Darkness.
That’s all you saw. That’s all you would ever see. You swore you could see distant stars, but you lacked awareness of what was real anymore. Where were you, now that it was over? What happened before the darkness? Would anything come after?
Light.
That’s what you saw. Light. Here and there. Nowhere and everywhere. Where were you? How would it end? Is this the end? You were aware of yourself now, like you were in a dream, dreaming both in light and in darkness.
The light intensifies.
You try to shield your eyes. To move your hands. To close your eyes. To move away. Do anything to avoid the oppressive light. But there was nothing. You were nothing, even before. All you were was what you were. All you could do now is be. Even that was asking for too much.
Light dimmed and colors began.
Colors? You had taken them for granted. They were such a huge part of your life. You might argue they were part of life itself, and, in a flash, they had been taken away by the darkness. Why did the flash bring them back? Why was life beginning again?
Colors shaped into land.
It was coming back but not quite the same. You remember, the light that came before, the colors that made up the world—even the color of your eyes. They were blue. Your eyes were blue. A fact that mattered little to you before, but now meant the world.
“You’re coming together.”
A voice? A voice! You heard a voice! Never before had a voice brought you such joy. In fact, you remember hating hearing others’ voices before. They never stopped talking, never leaving you alone, when all you wanted was the solitude of darkness.
“C’mon now, you were doing so well.”
Better. Why was that the first word to pop into your mind? Mind mind mind. Something about that resonates within you. Something that fills and drains your body, but you ignore the sensation. For the time being, you focus on the only thing that matters: responding.
“...w...h...e...r..e..” It was a whisper, yet you still heard it. You heard your own voice. You like the sound of it. You like the sound of your own voice. There’s a guilt in that. A guilt in your own voice. You try to speak again. “... … …”
“You need to stop doing that,” the other voice says. Something takes form before you. “Try not to focus. Merely exist.”
You had just thought that. Just moments ago that was your thought. But the voice had spoken it and now it was truth. Truth? Concepts began coursing through your mind. Some you like and some you don’t. They all make you sad.
“Would a cup of tea help you relax?” the voice asks you. You think to respond, to talk or to nod, but you did not have form to do anything.“I have plenty of flavors to offer, but it’s up for you to choose.”
Something shifts in the distance. You can hear, you can think, yet you saw nothing. Things were happening that you were unaware of.
“...I see your dilemma,” the voice says again in a motherly tone. “You’re here and yet you’re not. Transparent, not yet alive. Tell me, young one, why don’t you open your eyes?”
You do so. You do it without thinking. Your eyes open, and for the first time, you truly see. Light blinds you from the sky above, but the carousel above your head protects you from a worse intensity. You blink, clearing your vision, as you see to the green valleys below.
“Now isn’t that much better?” the voice asks again and causes you to turn your head. You see a being sitting across from you, and the first words that jumps to your mind is goddess. “I pride myself in making this day special for you. It would be quite a waste if you did not see it one last time.”
Everything is happening too suddenly, causing you great confusion. First there was nothing, and now, a world laid around you—and that’s not to mention the goddess. You have no mouth and you must speak to her.
“Careful now,” she warns. “Everything is bound to come together with time.” Her eyes are a glimmering pool of magenta. “But if you force it, everything will fall apart before it should.” An alabaster teacup hovers before her muzzle, suspended in a golden aurora. She takes a sip.
A horse. It was a horse that was before you. If you weren’t so overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all, this fact would have bothered you more. But, currently, it bothers you little, if at all. Her presence is familiar. Had you met her before? Nonetheless, seen her before?
“Do you mind if I make another suggestion? Just a tiny one.” The alabaster horse let her alabaster tea cup glide down to the table. She looks you directly in the eye, no smile on her muzzle. “You are incomplete because you have yet a need to express yourself.” Your eyes must convey some sort of emotion because her face looks taken aback. “Don’t believe me? Just look around.”
You do so. You appear to be situated on top of a hill, on some stone structure resembling the top of a tower, while the goddess and you were seated in a wooden gazebo. You look up, once again, into the blue sky that was not such just before.
“Light came into existence out of a need to fill the darkness,” she says, following your gaze upwards. “In the emptiness illuminated by that light, land began to exist out of need. You see it as well, don’t you?”
You look down, something you did a lot before. You see the valley from before, where trees sprout from the ground below, some rising to the height of your tower. The emptiness of land was being filled with life.
“You see it now, don’t you, the importance of need?” she says, turning her head, and looking down her long muzzle at you. “Even though two expressions are never the same, the need they express is universal and eternal, so much that you don’t see need unless it’s expressed.”
You keep an eye on her and the other on the developing valley below. The trees have grown branches, and soon, those branches grew their leaves. Before you know it, a forest has grown below you, out of a need to fill the land.
“You are still so incomplete, so alone.” Without quite meaning to, her words spur you to look down at yourself. She was right. You still had no form, no shape. And even though you were in the presence of a goddess, you still felt horribly alone. “Need connects all people in all life but that life is itself an expression of need on the part of the physical universe, and that the physical universe is an expression of need on the part of the nothingness it’s trying to fill.”
You look back at the goddess. You wonder what her name is.
“So, I ask you, what flavor of tea would you like?” Her hoof gestures to the table, whereon, five different colors of tins sit. “The part of you that you’ve already expressed looks parched. Maybe a steaming cup of goodness will help?”
You blink. You were about to think but stop yourself, opting instead to let the thoughts come on their own. You were thirsty. You wanted to taste again, no, needed to taste anything one last time. You lean forward, the scent of the tins reaching your nostrils, as you give each of them a whiff.
The second from the left grabs you. It’s the one.
Then, out of the need to make a cup of tea, you reach out your arm, place your hand inside the tin, and pluck out a bag of tea. The smell is even more heavenly out in the open air, but that sensation is overridden by sight of your own hand.
Slowly, you bring your hand back towards your face. It’s so...weird to see it again. You flex your fingers and examine your fingernails. Just moments ago you were unsure you’d ever look at your arms again, and now, it felt like you had them since forever.
“Need is only seen or head when it is expressed,” the mare tells you and you listen, making your cup of tea all the while. “But without expression, you disconnect yourself from your need, from connecting to others, to connecting to the essence of life itself.”
You finish the tea, rising the cup to your lips, taking a small sip. The liquid burns your tongue, but you don’t mind. It’s another sensation you are coming to relearn, along with the wonderful taste of the tea itself. You swallow and your throat loosens.
“...w..h..o...are...y..o..u…” Your voice was weak but quickly gaining strength. “...w...h..e...r..e..am...I…?”
“A question is a form of a need for knowledge, so I’m proud of you.” Golden magic collects all the tins on the table and levitates them away. “You shall have your wish. My name is Celestia, Princess to Equestria, the land that you and I now inhabit for the time being.”
You take another sip of tea. “...c...e...l..e...s...t..i...a…”
“Try not to wear it out,” she giggles. “But, pray tell me, what’s your name?”
Your name? You don’t remember it. A name who you were, what you were, and here you are, without one. A name was you and you were a name. What happens now that you were without one?
“I don’t know,” you say, feeling your shoulders loosen, taking another sip of tea. “But I don’t think it matters.”
“Oh?” Celestia takes up her teacup again, speaking before sipping. “And why is that?”
“Because...because I don’t need a name,” you say, letting your mind course free with its own thoughts. “It’s merely a part of me that I could do without; someone who I once was that no longer is. All that matters is what I need now.”
“And what is that?”
“You.” The words tumble out of your lips before you could even hope to retract them. “There’s so much I want to know, about your land and your kind, but, more importantly, I want to learn more about you.”
Celestia’s smiles. By all. She smiles. It stretches down her long muzzle as she looks at you from behind her flowing mane. Had that always been there? Had she always had this multicolored, floating mane? Oh well. Her smile evaporates your strife.
Then, her lips purse left, and your eyes follow their direction. Once again you see the valley, with its trees chopped and its wood made into houses and fences. There’s ponies, little ones, walking along gravel made roads, conversing and working, fully formed unlike yourself.
“Those are my subjects, expressing the needs of life and of themselves, and it’s my duty that those needs are meant,” her voice wisps into your ear, but you could not turn to face her. Jealousy becomes you at the sight of these ponies’ proximity. Was that closeness the reason you were not whole? “Even I try to meet those needs even if they come not from my subject, for that is my need.”
The overabundance of need is toying with your mind.
“You haven’t answered my question,” you say to Celestia as you look back to her. “I need to know who you are.”
“Someone is getting direct,” Celestia replies with a smirk, leaning slightly back so that she towered at her full height. “But I have to admit that there isn’t much that lies behind the mask. My identity was lost to my duty, so now I am what my role demands.”
You blink. You finish your tea. You set the cup down. You open your lips, and then you say, “I understand.”
Celestia too finishes her tea, putting it back on the table. “You do?”
“I was not alive before this began,” you say, suddenly becoming aware of both yourself and her. There’s golden necklace around her neck and golden shoes around her hooves. “And what I am now is because of the needs that I have. My identity has been replaced by what my needs need me to be.”
“Hmm.” Her lips wrinkle once more in thought. This was the first time in your life you ever considered kissing a horse. “Our situations are nothing alike, and yet, they evoke the same feelings, the same emotions within both of us. And we’ve connected because of our need for identity.”
Celestia’s smile returns. Something within you changes. No. You feel something. Pumping. Full of love. Full of love towards this creature. You bring your hand towards your chest, and feel the beat of your heart. It’s beating faster now, faster than ever before, and winds assault your face.
“You’re getting better now!” Celestia tells you and your heart swells even more. What joy, what a joy it is to be alive, to be subservient of need, just to be in the presence of her majesty. You know close to nothing about her, but because of your small connection, you feel like you know her better than most. You want to learn more, but you love her just as she is.
Love? Did you just think about loving her? About loving this alabaster horse with the flowing rainbow mane? Was that even considered normal? Well, to be honest, nothing that had just been normal—you yourself were not normal because you were incomplete.
Yet you loved Celestia, because, despite her wonderful form, she too felt incomplete. Another thing to bond over, perhaps? You love Celestia to bond over anything, to become anything that she loves, so that she may come to love you instead. You weren’t fully formed yet—you could be whatever she wanted you to be.
“Now now, that’s enough of that,” Celestia says as if reading your mind. Could a goddess do that? Read minds? Either way, she collects both of her cups in her magic, with a horn you’re only now becoming aware of. Wasn’t that weird? She used magic before so she must have always had that horn, but the fact that you were only now becoming aware filled you with this strange sense of doubt.
Why were winds blowing so hard now? Why could you hear the construction coming from the ponies below? You were so high up. You shouldn’t be able to hear them. You shouldn’t be able to hear anything. Yet the winds blew, sounds came from below, and this creature that should not exist was before you.
“You should not be sacrificing what your need needs you to be in order to become what my need needs,” Celestia says, and suddenly, it’s harder to see her face. You panic. You loved her face. “Your connection to others, to life itself will forever be ruined if you don’t live by your own needs. You will find the right others, the right way of life if you instead follow your own needs.”
It’s not making sense. None of this is. Yet you do not care about the winds. Your stomach feels hollow. Her voice had begun to fade. Why were you just realizing this now? Quick! Savor! Savor it while you can! Record her beautiful voice saying what you need to hear most—your ultimate need fulfilled.
“Celestia please!” you say, standing up with your new found legs, and leaning across the table. You hug the blurry mare from around her neck, feeling the frigid touch of her necklace against your bare skin. For whatever reason, her perfect coat doesn’t bring you any warmth. “I need for you to need me. To say that you like me and to validate me. That I’m not alone and that someone loves me. I might have become nothing but you can still fill me!”
“Buddy, what the hell are you doing??” That must be Celestia, you know, that horse you love? What kind of man loves a horse? What kind of man imagines himself with a horse? What have you done with your life? What are you doing with your life? “Quick! Climb back over before he turns the crane!”
“Not before you tell me that you need me!” you say above the winds, those cold, harsh winds. “That I didn’t become nothing! That I filled the world with something! And that’s why you love me, why you like me for who I am, why you keep validating me!”
“Buddy! Calm down! That thing’s gonna—”
“Not before you say it!”
“Fine!” Look. Oh, wait, your eyes are still closed. Fine, then listen. Listen again. Pity. That’s what Celestia feels. You’re going to get her to say something that is untrue because you’ve used pity to lure her. Enjoy her words—that you made something innocent partake in your delusion. “I love ya man. You aren’t nothing. And I’ll even validate you personally if you just climb back.”
Her words are lovely, so much, that you let go. You’re falling now. Off to meet her, you think. You know it was all a sham, a visualization to help you through the hard part. It’s the end now, and imaginary horses are saying your farewell message.
But you want to know the truly ironic part. Had you gotten ridden of me, you would’ve lived a far better life—maybe even done something good with it. Guess what though? I’m falling with you now.
And that means I won.
