of the mane would be a brownish red. The same went for the eyes, even without the color on the statue I could tell that her eyes were a greyish blue. I didn’t know how I could tell these things but the reason was the same as why I was so drawn to this statue.

Then suddenly it all clicked. Her smile, her eyes, the hair color, the hairstyle, it all made me whisper a real heavy word for me.

“Mom?”