Lily's Letterby Miller MinusChaptersI - Her LetterII - Her DressIII - Her CityIV - Her DecisionV - HerI - Her LetterI never paid enough attention to the things I did or what they said about me. Like how little I hung out with my friends. Like how easy it was for me to dodge a get-together without presenting any excuses. Like how little I spoke when I was with them, regardless of how much alcohol they bought me. Like how I brought her stupid letter to the bar in the first place. I had no reason to, but did I need one? I just wanted to show it off, I suppose. I even flattened it on the table and passed it around so that my friends could read it one at a time. Hey, you! It's been awhile, hasn't it? I was hoping to say hello this weekend. Meet me at 2 o'clock this Saturday evening at Canterlot Castle if you're up for it. Dress warmly, come alone, and bring stories! —Lily As my friends slid the letter around the table they each frowned at it in hollow acknowledgement. She must have had somepony else write it for her, I told them. No way could she hold a quill that well, even with magic. One of my friends—can't remember which—joked that she sounded like an old flame of mine. I told them she was more like the garbage can underneath it. That got a few laughs around the table, just in time for the conversation to change to something else. Something about a wedding. That was typical. They were at that age where they only talked about alcohol, weddings, kids, and nothing else. Or maybe it wasn't an age that they'd hit, but a stage in their lives. They were all married themselves—some of them to each other. I don't know what was more painful, the mundane talking beats they hit every single day, or seeing the friends I'd known since magic school joining in, as if their mouths had been factories of vapidity their entire lives. I didn't contribute; I just kept staring at the letter, reading it again and again until I could close my eyes and recite it word for word. And I only noticed that the thought of pretending I'd never received it had vanished when it was already gone. Lily was a friend of mine from magic school—one of my best—whom I hadn't seen in seven years. And we had only drifted apart because... ...of a reason I could no longer recall. I think it may have just happened. She certainly wouldn't be the first. My friends didn't care because they didn't know Lily, which was a blessing in disguise that only revealed itself the next morning. Saturday morning. The Saturday. The epiphany woke me up like a lightning strike between my ears, as if she had whispered the letter to me in a dream, over and over again until it finally struck me. There was no 2 o'clock in the evening. Only in the morning. She wasn't inviting me on a guided tour of the castle. She was asking me to trespass. I tore up my apartment for a way to write her back. The sun stung my eyes, as always finding the perfect angle through the boards over my windows. I found the back of an invitation for a party I never attended under a stack of old newspapers and a pencil worn down nearly to its eraser on the floor under my mattress. I scribbled out the invitation, flipped it over, wrote back to her and sent it on a rush. Can we do Sunday instead? I need my beauty sleep. The reply came that evening when I was eating dinner. It was in that same fancy writing again. It was sarcastic, honestly, coming from her. Trust me, if you're going to Canterlot Castle, you have to go at night. Besides, I'm tied up on Sunday. I'll be there at 2. Join me or don't! —Lily P.S. Don't let the guards see you, eh? And just like that I was going to commit a crime for the first time since magic school. II - Her DressThe air that filled Canterlot at 2 in the morning was as frigid and empty as the streets themselves, and I loved it. There was nopony to pass on the street. I could tap-dance on the cobblestone and nopony would care. I could whistle and nopony would hear. I could holler at the top of my lungs and, well, I could run out of sight before somepony stuck their head out of a window to holler back. But the best part was that there were no passersby, which meant no nobles. I hated those prissy aristocrats, always holding their snouts higher than their eyes. I hated how they stared down at me, their squinting eyes throwing words like 'rabble' down their noses in an attempt to make me feel small. And most of all, I hated that it worked every time. The castle was in view for the whole walk, towering overhead like something designed to be out of reach. But even worse, it was covered in lights and ribbons and wreaths, sparkling in a bunch of different colours that all clashed with each other. It was barely even December, and the Hearth's Warming decorations were already up. It almost made me queasy. The main gates were large, imposing things wrought from steel, with bases built from grey masonry. But they got less imposing with the tinsel wrapped around the bars and the arches painted like candy canes. I squatted behind some bushes several paces away and peeked around the corner to see what I was up against. One guard posted on either side of the gate. The guard on the left looked rather alert and in no mood for games, while the other looked seconds from falling asleep, hunched over his spear. As I assessed my options I felt a tap on my shoulder—as heavy as a feather. I swung around, and there she was. "Lily Flower." It took a second to realize it was her—partly because of the darkness, but mostly because she was so different. Her blushed pink mane was wavier than natural, turning to and fro down her shoulders like pink clouds that had been smoothed into ribbons. Her tail was long and groomed, just barely off the ground. Her white coat was obscured by a dress made from blue and yellow gradients. She even had some sort of ornament in her hair. "Hey, Streak," she said. "You remember my name." "Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?" I decided, for some reason, to give a snarky reply: "Your memory's never been the best." She cocked her head, and the flash of offence thankfully vanished right away. "Nice to see you too," she teased. She took a step closer. The makeup above her eyes—whatever that was called—shone faintly in the light of the half-moon, as did all the rest of her. I gawked at her, and then at my own nude self. "I'm underdressed," I said. She snorted before she giggled. "In more ways than one. I told you to dress warmly." "Meh. I'll be fine once we get inside. Speaking of which, how're we gonna get in there?" "Hmm." Lily trotted around me to get her own look at the guards. As she brushed up against me I smelled a peculiar scent—peculiar because it was pleasant. A concentrated punch of lemon and mint to the face. She'd never been one for perfume back in magic school. Had she done this for me? She stepped back and pointed across the opening in the bushes. "If we can get to the other side, I know a way in." "You what?" She dug into the bushes with her magic and pulled out a rock. It was no larger than her eye. She flipped it over in her hoof and smiled like a demon. "Throw it to the left," I suggested. "The one on the right looks like he's about to check out for the night." She hucked the rock over her shoulder, and the iron fence sang. The more alert guard flung his attention to the sound. He told his partner to keep watch, and then sprinted down the fence. The tired guard, to his credit, opened his eyes for five whole seconds, before visibly nodding off. I whispered, "Go, go, go!" and we sprinted across the path in front of the entrance to the other side of the bushes. A rush of adrenaline electrified me from my heart outwards. I waited for either guard to shout something at us. Who goes there?! I think I heard something! In the name of her majesty Princess Celestia, I order you to halt! But nothing came. Lily slid into cover, even though she didn't have to, and I did the same. We held in our laughs with our hooves. "C'mon," she said, "it's this way." "What is?" "An evacuation tunnel. It connects the castle to a bunch of different buildings in the city in case a lot of ponies have to get out of somewhere quickly. There's only one entrance from the outside, and it's right…" At the edge of the bushes, she ducked her head under them and was suddenly descending into the earth down a set of stony stairs. Her voice echoed as she vanished into darkness. "…Here! Nopony really knows about it except the guards." "That seems like a major security problem," I said as I followed. "Well, all the doors are locked with different keys." "Then how will we get in?" She stopped walking. Her horn glowed. In the bright pink light of her magic, she flashed a grin back at me, and shook something in front of her. It made a jangling sound. "How in the world did you—?" "C'mon. You never heard of casing a joint?" "This is so illegal. Are you sure about this?" We came to the first door, which had a big sign in front saying DEAD-END. She stared it down like it was an easily defeated enemy. She fiddled with her key ring. "Don't worry, I promise you won't get in trouble. I mean, so long as you're not carrying weapons or, say… assassination orders from foreign powers." "Hah! Like I carry my instructions with me. Still though, this seems…" Lily let out an exaggerated sigh. "I said I promise. Do you want to go home or...?" "Just get this door open." The keys weren't labelled; they were just different from each other in shape and colour. Nothing matched them to the door, either. But she was Lily, so she got it on the first key. She pulled out a pocket in the chest of her dress and dropped the keys inside. She winked. "Race ya." "I don't even know the way." "Then just follow me." III - Her CityThe tunnel looked like I imagined the castle itself did: outdated architecture, oppressive white marble walls, and a carpet that felt like almost-dry glue sticking to my hooves. The only thing it was missing was a series of portraits of Celestia hanging on every wall. Lily ran so quick that she almost left me behind. Her dress swirled in her wake like blue fire. The candles lining the walls automatically lit as she passed them, like children waking up at a noise on their roof on Hearth's Warming Eve. Every step she took brought another memory back to me. The time we broke into a bakery and ate ourselves sick. The time we hopped the fence at the Canterlot Zoo and flooded the jungle exhibit with the laughing gas we lifted from the chem room back at school. She was always running ahead, taken over by her own giggling. I realized I'd missed her, and I was angry at myself for letting us drift apart. We walked normally after a while—tiring way faster than we used to. At least we were both out of shape, I thought. "So how are things?" she asked, like we'd last seen each other a week ago as opposed to seven years. "Fine, I guess." "Okay... what have you been up to?" "Um... well, I graduated as you know, studied business at Canterlot U, got a job, worked my way up a bit... and now I'm here." She stopped walking so she could give me an incredulous look. "Did you just summarize seven years in one sentence?" she teased. "Hey, I'm an adult now! I'm boring and stuff; that's how it works." She laughed, but her smile faltered. "Don't say that." "Why not?" "Just... shut up." We pressed on, turning at forks in the tunnel in whichever direction she decided. I was left with the unwitting feeling I had just offended her. "How about friends?" she continued suddenly. "Got any new ones since magic school?" I laughed poignantly. "Yes, I've managed to make some friends." "Well, good! I was worried about you. Tell me about them. Who's your favourite?" My mind played back the previous night at the bar—the seven or eight… or so of us sitting at the table, eating peanuts and drinking bad local cider. Their names came to me, but their personalities didn't come with them. All I saw was myself reading Lily's letter, and occasionally glancing up at a bunch of copies of the same uninteresting pony sitting around a table. "Eh... I dunno, they're pretty standard. Just friends from work, and a few of the guys from magic school, but… they're all pretty boring." "Oh... that sucks." "Yeah, they'd probably say the same thing about me to be honest, haha." I inhaled sharply. I figured she detected the fake laugh. "They're not your friends then," she stated. "Uh..." I squinted ahead to see what face she had given that comment, but she wasn't even looking back. I swallowed and agreed, "More like fake friends... yeah." "There's no such thing as fake friends. Only incompatible ones. If you don't care about each other, you'll drift apart, and you won't be friends. And then you'll find better ones." "...Yeah, I guess so." A rather difficult question formed in my throat, and I swallowed it away. We advanced under the careful flames of the candles and said nothing else, until she announced, "We're here." Another large metal door stood in our way, but not in hers. It was labelled: YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT A DEAD-END. THIS DOOR IS MERELY A DECORATION. Followed by: OPENING THIS DOOR IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. I snickered, and Lily fumbled with the keys. We emerged inside one of the castle's corridors—slowly and carefully, of course. Lily warned that the guards patrolled here once every few minutes. She creaked open the door and squinted through the brash glow of the corridor. Her eyes flashed at the backside of the guard turning right around a corner and out of sight. "Come, come," she whispered. "I know somewhere outside their patrol." "How?" "Because I'm a joint caser and I case joints." I stuck my tongue out at her. "If we get caught, I've never met you before in my life." "Uh-huh. What was your name again?" "Funny. You already said it, though." "Yeah, but my memory's never been the best." Again, I didn't catch her expression. We ducked into the corridor and she closed the door—or rather the giant piece of wall—behind her. It sealed so flush it was like we had just warped inside. I was about to make some comment about the castle, but I was swiftly made speechless for two reasons—both of which were Lily. The first was just her, shining in the harsh white light of the castle like she never had before. Lily the filly: The girl from magic school who never wore make-up or clothes or bothered to present herself to anyone. She was still under there—the fact that we were trespassing was proof of that—but there was so much in the way. Her blue-and-yellow dress and the matching flower in her hair that made her look like she was from Costa Rienda. The make-up that was so caked on her face she might as well have been a dessert. Even her eyelashes were extended. But there was something about the challenge of looking past it all to see the real her—of knowing who she really was underneath, that was so exciting. I decided I liked the change. And I liked it more and more whenever she looked at me. The second reason she left me speechless was that she ran off, heading in the direction of the guard but turning at the other corner. I chased after her, making quick glances behind me for the next member of the patrol. I hoped there would be another chance to see her in the light and tell her she'd taken my words away. I thought wrong. "Here!" We darted up a tight spiral staircase—out of the carpet and marble and into the good, old-fashioned bricks. We kept rising and rising until we came to a lookout tower, and I nearly crashed into her. It was one of the smaller towers—meant for defense more-so than tourism. It had four openings at each cardinal direction. The deathly white moonlight shone in from the south window, and the two of us found ourselves drawn to it—the window that overlooked Canterlot. Lily glided past me like a ghost. She folded her hooves over one another and leaned over the windowsill. Her hindlegs buckled gently, and she slumped her body into the stone. She rested her head on her hooves—her mane spilling down the outer wall. I meekly took up a spot next to her, but I stayed standing. The entire city was in view—uptown and downtown. Tiny lights pockmarked cobblestone streets, concrete and wood buildings, and the occasional ponies of the night, travelling in groups. Further away were the lights of Ponyville, which started to flicker when I looked long enough, like they were either struggling to reach us or just unsure of how bright they wanted to be. There was yellow, red, green, and blue—some moving, but most just still and blinking like horse code. I exhaled, and when my breath obstructed my view, I held it. I started to think about how every place you find yourself in is just the result of all your life's choices. For a brief moment, I thought that I couldn't have been doing so bad if I was up here with this view. Lily seemed to be thinking about the past as well. "Remember magic school?" she breathed. "Um… do you mean, have I blocked the entire experience out of my mind? No, but I'm working on it." "Hah… It wasn't that bad." She re-positioned her hooves and her head. "We had a lot of good times." I scoffed. "Don't forget the bad times. Or the bad ponies." I waited for her to add something. When she didn't, I continued: "Remember that group of uptight jerkwads who always sat together at lunch?" "…Vaguely." "Vaguely! Lily, those guys made our lives downright impossible sometimes. All the name-calling, and the nasty rumours they started. I'm still called a bedwetter sometimes. And the worst was how they flaunted their money and nobility around like it was everypony else's fault that they were so fortunate." Lily exhaled fervently, and with a shiver. I could tell she was remembering them now too. She was bullied the worst, after all. I didn't stop there: "What were their names, there was… Diamond Dare; she was a piece of work. Civil Tongue; that guy could cuss. And let's not forget the ringleader himself! Freaking Fanny. What a pompous name for a pompous twit." "That's not his name, though," Lily said flatly, like it wasn't even directed at me. I swallowed. "Yeah, I mean… I know that's not his name, I just called him that because it pissed him off like nothing else. Besides, he had his own names for me, and none of them were Streak." "…Can we not…" "Huh?" Lily wasn't looking at the view anymore, not really. She was looking through it—subtly downwards. I never knew her to be standoffish, though. If she was upset, she would tell me, hard. Or at least, the old Lily would have. I tapped her on the shoulder. "Lily? What's—" She cut me off with a sudden turn of her head. She smiled wide. "Look, I can angrily recall magic school with the best of them, but that doesn't mean that I want to, you know? I wanna have fun tonight, just you and me. Forget I brought up magic school." I frowned, but I nodded. "…Yeah, okay. That's a good idea." "Bad for your health anyways." "Yeah, exactly…" I noticed my shoulders were tensed. I rolled them out, and then slouched against the windowsill beside her to get reacquainted with the view. It all still looked so bright, and still so unsure of itself. I nudged Lily playfully. "You always could find the best seat in every house," I told her. She gasped, abruptly springing to her hooves. She smiled at me accusingly. "This isn't the best seat in the house," she said. "It's not?" "…You're in a castle. The best seat should be obvious." My mouth fell open. "You're not serious." She nodded over my shoulder. "Check it out." Past the east window, the throne room was in plain sight—most of the windows were stained glass, depicting scenes of the Princess that were nonsensical without context. But there were a few plain glass windows—through which I could see rows of benches with wreaths hanging on their sides, glinting faintly in the inconsequential light of night-time candles. "That's the throne room," Lily confirmed. "Best seat in the house. I mean, the throne's been moved, so it's not actually there right now, but…" I stared at her quizzically. "Have you been here tonight already?" She smiled innocently and pointed down the window. I looked out over the edge. There were green vines hugging the wall of the tower, and a rooftop with a shallow angle leading to the throne room windows. Shreds from the vines were on the roof below us, like somepony had traversed them within the past few hours. "How's your parkour?" she asked, putting a fancy accent on the word. IV - Her DecisionWe stumbled in through the window—me before her—but recovered quickly and trotted into the great hall. We walked towards the middle—a single bench between us. There were thirty rows total, all neatly arranged throughout the hall, and split down the middle by a long white carpet. The backs of the benches were covered in ribbons and streamers and Hearth's Warming lights of red, green, and yellow. Lily's white-and-pink form and her blue-and-yellow dress fit the scene honestly well. The benches faced the throne, or at least where it was supposed to be. It had indeed been moved—replaced by a white wooden arch covered in flowers that I couldn't identify even if I named all the flowers I knew. In front of the arch was a podium at the end of the carpet, and at the top of a small set of stairs. Next to the podium was something that looked like an artist's easel. Its canvas was covered in a blue piece of fabric lined with gold rope. I marvelled at the setup and said, "It's a funeral." "What? No! Are you kidding?" "What is it then?" "Look!" She gestured widely to the flower arrangements all over the room. "It's a wedding!" she said, almost elating at the fact. I shrugged my shoulders. "Oh... well, same thing, right?" She scoffed at first, but transitioned into a laugh. "I mean, in a way, if you want to be a jerk about it." "In a way! Lily, there might as well be two coffins up there. Seriously, go check!" Lily rolled her eyes and strolled up the carpet; she had a skip in her step. "I've heard of this crap," I said. "It's a wedding for the nobles. They pay an irresponsible amount of money to the castle in order to host their wedding in the royal throne room." I flicked a decoration, and it jingled at me. "And I guess there's a holiday-themed package." "Oh, yeah? It costs that much?" "Of course! I mean, if it keeps our taxes down then I'm not complaining, but... You know what the best part is?" She raised an eyebrow. "I couldn't possibly." "I read somewhere... that the more extravagant the wedding, the more likely the bride and groom are buying a one way ticket to Splitsville." Her eyes fell half-closed. "Still reading your editorials, I see." "Of course! Only the ones I agree with, though." Lily rolled her eyes again and got up behind the podium. I continued: "But it makes sense, right? Nobles don't want to marry somepony, they just want to get married. And invite all their friends and their enemies so they can rub it in all their faces. It's a farce!" Lily spotted a little black microphone sticking out of the wood. She eyed it like it was a large spider. She tapped on it, but no sounds boomed from anywhere. She exhaled and wiped her brow. Next, she cleared her throat and raised her chin. "Please be seated," she said in a fake, but flawless, noble accent. I put on a noble frown—the kind everypony else puts on when they've just smelled something gross—and took a seat at the front bench. I crossed my hindlegs and stuck my chin up as high as it could go. My spine screamed. Whose idea was benches for a pony anyways? "We are gathered here today," Lily announced, "to mourn the passing of two young ponies. Their names, uh..." "Mr. and Mrs. Groom," I suggested in my own fake accent. Lily nodded. "Mr. and Mrs. Groom, who both met their unfortunate end on a pier in Manehattan, when Mr. Groom proposed a tragic arrangement of mutually assured destruction to Mrs. Groom, who foolishly accepted." I clapped. "Keep going!" Lily cleared her throat again. The smile on her face wouldn't stop blooming. "Please join me in a moment of silence for their former lives, as they move on to another world." "A world of vapid conversations, false smiles, and arguments over which Manedarin place to order from!" Lily's eyes fluttered closed. "Could the gentlecolt in the front row please refrain from interrupting?" I held up my hooves. "Apologies, madame! Please, continuez!" She did: "We will never forget them as they sent their funeral invitations to all their friends... and their enemies, and spent all of their money on a ceremony that would mean more than the marriage itself." "Hear, hear!" We both fell over laughing. Looking back, though, it wasn't that funny. I'd heard somepony say once, that love was falling over laughing together for no reason. I thought about it, but I didn't believe it. After all, it was a sign of insanity, too. She picked herself up first, and I watched her wipe a tear from her eye, rolling both of them as she flung it into the carpet. "I'm so glad you invited me," I said. "Oh, I know... It's been far too long." The question from the tower suddenly burst forth, and I couldn't stop it. "Why did we drift apart, anyways?" "…I don't know. I haven't really thought about it." "Really? I can't get it off my mind. I mean it's not like we're incompatible. We're a house on fire here." I glanced at all the wooden benches and decorations. "Speaking of fire…" "No, c'mon, that's too crazy even for us." I approached the front bench and placed a hoof on a corner. "I know, I know... but I still wanna rough it up a bit." "...What?" Before she could protest, I put all my weight into the bench and watched it tip over backwards. I stepped back and sneered, anticipating the sound of smothered bells against the stony floor. But it never came. A coat of pink magic swept over it at the crucial moment, tipping it back to where it was. I looked back at Lily's glowing horn. "What are you doing?" I asked. "What are you doing?" she shot back. "This is somepony's wedding." "It—... It's a noble's wedding. Who cares? They can pay for the damages. Besides, you know as well as I do that love isn't real." She shook her head in revulsion. "Speak for yourself." "What?" I laughed. "Okay, I will. Love is nothing more than a chemical reaction experienced by two ponies whose lives are so boring they mistake a primal instinct for a turning point in their aforementioned boring lives." Lily's frown turned into a scowl—her make-up creased unattractively. I kept going: "And they act on that instinct because they've reached the critical stage in their lives where they're finally too old to hold out for something that doesn't exist, so they placebo themselves into thinking they've found it, and in the utmost haste—!" I gestured to the entire room. "They tie the knot before they can change their minds. That's what love is. Don't you agree?" Lily looked down at her hooves and kicked an imaginary rock. "No. I used to, but... not anymore." "Then what was that eulogy about?" "I was... kidding around, playing along, I don't know..." A silence hung between us like somepony separating two friends from an ensuing fight. I expected some kind of rebuttal. Her take on the whole thing. But when nothing came, I figured she didn't have anything. Seeing her saddened without any sort of retort started to make me angry. I chalked it up to reunion jitters, but that was something I had made up to keep me calm. "Alright, whatever," I said to the floor. "I should get going anyways." "Beauty sleep?" Lily barely joked. "Yeah, exactly... This was fun, though." Without looking, she made a half-hearted sound of agreement. I panicked. "We should do this again sometime," I suggested, swallowing harshly. Her mouth opened a crack. "...Really?" she said. "Yeah, we should... I don't want to drift apart again. I missed talking to you." She didn't respond. "So, how about..." An empty schedule appeared in my mind, like my brain was making fun of me. "…how about tomorrow?" Without breaking eye contact, she said, "I'm tied up tomorrow." "Right, right... Oh, right! That was in your letter. So... when are you free?" She bit her lower lip. "…Lily?" "You don't understand." "...What don't I understand?" I couldn't help but leak venom into my voice. "Lily?" Her mouth shuddered. "I'm tied up tomorrow... Onward." I squinted. "What do you mean...?" She didn't answer. I looked left and right, as if there was an answer hidden in the empty benches. In fact, there was. A dark, bubbling pit of anger formed inside me. I trudged past Lily towards the podium and the easel. I think she heard me growl. "Streak, wait, don't..." I got to the easel and flung off the velvet covering. CELEBRATING THE MARRIAGE OF: Fancy Pants & Fleur-De-Lis I stared at the poster a second and tilted my head. I recognized the first name in a searing hot flash of bad memories, but the second one was foreign to me—literally. My stomach felt like it was being pulled in two directions as I tried to make sense of what I was looking at. And when the agonizing truth dawned on me, my whole body felt the pull. I turned back to Lily, who was staring blankly to the side. "…Fleur-De-Lis?" "…It means Lily Flower," she explained. "It's my cutie mark, actually." "But it's not your name." "I had it changed. It was…" She gestured to the poster. "…his idea." Something boiled in my chest—something that had been simmering my whole life. I pointed a hoof accusingly at her. "You're a joke," I said. She wrinkled her nose. I was expecting her to cry, but she didn't. "Thanks for ruining the big reveal," she muttered. "I was going to tell you." "After everything he put you through. Put us through. You just couldn't resist the money, huh?" "He's… changed," she answered, as if that was even possible. As if that was even an acceptable answer. She kept going: "You should really meet him. I think you'd get along." A contrite smile appeared on her face. "He kind of gets along with everyone." The image she wanted to conjure in my head—of that smarmy stallion being anything other than cruel—wouldn't appear. I changed the subject. "So why bring me here, huh? Was it just to rub it in? Just to show me how much better than me you've become?" "No…" "Because here I thought you just wanted to see me again!" "I did! Didn't you read the letter? I said I wanted to say hello!" "You wanted to say GOODBYE!" I slammed my hooves on the podium, pushing it with all my strength until it tipped forward. But of course, the pink magic appeared and tipped it back to where it was with a long, hollow thud. She stared at me like the teachers did at magic school. Like they all knew better than me. "We can still... hang out sometime," she said, contradicting herself. I stamped a hoof to shut her up. "Not goodbye to me! To yourself! Everything you said up there? About how you're dying? You may have been kidding, but it's all true." She uttered something I didn't hear. "This is the end up here. You're not living after a wedding, not really. It's the end of yourself." She closed her eyes and muttered to herself, like a prayer, "And the start of a new me." "A FAKE you!" I blurted, my voice cracking at the crucial moment. "A pointless, directionless husk of yourself! You'll be walking small talk!" She opened her eyes and sniffed loudly. She waited there like a child accepting punishment. So I kept it going. "And you're marrying into nobility no less," I seethed. "That isn't you! How are you gonna—?" "He's signed me up for classes." "He's making you take CLASSES?!" "I ASKED him to!" There was the first tear, and the few that followed. She angrily wiped her face, smearing her makeup. "Would you lay off him?! We aren't in… school… anymore." All the anger drained from her face—replaced with overwhelming tiredness. Somewhere behind that makeup, that dress, and those eyelashes, a decision had been made, but I didn't know what it was. I just knew it involved me. "I'm sorry," she said. "You should go." Before I could answer, the pair of tall stone doors at the opposite end of the hall burst open. Lily and I froze. A single guard stood in the doorway, perplexed at what he saw, because he saw me first. He threw words like 'criminal', 'brigand', and 'scum' at me just by looking, and I felt like I was shrinking. But then he noticed Lily, and he relaxed. "Oh," he spoke in a deep voice. "You're here early, Ms. Fleur. This a friend of yours?" Lily picked her head up to greet the stallion with a smile. "Yes… just an old friend." Her noble accent was back. It was effortless to her. "In fact, he was just leaving." "Oh, okay." The guard frowned and scratched his chin. "He, uh… probably shouldn't be here anyways," he murmured himself. Lily held up a hoof to her snout. "Oh, goodness, I didn't realize. I apologize if I've caused any trouble." All she was missing was a dainty kerchief. "In that case, would you mind escorting him out yourself?" The guard smiled casually. "That's quite alright, Ms. Fleur. Probably better if I do, yes." "Oh, and by the way…" Lily cantered down the aisle and retrieved the key ring from her dress, dangling it in front of the guard's face. "We found these behind the podium, sir. Do you recognize them?" The guard's mouth dropped open, and he nearly choked. "…Uh… Nope! Can't say I do, ma'am. Tell you what, though, ummmmmm, why don't I hold onto these…" He took the keys in his own magic and stored them in a small rectangular compartment in the flank of his armor, which, quite obviously, had an identical set already inside. He turned back, blushing. "…and I'll find out who's lost them." Lily patted the guard on his chest plate. "Thank you kindly, sir. Streak?" I stared back and forth at the two of them. I felt like an audience to a play—an amateur one, where the characters didn't act like real ponies because the actors were trying too hard. Lily cleared her throat to grab my attention. "It was nice seeing you again," she said flatly. "I'm truly glad you came." She meant that. I knew Lily; she was always sincere, except for the past few hours, it seemed, and especially these last few minutes. So when she said something so sincere it was like seeing an explosion in a field of wheat. I didn't respond, because I didn't know how to mimic that sincerity. V - HerI barely even remember the next few seconds—there's a hole in my memory from me behind the podium to the doors shutting between Lily and me. My mind probably blacked out the part where I walked with my head down past her, unable to look, unable to speak, and most of all unable to process what was happening. But I did end up looking one last time. One last moment, before the doors closed between us. It was the last time I saw Lily Flower. I think I expected her to have an emotionless gaze, maybe not even in my direction. Or worse, she could have been sneering. But she didn't. And she wasn't. She held her head high and turned it away from me. She was smiling—wide and full of her feelings. I didn't understand it. I hated it. I hated that happy look so much. I suppose that says a lot more about me than I care to admit. The guard cleared his throat. "So how do you know the bride?" he asked. "I don't," I responded. And maybe I did know how to be sincere, because I looked right at him, despite my burning eyes, and I said, "I've never met her before in my life."
I - Her LetterI never paid enough attention to the things I did or what they said about me. Like how little I hung out with my friends. Like how easy it was for me to dodge a get-together without presenting any excuses. Like how little I spoke when I was with them, regardless of how much alcohol they bought me. Like how I brought her stupid letter to the bar in the first place. I had no reason to, but did I need one? I just wanted to show it off, I suppose. I even flattened it on the table and passed it around so that my friends could read it one at a time. Hey, you! It's been awhile, hasn't it? I was hoping to say hello this weekend. Meet me at 2 o'clock this Saturday evening at Canterlot Castle if you're up for it. Dress warmly, come alone, and bring stories! —Lily As my friends slid the letter around the table they each frowned at it in hollow acknowledgement. She must have had somepony else write it for her, I told them. No way could she hold a quill that well, even with magic. One of my friends—can't remember which—joked that she sounded like an old flame of mine. I told them she was more like the garbage can underneath it. That got a few laughs around the table, just in time for the conversation to change to something else. Something about a wedding. That was typical. They were at that age where they only talked about alcohol, weddings, kids, and nothing else. Or maybe it wasn't an age that they'd hit, but a stage in their lives. They were all married themselves—some of them to each other. I don't know what was more painful, the mundane talking beats they hit every single day, or seeing the friends I'd known since magic school joining in, as if their mouths had been factories of vapidity their entire lives. I didn't contribute; I just kept staring at the letter, reading it again and again until I could close my eyes and recite it word for word. And I only noticed that the thought of pretending I'd never received it had vanished when it was already gone. Lily was a friend of mine from magic school—one of my best—whom I hadn't seen in seven years. And we had only drifted apart because... ...of a reason I could no longer recall. I think it may have just happened. She certainly wouldn't be the first. My friends didn't care because they didn't know Lily, which was a blessing in disguise that only revealed itself the next morning. Saturday morning. The Saturday. The epiphany woke me up like a lightning strike between my ears, as if she had whispered the letter to me in a dream, over and over again until it finally struck me. There was no 2 o'clock in the evening. Only in the morning. She wasn't inviting me on a guided tour of the castle. She was asking me to trespass. I tore up my apartment for a way to write her back. The sun stung my eyes, as always finding the perfect angle through the boards over my windows. I found the back of an invitation for a party I never attended under a stack of old newspapers and a pencil worn down nearly to its eraser on the floor under my mattress. I scribbled out the invitation, flipped it over, wrote back to her and sent it on a rush. Can we do Sunday instead? I need my beauty sleep. The reply came that evening when I was eating dinner. It was in that same fancy writing again. It was sarcastic, honestly, coming from her. Trust me, if you're going to Canterlot Castle, you have to go at night. Besides, I'm tied up on Sunday. I'll be there at 2. Join me or don't! —Lily P.S. Don't let the guards see you, eh? And just like that I was going to commit a crime for the first time since magic school.
II - Her DressThe air that filled Canterlot at 2 in the morning was as frigid and empty as the streets themselves, and I loved it. There was nopony to pass on the street. I could tap-dance on the cobblestone and nopony would care. I could whistle and nopony would hear. I could holler at the top of my lungs and, well, I could run out of sight before somepony stuck their head out of a window to holler back. But the best part was that there were no passersby, which meant no nobles. I hated those prissy aristocrats, always holding their snouts higher than their eyes. I hated how they stared down at me, their squinting eyes throwing words like 'rabble' down their noses in an attempt to make me feel small. And most of all, I hated that it worked every time. The castle was in view for the whole walk, towering overhead like something designed to be out of reach. But even worse, it was covered in lights and ribbons and wreaths, sparkling in a bunch of different colours that all clashed with each other. It was barely even December, and the Hearth's Warming decorations were already up. It almost made me queasy. The main gates were large, imposing things wrought from steel, with bases built from grey masonry. But they got less imposing with the tinsel wrapped around the bars and the arches painted like candy canes. I squatted behind some bushes several paces away and peeked around the corner to see what I was up against. One guard posted on either side of the gate. The guard on the left looked rather alert and in no mood for games, while the other looked seconds from falling asleep, hunched over his spear. As I assessed my options I felt a tap on my shoulder—as heavy as a feather. I swung around, and there she was. "Lily Flower." It took a second to realize it was her—partly because of the darkness, but mostly because she was so different. Her blushed pink mane was wavier than natural, turning to and fro down her shoulders like pink clouds that had been smoothed into ribbons. Her tail was long and groomed, just barely off the ground. Her white coat was obscured by a dress made from blue and yellow gradients. She even had some sort of ornament in her hair. "Hey, Streak," she said. "You remember my name." "Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?" I decided, for some reason, to give a snarky reply: "Your memory's never been the best." She cocked her head, and the flash of offence thankfully vanished right away. "Nice to see you too," she teased. She took a step closer. The makeup above her eyes—whatever that was called—shone faintly in the light of the half-moon, as did all the rest of her. I gawked at her, and then at my own nude self. "I'm underdressed," I said. She snorted before she giggled. "In more ways than one. I told you to dress warmly." "Meh. I'll be fine once we get inside. Speaking of which, how're we gonna get in there?" "Hmm." Lily trotted around me to get her own look at the guards. As she brushed up against me I smelled a peculiar scent—peculiar because it was pleasant. A concentrated punch of lemon and mint to the face. She'd never been one for perfume back in magic school. Had she done this for me? She stepped back and pointed across the opening in the bushes. "If we can get to the other side, I know a way in." "You what?" She dug into the bushes with her magic and pulled out a rock. It was no larger than her eye. She flipped it over in her hoof and smiled like a demon. "Throw it to the left," I suggested. "The one on the right looks like he's about to check out for the night." She hucked the rock over her shoulder, and the iron fence sang. The more alert guard flung his attention to the sound. He told his partner to keep watch, and then sprinted down the fence. The tired guard, to his credit, opened his eyes for five whole seconds, before visibly nodding off. I whispered, "Go, go, go!" and we sprinted across the path in front of the entrance to the other side of the bushes. A rush of adrenaline electrified me from my heart outwards. I waited for either guard to shout something at us. Who goes there?! I think I heard something! In the name of her majesty Princess Celestia, I order you to halt! But nothing came. Lily slid into cover, even though she didn't have to, and I did the same. We held in our laughs with our hooves. "C'mon," she said, "it's this way." "What is?" "An evacuation tunnel. It connects the castle to a bunch of different buildings in the city in case a lot of ponies have to get out of somewhere quickly. There's only one entrance from the outside, and it's right…" At the edge of the bushes, she ducked her head under them and was suddenly descending into the earth down a set of stony stairs. Her voice echoed as she vanished into darkness. "…Here! Nopony really knows about it except the guards." "That seems like a major security problem," I said as I followed. "Well, all the doors are locked with different keys." "Then how will we get in?" She stopped walking. Her horn glowed. In the bright pink light of her magic, she flashed a grin back at me, and shook something in front of her. It made a jangling sound. "How in the world did you—?" "C'mon. You never heard of casing a joint?" "This is so illegal. Are you sure about this?" We came to the first door, which had a big sign in front saying DEAD-END. She stared it down like it was an easily defeated enemy. She fiddled with her key ring. "Don't worry, I promise you won't get in trouble. I mean, so long as you're not carrying weapons or, say… assassination orders from foreign powers." "Hah! Like I carry my instructions with me. Still though, this seems…" Lily let out an exaggerated sigh. "I said I promise. Do you want to go home or...?" "Just get this door open." The keys weren't labelled; they were just different from each other in shape and colour. Nothing matched them to the door, either. But she was Lily, so she got it on the first key. She pulled out a pocket in the chest of her dress and dropped the keys inside. She winked. "Race ya." "I don't even know the way." "Then just follow me."
III - Her CityThe tunnel looked like I imagined the castle itself did: outdated architecture, oppressive white marble walls, and a carpet that felt like almost-dry glue sticking to my hooves. The only thing it was missing was a series of portraits of Celestia hanging on every wall. Lily ran so quick that she almost left me behind. Her dress swirled in her wake like blue fire. The candles lining the walls automatically lit as she passed them, like children waking up at a noise on their roof on Hearth's Warming Eve. Every step she took brought another memory back to me. The time we broke into a bakery and ate ourselves sick. The time we hopped the fence at the Canterlot Zoo and flooded the jungle exhibit with the laughing gas we lifted from the chem room back at school. She was always running ahead, taken over by her own giggling. I realized I'd missed her, and I was angry at myself for letting us drift apart. We walked normally after a while—tiring way faster than we used to. At least we were both out of shape, I thought. "So how are things?" she asked, like we'd last seen each other a week ago as opposed to seven years. "Fine, I guess." "Okay... what have you been up to?" "Um... well, I graduated as you know, studied business at Canterlot U, got a job, worked my way up a bit... and now I'm here." She stopped walking so she could give me an incredulous look. "Did you just summarize seven years in one sentence?" she teased. "Hey, I'm an adult now! I'm boring and stuff; that's how it works." She laughed, but her smile faltered. "Don't say that." "Why not?" "Just... shut up." We pressed on, turning at forks in the tunnel in whichever direction she decided. I was left with the unwitting feeling I had just offended her. "How about friends?" she continued suddenly. "Got any new ones since magic school?" I laughed poignantly. "Yes, I've managed to make some friends." "Well, good! I was worried about you. Tell me about them. Who's your favourite?" My mind played back the previous night at the bar—the seven or eight… or so of us sitting at the table, eating peanuts and drinking bad local cider. Their names came to me, but their personalities didn't come with them. All I saw was myself reading Lily's letter, and occasionally glancing up at a bunch of copies of the same uninteresting pony sitting around a table. "Eh... I dunno, they're pretty standard. Just friends from work, and a few of the guys from magic school, but… they're all pretty boring." "Oh... that sucks." "Yeah, they'd probably say the same thing about me to be honest, haha." I inhaled sharply. I figured she detected the fake laugh. "They're not your friends then," she stated. "Uh..." I squinted ahead to see what face she had given that comment, but she wasn't even looking back. I swallowed and agreed, "More like fake friends... yeah." "There's no such thing as fake friends. Only incompatible ones. If you don't care about each other, you'll drift apart, and you won't be friends. And then you'll find better ones." "...Yeah, I guess so." A rather difficult question formed in my throat, and I swallowed it away. We advanced under the careful flames of the candles and said nothing else, until she announced, "We're here." Another large metal door stood in our way, but not in hers. It was labelled: YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT A DEAD-END. THIS DOOR IS MERELY A DECORATION. Followed by: OPENING THIS DOOR IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. I snickered, and Lily fumbled with the keys. We emerged inside one of the castle's corridors—slowly and carefully, of course. Lily warned that the guards patrolled here once every few minutes. She creaked open the door and squinted through the brash glow of the corridor. Her eyes flashed at the backside of the guard turning right around a corner and out of sight. "Come, come," she whispered. "I know somewhere outside their patrol." "How?" "Because I'm a joint caser and I case joints." I stuck my tongue out at her. "If we get caught, I've never met you before in my life." "Uh-huh. What was your name again?" "Funny. You already said it, though." "Yeah, but my memory's never been the best." Again, I didn't catch her expression. We ducked into the corridor and she closed the door—or rather the giant piece of wall—behind her. It sealed so flush it was like we had just warped inside. I was about to make some comment about the castle, but I was swiftly made speechless for two reasons—both of which were Lily. The first was just her, shining in the harsh white light of the castle like she never had before. Lily the filly: The girl from magic school who never wore make-up or clothes or bothered to present herself to anyone. She was still under there—the fact that we were trespassing was proof of that—but there was so much in the way. Her blue-and-yellow dress and the matching flower in her hair that made her look like she was from Costa Rienda. The make-up that was so caked on her face she might as well have been a dessert. Even her eyelashes were extended. But there was something about the challenge of looking past it all to see the real her—of knowing who she really was underneath, that was so exciting. I decided I liked the change. And I liked it more and more whenever she looked at me. The second reason she left me speechless was that she ran off, heading in the direction of the guard but turning at the other corner. I chased after her, making quick glances behind me for the next member of the patrol. I hoped there would be another chance to see her in the light and tell her she'd taken my words away. I thought wrong. "Here!" We darted up a tight spiral staircase—out of the carpet and marble and into the good, old-fashioned bricks. We kept rising and rising until we came to a lookout tower, and I nearly crashed into her. It was one of the smaller towers—meant for defense more-so than tourism. It had four openings at each cardinal direction. The deathly white moonlight shone in from the south window, and the two of us found ourselves drawn to it—the window that overlooked Canterlot. Lily glided past me like a ghost. She folded her hooves over one another and leaned over the windowsill. Her hindlegs buckled gently, and she slumped her body into the stone. She rested her head on her hooves—her mane spilling down the outer wall. I meekly took up a spot next to her, but I stayed standing. The entire city was in view—uptown and downtown. Tiny lights pockmarked cobblestone streets, concrete and wood buildings, and the occasional ponies of the night, travelling in groups. Further away were the lights of Ponyville, which started to flicker when I looked long enough, like they were either struggling to reach us or just unsure of how bright they wanted to be. There was yellow, red, green, and blue—some moving, but most just still and blinking like horse code. I exhaled, and when my breath obstructed my view, I held it. I started to think about how every place you find yourself in is just the result of all your life's choices. For a brief moment, I thought that I couldn't have been doing so bad if I was up here with this view. Lily seemed to be thinking about the past as well. "Remember magic school?" she breathed. "Um… do you mean, have I blocked the entire experience out of my mind? No, but I'm working on it." "Hah… It wasn't that bad." She re-positioned her hooves and her head. "We had a lot of good times." I scoffed. "Don't forget the bad times. Or the bad ponies." I waited for her to add something. When she didn't, I continued: "Remember that group of uptight jerkwads who always sat together at lunch?" "…Vaguely." "Vaguely! Lily, those guys made our lives downright impossible sometimes. All the name-calling, and the nasty rumours they started. I'm still called a bedwetter sometimes. And the worst was how they flaunted their money and nobility around like it was everypony else's fault that they were so fortunate." Lily exhaled fervently, and with a shiver. I could tell she was remembering them now too. She was bullied the worst, after all. I didn't stop there: "What were their names, there was… Diamond Dare; she was a piece of work. Civil Tongue; that guy could cuss. And let's not forget the ringleader himself! Freaking Fanny. What a pompous name for a pompous twit." "That's not his name, though," Lily said flatly, like it wasn't even directed at me. I swallowed. "Yeah, I mean… I know that's not his name, I just called him that because it pissed him off like nothing else. Besides, he had his own names for me, and none of them were Streak." "…Can we not…" "Huh?" Lily wasn't looking at the view anymore, not really. She was looking through it—subtly downwards. I never knew her to be standoffish, though. If she was upset, she would tell me, hard. Or at least, the old Lily would have. I tapped her on the shoulder. "Lily? What's—" She cut me off with a sudden turn of her head. She smiled wide. "Look, I can angrily recall magic school with the best of them, but that doesn't mean that I want to, you know? I wanna have fun tonight, just you and me. Forget I brought up magic school." I frowned, but I nodded. "…Yeah, okay. That's a good idea." "Bad for your health anyways." "Yeah, exactly…" I noticed my shoulders were tensed. I rolled them out, and then slouched against the windowsill beside her to get reacquainted with the view. It all still looked so bright, and still so unsure of itself. I nudged Lily playfully. "You always could find the best seat in every house," I told her. She gasped, abruptly springing to her hooves. She smiled at me accusingly. "This isn't the best seat in the house," she said. "It's not?" "…You're in a castle. The best seat should be obvious." My mouth fell open. "You're not serious." She nodded over my shoulder. "Check it out." Past the east window, the throne room was in plain sight—most of the windows were stained glass, depicting scenes of the Princess that were nonsensical without context. But there were a few plain glass windows—through which I could see rows of benches with wreaths hanging on their sides, glinting faintly in the inconsequential light of night-time candles. "That's the throne room," Lily confirmed. "Best seat in the house. I mean, the throne's been moved, so it's not actually there right now, but…" I stared at her quizzically. "Have you been here tonight already?" She smiled innocently and pointed down the window. I looked out over the edge. There were green vines hugging the wall of the tower, and a rooftop with a shallow angle leading to the throne room windows. Shreds from the vines were on the roof below us, like somepony had traversed them within the past few hours. "How's your parkour?" she asked, putting a fancy accent on the word.
IV - Her DecisionWe stumbled in through the window—me before her—but recovered quickly and trotted into the great hall. We walked towards the middle—a single bench between us. There were thirty rows total, all neatly arranged throughout the hall, and split down the middle by a long white carpet. The backs of the benches were covered in ribbons and streamers and Hearth's Warming lights of red, green, and yellow. Lily's white-and-pink form and her blue-and-yellow dress fit the scene honestly well. The benches faced the throne, or at least where it was supposed to be. It had indeed been moved—replaced by a white wooden arch covered in flowers that I couldn't identify even if I named all the flowers I knew. In front of the arch was a podium at the end of the carpet, and at the top of a small set of stairs. Next to the podium was something that looked like an artist's easel. Its canvas was covered in a blue piece of fabric lined with gold rope. I marvelled at the setup and said, "It's a funeral." "What? No! Are you kidding?" "What is it then?" "Look!" She gestured widely to the flower arrangements all over the room. "It's a wedding!" she said, almost elating at the fact. I shrugged my shoulders. "Oh... well, same thing, right?" She scoffed at first, but transitioned into a laugh. "I mean, in a way, if you want to be a jerk about it." "In a way! Lily, there might as well be two coffins up there. Seriously, go check!" Lily rolled her eyes and strolled up the carpet; she had a skip in her step. "I've heard of this crap," I said. "It's a wedding for the nobles. They pay an irresponsible amount of money to the castle in order to host their wedding in the royal throne room." I flicked a decoration, and it jingled at me. "And I guess there's a holiday-themed package." "Oh, yeah? It costs that much?" "Of course! I mean, if it keeps our taxes down then I'm not complaining, but... You know what the best part is?" She raised an eyebrow. "I couldn't possibly." "I read somewhere... that the more extravagant the wedding, the more likely the bride and groom are buying a one way ticket to Splitsville." Her eyes fell half-closed. "Still reading your editorials, I see." "Of course! Only the ones I agree with, though." Lily rolled her eyes again and got up behind the podium. I continued: "But it makes sense, right? Nobles don't want to marry somepony, they just want to get married. And invite all their friends and their enemies so they can rub it in all their faces. It's a farce!" Lily spotted a little black microphone sticking out of the wood. She eyed it like it was a large spider. She tapped on it, but no sounds boomed from anywhere. She exhaled and wiped her brow. Next, she cleared her throat and raised her chin. "Please be seated," she said in a fake, but flawless, noble accent. I put on a noble frown—the kind everypony else puts on when they've just smelled something gross—and took a seat at the front bench. I crossed my hindlegs and stuck my chin up as high as it could go. My spine screamed. Whose idea was benches for a pony anyways? "We are gathered here today," Lily announced, "to mourn the passing of two young ponies. Their names, uh..." "Mr. and Mrs. Groom," I suggested in my own fake accent. Lily nodded. "Mr. and Mrs. Groom, who both met their unfortunate end on a pier in Manehattan, when Mr. Groom proposed a tragic arrangement of mutually assured destruction to Mrs. Groom, who foolishly accepted." I clapped. "Keep going!" Lily cleared her throat again. The smile on her face wouldn't stop blooming. "Please join me in a moment of silence for their former lives, as they move on to another world." "A world of vapid conversations, false smiles, and arguments over which Manedarin place to order from!" Lily's eyes fluttered closed. "Could the gentlecolt in the front row please refrain from interrupting?" I held up my hooves. "Apologies, madame! Please, continuez!" She did: "We will never forget them as they sent their funeral invitations to all their friends... and their enemies, and spent all of their money on a ceremony that would mean more than the marriage itself." "Hear, hear!" We both fell over laughing. Looking back, though, it wasn't that funny. I'd heard somepony say once, that love was falling over laughing together for no reason. I thought about it, but I didn't believe it. After all, it was a sign of insanity, too. She picked herself up first, and I watched her wipe a tear from her eye, rolling both of them as she flung it into the carpet. "I'm so glad you invited me," I said. "Oh, I know... It's been far too long." The question from the tower suddenly burst forth, and I couldn't stop it. "Why did we drift apart, anyways?" "…I don't know. I haven't really thought about it." "Really? I can't get it off my mind. I mean it's not like we're incompatible. We're a house on fire here." I glanced at all the wooden benches and decorations. "Speaking of fire…" "No, c'mon, that's too crazy even for us." I approached the front bench and placed a hoof on a corner. "I know, I know... but I still wanna rough it up a bit." "...What?" Before she could protest, I put all my weight into the bench and watched it tip over backwards. I stepped back and sneered, anticipating the sound of smothered bells against the stony floor. But it never came. A coat of pink magic swept over it at the crucial moment, tipping it back to where it was. I looked back at Lily's glowing horn. "What are you doing?" I asked. "What are you doing?" she shot back. "This is somepony's wedding." "It—... It's a noble's wedding. Who cares? They can pay for the damages. Besides, you know as well as I do that love isn't real." She shook her head in revulsion. "Speak for yourself." "What?" I laughed. "Okay, I will. Love is nothing more than a chemical reaction experienced by two ponies whose lives are so boring they mistake a primal instinct for a turning point in their aforementioned boring lives." Lily's frown turned into a scowl—her make-up creased unattractively. I kept going: "And they act on that instinct because they've reached the critical stage in their lives where they're finally too old to hold out for something that doesn't exist, so they placebo themselves into thinking they've found it, and in the utmost haste—!" I gestured to the entire room. "They tie the knot before they can change their minds. That's what love is. Don't you agree?" Lily looked down at her hooves and kicked an imaginary rock. "No. I used to, but... not anymore." "Then what was that eulogy about?" "I was... kidding around, playing along, I don't know..." A silence hung between us like somepony separating two friends from an ensuing fight. I expected some kind of rebuttal. Her take on the whole thing. But when nothing came, I figured she didn't have anything. Seeing her saddened without any sort of retort started to make me angry. I chalked it up to reunion jitters, but that was something I had made up to keep me calm. "Alright, whatever," I said to the floor. "I should get going anyways." "Beauty sleep?" Lily barely joked. "Yeah, exactly... This was fun, though." Without looking, she made a half-hearted sound of agreement. I panicked. "We should do this again sometime," I suggested, swallowing harshly. Her mouth opened a crack. "...Really?" she said. "Yeah, we should... I don't want to drift apart again. I missed talking to you." She didn't respond. "So, how about..." An empty schedule appeared in my mind, like my brain was making fun of me. "…how about tomorrow?" Without breaking eye contact, she said, "I'm tied up tomorrow." "Right, right... Oh, right! That was in your letter. So... when are you free?" She bit her lower lip. "…Lily?" "You don't understand." "...What don't I understand?" I couldn't help but leak venom into my voice. "Lily?" Her mouth shuddered. "I'm tied up tomorrow... Onward." I squinted. "What do you mean...?" She didn't answer. I looked left and right, as if there was an answer hidden in the empty benches. In fact, there was. A dark, bubbling pit of anger formed inside me. I trudged past Lily towards the podium and the easel. I think she heard me growl. "Streak, wait, don't..." I got to the easel and flung off the velvet covering. CELEBRATING THE MARRIAGE OF: Fancy Pants & Fleur-De-Lis I stared at the poster a second and tilted my head. I recognized the first name in a searing hot flash of bad memories, but the second one was foreign to me—literally. My stomach felt like it was being pulled in two directions as I tried to make sense of what I was looking at. And when the agonizing truth dawned on me, my whole body felt the pull. I turned back to Lily, who was staring blankly to the side. "…Fleur-De-Lis?" "…It means Lily Flower," she explained. "It's my cutie mark, actually." "But it's not your name." "I had it changed. It was…" She gestured to the poster. "…his idea." Something boiled in my chest—something that had been simmering my whole life. I pointed a hoof accusingly at her. "You're a joke," I said. She wrinkled her nose. I was expecting her to cry, but she didn't. "Thanks for ruining the big reveal," she muttered. "I was going to tell you." "After everything he put you through. Put us through. You just couldn't resist the money, huh?" "He's… changed," she answered, as if that was even possible. As if that was even an acceptable answer. She kept going: "You should really meet him. I think you'd get along." A contrite smile appeared on her face. "He kind of gets along with everyone." The image she wanted to conjure in my head—of that smarmy stallion being anything other than cruel—wouldn't appear. I changed the subject. "So why bring me here, huh? Was it just to rub it in? Just to show me how much better than me you've become?" "No…" "Because here I thought you just wanted to see me again!" "I did! Didn't you read the letter? I said I wanted to say hello!" "You wanted to say GOODBYE!" I slammed my hooves on the podium, pushing it with all my strength until it tipped forward. But of course, the pink magic appeared and tipped it back to where it was with a long, hollow thud. She stared at me like the teachers did at magic school. Like they all knew better than me. "We can still... hang out sometime," she said, contradicting herself. I stamped a hoof to shut her up. "Not goodbye to me! To yourself! Everything you said up there? About how you're dying? You may have been kidding, but it's all true." She uttered something I didn't hear. "This is the end up here. You're not living after a wedding, not really. It's the end of yourself." She closed her eyes and muttered to herself, like a prayer, "And the start of a new me." "A FAKE you!" I blurted, my voice cracking at the crucial moment. "A pointless, directionless husk of yourself! You'll be walking small talk!" She opened her eyes and sniffed loudly. She waited there like a child accepting punishment. So I kept it going. "And you're marrying into nobility no less," I seethed. "That isn't you! How are you gonna—?" "He's signed me up for classes." "He's making you take CLASSES?!" "I ASKED him to!" There was the first tear, and the few that followed. She angrily wiped her face, smearing her makeup. "Would you lay off him?! We aren't in… school… anymore." All the anger drained from her face—replaced with overwhelming tiredness. Somewhere behind that makeup, that dress, and those eyelashes, a decision had been made, but I didn't know what it was. I just knew it involved me. "I'm sorry," she said. "You should go." Before I could answer, the pair of tall stone doors at the opposite end of the hall burst open. Lily and I froze. A single guard stood in the doorway, perplexed at what he saw, because he saw me first. He threw words like 'criminal', 'brigand', and 'scum' at me just by looking, and I felt like I was shrinking. But then he noticed Lily, and he relaxed. "Oh," he spoke in a deep voice. "You're here early, Ms. Fleur. This a friend of yours?" Lily picked her head up to greet the stallion with a smile. "Yes… just an old friend." Her noble accent was back. It was effortless to her. "In fact, he was just leaving." "Oh, okay." The guard frowned and scratched his chin. "He, uh… probably shouldn't be here anyways," he murmured himself. Lily held up a hoof to her snout. "Oh, goodness, I didn't realize. I apologize if I've caused any trouble." All she was missing was a dainty kerchief. "In that case, would you mind escorting him out yourself?" The guard smiled casually. "That's quite alright, Ms. Fleur. Probably better if I do, yes." "Oh, and by the way…" Lily cantered down the aisle and retrieved the key ring from her dress, dangling it in front of the guard's face. "We found these behind the podium, sir. Do you recognize them?" The guard's mouth dropped open, and he nearly choked. "…Uh… Nope! Can't say I do, ma'am. Tell you what, though, ummmmmm, why don't I hold onto these…" He took the keys in his own magic and stored them in a small rectangular compartment in the flank of his armor, which, quite obviously, had an identical set already inside. He turned back, blushing. "…and I'll find out who's lost them." Lily patted the guard on his chest plate. "Thank you kindly, sir. Streak?" I stared back and forth at the two of them. I felt like an audience to a play—an amateur one, where the characters didn't act like real ponies because the actors were trying too hard. Lily cleared her throat to grab my attention. "It was nice seeing you again," she said flatly. "I'm truly glad you came." She meant that. I knew Lily; she was always sincere, except for the past few hours, it seemed, and especially these last few minutes. So when she said something so sincere it was like seeing an explosion in a field of wheat. I didn't respond, because I didn't know how to mimic that sincerity.
V - HerI barely even remember the next few seconds—there's a hole in my memory from me behind the podium to the doors shutting between Lily and me. My mind probably blacked out the part where I walked with my head down past her, unable to look, unable to speak, and most of all unable to process what was happening. But I did end up looking one last time. One last moment, before the doors closed between us. It was the last time I saw Lily Flower. I think I expected her to have an emotionless gaze, maybe not even in my direction. Or worse, she could have been sneering. But she didn't. And she wasn't. She held her head high and turned it away from me. She was smiling—wide and full of her feelings. I didn't understand it. I hated it. I hated that happy look so much. I suppose that says a lot more about me than I care to admit. The guard cleared his throat. "So how do you know the bride?" he asked. "I don't," I responded. And maybe I did know how to be sincere, because I looked right at him, despite my burning eyes, and I said, "I've never met her before in my life."
